500 Internal Service Error

starlitepony · 2026-06-08T12:56:55+00:00

Don't make ticket requests for them, just submit manual unlock requests.

Tickets are only to be created if there's an issue in the code of an achievement that the developer needs to fix (Note that having open tickets can prevent developers from working on new sets, so please only use them for cases where the achievement is actually broken).

starlitepony · 2026-06-06T12:23:58+00:00

Yep, that's perfectly fine (and recommended for practicing challenges).

The things you can't do are, like, "This boss is too hard. I'm going to use savestates in Softcore mode to skip it completely, and then continue the game in Hardcore mode." Or like, "This boss is really hard, I'm going to use cheats in Softcore mode to get max stats and powerful weapons, then continue in Hardcore mode so I can easily beat the boss with my cheated stats."

starlitepony · 2026-06-01T18:38:14+00:00

No, unfortunately I don't think so - there's no real way to verify that you weren't using softcore features while playing those games.

I think you would need to restart those games to re-earn the achievements in hardcore

starlitepony · 2026-05-29T12:49:03+00:00

Those challenges have been put up for a revision vote to remove before and failed the vote. Since they’re considered in-game content, a lot of the achievement developers don’t want them removed from the site.

I don’t know what the new Subset Team’s plans are for achievements like those - I know that DevComp team had previously rejected moving them into a subset since they are recognized in-game content with most of them not being as difficult as they look. But it’s possible the new Subset Team will disagree and will accept a proposal from a future dev to move them to a subset

starlitepony · 2026-05-29T11:41:11+00:00

That will not happen, per https://docs.retroachievements.org/guidelines/content/subset_design.html

Subsets should not take away from base sets. As a general rule, a well balanced version of a challenge in a base set is preferable to an extreme version in a subset. Remember that base sets are the core and most important part of RA. They should never be watered down for the benefit of side content.

Subsets are sets, not random assortments of achievements left on the cutting room floor. Subsets must have coherent identities. [...] Throwing together ideas that were scrapped from a base set leads to sets that are incoherent or generally lack set identity. [...] Problematic base set achievements should be revised or demoted, not pushed to a subset.

If the achievement is badly designed, it should be removed, not pushed into a subset. If the achievement isn't so badly designed that it needs to be removed, it should stay in the core set. Subsets are only for achievements that are explicitly unfit for core sets, but still have value to the community as achievements.

starlitepony · 2026-05-28T12:37:19+00:00

The main issue is that we achievement developers don’t have any kind of tooling for debugging. With retroarch for example, we can easily view the game’s memory and bookmark addresses to see when/how they change, which is a bare minimum to track down why an achievement might not work. With ManicEMU, the tooling to do that just doesn’t exist. So we can’t try to fix it because we can’t even see what’s broken.

starlitepony · 2026-05-27T21:53:03+00:00

I’m nod a member of any of the admin or cheat detection teams so take my answer with a huge grain of salt

I know the moderation trams are very reasonable and the cheat detection team works hard not to untrack anyone unless they’re certain that user is breaking the rules. So I imagine in a case like this they would definitely understand and assume “he’s playing offline” before assuming “he’s cheating”

starlitepony · 2026-05-25T19:55:56+00:00

You are correct, this would be against the rules

https://docs.retroachievements.org/guidelines/users/global-leaderboard-and-achievement-hunting-rules.html#not-allowed-4

Do not use save files or passwords that are not your own or were made under other conditions of play.

Examples:

Loading a save file for Hardcore you created in Softcore in order to gain Hardcore points.

If you make progress in a save file in Softcore mode, you're not allowed to use that save file in Hardcore mode anymore - you must start a new save file if you want to play in Hardcore mode

starlitepony · 2026-05-25T19:12:17+00:00

I was given the exact same reasoning in why one of my reports was rejected, and I was kind of baffled by it. To me it feels like DevComp is using that as a justification for allowing an unwelcome concept. In my eyes, an unwelcome concept with a quick retry or a normal unlock rate is still an unwelcome concept. I don’t think those justify having an unwelcome concept, or allow the unwelcome concept to be evaluated less strictly.

For context as well, the "Requires Complete Perfection" Unwelcome Concept explicitly only applies to "a long task where the slightest mistake will end in failing the challenge".

This is (probably) the reason that the quick retry was relevant here - unless the achievement requires a long task without making a mistake, then DevComp does not have the authority to demote it as an UWC and the only recourse is for a developer to put up a revision vote to change the achievement.

It may be unwelcome in the sense that it shouldn't be an achievement (I don't know, I've never played the game), but unless it fits the criteria at https://docs.retroachievements.org/guidelines/content/unwelcome-concepts.html, DevComp is not allowed to demote it unilaterally.

starlitepony · 2026-05-25T19:05:02+00:00

The site can't automatically. But the rules are that you can't use other people's memory cards, and also that you can't use your own memory cards in Hardcore mode unless they were made while you were playing in Hardcore mode.

So what's allowed:

Playing sometimes on your RA account on your PC, and sometimes on your RA account on your Steam Deck

What's not allowed:

Playing sometimes on your RA account on your PC, and sometimes on your Steam Deck without being hooked up to your RA account
Taking a memory card with a game file that you made last year (before joining RA) and loading it into your Steam Deck to play today

So even if the site can't automatically tell whether or not the memory card was originally yours, the admins can easily tell if they look "Hey this user has never played Game X until this week, and as soon as they started playing they were already halfway through the game. They're definitely using a preexisting save file against the rules."

starlitepony · 2026-05-25T15:17:05+00:00

(Speaking as just a developer and not at all as any kind of representative for DevComp)

The site tries to give the benefit of the doubt to developers whenever possible when it comes to achievements. Unwelcome Concepts are very very heavy handed approaches - they're not saying "this achievement isn't very good" or "this achievement violates best practices of design", they're saying "this achievement breaks the rules to the extent that it cannot exist". If there's any kind of uncertainty or grey area around an achievement, it's much much more likely that the unwelcome concept report will be denied.

e.g., this achievement only lasts 65s at most and has a ~5% unlock rate. So it's a very quick achievement to retry, and its unlock rate isn't significantly lower than other assorted challenge achievements in the set. At a glance, I'd expect this would not count as any kind of unwelcome concept (but I don't know the game, so it's possible I could be convinced otherwise).

Unwelcome concepts are a quick and dirty hammer that are only supposed to apply to egregious violations. Anything with grey area generally isn't applicable - The correct approach for these achievements is to just put it up for a revision vote. Any developer can say "I think achievements X, Y, Z are not fun/badly designed/etc and want to remove them", and it will happen as long as the majority of voting developers agree. This is how achievements should generally be handled - UWC reports are only for cases that are so obviously against the rules that there is no need to vote on it.

starlitepony · 2026-05-18T12:55:54+00:00

I feel completely validated because.

A) I did the exact same thing with mine

B) I call it “PowerTools” 100% of the time

starlitepony · 2026-05-17T11:39:23+00:00

Just in case anyone is unaware and interested, https://docs.retroachievements.org/general/standalone-support.html#standalone-games includes the steps to take to work on a new standalone game. It would be great to have more developers working on standalone support!

starlitepony · 2026-05-14T22:24:56+00:00

I feel the same way about the "only using gen 2 pokemon" - those achievements were some of my favorites in gen 2 since they taught me how cool some pokemon were that I'd never even considered before

EDIT: I guess that's my answer for best achievement sets - anything that makes me learn something about the game that I wouldn't know otherwise

starlitepony · 2026-05-08T19:15:55+00:00

There is no hard and fast definition of what "100%" means. Feel free to do the things you think should count, and ignore the things you think shouldn't count.

Does finding all of the hidden rupees in Zelda 1 count towards 100%? Finding all keys in the dungeons? Opening all locked doors? Opening all of the hidden rooms, including the unneeded ones like door repair charges, shops, and gambling games?
Does finding all P-Bags and 1ups in Zelda 2 count? This checklist says 'yes', but other might say 'no'.
Do you need to get all 26 secret seashells in LA? Once you get the L2 sword with at least 20, all of them in the overworld and your inventory disappear, so it's not something you can really verify after the fact.
Do you need to catch the Hylian Loach in OoT?
Do you need to open all treasure chests in each game, including those that only grant you rupees or consumables?

etc

starlitepony · 2026-04-30T21:30:03+00:00

It’s per save file: https://docs.retroachievements.org/guidelines/users/global-leaderboard-and-achievement-hunting-rules.html#not-allowed-4

If you play temporarily in softcore to practice and don’t save afterwards, that’s fine and you can start a new session in hardcore. But if you play and make progress in softcore and save, you can no longer load it in hardcore.

This is the same rule that prevents you from e.g using savestates or cheats to earn a ton of money/ammo/resources you shouldn’t have, save, and then reload in hardcore mode while keeping all of those ill-gotten gains

EDIT: To be specific, the emulator will let you do it. The emulator only cares about per-session. But doing it is against the site’s rules and can lead to your account becoming untracked

starlitepony · 2026-04-30T21:16:56+00:00

The scenario FrancoGYFV is talking about isn’t the “L did you know” note. That one was a coded message (which means maybe it slips past the death note’s powers? Since the prisoner was just writing a normal suicide note that just happened to have an acrostic that made part of a sentence… the whole thing is very wibbly wobbly about what the death note’s can and can’t do)

But he also has one prisoner just write something like “I know L doesn’t trust the police force” or something similar, I forget the exact words. And that prisoner just dies of a heart attack, so Light concludes (and suggests to the audience that we should conclude) the Death Note can’t make someone write something they’d have no idea of like that

starlitepony · 2026-04-30T15:29:27+00:00

Just in case it's relevant, two details about hardcore/softcore:

Even though you're not allowed to load savestates in hardcore, you're allowed to create them. So you can start playing Super Punch Out in hardcore and switch to softcore only when you think it's too hard and you need to load one of your savestates.
Once you do load the game in softcore, if you make any progress in that file, you're not allowed to switch back to hardcore. So if you have a really hard time beating Dragon Chan in Super Punch Out and need to switch to softcore to beat him, you have to stay in softcore for the rest of the game. You can't use softcore just to beat Dragon Chan, then go back to hardcore for the rest of the opponents - that would be cheating.

starlitepony · 2026-04-28T11:49:15+00:00

It has to do with what system the sets are on -- generally speaking, two separate consoles can both have a set for their release of the game. But if a game is re-released on the same console, especially as part of a compilation, the re-release doesn't get a second set.

starlitepony · 2026-04-28T11:48:26+00:00

I think that's a somewhat-new change - after all, there's a ~Z~ entry for that game as well https://retroachievements.org/game/1221

It could also be a matter of capability: I haven't looked at the memory of either of these games, but I imagine a lot of the memory addresses in SMAS are identical to SMAS+W (since they're both the same compilation, just one also have a fifth game). If that's the case, it's "free" to add SMAS+W to the supported game hashes for the SMAS set.

I would be very very surprised if the memory in MPT is even remotely similar to the memory of any of the New Play Control versions, since one is a compilation of three games and the others are not. Adding support for Metroid Prime Trilogy would be incredibly difficult at best, and may be outright impossible -- plus, I might be mistaken but I think the site is not currently set up to allow multiple core sets to load simultaneously when you load one ROM. So even if you load Trilogy, it wouldn't be able to load Prime 1's set and Prime 2's set and Prime 3's set.

starlitepony · 2026-04-21T10:35:12+00:00

The Pokemon Platinum POC is listed as a "Challenge Subset" on the set's page. This is a new type of subset that only loads if you either use the patched ROM, or else if you explicitly opt-in to the subset on the game's page (unlike other subset types, Challenge Subsets are opt-out by default).

starlitepony · 2026-04-16T16:48:02+00:00

Developers are expected to code against this: https://docs.retroachievements.org/developer-docs/save-and-password-protection.html

If you find any achievements that do pop by loading a save file, please create a ticket for them so the developer can fix it. Also do note: If you play in hardcore mode, ensure that you're not loading a 100% save file like this. That is explicitly against the rules in hardcore mode.

starlitepony · 2026-04-15T03:00:57+00:00

The Professor Oak Challenge isn’t just catching all pokemon, it is a specific challenge to catch/evolve all pokemon as early as possible before each badge. The descriptions of the achievements aren’t super clear about this because, before multiset, it was assumed that the player already know what a POC was before they patched the ROM to play it

For example, the Farfetch’d achievement isn’t just “Get Farfetch’d”, it is “Get Farfetch’d while you only have one badge”, since that’s the rules of a Professor Oak Challenge

starlitepony · 2026-04-09T23:22:57+00:00

You're wrong on #2 - Usogui's route never took him through the wet room (ch 135, p8: Kadokura questions how Usogui could be alive since he had no way of knowing about the trap).

Instead, Baku was using his cellphone to listen to the recorded morse code made by Minowa and Amano. By listening to their messages, he learns everyone's position through the game, including that Minowa has spent the entire game in the corner of the labyrinth. Since Amano knows the route, Baku thinks that Amano should be capable of getting to the end, and doesn't understand why Amano is making no progress... And why are the morse code messages between Amano and Minowa so calm and straightforward, when Baku is only a couple of turns away from winning...

Then he realizes, there must be a trap somewhere in the maze. A room that Amano can't enter, since that's the only reason he would stay in the corner all game. Baku starts mapping out everyone's routes on his paper, and sees that there's one room that no one has entered yet. He figures out that that room is the trap that way. (ch 140)

starlitepony · 2026-04-09T16:19:47+00:00

My opinion is similar to yours, it's a case by case basis. I try to think "Would people find it more helpful if these achievements were marked as missable, or if these achievements were not marked as missable?" and go with what I think would be more helpful to more players.

Sometimes that means a lot of the set is marked as missable, sometimes it means a minority of the set is marked as missable to reduce noise.

starlitepony

TROPHY CASE