Guild Wars 2

When you hear the word, “Achievement”, what sort of image pops into your head? What does that word mean to you? For me, an achievement is something I consider a reward for going above and beyond what is deemed the standard requirements of completing a task. Achievements are a testament of your skill and diligence, your commitment to pushing yourself past your limits and improving your own strengths.

The Miniature Collector Achievements, on the other hand, required you to fork out tons of real life/in-game cash and/or be very lucky. I have no problem with the achievements as a whole, and I’ve personally splurged now and then at a chance to get a miniature I really wanted, but the Achievements to collect them should not have been duplicated for the new wardrobe system and made Retired Achievements.

I feel that this goes directly against what Achievements are supposed to be about. Everyone can complete a challenging Living Story achievement with enough persistence and dedication, but not everyone is able to shell out enough coin to complete purely aesthetic collections. By creating an entire new set of miniature achievement to coincide with the wardrobe instead of recoding the old ones, us players who didn’t have the money to complete their collections before the September Feature Pack were cheated out of a rather impressive 120 AP.

I feel like the Miniature Collector category falls more in line with the Hall of Monuments. Veteran players who put lots of money and hard work into their mini collections are greatly rewarded, but at the same time new players are able to access these rewards too if they wish to put in the extra effort. They are not the same as Historical Achievements, as Miniatures were never tests of skill during releases of limited content. They are like the Cultural Armor Achievements, fun goals to gradually work to in your spare time when you can afford it.

In conclusion, I feel the implementation of the new Miniature Collector Achievements to bring it in-line with the new Wardrobe feature was a huge misstep and could have been handled differently. Miniatures themselves have not been removed, nor has the joy of slowly building up your collection. So why punish the players who were unable to complete their collections before the implementation of the Wardrobe?

have you seen the golden achievement?
I would consider it an achievement to spend lots of gold. as much as it is an achievement to unlock all of a set of black lion skins, or run around and collect spoons from all the vendors. Any way you can think of to say ‘I was able to do this and you were not’ is an achievement. some are reflex-based. some are coordination-based. some are skill-based. some are economics based. some are endurance based (that one where you have to click your mouse for ~11 hours to consume like a million drinks)

I preferred the old achievement for these, where you just had to own them all at one time, then could sell them after getting the achievement. Then they went and added more achievements for flushing all the gold down the drain. gerrrrr.

None of the ones you mentioned are retired, proving my point. Adding new achievements instead of modifying the old ones to fit the new wardrobe system felt like a cop-out. So what about those players who never got a chance to save up all their gold to put the minis in the bank, or couldn’t find friends who would let them borrow some? Hello, ugly incomplete ‘Retired Achievement’ category.

Now if they had actually removed previous mini sets entirely from the game, then I would see the warrant for them to be made retired.