Guild Wars 2

Ursan.7846:

Rank 6 Kurzick took 1,200,000 faction to earn.
The most optimal Kurzick farm earned you like 40,000 an hour.
That’s approximately 30 horus STRAIGHT of doing a repetitive task over, and over, and over again. For one title track. How is this NOT a grind?

I’ve done 1mil factions in 1 day, was alot of fun, getting better & faster each run. How is it not a grind? If i have to do it 1 day and maybe next month i’ll do it again for funzies.. then it’s not a grind. if you have to do something for 2 weeks straight where there’s no brain power required, just so u can get that 1 item, then it’s a grind. btw, the max title is only 10 million. also i think you only need like 900k for max stats on your faction skills.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

You can buy exotics and skip the crafting part.

And still be at a power disadvantage, moot point.

Anyone at 79 or lower is at a disadvantage.

19.2 Vanquishes for max skill rank across your entire account, TOO HARD!

Fun fact: Castlevania 2 Simon’s Quest invented grinding in videogames.

I loved GW1.

Saying there was no grind is incorrect.

I am talking about endless speed clearing of UW for ectos, or running Gates of Anguish for Armbraces of Truth, or grinding for Zaishen keys….Why? To use them as currency for other items.

All because people wanted to buy what others were selling. You could sit in Spamadan all day and watch the chat scroll by at a million lines a minute (ok, I’m exaggerating, but not by much) trying to sell high-end goods for (X)platinum + 200 ectos… or Armbraces, which could only be gotten by running the same instance over and over ad nauseum.

Even the official game wiki says:
“Since a player can only hold a maximum of 100 Platinum at any one time, armbraces are used as an alternate currency to facilitate high-value trades, e.g. for hard-to-obtain weapons or miniatures. Other common alternatives include Globs of Ectoplasm and Zaishen Keys.”

Ecto was used long before Factions came along, so please don’t tell me that there was no grind in GW1 before Kurz/Luxon faction grind.

Oh, and how about farming in Bergen Hot Springs?

Or Citadel?

The thing is that the grind wasn’t in “new” content…it was the same OLD content (UW, etc…) for the last 8 (or so since EOTN came out) years now.

The grind here at least is striving for something that is marginally better than dropped items.

So please, take off the rose colored glasses. Nostalgia is great, but please be accurate?

Phy.2913:

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

You can buy exotics and skip the crafting part.

And still be at a power disadvantage, moot point.

Anyone at 79 or lower is at a disadvantage.

Can’t buy level 80 with gold or credit card …Or actually you can from gem -> gold -> crafting, gg.

Either way they shouldn’t be in WvW, and they’re not in sPVP. Already said that.

Gw1 max Level was 20, and you could only pvp in level capped arenas. Your pvp chars were perma 20 and used only max stat gear.

Ashabhi.1365:

I am talking about endless speed clearing of UW for ectos, or running Gates of Anguish for Armbraces of Truth, or grinding for Zaishen keys….Why? To use them as currency for other items.

You didn’t have to grind for them.

I hit 100k several times, you know what I did?

I sat in town and bought ectos, ruby, sapphires, obbys, and minis.

Other people grinded them for me.

Everyone that grinds it out, chose to do it.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

You can buy exotics and skip the crafting part.

And still be at a power disadvantage, moot point.

Anyone at 79 or lower is at a disadvantage.

Can’t buy level 80 with gold or credit card …Or actually you can from gem -> gold -> crafting, gg.

Either way they shouldn’t be in WvW, and they’re not in sPVP. Already said that.

Gw1 max Level was 20, and you could only pvp in level capped arenas. Your pvp chars were perma 20 and used only max stat gear.

So then nothing in the game is a grind, and you can buy power. What’s the problem again? If you want to play GW1, go play Gw1.

Vorch.2985:

As a GWAMM, I am shocked at the ability of people to forget the crazy amount of farming required to get max level in titles to increase the effectiveness of PvE skills and resistances to certain effects.

Hero (Fast) Faction Farming (HFF or HFFF), Lightbringer and Sunspear point farming, EotN title farming…all of which gave a statistical advantage for endgame content…all of which (besides faction farming) was CHARACTER bound.

Well I never had to grind lightbringer. Upon release, I parked my character and a couple of heroes at a waypoint in the Realm of Torment, and left the pc on over night. The next morning I had max Lightbringer. They fixed that eventually, but me and many other players circumvented intended grind that way.

Most of the other titles didn’t require grind. I’m a GWAMM, and I have refused to grind ever since I started playing GW1. And still I managed to get that title. It just took a very very long time to get it. But I think that was how it was intended.

Phy.2913:

So then nothing in the game is a grind, and you can buy power. What’s the problem again? If you want to play GW1, go play Gw1.

No. Read better.
1) You have to grind for power differences that affect almost every area of the game, whereas gw1 you didn’t and it was ultimately only for cosmetics, or optionally for another store of currency like said.
2) You can buy your way OUT of grinding for power differences with a credit card.

There’s the problem.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

So then nothing in the game is a grind, and you can buy power. What’s the problem again? If you want to play GW1, go play Gw1.

No. Read better.
1) You have to grind for power differences that affect every area of the game, whereas gw1 you didn’t and it was ultimately only for cosmetics, or optionally for another store of currency like said.
2) You can buy your way OUT of grinding for power differences with a credit card.

There’s the problem.

You don’t have to grind for anything, and if you can buy your way through it negates the complaint.

Being able to buy power is a completely different argument.

Phy.2913:

You don’t have to grind for anything, and if you can buy your way through it negates the complaint.

Being able to buy power is a completely different argument.

You don’t have to … if you’re willing to be at a power disadvantage in most of gw2’s content.

Whereas before you did not have to, and were never at a real power disadvantage in GW1 except a very limited selection of minor content that wasn’t really important.

Which is why the grind between gw1 and gw2 is completely different.

…which is the counter-argument of the original post of the thread.

That difference still exists EVEN WHEN you can skip it by dropping $500 in the gem store.

Do you need it explained again?

Once again, this isn’t GW1.

Phy.2913:

Once again, this isn’t GW1.

…except it doesn’t matter, because it’s still relevant to original post’s topic. You’re in a GW1 thread, you should expect to read about it.

If you didn’t grind out many of the reputation skill levels in GW1, you were at a fairly significant disadvantage.

Take off the rose-colored glasses, please.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

Once again, this isn’t GW1.

…except it doesn’t matter, because it’s still relevant to original post’s topic. You’re in a GW1 thread, you should expect to read about it.

Do you cry about how Final Fantasy X is different from Final Fantasy Y? Same thing here.

It doesn’t matter how much or little grind GW1 had, it’s completely irrelevant to GW2.

Phy.2913:

It doesn’t matter how much or little grind GW1 had, it’s completely irrelevant to GW2.

…until they’re being directly compared.

…in a thread.

…on the GW2 forums.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

It doesn’t matter how much or little grind GW1 had, it’s completely irrelevant to GW2.

…until they’re being directly compared.

…in a thread.

…on the GW2 forums.

The comparison is irrelevant.

Phy.2913:

The comparison is irrelevant.

…been made relevant since being mentioned multiple times by multiple posters. Its too late to call it irrelevant when you’ve discussed it for 2+ pages.

Enokitake.1742:

You don’t have to … if you’re willing to be at a power disadvantage in most of gw2’s content.

Whereas before you did not have to, and were never at a real power disadvantage in GW1 except a very limited selection of minor content that wasn’t really important.

I’m sorry, but I mained an IMBAGon. Rocked it in practically everything I played. Your insistence at calling the PvE skills “minor” is very, very annoying.

You keep on trying to insinuate that the power creep in GW1 is somehow minor and unimportant. No sir, it was very important.

“Real” power advantage? A r4 IMBAgon was clearly inferior to an r6 IMBAgon. A r4 Asuran would deal less DPS than an r6 Asuran due to Asuran scan. Is this not a “real” power advantage? Of course I didn’t need r6 in the majority of the content (Missions, vanquishes), but I don’t need ascended for the majority of content in GW2 either (Dynamic events, world bosses).

I mean, player A has grinded out titles, and a few of his skills are more powerful than player B, who didn’t grind out titles. Player A is objectively more powerful than player B. This is a fact, just like how ascended gear, despite being only a 5% stat increase, is still an objective advantage in terms of stats.

“You don’t have to grind titles…If you don’t mind being at a power disadvantage due to some of your skills doing less in GW1”

“You did not have to, and the power disadvantage really doesn’t matter unless you do this minor content called WvW in GW2.”

I understand you dislike GW2’s grind and prefer GW1’s grind, but can you please stop spreading this misinformation?

Sylv.5324:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Sylv.5324:

Zoid.2568:

No it didn’t feel like a grind at all. It felt like you were a hunter or a traveler exploring the world looking for rare items or something, it didn’t feel like a grind. You were on a journey.

That’s what happened when you played through it. Endgame was a grind. You ground for skills, titles (that gave skills and whose power increased as it went on), zkeys, faction, mats for tormented weapons, ectos and such for obby armors, orrian thingies for booze, holidays for sweet points, vaettir and raptors for faction and wisdom title, etc.

I don’t think most of us minded this.

But these end games grind in GW1 are merely for more gold and cosmetic items. And the desirability of cosmetic items are always subjective. Some people like obsidian armor on their characters while others consider them ugly. At least you don’t have to suck during gameplay for not having max stat gear since you can get those so much more easily in GW1 by playing normally.

In GW2, however, you grind for more effective gameplay powers (e.g. max stat ascended/legendary weapons/armors/trinkets) which is the big difference here!

No, you also ground (grinded?) for more, and more powerful skills. In PvP, it was to unlock skills; in PvE it was to unlock more powerful tiers of PvE-only skills.

Except there were lot of builds that didn’t depend on those skills at all. Builds that were not in any way inferior to those with PvE skills. And while some of those skills were really nice, most of them weren’t really worth equipping at all, regardless of your title level.

In gw2 terms it would be as if ascended gear was on exotic stat level, but with unique stat combinations not available anywhere else. Yes, if you wanted to have a build that took advantage of those stat sets, you’d need to grind, but someone else could make an equally good build using normal gear.

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

The comparison is irrelevant.

…been made relevant since being mentioned multiple times by multiple posters. Its too late to call it irrelevant when you’ve discussed it for 2+ pages.

I haven’t compared the two at all, I’ve only stated that it existed (grind in GW1). I’ve been discussing the grind in GW2, and the perceived “forced” grind of slightly higher stats.

Ursan.7846:

Enokitake.1742:

You don’t have to … if you’re willing to be at a power disadvantage in most of gw2’s content.

Whereas before you did not have to, and were never at a real power disadvantage in GW1 except a very limited selection of minor content that wasn’t really important.

I’m sorry, but I mained an IMBAGon. Rocked it in practically everything I played. Your insistence at calling the PvE skills “minor” is very, very annoying.

You keep on trying to insinuate that the power creep in GW1 is somehow minor and unimportant. No sir, it was very important.

“Real” power advantage? A r4 IMBAgon was clearly inferior to an r6 IMBAgon. A r4 Asuran would deal less DPS than an r6 Asuran due to Asuran scan. Is this not a “real” power advantage? Of course I didn’t need r6 in the majority of the content (Missions, vanquishes), but I don’t need ascended for the majority of content in GW2 either (Dynamic events, world bosses).

I mean, player A has grinded out titles, and a few of his skills are more powerful than player B, who didn’t grind out titles. Player A is objectively more powerful than player B. This is a fact, just like how ascended gear, despite being only a 5% stat increase, is still an objective advantage in terms of stats.

“You don’t have to grind titles…If you don’t mind being at a power disadvantage due to some of your skills doing less in GW1”

“You did not have to, and the power disadvantage really doesn’t matter unless you do this minor content called WvW in GW2.”

I understand you dislike GW2’s grind and prefer GW1’s grind, but can you please stop spreading this misinformation?

I don’t deny power creep existed in gw1. And yes, a R4 imbagon was clearly disadvantaged to an R8. But what he was disadvantaged at is a far smaller amount of content than ascended armor. I don’t think you get why I’m saying it’s “minor”.

The skills were used to farm items that were exactly the same in performance as every other item in the game. The items didn’t do more damage. The items didn’t kill better. They weren’t better in alliance battle. The end result was the same, only prettier.

So you max the titles to do well in PvE, you PvE to get cash, other titles, and items that are exactly the same as everyone else’s except for looks. It’s very easily skipped.

The skills/titles were limited in other ways, like you can only have 3 on your bar, sometimes only certain mob types will take damage, etc.

You didn’t need imbagon for the missions/vaquishes in gw1. Just like you don’t need ascended gear for the majority of casual PVE. But we said before that the problem was how far beyond that ascended gear goes.

It would be like going into speed clears at R4. Then going into dungeons hard mode at R4. Then going into fissure at R4.

…Then going on your R4 into Alliance Battle/Jade Quarry/Fort Aspenwood and fighting teams with R8 Imbagon.

How fast do you think they’d ask you to rank up? How big a disadvantage do you think you’d be at?

That’s what I was getting at with the “minor”. The grind is still optional, but the consequences for not doing one are far higher than they are for the other. One was far more optional than the other. Especially when the end result for GW1 was a reward that was the same.

Of course in GW1 even ANET realized even adding those things was a mistake and lowered the amount of work you had to do to cap out sunspear/kurz/luxon skill effectiveness.

Phy.2913:

I haven’t compared the two at all, I’ve only stated that it existed (grind in GW1). I’ve been discussing the grind in GW2, and the perceived “forced” grind of slightly higher stats.

I said multiple posters, which does not mean only you. I should’ve said when we’ve discussed it. My bad.

Just to be clear imbagons didn’t have an advantage over each other once you got to title rank 2 of 12. You could easily maintain the damage reduction with the 5 second duration, obviously it being 6 seconds is more helpful, but 5 seconds was more than adequate.

Additionally r5 was all that was needed to max “Save Yourselves!”, which required less than a tenth of the points to max the titles due to exponential growth in title ranking.

The same is true of Asuran Scan, r5 is when it was at maximum effectiveness, which was less than a tenth of what it took to max the title.

You didn’t have to grind to get these abilities to max rank for maximum effectiveness.

GW1 is the grindiest game I ever played. We spent years laughing about how aNet had called it grind-free.

^ troll

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| . Please don’t .|
|.feed the trolls.|
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For what it’s worth, I don’t think Arena.net ever particularly called GW1 grind-free. That (much like the narrative that GW2 is a grindy hell akin to a Korean MMO) was largely a construct of its player-base.

Phy.2913:

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

Once again, this isn’t GW1.

…except it doesn’t matter, because it’s still relevant to original post’s topic. You’re in a GW1 thread, you should expect to read about it.

Do you cry about how Final Fantasy X is different from Final Fantasy Y? Same thing here.

It doesn’t matter how much or little grind GW1 had, it’s completely irrelevant to GW2.

I never played FFX and even if i did there wasn’t a FFY

Adine.2184:

I never played FFX and even if i did there wasn’t a FFY

I think he was just using “x” and “y” as general undefined variables, perhaps unaware that the tenth game of the series actually is referred to as “Final Fantasy X”.

chemiclord.3978:

Adine.2184:

I never played FFX and even if i did there wasn’t a FFY

I think he was just using “x” and “y” as general undefined variables, perhaps unaware that the tenth game of the series actually is referred to as “Final Fantasy X”.

It didn’t cross my mind at the time, since it made sense to me :/

DarkSpirit.7046:

OP is a common attack on GW1 based on ignorance to mislead people who are not familiar with the latest state of the game in GW1 long before GW2 was even released.

You can already get max stat on your skills at rank 5 out of a max of 10 for ALL PvE-only skills (rank 6 out of max 12 for Cathan PvE skills). Furthermore, they purposefully made the power increases per rank to be very gradual until you hit max stat at mid rank, so you hardly even feel it while leveling up.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_PvE-only_skills

It is easy to get mid rank just by playing normally so it doesn’t feel like a grind to max out your PvE-only skills. And every new expansion you buy, you would play it normally, otherwise why buy the expansion if you don’t intend to play it right?

So it is easy to get mid rank and thus, max out your PvE-only skills for that expansion, by playing normally.

They changed it to 5 after Guild Wars 1 was dead and buried, when Guild Wars 2 was on the way out. It wasn’t 5 for most of the game’s life. After everyone was leaving, they felt there was no real point to make people grind any more.

The OP isn’t misleading people, he’s making an interpretation based on the number of years that that situation existed…and it was years. The five years I played, that situation existed for all of them.

We’re really pretending like Ascended armor is this absolutely necessary gear treadmill?

DarkSpirit.7046:

Ursan.7846:

Rank 6 Kurzick took 1,200,000 faction to earn.

The most optimal Kurzick farm earned you like 40,000 an hour.

That’s approximately 30 horus STRAIGHT of doing a repetitive task over, and over, and over again. For one title track. How is this NOT a grind?

And these PvE skills are the bread and butter of PvE, especially in high-level content. IMBAgons were a huge staple, and completely relied on 2 PvE skills (Sunspear and Kurzick) which you had to grind out. Look at PvXwiki, skills such as Asuran Scan and the Ebon Vanguard battle standards are pretty common.

GW1 definitely had a grind.

You forgot that farming is not the only way to gain allegiance title points? You can also get lots of allegiance title points by simply playing the game.

You can get also get allegiance title points by playing:

- PvP like Allegiance Battle, Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood
- Performing all the quests and missions in the Luxon/Kurzick areas (both normal and hard mode)
- Completing Shiro’s Return book by completing missions (both normal and hard modes)
- Completing Young Heros of Tyria book by completing starter missions (hard mode)
- Completing Competitive Missions
- Playing in the faction’s challenge/elite missions.
- Killing monsters while under the respective faction priest blessing (both normal and hard mode)
- Vanquishing in the Luxon/Kurzick areas (hard mode)
- Exchanging faction points for kurzick/luxon skills
- Exchanging faction points for passage scrolls to Urgoz/deep
- Exchanging faction points for amber/jadeite
- Donating faction points to your guild
etc.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Allegiance_rank

With all these, it should easily get you to rank 6 for max stat skills just by playing the game.

That’s exactly the point. There’s multiple ways to get most things in the game, but there will always be the most efficient way, and people will spam that and call the game grindy.

You can get gold from anything in the game, but champ farms give you more, and thus people spam it for hours on end and get bored.

I tend to think that if you found the game grindy, its mostly your own choice.

And to be honest with you, grind isn’t a bad thing. As long as what you get at the end of it is worth it, it actually might be beneficial to the game. You got entire MMOs based on grinding. Look at RuneScape for example, that entire game is basically about grinding and its one of the most successful MMOs of all time.

Also dont know if this has been said, both luxon and kurzick were account bound and with so many chars I got rank 3 I think by finishing the game with my toons. Yes in GW1 you wanted to finish the game because it was pretty good. And vanquishing was one of my favorite things to do, both for drops and locked chests.