Achievments & Trophies

[JP]

Been thinking about this a bit lately and was wondering what other people think about these things. There may be other types out there on the PC or Wii which I'm not aware of but let me know and I'll change the title.

I remember when I first heard about Achievements on the 360 and it was one of the things I was really looking forward to when I bought my launch model but I grew tired of them really quickly.

Obviously Sony caught on that people in general do like them and eventually introduced Trophies to the PS3. Again, I was looking forward to these and decided that I'd really get into them this time but again I got bored of them almost straight away.

One of the times that they really added something to the game for me was with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I played through this game once at launch and it just sat on my shelf unused until the Trophy update came for the game.

This sort of gave me the excuse to play through the game again after all that time and when I'd completed it I found that the Trophies did actually add something to the game for me because when I'd played through it at launch I'd completely avoided things like hand to hand combat as I found it too tricky to do at the time.

Uncharted had trophies like Kill 20 enemies melee attacking from behind, Kill five enemies in a row with a single punch after softening them up with gunfire and Kill five enemies in a row with a brutal combo which really made me learn those attacks and once I replayed the game after learning them I enjoyed it even more as I was flying through much of it Matrix stylee beating the living snot out of everybody.

In the game I only have two left which are to finish it on the Crushing skill level to give me a gold Trophy and that will also give me a platinum Trophy for collecting all of the Trophies in that game.

Now I'm not in a hurry to get these and they aren't easy but I know I'll finish it sometime and I will feel that I've actually achieved something in the game when I've won them.

Each time I hear that a new game will support Trophies I get excited about that but about 5 minutes after the update I've got no more interest in the game than I had when there was no Trophies in it.

I've bought this up now as I was talking to a mate in work who has a 360 and we used to play a quite a bit on Live together. A couple of the games that I really enjoyed playing with him was Crackdown (co-op) and Gears of War (co-op) and every time an he unlocked an Achievement he was so pleased whereas they were just annoying pop ups on the screen for me.

I think it's really good that he felt that he was gaining something by the Achievements being in the game even though they meant nothing to me.

I can remember him telling me ages ago that he'd bought a game, I can't remember the title but it was a basket ball game, I tried it and it was absolutely crap but he loved playing it and when I questioned him he thought it was really crap too and what confused me is that he knew it was really crap when he bought the game.

Again, if he thinks he's getting some value out of buying the game and spending time on it then I think he's done the right thing but it's really not something that I could imagine doing with a game myself.

I'm just interested in what people think about Achievements & Trophies?
Who here would buy a game to get easy points?
Can anybody think of any that they feel has really added to the game as I feel the Uncharted Trophies did?
Are you the sort of person who likes to boast about their points or would you do you not care if people know or not?

I have games which I know I'll probably never get the Trophies for. Burnout is one as I imagine that has some you need to win online and as much as I've played the game I've not taken it online once since it launched.

The same for Warhawk, I was pleased to hear that it was getting them but online shooty type games will get played by me perhaps once every 6 months or something so he chances are I'll end up with perhaps a couple of Trophies for that game.

I'm just interested to hear what people think about things like Trophies & Achievements in any way at all.

EDIT:
A few spelling mistakes corrected.

[averybluemonkey]

Achievements have really gripped me this generation and apart from the PSP I don't play my older systems nearly as often as I used to. A lot of the time I feel like gaming without achievements is kind of a waste of my time. My videogaming hit an all time low before the 360 came out as I was much more into collectible card games and tabletop wargaming. With tabletop gaming I had something to show for my time with a beautifuly painted army and a hobby where my monetary investment grew rather than shrank. I still gamed but it was maybe only 12 new games a year.

With achievements however suddenly for me gaming has turned a hobby that was essentially just a time sink into something where I have things to show for the hours put in. Before I would finish a game and then that would be that, sure I could play it on hard but often thought what was the point if it didn't have neat unlockables. So normally I'd start replaying on hard then never bother finishing it. A lot of my games I never finished period as something new stole my attention. Now suddenly I'm replaying my games 2-3 times, sometimes even more. Take Tomb Raider:Legend I probably would have put that down after 12 hours before, but the achievements more than doubled that time for me.

And I love the way it's brought back that competitive spirit from the old days. Even if games don't have high score tables you can now compete with your mates over achievements. I'm constantly battling one of my mates on the games we both own, we care more about specific achievements than total score.

For me a good set of achievements with nice artwork for them really adds to my enjoyment of a game, those little rewards you get for progress. I'd never play a game that I didn't like just for easy achievements though and I don't tend to value a lot of the multiplayer achievements because too many people just boost for them which really devalues them in my eyes but solid single player achievements can be a real proud point for showing you've mastered a game in my opinion.

[ezee ryder]

I used to be really into the achievement "whoring" and would buy/borrow poor games just to get points out of them but now I just can't be bothered anymore. My gamerscore reached 50,000 and that is when I gave up, just could not sit through anymore awful games like Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Golden Compass, Eragon etc.

Now I just like getting as many achievements as I can from the games I buy without going overboard. For instance I won't play 10 hours a day to get an achievement for killing 50,000 people online, I will just play the game and if I get it then great. Same applies to getting trophies on PS3 games too.

Some games do have interesting achievements/trophies though such as Uncharted, which you mentioned. They make you play a game in different ways, which usually you would not. The Bioshock achievements were pretty good in my opinion as they made me play the game in different ways. For instance I wouldn't have probably dealt with all the little sisters in the game if the achievement wasn't there and neither would I have researched or upgraded stuff in the game. It added some longevity to the game and made it more interesting/challenging. Also the co-op achievements are usually pretty good, games like Gears of War, Crackdown and Rainbow Six Vegas are good examples of those.

[JP]

I suppose as I bought this topic up that I should really add that this is me when it comes to this sort of thing!


I can't find myself on the gXBoxLive thing on here but I've not had a 360 for ages so I suppose it may well have been removed now.

Because I don't really notice what sort of numbers other people have on their profiles on the PSN I don't know this would compare to other people.

I've got three people on my friends list who have the number of trophies that they have as their comment so that everybody can see what they have.

One of them is a lot lower then me and another is a lot higher which I wouldn't have known without them posting it in the comment section. It's not something I'd really do myself but I do sort of understand why people would want to.

Maybe if I was interested in spending more time in getting Trophies and I feel more like I'd achieved something and want to show them off like that. I don't think I have that need to be competitive with things like this in the way I used to and that probably effects why I'm not sort of person who generally feels the need earn them.

On the original XBox I used to spend ages playing Ghost Recon online and I can see how it would have been some sort of rank bank then for me.

Do people feel that people with more are better gamers?

Thinking about Uncharted again, the strange thing is that all the Trophies in that were there the first time I played it but they were in-game only rather than the type you can get now.

I think I like it when games actually give you something in the game for earning them, instead of just getting a Trophy you unlock a new item that can be used in the game or something like that. Games have been doing that for years so I suppose it's an evolution of that in a way.

What's the easiest, stupidest, hardest, most embarrassing one that people have got so far?

[Salsa Party Animal]

Game like Fifa 2008 doesn't have right achievements I mean I played it for load of hours and haven't unlock one for a while. Madness.

[mmcg]

Uncharted already had it's own ingame 'trophies' way before Sony added them.

For me, something like Uncharted had, where it's exclusive to the game is great, but a universal system where all games have to have achievements is crap. It just encourages pointless willy waving, and people buying crap games for easy achievements etc.

[Flinty]

The whole Achievement/Tophies thing has it's ups and downs.

Some Achievements are far to hard and boring to get and some are just plain silly to bother, I think it's an Achievement to actually finish games at all theses day so I don't look at games like King kong in shame best I got 1000 gamerpoints for playing it (I loved it btw!)

Then games like Guitar Hero 3 come along with some insane achievement which I will never get........I KNOW it's call an ACHIEVEMENT! but finishing a game is an ACHIEVEMENT!

Playing games on insanely hard levels giving yourself major stress is not fun and not worth the time.

One thing that I find strange is, I like it when I earn an Achievement, but don't actually care if my score it higher than anyone on my friends list.

I only look at my friends Achievements to see how far they are into a game, then you get games like Devil May Cry 4 that don't help, unless your half way though that is!

Btw odd Achievement numbers only exist to piss Achievement whores off, if you get 2 gamerpoints you will hunger after that 3 gamerpoints which you KNOW you won't get until the end of the game.............and the game is ****.

[Matt]

BIG SNIP

I agree with Ezee. I used to whore, especially the first 6 months of the 360. It was nice to have a way to show people what you've achieved.

I discussed something similar with a mate years back when I completed Halo on Legendary - I wanted a badge of merit so it was always there, something I'd always wear with pride.

Ultimately though, you end up whoring through some right **** to get the points. Which is pointless and a waste of valuable hours of your life! I avoided most of the pap, and I played King Kong before I knew about the easy achievements because I wanted to play the game - and I enjoyed it as well I rented titles back then....

Achievements are nice so long as you don't start doing mundane **** just for the sake of completion. Some really add to games, making you replay them a different way, extending the game's life - this is a good thing.

The points mean nothing though, as there's no regulatory body ensuring 10 points = X amount of playing time or ability.

I went off achievement points and went back to playing just for fun. Sure, in a game, if there's an achievement for 100 shotgun kills, I may work on that, but I'd be playing it for fun, not doing something I hate just to do it.

With Trophies, I immediately found myself in the "can't really be arsed" category. I borrowed Uncharted when it was patched, thinking I'd play it twice to get the platinum, but one play through was enough for me. I didn't want to spend another 5 hours or whatever of my life retreading old ground for a digital prize.

They'll be the standard in the future, and I think that's good. It'll encourage new ways to play a game. The whores are happy in their bedrooms all day, while the rest of us enjoy playing a game and look forward to the occasional little Achievement Earned ping

It's a shame there's no a unified system between manufacturers.

[rmoxon]

Personaly I love the way the 360 implements achievements into its game, and gives you a gamerscore, which even though its usualy just a resemblance of how many games people have, rather than how good people are, is still a very cool feature and I enjoy the extra depth and challegenge achievments bring to the plate.

However not all achievments are fair. For instance Unless the game is online only I dont agree with online/multiplayer achievements as I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who just arent into deathmatch/online gaming and will never get certain achivements however much they want too.

So overall, my conclusion, Achievements mean very little unless you make them mean somthing, and if you make them mean somthing, then they can make your game more fun.

[JP]

They'll be the standard in the future, and I think that's good. It'll encourage new ways to play a game. The whores are happy in their bedrooms all day, while the rest of us enjoy playing a game and look forward to the occasional little Achievement Earned ping

It's a shame there's no a unified system between manufacturers.

I'd like to see them in all future games as it gives people the choice to use them or ignore them. At least it is compulsory in all games started after a certain date on the PS3 now which I think is needed if they want it to be something that gamers pay any attention to.

Is there anything similar on the PC?

Uncharted already had it's own ingame 'trophies' way before Sony added them.

Which I did say in my post.

The medals were included in the game right from the start by Sony and as Evan Wells stated in July, the hooks were already in place for the system wide Trophies when the game launched in November '07.

According to Wells, the patch was "incredibly easy" to implement because the game already contains preliminary support for Trophies via its Medals reward system. He further revealed that these hooks were actually included because Naughty Dog thought Sony would roll out Trophies before Uncharted's November 2007 launch.

To be honest I'm all for them as long as they add something to the game but I'm guessing that like other game play elements, bad designers will end up doing crap things with them.

Does anybody know if there are rules to how Achievements/Trophies are awarded? It must be difficult to ensure that doing something in one game is worth the same points as doing something in a different game in a completely different genre.

[jamesy]

If there are any sort of guidelines they aren't followed on the 360 at all. Avatar sums the situation up perfectly.

[peeveen]

It's hard to discuss this topic when there is such wild variation in:

a) the inventiveness/design/fun of achievements and trophies, and
b) the type of gamer (whorer, completionist, etc)

But as with most things, you get out of it what you put in. I'm a completionist who takes prides in having some real tough achievements on my profile. I never really care about a player's total score ... only how they stand against me on a game-by-game basis.

Then games like Guitar Hero 3 come along with some insane achievement which I will never get........I KNOW it's call an ACHIEVEMENT! but finishing a game is an ACHIEVEMENT!

This game gets a lot of flak for having tough achievements ... and true, when I first got it, I figured that if I could get 450/1000, I'd be more than happy. But, to a completionist like me, it pushed me to get better, so in that regard, they're great.

[Btang84]

I'm definitely not the type to go wanting to get every single Trophy or Achievement. I don't own a 360, but I do have one single game where I think its system of Achievements has been one of the best things about the game. It is Team Fortress 2 on the PC and this won't be the case with the console versions. It works great because they've introduced a fair amount of new Achievements with the updates to numerous classes.

And it's not just for whoring either, since you have to hit a certain number of milestones before unlocking new weapons for that class. They do not unbalance the game at all and no player is advantaged, merely given more options, thereby not putting newcomers at a disadvantage.

I think the fact that Valve have really attempted to make many of these really funny ones helps. Here's one example:

Rasputin
In a single life, get shot, burned, bludgeoned, and receive explosive damage.

There are loads of examples of really funny ones. Some are pretty hard but the Achievements on the whole are done brilliantly in this game and the best implementation of the system so far. I probably reckon they could make it an option to turn off the whole thing for people completely not into Achievements as the windows could be a nuisance to some.

[jamesy]

I never really care about a player's total score ... only how they stand against me on a game-by-game basis.

Good point. That to me is a very "healthy" way of looking at achievements. In that regard I've actually been motivated by Ikaruga's achievements even though they are worth very little in the overall scoring.

[Strolls]

Achievements are simply gaming-crack.

That's why Sony's bought into it with their version - catering to those with addictive-personalities can do no harm to sales. I could write a lot more on this subject, but you'll have to incite me if you want me to show what a forums-junkie I am.