When designing achievements for your game, should you hold back on the really difficult challenges? Say you're not limited to a 100 points or x amount of achievements, should you include "beat the game without getting hit", or is that being unfair to completionist players?

[Edited by - agoaj on June 2, 2010 8:36:37 PM]

I'm not a huge fan of completionism, and I'd argue that most current games are virtually impossible to complete in terms of achievements, especially since many Xbox 360 games have either "hidden" achievements or a few that require truly herculean effort, like getting 100,000 kills in multiplayer or whatever, such that it would take thousands of hours of play to get them.

I wouldn't worry about catering to the OCD crowd, and throwing in truly absurd prizes like that will serve to distinguish the players who are freakish enough to obtain them. I struggled valiantly with Ikaruga for a couple weeks, and never got past like the fourth level or something, and here's

">this jerk on YouTube showing me how it's done. If you can get all the achievements for the game at my skill level, how will you distinguish guys like that from the population at large?

In general, I think that achievements that a) are obtained automatically through normal play, or b) are obtained solely by playing the game a lot, are stupid. Achievements should represent doing something actually noteworthy that requires playing the game in a different fashion. Good achievements reward the player for finding odd ways to approach problems. Bad achievements "reward" the player for doing things they'd do anyway, or for doing things over and over again.

(Incidentally, achievements that mark your progress through the game are doubly bad because they can serve as indicators of how much game is left -- which can be ruinous for immersion, just like knowing how many CDs are left in your Playstation 1 RPG)

Some examples of good achievements:
* Complete some section of the game quickly (speed requires skill and strategy)
* Complete some section of the game without making use of certain abilities (requires you to think of new approaches to obstacles)
* Use a particular weapon effectively in an unusual fashion (e.g. convince enemies to leap off of ledges by throwing grenades at them, or kill multiple enemies with a single sniper rifle shot)
* Get somewhere you aren't supposed to be (requires breaking the game's sequence and/or geometry)

So, as long as your achievements are actually meaningful, I say pile as many in as you feel like.

As for "beat the game without getting hit", that really depends on your game, but in general I'd lean towards no. There's a difference between skill and perfectionism, and generally while players appreciate needing skill, they don't appreciate needing perfectionism. Achievements should, above all, be achievable. Some should be harder than others, but the difficulty should not be off the charts.

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Original post by Derakon In general, I think that achievements that a) are obtained automatically through normal play, or b) are obtained solely by playing the game a lot, are stupid.

While I largely agree, I don't think it's unreasonable for a game to have 'completed the game on easy/medium/hard' achievements.

Similarly, a lot of the easy achievements you get for doing 'normal' stuff are their because designers want to push players to behave in certain ways. Achievements like 'kill 5 people with every weapon in the game' are their to make players explore all the possible weapons, rather than sticking with the first one they kind of like (and possibly missing out on something they really like).

I don't think these type of achievements are inherently bad, but making 90% of your game these kind of achievements is bad (and largely just points towards laziness in coming up with some more interesting ones).

'Kill 100000 players online' and the like are just cynical ways to get people to remain playing the (usually shallow) online portion when they otherwise would have given up and moved on to something better. [sad]

I think completing the game should be an achievement, just so you can say I beat the game, I have the achievement, maybe different difficulties as well. I know it was funny to see guys explain they beat Ninja Gaiden 2 on their friend's account or whatever bs they can come up with when you ask for their GT so you could see their achievement.

But I think achievement should be used to unlock things. Like how mass effect did it. Where you use something 150 times, you unlock that skill for other classes. It provides the player with a way to save unlocks even if their game data is deleted or corrupted.

No achievement should be a completely impossible type of task, like the one you mentioned of not getting hit in a fight unless there is some way to really do it. Like maybe if you have a holy war from FF8, where you're invincible. It may take a while to get it, but you can get it and not just be really really good or something... however, you should make it possible to do without the "holy war" as well. You don't want to put someone off too much, but you don't want to make it too easy.

I wish someone would round up all the achievements in the world, put them on a bus, and then set the bus on fire. There's a lot of reasons why I dislike achievements, but the main reason is that they create this stupid metagame that encourages players to do repetitive, mindless things just to get a little tag and some bragging rights.

Additionally if your game relies on achievements to motivate players to play it, your game is bad.

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Original post by MeshGearFox There's a lot of reasons why I dislike achievements, but the main reason is that they create this stupid metagame that encourages players to do repetitive, mindless things just to get a little tag and some bragging rights.

I don't agree that one can equate 'some games have bad achievements' with 'achievements are bad'.

I intensely dislike the kind of 'Kollectivization' achievement you are talking about - things like 'deal 1,000,000 points of damage', and 'kill 1,000 opponents'. On the other hand, I greatly enjoy the skill-based achievements - kill 2 enemies with a single sniper shot, bounce an opponent into the air with a grenade and then shotgun them, etc.

The only achievements I dislike are the ones that require marathon gaming sessions, like Rock Band's 6-8 hour marathon mode that even disallows pausing. Those are stupid and unhealthy.

I like that most games are split between progress based achievements, skill based / challenge based achievements, and achievements you'll eventually get just for playing the game over the long run.

I think it is okay to have the ridiculous achievements for the hardcore players. The trick IMO is to make the players who can't or don't want to make the effort to obtain them still feel nearly as satisfied over the ones they have completed as the hardcore player who has done them all.

One way to do this, if your platform allows it, might be to group or sort achievements into clearly defined categories. It can help "almost-completionists" feel more satisfied than they might if there is just a giant list marred with unfinished achievements.

I think there is a positive psychological effect of being able to literally *see* that one has completed a particular "category" of achievements. It also helps them group achievements they might struggle with or otherwise have little interest in obtaining into a category that justifies their decision to not pursue them. "I've completed every achievement except for the multiplayer ones, but that's okay, because I don't like multiplayer," is easier said when your game identifies a specific "Multiplayer" category of achievements.

In the case of epic, time-consuming challenges like "Kill Over 9000 Players in One Day," maybe there is an "Xtreme" category they could be stuck in. I'd wager that for many games, casual fans would be happy to say, "I've completed every achievement but the Xtreme ones."

I personally consider a categorization mechanism based on game elements (story, multiplayer, exploration, treasure collection, etc.) to be far better than a gold-silver-bronze or five-star ranking system (though using a ranking system within a category is not necessarily a bad idea IMO). Too often extreme, unhealthy, and/or time-consuming achievements will be categorized as gold or five-star compared to exploration or collection achievements which might be bronze or one-star -- which IMO sends the message that players who don't sit down and spend the time necessary to wrack up over 9000 kills or whatever are somehow inferior players to those that do. Over the long run, that kind of dumping on your casual fans is going to cost you more than it turns them into hardcore players IMO.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in on achievements.

Achievements that they have now are gimmicks.

I wish the games would weave them into the game play so you don't break the game flow. Dark Age of Camelot used a trophy system where when you slayed a boss creature you could hang it on your wall like a deer head.

Alpha Protocol handles achievements another way by rewarding the player with a better "perk". kill 50 guys in hand to hand -> get a perk that makes you do more melee dmg.

It just seem like a very weak attempt to extend game play with completely arbitrary means. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 a great example of this. you play through unlock all the items. once you reach level 70 you enter prestige mode and repeat. you have to unlock everything again, this time you get more banners and icons.

Is great to have something to brag about. getting the "I killing a player on the 2nd full moon of the month at 3 o'clock while using my feet and drinking a soda" is great achievement, but i think it takes you away from enjoying the game.

Players will find ways to challenge each other. does anyone remember Final Fantasy I, the big challenge was to beat the game only using white mages?

But on to your question,
I think it depends on what your single/multiplayer. nothing is more annoying in a team game then someone who is achievement hunting. if you want to put them into multiplayer games, please do no have them interrupt the game play. those super hard ones make people act like retards to get them.