This would be true IF ZoS had individual character tracking for completed quests and zone guides. Unfortunately, in ESO character tracking and achievements have always been one and the same. By adding “player” achievements, ZoS took away character tracking. Both could have been implemented (and in fact were for a long time due to addons) but ZoS chose the least elegant and sloppiest way forward.vindex9ona wrote: »For every player that feels this way, there is one that feels happy about not having the game suddenly "forget" all I've done in it since 2014 every time I log on a different character (playing TES games since Arena and its 19 floppy disks here). The world is in balance and ZOS cannot make everybody happy at the same time.
I really suggest you to see them as "player achievements" since in the end that's what they are. You have completed those things as a player, the character you were controlling is only the medium through which you did it.
You, as the player, completed those 30 unique quests in Skyrim in 2020, and this is what the game is reflecting now. You can still re-do them all with your new character, the re-playability is still there if that's what you like to do in the game, but you've already accomplished it back then, that's all the achievement says.
It's interesting... people are always complaining, "Fix your servers... improve performance" and when they finally start trying to do just that... "oh wait, achievements are more important than performance". If servers have 'billions' of achievements to store and constantly access... I can understand how this is a HUGE drain on performance and server processes. So I applaud ZOS for trying to do whatever they can to improve performance- not only for 'today' but also so they can continue to add more content and whatever comes along with it.
As for zone guides, skyshards, etc... I'm sure, eventually, these things will be resolved as I'm sure there are another way of keeping track of these other than through achievements. Achievements are probably the EASIEST way of tracking, but I'm betting there are other ways that just need to be implemented by addon authors.
It's interesting... people are always complaining, "Fix your servers... improve performance" and when they finally start trying to do just that... "oh wait, achievements are more important than performance". If servers have 'billions' of achievements to store and constantly access... I can understand how this is a HUGE drain on performance and server processes. So I applaud ZOS for trying to do whatever they can to improve performance- not only for 'today' but also so they can continue to add more content and whatever comes along with it.
As for zone guides, skyshards, etc... I'm sure, eventually, these things will be resolved as I'm sure there are another way of keeping track of these other than through achievements. Achievements are probably the EASIEST way of tracking, but I'm betting there are other ways that just need to be implemented by addon authors.
It's interesting... people are always complaining, "Fix your servers... improve performance" and when they finally start trying to do just that... "oh wait, achievements are more important than performance". If servers have 'billions' of achievements to store and constantly access... I can understand how this is a HUGE drain on performance and server processes. So I applaud ZOS for trying to do whatever they can to improve performance- not only for 'today' but also so they can continue to add more content and whatever comes along with it.
As for zone guides, skyshards, etc... I'm sure, eventually, these things will be resolved as I'm sure there are another way of keeping track of these other than through achievements. Achievements are probably the EASIEST way of tracking, but I'm betting there are other ways that just need to be implemented by addon authors.
The only thing I don't like is that add ons aren't showing me the shards I still need on alts and bosses that I need to kill, other than that, not in the mood to do master angler on more toons lol.
I don't understand the point of the Account Wide Achievements. I always saw it as a way for us to know, easily, what we did or not in each character. Now it feels harder to track it. Or, I'm just not adapted yet. All my characters have the same achievement points... it's a huge, huge mess. It takes a lot of time to identify what we didn't complete in each character and when we complete it it doesn't even feel rewarding.
We need at least an addon to help us with this mess.
vindex9ona wrote: »For every player that feels this way, there is one that feels happy about not having the game suddenly "forget" all I've done in it since 2014 every time I log on a different character (playing TES games since Arena and its 19 floppy disks here). The world is in balance and ZOS cannot make everybody happy at the same time.
Unless you downloaded an add-on prior to U33 being installed, the tracking is gone. Your character achievements (save for the few that are still character bound) were overwritten by the collective total of your account.
Addons can't save it. Unless ZoS adds in new API functionality, and then they'd likely lose any of the performance gains (which I'm highly skeptical actually exist)
Sylvermynx wrote: »
All of my alts (60 total at this point) are their individual selves. Personally, I'm not fussed with the stuff about AWA. I know every one of my alts, I know what they have and haven't done, I know which skyshards they've all found, etc etc - because I have that kind of memory for detail.
Now, I DO have empathy for you and others like you. I've said so various times. I wish this balls-up stuff hadn't happened and that all of you were happy for a new chapter. But personally, it's not affecting me, so I'm not a particularly good "advocate".
I hope that things change somehow over time so that you will be in a happier place....
ZOS would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated player than me. In the game since its inception, I’ve been a consistent subscriber, promoted the game to friends, family, and utter strangers, salivated over new chapters and eagerly shelled out my money at the first opportunity to make those purchases.
Ok, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole. ZOS, I’m sure, would find thousands of players just like me who have been enchanted with the game since our first timid steps in Coldharbor back in the day (2014 for me). And what has kept me going these past 8 years of my life? There are really 2 essential elements for keeping me in this game for the longest period I’ve ever spent in any computer game, and believe me, at age 72, I’ve spent decades playing (anyone remember Dungeon Master on the Amiga?).
These 2 elements are: 1. The ability to play the game as if it were brand-new, with each new character I create, and 2.The ability for each new character to deepen my knowledge of ES lore through the brilliant readings and dialogues encountered in each zone of Tamriel. I've been smitten with ES since TES III Morrowind in 2002.
This recent update has basically removed the incentives I have for playing with its poor implementation of the Account Wide Achievements. Now, don’t get me wrong, the AWA could be useful and fun if it was limited to broad, general achievements like “Crime Pays” or “Give to the Poor” where characters do their part to contribute to the greater good of the account as a whole, but the essential guidepost type achievements (eg., Mages Guild and Fighter’s Guild Skill Master) are essential points of interest for guiding each character that you create. Finding that the Mages Guild Skill Master was completed by my Orc character, Mandanor, back in 2016 is basically meaningless to me today.
I understand the concerns about the performance hits that achievements take. I actually feel that I could have lived with the AWA if it had not affected the Zone Guides. The Zone Guides are truly the bedrock of character guidance in the replay value of the game. Unfortunately, the Zone Guides are connected to achievements, and now they share the same pitfalls of diminished replayability. Just logging in now, I discover that my newest character, barely created a month ago, has completed 30 unique quests in Western Skyrim (zone guide) back in 2020. He has never even entered Western Skyrim.
And they call this a Quality of Life Improvement? I think the allure is fading away. The bloom is off the rose.
Prior to this update, my lovely Orc, Mandanor, did not "forget" that he had achieved Mages Guild Skill Master. It was evident in his achievements. If I logged onto a different character, I would see that character's achievements, and not Mandanor's. I was a classroom teacher before I retired. If I gave "Johnny" a 100 on a spelling test, that score was not forgotten once I gave "Jane" an 85. It would be ludicrous to give "Johnny" a 100 on his test and have that show up as the score for all of my students! And that is exactly the scenario that is taking place in ESO with this update.
vindex9ona wrote: »
This is an online game. At some point the servers will be shut down forever and all characters and their achievements will be lost.
Our comments have nothing to do with cruelty or lack of empathy, but with an healthy relationship with life and the difference between a game and reality.
Switch point of view from character achievements to player achievements and the situation won’t look so bad anymore. In the end, once the game will shut down (no matter if it will be next week or in 10 more years), all that will be left will be your memories of a nice time playing it, and what you achieved in it as a player will only be your own personal thing, tracked nowhere.
All achievements are and have always been player ones fundamentally. Because you, the player, is the only thing real and the one that did all of it in game. And since it’s a game, you did it all for fun and that’s all that matters in the end.
For your own good, I hope you won't attach too many feelings to your characters, as it can never end well.
What I'm trying to say is that there is no "Johnny" and no "Jane" here as separate entities, I hope you realize that it's always you playing all those characters beyond a healthy level of immersion, and therefore all those "votes" regarding what you did and how well you did it can go to you as the player.
Well a bunch of us tried like hell to convince them this was a bad idea and why.
So what's going to have to happen now is we're all stuck with the consequences and ESO inacts another strange, really unpopular change, they've gotten away with it again and you know what... they're going to keep on doing it.
Though, those of you hurt by this have my sympathies, you really do. And so, with that said I probably shouldn't say what we suspect will be done by all those new resources opened up when they shelled out the souls of everyone's characters. They took all those hours you invested your heart and soul and money and traded it all for... a card game as I understand it.
I sleep very well at night btw cause I had nothing to do with this.