Guild Wars 2

I couldn’t agree any more with this post and it’s cited joystiq article.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-a-grind-by-any-other-name/

Skorpio.3571:

Sheen.8196:

Lance Coolee.9480:

Sheen.8196:

Lance Coolee.9480:

Sheen.8196:

Skorpio.3571:

Sheen.8196:

I’ve noticed with gw2 that it is a battle of proficient gamers vs casual gamers… the proficient gamers went through everything easily, they don’t think any of the dungeons are challenging, and they feel like the game has very little content… yet a bunch of casuals who will hit that point in a few months are sitting here telling them they play incorrectly? Since when is being the most efficient in your rotations and completing tasks, playing incorrectly?

It’s not proficient vs. casual, it’s time played. The “proficient” just have 10 times the amount of hours put in.

Why do people always confuse casual with bad? Casual just as much means players that only log in for 1-2 hours a day or possibly even gasp skip a day!

PS- I agree with most of your other points in this thread.

Wrong… proficient gamers don’t necessarily have to be hardcore, whether they play a ton or a little, they still do everything more quickly and more efficiently.

It might take a proficient gamer an hour to do something a casual would do in 3 hours. I don’t mean casual as in play time, I mean casual as in attitude… the whole “I am going tokittenaround, not really know what i’m doing, and just hit my spells in a way that seems to make sense to me”.

These people consume content more slowly, and because of their careless attitude they often don’t play as much. (People that aren’t passionate about a hobby often would invest less time in such a hobby)

Sheen, your making statements that have some validity to them, but your offering them in a very derogatory way. I wouldn’t associate “casual” gameplay as “careless” gameplay.

Sorry I’m not the type to sugarcoat reality. I think the sugarcoating and coddling of certain playstyles are the reason mmorpgs in this day and age lack so much challenge and content in the first place.

Well, again you associate “casual” with “careless”.

I consider myself a “casual” player, since I can’t really devote more than a few hours of gameplay on weekdays, but I also tend to blow through challenges because I don’t have as high a learning curve.

And i’ve already clarified I mean casual in attitude, not in time investment. So I don’t know why your mithril armor is in a bunch.

From the first post on it: "…yet a bunch of casuals who will hit that point in a few months are sitting here telling them they play incorrectly? "

No one is taking months to get to 80 because they are inept. A child or mentally challenged person could hit 80 in a month given the time to do it. Leveling isnt hard even if you die every 10 minutes, you’ll still hit 80 almost as fast as a normal player if that is your intent.

You will rarely find the “casual in attitude” players on the forums. Anyone who cares enough about a game to read about it online is putting in some effort. It is well known that forum goers for MMOs make up a small percentage of the total.

Clearly you’ve never seen the wow forums. Or pretty much 90% of the big budget mmo forums post wow.

Not wanting players to grind does not mean it is impossible.
You might as well complain about being able to kill more than 5 mobs a day, which is so grindy.
You may play 5 characters to 80, see different, although not entirely, storylines, and gather enough resources to have 2 of them well-geared up.
Plus there’s plenty of items in sPVP, you don’t want to call that grind, do you?

Lance Coolee.9480:

I couldn’t agree any more with this post and it’s cited joystiq article.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-a-grind-by-any-other-name/

“Oh but crafting sucks if you dont like crafting so I ignore this way of leveling cause I don’t like it even if it’s a central part of almost any MMO but it is your fault that I don’t do it”.
Seriously, I can go around and say leveling is too slow because I dislike anything that does not involve beating up players so I do WvW from 1 to 80. This “article” is trash. Nothing more than the xbawz-“plz reward me for playing cause I dislike what games are”-nofunallowed-generation rant. Those are what WoW is for – keeping them out of games that allow players to enjoy playing.

He means casual as in a woman shopping, they go in to see if anything catches their eye and sort of float around the store looking at several things.

Compared to efficient as how guys normally shop, have a thing in mind I know what I want, and where it is. Get in get out.

Neither is better or worse one just gets to the end result faster.

At least that’s how I interpret it.

if any of you were casual you simply wouldn’t be in the forums QQing
you would be in game playing or walking the dog

Lance Coolee.9480:

Lance Coolee.9480:

Fayel.7589:

They stated that there WILL be grind for certain AESTHETIC items

Show me where they said this.

I still would like to know where they said this.

Looking for it, was a while ago. It wasn’t exact words though. More like you don’t need to grind to enjoy the game.

You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

But that’s exactly what ArenaNet set out to do, break from the current setup that other MMOs follow.

Lance I would just love to hear your idea for a 0 grind mmo, do remember that I don’t want to do the same task or anything similar to it for more than 3 times else it’s a grind. Please give me your months worth of completely unique content start to finish.

Looking for it, was a while ago. It wasn’t exact words though. More like you don’t need to grind to enjoy the game.

“Don’t have to grind to enjoy the game” and “Will need to grind for reason X” are two COMPLETELY different topics.

Keep it Apples to Apples

You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

But that’s exactly what ArenaNet set out to do, break from the current setup that other MMOs follow.

You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

But that’s exactly what ArenaNet set out to do, break from the current setup that other MMOs follow.

Swagman.9013:

Lance I would just love to hear your idea for a 0 grind mmo, do remember that I don’t want to do the same task or anything similar to it for more than 3 times else it’s a grind. Please give me your months worth of completely unique content start to finish.

I think I’ll do just that when I get home tonight. You can expect a reply on that tomorrow.

Keep in mind, only reason I didn’t accept a job (that I was offered) at a game design company is because I make a boatload of money as a software architect

Something you all need to keep in mind, Hearts and Scouts were put in to help theme park MMO players get acclimated to GW2, having to complete dungeons for tokens (Read: badges) is probably exactly the same thing.

Some players enjoy repeating content to gradually get gear and Anet supports this play style.

Just because you aren’t that type of player doesn’t mean Anet was disingenuous with their design goals. You don’t need to grind to experience all of the content. You only need to “grind” to get the most “endgame” of endgame items. This is so blindingly obvious to me, and probably obvious to people who have been following the development of this game since announcement.

raphaeldisanto.5478:

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.

This is the point that many of those complaining and critsizing are missing. If you don’t enjoy the gameplay for the sake of the gameplay then GW2 isn’t for you…at least not in large doses. There are other games out there that will probably suit their playstyle better. They are not wrong to want to play that type of game but GW2 is not going to fit that bill for them.

Lance Coolee.9480:

Looking for it, was a while ago. It wasn’t exact words though. More like you don’t need to grind to enjoy the game.

“Don’t have to grind to enjoy the game” and “Will need to grind for reason X” are two COMPLETELY different topics.

Keep it Apples to Apples

The context of this is true.

Anet set out to make grinding not necessary to see all of the content in the game. In this regard, they have delivered in spades. You are never gated from content because you lack the top-tier items.

What Anet did not say is that grinding would not exist in the game at all. I have no idea where anybody is getting this information.

Well at least that made the workday pass by much quicker. Someone needs to start a thread so we can all have a nice debate tomorrow. Maybe lance will reveal his uber mmo so I can spend the day poking holes in it, but if not someone else needs to get another one going.

To the above, people have translated “we don’t want our players to grind” into “grinding doesn’t exist in this game”

But if you look at it from the first view you stated then yes they kept their word.

I really hate the fact that they went against their word about making the game a grind-fest when as soon as you hit level 80 its “Welcome to Grind-fest 2” ….This isn’t an opinion..its a FACT

Now for those of you who may disagree and say “just play for fun”…goodluck with that when the game aims to keep you on a gold deficit upon reaching level 80, when waypoints and repairs are your biggest fears…ever had to run through a dungeon hoping for sweet rewards only to have your team disband on you near the last boss and end up with nothing but a repair bill of over 20 silver…goodluck grinding that money back because you’ll lose it even quicker next time

All in all, I’m just saying that Anet went against their word to keep the game as fun as they promised it would be…none of these problems occurred during the Beta tests because no one was getting insta-banned for “exploiting” then and gear wasn’t x10’s the price it is now

Mexxer.5096:

I really hate the fact that they went against their word about making the game a grind-fest when as soon as you hit level 80 its “Welcome to Grind-fest 2” ….This isn’t an opinion..its a FACT

Now for those of you who may disagree and say “just play for fun”…goodluck with that when the game aims to keep you on a gold deficit upon reaching level 80, when waypoints and repairs are your biggest fears…ever had to run through a dungeon hoping for sweet rewards only to have your team disband on you near the last boss and end up with nothing but a repair bill of over 20 silver…goodluck grinding that money back because you’ll lose it even quicker next time

All in all, I’m just saying that Anet went against their word to keep the game as fun as they promised it would be…none of these problems occurred during the Beta tests because no one was getting insta-banned for “exploiting” then and gear wasn’t x10’s the price it is now

Well ive never had a repair bill over 5s in any dungeon ive ever done. I also make money from every single dungeon, even when i ran them back to back and the end reward was 2s60c

Those are my FACTS
strange how our facts dont match even though we are playing the same game.

Do agree on a lot of the initial points. Especially with regard to personal story. I’d hoped there’d be significant variance and dozens of potential branches throughout, with at least 3 major paths that end up at essentially the same place at the very end (depending on your order), but instead we got a disjointed mess of nearly unrelated content, our character had basically no personality, and all paths end up converging into an underwhelming experience rife with continuity errors against a rather dull, generic enemy. And that’s not to say anything about the fights that were lazily shoehorned into everything, the dialogue that was just… bad… and how poorly characterization was handled in general.

As for the presence of grind? I sort of saw that one coming… Not to the extent it did though… :-/

But, I’d say that removing grind entirely would unfortunately require an overhaul to an extent that will never realistically happen, honestly…
To make it more bearable though, they could embrace the “Play it your way” mentality a bit more openly. By this, I mean remove Dungeon tokens, Badges of Honor, and any other such currency from the game and put everything on a Karma standard. As such, you could vary your activities and still make progress towards a goal you may have.

And to address the inevitable:
‘But nobody would run dungeons if they could get the currency to buy their armour in other ways!’

>Then it sounds to me like you’ve got a problem with your dungeons. If people would choose to flat out avoid them if given the chance, then they must not be all that fun.

@Mackdose Where am I getting that information? Why, the manifesto itself, of course?

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

When they say they don’t want players to grind, it means there aren’t supposed to be any grinds. If there are, there will be people who are doing it and as such, they will have gone against their philosophy in the manifesto. It’s simple logic, really.

Moreover, like someone else already said, they put in huge grinds in the game and then tried to make sure you couldn’t them do. They increased the cost of the Tier 3 Cultural armor tenfold since beta. All the while, we can’t even sell the crafting materials that we get as drops at decent prices, because there are bots farming tons of them and then selling them at ridiculously low prices.

Is this the game that you were promised? A game where, if you just ran around the world, having fun, you wouldn’t be able to withstand the cost of waypoint traveling? A game that is played by more bots, than people?

Gauradan.8361:

@Mackdose Where am I getting that information? Why, the manifesto itself, of course?

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

When they say they don’t want players to grind, it means there aren’t supposed to be any grinds. If there are, there will be people who are doing it and as such, they will have gone against their philosophy in the manifesto. It’s simple logic, really.

Moreover, like someone else already said, they put in huge grinds in the game and then tried to make sure you couldn’t them do. They increased the cost of the Tier 3 Cultural armor tenfold since beta. All the while, we can’t even sell the crafting materials that we get as drops at decent prices, because there are bots farming tons of them and then selling them at ridiculously low prices.

Is this the game that you were promised? A game where, if you just ran around the world, having fun, you wouldn’t be able to withstand the cost of waypoint traveling? A game that is played by more bots, than people?

And don’t try to combat this with the generic “well anyone can grind if they want to, just stand in one place and kill the same thing until ur fingers bleed. how do you expect anet to keep players from doing that”.

The designers PURPOSEFULLY emplaced rewards with no path to obtain them aside from grinding. This was very likely done (my belief) so that there was something for players to do when they hit level 80. This feels like a major cop-out and there are much better solutions to that problem.

Lance Coolee.9480:

And don’t try to combat this with the generic “well anyone can grind if they want to, just stand in one place and kill the same thing until ur fingers bleed. how do you expect anet to keep players from doing that”.

The designers PURPOSEFULLY emplaced rewards with no path to obtain them aside from grinding. This was very likely done (my belief) so that there was something for players to do when they hit level 80. This feels like a major cop-out and there are much better solutions to that problem.

I’ve got some 7000 achievement points in WoW. I’ve got over 100 mounts. Most of that was achieved by grinding, some of it while having fun. So, I’m asking myself: is it worth taking up another MMO in which I’m supposed to be doing the same thing all over again? Definitely not. If I wanted to grind, I’d go back to WoW, where I’ve already done some of it. That’s why no MMO, Guild Wars 2 included, has beaten WoW so far.

That’s why most players who pick up new MMOs simply return to WoW after hitting level cap: because they realize it’s the same thing with a different setting and better graphics. Why would they reinvest time in a game that does the same things as WoW when they could just as easily play WoW, in which they have already invested time?

Leveling in Guild Wars 2 was fun. Level 80 is simply WoW-like grind, but with a stat plateau to it. If any developer thinks they can beat WoW at their own game, just because they’re saying their game is designed for fun or that the grind is optional, they’re wrong.

The grinding for 100 mounts was optional in WoW too. So are many others. Yet people still see WoW as a huge grindfest. Why was ArenaNet pointing fingers at other MMOs saying those who ran them wanted us to grind? Isn’t it the same here? If you don’t grind, what else is there to do? You can say: “just have fun and you’ll reach whatever goal you’re after”. That’s wrong; you won’t reach that goal. Repair costs and travel costs will see to that.

For the record, I haven’t been subscribed to WoW since January and I’m not trying to praise the game in anyway. I just can’t for the life of me understand why people see WoW as grindy, when grinds have the same “optionality” there as they do here.

There are so many complaints about grind at level 80. Then there are people that say there is nothing to do at 80. What way do you want it? If they just give you EVERYTHING at 80, there will be absolutely nothing to do. If they make is real quick, why bother at all? If it takes a long time it is suddenly considered a grind. Because ArenaNet said they were trying to avoid the grind, people jump all over them. How can you make anything last a long time in an MMO without some sort of grind? It isn’t possible. Devs cannot write code as fast as people can conquer it. Would you have preferred to wait another 10 years for this game? Waited until ArenaNet exhausted its resources and went out of business with the game unreleased because too much time went into content?

Freaking Ridiculous.

I had to leave WoW because of the community. I played it since beta while I was deployed w/ the Marine Corps. At first, it was fantastic. Now, it sucks all sorts of terrible not necessarily because of the gameplay, but because of the people.

I never expected GW2 to be anything like WoW. And it is that fact alone that I was so disappointed. It’s got the same grindy feel (just not in the early levels), it’s got the same egotistical community.

It doesn’t have the challenging content. It doesn’t have the sense of accomplishment.

I am STILL however, deeply rooting for ANet to get it in gear. One can still hope, right?

JazzyJay.1367:

There are so many complaints about grind at level 80. Then there are people that say there is nothing to do at 80. What way do you want it? If they just give you EVERYTHING at 80, there will be absolutely nothing to do. If they make is real quick, why bother at all? If it takes a long time it is suddenly considered a grind. Because ArenaNet said they were trying to avoid the grind, people jump all over them. How can you make anything last a long time in an MMO without some sort of grind? It isn’t possible. Devs cannot write code as fast as people can conquer it. Would you have preferred to wait another 10 years for this game? Waited until ArenaNet exhausted its resources and went out of business with the game unreleased because too much time went into content?

Freaking Ridiculous.

Honestly, I expect creativity. I expected the innovative experience they’d advertised since I started following them 2 years ago.

1-80 wasn’t terribly innovative. It was fun, it just wasn’t challenging in the least.

80+ isn’t really challenging, nor is it fun. And there isn’t even an incentive to ignore those two aspects and tough it out anyway.

These are just my opinions.

JazzyJay.1367:

There are so many complaints about grind at level 80. Then there are people that say there is nothing to do at 80. What way do you want it? If they just give you EVERYTHING at 80, there will be absolutely nothing to do. If they make is real quick, why bother at all? If it takes a long time it is suddenly considered a grind. Because ArenaNet said they were trying to avoid the grind, people jump all over them. How can you make anything last a long time in an MMO without some sort of grind? It isn’t possible. Devs cannot write code as fast as people can conquer it. Would you have preferred to wait another 10 years for this game? Waited until ArenaNet exhausted its resources and went out of business with the game unreleased because too much time went into content?

Freaking Ridiculous.

Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.

Lance Coolee.9480:

Honestly, I expect creativity. I expected the innovative experience they’d advertised since I started following them 2 years ago.

1-80 wasn’t terribly innovative. It was fun, it just wasn’t challenging in the least.

80+ isn’t really challenging, nor is it fun. And there isn’t even an incentive to ignore those two aspects and tough it out anyway.

These are just my opinions.

They did introduce some new ways to play. I just don’t see how you can rid yourself of grind completely in any game that has any sort of longevity. Look at real life… it is a freaking grind. I gotta do the dishes, do the laundry, go to work, etc., Eventually you play on any platform long enough, you are going to feel it. You simply cannot build a platform so dynamic that you will never feel that.

Hopefully ArenaNet will add more in the future to really test you and give you something new to look forward to. I expect they will. I am sure they have big plans for this game.

Gauradan.8361:

Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.

So you remembered nothing about the game except the grind at 80? That is the only thing that comes to mind? Wow (no not WoW, but wow). How did you get to 80 if you couldn’t afford waypoint travel? I have had no trouble at all with waypoint costs. I walk a lot of the time and gather mats and such on the way. I get a couple drops decent drops from monsters and I have no trouble paying for waypoints.

JazzyJay.1367:

Gauradan.8361:

Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.

So you remembered nothing about the game except the grind at 80? That is the only thing that comes to mind? Wow (no not WoW, but wow). How did you get to 80 if you couldn’t afford waypoint travel? I have had no trouble at all with waypoint costs. I walk a lot of the time and gather mats and such on the way. I get a couple drops decent drops from monsters and I have no trouble paying for waypoints.

“will be remembered”=/=“I will remember”. Of course I could afford waypoint travel; leveling is easily the most profitable avenue of gold. I can afford waypoint travel even now, but that’s because I farm gold. And even when I had 30 gold (before buying the first piece of T3 Cultural), I would still get annoyed by the fact that I had to pay 3 silver to get to Orr from LA.

Gauradan.8361:

JazzyJay.1367:

Gauradan.8361:

Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.

So you remembered nothing about the game except the grind at 80? That is the only thing that comes to mind? Wow (no not WoW, but wow). How did you get to 80 if you couldn’t afford waypoint travel? I have had no trouble at all with waypoint costs. I walk a lot of the time and gather mats and such on the way. I get a couple drops decent drops from monsters and I have no trouble paying for waypoints.

“will be remembered”=/=“I will remember”. Of course I could afford waypoint travel; leveling is easily the most profitable avenue of gold. I can afford waypoint travel even now, but that’s because I farm gold. And even when I had 30 gold (before buying the first piece of T3 Cultural), I would still get annoyed by the fact that I had to pay 3 silver to get to Orr from LA.

I do understand how you feel about the cost. In my opinion the cost has the perfect weight. It isn’t so cheap that it is like, “Yeah whatever”, and it isn’t so expensive that I think, “Not a chance I will ever use that.” I weigh my travel expense before I go knowing I will have to work that cost off.

I won’t complain if they lower it, I promise you that.

JazzyJay.1367:

I do understand how you feel about the cost. In my opinion the cost has the perfect weight. It isn’t so cheap that it is like, “Yeah whatever”, and it isn’t so expensive that I think, “Not a chance I will ever use that.” I weigh my travel expense before I go knowing I will have to work that cost off.

I won’t complain if they lower it, I promise you that.

There are enough goldsinks as it is. Repair costs (especially as expensive as they are right now) and travel costs really weren’t needed. The biggest gold sink is the trading post fee, which removes 15% of the gold on every transaction.

“..takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1..”
People loved free travel in Guild Wars 1. People loved not having to repair armor in Guild Wars 1. So again, how did they take everything we loved about Guild Wars 1 and put it into Guild Wars 2?

It feels more like they took what we hated about WoW, multiplied it by 10, then added it here. Both the armor repair costs and the travel costs in WoW were trivial, not to mention that you had mounts if you really didn’t want to pay.

Seems like they want you to grind the way they want you to. If you find a way to make it easier on yourself fan-boys and a-net slap exploit next to it and patch it ASAP while professions like the necro have 100’s of bugs not patched up.

Detahmaio.2014:

Seems like they want you to grind the way they want you to. If you find a way to make it easier on yourself fan-boys and a-net slap exploit next to it and patch it ASAP while professions like the necro have 100’s of bugs not patched up.

Because there’s no profit to fixing bugs. There’s profit in fixing these “exploits” because the poorer people are, the more easily they’ll buy gems to trade for gold.

People on these forums claim that we shouldn’t ask for the grind to be removed because it’s optional and we can get the rewards by simply playing the game. They say ArenaNet doesn’t need you to play constantly. No, they don’t. They use an even more insidious method of milking their players: they don’t addict them to grinds, they make them feel bitter about the fact that, even though there are grinds, they’re impossible to complete. This way, they’ll get one of the two responses: some people will either buy gems and trade them for gold or buy boosters in order to make the grind go more smoothly, while others simply leave. Either way is fine to them, because they already have your money from the box price. Thus, they’d rather have 5 people quitting the game for one that spends money in the gem store.

I can’t keep playing the game just because it’s Guild Wars 2. I can’t keep playing the game just because of what it promised to be 2 years ago. The game has serious issues at the moment and the fact that ArenaNet cares more about keeping the population poor than about fixing bugs makes me want to play even less. Every patch breaks more and more of the game. The last patch just broke the Arah event on my server. Now, you can’t even get into the dungeon anymore. The only things that seem to be working properly are the mechanics put in place to prevent “exploiting”.

For the most part, I agree with OP.

A grindy MMORPG theme park by any other name and description is still a grindy MMORPG theme park.

Even the Dynamic events aren’t that much different or far removed from Warhammer’s Public Quests. In fact, they are the exact same thing except in WH you had a UI panel that tells you when the next event starts in case you want to redo it or want to do something else before it starts, rather than waiting around hoping something happens soon. You also got nice gear to help equip your character while leveling. You didn’t have to deal with special coins and such and each public quest was worth doing more than once.

Many public quests had low level set pieces that had unique skins. In many ways, WH achieved what GW does not. Instead, we play this meta with special currency collection. I have found myself rerunning the same Dynamic Events in GW2 more often than I did the WH public Quests despite WH clearly not having anti-farm codes and having clearly superior incentives as well as being just as fun.

They had public quests as well as regular presentation quests.

So clearly, not as innovative here as described while throwing the baby out with the bath water at the same time. They could still make up for it in the end game but instead, designed it around a massive grind where they also artificially cap your gains throughout the game.

Am I having fun? yes, for the time being. I’m working towards getting the 120G T3 skin, one of the most absrudly expensive cosmetic in an MMORPG.

ounkeo.9138:

For the most part, I agree with OP.

A grindy MMORPG theme park by any other name and description is still a grindy MMORPG theme park.

Even the Dynamic events aren’t that much different or far removed from Warhammer’s Public Quests. In fact, they are the exact same thing except in WH you had a UI panel that tells you when the next event starts in case you want to redo it or want to do something else before it starts, rather than waiting around hoping something happens soon. You also got nice gear to help equip your character while leveling. You didn’t have to deal with special coins and such and each public quest was worth doing more than once.

Many public quests had low level set pieces that had unique skins. In many ways, WH achieved what GW does not. Instead, we play this meta with special currency collection. I have found myself rerunning the same Dynamic Events in GW2 more often than I did the WH public Quests despite WH clearly not having anti-farm codes and having clearly superior incentives as well as being just as fun.

They had public quests as well as regular presentation quests.

So clearly, not as innovative here as described while throwing the baby out with the bath water at the same time. They could still make up for it in the end game but instead, designed it around a massive grind where they also artificially cap your gains throughout the game.

Am I having fun? yes, for the time being. I’m working towards getting the 120G T3 skin, one of the most absrudly expensive cosmetic in an MMORPG.

Aw, you shouldn’t have brought up Warhammer. When I joined, endgame sucked because of gear discrepancy in PvP. However, it had the best levelling experience I’ve had in any MMO prior to GW2. And now that you mentioned all the good things about it… I miss some of the lightjhearted fun I had there. Felt less restricted than GW2. Less massive in scale. but.. more free. Strange.

Also, world-pvp in all but the last bracket was better than WvWvW. It was not as much of a zergfest. Groups were smaller. What you did felt like having more of an impact on sieges or defenses.

Say what you will, for me ANet delivered! They brought us a game that seriously improves on the first one (again, the only exception is the story telling), with no sub fees whatsoever!

Kudos ANet!

Gauradan.8361:

Detahmaio.2014:

Seems like they want you to grind the way they want you to. If you find a way to make it easier on yourself fan-boys and a-net slap exploit next to it and patch it ASAP while professions like the necro have 100’s of bugs not patched up.

Because there’s no profit to fixing bugs. There’s profit in fixing these “exploits” because the poorer people are, the more easily they’ll buy gems to trade for gold.

People on these forums claim that we shouldn’t ask for the grind to be removed because it’s optional and we can get the rewards by simply playing the game. They say ArenaNet doesn’t need you to play constantly. No, they don’t. They use an even more insidious method of milking their players: they don’t addict them to grinds, they make them feel bitter about the fact that, even though there are grinds, they’re impossible to complete. This way, they’ll get one of the two responses: some people will either buy gems and trade them for gold or buy boosters in order to make the grind go more smoothly, while others simply leave. Either way is fine to them, because they already have your money from the box price. Thus, they’d rather have 5 people quitting the game for one that spends money in the gem store.

I can’t keep playing the game just because it’s Guild Wars 2. I can’t keep playing the game just because of what it promised to be 2 years ago. The game has serious issues at the moment and the fact that ArenaNet cares more about keeping the population poor than about fixing bugs makes me want to play even less. Every patch breaks more and more of the game. The last patch just broke the Arah event on my server. Now, you can’t even get into the dungeon anymore. The only things that seem to be working properly are the mechanics put in place to prevent “exploiting”.

No… they are fixing exploits as fast as possible so the economy doesn’t get messed up, it’s simple really, and makes sense. They’re gone get around to the bugs, don’t worry. The game just came out, give it a break.

Fayel.7589:

No… they are fixing exploits as fast as possible so the economy doesn’t get messed up, it’s simple really, and makes sense. They’re gone get around to the bugs, don’t worry. The game just came out, give it a break.

If they really cared about the economy, they would have banned the huge amounts of bots. That’s what’s ruining the economy, not the fact that people are finding ways around their stupid mechanics. Besides, the economy is already messed up anyway. The lowest tier fine crafting materials cost 4 times less than they did the past week. Nice try, though.

JazzyJay.1367:

Gauradan.8361:

JazzyJay.1367:

Gauradan.8361:

Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.

So you remembered nothing about the game except the grind at 80? That is the only thing that comes to mind? Wow (no not WoW, but wow). How did you get to 80 if you couldn’t afford waypoint travel? I have had no trouble at all with waypoint costs. I walk a lot of the time and gather mats and such on the way. I get a couple drops decent drops from monsters and I have no trouble paying for waypoints.

“will be remembered”=/=“I will remember”. Of course I could afford waypoint travel; leveling is easily the most profitable avenue of gold. I can afford waypoint travel even now, but that’s because I farm gold. And even when I had 30 gold (before buying the first piece of T3 Cultural), I would still get annoyed by the fact that I had to pay 3 silver to get to Orr from LA.

I do understand how you feel about the cost. In my opinion the cost has the perfect weight. It isn’t so cheap that it is like, “Yeah whatever”, and it isn’t so expensive that I think, “Not a chance I will ever use that.” I weigh my travel expense before I go knowing I will have to work that cost off.

I won’t complain if they lower it, I promise you that.

The point people are missing is that although gold sinks are needed in the game, this is a poor way to implement them.

They are a logical barrier between the user and the gameplay.

Think about it… Waypoint and repair costs don’t promote more gameplay, they restrict it. There’s no added “fun” value to the xmer by introducing them; they exist as a counterbalance to some other aspect of the game. Simply put, get creative and find another way to implement gold sinks so that they don’t have a negative impact on gameplay.

I never understand the “I have no money because of repairs and waypoints” argument.

Regarding repairs, On avreage I spend about 6-10s on repairs in a dungeon. total. The end dungeon reward alone is usually about the same. Then factor in vendored drops and junk…I’ve never not made money back on a dungeon. Now, if you want to argue that there’s 6-whatever silver more you aren’t making per run so you can’t farm gold as quickly…OK, I’ll hand that to you.

Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.

Go to the Mists, Go to Lion’s Arch. From there, I don’t think anything costs more than maybe 2s. I make more than that as a reward from a DE, not counting once again vendorable/tradeable loot.

Unless I buy things off the TP, I have never had a day in this game where I did not make more money than I spent. Unless I spend the day doing nothing but jumping puzzles. But at last I don’t have to factor in repairs there.

I think a lot of this complaint is less “I’m constantly losing money and can’t keep afloat” and more “I want to farm tons of gold fast but this game won’t let me.” Sorry, but no sympathy from me there.

Terrant.2903:

Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.

Go to the Mists, Go to Lion’s Arch. From there, I don’t think anything costs more than maybe 2s. I make more than that as a reward from a DE, not counting once again vendorable/tradeable loot.

A workaround, not a solution.

If players can just as easily use the Mists as a proxy for navigating the map, then why NOT lower the cost of waypoints?

There are plenty of threads asking for LA to be a free waypoint for this argument alone, but that isn’t even gaining any traction or attention.

Lance Coolee.9480:

Terrant.2903:

Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.

Go to the Mists, Go to Lion’s Arch. From there, I don’t think anything costs more than maybe 2s. I make more than that as a reward from a DE, not counting once again vendorable/tradeable loot.

A workaround, not a solution.

If players can just as easily use the Mists as a proxy for navigating the map, then why NOT lower the cost of waypoints?

There are plenty of threads asking for LA to be a free waypoint for this argument alone, but that isn’t even gaining any traction or attention.

They could do exactly that, in my opinion. Make Lion’s Arch a free waypoint travel and remove the portal from the Mists. Whenever you use the same button you used to go there, you would just end up on the place you were before. There is no reason for that gate to LA there.

Now, I really (and sadly) don’t believe reducing the costs would make people happy. They would just keep using LA as a fee reducer for the already reduced costs but would not stop complaining about the fees until they are free… Because people just can’t have enough.

I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.

deriver.5381:

Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.

Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.

Lance Coolee.9480:

Terrant.2903:

Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.

Go to the Mists, Go to Lion’s Arch. From there, I don’t think anything costs more than maybe 2s. I make more than that as a reward from a DE, not counting once again vendorable/tradeable loot.

A workaround, not a solution.

If players can just as easily use the Mists as a proxy for navigating the map, then why NOT lower the cost of waypoints?

There are plenty of threads asking for LA to be a free waypoint for this argument alone, but that isn’t even gaining any traction or attention.

I’d not be opposed to LA as a free waypoint, nor a reduction of WP costs. Although Again I wonder why they’re a problem. 30 minutes in a zone and I’ve more than made up the cost of any jump. The only way I can see this being a problem is if you are constantly jumping from zone to zone (possibly to farm high-pri events like Shatterer or Claw). Even then the rewards from one of these events tend to be more than the cost of a single jump from anywhere.

Lance Coolee.9480:

deriver.5381:

Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.

Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.

Real life analogies, really? You guys hate so much when others do exactly that to defend the game and now you are doing the same?

deriver.5381:

Lance Coolee.9480:

deriver.5381:

Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.

Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.

Real life analogies, really? You guys hate so much when others do exactly this to defend the game and now you are doing the same?

Who are “you guys” and when did I fill out a membership? I never argue against analogies that make sense, and I do intend on using them (although rarely) when appropriate.

Terrant.2903:

I’d not be opposed to LA as a free waypoint, nor a reduction of WP costs. Although Again I wonder why they’re a problem. 30 minutes in a zone and I’ve more than made up the cost of any jump. The only way I can see this being a problem is if you are constantly jumping from zone to zone (possibly to farm high-pri events like Shatterer or Claw). Even then the rewards from one of these events tend to be more than the cost of a single jump from anywhere.

I do think there needs to be some further analysis on what the deep rooted problems are. I hear quite a bit from both sides that waypoints are either an issue or not.

However, to think about it logically and without acting use cases, the mere existence of waypoint and armor costs kind of contradicts their mantra of “play the game your way”. The ability to continue playing “your way” is entirely dependent on either:

1. Playing efficiently (fewer deaths, smarter waypoint travel)

Or

2. Gold farming to counterbalance your inefficient playstyle.

Now, considering the game claims to appeal to all audiences (especially those new to MMOs), you can easily start to see where problems begin to arise.

I honestly think the cost of the way points would be a big deal if gold wasn’t so hard to get. Arena Net said this game is not about a grind well you could fool me, making gold is a huge grind!

Well, I’ll try to show you the “you guys” later when I feel inclined to search through all the complain posts you and others like so much to participate.

Anyways, there is no logic at all on what you said. There is no comparison. In RL prices are calculated based on many facts like prime materials costs, profit margins, hour/work costs and many other details that will never take place on a virtual world game economy… Here prices just exist for no reason at all.

Could you bring me the formula behind waypoint costs, please… The cost of the technology envolved, the energy used to make the time/space portals work etc? I know I will enjoy every second of my time needed to read it if you manage to.

There is a huge number of things they’ve said and changed during development. A lot of these things draw me to the game, a lot of things are still there, a lot of things are gone and affecting GW2 in a negative way. Just take a look at their “When it’s ready.” philosophy. GW2 isn’t ready yet. There is an immense number of bugs and exploits, hacks etc making the game not that much fun as it should.

At first I gave in to all the promises they made on blog posts, then I realized ANet is too, a developer you cannot trust on every word they say.

deriver.5381:

Well, I’ll try to show you the “you guys” later when I feel inclined to search through all the complain posts you and others like so much to participate.

Anyways, there is no logic at all on what you said. There is no comparison. In RL prices are calculated based on many facts like prime materials costs, profit margins, hour/work costs and many other details that will never take place on a virtual world game economy… Here prices just exist for no reason at all.

Could you bring me the formula behind waypoint costs, please… The cost of the technology envolved, the energy used to make the time/space portals work etc? I know I will enjoy every second of my time needed to read it if you manage to.

Sorry to say, but you’re far from complete there. Go take an economics class.

The prime driver in pricing in RL is market value, not raw material / production costs.

Regarding waypoint costs you are also incorrect, they have a very specific “reason”, but the challenge is that there are more creative ways to accomplish that same goal without it having a restricting affect on gameplay.