Guild Wars 2

To everyone complaining about Random Number Generator (RNG) and grind in Guild Wars 2 (GW2): You guys need to play more Massively Multiplayer Online Roly Playing Games (MMORPG). Lets take a Free-to-Play (FTP) game such as Forsaken World (FW) for instance. To get any where in the game you need certain items to progress. The RNG in that game is so bad that many people use the in-game botting system to farm the items that they need. Basically meaning your character needs to be logged in for days on end (24/7) just to get items that you need.

World of Warcraft (WoW) a subscription based MMORPG that makes you spend weeks to months performing raids to get best-in-slot gear. This is repeated often for new best-in-slot gear is added often. During these raids it is not guaranteed that you will get the piece you need. Some raids you can only perform once a week making you wait for another chance (hence chance) at getting the piece you need. To get other items in the game you need to compete with other players (as drops are not shared between the players) to grind to get items since drop rates are low to force you to grind.

Perfect World (PW) is similar to FW (made by the same company) but has even worse grind and drop rates to the point you have to kill monsters for hours or even days just to get items for a single quest. You basically sit there for hours killing a specific mob in a specific area for hours to months (depends on how lucky you are) just hoping you will get that one item.

In GW2, precursors are pretty common as evidence by the number of people with legendaries in LA. Also, money is easy to obtain in GW2 where as in WoW, FW, and PW money takes forever to obtain. WoW, FW, and PW require you to grind for long periods of time inorder to obtain enough money to buy anything useful.

So if you want to complain go ahead, but I suggest you play Forsaken World and Perfect World first and make the comparison. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG makes most MMOs look like bloody nightmare. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG you are making a comparison of a form. If you want to say GW2 is grindy which MMORPG has less grind? Which MMORPG has better RNG?

WoW, FW, and PW are worse on these two points so if your making a comparison with these games you are insane! Just for your information I have never gotten a precursor in 1500+ hours of playing Guild Wars 2.

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Also, WoW was designed with grinding in mind. People know to expect it every few months. However their grinds, while more, are shorter. Thus they become more GRATIFYING (and why WOW was criticized for spoiling the mmo community with all of its “instant gratification”). The thing is, many small grinds are okay because you feel rewarded. In gw2 you can’t even “grind” for half the stuff you want. You end up grinding gold to buy it all because the drops are very unreliable, hence no gratification until the very end of a looooong road for just 1 reward (say, a legendary). And for most, it’s just not worth it. Grinds need some satisfaction to justify continuing your grind. And to be frank, grinding ascended/legendaries in gw2 is both boring and unsatisfying.

On the whole, it’s not so bad. But in certain areas, such as buying dyes from the cash shop and getting a precursor from the Mystic Forge, this game blows any Korean grinder out the water.

The only difference is that these things are optional, which is a big difference, but the rng aspect of it is still abysmal.

One, uh… WoW. You can get caught up and SEE new rewards daily, just by running heroics… Do a few BGs you get a new epic. It has more grinds but each one is less frustrating and you can feel the difference fairly quick. It’s that gratification that makes ANY grind worth it. Plus you can see your rewards in wow, like drops in dungeons, raids feel fun because you have a (good) chance at skipping some grinds and getting awesome instant gratification. If GW2 dropped say 1 ascended armor piece at the last boss of any dungeon, could be 1 random piece with any random set, people would be FAR MORE likely to grind because anticipating that drop (knowing SOMETHING WILL drop) and hoping it would be tailored to you gives people excitement and gratification. Grinding 250 of a material you can’t even grind alone without spending money isn’t fun. You HAVE to make the grind (no matter big or small) fun and FEEL rewarding. There is nothing epic feeling about grinding gold and buying mats.

ronpierce.2760:

Also, WoW was designed with grinding in mind. People know to expect it every few months. However their grinds, while more, are shorter. Thus they become more GRATIFYING (and why WOW was criticized for spoiling the mmo community with all of its “instant gratification”). The thing is, many small grinds are okay because you feel rewarded. In gw2 you can’t even “grind” for half the stuff you want. You end up grinding gold to buy it all because the drops are very unreliable, hence no gratification until the very end of a looooong road for just 1 reward (say, a legendary). And for most, it’s just not worth it. Grinds need some satisfaction to justify continuing your grind. And to be frank, grinding ascended/legendaries in gw2 is both boring and unsatisfying.

There is one major issue with what your saying. You say "In gw2 you can’t even “grind” for half the stuff you want." that is in your opinion. I do not grind for anything I want i just accumulate and play the game the way it was designed. Play it for fun not for the rewards. Legendary is a long term goal (hence long term) meaning your not supposed to acquire it a month into playing the game. If your playing the game for rewards and not for fun then why are you even playing? Such as why are you doing this: “And to be frank, grinding ascended/legendaries in gw2 is both boring and unsatisfying.”?

I have 3 ascended weapons, and I am working on getting my ascended armour for my main character. I have 10 characters in total (0 of them are mules), long term goal is to fully equip them with ascended weapons, armour, and trinkets.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Why should we have to? I don’t see anyone saying that the RNG and grind is comparatively bad, just that it’s objectively bad.

The fact that everyone else is worse is irrelevant, unless you care to explain how it’s not?

I think a better argument is that the amount of grind and RNG is no worse than the minimum required to keep people in the game.

ronpierce.2760:

One, uh… WoW. You can get caught up and SEE new rewards daily, just by running heroics… Do a few BGs you get a new epic. It has more grinds but each one is less frustrating and you can feel the difference fairly quick. It’s that gratification that makes ANY grind worth it. Plus you can see your rewards in wow, like drops in dungeons, raids feel fun because you have a (good) chance at skipping some grinds and getting awesome instant gratification. If GW2 dropped say 1 ascended armor piece at the last boss of any dungeon, could be 1 random piece with any random set, people would be FAR MORE likely to grind because anticipating that drop (knowing SOMETHING WILL drop) and hoping it would be tailored to you gives people excitement and gratification. Grinding 250 of a material you can’t even grind alone without spending money isn’t fun. You HAVE to make the grind (no matter big or small) fun and FEEL rewarding. There is nothing epic feeling about grinding gold and buying mats.

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun. So to you so far Rewards is the Fun but Fun is not the Reward. I rather play a game for fun rather than get rewards.

In PW, FW, and WoW to even get to the fun you need the rewards. Basically, its an endless grind of rewards with little to no fun for me since its repetitive to the extreme.

Lets take in another type of game for a second. Borderlands for instance give rewards and is fun to me. Getting a better gun is not fun, but what the gun does however is fun. I play borderlands not the for the Rewards = Fun but for the Fun that is not given by rewards.

Now that they made the jump to armor tiers, that’s bad. You need access to the highest tier at any given time because in a competitive room (like wvw) being out geared due to the games VERY LONG grinds is not fun. In wow, each update, it didn’t take TOO long to get up to par and people generally progressed at a similar rate. If legendaries and ascended stayed aesthetic, not many people would care, it just wouldn’t be worth it to them and they wouldn’t do it.

I will say though precursors SO rarely being personally obtained for the weapon you want means people almost always have to buy it, and forking over 200-1000 gold for a precursor does not feel rewarding, fun NOR legendary. It makes the fact that you’re grinding that much more noticeable and frustrating.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

One, uh… WoW. You can get caught up and SEE new rewards daily, just by running heroics… Do a few BGs you get a new epic. It has more grinds but each one is less frustrating and you can feel the difference fairly quick. It’s that gratification that makes ANY grind worth it. Plus you can see your rewards in wow, like drops in dungeons, raids feel fun because you have a (good) chance at skipping some grinds and getting awesome instant gratification. If GW2 dropped say 1 ascended armor piece at the last boss of any dungeon, could be 1 random piece with any random set, people would be FAR MORE likely to grind because anticipating that drop (knowing SOMETHING WILL drop) and hoping it would be tailored to you gives people excitement and gratification. Grinding 250 of a material you can’t even grind alone without spending money isn’t fun. You HAVE to make the grind (no matter big or small) fun and FEEL rewarding. There is nothing epic feeling about grinding gold and buying mats.

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun. So to you so far Rewards is the Fun but Fun is not the Reward. I rather play a game for fun rather than get rewards.

In PW, FW, and WoW to even get to the fun you need the rewards. Basically, its an endless grind of rewards with little to no fun for me since its repetitive to the extreme.

Lets take in another type of game for a second. Borderlands for instance give rewards and is fun to me. Getting a better gun is not fun, but what the gun does however is fun. I play borderlands not the for the Rewards = Fun but for the Fun that is not given by rewards.

You are reading what you want to read. First off, yes, rewards ARE fun. Especially in an mmo, a genre based around looting. (you loot a LOT in GW2, it’s all just trash) secondly, what really makes it unfun is that these grinds are forcing you to be weaker because now there is vertical progression. Gw2 wasn’t meant to be that way.

That’s funny. I raid on WoW for about 3-4 hrs a week and get geared in a couple months. Typically there are 5-6 months between tiers. I have fun and it’s not a grind. What would I get out of 3-4 hrs a week here? Probably spend half of it simply waiting on a single Teq event lol

You should of seen the exp grind in ff11 back when there where only 75 level and it would take you nearly a year to get to 75. That and you lost gil (gold) when you exp and it was ungodly hard to make any type of real gil (gold) i spent days farming the same bees lol. GW2 is soo much more user friendly then all the real mmorpg that come in the past.

TooBz.3065:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Why should we have to? I don’t see anyone saying that the RNG and grind is comparatively bad, just that it’s objectively bad.

The fact that everyone else is worse is irrelevant, unless you care to explain how it’s not?

I think a better argument is that the amount of grind and RNG is no worse than the minimum required to keep people in the game.

By saying something is bad you have to have something to subjectively compare it to. Comparison in this case is not objective but subjective.

If everyone else is worse than this game is the best and if every other game is worse than why do people play them and not complain as much in the forms. There is a reason for this comparison that you failed to comprehend.

A subjective comparison can lead to an objective solution to the problem. Such as by bringing out why a game has better RNG and grind can determine what you subjectively want to see in a game.

Hey OP. Most people know me as a big defender of this game…and a defender who got a precursor drop at that.

The RNG is pretty bad here. Mind you, there were these sorts of RNG things going on in Guild Wars 1 as well, so I wasn’t completely surprised. For example, I ran a dungeon called Bogroot Growths hundreds of times without getting a Frog Scepter, which could only be gotten from that dungeon.

What they did in Guild Wars 2 was make it so that you didn’t have to run one dungeon. You can get a precusor from most places in the game. If you’re level 80 you can get them from WvW, jumping puzzle chests, open world foes (not just bosses) or dungeons. In that sense it’s pretty generous.

The problem is, without a traditional end game (and even Guild Wars 1 had end game in the form elite content that had it’s own unique drops), the end game some people are left with is making a legendary.

The problem is, farming for gold to buy one in no way feels epic…and that includes the precursor as well.

In these other games, it’s a bit different with the grind. You’re running specific content for specific drops. Here you’re just wandering around without signposts, hoping it will drop from somewhere.

I actually prefer this solution, but I can see why it would frustrate people and in fact, I’ve often felt the precursor situation was badly designed.

On the other hand, the dye situation I think is fine and the problems with it are often overstated.

Suddenflame.2601:

So if you want to complain go ahead, but I suggest you play Forsaken World and Perfect World first and make the comparison. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG makes most MMOs look like bloody nightmare.

Most of them are bloody nightmares. Forsaken World, at least when I played it in beta, was a horror of stupid grind. One of the best ways to get experience was running around doing a set of the same dumb dailies in the capitol city. You could “train” by targeting a dummy and starting auto-attack and leave it overnight to come back to a character who had leveled a couple times.

The thing is, you can say that getting your pinky finger amputated is a lot better than getting your whole arm removed, but that doesn’t suddenly turn it into something positive.

GW2 was billed as an MMORPG for people who dislike MMORPGs. Instead, it turned out to be the MMORPG that’s not as bad as other MMORPGs.

By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG you are making a comparison of a form. If you want to say GW2 is grindy which MMORPG has less grind? Which MMORPG has better RNG?

So we’re only allowed to criticize if we can point out someone who does it better?

Suddenflame.2601:

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun.

Would you mind if the devs decided to make it so that your account got no drops/rewards whatsoever, while everyone else’s remained normal? According to your logic, you wouldn’t mind at all, because you play the hame for fun, not for rewards.

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

One, uh… WoW. You can get caught up and SEE new rewards daily, just by running heroics… Do a few BGs you get a new epic. It has more grinds but each one is less frustrating and you can feel the difference fairly quick. It’s that gratification that makes ANY grind worth it. Plus you can see your rewards in wow, like drops in dungeons, raids feel fun because you have a (good) chance at skipping some grinds and getting awesome instant gratification. If GW2 dropped say 1 ascended armor piece at the last boss of any dungeon, could be 1 random piece with any random set, people would be FAR MORE likely to grind because anticipating that drop (knowing SOMETHING WILL drop) and hoping it would be tailored to you gives people excitement and gratification. Grinding 250 of a material you can’t even grind alone without spending money isn’t fun. You HAVE to make the grind (no matter big or small) fun and FEEL rewarding. There is nothing epic feeling about grinding gold and buying mats.

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun. So to you so far Rewards is the Fun but Fun is not the Reward. I rather play a game for fun rather than get rewards.

In PW, FW, and WoW to even get to the fun you need the rewards. Basically, its an endless grind of rewards with little to no fun for me since its repetitive to the extreme.

Lets take in another type of game for a second. Borderlands for instance give rewards and is fun to me. Getting a better gun is not fun, but what the gun does however is fun. I play borderlands not the for the Rewards = Fun but for the Fun that is not given by rewards.

You are reading what you want to read. First off, yes, rewards ARE fun. Especially in an mmo, a genre based around looting. (you loot a LOT in GW2, it’s all just trash) secondly, what really makes it unfun is that these grinds are forcing you to be weaker because now there is vertical progression. Gw2 wasn’t meant to be that way.

You just confirmed what I said…. Loot to me does not equal fun at all. MMO is not about looting (since thats just Massively Multiplayer Online which can be any type of game). RPG can contain looting but is not the core of the genre.

Ascended is a small vertical progression, but its not a gear treadmill and by playing for fun rather than grinding I am still able to construct my ascended gear. Your trying to rush through the game when its trying to prevent you. Your fighting the systems in the game in pursuit of the loot.

EG of SoR used to run Tequatl, twice a day, every day. They got 3 Ascended chests from Tequatl every week on average.

150 people x 1 hour x 2 a day = 300 invested man hours per day
300 man hours x 7 days = 2100 man hours per week
2100 man hours per week / 3 Ascended chests = 700 man hours per Ascended chest.

If you killed Tequatl every day, it would take you 2 years on average to get 1 Ascended drop.

Name me any other MMO where it takes 2 years (have to play every day) to get 1 item.

tomlin.8204:

Suddenflame.2601:

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun.

Would you mind if the devs decided to make it so that your account got no drops/rewards whatsoever, while everyone else’s remained normal? According to your logic, you wouldn’t mind at all, because you play the hame for fun, not for rewards.

You would be correct on that grounds I would not care. I do not grind for gold or for anything in this game. I do what I do for the fun of it or for the Achievement.

Peetee.9406:

EG of SoR used to run Tequatl, twice a day, every day. They got 3 Ascended chests from Tequatl every week on average.

150 people x 1 hour x 2 a day = 300 invested man hours per day
300 man hours x 7 days = 2100 man hours per week
2100 man hours per week / 3 Ascended chests = 700 man hours per Ascended chest.

If you killed Tequatl every day, it would take you 2 years on average to get 1 Ascended drop.

Name me any other MMO where it takes 2 years (have to play every day) to get 1 item.

You’re 100% right. I didn’t have an ascended weapon 2 weeks after they were introduced….oh wait….

Peetee.9406:

EG of SoR used to run Tequatl, twice a day, every day. They got 3 Ascended chests from Tequatl every week on average.

150 people x 1 hour x 2 a day = 300 invested man hours per day
300 man hours x 7 days = 2100 man hours per week
2100 man hours per week / 3 Ascended chests = 700 man hours per Ascended chest.

If you killed Tequatl every day, it would take you 2 years on average to get 1 Ascended drop.

Name me any other MMO where it takes 2 years (have to play every day) to get 1 item.

Not enough data points to get an accurate picture with not enough attempts. Also PW I just named one LOL

I love reading pretty much pointless reactionary threads like this that react to another thread reacting to what happened to them in the game, even though you could have probably posted everything in the same thread instead of wasting space on the front page of the general discussion forums for another similarly themed thread.

A game that actually does grinding well is StarTrek Online. There is a ‘reputation’ system that allows you to make steady progress towards various rewards, and the initial steps are quite easy. Basically, no RNG at all.

Here, the results are very uncertain except for dungeon runs.

Vayne.8563:

Hey OP. Most people know me as a big defender of this game…and a defender who got a precursor drop at that.

The RNG is pretty bad here. Mind you, there were these sorts of RNG things going on in Guild Wars 1 as well, so I wasn’t completely surprised. For example, I ran a dungeon called Bogroot Growths hundreds of times without getting a Frog Scepter, which could only be gotten from that dungeon.

What they did in Guild Wars 2 was make it so that you didn’t have to run one dungeon. You can get a precusor from most places in the game. If you’re level 80 you can get them from WvW, jumping puzzle chests, open world foes (not just bosses) or dungeons. In that sense it’s pretty generous.

The problem is, without a traditional end game (and even Guild Wars 1 had end game in the form elite content that had it’s own unique drops), the end game some people are left with is making a legendary.

The problem is, farming for gold to buy one in no way feels epic…and that includes the precursor as well.

In these other games, it’s a bit different with the grind. You’re running specific content for specific drops. Here you’re just wandering around without signposts, hoping it will drop from somewhere.

I actually prefer this solution, but I can see why it would frustrate people and in fact, I’ve often felt the precursor situation was badly designed.

On the other hand, the dye situation I think is fine and the problems with it are often overstated.

From what I gathered from your post (I read a lot of your posts so I am aware) is that there is no solid end game like there was in GW1. I know the dungeon you speak of cause I was after that scepter as well (never did get it).

People just have to go away from the opinion that they MUST have a legendary.

I have 11 80s and all are full exotic, 10 of them have at least 1 ascended weapon, and most have quite some nice skins.

So since it was said that shorter grinds feel more rewarding, maybe do what i do .. instead of grinding forever for one stupid legendary, buy something nice for all your toons more often … this for me feels very rewarding

Suddenflame.2601:

tomlin.8204:

Suddenflame.2601:

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun.

Would you mind if the devs decided to make it so that your account got no drops/rewards whatsoever, while everyone else’s remained normal? According to your logic, you wouldn’t mind at all, because you play the hame for fun, not for rewards.

You would be correct on that grounds I would not care. I do not grind for gold or for anything in this game. I do what I do for the fun of it or for the Achievement.

I’m going to be frank, you sort of sound like a guy who shouldn’t be posting about the build of an MMO. If you don’t care about loot at all, why do you even comment on how good or bad a grind is? Of course it isn’t bad to you if you literally don’t care if the items existed or not… The grind IS bad for people who give a kitten , for the very few people like you who don’t care, it doesn’t matter if you think its fine or not because it clearly doesn’t phase you. Not trying to be rude, but your state of mind in not caring about loot doesn’t fit with the general MMO*RPG* player mentality, you’re just a casual player. And that’s fine, but not really the type of person to make design calls… If you can play an MMO with absolutely 0 rewards, what is most peoples’ “fun factor”, that’s fine, but in that case you’d enjoy just about any game well designed or not… You’re a rarity, and frankly a lazy game designers delight.. x.X

Stop thinking it as ‘grinding’. find a way to make gold that u have fun with. for instance I run dungeons (only the ones I like though) for an easy 15-20g/day and am satisfied with that. haven’t jumped on a single train and dont ever plan on it.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Everquest 2. Vanguard.

nagr.1593:

Stop thinking it as ‘grinding’. find a way to make gold that u have fun with. for instance I run dungeons (only the ones I like though) for an easy 15-20g/day and am satisfied with that. haven’t jumped on a single train and dont ever plan on it.

Let me just say this, it isn’t about the grind. It’s the way the grind is. There are epic ways to introduce a long grind. And then there is the lazy way, which causes 80% of the “grind” to just be saving up gold because you can’t realistically “grind” the materials yourself. TO ME, it’s more of a design issue than a grind issue.

I played WoW until 2 years ago, and i only did BGs and arenas, and i don’t consider it to have been a massive grind. I had to hit the BGs for 3 or 4 weeks (1 or 2 hours a day during the week … i can’t be bothered to spend my life online) in the beginning of the expansion, and then only had to do 10 arenas or 7 random dungeons a week to get PVP BiS gear (i couldn’t get the Tier 2 shoulders nor the weapons, since i lacked the pvp rating). That game has been less and less about grind in the last years (when it comes to PVP), and more about equal footing for everyone, casual or hardcore. They even scratched the rating requirements for stat upgrades, having only skin upgrades (different colored armor) for people with higher rating.

Now the grind to get ascended gear? I’m not even gonna bother, and since i don’t want to be cannon fodder in WvW, i don’t even play anymore.

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

tomlin.8204:

Suddenflame.2601:

So basically from what I been reading about what you want is to play a game for rewards and not just for the sake of having fun.

Would you mind if the devs decided to make it so that your account got no drops/rewards whatsoever, while everyone else’s remained normal? According to your logic, you wouldn’t mind at all, because you play the hame for fun, not for rewards.

You would be correct on that grounds I would not care. I do not grind for gold or for anything in this game. I do what I do for the fun of it or for the Achievement.

I’m going to be frank, you sort of sound like a guy who shouldn’t be posting about the build of an MMO. If you don’t care about loot at all, why do you even comment on how good or bad a grind is? Of course it isn’t bad to you if you literally don’t care if the items existed or not… The grind IS bad for people who give a kitten , for the very few people like you who don’t care, it doesn’t matter if you think its fine or not because it clearly doesn’t phase you. Not trying to be rude, but your state of mind in not caring about loot doesn’t fit with the general MMO*RPG* player mentality, you’re just a casual player. And that’s fine, but not really the type of person to make design calls… If you can play an MMO with absolutely 0 rewards, what is most peoples’ “fun factor”, that’s fine, but in that case you’d enjoy just about any game well designed or not… You’re a rarity, and frankly a lazy game designers delight.. x.X

Just because I do not care about loot does not mean I am not aware of the situations with loot. If the item exists that I want I will achieve to get it within my means of playing. I can tell you right now I am not a casual player as my amount of playing is the middle ground. Casual are below me, and constant players are above me. With about 1800 hours played since prelaunch.

Here is a question: Why must loot and rewards be the fun factor?

Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and soon Dark Souls 2 are not played for loot but rather for the challenges they present. If you went into Demon souls with a Loot mentality you will find the game boring but go into the game with my achievement mentality and the game is exciting. I am not a lazy designers delight but rather there nightmare.

It is easy to make new loot for people to chase, and easy content that is rewarding that will allow you to chase that carrot. Why I am the devil to them is because they have to develop hard content that work within the mechanics in the game. GW2 is trying to cater to my group of people but hasn’t fully succeeded at it yet but they are working on it as evidence Teq.

Your mentality is for the lazy designers hence why there are so many games like that. To make loot and balance loot around difficulty is easy but making challenging content to keep me occupied is not easy.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Everquest 2. Vanguard.

Explain why they are better to you. Since it is subjective.

nagr.1593:

Stop thinking it as ‘grinding’. find a way to make gold that u have fun with. for instance I run dungeons (only the ones I like though) for an easy 15-20g/day and am satisfied with that. haven’t jumped on a single train and dont ever plan on it.

Ok, and if you don’t like Dungeons or Fractals as I do not, how does one earn golds in game? The only other way to earn is to flip or farm, which are both grinds. Which is not that fun to do but, it’s what you have to do. So when you’re sitting there mindlessly grinding and someone get’s those “Lottery Drop” precursors, rare dyes, etc. it makes the game far less “fun”. As it’s near impossible to not start resenting other players and especially the Developers for making such a system.

Other games grind and RNG being worse does not automatically make GW2 good.

I don’t have a problem with the RNG in GW2 loot, my personal issue is with the loot distribution. While the free loot system of the game and no mob tagging is something I LIKE, there is still much to be desired on how gear is distributed among PARTY MEMBERS.

Let’s take some examples. In other games, the bosses drop gear, or tokens to get that gear or whatever system they use, but obviously not enough for all members of a party/raid. This is done to encourage those players to play the same instanced content again and again, if everyone got their gear from the first kill, it would take away all the fun, and potential to repeat.

In GW2 they wanted a system to award the best gear to only a handful of people, the result is the same with the other MMORPGs (few people out of many get the gear) if you compare how many people get a precursor/ascended weapon from let’s say Tequatl out of the 100+ needed to kill it, with how many people get raid gear in a 100+ man raid they shouldn’t be very far off (it’s luck based, some times it might be more people get super gear, other times none) but I believe Anet has tweaked the system in a way to produce similar results (don’t have data on this though, it’s just an estimate).

The HUGE difference between the loot systems when it coems to distribution, is that in other MMORPGs, parties/raids have access to a variety of loot distribution mechanics and I personaly believe that those still using the Need/Greed random roll loot distribution in those games are doing it wrong.

In other MMORPGs in big party instances the guild/team can (and in lots of times they will) distribute the loot according to needs, others gear up the tanks first, others the healers, others their guild leader or use a special point system. The key here is that even in a 100-man raid you KNOW you will get your gear eventually, it will be your turn, once all Warriors that had been raiding for months get their Ascended weapon, it will be your turn to gear up your Warrior with one. Instead of praying to the RNG gods, you just need to play with your team (shocking)

In Guild Wars 2 you are playing with complete randoms, and while the system in place works well while playing with randoms, it is simply horrible when playing with guild mates and friends.

Let’s take a few examples of how some horrible situations in GW2 are handled much better in other games: Suppose you have a Fractal Sword skin and your friend has a D/D Thief with 2 Fractal Daggers, you want a Dagger for your ele and he wants a Sword for his Guardian. You play FotM 40 with your buddy and you get another Sword while he gets another dagger…. and of course you can’t exchange them.

Similar with Fractal Rings, Ascended Armor and Weapons from Tequatl/Wurm etc when you get the stats you DON’T want but your friend/guildie wants them. It’s a seriously flawed loot distribution system.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

For the reasons mentioned above, lots of western MMORPGs with instanced dungeons/raids. At least they let guilds distribute the gear how they want, which is infinite times better than praying to the RNG gods. Also, everyone in a raid/party KNOWS their time will eventually come, unlike in GW2 your time might never come in 100 years

Fine, in my subjective opinion the RNG in this game is unpleasant. The only way I can enjoy the game is if I don’t try to get anything. Whenever I set a goal, I’m frustrated, irritated, and annoyed the entire time until I abandon it and go back to faffing about.

I can’t see how that can be good design.

DeWolfe.2174:

nagr.1593:

Stop thinking it as ‘grinding’. find a way to make gold that u have fun with. for instance I run dungeons (only the ones I like though) for an easy 15-20g/day and am satisfied with that. haven’t jumped on a single train and dont ever plan on it.

Ok, and if you don’t like Dungeons or Fractals as I do not, how does one earn golds in game? The only other way to earn is to flip or farm, which are both grinds. Which is not that fun to do but, it’s what you have to do. So when you’re sitting there mindlessly grinding and someone get’s those “Lottery Drop” precursors, rare dyes, etc. it makes the game far less “fun”. As it’s near impossible to not start resenting other players and especially the Developers for making such a system.

Other games grind and RNG being worse does not automatically make GW2 good.

Well what aspects of the game do you like to play? I am not asking about ways to get money or what gives you the best loot, but rather which aspects of the game you like to play not based on its loot factor?

I play WvW more often, FOTM occasionally, Dungeons once a month (unless some of good buddies are on). I am sitting on over 300g atm (went up 20g recently) just from playing the way I want to. Hell I havnt done a World Boss in 3 weeks.

Suddenflame.2601:

To everyone complaining about Random Number Generator (RNG) and grind in Guild Wars 2 (GW2): You guys need to play more Massively Multiplayer Online Roly Playing Games (MMORPG).

- No, I recommend players who dislike manipulative mechanics to stay away from all MMORPG games.

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t have a problem with the RNG in GW2 loot, my personal issue is with the loot distribution. While the free loot system of the game and no mob tagging is something I LIKE, there is still much to be desired on how gear is distributed among PARTY MEMBERS.

Let’s take some examples. In other games, the bosses drop gear, or tokens to get that gear or whatever system they use, but obviously not enough for all members of a party/raid. This is done to encourage those players to play the same instanced content again and again, if everyone got their gear from the first kill, it would take away all the fun, and potential to repeat.

In GW2 they wanted a system to award the best gear to only a handful of people, the result is the same with the other MMORPGs (few people out of many get the gear) if you compare how many people get a precursor/ascended weapon from let’s say Tequatl out of the 100+ needed to kill it, with how many people get raid gear in a 100+ man raid they shouldn’t be very far off (it’s luck based, some times it might be more people get super gear, other times none) but I believe Anet has tweaked the system in a way to produce similar results (don’t have data on this though, it’s just an estimate).

The HUGE difference between the loot systems when it coems to distribution, is that in other MMORPGs, parties/raids have access to a variety of loot distribution mechanics and I personaly believe that those still using the Need/Greed random roll loot distribution in those games are doing it wrong.

In other MMORPGs in big party instances the guild/team can (and in lots of times they will) distribute the loot according to needs, others gear up the tanks first, others the healers, others their guild leader or use a special point system. The key here is that even in a 100-man raid you KNOW you will get your gear eventually, it will be your turn, once all Warriors that had been raiding for months get their Ascended weapon, it will be your turn to gear up your Warrior with one. Instead of praying to the RNG gods, you just need to play with your team (shocking)

In Guild Wars 2 you are playing with complete randoms, and while the system in place works well while playing with randoms, it is simply horrible when playing with guild mates and friends.

Let’s take a few examples of how some horrible situations in GW2 are handled much better in other games: Suppose you have a Fractal Sword skin and your friend has a D/D Thief with 2 Fractal Daggers, you want a Dagger for your ele and he wants a Sword for his Guardian. You play FotM 40 with your buddy and you get another Sword while he gets another dagger…. and of course you can’t exchange them.

Similar with Fractal Rings, Ascended Armor and Weapons from Tequatl/Wurm etc when you get the stats you DON’T want but your friend/guildie wants them. It’s a seriously flawed loot distribution system.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

For the reasons mentioned above, lots of western MMORPGs with instanced dungeons/raids. At least they let guilds distribute the gear how they want, which is infinite times better than praying to the RNG gods. Also, everyone in a raid/party KNOWS their time will eventually come, unlike in GW2 your time might never come in 100 years

From what I gathered you want an added party system where the party can choose how loot is distributed. (not sure how to implement it in a World Boss however) I will admit that the party system in GW2 is lacking and should be improved. They should add this but by default have it as it is.

TooBz.3065:

Fine, in my subjective opinion the RNG in this game is unpleasant. The only way I can enjoy the game is if I don’t try to get anything. Whenever I set a goal, I’m frustrated, irritated, and annoyed the entire time until I abandon it and go back to faffing about.

I can’t see how that can be good design.

When setting a goal on getting something you should first not try to make it an immediate goal, but rather one to work towards.

For a game that was advertised not to be grindy, we have a kitten hell lot of it. Everywhere. In all aspects of the game.

Who gives a kitten’s kitten about other games that are grindier but were never advertised being not grindy?

Suddenflame.2601:

From what I gathered you want an added party system where the party can choose how loot is distributed. (not sure how to implement it in a World Boss however) I will admit that the party system in GW2 is lacking and should be improved. They should add this but by default have it as it is.

In could be expanded to Squads too, if they ever allow us to form closed Squads, Squads that allow only certain people – guild members/friends to join instead of everyone. Why we don’t already have these, so guilds doing guild WvW can do it in peace, is another thing I don’t understand.

But deleting gear because it’s Account Bound and useless to me, while my best friend wants it, is something I simply can’t stand.

Changing how loot is distributed will go a long way to changing how much people hate the RNG in this game.

And btw I don’t want them to make all gear tradeable on the Trading Post, I want a way for parties to freely share Account Bound (useless otherwise) gear among them, WHILE they are in the same party, calling them “Party Bound” gear.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

For a game that was advertised not to be grindy, we have a kitten hell lot of it. Everywhere. In all aspects of the game.

Who gives a kitten’s kitten about other games that are grindier but were never advertised being not grindy?

Essentially this. Misleading advertising, BORING grinding, can’t set goals because everything is "something that might happen one day RNG willing (unless you just buy everything with gold which ruins any ounce of fun you almost could of had), less NUMERICAL grinds, but each are far longer… I mean. It’s almost to the point that it’s not even subjective anymore. It’s almost objectively a poor DESIGN. Anyone who CARES about loot pretty much hates it. Casual players who couldn’t care less if there was armor in the game or not don’t seem to always mind (and even many of them do). Once a big majority says, hey this is an issue, it stops being subjective even if a few like to argue otherwise.

(Just so you get my point and don’t be like if someone has a different opinion, it can’t be fact; murder is a BAD thing. A few people in the world may like to try to justify it, but it’s still bad. A large majority ruling tends to make concepts concrete. Yes, this is extreme, but maybe you’ll understand where I’m coming from.)

Kaiyanwan.8521:

For a game that was advertised not to be grindy, we have a kitten hell lot of it. Everywhere. In all aspects of the game.

Who gives a kitten’s kitten about other games that are grindier but were never advertised being not grindy?

My question to you is why are you trying to rush through the game? Only reason you need to grind in GW2 is to rush through it. Other games like PW and FW you need to grind to get any where cause if you don’t it will take you 100 years to get to max level let along higher grade armour. Just by Playing GW2 and not rushing (so no grinding) you can still make max level, and get ascended items within a year. By the time 3 years go by I should have my legendary weapon (as long as they add new ones cause the current ones aren’t my style). Hell without even trying for a legendary I have 70% of it complete.

Threads like these seems to be few and far between – and even more so when compared to all of the QQ on these forums. Cheered me up a lot! =)

Although I don’t believe one should get away with bad game-mechanics simply by comparing them to those of other games, I still agree with you!

RNG is bad in GW2 because precursor drop everywhere. I wouldn’t mind people getting BDS the first time in SOO because they at least took the effort to go in the dungeon. But thing is not the same in GW2, it is possible to get precursor @100AP, in queensdale. It makes me jelly. And fotm RNG is now worse because it feels the same chance of getting skin/box from 1x to 4×.

maddoctor.2738:

Suddenflame.2601:

From what I gathered you want an added party system where the party can choose how loot is distributed. (not sure how to implement it in a World Boss however) I will admit that the party system in GW2 is lacking and should be improved. They should add this but by default have it as it is.

In could be expanded to Squads too, if they ever allow us to form closed Squads, Squads that allow only certain people – guild members/friends to join instead of everyone. Why we don’t already have these, so guilds doing guild WvW can do it in peace, is another thing I don’t understand.

But deleting gear because it’s Account Bound and useless to me, while my best friend wants it, is something I simply can’t stand.

Changing how loot is distributed will go a long way to changing how much people hate the RNG in this game.

And btw I don’t want them to make all gear tradeable on the Trading Post, I want a way for parties to freely share Account Bound (useless otherwise) gear among them, WHILE they are in the same party, calling them “Party Bound” gear.

I actually agree with this as it adds more relevance to squads plus would allow me to give up some of those Ascended rings i don’t need to people who need them. This should have been implemented a long time ago not sure why it wasn’t as it has very little downfalls.

The only games I have played with worse grinds than GW2 is Lineage 2 and TERA. Every other game had considerably better RNG and a much more fun and reliable loot structure. This is my experience with over 30 MMO’s played under my belt.

The game is grindy because it was designed to hold you here with cash shop fluff. It’s a smart business model, but a lackluster fun model. Not to mention the whole point of having a legendary weapon is thrown out the window when it can be bought for RL cash by anyone willing to just throw credit cards at the game.

Suddenflame.2601:

To everyone complaining about Random Number Generator (RNG) and grind in Guild Wars 2 (GW2): You guys need to play more Massively Multiplayer Online Roly Playing Games (MMORPG). Lets take a Free-to-Play (FTP) game such as Forsaken World (FW) for instance. To get any where in the game you need certain items to progress. The RNG in that game is so bad that many people use the in-game botting system to farm the items that they need. Basically meaning your character needs to be logged in for days on end (24/7) just to get items that you need.

World of Warcraft (WoW) a subscription based MMORPG that makes you spend weeks to months performing raids to get best-in-slot gear. This is repeated often for new best-in-slot gear is added often. During these raids it is not guaranteed that you will get the piece you need. Some raids you can only perform once a week making you wait for another chance (hence chance) at getting the piece you need. To get other items in the game you need to compete with other players (as drops are not shared between the players) to grind to get items since drop rates are low to force you to grind.

Perfect World (PW) is similar to FW (made by the same company) but has even worse grind and drop rates to the point you have to kill monsters for hours or even days just to get items for a single quest. You basically sit there for hours killing a specific mob in a specific area for hours to months (depends on how lucky you are) just hoping you will get that one item.

In GW2, precursors are pretty common as evidence by the number of people with legendaries in LA. Also, money is easy to obtain in GW2 where as in WoW, FW, and PW money takes forever to obtain. WoW, FW, and PW require you to grind for long periods of time inorder to obtain enough money to buy anything useful.

So if you want to complain go ahead, but I suggest you play Forsaken World and Perfect World first and make the comparison. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG makes most MMOs look like bloody nightmare. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG you are making a comparison of a form. If you want to say GW2 is grindy which MMORPG has less grind? Which MMORPG has better RNG?

WoW, FW, and PW are worse on these two points so if your making a comparison with these games you are insane! Just for your information I have never gotten a precursor in 1500+ hours of playing Guild Wars 2.

There is a reason most of us aren’t playing PW or FW, their developer is known to make extremely grindy games geared towards the asian market.

Now WoW was actually less grindy than GW2 currently is. Putting aside the week lockouts, you would still spend a whole lot less actual game time to achieve your items. Even if you figure 3 hours per raid, 24 epics per raid and 40 raiders(got even easier to gear with only 25 people) you’re looking at needing ~600 epics(15 per person iirc). That is 25 raids or 75 hours. Now you’re going to toss in RNG but once tokens were added this wasn’t nearly as bad. You can also look at other areas as well because the best gear didn’t just come from raiding, PvP offered quite a few items that were up near the top as well and could be easily obtained in much less time. Just assuming you got it all raiding it’s 5 hours per item. When I went back to WoW for BC I leveled 1-70 and was fully geared in BIS items in 4 months. BC made things every easier since it was now a 25 man raid and still 3 epics per boss. That would take the time down to ~50 hours.

Lets just look at ascended for a minute. Just to level all 3 weapon crafts to 500 and 1 armor type you’re looking at 550g. At even 5g an hour of farming that’s 110 hours just to be able to craft the stuff you want. Then you have the armor/weapon costs at 60g per piece of armor and 40g per weapon. 3 weapons would put you around 120g and 6 pieces of armor would be 360g for a subtotal of 480g. Combined with the cost of grinding to 500 crafting that’s 1030g. Going back to that 5g an hour you’re looking at 206 hours for an entire set of gear.

So 206 vs 75 vs 50….hmmm. Even if RNG in WoW literally doubles or the time you still get your gear faster.

To me it’s really the context.

If you look around, everyone is doing the same thing everyday.

Why do you have 10 characters?