Achievements - what's your game?

[Pickle]

What's your game as far as achievements is concerned?

Personally, I'm trying to maintain a balance in skills across all three disciplines and keep all levels within one or two points of each other.  I'm hoping this balanced approach will keep me mindful of the other two roles I'm not playing in a match and how we all work together as a crew.

I find myself very wary of prospective team mates on a pick-up game that have raced one role far ahead of the others, Gunners at 1:6:1, Engineers at 2:1:6 or Pilots at 6:3:1.  I can't quite trust they'll have the overall crew priorities at the front of their minds if they haven't played all the roles at least as far as L3 - by which point you have to have demonstrated all the core skills.

I said it on the old forum and I'll say it again, the advantage of achievement based levelling for assessing prospective crew mates is that it's like a UK driving license - if they've got one, you know they've learnt to reverse park properly at least once.

[Kyren]

I find myself quite unhappy with the state of my achievements. Now Captaining and Engineering are by far my favorite roles, and as a Gunner I just always feel a little.. limited. Of course it's nice to blast that wretched galleon in front of you to pieces, or see that "Kyren destroyed this and that" on the upper left part of the screen, but.. just my personal preference.

I totally agree with you on the topic, though. It looks much more convincing to see that the player that just joined your crew has had a share of playing every role, and will understand at least the basics of what is required of all the other crewmembers. That's basically why I've reluctantly given in to playing gunner at times. I'm able to choose the right ammo for the right moment and gun, but more so because I skimmed trough all of that when I began to outfit my ships and tactics for them. That still didn't prepare me for different turning and muzzle speed, having to wait for the Engineer to extinguish my gun because I wasn't aware enough to switch to heatsink in time, etc. It really helps to get a somewhat decent level in all the roles, and I hope I can raise my Gunner level somewhat in the matches to come.

[N-Sunderland]

I used to only do engi, but I learned that other roles in the process from shooting guns here and there and watching my captains. I've levelled up a decent bit in gunner, but I only reached pilot level 2 two days ago.

Though really, I'm not much of an achievement farmer myself.

[SeaMichelle]

I don't go for achievements. I personally find the leveling system a little dumb. Why are we expected to farm for these achievements to level up? It makes your crew upset because your time is spent of leveling instead of fixing or gunning or flying...

[N-Sunderland]

I don't go for achievements. I personally find the leveling system a little dumb. Why are we expected to farm for these achievements to level up? It makes your crew upset because your time is spent of leveling instead of fixing or gunning or flying...

There isn't very much else to base the system on. And most of the achievements are harmless, and can be reached more or less normally (except for dumb ones like "Buff 100 balloons"). I always look at the map, ship, and gun loadout and see if I can work on achievements without harming my team. I will admit, though, that I take liberties from time to time (charged rounds flamer... yeah...).

[SeaMichelle]

There isn't very much else to base the system on.

That's not entirely true. I fix/rebuild hundreds of things on a daily basis with no reward other than the fact that my ship may or may not be destroyed in the next few seconds. I know it would revert to a leveling system that's used to DEATH, but I'd prefer a system in which you level based on what you fix or shoot instead of having people whore achievements for a reward.

[N-Sunderland]

One of the great things about the current system though is that it requires the player to learn and perform various tasks, and levels them up based on that. In a way it helps them learn the basics of the game.

[Pickle]

There isn't very much else to base the system on.

That's not entirely true. I fix/rebuild hundreds of things on a daily basis with no reward other than the fact that my ship may or may not be destroyed in the next few seconds. I know it would revert to a leveling system that's used to DEATH, but I'd prefer a system in which you level based on what you fix or shoot instead of having people whore achievements for a reward.

Playing the way you want to will get you to pretty much L3 in each role, above that you will have to go out of your way to demonstrate specific skills.  If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.  I's prefer a 3:3:3 crew member in any role to a 1:1:6 gunner (who I imagine as screaming for his gun to be fixed/extinguished whilst not helping the rest of the crew to fix the hull and balloon whilst the ship bounces across the ground - been there, got the tee shirt, he ain't coming back on my crew).

You don't have to achievement farm as such, but I think nothing of asking a captain or team mates if they wouldn't mind if I buffed, or if I could use a particular weapon/ammo in order to tick something off the list once in a while.  I'll happily let a crew member do this when I'm captaining, but it's courtesy they ask so the crew doesn't turn out to be entirely made up of engineers queuing to buff the balloon.

I've even found some unusual crew/ship/weapon combinations that work well through this route (who'd have thought replacing the second gunner with a buffing engineer could be so effective on a hwacha-flak Galleon?).

[Clara Skyborn]

And most of the achievements are harmless, and can be reached more or less normally (except for dumb ones like "Buff 100 balloons").

Looks like that one wasn't too popular. (Which one was it, btw? I'm pretty sure it's been changed in this update, but checking my revision history I can't find which particular achievement used to have that goal.)

What other achievements do you think are dumb? Please share, sometimes it's hard to tell in advance what's going to be a natural fit for gameplay as it evolves and what's going to end up really counterproductive and taking people out of their way to grind. I know I've made some wrong guesses, and I tried to correct a bunch of them with the revisions in this latest pass. Pilot multiclassing got a big overhaul, for instance, so that pilots should almost never have to leave the wheel any more to get those. This was admittedly a legacy from our early alpha and beta testing days, when ships were often run with skeleton AI crews and pilots were ditching the wheel much more frequently to get things done than it turned out was reasonable in live, fully-crewed competitive matches.

So what achievements make you go "oh no, not this again?" And what do you think of the revisions in this update?

[Pickle]

Buff 50 balloons is still there, fix XX items with Mallet is still there for Gunner (and Pilot, I think), and there may be one for a Gunner to extinguish fires (my memory is struggling to remember what may have changed since the update).  The spotting achievements are proving a real pain - in particular the >750m range one, because the spotting system is just not that good and a clear view of the opponent refuses to spot.  That's a common problem reported on crew chat.

I don't think the Engineer achievements have enough multiclassing - this may sound like an odd comment, but an Engineer is regarded as a secondary gunner about 40% of the time.

[N-Sunderland]

I don't think the Engineer achievements have enough multiclassing - this may sound like an odd comment, but an Engineer is regarded as a secondary gunner about 40% of the time.

Don't you dare make my life harder

I personally find the Anglean one annoying. You just don;t get enough chances to spot far-away ships on it.

[Furrymessiah]

Playing the way you want to will get you to pretty much L3 in each role, above that you will have to go out of your way to demonstrate specific skills.  If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.  I's prefer a 3:3:3 crew member in any role to a 1:1:6 gunner (who I imagine as screaming for his gun to be fixed/extinguished whilst not helping the rest of the crew to fix the hull and balloon whilst the ship bounces across the ground - been there, got the tee shirt, he ain't coming back on my crew).

I think you're taking the wrong tack. The community this game has is, for the most part, very welcoming and willing to learn. If a player is good at one thing, but doesn't act as a team player, don't write him off as a bad egg--teach him to be better! Common sense isn't common sense if someone doesn't get it. This isn't DOTA 2 here. Let's not make things toxic just because you couldn't immediately get someone to do what you wanted.

Crews in this game aren't a democracy, but they're not a dictatorship, either. Nobody wants to play with a captain that demands you ask "How high?" When he barks "Jump!" Our job as game veterans is to educate other players, to be the "community managers" in each match, each ship. If they don't listen to your advice, then yes, you're justified. But to just say "You're an ass" and refuse to play with someone, BEFORE you've taken the time to try and make them a better player? That's obnoxious.

[Shukketsushi]

I've been an engineer since I started playing the game. I leveled rapidly and then not at all because I didn't really pay attention to the achievements. I'm much more interested in keeping my ship up than leveling. I know enough piloting to take over if a captain leaves mid match and enough gunning to gun when it's appropriate for me to do so. Otherwise, I keep us from crashing and burning; that's what I'm good at and what I prefer to do. I haven't really leveled anything else.

I don't nit-pick with anyone else's levels, unless they're 1:1:1 and piloting, in which case I ask if they've spent any time in the sandbox. You need to know what you can reasonably ask from your crew if you're captain. You need to know the range of your weapons and you need to know the how taxing a situation is on your engineers.

I am, however, used to dealing with a crew that is literally paid in real life to do what they do in game.

[Pickle]

Playing the way you want to will get you to pretty much L3 in each role, above that you will have to go out of your way to demonstrate specific skills.  If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.  I's prefer a 3:3:3 crew member in any role to a 1:1:6 gunner (who I imagine as screaming for his gun to be fixed/extinguished whilst not helping the rest of the crew to fix the hull and balloon whilst the ship bounces across the ground - been there, got the tee shirt, he ain't coming back on my crew).

I think you're taking the wrong tack. The community this game has is, for the most part, very welcoming and willing to learn. If a player is good at one thing, but doesn't act as a team player, don't write him off as a bad egg--teach him to be better! Common sense isn't common sense if someone doesn't get it. This isn't DOTA 2 here. Let's not make things toxic just because you couldn't immediately get someone to do what you wanted.

Crews in this game aren't a democracy, but they're not a dictatorship, either. Nobody wants to play with a captain that demands you ask "How high?" When he barks "Jump!" Our job as game veterans is to educate other players, to be the "community managers" in each match, each ship. If they don't listen to your advice, then yes, you're justified. But to just say "You're an ass" and refuse to play with someone, BEFORE you've taken the time to try and make them a better player? That's obnoxious.

The problem crews are those that don't listen.  I take it you only ever play with an established crew never to have come across this problem.  When your gunner sits on the fprward gun on a Junker and you ask him to drop to the lower deck for a bradside pass - and he ignores you, and even starts to complain about how he can no longer shoot anything?

I'm patient, I'll even start "new player" games to give some newbies a grounding to make up for the poor tutorial support and have been doing so on-and-off for a couple of months.  But there's a limit to patience when the other player doesn't want to play as a crew/team.

I don't want even want a  kick option, everyone gets the benefit of the doubt - but I have very low expectations of players with unbalanced levels.  Captains need to gun to understand fire arcs, depression and elevation restrictions, Gunners need to understand engineering priorities, and Engineers need to know a little of everything and have a situational awareness to know what to do and when.

[Shinkurex]

while I agree that it is good to have understanding of each role class, I do not think that one needs to spend the time leveling in a skill that they may not be suited for, or even like to play (probably, b/c i'm pretty much one of those guys ). The main factor for this game has always been, and will always be teamwork... I have played on countless crews where communication was lacking, and I would have to sub in as an engie while actually being a gunner. We lose. As long as your captain is effectively utilizing chat/mic, you will win out most of the time.