How ZoS can make getting Achievements more desirable for players

Weper

VaranisArano wrote: »

How is it profitable?

For example some people buy Trial achievements from guilds for gold. But since you can buy gold with crowns account-wide achievements would mean less money for ZOS because people would buy less achievements.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Most players don't chase achievements on multiple characters, in large part because non-title rewards are usually account-wide anyway.

The biggest reason is because no one wants to grind achievements on 8-18 characters. But lot of people are doing them on 2-3 characters.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

It's 2022, mate. Achievements for group content are almost meaningless because as I said you can just buy them for gold.
And it was not your character who did the achievements, it was YOU as a player. Let's say your brother wants to try the game, you let him play a little bit with your character. The character won't play automatically, so most likely your character will die on a Trial because it was not you who played with it.

colossalvoids

Weper wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Achievements for group content are almost meaningless because as I said you can just buy them for gold.
[/quote]

Seriously speaking no one really cares about carry selling because you won't see those players around you in a group content anyway, let alone justifying their presence with title or skin on. And those ten people who actually trying to boast through it are all well known to raiders anyway to care in a slightest. It's not some severe plague people are often talking about, it's insanely small segment of players who mostly don't really play the game the way rest of us do.

hafgood

Weper wrote: »

And it was not your character who did the achievements, it was YOU as a player. Let's say your brother wants to try the game, you let him play a little bit with your character. The character won't play automatically, so most likely your character will die on a Trial because it was not you who played with it.

You are wrong. Totally wrong. And that is why I said before players are in two camps.

It was a combination of me and the character that did the achievements. It was not all me, it was not all the character. I play a stamplar very very well, I do not enjoy the other classes and so cannot achieve on them what I've achieved on the stamplar.

And carry runs? Really? I care not at all about how others get their achievements, it doesn't affect me, I do care about how I got mine and want the ability to get them on each character.

As you say it's 2022 and maybe we should be a bit more understanding that different people have different - equally valid - views and rather than trying to impose what we want on others look for an alternative acceptable to all?

TelvanniWizard

Account-wide achievements would make them more desirable to me, and to many other people.

Danikat

My other MMO has account wide achievements with rewards both for individual achievements and for your total points, which includes weapon and armour skins that cannot be obtained any other way. It still doesn't get everyone chasing achievement points.

Some people do (and they seem to care more about the leader board than any in-game reward), but most only do achievements which interest them or which occur naturally while they're playing.

I'm not sure there is a way to incentivise players who don't care about achievements to start chasing them which would actually be fun for those players. And for those who do care a leader board might be enough.

Parasaurolophus

One of the main reasons why achievements should be account-wide is that high end raids are optimized. My main is NB. And our raid is now trying to get a redeemer. Guess what class I'm in? That's right - a necromancer. So it's not always possible to play on your own main-char at the high-end. There really isn't much to do in this game. And getting achievements for many players becomes the main task at the endgame.
I'm waiting and hoping that changes to the achievement system will be timed with the release of some new dlc/chapter.

colossalvoids

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

One of the main reasons why achievements should be account-wide is that high end raids are optimized. My main is NB. And our raid is now trying to get a redeemer. Guess what class I'm in? That's right - a necromancer. So it's not always possible to play on your own main-char at the high-end. There really isn't much to do in this game. And getting achievements for many players becomes the main task at the endgame.
I'm waiting and hoping that changes to the achievement system will be timed with the release of some new dlc/chapter.

I'd agree but with kinda reverse example. I got my trial and dungeon trifectas on main, which is also nightblade, but it would be convenient if I won't be "forced" to do everything on this exact character and could preceded forward with any of 17 others I have seamlessly depending on mood, group needs or any other reasoning of the day.

Especially on last percentages of points you at times just can't force yourself play an alt because some very last monster trophy or AP point etc.

Dextail

I would suggest they start by making it so thr hardest achievements I game aren't bugged.

Please read: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/596222/planesbreaker-broken-still-trifecta-achievement-still-bugged#latest

peacenote

I am on the fence about more rewards for achievements. It's always nice to have added incentives but if the rewards are too good, it forces people to focus on achievements they don't find fun because of the reward, and I'm not sure we really need any more of that, at least in PvE dungeons and trials. The constant "fake" threads are annoying enough without adding another "goal" to further divide the player base.

I like the idea of getting Crowns for achievements. I'd like to see a delivery when you reach a certain number of achievements, instead of linking them to each one. 25 achievement points = 5 crowns. Something like that.

The other day, I did a random normal on my trial healer, who is not my main. I got Dread Cellar and had a great group who clicked and ended up getting hard mode and speed mode. I had never been in there before on this character and a bunch of achievements popped. It was so fun! It would be a shame if character specific achievements went away. However I like how collectibles and dyes are account wide. I would not be against the base game tracking both individual and account achievements but it would take a lot of the fun out of it for me if suddenly my alts get no achievements when they are taken into content. I say this as someone who switched to progging on an alt because my group didn't need my main due to composition. It is what it is - not all of my characters are going to do everything. As long as I can use the skins when I earn them on all characters, which I can!

I would not be against having the "rollups" count across the account for the rewards. For example, if you have one character that got no death and another that got speed and HM, maybe you can use any attached reward on the account even if one character didn't get all of them. But I still would want to see the achievement pop if my character finally got everything.

Varana

Harvokaan wrote: »

Polymorph from vAS can be farmed in-game but if you want to but it from other players they are selling it for 8mil (PC EU). Milions for nice costmetic doesn't sound too much as we are talking about gold sink here, something that is needed.

If you buy it from another player, it's not a gold sink.
A gold sink removes gold from the game. If you buy the Ebonheart Chateau for almost 4 million, that gold vanishes into the ether. That's a gold sink.
If you buy from another player, the gold just gets shifted around to someone else, but it's still there. That's not a gold sink.

Harvokaan

Varana wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Polymorph from vAS can be farmed in-game but if you want to but it from other players they are selling it for 8mil (PC EU). Milions for nice costmetic doesn't sound too much as we are talking about gold sink here, something that is needed.

If you buy it from another player, it's not a gold sink.
A gold sink removes gold from the game. If you buy the Ebonheart Chateau for almost 4 million, that gold vanishes into the ether. That's a gold sink.
If you buy from another player, the gold just gets shifted around to someone else, but it's still there. That's not a gold sink.

I know what is a gold sink, I was responding to someone who claimed that player wouldn't spend milions of gold for cosmetics, which is not true.
Gold sink = npc vendor that is selling skins/mounts/furnishings. I mentioned that in OP

kwinter

One issue with not having account wide achievements for some players is they are less willing to run somethings on other characters if they are chasing achievements like in trials and dungeons. With account wide there be more willingness to run these on different characters

Kiralyn2000

I mostly don't care about Achievements. I do like them being character-specific, so that I can use them as a "what has this character done" guide.
I definitely don't care at all about my "achievement score". Just like I don't care about any of the other leaderboards in the game (did we really have to shove 'competition' into PvE activities?)


And I'll pursue some achievements because of an unlock or reward (like needing a zone achieve to buy a house, or zone/holiday furnishings), but it has a limit. Like, I really really really want a boat to put on the dock at my Hunding's Palatial Hall... but not enough to grind through getting Master Fisher. (even ignoring the part where I refuse to go to Cyro).

So tying more unlocks/rewards to Achieves wouldn't likely change how I do them much - I'd still avoid all the content that I'd want to avoid before the new 'prize'.

Sylvermynx

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

And I'll pursue some achievements because of an unlock or reward (like needing a zone achieve to buy a house, or zone/holiday furnishings), but it has a limit. Like, I really really really want a boat to put on the dock at my Hunding's Palatial Hall... but not enough to grind through getting Master Fisher. (even ignoring the part where I refuse to go to Cyro).

So tying more unlocks/rewards to Achieves wouldn't likely change how I do them much - I'd still avoid all the content that I'd want to avoid before the new 'prize'.

If I'd known we'd have the Kothringi Tidal Canoe from Antiquities back in 2019, I'd never have done the whole Master Angler thing for the boat.... The Canoe is big, and a lot nicer than the Angler boat.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

redspecter23 wrote: »

If they want me to be interested in achievements, they can make them account wide. I have 18 characters and only one of them cares about achievements. If I'm on any of the other 17, I couldn't care less currently.

I can why certain achievements like savior of Wrothgar, Elswyer, etc should be per character. But others like how many bear, elementals, goblin, etc you kill, should be account wide.

Xebov

hafgood wrote: »

Weper wrote: »

And it was not your character who did the achievements, it was YOU as a player. Let's say your brother wants to try the game, you let him play a little bit with your character. The character won't play automatically, so most likely your character will die on a Trial because it was not you who played with it.

You are wrong. Totally wrong. And that is why I said before players are in two camps.

It was a combination of me and the character that did the achievements. It was not all me, it was not all the character. I play a stamplar very very well, I do not enjoy the other classes and so cannot achieve on them what I've achieved on the stamplar.

And carry runs? Really? I care not at all about how others get their achievements, it doesn't affect me, I do care about how I got mine and want the ability to get them on each character.

As you say it's 2022 and maybe we should be a bit more understanding that different people have different - equally valid - views and rather than trying to impose what we want on others look for an alternative acceptable to all?

It was all you because your character doesnt play itself. But thats an age old discussion. The easiest way would be to get both and call it a day. After all its a game and with both everyone will be happy.

Harvokaan wrote: »

Varana wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Polymorph from vAS can be farmed in-game but if you want to but it from other players they are selling it for 8mil (PC EU). Milions for nice costmetic doesn't sound too much as we are talking about gold sink here, something that is needed.

If you buy it from another player, it's not a gold sink.
A gold sink removes gold from the game. If you buy the Ebonheart Chateau for almost 4 million, that gold vanishes into the ether. That's a gold sink.
If you buy from another player, the gold just gets shifted around to someone else, but it's still there. That's not a gold sink.

I know what is a gold sink, I was responding to someone who claimed that player wouldn't spend milions of gold for cosmetics, which is not true.
Gold sink = npc vendor that is selling skins/mounts/furnishings. I mentioned that in OP

I was not claiming that ppl wont pay millions for cosmetics. I claimed that ppl will not spend alot of time to unlock them and then spend even more time to farm the gold for them. Besides that gold sink is relative. A gold sink only works if the current gold level is reduced or kept steady, with such a thing you will likely generate extra gold that goes into that so tehre is no sinking.

Necrotech_Master

i really enjoy getting achievements, i personally would prefer some kind of acct wide tracking method since i have many toons with a specific focus, i try to do as many of them as possible on my main, but thats not always well suited for him

back in the days before armory system it was a huge pain to constantly try to convert a character between pvp and pve so i just stuck with pve and was OK in pvp, but wasnt really that enjoyable to do pvp with him

the other thing that gets annoying is the achievement furnishing vendors, if you get an achievement on 1 toon, only that 1 toon can buy the item you want to get (i have the achievement for killing someone with volendrung on a mag necro i almost never use in pvp so i would have to take him to cyrodiil to buy the volendrung replica instead of the NB i primarily use for pvp)

i dont mind achievements being earned on each character (for stuff like titles), but achievement furnishers should treat it as an account unlock (like dyes/cosmetics from achievements)

spartaxoxo

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

Necrotech_Master

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

at least on PC/NA ive seen people in zone chat looking for fills in groups for vet content that want you to "have a clear" of something (using the achievement to prove you cleared it) in order to join the group

and if it was actually acct wide display, that couldnt be done (not that i approve of requiring someone to have cleared content to do said content, whole catch-22 thing there)

spartaxoxo

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

at least on PC/NA ive seen people in zone chat looking for fills in groups for vet content that want you to "have a clear" of something (using the achievement to prove you cleared it) in order to join the group

and if it was actually acct wide display, that couldnt be done (not that i approve of requiring someone to have cleared content to do said content, whole catch-22 thing there)

Huh. I've actually never seen that. Usually they just wanted to know my gear on my heal/tank, or my dummy parse on my dps. I know some also had a test for healer/tanks where they'd take them into some trial and see if they could handle some task. But I can't remember which as my healer never tried a non-crag vet trial and people just wanted to know gear for dungeon achievements (my tank is a baby and has done nothing that hard either, only my dps). That's interesting. I guess it makes sense since you'll know if someone has at least seen the mechanics once before. But with how easy it is to get carried or buy achievements, I didn't think anyone actually trusted them. Good to know. Ty for the explanation.

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

I've certainly seen groups on PC/NA attempt to require achievements as part of their recruitment message.

Whether or not they actually succeeded in winnowing out the chaff as they desired, or whether they simply signaled that interested players might want to look for a less elitist group, I don't know. I'm ambivalent about this use of achievements since it's cheesable with carry runs, but yes, some people do use it as proof of, well, achievement.

I suppose it's more advantageous during farming runs to ensure that everyone has prior experience. Some of the recruitment I remember asking for achievements was for Dragonstar Arena or Blackrose Prison when people were farming for leads or gear.

spartaxoxo

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

I've certainly seen groups on PC/NA attempt to require achievements as part of their recruitment message.

Whether or not they actually succeeded in winnowing out the chaff as they desired, or whether they simply signaled that interested players might want to look for a less elitist group, I don't know. I'm ambivalent about this use of achievements since it's cheesable with carry runs, but yes, some people do use it as proof of, well, achievement.

I suppose it's more advantageous during farming runs to ensure that everyone has prior experience. Some of the recruitment I remember asking for achievements was for Dragonstar Arena or Blackrose Prison when people were farming for leads or gear.

Oh that makes sense too. Thanks for the explanation.

Necrotech_Master

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

at least on PC/NA ive seen people in zone chat looking for fills in groups for vet content that want you to "have a clear" of something (using the achievement to prove you cleared it) in order to join the group

and if it was actually acct wide display, that couldnt be done (not that i approve of requiring someone to have cleared content to do said content, whole catch-22 thing there)

Huh. I've actually never seen that. Usually they just wanted to know my gear on my heal/tank, or my dummy parse on my dps. I know some also had a test for healer/tanks where they'd take them into some trial and see if they could handle some task. But I can't remember which as my healer never tried a non-crag vet trial and people just wanted to know gear for dungeon achievements (my tank is a baby and has done nothing that hard either, only my dps). That's interesting. I guess it makes sense since you'll know if someone has at least seen the mechanics once before. But with how easy it is to get carried or buy achievements, I didn't think anyone actually trusted them. Good to know. Ty for the explanation.

that is my theory on why people want to have a clear before inviting, as it assumes the player who has the achievement has at least been exposed/knows the mechanics of the content

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Why? They are just a bunch of useless text(with the exeption of thos thar reward stuff)

Rex-Umbra

Feel like achievements should be much more important. Maybe list achievement points on guild roster.

Also achievement hunting and questing should be better XP than grinding and should level companions.

Xebov

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

at least on PC/NA ive seen people in zone chat looking for fills in groups for vet content that want you to "have a clear" of something (using the achievement to prove you cleared it) in order to join the group

and if it was actually acct wide display, that couldnt be done (not that i approve of requiring someone to have cleared content to do said content, whole catch-22 thing there)

It cant be done with character based achievments either.

What most players are not aware of is that a achievment link does not link to the achievment of a player. It instead is an achievment id followed by a time stamp. Meaning someone can copy his achievment link and give it to other players for reuse or copy his own link and modify the time stamp. So you could also use your achievment from another character this way. As a result whenever someone links an achievment there is no way of knowing if they realy have it just from the link.

In case you want to try it "|H1:achievement:2212:1:2642962853|h|h" here is an achievment link that labels the achievment as done on the 1st of october 2053.

spartaxoxo

Xebov wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Once you make it account wide, you lose the ability to use the achievement as a sign of a character's suitability for group content.

Does anyone actually do this?

at least on PC/NA ive seen people in zone chat looking for fills in groups for vet content that want you to "have a clear" of something (using the achievement to prove you cleared it) in order to join the group

and if it was actually acct wide display, that couldnt be done (not that i approve of requiring someone to have cleared content to do said content, whole catch-22 thing there)

It cant be done with character based achievments either.

What most players are not aware of is that a achievment link does not link to the achievment of a player. It instead is an achievment id followed by a time stamp. Meaning someone can copy his achievment link and give it to other players for reuse or copy his own link and modify the time stamp. So you could also use your achievment from another character this way. As a result whenever someone links an achievment there is no way of knowing if they realy have it just from the link.

In case you want to try it "|H1:achievement:2212:1:2642962853|h|h" here is an achievment link that labels the achievment as done on the 1st of october 2053.

This feels like a Streisand effect waiting to happen haha

pelle412

Just make them account wide, but take a cue from how WoW does it. Each character would list the total number of points across the account, but achievements not completed on the character viewing it is shaded differently. This indicates it can still be completed on the current character but will not cause an increase in total achievement points.

Ilumia

The slayer achievements have very good xp rewards - I think they give 150k or 200k xp piece. That is certainly motivation, so I guess more achievements could grant some xp on completion. Though I am not opposed to the original idea either - I like having more rewards to earn, and more cosmetics, and I really like good gold sinks too

Mandragora

Roleplaying achievements with titles and outfits would be the most desirable for me, but sadly I have found recently, that for some reason all cool roleplaying titles like mercenary are given for trials and vet content... that says it all what ZOS does think about RP
I risk a lot to say this, but I believe that the lack of achievements per character is one of the reason why ESO does have quite big player base - waste of time is the most hated feature of MMOs, another one is daily random chores, but ESO did implemented those already, I believe that is the reason why some players log in less.