Trend of 1st Party Trophy Lists

[Hisuiryu]

So I've been thinking recently about various big releases having pretty easy trophy lists, so on a site like this there's 30-50% plats, and even psn rarity a lot higher than average. Then I realised they're pretty much all 1st party studios - Horizon Zero Dawn is the first one I really noticed, but since that we've had God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man and recently both Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima.

 

Do you think this is on purpose? Several of these have also had extra's for platting them too, icons, themes and congratulations emails - it makes me think it's Sony's way of trying to encourage the trophy system's popularity. This also seems to tie into the theme of adding extra difficulties and NG+ as DLC, allowing the plat to be earned without going to the extra lengths average players often don't bother with...

 

What do you all make of this?

 

If it is intentional I'm not a fan. It's not like I'll avoid these games for it, but I have been disappointed with the lack of challenge in some of these plats - to me part of the fun in trophy hunting is going beyond just playing the game, but trying to experience everything it has to offer including additional challenges and secrets.

[Evil_Joker88]

Yeah i am sure it's intentional. Many millions pf players around the world shall have the same trophies to collect. You see the screams at least here on PSNP if games like Wolfenstein II or Fall Guys have one difficult trophy tied to the base game/ Plat? Some people hate it and demand changes. It's a minority of that i am sure also but they are loud and be heard. I'm not 100% sure if i am happy about that trend but for me it doesn't change much if a trophy like highest difficulty/NG+ etc. is considered DLC/not Plat related as i want them all in the end anyway

 

I'm happy i didn't have to play God of War (2018) on highest difficulty but i'd done it for a trophy...

Edited September 3, 2020 by Evil_Joker88

[DemonicDraco]

Yea seems like a pretty clear trend, I was a bit surprised god of war didn't get new game plus trophies.

[Conor]

As long as the game is good, having a straightforward plat is a bonus for me. And, well, Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War may have had "easy" plats but they still required me to see and do pretty much all of what the games had to offer, which was plenty in each case, and took about the amount of time I was willing to put into any one game anyway. I usually play on 'Normal' or whatever is the equivalent on a first time playthrough so I get a balanced experience. I enjoyed them greatly and I don't see how making it so enemies die slower and kill me faster would add to my enjoyment of it in any way- that said, i will be going through Horizon on 'Ultra Hard' for the NG+ at some point. There are plenty of good games with challenging plats out there so nobody is lacking for options. Avoiding games because of easy plats is pretty dumb to me but who am I to tell people what to do with their own disposable income?

Edited September 3, 2020 by Stan Lee

[jonads_]

It's 100% on purpose and I don't really feel there's anything wrong with that. Just a quick look at the trophies subreddit and you'll see people are definitely engaged with this direction of trophy lists. Lots of posts about TLoU Pt2 when it first came out and now GoT. I think the more casual gamers feel more rewarded for finishing the game and that their time was respected if they get a plat rather than seeing ~60% completion. There's always a place for the <5% plats and the 100+ hour plats but, having the big, first party releases be around that common rarity helps keep people engaged and makes others look and think "hey, I've always wanted a plat and people say this is fairly easy so maybe I'll buy that game." 

Edited September 3, 2020 by jonads_

[HelixNebula_x]

1 hour ago, Hisuiryu666 said:

It's not like I'll avoid these games for it, but I have been disappointed with the lack of challenge in some of these plats - to me part of the fun in trophy hunting is going beyond just playing the game, but trying to experience everything it has to offer including additional challenges and secrets.

 

The thing is with the games you listed, while they may be easy you still have to 'experience everything'. I just recently platted Ghost of Tsushima and it requires you to reach max level, complete all optional locations on the map, clear all enemy strongholds, complete every side quest etc, as well as having multiple miscellaneous activity and story trophies as well.

 

I don't understand the above complaint because the exact same applies to God of War, Spiderman, Horizon etc. Just because the trophies are easier doesn't mean your missing out on any of the content when it's all directing linked to earning the platinum.

[BifeSTER]

It's on purpose, and it's a great thing!

My very first plat was Far Cry 3, and it was so balanced that it made me interested enough to attempt other more challenging platinum trophies.

I just wish there was a way to track trophy progression like in Steam and Xbox.

[TalalHmd]

I guess Polyphony missed the memo lol

[DaikichiKawachi]

I would say the quality of the titles is just as important of a factor as the level of the challenge. If people enjoy playing the game then that completion percentage is going to be higher and Sony has just hit it out of the park again and again in recent years.

 

Look at some of the less well received Sony published games for comparison: Knack is at 5%, Driveclub is at 5% and Littlebigplanet 3 is at 1%.

Edited September 3, 2020 by DaikichiKawachi

[FinalFrank15]

I hope Gran Turismo 7 continues this trend

[TrophyChief]

Good marketing for Playstation. When others share their success with the game, others see, and then those who see tend to buy and play. Cycle continues. It's on purpose.

[rdhight]

Not every game has a natural way of adding high-difficulty trophies that will be fun.

 

If it's a shooting game and high difficulty means enemies survive an RPG to the chest, I don't want that to be required to platinum. If the high-difficulty trophies revolve around insane time pressure or escort missions or instafail stealth, I don't want that to be required for platinum. If the high-difficulty trophy requires actions that are glitchy and don't register, I don't want that.

 

Some games naturally lend themselves to an easy list, and that's OK. I'd rather have an easy list than a hard list that uses un-fun forms of difficulty.

[NathanielJohn]

I don’t mind the easy trophy lists, but I’m getting sick of them hiding all of the hard trophies in DLC.  It’s like they want to lure people in with an easy plat and then *surprise* if you want that one last bronze trophy you have to complete a whole new playthrough on the new mega-ultra difficulty. It just feels cheap.

 

If you’re going to have difficulty trophies, then have them in the base game from the get-go. Stop making 2 DLC trophies require 3x as much effort as 50 base game trophies.

Edited September 3, 2020 by NathanielJohn

[AJ_Radio]

My issue is more to do with the games feeling formulaic and more or less the same feel. 
 

Sony 1st Party titles are very good quality. Everybody here knows that. It’s just the games themselves feel like copies of each other to an extent. You take away the themes and settings, you feel like you’re going through the same motions over and over. 
 

Horizon Zero Dawn pretty much set the standard for what was to follow. Since then we’ve mostly gotten open world games as a template for the next Sony exclusive. Detroit: Become Human did pretty okay in its execution but it wasn’t anything as popular as God of War or Marvel’s Spider-Man. By the time we got Days Gone, the formula was already getting a bit stale. 
 

Throwing in hard trophies behind free DLC  that most people are going to skip just feels like insult to injury. Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Days Gone all have shitty New Game Plus trophies that require you to play several hours worth of story again just to get some measly bronze/silver trophies. It’s like okay, I have to play the story again, but I have to sit through those cutscenes, or I can just skip them, which leads to a loading screen. In Horizon And Spider-Man I basically just skipped the cutscenes... it still took me many hours to get those New Game Plus trophies in both of them. There was nothing original or compelling about them other than to pad the game for completionists. Since they are DLC, and not the base game, most people aren’t going to bother. 
 

In the past, New Game Plus probably would of been a requirement for the platinum. Same with higher difficulties. Nowadays they just shove that stuff behind DLC that comes later. People don’t have to put as much effort into these games as they did years ago. For the people who like to complete everything, going after these trophies is just a big chore. 
 

At least put some fucking creativity in the trophy lists. A number of these games just copy what Horizon Zero Dawn did and make a cookie cutter list with atrocious New Game Plus trophies.

 

I would argue that Sony’s lineup in the early PS4 lifecycle had more variety, not just the games themselves but also the trophy lists. Now they just make the lists to where your 12 year old kid can get the platinum. Yet for those of us who like to get every trophy in a lot of games, they throw a bunch of annoying and sometimes difficult DLC trophies that take a lot more effort to get than any trophy in the base game. Without any creativity whatsoever.

 

It’s just lazy.

[dieselmanchild]

I have no doubt it’s intentional. It gets more people interested in the trophy system, which is a unique part of the PlayStation experience, and I think Sony probably sees it as an easy way to add some extra incentive to playing those games. A lot of people love the themes or other little goodies they send you when you plat some of those games.

 

As for the trend of these AAA 1st party games having really easy trophy lists, I’m pretty neutral on the issue. On one hand, I think it’s nice to have a little challenge in a trophy list or for the platinum to require some extra work, especially if it promotes some extra content for some of these games that don’t really have much replayability otherwise.
 

But at the same time, most of these 1st party AAA games and exclusives are among the most fun and impressive games available on PS4. These are the games you really just want to sit back and enjoy, and soak it all in. So sometimes for games like this, it’s really nice if you don’t have to keep one eyeball glued to a trophy guide at all times to track missable trophies, collectibles etc, and so I tend to appreciate the easy trophy lists.

 

A really great example of this is Days Gone, which I just played for the first time a couple months back. It was by far one of the most awesome games I’ve yet played on the PS4, and it also landed a spot in my top 5 most enjoyable platinum trophies I’ve got in my collection. The trophy list is structured in a way that you’ll unlock the majority of trophies naturally just by playing and enjoying the game, which allows you to just sit back and have a wonderful experience the entire time through without worrying about, or even thinking about trophies at all.

 

I love the way they made up for this too by adding quite a few really challenging trophies (Survivor II/NG+ as well as the difficult challenge mode) in the free DLC packs. It feels like a perfect balance, and also gives me something to look forward to in the future when I can go back and do a whole other playthrough and earn the more prestigious trophies when I do. I wouldn’t mind seeing more AAA releases go this route with their trophy lists.

[test-dummy-99]

43 minutes ago, Spaz said:

At least put some fucking creativity in the trophy lists. A number of these games just copy what Horizon Zero Dawn did and make a cookie cutter list with atrocious New Game Plus trophies.

If you know about Darksiders III as an example, it has a New Game Plus DLC trophy list, which are all 3 Silver trophies worth a total of 90 points, but at least the base game's difficulty-specific trophies,  Death Incarnate (beating the game on Apocalyptic difficulty) and  Path of the Horseman (beating the game on Balanced difficulty), have been implemented since Day 1 and not in some DLC trophy list. Reckoning difficulty was also added in that patch, but it does not have a specific trophy tied to it. Darksiders III also had some NG+ exclusive things like upgrading your armour, stronger enemies, and new items to be picked around the in-game world like Forsaken Lurchers. Metro Exodus also has a NG+ trophy list and a few exclusive things as well, including 3 NG+ specific collectibles for  Toy seller and the main NG+ exclusive thing of Exodus: in-game modifiers. But, the trophy  Hardcore still remains in the base game list.

Edited September 4, 2020 by test-dummy-99

[IesuHado]

I don't have any problem as long as the game is good cause I'm playing for enjoying the game the trophies are a plus easy or not.

[Draps-1337]

Honestly, most of my non-trophy hunting friends got some of these platinums, But I don't think it's because their 'easy' per se, but instead the games they're attached to a so engaging and compelling for most users, people are having fun when they get to the end of the game and they have been doing all side quests and collecting all things because those things are tied into the games reward system. So if they don't get the platinum for naturally 100%ing the game, then they check their trophy list and see they missed a couple of misc combat trophies or something and go back to finish them getting them the platinum.

The more people who trophy hunt is better competition for us and more people to talk to about this obscure inapplicable hobby.

[Unknown_v2_0]

For sure intentional. Free advertising with everyone posting their plats on social media. Also then if people have the plat i feel they'd be more inclined as well to get the dlc for trophies even if they would have passed on it. And Many of these are platted just by finishing main game/collectible clean up so might be first for a lot of non trophy hunters then some once they get a plat in one of these will try to hunt trophies in other games. aka  buy more games to plat them

[DaivRules]

I'd really love a list of all 1st party (now known as Playstation Studios) PS4 releases to see if this runs the entire gamut or is just a subset. And also to pinpint when/if this became a thing.

 

I've only played Knack 1 and 2, and LittleBIGPlanet 3, which I don't really think have the things mentioned in this thread. I have Days Gone, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Infamous Second Son, The Last Guardian, Marvel's Spider-Man, MLB: The Show 19, The Order: 1886, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted 4, but I only see about 5 games keep getting mentioned. Are they just Sony's most recent Playstation Studios titles? 

 

8 minutes ago, Unknown_v2_0 said:

Free advertising with everyone posting their plats on social media

 

Shhh... you're actually telling everyone what the whole point behind trophies are. We want them to continue thinking that they're really rewards for working hard.

[melodicmizery]

16 hours ago, Hisuiryu666 said:

So I've been thinking recently about various big releases having pretty easy trophy lists, so on a site like this there's 30-50% plats, and even psn rarity a lot higher than average. Then I realised they're pretty much all 1st party studios - Horizon Zero Dawn is the first one I really noticed, but since that we've had God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man and recently both Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima.

 

Do you think this is on purpose? Several of these have also had extra's for platting them too, icons, themes and congratulations emails - it makes me think it's Sony's way of trying to encourage the trophy system's popularity. This also seems to tie into the theme of adding extra difficulties and NG+ as DLC, allowing the plat to be earned without going to the extra lengths average players often don't bother with...

 

What do you all make of this?

 

If it is intentional I'm not a fan. It's not like I'll avoid these games for it, but I have been disappointed with the lack of challenge in some of these plats - to me part of the fun in trophy hunting is going beyond just playing the game, but trying to experience everything it has to offer including additional challenges and secrets.

try wolfenstein lol

i honestly have no clue what these companies are thinking. obviously the 1 hour games those developers know they are getting small amounts of money for quick trophies. i think they may be startup companies and new programmers testing the waters on things small to hopefully get good enough to get on a bigger project

as for other lists they dont make sense half the time. look at zombie army 4, great game but the dlc trophies make no sense being 4 trophies for a season pass

and then you have sniper elite that gives you a good amount of content, decent trophy list, and decent amount of trophies which is pretty balanced.

then there seems to be other companies who think trophies arent important at all and they dont realize the value they can reel in

none of it seems logical really. borderlands made a fairly easy trophy list finally. i think that game has so many non trophy hunters that they figure if trophy hunters dont like being on a game forever theyll complete the game and move on and be happy and there will still be a alot of regulars to co op with who dont care about trophies.

on the other hand when the trophies are to hard we bitch about that to. seems like theres no middle ground of what a good trophy is. 

34 minutes ago, Draps-1337 said:

Honestly, most of my non-trophy hunting friends got some of these platinums, But I don't think it's because their 'easy' per se, but instead the games they're attached to a so engaging and compelling for most users, people are having fun when they get to the end of the game and they have been doing all side quests and collecting all things because those things are tied into the games reward system. So if they don't get the platinum for naturally 100%ing the game, then they check their trophy list and see they missed a couple of misc combat trophies or something and go back to finish them getting them the platinum.

The more people who trophy hunt is better competition for us and more people to talk to about this obscure inapplicable hobby.

i have a few friends like that to, they dont even sync their profile but theyll have that one rare platinum that they dont care about on a game they just love playing over and over. one of my friends completed loadout to 100% im like do you realize how rare that is? i think he has 10 plats total. 

[Dr_Mayus]

White Knight Chronicles, GT5, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Warhawk, MAG, Eye of Judgement, Sports Champions, Everybody Dance, Singstar, Killzone 2, Modnation Racers...so many easy peasy plats ?

Edited September 4, 2020 by Dr_Mayus

[ladynadiad]

14 minutes ago, Unknown_v2_0 said:

For sure intentional. Free advertising with everyone posting their plats on social media. Also then if people have the plat i feel they'd be more inclined as well to get the dlc for trophies even if they would have passed on it. And Many of these are platted just by finishing main game/collectible clean up so might be first for a lot of non trophy hunters then some once they get a plat in one of these will try to hunt trophies in other games. aka  buy more games to plat them

 

People who got the plat are also more inclined to leave positive reviews, recommend to friends and buy a sequel down the road  But at the same time, there are definitely some series out there that have an insanely devoted fanbase that is more determined to get the plats because they love the game even if the plat has a lot of stuff that would put most casual players off.

[AJ_Radio]

41 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

But at the same time, there are definitely some series out there that have an insanely devoted fanbase that is more determined to get the plats because they love the game even if the plat has a lot of stuff that would put most casual players off.

Sums up Dark Souls in a nutshell.

[DaivRules]

I'm just going to refer to these lists, since it seems like it covers most of what is being referred to as 1st party titles:

https://psnprofiles.com/games?publisher=10100-sony-interactive-entertainment&platform=ps4

https://psnprofiles.com/games?publisher=45-sony-computer-entertainment-inc-scei&platform=ps4

 

Here's the more well known games PSNP Plat vs PSN percent breakdown as of today:

The Order: 1886: 35.79 vs 6.4

Bloodborne: 21.52 vs 6.1

Until Dawn: 18.25 vs 2.9

Ratchet & Clank: 21.9 vs 2.8

Uncharted 4: 11.18 vs .7

Horizon: Zero Dawn: 31.81 vs 6.0

God of War: 30.41 vs 4.9

Detroit: 16.50 vs 1.6

Spider-Man: 47.97 vs 8.7

Day's Gone: 36.4 vs 5.6

MediEvil: 44.79 vs 9.4

Death Stranding: 17.37 vs 2.7

MLB 19: 9.44 vs .3

Dreams: 2.34 vs .2

The Last of Us II: 32.14 vs 3.9

Ghost of Tsushima: 46.18 vs 11.4

 

About half have a platinum rate here on PSNP above 30%.

 

Quote

What do you all make of this?

 

I think Sony put out games good enough that people on PSNP, worried about their leaderboard points and position, knocked out the trophies and moved on to the next points, I mean game of course.

 

Only one of them has a PSN Platinum percentage over 10 and for the numbers of games these titles have sold, and the majority were to casual gamers, for the percentage to be that high, I think Sony put out good enough games that those who were even aware of trophies, they made an effort to knock them out, but over 90% in most of these games didn't bother.

 

If Sony really wanted to cater to them and just give out platinums as is being subtly implied here, they could have made every trophy story related and unmissable and just given the platinum to everyone who finished the story.

 

PS3 era had more than it's share of extra-grindy trophy requirements. Stuff that would have worn out the strategy guides I used to buy in SNES days. I don't think any of these games (barring the sports titles) really needs artificial "challenge" trophies that "average gamers" (*spit*) would have avoided.

 

I think this is just more spin on the false argument rarity equals difficulty and to think Sony cares this much about trophies that they dictate to developers to change their games to fit them seems pretty absurd when everything else related to trophies is completely ignored by Sony.

 

Maybe this is just mature developers who want to make games that appeal to as many gamers as possible and the trophies fit that ideal. That's not a bad thing at all.