When do achievements go too far?

When do they feel just right? I've been looking over Steam and realized that some of my games have achievements in bulk. Like, fuck it, never gonna do that. Why even have that many achievements? It's like TF2 wants to kill me.

But then I thought about the games that did it right. Bastion and Spec Ops: The Line were my shining examples. Achievements that were obviously doable and non intrusive but took some investment in their completion. Most notably, there weren't a thousand of them.

What are some games that you think did achievements right? Some you thought did it wrong?

When a game has an achievement for getting all the other achievements and it doesn't work.

Fuck you Hotline Miami, you owe me an S-rank! 34 out of 35 achievements my butt! *grumble grumble*

A good achievement is one where afterwards you think, "Wow I'm so great" .

Unfortunately most achievements are more like "I just wasted 100 hours of my life on this", or "I just played the game in the most unconventional way for no good reason", or probably worst of all, "I turned the game on. Go me!"

I don't like it when a game has multi-player achievements or "secret." It isn't much fun in a game with millions of possibilities to be forced to read a guide to reasonably achieve it. Multi-player achievements aren't great also due to their shelf-life (once a game's hype dies, it's harder) and the reliance on others to do silly things like complete the same level you just did, but on co-op.

There is no "achieving" there, just padding.

Let's not even bring up leaderboard achievements. Fuck you Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 1&2.

EDIT: However, my favourite will always be collector achievements (just because) and level/mission completion. It's a great morale booster to get when you're going through the story and it says "Congratulations for completing that part!"

The best achievements are those that make you play the game in a way you wouldn't otherwise, such as the Chime ones.

Good achievements should challenge you in ways you would otherwise not be challenged.

@BeachThunder said:

Good achievements should challenge you in ways you would otherwise not be challenged.

Exactly why I love them, like only play with Plasma Cutter in Dead Space and Shoot No one in Mirrors Edge. The secret boss achievements in Lost Odyssey and just getting 100% on open world games like Far Cry 3, AC3 and Red Dead Redemption.

Dishonored has a fairly good set; it encourages another playthrough where I just stab dudes and never-ever crouch.

Also, the Half life games have always been fun to achievement chase.

When a game has half or more of them for multiplayer.

The worst achievements are collecting hundreds of collectibles with no way of telling which you've already collected.

The actual worst achievements are global leaderboard position achievements.

I have never found one I felt really good about. I always find them to be one of two things. Extremely pointless like ones you get for getting to a certain point in a games story, or so ball bustingly hard or tedious like getting all of the little things they hide in an open world game that they are in no way entertaining to try for.

The closest ones I found were beating the campaigns on hardcore realism in Left 4 Dead 2. They were really hard to do and would beat your ass down if you were not good att he game, but if you played the game a lot and could get 3 other people who played the game just as much it was a ton of fun. Easily some of the most fun I had with that game, or any game, was when me and a few others tried for those things.

Achievements and trophies are only great when you're passionate about a game and you legitimately want to get everything in it, and its disgusting when you have force yourself to get all achievements for whatever reason and start "farming" achievements by playing bad games.

I like how TF2 does achievements. Some of them aren't all that hard, some are grinding achievements, some are silly, some are devious but overall even those that are joke achievements demonstrate that the player has skill. I even like those that are so hard and so specific that can almost only be unlocked when you're not trying to unlock them, and then when you do you have a pretty good feeling about it. Since Steam doesn't have any "Platinum Trophy" type of reward for S-Ranking a game, this is all cool.

That said, I guess the only type of achievement/trophy that I have issues with is the "YOU STARTED THE GAME" type of unlock. It feels gratuitous, and not like an "achievement" at all.

If I remember correctly Warhawk had a trophy for getting a teamkill. It also had one for flying into your own air mine and a couple other ones for poor play. It also had some that take an average of 1000 hours to achieve.

FFXIII was also kinda bad. You could finish that game at around 60 hours but to get some of those achievements you'd need around 100 hours. That's 40 extra hours in the games only open area.

@ck1nd said:

I don't like it when a game has multi-player achievements or "secret." It isn't much fun in a game with millions of possibilities to be forced to read a guide to reasonably achieve it.

I'm fine with secret achievements, when they're story related, and are hidden to avoid spoilers. To me, a secret achievement should be an achievement you're guaranteed to get by playing the game normally.

The games that throw in secret achievements that have no reason to be secret are annoying as hell.

I enjoy when there is impossible achievements I know from the start that I'll never accomplish. I see it as a medal for the people that are 100% devoted to the game.

What I dont like are achievements that is only doable online, which means that if you go back and play it there will be no other players and no way for you to attain them.

@mcmax3000: That's really what I mean't in the end. I don't mind secret achievements by themselves, unless they are obtrusive and lack any justification for being "hidden." Story achievements to mark placement and events are completely fine.

when its not an even god damn number.

@EVO: Gears of War 2/3 mulitplayer achievements come to mind. They are stupid and unreasonable.Sorry I dont want to spend 4 years reaching level 100 3 times..

I normally hate multiplayer achievements, but ACIII has about 5 that are perfect as mulitplayer achievements. They should be obtainable but require some time.

Unless a game is almost exclusively multiplayer focused, then there should be absolutely no multiplayer achievements. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Especially when those achievements involve doing something very specific that depends less on skill and more on luck, like "kill three people with one Spartan Laser shot". How the fuck is anyone supposed to do that without getting extremely lucky?

@Clonedzero said:

when its not an even god damn number.

You mean a number divisible by 5?

online exclusive achievements. Like "win one of every kind of match online" and "kill 1000 other players"

I have ~95% of the TF2 achievements but I don't think I'll ever get the one for getting 1000 views of a replay I uploaded to YouTube. That's a dumb achievement.

@believer258 said:

@Clonedzero said:

when its not an even god damn number.

You mean a number divisible by 5?

i dont even like the 5 point achievements. makes my brain itch till i can make the score even again!

Actually unreachable achievements, like being #1 on worldwide multiplayer leaderboards in a game bound to have servers for that no more than two years, go too far. Just like games that give you the vast majority of its achievements just for a perfectly normal casual single playthrough.
 
Star Ocean 4 does not go too far with its achievements and trophies, it does it right. Maxing that game out is an actual achievement worthy of respect no matter who you are and what opinions you carry, it is a badge of holy shit, a necklace of whoa, a crown of damn dude and a throne of you seriously did that. Scoring every trophy or achievement in Star Ocean 4 makes you a house god.

Some achievements that stand out to me as being good use of achievements are ones like The One Free Bullet and Little Rocket Man. I also liked that one in Portal 2 that asked you to smash all the tv's.

I am in the minority, but personally I think achievements are stupid. At least in the way they are currently implemented. "You passed level 1" bullshit is just not needed. I don't mind if there is an achievement for doing something ridiculously hard, but it is such a core part of games now that there is no going back. I especially hate achievements that can possibly spoil the game if you are just looking over the list.

Steam achievements I am perfectly fine with because it doesn't have arbitrary points assigned and is just a nice emblem. Would be nice if there weren't as many pointless ones, but oh well. Xbox on the other hand requires games to have X number of points which I think leads to a lot of really stupid achievements by default.

If you want to see shitty achievements, check out Universe Sandbox: http://www.giantbomb.com/universe-sandbox/61-34987/achievements/

"Start the game 10000 times" "Play for a full years worth of time" Ugh.

The ones that require a ridiculous amount of time. Like the MK9 one for mastering all characters.

Any achievement for playing a game for a set number of hours

i like achievements that allow you to explore every aspect of a game like being able to play the same level of something and use a completely different playstyle but make it work. I think games that allow a bit of flexibility like that really let players have more choice and so having achievements to help broaden your playing style is a pretty awesome way of doing it.

the Achievement I hate is Civilisation Revolution - I got almost all of them. The one I missed involved getting all possible Great People to show up in your game and despite playing for dozens of hours Homer just never showed up so I'll never have the full 1000 :(

I have about 75% of TF2's achievements, but I will never get them all. I don't play Sniper or Heavy, so the ones that I didn't get for those classes when I was new will never be had. I think I've only over gotten 100% in one: Mass Effect 2. I think I just have one left in Mass Effect. But I didn't get those by actively going after them. I've just played those games about 10x each.

So between not actively going after achievements and also not buying DLC for most games, my completion percentages are usually sort of middling.

Is that something that bothers achievement hunters? DLC adding achievements and wrecking your perfect score?

It is impossible for me to get every achievement in Fallout 3 because the game glitched when I unlocked a few of them and resulted in only showing I have them if i go directly to my achievement directory into Fallout 3. But, it does not give me the gamerscore or appear that they were ever rewarded to me when I'm not in that menu, and it is literally impossible for me to ever get them back the right way.

I don't really go for achievements, I got all but one on Braid. Fuck that speed run.

There are only two achievement types that really get under my skin. The first is 'Complete the game without dying' in games with a save system. 1CCing a shooter is the entire point of the game. 1CCing [prototype] is just padding.

The second type are speed run achievements, because I have yet to see a speed run achievement in a game I've actually wanted to speed run.

Trophies that require you to have people in your friendslist. :(

The only achievements i care about are on the xbox, cause its the first thing you see on any profile.

Also Seriously 2.0, why did i spend hours doing the same thing again and again

Multiplayer achievements for games that people buy for other reasons than multiplayer. For example: MP achievements for Halo = OK, for Binary Domain = no.

It is sad to have a game where some achievements are impossible because nobody is playing it online.

The only type of achievement I take issue with is the play through all of the boring dreck you possibly can in this game.

Forza 4's Bucket List achievement, for example. It is the most tedious thing ever. You have to really really like playing Forza against the ai to get that one. I'd like to see a calculation of the amount of hours that one achievement is asking for based on the average completion times of each race included. I want to say it has to be pushing 100 hours?

I'm reluctant to say that games with achievements I'd never complete are doing it wrong. There may be achievements that are too hard for me or games with too many achievements for me to take on, but I can see what they provide to players who do want to go out of their way to do them. Ultimately, I think to do achievements right, you just need to be rewarding players for their efforts and encouraging them to go out of their way to do interesting things in the game they might otherwise never do.

The "must play game with developer" achievement. About as inclusive as you could get.

Virtues last reward's achievements flowed nicely. Also honorable mention to "This is the part where he kills you" achievement pop in Portal 2.

Ninja Gaiden 2 where you get an achievement for beating the whole game using each individual weapon seemed sorta crazy. Or maybe people replay games way more then me.

Didn't Modern Warfare 3 have that achievement you got for killing a homeless person on video and sending it to Bobby Kotick so he could pleasure himself? I thought that one went too far.

The Tune Up achievement is the worst achievement I've seen. Four points for calibrating the game? Fuck you Harmonix. Yes, I'm OCD about having round numbers on my achievement total, but getting a four point achievement didn't make me want to finish the game to even it out again, it made me want to snap the fucking disc in half. I actually did turn the game off as soon as I saw they were fucking with me with that achievement. "Hey, welcome to rock band 3! Here's a fucking dick in your eye." God damnit. Seriously. I hate that achievement so much.

When you need DLC to get them all and multiplayer achievements.

I like a game with a crazy number of achievements. Trying to get all of a game's achievements is only something I'd consider if they are easy. Games with 80 or 200 mean I'm likely to get a lot more than some old XBLA title where I might only get 1. The number of easy achievments is usually a percentage of the total, so more means I get more.

My least favorite are probably the difficulty achievements that don't cover easier settings. If I can beat it on hard, you can safely assume I can handle easy. Also, any time the co-op partner gets nothing is totally bogus.

@thabigred said:

The "must play game with developer" achievement. About as inclusive as you could get.

Eventually they learned and made those ones viral. I got the Borderlands equivalent the very second I got online on the day of release. If they spread it out well enough early, it's not an issue

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time for the PS2 had an in-game achievement for fighting 50,000 battles. The average playthrough of the game involves ~2,000 battles. The fastest way to get the remaining ~48,000 was to leave your PS2 running 24/7 with a turbo controller attached with your character at a place of combat for two weeks.

This is was one of the games that convinced me I never want to touch a JRPG ever again.