Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Achievement Hunters Rejoice (?)

I've not read much, or anything really, about the opinions of achievement hunters about the change to achievements that is coming with the release of MoP.

Personally I like the two coming changes and for me at least it is a reason to rejoice but is it a reason to rejoice for other achievement hunters?

I can see the reason why some achievement hunters would be upset by making achievements account wide.  They might consider it as if they are being slighted by it.  Lets say me and someone else are both at 10K achievements.  They only have one character, I have many.  Now I will have 12K and they still have 10K.

While achievement points mean nothing really.  They are just there to give you something to aim for.  I can understand why someone would be upset and I can understand both sides of the argument should it ever arise.  While I have my own opinion, I can understand the other point of view.

I can see people that are against it saying their achievements mean more because they where all earned on the same character.  I can see them saying it was harder for them to get certain achievements because I know darn well that some achievements on some classes are harder then others.

I can see people that are for it saying that they, as the player, did the achievement, so they earned it no matter what character they happened to have been on at the time.

I side with the second one there.  If I earned an achievement I earned it.  What character I was on should not make a difference.  I am still me, the person behind the screen, no matter which pixels I am currently playing.

Right off the bat I know my main will be getting a few achievements I have been unlucky with the moment this happens.  The reason for that is that some achievements are just easier to get on certain classes or roles.  I'll list a few for example.

Faster Than the Speed of Light is not a hard achievement in and of itself.  That is assuming two things.  You have even half way reasonable DPS and a tank that knows how to move it.

When I tank it I get it every time if the DPS is not horrible.  Heck, the first time I ever tanked it I got it.  I am a warrior and a bear as my main tanks.  Which means I am a rage monster.  I keep moving because it keeps my rage up.  I hate down time.  I think that is why those classes fit me well.

I just tell people never touch the throggs, they are mine and mine alone.  Attack bosses only and let me handle them.  I pick them all up, drag them to the boss, AoE tank the boss, the throggs go down with the boss and I keep moving.  See, super easy.

On my hunter I have never met a tank that knew how to do that.  I even told them how to do it when they asked and still they where too slow or just did not have enough skill to figure out how to do it.  I've been in there with groups of people all over 15K DPS, which should really make it a cake walk and still had tanks move like they where taking a leisurely walk through the park on a lazy sunday.  My main will now have that achievement.

Tunnel Vision is another one that is not hard, you just need a healer you can count on for it.  My healers have it.  As a matter of fact the first time I was ever in there on my healer the tank said, do you want to try this, you seem to be a good healer.  I said, I'll try my best, we did it no problem.  I've done it every time in there since.  I tell people, if you want tunnel vision just do not switch to the lightning totems.  They don't, we do it, I've never wiped.

My hunter has done ZA over 50 times and has never gotten a healer that could handle it.  I've suffered more then a few wipes because healers could not do it.  I've had most healers say they can't straight out and a few that said sure and they could have but some stupid DPS did not read chat and notice we were going for the achievement to get it.  All my DPS characters, not just my main, are missing that achievement.  I'll be glad to finally have it.  It is an easy achievement, there is no reason for me not to have it.

Ohganot So Fast is one that is easy but on the DPS whereas the others were on the tank and the healer respectively.  My DPS have it.  My healers have it.  My tank?  Nope.  That could be partly because I rarely tank them or it could be because when I do tank them it is usually to help newer characters gear up so we do not try for achievements.  Either way, I will have it now on everyone.

I like the idea that I can now hunt my achievements on the character I want to hunt them on.

There is another added bonus I don't think many people will even notice.

At the beginning of this expansion I was stuck on my healer because we lacked healers.  No one wanted to heal in Cataclysm, can't say I blame them, I liked the challenge, I hated getting used to it however.  So I spend most of the first part of the expansion raiding as a healer and occasional tank.  I think my main, my hunter, downed a total of 8 of the bosses in T11 before T12 came out because he never had the chance to get into any raids.  I was always needed on my healer or my tank.

I had considered changing my mains.  It would have really increased my enjoyment of the expansion if I did not feel like I was always playing something I did not really want to be playing.  It would have felt like I was leaving so much behind if I where not playing my main, my hunter.

One of the things that kept me from doing that however was a main with over 10K achievement points.  I worked hard for that and if anything that showed that was my main.  I did not want to switch because I did not want to leave all that behind.

Now?  No problem.  Now I can play any character I want and my main gets the achievements too.  I no longer feel like I am cheating on my hunter by playing my shaman.  I will no longer care if my first firelands clear is on my tank instead of my hunter.  I won't give a crap if we go do some old content just for fun and my mage gets an achievement my hunter did not have.

All characters are now truly an extension of me.  It is no longer my characters that are getting the achievements, it is me that is getting the achievements.  I like that.  It lets me play the game without feeling bad that I am not on my main.

It actually makes the concept of having a main different now too.  Mains used to be tied to things you got on them, mounts, pets, achievements, progression.  Now that we share all achievements, can trade pets, the only thing that is character restricted is mounts.  Making the whole concept of mains different.  Now you can play every character as if it were your main.

Truth be told, I was getting quite bitter that I had to heal or tank when I wanted all the achievements my other characters where getting on my hunter.  Now, I will get them.  So I will fill any role needed and I will fill it happily knowing that now I, the player, get the achievements and not just the character I am on.

There is another addition they said they are adding that might cause some achievement hunters to be happy.   Account wide achievements.  Things like get every profession to max and get every race to max and every class to max.  Stuff for the alt-a-holic and stuff for the achievement hunter all wrapped up into one nice little package.

Most of those achievements I will get instantly if they where added now.  All classes to max, all professions to max, I would have to wait on at least two races for max however.  Might be three, have to check.  I know for a fact I have no max level goblins yet.  I always delete them after the starting zone just to start it again.  I do have a goblin priest however that is working her way up albeit slowly.

I wonder what other achievements you could add that would be account wide like that.  Perhaps for each dungeon they would have an account wide achievement where you need to tank, heal and DPS the dungeon.  That would be cool.  I could easily do that, I have tanked, healed and DPSed every raid and dungeon in the game as it is.  Now I would get an achievement just for that.

Actually, that is an achievement that could be done by three classes without even needing alts.  Druids, paladins and soon monks would all be able to get those achievements on their own.  For account wide achievements like that they might add that it must be on three different characters.  Works for me, I like the idea.

Another little thing most people might not have realized is that this coming change for MoP has changed the way some people play in cataclysm now.  I know it has changed the way I play and it was only just announced.

I have done very little arena this expansion.  Truth be told, I still have not gotten used to PvPing with focus.  I read everything there is to read.  I know the changes we have had to make as a hunter.  I just still do not feel comfortable with it in an arena setting.  I am okay with battlegrounds and the group setting of the occasional world PvP (which we really need more of, it is awesome), there is more room for error there and more room to learn.

Now, with the chances coming in MoP I can PvP on my shaman in arenas and still get the achievements on my hunter.  I am all for that.  No one wants a hunter on their arena team, even more so a hunter that freely admits he is completely relearning how to do arena but I have been asked to join arena teams left and right on my shaman.  I even had someone tell me they would help gear me up before I had any PvP gear just because even a bad resto shaman is good.  These changes open doors for me.  Before I would have never considered doing arena on my shaman.  Kind of in a selfish way for my hunter.  If my hunter can not do it, then I do not want to do it on my shaman.  Now my shaman is doing it for my hunter.

MoP has given me more things to do in cataclysm.  I can now arena.  I can now get all my raid achievements while tanking or healing and not feel bad about it because my hunter will have them too.

I am no longer suffering the penalty of being a DPS main.  I can now use my tanks and healers to get the achievements for my DPS main.

Amazing how a change in another expansion has changed how I feel about this one.

Now that I can get achievements on my hunter while on my warrior I might actually be willing to pug tank and random tank again.  The baggie did nothing for me.  It was not a lure to tank randoms in any way for me.  Allowing me to effectively get achievements for my hunter while on my warrior, now that might make me tank.

While I can surely understand why some people might be upset with a change like this I like it, I like it a lot.  This change alone has made me go from almost wanting to quit to considering spamming trade to knock out every achievement I can on my tank.  I want to play again and I know everyone needs tanks so doing things on my tank will keep me busy.  Nice change when compared to being bored to hell on my hunter.  It is quite amazing that this change in feelings toward the game is because of something MoP has to offer, not because of anything Cataclysm has to offer.

Sometimes it is the little changes that make the biggest difference.  This is proof, from my standpoint at least.

I am all for the changes to achievements.  What about you?

Edit:

Yes, I know we do not know exactly what achievements it will be yet.  We only know it will be for the "harder" achievements.  If there are any achievements that are "harder" then group achievements where you need other people to do the job right, I have never seen one.  I am hoping that all raid, dungeon and PvP achievements (things that require other people to get them) will be what they meant when they said "harder" and it is from that point of view I wrote the post.

6 comments:

  1. Are you sure its all achievements. I thought they were not really clear on what all will be viable.

    And i also hope that i will be able to get my poor hunter some achievements via alts.

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  2. No, I am not sure. I am holding hope it is however. They did not elaborate too much on it.

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  3. Like the Anonymous I'm not so sure it will work out that way. What I heard was that there'd be account-wide achievements and character achievements. Presumably because it would be a missed opportunity if all your newly rolled alts had the [Level 90] achievement from the start and never had any sparkly pop-ups of their own to aspire to.

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  4. @Shintar

    I had that discussion with someone in guild. Like it would be funny with level 1 kingslayers and such walking around. I think if they do make achievements like that cross character that you would need to be "of appropriate level" to activate it.

    They did say the "harder to get achievements" which leads me to believe it would include raiding achievements, meta achievements, and stuff like the holiday achievements.

    If that is the case only, that is all I would want.

    Technically speaking the only things that could ever be considered "harder" are the meta achievements, raid achievements, and PvP achievements that favor one class. If you noticed in my post, what I would use my tank for is those achievements. So it should fit perfectly and it should carry over.

    If getting all the firelands achievements are not one of the "harder" achievements to get I don't know what the definition of "harder" would be honestly.

    Outside of raiding, dungeons and PvP I have nearly every solo achievement you can get. The only reason other achievements are "harder" is because you need to depend on other people to get them.

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  5. I am a hunter. I am an Achievement Hunter. I approve of any changes to this system which will allow people to see what I've done on my main across multiple alts.

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  6. Interestingly, one of my guildies - who is a seriously hardcore achievement hunter - really HATES the idea of achievements being shared. Hates to the point of considering quitting WoW if this system makes it to live.

    Why? Well, for her, half the fun of the game is building each character up - working to get Loremaster on them, working to build reputations, and so on. If she just gets the achievements automatically as she starts a toon, she feels cheated out of a lot of the gameplay she loves.

    (BTW, I'm guessing you saw I featured this post already. Interesting writing!)

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