Broken Achievements Solution

[Darkraid]

I initially posted it on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/io5vb3/broken_achievements_solution/

Hello there! I really like to earn Steam achievements but I'm not actively hunting them, unless it's a game I really like. Lately, I came across multiple broken achievements and my friend, who is an achievement hunter, even more. I thought of a solution that will not affect people who do not care and will positively affect all people that do care about achievements.


A button should exist for each achievement to report it as broken.

If the conditions for the report are met, such as:

• enough number of users reported it;
  
• enough percentage of users (that own/played the game) reported it;
  
• a combination of the 2 above, flat number for popular games and percentage for less popular games;

then the achievement will be disabled based on automatic review or manual review by a Valve employee.


Disabled achievements will work like this:

• they will not appear on the game page;
  
• they will not count towards 100% game completion;
  
• they will not count towards average game completion rate;
  
• they will still be visible on players' profiles for those that earned it before it was broken;
  
• the developer of the game will be notified of the broken achievement;
  
• if he fixes it, those that reported it will get a notification that the achievement works now and everything returns to the way it was before;

We can go even further with this idea. We can have a new showcase with "Broken Achievements Earned" and it works like a Feats of Strength Achievements (I'm thinking of World of Warcraft).

Using this idea, instead of reporting only broken achievements, we can report achievements that are next to impossible to earn (a good example would be to play on the same server as Garry or achievements that tell you to play the game during the beta and the game is already launched). Instead of "Broken Achievements Showcase" we can have "Hidden Achievements Showcase".

While I'm pretty sure the idea for Broken Achievements is pretty good, I'm not sure how you can decide an achievement is too hard to get to report it so it can become a Hidden Achievement. And, as every feature can be abused, this probably will be abused too. To limit this, probably it's better to limit the idea to Broken Achievements.


I would like to know what you guys think.

P.S.: Credit where credit's due, I thought of this after I had seen how astats operates.

[Two Clicks]

After several years the devs of Kane and Lynch 2 removed a bugged achievement. So its possible if enough ppl post for it 'and' if the dev remains in business and gives a fook!

Post it everywhere: reviews, a single thread, twitter etc... Wherever you can and then forget about it. You cant imagine my surprise when my games completed counter went up by one without completing any, the next time I bothered to look at it. Only time mind you! :)

[cinedine]

引用自 Snapjak：

If people don't want to use SAM that's entirely their choice. It affects no one but them.

As I said, not all devs care enough to fix achievements let alone patch their games.

But it does. Some developers actively deny that an achievement is broken because people used SAM to unlock it. Others recommend using it themselves instead of fixing their ♥♥♥♥.
Other users might not even now the achievement is broken because it has an unlock ratio. If the unlock conditions are hard to get or might have gone through and infuriating hard mode just for the achievement, they are just wasting their time or it makes them hate the game.
Not everbody checks forums or that stuff beforehand.

So yes, the use of SAM can affect other people's enjoyment of the game negatively.

[Black Blade]

I think a system to report to the developer that achievement may be broken can be nice
I think possible an overall reporting system can be good as well, but as that likely be messy and most developers may not even like to use that, a system to possibly report Steam related issues with the game I think can be good (Like achievements)

I don't think it should be hidden or something like that regardless of user input, users never seem to very trustworthy on stuff like this

On that maybe should point I am pretty sure Valve them self have some unobtainable achievements on their own games

引用自 cinedine：

But it does. Some developers actively deny that an achievement is broken because people used SAM to unlock it. Others recommend using it themselves instead of fixing their ♥♥♥♥.
Other users might not even now the achievement is broken because it has an unlock ratio. If the unlock conditions are hard to get or might have gone through and infuriating hard mode just for the achievement, they are just wasting their time or it makes them hate the game.
Not everbody checks forums or that stuff beforehand.

So yes, the use of SAM can affect other people's enjoyment of the game negatively.

I do understand what you say there
But honestly, developer that says that if the game has some unlocks it's not broken may likely say that for any type of thing to get out of fixing it
I don't really agree that it's that big of an effect overall, and it is in a way, a way to help users till hopefully, the developer does get around to fix it