Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #55 - Achievements

[Zhetone]

Also what is the practical value of removing the iron man requirement? You just said 'accessibility' but that means nothing on its own. Are there actual players who will legitimately enjoy the game more because of this change? I am not aware of any, and I am aware of at least one player who will enjoy it less.

I would like for the game to track my achievements, personally, and I know it'll give me new playthrough ideas if I'm looking for one. I never play ironman and don't enjoy it.

 

[InsidiousMage]

The problem with making achievements 'accessible' is that inaccessibility has a lot of inherent value. . . .Now that achievements are trivially easy they are effectively meaningless.

Do you not play a game unless it was made by Paradox? Like, literally every other single game with achievements do not lock the them behind a specific game mode. Do you literally think that every other achievement in every other game are valueless? Because that's what you are saying.

 

[grommile]

Are there actual players who will legitimately enjoy the game more because of this change?

Yes.

There are people who enjoy getting achievements by playing games and enjoy playing Paradox grand strategy games, but don't enjoy playing Paradox grand strategy games on the relatively stringent terms Paradox enforce for achievements in those games.

(Also, having your achievement run ruined by a stupid bug that you could have worked around with a single console command or a one-line mod is massively negative amounts of fun.)

 

[Tetrahedron]

Do you not play a game unless it was made by Paradox? Like, literally every other single game with achievements do not lock the them behind a specific game mode. Do you literally think that every other achievement in every other game are valueless? Because that's what you are saying.

Yes that is what I am saying. Paradox achievements hit different.

 

[Sapa Inca]

Unpopular opinion, but achievements were a incentive to play ironman and go outside of your comfort zone, the majority of players need game incentives to have fun with harder challanges and with ironman having 0 game incentives there is almost no reason to play ironman, without achievements ironman is just something that punish the player without any game benefits that could create extra enjoyment.

Compare these two arguments:
You can personally decide to play ironman and get your achievements in the older way, so, why lock achievements behind ironman?
You can personally decide play without "save and loading" so, why have a ironman mode at all?

 

[papapyro]

Can't wait to unlock these in 5 minutes with the console

 

[Zhetone]

Unpopular opinion, but achievements were a incentive to play ironman and go outside of your comfort zone, the majority of players need game incentives to have fun with harder challanges and with ironman having 0 game incentives there is almost no reason to play ironman, without achievements ironman is just something that punish the player without any game benefits that could create extra enjoyment.

Compare these two arguments:
You can personally decide to play ironman and get your achievements in the older way, so, why lock achievements behind ironman?
You can personally decide play without "save and loading" so, why have a ironman mode at all?

Why do players need to go "outside their comfort zone"? And based on achievement percentages for even trivial achievements, like marriage in ck3 or eu4, people weren't doing it anyway.

Ironman is there for people who want to prove themselves. There will definitely be youtubers, streamers, anyone who will do the hardest achievements on ironman for clout, regardless of if they have to. I don't see why so many people care how others play the games.

 

[Shattek.T]

Can your great team add Central Asia contry conter Russia Achivements.

 

[luxfelix]

In the "Go West, Young Man" achievement image, it looks like the lady didn't go west with him.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Yes that is what I am saying. Paradox achievements hit different.

That's just sad.

Unpopular opinion, but achievements were a incentive to play ironman and go outside of your comfort zone, the majority of players need game incentives to have fun with harder challanges and with ironman having 0 game incentives there is almost no reason to play ironman, without achievements ironman is just something that punish the player without any game benefits that could create extra enjoyment.

Alternatively, games are meant to be fun and there are a variety of ways for people to have fun playing games, including for the difficulty and challenge, and arbitrarily excluding a significant portion of the playerbase from getting achievements simply because they didn't want to play the game in a specific way is a bit of a d**k move.

 

[Wizzington]

Unpopular opinion, but achievements were a incentive to play ironman and go outside of your comfort zone, the majority of players need game incentives to have fun with harder challanges and with ironman having 0 game incentives there is almost no reason to play ironman, without achievements ironman is just something that punish the player without any game benefits that could create extra enjoyment.

Compare these two arguments:
You can personally decide to play ironman and get your achievements in the older way, so, why lock achievements behind ironman?
You can personally decide play without "save and loading" so, why have a ironman mode at all?

I don't think it’s necessary to force anyone to play ironman if they don't want to. I think people play ironman because they want to challenge themselves and I don’t think that will change.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I don't see why so many people care how others play the games.

Its about being in an exclusive club and nothing else.

 

[Hichel]

I thought Ironman was good because of the sense of "live with your choices" more than the achievements themselves.

It was also a bit awkward that the simples achievements like "Until Death do us Part" in CK had so little achievers because of the restriction. I think it's the best decision and most likely Paradox has the statistics behind to back it up. We can always have an achievement like finish the campaign in ironman as well in the future, the possibilitys are huge now I think.

Those who cheat it's way for the achievements will continue to do so as it was.

 

[Chilango2]

I've been playing Paradox games for, god help me, about twenty years, with almost 2000 logged hours on Steam playing their games and have basically zero achievements because I don't bother playing Ironman.

I'm aware this change is unpopular with some folks, but let me, for one, say thank you, it's nice to know that I'll be able to get achivements on what is likely to be a one of my most played PDX games.

 

[wowlock]

I don't think it’s necessary to force anyone to play ironman if they don't want to. I think people play ironman because they want to challenge themselves and I don’t think that will change.

And one of the most soul-crushing things about an Ironman run can be a bug...or a crash or something that corrupts the save etc that could ruin that run and effort/time you put into it.
So at least this way, we have less to agonize about with the achievements if something goes wrong.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Also what is the practical value of removing the iron man requirement? You just said 'accessibility' but that means nothing on its own. Are there actual players who will legitimately enjoy the game more because of this change? I am not aware of any, and I am aware of at least one player who will enjoy it less.

The value is in letting people who want to play their game differently, or who use cosmetic or accessibility mods, still able to get achievements. And just that people play games differently and seek personal enjoyment out of a game in different ways. If you take your personal enjoyment from getting achievements while playing ironman games only, this is not taking that away from you. You can still do that. But now, people who take their personal enjoyment from getting achievements but don't want to play ironman games to get them can also have their own personal enjoyment of the achievements instead of having them locked away for no reason.

 

[Wendigo514]

Broken Promises: As Italy, join a diplomatic play against 2 or more of your allies.
View attachment 868651

I feel like something on the line of either "Tu Quoque" or "Et tu, Brute?" would be more appropriate due to the art of the achievement.

 

[WeissRaben]

Can we please get a World Conquest achievement? I understand that's perhaps not the goal of the game, but I think it's what gave EU4, HOI4, and IR so much replayability, trying to find the best start and strategy, and understanding the game mechanics enough to do WC, and getting an achievement for it.

Lolno, please. Then people are going to whine about the fact that a WC achievement exists, so of course it should be doable, and everything that makes it harder or impossible should be changed. Which is exactly what happened in EU4, time and again.

 

[Farck]

I don't mind that the achievements can be unlocked without Ironman.

But is it possible to implement something to distinguish people unlocking achievements with Ironman active?
Like for example "Achivement unlocked with Ironman" below the achievement in steam? Something like that.

Like that, everyone would be happy. People could still show their achievement done in ironman if they wish and others could get the achievements.

 

[Telenil]

You misunderstand - the only reason it’s possible for us to make these ignore checksum is because we no longer try to prevent cheating - in HoI4 and stellaris you can’t make a UI mod that lets you cheat wildly, whereas in Imperator, CK3 and Vic3 this is not only possible but quite trival to do. Actually preventing this would mean rolling back massive amounts of functionality and moddability in the GUI system.

Thank you for the reply, that was more or less my understanding, though perhaps I did not phrase it precisely.

It's not that it's difficult to separate strictly "graphics" mods from those that change values or country features, it's that "graphics" alone already open the door to, for example, game-breaking displays of hidden information. So something had to give, and that something was the rules on achievements, for various reasons (like the detection of cheats in multiplayer, and from this new message, changes that result in this new capability also open new possibilities for modders).
Allowing for the fact that I don't have the precise vocabulary to describe the technicalities, is this broadly correct?

I mean... speak for yourself? I've never save scummed, never will. Still even plan to play ironman exclusively in Vic3 too.

It's bonkers to me that the many of the people complaining that others will cheat are admitting that they themselves... cheat.

Dude, did you read what you quoted? I do speak for myself, repeatedly using the pronoun "I", and 'cheating' is not my word but yours. If you never saved scummed, great, and what's your point? What I do say is that I much regret that some rules that were previously built in the system, and which gave me some of my most memorable gaming experiences in my life, are going to be removed. I felt really proud when I got all achievements in HoI4, not because I wanted to "lord it over others" or some such nonsense, but because it forced me to try again when I failed. That made the eventual victory much more satisfying than if I had given in to my frustration and take the easy way. Which I know I would have on a few occasions.

Do I understand why it's being changed? Yes, or at least I think so. Am I in the minority? Yes. Am I whining that Paradox should revert this decision? No. And if someone still doesn't understand why I still regret the change, I suggest they at least stop putting words in my mouth.