I wouldnt compare it to muting the TV. Then you're ignoring an element that is tied directly into the game design itself, the sound. Achievements/trophies are not part of the game design at all, those are just an added layer on top. For example, Zelda:BotW would be the exact same game design wise even if it has trophies or not. Thats why people argue that its completely optional in that sense, which they are.
I don't think it's a perfect comparison, but I think it goes into demonstrating why I think it's silly to tell people to ignore systems that may be flawed. If a more perfect comparison is necessary, consider a game that has a built-in option where you could mute the music without also muting the rest of the sound effects? Does that make bad or ill-fitting music okay?
And I disagree; I do think achievements are part of the game because they are activated by in-game accomplishments. The fact that they are applied later is a distinction I feel doesn't change the core argument in the same way I feel that changing Lynel drops wouldn't really fundamentally change most of BotW's mechanics, although it would have an effect on how people may or may not approach Lynels on average.
When it comes to having a psychological effect, that is true, but this can be said about many things in gaming, so how do people who argue against the effect of an achievement system deal with those things?
I'm sure that there are arguements to how some of these things matter less compared to other things, that is all subjective afterall, but the point is that all of those things can have a psychological effect on people in the same way that an achievement system has. All of those things i mentioned are also optional. So what is the best solution?
Note that I don't think it's wrong for features of games to have a psychological effect on the player. Rather, I think that's the working goal of art- to utilize a medium's tools and theory in order to guarantee specific emotional and behavioral reactions out of an audience. In terms of games, that mainly means trying to guide behavior, and I feel you can pin down a reason for why most mechanics exist in good games. This goes for achievements too, and I honestly felt baffled that people aren't willing to admit that they too affect the player simply because they are optional.
So I don't think mechanics having a psychological effect is wrong. Rather, I think that's inherent; impossible to escape. The question isn't what do we do about those effects, but rather how should we go about making sure anything added to a game- whether or not it's optional- has the intended effect on the player in the context of both communicating the game's mechanics and also upholding a game's artistic intent?
This is where I reiterate my position on Breath of the Wild; the fact that the game is a deliberate callback to the first which didn't have achievements, much less most modern bells, whistles, and handholding and potential flaws of modern open world game design, and is simultaneously a game that pushes the player to perform acts and feats for the sake of their own volition and little else, makes me feel it would be at odds with the game to be saddled with a permanent checklist of arbitrary actions for you to do, things that you never decided to do but which hang over your head regardless. A player is more likely going feel the urge to do these things to some degree should they be there, but whether or not they act on it is irrelevant, because the urge itself- the psychological effect- is the real point of contention. The idea of BotW or the Nintendo console itself asking you to do anything in the game aside from destroy Ganon would undermine its artistic intent as I personally comprehend it, and thus if I were working on the game I wouldn't have even advocated software-side achievements! I would want the player to make the bulk of their decisions on what simply ignited their own curiosity and imagination, and hope to God that the world design would be enough to translate those thoughts into adventures.
Thats fine. Its all subjective, so theres no right or wrong answer to this. Others do like those type of fun facts though
But do you care about trophies in a negative way? Trophies can also be described as a frivolous thing.
I actually think their frivolity is their biggest flaw. I can't put my finger on why they objectively exist in light of other mechanics and realities of game design, so I ask "why is this here?"
Note: I approach the design of art from the point of view of a budding animator. In animation, the key is efficiency- every single thing in an animated film has a dedicated purpose for being, if only because you can't waste time and money on shit that doesn't matter to the end product. Because games are similar in that the majority are complete constructs of the imagination, I assign a similar standard of design to them. And honestly I haven't seen anything- in all my years of gaming- that doesn't make me think achievement systems in general aren't just an extra layer of bloat that could go away today and absolutely not have a detrimental effect on games (after all, isn't their high lack of necessity the supposed appeal? If they aren't necessary to anything, that includes existing.)
Rewarding the player for in-game actions? That's a basic principle of game design and is achieved in the game itself.
Pushing the player to do things they otherwise wouldn't do? Why can't these out-of-the-way, arbitrary, or sometimes contradictory challenges just be clues and sidequests within the game itself already that- again- reward you for completing them?
Tracking player progress? That was a thing that games were already doing to various degrees, and thus I see it as weirdly roundabout to tack a basic counting and ratio system onto one where you have to activate it system side. Why not just give out player statistics if people really want them that badly?
Logging cool things? Built-in recording features are becoming more and more part of the modern gaming environment. Even Zelda has a digital camera.
Nostalgia tied to specific accomplishments? That's...just how nostalgia works in general.
In short, I feel there is literally nothing achievement systems do that games weren't already doing disparately. They're little more than reiterative and haven't lived up to any real potential (what if they consistently rewarded you with meta or console-exclusive in-game rewards you could use in the game as well as on your profile? The question of relevance and purpose would still remain, but at least I could see why people would dole out the time to get that sweet-ass Microsoft gun, or even just extra resources). Ultimately, I feel you could abolish the whole system without fundamentally disrupting how games are made and played, because all these systems do is repackage existing incentives and mechanics up into a redundant system that lies on top of plain ol' game design.
And again, they're 100% optional. If I can turn them off without literally any detrimental effect, how do they then justify themselves as worth existing? They need a hook or a mechanic that gives them a unique purpose, that gives them an effect on games that makes the experience with them mutually exclusive from the experience without, like simple online matchmaking does. They're not paying their own way, so I see no reason why it's bad that Nintendo consoles don't have them. If they're totally ignorable, that's not fundamentally different from being totally useless.
Well, if you have a system that keeps statistics about things like that, that could also have a psychological effect on people though? It would basically be an achievement system because if you want to be part of a specific part of the statistic, you have to certain things in the game thats being tracked.
It would depend upon the implementation of those statistics. Logging how many Lynels you killed in a vacuum doesn't present a competitive element outside of one you make yourself. Telling me I- and only I- have killed ten Lynels is floating information I can do anything with: I can note it and move on, or I can use it as tracking to kill 100 Lynels as my own self-imposed challenge, which I think fits the spirit and design goals of the game just fine. Compounded information, a list of Lynels everyone playing the game has killed without any indication of individual player percentages, is even more abstract. On the other hand, leaderboards would definitely introduce a competitive element because they rank all players in an easily-accessed system, and I don't think that would be in line with BotW's design.
EDIT: I don't know why I kept using Lynels as references. I guess I'm still on the high of defeating a white one. xD