作者：Darran Jamieson

玩家喜欢成就。成就是有趣的，能够为内容添加一个新的层面，能够帮助你呈现游戏技能。开发者无需费太多功夫便能添加成就，所以在今天的游戏中很少会看到没有成就的游戏。不幸的是，开发者们仍不能有效地执行成就；不管是因为开发者的懒惰，还是因为成就设计仍然是游戏设计中一种相对较新的元素，我们总是能够看到一些并不有趣的成就。我将在本篇文章中着眼于如何充分利用成就，并确保它们不会让游戏掉色。

简介

开始前，我们必须先明确什么是成就：每个人很熟悉Xbox，PS3和Steam游戏中的传统成就。这便是我们在这篇文章中要分析的内容，但我们也必须注意仍存在许多其它类型的成就：从变成MMO中最让人让人害怕的PVPer，到《模拟人生》中创建一座完美的房子，再到竞速攻破你最喜欢的平台游戏——所有的这些都是一类型游戏的成就，但是游戏并不会如此就承认你的成功。

成就是一个简单的目标，所有游戏都拥有目标，不管是设置在代码中还是留给玩家自行决定。我们总是不能确定这类成就的数量，但是我们必须意识到玩家玩家将以它们为目标，并且我们也仍会用到许多成就设计元素。

打开成就：在《我的世界》中创建一座大楼。没有标记。所以我们该如何做才能更好地创造成就？首先，让我们将成就划分成3大类：挑战成就，教程成就和进程成就。

挑战成就

挑战成就是一种“传统的”成就。找到一套传说中的武器。使用一个手榴弹同时炸毁10个僵尸。最大化战斗技能。这是旨在让玩家去测试他们的技能，给予“真正的”玩家一个额外挑战层面，从而让他们进一步沉浸于其中。

关于挑战成就的最佳例子之一便是“和平主义者”的做法，即不杀任何人而完成整款游戏。通常情况下我们总是很难做到这点，因为比起简单的“炮轰战术”，这要求玩家对游戏有更深入的理解，最重要的是，还会添加一种全新的游戏方法。如果你的游戏需要玩家投入10个小时，那么这一简单的成就将立刻添加额外10个小时经过优化的内容。

《乐高》系列游戏便有效地落实了这种“提高挑战”理念。《乐高》主要瞄准休闲玩家；玩家不能死，需要快速跃过火山岩或毫无损伤地跳下悬崖——并能在之后复生。《乐高》游戏是如何避免沉闷呢？添加有关螺柱收集的挑战便是它们所采用的方法。每当你在游戏中死掉时，你便会损失一些之前的螺柱。如果你尝试着在关卡结束前去收集一定数量的螺柱，你便是一个“真正的英雄”，你便能够获得一个特殊的金星。如果你不能做到这点，你就只能继续前进。

这便意味着，不管是5岁大的孩子还是忠实玩家都能玩《乐高》游戏。它总是能够呈现给你想要的难度。

在《乐高》游戏中，玩家可以选择他们最喜欢的角色，并反复杀掉彼此。《Nethack》是最早带有成就系统的游戏之一。它会基于各种可选择的自愿型挑战而给予玩家奖励，而这些挑战包括永远都不会看到卷轴，不能向上帝寻求帮助，甚至永远都不能吃东西。

关于挑战成就具有一定的风险：如果设置得过于简单，玩家便会觉得它们微不足道。要是游戏中存在过多微不足道的奖励，玩家便感受不到奖励性。而如果设置得过于复杂，玩家便会很快受挫并选择放弃。更糟糕的是，如果一种成就是难以触及的，那么许多玩家便会不再关心其余的成就，即一个不可能达到的成就甚至会破坏到所有成就。

同时我们也必须注意挑战成就并不是关于收集10万个金币，不是杀死3千只半兽人，也不是收集500个隐藏目标中的一个。所有的这些都不是好的成就；它们只是测量玩家对于刷任务和沉闷内容的忍耐度。只要拥有足够的时间，任何玩家都能做到这些。

如果困难的成就代表优秀的挑战设计，那么糟糕的挑战设计便是随机成就了：玩家几乎不能控制这些成就，如基于毫秒之差而赢得比赛，同时被两个敌方狙击手打爆头，或者在1337次攻击下击中敌人。并不存在任何方法能够影响这些事件。如果玩家获得奖励，他们也不会获得成就感。而如果玩家并未获得成就，他们则会认为自己被骗了。

隐藏式成就通常都属于这一类别：如果没有任何标志告诉玩家执行一套特定的行动将获得奖励，他们又有什么动机去做这些呢？如果玩家知道游戏中存在一个隐藏式成就，那么在书上留下线索，图画或其它背景条目等便是奖励那些探索着游戏世界的玩家的好方法。但如果缺少了这些线索，你便只能要求玩家使用人工运行方法了。

这并不是说奖励那些并非专门追求成就的玩家不好：在《军团要塞2》中有400个不同的成就。如果玩家表现出色的话，他们便可以轻松地满足成就要求—-区别在于这些成就也能够以正常方式打开。

这些“不可预期的”成就实际上非常有帮助—-如果玩家做出了一个艰难或聪明的行动，如一个间谍诱拐敌方医生去治疗本方成员，如此不仅会让他们满足于自己的努力，同时成就也能够对奖励起到加强作用。如果玩家并不期待它的话，它便会呈现给玩家一些他们未曾意识到的内容—-这也将我们带向了教程成就理念。

教程成就

教程很无聊。玩家总是希望能够快速进入游戏玩法中，这也是许多游戏使用介绍式关卡让玩家进行尝试的主要原因。但是教程关卡只能持续一段时间，最终玩家将需要自由地进入“真正的游戏”中。

当你想要教授玩家高级战术时，如果玩家并不能立即识别出游戏机制，或者执行某些任务的方法并不明显，你该怎么办？你不能只是将其置于其它教程中—-而是应该覆盖这些内容去传达成就。

让我们着眼于一些电子竞技游戏，并想象一些可能的成就：

《星际争霸》/《魔兽世界》：在不到5分钟内赢得游戏—-这可能是使用了像6-pooling这样的战术，即一种基本但却非常有效的战术。

《魔兽争霸》/《纽沃斯英雄》/《英雄联盟》：在三次连续波动后对爬行者发动最后的撞击。当一个“爬行者”在这些游戏中死去后，你便能够获得金币；高级别的玩家在这种“最后的撞击”中要求较高级别的效能，而额外的金币推动也将提供一个巨大的奖励。

《Quake》/《军团要塞2》：保持敌人与火箭一起待在空间。尽管火箭跳跃是一个众所周知的技能，但是保持高生命值的敌人与火箭一起飘在空间则需要更多实践，这也是较高的级别中需要出现的重要技能。

在《军团要塞2》中，虽然杀死空中的敌人非常困难，但却能够带给玩家奖励。尽管游戏并未要求玩家必须掌握这些技能，或者只有掌握了这项技能才能玩好游戏，但是它们却会诱导玩家走出安逸区，并鼓励他们更有效地玩游戏。

所以如果教程成就是为了鼓励优秀的游戏玩法，那么其对立面便是“反游戏玩法的成就”，即表面上看起来不错，但却是在推动负面游戏体验。

有很多元素会导致这种情况的出现。《生化奇兵》贯穿游戏提供了一种道德选择系统—-你是否会拯救自己的妹妹，或者你会为了权利牺牲她们？不幸的是，走完一条“积极”道路存在成就，但是走完“邪恶”之路却没有成就。如果每种道路都有成就的话就好了：而只赋予其中一条道路成就则会限制游戏玩法，强迫玩家进入一种特定游戏风格。糟糕的成就设计将毁掉一款游戏。

它也可能教授给玩家一些糟糕的习惯。《军团要塞2》的Mann Vs Machine模式（游戏邦注：也就是玩家对抗僵尸群）便拥有这一问题。Pyro的一大成就便是“重置炸弹”。为了解释为什么这是一种糟糕的成就，你需要清楚一些内容：

1.当你射击一个机器人时，它便会死掉并掉落下钱。（你可以用这些钱去购买更好的武器）

2.当一个机器人被推到火坑里时，它便会死掉但却不会掉落下钱。

3.当机器人将炸弹带到你的基地时，你便会输掉游戏。

4.将带着炸弹的机器人推到火坑会“摧毁”它所携带的炸弹。

你将通过完成第4点而获取该成就，即将一个带有炸弹的机器人推到火坑。尽管从表明上看来这是一个很不错的游戏玩法（因为它重置了炸弹），但是鉴于金钱系统，它最好能够尝试着射击机器人并避开火坑。这一成就将教会玩家一种习惯，并且他们可能不会意识到该习惯对游戏玩法的损害。更糟糕的是，因为这是一款团队游戏，你会在伤害团队成员的同时伤害到自己。

不管这是否是金钱系统中的一个缺陷，火坑机制或成就都是可论证的—-但最终都会导致一种消极的游戏体验。

进程成就

进程成就（“恭喜，你已经完成了第一章！”）在成就设计世界中占据着一块奇怪的区域。它们并没有什么错，但是它们却并未真正添加任何内容。在像《光晕》或《半条命2》等线性游戏中，成就是不可避免的，玩家只要玩游戏便会获得成就。而如果成就是不可避免的，它是否真的能被称为成就？

关于进程成就具有一种有趣的副效应：玩家追踪。你可以通过检查玩家的成就此状态判断他们前进了多远。Steam甚至允许你浏览整体游戏统计。

着眼于一些游戏并明确玩家走了多远很有趣。在《传送门》中，只有75%的玩家走到需要传送门枪的地方。该统计能够计算有多少玩家是购买了游戏但却从未安装游戏，这也是为什么许多游戏拥有像“按压开始按键”等“愚蠢的”成就—-这能让开发者去追踪多少玩家尝试了游戏。

需要注意的是，在某种程度上，这与我们之前说的有关避免刷任务是相矛盾的：标记杀死3千只半兽人的成就是合理的（如果是基于正常游戏玩法的话），游戏并不会要求玩家进行特别的刷任务。《Orcs Must Die》在这点上便做得很好；当玩家完成了基本的游戏和额外关卡，他们可能并未杀死3千只半兽人。如此，这便是另一种进程标记了。

其它成就类型

还有一些其它成就类型能够经受住快速检查。

乐趣成就，不需要添加任何挑战但是会赋予游戏一些荒谬元素，所以这是通过分散注意力而打破游戏玩法“严肃性”的一种有效方式。像“利用臭鸡蛋去杀死敌人”或“将一只鸡提到很远的地方”等内容虽然不具有深度性和意义，但却能够赋予游戏更有趣的体验。

营销成就是一种相对较新且较阴险的游戏成就。你是否喜欢Facebook上的这款游戏？你是否购买了我们的可下载内容？你是否加入我们的YouTube渠道？最糟糕的“罪犯”应该是《心灵杀手》中的“电视机”成就，即奖励玩家去观看游戏内部的植入式广告。从实际意义上看来这些都不属于真正的成就，只是为了硬核公司的管理者和市场营销者。

限定时间的成就通常都很糟糕。玩家喜欢收集成就，而尽管给予当前所有玩家成就很合理，但是这也会影响游戏的长期发展潜力。如果某一成就只能在特定时间中出现，那么玩家便会在下一年再次尝试。如果某一成就只出现在2013年的万圣节，那么在此之后加入游戏中的玩家将会面临消极的游戏体验。

这也包括游戏内部有限的成就。在《辐射3》中，你将从地下室开始游戏冒险。当你离开“教程区域”时，你便不会再回到那里。如果你错过了可收集的摇头娃娃，你便只有经历整款游戏才有可能获得“摇头娃娃”成就。这并不能添加任何重玩价值，这只是在推动着玩家去做一些自己已经做过的事。如果娃娃在某种程度上是可接近的，这便不是问题所在—-但事实却不是如此。

多人成就需要一些特别的关注。发行于2009年的《英雄联盟》带有一个游戏内部“成就”区块——然而到目前为止它们却还未发行任何成就。原因便在于多人成就导致了次优游戏体验，就像在《英雄联盟》等竞争游戏中，玩家基础便非常重视游戏玩法。如果你因为忙于追踪成就而不能帮助其余团队成就赢取比赛，他们便会对你感到不满。

这并不是说成就不能存在于多人游戏中，而是我们必须清楚它们有可能对游戏玩法造成消极影响，或者沦为一种简单的刷任务功能，如“赢得X游戏”。这是因为玩家有可能会付出最大努力去获取胜利，也有可能不会。在在线游戏中，找到能够协作的团队成员具有一定的挑战性，而面对一些不愿付出的成员则会让玩家受挫。

总结

最后，你的游戏应该具有乐趣。成就必须加强玩家的体验，而不是让他们陷进决策中，或限制他们的选择。玩家应该觉得获取成就是一种奖励，而不是现成的东西。成就能够拓展玩家的思维，告诉他们你的游戏到底有多复杂，而不只是通过一些反复且相同的早旧任务给予他们奖励。

最重要的是，与游戏设计的其它规则一样，我们也必须清楚何时使用它们以及何时终止使用。免费Flash游戏《Achievement Unlocked》便打破了大多数的这些规则，并取得了巨大的成功—-而这主要是因为它对于成就系统的模仿，并利用了玩家的想象和期望。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Make Them Work for It: Designing Achievements for Your Games

By Darran Jamieson

Gamers love achievements. They’re fun, they add an extra layer of content, and they let you show off your gaming skills. It generally doesn’t take much extra effort for developers to add them, so it’s not surprising that games without achievements are now in the minority. Unfortunately, achievements are still often poorly implemented; whether this is a result of lazy developers, or because achievement design is still a relatively new aspect to game design, we often see achievements which simply aren’t fun. In this article, we’ll look at how to make the most of achievements and ensure that they don’t detract from the game.

Introduction

Before we begin, it’s important to clarify what we mean by an achievement: everyone is familiar with the traditional achievements common to Xbox, PS3 and Steam which have little congratulatory messages (and sometimes a points reward). Throughout this article, this is what we will be looking at, but it’s important to note that there are many other types of achievement as well: from becoming the most feared PVPer on an MMO, to building the perfect house in The Sims, to speedrunning your favourite platformers — all of these are achievements of a type, yet the game won’t acknowledge your success in these in the same way.

An achievement is simply a goal, and all games have goals, whether set in code or left to the player to determine. We often can’t quantify these sorts of achievements, but it’s important to realise that players will aim for them and that many aspects of achievement design will still apply.

Achievement unlocked: Built a mansion in Minecraft. No badge though.So what can we do to make achievements better? First, let’s divide achievements into three main categories: challenge achievements, tutorial achievements, and progress achievements.

Challenge Achievements

Challenge achievements are the “traditional” achievement. Find a set of legendary weapons. Blow up 10 zombies at once with a grenade. Max all your combat skills. These are objectives that let the player test their skills, and give the “true” gamer an additional layer of challenges to sink their teeth into.

The infamous “veni vidi vici” challenge from VVVVVV

One of the best example of challenge achievements is “pacifist” runs, in which you complete the whole game without killing anyone. These are often incredibly tough, require a deeper understanding of the game than a simple “run and gun” approach, and – most importantly – add a completely new approach to playing the game. If your game takes 10 hours to complete, then this simple achievement immediately adds another 10 hours of additional, optional content.

The Lego series handles this “increased challenge” concept incredibly well. Lego games are firmly aimed at a casual audience; you can’t die, and you can repeatedly jump into lava or off cliffs with practically no side effects – you simply respawn moments later. So what stops the Lego games from being tedious? The added challenge of collecting studs (Lego’s equivalent to coins). Every time you die, you lose some of your precious studs. If you manage to collect a certain amount before the level ends, then you are a “true hero”, and you get a special gold star for being awesome. If you don’t, then you can still progress, albeit without that additional pat on the back.

What this means is that Lego games are enjoyable both for five year old children and for serious gamers. The game is as hard you want it to be.

In Lego games, players can choose their favourite characters and kill each other repeatedly with no consequence.Nethack is arguably one of the first games with an achievement style system (called “conducts”). It rewards the player for a variety of optional self-imposed challenges, including never reading a scroll, never asking the gods for help, and even never eating.

There are risks with challenge achievements, however: make them too easy, and people will see them as trivial. Too many trivial achievements, and players may feel unrewarded. Make them too hard, and people will become frustrated and give up. Worse, if one achievement is unattainable, then many players will stop caring about the rest of the achievements — for many, there is a “collection” mentality of sorts, and an impossible achievement ruins that.

It is also important to note what a challenge achievement is not: it is not collecting 100,000 gold. It is not slaying 3,000 orcs. It is also not collecting every single one of 500 hidden objects. None of these are good achievements; they simply measure your tolerance for grinding and tedium. Any player can do these with enough time (and an online walkthrough).

If making tough achievements is representative of good challenge design, then the epitome of bad challenge design would be random achievements: achievements over which the player has little to no control, such as winning a race by exactly one millisecond, being headshot by two enemy snipers at the same time, or hitting an enemy for exactly 1337 damage. There is no way for a player to influence these events with any sort of reliability. If the player is awarded it, then there is no real sense of accomplishment. If the player doesn’t get it, they may feel cheated.

Secret achievements will often fall into this category: if a player has no indication that performing a certain set of actions will provide rewards, then what is their motivation for doing those actions? If the player knows that a secret achievement exists, then dropping hints in books, paintings and other background items is a good way to reward players who explore the game world. But without these hints, you simply force players to use walkthroughs.

That’s not to say that it’s bad to reward players who aren’t specifically hunting achievements: in Team Fortress 2, there are over 400 different achievements. If a player is doing well, it’s inevitable that they will meet some achievement requirements without trying – the distinction being that these achievements should still be feasible to unlock normally.

These “unexpected” achievements can actually be incredibly beneficial- if a player pulls off a difficult or clever move, such as a spy tricking an enemy medic into healing them, then not only will they feel good about pulling it off but an achievement will reinforce the reward. If the player wasn’t expecting it, then it might also show them something they hadn’t realised was possible – which brings us to the concept of tutorial achievements.

Tutorial Achievements

Tutorials are boring. Players want to get involved in gameplay as quickly as possibly, which is why many games use an introductory level of some sort to let the player get their feet wet and introduce them to gameplay elements one at a time without overwhelming them. However, tutorial levels can only last so long, and eventually players will need to be set free into the “real game”.

So what happens when you want to teach advanced tactics to players, mechanics which players may not immediately recognise, or ways of doing things that aren’t obvious? You can’t just throw them into another tutorial – but teaching achievements cover this perfectly.

Lets look at a few e-sport quality games, and imagine some possible achievements:

Starcraft/Warcraft: Win a game in less than five minutes – this is possible using tactics such as 6-pooling, a fairly basic but effective tactic:

Dota/HON/LoL: Last hit every creep in three consecutive waves. When a “creep” dies in these games you get gold, but ONLY if you deal the killing blow; high level play requires a high level of effectiveness at this “last hitting”, as the additional gold boost provides a massive bonus.

Quake/TF2: Keep an enemy in the air with rockets. While rocket jumping is a fairly well known skill, being able to keep a high-health enemy afloat with rockets (known as “juggling”) requires a lot of practice, and is also a very important skill to have at high levels.

Killing enemies while midair in Team Fortress 2 is tricky, but rewarding.While none of these skills are required to play the game, or even necessarily play the game well, they lure players out of their comfort zone and encourage them to be more efficient at the game.

So if the tutorial achievement is designed to encourage good gameplay, then the opposite of it would be the “anti-gameplay achievement” – achievements which, while seeming good on the surface, actually encourage negative gameplay experiences.

There are many ways to do this. Bioshock offers a moral choice system throughout the game – do you save the little sisters, or do you harvest them for power? Unfortunately, there’s an achievement for completing the “good” path, and no achievement for completing the “evil” path. If there were an achievement for each path, this would be fine: but putting an achievement at the end of only one of these actually restricts gameplay, forcing players into a certain playstyle. Through bad achievement design, its possible to detract from a game.

Its also possible to teach players bad habits. Team Fortress 2 also has this problem in Mann Vs Machine mode (which is basically players vs. zombie horde). One of the achievements for the Pyro class is “reset the bomb”. To explain why this is a bad achievement, you need to know certain things:

1.When you shoot a robot, it dies and drops money. (which can be used to buy better weapons)

2.When a robot is pushed into a pit, it dies and doesn’t drop money.

3.You lose the game when a robot carries the bomb into your base.

4.Pushing a robot with the bomb into a pit “destroys” the bomb it is carrying.

You aquire this achievement by fulfilling the fourth point, pushing a bomb robot into a pit. While on the surface this seems like good gameplay (because it resets the bomb), due to the money system its actually best to try shooting the robots and avoid pits. This achievement teaches habits which players may not realise are detrimental to gameplay. Worse, because this is a team game, you hurt your teammates as well as yourself.

Whether this is a flaw in the money system, the pit mechanic or the achievement is arguable – but the end result is a negative gameplay experience.

Progress Achievements

Progress achievements (“congratulations, you have completed the first chapter!”) occupy a strange spot in the world of achievement design. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with them, but they don’t really add anything either. In a linear game like Halo or Half-Life 2, the achievements are unavoidable and will be picked up by the player just by playing the game. If an achievement is unavoidable, can it really be called an achievement?

There is, however, one interesting side effect to progress achievements: player tracking. You can look at how far a player has progressed, by checking their achievement status. Steam even lets you browse global gameplay stats.

It’s interesting to look at some games and see how far players get. In Portal, only 75% of players who own the game get as far as acquiring the portal gun. This statistic does however count players who have bought the game but never installed it, which is why many games have “stupid” achievements such as “pressed the start button” – it lets the developers track how many players have tried the game.

Note that, to a certain extent, this can contradict what was said earlier about avoiding grind: an achievement which marks 3,000 orcs killed is fine if the orcs are killed through normal gameplay, and the player is not required to specifically grind. Orcs Must Die does this well; by the time the player has completed the base game and the bonus levels, it’s unlikely they will not have killed 3,000 orcs. In that regard, this really boils down to another progress marker.

And honestly, if you’re not killing orcs, you’re doing something wrong.

Other Types of Achievement

There are a few other types of achievement that bear a quick examination.

Fun achievements, which don’t necessarily add any challenge but add a little silliness to the game, can be a good way to break up the “seriousness” of gameplay with an interesting little diversion. Things like “kill an enemy with a rotten egg” or “kick a chicken a fair distance”, while hardly deep and meaningful, can – used sparingly – make a game a much more enjoyable experience.

Marketing achievements are a relatively new and insidious addition to games. Have you liked this game on Facebook? Bought our DLC? Joined our YouTube channel? Arguably the worst offender is Alan Wake’s “Boob Tube” achievement, which rewards you for watching in-game product placement adverts. None of these are achievements in any real sense of the word, and exist solely to pander to managers and marketers of the company.

Limited time achievements are generally bad. Players like collecting achievements, and while giving all your current players a reward is good, it hurts the long-term potential of your game. If an achievement is only accessible on a certain day (such as playing on Halloween), then a player can always try again next year. If an achievement is only accessible on Halloween 2013, then players that join after that are going to have a negative gameplay experience.

This also includes ingame-limited achievements. In Fallout 3, you begin the game in the vault. Once you’ve left this “tutorial area”, you can never return. If you miss the collectible bobblehead doll, then you cann’t get the “bobblehead” achievement without playing through the whole game again. This doesn’t add replay value, it just forces the player to do something they’ve already done. If the doll was somehow accessible after, then this wouldn’t be a problem – but it’s not, and it is.

Multiplayer achievements need some special attention. League of Legends was released in 2009 with an in-game “achievements” section – yet to date, no achievements have been released. The reason for this is that multiplayer achievements lead to sub-optimal play, and in a competitive game like LOL, the playerbase take good gameplay very seriously. If you’re too busy hunting achievements to help the rest of your team win the match, then they would have every right to get annoyed with you.

This isn’t to say that achievements can’t exist in multiplayer, but it has to be with the knowledge that they will most likely negatively effect gameplay, or simply be reduced to a simple grind function such as “win X games”. This is because a player is either playing to the best of their ability and trying to win, or they are not. In online gaming, where getting team mates to co-operate can be challenging at the best of times, it can be incredibly frustrating having some team
members who just aren’t trying.

Summary

At the end of the day, your game should be fun. Achievements should enhance a player’s experience, not trap them into decisions or limit their options. Players should feel like acquiring an achievement is a reward, not something that’s been handed to them on a platter. And achievements can be used to expand players’ minds, to show them how intricate and complicated your game is, rather than to just reward them for repeating the same old tasks over and over.

Most importantly, like any set of rules in game design, its important to know when to apply them, and when to break them. The free Flash game Achievement Unlocked breaks most, if not all, of these rules, and is incredibly successful – but largely because it is a parody of achievement systems in games, and plays upon the tropes and expectations of the player.(source:tutsplus)