Guild Wars 2

i leveled up chef to 400 cooked up all kinds off food to max out the title and get the points . i didn’t think of it as a grind at all . it was actually a lot of fun . just poking at it and trying things . seeing what i could mix together . now that i made all this food i have to eat it . and let me tell you , chewing is such a . . .

The overall issue is that Anet like many companies before them have embraced the Everquest methodology that WoW refined. That being “Stupidly hard, almost completely impossible, equates to more fun”.

People like to have a sense of achievement. They like to feel like they have accomplished something. Most people do not mind if that something takes a bit of time.

I like the example of world completion, the first time you do it you get a rush of joy at the accomplishment you did it, celebrate party time come on… however, after doing it 8 times on 8 different characters that sense of accomplishment is greatly diminished and the only reason you are doing it is for the minor rewards. Did you have to do it on all 8 characters? No. Did anyone force you to do it? No. Was it a grind and boring as hell? Yes. Was the minor rewards worth it? Maybe, clearly to you they were as you put yourself through that grind.

Now take into consideration Arah and Dungeon Completion. This dungeon is so miserably difficult that no one accept the uber elites even touch the thing. Which makes it a considerable chunk of content that is basically wasted on the majority of the player base because they don’t visit it. Even asking in guild chat if anyone would like to take a crack at Arah is a an immediate episode of chuckles and yeah rights and get out of here you fool. Personally I consider the entire dungeon of Arah a complete fail on the game designers part. However, with that I also specifically mentioned this as a perfect example of being able to get the skins from Arah in a completely different way then dealing with a ridiculously stupidly hard dungeon, primarily the PVP reward tracks. Okay I like pvp I find it fun, and look I can now get the Arah skins without even setting foot in the place even better. I understand this doesn’t work for everyone but I think this is a good example of going in the right direction to make things seem to be less of a grind by being able to acquire them in more then one way. I know I have to unlock the things on the reward track which is a grind but at least I am having fun while I am doing it.

That is what gaming is about right? Having fun? I think a lot of people are forgetting that. And every thing in the game that requires a grind optional or otherwise is a giant huge monstrous fun sucker. Tedious does not = fun.

papaiggy.1345:

Bahlol.6125:

Anet did NOT say “the game has NO grind at all” they know there is ( they made the game. lol) however, they said you don’t have to do it.

I did not read the whole thing but here are my thoughts on this topic in general:
the reason they took WvW map completion from the 100% world completion is because many servers are stuck vs way stronger servers, and never get a chance to do the WvW map completion, so that’s not something they are changing about the ‘Grind’ in the game rather its a fix for a problem.

take away the grind and make the game grind free!, everyone get dungeon master because they played the dungeon once and just for playing the game for 100 hours lets give you a legendary(that a grind for hours though) and lets not reward players who played the game days in and days out and invested many hours of game play and make em just like everyone who played the game for 3 days and quit, no more special skins for fractal grinders who played them for 100’s of hours to get that lame underwater skin that no one ever see and make it once you play an underwater fractal you automatically get the skin, and once you finish all fractals you get the fractal tonic that only a hand full of players have ATM, and once you kill a player in WvW you get the “ultimate dominator” title and kill a player in PvP and get dragon rank and finisher, I think you know where im going with this.
if you don’t want a ‘grind’ in a game maybe you should be playing a single player game not an MMORPG

You lost me at I did not read the OP but I am going to give me unfounded opinion on the topic title.

They’re making a few good points there, even without having read the OP fully.

serenke.4806:

papaiggy.1345:

Bahlol.6125:

Anet did NOT say “the game has NO grind at all” they know there is ( they made the game. lol) however, they said you don’t have to do it.

I did not read the whole thing but here are my thoughts on this topic in general:
the reason they took WvW map completion from the 100% world completion is because many servers are stuck vs way stronger servers, and never get a chance to do the WvW map completion, so that’s not something they are changing about the ‘Grind’ in the game rather its a fix for a problem.

take away the grind and make the game grind free!, everyone get dungeon master because they played the dungeon once and just for playing the game for 100 hours lets give you a legendary(that a grind for hours though) and lets not reward players who played the game days in and days out and invested many hours of game play and make em just like everyone who played the game for 3 days and quit, no more special skins for fractal grinders who played them for 100’s of hours to get that lame underwater skin that no one ever see and make it once you play an underwater fractal you automatically get the skin, and once you finish all fractals you get the fractal tonic that only a hand full of players have ATM, and once you kill a player in WvW you get the “ultimate dominator” title and kill a player in PvP and get dragon rank and finisher, I think you know where im going with this.
if you don’t want a ‘grind’ in a game maybe you should be playing a single player game not an MMORPG

You lost me at I did not read the OP but I am going to give me unfounded opinion on the topic title.

They’re making a few good points there, even without having read the OP fully.

I don’t give the respect of reading someone’s points good or otherwise who can’t give the same basic respect of reading the original post, that’s not how discussion and civil discourse works. It’s childish.

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

artificial time gates are stupid.
Its a bad mechanic. Especially ones like 100 day things. Keep people logging in by making a good game, not by limiting progress.

It doesnt really matter if someone does something that takes 24 hours, in 24 hours, a week or a month.
the same time was invested.

the type of mechanical, simulation inspired changes you are talking about, are part of why the game feels grindy.
the average person/group taking a week to master a fight is not the same as making someone wait a week to do something.

time gating isnt about making people logging in or some way around a bad game.

Think about it, why would you log in every day to get rewards in a game you dont enjoy playing? no time gate is going to force you to play a game you have no intention of playing.

A time gate is a great mechanic when it comes to remove grind.

An MMO is made up from a ton of fluff to hide cold boring mechanics.

A reward’s cost always boils down to time. If something requires 250 ectos to craft its not because it needs said raw material but because its a reward for playing x amount of time where x is the average time needed to gather 250 ectos. This however creates a ton of problems.

Player A might play 1hr per day and what they usually play gives them .5 ectos per day.
Player B might play 8hrs per day and what they do gives them 10 ectos per day.

You want your reward to “cost” 100 days but for Player A that means 50 ectos while for player B that means 1000 ecto so what do you do? You may find if you take all players in consideration that means 250 ecto but obviously thats not perfect. Far from it. You’re forcing player A to work 250 days for his reward.
You’re over rewarding Player B by giving him his reward in 25 days instead of 100. The majority of the players need to spend 100 days going after ecto.

Enter time gating. With time gating you dont need players to spend a whole day doing a specific thing so you can keep your target time cost for the reward. With laurels Anet had us spend 30 mins in game and that was enough. Hence Player A and Player B could do what they want and still both get their reward after a 100 days. Perfect timing for all.

More importantly no need to spend a whole day potentially doing something you dont enjoy only cause it gets you your reward faster.

Like you said though that also means you cannot rush your reward… is that really a bad thing though? its exactly whats causing people to feel the game super grindy. You’re compressing 100 days of work down to 25 days. Thats like working 4 jobs at once, of course its going to feel grindy!

That time gating is forcing to log in is also a fallacy really.

Yes if you dont log in, it will take you 101 days instead of 100 but then again without time gating, you could slave and get your reward in 25 days instead of 100 sure.. then again if you dont log in one day that 25 will become 26… how is it any different?

Time gating is the worst idea ever in a game in my personal opinion. Look at Charged Crystals and the numbers needed to accomplish anything to understand why I say that.

The only way to “fix” grinding is to stop making things that people want or to give people everything from the get go so they can do anything they want at any time. /thread

More content isn’t going to prevent people who want something from grinding to get it.
Content is also not infinite and if you’re someone who is home-bound and has nothing better to do than play a MMO over 8 hours a day, then any MMO (or any game for that matter) will quickly become boring, repetitive and unchallenging. Then as Arkinos.7245 pointed out on page 2, all that’s left to do is PvP, grinding or my personal favourite : playing a different game. In the gaming industry, that’s called replay value. Replay value is never infinite.

There is no way around it. Saying otherwise is just like arguing against laws of physics.

I personally find levels useless, because there is little to do as a lowbie that interests me (I hate map completion) and levelling up isn’t much of a challenge. So to me, levelling up is the worst grind in the game after map completion. I don’t do it because I like it, but because I need it to be 80 to do the things I want to do. According to the no-grind evangelists here, would this mean that levelling up should be abolished because it restricts access to content? But then there wouldn’t be much of a game if we were all level 80 from the get go would there? That’s how silly the no-grind position is.

One thing this game could really use is a metric butt-ton of side-quests like there were in Skyrim. This would keep people busy for a looooooooooong time. Have you ever finished all the quests in a game of Skyrim? In my last game, I downloaded a mod to disable fast travel. I think I’ve only managed to do half the quests in over 400 hours of gameplay but I didn’t get bored like I did in my first game when I used fast travel. I think that GW2 would have benefited from dumping waypoints in favor of mounts and portals to major cities and other key areas. Having to travel by foot (or by horse or whatever) adds to immersion, to adventure (because you get side-tracked) and lengthens the gameplay without being grindy.
Anyway… having a metric butt-ton of side-quests would add a lot of replay value.

papaiggy.1345:

serenke.4806:

papaiggy.1345:

Bahlol.6125:

Anet did NOT say “the game has NO grind at all” they know there is ( they made the game. lol) however, they said you don’t have to do it.

I did not read the whole thing but here are my thoughts on this topic in general:
the reason they took WvW map completion from the 100% world completion is because many servers are stuck vs way stronger servers, and never get a chance to do the WvW map completion, so that’s not something they are changing about the ‘Grind’ in the game rather its a fix for a problem.

take away the grind and make the game grind free!, everyone get dungeon master because they played the dungeon once and just for playing the game for 100 hours lets give you a legendary(that a grind for hours though) and lets not reward players who played the game days in and days out and invested many hours of game play and make em just like everyone who played the game for 3 days and quit, no more special skins for fractal grinders who played them for 100’s of hours to get that lame underwater skin that no one ever see and make it once you play an underwater fractal you automatically get the skin, and once you finish all fractals you get the fractal tonic that only a hand full of players have ATM, and once you kill a player in WvW you get the “ultimate dominator” title and kill a player in PvP and get dragon rank and finisher, I think you know where im going with this.
if you don’t want a ‘grind’ in a game maybe you should be playing a single player game not an MMORPG

You lost me at I did not read the OP but I am going to give me unfounded opinion on the topic title.

They’re making a few good points there, even without having read the OP fully.

I don’t give the respect of reading someone’s points good or otherwise who can’t give the same basic respect of reading the original post, that’s not how discussion and civil discourse works. It’s childish.

Childish is assuming one’s post doesnt have any valid points regardless of whether or not they read the OP. What makes you think they didnt read other threads before just like this? What makes you think none of us have hashed this out before weeks and months ago in another thread? I didnt bother reading the OP either. Frankly it was a poorly organized rant. If it had a bit more structure, I might have read the whole thing.

Needless to say, there’s nothing to change, and the last 8 pages have reiterated that. An optional grind that you find tedious is probably a grind that you should stop doing and step away from. Ascended gear? Optional (outside of level 50 fractals). Legendary? Optional. Achievement points? Optional (unless you’re an ap “hunter” trying to stay on the leaderboard). Collection achievements? Optional. Crafts to 400/500? Optional. Farming materials for the previous? Optional. Buying materials for the previous? Optional. Farming gold for all of the above activities? Optional.

Frankly, the only thing not optional in this game is gaining experience. Beyond that, everything’s optional, even logging in.

Last time I checked, there isn’t an arbitrary gear check to compete in competitive formats. The only place where there is a grind is fractals, and that’s there primarily to simulate an incentive that is necessary for progression-style content.

So no, the grind that GW2 talks about addressing is not the grind that OP is trying to refer to.

This post is going to be useless because I know that Anet is never going to go this way, but this game would have had so much more depth if toons were allowed to change classes and to level up individual classes, then have a range of skills that would require reaching a certain level on 2 or 3 different classes. This would have been great against meta gaming and by making the process of levelling up classes increasingly harder but not bound to one’s actual stats, it would still have forced people to invest time into making different toons if they wanted to exploit different classes better and faster.

Edit : Or instead of skills, traits.

papaiggy.1345:

The overall issue is that Anet like many companies before them have embraced the Everquest methodology that WoW refined. That being “Stupidly hard, almost completely impossible, equates to more fun”.

That’s partly to lay on the shoulders of players who demand harder or more challenging content. We see it all the time in the forums, and I’m sure you can find examples.

Though I find it hard to believe you really are cognizant of the difficulty of soloing in EQ vs soloing in GW2. In one game it is entirely legitimately possible.

I like the example of world completion, the first time you do it you get a rush of joy at the accomplishment you did it, celebrate party time come on… however, after doing it 8 times on 8 different characters that sense of accomplishment is greatly diminished and the only reason you are doing it is for the minor rewards. Did you have to do it on all 8 characters? No. Did anyone force you to do it? No. Was it a grind and boring as hell? Yes. Was the minor rewards worth it? Maybe, clearly to you they were as you put yourself through that grind.

Or, like me, you are doing it because you literally have no interest in doing any of the other offered activities available when logging in.

Seriously. When it’s all that’s left to do, and you still want to be playing the game . . . look, I hate PvP but even I turned to trying it in the last couple years of GW1. Because it was the last thing I had left undone.

(And I still haven’t seen the Hall of Heroes..)

That is what gaming is about right? Having fun? I think a lot of people are forgetting that. And every thing in the game that requires a grind optional or otherwise is a giant huge monotonous fun sucker. Tedious does not = fun.

All right, so what do you propose to fix it? I am curious as to what’s on your mind as a potential solution.

Ziggro.7482:

Grind for non essencial items is the reason i play this game everyday. Remove the grind and i wont want to login anymore, i LIKE to grind.

The option to grind can stay. the requirement (to get those items) could go by allowing for alternative non-grind ways to get it. So no need to worry.

Do you all realize that the time needed to write these big amounts of tekst could also have been used to grind and reaching your goals ? XD :P

metaldude.4132:

Do you all realize that the time needed to write these big amounts of tekst could also have been used to grind and reaching your goals ? XD :P

Not in my case. Heavy traffic, like someone streaming video off a computer to a television, renders GW2’s behavior kind of unstable.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If the rewards are behind quest chains, it won’t take more than a couple of days before all the information on how to do it is in wiki. With a cooperative game like this where each person gets the loot, parties of fully geared level 80s will blow right through the quests to get the reward. Unless the content is gated in some manner or is made so hard that most rage quit, they’ll run through the quests that the Devs spent weeks working on then turn around and say, “Is that all?”

It should not all be behind quest (is not all black or white), it should also not all be very hard or all be very easy. It should be mixed. Some are behind quest (chains) some behind dungeons, some for crafting, some in a JP, some behind a mob or a boss or some other special fight like Liadri. (There is also the cage where you fight different beast in Timberline-Falls what you could use as mechanic to get rewards.) Also all those things can be of different difficulties. Or you can even make different difficulty variations of the same content that reward an ‘upgraded’ version of your item. Some will be easier faster to get, other harder and longer.

Just like the grind per item is different because one item cost more the another item.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Haha. You guys are getting trolled so hard. Just look at the OP’s post history. I’ll break it down for you:

• Gem store = Evil
• Expansions every year or less.
• I know game monetization better than all the professionals that work for Anet.
• Expansions, expansions, expansions..
• Gem store = evil and if I want what is in the gem store and wish to buy it for gold it it is grind.
• If I want it and have to do anything I don’t like to do to get it, it is grind.

That’s basically it. You can keep arguing with him all you want. The results will never change.

I’ll admit I just scanned over this thread but I’m familiar with the OP’s MO. I think mostly he just likes the attention.

And no, Devata I won’t reply to what you have to say regarding my post so don’t bother. I’m not a fan of listening to broken records.

Those things you say here are indeed the main issues I have with the game. I never denied that. Well except for “If I want it and have to do anything I don’t like to do to get it, it is grind” that is pure nonsense.

While it obviously works from back to frond.

1. You are promised a B2P game with all based on cosmetics, so as someone interested in cosmetics you get to this game.

2. You notice that in this game, collecting items is one big grind and the cash-shop focus (it’s the focus, I also repeat that in all those post) seems to be the main reason. It’s for example factual true that all items in the cash-shop (or indirectly linked to the cash-shop) are only obtainable by grinding gold or buying them.

3. You complain about this cash-shop focus.

4. People say Anet has to make money.

5. You give an alternative way to make money, the expansion focus (a true B2P model).

6. People come with things like “Anet knows what they do”. (They did say the same in a thread where I did go against the temporary content, where also the devs did come back on).

7. I explain with examples that also the devs / company can make mistakes and that also players can be right.

There is a thread about people talking about the game being boring, I place a comment in that thread where a part of these steps are talked about, and the comments to that, and my reactions to that eventually lead to those steps again.
I place a comment in a thread about grind and it happens again.

That then results in what you sum up. Fact is, ever since launch GW2 has been making less and less money. There LS approach did not prevent that. Also a lot of people complain about grind in this game. So instead of only telling what I say is not true I would like to hear people as you then tell what is the problem. Why do so many people refer to GW2 as Grind Wars 2? Why did that LS not be able to keep players busy? Why keeps income dropping while Anet has been using those mechanics to try and hold them?

As I am not here just to complain for the sake of complaining I only talk about the problems I really see (what stay the same as long as Anet does not fix them in whatever way). Most other complains I did have Anet eventually did fix. I guess if I complained about everything you would tell me I complain for the sake of it, but if I stay talking about the same problem that now suddenly is a negative. Isn’t that stage?

Some people complain about almost everything, other try to defend almost everything, I keep complaining about a set of problems I see with the game.

For as long I see this as the main problem I will keep mentioning it while I already am less active in the forum. Then again I also think HoT will be the last possibility for Anet to get it right. If half a year after HoT the grind is still there and the bunch of people that came back for HoT did leave again it will be to late (not saying the game will be dead, just that it will not be able to turn right what it did wrong) so if this did not change and numbers dropped again somewhere let’s say 8 months after HoT you won’t see any of these post from me anymore. At best a “I told you so” post.

Devata.6589:

That then results in what you sum up. Fact is, ever since launch GW2 has been making less and less money. There LS approach did not prevent that. Also a lot of people complain about grind in this game. So instead of only telling what I say is not true I would like to hear people as you then tell what is the problem. Why do so many people refer to GW2 as Grind Wars 2? Why did that LS not be able to keep players busy? Why keeps income dropping while Anet has been using those mechanics to try and hold them?

The money they got from Boxxes/Coppies Sold (ppl that bought GW2) and gem store items , are shown in each quarter in the Ncsoft COMBINED
(Boxxes sold and gem store sold in China , dont show in the quarter year inc , but in the NCsof ’’Revenue’’)

When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter ?
a) More inc ?
b) Same inc ?
c) Less inc ? (ppl have bought GW2 > they dont needd to spent 60 dollars again , but IF THEY WISH they can get the Gem Store items with REA MONEY)

Income =/= amount of ppl playing (like wildstar or in WoW when they finalize the gold>buy Sub )
Some uses their REAL MONEY to buy something from the gem store , while the unknown majority benefit from the conert gold> gems (that the company dont get any cash).
They are not forced to pay 15 dollars per months .. so they can do as they please

Devata.6589:

For as long I see this as the main problem I will keep mentioning it while I already am less active in the forum. .

This is good , because it means , i will be aslo less active to the thread and forums and watch some animes :P

Kasima.8143:

The only way to “fix” grinding is to stop making things that people want or to give people everything from the get go so they can do anything they want at any time. /thread

More content isn’t going to prevent people who want something from grinding to get it.
Content is also not infinite and if you’re someone who is home-bound and has nothing better to do than play a MMO over 8 hours a day, then any MMO (or any game for that matter) will quickly become boring, repetitive and unchallenging. Then as Arkinos.7245 pointed out on page 2, all that’s left to do is PvP, grinding or my personal favourite : playing a different game. In the gaming industry, that’s called replay value. Replay value is never infinite.

There is no way around it. Saying otherwise is just like arguing against laws of physics.

I personally find levels useless, because there is little to do as a lowbie that interests me (I hate map completion) and levelling up isn’t much of a challenge. So to me, levelling up is the worst grind in the game after map completion. I don’t do it because I like it, but because I need it to be 80 to do the things I want to do. According to the no-grind evangelists here, would this mean that levelling up should be abolished because it restricts access to content? But then there wouldn’t be much of a game if we were all level 80 from the get go would there? That’s how silly the no-grind position is.

One thing this game could really use is a metric butt-ton of side-quests like there were in Skyrim. This would keep people busy for a looooooooooong time. Have you ever finished all the quests in a game of Skyrim? In my last game, I downloaded a mod to disable fast travel. I think I’ve only managed to do half the quests in over 400 hours of gameplay but I didn’t get bored like I did in my first game when I used fast travel. I think that GW2 would have benefited from dumping waypoints in favor of mounts and portals to major cities and other key areas. Having to travel by foot (or by horse or whatever) adds to immersion, to adventure (because you get side-tracked) and lengthens the gameplay without being grindy.
Anyway… having a metric butt-ton of side-quests would add a lot of replay value.

There is a difference from people grinding and the game having to be a grind when you like to work towards item. What you say was one (part) of my suggestion. Quest, then put the rewards behind them and you will have reduced the grind. That does not mean some people will stay grinding but at least there is a direct way to work towards your stuff and keep you busy this way.

But the last part of your post seems to go a little against the first part.

Aidan Savage.2078:

papaiggy.1345:

serenke.4806:

papaiggy.1345:

Bahlol.6125:

Anet did NOT say “the game has NO grind at all” they know there is ( they made the game. lol) however, they said you don’t have to do it.

I did not read the whole thing but here are my thoughts on this topic in general:
the reason they took WvW map completion from the 100% world completion is because many servers are stuck vs way stronger servers, and never get a chance to do the WvW map completion, so that’s not something they are changing about the ‘Grind’ in the game rather its a fix for a problem.

take away the grind and make the game grind free!, everyone get dungeon master because they played the dungeon once and just for playing the game for 100 hours lets give you a legendary(that a grind for hours though) and lets not reward players who played the game days in and days out and invested many hours of game play and make em just like everyone who played the game for 3 days and quit, no more special skins for fractal grinders who played them for 100’s of hours to get that lame underwater skin that no one ever see and make it once you play an underwater fractal you automatically get the skin, and once you finish all fractals you get the fractal tonic that only a hand full of players have ATM, and once you kill a player in WvW you get the “ultimate dominator” title and kill a player in PvP and get dragon rank and finisher, I think you know where im going with this.
if you don’t want a ‘grind’ in a game maybe you should be playing a single player game not an MMORPG

You lost me at I did not read the OP but I am going to give me unfounded opinion on the topic title.

They’re making a few good points there, even without having read the OP fully.

I don’t give the respect of reading someone’s points good or otherwise who can’t give the same basic respect of reading the original post, that’s not how discussion and civil discourse works. It’s childish.

Childish is assuming one’s post doesnt have any valid points regardless of whether or not they read the OP. What makes you think they didnt read other threads before just like this? What makes you think none of us have hashed this out before weeks and months ago in another thread? I didnt bother reading the OP either. Frankly it was a poorly organized rant. If it had a bit more structure, I might have read the whole thing.

Needless to say, there’s nothing to change, and the last 8 pages have reiterated that. An optional grind that you find tedious is probably a grind that you should stop doing and step away from. Ascended gear? Optional (outside of level 50 fractals). Legendary? Optional. Achievement points? Optional (unless you’re an ap “hunter” trying to stay on the leaderboard). Collection achievements? Optional. Crafts to 400/500? Optional. Farming materials for the previous? Optional. Buying materials for the previous? Optional. Farming gold for all of the above activities? Optional.

Frankly, the only thing not optional in this game is gaining experience. Beyond that, everything’s optional, even logging in.

To get those items the grind is not realistically optional, the items are optional. Now if we could make the grind to get them optional we would have made some progress.

And yes, my OP was not very structured, that’s because I first typed a comment for original thread, but then it turned out to be closed so I had to create a new topic where obviously the beginning needed to be different. That is why it was not very structured.

Not much of a rand going on btw.

metaldude.4132:

Do you all realize that the time needed to write these big amounts of tekst could also have been used to grind and reaching your goals ? XD :P

Writing this is more fun then grinding.

phys.7689:

you should never want your reward to require X days, thats the flaw.

you may want your reward to require X skill, or X effort, but deciding you want it to last 100 days basically screws up the design.

but people will get bored! see its fine for people to get bored, if they enjoyed something, they will come back.

many people get bored when they have something limiting their progress.

Now there can be some things where time may be a useful tool, or by combining it with other mechanics, create something different.
but simple hard lockouts on time, is more frustrating than it is useful imo.

You’re seeing the issue from a player perspective, I am looking at it from a developer perspective. What developers need to address primarily is the longevity of the game. Secondary its trying to have that meet what players want/need. Rewards are at the core of a game longevity. You can have the best content in the world but for most people if that content doesnt give some kind of reward they arent going to play it. That means that if developers focus on what people want but that turns out to excaust rewards too quickly the game will suffer.

Thats where fluff comes into the picture. Instead of a straight up timer for receiving a reward they do what you said, they break it down into components that feel less cold… Skill and Effort. When you have something like 250 ecto to craft item x its merely a time frame translated into effort because they believe for the majority of the players gathering those 250 ecto will take the amount of time they want that reward to be in play.

That being said you’re right.. time gates are frustrating not disagreeing with you there. The problem I believe they are facing is when you go in a direction other then vertical progression you’re kinda forced to give a long time frame to your rewards which is where the crux of the problem is in my opinion.

People find it hard to accept a reward may take up to 100 days to earn. hence without a time gate they’ll grind far more then what the developers intend to get that down substantially. Grind isnt exactly exciting either for most people and doing far more then required is what you get. So in the end I guess it will depend on the individual. What do they prefer? time gated rewards but enjoyable game play or quicker rewards but grindy game play.

Whats for sure is I dont envy the devs. Anyway they go its a minefield.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Devata.6589:

That then results in what you sum up. Fact is, ever since launch GW2 has been making less and less money. There LS approach did not prevent that. Also a lot of people complain about grind in this game. So instead of only telling what I say is not true I would like to hear people as you then tell what is the problem. Why do so many people refer to GW2 as Grind Wars 2? Why did that LS not be able to keep players busy? Why keeps income dropping while Anet has been using those mechanics to try and hold them?

The money they got from Boxxes/Coppies Sold (ppl that bought GW2) and gem store items , are shown in each quarter in the Ncsoft COMBINED
(Boxxes sold and gem store sold in China , dont show in the quarter year inc , but in the NCsof ’’Revenue’’)

When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter ?
a) More inc ?
b) Same inc ?
c) Less inc ? (ppl have bought GW2 > they dont needd to spent 60 dollars again , but IF THEY WISH they can get the Gem Store items with REA MONEY)

Income =/= amount of ppl playing (like wildstar or in WoW when they finalize the gold>buy Sub )
Some uses their REAL MONEY to buy something from the gem store , while the unknown majority benefit from the conert gold> gems (that the company dont get any cash).
They are not forced to pay 15 dollars per months .. so they can do as they please

Devata.6589:

For as long I see this as the main problem I will keep mentioning it while I already am less active in the forum. .

This is good , because it means , i will be aslo less active to the thread and forums and watch some animes :P

“When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter?”

That is why I talked about yearly expansions. So the first quarter (after initial sales) they will have made less, then the Q2 also less than with the cash-shop, 3Q also less but then the 4th will be the expansion what will make up for that lost.

Q1 of the second year will be less than Q4 with the cash-shop but also with the expansion approach. Q2 will be lest, Q3 will be less but then Q4 will be again the expansion not only making up for it but by now in total you even have more. That is at least what the number suggest.

Hope this makes it a little more clear for you.

“i will be aslo less active to the thread and forums and watch some animes” While grinding?

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

you should never want your reward to require X days, thats the flaw.

you may want your reward to require X skill, or X effort, but deciding you want it to last 100 days basically screws up the design.

but people will get bored! see its fine for people to get bored, if they enjoyed something, they will come back.

many people get bored when they have something limiting their progress.

Now there can be some things where time may be a useful tool, or by combining it with other mechanics, create something different.
but simple hard lockouts on time, is more frustrating than it is useful imo.

You’re seeing the issue from a player perspective, I am looking at it from a developer perspective. What developers need to address primarily is the longevity of the game. Secondary its trying to have that meet what players want/need. Rewards are at the core of a game longevity. You can have the best content in the world but for most people if that content doesnt give some kind of reward they arent going to play it. That means that if developers focus on what people want but that turns out to excaust rewards too quickly the game will suffer.

Thats where fluff comes into the picture. Instead of a straight up timer for receiving a reward they do what you said, they break it down into components that feel less cold… Skill and Effort. When you have something like 250 ecto to craft item x its merely a time frame translated into effort because they believe for the majority of the players gathering those 250 ecto will take the amount of time they want that reward to be in play.

That being said you’re right.. time gates are frustrating not disagreeing with you there. The problem I believe they are facing is when you go in a direction other then vertical progression you’re kinda forced to give a long time frame to your rewards which is where the crux of the problem is in my opinion.

People find it hard to accept a reward may take up to 100 days to earn. hence without a time gate they’ll grind far more then what the developers intend to get that down substantially. Grind isnt exactly exciting either for most people and doing far more then required is what you get. So in the end I guess it will depend on the individual. What do they prefer? time gated rewards but enjoyable game play or quicker rewards but grindy game play.

Whats for sure is I dont envy the devs. Anyway they go its a minefield.

longevity doesnt really come before player satisfaction, you will lose too many players. Also you get more people hooked by giving them satisfying rewards each time. Like when you give a dog a treat.

Something that requires 100 days before you get any satisfaction isnt really a good plan.

This is why i say that was mistake. They have to reward the journey, and have many satisfying points along the way.

Its like, if you get some subways cupon where you have visit 30 times and you get a free meal, its too far away, i would just throw it in the garbage. Unless, you were planning to go 30 days anyhow, in which case the coupon isnt keeping you interested.

Devata.6589:

That is why I talked about yearly expansions. So the first quarter (after initial sales) they will have made less, then the Q2 also less than with the cash-shop, 3Q also less but then the 4th will be the expansion what will make up for that lost.

.
Let them do the expirement , with the x-pack and we will see
If they see that the cost to make the x-pack -VS- boxxes sold -VS- money they got is really not worth it , they will change plans again
Or how long based on that creteria rush to sell 1-year x-pack , or slowly take their time and sell every 2years
And if the cost of the 2-week LS is affortable enought

Devata.6589:

“i will be aslo less active to the thread and forums and watch some animes” While grinding?

Noooooo!!
You got me :P

After the ‘’lash out’’ in my ‘’burnout stage’’ i need some solitude time with drinking and watching animes :P

JustTrogdor.7892:

Haha. You guys are getting trolled so hard. Just look at the OP’s post history. I’ll break it down for you:

• Gem store = Evil
• Expansions every year or less.
• I know game monetization better than all the professionals that work for Anet.
• Expansions, expansions, expansions..
• Gem store = evil and if I want what is in the gem store and wish to buy it for gold it it is grind.
• If I want it and have to do anything I don’t like to do to get it, it is grind.

That’s basically it. You can keep arguing with him all you want. The results will never change.

I’ll admit I just scanned over this thread but I’m familiar with the OP’s MO. I think mostly he just likes the attention.

And no, Devata I won’t reply to what you have to say regarding my post so don’t bother. I’m not a fan of listening to broken records.

Yeah I figured this out after reading through his first couple posts. I skipped the rest of them, the majority of the posts here. Considering how long this thread has become and how repetitive, skipping anything posted by him really lessens the grind of reading through it.

The thing that really matters is that he thinks having things locked behind specific content is a good thing and will post pages about it. Since I think that is how real grind happens I haven’t taken him seriously since.

Devata.6589:

Writing this is more fun then grinding.

I like how he calls himself out on trolling…

tigirius.9014:

People keep forgetting that not everyone has the same access to loot in this game.

And this still hasn’t been explained.

Age.4190:

It didn’t have the grind that this GW2 has and depending on what game.I know in PWI if you got the cash you can be leveled fast.

Lol yes, GW1 absolutely does have as much grind as GW2. In fact, in Factions there is one instance of required grind to even progress to the next mission. (Yeah, gather 10k faction, I’m looking at you). By the end of the game, if you were still pugging, especially the higher end areas, groups required higher levels of the pve skills…which required title grind (light bringer, ebon vanguard, etc). The base leveling process in Prophecies was a “grind” (bu many people’s definition of the term), if you played the game “as intended” you didn’t even reach 20 until you hit the desert, doing crap ton of killing and questing along the way.

I really like how people claim GW1 has no grind or less grind than it’s sequel. It’s absolutely not true. As someone that played GW1 for more than 7 years, I know better.

eithinan.9841:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Haha. You guys are getting trolled so hard. Just look at the OP’s post history. I’ll break it down for you:

• Gem store = Evil
• Expansions every year or less.
• I know game monetization better than all the professionals that work for Anet.
• Expansions, expansions, expansions..
• Gem store = evil and if I want what is in the gem store and wish to buy it for gold it it is grind.
• If I want it and have to do anything I don’t like to do to get it, it is grind.

That’s basically it. You can keep arguing with him all you want. The results will never change.

I’ll admit I just scanned over this thread but I’m familiar with the OP’s MO. I think mostly he just likes the attention.

And no, Devata I won’t reply to what you have to say regarding my post so don’t bother. I’m not a fan of listening to broken records.

Yeah I figured this out after reading through his first couple posts. I skipped the rest of them, the majority of the posts here. Considering how long this thread has become and how repetitive, skipping anything posted by him really lessens the grind of reading through it.

The thing that really matters is that he thinks having things locked behind specific content is a good thing and will post pages about it. Since I think that is how real grind happens I haven’t taken him seriously since.

Devata.6589:

Writing this is more fun then grinding.

I like how he calls himself out on trolling…

tigirius.9014:

People keep forgetting that not everyone has the same access to loot in this game.

And this still hasn’t been explained.

“The thing that really matters is that he thinks having things locked behind specific content” I usually talk about ‘placed behind’ content but then the gold grind option is still there. If would have read the comments you would have known that.

“Since I think that is how real grind happens I haven’t taken him seriously since.”
Not sure how that would make anything more of a grind. Now if you want for example the lightning Kite you can only grind gold for it, in my option you can still grind gold for it and (for example) complete a specific dungeon. So adding that option creates more of a grind..? And you don’t take me serious for suggesting that?

Besides I also said that what somebody considers grind really depends on your preferred game-play, again if you did read the comments you would have known that.
“

Writing this is more fun then grinding.

I like how he calls himself out on trolling…”

You think that was a troll? Lol, that was completely serious. The person I reacted on suggested we could have grinded in the time we were on the forums. But I rather post a comment here then that I am grinding for gold. No troll, 100% serious.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

you should never want your reward to require X days, thats the flaw.

you may want your reward to require X skill, or X effort, but deciding you want it to last 100 days basically screws up the design.

but people will get bored! see its fine for people to get bored, if they enjoyed something, they will come back.

many people get bored when they have something limiting their progress.

Now there can be some things where time may be a useful tool, or by combining it with other mechanics, create something different.
but simple hard lockouts on time, is more frustrating than it is useful imo.

You’re seeing the issue from a player perspective, I am looking at it from a developer perspective. What developers need to address primarily is the longevity of the game. Secondary its trying to have that meet what players want/need. Rewards are at the core of a game longevity. You can have the best content in the world but for most people if that content doesnt give some kind of reward they arent going to play it. That means that if developers focus on what people want but that turns out to excaust rewards too quickly the game will suffer.

Thats where fluff comes into the picture. Instead of a straight up timer for receiving a reward they do what you said, they break it down into components that feel less cold… Skill and Effort. When you have something like 250 ecto to craft item x its merely a time frame translated into effort because they believe for the majority of the players gathering those 250 ecto will take the amount of time they want that reward to be in play.

That being said you’re right.. time gates are frustrating not disagreeing with you there. The problem I believe they are facing is when you go in a direction other then vertical progression you’re kinda forced to give a long time frame to your rewards which is where the crux of the problem is in my opinion.

People find it hard to accept a reward may take up to 100 days to earn. hence without a time gate they’ll grind far more then what the developers intend to get that down substantially. Grind isnt exactly exciting either for most people and doing far more then required is what you get. So in the end I guess it will depend on the individual. What do they prefer? time gated rewards but enjoyable game play or quicker rewards but grindy game play.

Whats for sure is I dont envy the devs. Anyway they go its a minefield.

longevity doesnt really come before player satisfaction, you will lose too many players. Also you get more people hooked by giving them satisfying rewards each time. Like when you give a dog a treat.

Something that requires 100 days before you get any satisfaction isnt really a good plan.

This is why i say that was mistake. They have to reward the journey, and have many satisfying points along the way.

Its like, if you get some subways cupon where you have visit 30 times and you get a free meal, its too far away, i would just throw it in the garbage. Unless, you were planning to go 30 days anyhow, in which case the coupon isnt keeping you interested.

Psychologically this doesn’t really hold up. There are some people who are actually more inclined to stay if they only get rewarded rarely.

Devata.6589:

“When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter?”

That is why I talked about yearly expansions. So the first quarter (after initial sales) they will have made less, then the Q2 also less than with the cash-shop, 3Q also less but then the 4th will be the expansion what will make up for that lost.

Are you familiar with project management triangle? you have 3 items on said triangle. Cost, Scope and Schedule. Project management rules state you can only focus on two of those at a time. So you can control how long a project takes but you have to sacrifice cost or scope. A Developer like arenanet just dont get control on cost. I am sure they cant wake up tomorrow and ask NCSoft to triple their personnel it just will not be approved which means they’d have no choice but to sacrifice scope. Is it really something we want? We dont know when they started working on hearts of torns, we dont know what scope it has but based on what is being said I dont feel it something that can afford to have its scope 1/2 or 1/3 so that they can push it out each year rather then each 2 – 3 years.

Truth be told I think LS and Expansion need to both exist to keep this scope. they may have only made 19 per quarter but thats probably more then enough to sustain a team of 350 people and keep ncsoft happy until the big expansion payouts. People like to quote blizzard numbers on how 350 people is not that big of a team but when we get to know team after team of different mmos 350 seems the largest team after blizzard. This week we got to know cryptic let go 18 employees unfortunately whats more its been reported that 18 was 14% of the company which means they had 128 people working on both neverwinter, startrek online and champions online.

I disagree with the “all grind is the same” point of view.
Even if by definition everything we do in a game is ultimately optional, there’s a big difference between content gated behind grind, than just grind for cosmetic stuff or things that don’t unlock content.

phys.7689:

longevity doesnt really come before player satisfaction, you will lose too many players. Also you get more people hooked by giving them satisfying rewards each time. Like when you give a dog a treat.

Yes if you can keep giving out threats at that pace. Of course thats the ideal scenario but whats better getting a reward every week for a month and then 2 months of no rewards at all or you get a piece of the reward each week until in 3 months you finally get the big reward and something new to work for?

I think its way more likely to loose more players in the first scenario then the 2nd personally.

phys.7689:

Something that requires 100 days before you get any satisfaction isnt really a good plan.

Game developers know that and they cheat to get around it. There is a reason why something that is long term requires 250 of this and 250 of that. So that you’re not really left with 100 days of no rewards but simply small threats each and every day until you finally get the big threat once you’re done collecting the small threats.

Works like that in real life too. A single month of wage is not really something to write home about. (provided you’re not part of the 1% of course ) Its not going to change your world, all it will allow you to do is pay your expensive, have something to eat, pay some of that debt and perhaps have something left for entertainment. 6 months – a year down the line that little wage means you get a car, a new tv, go on holiday, etc.. thats the big goal but even though you’re not getting the big goal on pay day 1 it doesnt mean you’re not happy with the little money you manage to save that brings you a little closer I dont think thats really the main issue here.

phys.7689:

This is why i say that was mistake. They have to reward the journey, and have many satisfying points along the way.

Its like, if you get some subways cupon where you have visit 30 times and you get a free meal, its too far away, i would just throw it in the garbage. Unless, you were planning to go 30 days anyhow, in which case the coupon isnt keeping you interested.

from where I am sitting its exactly what they’ve done. Reward the journey is a big reason why this is my favourite MMO. Just look at dynamic events. Just recently I had a discussion with someone who said DE are a gimmick because they dont change anything and he mentioned the aquadot event near shaemoor specially. Now while i remembered how if the water gets poisoned people got sick in shaemoor i just couldnt remember what happens if the pipes get blown up. Yesterday I was goofing around testing the new camera and FOV and where better to do that then on one of those pipes overlooking divinity’s reach? Sure enough that event played out and I was a alone so the bandits blew up the pipes one by one… the moment 1 pipe blew up I could see irrigation one of the towers down the valley stop watering the crops and while that alone already makes the journey rewarding enough but Anet didnt even stop there.

1. the irrigation towers didnt all stop the moment the event failed, each pipe was feeding a tower and the moment the corresponding pipe blew up the tower dried up without the event having to finish first

2. once a pipe blew up the water didnt just stop immediately, no thats not enough for Anet, for a couple of seconds nothing happens then the water pressure starts to drop and the water spray starts getting smaller and its range starts getting smaller until it drys up.

Just think how much work went into that, work that really does add anything to the game per-se, in the sense that because of that detail its not like players are kept busy for an extra hour or make combat more exciting etc.. Its their to simply reward the journey. Its just beautiful to see if you see it because lets not forget generally you’re busy fighting the bandits at this point not looking down the valley. Case in point i did this even quite a few times yet never seem to notice this (I dont think I would have forgotten something like this otherwise)

But this brings us back to our discussion, how you play the game and grind / rewards. If what you’re doing is trying to get to the reward quickly you dont care what’s happening to the environment you only care where the next source of income is and thus will make you feel like the journey is not that rewarding. If you make the reward something secondary to the game experience, that changes things? This journey is rewarded like no other MMO has ever rewarded a journey in my experience.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Devata.6589:

To get those items the grind is not realistically optional

the items are optional.

Now if we could make the grind to get them optional we would have made some progress.

Seriously? It cant be that hard to understand. If the item is optional, the grind is optional. Why? Because there’s no need to grind if you dont want said item. You need to redefine your idea of what a “grind” really is. Or stop playing mmos.

Frankly I’m done with this troll thread. OP’s just an attention seeking Kitten.

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

In fact, while you seem to find it hard to understand this difference you even touch it in your explanation.

“Because there’s no need to grind if you dont want said item” So if you want to get the item / to get the item, it is required. Exactly what I said.

You can act like if your mad and can’t believe what I am saying, the only problem is, you complain is not based on what I said but based on what you made of it. So really, you are mad on your own idea. Trying to dismiss something this way even as a name, is called a staw man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man .

You can call me names whatever you like, that does not change the facts.

And why should I stop playing MMO’s when I see that grind as a problem? There are plenty mmo’s where this is no problem. So it’s really not a problem on my side but a problem in GW2. (and likely also some other MMO’s, but not all).

Also the fact that the grind topics keep popping up shows I am not the only person noticing the grind.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Age.4190:

It didn’t have the grind that this GW2 has and depending on what game.I know in PWI if you got the cash you can be leveled fast.

Lol yes, GW1 absolutely does have as much grind as GW2. In fact, in Factions there is one instance of required grind to even progress to the next mission. (Yeah, gather 10k faction, I’m looking at you). By the end of the game, if you were still pugging, especially the higher end areas, groups required higher levels of the pve skills…which required title grind (light bringer, ebon vanguard, etc). The base leveling process in Prophecies was a “grind” (bu many people’s definition of the term), if you played the game “as intended” you didn’t even reach 20 until you hit the desert, doing crap ton of killing and questing along the way.

I really like how people claim GW1 has no grind or less grind than it’s sequel. It’s absolutely not true. As someone that played GW1 for more than 7 years, I know better.

you’re right, people keep saying you level really quickly in gw1 but thats only true with the shortcuts they gave in the campaigns. in Prophecies I am pretty sure it took longer then it does in gw2 or at least just as long.

Devata.6589:

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

Just for clarification purposes I feel this statement "(All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. " is wrong. you dont need to grind to get any item in game. I can log in today play whatever I choose and it will get me that little closer to whatever reward I am interested in be it an ascended piece of gear, a named exotic or even a legendary weapon. That means that even if you want to get an item grinding is still something optional. You can engage in grinding and get the item faster or you can choose not to grind for it and still get it abit in a longer time period.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

Just for clarification purposes I feel this statement "(All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. " is wrong. you dont need to grind to get any item in game. I can log in today play whatever I choose and it will get me that little closer to whatever reward I am interested in be it an ascended piece of gear, a named exotic or even a legendary weapon. That means that even if you want to get an item grinding is still something optional. You can engage in grinding and get the item faster or you can choose not to grind for it and still get it abit in a longer time period.

I have five legendaries and I didn’t grind for any of them.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Blude.6812:

Azhure.1857:

Blude.6812:

Azhure.1857:

Lo and behold, the forum goers have done it again…
Fighting for hours, days, even weeks on end.
Running in circles trying to attain that magical and elusive grand prize:

Consensus--This amulet radiates power and hums a low tune. (Special effect: Randomly plays General Lee’s Dixie horn when a player jumps with this item equipped.)

• +42 Power
• +42 Precision
• +42 Toughness
• +42 Vitality
• +42 Condition Damage
• +42 Ferocity
• +42 Healing Power
• +100% to Magic Find

This thread is such a grind.

It’s optional—-you don’t have to read it—so therefore it is not a grind. LOL

You’re the best. * highfive *
Love it. Thank you.

You are more than welcome! fistbump

I read this post and it was so amusing I read it again. But it wasn’t quite as funny the second time. My reward for reading it was less. Then I read it a third time when proof reading my response. Man. What a grind.

Didn’t ANet promise no grinding in the forum? They lied to us! >.>

LOL!!! time to merge with all the other posts to increase (nonexistant) grind.

Devata.6589:

“Because there’s no need to grind if you dont want said item” So if you want to get the item / to get the item, it is required. Exactly what I said.

This statement right here highlights that the choice is in fact yours. You are making the choice to chase something, and as such you must work for it. That work comes in the form of grinding, which you don’t like. What do you want them to do? Just hand it to you if you decide you want something? A certain amount of work has to be involved to keep the game engaging.

. . . oh goodness it derailed again into discussing whether it’s optional or not.

You know, you’d think after eight pages it’d stop being a thing to bait the OP into this argument which is off the original topic. Well, you would if you haven’t been around the forum at all this last year.

Sigh.

. . . When’s the Dragons of Tarkir pre-release again?

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

“When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter?”

That is why I talked about yearly expansions. So the first quarter (after initial sales) they will have made less, then the Q2 also less than with the cash-shop, 3Q also less but then the 4th will be the expansion what will make up for that lost.

Are you familiar with project management triangle? you have 3 items on said triangle. Cost, Scope and Schedule. Project management rules state you can only focus on two of those at a time. So you can control how long a project takes but you have to sacrifice cost or scope. A Developer like arenanet just dont get control on cost. I am sure they cant wake up tomorrow and ask NCSoft to triple their personnel it just will not be approved which means they’d have no choice but to sacrifice scope. Is it really something we want? We dont know when they started working on hearts of torns, we dont know what scope it has but based on what is being said I dont feel it something that can afford to have its scope 1/2 or 1/3 so that they can push it out each year rather then each 2 – 3 years.

Truth be told I think LS and Expansion need to both exist to keep this scope. they may have only made 19 per quarter but thats probably more then enough to sustain a team of 350 people and keep ncsoft happy until the big expansion payouts. People like to quote blizzard numbers on how 350 people is not that big of a team but when we get to know team after team of different mmos 350 seems the largest team after blizzard. This week we got to know cryptic let go 18 employees unfortunately whats more its been reported that 18 was 14% of the company which means they had 128 people working on both neverwinter, startrek online and champions online.

The scope compared too what? If they would push out an expansion a year I would personally be fine with those expansions being a little smaller then your average expansion you see in a game like WoW that pushes out an expansion every 2 years. Or they could do one smaller expansion and then one bigger and then small again and so on.

So yes I would personally be fine with a smaller scope if they pushed it out every year.

About when they started with HoT, based on what developers said (indirectly) it seems like they had some things going on for a longer time but the biggest part of the development for HoT started after the Chinese release was up and running.

For example, in one interview (I think with Angry Joe) Colin was asked why it took 3 years, on what Colin said that the Chinese release had a lot of their attention. In another interview (or maybe the same) they also said something like they first went for the LS but now decided to go for this (mixed) approach. Of course we also know they recently hired a raid guy. Bare in mind, I say this all out of memory, things might been said slightly different.

It’s hard to say when HoT will be released but lets say they they release it on the 3 year anniversary and we assume that the biggest part of the development indeed started after the Chinese release, that means the bulk of the work will have taken them 1 to 1.5 year. And that is then while also having been pushing out LS. Besides, because people have been waiting for 3 years they likely expect a very big scope now (so that is another possible trap).

Maybe this thread should be shut down considering all the references to other games by name going on. I think that’s a violation of TOS?

coso.9173:

I disagree with the “all grind is the same” point of view.
Even if by definition everything we do in a game is ultimately optional, there’s a big difference between content gated behind grind, than just grind for cosmetic stuff or things that don’t unlock content.

That completely depends on the player/ play-style. If the content locked behind grind is not content you are interested in but you are interested in the cosmetic. How is that then different for that person.

It isn’t. He then has to grind to get what he wants. Just as the guy who would want to do the content but needs to grind for it to be able to do it.

Sure theoretically you can say “well he might not be interested in the content but he can do it” and sure that is true but that’s is irrelevant for him because he does not care for that content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

Just for clarification purposes I feel this statement "(All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. " is wrong. you dont need to grind to get any item in game. I can log in today play whatever I choose and it will get me that little closer to whatever reward I am interested in be it an ascended piece of gear, a named exotic or even a legendary weapon. That means that even if you want to get an item grinding is still something optional. You can engage in grinding and get the item faster or you can choose not to grind for it and still get it abit in a longer time period.

Sure, that is theoretically correct but as I already said before reality is different. One looking at one item yes, when you have multiple you like and of all the items they add every month there would for example be one you would add to your list it you would get hopelessly behind.

Also we where taking in the context of getting that item.. So thats the goal. Then you can only do that by getting gold. What you say here is.. forget about the items, and remember is when you got the money by doing other things. Sure but then the goal is not getting the item anymore.

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

Just for clarification purposes I feel this statement "(All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. " is wrong. you dont need to grind to get any item in game. I can log in today play whatever I choose and it will get me that little closer to whatever reward I am interested in be it an ascended piece of gear, a named exotic or even a legendary weapon. That means that even if you want to get an item grinding is still something optional. You can engage in grinding and get the item faster or you can choose not to grind for it and still get it abit in a longer time period.

I have five legendaries and I didn’t grind for any of them.

I did play the game, a lot for 1,5 year, after that less. I have one precursor (that somebody gave to me), don’t have world completion, don’t have most of the materials and have about 150 gold. (All gold combined I would have had much more but considering everything cost gold there is not much saving when you like cosmetics) So that is still a long way to go. And that is when I do as you say “play what you want, don’t grind.”.

Now I don’t mind that I do not have it yet, I never actually started to work for the legendary, but the reason for that is because also that is for the most part just a big grind. If it seemed like a fun interesting challenge (also if it took long) I would have, but this boring grind, no thanks. Who knows, maybe once.

I also wanted infinity light. That one I did at one point actively try to get. Read about a place where I could farm the charged lodestones. The problem was that the mobs I had to kill where not there all the time (depended on some state). I did go there multiple times, not sure how many hours I actively killed them but I think about 5, I did not get a single charged lodestone and maybe 5 cores. Knowing I needed 250 charged lodestone I also stopped with that (this is not a realistic farm). I even had multiple guild-members sending me the ones they had and got. At this moment if I was to combine all cores and add that to the charged lodestones I already have I would have 48 charged lodestones. Still far away from 250. Turned out grinding gold was the best way to get them, but that I will not do.

So while you might somehow manage to get those things without grinding, that is not true or realistic for most people I can tell you.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

“Because there’s no need to grind if you dont want said item” So if you want to get the item / to get the item, it is required. Exactly what I said.

This statement right here highlights that the choice is in fact yours. You are making the choice to chase something, and as such you must work for it. That work comes in the form of grinding, which you don’t like. What do you want them to do? Just hand it to you if you decide you want something? A certain amount of work has to be involved to keep the game engaging.

“What do you want them to do?” If I would answer this then people would complain again I keep repeating myself because I think repeating myself means I am right. (Or something like that) But of course I repeat myself because of these sorts of questions.

Anyway, yes it’s choice, just as it’s choice to play this game. I also choose not to do this grind. But I would like to work towards the items. Just not by grinding gold for 90% of them but by actively working towards them, having fun doing that. I also did this in other MMO’s. Grind is not the only way. The other ways to do that I gave in multiple other comments. Liadri would be one example.

Devata.6589:

Anyway, yes it’s choice, just as it’s choice to play this game. I also choose not to do this grind. But I would like to work towards the items. Just not by grinding gold for 90% of them but by actively working towards them, having fun doing that. I also did this in other MMO’s. Grind is not the only way. The other ways to do that I gave in multiple other comments. Liadri would be one example.

You’re simply replacing one grind with a variety of others, I’m going to point out again. Some of which people may not want to do.

Sure, we can keep the old Gold grind in there . . . but then what’s the point of the other ones if players can still just say “screw it” and grind gold rather than take the other path?

His point is simple … add more ways for people to grind so they can choose the method that suits them. The problem is that it’s not the method that’s the issue because we have MANY methods we can choose to earn rewards. The REAL issue is that there is a gold standard. The unfortunate part of these ‘grind’ threads don’t recognize that this will always be the primary reward in the game.

Obtena.7952:

His point is simple … add more ways for people to grind so they can choose the method that suits them. The problem is that it’s not the method that’s the issue because we have MANY methods we can choose to earn rewards. The REAL issue is that there is a gold standard. The unfortunate part of these ‘grind’ threads don’t recognize that this will always be the primary reward in the game.

Well there needs to be some form of primary reward structure/use otherwise you wind up with an . . . interesting . . . type of economic system. (Been party to at least three in my MMO years.)

And my point above was more simple – as long as it is possible to just mindlessly grind gold and get it? There’s little point to alternate paths since a significant people are going to take the path of least mental resistance. Why?

. . . because Gold can be used more broadly. If they change their minds halfway, or something else comes along they want to buy, they can alter course and throw Gold at those things. Harder to do when it’s not interchangeable.

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

“Because there’s no need to grind if you dont want said item” So if you want to get the item / to get the item, it is required. Exactly what I said.

This statement right here highlights that the choice is in fact yours. You are making the choice to chase something, and as such you must work for it. That work comes in the form of grinding, which you don’t like. What do you want them to do? Just hand it to you if you decide you want something? A certain amount of work has to be involved to keep the game engaging.

“What do you want them to do?” If I would answer this then people would complain again I keep repeating myself because I think repeating myself means I am right. (Or something like that) But of course I repeat myself because of these sorts of questions.

Anyway, yes it’s choice, just as it’s choice to play this game. I also choose not to do this grind. But I would like to work towards the items. Just not by grinding gold for 90% of them but by actively working towards them, having fun doing that. I also did this in other MMO’s. Grind is not the only way. The other ways to do that I gave in multiple other comments. Liadri would be one example.

The problem is Deveta, in either instance you end up grinding for the item you’re hunting. They cannot just give it to you after one or two passes of the content (be it a mob kill, a quest chain, a boss, etc). You’re going to have to do it again, and again, and again, and again, which equates to grind. Then you’d come back with the exact same complaint you have now – you can’t achieve whatever it is you’re after without grind. Grind is a necessary evil in the longevity of these types of games. Be it grinding for gold or grinding for loot.

I see no grind at all sure if you rush all the content and have nothing to do but grind then thats your own fault.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

Anyway, yes it’s choice, just as it’s choice to play this game. I also choose not to do this grind. But I would like to work towards the items. Just not by grinding gold for 90% of them but by actively working towards them, having fun doing that. I also did this in other MMO’s. Grind is not the only way. The other ways to do that I gave in multiple other comments. Liadri would be one example.

You’re simply replacing one grind with a variety of others, I’m going to point out again. Some of which people may not want to do.

Sure, we can keep the old Gold grind in there . . . but then what’s the point of the other ones if players can still just say “screw it” and grind gold rather than take the other path?

For me personally the gold-grind could go. But while some people in this thread basically don’t want to hear anything that could make it more fun for other players (and if people make suggestions to help other type of players they strongly go against it). I do take people with other tastes into consideration.

That is why I say many items would not have to be account-bound (while I personally have no problem if they are, imho it would add more value to the item) so that people who like this grind can still do so. Also the argument of “People can then simply play what they want and get the reward that way” would also still be valid.

So that is why I would still allow that. Not so much for me personally but so the grinders can still grind and Anet can still say people can play the way they want. However now all those people who do not want to grind can also play the game the way they want by directly working towards those items. That is why I make my suggestion. Especially as I think for a game like GW2 (that is so build around cosmetics) this type of players is a big part of the player-base, many of them have maybe left already but will come back with HoT.

About it still being a grind but a different one. As for the RNG part that is of course personal but at the very least it’s cut in smaller chunks and then for the not RNG part it’s something you do ones and be rewarded, I don’t think that fits any definition of grind. And people can then work directly towards the items.

Devata.6589:

metaldude.4132:

Do you all realize that the time needed to write these big amounts of tekst could also have been used to grind and reaching your goals ? XD :P

Writing this is more fun then grinding.

So does reading it..proceed XD