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"No-grind philosophy"
I guess you’re experience is simply too limited to have sufficient perspective to speak on the topic then. You are aware that MMO’s have been around since mid 90’s? If you simply compare GW2 to what exists right now, then you don’t have a very relevant baseline. Without that history, then it’s clear why people don’t understand Anet’s statement and fluff it off.
Play a game where it takes 1000’s of hours to max out a character, then come back here and realize how very ridiculous the complaints are. Hell, people can BUY most of the stuff in this game with RL money. How much more carebear do you want it?
Lol so if a car company says they sell the fastest car it does not matter if it in fact is the faster car as long as compared to some point in history it is the fastest car. I am sorry so say that if anything the 90’s games are not relevant, then only the current games are. But still then, if people find it grindy they find it grindy. That is not the same as ‘I find it grindy compaired to game X’.
Even if you would do that it all depends with what type of game-play. Some people say GW2 is not grindy compared to GW2 but that’s likely because there preferred game-play is getting BiS gear. For me GW2 is very grindy compared to WoW because my preferred game-play is going for most fun / best looking items and I do not care for BiS gear. And no it’s not optional, in fact it’s not optional in both games. I did not get BiS gear in WoW and was fine playing the game, I also don’t get most of the fun or best looking items in GW2 and can still do other things of the game. That however does not mean the grind is not there if you would like to do that.
Nope the rest of the quote isn’t relevant. That is to say what I’ve said is providing THE MOST COMMON USEAGE.
Everything Anet has said from beginning to end, since the time of the manifesto supports the definition of THE MOST COMMON USEAGE.
The other definitions might or might not apply.
But if there is a MOST COMMON USEAGE, and that useage is supported by context, continually, then people who are not using the MOST COMMON USEAGE are being willfully ignorant.
If I make a statement and define what I mean and someone comes along and says this sentence can also mean this and this, it’s not relevant at all to my statement.
Even if it was true that was ‘the most common usages’ it does not mean the other usages suddenly do not count as grind anymore. So if people talk about grind they all count equally (that includes Anet talking about grind!). And that paragraph where you quoted from even ends with the sentence [Grinding may be required by some games to unlock additional features such as level progression or additional items.] so the article itself refers to grind for getting additional items. Exactly what is going on here.
Besides you did not make a statement and defined what you meant. You simply quoted a definition (well part of it) from wiki seemingly to proof that, that was the definition of grind. It was not like you said.. I do not find it grindy because for me grindy means this and it does not fit into this. If you did then we might be able to agree it did not fit into your definition what is btw completely irrelevant for the people who consider it grindy.
It seems like everybody here agrees there is grind in GW2 only some want to ignore it because that grind does not count according to them. And I can understand that that grind does not effect there personal game-play but that does not mean it does not count for other people.
As I said, not once, but many times across many threads, if a word has multiple definitions, it’s up to people to define what they mean by it. Anet did that, not once, but many times.
If people refuse to accept that, it’s their own issue.
Let me be lear about two things.
I did hear Anet say they wanted a grind free game. I did not hear them say,’ we want a grind free game but this is what we see as grind and all other other forms of grind don’t count for us as grind so can and will be in the game’.
Second, the fact that they said it would be grind free is nice to refer to in this discussion and makes it even more important but not in any way is it required for the complaint. There are other grindy games people complain about the grind while the company never said it would have no grind. Are they then not allowed to complain about it? Remember the forums back during season 1 when people complained about temporary content. Anet never stated they would not have temporary content. So that statement might make it even more important but it’s not like if it’s required for people to complain about something they dislike in a game.
People dislike this grind and so they complain about it. The defense against that in general in this forum seems to be that it does not fits in there (person defending) definition of a grindy game (while agreeing the grind people complain about does indeed exist) or your defense is that Anet did not specifically mention this grind but was (according to you?) talking about another type of grind. Both seem irrelevant to the complaint. It does not disproof the complaint, it does not devaluate the complaint, it does not make the complaint go away.
Let’s also bear in mind that Anet actually brought up the manifesto, which I dissected line by line in so many posts I won’t repeat it here. But there’s no possible way to look at it, using the manifesto’s own words, to make anyone think that they mean any definition of grind but the standard one.
We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2 is a line in a paragraph about combat. Not a paragraph about gear or farming or gaining gold. Grind, as in killing stuff to gain levels. What it means to most old timers.
If you can find something in the manifesto which supports your definition, I’d love to hear it. Because in 3 years since it’s been out, no one has provided anything but that single out of context line, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. But everything around it defines it as something other than people are saying.
You can win any argument if you ignore the evidence.
While i don’t find the game to be particularly grindy, in most senses of the word. It’s a bit disingenuous to say it isn’t grindy (based on design) for some people.
For example: PvE players that want to experiment with different stat setups are going to find the game pretty grindy (either in gold, mats, time and/or effort). Yes, you can have exotics pretty quick, but if trying out different stat combos is your thing and you don’t care for PvP, you’re going to have a rough time. What i find excessive now, is all the different stat combos. So while getting 80 exotics isn’t tough (or grindy), you really need to know what you want, otherwise expect it a take a pretty long time and much materials.
Other examples are AP (some are actually pretty absurd), and, of course, the many skins in the game, are quite grindy. Grindy meaning doing the most efficient things to obtain them in a fair amount of time. While it’s fine to have long-term things, there are a pretty large number of them that take a pretty extreme amount of time or flat out cash.
One big problem, as i’ve seen mentioned in this thread, is that most of the game is heavily based on the gold standard. Which basically means getting a lot of stuff is based around gold, which limits players to obtain things they want in a timely manner. For example, it’d be nice to see other ways to obtain minis (and not the uber rare ones, like liadra, or the, billions of Queen Jennas floating around).
Another thought here is that you can basically play the game (any part of it) with random exotics. You don’t need AR in any fractal lower than 10, so you can basically do fractals. Most of the content is pretty easy, some even do dungeon runs armor-less if they are good enough with skill rotations and knowing the tells.
If you’re not particularly interested in cosmetics, achievements, or toys and just want to play the game, then it pretty much has 0 grind. This is where i think the game has fallen down hard, just playing the game needs a constant feed of content, otherwise it’s grind away.
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Since people seem to be forgetting one important detail in all this mess of ‘oh but its not needed cuz reasons’, I’ll add that impotant part myself. (Edit: snap, munkiman already beat me to it)
What not (m)any realize is that, by linking stats to gear, whatever ascended set you might make is tied to a particular build, which means the current system is incredibly rigid in terms of build selection, because it locks you out of playing different builds to their maximum potential due to the grind associated with obtaining multiple sets of ascended armor.
This is a problem, and for multiple of reasons, such as builds growing out of flavour or becoming obsolete after balance changes, or them becoming boring because of the lack/inability to change them in a reasonable timeframe, or because you cannot adjust builds according to a particular zone or encounter (for better or for worse, the generic type of pve makes that less of an isssue..somewhat).
So few realize how incredibly inflexible the current system is, in particular compared to the free-building system of GW, and yet no one seems to have an issue with it. Baffling.
Twist and turn is all you want, this game’s BiS gear acquisition is and will remain a grind (hell, even exotics aren’t a breeze in the park), and the very worst kind of it, because gear comes with stats attached.
GW is the one and only where statistically best gear is obtainable with virtually no grind. You might not look super fancy in it, but you sure as hell hit just as hard as as the obby guy next to you.
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(edited by KarlaGrey.5903)
+1 @ OP
GW2 is same grindfest as any other game, with the little exception that you know You’ll get an item sooner or later.
Yes, the rewards are really low, and not mutch thing requies skill / provides real challange other than 1 hit dies.
Real grindfree gameplay starts at proper, very deep crafting.
(which doesn’t includes mass producing socks to level knowleadge…)
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If you’re not particularly interested in cosmetics, achievements, or toys and just want to play the game, then it pretty much has 0 grind. This is where i think the game has fallen down hard, just playing the game needs a constant feed of content, otherwise it’s grind away.
Pretty much what I found GW1 to be after I finished the dungeons/storyline . . . nothing but grind for cosmetics, bragging rights titles, and maybe some money in there.
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If you chose not to venture into pvp, which is/was more or less the main focus and also the best part of the game, then you simply missed out…the same applies if you just played one build throughout all 3 campaigns while skipping all the challenging high-end content.
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(edited by KarlaGrey.5903)
If you’re not particularly interested in cosmetics, achievements, or toys and just want to play the game, then it pretty much has 0 grind. This is where i think the game has fallen down hard, just playing the game needs a constant feed of content, otherwise it’s grind away.
Pretty much what I found GW1 to be after I finished the dungeons/storyline . . . nothing but grind for cosmetics, bragging rights titles, and maybe some money in there.
I actually see no reason to make that correlation really. I personally enjoyed the original for 7 years. The PvP was more fun to me, the meta changed much faster as well. I would even venture to say, the content was actually more challenging. But, it was a much different game. It wasn’t a grind for me, since i enjoyed the content and the challenges.
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An important fact being missed here is that ascended is not a grind at all unless you want instant gratification. Playing the game as normal gets you all the materials you’ll need. If you beat down the door to get to the end as soon as possible, yes, you’ll have to go out of your way to achieve that method. The way to accelerate the process is to, as those define it, grind. You have an option to blast through content but when you get bored because you finished faster based on a method you CHOSE, don’t go and tailor your definition of grindy to your argument because it’s convenient. It’s grindt because you grinded. Don’t want to? Go enjoy the game and get the items at a slower, normal pace.
Players are quick to define any activity they do as grind. “Oh, I grinded world bosses.” “I grinded dungeons.” I grinded WvW". No, you played the game. If you didn’t enjoy yourself then instead of coming here to complain, evaluate why you’re playing the game in the first place.
Could you not use this argument to try and disprove any form of grind in any game? Some people were talking here about how grindy Anarchy Online is. I could then also come and say.. well you should not have been killing those mobs to get the items and the xp, no you should have killed them for fun and then eventually you get the xp and the gear. So no grind.
The question however is if a normal pace of ‘doing stuff for fun’ would then indeed reward those things in at the same rate they are available. If we would look at it from that perspective.
People get to a point where they want to collect items but them just playing the game did not reward the money they need to buy them and the items are for example only available for gold (from a game perspective) so they go do the world bosses over and over again to earn the gold to then buy those items.. that means they are grinding the world bosses.
IF they want to go for those items at that point grind is mandatory! There is no option of directly working towards getting those items. Up until HoT there is no real viable way to get a precursor, You can’t do a quest that rewards the flying carpet (as an example), you can’t farm a dungeon for the flying broom and the same might be true for ascended stuff. They get at a point where they might like to collect those things and the only option is grinding.. Playing the game and having fun for them at that point is hunting these items down. But that is then a grind.
Grind: the skill is not enough, you must to farm specific contents to be able to play something else.
For example this is why wvw not grindy (mostly). You play wvw and buy your stuff at the npc for badges and some golds. Btw we must to buy jewels if pvt is not good and sigils/runes not cheap
Don’t you think WvW is less grindy because you get the badgest faster or more then you need them (while playing WvW) for the items you want, while PvE is considered by many more grindy because you get the gold less then you need if for the items you want.
Now I do not say PvE should reward more gold. Items should simple be viable to get ingame without gold. You want an item you have the option to grind gold but in addition you can also do a dungeon that rewards it. As an example. So if you like to hunt down items you can do that without the grind there is now.
The vast majority of the Silverwastes, the most recent area they gave us to keep us busy, is grind.
Grind events to get badges to get extractors to grind breach/vinewrath bosses for parts/carapace boxes for the collections.
Sure, its optional, but this is the content they want us to do.
Technically, the whole game is grind if you look at it that way. Grind events to get the stuff or the experience, or the achievements. Grind WvW for its stuff. Grind dungeons for their stuff. Grind anything you want for gold so you can buy more stuff you don’t need.
. . . honestly, it’s thankfully less of a grind than real life is.
Isn’t that the truth.
Nothing that you “grind” for in this game is required in order to play the game. Not even the vast majority of the endgame. As others have already stated — too many of you are forcing it upon yourselves. Not ArenaNet. Just yourselves. But you don’t want to hear that…. so I’m pretty much wasting my time right now.
orrrr. They are not forcing it upon themselves but if they would do the content they like (like hunting down items) but the only option is grinding for it. So instead of forcing it upon themselves they leave a complain about it on the forum and leave this content as not exciting in GW2.. or other might just leave the game because of it.
Could you not use this argument to try and disprove any form of grind in any game?
Not at all.
Especially not the grind ANet was talking about in the manifesto.
Compare especially grinding raids to gear up players for different fights in different succeeding raids (since you had different requirements) and grinding to level up. On the other hand, it’s actually difficult to not get mats for your goals in GW2, since the game keeps throwing stuff at you and has about everything freely tradeable.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
If you’re not particularly interested in cosmetics, achievements, or toys and just want to play the game, then it pretty much has 0 grind. This is where i think the game has fallen down hard, just playing the game needs a constant feed of content, otherwise it’s grind away.
Pretty much what I found GW1 to be after I finished the dungeons/storyline . . . nothing but grind for cosmetics, bragging rights titles, and maybe some money in there.
I actually see no reason to make that correlation really. I personally enjoyed the original for 7 years. The PvP was more fun to me, the meta changed much faster as well. I would even venture to say, the content was actually more challenging. But, it was a much different game. It wasn’t a grind for me, since i enjoyed the content and the challenges.
I see plenty of reasons to make the correlation. “Lucky” title track, “Legendary Defender of Ascalon” title track, and the “Gamer” title track. I’m sure this is not at all related to “grind” . . .
Seriously. I walked away from the game after finishing the content I liked because all that was left was stuff I didn’t like, or the grind of title chasing. Why do you think I don’t heap shame on people who say they’re leaving because it’s not fun for them anymore here? I reached that point in the previous game, so I understand it.
. . . similarly now. There’s grind, but you don’t have to chase it if you don’t want to. And if playing the game gets stale, well, you can always cut back on the time you spend playing it either significantly or almost entirely. Nobody’s going to suddenly find themselves behind the power curve because they left for a few weeks, a few months . . . a year.
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No grinding to have BIS gear , Grinding for Skins (Which is Legendaries and Dungeon rewards) is how they keep you busy and is not required , Which is why they are grindy. Ascended give a small stat increase so I suppose that can be considered grindy. But not that much a increase
No game requires you to grind. You dont like raiding? Dont do it, you wont need the gear anyway. You like raiding? Do it, you will suck at first but you will get your drops from raiding and keep up with the content you are playing.
True that is what I said about grind always being optional. that however does not mean there is grind, and the ‘do what you like’ can mean you will need to grind. You like to collect toys and skins the only option in this game seems to be grind. But it’s indeed optional, I like to hunt down those type of items and it’s what I do in other games but not in GW2 (what seems very strange as this game is based around cosmetics while those others aren’t) but it also means content I like does not exist in this game… without grind.
So that is why people complain about grind. But indeed it is optional. I did do WvW and guild-stuff instead. Other people might have find other alternatives or simply stopped playing the game. Doesn’t mean the grind complain isn’t true.
People, players and developers alike, need to understand that grinding is just a natural element in MMOs. It’s how you convey progression and people don’t want to do something if they feel they aren’t rewarded well enough. That being said, I’d agree that the rewards themselves need to be looked at for a third time, dungeons need to be tweaked if necessary.
Saying “No grind” is like saying you shouldn’t breathe. It’s just the way these games are made, the trick is trying to find a way to make grinding fun.
If you’re not particularly interested in cosmetics, achievements, or toys and just want to play the game, then it pretty much has 0 grind. This is where i think the game has fallen down hard, just playing the game needs a constant feed of content, otherwise it’s grind away.
Pretty much what I found GW1 to be after I finished the dungeons/storyline . . . nothing but grind for cosmetics, bragging rights titles, and maybe some money in there.
I actually see no reason to make that correlation really. I personally enjoyed the original for 7 years. The PvP was more fun to me, the meta changed much faster as well. I would even venture to say, the content was actually more challenging. But, it was a much different game. It wasn’t a grind for me, since i enjoyed the content and the challenges.
I see plenty of reasons to make the correlation. “Lucky” title track, “Legendary Defender of Ascalon” title track, and the “Gamer” title track. I’m sure this is not at all related to “grind” . . .
Seriously. I walked away from the game after finishing the content I liked because all that was left was stuff I didn’t like, or the grind of title chasing. Why do you think I don’t heap shame on people who say they’re leaving because it’s not fun for them anymore here? I reached that point in the previous game, so I understand it.
. . . similarly now. There’s grind, but you don’t have to chase it if you don’t want to. And if playing the game gets stale, well, you can always cut back on the time you spend playing it either significantly or almost entirely. Nobody’s going to suddenly find themselves behind the power curve because they left for a few weeks, a few months . . . a year.
All that is fair. I enjoyed most of the content and regularly added and improved challenges to the original. Later on i was quite happy i went for titles, simply for the rewards they offered in GW2. I also avoided titles i wasn’t particularly interested in. Although now, with achievements there are direct rewards for doing them far beyond just bragging rights. Not that you HAVE to do them, but you do, if you want the limited goodies you get from them, making them feel less optional.
I mean that the comparison between the 2 doesn’t hold up all that well. There was hardly a cash shop (and certainly not one you could use in-game currency for), there was no global economy to balance and the focus was turning out more content in shorter spans of time, to get people to buy the new campaigns and eventually the expansion. One thing i’m pretty sure of, is the rewards in this game are highly impacted from not only the model of payment, but the game economy, both which they have yet to find a balance with. That makes it feel grindy to some. Whether or not folks found the original grindy or not, is kind of irrelevant.
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Mike O"Brien; GW2 Design Manifesto BlogBecause, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.
Note: “Force you onto a grinding treadmill” This is a clear reference to gearing up for endgame and the repetitive endgame gear treadmill where the gear is required for content completion.
Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on how ArenaNet Measures SuccessFun impacts loot collection: The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.
Seems to me that two of the most prominent pieces of pre-launch advertising refer to lack of gear treadmills. Also note: “… so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so…”
Grind is in the experience of the player. Some people like long-term goals. That was the rationale behind Ascended, and the rationale given by many of those who defended the inclusion of Ascended. Since there has only been the one tier added, it’s a little soon to call it a gear treadmill. The point, though, is that Legendary Weapons and other cosmetic items require a lot of collecting are aimed at a demographic that likes involved, long-term goals. However, there are people who are not in that demographic , but who want those items. Those people are going to experience grind because they choose to go after something not aimed at them.
So, does GW2 have short and intermediate-range goals for players to shoot at? There are plenty, but after 2+ years, many players will have reached the less-involved goals. That’s the real issue here. Easily achieved goals meet the needs of those who want goals but don’t like to pursue something long term. However, catering to those players can involve high resource use because it takes almost as much effort to produce a short-time pursuit as a long-time pursuit, but it holds player attention for a much shorter time.
“so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so” so he is talking about prestigious from a cosmetic perspective. Basically he seems to be talking about people like me. Because that is what I like to so.. chase those prestigious items (not only gear). But when I would want to do that in GW2 it’s not so much chasing them down but it would be grind, grind and grind some more. That is takes a long time, that it’s long-term is no problem for me, I might even like it. But if it’s grind, grind, grind and grind some more (gold) that’s where the fun stops.
I had the same with a special weapon I wanted. I needed charged lodestones for them but the problem is there is no really viable way to get charged lodestones. And with not viable I do not mean easy! Best way to get them is.. yeah you guessed that right, grind gold and buy them.
At one point I did try the farm option but after 1 hours of killing mobs I had zero of them drops. Needing 250 is then not really viable. At some point even multiple guild-members send me charged lodestones and cores they happen to get but even till this day I am not close to the 250 I need. There is only one viable way to get them.. grinding gold. But that I am not going to do.
(edited by Devata.6589)
All that is fair. I enjoyed most of the content and regularly added and improved challenges to the original. Later on i was quite happy i went for titles, simply for the rewards they offered in GW2. I also avoided titles i wasn’t particularly interested in. Although now, with achievements there are direct rewards for doing them far beyond just bragging rights. Not that you HAVE to do them, but you do, if you want the limited goodies you get from them, making them feel less optional.
Yes, which is where I was getting at. But . . .
I mean that the comparison between the 2 doesn’t hold up all that well. There was hardly a cash shop (and certainly not one you could use in-game currency for), there was no global economy to balance and the focus was turning out more content in shorter spans of time, to get people to buy the new campaigns and eventually the expansion.
This comparison is not one I was making. I was making a comparison in the experience, which honestly still is the same. Players run the economy now through the Trading Post, but it’s still the same as before where highly desired items have high price tags which normal people would have to grind almost ceaselessly before they can purchase them. Miniatures which were limited . . . specific weapon skins . . . things which couldn’t be traded via the in-game traders found their way to Spamadan. And lest you forget, Armbraces were a thing (up until a bunch got duped).
One thing i’m pretty sure of, is the rewards in this game are highly impacted from not only the model of payment, but the game economy, both which they have yet to find a balance with. That makes it feel grindy to some. Whether or not folks found the original grindy or not, is kind of irrelevant.
No, it’s rather relevant through one minor thing: both games were made by the same company, and both do a rather decent job of mitigating how much time you need to spend blazing through content to “the fun stuff”. Though I use the quote marks because I never really found UW/FoW/DoA . . . fun.
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I had the same with a special weapon I wanted. I needed charged lodestones for them but the problem is there is no really viable way to get charged lodestones. And with not viable I do not mean easy! Best way to get them is.. yeah you guessed that right, grind gold and buy them.
Always the easiest way to acquire things, when they can be acquired that way, is to simply apply Gold to the problem and watch the barriers fall away. It was true in GW1, true here, and it was true back in my EQ days.
If you can apply money, there is a certain value where you can indeed purchase whatever your heart desires, should it be purchasable that way.
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Sure there is ascended, but that’s only like 5% better than exotic so you don’t really need it.
You are absolutely need it if you want to fight another players at the WvW.
No, you don’t.
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like i said, this is just marketing speak. The reality is guild wars is just as grindy as any other game when it comes to best in slot, and way more grindy when it comes to cosmetics.
Thats ok, it really doesnt matter.
most of the people discussing here, have accepted the grind, or they ignore it. Also If guild wars does what they say they want to do, and makes more challenging content, you best believe people will want you in whatever is the best gear. Regardless of whether its possible to win, if it makes it less likely, they will want you in gear, and if it fails they will blame the people with low gear.
i know this will happen because it already happens in GW2.
and you will grind to get that gear, or those masteries, so you can access those extra areas.
The do hope they realize the game was actually grindy, because if whoever picks their numbers for things keep picking the numbers, you can look forward to ascended, halloween II, mistfire wolf mini, WvW achievement like numbers for your new progression.
As I said, not once, but many times across many threads, if a word has multiple definitions, it’s up to people to define what they mean by it. Anet did that, not once, but many times.
If people refuse to accept that, it’s their own issue.
Let me be lear about two things.
I did hear Anet say they wanted a grind free game. I did not hear them say,’ we want a grind free game but this is what we see as grind and all other other forms of grind don’t count for us as grind so can and will be in the game’.
Second, the fact that they said it would be grind free is nice to refer to in this discussion and makes it even more important but not in any way is it required for the complaint. There are other grindy games people complain about the grind while the company never said it would have no grind. Are they then not allowed to complain about it? Remember the forums back during season 1 when people complained about temporary content. Anet never stated they would not have temporary content. So that statement might make it even more important but it’s not like if it’s required for people to complain about something they dislike in a game.
People dislike this grind and so they complain about it. The defense against that in general in this forum seems to be that it does not fits in there (person defending) definition of a grindy game (while agreeing the grind people complain about does indeed exist) or your defense is that Anet did not specifically mention this grind but was (according to you?) talking about another type of grind. Both seem irrelevant to the complaint. It does not disproof the complaint, it does not devaluate the complaint, it does not make the complaint go away.
Let’s also bear in mind that Anet actually brought up the manifesto, which I dissected line by line in so many posts I won’t repeat it here. But there’s no possible way to look at it, using the manifesto’s own words, to make anyone think that they mean any definition of grind but the standard one.
We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2 is a line in a paragraph about combat. Not a paragraph about gear or farming or gaining gold. Grind, as in killing stuff to gain levels. What it means to most old timers.
If you can find something in the manifesto which supports your definition, I’d love to hear it. Because in 3 years since it’s been out, no one has provided anything but that single out of context line, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. But everything around it defines it as something other than people are saying.
You can win any argument if you ignore the evidence.
And ‘the standard’ one is the one you refer to as being the most common used according to wiki? That same wiki page that also talks about grinding for items, but would then not be ‘the standard’ definition of grind. There are many forms of grind and they are all grind. One of them is not more ‘grind’ then the other is. A ‘no grind philosophy’ means no grind one would think. No grinding for levels is one element but not the only one else it would have been a ‘no grind for levels philosophy’ I would think.
In addition I also said it’s not really relevant if Anet specifically would have said it, you ignored that part of my comment. If people find it grindy they have to right to feel that way and talk about it. Even if Anet would not have talked about no grind at all.
In that way I don’t understand the people in this thread so much defending GW2 because the stuff they like to do is not grindy. They just want to defend the game and don’t want to hear any negative aspects about it? Or they don’t want other people to not also have the grind free game-play they are experiencing themselves? Or they want people (who find the game grindy) to leave the game?
Is anybody here ignoring all the grinding going on in GW2. Champ trains have never existed, that’s a mind spin? And it’s also not true that to get many specific things those grinds like the champ trains where the only viable option? Is anybody here really trying to dismiss that grind? I don’t think so, but what people are doing is making up excuses why these grinds would not be a problem.. well not for them, but it is for some other people and they have the right to talk about it. Don’t act as if those people have no right for disliking that grind.
Though I use the quote marks because I never really found UW/FoW/DoA . . . fun.
Never seriously run UW or FoW but I used to run DoA for a while…
and Domain of Anguish is actually quite good name for it.
I was there for one simply reason – I wanted to have tormented shield (most epic shield evaaaaah :P)
at first 15 runs does not sound “that bad”
but I’ve never made it that far actually
lets say that after 3rd run I’ve given up – half our shouting: “DwG lfg FR NM” to do 2h long run to get average one gemset [2 if followed by mallyx] when 15 was needed is mor than I could ever handle -but hey thats exacly why I stay away from fractals as much as I can :P
“-Shield is meant to be broken!”
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles
Though I use the quote marks because I never really found UW/FoW/DoA . . . fun.
Never seriously run UW or FoW but I used to run DoA for a while…
and Domain of Anguish is actually quite good name for it.
I was there for one simply reason – I wanted to have tormented shield (most epic shield evaaaaah :P)
at first 15 runs does not sound “that bad”but I’ve never made it that far actually
lets say that after 3rd run I’ve given up – half our shouting: “DwG lfg FR NM” to do 2h long run to get average one gemset [2 if followed by mallyx] when 15 was needed is mor than I could ever handle -but hey thats exacly why I stay away from fractals as much as I can :P
It wasn’t 15 in hard mode, it wasn’t even 7. You could get pretty lucky and do it in 3 full runs or it might take you 5. You could also get the shield as a reverie gift from late august to september 1st.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
Thought this was funny too. I seem to be grinding an awful lot on my way to 80 (same events over and over)
Could you not use this argument to try and disprove any form of grind in any game?
Not at all.
Especially not the grind ANet was talking about in the manifesto.Compare especially grinding raids to gear up players for different fights in different succeeding raids (since you had different requirements) and grinding to level up. On the other hand, it’s actually difficult to not get mats for your goals in GW2, since the game keeps throwing stuff at you and has about everything freely tradeable.
“Compare especially grinding raids to gear up players for different fights in different succeeding raids” and then I use that excuse… here is comes: But you should not grind those raids to get the gear. You should just play the content (raids) for fun and while doing so you will get the gear and can do those different fight. You will also level up along the way.
There you see, I used that same excuse for your example of grind.
Sure, you get mats for the items you need, just not nearly enough to get all those items you want. Oow and let me clarify that’s also not what I would like (getting all the gold / mats I need along the way) as that would be similar to handing out the items for free. No, I want them to be rewarded for specific interesting content. So I can directly work towards them and have fun on my road to getting them.
People, players and developers alike, need to understand that grinding is just a natural element in MMOs. It’s how you convey progression and people don’t want to do something if they feel they aren’t rewarded well enough. That being said, I’d agree that the rewards themselves need to be looked at for a third time, dungeons need to be tweaked if necessary.
Saying “No grind” is like saying you shouldn’t breathe. It’s just the way these games are made, the trick is trying to find a way to make grinding fun.
I think ‘no grind’ is possible, no farming might be harder. The type of grind I am talking about you don’t have in multiple other games so seems not to be a requirement.
Let’s also bear in mind that Anet actually brought up the manifesto, which I dissected line by line in so many posts I won’t repeat it here. But there’s no possible way to look at it, using the manifesto’s own words, to make anyone think that they mean any definition of grind but the standard one.
We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2 is a line in a paragraph about combat. Not a paragraph about gear or farming or gaining gold. Grind, as in killing stuff to gain levels. What it means to most old timers.
If you can find something in the manifesto which supports your definition, I’d love to hear it. Because in 3 years since it’s been out, no one has provided anything but that single out of context line, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. But everything around it defines it as something other than people are saying.
You can win any argument if you ignore the evidence.
Grind is and always has meant doing something repetitively to achieve some goal. It is synonymous with farming. It has never been directly tied to leveling only. You can certainly level grind, you can also farm experience. You can faction grind or you can farm faction. You can grind mobs for loot or you can farm mobs for loot. It’s all the same. As far back as SWG people were grinding for all sorts of things. Mission grinding for cash, experience grinding for leveling, experience grinding for jedi unlocks, merc/geonosian grinding for cubes/adhesive, or just faction grinding to swap sides or buy faction loot. So unless ArenaNet missed a decade of grind being used in a ton of different ways, your argument doesn’t hold water.
You also realize that when he says combat he is talking about anything that involves combat, which ranges from quests to farming mobs. It is exactly why they go on about what makes GW2 events different. That is why he says
“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff”
The problem is that that is exactly what you do in GW2. Want the BIS gear? Grind. Want a certain WvW rank unlock? Grind. Achievement point unlocks? Grind. Awesome looking skins? Grind. BIS runes/sigils? Grind. Legendaries? Grind. Crafting? Grind. Even if by some stretch of the imagination we are talking purely combat, that’s a grind too! GW2 has an incredibly shallow grindy combat system, I was hoping they would go the TCOS route but they decided to stick with mediocrity. Honestly the “fun stuff” is incredibly few and far between, which is why the game is grindy. Instead of introducing fun content they slap in grind content. Any fun content they do add is usually temporary, which ultimately hurt the game.
With no grind, they mean no mandatory grind. There is no gear threadmill.
You don’t have to grind in order to keep up. All the grind in this game is just for cosmetics. Sure there is ascended, but that’s only like 5% better than exotic so you don’t really need it.So is there grind for just cosmetics or cosmetics and stats?
5% is 5%, it’s there, it exists, you can’t deny it. You can choose to ignore it, convince yourself it’s not needed, attempt to convince others it’s not needed, but the fact of the matter remains, it’s a 5% increase in stats.Yes, a useless 5% is a useless 5%. And I never denied it’s existance, I merely pointed out the fact you don’t need it. I know it is not needed as all content can easily be completed without it (except fractals, but that’s because of agony resistance, not the stats itself).
You can try convincing yourself that this 5% increase is a big deal, but I know it is not.
Where this 5% came from?
Just comparing this with this I can see at least a 9% increase in the overall dps. I may be wrong tho. Some even say that the difference can reach around 14-15%.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien
- Mike Obrien
(edited by Erick Alastor.3917)
I had the same with a special weapon I wanted. I needed charged lodestones for them but the problem is there is no really viable way to get charged lodestones. And with not viable I do not mean easy! Best way to get them is.. yeah you guessed that right, grind gold and buy them.
Always the easiest way to acquire things, when they can be acquired that way, is to simply apply Gold to the problem and watch the barriers fall away. It was true in GW1, true here, and it was true back in my EQ days.
If you can apply money, there is a certain value where you can indeed purchase whatever your heart desires, should it be purchasable that way.
It’s true that it’s always a way (if it’s tradable), but if items are obtainable in a viable way in game it usually is not the easiest way. Only if getting it in the open world is very easy.
The big problem here is that it is not really viable to earn it in the game, or not at all possible for the cash-shop items. The option (in a viable way) just does not exist. So your only real option is the gold grind for these sorts of things.
There is a difference between no mandatory grind and no grind at all. They will always be grind in a MMO. Devs just CAN’T (in like physically impossible) to create content faster than ppl can experience it. So at some ppl either ppl do the same stuff over and over or they stop playing.
You don’t need to grind for anything in this game. But you can grind if you want something special. People can disagree if they want, but personally this game fit the majority of the manifesto (can’t believe we are still talking about that )
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
Ascended gear is the only thing that can really be considered in regards to going against the initial ‘no grind’ philosophy. There are at least 3 different views regarding whether that the tier is “required” and therefore “mandatory grind.”
Beyond that single bone of contention, I feel Anet has been relatively true to ‘no mandatory grind.’
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
like i said, this is just marketing speak. The reality is guild wars is just as grindy as any other game when it comes to best in slot, and way more grindy when it comes to cosmetics.
Thats ok, it really doesnt matter.
most of the people discussing here, have accepted the grind, or they ignore it. Also If guild wars does what they say they want to do, and makes more challenging content, you best believe people will want you in whatever is the best gear. Regardless of whether its possible to win, if it makes it less likely, they will want you in gear, and if it fails they will blame the people with low gear.i know this will happen because it already happens in GW2.
and you will grind to get that gear, or those masteries, so you can access those extra areas.
The do hope they realize the game was actually grindy, because if whoever picks their numbers for things keep picking the numbers, you can look forward to ascended, halloween II, mistfire wolf mini, WvW achievement like numbers for your new progression.
But is it oke? How many people did leave because of it? They might come back with HoT but if it’s still the same they will leave again and won’t come back for the 2th expansion.
And like you say yourself “The reality is guild wars is just as grindy as any other game when it comes to best in slot, and way more grindy when it comes to cosmetics.”. That cosmetics part is what GW2 focusses on and especially that part is so extremely grindy. so in a way the playerbase Anet aims for it then scares away with the grind.
Yes I did find other stuff to do, I ignore it but that does not mean I like it or I would like the option to hunt down those cosmetics without grind as the only real option. Resulting in me complaining here about it or me talking about the cash-shop focus in many threads (because I see that as the main reason for this grind).
Would it not be better for the game if the grind itself was not there or at least optional.. also for those optional cosmetics items. Would it not be better if hunting down those things was possible with interesting or challenging, fun content. Liadra being an example of a challenging option to earn them, the pirate shoulders being an example of a fun (and somewhat challenging) way to get them. Would that not be much better for this game?
Though I use the quote marks because I never really found UW/FoW/DoA . . . fun.
Never seriously run UW or FoW but I used to run DoA for a while…
and Domain of Anguish is actually quite good name for it.
I was there for one simply reason – I wanted to have tormented shield (most epic shield evaaaaah :P)
at first 15 runs does not sound “that bad”but I’ve never made it that far actually
lets say that after 3rd run I’ve given up – half our shouting: “DwG lfg FR NM” to do 2h long run to get average one gemset [2 if followed by mallyx] when 15 was needed is mor than I could ever handle -but hey thats exacly why I stay away from fractals as much as I can :PIt wasn’t 15 in hard mode, it wasn’t even 7. You could get pretty lucky and do it in 3 full runs or it might take you 5. You could also get the shield as a reverie gift from late august to september 1st.
It was when your main class was warrior – the only setupyou could try to go find a team was 4 DwG’s (you were DwG) UA, HB imbagon and mesmer of unknown to me build
I know there were teambuilds like frostway and other that cleared even HM in matter of minutes but average run with randoms on that setup took averagely 2h and finding full team for that was avergaely 30 minutes – there was always too much dwg’s never enought monka and long wait for imbagon and mes to show up – especially considering that both of them had place in more time-efficient build
#justwarriormainingpeoplethings
about reverie – I keep missing this event ^^
[but I have tormented shield in gw2 and I’m happy with that]
“-Shield is meant to be broken!”
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles
Let’s also bear in mind that Anet actually brought up the manifesto, which I dissected line by line in so many posts I won’t repeat it here. But there’s no possible way to look at it, using the manifesto’s own words, to make anyone think that they mean any definition of grind but the standard one.
We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2 is a line in a paragraph about combat. Not a paragraph about gear or farming or gaining gold. Grind, as in killing stuff to gain levels. What it means to most old timers.
If you can find something in the manifesto which supports your definition, I’d love to hear it. Because in 3 years since it’s been out, no one has provided anything but that single out of context line, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. But everything around it defines it as something other than people are saying.
You can win any argument if you ignore the evidence.
Grind is and always has meant doing something repetitively to achieve some goal. It is synonymous with farming. It has never been directly tied to leveling only. You can certainly level grind, you can also farm experience. You can faction grind or you can farm faction. You can grind mobs for loot or you can farm mobs for loot. It’s all the same. As far back as SWG people were grinding for all sorts of things. Mission grinding for cash, experience grinding for leveling, experience grinding for jedi unlocks, merc/geonosian grinding for cubes/adhesive, or just faction grinding to swap sides or buy faction loot. So unless ArenaNet missed a decade of grind being used in a ton of different ways, your argument doesn’t hold water.
You also realize that when he says combat he is talking about anything that involves combat, which ranges from quests to farming mobs. It is exactly why they go on about what makes GW2 events different. That is why he says
“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff”
The problem is that that is exactly what you do in GW2. Want the BIS gear? Grind. Want a certain WvW rank unlock? Grind. Achievement point unlocks? Grind. Awesome looking skins? Grind. BIS runes/sigils? Grind. Legendaries? Grind. Crafting? Grind. Even if by some stretch of the imagination we are talking purely combat, that’s a grind too! GW2 has an incredibly shallow grindy combat system, I was hoping they would go the TCOS route but they decided to stick with mediocrity. Honestly the “fun stuff” is incredibly few and far between, which is why the game is grindy. Instead of introducing fun content they slap in grind content. Any fun content they do add is usually temporary, which ultimately hurt the game.
They could indeed learn some things from TCOS, also the quest. Anet seems to think quest need to be boring but TCOS had some great ones. There no stats on gear would also fit into GW’s philosophy I think. I usually use WoW as comparison as most people know WoW and only a few know TCOS but yes they could learn something from TCOS.
With no grind, they mean no mandatory grind. There is no gear threadmill.
You don’t have to grind in order to keep up. All the grind in this game is just for cosmetics. Sure there is ascended, but that’s only like 5% better than exotic so you don’t really need it.So is there grind for just cosmetics or cosmetics and stats?
5% is 5%, it’s there, it exists, you can’t deny it. You can choose to ignore it, convince yourself it’s not needed, attempt to convince others it’s not needed, but the fact of the matter remains, it’s a 5% increase in stats.Yes, a useless 5% is a useless 5%. And I never denied it’s existance, I merely pointed out the fact you don’t need it. I know it is not needed as all content can easily be completed without it (except fractals, but that’s because of agony resistance, not the stats itself).
You can try convincing yourself that this 5% increase is a big deal, but I know it is not.
Where this 5% came from?
Just comparing this with this I can see at least a 9% increase in the overall dps. I may be wrong tho. Some even say that the difference can reach around 14-15%.
Which still doesnt matter, lol.
Gear progression in GW2 are easily nullified by a single dodge in the right place, a better build or a better player.
On top of this, getting different gear is nothing in GW2. You get endgame exotic gear from numerous sources without much hazzle.
Compare with say Archeage… How fun would it be if all endgame exotic had the cost of legendaries and if you wanted to grind/loot such a weapon, you’d have to kill 10,000 mobs in Orr for a certain percentage chance of finding 1 out of 10 badges that is the correct one for just your weapon. And when you get it, you can choose to upgrade but there is a 50% chance of the weapon breaking so you have to get another one. And dont forget to socket it! With 10% success chance and chance of critically failing, breaking the weapon of course. Right about when you’re done with that… its obsolete and someone with a 2x dps weapon and gear you barely scratch come and kill you. He also popped pots doubling his armor and getting 30% HP back every 9 second.
Yeah… The grind in GW2 is nothing.
There is a difference between no mandatory grind and no grind at all. They will always be grind in a MMO. Devs just CAN’T (in like physically impossible) to create content faster than ppl can experience it. So at some ppl either ppl do the same stuff over and over or they stop playing.
You don’t need to grind for anything in this game. But you can grind if you want something special. People can disagree if they want, but personally this game fit the majority of the manifesto (can’t believe we are still talking about that )
The OP was more talking about Colin’s talk last week, not about the manifesto so much. And there is a difference between repeatable content and grinding. Having to farm a dungeon for an items is something else then having to grind gold for anything.
“But you can grind if you want something special.” Well no, if you want any of those items you need to grind. It’s not like you have the option to grind for them but also have the option to do some fun, or challenging content or even farming that dungeon. For many of those items the only viable option is grinding gold.
There is a difference between no mandatory grind and no grind at all. They will always be grind in a MMO. Devs just CAN’T (in like physically impossible) to create content faster than ppl can experience it. So at some ppl either ppl do the same stuff over and over or they stop playing.
You don’t need to grind for anything in this game. But you can grind if you want something special. People can disagree if they want, but personally this game fit the majority of the manifesto (can’t believe we are still talking about that )
The OP was more talking about Colin’s talk last week, not about the manifesto so much. And there is a difference between repeatable content and grinding. Having to farm a dungeon for an items is something else then having to grind gold for anything.
“But you can grind if you want something special.” Well no, if you want any of those items you need to grind. It’s not like you have the option to grind for them but also have the option to do some fun, or challenging content or even farming that dungeon. For many of those items the only viable option is grinding gold.
Grinding gold and grinding items isn’t any different. Which was my my point: GW2 has grind like any other MMOs however it does at least give you the chance to play casually which many MMO don’t do because they prevent you from playing half the content if you don’t have good gear in which case, it is different here.
Apparently, since the game is cosmetic, it is just normal that people would want to get cosmetics and therefore grind for them. Here, it depens on what people enjoy. Some people prefer RNG farming while others would just want to keep the gold farming.
In my opinion, bnoth systems are bad and I would rather have a token system in which case monsters drop tokens that could be used to purchase stuff. It means that you don’t need to play the dungeon for months if you are unlucky and you don’t get the RNG drop. Also, it would feel more rewarding than just getting gold and buying stuff with it. The tokens are also supposed to be RNG-based however, it would be nice if they had a decent drop-rate so they would feel rewarding and yet not easy to get.
“But you can grind if you want something special.” Well no, if you want any of those items you need to grind. It’s not like you have the option to grind for them but also have the option to do some fun, or challenging content or even farming that dungeon. For many of those items the only viable option is grinding gold.
Which items? They are very limited. Most stuff in the game can be done from a lot of place. You can play where you want and you eventually gonna have your items (with few exception like fractal weapons). Now of course you can grind to have these items faster, but you don’t need to. You can play what you want and eventually get the items you want and that’s the important
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
“Compare especially grinding raids to gear up players for different fights in different succeeding raids” and then I use that excuse… here is comes: But you should not grind those raids to get the gear. You should just play the content (raids) for fun and while doing so you will get the gear and can do those different fight. You will also level up along the way.
There you see, I used that same excuse for your example of grind.
Only, that’s not how raids work in WoW-type games. If they would, you’d be right, yes. But they’re not, they’re a separate artificially-added max-level content meant to replace the main game once its primary content-progression mechanic (gaining levels) ceases to function.
GW2’s core concept was to eschew this and not have the content become automatically outdated as you level. It functions quite differently in this regard.
Sure, you get mats for the items you need, just not nearly enough to get all those items you want. Oow and let me clarify that’s also not what I would like (getting all the gold / mats I need along the way) as that would be similar to handing out the items for free. No, I want them to be rewarded for specific interesting content. So I can directly work towards them and have fun on my road to getting them.
Well, I would like to, too.
Only again, no one does this yet. If someone could make a MMO where I can meaningfully challenge myself with non-repeating actually difficult (i.e.: I can fail and get no chance to retry, branching the content/story) challenges to acquire certain things, and balance it so that stuff isn’t overly common and still has bragging rights value, awesome. I’d love to play that.
In the absence of which, having a system where all gameplay progresses you towards your end goal of say, a full set of Ascended or a Precursor naturally is preferably to one where I have to specifically lay down whatever I am doing, pick up something else, and grind that so I can get something to go back to what I was originally doing and continue there (an issue WoW had especially with PvP gear in the early days, but Naxx40 really makes a great example, too).
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
It was when your main class was warrior – the only setupyou could try to go find a team was 4 DwG’s (you were DwG) UA, HB imbagon and mesmer of unknown to me build
I know there were teambuilds like frostway and other that cleared even HM in matter of minutes but average run with randoms on that setup took averagely 2h and finding full team for that was avergaely 30 minutes – there was always too much dwg’s never enought monka and long wait for imbagon and mes to show up – especially considering that both of them had place in more time-efficient build
#justwarriormainingpeoplethings
about reverie – I keep missing this event ^^
[but I have tormented shield in gw2 and I’m happy with that]
Cool. I forget what we ran, but at some point we were running 3 groups every night for DoA and 2 for Fow/Uw. I always played monk, accept in UW speed clears and i toss between Monk and As*as*in. I really enjoyed doing those and i do vaguely remember needing an Obsidian flesh warrior on at least 2 realms. I totally don’t remember the group comp, it’s been a long while. But, I completely remember the solo and Duo farms in UW. Man i’d do those for days on end, they were so much fun. 55 and 605 monks, that was a blast.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
Let’s also bear in mind that Anet actually brought up the manifesto, which I dissected line by line in so many posts I won’t repeat it here. But there’s no possible way to look at it, using the manifesto’s own words, to make anyone think that they mean any definition of grind but the standard one.
We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2 is a line in a paragraph about combat. Not a paragraph about gear or farming or gaining gold. Grind, as in killing stuff to gain levels. What it means to most old timers.
If you can find something in the manifesto which supports your definition, I’d love to hear it. Because in 3 years since it’s been out, no one has provided anything but that single out of context line, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. But everything around it defines it as something other than people are saying.
You can win any argument if you ignore the evidence.
Grind is and always has meant doing something repetitively to achieve some goal. It is synonymous with farming. It has never been directly tied to leveling only. You can certainly level grind, you can also farm experience. You can faction grind or you can farm faction. You can grind mobs for loot or you can farm mobs for loot. It’s all the same. As far back as SWG people were grinding for all sorts of things. Mission grinding for cash, experience grinding for leveling, experience grinding for jedi unlocks, merc/geonosian grinding for cubes/adhesive, or just faction grinding to swap sides or buy faction loot. So unless ArenaNet missed a decade of grind being used in a ton of different ways, your argument doesn’t hold water.
You also realize that when he says combat he is talking about anything that involves combat, which ranges from quests to farming mobs. It is exactly why they go on about what makes GW2 events different. That is why he says
“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff”
The problem is that that is exactly what you do in GW2. Want the BIS gear? Grind. Want a certain WvW rank unlock? Grind. Achievement point unlocks? Grind. Awesome looking skins? Grind. BIS runes/sigils? Grind. Legendaries? Grind. Crafting? Grind. Even if by some stretch of the imagination we are talking purely combat, that’s a grind too! GW2 has an incredibly shallow grindy combat system, I was hoping they would go the TCOS route but they decided to stick with mediocrity. Honestly the “fun stuff” is incredibly few and far between, which is why the game is grindy. Instead of introducing fun content they slap in grind content. Any fun content they do add is usually temporary, which ultimately hurt the game.
So the wikipedia article is wrong? Wow. Maybe you should edit it.
They could indeed learn some things from TCOS, also the quest. Anet seems to think quest need to be boring but TCOS had some great ones. There no stats on gear would also fit into GW’s philosophy I think. I usually use WoW as comparison as most people know WoW and only a few know TCOS but yes they could learn something from TCOS.
Heck, they could learn something from the original. Gear not being tied to stats, that would be pretty awesome. When i first played this game i really was scratching my head as to why they chose to stat gear, seemed like such a step backward to me.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
Grind is and always has meant doing something repetitively to achieve some goal. It is synonymous with farming. It has never been directly tied to leveling only. You can certainly level grind, you can also farm experience. You can faction grind or you can farm faction. You can grind mobs for loot or you can farm mobs for loot. It’s all the same. As far back as SWG people were grinding for all sorts of things. Mission grinding for cash, experience grinding for leveling, experience grinding for jedi unlocks, merc/geonosian grinding for cubes/adhesive, or just faction grinding to swap sides or buy faction loot. So unless ArenaNet missed a decade of grind being used in a ton of different ways, your argument doesn’t hold water.
You also realize that when he says combat he is talking about anything that involves combat, which ranges from quests to farming mobs. It is exactly why they go on about what makes GW2 events different. That is why he says
“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff”
The problem is that that is exactly what you do in GW2. Want the BIS gear? Grind. Want a certain WvW rank unlock? Grind. Achievement point unlocks? Grind. Awesome looking skins? Grind. BIS runes/sigils? Grind. Legendaries? Grind. Crafting? Grind. Even if by some stretch of the imagination we are talking purely combat, that’s a grind too! GW2 has an incredibly shallow grindy combat system, I was hoping they would go the TCOS route but they decided to stick with mediocrity. Honestly the “fun stuff” is incredibly few and far between, which is why the game is grindy. Instead of introducing fun content they slap in grind content. Any fun content they do add is usually temporary, which ultimately hurt the game.
So the wikipedia article is wrong? Wow. Maybe you should edit it.
I always felt like grind was a repetitive thing, either leveling killing the same mobs over and over or killing the same mobs over and over to farm a certain item. We had a decent amount of that in the earlier days of GW2, but it’s definitely gotten better. Least now you don’t have to “farm” charged lodestones from a single source.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
Hey folks,
I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.
When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.
So what exactly does that mean:
- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)
- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.
There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.
Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.
Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.
Edit : I’d also like to remind you all that ascended tier items were added because a vocal minority (not pointing fingers here) asked for something to grind for once they’ve finished the game.
Ascended was planned before the game even came out. The first public announcements were relatively shortly after launch.
Make no mistake, it may have taken a long time before all the slots got an ascended variant but it started very early.
http://www.pcgamer.com/arenanet-guild-wars-2-ascended-backlash/
Note the date. November 15th, not even 3 months after release, and they were about ready to push out the patch that was going to add the first ascended gear. Not just talking about it, no it was ready, done.
Ascended was planned well before the game launched.
(edited by Terrahero.9358)
Traits are something that is very close to ‘you need it’ (is mandatory), however to get them, the grind is tremendously high, especially all of them.
I’ve been trying to shortcut my way into the only other way to get traits (gold + skill points), so far in those few months, i only managed to get 300 skill point scrolls. Your most likely response: ‘WHAT? 300? That’s a hell ot of a lot’. It is. But in the way for unlocking traits its absolutely nothing. It’s barely enough to get one character all the traits (240 if you don’t count the XIII traits). If I imagined, that i didn’t level all character to 8 (and all professions) before the trait update, having to do this trait grind 1-7 times, that would be an extremely big grind. Potentially 1680 skill point scrolls necessary and 350 gold.
You could say, just do normal way then? That is just as much of a grind AND limits your choice a lot in how to get them. Only ONE CHOICE then to get them. The other option is like above skill point scrolls, wich luckely, quite some content now gives.
So to stay true to this pilosophy, either traits must be able to be unlocked in a lot more content (even pvp, that can unlock pve traits), wvw, etc, or the skill point requirement must be lowered a hell of a lot, (to something like 50-100 per profession to get all but the XIII traits).
Legendary weapons can be hidden now!
No excuse anymore for not giving ‘hide mounts’-option
No thanks to unidentified weapons.
No excuse anymore for not giving ‘hide mounts’-option
No thanks to unidentified weapons.
Hey folks,
I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.
When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.
So what exactly does that mean:
- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)
- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.
There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.
Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.
Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.
I think you guys get a lot of flack over perception of grind rather than most things actually being all that grindy. I don’t personally do much that I feel has become a grind, and so far that’s not found me unable to do whatever I wanted, so kudos for that.
I would like to point at traits though. There’s no reasonable argument that could be made to dismiss traits as being optional – they’re as essential as gear to any complete build, no matter the build’s purpose.
Where was this philosophy applied when locking traits behind recursive per-character activities and/or a gold and skillpoint paywall?
One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.
Traits are something that is very close to ‘you need it’ (is mandatory), however to get them, the grind is tremendously high, especially all of them.
I’ve been trying to shortcut my way into the only other way to get traits (gold + skill points), so far in those few months, i only managed to get 300 skill point scrolls. Your most likely response: ‘WHAT? 300? That’s a hell ot of a lot’. It is. But in the way for unlocking traits its absolutely nothing. It’s barely enough to get one character all the traits (240 if you don’t count the XIII traits). If I imagined, that i didn’t level all character to 8 (and all professions) before the trait update, having to do this trait grind 1-7 times, that would be an extremely big grind. Potentially 1680 skill point scrolls necessary and 350 gold.
You could say, just do normal way then? That is just as much of a grind AND limits your choice a lot in how to get them. Only ONE CHOICE then to get them. The other option is like above skill point scrolls, wich luckely, quite some content now gives.
So to stay true to this pilosophy, either traits must be able to be unlocked in a lot more content (even pvp, that can unlock pve traits), wvw, etc, or the skill point requirement must be lowered a hell of a lot, (to something like 50-100 per profession to get all but the XIII traits).
How is unlocking a trait grindy by the definition provided? Each trait is associated with a different event (in many cases different game modes) – so, by the definition set, this is the opposite (and you can always just buy them for a minimal cost).