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?
I would say yes. Music is completely subjective, so theres no right or wrong answer to what good music is (there might be a general consensus if something is good or bad of course, but still). If someone dislike the music in a game so much that it effects the experience in a negative way, a solution would be to turn it off. I cant see any reason why someone would force themself to listen to the music if it bothers one that much. Custom soundtrack is also built in PS4, Xbox and PC. People can of course say their opinion about things regardless, saying that the music is great or sucks, but in this senario its about finding solutions to what makes the experience better for yourself.
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.
I only talked about the game design
As mentioned, Zelda (or any game for that matter) would be the exact same game design wise regardless of having trophies or not. So looking at it objectively, the game would be exactly the same regardless in that sense.
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?
Fair enough. I havnt read every post in this thread, but i was under the impression that achievements was portrayed as something negative.
I actually think that everyone argrees that it can affect people, but rather arguing to those who say that it affects the game in a negative way, that its not something that has to be done. Why force yourself to do something that you dont like?
Well, the game itself in the artistic sense, if you mean how the game is designed, doesnt change regarding achievements, leaderboards or cheatcodes.
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.
Here it seems to me that you're agreeing with the premise how little achievements affect the games themself. Saying that if you remove them, the games themself would be the same. This is probably exactly what people are referring to when they say that achievements are completely optional
And yes, you're absolutely right that the system could be abolished the achievement system without it affecting how games are made and played. This shows that games arent made and designed around achievements, its the other way around. Achievements are designed around the games. Afterall, in-game challenges and such have existed in games before the current achievement systems were implemented, and they still exist today despite the achievement systems being in place. Achievements could be added to every single game. Theres even an emulator that adds achievements to retro games:
http://retroachievements.org
You might feel that its redundant, but others doesnt. The main draw for many is having all of this information collected at one place instead of having it on a game by game basis.
I'm also under the impression that it hardly takes much time or resource to implement achievements into a game, so its hardly much of a time waster.
Yeah, i think that the achievement system could be approved upon. I remember when the WiiU was about to launch, i presented an idea that Nintendo could reward people in coins for doing in-game challenges, and these coins could be used for something cool (at the time, maybe tied to Miiverse).
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.
People enjoy doing the challenges and having a record of that, i dont think theres much more to it than that. Saying that achievements are useless or not is also only a matter of opinion, theres no key answer to that. Its what you make of it for your own enjoyment.
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
Well, theres different ways to go about to make the game more interesting, i think we all agree on that. But when we're talking about something thats this subjective, its impossible to come up with a key answer. With most (or all) systems, you have some people who like it, and you have some people that dont like it. Its also impossible to make everyone happy.
But to sum it up, i see that you're not a fan of the current achievement system, which i respect. Its a matter of opinion, after all. Personally, i like the system. I feel that it ads replay value to games and i enjoy doing the challenges that the developers have put in there