Dissertation 1

[DragonCogInteractive]

Hi all, i'm doing a dissertation for my third year of game design , the title is "How Game Progression can enhance a player's Enthusiasm, Accomplishments and Self-Assurance" and is basically what is the motivation for players to get in game achievements so answering the poll and a bit of your own thoughts would be great.

 

move if not allowed here

[ladynadiad]

Unable to answer the second poll question because my answer would be more of a "it depends".  I can honestly say that a game being critically acclaimed has absolutely no bearing on if I'd play it or not whether the plat is hard or not.  I look for games that appear to be something I'd enjoy and to me, most AAA games and supposedly critically acclaimed games tend to fail to meet that simple requirement so I am unlikely to bother with them. My only hard nos as far as trophies go are trophies that require online MP, trophies that require peripherals to earn, and games with unobtainable trophies.  Easy or hard makes no difference and only affects the order in which I play games in my backlog.

 

I don't dislike easy platinum games though.  Again, I play games that look to be enjoyable and it is very possible to enjoy a game that takes a few hours to complete.  Such games are a great break from longer games.  Every now and then I enjoy kicking back and playing a game where I can get the plat on a blind playthrough and don't need to be following a guide every step of the way to ensure I miss nothing.  I like a nice mix of easy and harder stuff and feel if I only focus on harder stuff that I'll just quickly get burnt out.  What is the most important is that gaming is fun and satisfying and both easy and hard plats are capable of being such.

Edited November 30, 2020 by ladynadiad

[pogo_loco]

An interesting paper, thank you for soliciting input.

 

I recently developed a taste for rare trophies.  I consider the PS4 God of War, Uncharted 4, Spider Man and Horizon Zero Dawn as easy platinums.  I got them due to 'critical acclaim' and it's true -- they're all absolutely amazing video games.  But I am disappointed that they dilute my average trophy rarity statistic.

 

I wonder about answers to a third, unasked question: "3. Do you avoid easy platinums even if the game is critically acclaimed ?"  I've avoided Ghost of Tsushima so far for that reason.

 

"what is the motivation for players to get in game achievements" - at the moment I covet rare trophies.  It's led to under-the-radar games I would have otherwise never tried: Tooth and Tail, SteamWorld Heist, Nobunaga's Ambition, The Swindle, Knytt Underground, Invisible Inc., Mercenary Kings, Darkest Dungeon, Defender's Quest, etc.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by pogo_loco

[ladynadiad]

6 hours ago, pogo_loco said:

I wonder about answers to a third, unasked question: "3. Do you avoid easy platinums even if the game is critically acclaimed ?"  I've avoided Ghost of Tsushima so far for that reason.

 

I think that's an interesting point to bring up because I also think when it comes to critically acclaimed games, very often the idea of "easy platinum" becomes warped too, especially if you judge difficulty or time investment based off rarity.  If anything it seems like people are more likely to get a harder plat from a critically acclaimed game because many people will attempt to get plats from games they really enjoy and love, especially if the plat is reasonable and doesn't require hundreds of hours to get.  I find it interesting that you call Ghost of Tsushima an easy plat because according to the trophy guide it takes about 40 hours to get that plat.  People actually looking for easy plats tend to look for stuff that is more like 5-10 hours, if not less and has little to no challenge and very few, if any collectables.  I honestly bet that if Ghost of Tsushima wasn't an AAA game that it's plat rarity would be more around 20-30%.

[pogo_loco]

40 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

very often the idea of "easy platinum" becomes warped too

 

That is an excellent observation.  @cameronalan , how do you define "Easy"?  It is my opinion the 50% / Common rarity of Ghost of Tsushima's platinum means it's Easy, but that's just an opinion. 

 

40 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

If anything it seems like people are more likely to get a harder plat from a critically acclaimed game because many people will attempt to get plats from games they really enjoy and love, especially if the plat is reasonable and doesn't require hundreds of hours to get.

 

That too is great insight.  A number of the games I listed above were free on Playstation Plus, resulting in many owners but few completions, and producing skewed trophy rarity percentages.  A blockbuster game may be more likely to hold a gamer's attention than a free give-away.

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by pogo_loco

[ladynadiad]

8 hours ago, pogo_loco said:

That is an excellent observation.  @cameronalan , how do you define "Easy"?  It is my opinion the 50% / Common rarity of Ghost of Tsushima's platinum means it's Easy, but that's just an opinion. 

 

I know most games I've seen called easy take under 10 hours to plat, if not under 5 hours and tend more towards a 1/10 difficulty, 2 at the most.  I'd personally deem something like Ghost of Tsushima as more of a reasonable plat, which is what I usually use to define longer games that can be played blind and have few to no missables.  Pretty much the sorts of games that you can sit back and enjoy until you get to the end and then you might refer to a guide for all the side content and trophies.

 

Overall, I think rarity is a poor way to determine difficulty of a trophy list.  A prime example of this is Beast Quest.  2/10 plat difficulty, takes 6 hours to plat, but has a plat rarity of about 15% (about 25% for the EU stack).  The main reason why it has a low plat rarity is because for a time the plat was unobtainable and later fixed with a patch and clearly many players never went back to get the plat later.  That game definitely falls more into the definition of easy plat.  Short and doable in a day and no missable trophies.  I admit that one threw me as well and if it wasn't for the trophy guide I would have never have known it was that easy since a 15% rarity is more common for stuff with lots of missables and is more on the longer side. If people only use rarity to determine easy or hard, they'll likely miss out on some games they might enjoy because they think its harder than it is or easier than it is.  That's a big part of why trophy guides give us difficulty and time estimates.

Edited December 1, 2020 by ladynadiad

[Clarink]

"1. Do You dislike Easy Platinum games ?"

 

No.

Some of my favorites games are VNs. The platinum is basically a reward for having read a book through and through (with sometimes side content). It is a breeze of fresh air to play a game that plays itself or with an easy platinum. I usually go for long games such as RPGs and need a breather between two 100+ hours games.

For exemple, I had a really great time completing the Spyro Trilogy. It was really short and simple but it was really gratifying to go for 100%.

 

"2. Do you avoid hard platinums even if the game is critically acclaimed ?"

!

No.

Difficulty in games is one of the most rewarding and satisfaying obstacle to overcome when done correctly. The most famous exemple would be the FromSoftware's games. It was frustrating at times but when you see this boss you've been stuck on for hours on end, falling to his knees crying, it FeelsGoodMan.

The best memories I have while playing games were on hard ones. Reaching the top of Babel in Catherine, beating Zico's best lap in Wipeout or finishing off the last boss in The Evil Within's Akumu mode. These challenges force you to try, fail and repeat until that magical moment where nothing exists but the screen. You don't think anymore, you reach a state of focus where only you and the game exist, the Zone.

 

_ _ _

 

Satisfaction comes in many form in videogames. RPGs with the progression of characters through story and statistics, Platformers with the steady increase of difficulty asking you to master every mechanics thrown at you throughout the game, Shooters and Racing games with fast pace action pushing you to the limit of concentration, having to think about what's coming next while using your reflexes to avoid the various hazards coming your way.

But without a straightforward or simple games in between demanding games, they are no more than just games.

Still, I have nothing but appreciation coming from the games I play. I was born a controller in hand and will die because I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS GAME, I TRIED 1000+ TIMES BUT I NEVER SAW THIS BEFORE!!! BS!

[DragonCogInteractive]

thanks for all the answers so far

 

1. That third question isn't really something i had thought of @pogo_loco but it does bring up an interesting point, rarity of the achievement is definitely a factor, easy game is hard to quantify but for the purpose of the study, i would say games that require no skill such as road bustle etc. 

 

2. I agree @ladynadiad and @Clarink that quick platinums can be a sort of palate cleanser between big open world experiences , in my paper, I narrow down achievements into 12 different categories and Multiplayer/peripheral achievements are definitely low on the totem pole, i may do a another poll with the 12 categories and which type is a player's favourite.

 

3. A general question for everybody, would you feel the same about trophies if there was no popup, no ding, it was just added to your statistics 

 

4.If a game had a glitched trophy and you had started the game, would you continue until you were at the 99% or would you leave it until it was fixed or potentially never fixed ?

[ladynadiad]

5 hours ago, cameronalan said:

1. That third question isn't really something i had thought of @pogo_loco but it does bring up an interesting point, rarity of the achievement is definitely a factor, easy game is hard to quantify but for the purpose of the study, i would say games that require no skill such as road bustle etc. 

 

I also typically would add to the definition there the fact that an easy plat usually has few to no missables trophies as well.  Missable content has become so common in trophy lists that many games need you to follow a guide so you don't miss any of it or else you're doing another 40+ hour playthrough.  For example, I currently have an 18 page long document of all the missables I still need to get for Trails of Cold Steel IV.

 

And regarding your other questions:

 

3. Actually a funny thing was that when I got a newer Vita a few months back, I accidentally turned off trophy notifications.  I know that sounds weird, but my Vita was imported from Japan and I really screwed up setting the language settings in the initial setup so when I went to fix that it seems somewhere in there I disabled the notifications.  It still made the dings, but in the game I was playing you could barely hear them over the background music.  On Vita, disabling of trophy notifications is actually really annoying because there are many games that require you to exit the game to go view and sync your trophies.  Because I'm more of a completionist sort of person, the lack of notifications does drive me nuts.  It isn't much better on PS4 where you can easily go peek at your trophies because your game doesn't pause when doing this so you have to find a point where you can pause and any timers keep on ticking.  PS3's sync is so slow that it also is annoying there.  The notifications also allow me to be satisfied that the game didn't glitch on me because yes, I have run into some unknown trophy glitches before.  I do still very much feel that having the ability to disable the notifications and sounds is a great feature because not all care about trophies and completion and to many people being able to disable them is desirable.  I just am not one of those people.

 

4. I haven't run into this on PSN yet actually but I do have some games on Steam that have broken achievements that weren't reported anywhere before I started the game.  Hell in a few cases I was the one who ended up finding the issue and reporting it and have been a person who tested fixes for some devs.  In those games I'll get all the achievements or trophies I have the skill to get.  On both Steam and PSN I do try to research the game in advance to see if any broken/unobtainable achievements or trophies have been reported and I only buy games at release from devs and publishers I know to be reputable.  I do find PSN has far less issues than Steam with regards to broken trophies but I've been burned too many times on Steam to not be careful with a profile where 100% is still obtainable.

[pogo_loco]

16 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

Overall, I think rarity is a poor way to determine difficulty of a trophy list.

 

'Poor' seems a bit harsh -- maybe, 'imprecise'?  After all, an easy game may have unexpectedly low completion, but are there any hard games with very high completion?

 

https://psnprofiles.com/games?order=average

 

Question 3 - The ding does not prompt me to salivate.

 

Question 4 - I'm going the distance.

 

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, pogo_loco said:

Poor' seems a bit harsh -- maybe, 'imprecise'?  After all, an easy game may have unexpectedly low completion, but are there any hard games with very high completion?

 

https://psnprofiles.com/games?order=average

 

Not 90+%, but one example I can think of where the games have a inflated rarity despite being hard is the Soulsborne games.  Dark Souls has a plat rarity of 26.62%.  That might sound low, but there are actually VNs with lower plat rarity than that.  I honestly could probably name hundreds of games with lower plat rarity than Dark Souls that are much easier.

 

And I honestly don't think poor is a harsh word regarding how little rarity indicates difficulty.  Low rarity more often indicates tedium rather than difficulty.  Of all my own UR plats, only my Ys Origin plats were remotely challenging.  The others were only a test of my ability to deal with a lengthy and boring grind in an otherwise mediocre game in the majority of cases.  What I do know is that the number of UR plats that actually require skill is vastly outnumbered by the number of UR plats requiring an excessive grind.

[Lava_Yuki]

1: I love easy platinums, as I now as a working adult don't have time to spend hours on gaming like I did in uni, where I normally went for those 100+ hour to plat JRPGs like FF and Tales. I now tend to go for shorter and simpler platinums, like no more than 50-60 hours. I only have 1-2 hours per day for gaming, so if the platinum is too long, it would literally take months. When was in uni and had 5 hours a day to game, I platted 130 hour long games like FF13 and Tales of Vesperia and xillia 2 in 1-2 months. As I got older, my preferences have shifted, and I quite enjoy easier games and fun stress free games like the David Cage games, Life is strange, VNs and otome games as they help me chill out after my stressful job and also have great stories. I can play them for short periods on the go as well. 

 

2: I have a tendency to avoid a game if the platinum is too hard, as I would rather spend time working on a platinum than putting in hours into a game that I know I won't be able to plat, and this is the case if the game is too hard or my skill level isn't up to par. The only games that are an exception to this rule are Kingdom Hearts (where I have been a fan since childhood and played the rmakes as well, but only was able to plat KH3 as KH plats are too hard, but it won't stop me from playing them as I love these games), FF (I platted all the ones I played, the only one I could not get was FFX due to the mini games), and Disgaea (insanely hard and long plats but fun games. However, I have steered clear of games like Yakuza as they are hard and long, and also did not play Danganronpa 1 2 reload for the same reason- 80+ hours for 1 plat did not seem worth the time.