Guild Wars 2

So the game has been out for about 3 weeks now and I’ve been sitting here with full exotics (with the runes and accesories, the whole deal) and I see there’s a lot of discussion about how much of a grind GW2 is so it got me thinking about how gearing up works in other mmos.

The closest I ever got to max gear was in Rift so I’ll talk about that one. I played other mmos like WoW, Aion and Swtor so I know that the gear progression is somewhat similar (read: not exactly the same but comparable).

Anyway, I got into Rift several months after release, it took me about the same time as GW2 to reach the max level and after that the gear progression began. I was lucky enough to have some friends who were already playing it so getting into the dungeons and learning strategies from them made things easy. Now the difficulty of these dungeons is pretty relative… Sure they’re super easy if all your members (especially the tank and healer) are well geared. With insufficient gear it’s completely impossible, not to mention that all the pressure lies mainly on the two out of five players who aren’t dps. There were two tiers of dungeons and after I would sufficiently grind each tier (with relative success and long queues because of looking for tanks/healers) I would finally be raid ready.

I was actually lucky enough to join a guild that would after some drama remake itself into pretty much the best raiding guild on the server (server first on Akylios). Now the raids had separate tiers as well but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was getting 20 people in the right setup 4 times a week to train doing different bosses.

And that was some serious wiping let me tell you. When we finally got to Hammerknell, it took us four or five nights of four hour wiping to finally learn a boss. This was with full strategies and on the fastest progressing guild on the server, I’d hate to think what it was like for the more casual crowd.

Not like these speed runs where people quit because they wasted more than 15 minutes on a dungeon. We had to wipe hard before all 20 of us learned it perfectly, not to mention we were still limited by gear untill later on. And when we finally downed a boss what did we get? THREE pieces of gear to spread across TWENTY players… yay -.-

Btw if 20 of us could learn to finish a raid without wipes, then five well organized people can learn to do explorables without wipes.

Even when we had the bosses down to perfection (btw if 20 of us could learn to finish a raid without wipes, then five well organized people can learn to do explorables without wipes) we still couldn’t just farm them. Why? Because raids would only reset after one week. A WEEK! Now that’s some artificial lengthening of content! Makes the 30 minute reward downscaler in GW2 dungeons not seem so bad. What was I doing when we weren’t raiding? Nothing really, sitting on mykitten and paying subscription. Sure there’s open world stuff like rifts but imo it pales in comparison to Gw2’s open world and dynamic events.

Well long story short, after six months of playing Rift I was well on my way to max gear (well not completely maxed but close enough).

So now I’m wondering what I can do in GW2 with SIX MONTHS…

I already have max stats gear and I could have gotten that in a number of different ways, not just one extremely painful way as is common in other mmos.

Pretty sure I can get whatever cosmetic set I want within that time. Hell I might even get a legendary in six months and who knows what other content might come our way within that time.

Well, this was my perspective on why GW2 really clicks with me and hopefully many others as well. They just threw out soooo much annoying stuff out, to me this really is a step forward in mmos, even the endgame. I know it won’t be for everyone but neither was GW1 and that had a pretty big community.

Thank you Arena Net.

Finnally someone that understand that in gw2 you have a choice to do what you want and not to grind just because you need to have the gear to have the chance to do content!

Does Rift have lockout timers? Because I know that WoW, Aion, LOTRO, EQ2, etc all have them. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t as far as I am aware. This has to be taken into consideration.

The only thing I ever ‘grinded’ for in an MMO was my Warsong Gulch Battleground Justicar title. It took me about two years and I enjoyed every moment in finally achieving the title. Two years of fun, playing when I wanted to and when I felt like it. Not playing it non stop every single waking moment using the mathematically fastest way possible to achieve the title and hating every moment I spent doing it. There is a massive difference between the two methods I have mentioned here.

Someone is on to something here.Hurry, i smell intelligence here. It’s rare! I am scared!

No seriously though , good for you Archer.

The main content in this game for pve is dungeons,world content, multiple stories, multiple classes, and much more.

The main content for pvp is constantly fine tuning build after build and testing how effective you become.As patches and content change the way you function you must adapt to survive or be wiped. Those that learn the system and learn to make truly unique builds survive. Of course some builds will be come standard but this game rewards you for experimenting( or punishes you).

The PVP content alone of GW1 kept people around for years.And this will do the same.

Remember it is all about how you approach this game. This game isn’t about end game, this game is about the journey and the pvp. I can tell you straight out you have not experienced everything here yet.Nor will you for a long time truly. Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn’t understand this game or is lying. I am just being blunt about that.

Apparently GW2 grinds are not really grinds because they are 2% more fun than other games grinds.

you have to learn to enjoy just being in the game ..among other players ..there is so much content ..story’s to hear ..places, things to see ..this game is like a book …if you just skip every conversation just to finish a map the fastest way possible than you are skipping chapters in that book

..after you finish the book you can rewrite that book with a different hero ..different outcome …this game leaves so much to the imagination ..the only thing the game can’t tell you is how to use you’r imagination

i would say GW2 grind is more of a choice to pursuit of ur own ambition.
both me and my wife are a very casual player, we play mostly only 2-3 hours during weekdays, and longer on weekends.
we both reached 80 on our 2nd week playing and just last night i fully crafted my knight exotic set
things that never actually come to our mind that the feeling of progress comes so naturally within our playtime & exploration
“we actually reached top level with top equipments!”
these kind of thing may require much more dedication in other MMO’s
we never grinded, we explore and have fun
i have to say, in my whole experience of playing MMO’s, this is the game that feels so right for me and my wife

so, no its not a grind fest, its about what u choose to do as OP said

at last, a positif post
yeah, gamers nowadays are too spoiled
or maybe there are too many casuals playing GW2
GW2’s grind is nothing compared to other mmorpgs