Why in-game achievements aren't widespread on the Switch?

It's just another random and weird thing that Nintendo is behind on.

It's so strange to me that they think up and release forward-thinking and innovative products, such as the Switch itself, but still fall behind on basic features such as online functionality and achievements.

That isn't a Switch thing, not all games have in game achievements, though I'd like Nintendo to offer them in their games if they refuse to make system wide achievement.

I always thought that they would have introduced them as My Nintendo Missions, seeing as that's the mechanism that their mobile games have been using. But, evidently not.

I don't think we'll see them become more widespread on Nintendo Switch until Nintendo pushes in that direction, and it could still happen I guess. Sony added in Trophies on PlayStation 3 late, so maybe it's something in the pipeline...

I think it would also encourage players to buy more games to boost their score for bragging rights, and, if it did tie in with My Nintendo, you could also unlock rewards rather than it just being some arbitrary number. But then, the rewards need improving too...

Nintendo's games are already built around systems that would very easily lend themselves to an incredibly basic achievement system. Why they don't just implement it is bizarre.

And to the "achievements don't matter" crowd, no shit. But they should be there for the people that want them.

i don't care about system wide achievements or gamer points, but i like it when there are in game achievements, like hollow knight as mentioned in the op.

krg said:

For instance, I'd definitely spend more time collecting moons if Super Mario Odyssey had this.... your thoughts?

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I mean, it basically does... have you got to the post game yet?

Also Mighty Gunvolt Burst has an in-game achievement (or "challenge") list.

I don't care one bit about that kind of thing, as long as there's an option to obliterate the notifications if they implement it, i am not against it.
As to why, no clue, perhaps the platform holder thinks it's a worthless triffle that would saturate the network by eating valuable bandwidth during yey-you-did-it-you-walked-10-steps synchronization.

I think OP is asking why other companies dont use achievements on Nintendo consoles so often, not why Nintendo doesnt use achievements.

And its really curious that most companies seems to use achievements only when they are obrigatory by the system, Switch at least points to this deduction.

I know they're in Odyssey & ARMS, but I'm surprised that Splatoon 2 doesn't have any.

Nintendo's mobile games use iOS Game Center achievements, oddly enough.

Shovel Knight has its own in-game trophies, some of them are glorious-like the '

It's a Nintendo thing.

This was discussed often around the time of the Switch's launch. The general consensus appeared to be that it wasn't a high demand for the Switch's audience. It was seen has lazy game design that does not support Nintendo's game design philosophy and should be left to a game-by-game approach rather than an OS level implementation. Time has shown this to be the prudent direction for Nintendo.

It's fairly obvious why they aren't implemented all that often. Its a feature that costs some development time that they could use elsewhere for other features. If its not mandatory, its rarely gonna be a priority.

Don't really care about them, if the games want to have them they can add them on their own like Shovel Knight or Hollow Knight did, if the dev doesn't feel like having them then so be it.

ZeoVGM said:

It's just another random and weird thing that Nintendo is behind on.

It's so strange to me that they think up and release forward-thinking and innovative products, such as the Switch itself, but still fall behind on basic features such as online functionality and achievements.

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I don't think they are behind on anything in this case. This is probably a deliberate design decision they made around ten years ago, that a system wide achievemtn system distracts from the game by game experience and that they are just bad game design.

I agree with them on this one and I applaude them for not caving in.

I just realized hollow knight had them but they're kind of pointless because it's not system wide. You gotta quit to the main menu to look at your achievements.

It would be nice if Nintendo had them but they've made it clear they have no desire to do it

ZeoVGM said:

It's just another random and weird thing that Nintendo is behind on.

It's so strange to me that they think up and release forward-thinking and innovative products, such as the Switch itself, but still fall behind on basic features such as online functionality and achievements.

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I don't think achievements are a 'basic feature' or comparable to online functionality in any way.

krg said:

We all know Nintendo hasn't included achievements as part of the core experience on the Switch, but I realized that Hollow Knight does have its own thing going on (also on PC, but it's not that relevant there since we have Steam Achievements), so I was wondering why this isn't widespread yet? Besides Hollow Knight, do you know/have any other games that support this feature?
For instance, I'd definitely spend more time collecting moons if Super Mario Odyssey had this.... your thoughts?

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...Who's gonna tell him?

ZeoVGM said:

It's just another random and weird thing that Nintendo is behind on.

It's so strange to me that they think up and release forward-thinking and innovative products, such as the Switch itself, but still fall behind on basic features such as online functionality and achievements.

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There's no such thing as behind on this case. Having achievements or not is a option, not a requeriment.

Not as much people care about Achievements to warrant a need to bring it to the system. Games have their own challenges and sometime's achievements but the system itself doesn't really need it.

I for one LOVE achievements/trophies, but Nintendo doesn't really need to have them.

It's pointless without them being compiled into an easily accessible list on your account, visible to others. That's the nice thing about them. If they're not tied to an account, who cares? People won't swap cartridges and load up a game just to check their achievements. Achievements not tied to your account are less effective at tricking you into feeling like doing video game tasks is accomplishing something productive. I don't blame devs for not including them on Switch until Nintendo gives a shit about offering an online experience that's more than absolute bare bones.

Also, obligatory

i literally just noticed the option to disable achievement notifications while playing hollow knight last night. pretty sure thats the first time ive seen anything about achievements on switch. turned that shit off real quick, really could not care less.

I'm not obsessed with achievements/trophies, but I love having them as part of the game. I feel they may give replayability beyond just beating a game. I almost never 100% a game (only 8 platinums, I believe), but there are a few games I've gotten the "hardest" trophy in, despite not getting the platinum.

If more titles did what Hollow Knight did and offer in-game achievements at the very least, I'd probably consider getting more multiplats on the Switch. I'd also be more likely to complete a game on the Switch ( for example, I dropped Ys VIII last year about 2/3 through the game on PS4, I bet I would have beaten this on the Switch). Hollow Knight felt perfect on Switch, and I'm sure many other indies do to - I'm pretty torn at the moment for multiplats, but I feel like for major AAA titles, I'll always go PS4, and non-exclusive indies I'll start leaning towards the Switch version, despite the achievement limitation.

They could just call them coins and you get red blue and gold depending on difficulty and once you collect all you get a 1 up muchroom adding to your completed game like platinum trophies. fucking perfect right there.

The new version of Minecraft has achievements which add to my Xbox Gamescore. It's all so strange.

I'm of two minds with trophies/achievements. One, they are a really cool way to track progress and give a sense of accomplishment. But also they have noticeably changed the way people play games in a negative way, hunting for the trophy rather than playing the game for as it is.

I'm interested in seeing how I react when I get a Switch and start playing new games that actually don't have trophies.

Because Nintendo, and most Third party devs dont think such a system would be wirth developing.

Yes there are some people that want Achievements in their games, but are there enough of them that would only buy the game if it had Achievements to offset the costs of making such a system ?

Games could use Xbox Live like Minecraft dose

SG-17 said:

I'm of two minds with trophies/achievements. One, they are a really cool way to track progress and give a sense of accomplishment. But also they have noticeably changed the way people play games in a negative way, hunting for the trophy rather than playing the game for as it is.

I'm interested in seeing how I react when I get a Switch and start playing new games that actually don't have trophies.

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It affected the way I bought games on PS3, if it's an online game I'm not buying and it has continued long after I stopped caring

I feel like that was what MyNintendo was going to be used for. Weird that's is only available on their mobile games, on top of the iOS/Android achievements.

I will confess that the lack of achievements is one of the reasons I don't play multiplats on Switch. I use HLTB but it's not the same.

i dont think they will add them later, i think it will just annoy nintendo games won't be uniform and there are tons of switch games out already

SG-17 said:

I'm of two minds with trophies/achievements. One, they are a really cool way to track progress and give a sense of accomplishment. But also they have noticeably changed the way people play games in a negative way, hunting for the trophy rather than playing the game for as it is.

I'm interested in seeing how I react when I get a Switch and start playing new games that actually don't have trophies.

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Good points - I think that if players are going for trophies but not enjoying the game as a result, they should stop. The onus is on the player at that point, in my opinion. I was one trophy away from getting the platinum in Bastion, for instance, but I needed another full playthrough to get it , and I decided that I had more enjoyable ways to spend my time, and that I probably wouldn't have fun with a third playthrough of the game. So I called it quits.

As someone who isn't an achievement hunter, but enjoys unlocking them if it's not too grindy, ingame achievements don't cut it.

They don't give the same satisfaction as system wide ones. You can't look them up outside of the game, is just one reason why they are worthless, imo.

Publishers probably don't view them as important enough to spend money on outside of the achievement/trophy functionality offered by a particular console.

If Nintendo won't do it for you why spend money doing it yourself when you could spend that money on more or better playable content

Khanimus said:

Nintendo's games are already built around systems that would very easily lend themselves to an incredibly basic achievement system. Why they don't just implement it is bizarre.

And to the "achievements don't matter" crowd, no shit. But they should be there for the people that want them.

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"B-b-but I don't need to some arbitrary goal to play the game!"

*proceeds to collect all 900 koroks in BotW and 999 moons in Odyssey

AkimbOb-omb said:

I don't think they are behind on anything in this case. This is probably a deliberate design decision they made around ten years ago, that a system wide achievemtn system distracts from the game by game experience and that they are just bad game design.

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But it doesn't. This is wrong.

ZeoVGM said:

But it doesn't. This is wrong.

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They do for me. I don't like them, but I can't control myself and check them constantly and do stuff in games I otherwise wouln't do to maybe get another Platinum or a 1000/1000

Now you can say that this is my problem and that I should have some self-control, and you are absolutely right :)

Bottom line: I don't miss them on Nintendo cosoles I actually feel relieved and free to just enjoy the games. So my personal stand is: keep them away from me Nintendo, good job so far.

AkimbOb-omb said:

I don't think they are behind on anything in this case. This is probably a deliberate design decision they made around ten years ago, that a system wide achievemtn system distracts from the game by game experience and that they are just bad game design.

I agree with them on this one and I applaude them for not caving in.

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It probably would be good to have a standardized opt in one for comparing with friends and stuff, but I always hated them being mandated. But it's mainly Sony that made me hate that because they keep making it double as an obstacle for late releases (PS3) or ports (PS2 to PS4.) It can be fun to have in the right circumstances but it's not always relevant and push comes to shove just put the damn game out.

AkimbOb-omb said:

They do for me.

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Ignore them.

I don't like them, but I can't control myself and check them constantly and do stuff in games I otherwise wouln't do to maybe get another Platinum or a 1000/1000

Now you can say that this is my problem and that I should have some self-control, and you are absolutely right :)

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Yep. 100% on you. Saying they are "bad game design" is factually incorrect. It is something you can completely ignore and choose not to.

Eusis said:

It probably would be good to have a standardized opt in one for comparing with friends and stuff, but I always hated them being mandated. But it's mainly Sony that made me hate that because they keep making it double as an obstacle for late releases (PS3) or ports (PS2 to PS4.) It can be fun to have in the right circumstances but it's not always relevant and push comes to shove just put the damn game out.

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What Nintendo does right now on the profile page is so much cooler and more elegant IMO. Just the list of recently played games and the playtime. I know what an achievent 200 hours in Zelda are and I know someone with 160 hours in Arms is probably pretty good at the game and someone with 320 hours in Stardew has a problem :P

chrisPjelly said:

"B-b-but I don't need to some arbitrary goal to play the game!"

*proceeds to collect all 900 koroks in BotW and 999 moons in Odyssey

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There is not a single person alive who would say something akin to that and then collect all of those.

And don't you literally get a golden turd for getting all the seeds in BotW anyway? If that's not a true in-game achievement unlocked equivalent, nothing is.

The lack of achievement support is why Nintendo games trend to fall further back into my backlog.

Octopath Traveller is out soon and it's a game I would normally play but no achievements so I won't buy it and play Watch Dogs 2 instead.

It took Nintendo 10 years to get voice chat and they fucked it up. Nintendo hasn't premiered their online system that was originally supposed to launch a year ago.

AkimbOb-omb said:

I don't think they are behind on anything in this case. This is probably a deliberate design decision they made around ten years ago, that a system wide achievemtn system distracts from the game by game experience and that they are just bad game design.

I agree with them on this one and I applaude them for not caving in.

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You can just ignore them then, and let people who want them have it. They're something extra so I don't see how they can affect your enjoyment if you don't want them.

Dracon said:

I think OP is asking why other companies dont use achievements on Nintendo consoles so often, not why Nintendo doesnt use achievements.

And its really curious that most companies seems to use achievements only when they are obrigatory by the system, Switch at least points to this deduction.

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Because it's extra work. Add a new feature or implement achievements. Platform holders that want to push achievements as a core benefit of their ecosystem know this hence having requirements.

I love Nintendo but they are so behind on certains things like trophies, proper voice chat, text chat, communities, and a decent d pad. But they are doing great on other things like indies, fast os, great 1st party support, etc.

edit: i think I misunderstood you. I believe Disgaea 5 also has integrated trophies. It looks identical to the ps4 trophies too from what I remember. Great game btw.