and again,a big *** from zos to players who spend years doing the stories with multi toons and/or with different accounts

disappointment

Copying over my PTS feedback so everyone can see what is coming with this update, and what a mess it is:

Dear ZOS,

Elder Scrolls has always been an RPG first and foremost. The single player games were not just games to beat, they provided a world you could immerse into, where you could suspend your disbelief and actually feel like a person in that world trying to save it from whatever danger threatened Nirn. ESO had a rocky beginning, but over time, ZOS, you got it right, and it really felt like an Elder Scrolls game. The best part about it was, I wasn't limited to just one character doing the story, I could create multiple characters and they all didn't have to do the same story. I have one character only, my woodelf Kesstryl, who completed Coldharbor and is the one I consider The Vestige. My other characters are heroes in other parts of the world. My Nord Reynild is the hero of Western Skyrim and Markath. My Argonian Speaks-With-Trees is the hero of Morrowind. My Altmer Malatunir, an Ayleid descendant, is the hero of Blackwood and the Deadlands. He also saved the souls of argonians and righted the wrongs of his ancestors in the Murkmire story. My Khajiit Maila is a master thief. My Breton Luceya is a lawful good healer hired by adventurers to keep them safe through evil places (basically my dungeon and trials healer). My Dunmer Varla helped Sotha Sil to save Clockwork City.

Each character played through different content because that was their story. When I replay content, sometimes I'll apply the costume of the first character and pretend it's that character going through it again. I know that's weird, but in my mind each of these stories belongs to one character, and any others repeating them are sort of "dreaming" the story of that character. My characters are not extensions of me the player, they're people living in different places in Tamriel rising to the occasion. I don't want to be reminded that they are just tools I'm using to play a game. I want them to remain individual people in Tamriel with their own histories and stories, and their own achievements and tracking. I don't want to lose this. I don't want to look at a map in a place Reynild has never been to and see it already explored because Kesstryl was already there. I don't want my healer Luceya to have NPCs respond to her as if she's a master thief because Maila put that achievement on my account. I don't want to lose my second chance at talking with Count Ravenwatch at the end of the Markath story for his final thoughts and be welcomed into House Ravenwatch on a character playing through the story again because Reynild was the first to have spoken to him and gotten the achievement. I don't want NPCs in Western Skyrim to respond to Varla, who's never been there, as if she is the one who saved them and not Reynild. I don't want Reynild to be thanked for stopping the Planemeld when it was Kesstryl who did that. Do you see what this mess is doing to my characters? Do you see how it's ruining the game for me? How long, ZOS, do you think people like me will be able to stand this kind of ruin before we simply walk away and don't log in again?

Fine, ZOS, you want to make ESO like every other MMO out there. How about copying what World of Warcraft did, the most successful MMO ever, which was to implement Account Wide Achievements in addition to Character achievements so both existed simultaneously? Why not that? Keep NPCs and quests tied to the character data so the account data doesn't break immersion for my individual characters? Let me track my individual character achievements, and even get the ding message when that character accomplishes something for the first time, just like WoW has. You want to be like other games, but you are ruining what makes an Elder Scrolls game unique, which is that it's built on a solid RPG foundation. RPGs don't merge characters into an amalgamation and have the world treat all alts as if they all did the same thing. It would cease being an RPG and simply be a game to beat once, and then move on to something else. You want people to just beat ESO once and then move on because they achieved it all? Is this a game to beat or an RPG? Is this beautiful and immersive world simply there to be a background to score pushing and beating the system? It's not there to create characters that are part of it and that have stories in it as they work along side some of the best NPCs you ever created that are wonderfully voice acted? You want players to think of their characters as simple tools that you really only need one of because individually they don't exist, only the player exists and that's all that matters? You have no idea how bad this is. Please listen to us and put off the Account Wide Achievement update until you can fix this properly. Otherwise, you could easily save money by firing all the voice actors and writers and just get rid of quests and just make more dungeons and trials and PvP and call it a day. Change the name from Elder Scrolls to something else while you're at it, it will lose its soul as an Elder Scrolls game. Gutting characters is the first step towards that.

and my follow up comment to today's article:

Dear ZOS

Well, since this is a done deal, let me add more feedback. ZOS, you had weeks of internal testing to figure out where achievements would affect quests and how NPCs react to our characters. From the bugs seen with quests and NPC reactions to alts who've never done the story lines in those zones, I can't believe you didn't fix these obvious issues BEFORE rolling it to PTS. The hamfisted way of merging achievements but not untying NPC reactions and quests from those achievements has ruined this game for those of us who come here for the stories and the role play. I've already made my case clear in a previous, quite long comment about how this destroys the way I play. The least you could have done was figure out a way to untie NPC reactions and quests from achievements and implement an alternative way to have those things tied to our characters.

Ok, you finally admitted this was for performance and not some magnanimous gift to players out of feedback and goodwill. I can accept losses to keep the game healthy. I will NEVER accept a shoddy implementation that destroys immersion and how the world of Tamriel reacts to my alts. If you can't (or won't) fix those things, I'm out. I'm done. I spent a lot of money over these 8 years on your game through subs, crown buying, invested a lot of that into housing, outfits, pets, etc. You will not have my money anymore. I don't pay to play a product that is so badly done that it destroys what the RPG world of Elder Scrolls is and makes it as immersive as the next generic MMOG that everyone plays through once and then forgets.

I've put up with a lot of changes I didn't like over the years from you. When nerfs wrecked my progression groups, I always thought to myself, well, there's always this beautiful world and great quests to play through again, they can't ever wreck role play. OMG I was so wrong! You managed to wreck that too. Good job on that, I don't think I've ever heard of a game that nerfed role play before. You get the achievement for that!

You have two weeks to fix this, that's how long my now cancelled sub lasts. I will not subject my characters to living in a world where NPCs have this amnesia plague about who they are and what they've done. This literally has caused such anxiety that I feel literally sick to my stomach about it. This game was my escape from the real world, a place to suspend my disbelief and live another life through my characters so I could feel better when I returned to the real world again. I'll have to find that somewhere else now, and trust me, I certainly will if this isn't fixed, and that place will get my hard earned money that I work hard for so I can escape for a little while in my off time. I get the sense that you don't take role players as seriously as score pushers and PvPers, or you would have fixed these things before letting this crap hit PTS. That disrespect also makes me sick to my stomach. Your game doesn't deserve the title of Elder Scrolls. I've never seen this IP so mismanaged.

@redspecter23 I would have been very happy for ZOS to add features to better accommodate your playstyle such as the OPTION to unlock completed achievements to a character or across the account. Or even if ZOS wanted to remake the achievement system to be proper AWA alongside character tracking like other MMOs (SWTOR, GW2, WoW, etc.) This terrible cobbled system breaks so much of the game and I think many who wanted proper AWA or were on the fence about it (myself) will be horrified when this mess goes live.

ZoS needs to improve their proof-reading:
"With the database’s overall footprint reduced, it will more performant across the board"

To be, or not to be, is that the question?

I actually wrote this on the PTS trhead already
but as ZOS ended the topic without any feedback
i repeat it here desperately:

It is really ok for me that ESO atttracts Non Role Players too !

But ESO was sold to us as a MMO Role Playing Game.
And it was a Role Playing Game for 8 Years
And therefore I am absolutely against ripping us of our Characters history.
Because this ends ESO being a Role Playing Game.

For real Roleplayers this will feel exactly the same
as playing soccer without a ball !!

And so I guess many will decide to cease playing.

PS:

I'm a member since March 2013 and just canceled my sub over this
ridiciulous move to trash my characters history.

Are they going to offer us a refund or something? Does this have the makings of a class action lawsuit?

I'm going to go ahead and post my beta feedback posting here. I have friends very distressed by these changes and I chose to stand with them!!! I suspect, however, since they are coaching these changes as 'perfornative' our feedback is not welcome as it's emotional, not factual/server load related.
***
The amazing thing about games like ESO is they create WORLDS and we make characters to live in them. Most people have some sort of agenda..she want to raid, they want to craft. Some people have characters in their heads they want to bring to life. ESO lets us do that.
There is a crowd of people want each character to be unique. They might craft a back story where an achievement of mass slaughter or even simple things like mining is....beneath them or against their moral code. They spend forever in character creation finding the right class, right look, then name them lovingly and dress them with equal care. Then they go make ANOTHER character with that same level of care but different.
Account wide achievements erase that uniqueness, that care and basically stamp them a clone.
And there are people who love this idea. Totally respect that, I've bought a skill line once or twice to avoid some drudgery on an alt I want to get up to speed.
Ya know how you make both sides happy? Opt-ins. Opt-outs. Play your way. That nets the company the most happiest of players then forcing a feature on them that truly affects them at the character level.
The real world sucks lately, don't make the pixel world suck for someone too.

Giraffon wrote: »

Are they going to offer us a refund or something? Does this have the makings of a class action lawsuit?

No.

I mean, we don't even really own anything in game, so the idea of suing game devs for changing their game in ways we don't like is ridiculous.

Giraffon wrote: »

Are they going to offer us a refund or something? Does this have the makings of a class action lawsuit?

I'm sure a ZOS rep will gladly point you to the exact section of the terms of service that you agreed to that would prevent any such lawsuit from ever moving forward successfully over an in game change.

What a disgraceful change. Ripping out the heart of the game for so many people, it makes me sad. Please ZOS listen to your customers and postpone this change. Make the neccesary changes and make a character tracking system that is fit for purpose with AwA working as intended. This will make a lot of people happy. Don't be selfish and arrogant and ignore all the feedback you are getting. Please!

No mention in the Q&A of how this change effects NPC reactions and quests other than museum ones that are not repeatable on alts? That should have been addressed and is a huge, and I mean astronomical concern @ZOS_Kevin

At least you finally admitted this is for database reasons, instead of just marketing it as god's gift to the community. This change is legit horrible.

I am one of the people that wanted account-wide achievements, but what I actually wanted is that BESIDES character achievements, they would ALSO be tracked on account level. All I wanted is to play multiple characters, I don't want to play my main 100% of the time. That doesn't mean that I want my alts to be spoken to as if they saved the world. It doesn't mean that when my character finishes something for the first time I don't want to see the achievement icon pop up in my screen.

I hate this change.

All right, so given that it's a storage and performance based change, it can't be opt-in. Fair. But how do alts work if we can't track our progress through quests and the game? It seems like we'll have to abandon any sense of chronologic achievement, because how do I know if I've done this delve yet if it turns white when I walk up because I have an Explorer character? Will Verandis never be on the balcony in Blackreach again to bequeath me with his name? That scene can only play out once ever?

mystfit wrote: »

Can someone show what the map looks like for an alt character of a main who has fully finished a zone. I'm curious what WB's, locations, skyshards, etc look like in those cases. I have dsl, so downloading pts would take 3 days )))

Does it even matter? You're getting it March 14th whether you like it or not.