Topic: Achievements?

Here's the full passage from the AMA:

The way it's worded makes me wonder whether they were referring to Leaderboard/Ranking functionality rather than an Achievement system? ..particularly as they were responding to a question about online rankings specifically

Either way, I do imagine that the full paid online subscription service will be considerably more feature-rich than what the Switch has currently - but we should be careful not to let speculation turn in to expectation...

@shaneoh
1. So what does it matter that I just made my account? I saw a thread and thought I might be helpful

2. You don't know that until you watch the video

3. Reasons against achievements? Dude I'm all for achievements, and the video is meant for explaining why people like achievements, and I saw some people confused on why people obsess over them, so I posted it.

4. You seriously can't take a couple of minutes to watch some video? Clearly you have enough time to argue on this post so surely you have time to take a glance at a video.

@Blaze1021
1. It's not helpful telling us to stop arguing over the "value" of achievements and sticking a video up.

2. I'm sure you can summarise the points for us.

3. Reasons against which have already been stated by myself and others.

4. The video is 10 minutes long, enough of a glance?

This is quite a long thread now, but am I missing something? There's no reason the developers can't run their own leaderboards - I believe ACA Hamster does it for all of the Neo Geo games. As for achievements, I've spent a good part of the last week clearing a good chunk of achievements in the Shovel Knight collection.

So why does everyone look to Nintendo? Developers can, and are, putting leaderboards and achievements into Switch games. Up to them - nobody is stopping them.

@Krull Because achievements seem to be much more valuable to some when they are implemented on a system level (and forced upon devs that might not want to bother with such a thing), for some reason. Seems like they aren't nearly as enticing when the devs implement them out of their own volition. Kind of underlines the main reason people like them if you ask me.

@shaneoh
You're making a really big deal about a video, what's the deal? Why the hate? I'm just trying to help here, but I guess that kind of thing isn't appreciated. Whatever, I'm leaving this thing.

@Blaze1021
Actually, if you look at my original reply, it was a single word. You asked me to elaborate, I did. Although if the video isn't a big deal, I don't see how it would stop us arguing about the "value" of achievements .

You know what? You're right. The video won't help this thread at all, it seems the argument about the achievements have fizzled out. Thanks for replying to me, I now see that enough has been said about the topic. Though I don't appreciate the initial doubt you had. Just because I had just made the account doesn't mean that what I have to say means any less than what other people have to say. I thought the video might help some people understand why people like achievements and such in the first place. It talks about psychology, Maslow's Hierarchy, self actualization, I thought it was pretty cool, and that others might think so too. Sorry that I inconvenienced you by posting something you didn't like.

Actually, Nintendo just did something that I hope is a sign of bigger things to come. ARMS is sort of applying a proto-achievement system, where certain feats are rewarded with user icons(and some coins for the game itself).

If they do the same with the Switch itself, with achievements netting players a new Switch profile icon for completing tasks, I think many people would be happy with that, myself included. Inconsequential but more substantial than simple e-points.

Of course this could just be a one off thing meant specifically for ARMS. Either way, neato.

Pavlovian conditioning...

That's alright, I forgive you. Try out some of the other threads.

Meh, I can display achievements (with their own unique icon) I've got in steam if I want to. It's nothing special.

Oh no... this thread is back.

Only good things are going to happen now.

@Operative2-0 Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed had a similar situation of which a selection of ingame achievements which unlock user icons for your ingame profile are system wide achievements/trophies in the 360 and PS3 versions.

Which I think is the good news. It's not something substantial and it's not something completely worthless. Sure you can do it in Steam, but we're talking about doing it on a Switch. Well, something similar I assume, haven't used that feature of Steam.

Achievements should be something that really rewards you when you complete a task like in-game items that you could really use, not some sort of medal or trophy that you can only brag your friends with. Example: see Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS. I like achievements, but only when it's done right.

I think the best usage of achievements is the Sakurai approach. So like Kirby Air Ride, SSBB, Kid Icarus Uprising and Smash Wii U/3DS.

If there ends up being a system wide achievements setup for Switch I'd want it to follow that approach.

Well, if we're going whole hog back into this thing, I think system-wide achievements would draw a lot of people in, as much as you may disagree or agree with that.

People just objectively want achievements on their gaming systems these days. Evidence: every other gaming system/platform aside from Nintendo. Even gosh-dang Uplay has achievements lol

Like it or not, it would be a great move to continue the momentum of the Switch. You're gonna have A LOT of hold-out gamers taking a serious look at the Switch this holiday season if Odyssey turns out to be good, and toting system-wide achievements like they're used to on their PS, XBox, Steam, etc. will be something that nudges those people toward a purchase, as pathetic as that may sound.

I've always said, I think Nintendo has the best achievement currency they could go with: coins. But yea, that would be kinda weird playing something on my Switch and just hearing that coin pick-up sound and seeing an achievement pop up just like on my other systems. Kinda like my favorite band selling out when I was a teenager... sniffle sniffle lol

Personally I like the trophy/achievement system PS4 have, its essentially displaying your accomplishments and monitoring your progress during a game. At the same time, I find it a great incentive once you've completed a story or campaign. I think if Nintendo apply the profile achievement/trophy tool, more audiences would be interested.

@Jaybee23 Only in certain cases though...

Red Dead Redemption had some well thought out post-game challenges as 'Trophies/Achievements' - and they really helped to extend the life of the game for me...but such instances are few and far between.

In most cases, the trophies are little more than 'Complete Level 1', 'Complete Level 2' etc - pointless (and lazily implemented by the developer) ..in other cases, a game is so wide and varied already (eg. Skyrim or GTAV) that I, personally, find it far more enjoyable to set my own targets/challenges than chase some meaningless 'accolade'

When they're good, they're good - but more often than not they just...aren't.

...but that's just me - and probably comes as a consequence of having grown up in the 'pre-Achievement' era of gaming (where we just enjoyed games for what they were )

I will concede though, as @rallydefault was saying, that the Switch missing 'industry standard' features could perhaps be a bit of a turn-off to some - which is the biggest reason why I feel that Nintendo should consider adding such a system to Switch...and Nintendo being Nintendo, they'd probably find a way to make them more fun - and I'd be as curious as anyone to see the kind of imaginative spin that I'm sure that they'd put on them

I suggested a few pages back that Nintendo could perhaps swap 'Trophies' for 'Stickers' that you could customise your Home Screen/Profile with - or add to some kind of digital 'Scrap Book' that you could document your gaming history with - something like that, that'd bring a bit of fun/creativity to the system, could be really appealing (even for oldies like me! )

..but adding a like-for-like Achievement system identical to those on rival platforms wouldn't really appeal to me - with the exception of those rare instances (eg. Red Dead, as mentioned above) where they offer fun and well-considered post-game challenges to prolong the life of a game, they're largely insignificant to my gaming experience

I'd still be in favour of them coming though, because they are standard on other platforms - and a lot of people clearly miss having such a system on Switch...if they bring them for the masses of people that want them, I don't have a problem - I'll just ignore them like I do on PS4/Steam (..unless, of course, they put a fun and typically-Nintendo spin on them )

@NaviAndMii The complete level trophies/achievements are the best ones because you'll unlock them by playing the game normally anyway so it's almost like the trophies/achievements don't exist.

@Grumblevolcano Haha! Yeah, I can imagine that trophies that you don't even have to think about are particularly attractive to trophy hunters!

I just always remember playing Red Dead Redemption (one of the first games I ever played which had trophy support) to completion - but still not feeling ready to put it down - and how the interesting trophy challenges felt like a really fun extension of the game...it was very satisfying!

I just can't really recall any other instance where they've added to my experience in a significant way - but if I was more of a trophy collector and I was planning on 'completing level 2' in a game anyway () it'd be a nice little 'double-win' I guess!