HevyD Posts: 72 Registered: 4/21/2017
Hevyd
# 1 - Posted on 4/27/2017 23:34:01

As I'm adding playthroughs I really like the goals ability. It seems like a nice way to track progression outside of just simply time played. It's one of the reasons I like achievements in games so much.

One thing that sucks though is that while achievements are milestones set by the developers, goals are set by the players... before they even play the game?

I'm suggesting either allow players to submit a series of goals for a game that someone else can choose to adopt or just allow us to see everyone else's goals in their playthroughs so we can copy or get an idea of what we should be adding.

Thanks,

merph518 Curator Posts: 192 Registered: 4/21/2017
merph518
# 2 - Posted on 4/27/2017 23:36:51

I second this! I'd love to see what other people are doing for goals.

Nonemployee Curator Posts: 70 Registered: 9/23/2016
nonemployee
# 3 - Posted on 4/28/2017 6:40:00

You actually can see other user's goals by going to their profile and clicking the progression bar in the "Now Playing" area. Actually took me awhile to find out about this...

merph518 Curator Posts: 192 Registered: 4/21/2017
merph518
# 4 - Posted on 4/28/2017 11:59:18

Ah ha! So many of these little hidden links.

HevyD Posts: 72 Registered: 4/21/2017
Hevyd
# 5 - Posted on 4/28/2017 13:08:51

Is there any way to look at other user's goals after they've already completed their playthrough?

moho_00 Curator Backer Posts: 6844 Registered: 6/10/2011
moho_00
# 6 - Posted on 4/28/2017 13:33:42

Currently, it's not possible to view goals after a playthrough has been completed. If a completion is created from a playthrough, the two items are associated, so I could potentially allow them to be displayed in the Latest Completions section on the Profile page, in the same manner as they are in the Now Playing section.

As for being able to import a goals list from another user (or perhaps yourself, if you're replaying the game and starting a new playthrough), that's definitely something I'd like to add in the future. There are three challenges that we'll need to address though:

  • Spoilers! Goals are being used in a wide variety of ways, but for those that use story-driven goals, it's inevitable that spoilers will show up in the goals list. Of course, you won't know there are spoilers until you add the list (and you may not realize it until later) and it can be difficult to manage. We could potentially skirt around this by just having a note / warning before you load in a list that it might contain spoilers, so use the feature at your own risk.
  • I mentioned above that goals are used in a wide variety of ways and that's potentially an issue because it means you might import a few lists and none of them are quite what you want. I had always figured if you import a list, you would then be able to customize it, so it's not a huge deal, but I could see it being frustrating to try and make a list work when you should've just started from scratch.
  • We don't have this problem yet, but over time, hopefully lots of users will enter lots of goals for lots of games. This is actually a negative in the long run in terms of importing goals because you'll have a bunch of options without knowing what they contain and again, potentially spend more time trying to make one work, rather than just starting from scratch.

So yeah, it's definitely something I want to do because the value is clear, but it's a matter of figuring out the best way to handle it

Post Edited on 4/28/2017 13:35:37
HevyD Posts: 72 Registered: 4/21/2017
Hevyd
# 7 - Posted on 4/28/2017 15:41:45

Thanks for the response, Moho.

If you're going to go the route of having user submitted lists, maybe that's something that could be curated? Heck, you could even have one master "Completionator Approved" goal list that the community kind of agrees on and stick that at the top. Then just have a set of rules that someone's list must follow in order to allow it to become "Completionator Approved."

Previews would be another good thing to include. That way you don't have to set the goal list to your playthrough before you get a chance to take a look at it. Load up the preview, little warning that "This may include spoilers," and allow people to take a look before hand.

THEEENNN you could also include a rating system for the goal lists that allows users to determine whether or not they liked the list for their playthrough. That way the cream rises.

And I don't want to pile it on all at once but...

A little alert to let someone know "Hey, this game you beat has a goal list being submitted, would you mind looking it over and letting us know if this is a good goal list or if it contains spoilers and shouldn't be approved?"

I don't want to come across as demanding. Just throwing some ideas out there. As it is, goals are something I really like about the site, just see room for improvement and hopefully can help :)

Thanks again for the response.

moho_00 Curator Backer Posts: 6844 Registered: 6/10/2011
moho_00
# 8 - Posted on 5/1/2017 15:32:56

I think having curated goal lists would be a great way to moderate content (and keep them spoiler-free), but it's contingent on finding sort of a standard way of handling goals (i.e. do you just use achievements, have goals for story events, have goals for all side content, how detailed should they be, etc). Of course, just because you have a list doesn't mean you have to complete them all (especially considering you can just remove the ones you don't want to do), but we'd have to have some sort of standard, I suppose.

I like the idea of previewing goal lists and I think if and when we get to the point of importing them, that (along with the spoiler warning) will be a requirement

dhobo Curator Backer Posts: 1965 Registered: 1/5/2015
darwinsocialism
# 9 - Posted on 5/1/2017 16:29:31

I think once we get a feature-set nailed down for how goals will be handled, curating lists could be a possibility. Though that's even more work for us to do on an ever-growing pile of things that need doing.

Having something like official trophy/achievement/etc... lists as one option for importing goals would be a good default baseline. As far as custom goal lists go, if we're going to curate, I would suggest no more than two. 1) Condensed and 2) Expanded.
Condensed would be as spoiler free as possible, while expanded could be a more "complete" list.

Using Breath of the Wild as an example:

Condensed

  • Complete every shrine

Expanded

  • Complete the Dah Hesho shrine
  • Complete the Katosa Aug shrine
  • Complete the Ke'nai Shakah shrine
  • Complete the Ritaag Zumo shrine
  • Complete the Tu Ka'loh shrine
  • etc...