Why I hate achievements

Because they are not achievements.

They are trying to make up for the fact that the game is innately unrewarding. So it rewards you simply for playing it. A trend started with WoW which is actually fun so doesn’t need achievements but it did start the design philosophy of MAKE THEM PLAY… FOREVER!!!!! MWAHAHAA!

#moderngameplaymechanics #notilkemyday

However, I’m not saying things were always better in the old days like I have been a lot recently, thats not always true of course.

Games were way too hard back then really because you had 2 megabytes to play with before cd’s. I have never completed Sonic the Hedgehog because I simply cannot be arsed.

For some reason publishers can never seem to give us exactly what we want. We’re always being tested and squeezed as a consumer to see where the margins of our tolerance are in relation to their laziness. Thats economics.

In the 90’s everything was an anthropomorphic animal platform game that would have been a complete nightmare to complete, and if you did have the patience and skill it may be possible but you would be mentally exhausted and probably a bit pissed off with the Congratulations! Play again? Screen ending with a game that wasn’t really all that fun to play.

Now the opposite is true. You can never die. Take the lego games. It is the the gaming equivalent of toddlers running around in a play pen just batting each other in the face and giggling. That’s what those games look like to me.

Then because there’s absolutely no skill or effort required, you begin to question wtf you are doing with your life and put the control pad down.

That is why achievements were invented.

I would get rid of all of them. They are like teasers coming up in a tv program for the next program when your trying to watch it. “Will and Grace up next”. I really didn’t need to know that sitcom/game, I will find out afterwards and still not care.

This is partly why I like the youtube Completionist videos, because it shows that discrepancy well and sometimes, the results are gruelling. But it does reveal the true quality of a game if you can complete it without getting angry or bored or frustrated.

Thats why I’ve never completed Sonic 1. But the first two levels are maybe my favourite ever..

@Enragedhydra: I'm am talking about achievements though and how easy games use them.

The difficulty levels have been commented on, that wasn't my focus. There are buckets of games of all difficulties, clearly. But it can't be ignored how easy games have become in the AAA arena and this of course all discludes MP games as skill level is relative. My dreamcast thread was supposed to be about variety but Vasulus turned it into stats.

Rewards simply annoy me and get in the way of gameplay imho. What purpose do they serve if you don't need them to progress through the game?

They're clearly superficial and wreak of forced fun to me. They are designed, I think, to prolong gameplay. But I don't really get why anyone would give a shit other than to say to themselves "I played every single last f-ing corner of this game! Good for me!!".

They're intended as a band-aid for otherwise repetitive or un-engaging gameplay but I don't think anyone would lament their loss.

I think I've figured it out. Most people on this message board take the phrase 'gamer' to mean, someone who prefers higher difficulty, when I have got no idea whatsoever what it means in truth. I think I mean it to mean someone who enjoys games on an intellectual level rather than a method of entertainment, it a more seriously considered hobby where you analyse and consider games as you play them. I'm not saying anyone is either of these things but that's what I think gamer means.

I love them myself. For me they are just the cherry on an already delicious sundae.

Generally don't pay attention to achievements/trophies. As long I finish the game from start to finish I am happy.

This is pretty much me.

Turn off notifications. Pretend they don't exist and just play the damn game.

I've found I enjoy games a whole lot more when I ignore achievements/trophies, instead of reviewing the 'task list' before I've even started playing the game in order to plot out my checklist to maximize how many achievements I can get in a single playthrough, with the goal being to get them all so that I never have to play the game again. That's a horrible way to approach games - and, honestly, I feel like developers have done themselves a real disservice by having the whole reward system in place. Instead, I just play the game and then let my enjoyment dictate whether or not to go after the 100% completion of getting all achievements/trophies.

Granted, I would've loved achievements and trophies when I was younger, back when I typically didn't get more than a half dozen games a year, which meant I ultimately replayed the ones I did buy or get as gifts multiple times. As an adult, there are so many games to play but not nearly the seemingly endless supply of hours to play them. As such, I rarely replay games these days - unless I really f'ing love the game - and the idea of grinding for achievements is just asinine when I could be playing something else, something new, something I might actually enjoy over the tedium of chasing rewards that aren't fun or actually rewarding. But for the games I do love? I'm glad achievements are there, because if I'm going to sink dozens or hundreds of hours in a game it's nice to have those extra little goals to pursue to mix things up.

As for achievements doled out simply for playing games, I understand why they're there. If every achievement or trophy was a ball-busting digital hatef**k, I don't think developers would bother including them because nobody but the crazies would ever go after them. Sadly, the world we live in is all about giving people some validation for doing pretty much nothing. That said, I do wish games offered a higher tier of achievements, genuinely brutal challenges that only unlock after you beat the game, the sort of challenges diehard players set for themselves because they've beat the game so many times they need to push themselves to keep it interesting. Like beating Dark Souls as a Deprived without leveling and using only the starting gear. Or playing through Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 naked and weaponless. I'd welcome more stuff like that.

This. Don't understand how they can be upsetting to people unless the notification is really THAT annoying. I know you can turn off notifications for trophies and I assume you can for achievements.

They're just little extra things you can do in a game and yeah, usually you can get several from simply playing the game and not thinking about them. It's a pretty niche side hobby and I don't see any harm to them whatsoever.

I'm a total gamer who loves to get every Achievements/Trophies in the games, especially on Steam/Origin games. But I mainly do it for the single player games alone, I hate MP Achievements/Trophies cause I don't do much MP gaming as I used to be.

I personally never understood this complaints in Achievements/Trophies at all. When I heard shit they hate it like that, I just facepalm and tell'em there just there, play the your game and don't even bother with them if your not into that stuff.

So long as they're optional or if the rewards are in-game, I don't mind. I don't get notifications about the useless achievements because I play the game with the DRM client offline and it's in-game UI turned off.

I dont care that in some games, achievement are just added as an afterthought. -Clearly the devs had more important things to do than program in some achievements.

On the other hand, if a game gives you silly achievements like trophy for kicking 100 chickens, then its clear the devs wasted their time on nonsense, instead of trying to make a good game. I mean if they had time to program in that 100 chicken counter... Waste of time, programming that sort of trophies into games imo.

Sony is real a$$hat when it comes to trophies. The trophies are online, and youre not allowed to view them offline. This is a bit weird, tho; you can see some of your trophies offline, but most can only be viewed online. Makes no sense. All trophies should get recorded offline, and be viewed offline. Well, apart from games that are online games to begin with, of course.

Different people enjoy games in different ways. For some people, getting 100% IS the fun part of the game. I think it'd be much more reasonable of you to argue that they should be better implemented, rather then completely removed from games. Easy, entry-level achievements are required to keep a steady stream while you work for the harder ones and also as freebies for those who aren't aiming for the Platinum.

Personally, I couldn't care less about them, I just tend to ignore it and play the game.

@bobthehollow: For some people, getting 100% IS the fun part of the game.

Really though, this can't be many people. I don't think most people think about them too much and you can of course turn them off.

I might be angry about the Steam trading system though because it kind of ruined Steam for awhile with lots of people mining them or something and then the Steam store was being artificially changed somehow. I'm not sure how, it was complicated. Something to do with achievements though and I was scared and confused and got angry and shouted at the message boards and f*ck me if Steam only didn't fix it home page like within 2 months. I still can't believe it.

If anyone can explain the Steam trading card system to me you are an economics genius but I understand it is an economy.

Achievements seem a bit tacked on if I'm honest but to some people they great but I think those people are a little bit sad. :( Sorry achievement unlockers...

the gist of your post seems to be:

games were too difficult back in the 90s so you couldn't be "arsed" or they were "a complete nightmare" to complete.

games are too easy now so you "begin to question wtf you are doing with your life and put the control pad down."

you prefer to watch somebody complete a game first so you can decide if you could play it without getting "angry or bored or frustrated."

i'm struggling to find a reason why you "hate" achievements in amongst all that

Stop bitching and play very hard but fair games.

@Macutchi: i'm struggling to find a reason why you "hate"

you prefer to watch somebody complete a game first so you can decide if you could play it without getting "angry or bored or frustrated."

the gist of your post seems to be: …games were too difficult back in the 90s… games are too easy now…

Me: I'm am talking about achievements though and how easy games use them.

They're intended as a band-aid for otherwise repetitive or un-engaging gameplay

take the Lego games.. It is the the gaming equivalent of toddlers running around in a play pen just batting each other in the face and giggling.

There are games of all difficulties but I am talking about general modern trends in the more popular titles.

Rewards simply annoy me and get in the way of gameplay imho. What purpose do they serve if you don't need them to progress through the game?

I like the youtube Completionist videos, because it shows that discrepancy [of pointless achievements vs a game with a carefully constructed completion condition] well and sometimes, the results are gruelling. But it does reveal the true quality of a game if you can complete it without getting angry or bored or frustrated.

I wouldn't take ThatOneGamer (Completionist)'s opinion seriously, he likes Nintendo, peeuw!

Also, I feel like I'm being patronised for doing things like finishing the first level, which I was going to do anyway and would be a push to call it an achievement.

Dark Souls will kill you… Like beating Dark Souls as a Deprived without leveling and using only the starting gear

I know about Dark Souls and it looks weak sauce to me. The characters, environment and gameplay all look tired, repetitive and derivative and the game does not interest me at all. They all look like Dynasty Warriors to me but with dodging and loot.

@jackamomo: just quote and reply one user at a time mate. it couldn't be easier. don't italicise the quote. don't re-edit the quote or combine it with other quotes. and definitely don't reply in and out of the quotes.

avoid all that and people will actually have a chance to understand what the hell you're trying to say in response to their post

/gamespotting 101

I like these kind of achievements. Everything is in-game.

They are a way to make the player strive to unlock something, without having to actually provide any worthwile unlockable (which costs money to produce).

1999: "You collected all the coins, here's a secret level to play."

2017: "You collected all the coins, here's a popup message you can share on Facebook."

@Macutchi: @jackamomo: just quote and reply one user at a time mate. it couldn't be easier. don't italicise the quote. don't re-edit the quote or combine it with other quotes. and definitely don't reply in and out of the quotes.

OK. How about people on this forum don't quote an entire 7 paragraph comment to illustrate a point which didn't require the reading of the entire post when referring to something which would be just as understandable as say, one sentence.

Then maybe every page in these forums wouldn't be in the region of 30 pages of walls of quotes which you could quite easily scroll up or go back a page to read for yourself.

Burn.

It all makes perfect sense if you read it, I just don't happen to be following your assumed GS posting etiquette and don't think my posts are any more difficult to read.

Mate.

...and what @Black_Knight_00 said.

Turn them off, pretty easy. Seems like you're old and just want to bitch and moan about something, games are to hard, to easy, to just right, ughhhhh boo whooooo.

I love(d) achievements during my time gaming , except when they started settling the fact some achievements are accessible unless downloading their side content.

@vfighter: @vfighter:

@bobthehollow: For some people, getting 100% IS the fun part of the game.

Really though, this can't be many people. I don't think most people think about them too much and you can of course turn them off.

^

I think this is where this thread went wrong.

You actually said you weren't that bothered about them but for some people 100% is the fun then I called them 'sad' which is unfair and pissed everyone off.

I was bothered about something else in the Steam trading cards and their ability to alter the actual game industry itself by virtue that it was a real economy and attracted traders which manipulated it resulting in mange porn all over my steam page as it was then affecting me on a personal level.

I don't mind 100%'rs at all and meaningful achievements are fine if they are discreet and/or optional.

MSI doesn't even have replays and I didn't notice the difference but achievements are fun if they're difficult to achieve.

this is a bit better mate. it's not quite there yet; you've somehow managed to add your name in my quote, but it's definitely an improvement on your previous attempts. keep going

I like them, but I also don't care if I get all of them, so....

It's just interesting when you get one to see what the unlock condition is. I feel like it implies a developer took the time to think about that specific event.

For example, in Civ VI: Walk like an Egyptian - As Egypt build a Sphinx adjacent to the Pyramids both on Floodplains.

Just a silly achievement because you're being extra Egyptian. It would be a waste of time to go out of your way to start a game as Egypt and satisfy all those requirements just for the achievement.

I think you make a good point! I'm a budding games writer/designer so have always been interested in the way story and gameplay can feed each other to create something that is satisfying and encourages player investment.

Let's look at mass murder in a game, for example.

SCENARIO 1: Enemies keep spawning around you, closing in as you cut each of them down one by one. The kill count rises until the little achievement flashes at the bottom of the screen - "One, Two, Skip A Few, 99 - 100!"

SCENARIO 2: Your character has a companion AI. Think The Last Of Us' Ellie. She's in trouble and her health bar is dropping rapidly. Enemies keep spawning around you, closing in - but now you're frantically cutting through them as efficiently as possible - struggling to get to your companion in time. The mass murder is a necessity - an obstacle - forcing you to use the mechanics available to you to achieve your character's goal.

I know which I'd prefer.

@pyro1245 It's just interesting when you get one to see what the unlock condition is. I feel like it implies a developer took the time to think about that specific event.

If an achievement introduces a new win condition which alters how you are encouraged to play the game, you have explored a new possibility within your game and legitimately enhanced the replay value yeah.

@scottnewton: I think both are relevant but only if it is possible to not kill 100 zombies, as in you might die, otherwise how can it be rewarding if it is a certainty within the parameters you were playing the game anyway as it was originally intended, simply to win at the game in it's vanilla state.

@jackamomo: Yeh sure, fail states are an interesting conversation for designers to have. What's more rewarding? Replaying the same level numerous times until you do manage to save the girl or feeling like you just managed to get there in time, the first time. A lot of it just comes down to playtesting

@scottnewton: or feeling like you just managed to get there in time, the first time.

By this you mean lowering the difficulty level so it's more likely you will succeed in completing the level the first time and in one fell swoop you have created a scenery game out of what was a skill game.

By suggesting the player has succeeded despite the input being oftentimes minimal AKA The Last of Us, you are not fooling us that the game was not demanding to complete and will leave you with a feeling of énwei because you know deep down that last 4 hours you spent watching cutscenes and waiting for your character to finish it's animation before you can take control again is an exercise in patience and generousness of the player towards the developer to create the experience on his behalf.

And if by platesting I assume you mean testing for the lowest common denominator / most popular style of gameplay in which case you are dictating a design by committee and you will be left with a pile of shit.

I call it brown syndrome and it comes from when I was younger and trying to paint something with poster paints and trying to get the most awesome purple and get it just right by adding more colours and it came up brown every time. About half the pictures I painted were various shades of shit brown. That's what I think of The Last of Us.

This ^

I am not a person who cares about achievements at all, but there are many people who do enjoy achievement hunting and I am glad they exist so people can get more enjoyment out of their games.

Threads like this annoy me because you fall into one of 2 camps, you are either like me and don't care about achievements, if this describes you then the existence of achievements do not affect you in any way at all and can easily be ignored.

Or you are like the the above poster and use achievements to lengthen the time and enjoyment you get out of a purchase. It is a situation where absolutely nobody loses and this thread is just an example of someone moaning for the sake of moaning.

@pook99: moaning for the sake of moaning.

I'm not moaning if it could be argued the existence of achievements as a 'thing' could objectively detract in some way from my enjoyment of the gameplay experience in being, for instance, trite and patronising, to acting as a replacement or an attempt to shirk actual considered game or level design because money.

I'm thinking about Mario Oddysey and it's 10 trillion moons.

In fact, I'm going to go back to being an arsehole. 100%'s are nerdy bores with too much time on their hands. There I said it!

You're games are easy and they could be played by retarded babies with their giant oversized stupid baby heads.

DISCLAIMER: My opinions are my opinions alone and do not reflect the opinions of other people.

Great thing about Ps4 is you can turn off achievement notifications.

1. It could not be argued that achievements detract from the gameplay at all. Achievements are a part of just about every game now, bad games have them, great games have them, easy games have them, hard games have them, and so on and so forth. Good developers don't use them as an excuse to shirk from solid level design or gameplay elements, if they did not exist than bad developers would produce bad and shallow games like they always have, the existence of achievements does not change that.

2. Odyssey was a masterpiece of a game, and enjoying it did not require collecting all the moons, having said that invoking Odyssey proves my point since it is a game with no achievements. Achievements don't change the way a game is made, they are just there to extend the life of a game.

3. Alternatively, rather than being nerdy bores, they could just be people who really enjoy doing everything a game has to offer, they could be people who really enjoy a particular title, or they could be someone with little disposable income who needs to extend the life of their purchases as much as possible, none of those things are bad or qualify someone as a nerd.

4. Your last sentence before the disclaimer makes no sense, ignoring the grammatical mistake of You're vs. your, it still does not make sense. Whose games are you referencing here? I'm not a developer so you are not referencing games I have made, you don't know anything about my gaming preferences or what I play so you can't be referencing that either. Were you trying to make a point or were you just trying to troll?

If they do not include any multiplayer mode achievements, I like them as they give me the push to do everything there is to do in a game I like (as long as the achievements are reasonable, unlike the bullshit like "The Curtain Falls" in Arkham Knight).

Usually ignore them unless it's something cool like a pacifist award.

@pook99: 1. It could not be argued that achievements detract from the gameplay at all.

I would argue that the inclusion of achievements within a game which are enabled by default has altered the gameplay state if those achievements are visible within the gameplay time be it in menus or within the game itself even if it's a popup.

This is added information to your consciousness that there are things to get and you don't have them all.

This is a different experience as to if I was not aware of said things to get.

They are suggesting you have no played the game enough and added another item to your consciousness during gameplay.

Certain games do not suit rewards such as fighting games or shooting games as they already have inbuilt reward in improved ability to play the game.

If you have not gone out of your way to get a reward you are simply being rewarded for playing the game and that information is irrelevant to you're actually achieving something above what you had already set out to do ie, just playing the game.

Good developers don't use them as an excuse to shirk from solid level design or gameplay elements

Yeah but bad or mediocre one's might.

Whose games are you referencing here?

You orrible lot. Millenials I think. Millenials are the enemy. Stop trying to fit Minecraft into every hole imaginable. You might have to go to A&E.

EDIT: I feel developers are taking a very 'throw everything at it and see what sticks' approach to game design recently, mashing up genre's willy-nilly and just see what sells.

What has been lost is a purity and focus of design which seeks to reduce a game's complexity over recent trends to complicate or add complexity or elements rather than focus on one very solid gameplay element.

This is why I think Virtua Racing is the greatest driving game of all time.

Drivel.

i have zero interest in achievements, so maybe i'm just oblivious but all i ever see regarding them is a popup saying i've unlocked one, never i've not unlocked one. i can't recall any game dangling them as a carrot to keep me playing.

i don't see how that's a problem unless you're one of those obsessive compulsive types who has to finish 100% of every game to feel content, in which case achievements are the least of your problems.

boycie nailed it tbf

i don't see how that's a problem unless you're one of those obsessive compulsive types

So you would say that the effect of another piece of information on the screen during play time could conceivably alter the gameplay experience for some people with a suggestable mental state.

@boycie Drivel.

@Macutchi:boycie nailed it tbf

Can you be more specific Boycie? Or are you going to stick with the stock counter argument of "No!".

as i said, if you are incapable of consuming information and retaining only the bits you deem important, achievements are the least of your problems

@Macutchi: consuming information and retaining only the bits you deem important

This is not something the human brain is able to fully do.

It can only de-prioritise but once that information present, yes you know it is dismissible but it's using a bit of space up.

I still think they're completely superfluous to game enjoyment.

Maybe I should do a poll: "Do achievements enhance your gameplay experience?"

to some people they are. to others they're not. ultimately how obtrusive they are is controlled by you. turn off notifications if you "hate" them. or just don't pay them attention if you're blessed with the ability of not obsessing over every piece of information your brain consumes

For me it depends on what kinds of trophies the game has. I recently played through the Bully port on PS4 and found the trophies in that easy enough so I was happy to earn them all. If there's stuff like Win X Amount of Online Matches or beat the game on the hardest difficulty/in a certain time I'll usually skip out on them.

@jackamomo: Haha thanks for the reply. You clearly know what you like and don't like! I think one of the beautiful things about video games as an immersive medium (with varying levels of interactivity) is the broad range of preferences players can have for engaging with those digital worlds. You obviously prefer a greater degree of control and opportunities to hone and apply your skills, while others (like me) enjoy a little smoke and mirrors if it means I can fully inhabit a given character. Thankfully, there're titles out there for both of us!

I think achievements are mostly benign. They can tick off things in the game that you would do anyway. But when they design an achievement that extends the gameplay beyond the natural play-time, then I think they are unnecessary and I imagine most people aren't sucked in to playing longer than usual.

Achievements in themselves are meaningless and worthless. If I play a game very well then that is all the achievement I need to be proud of. One of my best acheivements is making it to lvl 32 as a hunter/ranger in Neverwinter without dying once. There have been some close moments but I alsways managed to survive and defeat all my enemies in the end. On the other hand my other character a scourge warlock who just made it to lvl 43 has died at least 6 times minimum in comparison. Maybe it's because I haven't played him as well as my hunter/ranger or maybe because a hunter/ranger is better endowed to fight/survive in this game. I'm not sure yet and this could probably be debated further.

Millennial's love achievements because it's hard to have real achievements in life.

You can turn them off and never have to look at them.

Go to the options on either PlayStation/Xbox and “Turn off Trophy/Achievement Notifications”.

No reason to be upset bro.

The only time that I did all the achievements in a game was COD4. That game only maybe took a day to earn them all.

I like them and I did search or did post game to pursue them ... of course it was on games that I did love.

I'm more concerned with the rise of DLC and the fall of unlockable. I remember in the first God Of War you could unlock different costums that had different effect like infinit magic etc on top of looking silly so it was fun to replay the game and try to unlock other stuff ... remember Resident Evil 1 ? You could unlock the rocket luncher, the Magnum and a machine gun, It was cool.

Now it seems they want you to play the game and buy another one or they put multiplayer to keep the game going and put so much map DLC so you continue to put money into it.