Map achievements

[sparklerfish]

Ah, map achieves.  Widely regarded to be the most obnoxious of all achieves, and the most likely to be completed by straight cheezin'.  Why?  Because they are ridiculous.  GoI is simply not a big enough game to support many of them, especially the 3v3 and 4v4 maps.  It's hard enough to get a 3v3 lobby to fill, let alone get the option to vote for the map you need AND get enough people in the lobby to vote for it.

So, for suggestions:

1. Place the achievements in order of difficulty.  Have all the 2v2 maps first.  After struggling for hundreds of matches to get my Raid on the Refinery achievements, I was surprised to see Duel at Dawn next, which took me about two days to complete.  Most other achievement categories start with the easiest first and get more challenging as they progress; why not do the same for the maps?

2. Have them all accessible at once (i.e. you don't have to complete them in order to progress and can work on them all at once), similar to the "challenges" achievements.  Since some maps come up so rarely, it seems this would be a fair way to have an actual chance of achieving them without cheesing at all.

3. Make the achievements easier.  Right now they are difficult not because they require skill, but just because they don't happen much.  They don't challenge you to play the game better, they encourage you to sit in a locked lobby with friends surrendering until the map you need comes up as an option.  The achievements could be modified to require a smaller number of matches on 3v3/4v4 maps.  In my over 1400 matches I've played Fight over Firnfeld about 20 times (and I think a couple of those were to help a friend cheese their achieve).  This is not because I'm bad at the game; it's because the maps simply aren't common enough.

I'm not sure what the best solution is, but I do know that the map achievements are by far the most difficult, but not difficult in the way an achievement should be.  They don't test your skill at the game, just your patience.

[Nietzsche's Mustache]

*Insert obligatory "Ermahgerd, only newbs chase achieves. Achieves don't matter and neither do levels, Ermahgerd."*

But in all seriousness, for those of us that do actually get some enjoyment out of chasing achieves, the map achievements are the most annoying. When I was working on Anglean Achieves, I found myself frustrated because I'd sit for days on end in 3v3 lobbies and never once see Anglean come up as an option to even vote for.

I like the idea of making the map achievements unlockable out-of-order. But of course if we did that, we'd finish all 15 in a couple of months. Thus, maybe make the numbers bigger or find more challenging things to do on those achievements. Like, don't just break 30 parts with ramming on Dunes. Make it 150-300 parts. Or switch it to 50 or more 1500 meter kills. Or Both. That way you're likely to actually finish all 15 map achievements in line with the rest of the achievements, you might actually learn something about playing that map and force everyone to crowbar new techniques into their repertoire.

[sparklerfish]

I like the idea of making the map achievements unlockable out-of-order. But of course if we did that, we'd finish all 15 in a couple of months. Thus, maybe make the numbers bigger or find more challenging things to do on those achievements. Like, don't just break 30 parts with ramming on Dunes. Make it 150-300 parts. Or switch it to 50 or more 1500 meter kills. Or Both. That way you're likely to actually finish all 15 map achievements in line with the rest of the achievements, you might actually learn something about playing that map and force everyone to crowbar new techniques into their repertoire.

I don't think that would be the case on 3v3/4v4 maps.  I'm not in-game at the moment, but I'm pretty sure there are some maps that I've really only played a handful of times.  Like I think I've probably played Flayed Hills 10 or so times.  That's not many in 1400 matches.  Even if I'd been working on it all along, I wouldn't have completed the achievement for that one yet.

For the 2v2 maps, I'd be fine with making the achievements harder if they were all unlockable at once.  God only knows how many times I've played Dunes.

[Hummin]

There are quite a few of us stuck on level 14 because getting a Firnfield lobby going is... let's just say not easy.  I strongly agree with re-ordering map achievements to make the common/easier maps come first, if possible.

I'm curious how well the matchmaking system could address this.  As is, it'd certainly make it harder to get into the maps we need.

Now that the lag issues are largely fixed, is there anything else the devs could do to make the rare maps more common?  I could tolerate the current order if I could get one Firnfield per week...

All that said, if we're updating achieves, why not make them more skill-based?  A gunner's "Destroy x balloons" could be "Fire at least 50 lumberjack shots with > 75% accuracy on Northern Fjords".  And a shot would have to be armed distance to count

[Ultimate Pheer]

I have, so far, only played  2 4V4 matches in my entire time.

Maybe it's not much compared to some of you, but many of those matches seem ridiculously difficult to get going.

[Dutch Vanya]

I'm also stuck on the firnfeld achievement as pilot. This is how it went last time i tried to go for 1 of the 3 perfect victories against pilots level 4+. We had a 3v3 lobby going (hard enough as is) with a good team on my side (slightly stacked). So we play the match (very carefully) and eventually we win. We even got 7-0... but ONE of the enemy captains was only level 3, so it didn't count.

[pandatopia]

I think #2 is the best idea, and simplest to implement without "nerfing" the achievements of those who have gotten them.

Simply having them all accessible will make them so much better.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Devs said that
1. Achievements will no longer be count for leveling. They will create a system more based on your gaming statistics (those in the progress page) like count of matches, accouracy, kill/death ratio etc. Progress will be left as it is, so it won't be like "Oh, you have to drop from lvl 14 to 9".
2. Also achievements will probably not be achievable out of order but they will be divided into more groups so it will be easier to get them.
Of course this will not happen this update but maybe the next one or the one after that, so maybe before 2015

Place the achievements in order of difficulty.  Have all the 2v2 maps first.

^This, very much. It's easy to do, it doesn't brake the game AND it encourages more experienced people to look for 3v3 matches rather than just so-so experienced.

[pandatopia]

I am sadface if the achievements are no longer tied to rank.

I worked hard on my rank and I want something to keep working towards.

Kill/death ratio and matches played I think are HORRIBLE level indicators.

Many ships are disable ships, etc. Many times as an engie my score is like 0.2 because I was shooting the entire time and/or we're doing well. I think this move to that would make levels super obnoxious and people would be even less likely to try to "even" out teams.

[Queso]

We are looking into ways to reward players that ranked up through the achievements before any new system is put in place. Any work is still in early design though.

[pandatopia]

We are looking into ways to reward players that ranked up through the achievements before any new system is put in place. Any work is still in early design though.

What about those that would still like to rank up?

I think the issue here is being unable to obtain what others have - ever.

A lot (I think!) of people are already somewhat disappointed at the kickstarter costumes being exclusive - simply because we bought through a different vendor =o

[Hoja Lateralus]

I undestand it this way:
-the level cap (1-15) stays as it is
-whatever progress you made by current rules stays, so you lvl will still be the same (and some reward that Queso mentioned, maybe an outfit or something)
-when you want to progress further you do it on new rules (but if someone has lower lvl according to new rules does it mean he/she has to "catch up" to his/her current new-rules lvl?)
-achievement system will stay in it's (more or less) current state and will be used to unlock things; again - no progress will be lost

The big question is - how different this system can be and how it will affect the community. For instance - it may become much easier or much harder to lvl-up which will cause lots of trouble. This is very delicate buisiness that will require a lot of thinking and testing. Also - it's just very hard to "measure" one's skills because GOIO is a game with teamwork at its' core. So for instance - you can say that gunner's job is to destroy ships. Logical? Sure. But on the other hand in most popular combo - metamidion - gunner doesn't actually kill ships because he/she handles the gatling and engineer (gungineer) handles the mortar/flak which does the killing. This is just an example. Count of won games? Well just find a good crew and start noob-bashing fest. Since it's currently just more of an idea to explore than fixed decision and mechanics let's just hope for the best. Maybe we should try "Call for Leveling Changes Ideas" topic just like the one with gunner ammos? I guess all we can do for Muse right now is just throwing ideas and hope one of them will be good enough.