Question on Achievements/Trophies

[Jehane]

Question on Achievements/Trophies

There's a question on achievements/trophies that's been bugging me for weeks now. Since I couldn't find an answer, maybe you guys have an idea. The "problem", if you want, is that there's no logic to the trophies and their status of being "rare" or "ultra-rare", at least on PS4.

Let me explain. When you find Ciri (which is, like, the whole point of the game), you get a trophy. That trophy is labeled as being "rare" even though it should be one of the most common trophies in the game because, well, you can't really progress the game without finding Ciri. And this is not the only trophy that's being labeled as rare - some contracts are as well as the trophy for finishing the game on any level of difficulty. Now, you can miss out on contracts if you decide not to pick up every contract hanging around. And some people might not finish the game. And I get why some trophies like finishing the game on Death March or using Axii in order to make opponents kill each other instead of Geralt are rare trophies. What I don't get is that trophies you're being awarded for doing the obvious thing, for accomplishing something that you HAVE TO DO because otherwise the game won't progress... that those trophies are considered to be "rare". Is this a PS4 thing?
It's not as if my life depends on knowing but as I said above, this has been puzzling and bugging me for weeks. So any explanations/ideas would be very much appreciated

 

[Sunsibar]

I have been wondering this same thing.

I'm not sure, but I think someone said once that you can play this game without trophies. Don't know how that happens, but it had something to do with PC? Is PS4 account forced? (Yes, I have PS4 also, but never even thought about this) Is every trophy shown in public, can you hide those? And if not, do those count?

 

[OrangeApple]

I got the majority of my trophies in my first playthrough (story & sword), but yeah some of the "rare" ones don't make sence. I dunno if the PC achievement are the same for ps4, but afew of the "harder" ones which I would consider rare, I only got on play through 3 or 4 since it required death march level for ememies (so I could shoot them with a cross bow, throw a poison bomb and burn them at the same time without their health running out). I could kick myself though since I found many of them could be earned easily by taking advantage of Axii I used a balanced charecter build of sign and strength in my playthroughs, and made use of the respawning bandits at Devils pit to achieve head shot trophy and so on. I just found a safe place to stand and just used Axii on them to make them stand still and shot them in the head.

i only have one or two HOS trophies to get, but since I have killed virtually every bandit in the game, I'm finding the "kill enemy by deflecting his own arrow back at him" is abit hard. I have tried it on some isolated guards/witch hunters, but more often than not other guards/witch hunter end up joining in and spoiling my attempt. So I'm toying with the ideas of just starting a new game+ just to get the nessesary enemies "avalable again" to complete the few remaining trophies for HOS.

 

[bobbie424242]

Probably many players stopped playing early or midway and never reached that find Ciri achievement, making it rare (on PS4).
Although, on Steam, it is not rare, being at 30.5%. It's probable PC players play more than console though.

 

[OrangeApple]

I had to laugh though, one hidden trophy is "finding Yennefer/lilac and berries" Um you kinda don't have to find her since it part of the main prologue.. . .so you can't not find her lol.

 

[Pug.]

I wonder if it has something to due with rental copies of the game as well. You figure that there are a good number of TW3 disks floating around out there that someone will pick up for a few days, play through maybe the Velen portion, and then return it to the local video store. I know I did that with Fallout 4 (played maybe 45 minutes, didn't like it, and then returned it). That might have some bearing on why things like finding Ciri are classified as rare on the PS4 or Xbox.

:thinking:

 

[OrangeApple]

I don't think it's that since I don't see that they would base a trophy like that based on the assumption of people playing rental copies.

---------- Updated at 07:15 PM ----------

But it the same with getting some mutagens for monsters. If you don't decide to kill the Doppler on Sucubis you don't get the mutagen to make the Decoctions, Ik there is a second chance to kill a Sucubis, but is there not only one time you get to kill the Doppler ?

 

[Jehane]

Thanks for your replies - interesting thoughts, I never had the idea that maybe people just stopped long before finding Ciri and that's why that achievement is rare. I just thought that whether a trophy is rare or not would have been determined before the launch of the game.

@OrangeApple: I think there's only one chance to kill a Doppler - early on in Novigrad. I failed this one because I wasn't quick enough. So I can see why this is tied to a rare trophy simply because it's very easy to mess it up/fail it.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

To the OP:

The way your coming across is that Sony/developers set the rarity of trophies.

The rarity is not determined based on that but by how many people have unlocked the trophy.

If I misunderstood then disregard.

 

[Jehane]

Thank you So the rarity is not pre-set but an algorithm (?) "Counts" how many players have unlocked a specific achievement and that's the basis for a trophy being labeled "rare" by that algorithm? Makes sense

 

[RageGT]

I'd be very sad to know that "rare" means most players didn't get it when it is story related. If that also means that lots of players quit the game and never came back.
There is no rating on PC. DVD+GOG Galaxy version. Some achievements/trophies are hidden but that's it. Most games, since ME1 or DA:Origins give lots of achievements just by playing the game and reaching certain points. I'm yet to see a game with more achievements than Diablo 3. Gladly I'm not a trophy hunter, just a Hardcore player. Hate dying! And it comes naturally just playing the game. =)

Of my total 1550 hours playing TW3, most of them were at 70% achievements done. Only in my latest run I decided to go for completion and it was fun. Had to search a bit about hidden ones. NG+ lets us respec Geralt for some specific achievements. I used that and enjoyed it. I still predict a lot more runs with TW3 even with 100% completion. It's a wonderful game and the achievement I love the most but there is no trophy for it, is to find one of a few new detail, side quest, encounter, that I haven't seen in those previous 1550 hours and believe me, it happens in every playthrough! I now revisit many areas at many different times of the story progression and time of the day and bang! There is always something I missed in previous runs. I love it!

 

[Jehane]

So the rating is a console thing? Thought so... because with every game I play via Steam, the achievements NEVER are rated. They're just there. You get them or you don't. I don't care much about achievements; it's just that this question - "Why is finding Ciri considered a rare achievement?" - has been bugging me for weeks If on PS4 it's considered rare because only a couple of players got that far - that's sad indeed because people don't seem to value the game. Of course, tastes are different and not everybody loves this game. But I cannot take people seriously who write reviews on Amazon stating "I've played for six hours now and here's what I think" - because after six hours they've seen nothing yet. These are the people who don't even leave White Orchard and probably they are the reason why this particular achievement - find Ciri - has been rated "rare". Next time I play, I'll look up the stats - the PS4 gives you the percentage of people who have earned an achievement.

 

[Sunsibar]

Some PS4 trophies:

Spoiler

Find Yennefer of Vengenberg 81,8%
Find and free Dandelion 44,2%
Help Yennefer extract information from Skjall's body 40,9%
Find the Baron's wife and daughter 54,8%
Find Ciri 33,1%
Visit Tir ná Lia 30,4%
Defeat Eredin 26,2%
Finish game on any difficulty 25,9%
broken bones 4,5%
death march 1,8%

It is sad that so many quit before the end Are consoles more common to people who play first person shooters and don't like to watch story scenes? I'd like to think that there is just massive amount of consoles that aren't connected to the internet and that's why those trophies are so rare Otherwise it seems that people got bored during Novigrad quest line

Could it be that this game is too difficult for the first timers? I remember when I first played Witcher 2 and I was so lost with it I got to Flotsam before I figured that there is actual reason why I have two swords... But when I finally got the hang of it... Oh boy

If you read this and left your game in the middle, please give it a one more go

 

[dragonbird]

On PC, as soon as it starts to become available on Steam sales, I think the % complete stats start to plummet. For any game. Does the sharing feature on PS4 result in the same as far as achievements are concerned? A lot more people trying it out, even if it isn't really their type of game?

 

[Sunsibar]

On PC, as soon as it starts to become available on Steam sales, I think the % complete stats start to plummet. For any game. Does the sharing feature on PS4 result in the same as far as achievements are concerned? A lot more people trying it out, even if it isn't really their type of game?

That might also be the case. I just checked HoS (PS4) trophies and THAT is so sad to read...

Spoiler

Kill the prince cursed into a toad 8%
Finish the Hearts Of Stone expansion 5,7%

And maybe my worst nightmare "Provoke all Iris von Everec's nightmares into fighting you at the same time and defeat them" 0,4% But that's not story related.

HoS completion is amazingly small % if you look at how much this game has been selling. Maybe all people are just waiting that next expansion and they are going to buy/play both at the same time? But on the other hand... there isn't that much people who got bored in the middle. Nearly same amount completed the expansion who completed that first part.

 

[Jehane]

Defeat Eredin 26,2% Finish game on any difficulty 25,9%

You know - THIS just doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, why quit after defeating Eredin? Why? Granted, it's not even one per cent that quit after fighting Eredin but I don't understand why anyone would quit the game after the final fight. All you have to do afterwards is get to the tower, talk to Avalla'ch and then watch the epilogue O_O

From what I've seen on Amazon, the console version of the game has received more negative reviews than the PC version. Also, the reviewers who didn't like the game often were first timers, i.e. they didn't know the characters and the background, plus they seem to have been unwilling to get their heads into the game. I get that it's difficult to relate to the characters when you've never played a Witcher game before and don't know the books but quitting altogether because people are too narrowminded is.. well.... stupid. There was this one guy who claimed to have played the previous Witcher games as well. Then he went on to compare TW to Gothic for the rest of his review. THEN he went on to rant about the combat styles and raised the question why there are different combat styles resp. why Geralt has two swords. I mean, really? I'd bet everything I own that this guy has never played the first Witcher games and that he's never gotten to beating Eredin. I bet he's one of those who didn't even make it past White Orchard but think they're entitled to an opinion after six hours of playing.

 

[bobbie424242]

Still, the fact that the game has a completion rate of 25.9% on Steam is amazing for such a long game. It says something about The Witcher 3 quality. Most long games that can be finished have probably a completion rate way lower than that.

 

[Jehane]

Good point It IS a Long game; when I last referred to my player stats on the PS4, it said that I had played for 98 hours - this being the time AFTER the last patch has been installed; the time before that patch - another 30 hours - got wiped from the console, for whatever reason. So in total it took me 128 hours and I still haven't done and seen everything; I even got an unfinished contract (Morvudd) that I plan to finish next weekend. After that, it's off to HoS

 

[Burza46]

The rarity of the achievements is based on the players who actually get them, so if something is ultra-rare that means that a lot of people never made it to that point

 

[Jehane]

Thank you!