Guild Wars 2

Charak.9761:

Laurels

You also get laurels with Achievement Point chests and from the Monthly. Monthly gives an extra 10 Laurels, once you reach 2500 APs you will have 12 extra Laurels, at 5000 APs you will have a total of 28 Laurels. Also, doing just the 5 Dailies required to get a laurel takes less than an hour. Based on choice it can be done in a few minutes.

Endgame

You can explore the map (get your 100%), you can roll some alts to see the different stories, you can progress in WvW, play sPvP, and get loads of achievements, exploration/puzzles etc. Also, last I checked, even fully geared characters have something new to do every 2 weeks… You don’t need gold to get armor, you don’t need gold to get lots of runes/sigils, they can be crafted, not all of them though.

Horizontal progression doesn’t involve handouts.

When people bring out the line about grind, they have picked out one line from the manifesto and then misapply it to the whole game.
The “no grind” comment from what I could find refers to COMBAT only. People take the no grind to refer to the game as a whole. But if you read his statement, that’s not what he said.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/ArenaNet's_MMO_Manifesto_trailer

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

The key phrase here, right after saying that they don’t want people to grind is “We want to change the way that people view combat".

He is not talking about grind in any other part of the game. He did not say the game would not have grind, only that you wouldn’t have to grind mobs to level.

The grind is within you. You have a compulsion to grind, it’s obvious from every word of your post.

There is no MMO in existence or able to exist where you would not feel compelled to grind.

You need to change your approach. ArenaNet can’t change it for you.

some small clarifications.

laurel is a currency. as any other currency is at virtual value intended to represent something else which in this case is how many times you compeleted daily and monthly.

The amulet which costs 20 simply indicates you need to complete the daily 20 times… or 10 times + a monthly. If you miss a day you dont miss a laurel you simply didnt earn it. just like not playing dynamic events you dont miss the gold, xp or karma you just didnt earn them. Simply speaking it takes 20 days for the amulet, it doesnt matter if it takes you a mere 20 days to get those 20 laurels or a whole year.

gold is not needed for everything at all, gold is just an alternative way to get everything. apart from the culture armor you can earn everything else directly without spending a single copper.

Most importantly of all and where I disagree with you regarding this being grindier then WoW is everything is optional. The game leaves it up to you to, to decide how far you want to take things. Dont want to go after ascended gear.. fine you can still play any content you want. Dont want to invest the gold for cultural armor? no problem plenty of other sets you can go for that dont involve gold. etc.. etc.. So my advice is forget the most efficient gold earning content.. look at what you enjoy doing and see which rewards you can go for playing that. The rest is up to you.

I hated the crafting dailies in WoW and they were one reason why I quit.

Now look at GW2. At least I don’t pay a fee here, so eh.

maddoctor.2738:

You also get laurels with Achievement Point chests and from the Monthly. Monthly gives an extra 10 Laurels, once you reach 2500 APs you will have 12 extra Laurels, at 5000 APs you will have a total of 28 Laurels. Also, doing just the 5 Dailies required to get a laurel takes less than an hour. Based on choice it can be done in a few minutes.

That’s not really a good alternative, nor does it really answer the OPs point. Time-gated items are simply nonsense because if you do get it in your head to fully equip your character, alts, or want multiple sets, you have to play every single day otherwise it’s going to take you a veryyyy long time, which it will already take. Missing a day is another whole day of waiting. It’s simply not great design.

You can explore the map (get your 100%), you can roll some alts to see the different stories, you can progress in WvW, play sPvP, and get loads of achievements, exploration/puzzles etc. Also, last I checked, even fully geared characters have something new to do every 2 weeks… You don’t need gold to get armor, you don’t need gold to get lots of runes/sigils, they can be crafted, not all of them though.

And here I fully agree with. There’s plenty to do in the game, and things are being added near continuously. If after a full gear set you don’t know what to do, then either you’re not looking at what’s available in the game or you simply shouldn’t be playing the game.

I think your problem is more so that you try to get the reward as fast as possible and find every other method difficult to accept, because they have s bad gold/hour ratio. I suppose you feel that you need that new shiny thing ASAP to enjoy the game… but then you controversially keep destroying your enjoyment, saying that the faster you get it, the happier you are.

Remember – the reward is there only to make you happy. How you got that reward usually enchants it’s satisfaction value. Instead of valuing things in gold/hour ratio, I think you should value them in satisfaction/hour ratio. When you find whatever you do enjoyable, you’ll soon notice that things just sorta drop into your lap (because that’s how human mind works – sometimes minutes can feel like hours and hours like minutes) and looking at them makes you much, much happier than when you grinded for them.

The game is not here to offer you shinies, exp and bunch of online items… they’re just fabrication. The game is there to offer you entertainment and satisfaction. After 5 years when you’ve moved to another game, the most precious thing you can take with you is not a legendary, ascendeds or minipets. It’s the tales you can tell forward and the memories you have.

Tl;dr: GW2 is grindy because you’re trying to find a grind and can only see grinds everywhere since there’s no obvious vertical progression and horizontal progression cannot be possible in any MMORPG, since everyone is the best there ever was, like no one ever was. They caught them, which was the real test. The grind is clearly the cause. Guild Wars 2~!

Shifty.5187:

maddoctor.2738:

You also get laurels with Achievement Point chests and from the Monthly. Monthly gives an extra 10 Laurels, once you reach 2500 APs you will have 12 extra Laurels, at 5000 APs you will have a total of 28 Laurels. Also, doing just the 5 Dailies required to get a laurel takes less than an hour. Based on choice it can be done in a few minutes.

That’s not really a good alternative, nor does it really answer the OPs point. Time-gated items are simply nonsense because if you do get it in your head to fully equip your character, alts, or want multiple sets, you have to play every single day otherwise it’s going to take you a veryyyy long time, which it will already take. Missing a day is another whole day of waiting. It’s simply not great design.

Imagine if everyone that played WoW was doing the same as the OP, playing a few days each week, ONLY RAIDING for the gear, then logout. That would make WoW (and any other game) an empty world devoid of life. That’s not the case, because even in raiding games, a large amount of people doesn’t participate in raids, and even more don’t play those games ONLY for raids.

Time gated content, like the Laurels, helps “force” players to log everyday so the game is active everyday. And besides losing a few days won’t hurt so badly, the AP chests give enough laurels to compensate, same goes with the Monthlies, and even so, doing enough Dailies to earn a laurel takes a few minutes…

@OP I don’t think the dungeons exist purely for people to farm gold. They exist to give players a challenge they can do in groups etc, etc. That is, they exist for the enjoyment of the gameplay. It’s not ANet’s fault that people choose to view them solely as a means to an end – you’ve made it so you run them only to farm gold, thus making anything longer than a 20 minute run a waste of time to you. For the people who play dungeons purely because they enjoy dungeons, then presumably a longer run is more fun as is prolongs the enjoyment.

For me, 16 hours a week is a lot of gaming time. If I had to spend that working or, oh yes, GRINDING, so I could get my armor, I’d quit in no time. If you miss a day in GW2, you don’t miss anything at all. I just got back from taking a week off playing it and I don’t feel as though I’ve missed out on anything. I mean, no, I didn’t get the laurels for the dailies I didn’t do, but then I wasn’t playing the game, so I wouldn’t have been buying anything anyway. Similarly, if you’re not earning gold, why on earth would you expect it to accumulate in your bank? Think of the laurels as payment for the hours you spend in GW2 (except in this case you can get your dailies in as little as 20 minutes). To me, that sounds much better than grinding out 16 hours for an armor set.

Shifty.5187:

maddoctor.2738:

You also get laurels with Achievement Point chests and from the Monthly. Monthly gives an extra 10 Laurels, once you reach 2500 APs you will have 12 extra Laurels, at 5000 APs you will have a total of 28 Laurels. Also, doing just the 5 Dailies required to get a laurel takes less than an hour. Based on choice it can be done in a few minutes.

That’s not really a good alternative, nor does it really answer the OPs point. Time-gated items are simply nonsense because if you do get it in your head to fully equip your character, alts, or want multiple sets, you have to play every single day otherwise it’s going to take you a veryyyy long time, which it will already take. Missing a day is another whole day of waiting. It’s simply not great design.

You can explore the map (get your 100%), you can roll some alts to see the different stories, you can progress in WvW, play sPvP, and get loads of achievements, exploration/puzzles etc. Also, last I checked, even fully geared characters have something new to do every 2 weeks… You don’t need gold to get armor, you don’t need gold to get lots of runes/sigils, they can be crafted, not all of them though.

And here I fully agree with. There’s plenty to do in the game, and things are being added near continuously. If after a full gear set you don’t know what to do, then either you’re not looking at what’s available in the game or you simply shouldn’t be playing the game.

I honestly dont get this missing a day means a whole new day of waiting.

lets say you can buy ascended gear using gold, lets say it costs 500g per piece and lets say you can typically make 3g per hour. lets say you can play 8 hrs a day.

that means you can make 24g per day meaning. If you miss a day of game play does it not mean you’ll have to wait an extra day to get your ascended gear how are laurels any different?

Thing is the price of stuff is in line with how much effort you want players to make to get said items.

ascended gear costs 20 laurels not based on a random number they came up with but because they wanted ascended gear to be a reward for playing 20 days. Laurels are great in that regard because they’re fair on everyone.

If you wanted to charge 20 days worth of gold how much would that be? for a player who plays 8 hrs per day and does 3g per hour 500g would be a fair price.

But other people dont play 8hrs per day and most people dont make 3g per hour so 500g would be extremely unfair on a casual player that players 2 hrs per day and does just 50s per hour.

I think the problem here isnt that laurels are time gated at all, its that people feel 20 days for 1 armor piece is excessive. Luarels in my opinion arent bad design they’re brilliant design because you can get them doing a lot of different things and dont require grinding. Using other currencies like gold or karma to ensure players need to put in at least 20 days worth of effort to acquire them it would have to be a very grindy amount else if you try to be fair to the most casual of players the hardcore players which happen to be those same players you want to make sure dont get the gear before that 20 days, will end up with a full set in a matter of hours.

Onis.2418:

I think your problem is more so that you try to get the reward as fast as possible and find every other method difficult to accept, because they have s bad gold/hour ratio. I suppose you feel that you need that new shiny thing ASAP to enjoy the game… but then you controversially keep destroying your enjoyment, saying that the faster you get it, the happier you are.

Remember – the reward is there only to make you happy. How you got that reward usually enchants it’s satisfaction value. Instead of valuing things in gold/hour ratio, I think you should value them in satisfaction/hour ratio. When you find whatever you do enjoyable, you’ll soon notice that things just sorta drop into your lap (because that’s how human mind works – sometimes minutes can feel like hours and hours like minutes) and looking at them makes you much, much happier than when you grinded for them.

The game is not here to offer you shinies, exp and bunch of online items… they’re just fabrication. The game is there to offer you entertainment and satisfaction. After 5 years when you’ve moved to another game, the most precious thing you can take with you is not a legendary, ascendeds or minipets. It’s the tales you can tell forward and the memories you have.

10 points go to this post, Totally agree and most of all beautifully stated!

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly dont get this missing a day means a whole new day of waiting.

lets say you can buy ascended gear using gold, lets say it costs 500g per piece and lets say you can typically make 3g per hour. lets say you can play 8 hrs a day.

There’s the rub. I don’t play 8 hours a day. That’s kittening insane even.

I’m a casual player who has weekends during which I can play more than on a weekday. Since I’m busy I’d rather not play every day of the week, or perhaps play some other games during my limited time. Ideally, I’d probably play only during the weekend. If I started doing that, I’d lose out on 5 laurels a week. That would significantly increase the amount of time before I can fully equip my character, my alts, and get alternative sets.

I’m an ACTUAL casual player, and asking casuals to play every day is crazy. Instead of Dailies, give me Weeklies that I can work on during the weekend where I actually have time. Or better yet, get rid of the time-gated content.

Shifty.5187:

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly dont get this missing a day means a whole new day of waiting.

lets say you can buy ascended gear using gold, lets say it costs 500g per piece and lets say you can typically make 3g per hour. lets say you can play 8 hrs a day.

There’s the rub. I don’t play 8 hours a day. That’s kittening insane even.

I’m a casual player who has weekends during which I can play more than on a weekday. Since I’m busy I’d rather not play every day of the week, or perhaps play some other games during my limited time. Ideally, I’d probably play only during the weekend. If I started doing that, I’d lose out on 5 laurels a week. That would significantly increase the amount of time before I can fully equip my character, my alts, and get alternative sets.

I’m an ACTUAL casual player, and asking casuals to play every day is crazy. Instead of Dailies, give me Weeklies that I can work on during the weekend where I actually have time. Or better yet, get rid of the time-gated content.

I hear you, Shifty, from on ACTUAL casual player to another.

However, I don’t have much of an issue with the time-gate (aside from general impatience, but that’s just because I lack patience in general – from a gameplay perspective I prefer this to any other kind of gating). This is because the time-gates on anything aren’t difficult in themselves. Yes, I may miss out on 5 days of laurels a week, but it doesn’t put me that much behind everyone else because I don’t really REQUIRE any of the stuff that laurels buy me. Anyone requiring this stuff has other ways to get it – like if you need it for fractals, well, you’re running fractals anyway and so have an alternative avenue to ascended gear.

The days I’m not playing, well, I don’t need the stuff because, well, I’m not playing so it doesn’t matter. And when I am playing, I don’t think I should get stuff for free that other people DID log on daily for. Just like work, if I don’t go in for the day, I can’t say it’s not fair I don’t get paid for the day because other people DID go in. The laurels are like currency – I need to earn them in order to buy stuff with them, and if you didn’t do the daily, then you didn’t earn that one laurel.

So, yes, you end up behind, but not in any “race” where that matters. You can still get exotic tier stuff, and that’s all that you really need (or rare, even).

Slower doesn’t mean grindier. You haven’t worked any harder for them than someone who logged in every day, and it just took you longer. It wasn’t harder and you didn’t do anything MORE than the other person did, so there’s no grind involved at all with this particular issue.

Shifty.5187:

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly dont get this missing a day means a whole new day of waiting.

lets say you can buy ascended gear using gold, lets say it costs 500g per piece and lets say you can typically make 3g per hour. lets say you can play 8 hrs a day.

There’s the rub. I don’t play 8 hours a day. That’s kittening insane even.

I’m a casual player who has weekends during which I can play more than on a weekday. Since I’m busy I’d rather not play every day of the week, or perhaps play some other games during my limited time. Ideally, I’d probably play only during the weekend. If I started doing that, I’d lose out on 5 laurels a week. That would significantly increase the amount of time before I can fully equip my character, my alts, and get alternative sets.

I’m an ACTUAL casual player, and asking casuals to play every day is crazy. Instead of Dailies, give me Weeklies that I can work on during the weekend where I actually have time. Or better yet, get rid of the time-gated content.

You have monthlies. They give 10 laurels.

Voila, now you only need to play 10 days a month (do 10 dailies and finish the monthly in those 10 days).

There are 4 weeks in a month.

There are 4 weekends in a month.

There are 2.5 days in a weekend.

There are 10 days you can play during the weekends of every month.

You only need to play 10 days to get 20 Laurels.

WOAH LOGICKALIMAGICXKZ

CrossedHorse.4261:

I hear you, Shifty, from on ACTUAL casual player to another.

However, I don’t have much of an issue with the time-gate (aside from general impatience, but that’s just because I lack patience in general – from a gameplay perspective I prefer this to any other kind of gating). This is because the time-gates on anything aren’t difficult in themselves. Yes, I may miss out on 5 days of laurels a week, but it doesn’t put me that much behind everyone else because I don’t really REQUIRE any of the stuff that laurels buy me. Anyone requiring this stuff has other ways to get it – like if you need it for fractals, well, you’re running fractals anyway and so have an alternative avenue to ascended gear.

The days I’m not playing, well, I don’t need the stuff because, well, I’m not playing so it doesn’t matter. And when I am playing, I don’t think I should get stuff for free that other people DID log on daily for. Just like work, if I don’t go in for the day, I can’t say it’s not fair I don’t get paid for the day because other people DID go in. The laurels are like currency – I need to earn them in order to buy stuff with them, and if you didn’t do the daily, then you didn’t earn that one laurel.

So, yes, you end up behind, but not in any “race” where that matters. You can still get exotic tier stuff, and that’s all that you really need (or rare, even).

Thank you for the sympathies, fellow casual.

My response is that, sure, you don’t need the best gear, but you surely want it. I don’t think that people who log in to play for an hour each day deserve those things any more than someone who would spend a whole afternoon on a Saturday getting the same thing.

Why do they need us to play every day? Thousands of people are playing it and if you make friends and get into a good guild, you can almost always find someone to play with (so no need to force everyone to be online to get a decent player density).

You’re afraid that people who play a lot get all the Legendaries while the casuals are still working on their exotic/Ascended gear? So what? There’s absolutely no need to equalize casuals with the hardcores. Those who play a lot get the good items. Those who do not play as much have to play for a longer time-period to get those things. There is no problem here that needs a solution.

It feels like a grind because you’re not having fun.

Take a break

Esplen.3940:

You have monthlies. They give 10 laurels.

Voila, now you only need to play 10 days a month (do 10 dailies and finish the monthly in those 10 days).

There are 4 weeks in a month.

There are 4 weekends in a month.

There are 2.5 days in a weekend.

There are 10 days you can play during the weekends of every month.

You only need to play 10 days to get 20 Laurels.

WOAH LOGICKALIMAGICXKZ

Thank you for the lack of sympathies.

10 days to get 20 laurels is technically correct, except that it takes you a month each time. I guess that’s what they call time logic?

Shifty.5187:

CrossedHorse.4261:

I hear you, Shifty, from on ACTUAL casual player to another.

However, I don’t have much of an issue with the time-gate (aside from general impatience, but that’s just because I lack patience in general – from a gameplay perspective I prefer this to any other kind of gating). This is because the time-gates on anything aren’t difficult in themselves. Yes, I may miss out on 5 days of laurels a week, but it doesn’t put me that much behind everyone else because I don’t really REQUIRE any of the stuff that laurels buy me. Anyone requiring this stuff has other ways to get it – like if you need it for fractals, well, you’re running fractals anyway and so have an alternative avenue to ascended gear.

The days I’m not playing, well, I don’t need the stuff because, well, I’m not playing so it doesn’t matter. And when I am playing, I don’t think I should get stuff for free that other people DID log on daily for. Just like work, if I don’t go in for the day, I can’t say it’s not fair I don’t get paid for the day because other people DID go in. The laurels are like currency – I need to earn them in order to buy stuff with them, and if you didn’t do the daily, then you didn’t earn that one laurel.

So, yes, you end up behind, but not in any “race” where that matters. You can still get exotic tier stuff, and that’s all that you really need (or rare, even).

Thank you for the sympathies, fellow casual.

My response is that, sure, you don’t need the best gear, but you surely want it. I don’t think that people who log in to play for an hour each day deserve those things any more than someone who would spend a whole afternoon on a Saturday getting the same thing.

Why do they need us to play every day? Thousands of people are playing it and if you make friends and get into a good guild, you can almost always find someone to play with (so no need to force everyone to be online to get a decent player density).

You’re afraid that people who play a lot get all the Legendaries while the casuals are still working on their exotic/Ascended gear? So what? There’s absolutely no need to equalize casuals with the hardcores. Those who play a lot get the good items. Those who do not play as much have to play for a longer time-period to get those things. There is no problem here that needs a solution.

I completely see the reasoning behind your argument, and agree that yes, it would be very nice for there to be an option somewhere to run a week’s worth of dailies over a weekend, but then everyone already able to run dailies daily would also run the week’s worth over the weekend, and you’d end up just as far behind them as you were before.

I’m not entirely sure if you feel left behind in terms of how quickly other players progress, or if you are just impatient to receive something that you want? I mean that question genuinely. The moment I start thinking in terms of “keeping up” with other people, then no matter what I do I feel behind and start feeling “pushed into” doing things I don’t want. But if I regard it as a matter of me simply wanting something, then I can put my natural impatience aside because I know that though it takes me longer than someone else, nothing is stopping me from reaching that same goal. So your perspective on this issue would be interesting to see.

I don’t think ANet NEED us to log in every day – I mean, they designed a B2P game and tried to minimize vertical progression simply so it IS a pick up, play, put down kind of game. The dailies, I feel, fit in fairly well there since you aren’t rewarded especially significantly for completing them. Map completion, achievement points, monthlies etc all also offer laurels, so over a 6 hour Saturday run you are probably capable of making up a fair bit of ground (of course, the others who log in daily are doing this as well).

I’m not sure about your last paragraph there … I’m not sure if it’s pertaining to anything I’ve said, or if you’re being sarcastic (in which case not sure what I’ve done to merit that)? Sorry!

Banquetto.9521:

The grind is within you. You have a compulsion to grind, it’s obvious from every word of your post.

There is no MMO in existence or able to exist where you would not feel compelled to grind.

You need to change your approach. ArenaNet can’t change it for you.

Age of Empires Online and Company of Heroes Online were pretty decent games and not once did I feel the need to grind.

CrossedHorse.4261:

I completely see the reasoning behind your argument, and agree that yes, it would be very nice for there to be an option somewhere to run a week’s worth of dailies over a weekend, but then everyone already able to run dailies daily would also run the week’s worth over the weekend, and you’d end up just as far behind them as you were before.

Not if you can save your Dailies for the weekend so that those who did the Dailies every day don’t need to catch up in the weekend, while those who did not play during the week do a week’s worth of Dailies in the weekend. This would solve 1 issue, but I feel like it’s a hack, trying to fit this game mechanic in a casual playing style for which it clearly isn’t designed.

I’m not entirely sure if you feel left behind in terms of how quickly other players progress, or if you are just impatient to receive something that you want? I mean that question genuinely. The moment I start thinking in terms of “keeping up” with other people, then no matter what I do I feel behind and start feeling “pushed into” doing things I don’t want. But if I regard it as a matter of me simply wanting something, then I can put my natural impatience aside because I know that though it takes me longer than someone else, nothing is stopping me from reaching that same goal. So your perspective on this issue would be interesting to see.

I don’t really compare myself to other people; I am not competitive with my gear. I do, however, like to be efficient and optimize my time. I establish a goal for me, such as get Ascended gear, and then I think about what the fastest, easiest, most cost-effective way of getting it is. I actually enjoy thinking about the most efficient method to get things. In a complex game such as MMORPGs that’s often a way of playing in and of itself. With time-gated content it’s however pretty simple. 1 laurel a day. That’s it. If I want to get my gear as fast as possible, I’d have to play every day.

Also, if I want to get Exotic gear, I can do dungeons, but the most optimal way is to play each dungeon path once a day to get the optimal number of tokens. More and more things are becoming time-gated and it seems to become an intrinsic part of their design philosophy. I cannot but dislike it since it conflicts with how I’d ideally like to play the game.

I don’t think ANet NEED us to log in every day – I mean, they designed a B2P game and tried to minimize vertical progression simply so it IS a pick up, play, put down kind of game. The dailies, I feel, fit in fairly well there since you aren’t rewarded especially significantly for completing them. Map completion, achievement points, monthlies etc all also offer laurels, so over a 6 hour Saturday run you are probably capable of making up a fair bit of ground (of course, the others who log in daily are doing this as well).

I do think they reward you pretty well. Especially now with account bonuses for getting achievement points.

It would be a true pick up and play game if there was no time-gated content at all.

I’m not sure about your last paragraph there … I’m not sure if it’s pertaining to anything I’ve said, or if you’re being sarcastic (in which case not sure what I’ve done to merit that)? Sorry!

My apologies, I meant ‘you’ as in the general term, not you personally. I think part of the reason Anet is using this time-gated crap is because they want to put hardcore players and casual player on the same level, which I think is silly.

Oh wow, I thought this was another ‘ascended too hard to get’ thread so typed up a nice kitten post. But after actually rereading, YES, i completely agree. Not trying to promote any more gear progression, but its true. After ascended the things you can work for are pretty limited.
It took me a while to get off the mindset of being rewarded of my time spent, but it has helped me in the long run. New enjoyment in the satisfying kills in pvp, and…. thats about it. lol. The main issue is still there. When will Anet finally reward skill, time and dedication? Such as doing an arah over Cof. Casual or not, im sure everyone wants that.

Shifty.5187:

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly dont get this missing a day means a whole new day of waiting.

lets say you can buy ascended gear using gold, lets say it costs 500g per piece and lets say you can typically make 3g per hour. lets say you can play 8 hrs a day.

There’s the rub. I don’t play 8 hours a day. That’s kittening insane even.

I’m a casual player who has weekends during which I can play more than on a weekday. Since I’m busy I’d rather not play every day of the week, or perhaps play some other games during my limited time. Ideally, I’d probably play only during the weekend. If I started doing that, I’d lose out on 5 laurels a week. That would significantly increase the amount of time before I can fully equip my character, my alts, and get alternative sets.

I’m an ACTUAL casual player, and asking casuals to play every day is crazy. Instead of Dailies, give me Weeklies that I can work on during the weekend where I actually have time. Or better yet, get rid of the time-gated content.

You wouldnt be loosing 5 laurels a week you’d be earning 2 laurels a week. Just like with the gold example you wouldnt be loosing 360g just cause thats a theoretical maximum of what you could earn in 5 days playing 24/7.

This is not really making casuals play every day at all, its just ask people play for 20 days in return for the item. its just a lot easier and a much fair system to quantify those 20 days rather then using any other currency.

Whats 20 days worth of gold? lets be extremely conservative rather then going to the upper band of hardcore players like i did in my previous post. lets say 2g per day is a realistic amount most players earn in a day. For you personally, a player who plays a little during weekends would 40g be an easier price to pay then 20 laurels?

And before you say 40g wouldnt be a reasonable price to charge for a single ascended armor piece please consider that there are players who claim to make up to 8g per hour speed running dungeons which make 2g per day very very forgiving. For said players charging them 40g means they can afford said piece in 5 hours which means that reward that was intended to take 20 days to earn can be earned by these players in just 1 play session.

Playing just during the weekend it would take you exactly 1 month and 1 week to get a single ascended piece (5 weekends of dailies + a monthly you can finish during those 4 weekends) Do you think you’d be able to make 40g faster then 1 month and 1 week playing just during weekends? cause you’d need to be doing 4g every day you play for that to be true and that’s twice what we recon a day should be worth and it would still take you the same exact time.

I think its a mistake to just look at the time it takes to get a piece you also need to look at the effort thats being asked for that piece. Ascended armor is a medium term goal. Its mean to take 20 days of effort more or less to get. Luarels are just a way to represent 20 days of play time which is equal to both hardcore and casuals alike.

For a casual player personally I think this system is a very a positive thing. Think about it. like this to get a single piece you need to just play 20 days and spend at most 30 minutes to finish the daily, then you’re free to play any content you want. In truth you dont even need to invest those 30 minutes since its very likely whatever you choose to do while playing gw2 will finish of the daily itself or at least get you very close to completion. If on the other hand you were asked to pay 40g for an ascended item you’d end up spending a whole month farming as much gold as possible. It would still take you just as long then with laurels if not more but without leaving you free to enjoy the game in the meantime in the way you wish having rather compelled you to farm the most profitable content to get it done quickly.

Shifty.5187:

/snip – as word count got too long

Thanks for explaining – on all counts.

I guess they thought they were catering to casuals by putting in the dailies. By which, I mean the people who only log in for 20 minutes a day still being able to make progression towards something, but unfortunately that leaves people who can’t log in frequently but can play at length over the weekend a little out in the cold. Honestly, I’m not sure how they can really make it work.

I think they got the easy part right – doing dailies or monthlies isn’t hard work. But they got the efficient part wrong. Not for each individual stage, but as a whole. Obviously there are efficient ways of completing each daily, but there isn’t an efficient way of getting the rewards because time-gating is in and of itself inefficient. I can see why they put it in, so that people who simply devour content can’t rush ahead of people who play slower, by intent or by necessity, but agree that it can be more of a pain than a crutch. So yes, I agree with your observation that they’re trying to put hardcore players and casual players on the same level, which, I think, is sort of the purpose of GW2 – they WANT everyone to be able to progress in the same way.

Again, not sure what they can really do about it. Being able to store up dailies for a weekly would be an interesting start if implemented correctly. Since ANet clearly seem to want to place all players on the same level (hardcore and casual), and I don’t think they’d move on this point (I can see more and more complaints if they tried to separate them), then time-gating is a pretty efficient way of going about it. So, for this reason, I’m less inclined to bother about it. But I can definitely see there’s room for improvement.

Shifty.5187:

Thank you for the sympathies, fellow casual.

My response is that, sure, you don’t need the best gear, but you surely want it. I don’t think that people who log in to play for an hour each day deserve those things any more than someone who would spend a whole afternoon on a Saturday getting the same thing.

Why do they need us to play every day? Thousands of people are playing it and if you make friends and get into a good guild, you can almost always find someone to play with (so no need to force everyone to be online to get a decent player density).

You’re afraid that people who play a lot get all the Legendaries while the casuals are still working on their exotic/Ascended gear? So what? There’s absolutely no need to equalize casuals with the hardcores. Those who play a lot get the good items. Those who do not play as much have to play for a longer time-period to get those things. There is no problem here that needs a solution.

They are not forcing you to play every day… you’re forcing yourself to play every day cause you’re not willing to wait.

They’re asking you to play 20 days (or equivalent cause you can shave time off that through monthlies and achievement). they’re not asking you to play 20 consecutive days which would be the only way to truly force you to play every day.

Think of it this way.. lets imagine ascended gear existed in real life and cost 20 laurels
You get 1 laurel per every work day you do and you’re free to go to work when ever you want.

That means you have to go to work 20 days before you can afford it.
For those that go every day it will take 20 days, for those that can only go on weekends it will take 2 1/2 months (removing monthlies for simplicity)

Now you’re saying its not fair that there is this time gating and would rather use money instead of laurels to buy ascended gear.

Fair enough so now every full day of work gets you $100 and ascended gear costs $2000 a piece.

Will this make it any easier on players who can only play during the weekend? It will be the same just using a different representation.

But in reality we have an additional complexity. not everyone is paid $100. Casuals are paid $50 and hardcore players are paid $200. This is where things turn unfair. Do you price the ascended gear for the hardcore players and increase it to $4000 or do you price it for the casuals and price it at $1000 ?

if you price it for casuals hardcore players will finish a full set in 2 months and start demanding something new to earn. We might start seeing a push for a new tier of armor as hardcore players who are more likely to seek vertical progression then casuals would have no more goals to work towards and that will make a lot of people unhappy. Do you price it at $4000 as to ensure hardcore players will keep working towards their ascended set for months ? if you do that you’re increasing the burden on the casuals by a whooping 400% because there is no way they can afford the prices hardcore players have no trouble supporting.

So as you can see what I am trying to say is at the end of the day switching tokens for money will most likely make it worst. The token system ensures everyone has to pay exactly the same price. regardless if you play every day, regardless if you play 1hr or 8hrs or if you play just during weekends. everyone needs to finish 20 days (or equivalent)

People are going to come into threads like this, and they have before, and will say “But you don’t need to do any of that. You dont need to get your laurel each day, you dont need to farm gold, you dont need to run dungeons..do what you want”. What these people don’t realize is…this is the same as ANY MMO. In WoW, I dont need to run dungeons, I dont need to raid, I dont need to grind faction rep, I don’t need to farm materials. I can still farm materials, run regular dungeons, pet battles, with a smidge of gear I can queue for LFR and heriocs. I can run scenarios. I can re-visit lower zones and do quests I havent done.

People are so naieve to think that this game provides you the only unique avenue in the MMO industry to give you the true freedom of choice. “you dont need to run dungeons if you dont like to..dont grind if you dont want to…” Yet, I am free not to do either of those things in any run-of-the-mill MMO either.

As long as something can be bought via money through the TP, “hardcore players” (Whales is a better term) will get it almost instantly. And since playing Pretty Princess is a big part of the game at lvl 80…

Arimahn.3568:

As long as something can be bought via money through the TP, “hardcore players” (Whales is a better term) will get it almost instantly. And since playing Pretty Princess is a big part of the game at lvl 80…

Which is why my impatience takes a second seat over things like the time-gating and making new crafted gear (celestial upwards – when they introduce level 500). This means that they can’t simply purchase this stuff with their millions of gold (I’d like to see how much they have – I can’t get above 30, haha), and they can’t rush to it either.

But I understand Shifty’s concerns about it too. It isn’t really the best thing ever, but it’s the best solution I can see for the moment (I guess I’m not too imaginative, but I also know nothing about game design so I don’t know what’s feasible).

cesmode.4257:

People are so naieve to think that this game provides you the only unique avenue in the MMO industry to give you the true freedom of choice. “you dont need to run dungeons if you dont like to..dont grind if you dont want to…” Yet, I am free not to do either of those things in any run-of-the-mill MMO either.

Difference: you can get your max gear with Laurels doing a variety of activities. In other games to get the max you need to do some very specific activity (usually a Raid)

I don’t see many other MMOs in the industry that actually give any kind of freedom of choice.

Shifty.5187:

I’m an ACTUAL casual player, and asking casuals to play every day is crazy. Instead of Dailies, give me Weeklies that I can work on during the weekend where I actually have time. Or better yet, get rid of the time-gated content.

I’m an actual casual player. And I spent my first 100 laurels on a cat tonic… Why? Because all that ascended gear in there didn’t add anything for my game play. As I’m casual, I don’t care about raiding that dungeon afap. Or doing that fractal set in 5 minutes. I just want to have fun.

For me, a casual player is a player who will take his time to reach his goals. No need for that min-maxing stuff, as I have time. Rares are good enough till I get enough gold/karma/laurels to get better stuff.

Galen Grey.4709:

You wouldnt be loosing 5 laurels a week you’d be earning 2 laurels a week. Just like with the gold example you wouldnt be loosing 360g just cause thats a theoretical maximum of what you could earn in 5 days playing 24/7.

The problem being that psychologically, it’s just not true. It’s relatively easy to do the Dailies and I theoretically could do the Dailies every day. I surely can’t play 8 hours every day and farm gold. If you read my previous post you’ll understand better what my play-style is and how Dailies do not fit at all in that.

This is not really making casuals play every day at all, its just ask people play for 20 days in return for the item. its just a lot easier and a much fair system to quantify those 20 days rather then using any other currency.

It’s causing me to do that, so that’s 1 person who feels pressure to play every day. Am I the only one? Nope. Am I part of a significant portion of players who feels pressured? I don’t know, I’d like to find out.

I also don’t think it’s fair at all. Fairness would be effort = reward. Right now it is time = reward.

Whats 20 days worth of gold? lets be extremely conservative rather then going to the upper band of hardcore players like i did in my previous post. lets say 2g per day is a realistic amount most players earn in a day. For you personally, a player who plays a little during weekends would 40g be an easier price to pay then 20 laurels?

And before you say 40g wouldnt be a reasonable price to charge for a single ascended armor piece please consider that there are players who claim to make up to 8g per hour speed running dungeons which make 2g per day very very forgiving. For said players charging them 40g means they can afford said piece in 5 hours which means that reward that was intended to take 20 days to earn can be earned by these players in just 1 play session.

The whole reason a currency was invented in the first place is to be able to convert a variety of products or services into 1 single, universal, value that could be easily transferred and used by other people for services or products they would like to have.

I’d have absolutely no problem with buying Ascended gear for gold, because I could get the gold in a variety of ways and also get more gold on days I could play more, instead of having a fixed amount every single day. It really does make more sense to me that you should be rewarded for the amount of effort you put in. Not the times you login every week.

Playing just during the weekend it would take you exactly 1 month and 1 week to get a single ascended piece (5 weekends of dailies + a monthly you can finish during those 4 weekends) Do you think you’d be able to make 40g faster then 1 month and 1 week playing just during weekends? cause you’d need to be doing 4g every day you play for that to be true and that’s twice what we recon a day should be worth and it would still take you the same exact time.

I’d probably be able to get more than 4g on weekend-days. I’d also be able to sell some stuff I get randomly. I’d be able to have friends help me out by giving me gold to get the items. I’d be able to find a rare drop, sell it, and get an Ascended piece instead. Aren’t those things that make MMORPGs fun?

I think its a mistake to just look at the time it takes to get a piece you also need to look at the effort thats being asked for that piece. Ascended armor is a medium term goal. Its mean to take 20 days of effort more or less to get. Luarels are just a way to represent 20 days of play time which is equal to both hardcore and casuals alike.

Logging in and doing some boring things (killing 50 mobs in Ascalon) really should not be awarded with the best gear. It’s not effort. The only effort is me trying to get myself to login even though I’d rather be doing something else that evening.

For a casual player personally I think this system is a very a positive thing.

I do understand your point here and it is a good one, but I really don’t like that kind of play-style and it does not seem to fit the spirit of MMORPGs.

Also, I don’t think your math works out very well. If I can only play during the weekend, and let’s say I play the two full days, I can get a lot of ‘work’ done. With time-gated content, I’d like to be working on getting my gear, but after doing the Dailies, I’m done. There’s nothing else I can do to get that gear. That is no fun at all. With the time I have, I’d like to spend it on actually getting that gear! Now it is limiting even me, a casual!

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I’m an actual casual player. And I spent my first 100 laurels on a cat tonic… Why? Because all that ascended gear in there didn’t add anything for my game play. As I’m casual, I don’t care about raiding that dungeon afap. Or doing that fractal set in 5 minutes. I just want to have fun.

For me, a casual player is a player who will take his time to reach his goals. No need for that min-maxing stuff, as I have time. Rares are good enough till I get enough gold/karma/laurels to get better stuff.

Fair enough. I’m defining a casual player as someone who doesn’t play 24/7, but instead only plays a limited amount. I’m not defining it by what they want to do in the game.

Shifty.5187:

If you read my previous post you’ll understand better what my play-style is and how Dailies do not fit at all in that.

I think you’re misunderstanding what I am trying to say. I am not saying people should be made to play 8hrs per day, I am saying the daily system avoids the need for it.

My premise is pretty simple. People need rewards to work towards. Ascended gear are mainly for people who want progression, Gw2 is trying to avoid vertical progression. That all means that ideally Ascended gear has to last years for people who want vertical progression and aren’t interested in cosmetics.

A daily is extremely easy to complete simply because 1 laurel a day is all you can get. If there was no such limitation and people could get 1 laurel every 15-30mins the story would change dramatically. Thats why I think laurels are a much better choice then gold.

Shifty.5187:

It’s causing me to do that, so that’s 1 person who feels pressure to play every day. … Fairness would be effort = reward. Right now it is time = reward.

I am sure you’re not the only one who is feeling pressured. my question is who is really creating the pressure ? and would alternatives remove that pressure?
I guess the pressure comes from yourself wanting this reward in the least amount of time possible. The game does what it can to avoid that pressure, mainly by making ascended gear nice to have rather then must have. If it takes you 2 months to get a piece rather then 20 days you arent really penalized in any way. There is no content you’re locked out of until you get that piece etc…

Thing is the system is effort = reward its just that it does that indirectly and tries to equalize it for players. The effort involved is playing the game for 20 days. Because you can only earn 1 laurel then there is no reason for them to lock you in a specific task for a specific amount of time. That results in a good equalization. If you’re a casual who can only play 1 hr you’re not penalized just because another person can play 12 hrs. Other currencies would create a nasty disparity there.

Let me put the question to you. Put yourself in a game designer shoes. Your goal is to make sure every player gets 20 days out of an ascended gear piece. what currency would use and how much would you price it?

Shifty.5187:

…It really does make more sense to me that you should be rewarded for the amount of effort you put in. Not the times you login every week.

Even if that means it will take you a far far longer to get your reward? Would you really be happier to buy ascended gear at 40g a piece rather than 20 laurels?

Shifty.5187:

I’d probably be able to get more than 4g on weekend-days. I…

If you make 4g per week it will take you 2 months 2 weeks, thats 1 week longer then it takes you if you buy it with laurels and you only play during weekend days. So my question is why is this more comfortable to you? why do you not feel the same pressure you feel with dailies? like dailies if you log in every day and make 2g per day you can get the ascended gear piece in 20 days just like logging every day can get you that piece in 10 days if you do dailies + monthly in that period.
Sure thats what makes MMORPGs fun but dailies dont stop you from doing that. To do the daily you’ll be doing dynamic events/killing mobs / dungeons etc.. That will still provide the stuff you mentioned you find fun.

Shifty.5187:

Logging in and doing some boring things (killing 50 mobs in Ascalon) really should not be awarded with the best gear. …

The stuff that makes up a daily is stuff you’re going to do anyway. You’re still going to kill 50 mobs. Just cause its specifically in Ascalon does it really make it more boring then if you had to kill them in the Krytan region? it also involves negligible effort so that you’re free to do what you wish the rest of the time you’re playing. On the other hand if you need to earn 40g for your ascended ring would you be doing stuff like exploring or doing jp? or are you more likely to spend your days farming fractals / COF P1 or speed running dungeons?

Shifty.5187:

I do understand your point here and it is a good one, …

Yes I agree it doesnt fit the spirit of other MMORPGs, but thats what makes Gw2 stand apart. Its trying to provide the long term rewards of other mmos but without forcing the grind.

I dont doubt you can get a lot of work done during the weekend but hardcore players can still do the same work done and everyday so that would force arenanet to either increase the price or live with the fact hardcore players are going to get the full gear set in a fraction of the time and then find a way to deal with the request for better gear since they’d be done.

@shifty

btw just to clarify a bit, I am not saying the system is perfect, I do agree with you that there are some issues with it. Someone who can play 8hrs on sat and sun is basically worst off then someone would can only play 1hr every even though technically that person plays twice as much.

I just think that everything considered this is the best and fairest way for everyone on average.

@Galen Grey

Can I just say how much I enjoy reading your posts (not just here, but in most threads where you’ve posted)? Always well thought-out, well reasoned, worded and calm.

I think part of the reason Shifty (and others) feel pressure to complete the dailies is precisely that – they’re called “dailies”. Now, I don’t know what else you could call them, but heck, even if they were called “doilies” people might not take them so seriously.

Sorry – very trivial point after such great posts and an interesting discussion (and for once with no flaming!), but it was just a thought that sprang into my head.

Every online game ever made has some sort of grind to it in order to advance some are a must to do and some you can choose whether you want to do it or not(like in GW2) and still advance.

CrossedHorse.4261:

@Galen Grey

Can I just say how much I enjoy reading your posts (not just here, but in most threads where you’ve posted)? Always well thought-out, well reasoned, worded and calm.

I think part of the reason Shifty (and others) feel pressure to complete the dailies is precisely that – they’re called “dailies”. Now, I don’t know what else you could call them, but heck, even if they were called “doilies” people might not take them so seriously.

Sorry – very trivial point after such great posts and an interesting discussion (and for once with no flaming!), but it was just a thought that sprang into my head.

Thanks, thats so very kind of you

Yes you’re right, the name itself does imply that this is something thats needs doing every day. And I am sure that to some degree it will contribute to the pressure. On the other hand In another thread we’ve been discussing charged crystals. Some people think the limitation of creating just 1 crystal per day is so that they can also limit how fast ascended gear will be crafted once they introduce that in the game. I agree with this assessment. In that thread there is still the same sentiment expressed here about time gating even though it literally takes 5 seconds to create a crystal if you park an alt.

There is no such thing as a trivial point. We’re all just sharing opinions here. I may seem passionate at times (probably thats because I am, this game really hits a lot of things I have always dreamed of in an MMO) but I wouldnt even dream to pretend my opinions are a universal truths that everyone needs to abide by.

Once again, thanks for your appreciation ! its ehhh well much appreciated.

Galen Grey.4709:

galens stuff edited for space.

you are obscuring the real data by acting as if 20 laurels is the end of the laurel process. sure a daily player can get 20 laurels in 10 days and a weeked player can get 20 laurels in 5 weekends
BUT
it doesnt stop at 20 laurels.
lets compare playtimes.
30 min a day, or 3.5 hours a week daily player gets 40 laurels per 4 weeks or, 40 laurels per 14 hours of play or, 2.87 laurels per hour played.
weekend player probably has to play at least 10 hours a month to get the monthly achievement and will pick up 1 daily each day they play, at 18 laurels a month
essentially 1.8 laurels per hour played.

So the factual math is the daily player is a getting a full laurel more per hour, and is 155% as efficient as the weekend player for the same time investment.

Its obvious that they are incentizing daily play, its not just casual play.

bringing up achievements is also a very bad point, because achievements are highly inefficient forms of laurel aquisition, 5000 points is like 8 months of play and you get what, 23 or so laurels? (keep in mind many dont have 5k and they played for like almost 12 months now)
not only that, but many of the achievements are one time only deals, which puts the focus on the daily and monthly achievements as the main means of earning achievement points as the game goes on, which we established gives more advantage to the daily player.

This doesnt even consider other psychological issues, like the inability to ever catch up no matter how hard or fast you are when things are time gated. It would be one thing if this was just cosmetics but its tied most closely to the best gear in the game.
so when you hit 80, no matter how hard you work, you will have to spend X amount of real world time being sub geared.

Then when one starts to talk about the gold wars aspect, the OP are essentially correct. The end game as it was quickly becomes a hunt for the most efficient gold farming. If you dont enjoy this style of play, in general you will have less shinies, less build options, etc.

One good thing about ascended is that it reduces this reliance on gold for part of the elder game progression, the problem is instead of replacing it with interesting activities, or at least whatever activities you prefer, it tends to replace it with daily and monthly playstyle, which is honestly, for me pretty boring.

I think the ascended system works best when implemted like the fractal method.
you had one way to get it via dailies and monthlies, one means to get it that was skill based, where after achieving a certain level of play you could get it much more rapidly than otherwise.
It still has a time gate, due to daily chests, but even that is mitigated by being able to go to higher teirs, and thus get more daily chest rolls based on your achievements.

Guild bounty also has this effect, however, its a pretty hard climb unless you join a guild that pre earned these abilities.

i really hope they severely limit the hard time gating in future content, however it looks like the will take it even farther sadly.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

galens stuff edited for space.

snip

I respectfully disagree. Its actually Identical, The reason your values are different is because you have a miscalculation I am afraid.

Your units are 30 mins for a daily and 10 hours for a monthly. I agree. But you miscalculated the time required for the daily player. You claim it takes him/her 14 hrs to finish both the dailies and the monthlies. Thats incorrect. It takes 12hrs to finish the dailies and 10 hrs to finish the monthly for a total of 22hrs per 4 weeks. 40 laurels in 22 hrs = 1.8 laurels exactly the same how you calculated the weekend player would get.

Thats the whole point of the system to get 20 laurels any player needs to put in either 10 dailies and a monthly or 20 dailies.

Irrespective of how much you play at 30mins per daily and 10 hrs per monthly it will take you either 15 hrs if you go the daily + monthly route or 10 hrs if you go the daily only route.

I agree with you that the achievement system isnt exactly a reliable method of getting extra laurels, its just a minor help here and there. Thats important though. I strongly believe in the importance that ascended gear takes a long time to get. I am sure you agree with me that for some players cosmetic rewards are just not a valid incentive. They always want BiS which means that once these players fully gear their characters Arenanet will be in a nasty position. Do they ignore these players or do they introduce a new gear tier to give them more rewards to work towards? Time gating is the only way to balance that without negatively affecting casuals. Like you say correctly going forward ascended gear acquisition will speed up because people can use dailies, crafting and fractals in parallel to gear up opening that further be removing time gating from each of these would be very bad imho because hardcore players will gear up in no time and that dreaded time when anet would need to decide if its time to introduce a new tier or not would come too quickly. At least like this they have more time to work on horizontal progression, perhaps that will be engaging enough to make non cosmetic reward players happy. Dont know.. we’ll see.

I do agree with you that as method of acquiring ascended gear dailies is a pretty boring method. There is no feeling of having truly earned it and thats a down side I agree. There is a positive side to it though that at least it just takes less then 30 mins per day you play to sort that part out. Playing the content you enjoy will get most of the daily sorted and you’ll be left with a few minutes more to sort the rest out if at all.
Whats the alternative though? I cant think of one. Unless Arenanet decide not to care about how long it takes to get a single ascended item (which like I explained would in my opinion be a bad idea) all other methods I can think of would involve unpleasant amounts of grinding for casual players and they’ll still will be less likely to keep up then they are now in my opinion.

I dont bother trying to get the tiptoppiest gear. I have alot of fun with whatever gear I come across. So I dont grind. But grinders are too short sighted to realize that and complain because they put THEMSELVES through this mindless rythem.

My main only has an ascended amulet (well 2, since I bought the wrong infusion the first go around), and that’s with me sitting on 150 laurels. Exotics are working fine for what I do still :P

Viking Jorun.5413:

Horizontal progression doesn’t involve handouts.

This has nothing to do with horizontal progression.

Considering these items are best in slot it would be about vertical progression. Thing is though, grind is not the same as either.

Grind is a separate issue from progression itself.

I do agree with the OP about gold especially. It’s poor game design (pun intended).

What we have is things that can be bought with gold or things that you need to collect one laurel per day, no matter what you do. And you can get this laurel per day quite quickly if you want, so once you got your daily, you’re done for the day.

Running dungeons gets old and pointless soon enough (grind for the sake of gold) as the dungeon rewards are lacking. One armour set per dungeon to collect and accompanying weapon sets: 90% ugly by the way.

I play this game purely casually now, just walking around the world here and there, simply because endgame is just silly grind for gold, rng for legendaries and running dungeons in 20 minutes just for …gold.

The world looks great but once you get to 80 it’s very one-dimensional in my view, so I have to agree with the OP. My opinion.

Banquetto.9521:

The grind is within you. You have a compulsion to grind, it’s obvious from every word of your post.

There is no MMO in existence or able to exist where you would not feel compelled to grind.

You need to change your approach. ArenaNet can’t change it for you.

This all over, wowza.

This thread makes my head hurt.
The end goal should always be enjoying yourself and having fun.
If you can’t, maybe you should change perspectives or take a break?

Sad to see this kind of threads popping up every now and then, when a player realizes the silver lining on the game.
+1 for OP, and I move on.

The problem is in WoW you needed BIS gear to do content and in Guild Wars 2 you do not. You can get all the way to a level 20 fractal without needing AR at all if you’re good. And by then you’d have rings and a back piece which you get from doing fractals, so you don’t need an amulet.

That’s assuming you need/want to do the highest level fractals which only a relatively small percentage of players do and people who do are generally grinders anyway.

This is compared to WoW when you were literally locked out of content if you didn’t keep doing those runs each and every week. For example, someone in my guild took a month and a half to get their ascended amulet, took two months off and came back and could play with us again. All the same dungeons. WvW. SPvP.

Try that in WoW. Take six months off, come back and see if you don’t have to play catch up.

Vayne.8563:

The problem is in WoW you needed BIS gear to do content and in Guild Wars 2 you do not. You can get all the way to a level 20 fractal without needing AR at all if you’re good. And by then you’d have rings and a back piece which you get from doing fractals, so you don’t need an amulet.

That’s assuming you need/want to do the highest level fractals which only a relatively small percentage of players do and people who do are generally grinders anyway.

This is compared to WoW when you were literally locked out of content if you didn’t keep doing those runs each and every week. For example, someone in my guild took a month and a half to get their ascended amulet, took two months off and came back and could play with us again. All the same dungeons. WvW. SPvP.

Try that in WoW. Take six months off, come back and see if you don’t have to play catch up.

I got to Fractal 24 before getting any AR.

Grinding in games can be fun… Grinding in this game is not so fun. The act of repetition isn’t fun and the rewards for it is just garbage.