@Fight_Teza_Fight Man, PS Stars is kind of a joke. There’s remarkably little chatter about it because it’s just absolute garbage so far.
First of all, it’s unnecessarily confusing. Not the sign-up, that’s easy — but understanding the “benefits” of the program is not very clear.
So, as best I can tell, there’s very little benefit to trophy earning. But first let me explain a little background —
There’s a few basic markers of acquired “value”. First there are PS Stars “points.” These points are what most of us want, because points can be used to buy things like games and subscriptions in the PS Store. The exchange rate is roughly 5,000 points for $20. But some games are sold separately for a specific number of points. These points are primarily earned through completing “campaigns”.
To let you know how ridiculous the campaigns are, the three available campaigns now are — one that has to do with playing part of like 4 different fighting games, and another campaign has to do with launching 5 different games with clues from 1994 music. And the rewards for going through all that trouble (if you even own all those games) is merely a “collectible” which is a digital icon to display on your profile. The only campaign now that actually gives the currency of points is one where you get 50 points if you buy one game from a list of 6 games (Madden, NBA2K, Saints Row, TMNT, TLoUP1, or Inscryption) on PSN. If you buy all 6, do you get 300 points? I don’t know. But I have no interest in buying any of those right now.
The other acquired value is your level. Your level is what can be increased from earning uncommon or rare trophies, as well as also from buying games. You start at level 1 and to get to level 2 you have to buy one “full game” on PSN (uh, does that mean full priced or just mean not DLC?) and earn one uncommon trophy. To get to level 3 then you have to buy 2 games and earn 32 trophies. The highest level is level 4 when you buy 4 games and 128 uncommon trophies.
What is the perk to increasing your level, you ask? You get a digital collectible to display of course. (Wheee!) Nothing of any value and no credits to spend on the store. If you make it to level 4 you do get … drumroll please… priority access to the PlayStation chat support team! ….What?!? What kind of ridiculous reward is that?
Oh and it gets better — your level resets after 13 months back to level 1. So this fancy premiere access to the support team via chat is only good for a limited time.
Needless to say, I’m pretty disappointed. If you think you’re going to earn PSN store credit for earning trophies, think again. At best you’ll get a digital collectible to display, and then only if you’re spending money in the digital store also.
@AgentCooper Cheers, I literally couldn't have done it without all you guys on the high plains booster. As per @BearsEatBeets comment previously I wouldn't have even come back to the game if it wasn't for you guys on here so great to get that push. I know you were going to chip away at it but hopefully you are near completion or not a million miles away at least?
@RogerRoger Thanks as well and what a journey it was. According to the game stats on the PS5 I played for a total of 328 hours which sounds like it could have some truth to it, but at the same time that does seem like an insane amount of time playing one game.
@BearsEatBeets@render Congrats on those plats. Seems you guys really loved this game to put so much time and effort in it. And good to see the community here helped you guys achieving those plats.
Personally, I hope to get around trying the game again and that i start to like the game the 2nd try. The first time i played it the extremely slow start and the horrible gunplay put me of it and quit it after a few hours. After seeing the colonel and you guys achieving the plats for it makes me at least want to try it, since normally big open world historical games are my favorite type of games.
@Th3solution Sucks to hear. Definitely sounds confusing. I’ll sign up because it’s just free stuff. No harm just having it. I’m sure it’ll evolve over time.
Also I think there’s more to it that we don’t know yet. Like viewing your collectibles or trophies in VR.
Tiers resetting makes no sense. That needs to be changed.
I don’t know how they would tie the rewards program to trophies. It’s kind of a double edged sword- which is why I was curious. If you get cash back for every platinum the market is going to be filled with even more trophy padding games, but it would keep more gamers playing.
Perhaps they should tie it to rarity, but I don’t see Sony putting in the effort.
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Dies, Died, Will Die.
If we could perceive time for what it really was,
What reason would Grammar Professors have to get out of bed?- Robert & Rosalind Lutece
@Fight_Teza_Fight Yeah, the small perks that exist from trophies (their role in progress toward the level tiering) are noted to require “uncommon” or “rare” trophies, so it does seem Sony is considering the “cheap” platinum issue.
Still, rarity isn’t always a marker of difficulty or required effort, as we see with the rather high percentage of people who have achieved the Elden Ring platinum. I’m not sure what the solution would be. Trophy completion percentage/rarity is a better predictor of how much effort a trophy takes and therefore how much value it should carry in a rewards program, but it’s not always the case with games like the FromSoft games which attract trophy hunters. It also increases the rarity of a trophies on games that are offered for “free” in the PS Plus services because lots of people just boot up the game and try it once and never stick with it, therefore increasing the denominator.
>>And as an aside on the PS Stars thing — I owe the internet a small apology because according to the Push Square guide (the Sony site doesn’t explain this where I saw), we do get 10 points per dollar spent on the PS Store if you’re a PS Plus member. It’s still a pittance, but at least it means that point acquisition isn’t only limited to buying from their selected list of games. All those give is an extra 50 point bonus. So conceivably (if I understand it correctly) if I bought TLoU1 for $70, I’d get 700 points + 50 bonus points = 750 points. Still… with that number of points I could only exchange for a coupe Ape Escape looking digital collectibles. If I banked them and also bought Madden and got another 750 points then I’d have enough for $5 of store credit. 😒
Right now, the PS Stars reward program isn’t even as good as the GameStop loyalty program, which is pretty pitiful.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@RogerRoger@render My stats say I put 529 hours into it, my second most played game. It's no indicator of the time it takes to platinum though, just how much I love the game and how long spent mindlessly moseying about the wild west.
If you give it another go @Lavalera, I hope it clicks for you. I totally get people finding it slow going. I think it takes several hours and into chapter 2 before the game has finally opened up everything available to you and you can finally just fully explore and partake in all it offers. I love the slow pace and meticulous animations personally and think of no other game world that I can just get lost in without doing anything in particular.
I did my little trophy mop up session today and popped my 9 Platinums in an hour and a quarter. I forgot to check my trophy level before but think I went up about 2 and a half levels.
The games were a combo of PS5 versions of previously platted PS4 games Unpacking, Control, Jedi Fallen Order and A Plague Tale: Innocence
some Plus games NFS Heat, What Remains of Edith Finch and Life is Strange
and a couple brought cheap after a bit searching for fun quickish plats Splash Cars and Doki Doki Literature Club.
Overall, it ended up being a fun way of playing and discovering a few games I probably would have never got around to playing, namely the final 4 mentioned. Edith Finch I had heard lots about but was never that fussed about trying but I'm glad that I now have. Pretty much the same for Life is Strange, I may be tempted to try the sequels some time.
If anyone wants a fun little game that can be platinumed in a couple of hours Splash Cars is great. It's kind of an isometric view micro machines combined with Splatoon. Each level is map you have to go around which colours in behind you, except the throttle is always on and you have a set amount of fuel and can only take so much damage. There are some vehicles going around which will 'uncolour' the level unless you pass close by and then they can help. Plus, there are police cars which can damage you and power ups that randomly appear around the map. The levels gradually get trickier and bigger but you can also unlock better cars. I'd recommend it as a fun diversion for a few hours and it only cost a few quid.
I did get a few other cheap games, but they ended up being way trickier than I read. Untitled Goose Game which has two final speed run trophies that can do one and Golf Club Wasteland which is actually a masterclass in frustration.
@BearsEatBeets
If I knew how to do gifs it would be the Wayne's World 'We're not worthy! thing... Love it!
I've sometimes thought about having a similar approach to platinum and seeing how many I could get in a day but never been focussed, disciplined or organised enough to try it - so massive kudos for that.
Glad to hear about Splash Cars, has been on my radar since I read a review a few months ago. Less glad about Golf Club Wasteland as that one's already in my backlog.
Are you planning to do this from now on or returning to the conventional one platinum at a time?
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@BearsEatBeets awesome stuff there buddy… I’m kinda in a similar situation myself what with me having planned a particular upcoming release to be my next milestone. So I’ve been chipping away at a few games that I can finish off after… don’t think I’ll manage nine though 😅
@sorteddan Have you tried Golf Club Wasteland yet? I've managed to get par on with about half the holes but really struggling judging the power of shots. I can't imagine the doing it all in go trophy. I'll just chip away from time to time and get as many holes done as I can.
Other than that, back to normal, playing mostly one game at a time and if it's enjoyable enough and doable, going for plat. I do kind of like saving the milestone numbers for the bigger more favourable titles so I may do something like that in the future but probably never to that same extent.
@colonelkilgore I've kind of ending up copying you with the 100th plat thing, was going to make it the 90th but just wanted to keep going with RDR 2 to make sure I could actually get it. It took several attempts to get the last couple of golds. You know what will happen now, Sony will mess it up and suddenly give Ragnarok a really tough plat I can't get.
I'm curious to see what the trophy list will be like for A Plague Tale Requiem. That will probably be my next main game. If it's similar to the first I might have to leave that a trophy or two short of complete.
@BearsEatBeets well if Sony of late is anything to go by I’d imagine that the Ragnarok plat will be very achievable… but I’m sure you know what a kick-up-the-bum it can be to make assumptions. Even if it isn’t though… a tough plat, or one that requires a degree of dedication, do always pop all the sweeter imho.
@Lavalera Definitely worth having another crack at RDR2. I remember it taking a while to click with me too as it was slow going to start but once I'd accepted that this was the pace of the game I really got into it.
@BearsEatBeets Well you said you were going to do it and you flippin well delivered on the promise. Congrats for those 9 platinums. I'm waiting to see what you come up with next time to beat that haul 😀
@render@BearsEatBeets I think it's probably that i expected something different from it the first time. I expected it to be faster paced and more action oriented. But now i know it's a more slow experience i have to find the right time to play it. When i'm in the mood for a more slow paced game i will certainly pick it up again.
Also nice accomplishment on those 9 in an hour Bears. Thats a huge accomplishment!
Really wish this PS Stars thing didn’t only take into account trophies that we earned after signing up.
This was my immediate thought. It's weird everyone starting at level 1 when you might have already got thousands of trophies that would bump you up the levels. There's a secret top level too for the people that play the most and I wonder how many people would instantly meet the criteria to get invited to that. Not the end of the world though, I'm sure the trophies will keep coming and we'll get there in the end.
@johncalmc@nessisonett Don’t forget, there’s game purchase requirements also tied to leveling up. So you can earn a million rare trophies and never move up even one level if you’re not also purchasing “full games” from the PS Store.
And I think I misinterpreted Sony’s explanation of the leveling system, I’m not sure. (The whole thing is a puzzling) It says purchase 1 game to get to level 2 then for level 3 it says “bought 2 full games and earned 32 uncommon trophies” and I thought this meant that you needed to buy an additional 2 games and earn and additional 32 trophies after being at level 2, but now I read it to mean a cumulative 2 games and 32 trophies since joining the service, which is way more achievable for me.
In my initial thoughts, to get to level 4 I’d have to buy 1+2+4 = 7 digital games to get to level 4. But I think now it might mean just buy 4 total. And the same for trophies (128 uncommon trophies cumulatively since joining).
I probably don’t buy more than 3-4 digital games per year (mostly on account of still buying a lot physical and playing a lot through the PS+ offerings) so I wasn’t planning to ever be level 4 but I might get there after all.
Not sure if anyone can confirm yet whether the game purchases and trophies stack cumulatively and carry over or do the counts reset between levels?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@nessisonett Haha! Yeah, after I posted that I went into my library out of curiosity to actually count my digital full game purchases and it looks like I have to go back to Autumn 2020 to get to my 4th purchase. But then I bought 3 games in quick succession in 2019, so who knows. But I think I’m at about 2 digital game purchases per year average.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@colonelkilgore yeah, just kidding. I'll be shocked if Ragnarok doesn't have an achievable plat. Sony over the last few years have really mastered the well-balanced trophy list.
@WCB@render@Lavalera@RogerRoger Thanks all but not that big an achievement. More an exercise in scheduling. It was quite fun figuring out what could be the quickest trophy to leave out though. It certainly helped show the value in digital copies of games and quick loads on PS5.
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