Developers, PLEASE Stop Doing These 10 Things in Your Trophy and Achievement Lists

[Moppy]

I don't think multiplayer achievements need to go away entirely, but yeah, there can be some weird counterproductive ones sometimes that definitely go against the intended experience. Remember when that Turok reboot had an achievement that required teamkilling in MP? Haha.

 

[PandemicOdin]

There are a bunch of things you wrote that do frustrate me but it is totally on a game by game basis. I actually didn't mind the AC Origins one but it should happen every time or more than half the time so that the player actually experiences that thing.

The multiple replay ones annoy the F outta me. I'm now working through the TLoUP2 platinum because it needed a 2nd playthrough but I rarely have the desire to go replay a game I just beat since Ik all the little things that the game does would probably annoy me. Miles Morales was short enough and had enough good scenes that I was cool with it but if I had done it to say TLoUP2, I would've lost my mind. I used to do it when I was younger, like with Uncharted 2 but man I almost came to hate one of my favourite games ever because of that. Now if I do that, I do it months later

 

[Phatmanny]

Help me understand the distaste for achievements like getting gold in street fighter.
Are we not supposed to give rewards for achieving competence in a fighting game. Like can achievements not be given for achieving things.
Also I hate to be that guy but getting gold rank is being mildly competent at street fighter.

 

[ichigoww]

I only read the abridged list, so if I missed an important argument, my bad.

I've always thought of trophies as a device for getting the most out of a game, just a bonus (and in some cases a challenge), not something you should be completely fixated on.
Having said that, I agree with the multiplayer ones but for a different reason, if a game is a singleplayer campaign with mp components, you shouldn't have achievements based on something that is bound to disappear eventually.
Also, number 1 is just saying, "hey devs, stop having bugs in your games", and I find that a bit funny

 

[ReDelicious]

Giving up on achievements was my best gaming decision I've ever made, but still back when I chased them I always thought they shouldn't have MP achievements at all unless the game is MP only to begin with. Just makes them impossible to get whenever servers go down eventually.

 

[Massicot]

As someone who admittedly doesn't care about trophies/achievements too much unless I really adore a game, I fail to see the issue with most of these. Implement all of these ideas and you'll have boring lists where you end up with nearly everything on a single normal-mode playthrough. At that point why even care about a badge on your platform UI?

Only really agree on luck ones, bugged ones (obviously), and *maybe* missables but that kinda depends on the context of the missable.

 

[lusca_bueno]

Yeah, I often have more fun going for game completion kind of achievements, and not really competitive or replay stuff.

I don't necessarily agree though that this is the ideal format for achievements, because of a very simple reason: some people enjoy replaying or competing even though I don't.

Also, it isn't fair to point what is an "actual" achievement, valuing it differently because it's competitive play or single play, since many people will be challenged by different aspects, and challenge doesn't even need to be the defining factor of achieving something.

 

[KDC720]

I'll forever hate Overcooked for ruining my GS total. Fun game but it gives you an achievement with an odd numbered GS right at the start and the achievement to even that out requires you to get every star in the game. Absolutely devious.

 

[Stat]

I turned off trophies and my life has been better for it. They all suck and just artificially increase game life rather than making it fun. 99% of them are just grinding.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Achievements with odd values are the worst. My gamerscore is still fucked up from playing GRAW back in '06.

Multiplayer achievements are also fucking awful. Halo 3 had a couple of infamous ones: splattering someone with a Mongoose comes to mind. Getting kills with certain weapons is fine, just don't make the requirements too outlandish. Some achievements actively push you to ruin your own multiplayer experience by playing in a an unusual way.

Best achievements are for doing or finding fun stuff and easter eggs.

 

[APOEERA]

More than half the time, I find that achievements/trophies are put in by developers and they either a) don't bother testing it or b) hate them so much to get back at the player for going for them so they purposely make them obtuse/difficult.

Machinegames have been asked repeatedly to at least make cutscenes skippable for the Mein Lieben trophy but they refuse.

A lot of what you mention in the list could be avoided by backing up saves but Borderlands 3's trophy oof.

I always check out trophy guides before I attempt games to see what I'm in for -- sometimes I get lucky and do really well but other times it's ridiculous.

 

[Nephtes]

I agree having any requirements based on online multiplayer performance are just wrong.

For #1, an achievement/trophy that fails to trigger is a bug, it's not because they designed it that way.

I can't agree with any of the other points since I remember some fun trophies doing these things.

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This is acknowledged in the description on that one. Like bugs happen, but as developers when we mash user data, it's our duty to fix the user's data if possible, especially if we have the means to do so.

Sorry, my main takeaway is I can't believe getting all the rings in Dark Souls 3 is called "Master of Rings" and not "Lord of the Rings."

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I know, right?

 

[thomas_cale]

Not a single gamerscore is ruined by an achievement not ending in 0 or 5 what are you on about op?

 

[abellwillring]

I read the full OP and can appreciate your points on each one (minus #10).. but ultimately, the best thing is to just stop caring. It isn't a big deal if you get an achievement or a trophy. They should be there as something fun to maybe aim for if you're close or want to do a little more, but don't let them dictate your gaming life.

 

[Sephiroth]

OPs PLEASE stop doing this 1 thing in your thread title:

Capitalizing The First Letter Of Every Word

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First Posts PLEASe Stop Being The Best Posts.

 

[greengr]

Quake IV has(had?) an achievement where you have to be in the top of the leaderboard worldwide iirc,thats simultaneously the best and the worst achievement ever.

Also those play a million multi matches and get a million kills and medals achievements are ridiculous,i wonder who bothers with them.

 

[ZeoVGM]

I mean, this really narrows down achievements and trophies to "most unlock just by playing through the game."

I personally agree with a couple points but jeez.

 

[RPGam3r]

The cool thing with achievements is they're just points so if I don't get them all I don't care. This used to bother me with trophies because of the platinum, but I've long since given up on those.

 

[calibos]

Hard disagree with most of the things on your list. Achievements are meant to be exactly what they are called, not handed to you on a platter. Hunting rare achievements is what made them so compelling in the beginning and what keeps me loving them to this day. I would have never played CoD 2 on Veteran if there weren't a sweet ass achievement to remember it by. Sure, it's all for bragging and showing off, but I love those hard ones.

I actually really think they need to push forward with a plan from a few years back for a career and leveling system from earning them. MS is close to this with MS Rewards, but it needs expansion. I want my online avatar to grow like an RPG character. Give me ways to show and be proud of my 14 or more years of hunting them damn achievements.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

4. Achievements/Trophies that require you to do dumb shit in multiplayer modes
We've all been there, we're playing a team based multiplayer game, and one player on your team of randos is running around and doing apparently everything BUT working with the team towards whatever the objective is because they're "trying to get an achievement". Apologies… I'm that rando on your team. But it's not my fault! Developers are the ones that put these ridiculous achievements into their games and well I can't NOT try to get them.

Example:
Overwatch
Mine Sweeper
This achievement requires you as Winston (the gorilla character) to destroy 10 turrets without dying. Turrets only get spawned by Symetra and Torbjorn, and dying is super easy to do. So when you see a Symetra on the opposing team and you've selected Winston, you're doing your best to just stay alive long enough to get rid of 10 of her turrets and maybe not play the objective so much. "WINSTON! WTF YOU DOING! PUSH THE OBJECTIVE!" "Nah bruh, I'm trying to get an achievement…"

Honestly, I could have picked SO MANY of this kind of achievement from Overwatch it's not even funny…

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Oh my god, there was one achievement in Overwatch that required you destroy three of Symmetra's teleporters in a single match. This was back when Sym's teleporter was not a regular ability but one of her two ultimates. So not only did you have to go into the backline to find her teleporter and destroy it, you also had to rely on factors out of your control. The Symmetra actually had to get her ult three times in a match, she also had to choose the teleporter instead of the barrier all three times and of course you could just have the Symmetra switch to another hero ruining your shot at the achievement.

 

[Firebrand]

9. Luck/RNG Based Achievements/Trophies
I'm sorry game developers, these kinds of achievements just are not fun. Anything that requires your random number generator to proc on a low chance that I'll get an achievement isn't fun, it's just annoying. This is the literal antithesis of "achieving" something. It's just a thing randomly given out. Please stop.

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I disagree with this somewhat. Sometimes really crazy things happen by accident, especially in multiplayer games, and it's nice to get a little badge to remember it by. Example: In FTL, I unlocked an achievement "Astronomically low odds" by having every laser cannon upgraded to max and yet miss every single shot in a salvo. That's fun!

The issue is rather having points / trophies tied to achievements. I don't wanna be condescending to people who enjoy hunting achievements, that's cool, but I don't think every achievement should necessarily be able to be grinded out.

Like you say though, fun and odd achievements can encourage people to not play the game "properly" in an online environment, something Valve learned with the Team Fortress 2 "Medic Update" where pairs of medics would waste ubercharges on eachothers.

 

[kamineko]

MP trophies in SP games are awful if you are lttp

 

[mrgoomba]

I agree with most of the list and those are the reason I don't care for achievements.. because they just are not fun to get

 

[Bundy]

Have to agree with almost all of them. They're all bad. Especially the multiplayer trophies, time trials and the ones that require many, maaaaaaany days of grind.

Example:
Dark Souls III
Master of Rings
"Aquire all rings", sounds simple enough right? WRONG. There are 109 rings in the game, only 70 of which can be found in your first playthrough. 21 more rings are found in NG+ and 17 rings only found in NG++. The only way to acquire these rings? Beat the game, then beat it again and then collect the final rings in the next playthrough. And it's a Dark Souls game, so you know this will be a task not for the faint of heart, especially considering one of the rings is locked away behind the hardest boss in the game on NG++.

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God, I know. I had to find all rings in Demon's Souls and that was already a chore. Horrible.

Trophy hunting should be fun. Not "you have to work hard for many days and feel miserable to get them".

 

[eraFROMAN]

My personal solution to the issues is just not to go for all of the achievements. Having done QA in the past, achievements are just manipulating you into playing a game more, especially if you're not enjoying it anyway. No better way to keep you in the ecosystem than seeing your friend with an achievement you don't have because you didn't grind 10 straight hours.

You're not really supposed to get all the achievements; if you're not skilled enough to get one, no one really cares and if you DO get it, you probably cheesed it anyway.

 

[calloumiii]

All of these are honestly fine aside from the bugged trophies, which I'm not sure actually count since I highly doubt they're done so intentionally.

I used to be a bit of a trophy hound. I used to purposely not play games where I thought I couldn't get the plat (to a rather worrying degree in retrospect), so I get where you are coming from... but I still disagree. Most of those promote aspects of the game devs want people to experience - the RNG-based easter egg ones are basically sign posts to say "we did something cool, please try check it out!", for instance.

As for the multiplayer/extreme difficulty ones, well... they're literally called achievements. It's not really that much of an achievement if everyone has done it. It sucks that some of them will likely forever be out of the reach of we mere mortals, but I suppose that's the case with actual trophies from sports competitions as well.

Honestly, learning to play games without focusing on trophies improved my experience so much - now I play games first, and if I like them enough, I'll come back at some point and get the plat. Or, even better, I play on my Switch, where such pressures have no power over me.

 

[prophetvx]

If you care about any of those things, doesn't that kind of defeat the point of being a completionist with trophies? I have very few platinums but I would say that trophies provide an extra level of play to a game outside of just finishing it. They're designed to require more dedication, multiple playthroughs, encourage a different build or playstyle etc. The only point I agree with would be the luck based ones, if you can't seek them out deliberately, they aren't worth putting in there.

 

[Mexen]

I changed the title just for you. Now do you have anything actually worthwhile to add to the conversation?



Your complaints have been addressed.

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Fellow Devs, Please Take Note.

 

[the-pi-guy]

I disagree on 7, 5, 3, 2.
Agree on everything else.

I think a big point of trophies is to encourage playing. I agree on most of these, because I don't think they really encourage most people to play.

Like the perma death trophy, probably would make more people turn away from attempting than not.

Rewarding a player for making choice A and playing through the game again to make choice B, rewarding a player for trying to explore the game and do things they wouldn't normally do, feels to me like a great example of trophies done right.

Multiplayer trophies are probably okay, but they aren't accessible to everyone. Especially when games often shut down at some point.

 

[Xterrian]

Except, I actually have OCD...
The number of times I have to check if I locked all the doors in my house every day is debilitating. As is my need to complete check lists.

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I'll apologize for the condescending descriptor. I was riled up from a certain thread on the ecterera forum as well as irl stuff. Seeing your response to Alvis and coupled with the ocd thing sent me over a bit.

As for the ocd description, I'll apologize for that too. But we both know ocd gets tossed around way too much when it's used in more stereotypical "cleanliness and order" stuff. It's wrong on my part, but seeing ocd used with "oh all my dishes have to be color coordinated" or "I need to get this checklist done" doesn't fill me with confidence that it's being used correctly, even though, as in your case, those things can genuinely stem from the condition.

Sorry once again. It's clear you spent a lot of time making this thread. I'll edit my post to remove the unsavory bits. I usually leave my mistakes up, out of some sort of "own up to your mistakes" pride, but I don't feel right in this case.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

 

[mrmickfran]

80+ hours in Street Fighter V and I'm still Super Bronze 😭😭

 

[SolidSnakex]

I'd add another in that "Play game for X amount of time" needs to be reasonable. This really stuck out to me because of the new Panzer Dragoon remake. The game itself might take you around two hours to complete. Then cleaning up all except one trophy shouldn't take you any longer than another hour. Now what's that one trophy? Play the game for 100 hours.

 

[tobascodagama]

Counterpoint: please do all of these things because they annoy insufferable people.

 

[MeltedDreams]

I don't really see the point of achievements if you get every single one of them by just kinda playing through a game once though

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.

Sony does this with their first-party titles for the past two years and God, i swear every trophy list is samey and boring with most basic trophies ever.

 

[Typhon]

I disagree on 7, 5, 3, 2.
Agree on everything else.

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[Cess007]

Example:
Wolfentstein II: Shadow of the Colossus
Mein Leben

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You mean... the New Colossus?

Otherwise, there's a Wolfestein game out there in which you can climb giant Hitler and stab him in the eye and I never knew lol

 

[greengr]

Multiplayer trophies are probably okay, but they aren't accessible to everyone. Especially when games often shut down at some point.

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No they arent and most times they basically demand all your free time to achieve them or a million matches and be an expert player or boost them which is ridiculous.

COD franchise years ago had the right idea when it didnt had multi achievements/trophies.

 

[King_Moc]

I don't think getting to gold tier in Street Fighter V is an unreasonable ask in a multilayer centric game. It's roughly top 50,000 in the world I think.

 

[Trigonometrize]

I disagree on 7, 5, 3, 2.
Agree on everything else.

I think a big point of trophies is to encourage playing. I agree on most of these, because I don't think they really encourage most people to play.

Like the perma death trophy, probably would make more people turn away from attempting than not.

Rewarding a player for making choice A and playing through the game again to make choice B, rewarding a player for trying to explore the game and do things they wouldn't normally do, feels to me like a great example of trophies done right.

Multiplayer trophies are probably okay, but they aren't accessible to everyone. Especially when games often shut down at some point.

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What is the argument of using hidden other than for spoiler? On Playstation you're literally a couple button presses away from revealing trophy info if you want to see it. They're just an inconvenience.

 

[Starlatine]

Trophy hunting should be fun. Not "you have to work hard for many days and feel miserable to get them".

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Trophies are also usually awarded for some notable feat instead of just existing

There's a middle ground between slaving your life away to get a completion and "haha you bought our game wow here take 1000g for booting it up"

 

[Deleted member 11976]

From my experience, working on Achievements/Trophies isn't something that comes together until mid- to late-production. You have to have someone on the team who cares enough to create a list of stuff that's testable and (in some cases) designed with minimal cost to programming teams. Stuff that we already have telemetry/events for? Cool, slap an achievement on it.

Another thing I've seen is designers and / or producers proposing achievements that appeal to a specific player profile or archetype to meet another goal of the game's business-minded targets. So, those achievements where it asks you to get missable stuff or play the game to get all 13 endings? That's probably a designer trying to create something that a "collector" profile/archetype might enjoy. If you're more of a "tourist" style player, who only plays once, this achievement isn't for you. The producers usually love this kind of thing because it's an easy way to try to chip away at replayability or retention goals, albeit it's not going to be a draw for a large part of the playerbase since the "100% Trophy / Achievement" players are probably another type of "collector" or "extreme completionist" sub-profile.

Some achievements can be enjoyable! Some can be a badge of honour that a dev team actually had fun making and testing themselves! These days, however, I'd like to think the novelty of designing (and testing) Achievements / Trophies has worn off for many people who have to make them. (My favourite Achievement that I earned is still "Mile High Club" in COD4 on 360.) They're also at odds with certain types of games that have gained prominence since the debut of Achievements / Trohies. Open World games are really bad for this, as you've already stated. These games are, from my experience, purposely designed with average playtime and / or retention goals in mind just based off the narrative and sidequest content alone. That's not even counting the time and effort it might take to get all the Achievements / Trophies!

This was kind of a rambling post but I hope it helps gives a bit of perspective behind the rationale and how they've changed since their introduction back on the 360 / PS3.

 

[LDigital]

I agree with every single word of the first post.

 

[Nephtes]

You mean... the New Colossus?

Otherwise, there's a Wolfestein game out there in which you can climb giant Hitler and stab him in the eye and I never knew lol

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Haha! Woops! I think I'll leave that particular goof in the op... 😂

 

[poklane]

9. Luck/RNG Based Achievements/Trophies

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As someone who spend 3 hours in Nisplheim (God of War 2018) yesterday without getting a single Anchor of Fog: AGREED

 

[Fonst]

I was sort of with the OP at the beginning (ie: #9) but sort of fell off. Those are some good examples of trophies like the storyline one. Storyline trophies should be based on the storyline. Others might've not wanted to go the way you wanted to go so why punish them?

I play on Playstation but my Xbox tag is stuck at 1 and I laugh when someone use to complain about it.

Typically multiplayer trophies are my main grief, especially if it is to get XXXX kills or win XXXX. One life/not hit ones aren't for me but then I breath and realize I won't get Platinum and enjoy the game.

Also, I'd love to play Wolfenstein: Shadow of the Colossus!

 

[greengr]

Trophies are also usually awarded for some notable feat instead of just existing

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when xbone introduced the percentage of achievement completion,the most striking thing was that like less than 20% completed the campaign of each game played that exists basically

 

[Chettlar]

I can't agree with 3 at all. The rest yeah.

I like having reasons to replay the game and being pushed to try a different class or something.


Some games can take a very long time to 100%, and that's okay. Comments like "have you seen my backlog??" seem weird to me. 100%ing is something you do when you want to get everything you can out of a game, and some games have a lot to offer. I really enjoyed the Dark Souls 3 example in fact. It's something to push you to experience everything the game has to offer. If you're not up to that and just want to tick a lot of boxes, I feel like you're trying to force a lot of developers into a box.

Really can't disagree with that one more.



What I can't believe you did miss, and what would replace that point very well is: pointless single online achievements for accessing some tiny weird service.

Fucking. STOP IT. No one cares about these achievements. It's always just a tiny niggling 5G out of 1000, or that one thing that keeps you from the platinum because you had the audacity to be 3 years late to the party. Not caring about these people is so short sighted. What about someone who gets into an old game of yours. Loves it. 100%s it, and wants to jump in the newest entry? I've done that many times, and also either had other friends who did it, or recommended games and series based on it.

And you know what's worse? A lot of this shit could be easily fixed too.

Like, "Upload a design for your car" or "upload a photo" like Forza has.

just

Just

holy shit like, this is so simple to fix. If you want people to engage with these systems, fine. But why the fuck is it tied to whether the photo uploads? Why not just give the achievement for clicking the "Upload" button. There. So simple. It accomplishes your goal of engagement while also not being a dumb bullshit thing that prevents 100%s for people who were latecomers to your series and want to start getting into them, which is often achievement hunters.

Such a dumb, easily preventable issue. I am astounded I have never come across a game that did this.

And hell you know whats worse is sometimes this shit never works at all or is super spotty in the first place, so it's not even exclusively a "well you showed up like 2 years later sorry dipshit maybe pay $60 for a game you have no experience in at launch next time if you want to 100% it" kind of issue. Sometimes you did get it at launch and it still doesn't matter. It's just annoying and benefits no one to do it the way it's always done.

Surely, SURELY, tying an achievement to literally just pressing a button has to be easier than tying it to checking with a server for whether the thing uploaded right?

 

[Palette Swap]

Disagreed with 3, particularly if it's so high on the list. MP trophies are much worse than NG+ing a Souls game.

Difficulty trophies that don't stack (like Hard not unlocking Normal) are a much worse offender that's missing from your list.

 

[Rocketz]

My gamerscore was fucked for years because of weird achievement numbers. I hate it. I've finally fixed it and I've even stopped playing games that I noticed have messed up scores.

Looking at you Totally Reliable Delivery Service

 

[Makoto Yuki]

The only Trophies/Achievements I don't enjoy are multiplayer ones. Especially if it's maxing out or if the servers go down forever.