Guild Wars 2

I’ll preface this discussion with the statement that it will most likely appeal to players like myself who feel bothered by having holes in their accounts that can never be filled, and it will disgust players who believe that only the players who were actually present deserve to have those holes filled and any other opinion is merely salty entitlement. I understand this, opinion and see all the value in saying that, but I believe this option to be worthy of discussion regardless.

Historical achievements, excluding any (that may or may not exist i haven’t looked) pvp season based ones that are designed to be exclusive, for a lot of players represent something that can never be achieved. For this I present 3 options, the first which I’m sure has been mentioned is being mentioned again in case certain minor elements about implementation haven’t been.

First is bringing back certain historical achievements through the use of instanced maps, etc. This option allows players to do the exact same work that all players who already have the achievements, meaning that both players are even in their efforts, and only different in their timing. Making this a paid option, whether gold (similiar to the custom arena tickets) or gems, or even rewards from other currencies methods similiar to the tournament reward that gives access to the special area. The biggest concern with this method is of course development time required, and the veteran players who may feel upset by losing their “prestige” of having been here before newer players.

The second option is to not make the content actually playable, but to allow the spending of certain currencies from the maps they belonged to, our just currencies in general can be traded to get the achievement and the rewards. This fills the hole in the achievements panel and allows acquisition of previously locked items, however the big downside in this is that it doesn’t actively reflect the effort that veteran players put in. Rich players will just buy the achievements and be done with it.

The third and final option is a spin on option #2. Allow the conversion of Daily achievement points into permanent achievement unlocks for historical “never-to-return” achievements. Of course the ratio wouldn’t be 1:1 but for example, trading 100 daily AP to complete a 1 AP LW season 1 achievement. This requires constant play to spend it all, and would help remove some of the stagnancy in the daily AP for players who are just sitting at cap. This AP conversion could then be implement (perhaps) in a way beyond just unlocking previous achievements, but actual stores for daily AP, turning the AP into more than just a number on a leader board, but an rewarding currency that you save up to spend on exclusive items or accolades.

Feel free to pick this to pieces, however if possible I would like people to remain as subjective as possible. I recognise there will be people who feel slighted by having their exclusives handed out to the masses, but if you believe that your feelings aside, this will be good for the game, please do say this. Same goes for if you like certain ideas but not their implementations, I would love to hear suggestions to improve this idea, as any improvements that could get this greenlit would be welcome.

I look forward to seeing all of your replies, especially any devs with insight onto the limitations of this on the current system.

Kensarto

They can’t bring back any of the season 1 instances, because the game has evolved while the content did not. They’d have to redo the mechanics, as well as the rewards, to fit the current game. The closest we get is the story instance maps that ANet reused for some current fractals. The NPCs and some of the dialogue is copy/paste, but the mechanics are ‘modern’.

I’m not sure I understand your third idea at all. If I have 6000 daily/monthly AP and 4000 from other sources, does that mean I can convert the 6000 into getting credit for old achievements (at whatever conversion rate)? And then earn some more daily AP?

I don’t think ANet would go for it and I think it would be unpopular for reasons you haven’t mentioned. It would be tons of work to make it happen and there’s all sorts of issues it would raise. In effect, some people would have a higher daily cap than others. Also, the game would also have to figure out how to deal with people hitting various AP thresholds twice: if you convert 2k of dailies into a couple of historicals, you end up with say 8.5k — what happens when you hit 9, 9.5, and 10k again?

I get that folks that weren’t around during the first year or so can reasonably feel that they missed out (even if the total AP isn’t all that much). It also seems ‘fair’ that there should be a catch-up mechanic. Unfortunately, that’s a whole lot of effort that would go into “catching up”, rather into new content or additional quality-of-life changes that benefit everyone.

You bring up some great points here.

The AP threshold rewards chests would have to reflect “highest ever current AP” rather than “total earnings” thus when you trade in your AP you dont go backwards in chests, and you have to re-earn your spent points to push further with your newly earned points. Hopefully this clears up any murkiness from my poor explanation, I was a bit worried about the length of the post so i was rushing myself.

Additionally you did mention my absolute biggest fear in that by even taking 1 hour of dev time per week for this task, it is affecting the other QoL improvements to the game. A lot of players would need to vouch for this improvement over improvements to the inventory for example.

Kensarto

I will give you an alternative to your third option:
Increase the daily AP cap by an amount equal to the amount of your un-obtainable AP.
So for example, if you did absolutely everything and you don’t miss any AP at all, then your daily cap will be 15000.
However, if you are a newer player and miss the “hint completion” achievement (which doesn’t exist anymore) then your daily cap will be 15010 AP instead.
This keeps things simple, instead of trading daily AP for un-obtainable AP, you continue finishing dailies to get those.

This alternative definitely does implement a catch up mechanic in terms of AP leader boards. So for many people I think that would be enough to satisfy them.

Just personally, though I’m sure others feel the same, it’s less about the number of points, and more about scrolling through the panels and seeing everything filled in. Especially on GW2efficiency where they have X/Y achievements completed, seeing those not maxed out can often feel pretty demoralizing.

I think it’s certainly worth adding to the list of possible options though as it is by far the simplest solution to the problem, requiring far less work than any of my ideas.

Kensarto

I’m not sure doing our present Daily Achievements would equal the effort expended on some of the old retired Achievements, even at 10:1, such as Darkness Illuminator, etc.

Maybe, some day the Devs will consider offering a way to complete old Achievements, but I think it’s doubtful any time in the foreseeable future. They seem to have their hands full, already.

Good luck.

Regarding the daily AP not being enough: As an addition to this threads ideas, would anyone consider the same ideas thrown if it wasn’t the daily AP, but was a different type of AP. For example, and this isn’t a highly planned or fleshed out idea, if they brought back monthlies that took considerable work to accomplish, and these new monthly points could be spent, instead of the daily points.

It would eliminate the people sitting on max daily AP just buying all the old achievements. It would take more work than the daily AP which would lessen the impact that Inculpatus cedo pointed out i.e.
“I’m not sure doing our present Daily Achievements would equal the effort expended on some of the old retired Achievements, even at 10:1, such as Darkness Illuminator, etc.”
It would remove the impact that Illconceived Wa Na pointed out about the daily points chests being affected, losing progress, regaining progress etc.

Any thoughts? Alternatives to the monthly idea are also welcome as it was somethign i just threw together just now.

Kensarto

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m not sure doing our present Daily Achievements would equal the effort expended on some of the old retired Achievements, even at 10:1, such as Darkness Illuminator, etc.

To be honest they should “start” with achievements like “Hint Completion”, the old Fractal tier achievements and the old miniature collection achievements. Things that were removed from the game that weren’t exactly content, or things that were replaced with very similar achievements that have the same goals but different rewards.

maddoctor.2738:

I will give you an alternative to your third option:
Increase the daily AP cap by an amount equal to the amount of your un-obtainable AP.
So for example, if you did absolutely everything and you don’t miss any AP at all, then your daily cap will be 15000.
However, if you are a newer player and miss the “hint completion” achievement (which doesn’t exist anymore) then your daily cap will be 15010 AP instead.
This keeps things simple, instead of trading daily AP for un-obtainable AP, you continue finishing dailies to get those.

^this
Best idea ever

maddoctor.2738:

I will give you an alternative to your third option:
Increase the daily AP cap by an amount equal to the amount of your un-obtainable AP.
So for example, if you did absolutely everything and you don’t miss any AP at all, then your daily cap will be 15000.
However, if you are a newer player and miss the “hint completion” achievement (which doesn’t exist anymore) then your daily cap will be 15010 AP instead.
This keeps things simple, instead of trading daily AP for un-obtainable AP, you continue finishing dailies to get those.

Sounds like a fantastic idea!

Achievements that can be tweaked, and added as a daily cap, without problems:

Hints Completion, 10 AP, was removed with the NPE if I recall. There was nothing “hard” about it, and there is no equivalent in the game.

Miniature Collection, Set I, II and III, 120 AP total (40 each): these achievements were replaced with new versions but the new versions do not progress these older achievements. These changed because you could unlock the achievements without binding miniatures, meaning a group of friends (or a guild) could buy all the miniatures of a set, then pass them along to the members to get the AP effortlessly. There is no reason these AP should be un-obtainable anymore.

Active Guild Member, 45 AP: this was removed when they removed Influence. It was very easy to do, just had to play with other guild members. No reason to hold this one back either.

Skillful, 25 AP: You had to collect skill points… another one that shouldn’t stay locked either

Garnet Sanctum (10 AP) and Troll’s End (10 AP): both jumping puzzles that were removed. These AP should become available again.

That’s a total of 220 AP

^Again, just doing today’s Dailies is not really equivalent to the effort some of those retired Achievements required, whether one is ‘newer’, or never completed them in the past.

As for grading the Achievements, who is to say which should come first. It took some players months, or years to complete Hint Completion, as it didn’t always work as intended. Disregarding that, some feel Jumping Puzzles are the most difficult (some are no longer available), some feel certain Story Episodes are the most difficult, such as the Candidate Trials, some feel using Zephyr Aspects are the most difficult.

I don’t think the Devs will expend the time or energy deciding what rank to give old Achievements, and even if they did, I’m sure there would be an enormous outcry about the selected ranks.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I don’t think the Devs will expend the time or energy deciding what rank to give old Achievements, and even if they did, I’m sure there would be an enormous outcry about the selected ranks.

I didn’t grade the achievements, those are the achievements in the “retired” list, I only excluded the pvp ones because they also award titles and I feel like any achievement that awards a title and/or unique item should be made available through the same content in the future and not be acquired by some other method.
I did not put any LS achievements in the list, if for no other reason, because there is a possibility for them to come back in the future (if they re-release LS1 in some form).

Hints Completion was easy, and if it was glitching for players all the more reason not to lose those 10 AP to a bug.
Miniature Collections were bugged and exploited that’s why they were changed. I know there were legit players who got those achievements, but why allow exploiters free 120 AP and not give the chance to others to get those?
Active Guild Member was one of those you couldn’t miss even if you tried.
Skillful, same as above. Impossible not to get these and basically free AP.
As for the jumping puzzles, the Garnet Sanctum is the exact same as the other borderland JPs. As far as difficulty goes finishing one is the same as finishing all of them.

Now Troll’s End is a unique case and is the only unique case in the list.

Ok. So, your suggestion is only for those retired APs you listed. All others are unavailable?

Probably won’t satisfy many of those longing for the old APs.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ok. So, your suggestion is only for those retired APs you listed. All others are unavailable?

Probably won’t satisfy many of those longing for the old APs.

Yes my suggestion is to put only a very limited amount of AP to the system. IF the system is successful then more could be added (baby steps) especially if they finally say they never put LS1 back to the game.

For example, the repeatable holiday activity achievements can also be added, like Snowball Mayhem which resets every year instead of continuing from were it was the previous year (SAB continues).

But in any case, they should NEVER add achievements that offer unique rewards (titles/minis and so on) like the Liadri achievements, those come with titles and “deserve” to be back when their content becomes available again (if it becomes available again), so players can get those extra rewards the same way everyone else did.

Why exactly do players want these achievements?

If it’s for more AP to get the AP armor, why not just ask for more permanent achievements that award AP?

Ayrilana.1396:

Why exactly do players want these achievements?

If it’s for more AP to get the AP armor, why not just ask for more permanent achievements that award AP?

Because they are no longer available AND some of them were removed due to bugs. Why should someone be locked from bugged achievements?

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

Why exactly do players want these achievements?

If it’s for more AP to get the AP armor, why not just ask for more permanent achievements that award AP?

Because they are no longer available AND some of them were removed due to bugs. Why should someone be locked from bugged achievements?

Why does it matter? They’re achievements for something that is no longer in the game. Going forward, this shouldn’t be the case except for perhaps current events.

According to the wiki’s list of achievements:

• WvW Seasons: 714 AP
• Retired (e.g. minis in storage): 165
• Original Fractal: 105
• Festivals (that won’t be available to newcomers): 1163
• LS1: 2799

Now that seems like a big chunk of AP (which, in raw numbers, it is). But there are tons of AP available elsewhere:

• Collections (which didn’t exist during LS1): 1118 and growing
• LS2+3+HoT stories: 1304
• New maps: 343
• PvP: 2271
• WvW: 1023
• Dailies: 15000, dwarfing everything

So sure, anyone starting the game during LS2 and later is going to have missed out on some significant pools of AP, but then again, they weren’t playing then and ANet already capped the biggest chunk of AP in the game, the dailies.

So the existing “gap” is as big as it’s ever going to be. The longer the game is out, the smaller that gap will be relative to the totals.

In the end, it might not be entirely equitable for there to be any AP that can’t be achieved by new people (aside from those obtained annually during festivals). But… does it really matter that much? Especially since doing anything about it would be (a) controversial and (b) costly.

Wouldn’t the game be better off in the long run if ANet focused on producing more AP-bearing achievements rather than trying to finding ways for newer accounts to “fairly” earn old AP?

I thought the OP was concerned about the ‘incomplete’ Achievements, and filling the ‘gaps’ that may show in the UI.

If that is the case, probably the best solution is to have the UI show them complete for historical Achievements (this would be different, of course, for each account).

Now, if it’s only to acquire retired APs, then I don’t think that’s necessary. The Devs could just raise/remove the Daily AP cap and/or offer a boatload of new APs.

Yeah, removing the ‘gaps’ was the biggest issue, any other point of discussion was merely to surround the problem and make it seem more impressive. I wouldn’t mind daily AP trading if it were to trade for other stuff too, I think making those point do more than just sit on your account increasing 1 number by 15k is a good idea. But as for the historical/unachievable achievements, I would also be happy if they were simply removed from the game.

This would lower the AP of some players, I believe they should keep their minis and titles and that these titles should be recycled into future content of equal difficulty. But having those gaps is first and foremost the problem i see with the achievement system.

It makes no sense to have achievements that can’t be achieved.

Kensarto

For removing gaps, wouldn’t it be easier to modify the UI? For example, the API could offer a flag that indicated whether an achievement was “progressable”. Sites like GW2 Efficiency could include a filter to hide them, even if ANet isn’t able to program it into the game.

I confess I completely misunderstood what you were going for because most of the rhetoric was about AP.

But I disagree with OP’s most recent statement: I would always choose to have the ability to see what I missed out on, even if I can no longer achieve them. So it makes sense to me to keep them visible, even if incomplete.