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

[Karlington]

The part that annoys me about ironman :

Bob : Im having this problem that is caused by a bug/design flaw, what do i do?

Me : Okay, heres how you fix it using the console/mods

Bob : But im running ironman for the achievements...

Its getting old. If you want to limit yourself to ironman for the achievemnts, you place yourself at the mercy of paradox for all the bugs/problems in the game and there is absolutely nothing you can do if you encounter a problem that can only be fixed via the console or mods. At that point you have to ask yourself if the achievements are really worth the hassle of dealing with the bugs.

I've unlocked 82% of the achievements and so far I haven't encountered a single bug that prevented me from getting them. There was one when the game was first released where there were issues with the game "forgetting" that you had used the right starting character for an achievement if you exited the game and returned later. That has since been fixed.

Most of the time when you see stuff like "use a mod/console" it's stuff like "I hate partition and want to get rid of it without waiting to 1200," or "my heir is landed and keeps making stupid decisions," so people tell them "use a mod that unlocks primogeniture" or "use the console to take over your heir, fix things up, and then return to your character."

In other words, while there are occasional issues, they are pretty rare and IMO certainly don't warrant jettisoning the ironman requirement.

 

[Siri]

Personally I like it the way it is. Only thing I would change is slightly alter the scope of allowed mods so that things that don't actually change game rules are still fine. The mod that erases all alerts at once, the extended outliner, full screen barbershop, stuff like that. I genuinely believe that there are people who would just play with mods that actively made the game harder overall, and that is an unfortunate casualty here.

What kind of bothers me though is the degree of blinders some people have on in regards to people caring about achievements. There's multiple websites that track achievement completion for games on steam. There's plenty of people who try to finish all of them first, or in the top X or whatever. These sites generally also have moderation that tries to detect cheating and manually removes people who use things like the steam achievement manager, unlocked an achievement before an artificial time gate made it possible, or unlocked an achievement that was literally unachievable due to a bug.

It may not be your circle, but pretending it doesn't exist because you don't participate in it is just wrong.

 

[aono]

If you want to limit yourself to ironman for the achievemnts, you place yourself at the mercy of paradox for all the bugs/problems in the game and there is absolutely nothing you can do if you encounter a problem that can only be fixed via the console or mods.

And that's true. Still, it's not a reason to remove Ironman or change achievements, it's a reason to fix bugs.

 

[wilcoxchar]

The part that annoys me about ironman :

Bob : Im having this problem that is caused by a bug/design flaw, what do i do?

Me : Okay, heres how you fix it using the console/mods

Bob : But im running ironman for the achievements...

Its getting old. If you want to limit yourself to ironman for the achievemnts, you place yourself at the mercy of paradox for all the bugs/problems in the game and there is absolutely nothing you can do if you encounter a problem that can only be fixed via the console or mods. At that point you have to ask yourself if the achievements are really worth the hassle of dealing with the bugs.

If your only answer to someone's question is console and mods, then you're probably not going to be very helpful to most people asking questions, because most people don't want a mod or console fix to the problems they're having with the game anyway. Most people want in-game advice.

The only bug that was impacting achievements was the bug with start as X character achievements not working after the death of the character, and that's already been fixed.

 

[Siri]

The only bug that was impacting achievements was the bug with start as X character achievements not working after the death of the character, and that's already been fixed.

TBF there was also a bug where achievements would unlock in the game but not on Steam.
Mother of us All was hotfixed specifically for this even after "starting as" was fixed.

 

[TheWorstPro]

I know this dead horse has already been beaten enough as is, but I just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in since I was monitering this yesterday before it blew up. I play almost exclusively ironman, even when I play a new game. I like the sense of discovery and danger, knowing that if I slip up here or there, I can't unwind time to fix it. It adds a new way to play that just feels more immersive to me. I personally don't care that much about achievements. They're cool, and I think it's also cool when I get something that maybe only 2% of people have gotten, but at the end of the day it's not going to kill me that I haven't conquered Ireland yet. What I do care about is the fact that other people care for achievements and have them as a source of pride. Just because you don't care about someone else's achievements or your own doesn't entitle you to enforce your beliefs on them. Likewise, just because someone personally doesn't care about achievements doesn't invalidate their concerns around changing the requirements. Take this example:

Let's say that hypothetically, there's an organization out there that hands out certain rewards. One of the rewards is a little button/pin stating "The Cup Pharaoh" where the goal is to make a pyramid out of 150 plastic solo cups in under 30 seconds.

Spoiler: plastic solo cup

It's a completely worthless achievement, but it's still an impressive feat nonetheless. Not everyone can do it. Let's say that one day, someone comes in and says "You should change the rules because it's unfair to people who use hotjo cups and they should be allowed too."

Spoiler: hotjo cups

This isn't an argument because the reward is specifically for solo cups, and changing that defeats the point of the challenge. Additionally, solo cups will have a different weight, size, shape, and strength that's all unique and different from other cups. You can't simply change the cup because it's a cup. Obviously there would even be pushback from the people who are already Cup Pharaohs, and they might conclude that it's actually much easier to stack hotjo cups, and changing the rules no longer puts the game on an even playing field(I don't actually know whether it would be, it's just an example). The hotjo person might say "well, I personally stack these cups in a way that's actually more difficult than with solo cups!" This also isn't a good argument because you can't possibly speak for everyone who would stack the hotjo cups, and you certainly won't be the only one to stack them. Just because you play a certain way or do things "correct" and "by the rules" doesn't mean everyone else will.

And that's the problem. Any time you relax the restrictions on a certain achievement, there will inevitably be people who opt to choose the "easy way" to do it. This then diminishes the initial value of the achievement, and those who already had the achievements will probably be pissed ("You mean I spent all this time and effort trying to get it this way, and now you made it much easier for anyone to get it?"). The same way printing more money makes its value decrease, the more people own a specific achievement the less it's worth.

And before anyone says "it's already easy on ironman" or "it's not about difficulty it's about bugs etc." Ironman does make it harder. Again, just because you play it "the right way" doesn't mean everyone else will. It restricts your ability to create multiple saves, and you're prevented from enabling/disabling certain game rules in order to be achievement compatible. While bugs certainly suck, they affect everyone. Even if the game is a bug-ridden mess, if everyone experiences the same bugs then the achievement is the same difficulty for everyone. Many of the people who have already gotten these achievements have probably already encountered game-breaking bugs or have had to restart 500 times to get good RNG(I know I've gone through some of this myself). Why should the rules change to accomodate you just because the bugs affect you too? I'm not trying to be rude there, but it genuinely just sounds like you're only thinking about your own experiences and not that of others.

 

[Riamus]

This topic is common and I've replied to others of this type before. I'll just summarize my thoughts rather than go too in depth...

• You can easily give yourself any achievements in pretty much any Steam game with SAM, so achievements don't prove you actually completed them.
• People use achievements as bragging rights even knowing that the first point exists, so they don't want people to get them without an "anti-cheat" mode enabled even though it's very easy to give yourself the achievements anyhow.
• Multiplayer achievements are more important (imo) to prevent obtaining through cheats, while single player achievements really don't matter because except in the case of bragging about what you did, it really has no effect on anyone else whether you cheated to get the achievements or not.

So based on these things, the question arises... does it really matter if you can get achievements without using Ironman or when using mods or certain game rules? Generally speaking, I don't think it does. However, I will say that if I were to play a total conversion mod and ended up getting some hard to get achievement very easily because of it, I'd personally be upset about getting the achievement because I'd want to complete it while playing the game the way it's designed and not through a mod that made it easier to get the achievement. For me, that would be like just giving it to myself. It just wouldn't mean as much. So I like not getting achievements when using mods, certain game rules, etc. But this can be managed in other ways. For example, you could choose when creating a game whether you want to have the chance to earn achievements in that game so you can disable it for when you're playing a mod that might make it too easy to obtain the achievements. But is it necessary? Not really. It would make some people like me happy for that as an option, but it's really not a big deal. I think most players either always use mods or never use mods (at least mods that affect the chance of getting achievements), so this setting really wouldn't do too much.

An option I suggested before, though without much support, was to have 2 sets of achievements (silver and gold for example). The silver (lesser) achievement level would include all achievements, but would be available no matter how you play the game (mods, game rules, non-Ironman, etc.). The gold (greater) achievement level would require Ironman, no mods, and not certain game rules and would also include all achievements. This allows you to earn achievements without needing to use Ironman/etc. for your own enjoyment or whatever and whenever you might choose to play Ironman/etc. to get gold, you'll have the chance to prove to yourself that you can get those achievements without needing to "cheat." Again, achievements in a mostly single player game (I don't think we have any specifically multiplayer achievements) are for the player's enjoyment and doesn't really affect anyone else, so I don't see any reason not to do something like this if you really want to have the version of achievements that are available only without "cheating." At least this way, people who use a UI mod (or something else that doesn't make it any easier to get achievements) can still get achievements.

Personally, I like to see how many achievements I can get and I like to have that date of when I got those achievements. I don't brag about what I got (at least not in CK... maybe back years ago when I played WoW, I might have bragged a bit about certain achievements (like having a high tier achievement for number of pets or mounts)). For me, I wouldn't ever brag about an achievement I didn't actually earn. It would be hollow to me to do so. But I understand many people do just that because they need that to feel good or something and that's fine. It just unfortunately makes it so the default way of handling achievements is to lock them behind things so you have to go out of your way a bit to cheat to get them to try and curb the amount of false bragging going on.

 

[Riamus]

Obviously there would even be pushback from the people who are already Cup Pharaohs, and they might conclude that it's actually much easier to stack hotjo cups, and changing the rules no longer puts the game on an even playing field(I don't actually know whether it would be, it's just an example).

Just to point out, this is done in games often enough. For example, in Wow (it's easy to give examples there since most people know it), an achievement to beat a raid dungeon in vanilla was quite an achievement. But once you were at Lich King, you could solo many of them as long as they didn't require a certain number of players to get past certain parts (they eventually removed those restrictions... I think in Cataclysm). Yes, you had people complain that the achievements had less value since "anyone" could get them, but this was many years into the game's life cycle. Those who got the achievements when it was difficult had all that time to brag about it. By the time the achievements were much easier, it really didn't matter that others were allowed to get them through easier methods. So the pushback wasn't really all that much. So, yes, you'll get some heat from that situation, but it doesn't mean you can't change the rules to make an achievement either easier or harder down the road.

 

[Persipnei]

Every single PDX game I do the same. I start my first game on Ironman, get the first 2 or 3 easy cheevos that I don't care about and then bump into a bug that kills my run. No more ironman for the rest of that game's life.

 

[MatthewP]

It seems like the idea of two identical tiers of achievements, Ironman and not Ironman, should make everyone happy. People who want the mission system component of achievements but still want to be able to play the game the way they enjoy can do so. People who want a badge that means you played the game in one specific way can get one. Everybody wins, right?

 

[Deshiba]

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.

Ironman mode is just so you can't save scum or console cheat for achievements. Wouldn't be an achievement if you could.

 

[JtW]

I'm not trying to be rude there, but it genuinely just sounds like you're only thinking about your own experiences and not that of others.

If the internet has taught me anything, it's that most people either lack empathy or choose not to extend it to their virtual interactions, sadly. If we all genuinely considered others' experiences, the internet (and this forum) would be a much happier place.

 

[JasperClay]

"We should just totally rework how Steam and every other platform handles Archievements."

Why is it always something completely ludicrous after the word "just"?
Gathering all the Dragonballs is easier then that idea!

Yeah, it's really difficult to add "archievements" to steam, what was I thinking.

Steam already supports adding achievements on different difficulty levels - look at Total War, if you don't believe me. If PDX didn't find Valve's present implementation to their liking, for whatever reason, they could also add a more interactive scoreboard within the game. It's not incredibly important to me that they do so, but PDX certainly could create achievement levels as a part of a free patch, the next time they make a bunch of brand new achievements for a DLC - this isn't rocket science.

 

[Torredebelem]

I don't understand why nobody has thought before about having locally stored achievements (thus preventing the bragging rights in public for the achievements as they are presently implemented) for those that play the game modded or not in Ironman. In this way any player could check what achievements he had earned, even if a part of these could only spot them in their installation of the game.

With achievements implementation broadened this way everybody would be happy!

 

[flop404]

Yes you can. And it requires almost zero effort. Hate to burst your bubble.

Yes, you can, and then, actually, no.

It is not a question of tools, it is rather psychological. But it is meaningful nonetheless.

You don't play the game in the same manner if you can save/reload, and if you can't. Sure, you can kill the task in the task manager and thus savescum, but the approach the player will have to the game will still be different.

You won't consider, for instance, high risks/rewards strategies in the same manner in both situations. You also will be much more reluctant to proceed via trial and error when you can't save/reload (easily).

It deeply changes the way you play the game. And Ironman enforces one key element of PDX gameplay : player mistakes, or streaks of bad luck that derail the game are integral part of the gameplay. One could actually consider this is the only challenge the games present :

You misclicked and became heretic ? Deal with it.
You feudalized way too early and are vulnerable ? Deal with it.
Your well-groomed heir died from the black plague ? Deal with it.


Granted, given the complexity (or, rather, the sheer number) of the mechanisms in PDX games, Ironman also has a negative aspect - it promotes a conservative approach, which restricts the scope of the player.

For instance, the player might not be sure what the pros and cons of reforming a religion are, and does not actually needs to reform ? He'll just ignore the religion metagame, and content himself with keeping his base religion and deal with rebellions using the basic tools.


This is, by the way, where achievements do come into play. Even though it's derisory, and no one cares, they set a goal, and when you have something to tick off a list you feel a compulsion to tick it. So, you will tend to try to get achievements, and thus you will have to delve into the religious metagame for a specific achievement.

The achievements could be better designed, but tying them to Ironman makes sense - basically because the game is designed to be played in Ironamn

 

[pevergreen]

This thread has devolved heavily into name calling, insult throwing and personal attacks.

The original topic has been discussed through all of its aspects by the point. Closing thread as productive discussion has ended.