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Lazy trophy design, good example of the "flawed" 20 point system


Laire

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It's a good example of how "unsupervised" the Trophy system is when it comes to Golds.

 

A downloadable game is typically limited to 20 (sometimes 21) "points" of trophies. The usual spread is a Gold (6 points), 3 Silver (2 points each) and 8 Bronze (each 1 point).

 

Frogger's spread is 3 Gold (6 points each) and one Silver (2 points). Which, point-for-point is LEGAL, and the golds look more impressive on your profile, but it just screams lazy designers.

 

 

The trophy spread SHOULD have looked something like:

 

[GOLD] Complete all levels in SCORE ATTACK with a total score above [X].

[sILVER] Complete all levels in ARCADE MODE in a row.

[sILVER] Complete all levels in TIME ATTACK with a total time below [X].

[sILVER] Complete all levels in FREE PLAY in a row.

[bRONZE] Complete any stage without losing a single life.

[bRONZE] Complete any stage with a score above [X].

[bRONZE] Complete any stage with a time below [X].

[bRONZE] Complete the first stage in any mode.

[bRONZE] Complete the second stage in any mode.

[bRONZE] Complete the third stage in any mode.

[bRONZE] Complete the fourth stage in any mode.

[bRONZE] On the first stage, pick up a lady frog and get home safely.

 

 

You'd get your one "free silver" with the Free Play mode, but most casual players would stop at the 50% completion and never be able to get those first three trophies.

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Although it's lazy and a measly 4 trophies is pretty pathetic for a trophy "list", the fact is that easy trophies sell. I know there's a bunch of people that purchased every version of the game, each costing $5 US, just to get the easy golds. Right there that one person is paying ~$15 US as opposed to $5 US. I'm glad I got the game for free, as it didn't even seem worth $5 to me, but they're making more money because of easy trophies. In fact, I bet a good portion of the sales were just from trophy whores looking for easy trophies.

 

I do agree that the trophy system should be more supervised though. Games like this and Terminator Salvation shouldn't be allowed. I mean, golds should be for challenging trophies, not simply "Beat X Level" trophies as displayed by Frogger and Terminator. Unfortunately though, Sony doesn't give half a shit about trophies so I can't see anything ever changing in that respect.

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In the end, I don't think trophies have ever had anything to do about their level of challenge - they're more a way for Sony and the various game companies to gather data on their consumers.

 

How far is a game played by the average purchaser? How many people are actually willing to 'grind out' a tedious task for a Gold Trophy? In short, just how much can the gaming society be controlled through the incentives of artificial achievements?

 

 

If a game has a gold trophy awarded for shooting 10,000 robots, and 90% of their players that hit that goal stop on the scoreboards around the 10,001-10,100 mark, it shows that they were playing just for the trophy at that point, not because they enjoyed the game anymore.

 

For a game like this, they can determine just how many people bought the game for the trophies - those players would have unlocked all four trophies within an hour, and the game was never played again after that point. So they have data on just how many consumers were made to play a game they never would have looked at otherwise.

 

--------------------------

 

"Big Brother conspiracy theory aside ... :)

 

 

Nobody really likes or WANTS Bronze Trophies when you get right down to it. The Platinum Trophy is a good idea, but I'd also like to see games have "sets" of trophies made up of lesser ones, and if you complete that set of six Bronze trophies, they'll get traded in and "Levelled Up" for a Gold.

 

For instance, this game could have Bronze trophies of:

"Complete any level in Time Attack mode"

"Complete Level 1 in Time Attack in under 5 minutes"

"Complete Level 2 in Time Attack in under 6 minutes"

"Complete Level 3 in Time Attack in under 7 minutes"

"Complete Level 4 in Time Attack in under 8 minutes"

"Complete all levels in Time Attack in one session in under 25 minutes"

 

Those times are probably overly generous and just for example. :) If you complete all six of these tasks, your six 1-point Bronze trophies change to a single 6-point Gold trophy: "Master of Frogger Time Attack". Maybe the Bronzes could also level up to Silvers depending on the set.

 

Every DLC game would have 18 Bronze trophies which could be levelled up to 3 Gold. DLC expansions would come with 6 Bronze which could upgrade to a single Gold. (More expensive offerings might give 12 Bronze.) A full disk game would have 60 Bronze Trophies - so 100%-ing a game would give you a Platinum, 10 Gold, and nary a Silver or Bronze to be found. But someone renting the game for an afternoon would end up with a bunch of Bronze and nothing else.

 

 

Right. That's the end of my long pointless ramble that hardly anyone will ever read and even fewer will care about, buried in a Frogger forum of all things. :D

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