Make Achievements great again

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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Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Hunh.
Never expected transmogs or mounts for Achievements. Weird concept.

A lot of games do this.

To be fair, ita only games aimed at tweens and above, so likely out of your experience.

Dygz

In an RPG, the difference between player and character should not be a minor distinction.
For the most part, in-game Achievements should be just for the character.
There might be a few legacy perks for alts associated with reaching max level.

Quests are typically individual tasks/missions.
Achievements are typically repetitive accomplishments. Significant firsts. Collection completions, etc.
Milestones rather than missions.

Enigmatic Sage

Rewards are rewards.
Quests are quests.
Achievements are achievements.

Both quests and achievements can have rewards upon completion.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

I enjoy Achievements because they add content to a game to people that are completionists.

This can be achieved by using quests in place of achievements.

Why not both? What harm does it do? If you don't like them, you can just ignore them

It is adding a second system to the game that does exactly the same thing.

That is why not.

Noaani: 'Quests and Achievements are the same and use the same code!'

Also Noaani: 'It would be adding a second system! Let's not use more resources!'

You must forgive them @BaSkA13 , Noaani uses a different definition than most people about what achievements are. They aren't actually arguing against achievements. It just sounds like it because they keep ignoring people's clearly conceptual definition and then quickly shifting to assuming they mean a technical one when they say the equivalent of 'two system.'

Why are they doing this? I don't know but it is probably ignorable.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

I enjoy Achievements because they add content to a game to people that are completionists.

This can be achieved by using quests in place of achievements.

Why not both? What harm does it do? If you don't like them, you can just ignore them

It is adding a second system to the game that does exactly the same thing.

That is why not.

Noaani: 'Quests and Achievements are the same and use the same code!'

Also Noaani: 'It would be adding a second system! Let's not use more resources!'

Quests are a player-facing system.
Achievements are a player-facing system.

These two systems both essentially do the same thing. They are a list of tasks that the developers want you to complete.

Regardless of whether they use the same code or not, it is having two player-facing systems in order to perform one task.

Code has not been my argument in this discussion.

Kai37

I disagree that they are the same. The subtle differences are important and its much like saying that there is no difference between a regular mob and a boss mob. Both are npcs that you aim to kill... we all know that they are wildly different and impact the game in such a manner.

Achievements have been used as method of providing those who have an itch to play but perhaps have cleared most of the game's content, an outlet to continue to play. If Intrepid had to do this with quests it would take infinitely more resources as quests are more in depth, include npcs, story etc... achievements are just something that sit in a menu with a completion bar, which is significantly easier.

In regards to the original post's point, I think achievements could easily be used a functional system for actual character progression. It could be that talent points are instead accrued through achievements rather than just by levelling. This would shift people's focus from pure exp gains while levelling to also completing achievements. Achievements could be completing a whole zone's story, exploring an entire area, completing a dungeon etc... Furthermore, if titles were to provide a small buff for whatever was relevant to the title I could see that being quite interesting. Such as a title that you receive upon hitting max level called "FOMO" that you can use on a low level alt and it provides a 5% exp gain increase while that character is not your highest level character. If you make the bonus small and only while the title is equipped it wont get out of hand either.

Vhaeyne

Kai37 wrote: »

Achievements have been used as method of providing those who have an itch to play but perhaps have cleared most of the game's content, an outlet to continue to play.

I can agree to this definition, but I don't feel that it applies to Ashes the way it would apply to other games in the genre.

There should not be a point where players will have "experienced" all the content and are looking for more to do. If you do that, then you are the guild leader or officer for a guild on a server with zero competition. At which point, if you wanted more content, you would be better off re-rolling on a server where people are actually capable of competing with you.

It is like saying there needs to be more "content" in a sport because the top players are winning every season. If that is the case, the top players should probably not all be on the same team for the next few years because that is boring for both the
players and the viewers.

It applies here because Ashes is a competitive open world. If there is no one on your server that can compete with you to keep you from burning through all the content, then you are clearly the best team in the league and need to be broken up.

The way Ashes is designed, you don't just farm content for gear. You attempt to get to content for materials to make gear, and you must defeat every other guild in the area that has the same goal to do so. If no one can do that and you just steam roll through the game, then you are playing at a loss. Part of the dream of Ashes is that you don't just fight the dragon. You fight anyone who gets in your way on the way to the dragon. If that don't happen, you did not actually "experience" all the content.

If this all plays out correctly, you should not be able to do everything before the game updates. There should always be more than enough to do preparing for securing these raid bosses.

Kai37

I definitely agree that Ashes will avoid this issue more than other games in its genre and for a lot of people exactly what you mentioned will be reality, much like it is in any game with PvP. However, the content you speak of isn't necessarily accessible on demand and in a solo capacity. Look at a game like New World where they have tried a similar model of making other players the content with little else to pursue.

The reality is when you are aiming for a game to be an MMO you have to carefully balance catering to a wide variety of people and what they want to do. This will inevitably include people who love MMO's character progression, gear, dungeons, raids etc... but aren't big fans of PvP (but who knows once they experience Ashes PvP they might love it). Assuming that all players will want to focus on PvP and therefore not creating alternate time sinks might be a bit restrictive.
Out of all my RL friends who play MMO's I'd say maybe 10% enjoy PvP as much as I do with the others primarily enjoying chasing gear, mounts, achievements, titles, toys, pets, exploring zones, levelling alts, doing dungeons/raids. All of these things can be completed which means its possible to run out of content that you like.
Just my opinion.

Vhaeyne

@Kai37

I see where you are coming from.

If a rancher gets a check in the box for breeding a horse of every color, it doesn't really hurt me, and it gave them something to do other than sell horses all day. If that were just the case, I would not have a problem.

This thread is kind of old, but I do remember my main argument being that I don't want achievements to interfere with the rest of the game.

I know WOW and FFXIV log a check a ton of data constantly for the achievement system to work.

Every time you jump, did you fall far enough for an achievement? The game has to check the server to see if he has the achievement. Nearly every action as an associated look up. Walked? How far? Is it far enough to get the 10000 steps achievement?

This stuff may be taking away from the game for me. That is a huge worry of mine.

Personally, I wish I could just toggle it off and save bandwidth. I would bet money if you offered me a chance to play a client with and without achievements enabled in WOW or FFXIV I could feel the difference. I know it sounds crazy, but people told me I would not notice the difference between 120Hz, 144Hz and 240Hz monitors...
I instantly do feel the difference.

In FFXIV I can feel the ping. Sometimes it makes the optimum rotation impossible and I lose DPS to ping. I would bet there are times that if the achievement system was not sending checks to the server constantly, I would not lose that DPS.

I can't prove any of this, and I know it's a little tin-foil hat, but It's where my gut is. I would love to be dead wrong about all of this. It is just speculation. Maybe I am like those 5G guys who think their skin is melting or something. I just worry that achievements degrade the overall experience of the game in a way that no one has really studied. I wish there was a way we could test all this, but I don't know of any games that would allow you to disable only the traffic from the achievement system.

Noaani

@Kai37

Kai37 wrote: »

Achievements have been used as method of providing those who have an itch to play but perhaps have cleared most of the game's content, an outlet to continue to play.

Please explain to me exactly why this can't be achieved in the games quest system.

If the developers wanted to go down this route, and perhaps wanted to add the task for players to kill a specific raid boss with no deaths, in a certain amount of time from the zone opening up - what exactly is stopping them from using the quest system rather than an achievement system?

I'm not saying the developers shouldn't add in a task for players to do this - I am asking why it needs another system, when the quest system already exists.

No one in this thread was able to answer this, hopefully you can.

Jonta

Don't really like achievements think it's tacky so would prefer them not to be in game, who cares if I killed a thousand wolves , but some love this kind of thing just not for me.

Nerror

I really like achievements in games, and I don't think they can all just be replaced by quests in the traditional sense. In a way all achievements are quests as it is, but they are more player quests than they are character quests, if that makes sense. So what do achievements do for me? It's pretty much all psychological of course.

1. An achievement is a goal, and reaching a goal is satisfying in and of itself. It makes you feel good. It also increases what is called self efficacy, which is the belief in your own ability to accomplish something if you try.

2. Having a goal like that increases the odds of me completing a task that may otherwise seem grindy or boring. Like, kill 2000 spiders. If for some reaon I need to kill many spiders in an area for xp or money or to level the node, having an achievement tied to killing a ton of spiders makes the task more enjoyable to me. Especially if it's divided up into sub-goals like bronze, silver, gold etc.

3. Achievements can also function as a guide to content players can do. I would prefer a proper ingame quest to guide players towards that content when possible, but sometimes that might not be enough, and the achievements can help further guide.

4. There is an element of showing off as well. Just like showing off cool looking gear or or mounts or amazing stats, showing off and comparing difficult achievements to others can be fun too I think.

5. Finally it's just more shit to do in the game. If at some point I feel stuck or can't decide what to do for a specific play session, I can take a look at any achievements I haven't completed and start working on one.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

4. There is an element of showing off as well. Just like showing off cool looking gear or or mounts or amazing stats, showing off and comparing difficult achievements to others can be fun too I think.

This is one point that I think make achievements not a good idea in games.

In my experience, achievements have been used as a means of gatekeeping more than any other system or mechanic in a game, or any third party tool.

What's that, you want to join my group to do this content? Show me what bosses you've got kill achievements from so I know if you are good enough or not.

To me, any achievement system that allows you to see other players achievements - or
In game or out of it - is a bad thing for the game over all. It generates toxicity more than anything I have come across in 20 years of playing MMO's.

Virtek

@truely
This is a tough one for me.

Achievements for the sake of achievements are a core driving force for a certain type of person.
The same can be said for cosmetics, exploration, roleplay, etc. All things that typically don't give a "reward" outside of the feeling it gives that person. For them, it is more than enough though.
I happen to be one of those people, when it comes to exploration, achievements, and cosmetics.

That being said, it would attract more people to them if they held some sort of reward for completion.
Then again, that would diminish the sense of accomplishment of those that have always done them just because they want to show them off. Thus, detracting from their enjoyment because more people will feel the need to do them.

Additionally, if you give bonuses for achievements, they will not be fun bonus things to chase any longer. They will be requirements for the progression of your character. It will add to the laundry list of things you MUST do.

In the end, I think it is better to keep them in the "do it if you just want to show off what you have done" category and let those interested in such a thing pursue them.

Kai37

@Vhaeyne
@Noaani

@Vhaeyne

This stuff may be taking away from the game for me. That is a huge worry of mine.

So firstly to Vhaeyne's point, I totally agree that gameplay and the smoothness of the game experience shouldn't be jeopardized for something like achievements. I played WoW for a very long time including the pre achievement years and I don't recall ever feeling a shift in smoothness or performance when achievements were introduced, however, much like you, I have no way to prove this as it's completely anecdotal. If it can be managed in non-cumbersome way then I think its definitely worth it and based on what I have seen from intrepid so far, I think they could do it. I just want the world to be big and filled with people chasing all sorts of content that maybe I'm not even remotely interested in, and I think achievements is one way to do it.
Furthermore, I think it it could be reimagined so that it's actually functional and not just cosmetic. Like how GW2 decided to not tie their talent point system to levels but instead to events or activities that you had to complete. I think achievements could facilitate a similar role... maybe...

@Noaani

I'm not saying the developers shouldn't add in a task for players to do this - I am asking why it needs another system, when the quest system already exists.

No one in this thread was able to answer this, hopefully you can.

Now to Noaani's question. You're not wrong in the sense that they are somewhat similar systems but just as how I mentioned in my previous post that subtle differences can change everything I think that the variance here is that achievements are outside the 4th wall, whereas quests are inside it. Quests require story, character, world continuity as well as background development for them to fit within the world. This immediately limits how many quests can be incepted into a world as it requires a decent amount of dev time. Achievements however, exist outside the 4th wall and aren't required to make any sense with story, lore, zones, characters etc... as mentioned before, if you intended on making copious amounts of activities like achievements, turning them into quests is much more cumbersome for Intrepid as it requires more development time. Another notable difference is that almost all quests provide meaningful rewards, story progression and experience. All things that quite directly improve your character's strength. Achievements however, are typically focused on cosmetic and non-power increasing rewards.
If you were to blur the line between quests and achievements and bring them both closer to each other (or make them the same), I think it would be an improvement for achievements, but terrible for the quest design / experience and I personally would prefer the quests to be the best they can be as this is something that essentially 100% of the players will engage with as opposed to achievements which would be a smaller subset of the community.
Furthermore, I would prefer a game with less quests but much more in depth, story driven and elaborate activities, which kind of flies in the face of achievements and quests being the same.
I guess my opinion hinges on a balance between your thoughts and my appreciation for complimentary systems. Think of how armor, talents and levels are all different systems yet all perform the same role of increasing your character's power. These systems are managed very separately but all compliment each other. If these were all amalgamated into one system I think the experience would be poorer for it. I do agree that you don't want to go the other way though and have it be too complex though.

Hope this cleared up my thoughts.

Noaani

Kai37 wrote: »

Quests require story, character, world continuity as well as background development for them to fit within the world.

If this were true, it would be a valid point.

I can't count how many games I have played that have had at least a number of quests that involve simply clicking an item, killing an amount of a specific type of mob, and then the quest auto-completes. No story, no characters (other than the targets), no world building or continuity at all.

In fact, I can't think of an MMO that DOESN'T have at least some quests like this.

Then there are quests that are automatically given to you when you enter an area, or when you kill a boss, or when you complete a different quest.

Quests are sometimes used as a tool for world building, story telling and character development. However, quests do not require these things to be present. Your definition of an achievement here is basically just a quest where these things are not present - which is precisely my point.

The reward point you bring up is not really much of a thing. Quests can result in cosmetic gear, and many games have quests where this is the case. Achievements can result in useful items, and many games have achievements where this is the case. As such, the rewards here are already blurred based on your suggestion of cosmetic rewards for achievements and useful rewards for quests.

Basically, your post here seems to come down to "my opinion is that quests do this these things, and achievements do these other things, but please ignore the quests and achievements behind that curtain over there that do the things they are not supposed to do".

You are talking about things as you would prefer, rather than how they could be. There is no reason a quest journal can't have a section for achievements along with sections for quests by type or zone - none of your points here prevent anything like that at all.

Dolyem

Noaani wrote: »

Kai37 wrote: »

Quests require story, character, world continuity as well as background development for them to fit within the world.

If this were true, it would be a valid point.

I can't count how many games I have played that have had at least a number of quests that involve simply clicking an item, killing an amount of a specific type of mob, and then the quest auto-completes. No story, no characters (other than the targets), no world building or continuity at all.

In fact, I can't think of an MMO that DOESN'T have at least some quests like this.

Then there are quests that are automatically given to you when you enter an area, or when you kill a boss, or when you complete a different quest.

Quests are sometimes used as a tool for world building, story telling and character development. However, quests do not require these things to be present. Your definition of an achievement here is basically just a quest where these things are not present - which is precisely my point.

The reward point you bring up is not really much of a thing. Quests can result in cosmetic gear, and many games have quests where this is the case. Achievements can result in useful items, and many games have achievements where this is the case. As such, the rewards here are already blurred based on your suggestion of cosmetic rewards for achievements and useful rewards for quests.

Basically, your post here seems to come down to "my opinion is that quests do this these things, and achievements do these other things, but please ignore the quests and achievements behind that curtain over there that do the things they are not supposed to do".

You are talking about things as you would prefer, rather than how they could be. There is no reason a quest journal can't have a section for achievements along with sections for quests by type or zone - none of your points here prevent anything like that at all.

I mean...youre also talking about things as you would prefer. Technically both systems would work but it comes down to which preference is the majority in this case. My vote goes for a separate system because a quest for 10000 kills of a specific enemy is silly to me. Yet if it is simply a background achievment, seems completely fine to me.
Also using poor quest design as an argument for a system isn't a great play. Grindy quests are just filler and not great content. New World is a perfect example of this as far as current examples go. Extreme lack of story, and just grind out the "content".
Quests aren't always used for world building and story telling, but they should be. Its just poor game design and outdated game design to use them as just a step in leveling. They should be world progressions tools as well as character progression tools, and also just fun and unique experiences. If anything the grindy quests should be separated entirely and just turned into achievements that may grant xp or rewards as you progress through them, leaving actual quests as story and world development that focus on building a players interest in the lore of the game and the desire to complete them with the community while simultaneously progressing themselves.

Noaani

Dolyem wrote: »

I mean...youre also talking about things as you would prefer.

Indeed I am.

However, the question I have posed to others is - why should the systems be separate?

The only answers presented all amount to "because I prefer it that way".

Needing to kill 10,000 of a specific enemy seems perfectly fine as a quest, to me. Not entirely out of line with games I have played (Archeage making you run two instances 100 times each is an example that comes to mind that is far above killing 10k of one mob).

As to your point about quests - you are basically saying that all quests need to be world building, character building, story telling masterpieces, every time.

While I agree that quests in general should do all of these things, no one quest needs to do them all, and indeed some quests can do none if the above and still be good additions to the game (I've seen games with short quest chains that are essentially all just a setup for a joke with the last quest - well worth the time and effort from both developer and player perspectives).

I mean, quests are a games main story telling tool (other than perhaps in game literature), and developers should use quests to tell stories.

But that doesn't mean every quest.

Kai37

@Noaani

Indeed I am.

However, the question I have posed to others is - why should the systems be separate?

The only answers presented all amount to "because I prefer it that way".

@Dolyem is exactly right to point out that both of us are speaking from our preference and when you address that with the "because I prefer it that way" comment I think that you have hit the nail on the head and answered your own question. Everything in a video game is preferential and serves no objective value beyond being fun, which is fundamentally subjective.
When you asked me to answer the question of why they can't be the same I certainly answered it from my perspective but let me ask, would you prefer quests to be a big logbook of to dos with some to dos being more important than others or would you prefer a super in depth questing experience that was 100% committed to story and development?
If you prefer the former then it really just comes down to you and I preferring different things but if you would prefer the latter then my reasons in the previous post stand. Separate systems protects the integrity of quests while also still allowing for list based accomplishments like achievements.

To further my point, I really think quests in other games are done poorly with very little player investment or care factor... I wouldn't want to duplicate that and instead would prefer they go the other way. SWTOR for example didn't hand out quests like M&M's and instead made them all story based and voice acted. I know SWTOR didn't crush the MMO scene but it had amazing storytelling.

Kai37

Dolyem wrote: »

Quests aren't always used for world building and story telling, but they should be. Its just poor game design and outdated game design to use them as just a step in leveling. They should be world progressions tools as well as character progression tools, and also just fun and unique experiences. If anything the grindy quests should be separated entirely and just turned into achievements that may grant xp or rewards as you progress through them, leaving actual quests as story and world development that focus on building a players interest in the lore of the game and the desire to complete them with the community while simultaneously progressing themselves.

Couldn't agree more with this and lets hope that Intrepid does too. It would make sense considering how much time and effort they are putting into the player experience being novel and exciting.

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