Zone Guide & Map Completion with Account Wide Achievements

Sylvermynx

I think Gina said "in an incremental update" - so probably another week or so.

Mandragora

Even if this change would mean that I'm not bound by achievements, what else should be the reason to play? I could complete different parts with different alts, but with autocompletion it would still be about completion, not about freedom. There are not many guilds I would like to complete with different alts - story and achievement progress was the main gameplay in ESO, so without achievements it is story only, which is not good for repeating anyway. So what was that person deciding this thinking?
Even in a singleplayer game a new character doesn't have everything completed even if all acheivements are completed with the first character.
This is so bad I lost all faith in ESO devs. I don't understand how you could destroy the game for so many players without any remorse or understanding how those players do feel. It feels like they did it to harm players.

silvereyes

SilverBride wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

FYI, the latest version of the Character Zone Tracker addon gets rid of the achievement tooltips from the zone guide / map completion tracker, along with several other bug fixes. Now the character's individual progress shows up on all zone guide and map completion tooltips.

I was telling my guild about this addon and some asked if it will still work for them if they didn't install it before update 33. I didn't think it would, but wasn't positive. Will it help if someone installs it now?

I'm afraid that the data about which character has cleared what has been lost to the Great Database Purge of Update 33. The addon will let them track new delve, world boss and world event progress going forward, however, and even choose to load account-wide progress to a particular zone for a particular character, or set and reset individual activities.

SilverBride

silvereyes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

FYI, the latest version of the Character Zone Tracker addon gets rid of the achievement tooltips from the zone guide / map completion tracker, along with several other bug fixes. Now the character's individual progress shows up on all zone guide and map completion tooltips.

I was telling my guild about this addon and some asked if it will still work for them if they didn't install it before update 33. I didn't think it would, but wasn't positive. Will it help if someone installs it now?

I'm afraid that the data about which character has cleared what has been lost to the Great Database Purge of Update 33. The addon will let them track new delve, world boss and world event progress going forward, however, and even choose to load account-wide progress to a particular zone for a particular character, or set and reset individual activities.

Thank you. I'll let them know.

alberichtano

KMarble wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't run into any NPC's with the dialog changes though. I forgot where they are.. Lol...
Just my 2 drakes....
Huzzah!

This was pointed out by someone (I'm terribly sorry, but I forgot the person's name) on the last few pages of the feedback thread in the PTS sub-forum.

This person mentioned that although they didn't hear any lines that addressed their char as the "hero/savior/what-have-you", they noticed that the world was much more quiet.

I noticed something similar when I logged in yesterday. None of my alts were hailed as the savior of Tamriel, but the chit-chat was almost all gone.

It felt to me (and I could be wrong) that most of the NPCs' chatter was muted. Even my first char, who has done pretty much everything in game, didn't hear much from NPCs.

Well of course not, the poor NPCs are all confused now as well. "Who did what you say?"

alberichtano

protofeckless wrote: »

Straw Poll: Has anyone experienced any performance improvements since this train wreck idea (AwA) went into production with zero regard to tester feedback?

To be fair though, they didn't say there would be any performance improvements immediately. They said there MIGHT be, later, down the line.

alberichtano

Longbow9 wrote: »

For the gamer who considers the questing a vital part of the game, having the quest related achievements pre assigned to an alt GREATLY diminishes the value of a DLC or Expansion. Where, before, I could count on multiple enjoyable runs through the story line, I now get one shot. Everything after that is anticlimactic.

It's hard for me to believe that the same developers that devised the achievements system in the first place could suddenly become so tone deaf and boneheaded regarding how they treat questing and achievements. They have to know that they are killing the game for a large number of their player base.

Having spent years in the corporate world, this has all the trappings of a decision made by the empty suits upstairs that have no understanding of the game but love to roll around in the cash it throws off.

Maybe a dent in the revenue stream brought on by half the player base being disenfranchised will get their attention. Let us hope so because this is the only thing they understand.

Nah. If it goes downhill they will only enforce more of the same, or just close down shop altogether.

And yes, I believe you are right. I am very cynical about big corporations, and I was one those that wasn't thrilled by the MS purchase.

alberichtano

Tandor wrote: »

I wish some people would stop hailing addons as the way to resolve these real issues. While I praise the authors for their efforts, addons are only applicable to barely a third of the playerbase, namely those PC users who like to use them and not console players or those PC players on Stadia or who for perfectly valid reasons prefer not to use addons.

It's down to ZOS to fix the broken mess arising from the way they implemented these changes, and if they can do that by applying the same approach adopted by addon authors but through the base game across all platforms then that's fine, but simply relying on modders' addons to fix it isn't a solution.

Indeed. Imagine the same for pretty much any other product. MS selling Office, only to be full of bugs - that they refuse to fix, and rely on Office-fans to fix for them with "addons". Imagine selling clothes that have (unplanned) holes in them, and you have to rely on your buddy to fix it for you. Or buying a car where the brakes are iffy, the backlights don't work and the side mirrors are missing - and you have to rely on your pal who loves working on cars to resolve this for you. It would be absolutely absurd! Most products have guarantees that they will work properly. Even within software programming.

averyfarmanb14_ESO

.

Sylvermynx wrote: »

I think Gina said "in an incremental update" - so probably another week or so.

That's good to see. Honestly, after a bit more playing, I'm frankly baffled as to how this could've gone so badly. Alts are a big deal in this game, and one of ESO's selling points is in its replayability. The UI inconsistency, missing information, and bugs make playing an alt right now, never mind multiple alts, a confusing and frustrating experience.

Sarannah

I doubt ZOS can fix the delves/world bosses/world events/locales always auto-completing, atleast in older content. Hopefully they will do this right in future content, and not tie all those things directly to achievements!

But thinking about the issue of the zone guide alone, I came up with a small fix that would atleast render the zone guide usable again: Do not show world bosses/delves/world events/striking locales complete in the zone guide until after they have been discovered. This should be possible, and fix half of the zone looking completed even for characters who have never been into that zone.

Mandragora

They have to separate it - achievements from zone progression, I doubt it is not possible. Also that alone should make their databases smaller - if that is what they proclaim as the reason why they did it.
But they had 3 weeks to fix it in any way and they didn't, knowing that once it will go alive it is over and they did it anyway.
Also it harms old players mainly with a lot of alts - new players are fine up to some point.

EDIT:
Maybe the zone completion could be in a form of zone quest, so the database would track only completion of a quest - would that be possible?
Mages guild account completion is bad aswell - if I create a mage, mages guild is one of the few gameplay ESO does offer, which I can roleplay. Now if it is completed what I will roleplay? (I didn't check this, but now I believe what I have heard from others).

joerginger

Mandragora wrote: »

They have to separate it - achievements from zone progression, I doubt it is not possible.

Achievements should be separated from everything, so character progression can be seen from a quest log and the state of map exploration.

deleted221106-002999

SilverBride wrote: »

I was telling my guild about this addon and some asked if it will still work for them if they didn't install it before update 33. I didn't think it would, but wasn't positive. Will it help if someone installs it now?

It has a 'reset zone' option button on the left hand zone/map guide which I assume zeroes all the achievements for that zone. I've not tested it but I'd think that would be an option for those unfortunate enough to be unaware of awa before the update and without the original saved data.

Not a perfect solution but it's more than is coming forth from the ingsoc ivory tower.

LoneStar2911

The achievements can stay account-wide. (“Server- wide” would be more appropriate.)
BUT…
They shouldn’t affect how the world works. They shouldn’t change how NPCs react to us, whether it’s ambient chatter or quest dialogue. They shouldn’t change map markers for all characters. They shouldn’t affect XP gained on alts.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but y’all get the point.

peacenote

VaranisArano wrote: »

I wasn't expecting that Account-wide Achievements would stop thanks to negative feedback from roleplayers.

WordsOfPower wrote: »

What this comment - and the sheer weight of salt coming from questers who want ZOS to restore things to how they were pre-patch - tells me, is that the biggest problem with the game is that the yawning chasm between casual and endgame is widening more and more.

I know that a lot of folks mean well, so no offense intended in any way, but it is hurting the narrative to put labels on the types of folks who are unhappy with this version of AwA.

While I quest, and I have alts, the majority of my time in ESO is end game. On Wednesday nights I'm in a prog trial group. I heal on my warden healer. We're on vKA hard modes. On Saturday mornings I'm in a dungeon group, we are going through DLC dungeons. I heal on my main, a templar healer.

I'm devastated with the losses to my play style and I wouldn't consider myself a role player or a casual. More than anything, I spend time in end game content. Specifically, I enjoy making new characters of different classes and re-playing end game content. One of my most favorite mods was this one: https://esoui.com/downloads/info1552-DungeonTracker.html#info.

• I can no longer track in game which dungeons I have completed no deaths, hard modes, etc. per character/setup.
• I can no longer look back, enjoy, and remember "oh this is when I was leveling my sorc and ha! that's when we got no death when we were trying the all-sorc group combo." Those records have all been overwritten and I can only know when I've done something once.
• The fun of logging in, seeing what the daily pledges are, and choosing to play with a specific alt that didn't yet complete it is also done, at least in an easy and quick way.
• I enjoy the game pop-ups. I enjoy them when I learn a sticker book piece, and I enjoy them when I do something in game that's tied to an achievement. I enjoy them when I discover something on the map. I now no longer get that confirmation in game if I do an achievement again on another character. I no longer get to be surprised when I accomplish something unexpected that I haven't done in game since 2015. The game is just getting smaller and smaller and smaller for those "yay!" moments which were fun for me.

What I like most about the game is challenging myself with a new role/class/character and taking it into end game content and trying to get the harder achievements on them. I never cared about displaying the titles or the skins, and would have been fine with account wide titles, but I liked the records and the game acknowledgement when I completed something.

My point is, this isn't affecting JUST role players or JUST casuals or JUST end game players. It is affecting anyone who used achievements as a guidepost and memory for re-playing content and character progression. For some folks, it was story content. For some, it was end game content. The ONLY people this implementation caters to are folks who actively dislike the feeling that there is something out there that they might "have" to do again, by way of it being available and not completed on another character. I gotta tell you, the more I play after this patch, the more I desperately wish this had been done with a toggled view to help those folks out. Because it is taking a lot of the fun out of re-playing end game content, for me.

ArchangelIsraphel

@peacenote Another well written post, well said. Labels are definitely not helpful because the crossover between playstyles can vary so drastically from player to player.

For example, although the way I play and think of my characters might fall into the "roleplay" category for many who look at it on the surface, I am also steadily heading towards the endgame along with a dedicated group of players as a part of our rp.

We're doing things no differently from other groups- gearing up, practicing parses, learning how to reach the goals we seek. Just that we have the overlay of our characters stories on top of it, because part of the gearing and gaining skill and knowledge plays into who our characters are-seasoned warriors. We're very determined to learn the skills that back up the story, and it makes trials a lot of fun to have real challenges to face that aren't just words.

We worked very closely, out of character, with non-rp friends to understand mechanics and to train ourselves to head towards those challenges.

So this update not only interferes with the more relaxed ways I play, it's definitely robbing me and others from the opportunity to document succeeding at these goals on different characters with different classes. Even though I'll be documenting it on my own, some of the joy is gone when I can't open my characters journal, see THAT CHARACTERS day of completion, and smile at the memory.

Elvenheart

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

kind of curious as to why this information was not included in the Q & A post. Also why the decision to exclude enchanting achievements from AwA.

I am also curious as to why this feature couldn't have been delayed an update or two. to you know, work out these bugs. That was also missing from the Q & A.

What was given to us in the Q & A was the assurance that a reduction in the Database size would improve login times, load screens and more.

Since the update i have had the following happen:

5x = infinite 1 second login queue
7x = ESO stopped working and what were you doing crashes
10x = infinite loading screens
5x = "Unable to connect to server please ensure you have a valid internet connection" when loading characters
6x = 45 minute+ queue attempts with groupfinder the record for me is 2 hours and 30 minutes then ESO crashed.
2x = When groupfinder worked 1 or more members of thje group were spawned in a seperate dungeon instance in the game

…and a partridge in a pear tree? 🙂

WiseSky

Treating my Level 2 new Character as the Savior of Nirn By NPCs Removes the RPG from MMORPG

SilverBride

I have only completed a couple of zones on my newest character but had 4 prologue quests just appear in my quest log. These quests are taking me all over the place and don't make sense for this character.

FlopsyPrince

tmbrinks wrote: »

FluffyReachWitch wrote: »

I liked Account Wide Achievements and titles in concept, but since I don’t follow the PTS that closely, this caught me off guard. Without character achievements, I expected to keep relying on the map and add-ons to track individual character progress.

Today I loaded a relatively new Warden and made my way to Ondil. Upon discovery, it was marked as cleared despite that character never setting foot inside. I defeated the boss and my only reward was the standard delve boss loot. There was no delve clear notification, no completion experience as far as I could tell, and no change to the map icon since it was “clear” already. No reason to be there except the skyshard.

I was hoping that this was just an unexpected bug from pushing the new system to live. I recall a mention of museum completion being decoupled from achievements to preserve that aspect of rolling a new character, so why not the map?

Hundreds of players let ZoS know this was the case from testing on the PTS. They didn't listen and forged ahead. Why? Only they know. But they don't really let us know anything.

Any company that continually ignores customer feedback is almost certain to face really tough times in the future.

shadyjane62

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

FluffyReachWitch wrote: »

I liked Account Wide Achievements and titles in concept, but since I don’t follow the PTS that closely, this caught me off guard. Without character achievements, I expected to keep relying on the map and add-ons to track individual character progress.

Today I loaded a relatively new Warden and made my way to Ondil. Upon discovery, it was marked as cleared despite that character never setting foot inside. I defeated the boss and my only reward was the standard delve boss loot. There was no delve clear notification, no completion experience as far as I could tell, and no change to the map icon since it was “clear” already. No reason to be there except the skyshard.

I was hoping that this was just an unexpected bug from pushing the new system to live. I recall a mention of museum completion being decoupled from achievements to preserve that aspect of rolling a new character, so why not the map?

Hundreds of players let ZoS know this was the case from testing on the PTS. They didn't listen and forged ahead. Why? Only they know. But they don't really let us know anything.

Any company that continually ignores customer feedback is almost certain to face really tough times in the future.

Well in the near future they are not getting any more of my money. Was just in Ilessan tower in Glenumbra, a delve I have done and completed many times over. My new alt had to wait for someone else to come before the boss appeared. She was always just there before..

JoeCapricorn

Delves, striking locales, world events and world bosses should be tracked per character, not through achievements.

Quest specific dialogue should always be tracked per character, depending on what they have actually done, not through achievements.

That you failed to decouple achievements with critical character development is something I feel is a catastrophic error.

You would be best reverting the AWA until such decoupling and proper testing is done.

94 pages isn't wrong.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't run into any NPC's with the dialog changes though. I forgot where they are.. Lol...

There are loads of them but for a quick litmus test:

• Tarnamir in Russafeld, Summerset (notices if you’re in the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood)
• Mel Adrys In Hrota Cave, Gold Coast (notices if you’re a vampire and if you completed certain parts of the AD main quest)
• Niralin in Archon’s Grove, Summerset (notices if you’re a werewolf)
• Gabrielle Benele in Anvil, Gold Coast and Solitude, Western Skyrim (comments on a lost party member from the vanilla main quest)
• Choixth in the wilderness of Murkmire (notices if you’re Dark Brotherhood and if you met her previously in Summerset)
• Zhasim in Southern Elsweyr (comments if you met him in Wrothgar)
• Valsirenn in the Deadlands (comments if you met her in Summerset)

…most of the reoccurring characters will have some optional dialogue about previous encounters. I don’t think it goes retroactive to previous DLC though, so Raz in Summerset might remember you from the AD vanilla quest if you did that first, but not the other way around.

sarahthes

I am still getting XP for discovering striking locales on a newer character. I have 100% cleared the base game zones on my main so the achievement is already completed, but the map isn't completing until I get there.

Mandragora

So I checked guilds and it seems like mages guilds progress isn't broken - I have still the same ranks and undiscovered books, only dailies, if players did them during map completion, are pointless now in that sense for fighters guild mainly.

I wonder who would want to have bosses/delves/dolmens completed on the map? Maybe the bosses. You want to have hard staff or annoying staff completed account wide, but delves, where are quests anyway and you have to go there anyway? I had bigger problem with the lack of RP guide for different quests, feeling forced to do them all with any alt than completing those side activities, which served as distraction from quests, for the first time with alts.
What is the point? There is no RP activities in ESO anyway, you are forced to do just the quests over and over.

They left discovery there, so it is possible to separate it on the map if they would want?

I don't understand what is going on in Zenimax, because is just another bad staff where they show how much they don't care and they just waste players time and money.

Kesstryl

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't run into any NPC's with the dialog changes though. I forgot where they are.. Lol...

There are loads of them but for a quick litmus test:

• Tarnamir in Russafeld, Summerset (notices if you’re in the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood)
• Mel Adrys In Hrota Cave, Gold Coast (notices if you’re a vampire and if you completed certain parts of the AD main quest)
• Niralin in Archon’s Grove, Summerset (notices if you’re a werewolf)
• Gabrielle Benele in Anvil, Gold Coast and Solitude, Western Skyrim (comments on a lost party member from the vanilla main quest)
• Choixth in the wilderness of Murkmire (notices if you’re Dark Brotherhood and if you met her previously in Summerset)
• Zhasim in Southern Elsweyr (comments if you met him in Wrothgar)
• Valsirenn in the Deadlands (comments if you met her in Summerset)

…most of the reoccurring characters will have some optional dialogue about previous encounters. I don’t think it goes retroactive to previous DLC though, so Raz in Summerset might remember you from the AD vanilla quest if you did that first, but not the other way around.

@ZOS_GinaBruno This might be a good list to start with to bring to the Devs so they can decouple these NPCs from the achievements that trigger them and move them to whether or not an alt character completed the quest arc to trigger their reactions/dialogue. This is very important to a lot of us as game immersion and integrity is a lot more important than ZOS bosses think to players.

Zyva

@peacenote Dungeon Tracker was one of my favorite add-ons as well, I loved going through and getting different achievements in different dungeons with different groups of friends. Then being able to look back and see and remember at what time or with who I got things. It was also nice to just see that long line of checkmarks growing on different alts.

Having all that erased is just super sad.

I also had specifically re-created a templar character from scratch and was in the process of playing through the entire game with my best friend, doing every side quest, collecting every book, etc, talking about the lore, and screenshotting different achievements as milestones as we went. It feels almost like we cant continue that now, at least not no where near the same enjoyment level. that "getting things with just each other" feeling is gone.

I dont know what box/label i fit in, I loved doing trial trifectas on alts, doing dungeons on alts, and then just roleplaying the game on alts in a different way. It was about the achievements for me, and seeing that progress on my different characters as I went in a tangible way. Half of what I like is basically over unless I track it by separate spreadsheet.

_Zathras_

Zyva wrote: »

It feels almost like we cant continue that now, at least not no where near the same enjoyment level. that "getting things with just each other" feeling is gone.

It killed that experience for me as well. That style of gameplay is literally the only reason why I played. 8 years of fun, tubed in one update.

Adventurer

Kesstryl wrote: »

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

I didn't run into any NPC's with the dialog changes though. I forgot where they are.. Lol...

There are loads of them but for a quick litmus test:

• Tarnamir in Russafeld, Summerset (notices if you’re in the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood)
• Mel Adrys In Hrota Cave, Gold Coast (notices if you’re a vampire and if you completed certain parts of the AD main quest)
• Niralin in Archon’s Grove, Summerset (notices if you’re a werewolf)
• Gabrielle Benele in Anvil, Gold Coast and Solitude, Western Skyrim (comments on a lost party member from the vanilla main quest)
• Choixth in the wilderness of Murkmire (notices if you’re Dark Brotherhood and if you met her previously in Summerset)
• Zhasim in Southern Elsweyr (comments if you met him in Wrothgar)
• Valsirenn in the Deadlands (comments if you met her in Summerset)

…most of the reoccurring characters will have some optional dialogue about previous encounters. I don’t think it goes retroactive to previous DLC though, so Raz in Summerset might remember you from the AD vanilla quest if you did that first, but not the other way around.

@ZOS_GinaBruno This might be a good list to start with to bring to the Devs so they can decouple these NPCs from the achievements that trigger them and move them to whether or not an alt character completed the quest arc to trigger their reactions/dialogue. This is very important to a lot of us as game immersion and integrity is a lot more important than ZOS bosses think to players.

Also let me add to that Razum Dar who recognizes you in Summerset, if you've met him previously. And apparently you can only do the Admirer in Blackwood + Melina Cassel's once per account now. Also Count Ravenwatch, apparently you can do his epilogue only once now, since it's tied to the achievements. Also he recognizes whether you met him in the base game before or not in the DLCs.

Adventurer

silvereyes wrote: »

I'm afraid that the data about which character has cleared what has been lost to the Great Database Purge of Update 33. The addon will let them track new delve, world boss and world event progress going forward, however, and even choose to load account-wide progress to a particular zone for a particular character, or set and reset individual activities.

Actually I read somewhere that apparently they have a backup in case a "critical error" happens, so maybe if there's enough traction, we could manage to make them either fix some of the issues, like dialgoue/quests, or make them revert the patch. Maybe if enough streamers talked about it, it could help.