Guild Wars 2

So about 3-4 months in right? The new-ness has worn off for me, and I sit here pouring over the stuff I want to make in this game. Every MF recipe, legendary, or the like… I notice a trend, in which I was blind to before because this was new and exciting.

Everything requires a huge grind or copious amounts of gold (trying to force us to buy gems huh?)

Now, this game was first brought to my attention with the dev videos claiming this was a new kind of game, which doesn’t feel like a grind, blah blah blah. But that’s exactly what it is.

There are no raids, there are only a few dungeons, there are no “GUILD WARS”, and alot of the events are still bugged, or nerfed.

As a player with 1008 hours played as of this morning, and hundreds of dollars spent in the gem store (mostly because I wanted to support this game) I am unhappy with the turnout of GW2.

The solution: make it less of a grind, put in objectives or quests to get your “materials” for these highly sought after items (legendaries, non-legendaries (foefire and the like), make it difficult so they do not become as the WoW player’s state “welfare” legendaries.

Something has to be better than this system you have. For instance: I want a foefire’s essence, but I need 100 charged lodestones. A rare drop from a rare mob (because temples are not always owned or farmable. )

100+ of a rare mat is simply too much. Because of the rarity, this would cost me hundreds upon hundreds, just for one stack of the mats!

Maybe I’m just rambling, or maybe im the only one that feels this way ( I hope not), but i hope something is done, because I don’t want to see this game fail.

The game isn’t a grind, yes to get legendaries as stated by the dev’s would be a lengthy process and that is what it is. The over all game is not a grind.

There are no raids

raids don’t make the end game content fyi, with that said the reason why you say this is because your comparing GW to WoW and I will explain this.

The ideals of a Raid

• A rapid surprise attack on an enemy by troops, aircraft, or other armed forces in warfare, usually comprising of 2 or more people.
  MMO raids are defined as such
• A dungeon that requires 10 – 40 people that is more difficult than pre-existing dungeons. ( although the party amount is not a definitive indication just has been the norm for quite some time now )
• Drops loot that is better than the previous set of dungeons.
• Has a scaled difficulty level, being the more difficult the better the rewards.
  – This is showing in WoW as LFR raids< Normal< Heroic raids
• Gear from previous difficulties are needed to be effective in harder modes

So what we see is you need at least 2 or more people and a scaling difficulty with rewards that get better with difficulty.

GW2
Fractals

• A Dungeon that is harder than the previous dungeons before ( No rez zerg mobs hit harder ect. )
• A dungeon that scales up in difficulty the more times you do it yielding better rewards.
• A dungeon that requires at least 5 people to complete
• A dungeon that requires at a certain level of difficulty to have gear or loot that is better than the previous loot and is required to survive and be effective.

Out side of the 10 – 40 man aspect looks like GW2 has delivered us a Raid by all definitions of a raid. Might not be what other MMO’s have done but then again they did say this was a different MMO.

The stuff you are talking about that is a grind ( IE: Crafting ) is not required for playing the game, it is an added benefit. What they were referring to as a no grind game they meant, in order to play this game you will not need to grind. You don’t need MF or Exotics or Legendary weapons to play the game.

Also note that somewhere the Development team stated that for the legendary weapons the precursor weapons will be patched so you can quest for them or will only be obtainable by a long quest, which will explain why the weapon is so legendary apparently. Other than that I like the fact that Legendary weapons take a long time, takes away form other MMO’s just handing them out, ( Although the selling of legendary weapons on TP I feel cheapens the idea of getting on but who am I to say some moron can’t spend 2k gold ( or real world money ) on a cosmetic feature.

I wouldn’t say forcing us to buy gems, but it is a smart business decision to offer the option to.

Kaimick.5109:

The game isn’t a grind, yes to get legendaries as stated by the dev’s would be a lengthy process and that is what it is. The over all game is not a grind.

I disagree, most everything in the game is a grind. Dungeon gear, farming, legendaries, non-legendaries.

How do you not see it as a grind?

Kaimick.5109:

raids don’t make the end game content fyi
So what we see is you need at least 2 or more people and a scaling difficulty with rewards that get better with difficulty.

No it doesnt, but 5 man content doesnt make end game content either, especially the select few we have

Kaimick.5109:

GW2
Fractals

• A Dungeon that is harder than the previous dungeons before ( No rez zerg mobs hit harder ect. )
• A dungeon that scales up in difficulty the more times you do it yielding better rewards.
• A dungeon that requires at least 5 people to complete
• A dungeon that requires at a certain level of difficulty to have gear or loot that is better than the previous loot and is required to survive and be effective.

I have done 320 fractals, lvl 21 on my warrior and lvl 31 on my guardian.

I have received 3 exotics in all 320 fractals, and under 60 rares (lost count), 5 rings (2 of which are banked, being useless), NO fractal weapon skins, NO infused rings (had to make em), NO precursors.

It is a grind. It’s a grind for lucky drops and the illusion that “gear gets better” I have received, for the most part, the same crappy greens from lvl 1, to 31.

It’s a grind, l just grind every night to make a few silver.

Getting really bored with it now.

I personally cannot consider this game a grind when you compare it to other mmorpgs out their. Guild wars 2 at least has a steady exp gain system unlike other games i’ve played. You want to know about grind? One game i played literally from doing all the math, would take me 1 month to finally get into the good gear / interesting areas. This game you could literally pour in 1 whole week and be lvl 30~50. But guess what? The area’s you go in even at lvl 1 are interesting and not boring.

So when i see “Ah GW2 is a grind” i disagree because at least with Guild Wars 2 i can at least have fun looking at the scenery while taking my time and not “Ugh i hate this area get me out of here, this place is boring!”. Games that make you feel that way really make you grind.

I have ran fractals about 40 some odd times I am level 27, I have received a lot more exotics than you have said you did with 3 times the amount of runs. Not sure why you have gotten so many rings I am saving my tokens for when they release the actual gear which should be in or around January and February.

That doesn’t change the fact that the rings are better than the exotic’s, and the Agony resist is needed for higher level fractals, my point still stands .

Also if you want larger base scale raids with 10 – 40 there are plenty of MMO’s out there you can get that in.

I disagree, most everything in the game is a grind. Dungeon gear, farming, legendaries, non-legendaries.

Dungeons are not really a grind lol I can do a dungeon a few days and never do them again. You don’t need to do dungeons, you can purchase Exotic gear, beyond that you don’t need to do any of the extra content in the game to be able to run dungeons for fun. I for a while was running Exp dungeons on my ele in level 50 Rare gear ( of course not realizing it ) and was doing just fine in the dungeon. Was it the best I could have done? no but I never died and we never wiped so I wasn’t hindering the party and no one complained about how long it took. That is also including arha and Fractals level 1 – 3, So your right

• Legendary’s are a grind
• Exotic dungeon sets are a grind
• Farming is a grind
• Non – Legendary is a grind

But non of them are needed to enjoy the game. The extra cosmetic stuff is meant to take a while ( instead of just handing you the gear), Arena Net never said that getting Exotic dungeon gear wasn’t going to be a grind, They just stated that you wont have to grind to get the best gear. Fractals is the only thing that has been in contrary to this as you need the Ascended gear with the agony resist to go further into the dungeon.

I personally like many others I have talked to never once found leveling a grind, some found it boring after the first 3 toons but that is to be expected.

Solid Gold how are you grinding and only making a few silver, your doing something wrong. Last night was the longest I played in a while ( about 5 hours straight ) and I made 12 gold doing 6 dungeons and 5 fractals along with a few events in Orr. Normally I make around 3 to 4 gold a night and only spend 2 hours tops on.

Also note that you personally may find it is getting old and therefore a grind. Many people start to get this feeling after a time of doing the same thing over and over again. Might I make a suggestion, Because there is no Monthly sub fee your not compelled like in other games to play every day, therefore you can not play for a week and not feel like your losing out on money ( thank you Arena Net for keeping it free), so take some time away form the game maybe a week or two then come back. I did that after my first 80, took a week in a half break and came back things feel better about the game just saying a suggestion is all.

Kaimick.5109:

Also note that you personally may find it is getting old and therefore a grind. Many people start to get this feeling after a time of doing the same thing over and over again. Might I make a suggestion, Because there is no Monthly sub fee your not compelled like in other games to play every day, therefore you can not play for a week and not feel like your losing out on money ( thank you Arena Net for keeping it free), so take some time away form the game maybe a week or two then come back. I did that after my first 80, took a week in a half break and came back things feel better about the game just saying a suggestion is all.

While I agree with it being f2p and I don’t have to feel compelled to play, I don’t think anet wants people to quit because they feel like it’s a grind. They want you to have fun.

My main point of my first post was the ludicrous amount of materials needed, especially RARE materials for these items. How many times have you seen a foefire’s essence walking around? I’ve seen 2, in 1008 hours played. That’s just not right, and it needs to be fixed, or materials need to be farmable.

I seem to get hit so hard by DR it’s aggravating. You said you received more exos than me in alot less fractals. Well how’s that fair, or rewarding (QQ)

I haven’t bothered grinding for anything. I do the things that are fun for me. Since everything in the game except chat generates some amount of gold, I’ve been able to afford the things important to me.

For me, the only things that explicitly require repeating content I might get bored with are cosmetics, i.e. specific skins. Everything else is available on the TP for reasonable prices.

When I find myself getting bored with the game, I turn it off and do something else.

I think it safe to say that a portion of the GW2 community will agree the game is a grind for most things and a portion will agree the game is not a grind for most things.

That said, it apparently seems to depend upon one’s perspective. I personally, feel that the game tells me that if I want a specific item I have to either farm for the materials or purchase gems to get gold to purchase what I want. Unfortunately, some of the items I want I cannot find in the game anywhere. So that takes me to a point that I need to realize that what I want is just not in the game.

However, I would like to see some changes made to loot drops so that I can farm if I choose for things but at this point where I need to farm I cannot really solo well.

But it is depressing that you need a “stack” of a several things just to make one item. So far I cannot even fathom being able to get my legendary weapon. I can’t farm the mats needed in quantities needed, nor can I purchase them.

The trade post and crafting is causing the game to become a grind-fest.

Either you grind for materials to make gear to make gold, or you grind for loot to make gold, or you grind for loot and hope it is what you want.

I’ve given up on crafting and just grind to eventually afford what I need.

This game is an absolute grind fest all the way around. ANet has completely lost their way. I used to be a fan boy of the worst sort and now I’m considering quitting the game. The gear treadmill and the the grind has completely ruined the game for me. It always feels like I’m falling behind. If I spend all of my time PvE’ing I won’t be high enough Glory Rank to get into decent guilds and groups for PvP. If I spend all of my time PvP’ing I won’t be able to compete in WvWvW or experience most of the PvE content. As it sits I’m split between the two. I’m only Glory Rank 30 and most of the people I want to play with are Tigers at the very least. In PvE every other person in LA is running around with a Legendary Weapon or Two and I am not even 25% of the way to my first Legendary. I would prefer to get only Exotics but why would I ever want to waste the precious resources I have obtained on items like a “Whisperblade” when I know that in the near future all level 80 extoics are going to be equivelant to a current Green Weapon as far as tiered items are concerned.

If you’re one of those dummies that believes that tiered gear doesn’t make a difference you and I can meet in WvWvW on level 80 characters for a 1v1. You dressed head to toe + accecories in all Green Gear/Items with Minor Runes/Sigils and me head to toe + accecories in all Orange Gear/Items with Superior Runes/Sigils. I will then show you first hand just what a difference it will make.

I have been playing Guild Wars for years. I never played WoW or Eve Online and I bought and played Aion for about month (I really only wanted the /aion emote) in Guild Wars. I never once did Urzogz Warren or The Deep. I completed only the story portion of the Realm of Torment. I have not completed or farmed Underworld. I didn’t complete Sorrow’s Furnace or Fissure of Woe until just before the release of Guild Wars 2 and I only did so for the Hall of Monuments achievements. The point I’m making here is that I was never a PvE focused player. I always focused on PvP but I often used PvE Characters in PvP. Back in the day I was in a top 25 guild that played nightly and made the regional playoffs for North America for being one of the top 8 teams in the country. I could PvP as often as I’d like and I could even put the game down for a while if real life got in the way and I would always come back and still be on an equal playing field against every other player in the game. At no point was I forced to “keep up” or “grind” for gear and weapons to be on an equal footing.

Guild Wars 2 is completely different. The game has become so grind and PvE focused all of the players I started with have quit and will never return. On top of that the PvP in Guild Wars 2 is complete trash compared to the PvP in the original Guild Wars. The original had thousands and thousands of people playing nightly in many different PvP game modes. Guild Wars 2 can barely manage to pull together 8 teams of 5 players for a paid tournament during peak hours.

I really feel that the deciding forces behind Guild Wars 2 have completely forgotton what made them special. All of the the people screaming for “end game” and “gear grind” and “raids” never ever wanted a Guild Wars 2. They want and are currently looking for the next WoW. And while those players were off playing WoW I was playing the original Guild Wars along with a ton of my other internet friends who no longer are playing Guild Wars 2.

This gear grind and gear treadmill has to end. Guild Wars 2 needs to get back on course with where the Original left off. I played the original game in Alpha, I purchased the the original game, I bought the Factions and Nightfall pre-order packs and pre-purchased the additional continents as well as the Eye of the North expansion, and even bought all of the stupid strategy guides. I know I’m only single person and that all of these things don’t add up to a whole lot of money but I considered myself a life long Guild Wars / Anet customer. I hate to give it all up but Guild Wars 2 in it’s current state has left me extremely dissatisfied. Guild Wars has been a part of my life since it launced and as much as it pains me to say it if I quit Guild Wars 2 I am never coming back. The Guild Wars phase of my life will officially be over for me.

I honestly don’t see the grind most of you are seeing. . .heck games like Ragnarok, Maplestory, Elsword, Planetside 2, Rune Scape, Flyff, etc. Those games actually have grind fest and not just for leveling up but for crafting and getting items. Guild wars 2 ‘grind fest’ doesn’t even compare to most games out their.

I dont understand why you are complaining…you have 1008 hours of playtime. Do you expect this from any other game…Went into skyrim and thought all i am doing past completion is searching some kittenty caves and killing dragons what a grind. Yes you grind to get the coolest stuff…thats a given you have to work for it otherwise there is less point having it. I am on 300 hours and still havent finished the map yet, yes i have full exotics for everything my character can carry but i still have a lot left to do. And getting a legendary which i do want is going to be a while off (mainly as i am not sure about my class) But the game itself isnt a grind. At no point during my exploration was I like oh man i just had to kill a kitten load of these risen what a grind. The end game is a grind its what endgame actually means really isnt it. Something to waste your time.

Barnabus Stinson.1409:

The end game is a grind its what endgame actually means really isnt it. Something to waste your time.

End game should not be a grind and it should not be just something to waste your time. I understand all video games are a waste of time but end game should simply be playing the game and having fun doing what ever you want to do. Grinding isn’t fun for me. If people like to grind and want to grind then grind away. Go get all the gold and shiney’s you want. However, don’t punish the players who choose not to grind and prefer to enjoy all of what Tyria has to offer instead.

Again, the issue that I have is with superior weapons, gear, and accessories that are not easy to attain. Give us easy to attain max stat weapons and gear. You can make the easy to attain items super generic looking and non-transmutable. All I care about is that I can easily be on an equal playing field. Maybe I won’t look as cool as the grinder but I’m okay with that. The game in it’s current state is counter productive. When I’m not grinding or specifically working to attain the highest level equipment in the game, I’m falling behind my peers. Why would I want to Keg Brawl, sPvP, do Jump Puzzles, or Wander, Explore and appreciate the gorgeous world of Tyria if all it does is set me behind the curve?

it is a grind, the “ooooh shiny” has worn off
I’m now playing Path of Exile and Neverwinter

Theplayboy.6417:

Barnabus Stinson.1409:

The end game is a grind its what endgame actually means really isnt it. Something to waste your time.

End game should not be a grind and it should not be just something to waste your time. I understand all video games are a waste of time but end game should simply be playing the game and having fun doing what ever you want to do. Grinding isn’t fun for me. If people like to grind and want to grind then grind away. Go get all the gold and shiney’s you want. However, don’t punish the players who choose not to grind and prefer to enjoy all of what Tyria has to offer instead.

Again, the issue that I have is with superior weapons, gear, and accessories that are not easy to attain. Give us easy to attain max stat weapons and gear. You can make the easy to attain items super generic looking and non-transmutable. All I care about is that I can easily be on an equal playing field. Maybe I won’t look as cool as the grinder but I’m okay with that. The game in it’s current state is counter productive. When I’m not grinding trying to attain the highest level items in the game I’m falling behind my peers. Why would I want to Keg Brawl, sPvP, or Explore and appreciate the beauty of this game if all it does is set me back behind the curve?

Sorry but no MMO out there that has “End Game” isn’t a grind period. Also I have gone into WvWvW and 1v1 someone in Exo’s and a Legendary and won, sorry your thought process to gear > than skill is there, maybe it is just your better than the other player and that is why you feel the gear makes a difference.

You are also complaining that you can’t keep up doing PvP, PvE and WvWvW and cry about it well no kidding your trying to do three major aspects of the game all at once. Pick one and do it.

There is no gear in the game past what you can get with minimal effort that is needed to do anything in the game, MINUS ascended gear for higher end fractals. Regardless of me not being at the best stats I could have been at and not being 100% top of my game gear wise for a while there ( unknowen of me ) my ele ran around in level 50 gear doing Arah, Fractals Lv 1 – 3, CoF, CoE, along with other exploratory dungeons. I never died in them we never wiped in them and the group never complained that the run took to long. In fact I got complements to how well I played my ele, yet I was in level 50 rare gear, gear is not a factor it is cosmetic. If you want the legendary your going to have to work for it.

This game is a grind.

It’s very important to distinguish the difference between:
- Not wanting to grind
- Wanting the game to become easier

The two above statements are completely distinct.
I don’t want the game to become easier.

Why is the game a grind?
Because ANet has made it so that transmuting destroys one of the items…
…and if you want to have 2 different builds, you need 2 different sets of gear…
…and if you want a particular skin for 3 sets, you must get the skin 3 times…
…and to obtain anything worthwhile, you must simply repeat an activity iver and over again – whether it is fractals, explorer modes, pvp, wvwvw – until you get lucky or get enough currency (tokens are currency too)…

To aggravate, bosses, champions and even some veterans are designed around moves that 1 or 2-shot players and ludicrous amounts of Health…
…and Champions and Veterans, despite taking somewhere between 5x and 100x longer to kill, and posing a much higher risk of getting defeated (repair costs & waypoint costs) drop loot somewhere between 2x and 3x as good…
…it goes on.

Let’s take a step back – not into nostalgia, but into properly designed challenges:
- Guild Wars 1 had skill hunting, wich automatically made every enemy potentially attractive to defeat, with or without reward; and also made players go everywhere in the game searching for specific skills, wich served as what I consider the best end-game progression ever designed – ANet threw that away.
- Guild Wars 1 allowed you to extract any property out of an item (leaving only the Skin behind) without destroying the item.
Before you claim that wouldn’t work with GW2’s economy, it isn’t working very well to begin with, and you used 1 charge of your “perfect salvage kit” for each component you wished to extract – ANet threw that away.
- Guild Wars 1 enemies all presented a different challenge, as they had a set of 3-8 skills consisting of PLAYER SKILLS, wich would also inspire players to make their own combos – ANet decided to make 90% of the enemies in GW2 all about 1-2 unrelated special skills + auto-attack.
- Guild Wars 1 didn’t have gear tiers, or item level requirements, or a huge level progression – it didn’t need to – ANet decided to introduce 80 levels, all the problems that come with it, and downleveling to fix that, while introducing its own issues (such as feeling weaker as you level up in an area, since your level goes up, your gear does not, and downleveling bring both down).

Essentially, ANet threw away alot of core mechanics that made GW1 awesome, and introduced alot of mechanics that I consider the bad parts of WoW.

In the Manifesto one of the developpers makes fun of other MMOs in the minute 1:32, saying: “I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey, I swung it again!”

Well guess what, it’s what we do in GW2!

jason.9217:

it is a grind, the “ooooh shiny” has worn off
I’m now playing Path of Exile and Neverwinter

So why are you posting here about it, if your over and done with this game why come back to say that?

Kaimick.5109:

jason.9217:

it is a grind, the “ooooh shiny” has worn off
I’m now playing Path of Exile and Neverwinter

So why are you posting here about it, if your over and done with this game why come back to say that?

He didn’t say he was done.
There are things called hope, interest, fandom, dedication.

But you didn’t need me to tell you that.
You didn’t need to make that post either.

Kaimick.5109:

Theplayboy.6417:

Barnabus Stinson.1409:

The end game is a grind its what endgame actually means really isnt it. Something to waste your time.

End game should not be a grind and it should not be just something to waste your time. I understand all video games are a waste of time but end game should simply be playing the game and having fun doing what ever you want to do. Grinding isn’t fun for me. If people like to grind and want to grind then grind away. Go get all the gold and shiney’s you want. However, don’t punish the players who choose not to grind and prefer to enjoy all of what Tyria has to offer instead.

Again, the issue that I have is with superior weapons, gear, and accessories that are not easy to attain. Give us easy to attain max stat weapons and gear. You can make the easy to attain items super generic looking and non-transmutable. All I care about is that I can easily be on an equal playing field. Maybe I won’t look as cool as the grinder but I’m okay with that. The game in it’s current state is counter productive. When I’m not grinding trying to attain the highest level items in the game I’m falling behind my peers. Why would I want to Keg Brawl, sPvP, or Explore and appreciate the beauty of this game if all it does is set me back behind the curve?

Sorry but no MMO out there that has “End Game” isn’t a grind period. Also I have gone into WvWvW and 1v1 someone in Exo’s and a Legendary and won, sorry your thought process to gear > than skill is there, maybe it is just your better than the other player and that is why you feel the gear makes a difference.

You are also complaining that you can’t keep up doing PvP, PvE and WvWvW and cry about it well no kidding your trying to do three major aspects of the game all at once. Pick one and do it.

There is no gear in the game past what you can get with minimal effort that is needed to do anything in the game, MINUS ascended gear for higher end fractals. Regardless of me not being at the best stats I could have been at and not being 100% top of my game gear wise for a while there ( unknowen of me ) my ele ran around in level 50 gear doing Arah, Fractals Lv 1 – 3, CoF, CoE, along with other exploratory dungeons. I never died in them we never wiped in them and the group never complained that the run took to long. In fact I got complements to how well I played my ele, yet I was in level 50 rare gear, gear is not a factor it is cosmetic. If you want the legendary your going to have to work for it.

Actually there is an MMO that was Grind Free and it’s called Guild Wars. Ever heard of of a game called Guild Wars? At no point in the original did you have to grind to be at max level or max power in both PvE or PvP. Max level gear and weapons took 10 minutes to attain in the original Guild Wars. In order to be at peak power all you had to basicially do was get your character to max level (20). I’m guessing you didn’t play the original. Well it was a pretty successful game and was successful even at the height of the WoW Phenomenon. Guild Wars 2 is a direct result of Guild Wars’s success.

I never said Gear > Skill so please don’t put words into my mouth. There are a ton of bad players in WvWvW so it’s more common to come across a non-skilled player than a skilled one. However, when two players of the same class and same skill go at it, most likely the deciding factor will be the gear. If you aren’t able to understand that I don’t know what to tell you. And if you think I don’t play at a high skill level I’d be happy to give you a lesson in in sPvP. As long as you promise not to scare me with your l33t rabbit rank bro..haha. Not that we’d even see your finisher in a match anyway.

I never said you NEEDED the highest level gear to complete all of the content in the game. You continue to put words into my mouth. Re-read my post please. You could probably complete every aspect of game in all White’s let alone, Blue’s, Green’s, Yellow’s, Orange’s, Purple’s, and Red’s. I specifically said to stay on an equal playing field as my peers and that is all.

I never stated that I wanted a Legendary. All I care about is the stats. You can keep your partical effects. You said you’d have to “work” for getting a Legendary. I’d hardly consider buying gems and converting them to gold and then buying a Legendary off the TP work. But if you want to grind for a Legendary then go get one. Nobody is stopping you. You can have all the partical effects and have the coolest looking avatar in the world. I don’t care. But because you have no life, no job, no girl, and no friends doesn’t give you the right to have better stats that me in game.

Nurvus.2891:

This game is a grind.

It’s very important to distinguish the difference between:
- Not wanting to grind
- Wanting the game to become easier

The two above statements are completely distinct.
I don’t want the game to become easier.

Why is the game a grind?
Because ANet has made it so that transmuting destroys one of the items…
…and if you want to have 2 different builds, you need 2 different sets of gear…
…and if you want a particular skin for 3 sets, you must get the skin 3 times…
…and to obtain anything worthwhile, you must simply repeat an activity iver and over again – whether it is fractals, explorer modes, pvp, wvwvw – until you get lucky or get enough currency (tokens are currency too)…

To aggravate, bosses, champions and even some veterans are designed around moves that 1 or 2-shot players and ludicrous amounts of Health…
…and Champions and Veterans, despite taking somewhere between 5x and 100x longer to kill, and posing a much higher risk of getting defeated (repair costs & waypoint costs) drop loot somewhere between 2x and 3x as good…
…it goes on.

Let’s take a step back – not into nostalgia, but into properly designed challenges:
- Guild Wars 1 had skill hunting, wich automatically made every enemy potentially attractive to defeat, with or without reward; and also made players go everywhere in the game searching for specific skills, wich served as what I consider the best end-game progression ever designed – ANet threw that away.
- Guild Wars 1 allowed you to extract any property out of an item (leaving only the Skin behind) without destroying the item.
Before you claim that wouldn’t work with GW2’s economy, it isn’t working very well to begin with, and you used 1 charge of your “perfect salvage kit” for each component you wished to extract – ANet threw that away.
- Guild Wars 1 enemies all presented a different challenge, as they had a set of 3-8 skills consisting of PLAYER SKILLS, wich would also inspire players to make their own combos – ANet decided to make 90% of the enemies in GW2 all about 1-2 unrelated special skills + auto-attack.
- Guild Wars 1 didn’t have gear tiers, or item level requirements, or a huge level progression – it didn’t need to – ANet decided to introduce 80 levels, all the problems that come with it, and downleveling to fix that, while introducing its own issues (such as feeling weaker as you level up in an area, since your level goes up, your gear does not, and downleveling bring both down).

Essentially, ANet threw away alot of core mechanics that made GW1 awesome, and introduced alot of mechanics that I consider the bad parts of WoW.

In the Manifesto one of the developpers makes fun of other MMOs in the minute 1:32, saying: “I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey, I swung it again!”

Well guess what, it’s what we do in GW2!

I respect your argument, I may not agree or see what your seeing or feel the way you do but at least your argument was well put out there and logical. Unlike others that have tried here
+1 for the great position of argument.

- Common Sense is so rare these days, it should be a Super power

Instead of explaining how I feel, I could explain what would make the game no longer feel like a grind, without feeling any easier:

1. - Increase challenge and reward across the board, in a fun way.
   This encompasses, for example, making individual enemies as well as Events harder by tuning enemy difficulty up, while tuning enemy damage down.
   However, tuning enemy difficulty up should be done by adding healing and defensive skills, while actually lowering their damage a bit.
   This would make timing your attacks more important than spamming skills, as you risk entering an eternal struggle otherwise, or, in the case of events, allowing a second wave of enemies to arrive before defeating the first.
2. Make skins available all over the map.
   Taking some of the mentality behind change #1, instead of forcing players to run specific modes of content over and over to obtain skins, make skins available from all kinds of creatures all over the map, make them easier to drop from designated creatures during events in that portion of the map.
   Alternatively, events in certain maps would give tokens from the dungeon mode, up to X per day from events if a limit is necessary.
3. Random enemies roaming the world (not map, but world) that drop skins only that enemy can drop, adding much flavor to the game, and encouraging exploring the whole map.

There are more and more stuff that can be done that does not involve “adding content”.

Why design a world when players spend 90% of their time in 10% of the map?

After 1000+ hours of gaming, any game becomes a grind. I do agree though, crafting is too time consuming and not rewarding enough. It should offer unique items to your character and guildmates.

Everything is a grind if you want treat it as one.

The grind we are usually used to in MMO is something we HAVE TO do to stay competitive, or to fit in, to participate in content.

You don’t need legendaries, you don’t need sexy skins…no one is going to exclude u from parties cuz u don’t have a specific weapon skin or a legendary, unless they are kitten You get level 80 in 3 days, or 2 hrs if you craft, and by then you are almost guaranteed a set of viable armor (yes, Rare is viable, lvl 78 exotics are viable) to participate in every content without feeling gimped.

Dark Souls is a grind if you’re going for all the weapons and armors, Call of Duty is a grind if i want prestige 10000x, Starcraft is a grind if i want to get to/stay in Grand Master league…Everything’s a grind. Life is a grind.

Games have to feed the achievement/goal oriented players that don’t mind and actually love this kind of “grind”, those are the most dedicated players. GW2 does it in a way that is more subtle and optional than most, take satisfaction in that.

Not saying GW2 is perfect at this stage, an overhaul is needed to cure the empty map syndrome, bugs still running rampant, inconsistencies with certain loot tables…knowing Anet, they will fix them.

Having played silkroad with its awesome “you killed 1500 of that? now go and kill another 1500!” I have to say that grind is something repetative you have to do in order to achieve sometihng or to progress. In that point, gw 2 barley has any grind, but when it comes to legendaries it seems that the devs. suddleny did a turn around. Yes, farming dungeons is not a grind. But then again I can honestly say that I’ve yet to farm any dungeon regulary and that I take a break from this game once every month for a week or so. However, making loot drops such as loadstones a requirment, and setting this requirment at 100+ really is just bad design. Why would it be wrong to simply let those loadstones only drop off bosses and then set the requirment to 10 or 20? (thats the amount of time I believe you can repeat something before it starts feeling like a grind) instead of making them an extremly rare drop. . .
And I agree with you, they should add some story to the legendaries to give them some personality except the “man, i grinded area x for mat x 100 hours a week and finally it paid off” and 2 weeks later “oh man, why didnt I just sell mat x and bought weapon y instead ._.”

Everything that REQUIRES a certain LEVEL equals GRIND,
Everything that REQUIRES certain AMOUNTS equals GRIND
Everything that REQUIRES more RUNS equals GRIND.
period.

No matter if it is a more or less enjoyable experience, IT IS still a GRIND

People are playing this game to get:
- lvl 80 fast = GRIND
- a dungeon gear = GRIND
- karma weapons/ armors = GRIND
- legendaries = GRIND
- Gems with in-game gold = GRIND

and for those saying that I ONLY see the GRIND, i will give an example of Non-grinding mechanic:
Getting the two mini pets from Wintersday – one run of each of the 5 scenarios gives all the necessary materials fro making the two minis

Ronah.2869:

and for those saying that I ONLY see the GRIND, i will give an example of Non-grinding mechanic:
Getting the two mini pets from Wintersday – one run of each of the 5 scenarios gives all the necessary materials fro making the two minis

Um…no. That’s cuz ur satisfied with 2 minis. If you want more, or heck, if you want tonics from Mystic Forge, u’d need more stuffing or glue which if there was no economy u’d have to grind for wintersday boxes.
That’s as bad as someone saying “hey i got my Exotic AC boots from running AC explorable’s paths 1 time each! not a grind!”

According to your post, playing the darn game is a grind. Sad.

EDIT: who cares if that’s what people call it, grind or whatever, it is a mechanic that exists in all MMO and it’s what keeps players in. Most ppl love to have a long term goal, its the minorities that wants everything either handed to them or with minimal effort and making the entire game world full of clones wearing the same gears. Hate this type of mechanics? MMOs are not for u.

Orpheus.7284:

Most ppl love to have a long term goal, its the minorities that wants everything either handed to them or with minimal effort and making the entire game world full of clones wearing the same gears. Hate this type of mechanics? MMOs are not for u.

I don’t want it easy enough for everyone to be “handed” the items. Thats not what my main concern with gw2 is.

Make it easy? No.

Less chinese-bot gold farm style grind? Yes.

Kahrgan.7401:

Orpheus.7284:

Most ppl love to have a long term goal, its the minorities that wants everything either handed to them or with minimal effort and making the entire game world full of clones wearing the same gears. Hate this type of mechanics? MMOs are not for u.

I don’t want it easy enough for everyone to be “handed” the items. Thats not what my main concern with gw2 is.

Make it easy? No.

Less chinese-bot gold farm style grind? Yes.

When running dungeons with friends become so monotonous that you call it chinese-bot gold farm style grind…that’s not really the game’s fault.

I think the only thing in this game that’s stupidly ‘grindy’ to obtain are account bound stuff that only drops at slim chance (certain Ascended)…you can’t even buy them off trading post means no alternative way of obtaining them and thus have to repeat something you don’t really feel like doing anymore to obtain them…Very bad, need fix.

MMO at the endgame is always about ingame currency…GW2 has so many ways of obtaining currency is why it feels less grindy (to me) than other MMOs.

Guild Wars 2 rewards people who put lots of time into the game. If you play a lot, get lots of money, get the coolest looking items, you’ll certainly feel better than everyone around you. Everyone else will look at you and probably be a little bit jealous (this thread has made me think they’re deathly jealous).

The game itself is not a grind, because the playable content in the game are accessible to anyone who’s actually played up to maximum level and spent the money they got along the way wisely.

The non-playable content (here meaning cosmetics, or even something as abstract as PvP rank) are a complete grind. I would say that this is to be expected, but not necessary. I’d certainly like to see player skill be more important than time played for getting cosmetics/PvP rank/titles, but that just isn’t how it works. If it did work that way, I’d be much more happy.

If Arenanet can find a way to make the grind-requiring items instead require a tremendous amount of personal skill, that’d be great.
Example: Legendary items require you to defeat instanced bosses rather than hundreds of thousands of easily-killed enemies.
This is not an easy problem to fix, but it is also not an urgent problem. People who think it is are just making the mistake of comparing themselves to the people who are willing to grind and becoming jealous of the way those people are rewarded.

A side note for the people complaining about PvP rank:
This is not the game’s fault. This is the community’s fault. PvP rank shouldn’t mean jack all. Restricting your recruitment process by a time-played meter is just silly. Let people show their skill, not their schedule.

I can agree it is a grind if you have played on average 3 hours a day since launch. I haven’t even done half the amount of hours played since launch and I’m told I play too much. However, doing 320 fractals since Nov. 15, that is ridiculous. Spread out. Stop binding yourself and then complaining.

Firstly, Legendary items are there for one reason only: to keep the materialistic and egotistical players busy for a while.

You create your own reality of what the game is for you. Grind if you want, but it is totally your decision. The problem is that many players have forgot what these games are about.

Do not blame Arenanet.

Orpheus.7284:

According to your post, playing the darn game is a grind. Sad.

Because, yes, it is a grind, I only play in Queensdale. I run around the zone, I follow players around, I do 5-10 events if they pop up and that is most of what I am doing in this game. Its fun. Its not too challenging to become frustrating, It is rewarding enough not to feel disappointed and It has no certain goal other than having fun.
It is more fun to play it like this for 40min – 1 h in a day than do grinding for “long term goals”. Sometimes, I use a the costume and It don’t take part in the fight, just watching the fight and maybe recording it.
Yes, you are right, most of players are carrot-on-stick fans, so the longer the stick the more exited they are. Well, for me no matter how short the stick is, or how big the carrot, I just want to have fun and relax in a game not hunting illusion goals.

Orpheus.7284:

Everything is a grind if you want treat it as one.

The grind we are usually used to in MMO is something we HAVE TO do to stay competitive, or to fit in, to participate in content.

You don’t need legendaries, you don’t need sexy skins…no one is going to exclude u from parties cuz u don’t have a specific weapon skin or a legendary, unless they are kitten You get level 80 in 3 days, or 2 hrs if you craft, and by then you are almost guaranteed a set of viable armor (yes, Rare is viable, lvl 78 exotics are viable) to participate in every content without feeling gimped.

Dark Souls is a grind if you’re going for all the weapons and armors, Call of Duty is a grind if i want prestige 10000x, Starcraft is a grind if i want to get to/stay in Grand Master league…Everything’s a grind. Life is a grind.

Games have to feed the achievement/goal oriented players that don’t mind and actually love this kind of “grind”, those are the most dedicated players. GW2 does it in a way that is more subtle and optional than most, take satisfaction in that.

Not saying GW2 is perfect at this stage, an overhaul is needed to cure the empty map syndrome, bugs still running rampant, inconsistencies with certain loot tables…knowing Anet, they will fix them.

Had to quote this as, actually, I have seen for the past month more than a few people get kicked out of dungeounr uns for not having atleast 2 peices of armor or their weapons using a skin that can only be gotten from dungeoun tokens. It’s only been a few months really and we are already seeing this. The mindset behind this rediculousness? If you don’t have any dungeoun gear, than you are a complete newbie and training you for even the barest of runs (despite how easy explo modes tend to be) is just far too much trouble for these people so they just kick them.

IMO, put every dungeoun skin in the maps SOMEWHERE. Have mobs that are part of specific events in the area, they cn randomly appear in any event on the map outside of the dungeoun and will drop one skin of whatever armor/weapon they have equiped. If you do enough damage to the mob that warrents loot, you are getting a skin (no stats, just a skin). make these skins tradable.

Take the GRIND out of this and allow people to runt he dungeouns for what they should be ran for…fun, and no other reason. No other carrot should be needed to get people into a dungeoun.

It is nice to see the people finally waking up to this. Yes the grind is huge and it is only going to get worse as it seems that is the only thing Anet seems to know how to do.
It appears that is their idea of endgame – grind.
I really hope they have taken some time off to take another look at and fix the game and its economy because soon the only thing that will save it will be F2P and it isnt that far off.
And Yes I blame Anet it is their game and let it happen.

Well, how I see it, the game becomes a grind if you want “it” immediately.

For all casual players, grind doesn’t even cross their mind.
The Grinding only comes into play for the hard gamers.
And even then, things only becomes a grind if you want your items immediately.
If you want it fast, you will have to focus only on “it” and that will become repetitive and becomes boring and that’s when it will feel like a grind.

I personally don’t have any problem with it, as I don’t need “it” Now.
I’ve already looked at the requirements for legendaries and others but the way I see it is I’ll just play the game normally with friends/guildmates for some time doing a bit of everything (maps/dungeons/WvW/…) and in time I’ll have collected enough of everything to start going for the big things like legendaries.
I told myself I’ll see how far am for legendaries after 1 year, while playing the game normally, without specific grinding (but still keeping in mind the necessary ingredients to make them while playing)

That’s why nothing feels like a grind, as I am not impatient and don’t want it Now…
But well, that’s my view on it.

Putting on a shoe can be a grind as much as having intimacy with a lover. Why aren’t people complaining about those?

Narkosys.5173:

It is nice to see the people finally waking up to this. Yes the grind is huge and it is only going to get worse as it seems that is the only thing Anet seems to know how to do.
It appears that is their idea of endgame – grind.
I really hope they have taken some time off to take another look at and fix the game and its economy because soon the only thing that will save it will be F2P and it isnt that far off.
And Yes I blame Anet it is their game and let it happen.

You seem to offer a lot of point and blame, but hardly any ideas on how to fix anything. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but this is the suggestions forum.

The grind is just about as “huge” as you want it to be. If you don’t want to grind, don’t. It’s okey, you still have exotics and that’s not going to change. Armor skin isn’t everything. Sure, some guys who migrated from WoW might look for ways to discriminate other players, and since we don’t have damage meter, they probly look at your gear. But do you really wanna play with such people anyways?

The way I see it, there are 3 types of people:
1. People who want to have hard to get achievements, even if its just for prestige. There is grind for them. (Skins, GWAMM, legendaries, ect.)
2. Casual players who couldn’t care less. The game is open for them, and they can do whatever they want without need for any grind whatsoever.
3. A mixture of the two. Unlucky casuals who have a grinding mentality and don’t like it.

And lets be honest, there is very little ANet can do about the third group.

Runiir.6425:

Orpheus.7284:

Everything is a grind if you want treat it as one.

The grind we are usually used to in MMO is something we HAVE TO do to stay competitive, or to fit in, to participate in content.

You don’t need legendaries, you don’t need sexy skins…no one is going to exclude u from parties cuz u don’t have a specific weapon skin or a legendary, unless they are kitten You get level 80 in 3 days, or 2 hrs if you craft, and by then you are almost guaranteed a set of viable armor (yes, Rare is viable, lvl 78 exotics are viable) to participate in every content without feeling gimped.

Dark Souls is a grind if you’re going for all the weapons and armors, Call of Duty is a grind if i want prestige 10000x, Starcraft is a grind if i want to get to/stay in Grand Master league…Everything’s a grind. Life is a grind.

Games have to feed the achievement/goal oriented players that don’t mind and actually love this kind of “grind”, those are the most dedicated players. GW2 does it in a way that is more subtle and optional than most, take satisfaction in that.

Not saying GW2 is perfect at this stage, an overhaul is needed to cure the empty map syndrome, bugs still running rampant, inconsistencies with certain loot tables…knowing Anet, they will fix them.

Had to quote this as, actually, I have seen for the past month more than a few people get kicked out of dungeounr uns for not having atleast 2 peices of armor or their weapons using a skin that can only be gotten from dungeoun tokens. It’s only been a few months really and we are already seeing this. The mindset behind this rediculousness? If you don’t have any dungeoun gear, than you are a complete newbie and training you for even the barest of runs (despite how easy explo modes tend to be) is just far too much trouble for these people so they just kick them.

IMO, put every dungeoun skin in the maps SOMEWHERE. Have mobs that are part of specific events in the area, they cn randomly appear in any event on the map outside of the dungeoun and will drop one skin of whatever armor/weapon they have equiped. If you do enough damage to the mob that warrents loot, you are getting a skin (no stats, just a skin). make these skins tradable.

Take the GRIND out of this and allow people to runt he dungeouns for what they should be ran for…fun, and no other reason. No other carrot should be needed to get people into a dungeoun.

Your blaming the elitist players attitude on the game? That isn’t fair, it is not Arena Nets fault some elitist jerk wants to kick you out of the dungeon cause you don’t have X gear. I rarely run into this problem and when I do I have just voted to kick them from group, or I get kicked and I find another group with in minutes. ( www.gw2lfg.com )

I personally don’t see the grind, of course there is grind no doubt about that, but I am not having an issue with it. The only issue I have majorly had with the game is Legendary precursors being un-godly high on TP and a 3% chance in the Mystic forge. Although Arena Net is supposedly fixing this issue with making quest lines for precursor items that explain the lore behind them and what not. I am happy for this so I just wait.

To all the people that don’t find it a grind, look we might not find it a grind and that is cool but others do. I respect their outlook on the game, but from what I have seen from most players is the asking of easier content or basically just handing you the gear and that is not the answer.

People that say gw2 is a grind have never played games with an actual grind.

When I log in I just play what I find fun and log out happy :p

emikochan.8504:

People that say gw2 is a grind have never played games with an actual grind.

In GW2 the grind is not based on amount like in those games you mention, but in the fact that its not innovative in this matter as it is in other things.
To put it simple, there is the same mechanic in all zones making traveling to different zones a deja-vu: map completion has vistas, PoIs, heart quests, WPs. There is no variation to it except the scenery because the foes are more or less the same onces just different altered skins.
The only thing that could make the game not a grind would be the story missions but because they require certain levels to succeed it stops the immersion with an unnecessary grind.
Gw1 players plus the single RPG players are not used with this repetitive and mandatory grind system, that is why players are thinking GW2 is a grind.
In GW1 you could get max level and beat the story without having all the secondary quests done. Actually, they were not even needed for anything else then personal pride. If people could play the whole storyline without the grinding between the recommended levels than the game would not feel a grind.
People ask in here for a more complex storyline that will go from mission to mission without the need of doing mandatory events than everyone will be happy.
Those who don’t care about the story will be happy with events, while those who only like the story will not bother with unnecessary events.

Ronah.2869:

emikochan.8504:

People that say gw2 is a grind have never played games with an actual grind.

Gw1 players plus the single RPG players are not used with this repetitive and mandatory grind system, that is why players are thinking GW2 is a grind.

There is a ton of grinding similar to GW 2 in both things you’ve mentioned.

GW 1’s “grind” is similar to GW 2’s, it’s basically completely optional, at most it takes 20 hours to get everything you would need for a full set of crafted exotic armor. Likewise, at least for prophecies it took about the same amount of time to get to “the best” armor stat-wise. I forget what it was for Factions because I went in with a level 20 character, and for Nightfall you get upgraded armor way quicker.

Mandatory to me entails you MUST do it in order to progress in the game. Unless your goal is to literally get every single set of armor and weapon in the game, there’s no real progression after exotic. Even then, you probably could complete all of the dungeons and content in the game with rares or even masterworks if you really wanted to.

As for single player RPGs, in most JRPGs and RPGs in general, there’s usually a secret dungeon that requires you to do way more grinding than the primary story would require, and depending on the game, it possibly took longer to get to that state than GW 2 would.

Now if you use Mass Effect 2 and 3 as a RPG example then yes, GW 2 has way more grinding than ME 2 and 3.

Kreindis.2807:

Ronah.2869:

emikochan.8504:

People that say gw2 is a grind have never played games with an actual grind.

Gw1 players plus the single RPG players are not used with this repetitive and mandatory grind system, that is why players are thinking GW2 is a grind.

There is a ton of grinding similar to GW 2 in both things you’ve mentioned.

GW 1’s “grind” is similar to GW 2’s, it’s basically completely optional, at most it takes 20 hours to get everything you would need for a full set of crafted exotic armor. Likewise, at least for prophecies it took about the same amount of time to get to “the best” armor stat-wise. I forget what it was for Factions because I went in with a level 20 character, and for Nightfall you get upgraded armor way quicker.

Mandatory to me entails you MUST do it in order to progress in the game. Unless your goal is to literally get every single set of armor and weapon in the game, there’s no real progression after exotic. Even then, you probably could complete all of the dungeons and content in the game with rares or even masterworks if you really wanted to.

As for single player RPGs, in most JRPGs and RPGs in general, there’s usually a secret dungeon that requires you to do way more grinding than the primary story would require, and depending on the game, it possibly took longer to get to that state than GW 2 would.

Now if you use Mass Effect 2 and 3 as a RPG example then yes, GW 2 has way more grinding than ME 2 and 3.

But that is just it ( not saying your saying this as I agree with everything your saying ) but ME2 and ME3 and other Single player RPG’s are just that SINGLE PLAYER. This is a MMO things are going to be different

Kaimick.5109:

But that is just it ( not saying your saying this as I agree with everything your saying ) but ME2 and ME3 and other Single player RPG’s are just that SINGLE PLAYER. This is a MMO things are going to be different

Sure, I’ll agree with that.

MMOs function differently because they’re techinally limitless, and it’s not easy to make high octane content that is either A.) Fun when you’re doing it for the 200th time, or B.) New every time.

Honestly of all of the games I’ve played, there is no MMORPG that doesn’t become a grind. Likewise however, there are very few single player RPG game that, if you play it for more than one or 3 at the most, play-throughs, also don’t feel like a grind.

The silver lining for MMORPGs however is that they’re basically 100% more likely to be updated after release with some sort of new content which single player games are sort of doing now, but not really.

I played GW 2 for like 500 hours after release then went back to WoW and then back to GW 2 simply because both games have a grind, however GW 2’s grind is more fun to me. I’ve probably played WoW for well over 20000 hours and maybe 1-3% of that is raiding, the rest is achievement hunting or PvP. All of which I would say are grinds of different levels, the type of grind I simply could not stand after months of it were daily quests. If they made the daily quests fun then fine, I’m on board, but when they’re boring, long and tedious, that basically effectively makes it a volunteer job.

Anyways I think the fact is that MMORPGs will have grinding, so will every other game though, but MMORPGs are definitely the most “offending” of the genres. That’s simply something people will have to accept if they want to play GW 2 or any MMORPG for that matter.

And maybe it was a bit of a sleight to in public, say that GW 2 doesn’t have grinding at all, but the alternative of saying “GW 2 has multiple levels of grinding that would appeal to a mass range of audiences” doesn’t really sound much better.

Kreindis.2807:

Kaimick.5109:

But that is just it ( not saying your saying this as I agree with everything your saying ) but ME2 and ME3 and other Single player RPG’s are just that SINGLE PLAYER. This is a MMO things are going to be different

Sure, I’ll agree with that.

MMOs function differently because they’re techinally limitless, and it’s not easy to make high octane content that is either A.) Fun when you’re doing it for the 200th time, or B.) New every time.

Honestly of all of the games I’ve played, there is no MMORPG that doesn’t become a grind. Likewise however, there are very few single player RPG game that, if you play it for more than one or 3 at the most, play-throughs, also don’t feel like a grind.

The silver lining for MMORPGs however is that they’re basically 100% more likely to be updated after release with some sort of new content which single player games are sort of doing now, but not really.

I played GW 2 for like 500 hours after release then went back to WoW and then back to GW 2 simply because both games have a grind, however GW 2’s grind is more fun to me. I’ve probably played WoW for well over 20000 hours and maybe 1-3% of that is raiding, the rest is achievement hunting or PvP. All of which I would say are grinds of different levels, the type of grind I simply could not stand after months of it were daily quests. If they made the daily quests fun then fine, I’m on board, but when they’re boring, long and tedious, that basically effectively makes it a volunteer job.

Anyways I think the fact is that MMORPGs will have grinding, so will every other game though, but MMORPGs are definitely the most “offending” of the genres. That’s simply something people will have to accept if they want to play GW 2 or any MMORPG for that matter.

And maybe it was a bit of a sleight to in public, say that GW 2 doesn’t have grinding at all, but the alternative of saying “GW 2 has multiple levels of grinding that would appeal to a mass range of audiences” doesn’t really sound much better.

I could be wrong and I have stated this before and no one of importance has ever corrected me ( IE Moderators or developers)

Arena Net said there would be no necessary grind, and leveling wont feel like a grind. And you wont have to grind to get the best gear in the game ( namely because gear doesn’t have the impact on performance that other games do ) As someone has stated you can do just fine in explorer dungeons with masterwork or rare gear as you could with exotic and above.

Although play through the game enough make enough alts and what not the game no matter how hard a company tries will become a grind.

It’s not a grind to get to Lvl.80 or full exotics because you do what YOU want to do. You are not given a quest to kill 20 foozles (repetitive, boring) and then run along to the next quest to kill 20 foozles, like you might be on WoW — THAT is a grind. There are so many ways to make it to 80 without grinding, and heck you can even get full exotics from karma vendors WITHOUT grinding.

Thats not to say that there is ‘zero’ grind. Grind is an inevitable result of an MMO where hardcore players play it well past the content that is developed for it. Which is to say you want a seamless, non-repetitive experience once you blow past all the main content. Well be prepared to either (a) run out of content, or (b) be expected to grind a little for all of the high-end post-game stuff.

To add something in for the hardcore gamers, ANet added in FotM. The problem is that for this content that ANet probably spent months developing, the players will finish it within a matter of hours so they HAVE to make it repeatable by adding in ascended items and scaling difficulty.

All endgame post-exotic stuff is grindy for the very reason that ANet simply cannot develop NEW content fast enough to keep up with the people that are beating the content. However this simply means that the content is fully optional. Your ascended gear is fractionally better than someone else’s exotics or rares but not enough where it greatly stacks the deck in your favor in things like PvP. It’s fully optional, and if grinding for one thing is getting boring then change it up or play a little less. You are not required to grind in order to PvP or run dungeons.

Whether or not it’s a grind is totally dependent on whether or not you enjoy playing the game as a whole.

Do you still enjoy wandering around? Gathering every node you come across? Participating in events?

If you broke your own ability to immerse, then it IS a grind.
If not, then it isn’t and you can enjoy yourself.

I am one of those crazy people who can talk about it lucidly and then go straight back into it. Be crazy like me and you’ll be fine. :P

Theplayboy.6417:

I really feel that the deciding forces behind Guild Wars 2 have completely forgotton what made them special. All of the the people screaming for “end game” and “gear grind” and “raids” never ever wanted a Guild Wars 2. They want and are currently looking for the next WoW. And while those players were off playing WoW I was playing the original Guild Wars along with a ton of my other internet friends who no longer are playing Guild Wars 2.

This gear grind and gear treadmill has to end. Guild Wars 2 needs to get back on course with where the Original left off. I played the original game in Alpha, I purchased the the original game, I bought the Factions and Nightfall pre-order packs and pre-purchased the additional continents as well as the Eye of the North expansion, and even bought all of the stupid strategy guides. I know I’m only single person and that all of these things don’t add up to a whole lot of money but I considered myself a life long Guild Wars / Anet customer. I hate to give it all up but Guild Wars 2 in it’s current state has left me extremely dissatisfied. Guild Wars has been a part of my life since it launced and as much as it pains me to say it if I quit Guild Wars 2 I am never coming back. The Guild Wars phase of my life will officially be over for me.

The ghost of my Monk seconds this from the mists.

I will make this quick and simple.

Yes parts of this game are a grind. all mmos are a grind.

And to be honest. Raids will make a nice surprise to the game if people like it or not. And tbh if you dont like raids dont do them.

Here is a comparison of the questing system in GW2 vs. GW1