Guild Wars 2

Note: This is my opinion, my view on this however the point of this is to look at issues facing the community regardless of beliefs on the issues presented.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/07/how-guild-wars-2-plans-to-survive

An interview was done with Colin Johanson, and he explains how GuildWars 2 will survive and prosper as an MMORPG.

GuildWars 2 is truly a fantastic MMO that is wonderful potential to become the best there is. However there are some issues that are crippling it:

1. Split Community – The majority of the community was a game with reasonable grind while the other half wants a game completly focued on grind.
2. Grind: How is Anet going to deal with this? The grand issue with this is that they promised a game where you wouldn’t grind to infinity and beyond yet they’re delivering on the opposite of that promise. Yes there are arguments that everything is optional however why should any part of this game be ‘restricted’ to a certian audience?
3. Post 80: After level 80 there isn’t alot to do. Generally most will grind out for the flashiest of items, finish their hearts, complete dungeons or do FOTM. The very problem with this is it sections off the community again, restricting content. A suggestion from me personally is to increase the rewards of jumping puzzles, make them worth doing like how world events have now become worth completing.
4. Make all areas equal in rewards, in the sense that grinding in Tunnel will offer the same rewards as grinding in Kexxes Hill areas.

These are areas that I personally think need to be addressed.

Thank you for reading this.

1) There are people who want a grind-centric game? o.0

2) I’m pretty sure they said that we wouldn’t have to ‘grind’ constantly for higher-statted gear. Not that there’d be absolutely no ‘grind’ at all.

That being said, ‘grind’ is percieved.

How do you measure ‘grind’? What’s the difference between ‘grind’ and a ‘long-term goal’? Our guild views unlocking the Guild Missions as a ‘long term goal’, while others are viewing it as a ‘grind’.

I mean, there are people on the forums that view doing 5 dungeons in a month a ‘grind’. Hell, there are people complaining that Daily Achievements are a ‘grind’.

Everyone has their own views on what ‘grind’ is. That’s why it’s impossible to get rid of ‘grinding’ without simply giving everyone everything.

‘Why should part of the game be restricted to a certain audience?’

Why does all of the game have to be accessible to everyone? Again, people like different things. Some people want the dungeons to be more challenging. Some people complain that they’re too hard and don’t cater to ‘casuals’ (read: entitled players who think everything has to cater to them).

If things are made a certain way, they’re going to exclude an audience anyway. Easy dungeons will exclude the crowd who want challenging content. Challenging dungeons will exclude those who want everything handed to them (As a casual player myself, I don’t think ‘Dungeons are too hard for casual players’ cuts it as an excuse, but that’s another story altogether).

3) Whatever happens, the community is going to be segmented. You’ll get the Dungeoneers, the WvWer’s, the Open-World players and the players who dance naked in Lion’s Arch.

4) I wish they’d bring Nic back (well, not Nic exactly; people would scream ‘RISEN!’ and kill him…). Have the NPC wandering a map, and you have to bring a bunch of stuff back to him.

Maybe have different ‘books’ to fill as well:

• Bestiary (i.e. Orrian Bestiary, Maguuma Bestiary)
• Events
• Explorer (i.e. Jumping Puzzles, Vistas, PoI)

I feel Vanquishing and Bonus Missions would lend themselves well to instanced content (such as dungeons and mini-dungeons). Maybe it’d help stop people running past everything.

TheDaiBish.9735:

• Bestiary (i.e. Orrian Bestiary, Maguuma Bestiary)
• Events
• Explorer (i.e. Jumping Puzzles, Vistas, PoI)

This made me think of an achievements book where artwork of each goal would appear for its achievement, finishing in a full digital artbook of GW2’s Bestiary, JPs, etc.

Love at first thought.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

..

This made me think of an achievements book where artwork of each goal would appear for its achievement, finishing in a full digital artbook of GW2’s Bestiary, JPs, etc.

Love at first thought.

Wasn’t planning on logging into the forums today but you made me.

Awesome idea +1 Game needs more achievements along these lines.

TheDaiBish.9735:

How do you measure ‘grind’? What’s the difference between ‘grind’ and a ‘long-term goal’? Our guild views unlocking the Guild Missions as a ‘long term goal’, while others are viewing it as a ‘grind’.

Grind is something you have to do over and over for a long time and even if it’s fun the first few times you probably wouldn’t do it so much if you weren’t aiming for the reward for example doing the same dungeon 30 times to get your full set of cool armor is grind even though the first few times it might be fun you wouldn’t do it 30 times if you didn’t want the armor.

A Long Term goal is something that takes a lot of time but unlike grind it isn’t repetitive. It is either extreemely hard or time consuming but you would do it just for the sake of having fun and if you get rewarded in the process that’s great too. For me a long term goal is Map Completion.

TheDaiBish.9735:

1) There are people who want a grind-centric game? o.0

2) I’m pretty sure they said that we wouldn’t have to ‘grind’ constantly for higher-statted gear. Not that there’d be absolutely no ‘grind’ at all.

That being said, ‘grind’ is percieved.

Wrong…..two dev quotes…

1: “moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve”
2: “We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

Clearly this is not the case and was said to harvest unsuspecting gamers…..however there is nothing wrong with grind, as long as there is a goal and it is rewarded.
This isnt the case in GW2, the RNG takes over and you can grind for 6 months and receive nothing for your efforts, while the first time dungeon noob wins a piece of loot that sets him up with gold for the rest of his time in GW2.

Obviously this is just the wrong way to go…skill, time, effort all lose out to the RNG…thats where the perception of “grind” becoming a negative thing comes into play.
GW2 is a grindy game, but not in a good way.

Robbyx.1284:

TheDaiBish.9735:

1) There are people who want a grind-centric game? o.0

2) I’m pretty sure they said that we wouldn’t have to ‘grind’ constantly for higher-statted gear. Not that there’d be absolutely no ‘grind’ at all.

That being said, ‘grind’ is percieved.

Wrong…..two dev quotes…

1: “moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve”
2: “We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

Clearly this is not the case and was said to harvest unsuspecting gamers…..however there is nothing wrong with grind, as long as there is a goal and it is rewarded.
This isnt the case in GW2, the RNG takes over and you can grind for 6 months and receive nothing for your efforts, while the first time dungeon noob wins a piece of loot that sets him up with gold for the rest of his time in GW2.

Obviously this is just the wrong way to go…skill, time, effort all lose out to the RNG…thats where the perception of “grind” becoming a negative thing comes into play.
GW2 is a grindy game, but not in a good way.

I think ANet made the distinction that power will not be grindy, in their eyes anyway. My belief is that the content, methodology, and incentive constitutes grind, not necessarily length or repetition. This is likely why people complain about GW2 being grindy despite the curve being so low. The game’s grindy in every sense but speed.

Oh and cosmetics are a blatant grind. Optional or not, that right there counters the entire “we don’t make grindy games” statement.

I find this post amusing in that he references grind, but in another of his posts mentioning rewards from GW1 available in GW2 he states that if you’re not willing to grind close to a thousand hours to get the pets you shouldn’t complain. Sounds a bit dodgy to me lol.

MMO’s all have these same issues, end game grind nothing to do, doing the same dungeons over and over is a grind etc. This is where pvp, or WvW come in, even if you aren’t getting new gear or something at least you can have fun just doing the pvp thing.
I think they should focus on WvW and balancing the classes as much as possible.

killcannon.2576:

I find this post amusing in that he references grind, but in another of his posts mentioning rewards from GW1 available in GW2 he states that if you’re not willing to grind close to a thousand hours to get the pets you shouldn’t complain. Sounds a bit dodgy to me lol.

Not really actually. My point those previous posts were that titles like ‘A god walking amongst mortals’ should only be given to people who are willing to put in the time.

Keep in mind that the title system in this game is laughable and imo its confusing to see who has what title. They don’t get emotes or anything to signify they have the title. And by putting in those 1000s of hours you do derserve somthing only a few hundered will have.

On Topic: What I find annoying is post 80 there really feels like a void of not a whole like to do there.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

TheDaiBish.9735:

• Bestiary (i.e. Orrian Bestiary, Maguuma Bestiary)
• Events
• Explorer (i.e. Jumping Puzzles, Vistas, PoI)

This made me think of an achievements book where artwork of each goal would appear for its achievement, finishing in a full digital artbook of GW2’s Bestiary, JPs, etc.

Love at first thought.

Excellent example of a game design aspect playing to the games inherent strengths, the artwork in GW2 is and always has been beautiful.

+1, good show

Hellkaiser.6025:

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

TheDaiBish.9735:

• Bestiary (i.e. Orrian Bestiary, Maguuma Bestiary)
• Events
• Explorer (i.e. Jumping Puzzles, Vistas, PoI)

This made me think of an achievements book where artwork of each goal would appear for its achievement, finishing in a full digital artbook of GW2’s Bestiary, JPs, etc.

Love at first thought.

Excellent example of a game design aspect playing to the games inherent strengths, the artwork in GW2 is and always has been beautiful.

+1, good show

And also unique
i seriously love it
one of the main things that this game stands out of the million MMOs are its own Artwork.

You just don’t give up, do you?

Revolution.6301:

And by putting in those 1000s of hours you do derserve somthing only a few hundered will have.

The are only two thing you deserve after playing a game for 1000s of hours, and they’re mutually exclusive. You either deserve the know that you got one hell of a bargain if you got 1000s of hours of enjoyment out of a single title, or you deserve to know that you’re a kitten fool for wasting 1000’s of hours on a game you didn’t even enjoy.

Sadly I would say the definition of grind is a legendary weapon. I can’t think of an example of anti-grind that is so apt and pithy though. Absolutely every blogger/youtuber I’ve come across who has commented on finishing their legendary has stated something along the line of, “finishing this almost killed my love of GW2”.

To OP:

Quit it, it’s dead already