Guild Wars 2

Hello ArenaNet,

I’m a player that has been with you ever since the Beta of Guild Wars 2. Now therefor I also remember quite well the things you said just before launch about Guild Wars 2. Now let my take out the following video you guys created to put out my point here very clearly:

I quote:

In most games, you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionally that you get to do and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swong a sword. I swong a sword again. Hey! I swong it again and that’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that, no one finds it fun, we want to change the way that people view combat.

Now lets look back at the Queen’s Jubilee event. I remember very well that we had to represent various different NPC’s and while representing them we had to kill quite alot of the same mobs in order to complete an achievement for the Queens Jubilee event. Now I would like to forward you to this page, where all of the Queens Jubilee event achievements are presented.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Queen_Jennah's_Jubilee
I would like to ask you to take a specific look at the following achievements and their requirements:
- Champion of the Colleges
- Champion of the Legions
- Champion of the Crown
- Champion of the Wild
- Champion of the Pale Tree
- Champion of the Council

Now ArenaNet, you make us want to achieve achievements because they give us achievement points, these achievemenpoints count for chests and other rewards, which gives our account certain bonusses. So I wanted to get these achievements in order to get the good stuff for my account. However I did not at all enjoy getting these achievements or even enjoyed (most of) the Queen Jubilee at all. It was just plain grinding and endless farming of enemy monsters.

I quote again:

and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff.

ArenaNet Video

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that, no one finds it fun

With the Queens Jubilee you’ve done exactly the opposite of what you promised Guild Wars 2 players arround the time of the game’s launch date.

Now lets take a look at this years Wintersday event. There are in total 14 achievements to be achieved for Wintersday. Then the remaining 4 achievements are achievements that we can do “infinite” times. The total amount of completed achievements needed to get the Wintersday title is 20. That means we have to repeat one (or several) of those 4 remaining achievements a few times in order “to get to the fun stuff”.

I quote again:

and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff.

ArenaNet Video

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that, no one finds it fun

Now I could continue and name countless other things in the current state of Guild Wars 2, but I think I made my point clear by now. ArenaNet, over the passed period in Guild Wars 2 you’ve made us countless time have “to grind to get to the fun stuff”. Which is exactly the opposite of what you promised us for this game. Now the big question, what are your intentions for the future? Is ArenaNet going to continue to put endless grinding events into Guild Wars 2 in order “to get to the fun stuff” or can we trust upon your word and give us the game that you intentionally promised us?

I don’t really go in for achievement and I hate to grind so I have completed very few of the LS metas.
I find it ironic that the ones I actually completed are the ones you list as grindy.

the queens jubilee was one of my favourite LS – I spent most of it in the gauntlet and had a ball.
I never actually did the pavilion zerg because I didn’t think it was fun- yet I got those kills- my guess it that I must have gotten them from the balloon escorts- which I did do because I wanted a balloon for my ele.

For Wintersday this year- I had to have the princess doll I missed last year for my new Mesmer.
But I suck at almost all the things in the list- so all I did was complete the daily on the days it was one I could do- mostly I hit skritt and people with snow balls.

I had fun and none of it was a grind at all to get to the good stuff.

for grind, i thint it means doing repetitive tasks again and again and again to achieve a goal.
so the fact you had fan is obviously a good thing, still it’s grind!

however, although these events could be a little more interesting, don’t find them that bad.
on the other hand, anet didn’t keep its word so good
there nothing new in gw2 if compared to standard mmo.

so, imho, they failed.

Unfortunately, OP, you are wrong about the Wintersday achievements. Repeating (in your words, grinding) the repeatable achievements will not reward you with any additional APs. The additional 4 APs you need, can and must be obtained from doing the some of the 40+ daily Wintersday achievements. No grind there, really, as you can choose from several different Wintersday dailies.

As for the Queen’s Jubilee, that was one of my favorite releases, and I did not find it a grind, at all. I enjoyed those achievements very much. Beauty (or fun) is in the eye of the beholder, no?

Thus, I did not have to ‘grind’ to get to the fun part of this game. I haven’t had to ‘grind’ to get to any of the fun parts of the game. If you feel that rewards are the only ‘fun’ part of the game, and you don’t care for the content that must be completed to get said reward, then, I suppose, this game would be ‘grindy’ to you. For me, though, the rewards are just frosting on the cake of fun. =)

The manifesto was one big lie. They basically said all the core points that were valid in GW1 to attract the veterans who were already getting suspicious since the poor release of EoTN.

In the end they made a totally opposite experience to that. Even the first dungeon implies ‘swing a sword, swing it again’ as every single monster takes just that to kill. Monsters don’t have complex grouping systems or skill sets, they just have an attack and a very large health pool. Just like any other MMO in the market.

“we just don’t want players to grind any more”

What about sexy grinding? I kinda like that…

Game grinding, much less so, but I didn’t feel like I “grinded” to level 80… it took like 2 weeks. I didn’t feel like I had to grind enough for basic exotics…. I just sold the mats I gathered during level up. I never felt like I needed to grind achievements, I just set goals and played the game. I never fall asleep in group events or dungeons due to tank and spank, heal and repeat.

That being said, endgame PvE is kind of a mess and requires too much gold grinding to keep up with crafting and skin aquisition, but I’m told that I shouldn’t care what I look like anyways unless I"m willing to do whatever is necessary to be pretty. aaaaand that’s where the sexy grinding kicks in…

While I differ in opinion about ascended gear than most others, I will agree that it is quite a grind. And the living story achievement-fests are often a grind as well. Queens Pavilion was the only one that didn’t feel grindy because the the high volume of action made it appear that drops were better. It actually felt like you were getting decent effort/reward ratio.

I just ignore things now. If I get an achievement, great, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about what is going on with Scarlet or whoever the latest mary sue nemesis is. It’s just too much grind and effort for rewards that aren’t attractive or of interest.

One of the devs mentioned achievement grind in a CDI. He didn’t say much, but at least they’re aware of the problem.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Finnway.2183:
This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

I agree with this also. We are certainly trying to improve with our achievements in terms of activities, time requirements and rewards. I feel that we have been making good progress but we aren’t quite there yet. Soon though.

Chris

Once again I have to say how surprised I am that there have been no threads made to discuss the manifesto until now.

DarcShriek.5829:

Once again I have to say how surprised I am that there have been no threads made to discuss the manifesto until now.

There have been threads months ago. Much of the discussions we see today have been there all along, some since launch, some a little later.

There have been many, many threads about the Manifesto. In fact, there is one on the front page as we speak (type).

I’m going to assume these are counter-sarcasm ironic responses and that you all know enough not to take the comment seriously…

rogerwilko.6895:

“we just don’t want players to grind any more”

This is what a grind actually looks like.

Gadgetzan Reputation Grind

I believe this is the sort of thing they were referring to.

Wasbunny.6531:

rogerwilko.6895:

“we just don’t want players to grind any more”

This is what a grind actually looks like.

Gadgetzan Reputation Grind

I believe this is the sort of thing they were referring to.

That nothing you should see the grind in ff11 back in the day it took nearly a year to get to level 75 killing the same camps that you hope other ppl where not using. You also did not make gil leveling up you had to farm gil to level up. If a person realty want to call what GW2 has is a grind your in for a rude awaking for old mmorpg and new ones a very eye opening one.