Guild Wars 2

If you don’t want to farm laurels, get the gear normally. What’s wrong with playing an MMO for a year to get something anyway, coming from EVE that’s nothing.

Amu: triforce pendant
Rings: FotM10 Daily
Earrings: 24 Guild Merits and 10g
Backpack: Fractal Relics

No laurels needed.

vespers.1759:

atilathegun.1950:

I don’t get why people complain… anet literally gives us laurels for free on top of the dailies we already previously do, and people complain. Ridiculous. With fotm, dailies/monthlies, and now guild missions, ascended stuff is really easy to get. What’s more, it’s fun to get, even for a casual player.

If people are going to complain this much about ascended gear, then just don’t get the kitten stuff. If playing the game for 30 minutes a day is too hard, then maybe ascended gear isn’t for you. We have it way, way better than players in other games. This game isn’t nearly as grindy as people seem to say, and what grind there is I find considerably funner than most other mmos out there.

come back and tell us how much you like dailies after 365 of them in a row.

Been doing em since day 1, and they’ve only gotten better.

vespers.1759:

come back and tell us how much you like dailies after 365 of them in a row.

People shouldn’t log in to “do dailies” ; they should log in to play the game, the way they want. Daily achievements come for free at not extra effort when you just play the game at least 30-60mn.

Do a dungeon or fractals, maybe some WvW, maybe level up another character, etc. When you’ll be done with your session, check your daily progress : you’ll probably have the reward already, if not you’ll be missing a few gatherings or a couple of kills. Trivial, at no extra cost.

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but I played Guild Wars 1 for five years. I’ve got my GWAMM and my 50/50 and I play this game EXACTLY how I play Guild Wars 1.

[…]

You’re responsible for how you see the world, no one else. I played Guild Wars 1 and other games and feel NO NEED for ascended gear. I’ll get it when I get it.

This.

As someone else was saying earlier, the content is not gated ; it is possible to do absolutely everything in the game with standard rare or exotic gear (except FOTM > 20, but fractal players receive special rewards to get AR easily).

The extra +2 or whatever on a pink item won’t make a difference… It’s a long term goal, and it’s supposed to feel “nice” when you finally get it but it’s not required.

Only amulets are meant to be exclusive way to be acquired by laurels. All the rest is just another way to get them (like you have no luck to pick a ring with exactly stats/slot you want). This is how it goes:
Amulet – Laurels;
Backpiece – Mystic Toi;
Rings – FoTM;
Accessory – Guild Missions.

Dailies do not come for “free” for everyone.

I play WvW exclusively and almost always have to go out of my way to finish the daily. If I ignore it I will never finish.

And don’t even get me started with monthlies.

3 months for ONE piece of gear is unacceptable to me. If other people want to wait that long fine, but I’m not here for a gear treadmill. I’m here to do WvW. I was perfectly content and happy being able to buy best stats in a couple of days (exotics) and then head to WvW and forget forever about gear.

I’d also like to paraphrase Mike OBrien again. If someone wants to work for months to get a piece of gear, it should be distinguished by LOOKS alone, not stats.

drwookie.6391:

Dailies do not come for “free” for everyone.

I’d also like to paraphrase Mike OBrien again. If someone wants to work for months to get a piece of gear, it should be distinguished by LOOKS alone, not stats.

QFT. All these people saying you don’t HAVE TO get ascended equips are just being dismissive. we don’t HAVE TO get exotics, we have masterwork, and yet why is everybody chasing after them?

My 8 person guild in SWTOR had to grind less to get full top gear (campaign at the time i played…, INCLUDING the weapon) than we do in this. This game was supposed to be different.

Gear is now in the same territory as it was in FFXI. Join a big guild and/or wait forever.

Oh and don’t come in saying “its to reward big guild for their organization!!”. People who randomly join a zerg guild with no leadership will still get their gear. No organization needed.

Vorch.2985:

• They are in the process of rolling out different methods of attaining ascended gear.

Yep, they are – since November 15th. So far none of the methods they introduced were any better than the original one, and since none of them gives access to all ascended eq, you have to use all of them, instead of picking one that best compements your playing style.
In short, instead of improving the situation, they are actually making it worse.

Shados.1306:

My 8 person guild in SWTOR had to grind less to get full top gear (campaign at the time i played…, INCLUDING the weapon) than we do in this. This game was supposed to be different.

Gear is now in the same territory as it was in FFXI. Join a big guild and/or wait forever.

Oh and don’t come in saying “its to reward big guild for their organization!!”. People who randomly join a zerg guild with no leadership will still get their gear. No organization needed.

Nomen est omen. Guild Wars.

Guilds should be the core mechanic for this game.

This one’s for you guys, I suck at this but please bear with me…

Year-o-gear
Gear we hold dear
Now it’s all clear
Grind all year
The next patch we fear
It’s been only a year
But my server is clear

Please, give us GvG so you actually promote guilds of all sizes rather than this…

I’m ok with the pace of Laurels and Fractals. I like how item hunting goes there, but the over-abundance of monthly/weekly/daily tokens is just as someone else said watering down the game.
It’s a really good patch, but with very bitter aftertaste.

drwookie.6391:

Dailies do not come for “free” for everyone.

I play WvW exclusively and almost always have to go out of my way to finish the daily. If I ignore it I will never finish.

And don’t even get me started with monthlies.

I do not think this is a fair assessment – WvW is actually one of the easiest and quickest way to make progress in terms of daily rewards.

In WvW you get a large variety of monsters, lots of resource nodes to collect from, and
plenty of events for capturing / defending points of interests.

After a typical WvW session, all you need to complete the daily achievement is probably a jumping puzzle or some crafting (which you can also do in WvW)

Similar to your complain, open world PvE players could argue that they’re not getting any WvW tokens or glory. But why should they ? It’s all about balance, and yes sometimes you might end up doing just a bit of something you normally wouldn’t do, but that goes for everyone and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. All in all I don’t think the current mechanics are far from decent.

Shonie.5297:

There is no grind at all, you don’t need to even do dailies.
3 monthlies will get you an ascended amulet.
FoTM will get you the ascended rings.
Guild missions will get you ascended earrings.
Is this the grind people are complaining about?

Yes.

3 months for one item? Are you even serious?
FotM – this is actually easiest, but it still is a mindnumbing grind, doing daily chests over and over again to get pair of rings for all my alts. And then there are backpacks, which require more grind.
Guild missions… i can’t play those. My guild is too small apparently to matter in the Big Scheme of Things.

i really don’t think this comes under a grind, its your choice if you do it or not, it is not going to make or break your playing experience, personally i’m going for legendary’s, WvW fame and fear, exploring and generally playing with a guild once i find a good one which to be honest is once i transfer to far shiverpeaks – friend is there.

DrixTrix.7168:

i really don’t think this comes under a grind, its your choice if you do it or not, it is not going to make or break your playing experience, personally i’m going for legendary’s, WvW fame and fear, exploring and generally playing with a guild once i find a good one which to be honest is once i transfer to far shiverpeaks – friend is there.

Yea GW2 has a way of making us come up with new words to pertain to their way of handling things. Instead of grindy, in gw2 we now say what ‘time-gated’ content?

i don’t feel obligated or time constrained in GW2, the fact is the gear doesn’t really make you that much more powerful so you don’t HAVE to do the ’’grind’’ unlike in WoW where if you decided not to grind a reputation, or in Aion if you didn’t spend your time grinding gear or even in EQ / DIII (and DIII isn’t really an MMO more a co-op) then you where close to useless at stage ’’X’’ or from dungeon ‘’X – onwards’’

as long as you know what your doing you can handle pretty much anything in GW2 and while you are progressing (if you wish to call it progressing) you will be earning these things without really paying that much attention to it.

that to me is not a ’’Grind’’ reputation grinds and the like of which i mentioned above; thats a grind to me (levelling in Aion is a great description nearer launch when the only way to lvl was to defeat veterens/rares at the rate of a brick rolling down a hill)

This is an RPG MMO – things will always be added and will always take time to get ‘’working towards it’’ is part of the MMO building philosophy until a company says ‘’screw this for a laugh lets try it like this, screw the losses lets make a leap forward’’ things wont change inherently much.

For a company that was originally against grind, it’s a shame that it’s turning into a pure grindfest. What the heck happened?

I used to laugh at all these people who complained about legendarys being too difficult or adding in acended gear going against your manifesto. Never thought I would start to agree with them.

I know plenty of friends and guildmates who have stopped playing because of Anet’s poor decisions lately and it seems they wont learn their lesson anytime soon.

Seriously Anet, what the heck were you thinking?

It’s too bad the game had to turn into Grind Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 had promise.

Here’s a question for everyone who thinks GW2 is grindy….

It’s obvious that taking time and repetitive activities to get a reward that is simply not that much better is making some of you crazy. Why do it?

I do agree that the reqs for guild activities should be lowered to allow for small guilds to participate, but I just can’t see doing what I hate in order to get something that isn’t going to give me enough of an advantage to make it worth my while. I would rather go do a jumping puzzle… or gather… or craft… or W3… or create and alt and do hearts…or see if I can find the most out-of-the-way boss to kill…or preview every piece of armor in the BLT…or dance in Hoelbrak…

I guess what I am saying is that if you don’t like the grind, don’t do it. Usually, the dailies take care of themselves in the normal course of playing.

It seems to me that most of the folks here aren’t whining about gear being unobtainable. It seems that the big whine is that it’s unobtainable NOW…

If you have to have ANet hand you your +1 gear without being patient, then you’re playing the wrong game.

Sericenthe.5310:

It’s too bad the game had to turn into Grind Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 had promise.

Grind Wars 2?? LOL doing dailies to get the bis gear is a grind? I came from AION online and if you want to talk about grinding for gear in this game then idk which MMO will suit you. It took me 6 months of grinding 4-5 hours a day to get the bis armor set in AION and another 4 months in getting the bis accessories prior to the expansion. I was not able to do the weapons since getting enough points to attain the best gear was a kind of a problem having to be the underpopulated faction.

I moved from that game to here since I have RL priorities to attend to.

This game is very casual to other MMOs thats out there.

Ashabhi.1365:

Here’s a question for everyone who thinks GW2 is grindy….

It’s obvious that taking time and repetitive activities to get a reward that is simply not that much better is making some of you crazy. Why do it?

I do agree that the reqs for guild activities should be lowered to allow for small guilds to participate, but I just can’t see doing what I hate in order to get something that isn’t going to give me enough of an advantage to make it worth my while. I would rather go do a jumping puzzle… or gather… or craft… or W3… or create and alt and do hearts…or see if I can find the most out-of-the-way boss to kill…or preview every piece of armor in the BLT…or dance in Hoelbrak…

I guess what I am saying is that if you don’t like the grind, don’t do it. Usually, the dailies take care of themselves in the normal course of playing.

It seems to me that most of the folks here aren’t whining about gear being unobtainable. It seems that the big whine is that it’s unobtainable NOW…

If you have to have ANet hand you your +1 gear without being patient, then you’re playing the wrong game.

The point is, there should be an option for people to get it as fast as they want to without having to do guild missions which alienates players away from smaller guilds.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

You guys yet haven’t understood that Anet is purposely releasing new gear piece-by-piece and with time-based limits because they don’t want people to get it all at once?

It’s how GW2 works.
This month you get the new ring, the next you get the new sword, etc.
If you can’t stand that you can’t just grind the hell out of the game to unhealthy levels to get everything asap and then quit, either consider a change of mentality or change game.

I’m glad you brought up the psychological dimension but I’ll part ways with you now. I believe possibly the worst aspect of GW2’s grind is how it affects you psychologically. Let me explain. WoW’s grind was the product of many years experience. It was straightforward. The likely length of the grind was known. And, the path to the gear was laid out for you. All you needed to do was hop on the treadmill and get that thing rolling. There were different levels where people hopped off. Some took it to the heroic raids and absolute top level gear. For me pieces from LFR raids, a few from normal raids, and then valor gear to round it out was fine. There came a point with each tier that I was done and I…RELAXED. That’s it; I relaxed. Then I did dailies, gathered and crafted to keep a set of gear on the AH (TP), helped out family and guildies, did content for fun, and fished.

Consider GW2. When I came to GW2 I immediately relaxed. There was no grind for gear post max level. I was having the MMO time of my life. I could play relaxed all the time. Then 11/15 came and went and we were left to try to figure out Ascended gear. Anet eventually made it clear in the AMA that we were to have vertical progression going forward in GW2. Well, being a somewhat experienced gamer I knew what vertical progression was. It’s the game element that creates a gear grind to give players a sense of progression and, supposedly, keep them playing the game. We were promised that the power curve would be low—we would have a slow grind. But, what does that mean? It means that the grind is never over. There is a sword hanging over your head every day you play called the daily (the path to the shinies) and you can never relax and just play.

Bottom line, WoW has a humane grind with an endpoint (in each tier) where the player can relax and just play. In GW2, the grind is unrelenting. It never goes away. Looking honestly at the two methods of grinding, I would say Anet’s version is the less psychologically ‘healthful’ of the two.

Joshiasi.2840:

Sericenthe.5310:

It’s too bad the game had to turn into Grind Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 had promise.

Grind Wars 2?? LOL doing dailies to get the bis gear is a grind? I came from AION online and if you want to talk about grinding for gear in this game then idk which MMO will suit you. It took me 6 months of grinding 4-5 hours a day to get the bis armor set in AION and another 4 months in getting the bis accessories prior to the expansion. I was not able to do the weapons since getting enough points to attain the best gear was a kind of a problem having to be the underpopulated faction.

I moved from that game to here since I have RL priorities to attend to.

This game is very casual to other MMOs thats out there.

This isn’t about how other online games do it.

The problem is, we were promised a game where we didn’t have to grind or go through much trouble getting BiS gear.

just play and youll get your gear in due time (+ the stats are not that much better, granted its better, but not OP if you miss 1 or 2 ascended pieces or some +4 infusions!)
i actually somewhat think the game is trying to slightly discourage “farming”.

laurels are not “farmable”.

to me its great.
gold is still farmable, but really, the only people who farm it seem to be the minority of ultra hardcore grinders/farmers that are ok with spending 2-3 hours killing mobs, to get a legendary.

its ok, the game gives them something too!

Ok, let’s settle on the terms. It isn’t Grindy because it doesn’t require you to put so many hours a day to get 1 item. It requires you several days of a few minutes to get 1 [BiS] item and a lot of spare time doing absolutely nothing meaningful.

Raine.1394:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

You guys yet haven’t understood that Anet is purposely releasing new gear piece-by-piece and with time-based limits because they don’t want people to get it all at once?

It’s how GW2 works.
This month you get the new ring, the next you get the new sword, etc.
If you can’t stand that you can’t just grind the hell out of the game to unhealthy levels to get everything asap and then quit, either consider a change of mentality or change game.

I’m glad you brought up the psychological dimension but I’ll part ways with you now. I believe possibly the worst aspect of GW2’s grind is how it affects you psychologically. Let me explain. WoW’s grind was the product of many years experience. It was straightforward. The likely length of the grind was known. And, the path to the gear was laid out for you. All you needed to do was hop on the treadmill and get that thing rolling. There were different levels where people hopped off. Some took it to the heroic raids and absolute top level gear. For me pieces from LFR raids, a few from normal raids, and then valor gear to round it out was fine. There came a point with each tier that I was done and I…RELAXED. That’s it; I relaxed. Then I did dailies, gathered and crafted to keep a set of gear on the AH (TP), helped out family and guildies, did content for fun, and fished.

Consider GW2. When I came to GW2 I immediately relaxed. There was no grind for gear post max level. I was having the MMO time of my life. I could play relaxed all the time. Then 11/15 came and went and we were left to try to figure out Ascended gear. Anet eventually made it clear in the AMA that we were to have vertical progression going forward in GW2. Well, being a somewhat experienced gamer I knew what vertical progression was. It’s the game element that creates a gear grind to give players a sense of progression. We were promised that the power curve would be low—we would have a slow grind. But, what does that mean? It means that the grind is never over. There is a sword hanging over your head every day you play called the daily (the path to the shinies) and you can never relax and just play.

Bottom line, WoW has a humane grind with an endpoint (in each tier) where the player can relax and just play. In GW2, the grind is unrelenting. It never goes away. Looking honestly at the two methods of grinding, I would say Anet’s version is the less psychologically ‘healthful’ of the two.

Being an ex WoW player who went through the original first year process of clearing Molten Core, I agree with you 100%. Things were fine until Nov 15th. Then the bomb went off.

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

It’s like this community is made out of people who want everything their way. You do not need ascended gear anywhere except for higher level fractals. And to get a high level fractal you will need to play it a lot, but it’s not a gateway to something you are required to do if you want to play most of the game.

You can’t have everything at once and with exotics you will do fine just anywhere.

Also, just visited 20 areas, didn’t see a single soul. The game is doomed

Mirta.5029:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

vespers.1759:

so you’re okay with 80 days to get 2 earrings?

remember that if you have more than 1 set of gear that is doubled. 2 sets or gear= 160 days. if you have an alt with 2 sets of gear that’s almost a year to get JUST the earrings assuming you play every single day.

that’s 320 days without missing a single day.

It’s not 80 days and Colin explained that earlier.
With guild missions you get the earrings very easy, that one is the longer route for people who don’t want to partecipate guild missions.
You can’t ignore facts and make an arguments out of it.

And even if it was 80 days for everyone then what? As long as everyone is getting items at the same rate it’s not a problem.
No one said all games should be about instant gearing.

and here’s your problem – small guilds are getting killed. A guild of 15 people won’t be able to get 300 000 influence needed, new people won’t join because we don’t have that 300 000 influence needed. Going the solo route – 12 months and 240 golds to get the earrings for all alts. 18 months if to get the amulets and the earrings. It’s insane. Which takes us to the only solution and that’s being a prick to big guilds – join lots of them, get your stuff, leave. Is that really how they want us to play this game?

You only need 30,000 influence to unlock guild bounties. This is easily achievable by any guild. We had one member donate 10,000 influence just by himself. Yes, it takes gold, but not sums that are out of reach for even a single player.

I won’t have my gear in a year, because in a year I won’t be playing, if the game keeps going this direction.

Leo Paul.1659:

The point is, there should be an option for people to get it as fast as they want to without having to do guild missions which alienates players away from smaller guilds.

While I think you are entitled to your own opinion (and I really do appreciate that) I must respectfully disagree.

There are TONS of other things in the game that can be bought, thereby granting one instant gratifcation, however it takes a bit of work (i.e. grind) to get these things. If one doesn’t want to work at it, then he/she shouldn’t get it.

Now, if the items in question made everything else in the game obsolete (as other games do) then I could see raising cain about the cost. I have left a couple of other games because only the “rich” could afford to be competitive.

Truthfully, I like it the way it is, but only because it’s not absolutely necessary to have the “new and improved” items to play.

before nov 15th people complained about no progression and nothing to work towards and not enough to do on a day to day basis and that the ’’gear’’ was pointless to farm.

no matter the company there are always sections of people that are not happy.

its not necessary to grind new items, so if you don’t want to (unless for looks) then stop an don’t it does not punish you in GW2 to the extent of EVERY other mmo to my knowledge.

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

It’s like this community is made out of people who want everything their way. You do not need ascended gear anywhere except for higher level fractals. And to get a high level fractal you will need to play it a lot, but it’s not a gateway to something you are required to do if you want to play most of the game.

You can’t have everything at once and with exotics you will do fine just anywhere.

Also, just visited 20 areas, didn’t see a single soul. The game is doomed

Shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t mean differently for different folks. If it isn’t necessary, why put it in in the first place? There was nothing wrong with exotics except that some people were able to get a piece of legendary too early.

Ashabhi.1365:

Truthfully, I like it the way it is, but only because it’s not absolutely necessary to have the “new and improved” items to play.

Again, this is not the point. Its about what we were promised. We were promised, at level 80 everyone would be on equal grounds in terms of available gear and stats for minimal grind. Only thing that would matter is skill. With the addition of acended gear, they broke that promise.

I don’t care if it only offers +4 extra stats compared to an exotic. The person with the better gear still has the advantage if skill was taken out.

Astralporing.1957:

Vorch.2985:

• They are in the process of rolling out different methods of attaining ascended gear.

Yep, they are – since November 15th. So far none of the methods they introduced were any better than the original one, and since none of them gives access to all ascended eq, you have to use all of them, instead of picking one that best compements your playing style.
In short, instead of improving the situation, they are actually making it worse.

This I do agree on. Why can they not just make it that accended gear can be obtained the same way as exotic but at a higher price. Let us be able to buy it with Karma, let us be able to craft it, etc. I should be able to acquire the gear that I want on my time, not theirs. If I wanted to grind for 24hrs in one day to get the gear, I should be able to, or if I cannot log on everyday, I could still acquire it when I could log in. The issue is that I am on their terms and not mine and that is making it less fun.

To me make it available through all forms right now. If someone wants to obtain the gear all through guild missions, then they should be able to. Same with running FOTM. Or if someone wanted to use Karma or craft it. Same thing. At least we would be playing the game the way we want to play it. Right now the gear is just gated through time which is not very fun, at least to me.

Sardonia.8196:

Astralporing.1957:

Vorch.2985:

• They are in the process of rolling out different methods of attaining ascended gear.

Yep, they are – since November 15th. So far none of the methods they introduced were any better than the original one, and since none of them gives access to all ascended eq, you have to use all of them, instead of picking one that best compements your playing style.
In short, instead of improving the situation, they are actually making it worse.

This I do agree on. Why can they not just make it that accended gear can be obtained the same way as exotic but at a higher price. Let us be able to buy it with Karma, let us be able to craft it, etc. I should be able to acquire the gear that I want on my time, not theirs. If I wanted to grind for 24hrs in one day to get the gear, I should be able to, or if I cannot log on everyday, I could still acquire it when I could log in. The issue is that I am on their terms and not mine and that is making it less fun.

To me make it available through all forms right now. If someone wants to obtain the gear all through guild missions, then they should be able to. Same with running FOTM. Or if someone wanted to use Karma or craft it. Same thing. At least we would be playing the game the way we want to play it. Right now the gear is just gated through time which is not very fun, at least to me.

How about choosing not to get it? Is that so hard to do? smh

DrixTrix.7168:

before nov 15th people complained about no progression and nothing to work towards and not enough to do on a day to day basis and that the ’’gear’’ was pointless to farm.

no matter the company there are always sections of people that are not happy.

its not necessary to grind new items, so if you don’t want to (unless for looks) then stop an don’t it does not punish you in GW2 to the extent of EVERY other mmo to my knowledge.

But the people who were unhappy are like the people who want the trinity back (and I am one of those people who miss the trinity). If that’s what you want great, but that is not how the game was designed or marketed. Many of us bought the game because as the poster above put it, we wanted to “relax” and not chase after the new gear so we can stay competitive.

Personally I just wanted a game where I could get my gear and just enjoy WvW and maybe a dungeon or two if I wanted to, where I could level an alt or try a new spec without it feeling like I would fall off the gear treadmill because I wanted something new or I could take a break because life got busy and not feel like I am behind. You know the way this game was designed and how it was promised.

This was supposed to be a game where you played your way and you didn’t need to spend hours just to get new gear every few months. I really miss the very brief time it lived up to that.

Raine.1394:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

You guys yet haven’t understood that Anet is purposely releasing new gear piece-by-piece and with time-based limits because they don’t want people to get it all at once?

It’s how GW2 works.
This month you get the new ring, the next you get the new sword, etc.
If you can’t stand that you can’t just grind the hell out of the game to unhealthy levels to get everything asap and then quit, either consider a change of mentality or change game.

I’m glad you brought up the psychological dimension but I’ll part ways with you now. I believe possibly the worst aspect of GW2’s grind is how it affects you psychologically. Let me explain. WoW’s grind was the product of many years experience. It was straightforward. The likely length of the grind was known. And, the path to the gear was laid out for you. All you needed to do was hop on the treadmill and get that thing rolling. There were different levels where people hopped off. Some took it to the heroic raids and absolute top level gear. For me pieces from LFR raids, a few from normal raids, and then valor gear to round it out was fine. There came a point with each tier that I was done and I…RELAXED. That’s it; I relaxed. Then I did dailies, gathered and crafted to keep a set of gear on the AH (TP), helped out family and guildies, did content for fun, and fished.

Consider GW2. When I came to GW2 I immediately relaxed. There was no grind for gear post max level. I was having the MMO time of my life. I could play relaxed all the time. Then 11/15 came and went and we were left to try to figure out Ascended gear. Anet eventually made it clear in the AMA that we were to have vertical progression going forward in GW2. Well, being a somewhat experienced gamer I knew what vertical progression was. It’s the game element that creates a gear grind to give players a sense of progression and, supposedly, keep them playing the game. We were promised that the power curve would be low—we would have a slow grind. But, what does that mean? It means that the grind is never over. There is a sword hanging over your head every day you play called the daily (the path to the shinies) and you can never relax and just play.

Bottom line, WoW has a humane grind with an endpoint (in each tier) where the player can relax and just play. In GW2, the grind is unrelenting. It never goes away. Looking honestly at the two methods of grinding, I would say Anet’s version is the less psychologically ‘healthful’ of the two.

Love this post. It hits the nail on the head.

I prefer WoW’s grinding philosphy because it was about my own skill and my group’s skill/coordination. Not to mention it was about how much time and effort I wanted to put into it. If my Guild and I were really good, we can gear out faster thus the pain is over more quickly. We can relax.

Guild Wars 2 grind requires dailies and it has a set timer on it. There’s only one way to get Ascended gear and it’s through a painful, long, slow and boring grind. It’s not about how good I am, it’s just about tokens. Tokens, tokens, tokens. And lots of them. I can’t speed or slow down the process, it’s in the hands of Dailies. I would like to add that I didn’t mind the way Fractal Ring’s were earned, but it’s still sad it all came down to a Daily RNG in the end.

Guild Wars 2 is really bad at this gear grind thing, probably because they’re so inexperienced (Guild Wars 1 had nothing like this). I think they need to start plucking a page from a Traditional MMO’s book since this new “innervated” treadmill philosophy is not working.

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

It’s like this community is made out of people who want everything their way. You do not need ascended gear anywhere except for higher level fractals. And to get a high level fractal you will need to play it a lot, but it’s not a gateway to something you are required to do if you want to play most of the game.

You can’t have everything at once and with exotics you will do fine just anywhere.

Also, just visited 20 areas, didn’t see a single soul. The game is doomed

The concept is easy to understand. Allow me to explain it to you. Vertical progression can be described by an integer series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,…n where each number represents a new tier of gear with a correspondingly higher power level. The difference between 1 and 2 is negligible with a low power level and could be ignored and it would have little impact on your ability to play the game. How about the difference between 1 and 100? Remember what we are dealing with. Vertical: the power level of the game increases. Progression: it periodically and continually increases. Vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping. If it stopped it would no longer be vertical progression. It takes little intellectual horsepower to understand that what vertical progression introduces is a non-optional gear grind. If you want to continue playing the game you must follow the power curve. The concept is simple and should be easily understood. It does, however, continue to represent a challenge for many in the forums.

Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 are so far apart in terms of game design philosophy that they shouldn’t even have the same title.

I have never seen this much grinding in MMO’s before. I thought korean MMO’s were bad.

Flamenco.3894:

Sardonia.8196:

Astralporing.1957:

Vorch.2985:

• They are in the process of rolling out different methods of attaining ascended gear.

Yep, they are – since November 15th. So far none of the methods they introduced were any better than the original one, and since none of them gives access to all ascended eq, you have to use all of them, instead of picking one that best compements your playing style.
In short, instead of improving the situation, they are actually making it worse.

This I do agree on. Why can they not just make it that accended gear can be obtained the same way as exotic but at a higher price. Let us be able to buy it with Karma, let us be able to craft it, etc. I should be able to acquire the gear that I want on my time, not theirs. If I wanted to grind for 24hrs in one day to get the gear, I should be able to, or if I cannot log on everyday, I could still acquire it when I could log in. The issue is that I am on their terms and not mine and that is making it less fun.

To me make it available through all forms right now. If someone wants to obtain the gear all through guild missions, then they should be able to. Same with running FOTM. Or if someone wanted to use Karma or craft it. Same thing. At least we would be playing the game the way we want to play it. Right now the gear is just gated through time which is not very fun, at least to me.

How about choosing not to get it? Is that so hard to do? smh

Choosing not to do something has always been an option. It’s just that it is usually the LAST option people choose. People, stop trying to get those ascended equipments. They aren’t necessary. Might as well diss people who are after Legendaries, or exotics. They aren’t necessary either. You can finish the game with Masterwork equipments. You leveled your toon in wvw til 80 and it wasn’t a problem.

Seriously, it’s like saying why bother playing [specify game content]. They aren’t necessary anyway.

Refeuh.8493:

drwookie.6391:

Dailies do not come for “free” for everyone.

I play WvW exclusively and almost always have to go out of my way to finish the daily. If I ignore it I will never finish.

And don’t even get me started with monthlies.

I do not think this is a fair assessment – WvW is actually one of the easiest and quickest way to make progress in terms of daily rewards.

In WvW you get a large variety of monsters, lots of resource nodes to collect from, and
plenty of events for capturing / defending points of interests.

After a typical WvW session, all you need to complete the daily achievement is probably a jumping puzzle or some crafting (which you can also do in WvW)

Similar to your complain, open world PvE players could argue that they’re not getting any WvW tokens or glory. But why should they ? It’s all about balance, and yes sometimes you might end up doing just a bit of something you normally wouldn’t do, but that goes for everyone and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. All in all I don’t think the current mechanics are far from decent.

Haha nobody cries about tokens because they are fairly worthless.

Also, I don’t fight monsters in WvW, so the kill variety one is something I always have to go out of my way for. Granted my complaint about dailies may change, given the new patch. However at least yesterday I couldn’t do five of the options in my two hours of wvw playtime. I had to leave it.

And AGAIN I will refer everyone to Mike O’Brien, the company PRESIDENT.

If you want to spent months earning gear it should be distinguished by LOOKS, not stats. He made that very very clear, just nobody in his team is listening to him. He must be locked in the basement somewhere.

Flamenco.3894:

How about choosing not to get it? Is that so hard to do? smh

The moment i give up on ever achieving something in this game, i will stop playing. Yes, i am getting closer and closer to that point.

marnick.4305:

Nomen est omen. Guild Wars.

Guilds should be the core mechanic for this game.

This is what you are going with? There is nothing that says “guild” like 500 spam invites, of which you know maybe 30 people.

Fact is they left out “guilds” due to the requirements and rewarded the laughable 500 spam guilds, you know, the ones in every game that people place on ignore because of their constant spam recruitment of accepting anyone who can turn on a computer.

Raine.1394:

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

It’s like this community is made out of people who want everything their way. You do not need ascended gear anywhere except for higher level fractals. And to get a high level fractal you will need to play it a lot, but it’s not a gateway to something you are required to do if you want to play most of the game.

You can’t have everything at once and with exotics you will do fine just anywhere.

Also, just visited 20 areas, didn’t see a single soul. The game is doomed

The concept is easy to understand. Allow me to explain it to you. Vertical progression can be described by an integer series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,…n where each number represents a new tier of gear with a correspondingly higher power level. The difference between 1 and 2 is negligible with a low power level and could be ignored and it would have little impact on your ability to play the game. How about the difference between 1 and 100? Remember what we are dealing with. Vertical: the power level of the game increases. Progression: it periodically and continually increases. Vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping. If it stopped it would no longer be vertical progression. It takes little intellectual horsepower to understand that what vertical progression introduces is a non-optional gear grind. If you want to continue playing the game you must follow the power curve. The concept is simple and should be easily understood. It does, however, continue to represent a challenge for many in the forums.

It’s all in your head. You can do just fine playing most of the game with integer # 4. You are only feeling peer pressure or the assumption that most people will deny people with ‘merely’ exotics in a couple of months, right?

Anyways, I understand the concept and I don’t know why you thought you needed to explain it but I assume it has to do with repeating it to yourself until you believe it.

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

Exotics are no longer BiS. New end-game content will be balanced around Exotics being the minimum requirements. Ascended will be the norm and the batch after Ascended will be the “good to haves”.

Flamenco.3894:

It’s all in your head. You can do just fine playing most of the game with integer # 4. You are only feeling peer pressure or the assumption that most people will deny people with ‘merely’ exotics in a couple of months, right?

Anyways, I understand the concept and I don’t know why you thought you needed to explain it but I assume it has to do with repeating it to yourself until you believe it.

This is called underachieving. Nobody wants that.

bpphantom.8243:

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

Exotics are no longer BiS. New end-game content will be balanced around Exotics being the minimum requirements. Ascended will be the norm and the batch after Ascended will be the “good to haves”.

Do you work for Anet or are you just assuming that will happen? On what basis are you assuming that?

Flamenco.3894:

bpphantom.8243:

Flamenco.3894:

It’s optional. If you have exotic you are fine. Ascended is for players who a little bit more but it’s not necessary. What’s so hard to understand about this concept?

Exotics are no longer BiS. New end-game content will be balanced around Exotics being the minimum requirements. Ascended will be the norm and the batch after Ascended will be the “good to haves”.

Do you work for Anet or are you just assuming that will happen? On what basis are you assuming that?

FotM already works that way. It is balanced off having ascended, exotics will only get you so far. So clearly that is the direction they are heading.

vespers.1759:

atilathegun.1950:

I don’t get why people complain… anet literally gives us laurels for free on top of the dailies we already previously do, and people complain. Ridiculous. With fotm, dailies/monthlies, and now guild missions, ascended stuff is really easy to get. What’s more, it’s fun to get, even for a casual player.

If people are going to complain this much about ascended gear, then just don’t get the kitten stuff. If playing the game for 30 minutes a day is too hard, then maybe ascended gear isn’t for you. We have it way, way better than players in other games. This game isn’t nearly as grindy as people seem to say, and what grind there is I find considerably funner than most other mmos out there.

come back and tell us how much you like dailies after 365 of them in a row.

So far, I’ve been doing dailies for six months halfway there. The dailies aren’t a big deal to me because I’m playing anyway. Even today they hardly took any time at all. There are so many ways to save time if you want the laurel.

And if you take longer to get something, so what?