Guild Wars 2

Generally people seem to be split, those that enjoy grinding and those that don’t. What ideas do you think could make BOTH crowds happy. I upcased BOTH because if you do somthing to one side, somthing to the other side must be done.

For example,

For those that enjoy grind: Increase skins! People love to grind to for skins! Just put the mats of the skin on different monsters (rare drops of course) and have people collect them (but not as hard as legendary)

For those that do not enjoy grind: Stats should not be such a grind. The grind should be cut by 3/4.

In that example not doing are there more time skins But people who don’t care about skins can get their gear.

This game clearly has two different kinds of people, those that like grinding and those that do not. Before I continue even though some of you know my stance on this I will not show it in this post. The community is clearly divided, something this is without a doubt a problem. However in spite of this problem and after reading numerous posts about it, it tends to boil down to people bashing one another. We as a community need to come to a compromise because we are all intelligent, decent human beings.
I have a few suggestions, these suggestions are just suggestions so they could be completely off the mark and might be.
1. Lets touch on Stat grinding. Clearly this is an issue that casual people have with the game so logically it should be done that stats are made easier to get.
But how do we balance this new change?
2. Skins. People love in any game to grind for great looking skins hence why people try their hearts out trying to get Twilight (me included). But it appears there is a complete lack skins (if you don’t count legendary) to grind for. My suggestion is to have rare skins drop at low rates from certain champions. Or have certain mats for the skin drop from the champion that have to be thrown into the mystic forge.
These are just two examples which could be wrong but I think they are a start to a better, happier community.

Just a note this is not a “is Guildwars2 a grind or not thread” please keep that in mind when posting. These are suggestions which Anet will probably listen to more because people are not attacking one another.

So what do you think? What stragies would make both parties happy?

Thank you for reading this and offering your thoughts on this.

I think more emphasis on profession balance in relation to general fun-factor.
Some professions are not working as intended and I think they hamper the fun people could be having.

That and removing the crazy DR system, which apparently “is to stop exploiters” (honestly, it’s causing more problems for the general playerbase than it is catching exploit loopholes)….but generally hurts everyone.

What I believe has happened is that the original playerbase (aka those who bought all the manifesto copypasta) weren’t enough for Anet so they made the game more traditional MMO-esque to get more people. Of course this means gear treadmills and the like.

But I’m not sure it is a working strategy to try to please everyone, because you likely end up with no one feeling that they are being catered to.
Everyone finds something they like, and a lot they don’t, so everyone is most likely going to jump to a MMO that offers a lot they like and something they don’t.

I for one can adapt to things I’d just like more communication.
It’s been a lot since we heard about their plans and directions, all updates seem to be unrelated to each other if not uncalled for… It’s all pretty dark and I believe people likes to walk in the light so they know where they are going.

What I hear is “we want esport but not really, we want cosmetic progre- no wait we want gear tread- no wait a mix of bo- no wait we’ll just make that daily-based through fetch quests… oh hey and we’re coding keg brawl while some skills have been bugged for 5 months”…
I feel like I have 25 stacks of Confusion on me and no condition removal. :/

I wish Anet could just pick one direction and follow it.
It worked with GW1.

I want storing/swapping sets of gear easier. And make respeccing traits easier.
I want horizontal progression. The ability to play multiple roles with one character without it being a mess and a chore.
But it’s not going to, nor ever going to happen. I can list many fundamental design that make it impossible to change now.

Get back to the Manifesto.

There are really no suggestions at all? This approuch is suppose to be civil and no bashing one side or the other.

MMO Players: Excellent at finding problems. Horrible at finding solutions.

Here’s my horrible solution:

• Ascended gear is the final tier. Period. You can not address this issue without having a final tier. They plan on increasing the max level anyway…there’s no point in adding more and more tiers as well.

• Add the vertical progression from GW1: Titles and associated PvE only skills that improve with each title tier

• Bring back the design-a-weapon contest from GW1 (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Design-a-Weapon_%282007%29). Add the top 10-20 weapons as a low % drop on champions (0.5%-1%). Imagine having 10-20 new epic weapons added every 4-6 months…Let the community do the work for you

• Added ascended crafting recipes (in the works).

• Add tokens to dragons to turn in for unique back pieces, lodestones, and aqua-rebreathers.

• Add mini-games. This may not seem important, but there needs to be non-combat related content Jumping puzzles are one example. We need the rest that were promised prior to launch. Hell, simply adding GW2: Farmville would give people something to do while chilling. MINI GAMES PREVENT BURN-OUT

Vorch.2985:

MMO Players: Excellent at finding problems. Horrible at finding solutions.

Here’s my horrible solution:

• Ascended gear is the final tier. Period. You can not address this issue without having a final tier. They plan on increasing the max level anyway…there’s no point in adding more and more tiers as well.

• Add the vertical progression from GW1: Titles and associated PvE only skills that improve with each title tier

• Bring back the design-a-weapon contest from GW1 (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Design-a-Weapon_%282007%29). Add the top 10-20 weapons as a low % drop on champions (0.5%-1%). Imagine having 10-20 new epic weapons added every 4-6 months…Let the community do the work for you

• Added ascended crafting recipes (in the works).

• Add tokens to dragons to turn in for unique back pieces, lodestones, and aqua-rebreathers.

• Add mini-games. This may not seem important, but there needs to be non-combat related content Jumping puzzles are one example. We need the rest that were promised prior to launch. Hell, simply adding GW2: Farmville would give people something to do while chilling. MINI GAMES PREVENT BURN-OUT

Wonderful suggestions!

In general do you think more skins + getting stats easier is a good idea? or not?
Keep in mind a solution makes both side of the equation happy =)

Really no one has any idea on how to fix this? Everyone clearly sees an issue though. Then why not make simple suggestions like I made?

Take the DR code, transfer it to a cd, take cd out of computer, break the cd, burn the cd, take the remains of the cd and grind it into dust, put it in a envelope, then mail it to the smurf that came up with the idea of using DR in a mmo loot system.

Revolution.6301:

Really no one has any idea on how to fix this? Everyone clearly sees an issue though. Then why not make simple suggestions like I made?

Speak for yourself…not me. I don’t see a grind for me personally so no issue here. If someone feels that they are grinding then they need to re-evaluate their personal approach to playing the game and decide if it’s worth it to them or not.

No matter what is done someone, somewhere will think that there’s a grind. I don’t really see any solution to that. Sorry.

For people who want to grind, just give them a daily that requires them to kill 300 mobs or so to complete it. Farming is inevitable, so putting countermeasures against it doesn’t really help.

For people who don’t want to grind, stay with the normal daily.

Both dailies give the same reward, but the reward is only given once. It just depends on which one is completed first.

BioFringe.7945:

Revolution.6301:

Really no one has any idea on how to fix this? Everyone clearly sees an issue though. Then why not make simple suggestions like I made?

Speak for yourself…not me. I don’t see a grind for me personally so no issue here. If someone feels that they are grinding then they need to re-evaluate their personal approach to playing the game and decide if it’s worth it to them or not.

No matter what is done someone, somewhere will think that there’s a grind. I don’t really see any solution to that. Sorry.

Did you actually bother to read my thread? No you didn’t.
Let me explain it to you.

This thread is not a “OMG There is Lots of grind in this game!” or “This is so, So grind free!”

This thread points out that there are two types of people, people who love grind and those you dont.

So the point of it all is to come up with suggestions to please both.

Read a thread before commenting randomly.

I did read your thread thank you very much. It’s just that the quote from you was the only thing worth replying to.

Why do you keep making these threads? What are you trying to gain by pleasing both camps? Leave that to Anet and if you have any specific suggestions for them, well there’s a forum for that.

Vorch.2985:

They plan on increasing the max level anyway…

Mind citing your sources?

vince.5937:

Vorch.2985:

They plan on increasing the max level anyway…

Mind citing your sources?

I’m sorta bored so I found it for him.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-27-arenanet-holds-frank-reddit-debate-on-guild-wars-2-loot-grind

Loot Tables need a total overhaul
Dungeons need a total overhaul
Open world needs a total overhaul
WvW needs a total overhaul
Skills and Balance need a total overhaul
Tokens and Karma need a total overhaul

That will fix most of my Grind issues hopefully.

Just keep adding variety to the tasks that are considered grindy. They do this with Dungeons and Fractals, by making it so that you don’t run the same exact paths/encounters each time.

They do this with dailies by changing up the daily each time.

Grinding for karma is somewhat like this, as you can do different events but I feel like most people are just farming Orr events.

Grinding for mats however is incredibly tedious and random (especially with the DR and poor drop rates). I’d love to see crafting mats as rewards from events or currencies (you can spend a Laurel for a bag of mats, but you’re limited by your dailies.)

I like their approach to dungeon grind and would like to see this system everywhere else.

Red Falcon.8257:

What I believe has happened is that the original playerbase (aka those who bought all the manifesto copypasta) weren’t enough for Anet so they made the game more traditional MMO-esque to get more people. Of course this means gear treadmills and the like.

I don’t think you’re incorrect; I think the bulk of those 3M in sales were to the ~2M “content locusts.” While developers’ friends and family deride them as such, most of these players are really just looking for a long-term PvP-oriented home.

I think you’re right that Lost Shores was an attempt to redirect the focus of the game, away from PvP and towards PvE. I can think of a few reasons why they might do this, but speculation would only serve to cloud what I think is something we can agree on.

Dante.1508:

Loot Tables need a total overhaul
Dungeons need a total overhaul
Open world needs a total overhaul
WvW needs a total overhaul
Skills and Balance need a total overhaul
Tokens and Karma need a total overhaul

That will fix most of my Grind issues hopefully.

sounds like you need to move on to a different game that you might actually find enjoyable.

FIX: Remove better stats from the grind table. It’s as simple as that and ANet kitten well knows it. The problem is, the ANet people who don’t like grind seem to have been brainjacked by a few at ANet who love to grind harder than Bill Clinton at an intern convention.

Reducing RNG (and thus grind) cuts into ANet’s bottom line. There will never be an alternative way to get legendaries. They make way too much money from people playing the gem store for that to happen.

Meowwilson.5106:

sounds like you need to move on to a different game that you might actually find enjoyable.

Agreed. A lot of us GW1 fans that didn’t like GW2 (meta) are back to playing GW1 again. It’s a much better game. But perhaps in a couple years GW2 will be good too.

Generally though, if enough of us speak up Anet will eventually listen!

People who want to see a seperated community united on terms of what they expect please voice your opinion!

But try and be nice about them okay?

No ideas at all? Cmon this community is full of people with ideas!

DR is there so the economy does well and to prevent Free-to-players from having too much buying power. Don’t believe any of that crud about exploiting. It would definitely hurt Anet’s bottom line and we probably won’t be seeing any changes to it.

I don’t know who could be complaining about the stat grind. When I hit 80 I had the means available to purchase all my exotic gear. Some gold, some karma, and if I had done any explorables I’d have had some of that too. There are many options to get the same max gear.

Unless you’re talking about the ascended grind, expecting to get those easily is pretty ridiculous. Anyway I can’t think of any easier way to get them than completing a bunch of solo PvE dailies. That’s as easy as it gets.

The skin grind is fine the way it is. Legendaries are mostly just skins that people are spending countless hours on. You can’t really improve on that for the “hardcore” grinders except making them all soulbound on pickup.

There s been a ton of suggestions even before the ascended massacre of the manifesto began.

No we dont need the same suggestions put forth again. The problem is on ANETs end.

They are not listening, they are not answering, they are not prioritizing the important fixes.
A company that doesnt do those things wont please anyone.

The problem as a whole is that there are not enough items in GW2 to play for. So it feels like a “grind” to get the legendary because it requires so many steps and hard to get items. What we really need are tons more items of varied levels of value and varied levels of time required to get it.

So they added a few more items (ascended), but to get those you have to play the game in a very strict and directed way (dungeon or laurels). Which i think takes away from fun, and makes the gameplay weriod, and feels like a grind.

lisamee.2408:

The problem as a whole is that there are not enough items in GW2 to play for. So it feels like a “grind” to get the legendary because it requires so many steps and hard to get items. What we really need are tons more items of varied levels of value and varied levels of time required to get it.

So they added a few more items (ascended), but to get those you have to play the game in a very strict and directed way (dungeon or laurels). Which i think takes away from fun, and makes the gameplay weriod, and feels like a grind.

yes your right, but ascended should have been just a fancy skin. Adding stats is not fair to those who just don’t have the time BUT an awsome looking skins would’ve been so cool

If there were more skins to grind for and grind for stat items reduced everyone would stop being at each others throats about this and be fine with it.

The following is just my opinion and reflects the way I would like GW2 to evolve.

Make exotics incredibly easy to get and turn ascended gear into something you only need for a very specific task. This would mean giving them the stats of exotics with the only thing special being the infusion slots. This would alienate many many players who feel like working for your gear is a central part of any MMO. It would please people like me who want to focus on actually experiencing the content.
Right now you more or less need a new set of exotic armor with new runes and replace at least some trinkets to make the most of a new build. For the average player this is a Herculean task for a mere two to four builds on just one character.
Sadly, 90% of the discussions revolve around ascended gear because “average players” are underrepresented on the forums.
In GW1 (Yes, another one of those posts) it really was about max stats (easy) vs prestige (hard) and I loved that. I know that you can enjoy the game without full matching exotics but in my opinion every player should have easy access to the highest stats and focus on the actual gameplay. Gear progression as a central ingredient of a game is – at least in my eyes – just a lack of creativity.

I know my suggestions are impossible to implement at this stage of the game but I wanted to share this at least once. Please be gentle.

Red Falcon.8257:

What I believe has happened is that the original playerbase (aka those who bought all the manifesto copypasta) weren’t enough for Anet so they made the game more traditional MMO-esque to get more people. Of course this means gear treadmills and the like.

The problem with catering to the gear treadmill grinders is they are bored with their other game(s) right now.

But they will go back, leaving the loyal GW playerbase with a mess of a system that was never wanted in the first place.

These players won’t stay, they just want to be leet in the next new game until there is a patch or release of content in the game they currently play, then they will be gone.

That is obviously not 100%, but there is a % that will demand, demand, demand – then oh new shiny in my ‘regular’ game – leave.

There are certain crafting grinds that could be made easier either by increasing the drop rate on specific items or reducing the number needed to craft a specific piece. Some crafting recipes have simply obnoxious requirements. lol

Of course, this advice is for the “reduce grind” camp. Honestly, I have yet to meet someone that likes a lot of grind in their crafting.

I hope you guys realize that every character got its own DR.
At least karma wise, which should work the same for everything else.

Dungeon tokens aside, and chests as well.

Remove diminishing returns for a start.

It’s the WORST mechanic you could possibly have in a MMO and ANet seem to be the only ones that don’t see it or just ignore it as it keeps certain player types playing their game longer.

Don’t give me it’s there to combat bots, that’s a joke.