this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Achievements have honestly been diluted for over a decade
Diluted implies they were ever worth anything. They were only created as a dopamine drip to keep customers buying their product. Using them for publicly available analytics is great. I love being able to compare the drop off rate of one game to another. Comparing how quickly players dropped of compared to, for example, Dark Souls is fun and informative.
I used to hate achievements when they first came out back in the day and just thought they were dumb as hell. Surprisingly, as I’ve gotten older, I appreciate them as something to do for fun.
Paradox games especially like CK3 make me play completely different each time to unlock a different achievement.
The ones I despise are achievements that have a multiplayer requirement tied to it.
How do you feel about hidden achievements? Or ones that are basically riddles, or otherwise unclear from their description how to get it? Or ones that represent a clear challenge far beyond the primary intended path of play (not just "collect all the things", but accomplish X task in a time period or with a loadout you didn't think possible)?
Hidden achievements are fine. They let you compare with other people without spoiling secrets. You can't see them without getting them, which has some issues, but it's alright. I'm sure there's a way to view these anyway. The riddles basically fall into this too, except hiding them with a trick rather than a hidden tag.
Challenges are great. They don't really show progression, but it gives players something to do if they want. I don't think they add anything personally, but I'm fine with them.
Personally, I love having a ton of them - I wish there were more
I don't mind standard progression ones, they at least give me a rough idea how far through the storyline I am
But the high end ones are way too few - I like having an unlockable goal to work towards if I'm not done with a game by the time I finish the in game progression. I want them to be hard, maybe even require multiple playthroughs with a severe handicap. Not tedious collecting... But like in Prey when you had to play through with only human, typhoid, or no abilities unlocked. Then you had to save everyone and murder everyone - I had fun trying to combine as many as possible into a playthrough
My problem is that people get upset when 100% is a long and hard road, and a lot of games have lowered the bar to keep them from getting upset. Might as well make prestige achievements that put the total over 100% at this point... Hell if I launch something on steam I might do free DLC just for that
I wholly agree with everything you said. Sometimes you finish a game and want to keep playing but it's hard to find a "reason" to and weird achievements provide that.
That makes it sound like an addiction but I don't mean it that way. I wanted to 100% BG3 and got all but 1 or 2 achievements away from doing it I thought eh, that's enough for now. I'm not trying to impress anyone with my GamerScore™ so if I'm not having fun with one, I'll pass
Exactly! I left two achievements in Prey because while I loved it, a fourth playthrough was too much - years later I still remember the map intimately
But then there's games like saints row 4...I loved it, it was just pure fun. I was having such a great power fantasy I even got all the collectables. I tried to keep going, but I ended up just mindlessly jumping around until I faced reality
Or for a more recent example, satisfactory. It was great fun - I restarted just before the endgame to extend the experience. Then I did everything... There was so much more map left and I could've built so much more if I just had a reason. They get a partial pass because it's still in development and mods could give me a second, longer, playthrough but I wanted to enjoy the updates before I burned up all my desire to play
Give me some stat scaled enemies, maybe a bit more basic progression, and a flimsy reason so I can have my fill of the gam
Pretty funny you bring up Satisfactory...I JUST put that game down after making a gigantic factory. I just couldn't bring myself to build the last two I needed for the final milestone and decided I'd start with a new game once it was finished. I hate burning myself out on a game and resenting it.
...and Prey might actually be the next single player game I play. I have two friends hounding me to give it a spin and now you're singing its praises. I guess I have to now lol