Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

Unique.9351:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”- Mike O’Brien

What happened Anet? You said you didn’t want it to be a grinding game but it is and with more updates that you come out, you are not lowering the grinding of the game but you’re increasing it. Example? Ascended Weapon. The new halloween weapon.

I’ve grinded so much in this game its unbelievable spending over 400g to try and get dusk with no luck, farming hours and hours with no luck, and it is coming to the point where the only thing which is farming champs is becoming boring. I have 6 level 80s and sometimes i have nothing at all to do. I have no legendary but thats because i dont want to spend hour and hours grinding for it. I would do it if it wasn’t such a bore to do.

Please please please make this game less grindy like you said you would!

Discuss Freely =]

Emphasis added by me. They didn’t say you wouldn’t have to grind for anything. They said excessive grinds would be reserved for cosmetic upgrades, not stat upgrades.

There’s nothing in there about not time-gating content. I am not a fan of how ANET is handling grinds (note my strenuous objections to the Halloween 10k grind), but I wish people would quit taking this statement out of context and using it to apply to whatever is making them unhappy currently.

I get that ascended gear deviates from this statement, but of course things change over time.

“I wish people would quit taking this statement out of context and using it to apply to whatever is making them unhappy currently.”

Am not unhappy at all. I have my exotic items/weapons/trinkets on all 6 character. But what do i do now? I have to aim for the next big thing which is ascended/legendary gear, but the only thing about it is that it is a bore to do. Why couldn’t they make ascended gear like exotic item, perhaps from a new dungeon which is level 80+ and requires the personal storyline finished? Now am pretty sure i could have had at least 1 legendary if i didn’t make 6 character but i like having a variety (and i like mix and matching armours)

Vayne.8563:

a t s e.9614:

That’s actually a big lie . In gw1 there was 0 grind and 0 gear progression .
You could have the ugliest looking gear with the same stats as the coolest .
Gw2 is probably less grindy than 95% of Mmos but adding a new
Tier of gear is a grind to me . I can logg back in my gw1 account and
I will have the same stats as somebody who never left gw1 which is not the case for gw2 . If you havent played since launch and you comw back you are undergeared .

But it doesn’t mean there was no grind. There was no grind for gear stats. You still can’t say you didn’t have advantages by grinding for other power things. You got advantage even by grinding wisdom, luck and unlucky titles. You got advantage by grinding your Lightbringer, Sunspear, Luxon/Kurzick titles. You got advantage by grinding all four eye of the north titles.

If you don’t remember people asking for rank 8 Ursans, I certainly do.

And if you happened to want Obsidian or Vabbian armor, the grind was legenadry, never mind if you wanted a celestial compass or a frog scepter.

The stats may be the same, but if you wanted the skins, you had to grind.

Didn’t have to grind for r8 eye of the north title. I did regular dungeon and i got all of them maxed. I had celestial compass, obsidian armour along with 4 other type of armour but its nothing compared to gw2

GettIng Dusk is purely a cosmetic thing. I don’t see why that’s different to what they promised.

Unique.9351:

Vayne.8563:

a t s e.9614:

That’s actually a big lie . In gw1 there was 0 grind and 0 gear progression .
You could have the ugliest looking gear with the same stats as the coolest .
Gw2 is probably less grindy than 95% of Mmos but adding a new
Tier of gear is a grind to me . I can logg back in my gw1 account and
I will have the same stats as somebody who never left gw1 which is not the case for gw2 . If you havent played since launch and you comw back you are undergeared .

But it doesn’t mean there was no grind. There was no grind for gear stats. You still can’t say you didn’t have advantages by grinding for other power things. You got advantage even by grinding wisdom, luck and unlucky titles. You got advantage by grinding your Lightbringer, Sunspear, Luxon/Kurzick titles. You got advantage by grinding all four eye of the north titles.

If you don’t remember people asking for rank 8 Ursans, I certainly do.

And if you happened to want Obsidian or Vabbian armor, the grind was legenadry, never mind if you wanted a celestial compass or a frog scepter.

The stats may be the same, but if you wanted the skins, you had to grind.

Didn’t have to grind for r8 eye of the north title. I did regular dungeon and i got all of them maxed. I had celestial compass, obsidian armour along with 4 other type of armour but its nothing compared to gw2

Sorry but all dungeons in Eye of the North awarded deldrimor points, not Norn points which you needed. And grinding dungeons is still grinding no matter what you say. That is to say, if you don’t like running dungeons and many people don’t, you need to grind for those titles.

I say I can get a legendary weapon without grinding, because I can take my time and just get what drops…but it’s going to take a long time. Legendary weapons are obviously grindy. And you were grinding dungeons, presumably to fill books, to get your rank 8 ursan. Which didn’t matter because Luxon/Kurzick, Luck, Wisdom and Lightbringer were all far more grindy anyway.

You don’t get to pick and choose grind. If there’s grind there’s grind. Denying it doesn’t change the fact that it existed.

Ok, I’m sat in a hotel in San Francisco this week, so I’m away from my gaming pc and needed something to do, so I resubbed to WoW and as the guy above says, the “Grind” in GW2 is actually worse than WoW now
In one evening I took my 85 warrior to 90, geared for LFR through doing the new dungeons, then geared for raiding over a few nights (not completed, but already got two armour piece and new weapon) with the LFR
When GW2 is actually HARDER to get the highest level gear than games like WoW, there is a massive shift and not a good one

Now we all know, FOR A FACT, that the manifesto was out the window early on (although it would have been nice to know that on day one of release rather than after the games 1st b’day), but GW2 does have incredible grind

Vayne.8563:

You don’t get to pick and choose grind. If there’s grind there’s grind. Denying it doesn’t change the fact that it existed.

I commend you for saying this. Now, as you were the person to say this, I beseech you to take you advice and stop denying that there is indeed a grind in GW2 and we can get be done with this topic.

On the topic of GW dungeons, I believe one didn’t give Deld points, but GW also had double weekends that made that grind less sufferable and it wasn’t based on RNG.

Lonesamurai.4852:

Ok, I’m sat in a hotel in San Francisco this week, so I’m away from my gaming pc and needed something to do, so I resubbed to WoW and as the guy above says, the “Grind” in GW2 is actually worse than WoW now
In one evening I took my 85 warrior to 90, geared for LFR through doing the new dungeons, then geared for raiding over a few nights (not completed, but already got two armour piece and new weapon) with the LFR
When GW2 is actually HARDER to get the highest level gear than games like WoW, there is a massive shift and not a good one

Now we all know, FOR A FACT, that the manifesto was out the window early on (although it would have been nice to know that on day one of release rather than after the games 1st b’day), but GW2 does have incredible grind

Go through Timeless Isle, you’ll have that warrior geared pretty quick for LFR SoO. I’d say about 2 – 3 hours.

Vayne.8563:

Unique.9351:

Vayne.8563:

a t s e.9614:

That’s actually a big lie . In gw1 there was 0 grind and 0 gear progression .
You could have the ugliest looking gear with the same stats as the coolest .
Gw2 is probably less grindy than 95% of Mmos but adding a new
Tier of gear is a grind to me . I can logg back in my gw1 account and
I will have the same stats as somebody who never left gw1 which is not the case for gw2 . If you havent played since launch and you comw back you are undergeared .

But it doesn’t mean there was no grind. There was no grind for gear stats. You still can’t say you didn’t have advantages by grinding for other power things. You got advantage even by grinding wisdom, luck and unlucky titles. You got advantage by grinding your Lightbringer, Sunspear, Luxon/Kurzick titles. You got advantage by grinding all four eye of the north titles.

If you don’t remember people asking for rank 8 Ursans, I certainly do.

And if you happened to want Obsidian or Vabbian armor, the grind was legenadry, never mind if you wanted a celestial compass or a frog scepter.

The stats may be the same, but if you wanted the skins, you had to grind.

Didn’t have to grind for r8 eye of the north title. I did regular dungeon and i got all of them maxed. I had celestial compass, obsidian armour along with 4 other type of armour but its nothing compared to gw2

Sorry but all dungeons in Eye of the North awarded deldrimor points, not Norn points which you needed. And grinding dungeons is still grinding no matter what you say. That is to say, if you don’t like running dungeons and many people don’t, you need to grind for those titles.

I say I can get a legendary weapon without grinding, because I can take my time and just get what drops…but it’s going to take a long time. Legendary weapons are obviously grindy. And you were grinding dungeons, presumably to fill books, to get your rank 8 ursan. Which didn’t matter because Luxon/Kurzick, Luck, Wisdom and Lightbringer were all far more grindy anyway.

You don’t get to pick and choose grind. If there’s grind there’s grind. Denying it doesn’t change the fact that it existed.

Frostmaw Burrow awarded norn points and like i said i never grinded dungeon i played 1hr a day because exams i had.

Xae Isareth.1364:

GettIng Dusk is purely a cosmetic thing. I don’t see why that’s different to what they promised.

Getting Dusk is, but getting Twilight is not. Twilight has higher stats than an exotic.

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

GettIng Dusk is purely a cosmetic thing. I don’t see why that’s different to what they promised.

Getting Dusk is, but getting Twilight is not. Twilight has higher stats than an exotic.

I very much doubt people get Legendaries for the stats. You can max out every profession to 500 with a fortune to spare with the money needed to get one.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

GettIng Dusk is purely a cosmetic thing. I don’t see why that’s different to what they promised.

Getting Dusk is, but getting Twilight is not. Twilight has higher stats than an exotic.

I very much doubt people get Legendaries for the stats. You can max out every profession to 500 with a fortune to spare with the money needed to get one.

its not that cheap to get ascended weapons though. For me im going for a legendary and im not even attempting to craft at all because of the cost. I mean its like 150g per profession and i would need two of them. Weapons for my 3 main characters would be liek 50g per not including grind for dragonite and i would end up probably getting 12 weapons…..its very expensive and grindy.

champ.7021:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

GettIng Dusk is purely a cosmetic thing. I don’t see why that’s different to what they promised.

Getting Dusk is, but getting Twilight is not. Twilight has higher stats than an exotic.

I very much doubt people get Legendaries for the stats. You can max out every profession to 500 with a fortune to spare with the money needed to get one.

its not that cheap to get ascended weapons though. For me im going for a legendary and im not even attempting to craft at all because of the cost. I mean its like 150g per profession and i would need two of them. Weapons for my 3 main characters would be liek 50g per not including grind for dragonite and i would end up probably getting 12 weapons…..its very expensive and grindy.

3×150+12*50=900g, less if you’re patient and rank on Ascended mats.
Sunrise costs about 1.5kg to craft, excluding the shards, world comp, and other stuff; and that’s just one weapon.

I don’t think anyone would go for Legendaries unless they wanted the skins.

Pay. Gems. What do you think those price break are for? You have one way to finance new content, do it.

Unique.9351:

Ahlen.7591:

Scryed.9423:

To the dude above me. You need to go back and play those games. I currently raid and play with friends in all of them, and in comparison to gw2 how it is now, vs last Oct the ‘grind’ you are talking about is 150% easier in wow etc, in fact its so easy that i geared up a brand new toon in full purple gear in heroic raiding in under one month and that was not playing more than twice a week. I haven’t been able to touch that here. So your comparison is bad since you obviously don’t play those games, you like to use as a comparison for what grind even means, and sit here and defend guild wars.
This game has way more of a grind than anyone wants to admit. You should just own up to it.

GW2 has less grind than almost any game ever made.

GW2 has less grind than GW1.

GW2 has less grind than gw1? Are you for real? I have 10 characters in guild wars 1 and all of them have at least one very expensive. My sin which was my first ever fully geared obby armour/ dragon bones staff/ demons fang/ crystal blade/ voltaic spear/ chaos gloves/ blindfold. I got that within 2 weeks with 1hr playtime a day (i was on the last year of sixth form so i had alot of revision to do). I got it by casually playing with my guild and random people doing daily dungeons and everything. In GW2 ive ran 6 characters from lvl 35 to lvl 75 in AC then from 75-80 in CoF along with my warrior lvl 20+ fractals and CoF. The only thing i have which are good are exotic items from the token exchanger, none of which i bought from the TP. GW1 was a much much less grindy game than GW2. The only reason i dont play gw1 now is because they dont have a client for it for MAC which is a real shame =[

My gear in Gw1 was bought from merchants and dropped from bosses and mobs as loot, funnily my gear on my characters was as good as your gear, i never grinded once to achieve them i played the game..

Xae Isareth.1364:

I very much doubt people get Legendaries for the stats. You can max out every profession to 500 with a fortune to spare with the money needed to get one.

Well I did.

Friend of mine wanted to move on to Final Fantasy, he got Dusk from mystic toilet and gave (free, can u believe that?) it to me because he said among our groups he felt i was closest to get it (i barely had more than 20 of any t6 mats so try imagine what others in the group had )

I was not dedicated to the idea of getting legendaries until they announced ascended weapons. Then I worked and spent more than 2/3 of my gold to getting the Twilight done. Why? because i want an item that will remainBiS regardless of how many vertical progression tiers they add. Also, I had a hunch, gut feeling… that ascended weapons will require an annoying grind. Granted twilight looks fancy enough, but the truth is is still prefer the design of my AC greatsword.

Anyway not to veer off the OP topic, with the exception of the ascended grind, i think they followed the statement more or less fine enough. I will not argue abt “do you need ascendeds?” but as far as cosmetic grind goes, my chief annoyance is only in those super massively low 0.0000000001% chance RNG crap. That aside, i cant argue if they want to add a skin/cosmetics thatll take months to get, so long as it isnt a massive RNG fest. And it shud be permanent, so no pressure to spend money on gems etc becoz of temporary period of acquisition.

Scryed.9423:

To the dude above me. You need to go back and play those games. I currently raid and play with friends in all of them, and in comparison to gw2 how it is now, vs last Oct the ‘grind’ you are talking about is 150% easier in wow etc, in fact its so easy that i geared up a brand new toon in full purple gear in heroic raiding in under one month and that was not playing more than twice a week. I haven’t been able to touch that here. So your comparison is bad since you obviously don’t play those games, you like to use as a comparison for what grind even means, and sit here and defend guild wars.
This game has way more of a grind than anyone wants to admit. You should just own up to it.

Purple ? I’m talking about best in slot, I stopped playing after cataclysm, but tell me how in 2h a day you can get heroic T12 and the BiS that goes with the armor in less than a month ? Unless you are in a server that speed things up, in the official, it takes forever, I know it because I have it. In Aion not only you have to get the stuff which is actually not that long, but you have to enchant it x time before you can consider it BiS. When I was in TERA, I only got 2 BiS in 1 month of hard farming, tell me how a guy who play 2h a day will get it fater than me while playing four time less ?

You obviously are playing on a wow server that have increased drop table, otherwise you would still be farming for the trinket. Though the crafting is quite easy in wow compare d to Aion where I had to let my computer on when I go sleeping and schedule my char to craft all night.

Please note that ascendes will be that last tier they are adding so basically if you get your char full ascended when armor comes out, 5years later you are still BiS.

The massive difference here is that in many games, you NEED BiS gear to access some content, or at least most parties would kick you in sight if you joined w/o them.

There’s nothing here where there’s a BiS gear check apart from very high level fractals, which are just repeated content anyways.

Dante.1508:

laokoko.7403:

^ and why are you doing it? It does get old fast, but you still do it just so you can felt better being a completionist.

At least other people have a purpose so they can fight equally in wvw and maxed for dungeon.

I don’t do it, i left GW2 when ascended weps arrived, i saw what was required and left, i checked Halloween but its the same cut and paste event, i still linger on the forums in hope our views will be addressed, but i linger less and less.

a t s e.9614:

Getting a cool skin is not a grind .
Getting better stats it’s a grind.

They are both grind just one is not needed the other is.. if you want to progress in the game at all..

Which one is needed in order to progress in the game at all? Fractals are the closest thing, but it is only because of agony, but you get what you need naturally by just progressing through the fractals with zero need to grind for them, by the time you need the agony you will already have it. There is no content in the game balanced for ascended gear stat wise (again fractals are the closest but only balanced for agony resistance)

Life is a grind!

Ahlen.7591:

GW2 has less grind than almost any game ever made.

GW2 has less grind than GW1.

I dunno if I’d go quite THAT far. GW2 has a good chunk of grind to it.

Now, what I tend to take to task is this nostalgia from GW1 vets that it was a grind free utopia where you were NEVER required to have [x] level of something or risk being at a disadvantage.

I’m not sure there was any grind in GW1 that is quite as extensive as the entire Ascended climb (assuming you start from crafting level 0… and that armor will be roughly equal in time spent). But GW1 had a lot MORE options for that lesser grind by the end of its run (and even then outside of a handful of reputation skills, the grind was by and large cosmetic in nature).

chemiclord.3978:

I’m not sure there was any grind in GW1 that is quite as extensive as the entire Ascended climb (assuming you start from crafting level 0… and that armor will be roughly equal in time spent). But GW1 had a lot MORE options for that lesser grind by the end of its run (and even then outside of a handful of reputation skills, the grind was by and large cosmetic in nature).

In GW, the acquisition via grind of greater power was solely through the faction/reputation skills. However, most of them maxed out partway through the progression (e.g., Sunspear skills maxed at rank 5 of 10 — or 4 in the case of Never Rampage Alone), and the higher ranks took longer than the lower ones. The benefits of the Lightbringer title were a notable exception, scaling through max rank of 8, and R8 was pretty much required for DoASC — but that was endgame stuff.

A lot of GW title grind was fueled by the Hall of Monuments and GW2. I’d guess fewer people would have gone for GW titles if there was no GW2 carrot. GW2 does not have that incentive.

GW cosmetic and rep grinds were generally undertaken after the character had completed the story and had max armor/weapons. I won’t say max stats because a lot of characters never slotted a Superior Rune of Vigor, for instance. GW2 was that way at launch. It might still be that way for people with one character, but those who had multiple 80’s in exotics and/or multiple armor/weapon sets for different builds are facing a steep climb to get back to having BiS, especially once armor crafting hits (and assuming the alternate means to acquire armor is as unfriendly as drops for weapons). This last is the most notable difference between the two games.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In GW, the acquisition via grind of greater power was solely through the faction/reputation skills. However, most of them maxed out partway through the progression (e.g., Sunspear skills maxed at rank 5 of 10 — or 4 in the case of Never Rampage Alone), and the higher ranks took longer than the lower ones. The benefits of the Lightbringer title were a notable exception, scaling through max rank of 8, and R8 was pretty much required for DoASC — but that was endgame stuff.

A lot of GW title grind was fueled by the Hall of Monuments and GW2. I’d guess fewer people would have gone for GW titles if there was no GW2 carrot. GW2 does not have that incentive.

GW cosmetic and rep grinds were generally undertaken after the character had completed the story and had max armor/weapons. I won’t say max stats because a lot of characters never slotted a Superior Rune of Vigor, for instance. GW2 was that way at launch. It might still be that way for people with one character, but those who had multiple 80’s in exotics and/or multiple armor/weapon sets for different builds are facing a steep climb to get back to having BiS, especially once armor crafting hits (and assuming the alternate means to acquire armor is as unfriendly as drops for weapons). This last is the most notable difference between the two games.

And see, I don’t really make a distinction between grind for gear and grind for skills. Vertical progression is vertical progression. And there was more than a few “Require Level 8 Ursan (or Lightbringer, etc)” groups out there… just like the Zerker elitists nowaways.

I didn’t find that terribly game-breaking in GW1, and I don’t find Ascended all that bothersome in GW2 for that same reason. Yes, if we start going down that slippery slope of having to regear every 6 months or so that’ll be it for me… but I will worry about that when (or if) that happens.

All of grinding in this game is very easy except legendaries. You can craft an ascended instead if you just want the stats. Zero grinding = getting bored of the game in several weeks, because there would be no personal target in game to achieve or grind. What do you want to do, doing dungeons over and over for nothing? Or killing players, breaking doors in wvw for nothing, or no point? Grinding is what keeps an mmorpg alive, either softcore or hardcore… You can be sure that gw2 has one of the most softcore and easy grinding in an mmorpg. If you are extremely casual that can’t even grind in a softcore manner in this easy game, I suggest you to play moba fps etc. for pointless gameplay.

Another lie . Guild wars 1 lasted for 8 years with 0 gear
Progression . Gear treadmil is useless .

Unique.9351:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”- Mike O’Brien

Nice, I got 1k hours already, and my “differentiated by its visual appearance” item is a shining AC dagger

Lmao are you kidding me bro ? 1k hours for a shiny AC dagger ?

Here Im, actively been working on a legendary since release, 1.6k hours gameplay, still missing precursor which costs 800 gold and gift of zhaitan…..

Sure it isnt something mandatory, but sure as hell I would love to have one, and actually i would like to have 1 for each character I own, yet this is incredibly hard to do given how you either; farm gold or get really lucky, either of them Im pretty bad at.

Stop beating the dead horse, people. If you disagree with the direction that this game is taking, stop spending money on their cash shop, and stop login in. Honestly, this is the only way.

Umut.5471:

All of grinding in this game is very easy except legendaries. You can craft an ascended instead if you just want the stats. Zero grinding = getting bored of the game in several weeks,

Whether its easy or not is irrelevant, its tedious and not good gameplay.

And like I said above, my best time in the game was largely before all this time gating and grind was introduced and I was able to experiment with characters and builds through the different parts of the game. When we have new content every 2 weeks why should we get bored?

a t s e.9614:

Another lie . Guild wars 1 lasted for 8 years with 0 gear
Progression . Gear treadmil is useless .

But it had skill progression and some of that progression you had to level and grind for. And don’t tell me people didn’t…because people did.

Vayne.8563:

a t s e.9614:

Another lie . Guild wars 1 lasted for 8 years with 0 gear
Progression . Gear treadmil is useless .

But it had skill progression and some of that progression you had to level and grind for. And don’t tell me people didn’t…because people did.

You really cant prove gear treadmill is unnecessary while using gw1 or really any other title as an example. It is mostly about which community plays the game, and the only real way to see if gear treadmill is or isnt necessary is through numbers of players logging in before and after the new ascended addition.

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

chemiclord.3978:

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

I’d say they’re both pretty silly. Based on their initial stances for GW2, I was given the impression that this would’ve been something they learned not to do.

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

I’d say they’re both pretty silly. Based on their initial stances for GW2, I was given the impression that this would’ve been something they learned not to do.

I’d say vertical progression, at least for the MMO market, is one of those necessary evils that has to be changed by players, not by developers. Guild Wars 2 tried to be one that eschewed such progression… just to have players walk away because it didn’t have “anything to do” at max level.

As you can’t crank out raid content of any sort (either vertical or horizontal) two weeks at a time, Arena.net settled with this sort of busy work (which is all I really think it is), while they fashion more content.

chemiclord.3978:

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

I’d say they’re both pretty silly. Based on their initial stances for GW2, I was given the impression that this would’ve been something they learned not to do.

I’d say vertical progression, at least for the MMO market, is one of those necessary evils that has to be changed by players, not by developers. Guild Wars 2 tried to be one that eschewed such progression… just to have players walk away because it didn’t have “anything to do” at max level.

As you can’t crank out raid content of any sort (either vertical or horizontal) two weeks at a time, Arena.net settled with this sort of busy work (which is all I really think it is), while they fashion more content.

I wouldn’t say it’s “necessary”. But I would certainly say that it’s “easy”. I also don’t always think it’s the best, or even if it’s that good of a solution.

You’ll want to see this:

Unique.9351:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”- Mike O’Brien

What happened Anet? You said you didn’t want it to be a grinding game but it is and with more updates that you come out, you are not lowering the grinding of the game but you’re increasing it. Example? Ascended Weapon. The new halloween weapon.

I’ve grinded so much in this game its unbelievable spending over 400g to try and get dusk with no luck, farming hours and hours with no luck, and it is coming to the point where the only thing which is farming champs is becoming boring. I have 6 level 80s and sometimes i have nothing at all to do. I have no legendary but thats because i dont want to spend hour and hours grinding for it. I would do it if it wasn’t such a bore to do.

Please please please make this game less grindy like you said you would!

Discuss Freely =]

I will not deny that grind is present in this game. But it seems that you have taken some of the words out of context but you are also right about many things. They said that they believed that if you want to invest thousand of hours of grind, the item in question should be differentiated by their cosmetics. They don’t want you to grind for better stats. Which appropriately fits Legendary weapons(Although I agree that the RNG involved with the precursors have no place in this game) and Halloween skins for example. It’s still grind, it’s not fun, but they said they’re okay with it…

But they’ve surely backed out from what they’ve said when they introduced ascended gear with higher stats… and I totally agree that they have been mishandled. They were against grinding for better stats… but they introduced ascended weapons… which have a very big grind part in it.

I’ll always take their promises and what they’re saying with a grain of salt. Promises aren’t always fulfilled and their game philosophy can change. I’ve lowered a lot of my expectations for this game, which weirdly, i’ve been enjoying the game more with this mindset.

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

I’d say they’re both pretty silly. Based on their initial stances for GW2, I was given the impression that this would’ve been something they learned not to do.

I’d say vertical progression, at least for the MMO market, is one of those necessary evils that has to be changed by players, not by developers. Guild Wars 2 tried to be one that eschewed such progression… just to have players walk away because it didn’t have “anything to do” at max level.

As you can’t crank out raid content of any sort (either vertical or horizontal) two weeks at a time, Arena.net settled with this sort of busy work (which is all I really think it is), while they fashion more content.

I wouldn’t say it’s “necessary”. But I would certainly say that it’s “easy”. I also don’t always think it’s the best, or even if it’s that good of a solution.

You’ll want to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Replace easy with fast, and I’d agree with you…because that’s what was going on.

You make a game. You spend five years and millions of dollars. The game is fun..but it doesn’t have the stickiness and poof, soon people are logging in less and playing other games. It’s okay if some people do it, but it’s a very annoying trend if too many people do it.

So you have a meeting and say, what can we do to fix this, fast. Most solutions take time to develop, in some cases LOTS of time. Sure you can add tons of new content…but that takes time. Sure you can throw a bunch of new skills/weapons/professions/races into the game, but that takes time.

There’s something about quick tried and true solutions that appeal to those with the most time and money invested.

I wish I were a fly on the wall at the meeting that ascended gear as vertical progression first game up. I’m almost positive that part of the staff was against it. And part of the staff was pulling figures out and showing the numbers of people staying, leaving, logging in.

In all likelihood, Anet mistook the numbers of people loggging out, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need a quick solution. I’ve yet to see one quick solution suggested that could be implemented in a relatively fast time frame, while at the same time providing not that much risk.

Everyone likes to say Anet took the easy way out. I think they took the pragmatic way out. It’s really easy to tell people what to do when you’ve invested $80 (or even a few hundred) and they’ve invested millions.

Vayne.8563:

Everyone likes to say Anet took the easy way out. I think they took the pragmatic way out. It’s really easy to tell people what to do when you’ve invested $80 (or even a few hundred) and they’ve invested millions.

I’d be more receptive to them if they were actually fully transparent about why they they made these decisions, and not come out with statements about still adhering to the manifesto which they even said again recently IIRC.

For me to get the ascended is grindy, but everyone has their own opinion. I just think it’s not right to force people to do content they don’t like in order to get new tier. I don’t want to craft in an MMO, but I’d rater do dungeons, missions or whatever. So why don’t they give more reward options to get ascanded? Also I think GW2 is a good game to make several alts, why make it almost impossible to get all alts max geared? I have 4 characters and I woud like all of them to have ascanded… but now I have to concentrate on 1 character -.-

Unique, you hit a wall. Whether it’s one character or six, you are in that place of, “what now?…oh that…yeah but I don’t really want to do that”. You made an internal cost-benefit analysis and are now stuck. I suggest going through the achievement list to get ideas for other goals. You could also buy another character slot. Of course, you could stop playing but sounds like you are not wanting to quit.

That’s actually the spot that many of us hit…truly do not want to quit vs. truly trying to figure out what to do when the options aren’t that appealing.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone likes to say Anet took the easy way out. I think they took the pragmatic way out. It’s really easy to tell people what to do when you’ve invested $80 (or even a few hundred) and they’ve invested millions.

I’d be more receptive to them if they were actually fully transparent about why they they made these decisions, and not come out with statements about still adhering to the manifesto which they even said again recently IIRC.

And I believe that they have adhered to most of the manifesto. You and I have danced this dance before. I don’t accept your interpretation of the manifesto and you don’t accept mine.

The only line that I question STILL, is the one about everything you loved from Guild Wars 1. The definition people are using of grind isn’t supported by what’s being said, So by continuing to say they haven’t abandoned it isn’t wrong from my point of view.

And it’s further evidence my interpretation is the same one they’re using.

Anet should communicate more, though, and they should communicate better. That’s something that needs improvement drastically.

The problem is that what can they communicate?

One, they might not even be sure if they want to stick to the manifesto themselves. Game deving is often a trial and error process.

Two, anything they say will likely be met with rage and complaints.

chemiclord.3978:

Turns out MMO players played other MMOs with grind because… they kinda like the grind and vertical progression, and stopped playing Guild Wars 2 because it didn’t have those things.

Who knew?

Actually other players farmed, farmed the items they needed big difference in terms there.

100k candy corn is a grind, 500 of 5-6 types of materials plus all of the other materials to go into a single ascended weapon is a grind, big big difference there.

Vayne.8563:

Replace easy with fast, and I’d agree with you…because that’s what was going on.

You make a game. You spend five years and millions of dollars. The game is fun..but it doesn’t have the stickiness and poof, soon people are logging in less and playing other games. It’s okay if some people do it, but it’s a very annoying trend if too many people do it.

So you have a meeting and say, what can we do to fix this, fast. Most solutions take time to develop, in some cases LOTS of time. Sure you can add tons of new content…but that takes time. Sure you can throw a bunch of new skills/weapons/professions/races into the game, but that takes time.

In all likelihood, Anet mistook the numbers of people loggging out, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need a quick solution. I’ve yet to see one quick solution suggested that could be implemented in a relatively fast time frame, while at the same time providing not that much risk.

I completly agree: it is absolutely one of the quickest things they could’ve implemented. That is because it is the easiest thing they could have implemented: Items with bigger numbers. And that’s the concern.

Instead of implementing ideas to increase replayability and variety into the game – things like difficulty settings, dungeon randomization, skill progression – they went the ‘quick and easy’ path of simple vertical progression.

In addition, I feel “time” isn’t as limiting a factor as it should be given the lack of a subscription. There’s no artificially induced sense of urgency, which I feel is the worst thing about a game with a subscription fee, especially with how the game will milk it from you through grindy timesinks.

If anything, I believe that introducing more vertical progression is much less a way to add longevity to the game and far more a means to increase real money transactions. This is the tried and completely true method of sustaining a free to play game. Even some WoW private servers make money off of it!

As you may’ve guessed, I have no issue with a subscription fee. I would gladly keep up with a subscription if what I was getting was more high quality and fun content. I’ve seen no game thus far that’s satisfied me as such, and just take advantage of my subscription fee instead.

This is what gets me the most. Because of being “free to play” but also “buy to play”, I had hoped to be free of being “nudged” into continuously funding their game, hoping that the only thing that made the game feel like an “MMO” was a persistent world. This may very well be the best attempt at an MMO in years, but even then I still feel that MMOs have a long way to go.

Maybe I’m just too optimistic. If their motivation was merely to get people playing and enjoying their game, I would gladly wait it out in order we got awesome content (“If you build it, they will come”!). I’d even throw down money for an expansion pack if I liked what I was seeing. But I certainly don’t like what I’m seeing now, and if they’re set on it, I see no reason why this “stat grind” would stop.

I chuckle at those that claim GW1 had ‘no’ gear progression. If that were the case boyos, then you wouldn’t have gotten ran to droks for ‘max armor’, you wouldn’t have ran from the market to KC for ‘max armor,’ you wouldn’t have seen people purchasing a ‘ferry’ to Docks. If there had been no gear progression you would have played the entire game in your starter armor, which had an armor rating of what 1? 5? I don’t recall at this point.

Most people didn’t go from starter armor to max armor though, they purchased the first tier, sometimes the second if they had the mats and the gold, usually the third, and finally the max. That’s still 4 tiers though.

GW1 did not have a lot of gear progression, nor was it very steep, but it was still there.

Ahlen.7591:

GW2 has less grind than almost any game ever made.

GW2 has less grind than GW1.

Breaking news!
A poster on the forums of Arena Net’s Massive Multiplayer Online game Guild Wars 2 has been found to be posting from a parallel dimension. Scientists are baffled.

More at 11.

Who cares if another game had grind? It’s the grind in this game that was being discussed.

For me, a long grind kills the game. I like playing different classes and different builds on those classes. Grindy BIS gear makes it so I don’t even want to get started trying something else out. There’s no way I’m going to get yet another set of ascended if I do like it. So why bother.

(Oh and I really appreciate the Karma nerf as well).

TooBz.3065:

Who cares if another game had grind? It’s the grind in this game that was being discussed.

For me, a long grind kills the game. I like playing different classes and different builds on those classes. Grindy BIS gear makes it so I don’t even want to get started trying something else out. There’s no way I’m going to get yet another set of ascended if I do like it. So why bother.

(Oh and I really appreciate the Karma nerf as well).

Don’t you read these forums? You don’t need ascended gear to enjoy any aspect of this game! Who cares if you’re getting stomped by people in full ascended which gives them a significant statistical advantage over you? LOL, this game isn’t about grinding or having the best gear! It’s about having fun!

LOL, you’re just stuck in the mindset ingrained in you by those other MMOs. Ascended gear doesn’t matter! LOL

Dark Catalyst.1028:

TooBz.3065:

Who cares if another game had grind? It’s the grind in this game that was being discussed.

For me, a long grind kills the game. I like playing different classes and different builds on those classes. Grindy BIS gear makes it so I don’t even want to get started trying something else out. There’s no way I’m going to get yet another set of ascended if I do like it. So why bother.

(Oh and I really appreciate the Karma nerf as well).

Don’t you read these forums? You don’t need ascended gear to enjoy any aspect of this game! Who cares if you’re getting stomped by people in full ascended which gives them a significant statistical advantage over you? LOL, this game isn’t about grinding or having he best gear! It’s about having fun!

LOL, you’re just stuck in the mindset ingrained in you by those other MMOs. Ascended gear doesn’t matter! LOL

Yep. Funny how half the forums say your a terrible gamer if you run with 1 piece of knights gear (it’s sub-optimal you know) and the other half insist that ascended gear doesn’t matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

TooBz.3065:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

TooBz.3065:

Who cares if another game had grind? It’s the grind in this game that was being discussed.

For me, a long grind kills the game. I like playing different classes and different builds on those classes. Grindy BIS gear makes it so I don’t even want to get started trying something else out. There’s no way I’m going to get yet another set of ascended if I do like it. So why bother.

(Oh and I really appreciate the Karma nerf as well).

Don’t you read these forums? You don’t need ascended gear to enjoy any aspect of this game! Who cares if you’re getting stomped by people in full ascended which gives them a significant statistical advantage over you? LOL, this game isn’t about grinding or having he best gear! It’s about having fun!

LOL, you’re just stuck in the mindset ingrained in you by those other MMOs. Ascended gear doesn’t matter! LOL

Yep. Funny how half the forums say your a terrible gamer if you run with 1 piece of knights gear (it’s sub-optimal you know) and the other half insist that ascended gear doesn’t matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Heh, I haven’t even thought of that.

Not being geared optimally for PvE is made out to be a high crime because you’re not maximizing your damage while not being geared optimally for WvW is ok. Apparently because WvW, as I was informed earlier, isn’t really balanced around player statistics. Meaning it’s not really balanced around a certain subset of players doing significantly more damage. Bizarre!

The Sixteenth.2561:

The weapons don’t give much advantage, a mere 8% on stats, on your global stat it is insignificant since you have the trinket. Doing daily is not grinding, plus if you do it in PvP, it usually takes 3 matches, you won’t have to do the pve one.

This is just flat out wrong but before we get to that.

The reason others left to go back to WoW or other games is there really is less of a grind in them vs the reward that you get. In WoW I can do X and get Y legendary. In GW2 you do X^2 and get a [bold]chance[/bold] at the starting item to the legendary.

Giving the game another chance during the WvW Season 1 these things don’t bug me as much because the best PvP weapons can not be obtained in PvP. When they wanted you to grind out repeated boring PvE over and over again to get the PvP gear that was designed by someone with a room temp IQ in game design. But now at least it can be ground out by actually playing the game you want. Before that the dev’s claims were utter lies and falsehoods. I know they don’t like it when people say that but maybe that’s because the statement is true O_o

Now however you can get the trinkets and even craft the Ascended items which are equal to the Legendary’s in stats. This pretty much mitigates the above paragraph. That was then and this is now. I’m looking in to the ascended crafting but so far it looks like you can get the stuff by PvPing for the most part. Still need to look at the dailies people are talking about. But if I put in the effort over the course of Season One that should put me fairly close by the end to getting an Ascended weapon and I’m find with that. Legendary not at all interested anymore. Ascended weapons being equal BiS is fine don’t need to hot swap the stats and don’t care about the graphics since when I’m looking for targets to put in the ground I’m zoomed out full anyways.

Now to the utterly wrong statement. In WoW the 2200+ rated players had access to weapons that are only 5% above the non 2200 gear and it makes an enormous difference. People think it’s just a few % and they fail to realize how math and game mechanics work. Your hitting that % harder on your opponent meaning your doing damage that much faster. Your healing that extra but more. Your mitigating that much more damage. So when you add it all up that 5% really compounds to be about a 20% better character. So apply that to GW2 with what 8% you said? That’s simply HUGE.