Hot Take: AWA is good

Daggerfell0929

For a completionist that is. I dont want to have to farm out 60,000 achievement points on 6 different characters.

Also I dont understand the "roleplay" perspective of MMOs. Like there are so many game systems that are lore unfriendly such as respawning, or being able to teleport everywhere, or stabbing a boss a thousand times before it dies. When it comes to MMOs sometimes you have to sacrifice roleplay for practical progression systems.

Keep in mind ESO is a MMO first and a Elder Scrolls game second

Amottica

I like AWA as well. To me it made no sense to have to do everything over again on each character. Granted, some people like that and we all have different interests.

Elsonso

There is hardly a day that goes by where I don't curse AWA. It's nice that people don't have to repeat Achievements on every character, and for some of those Achievements, I agree... but now no one can. There are unmarked quests and events that are fun to do, even without the Achievement reward, that they decided to implement as achievements, and of course, these are all one and done. Sort of like a book or movie that is always around, but can only be experienced once in a lifetime

jle30303

My view has always been: MOST achievements are good, SOME are bad.

Like:

Zone completion of World Bosses, Delves, Incursions (Dolmens, Harrowstorms, Abyssal Geysers, Volcanic Vents) = bad. This should have been divorced from the Achievement system.

Quest completion is already divorced from the Achievement system. You get the Achievements once per all account, but the quest lines per character. Completing quests is how you gain skill points: if you don't do it, your character does not have as many skill points as others.

It's like Steam Achievements in Skyrim: you can get all the Achievements on one character, or across more than one, and you still have the Achievement points, either way, BUT, you have to actually still do the questline, gain the levels, discover and complete the areas separately per character.

valenwood_vegan

I like AwA from an achievement-collecting standpoint. I hate AwA from a loss-of-character-tracking standpoint. We could have had (and still could get) both things.

And like, the character-tracking issue doesn't always involve roleplay. For me at least, the game had more replayability when I could start a new alt and play through the game in a fresh way, achieving old things with a new playstyle. Now I have 18 characters who are all a mishmash of each other's achievements. I don't know anymore which ones have done a certain dungeon on vet / accomplished achievements in them, etc.

It's killed a lot of my interest in going for content on alts that I've completed once already, and this seems like a negative thing because it reduces long-term involvement (and my interest between new content drops).

I do see the positives of AwA and I just wish they would *finish* what they started, and give us some kind of character tracking... like a quest journal; an easy to view list of what dungeons and what dungeon achievs (trials too) each character has; the map and zone guides properly displaying what each character has done. Stuff like that. Doesn't have to mean going back to individual tracking of every achievement for every character - but like the game still has to keep track of what quests a particular character has completed, for example... we could AT LEAST be given access to this information that's already being stored, in some rudimentary way.

disintegr8

As someone who never cared much about achievement points, I don't see the benefit of AWA. If anything, things like horse riding, trait research, motif/recipe/blueprint learning, boring skill lines like Psijic and Scrying being included would have been better.

Before I'm called lazy, I can tell you I've done the grind, 18 max level characters, all level 50 crafters in all crafts, all maxed out horse training (one day at a time), and all at least 8 traits researched in all skill lines, including jewelry (excluding nirnhoned).

If anything, AWA makes it harder for me to identify some things a character might be missing. Take delve skyshards for example, once the delve is discovered, it shows up as completed, even though that character has never been in it. Hovering over it will tell me if the skyshard has been obtained, but I'd rather it shows up as incomplete on that character.

With years of playing, with Cadwels Silver and Gold completed before 'One Tamriel' came along, I know I've completed everything on at least 1 character, I just need to know if I've done it on that character.

AcadianPaladin

I like AWA. My 'characters' are all the same elf. They have the same name (as much as the game allows), same race and look identical. Literally, the only difference among them is their class and whether they are 64 mag or stam. My elf's approach to playing is to wake up and select which class to play as casually as she chooses her outfit or hairstyle for the day. So AWA is a good feature for our approach to ESO. As has been mentioned, implementation could have been better regarding WB, skyshard map depiction etc.

Regarding roleplay, my approach is that the relevant laws of physics are those of Nirn - not some planet called Earth. On Nirn, one can cast firebolts and heal with a spell. So summoning/unsummoning mounts, resurrecting the fallen, teleporting all fit just fine.

As far as this statement: 'Keep in mind ESO is a MMO first and a Elder Scrolls game second.', I respectfully disagree. Such has never been stated by the devs; in fact they go out of their way to avoid putting this game in a box. If asked if ESO is an MMO, RPG or Elder Scrolls game, I'm pretty sure their answer is 'Yes, all of the above.'

SeaGtGruff

I'm mostly impartial to achievements, be they character-specific or account-wide, but on the whole I think I prefer them to be character-specific. The system that ESO converted to is neither one nor the other, but a combination of the two, since certain achievements remain character-specific while the rest are now account-wide.

The end result is like the best of both worlds, although it's debatable whether some achievements that are now account-wide should have stayed character-specific, and whether some that stayed character-specific could have been made account-wide.

RevJJ

Concept: good.

Implementation: bad.

kargen27

Account wide achievement was the absolute worst thing for a completionist. With account wide achievements no character unless you have only one can complete an achievement let alone all of them. Okay maybe one character can complete some of the more simple achievements but overall achievements have been cheapened and watered down. There isn't the same sense of accomplishment.

dinokstrunz

I don't mind it but I would've liked a option to earn already collected achievements again on fresh characters.

Daggerfell0929

for tracking completiton the zone guide is pretty nifty and there is an addon called patricias dungeon progress or something like that that shows dungeon completion that is character specific.

FrancisCrawford

Multiple factors are driving me away from using most of my alts. In particular:

• AWA is one.
• Another is the proliferation of skill lines to grind on each character. It's pure goodness to have Keen Eye: Treasure Chest, but I'm never going to grind it anywhere close to 18 times. And I still only have 3 or so characters at the highest level of lock-bashing.
• The Armory system makes alts less important.

Jaraal

They deleted 8 years worth of individual character achievements and prevented them from earning their own achievements going forward because their system was incapable of storing the data and adding new content at the same time. Instead of expanding the infrastructure to accommodate the players, they cut the player experience instead.

Jestir

I still wish they would continue with what AwA started and continue to make more things account wide but a ton of things that should be account wide, like mount training, are in the crown store so I don't see them changing

aaisoaho

Thanks to account-wide achievements, I do not feel the pressure to do the progression trial runs on my main, but am more tempted to offer a roster of characters to the raid leader to choose from. My main is a stamina sorcerer, but I have a stamina necromancer I can turn into a magicka one or to wear EC/MK/Alkosh on it, and I have a magicka dragonknight with which I can wear the alkosh+zen setup if needed. The AWA moved my perspective from being character-centric to focus more on the content/achievement itself.

For me, AWA was a good thing. I no longer have an urge to do all the hard content with my sramina sorcerer, but am more willing to be flexible about the character I'm bringing to the hard content.

Destai

My only gripe is skyshard hints are broken on the new zones. Overall, I like AWA. I just wish other things like outfits and armory slots were account wide as well.

wolfie1.0.

Here is my take on account wide achievements.

Essentially, what it does is forces ZOS into a corner, and it's going to become a problem for them.

You see there will come a point were players will get bored after they realize that there are no more achievements to be had and they will need to wait a year for more content.

Questing in eso is linear, there are very little diverging paths and ZOS has eliminated the majority of them. So really questing more than once on an account is a boredom activity.

Daily repetitive quests are an attempt at boredom reduction, but in many instances its something to do while you are trying to get something better organized or doing.

At some point players will reach a situation where they will either get all of the achievements, or realize that they have gotten all of the ones that they will be getting.

What do players do after that?

tmbrinks

I play less.

I pay less.

Because of AwA.

Daggerfell0929

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Here is my take on account wide achievements.

Essentially, what it does is forces ZOS into a corner, and it's going to become a problem for them.

You see there will come a point were players will get bored after they realize that there are no more achievements to be had and they will need to wait a year for more content.

Questing in eso is linear, there are very little diverging paths and ZOS has eliminated the majority of them. So really questing more than once on an account is a boredom activity.

Daily repetitive quests are an attempt at boredom reduction, but in many instances its something to do while you are trying to get something better organized or doing.

At some point players will reach a situation where they will either get all of the achievements, or realize that they have gotten all of the ones that they will be getting.

What do players do after that?

Beat the game until the next content patch. It is that simple. But very few players will get to this point mind you. Because getting 100% of all achivements means all holiday limited time achives, all trifectas, getting rank 50 in pvp, playing a *** ton of BGs. I doubt there are more than 20 players on PC NA that have 100% all achives even with AWA

jcasini222ub17_ESO

There were plenty of PvP’ers who hoped our AP would be combined. Instead I can wear a GO title without the stars on a level 1 character.

Like it’s been said, good idea bad implementation. I shouldn’t even say bad, half-assed, bad would imply a full attempt being made.

spartaxoxo

I agree. I like AWA. I like not feeling like I need to take a particular character into vet content. Before I felt tied to my sorc, who I stopped liking, because she had the achievements. Since AWA, I do vet content on my Templar, who I prefer. And when Arcanist comes out, I may end up preferring the Arcanist and will do it on that character instead with no stress.

I also enjoy the lame monster trophy achievements being account wide as well. Those were such a pain before it.

Elsonso

Daggerfell0929 wrote: »

Beat the game until the next content patch. It is that simple. But very few players will get to this point mind you. Because getting 100% of all achivements means all holiday limited time achives, all trifectas, getting rank 50 in pvp, playing a *** ton of BGs. I doubt there are more than 20 players on PC NA that have 100% all achives even with AWA

Remember that there can be a difference between the number of Achievements that a game offers and the number of Achievements that a player wants to earn. When they hit the limit of what they want to earn, it does not matter if there are additional Achievements offered by the game, as those are not material to them continuing to play.

Carcamongus

Daggerfell0929 wrote: »

For a completionist that is. I dont want to have to farm out 60,000 achievement points on 6 different characters.

Also I dont understand the "roleplay" perspective of MMOs. Like there are so many game systems that are lore unfriendly such as respawning, or being able to teleport everywhere, or stabbing a boss a thousand times before it dies. When it comes to MMOs sometimes you have to sacrifice roleplay for practical progression systems.

Keep in mind ESO is a MMO first and a Elder Scrolls game second

I have two toons made for playing (as opposed to mules) and most of the times I use only one, so AwA's negative aspects barely affected me, if at all. Granted, I was indeed pursuing some achievements on my second toon, but I didn't really mind when that became no longer necessary. I think it's hilarious to be able to set a high AW rank as a lowly mule's title.

I don't see how teleporting is lore unfriendly, though anyone being able to do it could surely be considered lore stretching. Stabbing a boss a thousand times before it dies is certainly more plausible than killing Alduin with a single punch to the face. I do agree, though, that sometimes you need to sacrifice roleplay for gameplay reasons. However, I find the statement ESO is an MMO first and a TES game second to make little sense. I'd compare it to saying orange juice is juice first, orange second. ESO is a TES MMO, that's its most basic definition, so both aspects actually come first.

Elsonso

Carcamongus wrote: »

I find the statement ESO is an MMO first and a TES game second to make little sense. I'd compare it to saying orange juice is juice first, orange second. ESO is a TES MMO, that's its most basic definition, so both aspects actually come first.

ESO is a TES MMO RPG. All three aspects.

kringled_1

Daggerfell0929 wrote: »

for tracking completiton the zone guide is pretty nifty and there is an addon called patricias dungeon progress or something like that that shows dungeon completion that is character specific.

The zone guide is a nice tool, but it doesn't fix anything that Awa broke. In essence the zone guide integrates three things - map knowledge (have you discovered this on the map), quest tracked completion, and achievement tracked completion. The first two are maintained separately, per character, and work fine. Things that fall under quest tracked (most quest/side quest hubs, say) work fine. Delve and WB completion were only ever tracked by achievement. So the zone guide may be able to tell you that your brand new character hasnt killed a WB yet, because it hasnt discovered it on the map, but once it does? Marked as complete.

16BitForestCat

I adore AWA! I'd wanted it that way from the beginning of the game. What I don't love is how lazily ZOS implemented it. I'm hoping it'll be tweaked over time (but not holding my breath). I love AWA, but I can understand why people are upset over how it was put in the game. I suspect a large number of complaints about it wouldn't exist if ZOS hadn't been so sloppy with how they chose to program it in. No, ZOS, it makes zero sense that my alts who've never been to The Deadlands would suddenly have all the delves marked as completed they moment they discover said delves, just for starters.

SeaGtGruff

I don't play a game for the purpose of earning all of the "achievements" it has. There are plenty of games that don't even have any achievements at all, because they came out before achievements became a thing and before trying to check off every achievement on a list became a thing. People still played those games even though there were no achievements, didn't they?

If earning achievements is a large part of why you play ESO, such that once you've earned every available achievement you'll be able to say that you "beat the game" and are ready to move on to some other game that has a list of achievements, then that's great for you and I wish you well with it.

But I think you'll be missing out on a lot of fun if you never play games that have no list of achievements in them, or games that do but you've earned all of them.

Northwold

I think AWA made it more likely that people who previously looked at the idea of creating a new character and thought "no, there is no way I'm going through all that again" will now create new characters.

And honestly I imagine that is an awful lot more players than the players who were upset by it. You saw that a lot at the time it was introduced with players on this forum being quite negative while the response on fora with wider participation, notably both Steam and Reddit, was a combination of "why would you play with more than one character" and "why wasnt it like that already".

Kendaric

I hate AwA with a passion.

As someone who often plays non-standard characters like Ashlanders and Reachmen, I can no longer prevent certain achievements from showing up on those characters. And then there's the problem of delve boss spawn timers being tied to the achievement, which basically makes doing delves on alts annoying as hell.

FantasticFreddie

I wish they had done it better, and divided it up via character achievements and global achievements, and specifically, I wish all quest achievements were not account wide.

It's completely nuked the amount I play.