Achievements, trophies and Co .: Stop doing stupid tasks!

For some time now I've been among the trophy collectors.

Yes, I've resisted it for years, even though I'm a terrible completist. So I'm only happy when in an open world game I've scanned all the icons on the map and see the magic 100 percent flash in the menu, found every collectable in Uncharted 4 and everything else that has been done in the game itself in terms of tasks is specified.

Table of contents

1 I collect, therefore I am 2 Pre-programmed cruelty 3 Thank you, but no thanks 4 672 hours of joy 5 The question of why 6 Git gud But trophies, yes , I fought against them for a long time (I am now specifically talking about trophies, since I am primarily on the PS4 and PS5). First of all, because I found it to be something inappropriate, a foreign body that eats its way into my gaming experience. Second, because, let's face it, trophies were simply implemented extremely poorly for a long time.

For tasks such as "Play the game through on all five levels of difficulty", "Defeat 500 enemies at a time with all available weapons "or" Wins in 1,000 online matches "I only had to take a look to know that I would never do that for reasons of time and desire. And tasks of this kind were commonplace in the first few years after the invention of successes in the form of achievements on the Xbox 360.

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I collect, therefore I am

Achievements, trophies and Co .: Stop doing stupid tasks! (4) Source: Moby Games I can't even say exactly when it started, probably a year or two ago, and which game I completed at the trophy level first. Before that I had a few platinum trophies in my possession, but really only a tiny handful of titles that I had played excessively.

But now I was through with various games and afterwards the credits noticed that there was usually a pretty high percentage next to the trophies won. So from then on there were moments when I peeked into my trophy collection and noticed that I could achieve 100 percent with little effort. And above all, I noticed that the particularly stupid trophies of yesteryear, namely those that can be missed, were now much rarer, as were those that required excessive online gaming - as soon as the servers were turned off it is over anyway with the cheerful completion.

And here I am now, with almost 25 pieces of platinum jewelry in my possession; an achievement that doesn't bring me anything, but is motivated enough that the trophy check has become an integral part of my everyday gaming routine.

The more rare, but nonetheless or even more annoying really stupid ones stand out all the more Successes emerge like unpleasant splinters.

Pre-programmed cruelty

Achievements, trophies and Co .: Stop doing stupid tasks! (3) Source: Ubisoft The harmless variant: specimens like "Oversized II" in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Yes, there is now a platinum trophy in my collection, and for a long time the tasks to acquire the small treasures in bronze, silver and gold are all very gracious. Story missions have to be completed, your own village needs to be fully developed or you have to kill a (gracious!) Number of enemies in a row using stealth kill. All of this happens on the side if you are a complete player.

And what does "Oversized II" require?

"Kill 3 heavy soldiers without breaking their shields while you are burning."

This is ... specific. The attempt to implement these requirements without help is doomed to failure without a special amount of creativity. No, without a look into the vastness of the Internet, it is very difficult to find out here how to solve this problem effectively. In my case, I had to consciously lower my level of experience and then lure enemies to a special place in a certain village, stand on a thatched roof, set the roof on fire with me and then use the unlocked skill to open the enemy's lances it threw it back while I hoped I wouldn't break, accidentally disappear from the enemy's field of vision, or stop burning.

Quite simple, isn't it?

In Valhalla there is something special besides this one inclined task, there are other strange trophies, but as I said: Basically it's not difficult if you know what to do. Since you can hardly find out for yourself, I don't see the point behind such ideas.

Thank you, but no thanks

Achievements, trophies and Co .: Stop doing stupid tasks! (2) Source: Devolver Digital A second, much worse example: "Unbeatable" from Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, a game that I will definitely never be able to completely complete because of this and a few other tasks.

What do I have to do for that? Well, I have to get the crown five times in the tournaments, so I have to come out of them first - one after the other. I was never good at calculating probability, but since you always play against 59 other participants in several games, many of the matches, especially the team games, are based in part on luck - and like to mess around with the servers - and because you simply do it Has to be incredibly good, is the chance that one succeeds ... clearly.

Only a handful of people around the world will ever call this trophy their own. Nice for those lucky ones, but I don't know if this circumstance is worth offending millions of players around the world.

672 hours of joy

Have my last example Fortunately I don't have to experience it myself, but a good friend who ticks like me and has reached the limits of his nervous resilience: "My Kung Fu is stronger" from an indexed part of Mortal Kombat from 2011. Good , a somewhat older title, but even then you should have known better, and above all the madness of this trophy is so great that it simply cannot go unmentioned: For this success you have to win 100 matches with EVERY fighter, 100 Perform fatalities, perform 100 X-Ray moves, splash 10,000 liters of blood and invest a full 24 hours of gaming time. To put it into perspective: There are 28 fighters in the fighting game, and even if I am not able to do anything with these tasks as a layman, I get a cold chill down my spine when I have to play 28 times 24, i.e. 672 hours.

For a (!) Trophy!

The question of why

I'm glad that examples like the ones I mentioned have become rare. But still it happens at regular, irregular intervals that I look at the trophy list of a title and lose interest in a particularly annoying copy. Very few games are run so excessively that the developer can trust that the fans are willing to invest hundreds of hours.

Yes, that's a first-world problem out of the picture book, yes, In truth, I shouldn't care if I got 100 percent of the trophies or not. But it is not (anymore), and since there is this success system, I also think that it should not enrage people with stupid design.

Git gud

Me have nothing against heavy trophies. If they are dynamically integrated into the game, for example you receive them as soon as you have defeated a particularly tricky optional boss, popping up these little proofs of success can provide an additional endorphin rush. If, instead, there is hard work on the program, the requirements are stupid or astronomical, or in the worst case, I notice that I have missed a copy or can no longer get it because the servers are switched off, then I actually feel less interested in the game itself.

And that can't be the point.

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