PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Account Wide Achievements

Vulkunne

Tandor wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Wolfkeks wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Million dollar question:

Has there been a noticeable improvement in performance, especially in Cyrodiil?

I don't think this change will affect perfomance in PvP or Trials a lot tbh.

During MYM on the live server Cyrodiil magically works, the new campaigns have less lag, less desyncs and less crashes and that is with the character based achievement system. So they showed us that they can make it work even if all my characters I drag into the campaign have different achievements.

Also they stated that it will take the whole year to fix the perfomance issues in PvP and Trials with a large test coming to PTS so I guess they didn't mean the AwA system.

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

We’ve been planning this for the last quarter and we’re starting work on it right now. But, as you can imagine, changing the fundamentals of a huge live game such as ESO is a delicate and multi-stepped process, so expect this to take up much of 2022. Much of the early work is going to happen behind the scenes and we are definitely not going to rush it. A re-architecture of this magnitude will require the entire game to be re-tested and evaluated, as this particular code is the foundation on which the game is built. It will take tons of QA and testing time as well, and I’m sure that when the time comes, we’ll do as large a test as we can on the PTS.

I think they mentioned in the Q&A that this had to do with the data in the database. I'm not a programmer so I don't know if upgrading the database would also solve the issues they mentioned though.

[Edited for Typos]

Simply put it all depends on how the Database was built. This is why some business network are very slow cause it takes forever to query the DB for things everyone is looking for in a poorly built DB with missing relationship(s). Generally speaking the larger the DB, the longer it takes to access data. However again, there are vendors out there who specialize in DB design and mgmt. With this said surely Microsoft knows people who could help with this.

I'm willing to bet someone is standing firm that going this route is more important than fixing the actual problem. Add to that, its an assumption, however other DB ZOS uses probably are also overloaded and built like 10 years ago. So you see what I mean, if this is the case... nothing is really getting fixed other than retiring DB that may be costing the company money and network usage. However if they all have same problem then I doubt we'll see any real benefit as other games will probably end up using the consolidated resources.

I must admit that in the beginning I never considered the fact that the MMO Company holds all my characters data to be a downside of MMOs. Look for new MMOs to offer players the ability to store your character data locally in the future. Rather than get to angry over this, this right here could also be a Great Conversation for streamers and influencers to have going forward. Not to trash ZOS but to help make the industry aware of this problem and the need for change in future games. I can't see anyone in their right mind opposing this for new games as its a win-win for everyone involved.

Avoid such games at all cost, as they will be a hotbed of exploitation - the only reason that MMO developers keep the character data server-side in the first place.

Nope, you're not wrong yet, this isn't working either right? With what we have now.

And that's the idea is to have this conversation and bring ideas to the table for how the industry could prevent this problem from occurring over and over again. Nothing against ZOS whatsoever.

Its just I can think of other games, including ESO, where I really would not want to lose my character/personal data invested into that game. And I just don't think that not discussing this to come up with a better solution is just as bad as what they're planning to do now.

Should be an option even from a legal standpoint where we don't own the characters but we own the data we produce from those characters because that is unique to each of us. You know, I just think that the practice of someone coming along and deciding themselves to wipe out our data is unethical regardless of the reason why. Its preventable but nothing is going to change unless the industry understands the problem better.

JKorr

At this point I'm afraid to play beyond crafting writs. I'll be terrified to play after the update. I've been playing since beta/early access. I have a full roster of characters with a core of 4 "mains" that have done most of the quests/pve stories. How many of the quests are now totally screwed for any new/newish alts I have that haven't completed the original game? How much of Cadwell's Silver and Gold going to be undoable/broken because I've completed it multiple times? I won't go into not wanting some characters to have certain achievements.

[snip]
[edited for conspiracy theory]

Jaraal

_Zathras_ wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

I'm trying to show them that the message, in any form, is a bad one that shouldn't ever be sent; instead, they need to change the situation that is creating bad messages in the first place.


In my version of your "Better Q&A", I would ask them to clarify this ambiguity in the context that their performance claims are, by all external analysis, fake.

There's the rub. That is why they aren't engaging.

See, the thing about surreptitiously using performance as the background reason for the AWA, is that they aren't the only ones in the room with careers and degrees in tech/computer science. So, there isn't any wool, and no one's eyes are covered.

At any rate, an article on this popped up from MassivelyOP. It might be worth it to add to the discussion.

Hopefully this can get out to more media outlets before it gets pushed to live. They appear to be willing to bet their reputation as a gaming company on this issue. Backlash on a private forum might not be worth much, but this becoming a more broadly public issue is the only thing that might prevent it from actually happening before it's too late.

I also wonder if the stockholders and investors are being made aware of this controversy?

Giraffon

It is a sad day when my new plan is this:

Create new character and do nothing with it. Delete all other characters before AWA goes live. Then I get to play game fresh with no achievements and from that point on there will never be an alt ever again.

Sad day indeed.

Ugh_Tech

Giraffon wrote: »

It is a sad day when my new plan is this:

Create new character and do nothing with it. Delete all other characters before AWA goes live. Then I get to play game fresh with no achievements and from that point on there will never be an alt ever again.

Sad day indeed.

Sad, yes - but seems to be one of the few ways to have a real fresh start (besides creating a new account which would mean to re-buy everything you did with your first account).

BTW: Does anyone know an addon that kind of exports the current achievement status on char-base?

alberichtano

Jaraal wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

I'm trying to show them that the message, in any form, is a bad one that shouldn't ever be sent; instead, they need to change the situation that is creating bad messages in the first place.


In my version of your "Better Q&A", I would ask them to clarify this ambiguity in the context that their performance claims are, by all external analysis, fake.

There's the rub. That is why they aren't engaging.

See, the thing about surreptitiously using performance as the background reason for the AWA, is that they aren't the only ones in the room with careers and degrees in tech/computer science. So, there isn't any wool, and no one's eyes are covered.

At any rate, an article on this popped up from MassivelyOP. It might be worth it to add to the discussion.

Hopefully this can get out to more media outlets before it gets pushed to live. They appear to be willing to bet their reputation as a gaming company on this issue. Backlash on a private forum might not be worth much, but this becoming a more broadly public issue is the only thing that might prevent it from actually happening before it's too late.

I also wonder if the stockholders and investors are being made aware of this controversy?

To be fair, I would think that the stockholders and investors are the ones that push for this kind of idea.

See, the alternative is to get more computer space, more raw "juice" as it were. And that would cost money. That would mean less profit for said investors. What they want is a quick return on their investments for when they bought ZOS to begin with. That can only happen if the income goes up, or if the cost goes down. It is very hard to control the income, but the costs are very easy to control.

I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that that is what is happening of course, since I wasn't at the boardmeeting or anything like that, but knowing a wee bit about how business goes it seems plausible.

tim77

but hey, if they save billions of database entries now, they could easily double our inventory space at least ^^

you know... take AND give....

SirBedevere

tomofhyrule wrote: »

AwA is required to be in the game now because it'll be a foundation for something else. And there is something that's coming out in the next update. I'd hate to spin conspiracy theories, but I'll bet that the real reason this is being pushed so hard, whether it bugs our games or not, is that this foundation needs to be in place for the card game.

It would explain why so little seems to have been tested. Mr. Firor himself said that they are planning to take their time and fully test all of the rearchitecture stuff, but this seems very rushed, so it must not be included in that.

Perhaps they discovered some real performance issues when they went to test their servers with the new chapter code, and realized they had the same sort of problem that Greymoor did a couple years ago.

Still, even if it is foundational to the next update, couldn't they make the changes ... in the next update, after more testing and bugfixes? Or perhaps even delay the feature until next update and focus on rearchitecting the database itself, rather than gutting features?

SilverBride

I'm not purchasing the new chapter if I can only play it in its entirety once.

joerginger

What I completely fail to understand is why any and all references, dependencies, conditions or rewards related to achievements were not completely removed and in the case of rewards or for example conditions for getting master writs replaced by something else before actually implementing this change (which I have wanted for as long as I've had more than one character). The same goes for everything related to quests. Why is there still no quest log & archive?

Also, why call it account-wide achievements and still keep some achievements as character achievemnets?

And why have an "earned by" entry?

Jaraal

alberichtano wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

I'm trying to show them that the message, in any form, is a bad one that shouldn't ever be sent; instead, they need to change the situation that is creating bad messages in the first place.


In my version of your "Better Q&A", I would ask them to clarify this ambiguity in the context that their performance claims are, by all external analysis, fake.

There's the rub. That is why they aren't engaging.

See, the thing about surreptitiously using performance as the background reason for the AWA, is that they aren't the only ones in the room with careers and degrees in tech/computer science. So, there isn't any wool, and no one's eyes are covered.

At any rate, an article on this popped up from MassivelyOP. It might be worth it to add to the discussion.

Hopefully this can get out to more media outlets before it gets pushed to live. They appear to be willing to bet their reputation as a gaming company on this issue. Backlash on a private forum might not be worth much, but this becoming a more broadly public issue is the only thing that might prevent it from actually happening before it's too late.

I also wonder if the stockholders and investors are being made aware of this controversy?

To be fair, I would think that the stockholders and investors are the ones that push for this kind of idea.

See, the alternative is to get more computer space, more raw "juice" as it were. And that would cost money. That would mean less profit for said investors. What they want is a quick return on their investments for when they bought ZOS to begin with. That can only happen if the income goes up, or if the cost goes down. It is very hard to control the income, but the costs are very easy to control.

I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that that is what is happening of course, since I wasn't at the boardmeeting or anything like that, but knowing a wee bit about how business goes it seems plausible.

Many players have already stated in this thread and elsewhere that they will be playing/spending less, have already deleted soon to be unnecessary alts, have gotten refunds on new chapter pre-orders, are playing new games, and/or have already unsubbed/uninstalled. And the forum users are but a tiny percentage of all the ESO players, many of whom won't know about the changes to their basic gaming experience until it goes live.

So investors would need to weigh the lost revenue already happening and soon to be happening on a larger scale against the official statement of "may" help the game in the "future."

SirBedevere

Reposting this from the bugs thread, since I know people are keenly interested in the state of bugs right now.

The following is regarding the zone quests in Stros M'kai:

SirBedevere wrote: »

Edit:

I started a new character, Naughty Zoot, and went directly to Port Hunding to talk to Captain Kaleen this time. She presented me with options for recruiting all three privateers. I was able to recruit Jakarn, and the quest marker for Crafty Lerisa appears to have appeared as well.

So far, it appears as if I should be able to do all three quests on a new character.

My next test will be to try abandoning the quest for for Roger da Shrubba and see if that resets things to a consistent state.

alberichtano

joerginger wrote: »

What I completely fail to understand is why any and all references, dependencies, conditions or rewards related to achievements were not completely removed and in the case of rewards or for example conditions for getting master writs replaced by something else before actually implementing this change (which I have wanted for as long as I've had more than one character). The same goes for everything related to quests. Why is there still no quest log & archive?

Also, why call it account-wide achievements and still keep some achievements as character achievemnets?

And why have an "earned by" entry?

Because replacing them with something else would probably take as much space and resources as keeping things as they are now, if not more.

SilverBride

"Lately, we have been working on ways to trim the data footprint while still recording all the monsters you slay, items you hoard and achievements you ding."

Reducing the number of "items you hoard" would be something to consider moving forward. The sticker book was a huge step in that direction but are there other things that can be done to reduce this type of data?

[Edited for clarity]

SammyKhajit

alberichtano wrote: »

Quoted post has been remove.

I gotta ask... did ANYONE want a card game? What's the point? Sure, I admit that the minigames in the first Witcher game were kind of fun, because you could win some extra gold or whatnot, but in an MMO?

I have this horrible tingling in the spider senses that "special cards" will be for sale in the Crown-store, or in lootboxes.

This one suspects the special cards will only be in gambling boxes…..

Dojohoda

I've been to the PTS and I have read the Q&A. I still want to know what is the benefit to the players?

It is undeniable that we are losing useful functionality with AWA and we are gaining an undetermined number of new bugs.

code65536

[The following is a repost of something that I had written in another thread, addressing the performance claims that ZOS has put forward to justify their erase-character-achievements approach to AWA.]

As players, we don't know how exactly how their backend works, but there are some important bits that can be inferred by observing how the game behaves.

One important clue is what happens when an instance crashes. You're booted back to the login screen, and if you log back into that character, you'll find that you're no longer in the instance, that the instance has been destroyed, and that everything that happened recently never happened--i.e., what players describe as a "rollback". Items that you looted? Not in your inventory. Quest stages completed? Not any more. Achievement earned? Not there.

Another thing that we can observe is that fresh newly-created characters have shorter load screens when loading into a zone, when compared to a character that's been played for years and years.

So what can we infer from this sort of behavior? What this suggests to me is that when a player loads into an instance--a dungeon, for example--the data for that character--their inventory, achievements, quest progress, etc.--is retrieved from the database for the instance to access locally. This is why new characters--with very little character history--load more quickly. And things that happen to the character in that instance--loot, quest progress, achievements, etc.--are updating that local copy of that character, not the copy in the main database. And then when the player logs out, changes instances, or just periodically, that local copy is synced back to the main database.

This is consistent with what people observe when an instance unexpectedly crashes, before that local data can be beamed back to the mothership. And it makes perfect sense from an engineering perspective and is the right thing to do: you don't want to hammer the database with frequent small updates.

But what does this mean for performance? It means that IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT THERE ARE ACTIVE PERFORMANCE GAINS TO BE HAD FROM ACCOUNT-WIDE ACHIEVEMENTS. Because you're not actually accessing the database all the time.

The key word that I want to highlight here is "active", as in it won't affect combat, questing, or anything that you are actively doing with your character.

Think about it: With or without AWA, there will be a local copy of the player's achievements that the instance will load in. The only difference is whether that data is copied from the accounts database or from the characters database. Once you're in the instance--let's say a dungeon or Cyrodiil--you're not accessing the database to update your "Kill 500 Evil Doodads in Veteran Someplace" achievement (or Nightblade Slayer achievement, if you're hunting those pesky things in Cyrodiil) every single time you score a kill, so any improvements to the database performance won't affect that. I.e., there's ZERO impact on active gameplay. The only potential difference is when that data is synced back to the database or when that data is loaded from the database. I.e., load screens.

And to be clear, this is exactly what ZOS said in their Q&A: "may manifest itself in faster load screens and improved performance on other database-heavy operations". Load screens and other database-heavy operations. So... guild bank access times, guild store searches, loading up names on the trials leaderboard. That sort of thing. Not exactly the sort of thing that people complain about on a regular basis. And I suppose if the server comes up after an extended maintenance during prime time, the crush of players all trying to log in at the same time could be lessened somewhat, but those are uncommon, isolated incidents.

Combat performance? No change. Lag? No change. Desyncs? No change. Responsiveness of abilities? No change. FPS? No change.

Just shorter load screens. How much shorter? Well, the problem here is that load screen time is a combination of both server-side and client-side performance. For example, when you reload your UI, that load screen time is 100% local: how fast is your computer, how many addons you have, how much data are those addons loading and processing, etc. And on the server side, not all of that is associated with database operations--some of it is spinning up a fresh new instance, for example. But I can tell you that right now, I get load screen times are almost always under 10s--often under 5s--when zoning between existing instances (i.e., not having to wait for an instance to be created), so that establishes some bounds on just how much database changes can do. We're talking something on the order of a few seconds at best.

And, returning to what I wrote earlier, my oldest characters do have longer load screen times than a fresh new character. But first, achievements are just a small portion of that (which ZOS themselves admit). Think about all the quest completion/progress information for the thousands of quests. Think about all the dialog choices. The lorebooks that have been read. The thousands of recipes and furnishing plans that could be learned. There's a lot there. And frankly, I imagine that for players who have invested that much time into a character, that they wouldn't mind a somewhat longer load time for that character, if it means that it preserves the history of that invested time. I certainly wouldn't mind.

Araneae6537

SilverBride wrote: »

"Lately, we have been working on ways to trim the data footprint while still recording all the monsters you slay, items you hoard and achievements you ding."

Reducing the number of "items you hoard" would make more sense and be a true QOL change rather than destroying how many play. The sticker book was a huge step in that direction but aren't there other things you can do to reduce this type of data?

Please put this on hold and look into other less drastic solutions. It doesn't make sense to cut off your leg because you have a stubbed toe.

Agreed, such as fewer types of cloth, leather, wood and metal and make the rank 10 materials be used to make ALL gear level 50 on and get rid of CP10-150 stuff (converting all currently existing to CP160).

I would also be in favor of making ALL furnishings that can be crafted or bought in the world unbound so that they don’t have to have separate entries and take up extra space in my inventory.

There are also a number of achievements that I would be fine with making AWA or eliminating entirely like killing so many of X in Y dungeon.

I only want my characters’ stories, choices, explorations to be kept separate, whether by achievement or quest journal or another system. I have always wished for MORE ways that differences in my characters and choices made with each would change the way they interact with the world, not fewer! 🥺

SirBedevere

Dojohoda wrote: »

I've been to the PTS and I have read the Q&A. I still want to know what is the benefit to the players?

It is undeniable that we are losing useful functionality with AWA and we are gaining an undetermined number of new bugs.

For the majority of players that have only one character: no benefit.

However, I can see some valid QoL, for certain subsets of players. I'd appreciate a couple of the following myself.

• For the majority of players that never pay attention to achievements or titles: maybe being able to unlock some houses or dyes a bit faster or purchase achievement furniture without relogging.
• For the minority of players that care about titles: either for RP purposes or strutting, it lets their alts wear some text over their head that another character earned.
• For achievement hunters: who see time spent on an alt as wasted because it doesn't progress achievements on their main, it gives them the freedom to switch alts more. (they'll still need to grind all those skyshards, lorebooks, mount training and skill lines again, though).

None of them are particularly worth removing parts of the base game and introducing a mountain of bugs to me, though.

Edit: I just realized, the house unlock thing and account wide titles thing don't even need any changes to achievements. House unlock requirements can be lowered or removed, and titles can be made account wide even if earned on a single character, same as dyes. It's mainly the last category of players that are getting anything they might consider worth the cost.

tmbrinks

code65536 wrote: »

[snip for length]

Combat performance? No change. Lag? No change. Desyncs? No change. Responsiveness of abilities? No change. FPS? No change.

Just shorter load screens. How much shorter? Well, the problem here is that load screen time is a combination of both server-side and client-side performance. For example, when you reload your UI, that load screen time is 100% local: how fast is your computer, how many addons you have, how much data are those addons loading and processing, etc. And on the server side, not all of that is associated with database operations--some of it is spinning up a fresh new instance, for example. But I can tell you that right now, I get load screen times are almost always under 10s--often under 5s--when zoning between existing instances (i.e., not having to wait for an instance to be created), so that establishes some bounds on just how much database changes can do. We're talking something on the order of a few seconds at best.

So, the person who I've met in this game that is by far and away the most knowledgeable person about software design I've met, and for certain has tons of experience in that realm, is saying that this will quite literally have no or very minimal effects on initial load screens. No change for performance/etc in Cyrodiil, Trials, etc..

So, the gameplay style for a sizable percentage of players is going to be destroyed.... for nothing

(edit for spelling)

Jaraal

We're not fighting, are we? At least not each other.

https://game-news24.com/2022/02/24/elder-scrolls-online-players-are-fighting-over-accounts-wide-achievements/

Jaraal

tmbrinks wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

[snip for length]

Combat performance? No change. Lag? No change. Desyncs? No change. Responsiveness of abilities? No change. FPS? No change.

Just shorter load screens. How much shorter? Well, the problem here is that load screen time is a combination of both server-side and client-side performance. For example, when you reload your UI, that load screen time is 100% local: how fast is your computer, how many addons you have, how much data are those addons loading and processing, etc. And on the server side, not all of that is associated with database operations--some of it is spinning up a fresh new instance, for example. But I can tell you that right now, I get load screen times are almost always under 10s--often under 5s--when zoning between existing instances (i.e., not having to wait for an instance to be created), so that establishes some bounds on just how much database changes can do. We're talking something on the order of a few seconds at best.

So, the person who I've met in this game that is by far and away the most knowledgeable person about software design I've met, and for certain has tons of experience in that realm, is saying that this will quite literally have no or very minimal effects on initial load screens. No change for performance/etc in Cryodiil, Trials, etc..

So, the gameplay style for a sizable percentage of players is going to be destroyed.... for nothing

Well, Cyrodiil will still be tracking individual character ranks, so I don't think AWA has any effect there, anyway. But at least fake titles will be added for extra confusion!

SirBedevere

code65536 wrote: »

Think about it: With or without AWA, there will be a local copy of the player's achievements that the instance will load in. The only difference is whether that data is copied from the accounts database or from the characters database. Once you're in the instance--let's say a dungeon or Cyrodiil--you're not accessing the database to update your "Kill 500 Evil Doodads in Veteran Someplace" achievement (or Nightblade Slayer achievement, if you're hunting those pesky things in Cyrodiil) every single time you score a kill, so any improvements to the database performance won't affect that. I.e., there's ZERO impact on active gameplay. The only potential difference is when that data is synced back to the database or when that data is loaded from the database. I.e., load screens.

Seems like even more of a reason to focus on architecture, not removing data. Not all instances need all achievements. Figure out how to make separate smaller databases that only hold achievements that are relevant to a particular type of instance.

For instance (see what I did there?), most PvP achievements aren't needed in PvE zones 99% of the time, unless a duel is going. Maybe exclude those until a duel starts, and then load them while the countdown is going.

Bangkorai achievements aren't needed at all in Glenumbra. EP Alliance achievements aren't needed at all in Blackwood, etc, etc. 90% of the achievements in the game aren't needed in a trial instance.

In fact, the vast majority of achievements would be read-only on most instances, and could probably even wait to be loaded just-in-time based on some user action, like opening the achievements screen. Make the summary and current zone achievements be the only things pre-loaded when the achievements screen opens, and then make the user wait like for a web page for the rest to load.

That would pretty much solve any problems with everyone loading all of their achievements at the same time on launch day, right?

Oliviander

Jaraal wrote: »

We're not fighting, are we? At least not each other.

https://game-news24.com/2022/02/24/elder-scrolls-online-players-are-fighting-over-accounts-wide-achievements/

Oh no - this aricle is competely missing the point:

Nearly nobody is actually against AWA
It is foremost the removal of individual character history that disturbs us all.

iRaivyne

I am so, so, SO disappointed that there will no longer be any way to show that you've earned skill-based PvP achievements (like the Merciless title) on the character you're displaying it on. Now everyone can just make a sorc, snipe someone else's kills, and have a shiny Merciless title for their level 3 character, who can't even queue for a BG.

All my characters are now Bloodletters... completely diminishing the accomplishment of killing 1000 different people in BGs before hitting level 50. Heck, you won't even be able to know that you've done it anymore let alone anyone else knowing.

This is so not cool. There have got to be better ways to improve performance than robbing individual character accomplishments. Other games have done it.

alberichtano

If I may quote myself from another thread:

Imagine if you will the first time you play an RPG. Let's say it is TES 5, Skyrim. You make your character, not sure about what are good choices or bad, and play as well as you can, learning as you go along. You do all the quests, start to hear NPCs react to your choices and deeds, and wonder if you are truly a dragonborn. It is fun, rewarding and all around great.

Now, some time has passed and you want to relive this experience. So you start the game up, make a new character, and head out to redo it all.

But to your dismay, all the locations are already marked as found and completed. You can't even reach the first settlement before they start calling you dragonborn, or praise or curse you for choices you haven't even made yet. When you get to the first major city (I think it was called Whiterun?) it is not the original leader sitting there, but the one that your former character chose in his stead, a representative of the stormcloaks or the imperials. Or maybe both sit on the same throne, oddly enough. You cannot see which delves you have actually done yourself, as they are all marked as done, and some quests you can't redo because you having done them with your first character locks them out for the second one, and all following characters. It is as if all is finished and done before you even started the game.

This is what I feel like, fear, that the future of ESO will be.

Please prove me wrong.

Edited because I cannot count.

Mix

While I agree with many of the feedback suggestions here (character specific data kept and so on) I think just ONE thing MUST be fixed before this goes Live:

Achievements must be unlinked from npc dialogue and quests.

The game must no longer "check" if a character has done an achievement, but rather if they have completed a quest (from a hidden database we don't see in-game) to see what npc dialogue choices are, to determine what we see in areas that change with quest progression and even to see if we are eligible for certain quests.

People are correct, for the current live version, that you can play the game and never open the achievements and everything is good. However, with this update that actually changes and achievements completed on another character DO impact your other characters and how they interact with the world/the world interacts with them. It is imperative that the game does NOT check achievements for anything except purchasing things that require achievements like furniture and houses.

Achievements must be unlinked from ALL npc dialogue choices and quests!

It seems to be that could be an enormous task. There is no way for testers to catch every single bug related to achievements being linked to quests and dialogue. ZOS it is perfectly acceptable to admit you bit off more than you can chew with this update and postpone the AwA until it is possible to go through and unlink everything. (and maybe consider some of the other feedback too!) You can have a patch between this update and the chapter. We won't mind. We prefer if you took your time to do it correctly. Otherwise, the day this launches you actually will break parts of the game for players who have never cared about achievements, which I think is completely unfair. A part of the game some players ignore will negatively impact their experience and that is just wrong.

(for the rest of us who love achievements you have this entire thread full of feedback and constructive criticism and suggestions)

RevJJ

I’ll have to put a reminder in my calendar to log onto all my alts one last time before this update goes live… and after that possibly never log on again at all unless they change the way this is implemented. Sad days.

DarcyMardin

Question — has anyone tested skill point acquisition from public dungeons? I forgot about checking this when the NA server characters were up for testing. Currently, the first time you complete the “group event” in a public dungeon, you get a skillpoint and an achievement. This is not linked to a quest. Unlike group dungeons, this skill point is independent of the public dungeon quest(s).

Given that there are more than 20 public dungeons in the game, this is a significant source of skill points for new alts.

But that skill point is tied to an achievement. If your character has done it once, they can never get that skill point again. Does the new system track this achievement globally or by individual character? I sincerely hope it’s not the case that if your main has done the public dungeon and completed the achievement, new alts after March 14 won’t be able to collect those 20 plus public dungeon skill points. And that would dramatically gimp new alts’ skill point collecting abilities.

SirBedevere

My last update on the Stros M'Kai achievement quest from:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7530648/#Comment_7530648

SirBedevere wrote: »

Abandoning the Tip of the Spearhead quest for Roger the Shrubba did not clear up the stuck quest state, unfortunately.

Both Jakarn and Neramo were still standing by Captain Kaleen in her hideout, and traveling to Saintsport did not make Crafty Lerisa respawn. Starting the quest again by talking to Lambur and then Captain Kaleen did not reveal the dialog options for recruiting Lerisa.

Unfortunately, this character looks permanently locked out of the Crafty Lerisa quest no matter what workarounds I try.