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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.
Comments
Inherently I would say they are both goals. But a quest can vary in the most simple and mundane tasks to some of the most difficult, along with plenty of in between. Where an Achievement should always require a serious amount of skill to complete, no easy mode basically.. By definition, if you complete an insanely hard quest you are in fact achieving something, so why not deem it an achievement? I wouldn't be achieving much of anything for talking to the class trainer for the first time, not anything worthy of notoriety anyway.
Every game I have played that has achievements has had exceedingly easy ones to achieve.
As you point out, many RPG's (including MMORPG's) have achievements that are literally "complete this quest". Why is that even an achievement? What is gained from having it as both a quest and an achievement? Hint - the answer is nothing.
Look at basically any game with Steam achievements - a good number of them will be things that you literally just do as you ae playing the game normally.
Skyrim is a good example, with achievements to complete the introduction quest, or to reach level 5. Or then there is WoW having an achievement to visit a barbershop, or one for literally falling.
I mean, sure, there are also achievements that are harder to get - but this is the same with quests, some are quick and easy, some take weeks/months and require a good amount of perpetration.
So the point stands - why have two systems that perform exactly the same function?
Well, like I said previously, an achievement SHOULD take a serious amount of skill. The term has definitely been warped in many games in an attempt to make ALL gamers feel that they are succeeding no matter what they do, its a cheesy way to hook a player onto a game. But properly done, achievements can actually hold weight and value.
The 2 systems do not have the same function. Quests are a list of chores and jobs to complete for experience and physical rewards, they vary in difficulty but that is their function. Achievements are purely for notoriety and satisfaction, but SHOULD always require a high level of skill to complete. And while some games give items for achievements, I believe they should only give titles or, at the most, purely aesthetic items.
Also achievements don't clutter up a quest log.
TLDR having the 2 separate systems gives more weight to the harder tasks when completed so long as you keep the difficulty of achievements high. And it keeps the achievements from cluttering your quest log.
...
"You drank a potion!!"
yea those are the worst. Just little spurts of dopamine to keep a player hooked
Essentially, what you seem to be saying here (or my understanding at least) is that developers should take all the tasks they want to ask of players, pull out the harder ones and put them in their own category, and then only reward titles rather than actual useful items to that harder group.
I'm sure you can see why I don't see the point in that.
The quest log thing is just a case of designing a better quest UI.
Not what I am saying at all. An example for the difference would be as simple as this.
QUEST
Big questline leading up to a raid, different varying difficulties of different tasks.
Once these are finished you finally get the last quest to kill the big bad, you complete it and get your physical rewards and/experience.
The end. No "Achievement"
ACHIEVEMENT
Go back to that big raid boss that you've already killed (makes sense in the story?) on the highest difficulty and kill it without a single person dying. BOOM, achievement, heres a title to show off that awesome accomplishment.
One can argue you could make that achievement a quest right? But why even make it a hassle for players to go a find and accept said quest, or even several quests for different achievements on a single boss when you can simply have a system that has them already active for you? These should be endgame activities anyway so XP shouldn't even be a factor at this point.
And as far as your argument of reworking the UI, why do that when this 2 system method works perfectly fine? It is literally organizing the UI by separating the 2 lmao.
Developers of various games have done things like hidden quests, automatic quests and location based quests.
Assuming a game like WoW with differing difficulties of instanced content and the game could just automatically update you with all appropriate quests for the difficulty of the instance you are in and haven't completed.
That takes away the point for a character to explore towns for character progression though? A player should be pushed to explore when experiencing content for the first time. But quests for killing a boss after killing the boss for another quest is not only redundant, it doesn't make any sense as far as what an NPC is asking of you.
And WoWs "solution" by adding the quest giver with every quest at the beginning of the dungeon was just so people could level quickly and rush to endgame. I would say you could toss a character in like that once you completed the dungeon and questlines once, allowing you to choose which difficult things to achieve. But why even go through the process of making an NPC and each individual quest (for each individual dungeon which will be based entirely on types of zones, nodes and decisions made by them) to accept at the start of the dungeon or raid, when you can simply have a UI dedicated to all of it which you can read on the fly and decide which ones you want to go and attempt to complete once you've already completed proper storylines.
Quests that exist to facilitate getting out in the world would still be out in the world.
Vs completing a storyline that began in a town and encouraged a player to travel explore and complete several quests developing story and progression and eventually leading them to a dungeon and revealing a larger part of the story.... instead just go ahead and be like "throw that NPC guy in the beginning of the dungeon just chillin and waiting to give adventurers like 8 quests to complete inside it"
I mean, we are not talking about the actual quests changing from what they would be.
You are advocating having the achievements already laid out for players in an achievement UI element, I am talking about having the same tasks given to players as quests when they enter the appropriate area.
Discussing quests that would not instead be destined to be achievements is out of the purview of this discussion.
Ok so your argument is to add NPCs to give quests to complete the dungeons or raids with specific terms. Personally that just sounds a bit convoluted when it comes to the individual NPCs purpose vs a system allowing you to see whats possible to accomplish after a story is completed.
Not at all, there is no need for NPC's and I have not suggested doing so. Quests do not need NPC's.
Any terms can be set by the developers as they see fit, just as they are for quests.
The fact that you took pictures of a high score is the very reason achievements began in the first place. Original tournaments were designed to play a single player game (mario) and achieve the highest score possible.
However, I'm not advocating for an achievement system and I do agree that the game itself and all the things we do ARE the achievements, however, there can be a system in place that doesn't make it a chore list but also appeases those who do like to see some special title or fancy mount (or material that players can then use to make that mount preferably). The stat increases are a horrible idea and making these "achievements" too easy are definitely a no. Something that requires time, talent or organization would be ok to reward IMO.
The more I go over it in my head, @Noaani has a valid argument that these should simply be called quests as some explorer NPC could very well give me the quest to go explore and chart the entire world instead of getting an "achievement" for exploring 100%". I'd be happy with this and from those quests, special loot can be obtained like titles, etc.
What if everything in the game was a quest and there was no achievements at all, but quests could be grouped into different categories. Joe blow wants you to kill 30 trolls who are causing a problem at his farm. Down the road, Annie with a fanny (please put her in game Steven) offers you an "adventure" quest that would be a quest chain leading you on a path towards a much more difficult but much more rewarding quest. Sure, they could both be called a quest but grouping them will help players choose which ones to hold onto and give an idea of which to skip.
Quest - short missions with 1-3 parts = basic materials and exp gained
Adventure - medium missions with 4-6 parts = rare materials and exp gained
Campaign - long missions 7-10 parts = epic materials, possible title and experience gained
Epoch - Class specific with deep ties to the lore. End results can be augments or something really special considering everyone will do these. These can be part solo and part "group up and complete the instanced raids".
Color coordinate them in the mission log and bam, you have a solid system in place with no need for achievements because they are built into the game.
This is a dumb semantic arguement where both sides aren't using the same definitions. You can personally call achievements a type of quest if you want but recognize thats a venacular difference
Quests are given and require activation. Quests are a player interacting with the world at large to have an in story effect on it. Achievements do not. They are 'personal goals'. They are not tied directly to the story or at least shouldn't be. This is my personal semantic difference.
It's mildly different implementation, but yes can ultimately be similar at least in systems I have observed.
You could 'give everyone set quests in a specific category on creation.' And call them achievements (or title 'quests'.)
Many games have quests that are automatically given to players. Some based on time (specifically event related quests), some based in in game location (GW2 comes to mind here).
While there may once have been an actual difference between quests and achievements, that has long since been eroded in games over the years. Yes, you could.
While that is not necessarily what I am suggesting, it does illustrate that there is no need for two separate systems to perform exactly the same function.
My experience with what you are talking about is very much closer to 'achievement' type content. 'Kill x whatever' with no reason given. Just a way to give players something to do and xp boosts.
If they are world story related that sounds like bad quest design and therefore ignorable to my point.
No reason given.
Not related to the world story.
Sounds like basically every holiday event quest in every MMO ever.
If a game were to take achievements and roll them in to the quest system, there is no need for either those achievements or the existing quests to be mechanically altered at all - which is my point.
I thought over what you said.
My main complaint is the power creep that would come from permanent stat increases. It would just result in mandatory chores needed to stay competitive.
When it comes to standard achievements.
Like I said, I know when I have achieved something and I record it on my own. I also have a bunch of old recordings of boss kills on my HDD from first week progs in FFXIV and WOW.
Having some sort of side quest system is not something I would be against. Personally, the only quests I ever liked in MMOs were the really long ones like the l2 job change quests or some of the FFXI quests that took days to do. If Ashes had some this like that that lead to cosmetic mount skins I would not mind it. I always liked that the reward for that hardest content in FFXIV is pure cosmetic.
At least I think that is what you and noaani are saying.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
If a quest asked you to do the same thing an achievement did, and rewarded the same as an achievement would, why an achievements over quests?
This...
A flat permanent stat increase for doing achievements. Some games do this shit, and it just results in chores that are mandatory to stay competitive. Especially something as broken as 3% movement speed. That is just astronomically crazy to me. Nothing against OP, I am sure he was just spit balling numbers as an example, but my lord would that be broken.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Good question. Achievements strike me as being above and beyond, challenging to discover and complete. I guess a quest could trigger the start of an achievement, but I think I would want that quest a real challenge to find and/or trigger.
As a side note, I’d also like a collections tab (not tied to achievements), but just something that appeals to my compulsive gathering impulses.
However, that is the kind of thing that could exist or not exist (ideally not exist) independently of whether a game has quests and achievements, or just calls them all achievements.
Do I prefer it in video games or mmorpgs? no.
Should achievements give stat increases? no
Potentially titular rewards and cosmetic unlocks if achievements are intended for design? yes.
There are plenty of cultures around the world where you gain titles because of some focused activity or interest or behavior. That could be time investment rather than skill.
Titles, like Bug Killer, for killing 1000 cockroaches are great.
RPGs are not just about being the most uber.
Sure every mmo with an extensive title system gives people like you suitably mundane or 'affable' titles for things like that to go after. I have never seen harm in letting people get titles that are essentially good natured ribbing.
'Hardboiled Chef' is a great one that comes to mind.