Achievements-Do they appeal to you? Why?

Toxia · October 2012

Back 'in the day' Games used to reward extra effort with unique weapons or armor or (insert anything you actually could use and wanted)

Last few years though, it seems that this 'Achievements' thing has blown up quite abit, and i wonder why?

In most the games i play today, they are there, popping up on my screen every so often with a congratulations or some such thing, and i see videos of people grinding them out both in single player games and multi player games.

What's the draw? A text message saying "HEY, you did something!" Is that enough for this generation of gamers?

I felt like i 'achieved' something in older games, say, Final fantasy 10 , when i got all my ultimate weapons upgraded. I didnt need a popup saying i did it...

However, when i happen to see those popups, its just like...meh.

No rewards, nothing i can use in game....

I dont understand why some gamers absolutely love this.

tank017 · October 2012

Originally posted by Toxia
Back 'in the day' Games used to reward extra effort with unique weapons or armor or (insert anything you actually could use and wanted)

Last few years though, it seems that this 'Achievements' thing has blown up quite abit, and i wonder why?

In most the games i play today, they are there, popping up on my screen every so often with a congratulations or some such thing, and i see videos of people grinding them out both in single player games and multi player games.

What's the draw? A text message saying "HEY, you did something!" Is that enough for this generation of gamers?

I felt like i 'achieved' something in older games, say, Final fantasy 10 , when i got all my ultimate weapons upgraded. I didnt need a popup saying i did it...

However, when i happen to see those popups, its just like...meh.

No rewards, nothing i can use in game....

I dont understand why some gamers absolutely love this.

I agree with you,I dont understand it either.Personally I think its a poor attempt at content.

never bothered with them and never will,unless there is something to gain from them other than text.

BeansnBread · October 2012

Depends on the type of achievement. I like achievements that add an additional optional challenge to an encounter. I find the kill x or explore x type of achiements pretty lame.

Kill 8 billion wooperlings = bad.

Kill boss in 2 minutes with 2 dragonlings still up = good.

Asm0deus · October 2012

I liked acheivements when it actually did something like give you some really great armor or weapon etc. The new wave acheivements consisting of titles don't mean anything to me than annoyance. I like it when the achievements are actually achievements too not just bogus rewards for something relatively easy to do.

I don't see what's so great about having a title showing you have killed 1000 gnomes or whatnot. Guess some people like titles though i gather since it seems to be in many games now.

aphydork · October 2012

I like them. They give you something to look at in the gaps between learning new skills or getting new equipment. If they give you minor rewards or interesting objectives to shoot for, all the better. The social aspect of it is nice. Your friends know when you reach major milestones or do something interesting to be able to respond accordingly.

You have to already like a game to have them affect you though. If you don't already like a game, achievements aren't going to do anything for you.

I have only Platinum'd one game for the PS3, for example. I was madly in love with it and needed to complete it 100%. For everything else, though, I don't particularly pay attention too much, except when there is interesting flavor text or the achievement titles are memorable references (i.e. Borderlands 2).

Vunak23 · October 2012

I don't mind achievements so long as thats what they are.... Not "You killed 10 Mobs" ACHIEVEMENT... "You killed 25 mobs" ACHIEVMENT..

So long as there moderately difficult and fun to do, I'm all for them. PvP achievements are always pretty fun.

Loktofeit · October 2012

Originally posted by Vunak23
I don't mind achievements so long as thats what they are.... Not "You killed 10 Mobs" ACHIEVEMENT... "You killed 25 mobs" ACHIEVMENT..

So long as there moderately difficult and fun to do, I'm all for them. PvP achievements are always pretty fun.

Same here. Right clicking a random NPC and getting fireworks, fanfare and a massive "You have discovered the WAAAARRRGGHHH!!" for no explainable reason isn't my idea of achievements. The vista in GW2 and the zone compeltion rewards are the kinds of achievements I find interesting.

Toxia · October 2012

After reading through and giving it more thought, i guess achievement type things have been around a long time, just never in my face as they are these days.

Like Mario's highscore for example. Relatively pointless to go for, but alot of people liked getting higher and higher scores.

madazz · October 2012

Most achievments seem useless.

I like when they have some sort of added bonus. Like CoH. You'd collect a few and unlock something cool like a gun that freezes, a special title and lots more.

I actually dislike the achievements that pop up just because I completed a level. IE; Steam Achievements. I really don't see the point. "Oh look, you beat the boss or level you had to beat to continue the game, congrats, here is a useless Achievement for a menial task!"

aphydork · October 2012

I believe those are to encourage social interaction.

Achievements for finishing dungeons, for example, allow guild members to congratulate you. It promotes comraderie on a basic level, and everyone knows the effect that having friends playing the same game has on overall enjoyment. Otherwise, in a quiet guild, everyone can do their own thing and never actually cross paths, naturally, to interact.

I'm certain some games use it for filler, but I can definitely see the positive reinforcement behind those achievements.

orion2355 · October 2012

I don't really pay much attention to them overall unless it's a game I really enjoy playing and if I can get something out of it be it armor, titles, mini pets and so on. I enjoyed the achievement system in Rift the most because it covered every aspect of the game--dungeon ones that were specific, rift ones that covered every type of rift, PvP ones that required certain levels of skill in addition to kill 100, 500, 1000 etc., artifact hunting, crafting, and rare mob achievements kept the game interesting for a long time after I hit cap, but overall if the game is not interesting enough for you to want to hunt down every achievement then it doesn't really matter.

Zylaxx · October 2012

This is a personal preference and I understand alot of people like achievements more then dislike them but I am firmly in the latter camp. Achievements ae IMO an easy scapegoat for non-gear progression based content junkies like myself. If I do something I want to be rewarded with pixels to showcase my achievement, not just a page on my character screen with meaningless fluff. If, and its a big if, developers decided to add progression items to the achievements then I would be interested.

Instead of things like:

Titles
kill counts
highest damage received/taken
places explored

There needs to be items or stats tied to the achievement, such as:

Instead of a plain title like "world explorer" or "Dungeon Delver" tie a small and insignificant stat increase for example world explorer would reward the title + a 10% movement speed increase or Dungeon Delver would add the title and +5% healing received and 5% damage increase, only aplicable in a dungeon setting (or underground)
Instead of a kill count on a hidden page, reward the player with a 1% gold drop increase for each 5000 kills.
Instead of tracking highest damage recived give the player a 3% health bonus at certain thresholds
Instead of just giving the player an acheivement for fully exploring a particular zone, give him a 5% chance to drop a rare/elite/purple items when he is in that zone killing.

There is so many different things you could do within an achievement system that rewards non progression style gear content and this is just an example. Would this potentially be outside of the realm of "fluff" and mandatory content for the min/maxer? Sure, but its much better IMO to offer tangible rewards then meaningless fluff.

aphydork · October 2012

The problem with titles giving stats is that there would be some titles that are more useful than others, and people would flock to those titles.

Then you'd see every other person you pass by with Tough <character name> for PvP for +40 HP, like in early Aion.

http://aion.wikia.com/wiki/Title

You would need to implement a system that allows you to hide your title or have a Display title and a Stat title. At that point, titles would no longer be considered optional but necessary. Players could alienate those that did not have the right titles for PvE or PVP.

It sounds silly, but it's happened.

Zylaxx · October 2012

Originally posted by aphydork
The problem with titles giving stats is that there would be some titles that are more useful than others, and people would flock to those titles.

Then you'd see every other person you pass by with Tough for PvP for +40 HP, like in early Aion.

http://aion.wikia.com/wiki/Title

You would need to implement a system that allows you to hide your title or have a Display title and a Stat title. At that point, titles would no longer be considered optional but necessary. Players could alienate those that did not have the right titles for PvE or PVP.

It sounds silly, but it's happened.

Thats why you would have different titles with the same stats and titles tied to their stat for an example in your scenario, the +40 hp title would be useful in as much as if your gear was lacking hitpoints, but say you decided to run a different gear setup, you could get away with runnign a title which adds +40 strength, or +5% movement speed increase. There ware many ways to balances them. The reason why your scenario becomes necessary is because the system itself isnt optimized.

Trudge34 · October 2012

I'm not motivated by achievements at all. When I play I'll make my own goals in what I want to do. Getting a few "You killed X amount of creatures!" or "Congratulations, you discovered X area!" doesn't really mean anything to me. I know I discovered this place, I saw it on my map...I went there.

Say when I played EQ, leveling up it was always the next area that my friend had leveled in was my goal. LOIO, Dreadlands, KC. I wanted to focus and get my Seb key, done. When PoP came out, I wanted to get flagged up to BoT when it was THE exp zone to be in. There was always a bigger goal in mind for that first goal in mind. BoT was great exp only open to the more elite players at the time that also dropped the planes armor molds. Great, can farm my AA and make some money on the side, but in the meantime I have something I need to strive for through the flagging system.

I'm playing GW2 right now and it's just...it's a fun game for what it is. The achievements seem just pointless fodder to get those coins for the mystic forge later in game. What? I have to do 5 events today to finish the line? Well...I was just killing on my own doing hearts and I got two achievements for finishing DEs with Gold...I didn't even realize I was in a DE area but congrats to me! I have to kill 3 more "varieties" of mobs? Why? Where does that fit in with my overall progress?

So I guess to me they just seem like a bunch of filler and goals for a completionist that don't mean a whole lot other than "Hey, I did X obscure task!"

Panther2103 · October 2012

If I am bored I usually use achievments to try to put some life back into the game. Or I'll play through a single player game then use achievments as a crutch to want to play the game again or a couple more times. It usually gets more gameplay out of something I would otherwise only play through once or level up to cap and quit.

aphydork · October 2012

If developers could balance the stat titles well, it would be nice, but it would take far more talented developers than we've seen so far. Many have their hands full with class balance for PvE and PvP, gear balance, as well as end game monster balance alone.

Kyleran · October 2012

Not at all. Most times I don't even read them when they pop up and I can count the number of times I went looking to review mine on one hand. (for all games that had them)

I might be more interested if they were tied to actually achieving something useful to me in game, extra abilities, skills or items, but just to have list of things I've done, not interested.

I view collectables to be in the same vein, only time I found those useful was in Rift where I could sell them to other players for cash which I used to fund my crafting.

defector1968 · October 2012

achivements, badges, trophy items, all that make a player unique in front of others

one 100% complete achiver is a completionist, and means that beat the game

Zzad · October 2012

I´m usually up for challenges & achievements that have a reward attached to it.

Some rare skin...weapon...mount or even title...

I must confess i usually pass on those that lack them.

Nilden · October 2012

Foamy said it best.

Akulas · October 2012

Masteries is a good idea. Where the more creatures of the same type you kill the more damage you can do on that creature type.

Kyleran · October 2012

Originally posted by emperorwings
Masteries is a good idea. Where the more creatures of the same type you kill the more damage you can do on that creature type.

Now that's the sort of reward that would make doing achievements more worthwhile.

Scalpless · October 2012

I think the problem with achievemtns is that they're often warped by the current trend to reward everything. So, in a game with ten achievements, you usually get five just for playing that game for half an hour, three for playing that game for a thousand hours and doing some boring crap and two that pose an actual challenge. If it's called an achievement, it should be hard to achieve.

mastersomrat · October 2012

I first saw this in WoW and I thought it was great. Then after a while I noticed I didn't want to to do then all every toon I had. End the end, it actually made me stop playing WoW (of course now they are account bound vs. Toon). It's came to late though because I found another game to play...RIFT.

Goatgod76 · October 2012

Originally posted by Toxia
Back 'in the day' Games used to reward extra effort with unique weapons or armor or (insert anything you actually could use and wanted)

Last few years though, it seems that this 'Achievements' thing has blown up quite abit, and i wonder why?

In most the games i play today, they are there, popping up on my screen every so often with a congratulations or some such thing, and i see videos of people grinding them out both in single player games and multi player games.

What's the draw? A text message saying "HEY, you did something!" Is that enough for this generation of gamers?

I felt like i 'achieved' something in older games, say, Final fantasy 10 , when i got all my ultimate weapons upgraded. I didnt need a popup saying i did it...

However, when i happen to see those popups, its just like...meh.

No rewards, nothing i can use in game....

I dont understand why some gamers absolutely love this.

For me? No. If I want to get achievements...I do it in RL...or console gaming.

It was utilized to appeal to a different crowd and get them sucked in. Namely...console gamers.

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Achievements-Do they appeal to you? Why?

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV