I think Achievements/Trophies get a bad reputation because so many of them are terribly designed. For me, Achievements
can be a way to expand the playtime on a game; whether it's mastering a gameplay mechanic, or exploring areas I never thought to explore, or solving a puzzle/defeating a boss/completing a level in an unorthodox way.
I don't play games for Achievements; I couldn't care less what my Gamerscore/Trophy level/Steam Achievement level I'm at. That's not even the secondary thing I do; sometimes I make up my own challenges. I do, however, like to complete certain Achievements once I'm convinced I
really enjoy the main gameplay loop of a game and don't have any of my own challenges left. And when I go for Achievements, I often just go for those that are gameplay/challenge based. To me, Achievements fall in certain categories:
- Story Achievements: The standard ones for completing routine story tasks. Quite often these are terrible; as some have mentioned in this thread already, a lot of these pop before the chapter/section is even over, so they are often terrible spoilers. I wish devs got better about these.
- Skill Achievements: These are my favorite type. Often these will be "complete the game on a Harder difficulty" or "complete these hard, hidden levels" or "perform this [difficult gameplay action]." There's a huge sense of satisfaction in mastering a difficult technique, or beating the game on a higher difficulty, and the Achievements serve as a reminder that, yeah, you did it.
- Gameplay Loop Achievements: These have a certain amount of repetition to them, but they involve performing a key gameplay loop multiple times over, with the goal (I guess?) of testing your skill in executing that particular gameplay loop. "Kill 50 enemies with [Weapon X]", "Complete [X] races in 1st place," etc. These are a mixed bag. For me these are simple, if the gameplay loop is not all that fun, I just don't do them. Even if the gameplay loop is fun, the amount of repetition is gonna dictate whether I go for them or not. Sometimes these come naturally after playing through a main game and then a New Game+.
- Collect-a-thon Achievements: Quite often these can be the absolute worst, which means quite often I skip them altogether. Somebody in this thread already brought up the feathers in Assassin's Creed II. This is not executing any particular skill, and quite often can feel like mindless busywork. I've got better shit to do with my time.
- Milestone Achievements: A close cousin of the Collect-a-thon shit. "Travel 5,000 miles." "Take 25 taxis." "Earn 1,000,000,000 of [insert in-game currency here]." And often these milestones are ridiculous, with the devs expecting you to play the game several times over to achieve it, or otherwise being in an open world. Unlike the gameplay loop achievements, these are pretty dumb and generally don't exercise any major gameplay skill; instead, they require a lot of mindless grind.
- Multiplayer Achievements: I don't ever play multiplayer in any system, ever, but I can see some merit to these. From what I've seen these are often a test of skill. "Get [X] victories in a row." Well, in order to be able to achieve that, you gotto "git gud."
So it all comes down to how Achievements are designed, and what my main enjoyment is. As people have already mentioned, Ubisoft is king of the mindless, grindy shit, so a lot of their Achievements are of the (4) and (5) type above. But I've played plenty of games with well designed Achievements that have lengthened my enjoyment of the game, and more importantly,
taught me something about the game I would have otherwise not known.
So with Achievements, as with many things in life, "YMMV," as the kids say on the internet