Guild Wars 2

What is up with the design of this Blood & Madness event being mostly about ‘grind’?

An article popped up today at MMORPG.com, with the title “Guild Wars 2 Column: A Grindy Halloween”. Here:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7875/Guild-Wars-2-A-Grindy-Halloween.html

A particular piece got my attention:

• I’m actually pretty confused right now. During development ArenaNet mentioned that they wanted to do away with mindless grinding. It’s not fun, so why force it on players. Overall I think they’ve done a pretty good job. Grinding is available for players that want a little extra such as legendary weapons, but it was never required. Now we have this event takes a huge step backwards and forces a grind, not just for the achievements, but for the story as well. What happened to ArenaNet’s design philosophy? Did they not have enough time to focus on this event?

Last year’s Halloween wasn’t grindy for the story. It required thought -or a wiki- to unscramble a puzzle leading to a trek of discovery to the lore of Mad King Thorn from different ghosts around the game’s world.

This year’s Halloween? We get a small story instance with Tassi, then an achievement grind. Oh yes, it is very much a grind. The boss kills are fine, a stomp or two I can see, but the others such kitten door and 50 bags of candy? What do those have to do with capturing a Candy Corn monster?

What I find ironic is that you’re tasked with obtaining a living candy corn monster, and instead of going with a cool gun/device/buff food used while fighting one of the MANY 100’s killed, they have achievements grinded through to get to the single mini-pet. And somehow that mini-pet is now the key to locking up Prince Edrick?

The fight against Edrick itself is okay, though incredibly short and far from as epic as the fight against his father was last year. That 5-man dungeon, with all it’s glory, was fun. This one? It’s so short there’s an achievement to complete the fight in 1 minute. Really?

Now another bone to pick is the one of what to do with the candy corn. Anyone who had a stockpile of candy corn had previously used it up back in August during the Bazaar of the Four Winds event for the Celestial recipes. That chunked out supply and kept demand high. However, now A.Net sets it up that this Halloween requires some 10,000 to 20,000 pieces per unique rewards (Edrick mini or 20-slot bag).

Yet, the nodes have been shaved so that they’re no longer in WvW as they were last year, and there’s a noticeable diminish overall throughout the game’s world. The nodes aren’t even noted icons like they were last year on the mini-map, just looking like ordinary ore.

So I’m completely curious as to which team [of the 4 LS teams] was in charge of this event? What other events have they designed and even learned from? This one seems like it fits more in FFXIV or WoW than it does in GW2.

Agreed, the halloween grind this year is ridiculous. I had been looking forward to the return of halloween since the very moment it left us last year. I had such a blast in 2012! this year? i’ve spent i don’t even know how many hours mindlessly running around the labrynth trying to collect 10-kittening-K candy corn and enough gold to buy 10-kittening-K nougat centers! Seriously? Is this what has become of what was initially some of the best content to be released in GW2 thus far?

Siphaed.9235:

This year’s Halloween? We get a small story instance with Tassi, then an achievement grind. Oh yes, it is very much a grind. The boss kills are fine, a stomp or two I can see, but the others such kitten door and 50 bags of candy? What do those have to do with capturing a Candy Corn monster?

What I find ironic is that you’re tasked with obtaining a living candy corn monster, and instead of going with a cool gun/device/buff food used while fighting one of the MANY 100’s killed, they have achievements grinded through to get to the single mini-pet. And somehow that mini-pet is now the key to locking up Prince Edrick?

I am so glad I’m not the only one who noticed that. It made no sense to make us beat the meta-achievement for the mini candy-corn elemental when there were plenty of them in the Labyrinth we could use, and much bigger ones at that. Tassi could’ve easily given us a device to capture/tame one, or failing that, give us a device to extract and utilize their essences instead. But she didn’t. Some expert, huh?

Now another bone to pick is the one of what to do with the candy corn. Anyone who had a stockpile of candy corn had previously used it up back in August during the Bazaar of the Four Winds event for the Celestial recipes. That chunked out supply and kept demand high. However, now A.Net sets it up that this Halloween requires some 10,000 to 20,000 pieces per unique rewards (Edrick mini or 20-slot bag).

Yet, the nodes have been shaved so that they’re no longer in WvW as they were last year, and there’s a noticeable diminish overall throughout the game’s world. The nodes aren’t even noted icons like they were last year on the mini-map, just looking like ordinary ore.

So I’m completely curious as to which team [of the 4 LS teams] was in charge of this event? What other events have they designed and even learned from? This one seems like it fits more in FFXIV or WoW than it does in GW2.

This. So much this. Even now, the majority of my time is spent farming the nodes in the Labyrinth and the doors every now and then in the vain hope that I’ll get enough materials to make the recipe for the Gift of Souls to make the part I’ll need to make the Crossing staff for my necromancer. And even if I commit the rest of my free time to it, I still probably won’t make it without heavily relying on the Trading Post, which I don’t have much gold to do right now. Same with all the other Halloween weapons, the Bloody Prince mini, and the 20 slot Halloween Pail (why grind for this when making/buying a 20 slot or even 18 slot bag is so much quicker and cheaper in the long run?)

When the recipe to make a recipe to make one part you need for an exotic staff (that already takes quite some material itself) is the hardest thing to get, something is clearly wrong.

Once again, the Living Story is dead to me within a week. The only interesting bit left are the unannounced changes to Kessex Hills and the krait being up to something, but once again, we’ll have to wait and see.

Yeah I farmed it enough to get a couple of the achievements and I haven’t touched it since. I can see they were trying to go for a Southsun/Pavilian type LS installment but it’s just way more annoying than either of those two. There’s absolutely no way I’m farming tens of thousands of any item if it’s not an item that drops everywhere AND it’ll all actually stack in my bank.

I mean a Halloween pail that isn’t even a cosmetic item for HOW many candy corns? WTF?

I can totally agree about the candy corn aspect. It does seem like an ungodly amount of candy corn to do anything really…

As for the rest, not so much of a grind. I don’t play very often with kids and work. I might get in a few hours a day..and I completed the Halloween achievements pretty easily. You don’t even need to get all those meta achievements because if you get the 2 that pop for dailies, those count.

This Halloween living story is far from a grind. The only thing that could be considered close to a grind are the doors which can be done under an hour in the open world. If you’re doing it in the labyrinth then you’re doing it wrong (this assuming you’re trying to get them done as fast as possible).

Perhaps those complaining about grind should look at what we had to do last year.

Ayrilana.1396:

This Halloween living story is far from a grind. The only thing that could be considered close to a grind are the doors which can be done under an hour in the open world. If you’re doing it in the labyrinth then you’re doing it wrong (this assuming you’re trying to get them done as fast as possible).

Perhaps those complaining about grind should look at what we had to do last year.

20K mats that can only be acquired from couple of specific areas that must be done over and over in order to acquire them isn’t a grind? Then what is?

BoogerSammich.7189:

Ayrilana.1396:

This Halloween living story is far from a grind. The only thing that could be considered close to a grind are the doors which can be done under an hour in the open world. If you’re doing it in the labyrinth then you’re doing it wrong (this assuming you’re trying to get them done as fast as possible).

Perhaps those complaining about grind should look at what we had to do last year.

20K mats that can only be acquired from couple of specific areas that must be done over and over in order to acquire them isn’t a grind? Then what is?

You’re going to get a response of “None of it is mandatory it’s all optional so it’s not a grind.” Problem is that if you actually WANT one of these silly items it IS a grind and if you don’t want one your main option is to go grind something else at this point…

These items are not needed to complete the LIVING STORY. Nowhere did I mention items available from the npc. The great majority of the OP’s post was about the actual living story with the last couple paragraphs about the items.

Ayrilana.1396:

This Halloween living story is far from a grind. The only thing that could be considered close to a grind are the doors which can be done under an hour in the open world. If you’re doing it in the labyrinth then you’re doing it wrong (this assuming you’re trying to get them done as fast as possible).

Perhaps those complaining about grind should look at what we had to do last year.

For the meta achievement itself? Not that much.

For the Halloween weapons, Bloody Prince mini, and the other items that you trade candies for? Yes. It is a ridiculous grind that may very well be impossible to do in the time alotted without heavy reliance on the Trade Post and/or gem to gold conversion.

Wiki suggests the PRince will still be tradeable post-Halloween. Is that likely to be the case do we think (as a sep tab on the festival vendor)?

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

Ursan.7846:

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

I’d call it more ‘grind’ than ‘actual fun things to do’, certainly. Is the LS part of it a bad grind? No, but is it grind? Yes.

rizzo.1079:

I’d call it more ‘grind’ than ‘actual fun things to do’, certainly. Is the LS part of it a bad grind? No, but is it grind? Yes.

As I stated, most of the achievements in the Halloween only requires you to do it once. The story mode instances, the bosses, some of the dailies, etc. It’s entirely possible to get the meta doing only the achievements where you only do an activity once.

There’s barely any repetition of anything. And some of these repetitions (carving 5 pumpkins, opening 50 ToT bags) are really trivial to do.

The achievements are hardly a grind. I’m shocked and confused why you’d want to lump it into a complaint together with the REAL grind that very much exists (for the skins, not the achievements). We want the achievements do be like this: lots of do-one-time ones, enough to complete the meta with just doing that, but with a smattering of repeated ones just for folks who like it.

Ursan.7846:

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

It’s a grind because they can’t do it in 30 seconds and/or just want it now since they’re impatient. I swear they just want a button that gives them everything in the game.

I don’t mind the grind for the recipes if it were possible to do in the time allotted, but you can’t. It is just that one can not grind that much stuff.

Saw the 100k needed for the weapons, thought “Oh it must drop a lot more frequently!”

Saw that the 100k was a typo and that it’s actually 10k. “Oh, it must still be more prominent in drops than last year, or maybe the personal candy corn node is really good!”

Saw +-10 candy corn from the personal node… “Welp, guess I’m done here…”

I’m not going to feed market flippers all my gold every event. Every. Event. You can’t even work towards anything unless you ignore everything else in game because inflation happens so fast.

I must agree. There’s something ‘off’ about this year’s Halloween event. Way off. The grind, that ANet wanted to avoid, is here with a vengeance. The requirements for the bag and the Mad Prince mini prove this point. Maybe it’s the rush to put out content, but I’m not liking the direction ANet is taking with these recent changes.

Also, for those mentioning achievements, keep in mind the game offers a lot of ‘carrots’ to chase in the form of gear or minis. Vanity items, more or less. This keeps players playing. But, players also see how long the stick is too.

Loot is a huge incentive to play. To show off that nice gear. But, for those with family, jobs, and a life, we don’t have endless hours to farm.

I’m not saying make it easy to get, but I am saying make those items attainable within the time frame. This is where the grind complaint comes from. When requirements to attain items become more chore than fun, it’s a grind.

No, it’s not a requirement. But, neither is playing this game. Both are supposed to be fun.

For me its not the grind so much as its the RNG. The new skins? Not only are they gem shop items, they’re RNG. Better buy 30-40 chests for your ticket! Want to get the refined halloween mats without buying from flippers? They drop, honest they do, but its RNG. Best spend hours in the zerg and maybe you’ll get lucky and get enough. Even entering the event is RNG for some reason. Sometimes I have to visit 5 doors before one of them forms a portal. Why don’t they have a persistent portal in LA? Its just absurd. Remember the christmas dungeon? If you did it every day, you got the stuff you needed guaranteed. You could make your minis, you could get your snowflakes, all without any element of chance. Now its just some luckfest where your skill and dedication is irrelevant.

I just think they;re making stuff too fast. Good quality content takes time, so I can almost bet that there’s some living story content like this one where they just go ‘well screw it, big patch coming later, don’t have time for this’ and just slap some stuff together and call in an update.

Fast
Good
Cheap
Pick two.

Since we don’t pay for updates, ‘Cheap’ is a given.
Since the updates are on a two week schedule, it seems ‘Fast’ is already inherited…
Hrm. Looks like ‘Good’ is the one we’re sacrificing here.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I just think they;re making stuff too fast. Good quality content takes time, so I can almost bet that there’s some living story content like this one where they just go ‘well screw it, big patch coming later, don’t have time for this’ and just slap some stuff together and call in an update.

Again, I must agree. I’ve noticed this trend of ‘great’ content every three months. And, between those three months, a lot of less-than-stellar filler that feels absolutely rushed.

If I had to guess, the design and story teams are spread too thin.

150 minions, 100 Trick-or-Treat bags, 150 pumpkins carved, and this year’s can be completed by dailies. The grind this year is in the materials, and the fact that the game has switched from exploration to zergsploration.

Ursan.7846:

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

One can argue the dailies to be grind as well. Just grind that alternates per day.

Technically speaking, grind has been in the Living Story achievements since day one with last year’s Halloween, and returned with Flame and Frost (go fix moar signs!).

But lots of people will just go scream “don’t like it, don’t do it” – but what if you want the prizes? Tough.

You pretty much gotta grind for the best stuff, and while 90% of it is only aesthetics, the Ascended gear isn’t and that feels like pure grind to me. But that’s just me.

Sad thing is, there really isn’t any cool aesthetic stuff you don’t have to grind for. Even if the grind has been found to be done an easier way. ArenaNet – despite their claims – have been promoting grind and farming rather than their original GW1 philosophy of “if players find a way to farm, let them, but don’t give it extra rewards and only remove if it causes problems” – this feels abandoned with Eye of the North when they added PvE-only skills linked to titles.

Most of the achievements are “grind but unnecessary/can be done via regular gameplay” – see things like Slayer – but for the cool looks? You gotta pray to RNG gods or do LS achievements, many of which deal with do 50+ of x activity. And to me that feels like grind, even moreso when it’s limited time.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s a grind because they can’t do it in 30 seconds and/or just want it now since they’re impatient. I swear they just want a button that gives them everything in the game.

I feel there is a very fine and huge difference between:

“Getting something for doing a long activity – like a jumping puzzle or dungeon or story instances”
and
“Getting something for doing the same short activity dozens of times – like carving pumpkins or farming champions”

The latter should just exist for AP, IMHO. The former should be the requirements for the gear, even if affected by RNG.

The main thing that upsets me is we were told that these first year events were setting the framework for ArenaNet so that when events, like this holiday’s, came around again they could concentrate on adding quality content because the framework was already constructed.

Well, this is our second Halloween and it feels very much like a rehash of the first with some very minor additions. Heck they’re not even bothering with the most popular cash items from GW1, the COSTUMES!!!

Maybe I had my expectations set too high being a GW1 vet, but so far this update has been a major letdown for me. I was hoping for a few added holiday quests, at least one additional holiday game (not one taken away), and again holiday related COSTUMES! I would also ask that story NOT be gated behind achievements. I am not saying get rid of achievements, but some of us do not find these ls achievements fun or interesting but we still love the lore and stories that ArenaNet crafts. Why have the story of the Mad King’s son locked behind achievements?

On a side note, am I the only one who thinks the bloody prince looks like a bad copy of the Joker?

He’s nothing like the joker. The joker had no emotional investment in anything he was doing. You’re thinking of scarlet. Scarlet is a bad copy of the joker.

Psycho Robot.7835:

He’s nothing like the joker. The joker had no emotional investment in anything he was doing. You’re thinking of scarlet. Scarlet is a bad copy of the joker.

I’m not talking about emotional investment, I’m talking about looks as in that ridiculous face paint.

In that case, he’s more like the crow, or KISS

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ursan.7846:

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

One can argue the dailies to be grind as well. Just grind that alternates per day.

Is doing the Mad King’s jumping puzzle once every 3 days is somehow so “grindy” that one must complain about it?

Again, is this seriously what people categorize as “grindy” these days? The achievements are incredibly trivial to do: that people would compare them to the massive skin-grind in the same update is mind-boggling.

Ursan.7846:

Is doing the Mad King’s jumping puzzle once every 3 days is somehow so “grindy” that one must complain about it?

Again, is this seriously what people categorize as “grindy” these days? The achievements are incredibly trivial to do: that people would compare them to the massive skin-grind in the same update is mind-boggling.

I was more referring to the close x doors, carve x pumpkins, etc. Over the days it may feel like a grind.

If you even actually bothered to read my post, you would have noticed that I don’t mind such achievements and I in fact promote those jumping puzzle ones.

What people categorize as “grind” is what grind actually is – repeating the same activity several times over with no profit until reaching a very high amount of having repeated that same activity.

E.g., if the daily was instead doing the clocktower 10 times – rather than once – that could be considered a grind, because it wouldn’t be rewarded until that 10th time.

The dailies in of themselves is rather non-grindy. But the requirement to do dailies for the meta, the motivation/conditioning to do dailies for the chest, and their frequency (being dailies), tend to make people feel like their grinding. The issue isn’t so much the process, but rather the fact that rewards are only available via that process (or rather, the best rewards are). It creates a skinner box system and compels people to do what they consider to be grind – the repetitious task of profit only occurring after multiple repetitions of said task.

Grind is subjective, i found nothing grindy.

Your experience may differ based on prior gaming experiences and length/type of grind you had to go through in those.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I was more referring to the close x doors, carve x pumpkins, etc. Over the days it may feel like a grind.

If you even actually bothered to read my post, you would have noticed that I don’t mind such achievements and I in fact promote those jumping puzzle ones.

What people categorize as “grind” is what grind actually is – repeating the same activity several times over with no profit until reaching a very high amount of having repeated that same activity.

E.g., if the daily was instead doing the clocktower 10 times – rather than once – that could be considered a grind, because it wouldn’t be rewarded until that 10th time.

The dailies in of themselves is rather non-grindy. But the requirement to do dailies for the meta, the motivation/conditioning to do dailies for the chest, and their frequency (being dailies), tend to make people feel like their grinding. The issue isn’t so much the process, but rather the fact that rewards are only available via that process (or rather, the best rewards are). It creates a skinner box system and compels people to do what they consider to be grind – the repetitious task of profit only occurring after multiple repetitions of said task.

Almost everything in MMOs is a skinner box system. Halloween achievements has the bar set really low.

10 out of 12 achievements are one-time only achievements. You get 2 dailies a day, and 28 days worth of dailies (56 total). You only need to do 13 total for the meta-reward.

Different people have different thresholds. However, if you think these Halloween achievements are “too grindy,” I’m going to let you know that your standards way out of whack.

I think there’s always going to be “grind”. It was an interesting play, to progress the story not at a certain date but based on the achievements. Which I don’t mind so much now that they’ve added the ability to gain these through dailies (I love, love this feature). I also really liked that they at least attempted (gold star you tried.jpg here) to link the player’s in-game reward with the plot. That makes the reward so much more meaningful. Like, I have marjory’s journal and the sanctum thing in my inventory doing nothing for …ever. I wish this were handled more like the personal story tab, with the holiday items displayed on a book-like page with a short plot summary. Just keep it out of my inventory. In this vein, good on them for the nodes-as-rewards.

So, if grind is gonna be there, we’re just talking about scale. I think the person who brought up the notion that it’s impossible to farm that much brought up a fair point. Has anyone really crunched the numbers? I assume ANET is thinking beyond just the one year – that these are prizes that could take multiple holiday events to earn (some communication on this point would be cool, but I was asking since last year whether the holiday currency/collectibles+rewards would be reused and never found a straight answer, so I guess it’s par for the course). Which would be fine if they gave us more collectible space to hold this stuff. That is the truly upsetting part, to me. Where do they think we’re gonna be able to store all the stacks? (Unfortunate Answer: I imagine they’d like you to buy bank space via gems)

Other than that, I don’t see a high-end grind here. You can do most of the achievements pretty easily, and there’s plenty of time to do it in (I say as an adult player with a full time job, family, other hobbies…). Add to that the great implementation of getting the LS requirements through dailies, and well… I just don’t see the problem. We have another half-month or so of Halloween updates, as I assume the next LS release will tie in, after which time I’ll be able to judge this more clearly. Also, I haven’t finished the last story mission due to busy-ness, though I got the mini a few days ago, so ymmv. But for now, I’d say this isn’t on the high end of the grind-scale and that I appreciate them trying to play with the LS format a little. I’d take this over the insane amount of pumpkin carving that I did last year for the title (although that turned out to be weirdly fun and I… kind of miss the rush this year? I actually feel less hectic this Halloween LS, and I kind of don’t like that).

My biggest problem so far is that there’s not a lot of incentive to do the Labyrinth after you have your doors. Not enough reason to ~grind~ I guess, unless you’re farming the nodes. Most people on my server are favoring WvW Season 1 — seems like the same problem I had in trying to enjoy the The Crown Pavilion. After the initial release, the commanders leave for WvW and it’s a ghost town by the middle-end of the LS. Also kind of a bummer to have no armor repair/merchant, but I guess it’s a way to make you use any consumables for those that you might have.

You seem to have ignored the grind that is necessary if you want any of the Halloween weapons/skins/items.

Nilkemia.8507:

You seem to have ignored the grind that is necessary if you want any of the Halloween weapons/skins/items.

^^This.
How many hours do i have in the labrynth? Um, too many to openly admit… And Im at 4 cobs and 3 nougat centers. Seriously contemplating just selling the kitten things on account of the fact that the thought of spending an additional second of my time in that labrynth makes me want to set my computer on fire…

Nilkemia.8507:

You seem to have ignored the grind that is necessary if you want any of the Halloween weapons/skins/items.

Yeah those are the only thing I’d qualify as a grind. The achievements (or needing to do the achievements) isn’t really a grind in my mind (except maybe the eat 50 candy corns, cause thats just a setback to the mass amount of grinding need for the items).

Ayrilana.1396:

Ursan.7846:

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

It’s a grind because they can’t do it in 30 seconds and/or just want it now since they’re impatient. I swear they just want a button that gives them everything in the game.

Because doing the same mindless activity over and over again isn’t grind?

Once I’ve already demonstrated I can do it once, then what’s the point of making me repeat it? Anet isn’t benefitting because they have to pay for the bandwidth I use and I’m not benefitting because I have to give up my time to repeat something I’ve already done.

A holiday event should be something that you do because its fun and then you get a nice reward when its all over. Making someone repeat an activity so many times that it goes from being fun to being a job is going too far.

There has to a much better option than grinding out a million trick or treat bags.

And the holiday achievements to get the minipet are most certainly an undesireable grind because they make you repeat the content past the point where it was enjoyable.

And that I think is a sufficient definitition of grind as it pertains to a MMO.

Grind: being forced to repeat content past the point where it is enjoyable.