Guild Wars 2

Hello, lately I’ve not logged on to the game much because I’ve found it hard to find content that interests me and it leads me to question whether this is either A. a lack of content in the game or B. Personal fault.

To preface I’ve been a GW fan since factions and have owned GW2 since launch. But for the life of me I’ve always found it hard to find things to do in GW2

I’ve tried:

• Dungeons, I got Dungeon master and was finally glad I never have to run through them again

*Fotm: Gotten to level 20 odd, gotten bored of grinding through the levels for the slight chance of an ascended weapon/armor chest

*PvP: I definitely gave this a shot, I had some fun but it’s really not for me

*WvW: I enjoy this the most, but finding groups to war with can take ages

*Mini games: Some I dislike, some I like but not enough for me to load up the game just to play them

*Story achievements: Cutscenes and frustrating achievements have ruined this for me

*Boss chains: grind.

*SW farming: more grind

It all seems to boil do to one thing: grinding/farming. Repeating the same event chains/dungeons/bosses and activities over and over. It’s pointless and it bores me utterly. And please don’t tell me GW2 doesn’t have grind because some korean grind2win game did. Because that game had more it doesn’t mean GW2 doesn’t have any grind.

Let’s look at GW1. As of right now I’ve almost finished Vanquisher of Elona and then moving onto Tyria at a rate of one vanquish a day. It will take me well over a month and I’m enjoying it. Is it repetitive? you could argue yes because I’m killing creatures over and over but saying that, each day I’m seeing a different area with different foes and a new atmosphere. This content entertains me. It will take awhile but I am progressing and having an adventure not killing the same mobs in the same map over and over.

I will acknowledge however that the game did have some extremely grindy titles like Luxon/kurzick/treasure hunter or collector and many people did farm the same areas (DoA, norn title, UW) but the game and it’s updates/campaigns/expansion did and do not revolve around these grinds and there was plenty to do 2 years within the game without tidbits of content every 2 weeks.

So I implore you ArenaNet, make sure there is lots of real content in Heart of Thorns such as your precursor gathering idea and not just the basic story, farming and repeatable content that can get stale fast.

Please discuss and hopefully disprove me and show me something to do

I swung a sword, I swung a sword again.

Actually, scratch that, I just pressed auto-attack and beat 99% of PVE content.

I know what you mean. For me it seems to be always about ownership of some sort for it to feel meaningful. DAoC sieges (not the musicals chairs of WvW), Eve and sovereignty and player run economy, GW1 and the HoM and guild halls, Rift’s housing, SWGs housing and crafting, etc. Once I feel like I can make a home in the game world, it starts to feel meaningful. GW2 does none of these things. There is a lot to love about GW2, but meaningful content is not one of them. It’s a dessert type of game and not a main course.

I think meaningful content is more towards player driven contents. That can only be PvP and WvW for now. If you don’t like either, there isn’t much to offer.

Something to consider …
They consider the Silverwastes/Dry Top experiment to be a success. Enough to give old zones a similar system. There is a pretty good chance it will still be about farming.

Doing something else besides GW2 for a while is a valid option. Just brainstorming here…

Khisanth.2948:

Something to consider …
They consider the Silverwastes/Dry Top experiment to be a success. Enough to give old zones a similar system. There is a pretty good chance it will still be about farming.

I think Silverwastes were a really great success in terms of open world pve (Aside from chest farming). We just need more challenging content to complete with our guild, and only our guild.

Khisanth.2948:

Something to consider …
They consider the Silverwastes/Dry Top experiment to be a success. Enough to give old zones a similar system. There is a pretty good chance it will still be about farming.

The Silverwastes system of events was very nice and a great step forward compared to other systems they have in the game. However there are a few drawbacks that will hopefully be addressed in the HoT zones.

1) Chest farming shouldn’t exist in the new zones, or at least be more tied to the overall events on the zone rather than rewarding shovels at random from events and then allowing EVERYONE to loot the chests. Given how their new material reward system is going to work (rewarding materials instead of bandit crests from doing events) it might well be much much better than SW

2) AFKing in a zone while waiting for it to go to the final stage is another issue they need to solve in the new zones. Either by adding milestones that you need to do all the way while the zone is progressing, making the perseverance buff require way way more events to max or something different entirely

3) More impact from the events themselves, we already know that in the new zones they will be using a different system, like day/night cycle, unlocking new adventures as you progress the zones etc, this might lead to far better zones that don’t feel as boring and repeatetive kitten. Also, if all HoT zones work like SW we will have lots of zones rather than just one

The trouble is, they add meaningful content, but it only keeps up occupied for a short time, then it becomes rinse/repeat/grind. HoT will be meaningful content. I am very happy with the expansion concept, it’s what kept GW1 going. Without expansions GW2 after 2 years felt like GW1 after 5

Khisanth.2948:

Something to consider …
They consider the Silverwastes/Dry Top experiment to be a success. Enough to give old zones a similar system. There is a pretty good chance it will still be about farming.

True:

1) ArenaNet considers the Silverwastes a success. Even though it’s an incredibly badly designed area, with copy-and-paste events repeating over and over and with a massive lack of polish.

2) ArenaNet already said with all the letters that HoT will be based on Silverwastes-like maps.

3) ArenaNet wanted beta testers to come from the pool of Silverwasters grinders.

So, OP, if you don’t like grinding, I guess the “all new, all different” GW2 isn’t for you.

The irony here is that the “success” of Silverwastes isn’t because it’s well developed (it isn’t). It’s just because it’s a world event-like thing that repeats over and over. If ArenaNet made it so the Breach only happened three times a day and were limited to being looted once per day, but made the Shadow Behemoth repeteable once every 30 minutes and with no limits on how often it could be looted, the Silverwastes would be empty and Queensdale would be eternally full of people.

sharkstein.2109:

Doing something else besides GW2 for a while is a valid option. Just brainstorming here…

Like riding a motorcycle… a 2014 kawasaki zx10r for instance. Thrills for months so far for me. Nothing like screaming down country roads at excessive speeds dodging deer, potholes, and rednecks.

Or go fishing? That’s a fun time activity that you can do and get plastered even more so if you can fish in your backyard.

Sandpit.3467:

The trouble is, they add meaningful content, but it only keeps up occupied for a short time, then it becomes rinse/repeat/grind. HoT will be meaningful content. I am very happy with the expansion concept, it’s what kept GW1 going. Without expansions GW2 after 2 years felt like GW1 after 5

Yeah and they gave us content that disappeared before it became rinse/repeat/grind.

But oh my god .. everybody cried : temporary content is bad, because we can’t
rinse/repeat/grind it forever.

In the end, i guess that is up to you: as i care the grinding is here only if you seek it.

For example, i love Silverwasted and i played it a lot… but i got the parts and tokens in no time, and after that i kept playing it because i genuinely tought it was fun, and i still think it is! The main reason is, while setting and missions are always the same, the people are not and many stuff can happen, the same goes for fractals and, obviously, mostly for wvw or pvp.

Sure, after a lot of time you grow bored of it, and is it fine to change because of that… how much time you have spent on gw2, by the way? No all games are meant to last forever, and in the single player games i loved most i get usually 100 hours, sometimes even 300 or in older cases even more than 1k ( time changes however, and i find myself spending less and less time :\ ).

Sure MMOs are meant to last longer due to updates, the friend and people you meet and so on, but i hardly believe they can be eternally played unless you have a sort of dedication or ossession for it.

Also, if you see grinding like that let me notice you that even in “dungeon level based mmos” you have to grind too: grind for items to get better items to… what is the purpose again?

There is no shame at all to take a break the good thing of GW2, one of the reason i picked it, is that you can drop it and enjoy when ever you want without time frames, subscription issues or kitten like that!

Beldin.5498:

Sandpit.3467:

The trouble is, they add meaningful content, but it only keeps up occupied for a short time, then it becomes rinse/repeat/grind. HoT will be meaningful content. I am very happy with the expansion concept, it’s what kept GW1 going. Without expansions GW2 after 2 years felt like GW1 after 5

Yeah and they gave us content that disappeared before it became rinse/repeat/grind.

But oh my god .. everybody cried : temporary content is bad, because we can’t
rinse/repeat/grind it forever.

Season 1 might have been all temporary but a lot of it was just more farming.

Here’s the thing: it is literally impossible for ANet to produce content faster than players can consume the content. So repetition of content is an inherent part of extending the life-span of the content.

Khisanth.2948:

Season 1 might have been all temporary but a lot of it was just more farming.

In the end all MMOs are about farming if you want to play them longer.
You can make the leveling process take longer, but then player cry that it is
such a bad grind to max level.

If you don’t want to farm don’t play am MMO for longer than maybe 2-3 months
the same as you would mostly not play a single player games for years.

Season 1 however gave us new stuff every 2 weeks without constantly having
breaks for 3-4 months, and when the content was getting old after a week already
you only had to wait 1 more week to get something new.

Now look at WoW .. 3 months after release of the latest expansion they are down
to less player than before .. and everyone now waits another 2 years for the next
expansion .. that they will again mostly left after 2-3 months.

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

What about time commitments? How long does “grinding SW” events take, v. how long did one spend in a raid in, say Wrath Naxx? I rarely spend more than 1-1.5 hours finishing SW thru VW, but remember 4-6 hour raids, a couple of nights a week.

That said, I might get nothing from the raids, or I might get 1 or more BiS items that fit my spec. In SW, I get a few rares and some tokens.

Kind of feels like apples and oranges to me.

I would say lack of constant (or close to it) enjoyable content I can’t guarantee a acceptable time in either WvW or PvP I usually like PvE in other games but here nah I usually do it to blow off steam,really bored,need it or helping someone. There is not much better out there I miss C9 and my other mmos but they messed up too much so GW2 is what we settle down for it’s unique but meh.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

There are five events on the map? LMAO

So in other maps are there events other than defend, escort, kill, collect? Because those are the types of quests. What makes a quest isn’t the type of quest. What makes a quest , or event, is the specifics of the event. Saying there’s a boss fight, is wrong. There are seven boss fights and a maze you’re ignoring. In addition to that there’s the bandit boss, there’s reclaiming the skritt area, there’s a giant jumping puzzle, biggest in the game. There are chest runs (which aren’t boss fights), for people who like to farm as well.

You’re definitely trivializing the zone. While the defense events all seem very similar, they’re not really. In one fort it makes sense to man the arrow carts that spawn on the top, but other forts don’t have that. On one fort it’s much harder to light a fire to call down an air strike.

But saying there are only a few types of events, that’s not only true for every zone, it’s true for every game. All the quests in all the games fall into a few types.

That’s why no matter what race you start with in a game like WoW it feels sort of the same. Kill wolves and get wolf flanks or kill undead and get undead parts or gather flowers or gather gems. Those are the types of quests you can get in games.

Guild Wars 2 is no different. What makes the Silverwastes different is the way those quests are put together and make a cohesive unit, instead of a bunch of individual chests. It’s not just each quest that has a purpose, but the zone as a whole. It is telling a story.

GW2 has always lacked focused, because it’s always experimenting with concepts. It’s only ever been consistent with SPvP.

WvW, dungeons, and dynamic events were supposed to be “endgame”, then it morphed into the living world/story, then into a seasonal tv show, then season 2 achievements became the new endgame “dungeon” content, and WvW also became a PvE environment with EotM.

If i could sum up GW2’s purpose, it would be an open-world environment based on events. That’s all it really is.

nexxe.7081:

WvW, dungeons, and dynamic events were supposed to be “endgame”, then it morphed into the living world/story, then into a seasonal tv show, then season 2 achievements became the new endgame “dungeon” content, and WvW also became a PvE environment with EotM.

What in the world made you believe that dungeons, WvW and SPvP were “supposed to be” end game. Not only did Anet not say this before launch, they never even implied it.

From the very beginning, Anet talked about a living breathing world. They said, straight out, the game centered on dynmaic events. They spoke about story. They even said there’s no end game, or the end game begins at level 1.

I would love to see you post some evidence of what was supposed to be end game. Cause from my point of view, the Living Story is far more in in line with what Anet was talking about all along as long term goals than anything you listed.

scerevisiae.1972:

I swung a sword, I swung a sword again.

Actually, scratch that, I just pressed auto-attack and beat 99% of PVE content.

This is the difference between 2010’s MMO manifesto trailer and the reality of Guildwars 2 in a nutshell. It is more complicated than that, of course, but since the main problem pervades every aspect of the game. Anet wanted to make the game accessible to everyone. That meant simplifying the system to where the only thing that matters is how high your attack power is, removing any concept of a holy trinity, making the so-called new trinity all but meaningless, and how well you can time that dodge every 5 seconds on an otherwise inconsequential boss attack pattern.

The result was that you can blow through 99.99% of all game content by pressing auto attack, regardless of profession, regardless of gear quality, regardless of stat spread. The content would be meaningful, and if not for the simplification of the game during the development process, there would be an actual strategy inherent in the game’s combat system. It would have been great to have that multi-layered system of strategy in the combat that other MMO’s enjoy instead of asking yourself how high you can get your attack stat without sacrificing your survivability which is entirely based on how well you can press the dodge button in 99% of all content since maxed vitality, toughness, or healing power don’t actually contribute to your sirvivability since the boss will kill you in one hit anyways if you fail to press that dodge button.

Meaningful content is in the eye of the beholder. Fun is even more subjective. Lots of people enjoy the game as structured. Many of those playing for 3 years might be ready for a change and many that have been playing for less time have no idea why those vets have run out of things to do. And, of course, there are people who never really ‘clicked’ with GW2, including an important subset of GW1 players.

Consequently, I’m not sure it pays to spend too much time worrying about the OP’s stated question, “is there a lack of meaningful content.” A better question to ask is whether the game continues to be successful appealing to its core audience(s). I think the answer to that has to be ‘yes’ since (a) there’s an announced expansion and (b) people got upset that they couldn’t get a beta invite.

Vayne.8563:

nexxe.7081:

WvW, dungeons, and dynamic events were supposed to be “endgame”, then it morphed into the living world/story, then into a seasonal tv show, then season 2 achievements became the new endgame “dungeon” content, and WvW also became a PvE environment with EotM.

What in the world made you believe that dungeons, WvW and SPvP were “supposed to be” end game. Not only did Anet not say this before launch, they never even implied it.

From the very beginning, Anet talked about a living breathing world. They said, straight out, the game centered on dynmaic events. They spoke about story. They even said there’s no end game, or the end game begins at level 1.

I would love to see you post some evidence of what was supposed to be end game. Cause from my point of view, the Living Story is far more in in line with what Anet was talking about all along as long term goals than anything you listed.

I never meant officially, but that’s what endgame usually is in an MMO. It consists of dungeons/raids and pvp. It was/is the de-facto content style in almost all mainstream MMOs, including GW2. I’ll admit that it was a poor choice of words on my part, and i shouldn’t have said, “supposed to be”.

Devs, including those in other games, can spin it all they want, and claim endgame starts at lvl 1, or that there isn’t an endgame, but that’s just marketing. The fact is, there always will be some form of endgame, in a progression based leveling game, whether it’s horizontal or vertical.

As i’ve said, "If i could sum up GW2’s purpose, it would be an open-world environment based on events. ".. which agrees with your statement: " Cause from my point of view, the Living Story is far more in in line with what Anet was talking about all along as long term goals". This might have been what Anet expected as endgame, but it’s not what some players want or expect out of “endgame”, hence why this topic keeps constantly appearing over the years. Endgame for them is dungeons and pvp, like it is in other mmos.

nexxe.7081:

Vayne.8563:

nexxe.7081:

WvW, dungeons, and dynamic events were supposed to be “endgame”, then it morphed into the living world/story, then into a seasonal tv show, then season 2 achievements became the new endgame “dungeon” content, and WvW also became a PvE environment with EotM.

What in the world made you believe that dungeons, WvW and SPvP were “supposed to be” end game. Not only did Anet not say this before launch, they never even implied it.

From the very beginning, Anet talked about a living breathing world. They said, straight out, the game centered on dynmaic events. They spoke about story. They even said there’s no end game, or the end game begins at level 1.

I would love to see you post some evidence of what was supposed to be end game. Cause from my point of view, the Living Story is far more in in line with what Anet was talking about all along as long term goals than anything you listed.

I never meant officially, but that’s what endgame usually is in an MMO. It consists of dungeons/raids and pvp. It was/is the de-facto content style in almost all mainstream MMOs, including GW2. I’ll admit that it was a poor choice of words on my part, and i shouldn’t have said, “supposed to be”.

Devs, including those in other games, can spin it all they want, and claim endgame starts at lvl 1, or that there isn’t an endgame, but that’s just marketing. The fact is, there always will be some form of endgame, in a progression based leveling game, whether it’s horizontal or vertical.

As i’ve said, "If i could sum up GW2’s purpose, it would be an open-world environment based on events. ".. which agrees with your statement: " Cause from my point of view, the Living Story is far more in in line with what Anet was talking about all along as long term goals". This might have been what Anet expected as endgame, but it’s not what some players want or expect out of “endgame”, hence why this topic keeps constantly appearing over the years. Endgame for them is dungeons and pvp, like it is in other mmos.

No, it’s not just marketing and if you believe that you are absolutely playing the wrong game. It doesnt’ matter what every MMO does because there are things this MMO does differently. You came here with the idea there would be an end game.

Do you see Anet focused on bringing out new dungeons? I don’t. Do you see the dungeon community feeling they’re being focused on? I don’t. And that was my absolute problem with other games. I play an MMO to be in a world with LOTS of other players, not 20 people in an instance. And those games were focused around instance. Anet said we’re going to do something different and they DID do something different and you’re saying that’s just marketing? It’s not just marketing. It’s the goal of the company.

Anet didn’t lie when they said they wanted to make a living breathing world. That’s what season 1 of the personal story was supposed to be. A world that actually progressed. Where if an event happened you were either there or you missed it. Sort of like, I don’t know, a Living Breathing World. This is what Anet has been trying to do ALL along.

That didn’t work out because a lot of people couldn’t be there all the time and felt they were missing stuff. Fair enough. But don’t go and say that no end game, or no traditional end game is just marketing. It’s only marketing to people who LIKED those other MMOs and many people didn’t. Many people walked away from those MMOs because they didn’t want to be funneled into instanced or PvP.

This game was made for players who wanted a living breathing world. An open world experience. That’s why that’s what Anet is focusing on. And to those of us who don’t love instances, and I suspect that’s a much bigger percentage of the playerbase than you think it is, this game has meaningful content.

Yes there’s a lack of meaningful content. Or perhaps more accurately, meaningful features. Anet insists on doing everything themselves by hand, and I commend the on the quality of their work. But they can’t keep up with consumption by players, no devs ever can.

That’s why it’s important to give us ways to make our own “content” so to speak. Not scripting mobs/events or anything like that (though that could be cool too if done well). But just more ways to interact with the world and each other. More interesting and significant things to gain than shiny gear.

Suppose some sort of democratic election system were implemented where guilds could officially own (be voted in as city council or something) towns that already exist in the world. This is mostly fluff, no new art assets needed. It would be a nice way for guilds to have some level of influence and prestige in the world. Maybe ownership (until next election) would include things like % tax from NPC vendors, or being allowed to spawn special events in the area. If you want to take it even further, maybe include some sort of housing system where buildings in the town can be used as people’s homes (for guildies, or perhaps rented out to others). The point of all this is to just give us more involvement in the world. Nothing scripted, but actually player/guild controlled.

Maybe even have some zone(s) where territory is won via pvp. But not like WvW where you lose it 10 minutes later or it’s just reset in a week anyway. But some sort of GvG tournament where you win the “prize” long term, like a few months.

These are just some of many possible ideas, be they pve or pvp. But right now, there just isn’t any kind of “anchor” in the world. There’s nothing to feel attached to and nothing meaningful to attain. Scripted instances and events can be great at first, but then it’s just grinding, just some “fake” thing that makes no difference to anything or anyone. We need more interesting unscripted features, things we can meaningfully influence and have a reason to care about. That’s something the game is sorely lacking.

What we have now isn’t a “living world”, it’s a fake scripted one.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

On the other hand you don’t really need anything from Silverwastes except maybe the Sinister recipe sheets.

The grind in GW2 is probably worse than in many other games because in other games at least it usually results in some sort of improvements to your character. GW2’s setup is great if you rarely play the game or take long breaks. GW2 is the perfect game for people who plan on not playing much. Silverwaste’s repetition is probably not that bad if you only play once a week.

Kartel.2561:

Suppose some sort of democratic election system were implemented where guilds could officially own (be voted in as city council or something) towns that already exist in the world. This is mostly fluff, no new art assets needed. It would be a nice way for guilds to have some level of influence and prestige in the world. Maybe ownership (until next election) would include things like % tax from NPC vendors, or being allowed to spawn special events in the area. If you want to take it even further, maybe include some sort of housing system where buildings in the town can be used as people’s homes (for guildies, or perhaps rented out to others). The point of all this is to just give us more involvement in the world. Nothing scripted, but actually player/guild controlled.

No new art assets but plenty of programming. ANet seems to have more artists than programmers so I am not sure what you are trying to say. It is going to be a relatively large amount work to provide content for a very tiny fraction of the population. The megaserver system means you can’t even have the ownership on a per server basis.

Khisanth.2948:

No new art assets but plenty of programming. ANet seems to have more artists than programmers so I am not sure what you are trying to say. It is going to be a relatively large amount work to provide content for a very tiny fraction of the population. The megaserver system means you can’t even have the ownership on a per server basis.

Well I didn’t say “nothing” would be involved, just that it would be re-using existing things as opposed to having to make all new things. But hey, just a thought.

And yes, megaserver means it would apply to all guilds from everywhere, and when done, the results would apply to any version of the map you were on. Sounds fine to me. Some kind of political system would add a lot to the social aspect of the game though, make it more relevant to have alliances, etc. And it seems there would be less involved in re-purposing existing assets than creating all new from scratch (though new is always nice too).

Plus it would be nice to have these towns actually mean a little something in the world other than hearts and such. But again, just one thought of many. I don’t like to just complain, I like to at least try to have interesting suggestions that might help. And speaking of that, THIS JUST IN!! What if towns in a given zone could have some kind of rivalry. Not pvp (though maybe that too), but some sort of competition within the zone they could engage in, and the winning town gets access to something cool (portal to SAB perhaps?).

Remember, the goal is just to make this a “living breathing world” that players can legitimately feel engaged in. Not all scripted and superficial, but a little bit more “real” and meaningful. And if they do it well, it may not be as much of a “tiny fraction of the population” as you think. It would be fairly relevant, possibly very relevant, to quite a lot of guilds and their members. They all want to “matter”, have their name out there, wield some degree of influence in the world (and possibly get some special perks out of it).

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

In single player games perhaps.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

WoW must really have changed since Cataclysm then. I seem to remember grinding through regular dungeons to get gear to grind through hard-mode dungeons to get gear to raid, to get gear to raid even more. Then there was a loot system! And when a new tier got released I got to do it all over again. And that’s not including daily event grinds or rep grinds. Sure open world pve wasn’t a grind… the first time, but after that it becomes a slog to get to max level so you can play the content. The bad part about open world pve where GW2 shines is in ho it allows for passive cooperation. In WoW a bunch of player camp around a span point and the first one to tag gets to finish the quest and the rest gets to enjoy camping. Of course luckily the open world becomes very empty very soon.

IndigoSundown.5419:

What about time commitments? How long does “grinding SW” events take, v. how long did one spend in a raid in, say Wrath Naxx? I rarely spend more than 1-1.5 hours finishing SW thru VW, but remember 4-6 hour raids, a couple of nights a week.

Eh… Trigger Warnings please, I’m getting ICC flashbacks :P

You know, I really now wonder . . . what the heck is “meaningful content”?

. . . especially meaningful content which can be repeated without being considered either farming or grinding. That’s . . . not going to happen. It’s really not, and you’re deluding yourself if you claim it is.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

It depends on what you mean. GW2 has very grindy open world content.

Take SW for example, there are only 5 events on the whole map. Defend forts, escort supply, kill vets, beat bosses, beat VW. The whole map is those 5 events. Completing them once is not enough to earn you anything, in fact you need to complete those same events 40-50 times to finish the achievements and get the zone skins.

I don’t know of ANY MMO that requires 40-50 completions of the same content to get all the rewards. WoW for example you get all the zone rewards by doing each quest in a zone once. No grind there, you do it, you’re done. WoW dungeons generally take 5-10 completions to get all possible rewards, but you generally don’t need them all. WoW raids take 10-12 completions to get your endgame gear which is probably the “grindiest” part of it. Compare that to GW2 where it takes ~150 dungeons runs to get all the gear from a single dungeon.

So for Open world I would not consider WoW PvE to be a grind, and I would consider their dungeons to not be a grind either. I would consider raids to be a slight grind, but SIGNIFICANTLY less than what it takes in GW2.

And whats left in WoW after you have done all the quests once ? I guess like in
most other MMOs you have then only some dailys you can grind there and
thats it .. right ?

Also in most MMOs i’ve heared people complain about the quest grind, cause
you mostly have to do all the quests there just to get the level for the next zone.
In EQ2 that were often 100+ quest per zone. Some of my level 80 characters
there had in the end a total of 2500 quests done.

Oh and dungeons gear .. i’ve also did some dungeons there 100 times and never
got the item i really wanted. So good that you are not forced to do dungeons
here at all.

Sizer.5632:

Is there any game where content (pve content specifically) is not considered by anyone to be a “grind”?

And no i’m seriously asking.

CureForLiving.5360:

Here’s the thing: it is literally impossible for ANet to produce content faster than players can consume the content. So repetition of content is an inherent part of extending the life-span of the content.

Kartel.2561:

What we have now isn’t a “living world”, it’s a fake scripted one.

yep, and this is the core problem with themepark-style MMOs (where devs attempt to create all the content, and in-game player-player interactions are superficial) versus sandbox-style MMOs (where the devs create systems for players to create their own content).

Example of sandbox MMOs: Eve, Archeage, Darkfall. If you really want to play a “living world” MMO, you really need to be playing a sandbox game like one of these, they kill this game for dead in the lving story department, it’s not even comparable.

Sandbox MMOs generally still do offer grindy PVE-type content, because that’s what some players like, the difference is, the high-end PVE rewards are almost always in full PVP zones, so surprise fights/ganks can and do happen. Of any MMO i’ve played, i’d probably rate Darkfall’s PVE as the least grindy, simply because the mob AI is pretty good, the combat is very active, and high-end mobs are generally pretty hard (plus the good mob spawn areas see frequent PVP action).

The closest GW2 comes to being “living world” is in WVW, and even then, the original WVW in DAOC was a lot more sandboxy in the sense that owning and holding keeps actually meant something, and keep takes often took hours or days, not minutes.

In any case, Anet haven’t shown any interest in even flirting with sandbox-oriented concepts anywhere, so I highly doubt they’re going to change now.

MMO’s are always going to have this problem as long as the profit model is based on player repetition over (extended periods of) time, and as long as programmers cannot produce content at the same speed as players can consume it.

Player produced content might solve this, but there is still the reward issue. As long as players expect rewards, if player generated content has meaningful rewards, it will be abused. If it doesn’t, it won’t be used — at least not repeatedly. Look no further than MA in CoX for proof. There were farming instances, garbage with ridiculous story and ridiculous mobs, and some well-crafted stories.

IndigoSundown.5419:

MMO’s are always going to have this problem as long as the profit model is based on player repetition over (extended periods of) time, and as long as programmers cannot produce content at the same speed as players can consume it.

Player produced content might solve this, but there is still the reward issue. As long as players expect rewards, if player generated content has meaningful rewards, it will be abused. If it doesn’t, it won’t be used — at least not repeatedly. Look no further than MA in CoX for proof. There were farming instances, garbage with ridiculous story and ridiculous mobs, and some well-crafted stories.

Of course, if you’re 18 or over, you can always check out how Achievement Hunter’s fine gentlemen have managed to get a lot of mileage out of Minecraft and GTA.

all i can say to Anet bring back the old system
champs back in start areas
need to kill mops to get new skills

world bosses can be much harder like fire ele and shatty
also bring the shops back in starting areas

as for now the maps are dead and you get a pop up to switch to a more populated area -.- and it happens allot

i dont care if players do champ train in maps ad least the maps are full and funn
and more social

now every 1 just stay in the city and doing nothing -.-
that’s how i think about this game atm

sorry for my bad English

Yes- Waiting for better than whats been offered for some time – Playing another game atm – luv it- Only log on here Gw2 get the dam chest for the day – Stuff quest crap- Ap is a joke— Does not count for how you play the game- That is it – Seen it all – Yeah – Been there done that – Never a better title – Expansion will wait and see whether it is worth it after a month or so of player time coments- Guild Wars 1 – Bring it back to the future —-——————————————————————————————————————————————-

scerevisiae.1972:

yep, and this is the core problem with themepark-style MMOs (where devs attempt to create all the content, and in-game player-player interactions are superficial) versus sandbox-style MMOs (where the devs create systems for players to create their own content).

Example of sandbox MMOs: Eve, Archeage, Darkfall. If you really want to play a “living world” MMO, you really need to be playing a sandbox game like one of these, they kill this game for dead in the lving story department, it’s not even comparable.

Sandbox MMOs generally still do offer grindy PVE-type content, because that’s what some players like, the difference is, the high-end PVE rewards are almost always in full PVP zones, so surprise fights/ganks can and do happen. Of any MMO i’ve played, i’d probably rate Darkfall’s PVE as the least grindy, simply because the mob AI is pretty good, the combat is very active, and high-end mobs are generally pretty hard (plus the good mob spawn areas see frequent PVP action).

The closest GW2 comes to being “living world” is in WVW, and even then, the original WVW in DAOC was a lot more sandboxy in the sense that owning and holding keeps actually meant something, and keep takes often took hours or days, not minutes.

In any case, Anet haven’t shown any interest in even flirting with sandbox-oriented concepts anywhere, so I highly doubt they’re going to change now.

Personally i think that GW2 is too much sandbox for a lot of people because it has
not the typical themepark railroads that always tell you where you have to go next to get the next better gear.

Its maybe not sandbox for people that understand open-pvp under sandbox, but
ist sandbox like if you understand that you have to choose by yourself what you will do next and not that you only are able to follow a big blinking arrow that shows you the way to the next tier dungeon.

Kinda, though with your argument you also can complete the whole map to achieve 100%. It’s similar to vanquishing. Btw. i found vanquishing in GW1 a grind and never finished it. It really is a matter of opinion.

That said, I still think there should be more ‘challenging group content’ in form of raids or what we had with the elite parts of Guild Wars 1 (which were actually raid-like content): Give us a massive area like the Fissure of Woe the Underworld with unique drops, items and quests to repeat. It was so popular and highly appreciated in GW1. Okay maybe you have the exact metrics and you could argue only a minority enjoyed/played it regularly. But even then: there should be a service for people who demand that.

I understand you don’t want to create a divided community with people who get the cool/rare items out of a super hard content which others can’t achieve. You even don’t let us re-arrange the skills or have side bars just because you are so eager to give everyone the same chances. But it hurts the game, it hurts the experience since you don’t need to be good to get all the shiny goods. Okay, there are a couple of rather hard achievements or titles to get, but usually as a part of single player experience. I still want to hear why you don’t want to have bigger groups/parties than 5. I once saw an interview with Colin Johansson where he vigorously neglected the idea of bigger groups than 5. Why? Why not make instanced content with adaptable enemies, possible from 5 to 20 players?

ProtoGunner.4953:

Kinda, though with your argument you also can complete the whole map to achieve 100%. It’s similar to vanquishing. Btw. i found vanquishing in GW1 a grind and never finished it. It really is a matter of opinion.

That said, I still think there should be more ‘challenging group content’ in form of raids or what we had with the elite parts of Guild Wars 1 (which were actually raid-like content): Give us a massive area like the Fissure of Woe the Underworld with unique drops, items and quests to repeat. It was so popular and highly appreciated in GW1. Okay maybe you have the exact metrics and you could argue only a minority enjoyed/played it regularly. But even then: there should be a service for people who demand that.

I understand you don’t want to create a divided community with people who get the cool/rare items out of a super hard content which others can’t achieve. You even don’t let us re-arrange the skills or have side bars just because you are so eager to give everyone the same chances. But it hurts the game, it hurts the experience since you don’t need to be good to get all the shiny goods. Okay, there are a couple of rather hard achievements or titles to get, but usually as a part of single player experience. I still want to hear why you don’t want to have bigger groups/parties than 5. I once saw an interview with Colin Johansson where he vigorously neglected the idea of bigger groups than 5. Why? Why not make instanced content with adaptable enemies, possible from 5 to 20 players?

i like your idea for raid party s in dungeons with so 16 players
that are split in 2 groups and need to solve some puzzles

work together and beat the final boss
i no some other mmorpg have it already

will be very cool in my few

Mordalus.8146:

I know what you mean. For me it seems to be always about ownership of some sort for it to feel meaningful. DAoC sieges (not the musicals chairs of WvW), Eve and sovereignty and player run economy, GW1 and the HoM and guild halls, Rift’s housing, SWGs housing and crafting, etc. Once I feel like I can make a home in the game world, it starts to feel meaningful. GW2 does none of these things. There is a lot to love about GW2, but meaningful content is not one of them. It’s a dessert type of game and not a main course.

Our personal instances could supply that sense of ownership and to a degree that would put some of your examples to shame.