5 Ways that Sony could improve the PlayStation Trophy System

[TheDblTap]

My friend and I have been debating this a lot lately given that we're on the cusp of PlayStation 5 announcements and it would be interesting to see how the trophy system might improve with the new system.

So, I put down my thoughts into a blog post and thought it might be of interest to you fine folks here: https://platget.com/ways-sony-could-improve-trophies/

 

I included some... okay mock-ups of how it might look/work but I'm no UI designer!

 

Thanks for stopping by if you did, and if you have any other ideas that you might like to have added (with credit) into a reader suggestions section then let me know below and I'd love to read through them! Even if you disagree with my own ideas.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: The post has been updated now to include a "Reader Suggestions" section, compiling some of the best suggestions we got from other users. Those responsible for influencing these additions have been added as a credit, but if you'd like your username to be removed then please let me know and I will do so. Thanks all!

Edited May 17, 2020 by TheDblTap
update & clarification

[CrimsonMercury]

32 minutes ago, TheDblTap said:

My friend and I have been debating this a lot lately given that we're on the cusp of PlayStation 5 announcements and it would be interesting to see how the trophy system might improve with the new system.

So, I put down my thoughts into a blog post and thought it might be of interest to you fine folks here: https://platget.com/ways-sony-could-improve-trophies/

 

I included some... okay mock-ups of how it might look/work but I'm no UI designer!

 

Thanks for stopping by if you did, and if you have any other ideas that you might like to have added (with credit) into a reader suggestions section then let me know below and I'd love to read through them! Even if you disagree with my own ideas.

 

Thanks!

Some excellent ideas here, but the only feature I really want added is the ability to track trophy progress. I'll be happy with that.

Edited May 17, 2020 by CrimsonMercury

[Rias Gremory]

If there is one thing people would want is to delete the trophies from there trophy list.

[CrimsonMercury]

42 minutes ago, UltraFire121 said:

If there is one thing people would want is to delete the trophies from there trophy list.

Then trophy hunting would become pointless and everyone would be walking around with 100% completion accounts.

Edited May 17, 2020 by CrimsonMercury

[fisty123]

7 minutes ago, UltraFire121 said:

If there is one thing people would want is to delete the trophies from there trophy list.

Being able to do this wreaks any milestone trophy system. Suck it up if you played a game you did not like or found to hard then just deal with it.

[Sikutai]

6 minutes ago, UltraFire121 said:

If there is one thing people would want is to delete the trophies from there trophy list.

 Then everybody would have a 100 % Profile.

 

23 minutes ago, TheDblTap said:

My friend and I have been debating this a lot lately given that we're on the cusp of PlayStation 5 announcements and it would be interesting to see how the trophy system might improve with the new system.

So, I put down my thoughts into a blog post and thought it might be of interest to you fine folks here: https://platget.com/ways-sony-could-improve-trophies/

 

 

Thanks for stopping by if you did, and if you have any other ideas that you might like to have added (with credit) into a reader suggestions section then let me know below and I'd love to read through them! Even if you disagree with my own ideas.

 

Thanks!

Sony could send me a shiny Real Life Platinum for every Platinum I earn.

[TheDblTap]

4 minutes ago, Sikutai said:

 Then everybody would have a 100 % Profile.

 

Sony could send me a shiny Real Life Platinum for every Platinum I earn.

Fully agree on that first point, it would be a bad idea.

As for those trophies, my god you have no idea how much I'd love that!

Not sure what I'd do with 157 physical platinum trophies though... Maybe like every 100 plats they could send something out, would be cool.

[Cassylvania]

I like #2 and #5. Not only are they nice for people who already collect trophies, but I think they would pull more people into the hobby. That's ultimately what I want to see with the PS5.

[Rias Gremory]

38 minutes ago, fisty123 said:

Being able to do this wreaks any milestone trophy system. Suck it up if you played a game you did not like or found to hard then just deal with it.

Yeah well, been there done that.

[Lizardbell]

The trophy progress would be good. 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Lizardbell

[WeissRat]

Trophy progress would be useful for me for sure. I hate that feeling of not knowing if the grinding i'm putting time into actually counts towards the trophy i want to achieve.

Besides that i don't really have anything else i'm strongly for/against. 

I do like the idea of people being awarded themes and avatars for platting games though, Adds further incentive for people to plat games and is a nice little surprise/reward for those that just enjoy the game and are not really investing time for the sake of trophies as well.  

[Juzota]

Best improvement would be removing the whole trophy system.

[TheDblTap]

2 minutes ago, Juzota said:

Best improvement would be removing the whole trophy system.

Out of curiosity, why do you say that?

[Juzota]

1 minute ago, TheDblTap said:

Out of curiosity, why do you say that?

 

Removing trophies would make me enjoy more of the games themselves, like I used to do. Trophy hunting was lots of fun at first, but now it feels more like a chore. That's one reason why I have been playing more on Xbox One lately. Never really cared about achievements, not sure why.

[You]

I'd like a whole new ranking system using the same existing trophy data.

 

Get rid of the trophy level system altogether and instead make it into a number for world ranking similar to how it is on this site, but next forgot all the unearned trophies and make a ranking system that rewards you for rarity, so it just counts all your rare and ultra trophies and ignores the rest.

 

This is of course means your level will fluctuate in real time as trophies rarity changes, but it means that getting 100% or platinum becomes not so important.

Quality not quantity.

Edited May 17, 2020 by enaysoft

[TheDblTap]

1 minute ago, enaysoft said:

I'd like a whole new ranking system using the same existing trophy data.

 

Get rid of the trophy level system altogether and instead make it into a number for world ranking similar to how it is on this site, but next forgot all the unearned trophies and make a ranking system that rewards you for rarity, so it just counts all your rare and ultra trophies and ignores the rest.

 

This is of course means your level will fluctuate in real time as trophies rarity changes, but it means that getting 100% or platinum becomes not so important.

Quality not quantity.

I don't know about such a drastic approach but there should definitely be some emphasis on quality trophies. There are an awful lot of people soaring through levels with thousands of bronze trophies and not a single platinum.

[You]

4 minutes ago, TheDblTap said:

I don't know about such a drastic approach but there should definitely be some emphasis on quality trophies. There are an awful lot of people soaring through levels with thousands of bronze trophies and not a single platinum.

 

I also forgot another one, get rid of percentages on games. like how many percent you have.

 

Yeah, a drastic approach but it has some good points

 

- People will probably less likely to buy easy stacks

- People won't mind buying games that have very difficult platinums or impossible platinums (no server anymore etc) when there is no consequence for not getting 100% or platinum

- People who have had a PSN for 10 years or 1 years, the impossible gap between them will seem less significant
 

BUt yeah like you said, 4 bronzes worth a gold, it is so much easier levelling up with bronzes, but if all those bronzes are super common then they just wouldn't be included in the total on my drastic system.

Edited May 17, 2020 by enaysoft

[dannyswfc9]

2 hours ago, TheDblTap said:

My friend and I have been debating this a lot lately given that we're on the cusp of PlayStation 5 announcements and it would be interesting to see how the trophy system might improve with the new system.

So, I put down my thoughts into a blog post and thought it might be of interest to you fine folks here: https://platget.com/ways-sony-could-improve-trophies/

 

I included some... okay mock-ups of how it might look/work but I'm no UI designer!

 

Thanks for stopping by if you did, and if you have any other ideas that you might like to have added (with credit) into a reader suggestions section then let me know below and I'd love to read through them! Even if you disagree with my own ideas.

 

Thanks!

Your first point you made is a good idea about a trophy hub.

 

Ive said it before but it would be brilliant to use the trophies you earned as your avatar. Even if you still had to pay a small fee so sony didnt lose money on the normal avatars

[TheDblTap]

2 minutes ago, dannyswfc9 said:

Your first point you made is a good idea about a trophy hub.

 

Ive said it before but it would be brilliant to use the trophies you earned as your avatar. Even if you still had to pay a small fee so sony didnt lose money on the normal avatars

A good way to avoid that would be if you could unlock avatars which were otherwise purchasable for bronze and silver trophies, but gold and platinum rewards were exclusive to those who bothered to put in the extra work.

[Exhuman1988]

I would like to see more options for trophy sorting. You can sort the trophies for particular games, but you can't sort the list of games. For example, if there is a new DLC you no longer have 100% completion on that game, it would be nice to sort the entire list and put all the games without 100% completion on top of your list, etc.

[harsly]

Quote

Built-in Progress Tracking

 

yes please ?

[dieselmanchild]

Yeee my boy back with another PlatGet article! Woohoo! 
 

I like your ideas, and think this is a great topic for discussion as it’s something I’ve often thought and posted about myself! Some basic improvements I’d like to see right off the bat would be:

 

• Level cap increase on your profile (so many people are maxed out at 100 now)
• Display of total trophy points somewhere on your profile, since this is the metric by which the leaderboards are organized
• Progress tracking, either in games or in the PS-button quick menu trophy tab
• Basic stats tracking on your profile showing your actual # of rares, ultra rares etc (based on PSN wide data rather than the PSNP trophy hunter pool)
• Like you I’d love a new “trophy hunter hub” sort of like the What’s New section on your XMB, a place where your information is shared amongst friends. Perhaps you could set it to automatically post your recent platinum screenshots etc.

And although this is much less realistic, I’d personally love to see Sony do a full overhaul of the trophy system guidelines and balance the system before it is too late. Right now there are too many effortless Ratalaika type games that take half an hour to platinum and can be stacked 6x over. It is my opinion that these games are destroying the integrity of this hobby, and eroding the value of a platinum trophy to the point where they’re rather worthless at face value.

 

Right now, every trophy (bronze, silver, gold) has a point value assigned to it. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it seems every game with a platinum trophy has to equal roughly 1100-1200 trophy points in total. But this means that long, full length games are chalk full of low value bronze trophies in order to allow for a fully fleshed out trophy list, whereas a joke garbage game is usually comprised of 10 quick golds with a trophy list designed to be completed within an hour or so. People who almost exclusively play those games ascend RAPIDLY up the leaderboards and see their trophy level inflate at a dizzying pace, which is rather silly IMO.

 

In my ideal vision of the trophy system, each game’s trophy list and point value would be a rough reflection of the actually quality, length, and difficulty of the game. For example, a 100+ hour RPG would have a platinum and a nice number of gold and silver trophies, and might be worth 3000 or 4000 points for example. In comparison, a Ratalaika or Word Powg game or whatever would ideally have no platinum and only consist of a handful of bronze trophies, maybe one or two silver etc. A game like that might be worth say, 500 points towards your profile.

 

Something like this would require a lot more oversight from Sony when it comes to reviewing and approving trophy lists for games, so it’s hard to see them doing this. So hell, I’d gladly settle for them simply cracking down on these types of companies by just removing platinums from these types of games, preventing them from exploiting the trophy system by releasing half a dozen versions of the same game.
 

Again, this is surely a pipe dream because Sony is no doubt reaping the financial benefits of this little exploit, but...WHAT IF the trophy system as a whole was to become a much more integral part of PlayStation and the Sony gaming brand? That alone is something I would really love to see! And in such a case, maybe Sony would actually find it a worthwhile cause to clean up the system. Maybe it could be worth it. A trophy hunter can dream at least. ?

 

Thanks for sharing your latest post man. Hope all is well!

Edited May 17, 2020 by dieselmanchild

[TheDblTap]

@dieselmanchild Ayy, here he is, our favourite guy! Haha

 

You make some really fantastic points there, mate, @MrZhangetsu seconds that sentiment too.

 

Sadly I just don't think our community is big enough yet for Sony to prioritise their efforts on such vast improvements to the trophy system. I think that some of my ideas and the other ideas which I've just added from reader suggestions would certainly help to motivate more people to get into trophy hunting and help to build out the community but at the moment, alas, I think you're right.

 

Perhaps in the coming years, we will get more of a spotlight as Sony free themselves up a bit more to hone in on sub-communities of the overall player base, but hopefully, they've taken the time to clean things up a little for the PS5 and we'll find out soon enough what's going to change.

 

As always, loving hearing from you my guy. I'm doing good, just been keeping busy and trying to improve the site and keep content coming. I hope you're doing good too man.

[shakie19]

Another 1 for adding trophy progress. 

 

And this may seem controversial, but removing trophy support for POWGI, Ratalaika, cheap games and region stacks.I prefer profiles that have "real games" on them, they make a mockery of gaming and i rate a gamer more on quality rather than quantity scale. 

 

I love my ps4 i do, but the quiet trophy pop sound really annoys me. The ps3 sound was perfect, loud enough to hear but not to put you off the game. Maybe put in a customisation option so those that don't want it don't have to have it. 

 

Most of all, better platinum trophy names, descriptions and unique platinum icons. For example, Wolverine origins ps3, the platinum image is shared with a bronze trophy in that game. a plat is meant to be the best you can achieve so give it the love it deserves!  Another example, the uncharted trilogy having the same name and description for each of the games, it's just lazy.

 

 

 

 

[MCH-MONOH7DRAT3]

Trophy sorting,alphabetical or manual . As for games with unobtainable trophies due to server shutdown, Sony or any developer should make last patch that unlocks those trophies

Edited May 17, 2020 by MCH-MONOH7DRAT3