Guild Wars 2

Rauderi.8706:

Well enough. The achievement exhibits no elements of good design:

• Engaging task
• Furthering story/lore which is essential to the RPG experience
• Variation
• It barely adheres to alternate variable reward schedules, and that only exists because it has multiple achievement steps with gradually increased spacing in between recognition.

With the absence of good, that only leaves bad. Maybe neutral or “necessary evil”, which are acceptable in small doses or after sufficient scenary changes.

If you’re arguing for those who love to zone out to running around and farming things, you do them a disservice by supporting content with a poor reward scheme. Those players could be farming somewhere farm more productive than wasting time feeding Hal the Ingrate.

Again. Those are your personal opinions on what you prefer an achievement to be. Opinions. Not facts. In a previous post you told me to look up basic design principles. Have you? All I see you referencing are your personal opinions on what you want and passing them off as those principles. What are the industry standards?

As far as your absence comment…

Would you believe the lack of innocence to mean that someone must be bad? The lack of one thing doesn’t mean it must be the opposite. It works both ways; however, several players came in here stating that it was “bad design” so it’s on them to support it with facts. Not a list of opinions on what someone prefers in their achievements.

Rauderi.8706:

A deliberately obtuse exaggeration. WvW achievements are gained in the normal course of play, while participating in the exact goals of WvW. Same with Fractal achievements. They are woven into the multi-faceted aspects of playing through the broader content.
Hal is a single, monotonous task repeated far more than it should have for its entertainment value.
It’s sad that comparing WvW/Fractal achievements even exists.

The Hal achievement can be obtained through the normal course of play as you do your dailies or simply doing events on that side of the map just like playing WvW and fractals normally. Or players can focus specifically on a particular achievement and grind it out.

Rauderi.8706:

Wrong.

A moving Hal would engage the players by encountering him in different locations. A moving Hal would get players to explore the zone more. A moving Hal would have given players a laugh as we find him in increasingly impossible locations while still carrying that godsbesotten flaming apple.
But he didn’t move. Players are even offering to help him move, mostly by shoving the lazy bum off a cliff and telling him to glide and get his own ruddy apples.

And if you’re arguing for bad design just because the players not wanting to grind an unappealing task for an hour sounds like “entitlement” to you, at least be honest and say it directly. Don’t give carte blanche for blatant padding of monotony.

Also, third time ducking the main point, and once after it was explicitly asked.
What has been added by the extra 49 unnecessary iterations?

Players would still complain of the grind regardless. That’s what it comes down to: grind. Some people just don’t like it.

Again, I’m not arguing for bad design. I’m just arguing for you to prove that it actually is bad design without relying on your personal opinions on what you’re looking for in an achievement.

I didn’t answer the iteration question because it was unnecessary but I will. Why must a subjective value be added to each iteration? Let’s say that you only needed to turn in five apples. Would you be posting on here that the last four iterations were a waste and that it should be dropped down to 1? Doubtful.

The value comes from the reward. Is it worth returning 1 apple to him for a few AP, 1 MP, and a title? How about 5 times? 10 times? 50 times? If the rewards are not worth it to you for the effort needed then don’t do it. Just like how there are other things in the game with unique rewards that players have chosen not to do because it isn’t worth it to them. That in no way makes it “bad design”. If you disagree then link me the industry standards for what is “bad design”.

^ (I can’t help wondering if any other criticism of this game, of which there are many, is required to prove that it’s a valid criticism to some industry standard.)

Anyway, putting aside the tangent of whether it’s good/bad/lazy design, I present some ideas which would make an achievement like this more engaging for me personally. I’m not arguing whether it is or isn’t fun to a particular demographic, since that’s subjective, and I don’t expect anet to change Hal. This is some brain-storming for future fetch quests, using Hal as an example. I quite like fetch quests, and would like to see more diverse ones in the future.

1. Imagine the same quest, but now you only have to deliver one apple, and Hal is further up the cliff which is now a mini-jp. Maybe the apple has an limited shelf-life too, like the bomb in the Griffon run jp. Now you have more challenge, more variety and a good reason why Hal can’t get his own apple. He’s stuck up there.

2. Imagine the same quest, but Hal is suffering from a spell gone wrong and teleports randomly around the map every couple of minutes and you only need to get one apple to him in time to break the spell. Now you have teamwork, as players work together via chat to locate him, and challenge as you have to get to him in time.

3. Imagine the same quest, with the same number of apples, but the apples now cause various effects as you hold them. One might make you faster, one might turn you into a rabbit, one might turn you into a giant (like the Crystal Caverns jp does). Maybe Hal gives you a small map bonus according to the transformation, e.g. a bone if you’re a rabbit, a large scale if you’re a giant.

4. A pogo stick – when carrying an apple, the player rides a pogo stick, which has the horizontal speed of running open-world speed, but has a jump height that would allow access to Hal’s perch in about three bounces. The player would have to bounce across the map from the apple trees to Hal avoiding monsters as combat would bring you out of the pogo stick. Also, there would be no fall damage.

5. Additionally, on feeding Hal 50 apples, he could reveal the location of some secret stash of unbound magic, at a random location and only visible to the person who completed the achievement.
This would allow Hal to be repeatable, just like the new hearts. On the first completion, you get your cheevo and mp, but on successive repeats you get some minor bonus in karma or magic.

Would you believe the lack of innocence to mean that someone must be bad? The lack of one thing doesn’t mean it must be the opposite. It works both ways; however, several players came in here stating that it was “bad design” so it’s on them to support it with facts. Not a list of opinions on what someone prefers in their achievements.

There’s no such thing as “objective design.” Anything involving design is automatically subjective, a collection of opinions. “Bad design” is always subjective, but certain elements are generally accepted as being “bad design” because a wide number of people tend to share the view that those elements cause more harm than good. There are no facts to be had either way, just a preponderance of consensus.

The Hal achievement can be obtained through the normal course of play as you do your dailies or simply doing events on that side of the map just like playing WvW and fractals normally.

This is not true at all. You could complete the Ember Bay dailies for years and never even go to the western side of the island. You could complete only the western heartquests daily for years and never complete this objective. It is only if you take time out specifically to work on this objective, grabbing and carrying a non-combat bundle from one location to another, that you advance the quest. It is possible to accomplish some of the other objectives roughly in the same timespan as working on the Hal quest, but they are two completely distinct activities that only hinder progress on each other, not help it. This is completely different than other “grindy” achievements like “kill 1000 mobs of this type,” which happen completely incidentally as a part of normal gameplay. Killing those mobs is something you would already be doing, for most of them.

The value comes from the reward. Is it worth returning 1 apple to him for a few AP, 1 MP, and a title? How about 5 times? 10 times? 50 times? If the rewards are not worth it to you for the effort needed then don’t do it.

But again, MP is a VERY constrained finite resource. You cannot simply write off ever MP source that you do not enjoy, or you’d never have enough MP to max out the available skills. Therefore, it is important to try and get as many potential MP sources as possible to avoid negative gameplay experiences. “Just don’t do it” is not a reasonable response in this case.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

^ (I can’t help wondering if any other criticism of this game, of which there are many, is required to prove that it’s a valid criticism to some industry standard.)

Anyway, putting aside the tangent of whether it’s good/bad/lazy design, I present some ideas which would make an achievement like this more engaging for me personally. I’m not arguing whether it is or isn’t fun to a particular demographic, since that’s subjective, and I don’t expect anet to change Hal. This is some brain-storming for future fetch quests, using Hal as an example. I quite like fetch quests, and would like to see more diverse ones in the future.

1. Imagine the same quest, but now you only have to deliver one apple, and Hal is further up the cliff which is now a mini-jp. Maybe the apple has an limited shelf-life too, like the bomb in the Griffon run jp. Now you have more challenge, more variety and a good reason why Hal can’t get his own apple. He’s stuck up there.

2. Imagine the same quest, but Hal is suffering from a spell gone wrong and teleports randomly around the map every couple of minutes and you only need to get one apple to him in time to break the spell. Now you have teamwork, as players work together via chat to locate him, and challenge as you have to get to him in time.

3. Imagine the same quest, with the same number of apples, but the apples now cause various effects as you hold them. One might make you faster, one might turn you into a rabbit, one might turn you into a giant (like the Crystal Caverns jp does). Maybe Hal gives you a small map bonus according to the transformation, e.g. a bone if you’re a rabbit, a large scale if you’re a giant.

4. A pogo stick – when carrying an apple, the player rides a pogo stick, which has the horizontal speed of running open-world speed, but has a jump height that would allow access to Hal’s perch in about three bounces. The player would have to bounce across the map from the apple trees to Hal avoiding monsters as combat would bring you out of the pogo stick. Also, there would be no fall damage.

5. Additionally, on feeding Hal 50 apples, he could reveal the location of some secret stash of unbound magic, at a random location and only visible to the person who completed the achievement.
This would allow Hal to be repeatable, just like the new hearts. On the first completion, you get your cheevo and mp, but on successive repeats you get some minor bonus in karma or magic.

Those are definitely some alternative ways that they could have done that achievement.

Ohoni.6057:

Hmm, it’s claimed above that this content offers only a poor reward. Then, why all the angst. Just ignore it, and let those that feel the reward and the effort required worthwhile experience it.

It doesn’t say that.

If, as others claim, it’s a valuable reward (MP), then I posit it is worth the effort. Perhaps, that’s “What has been added by the extra 49 unnecessary iterations(?)”

It is worth acquiring. That doesn’t mean that it is a fun or valuable gaming experience. Two other Mastery Points in this patch can be earned by walking up to them and hitting “f.” It’s not like there is some high bar for what a player “should” jump through in order to earn a Mastery Point, and they just had to add dozens of repetitions to the quest to make it worth awarding a Mastery Point. They could have made less repetitions, they chose not to, that’s on them.

Well, that’s what I got out of this part of the post:

If you’re arguing for those who love to zone out to running around and farming things, you do them a disservice by supporting content with a poor reward scheme. Those players could be farming somewhere farm more productive than wasting time feeding Hal the Ingrate.

If Hal has a poor reward scheme, then nothing to worry about, whether players ‘zone out and farm it’, or not.

If Hal does have a valuable reward, then it’s worth more than just the one visit and delivery of an apple would denote.

If Hal has a poor reward scheme, then nothing to worry about, whether players ‘zone out and farm it’, or not.

He’ll have to speak for himself on intent, but “poor reward scheme” does not mean that the reward itself is “poor” and thus not worth caring about, it means that the mechanisms surrounding the reward were bad.

It would be like if you were designing this quest, and had to give Hal his 50 apples, if you only got 2 copper for completing it, most would consider that a “poor reward scheme” for not offering a return worth the effort, but likewise, if he gave you a Precursor of your choice, most would also consider that a “poor reward scheme” for being overly generous for a relatively simple activity.

The argument I make on this is that it is a poor reward scheme because the reward is of a high enough value that it’s not easily ignored, it is worth pursuing, but the content itself is dead boring to me and apparently a ton of other players, which means that to pursue that reward, we have to go through a lot of content we are not enjoying. I believe that this situation creates more negative gaming experiences than positive ones, and would welcome any data either proving or disproving that position.

I believe a more universally favorable gaming experience could be created by making the reward something more generic, something that had value, but not a unique value, something where players who wanted to do the task could do it, and feel that what they got was worth the effort, but people who didn’t want to do it could do something else instead, and end up being equally well rewarded by playing other content for the same amount of time. So long as Mastery Points are a finite resource, they cannot fill this role.

Y’all keep confusing “I hate this mechanic” with “it’s bad design” — why do you have to insist that there’s some high principle at stake?

Why not leave it as something like…

ANet: please stop adding achievements like this, that involve simplistic tasks repeated identically dozens of time; everyone I know finds them boring. Worse, I find it dispiriting, as it seems to devalue other achievements and accomplishments.

In the future, please add some depth or breadth. Just because something is fun or interesting to do a dozen times doesn’t mean it’s four times as fun to repeat it 4 dozen times.

To that, I’d simply say, “+1”.

However, I can’t support the presumption that adding a “Candy Crush” dimension to Guild Wars 2 is “bad design” — it’s a design choice and I don’t like it, but that doesn’t make it inherently “bad.”

Ayrilana.1396:

Opinions

Since it’s so subjective, we’ll test it against the Ayr-chan rubrics for what constitutes “good design”. Go ahead and list them out. Then see how many of them the Hal achievement fails.

The Hal achievement can be obtained through the normal course of play as you do your dailies or simply doing events on that side of the map just like playing WvW and fractals normally. Or players can focus specifically on a particular achievement and grind it out.

False. Ohoni already clearly identified why.

The Hal task requires not participating in other events in the zone, because it removes the character’s weapon abilities and requires bouncing through potential event zones, possibly while up-scaling them.
The only fortunate part is if one, somewhat ironically, already has the mastery points needed for thermal propulsion, which makes getting to Hal’s perch a little faster.

Players would still complain of the grind regardless. That’s what it comes down to: grind. Some people just don’t like it.

Players will still complain about anything. What matters is giving them less to complain about by using thoughtful design.

At least it has reasonable exit/entry points. It gets one good design mark by default.

Again, I’m not arguing for bad design.

Yes, you are.

Why must a subjective value be added to each iteration? Let’s say that you only needed to turn in five apples. Would you be posting on here that the last four iterations were a waste and that it should be dropped down to 1? Doubtful.

So, by implication, five (5) iterations is considered reasonable?
Yeah, I’d take that. I did that last night in between alt-tabs of chat. But I wasn’t engaged with the game.

Why must a subjective value be added to each iteration?
Because that’s good design. You reward players for a task. Actually, “better” design would to give a reward on a variable release schedule. It could be 1 apple one time, 5 the next, and 3 the iteration after. But only if the reward also meets certain [risk/resource]-reward thresholds.

The value comes from the reward. Is it worth returning 1 apple to him for a few AP, 1 MP, and a title? How about 5 times? 10 times? 50 times?

1 AP and 1 Mastery point: 1 iteration. That’s equivalent to what’s been present in the HoT zones.

Other AP? Per iteration. 5 / 10 / 50 is acceptable.

Title. 50, sure why not? Go nuts. AP hunters and title lovers will do it.

There, I just fixed the reward scheme for Hungry Hal.
Well, not entirely, because it’s still lacking any actual replayability.
And theme.
And fun.
And utility.

So other possible improvements:
Hal is a miner/logger. Hal works hard in this weirdly profitable, but dangerously inconvenient spot.
Hal would like a tasty dish the players can make. Blueberry pie one time. Zucchini bread another.
Every time you feed Hal, he gratefully gives you a special reward of unbound magic or a petrified log.
If there’s worry about the reward becoming too prolific, Hal eventually gets full, so he stops taking food.
We’ve now given the players a more interesting (ie, variable) fetch quest that incorporates lesser-used recipes in Cooking and products on the Trading Post, and Hal is now quasi-infinitely playable content. Hal also has a backstory, and thus a pixel’s worth of lore, but he’s now more woven into the world. Hal is grateful, rather than a surly ponce, so the players feel good about helping him.
All of the above use good design elements.

If the rewards are not worth it to you for the effort needed then don’t do it. Just like how there are other things in the game with unique rewards that players have chosen not to do because it isn’t worth it to them. That in no way makes it “bad design”. If you disagree then link me the industry standards for what is “bad design”.

The answer is actually rather simple.

Good design motivates.
Bad design demotivates.

Because game theory is, at its heart, a subset of years of psychological study on motivation. And I’m not, wait for it, motivated enough to do your homework for you.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ANet: please stop adding achievements like this, that involve simplistic tasks repeated identically dozens of time; everyone I know finds them boring. Worse, I find it dispiriting, as it seems to devalue other achievements and accomplishments.

In the future, please add some depth or breadth. Just because something is fun or interesting to do a dozen times doesn’t mean it’s four times as fun to repeat it 4 dozen times.

Succinctly put. I’d make that my new signature, but there’s character limits.

Rauderi.8706:

~snip so post is below 5000 character threshold~

Again. You presented the argument that the achievement is bad design. The onus is on you to back up your claim with facts. Normally these would be industry standards. I’m not going to go through the effort to research what good design is as I’m not the one that initiated this.

Ohoni was wrong then. I said it can be done through normal course of play when doing events and dailies on that side of the map. You can run apples in between events or as you move from one section or another. I wasn’t referring to doing the achievement while also doing an event at the same time.

Players will complain about anything; yes. Whether or not it’s what you can thoughtful design wouldn’t change that. If it’s something that they don’t wants to do then they are going to complain regardless.

No, I am not arguing for bad design. I’m arguing against your opinions that you are treating as facts as to what bad design is.

I used five iterations because that was the number that you used in a previous post. Again, your opinions on what is good/bad design. I get that you want each indisibdual task to be rewarding and enjoyable. That doesn’t mean that something is badly designed if it lacks that.

The reward for doing the achievement is what you get at the end. This is what normally determines whether somebody does an achievement or not. The rewards for Hal are just find. You get several AP, a MP, and a title just for running apples to him 50 times. How many other achievements are like that?

All of what you have been passing off as good design have been reductions in grind. As I have said several times already, that’s really the complaint that you’re making or how it is coming across as. Let’s say that you only had to turn in a single Apple to complete the achievement. If I were to create a thread calling it bad design, would you side with me? Likely not.

What about collection events? Those must be badly designed too as each iteration of the item collected and turned in is exactly the same. After turning in the first item, no other items add any value to the player. Clearly this shouldn’t exist because it is bad design according to you. Just like the Hal achievement, you turn in a number of items in order to complete the objective and get the reward.

Rewards motivate players as well. Not everyone will do everything just for the enjoyment of it. How many players would do jumping puzzles just for fun with zero reward? I’m talking about if there was no chest at the end and they never awarded AP (on first completion) or were a part of dailies. Would you consider them well or poorly designed based on your opinions of what good/bad design is? Rewards themselves motivate players.

People need to differentiate between their opinion (I don’t like it) and making a judgement for everyone (it’s bad design). Different people like different things. Huge numbers of people like to play Solitaire for hours at a time. If you find that boring, that’s your opinion.

Y’all keep confusing “I hate this mechanic” with “it’s bad design” — why do you have to insist that there’s some high principle at stake?

If it’s an element that causes more negative (not neutral) player experiences than it causes positive (not neutral), then it’s bad design. We’re convinced that this is the case here. It’s not automatically bad design for content that does not appeal to most players, but it is if this content is not easily ignored by everyone that dislikes it. The reward for Hal makes it too inconvenient to ignore for it to “not be for everyone.”

Why do you have to insist that it is not bad design?

Ohoni was wrong then. I said it can be done through normal course of play when doing events and dailies on that side of the map.

You did say that, and you were wrong then, and wrong when you repeated it.

Nothing you do to advance the normal events, hearts, or dailies of the island will advance Hal even one iota. Nothing to do to advance Hal will advance any of the events, hearts, or dailies one iota. The two elements are completely mutually exclusive. You can do events adjacent to Hal, but any time you spend advancing Hal is time taken away from progressing any other goal.

I’ll give you an example. I was doing some Hal runs the other day. I would go to the area around the chef heart quest, I would collect a bunch of eggs and pearls, grab an apple, fly to Hal, fly back, grab some more eggs and stuff, and repeat. I imagine you would view this as “doing them together,” but every second I spent with an apple in hand was time spent NOT advancing the heart quest, while every second spent collecting eggs was time spent NOT advancing Hal. Advancing either meant slowing down my progress on the other.

A true synergistic effect is beneficial, something like an event going on where every kill you make contributes not just to that event, but also to a Heart quest, also to an achievement, etc., where doing one thing benefits you in multiple ways. That does not apply to Hal.

Even if you’re just talking about running apples while moving from one event to another, the time taken by going to collect that apple and in delivering it to Hal is still time taken away from traveling. It’s not a ton, but in most cases you’d be adding at least thirty seconds to a minute to the time it would take you to get from the Osprey Islands to actively participating in Mursat Fortress content. That’s not a massive negative, in and of itself, but it is still negative, not positive.

Rewards motivate players as well. Not everyone will do everything just for the enjoyment of it. How many players would do jumping puzzles just for fun with zero reward?

Plenty, at least once. That’s why they are largley good content, because they are content players would want to do whether there is reward or not. Reward should not exist to convince players to do a thing. If you have to bribe players into something then you’ve already failed. Rewards should be a bonus on top of player fun, and should be more about making sure that players don’t fell that they are falling behind the loot progress they would be making if they spent that time doing something else, than they are about encouraging players that do not particularly enjoy the content to do it anyway.

People need to differentiate between their opinion (I don’t like it) and making a judgement for everyone (it’s bad design). Different people like different things. Huge numbers of people like to play Solitaire for hours at a time. If you find that boring, that’s your opinion.

Again, it comes down to “what is the cost for ignoring the content.” If the cost is negligible, then it can be something that appeals to relatively few people. If the cost is something most people would not want to pay, then it must be content for most people to enjoy. Mastery points are too rare in this game to consider them an optional goal.

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip: repetitive arguing

Translation:

I don’t know enough game design concepts to identify what, in my opinion, are “good” design elements or how they apply to the Hal achievement.

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’ll HALp you with your homework.

Narrative
Hal sits on his butt in a weird place, even though he could easily get off the rock and get food. A character that has food, could offer him some, but he just grouses and won’t take any. He requires a very specific, far away food. For no reason.
It could have been an escort quest event or anything Zoltar and I suggested as improvements, but Hal is a wasted opportunity.

Immersion
Because of its lack of narrative, Hal isn’t exactly immersive. His poor attitude, weird position, and specific demands all make him stand out as an oddity in the world. The only immersive thing that might happen is if someone likes zoning out during the monotony, but I won’t claim that Hal was well-conceived because of it.

Reward schedules
Could be better, as outlined earlier. AP can sit as it is. Mastery should be first iteration. Title at 50th.

Mechanics / Execution
The mechanics are simple enough. Get apple, fend off threats while having no weapon skills, glide to Hal, done.
…Eh. Interesting as a puzzle, once, and then the novelty wears off.

Mechanics as Narrative
The mechanics themselves betray any sort of narrative, though. Why doesn’t the apple go into our inventory, like everything else? We ought to be able to bring Hal a bushel, if we wanted.
Hal is a thing. If not for the MP and title, his presence might not touch any of the game’s systems at all.

Pacing
Good gaming experiences have peaks and lulls in action and progression. Drone #2 – #50 is just lull. It’s the equivalent of an HP-sponge boss, except you can walk away from it after it bores you too much.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic reward
Extrinsic rewards are definitely what drives this tripe. An extra-long stick for the carrot.
The only ones finding intrinsic value in the Hal task are those who still giggle at thermal propulsion/gliding and those who do it to zone out.

Agency
Agency, or “control” in other words, is critically important to something being a ‘game’. There is none here. No choice points or multiple-and-viable tactics. It’s grab thing, avoid mobs, deliver thing. At best, ‘control’ is limited to teasing out an optimal travel path to get it over with as soon as possible.

Exit Points / Humane Design
Hal gets one point! The task is easy to pick up or drop whenever. No progress is lost and there aren’t any meta-events to complete to make it available.

Conflict / Conflict Resolution
What’s the conflict presented by Hal’s dilemma? While part narrative, conflict is also present in challenges required to fulfill the objective. My challenges so far? Slippery collision detection, pocket raptors, and jade constructs. Two make me realize that all I’m doing is running away, and two make me realize that the game wasn’t playtested enough.

Randomness / Variation
There is none. It’s the same task from start to finish. Sensory satiety is easily reached under those conditions, which most people call “Boredom.”

Fantasy
I don’t mean the milieu, but rather “what is the player supposed to feel while doing this?” What fantasy is this task guiding us toward? Mighty warrior of the burning wastes? Benevolent savior of a man too weakened by hunger to save himself? Errand boy to an ungrateful fop?

Replayability
I’d call it One-and-Done, but it’s Fifty-and-I-Hope-ANet-Never-Does-This-Again-But-I-Know-They-Will.

Negative possibility space
“No way something would be here- Wait a minute, there is!” One point for Hal.
Finding Hal by exploring and discovering the apple connection makes for an interesting enough puzzle. Once.

All of what you have been passing off as good design have been reductions in grind.

Do you ever actually read what people write? That statement is seriously just being uselessly argumentative, after others and I have given specific alterations that would have made the achievement more engaging.

Let’s say that you only had to turn in 1 Apple to complete the achievement. If I were to create a thread calling it bad design, would you side with me? Likely not.

Wrong again. Predictive validity is lower than chance.
If it were 1 turn-in for 8AP, a mastery point, and a title, I’d question that it was over-rewarded, which is [gasp] not good design. Over-rewarding your players gets them quickly jaded and sets precedent. So yeah, it’d be bad design.

What about collection events?

Variation. Narrative. Exploration. In general, has reasonable exit points. Gives goals and motivates to participate in the game’s events with other players.
Gee, sounds like good design.

Complex /= “good design”. I’m glad that there are varied quest mechanics in the game. It doesn’t bother me at all that this one is very simple. Its not like the game is filled with this mechanic.

What I feel is and isn’t good design is irrelevant which is why I don’t list them. The issue that I have repeated over and over to you is that you’re using your own personal opinions about what you prefer in achievements and then passing them off as facts about what is and isn’t bad design. Posting what I feel is good design has nothing to do with this.

Yes, you listed some interesting things that Anet could have done different. The lack of them doesn’t inherently make something badly designed.

I have read what people have wrote. Have you also? The most common request when someone complains about something being badly design is to call for a reduction in grind. That’s a common theme that you, and another person, has although you do make other alternative suggestions. None of which would really matter as those complaining about it being badly designed, for the reasons of it being a grind, will still complain that it is badly designed in the end.

So turning in 1 Apple is over-rewarding which makes it badly designed? So turning in 50 apples isn’t worth the AP, single MP, and title? Exactly what quantity is it worth it to you?

Most collection events have no more variation, narrative, and exploration than the Hal achievement. They typically require you to go around collect these items on the ground or kill these enemies and collect these items to turn in. Each iteration after the first one doesn’t add any value to the player as it’s exactly the same as the first. Something you claim to be bad design in regards to Hal. And yet the only difference here is that you typically don’t turn in 50 items for a collection event which brings us back to grind.

Edit: Anyways, this is like the 4th iteration that I have made of my points. I’m really getting no value from each time that I’m posting so I’m going to stop. This discussion must be badly designed. Anyway, it was great having this discussion.

It’s like bosses with way too much health or living stories that go on forever. Just once I would appreciate some real AI in games that once a combat weakness is exploited several times or less it just plain ends the battle.

Djinn.9245:

Complex /= “good design”. I’m glad that there are varied quest mechanics in the game. It doesn’t bother me at all that this one is very simple. Its not like the game is filled with this mechanic.

I agree, actually. Complex designs aren’t inherently better, if their complexity doesn’t add any depth or purpose.
I’m not even blasting it for being simple. Others and I take issue with the obvious padding via boring repetition.

Heh, I really ought to save my game design rants for something more significant. :P

Ayrilana.1396:

What I feel is and isn’t good design is irrelevant which is why I don’t list them.

It was actually very strictly important, because of the word “opinion” being a very critical refrain. If you can’t even quantify what was “good” about the Hal achievement, then the defense of it is flawed.

The issue that I have repeated over and over to you is that you’re using your own personal opinions about what you prefer in achievements and then passing them off as facts about what is and isn’t bad design.

You wanted “industry standards”. I gave you a series of concepts that are generally considered when designing games of this genre. As MMOs are inherently a creative endeavor, I can’t say “give the player 400mg of Fun and 10g of rewards”. Insisting on absolute metrics is a flawed argument, but even in qualitative analysis, there are rubrics and benchmarks that are considered to be semi-scalar. Failing to provide rubrics means your assessment was ill-conceived.

I have read what people have wrote. Have you also? The most common request when someone complains about something being badly design is to call for a reduction in grind. That’s a common theme that you, and another person, has although you do make other alternative suggestions. None of which would really matter as those complaining about it being badly designed, for the reasons of it being a grind, will still complain that it is badly designed in the end.

Does the grind have a purpose? Does it encourage participation in events, thereby keeping players within the community and showing a presence? Or does it remove them from participation while still being close enough to scale them, making it harder for everyone else.
Lots of people complained about the grind in Verdant Brink, et al, but those currency grinds served a purpose, and they could be completed from any participation in the zone. Hal has no such considerations.

So turning in 1 Apple is over-rewarding which makes it badly designed? So turning in 50 apples isn’t worth the AP, single MP, and title? Exactly what quantity is it worth it to you?

“I have read what people have wrote.” You claim, but you prove otherwise with this question.

Most collection events have no more variation, narrative, and exploration than the Hal achievement. They typically require you to go around collect these items on the ground or kill these enemies and collect these items to turn in. Each iteration after the first one doesn’t add any value to the player as it’s exactly the same as the first. Something you claim to be bad design in regards to Hal. And yet the only difference here is that you typically don’t turn in 50 items for a collection event which brings us back to grind.

You mean rep quests? The things I can finish in 5% of the time it’d take to feed Hal? That I get rewarded for each time the task set is complete? Sure, catching a rock in a bucket isn’t individually rewarding, but it also has a better iteration time, or I could participate in events, or I can fly around doing something else. Variety is the spice of life, even in MMOs.

Edit: Anyways, this is like the 4th iteration that I have made of my points. I’m really getting no value from each time that I’m posting so I’m going to stop. This discussion must be badly designed. Anyway, it was great having this discussion.

Uncountered points made so far:

• Hal achievement is a Grind
• People have “Opinions” that coincide with professional philosophy
• Hal is an unfun achievement to do
• Questioning direct questions is the same as answering them

So, yeah, certain points represented here have been really repetitive.
Some people must like the grind.

As of yesterday I wasn’t going yo post here but today I must.
Anet your apples for Hal is a sour joke, not only is it a grind fest but it is bugged
and I feel I got ripped off.
Follow me with this before yesterday I had 18 yesterday I did 5 runs so I ended with 23 so far so good right as of this post today I did seven so that’s 30 right!
Wrong I was given 3 point of achievements and kicked back to 20.
Now ask me again If I feel like continuing.

When people complain it’s too repetitive or that they found a faster way to get there, Anet turns around and gives you your wish. Thanks to complainers now we have permanent enemies even closer to Hal making it even harder to grind lol.
Way to go Anet that’s why we never complain about your work or lack of achievements.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

As of yesterday I wasn’t going yo post here but today I must.
Anet your apples for Hal is a sour joke, not only is it a grind fest but it is bugged
and I feel I got ripped off.
Follow me with this before yesterday I had 18 yesterday I did 5 runs so I ended with 23 so far so good right as of this post today I did seven so that’s 30 right!
Wrong I was given 3 point of achievements and kicked back to 20.
Now ask me again If I feel like continuing.

Sometimes, players use the HUD to track achievements, and find their numbers wonky. This is usually caused by the HUD set to show Tier Completion rather than Total Completion.

No idea if this might be the case for your issue.

Good luck.

OT: Devs, I find the Hal Achievement much, much more fun than many other Mastery Points. Please, keep up the good work! Thank you in advance.

Edit: Anyways, this is like the 4th iteration that I have made of my points. I’m really getting no value from each time that I’m posting so I’m going to stop. This discussion must be badly designed. Anyway, it was great having this discussion.

And see, that’s fine, because there’s no Mastery point after making fifty repeated posts on the topic, so you can leave without abandoning that Point.

Btw, for those still actually trying on this one, there is a relatively simple strategy to it. This doesn’t “fix” the quest or “make it good,” it’s still bloody awful, but I believe it’s the best-worst way to do it.

1. Get to where the Circus Chef NPC is. Jump on the mushroom next to him. This puts you onto a small rise to his left. There is another mushroom on a platform just behind this one. Jump on it, which will put you on a platform high up with an Ember tree. Grab the apple.

2. Leyline glide back towards the circus, drop into the lava tube. Shoot to the next tube over, then shoot out of that tube, and immediately hold jump to start gliding ASAP. Turn back around and glide toward Hal. You should land about 50ft away from him, and should be able to avoid any nearby enemies easily enough. Turn in the apple.

3. Glide down to the Sloth area, take the Lava Tube pointed back towards the circus. Hit glide as close to the end as possible, but if you wait until you land then it’ll shoot you away. Land next to the Chef. (*)

4. Take the mushrooms back up to the platform with the tree, leyline glide towards the cliff with the Viewpoint, then glide back towards the south. Basically this area has around five more trees that can all be reached leyline gliding around from high cliff to cliff in a stable pattern, so just grab the nearest available apple, then follow step 2 again, and repeat. You can do this once a day, or swap maps/characters to do it more than once per day.

(*) if you want to also complete the Chef thing for the daily, you can collect eggs and pearls as you travel through this portion, and should gradually have enough to please the chef. I can confirm that while you can complete this heart twice in a day on two different characters, you only get credit for the daily on the first of the two.

Or..better yet, speak to the Ringmaster and be instantly ported to the cliffs above Hal. Ezpz.

Or..better yet, speak to the Ringmaster and be instantly ported to the cliffs above Hal. Ezpz.

I had done that a few times, but yesterday it wasn’t working. Maybe they patched it out. In either case, it doesn’t really shave you any real time, and arguably is more hassle. It’d only really be worth it if you don’t have lava tubs unlocked, in whcih case, get Lava tubes unlocked.

It isn’t more hassle for me, much less hassle, but each to their own. You may have to have purchased a ticket, previously, though.

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

An exploit that isn’t exploitative! Well done Even 3/day on a single toon for two weeks gets you close the achievement. Also a good way to amortize the cost of the pass

Hi, kids! I watch lots of Project Runway*, so I know that "boring" = "bad design", and means you didn’t Make It Work and you’re out.

If Hal stopped being so boring with his design, I suspect the judges would’ve been happy and kept him on for NY Fashion Week.

Yes.

*Totally the baseline for design in all aspects.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

An exploit that isn’t exploitative! Well done Even 3/day on a single toon for two weeks gets you close the achievement. Also a good way to amortize the cost of the pass

Fruit refreshes per character, possibly per map, so there isn’t a hard limit on how much one can do in a day. (Except 50, because then you stop. :P)

Swapping characters for the extra fruit did get me to stumble onto something else. The repeatable hearts seem to refresh their Petrified Wood purchase per character, not per account. So if you want the fast track to that metal-AF molten skull backpack or the Choose Your Own Accessory, bring all the alts!

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

So “pay to win.” That sounds about right.

Ohoni.6057:

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

So “pay to win.” That sounds about right.

How is that “pay to win” ? You are paying for convenience, since even you acknowledge it’s possible to do the achievement legit with some efficiency. It’s a one-time bonus that the convenience of in-map vendors also offers the convenience to finish a single achievement.

People really reach hard to grasp at the thin straws that are the “pay to win” argument.

“You had the option to pay for literally a single thing?! PAY TO WIN!”

Y’all keep confusing “I hate this mechanic” with “it’s bad design” — why do you have to insist that there’s some high principle at stake?

Ohoni.6057:

If it’s an element that causes more negative (not neutral) player experiences than it causes positive (not neutral), then it’s bad design. We’re convinced that this is the case here. It’s not automatically bad design for content that does not appeal to most players, but it is if this content is not easily ignored by everyone that dislikes it. The reward for Hal makes it too inconvenient to ignore for it to “not be for everyone.”

You missed the point: why are you insisting that there’s a higher principle at stake? Why isn’t enough to say you don’t like it?

Ohoni.6057:

Why do you have to insist that it is not bad design?

I’m not insisting that it is any sort of design. I’m only insisting that you don’t get to decide for anyone else. At best, you can say it doesn’t follow some generally accepted ‘rules’ of good design, but even that is irrelevant.

My argument, which you completely missed is that it does not matter if it’s good or bad design — I don’t have to like things that are “good design” and I can like things that are “bad design”.

By insisting that there’s a higher principle at stake, you do your own cause a disservice. It’s simply not a claim you can “prove” and so attempting to do so distracts from discussing it.

In this case, I don’t care why ANet designed the quest the way they did; I still won’t like it because this isn’t my sort of thing. But there are people who do like this sort of thing and the game is big enough that it can accommodate a few things that they like and I don’t.

I finished it this evening. Did I go into rhapsodies over the brilliant design? Nope. But it did offer something I needed: low stress, easily interruptible action with enough variety to keep it from being completely mind numbing (I could work on a heart, break off to go help a boss fight, stop on a ledge and chat in guild, practice quick ley flight routes to apples, deal with people training jades onto Hal, etc). I am one of those people who can zone out playing low-brain-power card games to pass the time and Hal offered that sort of thing with the bonus of Map chat and guild chat interaction. (Sorry, ANet dev from Guild Chat, you don’t get any younger from me, no tears here! )

I needed this today since my relatives kept calling thanks to my starting my second half-century of life

Aww, Happy 50th! May this half be even better! =)

Happy birthday, Donari.

I’ll just leave this here…

(Extra Credits on intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards)