Guild Wars 2

Belzebu.3912:

I’m not a hardcore player at all (I play about 2 hours a day), and I hate any sort of grind, and still I crafted my legendary about the same time as the ascended weapons appeared and I finished my ascended armor almost 1 month about its launch.

Most of the people whining about the grind are the ones that only do QD or FG trains, so they lack some of the ascended materials, or are the people that only play the TP and buy everything, except the items that can’t be bought, so they would need to “grind” to get them.

Really, if you play just a bit of everything like a few hours of WvW per week, do a couple world bosses a day and do the guild missions, you’ll be flooded with the ascended materials.

Ugh! I just said I don’t want to debate this anymore and along comes something I can’t ignore.

I hate the champ trains as much as I hate ascended gear (I mean I don’t give a kitten if other people champ train, I just find it boring). I hate grinding anything and I love variety and change.

At least some people who dislike ascended gear dislike it because they want to mix things up (different classes and different builds) without being at a 5-10% power deficit.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You’re mistaken. There’s already no “required” grind in the game. You make the choice to grind for the Ascended gear, therefore it’s your own doing.

But in what way is this different from any other mmo? I mean, in WOW you do the grinding or you do not. And I knew very few people that cared at all about the gear. All we cared about was downing the end boss, which is not a grind but just playing the game. The only grinding necessary was once you leveled your toon, to get the first pieces of gear needed to enter a raid and not completely suck. Once you started raiding, you would eventually get the gear needed to progress (and elite guilds cleared all the content on the first day, meaning that you didn’t really need the best gear).

here, anet throws a grind alternative for those who want it, but no challenging content
to get it, so you get the best gear doing the same boring repetitive things you do to get the most basic things in the game.

For the moment, we can opt not to grind, not to go for ascended gear. But… what will happen once the grinders complain that they already have the ascended and need a new tier? Then the difference between ascended plus and exotic is going to start to be too big to ignore it…

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

My only complaint about the ascended equipment overall is the time gating required on them and not the materials required. Having 16 characters myself I actually already have full ascended jewelry for most of them but getting the back piece and armor/weapon pieces will take me years.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

DeathPanel.8362:

My only complaint about the ascended equipment overall is the time gating required on them and not the materials required. Having 16 characters myself I actually already have full ascended jewelry for most of them but getting the back piece and armor/weapon pieces will take me years.

You know that you can buy all the time gated items, right?
Only the ascended material can’t be bought, and those aren’t time gated.
Of course, you’ll spend much more gold to by-pass the time gate, but if that is the only thing bothering you then there is the solution, with enough gold you can make the 16 ascended sets in a day.

Lol if you don’t like “grinding” go to your comp and /uninstall any “MMO” you have dl’d. MMO’s are about character progression in every sense of the meaning (at least they’re supposed to be). Go find yourself a nice xbox game to play and move on. This is NOT the genre for you.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

You are implicitly assuming that what you like is superior to what I like (which is not true, because I don’t care about what you like). You are also very dismissive of my points, which is rude.

How about we get rid of ascended gear and those of you who like character progression just work on legendaries?

There was plenty of potential character progression before ascended gear, but you (collectively, not individually) were not willing to work for it.

Ision.3207:

Fascinating thread, and the comments made by the majority of posters is fascinating as well. Just imagine the majority response to this topic a mere 12 months ago …

So my oh my, just look how the demographics of the Gw2 player base have changed since November of 2012!

Well done Anet; you pulled it off.

I think the majority of players didn’t care about Ascended gear. I think the overzealous forum warriors who played GW1 were the ones who cared about Ascended gear. The majority of GW2 players now likely have never played GW1 and are not, and have never been, against Ascended gear.

So no, Anet didn’t pull off anything, the vocal outrage from the GW1 purists has subsided and the level-headed approving murmur of the actual playerbase has begun.

siralius.9517:

Lol if you don’t like “grinding” go to your comp and /uninstall any “MMO” you have dl’d. MMO’s are about character progression in every sense of the meaning (at least they’re supposed to be). Go find yourself a nice xbox game to play and move on. This is NOT the genre for you.

Except for that gw2 was sold saying those kind of things:
“We want Guild Wars 2 to be a game like Halo or a COD: you turn it on, look at a list of games, then you get in and you play. It’s all very easy to understand, and that’s what we’ve built.”

Edit: if this didn’t implied the absence of the gear grind (and it could be, given the fact that a lot of anet sentences are pretty vague) then where is the news?
A game with different kind of content to play with the equip of the proper level?
Nothing new. If this is the case I think it’s weird to emphasize something like this o_O.

Draknar.5748:

IndigoSundown.5419:

TChalla.7146:

The following is a legitimate question, since I haven’t even started working towards ascended gear.

What materials are actually considered the “grind” materials?

Since you asked, the following are the materials needed to craft an Ascended Coat (light armor).

Different people are going to find gaining different parts of this “grindy” based on what has to be done to get the mats and whether they like that content or not. Alternatively, most of these items can be bought, meaning you have to gain gold. Gaining gold may be grindy or not, again based on what you do and whether you like it. My guess, though, is that most of those complaining about grind for Ascended are looking at a massive list of mats needed and considering the whole gathering process.

I don’t have ascended gear either, but I took a look at your list and I can honestly say that looks like very little grind to me. I literally have everything on that list already except all of that silk, which whatever that’s easy enough to get.

Is that seriously what people are complaining about!?! I mean really?! I just play the game normally and I have all of the dragonite, bloodstone, and fragments on that list already that I would need. 500 of each is NOT a lot for BiS.

All this time I really thought the grind whiners actually had some sort of basis for their whining, but if that list is accurate for requirements I am seriously disappoint.

By your posting history, you’ve at least had the game for over a year. So, with however much you’ve played the “required” content, you’ve gotten enough mats in the 5+ months since Ascended weapons launched to be close to crafting one Ascended armor piece. Congratulations! Now multiply that gathering rate by 5-6 for full Ascended (and yes, people get it faster than that, so you are not gathering as much as you could).

What your post boils down to, though, is that you don’t perceive a grind because you’ve been playing the “required” content — apparently — for fun. What happens if you dislike that content? If you’re doing it “only” for the mats and otherwise hate it, the grind perception will kick in. Complaints about grind in any MMO are always going to have some component of, “I dislike the content I need to do to get the items.” Which was at least part of my point.

echo.2053:

No grind = no goal to work towards = no point to continue to play. If you don’t want asc items no problem you can still effectively play the game. The problem lies that our society lacks patience. We want everything yesterday with as little effort as possiable.

Nope. Google horizontal progression. Therein lies the answer.

Death Prosecutor.8713:

Anet’s Pre release hype was “no more grind”, basically realizing the “grind” issues and how disenchanted players of GW were with it. Now we have the Ascended Armor / FOTM “Grind”. What the heck Anet? Was pre release hype re: No grind just a con job? Would seem a bit hypocritical to me. This games direction is going to vertical in my opinion. I think Anet is shooting itself in the foot!

Arenanet made that game but within the first month realized that a lot more people actually wanted grind in their MMORPG because once they hit level cap, they had nothing to work on. the people they were trying to attract with the no grind, were not significant enough to sustain the game long term and to generate profit, so they did what any company that wants to stay in business do, they change and gave the people want they wanted. for example, a lot of gw1 players did not transition due to the changes in the combat system and click to move, others wanted gw1 but with updated graphics, the point being gw1 fans became insignificant to the success with gw2 adn once they realized that began cutting all threads relating to it except the b2p model. They also thought that dynamic event was going to be endgame, but people only seem to care about DE when there is some type of reward attached to it. The point being their design intentions did not match the reality of the market.

Companies that don’t change to match reality end up like blockbuster or sears or Hostess.

The great thing about gw2 however, is that you don’t need to have any of those ascended armor or gear. No content except fractures, but it practically gives you all you need to do, gear wise is punishing you for being in exotics.

silvermember.8941:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

Anet’s Pre release hype was “no more grind”, basically realizing the “grind” issues and how disenchanted players of GW were with it. Now we have the Ascended Armor / FOTM “Grind”. What the heck Anet? Was pre release hype re: No grind just a con job? Would seem a bit hypocritical to me. This games direction is going to vertical in my opinion. I think Anet is shooting itself in the foot!

Arenanet made that game but within the first month realized that a lot more people actually wanted grind in their MMORPG because once they hit level cap, they had nothing to work on. the people they were trying to attract with the no grind, were not significant enough to sustain the game long term and to generate profit, so they did what any company that wants to stay in business do, they change and gave the people want they wanted. for example, a lot of gw1 players did not transition due to the changes in the combat system and click to move, others wanted gw1 but with updated graphics, the point being gw1 fans became insignificant to the success with gw2 adn once they realized that began cutting all threads relating to it except the b2p model. They also thought that dynamic event was going to be endgame, but people only seem to care about DE when there is some type of reward attached to it. The point being their design intentions did not match the reality of the market.

—snip—

Unless someone from ANet told you this, it’s conjecture.

Still waiting on my ascended food.

Empyreal Shard Salad, Thermocatalyctic Roasted Steaks, Bloodstone Biscuits and Dragonite filtered water.

echo.2053:

No grind = no goal to work towards = no point to continue to play. If you don’t want asc items no problem you can still effectively play the game. The problem lies that our society lacks patience. We want everything yesterday with as little effort as possiable.

You can make a grind fun though.

The problem with the ascended grind is that it truly is dull for the major part, and crafting is the only way to practically get it which is time gated, so if you miss a day then you get behind. (Which in retrospect is a fail because there were people who claimed to have had full ascended within an hour or two of the patch so loltimegating.)

Overall it feels like a chore, which isn’t really all that fun. And the stat increase is just enough to be enough to appeal to players to chase, yet enough to not really make a substantial enough show of vertical progression (somehow?).

Then there’s the fact that they’re going to change how some of the stats in gear synergies so now people have to re grind the gear they already went through her trouble to make in the first place so. . .

I’m not bothered about the fact that there is a small and rather minor vertical progression system… I’m more bothered about the way in which i have to grind RNG drops to get them. I wouldnt mind if i had a token or goal by which i could progressively seek and gain to work towards said item. (A farm is fine when i have a progression and goal, not random) like pristine fractals and such but things like armor with materials that drop randomly and although you can farm for them the drop rate is abysmal. Which then leads me to the bottom line here that i can at the end of all things… do everything and anything and not actually work towards anything in order to get the gold to purchase everything i need. IE I earned nothing and just bought my way to greatness.

LET ME EARN IT FOR DUCK SNAKE. /rant over.

IndigoSundown.5419:

What your post boils down to, though, is that you don’t perceive a grind because you’ve been playing the “required” content — apparently — for fun. What happens if you dislike that content? If you’re doing it “only” for the mats and otherwise hate it, the grind perception will kick in. Complaints about grind in any MMO are always going to have some component of, “I dislike the content I need to do to get the items.” Which was at least part of my point.

Yes, I’ve been playing since early release. I did the “required” content for fun and therefore I didn’t perceive it as a grind, this is true. I really think this is/was their entire idea. I’m guessing that they assumed the playerbase would be made up of people mostly like me who would look at Ascended gear as a longer term goal rather than everyone trying to get a full set done within a week of its release and then complain that it’s such a horrible grind to get the mats. It’s only a grind if you absolutely have to have it right now. If you can wait and accrue the materials over time playing content you enjoy here and there, then it isn’t a grind.

Most people like world bosses on face value, but most people also hate world bosses when they feel they have to grind it. I’ve never felt I had to grind it, so pretty much I do world bosses whenever I feel like it or if a guildie posts in guild chat that one is starting.

If I felt like I had to keep grinding them all day I would probably hate that content, but luckily, as many have pointed out on numerous occasions, Ascended gear is not a requirement and doesn’t impede enjoyment of the game in any way if you don’t have it, despite what the doomsayers may claim.

Draknar.5748:

Ision.3207:

Fascinating thread, and the comments made by the majority of posters is fascinating as well. Just imagine the majority response to this topic a mere 12 months ago …

So my oh my, just look how the demographics of the Gw2 player base have changed since November of 2012!

Well done Anet; you pulled it off.

I think the majority of players didn’t care about Ascended gear. I think the overzealous forum warriors who played GW1 were the ones who cared about Ascended gear. The majority of GW2 players now likely have never played GW1 and are not, and have never been, against Ascended gear.

Possible. At the same time this majority is not (and never was) for Ascended gear. Which is rather obvious, seeing as they will never get it.
All besides the point, as Ision was talking about majority of posters.

silvermember.8941:

Arenanet made that game but within the first month realized that a lot more people actually wanted grind in their MMORPG because once they hit level cap, they had nothing to work on. the people they were trying to attract with the no grind, were not significant enough to sustain the game long term and to generate profit, so they did what any company that wants to stay in business do, they change and gave the people want they wanted. for example, a lot of gw1 players did not transition due to the changes in the combat system and click to move, others wanted gw1 but with updated graphics, the point being gw1 fans became insignificant to the success with gw2 adn once they realized that began cutting all threads relating to it except the b2p model. They also thought that dynamic event was going to be endgame, but people only seem to care about DE when there is some type of reward attached to it. The point being their design intentions did not match the reality of the market.

I’ve quite often read people post here that the reason Anet ran with Ascended gear was because of the loud outcry of people wanting it, and because of the loss of players. This is a perfectly legitimate argument, and perhaps it is in fact the case.

Personally, I’ve always felt it was for the exact opposite reason. I’ve always suspected that what actually happened was that the game exceeded even their expectations with initial sales; and having got that core group firmly within their hands (the money), they decided to go after the WoW teenagers as well. In other words, they got greedy.

So they dragged out the “always intended” ascended gear, except I suspect they added a stat progression to that “always intended” gear that was not there originally. Of course a backlash was expected, but I believe they felt it would blow over relatively quickly. But even if it did not blow over quickly, and some of the original buyers storm off, no big deal – because that money is already had, and the newly added players would generate even more revenue.

Of course this is all just pure speculation on my part, and nothing more than that. Truth is, we will never really know for sure, as Anet, and Anet alone has the metrics for the game for those mere 2 months after release.

Draknar.5748:

IndigoSundown.5419:

What your post boils down to, though, is that you don’t perceive a grind because you’ve been playing the “required” content — apparently — for fun. What happens if you dislike that content? If you’re doing it “only” for the mats and otherwise hate it, the grind perception will kick in. Complaints about grind in any MMO are always going to have some component of, “I dislike the content I need to do to get the items.” Which was at least part of my point.

Yes, I’ve been playing since early release. I did the “required” content for fun and therefore I didn’t perceive it as a grind, this is true. I really think this is/was their entire idea. I’m guessing that they assumed the playerbase would be made up of people mostly like me who would look at Ascended gear as a longer term goal rather than everyone trying to get a full set done within a week of its release and then complain that it’s such a horrible grind to get the mats. It’s only a grind if you absolutely have to have it right now. If you can wait and accrue the materials over time playing content you enjoy here and there, then it isn’t a grind.

Most people like world bosses on face value, but most people also hate world bosses when they feel they have to grind it. I’ve never felt I had to grind it, so pretty much I do world bosses whenever I feel like it or if a guildie posts in guild chat that one is starting.

If I felt like I had to keep grinding them all day I would probably hate that content, but luckily, as many have pointed out on numerous occasions, Ascended gear is not a requirement and doesn’t impede enjoyment of the game in any way if you don’t have it, despite what the doomsayers may claim.

Yes, that is certainly an extension of my point.

Truth is, most people may not be like you. I know that most people are not like me. If people were not goal-driven, there would have been no need for the Ascended carrot in the first place, and people would have played the content they liked and ignored the rest. I’d guess that virtually all of those complaining about grind are really complaining about having to repeat content they dislike, and that virtually all of the “no grind/grind is fine” posters either like the content. don’t care if they get BiS or are content to get it ‘when it happens.’ — or some combination thereof.

GW1 had lots of grind and yet people, including myself, played from release up until the release of GW2, not sure what you are talking about.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

I’d love to. But for some reason ANet wants me to join world boss zergs instead.

Astralporing.1957:

Draknar.5748:

Ision.3207:

Fascinating thread, and the comments made by the majority of posters is fascinating as well. Just imagine the majority response to this topic a mere 12 months ago …

So my oh my, just look how the demographics of the Gw2 player base have changed since November of 2012!

Well done Anet; you pulled it off.

I think the majority of players didn’t care about Ascended gear. I think the overzealous forum warriors who played GW1 were the ones who cared about Ascended gear. The majority of GW2 players now likely have never played GW1 and are not, and have never been, against Ascended gear.

Possible. At the same time this majority is not (and never was) for Ascended gear. Which is rather obvious, seeing as they will never get it.
All besides the point, as Ision was talking about majority of posters.

True true. I will concede that he was referring to posters, I missed that part.

Personally, I’ve never been against Ascended. The game came out in August, they announced Ascended gear in November. I consider that early enough in release to say it isn’t Vertical progression but rather filling a void they didn’t anticipate. I’m also on the record saying that if they decide to add another tier of armor beyond Legendary, or between Ascended and Legendary that I would have a serious problem with it and would likely call it quits.

I think we can assume at some point they will add a Legendary set of armor to match weapons. Will match Ascended stats but would be stat swappable OOC. I’m all for that because that would be absolutely amazing and would actually be the last set of armor you would ever need. Ever.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

LOL I have work in RL. If I need to work afterhours I’m expecting another paycheck in real money. I’d prefer to have fun in my free time.
From your post I can tell about you:
1. You like grind. But many ppl don’t like it (which is completely normal, I’d say it’s abnormal to like grind without new content).
2. Or your time is really cheap. You don’t have real life and you don’t know how to waist it. Not all ppl like this.

Belzebu.3912:

DeathPanel.8362:

My only complaint about the ascended equipment overall is the time gating required on them and not the materials required. Having 16 characters myself I actually already have full ascended jewelry for most of them but getting the back piece and armor/weapon pieces will take me years.

You know that you can buy all the time gated items, right?
Only the ascended material can’t be bought, and those aren’t time gated.
Of course, you’ll spend much more gold to by-pass the time gate, but if that is the only thing bothering you then there is the solution, with enough gold you can make the 16 ascended sets in a day.

Spending all that gold when I already have thousands of mats available seems wasteful and redundant. Also I am saving gold for precursors so it’s in short supply.

WRay.2391:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

LOL I have work in RL. If I need to work afterhours I’m expecting another paycheck in real money. I’d prefer to have fun in my free time.
From your post I can tell about you:
1. You like grind. But many ppl don’t like it (which is completely normal, I’d say it’s abnormal to like grind without new content).
2. Or your time is really cheap. You don’t have real life and you don’t know how to waist it. Not all ppl like this.

You have a RL job, then lets compare that to real life. I want a BMW (ascended), but i can’t afford it because i only work 8 hours per day. I can afford a Honda (Exotic) with my job with which i can do all i need to do, hell i can still do most of my stuff with a Lada (Green), but I think that i deserve an Honda and i work enough hours to pay myself that. Now i can decide to get a second job and not only work 8 hours per day, but 16 hours per day. That way, i’ll have enough money to buy a BMW (ascended). Ok its my choice and now i ask you can i said : ‘’Hey i can’t afford BMW (ascended) with my jobs right now, this suck and they should decrease the cost of a BMW because if i want one right now i’ll have to work more hours. This is not fair because i hate doing more work hours (grind) but i still want the BMW (ascended).

Now i don’t know for you, but that seem like a strange and disconnect reality. Ascended and Legendary are end game gear and for that they should be the gear that cost the most. Its not because you want the best gear that you should have it without effort. Now lets take the example of SWOTOR. I need to do daily/weekly to get Basic commendation to get the first gear tier at level 55 (max level). Once i have the gear, then i can do hardmore flashpoint and some hard daily/weekly to gain Elite commendation to buy the next tier of gear. Once i have my gear, i can start to do hardmode operation to get Ultimate Commendation to get the other next tier of gear (which i think is the last tier of gear, but not sure because i stopped playing SWOTOR). At that point forget pugging, you need a guild to get that stuff. A guild that’s gonna do operation on a regular basis and will ask its member to be pretty much hardcore gamer. In GW2, ascended/legendary can take some time to get, but you can do it by your own at the speed you want and you never need to be an hardcore player with a guild schedule. That’s why i stopped playing SWOTOR/WoW, etc and i’m still on GW2.

TooBz.3065:

silvermember.8941:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

Anet’s Pre release hype was “no more grind”, basically realizing the “grind” issues and how disenchanted players of GW were with it. Now we have the Ascended Armor / FOTM “Grind”. What the heck Anet? Was pre release hype re: No grind just a con job? Would seem a bit hypocritical to me. This games direction is going to vertical in my opinion. I think Anet is shooting itself in the foot!

Arenanet made that game but within the first month realized that a lot more people actually wanted grind in their MMORPG because once they hit level cap, they had nothing to work on. the people they were trying to attract with the no grind, were not significant enough to sustain the game long term and to generate profit, so they did what any company that wants to stay in business do, they change and gave the people want they wanted. for example, a lot of gw1 players did not transition due to the changes in the combat system and click to move, others wanted gw1 but with updated graphics, the point being gw1 fans became insignificant to the success with gw2 adn once they realized that began cutting all threads relating to it except the b2p model. They also thought that dynamic event was going to be endgame, but people only seem to care about DE when there is some type of reward attached to it. The point being their design intentions did not match the reality of the market.

—snip—

Unless someone from ANet told you this, it’s conjecture.

If you want to tell yourself that go right ahead. OR you could read the interviews from that time period 2012, they pretty much spell it out for you.

DeathPanel.8362:

Spending all that gold when I already have thousands of mats available seems wasteful and redundant. Also I am saving gold for precursors so it’s in short supply.

Yes, it is wasteful, but you are paying for the time you are saving.

I personally crafted all my items, and in the beginning I sold the bolts of damasks for a great profit, and with that profit I could buy the rest of the material, all my ascended set cost me about 100g , what seems pretty reasonable IMO.

The problem with GW2 is this:

It is now one of the most grindy popular games on the market atm.

That in itself wouldn’t be a problem but the gear you grind for is not rewarding enough to warrant the grind.

Beyond fractals – The +1 stat here and +2 stats there is horrible. Also, add into that fact the gear looks terrible and you have lackluster rewards for all that farming.

The main issue with GW2 is Anet is hovering between two different sides of game models. They need to pick one because as it stands we are not getting the best of both worlds we are getting the least.

Azreell.1568:

The problem with GW2 is this:

It is now one of the most grindy popular games on the market atm.

You really think that GW2 is more grindy than WoW, Aion, TERA, EVE and Blade & Soul, to name a few?

Azreell.1568:

The problem with GW2 is this:

It is now one of the most grindy popular games on the market atm.

That in itself wouldn’t be a problem but the gear you grind for is not rewarding enough to warrant the grind.

Beyond fractals – The +1 stat here and +2 stats there is horrible. Also, add into that fact the gear looks terrible and you have lackluster rewards for all that farming.

The main issue with GW2 is Anet is hovering between two different sides of game models. They need to pick one because as it stands we are not getting the best of both worlds we are getting the least.

If you think gw2 is grindy, you should probably stick to western single player games. That should be enough for you.

You don’t know grind grind until you ran an instance 200 times and not get a single piece of armor suitable for your class.

I have 14 level 80’s. I’m leveling my 15 and 16th level80. And I intend to finish my map completion on all of them.

To many people that is a grind. But not to me. Because “I’m enjoying myself”.

Another guy who I talked to have 10 legendary, and he did that purely by playing/farming. He seemed to enjoy himself.

So is gw2 grindy compare to many other mmorpg on the market? I think the answer is yes base on the some players answer. But it is fine for me.

If I would play the same way I used to…. That is purely farming(I did cof path 1 2000 times) to buy the 9 permanent bank license I want to. I won’t be enjoying myself.

So I try to get away from that path to farm my ascended armor. I think to many people farming ascended gear it is a grind to them(that is especially true if that person want multiple set). Same as legendary. So I just set that as my long term goal.

Same answer I’ve used since those threads started.

At least as far as I remember since I started reading about the game, in most interviews and stuff they never promised (that I can remember at least) that there would be no grind, the promise was that there would be no required grind (IIRC the word were more like "you won’t have to grind to get to the fun stuff), and even I did remember reading in some interviews and articles, they said that there would be grind if you wanted to, but wouldn’t be for actually needed items.

For example, back when I was playing WoW, during the burning crusade at least (that’s when I got into raiding for a little bit). When I reached the level cap, I had to start grinding dungeons to gear up my character. Once I got enough gear from regular dungeons, I could start doing heroic dungeons to get better gear from them (as boss drops and from tokens), once I was geared enough from heroics, I could start thinking about the first raid in the game (karazhan, back then), and farm it until I got good enough starter raid gear to progress to the next raid tier, repeat on and on. Had I skipped a step, go into the raid directly after hitting 80 without gearing up first, chances are I might have been able to kill the first couple of bosses if the group was good enough to carry my, but I chances are I wouldn’t get past that.

That’s the promise GW2 made, and IMHO they’ve mostly kept it. I can hit 80 and get full exotic gear from gold and karma right away, save from high level fractals that’s more than enough to do any content in the game right now. Of course, there’s ascended gear, that’s a HUGE grind, there’s legendary weapons, another huge grind, dungeon gear skins, cultural armor, less so but still big grind and so on… but there’s nothing in the game right now (except maybe high level fractals, again) that I can’t do if I skip all that grind.

BTW, personally I’m taking my time, setting the ascended gear as a VERY long term goal… I started leveling weaponsmith since ascended weapons came out, got my first ascended weapon (hammer) about a month ago, and I have to say I’m enjoying the journey so far.

Draknar.5748:

I don’t have ascended gear either, but I took a look at your list and I can honestly say that looks like very little grind to me. I literally have everything on that list already except all of that silk, which whatever that’s easy enough to get.

10,000 silk scraps for light armor is not a grind?? I was collecting silk for months prior to the intro and I still didn’t have even half of that amount.

locoman.1974:

Same answer I’ve used since those threads started.

At least as far as I remember since I started reading about the game, in most interviews and stuff they never promised (that I can remember at least) that there would be no grind, the promise was that there would be no required grind

It was actually said that there would be no grind for BiS. They haven’t kept to that.

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

You are implicitly assuming that what you like is superior to what I like (which is not true, because I don’t care about what you like). You are also very dismissive of my points, which is rude.

How about we get rid of ascended gear and those of you who like character progression just work on legendaries?

There was plenty of potential character progression before ascended gear, but you (collectively, not individually) were not willing to work for it.

Nope, I think your point was pretty clear. You want BiS gear, but you don’t want to work for it. You just want it handed to you. I think you’re the one assuming things, I don’t have ascended armor, I don’t really care for it. I’m just not kittening about it.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

You just want it handed to you.

The game was advertised with the line that BiS would be acquired by level 80. No grind for it. He bought the game. Its not asking to have something handed to you if you have paid for that something. He has done the work, just hasn’t received the benefits of said work. Sounds like the fault is not with him, rather with ANet.

I have no problem admitting that I don’t want to work for BIS gear. I don’t have a problem with work, but I do it at work.

This is my leisure time and I don’t want to do anything in the game that feels like work.

People play MMOs for different reasons, some people like progression, some like the social aspects, and some exploration. My personal preference is high on the exploration and social aspects and very very low on the progression aspects.

I don’t really understand this thread. The ascended armor system is one of the least grindy progression mechanisms in the game. Getting my armor set from CoE because I liked the skin? That was a grind. Doing a tiny amount of crafting everyday? That’s just normal play for me.

Belzebu.3912:

Azreell.1568:

The problem with GW2 is this:

It is now one of the most grindy popular games on the market atm.

You really think that GW2 is more grindy than WoW, Aion, TERA, EVE and Blade & Soul, to name a few?

In WoW, I can raid for 4-5 hrs per week and get a piece of gear or two. What will 4-5hrs per week get me here? A quarter of the mats required for one piece of armor?

Belzebu.3912:

Azreell.1568:

The problem with GW2 is this:

It is now one of the most grindy popular games on the market atm.

You really think that GW2 is more grindy than WoW, Aion, TERA, EVE and Blade & Soul, to name a few?

You can’t include Eve in that list because Eve is basically a game you have to pay all your crap for anyway.

For the others though, I actually don’t mind WoW in the slightest compared to GW2’s grind. It’s exciting. It’s interactive and somewhat fun. I’m doing more than pressing 1 1 1 1 1 like some sort of binary programmer, and the best part is that even if I don’t get my own loot outright there are tokens and things that drop to compensate so I can get it from vendors and the like.

All you get in this game is gold, but even the gold can only be used to buy crafting materials of various kinds.

Thaddeus.4891:

WRay.2391:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

LOL I have work in RL. If I need to work afterhours I’m expecting another paycheck in real money. I’d prefer to have fun in my free time.
From your post I can tell about you:
1. You like grind. But many ppl don’t like it (which is completely normal, I’d say it’s abnormal to like grind without new content).
2. Or your time is really cheap. You don’t have real life and you don’t know how to waist it. Not all ppl like this.

You have a RL job, then lets compare that to real life. I want a BMW (ascended), but i can’t afford it because i only work 8 hours per day. I can afford a Honda (Exotic) with my job with which i can do all i need to do, hell i can still do most of my stuff with a Lada (Green), but I think that i deserve an Honda and i work enough hours to pay myself that. Now i can decide to get a second job and not only work 8 hours per day, but 16 hours per day. That way, i’ll have enough money to buy a BMW (ascended). Ok its my choice and now i ask you can i said : ‘’Hey i can’t afford BMW (ascended) with my jobs right now, this suck and they should decrease the cost of a BMW because if i want one right now i’ll have to work more hours. This is not fair because i hate doing more work hours (grind) but i still want the BMW (ascended).

Now i don’t know for you, but that seem like a strange and disconnect reality. Ascended and Legendary are end game gear and for that they should be the gear that cost the most. Its not because you want the best gear that you should have it without effort. Now lets take the example of SWOTOR. I need to do daily/weekly to get Basic commendation to get the first gear tier at level 55 (max level). Once i have the gear, then i can do hardmore flashpoint and some hard daily/weekly to gain Elite commendation to buy the next tier of gear. Once i have my gear, i can start to do hardmode operation to get Ultimate Commendation to get the other next tier of gear (which i think is the last tier of gear, but not sure because i stopped playing SWOTOR). At that point forget pugging, you need a guild to get that stuff. A guild that’s gonna do operation on a regular basis and will ask its member to be pretty much hardcore gamer. In GW2, ascended/legendary can take some time to get, but you can do it by your own at the speed you want and you never need to be an hardcore player with a guild schedule. That’s why i stopped playing SWOTOR/WoW, etc and i’m still on GW2.

You are really disconnected from reality. As for me game is a way to relax and have fun. If you cannot see the difference between real life and game it’s a symptom.
Next link is about NSA but you should watch

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-9-2013/that-thing-they-said-they-re-not-doing--they-re-totally-doing---world-of-watchcraft

Death Prosecutor.8713:

Anet’s Pre release hype was “no more grind”, basically realizing the “grind” issues and how disenchanted players of GW were with it. Now we have the Ascended Armor / FOTM “Grind”. What the heck Anet? Was pre release hype re: No grind just a con job? Would seem a bit hypocritical to me. This games direction is going to vertical in my opinion. I think Anet is shooting itself in the foot!

as i recall, they promised no grind for the best gear. it only costs 5-15 gold for a 6 piece set of full exotic armor. that is no grind at all. they delivered on that promise. the ascended armor and weapons, and other weapon skins, including legendaries, are all only a few points better than the exotics.
in a fight, a 1 gold exotic staff vs the bifrost(set to same stats), there is virtually no difference.

CalmestChaos.2463:

as i recall, they promised no grind for the best gear…

….the ascended armor and weapons, and other weapon skins, including legendaries, are all only a few points better than the exotics.

So Ascended are the best gear, and require grind, of which you point out that they promised there would be none.

Kinda get the feeling that people don’t seem to understand that more grinding doesn’t really mean more time spent playing the game. In general, really grindy content turns players off and many of them will simply ignore it. Or just stop playing the game once they hit that wall where they /have/ to grind in order to proceed; thankfully /that/ is not the issue here.

I personally couldn’t care less about ascended simply because it takes too long to be worth it. I care even less about legendaries because they are simply ugly and ill thought out in addition to taking far too long to obtain. I’ve seen how much effort is required for the minimal rewards this “endgame” content offers, and this “grind” stuff just isn’t /worth/ the time, so I simply won’t do it.

So here’s my question….if the grind makes content too tedious to bother with for the average player, then what’s the point of that content at all? Why make something so tedious when the odds are at least as likely that doing so will simply chase players away from the content rather than cause them to spend more time in the game pursuing it?

I don’t understand the time gated mats, you can’t sell the armor why not allow me to craft my entire set in a day, also it’s not like the stat increase is a big jump i am not going to be super powerful, also light armor players got screwed by Anet, takes 36 days to get the full set, when Medium(24) and Heavy(25) Ascended armor is to keep the bored gamers playing nothing more…

Thaddeus.4891:

WRay.2391:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

TooBz.3065:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I do have patience! I have played GW2 diligently since release day, have tolerated it’s early months of bug filled gaming. I have 5 lvl 80’s, three characters with maxed crafting lvl’s, a number of ascended weapons and celestial armor. I however wouldn’t pay time or gold, or grind for the ascended. Besides, I don’t really care for it’s appearance and the difference in stats doesn’t warrant the effort anyway.

Don’t you think you’re contradicting yourself a bit here? You don’t care for the appearance or the stats, so why are you complaining? You don’t NEED it. It’s for the people who ENJOY the extra character progression. You can do anything in this game without ascended armor.

What about people who enjoy BIS gear and don’t enjoy tedium? I swear, everyone in this forum assumes that everyone likes the same thing. If I want BIS gear then I need to get ascended gear, and getting ascended gear is terrible.

I also enjoy making builds and performing tweaks to get the best performance out of my characters. But If I want to “tweak” something about ascended gear I need at least a week and (for weapons and armor) about 20 gold.

If you want BiS gear, work for it.

LOL I have work in RL. If I need to work afterhours I’m expecting another paycheck in real money. I’d prefer to have fun in my free time.
From your post I can tell about you:
1. You like grind. But many ppl don’t like it (which is completely normal, I’d say it’s abnormal to like grind without new content).
2. Or your time is really cheap. You don’t have real life and you don’t know how to waist it. Not all ppl like this.

You have a RL job, then lets compare that to real life. I want a BMW (ascended), but i can’t afford it because i only work 8 hours per day. I can afford a Honda (Exotic) with my job with which i can do all i need to do, hell i can still do most of my stuff with a Lada (Green), but I think that i deserve an Honda and i work enough hours to pay myself that. Now i can decide to get a second job and not only work 8 hours per day, but 16 hours per day. That way, i’ll have enough money to buy a BMW (ascended). Ok its my choice and now i ask you can i said : ‘’Hey i can’t afford BMW (ascended) with my jobs right now, this suck and they should decrease the cost of a BMW because if i want one right now i’ll have to work more hours. This is not fair because i hate doing more work hours (grind) but i still want the BMW (ascended).

Now i don’t know for you, but that seem like a strange and disconnect reality. Ascended and Legendary are end game gear and for that they should be the gear that cost the most. Its not because you want the best gear that you should have it without effort. Now lets take the example of SWOTOR. I need to do daily/weekly to get Basic commendation to get the first gear tier at level 55 (max level). Once i have the gear, then i can do hardmore flashpoint and some hard daily/weekly to gain Elite commendation to buy the next tier of gear. Once i have my gear, i can start to do hardmode operation to get Ultimate Commendation to get the other next tier of gear (which i think is the last tier of gear, but not sure because i stopped playing SWOTOR). At that point forget pugging, you need a guild to get that stuff. A guild that’s gonna do operation on a regular basis and will ask its member to be pretty much hardcore gamer. In GW2, ascended/legendary can take some time to get, but you can do it by your own at the speed you want and you never need to be an hardcore player with a guild schedule. That’s why i stopped playing SWOTOR/WoW, etc and i’m still on GW2.

the problem is, a job is something you do just so you can do what you actually want to. Its ok to have to work at getting better at your hobby, or to build up the really elite facets of that hobby, thats a necessary part of the progression, however, you shouldnt have to clean toilets to get better at playing handball for example.
you should be able to get better and handball, and achieve handball goals by playing handball well, and training at handball activities. GW2 right now, to be the best of the best statistic wise, you have to do something has little to do with the strengths or why most people bought the game.

echo.2053:

No grind = no goal to work towards = no point to continue to play. If you don’t want asc items no problem you can still effectively play the game. The problem lies that our society lacks patience. We want everything yesterday with as little effort as possiable.

Thing is for me in GW I got Obby armour and didn’t mind slowly getting it. There’s something about ascended and legendary weapons in this game that just make me go, “Meh, think I’ll skip it!”. The drive to get them just isn’t there.

I honestly think it has to do with the TP. In GW I used to trade a lot and when I met up with the person I was trading with, we’d usually comment on each others armour. In GW2, that’s gone. You have a droid like interaction with a TP that couldn’t care less if you’re wearing bananas on your feet and a pineapple on your head

We also need a possibility to exchange ascended weapon boxes. A week ago I got my first decent drop in 18 months of playing GW2: an ascended weapon box. Sadly the stats are useless to me (Magi), so the box went straight on my mule. Needless to say that it is highly frustrating especially because I just spent all of my gold and materials to raise another crafting profession to 500 and that little boost would have been very welcome.