Difficulty of Achievements in Gaming

[webby]

Playing Assassins Creed: Brotherhood recently I realised how easy the achievements were to obtain with a large percentage being for simply completing the game, renovating Rome, completing Subject 16s tasks etc and I was rather disappointed.

I've never been one to particularly care about my gamer score but in games that I am a big fan of some of the more difficult or abstract achievements gave me a reason to return to the game and do things that I never would have considered doing previously or complete it using a completely different style than I'm used to. The best example of this that I can think of is in Half Life 2 having to complete the game firing only 1 bullet. It was a nice challenge and made me approach the game in a different way.

I have heard people claim that this kind of achievement rank with difficult to obtain or arbitrary achievements are only for elitist gamers who want to brag about their score or that the arbitrary nature of some achievements can break immersion in the game.

Whilst I can see how these points may be valid, I can't help but feel that the entire point of achievements is to encourage future returns to the game. By allowing all the achievements to be obtained by everyone so easily it reduces the likelihood of that return occurring. I can't help but feel that a balance could be struck where achievements are awarded for completing the game (as opposed to getting points every time a level is finished) which would then leave space for the more abstract and challenging ones.

I'm aware that achievements will vary from game to game however I have noticed an increasing trend in the games that award achievements for rudimentary tasks like "finish the first level".

tl;dr: Are achievements in games becoming too linear and easy to obtain, are they too hard, are they just right or does the variety from game to game make it impossible to say?

 

[supermariner]

i agree with you
said it all sir
leaving this post with nothing to say

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Personally, I always thought the best way to encourage people to replay a game was to MAKE THE GAME FUN.

I'm not going to replay anything for any stupid achievements if the game isn't FUN.

 

[Patrick Dare]

Agreed. There have been a few games I've really enjoyed and wished there were some skill challenge trophies rather than just "complete level xyz" and "collect x amount of y", etc.

 

[Whichi]

If you want a game with some seriously painful achievements, try Smash TV or "getting sick on all classic levels" on project 8.... -_-

There's a list of games I can ramble off with ridiculous amounts of achievements that take a serious amount of skill.....

as a matter of fact, Smash TV and Guitar Hero (all of them, I'm guessing with all their freaking DLCs) is rated 10/10 (impossible) to complete based on achievements360.org or soemthing like that.

 

[Liam Bilton]

I always seem to get an enormous sense of enjoyment from getting an obscure achievement without realising. It's like my dicking about in game has been rewarded.

 

[zfactor]

Personally, I always thought the best way to encourage people to replay a game was to MAKE THE GAME FUN.

I'm not going to replay anything for any stupid achievements if the game isn't FUN.

Yeah, but some people are. Some people care more about gamerscore than anything else. They should make a game where the only point is to get achievements! (oh wait they already did, google "Achievement Unlocked" to play such a flash game)

I think they need more gameplay based ones, like what they did for HL2. Some were "Complete this level" others were "Pin a soldier to a signpost with your crossbow."

 

[GeorgW]

It depends on the game, but I'm usually under-impressed. I really enjoy when achievements make you play the game differently. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen nearly enough.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Well, it depends on the game. I've had Gears of War 2 since launch and I'm still not even close to getting Seriously 2.0. And then there's Borderlands where I have 1000+G and didn't have any trouble with any of them.

I think there should be easy ones to get while you're going through on your first playthrough just to give you something and then have some really hard ones that you have to go out of your way to get so you'll continue playing. The best achievements I've seen are in Gears of War 2. Some of them were incredibly easy to get, while others I'm still working on. Plus it gave you a running count of certain ones so you wouldn't have to just guess at how many kills you've gotten.

 

[Stairway4]

My opinion on achievements has always been that they add content to the game. You've beaten the game? why not try for the achievements. It's unfair to say only elitists pursue achievements, because I would consider myself quite the opposite of the elitist, but I often do chase after achievements.

Now, as for level of difficulty, I think about a quarter of your achievements should for simply beating the levels. From there, the achievements can range in difficulty; heck, make them as hard or as easy as you want. But DO NOT make them horrifically repetitious. I hate with a passion achievements that read something similar to "kill 10,000 whatevers". They're not rewarding skill or variety, but mindless grinding. And that is not gaming. That's Accounting 101

 

[Geekosaurus]

I do like getting a certain amount of gamerscore just for completing the game; I'd say half is acceptable. Then I like achievements that aren't hard to complete but they're miss-able - for example 'Saving Private Ryan' on COD:WaW (you have to save a soldier named Ryan). Then there has to be three or four totally obscure ones that you really have to work hard for. Oh - they have to have good names too.

Man, I wish I was in charge of making and naming the achievements in a video game. I personally think that having a good achievement list can help turn a good game into a great game.

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

I think that they are becoming steadily easier to get... They should definitely be harder! But only to a certain extent...

 

[Hader]

In general all achievements are just too easy or boring. Most are for just completing the game, and I hate how generic that has become.

What I would like to see is a game that does one of two things, or both. Firstly, achievements that are actually very difficult and/or unique. No completion bs. Something that has the player do something beyond the norm in terms of game difficulty, whether it be something big like completing the game on the hardest difficulty level with a certain condition (Like in Bioshock) or doing something completely absurd and not really related to story or gameplay but still hard in some way (I can;t think of a specific example here, but most secret achievements in games are the closest I can think of for a general example).

Secondly, to see the gamerpoints associated with certain achievements completely randomized, or just not all all reflective of their difficulty, would add a level of hilarity to the whole system. Just imagine if 'Brass Balls' in Bioshock was worth 1 gamerpoint. I think that would be funny, but still worth it. Anyone who places values on the quantity of points earned rather than the quality of the achievement is playing for the wrong reasons IMO(generally speaking).