Topic: Achievements?

But the trophy is useless as well.

A sad world we live in where "achievements" are a selling point.

I am not a pet. I do not need a reward that let's everyone know what a clever boy I am as an incentive to have fun playing a video game lol. I don't see achievements as an encouragement to play in different ways, I see it more as a way of playing against a checklist! However, I am sure some people enjoy playing this way and so having achievements doesn't effect me any so no harm no foul I say.

As usual, I'm somewhere in the middle on this. While I do think achievements are a fun metagame that can reward increased player loyalty by playing on some basic behavioral principles (something video games do anyway), and while I do think it's a shame that Nintendo wouldn't take the probably small amount of time needed to add something fairly industry standard at this point like an achievements system, I also think it's really sad that people would bypass the Nintendo Switch entirely because they're so conditioned to expect achievements that playing a game without them doesn't feel rewarding.

For my part, I enjoy achievements in some limited capacity. I don't notice them either way on Steam, but I've had fun getting trophies for Playstation games I really enjoy. I certainly won't play games I don't like just to earn them, though. That seems like madness to me.

I really don't get the achievement thing. It has no purpose but bragging rights to online friends. It gives you nothing. If the 2.3 second thrill of a "ding" sound and message box is what makes the game seem worthwhile that says something amazingly bad about the gameplay. It also means you'd have a BLAST Playing Microsoft Excel. Any year's version will do, you get ding sounds and message boxes non-stop. Plenty of Nintendo games have built in achievement systems. The people talking about the "poop" reward for the Koroks....that IS the trophy/achievement. It's in-game. It's not on your online profile to brag about to your friends. Tokyo Mirage had, literally, a trophy wall with all sorts of innane trophies just like an achievement system. Minecraft brings its own achievement system with it. Color Splash had a dozen "achievements" or so in the plaza. Disgaea 5 has an achievements character in the hub world with the list of innane achievements to complete. What do you all think the gold parts in MK8 are? Trophies you can use in-game.

Any game where the developer wants to include "achievements" in the game, does so. What it doesn't do is have a social media playground bragging rights hub for said achievements, thus exposing how trivial and meaningless said achievements actually are when they somehow seem pointless and unrewarding when the only difference is the game doesn't automatically show your friends you've won them.

We've turned gaming into facebook where the point of playing is flaunting yourself at your inferiors.

Trophies can actually be annoying. The game is supposed to provide the motivation and rewards for playing, and instead I randomly get a "ding" and message popping up when doing various tasks in a game. It takes you out of the game world more than anything else.

Again, this conversation goes in circles. But for whatever reason people were okay with posting on miiverse, which was just a glorified way of bragging to others. Which they claim are what achievements are for. Nevermind the added longevity they add to games for completionists. Again, it seems to boil down to "well I don't like it therefore I don't want anyone else to enjoy it either"

Like I said, it's more of a metagame than anything. I've enjoyed going for the trophies in certain Playstation games. Not because I want to have "bragging rights," but because it extends the life of a game and serves as a permanent marker of something I've accomplished in a game.

Look at it this way: if I join a website and pledge to read 50 books in a year, there will be a certain level of satisfaction every time I get one step closer to my goal. Not because I want to brag about how many books I've read (I'm sure some people might, but that is entirely beside the point), but because it serves as a marker of an accomplishment (a meaningless accomplishment, sure, but the vast majority of human activity is ultimately meaningless anyway).

Trophy systems are just a more systematic extension of resources like this.

Stickers and stamps and whatnot served a similar but less neat and satisfying function on Miiverse, anyway.

The satisfaction and accomplishment should come from having enjoyed the book.

They feel as if they accomplished something as opposed to being told they've accomplished something, there's a huge difference. They've set their own standard by which to play by.

@shaneoh That is exactly how I see it Shan. Imagine if Zelda BotW had achievements. It would have taken so much self discovery out of the game for the sake of a tick list.

@GrailUK You can just, well.. you know, ignore them?

@Octane Oh I know. Like I said earlier, it's no harm no foul for me. Just saying why I'm not bothered about em is all

My issue is you can't opt out. Participation is mandatory.

Participation is already optional though

Like your earlier point, people finding satisfaction in their own way via miiverse, what's wrong with others doing it the same way via trophies/achievements? None really. Videogames as a whole are us just playing them for fun, so there's no real argument against them. They're for fun. Don't like them, don't pay attention to them. Turn them off. Don't look at them. They're not front and center when you play a game if you turn them off.

@shaneoh How? I turned the notifications off on my PS4, never got any, and I always forget they're even a thing. I don't even know how to check my trophies. They might as well not exist for me, they're not affecting my enjoyment of the games in any way.

Wait you can turn off the notifications? Well then there's literally no issue with them, at this point. Turn em' off, play your game.

@Operative2-0 Yup, just go to settings, and there should be an option to turn them off.

@Octane That's awesome news for people that seem to hate the pop ups. Does xbox have something similar?

@Operative2-0 Don't own an Xbox One, but according to their support site (and as expected), you can: ''Select Settings > All Settings > Preferences > Notifications. You can turn all notifications off, or you can choose what to do with individual Xbox and app notifications. See Customize your Xbox One Preferences options.''

Same applies to the PS3 and 360.

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/pop-up-notific...

Wait so why are we even arguing? Those who like achievments have them and those who don't can turn them off...

The opposition to them makes even less sense now, I think I'm done lol

I love trophies. Well. Not like some people. I never go out of my way to chase them. But I enjoy how they kind of document your progress for you. You can look back after playing a game and see all of your achievements...

This is the last major thing Nintendo needs to embrace to really step up on par with other consoles. It's not the end of the world if we don't have some kind of trophy system but I'd really like it if we did get one. It's kind of a bummer playing through a game and not getting achievements for it especially when you could've been playing on another system and getting them. That's not enough reason to ever make me play a game on another system- i'm not going to sacrifice my hybrid version of I Am Setsuna for the sake of seeing trophies on PS4, for example, but it is an aggravation. And one that really should be addressed.

Cloud saves and Trophies. Get that and we're good. Pretty confident we'll see cloud saves, not so sure on the achievements.

@Operative2-0 Don't ask me!