Guild Wars 2

Legendary weapons represent, to me, a betrayal of the game’s overall tone, design and structure, and stand a testament to how a game can be so progressive in so many ways, and yet still remain unable to struggle out of the old, lousy systems of the past. They reward not a desire for adventure, not a loyalty to the product, not an immersion in the game’s content; but a grind. The game says “Your experience should be an adventure, but if you want the best rewards, it doesn’t matter how you were playing, unless you were playing the way we want you to. And the way we want you to play is to grind.”

There’s your TL;dr right there up front. But if you plan on supporting or (more than likely) arguing with my points, please read on.

I love this game. I truly love it. According to /age I’ve put 850 hours into it overall. That’s more than my top four played games on steam combined. I have three 80s, and two other characters that are fast approaching 80. I’ve done dungeons, world v world, been to every zone, seen just about every event. I run a guild on Tarnished Coast. I haven’t done it all… but I’ve done a lot of it.

I got to thinking recently that maybe I would like to go for a legendary weapon. I don’t know much about them; I know they’re tough to acquire, of course, but I wanted to see just how tough. I’ve been so wrapped up in exploring the game that I never really bothered to look. To break down what was really involved. So I did.

My disappointment was intense.

After three 80s and 850 hours of regular play, I have approximately 200 gold to my name. 150 of that was due to a random karka box I received. I didn’t do that event; Lost Shores was so buggy, so lagged out, so broken that I didn’t even bother participating, but I got a box anyway that just so happened to have a precursor in it. So 150 gold out of my total net worth had nothing to do with my gameplay. It was a scratch ticket. Pure, dumb luck, devoid of any skill or real accomplishment.

And yet even with that windfall, and all those hours spent playing and enjoying myself, I’m not even close. Skillpoints, sure, I got those. World completion? Natch, no problem. But even then, I’m not even close. I ran the numbers, and I would need to double my net worth to even get halfway to the Legendary goal. A number that 3/4ths of which was due to random, stupid luck.

I’m a thirty year old office worker. My life is a grind. But I don’t mind it! I like my job; in this economy I’m lucky to have it. But it is a grind; a grind that pays off my student loans, my car, my apartment, covers my bills, puts food in my belly, and grants me health insurance. It’s a necessary grind, and one that I welcome.

I don’t play Aion or WoW beacuase of the grind that GW2 advertised wasn’t a factor. However, the rusty, jagged, ugly holdouts from a less refined era live on in the form of dungeons and legendary weapons. Would you like fancy dungeon armor and weapons? I hope you like doing the same thing over and over and over because that’s the only way to get them. Do you want the coolest weapons the game has to offer? I hope you don’t have anything better to do in your life because you’re going to have to grind. And grind a lot.

Here’s what ArenaNet has to say about the quest for a legendary weapon:

“Legendary Weapons are the end result of an epic adventure in Guild Wars 2.”

If that’s true, then my job as an Operations Support Data Analyst is an “epic adventure” every day. When I compile weekly and monthly summary reports of our call center’s statistics, I’m completing “epic” quests. Ridiculous.

The sad thing is that this represents to me a limitation of the medium. I truly think that ArenaNet, if they could, would make the acquisition of Legendary weapons and dungeon gear the end result of something that actually is an epic adventure, and not the end result of just mindless, repetitive slog.

This is an aspect of the MMO gaming sphere that needs to change. We as consumers should demand better. Legendary Weapons should be difficult to collect. They should represent something that takes weeks, maybe months to acquire. But we should demand better than just a “grind all the gold you can for as long as it takes to buy the gold sink items necessary”. There are better ways, and as a consumer base we should demand better. We shouldn’t be happy with the treadmill.

I don’t play this game to replicate the job I use the game to nightly escape from. Maybe one day, Anet will have the resources or inspiration or innovative power to find a way to break free some such archaic, outdated, silly design philosophy. But today is, apparently, not that day.

Maybe tomorrow?

I have my precursor and am working on a Legendary right now – actually enjoying it a lot, but I do agree with some of these points. The requirement for world completion and dungeon tokens, and even WvWvW badges is kind of cool since it represents a requirement to explore the entirety of the game. Karma requirement also makes sense in some ways – become familiar with all the events in the game. Lucky clovers seems kind of dumb and a challenge of patience, but I guess it adds a wild card and forces you to become familiar with the MF (as if we weren’t already, lol).

The again, requirement for crafting mats, ectos and especially lodestones just looks like filler that boils down to money. I can almost hear a senior developer asking his staff aournd the conference table – ‘This is still too easy – what can we add to the list that will make it harder?’ Extraneous and not really necessary.

WvW discovery needs an overhaul.

No reason why you should have to explore 3 zones that are identical and 1 zone that is near impossible to explore some keeps without server hopping.

Just roll a Ranger! I feel no pressure or desire at all to grind for months to obtain the incredibly dumb legendary bows… Rainbow unicorns and flowers are such a lame conclusion to my characters development that I feel set free from any bother to grind.

The best assessment of the Legendary grind that masquerades as “content” – it’s an abomination to the genre and to the lore of this world. They could have done so much more.

Lots of these threads, it’s a wep skin. There’s much better looking skins, like leg hammer, I have corrupted hammer because it looks a lot better to me. If legendaries were required, you’d have a very valid argument, but they aren’t so if you think it’s ludicrous (it is) don’t bother

You’re playing the wrong genre if you don’t like ‘grind’. You want a game that needs ‘skill’, go play FPS game. Or RTS. Not an MMO.

There is ‘grind’ in every MMO. Not sure how you are only finding this out now.

What do you suggest, anyways? Let’s make it very easy to get legendary weapons, so that everyone is running around with them? At that point you wouldn’t want it, right?

I assume you wanted a Legendary right now because it’s rare and it looks nice. But if you start handing them out, then the appeal isn’t all that high, is it?

I just hate how they made precursor/legendary sellable, it takes the legendary aspect off of it… buying the matts is surely doable, other than that it’s plain nosense, as if you could buy an ancient artifact in a store then combine it with materials and have a legendary weapon at hands.

Buying the matts make sense, buying precursors or the legendaries themselves don’t.

Vol.5241:

You’re playing the wrong genre if you don’t like ‘grind’. You want a game that needs ‘skill’, go play FPS game. Or RTS. Not an MMO.

There is ‘grind’ in every MMO. Not sure how you are only finding this out now.

Guess that the developers should not have promised “no grind” to their customers, then, eh?

That’s THEIR fault, not the purchaser’s fault.

What do you suggest, anyways? Let’s make it very easy to get legendary weapons, so that everyone is running around with them? At that point you wouldn’t want it, right?

Hardly. I want them to be challenging to obtain, and MORE rare than they are right now, if anything. But I want it to be a skill-based thing, not just something you can make by grinding or playing the TP for freebie gold.

There’s nothing difficult about getting a legendary right now, and there’s certainly nothing ‘legendary’ about it. They are rare only because of how much grinding is involved, not because of any difficulty associated with it.

Legendaries aren’t for everyone. They aren’t necessary, most people shouldn’t even consider them, and the methods for obtaining them are not remotely fair or enjoyable. They’re the ultra-rare prestige items that exist in every MMO.

Keep in mind that you at least got to achieve 100% world completion without having to stay on a gear treadmill, or farm gold/mats for hours a day. There’s no content in this game that is locked away from you unless you have the best gear, let alone a Legendary.

Exotics are a bit of a grind, but hardly necessary — and not nearly as bad as comparable-tier items in any other MMO.

That said, it would be nice if 100% World Completion was a bigger deal. I guess you get the star next to your name, but other than that there’s no tangible reward for it outside of the “Gift” item that just goes toward a Legendary. It might be nice if you could optionally trade the Gift for a “Legendary Lite”, or an Exotic or Ascended weapon.

critickitten.1498:

Guess that the developers should not have promised “no grind” to their customers, then, eh?

That’s THEIR fault, not the purchaser’s fault.

Since we’re talking about legendaries… Developer’s didn’t promise any such thing. In fact, they hinted the opposite. See the full quote in context in the article in my sig, if you actually care to change your preconceptions.

Vol.5241:

You’re playing the wrong genre if you don’t like ‘grind’. You want a game that needs ‘skill’, go play FPS game. Or RTS. Not an MMO.

There is ‘grind’ in every MMO. Not sure how you are only finding this out now.

What do you suggest, anyways? Let’s make it very easy to get legendary weapons, so that everyone is running around with them? At that point you wouldn’t want it, right?

I assume you wanted a Legendary right now because it’s rare and it looks nice. But if you start handing them out, then the appeal isn’t all that high, is it?

Or you could have them be obtained through of series of actual skill-based pursuits…. You know, since it’s a skill-based game and all that.

You could have some aspects that are solo challenges that require a real mastery of the profession, and maybe even a group challenge that shows a real mastery of the professions working together. In WoW, all the legendary weapons, while having the lame RNG-factor, had a skill component to getting them, especially during the BC-days when raids got trimmed down to 25 (or even pre-BC with AQ40 or Naxx). There was no way to gear, grind, farm your way through to bypass the skill necessary to get any of the legendary items other than Thunderfury (kinda).

Legendary items in WoW and most games even have a backstory to them… Where’s the backstory for Bifrost, Twilight or any of the GW2 legendary items? Seems like there was a good opportunity for the precursor to set in motion a unique story line for each item, all the more reason to go for legendary.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Legendary items in WoW and most games even have a backstory to them… Where’s the backstory for Bifrost, Twilight or any of the GW2 legendary items? Seems like there was a good opportunity for the precursor to set in motion a unique story line for each item, all the more reason to go for legendary.

I would assume that this is what LinseyMurdock is mentioning she is working on at this post.

A scavenger hunt… I guess if it adds lore to the item, then I’ll give credit to the effort, but it’s still a hindsight one at best.

And before I hear “well D3 has legendary items with no backstory”…. almost all the D3 legendary items take the name from some unique or highly sought after items that existed in D1 and/or D2, are items described in lore within the D3 story (like Leoric’s crown), or have little text descriptions that give it a story; so in a sense, they do have backstory and aren’t just purple texted (orange in D3) items.

I support this post. And everything you said is basically why I have no interest in going for a legendary (also because my main character can’t use a greatsword, and let’s face it — there aren’t many other good looking legendaries). In some ways Guild Wars 2 reminds me more of Diablo III than of any other MMO. And I only mean this in the way that it starts to feel like a massive gold grind after you hit the level cap.

It just seems there are so many things that cost so much gold, and the rate you farm it at (~1g per dungeon path) means that even if you farmed dungeons every day for a year you still wouldn’t be able to get everything you want on just one of your characters. But it’s not so much the time it takes, as the fact that you will get bored long before then because… lets face it, how long can you run AC/CoF day after day after day without getting bored of the repetition (grind).

Not to mention that with Diminishing Returns you have to basically schedule your farming around the game’s anti-botting code (which they stated should not effect players; it should only hurt bots). Obviously they need to loosen these restrictions a bit, since I don’t know a single player who doesn’t continually hit their limit and have to wait another two hours before continuing.

It just feels like they release these items that can only be obtained through endless grinding, and then they put code into the game that hinders your ability to earn gold.

It’s a scam and sooooo many have fallen for it.

The date on that article is from May so it isnt valid or holds water anymore. Anything pre Nov 15 doesnt matter and has been proven to be a miscommunication or wrong interpretation or whatever they choose to call it this week.

As for legendaries make them worth getting for all professions. Right now that isnt the case some are significantly better than others in my view.

But what they do have going form them is the raise in stats on release of new equipment. So they are future grind proof no matter how hard the new stuff is to obtain. And I do expect it to be one huge grindfest. In perpetuity so that is a major advantage far beyond looks.

ROFL… The whole reason people complain about Nov 15 is because they misinterpreted what was said before Nov 15…. But people seem to be locked into their perspectives, so…

I’ll get a legendary one day through my method.

Loot everything, everything, EVERYTHING, and sell it on the market for lots of money

JaironKalach.4938:

ROFL… The whole reason people complain about Nov 15 is because they misinterpreted what was said before Nov 15…. But people seem to be locked into their perspectives, so…

You do realize that the interview you are linking says the same thing as everything else pre Nov 15, right? Let me quote from your linked interview:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

So once you realize that you don’t have to run on this gear treadmill to compete, then ask yourself whether you think it’s fair or unfair for players to be able to trade microtransaction currency with other players, which essentially allows some players to trade money for time and other players to trade time for money. I think it’s more fair to allow that."

What is being communicated in the interview is that there will not be any gear treadmills. Differentiation will be by appearance only and not by power. What they added Nov 15 was vertical progression which is what you do to create a gear treadmill. It’s what all grindy MMO’s have in common. The reason for the uproar was most people are able to understand this. What exactly are you reading in the interview where you see the possibility for gear treadmills and gear tiers differentiated by power level?

Narkosys.5173:

The date on that article is from May so it isnt valid or holds water anymore. Anything pre Nov 15 doesnt matter and has been proven to be a miscommunication or wrong interpretation or whatever they choose to call it this week.

As for legendaries make them worth getting for all professions. Right now that isnt the case some are significantly better than others in my view.

But what they do have going form them is the raise in stats on release of new equipment. So they are future grind proof no matter how hard the new stuff is to obtain. And I do expect it to be one huge grindfest. In perpetuity so that is a major advantage far beyond looks.

This is really the only thing legendary about the legendary post Nov 15—it’s grind insurance for the weapon slot. Do that grind once and it’s the last grind you do for your weapon.

JaironKalach.4938:

I would assume that this is what LinseyMurdock is mentioning she is working on at this post.

A scavenger hunt? That’s not exactly the type of deep lore exploration or storyline we’re talking about.

Blizzard was excellent at doing this for their Legendary weapons.

JaironKalach.4938:

critickitten.1498:

Guess that the developers should not have promised “no grind” to their customers, then, eh?

That’s THEIR fault, not the purchaser’s fault.

Since we’re talking about legendaries… Developer’s didn’t promise any such thing. In fact, they hinted the opposite. See the full quote in context in the article in my sig, if you actually care to change your preconceptions.

I read that quote of yours and I see this:

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

Could you point out the part where it says “we believe in making our most rare items into a massive grind”? I’m pretty sure that quote states rather directly that their intention was to create a grind-less game.

You’re willfully choosing to misinterpret the first portion as “grind is okay so long as it’s just a skin”, which is directly contradicted by the second part of his statement. No grind means no grind. That’s why a lot of players are positively shocked that legendaries aren’t a skill-based rare, but rather a heavily grind-based one.

You’re the one misinterpreting things here.

Guru.1582:

The game says "Your experience should be an adventure, but if you want the best rewards, it

a Legendary isn’t ‘The Best’ reward, exotics (in the near future, ascended) is the best ,
a Legendary is just for skins
A-net always said(from the first time they talked about Legendaries) it was going to be a grind, something for the ‘hardcore’ players.
A-net said there wasn’t any grind needed for the best items(I know FotM, but they
are going to fix it,…when it’s ready :p) and there is a grind at the end for cosmetic stuff
as in GW1

Raine.1394:

What is being communicated in the interview is that there will not be any gear treadmills. Differentiation will be by appearance only and not by power. What they added Nov 15 was vertical progression which is what you do to create a gear treadmill. It’s what all grindy MMO’s have in common. The reason for the uproar was most people are able to understand this. What exactly are you reading in the interview where you see the possibility for gear treadmills and gear tiers differentiated by power level?

As I said in my original post… This is because we’re talking abound legendaries. If we want to talk about Ascendeds, many folks choose not to believe it, but they already said that Ascended being a grind was a mistake and they are working on rectifying it…

When we talk about vertical progression, we can point to posts from 2011 where they indicated they would have vertical progression. Yes, in those posts they said it would be in expansions. Again, they already gave you the story on ascendeds in the AMA, but since people willfully choose to disbelieve it…

The problem is, people are making circular arguments based on their perspective post Nov 15. It goes like this:

Person A) ANet are total liars.
Person Why do you say that?
Person A) They had the manifesto and then they introduced an ascended grins.
Person What about them admitting that it was a mistake and saying they were going to adjust it in the AMA.
Person A) ANet are total liars.

JaironKalach.4938:

When we talk about vertical progression, we can point to posts from 2011 where they indicated they would have vertical progression.

Okay. Do it.

This isn’t me disbelieving you, mind, this is me saying “provide proof of your argument”.

I’d agree with your post if Legendaries were worth getting, but they’re not. They’re essentially a skin to show off. Big deal. I would however love to see more unique items in the game, and items that are racially unique, and class unique, like the Paladin & Warlock mounts in WoW. I loved getting those mounts! What I’d love to see is a quest-line built for either race or class that leads to armor/weapons that have customizable looks and effects, thus making them somewhat unique based on player choice. I’d much prefer—as many here seem to as well—a long difficult quest line, than a long expensive grind.

critickitten.1498:

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

Could you point out the part where it says “we believe in making our most rare items into a massive grind”? I’m pretty sure that quote states rather directly that their intention was to create a grind-less game.

You’re willfully choosing to misinterpret the first portion as “grind is okay so long as it’s just a skin”, which is directly contradicted by the second part of his statement. No grind means no grind. That’s why a lot of players are positively shocked that legendaries aren’t a skill-based rare, but rather a heavily grind-based one.

You’re the one misinterpreting things here.

Thanks for choosing to take the issue head on. I don’t believe that I willfully misterpret it, but I see why you believe that I do. I interpret it in the light of what I know now and what I know about their past history. Certainly Obi armor in GW1 was also a meaningless grind. So when I read that paragraph, I interpret it as a whole.

They didn’t state “If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone” and then put in an item that is differentiated by appearance alone which requires a thousand hours to get, by coincidence….

I certainly don’t think that they said “If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone” just to fill space.

And if they meant: “There should be no reason for someone to play for a thousand hours because an item is too rare to be acquired otherwise, even if it’s just differentiated by its visual apperance and rarity alone,” I image they would have said that, instead of what they said.

So, yeah, that’s why I interpret it that way. I think it’s reasonable to interpret it that way. I also don’t see any benefit in interpreting it another way, other than being able to feel betrayed and hurt.

critickitten.1498:

JaironKalach.4938:

When we talk about vertical progression, we can point to posts from 2011 where they indicated they would have vertical progression.

Okay. Do it.

This isn’t me disbelieving you, mind, this is me saying “provide proof of your argument”.

Sorry… Didn’t mean to make you ask for it. I’ve posted it often enough that I’m starting to lose track of who’s likely to have seen it and who isn’t.

Vertical Progression Promise
Vertical Progression Promise 2
(Search for Expansion)

I’d rather not play the fencing of words… but I also blame the person conducting the interview not to lead with followup questions like “um, can you give a straight answer” or “so does that mean there will be grinds, just not forced ones? If there are optional grinds, what kind of dedication to the pursuit are we talking here?” That’s why I never paid much credence to those interviews and blogs… to much fluff and not enough substance, more of a marketing tool than something that actually gives us an idea of what we’re buying.

I mean I knew there was going to be vertical progression and optional grinds… the VP part doesn’t really bother me given how gradual and optional it is, but the legendary grind holy kitten. It almost invokes the old days of D2 mf runs for a perfect stated Gripphon’s Headress or other super low drop rate stuff (which I think I could get any of those D2 items faster than any legendary item in this game without spending any real money or botting).

Well said, Bruno. I expected grinds for cosmetics…. This was a little harsher than I had expected, though… But it does seem to be in line with the Vabbian and Obi armor from GW1, so it doesn’t strike me as out of character for ANet. I just had hoped they would do better.

JaironKalach.4938:

Thanks for choosing to take the issue head on. I don’t believe that I willfully misterpret it, but I see why you believe that I do. I interpret it in the light of what I know now and what I know about their past history. Certainly Obi armor in GW1 was also a meaningless grind. So when I read that paragraph, I interpret it as a whole.

They didn’t state “If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone” and then put in an item that is differentiated by appearance alone which requires a thousand hours to get, by coincidence….

I certainly don’t think that they said “If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone” just to fill space.

And if they meant: “There should be no reason for someone to play for a thousand hours because an item is too rare to be acquired otherwise, even if it’s just differentiated by its visual apperance and rarity alone,” I image they would have said that, instead of what they said.

So, yeah, that’s why I interpret it that way. I think it’s reasonable to interpret it that way. I also don’t see any benefit in interpreting it another way, other than being able to feel betrayed and hurt.

I interpreted it the way I did because when they said “no grind”, I assumed they would stick to that philosophy.

What bothers me is that not only are there multiple forms of grinding in GW2, but that people are perfectly okay with it and even defend it.

For example, the original design for dungeons (as I recall) was that completing the dungeon one time would yield a token which you could trade in for one piece of dungeon equipment. Most players interpreted this as the way that GW1 handled these tokens: you complete a campaign, you get one token that you trade in for one fancy weapon skin. This would mean that you’d need to run a dungeon only six times to obtain the full set of gear. They also made a point of saying they didn’t want their players grinding dungeons at endgame, which seemed to support this notion.

Yet upon the game’s release (and in future content additions), we see that instead, players must play the dungeon to earn a small handful of tokens which are then traded in like a secondary currency. This isn’t quite what we were picturing, and honestly it’s a huge problem because it creates exactly the sort of grind mentality they said they were against.

Compare these two models and it’s easy to see why players are a bit peeved. To obtain a full set of Lvl 80 exotics from a given dungeon takes 1380 tokens. Assuming you only run the dungeon once a day (to maximize your efficiency and get 60 tokens per run), that’s still 23 runs for a full set of gear. And hopefully you’re not going for a legendary, or else you’re likely looking at another 500 tokens needed (that’s 9 more runs).

When you say that you don’t want players grinding dungeons at endgame, why on earth would you design your dungeon reward system this way? And like I said, this is just one example of the surprisingly amount of grind there is in this game made by guys who said “we don’t make grindy games”. It’s not hard to realize that there’s a reason why people are upset.

JaironKalach.4938:

Sorry… Didn’t mean to make you ask for it. I’ve posted it often enough that I’m starting to lose track of who’s likely to have seen it and who isn’t.

Vertical Progression Promise
Vertical Progression Promise 2
(Search for Expansion)

I’m….not seeing it. Not for lack of trying, mind you.

I genuinely don’t see any quote in either of those links in which the developers directly state “there will be new tiers of equipment above exotic” or even imply such a thing, really.

I see them promising to raise the level cap, which I knew about. And I knew that when they did that, there would naturally be new gear released to cover those levels. But there’s nothing in there which promises new tiers of equipment above exotic that would need to be grinded for, which is the “vertical progression” that people have been complaining about.

JaironKalach.4938:

Raine.1394:

What is being communicated in the interview is that there will not be any gear treadmills. Differentiation will be by appearance only and not by power. What they added Nov 15 was vertical progression which is what you do to create a gear treadmill. It’s what all grindy MMO’s have in common. The reason for the uproar was most people are able to understand this. What exactly are you reading in the interview where you see the possibility for gear treadmills and gear tiers differentiated by power level?

As I said in my original post… This is because we’re talking abound legendaries. If we want to talk about Ascendeds, many folks choose not to believe it, but they already said that Ascended being a grind was a mistake and they are working on rectifying it…

When we talk about vertical progression, we can point to posts from 2011 where they indicated they would have vertical progression. Yes, in those posts they said it would be in expansions. Again, they already gave you the story on ascendeds in the AMA, but since people willfully choose to disbelieve it…

The problem is, people are making circular arguments based on their perspective post Nov 15. It goes like this:

Person A) ANet are total liars.
Person Why do you say that?
Person A) They had the manifesto and then they introduced an ascended grins.
Person What about them admitting that it was a mistake and saying they were going to adjust it in the AMA.
Person A) ANet are total liars.

Since you didn’t answer my question I thought I would try again: “What exactly are you reading in the interview where you see the possibility for gear treadmills and gear tiers differentiated by power level?” I thought this was important as you seem to be suggesting that the interview clears up something about their intentions in terms of producing a grindy or non-grindy game.

And, I sat through the AMA and read it as it progressed. They admitted that the way Ascended gear was introduced was a mistake, not that it was a mistake in that it violated their pre Nov 15 statements on their game design philosophy. Their method of rectification is to distribute the grind throughout the game as opposed to localizing it in one dungeon.

What was significant in the AMA was their statement that vertical progression would be in the game moving forward. And, far from rectifying the problem; they just made it clear and unambiguous in the AMA.

I dont like to grind so I dont. The minimal grind I do for a few gold when I want to change something up is enough to get a level 79/80 rare or exotic and I’m pretty much top tier all round. Usually just enough time for me to queue into wvwvw.

Anet want you to take a good look through all aspects of the game with a legendary saying “hey look at this guy, he is a master of the total world”.
Ok, sure because of all the short cuts etc. it doesn’t say that, but that is the intent.
In fact, I’d like to see the requirements increase to capture some sPvP requirement as well.
A legendary should really say “master of the game”, and that weapon in your hand should mean that through the requirement.
Hopefully a legendary armour set can be made and with an even more expanded requirement.

Note: Get them off the TP please, that’s not right

Raine.1394:

Narkosys.5173:

The date on that article is from May so it isnt valid or holds water anymore. Anything pre Nov 15 doesnt matter and has been proven to be a miscommunication or wrong interpretation or whatever they choose to call it this week.

As for legendaries make them worth getting for all professions. Right now that isnt the case some are significantly better than others in my view.

But what they do have going form them is the raise in stats on release of new equipment. So they are future grind proof no matter how hard the new stuff is to obtain. And I do expect it to be one huge grindfest. In perpetuity so that is a major advantage far beyond looks.

This is really the only thing legendary about the legendary post Nov 15—it’s grind insurance for the weapon slot. Do that grind once and it’s the last grind you do for your weapon.

Which renders weapon switching useless, as who’s going to not use the weapon they just spent hundreds of hours grinding one out.

I love this community.

A part of me was coming back to this thread expecting to see a litany of flames directed at me but instead I seem to have sparked a fruitful conversation. I’m happy to see that such conversations can happen and I really hope that Anet is listening.

I did want to clarify something. It’s true that the ‘legendary’ weapons are a reward only insofar as they are a skin. I get that. But it’s hard to argue that they’re not some of the best skins. Elaborate, fancy, highly detailed, wonderful. And they are only available for people who have the time or inclination to play the game in the least fun manner possible. I’m not aware of really anyone who truly enjoys the grind. They enjoy it like I enjoy my real life job. The rewards that come out of it are nice, but I wouldn’t do it for its own sake.

That’s the wrong way to develop a game. I remember listening to a pair of speakers at Pax East say the following line that has stuck with me:

“If any part of the game, any part at all, is not fun, then that is a design flaw.”

It is my opinion that the dungeon grind and the legendary grinds are huge, deliberate design flaws. Everyone who runs them does so only out of a dogged desire to have the carrot that’s dangled at the end of the stick. They’re running the mouse wheel because the developers are not confident that you’ll keep playing after you have the carrot, so they make the carrot incredibly difficult to get, to the point of impossibility for the majority of people.

This is not the way to design a game. As I said before, it’s on us as consumers to demand better. Anet should know that this sort of game design is archaic and insulting, and exposes their own insecurity and weakness. If they want us to keep playing their game, they should make it a game we want to keep playing because it’s fun. (And the sad thing is, it mostly is already.) Not a game we keep playing because it takes forever to grind our way to shiny trinkets.

Especially when they make those shiny trinkets desirable by making them vastly, dramatically shinier than all the other trinkets. Shameful skinner-boxery, and we should call them out for it.

Raine.1394:

<snipped for space>
I thought this was important as you seem to be suggesting that the interview clears up something about their intentions in terms of producing a grindy or non-grindy game.

No, sorry, I was unclear… What I am saying is that this clears up the subject of grinding for cosmetics…

<snipped for space>
What was significant in the AMA was their statement that vertical progression would be in the game moving forward. And, far from rectifying the problem; they just made it clear and unambiguous in the AMA.

That’s only half of what was said in the AMA, though. We agreed that they said the way it was released was a problem, because it allowed only one way of achieving it, which turned into a grind. I think we agree that they reaffirmed their position that their will be vertical progression in the game, primarily by raising level cap. But, I also see these statements:

Question snipped for space
Response

Going back to my previous answer the issue is that we believe in the vertical progression system we had pre launch and that the introduction of an element into the system post launch was going to cause concern but something we believe in. <snipped for space>
And for this i take responsibility and apologies. <snipped for space>
So anyway i kind of went of topic here so in short. We don’t intend to have an item rarity gear treadmill, we intend for the progression for gaining these rewards to have lots of different avenues for different types of player and where possible lower no fun grind within the whole of the game.

Another question snipped for space

Response

First of all in retrospect it would have been better to have included Ascended Gear at launch. It is designed to give users a progression path that is between Exotic and Legendary (Legendary Items will be at the same power level as Ascended) and the gap between them in terms of time is very large.
So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy. However we have no intention of adding a new Rarity of Gear such as Ascended. Instead and as we evolve the game existing Rarity’s will evolve over time. However these will not be common occurrences, for example full Ascended gear will be introduced over a long period of time and will be earn able through lots of different parts/activities of the game. We had intended for example for the first release of acsended items come from other parts of the game but sadly it did not work out this way. Moving forward this is how it will work however.
<snipped for space>
Personally i do not feel that the latest changes are against what we said in the manifesto. I do however feel that we do have to be very careful in regard to progression design turning into grind and i believe there are some instances of this kind of grind that predate the launch of the game. It is for this reason that we are looking to revamp some aspects of the game whilst connecting other parts increase the overall experience of fun in our progression mechanics.
ok so there is one answer (-: I am going to head over to another question and then come back. Thanks for your patience and any typos.

Response to another question

Hi Toy,
It was not specifically designed before launch. However the concept of progression rewards with a shallow curve bridging other rewards was. Hope that makes sense.
Chris

Okay… Well, crap… I’m only leaving this post in its current form because I try to be honest and transparent. I’d honestly believed when I first read it, that they said that it was intended to be included at release and just didn’t make it in. Clearly this is not true.

So now, here’s what I’m thinking:
1) On the subject of Grind, it was unintentional, and in fact they originally anticipated a different (less grindy) way of acquiring grindy gear, based on the quotes above
That says to me that they are watching for grind and had already, even at that point, found that there were things that were too grindy, and wanted to address it.

2) On the subject of vertical progression. It seems clear to me… (Too tired to quote) that they are indicating that they will have intermittent vertical progression of stats on armor, as well as the level cap they’d previously indicated. This is a bit of a surprise to me, but, okay… The question is whether or not this is violation of the manifesto. Seems I have to go back and review that, now, and what they had said about vertical progression with a small power curve before launch.

edit: fixing quotes

Grinding can be broadly and generally defined as performing actions in a game in order to achieve a desired reward. Under this broad definition it’s easy to see why any game would involve ‘grinding’. Sometimes people try to add ‘enjoy’ to the concept as in grinding is doing something you don’t enjoy to achieve a desired reward. But that doesn’t really work as many enjoy hours and hours of farming—I confess I’m one of those.

The most useful distinction I’ve come to around grinding is that there are forced grinds and non-forced grinds. I would define forced as being necessary in order to continue playing the game. The pursuit of a legendary would be a non-forced grind. It’s there if you want to do it, but you are in no way disadvantaged by not having one in terms of gameplay. We can talk about the difficulty of the grind as being too severe, but I’m OK with this type of grind being in the game.

What I’m not OK with is a forced grind. An example of a forced grind would be vertical progression. If you don’t do the grind there will be a point at which you can no longer play the game. And, your power level will increasingly put you at a disadvantage in general gameplay as the power level of the game increases. That’s how vertical progression ‘progresses’. Anet understood that a lot of people were burned out on vertical progression and gear treadmills and they hit this hard in their pre-launch marketing. GW2 would be a different, non-grindy, type of MMO.

So, I understand that some feel the legendary grind is too much but at least it’s non-forced. All of us, however, will now have to deal with the forced grind that is vertical progression.

Raine.1394:

Grinding can be broadly and generally defined as performing actions in a game in order to achieve a desired reward. Under this broad definition it’s easy to see why any game would involve ‘grinding’. Sometimes people try to add ‘enjoy’ to the concept as in grinding is doing something you don’t enjoy to achieve a desired reward. But that doesn’t really work as many enjoy hours and hours of farming—I confess I’m one of those.

The most useful distinction I’ve come to around grinding is that there are forced grinds and non-forced grinds.

I don’t think that this definition is useful for either of us to further the discussion because it includes that first monster you ever kill. Even GW1 had a little bit of vertical progression, from level 1 to 20.

So… What distinguishes the pieces of “forced grind” and “vertical progression” that you found acceptable (getting to level 2, perhaps?) from the “forced grind” you find unacceptable. I suspect that there’s an element of repetition, but I’ll let you speak for yourself.

JaironKalach.4938:

Raine.1394:

Grinding can be broadly and generally defined as performing actions in a game in order to achieve a desired reward. Under this broad definition it’s easy to see why any game would involve ‘grinding’. Sometimes people try to add ‘enjoy’ to the concept as in grinding is doing something you don’t enjoy to achieve a desired reward. But that doesn’t really work as many enjoy hours and hours of farming—I confess I’m one of those.

The most useful distinction I’ve come to around grinding is that there are forced grinds and non-forced grinds.

I don’t think that this definition is useful for either of us to further the discussion because it includes that first monster you ever kill. Even GW1 had a little bit of vertical progression, from level 1 to 20.

So… What distinguishes the pieces of “forced grind” and “vertical progression” that you found acceptable (getting to level 2, perhaps?) from the “forced grind” you find unacceptable. I suspect that there’s an element of repetition, but I’ll let you speak for yourself.

To be honest, I don’t even think the concept of leveling is necessary. Leveling is clearly vertical progression and forced and sets a bad precedent if your intent is to then ‘stop’ the game at max level.

Since this is unnecessary and simply more leftovers from previous MMO’s, I would prefer a tutorial story that left you equipped, skill, lore, and gear-wise and simply launched you into the world and your adventure. If I were making a non-grindy MMO, that’s how I would do it. But, I am completely OK with GW2 having leveling if I know that there is an end to the forced grind. In GW2, pre Nov 15, I actually felt refreshed knowing the grind ended with exotics at level 80. I’m an altoholic with 6 level 80 characters. You can imagine what the prospect of a multi-character gear grind looks like from my perspective.

Raine.1394:

Since this is unnecessary and simply more leftovers from previous MMO’s, I would prefer a tutorial story that left you equipped, skill, lore, and gear-wise and simply launched you into the world and your adventure. If I were making a non-grindy MMO, that’s how I would do it. But, I am completely OK with GW2 having leveling if I know that there is an end to the forced grind. In GW2, pre Nov 15, I actually felt refreshed knowing the grind ended with exotics at level 80. I’m an altoholic with 6 level 80 characters. You can imagine what the prospect of a multi-character gear grind looks like from my perspective.

Ugg… Starting to get confused who has which line of argumentation. Okay… So, I think your stance is that when they decided to add ascended gear, they violated the manifesto because any vertical progression automatically includes forced grind beyond the initial leveling experience. (by your definition of forced grind) Is this correct?

And yes, I have empathy for your position. I recently didn’t bother to level an alt in another MMO, after level cap increase, simply because the leveling process felt too much of a grindy waste.

edit: fix another broken quote

JaironKalach.4938:

Raine.1394:

Since this is unnecessary and simply more leftovers from previous MMO’s, I would prefer a tutorial story that left you equipped, skill, lore, and gear-wise and simply launched you into the world and your adventure. If I were making a non-grindy MMO, that’s how I would do it. But, I am completely OK with GW2 having leveling if I know that there is an end to the forced grind. In GW2, pre Nov 15, I actually felt refreshed knowing the grind ended with exotics at level 80. I’m an altoholic with 6 level 80 characters. You can imagine what the prospect of a multi-character gear grind looks like from my perspective.

Ugg… Starting to get confused who has which line of argumentation. Okay… So, I think your stance is that when they decided to add ascended gear, they violated the manifesto because any vertical progression automatically includes forced grind beyond the initial leveling experience. (by your definition of forced grind) Is this correct?

And yes, I have empathy for your position. I recently didn’t bother to level an alt in another MMO, after level cap increase, simply because the leveling process felt too much of a grindy waste.

edit: fix another broken quote

Yeah, I had 6 at max level in that other MMO (hmmm, always 6 it seems) and only leveled one in the expansion before moving on to GW2 to get away from the grind.

And, yes, my understanding of the issue is that they violated the manifesto (and your interview article as well) with the addition of, not so much Ascended gear, but rather vertical progression. Vertical progression is what WoW has and it is what makes it grindy, i.e., a forced grind. All statements I have found related at all to the subject pre-launch are consistent. There would be no gear treadmills, no vertical progression in terms of power level from max level gear; all differentiation from there would be cosmetic in nature.

Raine.1394:

Yeah, I had 6 at max level in that other MMO (hmmm, always 6 it seems) and only leveled one in the expansion before moving on to GW2 to get away from the grind.

I’m curious… My MMO was the one that just got war horses, not the one that just got pandas. ;-)

And, yes, my understanding of the issue is that they violated the manifesto (and your interview article as well) with the addition of, not so much Ascended gear, but rather vertical progression. Vertical progression is what WoW has and it is what makes it grindy, i.e., a forced grind. All statements I have found related at all to the subject pre-launch are consistent. There would be no gear treadmills, no vertical progression in terms of power level from max level gear; all differentiation from there would be cosmetic in nature.

Okay.

So I just pulled up the manifesto, and reread it. Searching for first grind, the progression, and then gear I get the following paragraphs.

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceralCombat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral. So we’ve put a huge focus on strengthening our combat, giving the player limitless choices, and providing the thrill and joy of being in combat

So, certainly with your definition of grind, adding the ascended gear and any vertical progression violated their relevant statements on grind.

I don’t believe, however, that this is the definition of grind that they were using.

In this interview, Colin says the following things:

A: So, the maximum level in GW2 will be level 80 on the initial release of the game. And I’m sure as we add expansion content we’re going to add more progression and add more levels to the game. However right now we are really focused on getting the release of Guild Wars 2, for core game to be done right, and we are putting all our effort into getting that put together.
And we’re not really thinking that much about what we’re going to do with expansions yet. We want to get the core GW 2 game amazing. And when we get that done, we will release it and we will sit down to figure out our plans for how are we going to tackle expansions from there.

A: One thing we are fighting hardest against is grind. We don’t want the player to ever have to grind and do something they don’t want to do to progress in the game. As mentioned before, we have a wide variety of things we can do. If you are really in story then you can follow your personal story. If you want to experience events with all the people you have the DE, you can do PvP all the way through the game. At any point of the game you will have a choice of picking whatever you want to do and that’s how we fight grind.

This post also describes part of how they viewed grind in 2010.

Adding more later… Time to be in game.

JaironKalach.4938:

This post also describes part of how they viewed grind in 2010.

Adding more later… Time to be in game.

Neat, you can use that same chart to show how many players are playing GW2 compared to other MMOs!

JaironKalach.4938:

snip

Yeah, I was talking panda’s though I do have a warhorses account.

Thanks for digging up the quotes. Colin was one of my favorites as I researched GW2. And, actually, I loved all the pre-launch statements from the top on down. I really wanted to play the game they were describing and developing. While clearly a new game with new game issues, I feel that they largely delivered on their promises. The game corrected so many MMO problems related to players successfully playing with other players—it didn’t feel like I was playing in a cage with too many rats—it was refreshing altogether. My disappointment didn’t really begin until Nov 15 when I saw the introduction of something that would contribute to many of the same problems I had experienced in other MMOs. I still love the game, but it’s no longer the one they described pre-launch.

Edit: BTW, I would say that I’m on the same page as Colin in terms of thinking about ‘grind’. A forced grind (my definition) is something you’re forced to do to progress in the game (his definition). I think we are saying the same thing.

JaironKalach.4938:

This post also describes part of how they viewed grind in 2010.

Adding more later… Time to be in game.

Well technically, they did keep to it in terms of the Legendaries:

A: One thing we are fighting hardest against is grind. We don’t want the player to ever have to grind and do something they don’t want to do to progress in the game.

You don’t need a Legendary to progress in the game.

Not that I’m advocating the process. Personally, I’d love a story-based one based of Achievements, and not Gold.

I am totally satisfied with the current way of crafting Legendary weapons.

Many of you just seems not to get that Legendary weapons are just really expensive and awesome looking crafted weapons.

There will be some tweaks but nothing else, so I think you should get started or give up now.

I already have Juggernaut and now almost done with my second Legendary. Yes I have 1000+ hours played and many gems bought but thats my choice and you can do the same, if you are not willing to farm, play a lot … your choice

Personally, I love material, gold based achievement, not story based one.
because I enjoy farming material, dungeons in MMORPGs more than doing some story, which i found usually boring …

Legendary weapons are just not story based, end-game weapons. They are optional and if you like the awesome skin you need to put really big effort into it. Thats how It should stay.

Its all about personal oppinion, some of the players love the current system, some dont. But the system is here from the release and hundered of players already crafted Legendaries + thousands are close to finish theirs. Changing the whole system so YOU like it, would be really unfair against them.

Dogblaster.6713:

I am totally satisfied with the current way of crafting Legendary weapons.

Many of you just seems not to get that Legendary weapons are just really expensive and awesome looking crafted weapons.

There will be some tweaks but nothing else, so I think you should get started or give up now.

I already have Juggernaut and now almost done with my second Legendary. Yes I have 1000+ hours played and many gems bought but thats my choice and you can do the same, if you are not willing to farm, play a lot … your choice

Personally, I love material, gold based achievement, not story based one.
because I enjoy farming material, dungeons in MMORPGs more than doing some story, which i found usually boring …

Legendary weapons are just not story based, end-game weapons. They are optional and if you like the awesome skin you need to put really big effort into it. Thats how It should stay.

Its all about personal oppinion, some of the players love the current system, some dont. But the system is here from the release and hundered of players already crafted Legendaries + thousands are close to finish theirs. Changing the whole system so YOU like it, would be really unfair against them.

Please, tell me what makes your Legendary Legendary, and not just a pretty Exotic?

Dogblaster.6713 – What’s up? I’m the fella with Sunrise the other day from fractals
Finishing my Jugger btw, almost done with all mats needed for Quip now (thanks to dumb luck, just when I thought I’d take a break).

Anyway, the game splits into casual and hardcore playstyles, while legendary will always hold the grind position. Stop hanging into some kind of a promise made by Anet.
This is how it is, so you either accept it and start grinding for it, or simply give it up.

Legendaries are just skins, and when ascended weapons will be introduced they won’t be even 1/5 as difficult to obtain as legendaries, which both will share the same level of stats.
Not sure why people think they are entitled to a very prestige skin that got no effect on their gameplay, and instead comes to differentiate between dedicated players who did not complain and achieved their legendary goal.

Even the early exploits argument became invalid as people have 2+ legendaries by now, some working on their 4th already.