Guild Wars 2

And on the subjects of gear, Ascended gear. A gated grind. There isn’t much more to say about this than what is already said. It is gated content that is a rather large grind yet again.

Crafting. Crafting feels pointless and tedious. What happened to the whole “You’ll never make stuff just to level. Everything you make will be useful”? It seems we are making so much random stuff just to level off than we are anything useful. And the way it is designed just doesn’t seem that great. In other games, if you made something, you got a point. In GW2, you get progress to your next point. So instead of just making one item to level up, you have to make 2-4 items just to get your next point. And with the Mystic Forge, they keep throwing all the recipes for endgame stuff in there and giving nothing to crafting. And that brings me to the next one.

The Mystic Forge. A whole pot of RNG. It seems like the ultimate gold sink and where they toss everything into. New recipes? Mystic Forge. Want a Legendary? Mystic Forge. Want some unique exotics? Mystic Forge. Want that new mini? Mystic Forge. Oh you wanted an item directly? Sorry, you have to deal with RNG and hope you get it. Which brings me to my next point.

Lottery and RNG. This is the number one issue that makes me feel like I am playing a F2P game. So much randomness in this game and nothing definite. Take for instance, lottery chests. In Halloween, there was tons of complaints against them. But they made them again in Lost Shores. Tons of complaints again against them, but they did it again in Wintersday. Obviously they don’t care what we think about them, and they are going to keep doing this Lottery stuff. This screams F2P. Games like Perfect World and other F2P use these as cons to make you gamble away money. It is sad to see such a mechanic in GW2. Why do we have to gamble for stuff we want? Why can’t we just buy it straight up? And the RNG system is the same way. Everything you do in this game is a gamble. There is nothing set in stone and nothing guaranteed. You have to gamble for everything.

There is a few more things that bug me about this game and make it feel like a F2P game, but this is just most of them. Sorry but I had to get this out. I had high hopes for this game and in the beginning, it seemed promising. But lately it just feels like a “cash cow” and they are sacrificing game design for greed.

Please feel free to add your own thoughts and tell me my opinion is wrong, when it is just an opinion. Thanks for reading if you do.

I suppose if all you do is grind to max level so you can grind some more, yea GW2 might feel like that. Fortunately, I’m actually playing it along the way to 80 and it’s the best PvE leveling experience I’ve ever had in over 10 years of MMO’s.

Lately it’s reminding me of Flyff. I pumped cash into that rubbish for months. You know what stopped me pumping cash into that bottomless pit? Guild Wars. Now GW2 is becoming the anti of what weaned me off that type of garbage in the first place.

i find it funny how people spend real cash for pixel cash over the 60$ you’ve spent on the game. You buy a game to gain everything by your own in it and not take some cash and buy everything you want in 10h of gameplay… this isn’t better than paying for power leveling except its legit cuz anet said so. But i do agree with TC especially on DR. GW1 was such a much much superior game its sad what anet made of off gw2.

I started playing mmos just a few years ago, and have mostly only played a few. I don’t have a lifetime of mmo experience or even gaming experience – before I started mmos I had rarely played video games at all. Never owned a console. So this is from someone who doesn’t really have all that elite history or whatever.

I love this game – but I’m starting to feel suckered. In the beginning I was really happy, it seemed like there was no grind in this game and a ton of different things to do. I came to this game to escape grind and money-grabbing. Now I find I’m forced to farm, and farming has become extremely grindsome. I can’t do more than cover waypoint costs anymore. I can’t afford to do all those things that there are to do. Which is why I’ve started playing the trading post, but neither that nor farming are how I want to play. I just want to play, for fun, and make enough gold to cover my expenses and get a neat new thing once in a while. Now, if I try to just play for fun, I lose all my money and end up having to tediously run everywhere, while saying goodbye to any better equipment (can’t get it or the mats to make it from drops anymore). I’m starting to just not feel much like playing anymore. I’ve been in the habit of playing for hours every day, but now I just kind of leave the TP up and do something else while occasionally checking it. It’s fun to help friends out with leveling or story quests sometimes, but I need waypoint money for that. I’d like to craft gifts for friends too, but at the current rate it will be months at least before we can gather the mats from the drop rates we’re seeing now. Getting the ectoplasms for crafting exotics takes an unbelievably long time. Not one of us is even thinking of legendaries, and we are not casual players. Despite having played since beta (guess we missed those exploit opportunities or something), our goals are more like someday having ten gold, leveling up a craft to four hundred… So much grind for these. It’s not fun. Honestly when I have the cash I don’t mind buying gems. Rather, I didn’t mind, when I was enjoying myself and buying gems felt like a lazy shortcut on my part and supporting the game I liked… Not like I had to buy gems just to be able to play. I’m disappointed.

Still, I’m holding out for now, hoping this is temporary. I don’t know a lot about games from a developer’s standpoint and am willing to wait for people who know what they’re doing to figure things out. I just want to add my experience here.

I agree this game is too grindy but it is still far from f2p.
It doesn’t cripple your gaming experience even if you don’t pay extra bucks.

It depends on what you like to do, I have been mainly doing WvW and don’t feel the grind. I do farm lodestones every now and again but it’s a personal choice, no one is making me do it. This game feel nothing like a F2P to me, what content is locked that you have to pay for? That’s the hallmark feature of a F2P

I do not agree this is like a f2p. The quality of guild wars 2 is far superior to a f2p. But guild wars 2 is defiantly grindy after 80. I’m leveling other characters at the moment, and that is fun. I just hate farming because it is grindy and unrewarding. The DR system makes it 100 times worse.

I agree i’ve played Multiple MMO’s and this game feels like a Free to play grinder, I think of Runes of Magic to be honest, Grind to max level and do end game in dungeons to get higher armors, rinse and repeat on your Alts..

This game has very little similar to Guildwars one which in my opinion wasn’t like a free to play game at all…

The grind only exists if you have to have the best of everything ASAP. The grind is all in your mind.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The grind only exists if you have to have the best of everything ASAP. The grind is all in your mind.

For normal exotic and dungeons ones, I agree that there is no grind but for anything like name exotic/corrupted/destroyer weapons and ascended items the grind is gigantic. For 1 corrupted weapon, it takes 30 corrupted lodestones, you’re lucky to get 1 per hour, usually you get 1 every 2 hours, and then there’s the DR that kicks in and makes it almost impossible to get the lodestones after it comes. I also have to state that the only place to get them are in Frostgore sound/honor of the waves. So is an estimate of 60 hours of doing the same stuff to get a weapon is not a grind?

There should be a subscription based GW2 package where they strip off the DR and let you play the game freely.

PowerCat.5738:

There should be a subscription based GW2 package where they strip off the DR and let you play the game freely.

this! I spent fortune for many games till now and I wouldn’t mind paying some monthly fee. This game is great except the overgrown grind (which is also fun IF you can efficiently grind)

Monkman.3748:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The grind only exists if you have to have the best of everything ASAP. The grind is all in your mind.

For normal exotic and dungeons ones, I agree that there is no grind but for anything like name exotic/corrupted/destroyer weapons and ascended items the grind is gigantic. For 1 corrupted weapon, it takes 30 corrupted lodestones, you’re lucky to get 1 per hour, usually you get 1 every 2 hours, and then there’s the DR that kicks in and makes it almost impossible to get the lodestones after it comes. I also have to state that the only place to get them are in Frostgore sound/honor of the waves. So is an estimate of 60 hours of doing the same stuff to get a weapon is not a grind?

You don’t need it. ANet doesn’t force you to do it. Your “ugly” exotic has the exact same stats as the corrupted/destroyer weapons. It’s just aesthetics. It wont change anything to your PvE/ WvW experience.

But it will keep you playing this game.

So essentially the OP wants everything to be made more predictable and easier to acquire. Are you serious?!

This game, along with many other MMOs, is about working towards things. There are many ways to work towards each thing in GW2 (except ascended items which they said they will be addressing). I have NEVER ‘grinded’ anything I didnt enjoy doing and yet I have all the equipment I could ever want except for the ascended rings which are dropping like Chuck Norris at the moment.

Yes I do many things a lot more than once but this isnt called grinding because im having fun doing so.

The issue of gold… so many people moan about it but its very easy to get gold in GW2.

Lack of suitable rewards from dungeons- you get a lot of silver for completion, 60 tokens per first run which is 1/3 of a piece of exotic armour, vendor food drops and rares. I think thats pretty reasonable plus the way you wrote that implies that you go to dungeons to wear what you find. Thats never going to happen.

Magic Find- you can see who is running magic find by looking at the stacks under their name because theyre usually running a Sigil of Luck. Its then up to you to make sure they take at least the weapon off or kick them. If theyre just using MF armour then just observe how good they are at the dungeon/event.

Crafting is pointless and tedious, this we can agree on. After getting Master Crafter ive not crafted anything since and this is something the devs need to look into. Just create recipe’s for unique skins that maybe require two or more crafting professions to make and youre done.

The rest is about RNG…. I would leave the game in a heartbeat if they said everything had a set recipe and a set way to earn it. The game needs RNG because by its very definition it brings a randomness to the world. This game would be a lot less exciting if you gave everyone what they want.

Also you made a mistake in saying that ‘they had a lot of complaints about the Halloween chests’. People complained ON THE FORUMS…. maybe 5% of the playerbase at most….and the rest bought LOTS of chests. ArenaNET more than likely saw a huge spike in people buying gems so why would they then NOT make a Wintersday chest? Coupled with that, its your own fault if you buy a chest and lose. You know the rules, youre playing a lottery. You wouldnt buy a lottery ticket irl then complain to the shopworker the next day that it hadnt won, would you?

PowerCat.5738:

There should be a subscription based GW2 package where they strip off the DR and let you play the game freely.

So essentially those that pay the subscription get more gold….so pay to win….

Maybe you havent thought this through properly…..

It started off with ToR , when the masses claim that they don’t want to grind anymore that they want to have the same gear as the people playing more and harder.

By the looks of it this new age mmo mentality is spreading like a virus , some people saying its the “entitlement generation”. Every game needs to have a slight grind or else what do you play for ? Just for Fun ? how long will that last ?

For me gw2 is a hardcore MMO , where you have the option to do anything you want on a large scale or small. This game design is flawless yet people still cry about it being bad despite the numerous awards and game direction ( not mentioning ascendant gear ).

On a final note there is grind in every game nowdays either MMO’s or single player games.

Let’s see…

- Grind: If this is the grindiest MMO you ever played, I envy you. 9Dragons featured awesome 5% exp/hour(and that’s with exp event and cash shop account bound exp booster) for the last…50 or so lvls to cap. 2Moons featured 50 000-coin wings, which were so impossible to get on your own, the game was literally infested with gold sellers and nobody thought it was wrong to rmt your wings. But those are pretty old games. let’s look at the other big AAA title of the year: Tera. I got to 60 fairly easy. Then I grinded to get rebirth set. Then I grinded to +9 it. Then I grinded to get a Temple Guardian set. Then I grinded to masterwork it. Then I grinded to +12 it. Just as I was half-done, bam, new patch with a new dungeon to grind for a new set that also had to be masterworked and +12’d(oh, and you needed some special drop that 1 person of 5 got once every 10 runs…you needed a bunch of those to craft the set). That’d be when I got over myself and bought GW2. Which has more than lived up to my casual non-grindy expectations.

- Money: They nerf it so you don’t grind it. Not so you grind it more. I make 5-10g/day. By doing stuff I like doing: gathering, a dungeon run here and there. If you are not making money, it’s because you are trying to grind you rmoney and ANet is trying to stay true to the word of no grind.

- Suitable rewards: Might be wrong, but isn’t AC the lowest lvl dungeon in the game? And isn;t that the dungeon people run the most for money? Theory disproved?

- Magic find: It doesn’t promote anything but a choice. If you want to be underperforming for the chance to get a few extra shineys, well, that’s your choice. I have a mf set, but never use it in dungeons. Strangely enough, I seem to be doing fairly good(better than most forum posters) when it comes to drops/gold.

- Dungeons: Meet karma. Meet crafting. Meet different dungeons. If you are a dungeon grinder, you go for a full set of that dungeon. If you aren’t…you get 1 piece from there, 1 piece from some other dungeon, some pieces with karma etc. Problem solved.

- Crafting: Well, maybe you should craft lvl appropriate items. Then 1 item will get you a few points. That aside, crafting would’ve been useful if people did it on the level. But now it’s a way to plvl alts to 80 with gold. We did this, not ANet.

- The Mystic Forge: Eh, every game has an RNG element. At least this RNG element is purely cosmetic and you won’t get your behind handed to you in pvp for not having a legendary or a named or a w/e.

- Lottery: You seem to be forgetting smth…GW2 is b2p, not p2p. In that sense, it’s closer to a f2p game and it’s been proven over and over again that gambling is a great way to get money. You don’t know what their income is, maybe they need this to keep working on expansions? every time I see players going on and on about greedy companies…I wonder if those players ever had a budget to manage.

PowerCat.5738:

There should be a subscription based GW2 package where they strip off the DR and let you play the game freely.

Buy gems worth a sub every month and convert them into gold. There you go, less grind.

GW 2 adding a sub would be absolutely killing the game.

It would husch away 90 % of the fanbase and rightfully so.
It would shoo away all the sub model haters.
And also all casual players, who jump in and out, since they don’t have to pay monthly to get the full experience when they decide to play.
____________

Besides that utterly terrible suggestion, i nearly fully agree with the OP and most of the other people describing their experiences with the game so far.

While ANet already removed all farming options in GW 1, even before they had a shop in it, in which you couldn’t get ingame cash anyway, so they don’t do it to force you into Gem buying, but it’s their design philosophy, they need to change something for GW 2, since it’s a way different game than GW 1 and therefore it needs to be treated differently.

For the most players reducing teleportation costs by 90 % would already be amazing.
Right now it’s just terrible expensive to play PvE.
While you can play hours of WvW without spending a dime, and earning some silver for your effort (not alot, but you have fun, and you gain a little over time), you are paying your kitten off in PvE.
If i slay a dragon minion in a 30 minute effort with a few players, just to get 5 blues, worth 4-5 silver, and having to pay 8 silver to teleport to the dragon and back where i came from, then something is fundamentally wrong with the pricing OR the drop pools of the game.

Traveling costs need to be reduced drastically, drop pools need to be improved.
Throw the utterly aweful idea of magic find out of the window and give everybody equal chanced.
It’s poisoning the community and gives better rewards for greedy people who are doing doing less, while if every body would be greedy, you couldn’t manage to do the hard content in a good manner anymore. So the people doing the work, are the prople getting screwed over by GW 2.

When was this EVER a good idea to put in with the design philosophy of GW 2?

Dungeon armors shouldn’t take 3 or 4 runs for one part, but one run for one part (one token system).
It’s hideous to run a dungeon 20 + times to get a armor set and a absolutely unneccesary grind.

There is much more that needs to be done, but you get the idea of how I think Anet has to handle it.

And if they want to promote F2P grinding, what they atm absolutely do, then at least let me do it alone.
Grinding is a boring task i at leats want to do for myself, crying in TS with my guildies about it while they do the same somewhere else.
I don’t wanna rush around in freaking zerg fests all day long.

It option one, the guild memory is, that we kept our mood up as guild while grinding alone which makes the guild a nice thing.
In the current zerg scenario, we can’t see each other anymore after all that zerging. And all what is left as guild memory, is that we zerged together all day long, not talking a word in TS but “argh, this is kitten”.

Also Anet, remove high value RNG’s. Gamers hate RNG’s, and customers hate RNG’s.
(a game needs RNG’s, but not ones that boost you up in months of work if you get lucky – but also ones that can leave you out getting nothing after grinding for months. Same with spending cash on lotto boxes. I know they bring money, thats why kittenty F2P asia grinder pump them out like crap – but is that what you want to be?)

TWMagimay.9057:

- Lottery: You seem to be forgetting smth…GW2 is b2p, not p2p. In that sense, it’s closer to a f2p game and it’s been proven over and over again that gambling is a great way to get money. You don’t know what their income is, maybe they need this to keep working on expansions? every time I see players going on and on about greedy companies…I wonder if those players ever had a budget to manage.

This one is so true. People who whine about gem prices, gem costs and what not, are, in my perception, the elitists who wouldn’t spend a dime on GW2. They play GW2 because it’s WoW for free. Then they blame people for supporting the game they love. Every time I pay 30 euros into gems, I imagine how I’m technically paying the monthly for 2 other people, people who are most likely complaining about this game being f2p.

This game, along with many other MMOs, is about working towards things.

‘Game’ and ‘work’ are not synonyms yet you treat them as such. Regardles of genre, games are about fun. If at any point you equate your game time to work, you should stop doing it – unless you are legitimately making real money off it.

Its one thing to challenge oneself to improve, or to aim to achive something, and its completly another to ‘work towards something’. You re not building a house here, brick by brick, to be working towards something. Unfortunetly, thats the direction legendaries/unique exotics/ascended gear are forcing the game into.

Unfortunately I feel like I must agree with a lot of this post, I absolutely adore Guild Wars 2 but the necessity to grind for any form of reward and of course the horrible Mystic Forge really puts a damper on my enjoyment of an otherwise brilliant game.

Totally agree with the OP.

It’s a grind and ArenaNet are going every which way they can to stop you grinding or making any real in game money.

It really is closest to a f2p game, except you have to buy it, so it’s b2p.

GW2 falls in line with many Eastern/Korean f2p games, it’s the same business model, except Eastern/Korean games are a grind, they realise that and don’t try to nerf everything.

Nayru.3947:

It feels like F2P because:

a) It is free to play.
b) It is pay to win.

What exactly in GW2 do you have to spend real money on to progress?

Also, I don’t think you know what free to play means.

Back to the original discussion.

The game is 4 months old.

On the topic of DR, you can blame exploiters and botters, they caused this. Anet didn’t do it to spite the players or to force players to dish out money for items. If you honestly think that then you are truly ignorant beyond hope.

Nothing in this game requires you to spend money except your own desire to have the best items right now or to have a certain aesthetic right now, otherwise, you can obtain anything with time and effort. Does it require some grinding? Sure it does, but how else do you propose to obtain it? Log in and receive items for being awesome?

If you could get the best items or the most visually appealing items with little to no effort, then what? Would you be here demanding more to do? I think so.

Anet (or any game company for that matter) is not going to please everyone. All they have to do is please the majority, and despite the common misconception of the forum regulars, the majority does not frequent the forums.

So a whole posts about loot and grinding ? I honestly still have to find this grind,since i also played many mmo’s,also f2p’s,also aion ( most grindy game Ever created ).When i compare gw2 to these games i played…there is Zero grind in gw2.It sounds more like “I want everything handed to me,and want to earn alot of gold in a quick way”,and since this is not happening for you,your not liking the game and compare it with a f2p…Allriiighty.

If I have to compare with Aion or Tera, there is absolutly NO grind in GW2.
You only need to “grind” for useless skins, and because it’s not needed at all, you can just stack mats to make them later.

I’m 800 hours in, have yet to find any grind that I’m forced to do.

It’s all a paranoia of people who’ve been ruined by traditional MMO into thinking every game is a grind.
Those people see basically anything that requires more than moving one finger as a grind, there is little we can say to help them.

Red Falcon.8257:

I’m 800 hours in, have yet to find any grind that I’m forced to do.

It’s all a paranoia of people who’ve been ruined by traditional MMO into thinking every game is a grind.
Those people see basically anything that requires more than moving one finger as a grind, there is little we can say to help them.

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

Yaki.9563:

I suppose if all you do is grind to max level so you can grind some more, yea GW2 might feel like that. Fortunately, I’m actually playing it along the way to 80 and it’s the best PvE leveling experience I’ve ever had in over 10 years of MMO’s.

That is what I have been doing, but it doesn’t mean it can’t change when we get to 80 and then we want the best stuff. That is when all of it kicks in, not leveling really. You can be 20 levels in under-geared armor and still be fine.

The big reason why this doesn’t feel like FtP, is that I paid $60 for it.

Azure Prower.8701:

Red Falcon.8257:

I’m 800 hours in, have yet to find any grind that I’m forced to do.

It’s all a paranoia of people who’ve been ruined by traditional MMO into thinking every game is a grind.
Those people see basically anything that requires more than moving one finger as a grind, there is little we can say to help them.

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

Why do you feel the need to gather proof from someone claiming to be having fun and not feeling this game like a grind ? Honestly,is it so hard to believe…lol

Azure Prower.8701:

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

WvW
sPvP hot join
tPvP
random DE / temples in Orr (I really like these meta events with lot of fun people working together)
gathering
crafting
story dungeons
random dungeons (mostly to help guildies)
world completion
jumping puzzles
And yes, you can just farm a place or another without making it a grind ( I enjoy aggroing tons of undeads in Orr just to see how long I can survive with my glass canon set)
It’s not hard to enjoy this game if you don’t have a grind mindset.

You guys are arguing that you don’t need to grind, I totally agree with you, you don’t need to grind but to get any of the cool stuff, even if it is purely cosmetic you do need to grind.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to simply be handed gear upon logging on but I also don’t think spending X hours in-game doing the same thing over and over and over again is the right way of doing it either.

What I want is to go and do a particularly tough challenge in the game and get something for it, if that challenge takes time so be it, I just don’t want to be sat somewhere grinding mobs in the hopes of maybe getting the item I want.

As I said before, I adore this game in near enough every other regard and am a huge fan but the grind I think, even if just for cosmetics, isn’t good for the game.

I actually think even reducing the number of items needed but rewarding people with less would help too, seeing that I need 1000 of something in order to get an item is daunting even if I get rewarded with a reasonable number each time.

Azure Prower.8701:

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

“Grinding” is just a state of mind you carried over from actually grindy games.
Let me explain you what’s the difference between a player with a free mind and one who’s been corrupted into forcing himself to suffer the grind and chase game.

Free mind player:
Logins into game, says hello to friends and enjoys some activities with them; plays a few of the 40 dungeon quests, does a few events he likes, kills some bosses/champs with friends, some WvW, a couple sPvP games.
During this whole he accumulate some wealth that he stockpiles away in case one day he wants to craft a legendary or something – but it’s not the reason he plays, it’s just a long term goal in the back of his mind.
He logs off satisfied and happy.

Corrupted player:
Logins in game with the sole objective of obtaining materials or gold for a pre-determined item or goal.
Does not care of having fun, he just wants to repeat the most rewarding content to accumulate the most money in the shortest time.
Everyone else is playing, and he’s bothered by this. Why does this guy laugh? Why isn’t he rushing this kitten dungeon so we finish sooner? How dare him enjoy himself instead of concentrating on rushing and DPSing?
He kicks him from the team and replaces him with individuals similar to him: no one talks, everyone rushes. If they die they leave the team with no warning or start “the blaming game”.
Sometime they insult each other or worse.
At the end of his play session, all he cares about is how much money he made in total, how much per hour, how much others have made.
He isn’t happy. His carrot is still far and why is the game enforcing him such a long exhausting grind?
The game is so bad, he thinks about playing something else. But he knows that if the game allows for grinding he will grind and get angry, if the game doesn’t he will say “there is no endgame” and quit.

The bottom line is that one is free to play for entertainment or play for unhealthy obsessive item-chasing addiction.
GW2 does not require nor enforces either, we’re free to do both.

Meditate a bit on this.

Haha even horizontal progress is too much for some people.

Level a new character or play a new game if the only reason you log on is to kill sparks for 1 hour.

edit – even before the couple of ascended pieces came out there were people complaining that GW2 was pay to win because you paid to get the best looking gear which is how you “win”.

Nausicca.6038:

Monkman.3748:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The grind only exists if you have to have the best of everything ASAP. The grind is all in your mind.

For normal exotic and dungeons ones, I agree that there is no grind but for anything like name exotic/corrupted/destroyer weapons and ascended items the grind is gigantic. For 1 corrupted weapon, it takes 30 corrupted lodestones, you’re lucky to get 1 per hour, usually you get 1 every 2 hours, and then there’s the DR that kicks in and makes it almost impossible to get the lodestones after it comes. I also have to state that the only place to get them are in Frostgore sound/honor of the waves. So is an estimate of 60 hours of doing the same stuff to get a weapon is not a grind?

You don’t need it. ANet doesn’t force you to do it. Your “ugly” exotic has the exact same stats as the corrupted/destroyer weapons. It’s just aesthetics. It wont change anything to your PvE/ WvW experience.

But it will keep you playing this game.

This is true. If you want “it,” then you have to do what it takes to get “it.” If that’s grind, it’s grind you chose.

If these optional features were easy to get, then many players would have them already. They would then be on the forums complaining about “nothing to do.” I’d hate to be a game developer.

Azure Prower.8701:

Red Falcon.8257:

I’m 800 hours in, have yet to find any grind that I’m forced to do.

It’s all a paranoia of people who’ve been ruined by traditional MMO into thinking every game is a grind.
Those people see basically anything that requires more than moving one finger as a grind, there is little we can say to help them.

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

1. do some the jumping puzzles/mini-dungeon (some you need to be 80, like in orr)
2. pick an achievement you want and work towards it
3. WvW
4. try to get 100% world completion

And even then, there will still be some grind in the game. Grind itself isn’t really bad, it’s the boring grind that’s terrible, like farming in CS >_>

Lol, grind.
Getting a lvl 80 with full exotics isn’t hard at all.
It’s good that we have some things to keep us occupied once we’re done with that, or not if you just want to run around in those “weak” exotic items. There’s not a single grind that we’re forced into.
Having those 2 ascended rings and a backpiece makes almost no difference.

I really don’t feel this way at all. Exotic gear requires no grind. The cool looking stuff takes a while to get, but there are multiple paths to the goal so I don’t really consider it grind. It seems like a lot of people are saying, “I need 100 of x, I’ll go farm x. Oh no, DR is hitting me and I can’t farm them effectively! This game sucks! Boo grind!”

Except you don’t need to do that. You just need to do some sort of activity that makes you enough money to buy the materials. (Some of these, I’ll grant are probably too hard to get due to market manipulation/too many of the same materials being used for the same desirable items, and this should be fixed.) Dungeons give money, fractals give good money, gathering gives money, running big events usually gives drops that can be converted into money. If you mix these activities together rather than do one over and over I don’t think it feels grindy. I think that Anet has made efforts to equalize these activities somewhat i.e. adding wondrous bags to dungeons, better drops to vets, cores in fractal chests. That’s an imperfect but evolving balance.

As for crafting, I don’t agree at all. If you have several characters and are crafting stuff for all of them you don’t wind up making a ton of useless stuff, and it doesn’t take that long. Also, leveling cooking is awesome/fun with discovering all the recipes, and cooking remains very useful at 80.

So far we’ve had monthly updates with new content, most of which could be enjoyed without spending gems. (I.e. fractals cost nothing., the scavenger hunts at Halloween, the toy mini crafting.) There are always a couple of things that are obvious money grabs but that’s how B2P works, at least if you want the cool new updates coming out, and I don’t begrudge buying gems now and then. That doesn’t feel very F2P to me. I play this game a lot, have literally never touched PVP, and only very rarely done WvW and I find that if I just rotate activities it stays fun.

Stinson.5972:

Except you don’t need to do that. You just need to do some sort of activity that makes you enough money to buy the materials.

This is really a killer for me; everything feels so homogenized when it’s siphoned through the TP.

You farm for gold because farming for mats directly is too inefficient (and outright penalized after 30m), but then the legendary feels like 10x the grind because it’s coming entirely through a single source, the TP. So too everything else except for ascended gear, except ascended gear is its own single source grind cycling through limited fractal content (and with that awful level system; that should be fixed before the end of the month, but naturally they’ll do nothing to address it).

I would have been very impressed if legendary weapons had involved world spanning quests incorporating the achievement system even, instead of constant gold farming in order to purchase almost every mat from the TP.

penatbater.4710:

1. do some the jumping puzzles/mini-dungeon (some you need to be 80, like in orr)
2. pick an achievement you want and work towards it
3. WvW
4. try to get 100% world completion

At least award me a precursor or something if I’ve effectively beaten the game.

Dont worry I figure by Feb it will be a full f2p game and they are just working the kinks out now on how to suck the money from people.
I think with the mini expansion there will be an announcement about it in order to increase the games population and increase revenue streams.
GW2 game of the Year now free to Play try it now….. got a nice ring to it actually.
*enhanced edition – more free content.

Narkosys.5173:

Dont worry I figure by Feb it will be a full f2p game and they are just working the kinks out now on how to suck the money from people.
I think with the mini expansion there will be an announcement about it in order to increase the games population and increase revenue streams.
GW2 game of the Year now free to Play try it now….. got a nice ring to it actually.
*enhanced edition – more free content.

I don’t know about that, but it’s the fastest I can recall a developer pushing a “recruit a friend” program.

Paul.4081:

Lately it’s reminding me of Flyff. I pumped cash into that rubbish for months. You know what stopped me pumping cash into that bottomless pit? Guild Wars. Now GW2 is becoming the anti of what weaned me off that type of garbage in the first place.

i hoped to never hear of that game again._.

Yaki.9563:

I suppose if all you do is grind to max level so you can grind some more, yea GW2 might feel like that. Fortunately, I’m actually playing it along the way to 80 and it’s the best PvE leveling experience I’ve ever had in over 10 years of MMO’s.

Agreed!

The idea that free to play means low quality needs to go. You obviously have never played Dungeon Fighter, Dragon Nest, or Elsword.

On the topic of DR, you can blame exploiters and botters, they caused this. Anet didn’t do it to spite the players or to force players to dish out money for items. If you honestly think that then you are truly ignorant beyond hope.

Bots use teleport to move to any location in game before DR has a chance to kick in. So, tell me, who is truly ignorant now? Bots are not affected by DR in any shape or form, the only ones affected are real players who play a lot. Devs know all that, too. Nevertheless, DR, as we all know, is still in game.

Your point is invalid.

Nayru.3947:

Micerbeats.9607:

Yaki.9563:

I suppose if all you do is grind to max level so you can grind some more, yea GW2 might feel like that. Fortunately, I’m actually playing it along the way to 80 and it’s the best PvE leveling experience I’ve ever had in over 10 years of MMO’s.

Agreed!

Yeah because everyone buys MMO’s for the levelling experience.

That’s what just about every single beta review said was the main focus of the initial game, while higher-level content was meant for future expansions.

Not being forced to grind isn’t the same as “we don’t make grindy games”. Sure the grinds are entirely optional, but if my goal is to get 100 lodestones…. that takes a long time regardless of playing “the way Anet wants me to” or not; getting to that goal over a long duration vs. a faster duller method doesn’t change the fact that it’s a grindy requirement.

If a drop rate for said lodestone is say 1% and there was no DR, it would take nearly 10,000 kills to get that. Even if I spread that out over time, what the kitten kind of endgame pursuit demands this many kills for one of several components other than a grindy game? Oh just use the TP?… So basically I’m “buying” my way out of grinding? Which means that there is, in fact, grinding?… but this game isn’t grindy? Oh this grind isn’t as bad as other games? Ok, so we’re acknowledging that this game does, in fact, have a grind? Which, again… “we dont’ make grindy games”?

A non-grindy game has goals like to get item X requires me to beat encounters A, B, and C…. it may take time to learn and execute, but at least it’s an effort devoted to mastering content rather than an effort devoted into simply spending an exorbitant amount of time (whether that time goes towards directly getting that goal or indirectly getting it). Not saying non-grindy games don’t have some repeat, but there’s a difference between having to do something a dozen times and having to do something a hundred+ times.

Rogacz.9865:

This game, along with many other MMOs, is about working towards things.

‘Game’ and ‘work’ are not synonyms yet you treat them as such. Regardles of genre, games are about fun. If at any point you equate your game time to work, you should stop doing it – unless you are legitimately making real money off it.

Its one thing to challenge oneself to improve, or to aim to achive something, and its completly another to ‘work towards something’. You re not building a house here, brick by brick, to be working towards something. Unfortunetly, thats the direction legendaries/unique exotics/ascended gear are forcing the game into.

This is where you’re completely wrong. ‘Fun’ is subjective, and for a lot of people, working towards an imaginary goal is what they consider to be fun. Consider gaming as a hobby, such as building a model ship. You put time, money, and skill into building a replica of the S.S. Booty and all you have to show for it in the end is a pretty trophy. Games are similar to such hobbies in that, at the end of the day, you’ll have a stronger, more personalised avatar with which to show off your dilligence to people who will appreciate your dilligence. People put model ships in bottles and pop them on shelves where they will be entirely useless, garner no further income, and take up space. Yet the person had fun building that model ship, and enjoys showing it off to friends who also enjoy and build model ships of their own.

Saying ’it’s just a game and you shouldn’t have to work for anything because it’s just a game is just a game is just a game" doesn’t work anymore in this day and age. Gaming is a hobby and a passtime as much as anything else, and like any hobby, there are competitive, passionate types who enjoy putting time and effort into things they love and enjoy engrossing themselves in everything the game has to offer, right down to the min-max.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Not being forced to grind isn’t the same as “we don’t make grindy games”. Sure the grinds are entirely optional, but if my goal is to get 100 lodestones…. that takes a long time regardless of playing “the way Anet wants me to” or not; getting to that goal over a long duration vs. a faster duller method doesn’t change the fact that it’s a grindy requirement.

If a drop rate for said lodestone is say 1% and there was no DR, it would take nearly 10,000 kills to get that. Even if I spread that out over time, what the kitten kind of endgame pursuit demands this many kills for one of several components other than a grindy game? Oh just use the TP?… So basically I’m “buying” my way out of grinding? Which means that there is, in fact, grinding?… but this game isn’t grindy? Oh this grind isn’t as bad as other games? Ok, so we’re acknowledging that this game does, in fact, have a grind? Which, again… “we dont’ make grindy games”?

A non-grindy game has goals like to get item X requires me to beat encounters A, B, and C…. it may take time to learn and execute, but at least it’s an effort devoted to mastering content rather than an effort devoted into simply spending an exorbitant amount of time (whether that time goes towards directly getting that goal or indirectly getting it). Not saying non-grindy games don’t have some repeat, but there’s a difference between having to do something a dozen times and having to do something a hundred+ times.

Said much more eloquently than I could manage, listen to this man.