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They deserve some credit, yes. They do not deserve 100% credit for accomplishing only 5% though.
My issue with 'explorer' type achievements is that the system has to track how much you have explored. Most of the time a player "explores" a zone by flying way above it or by using a map addon to direct their course to everything. They aren't experiencing the game. They are playing the achievement system mini-game. As I mentioned earlier, an exhaustive exploring achievement system would just get bogged down in badges and waypoints.
Why does a player need an achievement system to tell then that they have 'completed' something (or an online walkthrough)?
How often did you just organically explore a zone as opposed to looking up badge locations somewhere online just to hunt them down?
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Everyone can happily never engage in PvP in CoT and that's great. There are many reasons why a person does not or cannot engage in PvP and I fully recognize and appreciate that. I am not advocating that people should be forced to PvP in CoT.
The other side of the coin holds true too. Why should PvE design ever affect PvP play? Why can't PvP 'design' be exactly the same as PvE 'design'? If you design it properly up front you will not need two sets of combat rules.
There will probably be some hard counters in the game (either by archetype or specialization) that will be noticeable if a player commits significant resources to it. The head game should be figuring out what they are doing and finding an appropriate counter or calling in reinforcements.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
I tried PvP in the old city once or twice and did not enjoy it. But I had no problem with badges in the PvP zones. I kinda liked the thrill of trying to get in, get the badges (or refill my Shivans), and get out while trying to avoid other players. Even though I didn't engage in PvP conflict, it still added another facet to the game for me. I never got the ones for reputation or arena battles because I didn't enjoy those activities, but I thought it was fair that such badges existed and I wouldn't complain if there were such things in CoT.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I agree that the design was poor (character improvements gated behind an alternate play style).
Aside from that issue, there was an opportunity to get X benefit if you did Y. For whatever reason, accomplishing Y alone or in small teams is probably not going to succeed, especially if you are not good at it or have no familiarity with it. If all a player does is throw up their hands and say 'I can't possibly accomplish Y' after a couple (or no) attempts, whose fault is it? There were many options available to accomplish the goal. Ask the community for help. I'm sure some sort of vanguard could have been setup to escort people through the experience. Or setup a scenario where you had complicit players on the other side that would happily get defeated. There were plenty of crowd sourced events, why not have one to help these people? There were plenty of options available to accomplish the goal. Why is it wrong to state that they didn't put forth the effort? If you want to characterize it as being lazy, I won't disagree with your assertion.
Ok, sure. I should have expounded further on the topic instead of making a two sentence statement. The badge system tried to bridge the gap in many ways. In this specific case it "forced" people to participate in something they did not enjoy. In a general sense the badge system was a low level "call to action" to get players to get a taste of all aspects of the game. It was then up to each player to dig deeper into parts that interested them. If none of it interested them, they moved on to the next thing. If all they cared about was collecting all of the badges to complete the set, they get the badge then move on to the next.
Part of it is how the player is leveraging the badge system. Are they using it to expand their gaming experience and learn new things? (get a feel for the land, find some lore, etc) Are they using it to get the bonuses? (titles, loot, costumes, etc) Are they using it to check one more thing off the list to call their experience 'complete'?
My assertion is that there is no requirement to get the badge unless you are a completionist.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Gang ganks aren't cool!
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
This is where the confusion comes in. It's not an alternate play style, it's an alternate game 'TYPE'. No matter how similar the devs make the PvP combat system to the PvE one they will never play the same. You can't hunt for achievements/badges in PvP as you do in PvE. An environmental badge/achievement like exploration or NPC defeats is a PvE challenge. Tying PvE rewards up with PvP activities will always drive a wedge between those want to PvP and those who don't.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said calling people lazy was self centered. If, and that's a big if because most gamers are tenacious in pursuit of something they want, players did throw their hands up and quit it wasn't because they were lazy, it was because it wasn't fun for them. Most times they would just power through or use the work-arounds you and others have suggested and be pissed about having to do so.
You are making assumptions about motives that just are not true. Try and understand the 'whys' behind a persons actions before jumping to a conclusion. Just google 'mixing pvp and pve' to see the massive hate it gets and the reasons why people don't like it. Telling people to L2P, which is exactly what you are doing, is counter productive to making something enjoyable for everyone.
This type of 'call to action' works well in single play through games but it only compounds frustration in multiple play throughs.
If the intent is to point people towards PvP, that can be done with text, PvP specific events, building a PvP community or any of a dozen other ways that don't involve luring players who have no interest in PvP with PvE rewards.
Explain this further please. I don't want to jump to any conclusions about what you are saying here.
You're right. But why screw over the completionists just to interject PvE rewards in a PvP environment? What exactly does the game gain from it?
I said before, PvP can have achievements, but they should be directly related to the PvP activity. If you can accomplish the achievement (like npc kills or exploration) and never actually PvP, like your suggestions of having a friend act as bait, go in off hours, travel in a stealthy way, ect, then it is pointless to put it in a PvP environment.
If you want exploration badges for PvP, then you should make it a PvP type challenge to get it. For example, a sealed underground bunker has an exploration badge in it. To get it you have to press a big button which opens the doors. The problem is when you press the big button a big siren goes off alerting everyone that someone is trying to get inside. Everyone comes rushing and the last team standing gets into the bunker for the badge. This is similar to 'The Divisions' method of PvP alerts.
See, here is an exploration badge that requires PvP effort to succeed, it's not simply a PvE reward in a PvP area.
How about a NPC defeat badge that requires you to defeat adds during a king of the hill match only. This way you can have a 'kill skullz' type badge except the only skullz that count are the ones in that singular PvP match.
Have a clear separation between a PvP rewards and a PvE reward. Anything else is just asking for arguments like this after the game is released.
Personally i say pvp does mean anything to me since it's optional and it does not affect me whether its in the game or not, i won't use it, but just because some disagree with the "idea" of pvp, doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, i'd support it so those can have it and use it.
We don't climb mountains to be seen by others.
No offense, but simply because you didn't see it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It did happen. It happened to me and it happened to enough other people that it would get posted on the forums fairly regularly or discussed in various badging channels. It was not an outlier and it wasn't an isolated incident.
Mental stability commentary aside...
Well, it's an exploration badge. There is literally the one way to get it and that's to get immediately in it's vicinity. And I agree that it is part of the design problem. That was part of my point, and mentioned previously, in that problems like this could be reduced if not avoided entirely with smarter design. And I agree that the rule-set is absolutely different for PvP than PvE. That's why it's called Player-Versus-Player and differently named from Player-Versus-Environment. As for the PvEr expectation, I can only speak for myself and what people have anecdotally told me, and what I found to be most common is that they wanted to get their badge(s) in the zone. They get killed by a PvPer. They rez at the in-zone hospital. They either leave the PvP zone, which is very common, and then there are those that attempt to get what they want via another route, but they get killed again. Not exactly trying the exact same thing in the exact same manner, but their intended end result of getting the badge is the same. Insane? Not so much. As stated by @Wolfgang8565, PvPers fight each other. Again, it's why it's called PvP. The PvEr knows this. So if they don't put up a fight, eventually the PvPer should lose interest because it's not what they want. So they make another run for the badge, get killed again. Sometimes this encourages the PvEr to try this PvP thing, but this is usually the exception simply based on the PvE population versus the PvP population. Now, you mentioned where in my narrative is the call out for help? My original simple example was far from being all-inclusive because that would take too much time. But there were occasions that someone would complain about not being able to get their badge because they were being ganked every time, and so some people would show up to run defense for their fellow badger. Again, this wasn't the norm. Why? Because that's what PvPers want. They want someone to fight. Why would I, as an achievement hunting PvEr, want to give someone something when they themselves are keeping me from getting something? Now that, that would be insane.
I don't want to keep using @Wolfgang8565 as the ubiquitous PvPer example, but he himself mentioned talking down to each other, which technically could constitute verbal abuse. Paraphrasing here, but "hur hur way to go, tryhard" and "lern2pvp carebare nub hur hur" et al would all be things that were fairly common in PvP then and, as of my time a few months ago PvPing in SWTOR, are very prevalent today. And it also wasn't an isolated incident. I PvPed for literally weeks to re-unlock my mainhand and saw it daily in-game and on the forums. And yes, that crap isn't cool.
I'm going to cheerfully disagree with it, again, not being a problem when I've clearly stated that it was, is, and will definitely be a future problem if they make the same short-sighted mistake as CoH/V did.
As for the thousands of badges, when you've gotten all those other ones, the achiever (player) feels, as you said, the need to get the remainder. Why should they be frustrated with something unresolved when a simple solution could have avoided the problem entirely?
I guess I don't have an much of a problem with an achievement tracking system as you as it appeals to one of personality traits, which naturally makes sense. To be fair, achievers have some commonality with explorers in the same vein that they are probably going to end up in quite a few of the same distant and hard-to-reach places. And I don't want, or surprisingly need, an exhaustive achievement or exploration system. The reasons for at least having one is to ease the burden from the player for having to write everything down, with what they've found where and how and etc. That, by itself, isn't a bad thing. Things, be they apps or whatever, that help to reduce minutiae are generally a good thing.
You know, it's funny you should mention that. I was literally talking about this very thing during a break at work. And it's completley anecdotal, so you don't have to believe me, but I'm one of those kinds of people that play as intended and achieve things through normal gameplay. There is only one badge that I didn't legitimately work on because of the math involved, and that was the original Immortal badge for one BILLION points of damage taken. And I don't remember the exact number, but someone calculated how much casual gameplay it would take to earn the badge on that character and it was years, if not several years. Everything else, I found or earned the old fashioned way. Which many didn't believe. Almost 750 badges (located [url=https://cit.cohtitan.com/character/80202]here[/url]) before they opened up badge hunting to both sides with Going Rogue. I certainly wasn't the highest badger out there, but it wasn't anything to sniff at either. It would have taken me an enormous amount of time to earn all of those badges on redside/goldside, and that's not to say that I didn't try from time to time, but I certainly wasn't spending as much time on my namesake when running Incarnate Trials, TFs/SFs, Hamis, attending or participating in various community events, so on and so forth.
One quick question: Are you equating all PvP as being a scenario where you have a player or players just repeatedly curb stomping you and camping at every opportunity (then spewing some verbal hate)?
We have all already agreed that the design was poor and was not thought through. What made it specifically a reward that only benefitted PvE?
I never called them lazy, you did. You put that slant on it, not me. All I said was they didn't put forth the effort to find a solution that worked.
Maybe you are confusing me with someone else. I never said anything along the lines of "[I]suck it up sweetie, L2P U NUB LOLOLOLOLOlolololol111111111111111111[/I]". I don't appreciate that characterization of me.
Playing the game and not having fun is one of the worst outcomes. If a person keeps hammering a square peg into a round hole they will get there eventually, but it will suck. If they never learned how to shave down the square edges is it the hole's fault? Finding alternate solutions to a problem should be encouraged. Why should a player's approach to a game never change or adapt to circumstances?
Whenever someone engineers something it is always designed with a specific intent to serve a purpose. The moment that design lands in someone else's hands they are free to interpret its purpose. Someone crafted a spoon to serve a specific purpose (let's assume it was to eat soup). There aren't necessarily any instructions attached to the spoon, but you can observe how others use the spoon. It doesn't invalidate other applications of its purpose. You could bend the spoon it a bit, have it hold your crack then you can liquefy it and shoot it. You could use the spoon to dig your way out of prison. You could use the spoon to wedge a door open so the breeze doesn't close it.
The Badge system was designed for a purpose(s). The moment the game lands in the player's hands it is up to them to decide how to use it. They can leverage its capabilities for any number of purposes, including not using it at all.
[list][*]A player might ignore the Badge system completely and never use it.
[*]A player could use the Badge system to expand their gaming experience and learn new things. Maybe they run around a zone a bit and gain a familiarity with the terrain and the mobs that inhabit the area. Maybe they find a plaque with some lore that helps you make a connection between character motivations in a story arc. Maybe they are hangry for content and they don't have any bread crumb missions, so they reference the Badge system and the figure out where they are light on touching the content.
[*]A player could figure out that they get a bonus (title, loot, etc) for completing certain badges. Do they care about the badge system itself? Maybe or maybe not. This player's motivation is to get the reward, the journey is not the primary concern.
[*]A player could use a Badge system as a checklist to confirm that they have completed the game. This purpose can be as abstract or as specific as you want, it all depends on the person. Some might complete all of the badges on one character then know that they have generically 'seen' all of the game (dev identified the highlights by designating a badge for it). [/list]
They aren't PvE badges or PvP badges. They are just badges that are sprinkled over the range of content. A completionist is completing a game (as defined by the badge system). There happened to be badges in PvP content. You either have to reconcile that you aren't a completionist or you have to find a way to get the badge. The game had PvP in it. It is a part of the game. People who abhor any possibility of PvP do not have exclusive ownership of being a completionist. The game itself only cares if you pay your monthly sub fee.
That wasn't exactly the intent of my suggestions. Friend or friends could act as bait, but that would have diminishing returns. I'd prefer that a larger group of people went into the zone and basically locked it down long enough to get what people wanted. Approaching during off hours or an alternate time window would potentially expose you to a different group of players (not everyone is a curb stomping A-Hole). Stealthing around is a skill on its own, but it would only really help with exploration badges.
Those are all great suggestions. It is unfortunate that CoX did not implement something like it.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Complaining about it out in the open is giving some PvPers what they want. I would have suggested a little more strategy, more secrecy and more players to back you up.
If someone wants it all, they should have to do it all. There is no mandate that a developer has to hand deliver everything to the player.
It was not anywhere near an optimal design as it relied on the behaviors of opposing players. If it is that important to complete: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome
I am primarily an Explorer in every game I play. My achiever side varies based on how much I believe the dev is invested in creating quality content.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Actually, I never said the complaint was out in the open. Usually it was in one of biggest channels on Champion which, for a number of reasons, PvPers didn't frequent nearly at all. So it was only "secret" in the vaguest sense simply because they weren't there to begin with, not that people went out of their way to conceal it intentionally.
Correct, there is no mandate, only common sense and maybe doing right by the playerbase. I can't speak to that as a developer because I'm not one, but I would like to think that's they're outlook when developing content.
And you don't want something to track where you've been? Man invented writing on cave walls as not have to remember every nit-noid single thing. And now we have computers and apps. But to each their own.
Fine.
First you said that someone was generically 'complaining' and you left it up to me to interpret your comments. Apparently the complaints reached some ears and someone came to this person's aid.
Then you provide semi-specific detail to try to refute my comments. Congratulations I guess. But by virtue of giving the complaint life here on the boards (out in the open) you are probably giving a scumbag PvPer what they want (what you said not participating would deny them).
Wait, where exactly did I advocate that nothing should be tracked anywhere, ever? That is a pretty far fetched extrapolation.
Explorer achievements typically just track the most common points in a zone. For the most part it means you have travelled on the road/path somewhere. Did you really explore the zone? Only in a general sense. Did you explore every cave/hut/building/ledge? No, but you probably won't scour every single pixel either so a compromise has to be struck. So that is typically the middle ground that allows you to blindly fly over a zone (and not experience any of the location). Or alternately, you just traveled down an established path and experienced maybe 50% of the zone and got full credit.
If the system tracked where you have been in fine detail, people would get frustrated that they missed a pixel somewhere and can't find the X,Y coordinate to complete things. I fear the game addons that that would create an AR view to give you routing information and waypoint tags. People would run around to make sure that they got credit instead of observing the world, taking it in and asking yourself "[I]what is over there?[/I]"
My point is that explorer achievements do not accurately reflect exploring a zone. And if it did require you to exhaustively explore, it would kill the spirit of actually exploring in the first place.
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
From here:
I came to the conclusion of, "You don't want something to track where you've been?" from you saying, and I quote, "My issue with 'explorer' type achievements is that the system has to track how much you have explored." That's not a far-fetched extrapolation at all. It's a direct logical conclusion. And it's hyperbole on your part that you took it that I meant ANYWHERE EVER.
Now I'm not going to tell you what to do. Because it would mostly be pointless. But I am going to point something out. You seem, and maybe this is just my reception of how you present your sentence structure or tone, but you seem pretty bent on picking an argument for some odd reason. If that's not the case, then so be it, but I'm obviously not the only one who is perceiving this, judging by at least one other person's whose response is less restrained than mine.
But as I am perceiving you being argumentative and arbitrarily contrary with hyperbolizing statements, I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I've articulated my points more than once, and I personally don't care to repeat myself further.
In the words of Kirsten Geary, "Ciao-ciao."
I am not envisioning any scenario. I am specifically talking in the abstract about those who want to PvP and those who don't.
It's not about benefiting PvP. It's about how the reward is gained.
An exploration badge or npc kill achievement is entirely a PvE activity. It is an interaction with the environment, that's the 'E' in PvE. I have been saying all along that just putting these types of badges/achievements in a PvP area does not make them PvP rewards. For them to be PvP rewards you have to make PvP an integral part of the challenge.
No you said they were 'unwilling to put forth the effort'. That's the literal definition of lazy, as in right out of a dictionary.
You continue to make these unfounded assumptions about the methods and reasons others play and avoid what I am saying at all cost. Players did find alternate ways to get those badges/achievements. They did go in off hours, have friends act as lures or body guards and whatever else. Alternate methods are not a solution if the alternate method is not fun.
That is what I have been trying to get across to you. The reason why people didn't like PvE badges/achievements in PvP areas was because it was not fun to get them because of the addition of PvP to a PvE challenge.
The problem comes from the way the challenge is designed. Taking a PvE reward and simply placing it in a PvP environment does not make the challenge a PvP one. If you design a PvP challenge THEN add a reward for that specific challenge, you have created a PvP reward. If you honestly look at most of the 'alternate solutions' that have been offered for people who want the achievement but don't want to PvP you will see almost all of them involve ways for that person to AVOID the act of PvP. If the achievement can be acquired by avoiding PvP then it is not a PvP challenge and so does not belong in PvP.
So you can be upset about my characterization of you but until you get that your assumptions are wrong and shift your perception you are still telling people to L2P, even if you are more polite about it than others. Oh and you did actually suggested that players learn how to PvP at one point. If you want to continue a civil conversation do not try and take the high road now.
I meant why did you bring this up. What is the point to you bringing up how a player leverages the achievement system? What relevance does it have to the current conversation?
I don't think you read what I linked to. And you didn't answer my question at all.
Most importantly you don't seem to get that there is very much a difference between PvP and PvE achievements.
OK, just so I am clear.
One of your suggestions on how to get a badge in a PvP area is to organize a mass attack on a zone using overwhelming numbers to ensure that those who don't want to PvP can get the achievements? Lets forget how time consuming this might be to do and focus on the opposition in this scenario. You have a PvP area which is (for demonstrative purpose only) occupied by roughly an equal sized force on both sides and people are enjoying the friendly competition of PvP. All of a sudden one side swells and locks down (your words) the opposition. It's no longer a friendly competition, its a total domination. This is not a scenario that improves the game.
Another suggestion is for people to play in off hours, effectively this is saying that a player should adjust his real life for the game. That's easy when you are young or without responsibilities, but if you have kids, a job and extra curricular activities that adjustment becomes a big ask for a game to make.
You see what I am saying? If the 'alternate solution' is not better then it isn't a solution.
I'm going take a quote out of context to leave you with something to think about:
Then the game is stupid because it should care more about if we WANT to pay the monthly sub fee. The only way to ensure that is by trying to make the game as fun as possible for as many as possible.
My character was a Robotics/Traps Mastermind with massive delusions of grandeur who considered herself a space pirate, so naturally she had to have the Swashbuckler Badge. To get it, she had to visit one of the locations inside Bloody Bay.
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My author page at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2MPvkRX
My novelty shirts: https://amzn.to/31Sld32
And did you survive?
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Why not ask if he enjoyed it?
And maybe toss out a sorry for making some false accusations towards me.
No
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Not Surprising.
Oh well, have a nice day anyway.
It's technically night.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
The gesture was meant to be a civil end to the discussion and not an invitation to drop trousers and pull out a measuring tape.
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