Do you bother with trophies/achievements?

[Velaryon]

Hell no!

It feels like work to me, and I don't do work unless I'm getting paid. I have real trouble figuring out why people do strive for these things, and why game makers put them in in the first place. Though, obviously, I'm in the minority here =D

This part I think has an easy explanation. It's one part creating the illusion of extra content by giving players a little pat on the back for spending more time playing the game, and one part following the trend because other games are doing it and now it's expected.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I don't play as many games as often as I used to. That said, if I feel like playing a game of any kind, I'll usually not put it away for good and consider it completed until I've done 100%. Other than if I consider the things to get 100% to be things I just don't want to do.

I usually don't bother looking at achievements until I've played the base game a pretty solid amount and look to them to give me ideas for new things to consider trying (such as mainlining and using a different style of combat I didn't naturally engage with on earlier plays). That is, as far as I understand, what their existence is supposed to accomplish in the first place. Replayability.

[Kaptin Keen]

Off topic--I think you're just spending too much time on cooking your meals, you can cook some nice stuff in less than half an hour.

On topic--I largely agree with you. I certainly have no desire to go climbing a mountain "just because it's there". I know there are people out there who do have that desire, though (or else there wouldn't be so many frozen bodies on Everest), so the achievement-hunters must be similar.

You can cook nice meals quickly - I have a pasta pesto thing I can do in 20 minutes flat - but it's still faster to make some slices of delicious danish rye bread, and even if it takes only 20 minutes to make, it still takes even less time to eat. And while I always have bread and topping in the house, the ingredients for my pasta are something I need to go buy, something that takes at least an extra 30 minutes.

But the real issue is: I enjoy my rye bread only very slightly less than a proper meal

This part I think has an easy explanation. It's one part creating the illusion of extra content by giving players a little pat on the back for spending more time playing the game, and one part following the trend because other games are doing it and now it's expected.

Oh yea - certainly. But they noticed there was a market for it. Maybe it's an evolutionary thing, like .. it grew from how much time people invest in looking for easter eggs.

[Amechra]

Something like Into the Breach, where they can sort of act like "quests" in an otherwise quest-light game.

I'm not sure Into The Breach counts, because achievements there give you coins so that you can unlock new teams. So it's more like they're actually quests.

As for me? I'm really annoyed by the existence of a lot of achievements. I absolutely hate achievements that trigger when you get X% of the way through the game, because they break my immersion pretty hard. But achievements that are signposts for new content are A-OK in my book!

[danzibr]

Hell no!

Ha, my favorite comment so far.

I don't bother with all achievements. But imagine I'm playing an RPG where I'm really enjoying creatively destroying everything with my fire mage, and then I get a popup saying "Kill it with fire, bronze". Hell yeah, challenge accepted. Kill every type of enemy in the game using only fire? I didn't know if it was even possible, but now it's my goal. First try at every boss I'm going in with fire only. If I don't have enough power for it yet, fine, I'll use another way but come back later. I mean, I can come up with something like that myself, but if the developers already thought of it I don't have to think of it myself. I might have never thought of going for a tripple stunt on the wild seas in the flooded city level, too unpredictable, better not to risk it and keep racing. But if I can get a little trophy and a new decal for it...

Achievements can be used as a lazy way for developers to add content. But they can also be used as a lazy way for players to add enjoyment. I'm a big fan of enjoyment.

I like this a lot. Some games I really enjoyed, then yeah, ran out of things to do.

But take Sonic Mania. There’s an achievement for finding a hidden submarine. Would never have known about it were it not for that achievement, gave me something to do.

But in say Hyper Light Drifter or Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, iirc there are achievements for beating the game without dying. Or in some games without even taking a single hit. Yeah that’s never going to happen.

[The_Jackal]

This part I think has an easy explanation. It's one part creating the illusion of extra content by giving players a little pat on the back for spending more time playing the game, and one part following the trend because other games are doing it and now it's expected.

Well, how is that different from a regular in-game mission? The point of achievements (if done well) is to direct the player to things the developer thinks is intrinsically rewarding. That said, I will certainly concur that most achievements fail in this regard. But sometimes, sure, they can encourage you to engage in the game in different ways, or gently nudge the player to complete content they might have otherwise skipped.

For my part, I think the best implementation of achievements was not a regular achievement list, but was, rather, the weapon unlocks from Modern Warfare 2. You actually got in-game cosmetics for doing them, and they encouraged the player to shift out of their comfort zone (which was the typical meta loadout), to acquire some new toys.

You can cook nice meals quickly - I have a pasta pesto thing I can do in 20 minutes flat - but it's still faster to make some slices of delicious danish rye bread, and even if it takes only 20 minutes to make, it still takes even less time to eat. And while I always have bread and topping in the house, the ingredients for my pasta are something I need to go buy, something that takes at least an extra 30 minutes.

But the real issue is: I enjoy my rye bread only very slightly less than a proper meal

Well, both pasta and rye bread are technically replete with other people cooking for you. Meal prep isn't a binary situation, it exists on a continuum, where you raise and kill your own chicken on one end of the scale, and where you order McNuggets for delivery on the other end. That said, I think we're acculturated to festishize cooking, much in the same way we festishize reading novels, hand-writing letters, and all the other things old people did "In their day". Yes, my great grandmother would spend hours making Rétes on the kitchen table, but I don't have to, I can just rock on down to the pastry shop and buy a piece. I also gather that she used to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I don't bother with all achievements. But imagine I'm playing an RPG where I'm really enjoying creatively destroying everything with my fire mage, and then I get a popup saying "Kill it with fire, bronze". Hell yeah, challenge accepted.

This sort of thing I'll do. If I'm enjoying the game and run out of content in a particular direction I might use it to try a different direction (say I finish the main quest line and there's an achievement for 'complete X sidequests' or 'clear Y dungeons' - I might do that) . But if there's content that I would never touch (EX: multiplayer mode in an otherwise single-player game) or don't enjoy, adding an achievement to it is not going to convince me to try it.

[Amechra]

Well, both pasta and rye bread are technically replete with other people cooking for you. Meal prep isn't a binary situation, it exists on a continuum, where you raise and kill your own chicken on one end of the scale, and where you order McNuggets for delivery on the other end. That said, I think we're acculturated to festishize cooking, much in the same way we festishize reading novels, hand-writing letters, and all the other things old people did "In their day". Yes, my great grandmother would spend hours making Rétes on the kitchen table, but I don't have to, I can just rock on down to the pastry shop and buy a piece. I also gather that she used to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

That's a great solution... when you have pastry shops you can go to. If I want linzer torte or lebkuchen, I have to make it myself (because American pastry shops do donuts, cakes, sugar-based cookies, and that's basically it).

[Kaptin Keen]

Well, both pasta and rye bread are technically replete with other people cooking for you. Meal prep isn't a binary situation, it exists on a continuum, where you raise and kill your own chicken on one end of the scale, and where you order McNuggets for delivery on the other end. That said, I think we're acculturated to festishize cooking, much in the same way we festishize reading novels, hand-writing letters, and all the other things old people did "In their day". Yes, my great grandmother would spend hours making Rétes on the kitchen table, but I don't have to, I can just rock on down to the pastry shop and buy a piece. I also gather that she used to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

.... welllll - technically, raising your own chicken is farming, not cooking. But yes, I agree with you, I'm certainly not crafting my own fresh pasta.

Unexpectedly veering back on-topic, what I'd really like would be an 'Achievement Bot' - like, an option you can switch on which summons .. let's say a cute squirrel which completes your achievements for you. I'd get all the achievements - if getting them required zero effort. Damn, I think I've elevated laziness to an artform =D

[Amechra]

.... welllll - technically, raising your own chicken is farming, not cooking. But yes, I agree with you, I'm certainly not crafting my own fresh pasta.

Unexpectedly veering back on-topic, what I'd really like would be an 'Achievement Bot' - like, an option you can switch on which summons .. let's say a cute squirrel which completes your achievements for you. I'd get all the achievements - if getting them required zero effort. Damn, I think I've elevated laziness to an artform =D

If it's something that a particularly well-trained squirrel can do, then it wasn't worth your time in the first place.

[Rynjin]

Well, both pasta and rye bread are technically replete with other people cooking for you. Meal prep isn't a binary situation, it exists on a continuum, where you raise and kill your own chicken on one end of the scale, and where you order McNuggets for delivery on the other end. That said, I think we're acculturated to festishize cooking, much in the same way we festishize reading novels, hand-writing letters, and all the other things old people did "In their day". Yes, my great grandmother would spend hours making Rétes on the kitchen table, but I don't have to, I can just rock on down to the pastry shop and buy a piece. I also gather that she used to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

That recipe...doesn't look that difficult. Yeah it takes "hours" but a lot of it is just waiting for dough to set or your timer to go off while it's in the oven.

That's what I think a lot of people don't understand about cooking. It's something you can do while you do other stuff much of the time. People stress about Thanksgiving dinner, for example, but while I technically spent 5 hours cooking on Thanksgiving, most of it was just waiting, chilling, and watching TV.

The effort is well worth the reward, since you get food better than you can get at 90% or more of restaurants at a tiny fraction of the cost. No 300% markup on ingredients, no tip, no delivery fee, just hot food made fresh and delivered right to your mouth.

[Kaptin Keen]

If it's something that a particularly well-trained squirrel can do, then it wasn't worth your time in the first place.

But that seems to be my point exactly: Achievements aren't worth my time, but if an in-game squirrel would do them for me, I'd be fine with that. The achievement could be silver, say, if it was the squirrel that put in the effort, and gold if some poor schmuck decided to do squirrel work.

[AvatarVecna]

I'd get all the achievements - if getting them required zero effort.

Plot twist - toggling on the achievement squirrel does nothing but win you a secret hidden Achievement named "What A Chad". Double plot twist, it's worth 0 gamerscore.

[Amechra]

Plot twist - toggling on the achievement squirrel does nothing but win you a secret hidden Achievement named "What A Chad". Double plot twist, it's worth 0 gamerscore.

Well that, and it unlocks the secret achievement squirrel optional boss, which gets harder for every achievement you have the squirrel do.

[Kaptin Keen]

Um ... squirrel boss is my favourite ..... oO

[Amechra]

It is time. The 'Kings of Bloodshed' have been an annoyance since forever, and now I'm going to wipe them out. Or, you know, the village of theirs that's right next door.

I have body armor, I have assault rifles, I have highly skilled guys and girls, and the K's of B are going down.

I give my self 10 to 1 odds. I'm going to get utterly creamed, aren't I? But this is how we learn, and thankfully I have none of that painful pride that would force me to not make a save game before sending the troops.

Oh, dear god .. I just sent off everyone who can actually fight, and now the Three Little Pigs joined my colony. The Big Bad Wolf is ...certain to be just around the corner. I'm doomed.

I think you're in the wrong place - I'm guessing you meant to stick this in the Rimworld thread?

[Kaptin Keen]

I think you're in the wrong place - I'm guessing you meant to stick this in the Rimworld thread?

Oh!

Hush. We shall never speak of this again. And I'll camouflage my previous post to look halfway sane.

[Hunter Noventa]

I sometimes use them as a gameplay guide.

In Civ, for example, I wanted to play every different ruler. They all had an achievement associated with them, and so I strove for that achievement when playing that character. But other ones? Not worth my time.

Yeah I've done the same thing with Civ. Sometimes I'll just pick out an achievement and go for it.

Otherwise I more or less ignore them. The only games I've got for 100% of trophies on lately have been the Super Robot Wars games that came out recently (V, X and T)

[AlanBruce]

Depends on the game and how much I’m invested into it.

The last three games I platinumed were Bloodborne, Sekiro and RE 2 Remake.

The first two gave me gaming satisfaction because, well... they are somewhat difficult.

RE 2 is a more personal game for me since I played the original a lot back in the day. Also, in the case of this game, trophies bring rewards. For example, there is a trophy that can only be earned by beating the game in under 2 and a half hours, saving only three times and playing in Hardcore Mode.

It was a harrowing and oftentimes frustrating affair, but once that trophy popped up, you get a nice unlimited ammo gun (varies depending on the character used). And damn if it isn’t satisfying to run around the RPD with it!

[danzibr]

Nice with the RE2 Remake trophy!

I might shoot for that someday. I too played a lot of the original.

Well, I did platinum FFX. Then I started FFX-2, was originally thinking to platinum it, then realized I don’t care about it nearly as much as I do the original, then decided not to.

I put like 300 hours into FFX as a kid, but only beat FFX-2 once, and it was a rush job, didn’t even get the good ending. I just don’t have the same attachment.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Hell no!

Ditto. I generally have no flocks to give about 'cheevos.

It feels like work to me, and I don't do work unless I'm getting paid. I have real trouble figuring out why people do strive for these things, and why game makers put them in in the first place. Though, obviously, I'm in the minority here =D

I can answer that one... metrics.

Say you want to know what percentage of people who purchased (or purchased on their behalf as a gift) your game actually played it. Well, if they have the 'completed the tutorial' achievement, then they've at least turned it on.

It tells you what demographics your game is actually hitting, regardless of what you were aiming for. Say you had an achievement for a hardcore difficulty that you expected maybe a half percent of your playerbase to actually get, but it actually came up with something like five percent. That's something you need to look into. What about your game, or at least the hardcore mode, attracted more players than you had anticipated? Was it faster (Say... a lack of cutscenes put in just because you assumed anyone who is on Hardcore mode has already seen them enough already) and the game has a surprisingly robust speedrunner population? That's useful and relevant information, and something you can even lean into for a bit, such as adding in skippable cutscenes in Normal mode or something. Minimal effort for an increase in popularity.

Likewise, if a given metric hit well below you were expecting, say you were expecting at least 20% of the players who at least got through the Tutorial to complete the game on at least your lowest difficulty setting, but it turned out to only be 5-10%, go back and find out why. Was there an unanticipated difficulty spike somewhere that a lot of people gave up on? Did gameplay just get repetitive and boring and lose people? Again, this is useful information, if not for something to patch for this game, than to carry with you into your next project.

Achievements give the developers a way to have a finely granular metrics to present for consideration, feedback that requires the player to take no further action.

[Kaptin Keen]

I can answer that one... metrics.

Say you want to know what percentage of people who purchased (or purchased on their behalf as a gift) your game actually played it. Well, if they have the 'completed the tutorial' achievement, then they've at least turned it on.

It tells you what demographics your game is actually hitting, regardless of what you were aiming for. Say you had an achievement for a hardcore difficulty that you expected maybe a half percent of your playerbase to actually get, but it actually came up with something like five percent. That's something you need to look into. What about your game, or at least the hardcore mode, attracted more players than you had anticipated? Was it faster (Say... a lack of cutscenes put in just because you assumed anyone who is on Hardcore mode has already seen them enough already) and the game has a surprisingly robust speedrunner population? That's useful and relevant information, and something you can even lean into for a bit, such as adding in skippable cutscenes in Normal mode or something. Minimal effort for an increase in popularity.

Likewise, if a given metric hit well below you were expecting, say you were expecting at least 20% of the players who at least got through the Tutorial to complete the game on at least your lowest difficulty setting, but it turned out to only be 5-10%, go back and find out why. Was there an unanticipated difficulty spike somewhere that a lot of people gave up on? Did gameplay just get repetitive and boring and lose people? Again, this is useful information, if not for something to patch for this game, than to carry with you into your next project.

Achievements give the developers a way to have a finely granular metrics to present for consideration, feedback that requires the player to take no further action.

Yes - surveillance with a smile, I'm sure. But is it worth it? I mean, sure, data is data, but it's going to be skewed in so many ways, right? Also, don't get get feedback data regardless of achievements? I seem to recall accepting ToS that included that sort of thing?

Oh, internet! Thou hast us to Pavlov's dogs reduced. Woe is us.

[AlanBruce]

Nice with the RE2 Remake trophy!

I might shoot for that someday. I too played a lot of the original.

Thank you! The trick is to memorize your route, decide what to pick and not and most importantly... use the knife on bosses.

I don’t think the game developers thought players would use the knife on bosses, but it’s a very powerful weapon against them if you know when to catch them when staggered for extra damage.

Saves you a bunch of ammo for the final boss.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yes - surveillance with a smile, I'm sure. But is it worth it? I mean, sure, data is data, but it's going to be skewed in so many ways, right? Also, don't get get feedback data regardless of achievements? I seem to recall accepting ToS that included that sort of thing?

Achievement numbers are pretty solid, because they reflect what people actually Did The Thing. It offers a degree of granularity that other feedback data, such as forum complaints or raw number of hours logged, can offer. And can often work in complement to the data that Steam offers you.

For example, you can cross-reference, say, accounts that have the 'beaten the game on at least easiest difficulty' with 'what computer specs are they using'. If a lot of people are running 'min-spec', or potato just barely big enough to run your game, then you can infer that you probably don't want to crank up the graphics for the sequel because it will alienate those players.

[Vinyadan]

I enjoyed the achievements in DOOM, because they pushed you to trying out some weapons that you maybe would have otherwise ignored. It definitely did help that DOOM had an arcadey feel with modern enjoyability (the various levels were fairly long set-piece battles in large spaces with multiple floors), so you could play the same level thrice in a few days without getting bored by it.

Otherwise, I generally ignore them. I remember when they appeared in flash games, which were very simple, and that I understood: the games were too repetitive to hold you just through the gameplay, so they added this little factor. But PC games shouldn't need them.

[factotum]

Achievement numbers are pretty solid, because they reflect what people actually Did The Thing. It offers a degree of granularity that other feedback data, such as forum complaints or raw number of hours logged, can offer. And can often work in complement to the data that Steam offers you.

Not to mention that it doesn't feel like the developers are spying on you. I always remember seeing a video online where somebody had taken the exact location of player deaths by falling in the game "Just Cause 2" and constructed a ghostly representation of the world map from it. Which was cool, don't get me wrong, but it meant the developers of the game were, for some reason, keeping track of that information, and I could never quite figure out why they were doing that.

[Kaptin Keen]

Achievement numbers are pretty solid, because they reflect what people actually Did The Thing. It offers a degree of granularity that other feedback data, such as forum complaints or raw number of hours logged, can offer. And can often work in complement to the data that Steam offers you.

For example, you can cross-reference, say, accounts that have the 'beaten the game on at least easiest difficulty' with 'what computer specs are they using'. If a lot of people are running 'min-spec', or potato just barely big enough to run your game, then you can infer that you probably don't want to crank up the graphics for the sequel because it will alienate those players.

But ..... they show fairly weak data for one like me, who quite frankly couldn't care less - and really strong data for completionists who deliberately chase achievements. It's .. skewed. Yes, you get the data, but the data itself doesn't tell you whether the player is one like me, who got the achievement by sheer chance, or someone who went out of his way to get it.

It tells you who Did The Thing, but not why.

On the other hand I'm sure they made a deliberate decision. If the data was collected without feedback (in the form of achievements), it would be less skewed, I feel. But then you wouldn't get to throw the completionists their bone.

It's an interesting topic - sadly, I'm sure you only get the real meat of it if you get hired into a games developer.

[snowblizz]

Not to mention that it doesn't feel like the developers are spying on you. I always remember seeing a video online where somebody had taken the exact location of player deaths by falling in the game "Just Cause 2" and constructed a ghostly representation of the world map from it. Which was cool, don't get me wrong, but it meant the developers of the game were, for some reason, keeping track of that information, and I could never quite figure out why they were doing that.

Level design I guess.

[warty goblin]

But ..... they show fairly weak data for one like me, who quite frankly couldn't care less - and really strong data for completionists who deliberately chase achievements. It's .. skewed. Yes, you get the data, but the data itself doesn't tell you whether the player is one like me, who got the achievement by sheer chance, or someone who went out of his way to get it.

It tells you who Did The Thing, but not why.

On the other hand I'm sure they made a deliberate decision. If the data was collected without feedback (in the form of achievements), it would be less skewed, I feel. But then you wouldn't get to throw the completionists their bone.

It's an interesting topic - sadly, I'm sure you only get the real meat of it if you get hired into a games developer.

I suspect given the conditions that trigger achievements that it's actually pretty easy to tell the completionists from everybody else. For one thing the completionists will tend to have more achievements, and also rarer, harder to get ones. And not achievements have anything to do with metrics either, so you can simply filter some out because you don't care about them.

[Amechra]

I'd assume that they're generally looking at those "you completed X% of the main plot" achievements.

And, honestly? Unlike other forms of data collection, I'm pretty OK with this one. After all, the data being gathered is (in general) public knowledge. You could go on your Steam account right now, open up a game, and see what percentage of people got Achievement *A*.