Why are so many people complaining about easy platinum games

[PalaceOfLove706]

42 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

question: doesn't the addition of lightning quick, skilless trophy infested profiles make super elite ultra cosmic rare trophy profiles more rare and special?

No, son. It doesn’t. 

[ProfBambam55]

30 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

No, son. It doesn’t. 

are you really old?...don't think I've been called son in about 3 decades...haha...good one...

[PalaceOfLove706]

21 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

are you really old?

No, son. I’m not.

[ProfBambam55]

36 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

No, son. I’m not.

then why are you referring to me as son?...

[Darling Baphomet]

13 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

They don't let runners start 10 years ahead. Is someone a better runner because they have a headstart of 5.000 miles? And I am sorry to say, if someone runs a 100m sprint and another one runs a 10km cross, the first one is not using a bike. He runs a different track.

 

See, this would be a very good metaphor if we had different leaderboards for different types of trophy hunters. But we don't. So where is this "different track" you speak of? Seems like a pretty shitty metaphor to me.

 

The reality is we have people spamming twenty minute games on the same leaderboard as people who play 20+ hour games. There is no different track.

[Rally-Vincent---]

47 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

See, this would be a very good metaphor if we had different leaderboards for different types of trophy hunters. But we don't. So where is this "different track" you speak of? Seems like a pretty shitty metaphor to me.

 

The reality is we have people spamming twenty minute games on the same leaderboard as people who play 20+ hour games. There is no different track.

 

There is also no running, so with bad examples, we're even. Because it's not a single event, otherwise there would be only a single platinum.

 

But if you choose running as your choice of metaphor, then every platinum equals a cup for completing a race. A Ratalaika game is a different sort of race (100m sprint) than a 100 hour JRPG (marathon), but you get the same old cup or medal after finishing. Look at the leaderboard at the Olympics - all the medals in the same "leader board", for every event btw, - swimming, running, long jump. So yeah - all sorts of different "tracks" go in the same leaderboard. One guy wins a marathon and another wins 10 x 100m races in the same time - that doesn't mean he used a "bike". He ran a different track.

[DaivRules]

If people want to go with a running analogy, then the ongoing racers were all running in wooden clogs up until a few years ago, and they all made the assumptions that clogs would be the only footwear allowed so they kept running with clogs. There wasn’t even any rules that clogs were the only footwear. Then some shoe wear designers designed cheap footwear that really helped out the racers and these allowed new runners to keep pace with the original runners. Eventually lots of shoe wear makers made lots of accessible shoes and lots of new runners in the new shoes were running with traditional clog runners, who demanded everyone stop wearing the new shoes because they never wore them before in the races and that things were better before. And now clog wearers refuse to acknowledge that the race never really had any rules except you must run to the end and that all the rest of the restrictions were and are self-assigned assumptions. 

[exsentry]

I have no problem with easy platinum games, or the people who play them...in a vacuum. However, the fact the industry is so flooded with them dilutes trophy hunting, the games themselves and dev teams (especially AAA dev teams) seem to be scared off by making truly hard or hard to platinum games overall. 

[Darling Baphomet]

34 minutes ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

There is also no running, so with bad examples, we're even. Because it's not a single event, otherwise there would be only a single platinum.

 

Not really, no, you just clearly did not understand the metaphor.

 

24 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

If people want to go with a running analogy, then the ongoing racers were all running in wooden clogs up until a few years ago, and they all made the assumptions that clogs would be the only footwear allowed so they kept running with clogs.

 

You do understand how a community of people racing with clogs, who built an entire tradition around their clog racing, might be upset by people forcing themselves into the community with jet boots, right? This really shouldn't be hard to grasp. The point of the metaphor wasn't even to say that the original runners should have a monopoly over the sport, merely that they're justified in feeling wronged in having their competition stolen from them, especially when there's no effort put into separating them from the people who use cheaper methods to get ahead.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Darling Baphomet

[DaivRules]

21 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

You do understand how a community of people racing with clogs, who built an entire tradition around their clog racing, might be upset by people forcing themselves into the community with jet boots, right? This really shouldn't be hard to grasp. The point of the metaphor wasn't even to say that the original runners should have a monopoly over the sport, merely that they're justified in feeling wronged in having their competition stolen from them, especially when there's no effort put into separating them from the people who use cheaper methods to get ahead.

Okay, but analogies aside, the leaderboard has always been “get more points”. The trophy hunting competition/comparison history was always just “get more trophies”. People dumbed down the comparisons to more platinums = better before telltale/auto-pops came along, even though platinums have always differed in their level of effort.

 

And you’re partially right, there has been a little effort into pacifying the original competitors when Slys first iteration of the rarity leaderboard was tried out. And he asked for more propositions that overcame the flaws of the first version but no one has put forward something that works yet.

 

I myself have thought through a stackless leaderboard and will be playing around with the logic to see what it would take and I’ll probably play around with a proof of concept at some point. 
 

I can see that people think they have been wronged. They make it very clear to others who they feel have wronged them that is how they feel. It just doesn’t seem logical to me. They were competing under assumptions that just weren’t true to begin with. And now they’re rejecting the reality they live in. I just can’t empathize. 

[Darling Baphomet]

12 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Okay, but analogies aside, the leaderboard has always been “get more points”. The trophy hunting competition/comparison history was always just “get more trophies”. People dumbed down the comparisons to more platinums = better before telltale/auto-pops came along, even though platinums have always differed in their level of effort.

 

And you’re partially right, there has been a little effort into pacifying the original competitors when Slys first iteration of the rarity leaderboard was tried out. And he asked for more propositions that overcame the flaws of the first version but no one has put forward something that works yet.

 

I myself have thought through a stackless leaderboard and will be playing around with the logic to see what it would take and I’ll probably play around with a proof of concept at some point. 
 

I can see that people think they have been wronged. They make it very clear to others who they feel have wronged them that is how they feel. It just doesn’t seem logical to me. They were competing under assumptions that just weren’t true to begin with. And now they’re rejecting the reality they live in. I just can’t empathize. 

 

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely always been an imperfect sport. I miss when Telltale / Lego games were seen as the worst of the lot - like, yeah, they were definitely easy, but at least you had to put effort into getting them. Ratas are so cheap that even when using rarity points as a counterweight, they can outperform simply due to how many you can plat per day if you're willing to spend that much money (or more likely, have a hacked Vita). That was what happened in Neko's event, which I honestly regret participating in - we had had used TrueTrophies' formula hoping that would disincentivize Rata spamming, but even with that, a week of single users Rata spamming obliterated teams that had been hunting ultra rares for an entire month.

 

There may never have been concrete rules, but the relative rarity of easy platinums did mean that there was a consistent theme of having to put at least a bit of effort into finishing your games. Telltale games were cheap, but you still finished the game, IIRC it was Telltale stackers that were seen as the worst offenders, but even they were miles above today's Rata spammers.

 

The true issue is probably Playstation's lack of quality control, but regardless, trophy hunting has changed quite a bit as an environment since the introduction of Ratas, and people who put a lot of effort into trophy hunting in the original environment may rightly feel that their work is now devalued. If you're a Rata spammer, you're not an objectively worse trophy hunter, or whatever, but you are part of a phenomenon that a lot of people view as soiling their community, and frankly, can you blame them?

[Rally-Vincent---]

8 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Not really, no, you just clearly did not understand the metaphor.

 

 

Why don't you elaborate, then? The PSNP leaderboard is far from what I would call a - as in one - race. A race is something where everybody starts at the same time. That alone makes it a bad analogy. And if, as you claim, there is only a single track, what are trophies to represent? Mileage? Where does game difficulty factor in, then? Games have different diffculties, but all players run exactly the same, single track? That doesn't make sense.

 

 

[PalaceOfLove706]

8 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely always been an imperfect sport. I miss when Telltale / Lego games were seen as the worst of the lot - like, yeah, they were definitely easy, but at least you had to put effort into getting them. Ratas are so cheap that even when using rarity points as a counterweight, they can outperform simply due to how many you can plat per day if you're willing to spend that much money (or more likely, have a hacked Vita). That was what happened in Neko's event, which I honestly regret participating in - we had had used TrueTrophies' formula hoping that would disincentivize Rata spamming, but even with that, a week of single users Rata spamming obliterated teams that had been hunting ultra rares for an entire month.

 

There may never have been concrete rules, but the relative rarity of easy platinums did mean that there was a consistent theme of having to put at least a bit of effort into finishing your games. Telltale games were cheap, but you still finished the game, IIRC it was Telltale stackers that were seen as the worst offenders, but even they were miles above today's Rata spammers.

 

The true issue is probably Playstation's lack of quality control, but regardless, trophy hunting has changed quite a bit as an environment since the introduction of Ratas, and people who put a lot of effort into trophy hunting in the original environment may rightly feel that their work is now devalued. If you're a Rata spammer, you're not an objectively worse trophy hunter, or whatever, but you are part of a phenomenon that a lot of people view as soiling their community, and frankly, can you blame them?

I was one of those trophy hunters before rata. And I don’t feel wronged. I just adapted to the environment when I realized you can’t climb leaderboards anymore without playing them. And again, the assumption everyone makes, particularly people who don’t play them, is that they’re all shitty games. They’re not. They may be quick but some require effort. Either get with the program or deal with your “purist” profile as you sink in rank.

[Dr_Mayus]

Back on the old site we used to have fun trophy comps where you (or a team) would try to earn the most trophies in a given time. No one cared what you played as the point was just to have fun.

 

I try to join some events here but so often all the fun is sucked out as it is all about dividing the rarity × hours spent to the square root of 4 and I lose interest. There is also arguing what counts and what doesn't count as a plat and by the end it is a confusing mess.

 

If people want to play easy plats...who cares. Trust me (and I am not trying to be mean here) no one cares about your leaderboard position unless you are in the top 10...and even then very few people care.

 

Just enjoy playing the games you enjoy and don't worry about what others do.

[Darling Baphomet]

8 hours ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

I was one of those trophy hunters before rata. And I don’t feel wronged. I just adapted to the environment when I realized you can’t climb leaderboards anymore without playing them. And again, the assumption everyone makes, particularly people who don’t play them, is that they’re all shitty games. They’re not. They may be quick but some require effort. Either get with the program or deal with your “purist” profile as you sink in rank.

 

If you were able to adapt, good. But for some people, platinum hunting remains more meaningful than your half an hour of 'effort' per platinum.

[PalaceOfLove706]

7 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

If you were able to adapt, good. But for some people, platinum hunting remains more meaningful than your half an hour of 'effort' per platinum.

As someone pointed out here, is that really what people are doing? Going after 30 mins plat and that’s it? No, the majority don’t. It’s a padding of a resume, as is most often the case. 

[LoveInHell]

8 hours ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

I was one of those trophy hunters before rata. And I don’t feel wronged. I just adapted to the environment when I realized you can’t climb leaderboards anymore without playing them. And again, the assumption everyone makes, particularly people who don’t play them, is that they’re all shitty games. They’re not. They may be quick but some require effort. Either get with the program or deal with your “purist” profile as you sink in rank.

Rank doesn’t matter to many people on PSNP from what I’ve seen. For the people who are interested in the leaderboards, it is very hard to climb up the ladder because the ones before you are doing the exact same thing and honestly, most of them have a dead life. Maybe a lot of them are not capable of going outside which is why they can’t do anything else than play games and maybe they unintentionally ended up in a high rank. But for healthy people who are perfectly capable of enjoying the outside, I think it’s smarter to enjoy the outside world, not necessarily socially. Life is too short to be worried about pixel trophies and leaderboards that mean nothing - except for Hakoom as he’s achieved multiple times to be in the Guinness Record book. That must’ve affected his life in some way, I assume? In the end of the day, I couldn’t care less about someone’s profile. I too have played easy games after playing long games, to be laid back. I wish people would leave this stupid subject alone, let people do what they want to do. No one is hurting anyone with it.

[PalaceOfLove706]

11 minutes ago, LoveInHell said:

 For the people who are interested in the leaderboards, it is very hard to climb up the ladder because the ones before you are doing the exact same thing and honestly, most of them have a dead life. Maybe a lot of them are not capable of going outside which is why they can’t do anything else than play games and maybe they unintentionally ended up in a high rank. But for healthy people who are perfectly capable of enjoying the outside, I think it’s smarter to enjoy the outside world, not necessarily socially. Life is too short to be worried about pixel trophies and leaderboards that mean nothing.

Judging someone’s quality of life, as though you actually know them beyond a superficial Internet wall, based on their trophy hunting preferences, has to be some of the lowest crap I’ve seen on this forum. Actually listen to yourself. 

[LoveInHell]

2 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Judging someone’s quality of life, as though you actually know them beyond a superficial Internet wall, based on their trophy hunting preferences, has to be some of the lowest crap I’ve seen on this forum. Actually listen to yourself. 

Its not that low. Think about it. People have over a thousand platinums. The trophy system launched on the PS3. Hakoom has nearly 3000 platinums and the person second in place just over 2000. Those are insane numbers. When someone had over 100 platinums back on the PS3, that was already considered an insane amount, let alone 3000. Nobody who works and/or who has a healthy life would be able to obtain that high amount of platinums in such a short time. They’re literally gaming their days away and that’s the reality. Hakoom can chill cause the guy second in place has 1000 platinums to go to reach number 1. The people who want to get higher in the ranks, HAVE TO play A LOT to the point they can’t do anything else to achieve that goal. Its not that odd to think a lot of people in the high ranks are physically sick in some way and have nothing else to do, I didn’t say all of them. If you say otherwise then that’s just very naive, sorry.

[PalaceOfLove706]

1 minute ago, LoveInHell said:

Its not that low. Think about it. People have over a thousand platinums. The trophy system launched on the PS3. Hakoom has nearly 3000 platinums and the person second in place just over 2000. Those are insane numbers. When someone had over 100 platinums back on the PS3, that was already considered an insane amount, let alone 3000. Nobody who works and/or who has a healthy life would be able to obtain that high amount of platinums in such a short time. They’re literally gaming their days away and that’s the reality. Hakoom can chill cause the guy second in place has 1000 platinums to go to reach number 1. The people who want to get higher in the ranks, HAVE TO play A LOT to the point they can’t do anything else to achieve that goal. Its not that odd to think a lot of people in the high ranks are physically sick in some way and have nothing else to do, I didn’t say all of them. If you say otherwise then that’s just very naive, sorry.

No, I just think you were overgeneralizing. Sure, there are people whose gaming is unhealthy for them. But what does that even mean? Could people not go after easy platinums, game a lot, and still find balance and harmony? You never know someone’s life until you know them. You don’t know the feelings in their mind, the thoughts in their head, the way they frame their own life. On a trophy site, I don’t judge people who have trophies. That’s just unhealthy in my opinion.

[LoveInHell]

1 minute ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

No, I just think you were overgeneralizing. Sure, there are people whose gaming is unhealthy for them. But what does that even mean? Could people not go after easy platinums, game a lot, and still find balance and harmony? You never know someone’s life until you know them. You don’t know the feelings in their mind, the thoughts in their head, the way they frame their own life. On a trophy site, I don’t judge people who have trophies. That’s just unhealthy in my opinion.

I’m not judging them... lol. I’m just saying, basically, the leaderboards are complex. A lot of them on the higher ranks have a lot of time on their hands. Too much time. I wasn’t talking about gaming being unhealthy for their mental health btw, I was talking about people who are physically ill that can’t go outside because of their illness so to pass time they play games, to have people like that in the high ranks seems logical to me. There’s nothing wrong with that. As for the mental aspect, I don’t know. Gaming helps me but I also know my boundaries, other people don’t and I think those are in the high ranks too. Like I said, everyone does what they want. Its just not achievable for someone with a “normal” life (working, studying, busy with partner, family, friends, socialising, doing other activities, etc.) to achieve a very high rank. You have to give up a lot of things to be a part of that. Back on the main topic though, easy plats are to me: laid back games to play after a long game and good for people who like getting a lot of trophies. Enjoyment is different for everyone. I don’t care that much about my stats, I understand why others do. When people judge others for having 80 easy plats or some crap, I think its stupid cause like... people just gotta mind their own business. Again, nobody is hurting anyone. If people think the leaderboards are unfair because of easy plats, then someone should make a leaderboard where people with hard earned platinums can “participate”, enter the leaderboard and compete, that’d be a nice solution.

[StraightVege]

On 2/13/2021 at 3:57 AM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

For me, it isn't. For me, it is a database, a place to talk about video gaming and to discover new games to play. I keep track of my trophies here because it's convinient, but I did that on my console before I discovered this site, but that's not what I am here for.

 

 

That's exactly how I view this place as well. Some people just use the "it's a trophy hunting site/you display a trophy card in your signature" argument as a poor excuse to deride others, but not everyone thinks of it as a competition. I was once something of an elitist dickhead about gaming myself, and I became way happier after growing out of that mindset.

[ladynadiad]

21 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

The true issue is probably Playstation's lack of quality control,

 

It's not a quality control issue.  Many of those Rata plats actually a lot of fun and any game console needs a good variety of fun games to play.  PSN isn't Steam where you have to wade through massive piles of shit to find the stuff worth your time, especially if you don't care much for the popular AAA games and are looking more for the obscure indie gems.  Same also applies to mobile platforms.  Both are filled with tons of games deserving of the label "shovelware" because Steam and the mobile platforms really do next to nothing in regards to quality control..  The quality control there consists of allow anything to be added and let the users figure out what deserves their money or not.

 

What the "issue" here is would be what comes down to a smart business decision.  I put issue in quotes because I don't see easy plats as an issue, I see people's obsession with rarity to be the actual issue.  But regarding easy plats, it boils down to some devs and publishers have realized that there is definitely a niche of gamers who enjoy games with easy trophies and achievements.  Even better if the game is fun.  The way I see it, a publisher like Ratalaika does the job of wading through the massive piles of shit on Steam and mobile platforms and finds indies that are worth playing and helps the devs get their work ported to PSN, Xbox and Switch.  I see nothing wrong with this, because like I said above a wide variety of fun games is what every console needs in their library.  A lot of people here don't seem to get that there are many different types of gamers and Ratalaika's releases definitely have a market out there among more casual gamers and trophy hunters looking for easy plats that are also fun.  The mere fact that these indie devs can't get their games onto PSN without a publisher like Ratalaika already shows PSN has some level of quality control.

[Darling Baphomet]

1 minute ago, ladynadiad said:

It's not a quality control issue.  Many of those Rata plats actually a lot of fun and any game console needs a good variety of fun games to play.

 

I meant quality control in regards to trophies.

 

31 minutes ago, ScarecrowsFate said:

That's exactly how I view this place as well. Some people just use the "it's a trophy hunting site/you display a trophy card in your signature" argument as a poor excuse to deride others, but not everyone thinks of it as a competition.

 

I think that's a good mindset to have, but I think people who want to compete should be able to do so fairly, too.

[StraightVege]

36 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

I think that's a good mindset to have, but I think people who want to compete should be able to do so fairly, too.

 

Sure, and I'd say that responsibility falls to the host of a given competition. Their rules ought to make certain that participants can't cheapen the contest by abusing easy games, as with the negative experience you've mentioned.

 

Now, if you're referring to leaderboards, that's another matter—they'll almost always be dominated by those who have the most free time on their hands to "spam" trophies, team accounts, and those who can cheat without getting caught. Properly implemented completionist and rarity leaderboards could be far better, however.