The Proposal to Fixing the Platinum Trophy: The Ribbon System

[VoidVictory]

8 minutes ago, majob said:

Xbox does have regional stacks, same as the Playstation, though I don't know how often it's exploited compared to how Ratalaika does with PSN. My point is that we have people here bemoaning these games and how they've affected the platform when they exist elsewhere and those communities don't seem to remotely be as bothered by it as the community here. There's differences to be sure but at the end of the day  both platforms operate very much the same way.

Cuphead has in game achievements so are you confusing that with an actual network system?

I was aware they were in game, but it was Microsoft’s idea to implement it. I believe the list is straight from the Xbox one version.

[JeromeSpree]

2 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

Ah, but that's part of the problem too. Most easy games have a higher amounts of Gold and Silver trophies so using a multiplier only increases the value of these types of games. Not to mention, there are bronze trophies like Bloodlust from FFIX that takes hours to complete and clearly should have been a gold trophy. Furthermore, that 240 points will probably take 150 hours to do unless it's a skill-based game and you're awesome at it. In 240 hours, you could literally platinum every Ratalaika game and earn several other platinums on top of that.

 

The system doesn't value the time and effort you put into it which is why the current system in place just shows similar people at the top.

 

I like the idea of common trophies being worth zero points that others have mentioned, but I'm not sure how much that would change the leaderboard.

 

Anyways, I'm not here to shoot down your ideas, belittle them, or anything like that so don't think that I am. I'm just presenting the cons of the system and why Sly is trying to revamp it to make it more interesting before having it go live.

 

No problem really, at least the discussion is interesting because we can catch a glimpse of another point of view from another angle.

I edited my previous post to add something while you were typing yours by the way.

 

And about Rataltaka or something, I just heard of it to be honest, I know nothing about it but I guess it is like Hannah Montana or the game with a jar of mayonnaise (I do not remember its name sorry) or others so since I play games I might enjoy just to play even before thinking about trophies I do not feel really concerned about it but it seems it is becoming quite a problem since I see this game's name come around pretty often right now (and I am also getting closer to its right spelling at the same time...).

[HOGIE838EIRE]

I really like this idea. I misread the question though, is there any way to change my vote?

[djb5f]

On 6/8/2019 at 9:40 AM, JeromeSpree said:

 

This is exactly what I thought would be implemented in the first place as a rarity leaderboard.

Plus the calculation would be easy because based on the rarity type of trophies and their average.

 

Common : rarity up to 100% = 1 point per trophy.

Uncommon : rarity up to 50% (half the commons so twice the amount of points) = 2 points per trophy.

Rare : rarity up to 20% (2,5 times rarer than uncommons so multiplied by 2,5) = 5 points per trophy.

Very rare : rarity up to 10% (2 times rarer than rares so multiplied by 2) = 10 points per trophy.

Ultra rare : rarity up to 5% (same as above) = 20 points per trophy.

 

The leaderboard would then just show the total points.

 

Talking about ribbons I think it would be too much to display in the main banner especially for people like me who changed their IDs since we already have an additional (and very disturbing) icon showing our former ID.

 

 

Anyway, just in case I voted for 50% because it is a very significant number showing if the majority popped the trophy or not.

I am not very surprised 75% tops the poll though as most do not want to get a big gap between these ribbons and their number of platinums.

 

EDIT : still about ribbons, since they deal with platinum trophies, I think just a stat of their average rarity should be implemented instead of the ribbon system.

 

Needs to be a super ultra rare for under 1% similar how psntrophyleaders does it.

[Nostalgy_Flow]

I hope 100% games will be included in the new Ribbon system, at least in the Rarity one. There are 100% very hard which require so much effort, it's a shame to see them excluded, once again. Most people don't even consider them at the moment, if they weren't included it would be even worse.

 

On my profile I have 121 games in total, 46 of which are 100%, and most are ultra rare.

[BlindMango]

1 hour ago, HOGIE838IRE said:

I really like this idea. I misread the question though, is there any way to change my vote?

 

I'll make a part 2 post sometime after E3 with a few new polls including this one again  

[ArmoredSnowman]

On 6/6/2019 at 8:52 PM, BlindMango said:

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!

 

Hmm, what if you gotten a ribbon of effort, but the game eventually goes to 76+% rarity afterwards (say for a PS+ game or discount sales)?

[BlindMango]

1 minute ago, ArmoredSnowman said:

Hmm, what if you gotten a ribbon of effort, but the game eventually goes to 76+% rarity afterwards (say for a PS+ game or discount sales)?

 

You can lose or gain ribbons based on situations like that. Another example I gave earlier is for the Ribbons of Rarity you can gain one every so often simply for a platinum getting rare enough to reach ultra rare status

[HOGIE838EIRE]

I really like this idea. I think it will motivate people (on this site anyway) to want to go for rarer plats and complete tougher games. Personally I hate profiles that stack games and that play a lot of shit just to climb the leaderboard quicker. That's just my opinion though, don't yell at me! Perhaps it's my OCD ?

[pinkrobot_pb]

I went ahead and wrote a script that keeps track of my own ribbons. The result is in my sig. It could look better, but I was too lazy yesterday to search for and load the correct font into my script.

 

Edit: The effort ribbon is based on the 75% threshold to make it look half decent for my own plat collection of course.

Edited June 10, 2019 by pinkrobot_pb

[AJ_Radio]

On 6/7/2019 at 0:21 PM, Sergen said:

I like the ideas, especially for rarity. Plenty of people I know will hunt ultra rare trophies but avoid those that have less than 10 ultra rare trophies on a platinum list, the ribbons to indicate ultra rare platinums will give people more incentive without caring too much about the number of ultra rare trophies on the entire list. I feel like maybe 50-60% is a better cut off point for the "ribbon of effort", because 75% in my opinion is still quite high and allows for plenty of the easiest games on PSN from the past to be given recognition like Hannah Montana, but I guess the effort there was humiliating themselves with a kids game designed for girls. I saw people ask about fastest achiever and first achiever ribbons, maybe a ribbon wouldn't be the best way to go about indicating those things, instead the "S" rank on a person's list could maybe be possible to hover your cursor over, then when you hover over it, it could say "#1 Fastest Achiever, #1 First Achiever" similar to how trophy level can be hovered over with the cursor to give additional info. It's up to the person if they want to pay attention to these stats, but people who go out of their way to earn trophies should be getting some recognition.

 

There are a LOT of PSN games that have low rarity not necessarily because they’re long or difficult but because most people didn’t get past the first 30 - 60 minutes. 

 

If you do some research there are plenty of games with very low percentages that probably aren’t that difficult. But they’re generally niche and indie titles, so unless you have a specific interest in these games they’re probably not worth going after.

 

Personally I don’t think you really hunt for games with low rarity unless your trophy rarity average is below 40 percent. I’m currently around 46.30 percent rarity and that’s considering the fact that I have a lot of easy games, including the six Sound Shapes stacks I did two years ago. People who are above 50 percent generally have a lot of easy stuff.

 

But I have also found accounts where people casually play games, get all the easy trophies and move on, not bothering with the harder stuff. 

 

Most of your rare trophies come from your fighting games that you stacked and online heavy games such as The Chronicles of Riddick. I don’t typically hunt for games with ultra rare trophies but I have put more focus on games that I feel are better worth my time rather than just something I can finish in one hour because it has an easy platinum. I don’t find that stuff to be fun. If anything that’s only stuff I’m going to feel relaxed with after I’ve done a rather difficult game. 

 

I don’t think too many people care about a possible Ribbon System. But if this gets proposed then it needs to be set to BELOW 50 percent. Anything above that is too high and I think you’ve played a lot of easy stuff. Having it below 40 percent would be a much better option.

 

Anybody can stack Ratalalika Games and get 10 - 50 platinums in a matter of weeks. Why should they be rewarded the ribbon? 

[DrEvilGuapo]

I like the idea, but would suggest one minor change that would provide credit for non-platinum games. 

 

I would suggest awarding the ribbon of rarity for games that are 100% complete or where a platinum has been earned where the rarest trophy obtained is ultra rare. This essentially counts the rarest trophy in a 100% game as the platinum for the purpose of the ribbon. 

[The Devils Reaper]

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

Anybody can stack Ratalalika Games and get 10 - 50 platinums in a matter of weeks. Why should they be rewarded the ribbon? 

 

They wouldn't be awarded a ribbon..

 

What i also like about this system is that it'll spice up the "EZ plats are beneath me" debate..

 

Could you imagine being the one preaching that nonsense only to have an "Unskilled EZ trash plat gamer" have double, triple or even quadruple the Rarity Ribbons than you? ?

 

[AJ_Radio]

Just now, Demon--Prototype said:

 

They wouldn't be awarded a ribbon..

 

What i also like about this system is that it'll spice up the "EZ plats are beneath me" debate..

 

Could you imagine being the one preaching that nonsense only to have an "Unskilled EZ trash plat gamer" have double, triple or even quadruple the Rarity Ribbons than you? 

 

 

I don’t care about these ribbons that much particularly because it’s more bragging rights than anything else. 

 

I feel that awards of this sort should be earned and not handed out like candy.

 

If you set them to where someone with a high trophy average rarity can go after them, then that just encourages people to finish and stack some of the worst “trophy whore games” out there. There wouldn’t be a point. 

 

Should this be implemented then I think there should be different types of feats/awards. Steam has some badge of honors. PST.org has their own badges that aren’t just handed out for the hell of it. 

 

A number of people who have joined this website back in October of 2011 don’t even have a little badge to show for it. Like having 1000+ posts to your name like PST.org has for those who have over 1000 posts on their forum account.

[MrTriesHisBest]

2 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

There are a LOT of PSN games that have low rarity not necessarily because they’re long or difficult but because most people didn’t get past the first 30 - 60 minutes. 

 

If you do some research there are plenty of games with very low percentages that probably aren’t that difficult. But they’re generally niche and indie titles, so unless you have a specific interest in these games they’re probably not worth going after.

 

Personally I don’t think you really hunt for games with low rarity unless your trophy rarity average is below 40 percent. I’m currently around 46.30 percent rarity and that’s considering the fact that I have a lot of easy games, including the six Sound Shapes stacks I did two years ago. People who are above 50 percent generally have a lot of easy stuff.

 

But I have also found accounts where people casually play games, get all the easy trophies and move on, not bothering with the harder stuff. 

 

Most of your rare trophies come from your fighting games that you stacked and online heavy games such as The Chronicles of Riddick. I don’t typically hunt for games with ultra rare trophies but I have put more focus on games that I feel are better worth my time rather than just something I can finish in one hour because it has an easy platinum. I don’t find that stuff to be fun. If anything that’s only stuff I’m going to feel relaxed with after I’ve done a rather difficult game. 

 

I don’t think too many people care about a possible Ribbon System. But if this gets proposed then it needs to be set to BELOW 50 percent. Anything above that is too high and I think you’ve played a lot of easy stuff. Having it below 40 percent would be a much better option.

 

Anybody can stack Ratalalika Games and get 10 - 50 platinums in a matter of weeks. Why should they be rewarded the ribbon? 

tl;dr gimme ribbons

7 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

I don’t care about these ribbons that much particularly because it’s more bragging rights than anything else. 

 

I feel that awards of this sort should be earned and not handed out like candy.

 

If you set them to where someone with a high trophy average rarity can go after them, then that just encourages people to finish and stack some of the worst “trophy whore games” out there. There wouldn’t be a point. 

 

Should this be implemented then I think there should be different types of feats/awards. Steam has some badge of honors. PST.org has their own badges that aren’t just handed out for the hell of it. 

 

A number of people who have joined this website back in October of 2011 don’t even have a little badge to show for it. Like having 1000+ posts to your name like PST.org has for those who have over 1000 posts on their forum account.

you want ribbons AND badges?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!??!1 too much for 1 site man >:( 

[Falvaire]

This 'feature' is unnecessary, but then again, so are trophies.  Manipulate your perceptions as you will.

[AJ_Radio]

31 minutes ago, Shuklar said:

This 'feature' is unnecessary, but then again, so are trophies.  Manipulate your perceptions as you will.

 

So is gaming.

[damon8r351]

31 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

So is gaming.

 

No it's not. Ｖｉｄｅｏ ｇａｍｅｓ ａｒｅ ａｒｔ．Art that you can finger.

[ScooloV]

You can implement it as a test feature for premium users only. I mean changing something after it is already there is way easier than doing from scratch.

 

So just do something, you can always roll back like in case with rarity (or game series).

[fbdbh]

This vote is interesting, how people gravitate towards 50 and 75, with 75 winning over 50, but not winning against the overall "it should be lower than 75", so what's it going to be?

 

I support this, but not sure about the leaderboards with the multiplier, because that brings up a whole lot of mathematical issues, and they don't really address non-platinum games that are super hard to complete or just single trophies that are ultra rare.

 

However, a leaderboard where 75+% trophy lists are not counted (substracted from the score) regardless of their completion, might be better.

[MrTriesHisBest]

OOO LMAO I MISUNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO DO. 

 

As an avid Ratalaika fan, clearly I enjoy myself an easy platinum or   But the only reason I was against this initially was because I thought you were going to tamper with the recorded number of platinums themselves, which would in turn affect trophy levels and trophy count. If you're just placing ribbons to signify how many were UR and how many were 75%+, I don't know why people are so upset tbh

[S_y_n_e_IR_g_Y]

I would love to see this Feature!

[AJ_Radio]

Putting a Ribbon of Effort for up to 75 percent is just stupid in my opinion. Even if the games do take hours to finish. 

 

When a game has a platinum percentage that high that generally means it is extremely easy to finish. I’m not saying every game that is common is easy, but when most of anyone that trophy hunts here has plenty of platinums that are below 75 percent rarity than eventually those Ribbons of Effort become a dime a dozen. 

 

If you’re going to do that then you may as well throw in a highly coveted and prestigious Ribbon of Effort for stuff like Super Meat Boy. 

[eigen-space]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:42 AM, Kristycism said:

We already have the box on out profiles that shows our rarest trophies - why not create a kind of drop-down box which allows to quickly switch to rarest Plats on the fly, right on the profile page?

 

Was going to suggest something very similar to this. I think this is a great idea to get the exact information that the ribbons are intended to represent in a much more elegant fashion.

 

And I really would like to see something for those non-plat titles as well. They get too little love, and so many are fantastic.

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, eigen-space said:

And I really would like to see something for those non-plat titles as well. They get too little love, and so many are fantastic.

 

Sonic Mania being a good example.