Hello CAG,

Quick questions – Do some of you consider yourself an “Achievement\Trophy Hunter”? I like to know if the Achievements\Trophies makes a different when you are gaming. How do you decide to playthrough the game? Do you start on easy difficulty and try to get the hardest Achievement\Trophy first then work your way to harder difficulty or you just jump in hard difficulty then go back to get the ones you missed? For Multiplayer; do you game with people you know or strangers over LIVE to earn them? (Go ahead and write a short story to let our fellow CAG know)

For me; I have a family and they always come first. So, time is an essence. I research the Achievements\Trophies before playing it so I can unlock them as fast as I can. If the game is too time consuming to unlock Achievements\Trophies. I’ll move on to another game. I always start on the hardest difficulty first then go back. I choose to play online with friends first but in desperation to unlock more Achievements\Trophies then I’ll play with strangers. (I’m currently at 91,970 Gamerscore and trying to hit 100,000 GS real soon).

I do what I think is fun in a game and if a trophy happens to pop up while doing so, I'll calmly wait for it to stop blocking my health bar, and then proceed.

Sometimes I make a point to go after trophies/achievements in games, but most of the time I just play the game as I see fit. I have too many games and too little time to try to get every one in every game, especially with all the bullshit multiplayer ones.

Achievements make for a pretty easy way to ruin a perfectly good game. Particularly in games with missable collectibles. Nothing terribly fun about going through a road map to make sure I don't miss anything.

I ignore them on the first playthrough. If the game's fun enough to warrant a second, then they can make for some nice alternate objectives to keep the game...as long as I don't let the more asinine ones ruin it.

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Originally Posted by panzerfaust I do what I think is fun in a game and if a trophy happens to pop up while doing so, I'll calmly wait for it to stop blocking my health bar, and then proceed.

That's a very rare occurrence...

For me I can't game without achievement/trophies, it's just not the same anymore once I'm exposed to it (for a pretty long time now)... My biggest regret for Wii U is the lack of such feature.

Here's a list of what trophies/achievements did to my gaming habit:

• They make me play games on hardest settings (I suck at video games, but I'm very persistent).
• They make me play games I normally skip (like Dead to Rights, Damnation etc.).
• They make me play games I normally think childish or uncool (Cabela's Camp, EyePet).
• They make me collect things in the game I normally skip (Uncharted treasures).
• They make me play online sometimes (I hate online trophies/achievements, I'm a very offline gamer, hahaha). I had to do this for Transformers War for Cybertron platinum trophy.
• They make me appreciate games like Flower and PJ Eden (I'm not a very patient gamer, PJ Eden was crap when I first played it)
• They make me hold on to the games I've completed unless I got the platinum trophy (got a lot of those games around, hahaha).
• They make me laugh... Some trophies/achievements have funny names and descriptions.
• They keep track of my gaming experiences...
• They make me remember my accomplishments (God of War's Bleeding Thumbs trophy)
• They make me play games in "innovative" ways (press the PS button to freeze the screen, set the clock...) Kind of remind me of Metal Gear Solid's psycho mantis boss...
• Believe it or not, trophies/achievements make me buy more games! Not necessarily play more games...

Originally Posted by Salamando3000 Achievements make for a pretty easy way to ruin a perfectly good game. Particularly in games with missable collectibles. Nothing terribly fun about going through a road map to make sure I don't miss anything. I ignore them on the first playthrough. If the game's fun enough to warrant a second, then they can make for some nice alternate objectives to keep the game...as long as I don't let the more asinine ones ruin it.

Yes, like Heavy Rain... That's one game I ignored the trophy list completely, until I beat it. I did have to back track for the "Perfect Crime" trophy (way way way back, you know what I'm talking about if you played the game). However, without trophies, I would never have played all of the endings... That's another thing trophies did to me :P

Heavy Rain's DLC, Taxidermist, didn't have trophies, I only played that DLC once and that's it...

Most games have story related trophies hidden, so there's no spoiler. "Missable" trophies are a different story... For games I enjoy, I don't might play more than once. But for games like Toy Story, who cares? I go online and look up potential missable trophies before I play the games.

So, yeah, trophies/achievements make me do homework before I play a game

I definitely love trophies and achievements, but I'd never use an achievement guide on my first playthrough. Once in a while I'll see if there are any "missable" achievements before I start up a game, but that's about it.

I generally play on normal difficultly, unless it's a genre I'm pretty good at, then I'll start on hard. I'll rarely play a game more than once, and very rarely play online, so even though I am an achievement/trophy hunter, I'm definitely not a completionist.

After beating the game, I'll go back and get simple or fun achievements/trophies, but I'll never waste time grinding for them. Life is too precious for that.

Usually if I play a game, after I beat it, I will check out what trophies I missed, and if there are any that I can get easily, I will go back for them. I won't play a game twice to get all the trophies unless there are two separate paths in a games and I really like the game.

I like achievements/trophies. It gives me reasons to actually "see the game". Prior to achievements, I would run through a game just watching the story until ending screen and then the game was shelfed/traded; in other words, very little time with the game. After achievements were introduced on Xbox 360, I now see the whole environment (i.e. collectibles in most games), enjoy the story, and typicially replay the game (i.e. difficulty achievements); in other words, load of time with the game. In addition to it, I have played a few games I wouldn't have tried otherwise; some for the good, some for the worse.

I use to be an achievement hunter(currently at 115k gamerscore) but now that I finished college I really don't have the time to get all the achievements in every game I play. Usually if its a game I like I'll go for all of them but if not ill just get the game on pc or ps3 since I don't care about steam achievements or trophies.

The only game I give a shit about achievements in is WoW, and even then I don't waste time going out of my way to get the crazy, coma-inducing ones.

Originally Posted by Serpentor That's a very rare occurrence... For me I can't game without achievement/trophies, it's just not the same anymore once I'm exposed to it (for a pretty long time now)... My biggest regret for Wii U is the lack of such feature. Here's a list of what trophies/achievements did to my gaming habit: They make me play games on hardest settings (I suck at video games, but I'm very persistent). They make me play games I normally skip (like Dead to Rights, Damnation etc.). They make me play games I normally think childish or uncool (Cabela's Camp, EyePet). They make me collect things in the game I normally skip (Uncharted treasures). They make me play online sometimes (I hate online trophies/achievements, I'm a very offline gamer, hahaha). I had to do this for Transformers War for Cybertron platinum trophy. They make me appreciate games like Flower and PJ Eden (I'm not a very patient gamer, PJ Eden was crap when I first played it) They make me hold on to the games I've completed unless I got the platinum trophy (got a lot of those games around, hahaha). They make me laugh... Some trophies/achievements have funny names and descriptions. They keep track of my gaming experiences... They make me remember my accomplishments (God of War's Bleeding Thumbs trophy) They make me play games in "innovative" ways (press the PS button to freeze the screen, set the clock...) Kind of remind me of Metal Gear Solid's psycho mantis boss... Believe it or not, trophies/achievements make me buy more games! Not necessarily play more games...

Pretty much the way I feel about it. Achievements have done nothing but make my gaming experiences much more varied and enjoyable. Just hit 200,000 GS a while back.

Originally Posted by VaultBoy101 Pretty much the way I feel about it. Achievements have done nothing but make my gaming experiences much more varied and enjoyable. Just hit 200,000 GS a while back.

Wow, high five! I love to collect both trophies and achievements, but alas, one cannot be in two places at the same time :P My achievements are strictly offline, trophies need to synched (horrendous process, but thanks to PS+, no need to wait anymore).

Originally Posted by Serpentor Yes, like Heavy Rain... That's one game I ignored the trophy list completely, until I beat it. I did have to back track for the "Perfect Crime" trophy (way way way back, you know what I'm talking about if you played the game). However, without trophies, I would never have played all of the endings... That's another thing trophies did to me :P Heavy Rain's DLC, Taxidermist, didn't have trophies, I only played that DLC once and that's it... Most games have story related trophies hidden, so there's no spoiler. "Missable" trophies are a different story... For games I enjoy, I don't might play more than once. But for games like Toy Story, who cares? I go online and look up potential missable trophies before I play the games. So, yeah, trophies/achievements make me do homework before I play a game

It's not missable trophies I hate...it's trophies that involve missable collectibles. Case in point: Dante's Inferno. There's achievements for collecting coins and relics. Since there's no backtracking or anything, once something's missed, it's missed. You need a new playthrough if you want it. So, in the spirit of efficiency, I spent half that game looking at a collectibles list to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I'll agree with you on Heavy Rain. Gave you a nice little incentive to see the other endings. Actually got the perfect crime trophy, but my system's HD broke before I could back up the save or synch the trophy. Talk about heartbreak...

The worst aspect of games this generation besides online. Achievement and trophy whores make me sick. I wish there was a way to turn that crap off and not be bothered with it. That'll never happen though.

Originally Posted by Salamando3000 It's not missable trophies I hate...it's trophies that involve missable collectibles. Case in point: Dante's Inferno. There's achievements for collecting coins and relics. Since there's no backtracking or anything, once something's missed, it's missed. You need a new playthrough if you want it. So, in the spirit of efficiency, I spent half that game looking at a collectibles list to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'll agree with you on Heavy Rain. Gave you a nice little incentive to see the other endings. Actually got the perfect crime trophy, but my system's HD broke before I could back up the save or synch the trophy. Talk about heartbreak...

Ah Dante's Inferno... That game brings back memories :P You're right, the collectible backtracking in that game is quite miserable. Yes, I do hate trophies/achievements require single playthrough setting. Well, I guess that's part of the "fun" if you want to call it I did my homework with Dante's Inferno, but I still messed up... It took me longer than usual to plat that game. I did enjoy it DI until the repetitive levels toward the end.

Sorry to hear the HR trophy issues... Yes, trophy synching sucks big time! I don't do that anymore, I let my trophies/achievements sit in offline mode anyway. Of course, that totally defeats the purpose of collecting them.

For trophies, you have to synchronize to "level" up your gamer tag. It gets very hard after level 30 (I'm not there by a long shot, but I saw a lot of my PSN friends stuck there for a long long time). I think the leveling up concept is pretty neat, which is a step up for Playstation. Of course, the credit goes to Xbox's achievement system...

While we're on the topic, I don't understand why Wii U don't have this feature. It would be totally awesome to collect "coins" on the Nintendo system. I believe fans are petitioning for this feature? It's unofficially called "accomplishments"? I hope there's a patch of some kind for the Wii U (hey, PS3 didn't have trophies when it was launched).

Originally Posted by matrix9280 The worst aspect of games this generation besides online. Achievement and trophy whores make me sick. I wish there was a way to turn that crap off and not be bothered with it. That'll never happen though.

Please elaborate how achievement/trophy "whores" make you sick? Do they harass you? Do they bash games? Do they flame console wars? Do they hoard games for profits? Do they bully you when you play with them online? Do they brag about flipping games, selling on eBay, ripping people off?

IMO, achievement/trophy hunters are those gamers actually play games! Yes, they play games and they talk about games... And you know what else? They're actually happy that there are games to play, regardless the game is crappyor not, they're happy that it has achievements/trophies (of course, they prioritize the list of games to play).

Comparing to the crowd of gamers who dwell on flipping, bragging about deals, keeping games sealed, multiple copies for collectibles, coupon cheating, morally corrupted, overdosed on CoD, always complaining how a game doesn't live up to their expectations etc., I think those gamers who collect achievements/trophies are a lot more civilized and they actually appreciate video games.

I will only go out of my way to get trophies or achievements if it is something that looks fun or it is something that makes me vary my gameplay or try things I wouldn't normally do. For the most part, I just play through games normally, but some achievements have added another level of variety to my gaming.

That said, I don't fault those that enjoy achievement hunting, but it would make gaming much too tedious and frustrating for me.

I get some of the appeal of achievements: when they serve to provide an extra objective to the game (like beating up all the badguys in the last hallway of Arkham Asylum) I can enjoy them… what I don’t get is the hardcore, “this game is awful but it has easy achievements” types. It doesn’t make me sick, but it does make me sad.

It’s like we’ve found a way to take a big time-waster (video games), and making it an even bigger waste of time. I know there’s probably a few postmodern responses to this (“who are you to say how I should enjoy my games!?”), but I don’t think I’m being very subjective when I say that playing games is supposed to be fun: having to play games and game modes you don’t want to play, manipulating or shortcutting the game to maximize the efficiency of earning achievements, not being able to sell games and free up cash because you didn’t plat them… all for some points? Not fun.

What is the goal of grinding or playing crappy games for achievements? I can’t imagine there’s much sense of personal accomplishment: a high Gamerscore isn’t really a mark of “being the best”, so much as it is “having the most free-time.” The easy ‘cheevos thing is really confounding… what pride can you take in your gamerscore when you (and most likely anyone else who cares about gamerscores) know that its padded with easy points? It’s like having the best boxing record, but only because 90% of your opponents were small children.

Originally Posted by Serpentor Please elaborate how achievement/trophy "whores" make you sick?

If their talking about people like Hakoom and his various fanboys, than I totally understand. While I can understand being proud of your achievements, I think he takes it to extremes and the people that support him only cause more problems.

For instance, look at his youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/gotchstyle?feature=watch

You can see various videos where he shows off what he did and a few where he uploads boss fights / endings / unboxings, but you don't see many guides. In fact if you search guide, it comes up with absolutely nothing.

Hakoom also has his own site, which has a pretty big following, but he doesn't really give much to the community.

http://hakoom.net/category/platinum-road-maps/

Again you can see that these aren't actually guides (though they say roadmap), but simply "reviews" of the difficulty of the trophies. Even if you read one (in my case inFAMOUS 2 since I recall it vividly), he doesn't do anything past list a few facts and sums up the hardest task. Though some of his explanations are so vague (even if English is his second language) that they baffle the mind.

Quote from his Motorstorm Apoc review

The hardest trophies would be: The Story related trophies are the hardest in the game specialy big dogs story missions.. overall i had problems with 2 races only… and the hardest race for me was the 1 at the docks… so big dog trophies would be the hardest i guess… but doable if you put some effort and not hard at all.. note: all difficulty and time figures are based on my skills and my opinion after playing the game

Really reviews the hardest trophy right?

Even this would be acceptable in my book if he was was constantly doing amazing games, but a good percentage of his platinums come from Sports, Childrens, Movie or really fast games. I am not saying I am better than him, but I don't think MIB, Ice Age, Toy Story or Ben 10 are exactly impressive platinums.

If these aren't enough problems already, he also platinums games for pay I guess. (http://hakoom.net/trophy-service/) Not only does this look hypocritical for a man passing himself off as the "highest legit trophy collector" (since he cheats for others... and where does he find all this time?), but even the prices are absurd. Like a 15 or less hour platinum is $50 dollars, though plenty of games can be platinumed in less time. Worse yet, I've heard a number of people claim that Hakoom can't be reported as a cheater on PSNProfiles (anyone else can be though), which is annoying that his skills are "unquestionably more legit" than anyone else on the whole PSN.

Needless to say... Hakoom and his followers make me sick.