Journey To Platinum - Tomb Raider [Part 2 ~ Multiplayer Trophies]

A few days ago I posted part one of my Journey To Platinum article on Tomb Raider, in which I discussed my tips and tactics for completing the single player trophies. Today I'm bringing you part two, which will cover all the multiplayer trophies. Enjoy, Al.

Multiplayer Trophy Guide

Adventurer - Complete a match in all multiplayer modes. 

There are four different modes in Tomb Raiders multiplayer and to unlock the trophy, you just need to play a single match in each mode (casual or ranked) and stay until the end, doesn’t matter if you win or lose and it still counts even if you joined the match late. The four modes are: Rescue, Team Deathmatch, Cry For Help and Free-For-All.

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Artilleryman - Kill 20 enemy players in multiplayer using a turret. 

When I first started trying to complete this trophy, I imagined it was going to be very time consuming and frustrating, unfortunately I was proven correct. Honestly, this was probably the second hardest multiplayer trophy for me earn in Tomb Raider and I’ll tell you exactly why. First off, there are only two multiplayer maps that have a single turret on each (Beach and Underground), so you’re going to have to hope that everyone else wants to play on them. Second, the turrets are not fun to use, maybe other people enjoy using them but for me, I’d rather just use a normal weapon instead. They are pretty weak for a supposedly heavy calibre weapon, the recoil is difficult to control and doesn’t really fit in line with its damage per shot plus the rate of fire isn’t great. But wait, there’s more, in order to zoom in you need to hit R3, which is just not a convenient button map and to cap it all off, the turret has crazy muzzle flash that often obscures your aim, especially when shooting at distant enemies. Now factor in lag, small team sizes and the fact the turrets are both in highly exposed areas, that about sums up just how annoying it was to try and rack up those turret kills.

It took me about three days of purposely jumping on the turrets to notch up a whopping 6 kills, at which point I’d resigned myself to thinking, that I’d probably be happy with an average of 1 kill a day. However on the fourth day, something bizarre happened, I managed to rack up the remaining 14 kills in a SINGLE(!) match of Rescue on the map Beach, words cannot describe how joyful and bemused I was at the time XD The main reason why I was so surprised at unlocking the trophy was because technically I didn't get 14 kills, some of those “kills” were actually just from downing enemy players. Yeah, apparently that counts o_O, who knew right? (I certainly didn’t lol) OK, so knowing that downs count towards the trophies progress, doesn’t mean you’re home and dry just yet but it will make your job a fair bit easier. You can now play any game mode that you fancy and as long as you land on one of the two maps, you can try and work on your turret kills. But in light of what I’ve just told you, I’d say that Rescue is probably ideal.

If you’ve played Rescue before you might’ve learnt that it isn’t always best to go in for the execution kill right away, sometimes it’s more beneficial to use that downed player as bait. This is exactly what I did when I was on the turret, I’d drop a player and then lie in wait and sure enough, eventually other enemy players arrived to (try and) revive their fallen comrade. At the time I didn’t know that downs counted, so I laid waste to whoever showed up on the scene but thinking back now, if you’re trying to secure extra turret “kills”, it’s a good idea to let the downed player be revived and then drop both players for an additional two “kills”, instead of just another single. Armed with this little gem of knowledge, you should now be able to unlock the trophy a little bit faster, you’re welcome readers :)

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Down Boy! - Kill a zip-lining enemy player in multiplayer. 

Upon reading the description, I assumed that this trophy would take a bit of time to unlock but surprisingly I managed to achieve it without purposely trying to. Basically as long as an enemy is on the zip line, whether they’re going up/down or just hanging around and you shoot them dead, the trophy is yours. In multiplayer most weapons require about half a dozen body shots to kill an enemy, which isn’t ideal for what you’re trying to do but fortunately there are some weapons in MP that can kill in one/two shots. If you can get your hands on it, the Competition Bow is perfect for the task; at full charge it will always kill in one hit (providing the enemy player isn’t using the Pin Cushion perk) and it’s perfectly accurate at all ranges, just point and shoot. You could of course use any of the bows in MP but none of them compare to the Competition Bow, which boasts a quick draw and more importantly, hold time. If you’re not great with a bow, you can try your luck with any other weapon you like but I can’t say how much success you’ll have with them. There are however, two alternatives that I do recommend, the Solarii Magnum pistol and Marksman rifle, they both are pretty accurate at short to mid-range and can kill pretty fast if you manage to land headshots.

Acquiring a decent weapon and being able to hit targets accurately is only half the excercise, the other half is actually finding an enemy player that is using a zip line. Most maps have zip lines but some are better for setting up an ambush than others. I unlocked my trophy by playing on Monastery as team Solarii during a Cry For Help match, basically I had the Competition Bow and was just playing sniper from the building in front of Solarii spawn. I knew the enemy team were trying to capture the radio just below their spawn, so I’d picked a nice over watch spot and waited for a target to present itself. One of my teammates was engaged in a firefight inside the capture zone, I saw the enemy player running in circles and jumping around, trying to evade shots, as is common practice (*rolls eyes*). I drew my bow and lined up a leading shot, just as I let the arrow fly, the enemy player I was aiming for had jumped up and (I assume accidentally) latched to the zip line at that location. My arrow connected but then I saw the enemy player jump back off the zip line, for a few moments I thought I’d missed entirely but then said enemy player died and the kill feed confirmed that it was my kill (just another laggy game). I was aware of the trophies existence and I was fairly certain my arrow had hit whilst the enemy player was on the zip line but I wasn’t sure if it would count, a few more moment passed and ding, trophy pops (booyar!).

This of course is just how I got lucky with the trophy, I mean you might get it the same way but I doubt you’ll be able to plan it lol. I’ve actually managed to purposely get several other zip line kills, which don’t require luck and as far as I know, can be done in any game mode. I think the best map for trying to get a zip line kill is Chasm, if you’re on team Solarii you can basically camp outside the Survivors base and wait for someone to use a zip line because that’s the only (safe) way for them to exit their base (fantastic map design right? -_-). If you hide somewhere at the other end of the zip line (or anywhere with a good line of sight really), you can simply stick your head out when you see someone jump on and start shooting. You should have ample time to kill them but bear in mind that if they let go before dying, you won’t unlock the trophy, so try and aim for the face for a faster kill.

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Entrapment - Catch a player in a snare trap in multiplayer. 

Simple trophy but one that requires you to get a little bit lucky, basically throughout all the maps you can find snare traps; these basically appear as a lasso on the ground and can be activated by anyone but will only trap enemy players. When you come across a snare that hasn’t yet been activated, just stand near it and tap the button that you’re prompted to do so. You can then just carry on with your business, if an enemy player triggers the snare, you’ll get the trophy notification shortly after.

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Escapist - Survive 10 explosions in multiplayer. 

A simple trophy, that doesn’t require you to do anything out of the ordinary. If you play enough of Tomb Raider multiplayer, you’ll eventually earn this one naturally and probably quite early on. Explosives are used frequently in multiplayer by both sides; you just need to fully recover health after being caught in ten explosions, regardless of the source. There’s actually a perk you can equip, which will further increase your durability against explosions but I’d be willing to bet you’ll get the trophy before you unlock it.

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Good Samaritan - Revive a teammate in a multiplayer match. 

You can only unlock this trophy playing as team Survivors and while in a match of Rescue. In this game mode, enemy players won’t be able to outright kill you, if you take enough damage you’ll get downed instead and it’s in this state that you can be revived. You’ll probably get this within your first two full games of Rescue, if you don’t, the opposite team were either very good or very bad :P

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I'm all that! - Win a ranked match in every multiplayer mode. 

Depending on how lucky you are, this trophy can be both hard and time consuming, despite the premise being relatively simple. At the time of me writing this article (August 2014), Tomb Raider multiplayer on PS3 is practically dead, forget full 6v6 matches, you’ll be lucky to get the minimum of four players for a 2v2 and that’s in the casual playlist. I sh*t you not, I must’ve spent hours (collectively) waiting for enough players to get a ranked match started, seriously, bring a book or something. Playing at peak times will increase your chances of finding enough players for a match to start but you should still be prepared to wait a while. I don’t know if it’s a general thing or not but I managed to find and play a TDM and FFA match, much quicker than Cry For Help or Rescue. 

Once the game gets going, you best do all you can to win because when the match is over, the winning team will vanish – no doubt because they’ve done what they wanted. I was fortunate enough to win my first match of both TDM and FFA but Cry For Help and Rescue took a couple tries because my teammates were often literally level one noobs [tip: don’t tackle this trophy with zero multiplayer experience]. If you’ve got friends you can call on, this is a good time to owe them a (small) favour, especially for objective game modes, you will struggle if you don’t have players you can rely on. I highly recommend leaving this trophy until you’ve unlocked weapons and perks that you’re confident in using because you’ll definitely want to bring your A game.

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Sole Survivor - In multiplayer, be the only player on your team that isn't dead or downed. 

A simple trophy that is (ironically) probably made even easier, by the fact that there aren’t many active players on the Tomb Raider multiplayer i.e. if it’s a 2v2 match and your buddy cops it, ding, trophy. I can’t remember when I got mine or in fact what game mode I was playing, so I can’t confirm or deny if it must be achieved in Rescue, as the description indicates. Either way, I think this is another trophy that you’ll naturally unlock, I mean it goes without saying you don’t want to be killed or downed, so as long as you keep fighting to stay alive, the rest is kinda out of your control.

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Lights Out - Kill 10 multiplayer enemies using your melee attack. 

I would argue that this trophy is best earned in Rescue while playing as team Solarii because your goal is to down enemies and finish them off with a melee attack anyway. I mean you could, if you wanted, try and get ten normal melee kills but why go out of your way, when you can easily rack them up on players who can’t run away?

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Master Blaster - Kill 2 multiplayer enemies with a single explosive. 

If you play enough Tomb Raider multiplayer, you’ll no doubt eventually get a double kill using explosives. Playing either of the two objective game modes will present you with plenty of opportunities, while attacking or defending. Heck, you might even just get lucky by noob tubing (i.e. grenade launcher) an enemy player, right after they had a buddy spawn on them [yep, that’s happened to me a few times *sigh*]. The Survivors grenade launcher is how you’ll probably get it but their land mine and the Solarii fake ammo box both pack a serious punch. Not sure if the explosive barrels will unlock the trophy but if you ever see two people standing next to one, be sure to test the theory ;)

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Monkey Around - In multiplayer, escape death 3 times by using the rope ascender. 

I’m curious to find out if anyone has actually unlocked this naturally because in my experience, using a zip line going down is already a risky prospect but to actually go up one while you’re heavy injured, yeah, that won’t end well. I’ll admit that this is one trophy that I gave up on and self-boosted because I’d reached the mid fifty ranks and was yet to even get close to doing it once. It’s simple enough to do in a solo private match, just load up the Beach map (game mode not important) and play as team Solarii, obviously. Now head towards the front of the Survivors base, there’s a low roof that you can climb onto, once you’re on it look for the burning tyre.

Now go stand on it, no really, you’re trying to injure yourself. It’ll take a while but eventually your screen will turn grey and your character will clutch their stomach, this means you’re close to death. Quickly make your way towards the nearest zip line, assuming you have your back to the Survivors base, it’s roughly North-East of the tyre, jump on and tap the appropriate button to ascend. I went all the way up, dismounted and then zip lined back down, by which time my health was fully recovered and I was ready to do it all over again. Do this two more times and the trophy should pop.

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Narcissistic - Purchase a new multiplayer character. 

Shopaholic - Buy every upgrade and character in multiplayer. 

This was the last multiplayer trophy that I unlocked not because it was hard but because it does require a bit of grinding. Scattered throughout every map are wooden crates, just like the ones found in single player and just like in SP, if you crack one open you’ll recover a certain amount of salvage. By default each crate can give you a little over a hundred in salvage, which isn’t very much at all but they do respawn, so you will often open several in any given match. This is where you’ll gain most of your salvage but another source of it can be obtained by killing enemy players, who will drop tiny amounts, in the form of a small bag type thing that you walk over to collect.

You will need over a hundred thousand salvage to purchase every character (bar the General, he is no longer a requirement) and weapon mod in multiplayer, which as you can guess will take some time. My advice for this trophy is to A) learn the location of all the crates on all the maps and B) to visit these locations whenever you happen to be nearby the area. The crates won’t always be available because obviously there are other players and most will want the salvage and/or ammo from these crates as well, that’s why you should make an effort to check but not needlessly go out of your way, especially if it might negatively affect your team.

You don't need much salvage for upgrading early weapons but if feel you're not collecting at a decent enough rate, you might want to check out my article on farming salvage in private matches.

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On My Way Up - Reach level 10 in multiplayer. 

True Commitment - Reach level 60 in multiplayer. 

As I mentioned in last week’s article, when I first started playing Tomb Raider’s multiplayer, I didn’t think it was all that good. But as I played more games, learnt new skills and gained map knowledge, I did find myself having fun and actually doing pretty well in some matches. So this trophy went from being something I thought would be a boring/annoying grind, to one that I rather enjoyed working towards. If like me you eventually start looking forward to jumping online for a bit of TR mp, this trophy will come naturally and possibly sooner than you’d expect.

It took me about two weeks of somewhat regular playing to hit level 60, obviously your personal skill, play style and the time devoted, will vary that estimate. Like most multiplayer games, the best way to rank up quickly is by playing objective game modes and more importantly, winning matches. Successfully completing objectives will always net you a load of XP, much more than you will earn from killing enemy players and as an added incentive, you should also note that the winning side gets a nice chunk of bonus XP for being victorious.

I think the hardest levels to reach are the early teens, once you get past that, you should be OK with the things you've unlocked, if you're really struggling to pass these early levels, you might be interested in my article on how to earn easy XP.

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And that wraps up my Journey To Platinum for Tomb Raider, on the whole a pretty enjoyable experience and not overly challenging, so until next time, ciao.

What did you think of Tomb Raiders multiplayer? Let me know below :)


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