Poll: Whats the point of achievement points
- Thread starter SpartanSasuke
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I used to wonder that, but I think I know now. When I was scrolling through my dashboard bored looking for something to do after coming back from a college intro party, I stumbled upon my achievements. I started scrolling through all the games I'd played...and suddenly games I thought I had beaten fully and was done with started to look like I'd missed a bit of the gameplay. Devil May Cry in particular had a low score, somewhere around 275. Considering myself a Devil May Cry 4 guru, it was a slap in the face. I ended up playing it for about 20 more hours, going through the various modes. Looking at the achievements also made me play Unreal Tournament 3, battlefield 2, Shadowrun, and Crackdown (gasp!) again.
Oh, and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Played through it on the hardest difficulty just because I wanted to prove I was a ninja.
Edit: I think if my DS had achievements, I'd probably have beaten more than two of them (having like 16)
Oh, and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Played through it on the hardest difficulty just because I wanted to prove I was a ninja.
Edit: I think if my DS had achievements, I'd probably have beaten more than two of them (having like 16)
Look, I see the argument people have against acheivments and gamerscores (they're pointless bragging rights and don't give you anything). Well there is plenty use for them.
And as an intelligent 360 advocate, I would like to list those reasons for you now.
1. Yeah, they're bragging rights. Everyone likes bragging, and most importantly it adds friendly (usually) competition to your gaming among your friends, which is good.
2. The feeling of accomplishment you get from getting an acheivment, especially one you've been working towards for awhile. Boosts your self-esteem (mine atleast) and adds to the feeling of accomplishment you normally get from completing games.
3. They push you to play more of the game, replay it and do things you normally wouldn't do, letting you get more out of your games and more for your money. Usually I just play through a game once then go on to multiplayer, and even that usually doesn't last long. With the promise of acheivments, I end up playing through games multiple times, on different difficulties, and doing alot more in multiplayer. I feel better about spending money on games now.
4. Repeat #3 for emphasis, it's the best reason.
I think that's just about it, but that sounds like a good argument for me. I truely believe acheivments are one of the best features of xbox.
And as an intelligent 360 advocate, I would like to list those reasons for you now.
1. Yeah, they're bragging rights. Everyone likes bragging, and most importantly it adds friendly (usually) competition to your gaming among your friends, which is good.
2. The feeling of accomplishment you get from getting an acheivment, especially one you've been working towards for awhile. Boosts your self-esteem (mine atleast) and adds to the feeling of accomplishment you normally get from completing games.
3. They push you to play more of the game, replay it and do things you normally wouldn't do, letting you get more out of your games and more for your money. Usually I just play through a game once then go on to multiplayer, and even that usually doesn't last long. With the promise of acheivments, I end up playing through games multiple times, on different difficulties, and doing alot more in multiplayer. I feel better about spending money on games now.
4. Repeat #3 for emphasis, it's the best reason.
I think that's just about it, but that sounds like a good argument for me. I truely believe acheivments are one of the best features of xbox.
For me the biggest advantage of Achievements is a slight variation of your point; they encourage me to try something different with the game. I'd never have thought to try climbing the Agency Tower in Crackdown if that wasn't suggested by an Achievement; I'd have explored a lot less terrain in Gears of War if there weren't those Achievements for finding "Cog Tags"; "Pacifism" in Geometry Wars was a great idea, so much so that it's a separate game mode on Geometry Wars 2; Portal's "Terminal Velocity" was a hoot to do; and so on.ElephantGuts post=18.70604.699609 said:
I view the Achievements list in a game as a menu of suggested alternative ways to play more than a checklist of "things to do". I pick which ones look fun and give 'em a shot, and some of them I'd have otherwised missed trying.
-- Steve
I think it just gives you a goal to strive for, to do things you might not normally do if there wasn't an achievement for it. I might not ever blow up 10 cars in 4 seconds if it wasn't an achievement on gta 4 but it gives you a chance to explore the game more. THis a reason why I prefer xbox to PS3 sorry, haha, not that I dislike the PS3. Although I feel you should be able to delete the stupid little arcade games from your profile history grrr. haha ^^
Yeah, I agree with the general gist of the comments so far.
They're mostly just something that adds a little bit more accomplishment to playing games, and also encourage gamers to explore aspects of the games that many wouldn't think of.
Unfortunately, not all games' achievements are set out well. For instance, I didn't think much of the achievements in Oblivion, because they were all based around completing the main quest and factions, rather than encouraging the game to explore the world, or do certain things, which seems more the point of a game with such an open world.
But it was a really nice touch playing the CoD4 campaign and getting an achievement for little things that weren't obvious achievements, like saving yourself from an attack dog. I don't think it's a reason to play a game, or a reason to continue to play a bad game, but a very nice touch, nonetheless.
They're mostly just something that adds a little bit more accomplishment to playing games, and also encourage gamers to explore aspects of the games that many wouldn't think of.
Unfortunately, not all games' achievements are set out well. For instance, I didn't think much of the achievements in Oblivion, because they were all based around completing the main quest and factions, rather than encouraging the game to explore the world, or do certain things, which seems more the point of a game with such an open world.
But it was a really nice touch playing the CoD4 campaign and getting an achievement for little things that weren't obvious achievements, like saving yourself from an attack dog. I don't think it's a reason to play a game, or a reason to continue to play a bad game, but a very nice touch, nonetheless.
Personally, I don't get them. Why would you want to brag? Apart from the ones you get while enjoying the game, I wouldn't go back and try for it again unless:
1) I get something out of it
2) I was going to replay the game anyway
If you want to brag, play a multiplayer game with your friends/enemies and kick everyone's ass.
1) I get something out of it
2) I was going to replay the game anyway
If you want to brag, play a multiplayer game with your friends/enemies and kick everyone's ass.
Eh, some games are more liberal than others with the achievements. Phantasy Star Universe gives you all it's points for just playing through the single player game. Eternal sonata gives you crap for points on your first playthrough. Blue dragon wants you to master every one of the stupid little minigames and kick everything in the world. Mass effect pretty much wants you to replay it all the way through like ten times as different character classes (which isn't too bad, since it's an awesome game). The Orange Box gave us some cool challenges that made sense (Ravenholme Gravity gun only challenge) and some that made us want to kill babies (Save all the buildings on the last level of Episode 2? I can barely save myself!) while others were for the most persistant motherfuckers out there (GNOME!!!!).
It would be cool if more games gave you permenant bonuses for unlocking achievements like Mass Effect, but I'll still try to get the points without that bonus because it is really cool that the game records the notable things you do. Heck, World of Warcraft is gonna come out with an achievements system soon too.
It would be cool if more games gave you permenant bonuses for unlocking achievements like Mass Effect, but I'll still try to get the points without that bonus because it is really cool that the game records the notable things you do. Heck, World of Warcraft is gonna come out with an achievements system soon too.
Actually anyone can. I recently found a list of cheat codes for half-life 2 and the episodes, and I tested whether or not they disable achievements. The codes do not disable achievements, so anyone with an internet connection and a browser could have it done with minimal effort...Using the cheats obviously. so in reality if many others caught onto this many people could've cheated thier way to one free bullet and little rocket man.Zombie_King post=18.70604.696932 said:
They are there to make it seem like playing through a game for the 57th time is a good use for your feeble mortal existance.
/existentialism
/existentialism
I think it just provides an out of game reward for accomplishing something: So you comleted x game, now you get y reward within that game, now why would you even want to keep playing? So, you get a cool tank for beating gta sa 100%, now what can you do with it? Achievments display in game progress in other venues.
They're supposed to give you a warm, cuddly feeling inside.
It's also a good judge of just how big a gamer nerd you are compared to your friends. More achievement points = bigger nerd.
It's also a good judge of just how big a gamer nerd you are compared to your friends. More achievement points = bigger nerd.
They're there so developers not only know how many people bought their game, but how many people actually finished it. If 75% of people who bought the game stopped at a certain point, that's something the developers need to address. What happened at that point? Was a certain boss too hard? Was the story not engaging enough to make people want to see the ending? Was the game simply too long and people didn't have the attention span to finish it? All these questions are important to developers who want to make a better game.
I don't care about them, don't know about them util I've accidently achieved one of them. But I can understand the appeal if the thing is really hard to do. But most games that hand them out also do it for all sorts of menial tasks, like reloading your gun or hitting your first target in the tutorials, which suck, because it's not particulary difficult, and it's not something you can avoid achieving at all, which really makes it a non-achievement. I've been playing alot of Bioware games lately, and as much as I love those games, it really bugs me the way they toss out achievement points. It's as if your character could pick his nose, there would be an achievement point for that too...
It's a convenient way to tell you when you've seen everything a game has to offer.
For instance, unlocking the 7-Day Survivor achievement is Capcom's way of saying, "Okay, we've taken up fourteen hours of your time today. Here's a shiny badge, now go on with your life."
For instance, unlocking the 7-Day Survivor achievement is Capcom's way of saying, "Okay, we've taken up fourteen hours of your time today. Here's a shiny badge, now go on with your life."