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[LeoLeonardoIII]

Yeah embedding achievements can't take much time. Just an extra little line inserted, and the boilerplate achievement code tucked away at the beginning.

And I agree that every achievement should be difficult, a true feat, such that you'd almost never come across one during normal gameplay. But if you chose a strange gameplay style for yourself, you might see them more often. Like "I think I'm gonna go through this whole game using just a slingshot" and BAM you get the Dennis the Menace to Society achievement.

And I don't think every game needs them. But if you have a discrete-session-based game like Spelunky, achievements kind of have to be tracked across all sessions.

EDIT: When I see your avatar fenrif I just keep thinking "I LIKE TURTLES" over and over. It's hilarious.

[nenjin]

That's a good point about the visibility of achievements. Having a whole in-game page listing all the achievements and your current progress goes even further toward killing the enjoyment of getting them.

But game companies have designed themselves into that corner. Take Borderlands for example.

Kill 10 Scags (numbers are inaccurate)
Kill 100 Scags
Kill 1,000 Scags

Rinse and repeat that for every enemy type in game. (At least Borderlands gives you XP for those achievements, but even that is a little trite considering XP is one of the few things they can give you as a meaningful reward. Even gear rewards are shit for the most part because the whole game throws loot at you non-stop.)

Borderlands COULDN'T get away with not listing the achievements and tracking them, because they have so many and all of them revolve around #'s of things. Many other games fall into the same trap.

But I agree. Here's a novel idea: Only award achievements at the end of the game. Do not list achievement requirements until the first play through is completed.

Normally I hate achievements with nothing attached to them. But de-emphasizing achievements during game play means people don't obsess about killing x amounts of stuff. That kind of activity is rarely as fun as it could be, and is usually accomplished in the easiest, quickest way possible.

It'd give people a reason to replay too, and inspire them to play different ways. Sure, they'll still be doing it "for the One-Armed man achievement", but the choice to play a certain way through the whole game would be an experience in and of itself.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Or if the achievement gave you a bonus for the rest of THAT playthrough. And many achievements would be mutually exclusive.

I'm also thinking it would be better to do an achievement for killing X number of enemies at once, rather than over time. Then you have to either work on strategy to get them all together so you can blast them, or else happen upon it eventually by accident.

Another interesting one would be "killing X enemies without slowing below 50 MPH" or killing only people from a single faction.

Which brings up one point. I absolutely hate when you can fail a thing because of a single slip-up. In the example above, you'd accidentally kill somebody's poodle and lose the achievement. That sucks. But then again, how many "misses" do you get before it's not a very difficult achievement anymore?

An achievement for killing the boss during his monologue cutscene would be funny. But it would be a gag achievement, since anyone could do it once they realized it was possible.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Or if the achievement gave you a bonus for the rest of THAT playthrough. And many achievements would be mutually exclusive.

I'm also thinking it would be better to do an achievement for killing X number of enemies at once, rather than over time. Then you have to either work on strategy to get them all together so you can blast them, or else happen upon it eventually by accident.

Another interesting one would be "killing X enemies without slowing below 50 MPH" or killing only people from a single faction.

Borderlands actually had a few like that, at least one achievement line was "kill X enemies within Y seconds of the previous kill".

[Sowelu]

Slipping off-topic, but I always wanted a roguelike that had achievements which persisted across game sessions, and gave you bonuses.  So you had this weird meta-game going on that was contrary to the normal roguelike experience.  Kill a thousand goblins across all your playing files and deaths, and all your future characters get +2 against goblins...etc.

[Cthulhu]

Desktop Dungeons had something like that.  Completing certain dungeons gave you bonuses in other dungeons, etc.

[cowofdoom78963]

Slipping off-topic, but I always wanted a roguelike that had achievements which persisted across game sessions, and gave you bonuses.  So you had this weird meta-game going on that was contrary to the normal roguelike experience.  Kill a thousand goblins across all your playing files and deaths, and all your future characters get +2 against goblins...etc.

There are acctually quite a few rogues like that. Maybe not exactly that but pretty close.

Doomrogue comes to mind but Im sure there are more.

[Pathos]

There are acctually quite a few rogues like that. Maybe not exactly that but pretty close.

Doomrogue comes to mind but Im sure there are more.

Doom roguelike was amazing for this, but I can't think of any other games.

[Farce]

Splitscreen is my favorite kind of multiplayer.  I stay FAR the hell away from over-the-internet sorta multiplayer, because in general I suck really hard and have no fun with non-bros.

Achievements are stupid.  If they're story-mode-progress-markers, they tend to pop up over cutscenes and stuff.  If they're of the "kill a billion enemies with weapon a/b/c/d" sort, they're just tedious.  Unless they mark an actual feat (preferably one that isn't fakeable), like speedrunning/ironman-NO-SAVE-EVER-ing the whole game or shooting a grenade out of the air, I don't really see a point to 'em outside of adding an arbitrary out-of-game score to artificially extend a game's playtime.