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The Nintendo Switch and it's lack of an achievement/trophy system.

While I don't care for them at all, it's something Nintendo should have implemented as a standardised system feature because it's a big thing with hardcore gamers.
 

sugarless

Member
I don't care about achievements/trophies but I would like it if you could unlock new user icons, even if just for launching a game. It's one visible place to show off something that is personalised without getting into a numbers game or getting too obsessed about it.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Nintendo sucks at keeping people playing their (online) games. Achievements and rewards are definitely a part of that.

People literally made their own servers to keep playing Wii games online after GameSpy shut down the original servers.
 

Robin64

Member
Touche. Let me start compiling a weekly newsletter to send out to all my friends to keep them updated on my achievements in Nintendo games.

Just post to Twitter using the Switch's built-in features, then they'll see it. And this way, you also get to dictate what you consider to be an achievement.
 

butzopower

proud of his butz
Super Mario Odyssey tracks the date you acquire each moon. I wonder if that will be something shareable, or if it's just assumed you'll take a screenshot and share it if you wanted to.
 

Poona

Member
Super Mario Odyssey tracks the date you acquire each moon. I wonder if that will be something shareable, or if it's just assumed you'll take a screenshot and share it if you wanted to.

Maybe it will hopefully be when Nintendo implements their system wide trophy/achievements/stars or whatever system.

I just think back to how the ps3 didn't have trophies on launch and just hope that Nintendo is working on them and it will be unveiled soon.
 
Just post to Twitter using the Switch's built-in features, then they'll see it. And this way, you also get to dictate what you consider to be an achievement.
Tweets, just like games on my Recently Played list, will eventually disappear. That is a good way to share with your friends though, and I'm glad that Nintendo has that feature. I don't want any kind of deep trophy system, just something little to commemorate milestones that I reached in games. I don't care if there is a score connected to it or anything.

Ideally, I was thinking they could do something like a sticker book. Each profile has a little button that can be clicked to open someone's sticker booker, and inside would be a collection of stickers they've unlocked in games. Every game would only need to have one to five of these, if any at all. Just something like a Korok for collecting all the seeds, or Bulb Boy's head for completing the game. It might be fun for some of your friends to look through them, but it will primarily serve as a way for you to look back at your history with the Switch.

Ok, but trophies are like pictures of your kids. Nobody cares except you.
Same could be said about time spent playing a game, but Nintendo still has that feature on every profile.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Touche. Let me start compiling a weekly newsletter to send out to all my friends to keep them updated on my achievements in Nintendo games.
DTVZWhs.png


Has the simple art of having a conversation been lost?

For what? Smash Bros?

The main game was Mario Kart Wii.
 

Kysen

Member
Its the reason why i'll still buy the multiplats on PS4. Something about the sound of a trophy popping up really sits well with me.
 

JP

Member
I could never really understand the point in these systems until the first Uncharted got a trophy update. I'd completed the game many times before that happened and I thought I was pretty good at it but some of the trophies made me play the game in a different way to how I had been playing it as I had to learn new skills to earn some of them.

By doing that, not only did I get better at playing it but it also became a better game for me because of the new skills that I'd learnt doing that.

Trophies aren't the be-all and end-all of gaming for me but I do really like the feeling of how it ties everything that you're playing, it almost unifies what you're doing as a single entity when you play. It binds everything together as a single experience. I don't compare them with other people and my information is private anyway, it's not about competing with people for me, it's about my own gaming experience.

I am disappointed that Nintendo doesn't offer anything like this on Switch because it does make everything I play feel incredibly disparate and separate to everything that I do with my ID. For me, it is a missed opportunity and I would like it to change.
 

DKPOWPOW

Member
I liked them on the 360, but I can't say I ever think about them while playing my Switch. It'd be nice, but it's not a big deal. I think it would be cool for something like Mario Kart or Arms.
 
Nintendo's main gaming targets are kids: I think there's no a better way to keep them away from the achievements/trophies hunting game mechanic/mind logic as Microsoft and Sony did for the overall experience with the game itself...
 

HotHamBoy

Member
Ok, but trophies are like pictures of your kids. Nobody cares except you.

I've never understood the appeal.

It would be one thing if you could cash in trophies for cool OS bonuses like themes and avatars and stuff, but they are just pointless. Half of them are just "participation trophies".

I especially do not understand why people play games just because they have easy trophies. Literally nobody cares that you have "X" amount of platinum trophies, or your gamerscore is high.
 

sonto340

Member
I've never understood the appeal.

It would be one thing if you could cash in trophies for cool OS bonuses like themes and avatars and stuff, but they are just pointless. Half of them are just "participation trophies".

I especially do not understand why people play games just because they have easy trophies. Literally nobody cares that you have "X" amount of platinum trophies, or your gamerscore is high.
It can be fun to look at the trophies for a game to find a new way to play a game or seeing a challenge for yourself You wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
 

Estoc

Member
It can be fun to look at the trophies for a game to find a new way to play a game or seeing a challenge for yourself You wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

I used to think that way too, until I read this:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1411485

It made sense to me that achievements can be detrimental to a game's design, and upon further thoughts, I could still do those challenges if I feel the game is fun. I repeatedly start new characters in Dark Souls, playing from start to finish each time with a different theme, sometimes a pure sorcerer with no defense, other time a heavy 100% weight character, even though there is no achievement for it. I'm exploring everything in Zelda BotW because the game is fun, because I want to find a cool scenery to take selfie at, and having achievements or not won't change that.

If a game isn't fun to begin with, achievements won't fix that.

Personally, I think it works well for games with RNG that are meant to be played over and over or over a long period of time, such as the Binding of Isaac, any 4X games, any open-world games, grindy games, etc... Take Civ V for example, I would play each civ looking to recreate its civilization's moments like Three Musketeers for France and such, and sometimes they would inspire me into looking into the reference's source.

Another example is badges in Monster Hunter, it's a good way to allow players to keep track of each other's progress without forcing it onto the system.

I don't think achievements should go away completely, but instead of it being on the system level, it should be on individual game basis, if a developer feels achievements can improve their game, they should do it, otherwise, why should they? Would TLOU, for example, be any less without all the collectibles and you trying to fully upgrade all weapons?
 

Mr_Moogle

Member
I can't for the life of me understand why people would want to reduce their hobby to a chore with trophies. I've always wondered if people who obsess over trophies have symptoms of OCD. I just don't understand the appeal.
 

FinalAres

Member
Calling trophies an industry standard sounds kinda hilarious.

It's on Playstation, Xbox, Steam, Android, iOS. It's on every gaming platform except Nintendo's, which also happen to be in last place out of all of them (for now...)

I like not having achievements, because I'm a bit OCD and it frees me somewhat. But it massively IS an industry standard.
 
It can be fun to look at the trophies for a game to find a new way to play a game or seeing a challenge for yourself You wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

That I can somewhat understand.

But why would you want to see someone else's trophies? You can google a list of achievements.
 
I still love collecting achievements for historical purposes and getting the most out of my games.

Achievements are as meaningless as the games themselves.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Maybe just a thing that shares what we played or even finished the game would be cool, but achievements as they are today are kinda lame.
 
Don't miss them at all. Wouldn't mind them being added, just keep them out of Nintendo games. I don't want getting an arbitrary pop-up to have to factor into the game design.
 
Not really much to do with Switch, but I saw people saying they decided they weren't getting Sonic Mania because it didn't have a platinum trophy. I think in many ways achievements cause some strange issues in people. To not play a game for that arbitrary reason is baffling. I know it's not everyone but there are a lot out there that think that way. It's kinda like OCD. I gotta say I like the Switch in that it's there just to play the game, and that should be the reward in itself. You don't need achievements fo have a good time. And if you think you do, maybe it's time to take a step back, maybe.
 

FinalAres

Member
That I can somewhat understand.

But why would you want to see someone else's trophies? You can google a list of achievements.
Because it's a way of connecting socially with friends. Oh I didn't know my friend had played that game, I wonder if he did this random thing I did, oh he did. I'm going to ask him about it when I see him. Oh he didn't, now I can laugh at him mercilessly for not wasting his time on this thing, because that's just what guys do.

I've had many conversations with my friend about plattinumming games. My mate just completed yooka laylee.
 

Robin64

Member
I mean, okay, it can start a conversation, but so can just.. talking about games. The things mentioned above, talking about if you've beaten a game or done a specific thing, are conversations I have with friends about games that don't have achievements.
 
I mean, okay, it can start a conversation, but so can just.. talking about games. The things mentioned above, talking about if you've beaten a game or done a specific thing, are conversations I have with friends about games that don't have achievements.
I personally have never talked about achievements with friends. Wgen it came to enjoying games with friends it was about the experiences, not the little icon. The Souls series is a big one. No one talked about the achievements, you just talked about the game.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I mean, okay, it can start a conversation, but so can just.. talking about games. The things mentioned above, talking about if you've beaten a game or done a specific thing, are conversations I have with friends about games that don't have achievements.

I'll be honest, someone approaching me and talking about a game because they went and looked me up to see my KDR / time spent / achievemtn completion percentage is actually a bit fucking creepy
 

Kebiinu

Banned
I'm indifferent. There are some games on the Switch that like to emulate trophies, and that's good enough for me. But ultimately, it's a feature I never cared for, tbh.
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
It really sucks that it doesn't have its own version of this, especially as I believe Nintendo would put a unique spin on it.

I'm getting Sonic Mania on PS4 mainly because of trophies.
 

Quonny

Member
The activity log is not ideal, but it's something... but why isn't it permanent? It's only for the last twenty games.
 

uberTerminus

Neo Member
Ugh. IMO, this has been the single biggest deleterious effect of the achievement and trophy system: Trophies being treated as if they're content. It started with users viewing them as content but then developers jumped on board. It's made some developers lazy as they use the trophies as crutches to pad playtime rather than adding more compelling gameplay. You don't have trophy X, why don't you play through the same thing a third time for it?!

Meanwhile, too many users use it as an idiotic measurement of aptitude or interest, some going so far as to berate others for having lower gamerscore or trophy counts. Nevermind the fact that tools exist to cheat to unlock them (especially back on X360).

I guess the TL;DR here is:
Achievements were a mistake. Developers choosing to put in achievements on their own was one thing. Microsoft (then Sony) mandating them made the whole thing into a shitshow.

E:


Yeah but you know the inevitable trophy for ALL the Korok seeds would be rage inducing. :p

Some games do actually put content behind achievements. For example, State of Decay on Xbox One has challenge achievements each month, which if one has completed, allow different requisitions. This month's has you setting 50 zombies on fire in order to get fireman themed melee weapons.
 
I'm glad there isn't one.

Trophies ruined how I played games, took a break from the PS4 and now I just try to enjoy the games I play.

Same here. I can't explain how it did, but PS4/Xbone gaming hasn't been as fun lately. I miss the times as a kid when I played games for fun, and often wouldn't even finish them.
 
Zelda and now mario make me feel that having an achievement system would just turn finding Koroks/Moons into a chore.

Now, I play as much as I want and dont worry about hitting a threshold for a useless icon in a list.
 
Thank god for no achievements here. They make games worse. They take away actually rewards for a stupid popup/picture/checkmark.

Hell cheats and codes went away right at the same time achievements came to be a thing. First because cheating would devalue the achievements then they just took and sold us the "cheats"
 
The activity log is not ideal, but it's something... but why isn't it permanent? It's only for the last twenty games.

What happens if you play more than 20 games? Does it delete the old ones or just not show it until you play that game again and it’s at the to of the list? I do t have 20 games yet....
 

Mihos

Gold Member
Thank god for no achievements here. They make games worse. They take away actually rewards for a stupid popup/picture/checkmark.

Hell cheats and codes went away right at the same time achievements came to be a thing. First because cheating would devalue the achievements then they just took and sold us the "cheats"

Cheat codes went away because they figured out they could charge you for it.
 
Cheat codes went away because they figured out they could charge you for it.

Yes, in part because they saw how people were ok with just receiving empty rewards for the same "achievements" that used to give you new costumes, big head mode etc.

Achievements came first. If you used cheats on games with achievements these were locked for that pay session ( At least GTA IV). Then they eventually just took them all away and packaged them to be sold in some way.
 
Zelda and now mario make me feel that having an achievement system would just turn finding Koroks/Moons into a chore.

Now, I play as much as I want and dont worry about hitting a threshold for a useless icon in a list.

That's a bit of self contradiction - if you think they are worthless why would you care even if they were implemented ?
 

Renekun

Neo Member
I am playing Super Mario Odyssey and the least thing I need is an achievement system. If every game could be like this rewarding. 😍
 
I stopped caring about them years ago. I have the notifications turned off on my PS4. And even when I did feel compelled to platinum a game, I never ever felt particularly compelled to compare them to friends or random matched opponents.

That being said, I think whether or not to include achievements of some kind should be on a game by game basis, with possibly some kind of reward associated with them. (See: the in-game achievements of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV among others.)
 
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