Are those still achievements though or simply "Easter Eggs" by another name? Likewise if there's no clue you should, eg, "set the baron's house on fire but doing so it necessary to to move the plot forward", then the game will probably end up getting down-voted for having "moon logic" puzzles if the main quest progression is made deliberately obscure just to justify putting a "congratulations, you solved a hard puzzle" achievement in.

Likewise, given there are public lists of Achievements for all games virtually from release date, having every Easter Egg as a searchable official Achievement reduces the effectiveness of cleverly hidden but otherwise undocumented Easter Eggs that have more of an "Ah, that's cool!" impact when they go months / years without being found.

Edit : In fact someone only just found Doom 2's final secret after 24 years. I find things like that where you discover something that no-one else is looking for (because everyone assumed it was an unfixed bug) 10x cooler than official achievements where the gap in an achievement board makes it obvious you missed something.

This kind of achievements is a clever way to monitor playing trends among the playerbase without causing an outcry. It is valuable data to the devs and analysts about how their game is being played. If they see for example that 1% of people got the achievement of "Read 40 books", they will save development time in the future and not bother with lore books at all for example. Same with the stupid achievements like "Kill the 3rd boss". Again, a way to track how many people progressed how far into the game.

For me, as long as achievements are hidden and don't suddenly pop out every time time I do something in the game, I don't care.

On topic:
That sounds like something straight out of that flash game "Achievement unlocked", where you do some weird stuff to get some of the achievements.

I think you are missing the order in whIch I say things happen.

Specifically, the idea is that the player would check the achievement list (remember, none of these achievements are secret achievements), get an idea of something to do, and then do it; the achievement description is the clue. In effect, the achievement name would be sort of part of the easter egg.

Some easter eggs really are meant to be found. For example, in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, there is a way to play as Simon Belmont in Boss Rush; all you need to do is enter the Konami Code (which is quite famous) at the righr time.

Of course, we could also have a secret achievement, one that a player is very likely to obtain unless they're going out of their way to avoid it (which would require knowing the achievement ahead of time), and whose title or description is a clue about how to progress further.

Achievements and boss fignts have no bearing on each other. One (boss fight) is part of the game. The other (achievements) are there to take advantage of user obsesiveness to make the game seem more than it is.

I disagree... achievements (when done right) can be part of the game.
The problem is that most achievements are just tacked on rubbish to track player progress or make you feel some kind of reward for completing arbitrary tasks.

Into the Breach is a great example of a game that does achievements well, they range from simple stuff you would do anyway (like win the game with each squad, or on each difficulty) to modified ways to play that make you approach the game in a different way (clear three islands without purchasing any upgrades) and often providing a specific challenge because of this.

These achievements are also the method with which you unlock new squads in game, so completing them serves a definite purpose.

However they are done they do tend to be an 'extra' element to the game (unlike a boss fight which tends to be required to complete to progress) but I have no issue with good achievements, just with ones that are boring and serve little purpose beyond collecting for the sake of collecting.


As for the original topic, if the game encouraged you to peruse the achievements (like Into the Breach does) then I wouldn't have an issue with hints to how to advance the game being hidden there as you would likely be viewing the list anyway to find tasks to complete to unlock stuff. But at this point the line between achievement and quest or mission becomes pretty blurred as the two are serving very similar purposes...

I agree. For me to change my style of play just to get an achievement, there has to be an incentive. Why would I speedrun a game just because there is an achievement for it? Why would I go through the entire game with only my fists because there is an achievement for it?

The new King's bounty games have a good system for example. There is a set of in-game achievements for each class (medals they are called) and each of them has 3 tiers and they give you bonuses upon obtaining them. Something like cast 20 defensive spells - your units gain 3% resistance to all damage types. Cast 50 defensive spells - 5% resistance. Cast 100 spells - 7% resistance. This would make me for example prolong fights and spend all my mana on defensive spells even as a warrior class and I eventually got rewarded for it. But there is absolutely no reason at all I would have done that if it was just an arbitrary achievement with no reward.

I would argue that, in the case I am looking at, achievements are, in fact, part of the game. (In particular, remember that these achievements are accessible from within the game itself rather than being solely tied to a client or online service.) Also, even ignoring the achievements themselves, the text of the achievements is part of the game as well, and that text is where the clue lies. Furthermore, the achievements in question don't require any obsessiveness to obtain, or for the clue to be available.

Also, what about games that require the manual to progress? (I can think of one old game where there's a question that, to answer correctly, you need to have read the story in the manual, and another where the manual has a bunch of arrows in a clue that you end up needing.)

Achievement junkies. No arguing with them.

Achievements, are amoung THE worst things to happen to Videogames, aside from DRM. I hate them. I hate them on Steam, they just seem so damn pointless, I hate them on Console.

Though I did read your OP, I am now thinking perhaps I may have misunderstood it.

I do think there is a distinction between a list of tasks that is given in the game itself to complete in the game to reach 100% completion, versus typical achievements where the list of tasks is given outside the game. That said, I prefer the more old-school and arcane style of "Secrets Found: 4 of 5" versus the modern, braindead style of "Kill 1,000 enemies. Okay, now Kill 10,000 enemies".

The elephant in the room here is the question of why even have achievements in the first place, at least for the example you posed in the OP. I think to use my solution of putting the clue in an in-game book or character is objectively superior to putting the clue in an achievement, since it increases immersion to do it the way I posed. Generally speaking, I view achievements as a lazy stand-in for what could be put into gameplay to make a deeper, richer game.

As for alternative external sources, like needing to use a manual or looking at the back of the game case, I think opinions will be more mixed but surely it varies by game in terms of the effectiveness (I would argue it is better than achievements, though).

It is kind of a moot point with how games are now, but back in the day, those BIG game boxes and BIG manuals were a big part of the immersion factor of the gaming experience. Achievements imo cannot fill this role even with the best of developer intentions. I would love PC gaming to return to the golden days of boxed phyiscal DRM-free gaming, before it was this Scheme-monopoly, Microtransaction, Online-everything monstrosity.

Horribly. Achievements are not what I look for from a game and being forced to interact with them in any way would be annoying for me. Especially if I am required to do so to advance.