The Profile Update Steam Needs

[Zaerick]

Introduction

Growing up playing games the idea of achievements was a foreign concept for me. Back then we just played the games we got and if we discovered a secret in a level, it was a nice bonus. Sometimes games had great secrets that made you want to collect more; I am talking about you Halo 2 skulls. But by the time I was entering high school a new generation of consoles came out, one which arguably would change the way hundreds of thousands if not millions of us play games.

With the introduction of the Xbox 360 and achievement system we were opened to things we wouldn’t normally try or in some cases never even think of. The glorious pop noise of earning an achievement was all too rewarding for my young adult self, and I tasked my self with going for as many as I could. It was rewarding at first because watching your Gamerscore slowly tick up and seeing which of your friends had the most was thrilling. Over the years I slowed down on going for achievements, because the WoW factor was all but gone.

There never was a true implementation or reason behind your Gamerscore. The introduction of PlayStation trophies, which brought with it the Platinum trophy, for completing 100% of the trophies, was a nice addition for all of us hunters. But again, like the Xbox your levels didn’t amount to much. Now a days you can use points earned towards discounts and other various items on the respective shops. This is a nice addition to see, but again falls far too short.

During my first years of college, I ended up moving over to PC gaming and using steam. Most of my friends I played on the Xbox or PlayStation had either moved on to PC gaming as well or were to busy with their adult life to truly play anymore. With my change to this new platform, I was excited to see that yet again there were achievements that I can go for. A chance to rebuild my collection once again.

Sadly, over the past 10 years my achievement hunting has fallen far short of what I expected to be. Not in part because I do not like going for the achievements, I always have and always will, but mainly due to the implementation that Steam has decided to go with. The lack of a discernible noise when unlocking an achievement and the downright awkward placement in the lower right-hand corner makes it extremely easy to miss them all together. Coupled with the lack of any points score or implementation into leveling your profile on steam, it has made the achievement collection progress dead last, just barely above Nintendo’s lack thereof achievements.

Below I have given a lot of time and thought into not only the achievement system, but the leveling system, the trading card system, and the potential for abusing these mechanics. Steam is currently the #1 platform for gaming. It is time that they took it more seriously.

Achievements Rework

Achievements don’t need a drastically huge design change. But there are glaring issues that do need to be addressed.
- Global sound when an achievement is unlocked.
- Move the placement of the achievement unlocked icon to the center bottom of the screen.
- Grant a small amount of experience towards your steam level for each achievement unlocked. Large boost when 100%ing the game.
That is truly all that really needs to be done on the achievement side of things.

Card Drop / Steam Levels Rework

The steam card drops, and trading was a great idea to get the community interacting with one another. Sadly, this system failed miserably and led way to the very wealthy and exploiters gaining the most out of this. As we know from 100s of games. If you can buy something with real life currency, then the prestige just goes away.

- Get rid of the limit current limit on cards you can earn and max it out at the ability to earn all cards to craft 5 full badges.
- Implement diminishing returns on time drops for cards limit the drops for these to half of the cards needed to create 2 badges.
- Implement card drops for certain achievements / milestones in the game. 100% the game gives you the rest of the card drops you have yet to achieve, while earning a rare achievement will get you a drop.
- Remove the ability to sell the cards on the marketplace for cash and only allow a 1 to 1 trade or remove trading all together. The latter is my preferred option.
- Cap the seasonal badges to 100.
- Lower the XP required for levels.
- Restart at 0 for all steam users, with new level designs, provide a badge of the level you obtained prior to the restart.

Exploiters / Abusers / Misc

- The most difficult thing right now would be the users who want to exploit the system for their own personal gain by cheating in achievements. We have a few solutions for this.
1. Send out cease and desists to developers of these specific programs.
2. Creation of software that detects cheating.
3. Create a group of volunteers that will take user reports on someone’s profile and vote to determine if cheating has taken place.
4. Ignore them and remove high profile cheaters when applicable. At the end of the day, it is them and them alone who know they didn’t earn anything legit.

- There are however quite a few easily identifiable cases. Users with 100s of 100%’ed games that have 1000’s of hours on them.

- What about the people who spent tens of thousands of dollars on leveling their profile?
- In a lot of the cases they abused systems that were not intentional to get a huge boost in levels. There are however a few people who have just spent the money and unfortunately as with everything in the world, things change. They knew going into these purchases that something might happen to the leveling system.

Closing Thoughts

- There is no scenario in this list where Steam doesn’t lost money. The system that they designed was to be as predatory as possible to earn as much money as they could. It is not consumer friendly, it promotes abuse, exploitation, and hacking.
- While these ideas are a long shot it is what I and many believe Steam needs to do in order to continue to be not only the de facto platform on the PC, but the largest in the gaming community as a whole.

[Supafly]

1. Achievements ain't gonna happen. Valve really couldn't care less because they know it's rather easy to pop them with non official means. Achievements to level = the hoards of people using SAM to unlock them. Along with blatant achievement games that pop 100+ just for walking across the screen in first 60 seconds.

2. Card drops are like that o encourage you to trade and/or sell/buy them.
Time = people just idle for longer
As for tied to achievements see 1 above
Remove selling? Get stuffed. I never trade them. Can't be arsed with the searching and the offers and stuff. I sell EVERY single card and buy what I want. If you don't want to BUY/sell them that's your choice. Do not go striping that away from the rest of us.
De-level? Seriously that ain't gonna happen. People have spent years leveling their accounts. They'll all be pissed at being 0

Jack up the xp required for leveling.

Exploiters / Abusers / Misc

1. Cease and desists? Not all devs on Steam for modifying Achievements.
2. Already anti cheat. VAC is just one of them. Devs can choice to use it, other anticheats, make their own.
3. Overwatch for games like CSGO


Assumptions based on 0 facts

Don't like the market system. Don't use it. What you're suggesting is like preventing my local shop from selling certain things because you and maybe a few others don't like it. You are not required to partake in it. Just don't use it.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zaerick:

- While these ideas are a long shot it is what I and many believe Steam needs to do in order to continue to be not only the de facto platform on the PC, but the largest in the gaming community as a whole.

What you and many believe? Where is the poll or data collection for that claim?

[Zaerick]

Almost the entire gaming community can tell you that steams achievement system is the worst of the 3. As well as their implementation of profiles was horrible. If you have eyes that you can see through its pretty clear.

The system in and of itself never should have been about purchasing of cards and exploitation of seasonal mechanics. It is clear the system has significantly failed to attract a larger interest. Aside from a few dedicate traders and bug spenders the average steam level is quite low.

[Crazy Tiger]

If you think Valve will make changes to trading cards and the market that negatively impact their gold mine, you don't really understand what a business wants.

Options for sounds and notification positions, sure, but only as options. I already miss the toggle to currently disable notifications.

They won't make changes to achievements that will affect card drops or experience or anything. They want to reach the maximum of people and certainly not everybody cares for achievements.

[Zaerick]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crazy Tiger:

If you think Valve will make changes to trading cards and the market that negatively impact their gold mine, you don't really understand what a business wants.

Options for sounds and notification positions, sure, but only as options. I already miss the toggle to currently disable notifications.

They won't make changes to achievements that will affect card drops or experience or anything. They want to reach the maximum of people and certainly not everybody cares for achievements.

No I understand the cash cow behind it. I don't agree with it though. Just because a company can doesn't mean they should.

Not now not in 5 years or 10 years but steam won't last with their inherently greedy style.

[Supafly]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zaerick:

Almost the entire gaming community can tell you that steams achievement system is the worst of the 3.

Yes and as I said Valve doesn't care because it's so easy to get them without actually achieving them. It was literally the first thing I said.

[Supafly]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zaerick:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crazy Tiger:

If you think Valve will make changes to trading cards and the market that negatively impact their gold mine, you don't really understand what a business wants.

Options for sounds and notification positions, sure, but only as options. I already miss the toggle to currently disable notifications.

They won't make changes to achievements that will affect card drops or experience or anything. They want to reach the maximum of people and certainly not everybody cares for achievements.

No I understand the cash cow behind it. I don't agree with it though. Just because a company can doesn't mean they should.

Not now not in 5 years or 10 years but steam won't last with their inherently greedy style.

You're trying to strip something YOU dislike. others and myself don't care. I'd much rather a quick sale or purchase than mess around trading. You idea is like saying your a strict Vegan and want the Meat and Dairy banned from our local stops because you and a few others don't agree. Like that wouldn't end well. Stripping OUR free will to decide how do something.

Tell you what I'll agree to no selling/buying. But that entails also blocking the market. Stopping all the card drops. No trading what so ever. It's either buy/sell AND trade or nothing

[Nx Machina]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zaerick:

Almost the entire gaming community can tell you that steams achievement system is the worst of the 3.

Citation needed.

Secondly your lack of achievements is directly attributable to you because if you truely were a hunter, a small sound would have no relevance at all to gaining them.

And finally, someone using SAM or idlers does not affect you directly, neither would someone ordering a pizza with pineapple on it whom you do not know.

[DESTROYER]

I actually think Steam has the best achievement system since they don't force it upon devs and it's funny to see people act like large majorities of folks playing games on Steam actually care enough about achievements they they fell compelled to cheat to get them (and that's just with SAM and completely ignoring downloading save files or using Cheat Engine/etc) when in reality like on every other gaming platform most people don't care much at all about them. Feel comfortable with your own accomplishments.

[tyl0413]

Just take one moment to think about how EA Origin has a significantly better achievement system than Steam.

[Nx Machina]

Oprindeligt skrevet af tyl0413:

Just take one moment to think about how EA Origin has a significantly better achievement system than Steam.

Does it? What exactly is better about it?

[tyl0413]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Nx Machina:

Oprindeligt skrevet af tyl0413:

Just take one moment to think about how EA Origin has a significantly better achievement system than Steam.

Does it? What exactly is better about it?

It's basically a copy of the Xbox one. Gamerscore, sound notifications and you can't hack it in two clicks.

[DESTROYER]

I like all the achievements being "worth" the same amount/thing and y'all need to stop caring about the few people who somehow care enough about achievements to cheat on them but not enough to earn them legit.

[Nx Machina]

Oprindeligt skrevet af tyl0413:

It's basically a copy of the Xbox one. Gamerscore, sound notifications and you can't hack it in two clicks.

And why does Valve need to update it or adopt it?

There are those who do not care for achievements at all in any shape or form and wish them removed from all platforms.

[DESTROYER]

Same thing I'd like to know but apparently some people feel the need to be nosy busy bodies and can't simply take satisfaction in completing achievements without worrying about if other people are doing them without SAM/trainers/the bazillion other ways you can work around them on PC.

I do think it would be nice to be given the option to hide achievements for those who find the very concept terrible for whatever reason.

[Nx Machina]

Oprindeligt skrevet af DESTROYER:

Same thing I'd like to know but apparently some people feel the need to be nosy busy bodies and can't simply take satisfaction in completing achievements without worrying about if other people are doing them without SAM/trainers/the bazillion other ways you can work around them on PC.

I do think it would be nice to be given the option to hide achievements for those who find the very concept terrible for whatever reason.

Because for some unknown reason feel the need to judge others based on a criteria they set as though it is gospel when it comes to achievements.

I agree in been able to hide achievements for those who see no value in them.