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Fenyx Rising associate game director Julien Galloudec is a person who understands achievements/trophies
- Thread starter DrScruffleton
- Start date
Don't agree here. I had a lot of fun getting the platinum for this and then again on PS5.
Also seeing how many people have this and back then for the PS4 release, reading a shit ton of postings or threads with hundreds of people saying that this game motivated them to do the platinum like barely any other and the game being one of the rare ones where it's really fun to get till the very end (for the most part, I think everyone agrees about the districts and crime stuff being a bit too much), I can't agree at all.
I really think this one that most people enjoyed.
Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you there, but honestly, sometimes it's just best to take the path of least resistance and just avoid player complaints. Everyone considers achievements / trophies as something regularly achievable nowadays, unfortunately, so you cannot add something too difficult or tricky in there.
I'm playing through DQXI right now and I feel like the trophies are almost all either story based or takes just a bit more effort that you would otherwise do. Like "forge 50 pieces of equipment" when you will do like 40 by the end of the game.
Bruh, pls no
That's definitely beyond the limit of reasonable difficulty the guy in the article is talking about.
AC: Origins is also an easy, though time consuming, game to platinum. The only achievements I never got were the Discovery Tour ones. It was just a little too dry for my liking, but I got every other achievement in the game and never had to "go out of my way" or play in a way that I didn't want to.
What? There isn't a singular idea for Trophies, but Platinum Trophies shouldn't exist? How does it even make sense?
Miss me with all that, please. I love getting a Platinum, and it sometimes is the sole reason I'll play a game in the first place. If you don't want to go for the Plat, you're free to (not) do so. But don't expect everyone to follow your line of thinking, especially after claiming that not everyone wants the same thing from Trophies...
That's possible, but you'll just see complaints from my end instead. :P
I want you to be too since I know how hard this was, but I wouldn't want any trophy hunters to have to go through that ordealYes! I want to be rewarded for my efforts!
If we can get the devs to send you a Crash statue or something, I'd be all for that.
In the past I probably would have agreed with this perspective, but recently I've been thinking about trophy list in terms of accessibility. Locking a platinum to difficult tasks like that is counter to the platform being accessible. I do also like being challenged so I'm not sure what the solution is, just something I've been thinking about.
Yes, as in, there isn't any singular idea for what a trophy or achievement should be. But a lot of people seem to be bothered by the idea that they HAVE to get every trophy because of the platinum. Which in turn raises your score the most and is shown on the main menu. Versus 1000/1000, which is worth the same as anything else, and only pops up game by game.
Personally, I don't care about them. I've gotten games to close to platinum and never got the few achievements I was missing, no matter how easy, because I'm doing what I want to do and not going out of my way to do things I don't want to. But other people seem to be really bothered I think about how hard or easy it is to get trophies simply because it locks you out of getting a platinum. So my solution is that platinums shouldn't exist so people have less of a reason to be bothered by them. Those who want to 100% complete a game can still get every trophy, and those who are bothered by missing out on a platinum can instead just work on whatever stuff they want.
Alternatively you could also just remove the platinum score itself and just track how many platinums people get. In the end, on a personal level none of this is going to really bother me, but if others are that bothered, it's a compromise to consider.
What I really want is system wide stat tracking, though. I want to know how long I played a game, how much I completed, what I did in the game, etc etc etc.
I think as long as the game itself is accessible, having achievement or trophies that aren't necessarily accessible is OK. They're closer to things like leaderboards which by their nature can never be accessible in the same way.
At least on playstation, you can add separate dlc trophy section that doesn't have effect on platinum trophy.
TLOU2 does have grounded (grounded is the hardest difficulty mode in the game) and permadeath trophies, but those two trophies are in their own trophy section. So you can still get the platinum on the easiest difficulty.
Giving some difficulty trophies/achievements their own section would be one solution.
I just don't see it the same way because of how baked into the user experience trophies are, especially on PS5.
I like this.
Very much disagree with this. In my opinion Trophies/Achievements should be dolled out in the following categories:
1) Tracker/Progress Achievements - These are the ones you just get for playing the game. They should be dolled out in a regularly even cadence and are a nice way for both the player and the developers to see how far most people made it in games (or to compare between friends when discussing the game or whatever).
2) Skill based Achievements - for doing higher skill things like playing on Hard or whatever or getting high level grades/times in stuff. A big caveat is that these should not be INSANE in difficulty. Like....don't do something like "beat all 20 levels in under 5 minutes each", it should be something more like ""Beat a level in under 5 minutes". Depending on the game, i generally consider beating it on the very tippy-top highest difficulty to be out of the range of achievement territory.
3) Try something interesting/express yourself - one off trophy challenges or recognitions for doing something flavourful with the game mechanics. Anything from "shoot a slow moving RPG out of the air" to "beat a level using only a handgun" or something like that. Even better if it encourages the player to do something that will overall make them more skillful (or showing off how cool and expansive your player verbs are).
Types of thing trophies should absolutely never do:
1) Grinder achievements - any of the do "X for 1000 times" stuff should never happen. "Kill at least one enemy with every weapon" is okay, cuz it's getting the player to try everything, but "kill 50 enemies with each weapon" is just terrible. The designer also needs to look at the game they are making the trophy for. Like, if you are making something take X number of <things> to happen, but that only happens X minus 25 times in a playthrough, you're doing it wrong.
2) Random chance trophies - like...why? Just to show that it could happen?
3) Extreme difficulty - stuff that is just insane to do, difficulty-wise
4) Long term achievements - anything that requires a specific type of playing for a very long time. Unfortunately, what constitutes as a "very long time" has grown and grown. I'd say anything that takes 10 hours is too long, but now that games are regularly 50 hours, having to play through something twice should get thrown out the window.
5) Achievements that incentivize the player to play in the least interesting way possible for your entire game - ie - don't make your player play through the entire game with just the pistol for an achievement. They may value the achievement more than having a good time, and that's on you for encouraging it. That said, sometimes limited-moveset achievements can be fun, if your game actually has the gameplay breadth to do so (like, say, Dishonored 2)
6) Multiplayer achievements - basically, stuff that can eventually never be completed cuz no one is playing.
7) Doing this one thing 30 hours into a game that's 50 hours long.
Paz knows what's up.
1) Tracker/Progress Achievements - These are the ones you just get for playing the game. They should be dolled out in a regularly even cadence and are a nice way for both the player and the developers to see how far most people made it in games (or to compare between friends when discussing the game or whatever).
2) Skill based Achievements - for doing higher skill things like playing on Hard or whatever or getting high level grades/times in stuff. A big caveat is that these should not be INSANE in difficulty. Like....don't do something like "beat all 20 levels in under 5 minutes each", it should be something more like ""Beat a level in under 5 minutes". Depending on the game, i generally consider beating it on the very tippy-top highest difficulty to be out of the range of achievement territory.
3) Try something interesting/express yourself - one off trophy challenges or recognitions for doing something flavourful with the game mechanics. Anything from "shoot a slow moving RPG out of the air" to "beat a level using only a handgun" or something like that. Even better if it encourages the player to do something that will overall make them more skillful (or showing off how cool and expansive your player verbs are).
Types of thing trophies should absolutely never do:
1) Grinder achievements - any of the do "X for 1000 times" stuff should never happen. "Kill at least one enemy with every weapon" is okay, cuz it's getting the player to try everything, but "kill 50 enemies with each weapon" is just terrible. The designer also needs to look at the game they are making the trophy for. Like, if you are making something take X number of <things> to happen, but that only happens X minus 25 times in a playthrough, you're doing it wrong.
2) Random chance trophies - like...why? Just to show that it could happen?
3) Extreme difficulty - stuff that is just insane to do, difficulty-wise
4) Long term achievements - anything that requires a specific type of playing for a very long time. Unfortunately, what constitutes as a "very long time" has grown and grown. I'd say anything that takes 10 hours is too long, but now that games are regularly 50 hours, having to play through something twice should get thrown out the window.
5) Achievements that incentivize the player to play in the least interesting way possible for your entire game - ie - don't make your player play through the entire game with just the pistol for an achievement. They may value the achievement more than having a good time, and that's on you for encouraging it. That said, sometimes limited-moveset achievements can be fun, if your game actually has the gameplay breadth to do so (like, say, Dishonored 2)
6) Multiplayer achievements - basically, stuff that can eventually never be completed cuz no one is playing.
7) Doing this one thing 30 hours into a game that's 50 hours long.
Paz knows what's up.
I think achievements should be as difficult as possible or push you to play the game in fun and different ways. It's a shame that they just turned into "grind x thing" or " just play the game".
I remember doing knife-only and pistol only runs in Resident Evil 4 and back then that's what I expected out of achievements.
I remember doing knife-only and pistol only runs in Resident Evil 4 and back then that's what I expected out of achievements.
Personally, this is my biggest issue with any given trophy list. Don't try to make me do something mindless for hours. I'm not going to do it, it's just not fun and what's the point if it isn't fun.
I literally beat Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight and got zero trophies for it. If you checked my games list, it would never occur to you that I ever touched the game.
I don't think he is saying everything should automatically unlock during the story so as credits roll you will get the last trophy / platinum.
I agree with him mostly. If it is a short game like Infamous Second Son doing a second play with the dark or light side mechanic is ok. If it is a 50 or so hour games then no.
As he said it is fine to push for some completion of certain activities etc but they shouldn't be locked if you haven't achieved them by credits roll.
I agree with him mostly. If it is a short game like Infamous Second Son doing a second play with the dark or light side mechanic is ok. If it is a 50 or so hour games then no.
As he said it is fine to push for some completion of certain activities etc but they shouldn't be locked if you haven't achieved them by credits roll.
Think I got like 20 or 30/1000 gamer score for finishing Sonic 06.
I think the most interesting thing you can do with achievements is what the original Dead Rising did, and encourage the player to do stuff they otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Story-based ones are fine, and even a few that are real challenges are too, but missable and online only ones are pretty bad, since there's little control over whether you can actually get them. In the end, they aren't really important at all, but they can be a simple way to push players in a certain direction.
Trophies and achievements certainly have their place, but useless grinding and obscure 'do x while y with z at exactly 7:59PM' are insane.
As an ex-platinum hunter, it certainly taught me tenacity and determination, but I quit chasing them entirely because of the Yakuza series. It just stopped being fun when I was doing the same repetitive things over and over again for literally no gain: no new content; no experiencing different playstyles; no competitive skill-based enhancement; just an absolutely enormous fucking waste of my time.
If there is pride in having smashed your head against a wall 1000 times, then go for it. I've just realised that demonstrating 'sheer force of will' won't impress anyone, nor is it a good use of your limited time on this earth. Enjoy your hobbies, but think of the opportunity cost when doing pointless shit for a digital picture.
Funnily enough, the only platinum i've obtained since I stopped even looking at trophies is Immortals: Fenyx Rising. Case in point I guess.
As an ex-platinum hunter, it certainly taught me tenacity and determination, but I quit chasing them entirely because of the Yakuza series. It just stopped being fun when I was doing the same repetitive things over and over again for literally no gain: no new content; no experiencing different playstyles; no competitive skill-based enhancement; just an absolutely enormous fucking waste of my time.
If there is pride in having smashed your head against a wall 1000 times, then go for it. I've just realised that demonstrating 'sheer force of will' won't impress anyone, nor is it a good use of your limited time on this earth. Enjoy your hobbies, but think of the opportunity cost when doing pointless shit for a digital picture.
Funnily enough, the only platinum i've obtained since I stopped even looking at trophies is Immortals: Fenyx Rising. Case in point I guess.
Some of y'all need to play Epic Mickey 2 and realise just how shitty getting trophies can be sometimes. I'm all for streamlining them and removing ridiculous grinds, low % item drop trophies, and difficulty/NG+ trophies.
Edit: As for the Immortals DLC, while I hated 20+ vaults I did appreciate the trophies being easy-ish to achieve. I'm the first person tracked for completing the DLC on the PS5 version of Immortals (including first getting the trophy for getting all blessings, completing the secret vault, and finishing the story) and it was nice to not have to go out of my way, especially since the sandals thing glitched on me and if that were a trophy then I'd have had to restart it completely.
Edit: As for the Immortals DLC, while I hated 20+ vaults I did appreciate the trophies being easy-ish to achieve. I'm the first person tracked for completing the DLC on the PS5 version of Immortals (including first getting the trophy for getting all blessings, completing the secret vault, and finishing the story) and it was nice to not have to go out of my way, especially since the sandals thing glitched on me and if that were a trophy then I'd have had to restart it completely.
Very well put, I can get behind all of this.
I love hunting trophies, but I'll never cross the "replay the entire game" line unless I absolutely feel like it. Recently completed Blasphemous on normal and it was great, but I just didn't feel like playing it again for the last trophy. To be honest the thing that actually pissed me was the DLC bosses being locked behind a new playthrough, because that's lost content to me.
I can understand devs wanting to do whatever they feel like with their trophies, and many players will prefer different things, but I just don't have the time to invest 2x in a single game unless I am crazy about it, so I'll just not do it most of the times. I personally prefer when platinums are completion oriented, because I usually have fun that way trying to access the totality of the game's content.
I can understand devs wanting to do whatever they feel like with their trophies, and many players will prefer different things, but I just don't have the time to invest 2x in a single game unless I am crazy about it, so I'll just not do it most of the times. I personally prefer when platinums are completion oriented, because I usually have fun that way trying to access the totality of the game's content.
The infinity mode achievements in Dead Rising require you to sit through a 15 hour session of pretty difficult survival gameplay. Capcom should send a fucking gold medal for completing it.
Just no online trophies or trophies that require multiple people. Also none that have you playing the game twice or if it's a hard difficulty trophy let me unlock everything under that difficulty. I don't wanna play through hard then have to play normal mode again in your open world game. Horizon and GoT had good attainable trophies lists.
I tend to disagree. I usually start caring about achievements when I've already finished a game once and want goals and inspiration for another playthrough. I don't really see the point of achievements if you just get them all through regular progression of one playthrough. I prefer an extra challenge, otherwise getting a platinum doesn't mean anything to me.
I like when the game challenge you to experiment with weapons and some extre challenges. Dead space has kind of fun achievements like finish the game with just the gun etc.
If i play the game on hard I usually want a achievement for it.
In immortal Fenix rising there is an achievement called something like "join the creed" when you assassin 5 enemies. Then achievements work like some kind of meta comment on the game and I always enjoy those.
I really don't care about achievements but I enjoy them anyway if that makes any sense. I think it's fun to have a logg on what and when you play. I can tell that I finished a game 2015 and replay it now and perhaps change my style of playing to get the most of it , seven years later.
If i play the game on hard I usually want a achievement for it.
In immortal Fenix rising there is an achievement called something like "join the creed" when you assassin 5 enemies. Then achievements work like some kind of meta comment on the game and I always enjoy those.
I really don't care about achievements but I enjoy them anyway if that makes any sense. I think it's fun to have a logg on what and when you play. I can tell that I finished a game 2015 and replay it now and perhaps change my style of playing to get the most of it , seven years later.
Geez. Big props to you.Yes! I want to be rewarded for my efforts!
As someone who likes getting plats and 100%ing, I knew I wouldn't enjoy doing it for Crash 4 (assuming I'd be able to lol), but that said I'm completely fine with the trophy list being as hard as it is. I won't get the trophies but I'm sure a lot of people will get tremendous satisfaction from hunting them.
Regardless, it's an awesome game.
I got 1000/1000 on that game back when I had a 360 and was still trying to convince myself Sonic was great.
That said I genuinely did love Sonic Generations.
I will say this, if not for a trophy/platinum requirement, I would never have played the last of us on grounded, which is how I now play 90% of games given the option.
I love the souls series but I never chose the hardest difficulty in games for whatever reasons. Now I do and it's my preferred way. TLOU2 was amazing on brutal.
I love the souls series but I never chose the hardest difficulty in games for whatever reasons. Now I do and it's my preferred way. TLOU2 was amazing on brutal.
I agree with others in the thread that my favorite trophy sets offer:
actually on that so much of how Trails of Cold Steel 1+2 handles trophies was so deeply awful. If you wanted to get multiple character ending trophies, you had to reload and play through like a 20 minute segment over and over again. Maybe longer idr but it felt like FOREVER.
- Progress tracking given at regular intervals (fun to see how far I am compared to friends, or where a lot of people dropped off, etc)
- Trophies that encourage you to try something knew / play a new mini game (for example, Persona 5 had one for catching a big fish or smth—until I saw that was a trophy I was missing I didn't really touch fishing and ended up with enjoying it a lot!)
- Reward high skill gameplay in a difficult/high skill game (DMCV can totally have a bunch of trophies just locked to doing insane stuff)
actually on that so much of how Trails of Cold Steel 1+2 handles trophies was so deeply awful. If you wanted to get multiple character ending trophies, you had to reload and play through like a 20 minute segment over and over again. Maybe longer idr but it felt like FOREVER.
busywork/grinding is bad
missable achievements that re
quire an entire playthrough of a long game to obtain (e.g. for doing something mundane that can only be done once in a specific location, with no opportunity to return in a chapter select or similar function) are bad. i do not mean an achievement like playing through a game without dying once (e.g. hyper light drifter) or a speedrun (RE7 under 4 hours) -- those are fine.
difficulty achievements should stack
high skill achievements are fine as long as it's just like 100/1000 GS or some low value like that. by high skill i mean achievements that feasibly only 20% of the playerbase can get.
online achievements are fine too. everyone who hates them is just being selfish, because the vast majority of achievements are for single player already. let the multiplayer lovers have a bone once in a while and stop demanding all the achievements just for single player like a spoiled child.
i also like that the first commenter wrote that this guy will never work for the coalition, lol
missable achievements that re
quire an entire playthrough of a long game to obtain (e.g. for doing something mundane that can only be done once in a specific location, with no opportunity to return in a chapter select or similar function) are bad. i do not mean an achievement like playing through a game without dying once (e.g. hyper light drifter) or a speedrun (RE7 under 4 hours) -- those are fine.
difficulty achievements should stack
high skill achievements are fine as long as it's just like 100/1000 GS or some low value like that. by high skill i mean achievements that feasibly only 20% of the playerbase can get.
online achievements are fine too. everyone who hates them is just being selfish, because the vast majority of achievements are for single player already. let the multiplayer lovers have a bone once in a while and stop demanding all the achievements just for single player like a spoiled child.
i also like that the first commenter wrote that this guy will never work for the coalition, lol
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Guys, the game still has plenty of silly achievements you have to go out of your way to get. Unless you're humping every corner of the map and doing literally everything you see, you're still gonna have a lot extra to do.
Things like all mounts, all phoenix skins, all wings means you're gonna be doing a ton of extra content.
I think what the developer is talking about is things like, an achievement for a +15 fire weapon, +15 lightning weapon, etc that just encourage needless grind for things you're not even going to use.
Things like all mounts, all phoenix skins, all wings means you're gonna be doing a ton of extra content.
I think what the developer is talking about is things like, an achievement for a +15 fire weapon, +15 lightning weapon, etc that just encourage needless grind for things you're not even going to use.
We are scarred as a gaming community I tell you. Whenever I see someone who works in gaming's name in a thread title I assume the worst. It sucks.
Achievements are like the leaderboard of an alternative ruleset.
It's fine to use it like an index, but that doesn't dictate what a good design can be.
A game like Hitman is entirely based on getting fancy achievements.
It's fine to use it like an index, but that doesn't dictate what a good design can be.
A game like Hitman is entirely based on getting fancy achievements.
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I get what you are saying and i mostly agree, although the additio al weird achievement challenges are also fun, but when that what you say becomes as frequen as in The Medium(a horro game i might add) than it becomes irritating. That game gives you an achievement every 5 minutes it feels like. Oh you openened this door(achievement) oh you turned on the light (achievement)
The mention of the 2nd DLC being based in Chinese mythology has me very interested. I was going to buy this anyway, waiting for a bit though since I just spent over a month playing a Ubisoft game.
Nah, fuck that. What's the point of having trophies tied to in-game progression when the game should be rewarding by itself? Whenever I want to squeeze more content out of a game, I look at the trophy list and am often disappointed to see I have already completed it or am just about to. It sucks.
Trophies should give the player the opportunity to experiment and provide extra challenge that isn't rewarded in-game. If that means doing another playthrough or something above your skill level than so be it. People care way too much about getting their platinums and 100%s.
Trophies should give the player the opportunity to experiment and provide extra challenge that isn't rewarded in-game. If that means doing another playthrough or something above your skill level than so be it. People care way too much about getting their platinums and 100%s.
This.
Especially these days, were replaying a game isn't a option for me (too many services fighting for my attention/too many games/game length jumping from 8-10h to 30-80h etc.).
Is say the opposite is true. You don't need achievements as you go through the game, that should be reward enough. I prefer achievements that give you a reason to go back and explore or try something a different way.
I just want them to feel like achievement is all. I like the way Dustforce does it by only having 1 achievement for getting a perfect score on the hardest level. It really feels like you've beaten the game at that point. There's a lotta Plats I have got that don't even feel like they're the hardest thing to do in the game so the trophy feels a little unrewarding for me.
Regardless, just let people buy the trophies like Automata and all is solved.
Regardless, just let people buy the trophies like Automata and all is solved.
Always kind of amazed how many developers seems to not understand the best way to make achievements/trophies. At the end of the day it's their choice, but more than once I've felt a list was made for no other reason than they had to (and not in a fun way like undertake). I plan to make a thread on the topic that's more in-depth, but as someone in charge of the trophies, I dunno how you can feel great about seeing completion rates at less than 1% for just the most mundane farming stuff or ridiculous requirements.
The fact we still see lists where it's like "Do this random thing that is as likely as winning the lottery" or "Kill X with X 1000 times" is always a surprise.
I dunno, always felt Devs would rather see people actually played their game. That isn't to say trophies should be freebies, but stuff like God of War shows that you can have a good trophy list that isn't a freebie, but will also incentivize people to check out more of your game.
The fact we still see lists where it's like "Do this random thing that is as likely as winning the lottery" or "Kill X with X 1000 times" is always a surprise.
I dunno, always felt Devs would rather see people actually played their game. That isn't to say trophies should be freebies, but stuff like God of War shows that you can have a good trophy list that isn't a freebie, but will also incentivize people to check out more of your game.