Galactic Accomplishment: 5 of the Most Annoying Achievements

Achievements are actually a fairly large part of the game now. Every planet, Flashpoint, Event, and PvP eight-player Scenario has its own slew of Achievements for doing the most humdrum and staple of things to doing the most ridiculous of things. For example, those eligible can get an Achievement for killing 500 Players whilst partying with your Party Jawa, which is absolutely hilarious.

As the final part of the second phase of "SWTOR Analysis", I will look over which Achievements can be gained by absolutely everyone in the game at present - bypassing those Party Jawas and notably Sharp Dresser, both of which require items no-longer obtainable by new players - are the most annoying and aggravating to complete for whatever reason.



~~~

Honourable Mention: The Galaxy Conqueror

• Location: None


• Type: Conquest


• Levels: All


• Rewards: 100 Achievement Points; Legacy Title "The Galaxy Conqueror"

Whilst arguably more annoying than certain others on this list, this has been relegated to the "Honourable Mention" because of the growing apathy towards Conquest. If this list had been written back in August 2014, it would be one of the true Top 5.

This Achievement is not all that annoying for those who are in big guilds who still do push for Conquest each and every single week. For the majority left behind in the slipstream, however, this Achievement is likely going to gather dust. There are still a lot of guilds out there who do push for Conquest each and every single week, but even so managing to get this Achievement will still take a maximum of (now) 18 unbroken weeks of winning a unique planet each week, which is not necessarily possible.

Not one for those who don't have a lot of patience.

~~~.

#5: Completing Black Talon and Mandalorian Raiders 25 Times Each

• Location: Black Talon & Mandalorian Raiders Flashpoints


• Type: Flashpoints - Killing


• Levels: 50/55 and above, respectively


• Rewards: 50 Achievement Points each; Yadira Ban/Mavrix Varad Trophies, respectively

The Flashpoint Achievements are particularly annoying once you reach Directive 7 territory and beyond. Every single Hard Mode Flashpoint from level 50 onwards, including the Story Modes of D7, Battle for Ilum, False Emperor, Kaon, Lost Island, and the two Czerka Flashpoints, have Achievements for killing each and every single boss (excluding Commander Folex and the Guid Patriarch of Ilum for some reason) once, ten times, and finally twenty-five times. For the Hard Mode versions, the only way to obtain their Trophy Decoration is to complete the overarching 25-times Achievement, making this all the more aggravating.

With all this in mind, finding one individual Flashpoint to pick out as the worst in such circumstances seems impossible.

However, there are two which I can pick out. Black Talon, for those of you fortunate to not have sat through it dozens of times yet, is unique for offering two different first bosses, dependent on a Dark/Light Side choice. Unfortunately, this alternate boss factors into both the Story and Hard Mode Achievements, although the Hard Mode equivalent is much more tedious than the Story Mode due to that maximum 25-times requirement. You can, of course, always reset progress and choose the second option to complete the entire way through when doing it by yourself at level 60, so it is definitely easier than it was when the Achievements launched.

Mandalorian Raiders is similar, but this time it's the second boss which requires the tediousness. In this case, you need to defeat all eight individual boarding party members across both factions for their particular Achievement to be granted, and as you as-of-right-now can't solo the Hard Mode version of this Flashpoint as you can Black Talon, you'd better hope that you can convince a friend to help out with this slog.

Thankfully, since 3.0, the Hard Modes of the Forged Alliances and Rishi Flashpoints all grant their Trophy Decorations with the first killing of the boss as opposed to the twenty-fifth total completion of everything required for that particular Flashpoint, which is a very welcome change.

~~~

#4: The Droids You're Looking For

• Location: Various


• Type: Location - Planetary - Exploration


• Level: 52 and above


• Rewards: 50 Achievement Points

The Macrobinoculars quests in themselves have gone down as being one of the most tedious questlines in the game, especially the final Heroic 4 mission. You have to traverse the surface of numerous planets to locate various transmitters for the majority of the time, but this pales in comparison to a potential task which emerges as a result of this.

Early on in the quest, you are told to scan what looks like a harmless probe droid, and it's revealed that there "may be more" of those around. Well, there are more indeed; at least three on every single planet up to the addition of Makeb, and even then the vast majority of those planets have a total of six droids to locate. If you enjoy running around a planet and taking in the sights, you might find some enjoyment in this obligatory chance to appreciate scenery you might not have had the chance to see before.

There is one further factor which makes this Achievement much more frustrating; should you get every single one of these blasted Droids on one character, that one character will receive a special pet, the MCR-100 Miniprobe, in return for your hard work. The problem here comes if you've done half of the droids on one character and another half on another; you would then need to work out which droids the character you want the pet on - it is sadly not legacy-wide - and send them on the arduous task, potentially rescanning a droid they've already scanned. If you only have one character doing the work, this is thankfully negated for you, but still won't be a particularly fun adventure.

~~~

#3: Data Mining

• Location: Various


• Type: Location - Planetary/Flashpoinst/Operations - Killing


• Level: 50 and above


• Rewards: 25 Achievement Points

It seems such a simple task on paper; kill a string of droids across the galaxy.

However, the reason why this Achievement becomes far more frustrating than it needs to be is because it is a Hidden Achievement, meaning that you have next-to-no idea where you are on your progress and have to haphazardly guess. Additionally, sometimes this is bugged, meaning that you have to repeat it on various characters just for the slim hope of completing it.

In-game, your only way of knowing which droids you have left to kill is if somebody in-guild pops the Achievement, which is the only way you can measure your own progress as an ambient granted location without being directly linked shows your progress as opposed to theirs. Swtor-spy has done a very useful guide on where specifically to find the droids required, including map and detailed area pictures, which are as follows:

• Battledroid R4-GL (Nar Shaddaa World Boss)


• Beharen Security Droid (Corellia's Labor Valley)


• Berserk Czerka Droid (Tatooine's Czerka Dig Site; visited on quest "The Thing Czerka Found")


• Damaged Scanner Droid (Corellia's Labor Valley)


• Damaged Security Droid (Corellia's Labor Valley)


• Data Core (Terror from Beyond Hard Mode)


• EN-4C (Cademimu Hard Mode)


• HyperMatter Sentinel Droid (Black Hole)


• Mentor (Directive 7 Story Mode)


• Operator IX (TFB Story Mode)


• Renegade Astromech Droid (Nar Shaddaa; nearby to R4-GL)


• Renegade Security Droid (Nar Shaddaa; nearby to R4-GL)


• Ulgo Defense Droid (Alderaan's Kaamos Territory)

~~~

#2: Those Things Exist?

• Location: Disputed


• Type: Legacy - Possessions - Item


• Levels: Disputed


• Rewards: 10 Achievement Points

Achievements solely reliant on item drops are in general a nuisance, as whilst several of said items are guaranteed from their locations at all times, there are those items which can't be guaranteed.  The Czerka Crate-o-Matic is one such item. It has the rarest spawn chance in the game, and even to these day I've seen conflicting information about it; that it drops from mobs and crates exclusively with an item roll of level 50, or that it drops from absolutely anywhere. Regardless, this purely vanity Achievement is still incredibly frustrating because of this incredibly rare chance to see it completed.

Even if you could afford the Crate-o-Matic on the GTN, spending upwards of 20,000,000 credits - there are reports of one selling for forty million - just for the sake of a ten-point Achievement really doesn't seem all that sensible as there is little payoff; you can't guarantee selling it again afterwards, and it becomes a vicious circle.

~~~

#1: I Am Death Incarnate

• Location: Various


• Type: PvP - Killing


• Level: 10 and above


• Rewards: 50 Achievement Points; Legacy Title "Manhunter"

For seasoned PvPers, this Achievement is the culmination of hard work and really seems like just part of the business and not due much thought. Regardless, for those who care about Achievements and even for those who do nothing but PvP day-in day-out, killing 50,000 other players in combat seems very arduous, as no other PvP Achievement - which are arduous in themselves across a good number of worlds - requires such a high amount of kills, although those kills do factor into this one Achievement as it does not specify that it needs to be "in a Warzone".

Indeed, the highest planetary player kill total is 1,980 for CZ-198 with Oricon only just behind with 1,500. To add further context, most planets only have a 500 kill requirement for players and it's only the odd few which have 1,000 or more.

The Legacy Title attached to this Achievement is still one of the most highly-sought such titles, even to this day, and adds a great deal of appeal for trying to complete it.

~~~

Achievements will follow us everywhere we go in games these days, so whether or not you go out of your way to deliberately pursue them, you can't really ignore their presence when they leap out at you.

I hope you guys enjoyed the second phase of "SWTOR Analysis", even though it was reduced to a simple "Top 5" series; I'll try to come up with more varied posts for the third phase, depending on whichever aspect is focused on then.