Option to turn off achievements

[Snautovich]

GOG Galaxy is going to allow users to turn off achievements, so they are not displayed at all and games can be played for what they are. This I think is a brilliant option - those who don't like achievements and don't want to automatically take part in a competition they did not sign up for could just opt-out, whilst those who like the extra replayability offered by achievements and want to compete with friends could leave it on.

GOG has not yet implemented this, but it is a planned feature. Steam would benefit from something like this as well, what would there be to lose and how could it possibly have a negative impact? It’s a feature that allows the user more freedom of choice and is long overdue across all platforms.

Please post in this thread to show your support for this idea.

[Start_Running]

Bearzor님이 먼저 게시:

I would very much like to disable achievements entirely. I just don't like having tracking or rewards based on how I'm playing my games. I didn't even realize how much it was affecting me until I was playing Switch games and then came back to Steam. I had more fun and less stress with the Switch games because I didn't have any concern over progress or if I should play the game in some way that I was not naturally playing it just to get an achievement.

Ask the game devs. They'd have to implement the feature or disable the feature depending on how it's set up.

And honestly. You can just mentally ignore achievements.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

Bearzor님이 먼저 게시:

I would very much like to disable achievements entirely. I just don't like having tracking or rewards based on how I'm playing my games. I didn't even realize how much it was affecting me until I was playing Switch games and then came back to Steam. I had more fun and less stress with the Switch games because I didn't have any concern over progress or if I should play the game in some way that I was not naturally playing it just to get an achievement.

Ask the game devs. They'd have to implement the feature or disable the feature depending on how it's set up.

And honestly. You can just mentally ignore achievements.

That's an inaccurate picture of how achievements work.

There's the part where the game triggers a flag indicating that the achievement condition has been accomplished.
Then there's the part where the game passes this signal onto Steam.
Then there's the part where Steam records it on the user's profile.
Then there's the part where Steam shows this to the user in a pop-up notification.

By default, the only way to actually ignore achievements on the user's end is to disable the achievement pop-up notification. However, the only way to do that in Steam is to disable the Steam Overlay as a whole, for that game. This is because -- at least last I checked -- Steam doesn't have a separate setting for not displaying achievement notifications via the Overlay.
Obviously, this doesn't work well for players who want the Overlay but don't want the achievement notifications.

It, along with other notification types, would benefit from having a notifications display customizer (by notification type) for all of Steam.

As for recording it on the user's profile, that's the part where, depending on how it's displayed, it may be easier or harder for the user to just ignore its presence. Additionally, if the concern is about how it's used socially as a profile feature, a setting for hiding achievements may be useful.

The part where the game passes the achievement signal onto Steam is particularly interesting. This can be controlled from either end -- from the game passing vs. not passing the signal, and from Steam acknowledging vs. ignoring it. The former basically requires the dev to set up; the latter would be managed from Steam's side (aside from the case where the user runs the game without the Steam client running). This is the part where Steam can, unilaterally and without need for the dev to lift a finger, just ignore achievements (and really ignore them rather than just hiding them).

As for the game side of things, there are a variety of ways, sometimes inconsistent, in which games can manage achievements. They can be permanent state flags that send achievement data to Steam every game launch (or every time the inventory is checked or whatever), or they can be triggered only on certain events. And they may or may not be triggerable repeatedly (with some devs even going so far as to have an achievement wiping feature within the game even when Steam lacks such a feature). All this stuff would be taken care on the dev's end.

(That said, Steam could also make an achievement re-locking feature.)

So, in short, only some of this is stuff that the dev can take care of. Other parts of this are things that Steam can take care of. And exactly how it should be done depends on what the user wants.

[ShoulderBoulder OG]

I would like to reset achievements because a few of my half life ones unlocked out of order and would prefer to not make a new account because of it.

[JPMcMillen]

Z.님이 먼저 게시:

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

Problem is.. maybe you should speak to the devs about that. See. it's likely not easy for steam to simply stop collecting data from the client once it's been set up. Even if the achieves don't pop up in the overlay they'll likely still pop up in the Game's Gui anyway and there's nothing STeam can do about that. That's hard coded into the game itself.

Which devs?
There are too many copmanies making games, it's impossible to ask each of them if they can add such option. Collecting data? I don't really think game developers care that much which achievement was achieved by how many players, those stats are not 100% real anyway because of hacked achievements.
Developers add achievements to their games because they are popular, because most of games have them, not to collect any data.
But that's just my opinion, I can be wrong of course.

The best option would be for Steam to not display the achievements if someone doesn't want to see them. No Steam pop-up, no achievement showing on the games page, no achievement stat page, nothing. The player is still earning them, they are being awarded, and they are counted for global stats, the player just can't see them unless they change their settings in Steam to allow them to be displayed.

[Start_Running]

JPMcMillen님이 먼저 게시:

Z.님이 먼저 게시:

Which devs?
There are too many copmanies making games, it's impossible to ask each of them if they can add such option. Collecting data? I don't really think game developers care that much which achievement was achieved by how many players, those stats are not 100% real anyway because of hacked achievements.
Developers add achievements to their games because they are popular, because most of games have them, not to collect any data.
But that's just my opinion, I can be wrong of course.

The best option would be for Steam to not display the achievements if someone doesn't want to see them.

Turn off the overlay.
But the Cheevos will still show in game regardless.

No Steam pop-up, no achievement showing on the games page, no achievement stat page, nothing.

Which will potentially cause issues when the player decides they do in fact want some cheevos.

As said. The better idea is for it to be a dev thing. Where they can basically just tell the game not to fire off cheevo notifications.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

JPMcMillen님이 먼저 게시:

The best option would be for Steam to not display the achievements if someone doesn't want to see them.

Turn off the overlay.
But the Cheevos will still show in game regardless.

Whether the achievements show in-game depends on the dev.

But as far as displaying achievements goes, there's no reason the pop-ups have to be part of the Overlay.

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

No Steam pop-up, no achievement showing on the games page, no achievement stat page, nothing.

Which will potentially cause issues when the player decides they do in fact want some cheevos.

As said. The better idea is for it to be a dev thing. Where they can basically just tell the game not to fire off cheevo notifications.

I don't see why it can't be both a dev thing and a Steam thing.

As I noted, achievement reporting requires the game telling Steam and Steam listening to the game. It's possible to disable that from either end.

If the player "decides they do in fact want some cheevos" they can just re-enable it from Steam's end. Steam doesn't need to be stuck with only doing things one way.

[JPMcMillen]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

JPMcMillen님이 먼저 게시:

The best option would be for Steam to not display the achievements if someone doesn't want to see them.

Turn off the overlay.
But the Cheevos will still show in game regardless.

No Steam pop-up, no achievement showing on the games page, no achievement stat page, nothing.

Which will potentially cause issues when the player decides they do in fact want some cheevos.

As said. The better idea is for it to be a dev thing. Where they can basically just tell the game not to fire off cheevo notifications.

The player still earns the achievements, it's just the Steam client and website would not display them. Then if the player either changes their mind, or just wants to take a quick peek, they could turn the filter off.

Otherwise you have to get the developers involved, as turning them back on later would either cause the game to suddenly award all the achievements you had earned next time you play, or you would never be able to earn them if the game was programmed to award them only at the time they were earned.

[apLundell]

People have been asking for a way to disable achievement notifications for years. They know we want it.

And we know it's technically possible because you can kinda do it now ... ... by editing steam's .css files. Which Steam helpfully reverts next time it starts up.

So they know we want it, and it's basically 90% implemented already.... very frustrating that they won't finish off this feature.

If a game is horror or really story-driven, I've started buying it on Epic and using the "Add Non-Steam game to library". That way I can still play it on my SteamLink, but I'm not pestered by stupid pop-ups.

[ShoulderBoulder OG]

I want them removed because I don’t want to be labeled as a cheater just because I have a few unlocked out of order or it glitched and unlocked 2 at the same time.

[Aachen]

James Sunderland님이 먼저 게시:

I want them removed because I don’t want to be labeled as a cheater just because I have a few unlocked out of order or it glitched and unlocked 2 at the same time.

Seems the sort of opinion that can be safely discarded. That’s some rather weak, non-specific “evidence” of cheating, after all.

[Start_Running]

James Sunderland님이 먼저 게시:

I want them removed because I don’t want to be labeled as a cheater just because I have a few unlocked out of order or it glitched and unlocked 2 at the same time.

Dude. Do you really think anyone else pays that much attention to achievements?

[Razztazz]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

James Sunderland님이 먼저 게시:

I want them removed because I don’t want to be labeled as a cheater just because I have a few unlocked out of order or it glitched and unlocked 2 at the same time.

Dude. Do you really think anyone else pays that much attention to achievements?

Surely everyone who visits his profile looks at every single achievement...

[DESTROYER]

Clearly they read this forum too much and see whiners like Foxdude mope about how SAM is ruining achievement integrity or whatever such nonsense when in fact most people don't care about them in the first place, and that includes using various tools to unlock them.

[Start_Running]

I wouldn't say don't care but most see it as something to challenge themselves, or they see it pop up under a friend in their feed an become aware of it and maybe think. "TOh. Neat. Imma try that."

Most don't ibnvest any degree of self-worth in it.

[DESTROYER]

Fair enough, I should say most don't care all that much to aim for full achievement completion, at least for everything they play. Really no different from consoles though.