Achievements, I hope they go away next generation

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
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Achievements: secretly raping gamers mindcotnrolling developers! Wait no... that's crunch time.

First of all, cheats left prominence long before achievements ever existed. They were on the decline for a long time. Secondly, you have 0 evidence to support any kind of correlation between cheats and achievements. Thirdly, stop complaining about developers adding features to a game that take next to effort. Complain about developers wasting their time on big useless things not the small useless ones.
 

Xanadu84

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Apr 9, 2008
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At there absolute worst, achievements do nothing. At there best, they can inspire new challenges and different kinds of gameplay experiences, be used to define pacing, be integrated into gameplay experience, improve the social aspect of games. They are also very, very easy to add to games and don't detract from anything. There is no reason for wanting to remove something that can only improve an experience.

Personally, I appreciate even mundane achievements to an extent. They help contextualize the games pacing and plot. If you do something and see an achievement, you understand that what you just did was significant, and draws attention to that fact in a manner similar to shading or coloring in movies or comics, for example. At the very least, they don't detract. Also, Achievements can serve other purposes: In Minecraft, achievements make for an effective tutorial. In other games, they can serve to present the player with different, unconsidered options for play that the player may not try and enjoy without a small motivator. I, for example, am very glad that I am experiencing the new Deus Ex useing entirely non-lethal attacks. I considered trying that because I saw the pacifist achievement. One schievement may not actually change anything, but the contextualization that it gave me has basically inspired me to another play through. And I don't think that anyone will see that achievement. Its not about bragging rights, its about the sense of accomplishment.
 

-Dragmire-

King over my mind
Mar 29, 2011
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I got a trophy the other day before I got to the start screen on Disgaea 4, kind of sad how you can get them now without really doing anything.
 

GeorgW

ALL GLORY TO ME!
Aug 27, 2010
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I like them, they're an incentive to try something different. Sometimes they give me ideas I never would have gotten otherwise. I never got the hate for them, if you don't like them, you can just ignore them.
 

Gustavo S. Buschle

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Feb 23, 2011
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I say we i9nstead of getting achievements we actually get things in the game, like in Resident Evil 4 where you get to buy a rocket launcher with infinite ammo after you complete the game. That was awesome.
 

Daffy F

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Apr 17, 2009
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I dunno, they help motivate me to play games more, and often help me get the most out of a game, like some motivation to play it the hardest difficulty, for example. I don't tend to bother if it's just a grind-fest though, there's no satisfaction in completing them. (Dead Rising's Zombie Genocider being the obvious exception)
 

honestdiscussioner

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Jul 17, 2010
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I guess you missed Extra Creditz while they are on here. Given your badges I can tell. They did an excellent show on achievements. Summary: they often fuck up, but can actually improve game play by, among other things, getting you to explore multiple aspects of the game.

I understand that everyone has been lamenting the lack of cheating, but I don't see why cheating and achievements must be mutually exclusive. Simply disable achievements when a person is cheating. Blizzard did this with Starcraft II and there was no problem.
 

C95J

I plan to live forever.
Apr 10, 2010
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I love achievements. It's good unlocking them, and can give you something to work towards. I also like having a nice gamerscore as well :)
 

Lucane

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Mar 24, 2008
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Crono1973 said:
I think they are worthless but even worse, they are used as justification to take away player freedoms like cheat devices and/or offline play.

What say you?
Mercenaries 2:World in Flames had achievements and in game codes for all kinds of things
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/932883-mercenaries-2-world-in-flames/cheats

I'm not sure but I don't even think the codes in it stopped you from earning them either.

GTA 4 had the cellphone number cheat codes that did disable trophies but it did have cheat codes.

Codes are never going to go away completely as long as some programmers feel a game is a little to tough or just want certain items right away for laughs chances are they will leave them in the data to be used by everyone if they want to,heck the only reason I can think of for them not to just put them in the in game menu proper is because it would make it seem to pushy to use them to cheat the system as if to say That town guard won't let you pass without a fight and you keep losing? Cheat! By burning his face off with one-hit firebolts, wear him down with anything while being invincible,or bribing him with the crown jewels you bought from the theft in the red dress and fedora for $999,999,999.00 from the bottemless wallet you got from hitting (Circle, Circle, Square, X)

As far as Offline play? I'd say their just using it as a cover to make sure you're using a real official copy of their game instead of a bootlegged copy Cause Warhawk would let you set up lan games but wouldn't permit ranking or trophies to be achieved while in the mode.

But for Single player games but being downloaded to need to be online for play are likely doing so for security over any other features.
 

rje5

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Apr 27, 2011
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Kekkles said:
I personally agree, although it partly is a reason why people buy games en mass. It's a very clever device.

A friend of a friend has over 750,000 points, it's ridiculous and it's the only reason why he plays games now. But in ways it's his fun, not mine.
I was under the impression the highest gamerscore out there was just over 600,000. So either he hacks, which is pointless, he lied, which is stupid, you mistyped and meant 75,000, or several sites are praising the wrong guy.
 

Lucane

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Mar 24, 2008
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rje5 said:
Kekkles said:
I personally agree, although it partly is a reason why people buy games en mass. It's a very clever device.

A friend of a friend has over 750,000 points, it's ridiculous and it's the only reason why he plays games now. But in ways it's his fun, not mine.
I was under the impression the highest gamerscore out there was just over 600,000. So either he hacks, which is pointless, or several sites are praising the wrong guy.
I thought it was 1,000,000 already for someone?
Edit: Yep seems it is one million.

http://www.1milliongamerscore.com/2010/10/guinness-world-record-2011-worlds.html

Edit: Opps, Misleading article title... He's only at 611,725 at time of posting.
 

KarmaTheAlligator

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Mar 2, 2011
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Not a chance that they'll go away, unfortunately. For some 'big name' games (like, say Halo 3 or Reach) they're the only reason someone would want to play the story more than once, or grind some things in multiplayer.

And a lot of companies are banking on that to keep their games afloat.
 

HusaneFatal

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Mar 19, 2008
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Multiplayer achievements are annoying but ones for single player I'm fine with. I personally don't mind having ones for beating the game in co-op or something but I know some people don't like it. If there are achievements in the competitive multiplayer then it's just annoying. Or the one in Dead Island to play with 10 different people for 15 minutes each. That might work if you could track side quests during co-op play, but since you can't people generally just leave immediately after you join.

However, in a game like Call of Duty adding 1 achievement for prestiging doesn't seem like a bad idea. I think it will generally get people who never prestige just to try it once and see if they like it. It could also get people who hated the multiplayer in a previous one to try it again, which could lead to even more fans of the series(if that's even possible at this point).
 

Keava

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Mar 1, 2010
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IF anything they will only further evolve. There is no way something that is so popular will simply get removed just because of some arbitrary "new generation". Sorry, new generation happened few years ago, it's just consoles didn't yet catch up to it.

And by the way, what exactly annoys about them? The fact that a pop up comes up every now and then while you play ? I never cared for it. It just happens. It doesn't in any way ruin my gaming experience and if it happens to make things more fun for others - more power to them.
 

Mr. 47

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May 25, 2011
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Achievement Unlocked: Optimism!

I kind of like them. Give me a list of things I can try to acomplish. I think there should only be ones for beating the game on a setting above normal, however. It's like saying 'congratulations! Your average!' Same with poping out achieves minutes into the game, those are useless. Do I need to get an achieve when I shoot a gun for the first time in Killzone 3? No, I don't because you made me in the tutorial, and you will be using guns for the rest of the bloody game.
 

Rancid0ffspring

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Aug 23, 2009
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major28 said:
Jacob Haggarty said:
No, what needs to go is the over-all uselessness of it. Achievements need to be worth a damn, maybe (like in some games) unlocking minor new content, like weapons or attachments or, better yet, experience. Maybe they could give you a new map or something bigger for getting them all? I don't know, just my thinking.
I have given the idea of trophy being used for something a bit of thought; what if whenever you got all the achievements for a game you got half off any dlc for that game. In an age when pretty much every game gets dlc that wpuld be a real incentive to platinum your favorite games
That's a ridiculous idea.... It'd cause uproar and you'd see complaints like this

"Just because my lil' Timmy isn't as good as Big Dave, why should I pay full price?"

Would never happen because it's complete flame bait for parents and more casual gamers.

Why can't I get a discount because I don't have enough time to 1000 / platinum a game?
 

theultimateend

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Nov 1, 2007
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The_Raging_Tree said:
Capt. Crankypants said:
Not all achievements need to go...

"Achievement unlocked! - Complete the tutorial"

Shit like that HAS to leave though.
I definitly agree to this, I love getting trophys/achievements but I do prefere ones that actually require effort.

"OMG I GOT THE TROPHY FOR COMPLETING THE FIRST LEVEL, I FEEL SO CHALLENGED"

No, have it we have to complete the first level without getting hit or something.
Those exist so that they can see how many people have finished X% of a game.

It's good for diagnosing issues with your game design.

If nobody reaches level 4, what is up with level 3?
 

hutchy27

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Jan 7, 2011
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ManueleunaM said:
I say get rid of online ones. Offline ones are ok and make my games last longer sometimes.
Yeah I agree because after a few years you cannot get them because they take down the multiplayer for the game.
 

hutchy27

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Jan 7, 2011
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ManueleunaM said:
I say get rid of online ones. Offline ones are ok and make my games last longer sometimes.
Yeah I agree because after a few years you cannot get them because they take down the multiplayer for the game.