Goblin Squad Member
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Dear GW,
You promised me something like "xp over time means no grind, only meaningful stuff".
But the currently available info about Categories and Achievements has me worried.
It is a simple matter of scaling, really, but still... (if lvl 20 is supposed to be 2 years away, then the number 6250 means 'several per day')
1) Craft achievements.
So far, the only thing we know(?) we get craft achievements for is crafting stuff. Fine. But if lvl12 achievements require you to craft 6250 items (that seems to be the pattern) of said type and you need a total of 400 craft achievements to reach lvl20 skills (and 250 for the gathering/refining skills), then even if we can craft 40 different types of materials, it still seems we must craft thousands and thousands of items (and hours!!) just to qualify for increasing our skill. And many of these will be in crafts we don't even care about - low-lvl stuff made just for the 'cheap' achievements.
2) other achievements.
Essentially the same. Requiring players to play around with different possible weapon/spell combination is good. Requiring them to kill thousands of mobs with weapons/combos they don't like just so they can reach the next level with the those they do like... sounds awfully grindy.
What is the crucial piece of info I'm missing here?
-Is it that i can get 75% of the achievement with 1% of the work, so that the grind doesn't start until the endgame, and the powercurve there is so flat I shouldn't worry if don't like it?
-Is it that there will be so many more crafting/mob/weapon/spell/escalation categories added that I'll never need a lvl 10+ achievement to make it to 400?
-something else?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think it's premature to worry about this since its reasonable to think the variety of possible achievements will widen dramatically over time- the system is obviously incomplete when you look at, for example, the "social" category.
It looks like the intention is that if you're consistently doing things that are appropriate to X career then you'll organically get the achievements you need to advance that role at a reasonable pace. If it turns out in testing that that's not the case in practice, they can tune it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the Alpha videos showed someone getting a bandit-achievement by killing three of them. I'm not sure achievements are going to reach the level of "grind" so much as "making sure you've seen a bit of the world".
I'm sure we'll hear soon from one of the Alphas about how many bandits it takes to reach Bandit Achievement 3 (obviously not the right name). That'll give us some idea of scaling.
I made it to Wolfslayer...something high. I wanna say 5. It was going up to around 20-50 wolves killed.
It's been a while since Paizocon, though, so I can't remember exacts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the Alpha videos showed someone getting a bandit-achievement by killing three of them. I'm not sure achievements are going to reach the level of "grind" so much as "making sure you've seen a bit of the world".
I'm sure we'll hear soon from one of the Alphas about how many bandits it takes to reach Bandit Achievement 3 (obviously not the right name). That'll give us some idea of scaling.
I would put Alpha in front of the achievents currently. The scaling for an individual achievement is decently quick for getting up to rank 3, it starts to greatly increase at 6 & higher (250 @ 5, 625 @ 6). Memory is a little fuzzy right now so numbers may be a little off. The Focus achievement (Divine points) started to feel like a grind after rank 5, but that is likely due to Focus being the only way to get Divine currently.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the Alpha videos showed someone getting a bandit-achievement by killing three of them. I'm not sure achievements are going to reach the level of "grind" so much as "making sure you've seen a bit of the world".
I'm sure we'll hear soon from one of the Alphas about how many bandits it takes to reach Bandit Achievement 3 (obviously not the right name). That'll give us some idea of scaling.
I think the progression was around 1, 3, 15, 50, 125, 250, 500, 1250, 3250, 6300.... or something like that for what I consider "minion" level enemies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"1. No Grinding- Pathfinder Online uses a skill training system like that of EVE Online. You train skills by choosing what skill you want to train and allowing the time required to elapse. You don't train any faster by farming mobs or spamming your abilities than you do exploring the world, role playing with your friends, or even being offline. You will need to complete certain achievements to complete a skill and open up new avenues of training."
That is the exact quote from the Kickstarter front page. Something written by one of the contributors (Andius maybe?) and appropriated by GW for there own use.
Note - this ONLY states you will not grind for xp. It says nothing about not having to grind for achievements, gold, rep, etc.
Given that the main content seems to be killing mobs in escalations, killing each other, plinking nodes I full well expect this game to be 90% grind with 10% actually, meaningful player interaction. (Sorry, group mining while gossiping about work, school, girlfriends, boyfriends (we won't judge) is not meaningful interaction, its just grinding in a group).
There's no quest system, no storyline content, no settlements, no settlement warefare, nothing but random mobs, escalations, crafting and each other so pretty much grinding is it.
That's called Minimum Viable Product. If you expected more for the subscription fee you will be paying at the start you obviously have not been paying attention.
This is not intended to be a rant, just a wake up call to people expecting a fully formed game with all the bells, whistles and things and ideas they've read about and dreamed of on day one of EE. GW's been pretty up front about there MVP game plan all along though maybe a little fuzzy on details about the when, why and how of it.
IN TIME
With our continued support, cooperation, patience (yeah, yeah, I'm not big on patience, bite me), support (important enuff to list twice!) we will see all of that and a lot more.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The objective is that you will be earning Achievements as a normal part of doing what you would be doing anyway. They should be recognizing your activity as much as they are a guide to that activity.
In the MVP, Achievements are a good system to help people determine "what should I be doing". There won't be a lot of content in the game so looking at an objective that says "kill 100 wolves" is something you could choose to do "just because".
As the game develops and becomes more robust you may find that you rarely pay attention to Achievements until you're very close to earning one and then maybe you adjust your play a bit to close it out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...you may find that you rarely pay attention to Achievements until you're very close to earning one and then maybe you adjust your play a bit to close it out.
Thanks, good to see the same message reinforced. But: I would definitely pay attention to achievements if I can't advance to the next level because I lack points.
Now, I don't expect that to be the case until lvl 16 or so. Then the question is "what % of total achievements to i need to max the role"? If there are 1000 martial achievements in the game, it isn't a problem. If there are only 500, getting 400 of those likely means blademasters must go out and get the "kill 1000 mobs using a greatclub" achievement.
Ryan's comment suggests (but isn't crisply clear to me) there will be enough achievements laying around that achievements won't be the bottleneck.
The corner case is gathering skills: if I want to gather materials but not craft, the bottleneck for advancing my skill is definitely the craft achievements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All MMOS require a certain amount of "grind", otherwise their content could be burned through in a couple of days.
Even PvP if done 24/7 will become boring and feel grindy. Merit badges / accolades is one way to encourage us to mix up with our play styles.
I'm a little late to the party (pesky new job) but I was basically going to say what bludd said. Logging into the game everyday could be considered a "grind" to some, so while I understand your concern, my PERSONAL view is that some grind is required or there is nothing to do.
Escalations will be "grinded" to keep under control, nodes will be "grinded" to keep resource stocks high for crafting and upkeep, even players will be "grinded" for the more PVP focused groups.
The point I am making is this:
If you start to feel the grind, then change it up or take a break. But making a game without grinding at all is impossible IMHO. There is always something to 'grind." The exp/hour thing makes it so you are not getting stronger or leveling up by grinding enemies endlessly, or quests. But think about RL, your daily grind at work, your daily routine of getting up, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, play with kids, play PFO, realize it is 6am and need to go to work again, ya know..."The Grind."
Seriously though, I am not saying you are being ridiculous or anything. I am just expressing my views. I hope this eases it a bit for you as sometimes a different view can.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The corner case is gathering skills...
Perhaps Commoner is being considered as a fully-realised Role on its own. If so, it may have enough achievements in the gathering and refining areas--those where we're told Commoners focus and excel--to provide all its advancement needs, without having to branch into crafting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the difference between 'playing' and 'grinding' is largely perceptual and varies by individual. Some might consider making the same attack over and over again from one combat to the next 'grinding'... while others are perfectly happy 'playing' the same dungeon over and over again to the point that they have it down to a science.
The transition happens when some repetitive action becomes boring to the individual... but they need to continue doing it to advance their character. Having multiple paths of advancement can help a lot because when one starts to get boring players can switch to another. Ideally, they'd be working along enough multiple paths that no one of them reaches the level of boring repetition. Another factor is frequency of improvement. So long as your character is regularly improving in some way there is that feeling of accomplishment. If the character is exactly the same after days of steady play then the balance begins to shift from challenge/playing/accomplishment/enjoyment to obstacle/grinding/tedium/frutstration.
I think PFO has a pretty good structure for this already as you can always switch paths and quickly pick up some new abilities. The long list of skills, special attacks, multiple roles, and game achievements linked to all of these allow for a near constant sense of accomplishment in the early game and should give lots of options for quick advancement in new areas even late in the game while you are slowly working towards the top levels of your main area(s) of focus. As more roles, PvE content (new mobs, escalation types, dungeons, et cetera), and social content (contracts, kingdom level conflict, et ceteta) are added to the game the number of 'things to do' will continue to expand dramatically.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I would think it very strange if refining ingots did not count towards crafting achievements.
If you want to just gather and not even refine, then yeah, collecting your achievements is going to be hard.
Currently, crafting feats aren't required to gain gathering skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, I want to note that Valkner totally murdered like 1300 Bandits over the course of three days....lol
...and got the ~2500(can't remember exact, i think 8 or 9) bow achievement... It was an eventful weekend.
Bow+Leash=awesome.
Mindless grinding is a good way to pass the time, and stock up on loot.
For the OP, Removing grinding would ruin the game. At their core, video games are a time-sink, if you can do everything in a few days (*cough* DCUO *cough*) then things get boring quickly.
The killing 10,000 goblin achievements should be something you wouldn't need the points for until over a year down the road, when you are probably close to that anyway through normal gameplay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I seem to recall to get Mining 4 I needed I think it was 3 "Adventure" Achievements. I'm guessing the Bandit killing achievements count, as well as wolves, exploration ect. If the achievements remain get X number of Category Y achievements then I don't see it being a problem as long as there is a large range of different achievement lines within a category. Need one more Adventure Achievement but that would require killing another 300 wolves for the next one in that line? Well, are you closer with Bandits or Goblins? Perhaps there is an exploration Achievement you've been putting off getting? Or, you could just kill those 300 wolves, I'm sure that tanner friend of yours would buy the leather off you and refine it for the same guy you've been selling your metal ingots to for use in leather grips for his swords.
Or, just keep mining and killing the wandering mobs that get in your way, eventually you will get an achievement.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Reading the latest 'Alpha testing week' blog notes, I see the Achievement system is being fleshed out in a way I like very much. Thanks.
Consider my worries dropped until further notice ;-)
(ps: does subterfuge replace martial for rogues? ).
It replaces both Martial and Adventure. Now Rogues just need Subterfuge. We are working on getting more ways for them to earn it into game too (same with Divine and Arcane).