Achievement hunting

[Yoshi178]

technically those stars/shine sprites/moons in the 3D Mario games are actually the keys that help you unlock more levels to play through in the game. after you complete the main campaign though, 100% collecting all of those stars is pretty pointless tbh. i usually only 100% a game if something really cool happens for 100%ing the game, like a cutscene that's only unlocked through 100% completion.
for example, 100%ing Metriod Prime unlocks the cutscene that explains that when the Metroid Prime boss was defeated, the remains gave birth to the clone called Dark Samus and essentially helped set up the events for the sequel Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.


100%ing stuff is pretty pointless otherwise though.

Regardless, earning achievements isn't any more pointless than other video game completion. It's a feature that many people find quite rewarding.

hey you asked how do people feel about achievements. i simply answered.

singleplayer campaigns are usually experiencing a story for yourself just like when you read a book or watch a movie/tv show.

multiplayer games are usually for competitive gameplay and co-op campaigns is just an added option to help 2 people complete and experience the story together.

 

[CritialGaming]

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Fair enough. I disagree with your viewpoint (no surprise), but fair enough.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I think I've only ever gotten all the achievements in like 3 games, and that was years ago. One was Bioshock, another was Portal: Still Alive, and I think I might have also gotten them all in Prototype.

Basically a lot of the time achievements end up being not fun and require a lot of repetition and tedious grinding. Sometimes they are just set up badly like in the Kingdom Hearts: 1.5 ReMix where if you beat the game on hard it doesn't give you the achievement for beating the game on easy also, so right there you need to play through the entire game 3 times just for a tiny little notification. That's no thank you for me.

Also if I may digress, I really hate that there's no quick way to get to the trophy description on PS3. On Xbox 360 you get an achievement and then you press the center button while it's on screen it opens up directly to the description so you can see what you just did. PS3 you get the popup, you press the center button, scroll over to trophies, load trophies, find the game, scroll through the list until you find the one you just got, select it, and then you can find out what the heck triggered it. Just annoying and makes me not even care.

 

[Dalisclock]

Sometimes I'll put in the extra effort to get trophies if it feels worth the effort, but I've never bothered to work towards a platinum. I've got too many games and too little time to devote to playing any game that long and most games are long enough that by the time I'm finished, I'm ready to move onto the next one.

Hell, I'm currently playing a long game(Sekiro) and a short game(Pyre) to help shake off the feeling I'm wasting too much time on one game .

 

[Catfood220]

I didn't even know they had that. I just liked the pretty badge for completion. You get to see that nice 100% on your profile for a given game which is just cool.

I'm not in the US so I was never able to participate in the program.

Seeing that 100% bar next to a game is indeed strangely satisfying.

I'm not in the US either but I think they still do the special little rewards. I got sent a code for a profile pic when I got the Spider-Man platinum.

I don't mind trophies, I will go for the platinum if I like the game and its easily achievable without much effort. Ok, that's a bit of a lie, I don't have to like the game *looks at Terminator: Salvation platinum trophy and remembers the pain of dealing with that terrible game*. If it requires more effort than I'm willing to put in then I probably won't bother. I love Horizon: Zero Dawn but I hated the hunting challenges so I haven't got those trophies which is annoying to me. I might have to try and get those again when I finish The Frozen Wilds stuff.

 

[bluegate]

I didn't even know they had that. I just liked the pretty badge for completion. You get to see that nice 100% on your profile for a given game which is just cool.

I'm not in the US so I was never able to participate in the program.

Seeing that 100% bar next to a game is indeed strangely satisfying.

I'm not in the US either but I think they still do the special little rewards. I got sent a code for a profile pic when I got the Spider-Man platinum.

I might have been unclear about it in previous posts, but what I was talking about when I mentioned the rewards program was not getting themes or avatars for individual games.

It was this;
https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-is-letting-you-swap-playstation-trophies-for-cash-rewards/

I don't mind trophies, I will go for the platinum if I like the game and its easily achievable without much effort. Ok, that's a bit of a lie, I don't have to like the game *looks at Terminator: Salvation platinum trophy and remembers the pain of dealing with that terrible game*. If it requires more effort than I'm willing to put in then I probably won't bother. I love Horizon: Zero Dawn but I hated the hunting challenges so I haven't got those trophies which is annoying to me. I might have to try and get those again when I finish The Frozen Wilds stuff.

I only did the challenges near the end of the game and I was able to rush through them within basically minutes. Not sure if it was a numerical advantage or because I gotten skilled at the game.

 

[CritialGaming]

Coincidentally trying to Plat Bloodborne right now. Tips for Pthumerian Descendant welcome!

Coincidentally trying to Plat Bloodborne right now. Tips for Pthumerian Descendant welcome!

Which boss is giving you trouble?

I have some good tips depending on what it is.

Pthumerian Descendant.

JN, Yeah he?s a pain; almost like a much quicker Logarius that loves melee too. I had at least two of him in the dungeons and the best way is to learn his slower attacks? timing to parry and visceral his ass. Otherwise it?s a dogfight of attrition that will wear on your nerves because he?s so aggressive and quick/unpredictable.

Using the environment helps a bit too, kinda circling around the pillars if he?s in the same location for you as I had. Other than that a weapon with good reach can help, which you have if you?re still using the axe.

 

[CritialGaming]

Over the years I managed to collect 53 platinum trophies, so I guess that you could say that I enjoy them.


In general, I really like trophies as they add additional optional challenges and goals in games for players to try and achieve.

Generally I'd shelve games once I'm done with their story mode, but because of trophies I have extended my time with several games, getting more bang for my buck so to speak.
For example, if it weren't for trophies then I would have never bothered to play Lords of the Fallen with all three classes.

I'm not a big fan of overly grindy or online trophies though and I will usually ignore these.

I have never based my purchase of a game on trophies, and I never will.

I 100% agree with this. I would never 100% the trophies in a game that were filled with utter bullshit.

To me a good trophy/achievement list would be mostly things that happen either during the course of normal gameplay OR encourage mose gameplay.

For example I think Diablo 3 has a really good trophy list. It doesn't require any really bullshit grinding like earn 1,000,000 shards or some shit. But it does encourage a lot of replayablity. It wants you to get a character to level 70 in hardcore, it wants you to get 1 of every class to max level, and beat the story on soft and hardcore. That's 90% of the achievements and it's perfectly reasonable.

Mortal Kombat 9 was notorious for fucking dogshit achivements. Like 24 hours of playtime as every character. That's just bullshit. There is a difference between wanting to encourage more play, and just forcing your player to hate your game.

Also I think a good achievement list has to be something that the player can do alone. Or if you want to require multiplayer, make sure it doesn't require an overt level of skill.

For example Mortal Kombat 11 has learned this lesson. Playing 50 online matches is fine. But winning 1000 matches is not.

It would like like if CoD had an achievement for winning 100 matches in a row. Or win 10 matches with a 2.0 KDR.

The Challenge Tower trophy in MK9 is still one of my top rarest trophies according to psnprofiles.com. I think the trick to the 24hrs one was just to leave your console on, but that?s ridiculous and not even worth wasting the power on imo.

Never Platinum?d it or MKX for the unreasonable MP trophies that would realistically need to be boosted if you aren?t playing constantly at a near-professional level. It?s why I 100% agree with you on your point in bold too, and why I was more happy with MK11, which I did Platinum. The only thing that sucked about its list was the fatality/brutality grind to get the Victorious Trophy. [https://psnprofiles.com/trophy/9003-mortal-kombat-11/53-victorious]. But really if you enjoy the game (which I did and still do) it wasn?t as bad as it sounds, because the towers of time are constantly fresh and the meta game of unlocking character gear and outfits is incentive enough for me. I?m also still going for more heads to unlock all of Shang Tsung?s trophy room.

 

[CritialGaming]

Coincidentally trying to Plat Bloodborne right now. Tips for Pthumerian Descendant welcome!

My bad I thought you were talking about the chalice dungeon itself.

So for that boss, you wanna bait his combos. I found that dodging past him to the right yielded the best results. Don't get greedy with hits, once or twice and GTFO.

Alternatively what you can do is play the long game. Basically you play a bit of footsie with him, getting just barely into his range so his starts his attacks then back step and shoot him. I found that this yields visceral attacks a lot of the time because his wild swings leave him very vulnerable to eating a bullet. If you utilize two or three good visceral attacks on him, then you can chip away at his health with normal attacks following my first advice.

Also I highly suggest a fast weapon. So almost anything untransformed. The saw clever is my favorite for him but any other such things would be fine. Do not use Great Swords or a whip for him because they are too slow and leave you open to his punishes. His recovery from his combos is to fast for that crap.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

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Thank, I'll try these out tonight!

EDIT: Aaaaaaand he's dead! Set all runes to amp visceral attacks and finished with 0 blood vials, 0 QS bullets, 0 molotov cocktails and practically no health. Good riddance. Hands still shake.

On to the next pain in the ass, the Headless Bloodletting Beast.

So both the Headless Bloodletting Beast and the Yharnam Queen were a piece of cake and went down in one attempt.
Pthumerian Descendant was an absolute pain. The game was awesome and I'll probably end up playing NG+ but fuck ever fighting that guy again. Glad he's locked down there.
Platinum #46 for me!

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I used to somewhat go for trophies when I had much more time but even then, I wasn't going way out of my way to get them because... (it usually involves doing unfun stuff)

Basically a lot of the time achievements end up being not fun and require a lot of repetition and tedious grinding.

I used to look at the trophy list for games and if there was a trophy that was just a grind, I'd play the game completely not giving a shit about the trophies since I knew I was never doing THAT ONE so 100%ing/Platinum-ing the game was never going to happen.

Sometimes I'll put in the extra effort to get trophies if it feels worth the effort, but I've never bothered to work towards a platinum. I've got too many games and too little time to devote to playing any game that long and most games are long enough that by the time I'm finished, I'm ready to move onto the next one.

Yeah, a normal playthrough of 90+% of games is already artificially padded with low-quality content let alone doing everything in the game.

 

[CritialGaming]

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Thank, I'll try these out tonight!

EDIT: Aaaaaaand he's dead! Set all runes to amp visceral attacks and finished with 0 blood vials, 0 QS bullets, 0 molotov cocktails and practically no health. Good riddance. Hands still shake.

On to the next pain in the ass, the Headless Bloodletting Beast.

So both the Headless Bloodletting Beast and the Yharnam Queen were a piece of cake and went down in one attempt.
Pthumerian Descendant was an absolute pain. The game was awesome and I'll probably end up playing NG+ but fuck ever fighting that guy again. Glad he's locked down there.
Platinum #46 for me!

Congrats!!! Did My tips help at all, or did you power through it yourself?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

snip

snip

Thank, I'll try these out tonight!

EDIT: Aaaaaaand he's dead! Set all runes to amp visceral attacks and finished with 0 blood vials, 0 QS bullets, 0 molotov cocktails and practically no health. Good riddance. Hands still shake.

On to the next pain in the ass, the Headless Bloodletting Beast.

So both the Headless Bloodletting Beast and the Yharnam Queen were a piece of cake and went down in one attempt.
Pthumerian Descendant was an absolute pain. The game was awesome and I'll probably end up playing NG+ but fuck ever fighting that guy again. Glad he's locked down there.
Platinum #46 for me!

Congrats!!! Did My tips help at all, or did you power through it yourself?

They did! I think the boss is so erratic that sooner or later it comes down to winging it, but the bulk of the fight came down to baiting him so I'd be able to parry that one swing and visceral attack him (followed by a greedy/dangerous R2 attack). I had runes adding +30% to v. attacks and a third rune that gave back +300 HP per v. attack. I think that made all of the difference frankly, more than whatever armor or weapon I was using. Also: molotov cocktails saved the day here and there.

By the way, this video's great for getting down what attacks can be parried, and the exact frame where you want to parry them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyEvmk8PGw

 

[Elfgore]

I think they're a nifty thing, I just think some games implement them poorly. For example, ones that include multiplayer stuff. Which eventually become unobtainable if the online function goes down for the game. Plus, it's more random and up to chance I feel to get it. On the other hand, I think some games make it too easy. I have several platinums from Telltale games and various Bethesda games. Where you get achievements for just playing the game and finishing it. There's no real challenge to earn them.

I normally only go for them in games I love and have pretty much expired every other option of gameplay of. I'm super close in Shadow of Mordor and Pirate Warriors 3, just some real bitches I still need to get.

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

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Thank, I'll try these out tonight!

EDIT: Aaaaaaand he's dead! Set all runes to amp visceral attacks and finished with 0 blood vials, 0 QS bullets, 0 molotov cocktails and practically no health. Good riddance. Hands still shake.

On to the next pain in the ass, the Headless Bloodletting Beast.

So both the Headless Bloodletting Beast and the Yharnam Queen were a piece of cake and went down in one attempt.
Pthumerian Descendant was an absolute pain. The game was awesome and I'll probably end up playing NG+ but fuck ever fighting that guy again. Glad he's locked down there.
Platinum #46 for me!

Congrats!!! Did My tips help at all, or did you power through it yourself?

They did! I think the boss is so erratic that sooner or later it comes down to winging it, but the bulk of the fight came down to baiting him so I'd be able to parry that one swing and visceral attack him (followed by a greedy/dangerous R2 attack). I had runes adding +30% to v. attacks and a third rune that gave back +300 HP per v. attack. I think that made all of the difference frankly, more than whatever armor or weapon I was using. Also: molotov cocktails saved the day here and there.

By the way, this video's great for getting down what attacks can be parried, and the exact frame where you want to patty them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyEvmk8PGw

That video is bar-raising for tutorials. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the game, so the next question would be starting Old Hunters on NG or wait for NG+.

If you?re looking for it to be a challenge yet, the latter is probably the way to go. Hitting it now in NG after leveling up through the dungeons might leave it feeling a bit anticlimactic. Anything around 100+ is better for NG+

Congrats on the Plat too! It?s one of my most treasured, right up there with Demon?s Souls.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

snip

snip

Thank, I'll try these out tonight!

EDIT: Aaaaaaand he's dead! Set all runes to amp visceral attacks and finished with 0 blood vials, 0 QS bullets, 0 molotov cocktails and practically no health. Good riddance. Hands still shake.

On to the next pain in the ass, the Headless Bloodletting Beast.

So both the Headless Bloodletting Beast and the Yharnam Queen were a piece of cake and went down in one attempt.
Pthumerian Descendant was an absolute pain. The game was awesome and I'll probably end up playing NG+ but fuck ever fighting that guy again. Glad he's locked down there.
Platinum #46 for me!

Congrats!!! Did My tips help at all, or did you power through it yourself?

They did! I think the boss is so erratic that sooner or later it comes down to winging it, but the bulk of the fight came down to baiting him so I'd be able to parry that one swing and visceral attack him (followed by a greedy/dangerous R2 attack). I had runes adding +30% to v. attacks and a third rune that gave back +300 HP per v. attack. I think that made all of the difference frankly, more than whatever armor or weapon I was using. Also: molotov cocktails saved the day here and there.

By the way, this video's great for getting down what attacks can be parried, and the exact frame where you want to patty them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyEvmk8PGw

That video is bar-raising for tutorials. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the game, so the next question would be starting Old Hunters on NG or wait for NG+.

If you?re looking for it to be a challenge yet, the latter is probably the way to go. Hitting it now in NG after leveling up through the dungeons might leave it feeling a bit anticlimactic. Anything around 100+ is better for NG+

Congrats on the Plat too! It?s one of my most treasured, right up there with Demon?s Souls.

Thanks! I Platted Demon's Souls too, except that took a combined 4 years 2 months (Bloodborne was 3 weeks 5 days). Of course I'd finished the game before that, but the decision to Plat it was spurred when I heard the PS3 servers would be closing (and then my chances of getting a Pure Bladestone would go away forever). The drop rate for those things is absurd.

I'll leave Old Hunters for NG+. I'm BL 161 - ridiculously overleveled - and I'm tearing through Central Yharnam right now.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yeah, a normal playthrough of 90+% of games is already artificially padded with low-quality content let alone doing everything in the game.

Not to mention some games require beating a game multiple times....and these aren't short games either.

Soulsborne, which I do enjoy a lot, requires you to finish the each game at least twice to platinum, unless you mess around with saves at strategic points to get achievements which are exclusive to each play through(you can't get both Orestein and Smough's Soul in the same Playthrough). And maybe the game does go faster on NG+ and beyond but that's still a long game.

And I'm one of those wierdos who both likes Soulbourne games and has never NG+ any of them cause I got shit to do.

I think the only game I've done NG+ on anytime recently was Nier: Automata because I wanted to get 5 main endings(and a bunch of the shorter endings which didn't require a ton of time to unlock). Before that it was Undertale to unlock the pacifist ending.

 

[Trunkage]

Does this count? Fallout New Vegas had a bunch of minor objectives (kill so many and these and get a minor perk). I think I got all except kill all faction leaders, because that breaks the game. That actually took a very long time and pulled me along the boring parts where I've quit before.

Not the actual achievements but something similar