Locking achievments behind Ironman mode is bothering me and it is why I hesitate about buying the game.

[kenshironeo]

I played several hundred hours of CK2. But I never enabled Ironman Mode. While I enjoyed the game, it annoyed, irritated me when people asked "why have you no achievements with that many hours in-game. What would it cost to have two sets of achievements, some associated to ironman and some existing without Ironman? It feels elitist. A proof that this choice isn't popular is that the most obtained achievement in CKII,
The marriage game is only obtained by 16% of players. 16%!Full House is unlocked by 11,2% of player sand after this this is the rabbit hole. Your game design choice is appreciated by less than 16% of players. Which says something. That said I know this shouldn't be something to focus on when deciding whether to get the game or not, but still...It bothers me, like an obsession.

 

[The Founder]

Without Ironman mode I would just mod Crusader Kings III\game\common\achievements\standard_achievements.txt to grant me everything instantly.
Or the events that set the flags that are used for the archievements.

So it would be utterly pointless to have archievements. So the "cost" would be having no reason to have archeivements.

The marriage game is only obtained by 16% of players. 16%!

So in other words, 84% of all players do not care for Achievements and wasting any more resourse on this mechanic would be a waste?

 

[BrokenSky]

Without Ironman mode I would just mod Crusader Kings III\game\common\achievements\standard_achievements.txt to grant me everything instantly.
Or the events that set the flags that are used for the archievements.

So it would be utterly pointless to have archievements. So the "cost" would be having no reason to have archeivements.


So in other words, 84% of all players do not care for Achievements and wasting any more resourse on this mechanic would be a waste?

I mean if you've seen OneProudBavarian's videos on how to cheese a bunch of achievements, you'd know that they're already pretty worthless.
(if you haven't, 9 times out of 10 step one is "starting as the Mongols...")

The big advantage of not caring about ironman mode or mods or whatever is that it allows people to get them when they're not trying, which makes them care more about trying. Having 0/161 achievements is a big incentive never to touch ironman, whereas having, say, 107/161 isn't.

 

[Jeffry]

Achievements without Ironman would be totally pointless in a game where you can freely switch between chars / countries, use the debug mode with console or edit the save file. Or game files in gemeral or use mods (and then use a mod that would allow you to get achievements with mods).

I understand the Achievement lure, I used to grind the shit out of them back in the days of WoW: WotLK when they were first introduced there. In PDX games they always felt weird tho. Get a 6-6-6 general in EU3? No problem, I am just gonna start with Napoleon in 1795.

I don't like Ironman, not becausse it prevents savescumming (because in reality it doesn't), but because PDX games are always buggy. After launch, after every bigger patch, etc. there is always some annoying bug. So I just couldn't be bothered.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

Without Ironman mode I would just mod Crusader Kings III\game\common\achievements\standard_achievements.txt to grant me everything instantly.
Or the events that set the flags that are used for the archievements.

So it would be utterly pointless to have archievements. So the "cost" would be having no reason to have archeivements.


So in other words, 84% of all players do not care for Achievements and wasting any more resourse on this mechanic would be a waste?

Or you can use SAM to give yourself all the achievements instantly. Or you can download a trainer that lets you use console without disabling achievements.
But more importantly, who cares if someone cheated to get achievements?

There's not a single good reason for forcing people to play iron man without any mods.

 

[guinea prince]

Without Ironman mode I would just mod Crusader Kings III\game\common\achievements\standard_achievements.txt to grant me everything instantly.
Or the events that set the flags that are used for the archievements.

So it would be utterly pointless to have archievements. So the "cost" would be having no reason to have archeivements.

So in other words, 84% of all players do not care for Achievements

I was gonna say "ok sure you can do that, but as is only 16% bothered turning ironman on to get married" but then you replied to yourself.

 

[guinea prince]

Sudden thought, but shouldn't it be possible to have some achievements require ironman and the rest not? Like, say, things on the level of "get married" not requiring ironman; but then character-specific or more challenging ones prefaced with "With ironman enabled, do x".

 

[Torugu]

Without Ironman mode I would just mod Crusader Kings III\game\common\achievements\standard_achievements.txt to grant me everything instantly.
Or the events that set the flags that are used for the archievements.

Why would you do that though? No offense, but that just sounds stupid. When you play AoE, is the first thing you do press enter and type in "I R WINNER"? (the instant win cheat)

So it would be utterly pointless to have archievements. So the "cost" would be having no reason to have archeivements.


So in other words, 84% of all players do not care for Achievements and wasting any more resourse on this mechanic would be a waste?

What makes you think that achievements have any value as it is?


I mean, I'm not particularly upset about the ironman thing, it's just that this argument comes up all the time and I've never understood it. Virtually no other game (including equally moddable ones) seems to be worried about this, it's only PDS that is somehow fixated on "devaluing" their achievements. Do you guys not play other games?

 

[The Founder]

Why would you do that though? No offense, but that just sounds stupid.

Why not? If everyone else gets them that way, at least I get them before everyone else.

What makes you think that achievements have any value as it is?

Becuase that is what they are there for: Value for those that care about that stuff.

A fundamental discussion about this theamtic would be very off-topic.

Achievement (video games) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The mere existence of the Archievements in the gamecode and Discsusions like these show that they do have value. Enough to write about them and spend limited developer time to maintaining them.

 

[Kazanov]

Without Ironman achievements would be worthless, now they serve to measure our egos and show how good we are at the game without clashing on MP.

 

[guinea prince]

Why not? If everyone else gets them that way, at least I get them before everyone else.

Oh. Just the capitalistesque bogeyman of "if there's a way to cheat, everyone is gonna cheat, therefore I need to cheat"

There is literally one button you need to press, and then 100% of players would have the "get married" achievement. That is a lot less effort than tweaking the files. 84% can't be bothered, and that says something.

 

[Torugu]

Why not? If everyone else gets them that way, at least I get them before everyone else.

That is simply not true. Look at other games.

For example Slay the Spire allows unlocking achievements with mods (or at least it did for a very long time - I haven't played in ages), yet only 1.2% have unlocked the most difficult achievement (in comparison 92.3% have the most common achievement). Similarly, TW: Warhammer II with 0.3% for the rarest achievement (baseline 73% for the most common). Clearly people do not just cheat to get all achievements, presumably because they realise how stupid that would be.

And as others have pointed out, cheating in ironman mode is already trivial, arguably easier than modding the game for the average joe with no modding experience.


The "devaluation argument" sounds like it makes sense, but it just doesn't stand the most basic of reality tests.

 

[Agent.nihilist]

Clearly people do not just cheat to get all achievements, presumably because they realise how stupid that would be.

Disagree.

It's rather that most games aren't as open to achievement cheating as CK games are, due to the achievement code being in alterable files and in plain text.

The Ironman requirement prevents Achievement cheating without the use of a third party executable, which is a significant enough barrier to prevent the vast majority of instances.

Much like locks, they'll never stop a determined attacker, but they were never meant to.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

Disagree.

It's rather that most games aren't as open to achievement cheating as CK games are, due to the achievement code being in alterable files and in plain text.

The Ironman requirement prevents Achievement cheating without the use of a third party executable, which is a significant enough barrier to prevent the vast majority of instances.

Much like locks, they'll never stop a determined attacker, but they were never meant to.

It's rather that usually developers don't care if someone cheated to get achievements. It's really just between you and you. No one else would ever know or care about it.
As for altering files, you need to know how to do it first. Pretty sure that for most people it would be much easier to simply download a trainer.

 

[cerpintaxt475]

This discussion never goes anywhere.

"It's not fair that achievements are locked behind Ironman"
"Nobody cares about achievements anyway, they don't matter"
"Well since they don't matter, I should be allowed to get them without Ironman"
"If they don't matter, why do you care if you get them or not?"

And around and around we go...

 

[CharlieFox]

I am reluctant to go after achievements both because I am still learning the ropes and I am afraid a bug might wreak my game and I might have to start over.

What I don't understand is why don't they enable a soft ironman for some, or most achievements: you cannot use mods o change character but you can save or load freely.

 

[Torredebelem]

I think to have a rooster of achievements stored locally and displayed by a button in the main menu- so there goes the bragging rights out of the window as these achievements were done outside the ironman/mods/rules realm - would be interesting and certainly easy to implement.

As I immediately mod the game and download more mods myself, no achievements for me too, independently of the number of hours spent playing.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Achievements are pointless.
I don't have any achievements in any of the Paradox GSG.

 

[Kazanov]

The "devaluation argument" sounds like it makes sense, but it just doesn't stand the most basic of reality tests.

How is that doesnt stand the most basic of reality tests?

 

[Agent.nihilist]

It's rather that usually developers don't care if someone cheated to get achievements. It's really just between you and you. No one else would ever know or care about it.

They do generally care.
Because a notable portion of players care.

As for altering files, you need to know how to do it first. Pretty sure that for most people it would be much easier to simply download a trainer.

It's both easier and safer to look up the value you need to change and then open something in notepad, than it is to find and download a trainer.

Regardless, it's beyond the dev's control at that point. But they do clearly care to a point at least, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the effort of gating them to the vanilla ruleset.