Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #55 - Achievements

[praftd]

I did all of them in CK2 without Ironman. Doing most in HOI4 now. If I'll like V3 enough I'll do all of them, this time without SAM. They still appeal to me


And somehow I wasn't even aware you're competing with me. So maybe it's not very competitive after all

The statistics are what matters, not either of our personal experiences. Most people have never achieved many of HoI4 hardest achievements. I believe that there is one of them that one a few players have ever done. And that is exactly what makes them interesting and competitive. Handing them out like candy makes them entirely pointless and uninteresting.

And how exactly are you getting HoI4 achievements outside of Ironman without cheating?

EDIT: never mind it seems you were cheating.

 

[anbory]

Literacy now works different than maxing out the education slider with you actually having to maintain schools so Reading Campaign is definitely doable only in late game with sufficient technology and spending.

Well, here comes the *you can't talk about the leaked beta balance* stuff but I saw a guy that had 65% literacy (almost outdone France and Britain) by the early 1860's... as Sokoto. So, if the literacy balance hasn't been changed significantly after that leak, this achievement is pretty much easy to get

 

[TempestM]

Being niche isn't what makes it competitive. Collectibility and scarcity does.

Whenever there is something other people don't have or is hard to get, people will try to get it.

If you give it out for free, what few people cared will stop caring.

So by your logic even Pokemons are competetive if you try to collect them?

 

[TempestM]

The statistics are what matters, not either of our personal experiences. Most people have never achieved many of HoI4 hardest achievements. I believe that there is one of them that one a few players have ever done.

And how exactly are you getting HoI4 achievements outside of Ironman without cheating?

SAM, described it in this thread multiple times

 

[moglus]

Most people don't care about achievements, but those that do care about the challenge and rarity in getting them.

Take that away and who exactly are achievements supposed to appeal to?

People like me who have played PDX games for over a decade, across thousands of hours on multiple games, who like achievements as a concept and am certainly skilled enough to do them but won't bother because they're locked behind a mode where bugs and save corruption can brick a campaign that already takes tens of hours to do?

I feel like everyone in this thread against this change forgets that not everyone exists in the extreme binary of "Didn't care before and won't care now" to "Achievement hunter who feels Good™ because the completion rate is >1%". A lot of people, like me, are "hard-core" PDX players who are in the middle and just happy that we actually get to partake in achievements now.

 

[praftd]

As people have pointed out multiple times in this thread people can already cheat to get achievements in a variety of ways! There is nothing stopping people from cheating to get achievements right now and there is no evidence of people doing so! You can cheese achievements in Civ6 with just RNG and yet there are no evidence people have done so! The insecurity and paranoia in the arguments made by the pro-restriction posters is just bizarre.

Most people don't know how to cheat. You and others completely misunderstand the average person.

The higher the barrier to entry something is, the less incentivized someone is to do it. They have lowered the barrier of entry to 0.

As I've said, statistics don't lie. The overwhelming majority of achievements were not earned by cheating.

 

[Fallofthepurple]

I dont care much for achievements but I really love the art on these, great job!

 

[praftd]

So by your logic even Pokemons are competetive if you try to collect them?

Pokemon is extremely competitive. Specifically shiny's. Absurdly so. Substantial amounts of real money is also involved.

 

[TempestM]

I think you're mixing up collecting hobby and competitive activities very hard.
What are you describing is collecting, by definition.

Achievements are also collecting.
Some tournament about making a particular achievement in the fastest way would be a competition, but on their own Steam achievements don't provide anything like that

 

[InsidiousMage]

The higher the barrier to entry something is, the less incentivized someone is to do it. They have lowered the barrier of entry to 0.

As I've said, statistics don't lie. The overwhelming majority of achievements were not earned by cheating.

This is such a bad faith argument. You are just being paranoid. There is no significant amount of cheating to get achievements. No one cares enough to cheat to get achievements and, even if some people do, it is going to such an insignificant amount of players that no one will be able to tell the difference.

 

[praftd]

People like me who have played PDX games for over a decade, across thousands of hours on multiple games, who like achievements as a concept and am certainly skilled enough to do them but won't bother because they're locked behind a mode where bugs and save corruption can brick a campaign that already takes tens of hours to do?

I feel like everyone in this thread against this change forgets that not everyone exists in the extreme binary of "Didn't care before and won't care now" to "Achievement hunter who feels Good™ because the completion rate is >1%". A lot of people, like me, are "hard-core" PDX players who are in the middle and just happy that we actually get to partake in achievements now.

Which, again, begs the question. Why exactly do they exist at all?

 

[praftd]

I think you're mixing up collecting hobby and competitive activities very hard.
What are you describing is collecting, be definition

And I think you you are mixing up "sport" and "competition".

Anything that involves scarcity and exclusivity is, by it's very nature, competitive. When one person has something or cannot get it, and another person can and does, that is competition.

Competition isn't exclusive to leaderboards and scores.

And either way, when a person achieves something that 99.9% of other people have not, that is a form of "leaderboard".

 

[moglus]

Which, again, begs the question. Why exactly do they exist at all?

Because, again as has been stated many times in this thread, people find them a fun and engaging way to direct players to play a country or playstyle they normally otherwise wouldn't

 

[TempestM]

Anything that involves scarcity and exclusivity is,

Lol achievements aren't scarce. Everyone could get one eventually. They are tracked for each game owner individually. Even by your mixed up definition (you're once again describing collecting of rare things) Steam achievements don't fit

 

[praftd]

There is no significant amount of cheating to get achievement

In pardox games? No. In many other games? Absolutely. I've seen it. I've done it.

No one cares enough to cheat to get achievements and, even if some people do, it is going to such an insignificant amount of players that no one will be able to tell the difference.

Everyone who gets an achievement while using mods is essentially cheating. FYI. Hence why ironman and checksums were even a thing.

 

[adil3tr]

I think this could have unintended consequences. Mod makers could be stuck in a bind where they have to make new tags for all nations, even in full overhaul mods, to avoid users getting achievements they don't want to get through mods or that don't make much sense (Giant finland mod automatically giving you the achievement, mod where France is communist at start).

 

[InsidiousMage]

In pardox games? No. In many other games? Absolutely. I've seen it. I've done it.



Everyone who gets an achievement while using mods is essentially cheating. FYI. Hence why ironman and checksums were even a thing.

Like I said, insecurity and paranoia.

 

[Praetorian44]

Well I'm one of those who is quite happy about achievements being decoupled from ironman and vanilla, as I never play with ironman and I often use mods that make minor changes. I enjoy earning achievements (or trophies for PSN), but unfortunately have had to ignore them in Paradox games due to these restrictions, even though I don't cheat in my campaigns (the minor mods I use typically make the game more difficult, add more events, or are graphic mods). So thank you Paradox for changing this policy

 

[TempestM]

I think this could have unintended consequences. Mod makers could be stuck in a bind where they have to make new tags for all nations, even in full overhaul mods, to avoid users getting achievements they don't want to get through mods or that don't make much sense (Giant finland mod automatically giving you the achievement, mod where France is communist at start).

I think it would be a much smaller problem on practice than people try to make it out to be

 

[praftd]

Lol achievements aren't scarce. Everyone could get one eventually.

Clearly not as there are many achievements that less than 10 people have ever earned without cheating. Some achievements are insanely hard.

They are tracked for each game owner individually.

The stats are still public.