Guild Wars 2

I wrote some but realized I was unclear before I even posted. I DO like collections. I dislike the achievements like random tasks that seem stupid and I go “why am I being rewarded for this?” They just feel like a chore to check off.

Like diving off of drytop JP and hitting that stupid small water area. Is it difficult – yes. Should it be rewarded? Um no. Or well, most of the LS2 achieves being tied to biolumi armor (only a few are hard, its more the repetiveness of most of em, requiring, for most average people, do have to redo the story quite a bit to get em all)

Why are they tied to rewards? Why do I need to do some stupid, crazy, made up task…

I only do them for the skins. I suspect a lot do too. For the future my hope is to have less significant skins tied to them. Granted its too late for what we have (the milestone achieves radiant/hellstone and lumi armor being the major ones.) But please no more of those types of achieves in HoT (where its some random difficult task for its own sake.) Or any more skins tied to total AP.

If you like achievements then do them for fun. You don’t need tangible rewards. Tie the rewards to more general things (like a zone – silverwastes good -the part that ties lumi armor to achievements in story – bad.)

I thought the living story achievements were well done. I also thought the dry top and silverwastes achievements were also well done, though I did end up looking up a guide to nab the rest of those golden lost badges. (I found 15 on my own before giving up)

The achievements I don’t like, are the repetitive grinding ones, like the slayer and weapon master achievements. Less of that, and more thoughtfully challenging achievements should be the way to go.

As for attaching rewards to achievements, I like it. Challenging yourself for the sake of challenge is fine, but it’s much more gratifying when there’s a reward at the end.

Achievements are in the game for the same reason that Fractals are in the game. They’re there to appeal to a specific player base.

Those of you who argue that getting 5000 kills with a shield is not an achievement, you’re right. But you’re taking a literal use of an English language word from a game component.

Achievements for some people are a play style. There are currently a hundred people competing for the top of the leaderboard and to them, obviously, those achievements mean something…not individually, but collectively.

Achievements are there to give players that like something to do, something to do. In fact, that all most MMOs actually are. A list of things to do.

If you’re a raider, your list of things to do is to prepare for the next raid. If you’re a PvP you’re trying to get higher on a ladder or win more matches as a team. If you’re a WvW you’re trying to get your world to win. And there are also people who are achievement point hunters.

Getting 5000 shield kills isn’t very hard, but it does take persistence. You have to try to get that last killing blow with the shield, or farm 5000 ambients to get it. It’s much harder than dungeon master in its own way.

I have almost 25000 achievement points right now, because I enjoy trying to get another achievement. On the whole, I don’t necessarily enjoy harder achievements more than I enjoy easier ones.

Achievements are set up for players who enjoy that play style.

Edited achievement point score to reflect my actual achievement point score. I should have known not to post before my first coffee. Thanks Inculpatus!

i don’t mind the achievements for the most part. Though the Yak Slapper one is just atrocious.

haha to the yakslapper ^

But are achievements really content? Don’t they really just modify behavior and trick you into thinking they are content?

Did you mean 25,000? ; )

I think Achievements should have rewards tied to them. It’s always fun to earn something. Everyone has their favorites, though, and those they don’t care so much for. Some do them anyway, and some, like me, only do what is enjoyable…or…what’s required for something truly coveted. Lol.

achievements are for people with OCD. if you don’t have OCD, you don’t need to do them all. if those people do it and they are rewarded, don’t get kitten. you can’t say people should not be rewarded for achieving something you don’t like.

azizul.8469:

achievements are for people with OCD. if you don’t have OCD, you don’t need to do them all. if those people do it and they are rewarded, don’t get kitten. you can’t say people should not be rewarded for achieving something you don’t like.

I don’t have OCD, but I don’t mind achievement points. For example, there’s one Living World achievement I haven’t gotten around to getting and I’ve not finished one of the badge collections in the Silverwastes and one of those type of achievements in Dry Top, nor am I stressed that I haven’t gotten around to them. Eventually I’ll get them. I may never get the Liadri achievement or mini, and I’m not that stressed about that either.

Achievements are simply something some people like to do, in the same way that people play games to be challenged.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Did you mean 25,000? ; )

I think Achievements should have rewards tied to them. It’s always fun to earn something. Everyone has their favorites, though, and those they don’t care so much for. Some do them anyway, and some, like me, only do what is enjoyable…or…what’s required for something truly coveted. Lol.

Yeah I meant 25k. Editing. lol

Vayne.8563:

I don’t have OCD, but I don’t mind achievement points. For example, there’s one Living World achievement I haven’t gotten around to getting and I’ve not finished one of the badge collections in the Silverwastes and one of those type of achievements in Dry Top, nor am I stressed that I haven’t gotten around to them. Eventually I’ll get them. I may never get the Liadri achievement or mini, and I’m not that stressed about that either.

Achievements are simply something some people like to do, in the same way that people play games to be challenged.

of course, not literally OCD as per say, i exaggerate it a bit, but you know what i mean ….

I remember reading a book, I think it was James Herriott, describing a meal at a small family farm where the wife had to feed a large hardworking family on a budget. He described how she first brought out the starchy foods, the potatoes and breads covered with gravy, then the vegetables, then when everyone was full she brought out the expensive meat and desert.

It’s not so different with a mmo. You have large numbers of hungry (for content) people in your game and there is only so much budget (Dev time and money) to make content to keep them busy. If you give them the “meat and desert” only, your expensive to produce content, then that’s gone in a flash and the next day they log on and want to know what else the Devs have cooked up.

The easy way to make content is to make achievements out of something they would do anyway and stretch it out. They are going to kill scale? Make it an achieve. Going to use a sword? Make it an achieve. They are willing to do something to get a set of armor? Make them do it several times for each piece, stretch it out. It’s a cheap and easy way for a game to stretch out what it has to offer to make it last as long as possible.

This is not bad for an mmo, no more than it was bad for the housewife to fill up her family with the cheap food first. Because when you get down to it either a game will give the players lots of cheap filler or it won’t have many players at all, as they will finish the expensive and hard to produce content and leave in a very short time.

Vayne.8563:

Achievements are there to give players that like something to do, something to do. In fact, that all most MMOs actually are. A list of things to do.

+1
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I remember a time when the achievements didn’t come with rewards. Players asked for rewards, they were put in. /shrug

I hate most achievements, they are so drawn out and drastically impossible.

Then one day I get one thats really hard, sometimes with the help of guildies or random pug people, and then I am left with a glorious memory of my accomplishment and I love them more than anything in the unicornverse

Mightybird.6034:

haha to the yakslapper ^

But are achievements really content? Don’t they really just modify behavior and trick you into thinking they are content?

It depends. Achievements (in the eyes of game developers) as a way to stretch content by adding self-imposed handicaps, or accomplishing unusual feats. I first remember seeing them in TF2 (the last game I felt went out of its way to make legitimately difficult, but reasonably attainable achievements). Even Halo had Skulls, which were triggers for the game’s hard mode settings in a level.

But as achievements were condensed down into scores, it fell into the trap of just being another number. It ultimately means “nothing” except a level prestige among certain groups…. and for awhile it was a nice way for passive competition between friends. However, all that changed when leaderboards were made the forefront of all games…. and when that wasn’t enough, they started attaching rewards. Worse still, once the rewards got everyone into the habit of doing them for the rewards, developers started adding in garbage bean counter achievements; because its cheaper then actually making a thoughtful reward, but people would still obsess over them.

Just look at the some of the early achievements for TF2. The Majority of them were difficult because of circumstance, but not super difficult once the opportunity presented itself. But once Valve made the mistake of putting the Gen 2 weapons behind the achievements, thats when you started seeing the achievement farm maps gain huge popularity. As you can tell, its been downhill since…. and eventually lead to the “drop” system and Mann Co crates.

But at any rate, achievement scores in this game now have huge tangible benefits, now that its linked to a reward schedule. In addition to skins (which would normally be harmless), we get bonus gold, bonus mats, and bonus goods. After it was added, I started going out of my way to do several reasonably attainable ones to bolster my total score for the chests. The same thing happened during the GW2 launch and Hall of Monuments, as I didn’t care about HOM when I was playing Eye of the North. But that exclusive Firey Dragon sword skin was too good an opportunity to pass up. So I systematically added HOM achievements to maximize that score. Its also the first time I regret not having made 15k armor when I had the chance.

If I had one complaint about achievements, it is only that they amount of achievement points you get for them often do not reflect the challenge involved. Some of the easiest achievements offer more AP’s than some of the most challenging, which makes things feel a bit lopsided.

Aside from that, I have no real issues with them beyond the ludicrous requirements for Hellfire and Radiant armor sets (which I think ANet could easily fix if they choose to).

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I remember reading a book, I think it was James Herriott, describing a meal at a small family farm where the wife had to feed a large hardworking family on a budget. He described how she first brought out the starchy foods, the potatoes and breads covered with gravy, then the vegetables, then when everyone was full she brought out the expensive meat and desert.

It’s not so different with a mmo. You have large numbers of hungry (for content) people in your game and there is only so much budget (Dev time and money) to make content to keep them busy. If you give them the “meat and desert” only, your expensive to produce content, then that’s gone in a flash and the next day they log on and want to know what else the Devs have cooked up.

The easy way to make content is to make achievements out of something they would do anyway and stretch it out. They are going to kill scale? Make it an achieve. Going to use a sword? Make it an achieve. They are willing to do something to get a set of armor? Make them do it several times for each piece, stretch it out. It’s a cheap and easy way for a game to stretch out what it has to offer to make it last as long as possible.

This is not bad for an mmo, no more than it was bad for the housewife to fill up her family with the cheap food first. Because when you get down to it either a game will give the players lots of cheap filler or it won’t have many players at all, as they will finish the expensive and hard to produce content and leave in a very short time.

Now I’m hungry for a big bowl of spaghetti.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

If I had one complaint about achievements, it is only that they amount of achievement points you get for them often do not reflect the challenge involved. Some of the easiest achievements offer more AP’s than some of the most challenging, which makes things feel a bit lopsided.

Aside from that, I have no real issues with them beyond the ludicrous requirements for Hellfire and Radiant armor sets (which I think ANet could easily fix if they choose to).

I half agree with this, but as I am helping my gaming partner earn achievements that I already earn, I see it as progression too. She getting closer to the amount I already earned, since points are a total, even if some easy or kittene reward the same points, in the end, the total help count towards that next chest.

Don’t do it. Simple as that. I don’t do them, don;t care about them and am fine.

Also “hate” is such a strong word. People “hate” stuff all the time as well as find things often “disgusting” (also a misuse of the term)

I never chased achievemts yet somehow they happened. Only thing i did chase were jp simply because i wanted to see them all. Then when i found that underwater jp that isn’t a jp and remembered why i don’t chase them. Because they make me wanna take a loong brake from the game.

I’m actually pretty happy with achievement points at the moment, the one exception being that groups will sometimes use it as a really awkward gating mechanism. Around 50% of my achievement points come from PvP, and most of the rest from dailies and WvWvW, but people seem to assume I’m familiar with dungeons because of the score, but that’s an issue with the community rather than the game itself.

The achievement rewards honestly seem fine to me, as they’re not really that overwhelming, the only exclusive part of it is the skins and, they’re just skins. It’s not as though they impact your in game performance in any significant way. It’s not like hero points, where mechanics are going to be gated behind a very specific type of play.

Like everything but hero points (You’re going to need to grind those once elite specialisations are out or lose options), you can just play however you naturally feel like playing, and you’ll eventually end up on a fair playing field as everyone else.

Mightybird.6034:

Like diving off of drytop JP and hitting that stupid small water area. Is it difficult – yes. Should it be rewarded? Um no.

Um yes. JP and diving is legit part of activities in open world.

Please more skins tied to achievements, it is about the only thing that rewards dedication in the whole game.

TJgalon.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

If I had one complaint about achievements, it is only that they amount of achievement points you get for them often do not reflect the challenge involved. Some of the easiest achievements offer more AP’s than some of the most challenging, which makes things feel a bit lopsided.

Aside from that, I have no real issues with them beyond the ludicrous requirements for Hellfire and Radiant armor sets (which I think ANet could easily fix if they choose to).

I half agree with this, but as I am helping my gaming partner earn achievements that I already earn, I see it as progression too. She getting closer to the amount I already earned, since points are a total, even if some easy or kittene reward the same points, in the end, the total help count towards that next chest.

Yeah, I get that as well, but in the context of my point, I was thinking more of the motivation that goes behind trying to earn an achievement. Some achievements require a great deal of work and yet offer very little in the way of AP, so people might avoid attempting them altogether because the reward simply doesn’t reflect the effort involved.

Take wvw achievements for example. Unless you avidly play wvw every day, chances are you’re never going to go out of your way to earn some of those wvw achievements. Can you imagine how long it would take to kill 1000 000 dolyaks, just so you can get 25AP? It could take years of playing wvw before you’d get that far. On the flipside, a wvw player can come into PvE and do all the JP’s in one afternoon, and get themselves 450 achievement points. This is the kind of lopsidedness I’m referring to.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aside from that, I have no real issues with them beyond the ludicrous requirements for Hellfire and Radiant armor sets (which I think ANet could easily fix if they choose to).

+1

Getting carapace armor is not bad though, except for the fact that oddly one item you need to do a chapter of the PS that I never completed. After watching the youtube of it it seemed as ‘fun’ as a jumping puzzle to someone that was not the best at coordination. The most recent time I was at the vendor there were only 4 (rather than 5) items listed though for some reason: hopefully the 5th was the coat which you usually get after a few VW runs.

I heard the lumi actually looked worse than carapace after all of that work. Oh well, it looks like I will not kill myself trying to get lumi then.

Wicked Rodeo is the best Achievement!

\o/

Oxidia.8103:

I never chased achievemts yet somehow they happened.

Out of the 3 legendaries I have found in the SW I do not even remember fighting the first (although obviously it was in the area), the second it was almost dead when I randomly walked into the area, the third was just a matter of right place at the right time. Now I can not find the 4th, no matter how much I actively look for it.

At TT I wound up getting wurm’s bane after I died. My first Teq I wound up getting several on my first run there (including a few some people have trouble with, ironically I had trouble with ones most others find easy).

A few I have specifically gone after because I was approaching it anyway. A good example of that was fashion collector … which involved more spending rather than just finding things over the course of time.

Killyox.3950:

Don’t do it. Simple as that. I don’t do them, don;t care about them and am fine.

Also “hate” is such a strong word. People “hate” stuff all the time as well as find things often “disgusting” (also a misuse of the term)

No hate is about right. I just tried doing zephyr’s achieves in drytop (the JP) couldn’t do it after obsessively trying for over an hour, physically got nauseated and so frustrated I want to punch kitten in my wall. (why the hell is hole censored? wtf oh..lol… “a” + “hole” hah)