AwA... A look back

Tandor · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I certainly don't expect ZOS to roll back this change or any other, they make their decisions and stick with them. However, I do think the discussion is a constructive one from both sides of the argument on a topic that has generated a lot of heat over the last year or more, and they could learn from it where engagement with the community is concerned.

Casul · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I have alt characters now so that’s cool. Just need to fix the mount system and we will actually make some forward progress.

oldbobdude · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I have master angler on my main. I was about 30% through it on my 2nd alt. Then AwA came. Haven’t fished since. I put my Grand Master Crafter on all me new toons. Lol.

Kesstryl · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Elsonso wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

Meh. What are they going to do? Reverse course? I mean, sure, I bet that someone reads it, but my guess is that if they had to make the decision again, they would do it the same way.

I don't expect to get my character achievements back at this point, but I do expect something to replace them like a more robust quest journal, or maybe some kind of new pro alt feature like a character bio that can be read by other players when they interact with you like SWG had, or even just fixing the stupid map by getting rid of the auto completed stuff for our alts which seems to be the one almost universally agreed detriment that AwA brought.

peacenote · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Kesstryl wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

Meh. What are they going to do? Reverse course? I mean, sure, I bet that someone reads it, but my guess is that if they had to make the decision again, they would do it the same way.

I don't expect to get my character achievements back at this point, but I do expect something to replace them like a more robust quest journal, or maybe some kind of new pro alt feature like a character bio that can be read by other players when they interact with you like SWG had, or even just fixing the stupid map by getting rid of the auto completed stuff for our alts which seems to be the one almost universally agreed detriment that AwA brought.

Yes, this. I'm glad someone tagged Kevin. I have been meaning to (and still will) type up a wish list/detailed description of what I think could be improved to offset the damage done by AwA. It definitely includes things like fixing the map progress, a character journal, and a rewards structure for repeating hard achievements in group content which, if done well, could improve on what we had before in some ways. To me the worst part of AwA has always been that it was very unclear whether ZOS truly didn't understand the collateral damage (at least until it was too far into the development cycle), knew but didn't care, or knew but had no choice re: the performance issue. If it's anything but the middle choice, ZOS responding to the community that they are aware of how pockets of folks were impacted, acknowledge our continued feedback on the subject, and are considering future improvements would go a LONG way, at least for me. I didn't leave, but every new patch, update, or release I steel myself for the potential of additional loss of functionality and support for the alt lifestyle, and it wouldn't have to be that way if we ever got a response that said "We realize the implementation wasn't ideal for all playstyles. We did the best we could at the time but we've heard you and will keep working on ways to improve character tracking and are committed to supporting members of the community who enjoy re-playing our game on multiple characters."

Also continued silence on the topic feels to me as if it is evidence of them knowing but not caring, which you'd think wouldn't be the image they want to portray (or the company they'd want to be). So I maintain hope that it will still be addressed and raise my voice on the topic whenever I notice it.

Elsonso · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

peacenote wrote: »

To me the worst part of AwA has always been that it was very unclear whether ZOS truly didn't understand the collateral damage (at least until it was too far into the development cycle), knew but didn't care, or knew but had no choice re: the performance issue. If it's anything but the middle choice, ZOS responding to the community that they are aware of how pockets of folks were impacted, acknowledge our continued feedback on the subject, and are considering future improvements would go a LONG way, at least for me.

They have never come out and said it, but all the puzzle pieces over the years point to a large reason for AwA being backend data management. So, from my view sitting in my chair, they basically did what they did because they had to do what they did.

A year later ... I am not sure telling us that improve or adds to things, other than proving me right.

Destai · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

peacenote wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

Meh. What are they going to do? Reverse course? I mean, sure, I bet that someone reads it, but my guess is that if they had to make the decision again, they would do it the same way.

I don't expect to get my character achievements back at this point, but I do expect something to replace them like a more robust quest journal, or maybe some kind of new pro alt feature like a character bio that can be read by other players when they interact with you like SWG had, or even just fixing the stupid map by getting rid of the auto completed stuff for our alts which seems to be the one almost universally agreed detriment that AwA brought.

Yes, this. I'm glad someone tagged Kevin. I have been meaning to (and still will) type up a wish list/detailed description of what I think could be improved to offset the damage done by AwA. It definitely includes things like fixing the map progress, a character journal, and a rewards structure for repeating hard achievements in group content which, if done well, could improve on what we had before in some ways. To me the worst part of AwA has always been that it was very unclear whether ZOS truly didn't understand the collateral damage (at least until it was too far into the development cycle), knew but didn't care, or knew but had no choice re: the performance issue. If it's anything but the middle choice, ZOS responding to the community that they are aware of how pockets of folks were impacted, acknowledge our continued feedback on the subject, and are considering future improvements would go a LONG way, at least for me. I didn't leave, but every new patch, update, or release I steel myself for the potential of additional loss of functionality and support for the alt lifestyle, and it wouldn't have to be that way if we ever got a response that said "We realize the implementation wasn't ideal for all playstyles. We did the best we could at the time but we've heard you and will keep working on ways to improve character tracking and are committed to supporting members of the community who enjoy re-playing our game on multiple characters."

Also continued silence on the topic feels to me as if it is evidence of them knowing but not caring, which you'd think wouldn't be the image they want to portray (or the company they'd want to be). So I maintain hope that it will still be addressed and raise my voice on the topic whenever I notice it.

Bolded for agreement.

This has been and continues to be my major issue with them. It shouldn't be so hard to get responses on things. The map progress one is a great example. I've been waiting on a response for 4 months from them. I expect it'll still be an issue going forward because that's the track record they've set. It's hard not be frustrated.

Your point on their image really resonated with me. That is their image for me and they've reinforced it at nearly every turn. There's been a few key moments, and AWA was one of them. I mostly like AWA, but there's some things that could've been worked through a bit more IMO. I just didn't like it how eventually came down to "we're doing it". No engagement. It all felt very dismissive. And just like the Q&A fiasco from last year, they missed an opportunity to turn around that image.

Like you, I want to keep pointing it out. Best I can do is keep illustrating for them how to better communicate.

shadyjane62 · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

AWA should be all or nothing. If I lose individual achievments then everything should be AWA including skyshards and mount training.

AzuraFan · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Kesstryl wrote: »

I don't expect to get my character achievements back at this point, but I do expect something to replace them like a more robust quest journal, or maybe some kind of new pro alt feature like a character bio that can be read by other players when they interact with you like SWG had, or even just fixing the stupid map by getting rid of the auto completed stuff for our alts which seems to be the one almost universally agreed detriment that AwA brought.

Yes. I'd be happy if they'd just uncouple achievements from the zone map. At least then I could start a fresh alt and know what they'd done in each zone.

I doubt they will, because I think things were so poorly designed that they coupled things together that shouldn't have been coupled and now it would too much effort to uncouple them. I can't see any other reason for them to blow away individual map tracking when they made achievements account wide. But I can hope. Maybe the new schedule, with Q3 being QoL improvements, will let them make some heavy duty changes.

Northwold · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

[edited for baiting]

heaven13 · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

[edited to remove quote]

Northwold · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

I'll be perfectly honest here. Personally I was more inclined to even contemplate another character after achievements became account wide than before. But then I find the grind of much of ESO insufferable so the thought of having to go through it all again was the opposite of appealing.

But too often players on here get fixated on ways of playing that they claim are "mainstream" when they really aren't and it leads to very distorted discussions in which the priorities of ultra end game players get held out as the only thing ZOS is supposed to care about. Again, personally, I think if they acted on much of the stuff that is said here they would end up killing the game for anyone who hadn't already been playing it for years.

[edited to remove quote]

heaven13 · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Northwold wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

I'll be perfectly honest here. Personally I was more inclined to even contemplate another character after achievements became account wide than before. But then I find the grind of much of ESO insufferable so the thought of having to go through it all again was the opposite of appealing.

And you could have had that, had ZoS actually approached achievements in a thoughtful way. Accountwide achievements could have been a thing and then a character journal added. Or literally just have AwA in one tab, and character achievements in another. But, let me be honest with you, what ZoS did felt messy, thoughtless, and last minute rushed to try to push out some kind of "QoL" feature for U33 that they still haven't finished fixing. I have no problem with people wanting accountwide achievements and to be able to see all the achievements they, as the player have done. But I don't agree that for those people that wanted that, the other side of the coin had to lose. It didn't have to be that way.

[edited to remove quote]

Northwold · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

I'll be perfectly honest here. Personally I was more inclined to even contemplate another character after achievements became account wide than before. But then I find the grind of much of ESO insufferable so the thought of having to go through it all again was the opposite of appealing.

And you could have had that, had ZoS actually approached achievements in a thoughtful way. Accountwide achievements could have been a thing and then a character journal added. Or literally just have AwA in one tab, and character achievements in another. But, let me be honest with you, what ZoS did felt messy, thoughtless, and last minute rushed to try to push out some kind of "QoL" feature for U33 that they still haven't finished fixing. I have no problem with people wanting accountwide achievements and to be able to see all the achievements they, as the player have done. But I don't agree that for those people that wanted that, the other side of the coin had to lose. It didn't have to be that way.

Given the problems they had been having and still have with performance I didn't have any difficulty accepting their stated reason for doing it, which was to reduce load on the servers. Making the system optional would not simplify the database or whatever the issue was. It would further complicate it.

I suspect they would have looked at the data first and seen how many players this would be likely to affect and then weighed that against the performance gain. After all, it's not like they can't look up how much of the playerbase has multiple characters and to what extent people actually play them.

[edited to remove quote]

tmbrinks · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Northwold wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

I'll be perfectly honest here. Personally I was more inclined to even contemplate another character after achievements became account wide than before. But then I find the grind of much of ESO insufferable so the thought of having to go through it all again was the opposite of appealing.

And you could have had that, had ZoS actually approached achievements in a thoughtful way. Accountwide achievements could have been a thing and then a character journal added. Or literally just have AwA in one tab, and character achievements in another. But, let me be honest with you, what ZoS did felt messy, thoughtless, and last minute rushed to try to push out some kind of "QoL" feature for U33 that they still haven't finished fixing. I have no problem with people wanting accountwide achievements and to be able to see all the achievements they, as the player have done. But I don't agree that for those people that wanted that, the other side of the coin had to lose. It didn't have to be that way.

Given the problems they had been having and still have with problem I didn't have any difficulty accepting their stated reason for doing it, which was to reduce load on the servers.

I suspect they would have looked at the data first and seen how many players this would be likely to affect and then weighed that against the performance gain. After all, it's not like they can't look up how much of the playerbase runs multiple characters and to what extent people actually play them.

If only there had been any performance gain...

but, ZoS decided to remove a playstyle for a percentage of players for the chance that it might improve performance.

Instead of taking a scalpel to try and make improvements, they took a sledgehammer... and then staunchly refused to even engage the community on it.

[edited to remove quote]

Elsonso · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Northwold wrote: »

But too often players on here get fixated on ways of playing that they claim are "mainstream" when they really aren't and it leads to very distorted discussions in which the priorities of ultra end game players get held out as the only thing ZOS is supposed to care about. Again, personally, I think if they acted on much of the stuff that is said here they would end up killing the game for anyone who hadn't already been playing it for years.

Frequently, what I see is that "mainstream" ends up being "least common denominator", especially in a diverse game with a mix of many different play styles. Catering to the best common denominator makes the game shallow, and ultimately, the common leave and all that is left is the least.

maximusrex45 · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I can play whatever character I feel like now and not worry about splitting up my efforts across my account.

BlueViolet · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Dova_13 wrote: »

For me, achievements are a measure of how far you can progress with a character. I don't see any point in creating a new character and having caves, dolmens, world bosses completed with a newly created character. However, the motifs, furniture blueprints, and mount upgrades are separated by character. The exploration and identity of each character, the recovery of a certain achievement in a new character, is gone. The replayability has been negatively affected, for me

Stanx wrote: »

Not a fan of it. As a console player, it just messes up any new characters. Multiple new characters have all delves and world bosses completed in every zone despite not even having discovered their locations. Makes keeping track of individual progress a nightmare. I'm grateful they left a few "character achievements" as public dungeon group events are a to-go skill point farm for me.

Weirdly, AwA has killed my sense of achievement.

These.

I wouldn't normally feel one way or the other about AwA, though I did like simply earning archievements on what I thought were the appropriate characters. My thief / assassin character earned all the Dark Brotherhood / Thieve Guild achievements, etc - BUT the thing with the map really bothers me.

I hadn't made a new character for a very long time, and hadn't played for almost an equally long time, but I made a new one the other week, and was highly annoyed to discover when I went into a zone, that it was all already completed.
By doing that, It can be hard to realise where my current character was up to in its zone progression, because it was all already done.

I would really appreciate doing something with the zone maps so this kind of thing doesn't happen. I like to see what progression I am making in my characters adventuring. I don't want it already completed. As said above, that has the reverse effect on the sense of achievement, and has left me feeling like my characters don't have any at all.

I haven't done the quest since AwA but are questlines like the final portion of the Ravenwatch arc still tied to an achievement? Meaning Verandis wont show up for the quest since the achievement is already completed on every character?
Because that would infuriate me.

DocFrost72 · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

I'm just glad titles transfer. My character isn't of the Undying Song, I was the one that got the achieve.

LunaFlora · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

before account wide achievements i did the jester's festival quests needed for the Lady of Misrule title for my first eight characters

and after AwA i've only done the jester quests i actually enjoy and i really hate the jester king emeric quest because of the fireworks.

not really any other big difference but i enjoy being able to use titles for all my characters regardless of which earned them.

though i wish i could've been able to finish the grand master crafter achievement for my main character as i only needed like 3 more motifs before AwA. it instead got granted to my first character because they knew at least more than however many motifs i still needed to complete.

it's fine it's just funny that i got achievements i was trying to get with my main character because i had progress on certain achievements with characters by simply doing a quest or two or learning the blue motifs.

Kesstryl · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

BlueViolet wrote: »

Dova_13 wrote: »

For me, achievements are a measure of how far you can progress with a character. I don't see any point in creating a new character and having caves, dolmens, world bosses completed with a newly created character. However, the motifs, furniture blueprints, and mount upgrades are separated by character. The exploration and identity of each character, the recovery of a certain achievement in a new character, is gone. The replayability has been negatively affected, for me

Stanx wrote: »

Not a fan of it. As a console player, it just messes up any new characters. Multiple new characters have all delves and world bosses completed in every zone despite not even having discovered their locations. Makes keeping track of individual progress a nightmare. I'm grateful they left a few "character achievements" as public dungeon group events are a to-go skill point farm for me.

Weirdly, AwA has killed my sense of achievement.

These.

I wouldn't normally feel one way or the other about AwA, though I did like simply earning archievements on what I thought were the appropriate characters. My thief / assassin character earned all the Dark Brotherhood / Thieve Guild achievements, etc - BUT the thing with the map really bothers me.

I hadn't made a new character for a very long time, and hadn't played for almost an equally long time, but I made a new one the other week, and was highly annoyed to discover when I went into a zone, that it was all already completed.
By doing that, It can be hard to realise where my current character was up to in its zone progression, because it was all already done.

I would really appreciate doing something with the zone maps so this kind of thing doesn't happen. I like to see what progression I am making in my characters adventuring. I don't want it already completed. As said above, that has the reverse effect on the sense of achievement, and has left me feeling like my characters don't have any at all.

I haven't done the quest since AwA but are questlines like the final portion of the Ravenwatch arc still tied to an achievement? Meaning Verandis wont show up for the quest since the achievement is already completed on every character?
Because that would infuriate me.

Most of those achievement quests did finally get put back to individual character based quests, but you need to do them again, which is fine because on my alt that finished the quest for the House Ravenwatch title is going to keep Verandis standing right there to be visited and greeted by him forever instead of having him disappear forever (don't finish the quest if you already did it and he will stay there).

FrancisCrawford · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I'm less interested in doing vet dungeons on alts, as the achievements no longer level their Undaunted skill line.

This reduces one of the key reasons I used to queue as a healer.

FantasticFreddie · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

I play significantly less. No point chasing specific titles on specific toons anymore, or repeating achievements.

RevJJ · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm less interested in doing vet dungeons on alts, as the achievements no longer level their Undaunted skill line.

This reduces one of the key reasons I used to queue as a healer.

I’ve noticed dungeon queues appear to have gotten even longer after the implementation of AWA, but that may be confirmation bias.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

heaven13 wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

Not for the first time it seems necessary to point out that this forum is not representative of the player base and not even remotely close to representative.

Indeed the reaction to account wide achievements when it was introduced on here was the finest examplar of that. People were up in arms [snip]

Meanwhile, on both steam and reddit (which have far more users and have a much better claim to representing even a sliver of the player base) the most common reactions followed the lines of "who cares" and "why would you play more than one character that's pretty weird."

And if you don't care, or don't play more than one character it doesn't affect you.

Tell me, is it good to set a precedent that such a huge, integral part of the game (something that ZoS themselves promoted back in the day about alt friendly and are even NOW making achievements to encourage people to play alts) can just be stripped away without a single acknowledgment or care for those that it does affect?

[edited to remove quote]

i personally found the account wide achievements to be more alt friendly lol, so i can progress achievements regardless of which character im on instead of feeling like im on a treadmill or forced to play certain characters to actually finish said achievements

it was also horrendously annoying that i had to get on the "correct" character to buy stuff from achievement furnishings

RevJJ wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm less interested in doing vet dungeons on alts, as the achievements no longer level their Undaunted skill line.

This reduces one of the key reasons I used to queue as a healer.

I’ve noticed dungeon queues appear to have gotten even longer after the implementation of AWA, but that may be confirmation bias.

as a tank, i notice no difference, the queue is still instant lol
as a dps, i notice no difference, the queue still takes forever lol

(observations when queueing solo)

Luth7 · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

Tandor wrote: »

Marcus684 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

That's a pretty bold statement to make with no evidence to back it up. On the contrary, I'd suggest that basing the popularity of a change based on a forum poll is biased towards the negative, since I think unhappy players are much more likely to come to a forum to vent their unhappiness, while those who like it are more likely to carry on with the game and would likely only vote if they happened across the poll by accident, like I did.

Whether a forum poll is considered representative tends to depend on a person's point of view on that particular subject. Your comment has no better evidence to support it than mine. All we can do is make assumptions based on following the subject over a period of time. In this case the 80+ pages of complaint on the PTS forum about the introduction of AwA and the way it was being implemented was generally considered at the time to be pretty much unprecedented for that forum and there is certainly a continuing criticism of it today at a level which makes me believe that there is indeed a significant chunk of the playerbase that was unhappy with it when it was introduced and remains unhappy with it today. The forum responses support that belief, but as for numbers and percentages those can never be definitively assessed, so like all comments on a forum they are only given as an opinion. Some will agree, some will disagree, my concern is simply that I hope someone at ZOS is following the discussion.

I think to even be considered representative for the whole playerbase, there would have to be an ingame survey with at least 1000 participants.

Besides, i think AwA was done primarily with cost optimization and only secondarily with player concerns in mind (eg maybe many players don't like to farm achievements for each new character again). Every achievement high likely needs its own database field(s) on the server, which increases storage space needed and therefore costs. So with character instead of account wide achievements, the space requirement would be AwA multiplied by the characters on each account.
It could be that selling character slots for a one-time payment had some unforeseen consequences.

Deter1UK · April 2023

For me, I don't care about Titles much at all.

I wish though that an alt would start with a properly blank map with everything marked 'not done'.

Tandor · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Luth7 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Marcus684 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

That's a pretty bold statement to make with no evidence to back it up. On the contrary, I'd suggest that basing the popularity of a change based on a forum poll is biased towards the negative, since I think unhappy players are much more likely to come to a forum to vent their unhappiness, while those who like it are more likely to carry on with the game and would likely only vote if they happened across the poll by accident, like I did.

Whether a forum poll is considered representative tends to depend on a person's point of view on that particular subject. Your comment has no better evidence to support it than mine. All we can do is make assumptions based on following the subject over a period of time. In this case the 80+ pages of complaint on the PTS forum about the introduction of AwA and the way it was being implemented was generally considered at the time to be pretty much unprecedented for that forum and there is certainly a continuing criticism of it today at a level which makes me believe that there is indeed a significant chunk of the playerbase that was unhappy with it when it was introduced and remains unhappy with it today. The forum responses support that belief, but as for numbers and percentages those can never be definitively assessed, so like all comments on a forum they are only given as an opinion. Some will agree, some will disagree, my concern is simply that I hope someone at ZOS is following the discussion.

I think to even be considered representative for the whole playerbase, there would have to be an ingame survey with at least 1000 participants.

Besides, i think AwA was done primarily with cost optimization and only secondarily with player concerns in mind (eg maybe many players don't like to farm achievements for each new character again). Every achievement high likely needs its own database field(s) on the server, which increases storage space needed and therefore costs. So with character instead of account wide achievements, the space requirement would be AwA multiplied by the characters on each account.
It could be that selling character slots for a one-time payment had some unforeseen consequences.

I'd have settled for that to be honest, but we didn't even get "secondarily" so far as player concerns were concerned, they totally ignored those concerns on the 80+ page PTS forum thread.

Marcus684 · April 2023

No, I'm playing the same was as pre AWA

Tandor wrote: »

Luth7 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Marcus684 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

That's a pretty bold statement to make with no evidence to back it up. On the contrary, I'd suggest that basing the popularity of a change based on a forum poll is biased towards the negative, since I think unhappy players are much more likely to come to a forum to vent their unhappiness, while those who like it are more likely to carry on with the game and would likely only vote if they happened across the poll by accident, like I did.

Whether a forum poll is considered representative tends to depend on a person's point of view on that particular subject. Your comment has no better evidence to support it than mine. All we can do is make assumptions based on following the subject over a period of time. In this case the 80+ pages of complaint on the PTS forum about the introduction of AwA and the way it was being implemented was generally considered at the time to be pretty much unprecedented for that forum and there is certainly a continuing criticism of it today at a level which makes me believe that there is indeed a significant chunk of the playerbase that was unhappy with it when it was introduced and remains unhappy with it today. The forum responses support that belief, but as for numbers and percentages those can never be definitively assessed, so like all comments on a forum they are only given as an opinion. Some will agree, some will disagree, my concern is simply that I hope someone at ZOS is following the discussion.

I think to even be considered representative for the whole playerbase, there would have to be an ingame survey with at least 1000 participants.

Besides, i think AwA was done primarily with cost optimization and only secondarily with player concerns in mind (eg maybe many players don't like to farm achievements for each new character again). Every achievement high likely needs its own database field(s) on the server, which increases storage space needed and therefore costs. So with character instead of account wide achievements, the space requirement would be AwA multiplied by the characters on each account.
It could be that selling character slots for a one-time payment had some unforeseen consequences.

I'd have settled for that to be honest, but we didn't even get "secondarily" so far as player concerns were concerned, they totally ignored those concerns on the 80+ page PTS forum thread.

Or, they decided that the feedback was mixed and therefore wouldn’t be a factor. [snip]

Regardless, AwA is a done deal and is very unlikely to be reversed.

[edited for baiting]

Tandor · April 2023

Yes, this has fundamentally changed how I play

Marcus684 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Luth7 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Marcus684 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Could you please confirm whether anyone at ZOS is following this thread?

It's an interesting reflection on how the switch to account-wide achievements has impacted more than a third of the playerbase over a year on, mostly negatively and I dare say those players who say it has impacted them positively are at least offset by those players who are no longer here because of it. It was unpopular for a significant chunk of the playerbase when it was announced, and it remains so more than a year on.

To what extent has it achieved the technical benefits it was finally attributed to? Are those technical benefits related in any way to the technical benefits recently attributed to the decision to make players wait when switching servers?

That's a pretty bold statement to make with no evidence to back it up. On the contrary, I'd suggest that basing the popularity of a change based on a forum poll is biased towards the negative, since I think unhappy players are much more likely to come to a forum to vent their unhappiness, while those who like it are more likely to carry on with the game and would likely only vote if they happened across the poll by accident, like I did.

Whether a forum poll is considered representative tends to depend on a person's point of view on that particular subject. Your comment has no better evidence to support it than mine. All we can do is make assumptions based on following the subject over a period of time. In this case the 80+ pages of complaint on the PTS forum about the introduction of AwA and the way it was being implemented was generally considered at the time to be pretty much unprecedented for that forum and there is certainly a continuing criticism of it today at a level which makes me believe that there is indeed a significant chunk of the playerbase that was unhappy with it when it was introduced and remains unhappy with it today. The forum responses support that belief, but as for numbers and percentages those can never be definitively assessed, so like all comments on a forum they are only given as an opinion. Some will agree, some will disagree, my concern is simply that I hope someone at ZOS is following the discussion.

I think to even be considered representative for the whole playerbase, there would have to be an ingame survey with at least 1000 participants.

Besides, i think AwA was done primarily with cost optimization and only secondarily with player concerns in mind (eg maybe many players don't like to farm achievements for each new character again). Every achievement high likely needs its own database field(s) on the server, which increases storage space needed and therefore costs. So with character instead of account wide achievements, the space requirement would be AwA multiplied by the characters on each account.
It could be that selling character slots for a one-time payment had some unforeseen consequences.

I'd have settled for that to be honest, but we didn't even get "secondarily" so far as player concerns were concerned, they totally ignored those concerns on the 80+ page PTS forum thread.

Or, they decided that the feedback was mixed and therefore wouldn’t be a factor. [snip]

Regardless, AwA is a done deal and is very unlikely to be reversed.

[edited for baiting]

There was very little mixed opinion in that thread, a few supported both AwA and the way in which it was being implemented, but even most of those who supported it in principle didn't like the way it was being implemented in practice.

As for it being a done deal and very unlikely to be reversed, I agree. However, it remains possible both to re-introduce some form of tracking individual character progression and to learn from the failure to engage with the community over such unexpected, substantial and contested changes to the long established structure of the game.