Pending Introduce an Achievement system

[Hecate]

Gonna post the ones i have done to give you all ideas of what's doable.

Future Lawyer: Read the Rules.
Appreciative: Read the Credits.
Smogonite: Click the “Forum” link.
Commander: Use a chat command like /dt or !ds.
In The Matrix: Use /help and see many commands at once.

Lucky?: Play a Random Battle or Unrated Random Battle.
New Meta: Play an OU match.
Specialist: Play any match besides Random, Unrated Random, or OU.
The More the Merrier: Play a Doubles match.
Ruiner of Alph: Play a past-generation match.
OMnipotent: Play an Other Metagame or Pet Mod match.
Lucky!: Play a randomized format besides Random Battle or Unrated Random Battle.
Nice to Meet You!: Play Super Staff Bros.

Chaotic: Join the Lobby room.
Everything OK?: Join the Help room.
Polyglot: Join an alternate language room.

Epic Gamer Alert: You joined a gaming or games-focused room.
Finding My Place: You were in 4 rooms at once.
Chameleon: You were in 15 rooms at once! Any more than that, and they won’t be saved between sessions.

Kind Stranger: Host your first giveaway in Wi-Fi

I also put together two of my own:

title: "This is the Way",
desc: "Spoke in a chatroom for the first time!",

title: "IT'S OVER.. 1500?",
desc: "Achieve more than 1500 elo in a format",

yes i think i'm funny

 

[oversway]

The achievements should be things that actually require some effort/skill to achieve and not just participation or luck-based awards like "join this room" or "miss a 100% move in RBY". Oversaturation of trivial badges dimishes the value of the system, especially when they are given the same weight as badges that require work to earn. Having a bunch of meaningless badges that get awarded every time a user does something for the first time also doesn't make sense since most people have multiple accounts anyway.

 

[BP]

Back when this was first proposed in late April I was neither here nor there on the topic due to it being a relatively new concept without any actual concrete examples. Now that we some ideas to work, namely, the ones posted by Maxalexandra and Finland I am all for the idea of public achievements being displayed. I am interested however in how they are going to be portrayed if they are public.

Because there are chat related achievements I think that achievement for having an Auth position in a public room is not necessarily a bad idea but I can see why some would have different opinions on the matter. I was initially against it back in April when I first posted but I do not see a reason to not include that other than people constantly asking how to become auth and such.

An additional idea I would like to propose once we have a substantial amount of achievements in different categories are ribbons or chips. These would be awarded for completing all achievements in any singular category. There would be different color ribbons or chips for each category. This provides even more incentive to do said achievements.

My point on ribbons/chips could help remedy what spanishlines just proposed about these achievements becoming trivial. These achievements should be able to be obtainable by everyone, but it does not make sense if they do not signify a difficult feat. We cannot hand out achievements willy nilly and expect them to hold their weight in awesomeness.

Achievement Ideas

Built Different: Obtain a custom avatar on PS!

The Esteemed User: Obtain an auth position in any public chatroom (Driver or higher)

Chatty Cathy: Have the most amount of lines in Lobby Chatroom

Obligatory top ladder Achievement: Obtain the top spot on ladders (This can be remade multiple times for each format or however)

 

[Adeleine]

The achievements should be things that actually require some effort/skill to achieve and not just participation or luck-based awards like "join this room" or "miss a 100% move in RBY". Oversaturation of trivial badges dimishes the value of the system, especially when they are given the same weight as badges that require work to earn.

Some achievements should definitely be skill-focused, but the ladder already provides an outlet dedicated to pure competition. Achievements should have competitiveness, but if we want to distinguish them from the experience we already provide, much of their grounding must come from having fun in a more relaxed way and not just "value".

True, having fun still doesn't mean we should have tons of luck-based achievements or any pointless achievements. Except maybe for random formats, because luck is pretty integral to those from the get-go, but I digress. Luck achievements are fun in small, limited doses, which I've reflected in my ideas, regardless of how many of my ideas are actually feasible at this point. Not only are there few luck achievements, but there are also few achievements relying on opponent action, because opponent action is as far from your control as luck. When there are opponent-based action requirements, they tend to be very common and not burdensome, e.g. "the opponent brings any Regenerator user into battle (and the rest is up to you, not them)".

A rewards system that requires full achievement-section completion would ensure that skill-focused achievements are important, assuming that skill-focused achievements are placed within each section. If integrating BP's suggestion, you would have to knock out skill-focused achievements to earn a battling ribbon. Even a percentage-based reward system could incentive skill-focused achievements by counting iterations of "tiered" achievements separately. Think "win 5 battles", "win 10 battles", and "win 20 battles" each counting as a separate achievement.

You may be interested in something like PlayStation showing you how commonly or rarely your trophies have been obtained. Maybe "what percent of users have this achievement" and/or "common/rare/very rare/etc.". This would keep harder achievements special without needing weight adjustments. I may just like this idea in general.

Having a bunch of meaningless badges that get awarded every time a user does something for the first time also doesn't make sense since most people have multiple accounts anyway.

Achievements like "register an account", "use a chat command", and "read the rules" are not pointless. They are pointless to you. You already "get it".

Most people that use PS don't "get it", and they don't have multiple accounts. For most PS users, assuming they have a registered account at all, it is one account, and often created thanks to the "Register to save your score!" message after doing an unregistered battle. That message is why I made my first PS account. A small fraction has a Smogon account, let alone a Smogon account they actively use, and not just one to reset a password, made from curiosity, or whatever.

You just don't see this majority because they don't join chat rooms and they're indistinguishable from anyone else on the ladder. I forget the specifics, but there's an adage that goes something like this: 25% of users minimally engage with your internet platform (register an account), and 5% deeply engage (actively chat or use the forums, even if they have no auth or badges). Them not engaging heavily is the whole point of achievements like "use a chat command" or "talk in a chat room", which encourages and incentivizes what are a big first steps for most people that use this sim.

 

[Adeleine]

Doublepost.

An additional idea I would like to propose once we have a substantial amount of achievements in different categories are ribbons or chips. These would be awarded for completing all achievements in any singular category. There would be different color ribbons or chips for each category. This provides even more incentive to do said achievements.

I like it. They could be a counterpart to Smogon ribbons, which I believe are temporary? They could also not be a counterpart to Smogon ribbons, either way. I greatly like the idea of "lesser reward for partial category completion", which can encourage and reward engagement but also lock "the best stuff" behind skill-based achievements or maximal engagement.

Built Different: Obtain a custom avatar on PS!

This one suffers from vagueness. Global Staff, for example, get an achievement with zero direct effort . If you won a custom avatar through a competition like Ultimate Gaming Month, you have no way of distinguishing yourself from the prior, and you get double-rewarded for the same action because the avatar is the victory reward itself. I think most custom avatar achievements we'd want to include are better covered by specific banners or achievements, e.g. "Win Ultimate Gaming Month", which removes vagueness and makes double-rewarding intentional.

Chatty Cathy: Have the most amount of lines in Lobby Chatroom

I'm afraid this is not viable. It encourages people to spam Lobby, and even if they don't spam, they're gonna be pumping out low-quality lines to tryhard, lowering chat quality. People who are impressively positive presences in Lobby should probably be recognized through Room Voice instead.

The Esteemed User: Obtain an auth position in any public chatroom (Driver or higher)

Staff positions are inherently susceptile to insincerity, stakes, and drama. I think most of us who have held staff positions will agree that adding further bait is not the optimal move.

 

[oversway]

You just don't see this majority because they don't join chat rooms and they're indistinguishable from anyone else on the ladder. I forget the specifics, but there's an adage that goes something like this: 25% of users minimally engage with your internet platform (register an account), and 5% deeply engage (actively chat or use the forums, even if they have no auth or badges). Them not engaging heavily is the whole point of achievements like "use a chat command" or "talk in a chat room", which encourages and incentivizes what are a big first steps for most people that use this sim.

I don't see these as encouraging or incentivizing, I see them as patronizing and pointless. Achievements are only as good as their perceived worth. I might not be new to PS, but I've played plenty of games where you unlock awards and achievements just by existing and it kills any motivation to try and earn more. To keep people interested and to actually make them value the awards there has to be some measure of effort involved beyond what anyone is capable of. This especially goes with how easy it is to register multiple accounts on PS. At some point, earning 5 "use a chat command" badges will get repetitive and boring. Do you think people would try to earn forum badges if you could get them just by posting or reading the rules?

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Definitely agree with having "use a chat command" achievements and other such low level but perhaps unintuitive actions. It's an fun way of saying to less engaged users "hey, you can do chat commands and stuff!"

Way more fun than a big list that just says "this is everything you can do on Pokemon Showdown"

 

[BP]

Staff positions are inherently susceptile to insincerity, stakes, and drama. I think most of us who have held staff positions will agree that adding further bait is not the optimal move.

This is fine I wanted to test the waters on this one. Insincerity is by far the biggest concern and while I cannot particularly see this happening I can understand why this is a large enough concern to put a wrap on the idea.

You just don't see this majority because they don't join chat rooms and they're indistinguishable from anyone else on the ladder. I forget the specifics, but there's an adage that goes something like this: 25% of users minimally engage with your internet platform (register an account), and 5% deeply engage (actively chat or use the forums, even if they have no auth or badges). Them not engaging heavily is the whole point of achievements like "use a chat command" or "talk in a chat room", which encourages and incentivizes what are a big first steps for most people that use this sim.

While I agree initially with the point, I still think spanishlines has a more valid point here. I do however think we should include some initial achievements, but only a few as sort of an introduction to PS achievements. These initial achievements allow the user or average lurker to familiarize themselves with the concept so they have a better understanding of other avenues to travel down. This does not mean however there are like 40 initial achievements. I am proposing we add one to five, three being the sweet spot.

EDIT: There should be a chat room for this because once added people are bound to want to discuss how to attain achievements. I was 14 at the time of the old challenges room that was run by AM. If said chatroom is created I plan on participating fully in the discussion.

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

Definitely agree with having "use a chat command" achievements and other such low level but perhaps unintuitive actions. It's an fun way of saying to less engaged users "hey, you can do chat commands and stuff!"

Way more fun than a big list that just says "this is everything you can do on Pokemon Showdown"

i think low-level achievements like this are a good idea, but maybe they could be toggled off? could get annoying for anyone using a new alt if they're getting notifications every time they open chat. i guess you could toggle all achievements or just the lower-level ones - whichever works.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

i think low-level achievements like this are a good idea, but maybe they could be toggled off? could get annoying for anyone using a new alt if they're getting notifications every time they open chat. i guess you could toggle all achievements or just the lower-level ones - whichever works.

I feel like the more elegant solution would be to not make the notification for getting an achievement intrusive and annoying.

 

[Adeleine]

i think low-level achievements like this are a good idea, but maybe they could be toggled off? could get annoying for anyone using a new alt if they're getting notifications every time they open chat. i guess you could toggle all achievements or just the lower-level ones - whichever works.

At some point, earning 5 "use a chat command" badges will get repetitive and boring.

I feel like the more elegant solution would be to not make the notification for getting an achievement intrusive.

Something to this effect, whether it is not-annoying notifications, an achievement notifications toggle, a toggle for new achievements, a combination of these, or something else, seems like a great idea.

Achievements are only as good as their perceived worth.

I've played plenty of games where you unlock awards and achievements just by existing and it kills any motivation to try and earn more.

To keep people interested and to actually make them value the awards there has to be some measure of effort involved beyond what anyone is capable of.

If people within the majority-userbase unlock a few baby achievements, but then they think "man, this is stupid, I'm not getting any more achievements", that's still a win for us. We have already convinced them to engage in new features, and they may still use these features even if they don't value the achievements or have motivation for them.

Majority-users have no engagement besides the ladder anyway. If they hate how we structure achievements and find no value in them, the worst that will happen is they maintain their 0 deeper engagement and they toggle off the achievements or whatever. No net loss.

Of course, the best-case scenario is that they are interested and engage. Because the majority-users are, well, our majority users, even if only a small % of them become interested in deeper engagement via the achievement system, that's still a huge victory that will have real effects in bolstering our active userbase.

The counterpoint would be if a harder achievement system did a better job of drawing in these minimally-engaged users. However, I heavily doubt that a steeper barrier to success from a harder achievement system would get more engagement from already-peripheral users. Majority PS users are not "spanishlines starting a new game": by buying whichever game you brought, you've already shown more investment, engagement, and interest than 75% of PS users. You are already more interested in being pushed and challenged. When majority-users consistently fail to engage more deeply with PS, they signal that they're not primarily here to invest effort. Even if things are easy, if users still do not do them, there is a reason they do not (the engagement barrier). They are much more likely respond to challenge with "I don't care enough".

TLDR: If users never engage with PS anyway, they rarely want competitive pushing from us. They may not be a monolith, but their primary wants are useful features (what the intro achievements are designed for), maybe a quick flash of validation, maybe something amusing or weird, maybe a bridge to ease the burden of jumping into PS. A good variety of intro achievements accomplishes most of these. A hard and challenging achievements list accomplishes little to none of this. And even if they still hate all our ideas, it won't reduce deeper involvement below what it already is: 0.

Do you think people would try to earn forum badges if you could get them just by posting or reading the rules?

If there was a five second way to go from "perfectly generic smogon user" to "having a status symbol by your name every time you post", do I think people would do that? Yes.

Degradation would happen, but that highlights your example not applying well here. Intentionally difficult status symbols on a posting forum are different than an explicitly fun-prioritizing mechanic for a live chat.

 

[El químico del pueblucho]

Want a hard achievvement: Land 5 crits on multi hit, land all the 16 Thunders, Protect working for 6 consecutive turns

 

[Theia]

I'm sure everyone is enjoying me making long rambling posts in this thread twelve hours after things are discussed.

I won't waffle about toggling achievement notifications. This is a good idea and if this is is added, that should be too.

The Esteemed User: Obtain an auth position in any public chatroom (Driver or higher)

Finland already addressed this neatly so I won't go on too much about this either, but my biggest concern is this promoting "tryhard culture", where users only behave in the manner that they think will get them promoted the fastest, including minimodding and attempting to suck up to staff, and then fall off as soon as they've earned the achievement.

A lot to unpack here, so I'll do my best.

I don't see these as encouraging or incentivizing, I see them as patronizing and pointless.

I'd hardly call basic beginner achievements patronizing or pointless. They're geared more towards newer users, sure, but that's exactly the point. We want users who aren't as engaged in PS to engage more, and these are stepping stones towards that.

Achievements are only as good as their perceived worth. I might not be new to PS, but I've played plenty of games where you unlock awards and achievements just by existing and it kills any motivation to try and earn more. To keep people interested and to actually make them value the awards there has to be some measure of effort involved beyond what anyone is capable of.

There's no reason we can't have easier and harder achievements. Having some low hanging fruit as it were doesn't necessarily devalue the whole system, especially if it were possible to offer some sort of reward for completion like was brought up earlier in the thread.

Do you think people would try to earn forum badges if you could get them just by posting or reading the rules?

Yes, because people like to have things to compare with others and a bit of positive reinforcement would more than likely encourage them to earn more badges.

And so I'm not just addressing points that were made twelve hours ago, something I was thinking about while writing this post was unearned achievements. Would we want to
1. Display all unearned achievements on the user page along with earned ones
2. Have a master list of achievements somewhere
3. Each room have a command like /roomachievements or smth that would pull up their specific achievements, and have a global /achievements thing for stuff like registering an account
4. Have all of the achievements be hidden and only revealed upon earning (not a fan of this tbh)
5. Something else I probably forgot

 

[Amaluna]

I really liked this idea when I first read it. While I am still curious how this will work out, I've decided to think of a few achievements that I think most people would be able to complete.

Foreigner - Set Showdown to a different language.
Welcome to my lair - Join a subroom room.
Dark alley - Join a private / hidden room.
The PROPER view - Set Showdown to Dark mode.
I'm so lonely - Use the "Chat self" feature.
Not enough - Use one of the hidden avatars.
Where it's due - Open the Credits tab.
Is it me you're looking for? - Use the "Find a user" button.
Improver - Report a bug.

If battle-specific achievements are realistic for programmers, I can think of a few cool ones.
Examples:
?_? - Use a dog-like Pokemon to KO an opponent using Bite.
?_? - Use a cat-like Pokemon to KO an opponent using Scratch.
Multiplier - Use a move that is damage boosted by an ability.
Cosplayer - Win a battle where you avatar and team match an anime characters'.

 

[Ocean]

I'm pretty late here, but am interested in putting my two cents in regardless.

Like some others, I am in favor of achievements taking the direction of major battle-related milestones. Many of the suggested achievements being posed here are similar to the ones in the Challenges room. That's fun, but I don't think it's in the spirit of the OP ("adding something fun that gives users an objective to 'work' towards"). Trivial achievements have a few issues, IMO, including tracking or display issues, susceptibility to manipulation, coding or maintenence issues caused by sheer number, etc. Also, I frankly don't think they're as satisfying to receive. Not ideal. They're called achievements after all-- they should be rewarded for skill and dedication.

Triumphant II, III...:

Win (1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250) battles on the ladder.
Exalted II, III...: Win (500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500… 10000) battles on the ladder.
Streaker II, III...: Win (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) games in a row on the ladder.
Uncontested II, III...: Win (15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50) games in a row on the ladder.
Elite Streak II, III...: Win (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) games in a row, and both start and end this streak in a ladder’s top 500.
Looking Up II, III…: Reach Top 500 on (1, 2, 3…) ladders. (it ideally would say which)
Golden II, III…: Reach #1 on (1, 2, 3…) ladders. (it ideally would say which)
Perennial II, III…: Be #1 on the same ladder in (1, 2, 3…) different months.

I like these concepts (by Finland) a lot. Upgradable achievements are a solid idea, as they feel approachable while still giving clout to the tryhards people who want something to work towards. I don't play the ladder a ton, so I don't have many other concrete ideas, though I think you could include goals for old gens (since those were requested) and tier-specific achievements as well.

As I said, I still think we should have longer-term achievements. Catering to people who already love a format and ladder is a bit of a no brainer. I didn't include much in my Past Gen and CAP drafts, but remember that many like Top 500, Win 100 games, etc. are equally applicable to all of these ladders. But also, I hadn't considered achievements that balance "the little fun things" and being "less short-term" like Specialist. If people can think of more of these "medium-term" achievements, especially when they include any "little things" that engage people who aren't already in love with the format, that sounds like a great idea.

Echoing particular support here (Finland again). In conjunction with upgradability, these concepts seem like they'll be interesting and in the spirit of the system. Overall, I think achievements are a sick idea for PS... if they take an appealing direction.

 

[Adeleine]

Stuck on my phone due to internet fiasco. I’ll post some brief thoughts.

I agree that hiding locked achievements is not the way to go. Unless a small set of staff adds few, wisely chosen secret achievements, not showing locked achievements feels like unnecessary pain and confusion for everyone involved. In that vein, unless theres some sort of technical or clutter reason, it seems best to display everything on the user page (your option 1). The room specific command you mention and external master list could also be a useful supplement.

I don’t think we should have achievements for joining a private/hidden room or reporting a bug. Hidden rooms and their users will likely not appreciate strangers knocking at the door for an achievement, nor will anyone else such searchers happen to PM. Valid bugs are rare, and an achievement could clog the dev’s time with bad reports. I like Cosplayer and the dog and cat ones.

Regarding technical concerns, we should respond to them as they arise. The current situation is that trivial server achievements (“talk in a room”) are extremely feasible, and trivial “do this in battle” achievements may not be feasible at all. There are other reasons to like or dislike either, but let’s work with the best code information we have.

Regarding the OP by our lovely nui, it is surely an appreciated spark. But now that this project may? be in motion, it’s just a draft of suggestions and ideas like all of ours, not a founding statement. Don’t feel bound to follow it because it’s the OP.

 

[Aeonic]

Foreigner - Set Showdown to a different language.

These are really cool ideas - love the creativity. I'm not a fan this particular one though - PS! and Smogon aren't centric to any one country or language. Maybe "Multicultural"?

 

[Adeleine]

I briefly mentioned this in another post, but: what would people think about an explicit difficulty system? This difficulty system could apply to all achievements, or just to battling ones.

Below are some example systems. Deciding which system isn’t super important at this stage; it’d be nice to know if everyone loves a certain one, but this list is mostly just to show possibilities.

Simple Split: Two columns. “For Fun”, “Normal”, or something else if you’re looking for a good time or lesser commitment. “For Pros”, etc. if you’re looking for a challenge. Each achievement type has different color names or headers or something.

Tiers: Sort them into tiers by difficulty. Bronze/Easy/etc. for easy achievements. Silver/Normal for moderate effort achievements. Gold/Hard for hard ones. Maybe more tiers, your Platinums and Diamonds and what have you. This is how the SM OU ladder achievements worked.

Percentages: Every achievement shows what percentage of users (registered users? users with 2+ or 5+? users who completed the introductory list?) have completed it. Lower percentage-completed achievements are of course more prestigious. This could be standalone or used to decide how we divide achievements for the first two ideas.

Points: Each achievement awards its own amount of points. Uses if points could be to earn prizes, to gradually “level up” your account like Pokemon levels, or just to get a more accurate idea of work put in than pure achievement count gives. Harder achievements would probably be worth more, but we could theoretically do whatever we want. This is how the OM Ladder Achievements currently work. This can be standalone, or combined with any of the above ideas.

 

[Hecate]

Regarding technical concerns, we should respond to them as they arise. The current situation is that trivial server achievements (“talk in a room”) are extremely feasible, and trivial “do this in battle” achievements may not be feasible at all. There are other reasons to like or dislike either, but let’s work with the best code information we have.

Elaboration from the tech person working on this.
Server achievements - easy, easily edited.
Battle achievements: complicated.
What's open to us for battle achievements amounts to stuff that can be done at the beginning / end / each turn of a battle, with the information the server can acquire. The server cannot access the full battle state. What we CAN access is the input log, though this needs to be limited, and the teams of both players (we cannot access team state like current hp, only the actual team that gets validated etc).
We can also access protocol messages sent back by the sim, though this is difficult to parse - similar to input logs - which would provide the information for the last turn. So if it takes more than one turn, it's out. It's probably out by this stage tbh, parsing logs is programatically annoying af.
This is effectively similar to how bots receive messages.
We also can't do anything that involves tracking battle wins etc. That requires a database refactor that would be hell.

 

[Theia]

I favor a mix of two of Finland's ideas:

Tiers: Sort them into tiers by difficulty. Bronze/Easy/etc. for easy achievements. Silver/Normal for moderate effort achievements. Gold/Hard for hard ones. Maybe more tiers, your Platinums and Diamonds and what have you. This is how the SM OU ladder achievements worked.

I like this one because I feel like it allows a lot more room for creativity instead of having to come up with stuff that is either "easy" or "hard".

Points: Each achievement awards its own amount of points. Uses if points could be to earn prizes, to gradually “level up” your account like Pokemon levels, or just to get a more accurate idea of work put in than pure achievement count gives. Harder achievements would probably be worth more, but we could theoretically do whatever we want. This is how the OM Ladder Achievements currently work. This can be standalone, or combined with any of the above ideas.

I'd like to include this if we can come up with some prizes. I know custom avatars and name requests were mentioned in the OP, and color changes could be a further consideration.

All things considered, I'd rather not restrict achievements to things that are explicitly difficult. I see this as a potential way to encourage users who don't use or know about the chatrooms and only battle to branch out and vice versa, so by that virtue I'm also against making them only battle achievements.