The achievement list was just posted (no riddles)

Oh, for the love of all knowledge in existence! So many bloated achievements. Devs found out that they made huge design mistakes and try to compensate with bloated achievements. Economy doesn't work that way nor do players go for them. You don't fix your mistakes this way, ever. Players will notice! LOL

This ain't funny though. Not really.

Bloated achievement example and what it implies:

• r: 1000 shipwrecked chests
• q: why not 10,000 instead?
• q: why not a 1 million?
• a: psychological interest limit
• i: doubt of concept or a discovered mistake
• v: classic number game bloatin' around
• e: targets specific players
• e: stretches the experience
• e: common mistake

Solution:

• r: explore a shipwrecked ship
• q: how does this make a difference?
• q: how does this help the game?
• a: balanced range of instance variables
• i: endurable multi-dimensional concept
• v: gateway reward, interest triggerer
• s: no bloating
• s: extends experience
• s: conscious solution

Legend:

r = reward
q = question
a = answer
i = implications
v = verdict
e = error
s = solution

Everytime a dev team includes a bloating achievement in their game, I ask myself what it is that they did incorrectly in that relevant instance or what fundamental mistake did they discover.

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable I actually love really grindy achievements like that. Those are the only ones I can actually get behind for SoT. Most of the others can be done almost immediately upon starting the game. I'd prefer if every achievement would take at least a month of playtime.

Don't get confused here. I'm not against grind in general. I'm against the real grind. Such that only bloats the game; stretching it instead of extending it. The example I gave is a classic one.

Let's go accurate here. The grind you like is not actually a grind. It is a series of actions and activities that together results in you getting a medal; tasking. This is okay and I like commitment toward this type too. Keyword: commitment. However, real grind is actually a lot more harmful for development as well as players alike when commitment is taken advantage of. What I mean by this is that I define grind differently to differentiate it from task progression.

---

Definition to Grind is this:

• do X
• repeat X Y times
• the longer one takes the better
• not too long to keep backlash moderate
• gain Z reward instantly

---

Definition to Tasking is this:

• perform [insert a campaign here]
• length doesn't matter
• replay, not repetition
• commitment requires fun and honesty
• gain a reward in appropriate situations

---

Do you sense the differences between here?

If you want to see the Art they posted it on Facebook

As of the past hour or so, people have been completing the in-game achievements according to the game hub. I'm guessing it's the Rare team and maybe some professional reviewers.

1.46% of players have currently killed a skeleton after they ate a banana lol.

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable Isn't getting 1,000 chests considered tasking then?

It went way off the track.

If you don't understand the point, do a simple test for me will you? Go tap your hand 100 times to a vertical wall in the near vicinity to you and come back here with your experience about what changed from the point you went to it to the point you came back here. Then we compare the results.

Wasn't there a community made achievement called "smile you son of a ...."? Did Rare decide not to put or is this not a complete list?

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable I don't really understand. Are you saying it's just too much, and that 100 or 200 would be fine? I don't feel like 1,000 is that much at all considering this is a game that is supposed to be played for years on end.

I did a rough estimate of the math a couple days ago. Those 1000 achievements will probably take 20-25 hours of gameplay based on how many chests a galleon crew can grab in an hour.

Do with that information as you wish :)

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable I don't really understand. Are you saying it's just too much, and that 100 or 200 would be fine? I don't feel like 1,000 is that much at all considering this is a game that is supposed to be played for years on end.

I say the number game behind it is not even close what enough really is. It's meaningless. Waste of effort. Waste of value. Waste of design. Yes. We are 'supposed' to be able to utilise it for years. Mere mind tricks like these just make it shorter.

Did you try what I asked? In case yes, what did you learn?

@rayfromjersey said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable I don't really understand. Are you saying it's just too much, and that 100 or 200 would be fine? I don't feel like 1,000 is that much at all considering this is a game that is supposed to be played for years on end.

I did a rough estimate of the math a couple days ago. Those 1000 achievements will probably take 20-25 hours of gameplay based on how many chests a galleon crew can grab in an hour.

Do with that information as you wish :)

There are only 60 achievements currently in the game and we were talking about a specific achievement earlier that had the same quantity presented in it so I wager you meant those thousand chests it requires, from shipwrecks, right?

---

If you ask me, I'd be actually doing something worthwhile than finding shipwrecks for the rest of the game. The achievement is clearly just a bait with a hook to lure the player into blind action thorough mere quota maximisation, progressed only thorough pseudo-randomly generated areas with pseudo-randomly generated amount of chests without any player-driven control except carrying them to the ship and to the "merchant" relatively unharmed.

Eating a banana is much more pleasing coz the achievement gained gives emphasis to importance relevant to the item. Getting those chests from shipwrecks doesn't emphasise anything except how "wonderful" mere hoarding is; number doesn't count to anything specific. This is why it might as well be a million shipwrecked chests.

If a player doesn't learn from one shipwreck that they might want to explore each one below and above the surface level, a thousand more shipwrecks are not going to cut it either. They are more likely going to get fed up with it sooner than later and then avoid every single wreckage afterwards, but not before the devs gain at least a tiny bit more mileage to the meter.

This wears players out very quickly and just a mere achievement gained is not going to cut it. Not that the grind should give anything else to begin with, but the achievement itself should be a gateway to learning and guidance instead of just grinding your time away because devs didn't think any better ways to have you boost their statistics in a positive way beyond game's calculated lifespan. After all, they use mere repetition to tell how much their customers like their game instead of true replay value.

Removing every bloating achievement except one and stretching that to become the sum of them and including the removed ones, leads to the same result. There's one term that describes this behaviour pattern remarkably well; click bait.

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

I hate achievements that are possible to do in the first month or so of a game like this, and wish more of them were long-form.

Destination is what the journey to it makes of it. If you are so eager to just hoard things in order to get a simple medal, why not ask devs that they design one specifically for you and make it about one billion skeleton chests that you need to bring to the npc? This ought to do it, right? Do you sense the paradox now? Instead of asking repetition, ask replay value. A reason why you should get back to the game, not simply keeping you at the game. Instead ask them to actually update it over time to literally last as long as the achievements make you grind it for or at least have replay value to get the same result in case hardware offers issues. Simply wishing for meaningless repetition, doesn't save you dropping from the game. It actually emphasises it.

@cpt-kazuto said in The achievement list was just posted (no riddles):

@mythicalfable For any other ingame task I am in agreement. But achievements are a one time thing and then they're gone, so they might as well last. Replay value makes no sense in a discussion about achievements.

For that, once in a lifetime nature, it makes it even more important to not bloat the game thorough achievements. To be more specific, quality of the game can be actually sensed thorough achievements in place, not just the structure of the premium shops and alike. The more bloated the achievements in a game are, the more probable is the lack of content around those areas they are relevant to. The wider they connect, the more fundamental issues they probably have as well. Depending from their nature and connections, we can deduce how simple the core idea really was to begin with.

Repetition makes even less sense than replay value. With replay value the content is actually so great that you get to it over and over again whenever you can and still be satisfied with it. While replay value doesn't seem to be a viable concept to grasp when it comes to achievements, it is still crucial to keep the list pure from those psychological gimmicks that stretch the game beyond their lifespan. This is why I don't advocate bloated achievements nor other features. If the game is simple, keep it simple. Extend them, don't stretch them.

Repetition wears players out and they won't care in the end anymore. They become numb to the experience the faster they hoard 'em coz they can't see the forest from the trees. The issue here is really the very thing these individuals like... or so they think they do. When they connect the now-devalued false source of joy to the real source giving it, as if it had lost its value when it actually hasn't, they just don't sense the difference. The harm is now complete. Hence becoming numb. This is very common nowadays because technology in these areas has been developed far enough, but some players aren't very sensitive to change themselves.

This is why Destiny 2, The Division and basically any 3A title you can point at feels void of content. The situation is actually the opposite. Content isn't missing. The content that really is there is just stretched beyond its lifespan, i.e. it's bloated. This is why it feels so empty. There was nothing in between to begin with. It's all bloated content; just like these achievements are and they only serve to push the trend even further into the future.