Poll: The Importance of Achievements and You!

[Lieju]

I have such a love/hate relationship with them.

I love a good game with lot of achievements for me to work on, but if I can't get them all they just get my OCD going...

I can't consider the game 'finished' if I don't have them all, and unfinished things bother me.

 

[kasperbbs]

I don't really care about them. But sometimes it's interesting to see how well you are doing. I have been replaying Max Payne 3 for the last couple of days and it told me that i had hit a hundred guys in the arm then a hundred guys below the belt and finally i had made a hundred headshots, it turns out that my aim is horrible.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I don't mind them but the death of 'godmode' cheats lies partly at its feet so I wouldn't mind them being run over by a bus.

That said I do achievement runs of games on ocasion, though they are the ones I enjoy playing and would have done multiple playthroughs anyway.

 

[Wilco86]

The achievements, trophies, etc. are great when they require the player to do something they might not otherwise have thought. This can be items, accessories, weapons etc. that otherwise might go unused, as "that +1000% to damage katana just looks too cool to be swapped".

 

[Randoman01]

I don't really care about them. But I once in a while will be excited to recieve one when one comes along.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I do look into achievements at times, but I can't say they're really important to me at all. If I love the game in question, I might look at what it takes to complete all of the achievements but, even if I do love the game, I still won't bend over backwards to complete any of the particularly silly/"hardcore" ones.

As for a lack of achievements being tied to Nintendo's success or lack thereof? Meh, I don't see it. I can definitely see a lack of a real robust social system (including the requisite friends that also own systems to flesh everything out) being a sore spot to Nintendo and I suppose you could try to tie achievements in as a component of that if you really wanted to, but it's not about the achievements alone.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

they're useless; they don't actually add anything to the games themselves. The only times I've really seen them work was when there was an in-game reward for them. For example, the first Mass Effect gave the player the ability to give new abilities for new characters they made. Kid Icarus: Uprising gave the player currency or new weapons for doing certain tasks. Smash Bros. and The Wonderful 101 did the same thing as well as Resident Evil: Revelations. If you give an in-game incentive to the player then trophies, achievements, etc can do something for the game. If you don't they're just artificial, yet another superfluous feature that we could just get rid of altogether and devote to more important things in gaming.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

When I first got my 360 and I first put on Dead Rising, I checked GameFAQs and noticed cheats. Intrigued, I clicked the tab and was greeted with a list of achievements that didn't seem to do anything. Hours passed as I unlocked a few and while it felt good to unlock them (I did a thing!) I liked unlocking achievements in the beginning and I was disappointed when my uncle eventually told me that the then-new Metal Gear 4 didn't have a similar Achievement system. Anyway, timed passed and I enjoyed unlocking the achievements that I could unlock until it became glaringly obvious that I would never unlock the multiplayer ones. Since that realization my interest kind of waned in Achievements/trophies (or Trocihevos as I now call them when I want to sound like an asshole).

I was disappointed when I discovered there were no achievements to be found on the Wii U. Mass Effect 3 had Accomplishments yes but, there was nothing for New Mario Super U Bros. In the end though I've probably played more Mario games than 3rd-party titles. In the end I can only think of a couple of games that I really wanted to complete when it came to achievements were the Bethesda RPGs (Elder Scrolls and, Fallout) since they have straight-forward achievements and, are single player (and platinum trophies happen without DLC).

I don't really miss achievements in the end but I can't help but enjoy the little buh-Ding sound of unlocking one. I would much rather have cheats though...this is probably part of why I liked Duke Nukem Forever; once I got the achievements I wanted I had fun running through the game on God mode within 3 hours.

 

[Ratty]

Problem is a lot of trophies are for just playing and getting through the games. Having been playing lots of games on the Vita lately, If I get through a certain part of the game, a trophy pops up randomly. It's not a huge deal, but it seems pointless and mostly as a way for the game to say "Good job, you got through that part, now keep on playing!" I've just beaten the 1st Sly Cooper game on the Vita, and it reminds me of the good old times where getting 100% didn't earn you a trophy, but some extra scenes.

I love Sly Cooper and I never managed to get 100% on the original because of the insanity of the time trials. But you're right sometimes you used to get pretty cool unlockables, like the director's commentaries in that game.

I've purposefully gone for achievements in Killing Floor but I think that's the only game I've ever spent 200+ hours in. Other than that there's just the occasional interesting one in an RPG or something I might try to get, but generally I ignore them.

captcha: "Switch to time warner cable" haha yeah captcha, sure.

 

[balladbird]

I'll speak up in defense of trophies. I love them, personally.

Now, bear in mind, I certainly don't like the whole "virtual cock" aspect of them, with people buying easy games for the sake of collecting extra platinum trophies/ perfect achievements and then bragging about it online. that stuff's poor form no matter who you are.

But as a useless, perfectly decorational reward for playing a game thoroughly, why not have them? they're non-intrusive, not un-fun to collect with a few exceptions, and I admit to feeling some sense of satisfaction on the rare instance when I do love a game enough to play it to platinum, even if it is an empty accomplishment.

that said, I DO wish that trophies/achievements weren't a mandatory part of releasing a game, since there are examples, rare though they are, of games where the trophies or achievements work against the message of the title. Spec Ops: the line, comes to mind in that regard, adding a bit of hypocrisy to the narrative, what with the "turning conflict into a game and glorifying the end of human lives can be horrible if done wrong... have a trophy for killing 50 soldiers with the AK!"

 

[Frankster]

I've despised achievements ever since they were introduced, and have had them forced down my throat ever since.
At best they are intrusive and immersion breaking like a steam friend message popup, at worst they actually play some role in the game and you might even have to rely on achievements to unlock in game content.

So whilst I don't think they are the devil per say, I utterly hate them and therefore picked the most negative option

 

[Ratty]

SNIP

Oh I just remembered that, there were unlockables in "the good old days" that today's achievements would be highly preferable to. Like if you managed to somehow 100% the awful "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" game on the Sega Saturn/PS1 then you'd get a hidden message from "Earth Girls are Easy" star Jeff Goldblum!
Who would proceed to call you a dateless nerd with no social life who smells bad.


Yeah I think most people today would prefer a trophy lol.

 

[Dalisclock]

I usuaully don't care, but occasionally I'll love at the achievements list and if I see achievements that look interesting and not too much of a pain to get(Which is why I've never gotten the "Rocket Gnome" achievement is HL:episode 2), I'll work towards it.

Most of them I end up getting just by playing the game.

I'm just not going to spend 100 hours to get every last achievement/100% completion. Especially not when you can see 80-90% of the game's content in 30-40 hours.

 

[DementedSheep]

A lot of people don't seem to like the ones you get just for playing the game but while I don't really get any sense of achievement for those it is interesting to see how far most of the players who buy the game get.

The only time I cared about achivement are the ones in Guild Wars 2 but mainly because there are reward for gathering them. In saying so these days I no longer fully cared about getting them due to the newest way to get them (you have to finish the story first before you can get any achivement in the story) since I have to redo the story again which I can't be bother doing.

Argh yes. I hope they change that. I guess they didn't want achievements distracting players from the story but having to replay for something I would have gotten the first time around anyway, like keeping the builders alive and not getting hit by the electricity attack from that golem is annoying as hell. Especially since you can't skip the majority of spoken dialogue.

I don't mind them but the death of 'godmode' cheats lies partly at its feet so I wouldn't mind them being run over by a bus.

That said I do achievement runs of games on ocasion, though they are the ones I enjoy playing and would have done multiple playthroughs anyway.

There are games that lock achievements if you use a cheat. More developers should do that and then you get the best of both worlds.

Or alternately they could just not care if players use cheats to get achevements

 

[Genocidicles]

I think they're pointless unless you get an in game reward.

Some stupid little trophy is nothing. Either give me a proper reward or don't bother.

 

[Vivi22]

I ask this because I've been in discussion with people on the Wii U and it seems that people are convinced that it is due to no achievement system that Nintendo is selling so poorly. They tell me that Wii U's would fly off the shelves if it would implemented this important feature.

Anyone who believes this is a complete and utter dumb ass.

Also, achievements are one of the worst ideas that has ever become an industry standard.

 

[Ieyke]

They're kinda stupid and completely irrelevant.

The ONLY time I care about Achievements is if they unlock something like in TF2.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Eh, I can take them or leave them.

It is a nice validation sometimes though, if you do something particularly difficult or time-consuming sometimes seeing that little notification pop up can be deeply satisfying. That said, I generally don't go out of my way if achieving them is more of a chore than anything else. I play games in my down time so I generally can't be arsed with the really tedious and ultimately pointless ones.

They can be a fun little addition but I grew up playing games without achievements so I wouldn't be too distraught if they were scrapped altogether.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

I like them when they're well-thought-out to the point that they enhance gameplay. Stick of Truth has one of the best achievement lists ever created in that regard. They push you to do things you otherwise wouldn't think of, and the results are hysterical. The only one that felt even the least bit grindy was one of them you get in Canada. I had a really good laugh at almost every achievement, so getting them all added an extra level of depth to the game. And besides, you have to admit that the "Heisenberg" achievement was a stroke of genius.

Now, flip over to Dishonored. That game's achievements are about as shitty as can be if you try to get them all. One that I attempted to get on my first playthrough (just to get it over with) turned the game into such a tedious bore that now, months later, I still can't find the heart to pick it back up for another go. Of course, it doesn't help that the endings encourage you to play in that extremely boring manner - you can't treat Dishonored as an action game unless masochism is your one-way ticket to multiple orgasms. However, treating it as a pure action game is yet another achievement, one that's diametrically opposed to the achievement I mentioned above, and requires another full playthrough that, from what I've heard, concludes with extreme disappointment. So, in my humble opinion, it's the most forcefully stealth-required game in the history of stealth games, and that absolutely ruined it for me despite the fact that I actually like the occasional stealth game. Dishonored's achievements only compound the yawn/pain factor.

Don't even get me started on achievements based on collectibles. Some games do it right. Again, I bring up South Park: collecting every chinpokomon is a cinch, and if you don't find them all before the end of the game, going back to get the remaining ones isn't a painful task. You don't even need a guide to collect about 90% of them, or even 100% if you enjoy exploration. But the achievements for getting all of the collectibles in Assassins Creed? They can fuck right off.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I'm a big fan of achievements...

...i finally have proof that i am the best and by how much!

They do have some good uses aswell as just bragging rights. I've played plenty of games where hunting an achievement has shown me something about the gameplay that i hadn't noticed and would never have spotted without it. I can tell if someone plays games on easy or normal on first playthrough and avoid playing co-op with them. I can also see who has played lots of games and ask them for recommendations for other games to play. Thinking about it, i can also tell which people have played lots of shitty easy games to bump their score up and also which gamers have played hard games and done well. Combined with leaderboards in games, achievements can help players to gauge how they stand in the grand scheme of things.

For all that i like to play devils advocate on things...i can't see many downsides to achievements/trophies other than that people, as always, will try to cheat to appear better than they are. Good luck when someone calls you out...