Monday, February 23, 2009

Achievement Etiquette

I haven't seen anyone talk about this, and I'm curious to see what people's experiences have been...

Lets assume your running a heroic group. What factors play into your decision to have the group go for / don't go for an achievement?

- You want / don't want it.
- Someone else in the group wants it (Guildmember, Friend, or PuG).
- Someone else's alt wants it.
- Someone else in the group specifically doesn't want to do it.

Modifiers...

- What if it raises the chance of wiping considerably?
- Will you wipe if you fail the achievement mid fight, and try again?
- How about if two people have conflicting wants (Culling of Time vs. Zombiefest, Experienced Drake Rider vs. Ruby Void)

When I'm running with guildmates, I typically find myself doing whatever moderate achievement is needed by anyone, assuming we have a reasonable chance with the composition. Even if its the 18th time I've pulled King Dred along with the rest of the raptors. When it comes to harder ones, and someone mentions it - I'm usually game to give it a few tries, but if its proving a wipefest, I may just steamroll a "lets do this some other time".

What I think the key really is, though, is being specific with the intentions of a group when its being formed. I suspect that on more then one occassion, I was "LF1M, DPS, Old Kingdom" in GChat, and got someone who wanted a speed clear, not to wipe on Elder Kitetheguardiansaway a few times while we worked out healing.

Remember Jailbreak runs? Back in Vanilla, you'd see "LF2 DPS, BRD Jailbreak" in Alliance trade chat. The instance itself was huge, but jailbreak was one specifically obnoxiously long, difficult, and loot-less escort quest, which was part of the Ony attunment. It was not something you sprung on people, as the group would typically disolve it it wasn't brought in for that exact purpose.

What I'm advocating - is that you note the intent of the run in your LF info.

LF Healer, Old Kingdom w/ Achievements
LF Tank, Quick Nexus Clear (No Achievements)
LF DPS, Occulus, Ruby Void.

Also, don't fish around for positives regarding need for specific achievements. If your open to achievements, let it be known in the begining that if you want an achievement, put its name in party chat when you get to the boss. There are tons of people who aren't that interested in chasing points, but if asked "anyone need Consumption Junction?" when you are looking at the boss, will respond "I don't have that". Put the inititiave on them.

Anyway - what is your experience with Achievement Etiquette, concerning different groups (all guild, pug, friends, ect) ?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The main difficulty I foresee with announcing your intention of running for an achievement is that you're likely to increase your wait time for getting a group together. Pugs can already take a bit to get together, and anything you do to shrink your potential pool of interest the longer you're going to wait.

Anonymous said...

I think this was an important post to make. I for one don't pay any attn to achievments. I'll spend an hour on EJ theroycrafting but never did the smallest amount of research in regards to achievments.

If someone makes me aware of one I don't mind trying for it, but my overall goal is to get the group through as quickly as possible and with the lowest repair bill.

Anonymous said...

Thinking about Jailbreak made me whimper a little bit. When I was leveling Maegwen, I did **7** unsuccessful (guild and PuG) runs before I got Jailbreak done.

I also spent the vast majority of my time from level 47 to 60 healing various portions of BRD. I used to get teased all the time with people asking if I had my hearth set there.


I applaud the notion of putting achievements in your 'looking for PuG' add, though, especially if it's a particularily nasty achievement. Yes, this may slow your PuG-getting down, but it feels mre honest. Not only that, but you might attract someone to your PuG who otherwise would have ignored it.

Håvard said...

I think the thing to consider before putting the achievment in your lfg text is whether you'd want to do the run regardless. If you do, then just take the first group that comes looking and mention that you'd like to try the achievment but that it is no deal breaker for you. If you'd rather not run the instance if you can't also do the achievments, then taking a bit longer to find a group isn't a bad thing.

Anonymous said...

I havent ever looked up a dungeon acheivement ahead of time, but I have given them some thought. If someone mentions an acheivement right before the boss, and the group wants to do it, and I think the group has a reasonable chance of not wiping due to the attempt, ill give it a shot.

The thing with pugs is that every wipe risks the group falling apart. sure, groups are more tolerant of a wipe that resulted from acheivement pursuit, but its always a risk.

Anonymous said...

Also i forgot to mention, whenever im looking for a CoS group i always advert for a 'timed cos' group. Frankly, I dont want to waste my one chance a day on a group that has no chance of completing it on time.

Anonymous said...

When I pug, I don't force anyone to do achievement. I assume everyone else want a speed run. If someone want an achievement and everyone agree to do it, then we might try 2-3 times unless I see it's impossible for some reason.

When I make an achievements run, I usually pickup player I trust, that I know they will listen and perform as required. For Share The Love, we had a warrior DPS who had a tank set and a DPS with healing set so we have a tank/healer available while boss was impaling the main tank/healer. It's the kind of set up you can hardly have in a pug.