You have earned an Achievement!

[Tai_MT]

Here's another problem with having multiplayer achievements at all:

Someday, those servers are going to go offline.  At that point, you can no longer obtain those achievements.  Ever.  So, if you pick up a game that's 10 years old and 50% or more of its achievements are multiplayer-based...  Well, there's no guarantee those servers are still online.  You've essentially just bought a game where half of the achievements are unobtainable.

I would also like to point out that while I agree that game designers don't have actual time to be playing the game they're making...  It's stupid of them (and it shows how bad they are at their job) to not know how a system of theirs works, how it could be exploited, how it might be grindtastic, or even how it might be pretty boring.  I am not a professional game designer.  I dabble in it from time to time.  I can usually spend 2 hours in a game and tell you how freakin' terrible X system is, or how much fun Y system is.  It takes very little effort to figure out and very little time to examine how it would impact player reaction.  Granted, I might have a slight leg-up on most developers in that I don't get blinded "by my own brilliance" in creating some system that I poured hours into and don't have the heart to think it might be absolute crap...  Or another leg-up on game developers who never really learned much about human behavior or human reactions (or even history and basic research!).  But, I don't think that should excuse any "poor achievement design".  We've had these things for 10 years.  Maybe a bit longer than that.  Ten years is a long time.  They should know by now, by default, by history of other achievements in games, and history of other games that use similar systems to theirs, what will work and will not work as an achievement.  Furthermore, many of the developers should at least have some kind of history with playing games before ever jumping into the world of creating them.  A history of playing games is a history of learning how they work, how they interact, and how you perceived what was or was not fun in previous titles you've played.

To put it simply:

There is enough history with achievements/trophies out there that very few developers/designers/publishers should be getting them wrong.  But, many of them still are.  Many of those people are simply working in their jobs to earn a paycheck and don't actually care what kind of product they made.  They're trying to meet deadlines and keep the boss off their back.  They aren't ever thinking about whether or not what they're making might actually be fun to someone else.  They want to finish their job, get paid, and go home and see their family.  I get it.  The industry really isn't very kind to game designers because of how its structured and its inherent lack of useful regulation (or even development cycles that make sense).

I do not have problems with achievements in multiplayer on their own.  I have many games in my library with cooperative and competitive achievements.  The problem lies in the fact that a vast majority of multiplayer achievements absolutely suck to obtain.  They're hopelessly annoying, grindtastic, difficult, luck based, or completely broken in every way.  My solution to this isn't "let's teach them how to make them better".  It's not, because I believe the people currently in the industry are utterly incapable of any kind of reform or even basic learning skills.  My solution is "Let's get rid of multiplayer achievements for now, until someone with more brains than our current crop of developers comes along and does such a great job at multiplayer achievements that they become the new standard".

In short, I'd rather something that was 98% broken, annoying, grindtastic, difficult, luck based, etcetera be nixed entirely instead of crossing my fingers and hoping someone on the dev team had ever played a video game before and knew what was/was not a good achievement idea.  It's broken and shows no sign of ever being fixed.  I think it should just be pulled entirely and put in a desk drawer somewhere until someone comes along and decides that they actually care about the quality of the multiplayer achievements.  Let that person who has the talent, brains, and experience define how multiplayer achievements should be done.  Let that person show the world so that we've got only 50% of really terrible multiplayer achievements in the industry instead of a staggering 98%.  If a dev doesn't know what they're doing when they make the achievement, they shouldn't make the achievement.  Pure and simple.

 

[cybrim]

Multiplayer achievements should be allowed if they are LAN network unlockable, have a character or load out that is specifically playable via LAN (4 console minimal). These servers should sync the important data and make sure all are up to date with the latest (you have to have this as a standard for old games or else things wouldn't work at all). Yet another reason I dislike playing MMOs: server downage!

 

[Luiishu535]

I agree with Lunarea a lot. They're great as extra awards for doing optional stuff and in the end they're great memories to have of different things you've achieved.

Actual "achievements don't NEED to be in a game. Finding a new item in Zelda or an Suit Upgrade in Metroid are achievements/rewards in their own ways.

 

[hian]

I always thought "achievements" were mostly pointless.

They're just writing that pops up on the screen to tell you what a champ you are, and the tip of the ice-berg in a long line of pointless additions to games since "epic gear" and stuff like that which is born from an unfortunate trend in gaming culture caused by the advent of MMORPGs.

Sure, people seem to love it (it's basic psychology why they do though, and it's not the most flattering of psychological traits that underpin it), but then again, a lot of people like(d) Justin Bieber, Spice Girls, Twilight and Angry Birds etc etc.

Back before achievements were a thing, you actually got things as proof of your achievement - You didn't need an "achievement unlocked" messages plastered across the top of the screen to underline the fact that you just got the "Knights of Round Materia", collected all the "Ultima Weapons", got all the gold stars or whatever. Whatever else you achieved, like playing a game for 200 hours, is not really an achievement anyways, unless that actually has some impact on game-play or your skill-level.

These neat "achievement" notices really only make sense in one environment, which is the online environment, where they exist as a barometer showing people how good you are, or how much time you spent on a game, which in turn is just an extension of the "e-cred" phenomenon, which I have never had any interest in whatsoever.

I play games to have fun - not to prove to others how "awesome" I am. I know how "awesome" I am in a game, based on performance, and the game doesn't need to inform me of that fact, if the game has been designed well enough to provide me rewards for my hard work that actually serves a purpose in the game itself.

That being said - in competitive online games, and profiles linked to such games, achievement lists can serve a purpose by making it easier to analyze the people you'll be playing with/against ("oh look, the guy I'm playing now has the "50 consecutive head-shots" achievement, better watch out.").

That doesn't change the fact many of the games that uses achievements are purely single-player, or that most "casual" gamers won't be using the achievement system in that fashion anyways, which renders it a redundant gimmick for the most part.

So, if we're talking about RPGmaker games, that are for the most part, completely single-player, and won't be linked to a net-account anyway, I'd say it's better for aspiring devs here to not waste time on implementing an achievement system and instead spend that time on making something worthwhile in your game.

 

[Tai_MT]

@hian

Okay, this is going to be a bit awkward.  1.  I agree with you.  2.  I don't agree with you.

I agree that most every achievement list that has ever existed is simply there as a psychological crutch to make players think they're having more fun than they actually are.  As an achievement collector, I've sometimes found it difficult to play games that don't have these achievement lists. 

However, I disagree in the reasons many people enjoy these things.  After the first few years of "achievement lists", most people quit caring about what your Gamerscore is/was and only focused on their own.  Personally, I don't care what your Gamerscore is.  The only reason I'll ever check your Gamerscore is to see if you're actually a cheater in a video game (If you've had an Xbox Live account for 5 years and you're sitting on a few hundred Gamerscore...  This is kind of a red flag that this is a second account you likely use for modding and/or cheating in multiplayer.  It's especially suspicious if all of your achievements for that account are then multiplayer based...  Or you've hidden them from the public.  Likewise, players with 20k or more Gamerscore who haven't even had their account for a year are red flags... the exception to that being that they've got a lot of "Easy 1000" games on their list).

The way most players are using achievement lists now fall under 3 categories:

1.  A measurement of how "complete" the game is to the player.  It's a measure of having done everything the developer wanted you to do, and when you finish the achievements, you can put the game away forever if you like.  Some players (like myself) enjoy personal completion, even if nobody else will see it except yourself.

2.  A set of goals and side objectives to complete in the game.  Some achievements (or a lot) can be basically turned into Quests by themselves.  Land 100 fish for 20 Gamerscore?  Minor goal for the player to try to obtain in order to find a bit more enjoyment than merely unlocking the achievement.  Complete the game in under 3 hours?  Major Quest that will take a lot of planning and effort to achieve (unless the game is woefully easy... or short...).

3.  A measurement against your friends (who compares Gamerscore to random jerks on the net anymore?  You don't care what they're doing as long as they're not being racist, sexist, or screaming into the microphone anyway!  In fact, those trogs are the reason you don't even plug your mic in during games!) for who has completed which games and who has the largest amount of completed games.  My friend and I do this.  He has about 10k more Gamerscore than I do, but I've got about 18 more completed games than he does.

None of these really detract from the game at all.  They kind of add to the dimensions of your game and if the achievements are done well, they can actually add a lot to gameplay.  The achievements currently fill the role actual content of a game used to fill.

What do I mean by that?

Remember when speedrunning a game had its own reward for doing so?  Speedrun Metroid and you get to see her in a Bikini... or you get other artwork.  Or, you get to unlock some features.  Speedrun certain levels on certain difficulties in Goldeneye and you unlocked cheats that you could use in multiplayer or singleplayer.  Remember when collecting all the Jiggies in Banjo Kazooie  gave you a real tangible reward (I forget what it was, but it was nice to have)?  Games gradually began phasing this kind of content out before we ever got achievements.  Achievements are kind of the new substitute for that missing content.  After all, why go collect the strongest weapons in Final Fantasy X if they're completely unnecessary to beating the game and are really stupidly annoying to obtain?  Simple, you get a reward of an achievement for doing it.  It's not tangible in any way, but it does its best to make you feel like it's tangible.  Especially when you can show it to your friends without booting up the game.

If you want to get rid of achievements entirely, you need to start implementing systems in games in which the player is rewarded (properly!) for doing things they'd normally ignore and not bother with.  Why should a player collect every weapon in the game if they don't get anything really cool (like say a bonus item that could be crafted into one of those items that has a unique effect)?  Why should a player bother picking up all your collectibles if they're not rewarded with something not just useful, but fairly high powered?

Currently, I think achievements in any game need a tangible component to them instead of just the "plick" of the drop with text.  I want each achievement to give me something new to tinker with or do.  I want each achievement to be worth obtaining in the game world in which I obtained it.  Why can't collecting all the cars in a game unlock infinite nitro boost on all vehicles (even vehicles that don't normally have nitro)?  Achievements should extend gameplay time by adding to the game.  They should never be a slog unless the slog was the reason what you unlocked is so absolutely awesome and amazing (invincibility?  infinite ammo?  one hit kills?  infinite money?  an item that makes the game world seem like a rave club?).

Achievements exist because game devs stopped putting pots of gold at the end of their rainbows.  Instead, those devs got caught up in adding content or trying to keep their game balanced when they added new content.  So, we got achievements as a means to sate the fix of "obtaining something awesome in a game for doing something a normal player wouldn't do".

 

[Matseb2611]

Achievements don't have to be a way for you to show off in front of other players or trying to get a high gamerscore. The whole achievement feature depends on how well it is done. Some games do it well, others don't. Grindy achievements like "Collect X number of gold" or "Kill X number of monsters" don't really add anything to the game, unless obtaining them requires the player to do something different to how they normally play (and by different I don't mean to grind).

I personally enjoy achievements which add an extra layer of challenge or give me something new to do, something that spices up the gameplay and makes it interesting. Anyone who played Half Life 2 Episode 1, for example, might know there is an achievement there called 'The One Free Bullet', where you have to do the whole game whilst firing only 1 shot. Trying to get that achievement makes the game fun, because you want to see if you can pull it off. You'll suddenly notice that you have to think outside the box, because the thing you've come to rely on most of the time cannot be used anymore.

 

[Luiishu535]

Perhaps Achievements are good add-ons as things you don't get rewarded with in-game. Like when you get an achievement for killing X amount of enemies. Not all games keep track on all that stuff.

 

[Mako Star]

Actual "achievements don't NEED to be in a game. Finding a new item in Zelda or an Suit Upgrade in Metroid are achievements/rewards in their own ways.

I agree. Especially in an RPG. As the player, I know that I defeated the hidden super boss, and I know what I got for it.

Calling something awesome you did an "achievement" in a homebrew RPG, or even having an achievement system of sorts just seems...gimmicky.