Do you collect achievements/Trophies?

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I used to be a massive achievement whore. Now I pretty much just play for fun. Too many hours were wasted playing games I did not enjoy just for easy gamerscore.

But I might go back to it someday. Who knows?

MMORPGs have become cheevo-dominated. It isn't enough to have your character explore a fictional world, battle a few monsters, and re-spawn when it dies. Now it has to acquire merit badges for everything from building a campfire to staying logged on for the longest time.

Don't get me started on players that pay cash money to the game designers in return for top-of-the-line badass armor and weapons instead of grinding for them like the rest of us.

Yeah, I know all about how those go.

I especially despise the rise of free-to-play/pay-to-win gaming.

When its a game I really like- I will try to get them a little more. Other than that- I don't care about them much. In my view they are just tacked on nonsense to add more replay value to a game. A majority of them are useless and grindy. If a game is fun, I will play it more than once because I enjoy playing it. I don't need forced replay value in the form of achievements and trophies. Also- at times it feels like the game maker is trying to tell the gamer what to do, rather than the gamer thinking for themselves. Pretty lame.

One big issue I have with achievements and trophies- online games. If I buy an older online game, its likely the servers arent around anymore.. so the online-only stuff is impossible to get many times. I think in these cases, they need to remove the online trophies and achievements.. so people still can get 100 percent.

If a gamer wants to spend money to get armor and weapons- that's their choice. Game makers have options for the lazy gamers. Nothing wrong with it really. Everyone shouldn't have to play a game the same way. Ignore it and move on.

I go for trophies in games I like where I'm able, but for me, finishing a game's trophy list is like filling in something of a digital sticker album. Unlocking them is mostly just something distracting to do that passes time, and is also my only traceable active online footprint offered to people who know me, or have known me.

On Steam - 239 games (some are free to play, mods, or don't have achievements at all), 201 games purchased on Steam, 2311 Achievements I've gotten over the course of six years, 7 games where I've gotten ALL achievements, and 38% the average game completion rate - as of this posting.

Actually, for that last bit, there IS something wrong with it.

It can cause genuine imbalances, gameplay issues, and bad situations (let's not even speak about what it does to PvP). It also distorts groups, making it REALLY hard for those WITHOUT money to keep up with those that HAVE money (in other words, it causes groups to forcibly split up, which is a big problem in guilds). As someone that's played more MMORPGs than I can count, I cant even overstate just how BAD it can get. It's a game-ruiner.

Now, if a developer wants to allow you to buy COSMETIC things? Like, items for your in-game house, or maybe a cool new mount (that is statistically the same as normal mounts)? That's fine. That has zero effect on gameplay. It does literally nothing aside from look nice.

But the moment it starts affecting gameplay is when things start going horribly wrong. I've never once encountered an exception to this. Not.... once.

There's a huge difference between "free to play" and "pay to win". The first is fine. The second is not.


Now as for my own stance on achievements and things like that in games? Screw them. I get nothing out of them. Most of them involve... no actual skill, so what's the point? It's hardly an "achievement". And you get people in multiplayer games that absolutely will make total morons of themselves and screw things up for others JUST because "GOTTA GET THE CHEEVOS".

I wish the damn idea had never infected gaming. I'll go out of my way to avoid getting the things just on general principle in some cases.

As far as achievements requiring "no skill".....

I dont mean that *all* of them require no skill.

But ones that do require it (as opposed to "you found the really obvious hidden gold gnome of destiny!" or "You've shot 1000 ninjas over the combined course of all the hours you put into the game!" or absolutely any conceivable thing involving grinding) are very rare. Most are just "do really easy arbitrary thing", and that's it. Because we cant have gamers not feeling like winners, can we? They might not buy the next 30 sequels if they cant get all the achievements because they're too hard. Bah.

I find it fun to hunt achievements on games but I don't make a point to get them all, just the ones I want. I like games that have them but I only own a few games that I have done all the achievements on including Resident Evil 4 and Never Alone. I think they are cool to have but I don't take them too seriously. I have to admit that there is a good feeling that goes along with killing a very hard boss and having that little achievement unlocked message appear.

It adds to the completeness feel of a game for me to have achievements,

I used to take my Shadow Priest on raids in WoW. At first, I would offer to act as healer for for parties wearing some of the wickedest-looking armor and wielding the nastiest-looking melee weapons, only to find out that most of those people had no clue about strategy, tactics, or even which button to push to change weapons.

Imagine being on a basketball team where every player wore five-hundred dollar Connies, silk uniforms, the blingiest bling, and had perfect hair, and then watching them commit every possible foul when they weren't missing open shots or sinking the ball into the opposition's hoop.

Now imagine having people on your raid team who look awesome only when they are standing still, and who are the same ones who die first (and most often) in every battle, leaving only you to either die as well or run a kite of every local monster in the realm! And then you have to put up with them blaming you for the aggro and lost treasure.

No, give me a team of players who understand a little something about battle formation, prioritization of targets, ranged cover, and cooperative melee - THEN I might get back into on-line gaming, and show those cheevo-fixated primadonnas how to EARN their chops.

Hah, good luck with THAT one. This is one (of many) reasons why I stopped playing MMOs; group-based quests/missions/whatever are designed with the expectation of a group made up of members that actually have some idea what they're doing, and well... most players dont.

I suspect alot of them get overly used to JUST doing achievement stuff (which is usually very easy, yet time-consuming) and not going after CHALLENGING stuff until they have to.

I do agree that most games have become far too easy these days.

I can see why things have become that way - there are much larger profits when you can promise the casual gamer the chance to be an invulnerable action hero for a few hours. And easy achievements are the icing on the cake for the casual gamer.

I would rather try to get the Deathsmiles Virtuoso achievement one day..... Or break a controller or two trying..... Heh.

Eh, the Virtuoso achievement isnt all that tough. It's mostly Hades Castle that makes it irritating. One of Cave's infamous difficulty spikes. Also it's just loooooooooooong. Takes bloody forever. But then the boss at the end is... I dunno, he was kinda disappointing. He went down the FIRST time I fought him, which shouldnt happen in a Cave game. Little effort involved.

Best thing you can do to make learning the game easier is to watch some replays of it, see what other players do in the difficult spots to dodge stuff.

I've never really strived to get all of the achievements in a game mostly because there's always a few that are just beyond ridiculous. Having to go through an entire game without getting hit or having to spend hundreds of hours just to collect the things necessary for the achievement.

If I really like the game I might go for all of them, but mostly I play for fun. Have about 58k gamerscore at the moment.