Achievements/Trophies: The Good,bad, and ugly.

[Delete]

Now, just to be clear...I'm not an achievement whore, but I sure as hell don't mind getting a bunch of them as I play a game. An average game should average around 700-800 GS imo. And that's just playing the single player through.

Couple Achievement trends I hate are as follows:

Collectibles:A lot of games still do this, even big titles like COD and Gears of War. I hate having to play a game and keep my eyes open for little shiny dogtags or whatever else they have scattered around. Not fun.
Top Of LeaderBoards: Games that require you to get to the top of hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of people. Who thought of that?
Getting "X" amount of kills with this weapon in multiplayer: For those who've played Gears of war 1, you know how hard it was trying to get 100 kills with each of the weapon achievements....because getting them was a pain.

I know, I'm missing some so feel free to add what ticks you off. On another note though, some games have achievements that fall in another category which I like to call Ugly.

Achievement is from Mortal Kombat, it's called "my Kung Fu is stronger." I've quoted this next part for easy understanding...

"This achievement isn't just retarded, it will out every owner as being a pathetic achievement hunter without a life.

27 x 150 = 4050 X-Rays landed
27 x 100 = 2700 victories
27 x 100 = 2700 finishing moves performed
27 x 10.000 = 270.000 pints of blood spilled
27 x 24 = 648 hours gameplay

I've already "finished" Scorpion with 242 victories, 174 finishers, 176 X-Rays and 30932 BloodSpilled, but I don't even have 4 hours of pure gameplay.

And since my controller disconnects after a few minutes, I can't just let my XBOX run while playing practice mode to complete Scorpion's time stats.

If this one doesn't qualify for being the worst achievement of 2011..."

Also there's a achievement in Smackdown vs Raw 2007 where you need to win 50 matches......consecutively :o

Hardcorps has pretty insane achievements just to put one more out there.

And now, I shall leave you the best achievement ever :3


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbFcOOu1SG8

This and Avatar of course haha

[Sord]

Me and my friends have actually unlocked that achievment, though I have a feeling you aren't under the same circumstances as us. We play the game on one particular Xbox (up until a couple months ago, when another person in the friend group bought it,) and the same profile every time. There's usually 3-4 of us playing at a time, sometimes more, usually with an "I play winner" rotation or if there is 4 of us, 2x2 team battles. It get's played a lot. As in, 2-4 hours of play, break for awhile, go back at it again later for another couple hours. The more newly purchase one is racking up playtime super fast, because both households (which are all friends just living together btw) play the game frequently, and that one is more of a party house. Somehow, a group always splits off from the party to play MK for an hour or two (and when I say this is a party house, I mean it. Two weeks ago we had 4 parties within a 5 day period, I know there was one last Monday as well but I couldn't go.)

Overall, I hate achievements. It used to be when you did extra shit in a game, you actually got some side stuff. Even if it was a god mode or another skin or something. Now that seems to get thrown to the side because people will just accept achievement points to waggle their e-peens with (not saying all games do this, but it seems like a lot.) I personally want them gone.

[Rashiid]

FFXIII's "Get every item in the game" one is annoying without the use of a guide. Doesn't tell you what you're missing and there are certain ones that if you happen to sell, you cannot upgrade to get a certain item, thus forcing you to start all over again in order to get it. I got lucky and didn't sell them >_>

Tales of Vesperia's "Complete each secret mission" one is okay, but if you want Yuri's costume, you must do this all in one file. For those that have played this game, you know how annoying / near impossible some of these can be, causing you to restart a fight because either you die trying to complete it or accidentally kill the boss.

Boring ones would be old Call of Duty ones, which was basically beat the entire game on Veteran. Not saying that isn't tough, but at least add some spice rather than making a 100 GS achievement for each stage on Vet.

[Jeff86]

I used to be way, way into achievements. At one time I was no. 10 on my WoW server for most achievement points. I still enjoy achievements, but not nearly as into them as I used to be. Some kinds of achievements that aren't my favorites;

Routine achievements that are just completing very simple events in games.(leveling up, beating levels)
Grindfests/timesinks can get old(Insane in the Membrane in WoW, but I did get this anyway when I was addicted)
I agree with Top of Leaderboards too. WoW is very guilty of this. Never got those myself.

Otherwise, I suppose I enjoy them.

[Xefi]

trophies/achievements are there to extend the games life mostly. i like
to get them for fun, but am not really care much if there are none.

for easy platinum, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage is probably the easiest
plat i have ever gotten; it didnt take much effort. i think that was my only
platinum i gotten so far....i was never interested in a game for long enough
to get a platinum. if the trophies/achievements are toooooo hard, i wouldn't
even bother trying. i play games to have some fun, not to have major headaches! :cat:

[RenzokukenZ]

I prefer achievements that actually reward the gamer with something in-game or out as opposed to giving a number with no real purpose aside from bragging rights. Most of the ones that do reward either gamer pics or avatar items, which aren't bad, but could be better.

I liked how achievements were set up in Soul Calibur 4, in which after obtaining a set amount, you unlock items for Character Creation. This gave achievement purpose outside of e-peen stroking.

Of the type I hate; Online-only achievements. Impossible to get for someone like me who doesn't play online.

[Outrider]

Of the type I hate; Online-only achievements. Impossible to get for someone like me who doesn't play online.

My bigger complaint with online-only/multiplayer achievements is the fact that you can only get them if the game has an active online community.

I picked up PGR 4 a year or two after it was released. I have never been able to find, much less connect to, an online match.

[Robert_Garcia]

I know Portal 2 has a couple that I hated, which you obtain by INTENTIONALLY getting yourself killed.

It reminds me too much of the classic "Jump in that pitfall/spikes and get a 1-up" that I used to hear a lot back when I was 6-years old, playing my NES.

[Kent]

Some games have really well-designed achievements, and some games are disappointingly-terrible with their achievements.

One game that's a great example of achievements done well: Vanquish.

There are a bunch of little achievements for doing various things that are either difficult, require specific conditions, or are otherwise rather tricky maneuvers that actually come in handy once you figure out how to do them. For example, there's one for killing three enemies that are distracted by a single lit cigarette.

A normally-innocuous little thing you can do is light up a cigarette while behind cover, and then throw it out to one side. It doesn't seem to have much purpose, until you realize that the enemy robots acquire targets by heat, and somehow, a cigarette is hot enough to make them target it instead of yourself... So it can be really handy if you're pinned down for any reason.

...But that's not to say the achievements are all that simple. The game's one secret achievement is for completing all of the Challenge missions in the game. Considering that this is a game that sets the difficulty bar reasonably-high in the first place (assuming you're playing on Hard or especially God Hard difficulties), the challenges get to be very aptly-named after the first two. All things considered, some people have come to the consensus that this is the hardest achievement available on the 360, with some even claiming that this one alone is harder than getting every achievement in Super Meat Boy.

That said, both of Platinum's games have had very well-made sets of achievements. One game that doesn't have very well-designed achievements though? Lost Planet 2. Specifically because of one achievement: It requires unlocking everything; all of the weapons, all of the costume pieces, all of the abilities, all of the emotes, and all of the Noms de Guerre (which are just titles).

Now, it's not so bad, really, because the game is fun enough that you'll unlock everything except all of the titles through normal play. Some of them require some grinding, which really isn't all that bad, since you just need to rack up damage through using specific weapons to get their specific titles (which isn't so bad, because all of the weapons are actually useful). The problem comes in with two specific titles that are needed for the achievement: "NUMBER 1" and "TOP 10."

As you can probably guess by the names, they require that you attain the number one spot, and get listed in the top ten spots (respectively) for any given leaderboard for a training level... And the leaderboards aren't weekly or monthly ones, they're all-time leaderboards, so good luck ever topping those crazy times set by people who've perfected a given run.

It's a shame, too, because that's one of the game's only real flaws - it's otherwise a great multiplayer game, but that thing alone is one of those achievements that will disgust and deter achievement hunters everywhere from really playing the game, if it can't realistically be "completed." It kinda goes against one of the basic tenets of achievements - that they should be attainable by pretty much anyone.

[Weeaboolits]

I really liked Portal 2's The Part Where He Kills You achievement, because it made that part a lot funnier when you saw the achievement notification.

Generally speaking, I like achievements that are for goofy shit and have witty names.

[darkante]

I personally never cared for achievements/trophies at all.
I´m only proving myself anyway.

[Delete]

Let's not forget Achievements that require you to replay the game multiple times. Fear is a good example for this......Read carefully, long sentence inbound.

You have to beat the game but it can't be on the lowest difficulty for one achievement. So you go to the second difficulty......this in return makes the one achievement for not dying a lot harder...(it can obviously be done but good luck). Then there is one for beating on the hardest difficulty. Oh I'm not done yet, Then there's another, beat the game using 500 rounds or less.........and another........beat the game without using slow mo wtffffffffff..........also you can count the finding all the health and boosters kinda even though that falls more under the collectible category of course.


There. :D

Damn, there's even one for killing every single enemy in the game. And that's not as easy as you'd think. I've pretty much killed everything I've seen and didn't get the cheevo.

[McLaughlin]

FFXIII's "Get every item in the game" one is annoying without the use of a guide. Doesn't tell you what you're missing and there are certain ones that if you happen to sell, you cannot upgrade to get a certain item, thus forcing you to start all over again in order to get it. I got lucky and didn't sell them >_>

Tales of Vesperia's "Complete each secret mission" one is okay, but if you want Yuri's costume, you must do this all in one file. For those that have played this game, you know how annoying / near impossible some of these can be, causing you to restart a fight because either you die trying to complete it or accidentally kill the boss.

Boring ones would be old Call of Duty ones, which was basically beat the entire game on Veteran. Not saying that isn't tough, but at least add some spice rather than making a 100 GS achievement for each stage on Vet.

FFXIII's Treasure Hunter has nothing on Lost Odyssey's Treasure Trove. You need to find ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, and there are easily over 1500 things to find. There's no in-game checklist either. This achievement literally ate away at my soul, until I played through the entire game again with a printed checklist to get it.

None of Vesperia's achievements really bothered me, but ToV is probably in my top five games this generation, so I may be biased. I can only think of two I actually had to restart to get (knocking a certain someone off a certain boat, and overloading that same someone's Bohdi Blastia). Dark Enforcer is his best costume anyway, although you need all the secret missions done to get a title for "They Call Me...".

I wouldn't necessarily call the CoD ones boring. Sometimes totally unfair? Yeah. Veteran in Call of Duty games is a test of will power, not skill. The infinite enemy spawns mean every encounter gets boiled down to "run like a motherfucker and pray to God you don't get hit thrice." Then there's the shenanigans known as No Fighting in the War Room, where the AI on the turret of instant death knows where you are and will shoot you through the wall.

I can't think of the hardest one I've done (Mile High Club is tedious, not hard), but the most boring would vwould have to be Treasure Trove, from Lost Odyssey. I imagine some of the Battle Trophy-related achievements in Star Ocean 4 could probably challenge for that title, but even my 1000/1000 OCD bows before that game.

Edit: If you want ridiculous online-only achievements, check out Armored Core 4: For Answer. Even if the online community for that game actually existed, those woule be next to impossible.

[Keilyn]

no thanks..

I am one of those players who has actually won regional and global team based tournaments in shooters. I don't go around bragging everywhere about it. The leaderboards do exist for a reason and its not the fault of the existence of leaderboards that so many players are assholes about their own position and power.

Play any MMORPG without a leaderboard and you deal with the same thing, a lot of kids conjuring up videos within their clans and guilds to act high and mighty of the fact.

Now what pisses me off greatly is the way shooters have become like MMORPGs lately.

10 years ago when you played a shooter it was all about you having a decent comp along with time on your hands to learn how to play the game and do well in a game type. There was no achievement for buying a game..

"Buy this game now and receive the special green giant middle finger on xbox 360, while playstation 3 owners get the red giant middle finger in-game item just for purchasing"

Today you play a shooter and you get some class-based playing because players are too dumb to actually use the weapon sets themselves and try to figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad....that is until you get to the end of all the experience and find out that you've unlocked so much crap that you can finally work on custom classes.

Just so you can feel mighty and proud for using all the in-game items you've acquired so you can beat newbs who have nothing to a bloody pulp just to keep your Kill to death Ratio out of the water.

If I want an in-game accomplishment, I rather get that from a Quest or something in-game that gives my characters an item...that is what happens in MMORPGs, but reaching an Achievement Score and unlocking an Achievement Proflle is so damn gratuitous that it feels like everyone is catering to the handicapped gamers out there who can't figure out how to win because they want to make everyone a winner out there.

Yeah, even if you suck and blow all 10 of your lives, we give you an achievement award....for actually losing..

This happens in PSU, you actually get an achievement award for getting knocked out in a map without any scapes. Its called "Safety First" and then when you do it again and again, you get even more titles.

Seems like life is now about everyone going out and trying to hold your hand to sell a game.

I loved how 10 years ago it was all about who was the better player and who had the better ping and computer setup, but the leagues I was in had every player get optimum framerate and performance....so it truly was about who was the more experienced, better player...Not none of that "If you play longer, we give you an advantage against a weaker player in the form of an item, as a measure of retarding the game for everyone."

The only good thing I can say about Game Achievements and Reward Systems is that you can isolate who is good and who plainly sucks..

Example. I play Civ 5 and around 1% of people got Masters of the Universe (Beat the game with all civs...which says nothing because they can all win at difficulty level 1) and Flawless Strategy (which is beat the game on max difficulty)..

At least I can say "Any player who has gotten Flawless strategy has to be decent compared to those who have not gotten it.."

So yeah, I suppose title systems are good for weeding out the good from the bad subjectively, but ONLY at the titles that really count. "Slay 1000 Motherbrains" for an award only says a person has played for a long time...."Get an award for incapping and losing the map" only says a person is new or really crappy, You would have to find out which titles actually do matter...."

So in a nutshell the achievements have only created one giant mess of things.

[Delete]

I think that's giving it too much attention Kei :wacko:

Sure some achievements are dumb, but for the most part...it's not there because we have to get them. You will get some regardless, but it's still up to you if you want to try for any of them in the first place.

[Tetsaru]

I think achievements and trophies are a good way to promote replay value in games, as well as be able to show off what games you enjoy and are good at. *points to signature* :wacko:

My thoughts on what are good achievements/trophies:


Beat the game on X difficulty
Collect all of the *insert random item here*
Defeat X amount of enemies, possibly in a certain way
Something humorous, story-related, or an "Easter Egg"
Completing challenges that test your skill


Bad achievements/trophies imo would be:


Online-related things that require excessive grinding or luck, and usually require other people to boost each other (also online ones that are no longer obtainable due to closed servers)
Beat the entire game without getting hurt/without dying once
Ones that are glitched or don't work properly
Easily-missable ones that require a new playthrough
Start game, receive achievement/trophy


There are several games on PS3 that are know to be difficult overall to platinum (Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Street Fighter 4/Super Street Fighter 4, Wipeout HD, Warhawk, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, White Knight Chronicles, to name a few), but I believe one of the most ridiculous platinum trophies (meaning you have to get all the other trophies from the original set) I've heard of so far was on a boxing game, think it was Fight Night Round 4 or something like that. If I recall correctly, you had to possess all 3 online champion belts (one for each weight division) at the same time. The thing was, only one person out of the game's ENTIRE online community could be champion of a certain division at a time, so in order to boost for it, you literally had to track down the individuals who had the belts at the time and hope that they would be willing to part with them, and then manage to get all three. Other than that, there are also some games where it's impossible to earn a platinum or 100% now due to closed online servers. I remember one Lord of the Rings game had this problem, along with numerous older sports titles that get phased out when up-to-date ones are released.

I know a lot of these trophies/achievements are silly, but you can go to sites like PS3Trophies.org, Playfire.com, and Yourgamercards.net to get a good idea of how difficult they are and how many people have them. A platinum trophy for something like Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 would be much more respectable than something like the Hanna Montana video game...

[Out_Kast]

I think sometimes achievements/trophies take away from the core reason of buying games in the first place; playing them. I even find myself doing it - you keep on referring back to the list of achievements to see what else you can do, and you spend quite a portion of your time focusing on getting achievements rather than actually enjoying the game. Heck I even know people who only buy games for achievements. I guess for some people, games just aren't games any more...

[Randomness]

FFXIII's Treasure Hunter has nothing on Lost Odyssey's Treasure Trove. You need to find ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, and there are easily over 1500 things to find. There's no in-game checklist either. This achievement literally ate away at my soul, until I played through the entire game again with a printed checklist to get it.

None of Vesperia's achievements really bothered me, but ToV is probably in my top five games this generation, so I may be biased. I can only think of two I actually had to restart to get (knocking a certain someone off a certain boat, and overloading that same someone's Bohdi Blastia). Dark Enforcer is his best costume anyway, although you need all the secret missions done to get a title for "They Call Me...".

I wouldn't necessarily call the CoD ones boring. Sometimes totally unfair? Yeah. Veteran in Call of Duty games is a test of will power, not skill. The infinite enemy spawns mean every encounter gets boiled down to "run like a motherfucker and pray to God you don't get hit thrice." Then there's the shenanigans known as No Fighting in the War Room, where the AI on the turret of instant death knows where you are and will shoot you through the wall.

I can't think of the hardest one I've done (Mile High Club is tedious, not hard), but the most boring would vwould have to be Treasure Trove, from Lost Odyssey. I imagine some of the Battle Trophy-related achievements in Star Ocean 4 could probably challenge for that title, but even my 1000/1000 OCD bows before that game.

Edit: If you want ridiculous online-only achievements, check out Armored Core 4: For Answer. Even if the online community for that game actually existed, those woule be next to impossible.

Vesperia's one flaw is how many things can missed. I don't mind missing little cutscenes, but when you have things like one of Judith's best weapons being missable like five seperate times, it's kind of stupid.

I've never felt horribly inclined to pursue achievements, except when a reward is tacked on (Like in Mass Effect, for instance).

[McLaughlin]

I think the only way to completely miss Judith's Brionac is to not get that first cutscene in Rita's house, which does have a pretty short window. I think that one and the one at Ehmead Hill are the only ones that have a time limit on them (gotta do them before you enter Ragou's Mansion in Capua Nor), and I don't think the one at Ehmead Hill is even required.

I agree though, there are a lot of missable things, but such is the case with pretty much all Tails games (and many JRPGs in general).

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

Runaway Train (Bronze) - Knock down 100 people while running around town
(secret trophy)

Just got this. English Yakuza 3 here with the "Careless Dragon" title instead, dang it Sega.