Are achievements spoiling games?

K1LLSW1TCH

K1LLSW1TCH

K1LLSW1TCH

Caporegime
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12 Mar 2009
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I used to be an avid PC gamer right up until around 2006 ish, this was when I got my first job, and my first real purchase was an HDTV and an Xbox360. My gaming PC fast grew out of date and was unable to play all of the games that my 360 could so I found myself using the console as my only gaming tool.

We all know that the 360 has achievements with pretty much every game, something that gamers can aim for, to one up your friends maybe, or just to squeeze some extra life out of the games, but does anyone here think they are spoiling the games a little by adding them?

A lot of PC games nowadays, especially Valve games are shipping with the PC versions of Achievements and I find myself now playing the games and constantly checking the achievements, striving to get as many as I can, and it actually spoils the games a little for me. Instead of sitting back and soaking in the atmosphere that some games can provide, I find myself rushing through them, trying to complete X mission and trying to collect 100 of Y items.

Back in the day I could sit and play Half-Life or Opposing Force and not have a care in the world about whether I have picked up all of the different weapons or killed 1 of each different type of enemy. But now I find myself inadvertently and subconsciously playing games solely for the Gamerscore in GFWL games, or just for the pretty pictures and the 100% in Steam games, it's hampering my enjoyment somewhat. You could maybe compare it to 'grinding' in MMO or RPG games.

Does anyone else find this?
 
Achievements are a good thing imo, makes it rewarding when you get them. Tho i dont play just for them its just if i happen to get one its nice but no biggie as i didnt aim for it.
 
For some they haven't, for some they have. Put it this way, i spent a week trying to 'beat zico' in Wipeout HD, to do this i had to beat one of the developers times (i'm assuming he's called Zico) on a certain track with a certain ship. As i say it took me a week of anger and torment but eventually it happened, and i was overjoyed, it was one of the greatest moments i've had in a racer, i beat zico.

But here is where the line is drawn, i looked at the next achievement which was to get to zone 75 in zone challenge and i knew i wouldn't enjoy that as i hated zones mode. It would have been a grind, it wouldn't have been something i considered fun, so i ignored it, i just got on with enjoying the game in modes i knew i liked.

Without Zico i would have never had so much fun in Wipeout HD, but in turn if i had completely dedicated myself to the achievements getting to zone 75 it would have ruined the game for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is pick and choose your achievements carefully, look at the ones you think you'd enjoy achieving and aim for them. Single out the ones that look dull, repetitive or just stupidly difficult and ignore them. Treat them as a challenge, not a necessity and know your limits.
 
I don't particularly like them. In games that have no story or anything I can see their value, but I find in story-driven games the very fact the notifcation pop-up appears is a nuisance in itself.

I also thoroughly dislike the attitude people have of buying games solely for achievements, or only doing/completely things to get said achievements. I play games because I enjoy the game, not because I enjoy meeting the specific criteria in order to get a valueless achievement or trophy.

That's not to say that on the PS3 I don't check my trophies, but I only look at them out of curiosity. I've never found myself thinking "I want that trophy".
 
I quite like achievements, The only game I have ever worked at to complete though is the sega mega drive collection, I really enjoyed getting the full 1k on that, and there was a different achievement for pretty much every game which made me want to play some of the titles I wasn't familiar with.

I also really like the Jordan achievement on GH2 too though as that song was a PITA to finish and I doubt I will again but the achievement proves I did it at least once :)
 
Just look at WoW's achievement system. People spend thousands of hours doing mindless tasks to get points that do literally nothing. Or at best, give them their 300th slightly different mount or title. In fact the majority of the playerbase has been suckered-in by the system. WoW also uses achievements as a substitute for actual content.

Personally, those types of achievements mean nothing to me. I completely ignore them.

However... multiplayer achievements that unlock things that affect gameplay, I utterly detest. Really cannot emphasize enough how much I hate those. Unless it's an MMO, a seasoned pro should have no advantage over a fresh newb other than his skill. And a new or casual player should not be restricted in the maps and game modes he can play.

Want to have ranks and medals and play for prestige? Fine. Absolutely fine. Just don't link it to content.
 
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I've only ever maxed one game on the 360 before I sold it earlier this month and that was COD4. That game was definitely a grind to complete 100%.

I liked the fact that the achievements were all offline ones, but seriously, completing the game on Veteran is no mean feat. It's an endless cycle of die, spawn, die, spawn, nobody in their right mind would play Veteran mode for fun. :(

The Mile High Club achievement just took the Michael. Considering the mission is supposed to be no longer than 2 or 3 minutes long I spent an hour solidly playing it on veteran, trying to get to the end in time, such a frustrating experience, I don't understand why those types of achievements are in games.

I can fully understand having achievements for completing all the levels and such but why have them for completing the levels on various difficulties as well? It's as if the developers are adding those extra hard achievements so that you can look at your friends and say "hey, I've done this game on hard, and you haven't". It really shouldn't matter that much because the hard achievements are no different to the easy ones, they just require more grinding and repetitiveness, it doesn't make you any better or skilled a gamer by having all of the achievements, it just shows that you are willing to sit there and grind.
 
I completely ignore them - in fact, as someone mentioned above I find them quite intrusive - particularly in PC games. I hate the whole 'Games for Windows LIVE' thing for that matter and wish it would die a speedy death. Except then of course, I won't be able to play my PC games that use it :(
 
Some games use them cleverly. I think Team Fortress 2 is a good example as it provides lots of little random 'oh cool' moments but none of the achievements are the sort of thing that will cause someone to be annoying during play striving for an achievement.

Others use them badly and are just an excuse to make you play through a game again to 'finish' it and then claim to have X hours gameplay that it doesn't really have.
 
I don't mind them, but I tend not to focus on them. Its more the case of 'oh look, I unlocked an achievement, I wonder what I did to do it' type thing, not 'I must do this now to unlock this achievement and will try 20x to do it'.
 
Kenai said:
Some games use them cleverly. I think Team Fortress 2 is a good example as it provides lots of little random 'oh cool' moments but none of the achievements are the sort of thing that will cause someone to be annoying during play striving for an achievement.

Others use them badly and are just an excuse to make you play through a game again to 'finish' it and then claim to have X hours gameplay that it doesn't really have.
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Good point about certain achievements forcing hours out of a game that it doesn't naturally offer. I think that GTA4 has a list of good achievements. There's a good mix between multiplayer achievements, single player achievements that come from naturally progressing in the game and then a bunch of other achievements that are out of your way, but still fun to get, such as blowing up 10 vehicles in 10 seconds.

The only achievements in that game which annoyed me were the get 3 strikes in a row at the bowling alley and the win a certain amount of street race achievements. Mainly because for me the street race achievement seemed to be broken, I'd done all the ones that I was allowed, after that it didn't matter where in the city I was, or at what time it was Brucie would always tell me there were no races going on. :(
 
Don't mind them, feel neutral towards achievements. I'll just play through and have a look casually throughout the game to see how I'm doing. At the end if I have only found half of whatever then it doesn't matter; something aimed slightly more at younger players maybe.
 
It depends entirely on the game.

Some of them give you something to aim for, both challenging or grinding. Things that spring to mind are the Gnome achievement from HL2:Ep2, a fun challenge (until you have to drive...) that you'd never normally do otherwise. Then you've got more grind style ones like the 53xxx Infected Killled achievement from L4D. Theres absolutely no point in achievements that you get simply by playing the game as you normally would.

Good achievements should be something offer a challenge or are something outside of normal gameplay. Bad achievements are something that detract from actually playing the game, mostly idiotic when its on a multiplayer game and encourages people playing in a retarded manner.

Forcing extra gameplay out of a game isn't something to be avoided unless its nothing more than grind. Guild Wars was great for encouraging you to Vanquish all areas or finish all missions on Hard Mode on a single character (or multiple characters if you were dedicated enough) which drastically increased the replayability for me. But then there were ones like Chests and Identifying which were utter grindfests that offered no challenge at all.
 
Achievements wrecked Team Fortress 2 until they were no longer required to be obtained for weapon unlocks. It's still a bit annoying that for a team based game you have people doing achievements but it's not as bad as it was before.

I really do not see the point, they add nothing to gameplay and serve merely as a hook to increase the longevity of the game, artificially in my opinion.

I guess we might see a trend of less ACTUAL game to play and take in with developers thinking achievements make up for it - They do not.
 
Since the 360 has come out ive never understood the fascination with achievements, they just seem so pointless. If it takes achievements for you to enjoy a game then you really shouldnt be playing it.

I really do believe the games industry is now geared towards the "easily pleased people". The vast majority of games produced today have no substance and rely on some gimmick or a good piece of graphics to make the game sell.

And now the disease has spread to steam and other PC games, can you honestly look at any achievements anyone has done and actually give a damn ? who cares ? whats the point..

The OP is spot on with his comments and its just a shame that consoles are now the mainstream way to play games now and i fear people are now to reliant on the achievement/leveling systems to enjoy games that theres no return to "pure enjoyment" of a game.
 
Ziggy said:
Just look at WoW's achievement system. People spend thousands of hours doing mindless tasks to get points that do literally nothing. Or at best, give them their 300th slightly different mount or title. In fact the majority of the playerbase has been suckered-in by the system. WoW also uses achievements as a substitute for actual content.

Personally, those types of achievements mean nothing to me. I completely ignore them.

However... multiplayer achievements that unlock things that affect gameplay, I utterly detest. Really cannot emphasize enough how much I hate those. Unless it's an MMO, a seasoned pro should have no advantage over a fresh newb other than his skill. And a new or casual player should not be restricted in the maps and game modes he can play.

Want to have ranks and medals and play for prestige? Fine. Absolutely fine. Just don't link it to content.
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I also hated wow's achievement system and it was one of the factors that made me quit in the end and never look back. Problem was the player base looks at achievements now as an indication of skill if your not known to them. This could include instance achievements/hardmode achievements etc or PVP/arena based ones. Problem here is when you make a new char after getting abit bored of your main one, you have like 500 points when you reach 80 lol. Compare that to a few thousand your main as and the sudden realisation of the work you put into it (and the hours) finally hits home.

A mate of mine did the faction change thing before hitting loremaster and seeker as a gnome mage. He was about 200 quests off BOTH achievements so quite easily obtainable. Soon as he faction changed he lost hundreds of quests without knowing that would be the case lol. He quit due to it.

Saying that, I don't mind achievements in games if they arent meant to symbolise skill or prestige etc. Its quite fun to see random ones pop up during some games when you didn't realise there where achievements for some things you do (like killing a few guys at the same time with 1 grenade in turok).

I don't see them as "content" though and completing a game for me is usually getting to the end of it, not collecting thousands of items or killing hundreds of special monsters etc whilst doing it lol
 
From personal point of you I never really bothered with any of them and they don't add any sense of extra achievement for me. Only time I do care about them though is when they can unlock something to improve my game, e.g. TF2, BF2, COD games, etc
 
James i find it quite laughable that people grind all the way to 80 and then grind achievements, ok maybe some are fun but vast majority are dull and pointless and are only put there by blizz to get more money out of people. But i guess thats an mmo and you kind of expect it from them.

I remember someone asking me to link my onyxia achievement for 10 man otherwise he wouldnt let me join the raid, i had done 25 man and linked that but he said i HAD to have the 10 man one and so therefore couldnt join. Things like that really irriatate me and make me realise the wow community truely f'ing sucks.
 
I can only talk about GFWL achievements as there the only ones I bother getting. MS invented this system and TBH on X360 its a good system to enable the player to get more VFM out of games you may otherwise stop playing once completed. Well designed achievements definately add a lot of replayability. However, nowadays most achievements are designed for players to have Xlive subscriptions on X360 (obviously null & void on PC as GFWL is totally free) so you get the absurd scenario whereby they actually employ script coders purely to design achievements & worse still sometimes for DLC as well to get you to part with more money for content you should have got anyway with the full game :rolleyes:

That's the worse aspect.

Best aspect is that well designed achievements offer you the chance on certain games to fully explore the environment & unlock all content which you may otherwise miss as its well hidden or hard to find etc etc.

The following games on PC all benefit from GFWL achievements:

Fallout 3 ( you are missing perhaps 25% of the game if you do not obtain all achievements).

Resident Evil5, Street Fighter4 & Lost Planet Extreme Colonies Edition (getting 1K GS in these games is the only way to see all content).

Batman AA

Fuel

GTA4

You can also disable the notifications within the GFWL client to disable both sound & pop up boxes if it bothers you or takes you out of the game etc etc.

Valve only added achievements as despite slating the MS system saying it added nothing :rolleyes::rolleyes: they realised many players do enjoy earning them ;)

I think GFWL achievements on PC are here to stay and will continue to grow as next Week DIRT2 will have them then in Feb Bioshock2 will also use them and as the code to enable them is 85% already present in any X360 port it does not take much effort to include them and it helps to combat piracy as MS can now tie your gametag to the game serial number (only RFG & Section8 use this feature right now).
 
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