As we demonstrated with our poll and subsequent discussion, everyone has his own ranking of the three goals in Challenge maps (Mine is Least Portals, Least Time, Least Steps). It seemed to me that most people had one they loved, one they thought was okay, and one they rather disliked.

So why is it that to get the any of the Achievements associated with Challenge maps, you have to do all three types? Currently they have the Achievements split into Bronze on All 18 Challenges, Silver on All, Gold on All. That's retarded. They should obviously split it into All Least-Portals Challenges, All Least-Steps, and All Least-Time. Then they could give these new Achievements some appropriately clever names.

I dunno if Valve can update this via Steam (or Xbox Live?), but I think they should. And definitely do this for any sequels, for crying out loud.

What do you guys think?

Hmm, not much of a bad idea, they could update it for steam since thats basically just an internet source for the game.

They could have named them something different but what they named it is well... good enough i think.

While I understand, and agree with your argument, I can kind of see why they did it the way they did. The people who created Portal worked on finding out the solutions to every challenge and wanted to give people incentive to actually complete everything. If it was set up your way, 1/3 of the challenges would just go undone since most people hate 1 kind. But people have to get their achievements, or they feel like failures!

Sure, there will be some people who will do it all to get the achievements, even if it isn't that fun for them.

Then there are people like me, not totally achievement-obsessed, and I know I'll never be able to get even Silvers (let alone Golds) in Least Steps and probably rarely in Least Time. So I'm really good at Least Portals but doing those challenges doesn't get me anything because I can't do the others too, and that sucks. That's no fun.

Should Valve's goal be extending the fun of the game or making players do everything (even the unfun parts) to get achievement points? If their goal is making it more fun, I think they should rejigger the achievements.

They need something to push us towards achievments. Such as xbox with the gamerscore.

Right now I have no reason to do the achievments.

What they need is an achievement MOD for coutner-strike or half-life or any FPS games.

So you start with say... a glock/usp on counter-strike.
If you get 100 head shots (not kills) then you are able to buy a mac10/tmp from the buy menu.

Then later on if you have traveled 100km then you are able to buy grenades and armor.

Something like that.

Grudge wrote:
They need something to push us towards achievments. Such as xbox with the gamerscore.

Right now I have no reason to do the achievments.

Isn't Live's gamerscore just as useless? At least with the achievements I get a nice feeling everytime I've earned one for doing something special, but assigning arbitrary numbers to them and adding them together doesn't really mean much to me. Especially when a lot of games give achievements just for getting through the game itself, as if that wasn't rewarding enough (A sin which even valve is guilty of).

Just my opinion of course.

I don't like any of the challenge styles (a true statement), thus they should be removed from the game. (Socratic irony)

Reductio ad absurdum.

The point is to reward people who do it every way that Valve can imagine.

And yes, gamerscore is completely useless. It's an arbitrary number. How that's more or less compelling than achievements that show on your SteamID page is beyond me.

I prefer least portals myself, and least time is my least favorite. But I still have 16/18 gold, just have time and steps on #17 left to do.

Wroth wrote:
Isn't Live's gamerscore just as useless? At least with the achievements I get a nice feeling everytime I've earned one for doing something special, but assigning arbitrary numbers to them and adding them together doesn't really mean much to me. Especially when a lot of games give achievements just for getting through the game itself, as if that wasn't rewarding enough (A sin which even valve is guilty of).

Just my opinion of course.

Perhaps. But think of it this way.

"I want to tear all the cameras down so I can finally hit 3k gamerscore!"

or

"I want to tear all the cameras down so I can finally have the achievment!"

Which one is more rewarding? You're not only unlocking the achievment, you feel you're being rewarded for doing so. It's like saving the world with no thank you.

Honestly? I think neither is more rewarding. But I look at my gamerscore and wonder what the hell it all means, but when I look at my achievements list, and see the titles and descriptions, I think "Ah yes, I remember that, that was fun/tedious/etc"

And knocking cameras off walls is hardly saving the world

Wroth wrote:
Honestly? I think neither is more rewarding. But I look at my gamerscore and wonder what the hell it all means, but when I look at my achievements list, and see the titles and descriptions, I think "Ah yes, I remember that, that was fun/tedious/etc"

But what's better? Like I just said, unlocking an achievment, or unlocking an achievment and being rewarded for it.

Wroth wrote:
And knocking cameras off walls is hardly saving the world

Well actually...

Like I said. For me, an arbitrary increment to a number isn't much of a reward, makes no difference to me. But just having a reminder of what I've achieved is quite nice.

Wroth wrote:
And knocking cameras off walls is hardly saving the world

every camera you knock of the wall causes Aperture Science to waste 10 tonnes of CO2 every year.

if you complete the achievement (I haven't yet) thats something like 300tonnes of CO2 per year you save!

I was detaching cameras from walls all through the single-player game, before I knew it was an achievement. Missed a couple that time.

But I went through a couple days ago (alt-tabbing back and forth to Robinson's guide - props) and got it done. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Those damn cameras. So smug and whisper-quiet.

Bakc to the actual first post, i agree that my favourite it least portals, then least time, then least steps. For me, the game is all about using portals is more cunning and skillful ways, not "how can you not move."

Also, i love the achievements in general. It's what made me go for my vanilla crazy cake..

hmm cake..

I personnally can't stand least time.
I play Portal to relax in an intelligent way, not to stess myself even more than at my work!
But least steps and least portals are perfectly fine to me, since you have all the time you want to think your next move. It is challenging, but not too stressful.

And about the achievements, I think this is really dumb, and even dangerous, to unlock features according to this. Things like the gamerscore on Xbox are concepts I greatly despise.

It gives even more advantage to "I play all the time because I have no life" players. Those guys are already advantaged by their experience in the game, and now you give them more stuff?

I can understand this in RPGs, because this collection aspect and "time means power up" are part of the genre since day one, but if all games become like that...
I fear for the social lives of a lot of people.

It is also a great waste of energy. All the time spent by those guys to get achievements even if it is not funny to them is effort lost for constructive and creative things (like, I dunno... mapping ).
Well, I am not saying anything when getting those achievements is fun to the person. But "forcing" people in trying to get them is sure plain wrong.

Fortunately, for now achievements on PC version of Portal are purely optionnal, which is perfect to me. You can just ignore the locks on the achievements you didn't get and move on.