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Achievements

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A forum based thing would be fun and wouldn't impact in any way on playstyle. I'd go  for that. You could even create sig badges if you wanted to.

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While reading the OP, I thought, YES!!! I'm the type of person who loves little achievements like that to be in game. It could be so engaging and rewarding to have just a small acknowledgement of things you've done.

As I read the next few posts, I realised that it could cause a conflict for anyone who has a minimalist but completionist playstyle.

 

But then... any completionist who joined past the first event will already have to deal with the fact that they've missed out on at least one badge; it's impossible to get them ever again. That never seems to be a problem, though, so one or both of two things is happening: either the fact that badges aren't acknowledged at all if you don't have them means people simply forget that they don't have them, or people have accepted that they can't have everything and move on. And so, my suggestion would be to simply not acknowledge an achievement whatsoever until you've earned it. Yes, you could view them via other peoples' scrolls, but you can do that with badges you haven't earned and those are never a problem.

 

tl;dr: Yes, there could be a potential conflict in playstyle, but there's already a similar conflict and that has never been a problem.

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See, this is how I see the large difference between the event-specific badges we have now and the achievement badges that are suggested here. The event-specific badges, like Halloween and other holidays, the "beat the heat" badge, carrot cave, etc etc, are all... Well, event-specific. If you participated in the event you get the badge, often if you just logged on during the event you get the badge. After that event no one else can ever get the badge. It's not really creating this great inequality where some people can earn the badge and some can't... If you weren't there you can *never* earn the badge. These achievement badges, on the other hand, are specifically geared towards very specific playstyles that are not held by all users, may not even be held by the majority of users. These badges are, in essence, the game telling you that you have to play a specific way for a long period of time in order to earn something shiny. As opposed to event badges that don't actually dictate any specific playstyle at all.

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That's so well stated, Marie. The ONLY badge we have that is play related is the actual trophy.

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*whispers* Magikarp *whispers*

But yes.

 

Still, the mere existence of other game-related badges (for collecting X of any given breed, for collection at least one of each regular dragon breed, for collecting x amount of frozen hatchlings,...) does not imply that you have to play a certain way - it merely gives incentive to do so. And if there's no benefit given, that incentive is pretty low to begin with. (Unlike with our trophies, which offer a pretty big benefit.) And don't get me started on BSA dragons and the benefit collecting them gives. Heck, I'd probably have less than 10 reds if it weren't for incubate (and that gorgous Red x Val checker I happen to breed)! As it is, I have around 160. So, there already are mechanisms in place that make us adapt our play style that have way more impact on our ability to play the game the way we want.

 

So, no, I'm not totally against these things. And I'm not opposed to benefits that are strictly related to the trophy (additional freezing slots for a "snowflake trophy"...) because I couldn't care less for these things if they don't affect me. (As I don't freeze, I wouldn't mind being unable to freeze more than 16 in two weeks.) However, I don't really see that these accomplishments are worth having.

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I'm in full support of achievements of any kind. Badges, benefits, text, nothing... I don't care. I'd be thrilled to see anything. There's absolutely nothing to do on DC for days at a time. If your slots are full you have no reason to visit. If you don't make up your own complicated goals there are no goals. There's nothing to help pull people into the site and motivate them to stay. And while its nice to have a casual game, sometimes I want to play DC but I literally can't. I have no choice but to leave for literal days and play something else. That's really bad for a game these days when there's so much competition from games with much less downtime. Achievements of some sort are a very basic feature that are extremely motivating to a lot of people. If you don't want to complete them you don't have to, but imo anything that would help encourage people to stick around and give us something to do on DC would be awesome.

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I think that if we had something more similar to the Magikarp badge as opposed to just "collect x dragons" maybe that would make achievements a little more fun. But even then, the Magikarp badge is just the result of cumulative splash uses, which could get old pretty quick if we had to repeat the process more than once.

I'm all for the forum based achievements though.

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I'd totally support something similar to the Magikarp badge, because that's still *not* forcing a specific playstyle. I mean, the more Shallow Waters you have the more you can Splash, but people can and have gotten that Magicarp badge with just a small handful of Shallow Waters. They aren't forced to raise 50 or 100 of them in order to get the badge. I mean, I guess you could argue they are forced to use Splash a lot in order to get the badge, but that doesn't affect what's on their scroll, what they use their slots for, etc, so I don't think it's the same.

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If anyone wants to see how trophies and achievements can change how people play, just visit one of the boards that tend to the needs of trophy hunters in video games. People buy and play DLC they don't really care because they are obsessive to get a 100% rating on their trophies. They buy simple games just beause they can get a PS Platinum trophy within two hours, not because they want to play the game. Some people even pay others to hunt trophies for them just so they can rank up quickly on a leaderboard. And there are several other things. Don't underestimate the impact achievements can have on gameplay, especially when people tend to some sort of OCD.

 

And with now 202 unique breeds (say 190 breeds of which you even can raise 50 / 100 / 200): 190 x 200 is 38.000 dragons. Nobody will be able to get a complete set of achievements. Introducing achievements you'll never be able to get a fully complete isn't the best message to the players.

Edited by Rally Vincent

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On 02/11/2017 at 4:11 AM, Metal-n-Monster said:

[Snip]

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!!!

 

I like this idea, myself. :)

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