Bluddy: I disagree and I ask you to be more open minded about it. Good achievements can serve as another dimension of gameplay. Ideally achievements would be tracked within the game, so you wouldn't be tied to a specific client to track them. However, what I've found is that when done correctly, achievements can enhance a game.
For example, Spelunky is an awesome game, but it only has the goal of winning in one of 2 ways built into the game itself. Spelunky's achievements, however, ask you to try for different kinds of victories (such as not collecting any money), different gameplay styles etc. By introducing small sub-goals that aren't the main goal of the game itself, you drive the player to enjoy the game in different ways that were completely unthinkable. Newer rogue-lites such as FTL and Necrodancer have realized that it's a good idea to track these gameplay styles in the game itself, and contain mechanics built around them.
Bad achievements, on the other hand, simply track the beats along the main path of the game, notifying the player of things he already knows he did. This is especially bad in linear and easy games that have no other choice but to follow the main path.
I don't know what PST's achievements are like, but good achievements can hint to you that there are other ways to play the game, or push you in subtle directions that make the game fun and different. For example, since everyone plays with high INT/WIS/CHR, having achievements that emphasize STR/DEX/CONS would let players explore that part of the gameplay and perhaps find things they never expected.
I completely disagree. Achievements are annoying and completely unnecessary. You don't need achievements to encourage different forms of play. Legend of Zelda didn't have achievements, and people still came up with no sword runs, going to dungeons in different orders, speedruns, etc.
Achievements are cheap psychological tricks to make you feel like you're getting more out of a game than you are. They pop up to encourage you to keep playing even when you're not having actual fun because you get a hit of dopamine for "achieving" something. They're a lazy replacement for actual gameplay. They're also a completionist nightmare. Killing a certain number of a certain kind of enemy, or getting a certain amount of a certain resource does nothing to add to the game except artificially add to the amount of time you need to play to fulfill a completionist run, adding grind to games that don't need it.
Achievements are cheap, lazy game development, and sap the fun out of otherwise good games.
For example, when I was playing A Story About My Uncle the game presented me with a natural challenge (a character in the game bet me that I couldn't do something). It fit the story and the characters. I pulled it off, and felt accomplished. But then the little box popped up in the corner telling me I'd "achieved" it. Thing is, I already had the high from my accomplishment, and the "achievement" did nothing but pulling me out of the game.
Same thing when I went to replay and tried to have runs where I didn't fall, or where I used less "grapples," running the game more skillfully and efficiently. These were things I wanted to do ANYWAY. When I accomplished these things, the little achievement pop up only served to diminish my emotional feeling of doing it well. Borderlands' achievements are merely number grinds that make me feel like I haven't done everything in the game when I very much have. Why do I have to kill a certain number of enemies with a shock weapon? I've killed plenty of enemies with a shock weapon, I know what that's like, I know what it does, I know how it works. I've explored shock weapons. But because I haven't killed specifically 500 enemies with them, I apparently haven't explored all the game has.
Achievements are a cancer on gaming, and you're singing their praises. I don't get it.