Request to review the achievement system

[Formidolosus]

I know that achievement hunting is not something everyone appreciates and that a thread like this will lead to comments like "achievements are soooo lame", but for a lot of people, achievements are a nice way to cross a game off your list. Like you've 'mastered' that game and can now move on to the next one. And yes that leads into a bit of friendly competition as some achievements are pretty hard to earn and can demonstrate a certain skill you have. Much in the same way someone would be excited about being a certain rank of CS: GO player.

Games with achievements do offer additional value to a lot of gamers and will be the difference between a purchase or not for a lot of people. Even if a game has broken achievements some people won't even bother playing it. HOWEVER in recent months there has being a trend in games coming out with thousands of achievements for doing basically nothing. Steam recently updated the trading card policy for games, and I think the same should be done with achievements. Yes it's true that an achievement count alone means nothing on steam, but there are multiple leaderboard websites that do rank gamers based on achievements and unfortunately these games ruin the experience.

Now the reason why I believe that this is something that Valve should do something about is because it's an exploitative practice, being used to sell games that have no content to speak of otherwise. When the game's main selling point is that it gives you 1000 achievements, then what business does it have being sold on a game store? Open a level, have 10 achievements, spend 10 seconds finishing the level, have another 10. etc. How is this a game?

My suggestions on ways this could be fixed:

• Limit the number of achievements. Is there any game that needs more than 500 achievements?
  
• Introduce a points system similar to Playstation, where by a game is given so many points to spread out over it's achievements.
  
• Prevent games that have come from greenlight or first time publishers from having over a certain number of achievements until steam sales have gone over a certain point.

And again, I know that achievement hunting is not for everyone and it's a silly meta game, but based on the success of the trading card system, people do like meta games, and achievements really can add to the success of a game or gaming system. Just look at the consoles, that's probably the only thing they do better than the master race.

[Donitsi]

What is the point of points? People use SAM and other tools to unlock all achievements instantly.

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by Tulipunahapero:

What is the point of points? People use SAM and other tools to unlock all achievements instantly.

Well sure I guess they can, but that is where the achievement sites come in. They will filter out the cheaters.

And honestly on that subject, Valve should also authenticate their achievements a bit better, to make sure the achievement is coming from the actual game, but that's another topic. This is about games that are being exploitative of a system valve has in place.

[LowJack_VA1]

This has already been suggested and argued to death. Valve will not implement something like this because of how easy it is to cheat the achievements.

[Radene]

Originally posted by Formidolosus:

Originally posted by Tulipunahapero:

What is the point of points? People use SAM and other tools to unlock all achievements instantly.

Well sure I guess they can, but that is where the achievement sites come in. They will filter out the cheaters.

Thing is, if you play in offline mode and trigger achievement flags, they will all register at the same time the moment you go online and sync with the Steam servers.

So how do we know who used SAM and who just happened to not have 'net access for a while?

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by Radene:

Originally posted by Formidolosus:

Well sure I guess they can, but that is where the achievement sites come in. They will filter out the cheaters.

Thing is, if you play in offline mode and trigger achievement flags, they will all register at the same time the moment you go online and sync with the Steam servers.

So how do we know who used SAM and who just happened to not have 'net access for a while?

Well as I say there are sites such as astats. Anyone who uses SAM will get caught eventually. They'll unlock an achievement that's broken, or one that you have to be online to get. But again. NOT THE TOPIC. This is about games that are abusing the achievement system.

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by LowJack_VA1:

This has already been suggested and argued to death. Valve will not implement something like this because of how easy it is to cheat the achievements.

This has nothing to do with cheating the achievements, although it would be nice if steam fixed that too. This is about games that are marketing absolute crap purely on the basis of having thousands of easy achievements, which is exploitative of a system Valve has created. They already introduced a fix for developers exploiting trading cards. This is a request that they do the same for those abusing the achievement system. It's a long shot as there's no money involved, but I figured it was better than ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it on a forum no one from valve would ever read.

So yeah, it's not a request to police the gamers. There are sites that do that already. This is about policing developers who are abusing the system.

[LowJack_VA1]

Valve does not police the achievements!! The publishers and developers own them.

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by LowJack_VA1:

Valve does not police the achievements!! The publishers and developers own them.

Well maybe they should. If they are being used as a means of selling a game/ adding value to it, in the same way as trading cards, why shouldn't valve rein in some of those who are being obviously abusive?

[Gus the Crocodile]

The important thing about the games with trading cards that caused Valve to do that last change is that they were being farmed by bots and thus giving misinformation to the system about what real people are interested in. If it was just real people actually playing the games and actually getting what they wanted out of them, there wouldn't have been a problem.

And that's all that's going on here. People are buying games that do a thing they want, and some other people don't think the thing is good. That's normal. There's no abuse here.

[[BFG]™manuelle]

Originally posted by Yuuta:

Originally posted by Formidolosus:

in the same way as trading cards

That is very different from developers just adding tons of achievements to please some people that like to get thausands of achievements for doing nothing.

And games from these such of nice developers of course absolutely free?

[Formidolosus]

Yeah ok so yes the money is more with the trading cards, no question there. But the only selling point for these games is their achievements. If they didn't have that angle they wouldn't sell a single copy for real money apart from getting lucky with a few bundle sites. Look there's no question that a flood of bad games have come in through greenlight, but most of these would fade into obscurity if not for the fact they offered trading cards and achievements. Devs have discovered they can spend ten minutes in gamemaker or unity, making something that does nothing other than spit out achievements and they'll sell it. How is this not exploitative of the systems valve has given to developers? And let me tell you, they are only just getting started. There are already at least 20 games that fit this bill, and once developers realise they don't actually have to make a game in order to sell it, why waste time on making an actual game? It's also unfair to those devs that have actually made a real game as they are now competing for 'shelf' space with these kind of games.

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by Yuuta:

Originally posted by BFG™manuelle:

And games from these such of nice developers of course absolutely free?

What that has to do with anything?
Don't want to get a thousand of easy achievements - don't buy those games. You might not believe it, but there are people that actually do want to buy games like that.

There's no doubt that they do, otherwise these devs wouldn't keep making them. People are stupid to buy these, there's no question there, but these games are offering no real gameplay outside of earning achievements. What right do they have to be sold in 'games' store when the dev took 10 minutes to throw them together, pushed them through greenlight and then profits from the sale of the game and trading cards? It would be fine if gamers existed in a bubble, but the fact is there are a lot of achievement leaderboards and tracking sites and games like this completely wreck it. Play a game for a week of your life to get 100 achievements or spend 1 hour clicking and get 2000. If this is acceptable, then why even have achievements in the first place? At least the Steam competitors achievement systems have more meaning. Sure origin and uplay suck in many ways, but they regulate their achievement systems, because they understand that for some people it's a nice way of tracking progress and matching up with other people.

[LowJack_VA1]

Originally posted by Formidolosus:

Originally posted by Yuuta:

What that has to do with anything?
Don't want to get a thousand of easy achievements - don't buy those games. You might not believe it, but there are people that actually do want to buy games like that.

There's no doubt that they do, otherwise these devs wouldn't keep making them. People are stupid to buy these, there's no question there, but these games are offering no real gameplay outside of earning achievements. What right do they have to be sold in 'games' store when the dev took 10 minutes to throw them together, pushed them through greenlight and then profits from the sale of the game and trading cards? It would be fine if gamers existed in a bubble, but the fact is there are a lot of achievement leaderboards and tracking sites and games like this completely wreck it. Play a game for a week of your life to get 100 achievements or spend 1 hour clicking and get 2000. If this is acceptable, then why even have achievements in the first place? At least the Steam competitors achievement systems have more meaning. Sure origin and uplay suck in many ways, but they regulate their achievement systems, because they understand that for some people it's a nice way of tracking progress and matching up with other people.

That's your uneducated opinion. There's nothing stupid about getting game play entertainment from something you enjoy.

[Formidolosus]

Originally posted by LowJack_VA1:

Originally posted by Formidolosus:

There's no doubt that they do, otherwise these devs wouldn't keep making them. People are stupid to buy these, there's no question there, but these games are offering no real gameplay outside of earning achievements. What right do they have to be sold in 'games' store when the dev took 10 minutes to throw them together, pushed them through greenlight and then profits from the sale of the game and trading cards? It would be fine if gamers existed in a bubble, but the fact is there are a lot of achievement leaderboards and tracking sites and games like this completely wreck it. Play a game for a week of your life to get 100 achievements or spend 1 hour clicking and get 2000. If this is acceptable, then why even have achievements in the first place? At least the Steam competitors achievement systems have more meaning. Sure origin and uplay suck in many ways, but they regulate their achievement systems, because they understand that for some people it's a nice way of tracking progress and matching up with other people.

That's your uneducated opinion. There's nothing stupid about getting game play entertainment from something you enjoy.

"Gameplay"... surely for it to count as 'gameplay' there would need to be an actual game attached?

But tell me honestly... if these games didn't offer you 1000 + achievements, would you spend a cent on them outside of a bundle? If so you are weird, but your point stands. If however, the main thing attracting you to them is the achievements, how is it not exploiting a steam system?

[LowJack_VA1]

I don't purchase games for achievements, at all. I'm not an achievement hunter.