Kitrine, like I said I’ve seen this discussion many times since it shows up for every MMO where the game maker pulls this sort of thing. So I’m a little jaundiced about having to explain something that seems perfectly obvious to me.
Let me give some theory: Good achievements encourage you to do things that you already want to do. They’re sort of desire-enhancers. They give you a little psychological extra push, and they help you recognize when you’ve hit the goal. If an achievement is for something that you don’t really want to do, then you most likely won’t do it. (Unless, 1) there’s a substantial reward for completing it, or 2) you’re extremely obsessive about completing stuff.)
Second point. There are fundamentally different types of players playing the game. Consequently, different types of achievements appeal to them. Categories reflect these different tastes, e.g. Slayer vs Crafting vs Exploration vs. PvP.
Third Point: Meta achievements should be fully consistent with their subachievements. E.g. a Rare Mob meta would have you kill all rare mobs. Such an achievement basically says, “You did your thing, in a really big way. Gratz!”
In short, Achievements should not be commanders demanding that we do things, rather they’re more like watchers/heralds that note and celebrate that we’ve completed something that we want to do already.
The division between PvE and PvP players is the strongest division between player types in the game. Granted, there are other divisions (e.g. between solo and group players), but PvP vs PvE is the strongest. That division is there because the two things appeal to primarily different impulses — to compete or to cooperate. This fundamental division indicates that PvP achievements should very separate from PvE achievements.
But.. Game companies frequently jam PvP into PvE metas. Why? Because PvP players are stickier. PvE players dislike this, sometimes intensely, but companies keep doing it anyway. And the only reasonable explanation for that is that companies expect to make more money off pvp players, and they’re willing to alienate some PvE players in hopes that they’ll get some PvE players to start PvPing.
In short, achievements, especially meta achievements, should be celebrating what the player likes to do. They should not be about coercing the player to do something that they don’t want to do.
(And side note, when achievements start mixing in stuff that doesn’t belong, they actually become disincentives rather than incentives. Because the exploration achievement mixes in pvp stuff that doesn’t belong, it actually discourages me from doing things that I would otherwise do, because the crowning achievement for that is denied to me unless I do something that I don’t want to do — and which doesn’t belong in the achievement — namely PvP.)
Kitrine to speak to your specific example.
1) Vistas and jumping puzzles fit the fundamental mindset of PvE. So they generally fit well with the category.
2) They are present in all of minor achievement, i.e. in all of the zones where you do exploration, and all of the zones have vistas which have a fair degree of jumping involved. I.e. its not the case that you can do 95% of the achievement and then suddenly find that you can’t do the last 5% without doing something completely different.
3) Attitude. You complain about “whining” twice in your post, complain about silliness of PvEers and then strawman a PvE position. That’s reflective to me of the issues many of us PvE’ers have with PvPers. The endless put downs. That’s why a lot of PvE’ers avoid PvP — cause we just don’t like the attitude that comes so consistently with it.
I’ll make this one short: