What I like about 187's idea is the choice for different kinds of rewards that can fit a character. I compare it to the old original "journeyman project" game that had a "Ghandi" bonus if you chose a peaceful solution to a problem.
From a stealth character perspective being able ot have a skelli illusion where you can sneak by undead is appealing, but likewise having a banestrike that allows to clear out annoying undead while you areconcentrating on a hard MoB is also appealing.
The merchant rewards are reminiscent of Oblivion where if you had high mercantile skill you could "invest" in a shop- but in your suggestion you couls opt for a better or perhaps more available merchants to which to sell.
I like the subtle Dichotomy.
I like optional systems that help people stay engaged. The purists can always find something to do to make them happy. Unfortunately they are a minority. A larger population is made up of diverse playstyles and motivations. A solid game that offers different reasons for people to do things will last longer between expansions.
Some people concentrate on alts, some on gathering gear for every occasion or appearance, others like to explore. There are those that like to check a list of complete things they may not think about doing otherwise.
Achievements don't have to provide additional power. They don't even have to be shareable. Some people like to show their achievement by wearing a piece of gear, others lIke to share a link showing some accomplishment.
It's pretty sad that some people here think that only what they care about is an achievement, nothing else. A diverse community has several definitions of success and paths to success.
This is no different than crafting, raiding, and grouping.
For example, a spell to harm Undead. It could be gained by crafting, raiding, group dungeons, quests, or achievement. As long as the effort is roughly the same, it makes sense to have something available from many different paths.
You and others may disagree on what constitutes effort, but that is what the devs are for.
I will never buy into the old trope that optional systems should not be implemented because someone will consider it mandatory. That is overused by both sides of every argument is nothing but a slippery slope logical fallacy. That would eliminate most things. Some items may only be craftable. Does that make crafting mandatory? Some items only gained by questing. Does that make questing mandatory? Some items can only be gained by raiding. Does that make raiding mandatory? Some abilities can only be had by certain classes or races. Does that make them mandatory? No.
The game is not just about the 5% of the most hard core players. The game is for all players. If YOU believe something is mandatory, that is YOUR choice.
If you want to be the BEST, yes, you will need to accomplish a wide variety of task to accomplish that. Most will not and the will still have fun.
As far as I read in this thread, no one is asking for little or no challenge to earn something. Many times, awful menial grinding tasks take just as much "effort" to complete, just a different kind of effort.
As far as I see here, no one is asking for some great game breaking reward. Just an alternate route to a similar reward already gainable via another method.
You may consider it a waste, others do not, just lIke so many other topics in this game. Your opinion carries no more weight than the others.
Just my opinion. I will leave it with that said.
Beefcake said:
You just took what I said in a wrong way.
I will quote myself “The goals you have, inside the game, should dictate what you do not an arbitrary check box or system that tells you to do something.”, I never said there should be only one way of acquiring gear or spells or anything else, but a system that tells you what to do and gives you rewards for doing it is not necessary, the game will work without it, the activities are still there, you just need to go and do them without a system telling you to do them , so I don’t feel that creating such a system is worth the development time.
Who says the system has to even tell you ? There might be achievements , but no list of said achievement or reward.
IE. I am a HUGE quester, I am simply playing the game as normal and complete every quest in a area and received a achievement and some fluff title as a reward.
I never knew there was even a achievement associated, this can lead to a OOoo factor and I think most players like the Oooo.
I guess the point im making , the system is a solid concept and does not even require a list to be viable.
This with the addition of it being flexable allows it to be scaled to where it is appropriate in a developers eyes to even be worthy of a achievement.
This goes towards what Kil said of him not being fond of you tripping over achievements , but still having there place.
Xxar said:Who says the system has to even tell you ? There might be achievements , but no list of said achievement or reward.
IE. I am a HUGE quester, I am simply playing the game as normal and complete every quest in a area and received a achievement and some fluff title as a reward.
I never knew there was even a achievement associated, this can lead to a OOoo factor and I think most players like the Oooo.
I guess the point im making , the system is a solid concept and does not even require a list to be viable.
This with the addition of it being flexable allows it to be scaled to where it is appropriate in a developers eyes to even be worthy of a achievement.
This goes towards what Kil said of him not being fond of you tripping over achievements , but still having there place.
I like your idea of hidden achievements. Makes it great for those that discover things on their own.
Of course, the naysayers will soon say that nothing is kept hidden once some one finds it and posts it on a WWW site. Then, they will claim it becomes mandatory.
For them, I just say don't read the sites.
Hidden achievements are a solid idea. It may even encourage people to try and discover similar achievements.
Luckily, I don't think that VR is catering the entire game to the power gamers. They will devote significant resources to power gamers, because that segment is important and definitely vocal, public relations-wise.
However, they will also devote significant resources for other equally as important player bases.
I like reading the sites. There are plenty of times when I cannot be at my computer playing the game, but still want to be entertained by it and related topics.
That being said, when attempting to accomplish something the first time, I prefer to discover it on my own. Then, after several failures, get help from the sites.
I am a completionist. Sometimes I have to go to the sites to find out that there is someshing I have not completed.
Before I get too off-topic, yes, anything discovered will soon be posted online. But, it's always the player's choice to view the information. Getting angry that it's out there does you no good. If you want to be a purist and only discover things for yourself, great for you.
I would rather not have either traditional quests or achievements.
It seems that almost every game now has achievements. To me, this really does add just another laundry list of tasks to complete. I can see your point of view, but I don't really understand why you can't feel accomplished without an achievement.
An example is when we got a level at all in EQ it fairly huge. It's not like other games where you dinged and it's meaningless. You will have another ding in 10 to 15 minutes. Another part of what made it special was all the different levels you got spells. Pure casters got them at level 4, Healers at 5 I believe, and hybrids at around 8 or 9. Just getting to those levels were fairly big achievements.
Getting to certain points in crafting or getting a certain amount of faction built up with a certain group was an achievement.
Anything that is hard to obtain should be an achievement for you. To me coding it into the game just simplifies it and takes away from the people who are playing the games experience. I could say getting my swimming skill up to 60 is an achievement. Wouldn't you rather the players define these things than the developers? This game isn't Everquest obviously and the developers have already said it's not, but they are trying to bring back the magic of emergent gameplay I believe. To have emergent gameplay you need to allow the players to set and come up with their own goals in the game IMO.
UnknownQuantity said:I would rather not have either traditional quests or achievements.
It seems that almost every game now has achievements. To me, this really does add just another laundry list of tasks to complete. I can see your point of view, but I don't really understand why you can't feel accomplished without an achievement.
An example is when we got a level at all in EQ it fairly huge. It's not like other games where you dinged and it's meaningless. You will have another ding in 10 to 15 minutes. Another part of what made it special was all the different levels you got spells. Pure casters got them at level 4, Healers at 5 I believe, and hybrids at around 8 or 9. Just getting to those levels were fairly big achievements.
Getting to certain points in crafting or getting a certain amount of faction built up with a certain group was an achievement.
Anything that is hard to obtain should be an achievement for you. To me coding it into the game just simplifies it and takes away from the people who are playing the games experience. I could say getting my swimming skill up to 60 is an achievement. Wouldn't you rather the players define these things than the developers? This game isn't Everquest obviously and the developers have already said it's not, but they are trying to bring back the magic of emergent gameplay I believe. To have emergent gameplay you need to allow the players to set and come up with their own goals in the game IMO.
I understand your point completely man. What I have been trying to say is that the goal I want to have in the game is to be as well rounded as possible by acquiring as many "optional" bonuses as possible. I think it would be really cool to be able to earn incremental progression rewards for doing things that are generally considered an "achievement" in most games. Rather than just adding to a list of achievements that truly serves no purpose other than to build points or get an occassional title or mount, I would prefer to have some sort of small bonus associated with my in-game actions. I am just challenging the tried and true concept of questing and saying that there could be a more meaningful way of going about it. I just want the game to feel somewhat more realistic. I get that it's in a fantasy setting ... but I want it to be a realistic fantasy.
I've read plenty of fantasy books and rarely do you see the type of quests you see in MMO's in books. They use more traditional requirements and provide more traditional rewards. You asked if I would rather have me define things than the developers ... my answer is yes. That's why I provided my examples. That was my attempt to define the type of goals that I would like to see in the game. If these type of tasks were put in the game in the format that WoW uses, for example, I would hate it. I don't want to complete achievements so I can build up my "achievement points" ... they mean virtually nothing. I want an in-game system that actually rewards me for my achievements, and for those rewards to correlate with the achievement that I earned. I don't even care if it's called an achievement ... I would actually prefer if they are not.
It would be great if these things felt much more organic. Use the examples I shared and instead of having an "achievement!" popup on my screen, it feels much more natural with how NPC's interact with my character. It could be done in text for all I care. Add in a "Creature Mastery" NPC to the game that I can go talk to ... eventually when I get past a certain threshold, he can comment on how much my character has grown since they first met, and for my diligence he wants to teach me a special attack or defensive buff that I can use when fighting skeletons in the future. If I completed 50 caravan quests, maybe the caravan master in the village sends me a letter in the game saying how much he appreciated all of my hard work and dedication and as a token of his gratitude, he wanted to offer the caravan services to me directly. After completing 50 buy orders for the blacksmith trade coalition, the guy in charge of the coalition sends me a letter to let me know how valuable I have been to their coalition and as a token of his appreciation, he wants to offer me a 5% increase on future orders. Just some ideas but I really think a system like this would provide a much greater replay value to the game. I want the world to change for my character depending on his decisions and the examples I provided are just the tip of the iceberg in how it could get done, and what it would feel like. The possibilities are endless.
oneADseven said: Bring on the Rites of Passage! I think it's been a couple years since we have had a solid update on that. I am putting money on a big content update coming sometime later this month and pre alpha going live early March.
That would be great, but I would not bet on the next stream until March or April, and then pre-alpha not for a couple months after that. But, I know less than John Snow.
oneADseven said:Add in a "Creature Mastery" NPC to the game that I can go talk to ... eventually when I get past a certain threshold, he can comment on how much my character has grown since they first met, and for my diligence he wants to teach me a special attack or defensive buff that I can use when fighting skeletons in the future.
I think it would be more realistic that you die to skeletons 100 times and then he teaches you the thing instead of "Hey, you are amazing at killing skeletons! Here is a trick I learned to kill them even easier!"
That aside, it's obvious this is something very important to you but there will be differing opinions about the system you are proposing.
We all get one of those last time I checked. If you don't agree with it ... that's fine. You can voice your opinion without downplaying my idea and labeling it as a waste of resources or by calling the core of the system as arbitrary or mundane.
That is them voicing their opinion, like it or not. A lot of people will see this as a waste, or another way of saying achievements, or forced character progression for increased power.
oneADseven said: @ Iksar Yeah but I have seen VR staff condone the idea of people saying what would be a waste of development resources. That isn't for any of us to say. People can dislike something all the want but to suggest that something is a waste of resources makes it sound like they have an idea of what resources are actually available in the first place or what the plan is regarding how they are spent.
Just don't let that chafe your hide, they are just blowing hot air. I think for a great many things we talk about the VR staff just laughs at us anyway as they are so far into development that everything we get heated about doesn't really matter and they have what systems they want more or less in place for testing.
Kilsin said:I wouldn't personally like a ton of achievements that just pop every 5 seconds when you take a step or open your bag etc. but I would like a title system that shows your achievements in the form of a title next to your name.
Ha! I just started playing Minecraft for the first time, and the achievements are like what you described here, and I can't agree more. I mean ... do you really need an achievement for opening your inventory for the first time? Really? It's like getting a participation trophy ... it completely devalues real achievements.
Lghtngfan said:Ha! I just started playing Minecraft for the first time, and the achievements are like what you described here, and I can't agree more. I mean ... do you really need an achievement for opening your inventory for the first time? Really? It's like getting a participation trophy ... it completely devalues real achievements.
To be fair Minecraft is largely marketed to kids these days, so they throw them a lot of low hanging fruits to feel good.
I have to say achievements appeal to me very much in several ways. Firstly, because I'm a bit of a completionist, I find that achievements are nice little goals that give you an additional reason to explore parts of a game that you don't focus on for the most part. Secondly, if done right, achievements can help make your experience that little bit more meaningful. That said, there are a few things I would like to see, or not to see, if ahcievements are introduced in Pantheon:
- No "server first" achievements please. These are only obtainable by a very small group of people and tend to promote elitist and toxic attitudes. Nothing prevents players from exercising their bragging rights by streaming, screen-grabbing or otherwise registering server firsts, but that for me is plenty. Even in-game there are other ways to promote healthy competition without resorting to exclusive achievements (e.g. periodically reset leaderboards).
- No time-limited achievements or achievements for in-game events. Similar to the above: only players who happen to be able to go online during the relevant event and perform the relevant activities would be able to get the achievement, which doesn't really seem fair to those players who for whatever reason are not able to.
- Mind the grind. Often in games the hardest achievements involve the simplest of actions, but require tedious repetition (kill X thousand puny worms) or battling the RNG monster (obtain a set of drops with an infinitesimally small drop chance). I was proud to display my title of Master Angler in The Elder Scrolls Online, which required catching 12 trophy fish in 4 different types of water in each of almost 50 different zones. But I did it mostly due to OCD and because I was able to do it in down times at the same time as I was doing other stuff. It doesn't mean I think it's a sane goal for everyone.
- No game-impacting exclusive rewards. Not everybody is going to be able to get all achievements, whether due to lack of interest, or time, or skill. I think titles are a nice way to use achievements: players can only bear one title at a time and can display whichever title they feel most proud of, or whichever is funniest. Though that itself is already a bit elitist, I think it's a good compromise. More impacting rewards such as skins, mounts, or, in a worst case scenario, exclusive gear, are going too far IMHO.
The achievements would have to be some major accomplishments. Not thousands of tiny things you can do like in WoW, which I think you were wrong to use as an example.
I've always found achievements distracting and trying to get them makes me play the game different from how I normally would. You can say to ignore them but they're quite hard to ignore, especially the more numerous they are.
I think a player's literal achievements should be measured by their reputation and not some title or checkmark in their achievement log. Even today people remember the first guild to do what on each server. No achievement system required. Never liked achievement systems never will.
CanadinaXegony said:I liked the Tome of Knowledge in Warhammer, it was your personal journal ..that kept track of EVERYTHING you did ingame. Seemed like there were thousands of things to do. Kept me busy. There were achievements attached, rewards (fluff stuff).
Cana
I loved Warhemmer's Tome of Knowledge, after I got to end game I made it my goal to complete everything I could in that book. This kept me playing for a very long time after I did all the story and gear grind.
On a similar note, I enjoyed the suffixes awarded in EQ2 for killing X number of enemies. I proudly wore Destroyer of Fairies as a suffix. I wouldn't mind that in this game.
Agga
Someone mentioned "Hidden Achievements" - and I want to touch on that a bit.
One of the things I loved about EQ is that, even today, people still argue about how X works, or why X does this or that. Resist rates, aggro mechanics, DPS calculations, and more are still subject to debates. This is the kind of thing I'd like to see in Pantheon.
With that in mind, I'd be all for achievements that aren't easily researchable.
Example: At level one, I'm wandering down a road and bump into a Halfling. He throws some flavor text at me, all about how his family was killed by kobolds from different clans. About his travels through the wilds, and the adventures he had running from Dark Myr thieves, the time he had to beg "So-and-so" for something to eat, and was given a generous donation, and a whole buncha other random fluff about his travels. This halfling doesn't give a quest - he just tells you a story. Doesn't even tell you his name. Some people might stop and read it all, and some will just keep wandering along. That particular halfling is in a city, surrounded by a whole bunch of other people. Just a guy, telling a story.
Over your travels on Terminus, it just so happens that you killed the Kobold chiefs from all those different clans, broke into the lair of the same Dark Myr thieves and looted a "shiny brass button" off one, completed a quest from "So-and-so", and a bunch of other random and obscure crap with no discernable pattern, and DING!
"Tralyan Receives Title 'Avenger of Harry the Halfling'"
By this time, you're probably at almost level cap. So much time has gone by that you don't remember even seeing that nameless halfling. Who the hell is Harry the halfling? How did you just finish that achievement? Did it require certain things? Did it require certain things in a certain order?
5 years later, people will still be arguing about the exact steps needed to complete that achievement. That's the kind of stuff I want to see. People still yelling, "BUT WHAT WAS THE BRASS BUTTON FOR?!", not realizing the halfling lost it while running from the thieves and squeezing through a door on the mountainside.
I want achievements, but I want it player based and not account based. I want to be able to have my character get every achievement my character can possibly get without leaving unfinished achievements. Which means no achievements for every tradeskill, for example. Make it so achievements appear on the achievements screen that are possible.
I dislike achivements in general because they are usally for tasks that are not actually an achievement. Titles and the likes for actual tasks that are actuallly achievements I am ok with but can live without since I would rather err on the side of caution and have none then have the game flooded with ones I think are silly.
