Do achievements or trophies ever kill your enjoyment of a game?

Playing Uncharted 3 last night and I decided I'd try to get the "Kill 30 dudes in a row with your sidearm" trophy. That should be easy right? I then found myself on Chapter 8 still using a pistol and having no trophy. I've also been trying to get the "Roll and pickup ammo 30 times" and "Kill 30 dudes without auto-reloading" trophy's as well. But the one that's really killing my enjoyment is all the treasure. Instead of focusing on the game I have a FAQ open specifying exactly where all the treasures are. I hate being obsessed with stuff like this. It totally kills the fun sometimes.

Anyone ever experienced this?

I would never suggest doing a collectable run on your first playthough. I hate reading FAQs, especially for collectables. I just hate collectables all around. Never had fun with them.

Yeah, I hate collectibles too. I also feel that Achievements sometimes wreck a game for me. If I don't see some pop up every now and again when I'm playing I go look at what they are and spend all my time getting them instead of enjoying the game.

Nah.
 I don't care about achievements and my gamerscore reflects that.

they dont ruin the fun, sometimes they add to it, but they don't ruin it for me, but i don't usually play games with collectibles. and i have never been drawn to the whole achievement thing. i have had my xbox account since 2008 and have about 9000 gamer points on it. i have about 10 achievements in every game i bought.

@SuperWristBands said:

I would never suggest doing a collectable run on your first playthough. I hate reading FAQs, especially for collectables. I just hate collectables all around. Never had fun with them.

If I were sane I wouldn't. I ruined God of War 3 trying to collect all the stuff the first time. Even using a guide I missed several and it drove me crazy. Doing the same thing with Uncharted 3.

I had this problem with counter-strike and tf2.

When I first read the topic I thought you were crazy. For me achievements help push me to explore more of the game and push me to beat games faster. I have a serious problem with starting games and never finishing them. I am currently playing through Assassins Creed Brotherhood and the steady stream of achievements is pushing/pushed me to burn all borgia towers, do most lair of romulus', and just play through the game. Same thing with the first Assassins Creed. I won't usually do collectibles though. The only time I remember doing all collectibles were like the skulls in Halo 3, which weren't really collectibles, and the cog tags in Gears 1.

But then I realized that achievements are slightly changing up my experience for some games like Tales of Vesperia. Knowing the Tales games and knowing how the achievements work in ToV has led me to play through the entire game, so far, with a walkthrough open to make sure I don't miss anything. You could argue that that is not really the intended experience, although I am still loving it.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

But then I realized that achievements are slightly changing up my experience for some games like Tales of Vesperia. Knowing the Tales games and knowing how the achievements work in ToV has led me to play through the entire game, so far, with a walkthrough open to make sure I don't miss anything. You could argue that that is not really the intended experience, although I am still loving it.

I went through Tales once almost normally (wanted to get the hot springs first time though, so I found out how) and Grade grinding at the end of the first play-though. Then I went through it again for max levels and to clean-up and follow a guide. Then I played through again for the speed run achievement AND THEN I played thought to the end of act 1 at a low level for that achievement.

It wasn't as efficient as if I followed a guide on my first play-though but I had a lot of fun and podcasts made the grade grinding bearable.

A little bit of both it has to be said. As mentioned I appreciate ones that surface gameplay elements/features that you would otherwise miss or neglect.

Too many games have an obsession with meaningless collectibles though, its got to the point where I will just ignore them completely.

I only ever make a point to fully 'complete' a game if I really enjoyed it, I'm not going to grind through mediocrity to pad my score. I doesn't bother me as much as it used to anyway, I'm sure the novelty of a huge achievement score has long since passed for most.

@SuperWristBands said:

@MasturbatingestBear said:

But then I realized that achievements are slightly changing up my experience for some games like Tales of Vesperia. Knowing the Tales games and knowing how the achievements work in ToV has led me to play through the entire game, so far, with a walkthrough open to make sure I don't miss anything. You could argue that that is not really the intended experience, although I am still loving it.

I went through Tales once almost normally (wanted to get the hot springs first time though, so I found out how) and Grade grinding at the end of the first play-though. Then I went through it again for max levels and to clean-up and follow a guide. Then I played through again for the speed run achievement AND THEN I played thought to the end of act 1 at a low level for that achievement.

It wasn't as efficient as if I followed a guide on my first play-though but I had a lot of fun and podcasts made the grade grinding bearable.

Holy crap. Do you have an S Rank? This seems like a hard ass S-Rank, primarily for the time needed.

The FAQ is ruining your experience. Do it on your own merit and it'll be way less distracting. ANd you should probably wait for collectibles until a second play through. Also, no, they don't. I never go for achievements until my second run through, or maybe if I see some that look fun that I can just work in.

Using a FAQ and mini-maxing really ruins my fun of games. Just play to your own style and have fun!

I only get all the trophies for games that have the trophies set to make you see everything in a game, like Fallout 3 or the Sly games. Playing an Uncharted game on crushing would just ruin the experience for me.

@MasturbatingestBear: I have the S-rank. It was somewhere around 200 hours. Second longest I've ever played a game for (go Phantasy Star Online!). You are right about how it is difficult. Don't need skill, just time. Some of the boss challenges (can't remember the names of those things exactly) can be frustrating though.

@SuperWristBands said:

@MasturbatingestBear: I have the S-rank. It was somewhere around 200 hours. Second longest I've ever played a game for (go Phantasy Star Online!). You are right about how it is difficult. Don't need skill, just time. Some of the boss challenges (can't remember the names of those things exactly) can be frustrating though.

Oh right! The secret missions for boss battles are what got me to start using a guide in the first place! I played the first boss fight, it was against Zagi and afterwords I got a secret achievement for completing a "secret mission". I was wondering wtf I did. When I realized that there was literally no hint as to what these things are in game and they are in general pretty simple to miss and add up to a total off 100-200 points if you do them all, I decided to start using a guide after that first fight.

Also that is a pretty impressive S-Rank.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

Also that is a pretty impressive S-Rank.

You flatter me, sir. Good luck with Tales of Vesperia. It's a great game.

@SuperWristBands: Yeah man it's pretty rad so far. My only other Tales game was Tales of Symphonia which seems to be regarded as the best one. So I feel like I've pretty much hit the high points of the series already.

Achievements always take games down a peg for me when they say "single player only". Renegade Ops is very guilty of this.

@Buzzkill said:

Achievements always take games down a peg for me when they say "single player only". Renegade Ops is very guilty of this.

Yeah that is always lame. Why do that to me? Am I throwing off the balance of the achievement by playing it co-op? Nah son nah.

Only multiplayer achievements do that to me. Otherwise, they give me if anything, more replay value from giving rewards for doing stuff I would never have done otherwise

@Shadow said:

Only multiplayer achievements do that to me. Otherwise, they give me if anything, more replay value from giving rewards for doing stuff I would never have done otherwise

Sometimes multiplayer achievements are really terrible.

Some of my least favorite multiplayer achievements are the lone wolf playlist ones in Halo 3. They all have to be done in Lone wolfs which is a free for all play list with 6 players max including you. And they have stuff like get to Killing Frenzy (10 kills without dying), Overkill (4 in quick succession with only 4 seconds breathing time between each), 2 for 1 (getting 2 spartan laser kills with one shot of the laser) which is hella hard considering people are rarely bunched that closely in a free for all.

Sometimes the concept ruins the fun for games without achievements... for example, the Wii is fun to play but what's the point of going for all the collectibles in a Wii game... it's just a save game at that point, nothing more than personal satisfaction. But I will go back for a second play through if there is something more "lasting"... even if the trophy system was an afterthought that lacks the prominence of achievements. Meanwhile my Wii and original xbox games collect dust.

@Hawk456 said:

Sometimes the concept ruins the fun for games without achievements... for example, the Wii is fun to play but what's the point of going for all the collectibles in a Wii game... it's just a save game at that point, nothing more than personal satisfaction. But I will go back for a second play through if there is something more "lasting"... even if the trophy system was an afterthought that lacks the prominence of achievements. Meanwhile my Wii and original xbox games collect dust.

Exactly. I find myself gravitated towards doing more completionist activities in 360 games for this reason.

If I find myself worrying about the achievements as I'm playing through a game, the game isn't really holding my attention very well. When I'm playing through a game I really like, I forget achievements even exist.

After I finish a game I enjoyed, I'm up for looking through the achievements and going for a bunch of them. So, no, achievements don't kill my enjoyment of a game.

I hate them. I was playing Battlefield Bad Company, trundling along really into it and then this stupid box pops up telling me I've done some crap and totally ruined the immersion. I can turn off notifications that my friends are online and still show achievements with the 'busy' setting but not vice-versa.

Me, I stopped caring about a year into the 360's lifespan. I'm not really into the whole e-peen contest, so I just play to have fun.

Rarely. Even when I was super obsessed with getting every single thing and getting as many achievements/trophies first time through I think I can count the amount of times it ruined the experience on one hand. You just need to let go that urge in games like Uncharted and go along with the flow, something like Batman is very different because theres such a huge focus on the riddler trophies and there are some worthwhile missions tied to that stuff but in a game so intent on telling you the story just ignore all of that stuff and start a new playthrough for it. I've stopped looking at the achievement lists before going through most games and that helps to stop doing things that prevent you from pushing the story along.

oh man playing with a FAQ open?  That's the WORST way to play!  You're just following someone's recipe.  You might as well just watch a you-play series.  Just play the game.  No one cares about your gamer score but you.
Anyway I'm pretty sure those collectables in Uncharted are just to get people to spin the camera around every now and then and check out all of the hard work that went into the level designs.  So just take a look around and consider the "achievement" completed.

@WickedFather said:

I hate them. I was playing Battlefield Bad Company, trundling along really into it and then this stupid box pops up telling me I've done some crap and totally ruined the immersion. I can turn off notifications that my friends are online and still show achievements with the 'busy' setting but not vice-versa.

... what? lol.

Nah. If I'm gonna go for trophies or achievements, I go for them after my first playthrough, like I am with UC3 right now.

Some games I wouldn't even start because they had achievements. I knew that I would never get the bulk of them and that my point ratio would be horrid. I missed out on Condemned 2 due to this. Thankfully I've gotten over that now and don't even think about the achievements really. If I really like the game and the achievements are not too hard to get I might go for a second run to get more, though that's not too common.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@WickedFather said:

I hate them. I was playing Battlefield Bad Company, trundling along really into it and then this stupid box pops up telling me I've done some crap and totally ruined the immersion. I can turn off notifications that my friends are online and still show achievements with the 'busy' setting but not vice-versa.

... what? lol.

You'll have to explain your problem with what I said. Your comment doesn't mean anything.

I always look at the achievements/trophies when I buy the game and decide if i'm even going to bother. Most of the time I don't, but if they seem fair then I usually go all in.

I try not to worry about achievements on the first run, unless it's for a really easy collectable that I only need to check a faq to confirm its existence in an area. Like the masks in Enslaved.