Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I did 6 runs in a PuG of Arah in exploration mode. All just to farm the first boss, because that’s all I could find a group for. It took a little over an hour for those 6 runs, so around 10 minutes each.

Already we have:
6 Runs = 24 Tokens = 60 Minutes
1 Run = 4 Tokens = 10 Minutes
1 Token = 2.5 Minutes

This is assuming you do nothing but farm an easy first boss in Arah on exploration mode. These are only estimates that I use based on my night. I only did 6 runs because I was bored out of my mind after that hour, maybe your superawesomefarmgroup does the first boss in 7.333(repeating of course) minutes, cool, there’s also a group full of window lickers out there doing it in 20, so it sorta averages out.

To get a full set of armor and two 1h weapons using Arah tokens would cost 1800 tokens, or 4500 minutes (75 hours). Minimum wage seems to be about $7.25 in most states (http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm). This means a full set of gear costs $543.75 if you work for minimum wage.

Now 75 hours doesn’t sound too bad, maybe you sit down and grind it all out in a week. What if you’re like me though? BEST case, I can play 3 hours after work, then 12 hours on the weekend. That’s 39 hours a week, assuming I do NOTHING with my free time but farm the first boss of Arah, that’s still two weeks to get a full set of gear and I’ve now neglected my wife and friends who don’t play GW2.

“But Wait,” you say, “this gear isn’t supposed to be gotten quickly or easily, it’s supposed to be hard!” Yes, this is true, but the process to get it doesn’t feel rewarding. I’m not farming a boss for a drop from a loot table of 6-8 items, I’m farming a known amount of tokens, I can see how long it will take me to get everything.

I have two suggestions for this issue:
1) reduce the cost of the items, this one is pretty obvious
or
2) leave the cost the same, but make the loot also drop from the chests so people have a reason to actually run the whole dungeon and take different paths. This seems like the best thing, and quite frankly, the obvious way to design the game. There’s still farming, there’s still commitment, but it adds the element of chance. It becomes exciting, hoping for that drop, but you still get the tokens so if you don’t get the drop after a while you can just buy it. Another game had a system like this and it worked pretty well…

TL;DR – I did some math, the fastest way (and only way to find groups) of getting gear is an awful grind. Reward system needs to be fixed to encourage running whole dungeons, not just the first boss.

Well done. Hope Anet reads and considers this. 75 hours for one set of skins is not very revolutionary.

Wheres the difference between casuals and the better players when even the casuals get everything easy for doing nothing?
If everyone has everything its not worth anything imo

I don’t really think it takes to long, considering it’s exotic, the best type of gear in the game.

What’s tedious is that the optimal way to do it is to farm the same dungeon over and over and over. They should give incentive to do all paths of an explorable mode rather than always the same.

A simple system of rewarding more and more tokens based on how many bosses you down in each dungeon run. Using the number of bosses killed without a wipe as a multiplier to promote skills as opposed to zerg tactics from the respawn waypoint.

Or increase the number of tokens based on how long it takes you to finish each boss maybe? Time attack?

Problem solved?

Well maybe but still u can “exploit” 2 routes atm which is not fair. Considering the path u choose you should get more or less shards. For example, so far i tested myself from all 4 routes, the seer path is the hardest in Arah. But given the time u need to finish it u get more from the others :<

Well done. Hope Anet reads and considers this. 75 hours for one set of skins is not very revolutionary.

And giving everyone everything for doing nothing is not very revolutionary either.

Vanisher.9216:

I don’t really think it takes to long, considering it’s exotic, the best type of gear in the game.

What’s tedious is that the optimal way to do it is to farm the same dungeon over and over and over. They should give incentive to do all paths of an explorable mode rather than always the same.

While I’m not entirely against this, I’m not sure how they could work it in without it being half kitten’d.

Maybe when you finish one branch, giving an option to do another one for double the tokens, then after that, doing the final path for quadruple the tokens.

But people will still whine regardless, since they still wouldn’t be getting everything for minimal effort.

Apathy.6430:

Vanisher.9216:

I don’t really think it takes to long, considering it’s exotic, the best type of gear in the game.

What’s tedious is that the optimal way to do it is to farm the same dungeon over and over and over. They should give incentive to do all paths of an explorable mode rather than always the same.

While I’m not entirely against this, I’m not sure how they could work it in without it being half kitten’d.

Maybe when you finish one branch, giving an option to do another one for double the tokens, then after that, doing the final path for quadruple the tokens.

But people will still whine regardless, since they still wouldn’t be getting everything for minimal effort.

That’s not a bad idea at all.

Must get full dungeon gear in 1 day. Must, or its too hard and long!

Itari.1063:

Wheres the difference between casuals and the better players when even the casuals get everything easy for doing nothing?
If everyone has everything its not worth anything imo

so better player = no life player who just farm 24/7 by doing the same content all the time? just great.

those skins aren’t worth it. also it’s not “best gear” in game because stats could not fit build.

I never said the better players have no life, that was you. But its just the skin in this game that change, so why should the better player suffer? Where is the challenge if i can get anything i want with no effort? If people say its to hard simply because they cant clear it but other has it cleared it should be nerfed so that they can also get it? Where is the challenge for the “pro gamer”?

Itari.1063:

I never said the better players have no life, that was you. But its just the skin in this game that change, so why should the better player suffer? Where is the challenge if i can get anything i want with no effort? If people say its to hard simply because they cant clear it but other has it cleared it should be nerfed so that they can also get it? Where is the challenge for the “pro gamer”?

it’s not too hard because it can be “farmed”.
it’s just pure boring grind. it’s not challenge at all, it doesn’t make you better players. it just make your life boring.

it only tell us that you have ability to spend xx hours on farming some dungeon. From when good player = farmer and grinder?

Once you’ve grinded all those tokens and you got your gear the only thing left for you is to ask “What am I doing with my life?”
It’s not fun to grind a dungeon 10+ times just to get one item. If you want 8 items (gear & weapons) You’ll have to grind it up to 90~100 times. Not my idea of fun, especially if it’s the only endgame in terms of pve.

Daegranos.7451:

It’s not fun to grind a dungeon 10+ times just to get one item. If you want 8 items (gear & weapons) You’ll have to grind it up to 90~100 times. Not my idea of fun, especially if it’s the only endgame in terms of pve.

A). You don’t have to grind the gear, you literally don’t need it at all.
B). I’ve done multiple explore modes 3-4 times and have enjoyed them every time.
C). You don’t have to get every piece of a set, you can mix and match.
D). You don’t have to grind the gear. It doesn’t matter if you get it next week for constantly running a dungeon, or you get it in 2015. It is there as a vanity item, nothing more. Whining that vanity items aren’t easily available is pretty dumb.

But yes, it would be MUCH better if there was a 20 man raid that you needed to grind for 2 months to get to the next raid to grind for 2 months to get to the next raid to grind for two months. That is a far superior “endgame”.

Thank you for putting words in my mouth.

What a terrible answer. If I can’t get any rewards in decent amount of time put in, your solution is: you don’t need them, they are cosmetic? But I do want them, and want to obtain them in a reasonable amount of time, what is wrong with that? Something like 20-30 runs for total set would be maximum. Anything above that is not only unreasonable, it’s absurd and insulting.

Ah. I find I love quoting A and D to friends. Ive found few(as in none) can give me a good answer as to why they need it now. I also then point out they arent paying monthly for the game so what is the rush for. (more silence on their part)

Also grind for dungeon gear when I can simply spend gold and buy exotics with the stats I want ?

There are two types of grind I would say – artificially made ones and self imposed ones.

I play GeeDubs 2 like I play GeeDubz 1. Some people complain they need to grind ectos and shards for armour. Pfft I got my armour at granite citadel. 60 ar. 350 cloth 35 chits baby

balto.6408:

Anything above that is not only unreasonable, it’s absurd and insulting.

Insulting? Do explain? I have a hard time feeling insulted in games, so this is a new concept for me.

Ofc u must grind. How u want ur gear then? Kill 1 “boss” and have everything and after 1 week u quit? Nice one! i want a dungeon where casuals dont see any land. U all time say farm/grind doenst make someone a better player, well to a certain degree its true. But answer me one think, how will u see that all gamer are casual? or how u want to see the pro’s? Never? “Pro Gamer” should get something they can be proud of, even if it’s just a skin from dungeon or a Weapon. You cant say “oh wow he cleared the dungeon even all are crying 4 a nerf” and get nothing even after clearing it tons of times

The main problem (at least for me) is not, thats it take a while to get the dungeon armor or that its hard. My problem is, that i have to do the same part over and over and over and over again. Doing that is without a doubt GRINDING, which anet said will not be a part of the game.
I think a good solution would be to keep the prices as they are but make only one dungeon coin, so you can vary the dungeon/path you do. There will still be a “best/fastest” way to get the armor, but you dont have to do it that way if you dont like and you won’t feel pushed to do so if you prefer having fun while infesting a lot of effort and time to get to the “endgame-”items.

Kerigolas.8263:

I think a good solution would be to keep the prices as they are but make only one dungeon coin, so you can vary the dungeon/path you do.

AKA, farm CoF indefinitely

Only 1 Coin is pretty stupid, u could only do the fastest and easiest one. So why bother with the other dungeons.

If you want to do this, i am fine with that. But people who want have different experiences can still do so and are not stuck with 100 Tokens for each dungeon, wich will not help them at all.

P.S. Don’t know if i used a not quite correct term, but when i said one dungen coin i (of course) meant one type of dungeon coin

Let’s get something straight here, you can craft exotic armor with the exact same stats as the dungeon gear. There is literally nothing to be gained other than aesthetics from spending 75 hours running for gear. This game’s PvE endgame is already kind of nonexistent, why put something in place that explicitly exists to waste time? I’m not asking for the gear for free, I’m just saying that 75 hours is wayyyyyyy too much to spend on a cosmetic upgrade.

Its not just cosmetics, its also prestige. But you should get prestige for experiencing and spending time in the game compared with accomplishment, not for enduring grinding.

75 is not so much…. I played games where i farmed more then 1 month and still didnt got what i searched….

If it took 75 hours of playtime running a variety of content which presented challenge and entertainment, that would be outstanding. The fact is though, there’s no incentive to do anything but the first boss. The amount of tokens you get from any boss is the same, and the loot is not going to compare, not to mention the fact that simply finding a group of people willing to run the entire dungeon is rare. There’s lots of people who think it’s fine the way it is, but look at the breakdown of level 80 players right now. The people who are 80 now are people who leveled at a pretty decent pace, I myself have spent lots of time playing since the game came out. It will take many more hours of playtime before I even begin to feel the rewards of being lvl 80. Imagine in a month, when people who didn’t push as hard hit lvl 80. Those players will feel even more outcast by the current dungeon reward system.

So yes, the game has only been out for a few weeks, and it should take time to get the gear. That goal should not seem like an unreasonable goal for someone who has to go to work and spend time with his wife though, otherwise why play? If there’s this many people who feel the system is broken now, wait until the majority of the playerbase hits 80. Then the defecation will really hit the cooling device.

Side note: people seem to be neglecting my second suggestion, I much prefer the idea of specific items dropping of specific bosses, thus giving a reason to run the whole dungeon on multiple paths. Dropped loot is much more exciting than gathering monopoly money.

I don’t call someone who has time to run CoF exp mode option 2 over 100+ times a “Pro Gamer” just someone who has a lot of free time on their hands.

And correct me if I am wrong didn’t Anet advertise this game as Grind free?
and if you think 100+ run of the same dungeon over and over and over isn’t a grind then you need to go outside your house and breathe fresh air.

There is no such thing as pro gamer in GW2 this game was made with the casual gamer in mind

Here is a quote from their own article in the website called “The Endgame Reimagined”

“In the past, we’ve talked about how in Guild Wars 2 we designed the game to avoid a common problem in many MMOs: grinding through chunks of boring, repetitive content to get to the occasional pockets of fun. With Guild Wars 2, we wanted the entire gameplay experience to be something that players enjoyed, regardless of how much time they could dedicate.”

- Have you ever stopped and wonder the grind is there because you want it to be?

- Have you ever considered that maybe the dungeons and different mode are there so people can play, enjoy the challenge and variety and get some sort of reward at the end? Who forced you to farm the first boss in Arah to a mind boggling numers?

- Have you ever considered that there are people who can play and have fun, then one day they ended up with the armor?

- Have you ever consider that the whole reason it’s grindy, because exactly it is you who want it to be grind, because you want it fast and want it easy, you choose to grind?

Speaking from experience. I almost have 2 lvl80 now, and I lvled them completely different:

- The first toon: I lvled it the “proper” way, follow the zones, try to 100% each zone I visit, running each dungeon once as they’re unlocked, participated in a lot of DE. It took about 2 weeks or so for me to get that toon to 80.

- The second toon: I lvled it the “grind” way, basically try to power level with several craft, than starting at 40 I “grinded” CM story all the way up. Took about less than half the time. Last night the group I was in took me as a replacement, and from their dialogue I reckon they probably have to run CM story for at least 20 times already, and with me we did about 7 more runs, after I left they still kept going. And throughout the run I see them complain that they can’t wait to hit 80 because they’re about to go crazy grinding the place. Let’s me ask a question: whose fault is that?

Personally I didn’t really enjoy the 2nd toon lvling experience much. On my third toon I already decide I will go with an exploration type experience. The first toon didn’t venture much outside the area the story lead to, so I plan to explore the world more, and looking forward to that.

Grind or not grind, it’s your choice.

Arciel, that’s not an argument. You’re essentially saying that we can either play or we can quit. Why would some of us who have waited 7 years just quit the game because we have other commitments to our time and this game was advertised as being accommodating to those time commitments?

We don’t want it free. Many people have offered multiple ideas that still require work, one of the best being that the dungeon mobs and bosses drop more shards and actual gear. As it is, barely anyone goes to the more difficult wings of the dungeons.

They can either change the way dungeons work, or change their marketing to reflect what dungeons actually are and offer refunds to the people who feel lied to.

From the Dungeons Guide

…each dungeon has its own unique armors and weapons that can’t be found anywhere else. The armor from the Ascalonian Catacombs is different from what you’ll find in Sorrow’s Embrace, which is different from the treasure found in Caudecus’s Manor.

There is simply no truth to this statement until the gear actually drops in the dungeons.

The thing is that dungeons in their current state feel like manual labour. Once ArenaNet makes dungeons fun as they are supposed to be people won’t be bothered by the token cost of gear anymore.

Please please oh please stop using the “real life commitment” card, as I said in other thread, I have 2 jobs and working on gradschool so people showing that card has no sympathy from me. But then again like I said, it’s something I settle down to have in a month or two, not hours or weeks. The “casual” commitment is that everyone anyone can see the content of the games, you don’t have to be part of a super elite guide to do that. You are demanding something different. You’re right it’s a game, not a job, so don’t make it into one, and the one doing that is you.

The problem of people not wanting to do other wings is the problem with the people. Let’s not be pretentious here, when you say “people doesn’t go into the other wing”, you mean “you don’t go to the other wing”. Let’s me ask, even if you find a group that will do the more difficult wing, would you go with them? Or are you one of those /map LFG Speedrun/farm CoF/CM people?

The whole point I’m saying here isn’t the fast and low, it’s to responsed to your and other complain the experience is grindy, and like I said, the one who make it feel grindy is you.

Science.4207:

Arciel, that’s not an argument. You’re essentially saying that we can either play or we can quit. Why would some of us who have waited 7 years just quit the game because we have other commitments to our time and this game was advertised as being accommodating to those time commitments?

We don’t want it free. Many people have offered multiple ideas that still require work, one of the best being that the dungeon mobs and bosses drop more shards and actual gear. As it is, barely anyone goes to the more difficult wings of the dungeons.

They can either change the way dungeons work, or change their marketing to reflect what dungeons actually are and offer refunds to the people who feel lied to.

From the Dungeons Guide

…each dungeon has its own unique armors and weapons that can’t be found anywhere else. The armor from the Ascalonian Catacombs is different from what you’ll find in Sorrow’s Embrace, which is different from the treasure found in Caudecus’s Manor.

There is simply no truth to this statement until the gear actually drops in the dungeons.

Agreed. The fact that you don’t actually GET gear in the dungeons is what pisses me off. I’d be perfectly fine with the difficulty/bugs/length if we got a random piece of the set(for your armor style)…but no, enjoy farmingkitten amounts with pugs that will quit after the first death.

Arciel, if they keep the dungeon difficulty the same but add incentives to do the other wings because all the bosses drop a random set piece and/or more tokens, how does this effect you in any way? How does more people having the skins negatively effect your game experience? Is your game experience the only one that matters?

We’re trying to be constructive. Calling people whiners and telling them to l2p is not constructive.

People love to defend “the grind.” Why can’t the gear just drop? That makes much more sense. It still requires time, but it means that every time you go in, there’s a chance for reward. That’s much more exciting and rewarding than farming up tokens.

I dont think ANY of this is a solution.

The price is fine.

The gear is the problem for me. It isn’t anything special. Plain and simple, the gear is no better than ANY of the other exotic gear in the game. All the exotic gear, no matter how you obtain it, is pretty much equal. So why do 75+ hours of pretty much repetitive grinding for gear that is between 2g and 7g on the TP?

Pretty much, all you get for spending the time is armor that has a different look than armor that only costs 2g. Personally.. a slightly cooler looking character isn’t worth 75 hours of my time, at least not 75 repetitive boring hours.

What is sad is Exotic armor is BARELY stronger than a set of rare armor, which is like 3g for a complete set. For 75 hours of my time I would expect going from rare to exotic would be a SIGNIFICANT difference.. and it’s really just a tiny fist bump saying “gj, now go do this on 4 other characters because unless you wanna spend another 1000 hours getting legendary items, you’re pretty much capped as far as gear goes!”

Zeke.1329:

I dont think ANY of this is a solution.

The price is fine.

The gear is the problem for me. It isn’t anything special. Plain and simple, the gear is no better than ANY of the other exotic gear in the game. All the exotic gear, no matter how you obtain it, is pretty much equal. So why do 75+ hours of pretty much repetitive grinding for gear that is between 2g and 7g on the TP?

Pretty much, all you get for spending the time is armor that has a different look than armor that only costs 2g. Personally.. a slightly cooler looking character isn’t worth 75 hours of my time, at least not 75 repetitive boring hours.

What is sad is Exotic armor is BARELY stronger than a set of rare armor, which is like 3g for a complete set. For 75 hours of my time I would expect going from rare to exotic would be a SIGNIFICANT difference.. and it’s really just a tiny fist bump saying “gj, now go do this on 4 other characters because unless you wanna spend another 1000 hours getting legendary items, you’re pretty much capped as far as gear goes!”

You are playing the wrong game. Gear progression is as it should be. You shouldn’t be significant stronger because you grinded, you shouldn’t NEED to grind in this game.

And that’s perfect.

Next you’re going to tell me that Legendaries require too much time to get.

I do feel SOME of the items cost too much
I mean, 390 for a rifle? That took me hours upon hours of grinding the same route of the same dungeon over and over

Why didn’t they just make all armor 180? Or heck I could live with 200 and such.

I second the motion to decrease the cost of dungeon gear.

I love how people somehow equated grinding with skill or grinding with value. Grinding isn’t fun and making an item grind only does not make it special or interesting, it just makes it a pain in thekitten

Simply put the skin back on the non-exotic gear, like it was in the BWE.

I want the tokens to be non-specific to dungeons.

I don’t feel like running a single EM 60 times just to get all the equipment, that’ll burn me out really fast I’d rather be able to spice it up and mix and match my different EM’s and get tokens towards all of them.

To avoid burn-out by players, make tokens universal. Or at least exchangable.

I have run the dungeon 30 times now.

The first 10 was fun. Up to 20 for boring. 30 is just frustrating.

People saying that farming the same dungeon over and over again is a display of ‘skill’ are kidding themselves.

Please make the full set a reward from farming each of the 3 wings of a dungeon 5 times. Or make harder version that you need to complete twice. But this BS of being rewarded for grinding is mindless and unnecessary.

People will take the path of least resistance always, make that path one that is entertaining.

Risingashes.8694:

I have run the dungeon 30 times now.

The first 10 was fun. Up to 20 for boring. 30 is just frustrating.

People saying that farming the same dungeon over and over again is a display of ‘skill’ are kidding themselves.

Please make the full set a reward from farming each of the 3 wings of a dungeon 5 times. Or make harder version that you need to complete twice. But this BS of being rewarded for grinding is mindless and unnecessary.

People will take the path of least resistance always, make that path one that is entertaining.

I agree with this.

In any case, I believe that ArenaNet temporarily made the prices ridiculously high to buy themselves some time to work out a better system. In essence, to make sure no one but the most incorrigible grinders would already gain access to the armor.

Grinding will always be rewarded, this is perfectly normal, since grinding stands for time invested in the game. What ArenaNet needs to work out, is how to live up to their manifesto and allow people with less time to gain access to the same content through more effort.

At least for CoF and HotW you can run the entire thing for one of the paths in about twenty minutes that give you money as well as tokens. I get about 30 silver after vendoring and reward for CoF. That makes the math a little more friendly, giving 20 tokens per run (30 for the first of the day), for about a token per minute. 3 hours worth of speed runs for an armor piece isn’t too bad (3.5 with downtime.)

Those reasonable times are unique to these dungeons though.

Um, you all do realize that when you do all 2-3 paths in a day, you get rewarded by extra tokens if completed.