One thing I really hate about earning trophies... difficulty based trophies

[LongLivePlay94]

I feel I have to clarify before the main post, but I do like earning Platinum trophies. These thoughts are applicable to games as a whole. I like to get the Platinum trophy for a game because I know that is monitored for future developments and I like to know that the developers can see how much I've enjoyed their game.

I'm playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 at the moment and even with the guide I am getting my ass kicked on Legendary Mode. I've done as much as I can but I have rheumatoid arthritis and sometimes my hands swell so much that my reflexes know what I need to do but physically I cant keep up. It's what made me stop playing guitar as much as my whole arms ache from finger tips to above my shoulders in no time and if they swell up I just can't move as quickly as I need too.

This is something I have major kudos for Days Gone, they didn't ask you to complete everything on the absolute hardest difficulty, nor did they expect you to complete everything to 100% standard but as long as you could say you persisted with the game and experienced most everything it had to offer competently without necessitating a 100% completion for each avenue, you could get the Platinum. Same for Ghost of Tsushima.

I gave up with games like Killzone that have silly online trophies that are hard to get for players like me. Nier Automata was fantastic because they gave you an opportunity to unlock trophies you really struggled with without cheating.

I'm just looking at the Mah Jong, gambling, batting and golfing games like smdh. I'm going to struggle completing the game on this difficulty, never mind doing the mini games that I struggle with. Guides only help so much but as I've found with Mah Jong, there are no comprehensive guides that really help you learn. The game offers limited tutoring.

At the end of the day, I'll have been playing this game since well before Christmas and I'll be looking at the trophy list on the dashboard like two trophies... I just need two trophies...

 

[mrmoose]

I guess it's the difference on whether you think a Platinum should just represent whether someone spent sufficient time on a game or whether someone did something really hard in a game. I can understand your point, though. I do hate ones where it's like "get top 10 on leaderboards" or something like that.

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

It really depends on the difficulty for me.

I've platinumed 2 games with a "if you get hit once you die" mode being Evil Within and DMC5 (which you have to S rank)

Evil Within is nonsense because that game is just designed to hurt you both in the game and in real life because of it's long as fuck load times. With DMC5 I feel pretty comfortable with V and Nero, but with Dante I ultimately had to Faust trick with him because he is mechanically more complicated than both Nero and V and it kinda sucked.

The best difficulties are things where it feels like a fair challenge, and not a mode explicitly designed to murder the player over and over again.

For Kiwami 2 you could just get the Dragon-SP pistol to make it much easier for yourself

 

[Weiss]

I feel like instances like this are the kind of thing that happens without a mutually agreed upon idea for what trophies "should" be that maybe they shouldn't have at all.

If you load a game with optional challenges and content and treat trophies like markers to acknowledge you did them, then the kind of person who wants to get all the trophies will slog through content they don't want to say they did. That's kind of weird, but putting a trophy in there is an admission that its criteria is something the game designers have decided is attainable.

In a way, trophies have created a scenario where content that was previously made up on the fly by the diehard communities (beat the game in a speedrun! Take no damage! Use only your starting gear!) was now an open invitation to the rest of the playerbase to try out the hardest possible challenges.

I guess if I had to sum it up in one phrase I'd say: A game should be playable by everyone, but after that is the question if everyone should be able to see every piece of it, even the ones designed for the ultra dedicated 100% crowd who played the game enough to understand every nuance of it. Everyone can see a film, but the only people who deep dive into the character dialogue and motivations are the ones who want to do it out of passion. That's probably not the best analogy.

 

[SunshinePuppies]

I think the thing about trophies is that it is ok for them to represent something that not everyone can have. I'm not a fan of achievements/trophies just becoming something that everyone can easily get.

I'm of the opinion that they should represent, well, an achievement. Lots of games I wanted to plat I didn't either because I didn't have the skill or the time, and I think that's ok, that's what makes the achievements all the more special for those who did get them.

I'm happy enough playing the game for the game itself, rather than for the achievements.

 

[Holmes]

Depends. If the difficulty trophies stack, it's fine. If you can do a NG+ for the higher difficulty trophy, that's also fine.

I remember getting the platinum on an Uncharted game and having to play through multiple times on different difficulties, which was lame. Game's short though so not the end of the world.

 

[Strat]

I feel like instances like this are the kind of thing that happens without a mutually agreed upon idea for what trophies "should" be that maybe they shouldn't have at all.

If you load a game with optional challenges and content and treat trophies like markers to acknowledge you did them, then the kind of person who wants to get all the trophies will slog through content they don't want to say they did. That's kind of weird, but putting a trophy in there is an admission that its criteria is something the game designers have decided is attainable.

In a way, trophies have created a scenario in which content that was previously made up on the fly by the diehard communities (beat the game in a speedrun! Take no damage! Use only your starting gear!) and made it an open invitation to the rest of the playerbase to try out the hardest possible challenges.

I guess if I had to sum it up in one phrase I'd say: A game should be playable by everyone, but after that is the question if everyone should be able to see every piece of it, even the ones designed for the ultra dedicated 100% crowd who played the game enough to understand every nuance of it. Everyone can see a film, but the only people who deep dive into the character dialogue and motivations are the ones who want to do it out of passion. That's probably not the best analogy.

Click to shrink...

No joke, I was reading this without seeing who posted it and was like "this sounds like fucking Weiss" and hey, it is you!

Anyways, OT, I don't think all platinum's should be as easy to get as a lot of Sony games have been. It's fun to do sometimes (GoW, Spidey, Tsushima) but I don't really feel much accomplishment from doing it. I'm happy with finishing a game, getting a 60% completion rate and being like "ok, I'm done" and moving on. The only thing I don't like are games that make you playthrough multiple times to get like...a single trophy/achievement, or online based ones that end up broken/impossible to obtain.

 

[FinFunnels]

Mahjong is in quite a few of the Yakuza games, so once you learn how to play it, you can A) say you know how to play mahjong and B) earn all those damn mahjong trophies in each game 😄

 

[Version 3.0]

If developers are looking at trophy completion as feedback, I would have to assume that they take the difficulty of the trophies they've assigned into account.

Personally, I only use trophies as:

1. A way to keep playing a game I've really enjoyed, but have otherwise pretty much exhausted.
2. Just simple amusement, if I see a trophy description that looks like it would be fun to try and get.

If they've designed their trophies in a different way, then I have no use for them. Learn to let go - use the trophies for your own purposes. If what you want out of them doesn't align with the developers' intent, then don't frustrate yourself with them, is my advice.

 

[Weiss]

No joke, I was reading this without seeing who posted it and was like "this sounds like fucking Weiss" and hey, it is you!

Anyways, OT, I don't think all platinum's should be as easy to get as a lot of Sony games have been. It's fun to do sometimes (GoW, Spidey, Tsushima) but I don't really feel much accomplishment from doing it. I'm happy with finishing a game, getting a 60% completion rate and being like "ok, I'm done" and moving on. The only thing I don't like are games that make you playthrough multiple times to get like...a single trophy/achievement, or online based ones that end up broken/impossible to obtain.

Click to shrink...

I have evolved beyond mere shitposting, transcending into the next stage of man: writing pseudo brainy essays about pop culture that nobody cares enough to read but they'll nod along in fear that contradicting me will prompt me to write another one.

 

[Pfroebbel]

Depends on the Game. Open World 100 Hours Skyrim? Borderlands? Please no difficulty Trophy

Resident Evil 2 or 3 which you can play through in 2 Hours? Jeah, why not

 

[Faith]

The only difficulty based trophies I don't like are the ones that don't stack, forcing multiple playthroughs. If I'm confident enough to play through on the hardest difficulty all the trophies for easier difficulties should also unlock.

 

[supercommodore]

Difficulty based trophies are cool with me. I hate trophies that are, "Complete on hardest difficulty without dying" in games longer than maybe 5 hours.

 

[Bishop89]

yeah, difficulty + online trophies are my most hated.

Online because well they're just so fucking annoying to get, and you only have a limited time to get it, and even then there's no guarantee due to a number of factors.

Difficulty ones suck because i generally hate playing on higher difficulties as it takes the fun out of 90% of games.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

I don't really care about trophies and achievements and part of that is that so many are related to mindless busywork. Completing a game on the highest difficulty or without more than three saves (Dead Space 2) is an achievement at least, and to me what the point of these things should be. Have some trophies everyone can and have some that require true mastery of the game instead of just having tons of collectibles that everyone just uses a guide for.

 

[Mugman]

I really enjoy getting platinum trophies in games I love, and I truly love the Yakuza series, but one glance at one of their trophy lists told me I was never gonna bother with it for any of these games lol

 

[JulianV]

I only really hate Online trophies. You have to play the game on the release time frame if it is not a big game like call of duty to get those trophies. I mean I got MP trophies for older games but most of the time is a hassle.

 

[Fdkn]

I am fine with difficulty trophies if I can select the hardest one on the 1st run. Forcing it to a second playthough is a mess

 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

yeah, even with all the jank and difficulty in some of the minigames and its general time consuming nature (60 percent done at 67 hours! this will probably stop me from platting yakuza 0. And i'm sure it has in plenty of other games too. Only one of the top of my head that I've stomached it for is the mass effect trilogy.

 

[ghostcrew]

I don't mind them honestly. But I've never been one of those folks who chase platinums and feel like the trophy list should be easily obtainable just so that everyone can get the platinum

I see trophies as cool little rewards and proof that you did something cool/remarkable. Finishing a game on optional harder difficulties feels like something worthy of getting a little trophy to prove it to me.

It's a reason that I think the platinum trophy model is a little flawed (rather than just having x amount of achievements), because it makes people obsessed with chasing it. I don't really love how trivial it is to get in a lot of modern games.