In the early days when the game capacity was small, in order to be able to play more games, players who loved games would set themselves some "goals", such as how many points to reach, how much time to complete, etc., so as to make the game more "playable". In today's games, developers often take the initiative to add some "achievements" or "challenges", so that players can play in other directions in addition to pursuing the main axis.
In addition to the game itself, steam, PlayStation and other game platforms have also successively added "achievement systems", making it easier for players to view the corresponding achievements of the game and show off. Some mobile platforms even regard whether there is an achievement system for linking the App Store as one of the conditions for whether the game can be recommended by the store, which is enough to see the importance of the achievement system today, so this time we will talk about the so-called game "achievement" system.
The "achievement" system for video games
As mentioned earlier, today's so-called "game achievements" refer to a set of systems provided by the video game itself, or the game platform. The system is now widely used and offers three main features:
A sense of accomplishment
The "Achievement System" provides a variety of "challenges" for players to achieve, whether they look cool after reaching it, or want to take screenshots to show off, all exist to meet the player's sense of achievement. For example, the "Platinum Trophy" in the PS Store can only be obtained after a game has been fully achieved, just like the battle medal, and the positive feedback when obtained is very strong.
Additional targets
When a player has already played a game once, there is little incentive for the player to play it repeatedly except to experience the game content again. This is where the achievement system provides such motivation, giving players who love the game more reasons to play it several times.
A sense of surprise
The sense of surprise here mainly refers to things like Easter eggs. Of course, Easter eggs are not necessarily achievements, and there are some differences between the two, which we will talk about later in the article. But in short, hidden achievements to provide a sense of surprise to the player is a very common and effective practice, is a means of communication between designers and players. By the way, the "achievements" of video games are usually not mandatory, do not prevent players from completing levels or experiencing the content of the game's main axis, and are the icing on the cake.
The type of "achievement"
The design of achievements is varied, but in terms of large categories, it can be roughly divided into three types: process type, challenge type, and Easter egg type. I'll explain the three types in detail next.
Journey-type achievements
Journey-type achievements are achievements that players can get as long as they continue to play, and several common design directions include:
Game progression
For example, the "chapter completion achievement" of a narrative game, or "a boss that defeats the main line", etc., are records made for players to advance the main axis of the game. However, if such achievements are seen by the player first, it may spoil the overall game duration (such as the total number of chapters), or the enemies to be faced in the future, which will make the experience worse, so be very careful.
The accumulation of times or time such as "kill 100 enemies", "accumulate more than 600 minutes of play time" or "accumulate 365 days of login", etc., are all of these achievements. Collecting classes are also common, such as meeting the chart percentage or defeating several monsters.
Numerical threshold
Achievements such as "Account Level 90" or "Attack Power Reached 500". The value referred to here is a growth value that cannot be reduced or reversed, if it is something that can be achieved by equipment or skill combination adjustments, it can also be classified in the challenge achievement, and the demarcation of this part is relatively vague, but only a rough definition.
Random events with luck
Random events and luck such as "Defeat monsters to get super rare rewards" or "dodge enemy attacks 5 times in a row" and the like, because luck is something that can happen if you play it long enough, so this part is still classified as a journey. However, it is still important to pay attention to the number of chances that will affect the difficulty of achievements, if the player's face is black, it is possible to cause a poor game experience.
Challenging achievements
The biggest difference between the challenge and the journey type is that the player will need to rely on some skills or strategies to complete the achievement content. Several of the more common designs include:
Low operational fault tolerance
Achievements such as "can't be hit", "pass within the speed limit" or "empty, don't use potions to win enemies" are all achievements that reduce the player's fault tolerance rate, so that the player must be very skilled in the game to achieve. In fact, it is to increase the difficulty of the original game in disguise.
Low policy fault tolerance
Similar to the former, it is commonly used in turn-based games, such as "defeat all enemies within 5 steps", "team up with assigned characters", or "multiple wins" in competitive games. This kind of achievement will focus more on the player's "strategy" and "order of operation", there may be more than a dozen solutions in the past, in the case of low fault tolerance rate, often only one or two orders can be reached, and one wrong step will have to be repeated.
Memory challenges
For example, in a puzzle game with the same layout, or a parkour game, try to play through the level within time. This tests the player's proficiency in the layout of the level itself. This point is actually a bit related to the previous two points, if the player is based on the speed challenge, memory will be a very important focus.
Special strategy collocations
This type of achievement is mainly based on the original game mechanics, and the player can make effects that cannot be achieved under normal circumstances under specific strategic operations. For example, the "Legendary Strike" achievement in Gunfire Rebirth requires the player to achieve "300,000" damage in a single damage, which can only be achieved with a specific class or specific weapon, combined with some specific secret scrolls (artifacts in the Roguelike game type). This kind of special goal will make the player think about the feasibility in order to achieve it, and then better understand the game mechanics, which has a good effect on all kinds of games.
In fact, most of the challenge achievements are achieved by the difficulty of the game, which has something to do with how to control the difficulty at the beginning of the game, and even some of the achievements of the game are also bound to the difficulty, and the achievement system must be triggered above the specific difficulty. The quality of the challenge-type achievement design has a great correlation with the difficulty of grasping.
Easter egg-type achievements
The reason why the last type of Easter egg achievement should be mentioned is because the Easter egg does not have to be attached to the achievement, it can exist independently. And Easter egg achievements, there is another more common name, that is, "hidden achievements", because Easter eggs are not fun if you tell you at the beginning.
Easter egg design in the game
Regardless of whether they are made into achievements or not, the so-called game Easter eggs are mostly small things hidden in the game by developers, so that players can smile after seeing them. Such as "pictures", "props", "character lines" and even "musical effects", as long as they can resonate with the player extra. From the designer's point of view, in addition to the various Easter eggs with "stems", the matter of "talking to the player" is also very important.
For example, there is an RPG-type game where the game mechanics allow you to give any "props" to NPCs as gifts. There's an NPC who wants you to make a roast chicken for him. The cooking system in the game also allows you to make dishes of different qualities such as "burnt" to "perfect".
If you're a player, you might be thinking, "Would it make a difference if I gave him the perfect roast chicken?" "If I give him charred roast chicken, will he be angry?" If the player really thinks so, and the developer really makes a difference for this matter, then the player will have a strong emotional impact when trying this "Easter egg". At this time, players may have the idea of "the developer really understands me" and "I understand the developer", and this momentary "mental communication" is the main way that the Easter egg is interesting. Therefore, all Easter egg designs are essentially designed to "be discovered" and "resonate".
Bad achievement design
Having said that there are better and more common achievement designs on the market, let's talk about the worse achievement designs. Bad achievement design can turn into a great resistance rather than a goal for those who enjoy the game and want to challenge it further. Although it is known to be bad, in fact, such cases are not uncommon. Here are a few examples of the worse achievement designs:
Emphasize "continuous" in random results
Randomness itself is already uncontrollable for the player, and even if some can be adjusted for external factors such as strategy or equipment, as long as the probability is not 100%, it is very difficult for the player to "continuously produce a specific result". And if this mechanism requires high costs, it is even more difficult to achieve. For example, in an RPG, the extremely low chance of "the same weapon has been successfully enhanced 10 times in a row" is likely to be a bad design.
Players can't achieve it when they get stronger
For example, there is a achievement where the player needs to put an early boss in a "burning state" for more than 60 seconds. However, if the player hits the boss with the lowest damage burner skill because of the level increase, then this achievement can never be achieved, and the player will have a feeling of "getting stronger and being punished".
Constantly remind players that "you will never be able to achieve it"
Some achievements are designed so that the player can never achieve it if they make a mistake once. For example, in competitive games, the "100% total win rate" is almost an unattainable achievement. If a player loses any of the matches, they will never reach 100%. And this kind of success will also make players realize that it is impossible to achieve, and the damage to the game experience is absolutely irreparable.
Within a single achievement, the conditions are too complex
In order to challenge an achievement, the player usually needs to be able to remember the "conditions for achieving the achievement". If the achievement conditions are too complicated, such as "Equip A helmet, B clothes, C pants and D shoes, defeat the F monster in 3 turns in the E level" this achievement is an absolute design to avoid, and once the player closes the achievement list, it is likely that they will not even remember half of the conditions.
Alternative uses for achievements
In addition to targeting us "players", the achievement system also has a different effect on "game developers". For operational games, server-side embedding is very important, and game companies can use players' behavior records in the game to calculate player preferences, adjust the game experience, and fill in loopholes. But for "single-player games", the game sold is equivalent to spilling water, and it is difficult to track. This is where "Game Achievements" come in handy!
For example, chapter-type achievements, Steam has done statistics, a total of how many players have achieved, through these achievements to achieve the rate, developers can also estimate some players on the game information. For example, the game "Death Stranding" can be inferred from the chapter achievements, and many players have lost during the wasteland stage and have not experienced the richer game content later.
summary
Game achievement is a very interesting topic, if you have read the above science, I believe that in the future, when you pass the game, you will have a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the achievement.