Are there going to be achievements in PoE? Should there?

[Lythe Vodaine]

I had a blast with explosives in F:NV because I was trying to get the explosive achievement.

 

Hahaha! Yeah, some achievements in F:NV where real great. I even killed Caesar with a knife, just to get the achievement.

 

But I agree with others here that many achievements in games feel more like waypoints than achievements -- maybe Steam should offer two kinds of "achievements", waypoints and real achievements?

Edited January 8, 2014 by Lythe Vodaine

[Unclean]

 

I don't like pop up achievments when playing games, especially not when i want to immerse myself in a rpg. As long as they don't pop up when you are playing i can live with them.

You might as well complain about experience point notifications, how are those immersive? When you read a book do you get notified about how much experience you gained for reading for an hour? Achievement notifications are part and parcel if you're playing a non-GOG version of a game.

 

 

 

 

When a third party program pops a square in my face to tell me i killed 40 ghouls (...) i get annoyed. Experience points makes me happy.

[teknoman2]

if the game deserves a second play, i like to have achievements to give me ideas on how to change my play style for a different experience, or just for comletionisms sake

if there are none, i dont really mind

if there are but i dont think the game is worth a second play, i may have more than half still locked, i just wont play it for their sake

[Ebi]

I'll play the GoG version and I would be glad not to see any achievements ingame.

Stats and experience points are worse enough but needed. But achievements aren't needed really. I'm not a child in the age of four, where the parents always say "oh, you did fiiine!"

I do understand that developers like the feedback, which achievements give to them, and I understnad that some people need achievements (don't know why), but there's no reason to show them in the game, where they are extremely disturbing.

[newbl]

There are kickstarter achievements. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

If there are as fun as Dishonored's, I'm all game.

[Osvir]

 Bastion's achievements are just "Completed X Level"/"Completed X Level at X/Y Difficulty" with a different name. And also "Fully upgrade every weapon."

I lost track of this thead. But Bastion's achievements were rewarding, they gave something in return (Coin that is). However, I did think it was a little bit odd that you had an in-game achievement mechanic in the "Build" system (The Vigil that I mentioned) and it also had Steam achievements copy+pasted. The same achievements you unlocked in-game, you also achieved out-of-game (in Steam).

 

The point I wanted to make with Bastions mid-tier achievements were that they were rewarding in-game, the actual achievements in themselves are rather uninteresting and fairly simple to get (as you say "Max out this weapon" etc.etc.), then there were like... 6(?) high-skill/challenge Steam only achievements (another form of "rewarding").

 

EDIT: Then again, Bastion is a really good game in itself (with or without the achievements).

Edited January 17, 2014 by Osvir

[physicalist]

I'll be honest, I like achievements. Not the really tedious sort like "Start the game 1000 times", of course. But all in all, I think they'll make me want to play PoE more.

[Greensleeve]

I like having achievements as milestones of my progress through a game, and to widen my gameplay horizons, as others here have said. 

 

That said, I don't really care too much either way regarding achievements, and I will probably get the gog.com version of PoE. 

[SophosTheWise]

I don't really care. I never understood the appeal of playing a game over and over just to get a tick on a list. I mean, what's the big deal? I play my games and if I get achievements... okay. But I really don't care. And I would never ever ever ever times infinity play some missions over and over to get some "achievement".

[Lephys]

*shrug*. Sometimes they're nice. But... you've achieved whatever you've achieved, regardless of whether or not it was coded into a system as a triggered popup message.

[Reever]

Honestly? I'm not necessarily obsessive in trying to get them, but when I see I'm missing some, THEN I'll get obsessive xD So I'd rather not have them, please? For my sanity? And my time management? Pretty please? :D

[Ffordesoon]

You folks who don't like achievement popups should know you can tell Steam not to notify you when you get an achievement.

 

As for notifications within the in-game UI, yes, those should always be toggleable. The frequency of those notifications can also be a pain in the ass. If you're getting notified every time you kill five enemies ("5/75 Enemies Killed With Spear!), that's too much. On the other hand, some players seem to like that constant reinforcement.

 

I suggest a toggle that allows you to turn achievement notifications on and off. If you have that checked to on, a small menu that allows you to set the frequency of achievement progress notifications should appear.

 

Dunno how feasible this is, but what I'd like to see at that point is a super-granular set of options that messes with more than one factor. I'd like to see a drop-down menu that goes from "never notify me of my progress" all the way to "notify me of my progress every single time I progress towards an achievement."

 

So, running with my spear example, if I pick "never notify me of my progress," I will recieve a popup notification only when I get the "Kill 75 dudes with a spear!" achievement, and will never see a popup informing me of my progress. If I pick "always notify me of my progress," every single time I kill a dude with a spear, a popup notification will appear. In between the two extremes, there's "notify me every five times I progress toward an achievement," "notify me every ten times," etc.

 

That's my pie-in-the-sky pitch, but I understand if that level of sand-grain-counting hyper-obsessive-compulsive granularity is more trouble than it's worth. In that case, just let us set it by increments of five and turn it off entirely, just like we can with the achievement popup itself.

 

...Good lord, I sound like a maniac in this post. I'm not even sure if any of what I just said made sense.

[Lephys]

...Good lord, I sound like a maniac in this post. I'm not even sure if any of what I just said made sense.

*puts his ear up to the screen*...

 

... Ehh, I dunno. I can't really tell.

 

Also, it did make sense, for what that's worth.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

...Good lord, I sound like a maniac in this post. I'm not even sure if any of what I just said made sense.

*puts his ear up to the screen*...

 

... Ehh, I dunno. I can't really tell.

 

Also, it did make sense, for what that's worth.

 

No, none of it made sense and he should be ashamed of it, for he has shamed his parents, his children, his wife, his country, his whol-

 

* FlintlockJazz has been killed by falling bridge *

 

* Party gains 2xp *

Edited January 22, 2014 by FlintlockJazz

[Hassat Hunter]

Steam *Requires* achievements... so that they are available is a given.

 

Like others I prefer they are kept entirely out of the game (I have Steam overlay disabled) and not show x/x ingame like Dragon Age did.

I don't mind it that much in Saint's Row 3/4 since they actually give ingame bonusses when achieved, but I don't really want to see "kill 75 enemies, get 10 gold coins/some XP" in PE.

 

That would just be making objective XP pointless since it's really just the same as combat XP, but disguised.

[Greensleeve]

Steam *Requires* achievements... so that they are available is a given.

 

Like others I prefer they are kept entirely out of the game (I have Steam overlay disabled) and not show x/x ingame like Dragon Age did.

I don't mind it that much in Saint's Row 3/4 since they actually give ingame bonusses when achieved, but I don't really want to see "kill 75 enemies, get 10 gold coins/some XP" in PE.

 

That would just be making objective XP pointless since it's really just the same as combat XP, but disguised.

 

I'm pretty sure Steam doesn't require achievements at all. There's plenty of games without achievements on Steam. So that they're available wouldn't be a given, if not for the fact that Obsidian said there would be achievements on the Steam version. 

[Hassat Hunter]

They are required.

The only non-achievement games on Steam would be older games.

 

Modern games *need*  them to be allowed on Steam, it's true...

[Gila]

Are there any particular requirements as to what the achievements need to be like though? For example, To the Moon which is sort of a borderline game anyway only has one achievement, which I think you get for completing the story.

[Hassat Hunter]

Not that I know.

I just know each new game on Steam *has* to have them, it's pretty much well-known (or so I thought) I was surprised it surprised people or people thought it wasn't true.

[Ieo]

Since I'm not getting PE from Steam, it's irrelevant to me. If they're required for Steam, then I'm sure they'll be easy checkboxes to implement in the game. I suppose it's just a matter of immersion-breaking popups and whatever.

 

That said, I dislike the concept of achievements in SP games, period. Ignoring the whole tracking-the-player bit (ugh), "achievements" are, in a sense, another type of motivational content that SP games shouldn't need; on the other hand, in an MMO I play, there are lots of in-game achievements along with those bell-ringing popups. I don't mind them in MMOs because the play is completely different from SP--it's additional "content" in the MMO genre when quests are always linear and without impact to any storyline (whether one treats achievements as bragging rights or for OCD completism). 

[Labadal]

Shadowrun Returns does not have achievements. Neither does Iron Brigade, GTA IV Expansions, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Penny Arcade 3 & 4, FTL.

 

I wasn't really aware there needed to be achievements for games on Steam.

[Greensleeve]

Not that I know.

I just know each new game on Steam *has* to have them, it's pretty much well-known (or so I thought) I was surprised it surprised people or people thought it wasn't true.

 

...

 

Shadowrun Returns doesn't have a single achievement on Steam. 

 

Ninja'd by like two days. I really should've just read another two damn posts before posting this. 

Edited January 27, 2014 by Greensleeve

[Lephys]

...

 

Shadowrun Returns doesn't have a single achievement on Steam. 

 

Ninja'd by like two days. I really should've just read another two damn posts before posting this.

*Pats you on back*...

 

It happens.

[Greensleeve]

 

...

 

Shadowrun Returns doesn't have a single achievement on Steam. 

 

Ninja'd by like two days. I really should've just read another two damn posts before posting this.

*Pats you on back*...

 

It happens.

 

 

Well, if it starts happening too often, you'll have to move over and let me adopt that avatar.