I have no problems with grinding .. if i can choose what i grind and i have something
i can buy for that at the end.
However .. in HoT .. they force you to grind what they want you to grind and at the
end all you get is nothing or just an unlock for the next grind.
And really .. 3 total new armorsets in a fullprice expansion after a dev proudly
posted that we will get no more armorsets in the gemstore but instead ingame ?
Since we got only Carapace new in the last 1.5 years i really thought we will get
at least 15-20 new sets with HoT … but kittening whole THREE ????
At the moment i really prefer grinding in Marvel Heroes instead.
My God, it’s another edition of Hardcore vs. Casual.
To the OP, my suggestion is that you don’t play HoTS. I know we all bought it under certain premises and promises, but complaining about that now that we gave ANet our money will not be productive.
I have six 80s. I’ve never done map completion on any of them pre-HoTS (closest was just half on my Mesmer). I’m doing that now, going around and exploring. I’m not even rushing, just going around.
I went back to the stuff I loved: the solo play, the World Boss Hunts and now Tequatil (when my ping allows me). And since I find Silverwastes less a chore and more a long battle in my headcanon, I go there both to farm and to feel like I’m doing something grand.
HoTS made me tired. I’ve unlocked Updrafts and understanding those frogs. I haven’t even gone beyond Verdant. But that’s enough for me for now. I’ll get back to facing Mordremoth maybe soon.
Just… leave the jungle and go home to the Core. Unless you have map completion, there’s still so much to do, and we could use another Maguuma-prepped 80 in fighting the more difficult bosses (like Teq).
Because going here to the forums complaining about the grind will just get you the kind of responses from the same people who think there isn’t. And that’s not going anywhere. You don’t need training in negotiation and conflict resolution to know that, although all parties (Hardcore, Casual and the deniers on both sides) equally shout the other down, the “L2P” and “It’s not Hardcore You’re Just Weak or Entitled” crowd will never listen to you.
I just plunked another 10$ because I need to expand my stack size, after I bought more Bank tabs. I don’t like what ANet gave me for HoTS but until a better MMO comes out this is the best I can find. I’ll stick with the fun parts that cater to my casual, solo playstyle. I got six avatars to 80 and decently equipped with exotics and ascended trinks playing the way I do.
But next time ANet asks for my money big time, I’m going to think hard.
I chose this game over Fallout 4, after all.
Last time I ever do that.
I don’t know what long terms goals you have for your own life, but there are people out there who aren’t actually happy to announce that playing some MMO is the thing they plan to do the next five years in absence of more fulfilling hobbies. Calling it grind puts the focus on the mind-numbing activity it is. Cook for 10k hours and you’re a chef. Play piano for 10k hours and you’re a pianist. Farm game for 10k hours and you’ve just wasted your life.
This is silly. Time enjoyed is not time wasted, and the idea of a more valuable hobby is an illusion. Becoming skilled in an activity, like learning the piano, is only worthwhile if the process of learning it and doing it is enjoyable… otherwise I think it would be hard to justify that the pride and prestige of finally being skilled are so pleasurable that, on their own, they were worth spending all that time on.
For many people, GW2 is an enjoyable, shared experience in the here and now. I think that obliging yourself to grind away at a piano or martial art when you would enjoy yourself more with another activity is problematic because it seems like a lot of people put an emphasis on these hobbies as a form of self-betterment, and judge each other based on each individual’s participation in such things. Therefore, a lot of the pressure to do those kinds of things results from a fear of being different, or a fear or people, or a fear of shame. These are unhealthy motivations.
The fact is just that everything is a waste of life. Spend it how you will, and don’t feel guilty about how you spend your time if you enjoy what you do.
You just don’t want to wait.
Key thing here.
HoT isn’t a game full of grind. It’s a game full of long term goals.
But people want things now, so they try to get those long term goals as if they were short term goals. This results in the sensation that the game is ‘full of grind’.
pretty much
I have no problems with grinding .. if i can choose what i grind and i have something
i can buy for that at the end.However .. in HoT .. they force you to grind what they want you to grind and at the
end all you get is nothing or just an unlock for the next grind.And really .. 3 total new armorsets in a fullprice expansion after a dev proudly
posted that we will get no more armorsets in the gemstore but instead ingame ?
Since we got only Carapace new in the last 1.5 years i really thought we will get
at least 15-20 new sets with HoT … but kittening whole THREE ????At the moment i really prefer grinding in Marvel Heroes instead.
How do they force you to grind?
Heart of Thorns is NOTHING BUT A GRIND.
You can’t NOT GRIND if you want to progress in the maps. You have to MAX OUT THE GLIDER to use the edy currents in Tangled Depths! Unbelievable. Took a perfectly good game and turned it into a grinder….thanks a lot…and what sucks even worse is that you end up in Verdant Brink with everyone else who has to grind to progress because those are the fastest missions….thanks again.
I agree only that the first tier of gliding ought to be automatic, since Magus Falls is completely dull and annoying without it. However, other than that, I haven’t felt compelled to grind at all. I’ve done a little personal story, a little work on elite specs, a lot of getting lost… and I have each mastery line in the third tier.
It’s only grindy if you insist on rushing to get certain rewards or masteries.
You know how irritating it was when I first ran dungeons…to be forced by the community to abuse the game? You know how much that put me off Gw2 once I reached level 80 and this being my first MMO?
I am very happy to see the No play, No pay system.
I wish it was like this EVERYWHERE Dungeons fratals raids maps gw2 core.
I absolutely hate the amount of Meta Gaming in Gw2. To me that’s the culprit of why things are the way they are. If ArenaNet would have just made information readily available in game…this wouldn’t be a thing. Am I saying that MetaGamaing wouldn’t exist no, but it certainly would not dominate the entire game itself.
It’s not grinding but, I do think it should be a little more rigorous once the bugs and such are worked out; being that more rigorous also needs to be coupled with more accuracy and reliability.
For many people, GW2 is an enjoyable, shared experience in the here and now. I think that obliging yourself to grind away at a piano or martial art when you would enjoy yourself more with another activity is problematic because it seems like a lot of people put an emphasis on these hobbies as a form of self-betterment, and judge each other based on each individual’s participation in such things. Therefore, a lot of the pressure to do those kinds of things results from a fear of being different, or a fear or people, or a fear of shame. These are unhealthy motivations.
- I was thinking that spending time with low-quality game is pretty bad way to spend one’s life. Not in a sense that it would be morally wrong, but the alternatives are better. I think these things can and should be judged. A picture with high resolution is better than same picture in low resolution. Food that has no flavour in it is worse than same food properly flavoured. Same way a game that contains grind is worse than a game made in good faith. Grind invokes compulsion and eventually existential crisis. It feels like working in a sweatshop where you’re toiling away day to day for paltry reward, receiving no appreciation from anyone. It’s not something to take lightly. Many players have lost their satisfaction in life as a result of these MMO games.
There’s nothing optional whatsoever about the grind if you want to unlock the pay2win elites, which were the biggest draw of the “expansion” purchase to begin with.
Not that map after map of condibomber mobs isn’t cool.
For many people, GW2 is an enjoyable, shared experience in the here and now. I think that obliging yourself to grind away at a piano or martial art when you would enjoy yourself more with another activity is problematic because it seems like a lot of people put an emphasis on these hobbies as a form of self-betterment, and judge each other based on each individual’s participation in such things. Therefore, a lot of the pressure to do those kinds of things results from a fear of being different, or a fear or people, or a fear of shame. These are unhealthy motivations.
- I was thinking that spending time with low-quality game is pretty bad way to spend one’s life. Not in a sense that it would be morally wrong, but the alternatives are better. I think these things can and should be judged. A picture with high resolution is better than same picture in low resolution. Food that has no flavour in it is worse than same food properly flavoured. Same way a game that contains grind is worse than a game made in good faith. Grind invokes compulsion and eventually existential crisis. It feels like working in a sweatshop where you’re toiling away day to day for paltry reward, receiving no appreciation from anyone. It’s not something to take lightly. Many players have lost their satisfaction in life as a result of these MMO games.
To suggest that you can make an MMO in good conscience that includes no grind is a spurious argument. There is no MMO that doesn’t include some form of grinding.
Prior to this games release, at one of the interviews, someone asked if there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy that play style and Eric Flannum said yes.
So I don’t know why people say that Anet said there would be no grind.
What they said was, and this now becomes a matter of opinion, there’ll be no grind to get to the fun stuff.
The examples they gave at the time were placing events like SB in starter zones, so you could do fun things while leveling and not have to wait for a completely different game at level cap.
That was the pre talk about grinding.
That and talking about not having to grind for BIS gear, an issue over which they had to compromise to keep the game moving forward early in it’s life.
To this day, ascended gear remains my least favorite thing about Guild Wars 2. But they never said there would be no grind.
I found it a quite rewarding journey to max the masteries – I still miss one – pact leader – rest is maxed. Took some time of course, but I liked it. It’s an MMO. Give it some time. If you get everything within a short time you get bored and complain there’s nothing to do.
Also, it is account bound, you do that once then never again.
So you’re not a gamer, why are you even here? Playing a game for 10k hours seems just fine by me if I was willing to do it for 10k hours in the first place. There’s nothing in this game, though, that takes even remotely that long.
- I am a gamer. I’ve played lots of games during my life. Most of them were good experiences. 20-40 hours of high-quality content for a fair price. It used to be that developers would strive create an experience or a challenge for players to face. These days there’s a talk of “player retention”. What a bizarre concept. It sounds like some drug dealer wanting to hook up his customers so they come back for more. All the “dailies” and achievements are just there to hook you up once the game has lost its appeal. Sometimes it’s hard to see what the core of the game is with all the fluff. What if there was no items? What do we need them for? The slot machine effect, that’s what. Reinforcement for player to keep on playing indefinitely. Minimum effort for maximal player retention.
Is this what “a game” means to you?
I don’t think this game is for you, maybe not mmos at all. If you’re staple example is that you’re happy to pay £60 for 40-50 hours of entertainment, then you are definitely suited to playing gamed on a console, opposed to gw2 or mmos. I have around 5-6k hours on gw2 and I’m still having fun in this game. Maybe you just have an incredibly short attention span.
However .. in HoT .. they force you to grind what they want you to grind and at the
end all you get is nothing or just an unlock for the next grind.
You are forced to grind for “nothing”?
That is quite laughable.
There is nothing. Stop grinding.
To suggest that you can make an MMO in good conscience that includes no grind is a spurious argument. There is no MMO that doesn’t include some form of grinding.
- I remember a trailer where one of their lead designers said something along the lines of “if you like MMOs you should check out Guild Wars 2 and if you hate MMOs then you really should check out Guild Wars 2”. The same trailer also specifically addressed the problem of grinding and said that they don’t want grind in Guild Wars 2.
Actually that’s a side issue. The problem is that of game design. The first Guild Wars had actual quests that involved traveling to different locations, talking with different NPCs and had different phases. That to me looks like game made in good faith: you could reasonably say that such activity is interesting to player.
Guild Wars 2 quests are like this: you enter a new area and immediately notice the ground is littered with trinkets. Quest appears: collect these trinkets and bring them to quest NPC. So you collect some and bring them to NPC only to have the progress bar move slighly forward. You must collect more of them. That is the core of the game. Kill these monsters and collect these trinkets over and over again. I can’t imagine how anyone would consider such activity inspiring. Guild Wars 2 is a game made in bad faith.
Or it’s a game made differently than GW1. Different does not mean bad. If you prefer games like GW1, then it’s still available and there may still be others like it.
I miss the feeling how cool GW2 was when it started, before the change… When Anet wanted us to have an experience not grind and time sink you play time.
I go back to GW1 a few times a year to relive that with a few friends.
- I remember a trailer where one of their lead designers said something along the lines of “if you like MMOs you should check out Guild Wars 2 and if you hate MMOs then you really should check out Guild Wars 2”. The same trailer also specifically addressed the problem of grinding and said that they don’t want grind in Guild Wars 2.
“So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/
It was Mike O’Brien, the President. Please note that ANet’s definition of grind is very specific. He even wrote, “…force you onto a grinding treadmill…” In an MMO, grinding treadmill only means one thing. It does not mean never repeating anything you don’t want to in order to get optional glitz, or even best stat gear — as long as that gear remains best stat. Even when Asc. replaced Exotic as BiS, it was not a treadmill, it was a one-time upgrade.
Please complain all you like about things you want requiring more repetition than you want to do. However, using the developer’s words in ways they did not intend does not help your case.
ITT: “I’m a total casual, grind is non-existent, you’re just impatient/lazy/don’t want to work for stuff.” -Player who plays 2+ hours a day.
HoT is a lot more grind-y than GW2 ever was that’s for sure. I wasn’t a casual player when HoT launched, but I mainly played WvW 95% of the time. Being that even WvW, a whole separate gamemode in its own, has nothing to do with HoT (not counting new BL since it doesn’t affect WvW as a whole, except by making it worse). HoT has some to do with WvW, but not the other way around. There is a HUGE grind with scribing and guild leveling that completely kittens on small guilds and dedicated WvWers because its a giant PvE grind to get WvW buffs even! Everything WvW related besides the maps and pvping are now all in PvE and its stupid.
Thank’s Mike O’Brien for ruining WvW! Just give Colin the lead and stay out of stuff, you’ll still make money and at least Colin can fix what has been broken, hopefully soon (and I mean soon, lots of new MMOs and multiplayer games coming early 2016).
Just stop, you’re killing us.
HoT reminds me more of old school gaming like Zelda and Metroid, where content is locked until you obtain the right skills or items to advance. It’s a very old school gaming concept in my opinion with a new twist in the mastery system.
Please note that ANet’s definition of grind is very specific. He even wrote, “…force you onto a grinding treadmill…” In an MMO, grinding treadmill only means one thing. It does not mean never repeating anything you don’t want to in order to get optional glitz, or even best stat gear — as long as that gear remains best stat. Even when Asc. replaced Exotic as BiS, it was not a treadmill, it was a one-time upgrade.
- Grinding is very simply engaging in repetitive tasks in the context of MMORPG games. I gave an example of GW2 quests that fit the definition of grinding and contrasted them with GW1 quests that do not fit the definition of grinding.
HoT reminds me more of old school gaming like Zelda and Metroid, where content is locked until you obtain the right skills or items to advance. It’s a very old school gaming concept in my opinion with a new twist in the mastery system.
- Right so this makes a good example. In Zelda games your progress through the game is locked behind items that you need to get. You travel to new locations to get those items and on the way you kill (x number of) enemies. That isn’t grind. If we changed the quest to say “you’re not powerful enough to pass. Kill (x number of) enemies to pass”, then that would be grinding. Why? Because killing respawning enemies for the sake of killing them is meaningless. Getting item that has tangible effect on the game is meaningful. Small but important difference.
(edited by Zenith.6403)
[quote=5876477;Zenith.6403:]
[quote=5876477;Zenith.6403:]
Please note that ANet’s definition of grind is very specific. He even wrote, “…force you onto a grinding treadmill…” In an MMO, grinding treadmill only means one thing. It does not mean never repeating anything you don’t want to in order to get optional glitz, or even best stat gear — as long as that gear remains best stat. Even when Asc. replaced Exotic as BiS, it was not a treadmill, it was a one-time upgrade.
- Grinding is very simply engaging in repetitive tasks in the context of MMORPG games. I gave an example of GW2 quests that fit the definition of grinding and contrasted them with GW1 quests that do not fit the definition of grinding.
You can quote all the definitions you can find about grind on the internet, but if you aren’t using ANet’s, then you’re taking their words out of context.
No grind in GW? Really? Because of quests? Quests are a very narrow part of what GW offered. Obsidian Armor, Torment weapons, Underworld Ecto farm, all of the various reputations — all of these required gratuitous levels of repetition. If you wanted the rare skins or rep titles in GW, you repeated content until your eyes bled. Now, is that the same in GW2? You betcha. There are things you can choose to try to get that require repeating stuff ad infinitum — but where is there anything forcing you to?
You just don’t want to wait.
Key thing here.
HoT isn’t a game full of grind. It’s a game full of long term goals.
But people want things now, so they try to get those long term goals as if they were short term goals. This results in the sensation that the game is ‘full of grind’.
‘full of long term goals’
first i want you to create a revenant and bring it into wvw. a few hours of playing core revenant in wvw and you will see just how necessary herald is to be competitive there. so you decide to get some hero points, but find you cannot access 80% of them without some sort of mastery training. now add to the fact you do not enjoy pve, so everything feels like it takes much longer than it really is, because you are forced into a game mode that you hate to do something quicker.
when people say the grind isn’t necessary, they clearly have not attempted anything competitive in this game before. some of the classes need their elite specs to be competitive. when people say things like ‘the grind is optional’, i just think they aren’t fully aware of how game changing these elite specs are, and how game breaking they can be if you and your guild mates don’t have them when you’re trying to be competitive.
news flash, the entire game is optional. thanks for being redundant.
Please note that ANet’s definition of grind is very specific. He even wrote, “…force you onto a grinding treadmill…” In an MMO, grinding treadmill only means one thing. It does not mean never repeating anything you don’t want to in order to get optional glitz, or even best stat gear — as long as that gear remains best stat. Even when Asc. replaced Exotic as BiS, it was not a treadmill, it was a one-time upgrade.
- Grinding is very simply engaging in repetitive tasks in the context of MMORPG games. I gave an example of GW2 quests that fit the definition of grinding and contrasted them with GW1 quests that do not fit the definition of grinding.
You can quote all the definitions you can find about grind on the internet, but if you aren’t using ANet’s, then you’re taking their words out of context.
No grind in GW? Really? Because of quests? Quests are a very narrow part of what GW offered. Obsidian Armor, Torment weapons, Underworld Ecto farm, all of the various reputations — all of these required gratuitous levels of repetition. If you wanted the rare skins or rep titles in GW, you repeated content until your eyes bled. Now, is that the same in GW2? You betcha. There are things you can choose to try to get that require repeating stuff ad infinitum — but where is there anything forcing you to?
I found obtaining skills on every character to be a grind. I also found regaining the titles for other characters to be a grind as well. And the grind to get certain rare skins (e.g. celestial). Man! Guild Wars 1 had so much grind!
I found having to try to do adventures that are time gated or simply not available due to some map condition or contested WP’s and forced lfg to try and find a meta map too much of what I call a grind- which is being ‘forced’ (ie, in order to progress, you have to do this and nothing else can unlock it for ) to do content I detest.
Some of the horse riding set will say ’that’s not a grind’, but grind is subjective. Forcing players into 3 and a bit maps in order to force them into doing ‘adventures’ if they want to progress masteries was a bad design decision (in my opinion, others may disagree).
They made the equally bad decision (again, from my view) of gating piles of the Tyria mastery points behind equally tedious gimmicks, or even worse, JPs.
I don’t like gimmicks, or having to repeat a story i have already died of boredom in listening to the NPCs talk and talk and talk just so i can go off and stand in spot 4 to get credit for some dumb ‘achievement’.
I’m enjoying collecting Wintersday boxes in Guild Wars in a repeatable quest- which gives me cash, progress on three minor titles and 1 major, and requires some skill to complete. The difference is, I can stop any time and have a chat in the guild, wonder off, or just stop doing it and it won’t mean I’ll be wasting exp as the bar is full, or searching some instance for some stupid gimmick to unlock another ‘achievement’ so I can move one step closer to the next mastery point to try and unlock legendary crafting or the next h0T mastery.
My main gripe is having to thing over and over with different characters.
I got an ascended greatsword, all characters should be able to use one without having to grind again. Maybe by unlocking a recipe to make a cheaper replica without the nice skin that can’t be salvaged or used in the mystic forge.
Same with stats and upgrades. There should be a way to unlock them so gearing more characters with stats and upgrades you acquired before becomes easier than getting them for the first time.
The game developers crossed the line from grinding intensive al the way to obsessive compulsive disorder with this game.
I knocked off 2/17 elites and gave up.
This game doesn’t cater for casuals anymore. I don’t care for anything other than WvW and PvP either.
with masteries unlocked, it literally take me 45 minutes to get 25 hero points with a friend, with no waypoint, starting from silverwaste, 45 minutes.
To suggest that you can make an MMO in good conscience that includes no grind is a spurious argument. There is no MMO that doesn’t include some form of grinding.
- I remember a trailer where one of their lead designers said something along the lines of “if you like MMOs you should check out Guild Wars 2 and if you hate MMOs then you really should check out Guild Wars 2”. The same trailer also specifically addressed the problem of grinding and said that they don’t want grind in Guild Wars 2.
Actually that’s a side issue. The problem is that of game design. The first Guild Wars had actual quests that involved traveling to different locations, talking with different NPCs and had different phases. That to me looks like game made in good faith: you could reasonably say that such activity is interesting to player.
Guild Wars 2 quests are like this: you enter a new area and immediately notice the ground is littered with trinkets. Quest appears: collect these trinkets and bring them to quest NPC. So you collect some and bring them to NPC only to have the progress bar move slighly forward. You must collect more of them. That is the core of the game. Kill these monsters and collect these trinkets over and over again. I can’t imagine how anyone would consider such activity inspiring. Guild Wars 2 is a game made in bad faith.
Prophecies had 203 actual quests. Guild War 2 launched with 300 hearts and more than 1500 dynamic events. It has more quests, since DEs replaced quests. Many of those 203 quests were simple and fast, btw.
As for the if you hate MMOs you’ll want to play Guild Wars 2 that doesn’t mean every single thing that is in another MMO won’t appear here. There are tons of things here that most other MMOs don’t have.
Downscaling, everyone can rez everyone, no kill stealing, no node stealing, no need or greed, no raising the level cap, no new tier of gear with the expansion, no linear leveling. The game is not linear at all. This game doesn’t have mounts and most MMOs do.
Quoting one line from a single video that game out two years before the game came out, without looking at everything that was said after is sort of pointless.
Anet tried to do it with minimal grind and people got their exotic gear, saw nothing to work for and left. So Anet compromised by adding ascended gear to the game. That was a couple of years after the quote you mentions which is now five years old. Games evolve. You either like their evolution or you don’t. But quoting a single marketing line or even a video five years after it was made? Five years is forever in this industry.
It’s still largely a cosmetic end game which is basically what Anet said they were going to deliver. There’s a reason people call this game Fashion Wars.
How come no one quotes Eric Flannum saying there would be stuff to grind for?
Heart of Thorns is NOTHING BUT A GRIND.
You can’t NOT GRIND if you want to progress in the maps. You have to MAX OUT THE GLIDER to use the edy currents in Tangled Depths! Unbelievable. Took a perfectly good game and turned it into a grinder….thanks a lot…and what sucks even worse is that you end up in Verdant Brink with everyone else who has to grind to progress because those are the fastest missions….thanks again.
I’m sorry but it’s apparent that you don’t have a clue what a grind is. It’s getting tiresome that people who can’t get what they want the second they want equate playing the game and doing game objectives to earn something to being a grind.
Any game is going to have you play the game to actually achieve or earn something within that game. That will take some time, but the time to do this is minimal, especially if you saved up all the items such as XP boosters they have given us along the way.
How come no one quotes Eric Flannum saying there would be stuff to grind for?
I’m sure that would interfere with them wanting to be right.
Talking about multiple ways that you can acquire max stat gear.
https://youtu.be/NHKrzOFv7sw?t=18m3s
Here’s him talking about how dynamic events are the equivalent to quests in GW2. I’m only linking this one since it was brought up a few posts ago.
A thought occurred to me: if players spent all the time that they actually spend complaining about grinding to actually play the game, then would they be done with the “grinding” by now?
I do wonder about it. I don’t think anyone here has had experience with an old school MMO before. Let me recount the history a bit: The “max level” was not something you were meant to achieve. Your level was actually the point of progression, not gear or alternative XP or something like that. Because of this, the amount of time you had to invest in things grew exponentially as time went on. And it wasn’t just leveling, either. No, your skills could be divided up into several different categories, and you were lucky if you could simultaneously train them. Getting money, getting materials, training skills, raising your level, and crafting were frequently completely separate tasks.
Here’s the kicker to it: these were all subscription MMOs. Prolonging gameplay was a big thing, so everything was designed to take more than a month to accomplish. GW2, by comparison, is no comparison. You can level things while simultaneously getting money and getting materials. It is all really convenient.
A thought occurred to me: if players spent all the time that they actually spend complaining about grinding to actually play the game, then would they be done with the “grinding” by now?
I do wonder about it. I don’t think anyone here has had experience with an old school MMO before. Let me recount the history a bit: The “max level” was not something you were meant to achieve. Your level was actually the point of progression, not gear or alternative XP or something like that. Because of this, the amount of time you had to invest in things grew exponentially as time went on. And it wasn’t just leveling, either. No, your skills could be divided up into several different categories, and you were lucky if you could simultaneously train them. Getting money, getting materials, training skills, raising your level, and crafting were frequently completely separate tasks.
Here’s the kicker to it: these were all subscription MMOs. Prolonging gameplay was a big thing, so everything was designed to take more than a month to accomplish. GW2, by comparison, is no comparison. You can level things while simultaneously getting money and getting materials. It is all really convenient.
Extremely well said. I wonder how some of these people would fair in game that had a raid where you had 40 people competing over just 3 pieces of loot drops per boss and each player had to be geared out to make it to the next raid, and raiding was 4 hours a night 4 days a week.
Then of course there were the consumables for raids which meant flying around looking for a specific plant that grew in the game world in only 3 or 4 spots and you needed between 80 and 160 of them per raid and you had to compete with other players for those plants which would only spawn maybe every 3 or 4 hours. Than once you had the plant you had to do a 2 hour mini raid dungeon to go make the consumables for the raid because the only place to make the consumable was at a special lab table in the dungeon. Then to get to the raid dungeon you had to have your raid group split into 4 different groups and fight there way through another mini raid dungeon to get to the main raid dungeons instance wall. And that’s just a couple of examples out of dozens that could be given.
So yeah, no one complaining of a grind in GW2 has a clue what a grind really is.
I knocked off 2/17 elites and gave up.
This game doesn’t cater for casuals anymore. I don’t care for anything other than WvW and PvP either.
It doesn’t cater to casuals? Kitten someone forgot to tell me! I’m a casual and I’m having a blast and not having any issues progressing. Sure I can’t have it all in a day, but if I could that would just be boring.
Extremely well said. I wonder how some of these people would fair in game that had a raid where you had 40 people competing over just 3 pieces of loot drops per boss and each player had to be geared out to make it to the next raid, and raiding was 4 hours a night 4 days a week.
Then of course there were the consumables for raids which meant flying around looking for a specific plant that grew in the game world in only 3 or 4 spots and you needed between 80 and 160 of them per raid and you had to compete with other players for those plants which would only spawn maybe every 3 or 4 hours. Than once you had the plant you had to do a 2 hour mini raid dungeon to go make the consumables for the raid because the only place to make the consumable was at a special lab table in the dungeon. Then to get to the raid dungeon you had to have your raid group split into 4 different groups and fight there way through another mini raid dungeon to get to the main raid dungeons instance wall. And that’s just a couple of examples out of dozens that could be given.
So yeah, no one complaining of a grind in GW2 has a clue what a grind really is.
I don’t consider that grinding. A typical raid in other mmorpg take about 3 month to move on to the next raid instance. It sounds like a lot, but actually you probably only complete the raid like 12 times.
Consider that to the farm in GW2 it is nothing. I don’t even know how many times I complete cof path 1. Probably a few thousands times.
The thing is there are always those people who play too much video games. In GW2, Anet rewards those players with some terrible rewards so casual players won’t complain. But those casual players keep complaining.
Extremely well said. I wonder how some of these people would fair in game that had a raid where you had 40 people competing over just 3 pieces of loot drops per boss and each player had to be geared out to make it to the next raid, and raiding was 4 hours a night 4 days a week.
Then of course there were the consumables for raids which meant flying around looking for a specific plant that grew in the game world in only 3 or 4 spots and you needed between 80 and 160 of them per raid and you had to compete with other players for those plants which would only spawn maybe every 3 or 4 hours. Than once you had the plant you had to do a 2 hour mini raid dungeon to go make the consumables for the raid because the only place to make the consumable was at a special lab table in the dungeon. Then to get to the raid dungeon you had to have your raid group split into 4 different groups and fight there way through another mini raid dungeon to get to the main raid dungeons instance wall. And that’s just a couple of examples out of dozens that could be given.
So yeah, no one complaining of a grind in GW2 has a clue what a grind really is.
I don’t consider that grinding. A typical raid in other mmorpg take about 3 month to move on to the next raid instance. It sounds like a lot, but actually you probably only complete the raid like 12 times.
Consider that to the farm in GW2 it is nothing. I don’t even know how many times I complete cof path 1. Probably a few thousands times.
The thing is there are always those people who play too much video games. In GW2, Anet rewards those players with some terrible rewards so casual players won’t complain. But those casual players keep complaining.
Did you even read the post I made that you quoted? To even go into the raid just one time requires a grind. GW2 has nothing like it.
And you are wrong, you would do the raid more than 12 times. You had to. You had to fully gear 40 people when each boss dropped 3 items that had to be split between those 40 people. You had to do it to move to the next raid because there was the gear grind of constantly needing to improve your gear to be sustainable for the next raid.
I don’t think it was said specifically there would be no grinding, only that the grinding was going to be limited in scope to “things which weren’t power”.
Given that Ascended already stepped over that line, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they’ve been exceptionally shy about even peeking over it now. What you (mostly) grind for now isn’t exactly power – it’s convenience, or cosmetics, or things you don’t necessarily need “but are kinda cool”.
90% of the game can be done in Exotic gear. I’d hazard a wager the raid can be done in Exotic gear if you pushed yourself to be very good and attuned to what was going on. You can get Exotics fairly simply through playing the game or cheaply off the Black Lion auction house. I mean, Trading Post.
And as someone who was trying Sweet Tooth and Drunkard in GW1 . . . and someone who played Factions, if people want to claim there wasn’t grind in GW1, I have a bridge to Cantha to sell tickets for crossing.
Extremely well said. I wonder how some of these people would fair in game that had a raid where you had 40 people competing over just 3 pieces of loot drops per boss and each player had to be geared out to make it to the next raid, and raiding was 4 hours a night 4 days a week.
Then of course there were the consumables for raids which meant flying around looking for a specific plant that grew in the game world in only 3 or 4 spots and you needed between 80 and 160 of them per raid and you had to compete with other players for those plants which would only spawn maybe every 3 or 4 hours. Than once you had the plant you had to do a 2 hour mini raid dungeon to go make the consumables for the raid because the only place to make the consumable was at a special lab table in the dungeon. Then to get to the raid dungeon you had to have your raid group split into 4 different groups and fight there way through another mini raid dungeon to get to the main raid dungeons instance wall. And that’s just a couple of examples out of dozens that could be given.
So yeah, no one complaining of a grind in GW2 has a clue what a grind really is.
I don’t consider that grinding. A typical raid in other mmorpg take about 3 month to move on to the next raid instance. It sounds like a lot, but actually you probably only complete the raid like 12 times.
Consider that to the farm in GW2 it is nothing. I don’t even know how many times I complete cof path 1. Probably a few thousands times.
The thing is there are always those people who play too much video games. In GW2, Anet rewards those players with some terrible rewards so casual players won’t complain. But those casual players keep complaining.
Did you even read the post I made that you quoted? To even go into the raid just one time requires a grind. GW2 has nothing like it.
And you are wrong, you would do the raid more than 12 times. You had to. You had to fully gear 40 people when each boss dropped 3 items that had to be split between those 40 people. You had to do it to move to the next raid because there was the gear grind of constantly needing to improve your gear to be sustainable for the next raid.
No players actually like raid is going to tell you they are grinding. Just like no players that actually like pvp will tell you they are grinding.
But I can tell you everyone doing SW farm, mining farm, COF farm, wintersday jumping puzzle farm felt they are grinding.
I understand your point because you don’t actually like raiding. That’s why you felt that way. Not everyone grind mmorpg to look pretty in town.
Also you have to understand doing a raid 12 times is 3 month. I’m not sure what mmorpg you are playing but most mmorpg come out with expansion every year. If raid really take that many month to finish, no one will finish it. Even if you reapeat a raid for 6 month, it is only 24 times.
(edited by laokoko.7403)
I knocked off 2/17 elites and gave up.
This game doesn’t cater for casuals anymore. I don’t care for anything other than WvW and PvP either.
with masteries unlocked, it literally take me 45 minutes to get 25 hero points with a friend, with no waypoint, starting from silverwaste, 45 minutes.
See, you went wrong there when you said ‘with masteries unlocked’. The casual or spvp or wvw player doesn’t have them at all, so first factor in getting a few of them.
Saying you got them in 45 minutes being completely knowledgeable of the maps and getting lucky with the gates, etc doesn’t really help the casual get theirs any faster.
It’s a bit like me saying ‘I can save you more money in an hour than you could in a year’. It happens to be true, but in order to get in a similar position you’ll need 3 years of study and a lifetime of experience.
- I remember a trailer where one of their lead designers said something along the lines of “if you like MMOs you should check out Guild Wars 2 and if you hate MMOs then you really should check out Guild Wars 2”. The same trailer also specifically addressed the problem of grinding and said that they don’t want grind in Guild Wars 2.
“So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/
It was Mike O’Brien, the President. Please note that ANet’s definition of grind is very specific. He even wrote, “…force you onto a grinding treadmill…” In an MMO, grinding treadmill only means one thing. It does not mean never repeating anything you don’t want to in order to get optional glitz, or even best stat gear — as long as that gear remains best stat. Even when Asc. replaced Exotic as BiS, it was not a treadmill, it was a one-time upgrade.
Please complain all you like about things you want requiring more repetition than you want to do. However, using the developer’s words in ways they did not intend does not help your case.
Anyway, since we are still in this discussion, I invite people to write here your ideas of what to implement that gives:
Surprise me, because there’s not a single game i can think of in my whole 20y of gaming experience that can make this. Driving games? repeat the tracks for better time/position and get money/token to ugrade your car to other challenges. Single player RPG? Like the incredible Witcher 3? The story is ofc great, but to level up you do the same old same old: bandits or monsters and after 4-5h are always the same. Try craft withcer gear too and let me know. The game actually ends after 100h max (very generous) than you repeat all, or you drop it (for instance i’ve logged 240h on my rev in hot, and i played my engi too).
But I see no1 screaming for grinding in W3. I mean, what do the people want, I .. can’t fathom. Gw2 has one of the best system in place, probably people want pears out of an apple tree…
(edited by Gaaroth.2567)
It is only grind if you want it to be. Start ignoring the exp bar if it flashes spend your points and carry on. Play however you want. At some point you realise oh I can do this stuff now so go for it instead of I MUST GET THIS NOW SO I MUST GRIND THIS NOW SO NOW EVERYTHING IS MINE NOW NOW NOW. See? No grind at all.
You dont know what actual grind is… Take korean or china mmos for example. Jade dynasty has 150 unascended and 160 ascended levels. But its extremely hard to level (especially end Game levels). The ascended levels were introduced in a expansion also. And some people took 3 YEARS to get to atleast 150. BUT in order to get at least 0,00015% of 1 level, you had to do same instances, same dailies every.single.freaking.day. And I did that for 6 years in that game. Now thats mad grinding. Now when I started playing GW2 or HoT, I was extremely relieved cuz I see minimal grinding in this game. And actually how are you going to get the good stuff without griding or doing some stuff over and over again.
Maybe its me and i dont get what grinding is but really, this game has little to no grind in my opinion.
(edited by Ksardas.7381)
Heart of Thorns is NOTHING BUT A GRIND.
You can’t NOT GRIND if you want to progress in the maps. You have to MAX OUT THE GLIDER to use the edy currents in Tangled Depths! Unbelievable. Took a perfectly good game and turned it into a grinder….thanks a lot…and what sucks even worse is that you end up in Verdant Brink with everyone else who has to grind to progress because those are the fastest missions….thanks again.
You are wrong here……..grind is when you kill same npc over and over to obtain xps……and I will be happy if this was the case.
HoT required the following :
1) Constantly check the HoT map timer to see when the meta starts….if meta already started since an hour ….you have to wait another hour to start a new one.
2) Find or begging other players to taxi you in a more populated map.
This seems an easy two step when you play 8-9 hours a day , but for these that have a job, come back home and instead to jump in the game and have fun , you need to spend time in order find other people and complete a meta that is not even so rewarding.
If you need mastery point in HoT there’s a little trick ….find and open strongboxes…..you will get all the masteries you need in no time , the xps aren’t hard to get …..just do VB and AB …..at the moment are the easiest one.
Here the link of all the strongboxes in VB
http://dulfy.net/2015/10/30/gw2-verdant-brinks-mastery-insights-and-strongboxes-guide/
Maybe the people who complain about grind in this game should have done what was needed to get to level 20 in Presearing Guild Wars 1. By death leveling mobs.
You could get up to a certain level by doing the quests and killing things, but then you ran out of quests and were too high level to get exp from killing. So you would go to an instance with the highest level mobs in Presearing and you would let them kill you after pulling them to a shrine. They would get a small amount of exp from killing you and you respawn at the shrine. Let them kill you, respawn, let them kill you, respawn. Eventually they would level up from killing you and then you killed them and gained some exp towards your next level. Then you leave the instance, go back in and repeat. Let the mobs kill you, respawn……
People did this over and over and over. Getting exp each time they killed the death leveled mobs until finally they reached level 20. And you better not DC while in that instance as you’d lose the progress you made while in there. Reportedly, this method took hours of afk time.
I’m allergic to grinding, so I never will. Someone said it best earlier: The game is full of long term goals, and people laser focus on a single one, ignoring everything else, and do what’s most efficient to achieve it…making it a grind. That’s almost a “bug” or a “design flaw” more than anything that you can do these things (eg: spider grind), and often those get fixed (and people complain about nerfs, not understanding why they get fixed… They’re basically protecting you from yourself).
I have all the HOT masteries but 2 (bottlenecked on mastery points, not xp) and all of the tyria masteries, and a legendary. My wife is right about to get the H.O.P.E this weekend. Neither of us grinded anything (if grinding is "repeating something over and over to get stuff).
I wanted a legendary and I wanted tyria masteries, so I just did Tyria map completion, where by definition you don’t really repeat anything. Tyria map completion will easily get you enough XP to get all of the tyria masteries. Every so often I’d take a break and go do a Dragon Stand or go kill something in verdant brink I hadn’t killed in a while, would do a chain of fractals, some PvP, go for a round of WvW, then go and work on some mastery points in Auric Bassin and maybe catch the meta. Tried Chak Gerant’s chain a few times pre-tweak, failed it, then would go back to Tyria, and so on.
Eventually got everything, got my Bolt, and during that would go and help my wife with some random events for HOPE or another, or she’s help me, which eventually got her enough lay line sparks and whatsnot for her last step.
No repetition (aside over a long period of time) unless we actually felt like it (the first time I did Dragon Stand i thought it was pretty cool and I wanted to try all 3 lanes, so I did it 3 times in a row).
Now, if you go and are like “OK, first goal now that the expansion is out, HoT map completion and I’m doing nothing else aside prerequisites until I’m done!”, that will be excruciatingly grindy and boring. Don’t do that. The game’s not designed for that.
It is only a grind if you choose to pursue certain rewards and achievements. I chose to ignore collections, legendary crafting, ascended crafting, pretty much any achievement that requires replaying the story with the same character but I can still play the content or most of it.
I have played some terrible asia grinders. And even though I disliked the game (hence I quitted them), the grind and the time spent was a good time.
After all the games I have tried, GW2 is totally catering me. I slowly make my way up but unlike the competitors on the market, it actually works.
Of course, that’s my very personal opinion, but the amount of “Dis game sucks but I still play it for some reason”-posts made me frown.. I know, I am late to the party and discovered this game too late but I am very pleased by it.
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.