When it comes to achievements in most games you have an achievement character then you have your alts. I was thinking something along the lines of having them account wide rather than character wide. I mean the player has achieved the action, why must they do it again? The second part to this is why have achievement points (or badges) if they aren't worth more than just bragging rights? The only other game that I've seen do something similar to this is SWTOR. Most of the achievements are account wide as well as any kind of reputation because of your legacy that you create.
I guess what I'm trying to ask is, are the achievements going to be account wide and are the achievements going to actually be worth something besides bragging rights?
Zekna, Black Mana Guardian. (sewer power leveler)
We will have a separation between character achievements and account achievements.
I'll try to be succinct as possible, but there are multiple reasons for this. And keep in mind that this is all stil subject to change. But it is the current direction we're headed.
On the character side, there are some systems that are related to each other that affect how the world perceives the character and how the character perceives the world. Some Badges or Achievements will be used as some of the 'hooks' for connecting these systems. Systems related to this our the Paths system, Faction Reputation, and the tri-axis Alignment. I could go into detail of how Badges will be used in each, but I've given the most basic reasoning for their use.
Another system we will use is something called Challenges and Achievements. Challenges are ways the character is played or things the character can do. As the Challenge difficulty increases, the greater the potential reward becomes for obtaning the related Achievement. Failing a Challenge resets the Achievement level even if a Badge has been previously earned for that Achievement. A brief example here would be a challenge of stealthing a mission. The first challenge would be 1 mission, the next 5 and so on. One character the player has may be designed for such a playstyle and thus earn bonus rewards for doing so. Another may be designed to play differently. If the Achievement system were account-wide, then when the player switched from one character to another, the differing playstyles would affect each character's progression toward the next challenge level.
Other things certain Badges will provide are access to special powers. Some of these special powers could be based on how that particular character was played using certain types of powers used on one character that another doesn't use. Other special powers may be related to obtaining a certain Rep with an NPC Facction.
On the account end of things, we will apply achievements for things like anniversaries (so a player doesn't have to log in each different character to get the anniversary badge), for things like timed played, STARS (our cash shop currency) spent, and so on.
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Makes sense to me!
I see where it is going but it was a thought to try and keep in mind I guess :)
Zekna, Black Mana Guardian. (sewer power leveler)
I think exploration badges should be account wide as well. There's just not enough time in a life to get each exploration badge with every character lol. If you the player has been there once you shouldn't be required to do it countless more times. I spent countless hours trying to get them all and once I did the game shut down haha. Even if the game was still going I for sure wouldn't be trying to do that again.
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I pretty much agree with what Tannim222 said here. Most badges/achievements in a game like CoT should NOT be account based and that any badge/achievement that provides any kind of in-game benefit to characters (other than what you call "bragging rights") should NEVER be account wide.
CoT (like CoH before it) is going to be a character based game. That means pretty much anything the character achieves while playing should be linked solely to that character. It doesn't matter that a human "player" is driving that character or whether that player has other characters with the same achievements. Let me put this very simple concept into old school terms: Let's say you had a pen-n-paper D&D character and while playing that character you got a blessing from an NPC cleric for saving a village which involved getting a permanent +1 bonus to your Wisdom score. Now just because that one character got that "achievement" of a +1 Wisdom boost doesn't mean that any new character you ever create in the future automatically deserves to be given that same +1 boost to their Wisdom score. When you consider it in those terms it should be obvious that characters (in practically any RPG computer or table based) should never be able to benefit from unearned achievements just because they may share the same human player in common.
Beyond the basic illogic of having all your characters share in-game achievement bonuses just because they might share a human player in common there's the other major problem of overall game balance to contend with. I managed to play CoH fairly regularly for its entire 8.5 year run and by the last year or two it was getting pretty ridiculous how powerful a newly-rolled character could be - the instant they were hatched they could have 50+ badges, 10+ bonus temp powers, dozens of unearned costume items and auras, etc. It frankly got silly to see just how overly powerful any brand new character could be and it was all due to just how many account-based bonuses you could rack up over multiple years of play. For play balance alone this kind of thing should be kept to an absolute minimum.
The only badges/achievements that should ever be allowed to be account-wide are things like game anniversaries, veteran awards or event badges (for things like real world holidays or other periodic in-game events). These things are the only legitimate "player-oriented" account-wide events that have nothing to do with the actions of any one specific character. These are acknowledgements of real world milestones that transcend individual character activities. By making something like a holiday event badge account-wide you wouldn't have to worry about logging in dozens of alts just to have them all get a badge that they arguably have no direct connection to anyway. Player oriented badges/achievements like this should be tracked completely separately from any individual characters' badges/achievements.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Purely as described I'll agree with you, but what if they cast it on not only your but your entire family, including descendants? Sure it's not a full account wide thing but at least some deserve to have it.
I admittedly didn't play that much CoH so I don't have a big grasp on this but could you please list a few of these "unearned" items, badges, temp powers and such?
The ones I can think of was from veteran rewards, booster packs, cash shop or events (like the ones in the next paragraph). All of that is player level rewards.
If the folks creating CoT want to spend the extra time and effort to allow you to account for whether or not any of your characters are "related" to each other in such a way to have automatically sharing achievements between them make sense then more power to them. I will simply state that it's not worth that time and effort.
If you want to have a "super powered family" all share the same achievements in CoT you can simply earn those achievements individually on each character and handle it via RP. The extra effort to do that for each character makes far more sense to me than to let the game give my demonic Mastermind villain an automatic out-of-the-blue +5% DEF versus poison just because I had a heroic superman-clone Tank earn that achievement a few years earlier.
I could bother to "list" these things but the sum count/type of cumulative perks/benefits is not as important as my overall point here. Suffice it to say the difference between what a brand new CoH character started with in April 2004 and what one could start with in say August 2012 was substantial. The additive effect of all the little benefits a player could accumulate and bestow upon a brand new character in the late game made playing the game with such a "twinked" character pitifully too easy/boring.
My main point is that if anything the Devs of CoT should do everything they can to avoid allowing future characters to gain the benefit of too many advantages that were actually earned by other means that had nothing to do with playing those characters. The original post/suggestion offered by Zekna would lead to the exact opposite and would only make the situation far worse.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I am of the opinion that a lot of the character specific badges should be account badges.
Specifically exploration badges and most of the 'X amount' badges (heal, defeat, damage, ect).
To be clear I am not saying that there should be no badges of those types that are character specific....just that there should be a great deal more that are achievable account wide.
The reason I feel this way is because making too many badges character specific encourages the single character playstyle. When its been stated that the games 'End Game' is alting ...encouraging a single character playstyle seems to be counter to that concept.
By making more badges account wide you offer those who are badge hunters and those who are completionists more opportunity to explore other characters without sacrificing advancement towards their goals.
More account wide badges also offer more ways for the devs to provide a defined path for one time account wide rewards like free stars, respecs, costumes (both parts and change tokens), emotes, ect.
Are you saying you want dual-level badges- i.e., a badge for "This character has healed one million points of damage" and another for "All of this accounts' characters, collectively, have healed one million points of damage", with the first being character-only and the second account-wide? (substitute anything a character can do for healing, obviously).
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I'm very pleased to read Tannim's response here. It sounds to me like MWM is aiming for the perfect middle ground.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Not exactly.
I didn't really want to get into the specifics as people tend to focus on them to the exclusion of the overall point.
I am saying have heal 100 damage and 1000 damage be character specific while the heal 10000 , heal 1 million be account wide.
The actual numbers are less important than the idea that extensive effort for these 'X amount' badges not be required of a single character.
So it's more of a "start it" character specific but "finish it" account wide when it comes to progressive series of badges?
That sounds really good actually.
That's an interesting idea.
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I think that map exploration badges should be character-based. However, costume unlocks, veteran power rewards, and power-pack unlocks are a lot less useful to an existing character - those should be account-based.
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Thank you...
At its most basic ...yes...it would be start character specific and finish account wide.
The idea is that the character specific badges are not extensive and can be completed, for the most part, during the normal progression of character advancement. The account badge would require a concentrated effort with one or more alts to complete. It allows players to choose their method of achieving these goals be it hyper focusing on the task with one character or spreading it out among multiple ones. It also makes it easier for completionists to organize their efforts. Finally it has the added benefit of being another option for the devs to present account wide rewards beyond the standard 'time spent' we have seen so often. For example in another thread I expressed that these badges could be a unique way to unlock Epic AT.
I am just spitballin here.... if (and its a big if) the devs went this route they would obviously decide just how much or little of this idea they would use.
Thank you.
Generally speaking, I would prefer achievements to be by account, however I understand what MWM is doing with the badges, making them have purpose and value beyond just being bragging rights. So, I am ultimately OK with this.
I like that idea. Especially if MWM put the totally ridiculous amount badges as account wide rather than character .
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A major problem with letting the "count" type badges be account wide is that it would lead people to make bot characters specifically designed just to earn those badges. For instance (using CoH terminology) it was always easier for a Tank to earn the "damage taken badges" or an Empathy Defender to earn the "HPs healed" badges. The real challenge was to have say a Controller/Mastermind earn the damage taken badges or a non-healer to earn the HPs healed badges. Under a system where these top badges are account based there would be little motivation for any player to earn badges that "worked against type" like that.
Also consider that the only motivation for allowing some of these top badges to be account wide was that back in CoH some of the initial badge requirements were ridiculously too high to begin with. For example the original Empath badge was set at 1 billion HPs healed. It was quickly determined (by those players whose mathematical/analytical skills were greatly respected by the CoH Devs) that it would have taken the average player roughly 20 YEARS of daily 8 hour play to earn that without some kind of farming exploit. Needless to say the 1 billion value was simply far beyond any sense of rationality and eventually the Devs finally agreed with that assessment by lowering the requirement for Empath all the way down to 10 million HPs. Even at that value it took the average healer several months to earn which is far, far more reasonable for a top end badge.
As long as the Devs of CoT heed the lesson learned from CoH and not set any of their top end count badges to stupidly huge thresholds there won't be any justification for any of them to be account based in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There's a big difference between what an individual character "achieves" and what the person playing the account "achieves" by playing the game.
Making EVERYTHING account wide would be a mistake.
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As the suggestion was to have count badges be both character and account there is no issue with 'worked against type' motivation. It comes down to a proper value on each...which cannot be determined until the game is nearing release. Then 'those players whose mathematical/analytical skills were greatly respected' can get to work and determine' what values those badges should have.
I think Lothic's main point there was that it was more of a "feat" to achieve a specific count badge on certain AT's than it was on others, and even certain power sets, especially when the only way to get those counters going was through insps or tertiary powers. Honestly speaking though, in the end it all comes down to time but just because you spend 5 times or more the time on one AT compared to another to get a specific badge doesn't really make that that much more of a feat imo.
@Lothic
If they are going to resort to bots to get these kinds of badges then it doesn't really matter if they are character or account level. Personally I think that keeping them purely character level would probably give a higher incentive to use bots the more they get away from "optimal" power choices, compared to having the top 2 or 3 badges in the series account level.
I got what Lothic was saying...it just doesn't have an effect on the suggestion. There will still be badges at a character level of every kind including those that go against type and they will still require more effort than ones that play to type. It comes down to properly applying a number for each badge be it character or account.
Not sure if this is really attached to achievements, but might be indirectly. It's something I think is a great idea in one of the hero MMOs I've been playing to pass time here and there - Marvel Heroes. They have this "Omega System" where you gain account-wide XP (takes a long time to fill that XP bar), but allows you to put points into various attributes to buff your characters. Each character gets the full points earned on the account. In my mind, this is sort of a way for rewarding veteran players that actually play - account xp earned in parallel to character xp. As the player creates a new character, they have to get to a certain level to apply the points, but can start to specialize their characters using this system. I think it's brilliant and rewards loyalty.
Not sure if others play that game, but definitely an interesting feature to consider.
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
It may not be an account achievement, but it could be tied to account achievements.
I have no idea how this could be balanced, implemented or even what effect it would have on the long term life of the game but as it stand now I like the idea...as long as it is a fill and empty reward bonus, not one that continually grows regardless how many new characters you use it on.
If you spend a year getting all the exploration badges on one character, you will never want to go through that again, just saying. And imagine if you had 25 alts....
No one wants to do that on more than one character, so why make it character based?
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That's just the thing though - I'd wager that few people [i]would[/i] want to do that on [i]every[/i] character, so it would only be a problem for very few, heh heh.
A problem I see with this being a fill and empty reward is that if you spent whatever the reward might be on improving one character then what happens if you later decide that the toon you spent the reward on is no longer your main or you absolutely cannot stand the toon anymore and wish to delete it. This could be because of a change in the way the toon plays due to changes to the game system or a nerf. You will never get the reward back if you delete a toon and it will suck to be you in such a situation. Just sayin.......
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
I'm not convinced this is a problem and I am pretty sure its not a big a problem as letting it continually grow. If you are not longer playing a character then any earned xp would be lost...not just this one. If the xp reward keeps growing then given enough time a player will have enough of this reserve xp to basically forego the entirety of the game.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything. Just saying I wouldn't like any reward that increases power/playability forever locked into whatever toon that I spent the reward on with no way of reallocating should I desire for whatever reason to do so. Especially if in my ignorance I choose a fairly gimped build before I figure out what works better and I wish to delete a toon.
I do agree however, that a continued inflation of power would be a barrier to newer account holders and create elitism in the community. I do see your point as this being a problem.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
Sorry, I probably shouldn't have used the word 'convinced'.
All I meant was that I don't agree with it being a problem. As a reward that is continually replenished the wasting of one 'fill' that will replenish does not seem to be a problem to me.
In Marvel it's an interesting system. In this Omega System you can reach an account-wide maximum of 7200 points that get used to specialize your characters in specific ways (not to the extent of the IOs in City, but still something). You get the points through gaining experience on any character while you play (the account Omega System it has it's own sort of XP bar). As you've played enough content and gained xp, you get an Omega point (and this takes a massive amount of XP, similar to what it would take to go from level 49 to 50 in their game, so the points don't come all that easy but accrue through the account life). So, if you've played enough on your account, leveling and playing several heroes over the past year, let's say you have accrued 2,500 Omega points. All characters on your account would have 2,500 omega points to apply, buffing specific abilities (in Marvel characters have to be level 30 I think to apply the points). But, all characters get them and you can reset them (along with your ability points) with a respec.
The Omega System in Marvel is pretty big and it's a sort of ladder system, so you have to spend points across each step of a ladder to get to the bigger buffs (here is a post of theirs about it http://forums.marvelheroes.com/discussion/102806/s-h-i-e-l-d-omega-system-visual-guide#latest). It reminds me a little of the wheel used in the Secret World for abilities. The system does not allow you to go crazy, but it can help you really specialize your character (damage to boss class enemies, improved critical hit or damage, improved resistances, etc.) It does this while giving a bonus to those people to play the game, do the content, commit to the game, and stick around - reward veteran loyalty.
So, it would not continually grow, it would require an account-wide cap in points based on how points are used in the system (a bigger discussion on just how super characters should be). I like the aspect of rewarding veteran play in a way that goes across the account and actually buffs their characters. Badges are neat... but this was one system that I found particularly win-win.
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
Wow, I really misunderstood what you originally said. I took this system to mean a simple banked xp bonus and missed when you said the entire attribute point system aspect. Sorry.
And sorry Follies, your concern makes a heck of a lot more sense than my response to it.
I am not against this kind of bonus in theory. I do have concerns about the possible gap in ability between a long term player and a new one. If a player who has been there from the start is able to have characters with a substantial boost in power over those who have just started it could be daunting and frustrating to new players. I am also concerned about an increase in power creep over time.
Like I said though this is just a concern. I am sure there is a way to make these account buffs worth enough that they are interesting to long term players yet not so powerful that it alienates the new players and increases the power creep....I just can't personally think of those ways right now. Its worth looking into for the future of the game.
I'm concerned with the power creep, and potential balance concerns.
If you could come up with less Vertical growth, and more benefits in the Horizontal... Bag Space, Costume Slots, more Cosmetic Item Stacking (Ex: Multiple Hair Pins, Bows, Hats, etc...) in the Character Creator.. which not everyone can have. That would make Veteran and sell asn Newer players feel better.
Veterans Show Off with them,... Newer players see it.. and strive to get them too. Win. Win. Carrot, No Stick! ;)
Point is... Newer players, with the Right know how... within a short time, should be able to reach Close, but not Exactly the same fighting strength, as a veteran player... with the Right Know How. Just takes longer to get there for newer players, or Returning players.
As long and the Returning players dont feel like they are being Intentionally punished and treated like a newer player, the returning player should feel Satisfaction and maybe even ask themselves Why They Left to begin with. :[
I distrust this idea. It seems, to me, like it invites one to earn experience on one character, but spend it on another. This would be akin to the power-leveling scenario of 'door-sitting', where a high-level character gets created, which the Player has no experience playing and is thus gimped.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I don't think it's direct experience transfer, more of an account wide alternative leveling/stats boost kinda thing.
As Blacke said, its not really an xp bonus. As CoT will probably use a similar leveling/power acquisition as CoH did, there isn't an exact correlation between Marvel and CoT. The account wide bonuses earned in Marvel would be closer to buffs/additional effects than actual powers or xp. So using this bonus on a character would give them a buff to damage or accuracy or resistance or whatever. Alternatively this bonus could also improve powers by giving them additional effects such as a stun effect on a non stun power or an additional buff value to a support power.
In essence these account wide bonuses would be similar to the set bonuses from CoH's invention system, except they would be earned through time played....or to keep it in topic, they would be rewards for completing account wide achievements.
As Both Follies and Izzy have said, the balancing issues and power creep problems this could cause are not trivial and should be handled with care. I am sure they both can be addressed properly but without knowing CoT's system for balancing or even buffing I couldn't speak on how to addressed them now.
I think this is an interesting idea and could have merit for the future of the game.
It's technically how Marvel incorporates enhancements beyond plugging power points into abilities and it rewards players for playing (a lot). Personally, I have no problem with a multi-year veteran having advantages over a newbie. I'm not saying these would be massive, game-altering advantages, but it gives everyone something to work towards.
But, I think the idea could be adapted to a veteran system that does not directly impact damage. Similar to badges, a system like this could be used to unlock secondary affects to powers, added abilities (teleport, stealth, a heal, vault/bank access, winged flight), added power visual effects (cool looking fire snake effect, tendrils that carry you instead of walking, unique weapons, etc.), access to better super group bases and locations, and so on.
I'm a believer in rewarding loyalty, beyond just paying the subscription. I like the idea of rewarding the players that actively play and therefore make the game continuously successful.
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
People tend to naturally waft back and forth from game to game a lot. I do anyway. I would personally rather keep the game "newcomer friendly" by NOT doing veteran rewards that make the game slanted in favor of the vets at all, that way the person buying the game in year 3 of it's existence isn't frustrated by the fact that everyone else seems to have "Item X" which they won't get for another 3 years. I'd rather see the devs come up with decent "buy the game now and get a free thingy" type rewards than veteran stuff. I mean, give the vets a chance to buy the thingy too, just let the new comers have something for actually buying the game, and have promotions to prompt people to "Buy Now!" etc.
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I don't get most of the arguments in this thread. In real life, no person can "achieve" something for another person. I'm perfectly happy with the way achievements were handled in CoX. I absolutely hate the way they are handled in Guild Wars 2, where anything achieved by one character is automatically achieved by all characters and all characters share bank space and all currencies. It that's the continuum of choice, then I choose CoX and not Guild Wars. If I'm sufficiently interested in completing an achievement, then I should be sufficiently interested in completing that achievement for any character whom I want to have that achievement. Regardless of what the rewards are.
As for vet rewards, I don't really care that new players are jealous. The purpose of vet rewards to to reward players who have played the game for an extended period of time. The argument that vet rewards should be automatically available to new players because they haven't had the opportunity to earn them yet is complete rubbish. You earn them by sticking with the game. They should absolutely not be available for purchase to players who haven't earned them. That is (and should) be regarded as a betrayal to the players who actually earned them. I realize that the nature of "cash shops" is to make things available to impatient sods who don't want to earn anything, but to make vet rewards available in this way is an indication that a company doesn't respect its long-term customers Conversely, if all such items are available for purchase to all customers, then there should be no vet rewards. There must be a distinction between rewards for long-term subscription and items available in a cash shop, otherwise the "rewards" are meaningless.
As I've said before this issue usually crops up when people misunderstand what a "character based game" actually means. I think too many people have gotten too used to playing "avatar based" first person shooters on consoles to appreciate the major difference between the two.
In first person shooters or other fighter type games people don't really play "characters" that have their own skills that increase over time. They basically play those games as themselves (focused on the generic avatars they can follow on their screens) and rely on their own dexterity to "twitch" themselves to victory. So when you have games like that where individual roleplayed characters don't matter it actually makes some sense that any kind of achievements earned are treated as player-centric and apply whenever the player plays the same account in the future.
Unfortunately those kinds of player-centric account based achievements make absolutely no sense when you try to shoehorn that mindset into a character based game. Characters in RPGs like CoT will be INDIVIDUALS and they'll earn what they earn based on what they are directly involved with, not on what the player driving them did with any other character. The distinctions between the two couldn't be more clear.
All I can say is that people better be ready for CoT to be EXACTLY like CoH was in that as many achievements as possible will be character based as intended.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Pretty much. The achievement for 'Stopped the Black Rose from killing Judge Judy' would only make sense for the character that actually did the mission where you save Judge Judy. It would make no sense at all for a brand new alt to suddenly have the achievement. I would think that the majority of the achievements in the game would be of this sort.
That said, there should be some that are account-based rather than character-based. The 'Attended CoT's 1st Annversary' achievement that you get for logging in the month of the 1 year anniversary would be linked to the account, not the individual character. (Which was a minor annoyance to me in CoX, that if I wanted the badge on all my characters I had to log them all in.) The Veteran badges worked that way and in my opinion any badge/achievement which is earned by something the player does, instead of something the character does, should be account-based. Anniversaries, got 10 characters to max level, gave the Devs cookies, etc.
QFT
I remember getting the badge that unlocked the Rularuu weapons once... on a weaponless toon =(
Actually I enjoyed collecting exploration badges whenever I didn't feel like punching stuff or thinking up a new costume.
It would make even less sense for a Black Rose supporting Villain.
And no matter what character/account ratio the devs eventually decide on, can we still show a chosen badge title under our toon's name?
Also, no non-title badges please... those are annoying the hell out of me in WoW. All those clever little archievement names, but most of the actual titles kinda suck.
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I respect the way MWM is doing things but I prefer account wide badges especially for things like geography badges
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