i'll +1 a prestige mode for content once you get all the content on a character. (i.e. zone-wide achievements for different base game zones or dlc zones/dungeons/trials)

It's hardly anything more to track- it may be difficult to prestige all vet trial achievements but I'm sure even that would be fun for those players to flex about.

short of prestiging our achievements I think maybe the only way would be to contact support and ask for a complete wipe of all character achievement flagging, which may invite bugs and could potentially be a time-intensive task.

Kisakee wrote: »

"Do you mind giving me access to your server data banks?"

They should just remove all names from achievements and keep date only so people stop complaining.

That isn't the point. People literally do not want the alts progress to contribute to the achievement. I find it enormously annoying to have an alt contribute to achievements I'm working towards on a different character, not because of the name on the achievement but because I simply wanted to do it on one character or another. I now avoid a zone on alts to play the way I want and used to be able to play

I'm in support of the ability to lock achievement progress to a certain character. If we were given the ability to white list certain characters on the achievement interface, it would make it so much better. I doubt it would be hard to implement- a simple drop down menu for each zone would suffice where the user could choose who contributes to what.

Account wide stuff is the best thing in this game, seriously what does it matter which character you got the achievement on since it's you who got it anyway ?

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They made this change to keep the game performant, so I doubt they'll give us anyway to have character achievements back.

Except quests, lore books and skyshards are tracked on an character basis.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They made this change to keep the game performant, so I doubt they'll give us anyway to have character achievements back.

Except quests, lore books and skyshards are tracked on an character basis.

That's got no bearing on why they changed to AWA. Their explicitly stated reason was to keep the game performant.

They did, now I kind of question the performance benefit, I assume database did not get much smaller but its likely less work updating the achievements as its no need to updated if completed. Note that the monster trophies still drops on alts even if I finished all their achievements but that is most likely another functionality as in drop tables.

I suspect it was an argument as AWA is controversial. Personally I prefer it but understand they who don't like it.

My solution was to activate 50 more accounts. So as to have the same database footprint as before. Don't worry I spent less doing that than I did on crowns pre change, and I have bought very little to none this year.

I had Master Angler on my main. Had just started working on it for my first alt when AwA came along. Haven’t fished since then.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They made this change to keep the game performant, so I doubt they'll give us anyway to have character achievements back.

Exactly this, it was necessary with the way the game is in order to ensure you loading into the game doesn't take longer than it needs to. Only keeping track of one set of things is a lot easier on the server and your client than keeping track of 18 characters worth of achievements.

peacenote wrote: »

And therefore I think sentiments like "well, since this was done for performance, it's pointless to ask" because we don't know what ZOS could implement in a more efficient way. If anything we have some evidence that it could be done if desired. Let's talk about what we'd like to see without assuming it isn't possible.

In the AWA, they flat out said that there was no way to do character achievements without losing the performance gains that were needed. They pretty much shut down any suggestions at this time. Maybe in a year or two when they've finished all their server issues, this would be worth revisiting. But as of now, I doubt they'd have publicly admitted how they need to do this to keep the game performant unless things were in too bad of shape to do anything else. They had to have known backlash would be coming and that people would hate it, so it must have been a critical need IMO. I'm not saying people shouldn't continue to remind them what AWA meant to them them or make suggestions. I'm just saying the current information we have doesn't look good, so that people who don't know can understand their current stance.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

And therefore I think sentiments like "well, since this was done for performance, it's pointless to ask" because we don't know what ZOS could implement in a more efficient way. If anything we have some evidence that it could be done if desired. Let's talk about what we'd like to see without assuming it isn't possible.

In the AWA, they flat out said that there was no way to do character achievements without losing the performance gains that were needed. They pretty much shut down any suggestions at this time. Maybe in a year or two when they've finished all their server issues, this would be worth revisiting. But as of now, I doubt they'd have publicly admitted how they need to do this to keep the game performant unless things were in too bad of shape to do anything else. They had to have known backlash would be coming and that people would hate it, so it must have been a critical need IMO. I'm not saying people shouldn't continue to remind them what AWA meant to them them or make suggestions. I'm just saying the current information we have doesn't look good, so that people who don't know can understand their current stance.

Ooo interesting. Not being sarcastic at all. I know you've been around a long time and I have a lot of respect for your opinions. I truly think it's just fascinating how folks can watch things unfold and come to different conclusions.

Because (and this is just an opinion) I have the exact opposite sentiment. I think "performance" has been used as a banner for a long time as a way to shut down controversy for changes when really they are just guessing. I think performance is mentioned a LOT. "Performance" is why I lost multiple healing springs. "Performance" is why orbs was changed. "Performance" justified the many, many Cyrodiil experiments. "Performance" is why we almost lost the ability as healers to make a difference ungrouped. Etc. And almost nothing that was done under the name of performance was rolled back if it didn't improve performance, even when it's admitted that it didn't, in fact, improve performance. I think they are super quick to mention performance because it's something that's hard to argue with. How can you defend any feature over making sure the playerbase doesn't crash, doesn't lag, etc.? It's a "greater good" argument that shuts down all debate. But to me, it's also a "cry wolf" argument. I've heard it many, many times and I think it's used very liberally. And it's definitely why I don't like seeing the community quoting it back when suggestions come up. It's not a personal criticism of you in any way. It's me, hearing it way too many times, developing cynicism after the 25th time I've heard it cited as a reason.

On the flip side, I see feedback all over the forums from folks asking ZOS and Devs "Do you even play this game??" in PvE, in PvP, especially for combat balance changes. It's my opinion that they truly did not understand the nuances behind AwA and viewed it as a "quick win" because they read Twitter feedback and surveys that were "pro" or "against" without comments instead of reading the detailed forum comments for every "Who wants AwA?" poll that came up regularly. I think they thought detractors would be in the vocal minority and they were doing something nice for everyone. A win-win. I originally was pro-AwA when I thought it was a layer and I think today it's mostly glossed over that a huge majority of pro-AwA folks just wanted account-wide titles, and jumped to the conclusion that AwA was the only way to get that done. Which, of course, was silly because all of our other rewards were account-wide with the system being as it was.

I can somewhat understand a decision being made if "the powers that be" didn't get the unintended consequences and thought truly everyone would be happy. That's a bummer, and once your code is ready and you can't go back, I can see dropping the "performance" excuse since, well... it wouldn't HURT performance. But I think it's just plain wrong if they KNEW they had no other choice but to do this and yet still first tried to float it under the banner of "you wanted this." To me that's way worse (it's gaslighting) and I choose to believe that's not how it went down. I think it was "this would help performance, we THINK" so when they thought people wanted it, it was a quick win during the pandemic when they couldn't do too much. When people objected and they misjudged all the use cases? Oh, let's trot out the performance excuse again so we can try to retain the win. Which I don't like but have more sympathy for than the other option, which is that they KNEW people would be upset but first tried to pretend that we shouldn't be. I remember the stream when it was announced, and chat was flying through, and the comments were "oh look, people are happy!" when in reality some comments were happy and some where objecting. Did they know, even then, or were they just hopeful and optimistic and choosing to see the positive comments as they cascaded by?

ANYWAY, I respect your opinion. And you may be right. Most of the reasons I choose to believe they didn't understand how upset people would be is because that's the only thing that allows me to keep playing the game. A misguided but benevolent decision-maker is acceptable to me but a calculating, willing-to-lie decision-maker is not. Unless we get better answers from ZOS I don't think we'll ever know the truth. And I doubt even if we get clarification that someone would ever admit that they knew ahead of time that people would be upset.

Regardless, to bring this thread back around, I understand the OP's sentiment. I do think that being given the ability to delete alt achievements just wouldn't happen (requires too many rights) and I also think it wouldn't appease all of the different use cases burned by the AwA implementation. But I would like to see responses from others on whether they agree with the OP or whether they have other ideas, especially for folks who identify with a "main."

I do. I have a "main" and I can say that allowing me to clear things when an alt obtains an achievement wouldn't cut it, for me. I want to be able to track all the characters because I like repeating content and I don't have the type of memory that always knows what everyone has done. I care about working though everything with all my characters while I also would like to track the progress of my alts. AND I'm not a completionist. I don't care if my alts have done everything, and I do prioritize getting achievements on my main first (and I try to get "earned by" on my main) but ultimately the loss of tracking achievements per character is about replay ability, because I want to bring my alts through content again and log recognition for it, which is different than being happy with the ability to be allowed to cleanse the achievements so the log can stay pure for a main only. And I say this from the perspective of having a main. My philosophy is - I want my main to do everything, and my alts will work through as I please. And I don't want my alts to earn something before my main since we now can only have one character immortalized per accomplishment. (Not that I can do anything about it, now, besides stop playing my alts.)

But others might have other thoughts?

peacenote wrote: »

Because (and this is just an opinion) I have the exact opposite sentiment. I think "performance" has been used as a banner for a long time as a way to shut down controversy for changes when really they are just guessing.

For me, I think it's moreso that they haven't been able to fix anything than using it as a way to shut down controversy. Just waiting it out is good enough for that. To me it's like they had a roof that needed total replacement and they spent years trying to patch it up or make inadequate repairs as stop gaps, until the darn thing became a serious hazard. And now they finally bit the bullet and got a new roof. And that's what AWA and the server projects are. I don't think any company would make itself look it's in that dire need of repairs or incapable on purpose just to dodge people not liking any particular feature.

ETA
Also I think that their initial response about AWA was they were hoping that the people who liked it outnumbered the people who didn't. I'm sure they still expected a backlash, but probably not as big as it got

Achievements is a distraction from the underlying issue of the visibility of character-level quest completion. The game has to track that for many quests, but the player no longer has an achievement to check as a clue. So now the only way to determine if a quest has been done by a specific character is often to go and see if it can be started. At that point, it gets hard to distinguish between, “you can’t do that yet”, and “you can’t do that again”.