Guild Wars 2

Gauradan.8361:

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.”

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

You’re mad because you can’t just have everything you want?

There’s a word for that…spoiled.

Porky.5021:

Gauradan.8361:

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.”

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

You’re mad because you can’t just have everything you want?

There’s a word for that…spoiled.

No, I’m mad because I have to go through the worst form of content I have ever experienced in an MMO about 20 times to get what I want.

ThiBash.5634:

Yes it is.

No it isn’t.

None of the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings were constantly together around the ring for the last 25% of their quest. They all had separate stories. In Guild Wars 2 everyone starts out with different stories, and then they meet Trahearne and everyone goes and does the same thing in Orr.

Gauradan.8361:

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.”

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

I see what you’re saying, but you have to understand that there are people who enjoy doing dungeons. Who enjoy the fact that it’s hard to obtain. Some people enjoy the “grind.” Will everyone? Of course not. Which is why the advantage of doing dungeons is cosmetic.

Playing the game itself is of little grind. We’re rewarded for everything. Loot drops. Xp out the wazoo. Dungeon content is in addition to the core gameplay. But at cap, the dungeons are what people focus on.

Should there be a balance between those who want to grind all day, and those who want to look cool for minimal effort? Sure. I think that could use a bit of tweeking. Given the fact that they continue to patch the game, and make adjustments shows us that they intend on doing so.

Pretty accurate. My only contention is about player decisions kicking off event chains.

It is a choice that every player has, whether or not to kick off an event, and those events do affect the world at large. So it may not be a choose-your-own-adventure style choice dialog that begins it, but it still constitutes a choice that a single player makes. So to me, that’s a promise fulfilled.

Gauradan.8361:

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.”

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

First off all of this is an opinion not fact.

Secondly you do a great job of pointing out problems while offering no solutions. Please tell me the clever fight mechanics you’ve been brainstorming to make the game better

Third I’d really like to know your solution if all your specific problems went away and the dungeons weren’t a grind and you needed to run them ~25 times in order to get a full set. What do players do after that very small window of dungeon time.

Swagman.9013:

Ok 20 to 30 runs you just gave the game life roughly 2 weeks (and thats being generous) before everyone has their whatever they want.

What’s your solution for after those 2 weeks when every player is standing around LA in their fancy gear and talking about how bored they are and that they don’t want to pvp.

I take it you didn’t play Guild Wars 1?

But that’s exactly what happened in GW1.

No I didn’t play gw1 but I want to hear Gauradans solution for other people not enjoying the game when it’s catered to timeframes that suit his desires.

Swagman.9013:

No I didn’t play gw1 but I want to hear Gauradans solution for other people not enjoying the game when it’s catered to timeframes that suit his desires.

It’s not about time. If it required me to do 20 runs, but the dungeons were fun and not as punitive as they are now, it probably wouldn’t have been much of an issue. The problem is the dungeon are horrible. And it’s not my job to find solutions to dungeon design issues. If they couldn’t come up with interesting mechanics themselves, they could have just copied them from WoW instead of adding difficulty by increasing the health pool and damage of mobs.

Another thing is they give terrible rewards.
Last patch was a step forward, but they still give terrible rewards.

Gauradan.8361:

Swagman.9013:

No I didn’t play gw1 but I want to hear Gauradans solution for other people not enjoying the game when it’s catered to timeframes that suit his desires.

It’s not about time. If it required me to do 20 runs, but the dungeons were fun and not as punitive as they are now, it probably wouldn’t have been much of an issue. The problem is the dungeon are horrible. And it’s not my job to find solutions to dungeon design issues. If they couldn’t come up with interesting mechanics themselves, they could have just copied them from WoW instead of adding difficulty by increasing the health pool and damage of mobs.

I don’t think that the dungeons are bad. My problem is finding people to do them with that are smart enough to not wipe in obviously easy encounters.

Over 3000 tokens required for all the things that I want from that particular dungeon? That’s insane. Especially since it’s so hard to get a group that can get past the 3rd boss.

ThiBash.5634:

Zen

No it isn’t.

Yes it is. That’s like saying the main characters of Lord of the Rings all experienced the same story because they all ended up in Mordor.

Of course the ending is the same. That’s the whole point. They never said the whole story should be different, and it doesn’t have to be.

And at the very least, you have much more influence on things than you did in World of Kittencraft.

I thought this was supposed to be “innovative and revolutionary for the genre” not just “better than World of Warcraft, in some aspects”, so why do you keep comparing it to WoW? For all everyone here likes to rag on alleged WoW fanboys they sure seem obssesed about it.

Compare it to SW:TOR which, for all its faults, actually managed to make interesting, varied, way more interactive and far more personal stories. Just extremely superior to GW2’s in comparison. In fact, having played both and seeing what can actually be done with stories in the genre, GW2’s is not only lackluster, it’s cringeworthy. It gives you that sense of shame you get on behalf of others when they make something so mediocre that you wish they hadn’t even tried. I like GW2, I like it despite the “personal” story, not because of it.

So yeah, it’s not “nitpicking” and it’s not “compared to any other game” either.

I feel the only thing that genuinely disappointed me was the personal storylines.

Up until 50 it is fine, then it because Trahearne’s story: starring me.

Really, the next expansion should have much smaller ones. If expansions were to add 4 zones, we should have a story for each zone. Part of the problem is the storylines felt so disjointed and scattered about, the pathway was there, but there were large holes in it.

Gauradan.8361:

Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.
Again, untrue. The only choice a player can make concerning certain events is whether to start them or not. There aren’t choices like the ones in the personal story, where you can pick what quest to do, at least none that I have experienced while doing 100% completion.

Mostly true, but there are some exceptions I’ve encountered. Such as dynamic events/areas that have a poll before doing some task (e.g., the Charr gladiator arenas ask you what enemies you want to fight, an Asuran escort quest through a lab in Metrica Province where player actions determines outcome of the event). I agree these are not huge things, but the tools are there that could allow for other dynamic events with player choice.

Also, I find it very satisfying when a decision I’ve made causes an event, especially when it is not marked as a dynamic event and it rather a discovery of my own. Like the troll stone in Queensdale.

I think GW2 delivered in a lot of things and it certainly feels very different from traditional MMOs.

For me it hasn’t delivered on the next points:

Storyline. They really need better story writers. I agree with the OP’s points about story but I just wanted to add that the story itself is disappointing, especially the high level ones. Arah was the best example of how bad the end story is. No spoilers here from me so I’ll leave it at that.

Grind. I do not mind some grind so the promise that there would be no grind was suspect as it was and even though I don’t like too much grind, some grind is fine. However the way the dungeons are set up and their rewards (explorable, tokens) is way off. I want the TA armour and maybe Arah but they are tedious to do with pugs and have to wait on my friends to level. In any case I will not do the others because I do not want their rewards (different tokens for each dungeon). So when there are people LFP to do another dungeon I will not join them. The recent token increases help but it’s still a lot of work and I therefore do not wish to spend time in other dungeons. I think aside from the grind also makes it harder to find groups for the dungeons you need.

Reward system. When we level we can go to lower areas and be scaled down so we can still enjoy events and such at lower level. It’s a nice idea but travel costs are up because of my level but the rewards for those events are low. In general this discrepancy makes it less interesting to help guildies/friends with their events and quests when it takes you a few silver to travel there and not get an appropriate reward for your level, even though you are scaled down.

Having said that though, I do enjoy playing the game but mostly at lower levels. It isn’t till you get to around level 50 that some of these issues start to really show and I’d say until you get to 60-65 it’s alright. After that though it’s karma farming and dungeon running with the limitations there are on that. The travel costs to waypoint at higher levels really keep me from moving my character around much and the Orr region is not a great area to play in. Waypoints are often contested as it is and traveling by foot is dangerous, because they are tough to fight through and subject to overaggro, especially worsened by other players who run through the areas as they had enough of it and train mobs on you unintentionally mostly. But when you die because of it, you pay for it.

So all in all great game till level 60. After that not as much….it needs help. Still, none of the issues there are unfixable and as of yet don’t keep me from enjoying the game and its many facets.

I think it’s sort of hilarious that people are poking themselves in the eye and then complaining that their eye hurts.

If you don’t want to grind. Don’t. There is nothing in the game that forces you to grind. The only thing making you grind is YOU… you are making the decision to force yourself to do the same repetitive tasks in one spot in the game because you feel an overriding need to have some item in the game which you have no patience to get just by playing normally. The mechanics of the game allow you to utilize an entire world packed with massive amounts of content, but again, an overriding reward focus in your own mind pushes you to ignore 99% of what’s available and only do the most efficient thing.

Having things be expensive in game is not a requirement for grind. It’s a long-term goal meant to be achieved over a long period of time by just playing the game for fun. Don’t complain that ArenaNet didn’t deliver what they promised if you don’t understand what they promised, don’t understand what they delivered, and are ruining the game for yourself.

Ok but you still aren’t answering the question. Dungeons are super interesting mechanics work fine you have to run dungeons a moderate amount of times to get a full set. Please respond to this type of player.

Hey I’m pretty bored now, I ran the dungeon for the set I wanted enough times in about a week, I ran all 3 paths daily, that’s 21 times this week I have my full set now.
The next week I spent doing all the other explorables one time each, I don’t want the gear from them so I don’t see a point in rerunning them. I’m not a big fan of pvp either.

So in about 2 weeks after hitting 80 I literally have nothing more to do that isn’t ridiculous grind content like get a legendary cause I have consumed all the non grind content already. What do I do now?

How do you fix the above situation

Silvard.3469:

Compare it to SW:TOR

There is no comparisson. SW:TOR is not an MMO, it’s a single player ex-subscription-based flopped romance simulator with focus on voice acting, close-ups of horrible art style and bugged graphics, all built upon a prototype single-threaded engine which needs to run on 2 processes. No game, regardless of how bad it can be, will ever come close to thekittenthat EA served to blind Star Wars fanboys.

Though you do have a point, at least in their stories, you get your own starship and NPC to have sex with. Excelsior!

Everyone has a different definition of grind. But if you define it as “Repetitive content”, then every MMO has to have grind, by definition. Outside of a sandbox game like SWG (where the players drove the content), there’s no way for any company to create constantly changing PvE content. Computers just aren’t that clever.

ArenaNet provided us with a number of ways to obtain exotics. They all require significant time investment. They have to require significant time investment. That’s also part and parcel of MMOs.

Only you can decide whether or not the -activities- (not the rewards), but the activities themsleves, are worth doing for the fun of it. That’s ArenaNet’s goal. Not to force you to perform activity X (which you hate) because of the carrot you get at the end. But to encourage you to perform activity X, because you honestly enjoy performing activity X.

Of course, ‘fun’ is a subjective term, and everyone finds different things fun. I enjoy running around Frostgorge with no real goal, just doing events, killing mobs, rezzing downed players. I guess that eventually, by doing this enough, I may end up with enough stuff to craft an exotic weapon. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just having fun playing the game to play the game.

If the only reason you play MMOs is for the ‘phat lewt’, maybe GW2 isn’t the game for you. GW2 is the game for those of us who like to play the game, regardless of virtual pixellated rewards.

Am I saying they’ve got everything right? Absolutely not. Some content isn’t fun. The dungeons could sure use tweaking. If they were more fun, people wouldn’t complain about running them 20 or 30 times. There’s always improvements to be made.

But the design goal is that it should be fun, and you should do it simply because it’s fun. You should do it, and this is the important bit – Even if there were no game rewards for doing it at all, because the only reward you require is the fun from doing it.

When you break it down the whole thread is just a fancy way of the op saying, I don’t like dungeons or the way the system for pve is, but I want the rewards from it.

For what reason the op wants them I don’t understand cause he won’t be doing dungeons or DEs with that gear.

Swagman.9013:

Ok but you still aren’t answering the question. Dungeons are super interesting mechanics work fine you have to run dungeons a moderate amount of times to get a full set. Please respond to this type of player.

Hey I’m pretty bored now, I ran the dungeon for the set I wanted enough times in about a week, I ran all 3 paths daily, that’s 21 times this week I have my full set now.
The next week I spent doing all the other explorables one time each, I don’t want the gear from them so I don’t see a point in rerunning them. I’m not a big fan of pvp either.

So in about 2 weeks after hitting 80 I literally have nothing more to do that isn’t ridiculous grind content like get a legendary cause I have consumed all the non grind content already. What do I do now?

How do you fix the above situation

So you’re talking about the tiny minority of players who not only consume many hundreds of hours of content in a single month, but also refuse to repeat anything or play the game just for fun? I’m guessing the solution to that situation is to ignore those few people’s whining, because there’s no way in the world to satisfy them. They are being completely unreasonable.

There are any number of options available to the player you mentioned. All of which have been outlined and explained in detail repeatedly by ArenaNet. There’s other professions and races to play with different personal stories. There’s long-term goals like achievements and cosmetic gear. There’s crafting, sPvP, and WvW. There’s a massive PvE world, all of which is open to exploring and enjoying the fun game play.

If you don’t like any of the many available options and huge amount of content…then stop playing. There is literally nothing else a company could possibly do for you, except waste a huge amount of dev time trying to provide some kind of artificial treadmill to keep you playing. ArenaNet has clearly said they aren’t interested in doing that. They want to spend their dev time creating content for everyone to enjoy, not just this tiny minority you describe.

Again, you are creating an impossible situation. You are discounting all of the many things there are to do, and then complaining there’s nothing to do. If a person doesn’t like to play the game, doesn’t enjoy the game play…it’s time to move on. Why keep playing if it’s not fun? It’s like a little child stamping his foot and refusing to eat anything but pizza when his parents take him to a seafood restaurant. He’s probably going to eat one of the available choices, or else go home hungry. No game will be all things to all people forever.

The only thing that GW1 had better (IMO) is in fact the storyline, like someone else already stated.

Gauradan.8361:

Swagman.9013:

The only reason you say there’s nothing to do at 80 but grind is because you have put some goal that you want to reach that is beyond clear all explorables. And that is exactly like what I said before.

All the games content ALL of it is doable with 0 grind. You can complete all story modes, you can complete all explorables, you can discover every zone, with never having to equip an exotic.

But because you have chosen a goal, let’s say it’s a certain dungeon armor set, you now want what is meant for players that you are not. That stuff is not for players like you. The entire game is available to you but these aesthetic items and weapons are not put in the game for everyone.

So don’t complain about a grind when you are willingly, of your own free will, choosing to get something that is meant to be grinded for.

You know, I’m dead sick of being told something is not for me just because I’m not the right player. That’s a mentality specific to WoW. You’re not a hardcore raider so no purples for you. How about no? How about you take that mentality back where it belongs and stop picking on me just because I want Guild Wars 2 to be the game that they promised it would be?

This is simply incorrect. There is a reason why the term welfare epics exist in WoW.

Anyways, nobody is telling what’s not for you. You are telling us you don’t like something, and by extension what’s not for you.

When you break it down the whole thread is just a fancy way of the op saying, I don’t like dungeons or the way the system for pve is, but I want the rewards from it.

For what reason the op wants them I don’t understand cause he won’t be doing dungeons or DEs with that gear.

Swagman hit the nail on the head on this one.

The important thing here is that you don’t have to grind to stay on the same level as everyone. That alone is a big difference compared to most MMOs in the recent years.

Zen.1740:

Silvard.3469:

Compare it to SW:TOR

There is no comparisson. SW:TOR is not an MMO, it’s a single player ex-subscription-based flopped romance simulator with focus on voice acting, close-ups of horrible art style and bugged graphics, all built upon a prototype single-threaded engine which needs to run on 2 processes. No game, regardless of how bad it can be, will ever come close to thekittenthat EA served to blind Star Wars fanboys.

Though you do have a point, at least in their stories, you get your own starship and NPC to have sex with. Excelsior!

Yet it still has superior stories. And since all the story in GW2 is exposed and experienced mechanically the same as in SW:TOR (ie. voice acting, personal instances, and even SW:TOR’s are more seamless) the whole “it’s not an MMO” excuse doesn’t fly. GW2’s story has no excuse to be this bad.

They should’ve canned the whole “this is your personal story” “this is my story” spiel if it was just going to be this disappointing garbage. If they did not have the talent or budget to do something better than mediocre they shouldn’t have bothered trying to hype it.

I don’t think GW2 took the things that were most loved about GW1 and put them into GW2 at all…

I also don’t think it is innovative or different than other mmos by any noticeable amount. Sure you can say “oh but it put these features together”, but by that logic every mmo is different because they don’t all use the exact same features to the same degree in the same way.

GW2 is basically just a huge marketing gimmick, on the surface they claim things are so different, but any objective person can see the gather and kill quests hidden very poorly beneath the veil of “dynamic”.

Apparently it is innovative to make a game with so little content that people are forced to play it for only short periods of time.

Also on a side note, I dislike people who try to say some people were playing it too much and no wonder they got burned out. 8hours a day is a lot, but when it comes to mmorpgs there are games that kept people playing 8+ a day for months if not years. So even if you want to belittle these people or judge them for playing so much, there is obviously a lack of content when someone can play 1 game for 8hours a day for years, and can only play another 1 for 8hours a day for a week.

I’d also like to say the personal story is weak, they tried to hype it up like they were bringing a fusion of single player rpg story depth to an mmo, they didn’t even come close.

Compare gw2 personal story to any good single player roleplaying game, it maybe has about 1/1000th the depth.

I generally didn’t like how the personal story turned out to be, it’s completely different from the manifesto. Your decisions only affect you in a single chapter, and there are barely any lasting effects (aside of some NPC comments in the home instance which make little difference on the actual game). Basically it feels like playing completely independent chapters that have nothing to do with each other. They are not connected, most of your decisions in the beginning will change nothing in the end and won’t have any lasting impact.

The only decision that may have some impact is your order choice as you get access to the armor, and that’s it. Your order choice doesn’t affect the other chapters, doesn’t affect the story, doesn’t affect the dialogue. And your power to change anything feels even weaker after Trahearne is thrown into the formula. It’s basically a “what do you want to do next chapter?” question. Sure you get a very unique combination on the personal story menu, but then, it is meaningless. You get some impact on your home instance, but then, most people don’t ecer visit their home instances. Some probably don’t even know there is one, it’s not very relevant.

Fozzik.1742:

Swagman.9013:

Ok but you still aren’t answering the question. Dungeons are super interesting mechanics work fine you have to run dungeons a moderate amount of times to get a full set. Please respond to this type of player.

Hey I’m pretty bored now, I ran the dungeon for the set I wanted enough times in about a week, I ran all 3 paths daily, that’s 21 times this week I have my full set now.
The next week I spent doing all the other explorables one time each, I don’t want the gear from them so I don’t see a point in rerunning them. I’m not a big fan of pvp either.

So in about 2 weeks after hitting 80 I literally have nothing more to do that isn’t ridiculous grind content like get a legendary cause I have consumed all the non grind content already. What do I do now?

How do you fix the above situation

So you’re talking about the tiny minority of players who not only consume many hundreds of hours of content in a single month, but also refuse to repeat anything or play the game just for fun? I’m guessing the solution to that situation is to ignore those few people’s whining, because there’s no way in the world to satisfy them. They are being completely unreasonable.

There are any number of options available to the player you mentioned. All of which have been outlined and explained in detail repeatedly by ArenaNet. There’s other professions and races to play with different personal stories. There’s long-term goals like achievements and cosmetic gear. There’s crafting, sPvP, and WvW. There’s a massive PvE world, all of which is open to exploring and enjoying the fun game play.

If you don’t like any of the many available options and huge amount of content…then stop playing. There is literally nothing else a company could possibly do for you, except waste a huge amount of dev time trying to provide some kind of artificial treadmill to keep you playing. ArenaNet has clearly said they aren’t interested in doing that. They want to spend their dev time creating content for everyone to enjoy, not just this tiny minority you describe.

Again, you are creating an impossible situation. You are discounting all of the many things there are to do, and then complaining there’s nothing to do. If a person doesn’t like the play the game… why are they playing? It’s like a little child stamping his foot and refusing to eat anything but pizza when his parents take him to a seafood restaurant.

This is exactly what I’m trying to illustrate by forcing the OP to say it himself, but you said it for him.

You cannot cater to everyone at once so Anet picked a middle ground they thought would be tough enough for more dedicated players to have to chew through, and allow the more casual players to take moderate bites of and have them both feel satisfied.

Whether or not they nailed that mark is up for debate but it’s ridiculous for anyone to call down fire and brimstone because Anet didn’t cater to your specific playstyle when they are judging things on a hundreds of thousands scale, not player to player basis.

Think about the other thousands of players and how they might be affected before you unfurl your war banner and spearhead some change that you see fit.

Swagman.9013:

Fozzik.1742:

Swagman.9013:

Ok but you still aren’t answering the question. Dungeons are super interesting mechanics work fine you have to run dungeons a moderate amount of times to get a full set. Please respond to this type of player.

Hey I’m pretty bored now, I ran the dungeon for the set I wanted enough times in about a week, I ran all 3 paths daily, that’s 21 times this week I have my full set now.
The next week I spent doing all the other explorables one time each, I don’t want the gear from them so I don’t see a point in rerunning them. I’m not a big fan of pvp either.

So in about 2 weeks after hitting 80 I literally have nothing more to do that isn’t ridiculous grind content like get a legendary cause I have consumed all the non grind content already. What do I do now?

How do you fix the above situation

So you’re talking about the tiny minority of players who not only consume many hundreds of hours of content in a single month, but also refuse to repeat anything or play the game just for fun? I’m guessing the solution to that situation is to ignore those few people’s whining, because there’s no way in the world to satisfy them. They are being completely unreasonable.

There are any number of options available to the player you mentioned. All of which have been outlined and explained in detail repeatedly by ArenaNet. There’s other professions and races to play with different personal stories. There’s long-term goals like achievements and cosmetic gear. There’s crafting, sPvP, and WvW. There’s a massive PvE world, all of which is open to exploring and enjoying the fun game play.

If you don’t like any of the many available options and huge amount of content…then stop playing. There is literally nothing else a company could possibly do for you, except waste a huge amount of dev time trying to provide some kind of artificial treadmill to keep you playing. ArenaNet has clearly said they aren’t interested in doing that. They want to spend their dev time creating content for everyone to enjoy, not just this tiny minority you describe.

Again, you are creating an impossible situation. You are discounting all of the many things there are to do, and then complaining there’s nothing to do. If a person doesn’t like the play the game… why are they playing? It’s like a little child stamping his foot and refusing to eat anything but pizza when his parents take him to a seafood restaurant.

This is exactly what I’m trying to illustrate by forcing the OP to say it himself, but you said it for him.

You cannot cater to everyone at once so Anet picked a middle ground they thought would be tough enough for more dedicated players to have to chew through, and allow the more casual players to take moderate bites of and have them both feel satisfied.

Whether or not they nailed that mark is up for debate but it’s ridiculous for anyone to call down fire and brimstone because Anet didn’t cater to your specific playstyle when they are judging things on a hundreds of thousands scale, not player to player basis.

Think about the other thousands of players and how they might be affected before you unfurl your war banner and spearhead some change that you see fit.

What’s crazy is that it gets exponentially harder to keep large numbers of people satisfied the more people you deal with… and yet blizzard has somehow had a pretty godly retention rate.

Most companies can’t even handle 1-2million players sticking to their game.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.
This is a part which has been subject to a lot of debating. Some people say there shouldn’t be any grind, while others say the grind is entirely optional. Yet, we have this statement from ArenaNet which says they don’t want players to grind. To my understanding (and I’m not claiming my understanding can’t be erroneous), that means there shouldn’t be any grinds at all. However, there are:

Grinding is optional, this is not something you can debate about. The definition of grinding is a player doing the same thing over and over again, without doing anything ells. So grinding is largely determined by how the player chooses to play. Meaning that forced grinding from a game design perspective, can only happen if a player has no other valuable choice then to grind. And this is why Guild Wars 2 has no grinding, because you always have a choice to do something ells. Sure you can play the same dungeon over and over again, until you can get enough tokens to buy the reward you want, but the game is not forcing you to so at any point. You are the one choosing to grind. Instead, you could choose play a dungeon twice, then go play some Worlds PvP, then help a friend level up his character, do a bit of crafting, level up an alt profession, and then maybe do another dungeon run.

Simply put: The game has no grind, because you have a choice of content.

You affect things around you in a very permanent way.
Your completion of a dynamic event has a temporary effect, up until the event or the servers reset. Furthermore, we have seen how the cleansing of Orr doesn’t have any noticeable effect outside the instance. This was impossible to do and was probably an exaggeration on their behalf.

We have still not seen any world changing dynamic events yet, because they have not been implemented. ArenaNet has promised dynamic events that are so big they change the look of a whole area of the map. But so far, they have been too busy fixing various bugs. And if there are still bugs to fix, it’s not very smart to add new content on top of that.

Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.
Again, untrue. The only choice a player can make concerning certain events is whether to start them or not. There aren’t choices like the ones in the personal story, where you can pick what quest to do, at least none that I have experienced while doing 100% completion.

Dynamic events work like a pendulum. If players are making the choice to act, the pendulum will swing in one direction (this is where a town is saved). But if no player decides to act, the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction (this is were the town will get taken over, and the mobs will attack the next town). So it is the players choice that affects which way the pendulum swings. Events will start regardless of what the players does.

for Guaradan, no matter what he says, EVERYTHING is a grind for him. He pretty much wants everything for free at 80 or it’s a grind. The karma is a grind, the dungeons are a grind, the gold is a grind, the crafting is a grind. Pretty much this guy just wants things for free. His definition of no grinding = everything for free.

Cross.1678:

The karma is a grind, the dungeons are a grind, the gold is a grind, the crafting is a grind.

I don’t think that you realize how ironic that is. You basically proved his point for him. Unless of course I missed some well-hidden sarcasm.

Cross.1678:

Pretty much this guy just wants things for free. His definition of no grinding = everything for free.

Except that’s not true. If you’re having trouble understanding his points, try reading them several times.

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

The type of people that actually seem to be enjoying gw2, are quite “interesting” when it comes to logic.

@Sheen

Blizzard had such good retention because they were the first to administer the drug. They hit that sweetspot of the start of a gamer generation and the beginning of Internet popularity. They also had the blizzard north crew at the helm which helped greatly.

Now mmo companies have to give us a synthesized version of the drug like swotor, or have to try to hook us on a new type like gw2 or TSW.

The OP was right to create this thread. If you call something a “manifesto” you betterkittenwell live up to it. A manifesto is meant to be bold but also to guide your every action.

The fact is that GW2, while a very good game in many respects, differs significantly from the manifesto. Many people, like me, bought the game expecting it to be more like what’s described in the manifesto.

Swagman.9013:

@Sheen

Blizzard had such good retention because they were the first to administer the drug. They hit that sweetspot of the start of a gamer generation and the beginning of Internet popularity. They also had the blizzard north crew at the helm which helped greatly.

Now mmo companies have to give us a synthesized version of the drug like swotor, or have to try to hook us on a new type like gw2 or TSW.

Or because they have some of the best players from one of the most groundbreaking mmorpgs (eq1) at the helm. They know how to cater to many different playstyles in a way that obviously still works for millions upon millions.

GW2 isn’t a new drug… it’s the same drug in a smaller pill sprinkled with a little sugar.

GW2 had a good chance to be something great, the game had tons of hype, what they advertised the game as generated a lot of interest, obviously what they delivered was not satisfactory for many people.

I don’t know why Anet pushed out a game that feels so shallow and unfinished, maybe ncsoft was tired of waiting, maybe they felt they had already delayed so long that they would start losing players from the hype just because the years were adding up.

Anyway, with enough resources and all the opportunity in the world to shake the ground, they instead delivered mmo-lite. Instead of some innovative masterpiece of a game that would be loved for a decade.

They didn’t live up to their potential, they obviously didn’t fail as hard as most big budget mmorpgs… but actually who knows, maybe they did, it’s only been less than a month.

Gauradan.8361:

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Well that mindset doesn’t surprise me, the flip the chessboard and walk away.

I never said that there is no grind. There’s plenty of grind, but it’s all by choice. The entire game world is open to you. You can do Arah in level 80 rares. In wow you can’t do black temple in level 70 blues. That’s an example of a forced grind. You cannot progress to point c without doing point b.

Gw2 you can go from a to c or to d or to whatever.

Swagman.9013:

Gauradan.8361:

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Well that mindset doesn’t surprise me, the flip the chessboard and walk away.

I never said that there is no grind. There’s plenty of grind, but it’s all by choice. The entire game world is open to you. You can do Arah in level 80 rares. In wow you can’t do black temple in level 70 blues. That’s an example of a forced grind. You cannot progress to point c without doing point b.

Gw2 you can go from a to c or to d or to whatever.

No one forced you to go do black temple though. You can sit in ironforge spinning all day. Can you do all content in gw2 at level 1? If not there is a level requirement grind, which is forced, to do certain content.

Zen.1740:

Cross.1678:

The karma is a grind, the dungeons are a grind, the gold is a grind, the crafting is a grind.

I don’t think that you realize how ironic that is. You basically proved his point for him. Unless of course I missed some well-hidden sarcasm.

Cross.1678:

Pretty much this guy just wants things for free. His definition of no grinding = everything for free.

Except that’s not true. If you’re having trouble understanding his points, try reading them several times.

so…you’re saying, you want everything for free….or it’s a grind. you got me…you got me…

Well why are you buying any RPG even single player ones if you view leveling up as a grind. Yea leveling can be looked at as a grind but I call it playing the game. And in that regard GW2 is leaps and bounds over WoW. How’s that flawless gorilla sinew quest coming along? Well I killed about 300 and still haven’t found it.

Swagman.9013:

Gauradan.8361:

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Well that mindset doesn’t surprise me, the flip the chessboard and walk away.

I never said that there is no grind. There’s plenty of grind, but it’s all by choice. The entire game world is open to you. You can do Arah in level 80 rares. In wow you can’t do black temple in level 70 blues. That’s an example of a forced grind. You cannot progress to point c without doing point b.

Gw2 you can go from a to c or to d or to whatever.

Why would I argue with you? Logic doesn’t work with people like you.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.

If there is a grind and you are grinding, whether it’s your own choice or not, they have already broken their promise from the manifesto. Not once in the OP did I argue whether the grinds are optional or not, or justified or not. I simply said they exist, therefore breaking their promise in the manifesto. Simple logic.

As others have said, when you call it a manifesto, I, as a customer, expect that you respect everything you said there to the letter.

Furthermore, by your logic, once again as others have said, WoW doesn’t have compulsory grinds. Besides, in WoW, I could get cool skins from raids from previous expansions and transmogrify them on my current gear. This, however, will never be the case with Guild Wars 2, given the sidekicking system.

Cross.1678:

so…you’re saying, you want everything for free….or it’s a grind. you got me…you got me…

No, I bought the game because of their marketing video/manifesto. I was under the impression, as was everyone else who was not privy to secret knowledge, that Guild Wars 2 had no grind and was centered around “fun”.

Why did you buy the game? Because you thought it looked fun and that there was no grind? Well congratulations, you bought a game where you thought you would have everything for free – you are a hypocrite.

Now you don’t seem to like the criticism of Guild Wars 2 and are telling us that we want everything for free. It’s quite stupid to be honest.

Guild wars 2 is great in terms of simplicity for new players, it’s easy to pick up but it’s easy to determine a skilled player from an unskilled player which is good. Other games like WoW had quite a lot of skills per class but every frost mage played the same, every holy paladin etc which made the only thing that changes your ability to really kill someone your gear.

The environments in guild wars 2 are amazing. People saying this game is bad obviously don’t appreciate the sheer scale of this game which has only just been released.

WvWvW is good. People complaining about the zergs obviously are very sheep like people. Following the crowd then complaining that they are in it. I spend alot of time going around in a small group of 2 or 3 taking supply camps. sentry’s. killing small groups of enemies (avoiding the enemy zergs because they lagg me out) and taking towers by destroying walls with catapults secretly from a distance.

sPvP is alright, the only criticism I can give it is the lack of content. Not enough game modes for player vs player. Consider a PvP game like Call of Duty (I know completely massively different) but for call of duty to be so successful as a mulitplayer versus game is because of the many different ways to play against each other.

However the disappointing part of the game is the personal story. The start was great like the OP said but it got worse when Trahearne stepped in. (not to mention his aweful quotes “it’s better to fight and lose than to never fight at all” and “It’s time to stop being scholar’s and start being soldiers” and his aweful voice acting). The story made me feel worthless up to this point and the same as everyone else in the game which I hate. I want to play differently. (killing Trahearne would have been cool).

Also the hearts are massively disappointing. Even tho I cannot think of anything else arenanet could have done to avoid killing X amount of something the hearts are exactly the same as any other MMORPG questing. It’s all killing and gathering something to fill up the bar. Quiet boring and the only way to really level up to gather in that area if you want to craft.

Then I get onto crafting. It’s very good, I like how you get a lot of experience from it and how you can get good gear from it however I dislike the way you can not make any gold from it. Therefore I go onto the Trading Company.

The trading company is very well done however the fee is a little over the top. After calculating how much profit I would make from selling a crafted exotic on there I was like “oh ye I can make 50 silver profit if I buy all the materials from the company”. However I was wrong. The fee was soo large that I actually lose out on 15 or so silver therefore crafting is worthless and it’s best to just sell raw materials but I could be wrong.

Another disappointment is dungeons. In my opinion it seems they were made for the traditional tank, dps, healer trinity then it got scrapped and arenanet didn’t change the dungeons to accommodate their own trinity. I really can’t think of how now but it really needs to be redesign so that they are completely with more teamwork and skill rather than aimless rolling out of mobs of NPCs and brain afking trash while you strafe around for 10 minutes.

With the grind the only way I could think it could be resolved is by making all dungeons give the same token so you can choose what to spend it on and not make someone who wants Precision / Power / Toughness gear or so have to do the dungeon that noone wants to do whilst everyone it grinding the hell out of CoF or CoE for Precision / Power/ Crit dmg gear.

Chackan.2813:

The only thing that GW1 had better (IMO) is in fact the storyline, like someone else already stated.

In expansions they should go back to the mission system.
It was A LOT more engaging.

Untouch.2541:

Chackan.2813:

The only thing that GW1 had better (IMO) is in fact the storyline, like someone else already stated.

In expansions they should go back to the mission system.
It was A LOT more engaging.

I liked missions

That’s what I’m saying.

I have been level 80 since the first week, have full exotic and I have only been in AC story mode once. So I cannot honestly see where this so called grind is. Guild wars 2 is designed for you to the player to play naturally, not for you to try and pound your head into the pavement doing something you hate.

When I hit level up I was still in level 60 rares because I did not feel the need to change my armor as a matter of fact I did not realized I had level 60 armor until level 75. Most games you couldn’t do that.

I think the issue here with the OP is their expectations versus Arenanet. When they heard no grind, the op stupidly believe Arenanet meant you wont have to work for something, while in actuality they meant you have multiple paths to achieve the same thing. At level 80 I can either craft, rely on world drops for gear, do WvW or group content for gear. In most MMOs, you pretty much had to do raids and with lockout timers. In guild wars 2, you can do the same instance back to back.

Honestly, based on your post nothing arenanet did was going to make you happy. You had build unrealistic expectations in your heard but more important you don’t really seem to know the meaning of grind.

Also to the people saying guild wars 1 was different, it is apparent you never actually played the game at release because gw2 is exactly like guild wars 1 except for the no henchies, monk and instance (all of which I personally i m glad they are gone).

Gauradan.8361:

Swagman.9013:

Gauradan.8361:

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Well that mindset doesn’t surprise me, the flip the chessboard and walk away.

I never said that there is no grind. There’s plenty of grind, but it’s all by choice. The entire game world is open to you. You can do Arah in level 80 rares. In wow you can’t do black temple in level 70 blues. That’s an example of a forced grind. You cannot progress to point c without doing point b.

Gw2 you can go from a to c or to d or to whatever.

Why would I argue with you? Logic doesn’t work with people like you.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.

If there is a grind and you are grinding, whether it’s your own choice or not, they have already broken their promise from the manifesto. Not once in the OP did I argue whether the grinds are optional or not, or justified or not. I simply said they exist, therefore breaking their promise in the manifesto. Simple logic.

As others have said, when you call it a manifesto, I, as a customer, expect that you respect everything you said there to the letter.

Furthermore, by your logic, once again as others have said, WoW doesn’t have compulsory grinds. Besides, in WoW, I could get cool skins from raids from previous expansions and transmogrify them on my current gear. This, however, will never be the case with Guild Wars 2, given the sidekicking system.

First off I have to address the I could get cool skins from old content in wow part.
Buy wow – 60
Buy tbc – 60
Buy wotlk – 60
Buy cata – 60
Buy panda – 60

That is if you have been loyally playing at the release of all the games, your 300 bucks deep minus the sub fee, I think you payed your dues to have some old content skins but oh so nice of wow to add transmute so late in the game.

And to your point of the manifesto, if you get that it’s optional, and you get that maybe they added grinding in for the sake of those who like grinding. Then literally you are mad cause they didn’t follow it to the T and have a 0 grind game?

Are you saying then, that had they called that blog post, Our MMO beliefs, and not mentioned the word manifesto, then you would have 0 qualms.

Jordan.6157:

The trading company is very well done however the fee is a little over the top. After calculating how much profit I would make from selling a crafted exotic on there I was like “oh ye I can make 50 silver profit if I buy all the materials from the company”. However I was wrong. The fee was soo large that I actually lose out on 15 or so silver therefore crafting is worthless and it’s best to just sell raw materials but I could be wrong.

Another disappointment is dungeons. In my opinion it seems they were made for the traditional tank, dps, healer trinity then it got scrapped and arenanet didn’t change the dungeons to accommodate their own trinity. I really can’t think of how now but it really needs to be redesign so that they are completely with more teamwork and skill rather than aimless rolling out of mobs of NPCs and brain afking trash while you strafe around for 10 minutes.

If you followed the development of the game like me, you would know that heart quest exist solely for people that needed quest hubs and needed something to do while they wait for dynamic events to happen. It was a compromise, because MMORPG tend to need hard holding.

The fee on the trading post to me is needed to keep inflation in check. Just playing the game naturally will give you a lot of coin, now imagine over time as it builds up, so people that play less would be unable to afford anything. Something like this happened in gw1 where after a while alot of the population could not participate in the market because everything was beyond their means and guild wars 1 had very few gold sinks.