PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Account Wide Achievements

Elsonso

IronWooshu wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Since I know they will be account wide achievement, i already started to play differently with my alts

Somewhat the same but I'm waiting to see if anything changes because I will be deleting them if they have achievements that my main doesn't have.

I want my main to be the one with his name on the earned by (stupid idea to have earned by titles btw) to have the achievements. This wouldn't be a problem tho if that idea was never implemented. If your going to do account wide achievements just make them without character names on them.

Just thinking about that makes me so mad, it's like some stupid little bandaid they lazily threw at this last minute idea of account wide achievements. Obviously it wasn't thought out well because we are losing all replayability and progression towards any future alt.

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

colossalvoids

Would agree that it's already affected some of us, 3 out of 4 in our group actually dusted out some old characters we weren't really played, in my case for like 3 years lol. It doesn't really feels like a wasted time now when we had some thoughts on a back about "what if I'll get my last trophy on this char instead of main after all this years" etc.

ealdwin

Elsonso wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Since I know they will be account wide achievement, i already started to play differently with my alts

Somewhat the same but I'm waiting to see if anything changes because I will be deleting them if they have achievements that my main doesn't have.

I want my main to be the one with his name on the earned by (stupid idea to have earned by titles btw) to have the achievements. This wouldn't be a problem tho if that idea was never implemented. If your going to do account wide achievements just make them without character names on them.

Just thinking about that makes me so mad, it's like some stupid little bandaid they lazily threw at this last minute idea of account wide achievements. Obviously it wasn't thought out well because we are losing all replayability and progression towards any future alt.

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

I've already deleted quite a few characters. Most of them were ones I started that had barely even been leveled (I don't think any were beyond level 10). Those weren't a loss. Did delete a character I slow leveled through the u50 campaign, but I hadn't used that one in a few years.

This current implementation isn't encouraging creation of alts, its just reinforcing the creation of a main with fewer alts. Really needs to go back to the drawing board.

Caroloces

A simple and essential point for the ZOS team to consider: If you are interested in the longevity of the game, you must make it eminently replayable. Character-based achievements strengthen this trend, for each character newly created enters Tamriel with a clean slate, and the world is fresh and new. Account-wide achievements diminish this trend, for once a goal is achieved for one character, it is achieved for all. There is no reason to pursue specific content areas when the achievement has been gained. Players may perceive that they have "completed" the game and move on if they see their achievement rosters are full, or close to it.

The beauty of ESO lies in its sense of a vital and living world. I've played the game for 8 years, and each time I create a new character, it seems like there's a wide-open path to discovery and adventure even though I may have done the content numerous times on other characters. I love the elder scrolls lore, but I also love the fact that my new character has the ability to progress through the achievement galaxy in much the same way as my older characters.

Please enrich the achievement galaxy. Don't diminish it!

Tandor

Elsonso wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Since I know they will be account wide achievement, i already started to play differently with my alts

Somewhat the same but I'm waiting to see if anything changes because I will be deleting them if they have achievements that my main doesn't have.

I want my main to be the one with his name on the earned by (stupid idea to have earned by titles btw) to have the achievements. This wouldn't be a problem tho if that idea was never implemented. If your going to do account wide achievements just make them without character names on them.

Just thinking about that makes me so mad, it's like some stupid little bandaid they lazily threw at this last minute idea of account wide achievements. Obviously it wasn't thought out well because we are losing all replayability and progression towards any future alt.

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

I'm holding off any decision until some sort of announcement or confirmation through patch notes (whether today or later in the PTS cycle) is forthcoming as to where ZOS are going with this.

I have 50 characters across two accounts on both PC servers (without add-ons) and I won't be maintaining my playstyle of running them all as individuals if this goes through without substantial changes. I foresee two options, either parking both accounts and 6 monthly subscriptions with a new account having just a single character on each server (for which I probably wouldn't even need a subscription), or parking just the primary EU account including subscription and deleting all but one character per server on the secondary NA account for which again I probably wouldn't need a subscription.

I'd much rather carry on playing the game the way I've done for 8 years, but the bottom line for that is being able to take a character into a hitherto unvisited zone and not having it all unlocked on the map and guide because another character has been there before. That. and being able to repeat quests throughout the game.

I don't have a problem at all with account-wide titles, an account-wide achievement summary sheet, or even a full-on account-wide system that is purely optional. I do have a problem with having to abandon the way I've played the game for 8 years. I like the game too much to want to walk away from it, especially in the absence of any other game that is at least as good, but if I have to adapt to the mess that's currently on PTS then it'll mean my spending less time and money on it.

Araneae6537

PurpleScroll wrote: »

Very happy that they're being made account-wide. As a long term player of GW2, I am very used to them being account-wide anyway. I always found the per-character way to be really strange.

I would not mind if achievements were handled as they are in GW2 because it doesn’t take away any character’s ability to complete quests, map completion is still tracked and even rewarded, and on top of that, there are achievements that can only be gained by playing multiple characters and there are rewards for accumulating achievement points.

Unfortunately, accountwide achievements as currently implemented in ESO on PTS are nothing like this. Zone completion, quests and NPC interactions are several things that need to NOT be tied to achievements if those are going accountwide so that they are still character-specific.

Mephit

And my alts just run past stuff like M'aiq, Havocrels, oblivion portals, fishing nodes, random museum / library etc. pieces, and all that cos.... what's the point. I don't even take them to striking locales.. sigh

No more Peacemaker, I Like M'aiq, Crime Pays, Give to the poor, light bringer just to name a few

Original achievements that I still (used to) enjoy, as crazy as I may be.

No more perfect heists, a cutpurse above, flawless sacraments, murder sprees,

Sure, make some achievements account wide, on a case by case basis (trophies maybe), but leave the rest alone

Alts are just different skill bots now. Is that what they / you wanted?

Never known a game fall so far and for no reason

colossalvoids

@ZOS_Kevin hey, aren't today's notes missing like couple tens of pages or at least some information about th matter? Thanks!

megasurge93

I really liked the way that achievements were handled in Fallout 76 (which is another Zenimax game). The titles, levels and knowledge per character was unique, but the larger achievements were accountwide. This meant that my individual characters still retained their individual qualities, but I was also able to play any character I felt like and still obtain progress in my achievements. The whole thing about the achievements boils down to variety of play. The current way that ESO is setup, I can only play one character all the time in order to progress in total achievement points. This makes the 17 other characters I have basically pointless and if I play them I am not progressing my total achievement point progress. The result of this is that I am horribly bored to tears of my DK since that is all I have played now for over 3 years when I started achievement hunting.

Of course, the other solution to the problem of being bored of a character and not being able to progress in achievement point progress, is to have a class change token instead of account wide achievements. I'm beginning to think that having a class change token might be a better solution overall? That is unless there is some other reason to have account wide achievements besides what I stated to be the perceived problem that is trying to be solved?

silvereyes

New patch notes are up. Nothing about any of the bugs, other than some tooltips and help to clarify skyshards progression.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/597698/pts-patch-notes-v7-3-1#latest

Nemezijus

Typically, PTS patch X.1 does not have fixes/adjustments based on the feedback, you are looking for the X.2 patch which is coming next week I guess.

Tandor

Well, the patch notes are up and apart from some new text clarifying how skyshards are handled with account-wide achievements there's no mention of the change, let alone any mention of the aspects raised in these 26 pages. They don't even mention it as a Known Issue.

@ZOS_Kevin, @ZOS_GinaBruno Could we please have some sort of statement on this? What was the purpose behind the switch to account-wide achievements, what is the official response to the feedback and are there going to be any meaningful changes to the way it has been implemented thus far?

Thanks.

Tandor

Nemezijus wrote: »

Typically, PTS patch X.1 does not have fixes/adjustments based on the feedback, you are looking for the X.2 patch which is coming next week I guess.

Agreed, but that doesn't preclude it being mentioned as a Known Issue, or meanwhile posting some sort of comment to show they understand the concerns even by those who support the change and are working on addressing those concerns for a future patch.

IronWooshu

I feel like any achievements that need an accumulation of something and monster trophies should be account wide. Quests/Dungeons should be individual.

250 dolmen completions, account wide please, 1000 pick pockets, account wide please, 1000 treasure chests, 10,000 crafting nodes harvested, account wide please.

Things like that. Not individual character accomplishments. I will go thru the lists of achievements for base game later today and try and make a list of what should and shouldn't be.

Pretty much anything in zone guide shouldn't be.

Fandriil

When can we test it with the EU-Chars?

jle30303

Exactly.

Completion of Delves, Dolmens (and similar) World Bosses, Public Dungeons, and so on... have to be character-specific, NOT account-wide.

If you meet them on a character that hasn't already done them, *they have to be black on the map, not white* - otherwise you remove a HUGE amount of the incentive to actually do them on multiple characters, and remove a huge number of the people and characters from those actual things. The fact of needing to do the on multiple characters is one of the things that keeps them populated.

Elsonso

.

Fandriil wrote: »

When can we test it with the EU-Chars?

Next week

silvereyes

Fandriil wrote: »

When can we test it with the EU-Chars?

The EU character copy is usually week 3 or 4, depending on how long the PTS cycle runs.

silvereyes

Tandor wrote: »

Nemezijus wrote: »

Typically, PTS patch X.1 does not have fixes/adjustments based on the feedback, you are looking for the X.2 patch which is coming next week I guess.

Agreed, but that doesn't preclude it being mentioned as a Known Issue, or meanwhile posting some sort of comment to show they understand the concerns even by those who support the change and are working on addressing those concerns for a future patch.

I am really hoping that there is a larger communication coming, but that all the details are still being ironed out. Perhaps it is pending some proof-of-concept about whether something technical will work or not.

At the very least, @ZOS_Kevin, would it be possible to get a, "we're working on it," statement, if that is indeed the case?

Katheriah

Tandor wrote: »

Well, the patch notes are up and apart from some new text clarifying how skyshards are handled with account-wide achievements there's no mention of the change, let alone any mention of the aspects raised in these 26 pages. They don't even mention it as a Known Issue.

@ZOS_Kevin, @ZOS_GinaBruno Could we please have some sort of statement on this? What was the purpose behind the switch to account-wide achievements, what is the official response to the feedback and are there going to be any meaningful changes to the way it has been implemented thus far?

Thanks.

Yeah... Anything please.

jle30303

Also: While I believe that a lot of achievements should be character-specific, not account-wide, I also believe there should be different types of account-wide achievement as well:

(1) Those which you do on ONE character, but it unlocks rewards (e.g. titles, collectibles, dyes) for the whole account. Examples: special dungeon achievements like no-death, hard mode, speed. Becoming an Emperor (current or former).

(2) Those which should be doable across multiple characters. Examples: things that require a mundane thing to be done many times. Harvest or refine materials X times. Do the same repeatable quest X times (e.g. Murkmire Prepper, doing 150 dailies could be done by doing 1 per day for 15 days in succession with 10 characters.) Slayer achievements for killing X number of given types of monsters (whether in overland, or a particular dungeon, or whatever.)

(3) Special: Consolidate Alliance Point gains across the three different factions, so all your Covenant characters count towards the alliance levels (1-50) with Covenant characters, all the Pact ones ditto. Combining all of these may result in you gaining several levels in alliance rank, but separately, so you might be a Warlord for the Covenant but still only a Tyro for the Pact. This would mean that Alliance War skill lines would be unlocked for all characters in a faction at the same time: to unlock the lines for a character of the wrong faction, you have to either gain alliance points with characters in that faction (works for all characters) or spend crowns to unlock the entire skill line at once (specific to that character only).

Jaraal

Elsonso wrote: »

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

It would be considerate of them to offer refunds for the soon to be unnecessary extra character slots we purchased, and the skill lines we purchased to level them up quicker or make them more useful, but we know that will never happen.

I just wonder why they would want to hurt their bottom line by eliminating replayability and the desire to level new characters this way. It doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint.

megasurge93

jle30303 wrote: »

Exactly.

Completion of Delves, Dolmens (and similar) World Bosses, Public Dungeons, and so on... have to be character-specific, NOT account-wide.

If you meet them on a character that hasn't already done them, *they have to be black on the map, not white* - otherwise you remove a HUGE amount of the incentive to actually do them on multiple characters, and remove a huge number of the people and characters from those actual things. The fact of needing to do the on multiple characters is one of the things that keeps them populated.

I believe the completion of these are still per character as related to the zone completion and what shows on the map. Only the achievement is account wide, meaning that once you got that achievement on any character, you don't need to worry about that aspect again. The zone completion guide is still character specific, so you still have a way to play each character individually.

Araneae6537

megasurge93 wrote: »

jle30303 wrote: »

Exactly.

Completion of Delves, Dolmens (and similar) World Bosses, Public Dungeons, and so on... have to be character-specific, NOT account-wide.

If you meet them on a character that hasn't already done them, *they have to be black on the map, not white* - otherwise you remove a HUGE amount of the incentive to actually do them on multiple characters, and remove a huge number of the people and characters from those actual things. The fact of needing to do the on multiple characters is one of the things that keeps them populated.

I believe the completion of these are still per character as related to the zone completion and what shows on the map. Only the achievement is account wide, meaning that once you got that achievement on any character, you don't need to worry about that aspect again. The zone completion guide is still character specific, so you still have a way to play each character individually.

That’s not what people are reporting on PTS; the zone guide follows achievements rather than remaining character specific and when you discover them on that character, they will show as already completed in the map as well.

megasurge93

Araneae6537 wrote: »

That’s not what people are reporting on PTS; the zone guide follows achievements rather than remaining character specific and when you discover them on that character, they will show as already completed in the map as well.

Ouch! Yes, I would consider that very broken then. I stand by other post about making the account wide achievements more similar to FO76 or just doing a class change token. I think it's important to focus on the "why" we are doing this part, which I believe is the simple aspect of not getting bored of playing one single character all the time to obtain all achievement points. In the end, it's about the total achievement points, of which currently I have 33595 all on my main (because I have to in order for them to accumulate). Many of the achievement points missing for me are the vet dungeon or trials content because doing everything on one character in regards to those is not really ideal. But the larger problem is the boredom level of playing only one of my characters all the time for achievement points.

Parasaurolophus

Jaraal wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

It would be considerate of them to offer refunds for the soon to be unnecessary extra character slots we purchased, and the skill lines we purchased to level them up quicker or make them more useful, but we know that will never happen.

I just wonder why they would want to hurt their bottom line by eliminating replayability and the desire to level new characters this way. It doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint.

Because simply getting achievements is not an element of replay value. Can you close GS, TTT or PB on multiple characters? Do you also study all the motives on each character, even the most expensive ones? Do you learn all the traits on every character? I'm sure not.
No, I still think we should have some sort of tool to see individual character progress. But achievements as a replay value incentive? Sorry but no.
P.S. no comments from developers. Well let's hope...

Mephit

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

It would be considerate of them to offer refunds for the soon to be unnecessary extra character slots we purchased, and the skill lines we purchased to level them up quicker or make them more useful, but we know that will never happen.

I just wonder why they would want to hurt their bottom line by eliminating replayability and the desire to level new characters this way. It doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint.

Because simply getting achievements is not an element of replay value. Can you close GS, TTT or PB on multiple characters? Do you also study all the motives on each character, even the most expensive ones? Do you learn all the traits on every character? I'm sure not.
No, I still think we should have some sort of tool to see individual character progress. But achievements as a replay value incentive? Sorry but no.
P.S. no comments from developers. Well let's hope...

"Sorry but no".... for you they may not be... for me and many others they are... I like finding M'aiq again...

willymancer69

Nemezijus wrote: »

Typically, PTS patch X.1 does not have fixes/adjustments based on the feedback, you are looking for the X.2 patch which is coming next week I guess.

Those who have been around longer than I have, is this typically the case that these changes and comments come around Patch X.2? It's disturbing that we've had no comment from an admin in these forums or in the patch notes on the issue. We saw them respond in the Combat Preview thread, but nothing here..

PeacefulAnarchy

willymancer69 wrote: »

Nemezijus wrote: »

Typically, PTS patch X.1 does not have fixes/adjustments based on the feedback, you are looking for the X.2 patch which is coming next week I guess.

Those who have been around longer than I have, is this typically the case that these changes and comments come around Patch X.2? It's disturbing that we've had no comment from an admin in these forums or in the patch notes on the issue. We saw them respond in the Combat Preview thread, but nothing here..

Yes, the lack of changes in x.1 is completely expected, no matter what their plan is. As is the lack of comments. I would have expected some things to be in known issues, but I'm not sure what their criteria is for putting things there. There are often things not mentioned in known issues fixed later in the cycle so it's never an exhaustive list.

No matter what your hope is this patch doesn't indicate much. If you want to read tea leaves the change in the help would indicate they're planning on going forward in some way, but it's also a really easy change to revert, so it was probably just something that was on their to-do list already and unrelated to any feedback.

kind_hero

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I have taken this as an opportunity to delete a few one-off characters. These won't have any achievements that need to be shared with everyone else. If ZOS backs off, I am not losing anything and it won't hurt anything. If ZOS goes forward, I will have less to do when I scale back to my account-character.

It would be considerate of them to offer refunds for the soon to be unnecessary extra character slots we purchased, and the skill lines we purchased to level them up quicker or make them more useful, but we know that will never happen.

I just wonder why they would want to hurt their bottom line by eliminating replayability and the desire to level new characters this way. It doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint.

Because simply getting achievements is not an element of replay value. Can you close GS, TTT or PB on multiple characters? Do you also study all the motives on each character, even the most expensive ones? Do you learn all the traits on every character? I'm sure not.
No, I still think we should have some sort of tool to see individual character progress. But achievements as a replay value incentive? Sorry but no.
P.S. no comments from developers. Well let's hope...

Because simply getting achievements is not an element of replay value

Maybe it isn't for you because you come from a different game. But people who are playing ESO since 2014 got used with the system, and for many of us achievements in this game are an element of replay value. Besides, I might gave in a bit in this, if the game wasn't so much built around character achievements. There are so many character specific achievements, like exploring the current zone or getting all the skyshards in an area.

These are elements with replay value. Same with multiple check marks achievements, like public dungeon bosses, story progression such as grand adventurer. None says no to an account wide overview of achievements. People don't want their progress deleted, that's all.

Also, an other important issue here is not the idea itself. You may support it, fine, but you must admit that bugs and broken quests are not okay. So, at least taking this in account, this update should be considered and handled carefully. Right now it looks like a failed attempt to streamline the achievement system. It will *** many people off and will make veterans leave to new games. There is little for me to do on my alts if this goes live, because I am not going through the mess of figuring out what my alt has to do in an area, which bosses/delves/shards/parts of quests are done etc.