DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

...But if ZOS can make achievements global to where I don’t have to grind something out I would love that!

I can see this for some things like "Kill a gazillion of this type of mob". It's losing the way to track our individual progress with bosses etc. that is the problem for many of us.

[Edited for clarity]

silvereyes wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

34 pages and growing and most are responding against this change. Defiantly not a "tiny bit of a fraction".

Seems like it is not very large, and that is why ZOS is fine with moving forward without comment.

ZOS has been fine with moving forward with a great many things their players have hated before. When creative vision and player feedback collide, creative vision almost always wins, even when it causes many to leave.

See also: the move to Chapters, Morrowind sustain changes, Crown Crates, PvP proc sets, BG queue changes, Bosmer passive changes, no arena weapon "perfected" upgrades, etc. etc.

Do you know what kept me playing the game after the Bosmer passive changes? The fact that I could start a new character who would become even better than a Bosmer at stealing, and do it "right"* this time.

Back then I knew I could have a new character** who would experience everything my (then) only character had, and at the same time, be allowed to make different choices. This realization moved me to create even more characters of different races and different classes to try as many different ways of playing through the stories as I could think of.

I began playing this game because of the stories. The racial passive changes didn't prevent me from doing stories. Sure, it made it harder for my wood elf to steal, but I adapted to that. Was I happy? No, but I still had the main reason that brought me to this game.

My Khajiit finally hit CP level last year. She was created the same year Summerset came out. She is still not as good a thief as my wood elf, and she hasn't gone through all the stories the game has to offer. With the AWA she will never get there.

So many of the lovely, silly little things that I experienced with my wood elf will be out of reach of my other 6 characters. It will make the game poorer. It will make the game more boring and (even) more formulaic.

AWA showcases, IMO, that ZOS prefer to cater to a type of player whose only interest is "end game" no matter how they get there (but, if possible, with the least amount of no effort).

I think the best players are those who learn all the strengths and weaknesses of the class(es) they play, and IMO the best way to do that is by playing the stories the game has to offer. This change won't prevent us from doing so, but it will be messy and will lack many of the details that made leveling up a new character not boring. (Plus, if they don't find and fix all the "bugs" being mentioned here and in the bug thread, it will also take longer)

*By this I mean the story order. I messed it up with my wood elf.
**As a matter of fact, I created a Khajiit NB before the passive changes were announced because I wanted to take advantage of the increased pick pocket change that Khajiits have and the invisibility NBs can use.

tmbrinks wrote: »

renne wrote: »

Balthors wrote: »

If the character logged don't have the achievement but others got it, just add a mention like "this characters don't earn it", or keep the text grey like now, but as I show before, with the list of other characters did. So you still can see and prove you already did the achievement.

Account Wide Achievements will be still available, and we don't lost what we did before, and still keep the pleasure to get achievements on other / new characters.

That really simple and everyone will be satisfied, no ?

No, they won't.

Because no thank you I would like to see the achievement lit up on my main even if it was done on another toon. I would like all toons to have equal chance of being my main without having to grind through everything I've already done on that main on another toon because it still says that I haven't done that content.

Have you been on the PTS to test it? If you "get" the item on another character to complete the collection it will forever say "Earned by: NOT MAIN CHARACTER" That sounds like the antithesis of what you're looking for.

I don't care who it was earned by. I just want to see it earned on my main.

renne wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

renne wrote: »

Balthors wrote: »

If the character logged don't have the achievement but others got it, just add a mention like "this characters don't earn it", or keep the text grey like now, but as I show before, with the list of other characters did. So you still can see and prove you already did the achievement.

Account Wide Achievements will be still available, and we don't lost what we did before, and still keep the pleasure to get achievements on other / new characters.

That really simple and everyone will be satisfied, no ?

No, they won't.

Because no thank you I would like to see the achievement lit up on my main even if it was done on another toon. I would like all toons to have equal chance of being my main without having to grind through everything I've already done on that main on another toon because it still says that I haven't done that content.

Have you been on the PTS to test it? If you "get" the item on another character to complete the collection it will forever say "Earned by: NOT MAIN CHARACTER" That sounds like the antithesis of what you're looking for.

I don't care who it was earned by. I just want to see it earned on my main.

So, you play as an account. So an account-wide overview would be perfect! That's what we're asking for as well. Show both the entire account's achievements as well as how our individuals are doing. Those who play the account can stay on the account-wide view. Those that play individuals can look at the individual characters. Everybody wins! Glad we're on the same page

I'm adding mine and my husband's voices to those who do not like this change at all. My husband would say so himself, but doesn't want to go through the nonsense required to get a forum account.

Like many others in this thread have already said, we don't see our alts as "twinks" or just another tool to explore the world. To us, each alt is an individual character. We LIKE replaying content and re-earning achievements on those character. Plus we use the list of achievements to see what all each character has left to do in each zone. For us, replaying content is like rereading a well loved book or re-watching a favorite movie. Account-wide achievements is going to take away our desire to play this game at all.

In fact, just knowing that this change is coming makes us not want to play now. A few days ago I started to work on an achievement that one of my characters had left to do in Vvardenfell, and I ended up thinking "What's the point? Each character's individual achievements will be gone soon anyway."

We have both decided that once this update goes live we will not be logging into our accounts anymore. We don't say this lightly. We have both put a lot into our characters and have enjoyed playing them. But we would rather never log in on them again then have all of their achievements smooshed together into one.

I'm sure it goes without saying that this means that we will not be spending money on our accounts ever again.

The entire reason I have played this game for as long as I have, I.e., daily since it started, is because I have always been able to create new characters, with new stories, personalities, and play styles. In real life, I’ve been a multi-published author for the past 40 years, so I create characters and build stories around them all the time. I love doing this — it’s my life and my passion. And I’ve done it since the beginning in ESO.

I think of each of my dozens of alts (I have 4 accounts) as separate individuals, on their own journeys, who have accomplished different achievements at different times. My altruistic healers are very different characters from my expert thieves, and even more different from my few vicious murderers. I hate the idea that their very different achievements will all be homogenized after all these years. Their individual histories wiped from their achievement pages.

It breaks my heart, honestly.

SilverBride wrote: »

@DarcyMardin summed it up perfectly. It is heartbreaking.

I honestly don't know how anyone could think this is a good idea. Why build this vast beautiful world then take away our ability to explore it? Why let us create unique characters that develop their own personalities then make them all just blend into one?

It's already a shame how some players skip everything and power level in huge mobs in Alik'r. I was in that zone earlier and someone was advertising to level players from level 3 to 50 in 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Is this really how you envisioned your game, ZoS? Because this change is a huge step in that direction.

For me it's the same thing, except that my characters' individuality is centered more around gameplay, specifically veteran achievements. When it comes MSQ and ZSQs, my wife and I always do them for the first time together, and we'll start a new zone on whatever character we feel like doing them on, and I myself pretty much only repeat them for skill points. But for dungeons and trials, achievements are the only way I can track which ones I've done on my dps, healer and tank, and one of my personal goals is to become proficient in veteran content in all roles in the classes I've chosen for them, namely nightblade, necromancer and warden.

Currently, I know that my nightblade hasn't set foot in veteran Blackheart, only because I looked through the achievement journal to see what he's missing, and today I plan on doing it and getting the hm and speedrun, and hopefully no death, to finish them. And honestly, I am actually kind sick of that dungeon and have no other reason to go there because the gear is bad, but I'll do it anyway because that's what "play the way you want" means to me, even though I've done it on both my healer and tank that are far behind him.

With the deletion of character achievements, I will basically have no motivation to this kind of thing. I know that I can solo it on vet quite easily with my nightblade (who proudly wears Spirit Slayer to prove it), but going forward once everything is merged, I see no reason to go back fill up on base game content when I'm already deep into progging harder stuff.

It may seem like this only affects me, but I actually like helping others learn the boss fights in pugs, and don't mind spending on hour on a dungeon to explain mechanics and tactics when someone is new to the content or vet in general, and wants to learn. In fact, this part of the reason I committed to playing all 3 roles in the first place, so that when I need to explain, I can do so from first hand experience and not just repeat what I read in a guide or strat I saw a badass tank pull off that is actually way harder than it looks.

DarcyMardin wrote: »

The entire reason I have played this game for as long as I have, I.e., daily since it started, is because I have always been able to create new characters, with new stories, personalities, and play styles. In real life, I’ve been a multi-published author for the past 40 years, so I create characters and build stories around them all the time. I love doing this — it’s my life and my passion. And I’ve done it since the beginning in ESO.

I think of each of my dozens of alts (I have 4 accounts) as separate individuals, on their own journeys, who have accomplished different achievements at different times. My altruistic healers are very different characters from my expert thieves, and even more different from my few vicious murderers. I hate the idea that their very different achievements will all be homogenized after all these years. Their individual histories wiped from their achievement pages.

It breaks my heart, honestly.

I'm an author too (only published once though ) and I completely get how you play because that's how I play too. My characters are part of a story, each one was a main through different parts of the game, and all of them together became parts of the larger ESO story. It's how I think and play in any RPG because it's a playful extension of my own story writing. I want to keep the character tracking with all the individual achievements as is, while also having an extra account wide achievements page for those who want it (I personally don't, but I'm ok with letting others play the way they want). They shouldn't take away something to give us something.

I'm still angry about losing the epilogue quest with Count Ravenwatch at the end of the Greymoor story arch on multiple characters, ZOS DON'T DO THIS!

DarcyMardin wrote: »

The entire reason I have played this game for as long as I have, I.e., daily since it started, is because I have always been able to create new characters, with new stories, personalities, and play styles. In real life, I’ve been a multi-published author for the past 40 years, so I create characters and build stories around them all the time. I love doing this — it’s my life and my passion. And I’ve done it since the beginning in ESO.

I think of each of my dozens of alts (I have 4 accounts) as separate individuals, on their own journeys, who have accomplished different achievements at different times. My altruistic healers are very different characters from my expert thieves, and even more different from my few vicious murderers. I hate the idea that their very different achievements will all be homogenized after all these years. Their individual histories wiped from their achievement pages.

It breaks my heart, honestly.

I'm a budding author. I'm working on my first outline. Bucket list things, if you will. It's never too late, right?

At any rate, I use my characters in-game as inspiration for ideas. Their name, what they do, how they look, where they go, etc. This was how I finally stumbled on a character that set bells off in my head, which has driven me to actual writing.

So, I'm afraid that this little world that I enjoy for so many reasons is going to be utterly ruined. I feel like the wind has been taken out of my sails.

ajkb78 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

Has ZOS ever backed down on a change once it gets onto the PTS? I know they sometimes tweak the numbers on balance changes or fix some of the bugs which are identified, but I can't remember them ever putting a system onto the PTS and then not including it in the live update, no matter what players thought of it.

Yes. Once, that I recall. It was a Big Deal at the time. However, I am at a loss to remember what it was.

The only one I can remember was the insane changes to light / heavy attacks they proposed a couple of years back, but those were never brought into a pre-release PTS cycle, they just used the PTS for testing it as an experiment. It was so widely lambasted that they never went any further with it.

I remember that incident. I am not so sure that is the incident I am recalling, but I would have to go back and look to make sure. Ahh. Who am I kidding? I don't care enough to go back and look.

ajkb78 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

That said, we're very unlikely to see any changes on PTS update 1 on Monday (the 7th), as there are rarely any significant changes in that one. The next Monday (the 14th) is when we will be pinning our hopes on.

Right. Changes made in the "dot one" update (7.3.1) will be stuff they knew about before PTS but did not make the first PTS drop. One week is not much time for them to think about and discuss changes, make the changes, and test the changes.

The "dot two" and later updates will reflect more and more feedback from players and include some of the easier changes. (Edit: besides, anything big for this requires a character copy as the current implementation probably destroys the data when it migrates it)

Nothing sizable will be done during PTS, as there is no time for anything that takes more than a couple weeks to design, implement, and test. This means "remove, try again in a future update" or "push forward + fixes" for this. BOTH of these will be met with outcry, doom and gloom, gnashing of teeth, cats and dogs living together, and mass hysteria.

The odds favor a "push forward + fixes" response (aka no response) for account wide achievements, but both are possible.

Danikat wrote: »

Has ZOS ever backed down on a change once it gets onto the PTS? I know they sometimes tweak the numbers on balance changes or fix some of the bugs which are identified, but I can't remember them ever putting a system onto the PTS and then not including it in the live update, no matter what players thought of it.

Yes. Once, that I recall. It was a Big Deal at the time. However, I am at a loss to remember what it was.

The only one I can remember was the insane changes to light / heavy attacks they proposed a couple of years back, but those were never brought into a pre-release PTS cycle, they just used the PTS for testing it as an experiment. It was so widely lambasted that they never went any further with it.

I'd add the cast-time on shields fiasco. IIRC that was during a normal PTS cycle and was something they reverted.

DarcyMardin wrote: »

The entire reason I have played this game for as long as I have, I.e., daily since it started, is because I have always been able to create new characters, with new stories, personalities, and play styles. In real life, I’ve been a multi-published author for the past 40 years, so I create characters and build stories around them all the time. I love doing this — it’s my life and my passion. And I’ve done it since the beginning in ESO.

I think of each of my dozens of alts (I have 4 accounts) as separate individuals, on their own journeys, who have accomplished different achievements at different times. My altruistic healers are very different characters from my expert thieves, and even more different from my few vicious murderers. I hate the idea that their very different achievements will all be homogenized after all these years. Their individual histories wiped from their achievement pages.

It breaks my heart, honestly.

I'm also also an author and writer, currently in the process of building multiple stories. Honestly, it warms my heart to see that you and many others who have replied here use ESO as a way to connect to your stories and build them. Everything you said is exactly why I want to retain that individual character identity through achievements. I use my achievements in exactly the same way. Having ZOS delete them is like having someone walk into your office, pick up your notebooks, tear out the pages and tell you you can only have one character now, with one story, and no matter what they look like or how differently you play them, they must tread in the same tracks as every clone that came before.

It also completely removes my ability to NOT get an achievement as well, and use the absence of the achievement as an achievement in and of itself and a form of character building. For example, my very first thief takes pride in having never paid a single penny to a guard or fence, and the absence of that achievement is his "proof" of having never been caught with a bounty. Then there's my vampire character whose never bitten anyone. If I am to retain the absence of the biting achievement, I can never make another vampire who might bite someone.

The presence of many of these achievements- or the absence of achievements- has inspired events in my stories, even if they do not take place in the world of ESO.

The achievement system has become far more than ZOS seems to realize, because each player has come to utelize it in their own unique way, and players have created new achievements all on their own by choosing how they use the system. Players of ESO are so creative with how they choose to play the game, and this new account wide system completely destroys that flexibility and enjoyment.

I really love being able to play ESO to wind down and enjoy my characters outside of the stories I am writing, to have adventures with them in an "alternate universe" where I get to push the boundaries of their personalities. I love thinking about where their comfort zones lay, and imagining how they would react to different scenarios I did not invent or plan myself. Doing a quest I did not write myself, in a story I did not write myself, with a character who has an established backstory and set of experiences/reactions is a wonderful exercise in exploring a characters personality and developing new traits I might not have discovered before. My achievements are a reflection of those choices and little moments of discovery. It's heartbreaking to loose them.


As a side note:

All of the authors here have also made me realize something. I think this is where some confusion lies with those who say "It is the player, not the character, who achieves something." Sure- but as the player, I am authoring/writing my characters story through those achievements and they are representative of the actions I, the author, have chosen to give the character. When you take those individual achievements away, you delete the story that the player is uniquely creating for each of their characters. As the player I am indeed achieving things- to deliberately craft a unique story with each character I play. They allow me to think about how my character perceives the world and serve as reminders of individual personality traits. I don't want them smashed together as if my characters are all me. They are not me. They are individuals I created in a story, and the achievements are a reflection of my act of creation, my choices for that specific character. Smashing them together is disrespectful to the process of creation, and to the people who use the system to reflect that.

Okay so am I to understand that several quests, events and pretty much all delve/world boss and their associated first-time completion exp will be gone?

When I first heard about this I -presumed- it would be like WoW's version of account wide achievements. But all this is doing is making it harder to grind skilllines (Undaunted) and to level up (With the first time exp being removed).

All the while you won't make skill points or skyshards account wide (The latter without cost). Am I to presume to public dungeon event skill points are gone too or what?

What's the point of this? Just make all the rewards (titles) account wide and call it a day.

majulook wrote: »

Since this will soon be the 3rd week of testing in what is normally 5 weeks per PTS cycle.

If no changes to this in patch 7.3.2 which is the third week patch. What are the odds are that its going as is live?

If no changes in X.2 patch, I'd put it at >98% it goes live.

Currently I'd say it's in the >75% it goes live.