Don't like achievements at all , I'm ok with the old school field hunting grind, mainly with other people.
That's kind of the goal. If you're into grinding out hunting mobs this gives you the choice to grind out those mobs without taking quest. Or you could take quest and kill those mobs. You also have the choice of hunting rare creatures for achievements or hunting various monsters to get achievements for those as well.
Since there is no "experience" grouping will make a grinding faster without penalty.
That's kind of the goal. If you're into grinding out hunting mobs this gives you the choice to grind out those mobs without taking quest. Or you could take quest and kill those mobs. You also have the choice of hunting rare creatures for achievements or hunting various monsters to get achievements for those as well.
Since there is no "experience" grouping will make a grinding faster without penalty.
"Do x, get y" is a quest.
Your system isn't an alternative to questing.
It literally is questing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's kind of the goal. If you're into grinding out hunting mobs this gives you the choice to grind out those mobs without taking quest. Or you could take quest and kill those mobs. You also have the choice of hunting rare creatures for achievements or hunting various monsters to get achievements for those as well.
Since there is no "experience" grouping will make a grinding faster without penalty.
"Do x, get y" is a quest.
Your system isn't an alternative to questing.
It literally is questing.
That means that mob grinding is a "quest." Kill X monsters = Exp for level is not much different. Essentially you can make the argument that anything is quest in MMORPG. Wait X time = time to advance. Swing sword X times = exp to improve skill.
What we count as a quest is something you are given by the game narrative and directed to do by story.
Yeah, axe made the same argument ~ three years ago (Jun 03, 2013). He's really not a learner.
Like back then, you're not gonna get much of a meaningful argument. The notion that everything that gives a reward for completing a task being a quest is the crutch of his argument, even though it makes little sense, and he will restate it over and over with nonsensical analogies.
The distinction that achievements are floating objectives not particularly tethered to narrative or otherwise is apparently an elusive thing to understand. When progression is tied to a means of doing things at your own whim and volition it's really not much of a quest.
Though I guess we should also fairly qualify that what most people think of as quests is a permutation of the hero's quest at it's core. When a person is tasked with a particular duty and follows, as you stated, a narrative that brings you through the events. It can be simple or it can be complex, but ultimately there is that difference that should be accounted for.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's just another method of progression and means nothing. Achievements don't gain you anything other than the ability to say you did whatever it is.
That kinda missed the point of the system. As Ver has previously stated it's using "achievements" as a way of tracking contextually relevant activities and providing experience, skills, and rewards that are applicable to the skills used to do them.
It's a method for skill based progression, more or less, that's just trying to clean things up a bit by giving you indicators of your progress.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's just another method of progression and means nothing. Achievements don't gain you anything other than the ability to say you did whatever it is.
Its not so much about the rewards. Its more about the means which open up different type of gameplay. Meaning if you care nothing about questing, you can skip it and go straight to raiding. If decide later you want to quest you won't be outleveled to try any quest you like. If you want to get a part to just grind mobs. You can get a party to just grind mobs where you feel like and in whatever level of challenge you want.
It's just another method of progression and means nothing. Achievements don't gain you anything other than the ability to say you did whatever it is.
Its not so much about the rewards. Its more about the means which open up different type of gameplay. Meaning if you care nothing about questing, you can skip it and go straight to raiding. If decide later you want to quest you won't be outleveled to try any quest you like. If you want to get a part to just grind mobs. You can get a party to just grind mobs where you feel like and in whatever level of challenge you want.
I dont know about everyone having access to endgame straight any way and use it as a means to level but I do agree that "end game" focused activities should start sooner than max level (I know I know, why bother calling it end game if you dont start it till the end of the game). For the most part FFXI did something like this where people could part take in various fights and activities quite a few levels before cap, making it possible to enjoy aspects of the game before reaching cap. Archeage kind of did this with their level increase? To a degree I suppose so people between the levels of 50 and 55 could pretty much do the same battle related content (which will be a little interesting to see what they do when they raise the cap again later this year). So maybe break more away from this stigma that hardcore activities should start once you reach cap. One aspect of XI that I loved was voidwatch, which was an activity that you could participate it at I believe 75+ but it gave exp, money, zone currency along with loot. Pretty much you fight a boss and you need a certain key item to partake in the fight that you get on a timer. But incorporating more things to do as you level up so players can feel more apart of the game sooner rather than having to grind or whatever and thing grind even more once they reach cap.
It's just another method of progression and means nothing. Achievements don't gain you anything other than the ability to say you did whatever it is.
Its not so much about the rewards. Its more about the means which open up different type of gameplay. Meaning if you care nothing about questing, you can skip it and go straight to raiding. If decide later you want to quest you won't be outleveled to try any quest you like. If you want to get a part to just grind mobs. You can get a party to just grind mobs where you feel like and in whatever level of challenge you want.
I dont know about everyone having access to endgame straight any way and use it as a means to level but I do agree that "end game" focused activities should start sooner than max level (I know I know, why bother calling it end game if you dont start it till the end of the game). For the most part FFXI did something like this where people could part take in various fights and activities quite a few levels before cap, making it possible to enjoy aspects of the game before reaching cap. Archeage kind of did this with their level increase? To a degree I suppose so people between the levels of 50 and 55 could pretty much do the same battle related content (which will be a little interesting to see what they do when they raise the cap again later this year). So maybe break more away from this stigma that hardcore activities should start once you reach cap. One aspect of XI that I loved was voidwatch, which was an activity that you could participate it at I believe 75+ but it gave exp, money, zone currency along with loot. Pretty much you fight a boss and you need a certain key item to partake in the fight that you get on a timer. But incorporating more things to do as you level up so players can feel more apart of the game sooner rather than having to grind or whatever and thing grind even more once they reach cap.
Most games are carefully crafted to get you to endgame. By the time you're there you are relegated to a tiny percent of the content to repeat over and over.
In the game I am talking about suppose instead of need experience or forced to do something by questhubbing you could go into difficult areas to get crafting materials. Difficult in meaning its harder to complete not a numbers game where the creature still is as challenging as any other level. This could be done multiple times. Going there a lot and defeating those monsters makes you and you're better at defeating those monsters.
Instead of it being the only place you can go you could go to any difficult area and do the same.
Depending on how you implement it, its effects are dramatically different. The worst implementation possible I see is the "Swing X times to improve sword ability" because it is essentially the same as the god-awful use to improve systems out there. "Kill X amount of Y with a sword to improve sword ability" is nothing more than a grindy kill-quest.
Now "Kill X amount of Y to improve your ability to kill Y" is slightly more interesting. Better yet "Killing X amount of Y lets you learn an ability from Y". Now while that is way more interesting than "Kill X amount of Y to improve sword ability" it also creates situations where players might not want to kill Y when they have nothing to gain from it.
Another thing that came to mind was to give generic points (or XP) for advancement from completing achievements. This way a player might collect plants and use the points he/she gets from those achievements to improve their character's sword fighting ability. But even this is not too far away from just getting XP from whatever and getting a level up every now and again.
There's not much new here when you really think about it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
That means that mob grinding is a "quest." Kill X monsters = Exp for level is not much different. Essentially you can make the argument that anything is quest in MMORPG. Wait X time = time to advance. Swing sword X times = exp to improve skill.
What we count as a quest is something you are given by the game narrative and directed to do by story.
Except quests and rewarded achievements are formalized in a UI, and the consequences you list aren't. The narrative element isn't required for something to be a quest.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That means that mob grinding is a "quest." Kill X monsters = Exp for level is not much different. Essentially you can make the argument that anything is quest in MMORPG. Wait X time = time to advance. Swing sword X times = exp to improve skill.
What we count as a quest is something you are given by the game narrative and directed to do by story.
Except quests and rewarded achievements are formalized in a UI, and the consequences you list aren't. The narrative element isn't required for something to be a quest.
Again you could word any progression as quest. NPC grind is essentially kill X monsters to level. That is measured in UI with a bar. I don't think anyone considers mob grinding quest. Use base systems are use X times to improve usually measured in the UI with a bar.
Slow day at work so I started to design a MMO framwork. I wanted a game where you could advance through doing what you want. I wanted to avoid a pure usage system which just leads to macros. Not that my idea eliminated it totally.
Ok progression by getting achievements. Essentially completing achievements makes your abilities better, gives perk and traits. Want to use a sword? Pick it up and equipping it gives you a sword man achievement and beginning swordsman ability. Get 100 kills with a sword you get to next higher swordsman skill. Kill 1000 you get to the next.
While doing that you kill 100 goblin and you get novice goblin slayer trait giving +5% vs. goblins. You visit 5 of the 20 realms of hell you get fire resistance buff. Basically you get new perks for completing achievements like task vs. pure quest grinds or NPC grinds.
You should check out this Ken Levine talk from GDC. This sounds exactly like what he is trying to do with his next game:
Depending on how you implement it, its effects are dramatically different. The worst implementation possible I see is the "Swing X times to improve sword ability" because it is essentially the same as the god-awful use to improve systems out there. "Kill X amount of Y with a sword to improve sword ability" is nothing more than a grindy kill-quest.
Now "Kill X amount of Y to improve your ability to kill Y" is slightly more interesting. Better yet "Killing X amount of Y lets you learn an ability from Y". Now while that is way more interesting than "Kill X amount of Y to improve sword ability" it also creates situations where players might not want to kill Y when they have nothing to gain from it.
Another thing that came to mind was to give generic points (or XP) for advancement from completing achievements. This way a player might collect plants and use the points he/she gets from those achievements to improve their character's sword fighting ability. But even this is not too far away from just getting XP from whatever and getting a level up every now and again.
There's not much new here when you really think about it.
It is vastly different though. The progression methodology is subtly different. How it's applied is to give you a choice where you play. Meaning without the linear power progression you can choose the quest hub order. You could start raiding immediately. You could go to dungeons immediately.
You could start out raiding and 3 months later you could decided to do all the quest. They would still be relevant. The point is to make the game non linear.
I think we need to analyze what is an achievement. Is the act of killing a bunch of stupid mobs an actual achievement? I don't think so. This is old thinking and extremely boring to veteran players, and newer players after awhile. Achievements should be based on choices we make, and should reflect the players personality. Let us not forget about progression. How does one progress in a game? Instead of making the user start by killing a bunch of mobs we can offer alternatives. Pick your progression path. If you like to PVP you can progress that way. If you like to do dungeons you can progress that way too. If you like to enjoy the environment and do the boring quests well you can do that as well. That might be OK but still this isn't good enough. Instead of agreeing with the NPC and do his/her dumb quest what if we could tell the NPC shove it up your butt. Then the NPC could get mad and you would have to go another direction. This could start a whole series of quests and so on and so on. It would be complicated but let's face it were bored with the normal way.
Again you could word any progression as quest. NPC grind is essentially kill X monsters to level. That is measured in UI with a bar. I don't think anyone considers mob grinding quest. Use base systems are use X times to improve usually measured in the UI with a bar.
No, not all progression is questing. Only a game where a UI asked you for specific task(s) with specific reward(s) is questing. I doubt you can name an RPG that uses quest-based leveling. I'm sure there is some ultra-rare example of such a game, but the vast majority of RPGs don't use that style of leveling. Instead, you typically have a system that isn't formalized where you can do any XP-generating activities to advance.
Quests are a UI asking you for specific task(s) for specific reward(s). Rewarded Achievements are merely quests by another name. The only differences are the name (irrelevant) and the lack of narrative (also irrelevant.)
If the root of your dislike of quests actually comes from the just narrative element you're in the wrong genre. One of the core pillars of RPGs is story.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think we need to analyze what is an achievement. Is the act of killing a bunch of stupid mobs an actual achievement? I don't think so. This is old thinking and extremely boring to veteran players, and newer players after awhile. Achievements should be based on choices we make, and should reflect the players personality. Let us not forget about progression. How does one progress in a game? Instead of making the user start by killing a bunch of mobs we can offer alternatives. Pick your progression path. If you like to PVP you can progress that way. If you like to do dungeons you can progress that way too. If you like to enjoy the environment and do the boring quests well you can do that as well. That might be OK but still this isn't good enough. Instead of agreeing with the NPC and do his/her dumb quest what if we could tell the NPC shove it up your butt. Then the NPC could get mad and you would have to go another direction. This could start a whole series of quests and so on and so on. It would be complicated but let's face it were bored with the normal way.
Eh that's mostly off-topic.
Achievements are a common mechanic, classically referring to a UI asking for a task and providing meaningless points as a reward. I suppose you could argue this is still technically a quest, but to me (as a professional game designer) "Achievement" specifically refers to things where the reward is purposefully irrelevant. But sure, the line is blurry because the meaningless reward can sometimes be a badge you display on a profile, and that's not too dissimilar from a WOW achievement that earns you a mount or title (which is effectively the same thing as the badge; it's a visual indicator you got that achievement)
Rewarded Achievements obviously remove this distinction by providing a meaningful reward and are clearly quests.
The non-gaming use of the term ends up mostly being off-topic, but if we choose to discuss it then we have to admit that while achievements are measured according to how much skill/effort they involve, just about everything involves at least a little skill/effort and therefore most things qualify. Plenty of games use elo rating or some derivative to quantify the actual skill/effort involved in a win, but of course most of the time these aren't rewarded (elo rating is the reward) because the most common rewards (vertical progression) would ruin the skill focus of these games. (Still, plenty of games reward lateral progression or cosmetics for skill-based achievements.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Except quests and rewarded achievements are formalized in a UI, and the consequences you list aren't. The narrative element isn't required for something to be a quest.
This isn't even a complex thing to understand. For one if we went for the social consensus definition of an achievement versus a quest we'd run into this statement;
"Unlike the in-game systems of quests, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture."
Also on point is the short segment starting here; "Some implementations use a system of achievements that provide direct, in-game benefits to the gameplay..."
Distinction being made, quests, tasks, etc are mechanics bound by the manner in which you have built a game. Meaning, they are subject to being a mechanic that has to obey rules of the game world and fit within the context in a more rigid manner than the likes of achievements, which can be treated as meta-goals that are obtained at the discretion of the player.
Fact is quests have defining mechanics to them and it's a misnomer to say that achievements and everything else that offers a reward is a "quest" because there are a lot of reward systems that fall outside the definition and there are defining qualities of each that serves to give reason they have different names in the first place.
Besides which, whether or not one wants to refer to achievements as "quests" is entirely inconsequential to the point and mechanics being described by the system. It's just a meaningless tangent created out of a semantic quibble.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Depending on how you implement it, its effects are dramatically different. The worst implementation possible I see is the "Swing X times to improve sword ability" because it is essentially the same as the god-awful use to improve systems out there. "Kill X amount of Y with a sword to improve sword ability" is nothing more than a grindy kill-quest.
Now "Kill X amount of Y to improve your ability to kill Y" is slightly more interesting. Better yet "Killing X amount of Y lets you learn an ability from Y". Now while that is way more interesting than "Kill X amount of Y to improve sword ability" it also creates situations where players might not want to kill Y when they have nothing to gain from it.
Another thing that came to mind was to give generic points (or XP) for advancement from completing achievements. This way a player might collect plants and use the points he/she gets from those achievements to improve their character's sword fighting ability. But even this is not too far away from just getting XP from whatever and getting a level up every now and again.
There's not much new here when you really think about it.
It is vastly different though. The progression methodology is subtly different. How it's applied is to give you a choice where you play. Meaning without the linear power progression you can choose the quest hub order. You could start raiding immediately. You could go to dungeons immediately.
You could start out raiding and 3 months later you could decided to do all the quest. They would still be relevant. The point is to make the game non linear.
The fact that you can go on a dungeon or a quest hub anywhere doesn't make you useful. It is impossible to design content which is satisfying to all characters no matter their level of progression.
If you have progression, you will have tiers of power among the characters. If you don't have character levels players will find other means to divide characters into tiers; like how many achievements have you completed, in this case.
Progression through achievements does not achieve your wish non-linear game. You're making the game grindy. That's what you're achieving.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Opinion is not substitution for reasonable argument.
The idea that it's "impossible to design content which is satisfying to all characters no matter their level of progression" kind of is thrown right in the face of every action game and shooter (planetside, CoD, Battlefield, etc) that uses a horizontal progression system to do just that.
If you have progression, it can take many forms that do not require vertical progression to attain. Characters ranking one another is inconsequential to that.
The non-linear gameplay comes relatively handily from such a concept so long as you design it with the principle that any activity is available for play. It's only logical that the extension of getting the freedom to pick favored activities, players will progress on a personal skill level as well as a character skill level much more directly and their subsequent performance at their chosen actions will increase.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Progression is progression. Even if it gives you options only, you will create situations where "Oh I can't go kill fire elemenetals yet. I don't have the fire resistance skill." You will have gated content based on those achievements and players will pick groups based on those achievements. It is unavoidable.
And when I say "satisfying" I mean "satisfying for most people". You can do whatever you want if you're going to make a game for just yourself and few of your friends. Meanwhile, people are trying to make a living in this business so it matters whether a design decision is popular or not!
The games that have little to no progression (CoD, BF and the like) rely on good gameplay for their success. A progression system through achievements wouldn't even be a major factor in a game like this. Why aren't you making a thread about "How about an MMO with really good gameplay" instead?
And how is all this different from just giving XP (or "customization points") from activities? How are achievements different from that?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I will repeat this as you seemed to miss it. "Meanwhile, people are trying to make a living in this business so it matters whether a design decision is popular or not!" kind of is thrown right in the face of every action game and shooter (Planetside, CoD, Battlefield, etc) that uses a horizontal progression system to do just that.
"Good gamaplay" being the solution to making an interesting game is nothing short of a no-brainer and should be the imperative of any game design. Using people's addiction to ranking and progression as a crutch by making linear and vertical treadmills to climb is more of a cop-out than anything else. Besides which I did happen to list an MMO among the bunch you and I were referencing.
Progression is progression, sure, and a turnip is a turnip. Stating the obvious does not make an illogical argument reasonable. The difference comes from the forms of progression used and how they affect the means and methods players have at their disposal to personalize and advance their characters. It's different from linear and centralized XP progression mechanics by allowing players to independently choose the things they want to specialize their characters into (Asheron's Call for example had a form of this). "Achievements" are different in that cointext because they are meta-goals that exist personal to the character without reliance on any other game mechanics such as interacting for specific/linear quests or dumping a global experience or progression pool where stats universally change without player control.
And the first statement you made is a complete contradiction of the system as per the fundamentals shared in the first post. You want to get better fire resistance? Then it;s more than likely that the quickest means to progress is to go places , fight things, and do activities where fire is a direct threat to the character. Meaning those fire giants are just as worthwhile to confront now as they would be later, if not more so since you have all the more content to gain by confronting them.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It is no different from getting experience- or customization points from activities. In fact, if one would first pick a personal quest to grind mobs to get those points the effect would be the same.
"Dumping" progression to a general pool gives you exactly the freedom where you can do whatever you want to progress in whatever ability you want.
Farm carrots to improve necromancy. Whatever.
The system you describe as an example of more "conventional" character development is obnoxious. Ever play D&D? There's a system with character levels and classes yet it is still very flexible and there's tons of rooms for customization.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
D&D is flexible because users have complete control of the game mechanics, and the rules are built so that they can pick and choose from a wide variety of skills. However, even D&D has limitations imposed directly by the use of it's classes and the strict function of it's progression defined by linear tiers.
Dumping progression to a general pool does not by itself do anything, it relies on the rest of the game's design around leveling and skills to be applied in some manner. Where your claim goes astray s that the most common form of this is linear progression with a lot of verticality, which means you don't have access to all the skills of your choice, you don't have freedom of choice on content which you are able to engage in, and you don't have full choice in how you specialize your character.
It's different because it a skills based progression mechanic that's tracking things from a perspective of more organic growth of character skills from behaviors that makes sense, and lets players act across a variety of content with the growth being largely horizontal.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Its the whole point of classes and levels: to create limitations and tiers (respectively). Limitations are there to create distinct playstyles and make balancing easier. Tiers make it easier to gauge your characters power and also helps with content design.
They work as intended and they work well.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
Since there is no "experience" grouping will make a grinding faster without penalty.
Your system isn't an alternative to questing.
It literally is questing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What we count as a quest is something you are given by the game narrative and directed to do by story.
Like back then, you're not gonna get much of a meaningful argument. The notion that everything that gives a reward for completing a task being a quest is the crutch of his argument, even though it makes little sense, and he will restate it over and over with nonsensical analogies.
The distinction that achievements are floating objectives not particularly tethered to narrative or otherwise is apparently an elusive thing to understand. When progression is tied to a means of doing things at your own whim and volition it's really not much of a quest.
Though I guess we should also fairly qualify that what most people think of as quests is a permutation of the hero's quest at it's core. When a person is tasked with a particular duty and follows, as you stated, a narrative that brings you through the events. It can be simple or it can be complex, but ultimately there is that difference that should be accounted for.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's a method for skill based progression, more or less, that's just trying to clean things up a bit by giving you indicators of your progress.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
In the game I am talking about suppose instead of need experience or forced to do something by questhubbing you could go into difficult areas to get crafting materials. Difficult in meaning its harder to complete not a numbers game where the creature still is as challenging as any other level. This could be done multiple times. Going there a lot and defeating those monsters makes you and you're better at defeating those monsters.
Instead of it being the only place you can go you could go to any difficult area and do the same.
Now "Kill X amount of Y to improve your ability to kill Y" is slightly more interesting. Better yet "Killing X amount of Y lets you learn an ability from Y". Now while that is way more interesting than "Kill X amount of Y to improve sword ability" it also creates situations where players might not want to kill Y when they have nothing to gain from it.
Another thing that came to mind was to give generic points (or XP) for advancement from completing achievements. This way a player might collect plants and use the points he/she gets from those achievements to improve their character's sword fighting ability. But even this is not too far away from just getting XP from whatever and getting a level up every now and again.
There's not much new here when you really think about it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Steam: Neph
You could start out raiding and 3 months later you could decided to do all the quest. They would still be relevant. The point is to make the game non linear.
Quests are a UI asking you for specific task(s) for specific reward(s). Rewarded Achievements are merely quests by another name. The only differences are the name (irrelevant) and the lack of narrative (also irrelevant.)
If the root of your dislike of quests actually comes from the just narrative element you're in the wrong genre. One of the core pillars of RPGs is story.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Achievements are a common mechanic, classically referring to a UI asking for a task and providing meaningless points as a reward. I suppose you could argue this is still technically a quest, but to me (as a professional game designer) "Achievement" specifically refers to things where the reward is purposefully irrelevant. But sure, the line is blurry because the meaningless reward can sometimes be a badge you display on a profile, and that's not too dissimilar from a WOW achievement that earns you a mount or title (which is effectively the same thing as the badge; it's a visual indicator you got that achievement)
Rewarded Achievements obviously remove this distinction by providing a meaningful reward and are clearly quests.
The non-gaming use of the term ends up mostly being off-topic, but if we choose to discuss it then we have to admit that while achievements are measured according to how much skill/effort they involve, just about everything involves at least a little skill/effort and therefore most things qualify. Plenty of games use elo rating or some derivative to quantify the actual skill/effort involved in a win, but of course most of the time these aren't rewarded (elo rating is the reward) because the most common rewards (vertical progression) would ruin the skill focus of these games. (Still, plenty of games reward lateral progression or cosmetics for skill-based achievements.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This isn't even a complex thing to understand. For one if we went for the social consensus definition of an achievement versus a quest we'd run into this statement;
"Unlike the in-game systems of quests, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture."
Also on point is the short segment starting here;
"Some implementations use a system of achievements that provide direct, in-game benefits to the gameplay..."
(courtesy of Wikipedia)
Distinction being made, quests, tasks, etc are mechanics bound by the manner in which you have built a game. Meaning, they are subject to being a mechanic that has to obey rules of the game world and fit within the context in a more rigid manner than the likes of achievements, which can be treated as meta-goals that are obtained at the discretion of the player.
Fact is quests have defining mechanics to them and it's a misnomer to say that achievements and everything else that offers a reward is a "quest" because there are a lot of reward systems that fall outside the definition and there are defining qualities of each that serves to give reason they have different names in the first place.
Besides which, whether or not one wants to refer to achievements as "quests" is entirely inconsequential to the point and mechanics being described by the system. It's just a meaningless tangent created out of a semantic quibble.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
If you have progression, you will have tiers of power among the characters. If you don't have character levels players will find other means to divide characters into tiers; like how many achievements have you completed, in this case.
Progression through achievements does not achieve your wish non-linear game. You're making the game grindy. That's what you're achieving.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The idea that it's "impossible to design content which is satisfying to all characters no matter their level of progression" kind of is thrown right in the face of every action game and shooter (planetside, CoD, Battlefield, etc) that uses a horizontal progression system to do just that.
If you have progression, it can take many forms that do not require vertical progression to attain. Characters ranking one another is inconsequential to that.
The non-linear gameplay comes relatively handily from such a concept so long as you design it with the principle that any activity is available for play. It's only logical that the extension of getting the freedom to pick favored activities, players will progress on a personal skill level as well as a character skill level much more directly and their subsequent performance at their chosen actions will increase.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And when I say "satisfying" I mean "satisfying for most people". You can do whatever you want if you're going to make a game for just yourself and few of your friends. Meanwhile, people are trying to make a living in this business so it matters whether a design decision is popular or not!
The games that have little to no progression (CoD, BF and the like) rely on good gameplay for their success. A progression system through achievements wouldn't even be a major factor in a game like this. Why aren't you making a thread about "How about an MMO with really good gameplay" instead?
And how is all this different from just giving XP (or "customization points") from activities? How are achievements different from that?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
"Good gamaplay" being the solution to making an interesting game is nothing short of a no-brainer and should be the imperative of any game design. Using people's addiction to ranking and progression as a crutch by making linear and vertical treadmills to climb is more of a cop-out than anything else. Besides which I did happen to list an MMO among the bunch you and I were referencing.
Progression is progression, sure, and a turnip is a turnip. Stating the obvious does not make an illogical argument reasonable. The difference comes from the forms of progression used and how they affect the means and methods players have at their disposal to personalize and advance their characters. It's different from linear and centralized XP progression mechanics by allowing players to independently choose the things they want to specialize their characters into (Asheron's Call for example had a form of this). "Achievements" are different in that cointext because they are meta-goals that exist personal to the character without reliance on any other game mechanics such as interacting for specific/linear quests or dumping a global experience or progression pool where stats universally change without player control.
And the first statement you made is a complete contradiction of the system as per the fundamentals shared in the first post. You want to get better fire resistance? Then it;s more than likely that the quickest means to progress is to go places , fight things, and do activities where fire is a direct threat to the character. Meaning those fire giants are just as worthwhile to confront now as they would be later, if not more so since you have all the more content to gain by confronting them.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"Dumping" progression to a general pool gives you exactly the freedom where you can do whatever you want to progress in whatever ability you want.
Farm carrots to improve necromancy. Whatever.
The system you describe as an example of more "conventional" character development is obnoxious. Ever play D&D? There's a system with character levels and classes yet it is still very flexible and there's tons of rooms for customization.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Dumping progression to a general pool does not by itself do anything, it relies on the rest of the game's design around leveling and skills to be applied in some manner. Where your claim goes astray s that the most common form of this is linear progression with a lot of verticality, which means you don't have access to all the skills of your choice, you don't have freedom of choice on content which you are able to engage in, and you don't have full choice in how you specialize your character.
It's different because it a skills based progression mechanic that's tracking things from a perspective of more organic growth of character skills from behaviors that makes sense, and lets players act across a variety of content with the growth being largely horizontal.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
They work as intended and they work well.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky