Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #55 - Achievements

[wilcoxchar]

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.

Here's the thing though. You can still do this. Nobody is removing your ability to play only ironman games to get the achievements. In fact, even if ironman mode didn't exist altogether, nobody would be stopping you from playing only ironman games to get the achievements. Because you would still completely have the capability of playing the game without reloading a save. If you want those experiences, you can very much still have them. The only person stopping you, and the only thing cheating you out of those experiences you so much enjoy and cherish, is now yourself.

 

[Reman]

Huge fan of the no ironman for achievements change, and I hope it comes to Paradox's other games too!

 

[timsfker]

+1 for a double set of achievements that require ironman and checksum so that us achievement hunters can not have our heart crushed so vigorously by this change.

 

[Dirk_Slamchest]

I LOVE the removal of the ironman requirement.

I have several thousand hours logged in various Paradox games, but relatively few achievements. The frustration of losing a run (and possibly a whole day of real time) to bad rng, a minor mistake, or (worst of all) a bug is so far out of proportion to the satisfaction of getting an achievement that I just stopped trying get them. I'm so used to ignoring them that I almost didn't bother reading this dev diary! With this change though, I will definitely engage with them more.

 

[KingLARthur]

These achievements are great and moving away from ironman anti-cheat purism is a good move, but what makes this thread perfect is the pure sass in the dev answers

 

[grommile]

But is it possible to implement something to distinguish people unlocking achievements with Ironman active?

Only by having two copies of every achievement, one of which has an extra "with Ironman enabled" flag.

 

[Telenil]

Here's the thing though. You can still do this. Nobody is removing your ability to play only ironman games to get the achievements. In fact, even if ironman mode didn't exist altogether, nobody would be stopping you from playing only ironman games to get the achievements. Because you would still completely have the capability of playing the game without reloading a save. If you want those experiences, you can very much still have them. The only person stopping you, and the only thing cheating you out of those experiences you so much enjoy and cherish, is now yourself.

Again, this completely misses the point.

I go to the gym with a friend. He doesn't drag me out my house, all he does is help loading the bars and offer a few words of encouragement when I get tired so I keep pushing. Could I still do exactly the same work if he wasn't there? In a narrow sense, nothing would physically stop me from doing so. His presence doesn't affect my strength and stamina in any way. And yet, for all practical purposes, I wouldn't, couldn't push back my limits without him. Many times I would probably take the easy way and not go to the gym at all. And if some randoms, many of whom can't be bothered to do the effort themselves, told me that it is my own fault that I can't go to the gym on my own, my answer wouldn't be printable on a moderated forum.

Likewise, there is nothing technically blocking me from doing exactly the same thing as I did before. Yet in practice this simply wouldn't have happened the way it did with the new rules (I won't pretend I enjoyed the part where I lost 12 hours to a peace conference). The only reason I had the patience to carry on after the first major bug was that I had to if I wanted the achievement. In practice, my experience will change. Maybe it wouldn't have to in some counterfactual world, but it will. Now, these changes happen to also improve the experience of people who could do achievements, but won't without their favorite mod. To which I say: good for them. It is obvious that I am in the minority, so I'm not trying to change Paradox minds on this one.

All that being said, the people who go around pretending that an experience they don't understand will not change, that all we care about is bragging and that it's my own fault for not enjoying the new rules as much, are far more annoying than the change. They are getting their way, they don't have to be obnoxious on top of it.

 

[BDFelloMello]

This comment is reserved by the Community Team for gathering Dev Responses in, for ease of reading.



Sadly no, and not for the reason you suspect. I think we hit a text limit with Microsoft or that



I am going to work to ensure they become unhinged in a tasteful way, not a painful way



Not a bad idea for a game rule if we don't already have it. Thank you for that.



You are more than welcome to turn on ironman to limit yourself to get your achievements, I am not sure how others having the freedom to play the game the way they please is such a reason for you to get upset.



That's totally possible with modding your own objectives but achievements themselves not entirely sure since that requires involvement with steam setup and the such, if that's what you mean. If you are asking why do achievements at all, because they are good fun - we enjoy making coming up and making them, the players should find them as a fun recommendation to play if they need a few suggestions.



...yes 8/10 are the pun first.



If you want to cheat, you will find a way to cheat.
Why impose a no mod restriction for those who use UI mods, accessibility mods, etc.



Cool, we're not EU4 our codebase is not even similar and we could not guarantee that.



Only if you DM me the list.



Achievements are locked for release, at some point in the future we will likely ask the community for their ideas, so keep these ready.

Sadly no, achievement checks are not run in multiplayer. I'm pretty sure we've got some technical reasons as to why but if I just say "to reduce OOS chance" that generic statement is 90% likely to be correct.



But then its not a "sickman of europe" reference



Those who want to do it the old way, can turn on ironman and play for achievements and know that they achieved it the way they wanted. Why are we particular to needing two sets of achievements for this unless it is merely for bragging rights over those who got the achievements the other way?

Were not instituting two code systems for a solution that already exists in the way that is feasible as the game currently stands.



I'm gonna find a way to make this an achievement for the future.



The difficulty hasn't been removed, ironman is still there for that community - you can still brag to each other and post about getting achievements on ironman.
What you cannot do is lord that over others easily by statistics, but you weren't doing that, those communities were built around achievements and their difficulty - which is still there.



Its soon to be up there with "just fix ai" for me.



As I said in the first quote string it was a good idea and I would follow-up on it. I cannot answer the technical side but I don't think its too hard in concept, but then I'm not a coder. It might already exist and I'm just blind, I don't have the game installed on my home PC for work/life balance reasons.



No comment



I was thinking of something like "As Poland, achieve no other achievements in your playthrough to 1936"
But then I starting trying to think of how would I script that and my brain started leaking.



Let us be respectful to each other and cut the dark souls side conversation, its fast approaching not being "on-topic." Antagonizing each other over this is unnecessary.

Those who like achievements tied to ironman are allowed to be unhappy with the change and express their opinions as such.



Regarding making it so GUI and language mods don't affect checksum, while mods changing game logic do. It's actually very easy for us to customize this. The reason we still do force checksum changes for these types of files is because there's actually a lot you can accomplish with a UI-only mod in the engine we use these days - you could add entire new helper interfaces that exposes action shortcuts once a value in a rival country reached a certain threshold for example, or just reveal crucial insight into other countries' situations that would normally be hidden to other players. In this way one could essentially build an "aimbot" type mod that would be entirely invisible in MP if we didn't track checksum. Since the language files run through the UI computation layer you could do much of the same with a language-only mod, even.

Having said that, it might be possible to manually turn off checksumming these files in a friendly MP game by mutual agreement.






I would like to point out that I think that might be that due to a misconception that unification can only come militarily and not peacefully through diplomacy.
Power and Rank can be adjusted not by militarily shrinking or taking territory by someone but by economically overpowering them.

Sikh subjugating Great Britain is likely to require war as you would have to be very powerful for the AI to willingly subjugate.
The Qing Treatyports, war is likely but diploplays and having them aqueise and back down is totally possible.

Many of these "take territories" don't require going to war, they require threatening war. You only have to go to war if you aren't imposing enough and have your bluff called.



You're barking up the wrong tree making a counterfit money argument in comparison to a coding change about achievements... to the individual with an economics degree.
So lets not go there.



As said before (but I do not mind repeating it) I fully expect to community source some achievement ideas in the future so we will be happy to hear your ideas in the future.



Highly likely 5 achievements are not finished or able to be shown because their original conditions have changed due to reworks and we still have fleshing them out as todo. Thus we don't want to publish them as certain if they might change.

Or we are keeping them a secret.
Or we simply forgot.

All are feasible.

Your responses to all these aggressive haters who have lorded themselves over fun-loving players make my heart happy. You've instantly become one of my favorite dev teams of any game of all time, with a. single. post.
Y'all are amazing for going this route and I'm constantly surprised that it's even possible for me to get MORE excited about this game. Thank you for being wonderful people and standing up for fun, joy filled experiences that aren't just for "hardcore gamers". Those ironman folks can go back to the old days of special "hardcore" achievements being an optional community choice that is easy to prove.
Thank you thank you thank you thank youuuu!!!

 

[BDFelloMello]

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.

Boy I sure do hope you're aware of some who will enjoy this more because of this change now! And if not- hi there!

 

[Pyoro]

So I now might accidentally collect some from the list of lazy memes and puns? Blergh. The Iron Man requirement was such a good way to show my contempt for the system by refusing to engage with it. ^^

 

[Fyrax]

Oh man love the achievement dedicated to Ali !! In Vic2 I loved making a great power out of Egypt just as Ali tried to do, I can't wait to try on Vicky 3 Love the reference to Thrace too However, if I may very candidly ask, why form Arabia ? This wasn't really a goal of his, panarab egyptian nationalism came in the 20th century, partly because his dynasty failed to resist british colonization. Feels odd associated with the character, since he believed in westernizing his country to make it prosperous. It's quite not panarabianism, which roots in a traditionnalist response. I don't know what to suggest else tough I understand its hard, the ideal would be "get Ali to be grand vizir of the ottoman empire and save it from collapse" as it was really his beloved 'Ambition' but its not possible. Maybe some goal tied to the industrial success of Egypt or the Ottoman Empire ? Or a goal tied to the power of the egyptian navy. Some evolution that makes you look at Egypt as a natural western sphere member despite geography, rather than a territorial (but maybe form Arabia conditions are more than that idk) expansion. Because we could say it was also one of his 'Ambitions'. But its all just suggestion, I understand this is a small detail, keep up the good work and thanks again for this achievement !!
Also side question, maybe it was in a dev diary I didn't read, will it be possible to import foreign talents to build new schools, shipyards, reform army ? Because many frenchmen were called in Egypt by Ali's dynasty to do just that.

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

I think one obvious benefit is now we can actually see accurate statistics about what the players have been doing, since not many people will close achievements or play exclusively multiplayer and otherwise they are earnable. So it won't be like Crusader Kings III where only 33% of the players seem to have married. We'll actually be able to say, like two years from the release, "Oh gee look, 25% of the players formed Germany!". Now you might ask what is the benefit to being able to see this statistics. Pretty much nothing, but rule of cool exists and that will be cool.

 

[grommile]

Concerning me, I would just like to understand if it was a technical reason which lead to this choice or "inclusivity".

Observation 1: UI mods in Vicky 3 are, like in CK3, more powerful than in earlier pdx games, to the point that fairness dictates they be included in the checksum.

Observation 1b: Some players need UI mods to have a decent gameplay experience.

Observation 2: Savescumming Ironman isn't impossible, or even hard; it's just mildly tedious.

Observation 3: No Paradox title has ever been completely free of bugs that can ruin achievement runs under the "Ironman, no mods" configuration.

Observation 4: Steam Achievement Manager exists.

 

[Spartakus]

Not sure why I was downvoted when I was just making a fair proposition.

I also don't understand why some people are so glad about removing the ironman for achievements when most of then were not even chasing them.
And some of you are even insulting the ones who loved these challenges at a level when you would even buy the game just for it. But do you realize how pitiful you look like? Who in the world is taking pleasure for such trivial things ???
And let be honest, any hardcore ironman if they dont like the new direction taken by Paradox can just have Victoria3 for free, if you know what I mean...

Concerning me, I would just like to understand if it was a technical reason which lead to this choice or "inclusivity".
If it was inclusivity, you can see by looking this thread + the reaction of the supposed "inclusive" people over the ironman achievements gamers that it completely missed its goal.

People are glad that the ironman requirement has been dropped because it locked them out of achievements for years. There a people like me who either can't do ironman runs due to time constraints or won't because it's simply not a fun way to play for them - or both. Doing both ironman and non-ironman achievements would simply lock us out of half the achievements again.

The same argument goes for users of mods - including purely graphical mods.

 

[Nevars]

Then what is the point of achievement?

Should have just straight up remove it from the game altogether.

It would have been better than this half attempt of dumbing everything down.

Couple with CK3 unreasonably double dlc price, I'm wondering is this a sign for something in paradox.

 

[frmwrk123]

I actually really like this change. Sure, you can no longer look at Steam and feel special because you got an achievement that only x percentage of players have. But with this change, I might start to actually play with mods. Previously, I have refrained from doing so because achievements were tied to no changed checksum. I wouldn't install mods that defeat the purpose of achieving something. But a bit of flavour (that still changes checksum) is always cool.

 

[Zhetone]

Then what is the point of achievement?

Should have just straight up remove it from the game altogether.

It would have been better than this half attempt of dumbing everything down.

Couple with CK3 unreasonably double dlc price, I'm wondering is this a sign for something in paradox.

most games don't have these kinds of restrictions on achievements, so who honestly cares?
it's so weird to me that people need "exclusive" achievements to feel special and to validate their gameplay experience

 

[lordofthemax]

Not sure if anyone's asked about this yet, but in case they haven't: for Perkeletankki, Finland doesn't exist in 1836, it's still a part of Russia, so how are you meant to start as Finland?

 

[TempestM]

Not sure if anyone's asked about this yet, but in case they haven't: for Perkeletankki, Finland doesn't exist in 1836, it's still a part of Russia, so how are you meant to start as Finland?

it's a vassal

 

[Woifee]

There is a Pundemic going on in the PI Office.