"Earned by" Tooltips on Account-Wide Achievements

silvereyes

Much has been discussed about the account-wide achievement system coming with Update 33, and I don't want to rehash those discussions all here. Rather, I'd like to see how people feel about a particular detail of how it has been implemented on PTS.

There is a new detail on achievement tooltips on PTS that adds the header "Earned by" and the name of the character that earned it.


THIS ONLY APPEARS ON TOOLTIPS IN THE PLAYER'S OWN ACHIEVEMENTS JOURNAL!
The tooltips for achievement links that others see do not show any sort of "Earned by".


To recap, for those that haven't read through 21 pages of comments (at the time of posting), the way the transition from character achievements to account-wide achievements works on PTS like this:

• As each character logs in, their achievement progress is merged into the total for the account, including incremental counts and objectives completed.
• If two characters had already completed the achievement individually in the past, the date and name of the one who did it first gets credit. This is accomplished by backdating the achievement completed date to the earlier of the two, and displaying the character's name who earned the achievement earlier on the tooltip under the heading "Earned by". The date of the character who earned it later is wiped out, and the fact that they earned it individually is lost to the player.
• For achievements that were not earned by any of your characters individually before the update, the first character to log in where merging their progress causes the achievement to be completed, the date is recorded as the completion date for the achievement, and the current character has their name added to the tooltip under the heading "Earned by". Any partial credit that other characters contributed towards earning the achievement is ignored, and data about their contributions is lost to the player.
• After an achievement is assigned a name and date, any partial progress from other characters you load is ignored, and their contribution is lost to the player.

So here are two examples to illustrate.

Example 1:

• Sarah had already earned the Godslayer achievement on April 20, 2020.
• Jijo had already earned the Godslayer achievement on April 21, 2020
• The player loads character Jijo
• The account-wide Godslayer achievement is recorded as earned on April 21, 2020 by Jijo
• The player loads character Sarah
• The account-wide Godslayer achievement date is overwritten as earned on April 20, 2020 by Sarah, since she earned it first.
• The information that Jijo earned the achievement is lost to the player.

No matter what order characters Sarah and Jijo log in, Sarah always gets the credit, because she earned it first.

This is what's called in computer science a deterministic behavior. Given the same set of data (the characters' past actions), the behavior always acts the same, no matter what time it is run in or what order it is run in.

Example 2:

Three different characters, Murders-all-Dragons, Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, and Sir Pvps a Lot all log in sequentially. All had some Dragonknight PvP kills, but none had enough individually for the Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement, which requires 100 kills.

Here's an illustration of what happens:


Expand for more details:

• The player loads Murders-All-Dragons, who has 80 DK kills
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement has its progress incremented to 80 / 100
• The player loads Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, who has 20 DK kills
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement has its progress incremented to 100 / 100
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement is recorded as earned on the current date by Just Here to Unlock Caltrops
• The information that Murders-All-Dragons contributed to the achievement is lost to the player.
• The player loads Sir Pvps a Lot, who has 99 DK kills
• Nothing happens. They get no credit for any achievements related to killing DKs.
• The information that Sir Pvps a Lot had more DK kills than any other characters is lost to the player.

In this example, the order the characters log in matters. If Sir Pvps a Lot had logged in second instead of Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, they would have gotten the Earned By credit instead.

This is what's called nondeterministic behavior. Given the same set of data, the behavior can change depending on what order it is run in.

How do people feel about the way this has been implemented?

My own opinion is that I don't like it. It shouldn't matter what order I log my characters in, the final result should always be the same. In-game, whenever you are going to make an irreversible choice, the option is highlighted in red so that the player understands that the importance. The character selection screen includes no such warnings, and even if it did, it would be nearly impossible to choose a login order that assigned credit correctly, since logging in aggregates all achievements at once.

Edit: Added note to clarify that this "Earned by" text does not appear on shared achievement link tooltips.

Edit 2: Added an illustration to Example 2 to make it easier to visualize.

Necrotech_Master

honestly i kind of feel the "earned by" is kind of unnecessary if the achievements are being moved to account wide

if they want to keep earned by, it should probably provide all characters who had the achievement completed prior to the account wide achievement change

i think the biggest issue with "earned by" is due to the partial progress characters, you would have to login toons in a specific order if you wanted 1 to attempt to have the earned by label on the achievement (again i dont personally see a point to this label whatsoever if im earning it for my account)

Chips_Ahoy

you want to join the trial?

link the achievement, ok all good, log in with that character and we'll let you in.

Amottica

Example two is more convoluted than I wish to deal.

Currently, it is simple. The character that earned it first is named on the achievement.

What would appease those who want to see character achievement is either listing every character that achieved it or having a toggle between the account and the active character. I prefer the latter.

silvereyes

Chips_Ahoy wrote: »

you want to join the trial?

link the achievement, ok all good, log in with that character and we'll let you in.

Yeah, I really wish at the least that for achievements like "completed trial" or "Godslayer" that don't have partial credit at all, the system would list all of the characters who earned it.

Agenericname

silvereyes wrote: »

Chips_Ahoy wrote: »

you want to join the trial?

link the achievement, ok all good, log in with that character and we'll let you in.

Yeah, I really wish at the least that for achievements like "completed trial" or "Godslayer" that don't have partial credit at all, the system would list all of the characters who earned it.

The way that Pithka's is now would be nice.

Drammanoth

I also believe this to be vital when achievements are to be account-wide.

Personally, I don't mind them BUT @ZOS do add the note WHO originally earned the achievement.

Paralyse

I think this is a positive change for a very contentious issue.

Trial & dungeon groups will always find ways to gatekeep (no judgment here, just noting that fact.)

They should just engineer in a version of the functionality already provided by Pithka's add-on.

Bragerth

silvereyes wrote: »

Much has been discussed about the account-wide achievement system coming with Update 33, and I don't want to rehash those discussions all here. Rather, I'd like to see how people feel about a particular detail of how it has been implemented on PTS.

There is a new detail on achievement tooltips on PTS that adds the header "Earned by" and the name of the character that earned it.


To recap, for those that haven't read through 21 pages of comments (at the time of posting), the way the transition from character achievements to account-wide achievements works on PTS like this:

• As each character logs in, their achievement progress is merged into the total for the account, including incremental counts and objectives completed.
• If two characters had already completed the achievement individually in the past, the date and name of the one who did it first gets credit. This is accomplished by backdating the achievement completed date to the earlier of the two, and displaying the character's name who earned the achievement earlier on the tooltip under the heading "Earned by". The date of the character who earned it later is wiped out, and the fact that they earned it individually is lost to the player.
• For achievements that were not earned by any of your characters individually before the update, the first character to log in where merging their progress causes the achievement to be completed, the date is recorded as the completion date for the achievement, and the current character has their name added to the tooltip under the heading "Earned by". Any partial credit that other characters contributed towards earning the achievement is ignored, and data about their contributions is lost to the player.
• After an achievement is assigned a name and date, any partial progress from other characters you load is ignored, and their contribution is lost to the player.

So here are two examples to illustrate.

Example 1:

• Sarah had already earned the Godslayer achievement on April 20, 2020.
• Jijo had already earned the Godslayer achievement on April 21, 2020
• The player loads character Jijo
• The account-wide Godslayer achievement is recorded as earned on April 21, 2020 by Jijo
• The player loads character Sarah
• The account-wide Godslayer achievement date is overwritten as earned on April 20, 2020 by Sarah, since she earned it first.
• The information that Jijo earned the achievement is lost to the player.

No matter what order characters Sarah and Jijo log in, Sarah always gets the credit, because she earned it first.

This is what's called in computer science a deterministic behavior. Given the same set of data (the characters' past actions), the behavior always acts the same, no matter what time it is run in or what order it is run in.

Example 2:

• Murders-All-Dragons had achieved Dragonknight Slayer on June 20, 2019.
• Just Here to Unlock Caltrops had achieved Dragonknight Slayer on April 1, 2019.
• Sir Pvps a Lot had achieved Dragonknight Slayer on November 15, 2019.
• The player loads Murders-All-Dragons, who has 80 DK kills
• The account-wide Dragonknight Slayer achievement is recorded as earned on June 20, 2019 by Murders-All-Dragons
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement has its progress incremented to 80 / 100
• The player loads Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, who has 20 DK kills
• The account-wide Dragonknight Slayer achievement date is overwritten as earned on April 1, 2019 by Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, since they earned it first.
• The information that Murders-All-Dragons earned the achievement is lost to the player.
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement has its progress incremented to 100 / 100
• The account-wide Grand Dragonknight Slayer achievement is recorded as earned on the current date by Just Here to Unlock Caltrops
• The information that Murders-All-Dragons contributed to the achievement is lost to the player.
• The player loads Sir Pvps a Lot, who has 99 DK kills
• Nothing happens. They get no credit for any achievements related to killing DKs.
• The information that Sir Pvps a Lot had more DK kills than any other characters is lost to the player.

In this example, the order the characters log in matters. If Sir Pvps a Lot had logged in second instead of Just Here to Unlock Caltrops, they would have gotten the Earned By credit instead.

This is what's called nondeterministic behavior. Given the same set of data, the behavior can change depending on what order it is run in.

How do people feel about the way this has been implemented?

My own opinion is that I don't like it. It shouldn't matter what order I log my characters in, the final result should always be the same. In-game, whenever you are going to make an irreversible choice, the option is highlighted in red so that the player understands that the importance. The character selection screen includes no such warnings, and even if it did, it would be nearly impossible to choose a login order that assigned credit correctly, since logging in aggregates all achievements at once.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
Can we try to find out if this earned by is only for test or is this how its going to be earned going forward.

silvereyes

Chips_Ahoy wrote: »

you want to join the trial?

link the achievement, ok all good, log in with that character and we'll let you in.

Actually, I just double checked, and the "Earned by" text doesn't seem to appear on any achievement link tooltips shared with other players. It only appears in one's own journal.

I've updated the OP accordingly to note this fact.

Bragerth

silvereyes wrote: »

Chips_Ahoy wrote: »

you want to join the trial?

link the achievement, ok all good, log in with that character and we'll let you in.

Actually, I just double checked, and the "Earned by" text doesn't seem to appear on any achievement link tooltips shared with other players. It only appears in one's own journal.

I've updated the OP accordingly to note this fact.

yeah i noticed that wish it didnt even really say it for myself its not really account wide if they include another of your characters earning it. to me account wide means everything is shared by the account itself not character.

Ilumia

I still wish there'd be two tabs for schievements - one character specific and one like the pts implemented account-wide. And every achievement should still pop up all fancy when a char earns it - otherwise where would I get my dopamine XD
Then questing and exploring for instance on new characters still makes sense. I'm really not keen on never earning achievements on a new character before it exceeds the cumulated progress of my account

silvereyes

Amottica wrote: »

Example two is more convoluted than I wish to deal.

That's part of the point of example 2, to illustrate that aggregated account-wide achievements make "Earned by" incredibly convoluted. Sometimes, none of the characters really earned it. The player did. But sometimes one character had an outsized contribution to the achievement, and yet they can end up with no credit at all while another character who contributed very little gets the credit.

Still, the bullet list was really hard to follow - too many steps - so I created a graphic to illustrate instead.

kargen27

So basically I won't be able to work for achievements on my main if another character reached that achievement. For achievements I've not yet finished all characters contribute meaning I can't earn those achievements on any character. Going for one achievement multiple times is gone.

So why have more than one character? Just open up all skills so a nightblade can use templar skills if they want and be done with it.

They are wrecking the way many of us play the game. Not wrecking it. Removing it. I see this as akin to just scrapping PvP, or removing trials.

AinSoph

Honestly surprised that this new achiev system even combines the progress in the 1st place, I thought it would just take the one closest to completion. The combining really only makes sense to me if it's a multi-layered achievement that requires other achievements but that's just my take.

silvereyes

AinSoph wrote: »

Honestly surprised that this new achiev system even combines the progress in the 1st place, I thought it would just take the one closest to completion. The combining really only makes sense to me if it's a multi-layered achievement that requires other achievements but that's just my take.

I never really asked for it personally, since I don't really hunt achievements, but I can see how those who do would like it. If your goal is to complete all the achievements, unlock all the achievement furniture, get access to all the dyes, etc., playing on a new character can feel like a waste of effort.

For others, like myself, achievements aren't something to be hunted, but more a way to track character progress and give frequent dopamine hits as we replay the adventure from a new perspective on a different character.

The challenge ZOS is facing is how to make the first group happy without killing the game for the second.

silvereyes

AinSoph wrote: »

I thought it would just take the one closest to completion.

I had that thought too, for the migration, but in order to do that, they would need all of the characters' information available at the time of migration. Given that they are running each character migration individually at login, I'm guessing that the game isn't really set up to run multiple-character data actions.

Once the character logs in, though, their pre-migration data is gone, and they can also start accumulating new account-wide progress before the next character logs in. I have a feeling that trying to migrate successive character achievements at that point would be even more of a nightmare than the current system.

NeeScrolls

silvereyes wrote: »

The challenge ZOS is facing is how to make the first group happy without killing the game for the second.

How 'bout they just keep it the way it is now?

Anyways, this seems to be like one of those patented 'Developers/Coders got bored and decided to change cheevos just for the sake of changing it" type situations.

Each ALT character should maintain it's own individual achievements imo.

Or....just create/code a brand NEW separate tab called 'Legacy Achievements' or whatever , utilizing this whole 'Earned By:' system from PTS.
.

Drammanoth

NeeScrolls wrote: »

just create/code a brand NEW separate tab called 'Legacy Achievements' or whatever , utilizing this whole 'Earned By:'.

Even better I'd say. It's just another tab, YES, but for the sake of record, I'd like to remember which of my chars achieved what.

Ishtarknows

This is horrible and exactly why, if achievements are going to be collated account wide titles must be character specific.

TwinLamps

Does this affect PvP achievements as well?
If this is not done for some database optimization purpose, I find it pretty stupid.
I know lot of people who grinded their sweet arses off to get some achievements on multiple characters.
As much as many would find this a great addition to the game, imagine the waste of time people had to get like 36 master anglers, 18 emperors, or whatever they went for.

silvereyes

TwinLamps wrote: »

Does this affect PvP achievements as well?

Yes. It affects nearly all achievements. Only a handful remain character bound, like public dungeon group events, rune knowledge, maelstrom arena clears.

silvereyes

Paralyse wrote: »

They should just engineer in a version of the functionality already provided by Pithka's add-on

Pithka's doesn't track aggregate achievements though.

That sort of tracking would definitely work for achievements that have only a single objective, with no sub-objectives or incremental counters, but how useful is it to see a list of every single character the player has for aggregate account-wide achievements like Greater Dungeon Healer?

I guess it's no less helpful than displaying one of the characters' names randomly depending on what order they log in as, but it doesn't seem to me to be much of an improvement, either.

Agenericname

silvereyes wrote: »

Paralyse wrote: »

They should just engineer in a version of the functionality already provided by Pithka's add-on

Pithka's doesn't track aggregate achievements though.

That sort of tracking would definitely work for achievements that have only a single objective, with no sub-objectives or incremental counters, but how useful is it to see a list of every single character the player has for aggregate account-wide achievements like Greater Dungeon Healer?

I guess it's no less helpful than displaying one of the characters' names randomly depending on what order they log in as, but it doesn't seem to me to be much of an improvement, either.

I think the reason why something like Pithka's would be preferable is that it displays whether or not an achievement is done on the account, then enumerates the characters that have or have not completed it. So a player could track which of their characters did complete an achievement.

True, it doesnt track aggregate achievements. Personally, Im not sure that I care as much about those as I would about an achievement that was more active than passive in nature. I think the ability to differentiate between their characters is what people are asking for, not necessarily a replica of that add on built into the new system.

Kesstryl

I'd rather have the ability to pick which char I want to display has having gotten that achievement if two or more got it, instead of having the system pick it for me. This is a huge mess for RPers and altoholics.

silvereyes

Kesstryl wrote: »

I'd rather have the ability to pick which char I want to display has having gotten that achievement if two or more got it, instead of having the system pick it for me. This is a huge mess for RPers and altoholics.

I'm planning to take some time over the next few weeks and complete any achievements that are close, so that the character I get them on is guaranteed to get credit.

katanagirl1

I haven’t got all the details yet, but I kinda like the idea because, for example, I have PvE toons and I have PvP toons. Getting the same achievements on both are not really viable in many cases.

N00BxV1

Yeah gonna be a little pissed if one of my "mule" characters gets the "earned by" credit for achievements that my "main" had actually been working on or completed first...

They should just make the achievements and titles Gilded for those that actually earned it. I don't really care for the "earned by" tag tbh.

silvereyes

N00BxV1 wrote: »

Yeah gonna be a little pissed if one of my "mule" characters gets the "earned by" credit for achievements that my "main" had actually been working on or completed first...

This isn't just theoretical. It happened to me on PTS without really trying. Safebox Cracker, Greater Dungeon Blocker, Hero of the Daggerfall Covenant, Indomitable Adventurer, and a whole ton of Slayer, Pathfinder and Grand Adventurer titles went to writ alts and other alts that I've played for a month or less over the last seven years.

I wouldn't say I was angry, more just annoyed. Every time I see those now, it's not going to remind me of how I accomplished something. It's just going to remind me of how poorly the migration to account-wide achievements went.

SammyKhajit

This is really confusing and a bit annoying. So it means Sammy has to ensure his Breton main (who has finished majority of the PVE quests etc and is mostly retired)) gets the remainder achievements that she is close to attaining.

tomofhyrule

I'm not a fan of the "Earned by:" thing on the new system. I think I get that the point was to throw some people a bone so we can keep some record of what characters have done, but... it really did fall flat.

I would think that for all of the 'collectable' achievements that they should just do away with it. If we're gonna consider something as a group effort, giving all of the credit to one person just seems wrong. I would like for character-specific achievements to list all of the characters that ended up getting it (and to have more character-specific achievements, but that's a topic for another thread), but the thought of a mule alt getting the overall credit since they found one (1) monster trophy is... not good.