Achievements/Trophies: Where do you draw the line?

[jayseven]

I've recently started my backloggery, which made me really think about just how complete my games are. I've got a 360 and I would say that my gaming habits have been completely revolutionised by the achievement system, to the extent where I will often compare achievements in order to decide between new purchases (of old games -- still refusing to pay release prices).

 

But for me, online achievements basically don't count. If I manage to get all teh G for a game's offline mode then mentally I've mastered it.

 

In many instances I am willing to play through a game again in order to get additional achievements, so I guess this increases replay value. However, because I want MORE achievements I am finding that getting a NEW game with NEW achievements trumps returning to a previous game that I know I enjoy. Whereas my N64 days consisted of re-completing goldeneye and perfect dark over and over, these days I have no need to play a game on the hardest difficulty unless there's an achievement for doing so.

 

But what achievements/trophies do you say "no point even trying," or "never going to get that. I'll stop playing now," or does it ever happen?

 

With Metal Gear Solid 2 (part of the MGS HD collection) I was going for the dog tag achievement. You don't need to get ALL tags but you need a large percentage. I got to the penultimate boss on Hard and just realised that there was no way in hell I would be able to do these bosses on Extreme. In a sense, that was probably around 25 hours of completing the game on various difficulties completely wasted because I gave up trying to get the achivement.

 

Do you aim to get all of the achievements/trophies? Do you alter your shopping habits based on what game achievements are like? How much to you persevere with attaining all of them?

[Daft]

If I can get them in one playthrough, I'll definitely attempt it. I have 9 Platinums but the last one I got was a couple years ago.

[Hero-of-Time]

Good thread. My kinda thread.

 

I've always been a bit of a completionist when it comes to gaming, even well before the achievement system. If it had something to unlock, then I would try to get it.

 

Achievements however pushed me to do things in games that I normally wouldn't do. Completing something like CoD or Halo on the hardest difficulty wouldn't have appealed to me back in the day, but now I unlock something for doing said task and I will push myself to do it.

 

Multiplayer achievements are a nightmare. I hate not getting 100% on a game and it annoys me when developers slam in stupid ones in, such as leaderboard ones or ones that require a STUPID amount of time. It makes it even worse when its not a popular game so the community isn't there to get the achievements

 

Counter productive achievements annoy me as well. The most recent example is in Transformers FoC. There is an achievement where you have to play CFT and capture all 3 flags. Now when everyone in the game is trying get the achievement it stops the game from being played. You would carry the flag but none of your team mates would heal you. They will just walk behind you until you die and then pick up the flag for themselves and run to victory.

 

If a couple of multiplayer achievements stops me from getting 100% then I usually jump over to 360achievements.org and find or create a boosting party. I tried this with Transformers but found it hard to hook up with US members due to time differences. I then just played a few CTF games and then sent everyone I had played with a message to see who wanted the achievement. Within a minute I was swarmed with messages from people wanting to create a session and get the blink. I was quite surprised how many people were willing to boost.

 

Achievements also help with replay value. Another recent example of mine is Lollipop Chainsaw ( awesome game ). The game is fun and short but if you want the achievements you have to do multiple playthroughs on various difficulties.

 

I love achievements and for me it's one of the best things that has came out of this generation.

[jayseven]

I was thinking of you when I made the post :P I use x360a after I've done my main run through a game to see how to go about clearing up. I recognise that this means I'll be missing out on a lot of achievements the first playthrough, but I went through a patch of trying to get 100% from start and found it really ruined games for me (Mirror's Edge was ruined by me trying to get too many achievements at once).

 

I've not yet turned to boosting achievements (though one of my last Dead Island achievements happened because I accidentally joined a boosting party) and not sure if I ever will... However it is, to me, a completely plausible event for me and a frient to co-op sesh a game purely to clear up achievements.

 

The game I spent the most online hours on was MW2 which had zero online achievements.

[Hero-of-Time]

I was thinking of you when I made the post :P I use x360a after I've done my main run through a game to see how to go about clearing up. I recognise that this means I'll be missing out on a lot of achievements the first playthrough' date=' but[b'] I went through a patch of trying to get 100% from start and found it really ruined games for me (Mirror's Edge was ruined by me trying to get too many achievements at once).[/b]

 

Yeah, I went through a period like that and as you said, it kinda ruins the game.

 

I played through Lollipop Chainsaw and Transformers just playing it for the story. I then went through and mopped up the achievements on LC and i'm on doing another run of Transformers to get the rest of them. I've enjoyed doing it this way because I find you get more bang for your buck and you also you don't spoil the story.

 

Some boosting session are quite fun. We had one on here for some Gears of War 3 achievements and it was quite a laugh. I think Dog-moto, Jimbob and Mike1988UK were involved with it. Even when things went wrong we all managed to see the funny side of things.

[Cube]

Since I've reached 50,000 Gamerscore on Xbox Live I've pretty much stopped. I've even turned off the notifications. I've not even bothered with them on the PS3 (part of that is due do it being a hassle to look at them).

 

I am quite proud of some of my "fully completed" achievement games, though

 

Burnout Paradise (+ DLC)

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts (+ DLC)

Assassin's Creed 2

Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing

Fallout 3 (+ All DLC)

Left 4 Dead (I count it. The "complete all on expert" bugged and I haven't done the DLC)

Call of Duty 4

BioShock (Minus the one added in the free DLC)

Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

 

 

XBLA (although not quite as proud with these):

Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Tooie

Battlefield 1943

BG&E

Sonic

Sonic 2

Sonic 3

Sonic & Knuckles

Monkey Island 2

1 Vs 100

After Burner Climax

The Maw

 

[Magnus]

I played Eternal Sonata on the PS3 recently and was disappointed because it didn't have trophies.

 

I think they can be a fun bonus, but I don't care about them enough to go out of my way too much to get them. I don't bother if they seem to difficult or if they require multiple playthroughs and definitely not if there are any multiplayer achievements. Just the ones I can get while playing through the game normally and occasionally going out of my way to do things that seem fun/easy.

 

It's hard to be too obsessive about achievements/trophies when you spread your multi-platform games out over three systems. :p

[Ville]

Achievements? Well, I don't really care for them, as they don't give you anything. So to me, they often feel like just tacked-on challenges. I'd much rather do stuff that has been integrated into the game, i.e. challenges that have some kind of in-game reward for completing them. Gamerscore? Nah, not interested...

[Deathjam]

I can't do achievements. I lose interest in most games so quickly these days, achievements just don't play a factor anymore. Only have 100%/platinum on two games and that's Burnout because I have a compulsion to collect things in games that have them, and hunting them down was so damn fun, and in Virtua Fighter 5 because it was so easy, but at the same time good learning for the game's mechanics.

 

Basically I will try to get as many as I can for as long as the game is fun.

[Cube]

In games like Left 4 Dead, achievements do add a load of suggestions on different ways to play the game and does actually add a lot to the experience.

[Hero-of-Time]

I like to give myself targets. This year it was to reach 250,000 but the PS3 and 3DS has taken some of my time away, so I doubt I will reach it.

 

Some of my proudest 1000/1000 are...

 

Nighty Nine Nights

Kameo ( before the 0 point DLC )

Just Cause ( took ages )

Bioshock ( before DLC )

GRAW 2

Assassins Creed 1 + 2

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Banjo Kazooie

Blue Dragon

Eternal Sonata

Mass Effect 1/2/3

Lost Odyssey

MangaCarta 2

 

 

 

My claim to fame was being the first person in the world to 1000 point Raw Vs Smackdown 07. I remember meeting a guy online while playing Gears who recognised my GT from the leaderboards. I was quite chuffed.

[MATtheHAT]

I'm in the middle of an achievement war with my brother, we are both in the early 30,000 something and constantly overtaking each other. It's got to the point now where we message troll each other when the lead is taken. Sibling rivalry at its best.

 

I used to love going for the Platinums on PS3, although when I re-rolled another account I don't tend to bother. Although I have recently (this week) platinumed Borderlands........again.

 

I am also dead proud of both my Platinums in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. I love those games so much I'm 1 achievement away from doing it on the 360 version as well.

 

That reminds me, is there extra Trophies/Cheevos for the Prepare to Die Edition?

[Magnus]

Achievements? Well, I don't really care for them, as they don't give you anything. So to me, they often feel like just tacked-on challenges. I'd much rather do stuff that has been integrated into the game, i.e. challenges that have some kind of in-game reward for completing them. Gamerscore? Nah, not interested...

Some trophies/achievements do encourage you to do fun things that you may not have done otherwise, though. Just Cause 2 has a trophy for reaching the highest point on the island, which I probably wouldn't have bothered doing otherwise. There's another one for doing a really high base jump. I like it when you're encouraged to do things like that and are rewarded for it. There are also several trophies for killing enemies in different ways. It's like, "hey, you can attach people to cars and drive away with them in tow!" and because there's a trophy for it you may try it out and find that it's a fun way to kill people.

 

Then there are games like Assassin's Creed: Revelations, which has 100 collectibles scattered across the map. The first 30 unlock bonus puzzle levels (which are absolutely terrible, but whatever), while the remaining 70 are just there for a trophy. That just felt like a waste of time.

[Cube]

Mass Effect 1/2/3

 

While they're some of my favourite games, I wouldn't even dream of getting all achievements. I mainly focus on the story elements, so I don't want to mess it up with achievements plus I play it on casual difficulty.

[Ville]

Some trophies/achievements do encourage you to do fun things that you may not have done otherwise, though. Just Cause 2 has a trophy for reaching the highest point on the island, which I probably wouldn't have bothered doing otherwise. There's another one for doing a really high base jump. I like it when you're encouraged to do things like that and are rewarded for it. There are also several trophies for killing enemies in different ways. It's like, "hey, you can attach people to cars and drive away with them in tow!" and because there's a trophy for it you may try it out and find that it's a fun way to kill people.

 

I agree, they do provide a different perspective to playing the games, which is a very good thing. I just hope they would be integrated a bit better into the games as a whole, and not just be tacked on. For example, in Arkham City, there were all kinds of challenges as well, like fly a certain distance, but you got exp and unlockables for completing them. Same as the 400+ Riddler trophies, collect nearly all and you'll actually face the bastard! In Red Dead Redemption, there was plant collecting, animal skinning, sharpshooting and all other kinds of cool stuff to try, but it also gave you new abilities and costumes. Now that's incentive.

 

Another thing that Deathjam mentioned is the fun factor, i.e. is it still fun to play the game. When playing a game, first I aim to simply beat it. After that, if it's still fun to play, I go unlocking whatever is left. When this has been done, a saturation point has usually been reached already. I've gotten what the game had to offer, and it's time to move on. That's the problem really: on my priority list, the achievements are dead last, so when I get to them, I don't necessarily even want to play the game anymore. And since they don't offer any kind of reward either...I just end up ignoring them.

[Cube]

The worst achievements ever.

 

6 are single-player (140 Gamerscore). The rest are grinding multiplater ones like "1000 Sniper Kills".

[Diageo]

Trophies and achievements mean nothing to me. I have no platinum trophies and I don't wish to have one either. Sometimes I'll have a look to see if there's any interesting trophies that sound fun to do, but that's more for inspiration than the actual trophy. I certainly don't let it change my view on buying a game or going back to complete an old one.

[Rowan]

Trophies are nice things to aim for while enjoying the main game and I'll try to get some of them for extra replay value after completing the main plot. Online trophies are typically a grind so I doubt I'll ever achieve them all for that specified game. Trophies are not a necessity for me, the ingame rewards whether it's an unlockable mode/item or just knowing the ending is enough satisfaction. Equally, I wouldn't buy and play a game purely for gaining its trophies.

[Sheikah]

Trophies can be well done, spanning all the content of the game (e.g. Oblivion, Demon's Souls). Then you have some trophies that you would literally never otherwise have gone out of your way to perform whatever the required action was, in a bad way. Like making 1,000 kills with a specific weapon, one that you don't really like and would never normally use. Number crunching trophies are really uninspired and exist just due to developer laziness.

 

Then there's also them terrible trophies that require you to play through a game multiple times (e.g. Dragon Age, get to max level IIRC with each of the three jobs. You pick a job at the beginning of a new game and it stays with you). There were also some other annoying things about that game, like getting different trophies depending on how you concluded a quest, meaning if you really wanted a platinum you had to reload or play the game multiple times, making sure to choose different options the next time.

[Cube]

You also get ones that require you to go out of your way to do it, but are fun to do (Geometry Wars 2 - Scrape the sides of all the walls twice).

[Jonnas]

The only games with Achievements I played were flash games that incorporated them for fun.

 

Still, got to see how I act towards them: I ignore them unless they offer something worthwhile. If the game gives me something for completing a quest/challenge, it's awesome, there's a sense of completeness to it. Even if it doesn't, I might do something for the thrill of it because it's interesting (like a Fire Emblem Draft, or defeating bosses in a different way)

 

If all I get is a pop-up notification saying "Yay, good for you", then it's no different than this:

 

 

 

Of course, this is something I'd do for the thrill of it, not for the diploma. The diploma is just proof that I did it (funnily, I found this while searching for the pic)

[Ellmeister]

I got all 151 pokemon, think that is the only 100% completed game I have!

[Sheikah]

I'm quite liking Guild Wars 2 achievements so far. You have both monthly and daily lists of things you can do as well as for exploring whole maps and finishing the quests on it. Meeting the conditions gives you a treasure chest that has pretty cool stuff in it as well as exp. Nice to see some sort of trophy for your work that actually does something.

 

In future since we're heading to the digital age we might expect all/most games to be bought new so having a lot of achievements (ie. a lot of games) could result in a real life loyalty system like Nintendo stars. That'd be cool. Basically since we might not have the option of preowned games, having a lot of achievements would be both a sign of having bought a lot of games (as well as having done most of the stuff in the games).

[Ellmeister]

Why no pre-owned games?

[Sheikah]

I imagine one day, in the distant future, it'll be mostly digital download or serials to unlock important content. The loyalty thing based on achievements could only really work if you weren't sharing games with people (same concept as playing preowned).