Suggestion: healer-based incentives/rewards

[Rymm]

Nothing should be limited. It's a...horrid, for inability to use far stronger words without a ban, thing that's being cheered for on mainly by the select few people that were born into the wrong species. They clearly planned on being peacocks.

Well, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but I think on this matter we'll just have to agree to disagree. I feel that occasionally, exceptional skill or commitment should be recognized and rewarded. And I am talking about very, very, few select cases here. Things like PvP seasonal rankings or world-first savage kills (not even sure if SE does anything for the latter, it's more to illustrate the type of rare circumstances I'm referencing). And I say that as a player who has neither the skill nor inclination to pursue prestigious achievements such as that. But I'm also not going to try to demonize people who do put in the effort and would like something special to show for it.

For those select few that get it and enjoy it, there are TONS of people that don't give the slightest bit of care about preening their feathers in front of random strangers they'll probably never again meet in digital world, let alone real one, and just want to play the game.

If said hypothetical players “just want to play the game” and truly don’t care about “preening” in front of other players, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so; regardless of what achievements or rewards anyone else has. Again, I don’t see why hard work and effort should not be rewarded just because not everyone will want to or be able to do the same. Again I would like to reiterate that I am talking about a very small number of special cases here. Such achievements should not be a commonplace occurrence; maybe less than 1% of the achievements in game already follow this model and it should stay that way.

I have literally zero idea what you mean by this. I never spoke about rewards of any sort and I sure as...well, ya know...didn't even remotely imply making anything easier or "worse". I did say that no ridiculous layer should be added to the achievements like getting commendations or doing X duty Y times. You reached the highest level achievement on them?! Good for you! Now work on another type.

I apologize if you misunderstood me, that particular line was more directed at the poster below you who suggested that they continue to give rewards but that they shouldn’t be items. I probably should have quoted him to avoid confusion.

As for “ridiculous layers” added to achievements… well what constitutes ‘ridiculous’ is nothing beyond your opinion. I mean, you’re perfectly entitled to have it, but it doesn’t make it either an objective fact or more valid than my own opinion that it’s perfectly acceptable to have a handful of achievements that do take a long time or a lot of effort to accomplish. Which is really the crux of our disagreement.

The next paragraph of your post was fairly contradictory and I’m afraid it didn’t make much sense to me. You claim you aren’t “arrogant enough to think that my way of thinking trumps all” and yet you talk down to me and say that you “don't care in the slightest” about what I think. I’m certainly not saying you should, but it the spirits of the two sentences are rather conflicting. I was under the impression that we were both just stating our opinions. At least, that’s all I was trying to do. I would never dream of making blanket statements about large swaths of the playerbase, or take it upon myself to speak for a group of people, with no substantiating evidence whatsoever beyond my own personal conjectures, or topping it all off by presenting the whole argument it as if it were fact.

The balance between attracting new players and retaining veterans is a tricky one. I do not envy the people at SE who are in charge of managing it. People are complex; what attracts one person is almost certainly guaranteed to turn off another. Eventually it boils down to a numbers game- keeping more people coming in than there are going out. Would having long-term achievements keep some achievement-oriented people subbed (especially between patches) so that they could work on it? Maybe. Would having long-term achievements discourage some new people and contribute to them giving up the game? Maybe. Would adding an achievement for 4 or even 5k commendations kill FF14? I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it.

My stance on the whole issue is simply this: There is nothing wrong with achievements or rewards that take a long time or a great deal of effort to obtain. There will never be a consensus among the playerbase on where the line between ‘difficult’ and ‘too difficult’ falls; it is entirely up to SE to make that decision. Like anyone else, I have my personal opinion on the matter, but I’m also willing to accept wherever SE chooses to draw it.

[kikix12]

I feel that occasionally, exceptional skill or commitment should be recognized and rewarded. And I am talking about very, very, few select cases here.

Except what I am against is not rewarding skills, but rewarding things that have nothing to do with them. You don't need to be skilled to finish a dungeon for 1mln times. You need only...time and willingness. You don't need skill to get 10000 commendations. You just need to run a lot of stuff as tank or healer and not wipe the party at every opportunity. It's actually hilariously simple if you just do dungeons. Again, it's just time.

Things like PvP seasonal rankings or world-first savage kills (not even sure if SE does anything for the latter, it's more to illustrate the type of rare circumstances I'm referencing).

I have no issue with trophy. As in...the actual, trophy item. I have issue with other stuff like mounts and such, as well as achievements tied to specific feasts (like "Win Feast Season X"), but not ones tied to feasts in general (for example "Win a season of Feast"). I have no issue with time advantage, like, get the mount now, others can try to get it six months later (paying tons of the PvP tokens for example).

Ultimately this is game that is constantly "active". A person that bought it at 2015 and a person that will buy it now get two completely different games because of all the limited stuff, even though both buy the same "game", pay the same subscription (ignoring here the legacy players) and the same prices for stuff on the item mall.

And I say that as a player who has neither the skill nor inclination to pursue prestigious achievements such as that. But I'm also not going to try to demonize people who do put in the effort and would like something special to show for it.

I'm not demonizing people that put in effort. I am demonizing the game not allowing people to put the effort due to limited form of something. Someone could put tons more effort than the winner of first season of Feast, but no matter how much effort he puts and how much skill he have, he won't get the glamour, mounts and whatever else was available then. This is not a problem of effort. It's a problem of "banning" the very attempt. And as far as I am interested, having something a while before others is more than "special" enough. At least when you consider that we're not talking about trivializing the items (at least, not me) so effort would still need to be put forth.

Another thing I'm against is telling a new player "Hey, here is a nice little game, but since it's X years old, there are achievements that you won't get unless you spend five+ years playing it. And there are several of them. Have fun.". Because that shuns these players away if they care about achievements. And seeing how popular achievements are, there are MANY people that care.

It may not be the only or even main reason, but it may be the final straw.

If said hypothetical players “just want to play the game” and truly don’t care about “preening” in front of other players, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so; regardless of what achievements or rewards anyone else has.

That is wrong. Players that just want to play the game may want that cool looking mount too. Not to brag, not to "preen"...but simply because they like it. They don't care whether they are special or whether everyone else have them. They just care about the fact that THEY like it and that they CAN'T get it, no matter how hard they try. Or in case of super-bloated achievements...they can't get it for years. In which you can get tons of cool stuff by doing other games.

The effort to value of the items is just out of whack at that time.

As for “ridiculous layers” added to achievements… well what constitutes ‘ridiculous’ is nothing beyond your opinion.

If you compare two items of some practical function, for example safety boots...is it subjective which is better?! No.

Items have objective values. Even digital ones. When one games offer a "value" of one item for 3 months of work while another offers a similar item for 3 years of work, there's a disproportion there.
Now, that on its own doesn't speak much of anything. However when you compare these items with many other games...it becomes a lot more clear. You can take less time to get top of the line items in very competitive games riddled with win-to-play microtransactions than some of the achievements that I've seen in games that did follow your opinion that new, higher tiers of achievements should be continuously made for the veteran players.

When you have to put enough time into getting a single achievement that you'd earn enough money to make an mid-tier game...clearly there's something wrong there. That's rather objective, even if value of the thing called "achievement" in itself is subjective.

And again, I have never spoken about effort of any sort. Achievement is, by design, something you get with some sort of work. Insinuating that I am against requiring effort is simply...weird, to say the least. But time =/= effort =/= skills.

You claim you aren’t “arrogant enough to think that my way of thinking trumps all” and yet you talk down to me and say that you “don't care in the slightest” about what I think.

I don't care in the slightest what you think is a progression or not because if I did, it'd be implying that it actually is somehow more important over all the other. And sorry, it's not.

What I do care is that there are people that think like you, then there are people that thing that 'glamour' is the end-game, there are those that think that collecting all rolls or all minions or all mounts is end-game. As such there are those for which progression is winning and getting unique cards from further NPC triple triad players, getting every further roll or minion etc. There are those for which progression is in simply achievements.

You represent a very small group, because of the massive diversity. EVERY group is very small. As such, compromises need be made. And what is a better compromise than what is actually known to increase player retention?!

Would having long-term achievements keep some achievement-oriented people subbed (especially between patches) so that they could work on it? Maybe.

Doubtful. Sorry, but I do not think there really is anyone out there with all the achievements. I doubt I'm wrong.

If a person is interested in getting the achievements and that is their goal...they're going to have those goals for quite a while yet.

Now, it could help prevent some people to leave that only care about limited content and simply like collecting achievements on the way. But those people often are so volatile that they can leave on a whim no matter what you do. Turning off masses of new players to have a chance at keeping them is simply inefficient.
I can say that from experience. I am one such volatile person. There's nothing that a developer can do to keep me, only things they can do to make me leave sooner. I'm not going to leave over any single thing because I don't care about any single thing. But as a result, it's simply not possible to hold my attention for longer without a game custom-made for me.
And yes, this is both an anecdotal 'evidence' as well as a very obvious opinion, and nothing else.

Would having long-term achievements discourage some new people and contribute to them giving up the game? Maybe.

It's not a maybe. MMO's are not something that exists for only the past year or two. Nor is psychology. When people are put before a brick wall that takes way too much effort, they are very prone to just go the other way. One thing up to debate is however how many people does that constitute. That's not something I can give numbers to.

But I can stipulate that it is significant enough percentage that MMO developers either change or design their games in such a way as to avoid doing that.

Would adding an achievement for 4 or even 5k commendations kill FF14? I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it.

I doubt it too, but there are many spots between "dying" and "thriving". What I am arguing is that it would unnecessarily make it have lower player retention in general, because it is more of a deterrent for new players than it is an incentive for veteran players.

[Rymm]

Except what I am against is not rewarding skills, but rewarding things that have nothing to do with them. You don't need to be skilled to finish a dungeon for 1mln times. You need only...time and willingness. You don't need skill to get 10000 commendations. You just need to run a lot of stuff as tank or healer and not wipe the party at every opportunity. It's actually hilariously simple if you just do dungeons. Again, it's just time.

You conveniently ignored the “or commitment” part of the sentence you quoted. If someone wants to devote that much time and effort to something, there is nothing wrong with rewarding them.

I have no issue with trophy. As in...the actual, trophy item. I have issue with other stuff like mounts and such, as well as achievements tied to specific feasts (like "Win Feast Season X")

So you are okay with housing enthusiasts not being able to collect every housing item in game, but not with mount enthusiasts or achievement hunters being held to the same limitations? Why do they get left out of your crusade to allow everyone else to attempt to obtain everything they want? You're free to think how you want to on the different rewards, but this double standard just really undermines your entire argument when you arbitrarily pick and choose what should be available and what should be limited. It made it very difficult for me to take the rest of your post seriously.

Ultimately this is game that is constantly "active". A person that bought it at 2015 and a person that will buy it now get two completely different games because of all the limited stuff, even though both buy the same "game", pay the same subscription (ignoring here the legacy players) and the same prices for stuff on the item mall.

Alright, since you opened this door, I’ll go ahead and share my thoughts, though we’re getting off point here.

You’re right. SE has already made it clear how they feel on the matter. They already sell “different” versions of the same game. Feast trophies are not available once the season is over. Period. Seasonal event items are only available during their original event or on the MogStation for real money. Whether you agree with the practice or not is moot- SE is willing to do it. My original comment (remember what this topic started about?) was nothing more than expressing support for an item that would always be available to everyone for nothing more than an investment of time and effort.

I'm not demonizing people that put in effort.

I never said you were. I said you were “demonizing people who do put in the effort and would like something special to show for it.” Your strongly, but carefully worded comment made it abundantly clear that you don’t like the idea of people openly displaying their achievements if they aren’t still available to the entire playerbase.

It's a...horrid, for inability to use far stronger words without a ban, thing that's being cheered for on mainly by the select few people that were born into the wrong species. They clearly planned on being peacocks.

People who want to have something special to show for their hard work are animals notorious for their vanity. Well, if you “have no issue with trophy” that the Feast seasons reward… welcome to the flock, I guess?

And seeing how popular achievements are, there are MANY people that care.

Admittedly, it’s not very important, but I’m just curious where are you getting your data on this from? Is there somewhere that tracks players who are actively hunting achievements and not just accumulating them through normal play? And if they are as popular as you claim, why exactly should they stop having rewards attached to them?

That is wrong.

Thank you for your opinion. Players “may want”… well darn near anything. Or everything. They may want to go from level one to the cap in five minutes. They may want to play as a giant mechaziod robot race. Theorizing about the infinite myriad of things that players “may want” in order to stay with the game would be exhausting and pointless to this conversation.

If you compare two items of some practical function, for example safety boots...is it subjective which is better?! No.

This analogy is… insufficient at best. For starters, we aren’t comparing items with a practical functions. In addition to that, it also depends on the items in question and how they are being compared. If the boots are the exact same except one pair is red and the other is blue, then it’s definitely subjective.

Items have objective values.

I can’t agree with this at all. Items, all items, digital or not, have subjective value. They are only worth what people are willing to pay/give/do for them. It’s not up to you to dictate if something is “worth it” to anyone else. You could make the argument that statistically speaking, X item is only worth Y investment to Z% of players but, I would need to see actual numbers and references before giving any credence whatsoever to your claim. Please don’t take it as personal slight, it’s just my nature to need to source any “fact” based claims I read on the internet before I believe them; too easy (and common) for people to present their own conjectures/beliefs/wishes as “fact”. At this point we are branching into the philosophical here and I feel like we are getting way too far off-topic.

But time =/= effort =/= skills.

That skill does not equal time or effort is fairly obvious and I never claimed otherwise. But what good is time without effort? It’s not as if we’re talking about an achievement you receive just for existing. There is clearly effort involved in playing all those dungeons, let alone in doing so with the bare minimum of skill that is sufficient to result in commendations. I’ve been playing since 2014 and haven’t gotten the 3k comm achievement yet, because I haven’t put in the effort to do so. I’m sure there are plenty of people who joined well after me who used DF enough and were competent enough to have gotten the Parade Chocobo a long time ago.

I don't care in the slightest what you think is a progression or not because if I did, it'd be implying that it actually is somehow more important over all the other. And sorry, it's not.

I think you are confused by what I mean by ‘progression.’ I mean the ability to advance in the game and experience all of the content. Someone can be mad for collecting mounts, but they will never obtain them all if they don’t reach the level cap. Not grinding enough DF commendations for the Parade Chocobo will not bar you from anything except the Parade Chocobo. Allowing new players to quickly unlock and access all available aspects of the game is important and things like bonus xp and easily obtained tome gear facilitates this. Allowing new players to quickly and easily obtain all rewards already implemented in the game when they started is much less important, in my opinion, than allowing them easy access to the means of achieving them.

And what is a better compromise than what is actually known to increase player retention?!

Source please? I’m sorry but, for reasons I already explained above, I can’t take these types of claims seriously without one. Assertions like “Everyone knows it” or “It should be obvious” just don’t cut it.

Doubtful. Sorry, but I do not think there really is anyone out there with all the achievements. I doubt I'm wrong.

I’m sorry, I’m confused. I thought you said that achievements were popular? You claimed that there are “MANY people that care” about achievements. So if there are enough new players who care sufficiently about achievements to be turned off of a game for them for being too hard, how can you be so dismissive of achievements' power to retain players? That’s quite the contradiction.

One thing up to debate is however how many people does that constitute. That's not something I can give numbers to.

I can agree with this, as it’s basically what I said in the final paragraph of my last post. The thing of it is, SE has already established precedent for both long grind achievements and limited rewards. Both are already in game in very small amounts and SE has not yet shown any inclination of changing their model. I’m not now, nor have I ever argued for excessive additions to either of these, but I don’t take issue with their existence. And I don’t think adding them in “once in a while”, as I said in very first post, will make the game suffer unduly. You’re free to have your own opinion on the matter, but let’s not pretend that either of us can objectively prove it.

[kikix12]

You conveniently ignored the “or commitment” part of the sentence you quoted. If someone wants to devote that much time and effort to something, there is nothing wrong with rewarding them.

I didn't ignore it. That's pretty much what we keep on talking about since the very beginning...I just had no reason to specifically talk about it at that point when half of the post further down was talking about it (again).

So you are okay with housing enthusiasts not being able to collect every housing item in game, but not with mount enthusiasts or achievement hunters being held to the same limitations?

You can get the trophy on EVERY Feast. Furthermore, by parallel to the real world.

I've admittedly never saw the trophy itself so I do not know whether it have in any way discernible Feast traits, but I'd imagine that it is either generic item with just "A winner of Feast Season X" somewhere, or a custom item with the name of the actual winner.

You cannot exactly get something that's literally custom made for a person even in real life world, unless you buy it from them (cue here...the Trophy should be tradeable and unbondable). And if it's the generic version...I point you to the "you can get the trophy on EVERY Feast".

You're free to think how you want to on the different rewards, but this double standard just really undermines your entire argument when you arbitrarily pick and choose what should be available and what should be limited. It made it very difficult for me to take the rest of your post seriously.

"I have no issue with..." means that I wouldn't cause a ruckus of it being limited. But I would not have a problem with it being freely available either. As far as the looks of the item goes.

The "Winner of Season X" simply cannot be non-limited if it is part of the trophy. I take deception, fraud and such very seriously, and though this is a game, the Feast is actually a real competition between real people. Someone being able to get a trophy about winning some season of Feast without winning it is not a problem as far as the items looks goes, but it is a problem as far as the real life implications of that meaning go.

No other item in this game have in any way, shape or form such a nature. Nothing points to being given to a real-life winner of a real-life competition of any sort. That is the difference. It's not the in-game item that is limited, it's the out-of-game connection that it have.

My original comment (remember what this topic started about?) was nothing more than expressing support for an item that would always be available to everyone for nothing more than an investment of time and effort.

Eh...You do realize that I can go back and just read all of our posts, right?!

About comm rewards, this should definitely be a thing. The longer the game runs, the more people will rack up comms. It only makes sense to add a new reward every once in a while.

This is the specific part of that post that I responded with. What I said in response was strictly that adding achievements on top of the current achievements is bad because of its effect on new players.

Then you went ahead and responded with:

I can acknowledge and agree that new players are important in order to keep the game alive, let alone thriving. That's just basic common sense.

What I feel we fundamentally disagree on, is the idea of whether or not all rewards (every last achievement, item, title, etc., etc.) ever placed in the game should be easily obtainable by every player. I think most should be. But some should also be very difficult and/or time consuming. Some should even be limited.

And:

It's a cosmetic item; it has no material bearing on the game except to say "I put in X effort at Y activity". It shouldn't be equated to helping new players "catch up" to veterans either in leveling (xp bonuses) or gearing (removing weekly tome or loot caps); both things they need in order to actually progress through and experience all of the game's content.

Hardly anything here is in any way relevant to what I said. This is where our topic went off the original suggestion and into the "fairness" of achievements as a whole.

So why are you now insinuating that I forgot what this thread was about originally when you're the one that not only derailed it (and I have a bad habit of responding to arguments done against me if I consider them wrong, regardless of topic), but you also did add stuff up into my post that never was there (all that stuff about "effort" or "skills")?!

If you wanted to hold onto the topic you should have made arguments as to why adding an item that is more time consuming to get than achievements before it despite having no added value (a mount is a mount, esthetics are subjective) would not have a net negative effect on the community. You didn't. Not even once.

As for the part I omitted about Square Enix making their decision etc...yes, I know. And I hate this part of the game for it just like I hate it for just about every other MMO. I can't stop it, but neither do I need to start liking it just because it works for others. This game have other values and I play it as long as the positives sufficiently outweigh the negatives. Simple as that.
But I am still triggered when players themselves actually ask for MORE limited content.

I never said you were. I said you were “demonizing people who do put in the effort and would like something special to show for it.” Your strongly, but carefully worded comment made it abundantly clear that you don’t like the idea of people openly displaying their achievements if they aren’t still available to the entire playerbase.

I think you should stop trying to read in-between the lines when there is naught. Over the course of that post I have answered every part of that phrase in more than one way. I will not repeat myself over and over within a single post just because someone may want to try and manipulate stuff out of context.

So I'll "sum it up" in one, nice place.

1) I am not demonizing effort.
2) I am demonizing the design that produced limited items (and by extensions, those that PROMOTE that).
3) I consider time advantage a sufficient "bragging rights" reward for those people that want to show off being better or more devoted at something than the rest. Therefore permanently limited items are no longer necessary.

I don't care whether someone shows happiness at having something rare or such (unless it becomes obnoxious, but obnoxious behaviors are called that because they are universally hated). I do care when someone asks for MORE such stuff being made. And by limited, I mean permanently limited, not limited for a time. I have no issue with delayed releases for others, even pretty long delays like a year or two. It will be eventually available within the possibility of someone still playing the game.

People who want to have something special to show for their hard work are animals notorious for their vanity. Well, if you “have no issue with trophy” that the Feast seasons reward… welcome to the flock, I guess?

Sorry, I don't care about the trophy one bit. Even if I'd got it I'd probably just drop it into storehouse and never take it out. But as to why I can understand it being treated differently...look above.

Admittedly, it’s not very important, but I’m just curious where are you getting your data on this from? Is there somewhere that tracks players who are actively hunting achievements and not just accumulating them through normal play?

Honestly, I don't really understand your question. It may be because you limited yourself to Final Fantasy XIV while I never said "in this game". Achievements are in many games and it's a very large selling point of games on Steam, Playstation etc. If you'll find a "bigger" title without any, you're almost sure to see several people asking "Achievements when?". Achievements, as a part of popular culture, are important.

There are people that actively hunt for them, that is certain. How many do however is not relevant to what I said. That is not what "MANY people care" means. You seem to be working only on extremes, but there are people that "care" as in they enjoy doing content more when there are achievements, but will not do content they dislike specifically for them, nor will necessarily abandon a content when there are no longer achievements for it. Again, it's a "from, to" basis. Not "a or b".

And if they are as popular as you claim, why exactly should they stop having rewards attached to them?

You're asking me a question not relevant to anything at all from anything I posted in this thread. Please, do post a quote from my post where I said "remove rewards from achievements" or something to that notion. I'm pretty confident in that I have said, ultimately, only two things.

1) No single achievement should take a long time to obtain for an active player.
2) No limited (in-game) rewards should be utilized.

Those are two separate points. You're the one that somehow combined them of your own volition, I never did.

Thank you for your opinion. Players “may want”… well darn near anything. Or everything.

Too bad, but you cannot turn that comment around. That part of the post was specifically about those players that just want to play the game for fun, with no competition or anything of that sort added.

That in no way ties in with all the exaggerated examples you gave, because ultimately...everyone is supposed to play this game for fun first and foremost (or any game for that matter). Limiting items does interfere with that most basic functionality of the product, while in case of glamour, there is no relevance balance-wise to either case. In other words, it is an artificial block that hits the target audience.

This analogy is… insufficient at best. For starters, we aren’t comparing items with a practical functions.

Well, I won't get into more depth here. That'd extend this post way further and I doubt there will be any value in this discussion. This is just a note since you seem to like to accuse me of "conveniently omitting" something.

In addition to that, it also depends on the items in question and how they are being compared. If the boots are the exact same except one pair is red and the other is blue, then it’s definitely subjective.

This however I can answer since it's short and simple. You can objectively say which of these two is better. Neither, they are objectively the same. Again, there is more than 0's and 1's in the world.

I can’t agree with this at all. Items, all items, digital or not, have subjective value. They are only worth what people are willing to pay/give/do for them. It’s not up to you to dictate if something is “worth it” to anyone else.

I used a system of comparison, not a system of fixed value. There are things, like quantity and certain parts of quality, that can be objectively described even within art and related media. Including games. It is true that comparing subjective stuff like the story is doomed to failure (even though it is possible to compare the statistics of how many people that had contact had rated it higher...that's how metacritics and similar operate in a simplified matter). However even for games there are objective criteria that can be utilized.

Also, items have BOTH objective and subjective value at once. It is a basic aspect of marketing to balance them to maximize the revenue by not only offering something practical, but also as universally beautiful as possible. On that note, yes, there are actual, scientific studies into "beauty", which is supposed subjective, and a specialist in the field can make something more generally attractive 100% of the time through working on the design. There are certain deeply embedded traits in humans that make them attracted to certain things. Like, the more symmetrical the face of a human is the more beautiful it is to almost anyone. Hence why fictional characters that usually are perfectly symmetrical are considered so attractive in general.

As for the practical traits of video games, there is the value based off of the work load. For example an entire expansion is worth WAY more than a single mount, so asking for the same price for both of these is either overpricing on the mount or underpricing on the expansion. Usually it's the former.

It is through marketing, psychological tricks that people overpay for items. Why do you think that prices in shops often are X.99 instead of X+1, so for example 4,99 instead of 5?! Because it's making people think that the second item is noticeably cheaper.

Similarly selling something in many small chunks worth 50 cents for a total of 30 dollars will, at a first glance, seem cheaper than a bundle of all of them for 20 dollars. You would be surprised how many people DO fall for such petty tricks.

That's why items in the item malls of games are sold for several dollars even though they are objectively not worth it. It is simple psychology. Each purchase is considered separate and for an average person earning a lot of money (or decent money but in dollars/euro/pounds) it is insignificant enough to not worry about paying that "small extra". Even if that compounds into paying several thousandths of dollars for content that is, in its quality and quantity, obtainable for 50 dollars with an expansion.

And yes, I will end this part of discussion here as well. Feel free to consider or dismiss it as you want.

That skill does not equal time or effort is fairly obvious and I never claimed otherwise. But what good is time without effort?

I do not understand the correlation. Ultimate shows that significant effort can give great satisfaction with minimum time (ultimately, once you actually learn the fight, it is not long). The time needed to get to the point of clearing it grows smaller as time goes on and strategies to beat them are more widespread. After a while, it's possible for naturally (or simply well-trained outside of a given ultimate) great players to finish it off in two or three tries only.

On the contrary, a 20% (or something like that anyway) more time needed to clear the first Ultimate was a detriment to the content as a whole according to those that did it, that's why the second Ultimate was made shorter.

Achievements (and I mean in general term, not a video game term) are more valuable the more intense they are, not the more time consuming they are. The higher the difficulty of the challenge, not the longer it takes to complete. Increased length simply puts forth more stress and pressure which is in all but life-endangering situations strictly negative. And there are no life-endangering situations with video games, innately.

I’ve been playing since 2014 and haven’t gotten the 3k comm achievement yet, because I haven’t put in the effort to do so.

That's the point. It is not effort. It is purely time invested. It is ridiculously easy. All you need to do is invest time into running the dungeons.

You do not call picking up your cup to sip from it an effort. If you'll be told to pick it up for every sip and put it down after, drinking the whole cup in those sips, you'll not think it any more challenging. Just a whole lot more bothersome. For your muscles, assuming you are in at least decent health, the difference will be insignificant since the cup does not weight nearly enough to burden them.

Now, if that cup was weighted and did weight 30kg, that's another story. But at that point, having to do it so many times would risk severe contusion.

On the other hand if you had to take only ONE sip, but the cup weighted 100kg, you're either going to be able to do it or not. Risk of contusion is still there, but significantly smaller if you're not trying to force yourself excessively. People know when something is just too much. If you cannot lift it within few seconds, trying to lift it safely is not possible. Simple as that. But once you DO lift it, that's going to be the best coffee/tea you drank.

I think you are confused by what I mean by ‘progression.’ I mean the ability to advance in the game and experience all of the content.

I call that "unlocking content". Progression is doing something tangible that takes you closer to a given goal. That does not require unlocking content, actually.

I know what you meant, it's simply that I disagree with such limitation of the word. That is certainly progression, but it is only one KIND of progression. And there are many others, which is the crux of the matter.

Source please? I’m sorry but, for reasons I already explained above, I can’t take these types of claims seriously without one.

Sorry, but with this I can offer you only empirical evidence.

The mechanics that promote catching up are used by ever more MMO's. From what I said for this game, the levels decrease of experience required, to some CP accumulation in The Elders Scroll Online (though I have only seen a post about it, I didn't play that game).

Ultimately, that would not have been done as it is a financial loss otherwise, unless it have a tangible effect. And that tangible effect can only be player retention.

But again, this is strictly empirical. I do not have the kind of time (nor point) in finding for actual large-scale studies on that.

I’m sorry, I’m confused. I thought you said that achievements were popular? You claimed that there are “MANY people that care” about achievements.

Again, "care" is mostly not absolute. And this game have tons of long, excruciatingly so, achievements. It is very likely that even a devoted achievement hunter would get burned out wanting to get them all.

So if there are enough new players who care sufficiently about achievements to be turned off of a game for them for being too hard, how can you be so dismissive of achievements' power to retain players? That’s quite the contradiction.

This part is wrong in every single way, for the same reason I repeatedly pointed out in that post.

Time-consuming =/= hard. You claimed to have never said that, but this is just one example where you DO equate them. I keep saying strictly about TIME necessary for achievements. If you use as a counterargument that it is "too hard to get them"...then you clearly, beyond the shadow of doubt, equate time and difficulty.

Furthermore, "achievements power to retain players" doesn't mean that they will stay forever until they get all the achievements. Usually people quit a game after few days at most. If they stay for several years for the achievements, that's a HUGE success, and I wholeheartedly believe that there are people for which achievements are a significant part of what made them stay.

However, there is no void here. Achievements on their own cannot do jack squat. But, again, it's not black and white. There's gray all around. I'm going to run out of comparisons for that at this rate.


And as this post alone have gotten horrendously long! (19639 characters up to the exclamation mark there)...yeah. I think I'll stop it here with...Believe what you will, and so shall I.

Oh...And congratulations to anyone that actually DID read all of that. That's achievement worthy.