Is trophy hunting a waste of time your thoughts.

[PaoloGaldor]

On 3/30/2019 at 7:42 PM, coldsphinx93 said:

I think it's only a waste of time if it is stopping you from playing the games you want to play because you are too worried about finishing your old games. That's how it was for me. Ive been kicking that habit and have started several games since dropping out of the events I joined on this site. I still feel like I'm wrecking my list but at the same time I feel a sense of freedom I didn't have before when I only cared about getting 100%.

 

 

This is me .. i'm going to try and ignore games and play for fun nowadays...

[LadyGallethX3]

Whatever floats your boat. I know friends who collect dead bugs....Dead bugs!

[willythom88]

I actually use it to force myself to get the most of my money.  I found once I started buying digital back in 2011 and began building up my backlog, I became very quick to just jump to something else.  I have close to a 1,000 games across all my backlogs, and I'm at a point now where I've had to all but stop buying new games (knew this day would come so it's been a precautionary string of purchases over the past 3 years whenever I saw things on sale to make sure once I had to stop I had plenty of things to play).  Anyway, I find that if I use the trophies as an indicator to how much of the game I've played, I can more accurately track that not only am I playing the things I've purchased, I'm giving them a good honest try.  With that being said, when games don't have trophies, I still try to get the most out of them (spent alot of last summer on my Wii U for instance), and a lot of games that do offer trophy support aren't good for tracking how much effort you've put into them.  However, it's still a good way to ensure I'm actually playing things and not just playing them for a couple hours and then never playing them again.  That being said, I don't force myself to platinum things anymore unless I actually like them.  I did last year and it burnt me out a bit.  Now I just try to set goals for myself to get through the stuff I have to play and if that doesn't happen, oh well.  Sun comes up tomorrow.

[Copanele]

The way I see it :

Do you have a socially active life?

Do you do something to contribute to your general well being? (being in school/university/working/searching for work/trying to be the very best like noone ever was - basically living your life without being a nuisance for those close to you)

Do you also enjoy playing the game? AKA not zombie mode with MUST. GET. PLAT. ?

THEN trophy hunting is perfectly fine, some people gamble their house at roulette or dice.

If however your main target in life is trophy hunting disregarding everything else AND you are not even the very best AND you are not even attempting to be the very best AND you just kinda don't even go to work/school anymore , not enjoying the game, making people around you not liking you very much , all your life is revolving around getting that virtual bling that means 0...yep trophy hunting is a waste of your time go do something with your life, that's not trophy hunting that's addiction and addiction is bad kids!

 

Just my honest SHORT thought / opinion / whatever it's considered. Could you do something better than trophy hunting? I don't know! I know people who do fitness and have a healthy lifestyle and are being happy and they are still being judged because " there's more to life than fitness" so nobody will ever be content really . 

[patrickogorman19]

On 22/04/2019 at 5:08 PM, Copanele said:

The way I see it :

Do you have a socially active life?

Do you do something to contribute to your general well being? (being in school/university/working/searching for work/trying to be the very best like noone ever was - basically living your life without being a nuisance for those close to you)

Do you also enjoy playing the game? AKA not zombie mode with MUST. GET. PLAT. ?

THEN trophy hunting is perfectly fine, some people gamble their house at roulette or dice.

If however your main target in life is trophy hunting disregarding everything else AND you are not even the very best AND you are not even attempting to be the very best AND you just kinda don't even go to work/school anymore , not enjoying the game, making people around you not liking you very much , all your life is revolving around getting that virtual bling that means 0...yep trophy hunting is a waste of your time go do something with your life, that's not trophy hunting that's addiction and addiction is bad kids!

 

Just my honest SHORT thought / opinion / whatever it's considered. Could you do something better than trophy hunting? I don't know! I know people who do fitness and have a healthy lifestyle and are being happy and they are still being judged because " there's more to life than fitness" so nobody will ever be content really . 

It looks like I should quit according to you.

[Salt_AU]

What form of entertainment is not a waste of time?  You're your own person, do what you like and what you enjoy doing.  It's really that simple.

[Copanele]

1 minute ago, patrickogorman19 said:

It looks like I should quit according to you.

Depending on which part of the spectrum you are! Because you really have to check a whole lot of conditions for trophy hunting to be truly worthless , getting all those conditions at the same time is harder than Mein Leben trophy . 

But well it's just one opinion in a hugeass forum!

[HOGIE838EIRE]

What else could you do to replace hunting trophies that would not be a waste of time? People enjoy different hobbies - but they do enjoy them!

 

As well as hunting trophies I like having a list of the games I’ve played which shows my history. Without trophies you wouldn’t have that either. I enjoy scrolling through sometimes and reliving my time with the games. I also love the adrenaline rush I get when I’m so close to unlocking a really tough trophy! Grinding is part of this also and I embrace every aspect, because unlocking that Platinum Trophy is such a good feeling.

 

I can think of a million other things I could be doing instead but at the end of the day I doubt I’d get the same satisfaction. Since I heard that first trophy pop it’s become an addiction, I’d find it easier to quit smoking I reckon ?

 

EDIT: I doubt I’d be as addicted or enjoy it as much without trophies ?

Edited April 23, 2019 by HOGIE838IRE

[Wolf_D_Flame]

For most games I would say it's not a waste of time. Trophy hunting is a plus for a lot of players to explore a lot more of what the game has to offer, that most of us wouldn't normally explore, or doing re-run on different dificulties appreciating new things in every run.

 

Obviously if you loved a specific game you probably would do it withouh trophies, but for all those other games that ain't the one trophy hunting gave them a bit more of life.

 

I think the controversy would be on the ones that are just grind and grind and grind without providing anything new, those that even if played regularly the game can take ages to archieve ( and even if you just do the fastest grind method it still takes forever), one example of this point would be Dragon Ball FighterZ trophy of adquiring 20Million Zennies that by the time you more or less complete everything else the game has (story on both difficulties, arcades, the PvP trophies) you probably would be sitting between 2-3 Millions Zennies, and unless you think it's the best fighting game and just play that one game, you gonna be grinding a lot of hours for that simply platinum, I think this kind of game where the discussion should be more focus since the line can be seen more clearly between just grinding for something or taking your journey enjoying a game and having a platium as a symbolic reward, since usually most adventure, action games the platinum is either completing things at 100% or doing most of what it has to offer.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Wolf_D_Flame

[Baka_Marimo]

Well, I've been doing my own ironing and washing up for ages now and didn't get a single trophy for it. I need someone to tell me how awesome I am okay? ?‍♂️

[DF007gamer]

On 3/17/2019 at 1:12 PM, patrickogorman19 said:

I feel that grinding 100 hours grinding trophies sometimes feel like a waste of time.But you gonna earn that ultra rare platnium.

 

Sometimes I do feel like it's  a waste of time but then I think...... Binge watching series, visiting family when your mind is someone else, long walks on the beach(which nobody does), stamp collecting, drinking at a bar with fake friends until 4am, sitting on social media till the wee hours of the morning, gossiping with other people, listening to my wife's shit is all a waste of time.

 

So my point is if you not enjoying it then it's a waste of time but if you are then it's not. 

[RedRozeReaper]

If you are having fun goin' after em, I don't see why it would be a waste of time.
But if you are just trying to platinum a game you don't care about/not have fun with, that could be a waste of time in my opinion. 

[twothumbedfist]

I think I'm in a good place with trophy hunting, I'm quite happy to drop a game if I'm not enjoying it. I recently dropped Sekiro at the final boss because of the stress it was causing me, which was heartbreaking because I have every Souls plat, but even if I did beat the final boss, going into Ng+ and going through the same shit several more times to get the plat just wouldn't have been fun to me. If I start persisting with games I don't enjoy or buying the same game multiple times for stacks, I'd probably have to seek help.

[Solid-Fisch]

Someone once said to me: "Actually trophies are nothing more than little polygons that pop up in the corner of your screen."

In a physical way that is 100% correct. Which means trophy hunters are polygon hunters. But there is more to this as we all now.
 

When I started playing PS3 I didn't care at all about trophies for a year or so. Then a friend asked me why I don't collect them and I answered that I don't gain anything from that. He said something like yeah but you could at least collect those of your favorite games. Also helps you to find out things about these games you didn't knew yet. After a while I thought I should give this a try and did the platinum on one of my favorite games: Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater. That was on January 21, 2014. For this I had to complete the game about 4 or 5 times to get all trophies. And... he was right! I did found out quite a few things about the game I never knew, like the 3 snakes that can be collected at the final fight for example. But thats just one example. In this case this game had quite a few hidden things that made my discoveries very enjoyable. I even remember finishing the campaign on one day twice. My second platinum was Grand Theft Auto V a few weeks later. From that point on, I decided to collect all the trophies in the games I play. Or at least try to. Over the years I think I made quite a good progression. I'm now at 99 Platinum and my #100 shall be Red Dead Redemption 2, I'm so deeply in love with this masterpiece! In first place I still play the games I like. I use to look up for trophies guides and especially hidden trophies, besides that I always start my first run through a game blind, for the experience you know. I don't mind taking time. It's still about the fun in first place and that will never change. I might have a few simple games in my list but basically I will never play a game just because I could collect trophies fast and simple. I know quite a few guys who do that. I will never understand their motivation behind that. Being trophy-level 100+ but playing tons of shit games... that means nothing to me. There is no competition to me except that I'm my own enemy. Thats why I care way more about completion than the level. Having that said one might say "yeah but you've got hidden games in your list". Thats true, it's 2 games actually: Fifa 12 and NBA Prelude 2017. The first game had it's servers almost shut down when I played it and the DLC already wasn't available anymore, second one had the servers shut down 4 thats before I found out about the game and there was no single information about closed servers. So I decided to hide those 2 because I can't 100% them anymore. I think some of us have similar experiences.

Now is trophy hunting a waste of time? Yes. But let me ask you - wan't isn't? You can waste your lifetime on traveling, family, sports, other hobbies and so one. In the end we'll all die anyway. But way more important is how you live your life. You should enjoy it. I enjoy myself with collecting trophies and playing games as much as I enjoy other things like music, women or nature. I don't think there is a right or wrong into anything in this life at all. Just let's have fun. Nothing means anything at all.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Solid-Fisch

[g-bake_1986]

Trophies are a waste of time, as is gaming itself. All hobbies are, that's one of reasons we have them.

As long as you're doing something that makes you happy, that's all that matters.

[fbdbh]

I'm a bit conflicted, because with my clear, conscious mind I can see the exact moments in my gaming sessions when I stop enjoying a game and become addicted by the notion that "I need to complete it", which is of course indicated by the platinum.

 

There comes a point when I derive no more pleasure from the game, and it becomes something that I do just for the sake of doing. And I try to argue that there are worse ways I could spend my time, but then the opposite is true as well, I could do more meaningful things, I could enjoy more games just for their much-MUCH briefer intervals of story.

 

Trophies are not here to reward the players, nor to indicate skill, because there are lots of games that de-value trophies. Trophies and achievements are, to an extent, a malevolent attempt to exploit our attention span and the reaction of our nervous system to dopamine. The only good thing I can attribute to trophies is how they structure a game into chunks that you can understand even when you've been away from a game for a while, and how they keep (and provide evidence of) your progress even if you lose your save files and the games themselves.

 

Once upon a time I have defended my trophy hunting habits and I could argue for trophies brilliantly, but I can't help but feel that all drug addicts can reason pretty well to justify their self-destructive habits. So now I'm in a constant state of debate with myself while grinding out mindless JRPGs. 

[robiemuze]

even if u enjoy it it is a waste of time, you could be doing something that is actually beneficial for your life yet you're still in the same place but with few hundred day less left till death.

[RunItsAShark]

Interesting question. For me, it's not a waste of time, and no one could convince me that it is, because it's something I enjoy doing. I think the term 'waste of time' is all dependent on an individual person. For me: religion, politics, sports, raising a family, helping the environment, etc, would all be a waste of time because I don't care about any of those things, but I can see that for other people they wouldn't be a waste of time. But I never tell people who do those things that it's a waste of time because it's their life .

[BigDogRule]

Totally is, unless we talk about useful games like rocksmith or active games like beat saber.

[PFinchen]

The degree to which any activity is a waste of time hinges upon the meaning you attach to your life, your own brands of religion or existentialism or whatever. If you believe we are blades of grass cast into an uncaring wind, enjoy the hedonistic pleasures you’re presented with during your short time on this small rock. Trophies have as much (or little) meaning as anything else. If you’re worried about how you will be perceived when you enter the afterlife, or if you think there’s some inherit meaning beyond humans being meat with eyes, it’s probably considered a waste. You probably don’t want to waltz up to the pearly gates and tell them you played “My Name is Mayo”. 

[DragovianLord89]

Obviously but I don't buy a lot of games, so I play only a few of games per years and I like catch the platinum

[Valkirye22]

On 3/17/2019 at 1:10 PM, grifteskymfning said:

It's either that or slowly rocking back and forth on the couch with a spoonful of mushy peas in each armpit.

 

Therefore I chose trophy hunting.

Topic completely aside, that is the most brilliant profile signature text I've ever seen on this site and beyond hahahaha

[Keyser Soze]

video gaming is a hobby IMO, and most hobbies are a waste of time, if you are enjoying yourself, who cares?

[AJ_Radio]

9 hours ago, fbdbh said:

I'm a bit conflicted, because with my clear, conscious mind I can see the exact moments in my gaming sessions when I stop enjoying a game and become addicted by the notion that "I need to complete it", which is of course indicated by the platinum.

 

There comes a point when I derive no more pleasure from the game, and it becomes something that I do just for the sake of doing. And I try to argue that there are worse ways I could spend my time, but then the opposite is true as well, I could do more meaningful things, I could enjoy more games just for their much-MUCH briefer intervals of story.

 

Trophies are not here to reward the players, nor to indicate skill, because there are lots of games that de-value trophies. Trophies and achievements are, to an extent, a malevolent attempt to exploit our attention span and the reaction of our nervous system to dopamine. The only good thing I can attribute to trophies is how they structure a game into chunks that you can understand even when you've been away from a game for a while, and how they keep (and provide evidence of) your progress even if you lose your save files and the games themselves.

 

Once upon a time I have defended my trophy hunting habits and I could argue for trophies brilliantly, but I can't help but feel that all drug addicts can reason pretty well to justify their self-destructive habits. So now I'm in a constant state of debate with myself while grinding out mindless JRPGs. 

 

If you're around my age group as I think you are, then you know full well that our generation was basically raised on video games.

 

If it's not video games, then it was our obsession with MySpace and social media as we were growing up. Our usage of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and all these other social media outlets define who we are.

 

That's basically anything. I could suggest to most of you who spend a lot of time here to devote your free time more towards athletics and sports. I'm reaching a point in my life where I don't care as much about video games anymore as I used to, and I'm at the age where keeping in shape, eating the right foods and exercise becomes ever more important. I could get away with eating junk food, playing 5 - 8 hours every day, sit on a couch the entire time and not have to work a job when I was 16. Not today.

 

Trophies have been and always have been the icing of the cake. I will judge a game by it's gameplay well before I judge it for it's trophies. I don't think trophies were devaluing games in the 360/PS3 days, they were just a nice bonus you could get for playing a game that you decided to invest your time into. The more difficult games out there can serve as a stepping stone and a learning block. They present a challenge for you to overcome, but I also know that's not everybody's preference. Some just want to play more easier games than others.

 

The "attention span" argument is basically derived from our obsession with social media and the internet in general. Our attention spans are getting shorter because of things like Twitter and other media outlets. Smartphones are a primary cause of this.

 

For my parents generation it was drugs and alcohol. For my generation it's holding onto that like on Instagram, checking up on our friends Twitter feeds constantly, and grinding out MMORPGs and JRPGs for the sake of satisfying our Asperger's Syndrome.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Spaz

[UndeadBerserker7]

Honestly I decided to come on here after a few months or so just to see if their was a thread related to this.

 

I was thinking the same thing and wanted to ask as well.

 

I used to really enjoy starting up a game grinding to get me some trophies but now alot of the time it feels like a hassle.

 

I'm more or less tempted these times mostly since I went from a 75%+ completion rating but now under 55% most times I dont even enjoy the games as much since it's in the back of my mind it's my main focus of playing.

 

So I decided to disable notifications on them but the itch is still there alot of the time.

 

I even now have alot of games I have that I want to play but am hesitant mostly because I dont want my percentage to go any lower than it already is.

 

Sorry that this is so long winded and hopefully is still relatable response for the thread.

Edited April 24, 2019 by UndeadBerserker7