what do you think is the hardest thing from so4

[WatashiHyp3r]

The hardest thing would be getting the Platinum ?

Edited June 22, 2018 by Ethan

[kraven_15]

13 hours ago, MMDE said:

 

Yes, when you talk about the difficulty of the game, I'm talking about the difficulty of the game. What I'm not talking about how it fits with your real life prioritizing and time management. This is why I say, keep them separate, else you're conflating and it creates poor communication. Say you think it's so boring that you couldn't do it. Say it takes so long that you don't think it's worth it or you don't have the time for it. Don't say it's difficult, because had you actually done the tasks, you know they wouldn't be difficult, just you wanting/needing to do something else.

Again, while you may interpret 'difficulty' as skill based difficulty, not everyone does. Rather than try and explain why everyone should view it as such, simply refer to it as skill based difficulty and leave it at that. This will end any debate on the topic as it is specific to what you're trying to say, leaving no room for interpretation. The OP has included time consuming in the list of things people may find hardest about the game so it has already been grouped in there.

 

Regarding the OP's question, time consuming is definitely a hard thing. I haven't started the game yet but for me, knowing that I'll need to sink 600+ hours for plat into is currently putting it on the back burner.

[MMDE]

1 minute ago, kraven_15 said:

Again, while you may interpret 'difficulty' as skill based difficulty, not everyone does. Rather than try and explain why everyone should view it as such, simply refer to it as skill based difficulty and leave it at that. This will end any debate on the topic as it is specific to what you're trying to say, leaving no room for interpretation. The OP has included time consuming in the list of things people may find hardest about the game so it has already been grouped in there.

 

Regarding the OP's question, time consuming is definitely a hard thing. I haven't started the game yet but for me, knowing that I'll need to sink 600+ hours for plat into is currently putting it on the back burner.

 

600 hours isn't hard. You just don't want to waste 600 hours on the game. In other words, you just want to prioritize what you spend your time on, that's all. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game.

Edited December 5, 2017 by MMDE

[kraven_15]

2 hours ago, MMDE said:

 

600 hours isn't hard. You just don't want to waste 600 hours on the game. In other words, you just want to prioritize what you spend your time on, that's all. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game.

I see that you are struggling to move beyond the notion that difficulty is a general term and can encompass more than just skill based gaming. If you're referring to skill based difficulty as your definition of difficulty, then simply specify that... 

Anyway, let's agree to disagree on this particular point and let the thread continue as the OP desired. 

 

[Paige-ID]

In the English language, the word difficult means 'something that requires a lot of effort or skill to accomplish, understand, or deal with'. There is no personal interpretation or anything of the sorts when it comes to definitions. Red isn't blue because someone wills it hard enough. However, one can request from their visitors to suspend their disbelief and that on this particular website, red means blue. There's nothing anyone can say about that, really. Just don't expect people to understand automatically without question. When you claim that difficulty cannot involve effort, you are factually incorrect. Yes, it can.

I'd say spending 600 hours on monotonous battle trophies while enduring SO4's terrible characters and cutscenes qualifies as something that requires a lot of effort to deal with. It doesn't require a lot of skill, perse, but definitely an effort.

 

The difficulty of SO4's platinum can, therefore, be rated as high as 10/10. Unless you wish to take liberty with the actual meaning of the word, then you can impose limitations as much as you want. If the difficulty scale is solely skill-based, then perhaps split the 'Difficulty' aspect into 'Skill Required to obtain 100%' and 'Time required to 100%'. You know, to avoid confusion. I'd be pretty pissed off if a 3/10 or 4/10 platinum turned out to take 600+ hours. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by Paige-ID

[Cetra29]

This has nothing to do with "in the English language", especially when its not even true. The English language also lives of contextualization.

 

I did not want to do that but let's take the most extreme example:

 

Imagine you have a task with a goal to reach. 

 

The task itself can be very well put off by you with moderate trouble. Ending the task and reaching your goal with it needs yout lifetime + one additional moment. 

 

It is literally impossible to reach this goal and it solely depends on the execution time. And yes, that is difficulty in one context. It is an obstacle to overcome. And this obstacle itself is too high to overcome. Maybe one wants to disregard that because the case of impossibility is quite unfair but even then the derivation itself is very easy to understand. And if we really want to play the "you just don't want even though you have the choice" pseudo-philosophical card: No. While it is in the most superficial sense true that we have a choice the "choice" in situation itself is something that can really often be disregarded and yes, that is truly a topic where you can disregard something. Do I have the technical choice of letting myself killed instead of protecting myself and kill the other person? Technically yes. Practically though it is highly idiotic to consider that as a situation where you have "options" and anyone who wants to argue that is just in for a pseudo-philosophical argument. And while that was one of the extreme examples as well it still also can be derived to: Even spending my time cannot always be considered an actual "choice" because those who have to take responsibility for something cannot really do anything else but choose the other thing. And these are the examples where you can see "having always a choice" is highly hypocritical, polemical almost when stated that (not that I call the above one polemical).

 

Anyway ...

 

And as I have explained to the other guy above you, even when you just use the word "effort" it still is virtually impossible to disregard time because effort itself is something that highly depends on time. And as said, even without the contextualization of effort and everything, time in an on itself very well is a thing.

 

So to get back to this:

 

"When you claim that difficulty does not equal effort, you are factually incorrect. Yes, it does."

 

You are factually incorrect actually and that begins with your view that apparently someone here disregards effort. On the contrary. You are automaticaly disregarding other in reality existing contexts (time alone) while not really seeing that the effort argument itself that you bring up also cannot live without the time investment factor that is paired with the whole skill-thing. It is impossible to disregard time and you are making the same mistake as the one before you by trying to defend your argument without actually seeing beyond what we others explain and instead defending your claim of what difficulty is with the claim of what difficulty is. That is a circular argument. Such things work for axiomatic reasonings. But not here. And while skill-based difficulty is a thing EVEN THAT is already a very foggy factor because that one is also based the best on "how much effort does a newbie need to overcome this obstacle?" while time is a more clear factor, always included, alone or not and definitely an actual considerable limited ressource to be spent. Time limitation exists just as skill limitation. And do you know how language evolves? From constant usage. How come many people understand my point (I am not talking about this website alone, you see) when it is apparently so hard to understand or confusing? It really is not. And that means that people have a certain understanding of this word as well. And that is not "wrong", it simply is contextualization, Just as the strawberry example. Or the fact that people use "calories" whenever they mean "kilo calories" or everyone says "vagina" when they actually mean "vulva". Answer something out of its respective context and it might be wrong. But within that it can be right. Especially when something like language grows and it is not like this difficulty thing is out of thin air. It is pretty easy to understand, I'd say. And if someone still does not want to understand about time investment, then lets delve further into it and talk about time-management. I do not only mean "how do you spend your time in SO4?" but "can you even spend your time in SO4" and time-management IS an actually existing thing that can be hard.

 

There is a LOT to say about time from which you cannot remove it simply because it exists.

 

And to finally phrase it:

 

"Do you think this goal is easy to accomplish without spending much time?"

 

"No?"

 

"Then it is hard to achieve it without doing so."

 

Even the Thread Creator differentiated with one simple and single word: "Literal". That is acknolwedging the existence of one as well as other meanings.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Cetra29

[Paige-ID]

You're confusing definition with interpretation. One comes after the other. The definition, what I argued, is set in stone. There's no context to that. A word simply means something. How you then further discuss the impact said definition has on you based on your personal skill level, life choices, time investment, what not, is completely variable. I never contested that. Language evolves (or rather, devolves) through slang. The actual language stays quite grounded. I highly doubt that the PlayStation userbase is going to forever alter the definition of the word 'difficult' because of Platinum ratings. Locally-accepted slang is one thing, claiming that it is akin to the evolution of language is another. If you call something a Post-It, but it's not the Post-It brand, then someone could factually call you out on it. Is it pedantic to do so? Yes. But the person isn't wrong. A common misuse of a word is not an evolution of the language. It's simply a common mistake. 

Difficulty simply means skill and/or effort. Not the severity thereof, or lack thereof. Just the fact that either skill, effort, or both can play a role. Take it up with Oxford if you want this changed; I didn't invent this. The consequence is that the majority of English-speaking players have adapted this official meaning of the word, and are then confused when they are told their personal effort is irrelevant to the difficulty. It causes confusion, and understandably so. Technically speaking, every action you perform in life has a difficulty level. The amount of skill or effort is irrelevant. Someone claiming that a 500-hour task was difficult is not wrong. He or she is therefore not wrong when claiming the difficulty of a game was high due to the time invested. 

The context is only relevant to your personal interpretation of just how much skill and effort something takes. Something might be effortless for you, but not for someone else. That's the context. Nobody's difficulty rating can speak for someone else's personal interpretation, but saying that effort has nothing to do with the word 'difficult' is factually wrong. The proper way of explaining this is that this particular website does not count time spent in the difficulty rating, and that difficulty is only measured by the amount of required skill. It's a temporary suspension of disbelief due to the liberty that was taken with English words; something that needs to be clarified in order to avoid confusion.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Paige-ID

[Cetra29]

35 minutes ago, Paige-ID said:

You're confusing definition with interpretation. One comes after the other. The definition, what I argued, is set in stone. There's no context to that. A word simply means something. How you then further discuss the impact said definition has on you based on your personal skill level, life choices, time investment, what not, is completely variable. I never contested that.

 

Actually you are wrong. Definitions are made by man-kind and if you would have properly read my entire post it is impossible to seriously say that definitions are set in stone and unchanging or unequivocal (or do you mean one word has only one definition? that would be even worse and have no basis because as I explain, one word can be defined in multiple ways depending on the relation itself). Just as the claim "there is no context" to that holds no ground. Context is the VERY essence of language and a word can be defined, so "given shape" (word x means y within realm a; it means c in realm b and in means d in realm e, et cetera) in multiple ways this way. It is all about semantics. The definition of one thing in one context does not need to be the only existing thing and I hope you did not want to imply "context only exists within the realm of interpretation" because that cannot be farther from truth. And I couldn't be further from "confusing something with interpretation" because when something has begun to achieve a considerable state of meaning for a great amount of people to the point where it is even used casually by such (purely linguistic now) then it is a thing and not just some magical thing that only exists in my fantasy.

...

 

The context is only relevant to your personal interpretation of just how much skill and effort something takes.

 

I really, really hope you mean that just for this topic because if you mean that in an omnipresent way then this is about as wrong as it gets. The entire world is about contextualization. The state of truth is dependent on its context. I do not know if you want me to explain this in a mathematical or compuer-scientific or any other way and I hope you don't because that would just lead me down a path that I would not like myself to go as it would really not lead to anything "nice" but more of something along the line of "tah! you're just a nuisance know-it all!" that I would get as responses.

 

Something might be effortless for you, but not for someone else. That's the context. Nobody's difficulty rating can speak for someone else's personal interpretation, but saying that effort has nothing to do with the word 'difficult' is factually wrong. 

 

Okay, you really, really, really have not even once read and tried to understand my post. In no way I have ever said effort is not a thing. As a matter of fact effort is one of the things that enhances my argument of the impossibility of removing time. It is just that I say, and yes, that I say, it is possible that one views time alone. And as it is with everything colloquial, when a great amount of people is used to the understanding of a word it is considerable in the set of usable meanings. Which is also here the case. If you really are in for an argument that you want to have, then please, next time read my entire comment properly and thoroughly consider everything I said because otherwise no one is helped here.

 

The problem is that you guys are using the word "time-consuming" but you do not understand that time-consuming is just the personal time term for another obstacle, you could call it the "time difficulty" if you want to be as blunt as possible. You see, impossible. And you are also wrong on the "common misuse" thing. That's actually the whole matter of context. It is totally true that people can use a word wrong but you are living under the impression that colloquial meanings that come from overuse will never reach validity and never can have their own right, their own meaning, their own proper context and reason to exist. And that is wrong either. I cannot believe that i am the one explaining that because I am normally the pedantic one but I am so overly nitpicky, neurotical and over-analytic that is is impossible to also disregard the part that I am saying here simply because it is a thing. And please don't misunderstand what I say as "local slang" when that's not what I am saying. Colloquial meanings exist all over the world and are also used all over the world. And yes, everything of these things is part of linguistic evolution. What you seem to claim is that language is stagnant which I cannot even begin to describe how flawed of an argument that would be as it would not even work so I sincerely hope you don't mean that. And its not "devolution", it is simply branching off and it happens all the time. And language did not suddenly pop out of the ground, it DID and still does evolve.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Cetra29

[Paige-ID]

I think you're getting kind of lost in your own thoughts here.

It's very simple. Difficulty in the English language is skill and/or effort required to accomplish a goal. Not how much. Not how little. Just those two. You can either accept that or not.

Someone can, therefore, find something difficult when said action took that person a long time. A person claiming walking from Texas to Kentucky is difficult is not "wrong", nor have they misused the term "difficult". It took him or her effort, so the choice of words is correct.

 

Very simple. There's no need for a long-winded thesis on something so mundane. This website, however, decided that as a rule, you will have to suspend your disbelief and consider 'difficulty' as skill-based only. That's it. They are fully within their right to do so, but it comes with the baggage of confusing a lot of people who then need to be brought up to speed on the local informal terminology. Those confused people are not wrong in what they're saying; they're just not following the locally-established slang and rules. Or as you prefer; the colloquial way of speaking around these parts.

It's sometimes discouraging to see people immediately hammer down on those that "conflate" skill-based difficulty with time consumption. How were they supposed to know that in this particular neck of the woods, we define things differently from the rest of the world? That doesn't impede this website from enforcing their terminology—I encourage it even due to the consistency it brings—but I do think we should have a tolerance for those that are not "in the know", including maybe a disclaimer of some sort at times.  

[Slayer1189]

I don't necessarily agree that you can simply use a definition to nail down a nuanced issue. However, if you were to use simple definitions, you would come to the conclusion that not all time-consuming games require effort or skill.

 

Difficult = "needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand." OR "characterized by or causing hardships or problems." OR "(of a person) not easy to please or satisfy; awkward."

 

Effort = "a vigorous or determined attempt." OR "a force exerted by a machine or in a process."

 

If you included all of the above definitions or "Difficult" & "Effort" (and by extension vigorous and determined) then it is easy to see how SO4 would meet the criteria.

 

However, this is due to the fact that planning out the battle trophies, creation lists etc could fall under "Effort". Other time-consuming games do not follow this pattern. Not every time-consuming game would need to fit those definitions.

 

 

Regardless of the above, I would say in terms of gaming the definition of "Difficult" that fits best is "characterized by or causing hardships or problems.". By this definition, it becomes harder to categorise SO4 as difficult (though certainly not impossible). Again, not all time-consuming games would fir this criteria. (As an aside, I would say the reason that definition fits best for gaming are due to how retro games used the term "Difficulty")

 

Lastly, just to hit home the point that definitions don't always work cleanly where the discussion involves a specific area, below are two official definitions that do not fit gaming.

 

Farm = "an area of land and its buildings, used for growing crops and rearing animals." OR as a verb "make one's living by growing crops or keeping livestock."

 

Grind = "reduce (something) to small particles or powder by crushing it."

 

TL;DR - With regard to SO4 specifically, unlike many other time-consuming games, an argument can be made that some aspects could be considered difficult. Difficulty does NOT equal time-consuming, however many factors must be taken into account when weighing up a game. Overall, I strongly disagree with those who would place SO4 at the top end of the scale for difficulty, however I also disagree with those who place it at the lower end of the scale, claiming it is JUST time-consuming. 

[Gone Fishing]

.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Fragtaster

[kraven_15]

11 hours ago, Fragtaster said:

 

Whether a games' platinum is hard or easy shouldn't stop you from playing the game. Achievements are fun and addictive, but surely not the whole point of why you play videogames. What did you do before we had achievements/trophies?

Of course not, I agree 100%. But I plan to 100% everything I own in due time. I have 100 games incomplete currently installed and about 600 in my backlog waiting to be played. I've got over 100+ wii, wii-u, 3DS and switch games all waiting with no trophies too.

But because of my very limited game time, starting an untouched 600 hour plat at this point is unfeasible when there's so many others I want to play too; as opposed to simply not wanting to play due to it's length or difficulty in terms of platinum.

Sorry, just wanted to clarify

[AloneBert-]

The hardest thing is to play it in near 2018.

[dottomi-jp]

Difficulty is a subjective matter. One person will say a task is hard, the other may rate it as easy. It is because the word expresses a subjective assessment of the person speaking. Difficulty is not an objective assessment. In case of SO4 even measuring time required to get the platinum trophy varies, because, for example, drops are random.

 

Personally, _ think the trophy is fairly easy to get. _ did not find any particualr task to be difficult, with the exception of exact damage trophies — _ needed a guide for that. The biggest problem with SO4 that _ have is that the game asks the player to do things like ‘win in exactly 2 minutes’ and there is no timer displayed.

 

Also, saying something is ‘true’ or ‘right’ is merely a language tool for persuading the other to agree with one. What are you trying to achieve with that discussion? Redefine English? What are your goals?

Edited February 26, 2018 by dottomi-jp

[Dr_Mayus]

On 12/7/2017 at 4:54 PM, PlayAsGod said:

The hardest thing is to play it in near 2018.

Why? It just got released less than a year ago on PS4.

 

 

Anyways back on topic. 

 

While it is time consuming, I think the hardest part for me was either EQ in under 10 minutes or all the trophies (especially Braccus') where you had to get exact damage. I had trouble with quite a few of those even with a guide.

[starcrunch061]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:08 PM, Dr_Mayus said:

While it is time consuming, I think the hardest part for me was either EQ in under 10 minutes or all the trophies (especially Braccus') where you had to get exact damage. I had trouble with quite a few of those even with a guide.

 

I'm going to go with this. That one where you had to kill an enemy with one hit with exact damage took me forever to set up, and I still kept missing it over and over.

 

Why am I resurrecting this thread in 2019? Because I am almost finished with this piece of crap.

[AlchemistWer]

On 24/1/2019 at 4:24 PM, starcrunch061 said:

 

I'm going to go with this. That one where you had to kill an enemy with one hit with exact damage took me forever to set up, and I still kept missing it over and over.

 

Why am I resurrecting this thread in 2019? Because I am almost finished with this piece of crap.

 I thought you finished SO4 long time ago /:

[starcrunch061]

19 minutes ago, AlchemistWer said:

 I thought you finished SO4 long time ago /:

 

No, I didn't. ?

 

It's so boring to do 30000 kills, TWICE! But I'm done with that now, so all I need are...55 grigori. ?

[AlchemistWer]

27 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

No, I didn't. 

 

It's so boring to do 30000 kills, TWICE! But I'm done with that now, so all I need are...55 grigori. 

twice? you need to kil with two characters 30k of enemies? 

[starcrunch061]

Just now, AlchemistWer said:

twice? you need to kil with two characters 30k of enemies? 

 

Yup. It's total BS. One of them can be automated, though you need to do it early, and you need a turbo controller. The other? Nothing but hours and hours of pain.

 

You can kill, at most, 1000 enemies per hour, so these two BTs alone are 60 hours, minimum. The 55 grigori isn't as long, but it's just as BS. There are 6 total grigori in the main game. The rest? You have to farm them in the Seven Star Dungeon and the Wandering Dungeon. Plus, the character you use to kill them is a piece of crap.