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Do achievements take away from Gameplay?


RuggersAssassin
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Achievements with relation to RPG's take away from the gameplay, for example, Fallout 3. I've just started playing it and to be honest, I'm not too enamoured with it, and as such I'm playing through once, and once only. To make this possible, I'm staying good the entire time, and then killing people/stealing when the time comes for the level achievements.

 

If it wasn't for these achievements, I'd run about the place being a delinquent individual, so in this instance, achievements have taken away from the gameplay/affected my approach to the game.

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I can relate to this topic, it have happend me with some games that after I got 1k on them I don't play them anymore, which is pretty dumb, but still I do it, and sometimes I dont give a crap about the game story-wise and just go for getting achievements, but from now on I have promised myself to improve on that, for myself, because I want to and achievement hunting aren't that fun anymore.

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Getting all the achievements in a game doesn't means that you have completed the game aswell.

 

Usually what I do is to play the game the way I want first without caring about the achievements and after that trying to earn the rest that have left or you can do it the other way aswell.

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I get what you mean (even if I struggled to read the biggest wall of text ever lol) I wonder if achievements were around in the past, would I have explored every pixel of Final Fantasy 7 or just played a majority of it and pushed it aside once it was "1k'd"?

 

I do think in someway, achievements have changed the way people game. I can still sit down and play Mario 64, Halo 1, KOTOR, FFX etc... but my girlfriend is always like "is there any gamerscore?" and a lot of people who're young or new to this generation of gaming, seem to play that way too.

 

Other times achievements encourage return gaming - Mass Effect and Left 4 Dead spring to mind. Also encourage people to challenge themselves to play on harder difficulties than they normal would.

 

Bit of a double edged sword really... but there are times I put games back on the shelf once i've 1K'd it, because I have so many others to finish gamerscore wise. Yet without gamerscore, i'd probably play it more often.

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Some games deserve harder achievements like oblivion, I played the game through tones of times for hundreds of hours even well after gaining all the achievements. Some games like mass effect and the orange box, the achievements make you squeeze every drop of gameplay out of the game.

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Don't rush through and get the achievements right away, let them come as you progress naturally. Depending on the game, my first playthrough is explore, take my time, and enjoy it. Then my second will be the mop up where I go for any missed achievements.

 

It isn't that the achievements ruin gameplay, it's how the gamer goes about getting them.

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Yeah OP you sort of have a valid point there. I think that achievements were added to get certain milestones in the game at the start. They were added to see who had the highest GS but not to be played for GS.

I think that nowadays games and DLC all rely on achievements and how much GS they give. Back in the old days this didn't matter. I think we have taken it too far. In most game there are still a lot of things to do after gaining all the achievements, but no-one seems to realise this...

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Ok first I'd like to say that did make sense to me, but I see it like this; I personally enjoy achievements and without them I wouldn't have played three quarters of the games I whored through and maybe five of which I ended up liking. But when you get to the stage where you avoid games because of there hard achievements though you like that game or franshise is when there is a problem. I can see where you're coming from in the sense once you 100% a game you may not want to play it again, however I think that more so depends on the gamer or the quality of the game itself. Anyway that's my two cents for what it's worth. Cheers.

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I think it can work both ways. I'm bored of a game but there's some extra achievements to be had, extra incentive to soldier on.

 

Say I get 500G for 2hours play, but it takes me another 20hours to get the extra 500G, to me that makes me wanna stop playing. It certainly can diminish your enjoyment of games.

 

Either way, I wont try and get an achievement great or small if I won't have fun doing it. But its nice to have something to work towards sometimes.

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Achievements are like gravy to me. It's something additional that adds to the experience of the game. With Oblivion, I love the game and will continue exploring long after I get all the achievements. I either like or do not like a game based on the gameplay experience itself. The achievements are extra awesomeness on top of a game that I already like or love. I do think they can potentially extend the replayablility with some games, such as Mass Effect, Red Dead, etc. To me, achievements are all win, no lose.

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I just feel, especially with Oblivion and it being an RPG its somewhat boring and non rewarding by yourself to go beyond achievements. The whole point of my post was that achievements kind of give you this sense of "completion" and accomplishment when in reality I still have a lot more to do in Oblivion.

 

In regards to Oblivion I feel the same way you do, I got the last of the achievements and then didn't touch the game again because I considered it an incredibly boring timesink, with the remaining sidequests being more like work than like fun.

 

That said, I'm currently trying to complete all the loot drops in Castlevania SotN for my monster list and that game can be considered somewhat of an RPG. I've already 200g'ed it so I would say that with titles you enjoy playing the achievements won't matter, whilst games you don't enjoy playing achievements can both increase or decrease time spent playing (if Oblivion had harder achievements, you may still be playing it to get them all; but where they're relatively easy achievements for an RPG you knocked them out early and deemed the game too boring to continue).

 

I know I certainly won't be completing Avatar after getting the ol' five-minute 1000g, because the game itself isn't something I want to play :p

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I hate to admit but you are basically correct. When I was younger I'd play the same RPG for hours and even though I wanted to decorate my house on Oblivion with all of my "treasures" and junk, nowadays, it just feels like no incentive. But I still plan on it ^^

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It can take away, depending on the genre of game you're playing, in my opinion.

But I rather enjoy games. As I tend to play games and sorta.. back off from them, so to speak, because if its gameplay is something I'm not used to, I get fustrated, but achievements encourage me to play on. And if I complete a game and theres still achievements to be gotten, its incentive to play again or do the extras. For example Resident Evil 5. I completed the game twice and have a few game achievements to get still and some online. Same with Fable etc. Sorta gives a reason to give it a second play through. But sometimes its irritating to work for an achievement then have xbox/game glitch and not get it. Eg I played lost planet 2, got achievement for 1-a, got achievement for completing all of chapter 1, but didn't get the achievement for completing 1-b even though I did, and had to to get the all of chapter 1 achievement. Which kind of just makes me roll my eyes. Things like that take away from it, but it does make me want to explore more and get those achievements.

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I felt the same way when I tried playing Fallout 3 again. I got all the achievements for it a while ago. It started to get really boring after 2 or 3 days.

 

I think that's normal for RPGs though. After everything is done and you know what's gonna happen, if you try playing it again, it's pretty dull or not as fun as it was when you first played it. There are other games on the 360 that I can play single-player non-stop for.

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It depends on the genre of the game. For big sand-box RPGs it can almost reduce the amount of the content you play, but for other genres, like shooter it would make you do stuff you wouldn't normally do. Take Modern Warfare 2 for example, would you have got all of the collectables if there wasn't any achievement for it? No, you wouldn't. Why? Because other than the achievement, there's no other reward. Though if I were to get the full gamerscore in Fallout 3 or Oblivion I probably would consider it completed and stop playing it, but that's just me.

 

It could also depends on the game as well, if the achievement list is well thought out then you could complete the main story and all of the side quests to obtain the full 1000G. Borderlands was the perfect example. To obtain the full 1000 in the game you'd need to complete all of the side quests in the game.

 

As I said earlier, "that's just me." Which really means that the biggest factor to take into consideration is the person playing. If someone like getting achievements, they may consider doing everything means obtaining every achievement. Where as someone who doesn't care about achievements could probably do every side mission.

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I like the achievements in games. I don't think they take away from gameplay, but add another aspect to the game. They're not mandatory (except for the storyline achievements I guess), so you are free to go after them at your leisure. Some of the achievements get you to do things that you might not normally do. They might get you to play the game a certain way that you wouldn't have even thought about if not for the achievement.

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So my whole conclusion of this post is that do you think in some ways or aspects that achievements sometimes do leave a void in gameplay for especially RPGs and/or other games that come of mind to you?

 

Whether or not an achievement list leaves you feeling like there's more to do really comes down to the specific list, like people have said. Some lists will require you to do everything possible, including side quests, and others, like Oblivion, will only require you to do some things like the main story and it's up to you whether or not you want to do the extras. You've said yourself that you'll go back and play some games because you really enjoy them, and it's obvious this game wasn't one of them. If you don't want to do more than the achievements require you to, don't do it. If you feel like you've missed out on something because of that, I'd chalk it up to a failure in the achievement list.

 

For me, there are games that I love to play and the achievements just add to it, but I don't really focus on them, and there are games I play strictly to get the achievements and then I'm done with them. Like someone said about Avatar: I don't feel like I'm missing out when I'm done getting those achievements because the achievements are the only reason I'm playing it.

 

And why do you "lol" at me. I have a decent amount of posts, but I only post when necessary. I have been here for 3 years... My posts are usually relevant and not a two sentence agreement. So I don't understand you there.

 

Is a "lol" offensive to you? Maybe he just thought the comment about post count was funny. Personally, I think he was "lol"ing because of you berating people that seemed to have perfectly relevant responses to your post. If people didn't understand what you were looking for, maybe check your grammar, as I can barely understand the first sentence I quoted.

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For short...my answer....

NO one forces me or anybody else to play for achievements....but in my case, YES it takes away gameplay....

Killing that thing 1000 times or jumping from a truck or something else with a non sense it's ugly and it makes me mad...

i like achievements like...finishing the game, chapter complete or collecting some stuff...

Achievements that show ur progress....and not reapeating stuff over and over again....

Well....Yes, it ruins gameplay..from my perspective....

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I wonder if achievements were around in the past, would I have explored every pixel of Final Fantasy 7 or just played a majority of it and pushed it aside once it was "1k'd"?

 

Yeah that's what I was getting at. I feel now with the achievement system it kind of destorys some of the RPGs gameplay wise IMO. I just feel like without the achievements present I would have spent a lot more time on it. Now though, I just find the game dull because it seems to be completed.

 

 

 

Is a "lol" offensive to you? Maybe he just thought the comment about post count was funny. Personally, I think he was "lol"ing because of you berating people that seemed to have perfectly relevant responses to your post. If people didn't understand what you were looking for, maybe check your grammar, as I can barely understand the first sentence I quoted.

 

I was just commenting about the person with a statement that didn't really add to the conversation. Such as this:

 

"No, achievements don't take anything away from a game instead they add to it. We are Hunter'z and we hunt these achievement,"

-guillermo316

 

I thought my grammar was reasonable though, sorry it didn't meet your standards.

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If you don't like playing the game, when you can't any achievements, that's your fault. I personally get as many achievements as I can and play another game, because I have explored everything I wanted. And most games even require 100% and more to get to the full 1000.

 

For Oblivion. I played the game on the PC when it first came out, didn't even beat half the game and left, because the world didn't interest me any more. (It's all woods, caves and castle. Don't like medievil that much either) With achievements I now have the motivation to play through it for the points not really for game, but it's fun this way for me.

 

In other cases I played the game even after I got the amount of GS I've wanted like in Rock Band 2, which I nearly played 200+ hours off and on with friends. And I like to play it even though I don't get any more points for playing DLC songs.

 

Did you ever try playing on other consoles? Because besides the PS3 no console has an achievement system. I have all the systems of the past 2 generations and a few more and still play them. Right now I'm playing Final Fantasy IX again with my ex-girlfriend and also Persona 3 for the first time (roughly 15 hours of 100+ in ;p) Besides that I group up with a few of my friends every other week to beat a survival horror game. None of these games have any kind of achievement system integraded and I had a blast playing them

 

We also play Banjo Tooie on two profiles at the same time (Two TVs/360s in one room) on and off trying to get 100% although the achievements doesn't request this task. Because the game is so awesome (Never played it before so a 10 year old game can still be better than most current gen stuff) we want to do it. So if you feel like not doing 100% on Oblivion that's either your fault or just accept that you don't like the game that much to do everything. Because if it would be fun to do, why not?

 

If a game really grabs me I still care for achievement and feel even more motivated to do the 1000, even if it's hard. But I still explore everything I want, if it's fun and take my time (My first Bioshokc playthrough took me 20+ hours, because I looked everyehere multiple times just for the art style)

 

Maybe you should really dust off that PS2 or Wii or whatever and play something just for the game itself. Maybe the feeling will come back ;P

Edited by L0cke89
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Achievements are meant to encourage people to play a certain way in some games and when used correctly they can extend the life of a title immensely. Look at RPGs in particular like Mass Effect, Fallout, and Dragon Age. They reward you for playing the games multiple times and using different powers/morals/classes. I think that's the best case scenario when they do that. Yet we can all fall victim to shelving a game after getting 1000 GS since the game is technically finished in that respect.

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