Guild Wars 2

This is incredibly grindy.

I’ve been getting ready for high-end PVE content, and now I’m starting to see this MMO for being a “non-grindy pay-to-play” feels grindier than say…. TERA (f2p) or The Secret World (P2P).

In between the eternity you spend grinding for gold and materials to craft ascended gear in order to survive high level fractals, and the almost two years some people spend trying to craft a legendary (829 gold for total material cost, even with the Legendary Collection quests, is REALLY grindy and excesive) just makes me cringe.

250+ Laurels for some stuff, having to run arround the map doing events for Karma, zergs…

Isn’t this against everything A-Net said this game would be? I bought the game with the promise the end game wasn’t “grinding”…

Yeah, the cost of Ascended Armor has skyrocketed by boatloads since HoT and the drop rate is still 0.00. For me at least. :[ Makes me sad.

Fractals, along with ascended gear, were specifically implemented for those seeking that endgame grind.

Legendaries were intended for “dedicated” players and they even clarified back at launch that they were meant to be a long term goal. Any casual player can easily craft one over the course of a year by simply playing the game for maybe an hour a day without specifically trying for one – from personal experience (original series).

Aldath.1275:

Isn’t this against everything A-Net said this game would be?

They only said that grinding wouldn’t be a requirement. Cosmetics aren’t required and ascended is only required in later fractals and probably later raiding, but raiding is also targeting that specific type of player. Ascended armor really isn’t even required if you can handle it.

Yeah, HoT is all about eternal grinding.

As about core game in Tyria, I dunno, there isn’t much need for those legendary items so its up to each player to spend months creating those or not. Getting the ascended stuff hasnt felt specially grindy to me so far, some I crafted, some I got as drops (already got full sets of heavy and light armor, working on medium).

Thats why I always said that Naet needs to do something to give this game again its Alternative Character Friendliness back, that the game oncew and and which anet basicalyl completely threw out of the window since they implemented ascended equipment.

1) First, Anet has to remove finalyl the silly time gates from Ascended Crafting. It was a mechanic, that got implemented only, so that Ascended Equipment could get introduced without being instant worthless due to people beign able to craft instantly too much of it. It was an inderstandable decision. But now has passed enough time for Ascended Equipment to get properly integrated. the market is stabile enough that Anet should remove the silly time gating from ascended material crafting, so that craftign the materials can speed up a bit and thus the offers in the TÜ can rise, what will automatically lead to the point, that material costs will stabilize and go down again to a more sane niveau

2) Increase the ways of how players can obtain Ascended Equipment. Crafting should be the only way how you can receive dead sure ascended equipment.
Dungeons need to get revitalized. ANet needs to add to dungeons only some new ascended weapon and armor sets for Dungeon Tokens.
This alone would be more than enough to revitalize Dungeon Play, without turning Dungeons again into Gold Farm Spots. Dungeons need to become Equipment Farm Spots that provide some dungeon unique skins that you can obtain only from playing dungeons – NOT THROUGH PVP!!

3) Reduce the Ascendec Equipment Loot RNG crap from Boss Rewards and turn the ascended chests as rewards you you can receive for dead sure when having enough of *Boss Kill Tokens" where a player should earn one for each world boss kill as basic reward, so that if you want for example one of those tequatl skin ascneded weapons, that you can actually WORK FOR IT and nmiot that you need to pray on RNGeesus every single time, that you may get lucky to get a chestand then be again lucky, that if xou get a chest, that is is then the chest that you actually want!!
Its absolutely sick since game release, how much insane RNG garbage anet has put into this game, as if they would try to make out of this game desperately some kind of asia grinder or as if they weant to make out of a mmorpg a gambling game.
Such mechanics are no fun, they are only frustrating. People can understand, when somethign should be hard to obtain, but as a player you want to have at least the feeling of PROGRESSION, that you don’t waste time at something due to hoping to have just luck to get what you want.
People want to work for the things that they want, so it is absolutely not understandable, why Anet doesn’t grasp this and changed this horrible gameplay designs already years ago, but no , lets them stay since over 3 years unchanged when there’s plenty of player feedback, that clearly should show Anet, that the majority of the community dislikes massively this kind of game design since day 1!!

3) Ascended Equipment should work like Legendaries essentially, Legendaries are just visual fluff, they shouldn’t provide over ascended equipment such massive quality of life and build diversity advantages like they do right now since they got introduced.
That would make ascended alot more valuable and in regard of the creatign costs alot more worthful for the play by lettign them provide the needed QoL to the player by making it for the player possible to have more build flexibility and not needing to have anymore like x different weapons and armor sets in your inventory just to have the needed build flexibility that you need to have as a PvX player that plays kind of all content of this game, from WvW to PvE/Fractals to Stronghold to and so on, which require all different builds and settings..
PvP makes it as only game mode very simple for all of there, by allowing us to change our builds freely without any costs and so on.

Thats the kind of build flexibility qiality of life that you should be able to reach as a player in the other game modes too and this kind of QOL should be reachable already by getting ascneded equipment and not first only by gettign legendary equipment.
Legendary equipment do you get only to get some special looks, to stand out of the big crowd of players visually. Any functional advantages, regardless how minor it is, over other players is in my honest opinion an absolute NO GO and just promotiong some kind of unneccessary two class system in this game between rich players that are allowed to have QoL in this game and poor players, that can’t afford to have the QoL in this game, that deserve all players to have and not only the rich players.
——

I hope ANet will done soon finalyl against this increasign grind..
If i remember right I have somewhere seen even a post/thread from Anet where was stated, that the grind in this game has reached after the release of Hot a poin,t that is worser, than they envisioned it and that they kind of are looking into it to make changes, including also the massive grind that is Guild Halls and especialyl the Scribing that they want to reduce the scribing costs

I seriously hope, that I haven’t misread there somethign and that these words weren’t, if they were correct, not just only some hot air …

Anet needs to bind in also more Karma and other currencies into making progress at receiving ascended equipment of your choice so that you can easier get the stuff to equip your alts also, so that the game reaches again somewhere the point, that it practically promotes ypou to play with many different characters due to making progress in this game should become easier, so more characters you play actively.

Thats the way how it should be and not that you kind of get forced to play a single character, because its the only character that if you put all your time into it has the most progression, because if you try to play with multiple characters, it actually slows you more down, than it helps you on the long run.

If Anet actually can bring GW2 again to the point. where the focus of this game shifts over again more into alt character friendliness and making progress for the player on the long run easier over time, so more characters you play actively, then I think will profitate this game and by it Anet self naturally too from this change also on the long run by alot and many players, that quitted the game years ago might come back due to this game turnin into an alt unfriendly nightmare since the moment they introduced ascended equipment becoming again more alt friendly how it used to be at release date.

ANet’s comment about grind was specifically about the gear treadmill and this game doesn’t have it: exotic gear (easily obtained) is good for nearly all the game’s content. Ascended gear (introduced shortly after launch, mostly due to community demand) remains “best in stats” and that has never changed.

Special skins are, of course, more expensive. Legendaries are at the pinnacle of skins and so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they cost far more time & money than other skins.

There’s no need to grind in the game unless you are in a major rush to reach some goal. In which case, it seems like a reasonable price to pay for having something sooner than others get it.

That’s the thing.

As PVE content goes, the new, “interesting” features seem to be crafted with grinding countless hours on mind. Are you gonna tell me people still runs the vanilla dungeons or that there’s any sort of challenge on them?

Heck, the older PVE is so abandoned some dungeons like Ascalonian Catacombs still have bugs such as levers unable to be pulled or enemies still spaning from burrows after destroyed…

Ascended armor costs went up by about 100G on average for an entire set. Ascended weapons went up by about 20G each on average.

Fortunately, all the things that you grind for are optional as they are not needed to access all content available in the game. You could make the exception for high level fractals since you need the AR. However, other than inflated stats and annoying instabilities, are you really experiencing something different from what you had doing levels 1-25?

Ascended trinkets can be obtained within a month. Rings cost 10 pristine fractal relics each and will take you 20 days at most. You’ll most likely complete it much sooner. Accessories can be obtained by doing guild missions. They’re 12 commendations each and you can earn at least 12 in a week depending on how many missions your guild has available. Other guilds often advertise guild missions in LFG. Amulets can be bought for 20 laurels in WvW. So it’s theoretically possible to get one set of ascended trinkets within three weeks. Some of the newer stats (from LS2) can be obtained quicker as there’s no timegate.

Ascended backpacks are cheap. You can spend around 100G for some. Livibg story ones tend to be cheaper. I believe that mawdrey may be the cheapest to craft now that foxfire clusters cost very little on the TP. There are HoT collections that also award ascended backpacks.

There are various sources for ascended weapons so you do not need to grind one specific area to obtain them. Specialization collections also award some of the ascended weapon types. You can change the stats at a fairly low cost.

Ascended armor is the costliest to obtain but it only provides a 2% damage boost. A little more if you use infusions. Nothing at this point is gated by requiring ascended armor other than high level fractals which is arguably not that bunch different content-wise from low level fractals. There are also many ways to obtain ascended armor if you do not want to craft is.

Legendary armor is strictly for appearances as they have the same stats as ascended. Yes you can swap stats but how many people truly utilize that on a regular basis out of the entire player population that has legendary weapons? We also now have the option to work towards the crafting the precursors although the wood-based ones are currently more expensive to craft than what you can buy directly on the TP.

The new HoT stat gear isn’t making things better. If I want to make a full viper’s exotic set, those black diamonds are expensive and hard to come by. Might as well just keep working on the ascended and convert it to vipers.

Depending on the number of characters you have, you can run through the HoT story in about 4 hours and get a vipers armor box (exotic). You’ll need to do this six times for a full set.

Aldath.1275:

This is incredibly grindy.

I’ve been getting ready for high-end PVE content, and now I’m starting to see this MMO for being a “non-grindy pay-to-play” feels grindier than say…. TERA (f2p) or The Secret World (P2P).

In between the eternity you spend grinding for gold and materials to craft ascended gear in order to survive high level fractals, and the almost two years some people spend trying to craft a legendary (829 gold for total material cost, even with the Legendary Collection quests, is REALLY grindy and excesive) just makes me cringe.

250+ Laurels for some stuff, having to run arround the map doing events for Karma, zergs…

Isn’t this against everything A-Net said this game would be? I bought the game with the promise the end game wasn’t “grinding”…

Where’s the 829 coming from? Zap alone cost more than that and the Gift of Bolt and Gift of Fortune combined are worth around the same as Zap.

Here’s an idea. Since this topic about grind comes up every other week, can we have a “Grind” thread where each time this is brought up it will be merged?
It’s the same each time. “There’s so much grind! I have to constantly repeat X content in order to get materials to craft ascended! Please fix! insert suggestions about drop rates, fixing costs, and time gates”
This is met with the usual rebuttals: “It’s not require except high level fractals”, “You can easily get the materials just by playing the game”, “The stats are such a small increase it’s negligible”, etc.

Merging all into a single thread will help consolidate all such concerns, and be easier for devs to track. Just an idea….

Game is as grindy as YOU want it to be. Perfect design.

Shiyo.3578:

Game is as grindy as YOU want it to be. Perfect design.

Unfortunately quite a few players, especially with HoT and the f2p move shortly before that, come from MMOs where geargrind is the endgame. For those people getting the best gear for their character IS the game (TC seems to be part of that crowd).

The problem will solve its self though. Here is the natural timeline for people who enjoy their gear grind as primary form of gaming in GW2:

1.) player from other MMO enters GW2 – “Oh wow, this is quite fun. Let’s give it a try.”
2.) “what, leveling is almost instant? I get experience for almost everything I do. What is that, a new shiny? cool!”
3.) goes on a message board to boast about having hit level 30/40/60 or anything inbetween. Tells people how great he thinks GW2 is
4.) player hits level 80. Might have rerolled a couple of alternate classes on the way
5.) player progresses from green to rare to exotic quality gear within no more than 1 week – “yay, endgame is fun. Gearing up goes so fast.”
6.) player notices that ascended is obscenely more expensive than exotic but does not realise that it’s pratically useless in 95% of all pve content

Now one of 2 things happen:
-> player leaves since he does not feel the need to grind for gold for an insignificant upgrade

or

-> player grinds ascended gear and maximises his character, then feels bored that there is “nothing left to do” and then leaves

At no point in time did our new player actually take the time to try to figure out how to enjoy GW2. He simply approached the game with the same mentality he had from his traditional MMO and tried to apply this here.

They have said time and time again, most recent being the F2P model event, that their definition of Grind is getting to max level and getting the gear needed to play the game. The latter they stumbled on a bit, as for high end fractals and generally for raiding, you should have ascended gear.

Other than that, THE OTHER 99% OF THE GAME CAN BE DONE IN EXOTICS.

Their main focus was getting people to the end with leveling, and leveling has never been so easy in a game. Unless you are a F2P account, even logging in for so many days levels you now. Just by walking you level, you trip over XP in this game.

What many call a “grind” for cosmetics is really what I call “farming”. I don’t HAVE to be doing this, but I choose to. A grind is a must in order to progress.

As for the ascend materials cost, simple supply and demand can explain that. HoT introduced more of a demand for the mats, via guilds, precursor crafting, changing up recipes, etc. So there was a bigger DEMAND for the materials. Thus they started getting bought up right away, reducing the SUPPLY.

Now that the supply is harder to come by, prices soar because its a rarer material.

So, if you want Anet to have the market adjust and reduce the prices more on the mats, they either need to reduce the demand for it (lower costs to craft stuff), or increase the supply (remove the once a day limit on making the items).

Aldath.1275:

This is incredibly grindy.

I’ve been getting ready for high-end PVE content, and now I’m starting to see this MMO for being a “non-grindy pay-to-play” feels grindier than say…. TERA (f2p) or The Secret World (P2P).

In between the eternity you spend grinding for gold and materials to craft ascended gear in order to survive high level fractals, and the almost two years some people spend trying to craft a legendary (829 gold for total material cost, even with the Legendary Collection quests, is REALLY grindy and excesive) just makes me cringe.

250+ Laurels for some stuff, having to run arround the map doing events for Karma, zergs…

Isn’t this against everything A-Net said this game would be? I bought the game with the promise the end game wasn’t “grinding”…

Ask yourself this, why do you feel like you ‘need’ to grind for something. If you don’t want to aim for the ascended gear don’t worry about it play at a fractal you are comfortable with, exotic gear is perfectly fine. If you are doing anything that you feel is a grind, then don’t do it, that applies to any game that has a power cap, there’s no race. Same applies to legendries, its a skin.

The game wasn’t grindy.

Turns out players like grinds. Legendary weapons are proof of that. What greater achievement is there than throwing your life away for hours so you can build not one but two Legendaries to turn into a third?

vesica tempestas.1563:

Ask yourself this, why do you feel like you ‘need’ to grind for something. If you don’t want to aim for the ascended gear don’t worry about it play at a fractal you are comfortable with, exotic gear is perfectly fine. If you are doing anything that you feel is a grind, then don’t do it, that applies to any game that has a power cap, there’s no race. Same applies to legendries, its a skin.

You can’t be both the hero of the universe and only get the Infinity Sword. You need the Infinity Sword +1. There’s really nothing else to it. No one wants to say “Oh, I got to fractal (insert any number that isn’t the max) and then just realized that I was satisfied being hero of the world versus hero of the universe. Those raids? Pft. I have CoF1. I am the hero of Shaemoor. That’s good enough.”

Asking why someone wants the best available to them is like asking why you won’t eat moldy bread even if it won’t hurt you.

Oh, and iirc, Legendaries are a “skin” where YOU CAN HOTSWAP THE STATS AT ANY TIME!? All caps required.

I consider guild hall upgrades extremely grindy. For WvW guild upgrades are not optional, they are REQUIRED to be able to fight in WvW. Yet, nothing can be achieved from playing WvW, thousands and thousands of gold and mats are required for each upgrade, many of these can be only found in one specific map.

So, again, I just want to play WvW but game forces me to spend countless hours in stupid PvE maps I dont care about. Forces me to gather mountains of materials only to be thrown away on guild upgrades. And that is for me the very esssence of HoT – you can not play the way you want to, where you want to, you have no more options.

Shiyo.3578:

Game is as grindy as YOU want it to be. Perfect design.

I agree with you in a words ‘’’ Game is as grindy as YOU want it to be’’.
A people just expecting all higher end stuff by sitting in a capitals (like in a other mmorpg games) and just they sit and waste they time while someone else is pushing him-/herself trough to gain is it then a Legendary items wich has higher stats and so on then compared to a ascended gear.
Excatly those things are in my mind keywords to put players to push themselves more forward in a a competitive way..either is it againts a time/themselves or other players.
(once more not a way sending a mails between alts and whine because someone else has earned highest end stuff and they are just envy and greedy).

I want to know where anyone got the idea Guild Wars wasn’t grindy?

Like any game, you can of course just arbitrarily stop trying to move forward and pretend the grind isn’t there waiting for you and beckoning to you, but if you’re after a fully empowered character you’re looking at an ocean of grind. May the Six Gods help you if you take it into your head that you want some particular and popular cosmetic frippery to go with that optimal set of stats. There’s 5 million accounts and every one of them is ready to pay more gold than you ever wanted to look at for that skin you thought might be nice, be it one of the 150,000-to-1 drops or the just the components you need for the most Legendaries. The competition is fierce and well funded.

Nike.2631:

I want to know where anyone got the idea Guild Wars wasn’t grindy?

Like any game, you can of course just arbitrarily stop trying to move forward and pretend the grind isn’t there waiting for you and beckoning to you, but if you’re after a fully empowered character you’re looking at an ocean of grind. May the Six Gods help you if you take it into your head that you want some particular and popular cosmetic frippery to go with that optimal set of stats. There’s 5 million accounts and every one of them is ready to pay more gold than you ever wanted to look at for that skin you thought might be nice, be it one of the 150,000-to-1 drops or the just the components you need for the most Legendaries. The competition is fierce and well funded.

I don’t think that anyone is arguing that there isn’t a grind. It seems more along the lines that it isn’t required and nowhere near as bad as many other games.

This game is the least grindy MMO in history and here is why. Exotic equipment.

You can play the VAST majority of content and be very competitive in exotic equipment. There IS another level of gear you can get after this (Legendary or ascended) and while it DOES give you an advantage it’s designed that the return on the effort to acquire it is absolutely minimal.

And yeah, Legendary and Ascended take some time to get (still nothing compared to other games, go play DDO and get a full set of best-in-game, will take you YEARS) but the point is that you can grind this gear out while actually PLAYING the end game content in exotics.

It’s such a cliche but it’s so true of GW2 – Just play the game, it’s the journey that’s fun.

The only thing in this game you can’t do is high level fractals… Everything else is doable in exotics…

I don’t see where the grind is…

Raids as of now can be done with exotics, heck they can even be done with less than a full group…

Min maxers can eventually farm the mats needed for their ascended equipment….

FlashAhAhh.4307:

This game is the least grindy MMO in history and here is why. Exotic equipment.

You can play the VAST majority of content and be very competitive in exotic equipment. There IS another level of gear you can get after this (Legendary or ascended) and while it DOES give you an advantage it’s designed that the return on the effort to acquire it is absolutely minimal.

And yeah, Legendary and Ascended take some time to get (still nothing compared to other games, go play DDO and get a full set of best-in-game, will take you YEARS) but the point is that you can grind this gear out while actually PLAYING the end game content in exotics.

In my experience MOST MMOs have a “serviceable” tier of gear that’s readily acquirable by max level characters. GW2’s serviceable tier is maybe a bit more trivial to acquire than most (6-7 minutes browsing the Trading post…) and its endgame tier is not as massive an upgrade as some but you’re not talking about some sort of revolutionary improvement over the industry norm. Pre-introduction of Ascended there was something unique going on here, but GW2 sacrificed that on the altar of the expectations of players who had played almost any other MMO before coming here.

If GW2 has done something truly unique, its been holding the line at a fixed level cap and the downscaling tech that makes returning to old zones not a complete blowout. And we’re seeing a certain amount of shakiness on both fronts with the proliferation of HoT-only stat mixes and limited development time going into old Tyria. I feel like the expansion of glider functionality and re-working the Shatterer are good signs that they’ve realized they can’t just abandon the older zones.

But you gotta keep dat guild hall crafting grind goin’ until you feel you bled enuff gold out of the rich folks. then you implement a fix six months after the fact.

Scribing and guild crafting were terribly implemented and have little to no resemblance to the rest of the game in regards to sink costs and time associated with them.

Dulfy had summarized the Jan. 29 guild chat livestream and they basically admitted that HoT wound up more grindy than they wanted. So they’re working on that.

http://dulfy.net/2016/01/29/gw2-jan-29-guild-chat-livestream-notes/

General Stuff from Colin:
More polish in the next quarterly update. Spring update is chance to address some of the feedback from HoT. You should be able to play in a short of amount of time and make meaningful progress. We are going to take a look at that. Some areas ended more grindy than we would like.

The spring update will probably come around April, or maybe the end of March. Though it’s possible we may see some small changes here and there before the big update.

Just sit tight folks. They’ve heard your feedback and are working to make things better.

The thing is: after everything you’ve said, there’s still no excuse to make acquiring Ascended gear so expensive in terms of gold and time.

First of, it IS a key to open a barrier of entry if you expect to be useful on Raids and not just seat there and “hit it till it dies”, and also… it seems like most of the collective of GW2 player base is expecting to get it at some point, EARLIER of course. Why? Because as people above said, the game shows off a pace that breaks down horribly once you jump towards HoT content and end game fractals (because High Level Fractals are the closest thing to actuall challenging endgame content on Old Tyria, since Anet screwed up dungeons and no one does them).

Stuff like Karka Farming and Silverwastes are things because people needs all that craptastic ammount of gold to progress, and most of tutorials and advice I’ve seen for farming those include “have patience, it’s boring AF” in between lines. People isn’t enjoying grinding, they do it because there’s no other actual way to get the ammount of gold needed WHILE actually controling your character; but again, traveling round-a-rousey following a zerg isn’t exactly a good gameplay experience, more like a “walking simulator” while hitting down HP sponges…

If Ascended gear is actually so “meaningless” in stat buffs, yet it’s needed for endgame content, and if everyone is actually expecting to get it… why make the entry barrier so high? I mean, we already have the completely optional grind for legendaries, and to be honest, that should be the only grind aviable on this game… “Bt if we make the gears more powerful and hard to get then people would feel it’s unfair!”. Well, really, keep them as it is, just make them EASIER to get…

See it’s not grindy because people will tell you that it isn’t and that you don’t need all that stuff you want anyways.

:D

Hope that makes you feel better.

Charrbeque.8729:

Dulfy had summarized the Jan. 29 guild chat livestream and they basically admitted that HoT wound up more grindy than they wanted. So they’re working on that.

http://dulfy.net/2016/01/29/gw2-jan-29-guild-chat-livestream-notes/

General Stuff from Colin:
More polish in the next quarterly update. Spring update is chance to address some of the feedback from HoT. You should be able to play in a short of amount of time and make meaningful progress. We are going to take a look at that. Some areas ended more grindy than we would like.

The spring update will probably come around April, or maybe the end of March. Though it’s possible we may see some small changes here and there before the big update.

Just sit tight folks. They’ve heard your feedback and are working to make things better.

yeah, but until then I’m gonna have PoE’s expansion to play around in…

And man…those specializations look A LOT better and thought out than what we got…

Aldath.1275:

The thing is: after everything you’ve said, there’s still no excuse to make acquiring Ascended gear so expensive in terms of gold and time.

First of, it IS a key to open a barrier of entry if you expect to be useful on Raids and not just seat there and “hit it till it dies”, and also… it seems like most of the collective of GW2 player base is expecting to get it at some point, EARLIER of course. Why? Because as people above said, the game shows off a pace that breaks down horribly once you jump towards HoT content and end game fractals (because High Level Fractals are the closest thing to actuall challenging endgame content on Old Tyria, since Anet screwed up dungeons and no one does them).

Stuff like Karka Farming and Silverwastes are things because people needs all that craptastic ammount of gold to progress, and most of tutorials and advice I’ve seen for farming those include “have patience, it’s boring AF” in between lines. People isn’t enjoying grinding, they do it because there’s no other actual way to get the ammount of gold needed WHILE actually controling your character; but again, traveling round-a-rousey following a zerg isn’t exactly a good gameplay experience, more like a “walking simulator” while hitting down HP sponges…

If Ascended gear is actually so “meaningless” in stat buffs, yet it’s needed for endgame content, and if everyone is actually expecting to get it… why make the entry barrier so high? I mean, we already have the completely optional grind for legendaries, and to be honest, that should be the only grind aviable on this game… “Bt if we make the gears more powerful and hard to get then people would feel it’s unfair!”. Well, really, keep them as it is, just make them EASIER to get…

I have to disagree with you in a certain points on your message.
Acquire a gold becomes usually easier and easier when time pass by in a games, and even a new expansions does usually allow easier money gaining then before. I can take look at any mmorpg game wich i have play it. (even some lower level stuff sells fair okay) Even a game is World of warcraft (wich is totally messed up for my taste nowadays). Stuff so easy to gain, no real restrictions on it and more i sit in a garrisons and queue to dungeons/raids for a tokens and nearly guarandeed drops. In lately years i have only felt how a games has turned to so easy to progress. Even a level that certain aspects feels ’’none’’ unless it targets to completionist way.

So in a game where you should do a challenges to gain a rewards by RNG. (i have bad luck with it sometimes, and also somedays i feel what i want never drops). Still it keep a more refreshing then ‘’a restrictions removed’’ where really effective player would get them in a no time and leave a game because they feel there is none i wanna gain more.
Mostly aRPG works this way min-max stats wise with a items. Well have work it not sure much nowadays i believe i take excample a Diablo 3/Ros (hc) i test it a game gained sets … did do a grifts but a game design did not really attract at me as a previous Diablo games did do with its RNG way.
What comes to a gold either is it in a Guild wars or even World of warcraft. When you know and focus on a gaining a gold itself you can easily bypass a ‘’real money cost’’ type of a things in a game. A WoW it would have been subscription wich actually is profit for a company itself. ( sometimes i even feel people think they pay up a with a gold that subscription wich is actually pay it up with a real money already).
Then what comes to a Guild wars 2 if a money gaining would be really much easier, a change thm to a gems would be so much easier wich is loss to a company even try to sell a things in a Black market or what was it.

(( "Bt if we make the gears more powerful and hard to get then people would feel it’s unfair! ))
– no its not unfair in my mind. I would not reward a person who who log on for a game half of its time and heavily less progressive then a compared player.

((If Ascended gear is actually so “meaningless” in stat buffs, yet it’s needed for endgame content, and if everyone is actually expecting to get it… why make the entry barrier so high? ))
- a stats buff could not be too high compared exotic, but a raise is a raise. If others have able to get those things a people who have not play with a similar progressive attitude or have start it later on its not a excuse either to request a stuff ’’easier’’ then its already obtained by some of a playerbase. A Legendary is that final ’’grind’’ for a ‘’gaining highest items’’ aspect in a game, after a person has show it a little bit effort previously steps to a final goal.

What comes to a ’’unfair’’ part of class specialization restrictions by META or just unbalance of a Class differences compared to a gaming content is wrong. What i have read in a forums by people comments how ’’diversity’’ and not so ‘’holy trinity’’ or a class role requiring and class playing possiblity is it. It sucks heavily and it does force a people to stick with a certain ’’role’’ only in a game wich does advertise contrary.
… and playerbase a most common and knowledge anwser is … play another class.. lol i say to this.
… or really funk it up suggestions either is it change a game sandbox game, giving a suggestions totally OP talents and somewhat ‘’last resort’’ suggestions how to save a game. If i would be a dev or so. I would focus that all classes specilization are required to gamestyle of a higher end, and i would put mor obstacles on the way to a highest end.

Seems i added more stuff on my wroting what was in your message, but believe all these came on my mind just from a words from your message.

One more thing…. about ‘’funk it up dungeons etc… ’’
Well they felt already in a gameplay that a certain classes back then for a zerking, others where laugh out nearly or if they feel pity they let you inside a run because unbalance of ‘’sit in a corner and stack’’ and exploit so a boss mechanisms can be ’’avoided’’.

ps. i put double brackets in a certain part of a text to show that those words arent mine.

Serophous.9085:

Charrbeque.8729:

Dulfy had summarized the Jan. 29 guild chat livestream and they basically admitted that HoT wound up more grindy than they wanted. So they’re working on that.

http://dulfy.net/2016/01/29/gw2-jan-29-guild-chat-livestream-notes/

General Stuff from Colin:
More polish in the next quarterly update. Spring update is chance to address some of the feedback from HoT. You should be able to play in a short of amount of time and make meaningful progress. We are going to take a look at that. Some areas ended more grindy than we would like.

The spring update will probably come around April, or maybe the end of March. Though it’s possible we may see some small changes here and there before the big update.

Just sit tight folks. They’ve heard your feedback and are working to make things better.

yeah, but until then I’m gonna have PoE’s expansion to play around in…

And man…those specializations look A LOT better and thought out than what we got…

Path of Exile looked really good and offered also hardcore wich is always a bonus. A Skill tree was also really well done kind of… interesting.

Grind always been there during launch. It’s really absurd to complain about grind in a mmo anyway.

No grind/farm it’s as if you “play” a game already cleared, where you get the best items at the beginning.
What is the point to play a game where you don’t have to do any effort to get them? Tell me one great rpg game where you can have the best stuff without effort.

Khyan.7039:

Grind always been there during launch. It’s really absurd to complain about grind in a mmo anyway.

No grind/farm it’s as if you “play” a game already cleared, where you get the best items at the beginning.
What is the point to play a game where you don’t have to do any effort to get them? Tell me one great rpg game where you can have the best stuff without effort.

This may be their first MMO and/or RPG so they’re not used to it.

Cyninja.2954:

Shiyo.3578:

Game is as grindy as YOU want it to be. Perfect design.

Unfortunately quite a few players, especially with HoT and the f2p move shortly before that, come from MMOs where geargrind is the endgame. For those people getting the best gear for their character IS the game (TC seems to be part of that crowd).

The problem will solve its self though. Here is the natural timeline for people who enjoy their gear grind as primary form of gaming in GW2:

1.) player from other MMO enters GW2 – “Oh wow, this is quite fun. Let’s give it a try.”
2.) “what, leveling is almost instant? I get experience for almost everything I do. What is that, a new shiny? cool!”
3.) goes on a message board to boast about having hit level 30/40/60 or anything inbetween. Tells people how great he thinks GW2 is
4.) player hits level 80. Might have rerolled a couple of alternate classes on the way
5.) player progresses from green to rare to exotic quality gear within no more than 1 week – “yay, endgame is fun. Gearing up goes so fast.”
6.) player notices that ascended is obscenely more expensive than exotic but does not realise that it’s pratically useless in 95% of all pve content

Now one of 2 things happen:
-> player leaves since he does not feel the need to grind for gold for an insignificant upgrade

or

-> player grinds ascended gear and maximises his character, then feels bored that there is “nothing left to do” and then leaves

At no point in time did our new player actually take the time to try to figure out how to enjoy GW2. He simply approached the game with the same mentality he had from his traditional MMO and tried to apply this here.

Just even logged in to the forums to give you a +1 since this is so true (most of the time).

Aldath.1275:

In between the eternity you spend grinding for gold and materials to craft ascended gear in order to survive high level fractals,

Why?

You get 77 AR from Trinkets.
You get 17 AR from your Back.
You get 14 AR from your Weapon.
You get 42 AR from your Armor.

You can do Level 59 with 77 AR (only Trinkets)
You can do Level 67 with 91 AR (Trinkets + Weapon)
You can do Level 68 with 94 AR (Trinkets + Back)
You can do Level 76 with 108 AR (Trinkets + Back + Weapon)

You can buy ascended trinkets with Laurels, Badges of Honor and Pristine Fractal Relics.
You can get an ascended back by doing PvP or with some easy tasks and 90g (Mawdrey) .
You can get ascended weapons with specialization collections.
You can buy ascended armor and weapons with raid tokens.
The drop rate of ascended armor and weapons is quite good (11,4%) in high level fractals (50+).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

If you spend an eternity in grinding and crafting that’s your fault not the fault of the game.

Aldath.1275:

and the almost two years some people spend trying to craft a legendary (829 gold for total material cost, even with the Legendary Collection quests, is REALLY grindy and excesive) just makes me cringe.

Legendary Weapons are optional prestige objects which have to be expansive, else there were no prestige in them.

Well, what would people do if there was no grind in the game?

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Well, what would people do if there was no grind in the game?

Complain that the game is too grindy.

To be honest, I don’t understand why A-net chose this MAJOR design flaw. There is something seriously wrong with the ‘grinding curve’. Leveling to 80 and acquiring exotic gear is trivially fast and easy and from there on you have to grind hundreds of hours for ugly skins or a minor 5% stat increase.

It doesn’t help that the loot tables are so random, that it’s practically impossible to hunt for items that you want, so the whole game turns into a massive gold grind. And on top of that, the most boring content gives the best rewards… This makes the whole game feel like a chore

Worst of all, this game promotes afk-tagging, because this gives you the best rewards for the least amount of effort.

All in all, no matter what you do, the time spent in this game feels unrewarded, because it’s either trivial or not worth the effort. There is nothing in between and there is no fun content to make up for it, besides fractals – at least the levels that you don’t need to grind for.

Piejoe.7268:

To be honest, I don’t understand why A-net chose this MAJOR design flaw. There is something seriously wrong with the ‘grinding curve’. Leveling to 80 and acquiring exotic gear is trivially fast and easy and from there on you have to grind hundreds of hours for ugly skins or a minor 5% stat increase.

It doesn’t help that the loot tables are so random, that it’s practically impossible to hunt for items that you want, so the whole game turns into a massive gold grind. And on top of that, the most boring content gives the best rewards… This makes the whole game feel like a chore

Worst of all, this game promotes afk-tagging, because this gives you the best rewards for the least amount of effort.

All in all, no matter what you do, the time spent in this game feels unrewarded, because it’s either trivial or not worth the effort. There is nothing in between and there is no fun content to make up for it, besides fractals – at least the levels that you don’t need to grind for.

And this is EXACTLY what I mean. Yes, most of people playign this (including me) are tired of the usual MMO grind, and it’s the only thing we know about endgame.

GW2 has alternate ways of doing stuff? Well, it isn’t advertizing them well enough, because everyone is still grinding and inflating the game economy as they try to achieve the gear that, according to others, can be “easily” obtained thru other ways.

“Easily”, since it’s a low drop rate for gear whose stats you can’t chose, which actually turns the trip into ANOTHER kind of grind.

Should you work to get it? Yes, but I mean, A-Net has been looking to make things more fun for us, such as with collections, why not reinvent the way we’re supposed to do this?

Aldath.1275:

Piejoe.7268:

To be honest, I don’t understand why A-net chose this MAJOR design flaw. There is something seriously wrong with the ‘grinding curve’. Leveling to 80 and acquiring exotic gear is trivially fast and easy and from there on you have to grind hundreds of hours for ugly skins or a minor 5% stat increase.

It doesn’t help that the loot tables are so random, that it’s practically impossible to hunt for items that you want, so the whole game turns into a massive gold grind. And on top of that, the most boring content gives the best rewards… This makes the whole game feel like a chore

Worst of all, this game promotes afk-tagging, because this gives you the best rewards for the least amount of effort.

All in all, no matter what you do, the time spent in this game feels unrewarded, because it’s either trivial or not worth the effort. There is nothing in between and there is no fun content to make up for it, besides fractals – at least the levels that you don’t need to grind for.

And this is EXACTLY what I mean. Yes, most of people playign this (including me) are tired of the usual MMO grind, and it’s the only thing we know about endgame.

GW2 has alternate ways of doing stuff? Well, it isn’t advertizing them well enough, because everyone is still grinding and inflating the game economy as they try to achieve the gear that, according to others, can be “easily” obtained thru other ways.

“Easily”, since it’s a low drop rate for gear whose stats you can’t chose, which actually turns the trip into ANOTHER kind of grind.

Should you work to get it? Yes, but I mean, A-Net has been looking to make things more fun for us, such as with collections, why not reinvent the way we’re supposed to do this?

Both of you have clearly not been long with the game which is very obvious from these posts.

Instead of getting into the usual details and tearing up your post with all the mistakes you’ve made (yeah, let’s talk about inflation when prices have been steadily declining ever since the dungeon nerf and initial post HoT spike…) I’ll give you some hints:

- imagine your character were done. I mean done as in you need no more items. If it helps, get yourself deced out in full exotics.

- now think of which things in GW2 are fun to you. Guild missions, fractals, wvw, spvp, map completion, LS2, etc.

- play the things you enjoy, stay away from the ones you don’t

- then 6 months from now after having played mostly stuff you’ve enjoyed, check your ingame back account.

- buy ascended armor or not, since you’ll most likely not need it for anything you’ve had fun the last 6 months doing

Here is an extra tip: do the Bioluminescence achievement.

There has been a steep increase in the amount of things to grind for since season 1. It is not just event items, back packs, and legendary weapons anymore.

Ascended gear, new jewels, new recipes, new ingredients, guild halls, legendary crafting, legendary armor, PvP tracks, WvW upgrades, masteries, etc: There are a lot more things to grind for and their total cost is daunting.

In the first year, there was a lot less to grind for so the BLTP became clogged with mat’s. Now, it seems like time and material sinks are far more massive.

Too bad Arenanet has not figured out what to do with minor runes/sigils and left over blade shards.

What one thing people seem to be forgetting about grind and how it relates to GW2 is that it adds for replay-ability.
Imagine if everything was rewarded near instantly over the course of a single, maybe two play through’s?
Why would you need to log back on? You’d already have everything. Sure you could jump on to play some pvp, or wvw, but without anything to work toward, that won’t hold players for very long at all.

As for the ascended grind? Yeah not so much. I was able to farm and craft 2 full sets of ascended. That included lvling up the crafting professions in less than 6 months. This wasn’t spending 8+ hours a day, nor was it every day. At most I would do 2-3 hours, and 3-4 days a week, sometimes less. It’s not hard, it’s not “super grindy” I didn’t need to do the “same content over and over again” to do it either. (Although I did when I farmed for my legendary, some places give much better drops than others.)

Aldath.1275:

And this is EXACTLY what I mean. Yes, most of people playign this (including me) are tired of the usual MMO grind, and it’s the only thing we know about endgame.

GW2 has alternate ways of doing stuff? Well, it isn’t advertizing them well enough, because everyone is still grinding and inflating the game economy as they try to achieve the gear that, according to others, can be “easily” obtained thru other ways.

“Easily”, since it’s a low drop rate for gear whose stats you can’t chose, which actually turns the trip into ANOTHER kind of grind.

Should you work to get it? Yes, but I mean, A-Net has been looking to make things more fun for us, such as with collections, why not reinvent the way we’re supposed to do this?

I guess A-net noticed that everyone maxed out their characters levels + gear within a week, but instead of releasing meaningful content, they introduced a pointless ascended gear grind. Living world doesn’t count. Those were merely frivolic side-festivities with time-gated achievements, which usually were more tedious than fun.

Cyninja.2954:

Both of you have clearly not been long with the game which is very obvious from these posts.

Instead of getting into the usual details and tearing up your post with all the mistakes you’ve made (yeah, let’s talk about inflation when prices have been steadily declining ever since the dungeon nerf and initial post HoT spike…) I’ll give you some hints:

- imagine your character were done. I mean done as in you need no more items. If it helps, get yourself deced out in full exotics.

- now think of which things in GW2 are fun to you. Guild missions, fractals, wvw, spvp, map completion, LS2, etc.

- play the things you enjoy, stay away from the ones you don’t

- then 6 months from now after having played mostly stuff you’ve enjoyed, check your ingame back account.

- buy ascended armor or not, since you’ll most likely not need it for anything you’ve had fun the last 6 months doing

Here is an extra tip: do the Bioluminescence achievement.

The problem is, since character progression and meaningful rewards are practically eliminated, WvW being zergfests, PvE combat lacking depth and uninteresting PvP, all that’s left that’s worth doing is challenging content. Which the game is sorely lacking. The most engaging and challenging content imo at the moment are jumping puzzles and fractals before they get repetitive and grindy.

Map completion feels more like a chore than an adventure, due to the large amount of tedious heart quests. Most achievements are either a huge time sink, gold sink, or just feel like a chore. And why would I want to do collections if they are just huge, tedious gold sinks, with only ugly skins as rewards?

Something is seriously wrong with an mmo if jumping puzzles are the most fun thing to do, how aggravating they sometimes can be.

pdavis.8031:

What one thing people seem to be forgetting about grind and how it relates to GW2 is that it adds for replay-ability.
Imagine if everything was rewarded near instantly over the course of a single, maybe two play through’s?
Why would you need to log back on? You’d already have everything. Sure you could jump on to play some pvp, or wvw, but without anything to work toward, that won’t hold players for very long at all.

As for the ascended grind? Yeah not so much. I was able to farm and craft 2 full sets of ascended. That included lvling up the crafting professions in less than 6 months. This wasn’t spending 8+ hours a day, nor was it every day. At most I would do 2-3 hours, and 3-4 days a week, sometimes less. It’s not hard, it’s not “super grindy” I didn’t need to do the “same content over and over again” to do it either. (Although I did when I farmed for my legendary, some places give much better drops than others.)

This is exactly the problem. Everything besides ascended is already rewarded near-instantly. And assuming, you spent 2 hours per day, 3 days per week and 5 months (I took the lower amount of the spectrum), this is already a total of at least 120 hours of your life spent on what? ascended gear with 5% stat increase. Does that feel rewarding to you? Not to me.

But yeah, it’s necessary if you want to do high level fractals… which require even more grind.

And what reason is there to do high level fractals? Grind for ascended armor just so you can grind some more for fractal skins? Or grind for the rare chance of the tonic? If someone were willing to grind in high level fractals then why would they have an issue with having to grind to get the gear to do so?

Piejoe.7268:

The problem is, since character progression and meaningful rewards are practically eliminated, WvW being zergfests, PvE combat lacking depth and uninteresting PvP, all that’s left that’s worth doing is challenging content. Which the game is sorely lacking. The most engaging and challenging content imo at the moment are jumping puzzles and fractals before they get repetitive and grindy.

Map completion feels more like a chore than an adventure, due to the large amount of tedious heart quests. Most achievements are either a huge time sink, gold sink, or just feel like a chore. And why would I want to do collections if they are just huge, tedious gold sinks, with only ugly skins as rewards?

Something is seriously wrong with an mmo if jumping puzzles are the most fun thing to do, how aggravating they sometimes can be.

This sounds a lot more like you not enjoying the game than you having to grind something. Which is fine, it’s just important to notice the difference.

Piejoe.7268:

This is exactly the problem. Everything besides ascended is already rewarded near-instantly. And assuming, you spent 2 hours per day, 3 days per week and 5 months (I took the lower amount of the spectrum), this is already a total of at least 120 hours of your life spent on what? ascended gear with 5% stat increase. Does that feel rewarding to you? Not to me.

But yeah, it’s necessary if you want to do high level fractals… which require even more grind.

I think you missunderstood pdavis. The ascended gear was not why he played those evenings or those nights and weeks. It was a nice bonus on top of enjoying the game.

That is the difference between gamers that game for loot and gamers that game because they enjoy the game. Now if you want to get into the disscussion of worthwile, engaging and fun endgame in GW2, sure. But that is a different topic now is it not?

Aldath.1275:

“Easily”, since it’s a low drop rate for gear whose stats you can’t chose, which actually turns the trip into ANOTHER kind of grind.

Please, be sure to be well informed before sharing your opinion. You can change stats whenever you want from ascended gear, and it’s pretty cheap. You can do that even from ascended stuff you get from chests.

Cyninja.2954:

Aldath.1275:

Piejoe.7268:

To be honest, I don’t understand why A-net chose this MAJOR design flaw. There is something seriously wrong with the ‘grinding curve’. Leveling to 80 and acquiring exotic gear is trivially fast and easy and from there on you have to grind hundreds of hours for ugly skins or a minor 5% stat increase.

It doesn’t help that the loot tables are so random, that it’s practically impossible to hunt for items that you want, so the whole game turns into a massive gold grind. And on top of that, the most boring content gives the best rewards… This makes the whole game feel like a chore

Worst of all, this game promotes afk-tagging, because this gives you the best rewards for the least amount of effort.

All in all, no matter what you do, the time spent in this game feels unrewarded, because it’s either trivial or not worth the effort. There is nothing in between and there is no fun content to make up for it, besides fractals – at least the levels that you don’t need to grind for.

And this is EXACTLY what I mean. Yes, most of people playign this (including me) are tired of the usual MMO grind, and it’s the only thing we know about endgame.

GW2 has alternate ways of doing stuff? Well, it isn’t advertizing them well enough, because everyone is still grinding and inflating the game economy as they try to achieve the gear that, according to others, can be “easily” obtained thru other ways.

“Easily”, since it’s a low drop rate for gear whose stats you can’t chose, which actually turns the trip into ANOTHER kind of grind.

Should you work to get it? Yes, but I mean, A-Net has been looking to make things more fun for us, such as with collections, why not reinvent the way we’re supposed to do this?

Both of you have clearly not been long with the game which is very obvious from these posts.

Instead of getting into the usual details and tearing up your post with all the mistakes you’ve made (yeah, let’s talk about inflation when prices have been steadily declining ever since the dungeon nerf and initial post HoT spike…) I’ll give you some hints:

- imagine your character were done. I mean done as in you need no more items. If it helps, get yourself deced out in full exotics.

- now think of which things in GW2 are fun to you. Guild missions, fractals, wvw, spvp, map completion, LS2, etc.

- play the things you enjoy, stay away from the ones you don’t

- then 6 months from now after having played mostly stuff you’ve enjoyed, check your ingame back account.

- buy ascended armor or not, since you’ll most likely not need it for anything you’ve had fun the last 6 months doing

Here is an extra tip: do the Bioluminescence achievement.

Since Bioluminescence gives a free ascended at the end shouldn’t they do that one first? Get your most expensive piece from that achieve (when I got it an ascended cloth chest was but leather is currently more expensive than the cloth).

Ayrilana.1396:

And what reason is there to do high level fractals? Grind for ascended armor just so you can grind some more for fractal skins? Or grind for the rare chance of the tonic? If someone were willing to grind in high level fractals then why would they have an issue with having to grind to get the gear to do so?

There isn’t, unless you want those skins or beat the last level I guess. Or if you want to maximize your effort/reward ratio by playing Checklist Wars (read: doing dailies), which is seriously a chore. And it’s probably grindy and repetitive.

Cyninja.2954:

This sounds a lot more like you not enjoying the game than you having to grind something. Which is fine, it’s just important to notice the difference.

I remember when we were promised a new groundbreaking mmo 3 years ago. Now, a lot of us are still waiting.

Cyninja.2954:

I think you missunderstood pdavis. The ascended gear was not why he played those evenings or those nights and weeks. It was a nice bonus on top of enjoying the game.

That is the difference between gamers that game for loot and gamers that game because they enjoy the game. Now if you want to get into the disscussion of worthwile, engaging and fun endgame in GW2, sure. But that is a different topic now is it not?

What I mean to say is that grindiness is directly tied to (the lack of) engaging content and appropriate rewards. OP was talking about high-end content. Between the lack of engaging high-end content and atrocious rewards, making the process very grindy. The balance is completely off imo.

Aldath.1275:

This is incredibly grindy.

I’ve been getting ready for high-end PVE content, and now I’m starting to see this MMO for being a “non-grindy pay-to-play” feels grindier than say…. TERA (f2p) or The Secret World (P2P).

If you made yourself aware of what gear you actually need to be successful in high end PVE content, then you wouldn’t have to grind. You can literally launch yourself in to high end PVE content right out of exotics, not unreasonably obtained from doing story, leveling, etc ….