Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[AJ_Radio]

12 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

Oh, I'm not going to hide any game I play. I did the work, put in the time, got the trophies -- what's done is done. I just don't like that No Man's Sky is the first thing I see every time I look at my profile. Still, I can't hate on the Rarest Trophies box. At least it's based on something meaningful and practical. Not like the Trophy Milestones box, which is completely disorganized, ugly, and unable to ever be changed or customized (except when they randomly decide to reassign milestones to arbitrary numbers, despite nobody asking for or wanting that).

 

Either way, it's no big. I will continue to scoff at the new milestone system, while also planning out No Man's Sky's demise. But that will have to wait until after the summer event -- and inevitable and subsequent Halloween event -- are through.

 

Did I mention I'm drawing a picture for summer camp?

 

How is this bothersome?

 

I've read all about the No Man's Sky bullshit when Sean Murray tried to hide himself away from Twitter when the game was getting panned by critics. It was supposed to be a galactic exploration game where you are able to find and explore new species and planets. Instead the game turned out to leave out a lot of content that the developers were showing during the previews. At the start the game was not at all like it seemed to be and people criticized the living hell out of it. Furthermore Sean Murray lied to us about what was going to be in the game, he even made an appearance on Stephen Colbert's talk show and he still lied about what was going to be in the game.

 

In the two years since the game has gone through over a dozen updates, which have mostly been for the better. The DLC trophies, which are displayed on your rarest trophies list, are something you should be proud of.

 

Sounds like you just want to hide those rare trophies because they give you grief or whatever. That's no different from me trying to hide the Mein Leben trophy from Wolfenstein II because I spent 30 - 50 playthroughs going for it. True, I don't have the trophy and I probably won't for a long time, but is that really something to be ashamed of?

 

And what do the events have to do with No Man's Sky's demise? The events are there for you to partake in trophy hunting and get more involved with the community.

 

3 hours ago, Mesopithecus said:

 

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed Grand Kingdom, I intend on playing it as part of my platinum pyramid.  I'm guessing it might be UR due to being on PS+ - seems that ends up the case with a lot of games.

 

Definitely looking forward to seeing the picture you have drawn, I think even though players have dropped they will for sure appreciate the sentiment and the effort you put into it.

 

Congrats on all that Kingdom Hearts progress   I definitely agree that Unchanging Armor is such a lame trophy and I'm glad that they didn't do that with the other games.

 

True, most games on Playstation Plus get a lower rarity of trophies because most people are probably just testing out the game. Ultra Rare doesn't equate to being difficult or tedious.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Spaz

[Cassylvania]

56 minutes ago, Spaz said:

Sounds like you just want to hide those rare trophies because they give you grief or whatever. That's no different from me trying to hide the Mein Leben trophy from Wolfenstein II because I spent 30 - 50 playthroughs going for it. True, I don't have the trophy and I probably won't for a long time, but is that really something to be ashamed of?

 

And what do the events have to do with No Man's Sky's demise? The events are there for you to partake in trophy hunting and get more involved with the community.

 

I...think you might be reading too deep into what I was saying. I'm not ashamed of any trophy. I even said I liked No Man's Sky, despite the prevailing public opinion. I'm just challenging myself to earn some rarer trophies, so that I can look at something different. I obviously feel very different about earning the plat in XCOM 2 than I do crafting 180+ warp cells in NMS.

 

Either way, I see they changed the layout, again. This time, they decided to take my idea of not cramming all the trophy progress in the middle of the screen...and doing the exact opposite. Let's see if we can profit from this.

 

Golly gee whiz, I sure hope I don't win the lottery today.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

I...think you might be reading too deep into what I was saying. I'm not ashamed of any trophy. I even said I liked No Man's Sky, despite the prevailing public opinion. I'm just challenging myself to earn some rarer trophies, so that I can look at something different. I obviously feel very different about earning the plat in XCOM 2 than I do crafting 180+ warp cells in NMS.

 

Either way, I see they changed the layout, again. This time, they decided to take my idea of not cramming all the trophy progress in the middle of the screen...and doing the exact opposite. Let's see if we can profit from this.

 

Golly gee whiz, I sure hope I don't win the lottery today.

 

Very sorry I got carried away there. My apologies.

 

Anyway I've had No Man's Sky sitting on my bookshelf but I don't know if I'm going to get around to it anytime soon. Doesn't look like anything that intrigues me. But those permadeath trophies are just ridiculous.

 

Truth be told there's not much available to you with a lower rarity than No Man's Sky in terms of how long and difficult the trophies are. There is OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood and Surgeon Simulator but I don't know if those games appeal to you in any sense of the word. Plus I find a lot of those type of games are extremely skill based, meaning you might not get far into them.

 

Still not happy with the layout. As I said, too much cramming on the right. Would it hurt much to put the dates back on the left? Is there no other way Sly can go about this?

[Briste]

I also am not a huge fan of the change. When my screen is maximized on my PC, I feel like I need a ruler or something to make sure I line up the correct gaming information with the correct game. The slight modification they made has helped a little, but I feel like they fixed a problem that nobody was complaining about. When I have my browser setup up as split-screen, it isn't too bad, but when it isn't there is too much white real estate in between the game title and the info.

 

Quote

Oh, I've been enjoying the game a lot. The controls are a bit clunky at times, but I'm guessing that's just a product of the early 2000's, when every game had to be a platformer. If I had to make a comparison, I would say it's a lot like Grim Fandango. 

Well I'm happy to hear you are enjoying it. Since I just picked up Grim Fandango, it looks like I'll have a couple of clunky control games coming up in my near future. I'll be curious if I feel the same way about them after I've played them.

 

Replaying the last chapter on Uber difficulty worked for getting the trophy. It was really pretty easy. I really enjoyed Wolfenstein and may go back to the series sometime down the road after I whittle away at my new, fairly decent sized backlog. I definitely won't shy away from FPS games anymore though, unless they have a huge MP requirement that is.

 

I started The Dwarves yesterday and it's a pretty interesting concept. It's got a lot of Banner Saga in it, but the battles more closely resemble a Diablo game than a TBS game. There is quite a bit of loading screens and the frame rate isn't great during cut scenes, however I haven't had any problems with the battle scenes. The battle system takes a little getting used to as well. The characters auto-attack and they kind of stay put unless you tell them where to go, however the battles are in real-time so it can get a little confusing/over whelming. You can pause the battle to give orders by pressing the square button, but it really slows things down. I'm still trying to figure out exactly the most efficient way to battle. The voice acting is good and I'm intrigued by the story. I'm a few hours in and I'd say it's about a B/B- game. Definitely worth the couple of bucks it goes for from time to time, but not much more than that.

 

[Cassylvania]

On 7/22/2018 at 1:23 AM, Spaz said:

Anyway I've had No Man's Sky sitting on my bookshelf but I don't know if I'm going to get around to it anytime soon. Doesn't look like anything that intrigues me. But those permadeath trophies are just ridiculous.

 

They're dumb, but you can just back up your save to a USB stick. The only "hard" part is getting off your starting planet. Once you've fixed your ship, it's just a long, slow crawl to the center of the universe. About 80-95% of your time will be spent in a space station (assuming the buy low/sell high trick still works).

 

On 7/22/2018 at 1:23 AM, Spaz said:

Truth be told there's not much available to you with a lower rarity than No Man's Sky in terms of how long and difficult the trophies are. There is OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood and Surgeon Simulator but I don't know if those games appeal to you in any sense of the word. Plus I find a lot of those type of games are extremely skill based, meaning you might not get far into them.

 

Probably not. I'm better off looking for a super grindy JRPG or a casual sim game that nobody else plays. That's where most of my URs come from.

 

Games that require skill are not my thing.

 

On 7/22/2018 at 1:23 AM, Spaz said:

Still not happy with the layout. As I said, too much cramming on the right. Would it hurt much to put the dates back on the left? Is there no other way Sly can go about this?

 

That seems to be the general consensus. It went from an elegant, well-designed system to a cluttered mess. I've noticed even the people who say they like or don't mind the new layout haven't offered a single thing that it does better than the old one, which is very telling.

 

27 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

I also am not a huge fan of the change. When my screen is maximized on my PC, I feel like I need a ruler or something to make sure I line up the correct gaming information with the correct game. The slight modification they made has helped a little, but I feel like they fixed a problem that nobody was complaining about. When I have my browser setup up as split-screen, it isn't too bad, but when it isn't there is too much white real estate in between the game title and the info.

 

They are still updating it, it seems (the console tags are smaller than before, which is a big improvement), but it's still a 6/10 at best. The old layout was a masterpiece. It was so functional that we took it for granted. When I was playing Kingdom Hearts over the weekend, I kept updating my profile to see my progress, and I'd groan every time I had to trace my finger across the screen from the game title to the trophy progress. And that's with me only having a couple of unfinished games. I can't imagine this being any more user-friendly to our non-completionist friends.

 

35 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

I started The Dwarves yesterday and it's a pretty interesting concept. It's got a lot of Banner Saga in it, but the battles more closely resemble a Diablo game than a TBS game. There is quite a bit of loading screens and the frame rate isn't great during cut scenes, however I haven't had any problems with the battle scenes. The battle system takes a little getting used to as well. The characters auto-attack and they kind of stay put unless you tell them where to go, however the battles are in real-time so it can get a little confusing/over whelming. You can pause the battle to give orders by pressing the square button, but it really slows things down. I'm still trying to figure out exactly the most efficient way to battle. The voice acting is good and I'm intrigued by the story. I'm a few hours in and I'd say it's about a B/B- game. Definitely worth the couple of bucks it goes for from time to time, but not much more than that.

 

That's pretty much what I figured. That's why I just kinda let the game sit in my cart until the sale was over. Yeah, I'll probably still pick it up sometime, but I got other stuff on my plate. I might even be prepping for a Witcher 3 winter... More on that later.

 

So, I didn't bother with a Sundae update this week, but I'll fill you guys in on my progress here. I utterly wrecked KH on Saturday. Got all the blueprints, killed all the optional bosses, got to level 100, synthesized all the items, and even began my Proud playthrough. I got to level 10 with 99 potions on Destiny Island, and made it to the first world. I don't really want to take a break from the game (even though I started Firewatch), so I might just try to tackle one world a day, allowing me to finish the game by early August. I'm also at 88 hours in my main playthrough, so I'm getting pretty close to Speedster too...

 

I've chosen Chaos on Deponia and some jet ski game as my final two entries for summer camp. They're short ones, but I still have a long way to go on the rest of my games.

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, Br1ste said:

I also am not a huge fan of the change. When my screen is maximized on my PC, I feel like I need a ruler or something to make sure I line up the correct gaming information with the correct game. The slight modification they made has helped a little, but I feel like they fixed a problem that nobody was complaining about. When I have my browser setup up as split-screen, it isn't too bad, but when it isn't there is too much white real estate in between the game title and the info.

 

I personally feel things are a bit too stretched out. Having the number of trophies right under the progress bar really bothers me, almost if that statistic doesn't want to be seen.

 

Still, this is the only website I know of where you can get in contact with the site owner and ask him to change a few things. Other websites don't compare in that regard.

 

2 hours ago, Br1ste said:

Replaying the last chapter on Uber difficulty worked for getting the trophy. It was really pretty easy. I really enjoyed Wolfenstein and may go back to the series sometime down the road after I whittle away at my new, fairly decent sized backlog. I definitely won't shy away from FPS games anymore though, unless they have a huge MP requirement that is.

 

Unfortunately the sequel requires you to beat the game on Mein Leben, which is basically Uber difficulty but with only one life.

 

After a couple dozen times I suppose you have a chance of beating it, but not without trial and error. Would be a platinum to be proud of nonetheless.

 

I wonder if you're going to go back to Super Meat Boy. The game really ramps up with Zombie Boy and Cotton Alley. The Dark version of Cotton Alley is absolutely ridiculous, you need a great deal of skill and patience to surpass most of the levels without dying.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

They're dumb, but you can just back up your save to a USB stick. The only "hard" part is getting off your starting planet. Once you've fixed your ship, it's just a long, slow crawl to the center of the universe. About 80-95% of your time will be spent in a space station (assuming the buy low/sell high trick still works).

 

I'm not a huge fan of trophies that take a great deal of time of get. I don't know how many hours those trophies will take, but probably won't be playing No Man's Sky for a while. I got enough games to last me several months without buying anything more.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

Probably not. I'm better off looking for a super grindy JRPG or a casual sim game that nobody else plays. That's where most of my URs come from.

 

Games that require skill are not my thing.

 

The Star Ocean franchise is probably your best bet. Though they are extremely long platinums, one of which is infamous for being several hundred hours long.

 

The PS4 games don't look too taxing, but they will still take over 100 hours.

[Jens]

[...]

Edited September 30, 2019 by Jens

[Cassylvania]

2 hours ago, Spaz said:

I personally feel things are a bit too stretched out. Having the number of trophies right under the progress bar really bothers me, almost if that statistic doesn't want to be seen.

 

It looks terrible, and it's as far away from the game title as possible, which makes it extremely inconvenient when you like to update your trophies regularly. (I often do it every time a trophy pops if I'm on a grind fest, like I was with KH over the weekend.) Still, I'll wait until the update is over before giving my final verdict. Maybe there's a master plan that'll make this all work out.

 

2 hours ago, Jens said:

If we are thinking of the same one there is sadly nothing to gain below 0,90%. Getting one trophy out of your rarest trophies in ~500-600 hours seems like a bad deal  

 

Meh, it's okay. If I'm stuck with No Man's Sky, it's no big deal. I already hate how the Trophy Milestones look, and the Games are now equally bad. It's only fitting that the Rarest Trophies look like shit. ?

 

Anyway, I finished Firewatch. It's a 100% only game, so I guess it doesn't get one of those giant bold announcements. But I liked it. It's short, and I'm sure a lot of people would hate the ending, but I thought it was brilliant. Can't say any more because of spoilers. If you see it on sale, consider picking it up, but don't pay more than $5.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, Jens said:

If we are thinking of the same one there is sadly nothing to gain below 0,90%. Getting one trophy out of your rarest trophies in ~500-600 hours seems like a bad deal  

 

I wouldn't even go for that franchise. A game has to be really good if I'm going to invest hundreds of hours into it.

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been my longest game thus far, clocking in at just over 133 hours. Putting in 500 - 1000 hours in is insanity.

 

Generally it's not easy going for sub 1 percent trophies. If you have very few, or none at all then don't worry. Most people don't have them anyway.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

It looks terrible, and it's as far away from the game title as possible, which makes it extremely inconvenient when you like to update your trophies regularly. (I often do it every time a trophy pops if I'm on a grind fest, like I was with KH over the weekend.) Still, I'll wait until the update is over before giving my final verdict. Maybe there's a master plan that'll make this all work out.

 

Looks like an eyesore whenever I put on a new game on my list. The old trophy profiles I didn't mind this.

 

If this is what the final product is going to look like, I'm not going to be too pleased with it. It's shit.

[Jens]

[...]

Edited September 30, 2019 by Jens

[Briste]

19 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I might even be prepping for a Witcher 3 winter... More on that later.

I picked it up with the mid-summer sale and will probably be looking to tackle that game this winter as well. I guess it all depends on how quickly I progress through my Soulsbourne binge after the summer event. I haven't decided if I'll do the KH series before Witcher 3 or not. I made need a break from the Souls style of game, which I think Witcher 3 is close to, so I may do some KH games in between to mix it up.

 

17 hours ago, Spaz said:

I wonder if you're going to go back to Super Meat Boy. The game really ramps up with Zombie Boy and Cotton Alley. The Dark version of Cotton Alley is absolutely ridiculous, you need a great deal of skill and patience to surpass most of the levels without dying.

I've played several shorter games recently as a nice change of pace, but I'll be back to my epics soon enough  I have three 'less-grindy' games left in the event (The Dwarves, Until Dawn and Ratchet & Clank) and then I'll finish up with Shadow of War and then Dark Souls Remastered on my PS4. For my Vita games, Space Hulk has really bogged me down. I have killed 13,328 aliens in Space Hulk since I started using my calculator on my phone. I think that I probably have around 10,000 more to kill before the trophy pops. I'm hoping to maybe finish that up by Aug. 1st and that will give me the whole month to try and finish up SMB. After I got Demon Boy, I needed a break and decided to do a TBS game before going back. Space Hulk seemed like it'd be ok and I didn't anticipate it taking this long. I knew it'd be grindy for the 40k kills, but the lag/frame rate drop has really slowed down the progress. I will get SMB eventually though  Are you making any progress with Cotton Alley?

 

15 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, I finished Firewatch. It's a 100% only game, so I guess it doesn't get one of those giant bold announcements. But I liked it. It's short, and I'm sure a lot of people would hate the ending, but I thought it was brilliant. Can't say any more because of spoilers. If you see it on sale, consider picking it up, but don't pay more than $5.

I need to get past my mental block on these games with no Plats. I feel like I'm missing out on some fun games, but I just haven't been able to muster up enough willpower to play a game with no Plats when I have so many on my plate that do. Does the lack of a Platinum ever give you pause to play a game? It doesn't look like it since you have several on your profile. I have a few as well and the only one of mine that doesn't really bother me too much is A Kings Tale: Final Fantasy XV, which I needed for a project platinum. The reason I don't like them is that my games completed number doesn't match my Platinum count. I know it's stupid, but it's the only thing on my page that I don't like.

[Cassylvania]

14 hours ago, Spaz said:

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been my longest game thus far, clocking in at just over 133 hours. Putting in 500 - 1000 hours in is insanity.

 

I've always believed that a game's platinum should take roughly as long as the game's ability to stay fresh. I don't know why so many developers think it's a good idea for players to "prove" themselves beyond this. The onus should be on them to design a game that's worth playing for 100+ hours, not on the player to commit to some ridiculous and arbitrary goal. Same with difficulty, to a degree. If you want to design a hard platinum, that's fine, but make your game interesting and engaging enough that I want to put in the time it takes to reach the skill level required for completing it.

 

That's not to say anything is bad with Star Ocean or The Witcher 3. I've heard they're both great games. I have my doubts for Star Ocean 4 to remain fresh for 1000 hours, but I bet you're just scratching the surface at The Witcher 3 at 133 hours. That's one reason I have to commend Skyrim. While I think the game has many problems, and falls short in several areas, it has the perfect ratio of platinum to freshness. Just when you're running out of things to do, BAM -- you got your plat. Sure, there are caves you haven't explored, NPCs you haven't talked to, sweet rolls you haven't stolen, dead memes you haven't brought back up, but you've done just enough that it hasn't gotten boring. Very, very well-designed platinum.

 

No Man's Sky = pile of shit platinum. (Really, just the 100%. The plat is okay.)

 

8 hours ago, Jens said:

Wouldn't a filled trophy cabinet move NMS out of the very first view of your profile?  Would be a tiny start I guess, a very tiny one. Why is it actually empty, just out of curiosity? The impossible decision to narrow it down or do you want to avoid to push the trophy milestones even lower?

 

It would, but I don't get the trophy cabinet. I'll sometimes use it to make lists for myself, such as my favorite games, but I prefer a cleaner, neater profile page. And even though I don't care for the rarest trophies I have, at least they're based on something meaningful. It's the milestones I despise. They're random, arbitrary, and terribly organized.

I just wish we had the option to change things around. Myspace had that. MYSPACE, guys.

 

4 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

I need to get past my mental block on these games with no Plats. I feel like I'm missing out on some fun games, but I just haven't been able to muster up enough willpower to play a game with no Plats when I have so many on my plate that do. Does the lack of a Platinum ever give you pause to play a game? It doesn't look like it since you have several on your profile. I have a few as well and the only one of mine that doesn't really bother me too much is A Kings Tale: Final Fantasy XV, which I needed for a project platinum. The reason I don't like them is that my games completed number doesn't match my Platinum count. I know it's stupid, but it's the only thing on my page that I don't like.

 

The only reason I might hesitate to play a game just because it doesn't have a platinum is an archaic one. Back in the day, I used to do drawings for every game I platinumed, and it made the 100% only games seem kinda pointless. And it wasn't as simple as, "Well, why don't you just do a drawing for them too?" because I'd work the number of the platinum into the drawing as well. Sometimes the picture was built around the number, while other times it was hidden. So, it was like a mini-series I had going.

 

At the same time, I guess I looked forward to the 100% only games for the same reason you might enjoy a game without any trophies at all: it's nice to not have to worry. Games without platinums were like a break to me, because I could just enjoy the game without having to come up with a drawing.

 

Of course, I don't do that anymore. Now, I like using the non-platinum games for Toogie's events. Most of them are extremely short, so it goes a long way towards helping me complete every category. (I don't know how I'd finish 15 games this summer otherwise.)

 

I don't like how it offsets the completed games either, but it does provide you with an easy calculation to figure out how many no platinum games you've played. I've finished 127 games, I have 117 plats, so I have...11 no platinum games. Huh. Guess that doesn't always work out.

 

Thanks a lot, Crash.

[AJ_Radio]

4 hours ago, Br1ste said:

I picked it up with the mid-summer sale and will probably be looking to tackle that game this winter as well. I guess it all depends on how quickly I progress through my Soulsbourne binge after the summer event. I haven't decided if I'll do the KH series before Witcher 3 or not. I made need a break from the Souls style of game, which I think Witcher 3 is close to, so I may do some KH games in between to mix it up.

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is entirely different. I would argue that the combat is it's weakest points, the strongest points are the stories, flavor text and the world in which you explore.

 

It's my favorite game this generation and I highly recommend it to everyone who wishes to get into it. That is if you're willing to spend over 100 hours on it, but there's enough content to satisfy you for that long.

 

4 hours ago, Br1ste said:

I've played several shorter games recently as a nice change of pace, but I'll be back to my epics soon enough  I have three 'less-grindy' games left in the event (The Dwarves, Until Dawn and Ratchet & Clank) and then I'll finish up with Shadow of War and then Dark Souls Remastered on my PS4. For my Vita games, Space Hulk has really bogged me down. I have killed 13,328 aliens in Space Hulk since I started using my calculator on my phone. I think that I probably have around 10,000 more to kill before the trophy pops. I'm hoping to maybe finish that up by Aug. 1st and that will give me the whole month to try and finish up SMB. After I got Demon Boy, I needed a break and decided to do a TBS game before going back. Space Hulk seemed like it'd be ok and I didn't anticipate it taking this long. I knew it'd be grindy for the 40k kills, but the lag/frame rate drop has really slowed down the progress. I will get SMB eventually though  Are you making any progress with Cotton Alley?

 

No I haven't, but I haven't played Super Meat Boy seriously in nearly six months. I get too impatient when I'm dying at the same levels over and over. A few levels in Light Cotton Alley still give me trouble. Dark Cotton Alley is a different story.

 

Eventually, but right now I'm content with playing a few more relaxed games like Sleeping Dogs and the Prince of Persia games.

 

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

I've always believed that a game's platinum should take roughly as long as the game's ability to stay fresh. I don't know why so many developers think it's a good idea for players to "prove" themselves beyond this. The onus should be on them to design a game that's worth playing for 100+ hours, not on the player to commit to some ridiculous and arbitrary goal. Same with difficulty, to a degree. If you want to design a hard platinum, that's fine, but make your game interesting and engaging enough that I want to put in the time it takes to reach the skill level required for completing it.

 

That's not to say anything is bad with Star Ocean or The Witcher 3. I've heard they're both great games. I have my doubts for Star Ocean 4 to remain fresh for 1000 hours, but I bet you're just scratching the surface at The Witcher 3 at 133 hours. That's one reason I have to commend Skyrim. While I think the game has many problems, and falls short in several areas, it has the perfect ratio of platinum to freshness. Just when you're running out of things to do, BAM -- you got your plat. Sure, there are caves you haven't explored, NPCs you haven't talked to, sweet rolls you haven't stolen, dead memes you haven't brought back up, but you've done just enough that it hasn't gotten boring. Very, very well-designed platinum.

 

The Star Ocean I was referring to is the PS3 version and that is infamous for being one of the longest platinums of any game. If you ever decide to go for it (you can stream PS3 games on PS Now on your PS4) be prepared for an incredibly long journey.

 

Well you argue that I was scratching the surface at The Witcher 3. But I've done the vast majority of the side quests and explored the entirety of Velen/Novigrad and did most of the stuff in the Blood and Wine DLC. At most I would be spending 20 - 30 more hours getting every single question mark finished and doing all the treasure hunts the game has to offer.

 

You can get the platinum done quicker, it took me a little over 100 hours to get it but I was exploring and enjoying the game at my leisure. I didn't skip any cutscenes either, but why would you for such a story driven title?

 

In terms of length The Witcher 3 is nothing compared to Star Ocean 4. It's not that difficult at all, I found Death March a breeze after a while. So I highly recommend the game to you, if at least to enjoy the story. Geralt and Ciri are probably two of my favorite video game characters.

 

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

It would, but I don't get the trophy cabinet. I'll sometimes use it to make lists for myself, such as my favorite games, but I prefer a cleaner, neater profile page. And even though I don't care for the rarest trophies I have, at least they're based on something meaningful. It's the milestones I despise. They're random, arbitrary, and terribly organized.

I just wish we had the option to change things around. Myspace had that. MYSPACE, guys.

 

That was several years ago.

 

The problem is all the big corporate websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and the like are basically barebones when it comes to customization. I doubt anyone really remembers being able to customize your YouTube page because that was a decade ago. Now you have what everyone else has, a boring white background with only a banner to distinguish yourself from other channels.

 

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

The only reason I might hesitate to play a game just because it doesn't have a platinum is an archaic one. Back in the day, I used to do drawings for every game I platinumed, and it made the 100% only games seem kinda pointless. And it wasn't as simple as, "Well, why don't you just do a drawing for them too?" because I'd work the number of the platinum into the drawing as well. Sometimes the picture was built around the number, while other times it was hidden. So, it was like a mini-series I had going.

 

At the same time, I guess I looked forward to the 100% only games for the same reason you might enjoy a game without any trophies at all: it's nice to not have to worry. Games without platinums were like a break to me, because I could just enjoy the game without having to come up with a drawing.

 

Of course, I don't do that anymore. Now, I like using the non-platinum games for Toogie's events. Most of them are extremely short, so it goes a long way towards helping me complete every category. (I don't know how I'd finish 15 games this summer otherwise.)

 

I don't like how it offsets the completed games either, but it does provide you with an easy calculation to figure out how many no platinum games you've played. I've finished 127 games, I have 117 plats, so I have...11 no platinum games. Huh. Guess that doesn't always work out.

 

Thanks a lot, Crash.

 

I wasn't aware three years ago was "back in the day", unless you started trophy hunting back in 2008 - 2009 and Cassylvania is one of your newer accounts.

 

I fail to understand why so many people give non-platinum games grief. People like to bitch on Capcom because they're infamous for putting on games that have no platinum tied to them. So I was rather surprised that the Megaman X Collection not only brought out one, but two platinums. Considering that the first two Megaman collections didn't have a platinum, most people just skipped them.

 

It's like all the people who bitched about Sonic Mania not having a platinum. That didn't bother me one bit. Probably the same who bitched about the Mein Leben trophy because they know they will likely never get it.

 

I have over 50 games on my profile that are non-platinum. Mostly old retro stuff I played back when I was a kid growing up in the mid 1990s, but some of it is also indie games I was interested in playing. I could of had a few more platinums by now if I didn't focus on some of those non-platinums, but that doesn't bother me at all.

 

Then again a lot of people who skip non-platinum games are also those who skip any DLC trophies that come with the game. Which is fine, but that doesn't make you a completionist by any means.

[Lorajet]

20 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, I finished Firewatch. It's a 100% only game, so I guess it doesn't get one of those giant bold announcements. But I liked it. It's short, and I'm sure a lot of people would hate the ending, but I thought it was brilliant. Can't say any more because of spoilers. If you see it on sale, consider picking it up, but don't pay more than $5.

Funny, I was just looking at Firewatch. Good to hear it is a nice game, and also a good price for it.

[Jens]

[...]

Edited September 30, 2019 by Jens

[det_gittes]

I must confess that I liked the serene atmosphere of the forest trails in Firewatch so much (not to mention the story, which was very solid and in some aspects felt very close to home) that just the other day I bought theHunter: Call of the Wild. Yeah, I get that the two games are worlds apart but I hoped for a chance to just wander off into the wild, never meet another person and listen to the sounds of nature - and so far this game delivers! Sure, it's also about hunting animals but it's a video game, I don't have a problem with that.

[Cassylvania]

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

In terms of length The Witcher 3 is nothing compared to Star Ocean 4. It's not that difficult at all, I found Death March a breeze after a while. So I highly recommend the game to you, if at least to enjoy the story. Geralt and Ciri are probably two of my favorite video game characters.

 

I wish I had played it last year, instead of Skyrim for the forty-third time. It's just, with Skyrim, the story and dialogue are crap, so I know I don't have to pay attention to anything but the sights and sounds, making it the perfect game to play while watching a movie or listening to music. The Witcher 3, however, looks like something I'd actually want to be immersed in, so it'll have to wait until I can give it the attention it deserves.

 

Maybe a good Christmas time game...

 

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

I wasn't aware three years ago was "back in the day", unless you started trophy hunting back in 2008 - 2009 and Cassylvania is one of your newer accounts.

 

I fail to understand why so many people give non-platinum games grief. [snip]

 

Then again a lot of people who skip non-platinum games are also those who skip any DLC trophies that come with the game. Which is fine, but that doesn't make you a completionist by any means.

 

Well, it feels like forever ago...

 

I think it's just an OCD thing. Granted, this site doesn't do a good job at helping people with their OCD problems. The different colored backgrounds for platinum/non-platinum games are proof of this. I bet quite a number of people are annoyed when they see a green background mixed in with all that blue. I don't really think it's necessary to do that, now that there are checkmarks to replace the platinum trophies for these games, but I've never bothered to bring it up. I might have to now, since our profiles are undergoing a butchering.

 

I think people worry too much in general. Outside of unobtainable trophies or ridiculously long/hard/stupid ones, I don't give them much thought. I did start playing Chaos on Deponia, and I'm a little annoyed that I'm basically forced to use a guide or play through the entire game a second time, because this is not the game that lends itself well to either. Don't developers give any thought to how the game was meant to be played when they're designing trophies? Like, if players shouldn't be using a walkthrough, don't put in trophies that require them. It's not rocket science.

 

Going forward, I think I'm going to start including my ratings for trophy lists, in addition to the actual games. They will range from good to No Man's Sky.

 

22 hours ago, Lorajet said:

Funny, I was just looking at Firewatch. Good to hear it is a nice game, and also a good price for it.

 

It is nice. It's a very relaxing and yet stressful game. I can totally understand why some people might hate it, though.

 

19 hours ago, Jens said:

Fill-a-Pix: Phil's Epic Adventure. You ready, Cass? Let's go!

 

Oh, sweet. Another one of those. Let me...get through this summer first.

 

I haven't given much thought to my fall line-up, but I have two words for it: less games.

 

12 hours ago, det_gittes said:

I must confess that I liked the serene atmosphere of the forest trails in Firewatch so much (not to mention the story, which was very solid and in some aspects felt very close to home) that just the other day I bought theHunter: Call of the Wild. Yeah, I get that the two games are worlds apart but I hoped for a chance to just wander off into the wild, never meet another person and listen to the sounds of nature - and so far this game delivers! Sure, it's also about hunting animals but it's a video game, I don't have a problem with that.

 

My love for nature and love for animals are in constant conflict when it comes to the video game world. I have no problem killing every human being in Skyrim and stacking their bodies in hilarious ways, but I can't bring myself to hurt a wolf. I think that's the thing that has kept me from playing every hunting game out there. Which is odd, really, because I'm very much a supporter of controlled hunting in real life.

 

I'm always interested in the psychology behind this stuff, but I figure it's just animals = cool, people = the suck.

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I wish I had played it last year, instead of Skyrim for the forty-third time. It's just, with Skyrim, the story and dialogue are crap, so I know I don't have to pay attention to anything but the sights and sounds, making it the perfect game to play while watching a movie or listening to music. The Witcher 3, however, looks like something I'd actually want to be immersed in, so it'll have to wait until I can give it the attention it deserves.

 

Bethesda is one of the most overrated companies out there. Skyrim was fairly good when it came out, but it hasn’t aged well. Fallout 3 looks even worse in comparison, that’s actually a game I want remade rather than all these shitty cash ins because people don’t want to play the original PS3 versions. Or they just want to buy the same game again as is common in this throw away, disposable culture we live in. 

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt I feel will still be fun to play a decade from now. But since you’re coming into it late, best to buy the Complete Edition version. Comes with all DLC and is cheap if you shop around. 

 

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Well, it feels like forever ago...

 

I think it's just an OCD thing. Granted, this site doesn't do a good job at helping people with their OCD problems. The different colored backgrounds for platinum/non-platinum games are proof of this. I bet quite a number of people are annoyed when they see a green background mixed in with all that blue. I don't really think it's necessary to do that, now that there are checkmarks to replace the platinum trophies for these games, but I've never bothered to bring it up. I might have to now, since our profiles are undergoing a butchering.

 

Sounds to me OCD has been a lifelong problem with you.

 

The way our trophy profiles look, it’s crap. Personally I don’t mind a few E ranks on my profile as that doesn’t concern me like it does for you, but even I feel rather annoyed at the way it’s set up. 

 

They were perfectly fine a week ago, why was the change necessary? This was simply change for the sake of changing, not because someone suggested it or things really needed to be moved around. 

 

Using Dark Reader does help with the eyes, though in general I prefer darker colored backgrounds as opposed to lighter colored backgrounds. 

 

This is why I wish we had some good alternatives as trophy profiles go. There are people out there who can certainly make a dazzling looking profile that is easy to read and look at. But nobody is doing it, probably because trophy hunters are still a slim minority among the masses who just play a game for a few hours, then move on to the next.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Spaz

[Briste]

Huzzah! The layout has changed to something much better  I'm surprised and happy that the community's voices were heard and a wrong was righted! 

 

Side note, one of the letter's I'm going to need for the Spelling Bee event is an E and I was eyeing Everybody's Golf. You did it in just over a month but do you think it's feasible to get that done in the six or seven weeks of the event? I think a lot of it is one round a day so I may be playing two games at once during that stretch. My word should be a good jumping point into any potential Halloween events.

 

I'm liking these events, but I'm finding it's altering my schedule of games a bit. Oh well, at least I'm having fun!

[Cassylvania]

22 hours ago, Spaz said:

Sounds to me OCD has been a lifelong problem with you.

 

Nah. At one point, yeah, but I don't care enough to let it bother me when it comes to video games. I get why some people get worked up over games without platinums, though.

 

23 hours ago, Spaz said:

They were perfectly fine a week ago, why was the change necessary? This was simply change for the sake of changing, not because someone suggested it or things really needed to be moved around.

 

Well, I guess our wish was granted. Everything is back to normal. Sorta. I'm not sure why the platinum icon was moved to the end (shouldn't the gold, silver, and bronze trophies be reversed now?), but whatever. Surely nobody will complain about such a minor alteration after what the previous version looked like.

 

Almost as if that was the intention all along...

 

16 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

Side note, one of the letter's I'm going to need for the Spelling Bee event is an E and I was eyeing Everybody's Golf. You did it in just over a month but do you think it's feasible to get that done in the six or seven weeks of the event? I think a lot of it is one round a day so I may be playing two games at once during that stretch. My word should be a good jumping point into any potential Halloween events.

 

It's doable. You can platinum the game in just under three weeks. The bottleneck for you will be the daily VS opponents. There are 18 of them, I think, but you only get one chance per day to challenge one of them. Win and you won't have to play that opponent again. Lose and he/she returns to the randomizer. (This also happens if you quit out of the match.) Thus, giving yourself six weeks means you can afford to lose to each opponent once, as long as you beat him/her next time.

 

Backing up your save to a USB stick is also a workaround...

 

Everything else is just a grind. There's a luck component too, with scoring three condors, but it shouldn't take you more than a few hours. I think it's a good solid for an E game.

 

I was debating using the word FUDGE, and my E game was going to be Extreme Exorcism...

 

26 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

I'm liking these events, but I'm finding it's altering my schedule of games a bit. Oh well, at least I'm having fun!

 

That's why I have a love/hate relationship with these events. I'm okay in the summertime because I don't have as much time to game as I would normally like, but I'd probably be pretty ticked off right now if I had to hold off on a game I really want to play just because I didn't put it on my list. That's why I like to leave a few categories open until closer to the end of the event, so I have room to shift games around as I see fit...

 

The spelling bee event is a nifty idea because it's just as easy to fit the event around the games as it is the games around the event. For example, I'm already planning on doing Pyre, Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, Riptide GP2, and Foul Play next month, so that's a P, Y, R, and F right there. I guess I could just spell FRY if I wanted to take the easy way out...

 

I think, in the future, they should have everybody spell their own PSN ID. Numbers would have to play a game with that number in the title. So, you'd have to play Battlefield 1 or something.

 

And I'd be playing a lot of A games...

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, Br1ste said:

Huzzah! The layout has changed to something much better  I'm surprised and happy that the community's voices were heard and a wrong was righted!

 

Almost...

 

If the platinum and checkmark icons are moved to the left of the percentage bars, I'll be perfectly happy.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

Nah. At one point, yeah, but I don't care enough to let it bother me when it comes to video games. I get why some people get worked up over games without platinums, though.

 

Probably because games like My Name is Mayo have a platinum, yet others like Resident Evil 4, which is an ACTUAL game and is considered by many to be the best game in the franchise, somehow doesn't have one.

 

Oh well. Certainly would of been nice if Capcom was more willing to give out a platinum, but too late to change things now. I don't think there was ever a game that was later updated to include a platinum. But I can definitely think of many, many games on Playstation 3/4/Vita that could most certainly get one.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

Well, I guess our wish was granted. Everything is back to normal. Sorta. I'm not sure why the platinum icon was moved to the end (shouldn't the gold, silver, and bronze trophies be reversed now?), but whatever. Surely nobody will complain about such a minor alteration after what the previous version looked like.

 

Almost as if that was the intention all along...

 

It's nothing great. Sly Ripper just switched things around a bit, with my only compliant being the platinum/check mark icons are now on the right of the percentage bars rather than on the left.

 

But this is probably what we have to get used to. Maybe he is just preparing to make a website overhaul where we get extra statistics about our trophy profiles. If that.

 

I don't know. I tried being a Website Developer but I find the work to be much too tedious. Having to look over a sheer amount of coding to find a few errors isn't something I want to be doing day after day. Developing a website is one thing, but that's not the only priority developers have. Checking to make sure the website is compatible with modern standards is another job they have to do.

[Jens]

[...]

Edited September 30, 2019 by Jens

[Cassylvania]

6 hours ago, Spaz said:

Probably because games like My Name is Mayo have a platinum, yet others like Resident Evil 4, which is an ACTUAL game and is considered by many to be the best game in the franchise, somehow doesn't have one.

 

RE4 looks so good. I'm debating whether I want to jump right to it, or wait for the RE2 remake (and maybe the eventual RE3?). I have no desire to play RE5 or RE6, from what I've heard about them, but RE7 looks like a quality scary game. I need more of those.

 

6 hours ago, Spaz said:

It's nothing great. Sly Ripper just switched things around a bit, with my only compliant being the platinum/check mark icons are now on the right of the percentage bars rather than on the left.

 

That is the one flaw. I...kinda get it, I guess. It's like a checkmark for when you're done with a game, and checkmarks are usually on the far left or far right when it comes to lists.

 

Of course, so are progress bars, so...

 

5 hours ago, Jens said:

By the way I just keep reminding it when I wasn't on my laptop. Will your artwork be similar to...well... another one I maybe could have seen? I mean in terms of art style and tools. Trying to be vague here, you know   Don't want to ruin any possible surprises.

 

Oh, no. Well, kinda. I'm not doing the entire thing in Pic-a-Pix style. But I did want to squeeze all my summertime games into a single drawing, so I had to find some way to get that one into there.

 

Unfortunately, I kinda went overboard... I didn't expect to play 15 games, and I didn't expect to draw two or three characters from every game. I also didn't expect the summer camp to blow up midway through.

 

This has caused some setbacks.

 

Anyway, no major video game updates. I'm just slowly chipping away at Deponia. I was supposed to be done with Pyre now and beginning Foul Play, but these recent events have thrown my schedule completely off. It's a good thing I took the bull by the horns with Kingdom Hearts and only have my Proud playthrough left. That would be a nightmare to have to finish by the end of August, along with five more games.

 

I think we'll just have to take it one game per week going forward. Deponia really shouldn't be taking me as long as it is, but I'm trying to enjoy the bits of comedy in the game, since the walkthrough is spoiling any sense of challenge. I'm also trying to figure out how to get Deponia into my drawing, since it wasn't originally on the list...

[Briste]

On 7/26/2018 at 4:23 PM, Cassylvania said:

Backing up your save to a USB stick is also a workaround...

Good to know! Thanks for that tip. I think I should be good to go. I'm being a little aggressive with the amount of titles I'm looking at, so I may not have enough time. The good news is that a few of my games will overlap with Summer Camp so that should help.

 

On 7/26/2018 at 4:23 PM, Cassylvania said:

I was debating using the word FUDGE, and my E game was going to be Extreme Exorcism...

While FUDGE is good, I think you made a good choice lol

 

On 7/26/2018 at 5:51 PM, Spaz said:

If the platinum and checkmark icons are moved to the left of the percentage bars, I'll be perfectly happy.

I personally like the Platinum in its current location. It's a nice bookend to everything to see it complete, however I would agree with Cassy that for symmetry, they should probably swap the bronze and gold trophy placement. But that is a small gripe. I think having the X out of Y trophies back in that location is a huge win and the rest is relatively minor.

 

On 7/26/2018 at 7:24 PM, Jens said:

I did it once and I'll do it again. Enter the Gungeon, join the rogue-like club my friend, I'll welcome you personally

I took a quick look at the trophy guide and....50 playthroughs!?!?! Maybe it's a game I'll tackle down the road, but there is no way I can finish that game in about six weeks with all the other games I'd need to play. Good for you for having the patience to repeat the same game 50 times!

 

On 7/27/2018 at 0:54 AM, Cassylvania said:

But I did want to squeeze all my summertime games into a single drawing, so I had to find some way to get that one into there.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've come up with. It's a pretty big bummer that the original camp ended the way it did since you were so far along with your drawing. I like the new iteration of camp, but that threw a pretty big wrench into a project like yours. Good luck!

Edited August 9, 2018 by Briste
removed spelling bee games to keep it a mystery

[Cassylvania]

 

1 hour ago, Br1ste said:

Good to know! Thanks for that tip. I think I should be good to go. I'm being a little aggressive with the amount of titles I'm looking at, so I may not have enough time. The good news is that a few of my games will overlap with Summer Camp so that should help. I'm looking at Ratchet & Clank, Everybody's Golf, Dark Souls Remaster, Rime (maybe, this is the only letter up in the air), Until Dawn and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. Ratchet & Clank, Dark Souls, Until Dawn and Shadow of War are all games that I have for Summer camp so that would only leave Everybody's Golf and Rime or some other R game for the month of September. I will probably go with a different game than Rime at the end...I mean it was a free game a few months ago (which I stupidly didn't pick up) and now it's $30 in the Playstation Store...I just have a moral objection to paying $30 for something that was given away free. $5...ok but not $30. I need to see what the PS+ games are next week before I make a final decision for my second R game. Having said all that, when I put it in that perspective...I think it is doable, and then I'll be ready for a Halloween event if there is one that I like!

 

I've played all of those except Ratchet & Clank (which looks really good -- I just haven't gotten to that series yet), and they're all worthwhile. I didn't like Rime as much as other people. It's good, but there are better indie games out there. Many that touch on the same themes. It is NOT worth $30.

 

R is a hard one. There's always Resident Evil, but you really gotta be a fan of the genre to enjoy the first one...and you gotta be a masochist to enjoy RER1. Rise of the Tomb Raider is good, but it's a long one (and it pales in comparison to the 2013 reboot). I would not recommend Rainbow Moon, despite it being one of the only grid-based, tactical RPGs for the system. It's very grindy and repetitive. Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs looks interesting, and Rocketbirds is a hidden gem on the PS3.

 

Or you could always strap yourself in for some Rogue Legacy action.

 

46 minutes ago, Br1ste said:

While FUDGE is good, I think you made a good choice lol

 

I couldn't not do it, after searching the Oxford dictionary for five letter words that began with K (since I knew I'd be playing the next Kingdom Hearts, and it'd take me the longest time to platinum) and ended with Y (since Yomawari will be my last game for the summer). It's just a shame we can't play non-platinum games, because I would've loved to include King's Quest...

 

Alright, back to Deponia. Three hour platinum, my ass!