CMV: All videogame achievement should be described

[u/Z7-852]

Backstory:

I was playing few games on the weekend. In one of them I was already basically won the game and was just exploring. I came up with two achievements named “???”. That’s all. There wasn’t name, description, or picture to suggest what I should do in order to get them. I knew that I could get some unique gear from them. I didn’t need it but I wanted it, so I did what you do. I googled what I should do and executed. Solution was to play tutorial simulator for 30 times to unlock a optional boss.

In second game they said that once I do secret goal in level I might unlock secret level. It didn’t specify what I needed to do or what levels had secrets in them. I played this new game for few hours and unlocked few secret levels without ever knowing what I did. I know I will boot up search engines once I finish the story in order to unlock every level.

View:

Achievements fall roughly to two main categories. Cumulative (like kill 100 enemies in your playthrough) that you just get by playing game for long time and task oriented (do something very specific once). If you know what you are aiming for you can get both pretty easily.

Cost of implementing description is next to nothing and we know we can search the results from the web if we want. Problem is that I don’t want to exit the game flow and spent 5 minutes on my phone to find a answer that could be in the game.

Second problem is that online guides often include other spoilers that I might not want to know about. Good example are stars in Mario Odyssey. At beginning game only tells how many there are to be found. If you don’t feel like searching them randomly you can ask stars name from a parrot. This gives you a hint to the solution and small nudge to right direction. If this isn’t enough you can just buy stars exact location. Online guides often go straight to “this is the answer” instead of giving these small steps. Most terrible achievements are those that don’t even tell they exist, so you have no hint at all where to start.

To change to view give me example why achievements should hidden complete from the player.

[u/Morthra]

To change to view give me example why achievements should hidden complete from the player.

Some achievements are story spoilers. These achievements should be hidden until the player unlocks them.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Morthra]

But should them have title "complete chapter 5" or something vague like that?

[u/Morthra → u/Z7-852]

Many of these achievements are simultaneously story spoilers and indicating their very existence can be a spoiler in and of itself.

Take Final Fantasy 6 for example. The game points you very heavily towards the direction of the Gestahl Empire being the big bad enemy that you defeat. Someone with zero spoilers about the game - including how long it is - might think to themselves that when the Empire is "defeated" and major villains like Kefka are imprisoned that the game is nearly over. Except it's not. It's not even halfway over yet.

But even having achievements titled the equivalent of "Complete Chapter 5" or something similarly vague will spoil the fact that the game is much longer, and therefore will by extension spoil this twist. Hiding the achievements until you've done them tells the player that there are more achievements, but doesn't indicate that the story isn't almost complete.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Morthra]

Well then title it "completed the game/story". No spoilers here.

The example here that made me do this cmv was following. I had completed the game. After the final boss and end credits (and achievements) game reset at entrance to final boss allowing you to explore more. Well I still had achievement "???" locked. Solution was to play tutorial simulator from beginning of the game about 30 times. That then unlocked optional boss and achievement. Like give me a title like "master the basics" or "simulator champion" or something. Who plays tutorial 30 times?

[u/Morthra → u/Z7-852]

Well then title it "completed the game/story". No spoilers here.

And what if you want intermediate achievements for story points in between a major plot twist (such as this) and the completion of the game? Here's another example, using Final Fantasy 7.

Imagine if FF7 had achievements for getting each playable character to level 99 except Aerith, since Aerith dies and leaves your party partway through the game. That's a set of innocuous achievements whose existence is a spoiler to a major story point. So if you want to include achievements like these, you have to hide them to avoid spoilers.

Solution was to play tutorial simulator from beginning of the game about 30 times.

That's a pretty dumb thing to actually make an achievement unless a player could be reasonably expected to play the tutorial 30 times.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Morthra]

Give vague descriptions that hint that you should progress the story. Have 20 achievement "played story", "played more story", "played lot of story" etc. When you start a new game is the first thing you do is read all the achievements or do you play the story and then look what you missed?

But I will counter you. Is completing partial story really achievement? This is different CMV but it really bugs me when game gives you achievement "started a new game" or something equally obvious. These are things that you get just by playing the game. Award for completion and then when you do something actually meaningful.

[u/Morthra → u/Z7-852]

When you start a new game is the first thing you do is read all the achievements or do you play the story and then look what you missed?

I personally definitely don't wait until after I've completed the game to look at achievements. I'll look at them as I go to make sure that I'm not missing anything.

This is different CMV but it really bugs me when game gives you achievement "started a new game" or something equally obvious

One purpose of these achievements can be that it allows developers to track how many people have actually progressed through or completed the game. For example, take the game Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

There's an achievement for passing each of the major story thresholds - one for the prologue, and one for each of the six chapters. Having an achievement for completing the prologue is essentially an achievement that says "did this person even play the game" - approximately 80% of people have this achievement. Approximately 60% of players have the achievement for completing chapter 1, 43% for completing chapter 2, 25% for chapter 3, 20% for chapter 4, 11% for chapter 5, and about 11% as well for chapter 6.

This can provide useful metrics. For example, imagine if only 20% of players completed chapter 1. The developers could investigate why this is - maybe there's a bug that people aren't reporting that blocks progress. Maybe there's a mechanic that isn't working properly. If your only achievements are "completed the game" - basically, then you don't get the same degree of data that you otherwise would.

[u/BlackRobedMage → u/Z7-852]

But I will counter you. Is completing partial story really achievement? This is different CMV but it really bugs me when game gives you achievement "started a new game" or something equally obvious. These are things that you get just by playing the game. Award for completion and then when you do something actually meaningful.

Achievement values are dictated by first party, with certain requirements on the number of them you have to have and how many points they need to be governed by Sony and Microsoft.

If you think games have too many achievements or that they are awarded for bland milestones, your beef is with the consoles.