Is Trophy/Achievement Hunting on a Downwards Spiral?

[Cassylvania]

11 hours ago, Spaz said:

My main issue is Sony is starting to put things out of balance. There are dozens of games out there these days that can be easily finished in less than two hours, all with a platinum trophy for your efforts. A game like Mega Man 10 on the other hand has a very challenging trophy list but doesn't have a platinum. People complained about Sonic Mania not having a platinum, then a few months later the same ones complained about Wolfenstein II being "too hard" because of Mein Leben.

 

That's why, in my trophy checklist thread, I've tried to separate out games based on what they should really be worth. I currently have 107 platinums, but only 23 of those are games that I would consider worthy of that title, either because of length or difficulty to 100%. Coincidentally, 23 games are VNs, point-and-clicks, or other games that can be finished easily and in under 10 hours. The majority of games (61) fall somewhere in between.

 

It's not a perfect system -- these are standards set by me, and not everybody would agree -- but in a world where we should only care about our own trophies, it helps give the games I play more meaning than a mere platinum. Because after all, an A in calculus is a helluva lot more impressive than an A in gym.

 

I agree with the issue raised about VNs, but I'd like to include point-and-clicks and puzzle games in that mix as well. All of these games suffer from a bad rap due to skippers. While it loathes me to defend The Witness, that's a game that I spent hours on, hunched over a notebook with a pen in my hand, furiously scribbling away at solutions that -- yes, I know -- are available online. And while I despise that game in so many ways, it pains me to think how many people didn't even bother to try to beat it legitimately. Normally, I don't care what games other people play, or how they play them, but this age of technology is killing the puzzle industry. Imagine trying to create a game like that today, where no matter how complex or clever you make a puzzle, the solution is plastered all over the internet within minutes.

[Deluziion90]

I've joined PSNP on July 28, 2017 and started my first ps4 game on 22 may 2017 so it's from a fresh look. I've got no clue about ps2 or ps3 as I was a PC gamer so my thought about some things:

 

1. Petitions to change trophy requirements

I've been following the mentioned Wolfenstein II thread from start till ~800 posts and lets be honest. Let those cry babies make petitions.

Just look positive about these threads it's a great laugh when people fight about something so stupid ?. With some common sense we all knew Bethesda wouldn't change this.

I'll be honest I've skipped it on ps4 and played it on PC just for the story as I know I dont have the fps skills on a console.

 

2. 30 second platinums

I've used some. So what? It's not you're going to win the leaderboards from people with 1400+ platinums that work in teams. Lets take My name is mayo as an example. I've actually enjoyed it. I was laughing with some friends on voice about how my thumb hurt spamming that X button. And that's what matters most having fun.

 

3. Less activity across all trophy forums

No clue. I love this forum and the people on it. I sometimes use playstationtrophies for some guides if they aren't on this site.

 

4. 10,000+ achievement games on PC

As mentioned I quit "the master race" because of this. I love to 100% games (hench why I got 107 platinums in 11 month's since starting on playstation).

I was already playing big titles on steam for 100% but it's a bullshit platform with 3rd party software like SAM, 1 click and you got yourself a 100% game

 

5. All games have 1000G+ on Xbox One

Xbox.. lol

 

 

 

 

 

[starcrunch061]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

I agree with the issue raised about VNs, but I'd like to include point-and-clicks and puzzle games in that mix as well. All of these games suffer from a bad rap due to skippers. While it loathes me to defend The Witness, that's a game that I spent hours on, hunched over a notebook with a pen in my hand, furiously scribbling away at solutions that -- yes, I know -- are available online. And while I despise that game in so many ways, it pains me to think how many people didn't even bother to try to beat it legitimately. Normally, I don't care what games other people play, or how they play them, but this age of technology is killing the puzzle industry. Imagine trying to create a game like that today, where no matter how complex or clever you make a puzzle, the solution is plastered all over the internet within minutes.

 

I don't know. There are good reasons to skip some VNs; they suck. There are good reasons to "skip" (i.e. look up solutions for) puzzle games; they suck. I recall one particularly bad puzzle in Broken Age involving some "hexapad" robot.

 

Puzzle games have always been made with guides in mind. I remember people swapping solutions for the game Shadowgate at school. I think that King's Quest guides were released alongside the games back in the day. The only difference now is that people have universal access to solutions, which actually seems more fair to me.

 

I just finished the Nonary Games, with no guides whatsoever. I don't think my enjoyment of that game was hampered in the least by knowing that solutions to the puzzles were available at the click of a button.

[Paleblood]

It just gets commercialized more, like everything that is able to make money. It's not a noble hobby to begin with.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Schwifty Swifty

[Venocide]

- Petitions to change trophy requirements:

I was looking at that Wolfenstein II mega thread on here and it really made me giggle. Don't tell me, was it a member on here that started that petition? I'm sure it was. There's only one thing to say when game developers implement a trophy like that... and I hate saying this... but simply get good! No matter how many times you beg, you can create as many petitions as you like, they will not remove or change the trophy requirements. If you're stuck at 95%, tuff... it's not the end of the world, time to move on. Petitions are fucking stupid. 

 

- 30 second platinum's

I'm guilty of this because I have about 15 or so games on my profile that take no long than 1 hour. I've explained it before but my reason for platting these super quick games in the past, it's because I wanted to reach 100 platinum trophy so I could make Persona 5 no. 100, and again for Final Fantasy IX no. 125. An example would be Energy Cycle, I have 3 platinum's, it cost £0.99 and takes 20 minutes to plat. I regret it so much but there's nothing I can do now, what's done is done. I wish these games didn't exist at all because like people have said, it's just a con to lure trophy hunters so they can make a quick buck.

 

- Less activity across all trophy forums

I can't speak for other trophy forums since I'm only active on here, but I don't think I've seen a decline in PSNP's population at all. 

 

- 10,000+ achievement games on PC

When I got my new computer in 2016 I temporarily gave up trophy hunting and focused on Steam achievements. I don't think those 10,000 achievement games was a thing back then, but if it was I'm sure it would've put me off. What got me to quit though was how incredibly easy it was to cheat in games using trainers and just breezing through the game unlocking achievements along the way with next to no effort. 

 

- All games have 1000G+ on Xbox One

I would've loved this back when I was playing to be honest. More achievements/1000 gamerscore in all the old Sonic games would've been great. 

 

- More and more discussion about these 30 second-1 hour platinums rather than other games that aren't bait

I'm not familiar with threads about these 30 second games, but that's probably because I tend to avoid them. However, I am part of a few Trophy Hunting groups on Facebook and many of them give no shits about what games they plat, many of them have 600+ platinum trophy's, so discussions about easy games is quite common on there. 

 

[starcrunch061]

2 hours ago, Schwifty Swifty said:

It just gets commercialized more, like everything that is able to make money. It's not a noble hobby to begin with, get over yourselves.

 

Unnecessary addendum.

[Paleblood]

8 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

Unnecessary addendum.

 

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by Schwifty Swifty

[Sergen]

There's another thing I haven't seen mentioned in the opening post which is the fact that more and more trophies these days are becoming unobtainable due to the servers shutting down or game features breaking. It's always rather disappointing to see that a game has become unobtainable, especially if you thought you could see yourself doing that game in the future. Even Sony themselves aids in making more trophies unobtainable by shutting down their own games, regardless of whether they're popular or not. Sony doesn't give a damn about trophies and that's why at any time, a company is allowed to shut the online for their games, even without warning without facing a penalty for doing so. Sony themselves may announce a server shutdown at least 90 days in advance, but they don't apply those rules to another company, although they should. Aside from that, it's not necessarily just the fact that those indie games get platinums, but rather the fact that the games consist of hardly any content but still get a platinum and in some cases it's a platinum that can be done very quickly like Slyde which makes money from making someone put pieces of a puzzle together, which can be done in less than 10 seconds with a guide. I don't tend to really care about what people did for their trophies anymore, I personally don't see trophies as anything to really respect in regards to gaming because no trophy makes you become a pro at that game to get the platinum, the trophies simply require you to grind longer than the typical gamer would to achieve those trophies. I won't spend money on something like Slyde and if companies are aware that a simple platinum on their game can get them a ton of sales from trophy hunters, it could become a trend and you're polluting the gaming market by buying into garbage indie games that have a very simple platinum. 

[MMDE]

Servers shutting down has always been a thing.

[Sergen]

1 minute ago, MMDE said:

Servers shutting down has always been a thing.

 

But now it looks like Sony is trying to end the services for all their games, considering Gran Turismo 6, WipEout HD and 2048, Killzone 2 and 3 and now Modnation Racers are shutting down, after they've already shut down Resistance 2 and 3, Gran Turismo 5 and so on. I feel like more games in the past few years have been going down due to the server shutdowns than they were before, if you went back to 2012 for instance, there wouldn't be too many games you can't do, now a lot of trophies are unobtainable. 

[Satoshi Ookami]

8 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

There are good reasons to skip some VNs; they suck.

That's NOT a good reason for skip.

[AJ_Radio]

9 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I agree with the issue raised about VNs, but I'd like to include point-and-clicks and puzzle games in that mix as well. All of these games suffer from a bad rap due to skippers. While it loathes me to defend The Witness, that's a game that I spent hours on, hunched over a notebook with a pen in my hand, furiously scribbling away at solutions that -- yes, I know -- are available online. And while I despise that game in so many ways, it pains me to think how many people didn't even bother to try to beat it legitimately. Normally, I don't care what games other people play, or how they play them, but this age of technology is killing the puzzle industry. Imagine trying to create a game like that today, where no matter how complex or clever you make a puzzle, the solution is plastered all over the internet within minutes.

 

Point and clicks will forever be games that a good majority of people will instantly look up guides online to get them fully complete within a few hours.

 

From what I've seen, The Witness looks like a pretty enjoyable puzzle game. But I just know for a fact that so many people out there just looked up a guide, not really caring about the story.

 

I think games like Pure Chess, which is available on PSN, still present a challenge because there is no surefire way to beat a chess player, or even a computer chess player. Chess is extremely difficult to master, I know because I used to play Chess years ago.

 

But those point and click games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and those old Kings Quest games from two - three decades ago don't present much of a challenge anymore. Which I find a bit sad.

 

4 hours ago, Sergen said:

 

But now it looks like Sony is trying to end the services for all their games, considering Gran Turismo 6, WipEout HD and 2048, Killzone 2 and 3 and now Modnation Racers are shutting down, after they've already shut down Resistance 2 and 3, Gran Turismo 5 and so on. I feel like more games in the past few years have been going down due to the server shutdowns than they were before, if you went back to 2012 for instance, there wouldn't be too many games you can't do, now a lot of trophies are unobtainable. 

 

Not too many people care about older games getting server shutdowns, especially if they had dying fanbases prior to those titles.

 

It costs money to maintain those servers, which is why a lot of those old PS2 and early PS3 games no longer have active online servers. If I were in the gaming business I certainly wouldn't let an old game keep old servers because there really wouldn't be anything to gain. Somebody has to pay for those servers, there's no point keeping them up if the games themselves are completely dead.

 

We should be lucky Killzone 2, Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 6 and those other games you mentioned had servers that lasted as long as they did. The reason the servers for Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV are still up is because there are still people playing online. But we all know that sooner or later, the servers for those games will shut down as well.

 

There was a big controversy regarding opening up servers to Demon's Souls after their shutdown date at the end of February. To do some co-op and help people get the items they needed for the trophies. The game is fair enough without any trading and I earned the platinum after a week of casual play.

 

Get what you can done, but someone who is too late is shit out of luck. That's just the way it is.

 

I figured ahead of time that Dead Star and Marvel Heroes Omega weren't going to last long, and I was right. Dead Star had it's online servers close within several months of the game being released. That is one good reason why I don't invest heavily in online games anymore, because of crap like that. With my busy schedule these days it's just too much hassle.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Spaz

[Sergen]

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

 

Point and clicks will forever be games that a good majority of people will instantly look up guides online to get them fully complete within a few hours.

 

From what I've seen, The Witness looks like a pretty enjoyable puzzle game. But I just know for a fact that so many people out there just looked up a guide, not really caring about the story.

 

I think games like Pure Chess, which is available on PSN, still present a challenge because there is no surefire way to beat a chess player, or even a computer chess player. Chess is extremely difficult to master, I know because I used to play Chess years ago.

 

But those point and click games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and those old Kings Quest games from two - three decades ago don't present much of a challenge anymore. Which I find a bit sad.

 

 

Not too many people care about older games getting server shutdowns, especially if they had dying fanbases prior to those titles.

 

It costs money to maintain those servers, which is why a lot of those old PS2 and early PS3 games no longer have active online servers. If I were in the gaming business I certainly wouldn't let an old game keep old servers because there really wouldn't be anything to gain. Somebody has to pay for those servers, there's no point keeping them up if the games themselves are completely dead.

 

We should be lucky Killzone 2, Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 6 and those other games you mentioned had servers that lasted as long as they did. The reason the servers for Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV are still up is because there are still people playing online. But we all know that sooner or later, the servers for those games will shut down as well.

 

There was a big controversy regarding opening up servers to Demon's Souls after their shutdown date at the end of February. To do some co-op and help people get the items they needed for the trophies. The game is fair enough without any trading and I earned the platinum after a week of casual play.

 

Get what you can done, but someone who is too late is shit out of luck. That's just the way it is.

 

I figured ahead of time that Dead Star and Marvel Heroes Omega weren't going to last long, and I was right. Dead Star had it's online servers close within several months of the game being released. That is one good reason why I don't invest heavily in online games anymore, because of crap like that. With my busy schedule these days it's just too much hassle.

 

I don't think the cost of running servers should be used as an excuse for a company that is frequently able to fund and release AAA titles for their consoles as well as make billions in profit while running an entire console's network. I'd much prefer every game to be obtainable for everyone rather than having the few unobtainable games complete on my list that I do have. It's a downward spiral for trophy hunting when you read a lot of threads mentioning how a game just became unobtainable or the fact that a server shutdown is going to occur. While some companies genuinely can't fund the online any further, like the case with Dead Star where Armature Studios really weren't making money anymore other companies just shut games routinely because they're bored of the games. Sony certainly has the money to run all the games they did shut down while not having any negative impacts on their profits, they simply have a hard-on for closing as many games as they can, as evidenced by the fact that they're basically on a mission to shut every flagship title for the PS3 now. Their only original title that was a completely new game series that came with the PS4 that I can really recall is Horizon, aside from that they're re-using the good name of their flagship game franchises from previous platforms to get sales for games on PS4. All I can say is, if you enjoy a game that has online and it's published by Sony, prepare yourself to say goodbye to that game as they don't care how many people are still playing it and they will be shutting it down eventually. 

[madbuk]

19 hours ago, Sergen said:

 

I don't think the cost of running servers should be used as an excuse for a company that is frequently able to fund and release AAA titles for their consoles as well as make billions in profit while running an entire console's network. I'd much prefer every game to be obtainable for everyone rather than having the few unobtainable games complete on my list that I do have. It's a downward spiral for trophy hunting when you read a lot of threads mentioning how a game just became unobtainable or the fact that a server shutdown is going to occur. While some companies genuinely can't fund the online any further, like the case with Dead Star where Armature Studios really weren't making money anymore other companies just shut games routinely because they're bored of the games. Sony certainly has the money to run all the games they did shut down while not having any negative impacts on their profits, they simply have a hard-on for closing as many games as they can, as evidenced by the fact that they're basically on a mission to shut every flagship title for the PS3 now. Their only original title that was a completely new game series that came with the PS4 that I can really recall is Horizon, aside from that they're re-using the good name of their flagship game franchises from previous platforms to get sales for games on PS4. All I can say is, if you enjoy a game that has online and it's published by Sony, prepare yourself to say goodbye to that game as they don't care how many people are still playing it and they will be shutting it down eventually. 

Horizon, DriveClub, Concrete Genie, Dreams, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last Guardian... There have been a fair few this gen, these are just from the top of my head, but ok...

All MP games will die. That's just a feature of them, and one of the many reasons why MP is a bad game mechanic.

 

I don't think server closure is too detrimental to trophy hunting as a whole, as it's not like it devalues the platinums of those who obtained it, if anything it makes it more valuable if you're into rarity. You've had years to do Killzone, if you missed out then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Edited April 17, 2018 by madbuk

[AJ_Radio]

42 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

I don't think the cost of running servers should be used as an excuse for a company that is frequently able to fund and release AAA titles for their consoles as well as make billions in profit while running an entire console's network. I'd much prefer every game to be obtainable for everyone rather than having the few unobtainable games complete on my list that I do have. It's a downward spiral for trophy hunting when you read a lot of threads mentioning how a game just became unobtainable or the fact that a server shutdown is going to occur. While some companies genuinely can't fund the online any further, like the case with Dead Star where Armature Studios really weren't making money anymore other companies just shut games routinely because they're bored of the games. Sony certainly has the money to run all the games they did shut down while not having any negative impacts on their profits, they simply have a hard-on for closing as many games as they can, as evidenced by the fact that they're basically on a mission to shut every flagship title for the PS3 now. Their only original title that was a completely new game series that came with the PS4 that I can really recall is Horizon, aside from that they're re-using the good name of their flagship game franchises from previous platforms to get sales for games on PS4. All I can say is, if you enjoy a game that has online and it's published by Sony, prepare yourself to say goodbye to that game as they don't care how many people are still playing it and they will be shutting it down eventually. 

 

Then this comes down to Sony being outright greedy, as they have been these past couple years since they have absolutely dominated the console race this generation.

 

Maybe there are plenty of people like yourself who care about a possibility of Killzone 2 and 3 having it's online servers open again. I just don't see it happening.

 

Hyper popular games of the past generation like Grand Theft Auto IV still have active online servers and that's really going to be the only kind of games that are going to see some activity long after their release. It's bullshit that some games have a short life cycle because of the going ons that happen with the developers and how they're doing as far as a business goes. There's a lot we don't see, and some of that factors in how long servers are going to stay up.

 

Dead Star did hold some promise and I recall a lot of people playing it, I think mostly due to the game being featured on the Playstation Store website. I'm just not into online only games anymore, because they're only really good in the first few months, or the first couple years if they prove to be wildly successful.

 

Sony doesn't care about us, they care about making as much money as they can. It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it. If it wasn't for their good exclusive titles and their trophy achievement system, I would probably bail to another platform.

 

I still think trophies are more legit and respectable than getting 1000G on every Xbox One game, or seeing a ridiculous amount of Steam achievements for certain games that nobody in their right mind would ever go for. Hell people hack Steam achievements all the time, and Steam doesn't give a shit. Why should I bother on getting any Steam achievement at all if hackers can just outright obtain them without any forethought for their actions?

 

A game that has been out for nearly an entire decade with running online servers is an accomplishment in my eyes. A lot of games out there don't have servers lasting that long.

 

We make up a small minority because most of everyone doesn't care about trophies or achievements or anything related to those. They play through a game's story, play some online, and then move on to the next game. I try my best to at least experience most of what the game offers, and that includes going after the trophies it has, regardless of how difficult or easy they are.

 

In conclusion, with all the remasters we're getting this generation, and Sony hellbent on closing online servers for many PS3 titles that still have online servers, it's pretty obvious they have long abandoned the Playstation 3 and Vita consoles. Everything is focused on the PS4, most notably the PS4 Pro as Sony tries it's best to get their studios to make photorealistic graphics to satisfy the next generation of gamers.

 

Plus with PSN being shit like it has been for quite some time now, Sony only cares about making the quick profits.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Spaz

[Cassylvania]

10 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

Puzzle games have always been made with guides in mind. I remember people swapping solutions for the game Shadowgate at school. I think that King's Quest guides were released alongside the games back in the day. The only difference now is that people have universal access to solutions, which actually seems more fair to me.

 

I just finished the Nonary Games, with no guides whatsoever. I don't think my enjoyment of that game was hampered in the least by knowing that solutions to the puzzles were available at the click of a button.

 

Sure, although I would suggest the Nonary Games are more story-based than puzzle-based. There's enough content there that you could theoretically skip every puzzle in the game and still gain something from the experience. I don't know if that's the case for games like The Witness, Riven, or Myst.

 

King's Quest was my introduction to video games, so I always like to use that as an example. I don't remember guides being readily available, although they could have been. What I do remember, though, was the Sierra On-Line help number. I can't remember if it was automated or if you spoke to a real human being, but that was how you got clues and tips on how to get by certain sections. And, of course, I was a kid, so I wasn't allowed to use the phone without permission, and I think some companies even charged you. But it was a very different time for gaming. It wasn't about beating every game you got your hands on, or doing it as fast as possible. There was more of a connection to games.

 

It's hard to explain, but games like King's Quest, Gobliins, Willy Beamish, and Torin's Passage stick out in my memory because of how long I spent on them. None of them are particularly long games -- if you have a guide -- but I was a kid without the internet, and I was only allowed to play games a couple hours each week. That meant I could get stuck at certain parts for a month or more. That's unheard of today. But that was part of gaming. I remember being in bed at night, thinking up possible solutions, or making a list of things I wanted to try the next time I booted up the game. The babysitter in Willy Beamish was probably my greatest nemesis as a child. I struggled for SO long to figure out how to get by that part. There was another game too, where you get to the final boss and you have to counter all of his transformations with transformations of your own (like turning into a mongoose when he turns into a snake), but the spells look like hieroglyphics and I think my father ended up having to buy us a guide to figure it out. But even that took a few days to arrive, and that's forever as a kid.

 

That experience -- of having to solve puzzles on your own, or at least having the patience to wait for a solution to present itself -- is lost today. Even if kids were exchanging solutions on the school bus or whatever, it still took time. It wasn't the instant gratification you get from a mere Google search. You had to mentally struggle with the problem all night, and then find somebody who knew the answer the next day, and then sit through an entire day of school, just waiting for your chance to go home and finally get to the next part of the game.

 

It might not sound like much, but that experience you got when not playing the game was still part of the game, and it's what I remember most fondly about the games I played growing up.

[Sergen]

13 minutes ago, madbuk said:

Horizon, DriveClub, Concrete Genie, Dreams, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last Guardian... There have been a fair few this gen, these are just from the too if my head, but ok...

All MP games will die. That's just a feature of them, and one of the many reasons why MP is a bad game mechanic.

 

I don't think server closure is too detrimental to trophy hunting as a whole, as it's not like it devalues the platinums of those who obtained it, if anything it makes it more valuable if you're into rarity. You've had years to do Killzone, if you missed out then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

 

One negative I can kind of think of due to server closures is the fact that people are just going to boost the online instead of playing it the way the developers intended. I also do boost online, so I can't really argue against it but I only do so because those trophies could eventually be unobtainable in the future. But what I will also add that you are against in regards to trophies are team accounts and trophy hackers, trophy hacking definitely has been on an increase these past few years when CFW can be used to edit time stamps on PS3 and now even vita to achieve the ideal legit looking time stamps. But mainly, because of people purchasing trophies from other people and also being a trophy team, you'll never be anywhere near the top of this website's leaderboards. The only leaderboard I really care about for myself is being a fastest achiever for a game, regardless of that I don't care what my rank is on the main leaderboard for this website. 

Edited April 16, 2018 by Sergen

[NightRusticDawn]

Don't think it's dying at all, there are plenty of people across different platforms that talks about trophies. PNSP being the most common place for people to gather, due to tracking I guess.

 

People say the same things about the speedrunner community or other groups of gamers that are really into specific things, it's just a small crowd of people playing games that is all.

We have some great people behind the scenes that push the trophy community further then what it should've been. I mean for me if Terminator wasn't on PST that site would be dead since last year but that is because he does amazing work on the site and is very vocal. The thing with most content creators on youtube and twitch is that they enclose themselves in small groups of people that follow them and in those group the content creators admins comments and chat interaction heavily so they never grow. One of the reasons for me that things look smaller then what they are, moderation and admins making seperate threads or comment sections. (Not saying they shouldn't.)

 

There is plenty of people posting on games and such but you don't really notice those threads unless you search for them.

 

It's a sub culture within a culture. We just need good apples instead of the noticable assholes and we can keep this boat from sinking. ?

 

You should put effort into making positive change!

[AJ_Radio]

3 minutes ago, Sergen said:

But mainly, because of people purchasing trophies from other people and also being a trophy team, you'll never anywhere near the top of this website's leaderboards. The only leaderboard I really care about for myself is being a fastest achiever for a game, regardless of that I don't care what my rank is on the main leaderboard for this website. 

 

It's purely a numbers game.

 

People like Roughdawg4, Hakoom, MrUnknown625 and others run team based accounts. I don't care who it is, you can't maintain 16 - 20 trophies a day without having someone else use your account to buy up easy platinums.

 

I got sucked into "easy" platinums for a little while but since last Fall I realized that I was getting no real satisfaction out of those games.

 

Stacking The Walking Dead for example isn't my idea of fun because you're just sitting through the same dialogue and story. TellTale Games I've noticed makes story driven games that last six to ten hours or so, I think once is enough.

 

So I mostly shifted gears to games I've been wanting to play for years but never got around to them. Getting a game you worked hard for to finish is a lot more satisfying than seeing several stacks of Steins Gate. Certain games like Sleeping Dogs and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor I plan to do again because I enjoyed them a lot the first time.

[MMDE]

28 minutes ago, madbuk said:

All MP games will die. That's just a feature of them, and one of the many reasons why MP is a bad game mechanic.

 

Sorry, but this is false. It very much depends on how it's implemented. If the developer releases server software, or add LAN options, this is not a problem.

 

I got a lot of old PC games where official servers are long dead, but you can still play them with friends.

Edited April 16, 2018 by MMDE

[dmland12]

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

Point and clicks will forever be games that a good majority of people will instantly look up guides online to get them fully complete within a few hours.

 

From what I've seen, The Witness looks like a pretty enjoyable puzzle game. But I just know for a fact that so many people out there just looked up a guide, not really caring about the story.

 

I think games like Pure Chess, which is available on PSN, still present a challenge because there is no surefire way to beat a chess player, or even a computer chess player. Chess is extremely difficult to master, I know because I used to play Chess years ago.

 

But those point and click games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and those old Kings Quest games from two - three decades ago don't present much of a challenge anymore. Which I find a bit sad.

 

People cheat at chess.  There's chess engines that can beat even the very best players and they're easy to find if you want to use them.  So, you can basically just look up the answer if you really want...

 

Even so, chess is probably more popular now than it's ever been.  Because not everyone is doing that and the places it's played (online or not) take cheating seriously and try to curb it as much as they can.  Most people that play chess do it because they enjoy trying to match wits or trick their opponents, etc.  They aren't just in it to look up the answers.

 

I think the main problem with point and click adventure games is that there never really was very many people who solved them with trial and error.  And the way they're generally made, you can forget about solving the puzzles with logical reasoning!  Even going back to the orginal King's Quest, the guides were everywhere.  Everyone was using them.  The internet just mainly saved a lot of paper. 

 

It was popular for a while, but people got tired of it.

[AJ_Radio]

5 minutes ago, dmland12 said:

 

People cheat at chess.  There's chess engines that can beat even the very best players and they're easy to find if you want to use them.  So, you can basically just look up the answer if you really want...

 

Even so, chess is probably more popular now than it's ever been.  Because not everyone is doing that and the places it's played (online or not) take cheating seriously and try to curb it as much as they can.  Most people that play chess do it because they enjoy trying to match wits or trick their opponents, etc.  They aren't just in it to look up the answers.

 

I think the main problem with point and click adventure games is that there never really was very many people who solved them with trial and error.  And the way they're generally made, you can forget about solving the puzzles with logical reasoning!  Even going back to the orginal King's Quest, the guides were everywhere.  Everyone was using them.  The internet just mainly saved a lot of paper. 

 

It was popular for a while, but people got tired of it.

 

What would be the point of chess tournaments out there if you can just cheat? Although you probably can't cheat as you would otherwise get banned.

 

The original Kings Quest was over 30 years ago and getting a guide for that game was a lot more difficult. Point and click games haven't evolved that much, TellTale Games just happens to be a more modern form of point and click that holds your hand because you can literally earn most trophies without trying at all.

 

If you had guides for that game back in the 1980s you were either incredibly lucky or you knew the developers.

 

Cassy's point about point and clicks was spot on. These days anybody and their brother can easily do a Google search and they will know all the solutions for the puzzles within a few minutes. So the genre itself is nothing special anymore, they don't present any sort of challenge or respect because they're ridiculously easy games now.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Spaz

[dmland12]

Just now, Spaz said:

 

What would be the point of chess tournaments out there if you can just cheat? Although you probably can't cheat as you would otherwise get banned.

 

The original Kings Quest was over 30 years ago and getting a guide for that guide was a lot more difficult. Point and click games haven't evolved that much, TellTale Games just happens to be a more modern form of point and click that holds your hand because you can literally earn most trophies without trying at all.

 

If you had guides for that game back in the 1980s you were either incredibly lucky or you knew the developers.

 

Cassy's point about point and clicks was spot on. These days anybody and their brother can easily do a Google search and they will know all the solutions for the puzzles within a few minutes. So the genre itself is nothing special anymore, they don't present any sort of challenge or respect because they're ridiculously easy games now.

 

The point is the same as in any other competition where there's some cheating (which is pretty much all of them).  There's been people that have been caught cheating that had chess titles (which means they needed to play in official tournaments at a high level).  So, it does happen.  They try to catch it of course.

 

I'm too young to remember the original release of king's quest, so can't really speak to the information that was out at release, but it was one of the first computer games I played as a child on Apple II's and there were guides back then -- this was probably late 80's I guess.  I agree google is easier than looking stuff up in a book.

[Leaderboards]

On 4/14/2018 at 8:38 PM, madbuk said:

3. Less activity across all trophy forums

It feels like the trophy community is shrinking as time goes by. I won't specifically name other sites because I'm not sure if that is against the rules or not, but yeah... One trophy site is outright dead, it died a few years back. Then there's another trophy site which, while it does still exist, had its userbase plummet of a cliff and hasn't had any updates since the release of Fallout 4 and very, very sparse interaction by moderators. Then there's another which, to be fair, only started a few years ago, but still doesn't have a very large player base or a lot of activity. And this just keeps going. PSNP is still very active, and that's great, but it does seem to be much less active than it was a few years ago, like 2013 for example.

 

Well in regards to this trophy forum, PSNP has a lot of problems. If they don't get fixed then PSNP will turn into the next GameFaqs/NeoGaf. These past three months we lost a lot of good people because they are frustrated with the PSNP forums.

 

1. The site owner is a recluse/mysterious/moody type. He doesn't foster a sense of community in this forum. He is proud of his "I don't give a shit what people think/say attitude", which is good in many certain situations in life, but when people have honest feedback, it's not good to ignore. You don't have to do what they say, but you know, have some "grace and dignity" about the situation.

 

2. You see the same people over and over talking about the same shit topics over and over, it has become so boring. The same shit over and over. The same elitist assholes posting the same drivel. Some of the nicest and most interesting people are the ones that don't have premium and/or few posts in their post history. So boring to see "How did people plat this already" and "Quality vs Quantity" posts. Really? With all the beautiful music, graphics, and gameplay found in these awesome Playstation games...nobody wants to talk about that? How it makes you feel when you experience them?

 

3. The mods are anything but professional. There is favoritism and other tribal bullshit. In one thread, can't remember it now, you had a mod call people idiots for liking a particular game. I have one mod stalk me on discord servers and crying about how I change my forum name every month. It's a freakin feature for being a premium member, asshole! Really professional, but what can you expect from jaded 20-year old somethings given responsibility over a website. You can write a novel about all the stupid shit the mods do.

 

4. The weeaboos (I don't need to name them, just look at their avatar to find one ) create these cliques were it's hard for new people to integrate to the site. Okay we get it, Persona 5 and some parts of Japanese culture are amazing. (Ironically Persona 5's main theme is to show you how oppressive Japanese society/culture is lol). Here's something fascinating: I like both Japanese and Western games. Wow I can like two things at once!!! OMG MAGIC?!?!?

 

5. Any unpopular opinion/fact is met with ridicule or outright deleted or ignored. The Mein Leben Petition and Zolkovo (people hating on Zolkovo) contest threads really showed how disgusting this community can be, that was really really cringey. I don't usually use the word disgusting to describe people, but at those times, it's applicable

 

6. People who payed premium still have to prove their not robots.

 

7. The dispute threads, just go into that subforum, so much cringe. 1 in 5 posts on this forum is a dispute thread.

 

8. This will trigger a lot of people, the quality of trophy guides on PST.org are better than the ones on PSNP. The tags system is just bad. Only thing that matters is the roadmap and knowing what are the missable trophies. You don't have to be a creator of something to critique it, so don't give me that "Well write your own trophy guide bullshit argument". Also just because a game is easy doesn't mean you have to write a half-ass guide.

 

9. People are more interested in collecting reputation points and followers. Just get rid of the whole point system and follower mechanic. So many people add each other and stuff, then never communicate again. Fuck off with that facebook whore blue-pill stuff, sick of people like that. Then they get mad if you delete them LOL!!!

 

The one thing this forum/site that has something going for it, is it awesome website design in all areas (sessions, forums, profiles, trophy lists, etc.)

 

Edit: Shoot lol, after typing all this, maybe it's not a good idea to visit these forums anymore.

 

Edit 2: This post will probably get deleted, go ahead, don't care...

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Leaderboards

[Satoshi Ookami]

1 hour ago, Leaderboards said:

The weeaboos (I don't need to name them, just look at their avatar to find one ) create these cliques were it's hard for new people to integrate to the site.

The first thing could be not using that word