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Most poorly thought out achievements/trophies you've ever encountered?
- Thread starter UshiromiyaEva
- Start date
"Et tu Brute?" From Bad Company 2 is one that has stuck with me. You need to knife kill 5 friends online, and for that to happen you need to be on opposite teams. So to make this happen you needed to friend someone, join a matchmaking lobby with them, and then cross your fingers and hope you get put into a game where there's an opening of just 1 player on each team so that you get put on opposite teams (if there's two openings on a team you'll get put on the same team, and you can't kill allies so that doesn't work).
If by some small miracle you both end up on opposite teams then you need to coordinate a position to meet (while both of you have to avoid enemy gunfire), then stab your friend to kill him. Repeat four more times.
Truly an awful trophy.
If by some small miracle you both end up on opposite teams then you need to coordinate a position to meet (while both of you have to avoid enemy gunfire), then stab your friend to kill him. Repeat four more times.
Truly an awful trophy.
In a case of a dev realize their achievement choices suck, the actual requirements were changed a bit (although not the actual achievement text). The Emperor title can be held by a whole guild now, so it's just a matter of being in a guild that will be earning the title when the monthly tally comes around. Depending on your platform, this can either be easier or way easier. I play on PSN and there are only four guilds actually registered in the game, only one does PVP. So, they ask for a flat fee of gold, you follow them in to PVP on the final week before a tally, you get your trophy, they kick you from guild with a 'thank you for your business' and it starts over.
That's... actually nice. What's the name of the guild? I'm now tempted to play ESO knowing I could get the Trophy!
Off hand, I don't know. But if you check a trophy guide or ask in game, you should be able to get a response.
I know about this trophies and they take forever. But I wonder, can people hack PS4 trophy list? Or did the guy do all versions legit?
Games with Trophies/Achievements revolving around completing the "Item List" or "Monster List" while being part of other Trophies/Achievements.
It gets bad once games with those have a shit ton of missable content in the game and you need to basically play step by step with a guide next to you so you trigger every event,get every chest and so on.
Recently the Release of Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition is a prime example of why i hate myself for not being able to just play J-RPGs once and ignore achievements.
And i did this shit 3 times now with the 360,PS3 and PC Version.
Worst part is 2 of my favorite franchises are the Tales of and Star Ocean Series and both are filled with this shit.
KH3 is so nice - No missables and you can do everything in 1 playthrough.
It gets bad once games with those have a shit ton of missable content in the game and you need to basically play step by step with a guide next to you so you trigger every event,get every chest and so on.
Recently the Release of Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition is a prime example of why i hate myself for not being able to just play J-RPGs once and ignore achievements.
And i did this shit 3 times now with the 360,PS3 and PC Version.
Worst part is 2 of my favorite franchises are the Tales of and Star Ocean Series and both are filled with this shit.
KH3 is so nice - No missables and you can do everything in 1 playthrough.
Reminds me of a trophy for the first Trails of Cold Steel game. I think you just needed to play for more than X amount of hours. At least it had a funny name - "Trails in the Couch".
It's totally fascinating to see that people are still grinding and fighting over this leaderboard achievement from 2005!
In Watch Dogs 2, there is an achievement which requires you to take a picture on your phone of a random civilian while they're vomiting....
To be fair, it was fun trying to get this trophy.
To be fair, it was fun trying to get this trophy.
Apart from honestly trying to get it, pretty sure I remember reading the "easiest" way to earn this one was to solo run Crota's End when swords came out with TTK.
Yeah, this is absurd. I play the game regularly and I don't even have 5,000,000 Zeni. I can't imagine the playtime needed for 20. Love the game but they can keep that and the ranked one. Ugh.
Speaking of fighters, Dead or Alive Online has an Achievement for losing 20 matches in a row. Why? WHY.
Overwatch:
The Path Is Closed
Destroy 3 of Symmetra's Teleporters in a single Quick or Competitive Play game.
The Witcher: Wild Hunt:
Master Marksman
Kill 50 human and nonhuman opponents by striking them in the head with a crossbow bolt.
Rainbow Six: Siege:
Meat Wall
Kill an enemy with a Breach Charge in Casual/Ranked Multiplayer.
Dark Souls III: (the only trophy in this post I actually got, despite covenents being broke for months)
Master of Rings
Acquire all rings.
Anyone who tried to get these knows exactly what I'm talking about!
The Path Is Closed
Destroy 3 of Symmetra's Teleporters in a single Quick or Competitive Play game.
The Witcher: Wild Hunt:
Master Marksman
Kill 50 human and nonhuman opponents by striking them in the head with a crossbow bolt.
Rainbow Six: Siege:
Meat Wall
Kill an enemy with a Breach Charge in Casual/Ranked Multiplayer.
Dark Souls III: (the only trophy in this post I actually got, despite covenents being broke for months)
Master of Rings
Acquire all rings.
Anyone who tried to get these knows exactly what I'm talking about!
Another Century's Episode R, a PS3 JP exclusice mech game, had the worst one that I've personally encountered.
There was a gold trophy called Last Chase that required you to beat a specific on-rails shooter stage with every playable unit in the game.
The stage took a fixed 15 min each time since it was on rails and there were a total of 55 units meaning a minimum of around 14 hours of replaying one stage was necessary.
Luckily(?) the stage was so easy on normal/easy difficulty that you could just leave the controller there and stay attentive enough to click through the results screen and start it again with a different unit every 15 minutes but this made the idea of the trophy even more ridiculous.
There was a gold trophy called Last Chase that required you to beat a specific on-rails shooter stage with every playable unit in the game.
The stage took a fixed 15 min each time since it was on rails and there were a total of 55 units meaning a minimum of around 14 hours of replaying one stage was necessary.
Luckily(?) the stage was so easy on normal/easy difficulty that you could just leave the controller there and stay attentive enough to click through the results screen and start it again with a different unit every 15 minutes but this made the idea of the trophy even more ridiculous.
Sonic and allstar racing transformed....
Finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th with local friends in a 10 player Race
You need at least 2 other PSN users together. Start a custom game, have two players with all of their controllers active in a race with the third player only filling up the remaining 2 slots. Start up any race and make sure the selected user's controllers finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. A DNF is okay as well as long in the race standings, the selected user's all controllers finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Also those horrible deus ex mankind divided breach trophies, urghh
Finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th with local friends in a 10 player Race
You need at least 2 other PSN users together. Start a custom game, have two players with all of their controllers active in a race with the third player only filling up the remaining 2 slots. Start up any race and make sure the selected user's controllers finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. A DNF is okay as well as long in the race standings, the selected user's all controllers finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Also those horrible deus ex mankind divided breach trophies, urghh
Seriously...(Gears of War, Kill 10,000 People in Ranked Match)
Seriously 2.0 (Gears of War 2, Kill 100,000 enemies in any mode)
Seriously 3.0 (Gears of War 3, Reach level 100 and earn every Onyx medal)
Seriously 4.0 (Gears of War 4, Completed Insane Campaign, ribbons, rank placements, Horde maps, re-ups, classes and five skills)
Killing Machine (Resistance 2, Score 10,000 kills in online ranked match in competitive play)
All of those have something in common. They're needlessly grindy and bullshit. For pretty much all of these you'd have to dedicate all of your free time to these games. Like ever single minute. And to be honest, none of these titles are good enough for that dedication. (The Resistance 2 one is unobtainable due to server shutdown.)
Seriously 2.0 (Gears of War 2, Kill 100,000 enemies in any mode)
Seriously 3.0 (Gears of War 3, Reach level 100 and earn every Onyx medal)
Seriously 4.0 (Gears of War 4, Completed Insane Campaign, ribbons, rank placements, Horde maps, re-ups, classes and five skills)
Killing Machine (Resistance 2, Score 10,000 kills in online ranked match in competitive play)
All of those have something in common. They're needlessly grindy and bullshit. For pretty much all of these you'd have to dedicate all of your free time to these games. Like ever single minute. And to be honest, none of these titles are good enough for that dedication. (The Resistance 2 one is unobtainable due to server shutdown.)
This one especially sucks because the servers are offline, and that was the only trophy I needed for the Platinum.
Twisted Metal PS3 had one where you had to kill three enemies with a single time bomb in an online match. Completely insane considering how big the maps were, how small the blast radius was, how fast the cars moved, and how little damage the bomb did complete with no manual detonation. Basically impossible to get without filling a match full of people you knew and literally rigging it.
Yeah those achievements are more for th developer and player tracking then players and actual achievements,
Gears 1 seriously achievement. 10,000 kills in Ranked (not even public which i of course got majority of my kills in and may have gotten already). The ONLY one i had left from getting all achievements for that game. Gets even worse with each title.
Matter of fact any multiplayer achievement is pretty horrible (especially considering how a lot of these games will lose the online functionality at some point).
Matter of fact any multiplayer achievement is pretty horrible (especially considering how a lot of these games will lose the online functionality at some point).
Had come here to mention this. Not to speak ill of other's games or game designs per se, but this is one of the most infuriatingly grindy Trophy lists I've ever experienced.
Misc. trophies that have no benefit like "edit your deck 500 times" (it's a card combat game). There's a trophy for synthesizing rooms (how you enter new rooms in the map) - except the trophy number is I believe hundreds more than actually exist in the game.
One is for collecting every card in the game which is an enormous grind and a TON of RNG, because Enemy Cards have a very low chance of spawning out of any individual enemy, and every single different enemy in the game has one.
The game has two campaigns - Sora and Riku, and each has a Lv. 99 trophy. You finish the average Sora campaign around Lv 45, and Riku about 30. Also, there's no post-game anything in Re:CoM. It's an extremely linear game. The grind is dozens of hours.
Finally, on PS3, the difficulty trophies didn't stack. That means you had to play Sora Proud, Sora Standard, Sora Beginner, Riku Proud, Riku Standard, and Riku Beginner for the Platinum. On top of ALL of that other grind, it required a full six playthroughs.
Part of my job is working with directors and game designers to create and design trophy lists that players will enjoy, and so I do a ton of firsthand research with trophy hunting. Man oh man is this one of the worst.
Extra shoutout to the Hatsune Miku Project Diva games that make you grind for 40-50 hours to get RNG item drops that you have to give to the characters to raise their arbitrary friend levels.
It's not the worst offender in the world (I've grinded out far more obnoxious trophies for the Platinum before), but Beat Saber's "get 100 million points" and "play 24 hours" were probably designed with the expectation that you wouldn't full combo fifteen out of the game's eighteen songs on expert and SS-rank a song on expert before hitting that mark.
I earned every single trophy in the game besides the 24 hour and 100 mil point trophies at about the halfway mark for either of them. I don't dislike the game, thankfully, but before Expert+ came out, it was a boring grind to get to 100 million points, since most songs in the game only awarded 250-350k points per S-rank completion. And once you can do Expert FCs and SS-rank songs consistently, the game is way too easy and way too boring.
Mein Leben is a really, really stupid achievement, considering that for as much as I like Wolfenstein 2, its higher difficulty settings are just plain not fun at all, and even on lower difficulties, the game is still fairly hard. One of the most common complaints I hear about Wolfenstein 2, in fact, is that its difficulties are balanced extremely poorly, and the game wants you to play it in a way that enemy damage and player mobility just don't facilitate.
It's like the developers played the game with a mouse and keyboard, and never considered how it'd feel to play on a gamepad before finalizing which difficulty settings were which. And that's pretending they didn't balance things out badly. Which they did. A lot.
Worse yet, Wolfenstein TNO had a difficulty similar to Mein Leben, called "Iron Man", and while it was still extremely tough, that game's difficulty scaling actually made sense. On top of that, there was no achievement for completing the game on Iron Man, making it an optional challenge for particularly dedicated players, kind of like CoD: Infinite Warfare's Specialist and #YOLO difficulties.
I earned every single trophy in the game besides the 24 hour and 100 mil point trophies at about the halfway mark for either of them. I don't dislike the game, thankfully, but before Expert+ came out, it was a boring grind to get to 100 million points, since most songs in the game only awarded 250-350k points per S-rank completion. And once you can do Expert FCs and SS-rank songs consistently, the game is way too easy and way too boring.
In ESO, it's being number one on the server in a specific PvP mode, and while it's difficult, it is remarkably doable, since the leaderboards reset every month or so, and there's tons of servers. A really committed player will eventually be able to get that achievement. I know this, because I have three very good friends who really enjoy ESO, and have pulled it off at least twice each.
There are ways to go about speaking to other people without being a jerk.
Mein Leben is a really, really stupid achievement, considering that for as much as I like Wolfenstein 2, its higher difficulty settings are just plain not fun at all, and even on lower difficulties, the game is still fairly hard. One of the most common complaints I hear about Wolfenstein 2, in fact, is that its difficulties are balanced extremely poorly, and the game wants you to play it in a way that enemy damage and player mobility just don't facilitate.
It's like the developers played the game with a mouse and keyboard, and never considered how it'd feel to play on a gamepad before finalizing which difficulty settings were which. And that's pretending they didn't balance things out badly. Which they did. A lot.
Worse yet, Wolfenstein TNO had a difficulty similar to Mein Leben, called "Iron Man", and while it was still extremely tough, that game's difficulty scaling actually made sense. On top of that, there was no achievement for completing the game on Iron Man, making it an optional challenge for particularly dedicated players, kind of like CoD: Infinite Warfare's Specialist and #YOLO difficulties.
Just came across one in Farpoinf co-op for PS VR. There's a trophy for getting 70% or higher accuracy. Problem is, you also have to kill 100 enemies. It's impossible to get this trophy with both players shooting things so one player basically has to sit there and not shoot anything and just follow along the whole level while the other player does everything. Then you have to rinse and repeat in order for both players to get the stupid trophy.
I can't really think of a poorly thought out singleplayer achievement. Sure there are a lot of achievements that are insanely grindy and/or difficult to unlock but hey some folks dig the challenge. Not like it's hurting anyone else either so hey, knock yourselves out. The exception would be asking the player to do something tasteless but I can't really think of anything specific.
Multiplayer is a whole different story. Lots of times people don't need an excuse to act like right tits and make a nuisance of themselves in mp games, so adding random achievements that encourage poor/disruptive gameplay really gets on my nerves. Like the one from Team Fortress 2 that had you kill five guys in one life... as a Medic... while your Ubercharge is ready. I stopped playing for a while after that one, just to let the rambo medic fever die down.
If you absolutely have to add achievements to your multiplayer game/mode (and I wouldn't shed a tear if that stopped being a thing), first of all imagine what would a game full of people trying to get it look like. Thank you.
Multiplayer is a whole different story. Lots of times people don't need an excuse to act like right tits and make a nuisance of themselves in mp games, so adding random achievements that encourage poor/disruptive gameplay really gets on my nerves. Like the one from Team Fortress 2 that had you kill five guys in one life... as a Medic... while your Ubercharge is ready. I stopped playing for a while after that one, just to let the rambo medic fever die down.
If you absolutely have to add achievements to your multiplayer game/mode (and I wouldn't shed a tear if that stopped being a thing), first of all imagine what would a game full of people trying to get it look like. Thank you.
I'll add the 655 shots on goal trophy/achievement for Rocket League, which was added well after launch and wasn't retroactive. I play regularly, but am still working towards it. An average game gets me maybe 2 or 3 shots on goal.
Sunset Overdrive had a collection of Xbox Challenges that required, uh... ambitious levels of community engagement. Like 1.5 BILLION kills within a certain window. The result was 12 Challenges that were never completed and as the windows have passed, remain impossible to obtain.
The Amateur Radio Operator ( Listen to most of the codec conversations ) achievement in Metal Gear Rising is a terrible fit for an action game that fast paced
Stop every five steps or every five seconds into a fight and listen to some conversations longer than the actual fight
Stop every five steps or every five seconds into a fight and listen to some conversations longer than the actual fight
From GT Sport: Achieve 91 wins in Sport Mode and achieve 65 pole positions in Sport Mode.
Sport Mode is the multiplayer skill based matchmaking mode so it's very difficult to get these trophies. Players can lower their SR to get easier matchmaking but the problem is that to lower your SR you have to drive really dirty and ram other drivers repeatedly into oblivion.
Absolutely stupid for a game which emphasizes proper racing and forces you to sit through multiple etiquette videos before you can even touch Sport Mode
Sport Mode is the multiplayer skill based matchmaking mode so it's very difficult to get these trophies. Players can lower their SR to get easier matchmaking but the problem is that to lower your SR you have to drive really dirty and ram other drivers repeatedly into oblivion.
Absolutely stupid for a game which emphasizes proper racing and forces you to sit through multiple etiquette videos before you can even touch Sport Mode
Probably that Avatar: The Last Airbender game on X360 that only had 5 achievements all obtainable within a few minutes of starting the game. Obviously they're not difficult to obtain, but they're definitely the most poorly thought out achievements I've ever seen in a game.
What's worse is Machinegames and their response to people asking for the trophy/achievement in Wolfenstein II to get patched (make cut scenes skippable, change the balancing like you mentioned, etc). They are essentially telling people asking to "git gud," rather than acknowledge the problem.
It will make me think twice about buying Wolfenstein III whenever that comes.
I saw a game that had an achievement for being number 1 on the online leaderboards. Seemed impossible
I'm pretty sure they story behind this was that the game actually had well thought out achievements, but at the last second they caused some issue with the game and they need to scrap all of them and put in a bunch that they could test as fast as possible to know they wouldn't break the game.
ACIII had the most annoying trophy in which you had to win once in 3 board games. Sound simple enough on paper, but GODDAMN its almost impossible to win against the computer unless you either get extremely lucky or you cheat by using program online to predict the steps the computer "could" make.
I think what hurt the most was finally getting it and realizing that it was a BRONZE TROPHY! This was the beginning of the end for me when it came to trophy hunting as a hobby. In hindsight ACIII's platinum run gave me a more positive view on the side missions like the Homestead but the everything like hunting, the collectibles and the games where BS.
I think what hurt the most was finally getting it and realizing that it was a BRONZE TROPHY! This was the beginning of the end for me when it came to trophy hunting as a hobby. In hindsight ACIII's platinum run gave me a more positive view on the side missions like the Homestead but the everything like hunting, the collectibles and the games where BS.
- Anything that requires the player to play an insane amount of time for no reason at all (that includes trophies that need to grind to level up or something like that).
- Online trophies.
- Trophies that heavily rely on luck. E.g. there's a trophy in Digimon Story where you need to collect all the medals from the game. A considerable amount of those medals are exclusive from the gacha machines in the game. It isn't hard, but it takes some time to get all of them. What gets me the most is that there isn't even a trophy for registering all the digimon from the game, but there's a trophy for those medals.
- Trophies where you need to complete the game multiple times. E.g. I platinumed Summon Night 6, which requires you to get ALL the conversations with the characters. It doesn't require you to complete the game multiple times, but in order to get it (the "fastest" way) it requires you to play the last 6 or so chapters like 60 fucking times.
Online ones. Service doesn't last forever. Player count doesn't last forever.
Seriously hate relying on other people.
Seriously hate relying on other people.
You just reminded me of a similar thing in Dead Rising - Listen to all of Otis' conversations on the radio. The problems with this were: You had to listen to the entire call (so don't wander into a new area, else it means you don't "listen" to it. Also, you can't attack when your listening to them (and in a game with tons of zombies, that's... not good. Oh, and some were missable if you aren't in the right place at the right time. Weird thing is, I think in one of the beta's you could actually attack while listening to Otis. Why they changed this I'll never know!
Oh, and just parroting a post about, Kingdom Hearts COM has an abysmal trophy list (not helped by the game just being awful to play). Not really "poorly thought out" trophies, but the doing 100% of stuff in the KH games for the trophies usually feel excessively grindy - hit a certain level, get all components, craft all stuff, find all chests, play all the mini games to a certain standard etc. I really love the story modes, and even some optional bosses in the series, but some of the side games especially kinda really suck in this regard.
Halo 3's Two for One requires that you get a specific charge time power weapon that is rarely on maps, and then get a double kill with it in a ranked free for all playlist which essentially requires people to line up nicely just for you.
Halo Reach's Paper Beats Rock requires that you assassinate a person out of armor lock which they need to select as their loadout, which lets them control the camera and prevent such an attack. This only works on 2 maps in the rotation and those can be voted out.
Halo 4's Special Delivery requires that you melee kill a person right after they use a man-cannon in a specific DLC playlist. Hope they don't remove that playlist due to low population.
I hate them because they require too many stars to align and they're dependent on enemy player actions.
Halo Reach's Paper Beats Rock requires that you assassinate a person out of armor lock which they need to select as their loadout, which lets them control the camera and prevent such an attack. This only works on 2 maps in the rotation and those can be voted out.
Halo 4's Special Delivery requires that you melee kill a person right after they use a man-cannon in a specific DLC playlist. Hope they don't remove that playlist due to low population.
I hate them because they require too many stars to align and they're dependent on enemy player actions.