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5 Ways that Sony could improve the PlayStation Trophy System


TheDblTap

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I like the ideas.

 

Regarding unobtainable trophies due to servers shutdown, maybe the devs can add optinal actions similar to Mass Effect games or they can add an offline mode with bots or local multiplayer. Local multiplayer would be the best choice I suppose.

 

Now, regarding a reward system, monetary prizes in the form of wallet fubds would be the best choice but that's unlikely.

 

The other choice I'd like is to earn a set number of platinums in 30 days to get a discount code, maybe 10 platinums for s 10% discount code, 20 plats for 25% discount, and 30 plats for 50% discount. To prevent people from abusing this, the max amount of codes per semester should be 3, one of each type of discount, and only one code should be given per month. Additionally, codes (at least 50% discount ones) should only be used on games that were released more than 12 to15 months before the discount code was  sent to your e-mail/and or on games or dlc that cost $19.99 or less. 

 

 

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18 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

 

To be honest, I think requiring devs to update older games would be a bad idea.  On Steam devs can modify, add or remove achievements.  I've definitely had cases where devs went in and changed achievements I earned and that's very not cool because it takes away from what was already earned.  I'd think this should be a change going forward available for new games to add more flexibility but not retroactively added to older games.

 

I also don't think it should be required for Sony to play test games.  Every game is different and the current overall guidelines on total XP and the max number of trophies a game is able to have does prevent abuse.  The last thing needed to limit abuse would be to limit additional stacks of trophies for games.  The devs appealing to trophy hunters are making lists with few trophies that have more golds and silvers than bronzes and give a quick plat.  Those games also are cross buy and give two plats for one purchase in a region.  The only reason a new trophy list should be allowed to be added is in the case of a new release/port that has added or changed trophies (like Tokyo Xanadu and Tokyo Xanadu eX+) or in the case of a release having a different dev/publisher (like a JRPG being released by one company in Japan and another for the western release).  Something like Ys VIII having a stack for Vita and PS4 versions is fine, but there isn't really a good reason for an EU list on each platform to be separate from the NA list since those were released by the same company and have the same trophies.

 

About the only reason I could see devs trying to justify all the regional/platform lists is for stats so they know if it is still worthwhile to keep releasing games for older platforms or in certain regions.  If that is the case, Sony could improve stats available to devs to allow them to see this without having to do additional stacks.  To be honest, I think it would be nice if trophies indicated what platform it was earned on for multiplatform games.

 

But overall, I don't see adding a new trophy type resulting in a bunch of games with high trophy counts since easy games tend to have fewer trophies.  Total trophies doesn't mean as much here as the number of plats and higher value trophies like golds and silvers.  What it will do is allow devs to give more value to the harder trophies and less value to the easy trophies and still be able to make a list that covers everything they want along with a bit more flexibility on values that is more similar to the systems XBL and EA have in place.

 

There needs to be better quality control. You got piles of crap coming from Steam onto the PS4, granted there are plenty of indie gems and other titles that get ported to PS4 but a lot of it is shit. I don't want Sony to turn their next gen platform into another Steam, which became infamous for it's sheer amount of shovelware and unfinished games that they threw out there so that the players, meaning us, would beta test them instead of getting some actual playtesters that work for the companies do that job.

 

Looking at how Sony handled trophies back in 2008 - 2011 and seeing how they're handling them nowadays makes my head spin. Anything can have a platinum and anything can't have a platinum. They allow shit games to have six stacks while stuff like Hitman 2, which has over 100 trophies, not have a platinum at all. Pretty ludicrous.

 

14 hours ago, Juzota said:

 

I've considered both, but knowing myself I can't do either. When next gen arrives I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get Xbox SeX first, but I'm sure I'm gonna buy PS5 as well later, because Playstation has better exclusive games.

 

It's difficult to be a gamer.

 

I want Microsoft to make a comeback, or at least provide some level of competition while they completely failed to do since the Xbox One fiasco. Sony shouldn't be the only top dog in the console race.

 

Honestly I may just skip out on the Xbox SeX and PS5 until they start releasing midgen consoles. Given my discontent with the direction the video game industry has taken these past couple years, and the more apparent signs of taking the safe route over taking risks, I'm perfectly fine with what I currently got.

 

I got far too many games to just jump ship to the next console generation right when those new consoles arrive on the shelves.

Edited by Spaz
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25 minutes ago, Spaz said:

There needs to be better quality control. You got piles of crap coming from Steam onto the PS4, granted there are plenty of indie gems and other titles that get ported to PS4 but a lot of it is shit. I don't want Sony to turn their next gen platform into another Steam, which became infamous for it's sheer amount of shovelware and unfinished games that they threw out there so that the players, meaning us, would beta test them instead of getting some actual playtesters that work for the companies do that job.

 

Looking at how Sony handled trophies back in 2008 - 2011 and seeing how they're handling them nowadays makes my head spin. Anything can have a platinum and anything can't have a platinum. They allow shit games to have six stacks while stuff like Hitman 2, which has over 100 trophies, not have a platinum at all. Pretty ludicrous.

 

The thing is that quality control is tricky because what is to be the criteria for quality?  Sales on another platform?  Well that would rule out a lot of good games that were drowned out by the crap and there are some terrible games that actually for some reason sold decently well (I say decently because compared to how some indies do, they did amazing)  Metacritic score?  Same problem there with the added bonus of bias towards AAA games and tumbleweeds for niche stuff that isn't even by indie devs.  The issue really is that "quality" is subjective and an amazing game to one player may be a shit game to another player and a lot of other factors lead to bias against indie games and smaller devs.  Steam did try the greenlight system, but that was a massive failure due to becoming a popularity contest where devs were buying votes with a promise of free keys.  That actually included some good games.  Would you believe Artifex Mundi was among the devs who promised free keys in exchange for votes?

 

About the best way Sony could handle quality control would be to upgrade their store so players can actually leave reviews, not just ratings.  Sony already has more quality control that Steam, but it's not perfect.  Letting players leave reviews would help because the ratings are pretty much worthless and boil down to popularity.  You can't tell if a game was rated high because it's actually good or because it has an easy trophy set or if a game was rated poorly because some players dislike that genre or the trophies are too hard.  Without comments to give context to ratings, they are worthless.  That's one thing I'll give in Steam's favor, you can tell the shit games by the reviews pretty often.

 

But as far as the plats and stacks, I think Sony needs to just ditch extra stacks and I don't really see the purpose in any further non-plat releases.

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21 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

The thing is that quality control is tricky because what is to be the criteria for quality?  Sales on another platform?  Well that would rule out a lot of good games that were drowned out by the crap and there are some terrible games that actually for some reason sold decently well (I say decently because compared to how some indies do, they did amazing)  Metacritic score?  Same problem there with the added bonus of bias towards AAA games and tumbleweeds for niche stuff that isn't even by indie devs. 

 

What I'm referring to are the Ratalaika Game stacks that give you a platinum for barely playing through the fucking games. This issue is more on indie games than it is AAA games, because at least those encourage you to play through the game then do all the sidecontent for the platinum trophies.

 

Sales on another platform is another discussion entirely. PS4 does not need to be another Steam. For every gem there is at least 10 - 20 piles of crap. 90 percent of everything is crap, as the old saying goes.

 

21 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

The issue really is that "quality" is subjective and an amazing game to one player may be a shit game to another player and a lot of other factors lead to bias against indie games and smaller devs.  Steam did try the greenlight system, but that was a massive failure due to becoming a popularity contest where devs were buying votes with a promise of free keys.  That actually included some good games.  Would you believe Artifex Mundi was among the devs who promised free keys in exchange for votes?

 

Well that applies to everybody. I think Fallout 4 is shit. I think Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 are massively overrated. I personally don't like large scale multiplayer only games. Plenty of people have the opposite opinion as mine and think those games are amazing. Which explains your statement that yes, "quality" is subjective.

 

This is delving away from the distribution of trophies since I can talk all day on what games I think are shit and what games you think are shit. To this day I feel Sony has a better achievement/trophy system than what you get on Steam. You don't even get a simple ding from earning Steam achievements, some games have thousands of achievements and there is a program widely distributed that will automatically get achievements for you. So it's basically outright cheating, and the entire system is massively flawed, which is the main reason why I won't and probably will never bother with Steam achievements, in any game. Anything I play on Steam is purely for fun and to enjoy myself.

 

I will however, agree with your stance that useless stacks should be done and away with. Top trophy hunters like Hakoom, Roughdawg4 and MrUnknown rely on stacks because they are the only real way to maintain their world ranking. Playing piles of crap that you would never even consider trying had they not had a trophy list attached to them.

 

21 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

About the best way Sony could handle quality control would be to upgrade their store so players can actually leave reviews, not just ratings.  Sony already has more quality control that Steam, but it's not perfect.  Letting players leave reviews would help because the ratings are pretty much worthless and boil down to popularity.  You can't tell if a game was rated high because it's actually good or because it has an easy trophy set or if a game was rated poorly because some players dislike that genre or the trophies are too hard.  Without comments to give context to ratings, they are worthless.  That's one thing I'll give in Steam's favor, you can tell the shit games by the reviews pretty often.

 

Agree. Steam has done it for years. Never understood why Sony never gave us that option. Going back to "quality" is subjective, the reviews should not entirely make the player buy or not buy the game. They have to make that decision on their own. Most of the games I bought in the past two years off of Amazon.com and on the PS Store I never read any review prior to buying. A few times I was disappointed because I felt a game I purchased was indeed a pile of shit.

 

Reviews can sway or convince a reader. But there needs to be a standard for reviews, so they don't degrade into useless attacks on a game because it has a few hard trophies. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus's Mein Leben trophy should NOT be a factor as to whether somebody is going to enjoy the game or not. You either are going to work on getting the trophy or you don't. People who make the decision entirely on a difficult trophy list are either crybaby completionists who feel they don't have the skill to get the platinum, or they let trophies cloud their judgement on the actual game content and the replay value, which is what is most important. I can write a crybaby review on Super Meat Boy saying it's far too difficult, but it would have no real credibility since I just bitched and moaned about it rather than discuss the actual game and it's value. Reviews shouldn't necessarily be just about trophies.

 

21 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

I don't really see the purpose in any further non-plat releases.

 

I've done non-platinum games (Mega Man 10, Pumped BMX+, 10 Second Ninja) that I consider to be far more difficult than a lot of platinum trophies out there are. But because there is no real standard anymore, anything can or cannot get a platinum, as I just mentioned to you in my last post. So having non-platinum releases don't really serve a purpose anymore.

Edited by Spaz
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I like the trophy system as it is currently, though there's definitely a few areas it can improve. However, this is just based on my personal preference.

 

1. Progress Tracking: Pretty sure this is everyone's standard want at the moment ?

 

2. Platinum Theme: A great incentive would be to award players who achieve the Platinum with a unique theme. This would hopefully attract more people to get into trophy hunting on games they truly enjoy.

 

3. Void MP Server Closures: So what I mean by this is that when a server inevitably shuts down an update is rolled out to slap a void stamp on any unearned online trophies, thus allowing people to still achieve 100% if they join the party late. Though not wipe the trophy off the list entirely, as people who did earn it deserve that recognition. It'll just show a big void sign on the unearned person's list (if this makes sense). It'd also help with guides for older titles with a new Void category.

 

4. New activity display: I'd just like to see a new way earning trophies are displayed in the What's New section as it's currently a bit crappy ?

 

But hey, that's just my thoughts on some new possible ideas.

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On 17/05/2020 at 11:08 PM, Reinachii- said:

 

I want old games with servers closed as much as the next, but your proposed idea would cause at least 2 issues:

1. Nobody will ever play MP. Just wait for servers to close, and then earn all MP trophies for free.

 

2. It is extremely unfair on all the people who spent countless hours playing legit or boosting. 

 

The only fix i see here, is Sony allowing us to create our own servers. Which will never happen. 

Well , life is unfair . I was thinking more about Gran Turismo 5 or FFXV , as for servers Assasin Creed still going , Uncharted 2 ,3 and so on . 

Servers shutdown are not happening that often , people would still play MP 

 

Edited by MCH-MONOH7DRAT3
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51 minutes ago, MCH-MONOH7DRAT3 said:

Well , life is unfair . I was thinking more about Gran Turismo 5 or FFXV , as for servers Assasin Creed still going , Uncharted 2 ,3 and so on . 

Servers shutdown are not happening that often , people would still play MP 

 

 

All Naughty Dog games have had their servers shut down for PS3 titles.

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Controversial, but I  think Sony should introduce the Diamond Trophy, worth  either 360 or 500 IDK. You get it by completing the entire game and all DLCs, from a business view, it would  make DLCs a little bit more popular than they are now, at least for trophy hunters, and for trophy hunters  we're talking about very rare trophies,  since 100% are rare even in trophy hunting sites, of course I would add the caveat that all games with DLCs (if they have them)  need to have at the end of production something like a complete edition or SINGLE season pass, in order to avoid multiple season passes or inflated prices for individual DLCs.

Edited by scemopagliaccioh
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1 minute ago, scemopagliaccioh said:

Controversial, but I  think Sony should introduce the Diamond Trophy, worth  either 360 or 500 IDK. You get it by completing the entire game and all DLCs, from a business view, it would  make DLCs a little bit more popular than they are now, at least for trophy hunters, and for trophy hunters  we're talking about very rares trophy, since 100% are rare even in trophy hunting sites, of course I would add the caveat that all games with DLCs (if they have them)  need to have at the end of production something like a complete edition or SINGLE season pass, in order to avoid multiple season passes or inflated prices for individual DLCs.

I like this idea. I have so many games I have platted and I want to go back and play the DLC, get that 100%, but there isn't enough incentive for 100%. I have the shiny plat now, so unless they're going to take it off me, my brain just wants to focus on getting another plat.

I know some people are concerned about their completion rating and that makes it motivation enough, but for me, adding a new trophy class or something would give me a bit more of a kick up the bum.

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