   Game Design Round Table 2: Achievement Unlocked
  It didn't feel right starting up the next Game Design Round Table without the conclusion article from the last one making it to the front page of GameDev.net, but now that it's there it is time for the third Game Design Round Table.GuidelinesHere are some of the rules/guidelines it would be nice to have people adhere to (or read and then willingly ignore):What I write as part of the topic description is not intended to be an argument for or against a given mechanic, nor does what I write necessarily reflect my full thoughts on an issue. It's mere intended to be an introduction to the topic that, hopefully, more people will expound on.The goal here is to talk intelligently about the topic at hand, as such, any responses would hopefully attempt to make some sort of argument.An argument does not have to be lengthy to be well-constructed or well-written.Don't just toss in buzz words for the sake of using buzz words; the idea here is to discuss the mechanics at hand for the purpose of determining why they are good or bad and to convince other people of your own perspectives. Tossing in buzz words "just because" does more to segregate a discussion than promote it.This post will actually be closed when the deadline is up as to keep the discussion fairly self-contained. The closing date for these is up in the air at the moment; this thread will be closed either a week from today or two weeks from today (depending on the number and quality of responses received).Don't be afraid to generalize your points as you discuss points with users. It goes without saying that a good game design may depend heavily on the game it's being used in and the way it's implemented, but the idea here is to pick out great ideas and argue them for their intrinsic worth.Don't get too caught-up in minor details and always realize that, generally, the goal here is to make intelligent arguments to comprise a design discourse.Please, please, please use your real names in your post if you feel comfortable; the resulting article just feels awkward when I have to reference a bunch of aliases.Suggested ReadingThe most important and relevant work which relates to this discussion was actually written about ten years ago by Doug Church: "Formal Abstract Design Tools". It's a great read for any designer.Round Table Topic -- Achievement UnlockedEveryone likes candy. Diabetics or people on a strict diet may nay-say such a statement but, for the rest of us, a bit of candy here and there is a little treat composed solely of sugar and happiness. Achievements in video games are similar class to a piece of candy. Players can gain achievements for beating a level in a normal progression of the game, beating a hard boss without using certain items, completing an entire play-through of a game without dying, or, in the case of the recently released Mega Man 9, beating the entirety of the game five times within twenty-four hours. Once these achievements are earned, gamers can wear them as a nerdy badge of honor for others to gaze in awe upon. Or something. When done correctly, achievements are a source of positive reinforcement that encourage forms of player behavior or, better still, can foster an entire metagame with the potential to drastically increase the amount of time players can get out of a single game. (This paragraph is from an article I wrote about achievements as a game mechanic last fall).Recently, games have been experimenting with achievements as an actual in-game economic unit for progression or earning new items; the best example of this being Valve's Team Fortress 2. When Valve started rolling out major game updates which completely revamped and updated existing classes with new items, balancing, and a huge host of achievements, the dynamic of Team Fortress 2 changed completely. When the Medic class update was rolled out, suddenly players were joining achievement farming servers where they could game the system to unlock achievements as fast as possible so that they weren't "behind the curve" when it came to playing in a proper Team Fortress 2 match. This put any TF2 players who wanted to earn achievements in a more natural, casual way at a huge disadvantage. This system persisted through the Pyro and Heavy class updates, but as of the most recent update, Team Fortress 2 has a new unlock system. This new unlock system, essentially, removes the need to farm achievements for the new items and instead relies on a tuned system of "random drops" for items. This both allows and promotes a more enjoyable behavior for gamers to get achievements (in a natural, non-competitive way).Achievements which are completely separate from any primary game mechanics can still lead to undesired behavior, though, especially in the multiplayer arena. Halo 3 had an achievement which required gamers to get three sword kills immediately in a row and, as a result, I knew friends who would go into multiplayer games with no other goal than to get a sword and try to get that achievement despite the fact that this style of play was in no way conducive to the goals of the team-focused gameplay mode that he was in engaged in. Is this a problematic side-effect of achievements?The current model of achievements allow for game designers and developers to implement a relatively simple, persistent way of rewarding players for in-game activities. That said, do achievements promote an undesirable play style (in single- and/or multiplayer)? How should achievements be paired with in-game mechanics and economies (if at all)?   
  I like achievements in general -- either the "official" kind (what Live or Stream offers) or the "unofficial" kind (like the 'challenges' that exist in Mega Man 9 and to a limited extent, the new Bionic Commando) that exist only within the scope of the game. I think it's fine, and in fact healthy, to have a good mix of gameplay-altering and non-gameplay altering achievements.Having at least some achievements tied to an in-game benefit makes them more appealing to me, especially for certain classifications of achievement (such as "collect all the widgets hidden in the world"), which I -- and probably other players -- otherwise find boring as hell in most games. So I think it's a great thing that broadens the appeal and provides more incentive for achievement collection. At least as far as single-player gaming goes. I have minor issues with achievements tied to multiplayer aspects of a game, however, and for two major reasons. The first was touched on in your initial post -- that such achievements are typically "farmed," gameplay-altering ones especially. This can detract from the gameplay itself, especially in the early stage of a game's release when getting people hooked on the multiplayer is more important. It is perhaps less of a problem when released after the fact, since while there may be a bug influx of achievement farming in games, if the achievements are not altogether impossible to get, soon most players will have them an the farming may die down.This leads to the second issue. Achievements tied to multiplayer components of the game are also tied to the success of the game. By which I mean, if the game flops, or is just not wildly popular, it may be very difficult to get into a multiplayer game, let alone a game with the parameters required to earn some achievement -- this hurts players, and further harms and already failing multiplayer community since it encourages farming. Anybody have the World Domination achievement for the XBLA port of Marathon? If so, let me know, we need to set up a game.If pressed I would say that I think multiplayer achievements are not a good idea, or at least that they haven't been done to my satisfaction yet. This is a pity because the multiplayer environment offers an order of magnitude more options for creating clever achievements due to the dynamics and interactions involved in having other humans involved.[1] Many of the challenges in BC are also tied to Live achievements, and I assume PS3 trophies as well.;Name: Luke H. ThompsonDisclaimer: I've only recently acquired an XBox360, and only played a handful of games, almost all of them rented and shared with siblings, so I've not completed all the achievements in any one game. In addition, the only internet connection I have is dialup, so any achievements from multiplayer are out the door.Points: Firstly, in line with my lack of decent internet connection, the achievements, and the points that go with them, of the multiplayer bits of the game are out of my reach. So, for unfortunate persons like myself, and anyone lacking in the ability to get friends to play with them, I think it would be nice if there was some mechanic in place to distinguish achievements/points earned in single-player and/or "non-online" mode, and those earned in multi-player and/or "online" mode. Granted my only reason for this is the poor connection, but it might also serve to indicate differences in playing style between the two game modes, if sufficient differences should exist.I'm not sure I really care for achievements that you get /just/ for playing the game. The Lego Indiana Jones game that came with the XBox seems to give an achievement for each level/area of the game, something you're supposed to be doing in the first place as part of the game. However, it also rewards achievements for being a "True Adventurer", getting so many of the lego currency thingies per level/area, something that can be difficult to do in later areas. FarCry 2 seemed to have some good achievements. Accessing every safe house. Having entered every km of the map. Etc. Still, it offered achievements for performing routine/required gaming actions. IIRC, each mission completed for either of the opposing sides, something requird to advance the story, would warrant you an achievement. I suppose, though, that these are a "side effect" of MS, since they likely wouldn't want a handful of achievements dishing out a couple hundred points each.As for replay value, I think it could work nicely. If there are mutually exclusive branches for certain areas of the game(one of which /must/ be taken), then rewarding an achievement for the branch, despite it being "/just/ for playing the game" doesn't seem quite as bad to me. You're still going to have to play through the game again, or at least up to that point.Or, it could just be abused with save games. In Farcry 2, my best buddy was Warren Clyde. I wanted to keep him alive, so if he got himself killed(a lot of the times through no apparent fault of my own), I'd reload from the last save point. At one point, with Clyde almost dead and myself out of stimpacks, I'd hit the heal button forgetting about my shortage, and ended up getting the "Good Night, Sweet Prince" achievement. Well, seeing as I wanted to keep Clyde alive(though I really need to just /play the freaking game/ and not keep loading it up when something drastically bad happens short of death), I loaded up the last save. Yet I still have the achievement, however underserving I might be.Maybe that abuse could be cleared up with a different save/load scheme. I'd be perfectly happy in FarCry 2 if each playable character only had one save that got overwritten at each house/savepoint. And would only load on a rescue-ready-less death or starting the game again. Then the "timeline" of the character would be linear, and the game would "know" whether or not I still deserved that "Good Night, Sweet Prince" achievement, since I can't take it off myself, and a lot of people probably wouldn't.That seems like a long enough bit for now. :p   ;  This is my first post here on this site, so I'll be transparent about the fact that I'm a graduate researcher who has only created prototypes before and no complete games. Also, I have no experience with World of Warcraft or Steam achievements, only the (nearly-identical) PSN trophies and XBL achievement points. Name is Simon Ferrari.I get in a lot of arguments about achievements, because I like them and I work with a lot of idealists/purists. From a design perspective, achievement structures are typically intangible, superlative, and exploitative—that is, they create game goals not based on good design or good play per se. They also don't fit neatly in any work ethic or modus—for instance, where would one cram them into the MDA method? Are they really a mechanic, or are they simply an aesthetic after-effect? The distinction seems to be in whether they affect gameplay for a majority of players (or at all). I would argue that this is what lends them design legitimacy, as well as opening them up to be a double-edged sword in the designer's toolbox.Let's start with achievements that simply note player progress through explicit in-game goals. Achievements that mark one's progress through a game are helpful both for developing gamer cred and for general stats-tracking. It's a good thing to have a uniform system in place by which to tell how many of your players have completed a certain percentage of your game, right? As a researcher and blogger, I find it very helpful to follow the Gamertags of my colleagues: if they write about a game, and I don't think their argument is solid, then the first thing I check is whether they've actually beaten it (this is by no means an deal-closer, but it helps understand how much of the game their argument is based upon).That said, can we really claim that an achievement marking level progression or percentage of hidden widgets collected (following Petrie's example, which I totally agree with) is a design choice? Progression is already a game goal in itself (for most games), and collectibles usually already carry their own in-game reward (if they don't, shame on the developer—you've just artificially extended your game and not thanked your player for allowing you to get away with it). These are cases where the achievements are entirely an aesthetic effect. They may motivate more players to collect or complete, but your game should already be good enough to encourage that behavior in the first place. A game like Oblivion is rare in that every single achievement in the game marks advancement in a faction or the main quest (it was a launch title, I believe, so no surprise); I didn't pay attention to these things popping onto my screen while I was playing the game, because it was good enough to encourage play without them.Moving onto functionally superior achievements now, my two favorite 360 games (achievement-wise) are Mass Effect and The Orange Box. Mass Effect did something really novel early on in the console's life: it provided in-game stats bonuses based on certain achievements, and these bonuses worked on a meta-level that persisted over multiple playthroughs (and in the case of some, such as the experience boost for reaching level 50, building on each other). These achievements vary from marking game progress and completion, tallying kills with specific weapons and against specific types of enemies, rewarding unique in-game actions such as making love or saving a teammate's life, and for skill-based play such as beating the game on harder difficulties or playing tactically (measured in the damage ratio between your shields and your health). Some of these are not explicit game goals: for instance, an Adept (magic user) can only effectively use a pistol at first; however, after playing as a Soldier and getting a number of kills with a shotgun, an achievement unlocks that allows you to roll an Adept with the ability to effectively use a shotgun. I was more impressed with this achievement system than I was with the rest of the game's design, to be honest.The Orange Box is wonderful for numerous reasons (as you all know). Its achievement system isn't as mechanically refined as Mass Effect's; however, it shines in encouraging multiple play styles that the player might not think of themselves. One asks the player to complete Ravenholm using only the gravity gun, which the level has clearly been designed for. The level designers clearly weren't allowed to take all other weapons away from the player, but they literally littered the ground and walls with sawblades and other nasties to throw at headcrab zombies. It's not something I would've thought to do without encouragement from the achievement system, and it was really thrilling/enlightening to play through the space in that way. There was another one that rewarded you for carrying a garden gnome all the way through Episode 2 (I believe), which was a huge bloody pain but immensely rewarding at the end—the experience could be likened to trying to carry a baby through a battlefield... in a car without a second seat. There are other examples—little touches, like killing certain enemies by feeding them exploding barrels or hitting cops with a crane—but these are the most prominent in my mind.Finally, as to Trent's initial and most pressing question: even good achievement structures can be double-edged swords. My third favorite 360 game, achievement-wise, is Halo 3. I loved unlocking armor pieces to customize my avatar with (although I wish they had more-than-aesthetic affects on gameplay)—I was the only person I knew with the Security gear for a really long time, huge nerd cred. As he shares in his anecdote, though, the multiplayer achievements encourage farming and cheating. Bungie has gone through phases where they crack down on this behavior, but in the early days of the game or after a new expansion it's hard to find a match where half the players aren't trying to boost in some way. I've never played a public Grifball match where one of the eight players didn't start asking if they could farm for a Killionaire and end up team-killing out of anger. Following Petrie's comments on Mega Man 9, I prefer in-game MP challenge systems such as CoD4's; these allow designers to craft elaborate achievement structures without giving players the incentive to boost just to show off their sum Gamerscore to others. I think multiplayer global achievements are possible, but they need to be designed around aspects of play that can't be easily exploited (win x# matches with x class or weapon, for instance).I'll share one last anecdote about the communities that have built up around achievements. There are websites like www.achieve360points.com and www.xbox360achievements.org that basically encourage sharing of game knowledge and cooperative exploration of new games. There's a downside to this: many people are just there to learn how to cheat, boost, or get an achievement in the easiest way possible. But the work ethic that has arisen out of these communities can approach the amazing—I've seen achievement guides with video and photograph accompaniment that rival those produced by companies such as Brady Games. Completionists are an interesting population to study, because they're kind of like non-professional beta testers—taken in sum, they know everything there is to know about most games (after a few weeks of release). Again, this is a double-edged sword. When I started becoming interested in achievements, I would check guides just to make sure there weren't any that I could miss during a particularly long playthrough. This led me to spoil a lot of games for myself, and eventually I had to stop caring about them. As somebody particularly prone to grind addiction, coin-drop, whatever, achievement structures always have the potential to be exploitative, which is why I'm really excited that Trent is kicking off a discussion of how to design them well. Thanks for reading.   ;Quote:Original post by jpetrieHaving at least some achievements tied to an in-game benefit makes them more appealing to me, especially for certain classifications of achievement (such as "collect all the widgets hidden in the world"), which I -- and probably other players -- otherwise find boring as hell in most games.But, for me at least, this doesn't make the requirement any less boring, it's just that an in-game benefit is more likely to make the requirement "worth it".  If the requirement were actually enjoyable, I'd likely do it simply for the sticker.It's something like a dare vs. a bet.  In both cases you're probably asking me to do something I wouldn't normally do.  The difference is that, in a dare, all I get is the experience and bragging rights, while a bet gives me both of those and something else (likely money).  If what I'm asked to do is intriguing in itself (which doesn't necessarily mean it's pleasant: "Just how disgusting does it taste" may be intriguing enough), I may do it either way ("I would've done it for free").  However, if I don't find the proposition interesting in itself, I'll need something else to make it worth my while.I think the part that bothers me is that I pick up a game to have an enjoyable experience, and we're now talking about a game that's promising an enjoyable experience if I can make it through a boring one.  I'm not saying I won't do it, but it may stay on the back burner for a while.  Why not make the requirement itself enjoyable and let the in-game benefit be frosting on the cake?One thing I thought about just now is, if it's enjoyable, why do we need the achievement at all?  Won't players do it simply because it's enjoyable?  I think the achievement both adds legitimacy and sets an "ok, enough" point.  Being dared to do something adds legitimacy by making it less arbitrary.  Sure, you could eat large quantities of a lot of things, but it'd be kind of silly to just stuff as much food down your throat as possible at all times; being dared to eat it makes it less "crazy".  It also puts an end to the madness.  If you're just seeing how many eggs you can eat, when do you stop?  Do you stop at a dozen?  42?  56?  But, if someone bets that nobody can eat 50 eggs, well, if you're at 47, you'll push on through to 50 and there'll be no need to second guess yourself about whether you could've pushed a little more to 51.;  Farming servers and matches are lame, I agree, but I don't necessarily see a problem with the sword example in the OP. Because of the achievement, he used a weapon and playstyle that he might not normally use and therefore got a little bit of extra replay value out of the game. He also made the match slightly more interesting (at least for the other team). Maybe he jumped around like an idiot for the entire match and died repeatedly, but potentially he could have also saved the team by swording everyone in the back. The point is he tried something different.I think that's the main attraction of achievements: encouraging different gameplay. Combined with restrictions on the environment in which you can earn them (to prevent farming) and in-game incentives (different armor ala Halo 3, or 'Perks' ala CoD4), they're worth having.-Mark Kalvelage;  One good use of achievements is to memorialize extraordinary moments. The Xbox Live Achievements I enjoy most are the ones that reward lucky, odd, and crazy things. Crackdown has an Achievement for using the harpoon gun to pin three or four people to the same car. It also has an Achievement for leaping from the top of the tallest skyscraper and falling (harmlessly) into the bay below. Those aren't just accomplishments. Those are memorable moments. Trophies and Achievements can help preserve such fond memories.Completing a level or chapter is often not a memorable moment. It seems every adventure game I play has Achievements for completing each level, but those are rarely memorable events. Still, having Achievements for the completion of levels can be good, because it helps friends keep track of how far you are in a game and inspires friendly conversation.Overall, Achievements of this kind should celebrate experiences that stand out and are not inherent to gameplay progress. Those are the moments worth remembering. Those are the moments that gamers are most inclined to share, thereby promoting the game and aiding its longevity, among many other benefits.--Aaron Miller   ;  I'm in the same boat as Simon, spend most of my time around game academics. I wrote a longer response over at my blog ( http://lcc.gatech.edu/~bmedler3/?p=326) but here is the gist. The main problem I see with achievements is that they are reductionist. They take parts of the gameplay and reduce them to single-serving instances for people to consume. Not to turn to Marx, but it really is capitalism at its finest. Achievements promote the alienation of players: (I'll quote from Wikipedia because I'm not going to go in-depth)"Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because [with] work each contributes to the common wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly(socially) owned, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienationIt's not that achievements are bad but that they are limiting, in there current form. They are set, finite, an objective account of a player's experience in a game. Some Gamedev posters mentioned that achievements could lead them to act in the game differently than what they normally would have done. For instance, Simon stated that the achievement to "complete Ravenholm using only the gravity gun" was something he would have never done without knowing about that achievement. But does the fact that he only completed that achievement because he knew about the achievement diminish the act of attempting to use only the gravity gun in the level? Should Half-Life 2 have made it clear enough where Simon would have been motivated to attempt that achievement regardless if there was a reward for it or not? hallower, made a good point that achievements can symbolize "memorable moments" in the game. Similar to Simon's example, the developers know that players will attempt certain things in the game so why not make achievements to symbolize those moments? I agree with this, however are we all doomed to only fulfill those precious moments that developers define as memorable experiences?I would like to see achievements that focuses on player created achievements; intrinsic achievements, ones that I personally deem worthy. These are achievements that players themselves create and can wear as badges of honor. Maxis is probably the leader in allowing players to created subjective achievements, particularly in The Sims. Players can take snap shots or videos of their gameplay and upload them online. Memorable moments like their sim's weddings or funny events can be captured and put online. The Sims 3 should only make these operations easier and if you throw in all of the user-generated content experience Maxis has with both The Sims and Spore we are going to see a massive influx of subjective player achievements in the future.Game portals are only going to inflate this situation. Onlive lets players record gameplay clips and make them available later for watching and rating. I predict this will overtake developer achievements in the future; a streamlined creation process from exciting in-game activities to outside-community bragging rights, rating and discussion. There may also be ways to combine developer achievements and player created achievements. Since games are inherently discrete, for the most part, then what is stopping developers from creating DIY achievement creation systems? What to kill 1000 zombies in 1 minute, make it an achievement. Want to kill 100 zombies with a shotgun, make it an achievement. Want to jump from point A to point B without losing health, make it an achievement. Each of those achievements can be created using the variety of primitive datatypes that players can use in their creations. The trick is promoting multiple play styles with a variety of motivating factors and achievements. What casual gamer is going to sit there and create their own achievements if they do not even know how to unlock the developer made ones? That's where the progress achievements come in, the ones you get for playing the game. For others it will be the achievements that the developers create because those are the standard ones. Then there will be the player created ones, ones that will virally spread and create stirs in the gaming community. But most will just be their personal achievements that they made on a Saturday morning. If achievements are supposed to ramp you up towards more aspects of gameplay then the achievement types should ramp up too.So it's not so much what bad gaming behavior achievements produce but more should developers be providing a multitude of motivation structures for players? And how can this be achieved?  ;But, for me at least, this doesn't make the requirement any less boring, it's just that an in-game benefit is more likely to make the requirement "worth it". If the requirement were actually enjoyable, I'd likely do it simply for the sticker.That's true, it doesn't make the act of searching any more fun. But at least you get something for it. Obviously the ideal situation would be to make the thing fun if possible, but the topic at hand is achievements, not random collectables, after all. :DBionic Commando's collectables are a good example. They did not actually have a gameplay reward tied to them (you unlocked art, though), but getting most of them involved use of the game's key wire mechanic, so it was fun. Compared to the flags in Assassin's Creed, which were just... boring.;Quote:Original post by hallowerOne good use of achievements is to memorialize extraordinary moments. The Xbox Live Achievements I enjoy most are the ones that reward lucky, odd, and crazy things. Crackdown has an Achievement for using the harpoon gun to pin three or four people to the same car. It also has an Achievement for leaping from the top of the tallest skyscraper and falling (harmlessly) into the bay below. Those aren't just accomplishments. Those are memorable moments. Trophies and Achievements can help preserve such fond memories.I agree completely. The best use of achievements is using them to acknowledge meta-gaming.  They should feedback for things the player tries doing that might be outside the typical intended gameplay progression.Unfortunately what we typically see is achievements thrown in without much thought. Really, we as designers should be playing our games to figure out what the meta-game is and creating achievement to support that.Saint Row 2 is a good example of providing feedback for meta-gaming.  Jump on top of a car and an icon pops up challenging you to stay on for a certain amount of time. In GTA IV, you can do the same thing, but there is no feedback.This isn't exactly an achievement, but the feedback is similar.  The player experiments with the game mechanics and is rewarded.  So yes, achievements are a good thing and can help encourage players to try new things or approach a level in a different way.  The most important part of this however is for us to try our best to create better achievements and of course, convince production to sign off on them.