Couldn't romance achievements be together in 1?

[Mr Fantastic]

It's good you have an inclusive story where people can go for what they prefer. But when it comes to achievements, you know fully well that many people will want to get those and try to get 100%.

Here there's two layers of problems, people who prefer the opposite gender are forced to take a same gender romance, and people who prefer same gender are forced to take an opposite gender romance.

The final romance achievement should be merged into one, into something like: make someone fall in love with you. Also before any adult scenes you need to have some sort of confirmation, even H games are careful about this.

[overdev]

if you want to get 100% of the achievements you have to play the game multiple times or have a saves before you do those quests and you need to replay them. many quests have different outcomes and achievements for that.

you get the romance with the character you have more sympathy points and didn't say to them "just friends" if they ask about the other person.
in general the game don't always give that what you want. often it's just harsh reality and people have a will of their own.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by overdev:

if you want to get 100% of the achievements you have to play the game multiple times or have a saves before you do those quests and you need to replay them. many quests have different outcomes and achievements for that.

you get the romance with the character you have more sympathy points and didn't say to them "just friends" if they ask about the other person.
in general the game don't always give that what you want. often it's just harsh reality and people have a will of their own.

I think that's the worst type of achievements possible in a game, to get them all you either follow a guide or have to experiment over and over. A content based achievement system is way better, and Skyrim pretty much nailed it. Achievements are fun when they are content based and can even serve as a checklist to do all the cool things the game has to offer. In the case of enderal there could be so many more achievements, for example to explore every location and defeat all creatures, or fill up a bestiary, etc. Challenging stuff that showcases what the mod has to offer, there's zero challenge in putting achievements that are basic choices and a simple reload nets you another one for picking the opposite one, that's just lazy design.

I think you're not sure what an RPG is, in a role playing game the player feels part of the world and it can even be a means to get away from reality for some time. For that to be true you need to have agency. And imposing romance options and H scenes to get an in game achievements feels flat out disrespectful especially to the lbtq community. Doesn't it feel kind of odd to give someone a trophy for sleeping with someone? Why do you think the witcher 3 and cyberpunk don't have relationship achievements?

[Zsrai]

Jesus Christ dude, just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean it's bad and needs to be changed. Go play something else if you're going to be this infantile about everything.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Jesus Christ dude, just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean it's bad and needs to be changed. Go play something else if you're going to be this infantile about everything.

Isn't giving a trophy to someone for "scoring" with someone else a type of objectification? Isn't that demeaning to the other person? What part of having mindfulness about romantic interactions between people is infantile exactly?

What's your deal with wanting to control what I do? I have a wife already which is more than enough, don't need two ;)

[Guts]

You are arguing against a false point. YOU are forcing yourself into a same-sex romance (which should have very little impact on you, given it is a video game..) not the developer. It's a good thing, and normal, sensible practice for there to be multiple achievements for the different outcomes a roleplaying game offer, while part of achievement hunting which is an activity fully removed from the standard mode of play is setting up saves and going through the many options to get 100%. I suppose if you are trying to 100% all games and feel the same way, you must make the request of every RPG to ignore the multiple choice nature and streamline achievements for your own ease. This is strange.

[Livid]

OP hast played nearly 90 hours of Enderal in the last 2 weeks, yet has not unlocked half of its achievements. This causes him a lot of stress, not only because it takes a long time, but also because the game is supposed to be played multiple times to get them all, which achievement junkies like him do not like at all.

To vent off his nervousness, he comes to the forums and nitpicks at the annoying game he can't stop playing and makes silly suggestions mostly about making achievements easier lol.

He either needs to get out more or choose more autistic-friendly activities/games.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by 별빛:

You are arguing against a false point. YOU are forcing yourself into a same-sex romance (which should have very little impact on you, given it is a video game..) not the developer. It's a good thing, and normal, sensible practice for there to be multiple achievements for the different outcomes a roleplaying game offer, while part of achievement hunting which is an activity fully removed from the standard mode of play is setting up saves and going through the many options to get 100%. I suppose if you are trying to 100% all games and feel the same way, you must make the request of every RPG to ignore the multiple choice nature and streamline achievements for your own ease. This is strange.

Which false point? What kind of game forces you into a type of relationship to get an achievement? How much ridicule is Jespar going to get for this achievement? How much of that can actually translate into the real world?

All sorts of media have an impact on the users/viewers, it's kinda baffling someone would make a game that is lgbt friendly and then simply objectify them and force players to engage in personal relationships with people of genders they don't want to engage with.

Again even H games are very careful about these things, it's quite strange a mod like enderal that took so much work to do, let something this simple slip by and be part of the final product.

Originally posted by Livid:

OP hast played nearly 90 hours of Enderal in the last 2 weeks, yet has not unlocked half of its achievements. This causes him a lot of stress, not only because it takes a long time, but also because the game is supposed to be played multiple times to get them all, which achievement junkies like him do not like at all.

To vent off his nervousness, he comes to the forums and nitpicks at the annoying game he can't stop playing and makes silly suggestions mostly about making achievements easier lol.

He either needs to get out more or choose more autistic-friendly activities/games.

Imagine getting so angry at someone's opinion you'd call them autistic and avoid even talking about the subject, using only insults, weak

[Guts]

Most RPG tend to have pansexual characters for simplicity sake, as your choice of 'romance' is not about the character, but about the player. I prefer games that give their characters a limited orientation, but that's asking for trouble unnecessarily, from a developers' perspective. It's their choice what kind of game and characters to make.

What i'm saying is this: The only person forcing you into a relationship with jespar for an achievement, is yourself. It's not their responsibility to degrade the games' achievement variety to appease achievement hunters that have visceral reactions to fictional same sex relationships. The 'objectification' argument rings completely hollow, like some padding on top of your actual argument which is the mode of gaining romance achievements makes you uncomfortable. Also that it's tedious. I think - MMO style checklists - are tedious. I enjoy meaningful achievements with ties to significant progression and plot points.

I can tell you, as a member of the LGBTQ community you're offended on behalf of, that an achievement for being romantic with a video game character is not concerning.

[Plastic Age]

What you're describing isn't unprecedented and Mass Effect would be an example where the achievement is based on advancing any one romance plot.

That said, Achievements aren't really a core mechanic. If anything, they provide little rewards along the way, for an 'organic' playthrough, and add replayability for achievement hunting. I don't think it's unreasonable that the replayability might require you to play differently then normal or to make "out of character" choices in a story driven game.

In this particular case, since it takes multiple play throughs: Your character never has to have a same sex relationship. Just role a male one time, female the next. No reason your character needs to project your personal tastes....

Just my opinion on the matter and, obviously, YMMV. In the end; You can chose to "bite the bullet," if you are a completionist, just ignore those achievements, or remove the game from your library if neither option is suitable.

@Livid; I mean, being angry is a fair assumption:

liv·id
/ˈlivid/
adjective
1. furiously angry.

[Guts]

Originally posted by Plastic Age:

@Livid; I mean, being angry is a fair assumption:

liv·id
/ˈlivid/
adjective
1. furiously angry.
:jawagrin:

absolutely decimated
get him an ambulance

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by Livid:

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Imagine getting so angry at someone's opinion you'd call them autistic and avoid even talking about the subject, using only insults, weak

I'm not angry, your opinion is not the main indicator for your autism, what insults?

Sorry buddy, you come across as very needy and immature, to imagine you compare yourself with Dundgren is the joke of the century :D

Originally posted by Plastic Age:

What you're describing isn't unprecedented and Mass Effect would be an example where the achievement is based on advancing any one romance plot.

That said, Achievements aren't really a core mechanic. If anything, they provide little rewards along the way, for an 'organic' playthrough, and add replayability for achievement hunting. I don't think it's unreasonable that the replayability might require you to play differently then normal or to make "out of character" choices in a story driven game.

In this particular case, since it takes multiple play throughs: Your character never has to have a same sex relationship. Just role a male one time, female the next. No reason your character needs to project your personal tastes....

Just my opinion on the matter and, obviously, YMMV. In the end; You can chose to "bite the bullet," if you are a completionist, just ignore those achievements, or remove the game from your library if neither option is suitable.

@Livid; I mean, being angry is a fair assumption:

liv·id
/ˈlivid/
adjective
1. furiously angry.
:jawagrin:

Exactly, mass effect used it correctly, since you're not forced into anything that goes against your views and at the same time can experience that part of the game. It would have made a lot of sense to have an achievement like that in here. Or simply go the safe route and have achievements for their personal missions only.

You don't need multiple playthroughs to play the game and get all achievements, a single one with saves at crucial points is enough. There's a very low chance I will actually 100% this, although it's a cool thing to play a game at the same time as a friend of yours, in my case my bro, and go achievement hunting for fun and use it as a topic of conversation. But the collectibles achievements and the forced romance are really way too much and lack in common sense. If they don't learn from their mistakes their first real game will flop hard and likely generate a lot of controversy.

Learning from the industry, lots of rpgs give you romance options nowadays, none of them that I know force you to take specific romantic paths to get achievements. The collectibles BS could be seen in Ubisoft games, the queen of collectibles, guess what, people hate collectibles and they've been almost entirely removed from their games or decreased to such a small number that it's not cumbersome anymore, not only that collectibles also add something to the game lore. Respecting the player's time is also a good thing.

Also from an RPG point of view, many people if not most, like to play as their own gender and imagine themselves in the game, immersion is a big deal in this type of game. I find it strange they based their game on skyrim and didn't learn the common sense rules that made it such a hit. Enderal could easily have a higher steam score than skyrim, if it wasn't for some of the design choices.

[ijones72(ninja08)]

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Learning from the industry, lots of rpgs give you romance options nowadays, none of them that I know force you to take specific romantic paths to get achievements. The collectibles BS could be seen in Ubisoft games, the queen of collectibles, guess what, people hate collectibles and they've been almost entirely removed from their games or decreased to such a small number that it's not cumbersome anymore, not only that collectibles also add something to the game lore. Respecting the player's time is also a good thing.

I think you misunderstand why people dislike ubisoft collectables.
Its because they werent given out for keen eyed explorers or a reward for looking closely.
they were a checklist. (actually, they were like 6 seperate checklists, and just absoluted cluttered your map)
Noone likes checklists.
Those collectables didnt reward exploration, they encouraged having your face stuck up your map 24.7, going from collectable to collectable.
Needless busy-work. }

Collectables, and having a large number of them isnt inherently bad.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by ijones72(ninja08):

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Learning from the industry, lots of rpgs give you romance options nowadays, none of them that I know force you to take specific romantic paths to get achievements. The collectibles BS could be seen in Ubisoft games, the queen of collectibles, guess what, people hate collectibles and they've been almost entirely removed from their games or decreased to such a small number that it's not cumbersome anymore, not only that collectibles also add something to the game lore. Respecting the player's time is also a good thing.

I think you misunderstand why people dislike ubisoft collectables.
Its because they werent given out for keen eyed explorers or a reward for looking closely.
they were a checklist. (actually, they were like 6 seperate checklists, and just absoluted cluttered your map)
Noone likes checklists.
Those collectables didnt reward exploration, they encouraged having your face stuck up your map 24.7, going from collectable to collectable.
Needless busy-work. }

Collectables, and having a large number of them isnt inherently bad.

Having a ton of collectibles with no function whatsoever is really bad lazy game design. Even if they contain lore, if they affect nothing gameplay wise they get real boring very fast.

I've played all assassins creeds and batmans, I can't even remember how many eyerolls I made at the maddening amount of useless collectibles.

It's a shame valhalla also feels like a collectible fest and gets real boring super fast. I really liked the gameplay in Odyssey, it's a shame they didn't improve on it.

Speaking of Valhalla and Odyssey, they give you plenty of colorful romance options and had the common sense of not tying any achievement to those, it's entirely optional content with no other rewards than the experience itself, because it's a topic that can very easily generate hard feelings and controversy.

[Plastic Age]

Your original complaint was that people are forced into certain relationship scenarios in the game. There is no game mechanic forcing this and 별빛 was much more articulate on that point. Further, the general response has landed somewhere between "it's not a big deal" and "who cares." Maybe that'll change, but thus far, this isn't coming across as a significant failure in game design.

To add to your complaints, you don't like the collectibles too I guess? Another completely avoidable, not forced part of the game.

Beyond that, your responses generally come off as 'opinion passed off as fact' in that the type of achievements you'd prefer are conveniently 'good game design' and your thoughts about play style are magically supported by what "many people if not most" prefer. All convenient points that have nothing to substantiate them.

Not sure if you are hoping to affect change or just looking for an argument but:
This game/mod has been out a couple years now (on Steam at least), and this version is just a port to SE, so I don't imagine this being in the pipeline for change. That said, if your goal is to try to get this changed then you may be better served posting on the dev's forums: https://forum.sureai.net/

[overdev]

please keep the discussion civilized.
the SE version is a port made by fans an not by SureAI. SureAI only set up the steam page and updated the launcher.