The lights are on
About an hour ago I earned my eightieth and final achievement in Borderlands. For the most part, it was worthwhile (Mad Moxxi? ehhhhhhh...). But when it got down to the last three, I began to question my resolve. Was it really worth it to earn another completion stamp on my gamertag? Did I really want this that badly? Most importantly, how willing was I to endure some of the worst design choices in an otherwise great game?
The achievements I refer to, of course, are "The Lubricator", "Bobble-Trap", and "What a Party!" a.k.a. the unholy trinity of boring collect-a-thons. Meaningless trinkets combined with an absurdly low drop rate and the fact that I had completed literally everything else in the game (giving me no outside motivation to continue) made for the least fun I've had with B-Lands since the Underdome (which was at least fun in it's own, only-sorta, I-paid-ten-bucks-so-I-might-as-well-play-it-once way).
Anyway, I slogged and farmed for hours, eventually resorting to hiding behind a rock during the MINAC fight so the farming could continue while I was getting on with my life. I'm not proud. But during this process, i took a little time on Reddit to rant at r/borderlands. Not trying to make any grand statement or anything, just hoping for a little catharsis, and wondering if any other internet denizens would be sympathetic to my plight.
And while some were certainly sympathetic, the commenter that got the most upvotes argued along the lines of "Well, no one is forcing you to play it. It's optional, so quit complaining." On its face, a solid argument. He is, strictly speaking, correct; no one is forcing me to 80/80 this game. I am ultimately the one responsible for my own suffering.
But I refuse that argument, and here's why: the fact that I can even use the word "suffering" in that last sentence is inexcusable. Bad game design is bad game design, and the fact that it's part of an optional quest is irrelevant. Yes, I could decide that finishing the achievements is not worth it. But why should I have to make that decision? Shouldn't Gearbox instead focus on making sure I don't? I think we ought to hold game designers to a higher standard than, "S**tty design is OK if it's in an optional part of the game."
Oh, and one final point: if the Redditor who told me, "An achievement should be an achievement. If you want achievements spoon-fed to you, play NBA 2k6" is reading this, I have just one thing to say to you: f*** off.
There's no such thing as bad clients, just bad designers.
The flip side of that NBA argument is something that was echoed on here in a recent blog, comparing challenging games to games that are just cheap and lazy when it comes to difficulty.
Achievements should be exactly that - achievements. They should be something you succeed at. Putting 100 hours into a game regardless of what you're doing with that time, or praying that the giant mutant crabs drop just one more MacGuffin this time around isn't something for a gamer to achieve.
Both arguments you pointed out have good points, but ultimately the latter has the stronger one. Yes, you're suffering because you basically chose to, but then again it's also the developer's job to make sure that every part of their game is enjoyable so that you don't have that choice in the first place.
So yeah, all in all, I agree with you.
I'm with you all the way on this. Achievements, especially, are a safe haven for terrible design. The problem is, game devs don't really care about them, most of the time, and they'll just throw in a bunch of lazy ones.
That said, I have to question your sanity for striving for hours and hours for a little digital "completed" sticker and a few more gamerpoints. But that's just me, I've never really gotten into them.
Don't even get me started on collectible achievements. Nothing is worse than slaving away for hours for meaningless items. I dont go for achievements any more because they were ruining games but when I did i hated collectibles.
I have to agree about Borderlands. I was quite excited when I first heard of the project and then lost interest when it did finally get released. lots of people were saying its a great game. I eventually caved in and got me the game of the year edition. I can say this, if you do not have some one for co-op you can forget it.
Honestly, the only thing worth-while about this game to me was the co-op which was pretty bare bones to begin with. I am still wondering why a glowing review was given to a game which does all the cheap tricks in the books? Most of the time you hear Dan or Phil ripping a game to shred for less than the game designing concepts introduced here?
Sadly it seems to veer that way for most games that contain eitehr a co-op option in singleplayer or a open rpg like level system. Bunch and bunch of static texts followed by lame repetitions of fetch quests. Looking at the sequel all I see is them playing catch up with their tech. GI does a good job of blowing up standard fixes to a much needed game as something revolutionary created (which they themselves pretty much rip apart later in a review with much contradiction). The screen shots for BL2 look good but nothing epic enough to keep talking about. Also the fact that they are using the sequel to bring about options generally most games start out with off the bat. Complete with a giant middle finger at the end for doing the nonstop fetch quests. Just like Infamous2 this game so far has shown nothing that will not get old after the first 2 hours of shooting them apart (new enemies) and a story the dev say is pretty negligible. I mean these guys are boasting the fact that you now don't have to go back to the original quest giver to update your objectives, they will automatically update once you reach the check point. Wow... that was never done before in any other game????