Separate Base Game and DLC Achievements on Steam

[Gijs]

Hello everyone,

I'm not someone who's heavily into achievement hunting, but I do enjoy going for 100% in games I really love. However, I've noticed an issue with how Steam handles achievements.

On Steam, if a game releases DLC with additional achievements, you must own and complete that DLC to maintain a 100% completion status. This can be frustrating, especially when you feel you've already completed the main game.

On PlayStation, there's a system where the base game and DLC trophies are separated. You can earn the Platinum trophy for completing the main game, and any additional trophies from DLC are tracked separately. This approach feels more rewarding and fair for players who may not want to purchase every DLC but still want that sense of accomplishment.

Why doesn't Steam have a similar system? It seems like it wouldn't negatively impact anyone and could encourage more players to aim for 100% completion without feeling pressured to buy every DLC.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

[FFL2and3rocks]

Probably because they didn't think of it at the time and now it's too late to tell every publisher to go back and categorize all of their DLC's achievements for every game they ever released.

[TBS AlexDK]

As far as I've been able to find, it is possible to do but most devs simply add achievements to the base games AppID instead of adding DLC achievements to the DLCs AppID

[Gijs]

Fair enough, but it would still be nice for new releases :)

[William Shakesman]

If any of you find out precisely how to do it, we've had a dev who has been trying for months to figure out how to do it and as far as he knows it is not an option available to devs. Anyone who thinks it can be done, share the how and I'm sure that dev will be thankful. I forget his name but he's a regular here.

[Ben Lubar]

Originally posted by TBS AlexDK:

As far as I've been able to find, it is possible to do but most devs simply add achievements to the base games AppID instead of adding DLC achievements to the DLCs AppID

There is no "Stats & Achievements" tab in the admin panel for a DLC, and there is no API for setting an achievement on a different AppID than the one that is currently running.

[TBS AlexDK]

Originally posted by Ben Lubar:

Originally posted by TBS AlexDK:

As far as I've been able to find, it is possible to do but most devs simply add achievements to the base games AppID instead of adding DLC achievements to the DLCs AppID

There is no "Stats & Achievements" tab in the admin panel for a DLC, and there is no API for setting an achievement on a different AppID than the one that is currently running.

It seems like it is possible to do, tho of cause I don't currently have access to Steamworks, so I cannot try it out myself
https://steamcommunity.com/stats/562260/achievements/
https://steamcommunity.com/stats/635580/achievements/

[Бобок]

Originally posted by TBS AlexDK:

t seems like it is possible to do,

But looks like they only offer to unlock it in the same way SAM works, read the DLC page. Maybe only this example is useless because it’s not with a game content DLC, i think i saw actual playable DLCs with separate achievements.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Gijs:

Hello everyone,

I'm not someone who's heavily into achievement hunting, but I do enjoy going for 100% in games I really love. However, I've noticed an issue with how Steam handles achievements.

If you want 100%, then you 100% ALL the content. There is no issue with how Steam handles achievements. You either have done ALL the content in a game or you have not.

Originally posted by Gijs:

It seems like it wouldn't negatively impact anyone and could encourage more players to aim for 100% completion without feeling pressured to buy every DLC.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

And that's again ignoring the fact that, as the library database is implemented, each and every DLC for each and every game would require a separate entry in the library. Or you would need to rebuild the database from scratch. Uhmm, I believe HFN would be the appropriate response to that.

[Ben Lubar]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Gijs:

Hello everyone,

I'm not someone who's heavily into achievement hunting, but I do enjoy going for 100% in games I really love. However, I've noticed an issue with how Steam handles achievements.

If you want 100%, then you 100% ALL the content. There is no issue with how Steam handles achievements. You either have done ALL the content in a game or you have not.

Originally posted by Gijs:

It seems like it wouldn't negatively impact anyone and could encourage more players to aim for 100% completion without feeling pressured to buy every DLC.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

And that's again ignoring the fact that, as the library database is implemented, each and every DLC for each and every game would require a separate entry in the library. Or you would need to rebuild the database from scratch. Uhmm, I believe HFN would be the appropriate response to that.

In the games I get 100% achievements on, the achievements are generally about experiencing all of the game's content, or maybe about experiencing all of the game's content and doing a few slightly impressive things.

But some games, like Evil Genius 2 which I recently picked up on sale for $6, have achievements that basically boil down to "win the game on hard difficulty four times", where the game isn't substantially different between playthroughs and it takes tens of hours to complete it.

I don't start games with a goal of getting the achievements, but if a game is good enough and has achievements that don't make me want to destroy it forever, I might go for 100% after I do everything I organically find in the game.

[Gijs]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

I was reading this and thought you made a pretty valid point, then I clicked on your profile and saw your profile comments. xdd

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Ben Lubar:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

If you want 100%, then you 100% ALL the content. There is no issue with how Steam handles achievements. You either have done ALL the content in a game or you have not.


I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

And that's again ignoring the fact that, as the library database is implemented, each and every DLC for each and every game would require a separate entry in the library. Or you would need to rebuild the database from scratch. Uhmm, I believe HFN would be the appropriate response to that.

In the games I get 100% achievements on, the achievements are generally about experiencing all of the game's content, or maybe about experiencing all of the game's content and doing a few slightly impressive things.

But some games, like Evil Genius 2 which I recently picked up on sale for $6, have achievements that basically boil down to "win the game on hard difficulty four times", where the game isn't substantially different between playthroughs and it takes tens of hours to complete it.

I don't start games with a goal of getting the achievements, but if a game is good enough and has achievements that don't make me want to destroy it forever, I might go for 100% after I do everything I organically find in the game.

The "quality" of achievements is an entirely different ball game that bears discussion in and of itself.

Originally posted by Gijs:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

I was reading this and thought you made a pretty valid point, then I clicked on your profile and saw your profile comments. xdd

Yup, and there's very specific reasons why I have that in my comments, for which your comment is an example.

[peikens]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Gijs:

Hello everyone,

I'm not someone who's heavily into achievement hunting, but I do enjoy going for 100% in games I really love. However, I've noticed an issue with how Steam handles achievements.

If you want 100%, then you 100% ALL the content. There is no issue with how Steam handles achievements. You either have done ALL the content in a game or you have not.

Originally posted by Gijs:

It seems like it wouldn't negatively impact anyone and could encourage more players to aim for 100% completion without feeling pressured to buy every DLC.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

I am a completionist and I find it completely fair that one needs to do ALL the content in a game to get 100%. You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system to pretend to have done 100% of a game's content when they really haven't done 100% of a game's content. You know, maybe Steam should get involved and make sure people can't cheat like that.

And that's again ignoring the fact that, as the library database is implemented, each and every DLC for each and every game would require a separate entry in the library. Or you would need to rebuild the database from scratch. Uhmm, I believe HFN would be the appropriate response to that.

You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system

proceeds to cheat in video games

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Gijs:

I was reading this and thought you made a pretty valid point, then I clicked on your profile and saw your profile comments. xdd

Yup, and there's very specific reasons why I have that in my comments, for which your comment is an example.

Originally posted by peikens:

You know what I find unfair? Those who want to "cheat" and manipulate the system

proceeds to cheat in video games

And ditto for this comment.
(Psst, here's a little secret for everyone: you know that famous Leroy Jenkins video clip? It's fake. The video was staged. The event it portrays actually never happened.)

Here's another point to ponder, why should someone get to have 100% for a game without the DLC content when someone else got a true 100% by doing it with all the extra content?

[HikariLight]

DLC is still part of the game.
If you only have the base game and not the DLC then you cannot get all the achievements.
It makes sense as the DLC is part of the whole game.
If you want games that don't have DLC, then go play those achievement shovelware games that are only for booting achievement counts.