What's the big draw of achievements?

[marceror]

I'm reading a fair number of threads related to achievements. I note that the first major developer update related to upcoming patch 1.9 details a large number of new achievements to be added.

I'm just curious why folks even care about having the game pat you on the back for doing certain things. Shouldn't your massive, sprawling empire, unstoppable military, and obscenely powerful economy be all the achievement you need?

Maybe my brain is just... "broken" and I'm missing something wonderful here, but I honestly couldn't care less about achievements. So... please help me understand why these are supposedly important.

 

[FreeSoc]

They're not really important, but (if you're so inclined) they can provide interesting goals around which to base a campaign, as well as acting as a good skills test. You could argue that the icon once you complete an achievement makes it seem a bit less "ephemeral" than a single non-achievement-based-campaign might be, as it provides a sense of permanence.

Basically they're just there to provide interesting challenges, as far as I can see. They also provide goals other than just having a massive sprawling empire with a huge military, although some do require that.

 

[Xiahou Mao]

Some people like having a little bit of guidance. Achievements provide that, by offering the shiny prize at the end of the road. You might not normally sit down and think "I should try to conquer every Silk province in the game", or "I wonder if I could conquer all of Africa with Kongo", so achievements help nudge people to try things they otherwise wouldn't.

People also like recognition. Even if it's not really going to mean anything, they might like being able to check 'global achievement stats' on Steam and say "Only .73% of EU4 players have got 'Sweden Is Not Overpowered!', I'm in an exclusive minority". Being able to compare your achievements to those of your friends who also play the game might serve as a friendly competition or bragging rights.

And some people are obsessive-compulsive and simply must have every achievement, to say that they can. They don't look at it as guidance or do it for recognition, they simply do it because they feel it's necessary to complete the game. And then as more and more achievements are added, they keep playing and playing...

For the people who don't like achievements, well, those people can ignore them. There's nothing to lose by putting in more and more inventive achievements.

 

[Junuxx]

You could argue that the icon once you complete an achievement makes it seem a bit less "ephemeral" than a single non-achievement-based-campaign might be, as it provides a sense of permanence.
...
Basically they're just there to provide interesting challenges, as far as I can see. They also provide goals other than just having a massive sprawling empire with a huge military, although some do require that.

Not just less ephemeral but also less generic. Any game tends to end with a massive sprawling empire with a huge military. Having specific endgame goals to work towards increases replayability.

 

[Xara]

Because they're potential goals. What's hard to understand about that? It provides a framework for your campaign other then "See what happens" and "try to kill everyone". When they're challenging to achieve, they provide a sense of satisfaction; thrill at having mastered the mechanics of the game in order to pull it off. Even failing to achieve them can be a good thing - you get inspired (hopefully) to try again, perform better, work harder, and pull it off.

"Massive, sprawling empire" is probably the most boring thing to actually have. I've never finished a WC, even with potential campaigns that could have done it, simply because beyond a certain point, continual conquest when no serious opponents are left is just a boring management of truce timers and subject feeding. Doing something like "Luck of the Irish", or an achievement-esque goal of my own that I created (like owning every coastal Medittaranean & Baltic province) were much more amusing.

Is it really that hard to comprehend?

 

[grisamentum]

I'm just curious why folks even care about having the game pat you on the back for doing certain things. Shouldn't your massive, sprawling empire, unstoppable military, and obscenely powerful economy be all the achievement you need?

No. The game isn't that hard. Start with Austria, England, France, or Castille? You can have a WC around 1700. Not much challenge in that. Even in my first Poland playthrough, I managed to conquer all of Eurasia and Africa. The game just isn't that hard.

But there are plenty of arbitrary challenges to play with, to keep you occupied. So there's just an official list of them, and you can check and see who has which ones and discuss them. It's not about getting powerful and getting some "achievement" for it, it's about how you do it. And of course you can still have your own personal goals. They're not mutually exclusive.

And then sure, there are just some straight-up tutorial ones like "get a royal marriage." Those are useful for tracking what players are doing, for example.

 

[marceror]

I suppose some of them offer interesting twists, but yes, there are plenty of get of the "get a royal marriage" variety also.

Being that I'm only on my third campaign (Castile/Spain, France and Byzantium, respectively) I haven't really encountered the need for interesting twists yet. The more typical gameplay is still reward enough, as each campaign I've played has been very different from the last. Maybe I will take a look at some of those twists for a 4th campaign down the road. But for that, a list of "interesting scenarios to attempt in game" probably would have done the trick -- and required a whole lot less development time.

But I guess achievements on Steam are almost obligatory anymore.

 

[Xara]

What makes you think it "requires a lot of development time"?

They're relatively simple triggers. Many are less than a dozen lines in the file.

When you're on your 10th, 25th, 50th playthrough, yeah, you might better appreciate looking at a list of goals and thinking "I want to try that". Not sure why after only 3 games you're going "herp derp why would anyone wanna do these things?".

 

[AurochsAway]

3 playthroughs is not a lot of playthroughs, and all the achievements are are a list of interesting scenarios. If you don't want other people's goals fine, but sometimes they think of things you don't. The Venice achievement, for example, is something I would never have thought of on my own.

 

[Sorellis]

I have over 900 hours of EU. Blobbing got old past ~50 hours. Achievements are fun for me because they give me a goal to work towards and give meaning to my games. I think most people eventually get to this stage.

 

[Christopholes]

Bragging rights over the loved one, though they have the form netherlands as a dutch minor one over me currently

 

[marceror]

What makes you think it "requires a lot of development time"?

They're relatively simple triggers. Many are less than a dozen lines in the file.

I never said that I thought it required "a lot of development time", simply that it requires "a lot LESS" time to publish a list. That said, it's not just the amount of lines of code that need to be considered. The time to test said changes is also an important factor. But again, I'm not arguing that the development time is huge. That's you twisting my words.

When you're on your 10th, 25th, 50th playthrough, yeah, you might better appreciate looking at a list of goals and thinking "I want to try that". Not sure why after only 3 games you're going "herp derp why would anyone wanna do these things?".

I can understand how after a huge number of playthroughs this adds some interest. As for why I'm asking after only 3 games, that's because it was after 3 games that the question occurred to me. Do you have a problem with people asking questions?

It's an honest question on my part. Not really meant to be snarky. The responses have actually helped me to better understand why people care about these, so from that perspective asking the question has been helpful. I don't believe that I have "herp derped" at all... whatever in the hell that even means.

 

[Junuxx]

I never said that I thought it required "a lot of development time", simply that it requires "a lot LESS" time to publish a list. That said, it's not just the amount of lines of code that need to be considered. The time to test said changes is also an important factor. But again, I'm not arguing that the development time is huge. That's you twisting my words..

Well, I don't think Xara's argument is that odd. Your exact words were "a whole lot less development time", implying that creating the achievements took "a whole lot of time" to begin with, else it can not be reduced by that.

 

[marceror]

Well, I don't think Xara's argument is that odd. Your exact words were "a whole lot less development time", implying that creating the achievements took "a whole lot of time" to begin with, else it can not be reduced by that.

A whole lot less time relative to the time it takes to create a list. Roughly 10 minutes to post the list, vs. however many hours to code, test, iterate, test again, and release the achievements. Relatively speaking, the list is dramatically less time. It's a rather different thing than claiming that creating achievements requires a lot of development time.

Plenty more time required to come up with the ideas, but that's the same regardless of the delivery mechanism.

 

[Xara]

achievement_shahanshah = {
id = 89

possible = {
ironman = yes
start_date = 1444.11.11
tag = TAB
}

happened = {
tag = PER
}
}


It's not exactly rocket science coding. And your implication certainly was that it takes a significant amount of development time. You're awfully defensive about your questioning. When you use phrases like "why even care" and "shouldn't x be all you need" and "I couldn't care less" and "almost obligatory", you certainly appear to be passing judgement rather than neutrally asking for opinions.

 

[marceror]

It's not exactly rocket science coding. And your implication certainly was that it takes a significant amount of development time.

Again, no. That's not my argument at all. Feel free to disagree, but we won't be getting anywhere on this argument.

You're awfully defensive about your questioning. When you use phrases like "why even care" and "shouldn't x be all you need" and "I couldn't care less" and "almost obligatory", you certainly appear to be passing judgement rather than neutrally asking for opinions.

I can agree that my wording wasn't exactly neutral. Point taken there. But my ambivalence toward achievements isn't simply from 3 playthroughs of EUIV. It's developed over many years and thousands of hours of gaming on Steam, where I have been equally disinterested. But I always keep an open mind that perhaps I'm just missing something great about the feature, so the question was sincere from that perspective, if worded a touch on accusatory side.

And this time I'm actually coming away with something of a better understanding about why people care about achievements for EUIV. So... win.

 

[Golladan]

A whole lot less time relative to the time it takes to create a list. Roughly 10 minutes to post the list, vs. however many hours to code, test, iterate, test again, and release the achievements. Relatively speaking, the list is dramatically less time. It's a rather different thing than claiming that creating achievements requires a lot of development time.

Plenty more time required to come up with the ideas, but that's the same regardless of the delivery mechanism.

It takes less than a minute to create an achievement...

 

[FloatingOrb]

Direction sells in sandbox games. It sounds counterintuitive, but when you give people Too much freedom, they tend to do nothing at all. Speaking as someone closing in on 1300 hours of gameplay, coming up with your own goals starts getting tricky. There are only so many opms with nice colors.

 

[blackchoas]

If you don't understand the appeal of achievements maybe they aren't for you, but alot of people myself included like a clear marker that we have done something, either fun or difficult.

Personally I also take them as guiding tools, they give me clear and exact goals to go for in a game, motivating my actions while in a normal game I will often become the largest most powerful nation and then just get bored and stop expanding unless I really have reason to.

To give a few examples there is the Basileus achievement which is basically an achievement for doing the rather common challenge of Byzantium (personally I think it one is easier than people think at least it was pre AoW), there are less obvious ones though, I did the Great Khan a while back before this achievement I never really heard anyone talk about attempting to play the Golden Horde so it drummed up interest in using this faction and personally I led to me play in a different way then I usually do, I literally conquered near endlessly but only towards targets of value and literally had to betray every single one of my allies and fought incredibly brutal draw out wars that I normal shy from waging

There are definitely some new achievements that seem interesting to me, for example Holy Trinity which I think might lead to some interesting play styles and gives players an excuse to play the pope, King of Jerusalem will hopefully bring more interest to the challenge of the Knights or Cyprus and plenty of Muslim achievements to finally bring interest to that region

My only real complaint is how many of the achievements take 300 or more years to complete making it hard to do so many

 

[marceror]

It takes less than a minute to create an achievement...

Okay, you stubborn forum.

Since you won't let up, let me break this out. It might take YOU a minute to create an achievement, but everything takes longer when it's done by a company that uses multiple teams and resources to work on a single feature.

Let's say that conservatively it takes 40 hours of total development time to implement the next batch of achievements in 1.9. This includes the time to script them all out, unit test them all, send them to QA where various testers are going to have to test each achievement multiple times in multiple ways, attempting to break them. Next, there may be some ideas on how to make some of the achievements better, cooler, etc. Some of the achievements are invariably not going to work properly the first time and will require some tweaks.

So... back to the developers to make those changes and unit test those changes. Then back to QA to test each and every one of those changes again. Then, possibly, yet another round of tweaks, improvements, and testing. Companies tend to iterate and all that. Then... maybe the achievements will be ready. From there they will need to be included in a build, and that build will need to be scheduled and deployed on Steam, requiring a bit more time from Paradox.

Across the entire team, that's easily 40 hours -- a single work week. And not all of that time is going to be productive toward creating the achievements. People get interrupted while they're working. They chat with a coworker, call their wife, or surf the net for a few minutes to clear their brain. They have a smoke break. We're human beings, not robots, after all. A lot of that "sluffing off" time still gets counted toward the total hours worked. I mean, who really is honest enough to say that of the 8 hours I worked today, only 75% of the time was actually productive (far less for some folks).

Now then. Let's say that the total hours budgeted for the 1.9 patch (and whatever new expansion will invariably follow it) is 2,000 hours. 40 hours isn't a huge amount of 2000.

But... it's still a hell of a lot less than the 10 minutes to post a list.

Are we done here yet?