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Death_Unicorn

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Achievements and How to do them Right

By Death_Unicorn 10 Comments

I was thinking the other day, on why I was so satisfied with Call of Duty 4's achievements. The game seemed to have the proper balance of story achievements, mixed with "beat on veteran" achievements, and a few optional achievements. Most importantly, it lacked online achievements. I am a firm believer that achievements should stay offline. Partly, because if you lack xbox live, then you can not 100% the game. Secondly, you already feel rewarded online, due to the prestige system.

I am pretty sure, the ranks you accomplish in most online multiplayer games are enough. I mean, if you go around bragging about your Mile High Club achievement

All the achievement you need.
All the achievement you need.
, you also probably would brag about how your 10th prestige. This is why Call of Duty wins. In a way, that small little prestige symbol at the edge of your gamertag, every time you play online is an achievement on its own. I mean sure, you may get a sense of achievement when you beat a mission, but that sense is only bolstered by the message, "achievement unlocked." While, online I have always felt that every time I go prestige, it's an achievement on its own, and I would gladly brag about being 10th prestige (if I was) to any other Call of Duty 4 player. This is how I believe achievements should be done in a FPS with an online and offline mode. Gears of War had a lot more online achievements than Gears of War 2, of course Gears of War 2, at launch, had a very lame online ranking system...

Another game, which is only singleplayer, which I believe did something pretty original with achievements is Mass Effect. Yes, it had those lame "carry around Liara for the majority of the game" achievements but what I liked about it, is the fact you actually received something from achieving X amount of kills with X skill. This allowed you the chance to replay the games with an extra power, that is not associated with that class type. For example, there was an achievement for using Biotic Singularity 75 times, after this I played through with a soldier class that also could use Biotic Singularity which made my insane run through quite the bit easier.

So, in conclusion, I think these games have done achievements right, or atleast, brought something new to the achievement table.

On a last note: I beat Banjo-Tooie and now have 100% achievements in that game, and later went back finished all the puzzles in Banjo-Kazooie and now have 100% in that game.

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10 Comments

10 Comments

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Death_Unicorn

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Edited By Death_Unicorn

I was thinking the other day, on why I was so satisfied with Call of Duty 4's achievements. The game seemed to have the proper balance of story achievements, mixed with "beat on veteran" achievements, and a few optional achievements. Most importantly, it lacked online achievements. I am a firm believer that achievements should stay offline. Partly, because if you lack xbox live, then you can not 100% the game. Secondly, you already feel rewarded online, due to the prestige system.

I am pretty sure, the ranks you accomplish in most online multiplayer games are enough. I mean, if you go around bragging about your Mile High Club achievement

All the achievement you need.
All the achievement you need.
, you also probably would brag about how your 10th prestige. This is why Call of Duty wins. In a way, that small little prestige symbol at the edge of your gamertag, every time you play online is an achievement on its own. I mean sure, you may get a sense of achievement when you beat a mission, but that sense is only bolstered by the message, "achievement unlocked." While, online I have always felt that every time I go prestige, it's an achievement on its own, and I would gladly brag about being 10th prestige (if I was) to any other Call of Duty 4 player. This is how I believe achievements should be done in a FPS with an online and offline mode. Gears of War had a lot more online achievements than Gears of War 2, of course Gears of War 2, at launch, had a very lame online ranking system...

Another game, which is only singleplayer, which I believe did something pretty original with achievements is Mass Effect. Yes, it had those lame "carry around Liara for the majority of the game" achievements but what I liked about it, is the fact you actually received something from achieving X amount of kills with X skill. This allowed you the chance to replay the games with an extra power, that is not associated with that class type. For example, there was an achievement for using Biotic Singularity 75 times, after this I played through with a soldier class that also could use Biotic Singularity which made my insane run through quite the bit easier.

So, in conclusion, I think these games have done achievements right, or atleast, brought something new to the achievement table.

On a last note: I beat Banjo-Tooie and now have 100% achievements in that game, and later went back finished all the puzzles in Banjo-Kazooie and now have 100% in that game.

No Caption Provided


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vidiot

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Edited By vidiot

I always try and get most if not all the achievements in single player games. I find achievements help phenomenally with replayability.

Regards to online achievements: COULDN'T AGREE WITH YOU MORE. And if you've taken notice, a lot of new games have taken no online achievements to heart. I find online achievements detrimental to actually playing certain online game modes. When you have an incentive people will jump for it. It doesn't matter if you personally don't play for achievements, someone your playing with does and now he/she wants to grind or do something counter-intuitive to the gameplay, in many cases breaking your experience. When your online achievements promote not playing your game mode, you have a problem.

There's also the case of developers adding not so robust multiplayer components and then having ridiculous grind-fest achievements. Win 1000 matches in Chronicles of Riddick Dark Athena? Are you kidding me? Your game is good, but its not THAT good. That probably annoys me more than actual player based achievements.

But yeah, keep it seperate. CoD4's system has been praised for a reason. I wish other developers would realize the example.

Mass Effect
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YOU CAN DO IT!
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Death_Unicorn

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Edited By Death_Unicorn

Oh man, I'm waiting for some DLC before hitting Mass Effect 2 more times to 100% it. But yeah, I never really thought of achievements acting as an incentive for new players to jump into online or try something new. But I would think that  the achievements wouldn't have to be ridicuolous to do that. Say, Gears of War 1, there only incentive was to kill 100000000000 people with each weapon. =D
Totally agree with you, I just bought the Chronicles of Riddick, finished the singleplayer just yesterday, and I've played about 5 online matches, with the same 4 people again, and again. Which sort of made it not fun, so I am definitively not going to even try for the online achievements in the Chronicles of Riddick.

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A
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ALMOST THERE! :D
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Edited By LocoRocker

definitely agree that achievements are meant to stay offline and the multiplayer mode should give you enough incentive to continue playing without this artificial carrot on a stick.

and yeah, gow had some ridiculous achievements. Seriously...
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Edited By Xandurson

I love the Call of Duty 4 achievements (mainly because I have all of them). I think that they did it right just like you said by making the online challenges like achievements but not actually achievements. They are so much like achievements that whenever I'm playing with my friend and I get one or he does we say achievement and then correct ourselves. Mass Effect is also really good with achievements and I'm currently working through to get all of them.

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Death_Unicorn

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Edited By Death_Unicorn

Anyone else have examples of games who have done achievements right?

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Edited By Luke

Online Achievements suck big time... but Online Co-Op Achievements suck even worse! 

I still just need 1 more in Skate 2.  That stupid "Complete all Online Freeskate Activities" one.  Notice how 0 (ZERO) people on Giant Bomb have unlocked that one?  Yeah, wonder why... 

The problem with this Achievement is that I HAVE completed all Online Freeskate Activities!!!  I fucking HAVE COMPLETELY THEM ALL... but, everyone else that you're playing with, in-game at the time, also has to complete it for anyone to get credit.  It's all or nothing. 

Online Co-Op Achievements are so hard when all you can find to play with are douche bags :'(

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Death_Unicorn

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Edited By Death_Unicorn
@Luke: Ho Jesus, that achievement sounds like teh suck.
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Edited By The_Drizzle
@Luke said:
" Online Achievements suck big time... but Online Co-Op Achievements suck even worse! 

I still just need 1 more in Skate 2.  That stupid "Complete all Online Freeskate Activities" one.  Notice how 0 (ZERO) people on Giant Bomb have unlocked that one?  Yeah, wonder why...  The problem with this Achievement is that I HAVE completed all Online Freeskate Activities!!!  I fucking HAVE COMPLETELY THEM ALL... but, everyone else that you're playing with, in-game at the time, also has to complete it for anyone to get credit.  It's all or nothing.  Online Co-Op Achievements are so hard when all you can find to play with are douche bags :'( "
*Cough* I have that achievement *Cough*
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Edited By LocoRocker
@Death_Unicorn said:
" Anyone else have examples of games who have done achievements right? "
Burnout Paradise does a couple of things right by splitting the large grinding achievements for smashes, billboards and superjumps giving you a couple of achievements in between and some incentive to go on. Whereas in games like Forza 2 you could be playing for weeks winning races without earning a single achievement.
Also The Orange Box has a nice mix of single- and multiplayer achievements. Except for some of the Portal ones, most of them are fair and fun to gain.