Achievements
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- I talk about my thoughts on achievements.
Some of my previous videos are relevant to this discussion:
Implementing Endgame Slides: • Implementing Endgame S...
The Origin of Reactivity: • The Origin of Reactivity
Gameplay's Influence On Story: • Gameplay's Influence O...
Non-Linear Game Design: • Non-Linear Game Design
How To Gate Non-Linear Stories: • How To Gate Non-Linear...
Here's a good example of an "achievement without an achievement" or "well-integrated achievement":
In Hollow Knight, there is a very tough area in early game called Mantis Village, with a hard optional boss called Mantis Lords.
The entrance to the area is marked by a sign by the Manti. It says "Wanderers seeking death, welcome. Enjoy swift death upon our claws."
There is even an NPC on your way there who warns you against proceeding, and says "maybe come back later when you're stronger".
The area is very hard, with very strong enemies (for early game) and tough platforming sections covered with deadly spikes everywhere.
After you defeat the optional boss, all the Manti in the village become non-hostile, and bow to you as a sign of respect for proving your skill.
Yes. This kind of achievements are the only one I support. Ones that are not tied to any outside systems, like Steam and actually make some effect on the game World upon completion.
I don't normally care about achievements, but one thing I've noticed that I really enjoy is the way Steam gives you the percentage of players that have received a specific achievement. It's an interesting look at the way people play.
For instance, I just beat the Cyberpunk expansion this morning and there are a couple of main endings, and the one I expected would be the more common ending was actually less common (I got both endings). It was really interesting to see, and I've got to wonder if devs look at that data and apply it in some way to their subsequent work.
They do 100% look at the data, it would be foolish not to. I think Todd Howard mentioned something about using it
But I dont think that helped with Starfield, it doesnt have that let me wonder to over here type feeling that encourages exploration and getting unique achievements
There is an achievement in a game that was 0.7% of players, gave you an in game title, I actually bumped into another guy with it, they were AFK lol
i have no doubt that they at least occasionally notice some for data
also Josh Strife uses Achievements as indicator in his reviews
for example if he gets an Achievement for beating the tutorial and notices that only a surprising amount of people achieved it it is a fair indicator that everyone can relate that there is room for improvement and according to him, i remember at least 1 example in a video some devs take that advice and use it
@@imo098765"we saw that players were spending 40-50% of their time in loading screens, so we knew we had to put more of those in TES6"
- Todd Howard, 2027
I was going to say this too. I have never bothered to deliberately get an achievement in any game, but I do enjoy the standardized Steam system as a way of tracking milestones for myself and the playerbase at large. I'm currently playing Elden Ring and when I open up Steam I can see hey, I killed 4 bosses on Sunday that's pretty good! And only 15% of players beat that boss! etc.
9:17 I got a windows notification almost perfectly in sync with this moment.
Imagine my horror when Tim comments on it.
I though he got an achievement :D
*ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: MAKE A CRITICAL SPEECH ABOUT ACHIEVEMENT SYSTEMS*
The "Little Rocket Man" achievement in Half Life 2: Episode Two is probably my favourite achievement of all-time, because you have to carry an inconsequential item (a garden gnome) through pretty much the entire game (including driving segments, where you can't actually hold it), and place it inside the nose cone of a rocket that is fired into space, to get it. It's a batsh*t crazy task, but is funny, and is a real challenge to complete.
it would have been a lot easier if there was a -gnome- coffee-cup holder in the car so the driving segments didn't become a chore looking back every 10 seconds to see if it fell out
@@pnutz_2 Valve never cared about achievements and actively sabotage and bully people that are into 100% the games. Just look at Garry's Mod achievements, or TF2 achievement to become famous on UA-cam. Ridiculous.
Batman Arkham Knight has an achievement where you have to glide under a certain number of bridges in a single go. It gets you nowhere and unlocks nothing, just a strange inclusion.
The only multiplayer achievement that relies on another player that I enjoy is in Team Fortress 2, where you have to force another player to ragequit. It is hilarious to unlock, and surprisingly easy.
Some achievements are just for fun. One of my favorite achievements ever was the "Go Outside" achievement in Stanley Parable. It was literally to not play the game for 5 years.
I love when games have random achievements like that. In the Tomb Raider remaster they added achievements for some of the secrets, like locking Winston in the freezer and turning Lara to gold
@@armadilloseller I hate this kind of achievements. This is devs consciously screwing up and making fun of 100% perfectionists like me. So I either don't play games like that at all, or I use cheats to get that ridiculous achievements.
As an old school gamer, I nevwr cared about achievments and never understood the big deal with them.
I cared about them when they unlocked things in old school games. I remember in streets of Rage 2, if you beat the game on hard which was tough to do you get a bad ass boss as a secret character. Of course, they were not called achievments back then.
Same
Yea what's the deal with less games doing unlockables in general? It used to be such a common thing, but now it seems to have been overtaken by loot-based or other RNG-based systems.
Man, I love watching a 10 minute video of you reaffirming my own opinions on a topic. I'm not proud of the feeling, but it's there.
On a more serious note: could this be partially solved by a) making the achievements secret until you fulfill the requirements, and b) adding a very long list of really obscure ones so it's almost impossible for anyone to complete them? Maybe those two would remove the idea that you're compelled to "complete" a game by getting all achievements.
That’s a good idea, but a subset of players dislike hidden achievements, so they won’t be happy. And here’s the real irony: some people who hate the idea of telemetry being used in games to monitor player behavior also love achievements…and they are the same thing.
My favourite and only time I've ever cared about achievements. Playing through Lego Indiana Jones. Accidently smack Indiana Jones whilst playing as his father (Sean Connery in the film). Achievement unlocked: "That's for blasphemy".
I love achievements being mainly aspirational like you mentioned.
I do want to mention that I do like main story achievements even though as a player I don't care about them at all. Main story/progress achievements easily let me see how many people finished the game (or how far they got before they quit). As a solo-dev-in-training, it's very useful for me to be able to go on the Steam database for games that are similar to what I'm trying to make and look at the achievements and draw some conclusions based on a combination of my own experiences with the game as well as the data that I can see from the Steam achievements.
For example, I'm currently planning a 2d point and click adventure with some inspiration taken from Pentiment, and one of the things I noticed is that most players on Steam only got through the first act of the game (and more of them discovered the secret library entrance without even finishing the first act). And what that tells me is that while some players like me loved to play through the whole game and even replay it, most players found the game too long and gave up either before finishing the first act or very quickly after. And to back this up, I've also heard from people online that they thought the game was too slow and took too long. I feel this is an important thing to learn from the achievements in this kind of game, as the main audience for it will be people who are more "casual" gamers, who don't have a lot of time to devote to a single game. So it was instrumental in me figuring out the length of story to aim for in my own game!
I do think that's the entire purpose of those. Devs use them as a marker for how much the player base cared about progressing in the game. It always so of hurts me to play a game that's been out for a couple years, I beat the first boss and see like, "25% of players have this achievement". Oof.
I like achievements being hints towards content you might miss, or for achieving specific, but hard to get, events in questlines (e.g. from the outer worlds, "Mightier Than the Sword" - "Save Edgewater permanently" - which I was surprised to learn was rare, but I enjoyed obtaining nonetheless).
I find this to be especially nice in RPGs where your choices have consequences and affect the gameplay - it lets you know that there actually were/are alternatives, and allows you to enjoy the depth of the game.
I love looking back at my achievements after finishing a game for the first time. It let's me kinda revisit my experience and go like "Oh yeah I remember that. That was fun!"
This is a good take. The PS5 will record a small amount of time before and after getting a trophy and saves it so you can go back and watch. Particularly fun with Elden Ring bosses!
1. Pay denbts.
2. ????????
3. Enjoy sunshine bro.
You’ve articulated that so well. Points that stuck out to me is arbitrary goals and class based ones. I find some arbitrary achievements fun to do in shorter games at times, but not in long rpgs, but I also tend to be a completionist
On the subject of achievements, I’ll never forget the Outer Wilds dev who wanted to have one for putting your scout, ship, and person on separate celestial bodies(thereby keeping all loaded in) but couldn’t because Annapurna didn’t like the idea of incentivizing people overloading their machines.
That’s what a developer that likes to have fun would think of.
The best achievements I've seen was in Half-Life 2. HL2 achievements feel like extra content, like going through Ravenholm using only the gravity gun or Sandtraps without ever touching the sand. It is basically challenges and changes the entire dynamic of how you play each level, you pretty much have a fresh "remixed campaign" to play after finishing the game (I did try to do all of them in my first playthrough though, it was just as fun.)
This video made me consider how achievements can shape and direct the development of a game when considered throughout the process. Using achievements as a way to say, in your words "hey, the developers like what you're doing" lends to shaping a world where optional goals are laid down, but the path to complete them isn't clearly determined and is left to the player.
Next month Tim will unlock achievement, year of putting videos on youtube.
Achievements are nice, another pat on the back for wasting time in the game :P
It tingles that part in brain and makes the life little more acceptable.
Hi Tim, it's us; everyone.
Well howdy Lemmings, didn't expect to see you here. Hope you're enjoying phase 2!
When comments like this get a substantial number of likes, it shows that like most things on the internet, Tim has a small but consistent following and that’s very heartwarming to be a part of.
I dig this reiterate of Tim's intro. Curious how... out there it'll get.
I totally agree Tim, it makes sense where I can imagine it is a mandate from above saying x amounts of Achievements must be made, so they just make some to fill it.
Hidden achievements add an interesting dynamic to things like the "100-foot fall" achievement. You can use it to turn a frustrating moment into a funny moment, without the added annoyance of incentivizing bad play.
For example, you could have a hidden achievement for dying from a 5-foot fall--where it'd normally just be a unlucky frustration, now it's a good laugh
Thank you for taking this video. I always enjoy taking a moment out of a busy day and ruminating on your perspectives and stories.
I’ve never really been a fan of achievements. I’ve only gotten all of the achievements without using a guide in The Elder Scrolls games and maybe Fallout 3… I just feel like I’m being bothered by the fourth wall being knocked down all the time. It’s of course a very personal (and, likely unpopular) perspective, but I always appreciate an old game without any achievements. I never feel good about an achievement- it’s almost like getting an ad in a UA-cam video or something.
I like the idea of achievement descriptions being used as a hint system for secrets you can discover (which consequently unlocks the achievements).
I didn't real have a dog in this argument but the way you see good achievements does sound better then what I have seen in practice. One wrinkle that occurs to me though is that certain games really aren't harmed by weird goals the the designer tell you to chase, mainly shorter games and games with no narrative milestones.
This may be analogus, but I'm reminded of something that may have been a precursor to both End Slides and Achievements. In the NES Duck Tales game (not the remake), there were two hidden treasures that were unrelated to the game's objectives. You get the main treasures by simply beating the level's boss, straight forward. However, these two hidden treasures affect the ending from Scrooge jumping around a big treasure chest to Scrooge flailing happily in a mound of treasure. There is no other effect there. That was the celebration of the achievement and thematic to the game even though it wasn't required or particularly foreshadowed.
100% agreed, it's refreshing to hear this from someone else. It seems that a lot of people don't put a lot of design-level thought into it. I think they think of it after everything else is done, as a checklist of menial tasks and random events to pad out play time or replay value.
There's so much more potential for player engagement!
Hi Tim, been watching your videos the past week or so and it's been very influencial to the development of my games and how I percieve designing games. Thank you so much for your wisdom and perspective in this industry!
Hey Tim! it's cozy in this head of yours and I get to live here rent free? You're so generous, thanks Tim.
I really like the fall a great height achievement in halo reach where you have to hit an assassination on an enemy as you land to survive the fall
that achievement probably single handedly doubled the global campaign death count of all players lol. i remember. I wish i didn't. Its a good painful memory though, especially doing it for that one helmet in mcc since the entire thing is just broken there and hardly works at all even IF you manage to hit it right and survive. Which in itself is harder due to the tick rate
I like achievements like the challenges in New Vegas, you do something, you gain exp or a perk.
Doing achievements just for the sake of it is not fun to me.
Edit: When it comes to end slides, I love these with various outcomes.
I love this so much, these insights are so interesting to hear and make a lot of sense, please keep these up and thank you so much Tim!!
Thank you for another great video Tim!
+1 on achievements being aspirational. I really like this type of goals as it can be used for progression and can avoid some of the stricter structure of a progression-for-quest-completion only system.. fun stuff.
Thank you again!
Ooo boy it's coffee and Tim time
Two things I like about them (whatever kind there are): 1., like you mentioned, an "ego chart" but one that's visible without entering the game, something that you can link to; 2., Progress tracking, maybe I come back to a game and don't immediately know what I'm still missing, and it's a quick way to look at it, even if I lose my save, I can just make a beeline to the content I haven't explored yet.
Interesting take. As a player and a VR indie game dev (with achievements in the game ofc!) I agree on 1/3 of your takes.
Some achievements are exclusive to certain play styles, situations or timelines. Some achievements can definitely can be multiplayer. Etc 🙂👌🏻
Your like the cool game dev uncle I take all the advise from ❤
I like fallout 3 and vegas or skyrim achievements when it lets you know you stumbled across a cool side quest or deadra quest.
I generally like achievements as they can be a way for me to try things I normally wouldn't do. For example in Halo MCC, there are a number of achievements that require you to beat the game on the hardest difficulty with all the modifiers on. This is a challenge I wouldn't even think about tempting but since I was trying to get all the achievements in the game I had to give it a go. When me and my wife attempted to do it we had a blast spending a whole weekend trying and succeeding in completing this challenge. On the other end the spectrum, the Gears of War series have some achievements that feel like I am wasting my life trying to get. The "Seriously" achievements are not fun and feel like they are designed for you to have a miserable time.
You and your wife did every Halo LASO? In a weekend??
I loved the achievements in Team Fortress 2. They were all about silly and rare events happening, which really played into the idea of it being a very chaotic bananas game. You would end up in a hilarious situation, pull off a ridiculous thing by chance, and the game would acknowledge it and the achievement had a witty title related to what you just did. That was the best marriage of gameplay and achievments I ever saw personally.
I want to see more games embrace that style lf achievments, rather than it going "congratulations, you just played more of the game".
I guess I've never experienced the feeling of achievements having any negative impact on my enjoyment of a game. They are never more than a "oh cool, i did an abnormal thing." I never see an achievment say "you killed 10,000 of X thing" and feel worse for having seen it. I would have a much bigger issue with them if they were gating my progress in some way.
With class specific achievments, how can I say "I completed 100% of the game" but I never played entire classes of the game. Achievements arent whats stopping me, my lack of playing whole sections of the game is.
I definitely think you are right about achievements not adding value alot of times, but i dont see them negatively impacting either. At worst, they may just be wasted resources on a devs part, but not a hinderance to the overall game. I may juts feel differently than the average player though. Maybe I should get an achievement for it. 😉
Achievements that are online only are the worst. Because when the servers inevitably shut down, the achievement sits incomplete forever. Some achievements are also completely disrespectful of player time, 100% completed achievements for games that have collectibles and a myriad of side quests that total some 300+ hours.
multiplayer-only achievements are basically a "congrats you posted on the steam forums and waited 3 months to get a team together"
Yea I've come to believe they're often used to pad out play time and replay value. Maybe not so maliciously, but when I see single achievements that will take longer to complete than it took to finish the game itself, it can actually demotivate me from playing longer.
Age of Empires 2 HD is one of the worst offenders in that category of completely disrespecting your time. There are achievements for 100 wins with every faction. That is bad enough with so many factions, but it used to be 1000 for each. Even if you play only against easy bots and can win one game in say one hour, that is literally in the tens of thousands of hours. With only 100 wins each that is still thousands of hours, IF you specifically play to get these achievements. It's completely absurd, and how anyone thought making these achievements would be a good idea is beyond me.
@@massivive Take a look at what I did to get MP achievement in NIRMH game when I couldn't find people to do it. This was absolute madness but I got it. NOTE: NIRMH's achievements are server based, so it can't be unlocked with the unlocker. The irony is, a few years later NIRMH added new achievements and I lost my 100%... Yea...
@@ARiverSystem For this kind of "achievements" its totally morally acceptable to unlock them with unlocker.
Hi Tim, it's me; One of everyone.
I mostly agree with you on this one but personally don't mind achievements that require a specific class. I'm also not one of those people that feels like they need every achievement to be done with the game.
The one type of achievement that I dislike more than any other are ones for things that you _have_ to do to even play the game. Like an achievement for entering town, or completing the first chapter of the story. I didn't really "achieve" anything I just did what I had to do. With that said; I am not against an achievement for completing the story.
Agree 100% - too many achieves now basically boil down to "play game for X hours" or "progress story to certain point"
Everything here makes sense. I like it and even agree with it in theory. But the way I actually view and use achievements is different. To me, achievements are a way for me to share pieces of my gaming experience with others. If I have obtained really difficult achievements, they will know I became quite good at the game. But other achievements like the class-based ones mentioned, those have value too. If I have like a magic based achievement, people looking at my achievements know what kind of build I used. Or it could go the other way around. If I barely got any achievements at all in a game, others could figure out that I probably did not like the game very much. Achievements are less of direct communication from the developers to players, and more so communication from player to player. In my eyes at least.
Super insightful! I love your videos!
These are excellent points that gives me a lot to think about.
My god, you just explained opinions I didn't even know I had.
Achievements can be really great or really poorly done. One thing not mentioned is the time stamp that comes with an achievement. It's a fantastic way of being able to look back on what you did, exactly which day.
Very much. For me my trophy history is a supporting photo album that I can browse to help unclog my memory of some turbulent years.
I could say something snarky like achievments are the equivalent of the participation trophy for high school sports day, but I think I will say the day has been long enough and I'm going to go have a beer at work instead. Cheers Tim!
In Gothic 2 'Night of the Raven' expansion you can find and climb up to a cave that has a hole at the end of it. If you make a leap of fate into said hole you will get 100exp exploration bonus, fall into deep water and end up in a bigger cave with some monsters and stuff to loot. You can then leave it via an exit-only kind of way out.
If you return to the hole and jump in again, you will then lose 25exp for stupitidy.
I very rarely find something to pursue in a game on my own, but having the task of getting 100% in a game is what gives me the main reason to replay and game and put in time past the initial playthrough
I like to think we are witnessing Tim's computer slowly gaining sentience over the course of these videos. =D
Hey Tim, don't be mad at me, but I don't get this "aspirational" thing. I know there are super bad achievements, like what you mentioned with multiplayers, and I agree with that. But other than those, I think achievements should just try to cover a wide range of players, and some of them will make someone happy. But this will be totally subjective.
I think there should be easy achievements and hard ones too. Probably for the hardest ones, the harder they are the more joy they will cause for some, and the more annoying they will be for others. But i think this is fine.
To clarify: maybe someone will find it funny to fall off of a cliff and survive. Someone will find it fulfilling to pick a specific class, so they can do this or that in the tutorial mission, so they can try that other thing at the end. And if they get an achievement for that, it will feel soo good! And if someone wants a 100% unlock, they'll have to google it, and do the same thing, but that is the curse of an achiever :D
Also, if you are going for a 100% achievement unlock, i think it will always be soulless, and like a checklist. But that is also fine, i do it sometimes when i am bored but i still want to play the game. And sometimes this forces me to do something fun, that i wouldn't have thought to do before.
I like achievements for things not tracked by (or visible to the player within) the game itself, which for most games is everything apart from quest completion. One I particularly like is Skeletina from Tacoma, where you have to find a skull and hat to put back on a skeleton model.
as someone who has got the platinum on the three souls games (and hated the grind), I love how fromsoft changed them for elden ring, making them almost exclusively bosses. it felt in line with how the game was probably meant to be enjoyed.
As an avid achievement hunter, I kinda use achievements as a game completion tracker. I see it as what the developer intends for me to see/do in a game, and if i get them all, I've completed the game. Halo 3 had some of the best achievements for competition and finding easter eggs and challenges. (Vid master challenges were so good)
I love achievements, not gonna lie. It extends longevity of a game for me in a fun way
I saw shady sands in the new fallout tv show trailer and immediately thought “oh I haven’t watched Tim’s video yet today!”. So here I am!
Long story short I'm 2nd month stating to work on my first game (planning is a lot easier than production and I'm not even decided when I should look for volunteer help, there is no revenue to hire anyone) and because it's gonna be close to mechanics of holocure, there will be items that are unlocked through achievements and in-game achievements will also show what they unlock.
I think it's always better to have some reward there on some of them than just the standard meaningless optional badges like most games do it.
A little more than a decade ago there was a GDC talk that cynically broke down why Achievements were thrust into the ecosystem. They serve as a means of retention, which hurt brick and mortar resellers like Gamestop and they serve as a dopamine hit like many mmo's use levels. It's also why every shooter got the rpg like leveling systems crammed into them.
Hey, Tim. Great video, as always. What's your opinion on missables in RPG? Are they a necessary evil, something to be eliminated or something crucial to your vision of the game?
Achievements are responsible for me 100%ing probably 100s of games I never would have. Love them.
The tracker variables already being used for other things (like end slides, consequences, etc.) also being used for achievements cleared up something that had been bugging me forever. I don't know if this is an issue everywhere, or just Steam, but I end up seeing the pop-up for an achievement before something happens. This is usually right before a cutscene - the results of a big story event in an RPG or a big finale in other games - where I'll do something, an achievement will pop up saying something like "you defeated the big bad for the first time" and then a cutscene showing the actual event will trigger.
It annoys me, especially the handful of times that the event itself is supposed to be a surprise. Or you've been following up on leads for some kind of mystery for half the game and then you get a pop up saying something like "Confront John Smith about pretending to be Joe Schmoe" before you actually realize that's what you're doing (maybe suspicions, but not confirmation until the cutscene plays). It deflates the tension for me.
I'm assuming the best way to handle that would be to have 2 variables - one that matters for events, cutscenes, end cards, etc. and then another that's set after the actual event play to trigger the achievement? Or two different states for the same variable? But that's also assuming the developers putting the achievements in realize that it's annoying for some players in the first place.
i'm indifferent to achievements and couldn't care less about what the devs think of how i play. on the other hand, i like some info they provide like how many ppl did what.
Achievements locked behind any multi-player requirement will often make me question if I want to play the game at all. They absolutely feel more like a chore than a fun challenge.
I understand the purpose of achievements however i think it has more drawbacks than positives:
1) theres no reward for doing the achievements
2) it makes the game feel like a chore sometimes
3) depending on the game, some achievements really all come down to chance as opposed to skill.
If there were rewards for doing achievements then i wouldnt mind it at all. They dont all have to have rewards (some can just be fun) but for some the rewards can be helpful or atleast make the achievement feel like its worth doing. For example, the achievements in turok rage wars were just not very good (but atleast you can unlock cheats when all is said and done).
Perhaps some achievements could give you extra supplies, or even unlock bonus content, or a new area (or even make beta areas or stages unlockable).
Some games had unlockables for getting certain achievements...
Dead Rising
Gears of War
Halo 3
Halo 3 ODST
Video idea: Are 'rockstars' who champion the vision required for successful products? Have you been on projects that felt like they lacked a clear vision/vision holder?
I feel those meta achievements are there to incentivise the player to replay the game.
Not gonna lie, that 100 foot fall achievement sounds funny. I like funny stupid achievements like that.
I mostly use achievements to track what I could do in the next playthrough, or some challenge that might be fun trying. Sometimes I leave a few easy ones out to have a reason to return later.
One thing I really dislike are games with online-only achievements. I've carefully replayed AC2 to get all feathers and get all 1000 points. Never bothered to do that with the following games because they had multiplayer achievements thrown in. Even worse when they're linked with online services the plug might be pulled at anytime. For instance, I'm revisiting FIFA 15, and two thirds of the achievements are linked to online modes which no longer work. As a career mode player, there's like 8 total achievements linked to it, and most can be quickly done in a day, for a game mode that involves anything between 750 and over 1000 games played to complete. Test Drive Unlimited has a bunch connected to an online service that was pulled even before I started playing the game.
Minecraft has a falling achievment for falling from from y max to y min without taking any damage. The trick is to know the game mechanics well enough to know what you can do to avoid all falling damage. The overall setup ends up being really simple and is hardly achievement worthy because it is so simple once you know what to do. This achievement doesn't really encourage dying like the falling achievement mentioned in the video, but it really is just meta knowledge required.
I do love achievement hunting but thats just because I like branching out and trying new things I may not have even considered otherwise. In FNV there's an achievement to win 30 games of caravan and as a kid I never understood the game, but I learned it to get the achievement and now its my favorite card game!! I even taught my mom and my wife how to play it so I can play it irl with other people haha
Could you please make a tutorial on how to play caravan?
I still dislike how achievements break my immersion. It feels like everyone has become accustomed to them but i prefer to turn them off if possible, and check them in a menu later.
I got really fixated on achievements during the 7th gen consoles. It was killing my love of games.
Agreed, they can be really immersion-breaking.
I think that varies a bit by player 'type', though; there are some players who love achievement-hunting and love checking off all the boxes of random stuff.
Figuring out how to cater to one kind of player while not irritating everyone else is one of the fun challenges of game design.
I think achievements are fine as a personal measuring tool (for completionists etc.) or even for bragging rights, but I do think it is sad how in many cases 'achievements' have overshadowed actual achievements in gaming. It used to be that you beat a boss, solved a puzzle, got to the end credits and you felt great about what you've accomplished. You had... fun! You were immersed, you weren't just doing it to satisfy some primal need for fake internet points.
The achievements I don't like are the ones that require you to grind and have no benefit to the game progression.
Yes, I very much prefer the New Vegas style challenges, these are good achievements.
Man, this reminded me of rayman legends. The one reason I didn't "100%" the game was online achievements. I had a 100% completed savefile, but didnt "100% complete the game" because it had really specific online achievements and it just made so sad
Hi Tim. Here's a question for you: what are your thoughts on "New Game Plus" modes, that extend a game past its completion? Have you implemented NG+ in any of your games, and have you played any that have impressed you? From my own point of view: I was impressed with New Game Plus modes in Dragon Quest VIII (and IX), and The Witcher 3. The Pokémon and Resident Evil games also tend to have really good NG+ modes.
A video on New Game Plus is coming up in three weeks!
@@CainOnGamesI will look forward to that one! ☺
I will say about the "achievements for dying" thing. I'm not an achievement hunter and don't really look at what I have to do for them, but getting an achievement for a mistake I made, (like dying) always makes that blow easier to take.
Maybe I missed a point here, but I think there is merit to the idea of achievements as rewards. The skill of players for any potential game varies wildly and what is hard for some is trivial for others. As (imo) it is impossible to tune the difficulty for all players, achievements can be a good reward for players who took on harder challenges than the main game provides. These achievements are almost always tied to certain locations/playstiles/acts. While just "I did it" may be enough for some, being rewarded for an especially tough challenge, having the extra skill invested being acknowledged, does feel nice. And for these harder, otherwise self-imposed, challenges, in-game rewards make less sense, I think. If someone has already beaten the hardest boss with one arm.tied behind his back, why eould they need more gold or an even better sword? They obviously don't need that. Having a badge on your profile that shows what you've done has more use to them than any item ingame.
Man... Every time I sit down and watch one of your vids, I'm just more and more sorry that my time at Carbine didn't intersect with yours. We share very similar views on these achievements. It's gotten to the point where if you do something in a game that is mildly difficult, you're kind of anticipating that you got an achievement for it.
Online Multiplayer Achievements are irksome, too. I've played more Geometry Wars III than anyone I know, but I'll never 100% it because I need to play with a friend and do a bunch of stuff that is beyond the skill level of everyone else I know. So, not only did I have to get good enough at the game to accomplish this, but now I have to impose the financial and time costs upon a friend who also got to that level in order to "prove" I mastered this game? Come on, now.
Totally agree with this take, achievements are great when they challenge you or give you a reason to play the game in an interesting way. Most games however just give you achievements for completing non-optional quests, like what? That's just called playing the game.
I have a weird relationship with achievements. I have tens upon tens of thousands of them across the platforms. I also wish I could just hit a button on my profiles that erased the history and stopped me earning them or even seeing them. I've spent many hours pursuing achievements that I know are ultimately valueless because my ADHD brain (actually ADHD, not Internet ADHD) chases the dopamine hits that come from unlocking them, even though I know it doesn't really matter. This is obviously a me problem, which is why I wish I had the option to remove myself personally from the achievements ecosystem while leaving the system there for those who do want it.
On the achievement for falling 100 feet and not dying: this one is amazing IF it's a hidden achievement that is revealed if you happen to do that by chance.
Personally, I prefer none achievements if they're gonna be a boring checklist.
Hi Tim nice video
But for me I don’t care about achievements in games
Especially trophies
Because i grow up without them
Psx
Pc
I just enjoy the ecosystem the game present
Mecánics
Dialog
Quest
Etc
Nice video btw take care
I think 1/3 of achievements exist because a dev thought of a pun that they're really proud of.
"getting wood" from Minecraft
I really enjoy hidden achievements. Knowing there are hidden achievements enhances my desire to explore the game and world and see what they could be. I also love when there are hidden achievements for doing goofy or absurd things, feels like a nod from the game developers. I am not a completionist though, I am okay with not unlocking achievement. I can understand how these sort of achievements could decrease enjoyment for someone who is.
“I heard there is a special prize when you get to 50” (John Marston from RDR)
One thing those "complete chapter 1" achievements are used for measuring average player progress. Maybe it gives some players a small dopamine hit, but the main purpose is tracking, so it'd be better if it was silent
Monster Hunter World tracked how many of each monster had been killed, and gave us a quest with the most and least popular(and again in the expansion). There wasn't any achievement or global stat we could check for that beforehand, but they knew
The other side is, there are people who, when given a list, will just do it. So any particularly tricky achievements can mess up someone with certain brain chemistry, and force endless replays, or generally suck the fun out of it
I remember reading a forum post by a tester for Bayonetta. His job was to sanity check the achievements... because he was a bit crap at action games. So if he could trigger everything in his office chair while being paid and so on, it was good to go, the average person can do it if they apply themselves
Excellent perspective m8
Hey Tim. Could the fate points for Arcanum be considered achievements? And if Arcanum was ever remastered, would you add achievements and how?
I agree so much with how Achievements lost their luster - I used to play WOW and I chased a lot of the achievements and eventually made me hate them so much I don't even bother with most games achievements outside of the ones you can't avoid (Congrats you started the game you just bought) How is that an achievement?
Or in a racing game, you see a popup "you drove 1000km". This is an achievement? Really?
I prefer in game challenges like new Vegas where it has you use different weapons or do different things.
The funniest stuff is when they add achievements to old games.
There is this old game called primal in PlayStation came in 2004.
There is a moment were a prince finds his mother dead has to cremate her to expose the imposter demon in her place then his dad jumps to death killing the imposter to save the place.
Even the protagonist jen is very solemn , despite being bratty in general.
It shows the weight of the moment.
But the PS4 achievement system that has been slapped on choses to give you clinking sound and trophy😂
one thing i dislike about achievements is that many achievements are tracked across the whole ownership of the game and i kinda wish it also showed you which ones you unlocked during that playthrough. though, that's often because achievements are usually displayed outside of the game through the console you have the game with or the store on PC.
Tim: "Why are you encouraging players to die"?
Just Die Already game: It is what it is.
I can totally follow you.
At the same time. Oblivion had that ingame collectathon with Nirn roots. And there were some gems in Skyrim that I have successfully surpressed the name of.
Those quest were not fun, imo. And yet my fomo/completionist tendencies made me postpone saving the world to go find 50 noisy weeds.
But maybe still better than achievements, as those are NOT good for immersion
[Hidden Achievement] Hey , you didn't move your character for 103 minutes!!!
I loved/hated trying getting Foxiest of the Hounds in DXHR and learning (way too late) that the game does not reset alarm flags when loading the latest save :)
Could hear a pin drop when you dropped the S word. "Soulless."
I always thought that achievements like, "You completed Act 1.. here's an achievement"
Like, why?
You can see public stats on how many players did it.
It's probably for devs to see engagement