Achievements

[cefren_]

With the new header on our Dragons page we got more statistic information about our account and now we know that DC count things like how many unique breeds we have, how many dragons we have, how many dragons we raise right now and also the encyclopedia count how many eggs, hatchlings and adults we have  from each breed (well, at least from the start of the encyclopedia, I know there was a fresh start thingy when this update implemented and many of our dragons aren't counted as own raised dragons, but well, beside that we have a lot of infromtaion in the encyclopedia about our statistics), so I thought it would be a fun update to have some achievement system based on these information and it can add more goals in the game.

 

For eacmple: raise 50 - 100 - 200 unique breed (unique breed counter >= 50,100,200), or raise 100 dragons from the same breed (any breed's adult or hatchling counter from the encyclopedia >= 100) and some more specific like "I hate waiting" achievement which you can get after you have like 50+ adult red dragon on your profile (adult red dragon counter > 50) or "Prehistoric hero" - Have at least one dino from each type (every adult dino counter >= 1) and more breed specific achievements like these. So we have a lot of information which is already monitored by the site, we just need to make the task to complete and the skins of the achievements. 

 

Oh btw, about the achievement skins. I think the achievements should looks like badges/pins and in your Badges page on your profile there would be a pin/badge holder box icon and if you click on it that would forward you to your achievement page so the achievements you got will be on a seperated page, not just spamming your Badges page and make it to a mess. And also you would have information about the obtainable achievements like how many dragon you need to raise to unlock it (same way as it works with encyclopedia entries). So this update would mainly recycle and use things that are already in the DC's mechanism and yeah, require some new things too but it's not like the creators need to create it from absolute zero. 

 

So this is what I imagined, what are you guys think about it? Any opinions, why is it not that easy as I imagined, why is it not that great or great idea? Maybe more achievement ideas? 

[Fuzzbucket]

Honestly I can't say I would welcome it. We all have different scroll goals, so who is to say what is worth a "badge" of achievement anyway ?

[cefren_]

That would be an optimal solution for this if there would be categories like achievements based on basic statistical datas (overall dragon quantity, unique breed quantity..)  and more specific, class-like things like breeding, collecting specific breeds etc. And there is always the option to suggest new achievements even after the base system is implemented in the game some day, the users will have  the option to suggest a new ones. It's not like it was made once and it will be like that forever, there will be always the option to make an update and add some more achievement. And no one said you need to collect all, if there are some which are not fit in your scroll goal then you can skip those. These would be just smaller goals that may you want to achieve between to update or holiday event or something and a small congratulation-like gesture for what you achieve on your scroll. 

[olympe]

I'm afraid that we'd get so many achievements, it'll be hard to keep track even with badges. I'd probably have 30+ "raise 50 of breed x" badges alone, not to mention "I can't wait", the equivalent for pinks (no more random gender) and who knows what else.

 

That's why I think I'd rather have scroll stats (how many dragons, how many dragons of each breed, highest gen (for each breed), number of CBs (for each breed) and so on) rather than badges.

[Fuzzbucket]

I have my own goals. No-one else's are like mine. I don't need to look to any that aren't defined by me. Why would I want - say - a "badge" for achieving something I didn't want to do for any other reason ? What about people who only want to have 4 of certain particular breeds - they would be left out...

 

I am just not even slightly interested in this.

 

And as olympe says - I'd have any number of "raise 50 of this type" to start with, well over 100 pinks, almost 100 reds...

 

And I just don't care. I have enough to influence and incubate - that's all I need to know.

[The Dragoness]

I don't think this is a bad idea. If people don't like it, they don't have to focus on meeting those achievments. There are many people who like to have goals to work for, so there really wouldn't be any harm in adding this feature to DC. That being said, I personally think this is pretty similar to the Encyclopedia. They both show how many dragons of each type you own and you have to work to unlock something by collecting said breed.

 

Also, I don't think it should be possible to receive a badge more than once. There's no need to have 100 "50 Reds obtained" badges. That would make things very cluttered very quickly.

[VixenDra]

This would be a discrimination of all kids of more minimalistic goals and would only praise the hoarding playstyles. And yet still not all since some hoarders hoard only a few chosen breeds or even jsut one.

No.

The raffle entries are so general for a reason. For the very reason why achievements such as 'rise xx of breed X' wouldn't be okay.

 

And for any kind of completionists such as me, existence of such achievements/badges would actually work like forcing a playstyle change... e.g. in my case to either non-completionist(if I ignore the badges) or to hoarder (while I only collect a set of 5 per breed or alt, each consisting of 2 adults and 3 or their offspring frozen) AND would have to get the dinos which I reject because they feel extremelly out of place to me, with this toony yoshi style and shoes and not even being dragons at the same time.

There are people who only want to collext X of all or chosen breeds (and some may want to be as minimalist as to collect 1 adult per breed total and max), people who reject non-dragons of some or any kind (chickens, tree, dinos to choose from), zombies(because are anti-killing), Cheeses and Papers (because they aren't about actual life at all), etc. some will reject hybrids , and some will only collect 2-heads(my cousin) or X breed/s (my other cousin), and so fort... it's just impossible to list how many various goals and playstyles there are and favoring or imposng some style is wrong... This suggstion favors a "get them all and hoard each that can be possibly hoarded"... and that's a huge no...

Please, just don't do this...

 

Notice that the only achievement&badge, the trophy, is very general and not discriminatory of any sort... as long as there are new releases coming, even the most minimalistic goals will sooner or later earn the trophies overtime, even if it takes years to.

And the encyclopeadia? It doesn't require anyone to OWN these dragons... I unlocked all before the latest update and didn't have to adjust my goals or change my playstyle...

and the raffle again: it says raise just 3 adults of ANY breed/kind. This is often filled with new releases alone. And not entering from time to time doesn't hurt even the completionists...

 

 

tl;dr no because it would argue with plenty of ways people play this game and favor or even impose a certain playstyle.

Edited November 1, 2017 by VixenDra

[LadyLyzar]

I am for achievements if there are no gameplay rewards for them.  One of the things I have always loved about DC is its flexibility toward many playstyles.  You can do just about anything with your dragons and catch/breed as many or as few as you'd like.  IMO each person's scroll is an expression of them.

 

If achievements exist, I think they should all be listed under one badge to prevent clutter.

 

There is already sort of a system in play as it is - trophy levels (which DO affect gameplay), and encyclopedia unlocks.

 

However, for people like my hubby who LOVE to see numbers go up in a game - achievements might breathe new life into DC.

[HeatherMarie]

Meh. Not super-duper against it, but really don't like it either. As has been pointed out, the "achievements" suggested are very discriminatory against certain playstyles, especially minimalist ones. Just from being active here on the forum I can see that there are *many* users who only want a couple pairs of each breed, and those users would either be forced to raise and keep tons of dragons they don't want or be forced to miss out on a pretty badge. Not everyone has the reflexes/time/etc to grab hard-to-get breeds like dinos (I've been playing nine years and only have 1 lone dino), so that would leave a *ton* of users out. Sure, okay, you can say "well they don't have to do it!", but the reality is that if there are in-game rewards like badges for doing those things, either they *do* have to do it, or they have to accept the fact that they will be left out of a lot of awesome badges. I don't like that idea.

 

Now, more *general* badges, like maybe "one of every breed available", that I could get behind, I guess. The badges we have right now are all linked to specific events that we got just by participating in that event, and the only other badge, the trophy, doesn't discriminate whatsoever, only counts your total dragons of any type.

[Stromboli]

Yep. I know a lot of players don't like to just collect tons and tons of every dragon, so this'd definitely have to be something that doesn't have gameplay rewards. Personally, I'm one of those "likes to rack up numbers" people who'd enjoy achievements to complete, but I know a lot of people who would never go for them.

 

Also would want them listed under a single badge. We've already got quite a lot of badges, if we had even one additional badge for every dragon breed? That'd get out of control.

[VixenDra]

I think it's not a bad idea to have a forum thread for achievements... it coudl list all possible achievements people come up with and people could have fun there tryign to achieve some or all or whatever... Who has a sense for tryign for achievements could have fun there with others. But other than that, you can always set up your personal list of achievements... e.g. in a spraadheet.

 

But as long as it's all kept out of the actual game itself... ^^; so no to badge(s), no to in-game listed achievements...

Edited November 1, 2017 by VixenDra

[Fiona]

I don't see why this would be a bad thing. Say, a single badge which links to a fairly simple list. Maybe stars or "dragon eggs" icon in front of each item. One "egg" - two "eggs" - three "eggs" for 5 - 10 - 20 neglecteds or zombies, 25 - 50 - 100 normal breeds, 100 - 200 - 400 times you used Incubate or Teleport; that kind of thing. No gameplay rewards or anything and if someone doesn't care they just don't ever click the badge and look at the list. Yes, the list could get long, but it could be organized in a way that made looking at it simple and there are those who would enjoy it.

 

Or, instead of a badge, a link under accounts similar to the encyclopedia. Still a simple list. Don't care? Don't look.

[VixenDra]

The problem I see is that then it would be an integral PART of the game.

it's against certain playstyles. A completionist with rather minimal goals will be forced to choose to either give up the completionist playstyle OR adjust the playstyle to unlock the achievements by exceeding their set goals. I any case, such players will be forced to sacrifice a part fo their playstyle. And this is where it becomes a huge problem of imposing a change of s playstyle, you can't stay a completionist AND not start hoarding more than you otherwise would at once.

The Encyclopeadia didn't require to sacrifice any of those playstyle parts.

Edited November 1, 2017 by VixenDra

[LibbyLishly]

I'm all for it. Some people really like in-game goals as opposed to make-your-own goals, and that would keep their interest, as well as being totally harmless by not adding more elite dragons to break the trading economy. Myself, I'm a make-your-own-goal type, so I probably wouldn't pursue many achievement badges myself (I barely even care about encyclopedia unlocks), but I know many people would enjoy a new official challenge that wasn't utterly impossible and frustrating.

 

ETA: That said, I'm also all for a forum-based, player-created system of achievements with badges we can put in our signatures, so if OP wants to put something together for that, I'll play.

Edited November 1, 2017 by LibbyLishly

[HeatherMarie]

Regarding forum-based achievement threads, there used to be a pretty good DC Records thread, it's now closed here: https://forums.dragcave.net/topic/170516-the-dragon-cave-record-book/?tab=comments#comment-8912669

 

There is also a newer DC Records thread, but it hasn't had replies in awhile: https://forums.dragcave.net/topic/176001-new-dc-record-book/?tab=comments#comment-9289385

Those threads deal with records for most of specific breeds. It'd be great if that kind of thing could become active again.

 

It's easy for someone to say "don't care don't look", but for a lot of people that's very hard to do and the simple fact that it's *there*, an in-game reward for specific playstyles, it does seem to encourage specific playstyles and devalue others, whether or not that's the intention. One of the things I love about DC is that the game itself doesn't favor any specific playstyle. There are no benefits to collecting 100 Pillows except just having those sprites on your scroll, and there is nothing to miss out on if your playstyle doesn't include more then a few pairs.

[mouse050909]

Maybe if we could make our own badges? Like have a set of badges, and we choose what we have to do to get them? 

[purplehaze]

I can see that it would be pretty hard to ignore for certain personalities, even if it weren't front and center.

 

I am personally neutral on the suggestion. I have no interest in it at all, but it wouldn't pose a problem for me, either.

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by purplehaze
Grammar fail

[Silvynx]

While I am not particularly for or against the idea, it feels like formal achievements don't really fit the style of DC. And not just from the perspective of everyone has their own playstyle/goals, but also because of DC's rather simplistic game play. There's not much to make an achievement for beyond collect certain types or numbers of dragons, and I'd imagine that would get rather old and repetitive.

 

The way I see it, many games that have achievements use them as a way to encourage players to either explore beyond the "required" portions of the game or to perform normal tasks in a difficult or skillful manner. As far as I can think, DC simply doesn't have much in that regard as the only things to do are raise dragons and possibly use BSAs to aid you, so it would become more like a grind for X breed or whatever. Plus the ultimate goal of the game is whatever you choose it to be, so any achievement would always be undesirable to some and well beyond accomplished to others.

 

If this were to be implemented, I strongly think there should be no rewards beyond a small badge as otherwise it would make many feel forced into doing them despite not wanting to (and then of course there's always the completionists like me who would feel obligated to do them regardless).

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Silvynx

[olympe]

Well, accomplishments could go with related benefits, I suppose. Like a zombie badge for making X zombies that increases your chances of successful zombification. Or a badge for X frozen hatchlings that will increase your freeze slots slightly. A badge for having raised X self-bred dragons that decreases all your dragons' breeding cooldowns by up to 12 hours. Things like that. For someone like me, who doesn't care about zombies or frozen hatchlings at all, these badges and resulting benefits aren't worth working for, to be honest. However, for someone who actually wants all the zombies and/or frozen hatchlings they can get, things might be quite different.

 

Other "accomplishments" - such as owning 50 reds/BSA pinks/purples/magis/sets of trios or sinos - shouldn't give a reward, as owning that many of any kind is a reward in and of its own.

 

When all is said and done, though, I'd still prefer excessive scroll stats over "accomplishments".

[HeatherMarie]

53 minutes ago, olympe said:

Well, accomplishments could go with related benefits, I suppose. Like a zombie badge for making X zombies that increases your chances of successful zombification. Or a badge for X frozen hatchlings that will increase your freeze slots slightly. A badge for having raised X self-bred dragons that decreases all your dragons' breeding cooldowns by up to 12 hours. Things like that. For someone like me, who doesn't care about zombies or frozen hatchlings at all, these badges and resulting benefits aren't worth working for, to be honest. However, for someone who actually wants all the zombies and/or frozen hatchlings they can get, things might be quite different.

 

Other "accomplishments" - such as owning 50 reds/BSA pinks/purples/magis/sets of trios or sinos - shouldn't give a reward, as owning that many of any kind is a reward in and of its own.

 

When all is said and done, though, I'd still prefer excessive scroll stats over "accomplishments".

 

Meh, I still wouldn't like that. I mean, what exactly would the criteria be there? Because the way I see it, just because you don't collect tons of zombies doesn't mean you would've love and benefit from increased success. I mean, success rates suck severely right now, so even if someone just wants 1 or 2 zombies, having increased success would be very beneficial, but they wouldn't be able to obtain that without a specific number of zombies. Same idea for the others... Just because you don't freeze a whole bunch doesn't mean an increase in freeze slots wouldn't be awesome for certain situations (like holidays!). And not all breeders keep tons of the dragons they breed, so lessening cooldowns only for breeders who keep tons of their own breeds would disadvantage breeders who breed specifically for others, and I certainly don't like that.

 

Maybe the sorts of stats that are available on TJ's DC Records site (... or used to be available there, it hasn't worked for me in forever) could be incorporated into DC proper? That would be nice. Just a link to a page that shows all those types of stats for your scroll.

[psychodoge]

I like it. I'm super into achievements in games, even if they don't have any real gameplay advantage (actually I prefer them like that) =P

I don't think it would be bad for the players who don't want to participate. The thing about game achievements is that they are optional, and challenging. They're not supposed to be easy to get, that's why they're achievements.

It would be a fun little extra, especially for people like me who like to brag about things they've accomplished, haha. Although I think the encyclopedia serves this function as well? On a site like DC, it's kind of hard to make interesting achievements since the only things we have are pretty much scroll stats. And we already have badges as well, for how many dragons we have.

 

So I think it's a really neat idea, but it wouldn't be so easy to implement it in the game while keeping it interesting.

Edited November 2, 2017 by psychodoge

[Draconiusultamius]

How about user-set achievements?  Users can set their own scroll goals and update them on a public or private "achievement list".  That would be fun to see peoples personal goals and also as a reminder of personal goals.  It helps keep track of things too!  No clue how that'd be coded, but I'm sure it's possible.

[Predat0rs]

The reason I started playing DC and why I have kept playing DC is fairly straight forward: Simplicity. DC is a very relaxed game. Even with the amazing features that have came about in the past decade, it has always retained its sense of simplicity. Not to mention, it welcomes many, many playstyles and doesn't force a certain style onto the players. DC has held my attention for 10 years now because of its unique, yet simple play format. Basically, I come on to collect New Releases, Breed Lineages, Pop my eggs into Hatcheries, Holidays being the only real "busy" time of year for me. Very relaxed, very easy, very straight forward.

 

An Achievement system would not only defeat the purpose of DC being simple, it would create more drama, more headaches, and ultimately it would force players to do things they don't want to. Force them to play in ways they do not want to, or are not comfortable playing in. It's easy to say "Just ignore it then." but in reality it would be hard to ignore. I'm already peeved that I do not have every DC Badge AS IT STANDS. Then adding a million more? No. Please no. And  plus I'd be kinda stressed over getting ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS!

If a compromise had to be made, I would suggest - rather than an Achievement system - add in a Statistics system. Have a cute little Badge that has your own personal Stats inside it. Oh, apparently I own 200 Reds! Whoa! Who knew?! If you wanted to up your Stats, you yourself would have complete control over that. A Badge/Achievement system would control YOUR scroll or YOUR Stats, which is not very user friendly.

Oh, I ONLY have 200 Reds? I want to get that up to 300!

vs

Oh, I ONLY have 200 Reds? And the next Achievement is at 300? WTF. I don't want that many!!!

[Stormcaller]

I love getting the badges, especially the unique ones.  I have a "Beat the Heat Summer "  from 2010 and a "Carrot Cave"  that I think I just had to be here those days to get.  There's also the Magikarp badge that I clicked and clicked to obtain.  These simple rewards could be achieved by anyone, whatever their style of play is, and I wish there were more of this kind of thing.

 

I also liked the Book of Records and would really like to see that become active again too.  

 

 

[cefren_]

I can understand why would this goes against some users playstyle and why are so many people disapprove the idea to implement this into the game so I turn down the request to. TBH I never thought this would harm the freedom and simplicity of the DC but now I can understand it so sorry guys for the bad suggestion, I just thought this would be a cool thing but you're right.  

 

Maybe I start to work on the previously suggested forum based version of this achievement thing and create a forum topic for it, that would be truly full optional and choice based and nobody would be upset about that I think, because it's not the part of the game so users can ignore it if it's against their playstyle but those who are approved the idea also gets what they want in a altered way. 

 

Have a nice day guys and thanks for your hones opinions!