Zone Guide & Map Completion with Account Wide Achievements

SerafinaWaterstar · April 2022

Ok, been distracted by events, but back to normal questing / gameplay today - and it SUCKS.

Still do not understand why delves done by one character are considered done by all. Still have to go in & get the damn skyshard. (Same with wb)

And if do want to do separately, takes an age for the boss to appear. Great.

So. Well done again for the idiotic way this was implemented and for removing yet more fun & enjoyment from the game. Fantastic.

jle30303 · April 2022

A Suggestion:

Delves, in particular, should be changed to be considered "completed" ONLY when both of the following conditions are fulfilled:
(1) The boss has been killed at least once
(2) The skyshard has been claimed.

Now, boss killing is now marked by an Achievement - which is account-wide. There is probably no way to revert this.

BUT, skyshard finding is character-specific. So, any delve containing an unclaimed Skyshard should be changed to appear "incomplete" (black) on the zone map for that specific character, if it has been found (if it isn't found at all, it doesn't appear - or if an addon such as Destinations or MapPins shows it, it appears grey.) If the Skyshard has been claimed, then it appears completed (white).

This still leaves the annoyance of World Bosses and Dolmens / Harrowstorms / Geysers auto-marking as "completed" by characters who have never completed that specific one. At the moment it is possible to use addons to deal with this annoyance, but I believe that completion of all these things should be character-specific, not account-wide. It is probably too late to revert now, UNLESS one reverts back to "undiscovered = incomplete by default" at the same time as reverting to character-specific completion: anything that's been discovered by a given character but not completed by that character, but completed by another character, would be stuck in its "completed" state on the zone map, but anything that hasn't been discovered would become "not completed" when it is discovered.

peacenote · April 2022

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Ok, been distracted by events, but back to normal questing / gameplay today - and it SUCKS.

Still do not understand why delves done by one character are considered done by all. Still have to go in & get the damn skyshard. (Same with wb)

And if do want to do separately, takes an age for the boss to appear. Great.

So. Well done again for the idiotic way this was implemented and for removing yet more fun & enjoyment from the game. Fantastic.

Yep agreed 100%.

I DO think this could be fixed if ZOS desired. They would just need to implement a separate tracking system and have the map look at that instead of achievements. Should be feasible since other systems have been added. I for one would be OK with it even if it re-set current progress, and my chadacters didn't properly show the bosses they have beaten, or even if it fixed it only for new characters.gping forward, just in the name of making the game better. Base game should show one color for delves and other items upon discovery, one color if the boss is still unbeaten only, one color if the skyshard is there only, and then turn white when both tasks are done. You get an achievement only the first time you beat the boss.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get interrupted a lot in life and my memory isn't bulletproof so there are certainly times where I run by something and don't get to go in, or I grab a skyshard but plan to go back to do the boss later. Plus the QoL feature where a boss spawns if you haven't killed him before is sorely missed.

Elsonso · April 2022

peacenote wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Ok, been distracted by events, but back to normal questing / gameplay today - and it SUCKS.

Still do not understand why delves done by one character are considered done by all. Still have to go in & get the damn skyshard. (Same with wb)

And if do want to do separately, takes an age for the boss to appear. Great.

So. Well done again for the idiotic way this was implemented and for removing yet more fun & enjoyment from the game. Fantastic.

Yep agreed 100%.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get interrupted a lot in life and my memory isn't bulletproof so there are certainly times where I run by something and don't get to go in, or I grab a skyshard but plan to go back to do the boss later. Plus the QoL feature where a boss spawns if you haven't killed him before is sorely missed.

To sum up my feelings about this... ZOS did what ZOS wanted to do. I see no indication that they wanted to do more, but did not have time, or that there are outstanding major changes in the works. Total radio silence = ZOS is happy where it is. That is the approach I take.

I consider this to be a multiplayer action adventure game built around the player's experiences in the game. I do not consider it to be a character-oriented RPG game, but it had me fooled for a few years. My expectation for the game is that ZOS will gravitate towards more player experience in the game and away from character experience. Many of the "grindy" comments hit in this area, and ZOS can implement QoL to address it and gain some favor with the player base.

If that is not what you want, and you wish to play and be as close to the apparent action adventure "target market" as possible, I simply suggest having just one character that is played. No alts. No repeat content. This solves problems with map markers and delve bosses, and works to bring expectations in line with how the game is designed.

I don't recommend trying to "fix" it with add-ons. ZOS can easily break these things, unintentionally, so it just delays the inevitable. Accept it, adapt to it, or abandon it... don't try to fix it.

EDIT: In an attempt to be less wordy, it became less clear whether I was saying what ZOS is going to do, or saying what I think ZOS is going to do. The latter. Wordiness added.

Kesstryl · April 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Ok, been distracted by events, but back to normal questing / gameplay today - and it SUCKS.

Still do not understand why delves done by one character are considered done by all. Still have to go in & get the damn skyshard. (Same with wb)

And if do want to do separately, takes an age for the boss to appear. Great.

So. Well done again for the idiotic way this was implemented and for removing yet more fun & enjoyment from the game. Fantastic.

Yep agreed 100%.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get interrupted a lot in life and my memory isn't bulletproof so there are certainly times where I run by something and don't get to go in, or I grab a skyshard but plan to go back to do the boss later. Plus the QoL feature where a boss spawns if you haven't killed him before is sorely missed.

ZOS did what ZOS wanted to do. There is no indication that they wanted to do more, but did not have time, or that there are outstanding major changes in the works. Total radio silence = ZOS is happy where it is.

I consider this to be a multiplayer action adventure game built around the player's experiences in the game. It is not trying to be a character-oriented RPG game, which had me fooled for a few years. My expectation for the game is that ZOS will gravitate towards more player experience in the game and away from character experience. Many of the "grindy" comments hit in this area, and ZOS can implement QoL to address it and gain some favor with the player base.

If that is not what you want, and you wish to play and be as close to the action adventure "target market" as possible, I simply suggest having just one character that is played. No alts. No repeat content. This solves problems with map markers and delve bosses, and works to bring expectations in line with how the game is designed.

I don't recommend trying to "fix" it with add-ons. ZOS can easily break these things, so it just delays the inevitable. Accept it, adapt to it, or abandon it... don't try to fix it.

You've proposed this as the definitive way ZOS wants to go with zero input from ZOS. Are you projecting the way you want the game to go? Already two NPC bugs from AwA will be fixed in the High Isle patch, why not encourage ZOS to put in more systems for alt players to enjoy playing on their alts? That seems like a reasonable request, whether or not the feedback is listened to, I don't see the point in squashing people's hopes that they might help us out here.

Elsonso · April 2022

Kesstryl wrote: »

You've proposed this as the definitive way ZOS wants to go with zero input from ZOS. Are you projecting the way you want the game to go? Already two NPC bugs from AwA will be fixed in the High Isle patch, why not encourage ZOS to put in more systems for alt players to enjoy playing on their alts? That seems like a reasonable request, whether or not the feedback is listened to, I don't see the point in squashing people's hopes that they might help us out here.

Hmm. That is not proposing the way I want the game to go, and is not intended to be read as if I am speaking for ZOS. I am stating the direction that I think the game is going to go, and how to play within those walls. I got caught deer-in-the-headlights by Update 33. I don't like that feeling, and am not eager to repeat it. I was not paying attention before, and ZOS grabbed my attention. (In hindsight, the AwA change was predictable a long time ago, but I was not paying attention)

I do not like, even a little, the changes in how the zone guide and map completion work. I would not have done that. Not my decision to make.

What is my decision is how I play the game, and what I described above is how I am approaching this game in 2022. I am aligning my play into a single character style focused on my accomplishments, not the character's. Less RPG, more action adventure. Less replay, more focus on first time experiences.

As for encouraging ZOS regarding the direction that I want the game to go, I sort of did that the last 8 years. Looking back, I don't think it has been a productive use of my time.

Kesstryl · April 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

You've proposed this as the definitive way ZOS wants to go with zero input from ZOS. Are you projecting the way you want the game to go? Already two NPC bugs from AwA will be fixed in the High Isle patch, why not encourage ZOS to put in more systems for alt players to enjoy playing on their alts? That seems like a reasonable request, whether or not the feedback is listened to, I don't see the point in squashing people's hopes that they might help us out here.

Hmm. That is not proposing the way I want the game to go, and is not intended to be read as if I am speaking for ZOS. I am stating the direction that I think the game is going to go, and how to play within those walls. I got caught deer-in-the-headlights by Update 33. I don't like that feeling, and am not eager to repeat it. I was not paying attention before, and ZOS grabbed my attention. (In hindsight, the AwA change was predictable a long time ago, but I was not paying attention)

I do not like, even a little, the changes in how the zone guide and map completion work. I would not have done that. Not my decision to make.

What is my decision is how I play the game, and what I described above is how I am approaching this game in 2022. I am aligning my play into a single character style focused on my accomplishments, not the character's. Less RPG, more action adventure. Less replay, more focus on first time experiences.

As for encouraging ZOS regarding the direction that I want the game to go, I sort of did that the last 8 years. Looking back, I don't think it has been a productive use of my time.

Thank you for clarifying that. I understand your direction with how you will do going forward. For me, I can't simply let go of 8 years of character history and focus on only one of them. For better or for worse, I have to work with what little I have. All my characters are a family to me and to each other. I can only hope ZOS will restore some of the immersion for them and stop reminding me that I'm a player instead of a particular character at whatever moment I'm in game. Something got listened to with the changes to Count Verandis and Tarnamir coming in update 34. I'm hoping they will consider fixing more and put in new systems to help character RP players now that they've handed over the game to avatar tool players. Maybe they will consider fixing the map for characters. Who knows. A lot of people don't like having the map auto complete on alts as they near delves and world bosses. Maybe they will consider that feedback too. Many of us certainly hope so.

Elsonso · April 2022

Kesstryl wrote: »

Thank you for clarifying that. I understand your direction with how you will do going forward. For me, I can't simply let go of 8 years of character history and focus on only one of them. For better or for worse, I have to work with what little I have. All my characters are a family to me and to each other. I can only hope ZOS will restore some of the immersion for them and stop reminding me that I'm a player instead of a particular character at whatever moment I'm in game. Something got listened to with the changes to Count Verandis and Tarnamir coming in update 34. I'm hoping they will consider fixing more and put in new systems to help character RP players now that they've handed over the game to avatar tool players. Maybe they will consider fixing the map for characters. Who knows. A lot of people don't like having the map auto complete on alts as they near delves and world bosses. Maybe they will consider that feedback too. Many of us certainly hope so.

I hear you. It is painful to retire characters. My Main right now is not my oldest or most advanced character, so I am repeating content that I was not planning to do. Crafting, mainly, as my new Main was not my crafter. For me, that is the curse of Update 33. If I don't want the viral achievement transfer, I get nothing but what my chosen Main has done. I'd love to be able to pick which achievements transferred, but that is never going to happen. All or nothing. I choose nothing.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but there is nothing happening in the ESO community that I think will cause them to reverse or change this. No one is talking about this, anymore. They have either given up, adapted, or left the game. Next year, when they announce X million accounts, no one will care about how they did AwA. AwA will probably be mentioned as the savior feature of 2022.

Meanwhile, I am on the lookout for a good MMORPG that is actually an MMORPG. I still think that there is a market for such a game, and none exist. I am saturated by the run-of-the-mill MMO action adventure games, right now. I have more of them than I have time to play.

dzugarueb17_ESO · April 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS did what ZOS wanted to do. I see no indication that they wanted to do more, but did not have time, or that there are outstanding major changes in the works. Total radio silence = ZOS is happy where it is. That is the approach I take.

I disagree. You can explain the radio silence the other way - they know they did wrong and just don't want to admit it. Why bring attention to the issues themselves if affected players failed to do that? They can't physically fix many of the things anymore, the data was destroyed. What they can fix they will, but slowly, because they don't have time. Like they did with Verandis - one bug in a couple of months or so. The outrage was contained in this forums, and mostly in PTS section (who goes there anyway?) and died pretty quickly, there were no mentions of this on Reddit like, at all?

So, why bother? Who wanted to leave over this - left. Personally, I can't tolerate Tamriel Once and the spit in the face I received regarding my feedback on the matter, so I deleted the game and stopped bothering. Hope they will lose players and money in the long term over this, because I think the huge amount of players played this game as a singleplayer game and replayability is considerably crippled. My plan is to check this forums once in a while for educational ("how do you do or don't PR in gamedev mostly) purposes.

peacenote · April 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Thank you for clarifying that. I understand your direction with how you will do going forward. For me, I can't simply let go of 8 years of character history and focus on only one of them. For better or for worse, I have to work with what little I have. All my characters are a family to me and to each other. I can only hope ZOS will restore some of the immersion for them and stop reminding me that I'm a player instead of a particular character at whatever moment I'm in game. Something got listened to with the changes to Count Verandis and Tarnamir coming in update 34. I'm hoping they will consider fixing more and put in new systems to help character RP players now that they've handed over the game to avatar tool players. Maybe they will consider fixing the map for characters. Who knows. A lot of people don't like having the map auto complete on alts as they near delves and world bosses. Maybe they will consider that feedback too. Many of us certainly hope so.

I hear you. It is painful to retire characters. My Main right now is not my oldest or most advanced character, so I am repeating content that I was not planning to do. Crafting, mainly, as my new Main was not my crafter. For me, that is the curse of Update 33. If I don't want the viral achievement transfer, I get nothing but what my chosen Main has done. I'd love to be able to pick which achievements transferred, but that is never going to happen. All or nothing. I choose nothing.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but there is nothing happening in the ESO community that I think will cause them to reverse or change this. No one is talking about this, anymore. They have either given up, adapted, or left the game. Next year, when they announce X million accounts, no one will care about how they did AwA. AwA will probably be mentioned as the savior feature of 2022.

I still care. I'm still here. I'm still talking about it. I'm definitely not no one.

And I'll still probably be here next year and will continue to advocate for fixes if we don't yet have them.

It is pretty typical for ZOS to go live with things that are broken and fix them later (or not) depending on how game breaking they are. In my opinion, we as a community are still owed an explanation for whether the side effects are intended or if solutions are in the works, and what the game's dedication is to supporting alts going forward. They tell us their direction and intention with pretty much everything else!!!

At this point, asking for fixes as a change or reversal to AwA is counterproductive though. We should be talking about things we would like to see in the game going forward. For example...

-I would like to know and log whenever I complete a no death, HM, speed run, or trifecta in a dungeon or trial.
-I would like different colors on the maps for discovered and completed items like delves, which properly reflect per character.
-I would like achievements with "earned by" to show multiple characters (note I did not say past achievements should be reflected because we are looking forward here).
-I would like an in-game toggle so folks that want to can turn off "earned by" altogether.
-I would like an acknowledgement and record of each time I level a character to 50.
-I would like it so if my character is in a delve for the first time, the boss spawns right away. How nice would that be??!?

If these ideas prove to be popular, others may ask for them too and sometime we might see them in game. Not once am I saying "change or fix AwA." These are now new features that I would like to see and actually, if done well, in some cases they could work better than they did before!

Now, I of course have been around long enough to know that what I'm really asking for in some cases is to change certain game functionality so it isn't achievement based anymore, but there WILL come a day when new players may ask for these things and they won't know what it was like before, but would still enjoy these improvements.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · April 2022

peacenote wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Thank you for clarifying that. I understand your direction with how you will do going forward. For me, I can't simply let go of 8 years of character history and focus on only one of them. For better or for worse, I have to work with what little I have. All my characters are a family to me and to each other. I can only hope ZOS will restore some of the immersion for them and stop reminding me that I'm a player instead of a particular character at whatever moment I'm in game. Something got listened to with the changes to Count Verandis and Tarnamir coming in update 34. I'm hoping they will consider fixing more and put in new systems to help character RP players now that they've handed over the game to avatar tool players. Maybe they will consider fixing the map for characters. Who knows. A lot of people don't like having the map auto complete on alts as they near delves and world bosses. Maybe they will consider that feedback too. Many of us certainly hope so.

I hear you. It is painful to retire characters. My Main right now is not my oldest or most advanced character, so I am repeating content that I was not planning to do. Crafting, mainly, as my new Main was not my crafter. For me, that is the curse of Update 33. If I don't want the viral achievement transfer, I get nothing but what my chosen Main has done. I'd love to be able to pick which achievements transferred, but that is never going to happen. All or nothing. I choose nothing.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but there is nothing happening in the ESO community that I think will cause them to reverse or change this. No one is talking about this, anymore. They have either given up, adapted, or left the game. Next year, when they announce X million accounts, no one will care about how they did AwA. AwA will probably be mentioned as the savior feature of 2022.

I still care. I'm still here. I'm still talking about it. I'm definitely not no one. And I'll still probably be here next year and will continue to advocate for fixes if we don't yet have them.

It is pretty typical for ZOS to go live with things that are broken and fix them later (or not) depending on how game breaking they are. In my opinion, we as a community are still owed an explanation for whether the side effects are intended or if solutions are in the works, and what the game's dedication is to supporting alts going forward. They tell us their direction and intention with pretty much everything else!!!

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS did what ZOS wanted to do. I see no indication that they wanted to do more, but did not have time, or that there are outstanding major changes in the works. Total radio silence = ZOS is happy where it is. That is the approach I take.

I disagree. You can explain the radio silence the other way - they know they did wrong and just don't want to admit it. Why bring attention to the issues themselves if affected players failed to do that? They can't physically fix many of the things anymore, the data was destroyed. What they can fix they will, but slowly, because they don't have time. Like they did with Verandis - one bug in a couple of months or so. The outrage was contained in this forums, and mostly in PTS section (who goes there anyway?) and died pretty quickly, there were no mentions of this on Reddit like, at all?

@ZOS_GinaBruno
This is still a issue to MANY of us and we still are waiting to hear something from someone, and not that AI generated style Q&A.
Please mention this on todays ESO Live? Maybe? Please? Pretty please with moon sugar on top?

EozZoe1989 · May 2022

the activity finder is good,, but could be upgraded,,

opaj · May 2022

I'm not reading this whole thread, but I want to add my thoughts, now that I've played with the system a bit:

Please make the zone guide on the map be character-specific across the board. I use the map for navigation, and having a mix of account- and character-specific information on there is confusing me. I'm also worried about missing delve quests if I run by a delve without noticing and it gets marked as completed.

I'm overall happy with AWA aside from this.

shadyjane62 · May 2022

averyfarmanb14_ESO wrote: »

Seriously, though, you've got domain confusion (account vs. character) all over the place. I just posted a thread about this bit of fun (sadly, before I saw this thread.)

It's a simple question: Which striking locale is this character missing?

You can't tell, not from either the Map Completion dialog or the achievement tooltip. The Map Completion dialog's driven by character data, the tooltip's driven by (now) account data, so there's no indicator at all as to which locale's missing. If I'm lucky, I've gone to the map and, hopefully, came close enough to reveal the icon for it, but there's no guarantee of that, either.

This was my problem on the PTS. I didn't have any add-ons One new char had to be , made in order to do main story as the quest was bugged for anyone who had done the prologue. While doing the story she found 5 Skyshards. I acquired them without thinking as I would normally. After I had finished the main story, I went back to my main to do everything else, locate wayshrines and striking locales etc.

When I looked at my zone guide after doing about 4 hrs, I saw I was missing one Skyshard. but they were all filled in.

To find that last shard on my main I would have had to go to every spot to figure out which one it was.

I thought about that and logged out and deleted the PTS. I have seen enough of High Isle and am glad to be out of the testing environment because the reset bug on the desktops.

The AWA is an abomination.

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

the problem to me seems that they are using the achievement as the tooltip for the zone guide, which clearly doesnt work anymore, but they have some other checklist being used for the actual zone guide

probably something they didnt take into account with the initial implementation, but it seems they need to just make new tooltips for the zone guide in order to display the accurate info

jcaceresw · May 2022

I just returned after a long time because of the AwA. But it seems we lost the XP for completing dolmens, WB and delves. It also removes the guild skill progression. I remember that my skill lines increases when their respective quests were completed. Just did the whole quests for Fighters and Mages guild and no progression!!! They stayed at rank 1. I am now fearing that doing thieves and psijic quests wont make their skill lines to increase and having to rely on buying the increases in the Crown Store (what a jerk move ZOS).

A good implementation of the AwA should be that everything that our chars do go to the poll of a specific achievement like killing X amount of enemies on a specific dungeon. They should not affect completion of the dolmens, WB and delves we did not complete before AwA went live.

Please, fix it! I returned with the intention of staying a long time. But with the current state I believe I have to quit again until a solution is implemented.

FlopsyPrince · May 2022

Kamatsu wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

Kamatsu wrote: »

I'm no programmer, so no idea how feasible this would be - but would it be possible to make AWA/character based achievements / map icons / etc as a toggle?

So for people who don't mind having it all lumped into one (like it is now) can just keep it as is, but those who want the map/guide/etc to show things per-character can toggle AWA for those off, and thus keep the experience that they are used to?

If possible, would it satisfy either/both camps on this issue?

It would have been feasible in principle. The PTS thread had many people asking for something similar.
ZOS specifically rejected parts of it in their Q&A, and now there is no longer character specific data for many things.

Oh Well bummer. Guess they really, really needed to prune their database (which is why they did this right?). But really is bad for those negatively effected by this. If the character-based info is truly gone... then I'm not sure how they can even resolve this for those who dislike the changes...

Which just means ppl will have to rely on mods, assuming mods are able to fix things ? I dunno, haven't really been playing much or looked at mods recently.

I have worked with databases in the past (as a developer) and I am working on one now in another role. I am not convinced with their claim this will really help them.

The problem is likely that the whole thing is poorly designed, but modern development standards at least, and updating it is tough, making simplifications like this helpful, at least in theory.

kringled_1 · May 2022

jcaceresw wrote: »

I just returned after a long time because of the AwA. But it seems we lost the XP for completing dolmens, WB and delves. It also removes the guild skill progression. I remember that my skill lines increases when their respective quests were completed. Just did the whole quests for Fighters and Mages guild and no progression!!! They stayed at rank 1. I am now fearing that doing thieves and psijic quests wont make their skill lines to increase and having to rely on buying the increases in the Crown Store (what a jerk move ZOS).

A good implementation of the AwA should be that everything that our chars do go to the poll of a specific achievement like killing X amount of enemies on a specific dungeon. They should not affect completion of the dolmens, WB and delves we did not complete before AwA went live.

Please, fix it! I returned with the intention of staying a long time. But with the current state I believe I have to quit again until a solution is implemented.

Yes, xp was removed from dolmen/WB/delve achievements. But the fighters/mages guild line progression hasn't changed; those story quests never significantly advanced the guild line. Psijic and thieves quests will still advance the line, you're not dependent on the crown store, although maybe for TG and DB and definitely for antiquities (not in the crown store) skill line progress is slower because some achievement related progress is either gone or once per account.

Ermiq · May 2022

I just want to express my condolences to ZOS. Yet again you guys tried to do what players have been asking for, and now you yet again get so many critics, and it seems like not a single one here appreciates what you did.

jle30303 · May 2022

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

Elsonso · May 2022

jle30303 wrote: »

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

The implementation doesn't quite match up with what he customer was asking for. A technical matter is mentioned, but never in any detail. There is resistance to requests coming from the customer to change the implementation. These things I associate with a back end change that closely aligns with a customer request, but it is the back end change that is driving the implementation more than the customer request. Success correlates with how closely the development need and customer request align.

Obviously, nothing can be said for sure with what ZOS did, but that is my assessment of the situation.

(P.S. - there is nothing wrong with doing this. That said, if this is what ZOS did, I think there may be a better way about it.)

Kesstryl · May 2022

jle30303 wrote: »

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

I agree with you. I would have been fine with AwA if it was simply additive to what we already had with our individual character achievements. Taking away my individual character achievements and dates, instant completing of a bunch of things account wide instead of continued tracking for my alts (big QoL downgrade), and having it reflected on the map and zone guide was not what I wanted to trade out for AwA. Many of us simply wanted AwA to be added and not subtract anything, like WoW has.

As for this fixing ZOS database problems, I wish they had tried all the other things they are implementing now first, like cold storage and refactoring, before they took something away from us. That should have been the first thing they tried, not bombing everything else along with it. My only guess is High Isle is adding over a hundred new achievements and they figured the database couldn't handle waiting to see if cold storage and refactoring would alleviate problems before adding in those new achievements.

It's months later and I still can't bring myself to play my live account. It made me become a PTS tester for them, but since PTS is not permanent, I'm ok with playing something that I'm not forever locked into. My live account, I just don't know how I want to handle it. Once I log into those alts, if I do (if I don't delete them and re-do everything so the right achievements go to the right alts), it's forever recorded, and can't be changed. I am struggling with that. I don't want to delete 8 years of alt history, but I don't want the wrong achievements going to the wrong alts either. I'm stuck. So PTS is where I feel safe right now.

FlopsyPrince · May 2022

jle30303 wrote: »

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

I think far more people wanted AWA than you realize. Few of us wanted to have to fish only on 1 specific character, for example. We didn't want the loss of WB and Delve boss tracking however.

Crown_of_Antlers · May 2022

Kesstryl wrote: »

It's months later and I still can't bring myself to play my live account. It made me become a PTS tester for them, but since PTS is not permanent, I'm ok with playing something that I'm not forever locked into. My live account, I just don't know how I want to handle it. Once I log into those alts, if I do (if I don't delete them and re-do everything so the right achievements go to the right alts), it's forever recorded, and can't be changed. I am struggling with that. I don't want to delete 8 years of alt history, but I don't want the wrong achievements going to the wrong alts either. I'm stuck. So PTS is where I feel safe right now.

I agree with you completely. I miss my characters, but I can't bring myself to log in on them, because I know that once I do their achievements will be blended together. That is NOT how the Elder Scrolls is supposed to be.

joerginger · May 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

jle30303 wrote: »

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

I think far more people wanted AWA than you realize. Few of us wanted to have to fish only on 1 specific character, for example. We didn't want the loss of WB and Delve boss tracking however.

Indeed. I had always been unhappy that this game didn't have global achievements.

I agree about the loss of tracking, that was a strange way to implement this.

EozZoe1989 · May 2022

ID LIKE it to be fo the hub also,,
so that can show what each person has done..

peacenote · May 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

jle30303 wrote: »

Thing is, that they didn't do what anyone was actually asking for, they did what a lot of people *weren't* asking for, and did it in a way that over 90 pages in a PTS forum thread were mostly AGAINST, and did it anyway despite being asked not to do it this way.

What people did NOT want was universal COMPLETION, for things such as WBs, delves, dolmens and others - or indeed, the post-story encounters such as those with Verandis (Greymoor & Markarth) or Khunzar-ri (Elsweyr and Dragonhold). Even the people who were in favour of account-wide achievements - which was a minority, not a majority - generally didn't want that.

I think far more people wanted AWA than you realize. Few of us wanted to have to fish only on 1 specific character, for example. We didn't want the loss of WB and Delve boss tracking however.

I'd agree with this. Most people wanted a piece of what they assumed AwA would bring to the community, myself included. The worst part of it all is that it could have been a huge win for about 90% of the players and instead it's this horrible, lingering mess. My interest and enjoyment of ESO continues to be way down from where it was and ZOS can check my login history as evidence, if they care. I missed the crates from the daily login rewards this month and I missed one of the "big" rewards from last month too. I was going to try and maintain my play style and challenge myself by tracking with a spreadsheet but... it just isn't worth it. I've found it just isn't fun to try and tackle achievements with other roles and characters if the game can't even tell me whether I actually DID the thing (like a no death run on my tank) and I'm too busy to be re-creating manually things we used to have built right into the game. I have also lost all of the faith that I've had that ZOS usually implements things well and thoughtfully.

When it comes to AwA:

Many folks wanted it because of account-wide titles (which we could have gotten without a change to achievements)
Many folks wanted it because they assumed it would reduce grinds for things like motif hunting (which it didn't)
Many folks wanted a roll-up overview in addition to character achievement tracking
Almost no one actively desired and requested the deletion of character data (tolerated / not minded by some)
Almost no one actively desired and requested the loss of character specific map completion and progress tracking (tolerated / not minded by some)
Almost no one actively desired and requested elimination of "you did it!" pop ups for repeating an achievement on another character (it was seeing it "undone" as if you "had" to do it or FOMO depending on which character used that was the issue for some)
Absolutely no one asked for the elimination of some of the QoL leveling features like instant boss spawns when a character does a delve for the first time or some of the XP boosts for alts when repeating content tied to achievements.

So the problem with this whole thing is the debate was boiled down to "pro" or "con" with many assumptions that AwA in ESO would look like AwA in other games which resulted in the community turning on itself instead of uniting with one voice with feedback to ZOS, asking to make the implementation better. Perhaps they would have listened if they didn't have so many "I'm so happy about this" comments they could point to from people who didn't realize the other ramifications tied to AwA, but here we are.

This is why AwA has felt like gaslighting on the part of ZOS. The players may not have all realized that a "vote" for AwA was a vote for auto-map completion, loss of character history, boss spawns, etc. ... but ZOS certainly did. Hence the lack of direct responses to the 90+ pages of feedback. And they touted it as a win for community feedback and continue to be silent about current state. I used to think perhaps they did not realize what they were breaking until it was too late and they couldn't reverse course, which I would have understood, but my benefit of the doubt has run out. The continued lack of commentary on any of these issues, some of which are a side effect of the AwA implementation but not a benefit and never requested by anyone, has ruined that happy feeling I've always had about this game and ZOS in general - and I've been here since the beginning. If the bar is so low that it's OK to pretend you've addressed customer requests and it's alright as long as enough people tolerate/don't complain loudly enough, this game has really fallen far from where it once was. Perhaps loyal, paying customers aren't technically owed explanations and having the product available for which you are paying is all we are entitled to... but I believe a company who cares about its customers should provide answers. As long as I'm still around, I'm going to keep asking. It's not something I can forget about as I'm almost immediately reminded of all of these pain points by one of the broken changes as soon as I log in and try to play. This zone guide problem, for example. I still say that if you overlook the loss of historical data, everything else could be addressed and fixed, and should be!!

KMarble · June 2022

peacenote wrote: »

... Perhaps they would have listened if they didn't have so many "I'm so happy about this" comments they could point to from people who didn't realize the other ramifications tied to AwA, but here we are.

I doubt it. They did what they set out to do no matter the consequences.

Like many, I lost the joy I had playing the game, and tbh it has more to do with how the devs handled the issues brought up by the thread on PTS than with AwA itself.

Elsonso · June 2022

.

KMarble wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

... Perhaps they would have listened if they didn't have so many "I'm so happy about this" comments they could point to from people who didn't realize the other ramifications tied to AwA, but here we are.

I doubt it. They did what they set out to do no matter the consequences.

Like many, I lost the joy I had playing the game, and tbh it has more to do with how the devs handled the issues brought up by the thread on PTS than with AwA itself.

I agree. Having been a software developer for going on 1000 years, this just feels like an executive decision, backed up by some player request data. Well, maybe only 900 years. I lose count.

Anyway, we'll never know unless some dev does a "tell all" at some point down the road. I just wish they had been more upfront and open about this from the start. People immediately noticed how it was announced during the live stream, and that just ended up being the harbinger for what was to come.

jle30303 · June 2022

One more thing I have noticed:

World bosses, if not required for something like an antiquity lead, are now UTTERLY DEAD since AWA. The difference between "people only need to do them once per account" and "people need to do them once per character" is absolutely huge.