New Achievements System

[Chack]

Hello, I see some people, myself included, like getting achievements from time to time, so I thought the whole achievements system could use an overhaul since compared to other platforms it feels lacking. Here are some of my suggestions:

- Points System: Different achievement would grant you points depending on how difficuly they are to get. Ex: 1p, 5p 10p etc (Also I guess you could apply 1p to all achievements for games not supported or unavailable)
- You get a specific badge with your total achievement points, the xp you get doesn't change depending on how many points you have, to avoid exploits.
- Maybe a better showcase for Perfected Games (Could also get a badge specific for this as well)
- Something I'd personally like is to clarify in someway when an achievement is locked behind a specific DLC.


That's all I can think of. If you think of something else please comment. Thanks for reading ♥

[Sazzouu]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

Cheaters in CS:GO affect others in the same game as them. A Game in which all participants have agreed to abide by certain rules.

Achievements... are not like that. This is basically opne group of people playing by their own made up rules insisting that everyone else most play aong by their rules and that people not playing along is ruining their fun.

There's a difference.

Wrong. Achievements share global statistic which affect appearance on profiles for example and desirability among the community.

Therefore cheating them can cause desireable achievements being less desireable and can even cause developers to "Troll cheaters" by adding intentionally unobtainable achievements to their game in order to track them down which also breaks this game for fair players. Thats just exaples about how cheating achievements makes people that care about achievements (which actually is a huge portion) react about them being cheated.

So yeah there are your effects on same-game-players

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

It's only cheating if all parties agreed to the rules. If a party did not, then it's not cheating.

Now what kind of bluntness is this? Right then I do not agree to the fact that having a machine doing aiming for me is cheating if it was me implementing it. So basically I am the new superstar of CS:GO then and it is all legit because I did not agree on the rules.

[Start_Running]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

Cheaters in CS:GO affect others in the same game as them. A Game in which all participants have agreed to abide by certain rules.

Achievements... are not like that. This is basically opne group of people playing by their own made up rules insisting that everyone else most play aong by their rules and that people not playing along is ruining their fun.

There's a difference.

Wrong. Achievements share global statistic which affect appearance on profiles for example and desirability among the community.

Yes. But how one gets that achievemnt has no effect on anyone else who gets that achievement. If it does well then thats a YOU problem. I didn't agree to play by your rules.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Therefore cheating them can cause desireable achievements being less desireable and can even cause developers to "Troll cheaters" by adding intentionally unobtainable achievements to their game in order to track them down which also breaks this game for fair players.

So you're admitting that devs who want to punish cheaters have the means to do so. If they deem it to be something worth punnishing.

Also why does someone else getting an achievement by using Noclip ruin it for someone who did it the poroper way. If the idea of someone else getting it in a way you couldn't, didn't think of doing makes it less desirable.. then that's a you problem. That's like saying that knowing people eat their oreos by dunking them in BBQ sauce ruins Oreos for you.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Thats just exaples about how cheating achievements makes people that care about achievements (which actually is a huge portion) react about them being cheated.[/qyuote]
Theres caring about achievements and then there's obsessing over how other people get THEIR achievements.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

It's only cheating if all parties agreed to the rules. If a party did not, then it's not cheating.

Now what kind of bluntness is this? Right then I do not agree to the fact that having a machine doing aiming for me is cheating if it was me implementing it. So basically I am the new superstar of CS:GO then and it is all legit because I did not agree on the rules.

Then you should not have been in the game. OPr at least on that particular server. If you go onto a server with VAC you are tacitly accepting the rules of that server. Break it and the server owner is within their rights to kic/ban. granted you can probably fine custome servers out there that consider that the standard mode of play.

And that's fine.

Just like there are third party sites that will allow you to have whatever measuring competition with other people of likeminded interest. Devs as you have already statred have means of tracking and if need be punishing the people who cheat their cheevos. Buut funnily enough they do not. Because they don't give a crap about how you get the cheevos.




As said. If how someone else who doesn't even know you exist gets their achievement is enough to make it less desirable. Then really it was never about the achievment for you.

[BJWyler]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

It's the devs product. it's the devs cheevos. They decide how they manage it.

And it's Valve's system feature, and Valve advises game devs on its correct use. Doesn't mean you, a random user, can come along and tell them otherwise and compel them to use it a different way.

But ultimately, it is still up to each developer to use the tools as provided by Valve. If they don't, or use them incorrectly, then that ultimately falls on the devs and not Valve. I don't think it's Valve's place to force devs to use tools that they don't want to use.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

It is, but nonetheless, it has a negative affect on achievement hunting and any system that would be tied to it. Whether it be spamming games, broken achievements that devs can't or won't fix, or impossible achievements that are simply poorly designed ones. They all have an affect on this system.

And we already have all of these, courtesy of game devs that put them there.

But they don't affect the achievements from games whose devs do care about achievement quality and game design.

Of course, but it does have a negative affect on the overall system, as we already see, without Valve implementing their own hunting system.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Then there's really no point to implementing it, is there?

The same could be said of the whole achievement system...and even of playing videogames in the first place.

The point is entertainment for those people who want to entertain themselves with such.

You can make an argument that there are benefits to gaming outside of pure entertainment. And for those who wish to put a higher value upon achievements for their own entertainment can already do so without Valve legitimizing it further.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

It's not that they will generate complaints, but they certainly do generate other problems, which we already see without an official Steam system implemented.

Huh? There already is an "official Steam system" for achievements. Changing the point values doesn't generate any new problems -- heck, not even any more complaints about achievement point value, given that we already have complaints about that too, such as this thread.

We have a system that allows users to obtain and track progress of achievements for the games they own. But that's not quite the same as a system that is designed for the modus operandi of the Achievement Hunter as we see on third party sites. Third pary sites that is a completely voluntary process to join. I beg to differ if you don't think complaints about achievements (broken, impossible, and cheating) will not substantially increase if Valve decides to legitimize hunting proper by implementing an in-house system.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And you may notice that I did not endorse WhatZit's post.

I disagree with asking Steam to "secure" the achievement system against cheating. Heck, I've actually said in the past that Steam should just implement SAM-like features so that people can manually unlock and re-lock their achievements anytime they want.

Like you (I think? correct me if I'm wrong about you), I see achievements as, from the player's point of view, personal markers of achievement. And I disagree with proposals to force other people to enjoy games only in ways that other people approve of -- including both the idea of forcing anti-cheat onto all games just to secure the achievement system and the opinion of telling others they're wrong for wanting some way of differentiating achievements based on difficulty or some proxy thereof (e.g. rarity).

And, in a bit of relevance to where the conversation has headed at this point, what I've mentioned -- letting players unlock and re-lock achievements on their own (in addition to the game's doing it automatically as games already currently do) -- means that players can then re-lock and re-unlock achievements on their own, even if they're not a feature built into the game.

I agree on our views of achievements, and having an in-house system of managing them so people don't have to rely on SAM to do so. But, the achievement hunter sees things differently, as the example post I quoted shows. These types of people will see Valve implementing an in-house system as validation that their viewpoint is the correct one, and give them more fuel for their fires. Which would make legitimizing what SAM does even more problematic than it is now.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wolf:

Steam achievement manager would defeat this. But if valve ban people for steam achievement manager then achievements would be actually good on steam.

SAM does not actually defeat the OP's purpose. It only does so in the mind of the achievement hunter. The fact that third party sites operate without issue for the achievement hunter show that a system can work even when cheating does occur. Banning would not be good because you are then forcing one viewpoint of achievements upon everyone, even those who don't see achievements the same way.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Wrong. Achievements share global statistic which affect appearance on profiles for example and desirability among the community.

And that's why we have the current problems we have right now with people putting more value on achievements than they really have and trying to force their viewpoint upon others. There is no way to opt out of the global stats as far as I know for those who do not wish to participate.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Therefore cheating them can cause desireable achievements being less desireable

Which is a "you" problem so to speak. Cheating achievements, whether it be with SAM, or one of the myriad other ways to cheat them has zero effect on how any one person can obtain the achievement. The number of people who obtain any particular achievement only affects the desirability in someone's own mind. And that's not anyone else's problem.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

and can even cause developers to "Troll cheaters" by adding intentionally unobtainable achievements to their game in order to track them down which also breaks this game for fair players. Thats just exaples about how cheating achievements makes people that care about achievements (which actually is a huge portion) react about them being cheated.

So yeah there are your effects on same-game-players

And that's a dev problem. Not a problem with anything else. Devs can make impossible achievements with or without cheating (the Garry achievement, playing only during Early Access achievements, etc.). If devs want to prevent achievement cheating in their game, they already have the ability to do so, by making unlocking them a server side operation.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Sazzouu:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

It's only cheating if all parties agreed to the rules. If a party did not, then it's not cheating.

Now what kind of bluntness is this? Right then I do not agree to the fact that having a machine doing aiming for me is cheating if it was me implementing it. So basically I am the new superstar of CS:GO then and it is all legit because I did not agree on the rules.

No. When you play a multi-player match, you agree to the rules of that match when you join. Just like when someone joins an Achievement Hunting site, they agree to abide by the rules of that site or get banned. When someone joins Steam, they don't agree to the viewpoint of the achievement hunter.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And it's Valve's system feature, and Valve advises game devs on its correct use. Doesn't mean you, a random user, can come along and tell them otherwise and compel them to use it a different way.

But ultimately, it is still up to each developer to use the tools as provided by Valve. If they don't, or use them incorrectly, then that ultimately falls on the devs and not Valve. I don't think it's Valve's place to force devs to use tools that they don't want to use.

The topic of this particular little thread of conversation is brian9824 pointing out that achievement resetting functionality exists, for game devs, which is accompanied by documentation indicating that it's meant for use during development. My comment was observing that Valve can provide technical guidance for using this outside of development (which echoes Eiswolfin's reply to brian9824) -- and it was a reply to Start_Running who basically took what brian9824 said and went back to his usual position that game devs get to do anything they want on Steam, thereby absolving Valve of responsibility to do anything that people in this forum suggest.

Sorry if this was a bit hard to follow.

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And we already have all of these, courtesy of game devs that put them there.

But they don't affect the achievements from games whose devs do care about achievement quality and game design.

Of course, but it does have a negative affect on the overall system, as we already see, without Valve implementing their own hunting system.

Not sure what you mean by Valve's own "hunting system".

As for the impact of achievement-spamming games, assessing whether they have had a negative impact on the achievement system as a whole...really just depends on how you define things. There are arguments to be made that they are rotten apples spoiling the barrel, or that they're just rotten apples sitting alone not affecting anything else, or that at a macro level they've had zero impact at all since other games continue to offer their own achievements just fine and people continue to use the achievement system as is.

As for broken achievements, there's basically no way to avoid or enforce against them, short of Valve getting into the game code or Valve throwing the games or their achievements off the platform. I doubt Valve wants to do either of those.

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

The same could be said of the whole achievement system...and even of playing videogames in the first place.

The point is entertainment for those people who want to entertain themselves with such.

You can make an argument that there are benefits to gaming outside of pure entertainment. And for those who wish to put a higher value upon achievements for their own entertainment can already do so without Valve legitimizing it further.

Yes, but I also don't see the harm in Valve "legitimizing it further".

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Huh? There already is an "official Steam system" for achievements. Changing the point values doesn't generate any new problems -- heck, not even any more complaints about achievement point value, given that we already have complaints about that too, such as this thread.

We have a system that allows users to obtain and track progress of achievements for the games they own. But that's not quite the same as a system that is designed for the modus operandi of the Achievement Hunter as we see on third party sites. Third pary sites that is a completely voluntary process to join. I beg to differ if you don't think complaints about achievements (broken, impossible, and cheating) will not substantially increase if Valve decides to legitimize hunting proper by implementing an in-house system.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And you may notice that I did not endorse WhatZit's post.

I disagree with asking Steam to "secure" the achievement system against cheating. Heck, I've actually said in the past that Steam should just implement SAM-like features so that people can manually unlock and re-lock their achievements anytime they want.

Like you (I think? correct me if I'm wrong about you), I see achievements as, from the player's point of view, personal markers of achievement. And I disagree with proposals to force other people to enjoy games only in ways that other people approve of -- including both the idea of forcing anti-cheat onto all games just to secure the achievement system and the opinion of telling others they're wrong for wanting some way of differentiating achievements based on difficulty or some proxy thereof (e.g. rarity).

And, in a bit of relevance to where the conversation has headed at this point, what I've mentioned -- letting players unlock and re-lock achievements on their own (in addition to the game's doing it automatically as games already currently do) -- means that players can then re-lock and re-unlock achievements on their own, even if they're not a feature built into the game.

I agree on our views of achievements, and having an in-house system of managing them so people don't have to rely on SAM to do so. But, the achievement hunter sees things differently, as the example post I quoted shows. These types of people will see Valve implementing an in-house system as validation that their viewpoint is the correct one, and give them more fuel for their fires. Which would make legitimizing what SAM does even more problematic than it is now.

Okay now I wonder if we're sorta conflating two different things together with the term "legitimizing" of achievement hunting.

One of them is making achievements "more secure", in terms of implementing stricter anti-cheating measures. This one's nearly impossible given that the PC is fundamentally an open platform.

The other is making achievements "worth more" -- by making them worth different point values, for example, or even by giving further awards outside of the achievement system. I don't think external awards are a good idea -- in part because of the cheating, and in part because they further distort the achievement system into something other than just an achievement system. But I don't see the problem with adding some sort of "achievement points" metric to the achievement system, so long as those achievement points don't do anything beyond just simply marking one's accomplishments with achievements.

Something like what OP described makes sense IMO. It makes the achievements a bit more varied and engaging, but anyone who doesn't want to engage with them isn't missing out on rewards either since there'd be no rewards outside of just an achievement point counter -- which arguably already exists, just without variable "achievement point" values.

So, "achievement hunter" types would get more out of the system, but with no additional impacts on people who don't care about achievements. Sounds like a good idea.

Ursprungligen skrivet av BJWyler:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wolf:

Steam achievement manager would defeat this. But if valve ban people for steam achievement manager then achievements would be actually good on steam.

SAM does not actually defeat the OP's purpose. It only does so in the mind of the achievement hunter. The fact that third party sites operate without issue for the achievement hunter show that a system can work even when cheating does occur. Banning would not be good because you are then forcing one viewpoint of achievements upon everyone, even those who don't see achievements the same way.

Agreed.