Hi Viewers.
To prove I’m not some noob, here is my Playstation Trophy Profile: http://psnprofiles.com/jAyP0r91
So there is a lot I want to say about game trophies and achievements. A lot of important things that are good about them and a few bad things that rubbed me the wrong way. This blurb is more about what developers should think of when creating them. These are my opinions on the subject and I hope it gives people something to think of.
So let us begin.
First off, to me, trophies are something that commemorates something you do in a game that is impressive, something you do that is worth bragging about. However, sometimes when a developer sets up a game’s trophy list, they miss the whole purpose of creating them. A trophy is an award for the skill of the player or help train the player to learn/practice certain techniques that could be useful later. They are not something that takes a week to accomplish because you need to find all the collectibles, or play through 500 hours of gameplay…twice (or worse, thrice).
Earning each trophy should give you a good feeling. If the game is throwing you too many trophies, then its kinda holding your hand too much. “Lets give a trophy for reaching level 2!” “Lets give a trophy for getting your first head-shot!” “Here’s a trophy for walking 200 meters!” Even though these aren’t real, this should prove my point. Making them too easy isn’t good but neither is making them too hard. If the trophy you design is too hard, then the player just gets frustrated. If the game isn’t giving you any trophies, then the player might get discouraged because it would seem that it would take forever to get them all. This feeling of euphoria [the one of earning a trophy] is supposed to drive the player to collect them all, or at least as many as possible. If done right, the collection of all the trophies will allow the player to experience the game to its full potential.
This article will explore the different types of trophies and what I like and not like about them, each having their benefits and doubts.
Story Progression Trophies:
This is a hit and miss trophy accomplishment. I love collecting trophies based off milestones in the story, whether it be on easy, medium, hard, or devil modes. Earning these types of trophies show other players that you have completed the full story of the game and you’ve beaten it on a particular difficulty (the harder, the better). You know the basic story and can talk about the important aspects of the game to fellow players. Some of these trophies are not directed to straight story progression but we’ll get to that later.
There are a few things I don’t like about story progression trophies. One of them is having to earn the story mission trophies across all levels. If I have to earn the trophy for beating the first level on any difficulty and then on Devil Mode. To me it feels like I’m being forced to play the game on Devil Mode first without having getting used to the game in order to get all the trophies in one go. This would be silly if all you wanted to do is enjoy the game on one round and then spend more time doing it on the hardest difficulty for one trophy. This takes up time, which not a lot of people have. Sure completing the game on Devil / Insanity Mode shows your insane skill, but sometimes the game can be too difficult to complete for average trophy hunters. Although, you can argue that; That trophies aren’t for the ‘average trophy hunter’. Maybe completing it on devil mode is what separates average gamers from the extreme ones.
Another thing is when you do a trophy collection as a story progression, you’re basically giving a countdown timer of when the story is going to end. I don’t know if this is the same for others but when I get my first story trophy, its my first instinct to count the amount of remaining trophies left for the story line. This means when I collect another story trophy, I’ll know the game is getting closer to the end. If i enjoy the game a lot, then I don’t want it to end. This way also might give the player the feeling that the story is progressing too fast, or sometimes, too slow, both which are bad.
There are a couple sets of story progression trophies that a bunch of developers did that I can really appreciate. One was for the game Killzone 2. When they did the story missions, they have levels grouped together under different acts. If you did all the difficulties under the act, it gave you the trophy. This means you can progress at your own pace and do that particular level over and over again if you need to. So if you’re playing this kind of game and you’re trying to beat the hardest difficulty, you’re not stuck at a certain part for hours and hours. You can skip it for awhile and come back.
I still hate that I haven’t gotten that last trophy for one part of one act of Killzone 2, but oh well, 98% is still good. Same goes for Call of Duty: World at War.
Another story progression based achievement I enjoy is quests based ones. This means that when you complete a particular quest (Fallout 3, 4, Skyrim, etc) you get the trophy, no matter how you completed it. Doing it this way means you have a list of important quests to complete and doing them however you like will result in the trophy. That freedom is kinda cool, although it feels like a one time thing. Generally trophies are already a ONE time thing, but earning quest trophies feels like you only have to do it once and then after that, it loses all appeal to repeat. So they are great to accomplish but to me, only have the appeal to accomplish once.
As a side note: ending trophies are a pain in the ass; UNLESS you have multiple save files. As you accomplish a story, you might run into an ending where you’re divided to choose between two (or three) different endings. If you choose the good ending, then you might feel happy and accomplished…until you realize you have to beat the entire game over again to earn the bad ending. This can be good if you have to beat the game on a higher difficulty and not care about the results along the way (infamous 2, where chaos is more fun and not having to worry about innocent civilians). Other then that, its a huge pain in the ass. You can always do what i did in Fallout: New Vegas, where before each level milestone, i did very bad things to get both the neutral and the bad guy milestones, before resuming on good.
Boss Trophies:
These ones are my favorites because they show the true skill of the player. These are kinda related to the story only when the story requires you to defeat a certain boss (ex: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Bloodborne, Shadow of the colossus, Infamous: Second Sons, etc)
But there are a couple that prove that you’re a true gamer when you defeat that impossible boss or hidden enemy.
Gravity Rush, Final fantasy 13-2, One Piece: Unlimited World Red, Dragon’s Crown are some examples where you go out of the way to kill something that takes true skills to defeat.
There are ones that are almost impossible to beat because it take you forever to get to, such as the Yharnam Pthumerian Queen from Bloodborne (although the other bosses are achievements to beat on their own). This one requires you do all these chalice dungeons which require you to be super high level and beat the game like 3 times. I can totally accomplish this one, but that means grinding…and NO ONE likes grinding. Like you’ll see below, no one likes taking 200 hours to accomplish anything.
A boss trophy has to be one of the most rewarding trophies. I can’t wait to see what Final Fantasy XV has in store.
Online Trophies:
Trophies that rely on a stable internet connection are the stupidest ones I’ve ever had to deal with. Especially ones that require other players to be good or to be coordinated.
One of the worst game for this was Resistance 3 when you had to play the online to get all the trophies but the online sucked anyways, so the lack of players threw the trophies out the window for me. I can NEVER get them now if i wanted to go back.
Destiny is another with the trophy that has you team up with other Clan members and none of you can die while attempting the Raid (which is almost impossible to NOT die in even on the easiest difficulty). Even if your all coordinated, one small mistake can lead to one death and that all it takes to fail the trophy attempt (whether it be because of player error, game error or internet lag). It’s stupid. Not because I can’t do it, but because they are almost asking for the impossible. If they dumb it down and ask to beat the Raid with just a clan full of people, that’s achievable.
Assassins Creed is another one that has online trophies but these are a little more achievable. There isn’t a huge online presence for Assassins Creed, so it may fall the way of Resistance 3. But the only one that’s hard to do is reach level 50 online. Which just takes time, but if you have no interest in the online, why put someone through that.
Collectibles:
This can go either way as well.
It is good if the collectibles help you in the story (leveling up or gaining new powers)
A good example of this would be some of the collectibles in Infamous: Second Son.
It is bad if they are JUST FOR COLLECTING. The one that really takes the cake is Grand Theft Auto 4 where you have to shoot 200 fucking pigeons. Yes my swearing is going to be justified if you realize how ridiculous it was to run around to each location and shoot a flying fucking rat, only to be wanted by the cops for shooting in a public area. There was NO benefit for adding this trophy or for collecting it. It is a giant waste of time. Also the fucking things were tiny and not very noticeable and if at any point you accidentally shot one (or blew one up), next time you go to find that one, your going to be spending a long time looking for it (only for it not to be there).
Some are just a little waste of time but can be found during the linear story progression such as the Uncharted series. These treasures were interesting add-ons but served no real purpose to the story. The positive thing they did was tell you that there were some missing in certain missions so you didn’t have to play the whole game over again to collect just one missing treasure. And they can be collected on any difficulty.
I just finished playing Life is Strange and these collectibles come in the form of taking photos of things and once you beat the game, each part (chapter) will tell you if there is a photo opportunity and you can go back and find it if you wish.
That’s one positive thing you can add to the game if you’re going to add collectibles. Lets make this a rule! If you are going to add collectibles, you must:
- Provide a hint or a count to how many your missing during a single player campaign.
- Provide a Map of where they are in an open world (much like FarCry 4, Assassins Creed: Black Flag, and Infamous: Second Son).
- Have them useful to the main character, not useless.
- Have them in short quantity, don’t exceed 200 in anything…ever.
- Make them big enough to find, or have a shine to them, so its easy to find in them on the ground or on a ledge.
Collectibles that require you to get them all during ONE play-through, are just plain stupid.
Time Trials:
These types of trophies can go both ways but I believe they are also stupid. They definitely show the skill of a player because its doable and the developers want you to achieve that. On the other hand, what if you want to just play the game as your own pace? This puts a lot of stress on the player to do that particular activity in that time frame.
What really pisses me off is missing that target by 0.2 seconds and having to repeat the event. Its worse when you have a 5 minute time trial to race up a mountain, only to hit a bloody car just before the end line, and having to repeat that 5 minute trial.
The WORST possible thing is if the event is during the story, and you have to play the story all over again to get to that part, or at least a long distance into the chapter.
Exploration:
Right now I can’t think of a certain exploration type trophy, but these are really good if done right. These would be meant to drive the player to experience the entire game, in every corner and location the developer wants you to go.
Gambling:
There are several games where you need to gamble or play a game in order to achieve the trophy. These aren’t essential to the game and the developers want you to explore the side features of the game, things the developer thought would be fun. If the gambling or games don’t pay off, then its just another trophy that’s kinda useless or annoying to get.
Watchdogs, Fallout: New Vegas, The Witcher 3, FF13-2 are some examples that have side games.
In my opinion, I hate getting these because its a waste of time and it takes me away from the game a little. I end up doing these just to get rid of the quest indicator, if you can get rid of it.
Skill:
This is the final section but one thing I’ve been stressing the entire time. Skill trophies are ones that have you, the player, do a series of things that can help you get better as a player and even as a person.
First you got your simple ones like perform 20 counter attacks in a game (Enslaved: Odyssey to the West) or perform an Ollie over the doughnut hut (probably any skateboarding game).
Next you got your advanced ones like get 200 head-shots with the pistol or take out two contracts using only your sword (The Witcher 3).
Last you got your expert, win 10 ranked matches in a row, (Super Street Fighter IV) or knock out 3 opponents in cruel smash (Super Smash Bros 3DS).
Doing these will not only get you the trophy, but you learn HOW to play the game its mean to be played. Like if your stuck on defeating the final boss in Mortal Kombat, then why not practice countering against the AI in the tutorial or even performing combos that will help you benefit in battle. Trying to take out a field of bad guys? Try aiming for the head (the physical skills you learned by taking out the previous guys (finger memory)). Or hell, throw that propane tank to your left (doing this three times might earn a trophy and give you situational awareness for future battles).
Earning these types of trophies prove that you know HOW to play the game and practically bragging rights on how good you are.
Conclusion:
Anyways, that’s my rant on the subject of trophies. I hope any reader can understand where I’m coming from when I talk about the positives and negatives on each type of trophy.
poirierjason91 