Please make achievements acquirable with mods active

[Ekyman]

Victoria 3 and Crusader Kings 3 made good changes in this regard, and I hope it continues here. Locking achievements when the player is using mods (or ironman, though that's not what I'm primarily concerned with) unnecessarily splits the playerbase by forcing players to choose between playstyles that shouldn't be mutually exclusive. It hurts both the modding and achievement-hunting communities by blocking groups of players from ever trying out the "other" community, and it obviously hurts players who want to do both.

The debate about whether cheating single-player achievements even matters (and the existence of 3rd party cheat tools for the task) has been done to death by now, so I'll just say that we now have evidence from both Victoria 3 and Crusader Kings 3 that unlocking achievements from the unmodded ironman restriction does not lead to widespread cheating of the most difficult achievements. Both games still have many achievements with less very low completion percentages. If you care about comparing your achievements to the wider community rest assured that you'll still be to do that effectively (and, since the percentages for easy achievements won't be artificially deflated, it'll arguably be better for you).

Since a total overhaul mod might make an achievement accidentally achievable by reusing tags, or a player might want to mess with a cheat/easy mode/testing mod without cheating the achievements, achievements should be lockable with a setting or game rule.

 

[Lord Lambert]

It hurts both the modding and achievement-hunting communities by blocking groups of players from ever trying out the "other" community, and it obviously hurts players who want to do both.

I disagree with this. I think the change you propose hurts only the achievement hunting community, by cheapening what they find value in. SUre, the argument is there that cheatengine and whatever already exists so achievements are functionally worthless blah blah, but cheatengine still has a barrier of effort to enable, whereas having a steam workshop mod that gives you easy/free achievements is almost guaranteed to exist within short order.

 

[Teng_Ri]

achievements have no value so this should be a nobrainer

 

[Lord Lambert]

achievements have no value so this should be a nobrainer

They do to the people that value them.

 

[Ekyman]

I disagree with this. I think the change you propose hurts only the achievement hunting community, by cheapening what they find value in. SUre, the argument is there that cheatengine and whatever already exists so achievements are functionally worthless blah blah, but cheatengine still has a barrier of effort to enable, whereas having a steam workshop mod that gives you easy/free achievements is almost guaranteed to exist within short order.

Achievements are a single player thing though, the value is in the personal challenge and in the global completion percentages.

And, as I said in the post, we have clear evidence from multiple games that people do not cheat the achievements en masse. In addition to V3 and CK3 Xcom 2 has an "unlock all achivements" mod in the Steam workshop; it has barely any subscribers and the game has achievements with extremely low completion percentage. The barrier isn't the hassle of enabling the third party cheat, it's that the population of people who are both interested in unlocking Steam achievements and interested in hardcore cheating them is not very big.

And I'm someone who often plays for achievements and would like to be able to use mods at the same time; I know not everyone agrees with me but it's wrong to say it "only hurts" those players.

 

[Lord Lambert]

I think as long as UI mods are capable of having achievements, then the rest is inconcequential. I dont think it is a good idea to make achievements compatible with all mods. Just remove lucky nations (iirc already confirmed) and then the situation is fine as is

 

[Keksburg]

I agree with the disagreement BUT, I do hope that achievements can be acquired without ironman mode, which disable save&load, which makes me tired.

I do not play for achievements in EUIV because I hate playing with the savegames filefolder opened.

 

[Ekyman]

I agree with the disagreement BUT, I do hope that achievements can be acquired without ironman mode, which disable save&load, which makes me tired.

I do not play for achievements in EUIV because I hate playing with the savegames filefolder opened.

I absolutely do not understand why you would be perfectly fine with savescumming achievements to kingdom come but not getting them with a mod that adds some small gameplay tweaks or a bunch of flavor events. I'm support both, and I understand the people that want neither even if I strongly disagree with them, but this I don't get.

 

[Keksburg]

I absolutely do not understand why you would be perfectly fine with savescumming achievements to kingdom come but not getting them with a mod that adds some small gameplay tweaks or a bunch of flavor events. I'm support both, and I understand the people that want neither even if I strongly disagree with them, but this I don't get.

The game itself can't tell whether the mod is about some small gameplay tweaks or a bunch of flavor events, or total rework, or cheating. Any change beyond gfx and localisation would be considered as changing the gameplay.

E. g. The simplified chinese localisation mod for EUIV affects nothing beyond localization and gfx filefolder, but there are some texts that are written in filefolders other than that (like names, dynasties and dynamic province names). If these were to be localised, in other word, play under a full-localised environment, achievements would be disabled because something related to the gameplay has been changed.

Even though, I still believe that it's good with me alone. It may be good with Johan and other suppporters, may be not good with you and others. It's just so controversial, and it would be unfair if any one side in this conflict argue over another, while the other side were actually non convinced.

BTW though Johan said that he wants achievements acquired while all mods disabled, but he also said that if it's up to him so... Stokholm may want PjCsr's achievements acquirable with mods active so... if I were u, I won't worry about it.

 

[GuaBaiChi]

Achievements should be with Ironman only. But I think Paradox needs to have a reckoning with the NPE(Negative Player Experiences) that are inherent in the other paradox titles. In EU4 this is pretty common with monarchies. They have buffed monarchies so many times now that the few few republics in the game are at best equal to monarchies or only better than monarchies in the early game. You can now introduce an heir, disinherit heir, use favors to get heirs etc. And then the classic bird/alt-f4 to get a better heir.

Speaking of birding, I think nearly every content creator for EU4 recommends restarting, birding/alt-f4 now even in their sponsored videos and guides to EU4. The situation has gotten out of hand at this point. This needs to be corrected in Caesar.

 

[bokorthedust]

They do to the people that value them.

Those people also have agency, and are capable of deciding if a mod would decrease the value of an achievement for them. I don't think we can/should generalize achievement hunters, some might be purists who don't even savescum, some just use achievements as a set goal for a run, and some might want mods which add flavor or QoL stuff which don't radically alter gameplay or make a given achievement easier at all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Giving a choice doesn't really take away anything from anybody (though I don't deny the existence of a category of players who do care about a certain achievement's completion rate, and while I don't wish to judge how anybody gains their sense of self worth, I'd still argue they have their priorities wrong), it only enables some people to enjoy the game more if they choose to do so. Who are we to restrict someone else's fun and enjoyment of the game, just because it differs from the way we like to have fun?

 

[Ultranoob]

There are two types of players: those who care about achievements, and those who don't. (There is absolutely no problem with this. People can enjoy the same game in different ways.)

Why change achievements to appease people who do not care about them? If achievements can be obtained using mods / non-ironman, players who didn't care about achievements will still not care about them, while players who cared about achievements might stop caring about them too.

 

[Ekyman]

There are two types of players: those who care about achievements, and those who don't. (There is absolutely no problem with this. People can enjoy the same game in different ways.)

Why change achievements to appease people who do not care about them? If achievements can be obtained using mods / non-ironman, players who didn't care about achievements will still not care about them, while players who cared about achievements might stop caring about them too.

I care about achievements and I want to use mods. I wouldn't have made the post otherwise. I don't think I'm alone on this. The point isn't appeasing people who will never care about achievements, it's making it possible to enjoy both at the same time for people who want to do that. Caring about achievements doesn't mean you don't care about mods.

Also, people can discover new things they enjoy. With the old, locked system, a player who always hunts achievements will never even try a mod, and a player who goes straight for the mods will never even try achievements. It creates neighboring walled gardens.

 

[Blust]

I'd rather we keep the actual system : achievements requiring vanilla Iron Man

 

[bokorthedust]

There are two types of players: those who care about achievements, and those who don't. (There is absolutely no problem with this. People can enjoy the same game in different ways.)

So if players can enjoy the same game in different ways, then why restrict some of them? One of the basic tenets of pluralistic societies is that people are free to do whatever they want however they want, as long as it doesn't hurt/encroach on the freedom of others. How does it hurt anybody to make mods achievement compatible?

 

[Pyoro]

Since I basically never play PDX games without mods the fact that Ironman/no-mod requirements allows me to dodge getting Achievements, a mechanism I have nothing but disdain for in sandbox games, I personally think it's quite positive to be as restrictive as possible about Achievements. In fact, I feel Achievements should only be gotten if the save is started on a full moon (although not if Venus is in ascendancy), and that no browser window is allowed to be open while playing the game (too easy to look up advantageous information). Also, you shouldn't be getting any Achievements when playing as Ulm, no matter what. Oh, and perhaps if you get a Discord notification while playing the game your last Achievement is invalided and lost and can't be earned back. That'd also be great.


... for some reason I feel I'd never be a commercially successful game designer :/

 

[MasterPaw]

Personally I don't mind much achievement, I have non or barely I'm eu4 just because I don't play iron-man for fear of corrupt save game

I can see different brand of achievements,
Tracking achievements: something you get naturally that's not hard, like "get your first colony", "get a vassal". Those have no reason to be ironman/mod lock imo
Challenge achievemnts: do something hard or specific and you are rewarded "big blue blob". Those I can understand to have restrictions

Maybe there can be a distinction? Or would that just satisfy no one?

 

[zorkman]

My only complaint about achievements in EU4 was being forced to use cheating nations & them destablising my games. Now that seems to be gone, certainly as default, I am not so concerned as never was against using Ironman anyway.

 

[Dongerino]

but cheatengine still has a barrier of effort to enable, whereas having a steam workshop mod that gives you easy/free achievements is almost guaranteed to exist within short order.

Why do you care so much about what other people do...

They do to the people that value them.

...when you say that they only matter to the people that value them?

I'm perfectly fine with that. The reason my EU4 currently looks like this;
View attachment 1103835
has nothing to do with ironman and everything to do with lucky nations. If EU5 has no lucky nations mechanic, I will get achievements

Clearly you're not one of those people, why gatekeep it for others?

 

[Dwicarucymru]

They do to the people that value them.

Just playing devil's advocate but even if you let people get them with mods you could just not use mods when you want to get achievements, kind of like how I don't use the console patcher (any more lol) when I want to get one since it just doesn't feel like I've actually achieved something.