Guild Wars 2

I see 3 main culprits:

1. Hidden achievements
2. Historical achievements
3. Weird achievements such as legendary collections that give AP

1. Let me start with the hidden achievements. There should be no achievements in the game that are completely invisible in the achievements tab. The only people that will end up getting these achievements are the ones that go and look on Dulfy. If you still want to keep some achievements mysterious, at least show these achievements as a ‘?’ in their respective achievement tab. Current Events for example are only doable if one goes and looks on Dulfy.

2. Historical achievements are annoying to new players or to people who simply missed some because they can amount to a big chunk of AP. The simplest way to fix this I would say is to set a AP cap. Maybe 60k, maybe more, it’s hard to give an accurate number since it’s still early in the game’s lifespan, but atleast announce one.

3. This one is not a big deal, but having an AP cap would help with it.

I’d rather like to see new wvw achievements. Spvp has around twice as many as wvw.

You have an odd definition of mess.

1. I get a lot of hidden achievements without outside help.
2. At the current pace, no one is ever going to reach your suggested cap. Also, if and when someone did reach it, a cap wouldn’t “fix” anything. It would just make all future achievements pointless to those people. Which sounds like breaking the achievement system.
3. Help what? huh?

Personally, I don’t see the point of hidden achievements. Anyone who wants to know what they are ahead of time will find guides easily.

I dunno why you advocate caps, though. I mean, APs are useless, but to limit those who like to chase them doesn’t seem to confer any benefits.

I think the OP might want to rephrase their post to reflect what bothers them. None of the concerns listed in the original post create “a mess.” Each, however, illustrates a way in which it’s harder for newer or less-focused players to gain AP.

I’m not sure if the OP is concerned with competing or simply in how difficult it is to get some of rewards that come with higher AP. Regardless, I don’t think any of the three items listed in the OP are actually a problem:

Hidden achievements are a lot of fun. People go out to look for them together, spread word of them (including via Dulfy or the Wiki), and sometimes discover them entirely by accident.

Historical Achievements … I don’t understand the OP’s point with this at all. There were things that were possible in the past; they aren’t possible now. How else should ANet handle it? Tell people that the points they earned are going to be removed?

Finally, why shouldn’t there be AP for legendary collections? They are just as valid as AP points given for exploration, since they are exploring the available skins or types of gear in the game.

You may have missed the patch notes about Current Events whenever new ones are released. Thus, not everyone relies on Dulfy or the Wiki. Only those that do not wish to discover them on their own.

Dogwog.6801:

There should be no achievements in the game that are completely invisible in the achievements tab. The only people that will end up getting these achievements are the ones that go and look on Dulfy. If you still want to keep some achievements mysterious, at least show these achievements as a ‘?’ in their respective achievement tab.

+1

I like the hidden achievements. I’ve found several without looking at a guide and it’s always a nice surprise to come across them. Especially when I thought I was just wasting my time scrambling around a forgotten corner of the map or following through something that’s just a quick bit of flavour text and then it turns out I was completing an achievement without even knowing it.

Admittedly I was given a hint for one of the new ones by someone in game (but that was just pointing me in the right direction, literally, they said “run towards that tree, see what happens”). It was an even nicer surprise when the achievement popped up and I recognised the name.

Of course if your first reaction to an update is to go and look at the Wiki or a website which details exactly whats included you’re not going to get many surprises when you come to play it yourself, but that’s the price you pay for wanting all the info up-front.

You say that hidden achievements are for people who are interested in them and the only people getting them will be those who look them up at dulfy. Well, then I don’t see a problem here. People who have interest in hidden achievements have an open source of info where and how to achieve them. It’s not like dulfy is locked to specific area of population…
My point is that if you have interest in hidden achievements, you have all tools and resources to get them. If a person has no interest in them, even revealing them and making them visible before completion wouldn’t change anything.

I would like to see hidden achievement stay, but be shown as a ? in the achievements panel until you discover them like someone in this thread suggested already. This would tell you that there is something to do, but you’ll have to figure it out yourself. Of course I will be fine if this isn’t implemented as well. But some achievements that are limited to only a specific amount of people do need to be truly hidden until you achieve them. The achievements for PvPS5 leaderboards are the prime example of this.

I have zero problems with those titles being limited to the people on the leaderboards. But now, except for those 2 accounts that placed 1 in NA/EU, every single player in the game will now have achievements in the PvP tab that are actually impossible for them to complete. This is the type of achievement that needs to be truly hidden until you obtain it.

Using “?” in the achievement area is an interesting idea. (Although I would recommend using a different naming convention: we’ve had bugs that included “?” or something similar in place of an actual achievement name or even a placeholder.)

I prefer “hidden” to be completely hidden rather than “unknown”. However, I think it would be worth it for ANet to give it a try and see how the community reacts:

• Are more people going after “unknown” achievements rather than completely “hidden”?
• Does this change a week or three after Dulfy’s guide comes out?
• What is the quality of the conversation on the forums/reddit/etc like about the different types?

Personally when I think hidden achievement I think of something that you are not likely to ever achieve, or it is now impossible for you to achieve (the PvPS5 leaderboard achievements). For stuff that you are supposed to discover on your own I think it would be nice if we had an indication that there was something to discover.

A great example are the current achievements. We still have 1 that nobody has found yet, which is fine. But because its hidden we wouldn’t even have known about that except for the fact that one of the devs mentioned it on Reddit several months after it was put in the game. I don’t personally like that, as without direct intervention from ANet we wouldn’t even have known there was something else to do. But a ? in the Current Event category would have told us that there is still something else to find and do.