Multiplat Achievements.

[CasuallyDressed]

Has anyone noticed in the latest games that achievements are becoming far to easy to gain?

It makes me wonder whether they should just be named 'points' because we're not really doing anything to get them. It's become as easy as just a few buttons, doing things a little kid could do even on harder levels, I used to love working hard to achieve something and earn these points rather than just get them for starting a cutscene.

There have been some awesome games that only give you achievements for doing actually hard things. The new Hitman game in particular has just been handing them out for freebies.

No really a big deal because the games are still awesome to play but I used to love working for a good hour or two on a hard level to finally get an achievement for it.

 

[caMoGFC]

in a way i have sort of noticed this as well but not really as much as i used to play games and go out of my way slightly to complete a task in order to get the trophy/achievment. now i tend to just play the games and whatever i get i get....i do still seem to end up with 40 odd percent just from beating the game normally without even having a look at trophies to get so what you say probably has a fair bit of merit.

if you like tough challenges for trophies i suggest you get a ps3 and play wipeout.....the top end trophies on that are out of this world tough!

 

[Glenno23]

Its not just now that it's easy. Avatar the Burning Earth you could get the full 1000 points from the first few mins of play

I think (some) developers just make it easy so people will buy their game to score whore it. But others actually put challenges in. Some of the GTA 4 ones were great, like try to roll your car 5 times, survive 5 mins with a 6 star wanted, or blow up 10 cars in 10 seconds. Fun things that were great to attempt

I have never been 1 to go hard after points, but if its a game i like, i will try some extra tasks that i maybe wouldn't have done otherwise. Thats how they should be used. Get the player out of the norm and try new experiences

 

[caMoGFC]

my fav trophy types are definitely the challenge ones....

i mean in quantum of solace they weren't exactly hard, but you'd get a trophy for finishing the level......but that level had a set requirement it wanted you to accomplish within it such as "complete mission without ever being detected" as an extra trophy which was a fantastic structure which made you play a certain different style to earn. really like that style.

also little big planet was another one with some great trophies (some quite hard also) like the complete every level without dying. one of my fav trophies right there

 

[Igloo]

I'm not a fan of getting trophies for just completing chapters in a mission. Giving them for actually doing challenges is the best way.

 

[CasuallyDressed]

The standard beat a mission with getting spotted, kill certain amount if enemies with a certain weapon, defeating big bosses etc.

But when you get gamerpoints for simply speaking to somebody it just defeats the term achievement. They should be a reward for hard work but sometimes they are just gifted to you but I guess the producers need to fill a quota (seems to be 1000 these days)

I also hate getting achievements when I play on easy; I rarely do this but I hated Resident Evil 6 but wanted to complete the story so just done it on easy and was getting achievements for it.

I remember Red Dead Redemption (or maybe it was the other cowboy game) didn't just hand out achievements nor did Castlevania: Lord Of Shadows.

But yeah, the new Hitman game is a prime example, I have already hit 28 achievements in this game yet have only just hit the half way mark (up to Death Factory now) and I'm getting achievements for stupid things rather than awarding good gameplay ... which hasn't been the case in Hitman.

 

[HBK619]

Generally I think that by the end of a campaign/story/single player experience you should have around 50%-60% of trophies/achievements and if you want to go further beyond that you have to go somewhat out of your way to get more. Somewhat.

I guess with Achievements being point based it doesn't give you much reason to necessarily go for the full 1000 on retail games, but nabbing a Platinum for a game definitely has a feeling of accomplishment attached to it when you do get there (not saying that the 1000 wouldn't, but the Platinum has that same 'game complete' type feeling). I think it likely also adds an extra incentive to go for the last few even if it means taking an extra bunch of hours or playing more than you'd like as well.

At the end of the day, they are forced to give 1000 points on the 360 for retail games so it does mean they either go for simplistic designs behind them (Terminator Salvation/The above mentioned Avatar game) or they give you as many as they can think of and attach some to the story beats of the game to lighten the load there (which I have no problem with, it's more a reward for playing through their game than them saying you've achieved it).

Personally, I think Far Cry 3 did it outstandingly. I managed to get all but 2 Single Player trophies on my playthrough, 12 trophies are assigned to the actual story, the rest (32) are all based on how you play the game and some milestones within that. As well as 6 assigned to the co-op campaign.

They have some that you will likely have to go out of your way to get (Say Hi to the Internet) but the rest just come from playing the game as much as possible really. As well as exploring the island as much as possible. Far Cry 3 is easily the most fun I've had going for a Platinum because it didn't require grinding, long replaying or spending hours just trying to find one thing over miles and miles of a map.

Hitman did it fairly similarly. I got 77% of trophies from my one playthrough, yes some trophies do tend to come fairly easily, but the 'Grand Master' trophy will/would require a fair amount of work to get to, so I think it off-puts most of the easy one's.

Linear games make it harder to really go off and do your own thing with regards to trophies, which is where examples like QoS can offer you ways to complete a mission inside of that mission. Linear games would definitely have the hardest trophies/achievements to come up for. Uncharted's for example tend to just revolve around collecting treasures and using guns to kill x amount of enemies.

I personally think it's tough to define how the system works best. Some devs go for real grinding out of trophies/achievements which leads to players getting frustrated at having to dedicate so many hours to getting just one single trophy. If they're super hard, I'm going to be less inclined to go for them. If I see them as truly being achievable, then if it means I need to put in a little extra work, I will. That's where I think the fine line needs to sit, something that is at least in the realms of being achievable without taking hours and hours and hours just to get it. And I don't really want to play through a game more than once most of the time either.

Although I will say I hate when games force you to fully level up in multiplayer just to earn a trophy, not only does it severely hurt if you have purchased a game after either the servers have been killed or people have just drifted away from the game but you're forcing people into a mode that they may not have even purchased the game for and generally isn't the main focus of the game. They ruined the decent system they had going in Assassin's Creed when Brotherhood brought in Multiplayer, have all but one of the SP stuff, barely any of the MP stuff! And I didn't mind the MP, I just don't want to be forced to spend days on it for a trophy.

 

[Donakebab]

Achievements are these days are complete gobshite. Games like Goldeneye did it right, some just given to you, some hard and some drive bat shit crazy, but all of them offered a reward.

 

[SuperCats9]

I average about 300G for every game i play on the 360, and they're usually the achievements you get for just finishing the game, i hardly try and get 1000G, takes to much effot IMO. But i agree with Hitman, i've got 700G and will try to get every achievement as i'm so close, i think i'm 38/46.

 

[Kickpuncher]

Ive never even gotten close to getting a 1000G or a platinum trophy I think the closest I have gotten is on Mass Effect 2 or AFL Live.

 

[caMoGFC]

yeah stuff going for full gamer points/platinum trophy.

i've only gotten one ever (uncharted 1) and that was only cause i love the game so much and because i wanted at least one platinum at the time.

i've been like 1-2 trophies off a platinum on a few games like assassins creed series and god of war series but stuff a second playthrough to get them lol

 

[Face_Plain]

Demon's Souls is the complete opposite. Same goes for Killzone 2. They had the most ridiculous trophy requirements I've ever seen.

Demon's Souls required you to get a Pure Blade Stone for a trophy. Pure Blade Stone had less than 1% drop rate..... and only two enemies in the whole game dropped them. I've always been a bit of a completionist, so I dug trophies. PBS fixed that right up. No longer give a damn. (FTR I got that stupid PBS eventually)

 

[Truckosaurus]

Too many given out just for progressing through the game. I don't need an achievement as a reward for finishing a chapter, my reward for finishing a chapter is that I get to play the next chapter.

 

[CasuallyDressed]

The only trophies I don't really nab are the mutiplayer trophies because I don't play online.

 

[Ed_Gein]

I used to be a completionist. But then i realised a lot of the achievements i was going for to get 100% on a game had a lot of 'grinding' involved. Eventually i thought "What is the point?" But there are a lot of enjoyable ones, that provide a decent challenge. Like '7 day survivor' on Dead Rising, Burnout Paradise ones were enjoyable, had a lot of fun getting some of the Left 4 Dead ones too.

Now i just play and whatever i get, i get. But don't mind going out of my way to help others that need some. Like i think there are achievements in Gears of War 3 where each player has to be a character of Zeta squad and so on...

 

[MarcusP2]

I stopped 'grinding' for trophies after the 'ride your horse 200 miles' in Darksiders. I lost my patience for such mundane tasks after I dodged 185 lightning bolts in FFX.

 

[Cynic]

Demon's Souls is the complete opposite. Same goes for Killzone 2. They had the most ridiculous trophy requirements I've ever seen.

Demon's Souls required you to get a Pure Blade Stone for a trophy. Pure Blade Stone had less than 1% drop rate..... and only two enemies in the whole game dropped them. I've always been a bit of a completionist, so I dug trophies. PBS fixed that right up. No longer give a damn. (FTR I got that stupid PBS eventually)

I never got the PBS. Killed whatever that skeleton thing was (Forgotten now) some god awfully huge time and gave up defeated.

 

[scaryness]

Most games are easy to get achievements because in my opinion most games don't need a 1000 gamer score. Developers will make more and more achievements to fill up the 1000 gamer score, instead of either lowering the total or increasing the value of the achievements. Quantity instead of Quality, I guess.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had good achievements because there were difficult ones (beat the game without being seen, or without killing anyone) and there were also achievements that reward the player for choosing different outcomes in different playthroughs of the missions and side quests.

Mass Effect 1 is also another game that uses achievements as a way to entice you to play through the game multiple times to experience the game in different ways. To get all achievements you would have to play through the game a minimum of three times - one as each class - and change your personality.

 

[CasuallyDressed]

Most games are easy to get achievements because in my opinion most games don't need a 1000 gamer score. Developers will make more and more achievements to fill up the 1000 gamer score, instead of either lowering the total or increasing the value of the achievements. Quantity instead of Quality, I guess.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had good achievements because there were difficult ones (beat the game without being seen, or without killing anyone) and there were also achievements that reward the player for choosing different outcomes in different playthroughs of the missions and side quests.

Mass Effect 1 is also another game that uses achievements as a way to entice you to play through the game multiple times to experience the game in different ways. To get all achievements you would have to play through the game a minimum of three times - one as each class - and change your personality.

Just another reason why Dues Ex is so damn awesome.