H4 earning achievements

[Karmakeld]

Not sure exactly why, but this idea just came to mind.
trophies or achievements have become a rather popular addition to many new games. Personally to some degree I try to complete as many of these as I can (within reason of time/challenge).
But it struck me, that adding achievements to say, a campaign wouldn't be that hard to do. You could simply add a seperate 'Achievement/Trophy' map after completing a map/campaign that would display you earned achievements. Achievements could be given for many things, like reaching max level in each map, completing a map using less than x healing potions/potions of immortality, for completing within a certain time, reaching max in certain skills, completing/unlocking certain bonuses etc.
I'm just curious to know I any H4 player would find achievements forth aiming for in any H4 map? I guess a text document could list the possible achievements, so they could be persued in game, rather than just being completed by incident.

[Maciek]

Sometimes, it's the road that matters, not the destination. I suppose this is some kind of quote.

To me, it is especially true in a story-driven campaign, although we've both seen evidence that even in a story-driven campaign, some people care about scores and care if they get a Megadragon rank or not.
That is not to say I never care about the map completion time or something like that. I do when playing in some offline tournament. It's a good way of evaluating solutions.
I suppose Taro would be excited about achievements. He's always very much interested in map scores.

Interesting achievements would've been a nice touch, same as for example scenery exactly fitting text. By 'interesting' I mean something like a separate riddle not some simple 'reach the level cap' that you will do along the way anyway.

However, from scripting point of view, it's impossible to implement basically any achievement if you don't think of it early enough. I mean, you need to gather and carry some additional information from each map where you want the achievements.

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

I think it could be a fun idea. What would you display to the player? Something like maybe a titan for a particular achievement? Or maybe a nice landscape for another?

[GreatEmerald]

Hm, doesn't sound worth it to me. There are inherent "achievements" in the game in the form of hero skill trees. I always give myself the task of doing something fun, like creating a Lich that does nothing but throw fireballs at enemies (AKA HoMM3 style), and the reward is getting it done; having achievements predefined would rather distract from what I find fun.

[Karmakeld]

@ iLive: I'm not sure what would displayed. Initial thought was an achievement map, where you'd have allied heroes who would get skills for each achievement or something like that or creatures could be used as well. A hero showing of certain levels of skills would be an easy way to display a summary of achievements. I guess signs would also descibe what each Skill represent as achievement.
But I guess you could use creatures to simulate Rank score like the highscore system, only using less creatures. E.g. using only one alignment. But initially I just thought Basic-GrandMaster levels would be an easier way to display earned achievements.

@Maciek, you're absolutely right, that it's something that needs to be implemented from start in order to keep track and yes, more 'advanced'/special achievements would likely be more interesting than just 'reach level cap in each map with all your heroes' and the likes.
And you're right that good highscore could be considered an achievement and it's true that the issue with the score ranking is that it might clash with story driven campaigns, which in certain ways could prevent a Megadragon highscore. And finding the right points to tweak a story driven map in order to enable maximum highscore could easily be a tricky task. Being forced to add quests just for the purpose of adding extra possible score points isn't something I prefer just to please.

@GE, well I guess you could easily make achievement that would fit what you would find fun. Some players like to complete map without using Combat Skills or using Potions of Immortality and you could give achievements for that. Basically the point of achievements if giving a reward for completing certain challenges, which I read is basically what you set up for yourself. Ofcourse the game is limited, in the sense that you can't make achievements like, kill a megadragon by only using the Spark spell or set up certain combat challenges.

Ofcourse the map/campaign could be designed in a way, that completing it would be an achievement in itself - Maciek's mapmakin is a good example of this :-)
Or mapmaker could give in-game achievements in the sense of triggered bonuses for completing in-game challenges.
And one could also argue that certain achievement might follow in the line of the Highscore Rank, as some of the most obvious achievements quite likely would be the same as some of the factors of which the rank score is based on, and thus be rather pointless. It's not something I intend to use myself, I merely just wanted to share the idea and hear how achievements would be considered in H4 maps.

[Panda Tar]

I also enjoy the idea of Achievements. As for a H4 thing, I would enjoy a bonus map instead considering a Campaign. "You earned to learn the end of this story!" sort of thing. As for the rest, I think you could make so as we discover as we play not to spoil the surprise, hm?

Speaking of achievements, I'm still wondering if I'll ever be able to beat Ori and the Blind Forest's toughest achievements: 'Immortal: Complete whole game without dying' and 'Elite: Complete the whole game without using an Ability Point'. I died 470 times when I first played it, most of the times because I had a bad experience without a proper controller. Well, and I have a game called The Stanley Parable which has the achievement: Unachievable: It is impossible to get this achievement, and another one that tells me not to play the game for 5 years..., so, there's that. If you want to make achievements, make them fun.

[Taro]

I don't know. Fun achievments are impossible to implement. And I play sometimes like Great Emerald - no immortality and healing potions, no combat skills, ogre magi instead of cyclopses, etc. I think your own restrictions are the best way to have fun and satisfaction.

In Oblivion I played barbarian without magic and magic items at all. That was fun and tough

[Duzeom_]

I think that fun achievement are possible to implement: eq make your main hero beat the game with only halfings. It is nice touch and I would like to see such thing as last map which shows your achievements. But apart from it, it is hard thing to implement.

[Karmakeld]

Speaking of bonus Map, Maciek once suggested to me to loop the campaign, so after completion, you would restart the campaign. Now that could be a nice achievement, except it'd be a lot of work, having to rebalancing the maps for higher difficulties/new challenges. But this could very well include challenges like beating the game/a map with only halflings :-)