What are your thoughts on points and unlocks?

CyberGhost

It's become a trend for almost all modern games, to give you points and make you work for unlocks(fps), frankly I never understood that.

What I never understood is that, what is the point of points? what do they give you? most of the time, nothing. Sometimes points give you unlocks, and that's ever more annoying, I bought the damn game, why should I have to slave over it to unlock a shotgun or whatever...

And some game unlocks are done in a such way that the all unlocks are very close point wise on purpose so you just play a bit more and a bit more to unlock something(COD4).

There are games that have an unlock/point system tastefully done more or less, Battlefield 2 for example, you needed lots of points and at times I almost forgot there are guns to unlock, I still haven't been able to unlock the last 2 guns, but still it wasn't annoying really.

Then take Call of Duty world at a war, to get an extra 5 custom slots in a multiplayer, you have to finish the SP game, on prestige or something 5 times, what kind of a crap is that!? F prestige, I don't want to play through the same game 5 times just to unlock something, that is BS!

And the king of all points, XBOX360 service, some people absolutely slave over achievements and scores and do the most mindless repetitive tasks to get more score.

Yet, through all this, if a game nowadays doesn't have some kind of a score or an unlock system, it's frowned upon.

Maybe it's because I'm only a casual gamer and simply don't understand the new generation of gamers, but I like actual scores, like a Tetris score or in FPS games kill/death scores, not some virtual reward points. I don't mind points in general, as long as they don't interfere with the game too much. But, if they do, to me, they take all the fun out of a game and turn it into a mindless work over something, when I just want to relax a bit.


Thank you very much for reading, and I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this matter, since many of you seem to have more experience than me with games and gaming scene in general on this forum.

super_furry

With COD they've taken an almost MMO approach to things, forcing you to level up and giving the players that have invested the most time, and are therefore already better, an extra advantage with better gear. Sure you're rewarding those who sink days into you game, but you're also punishing the normal player.

However, nothing pisses me off like offline mutli-player games where you have to unlock the content and characters.

thelordofcheese

CyberGhost wrote: »

What I never understood is that, what is the point of points? what do they give you? most of the time, nothing. Sometimes points give you unlocks, and that's ever more annoying, I bought the damn game, why should I have to slave over it to unlock a shotgun or whatever...

Rewarding people for progressing and getting better at a game is game design 101.

I can't understand why people want everything handed to them on a plate... tuppin' kids.

Zillah

It's largely a marketing thing. They want a tool by which to drag you back in and keep you playing. I generally ignore them, the only game I've played much of that has unlocks is BF2 and its very easy to ignore. The weapons are fairly well balanced, even the best unlocks are only marginally superior to the default ones. Nor is it difficult. I've got all the unlocks, every single one earned incidentally as I played.

I agree though, I've never ever understood the kind of people who go seeking out badges and things. I remember shaking my head, filled with amused disgust the first time I saw someone killing/reviving each other constantly in Battlefield 2 to earn their Medic Badges. Just pathetic.

I remember when I first played Gears of War and it was all like "You have to connect to the internet or you won't be able to win your badges and stuff" and I was all like "Urh, what the fuck who gives a shit?"

L31mr0d

I like unlockables, but I see no point in point/achievements/trophies. Sure I'll try to get some trophies as long as they are fun and challenge me to play the game differently. But If I have to mindlessly scour a level for hovering icons then screw that. A game that takes the fun out of it is missing the point.

Some recent games I liked:

Far Cry 2: I thought the diamond finding was well done. Firstly it go you to see corners of the map that you might not ever have seen and secondly there was a purpose to it, it allowed you to buy upgrades and better weapons

Wipeout HD: I personally liked the unlockable skins (oh sorry I mean livery, wth, who says that?) It meant when you played online people knew that this was a craft you where practiced with, and if you had the silver skin people knew you had obviously been able to get a medal in every race

CyberGhost

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Rewarding people for progressing and getting better at a game is game design 101.

I can't understand why people want everything handed to them on a plate... tuppin' kids.

What am I a hamster?

I don't want treats and rewards for doing something I don't enjoy doing.

humanji

super_furry wrote: »

With COD they've taken an almost MMO approach to things, forcing you to level up and giving the players that have invested the most time, and are therefore already better, an extra advantage with better gear. Sure you're rewarding those who sink days into you game, but you're also punishing the normal player.

However, nothing pisses me off like offline mutli-player games where you have to unlock the content and characters.

I always hated that. I mentioned before in a thread about Battlefield 2, I think it was, that the games should give players all the guns when they first start and take a random one away each time they level, if they choose to level. This way you don't penalise casual players and the l33t kids can brag about how great they are by killing people using a tiny selection of weapons.

Retr0gamer

super_furry wrote: »

With COD they've taken an almost MMO approach to things, forcing you to level up and giving the players that have invested the most time, and are therefore already better, an extra advantage with better gear. Sure you're rewarding those who sink days into you game, but you're also punishing the normal player.

I thought that Call of Duty 4 did it quite well. Weapons weren't anymore powerful than one another so the default weapons were just as good as later ones you just ended up using the ones that you preferred. Also the best perks unlocked quite early in the game. CoD 5 from the beta does it all wrong. The default guns are a bit pants when not upgraded and the best perks take ages to unlock. FFS you have to get 25 kills with a rubbish 2 shots to kill rifle before you unlock the scope that makes the thing usable.

I like the CoD system, it really does keep you playing trying to unlock the next weapon/perk.

What gets on my nerves is companies charging for 'downloadable content' for stuff that should have been free and unlockable in a game. Even paying extra for new multiplayer levels is a bitter pill to swallow. Whatever happened to developers supporting the game after launch and giving away new levels periodically.

I really don't get achievement points and trophies. I would never play a game specifically to get them.

thelordofcheese

CyberGhost wrote: »

What am I a hamster?

I don't want treats and rewards for doing something I don't enjoy doing.

If you don't enjoy playing the game, you should probably stop....

MOH

Can be good or bad, depends how its done.

Thought some of the achievements on TF2 are useful. They encourage you to play classes you wouldn't normally, or in ways you wouldn't.
e.g. I'd never played Medic or Heavy before their achievements came out, and when I started I found I was actually fairly good at both. Plus it made a nice change from my usual Demo/Pyro play.

The weapons you unlock are still fairly balanced, just different. If you never get them doesn't really matter.

It gives you an incentive sometimes to keep playing, even if you forget about them - it;s interesting to see a box pop up telling you you've accidentally unlocked an achievement you hadn't even noticed.

On the other hand, there are some rubbish ones, e.g. Heavy: kill 50 people when you're both underwater. Which basically means camp the middle of 2fort since that's the only map with deep enough water with decent traffic. For 50 that's a bit much, 20 or something would have been better.

Don't see the point in grinding though. Except maybe for occasions when you're maybe one achievement away from unlocking a new weapon, you might grind that last one. I just see them as something that adds a bit to the game, that you pick up in the normal course of playing it.

On the other hand, a lot of Spore's badges are just a pure grind fest. Perform 5 billion terraforming actions on a planet. Visit 200 zillion star systems. There's loads of stuff in there that you're not going to do naturally, or certainly not often enough, in the course of the game. But there's loads that's badly thought out there.

I like the diamond collection in FarCry2. It has a purpose, it's something you can ignore if you want without really affecting the play, it's just a small diversion now and then. (Only quibble is the detector could be done slightly better, it's a bit infuriating slowly turning in a circle to see where the steady light comes on). And there's thought gone into a lot of the settings too, like the results of mini stories - a bus containing a briefcase of diamonds, with a number of cars and bodies scattered round it, as though a shootout happened over the case; or a car on the roadside in the desert, a body slumped beside one door, and another body with the briefcase by a small oasis over the hill, like a double cross gone wrong. It's adds a little bit of atmosphere to the game and helps break up the open spaces.

silvine

Achievements and trophies are a natural evolution of high-scores in games like Tetris or Pacman.

Some of them are mindless and repitive such as collect 100 flags etc and some are great craic eg. The One Bullet Achievement in Half Life: Episode One. And it's nice to have a record of your gaming history too.

Personally I enjoy the little bing as you unlock another 20 gamer points. I found the COD4 system of unlocks and challenges great. It added another element to the online play. I do agree it's a bit disconcerting to see people achievement hunting in some games eg Halo 3.

I also find myself doing things in games I wouldn't normally bother with such as pulling off stunts in GTAIV. Unlocks and points are a game in their own right! If you don't like them they don't go for them.

Vegeta

Yeah CoD4 has it really well done I found.

I still use the M16 with 3 round burst which is available from the very start.

I like achievements too but I would not obsess about them. If done well they add to a game and make it last a little longer

if done poorly you can just ignore them

Burning Eclipse

L31mr0d wrote: »

I like unlockables, but I see no point in point/achievements/trophies. Sure I'll try to get some trophies as long as they are fun and challenge me to play the game differently.

I know I truncated your post, but that's a contradiction right there. Achievements have little purpose in some games, but in others they breath life into them, by rewarding you with something for doing things you might not otherwise do.

Geometry Wars is a great example. Pacifism: Survive for 60 seconds without firing. It's the opposite to what most people would normally do and gives you an incentive to try something different.

Dead Rising and Viva Pinata are also great examples of achievements driving gameplay goals.

The opposite end of the scale is (as you pointed out) achievements for things like collecting flags in Assassin's Creed etc...

Also, for me and a friend it's like a 'who has the highest score' in an old arcade game type thing... trying to out-do each other. Competition is healthy, as are the things that foster it

K.O.Kiki

silvine wrote:

Achievements and trophies are a natural evolution of high-scores in games like Tetris or Pacman.

Au contraire.

High-scores in arcade games are about proving your superiority of the game -- by having learned its system to the extent that you can make it dance to your own tune.

Achievements are about playing the way the designers *want* you to play -- so you're just the monkey dancing to the organ grinder's wheel here.

True Achievement: be at the top of a list for a week, thus proving your gamer skills.
Grindfest Achievement: kill 1000 enemies with this sh!tty weapon which, for all intents and purposes, should not even be in the game.

Vegeta

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

I know I truncated your post, but that's a contradiction right there. Achievements have little purpose in some games, but in others they breath life into them, by rewarding you with something for doing things you might not otherwise do.

Geometry Wars is a great example. Pacifism: Survive for 60 seconds without firing. It's the opposite to what most people would normally do and gives you an incentive to try something different.

Dead Rising and Viva Pinata are also great examples of achievements driving gameplay goals.

The opposite end of the scale is (as you pointed out) achievements for things like collecting flags in Assassin's Creed etc...

Also, for me and a friend it's like a 'who has the highest score' in an old arcade game type thing... trying to out-do each other. Competition is healthy, as are the things that foster it

Sorry I couldn't hear any of that through all your whoring

Your not as bad as chrislad though, he's a machine...............whore

mcgovern

Achievements have added hour upon hours of gameplay to my games for me now.
People who don't get them, also don't seem to grasp how important they are in people choosing which format to buy a game for.

Mr E

I agree with Burning Eclipse 100%. When achievements are done well, they really extend the life of a game. Geometry Wars 2 is a pretty good game, but I wouldn't have played it for nearly as long if it wasn't for the achievement challenges in that (Wax On/Off, Smile, Treaty, Game Over, Rebound, etc.) - they really added longevity to the game. (F**king Smile... jesus.... took at least 2 hours a night for a week to get that one)

I detest the "Collect 6,000 hidden packages" achievements, though... you don't get any sense of accomplishment for it (because there is little or no skill involved, and it takes so damn long) - by the time you finish it, you just say "thank christ thats over.... now to collect 3,000 hidden flags" (or whatever) :rolleyes:

silvine

Achievements are about playing the way the designers *want* you to play -- so you're just the monkey dancing to the organ grinder's wheel here.

True Achievement: be at the top of a list for a week, thus proving your gamer skills.
Grindfest Achievement: kill 1000 enemies with this sh!tty weapon which, for all intents and purposes, should not even be in the game.

Well that's your bog standard achievement but games like Geometry Wars 2 have real creative ones. I don't think anyone can argue you can get the Smile achievement without skilla and practice, much akin to getting the Top Score in Tetris.

As for playing the games they way they want you to play, unless you've designed the game or found a way to exploit it, you do that just by playing the game whether for achievements or not.

Lots of achievements require skill too e.g. the time trials in Braid.

MOH

Peggle too. Amount of hours I put into that when I should have been sleeping, thinking just one more achievement.

Mr E

FYI, Peggle is coming out for XBL in December.... (sorry!)

K.O.Kiki

Mr E wrote: »

FYI, Peggle is coming out for XBL in December.... (sorry!)

Fire and brimstone for you! :pac:

Burning Eclipse

Mr E wrote: »

I agree with Burning Eclipse 100%. When achievements are done well, they really extend the life of a game. Geometry Wars 2 is a pretty good game, but I wouldn't have played it for nearly as long if it wasn't for the achievement challenges in that (Wax On/Off, Smile, Treaty, Game Over, Rebound, etc.) - they really added longevity to the game. (F**king Smile... jesus.... took at least 2 hours a night for a week to get that one)

I detest the "Collect 6,000 hidden packages" achievements, though... you don't get any sense of accomplishment for it (because there is little or no skill involved, and it takes so damn long) - by the time you finish it, you just say "thank christ thats over.... now to collect 3,000 hidden flags" (or whatever) :rolleyes:

You're the only person I know who has managed that, so consider it time well spent. Hell, even that freakish smellyirishman hasn't done it

Ross_Mahon

I think people enjoy unlocking things before their friends, The same thing with ranks, People trash talk you because they are a higher rank online, They are like all generals and your only a private...Then you rape them all! Its great! :rolleyes:

It certainly makes people play the games more just to get unlocks/ranks, its the same thing with gamerscore "I am better than you because i play more Disney games for achievements"

Reganio 2

Just a question that I never understood. What do XBL gamerscore or achievements what ever they are called. Like when you score a hat trick in a game and it says "Score a Hat-Trick 20G" what do they give you? Can you spend them or something? They just seem pretty useless to me.

Chumpski

My experience with points and unlocks would be only with trophies on the PS3 and seeing as ive only got 4 games so far for it i would have less experience than most people here but...

I think that if designed well they can really add to a game. I enjoyed the trophies in Uncharted as they were easy to aim for and built up steadily. Like you would get a trophy after collecting 5 treasures, killing with 5, 10, 50 headshots. They were well designed and fun and make sense in that there not doing things for the sake of it. You can plug away at the main quest and bother with them as much as you like. I have finished the main story and i got about half of the trophies but they are a nice incentive to come back soon and play it again.

Then the trophies in GTA4 are mostly going out of your way to do stuff. Like flying under 14 bridges or surviving for 6 minutes on 6 wanted stars. Those type of things have no interest for me.

Then again someone mentioned here people killing and healing each other just to get 10 medic achievement. That is ridiculous and a misuse of the whole point of trophies/achievements.

Unlocking new weapons and things like that have been around for ages. Its nice to unlock infinite ammo and the like but as soon as i get those things the game loses its edge for me. If having infinite ammo in a game like RE4 added to the gameplay then it would be in from the moment you first play. As we know conserving ammo and picking the right times to use it is one of the highlights of these types of games isn't it? So why bother rewarding a player with something that will make them not want to play the game anymore!

EDIT:

One game i thought had a good achievement system was Pro Evo 2008 for the Wii. There are about 4 or 5 different categories attack, defence, etc. and while nothing is unlcoked by doing them, i found that i always had something to aim for like winning with over 60% of possession and things like that. It kept the single player mode a little more interesting for me. I never usually bother with single player in Pro Evo since i think the AI is too predictable.

Retr0gamer

Shame on you all for not even coming close to me Ikaruga score :P Everyone of you bar 1 person has a score that I can beat in literally the first 15 secs on gameplay.

johnny_ultimate

I think Achievements / Unlockables work when they help your learn the game system. As said before, Geometry Wars has fantastic achievements: they help you learn how to use and abuse the game system, while teaching you the skills required to get further in the different modes. I like CoD4 too, because it gives you something useful to aim for.

Many unlockables are useless though. Searching out the likes of secret packages in GTA or finding chests to unlock concept art in PoP: Warrior Within just seem to add extra longevity to the game with little to no worthwhile gameplay benefits.

Theres a fine line between useful and worthwhile unlockables and ones that are shoehorned in just to give you something to do. It would be far more fun to go exploring and find one-off cars or something in GTAIV rather than 100 pigeons. BioShock's audio diaries are interesting too: still the old standard collect 'em all quest, but they give you background to the story too making the whole exercise seem slightly less futile.

As for high scores, I usually don't care about them. But Geometry Wars 2 is the exception: that little name and number in the right hand corner is perhaps the most compelling thing about the game and gives it that 'one more go' edge (even if you know you will never get past SmellyIrishMan!)

Zillah

I really don't understand the mentality of people who say such achievements extend the life of the game. Like, play the game until the gameplay is no longer fun, then stop. How does someone setting up arbitrary conditions for non-existent badges/tokens/achievements make it fun for longer? Might it be a case where it's not so much fun anymore as it is an industrious need to produce and achieve?

I'd almost compare it to worker robots

Mr. K

Zillah wrote: »

I really don't understand the mentality of people who say such achievements extend the life of the game. Like, play the game until the gameplay is no longer fun, then stop. How does someone setting up arbitrary conditions for non-existent badges/tokens/achievements make it fun for longer? Might it be a case where it's not so much fun anymore as it is an industrious need to produce and achieve?

I'd almost compare it to worker robots

Most of us pick and choose the achievements we go for though, based on how fun they are. Many collection achievements are super boring, that's why many of us don't bother. I choose the games I want all the achievements in carefully. That's hardly robotic.

Fallout 3 is the perfect example, the achievements are inspiring me to see everything in the game. As a result, I'm seeing much of the cleverly made world in the game. Otherwise, many of the sidequests would've gone unnoticed and I'd have finished the story that bit quicker. I'm having a richer experience as a result of the achievements.

There's nothing to force you to pay attention to the achievements either, so it's a matter of personal choice!

CyberGhost

Zillah wrote: »

I really don't understand the mentality of people who say such achievements extend the life of the game. Like, play the game until the gameplay is no longer fun, then stop. How does someone setting up arbitrary conditions for non-existent badges/tokens/achievements make it fun for longer? Might it be a case where it's not so much fun anymore as it is an industrious need to produce and achieve?

I'd almost compare it to worker robots

Exactly!

And most people get sucked into this and run around in GTA4 shooting 100 pigeons.

johnny_ultimate

Two types of achievements really: the skill based ones (such as harder difficulties, playing the game in different ways etc...) and the grinding ones (100,000 kills in GoW2 - who the hell has the time to do something so very, very pointless?). Skill ones can extend the game while providing a new challenge or alternate take on the game, keeping it fun. The grinding ones though are just for the clinically obsessive! Admittedly games have always been like that though - platformers for example used to be horrific collect-em-ups. But now people have a little number to show off for their wasted hours.