Suggestion The Achievement Hunter's Dream (forums suggestion)

Here's an idea for LV I came up with a while back.

You know how Steam has these in-game achievements, for accomplishing certain special feats in the game you're playing? Well, how about a similar thing, but right here on LV!

Basically, there'd be a ton of achievements for anyone to collect, ranging in difficulty from very easy to borderline impossible, to keep it interesting for everyone, both new players and Pokémon veterans.

As a few examples:

- Regional Celebrity: Enter the Hall of Fame in any game
- Starting Sparkler: Catch your first shiny Pokémon
- Drowning in Riches: Obtain $100,000,000 Pokédollars
- The Livin' Legend: Get a full living dex on the most recent generation in the franchise

There could be forum rewards for getting a certain amount of achievements, like pokepoints or medals, whatever.

As proof of completion, there could be a thread dedicated specifically to posting screenshots of your achievements, so a staff member could check them for validity and award you the achievements.

This is just a simple thing for those who are looking for a little more to do in their Pokémon endeavors, I feel like this could provide that little extra motivation.

 

I don't know what the possibilities are when it comes to awarding people things on LV, but I'll try to explain:

I saw this concept on a discord server I joined recently. For every achievement, you would basically get an additional, meaningless rank (so it did absolutely nothing, but if you clicked on their name on discord, you'd see which achievements they got). Then, for getting 15 and 30 achievements, there was a completely new rank with a different color.

It would be cool if there was some way to check which achievements a user has earned, for example on their profile. Then for getting a certain number of achievements, they could get a bigger reward, like a medal or maybe even something along the lines of an "Achievement Hunter" rank on LV.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

 

bring it on scrublord im ripped

The biggest difference is what the achievements are for. The trophies that exist now, are all based on either forum feats or things related to the forum catcher. These trophies emphasize your activity on your forum, and your involvement with the site. These trophies (to some degree) show how dedicated you are to the forum, and what you've accomplished as a member on this very Pokémon forum.

The achievements I'm talking about are completely separate from this, as they are absolutely unrelated to forum activity. Technically, it would be possible for someone with no forum posts to have every single Pokémon achievement, and vice versa (while both seem highly unlikely). I suppose you could just integrate these achievements into the trophy system, but I feel like they really are a separate being, and should be treated as such.

Now, why would you add something to the site that absolutely has nothing to do with forum activity? First of all, to encourage playtime. I know there are quite a few people (myself included), who have played every Pokémon game so far. We've done nuzlockes, challenge runs, everything. There's really not much more to explore in terms of the games the franchise has to offer. Slowly, you drift away from the games, and as a result, from the forum as well. On-forum achievements are a good way to keep these people interested, and motivate them to pick up a game again. The completionist curse runs in many of our veins, and it's not unlikely that a ton of people will start racing towards completing as many achievements as possible. It also encourages forum conversation, by allowing the members to talk about these achievements. Open a discussion thread for sharing strategies towards completing the more difficult ones, a feedback thread for achievements they think could use some tweaking, and a suggestion thread for new achievement ideas.

Also, it's just a proven fact that all these tiny feats give you that little shot of dopamine everyone loves so much. It causes happiness, and in turn, motivation to keep going for that next shot. Comparing your score with another member makes for friendly rivalry, and as such new friends can be made. All in all, I think there are a myriad of ways a simple thing as in-game achievements can make the forum an even better place to be.

I don't exactly see how it would have to rely on a honour system, personally. Of the four achievement suggestions I gave, all four of them can be easily verified with a simple screenshot, or multiple screenshots at most. I would say a dedicated thread on LV would do the trick quite well. Members post their screenshots in there, and which achievement they should be awarded, and staff members can verify it and award the achievement to them. Alternatively, you could also make a discord channel specifically for that (which was the case on the server I talked about earlier). A thing to keep in mind when making the achievements is that they would have to be verifiable through screenshots, to avoid the issue you brought up.

I don't think coming up with suitable achievements really has to be that big a time investment. Pretty much anything that can be considered a commendable feat in a Pokémon game is possible, as long as you can verify it with screenshots. And you don't need to have an extensive list of hundreds of achievements before you start. Like I said, you could make a suggestions thread and add new achievements every now and then. I honestly don't think it'll cost as much time as you might think.

I'm sorry if you still don't see the point in adding this, maybe it isn't as great in your eyes as it is in mine. However, I hope I've been able to give you a little more insight in my thought process behind it, and maybe you'll see my point now. If you're still not convinced, that's a shame, but I've tried my best.