H4 Achievements

Games Other Halo
1

We know that H4 is going to have 50 Achievements.

Let’s help 343 make H4’s Achievement list legendary by pointing out the pitfalls that have plagued other games and Halo in the past.

-Collectables.
Do not have an obscene number of them and have no in game checklist. Reason? I’m going to list four games that made me hate Collectables.

Assassin’s Creed
Infamous
Crackdown
Prototype

The original Assassin’s Creed had 420 flags to collect and 60 Templars to find and kill. Infamous let you ping the map to see if there were any Blast Shards to collect, but only your mini-map. And it had limited vertical range in a game that has a skyscraper. Prototype had 100 Location Orbs to find and 50 Hint Orbs as well, no checklist for either of them.

Crackdown 2 is the grandaddy of them all. Over 800 orbs to collect.

Even their eventual improvements (you can buy maps in AC:B and on that showed you the collectables on your map, and Infamous 2 points you in the direction of Shards that are off your minimap) but they were still annoying experiences.

If you are going to do collectables, then look at Gears 3. Limited number with a checklist of what you got and where you got it.

-Skill and Luck Based Achievements
H3 is at fault for both of these.

Why?

Save This Film and Two 4 One. Get a Perfection Medal and a double kill with a SpLaser. The former required the ranking system to utterly fail and for you to be placed against people so horrible, they could do nothing to stop you. The other required pure blind luck. Luck that you would get a map with a SpLaser, and luck that two idiots would be lined up so you could kill them with it.

-MP Achievements
Reach is at fault for these.

Why?

Because the last two set of Achievements, for Defiant and Anniversary, required that they be earned on a Defiant and Anniversary map. For some, Emergency Room and All Alone and Don’t Touch That, the only way to actually get them was to play regular MMing and hope that the other 10 players joining up had the maps.

Which they wouldn’t.

Of course playlist changes have made them much harder to get now, removal of Noble and Defiant only playlists, and have elevated the difficulty of other achievements as well. You Ate All the Chips? Only place to get that is in SWAT. SWAT of all places is the only place that still has Stockpile. The continued removal of AL from BTB games has made Poopin’ & Lockin’ harder to get.

You Blew It Up gets a mention since you need a full party with the Noble Map Pack to go into Invasion to even stand a chance of seeing Breakpoint.

-Summary
In summary, H4’s Achievements should not follow ANY of these examples. There should be a decent mix of easy Achievements, story based Achievements, hard Achievements and MP Achievements.

With plenty thrown in for teaching players to think outside the box. I mean it. I want to see an Achievement in H4 for killing a player with a Sticky Detonator stuck to a ceiling, or wall. Someplace that people aren’t going to look for it.

2

I don’t want any multiplayer achievements. None. Zero.

I actually don’t mind collectables, and even thoroughly enjoyed collecting all of the orbs in Crackdown.

3

> I don’t want any multiplayer achievements. None. Zero.
>
> I actually don’t mind collectables, and even thoroughly enjoyed collecting all of the orbs in Crackdown.

…

What’s your safeword?

“Hit me harder Mistress?”

Certain MP achievements are fine. Things like getting a double kill with a Shotgun.

4

gears of war 3’s collectibles sucked. collectibles should be interesting and worth collecting, at least the skulls in halo 3 actually gave you something for obtaining them whereas the gears of war 1, 2, and 3 collectibles were simply there to collect and nothing else.

as for what you said about everything else I have to agree, but I kind of doubt they’ll spend a week thinking about the achievements in halo 4. I’m not an expert when it comes to halo achievement hunting but when it comes to gears of war I’m some sort of collector. I think the best game I ever played for achievements was left 4 dead (1), they gave you a somewhat challenging amount of achievements mixed with some that were just plain fun to get.

even though I would love to see some really good achievements in halo 4 I doubt we’ll see any that are actually worth getting, the reason why I say that is because game developers just don’t care about achievements all that much.

5

The initial Reach achievements were fine. I completed them all, only to have the Noble and Defiant add achievements that were map/gametype specific. Really annoying.

OP, I agree 100%.

6

Prototype had 200 location orbs and Infamous pinging also made the shards blink with light when you did it. Crackdown 2 also had a ping.

When it comes to collectables, I go by one simple rule. The more collectables there are, the easier it should be to find them. If a game has like, 7 collectables, you won’t need a list or map since they’re most likely in the obvious hidden spots. Going up to 100, you need an in-game map or something to get them, and a list of how many are in the area.

As for multiplayer, the only achievements I like is ones that promote variety. Like getting 100 kills with each weapon.

7

For the most part I just disagree with what you said about skill based achievements. Yes, Save This Film was hard, and perhaps it did take a little luck, but that didn’t prevent thousands of players from getting it… hell, I was within a minute of getting it until I made a terrible judgement call.

I believe some achievements NEED to take time and skill to achieve. This way, you actually feel a sense of real achievement upon earning the achievement. That’s the primary purpose of them after all isn’t it? I can’t stand achievements like Fear the Pink Mist, or Up Close and Personal… way too easy and pretty much free GS seeing as 98% of players with online connection probably earned them.

I agree somewhat about collectible achievements, but as I said above, it’s important that some achievements are difficult and time consuming, despite how annoying they may be. If Halo 4 had only 1 or 2 of these types of achievements, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

As for MP achievements, I don’t have much of a problem with them, but like you said it’s ridiculous that some of them only have a limited window of real opportunity. If you miss that window, then you have to resort to searching game after game just hoping you get the right map/gametype/etc. which can take forever. I don’t mind MP achievements, but 343 needs to make sure ALL MP achievements in Halo 4 are available in any or most gametypes, and they should avoid map specific achievements.

8

> Infamous pinging also made the shards blink with light when you did it.

I had to do Infamous Shard collecting twice. My first PS3 died and my trophy list wasn’t synced.

The ping did not help.

> When it comes to collectables, I go by one simple rule. The more collectables there are, the easier it should be to find them. If a game has like, 7 collectables, you won’t need a list or map since they’re most likely in the obvious hidden spots. Going up to 100, you need an in-game map or something to get them, and a list of how many are in the area.

Once you breach a certain threshold, even easy collectables start to become tedious.

> As for multiplayer, the only achievements I like is ones that promote variety. Like getting 100 kills with each weapon.

That one in Gears was just boring.

9

> Yes, Save This Film was hard, and perhaps it did take a little luck, but that didn’t prevent thousands of players from getting it… hell, I was within a minute of getting it until I made a terrible judgement call.
>
> I believe some achievements NEED to take time and skill to achieve. This way, you actually feel a sense of real achievement upon earning the achievement.

If it’s too hard of a goal, then most of the masses are going to do what I did: Make an account on TrueAchievements.com and boost the accursed thing.

10

Halo 3 did achievements perfectly.

11

> > Yes, Save This Film was hard, and perhaps it did take a little luck, but that didn’t prevent thousands of players from getting it… hell, I was within a minute of getting it until I made a terrible judgement call.
> >
> > I believe some achievements NEED to take time and skill to achieve. This way, you actually feel a sense of real achievement upon earning the achievement.
>
> If it’s too hard of a goal, then most of the masses are going to do what I did: Make an account on TrueAchievements.com and boost the accursed thing.

Well that’s a shame… Personally, I enjoy the challenge. If I never get around to earning it… so be it. I guess it means I just wasn’t worthy. That’s just my viewpoint anyway.

12

Honestly I don’t mind skill based mp achievments they give me something to strive for, as long as they dont make map specific achievments im good.

13

> The initial Reach achievements were fine. I completed them all, only to have the Noble and Defiant add achievements that were map/gametype specific. Really annoying.
>
> OP, I agree 100%.

The problem with Reach’s initial set was that there was no real challenge to them.

14

MP achivements like;

double kill with shot gun
sward spree
killing spree
call for ordnance
rank up to certain rank (captain, lt, etc, not super hard)
perform an assassination

challange-ish;
kill the king twice in regicide
earn an overkill
get a splatter spree

they should also have some really neat Spartan Ops achievements

15

> The initial Reach achievements were fine. I completed them all, only to have the Noble and Defiant add achievements that were map/gametype specific. Really annoying.
>
> OP, I agree 100%.

Yeah. Skunked, First Strike, and the Killing Spree one’s weren’t that hard. I think I got “You ate all the chips” in a game of Speedpile in AS.

I agree, I don’t like Halo 3’s achievements. Get a triple kill with a sword? smh That thing was so underpowered since you would counter every-time just by backing up.

Although I hate collectibles, I do still want skulls back (And I want MOAR silly ones as well as Blind being a gold skull).

16

I at least hope for a couple achievements like vidmasters. Very challenging and require a certain amount of people, but give rewards such as armor.

17

> > The initial Reach achievements were fine. I completed them all, only to have the Noble and Defiant add achievements that were map/gametype specific. Really annoying.
> >
> > OP, I agree 100%.
>
> The problem with Reach’s initial set was that there was no real challenge to them.

Yeah they were a bit easy. But i’d rather have that then nerve-wracking ones

18

Let 343i decide.

The archievements of Halo Anniversary where one of the more funnier archiemenets I have get.

19

I think achievements should be limited to campaign, giving you an incentive to do things you wouldn’t normally do, and to give it the greatest amount of replay value possible. Multiplayer should have ranks as an incentive. No achievements needed.

20

> > > The initial Reach achievements were fine. I completed them all, only to have the Noble and Defiant add achievements that were map/gametype specific. Really annoying.
> > >
> > > OP, I agree 100%.
> >
> > The problem with Reach’s initial set was that there was no real challenge to them.
>
> Yeah they were a bit easy. But i’d rather have that then nerve-wracking ones

They need to strike a fine balance between accessible and completable and challenging.