About achievements and trophies

[MadMummy76]

Achievements are what is partly wrong with the games industry today. Instead of filling the games with interesting content to keep the player engaged, they make up arbitrary achievements with virtually zero effort to make the player grind for some e-peen growth.

I give zero ducks about achievements, in fact it makes me cringe when an icon appears in the corner of the screen "achievement unlocked" for something trivial, that you can't avoid even if you tried. The game should be its own reward, the sense of achievement you feel when you succed in it, after you figured out a good strategy to play.

I feel sorry for people who are conned into hunting down even the last most arbitrary of achievements. They are wasting their time IMO.

[JackofTears]

I really couldn't care less about achievements in games, the only I ever acquire are those which come naturally to me during gameplay. More often than not, achievements are just an artificial way to encourage grinding and prolong gameplay.

[SmoothCriminal]

I'll try to get all achievements on a game if I really like it or if I'm reasonably close after a couple playthroughs. I like the challenge of some of them and having to adjust my tactics to complete them is like trying to solve a puzzle.

[Florida Man]

If I like a game I'll do my best to 1000/1000 it. I find achievements to be a fun meta game to play.

[Broken Mirror]

I usually don't really care about achievements. I even turned off the notifications for them. Yet, for one game (can't really remember which) I went for all achievements because they demanded things you wouldn't usually do or go places you won't visit during a normal playthrough (maybe it was Bioshock Infinite 🤔). The only other game I've “platinumed” was Life is Strange because it's so easy to do so.

As soon as getting those trophies feels like a chore or a job I couldn't care less. Gaming should be fun and entertaining, not feel like work.

[Magvel]

I go for the platinum trophy if :

1. They're fairly easy, one crazy hard achievement and I'm not gonna do it, it's not a matter of "git gud", I already did irritating trophies (looking at you damn monolith trophy from danganronpa v3). It's a matter of having fun
2. I liked the game. I never played a game again after getting the plat on it so it's kind of a reward for a game I really liked.

Otherwise I don't really care for trophies, if they're indicating that I missed a possible outcome (there's 6 endings in the nonary games, tbf I played the ds version so idk for the PS4 version but there's probably an achievement for each of them) I might go for it but otherwise I'm not.

[Wolf]

Well I guess I fall in between, I like certain achievements, those for which you really have to strive for, those who really represent an achievement.
As well as those that have a purpose, like showing your skills in relation to a role, namely if you have the basic skills and how good are yours.

But I also hate the filler ones, like those that are essentially a participation trophy, like those you get for starting a career in a racing sim.
And a lot of the games that I like don't really have achievements or are for several reasons are unfinisheable when it comes to achievements.

I'm in to have fun, so if an achievement makes playing the game more fun, by challenging me to do something I like it, but on the other hand I don't need a game to have achievements.
Certain things in games are achievements in themselves, for which you need no bags.
Like your first kill in a combat Flight simulation, as they don't come easy and require a significant ammount of work, or winning an endurance race.

If you get an "achievement" or a badge for something that is truly an achievement then I like it.
For example finishing a scenario where you drive a steam loco, with 950 out of 1,000 points.
Why?
Well because one second of wheelslip means 30 points deducted, and it's very easy to wheelslip a steam locomotive.
So two wheelslips and you are at -60 points and that achievement is gone, which means you have to string together a perfect run.
Or getting points deducted for being just 30 seconds late.

Or another example from the same pack, getting a steam loco that was rated for a maximum of 100 mph up to 100 mph....with 8 passenger coaches in tow.
As that is actually hard and it took me 50 miles to get up to that speed......most of which was creeping up the speed between 90 and 100 mph.
And it's one where I only know of 11 other people that have it.

I also like those achievements that make me grin or laugh, like the flushed achievement from Half-Life 2......yeah I actually went back to get that one, as it reminded me of a favourite memory of mine, when I killed a Combine Soldier by hurling a toilet at him with the Gravity Gun!

[aileron]

I don't have an Xbox but Steam has something similar, I forget what they're called. I think you can tell where this post is going...I don't care about them and I don't look at them. If a developer wants me to do something different in a game then they should put an ingame reason or impetus to make me want to do it.

[Wolf]

looking at Spec OPs the Line there isturbo1984?

[Irritablesquid]

I don't care about achievements, I don't play games to stroke my ego.
if the games fun then I do everything I can and if I get an achievement than that's just fine.

[MakeGamesGreatAgain]

I think that trophies can be good if they actually do something in game if you replay.

I like how several of the original mass effect trophies on Xbox would actually make Shepard stronger, or you gained more experience faster, etc, etc, etc. The same thing for ME 2 and ME 3. I like that. I also like how if you character a character loyal in the game, they would add an achievement that allowed you to get the unique powers they had, so you could make a character have that power if you make it brand new.

But I think most of the trophies of other games are poorly done, and is a poor attempt at getting you to play the game over again to get the achievements.

[fenrif]

I remember when achievements were first announced for the 360. I thought it would be great because it was being advertised next to the xbox 360s customisation features. I assumed that getting achievements would unlock gamertag pictures or dashboard themes, stuff like that. Or that you could use your gamerscore to buy stuff.

Instead achievements were used for stuff like "well only X percentage of the players used feature Y in our last game, so lets not spend any development time on that for our next game!"

I was doubly annoyed that Steam similarily did nothing with it's achievements. But doing nothing with a good idea has turned out to be Steam's forte.

I feel like now achievements are just a rote moot thing. They don't mean anything, most people don't care about them, and 90% of them aren't implimented in any fun or interesting way.

[twidget]

kthnxbye !

[TelperionST]

These are the shirts I'm talking about --> https://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...Finally-Arrive

I had honestly forgotten that it's been 10 years since those first shirts became available.

[TelperionST]

@twidget
I bought a bunch of them from Splitreason.com
They were part of Zero Punctuation -merch back in the day.
After a quick browse through the catalogue none of the old shirts are available.
It's a shame, really, because those are some really funny and cool shirts.