Guild Wars 2

You want a grind… play LOTRO.

Onis.2418:

Here’s a story about pre-renewal Ragnarok Online at it’s prime time:
(…)

Overall it’s a good to learn how to deal with long term goals.

You sir cant imagine how i miss WoE and WoE 2.0, i miss that design, also quest to obtain rare stuff feel"less" grindy and more of a challange IMO.

Grind is relative to each player, so just coming here and stating the game is grindy is only true to you. Some players do not find it very grindy others do find it very grindy.

For me, any game where I have to do something I dislike, in order to get to do something I like doing, I consider grindy. So what you have to ask yourself is, what is it you want from this game and do you need to grind in order to do that?

If sPvP is your thing then this game, as far as I can tell, has no grind what-so-ever. If vanity is your end game then this game can potentially be very grindy, depending on how you want to look of course. If maxing your stats is your thing then this game is very VERY grindy.

Don’t get me wrong, I like this game and I enjoy playing various aspects of it. But it is, for me at least, a very grindy game. I am the sort of player who aims for max stats and a certain appearance. Luckily I have found a not so expensive look that I am very happy with, but I have found getting max stats (something that was very easy and quick to get in GW1) to be extremely slow and boring due to the mechanics in place to pace how quickly you can gain them. I also like to have the option to swap between different builds from time to time, and GW2 is not multi build friendly outside of sPVP. Nor is it very alt friendly, which is another enjoyment of mine.

So overall, I find GW2 to be a very grindy game. Which, to some extent I can live with. However, there are two things that really disappointed me. One, is the amount of grind required to get ascended gear. To me max stats should be easy and quick to get. Not some time gated grindmill. But that’s just me. And two, Arenanet really shouldn’t of advertised their game as being a non-grindy game. Anet should not have claimed they do not make grindy games only to proceed with adding very grindy mechanics. That to many was a blatent lie and one players will find hard to forget. That alone lowered my respect for them a great deal.

However, at the end of the day, there are two things we, as players, will always be up against and need to be mindful of. Firstly, Anet is a business who’s main purpose is to make money. So hyping the game as best as possible to increase initial sales is very important for them. And secondly, they are a business who’s main purpose is to make money. So adding grind is an easy (requires less creativity and thought) and lower resource (grind mechanics can be easily duplicated across many parts of a game) way of keeping players in the game and encourages them to spend real money in the gem store.

Grind, unfortunately, from a business point of view is an efficient way to gain more revenue, so we really do need to learn to live with it, because I don’t know of any company yet that is willing to find new and more fun things for players to do that can earn them more profit at the same time. It is much easier for them to use the existing system, because it works and doesn’t require them to re-invent the wheel. Which is a real shame but that’s business for you.

Shifu.4321:

You haven’t known grind until you’ve tried farming cards in Ragnarok Online (0.01 drop rate).

Which is 3% on the 30x rates server I just went back to. Usually if the server is well populated, you’d have the cards you want being sold by others.

Yeah cards are hell, but its barely noticeable when you can gather up 1000s of foes on some maps and kill them in one glob even that low drop rate is manageable. (Note: this method of farming also works for the so called hard grind for your last few levels to 99 or 150) I never had an issue getting most things I wanted unless it was MVP boss cards and stuff as that its a dps race at best to be MVP, but is more fun than say zerg-wars on a mega boss as it is now here. Also there is just that teamwork dynamic as well as being competitive for MVP, as they can’t be killed alone unless you are super good.

There is no way to do anything like that in GW 2, getting more than 3 or 4 foes on you will just end your life fast in this game which is a shame really.

The grind here is totally optional. You don’t need to grind if you just want to play all the content, there is no grind needed to get access to any special content.

And of course there has to be grind, every MMO needs grind, else you have beaten the game after 2 months or whatever and there is nothing left to do. However the grind here is only for optical reasons, if we forget ascended.

Yet, when it’s all said and done, grind is grind, no matter if it’s for skills, cosmetics, or whatever else. Even if it’s optional, because one aspect of the game does require it.

So yes. Maybe not the most grindiest, but it is grindy.

Ever play Shaiya? If so I feel bad for you. Gear alone getting lvls in that game was a grind.

viralthefrog.6130:

If people think this game is grindy, they have never played:
EVE Online (OMG the grind in this game), Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, RIFT, AION, or… Well, basically any other MMO on the market, past or present.

Agreed.

I can remember what a ‘joy’ WotLK was after LotRO.

I can remember what a ‘joy’ LotRO was after WoW up to BC.

[Somewhere in the middle of this was AO and SWG]

I can remember what a ‘joy’ vanilla WoW was after playing DAoC.

I can remember what a ‘joy’ DAoC was after playing Everquest.

Everquest…

I remember how you’d have to find some little ‘safe’ spot to try to pull mobs to. You’d need an escape plan to make the mobs rubber band if you pulled too many (so as to not run into more mobs).

I remember spending 8 hours trying to find kind souls to help my friends and I get all the way back down to the bottom of some pit of hell somewhere so we could loot our own corpses to get our items back after dying.

I remember people yelling ‘train’ in a dungeon, and there was no question mark after it and they weren’t trying to find champions. It meant there was a horde of 30 mobs following people to the dungeon entrance, and you better hope you found a good place to pull that wasn’t on that path.

I remember losing experience when I died, ‘including’ de-leveling.

I remember people fighting over 3 goblins, a fire pit and a tent.

I remember the genius that built Vanguard thought it was a great idea to have all that again. :|

In all the games, I remember fighting over tagging mobs, experience, resource nodes.

But yes, now that I think about it, this game is the worst.

:|

My first MMO was Lineage 2 .. THAT was really a grindy game. People who never played something like that don’t even know what grind means i think

grind should not be synonmous with mmo, how about we stop comparing, and maybe say what we like/dislike about the “grind” here and what could make it better.

Shorter levels or more interesting levels would do it for me.
I don’t mind the ascended grind (and I’m working on it because of fractals…) but it’s actually alright, I can work on it bit by bit and do fractal levels accordingly, it doesn’t prevent me from taking part in fracs so thats ok.

Legendary grind is something I have no intention of chasing (though stat swapping appeals to me). It’s too boring, too long, for a look I dislike. (I would like the stat swapping ability, wish they made that possible with ascended gear, even if you had to forge your gear in some way to make it stat swappable. (It would the account bound aspect of them, actually useful.)

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

In relation to legendaries being unnecessary cosmetic items. Well the actual stat increase and the fact that you can move around the stats on those things contradicts that. Also it IS a grind because apart from the pvp challenge of SPvP and WvW the grind for stuff is all thats holding the PvE side of the game together when no significant new solid persistent quest, zone or raid content has been coming forth

To answer the original question.
GW2 is in an odd place on the game grind scale.
To put it simple.

If, as a player you have a goal ( ex: I want that expensive skin, or full ascended or a legendary or even more legendaries ) then the game becomes one of the most grindy games on the western market.

If you don’t have a goal, then it becomes one of the most shallow games you ever played. Because there is nothing else. Especially for a level 80.

Ionut.2307:

To answer the original question.
GW2 is in an odd place on the game grind scale.
To put it simple.

If, as a player you have a goal ( ex: I want that expensive skin, or full ascended or a legendary or even more legendaries ) then the game becomes one of the most grindy games on the western market.

If you don’t have a goal, then it becomes one of the most shallow games you ever played. Because there is nothing else. Especially for a level 80.

Basically.

Guild Wars 2 is essentially an endless gold sink; you farm whatever content until you have enough money to buy what you want from the vendor or the TP and you call it a day. In my opinion, there’s no sense of reward through actual gameplay.

Im casual player so to achieve whatever takes me 25-50 times longer. I finished my weaponsmith to 500 last weekend. Was it worthy? Of course not! Lost tons of gold (earned maximum 200g after year of playing), materials and if I want to craft ascended I cant even sell it because its account bound :-D but I managed to get that crafting impossible milestone (for me). It was a hell of a grind but I did it freely, voluntarily.

Nobody makes you to grind. Only yourself

Only thing that annoys me to death, is that Im obligated to explore the map again with new character if I want to do specific events, like guild missions on my new charcater…., since i cant kittening go where my guild mates are unless i WALK LIKE A kitten thro all maps wich is inposible anyway for low level characters….

Not to mention the www vistas and pois in enemy castles….. great kittening idea mr developer to annoy ppl to death.

viralthefrog.6130:

If people think this game is grindy, they have never played:
EVE Online (OMG the grind in this game), Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, RIFT, AION, or… Well, basically any other MMO on the market, past or present.

ive played RO since 2004, on iRo and similar private servers with x1 x1 x2 and I can enshure you that GW2 grind is 99999999999999% more boring. In Ro you had decent ambient,music,spells,monsters,etc, and most important for me woe was one of the best war system ever in any mmorpg there u had to defend or attack the castle and using brains not like in Gw2 where u just run like a sheep after ur comanter and spam keys.

I remember farming hundreds of yggs daily with my priest on a x1 x1 x2 server and was not even close as boring as in gw2 and pve in gw2 is a joke compared with Ro.

AIex.4105:

ive played RO since 2004, on iRo and similar private servers with x1 x1 x2 and I can enshure you that GW2 grind is 99999999999999% more boring.

The guy speak the truth. I dont’ think GW2 is boring per se.

But if you try to grind in GW2, I can assure you it’s the most boring grind ever.

at least those korean grinders makes an effort to make grinding more fun.

well but like everyone says you dont’ have to grind.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Unlocking a Jedi in perma-death SWG, getting 200+ hours of playtime and experience and skills, and then getting ganked by a Bounty Hunter when your force bar is empty. Your 3 death allowance had been consumed by either dial-up disconnects (because, at the time, high speed internet was way too expensive), errors in judgement while fighting whatever mobs, Galactic Civil War, or other Bounty Hunters.
Time to reroll and put another 100+ hours into it.
That was quite grindy.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Your original point was it is required for one to remain competitive.

You have yet to back that up or even say where that is the case, all you are basically saying so far is it’s a grind because you choose to make it one for marginal stat increases, and yes 10% is marginal even without comparing the cost/gain which is less drastic cost wise with exotics and below.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

Calling bull-kitten on this. Prove it or be wrong.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Oh, I see…..never mind (there’s one in every crowd).

“Dicimus, quare adteritis” (We play, therefore we grind). Trust me I’ve played mmo’s with far worse grinds. SWG quests stopped at 40, and you had to grind to 80!!

Don’t get caught up on the hamster wheel for Ascended. It’s marginally better, and simply a fashion statement at this point. A noob in Ascended can be beaten by a Pro in masterwork everytime. Pool expert Willie Mosconi could beat people using an umbrella. Pro is pro, it’s not the armor that makes you win, you do.. Most people with ascended gear bought it.. or so everyone thinks anyways. lol

What other games have you played? Lol

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Your original point was it is required for one to remain competitive.

You have yet to back that up or even say where that is the case, all you are basically saying so far is it’s a grind because you choose to make it one for marginal stat increases, and yes 10% is marginal even without comparing the cost/gain which is less drastic cost wise with exotics and below.

Um, it’s pretty simple. If I want to remain competitive, and be the best I could be, I have to have max stats in WvW. I have to have max stats in PvE as well, because I’m one of those people who actually CARE about doing very well, and I hate dragging the team down.

Like I said, other people can special snowflake it all they want, but don’t go calling me “bad” or my gear a “crutch” just because I enjoy improving my character.

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

Is this the only mmorpg you have ever played? by far, GW2 is the easiest mmorpg i ever played from “grinding-farming” perspective. I level so fast (too fast even), i earn gold so easy (compared to every other mmorpg in general, definitely not what i expected before playing this game). If this game is hard, you’ll probably commit suicide before completely farming to the end on any f2p-p2p mmorpg out there (especially from crappy publisher)

Nimarrna.5924:

GW2 is NOT a grindy game.

Just for an example, i played PWI.That game has 105 levels and you needed almost a year (normal play) to get you’r character to that level…1 character.Or you could grind the same dungeon all day long for xp.That would take you to 105 in 5-6 months.

After reaching level 100-105,you would need gear!

But why farm for it when all the dungeon gear (that takes 2-3 months to farm) is worthless in comparison to the CASH SHOP GEAR you can buy straight from the item mall for 1.5k $ …….but wait…we still need shards and the gear has to be + 12 or at least + 10……..these things cost another thousand dollars (so you have to pay 2.5k $ for endgame gear)…..OR if you don’t want to buy all this stuff you could still farm a dungeon and sell the materials for ingame gold which could be converted into item mall currency.

You would be farming the same dungeons over and over and over again for 1 year+ just to be on par with the cash shoppers,otherwise you would get killed by 1-2 skills without even bein able to scratch their armor.

That is grind.Grind for levels,for armor,for anything you need to have in order to compete with others.

GW2 never felt like a grind to me. Just by leveling and reaching 80,i get enough gold to buy a whole set of exotics,runes and everything else that is needed.

If you want a legendary or cosmetics you have to put in more work.That’s how it is.Those things are optional, and it’s your choice to get them or not.

Hmm, getting a full set of ascended will take me longer (potentially years) than what you describe as a grind in PWI, and it is required to be on par with someone else who has it.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Your original point was it is required for one to remain competitive.

You have yet to back that up or even say where that is the case, all you are basically saying so far is it’s a grind because you choose to make it one for marginal stat increases, and yes 10% is marginal even without comparing the cost/gain which is less drastic cost wise with exotics and below.

Um, it’s pretty simple. If I want to remain competitive, and be the best I could be, I have to have max stats in WvW. I have to have max stats in PvE as well, because I’m one of those people who actually CARE about doing very well, and I hate dragging the team down.

Like I said, other people can special snowflake it all they want, but don’t go calling me “bad” or my gear a “crutch” just because I enjoy improving my character.

Competition in WvW? Oh that’s cute.

You mean the blob vs blob, where your individual gear means nothing? Or the roaming, where your contribution to the score is insignificant and most people you run into are fairly bad anyways? I honestly had hoped I was mistaken and this was not what you were calling competition.

And if 10% is noticeably dragging your team down in PvE, your team is pretty kittenty to begin with.

Everything you’ve said is only true because you choose it to be, thus it is only true for you. No one in PvE cares about that ascended gear outside of fractals, and it means nothing in WvW. You can scream to the sky that it matters all you want, it doesn’t change the fact however that Ascended gear is completely optional and is honestly a waste of time unless you plan to do the highest tiers of fractals.

The only real competition in the game is in sPVP, where the average player tends to be much better then the average WvW roamer. Well, prior to the 15th anyways.

There are plenty of real issue with GW2, the grind is not one of them.

Animal Crossing is grindier than this game.

Seriously, you don’t know how many hours I’ve spent on Tortimer island farming rare bugs to sell for bells. I’ve had this game since release, and I don’t even have all the legendaries in that game. I’ve managed to get the golden slingshot and the golden axe, but the other ascended tools are gonna be a real pain to acquire.

Legendaries aside, though, you have to grind bells just to upgrade your own HOUSE! I’m not kidding, to fully upgrade your house, it’ll cost you over 7 MILLION BELLS! How can you make 7 million bells without grinding? It’s insane! Thanks, Tom Nook, for making this game impossible to play and have fun without grinding!

NINTEDOOOO! YOU RUIN MY AMINAL CROSSING! I QUIT UNTIL YOU FIX THIS GAME! NURF EVERYTHING! IT TOO GRINDYYYY!! RAAUGHWR!! >:O

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

Or perhaps this type of game is not meant for you. Whenever you have a game that has “top tier”, “must have”, or “legendary” items — people are going to work for them. You’re choosing to do that.

It is YOUR CHOICE.

Gw2 is grind. Because gw2 is about getting skins and most of the skins in game are bought through gold because Anet is too lazy to put them as obtainable through content, so basically if you want something expensive like a bltc skin, you grind your way to a lot of gold or slowly save up over months. Its really a huge flaw this game has.

Azhure.1857:

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

Or perhaps this type of game is not meant for you. Whenever you have a game that has “top tier”, “must have”, or “legendary” items — people are going to work for them. You’re choosing to do that.

It is YOUR CHOICE.

I don’t disagree that getting a legendary should be a difficult task, but legendaries in thsi game are stupid. You pretty much just need a bunch of gold to buy them, which means you could easily buy it with real life money. Legendaries don’t mean anything in this game. Its a crafting/farming grindfest. A legendary should be about doing specific content, ideally difficult, to get your reward. A legendary doesn’t mean anything about skill, it doesn’t make you feel any better after you got it, especially when its just another item that can be bought with gold.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Your original point was it is required for one to remain competitive.

You have yet to back that up or even say where that is the case, all you are basically saying so far is it’s a grind because you choose to make it one for marginal stat increases, and yes 10% is marginal even without comparing the cost/gain which is less drastic cost wise with exotics and below.

Um, it’s pretty simple. If I want to remain competitive, and be the best I could be, I have to have max stats in WvW. I have to have max stats in PvE as well, because I’m one of those people who actually CARE about doing very well, and I hate dragging the team down.

Like I said, other people can special snowflake it all they want, but don’t go calling me “bad” or my gear a “crutch” just because I enjoy improving my character.

I usually play weekends with my friends who only plays on weekend, so they are pretty casual players. Though me and my Girlfriend we play alot more and we got full ascended with our chars and I havent noticed any change in the speed we compleate dungeons. Well a little change in time but it is hard to tell if it is the gear or if it is becouse we are getting better at the dungeons and I more think it is becouse of the last. But it is just a difference of a minute or two, so if we all had ascended we would do 3min faster :P

We don’t wipe, we don’t or atleast rarely die so the only difference would be time.
Ascended being a must to be a viable player is bull, not even Exotic is needed but the lower you go the harder it gets.

Azhure.1857:

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

Or perhaps this type of game is not meant for you. Whenever you have a game that has “top tier”, “must have”, or “legendary” items — people are going to work for them. You’re choosing to do that.

It is YOUR CHOICE.

Yeah he can also choose to go collect mini’s.. Go into the world, and earn them with specific content. Some farming but at least no boring gold-grind. Oow wait wrong example. Well then crafting, go into the world collect recipe’s farm mats.. oow wait it’s better to grind gold and buy many of the mats (not all, some are farm-able, mainly referring to some core’s). Or he can go do content to be rewarded with cool looking gear.. oow wait you can also not do a lot of content to get specific gear, it mainly grind gold to then by that skin.

Sorry but no it’s not only if you want the ‘top tier’ stuff. It’s almost everywhere, even map-completion feels like a grind because of collecting PoI’s, hearts and vista’s. It’s not that you unlock most of the map by itself by leveling and then just have to walk past then one spot that you mist.

Biggest problem is just that most stuff requires gold and (or another currency but mainly gold). That is because they mainly work with general drops. A cool skin can drop from any or at least any champion mob but chance of it dropping is extremely low. That means that you can’t work towards that specific item. Another reason is that a lot of fun items (skins, mini’s) are not in the game at all but in the cash-shop. They can end up in the TP meaning you need them to buy for gold or they can not end up in the cash shop meaning you need to grind gold to convert to gems to buy. Of course you can buy them (the whole reason for it being this way) but we are talking here bout playing the game and how that feels grindy. We are not talking about how you can buy your way out of the grind and get your items anyway and forgetting that you are then not really playing the game.

Lastly there is the many temporary stuff. While factually not a grind (many of those items do require specific content) it still feels like a grind because it’s a list of achievements (what have been got the status of currency) or other content you have to do against the clock and when your done there is another list and another list and another list. Main reason why I do have some more fun the last few weeks is because we don’t have those list… we don’t have had any LS patches. It feels great.
Would you have missed any of it then you missed out part of the items / rewards for good, other ones might still be available but one again the way to get them is with a lot of gold so grind grind grind your gold.

There is pretty much no farming in this game it has all be turned into grinding gold (or another currency). Why? Then sell gems and allow you to buy gold with gems so making gold so important and giving you a way out of the grind that way might mean gem-sales. It’s that sort of influence of cash-shops why I never play F2P game.

Luckily I found a game that was not F2P but B2P making it’s money with game sales and expansion. (That last part was sarcasm)

After the addition of ascended armor and WXP and various other things, this did indeed become one of the grindiest games to be released in recent years. I originally started playing because I wanted a sub-free game that didn’t have anything but cosmetic grinds. Well…

In all honesty, I can only speak for my personal experiences. I am actually quite lazy when it comes to game aspects such as grinding. In fact, I loath farming or grinding of any kind because I hate doing repetitive actions over and over again, so I went into GW2 with the full believe that I would never get a legendary in the game, and I was fine with that because they are purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay at all.

For the most part, I just hang with friends in my guild and we do whatever it is we feel like at the time, whether it’s a dungeon, wvw, world bosses, or literally just taking long walks through Tyria (we’ve literally just walked across entire maps, while admiring the scenery and chatting).

However, over the course of time I’ve been playing the game, I ultimately managed to craft two legendaries. I got lucky precursor drops and I had a lot of mats saved up purely from doing random stuff in the game as it suited me, so it didn’t take a lot of effort or grinding to complete the legendaries. In fact, most of the mats I just bought directly with the gold I had managed to save. Ultimately, I played the game how I wanted and still managed to get some of the best items in the game. I’d say you’d only have to really grind if you were in a rush to get a legendary, but if you just relax and play how you want, you can have fun and will likely end up getting one either way, it will just take longer. At least you’ll be having fun though, which is far more important than any cosmetic item.

I can also say with no lack of certainty that having a legendary is not all it’s hyped up to be. I have both Incinerator and Meteorlogicus and although it was really cool when I first got them, I got over it really fast. Besides, there are so many people running around with legendaries these days that they don’t even feel special or unique anymore. I don’t feel important for holding one so I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it if I were you.

Ultimately, I think my point is that you should just play how you want and not how you feel compelled to.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

In all honesty, I can only speak for my personal experiences. I am actually quite lazy when it comes to game aspects such as grinding. In fact, I loath farming or grinding of any kind because I hate doing repetitive actions over and over again, so I went into GW2 with the full believe that I would never get a legendary in the game, and I was fine with that because they are purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay at all.

For the most part, I just hang with friends in my guild and we do whatever it is we feel like at the time, whether it’s a dungeon, wvw, world bosses, or literally just taking long walks through Tyria (we’ve literally just walked across entire maps, while admiring the scenery and chatting).

However, over the course of time I’ve been playing the game, I ultimately managed to craft two legendaries. I got lucky precursor drops and I had a lot of mats saved up purely from doing random stuff in the game as it suited me, so it didn’t take a lot of effort or grinding to complete the legendaries. In fact, most of the mats I just bought directly with the gold I had managed to save. Ultimately, I played the game how I wanted and still managed to get some of the best items in the game. I’d say you’d only have to really grind if you were in a rush to get a legendary, but if you just relax and play how you want, you can have fun and will likely end up getting one either way, it will just take longer. At least you’ll be having fun though, which is far more important than any cosmetic item.

I can also say with no lack of certainty that having a legendary is not all it’s hyped up to be. I have both Incinerator and Meteorlogicus and although it was really cool when I first got them, I got over it really fast. Besides, there are so many people running around with legendaries these days that they don’t even feel special or unique anymore. I don’t feel important for holding one so I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it if I were you.

Ultimately, I think my point is that you should just play how you want and not how you feel compelled to.

Legendaries don’t effect the game-play because they are only cosmetic? I find that a really strange idea for a RPG. Skins are just as much part of the game-play as killing is.. of course it depends on the player but an MMORPG it not (like for example UT) just about killing. It’s about RPG.. PvE, collecting, quest (or events) and so on.

Play the way I want. I want to hunt down items I like or need. Being it recipe’s mainly for fun crafts (don’t exist in GW2) or mini’s or cool skins or mounts or just fun items. Doing a dungeon one time is fun. Beating that dungeon the first time is fun. Now if that dungeon has the chance to drop a item I want I get the urge to go back in there. Having the feeling of ‘will the item i’m hunting down drop this time’. Meanwhile switching between content because there are more items I am hunting down. But doing the dungeon just to sell the rewards / earn money to then buy the items I want (likely I don’t want them any-more if this is the route) is not the way I want to play. Meaning I don’t do the dungeons a lot meaning I don’t make as much money.

However, by normal playing I did indeed make a lot of gold in total. However since everything cost gold it also went out very fast. Bank-slots, a few mini’s I really want, dyes I really wanted and so on. If I never had spend any of that money I might have been able to buy a legendary but then I would have missed out on those other things.

Doing dungeons over and over just for the dungeons or to make money is just not fun for me and it’s not the way I like to play. I like to play for items but you can’t. It’s then all grinding gold.
In a way with your explanation you even proof it. If you ’ play’ long enough you can just buy what you want. And that’s the problem. I don’t want to buy what I want I want to play for what I want. It’s supposed to be a game, not a job.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

Stats matter of course .. but having an increase of 0,5-1% in stats because of a FULL set of ascended armor, isn’t really THAT big. Heck i think i already loose more stats when i use Traveller Runes instead of Divinity or Ruby Orbs if we just go for max damage.

Ashen.2907:

Nimarrna.5924:

GW2 is NOT a grindy game.

Just for an example, i played PWI.That game has 105 levels and you needed almost a year (normal play) to get you’r character to that level…1 character.Or you could grind the same dungeon all day long for xp.That would take you to 105 in 5-6 months.

After reaching level 100-105,you would need gear!

But why farm for it when all the dungeon gear (that takes 2-3 months to farm) is worthless in comparison to the CASH SHOP GEAR you can buy straight from the item mall for 1.5k $ …….but wait…we still need shards and the gear has to be + 12 or at least + 10……..these things cost another thousand dollars (so you have to pay 2.5k $ for endgame gear)…..OR if you don’t want to buy all this stuff you could still farm a dungeon and sell the materials for ingame gold which could be converted into item mall currency.

You would be farming the same dungeons over and over and over again for 1 year+ just to be on par with the cash shoppers,otherwise you would get killed by 1-2 skills without even bein able to scratch their armor.

That is grind.Grind for levels,for armor,for anything you need to have in order to compete with others.

GW2 never felt like a grind to me. Just by leveling and reaching 80,i get enough gold to buy a whole set of exotics,runes and everything else that is needed.

If you want a legendary or cosmetics you have to put in more work.That’s how it is.Those things are optional, and it’s your choice to get them or not.

Hmm, getting a full set of ascended will take me longer (potentially years) than what you describe as a grind in PWI, and it is required to be on par with someone else who has it.

Then it will take you maybe 20 or 50 years in PWI to level to 105. I played it for 5-6 months and was maybe lvl 65 or so .. in the same time played there i can farm here maybe 2-3000 gold and with that craft quite some sets of ascended armor and weapons.

The game is not grindy. But it is still a very, very, very bad idea to implement a new tier of gear without any new content (higher fractals aside).

This was just a Anet panicking and implementing a next tier with mere improvement but huge grind (yes, but not needed) to please the standard MMO crowd.

This thread….
Time and time and again you get the same answer..
GW2 is not a grind because the grindy things are OPTIONAL.
Ok, let’s see. So what do you do, as a casual, if you don’t want to get involved in those OPTIONAL stuff.
What else is here besides those?
What are those great activities here that don’t involve a grind ?

Someone make me a list.

Is it Jumping Puzzles? They’re awesome. You can finish them in 2 days.

Is it WvW? A whack-a-mole activity without any real rewards.

SPvP? An unbalanced mess with no map variation laughed at by any esport competitive gaming.

Map completion? 300 renown hearts filled with lifeless NPC’s. Hell, like 30 of those involve putting out fire with buckets. It gets boring real fast. No thanks.

World bosses? A 6 fps particle spam zergfests. Or is it running around enjoying DE? Yeah, good luck on that with the new megaserver.

Dungeons? Please!! Don’t make me laugh. Fractals? RNG masochism.

SO. What else is there besides hunting for rare skins and grindy stuff like legendaries and ascended gear?

This so called " No grind cuz is optional" doesn’t click for me.
Or maybe is it " In that asian mmo you gotta grind 1 million things to get another thing, therefore GW2 is not grindy compared to that."

Those are not answers.

Ionut.2307:

What are those great activities here that don’t involve a grind ?

What are the great activities in ANY MMOs that are not grinds ?

Run same Dungeon / Raid 1000 times until you have best gear, then wait for next patch that gives even better gear or level cap increase, so you need to run the next new dungeon /raid 1000 times to get best gear .. and so on .. and so on ..

And else .. maybe grind some factions until you have 10 millions in each or whatever.

Ionut.2307:

This thread….
Time and time and again you get the same answer..
GW2 is not a grind because the grindy things are OPTIONAL.
Ok, let’s see. So what do you do, as a casual, if you don’t want to get involved in those OPTIONAL stuff.
What else is here besides those?
What are those great activities here that don’t involve a grind ?

Someone make me a list.

Is it Jumping Puzzles? They’re awesome. You can finish them in 2 days.

Is it WvW? A whack-a-mole activity without any real rewards.

SPvP? An unbalanced mess with no map variation laughed at by any esport competitive gaming.

Map completion? 300 renown hearts filled with lifeless NPC’s. Hell, like 30 of those involve putting out fire with buckets. It gets boring real fast. No thanks.

World bosses? A 6 fps particle spam zergfests. Or is it running around enjoying DE? Yeah, good luck on that with the new megaserver.

Dungeons? Please!! Don’t make me laugh. Fractals? RNG masochism.

SO. What else is there besides hunting for rare skins and grindy stuff like legendaries and ascended gear?

This so called " No grind cuz is optional" doesn’t click for me.
Or maybe is it " In that asian mmo you gotta grind 1 million things to get another thing, therefore GW2 is not grindy compared to that."

Those are not answers.

You just listed the game, that tells me that this game is not for you.

This game is not a grind because it is optional grind, the stuff you listed as not fun are the things I find very enjoyable, so the stuff you listed as “grinding” is stuff that I do not do because it is optional and there is plenty of other things I enjoy.

So like I said, this game just isn’t for you, time to move on.

Beldin.5498:

Stats matter of course .. but having an increase of 0,5-1% in stats because of a FULL set of ascended armor, isn’t really THAT big.

5% dps increase for only weapon, and about 20% dps increase for full set of zerker gear however are significant.

It really comes down to personal preference and what you perceive as grind. For me I find GW2 to be the least grindy game I’ve ever played, in comparison to games like (UO, AC, AC2, WoW, AoC, CoH, DCUO, Aion, Lineage2, EVE, and countless others).

I’ve read posts so far that feel completely the opposite and give very little tangible evidence as to why other than the fact that they a) feel it is more grindy and b) the other grinds were more enjoyable and thus didn’t feel like grind.

That’s really what it boils down to. If you like killing monsters over and over and over for marginal % increase to level (like in Lineage2) but absolutely hate having to run GW2 dungeon paths over and over for gold, then you simply dislike GW2’s form of “grinding” and prefer others.

Everyone in this thread that has claimed GW2 is the grindiest game ever just seem to dislike GW2 in general. Playing GW2 is like work to them and unenjoyable. Which certainly begs the question: why the heck are you still here? And if you’ve stopped playing, why the heck are you on the forums?

Beldin.5498:

Ionut.2307:

What are those great activities here that don’t involve a grind ?

What are the great activities in ANY MMOs that are not grinds ?

Run same Dungeon / Raid 1000 times until you have best gear, then wait for next patch that gives even better gear or level cap increase, so you need to run the next new dungeon /raid 1000 times to get best gear .. and so on .. and so on ..

And else .. maybe grind some factions until you have 10 millions in each or whatever.

Well I had fun doing all sort of different content to get those items (playing directly for those items). I don’t have fun doing them to grind gold to buy the items.

Besides a quest for those items usually send you all over the world. Inn GW2 if you want an item then the best way to do it is finding the easiest way to get gold and do that all day (that is why we did see the champ trains and so on)

Collecting those things is my favorite gameplay. But grinding for them is not.

Lol. Took me 5 weeks to make a legendary from nothing. That includes getting map completion and about 1M karma and running dungeons/events for the gold. I have a full-time job and I go out on some of my days off. It’s not a grind and even if it was, it’s a Legendary — they’re not supposed to just fall into your lap when you make a wish for it.

It’s pretty easy to gain levels and top-tier items in GW2 in comparison with other MMOs. You have no idea what a real “grind” is XD