why not just make ironman optional for achievements?

[Secuter]

I mean, who cares about anything except the people who do?

My point is why would you care if some guy unlocked all the achievements in Multiplayer, Singleplayer, with mods, through cheats or in Ironman? I wouldn't care at all. Achievements is just a nice little side gimmick that help you pick interesting goals or nations and pull through with it. If somebody out there only want the shiny icon without the work then so be it. Achievements is only worth as much as you make them. I personally love that I've gone for some achievements and completed them- I still remember those games. But I don't see the point in them being locked - who does that benefit?

 

[MatthewP]

My point is why would you care if some guy unlocked all the achievements in Multiplayer, Singleplayer, with mods, through cheats or in Ironman? I wouldn't care at all. Achievements is just a nice little side gimmick that help you pick interesting goals or nations and pull through with it. If somebody out there only want the shiny icon without the work then so be it. Achievements is only worth as much as you make them. I personally love that I've gone for some achievements and completed them- I still remember those games. But I don't see the point in them being locked - who does that benefit?

I guess my answers would be:

1) to define the intended rules of the game for the purposes of achievements. This may sound silly to you if you’re one of the people who ignores these rules, either by save scumming/cheating or adding (and sticking to) house rules to make the game harder in tough achievement runs. But I think most people when they’re going for an achievement are going to play as well as they can within the rules of the game. So it does matter what those rules are, and allowing free saving and loading changes the rules.

2) this is just my worldview, so you can take it or leave it. But I think most people see themselves as rational agents making fully independent choices, when in practice we are all heavily influenced by the systems we live in. Making save scumming hard and clearly not intended is a nudge to not do it, and makes it less likely that most people will even though they could. Even some/many people who enjoy the game more when not save scumming would still save scum if it were easy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1) to define the intended rules of the game for the purposes of achievements.

My longstanding gripe with ironman is that EU 4 itself as a poor history of accurately defining the rules of the game :/

When running into issues where a "bad" decision was made primarily or entirely because the game mislead the player, ironman feels like a one-sided covenant. A promise (at least on paper) to not "cheat", even as the game cheats you in a literal sense (gives false information about the consequences of a choice).

That never sat well with me, and I'm glad there's been effort to reduce it. But even with the fixes, it's simply not true that a player with 100 hours or less and I are operating with the same rules in practice. In theory, we're looking at the same game...but I can stackwipe the AI three+ different ways that player doesn't know about (and has no reason to using only the game presentation), in addition to knowing rule interactions that make winning the fight in the first place possible. There are too many things the game does without telling you.

The issue is less so the concept of ironman, and more so its application to a game in the state of EU 4's presentation. "Ironman" works quite well in roguelikes, or even games like StarCraft. But those have no equivalent to trapping yourself by capturing a fort, or to the advantage conferred by knowing how stack swapping influences ZoC to not only allow you to save that same trapped stack, but also do what LOOKS like cheating while running past maintained forts. They similarly have no parallel to subject stealing (without war) or inflating damage per war with occupation transfer.

 

[Secuter]

I guess my answers would be:

1) to define the intended rules of the game for the purposes of achievements. This may sound silly to you if you’re one of the people who ignores these rules, either by save scumming/cheating or adding (and sticking to) house rules to make the game harder in tough achievement runs. But I think most people when they’re going for an achievement are going to play as well as they can within the rules of the game. So it does matter what those rules are, and allowing free saving and loading changes the rules.

2) this is just my worldview, so you can take it or leave it. But I think most people see themselves as rational agents making fully independent choices, when in practice we are all heavily influenced by the systems we live in. Making save scumming hard and clearly not intended is a nudge to not do it, and makes it less likely that most people will even though they could. Even some/many people who enjoy the game more when not save scumming would still save scum if it were easy.

These are all fair observations for sure. Iron man is made to impose some limitations on save scumming. In other words, to make your actions have consequences.

But I'll circle back to what I said before: who cares how you unlock achievements? Achievements is made to give you "a sense of pride and accomplishment" to quote EA. I don't care how other players unlocks their achievements, whether they save scum or chease the game. I like going for achievements, and I think it would be much more fun to do so with friends or with great mods.

It is from that stand point that I argue that achievements shouldn't be exclusive to Iron man. I just don't see the point.
Naturally, you can still have Iron man for that "intended way of playing the game" or if you're the type of player who wants to play the game in a bit harder way.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

if you're the type of player who wants to play the game in a bit harder way.

i.e. without cheating

 

[MatthewP]

These are all fair observations for sure. Iron man is made to impose some limitations on save scumming. In other words, to make your actions have consequences.

But I'll circle back to what I said before: who cares how you unlock achievements? Achievements is made to give you "a sense of pride and accomplishment" to quote EA. I don't care how other players unlocks their achievements, whether they save scum or chease the game. I like going for achievements, and I think it would be much more fun to do so with friends or with great mods.

It is from that stand point that I argue that achievements shouldn't be exclusive to Iron man. I just don't see the point.
Naturally, you can still have Iron man for that "intended way of playing the game" or if you're the type of player who wants to play the game in a bit harder way.

I sympathize with what you’re saying, and I can understand wanting to go after achievements with friends or with mods. For you, removing the restriction would probably be a good thing. But think about the person who wants to do what I said and play the game as well as possible within the rules. If there is a choice to play with a safety net or without one, a lot of players are going to choose “with.” It’s within the rules and it’s the best choice to get to their goal. They may even have valid reasons having to do with game mechanic issues like @TheMeInTeam. But the end result is they’ll play non-Ironman and get a worse experience.

Now, you might reasonably ask why you should have to give up your preferred way of playing for folks who can’t even self-regulate. I guess I would say that’s just game design. Games and game modes are targeted at certain types of players and deliberately restrict their freedom to create the experience the designers want. In this case, paradox seems to have made a conscious choice that achievement hunting is intended for the type of gamer who wants the “optimize as much as possible within game rules” type of challenge.

edit: I guess to directly answer your question - it’s not that anyone cares how you get your achievements (ok, some people do, but that’s not the real reason). It’s that freeing you up to get achievements your way would remove an important constraint that makes the achievement hunting game mode more fun for most players.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I guess to directly answer your question - it’s not that anyone cares how you get your achievements (ok, some people do, but that’s not the real reason). It’s that freeing you up to get achievements your way would remove an important constraint that makes the achievement hunting game mode more fun for most players.

this. i haven't been able to correctly articulate what i think of this issue but this captures it.

...what's interesting to me is that this is now the third page (and not the first thread) about something that people claim to be meaningless or unimportant. perhaps not, eh?

 

[Damedius]

I actually agree that Paradox should get rid of iron man mode for achievements. Not because of EU4 but more because of Stellaris, a game with game breaking bugs that they don't seem to be able to fix. It's almost as if these bugs are permanently baked into Stellaris at this point and they have no idea how to fix it.

I think in general if you want to have an iron man mode for achievements in your games, then your games need to be almost bug free.

 

[MachopPower69]

Literally this thread is "The game is too hard. Remove a challenge so we can have the ability to cheat and make the achievements a joke feature".

 

[currylambchop]

Literally this thread is "The game is too hard. Remove a challenge so we can have the ability to cheat and make the achievements a joke feature".

What about removing lucky nations or endgame tags, which also disable achievements but many people play with them off

 

[gigau]

This thread is going nowhere...