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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Make Achievements great again
truelyyy
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So in most games achievements are kind of there just for the sake of doing them. I say make achievements worth of the time a player puts into them with rewards! This could be in the form of total achievement point where you can turn them in for rewards of horizontal or vertical progression. Another idea is particular themed chains of achievements with relative rewards for your efforts. For example if you complete a chain of cleric/healing related achievements then you get a particular cleric related augment or an increase in a cleric stat such as +1 mentality. If you complete some kind of tank chain of achievements you could gain HP or get a tank related augment. Getting something from achievements that isn't just cosmetic I would love. It also keep the hardcore player interested as they get something to grind that actually gives them some sort of character progression. It's a way of getting those last few extra stats/perks for your character which is a big time dump as compared to the normal progression path. But these progressions should be small addons to your character as to not imbalance the essence of the game. For example an ideal achievement chain for me would be I complete 30 jumping puzzles over an achievement quest chain and I get a reward of +3% movement speed as the reward, it thematically matches the achievement of exploration or an augment which makes a skill movement faster.
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Comments
These could be just that. Quests.
Your aim is to get that extra stat.
You put the work in and you are rewarded. Gameplay + character progress.
Achievements in games on the other hand I have never cared about because of the way they have been handled. They really are just time sinks to make sure you 100% a game and while I don't disagree with them being in any game, they just aren't for me.
Hopefully Intrepid has achievements but with their own take on it. They seem to be breaking the mold with so many things, why stop at the achievement system. Personal class quests/achievements would be great but I whole heartedly disagree with giving any movement speed or stat increases. An augment system unlocking new augments based on the achievements completed would be really cool. Obviously these augments should be balanced as much as possible but using the achievement system will be an interesting way of releasing some of them.
And having achievment for "nothing usefull". I hate the fact people always ask to be rewarded like they were good doggy to just do things. it is no more playing they want, it is "be rewarded" ...
Also, if you read well i said "nothing usefull" and not "nothing" cosmetic could be reward. Or achievment itself gives a cosmetic thing. Or as "money" where achievment points can then be spend to get those cosmetic rewards.
I would say just give the rewards via accomplishment of achievement. No reason for using the achievement points as currency. The game would just become too grindy and empty.
I say just make them quests.
I see no reason to have two distinct task systems in a game - and that is what both quests and achievements are.
that's always an option too!
people like to feel special and achievements add to that.
I'm not an achievement gamer, never really cared for them.
If completing an achievement to perform a specific task makes people feel all special, yet completing a quest to perform that same task doesn't those people really need to take a good hard look at themselves.
i'm surprised you already dont know the answer to that.
I agree. Titles should definitely hold weight and be difficult to obtain. Item rewards for quests though I dislike unless the rewards are materials to further amplify the need for professions and ultimately, each other.
Why not have some quests reward titles, and others reward items?
That way, there is only a need for a single task system in the game. Saves the developers a small amount of time, and means us players have a single place to go and look in order to see what the game is asking of us.
When I say items I do mean materials or lesser equipment that can at the very least allow you to progress at a bare minimum. Best in slot gear should be through dungeons, crafting, raids, and top tier PvP
I don't even like the idea of lesser equipment to be honest. I think it's silly to have an npc hold onto 15,000 of a specific sword or wand. Ok so I am tank so I pick the sword and my mage friend picks the wand. Now we get a small upgrade. That's ok I guess. I would prefer if they put a MASSIVE amount of emphasis on the crafting system and had us getting a whole bunch of various materials and using that to craft for ourselves and others. It would be a huge breath of fresh air to have a crafting system that was actually fun and helped encourage players to work together more than the typical group gathering and sales in all chat. I'd be perfectly ok if I never saw a single weapon or armor drop from any enemies other than raid/dungeon bosses.
I don't see why some quests shouldnt allow for title rewards. But achievements allow for a further goal beyond quests once they are completed and you become level capped. I won't say achievements are needed in a game by any means, but I have seen many players enjoy the task to complete over the top expectations. One of the most prominent examples in MMOs was vanilla WoW when trying to earn the title of Grand Marshall. It was insane when you saw someone with that title walking around.
I am not against that idea at all honestly. I don't mind the average equipment approach but I agree that having a focus on players crafting their gear would be a huge benefit to that aspect of the game without hurting the overall experience.
If a game didn't make experience an inherent reward for quests, but rather one of the listed rewards along with coin and items (a number of games have this), then what is the difference between a quest asking you to kill a raid boss with no deaths in your party, and an achievement for doing the same?
There isn't much of a difference really. The only thing I would say separates them is quests are willingly accepted and give direct "physical" rewards while achievements are always active in a separate log able to be worked on at any time and the reward is notoriety instead of earning an item. They are both acts to be completed, but with only the slightest difference where one is more of a Job to accept, and the other is a feat earned over time or through an immense hardship. Just my opinion though.
I've also played games that automatically give the player quests without the players input - especially in relation to events that are happening.
To me, this means quests and achievements are the exact same thing, just with a different name, and a different UI element to access them.
Thats fair, could be implemented that way for sure. Personally though I feel like keeping them separate allows to make achievements another level of difficulty. Completing a quest is just completing a quest. Sure it can be a really difficult one but when push comes to shove its just a quest, I haven't ever heard of someone being impressed over a quest being completed. But, if you have a list of achievements that people can look at and most people not being willing or capable of doing them, suddenly it has way more weight when someone sees a person with the title for whatever achievement they saw and said "that's impossible". Achievements are just the "quests" that stand apart from the storyline and emphasize achieving the most difficult to near impossible feats. No harm in separating them by name.
In EQ2, every expansion while I played had a questline that essentially required you to do all the content from that expansion - specifically all the raid content. Often, these questlines would require content be complete from previous expansions as well (such as having done the quest to learn the dragon language).
People that managed to complete that questline while the expansion was still current were rare. Even in top guilds, not everyone would complete them because many people didn't want to do the non-raid aspects of the quests.
While completing these quests did become less impressive as time went on, that is the same for achievements.
While there may be no harm in separating them, there is also no harm in not separating them. Which then brings it back to my original thought - why bother?
Playing the game should be its reward. Achievement systems are just bloated chore lists.
OP says, "Make Achievements great again".
As if achievements were ever great. Achievements have never been great. As a player, you know when something was a challenge for you and when it was easy for you. You are going to feel accomplished when you truly "achieve" something of note, regardless of if the game tells you that you achieved something or not.
What is worst is the sort of achievement system OP is talking about. Where you get permanent stat increases for doing random "challenging" chores. This is the sort of thing that just snowballs, power creep faster. It also makes achievements go from being optional chores to mandatory chores.
Big no from me.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Only reason I would bother is to add more weight to them, and they dont fill up a quest log -shrugs- not a huge deal but definitely has a better feeling when you do complete them and it doesnt require you to clutter your log.
EQ2 had a similar title system, where you would gain the title of Hunter of [mob type] after killing 100 or so of the mob, Slayer of [mob type] when you had killed either 2,500 or 5,000 (can't remember off the top of my head), and Destroyer of [mob type] for killing 10,000 of a mob type.
They had this in the game years before they had an in game achievement system.
I get that some players enjoy collecting things in games - but why does that need to be achievements and not quests?
Not saying that I'm particularly into titles at all, cos I never really used mine even when I had them. But, I know plenty of players I've played with who would have rather have a title to display than a big shiny weapon.
In EQ2, the quests in question almost always offered either the best or second best item available for the slot. In some cases, they were used for actual years after being released.
They could also be turned in to house items when you had finished with them - and so served a similar purpose to titles in that regard. Most of the quests in question also gave the player completing them a title.
Then again, these are quests that take months from when you start them, not hours. Even if you didn't start them until your guild was capable of killing all the content needed (which only ever happened near the end of an expansion cycle), it would still take weeks.
A number of these items from 10+ years ago are still considered essential to acquire if you are new to the game, though the quests have since been toned down to allow for this.
I'm not overly in to titles either, but I have no issue with them specifically. My issue is with achievements and the notion that they are in any way inherently distinct from quests.