Achievement Set Revisions

• Revision Types
• Standard Revisions
  • When Making a Revision
  • No Need for Approval Vote
  • Not Allowed
  • Merging Sets
  • Respecting Revision Plans
• Rescores
  • No Need for Approval Vote
• Icon Gauntlet
  • No Need for Approval Vote
• Voting and Discussion
• Contacting an Active Author

Revision Types

Any changes to a set with existing achievements is considered a revision. They typically happens after someone present a plan in the game's forum topic and in the #revision-voting channel on Discord and the plan is approved by the achievement creators community.

There are three types of revisions:

• Standard Revisions - Changes to an achievement set that affect another developer's work. These include adding achievements, removing achievements, and reworking existing achievements, and adding progression and win condition types to achievements.
• Rescores - Changes to the point value of an achievement.
• Icon-Gauntlet - Changes to a game page's icon that is awarded upon mastering a set and changes to the individual achievement badges.

Each are assigned their own Discord role:

Type	Role	Getting the role	Who can get the role
Standard Revisions	@revision-voting	React with 🗳️ here	achievement creators
Rescores	@rescore	React with 💯 here	achievement creators
Icon Gauntlet	@icon-gauntlet	React with 🎨 here	any verified Discord user

NEW DEVELOPERS

New developers will be given all three roles upon graduating from the Junior Developer program.

Standard Revisions

Any developer wanting to revise a set needs to:

1. Prepare a plan for each (where you're not the original author)

   • Addition
   • Demotion
   • Achievement rework

2. Contact each active author of the set. They may have valuable insight or resources that you can utilize to help your revision. Wait for a response (after 72 hours have passed, you may proceed without a response).

   • Some authors opt out of requiring contact. Check the Public Opt-Out Sheet. If the author is listed as opting out of this revision type, they do not need to be contacted. To update your own Opt-Out information, use this form.

3. Post the plan in the game's forum topic. NOTE: Be as specific as possible. The community deserves a good understanding of your intent.

Un-Merging Parallel Release Sets

Games with parallel releases whose base sets are currently merged together (Example: Pokémon Red Version | Pokemon Blue Version) may be un-merged into separate sets, but doing so has additional requirements beyond a standard revision. Please see the full rules in the Games With Parallel Releases document.

4. Start a Discussion by creating a new post in #revision-discussion-forum.

   • Your post title should include the game name and console. Ex: "Revision proposal - Super Mario Bros. (NES)"

   • Your initial comment must duplicate the plan you posted in the game's forum and link to the game page and forum post with the plan.

   • Then, ping @revision-voting with a message of "Revision discussion for Game Name" (or equivalent) as a follow-up comment.

     • This comment can also later be edited to link to the poll once created.

   • Discussion shall be held for a minimum of 2 days (48 hours) after which if satisfied with the plan the revision process may move on to the voting phase.

   • Be sure to Address concerns: Respond to any comments, concerns, or objections from the community (both in Discord and on the site Forum), and adjust the plan as necessary.

   • Plans must be finalized before voting. No edits are permitted after the voting starts.

FINALIZE BEFORE VOTING

Any changes to the revision plan after the poll has been created will result in the cancellation of the revision. In this case, the revision process will need to start over from the beginning. Repeated violations of this rule may lead to disciplinary action.

DISCUSSION ETIQUETTE

Discussion threads should focus on constructive criticism and plan feedback. Any inappropriate behavior or personal attacks against the revision plan proposer will result in the user being removed from the thread.

5. Begin the Voting Phase by creating a poll in the #revision-voting channel after the required discussion period has ended.

• Whomever creates the poll must ping @revision-voting and any active authors on the set (unless they waived the ping).
• A poll template is available in the pins.
  • Tip: On Discord, if pasting a copied template, before submitting the poll command, place your cursor on the end of each ping and select the user or role to ensure it is active and will send out the notification.
• Voting shall be set to a duration of 3 days (72 hours).
• Voting may not be anonymous.
• Poll should summarize the proposal, link to the game page, and link to the plan in the discussion thread.
• Edits to plans after the poll has been created will render the poll null and void and a new discussion must take place.
• Once the poll is created, link to the poll in the discussion thread as a new comment and as an edit in the comment that links to the forum post.
• After the end of the poll, if a 60% majority was reached, the revision passes and may proceed.

ANONYMOUS REVISION PROPOSALS

If desired, a developer can choose to propose a revision plan while remaining anonymous throughout the voting process. Simply contact a mod or admin to request that the plan be presented on your behalf.

NEW IDEAS?

If you have new ideas after a plan has passed, start a new addendum revision plan for the new ideas. The initial revision will still be approved, and any revision addendum that passes will add-on to or adjust the previously-passed revision.

When Making a Revision

• Making a revision should always be done with the goal of it being the final revision, with the set fully realized upon completion of the revision.

• Avoid making a revision claim on a set after releasing it 'just in case' you missed anything. Research the game thoroughly before release. Check online resources and consider reaching out to knowledgeable players who may know of hidden content.

• Making a revision in order to attain a higher rank on the mastery leaderboard is prohibited.

• Do not make copies of existing achievements and demote existing equivalent achievements. Doing this is a reauthor and requires permission of Developer Compliance. If there are issues with current achievements make fixes to the existing ones.

• Resolve any open tickets for achievements that will be kept in the set. Tickets for achievements that are being demoted can simply be closed with the demotion cited. In cases where the revision is simply the demotion of one or more achievements, the developer does not need to handle the tickets for other achievements in the set.

• If you are adding a similar concept to one found in the set, where possible reuse the old concept and update it rather than make a new one. This prevents players from having to unnecessarily re-earn achievements, restricts needless changes to sets, and preserves good quality developer work and concepts.

• If you are adding new achievements in which criteria can be proven by prior unlocks then prepare an Achievement Transfer request in #cleanup-admin to be processed once the set goes live. This helps to reduce player frustrations and the number of manual unlock requests coming through. For example: Unlock Achievement X for all users who earned Achievements Y and Z.

• Since revisions vary in the amount of adjusted content, they are treated the same as an achievement set reservation. If three months have passed since your revision plan was approved, you will need to provide an update that details the current progress. Not doing so will invalidate the revision and the plan will need to be approved again with a new vote.

No Need for Approval Vote

• Making changes to an achievement or to an achievement set where you are the original author and no other developer has revised it; it is still a good idea to post the plan for your changes in the forum.
• Adding achievements where all revision authors are already authors on the set and all other active authors on the set agree.
• Resolving tickets or bugs on achievements made by developers who are listed as inactive in the list of developers.
  • Changing the description to clarify or correct it to match the logic that is already present does NOT require a revision vote
  • Altering the achievement's objective in any way DOES require a revision vote as always. In these cases you're only allowed to fix the achievement to match the description; do not change the intention of the achievement without going through the revision process above. If you find a problem with an achievement that has an active developer either create a ticket or contact them to assist in resolution.
• Adding battery save, cheat code, or password protections to achievements where the developer is inactive. (be sure to properly test your changes). If they are active, either create a ticket or contact them to assist applying the improvements.
• Fixing misspellings, grammatical errors, and other typos in the achievement names or descriptions. In some cases, these are intentional, so be sure to make note of it in the forum.
• Making updates to game page information and title / screenshot / box art images.
• Adding a standard "beat the game" achievement if one is missing and there are no active developers on the set. A standard "beat the game" achievement is an achievement for completing the game at its normal/default difficulty without additional requirements. Plan for adding the beat the game achievement must still be posted on the forum. If uncertain how to proceed, please contact DevCompliance
• Setting an achievement's type to Missable when it is otherwise indicated as missable in the title or description.
  • All other additions of a missable mark on a set with all inactive authors shall require a revision vote.
  • The revising developer shall note the changes in the forum for the set.
• Adding progression and win condition types to an inactive developer's set if the set is missing progression and win conditions
  • Make a post in the forum with the details of your change
  • Any developer who changes the 'Type' of an achievement becomes responsible for the typing of that achievement and is treated as the author for purposes of type revision only.

Not Allowed

• Adding missable types to an active author's achievements without their permission. This rule shall be revisited if and when user-preference hiding of missable indicators is implemented.

Merging Sets

In the event that a revision includes merging two sets together (e.g. the Pokemon Red/Blue merge), the developer who does the revision needs to keep track of achievements in the demoted set and their equivalent achievements in the set it is being merged with. If the revision vote passes, this information must be sent to an admin so the achievements from the merged set can be manually awarded to the earners of the demoted set.

Respecting Revision Plans

If you are one of or the original set developer(s) for a set that is currently undergoing a revision, you must communicate with the developer carrying out the revision before making changes to the set. This is to prevent potential extra work for the revision, overlapping or redundant changes, etc.

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Rescores

Up until June 2019, RetroAchievements sets had a cap of 400 points, with no restrictions on individual achievements. The set cap was removed to focus less on overall set totals and more on the achievements themselves. This initiative was also meant to eliminate the misconception that a set worth 400 points is a "complete" set, but is also an ongoing community effort to promote fairness across the board. Information on the scoring process can be found here.

Anyone wanting to rescore a set needs to:

1. Prepare a rescore plan that shows the original scores and the proposed scores. The user orangepeelbeef made a tool specifically for this, which you can find here. Once you have entered in the proposed points, you can copy the "Rescoring Summary" at the bottom and paste it into your rescore proposal in the forum.

2. Contact each active author of the set. They may have valuable insight into the chosen scores. You do not need to wait for a response.

• Some authors opt out of requiring contact. Check the Public Opt-Out Sheet. If the author is listed as opting out of this revision type, they do not need to be contacted. To update your own Opt-Out information, use this form.

3. Post the plan in the game's forum topic.

4. Start a vote by posting a link to the topic in the #revision-voting channel on Discord. Whomever creates the vote must ping @rescore-voting. Ping active authors that did not respond to contact. Ping active authors that requested a ping at vote start after the contact.

5. Address concerns: Prepare to do some negotiating with other users and try to find a good middle-ground.

6. Voting will be active for 24 hours. If a rescore passes, you can make the necessary changes.

No Need for Approval Vote

Some achievement sets can be rescored without going through the voting process:

• If you are the only credited author of an achievement set being rescored and no other developer has rescored it.

• If a co-author you collaborated with on an achievement set gives you their blessing to do a rescore and no other developer has rescored it.

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Icon Gauntlet

The Icon Gauntlet is used to vote for new game icons or new badges for a set. With the vote it is checked which version is preferred by the community.

Any user wanting to change the game icon or badges of a set need to:

1. Create the game icon or new badges. For more info, see Banner, Badge, and Icon Guidelines.

2. Upload the work on an image sharing site or shareable direct image link.

3. Contact each active author or claimant of the set. Wait for a response (after 72 hours have passed, you may proceed without a response).

• An author is considered active if their account on the website still has the role of Developer or Junior Developer
• If a set has been developed by multiple authors, every single author must be contacted.
• They may have design considerations for the icon or badges to best fit the set. Ideally both parties should work together to come to a satisfactory proposal.
  • Doing this might also avoid needing a gauntlet vote if your icon or badges are preferred by them.
• Some authors opt out of requiring contact. Check the Public Opt-Out Sheet before starting a gauntlet or contacting the author. To update your own Opt-Out information, use this form.
  • If an author is marked as Opted-out for Mastery Icons or Achievement Badges, they do not need to be contacted before a gauntlet.
  • If an author is marked as Notify-Only for Mastery Icons or Achievement Badges, contact is still required but there's no need to wait for a response or feedback.
• When contacting, be clear that this contact is for an icon gauntlet and offer to ping them when the vote starts. Ensure the author knows this is an option and encourage receiving their feedback before the gauntlet.

4. Consider sharing samples of your badges or icons in #gauntlet-discussion prior to starting the revision vote. This will help polish any issues and avoid multiple updates to the gauntlet.

5. Start a vote by posting links to the old icon/badges and their contenders in the #icon-gauntlet channel on Discord.

• Whomever creates the vote must ping @icon-gauntlet. Ping active authors that did not respond to contact. Ping active authors that requested a ping at vote start after the contact.
• Use the template provided on discord to create the poll.
• When pinging @icon-gauntlet, also write a small summary: explain why you're making the change, give the necessary context and any technical change that you feel should be explained. Try your best to be concise. Quality related commentary should be objective and respectful. Point out if the developer has responded/did not respond in time/is inactive.
  • Acceptable examples:
    • "@icon-gauntlet Developer contacted. I think Knuckles is a better representation for the icon than Gex because he is the titular main character, whereas Gex is from a completely different franchise"
    • "@icon-gauntlet Dev inactive. I have updated the sprite-art used to be properly scaled"
    • "@icon-gauntlet dev did not respond in three days, remaking the icon with a different render"
  • Unacceptable examples:
    • "Changing because current is bad"
    • "Do I even need to say anything?"
    • "Dev approved. Current looks boring, wanted to improve it."
    • "Current looks like a messy boxart crop"
    • "Changing the badge so we have more options to choose from in the history"
• When gauntleting achievement icons, make sure to have both the current and contender icons organized and all clearly shown for voting, with the current and contender images showing a collage of all icons being revisioned.
• Make sure to link the icon image directly instead of linking the image host site.
• Polls that do not follow the provided directions are subject to deletion.

6. Voting will be active for 24 hours.

• A contender must win with 60% of the total votes. This is also valid for gauntlets with multiple contenders.
• If the voting is overwhelming in one direction or another, the Art Team or Gauntlet Helpers may choose to end the voting earlier.
• If the voting passes, the Art Team or Gauntlet Helpers will handle replacing the images and logging the change.
• If you created an achievement badge set, upload the badge set to #icon-gauntlet-uploads
  • Badges should be named using numbers (for example 001.png, 002.png, 003.png, etc) based on the order of the achievements in the set, or named using the achievement titles

Notes:

• Games without sets cannot be gauntleted.
  • Only a developer who claims the set can change its icon.
• Sets currently claimed cannot be gauntleted without the express permission of the current claimant.
• Game icons and badges that have been gauntleted will enter a cooldown period of 72 hours where they cannot be gauntleted again.
  • Polls deletions and remakes will only be allowed for genuine mistakes, and not for the purpose of evading the 72 hour cooldown.
• If you are not active on Discord, you may have someone else post the vote on your behalf.
• Collager is a useful tool for grouping all achievement icons before a gauntlet.

No Need for Approval Vote

1. The game does not have an achievement set and no game icon, nor is it claimed or reserved by a developer.

• In this case, developers can add the game icon themselves, and users may go through @cleanup-requests and follow the process there to upload a new icon.

2. The new icon/badge(s) display the same content, but are of better quality.

• Users can ask for the help of Art Team to get these uploaded directly. It is up to the discretion of Art Team to decide if the changes are small enough and up to quality standards to not require a gauntlet.

3. You are the existing set's sole developer and no other developer has changed the icon/badge(s) nor have the icon/badge(s) gone through a gauntlet before.

4. You are one of the existing set's original developers as part of a collaborative set, all parties agree to the change, and no other developer has changed the icon/badge(s) nor have the icon/badge(s) gone through a gauntlet before.

5. You currently hold the claim for a game without a released set.

• In this case, even if an icon has been gauntleted before, the current claimer is free to change it.

6. You are the developer unmerging a game from the Meta - Merged-Game Sets (Hub).

Voting and Discussion

Revision voting is currently dev-only. While voting is exclusive to Discord, please remember that anyone can express their comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, etc. in the forum thread in which the plan was posted. The issues regarding Discord exclusivity will be addressed in a future version of the website.

• If you vote against changes in an achievement set, please state your reasoning in the discussion channel. This is so potential compromises can be made for a broader acceptance of the changes.

• Hijacking revision, rescore, or icon-gauntlet votes will not be tolerated. Votes from alt accounts will be discarded if discovered and repeated occurrences will result in the alt account being removed from the server. If the alt's primary account is confirmed, they will have their vote(s) discarded and may face suspension from future votes.

• If a revision plan that involves the demotion of achievements is proven to contain misleading or false information regarding the in-game requirements, the current proposal will be considered invalid. If evidence of this is found after a vote has already passed, the demoted achievements must be reinstated until a new vote is held.

Contacting an Active Author

• All revision types require you to contact active authors of the set and any developer with an active claim.
• You may contact them in any manner in which you can be reasonably certain they will see it (DMs preferred)
• If you believe you may be blocked by the user, send a message to DevCompliance asking them to contact the author on your behalf. The 72hr maximum wait time will begin upon sending the message to DevCompliance. When doing so, state the user's name, type of revision, and the brief description of what your revision entails as if you were contacting the author directly.
• Some authors opt out of requiring contact. Check the Public Opt-Out Sheet. If the author is listed as opting out of the revision type, they do not need to be contacted. To update your own Opt-Out information, use this form.

Changelog

Last edited 23 days ago

View full history

9832326-Update to Icon Gauntlet rules and Banner, Icons and Badges guidelines (#433)

e3fd9af-Update the gauntlet poll commands (#407)

d90a0fa-fix: move new copy

7003ea1-Add clarity to icon gauntlet contact guidelines. (#370)

202a1a3-Update achievement set revision guidelines (#340)

01667a1-Change: Maintainership update (#318)

3781158-Add Parallel Release Set and Revision Rules (#237)

4495c74-Update achievement-set-revisions.md

d46d165-update: Maintainer role criteria (#235)

c90dd43-update: add reauthor consideration to revision doc (#215)

c5cb6fd-Fix typos (#196)

9935b69-Revision Process Update - Discussion Before Voting (#108)

aa76a91-docs: add more title and description frontmatter (#99)

cbff559-chore: add more orphaned stuff and fix direct urls

f37e212-chore: fix all english docs broken links

255b31a-chore: fix build