PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Account Wide Achievements

Vrienda · February 2022

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Yup exactly now we wont need to waste our time redoing all acheivement on top of questing

God forbid you have to actually play the game.

Zezin · February 2022

Vrienda wrote: »

For people who enjoy the world and completing all the various exploration objectives this is not a QoL feature. At least not in a positive way. For me it will make levelling alts less fun and less reward. It'll mean I'll have to manually keep track of which delves I've got the skyshard from. It means I'll not get experience for doing all these objectives. It means new players who want to do a world boss in Glenumbra won't be able to because everyone else did it years ago. It means that delves and dolmens that don't have dailies associated with them will be ghost towns.

This hurts the game for players new and old. There is no QOL benefit. If you wanted to see all your achievements there were addons for it. All ZOS needed to do was make the rewards like titles and achievement vendors account wide.

I see a lot of people talking in absolutes in this thread with a lot of assumptions of what "everyone" likes/dislikes, while at the same time not proposing good counter arguments for each others views, my post was both a response with my own arguments and my personal point of view, and yet it seems you don't see it as valid.

Vrienda · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

Vrienda wrote: »

For people who enjoy the world and completing all the various exploration objectives this is not a QoL feature. At least not in a positive way. For me it will make levelling alts less fun and less reward. It'll mean I'll have to manually keep track of which delves I've got the skyshard from. It means I'll not get experience for doing all these objectives. It means new players who want to do a world boss in Glenumbra won't be able to because everyone else did it years ago. It means that delves and dolmens that don't have dailies associated with them will be ghost towns.

This hurts the game for players new and old. There is no QOL benefit. If you wanted to see all your achievements there were addons for it. All ZOS needed to do was make the rewards like titles and achievement vendors account wide.

I see a lot of people talking in absolutes in this thread with a lot of assumptions of what "everyone" likes/dislikes, while at the same time not proposing good counter arguments for each others views, my post was both a response with my own arguments and my personal point of view, and yet it seems you don't see it as valid.

I don't see it as valid because it isn't valid. It's removing content and replayability from the game for everyone. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

snarkomatic · February 2022

Having an aggregate score of overall achievements across characters is a nice idea, but I just gotta +1 with another voice of "wow please don't take away my individual character tracking" @ ZOS.

As many others have said, achievements on individual characters is like a big to-do list for me when I get bored of grinding. I play endgame and I don't really care one way or another if titles can be used across characters, but if you take away my ability to "re-achieve" something, I'm going to dump my alts. The pleasure completely goes out the window if I cannot continue to gain achievements I've already gotten on another character. It doesn't need to add to the aggregate score, that's fine, but please let me see that I've earned it anew when I get it for the first time on an alt.

As someone else mentioned before as well, this really takes the pleasure out of random accomplishments too. If I hop into a random vet pug and we just happen to get a boss achievement, that's always an extra little spark of pleasure. Sure, my main powered through all these dungeons when the DLC first dropped and got all the achievements with my regular group. It's not something I needed. But seeing an alt obtain it is rewarding! It's a little pop of serotonin. And that's why we game, lbr.

And as others have said, I want to be able to show that I've gotten trifectas on my main healer, and also on my tank/DPS alts. I do not want to be stuck with just the healer's achievements on everything. I want to be able to show people I've done it on all roles. Or even that I've gotten it on both the templar healer and the warden healer and the NB healer. These are accomplishments we are proud of; now they're just going to be erased?

Not to mention removing replayability of things like museum quests etc. That's a huge bummer. From looking at other MMOs, there is absolutely no reason ZOS should not be able to give us an account-wide aggregate score and also the ability to retain individual character accomplishments as two separate tabs/sets of data. This is so severely disappointing. It gives me absolutely no impetus to go out and redo things on my alts. I'm not going to play database management with a load of spreadsheets just to track what my alts have and have not done. Some achievements will not even be easy/possible to be sure I've re-achieved if the notification doesn't pop on the screen.

Just all-around disappointed here, ngl. I will have to seriously reconsider how much investment I put into this game going forward.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · February 2022

Vrienda wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Yup exactly now we wont need to waste our time redoing all acheivement on top of questing

God forbid you have to actually play the game.

So questing isnt playing the game: confirmed!!😂

SerafinaWaterstar · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

There's no thread that showcases the divide in the community as best as this one, which is sad considering the way things are going for some of the communities in the game. That being said I have a couple of points of my own to make:

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.
2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.
3. Playing alts is something I've started doing ever since the announcement, I feel much more comfortable chasing an achievement knowing I can do it an the character best suited to the task something I never used to do before, focusing instead on getting everything I could on a single character.
4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.
5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

1) Previous TES games have been single player rpgs. Having account wide achievements for a SINGLE player with one character makes sense.
ESO is an MMO with the possibility of having multiple characters; it’s not the same.

2) Achievements in this game are entwined with monitoring progress - there is no other way to do it. And if you have read through this thread, you would see that this implementation DOES affect replayability of quests.

That is the crucial point - there is no other way to monitor progress on alt characters in the game other than via the achievements.

How do I monitor what each of my different character has done when all achievements smashed together as they are on the pts? How do I see what dungeons they have cleared, what zones they have explored, what questlines they have done, when progress is only monitored by achievements?

3) I have been playing my alts less, because, what’s the point? They will get all the achievements as my main has already done them. So can’t even see what I have/haven’t done.

4) care not if titles account-wide

5) Yes. I did Master Angler on my main, not on any other character. If I want the title on another character, I’ll do the damn fishing.

It is not a ‘massive QoL feature’. For many, how this is on the pts will ruin their gameplay and remove the joy of playing.

silvereyes · February 2022

This thread has been doing a pretty good job of avoiding personal attacks until today. I get it, emotions are high. But, please, let’s keep things respectful.

Zezin · February 2022

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

There's no thread that showcases the divide in the community as best as this one, which is sad considering the way things are going for some of the communities in the game. That being said I have a couple of points of my own to make:

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.
2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.
3. Playing alts is something I've started doing ever since the announcement, I feel much more comfortable chasing an achievement knowing I can do it an the character best suited to the task something I never used to do before, focusing instead on getting everything I could on a single character.
4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.
5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

1) Previous TES games have been single player rpgs. Having account wide achievements for a SINGLE player with one character makes sense.
ESO is an MMO with the possibility of having multiple characters; it’s not the same.

2) Achievements in this game are entwined with monitoring progress - there is no other way to do it. And if you have read through this thread, you would see that this implementation DOES affect replayability of quests.

That is the crucial point - there is no other way to monitor progress on alt characters in the game other than via the achievements.

How do I monitor what each of my different character has done when all achievements smashed together as they are on the pts? How do I see what dungeons they have cleared, what zones they have explored, what questlines they have done, when progress is only monitored by achievements?

3) I have been playing my alts less, because, what’s the point? They will get all the achievements as my main has already done them. So can’t even see what I have/haven’t done.

4) care not if titles account-wide

5) Yes. I did Master Angler on my main, not on any other character. If I want the title on another character, I’ll do the damn fishing.

It is not a ‘massive QoL feature’. For many, how this is on the pts will ruin their gameplay and remove the joy of playing.

I see some inconsistency in your arguments, for one even though yes previous TES games were single player you could have multiple characters with the achievements being for the game itself (equivalent to account wide) I don't see how the game being an MMO would affect something that is single player (your own character achievements). The MMO aspect of the game is the group content, dungeons, trials, PvP.

For the monitoring it I honestly don't see it beyond a minor convenience, do you mean tracking what your character has as for skills? The skill tab is there, for individual character feats (say completing master angler) that is more of an RP thing and mostly single player, if you want to build a narrative around your character having completed something then I don't see how the achievement would impact that either.

Also if your only enjoyment in playing the game is to get achievements then honestly I don't know what to tell except that it's very far from how I play the game myself. The parts of the game that are multiplayer I do for the social aspect (group PvE) or to compete with other people (pvp).

Achievements to me personally are something to track the overall completion of the game itself, that is the case for almost every other game out there and I don't see why it should be different in ESO. To me it looks like a lot of people have been using the achievements more as a jornal of what a single character has done as opposed to what achievements are in other games.

ArchangelIsraphel · February 2022

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.

Many posters who want AWA have used the fact that other games have them as a justification for changing ESO. But ESO is ESO, not these other games- and we have had individual character progress tracked for nearly eight years. I don't think having AWA on single player TES games justifies deleting years of progress in this one, where I can have multiple characters. The fact of the matter is, achievements as they are now have become a tool players use for various reasons, and they like seeing what they have done on each character independently.

Many people here do not find the AWA approach at all useful or convenient, as the way achievements are approached are highly subjective depending on the player. Many detailed posts featuring vastly different playstyles, all dependent on individual achievements, have been posted in this thread. That is why we've been discussing compromises that allow both sides of the arguement to get what they want.

2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.

For many players here, it will affect replayability, as they consider achievements a part of the journey taken with their characters and an aspect of the content they are playing through. Things like master angler, museum collections, and many other achievements are considered content by these players, and as such, not having them available to be replayed will reduce the amount of time spent on those characters because the achievements associated with them are gone.

Many of us who replayed these achievements weren't doing so for the "reward" of the achievement itself, but because it was almost like having another quest to complete and the achievement helped us track the completion of the quest and how far along we were. Now, if we want to do that...we have to make a spreadsheet instead of having convenient tracking available in game. A major QOL reduction for this playstyle that reduces the fun condiderably.

A lot of people only do this kind of exploration type gameplay, and never touch endgame because they do not enjoy it, so for them, content has been obliterated by this change.

3. Playing alts is something I've started doing ever since the announcement, I feel much more comfortable chasing an achievement knowing I can do it an the character best suited to the task something I never used to do before, focusing instead on getting everything I could on a single character.

In contrast, a lot of the players here feel that they can no longer play on their alts because doing so will mean the deletion of progress on other characters if they achieve anything, should this change go live in it's current state. Players who once had the oppourtunity to achieve anything on any character in the game now feel restricted to one character because they will never be able to gain achievements on that character again, and their play style has been completely shattered.

I am in no way saying your play style is invalid by stating this. What I am saying is that when a change completely obliterates the play style of one type of player to favor another because a previously diverse system has been altered, there is a major problem.

4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.

I agree that end game rewards should be increased to facilitate further replay and alleviate some of the concerns regarding whether it will be replayed should these changes go live. However, many people who are into the end game have some very valid reasons for wanting individual character progress to be tracked along side AWA. I am not one of these players as I do not consider myself to be heavily into the end game, but I agree with many of their posts here, and would suggest reading them.

5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

I have done many different questlines, on many different characters, and do not want their progress/dates of completion merged with those of other characters who have done the same quests. AWA in its current form deletes that progress completely to favor the progress of whatever character I log into first, so that it is as if I never did anything on an alt at all.

I did not do master angler on my account so that other characters could see it, I don't want the achievement on my other characters. I want to be able to repeat that achievement on different characters because it is a form of content I enjoy. I am not opposed to an overview existing so that people can see the achievements gained on other characters account wide, but again, I'd like to be able to record individual progress as well.

I actually have nothing against account wide titles, and am fine with them being implemented if it means some people will be happy. I simply won't use them if I don't want to. But I want the ability to replay master angler, museum collections, and other things on any alt I choose for fun, without needing to track it myself on a spreadsheet.

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It might benefit some, but for others, it is only raising barriers to playing different characters and removing the incentive to do so. When I pay for a new character slot, I pay to replay certain content, including achievements I enjoy- I'm not paying to log in and have much of the game completed for me. It isn't because I need a reward or a gold star for doing my quests, it is because achievements help me track my characters journey by keeping a log of what they have done, what they have not done, and in many cases, getting achievements or not is a way of building a characters personality.

As silverbride said a few posts back- let me play the game, don't play it for me.

Ideally, I'd like to see a system implemented that benefits multiple playstyles rather than completely devaluing and obliterating one to serve another.

Zezin · February 2022

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.

Many posters who want AWA have used the fact that other games have them as a justification for changing ESO. But ESO is ESO, not these other games- and we have had individual character progress tracked for nearly eight years. I don't think having AWA on single player TES games justifies deleting years of progress in this one, where I can have multiple characters. The fact of the matter is, achievements as they are now have become a tool players use for various reasons, and they like seeing what they have done on each character independently.

Many people here do not find the AWA approach at all useful or convenient, as the way achievements are approached are highly subjective depending on the player. Many detailed posts featuring vastly different playstyles, all dependent on individual achievements, have been posted in this thread. That is why we've been discussing compromises that allow both sides of the arguement to get what they want.

2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.

For many players here, it will affect replayability, as they consider achievements a part of the journey taken with their characters and an aspect of the content they are playing through. Things like master angler, museum collections, and many other achievements are considered content by these players, and as such, not having them available to be replayed will reduce the amount of time spent on those characters because the achievements associated with them are gone.

Many of us who replayed these achievements weren't doing so for the "reward" of the achievement itself, but because it was almost like having another quest to complete and the achievement helped us track the completion of the quest and how far along we were. Now, if we want to do that...we have to make a spreadsheet instead of having convenient tracking available in game. A major QOL reduction for this playstyle that reduces the fun condiderably.

A lot of people only do this kind of exploration type gameplay, and never touch endgame because they do not enjoy it, so for them, content has been obliterated by this change.

3. Playing alts is something I've started doing ever since the announcement, I feel much more comfortable chasing an achievement knowing I can do it an the character best suited to the task something I never used to do before, focusing instead on getting everything I could on a single character.

In contrast, a lot of the players here feel that they can no longer play on their alts because doing so will mean the deletion of progress on other characters if they achieve anything, should this change go live in it's current state. Players who once had the oppourtunity to achieve anything on any character in the game now feel restricted to one character because they will never be able to gain achievements on that character again, and their play style has been completely shattered.

I am in no way saying your play style is invalid by stating this. What I am saying is that when a change completely obliterates the play style of one type of player to favor another because a previously diverse system has been altered, there is a major problem.

4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.

I agree that end game rewards should be increased to facilitate further replay and alleviate some of the concerns regarding whether it will be replayed should these changes go live. However, many people who are into the end game have some very valid reasons for wanting individual character progress to be tracked along side AWA. I am not one of these players as I do not consider myself to be heavily into the end game, but I agree with many of their posts here, and would suggest reading them.

5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

I have done many different questlines, on many different characters, and do not want their progress/dates of completion merged with those of other characters who have done the same quests. AWA in its current form deletes that progress completely to favor the progress of whatever character I log into first, so that it is as if I never did anything on an alt at all.

I did not do master angler on my account so that other characters could see it, I don't want the achievement on my other characters. I want to be able to repeat that achievement on different characters because it is a form of content I enjoy. I am not opposed to an overview existing so that people can see the achievements gained on other characters account wide, but again, I'd like to be able to record individual progress as well.

I actually have nothing against account wide titles, and am fine with them being implemented if it means some people will be happy. I simply won't use them if I don't want to. But I want the ability to replay master angler, museum collections, and other things on any alt I choose for fun, without needing to track it myself on a spreadsheet.

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It might benefit some, but for others, it is only raising barriers to playing different characters and removing the incentive to do so. When I pay for a new character slot, I pay to replay certain content, including achievements I enjoy- I'm not paying to log in and have much of the game completed for me. It isn't because I need a reward or a gold star for doing my quests, it is because achievements help me track my characters journey by keeping a log of what they have done, what they have not done, and in many cases, getting achievements or not is a way of building a characters personality.

As silverbride said a few posts back- let me play the game, don't play it for me.

Ideally, I'd like to see a system implemented that benefits multiple playstyles rather than completely devaluing and obliterating one to serve another.

Very good arguments, I can see your point, I would propose to have a tool for tracking those things individually though as achievements are a very poor way of doing that being associated with something different in other games, I in no way want to invalidate the play styles of other people, if I quote from Wikipedia on this achievements are:

"In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy, badge, advancement, award, stamp, medal, challenge, cheevo or in game achievement, is a meta-goal defined outside a game's parameters. Unlike the in-game systems of quests, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture.[1] Meeting the fulfillment conditions, and receiving recognition of fulfillment by the game, is referred to as unlocking the achievement."

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide, I would be happy to wait for such an implementation before having account wide achievements enabled. I still stand however that achievements should be account wide.

silvereyes · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide

Yes, this is the crux of the issue. The way ESO has handled achievements in the past isn't some meta game. Achievements have been used as a way to unlock titles, dyes, skill points, the ability to purchase furniture and houses, to earn Undaunted reputation and XP. Achievements have been used to track quest objective and zone completion states, and change the way NPCs react to a player. They are very much not being used as achievements in the Wikipedia sense of the word, like a badge. They are inextricably linked with in-game objectives.

ZOS has tried to change the purpose of achievements without putting in the work to disentangle them from in-game objectives first.

Varana · February 2022

The comparison with Skyrim etc. is a bit misleading.

Skyrim achievements are outgame achievements. They are on Steam, they don't have much connection to gameplay. Sure, the game may trigger one here and there, but they're not part of the actual game, so to speak.

In ESO, achievements are (were) closely tied to your ingame character. They're part of the game, they function as character record, they give you rewards, they track your character progress. For me, not playing via Steam, they don't even exist outside of the game - I have to load into a character to see them.
You can debate whether they should've called them "achievements" then, whatever. In ESO, achievements were a particular thing with a somewhat different implementation than elsewhere, and changing that in such a hurried, cheap and lowest-effort-possible implementation is a bad decision.

So if ZOS want to bring ESO achievements closer to what they are elsewhere - sure, why not. But please not without a replacement for their ingame functionality.

OleandersOne · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide, I would be happy to wait for such an implementation before having account wide achievements enabled. I still stand however that achievements should be account wide.

This is pretty close to what so many of us have been saying all along. I might quibble about what constitutes an achievement, but at the end of the day, it is what ESO uses to track so much of a characters progress through the game.

I appreciate your willingness (and that of others) to wait for proper implementation - that is exactly what many of us are saying. Also, most of us are generally not anti-AWA completely, just gutted by the implementation of it currently on the PTS.

snarkomatic · February 2022

Varana wrote: »

The comparison with Skyrim etc. is a bit misleading.

Skyrim achievements are outgame achievements. [...]

Exactly. If one of my Skyrim characters achieves "Words of Power" (learn 3 words of a shout), these words/shouts do not then mark off as completed/learned for all my subsequent characters. My future characters are not locked out of learning these words/shouts. The in-game map does not display as 'completed' when I start a new game. No one addresses me as Thane of Whiterun when my brand new character runs into the city for the very first time. I am able to repeat collectible quests and guild quests. No effect is had on new games.

This system, as implemented on the PTS, affects each of our alt/future characters tremendously. The two games' achievement systems are not comparable.

wolfie1.0. · February 2022

silvereyes wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide

Yes, this is the crux of the issue. The way ESO has handled achievements in the past isn't some meta game. Achievements have been used as a way to unlock titles, dyes, skill points, the ability to purchase furniture and houses, to earn Undaunted reputation and XP. Achievements have been used to track quest objective and zone completion states, and change the way NPCs react to a player. They are very not being used as achievements in the Wikipedia sense of the word, like a badge. They are inextricably linked with in-game objectives.

ZOS has tried to change the purpose of achievements without putting in the work to disentangle them from in-game objectives first.

Thank you.

ArchangelIsraphel · February 2022

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide, I would be happy to wait for such an implementation before having account wide achievements enabled. I still stand however that achievements should be account wide.

Yes, a highly detailed tool which allows the tracking of character accomplishments, especially concerning quests and exploration, would be an ideal companion to AWA for me, especially if it included additional enhanced functionality to assist a players experience with their characters. For example, if it also included a built in journal that allows the player to type in their characters thoughts and record them in regards to a specific quest so that the player could go back and reference these notes, I'd be very excited. It could be used as a character building system for roleplayers and authors alike, but also by those who might want to write about a great experience they had with friends to remember and look back on when they did a certain thing. (I doubt this would ever happen, but one can dream) Something like a dedicated character building page.

I sill like the current achievement system and tracking- but if I were offered a system by ZOS that was carefully planned out, well defined, one that aided character development and the tracking of goals rather than taking away from it, I could get behind it.

It would also be nice if the tracking system was optional to use, so that players who feel pressured to complete everything (And feel that AWA relieves them of this pressure) do not feel they have to use it at all. AWA could exist, while individual character tracking could be there along side it. (I'd still recommend having pop ups and other completion type prompts, because this is part of the joy many take in completing goals and knowing they are finished)

If the dates I accomplished certain tasks on my characters were also preserved in this system, I'd also be very happy.

Even so, this wouldn't be a perfect solution, and might only aide people heavily into story telling and different types of role play, as there are other reasons and justifications for wanting achievements to remain as they are, or to have an account wide overview instead. I don't want to speak for others or presume what their needs are, but for my particular purposes, a very good system like this would help me greatly and alleviate the feeling of loss AWA currently gives me.

Zezin · February 2022

silvereyes wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

This is a problem of the game not having a proper tool to suit your needs in regards to tracking individual character accomplishments, with ZOS perhaps needing to implement that before making achievements account wide

Yes, this is the crux of the issue. The way ESO has handled achievements in the past isn't some meta game. Achievements have been used as a way to unlock titles, dyes, skill points, the ability to purchase furniture and houses, to earn Undaunted reputation and XP. Achievements have been used to track quest objective and zone completion states, and change the way NPCs react to a player. They are very not being used as achievements in the Wikipedia sense of the word, like a badge. They are inextricably linked with in-game objectives.

ZOS has tried to change the purpose of achievements without putting in the work to disentangle them from in-game objectives first.

Not much else for me to say on this then I can understand your point of view on this and I've expressed my own as well, I just fear that they might scrap it altogether and not make such a function, that would hurt me individually as a completionist. I've had fun trying out different content on different characters ever since the announcement, if they scrap AWA that's going to reduce my own freedom for how I play the game, I'm not one to go after the same achievements on different characters as I don't find that enjoyable.

Lately my own enjoyment of the game has been declining with the aspects of the game I enjoy being neglected in favor of more casual stuff, this was something I was really looking forward to bit it seems like it's either going to go out in a way that upsets and diminishes the gameplay of some people or not going out at all.

Elsonso · February 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

I’m pretty sure things will go live in some form. They won’t want to draw it out by postponing. They want to be about their architecture rewrite. And they can’t very well cancel the feature entirely at this point without a huge loss of face.

I find the opposite to be true. They would save face with me by admitting that they rushed this before getting adequate player feedback and pulling it for now to address our concerns.

From my perspective, they look bad both ways. If they go forward, at least it looks like they have conviction, which impressive when one finds themselves in the center of a minefield.

Zezin wrote: »

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.

Yes, but keep in mind that this is an artifact of how platforms have been done. It is simply easier to do achievements for the game itself, rather than for each play of the game. Not all games care about per-game achievements, and those that do, learned not to.

All of the single player TES games that I have played have had per-play achievements that have reset each time the game has been played. The account wide is only held at the platform level, and, as far as I know, is not transferred to the new game when it is started.

MMOs have been following the console-established achievement design for a while. As you say, players expect it because a lot of people play on consoles and that is how it is done there. Besides, a lot of online games that are not MMORPGs don't care what happens in the game that is different than last time it was played. They only care about the cumulative aggregate stuff.

Always remember that "Achievement" is not specific to the player/account/game. I has been defined that way, in some places, because it allows for a short cut or allows them to ignore some undesired part of the concept. This scaled back definition is not something that benefits all players, and should not be used with all games.

Zezin wrote: »

2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.

That depends a lot on what ZOS can accomplish in the next few weeks. If quests and in-game reveals and accomplishments are shared between characters, that will impact replay on some level.

Imagine, if you will, starting a new Skyrim game where you have already completed the Stormcloak/Imperial achievement and all of the forts are occupied by the respective winner, or where Alduin is already defeated. I mention this as food for thought on how account-wide achievements could potentially impact repeatability.

ZOS needs to make sure this sort of thing never happens, no matter how trivial or small. If they can accomplish this, I think a fair number of dissenting players will simply ignore the rest of it, namely the removal of being able to see character accomplishments.

Zezin wrote: »

4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.

Rewards, or lack thereof, contributed to how we got into this mess. And after ZOS cleans it up, yes, they do need to address the issue.

They turned achievements into rewards at the character level, and really offer little else in that respect other than a few gold, some XP, and a gear drop that I am sure is sold or deconstructed by most players. Most importantly, they offer nothing in the way of a progression journal that shows the history of the character from Level 1, except for achievements.

Zezin wrote: »

5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

In this game, titles are meaningless cosmetic fluff. The characters can be reforged to the point where they may not even be able to complete the content that earned the title, but they can still wear it because the player earned it. At that point, titles became properties of the player-in-game, not the character. Not all of them really apply this way, but once one does, they all do.

In games where the character is more important than what we have in ESO, titles have more meaning in the game, are not cosmetic fluff, and should be properties of the character, not the player.

That said, yes, I would do Master Angler on more than one character if I wanted to have that title on more than one character.

silvereyes · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

it seems like it's either going to go out in a way that upsets and diminishes the gameplay of some people or not going out at all.

To be honest, I would be floored if it doesn't go out at all in U33. I know people will disagree with me, but in my two decades of working on software projects, I've never seen such a major feature be removed in its entirety this late in the development cycle. There's barely enough time before release to fix the normal bugs that pop up with any new release, let alone start on a major shift in direction, like reverting large parts of code that could lead to other dependent code changes breaking.

The most likely thing I see happening is that a number of achievements that were account-wide in PTS weeks 1 and 2 suddenly become character-specific after the EU character copy this week, in order to fix NPCs, quest objectives and hopefully, zone completion. This is the safest option to fix what the largest number of players view as bugs that doesn't involve changing already-tested code.

_Zathras_ · February 2022

Zezin wrote: »

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It benefits some of the community. It ruins it for the rest of us.

Pushing this change forward for the former, without any regard for the latter, will absolutely backfire.

Parasaurolophus · February 2022

_Zathras_ wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It benefits some of the community. It ruins it for the rest of us.

Pushing this change forward for the former, without any regard for the latter, will absolutely backfire.

I'm sorry, but in many polls, most people are waiting and hoping for AwA. Please do not bring up the topic of majority and minority. Firstly, the opinion of all players is important. Secondly, no one has any exact statistics.

silvereyes · February 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It benefits some of the community. It ruins it for the rest of us.

Pushing this change forward for the former, without any regard for the latter, will absolutely backfire.

I'm sorry, but in many polls, most people are waiting and hoping for AwA. Please do not bring up the topic of majority and minority. Firstly, the opinion of all players is important. Secondly, no one has any exact statistics.

@_Zathras_ said nothing about majority or minority or whether people want AwA. It's clear many do.

This isn't an us vs. them situation, for the most part. It's a problem with ZOS trying to turn in their homework half-complete and wanting full marks for it.

etchedpixels · February 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I'm sorry, but in many polls, most people are waiting and hoping for AwA. Please do not bring up the topic of majority and minority. Firstly, the opinion of all players is important. Secondly, no one has any exact statistics.

The continuing "A or B but not both" mindset which is hugely destructive the game community and exactly the same problem as with PvE players attacking PvP and so on.

Do it right and you can see both. Other MMOs do it just fine where the character story and the account wide achievements are both present and you can care about whichever you like. If low population minor games can get this kind of stuff right ESO has no excuse.

If it can't well there are about ten major MMO launches this year.

_Zathras_ · February 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It benefits some of the community. It ruins it for the rest of us.

Pushing this change forward for the former, without any regard for the latter, will absolutely backfire.

I'm sorry, but in many polls, most people are waiting and hoping for AwA. Please do not bring up the topic of majority and minority. Firstly, the opinion of all players is important. Secondly, no one has any exact statistics.

If you read my original post, I was replying to Zezin's claim of majority benefit, and countering it.

I think you confused who you were addressing.

ArchangelIsraphel · February 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

It benefits some of the community. It ruins it for the rest of us.

Pushing this change forward for the former, without any regard for the latter, will absolutely backfire.

I'm sorry, but in many polls, most people are waiting and hoping for AwA. Please do not bring up the topic of majority and minority. Firstly, the opinion of all players is important. Secondly, no one has any exact statistics.

The fact that no one has exact statistics is exactly why I do not trust those polls. I doubt that people passing through while quickly reading a very simplistic poll fully understand the ramifications of AWA and what will go missing. I'm not sure some of the people who are excited for AWA realize that they are not getting the ideal of what they think AWA will be, but instead a rushed system that has broken quests, one doesn't actually give them many of the things they hoped would be account wide.

I've also seen quite a few people in this thread and others, and in game, who were excited for AWA, but their excitement was significantly reduced by seeing what a mess was made of it on the PTS.

Opinions of all players are indeed important, that is why we can't trust the statistics of a poll that does not accurately represent all aspects of the situation- regardless of which opinion it supports. Even if a poll largely supported my own position, I would want to see something better, something that fully educates those voting. (I do recall one very good, very detailed poll made by one of the posters here, but I am not sure what became of it.)

I don't think either side can say that the majority supports one position or another- but there are a lot of very vocal players on both sides, and in many cases we are actually aligning with each other on what we'd like to see happen in terms of a compromise. A divisive poll does not accurately express the places in which we overlap and agree with one another.

_Zathras_ · February 2022

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I doubt that people passing through while quickly reading a very simplistic poll fully understand the ramifications of AWA and what will go missing. I'm not sure some of the people who are excited for AWA realize that they are not getting the ideal of what they think AWA will be, but instead a rushed system that has broken quests, one doesn't actually give them many of the things they hoped would be account wide.

I've also seen quite a few people in this thread and others, and in game, who were excited for AWA, but their excitement was significantly reduced by seeing what a mess was made of it on the PTS.

I think this is a very important, perhaps even pivotal, point that this whole matter hinges on: lack of comprehensive information.

Speaking for myself, when I heard about this proposal I was in the camp of "Uh..sure. Some of this looks pretty good. It saves me from grinding x again." That's where the depth of my thoughts on this matter ended.

But then I saw more and more threads, with very concise arguments from people who normally only contribute in that way on significant issues, which made me start to pay more attention. That is when I came to this thread to do some investigation into what is being proposed.

Honestly, I am quite thoroughly appalled ZOS is planning to push this out the gates.

That sentiment aside, the community is currently suffering from not having the full picture on the true scope of what they are planning. Added to this are the inconsistencies for the iteration on the PTS, leaving people wondering, "Bug? Or feature."

I have read from @ZOS_KevinO that they are planning a Q&A, which will hopefully directly address the global concerns expressed in this feedback thread. Hopefully the weekend has given them time to produce that, so the community can digest it and supply additional commentary based on more accurate information.

silvereyes · February 2022

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

(I do recall one very good, very detailed poll made by one of the posters here, but I am not sure what became of it.)

The best I've seen in terms of educating people was the one by @peacenote:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/597329/yep-another-achievement-poll-please-read-carefully/p1

But even that one had the major problem of not subdividing out the people who are okay with a both/and approach but not actively for it, causing the both/and option to be artificially inflated.

Still, it was the best poll I've seen in how it illustrated the wide variety of viewpoints out there. It just wasn't useful to really say how large each group was, due in part to the problem I mentioned, and due in part to the fact that it's an unscientific Internet poll.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · February 2022

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

There's no thread that showcases the divide in the community as best as this one, which is sad considering the way things are going for some of the communities in the game. That being said I have a couple of points of my own to make:

1. Achievements in games are almost always tracked in an account wide manner, this is the case in all TES games before the launch of ESO and I believe it will also be the case for future TES games, it is also something that most people are accostumed to as it is generally more convenient to see your overall progress in a game.
2. Regarding replayability, I don't think this will affect the game much, I'm nearing 5k hours in the game and still have much content I need to do and things to explore, ESO is a massive game and replayability is not much of a problem, people in general do not run out of things to do in game and when they do... Well let's just say I've completed the same group content with the same character dozens of times, and this is the case for most people, sometimes you do content not because of an achievement but because it is fun to do so.
3. Playing alts is something I've started doing ever since the announcement, I feel much more comfortable chasing an achievement knowing I can do it an the character best suited to the task something I never used to do before, focusing instead on getting everything I could on a single character.
4. Rewards for endgame content are a problem in ESO, we simply lack those and for a long time the titles served as a recompense for doing content a second time, this is a problem with the game itself and should not be a reason to not want account wide achievements, instead we should be asking for more rewards for completing this content.
5. As for those wanting to track the accomplishments of individual characters I ask you this; has it done the associated quests? Is being master angler something you did so only that single character can see it?

Lots of people seem to be dissatisfied with the account wide achievements, but overall this is a massive QoL feature that will benefit not only the great majority of people playing the game but will also remove a barrier some people have in playing different characters.

1) Previous TES games have been single player rpgs. Having account wide achievements for a SINGLE player with one character makes sense.
ESO is an MMO with the possibility of having multiple characters; it’s not the same.

2) Achievements in this game are entwined with monitoring progress - there is no other way to do it. And if you have read through this thread, you would see that this implementation DOES affect replayability of quests.

That is the crucial point - there is no other way to monitor progress on alt characters in the game other than via the achievements.

How do I monitor what each of my different character has done when all achievements smashed together as they are on the pts? How do I see what dungeons they have cleared, what zones they have explored, what questlines they have done, when progress is only monitored by achievements?

3) I have been playing my alts less, because, what’s the point? They will get all the achievements as my main has already done them. So can’t even see what I have/haven’t done.

4) care not if titles account-wide

5) Yes. I did Master Angler on my main, not on any other character. If I want the title on another character, I’ll do the damn fishing.

It is not a ‘massive QoL feature’. For many, how this is on the pts will ruin their gameplay and remove the joy of playing.

1
nothing stopped anyone of making many characters in skyrim or other previous elderscroll game, nobody complaned as far as i know of not being able to track acheivement on each character

2
the few unrepeatable quest seems more like a bug to me, that and all the map being white
If that is solved, you can easily see wich quest remain to be done in each map as the one you have already done would be white
Personnally i never used the acheivemet to track quest on any of my 18 character so i personnaly know its feasable

3. Sure if you only play for unlocking the candy(acheivement), i can understand why you would feel like that

4.ok

5. Good for you, i guess

Elsonso · February 2022

silvereyes wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

it seems like it's either going to go out in a way that upsets and diminishes the gameplay of some people or not going out at all.

To be honest, I would be floored if it doesn't go out at all in U33. I know people will disagree with me, but in my two decades of working on software projects, I've never seen such a major feature be removed in its entirety this late in the development cycle. There's barely enough time before release to fix the normal bugs that pop up with any new release, let alone start on a major shift in direction, like reverting large parts of code that could lead to other dependent code changes breaking.

The most likely thing I see happening is that a number of achievements that were account-wide in PTS weeks 1 and 2 suddenly become character-specific after the EU character copy this week, in order to fix NPCs, quest objectives and hopefully, zone completion. This is the safest option to fix what the largest number of players view as bugs that doesn't involve changing already-tested code.

I have seen it happen.

However, I agree that ZOS will push forward and make some lemonade out of this.

silvereyes wrote: »

It's a problem with ZOS trying to turn in their homework half-complete and wanting full marks for it.

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

The fact that no one has exact statistics is exactly why I do not trust those polls. I doubt that people passing through while quickly reading a very simplistic poll fully understand the ramifications of AWA and what will go missing. I'm not sure some of the people who are excited for AWA realize that they are not getting the ideal of what they think AWA will be, but instead a rushed system that has broken quests, one doesn't actually give them many of the things they hoped would be account wide.

I don't think we need polls and statistics in this situation. ZOS has that, and we just need to watch ZOS and see what they are doing. That will tell us a lot more than user-generated polls.

ZOS is quite the reliable source in this respect, and everything they are doing suggests that AwA is not only the majority, but the overwhelming majority, of players. If it is not, then ZOS is caught in a no-win situation and it does not matter what the players think about this.

That does not mean that implementation may be flawed or unacceptable to a larger swath of the population than they expected, but today's patch notes will give us more insight into that. They may have wiggle room.

ArchangelIsraphel · February 2022

silvereyes wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

(I do recall one very good, very detailed poll made by one of the posters here, but I am not sure what became of it.)

The best I've seen in terms of educating people was the one by @peacenote:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/597329/yep-another-achievement-poll-please-read-carefully/p1

But even that one had the major problem of not subdividing out the people who are okay with a both/and approach but not actively for it, causing the both/and option to be artificially inflated.

Still, it was the best poll I've seen in how it illustrated the wide variety of viewpoints out there. It just wasn't useful to really say how large each group was, due in part to the problem I mentioned, and due in part to the fact that it's an unscientific Internet poll.

That's the one I was looking for, thank you for finding it! But I agree with you, it's impossible to express every single aspect of the varying opinions and needs of the players voting in a poll, so you'll get tons of artificial inflation and inaccuracy all around. I liked how peacenote tried to raise more awareness of what is actually happening through their poll, though.

I also agree that it isn't at all useful to say how large each group is (or to consider one play style more valid than another based on that) the poll isn't accounting for people playing the game who may not even be aware that this is happening, who don't follow the patch notes or PTS. There could be people for or against AWA that we don't even know about because they don't come to the forums. Definitely with you that it's totally unscientific.