Steam is testing a new achievement system
Valve decided to introduce another round of changes to its digital store's functionality. This time, it focused on upgrading its game achievements system, currently available only in the beta version of the Steam client.
The main innovation is that developers are now able to group achievements into thematic sets. The number of sets and their segmentation criteria will be determined by the studios themselves. For instance, in one title, achievements can be broken down by modes (single-player and multiplayer), and in another, by classes of heroes.
Additionally, developers can now add temporary achievements to games, available during specific events, holidays, or game seasons. Once the event concludes, the sets with such achievements will be archived. The trophies will remain in the profile of gamers who received them in time, but will no longer be viewable by those who missed them.
According to Valve, each achievement set will have its own progress scale, along with a unique trophy for fully completing it.
Simultaneously, Valve has updated the achievements page itself. Specifically, a filter for trophies by sets and by whether they have been obtained or not was added. Moreover, they introduced a feature to compare results with up to three friends, information about progress in sets, and an improved achievement counter.
The duration of the beta testing is not disclosed.