Your thoughts on trophies/achievements/ or in game achievements

[madzero5]

my thoughts are...

it is best thing to hit happen to the gaming industry because it adds alot of Replay value to most games + an extra challange to some games. an ex. would be most games have hidden collectables that was honestly kinda pointless to collect 100% of them before trophies/achievements.

now i find myself going back through and trying to beat a certain score/time and as a result the games last alot longer then they used to (excluding some of my favorites)

[Dark_Angel13]

I suppose they're a good thing in some ways but again it's just another ploy to make you play games a lot more, especially online trophies where you have to play like 150 games or something to get one trophy. In some senses it's good and others it just ticks me off because some games I don't enjoy their online play

[madzero5]

I suppose they're a good thing in some ways but again it's just another ploy to make you play games a lot more, especially online trophies where you have to play like 150 games or something to get one trophy. In some senses it's good and others it just ticks me off because some games I don't enjoy their online play

i don't enjoy hardly any online play (excluding co-op) and i ment to add that point in my first post but anyway

it's just the matter of how much they care about this system this is when you'll see things like complete easy, normal, hard, and vary hard (lazy trophies/achievements) and you play hard then you find out they don't stack or get 1k headshots (i suck at aim haha dam trigger finger)

and another + is that sometimes i'll read the list and find out sometime new that you can do that i would have never known about other wise

[J-Lord]

At first I thought they were a great idea but now the more I think about it I try to remember why I play games. Back in the day pre-achievments/trophies games were played for fun, now all I hear about is people buying games just to get these stupid little icons that say you have completed this, or you have done this, sure it may be nice to show off what you have done but they seem to be making people obssesed with games for all the wrong reasons. But that is just in my opinion, I am not saying they are a bad thing, they are a good idea I just see them as an extra we can do without.

[madzero5]

At first I thought they were a great idea but now the more I think about it I try to remember why I play games. Back in the day pre-achievments/trophies games were played for fun, now all I hear about is people buying games just to get these stupid little icons that say you have completed this, or you have done this, sure it may be nice to show off what you have done but they seem to be making people obssesed with games for all the wrong reasons. But that is just in my opinion, I am not saying they are a bad thing, they are a good idea I just see them as an extra we can do without.

good point it might be for this reason that nintendo refuses to add a system like this

[† Emotional Outlet]

Achievement Unlocked is series of games meant to comment on the phenomenon.

Who needs gameplay when you have ACHIEVEMENTS? Don't worry about beating levels, finding ways to kill enemies, or beating the final boss... there are none. Focus solely on your ultimate destiny... doing random tasks that have nothing to do with anything. Metagame yourself with ease! Self-satisfaction never felt so... artificial!

I don't mind them, but they don't add much to my enjoyment of a game and I normally don't go out specifically to earn them. The only exception I'll generally make is for visual novels, which even then is fairly irrelevant because I almost always go back and try to take different branches each time to see the story from a different angle regardless. It's just instead of hearing about it online that there's a really hilarious scene I missed, it's already hinted at in the list of potential achievements. For things like that, where multiple endings and branching paths are considered achievements, I just view them as to-do lists. Can you imagine if Chrono Trigger had an achievement list? Man alive.

But yeah, to me it's mostly just a ploy to get people to play a game again that otherwise doesn't have much replay value. I can understand stuff like multiple endings and branching paths, I can understand speed runs (not that I ever do them), I can understand looking for secret areas, and I can sort of understand collectables--not to the point of "collect 999 tiny stones for an achievement!" but like "there's a special gem hidden on each level!" What I don't understand are achievements that expect me to sit there and grind forever. "Kill 50000000000000 slimes". "Collect 1000000000000000 gold coins". "Play this atrocious and difficult to play mini-game for 10000 hours". "Perform 800000000 headshots". "Teabag an enemy 900000000 times".

One of the complaints I've heard about some old school turn-based RPGs was the need to grind to get through the game (assuming you aren't doing a low-level challenge and you're just playing "normally"). And then achievements about doing these mindless and repetitive tasks come along and suddenly it's a totally legit thing to do.

It's kind of like upgrade systems, but I really love those for some reason, haha.

[madzero5]

i can understand why some people would be "something we can do without" or a "so-so" topic for some people but fact is that this "system" keeps me from carelessly buying new games (when i get bored i start spending (VERY BAD HABIT)) haha

Achievement Unlocked is series of games meant to comment on the phenomenon.

Who needs gameplay when you have ACHIEVEMENTS? Don't worry about beating levels, finding ways to kill enemies, or beating the final boss... there are none. Focus solely on your ultimate destiny... doing random tasks that have nothing to do with anything. Metagame yourself with ease! Self-satisfaction never felt so... artificial!

I don't mind them, but they don't add much to my enjoyment of a game and I normally don't go out specifically to earn them. The only exception I'll generally make is for visual novels, which even then is fairly irrelevant because I almost always go back and try to take different branches each time to see the story from a different angle regardless. It's just instead of hearing about it online that there's a really hilarious scene I missed, it's already hinted at in the list of potential achievements. For things like that, where multiple endings and branching paths are considered achievements, I just view them as to-do lists. Can you imagine if Chrono Trigger had an achievement list? Man alive.

But yeah, to me it's mostly just a ploy to get people to play a game again that otherwise doesn't have much replay value. I can understand stuff like multiple endings and branching paths, I can understand speed runs (not that I ever do them), I can understand looking for secret areas, and I can sort of understand collectables--not to the point of "collect 999 tiny stones for an achievement!" but like "there's a special gem hidden on each level!" What I don't understand are achievements that expect me to sit there and grind forever. "Kill 50000000000000 slimes". "Collect 1000000000000000 gold coins". "Play this atrocious and difficult to play mini-game for 10000 hours". "Perform 800000000 headshots". "Teabag an enemy 900000000 times".

One of the complaints I've heard about some old school turn-based RPGs was the need to grind to get through the game (assuming you aren't doing a low-level challenge and you're just playing "normally"). And then achievements about doing these mindless and repetitive tasks come along and suddenly it's a totally legit thing to do.

It's kind of like upgrade systems, but I really love those for some reason, haha.

while reading i for some reason thought of heavy rain 90% of all the trophies are hidden (smart move) but anyway whats the best novel game you've played i have to give it a shot

and i also thought of mortal kombat 9 lol 36 days (min.) just for 1 trophy

Edited September 11, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[† Emotional Outlet]

Ah, I don't really have the spending problem, haha. I tend to play games very slowly and in a largely meandering fashion if the game allows for it. It's not that I'm not a completionist--I just want it to have some kind of actual meaning in the game. Like in Sequence, on each floor of the tower, you get a series of recipes. You really only need to make the key to the next floor to progress through the game, but I like to sit there and fight monsters until they drop what I need to complete the recipes. And if I have to collect journal pages or anything of the like, I'm very well going to try to collect every single journal page. But killing 5000 slimes in an hour isn't as satisfying to me, regardless of whether I get an achievement or trophy for it.

If you're interested in visual novels, there's a thread in the Entertainment subforum about them. It depends on what you're looking for--my tastes tend to err on the generous side when it comes to judging quality.

[Dark_Angel13]

Grinding achievements sucks, I'm currently working on a deadrising 2 one where I have to kill 53000 something zombies and then there's another achievement to kill even more! I can kill like a couple thousand in an hour so talk about taking a long time...

[madzero5]

how do you keep from losing your zombie kills in that game?

and there have been rumors about the xbox 360 getting an GS store of some sort idk what or how its gonna work or if it's gonna work but if it dose work then that will make xbox achievement less pointless

Edited September 12, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[† Emotional Outlet]

It'd be cool if they made a little store where you can spend your points, but it's probably not going to make me want to go out of my way to collect these achievements, haha. I can see the appeal for players without a steady income or those who are trying to save money, though.

[Dark_Angel13]

how do you keep from losing your zombie kills in that game?

and there have been rumors about the xbox 360 getting an GS store of some sort idk what or how its gonna work or if it's gonna work but if it dose work then that will make xbox achievement less pointless

You cant keep from losing them, from the beginning of the game you have 72 hours or w.e it is to kill as many zombies as you can. I just make a bunch of weps and go nuts, no screwing around testing stuff just a whole lot of killing, mostly I run around the park bit and do a lot of it, lots of maintenence rooms to build killing implements and the motercycles can stack up some kills even without chainsaw attachments.

[gunslinger7sk]

In DC Universe Online I like the way they use achievements (Feats they call them) to actually be relevant to the game instead of just bragging rights. For every 100 feat points you acquire ( you get 10, 25, or 50 depending on the feat) you get 1 skill point to spend on your character to help improve their stats. Some kind of in game reward for actually playing the game is a sensible use of achievements. I think Splinter Cell Conviction had some kind of feature like this if i remember correctly.

[Dark_Angel13]

Black ops's trophy system wasnt bad, you can get like half of them just by finishing the game and the others are quite simple things

[Cain]

It's a good system to make people get into game's mechanics more i suppose, as opposed to just rushing it to the end to see the story line and be done with it

but then again not everyone sees trophies as a "must get" so it's all based on people's likings

[† Emotional Outlet]

It depends on what kind of achievement it is, because I'm pretty sure achievements based on how many slimes you can kill in an hour can't really be considered "getting into the game's mechanics more". Stuff like achievements for branching storylines, multiple endings, having different teammates through the game, choosing to play as a mage instead of a knight, fighting for one faction instead of the other--I can get behind those kinds of achievements because those ones are asking you to explore the full game, to take paths you might not take on a normal playthrough. Like I mentioned earlier, I already take this kind of approach towards visual novels, so for the ones on Steam with achievements, I treat them as to-lists vice actual achievements.

I have noticed that a lot of games give you trophies just for completing parts of the storyline and making your way through the game, which is cool, I guess, like it's making sure you know you completed a chapter of the game, haha.

[zx0]

I can't see how they can be bad. Yes some achievements are pointless or rubbish, but just ignore them. If you don't like achievements at all just ignore them completely.

We all have a choice whether to try to get an achievement or not. Those who like them can have them, those who don't like them can just ignore them. Maybe an on/off switch could be added to your gamer profile if it really bugs people.

[Cain]

Well yeah, it doesn't apply to any game as far as mechanics,b/c like you mentioned some give you trophies just for completing a chapter or lets say killing a boss (that is mandatory to kill anyways or you wont get anywhere) lol but i mean stuff like hmm Magna Carta 2 (1st thing that poped to my head) how they want you to complete the trees of each weapon style, that's kind of impossible to get done in one play through so it's pretty much asking you to replay the game again building your character in a different way just to get that achievement.

[† Emotional Outlet]

zx0, I don't really see anyone who has problems with achievements in and of themselves--most of the opinions I see here tend to be somewhere in the middle, that achievements can be good and bad depending. What I personally am most concerned with is whether they actually enhance my gameplay--killing 5000 slimes or collecting 10000000000000000000000000000 coins isn't game-enhancing, it's pointless grinding. Having an achievement for joining a secret faction is something worthwhile and can be fulfilling, as opposed to mindlessly killing slimes for seventy hours with your overpowered end-game weapons and stats and money is falling from the sky into your inventory because you get so much awesome loot at the end of the game.

And I don't think anyone believes they're obtrusive or otherwise get in the way of gameplay. To see them, you usually have to go to a specific page or even exit the game entirely. The only games I've played where achievements actually played a big part of the game and are on the screen all the time are the Achievement Unlocked games, which are meant to be a parody of the system.

they want you to complete the trees of each weapon style, that's kind of impossible to get done in one play through so it's pretty much asking you to replay the game again building your character in a different way just to get that achievement.

Haha, I get that and was what I pretty much said in my reply to you. I agree with you.

Stuff like achievements for branching storylines, multiple endings, having different teammates through the game, choosing to play as a mage instead of a knight, fighting for one faction instead of the other--I can get behind those kinds of achievements because those ones are asking you to explore the full game

Edited September 18, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Kyle_Dimetri]

Don't care about trophies and you know what? i never will cuz when i play games on my ps3 i don't play games just to get some icons and brag. No i play games because i simply love games. So the trophy thing in my opinion it is alright but not all that necessary