The Proposal to Fixing the Platinum Trophy: The Ribbon System

[BlindMango]

Edit: The thread has now been locked - thanks for all of your feedback everyone! The main idea for this thread was to get out there how a system like this may work and get feedback from all of you about your thoughts on it. There were a lot of good recommendations and concerns about the system, and people seem seriously split on 50% or 75% for the ribbon of effort. So I'll be making a "Part 2" thread in the coming weeks with a few polls asking all of you more precise questions on how things should and shouldn't work, stay tuned! =D

 

- - -

 

Hello PSNProfiles!

 

Over the past year or two there has been a trend of game releases occurring which dump 6 - 8 repeated iterations of the same trophy lists for the same game, with all of those trophy lists offering platinum trophies which take mere minutes to get. This has rapidly sped up to a weekly occurrence which has affected the once grounded understanding of the trophy system - the trophy system is changing. Because of Sony's lack of quality control regarding the trophy system recently, which includes its list guidelines, list organization, and requirements (and no sign of them wanting to fix it in the future), a trophy list can now have a platinum trophy, all gold trophies, and no silver or bronze trophies which altogether take about 15 minutes to get. This raises an interesting question, how can we bring back the 'at a glance' usefulness the platinum trophy once had in a simple, yet effective and fun way?

 

Some will argue that a platinum trophy has always simply been a signifier that you've gotten all other trophies in a game, however what it has always functioned well as since the trophy system started over a decade ago is a fantastic 'at a glance' statistic which signifies time spent and something worth showing off, and even though some games took longer or are harder to get, pretty much every game took at least an set amount of effort. This is something that made the trophy system stand out above any other achievement system out there. Sadly, this is not the case anymore, and a lot of people have wondered how to 'fix' the platinum trophy.

 

So that started to raise the question, what should be done to restore an easy, at a glance stat showing that base level of effort? At first a rank system was drafted up which went up and down depending on the games you play and your profile grade would reflect that, but then realized that was too complicated, not easy to understand, and would ultimately punish people for not playing a particular way. So we went back to the drawing board and asked "what if there were a system that complements trophies and at the same time celebrates great effort?" We came up with two new awards that would be pinned to the top of your profile, one that awards general effort and another one that awards extraordinary effort too, and brings back what made platinum trophies a useful tool, so here's what it is and how it would work.

 

 

The Ribbon System

This is the Ribbon system, and what it would look like on a profile toolbar. Basically two new icons will be added, and both will be accompanied with their own set of numbers next to them.

 

 

So lets talk about what both of these ribbons would signify.

 

The Ribbon of Effort

 

 

The first ribbon would be called the Ribbon of Effort, and the rule for this one is quite simple. If you get a platinum trophy with a PSNProfiles rarity of 75% or rarer, then this ribbon is yours. Why 75%? This seems like the perfect cut-off point. We didn't set it to 50% because games like Spider-Man have a 50% rarity which still takes many hours to complete. Games like Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, and Life is Strange Before the Storm hover around 65% rarity, which also take a fair number of hours to finish. Then around 70% you'll still see games such as Hitman GO as well. When you get past 75% though, it's pretty consistent that you will find this - Games which take mere minutes to get a platinum trophy after this point.

 

Most importantly though, setting it at 75% should make it to where on nearly everyone's profile this ribbon count will not line up exactly with their platinum count (Most profiles should end up having 1 - 10 less Effort Ribbons than their platinum counts), and this is a good thing! Why's that? Well from the start you should never be dissuaded from playing a game every now and then that may have above a 75% completion rate, because while a game may have an unfortunately less-than-inspired list, it may actually be a good game! So starting most people off with a couple Effort Ribbons less than platinum trophies will prevent that fear.

 

There's another Ribbon we'd love to add too...

 

The Ribbon of Rarity

 

 

At first the Ribbon of Effort was the only ribbon that was intended to be added, but the thought arose - why not also recognize people who put immense effort into their profile who tirelessly hunt ultra rare platinum trophies? Enter a second ribbon, the Ribbon of Rarity. This is given to you when you earn a platinum trophy with a PSNProfiles rarity of 5% or lower (Ultra Rare). We currently don't display an at a glance award for when someone gets an ultra rare platinum, and honestly that is quite an accomplishment and should be shown proudly. For example, I never really realized I've earned 18 ultra rare platinum trophies on my profile, so a ribbon like this would display that proudly at the top of my profile. This would become an interesting new award, and people might even step up to the challenge of getting these when they may have never been persuaded to before. A platinum trophy would be one thing, but collecting these would be a true accomplishment.

 

Using Its Features

When you visit a profile and mouseover these ribbons, it can give a description on what they are and clicking on the ribbon of rarity will take you to the players filtered trophy cabinet showing all their ultra rare platinum trophies. A lot of people may have never been interested enough to go into another players trophy cabinet, and filter things to see if they had ultra rare platinums - but being able to click a ribbon at the top of the page and being sent there instantly? That would be really useful. So here's how the ribbon descriptions would look on mouseover:

 

 

 

Addressing Questions

A natural thing that may be explained is rarity does not equal effort. While true that they are not exactly equal, they do have a highly useful relation. There are a lot less people willing to go through the difficulty, skill, or time investment required to get a platinum trophy that's at 5% rarity compared to a platinum trophy with 95% rarity. There is a weighing of options, should effort be foregone to save time. The more time, difficulty, and skill a trophy requires, the less the vast majority of people are willing to go for it. That's the relation, and that's how effort generally complements rarity.

 

Another question that may be asked is will this system punish anyone for playing how they want? That's not what we're going for as we tried to assemble a system that did not reverse progress on the profile for getting a certain trophy, it simply adds an additional award for people who spend more time, skill, and investment in games. This is not a ranking system, it's a secondary awards system. This system can essentially be ignored by the player if they'd just like to for trophies, just like some people don't care about their completion percentage when they trophy hunt, and ignore that statistic.

 

Lastly the names Ribbon of Rarity and Ribbon of Effort clearly explain what they signify, however it's possible there are better names that could be used for these which do a far better job at easily and instantly explaining the ribbons.

 

Future Possibilities

There are some interesting pathways a system like this could add in the future that would open up even more possibilities:

• Remember that rarity leaderboard that was never implemented because Sly didn't like the formula? Well what if the leaderboard was just based off the number of Ribbons of Rarity (5% ribbons) people had? Or alternatively had multipliers based on both ribbons (Like Effort ribbons having a 1x multiplier and Rarity ribbons having a 25x multiplier). That would be a really interesting leaderboard to look at, and would push brand new people you've never known about to the top that were maybe never noticed before. Get this, there are actually 1,500 ultra rare platinum trophies out there (discounting the ones with a 0% earned rate)! So there are a ton of opportunities for people on a rarity leaderboard like that.
• Another opportunity is when Sly launches the series system in the year 2047 (lol) we could end up adding a third ribbon counting the number of series people cleared all stages in. Things similar to that.
• As described above, we could do something like allowing clicking on the ribbon of rarity which will instantly take you to the players filtered trophy cabinet showing all their ultra rare platinum trophies.

 

Let Us Know!

We want to put this out there and see what you all think about it? This simple system could add a lot of exciting opportunities to the 'metagame' of trophies that we've all known and love for the past decade - let us know your feedback!

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by BlindMango

[DaivRules]

How would these be affected by flagged games?

[Kittet3]

I mean, I like it, but not on the toolbar. The toolbar is currently showing all the numbers that come directly from Sony and it feels a bit wrong to start making up stats (I say that in the nicest way) and putting them there as well. Maybe put it next to the hidden/premium icons?

[BlindMango]

5 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

How would these be affected by flagged games?

 

That's a good question, you'd obviously be taken off the leaderboards (and rarity leaderboards if those get implemented), however trophies don't get removed if someone is taken off the boards, so these wouldn't necessarily need to be deleted either - they're basically just a counter for platinum trophies based off rarity. I wouldn't overthink these too much regarding cheating, especially if someone is taken off the boards for getting flagged they won't be able to be compared with anyone that is on the boards based off their ribbons.

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by BlindMango

[snakebit10]

When can we expect to see the ribbons on our page?

 

Will the ribbons take 100% games into count or will the system just be for games with platinums?

[Beyondthegrave07]

Is there a way we could do this for fastest achievers too (top 50)? I think that would be badass.

[Sofa King]

I do like the idea and agree with @Kittet3 on the placement of the ribbons. I assume these would self adjust over time with fluctuating rarities?

[BlindMango]

11 minutes ago, Kittet3 said:

I mean, I like it, but not on the toolbar. The toolbar is currently showing all the numbers that come directly from Sony and it feels a bit wrong to start making up stats (I say that in the nicest way) and putting them there as well. Maybe put it next to the hidden/premium icons?

 

That's a possibility, however it may look better at the top, maybe we could put a vertical line between them and the trophy stats  R R  |  T T T T

 

We also want people to directly compare it to platinum trophy count, and be as close to the platinum trophies as possible and similar in size & format.

 

9 minutes ago, snakebit10 said:

When can we expect to see the ribbons on our page?

 

Will the ribbons take 100% games into count or will the system just be for games with platinums?

 

If people like it Sly can start working on it, and it would only count games with platinum trophies

 

9 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

Is there a way we could do this for fastest achievers too (top 50)? I think that would be badass.

 

Hey that's a good idea! As least something to be considered - I wonder if that's possible since those stats are apparently counted on the fly.

 

7 minutes ago, Sofa King said:

I assume these would self adjust over time with fluctuating rarities?

 

That's correct! That would add some challenge and also add some unexpected positives sometimes - I've had a few lists on my profile reach ultra rare status out of the blue after having the platinum for years, so that means the ribbon count would have gone up.

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by BlindMango

[XLordXNightmareX]

I stand for this! I think it is a great idea tbh

[Smashero]

Almost totally OT: may I ask why Mr. "Username" is actually from Poland? ;). Good choice ;).

 

Back on track: I like the idea, sounds and looks interesting!

Edited June 7, 2019 by Smashero

[TurtlePM]

I gotta say I really like this new feature  although, it’s never enough to propose the 75% trophies on the profile as a new “rarity”, so we could check all “very common” trophies acquired. That 50% common trophies number is increasing, even for ultrarare platinums  

[BlindMango]

2 minutes ago, Smashero said:

Almost totally OT: may I ask why Mr. "Username" is actually from Poland? ;). Good choice ;).

 

Back on track: I like the idea, sounds and looks interesting!

 

I basically found a user with good enough stats with a banner image for a recent game I wanted to use and photoshopped away, it so happened he was from Poland  

[MandA60VISE]

I like the idea, maybe also include a stat somewhere that shows the percentage for each ribbon compared to total plats or let people decide if they want a total number displayed or a percent by the ribbon.

[BlazzingWind]

I like this idea and support its implementation.

 

But I don't think a separate leader board should be used. This seems more beneficial to a quick check report, than an actual leader board. 

[Baldy_Buoy]

I like this idea

[Kittet3]

 

 

1

9 minutes ago, BlindMango said:

 

That's a possibility, however it may look better at the top, maybe we could put a vertical line between them and the trophy stats  R R  |  T T T T

 

We also want people to directly compare it to platinum trophy count, and be as close to the platinum trophies as possible and similar in size & format.

 

 

If people like it Sly can start working on it, and it would only count games with platinum trophies

Hmmm, maybe a vertical line would help. It still seems like a weird dynamic between Sony numbers and our numbers.

 

Also, why wouldn't 100% games be counted? If the point of the ribbon to show off the effort of trophies instead of sheer number and restore the emphasize on completing really hard games, then there is definitely some non-platinum games that need some recognition as well. 

[TheYuriG]

I think the Ribbon of Effort should be changed to 50%. Not doing that low because of games like Spiderman just makes me thing it's meant to indicate exclusively the EZPZ. Spiderman isn't hard, it's okay that over half of its player got the plat. It's a good game, people don't want to stop playing it.

 

High percentage just means that, a lot of people will play to the finish, as much as low percentage means most people won't play to the finish.

 

In the end, this is still going to be a bandage fix to the broken trophy system and the leaderboards will still prioritize EZPZ above everything else, so those icons will continue to only be just indicative icons and nothing else. I would honestly rather have an effort put into different leaderboards, like rarity or non-stacking per example, but that's possibly just me.

[BlindMango]

Just now, Kittet3 said:

Hmmm, maybe a vertical line would help. It still seems like a weird dynamic between Sony numbers and our numbers.

 

Also, why wouldn't 100% games be counted? If the point of the ribbon to show off the effort of trophies instead of sheer number and restore the emphasize on completing really hard games, then there is definitely some non-platinum games that need some recognition as well. 

 

The reason is because they have to equate to platinum trophies, otherwise you'd have situations where people will have people with more ribbons of effort than platinum trophies, which would defeat the purpose of what they signify and ultimately end up being confusing. But heck, there could eventually be another ribbon for non-platinum games - who knows 

[Property_Damage]

You got my vote @BlindMango

Maybe add a ribbon for 1st in the world achievers

or top 10 in the world, i know i got a couple of those in my collection

[XLordXNightmareX]

1 minute ago, TheYuriG said:

I think the Ribbon of Effort should be changed to 50%. Not doing that low because of games like Spiderman just makes me thing it's meant to indicate exclusively the EZPZ. Spiderman isn't hard, it's okay that over half of its player got the plat. It's a good game, people don't want to stop playing it.

 

High percentage just means that, a lot of people will play to the finish, as much as low percentage means most people won't play to the finish.

 

In the end, this is still going to be a bandage fix to the broken trophy system and the leaderboards will still prioritize EZPZ above everything else, so those icons will continue to only be just indicative icons and nothing else. I would honestly rather have an effort put into different leaderboards, like rarity or non-stacking per example, but that's possibly just me.

My exact thoughts on changing it to 50% because 75% is a tad too much imho.

[BlindMango]

1 minute ago, Property_Damage said:

Maybe add a ribbon for 1st in the world achievers or top 10 in the world, i know i got a couple of those in my collection

 

Someone else mentioned that above and I personally love that idea, but I understand those stats are generated on the fly when loading the page, so I'm not certain if Sly would be able to do it or not =/

[mekktor]

I do like what this is trying to do, bringing more value to games that require more effort and all, but my first reaction to the Ribbon of Effort in particular is that I'm not a fan of having this number prominently displayed which will discourage players from playing certain games that don't meet an arbitrarily chosen 75% rarity standard. I, for example, don't have any of these above 75% rarity games yet and I really don't want any more external pressures like this influencing which games I play. Sure you could say that an 80% platinum wouldn't reduce my effort score, or that it's up to me whether I even care about it, but that's just ignoring the reality of the situation. 

 

I also don't like these hard cutoffs that suggest that a 74.9% rarity game is worth full value but a 75.1% game is worth nothing at all. I would always prefer a system that is more continuous than that, reflecting the actual value of each platinum trophy.

 

I'm curious if each player's ribbons would be based on the rarities as they are constantly changing or would it be taken from when you earn the platinum?

[ResoluteRock]

I 100% stand for this. The ribbons look great and I think it would be a nice way of showing which profiles are filled with a bunch of EZPZ plats.

 

Adding even more ribbon ideas would be cool as well, but it would start to get cramped on the top bar of the profile.

[sepheroithisgod]

This is a wonderful addition to the website. I'm so impressed I'm upgrading to premium. Thank you for your hard work.

[Undead Wolf]

I'm very much in favour of this idea and I think it sounds great for the most part. Given recent trends, it's nice to be able to tell what kind of trophy hunter someone is at a glance. I like that it highlights people who put in the effort and obtain ultra rare platinums. I think the ribbons looks totally fine at the top of the profile.

 

Personally, I take issue with the blue ribbon being called "The Ribbon of Effort" considering how plats with 75% rarity or higher don't take much effort at all to obtain. I think "The Ribbon of Participation" or something like that reflects reality better without attacking their choices too much.  Also, I think the requirement for one of these ribbons should be lowered to 70% even if it risks some good games getting caught in the crossfire. 75% just seems too high.

 

EDIT: Scratch that last part. I misunderstood the blue ribbon requirements. The name sounds fine and I think the rarity requirement should be lowered to either 50% or 60%.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Undead Wolf