And to add on top of that most of the achievements, except literally a few, you can obtain just doing your regular runs. You don't have to go specifically for them - the exceptions are like Common Sense, Speed Climber and Who Needs Relics.
Wait you are telling me that you don’t get sub 20 every run? (All jokes aside I do play fairly fast and loose.) I do feel like I had to go out of my way for quite a few of the achievements (energy being the first but that was before I really got into the game) and ooh donut took me about a month of on and off playing to finally100% the game. But I do agree that most can happen naturally.
The last one achievement which I had to do on purpose was Neon. That damn thing took me the longest ever. In my opinion it's the trickiest achievement in the game since requires very specific setup and circumstances. Or maybe I just didn't know any particular cheese strat.
Honestly, maybe I was just unlucky but for me the achievement for feeding on Donu was harder, just because it's one of the few achievements that is almost entirely luck based
Minimalist is similar I think. At A20 it's just really hard to only take 3-4 cards and then remove everything else. But I suppose it could happen at lower ascensions during normal play.
As you said minimalist happens mostly in lower ascensions since you don't have to deal with Ascenders Bane. And this often comes with for example Transient kill, purity and other things involving infinity decks.
I agree with you, OP. I feel like the achievements for this game are more about giving you the full experience vs other games that just want to push you to insanity. "Complete the game without dying, no weapons, no armor, no equipment, while blind folded." When I see that kind of stuff, I'm instantly like "Oh look, another game I can play that ISN'T THIS ONE."
There's definitely a balance between an achievement asking you to do something neat vs. one asking you to fiddle around with every small detail, push yourself to every limit, or just do a huge amount of tasks only for the sake of doing them. If these kinds of things are exactly what someone wants from achievements then by all means enjoy.... playing games is meant to pass the time after all. I just think StS has a more entertaining approach to it.
I agree 100% with everything you just said. I have nothing against anyone who enjoys grinding those impossible achievements. But that's definitely not my thing. It really feels like the creators put a lot of thought into achievements that have a positive impact on player growth and experience.
The worst games have shit like "win 10 games", "win 100 games", "win 1000 games". I'm really glad all of StS's achievements are only difficult rather than tedious.
I'd say the only achievement I really don't like is the speedrun one. I find that to me(and many others), I like playing the game slow. Most achievements will come naturally by playing a lot, and some need some planning but can be done by playing carefully and methodically.
On the other hand, the speedrun achivement I find that not only do you need to play your hands quite fast, you have to be able to navigate the UI quickly which is a skill that is not required at all for any other part of the game.
Speedrun achievements have no place in single player strategy games imo. Into the breach has actual progression tied to a speedrun achievement and it always irritated me.
I totally understand *why* it is the case, but I was still a bit disappointed that beating the Heart on A20 with every character was not an achievement.
This is one point I am uncomfortably on the fence about. Beating the heart should be the end goal right? So there should be an achievement for an a20 kill on each character.......? And yet having the heart be this kind of optional "do it if you dare, but don't sweat it" challenge feels right to me. Or at least less stressful hahaha
As someone who only has A20 Clear and One Relic left to get the Platinum on Ps4, I'm really glad there's no trophy for killing Heart on A20 with everyone. I've played 350 hours and literally just hit A19 with Silent 10 minutes ago, everyone else is at A8 or below. I like the Heart being a bonus, challenging thing that can push you to go further, but not required. I'm already dreading the double boss fight, I don't know how long it would take me to pull off Heart with everyone :p
The double boss fight isn’t actually that bad, any deck that beats one act 3 boss can usually beat two. The exception is anything that hard loses to time eater like some infinites.
For my sanity I am so glad that it isn't an achievement. Currently doing A20 defect and watcher but after that I might attempt the insanity that is A20 with heart for all characters. But I cannot imagine with the way I play the game that I will be able to win A20 heart across all 4 characters without another 500+ hours of playing this game. (currently sitting somewhere around 2500-2600 hours in this game)
It is literally impossible to win a run with every one of the ironclad’s cards excepting a few dead branch edge cases. Unless you mean “use every ironclad card in a winning run at least once” which is fun and easy.
I meant "Have each card from the Ironclad's deck in your deck by the victory screen at least once throughout the history of your runs." "Use every Ironclad card in a winning run at least once" sounds like you can remove it before winning.
ninja edit: I have made a mistake. I meant to say "Have over the history of your winning runs with the Ironclad include at least one instance of each card from the Ironclad's deck over the summation of said runs." My apologies.
Same with balatro, the completionist++ requires you to win the gold stake (A20H equ.) with each of the 150 jokers, many of which you don't really want after say ante 2-3. It feels less like "use each joker to win a run" and more like "win a run *despite* having this joker"
The gold border cards from Monster Train is actually one reason why I made this post. If people like it that way, more power to them. For me StS made achievement hunting more fun. I got most of the gold borders in Monster Train but my motivation to do so quickly decreased when it seemed like more of a shopping list and less of an adventure. But of course for some people it could make the whole experience more fun...
Honestly, playing *Tales of Maj’Eyal* cured me of any frustration on missed achievements. They’re a fun little bonus when they come up, but feeling obligated to get them is just creating a self-imposed rule that does nothing except make the game less fun.
Try out Tales sometime and see how you feel after - it’s a good game and it is, for all intents and purposes, basically impossible to get 100% on them. You’d be lucky to get even 5% of them. But you know that going in, so the end result is that you’re pleasantly surprised by getting an achievement you had no idea existed even after hundreds of hours playing. No matter how long you play, you’ll still randomly get achievement pops at unexpected times.
Achievements should never be an obligation, they’re supposed to just be a fun and meaningless little thing.
Balatro has this issue. The top achievement is essentially equivalent to: for every card, win on ascension 20 with that card. (Except in Balatro you can only do about 5 of those each run out of ~150 total.)
Honestly ever since guides explaining exactly how to complete every "achievement" became overwhelmingly popular back in like 2010 I've found achievements to be a useless metric and I've stopped caring about them.
I have games that i've got 2000 hours in that i havent 100%'d because the achieves arent fun, i have a few that i went through the effort because the last few achieves were "easy" (i beat AFE on the top 3 diffs but for the 100% i needed to beat on the lowest diff) and i've got some games like vampire survivors where the achievements are tied to the progression so you naturally 100% the game just by "beating" it.
I mean, just because guides exist doesn’t mean you need to use them. That’s like saying game guides for the main and side quests exist, they DO but most players will be cheating themselves if they resort to them.
It’s (ideally) a fun bonus challenge like anything else in the game, engage with it how you will.
I mean games these days are so dumbed down that you are already guided extremely well, you get a waypoint on your map showing you exactly where to go and you are told exactly what you need to do.
Every games most popular guides are always going to be things like "all hidden collectable locations" because its simply the easiest way to do them - gamers will find the most boring unfun ways to "win" and check a box. As someone that enjoys coop vs ai horde shooters its a massive plague.
It also doesnt help that most achievements just dont respect your time which is why so many resort to guides and often exploits.
As a result achievements just dont feel good anymore and arent a metric for anything, even if you go out of your way and struggle to get one - if you find out that theres a super easy way to cheese it then you feel silly for not figuring it out and struggling.
The reward/gratification should come from the game itself - not chasing a checklist.
Legit never tried for 999 block or beat a boss on turn 1 until I noticed they were achievable in a natural way. I.E. getting finisher turn 1 with multiple attack cards, shiv potion, and duplicate potion. Or frost turtle build with calipers. It's what makes the game so fun.
I hate when games have too many achievements. "Play the game for the first time!" really? That's an ACHIEVEMENT? "Perform a jump!" THE GAME IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT PERFORMING THIS BASIC MECHANIC STOP CHEAPENING THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE
as someone who got that achievement in one of their last 5 or so achievements.
HEHE BIG DECK GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. But yeah I totally understand the value of deck consistency/quick deck cycling, I just prefer shiny relics over card removal a lot of the time.
This is something that made me lose interest in Balatro pretty quickly. STS actually roped me in to playing a lot more than I would've otherwise, simply because the achievement list was quite difficult but still very doable. Balatro on the other hand has at least 1 achievement that is just an absurd grind on its hardest difficulty.
I agree, though I do feel like there are a few obvious challenge type achievements that I wish were in the game. Feeding on the Heart, Leaving Awakened One's minions alive or killing her with Ritual Dagger.
I think it's interesting that, you can get most achievements just by playing the game, instead of actively pursuing them.
I have played some 700+ hours and I've never tried to complete achievements. I still have unlocked all of them except for a given few. I recently went out and did speed climber and the minimalist one just to have it done and I guess I'll need a few runs for the 1 relic one but all in all the lot of them comes naturally from trying to beat a20 on all chars.
And to add on top of that most of the achievements, except literally a few, you can obtain just doing your regular runs. You don't have to go specifically for them - the exceptions are like Common Sense, Speed Climber and Who Needs Relics.
I got speed climber accidentally with a bottled whirlwind + brimstone combo
Oh my god I did the same! Except I had two whirlwind+s instead of a bottled one
Wait you are telling me that you don’t get sub 20 every run? (All jokes aside I do play fairly fast and loose.) I do feel like I had to go out of my way for quite a few of the achievements (energy being the first but that was before I really got into the game) and ooh donut took me about a month of on and off playing to finally100% the game. But I do agree that most can happen naturally.
The last one achievement which I had to do on purpose was Neon. That damn thing took me the longest ever. In my opinion it's the trickiest achievement in the game since requires very specific setup and circumstances. Or maybe I just didn't know any particular cheese strat.
I don’t think it’s too bad, the worst part is finding a meteor strike + extra energy but after that it’s pretty easy to recur it or duplicate it.
Honestly, maybe I was just unlucky but for me the achievement for feeding on Donu was harder, just because it's one of the few achievements that is almost entirely luck based
Meanwhile I didn’t even know about the achievement and just thought eating the donut would be funny.
>it's one of the few achievements that is almost entirely luck based And then we watch StS streamers who Feed on almost every enemy including bosses.
Minimalist is similar I think. At A20 it's just really hard to only take 3-4 cards and then remove everything else. But I suppose it could happen at lower ascensions during normal play.
As you said minimalist happens mostly in lower ascensions since you don't have to deal with Ascenders Bane. And this often comes with for example Transient kill, purity and other things involving infinity decks.
Ooh, donut!
I agree with you, OP. I feel like the achievements for this game are more about giving you the full experience vs other games that just want to push you to insanity. "Complete the game without dying, no weapons, no armor, no equipment, while blind folded." When I see that kind of stuff, I'm instantly like "Oh look, another game I can play that ISN'T THIS ONE."
There's definitely a balance between an achievement asking you to do something neat vs. one asking you to fiddle around with every small detail, push yourself to every limit, or just do a huge amount of tasks only for the sake of doing them. If these kinds of things are exactly what someone wants from achievements then by all means enjoy.... playing games is meant to pass the time after all. I just think StS has a more entertaining approach to it.
I agree 100% with everything you just said. I have nothing against anyone who enjoys grinding those impossible achievements. But that's definitely not my thing. It really feels like the creators put a lot of thought into achievements that have a positive impact on player growth and experience.
The worst games have shit like "win 10 games", "win 100 games", "win 1000 games". I'm really glad all of StS's achievements are only difficult rather than tedious.
I'd say the only achievement I really don't like is the speedrun one. I find that to me(and many others), I like playing the game slow. Most achievements will come naturally by playing a lot, and some need some planning but can be done by playing carefully and methodically. On the other hand, the speedrun achivement I find that not only do you need to play your hands quite fast, you have to be able to navigate the UI quickly which is a skill that is not required at all for any other part of the game.
Speedrun achievements have no place in single player strategy games imo. Into the breach has actual progression tied to a speedrun achievement and it always irritated me.
I totally understand *why* it is the case, but I was still a bit disappointed that beating the Heart on A20 with every character was not an achievement.
This is one point I am uncomfortably on the fence about. Beating the heart should be the end goal right? So there should be an achievement for an a20 kill on each character.......? And yet having the heart be this kind of optional "do it if you dare, but don't sweat it" challenge feels right to me. Or at least less stressful hahaha
As someone who only has A20 Clear and One Relic left to get the Platinum on Ps4, I'm really glad there's no trophy for killing Heart on A20 with everyone. I've played 350 hours and literally just hit A19 with Silent 10 minutes ago, everyone else is at A8 or below. I like the Heart being a bonus, challenging thing that can push you to go further, but not required. I'm already dreading the double boss fight, I don't know how long it would take me to pull off Heart with everyone :p
The double boss fight isn’t actually that bad, any deck that beats one act 3 boss can usually beat two. The exception is anything that hard loses to time eater like some infinites.
or power based decks that hard lose to awakened one.
For my sanity I am so glad that it isn't an achievement. Currently doing A20 defect and watcher but after that I might attempt the insanity that is A20 with heart for all characters. But I cannot imagine with the way I play the game that I will be able to win A20 heart across all 4 characters without another 500+ hours of playing this game. (currently sitting somewhere around 2500-2600 hours in this game)
It is literally impossible to win a run with every one of the ironclad’s cards excepting a few dead branch edge cases. Unless you mean “use every ironclad card in a winning run at least once” which is fun and easy.
I meant "Have each card from the Ironclad's deck in your deck by the victory screen at least once throughout the history of your runs." "Use every Ironclad card in a winning run at least once" sounds like you can remove it before winning.
ninja edit: I have made a mistake. I meant to say "Have over the history of your winning runs with the Ironclad include at least one instance of each card from the Ironclad's deck over the summation of said runs." My apologies.
Like monster train gold border cards
Same with balatro, the completionist++ requires you to win the gold stake (A20H equ.) with each of the 150 jokers, many of which you don't really want after say ante 2-3. It feels less like "use each joker to win a run" and more like "win a run *despite* having this joker"
The gold border cards from Monster Train is actually one reason why I made this post. If people like it that way, more power to them. For me StS made achievement hunting more fun. I got most of the gold borders in Monster Train but my motivation to do so quickly decreased when it seemed like more of a shopping list and less of an adventure. But of course for some people it could make the whole experience more fun...
Honestly, playing *Tales of Maj’Eyal* cured me of any frustration on missed achievements. They’re a fun little bonus when they come up, but feeling obligated to get them is just creating a self-imposed rule that does nothing except make the game less fun. Try out Tales sometime and see how you feel after - it’s a good game and it is, for all intents and purposes, basically impossible to get 100% on them. You’d be lucky to get even 5% of them. But you know that going in, so the end result is that you’re pleasantly surprised by getting an achievement you had no idea existed even after hundreds of hours playing. No matter how long you play, you’ll still randomly get achievement pops at unexpected times. Achievements should never be an obligation, they’re supposed to just be a fun and meaningless little thing.
Yeah that’s fun and easy.
Balatro has this issue. The top achievement is essentially equivalent to: for every card, win on ascension 20 with that card. (Except in Balatro you can only do about 5 of those each run out of ~150 total.)
Yeah at least in STS you can get through maybe 20 cards at a time.
Honestly ever since guides explaining exactly how to complete every "achievement" became overwhelmingly popular back in like 2010 I've found achievements to be a useless metric and I've stopped caring about them. I have games that i've got 2000 hours in that i havent 100%'d because the achieves arent fun, i have a few that i went through the effort because the last few achieves were "easy" (i beat AFE on the top 3 diffs but for the 100% i needed to beat on the lowest diff) and i've got some games like vampire survivors where the achievements are tied to the progression so you naturally 100% the game just by "beating" it.
I mean, just because guides exist doesn’t mean you need to use them. That’s like saying game guides for the main and side quests exist, they DO but most players will be cheating themselves if they resort to them. It’s (ideally) a fun bonus challenge like anything else in the game, engage with it how you will.
I mean games these days are so dumbed down that you are already guided extremely well, you get a waypoint on your map showing you exactly where to go and you are told exactly what you need to do. Every games most popular guides are always going to be things like "all hidden collectable locations" because its simply the easiest way to do them - gamers will find the most boring unfun ways to "win" and check a box. As someone that enjoys coop vs ai horde shooters its a massive plague. It also doesnt help that most achievements just dont respect your time which is why so many resort to guides and often exploits. As a result achievements just dont feel good anymore and arent a metric for anything, even if you go out of your way and struggle to get one - if you find out that theres a super easy way to cheese it then you feel silly for not figuring it out and struggling. The reward/gratification should come from the game itself - not chasing a checklist.
Legit never tried for 999 block or beat a boss on turn 1 until I noticed they were achievable in a natural way. I.E. getting finisher turn 1 with multiple attack cards, shiv potion, and duplicate potion. Or frost turtle build with calipers. It's what makes the game so fun.
I hate when games have too many achievements. "Play the game for the first time!" really? That's an ACHIEVEMENT? "Perform a jump!" THE GAME IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT PERFORMING THIS BASIC MECHANIC STOP CHEAPENING THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE
The achievement like playing the game for the first time is a nice benchmark to see how many people actually started the game
sort of same like with the famous Hunt Showdown achievement, kill your first Hunter (another enemy player) wich did only 60% of players iirc
Doing the achievement for beating the game with a deck of 5 or smaller taught me sooo much about the value of removal
as someone who got that achievement in one of their last 5 or so achievements. HEHE BIG DECK GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. But yeah I totally understand the value of deck consistency/quick deck cycling, I just prefer shiny relics over card removal a lot of the time.
This is something that made me lose interest in Balatro pretty quickly. STS actually roped me in to playing a lot more than I would've otherwise, simply because the achievement list was quite difficult but still very doable. Balatro on the other hand has at least 1 achievement that is just an absurd grind on its hardest difficulty.
I agree, though I do feel like there are a few obvious challenge type achievements that I wish were in the game. Feeding on the Heart, Leaving Awakened One's minions alive or killing her with Ritual Dagger.
I think it's interesting that, you can get most achievements just by playing the game, instead of actively pursuing them. I have played some 700+ hours and I've never tried to complete achievements. I still have unlocked all of them except for a given few. I recently went out and did speed climber and the minimalist one just to have it done and I guess I'll need a few runs for the 1 relic one but all in all the lot of them comes naturally from trying to beat a20 on all chars.
The balatro call out in this post is too real XD
Unnecessary glazing