Heya! Thanks for commenting!

Why would anyone care about what achievements everybody else has?

Because many achievement hunters and completionists enjoy optional comparison, public profiles, and leaderboards. Sites like Exophase, PSNProfiles, TrophiesHunter, and MetaGamerScore exist because a portion of players enjoy tracking progress outside of the game itself.

I completely understand that this is not for everyone. Some players only care about their own achievements in-game, and that is totally fine. That is why I think it should be opt-in only.

What value does it add to the game?

In my experience, achievement tracking gives some players more long-term goals. Seeing what other players have completed can help people discover achievements they did not know existed, encourage them to try different content, and give them another reason to keep playing.

It also helps community sites, guilds, guide makers, and completionist communities build around the game.

Are people not playing because they can't see what achievements other people have?

Probably not in most cases, no. I am not saying this is a major reason people do or do not play ESO. I am saying it would add extra value for a specific part of the community that enjoys completion tracking and achievement hunting.

What are the unforeseen consequences of this?

That is why I think it should be strictly opt-in and read-only. If someone does not want their achievements visible, they simply do not enable it.

Other MMOs and games expose achievement data publicly or through APIs, such as WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, and EverQuest 2. It is not an unusual feature, as long as privacy controls are handled properly.

Will it lead to an increase in trolling?

I do not think it would if it is opt-in only. If someone is worried about being judged or bothered over their achievements, they would not opt in.

Basically, why should ZOS spend resources on this?

Because it gives a portion of the community another reason to stay engaged with ESO long-term.

Achievement hunters, completionists, leaderboard users, guild communities, guide makers, and third-party tracking websites all create extra visibility and activity around a game. When achievements can be shared publicly, compared, tracked, and displayed externally, it gives players more goals to chase and more reasons to keep logging in.

It also helps ESO appear on wider achievement-tracking websites alongside other MMOs and online games. That is essentially free community-driven promotion. People browsing sites like MetaGamerScore, TrophiesHunter, Exophase, or similar platforms may discover ESO achievements, see what other players are working toward, and be encouraged to try the game or return to it.

I am part of a few achievement hunting communities, and achievement tracking with an active community is a lot of fun. At the same time, it does not affect casual players who choose not to use it. To me, it would be a positive optional feature that helps grow ESO’s completionist community both inside and outside the game.

Hope this helps you understand where I am coming from!

Thanks for reading!

Just a heads up, ESO-Database was created back in 2015, meaning we could track other players achievements around that time. You would have noticed little to no raid leaders asking for it up until its shutdown earlier this year. I don't see why this would be any different.

slyjosh wrote: »

Heya! Thanks for commenting!

Why would anyone care about what achievements everybody else has?

Because many achievement hunters and completionists enjoy optional comparison, public profiles, and leaderboards. Sites like Exophase, PSNProfiles, TrophiesHunter, and MetaGamerScore exist because a portion of players enjoy tracking progress outside of the game itself.

I completely understand that this is not for everyone. Some players only care about their own achievements in-game, and that is totally fine. That is why I think it should be opt-in only.

What value does it add to the game?

In my experience, achievement tracking gives some players more long-term goals. Seeing what other players have completed can help people discover achievements they did not know existed, encourage them to try different content, and give them another reason to keep playing.

It also helps community sites, guilds, guide makers, and completionist communities build around the game.

Are people not playing because they can't see what achievements other people have?

Probably not in most cases, no. I am not saying this is a major reason people do or do not play ESO. I am saying it would add extra value for a specific part of the community that enjoys completion tracking and achievement hunting.

What are the unforeseen consequences of this?

That is why I think it should be strictly opt-in and read-only. If someone does not want their achievements visible, they simply do not enable it.

Other MMOs and games expose achievement data publicly or through APIs, such as WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, and EverQuest 2. It is not an unusual feature, as long as privacy controls are handled properly.

Will it lead to an increase in trolling?

I do not think it would if it is opt-in only. If someone is worried about being judged or bothered over their achievements, they would not opt in.

Basically, why should ZOS spend resources on this?

Because it gives a portion of the community another reason to stay engaged with ESO long-term.

Achievement hunters, completionists, leaderboard users, guild communities, guide makers, and third-party tracking websites all create extra visibility and activity around a game. When achievements can be shared publicly, compared, tracked, and displayed externally, it gives players more goals to chase and more reasons to keep logging in.

It also helps ESO appear on wider achievement-tracking websites alongside other MMOs and online games. That is essentially free community-driven promotion. People browsing sites like MetaGamerScore, TrophiesHunter, Exophase, or similar platforms may discover ESO achievements, see what other players are working toward, and be encouraged to try the game or return to it.

I am part of a few achievement hunting communities, and achievement tracking with an active community is a lot of fun. At the same time, it does not affect casual players who choose not to use it. To me, it would be a positive optional feature that helps grow ESO’s completionist community both inside and outside the game.

Hope this helps you understand where I am coming from!

Thanks for reading!

I'm a completionist. I know a few. None of us care what achievements other people have, only what we don't have.

Any player can see what achievements exist simply by opening up the journal. It's the first thing I do when they add new achievements.

It wouldn't add value for completion tracking and achievement hunting, it would add comparative tracking, which leads me on to the last two questions I posed. If you don't think an MMO community isn't going to have a small part of it that use any notable differences to harass, bully, mock and shame others I've got some bad news for you.

Having it opt-in doesn't alter that. Someone doing it in good faith will then be subjected to some pretty negative comments coming their way. This would not add value you think it will, and I very much doubt ZOS would disagree.

Edit: Typos

ivaylo.krumoveb17_ESO wrote: »

One word - NO. This would just give the elitists more tools to shun people from veteran trials and other challenging content. And opt in? Come on, you will be *required* to have this enabled by raid leaders.

I agree with you 100%
Really it's a flexing tool ..let's say it for what it is

@Gabriel_H
It may not add value to you, but there are communities out there that it certainly does add value for. That's why these communities and tracking websites exist. Please, take some time having a look at one of them. It's completely OK that this is not for you.

@code65536
Super unhelpful telling me I should walk the talk. I don't have the skills, there are people that do and are passionate about doing this. ZOS have some very smart people that can and does work with the API. This is why I am reaching out to the smart people who do this as their job (or volunteer as a passion). If you would have actually read my original post you would see I mentioned websites that DO exist already and have for many, many years, tracking many MMO's. I have spoken with two of the developers for these sites and they are more than happy to add the API to their website (As they were previously).

Again, many others MMO's already do this, I don't know if you have ever tried FFXIV, their own lodestone website shows every players earnt achievement in game, where it allows you to comment and congratulate each other. I am not asking for that but I want you to understand this exists in other MMO's right now and has most certainly not ruined the MMO nor the community, in fact, its brought the community closer in some respects. I promise, I am not trying to harm your game, I would not suggest this if I thought it would. I can see you are all very passionate about this game and that is amazing, but I am blown away by the negativity of how you see your own community. Remember, you are still dealing with humans, you will always have the good and the bad, it is what it is.

I keep hearing the bullying, harassment and trolling statements, those people do exist, so what? They exist outside of the game to, at your local supermarket and maybe even at your job. There is no escaping people like that, its life. Just ignore them as you would in your daily life. Don't let negative people like that affect your outlook on life and your view of a game.

Going back to people using your achievements against you, there is NOTHING stopping people in game asking you to link an achievement to prove you have done harder content, so if you didn't opt into this system, how would this be any different?

I suggest for the people that don't think a community exists for this, or that achievement hunters do not want this, Please, do your research on websites that do exactly that! - There are many, I listed at least 3 of them out of 20+ a quick google and you will find many. Exophase is one of the largest (Yes they also tracked ESO, among the other MMO's).

Again, I really do appreciate you all giving your insight to this, its helpful to understand where you are all coming from but it's also helpful for you and the greater community to understand where myself and my multiple communities are coming from with this too. However, stating that there is no value in this for anyone does not make sense when there are websites with thousands (hundreds of thousands) of people who use it for exactly this reason. That may not be you and that is completely fine! But we do exist.

slyjosh wrote: »

@Gabriel_H
It may not add value to you, but there are communities out there that it certainly does add value for. That's why these communities and tracking websites exist. Please, take some time having a look at one of them. It's completely OK that this is not for you.

A sense of superiority over others is not adding value. That's all this would do.

@SolarRune - Appreciate you putting in the effort looking into it, super insightful. I can definitely understand that.

I have always been of the mind of game preservation and also see having an API that can get this information to 3rd party sites as a way of preserving part of the game. Once the day comes where this game does shut its doors (I am sure no time soon!) It would be great to have a website to go review and be reminded of what you or the community put your hard work and time towards.

Anyway, just an additional thought of why this may be beneficial into the future.

Thanks again for your input and investigation

frogthroat wrote: »

Would be nice if the old ESO-database would be back since it encompassed so much more than just achievements. It helped me to theorycraft a specific build for a specific toon when I was not in the game.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Build_Editor

The problem you face op is that you need to prove to ZOS that its going to bring value to them, and that its going to be worth the time.

We have spent years trying to convince ZOS of QOL improvements that popular addons have attempted to resolve for the same amount of time. Only to get said improvements 8,9, 10 years later.

So lets say you convince them without proof, then they spend 8 months creating the API... and then no one uses the API... that is lost revenue and employee resources.

No, code has a point. If you truly want this to happen you need to prove a need. Not by citing examples from other MMO's, you need to prove a need within the ESO community. The reason I say that is because the ESO community is different enough from other MMO'S that its a bit more unique. Achievements dont matter as much as one would assume in the community.

As for whether or not you have the skills... well the nice thing about skills is they can be acquired. Website creation tools and learning sources can be helpful. And you can always resort to AI tools...My point is that not having any skills is not an excuse.

If your not willing to do it yourself, then there isnt a driving need to create it.

But the biggest take on why its not needed? The site where all of this was done prior is gone and there wasnt a massive outrage on the forums or eso community as a whole.