Suggestion: healer-based incentives/rewards

[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.