Challenge: Boost Your Trophy Grades 2017

[ladynadiad]

1 minute ago, colinmazzini said:

I agree with you here. I started this game awhile ago played a little bit but it kinda failed to capture my attention as well. I know everyone seems to love it but I must be missing something. Well I'll eventually play it as it's one of my target games to get from E to at least a C.

 

And we're probably going to have to beat it to get it to a C rank, or at least get pretty close.  But yeah, I don't get what the praise is all about and it's a prime example of why I don't tend to play games just because they are popular.  I know a few people said the sequel is better, so maybe I'll give that a go as well since I got the collection that has the first two, but I can't even see how this game did well enough to get a sequel.

[viech54]

2 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

Knocked FFX HD off my list of games to get to A rank or higher now.  I'm still going to try and get as close to a plat in that game as possible, but I'm satisfied with where it is now at least.  Went ahead and installed FFX-2 HD so I can get on that since it shouldn't be too far from an A rank as well.  Also got God of War up to a D rank finally.

 

I honestly am thinking God of War is seriously overrated.  I've heard tons of praise for the game, but I've played way more fun ARPGs with much better stories and protagonists that deserve the level of praise God of War gets.  It's a mediocre game that is failing to really grab my attention and make me care about finishing the story, and I'm far enough in that I should be interested by now.

Good luck with Catcher Chocobo if you really want to go for the plat in FFX. That minigame is cancer, beating it in less than 0 seconds is pretty much entirely luck based and can take forever. It took me about 20 hours due to atrocious controls and somewhat random birds. It's among the worst minigames in the entire series.

 

The rest isn't that bad, the Chocobo race in Remiem Temple is much more doable than Crappy Catcher Chocobo if you know the route you should take. The same goes for dodging 200 lightning strikes. The Monster Farm takes some time, but is overall pretty doable. If you struggle with the optional bosses, there's always Yojimbo with Zanmato.

 

And you two are not the only ones who didn't get into God of War. A former friend introduced me to the games on PS2, I didn't understand what's so great about them and never played GoW again.

Edited April 22, 2017 by viech54

[ladynadiad]

17 minutes ago, viech54 said:

Good luck with Catcher Chocobo if you really want to go for the plat in FFX. That minigame is cancer, beating it in less than 0 seconds is pretty much entirely luck based and can take forever. It took me about 20 hours due to atrocious controls and somewhat random birds. It's among the worst minigames in the entire series.

 

The rest isn't that bad, the Chocobo race in Remiem Temple is much more doable than Crappy Catcher Chocobo if you know the route you should take. The same goes for dodging 200 lightning strikes. The Monster Farm takes some time, but is overall pretty doable. If you struggle with the optional bosses, there's always Yojimbo with Zanmato.

 

And you two are not the only ones who didn't get into God of War. A former friend introduced me to the games on PS2, I didn't understand what's so great about them and never played GoW again.

 

I already got the dodging 200 lightning strikes.  Monster farming is taking forever, but I've done a few runs on Don Tonberry to progress my sphere grid and that helps with some of the tougher areas.  Tidus + auto-haste makes mincemeat of so many monsters and about the only thing that can get me now is a Malboro using bad breath if my luck bites since I don't have any gear with ribbon yet.  I've got 10 of every fiend caught in up to Macalania now, plus the calm lands since I hit that up while grinding to get past the difficulty spike at Gagazet.  I've just been whittling away at monster catching during lunch and breaks at work.

 

And really glad to know I'm not the only one who doesn't see the appeal of God of War.  I'd definitely rather play an Ys game, but waiting on the new one or Ys Origin to come out for Vita.

[colinmazzini]

New (Fake) Milestone:

 

Hit 65 platinums yesterday. That means I am 2/3rds of the way to my goal. I started the year with 45 platinums and wanted to end the year with 75. April isn't even over yet and I have managed to get 20. Three more and I will have gotten half of all the platinums I have gotten before this year in less than 6 months of this year.

[MidnightCJ]

On 4/22/2017 at 5:35 PM, ladynadiad said:

I already got the dodging 200 lightning strikes.  Monster farming is taking forever, but I've done a few runs on Don Tonberry to progress my sphere grid and that helps with some of the tougher areas.  Tidus + auto-haste makes mincemeat of so many monsters and about the only thing that can get me now is a Malboro using bad breath if my luck bites since I don't have any gear with ribbon yet.  I've got 10 of every fiend caught in up to Macalania now, plus the calm lands since I hit that up while grinding to get past the difficulty spike at Gagazet.  I've just been whittling away at monster catching during lunch and breaks at work.

 

And really glad to know I'm not the only one who doesn't see the appeal of God of War.  I'd definitely rather play an Ys game, but waiting on the new one or Ys Origin to come out for Vita.

 

I am with you - Kratos f**king goddesses and Greek women doesn't really do it for me, despite me being a red-blooded American masculine. Oh yeah, and I get really disgusted by excessive violence.

 

Also, you've sort of convinced me to try FFX/X-2 remaster, though I might get it on the PS4 since I can't do the blank account trick(create an offline account and delete it and its data if I rage-quit) with a Vita - it was cancer having to unlink my Vita to my old account and reformat it for the new one. FFX and X-2 were pretty great games with great characters. I really enjoyed Y.R.P. and their antics.

[ladynadiad]

9 hours ago, MidnightCJ said:

 

I am with you - Kratos f**king goddesses and Greek women doesn't really do it for me, despite me being a red-blooded American masculine. Oh yeah, and I get really disgusted by excessive violence.

 

Also, you've sort of convinced me to try FFX/X-2 remaster, though I might get it on the PS4 since I can't do the blank account trick(create an offline account and delete it and its data if I rage-quit) with a Vita - it was cancer having to unlink my Vita to my old account and reformat it for the new one. FFX and X-2 were pretty great games with great characters. I really enjoyed Y.R.P. and their antics.

 

I even get that fighting back in the days of ancient Greece was indeed violent, but God of War isn't even tasteful about it.  And I'm a straight female, so the sex with goddesses and greek women does nothing for me besides make me snicker at how lame it is.

 

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who actually liked X-2.  Though I admit I'm weird and liked X-2 better than X.  I liked that X-2 was more of a personal story.

[viech54]

On 4/25/2017 at 5:10 PM, MidnightCJ said:

Also, you've sort of convinced me to try FFX/X-2 remaster, though I might get it on the PS4 since I can't do the blank account trick(create an offline account and delete it and its data if I rage-quit) with a Vita - it was cancer having to unlink my Vita to my old account and reformat it for the new one. FFX and X-2 were pretty great games with great characters. I really enjoyed Y.R.P. and their antics.

There were some glitches when the games first released on PS4 that made farming for the best equipment impossible, you might want to look into that before buying the game on PS4. I don't know if they still exist or if SE patched them. If they didn't, get it on PS3 if you can, the glitches don't exist over there.

And be sure to use a blank account, the minigames in FFX and X-2 can be a bit tricky (I'm looking at you, Catcher Chocobo!). The other minigames are far more doable, but not a walk in the park.

3 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who actually liked X-2.  Though I admit I'm weird and liked X-2 better than X.  I liked that X-2 was more of a personal story.

What are your thoughst about a potential X-3? SE kinda teased that with Final Fantasy X -Will-. With what we know so far, X-3 would make X and X-2 meaningless.

Spoiler

Sin is back because some retard wished for it, Yuna went back to the temple and more or less became a nun after stretcing her wings in X-2, Tidus is a Blitzball player known for taking a liking to his female fans if you know what I mean. Auron apparently has a daughter. I don't buy it. As we learned in X, Auron turned down marriage once and then started the journey with Braska. I just can't picture him having a daughter, not after what happened on his journey.

I hope we don't see an X-3.

 

[malachi1987]

I wouldn't mind joining in on this fun off may.

S-42

A-91

B-17

C-26

D-41

E-80

F-4

 

I would like 

S-75

A-130

B-40

C-10

D-10

E-20

F-0.

 

Let me know if I did that right lol

Edited April 27, 2017 by malachi1987
Wrong info

[Edunstar84]

On 4/8/2017 at 4:49 PM, ladynadiad said:

 

Ah, so that might have been among the things fixed with the remakes then.

They did fix that part, but with how the trophies are the quests/share thing has to be fluid to be able to get multiple endings in one playthrough. I do find it slightly better, but Stella and Felis can both drop off a cliff and die.

[ladynadiad]

@malachi1987 - got you added and good luck!  Those are some pretty lofty goals there!

 

And progress wise for me, I'm down to only 10 non-A ranks now with getting FFX-2 HD to an A rank.  That ended up not taking long, just had to get to chapter 5, head to Zanarkand Ruins and that was it.  Gonna see if I can get some good progress in X-2 and God of War and if I can get myself to 80% completion before the beginning of May since I'm going to be pretty busy in May with Trails in the Sky the 3rd coming out in English on PC and some other stuff.

[richtayls]

Quick update on progress this month.

 

Challenge 1: A Casual Attack on Your Backlog - completed Game of Thrones (D to S) and played Sam & Max Devils Playhouse Episode 5 (Unstarted Backlog to S).

 

Challenge 2: Spring Backlog Challenge - small progress on CSI (E to D), started The Walking Dead (Unstarted Backlog to E) and played the entire season of Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space (5 times Unstarted Backlog to S).

 

Challenge 3: My personal challenge to play new releases when I buy them rather than let them add to my backlog - Slow going on Horizon Zero Dawn, it's just not grabbed my attention so only half way through so far (E to D).  I bought Siegecraft Commander as I enjoy RTS and Tower Defence games, I gather I could easily get the platinum using the local multiplayer but if I do that I might never go back to it so I plan to get my money's worth by playing through the campaigns first (Unstarted to E).  I took advantage of PSNs 20% preorder discount for Guardians of the Galaxy rather than wait for the inevitable sale, was a good game to play in between episodes of Game of a Thrones as a lot more light hearted.  I've finished the first episode but then so of course has everyone else who bought it so that only got me to rank C.  So all in all the new games have dragged down my grades, so my first aim for May will be finishing Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

Summary: 152 trophies earned, Rank S + 7, C + 1, D + 1, Unstarted Backlog - 7

Edited April 28, 2017 by richtayls

[malachi1987]

Sweet thanks for adding me. Most of my games I just jump from so other than not having a vita as long as I have time to play for sure the d and e will shrink alot 

[Edunstar84]

From Rank E to S! Platted Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2. Would have been done yesterday, if Stella's rng dungeon was in my favor. I'm just glad I can delete the game off of my Vita. Will work on Atelier Ayesha Plus, Dokuro and/or Atelier Meruru next. Will definitely do Ayesha but not sure if I'll work on another game at the same time. 

[ladynadiad]

Well, I got God of War to a C rank, but in the process my opinion of the game sunk to an all time low.  The last part of Poseidon's Challenge was complete and utter BS with a completely cheap way to kill you, a lot.  Definitely think this game is highly overrated because a solid game has no need to be that cheap to challenge you.

[Edunstar84]

Working on Dokuro and Atelier Ayesha Plus at the same time. My goal is to have both at S rank before the end of May. But ordered a PS4, so that might change. Will try my best since I'd like to delete them off my Vita permanently. 

 

Just in case I don't forget. Dokuro is at Rank D now.

 

EDIT: Well, that didn't take too long - Dokuro is at Rank B!

Edited April 30, 2017 by Edunstar84

[Fitzquaid]

I didn't really make any headway with trophy grades in April sadly, partly due to RL and partly because Persona 5 is a very long game.

 

I'll need to start paying more attention to this challenge if I don't want to completely miss my goals for the year, so I'll pick a couple of games with D and E grades to focus on next:

• Nobunaga's Ambition: Etc Etc (PS4) - Started for KYC in March.  Really interesting game with a pretty straightforward trophy list.
• Uncharted (PS3) - One of the very first games I played on the PS3 but shamefully never finished.  There's only one story-related trophy per difficulty it seems and the average is 46%, but hopefully I can pick up some of the treasures and a few weapon-specific trophies in a single playthrough.

I'm halfway through a NG+ playthrough of Trails of Cold Steel which I want to finish before I get back into the sequel, so that's also on my list.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, Fitzquaid said:

I didn't really make any headway with trophy grades in April sadly, partly due to RL and partly because Persona 5 is a very long game.

 

I'll need to start paying more attention to this challenge if I don't want to completely miss my goals for the year, so I'll pick a couple of games with D and E grades to focus on next:

• Nobunaga's Ambition: Etc Etc (PS4) - Started for KYC in March.  Really interesting game with a pretty straightforward trophy list.
• Uncharted (PS3) - One of the very first games I played on the PS3 but shamefully never finished.  There's only one story-related trophy per difficulty it seems and the average is 46%, but hopefully I can pick up some of the treasures and a few weapon-specific trophies in a single playthrough.

I'm halfway through a NG+ playthrough of Trails of Cold Steel which I want to finish before I get back into the sequel, so that's also on my list.

 

You might want to add Actual Sunlight to that.  It's a short and easy and you should be able to remove it from your list in 1-2 hours tops.  But I definitely support the choice of finishing Trails of Cold Steel and its sequel because those are amazing games.  Even if my bias is obvious since my avatar is CS2 related.

 

As far as my own progress goes, I'm still whittling away at FFX HD and God of War.  I still think God of War is an awful game with incredibly cheap tactics to make parts of it hard.  Yes, I got past the challenge of Hades and we don't want to get into how many tries it took me to get past the area where you have to walk on the beams and avoid the circling blades.  Complete BS section and it sounds like there are still more to come before I beat the game, but at least I'm nearly done according to the guide I'm following.

Edited April 30, 2017 by ladynadiad

[SyIaris]

I think this is the first time I've actually seen people that played and didn't care for God of War. I've got three of them sitting at E ranks myself. 

The hack and slash is fun enough, and the general setting is half the reason I was given them... but I could really do without the gore, sex, and QTEs.

 

Sorry about not posting last month; barely did anything game-wise and I was pretty fried. Not completely sure I'm done for the day, but edits are a thing.

1. Defense Grid 2   [new -> A]
2. Day of the Tentacle Remastered   [new -> A]
3. The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited   [E? -> A]
4. A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV   [new -> S]
5. Far Cry 3   [E -> A]

Randomly picked Far Cry back up and beat it - it's been almost a year since I started and ignored it. Tried doing the co-op maps solo, but it wound up being annoying and boring; maybe if I ever find someone else that needs them. Killed my motivation to find relics as well, so it's likely to stay at 85% for the foreseeable future. Still, pretty good game despite my general dislike of FPSs.

Day of the Tentacle was unexpectedly enjoyable. Hated getting the Maniac Mansion trophy, but the rest of it was rather funny.

King's Tale was kind of dull.

Didn't expect to really care for Defense Grid 2, going by the low progress I have in the first one. Turned out to be a very well made tower defense game.

...I'm impressed by how few trophies it took to get an A rank in ESO. Yay for MMOs?

[ladynadiad]

5 hours ago, SyIaris said:

I think this is the first time I've actually seen people that played and didn't care for God of War. I've got three of them sitting at E ranks myself. 

The hack and slash is fun enough, and the general setting is half the reason I was given them... but I could really do without the gore, sex, and QTEs.

 

I could do without the platforming sections as well.  Some puzzles in an ARPG is cool with me, but balancing on a wooden beam while blades circle around and one hit means instant death isn't my idea of fun.  Especially with the not so hot controls in the game.  It feels more like a chore to play than fun and the story isn't good enough to really make you want to play more.  Seriously, the only thing keeping me playing is my OCD about trying for the platinum or 100% in everything I start even if it takes years to earn.  I seriously don't get how this game did well enough to be worth making a sequel for, much less how it became so popular when nearly anything in the genre is better. 

 

Have you tried playing Rise of the Argonauts?  If you like stuff in ancient Greece that one would be right up your alley.  Sadly no trophies on playstation, but it's got fun combat and a good enough story.  It's based on the myth about the golden fleece.  I honestly enjoyed that game far more than God of War.

[malachi1987]

Just started and most of my time has been helping other people boost some easy trophies and the few I got didn't change the grade. Now time to balance games I want to play like horizon vs games I already started

[ladynadiad]

Working on the monthly update right now.  I've seen some great progress so far.  Really nice to see some average trophy grades increasing along with the nice completion boosts which shows this challenge is working for some of you guys.  Will post again once I finish it all up or edit this if no one else replies before I finish.

 

For me progress wise, I finally beat God of War and only have the speed run and challenge of the gods trophies left now.  I know it's one more trophy to get to an A rank, but it's sitting at B now since I'm going to need a break to be able to be willing to attempt one of those crappy trophies because the climbing the spiked column with no damage one sucked enough (that took more restarting from last checkpoint than I care to think about).  Also finally hit 80% completion.  I'm probably going to try to avoid starting any more new games until I have more at A ranks, but who knows how that will go since I'm running low on Vita backlog and if I have no Vita games to play, how am I to entertain myself during lunch at work?

[K0t0bl1tz]

April was pretty good for my completion rates. Got to level 20 on PSN, completion rate improved to 88%, got some progress in older games like Uncharted: Fight for Fortune and Tiny Brains... Only 400 unearned trophies left, no new games added and enough easy trophies to keep the pace. I also decided to finish Virtue's Last Reward sooner rather than later. I wanted to get the 999 bundle for PS4 first but it was too expensive, so I'm waiting for a big sale. And while I may be losing some story bits, the second game works pretty well as a standalone title, and I'll get to the whole trilogy in order at some point later.

[SyIaris]

13 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

 

I could do without the platforming sections as well.  Some puzzles in an ARPG is cool with me, but balancing on a wooden beam while blades circle around and one hit means instant death isn't my idea of fun.  Especially with the not so hot controls in the game.  It feels more like a chore to play than fun and the story isn't good enough to really make you want to play more.  Seriously, the only thing keeping me playing is my OCD about trying for the platinum or 100% in everything I start even if it takes years to earn.  I seriously don't get how this game did well enough to be worth making a sequel for, much less how it became so popular when nearly anything in the genre is better. 

 

Have you tried playing Rise of the Argonauts?  If you like stuff in ancient Greece that one would be right up your alley.  Sadly no trophies on playstation, but it's got fun combat and a good enough story.  It's based on the myth about the golden fleece.  I honestly enjoyed that game far more than God of War.

 

Don't remember if I got far enough to run into any of those, but they definitely sound annoying. Congrats on beating it!

Seems like gore can sell a game sometimes. Look at Mortal Kombat for a prime example. 

 

Haven't tried playing it, but it does sound appealing - and seems to be hiding in my Steam backlog, too. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

About to start Minecraft and see if I can fumble my way through; not sure what else might be in store this month. Aiming for games with a prominent earth/cave/underground theme going on for another event, and none of my started stuff is really jumping out.

Edited May 1, 2017 by SyIaris

[Ratchet2425]

Considering I had my final final exams earlier this month, I still manged to keep my pace relatively intact this month. Somehow kept my A's at the same level, but also managed to get rid of another B & D rank while increasing my S's to 82, along with getting 3 more platinums (Sonic Generations, Stories & Sleeping Dogs Definitive edition) on my road to 75 plats. Of course, thanks to the Humble Bundle I've also kept pace in the ever-growing list of unstarted games, which shot up by 12 to 80 games this month, but I've got half a dozen games downloaded and ready to begin. Finally, I've surpassed 65% completion for the first time since last year, meaning I'm only another 5% away from my 70% goal . Anyways, here's the rest of my updated stats:

 

S: (Updated 82, Goal 100+) (Up 4)

A: (Updated 54, Goal ≤50) (No Change)

B: (Updated 8, Goal ≤10) (Down 1)

C: (Updated 11, Goal ≤10) (Up 1)

D; (Updated 14, Goal ≤5) (Down 1)

E: (Updated 21, Goal ≤5) (No Change)

F: (Updated 2, Goal 0) (No Change)

Completion: (Updated 65.01%, Goal 70%+) (Up 0.67%)

Unstarted Games: (Updated Current 80, Goal ≤25) (Up 12)

[ladynadiad]

41 minutes ago, SyIaris said:

About to start Minecraft and see if I can fumble my way through; not sure what else might be in store this month. Aiming for games with a prominent earth/cave/underground theme going on for another event, and none of my started stuff is really jumping out.

 

The Witch and the Hundred Knight might work for it.  With the whole focus of releasing swamp into the world along with the witches being over earthy stuff, that seems fitting for an earth based theme and there are a good number of cave and underground areas along with forest areas.  I had a lot of fun with that one too.  Just be sure to save often and you shouldn't run into the freezing glitch.

 

And yeah, you didn't get far enough in God of War for the really crappy platforming stuff.  That all comes after the Challenge of Atlas, which is where you appear to be.  But you did get the trophy with the oracle, so think of that one, but with stuff actively trying to make you fall rather than just having to speedy about walking on the beams.

 

Edit: Update is now done!  Want to give a shoutout to @malachi1987, @acridvortex, @VukshaCage and @colinmazzini who have raised their average rank since the challenge began, with two of them going from A to S.  Awesome job to everyone, but that feat especially is pretty awesome.

Edited May 1, 2017 by ladynadiad