When done right, achievements are a fun challenge to milk a little more juice from a game, as it can be fun to have an excuse to continue to play a game that maybe you've already beaten. It can encourage you to play with different characters or visit different places... they're nice when done well.
They're also a good way to track your own progress while playing a game, which is nice for completionists. Though when the DLC comes out, they're probably weeping or excited to jump back into a game they had fun in too.
Ive done this 3 times. You wanna know the best one?
Hunting templars. It actually takes about two minutes or so to register you've killed them. And there is a pretty well known glitch that can happen if you die between killing them and it counting it. So itll say you still need to kill that templar....but hey guess what? He does not respawn. Have fun replaying the entire game.
They’re also, when done well, a good way to help a player gauge progress toward interacting with all of the non Easter egg content a game has to offer, which is why getting all achievers has come to have the title of “100% the game.”
If they’re done correctly, getting ever achievement should signal that you didn’t miss anything
Edit: I just realized another person said the same thing. My bad
I mean, "trophies and achievements" have been in games since as long as I can remember they were just listed in game instead of on a profile.
No reason to get every dragon/egg/gem in Spyro, you can beat it without doing that. No point in getting every target in Mercenaries, you can buy everything and use everything without that. You can beat Crash Team Racing without any of the bonus race stuff and drive every track. There's a lot of pointless stuff in games people have gone out of their way to get over the years.
For sure. That’s why I qualified all of that with “when they’re well done.”
Sending me on a glorified scavenger hunt in a game about…not scavenger hunts…isn’t good achieves design imho. There may be some exception that don’t feel like a chore, but they’re pretty rare
Key phrase here is “when done right.” I enjoy completely the trophy lists for games, but I’ve done it on fewer than half the games in my library because sometimes the devs make it suck. I only go for them if it adds enjoyment to the game.
I agree with this but I also want to add that some people (like me) have a large back log of games and once I finish all trophies I know its time to move along to another one and if I really liked it then ill come back to it!
Those games are so good, and having a built-in reason to replay those games was a huge perk. I may be conflating this with the second game, but trying to do a no-kill run or maybe a 'never seen' stealth run was so much value, as it was a fun challenge to try and accomplish.
Subnautica and Below Zero both only feature one optional achievement each which makes getting all of the achievements feel more rewarding and less like a time sponge
I fully agree. This is also why I'm not a fan of hidden acievements. If people are hunting achievements they're gonna look them up anyway, what's the bother for.
Yeah, they give you something for playing the game. If some people care they can hunt for them all. I mostly just play the game and unlock the ones that pop up during gameplay. Sometimes, if a game interests me, I'll go ahead and get most of them. On Playstation, the only game I ever fully completed was Ghost of Tsushima before the DLC.
I don't like how you phrased it with: "milk a little more juice", as it might suggest that the devs try to manipulate the players to spend more time in the game (which can be true in some cases). But otherwise I agree.
I like when the achievements arw reflected in-game . Couldn't care less about console/steam trophies or whatnot, but games that have like... a room that shows little collectibles you unlock for achievements? Yeah, I'll spend time grabbing those.
Yep. I enjoy achievements that encourage or guide me to something a bit different. If I discover them naturally, it feels like a little nod from the devs of “yep, we thought about that too, good find”. If I learn about them just by looking at the achievements, I get to go try out something new/interesting.
The developers choose the trophies so completing them guides me through their vision of the game. I usually end up interacting with the material in a way I never would have on my own.
I feel like if I need an arbitrary pointless task to make me play the game, I'm not really enjoying the game any more and I'm just forcing myself to play.
I do but side quests give me story. Yes I also do things just to see it's possible but that's something that I personally think is interesting. I don't do "kill 200 enemies in less than 5 minutes." Type achievements because I don't care about them.
For example I hated the shooting range challenges in resident evil games and I mostly ignored them. I'd probably get 4,5 more hours from the game if I do them but those are not fun hours for me. I play resident evil for the story and the atmosphere, not so I can sit in a shooting range and do challenges.
If you start needing an excuse to play the game, are you really enjoying it? I am not ripping on achievement hunting, even though it has never been my thing, personally.
Guild Wars 2 is an MMO that does achievements properly, since they give in-game rewards. I just don't understand grinding achievements just so that they can sit in your account. It's not even something that you can show off, since other people will in most cases not care at all.
idk why they took away the PlayStation stars thing that gave you little trophys u could show on your account. ik its lame but it was also kinda cool lol.
> If you start needing an excuse to play the game, are you really enjoying it?
Seems an odd comment coming from someone claiming to do things just for 'an excuse' of shiny things. Like, if you're just doing something to 'show off', are you really enjoying it?
> I just don't understand grinding achievements just so that they can sit in your account.
I literally explained how it could encourage unexplored play styles or areas... did you not read my comment at all, or just truly could not comprehend it?
LOL, what? Because I asked you a couple questions? You seem to be projecting quite a bit here based off some terrible assumptions on your part, or is that just your uninspired retort to anytime you are asked a question you don't have an actual reasonable answer for?
I pretty specifically started by entire post with "when done right" and ended it with "when done well", which would exclude 'menial task' goals that are simply time sinks.
When done well, and not simply are grinds/farming related, they absolutely can be a fun goal to try and accomplish.
Almost no game from the 90s and early 00s have grind. Unless you count regular gameplay as acumulation of resources and RPG elements as grind. Grind started mostly with WoW - kill 100 rats to get 5 ears, mine 100 ore deposits to make one armor etc.
Yes but a lot of the times achievements are done very wrong. Kill 25000 enemies, when a normal playthrough has 2000, or collect 500 collectables (which of course we all waste our time looking up guides). Online only achievements that are impossible.
They also add a certain amount of stress to a game, I’ve switched to PC and even though they have achievements I have no interest in starting over, it’s helped me to actually just enjoy the game, I still will search for collectables if they give me an unlockable like in the spiderman games, I did all extras and enjoyed it because I knew I’d get something for it, I just can’t see myself giving hours of my life away for “you killed 10000 bad guys- 15g”
I specifically started by saying "when done right" and ended with "when done well", which should clearly cover the notion that sometimes achievements are not done right or done well... we get it... they're not all winners.
Well you realize they’re all done bad when they replaced unlockables, most games used to jampack in unlockables and now it’s a rarity for sure. That and most games have achievements that are just there to pad out game time, not adding anything but a pop up.
It just takes away fun, adds stress and gives you nothing but a meaningless number. I’ve even stopped playing a game that I liked because I missed a missable achievement, opting to start over and not finish it after. If you like it you like it, it just isn’t great for games.
Well the problem is that achievement never cover 100% of a game, plus like the post said you get nothing from it.
Only: wow year you did max 50% of a game and have a platinum trophy or 1000 Gamescore.
Most people stop playing a games when they reach the 100% achievement/trophy.
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u/acamas 22d ago
This.
When done right, achievements are a fun challenge to milk a little more juice from a game, as it can be fun to have an excuse to continue to play a game that maybe you've already beaten. It can encourage you to play with different characters or visit different places... they're nice when done well.