Can anyone explain to me how Account Wide Acheivements is a beneficial feature?

wolfie1.0. · March 2022

The benefit for me is not spending thousands of dollars each year on crowns to support a game that was supposed to bring me hours and hours of repeatable content with a reset button.

Ragnarok0130 · March 2022

peacenote wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

tonyblack wrote: »

It’s great for players who like to play multiple characters especially in competitive content. I no longer need to stress what class I should bring to trial or dungeon groups and miss out on titles or other rewards for other characters. It’s also nice to do dailies and hero of x zone achievements while playing on any class of my choosing. And map is clearly indicates now what i have already done and what I’m still missing.

What tp to specific location have to do with AWA? You can still do it same as before by clicking on wayshrine and paying small sum of gold.

For people like me, who specifically made characters to enjoy more difficult content in end game on different classes, multiple times, it's a nightmare because I no longer can tell which characters have done the achievements in each dungeon and trial. It is the absolute worst part of this feature.
.

I don't get this and hope you can further elaborate on your position so I can understand your thinking. How is not having a specific toon pop an achievement "nightmarish" when the specific toon that you created to run difficult content is still able to run that content? Do you stop using that toon on the content as soon as the achievement pops up for it?

Personally I make toons of different classes to run content so I have variety of different experiences to extend my enjoyment of the game. For me healing as a templar and warden are different animals giving me different experiences when I run that content so having an achievement pop as a reward like a skinner box doesn't factor into my enjoyment. That's the reason that I love AWA; I can more fully experience the game without worrying about ensuring that I do every single grindy minute thing on every toon. So basically I can have fun instead of go to work when I play ESO.

@Ragnarok0130 Oh sure. The quick answer is -- the primary reason for wanting the achievement wasn't a "reward" (although personally I enjoy the acknowledgments)-- it was to have a checklist! No, of course I don't stop using the toon, but once the achievement popped I moved on to the next challenge. If the challenge is checked off across the account, I suddenly have a lot less to work towards. I'm a goal driven person.

Here's the longer explanation:

I am in a dungeon team where, on one character, I am strategically working through earning on every dungeon speed mode, hard mode, no death. It's fun for me, to "get them all." This particular character is a templar healer. This happens to be my "main." This team is almost done - we only have a few of the newer dungeons left!

I wanted to do this again, on a necro tank. To challenge myself as I have less experience tanking. And I've been planning and looking forward to doing this for almost a year now - way before u33 came out. But now, if I want a checklist to track my progress for my tank specifically across dungeons, let alone whether I've done the dungeon at all, I must track it separately, whereas before the game did it for me. As I am learning how to be a better tank, working my way through all of the mechanics on all dungeons such that I'm good enough to earn these challenges with a group is enjoyable to me. Plus, it makes it so that later I can better explain the tank perspective to pugs, should it be requested. Can I randomly just run dungeons? I mean, sure. But would I learn more if I tried every challenge in each dungeon, one by one? I think so. And who was I hurting by wanting to challenge myself in this way?

I also have a "second main" which is my sorc DPS. I do pledges with her all the time, sometimes through the queue and sometimes with friends. Before U33 I could tell which dungeons she had done hard mode, speed run, no death but now they are all "checked off." So before if I only had time to run one pledge, I'd pick the one I hadn't done yet, as a way to add a little bit of extra fun to the choice --"oooh, I might get my speed mode checked off!" But now I can't tell whether I've completed this content as a DPS, because my main, the templar healer, has gone through all almost of it.

If a friend wants to run something, needs gear, needs a skill point, or whatever, I'll help out no matter what. But I enjoyed my own little mini-game of choosing an alt that hadn't completed the dungeon as the one to come and help. It didn't bother me if they hadn't all done everything, but now they all look like they have done everything.

And I've been playing this way for eight years. Not because I had to, or was forced to, or begrudgingly. I did so with enjoyment and it's what kept me here, in ESO, instead of moving on to other games. I always had new little goals for myself. "Today, I'll try to get speed mode on my nightblade." "Today, I'll take my stamsorc to Cloudrest for the first time; that will be fun!" It's just not the same to rely on my memory. Let's face it, it's not perfect. I might vaguely remember tanking Cloudrest but it might not come to me, right away, whether it was in normal or vet, whether it was my DK tank or my necro tank. It might come to me later, halfway through the trial, which just annoys me even more that before I was able to check my achievements and know and now I lost an opportunity to bring my other tank through the trial and test her better.

Before AwA, folks who didn't want to earn the achievements on all their characters... just didn't have to. Plus, anyone on PC could install a mod and look at the account-view if that was their preference. But now, the forcing of achievements being viewed as "completed" on all characters REMOVED THE OPTION for those of us who liked going through all the achievements on each toon. No more built in check-lists, little personal mini-games, and little goals we set for ourselves. I really liked working my way through the challenges on different classes, in different roles, and now... I have to resort to spreadsheets?!? Plus pay attention to whether no one died and how fast each run was? If you didn't want to "grind" all the achievements, before u33 you could still bring a templar or warden as you pleased and enjoy the experience and just not worry about achievements. There was no rule that they had to be done, and characters missed out on nothing functional (except titles, which should have been addressed long ago) if folks brought an "alt" to a run. Characters didn't run faster with more achievements. They didn't get more magicka or stam recovery. They didn't get better drops (say, gold instead of purple or blue). Achievement points aren't even currency. Because most rewards were already account-wide, literally all they did is mark when something had been completed, and now we can only do this one time, instead of once per character.

That said, Ragnarok, please know I appreciate your perspective and how you truly seemed interested in why I feel the way I do. I would have liked to see an AwA implementation that made players like you happy and players like me happy. A separate dungeon/trial journal, a toggle, both views, a % of achievement completion across account progress bar... I believe it could have been done. But even if you don't play the way I do, I hope you can understand how frustrating it is to have to resort to spreadsheets to track something I've been happily doing in the game since its launch. I want to take my necro tank, and go through the dungeons one by one, and check off all the achievements... and I don't want to have to create a new account, and make a new necro tank, without any of my eight years of collectibles and Crown Store purchases just to have that experience.

@peacenote thank you very much for the well thought out explanation of your thought process. I can definitely appreciate your position a lot better now and such an in depth explanation is a refreshing change from the normal AWA discussions! I can empathize with your dislike of resorting to spreadsheets to track what you formerly used to be able to track in game and I too wish they could have please both types of players while finding a way to reduce their database size.

Jaraal · March 2022

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

The benefit for me is not spending thousands of dollars each year on crowns to support a game that was supposed to bring me hours and hours of repeatable content with a reset button.

And the funny thing is, even if you delete ALL your characters, the achievements still remain completed on your account. So there is literally no starting over. One and done.

xaraan · March 2022

Tons of players did ask for this over the years, I wasn't one of them, but once they rolled it out, I'm glad for it.

Why do I like it?

1. Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.
- Some are just time sinks and don't mean someone is or isn't good at something, just how much time they have to waste outside of IRL obligations. (Even some of these power creep has affected, like much easier to earn Master Angler now than it used to be due to food and cp additions).
- Some of the harder achievements are bought, so it matters zero about what achievements you can link to show something was completed. You have no idea if someone running gryphon heart earned it or bought it with gold for example.
- Many achievements are much easier as power creep goes on, so someone doing vMA now is doing it easy mode compared to people that did it when it launched.

2. Players that like playing more than one character shouldn't be penalized.
- I get that some are dedicated to one character and that's cool, but I like the variety and the fact that all my trophy achievements, thieving achievements, and more (usually achievements that take a lot of time sink and farming to get) were spread out on 18 different characters and would take much more for me to unlock and earn some dyes and titles associated. Now many of those are open or closer to me being able to complete them.

3. Some of the technical problems people seem concerned about should be fixable. Showing what stuff needs to be done on specific characters that are quest related, etc. And other methods exist to show differences: I can still see what things are completed on what characters by looking at my map and zone guide. And if you are on PC there are even achievement tracker options if you want to be able to tell what hasn't been done without logging into a character.

4. And even for those that are goal driven - AwA only stop that if you let it. Since you can still tell what content has been done on which character, or if you are working toward something more serious like a trifecta achievement in a trial, you'll know off the top of your head I'd say, then those goals still exist. For example, once I've done things in a trial on one tank that we wanted to achieve, I still will switch to another, not b/c I want the little achievement box to check off, but because I personally want to know that I've done this HM trial on eventually all my tanks. And again, if you need the checklist, at least on PC the add on option is there, but it's not something I need to track which serious achievements I've done on which characters. I certainly get how this can be inconveniencing to some, but it's something that IMO can be worked around (even without add ons).

5. It's supposed to help with performance. Will it? I don't know, or will it even be a lot? idk, but even if it's like 1% improvement, it's worth it IMO. It just doesn't have any big enough drawbacks to not try it, especially with the fact that more people like it than don't, despite how much noise is made about it.

6. And last, on the noise - I hate to say it, but it's not changing. It's here, get used to it. If someone is going to move on from the game, they already have and are not posting about it, if they are posting in the forum, then they really haven't moved on. ZoS didn't do all the work to just roll it back and change it back, especially with more people liking it than not. I know it sucks when you have to eat some bad news, there have been plenty of moves I've hated that zos made over the years, but it's done. Best thing is to adapt.

SilverBride · March 2022

xaraan wrote: »

Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.

They have a great personal value for me and many others. Isn't that enough?

SerafinaWaterstar · March 2022

Quoted post has been removed.

So what dyes & cosmetics did you not have access to?

And the epilogues? Tied to completing a questline. Not that surprising in an rpg. But now - huzzah! - if you’ve done the questline once you won’t get to access the epilogue ever again! One & done!!

And just to be crystal clear, I care not a jot about achievements. I don’t care if done on whichever character.

I DO CARE about being able to play through the game again without half the map & activities already completed.

Necrotech_Master · March 2022

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

So what dyes & cosmetics did you not have access to?

And the epilogues? Tied to completing a questline. Not that surprising in an rpg. But now - huzzah! - if you’ve done the questline once you won’t get to access the epilogue ever again! One & done!!

And just to be crystal clear, I care not a jot about achievements. I don’t care if done on whichever character.

I DO CARE about being able to play through the game again without half the map & activities already completed.

in my specific case, i had 4 achievements for completing both dlc dungeons in a dlc unlock with account wide achievements because i had done the 2 dlc dungeons on different characters on vet and many boring "kill X enemies" achievements finish such as the slayer ones

so i like the AWA

but i dont disagree with those who have pointed out the obvious issues such as the quests and zone guide (and in fact am one of those would have rather had the account achievements in the collection menu without touching the characters which)

edit: i also really dislike that nonsense "earned by" tooltip so i got an addon to remove that lol

jaws343 · March 2022

xaraan wrote: »

Tons of players did ask for this over the years, I wasn't one of them, but once they rolled it out, I'm glad for it.

Why do I like it?

1. Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.
- Some are just time sinks and don't mean someone is or isn't good at something, just how much time they have to waste outside of IRL obligations. (Even some of these power creep has affected, like much easier to earn Master Angler now than it used to be due to food and cp additions).
- Some of the harder achievements are bought, so it matters zero about what achievements you can link to show something was completed. You have no idea if someone running gryphon heart earned it or bought it with gold for example.
- Many achievements are much easier as power creep goes on, so someone doing vMA now is doing it easy mode compared to people that did it when it launched.

2. Players that like playing more than one character shouldn't be penalized.
- I get that some are dedicated to one character and that's cool, but I like the variety and the fact that all my trophy achievements, thieving achievements, and more (usually achievements that take a lot of time sink and farming to get) were spread out on 18 different characters and would take much more for me to unlock and earn some dyes and titles associated. Now many of those are open or closer to me being able to complete them.

3. Some of the technical problems people seem concerned about should be fixable. Showing what stuff needs to be done on specific characters that are quest related, etc. And other methods exist to show differences: I can still see what things are completed on what characters by looking at my map and zone guide. And if you are on PC there are even achievement tracker options if you want to be able to tell what hasn't been done without logging into a character.

4. And even for those that are goal driven - AwA only stop that if you let it. Since you can still tell what content has been done on which character, or if you are working toward something more serious like a trifecta achievement in a trial, you'll know off the top of your head I'd say, then those goals still exist. For example, once I've done things in a trial on one tank that we wanted to achieve, I still will switch to another, not b/c I want the little achievement box to check off, but because I personally want to know that I've done this HM trial on eventually all my tanks. And again, if you need the checklist, at least on PC the add on option is there, but it's not something I need to track which serious achievements I've done on which characters. I certainly get how this can be inconveniencing to some, but it's something that IMO can be worked around (even without add ons).

5. It's supposed to help with performance. Will it? I don't know, or will it even be a lot? idk, but even if it's like 1% improvement, it's worth it IMO. It just doesn't have any big enough drawbacks to not try it, especially with the fact that more people like it than don't, despite how much noise is made about it.

6. And last, on the noise - I hate to say it, but it's not changing. It's here, get used to it. If someone is going to move on from the game, they already have and are not posting about it, if they are posting in the forum, then they really haven't moved on. ZoS didn't do all the work to just roll it back and change it back, especially with more people liking it than not. I know it sucks when you have to eat some bad news, there have been plenty of moves I've hated that zos made over the years, but it's done. Best thing is to adapt.

Pretty much all of this.

I've spent a lot of the last two years grinding out achievements on my main to try to clear them all. Outside most group related achievements, I have done pretty much every solo thing on my main. However, there are a few that are pretty much the more ridiculous grinds, like killing scamps in Imperial City and killing players in the Arena, or killing X of one specific enemy type from vet dungeons. These are far more approachable when I can vary the class and build to complete the achievement, or when I have already collectively done the achievement across various characters from the my time playing the game. I only wish this had been implemented prior to doing the monster trophy grind last year, and I partly wish that combined AP gain would have contributed towards PVP rank achievements.

Lauranae · March 2022

I am sorry but if i accomplish something with one character, I am proud. BUT having now even on my mules that achievement, its totally negative. Means that achievement worth zero! nothing! nada! niet!

They did nothing and have the same achievements.... stupid stupid stupid

All of you who asked for it, have totally negate the role play on this game which was *intended* for it.

This game is no more than a vulgar mmo, log in, kill, log off. Rince and repeat. Because once your main as you call it did all achievements what do you do ? oh yes i know ... may be ..... go IC to gank or cyro to farm us.

Happily I still enjoy the game because i bought a new fresh account. I can discover all really and not falsly.
My challenges are my own.
If i succeed its great, if not i will come back and do it.
But no one will streap me of my fun. Not you. Not even the devs.

Mythgard1967 · March 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

So what dyes & cosmetics did you not have access to?

And the epilogues? Tied to completing a questline. Not that surprising in an rpg. But now - huzzah! - if you’ve done the questline once you won’t get to access the epilogue ever again! One & done!!

And just to be crystal clear, I care not a jot about achievements. I don’t care if done on whichever character.

I DO CARE about being able to play through the game again without half the map & activities already completed.

in my specific case, i had 4 achievements for completing both dlc dungeons in a dlc unlock with account wide achievements because i had done the 2 dlc dungeons on different characters on vet and many boring "kill X enemies" achievements finish such as the slayer ones

so i like the AWA

but i dont disagree with those who have pointed out the obvious issues such as the quests and zone guide (and in fact am one of those would have rather had the account achievements in the collection menu without touching the characters which)

edit: i also really dislike that nonsense "earned by" tooltip so i got an addon to remove that lol

THIS Completely....as to which cosmetics? I actually DID have access to them because I was forced by the old system to do all content on a single character and I did it. It was all done for me...and to be clear...I hated it. Just look at Cadwell Silver; or any of the achievements that granted dyes based on doing all of one faction on a single character or those you got from completing all factions on one character.

You know...the achievements nested in achievements that reward dyes/cosmetics.

The issue with the epilogues is that they are not tied to quests as you allude to. If they were...you could replay them on new characters. They are tied to achievements and thus went away. So instead of "OMGZ AWA is bad...the question is...can this achievement driven content be moved to quest completion triggers vs achievement award triggers???"

Oliviander · March 2022

To OP
That one is easy:

It is not !

Xebov · March 2022

Tomboski wrote: »

1. I can't freely tp to any location that I've already conquered/completed.
2. I can't help anyone who needs a tp to a location that I've already conquered/completed.
3. [snip] else do you want from me?

You have 4 players that would like to do harder dungeon achievments. Everyone wants it done on their main where they gather achievments, but their roles dont fit together.
So far the only 2 solutions where either some had to change roles or they had to do it on alts and complete the stuff multiple times.
For players that frequently played on various characters it was even possible that tehy have some dungeon achievments on each character but not enough on a single character to unlock the meta achievment for the reward.

You are a player that frequently plays multiple characters. You would like to complete some volume achievments, like dolmen, dolmen bosses or mob loot. Chances are that you will have some parts on individual characters, but noone has everything. So you eitehr take ages or you focus on a single character.

These 2 prominent issues are now solved. You can play whatever you want and however you like.

[edited to remove quote]

Xebov · March 2022

Saieden wrote: »

Not absolute beginner, obviously, I mean players that have completed vet craglorn trials/HMs to join DLC vet trials would typically post an achievement (along with parse or owned gear sets) to get a rank to join for their role. No (successful) training guilds will accept a tank into vKA if they've cleared it on dps, but never any tanked a vet trial before, this is the issue now with AWA. Before, the amount work and effort it would take to apply as a "fake-role" (i.e cleared as DPS and applying for healer rank) was enough of a deterrent to stop 99.99% of would-be's. Now, you just log in and every toon has all the clears without necessarily setting a foot into actual content, so guilds that required achievements previously for mid-tier difficulty are basically forced to ask for logs.

I hope you are aware that achievment links are not character specific, they are generic codes followed by a date. You could effectively copy them between characters and you can still use the ones from another player or simply build your own by editing the link. Many high tier raid leaders are aware of this.

ZOS_GregoryV · March 2022

Greetings all!

After removing a few comments, we would like to remind everyone that all posts should be kept civil, constructive, and within the Community Rules. Flaming is a violation of the rules, and is stated as follows:

Flaming: It’s okay to disagree and debate on the official ESO forums, but we do ask that you keep all disagreements civil, constructive, and on-topic. If a discussion gets heated and turns into a debate, remember that you should stick to debating the post and/or thread topic. It is never appropriate to resort to personal comments or jabs about those participating in the thread discussion.

Should there be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

Indigogo · March 2022

I'm trying to be open minded but it just sucked seeing every single achievement you can earn in cyro be done. For every toon. Forever.

dzugarueb17_ESO · March 2022

Lauranae wrote: »

Happily I still enjoy the game because i bought a new fresh account. I can discover all really and not falsly.

That's just great, maybe it was the plan from the beginning? To experience the game a second time you now need to buy a second account, more $$ for ZOS, yes? What a fool I must be, cause my reaction was directly opposite - cancel ESO+ on all accounts and uninstall.

And to think that it could be done well for everyone - like in the other games, you know, where you have account wide achievs, but they're greyed out on chars that do not have them, ahh no, its impossible. Database sharding is "a simple concept of cold storage" - that one alone killed all my hopes. Having 20 kb data per char destroyed because they couldnt find any other solution and for what? Where is that mythical performance? Eh?

ZiggyTStardust · March 2022

I don't really care about the achievemtns itself, they could have stayed character wide as far as I am concerend, but I really like account wide titles. There are some titles I would like to use on some characters (they fit to their theme) that I would never have done on those characters

Inaya · March 2022

Because now I can play any of my characters and not have to worry about getting the achievement on my alt. I love achievements, not because of the points specifically, but because they are little goals to achieve as I'm playing the whole game.

ValerraTheProwler · March 2022

I've been wanting to have the title Witch on my sorcerer and now I finally have it all thanks to account-wide achievements.

peacenote · March 2022

xaraan wrote: »

1. Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.

Well, to this I would say, yes, exactly!!! So, setting aside achievements that are linked to rewards, why was there a need to mark them "done" on characters that haven't done them? If they mean nothing, who cares? If you get one, great, but if not, it affects nothing.

xaraan wrote: »

2. Players that like playing more than one character shouldn't be penalized.

I play 3 - 6 characters "seriously" and even more on a casual basis. I never felt penalized by the old achievement system; I feel penalized now, such that I have to choose only one character to experience earning the achievement, whereas before I could do it over and over again (if I wanted) or on just one character (if I wanted), depending on whether I enjoyed the achievement or not, and I had the ability to easily track this within the game.

xaraan wrote: »

4. And even for those that are goal driven - AwA only stop that if you let it. Since you can still tell what content has been done on which character, or if you are working toward something more serious like a trifecta achievement in a trial, you'll know off the top of your head I'd say, then those goals still exist. For example, once I've done things in a trial on one tank that we wanted to achieve, I still will switch to another, not b/c I want the little achievement box to check off, but because I personally want to know that I've done this HM trial on eventually all my tanks. And again, if you need the checklist, at least on PC the add on option is there, but it's not something I need to track which serious achievements I've done on which characters. I certainly get how this can be inconveniencing to some, but it's something that IMO can be worked around (even without add ons).

That's kind of a cavalier way to approach something people enjoyed doing for eight years that has now been removed. If there was a feature you really enjoyed, I certainly wouldn't dismiss it and say "just work around it." I'd advocate for you. But also, just because you don't need it, it's not true for everyone. I have a lot going on, I don't have a perfect memory, and often a lot of time lapses in between my play sessions so I absolutely do not know off the top of my head which major achievements I'm working towards. It is a major quality of life decrease to HAVE to remember something that I could quickly check before.

While my friends are still in this game, I will not let AwA keep me from doing what I was doing before, but personally I feel that it is never good for functionality to be removed. Added, tweaked, improved, retired for a better way.... I don't think that something that's an inconvenience to many (based on all the feedback) and game breaking to others should be accepted as "OK." Saying that everyone likes AwA doesn't mean ZOS shouldn't go back and address some of this. QoL is a big drum people bang all the time.

xaraan wrote: »

6. And last, on the noise - I hate to say it, but it's not changing. It's here, get used to it. If someone is going to move on from the game, they already have and are not posting about it, if they are posting in the forum, then they really haven't moved on. ZoS didn't do all the work to just roll it back and change it back, especially with more people liking it than not. I know it sucks when you have to eat some bad news, there have been plenty of moves I've hated that zos made over the years, but it's done. Best thing is to adapt.

I respectfully completely disagree on this. Are my historical dates gone forever? Yes (probably? 99.9% certain?). LOL

However, as we continue to live with this implementation and notice what we are missing, or what could be improved, up until AwA I have believed that ZOS listens. If enough people take the time to explain what they'd like to see, we could get improvements in the future. A better quest journal or dungeon/trial tracker that's separate from the achievement database and maybe takes up less space or is coded in a different way, for example. Stickerbook seems to be an example of a large database that was added separately.

As a paying customer it is never good advice to just get used to it, play the game, and be quiet. Especially if you actually like the game and want it to be successful. While some of what occurred with this implementation was a destructive change, ZOS has tweaked, reversed, and/or added on to many systems over the years. And since we didn't even get a communication acknowledging that the loss of these play styles was intentional, it especially makes sense to ensure that this is at the top of the list of feedback that ZOS is considering.

jaws343 wrote: »

However, there are a few that are pretty much the more ridiculous grinds, like killing scamps in Imperial City and killing players in the Arena, or killing X of one specific enemy type from vet dungeons. These are far more approachable when I can vary the class and build to complete the achievement, or when I have already collectively done the achievement across various characters from the my time playing the game. I only wish this had been implemented prior to doing the monster trophy grind last year, and I partly wish that combined AP gain would have contributed towards PVP rank achievements.

1-- If these "grindy" achievements were the only ones that rolled up in AwA I would have had no complaints. I agree they are ridiculous and doing them once is more than enough. They could have been made account wide while keeping memorable per-character achievements (like when each one reached level 50

).

2-- There would have been a much less intrusive way to deal with these. The trophy ones in particular were mentioned more than anything else as a pro-AwA argument. Perhaps the achievements that everyone hated could have been altered, the dyes moved to other achievements, and/or see #1?

Saieden wrote: »

renne wrote: »

Saieden wrote: »

renne wrote: »

moleculardrugs wrote: »

I don’t get why they just can’t have 2 systems? One AWA and one not. It’s not hard to add a new line of text

The FAQ sticky explains why.

[snip] In fact, the idea was brought up weeks before the "QnA" and it was almost universally agreed that if there was any tangible performance benefit to AWA, ZoS would have been shoving it in our faces from the day it was announced.

There is a sticky explaining why ZOS has made this choice. Sorry, it literally doesn't matter if it IS absolute garbage or if you've made a million posts explaining why you think it's wrong, these are the reasons ZOS has given.

You've missed the point entirely. The reasons they have given are easily refuted by the most basic logic, and even if they are true, it only proves that they are incapable of developing robust and scalable data solutions, and are willing to sacrifice the player's experience instead of improving the quality of their product and/or staff. It's like a restaurant deciding to sell half burgers or steaks for the same price as the full one because they can't fit enough of them on the grill at once, instead of upgrading their kitchen to properly serve tables at capacity. And then telling customers that it's better because now they don't have to chew as much.

Ha. I just want to say I enjoyed this write-up. Agreed. A loss is a loss and them telling us "well this was requested" when most games implement it in a different way is frustrating. "You lost something, but since you said you wanted it, it's a feature, not a loss, and you should pay the same price for it."

[edited to remove quote]

DP99 · March 2022

Mushroomancer wrote: »

To me the main benefit is that I'm not forced to play one character in trials "because then my alts won't get the title", and no, I have never given the tiniest crap about reclearing trials with alts to get titles on them; I feel like that's a very artificial and forced way to squeeze replayability out of content which is mostly bereft of it, aside from changing role entirely.
It's a pity this change came at a time in which I am severely burnt out on ESO, so my playtime hasn't increased much.

Could this have been implemented in a better, more elegant way? Absolutely. Overall though, I think this is a good change, once it gets smoothed over, if it ever does. Probably would have been better if ZOS hadn't nuked a lot of character-specific data in the process, but hey, it's for performance, and everytime they have claimed to better performance it has worked, right? Yes, I'm being sarcastic, if that wasn't obvious enough.

Here is the thing I don't get about RPers who complain about AwA, and this is a genuine question, don't want to throw any shade at anyone or be facetious. How can you rationalize hundreds of fellow "chosen ones" running around, a lot of them with ridiculous, immersion-shattering outfits and names, but you cannot fathom not equipping a title which is an optional cosmetic line of text? Also, if immersion and authenticity is your main concern, how is having pop-ups of quite arbitrary milestones being reached not immersion breaking? Imagine having a loud pop-up showing up out of thin air when you got a new job IRL, so authentic.

Now, I can understand people using achievements as a sort of spreadsheet to track what each character may have accomplished (and yes, the little flavour dialogue NPCs spit out as you walk past them being influenced by this is pretty silly), but is losing your spreadsheet genuinely enough to completely kill any RP potential (which to me is very small, I will admit) this game has?

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I can understand the checklist thing somewhat, but wanting to quit the game because of some arbitrary digital text on a screen is now on the “wrong character” and now that character is “ruined” is ridiculous to me.[snip] the titles don’t lock onto each character and aren’t permanent, they’re just there on a list for crying out loud! Nobody sees the list, but you as the individual player! Your high and mighty holy Templar isn’t actually being labeled a “murderer,” and your murderous Nightblade isn’t actually being labeled some title of “decency” whatever that may be to destroy their reputation either.

[edited for potential baiting]

dzugarueb17_ESO · March 2022

DP99 wrote: »

Your high and mighty holy Templar isn’t actually being labeled a “murderer,” and your murderous Nightblade isn’t actually being labeled some title of “decency” whatever that may be to destroy their reputation either.

That would be true, if it was about achievements alone. But the thing is - its not. Huge parts of the game are destroyed - NPC flavour, dialogue options (your holy templar is literally "not a saint" anymore), no options to repeat some encounters EVER. Completely broken zone guide and map completion.

And on top of that - completely ignored hundreds of pages of feedback. A perfectly valid reason to not support the game or the devs anymore.

DP99 · March 2022

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

DP99 wrote: »

Your high and mighty holy Templar isn’t actually being labeled a “murderer,” and your murderous Nightblade isn’t actually being labeled some title of “decency” whatever that may be to destroy their reputation either.

That would be true, if it was about achievements alone. But the thing is - its not. Huge parts of the game are destroyed - NPC flavour, dialogue options (your holy templar is literally "not a saint" anymore), no options to repeat some encounters EVER. Completely broken zone guide and map completion.

And on top of that - completely ignored hundreds of pages of feedback. A perfectly valid reason to not support the game or the devs anymore.

According to this, it's not that bad, and being tested as to what does apply and what doesn't.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/600993/results-of-account-wide-achievements-testing-on-live-npc-interactions#latest

xaraan · March 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.

They have a great personal value for me and many others. Isn't that enough?

Yes, thank you for agreeing with me.

As I said, achievements mean something to you personally (i.e. personal value) and nothing to anyone else, so things like titles and such that they open, and therefore display to the world don't mean much to the public that is seeing them past being cosmetic.

For example: Nothing is stopping me from earning gryphon heart on every character if I want to do it personally just because I can display the title on any of them already.

xaraan · March 2022

peacenote wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

1. Achievements mean nothing past what they mean to you personally.

Well, to this I would say, yes, exactly!!! So, setting aside achievements that are linked to rewards, why was there a need to mark them "done" on characters that haven't done them? If they mean nothing, who cares? If you get one, great, but if not, it affects nothing.

xaraan wrote: »

2. Players that like playing more than one character shouldn't be penalized.

I play 3 - 6 characters "seriously" and even more on a casual basis. I never felt penalized by the old achievement system; I feel penalized now, such that I have to choose only one character to experience earning the achievement, whereas before I could do it over and over again (if I wanted) or on just one character (if I wanted), depending on whether I enjoyed the achievement or not, and I had the ability to easily track this within the game.

xaraan wrote: »

4. And even for those that are goal driven - AwA only stop that if you let it. Since you can still tell what content has been done on which character, or if you are working toward something more serious like a trifecta achievement in a trial, you'll know off the top of your head I'd say, then those goals still exist. For example, once I've done things in a trial on one tank that we wanted to achieve, I still will switch to another, not b/c I want the little achievement box to check off, but because I personally want to know that I've done this HM trial on eventually all my tanks. And again, if you need the checklist, at least on PC the add on option is there, but it's not something I need to track which serious achievements I've done on which characters. I certainly get how this can be inconveniencing to some, but it's something that IMO can be worked around (even without add ons).

That's kind of a cavalier way to approach something people enjoyed doing for eight years that has now been removed. If there was a feature you really enjoyed, I certainly wouldn't dismiss it and say "just work around it." I'd advocate for you. But also, just because you don't need it, it's not true for everyone. I have a lot going on, I don't have a perfect memory, and often a lot of time lapses in between my play sessions so I absolutely do not know off the top of my head which major achievements I'm working towards. It is a major quality of life decrease to HAVE to remember something that I could quickly check before.

While my friends are still in this game, I will not let AwA keep me from doing what I was doing before, but personally I feel that it is never good for functionality to be removed. Added, tweaked, improved, retired for a better way.... I don't think that something that's an inconvenience to many (based on all the feedback) and game breaking to others should be accepted as "OK." Saying that everyone likes AwA doesn't mean ZOS shouldn't go back and address some of this. QoL is a big drum people bang all the time.

xaraan wrote: »

6. And last, on the noise - I hate to say it, but it's not changing. It's here, get used to it. If someone is going to move on from the game, they already have and are not posting about it, if they are posting in the forum, then they really haven't moved on. ZoS didn't do all the work to just roll it back and change it back, especially with more people liking it than not. I know it sucks when you have to eat some bad news, there have been plenty of moves I've hated that zos made over the years, but it's done. Best thing is to adapt.

I respectfully completely disagree on this. Are my historical dates gone forever? Yes (probably? 99.9% certain?). LOL

However, as we continue to live with this implementation and notice what we are missing, or what could be improved, up until AwA I have believed that ZOS listens. If enough people take the time to explain what they'd like to see, we could get improvements in the future. A better quest journal or dungeon/trial tracker that's separate from the achievement database and maybe takes up less space or is coded in a different way, for example. Stickerbook seems to be an example of a large database that was added separately.

As a paying customer it is never good advice to just get used to it, play the game, and be quiet. Especially if you actually like the game and want it to be successful. While some of what occurred with this implementation was a destructive change, ZOS has tweaked, reversed, and/or added on to many systems over the years. And since we didn't even get a communication acknowledging that the loss of these play styles was intentional, it especially makes sense to ensure that this is at the top of the list of feedback that ZOS is considering.

jaws343 wrote: »

However, there are a few that are pretty much the more ridiculous grinds, like killing scamps in Imperial City and killing players in the Arena, or killing X of one specific enemy type from vet dungeons. These are far more approachable when I can vary the class and build to complete the achievement, or when I have already collectively done the achievement across various characters from the my time playing the game. I only wish this had been implemented prior to doing the monster trophy grind last year, and I partly wish that combined AP gain would have contributed towards PVP rank achievements.

1-- If these "grindy" achievements were the only ones that rolled up in AwA I would have had no complaints. I agree they are ridiculous and doing them once is more than enough. They could have been made account wide while keeping memorable per-character achievements (like when each one reached level 50 ).

2-- There would have been a much less intrusive way to deal with these. The trophy ones in particular were mentioned more than anything else as a pro-AwA argument. Perhaps the achievements that everyone hated could have been altered, the dyes moved to other achievements, and/or see #1?

Saieden wrote: »

renne wrote: »

Saieden wrote: »

renne wrote: »

moleculardrugs wrote: »

I don’t get why they just can’t have 2 systems? One AWA and one not. It’s not hard to add a new line of text

The FAQ sticky explains why.

[snip] In fact, the idea was brought up weeks before the "QnA" and it was almost universally agreed that if there was any tangible performance benefit to AWA, ZoS would have been shoving it in our faces from the day it was announced.

There is a sticky explaining why ZOS has made this choice. Sorry, it literally doesn't matter if it IS absolute garbage or if you've made a million posts explaining why you think it's wrong, these are the reasons ZOS has given.

You've missed the point entirely. The reasons they have given are easily refuted by the most basic logic, and even if they are true, it only proves that they are incapable of developing robust and scalable data solutions, and are willing to sacrifice the player's experience instead of improving the quality of their product and/or staff. It's like a restaurant deciding to sell half burgers or steaks for the same price as the full one because they can't fit enough of them on the grill at once, instead of upgrading their kitchen to properly serve tables at capacity. And then telling customers that it's better because now they don't have to chew as much.

Ha. I just want to say I enjoyed this write-up. Agreed. A loss is a loss and them telling us "well this was requested" when most games implement it in a different way is frustrating. "You lost something, but since you said you wanted it, it's a feature, not a loss, and you should pay the same price for it."

Sorry I'm not going to be as organized as your post was replying under each item, but I'll put the numbers with them to at least match up to each section.

1. - probably marked done on other characters because tracking them individually would be no different than just leaving them separate for whatever memory/server benefit it offers. So I'm not disagreeing that it would be nice to just have essentially 'a spreadsheet' built in to track everything, I just don't think it's worth losing any improvement it might offer to performance, even a tiny one.

2. - I'm glad you didn't feel penalized, but I did. A big turn off for MMOs for me is grinding and many are desensitized to it as will just say "it's part of the MMO game" and I'd disagree. Not that I don't expect to work for achievements, but if something requires me to simply grind out millions of kills running in a circle all day to try and get trophies for example, then it's not for me and I think MMOs should get away from that sort of stuff. Almost every trophy achievement opened up for me with AwA, and I've played since launch and even primarily focused on just a few characters over evenly spreading out my time on all of them and still not a single one of them had the monster trophy ones open. Or the ridiculously high thieving achievements that would require you instead of just playing the game to earn them, instead grind out thefts or fences on one character to get them - those opened up as well. So one can see, I already "achieved" them, I just didn't grind them out on one character.

4. - There are many things that have changed in the game over the years that I've adapted to. It happens. I know it's not great to hear someone say, just adapt to it, but sometimes it's a truth you have to hear. It's not that I don't understand your complaint, and I'm not saying it from the outside looking in, like "suck it up", but more like: "join me in adapting to things I don't like in order to keep enjoying the game overall." I may not disagree with this change, but I do feel your pain b/c of things I've disagreed with over the years as well. And remember - you are not a paying customer to me, It's not zos telling you that (even if they think it) it's me telling you as another customer. Again though, much more the "join me" mentality than being dismissive.

(Also, for players on PC, there are add ons you can get to use for trackers on achievements, I realize this is a PC only solution, but just putting it out there for those that are on PC and might not know).

6. - My comment about the noise is not to say don't work for improvements, but focused more toward those expecting it to just be undone. Those that are just yelling that zos should roll it back are just in for a road of disappointment. Even those that are expecting it to be changed into sort of a spread sheet where we would lose any benefit gained by not having the system track it individually will probably never be happy on the issue. But there are certainly other improvements that should be fought for and are reasonable and some that zos are already working on.

In a perfect world, I'd have been fine if they just had a system like the add-on I used to use (I think Votan's ach. tracker) where you could look at account wide, or for each character. And unlike the add-on, if zos offered that, it would have given them the option to do things like account wide titles and dye openings as those were earned as well. Then both camps would be happy - players that want the check box on every character and others that just want to earn cosmetic things like titles or dyes on the account. But that method would have given them no improvement memory/server wise I'd guess, maybe even add another thing to track making it worse.

As I said, if there is even a chance at a 1% improvement in performance, then it's worth it IMO. In certain areas this game is unplayable because of how bad the performance is. I don't say that to exaggerate: there have been times I've turned off PvP, even when my alliance was pushing victories b/c I couldn't even play the game (obviously if I wanted to follow the zerg and just stack to flip flags and earn points, it was "playable" in that regard - but I mean actually play it by using abilities and having fun). Or trials our guild just quit early a night on because performance was so bad it wasn't worth the hassle. In the end, no matter what they do with everything else in the game - if I can't play it, it won't matter. I still have friends that want to play the game and won't come back for no other reason that it just won't work, and there have been many changes they've hated as well, but performance is what is truly keeping them away.

I can certainly see why someone would take a comment like "adapt and move on" as dismissive and I already explained why I didn't mean it that way. But I see the players that maybe don't play end game trials or pvp and don't see how bad performance really is and how much its driving friends/players away and just yelling they want their spreadsheets back as even more dismissive of a bigger problem. (And yes, I know there are some that do pvp and trials and still want the old system, but I'd bet a lot more that don't.)

It sucks that server/game performance is so bad that we have to make concessions about something like this. But my point was never to say it wouldn't be great to have it both ways, just why I was ok with the changes and hoped they gave zos a fighting chance at getting it together performance wise.

[edited to remove quote]

Jaraal · April 2022

xaraan wrote: »

For example: Nothing is stopping me from earning gryphon heart on every character if I want to do it personally just because I can display the title on any of them already.

But you won't earn it on every character, because with AWA, it's one and done. It is literally impossible to earn the achievement a second time.

SerafinaWaterstar · April 2022

Well, AWA is *so* making me want to replay stuff. Especially as now don’t have to care about *actually* playing the game as apparently done it all already!!

Like Holiday quests. Previously I would have been interested in trying to get all the achievements on a character that hasn’t got them - but hey, now they have them all already! So don’t need to bother! Will do the fastest quest for tickets & thats it.

TitanEidolon · April 2022

Theros wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

Theros wrote: »

AwA I love it!!!

Like someone say: "every character can be my main" How cares create alts to have diferent role-play!! Just put all-in-one

Thank you Developers! You make the game Great again!

I don' know what you understand by roleplay but for me it's not having different achievements on different toons.
My characters are fleshed out in having their own style, sentiment, attitude and playstyle, i love all of them in their special roles. That's what i call roleplay.

Roleplay? well....
-I'm a Great Silencer in any alt now! (But only my assasin trully is)

-Now i can try help others in for exemple Faing Lair Challenger (Only my main DD did it) but now, i link my achivment with pride and tell everyone i'm a very very good tank! Because i did this alot in Tank! If we die... not my fault! I'm a exelent tank.

-And when i create a new char. I just love when boss's, delves and etc are completed! (if i ask, i will ask to have all completed) All of this are Roleplay and i trully love it

And in trials? OMG!!! I will never understand why people can't complete them! I link achivments in my healer but people keep die inside trials... i dont understand!

All of that was possible with a Respec before, and ridiculously easy with the armory now. I run every role on both of my main characters. Absolutely nothing would stop me from running as a tank and linking an achieve I earned as a DPS before. The achievements didn't say what role you played.

As to the roleplay, as others have pointed out I don't think you understand what that term means.

Jaraal · April 2022

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Well, AWA is *so* making me want to replay stuff. Especially as now don’t have to care about *actually* playing the game as apparently done it all already!!

Like Holiday quests. Previously I would have been interested in trying to get all the achievements on a character that hasn’t got them - but hey, now they have them all already! So don’t need to bother! Will do the fastest quest for tickets & thats it.

That's what I don't understand about the reasoning behind AWA. In marketing, the idea is to get the customer to spend as much time as possible browsing your store, because they will be more likely to purchase something, rather than removing their motivation to stick around and hustling them out the door. But the new one and done metric removes replayability and discourages the player from sticking around and doing things over again on different characters.

TitanEidolon · April 2022

Jaraal wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Well, AWA is *so* making me want to replay stuff. Especially as now don’t have to care about *actually* playing the game as apparently done it all already!!

Like Holiday quests. Previously I would have been interested in trying to get all the achievements on a character that hasn’t got them - but hey, now they have them all already! So don’t need to bother! Will do the fastest quest for tickets & thats it.

That's what I don't understand about the reasoning behind AWA. In marketing, the idea is to get the customer to spend as much time as possible browsing your store, because they will be more likely to purchase something, rather than removing their motivation to stick around and hustling them out the door. But the new one and done metric removes replayability and discourages the player from sticking around and doing things over again on different characters.

Personally, I was actively discouraged from really diving into a new character previously because I felt overwhelmed by the amount of "catch up" he'd have to do. Now I can replay content I actually enjoy for story/experience purposes without feeling like I'm fighting an uphill battle.

The first time I quit ESO I was bored of my sorcerer, and starting over on a new character just seemed like too much. Instead I found new games to play for awhile. Now if I get bored with a character I can try out a new one without feeling compelled to catch up or that I'm potentially "wasting" achieves on a character I won't like.

I get your perspective, but there are some of us for whom this change *does* "keep us browsing longer".

Can anyone explain to me how *Account Wide Acheivements* is a beneficial feature?

Can anyone explain to me how Account Wide Acheivements is a beneficial feature?