In-game achievements (open discussion)

VDX_360

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Q: Are in-game achievements useful for tracking how players interact with a game?

I recently started using my desktop to play the game via Steam, which automatically tracks and posts in-game achievements. Steam also has the achievement notice flashing if less than 10% of players earned that achievement.

A few things stood out. Namely, how few players were making it to the end of the main quest or even making major mile stones. Granted, I know the achievements tracking isn't prefect as many players aren't registered to report their progress. For example, when I played with my mobile device, I was never connected to the internet and so no achievements recorded.

But even taken into consideration the imperfect nature of tracking in-game achievements, there seems to be a serious issue with players making it to the end of the game.

Here are some highlights of Steam's achievement tracking:

8.8% completed 15 Town Hall Quests
8.1% made a bag of holding
5.6% completed the Abby quest
3.7% killed the Undermother
3.1% earned XP at nine shrines
2.1% beat the main quest at any difficulty (and any ending type?)
.8% killed the Unweakened Undermother
.5% beat the main quest on Hardcore or Ironman

It's just weird.
 

p4ran0id

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I don't ply much on steam, but for Google play, you can also get achievements by import a save file.

I accidentally got one (for playing over x hours with one character) after import a save game from another player and forget to disconnect from cloud. It's not so important, I only play on Ironman now and don't care about the achievements, but it seems like the save file alone is enough to trigger some achievements.

Ps: it's was long after getting my first place on leaderboard for Ironman on play games ;)

Pps: you had a double post, I deleted the other one
 

stonedwolf

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On PLAY I have 51/71 achievements.

Some that interested me:

Defeat 20 enemies: 67%
So a third of all people who play stopped immediately.

I THINK YOU GET CHEEVOS ON THE DEMO VERSION SO THIS MAKES SENSE?

Defeat 100 enemies: 49%
And a half of all players stopped quickly.

Defeat 500 enemies: 30%
Level-Up 2 (Get to Level 6): 29%
So nearly a third of players play for a good while.

Defeat 2,500 enemies: 14%
Kill one Monster King: 18%
Visit 25 outdoor areas: 15%
Level-Up! 3 (to level 12): 13%
So about 1 player in 7 really kind of goes for it.

Then you get the 1-in-10 stuff:
Buy a Home: 12%
Recruit Hirge: 11%
Complete 36 quests:L 11%

And then you get the 5-percenter club:
Fix the Eye of Tol with 12 shards: 4%
Visit 42 outdoor areas: 5%
Rob Da Bank!: 6%
Bag of Holding: 6%
House of Shadows: 4%
Complete 72 quests: 4%
Fogas Hero / Abbey: 5%
River Poisoning: 6%
All Wizards Quests: 6%

And then there is the top-tier:
100 hours with the same character: 1%
Drama Queen, Triumph of the Stage: 0.9%
 

p4ran0id

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That's nothing special, ratio should be about 1:1000-1:10.000 full version:demo.

Otherwise there would be no archerlund, the game has over 1. 000.000 downloads, if every player would buy that, David would be already multimillionaire and would not need to make new game or ever work again :lol:

For steam, I think there are also many player who used refund or just dropped the game after few hours
 

stonedwolf

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I understand WHY he didn't do it, but I would have liked to see David monetise a few options (as in truly optional options) from those of us who do play this game a lot.
 

DavidBVal

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On Steam games, it's known that people purchase games on sale and then take a very long time to play them, sometimes never do. I don't buy many games myself due to limited play time, and still have only played seriously about half the games I own.

On android, the ratio of people purchasing vs free download is extremely high compared to other games.

I am aware the game is hard and some people get stuck and can't get past certain point. But this is not a book, it is a videogame. There must be a chance of failure, or it just makes no sense, nor victory would grant real satisfaction.
 

p4ran0id

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On Steam games, it's known that people purchase games on sale and then take a very long time to play them, sometimes never do.

I'm one of them 😅

Bought it during last sale and don't regret it. But after playing years on mobile I'm way too used to mobile version and its hard to switch to PC version.

I'm just too used to mobile and my thumbs works nearly automatically while playing, it's a big change to switch on desktop version. But I will keep it, who knows, one day maybe I'll switch to that.

And I don't regret to pay 3 times for the game (ios, Android and steam), it's still better ratio (ingame time : price ) compared to many AAA games I paid (about 50$) for and lost interest after few weeks. Compared to that I spent (since 2017) over 500h with the game, that's really cheap 😏

Ps: Archaelund would be quite the opposite, I don't think I can switch on mobile (if it will be available later) after spending hours on desktop once it's available
 

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