Guild Wars 2

I might be very wrong here (please do correct me if I am) but it seems like A-Net is depending heavely on the term grinding, even though they neglect anything that comes with that word.

“Grinding refers to the playing time spent doing repetitive tasks within a game to unlock a particular game item”
From: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27527/grinding

I personally have a very small attention span, I have played a lot of games, from Maple Story to WoW and everything in between, I never really could get to the highest level simply because it got repetitive. I am not kidding when I say that I was about to sleep after 3 rounds of SW in real life, like all I needed was to lay in bed, my eyes were almost closed.

The only game I got a “high” level on is Gw2, the world was interesting, it was about exploring, and you can do everything, from PvP at lvl 1 to WvW and when back then when you walked from the forests or the mountain all the quests felt rather fresh and new every time, so it was a delight to level up (exploring the world, seeing different quests, also the one randomly hidden where you need to hold a torch in the dark or you will be attacked was all new and interesting).

But now it seems like A-Net have taken a new direction? The tasks we are handed seems repetitive, from the new maps to basecly everything, I normally only do things in a game once or twice (beside dungeons like arah, but I rarely go one shot, so it gets interesting at lupi), but it feels…weird or rather boring from the first, second and third map, after you have finished the different events “follow and kill” or “rescue” then it gets kinda boring to say the least.

Maybe its the…I know what to expect, or the popular grind feeling……Or the simple fact that I have a really small attention span, but it just does not fell like A-Net actually knows their old explore the world, and everything around it, was a lot more interesting than repeating tasks? Again, this could just be me, but seems like it is not with all these people complaining about same idea

In short, did A-Net really change the idea behind the game from something that should be about exploration, meeting the different creatures, to more grindy feeling. or is the 3 new maps rather interesting with the new frogs, and it is just me who is having a small attention span or was looking for a nostalgic feeling in the development?

The same thing happened in GW1 towards the end of it’s development.

You know how everyone says the rewards in GW2 is “terrible”?

My opinion is, it is terrible. So don’t bother grinding for it.

Just do the thing once or twice, enjoy the content and move on.

Interesting that it is not new for Guild Wars.

Well even if it was not terrible, it still seems rather un-enjoyable I get that it should not be easy to get something, but making it repetitive is really annoying. Specially for someone like me who simply can not do it, I will at some point simply just stand up and go see netflix or go out or something when it gets to…..sleepy is the word?

Grinding is relative what you may find tedious and repetitive someone else may enjoy doing and whilst to you it feels like a grind to them its not.

Personally if i don’t find something fun i’m not gonna bother with it ,in this game especially you can pretty much do whatever you wan’t without worrying about a gear treadmill or whatever carrot to constantly chase.

MMO’s consist of lists of things to do. Some of those lists have rewards at the end. Those rewards are usually gained by the completion of repetitive tasks because MMO developers make a great deal of money by keeping players p(l)aying (whether that be sub or store). This is the nature of MMO’s. If you don’t like repetitive tasks, don’t do them, but realize that the rewards that you want are there specifically to encourage that repetition. MMO’s will be like this until either the genre fades away or until development tools are created that make generating new content trivial.

foxcat.4096:

Grinding is relative what you may find tedious and repetitive someone else may enjoy doing and whilst to you it feels like a grind to them its not.

Personally if i don’t find something fun i’m not gonna bother with it ,in this game especially you can pretty much do whatever you wan’t without worrying about a gear treadmill or whatever carrot to constantly chase.

Sorry, but fell like you did not read my thread, since this post seems to go around it rather than explaining it. My idea was whether or not I was wrong about them depending more heavily on grinding:

“Grinding refers to the playing time spent doing repetitive tasks within a game to unlock a particular game item”
From: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27527/grinding

It really do not have to be tedious, but just repetitive for it to become a “grind”.

The idea behind this post is not what I fell, but if A-net generally took a turn to the more repetitive route, simply having their whole game build more and more around repeating processes over and over.

But I can answer your question, since I do somewhat come further into personal feelings towards a game that wants you to repeat tasks that have been done several times:

Well, it would be quiet a lot I would have to simply ignore, from the new maps, that I did found quiet interesting at first, but got to repetitive or to the “new” winter events that wants you to repeat same jp 15 times, it all seems to be more and more involved around you repeating the same thing over and over, which I explained in my post I simply can not do.

But the question was if they in general moved from exploration, adventure, deep story telling where the intro was filled with everything, from the sylvari´s dreams, humans last stand, Charr loyal, northern wild hunt and asuran competition (basecly the whole……My story thing) and random interesting hidden quests, which always was a good surprise to find.
To a more direct approach of having a simple objective that might require a lot of repetition?

Or if I am only looking at it that way because of old memories, while in fact the new races they have introduced in the expansion might be deep, and there might be hidden interesting quests, and even though they seem to be heading same way as WoW, it is simply better because the holy trinity is better etc?

It is time of holidays.As tradition goes,you have to be kind,and polite to the people,doesn’t matter if they are good or not to you.It is time of giving,and presents.

Now,since i do not have means,i am sure Arena Net does.They talking on every corner,how they care about their players,and how their community is the best one.

Since Arena Net,have access,to the Account Database,and they can see personal info of the players,my suggestion is next :

Since you love your players that much(at least you saying that),giving 10 full access to the core game,to the youngest players,randomly chosen would not be a big deal for you.

I am sure,there’s plenty of people,especially youngsters,who do not have money for the game,and yet they are faithful fans.Giving them something in return,would be nice,especially because Christmas and New year is coming.

I am punished,and i cant create topic.I was punished because i made example by quoting rude people in game.I did not insult nor offend no one personal,because as i said do it was quote of players,saying something to me.There’s no proof of me insulting any player,because i said thing which has been said to me.

When i report someone in game,they never get punished.When you say something on the forum,you get banned instantly,but when you ask from staff to answer once in half year,they are nowhere to be seen.

IndigoSundown.5419:

MMO’s consist of lists of things to do. Some of those lists have rewards at the end of a task. Those rewards are usually gained by the completion of repetitive tasks because MMO developers make a great deal of money by keeping players p(l)aying (whether that be sub or store). This is the nature of MMO’s. If you don’t like repetitive tasks, don’t do them, but realize that the rewards that you want are there specifically to encourage that repetition. MMO’s will be like this until either the genre fades away or until development tools are created that make generating new content trivial.

I dont know about that, please again…do correct me if I am wrong. But I remember Gw2 tryieng to stay away from that?
The rewards was gained by doing hearts instead of quests, where you dont have to hand anything in, you could do a whole map, which might require some time, but it would not be repetitive, because the tasks would simply be different(they simply hid the repetitive tasks that take just as long time behind something fun). Again I might be wrong, but seems like it was not like this, or at least, more well hidden than this?

But again, some streamers (WP too) explained that the world might be the disappointing part, because having an endless leveling curve was an amazing detail to Gw2, the reason people left was because there was nothing to do after 80, the world was amazing, but they needed a thrive. Thoug they would need to implement a lot more stuff to make people keep playing

I don’t mind repetition, I just want the rewards to be worth my time spent. I love Guild Wars, but I think we can all agree the items and loot in gw2 are lack luster and at times literal trash for time spent.

They really need to work on rewarding customers with useful loot for the time spent grinding. Skins are nice but they been lack luster this expansion.

It is only a grind if you make it a grind. I am not grinding the JP for presents to get things. I’m doing the JP because I love the JP and am good at it. The fact that it also hands out the best rate of presents it secondary. If it only dropped two presents a run I would still do it to the exclusion of all else because I enjoy it. The point where I grind is when I open those presents to get the alcohol to work toward the absurd goal of 10k. A goal I’m pretty sure I can’t meet by the end of the event in order to get a skin I’ll never use because it takes up the shoulder spot.

I’m also not grinding for mithril. I’m playing the game the way I normally do and gradually accruing mithril by salvaging junk, since I get a lot of junk in HoT. Once I’ve gotten enough mithril, something to the effect of 2500 ore, I’ll move forward in my efforts to craft Inferno through the new system.

If you don’t want to grind, don’t grind. If you want the skin more than you want to not grind, then maybe grinding isn’t a problem. It is entirely up to you. But no one, not a single person, not a dev and not a player, is making you grind.

The rewards are rather lacklustre, especially at raids but I really don’t see how the vanilla game was less repetitive.

The vast majority of dynamic events were essentially kill this, capture this or escort this guy.

zengara.8301:

IndigoSundown.5419:

MMO’s consist of lists of things to do. Some of those lists have rewards at the end of a task. Those rewards are usually gained by the completion of repetitive tasks because MMO developers make a great deal of money by keeping players p(l)aying (whether that be sub or store). This is the nature of MMO’s. If you don’t like repetitive tasks, don’t do them, but realize that the rewards that you want are there specifically to encourage that repetition. MMO’s will be like this until either the genre fades away or until development tools are created that make generating new content trivial.

I dont know about that, please again…do correct me if I am wrong. But I remember Gw2 tryieng to stay away from that?
The rewards was gained by doing hearts instead of quests, where you dont have to hand anything in, you could do a whole map, which might require some time, but it would not be repetitive, because the tasks would simply be different(they simply hid the repetitive tasks that take just as long time behind something fun). Again I might be wrong, but seems like it was not like this, or at least, more well hidden than this?

But again, some streamers (WP too) explained that the world might be the disappointing part, because having an endless leveling curve was an amazing detail to Gw2, the reason people left was because there was nothing to do after 80, the world was amazing, but they needed a thrive. Thoug they would need to implement a lot more stuff to make people keep playing

The only rewards you got from doing DEs and hearts from the vanilla game were experience and karma. Experience wasnt very useful because getting to 80 was very fast for a MMO and karma had about as much use as bloodstone dust.

The rewards until Silverwastes came out came from either doing some very lucrative event until Anet realises were it was and nerfed it or spamming the same dungeons over and over running the exact same zerker builds.

Xae Isareth.1364:

zengara.8301:

IndigoSundown.5419:

MMO’s consist of lists of things to do. Some of those lists have rewards at the end of a task. Those rewards are usually gained by the completion of repetitive tasks because MMO developers make a great deal of money by keeping players p(l)aying (whether that be sub or store). This is the nature of MMO’s. If you don’t like repetitive tasks, don’t do them, but realize that the rewards that you want are there specifically to encourage that repetition. MMO’s will be like this until either the genre fades away or until development tools are created that make generating new content trivial.

I dont know about that, please again…do correct me if I am wrong. But I remember Gw2 tryieng to stay away from that?
The rewards was gained by doing hearts instead of quests, where you dont have to hand anything in, you could do a whole map, which might require some time, but it would not be repetitive, because the tasks would simply be different(they simply hid the repetitive tasks that take just as long time behind something fun). Again I might be wrong, but seems like it was not like this, or at least, more well hidden than this?

But again, some streamers (WP too) explained that the world might be the disappointing part, because having an endless leveling curve was an amazing detail to Gw2, the reason people left was because there was nothing to do after 80, the world was amazing, but they needed a thrive. Thoug they would need to implement a lot more stuff to make people keep playing

The only rewards you got from doing DEs and hearts from the vanilla game were experience and karma. Experience wasnt very useful because getting to 80 was very fast for a MMO and karma had about as much use as bloodstone dust.

The rewards until Silverwastes came out came from either doing some very lucrative event until Anet realises were it was and nerfed it or spamming the same dungeons over and over running the exact same zerker builds.

I might be a slow player, but I remmember it took me 1-2 month to level to 80 back then, and again…..Really the only game I had so much fun doing so, and absed on everyone elses experience, they had the same thought.

In all honesty, I do not know how much gold you get from doing the 3 maps (Might be a lot or very little). But I mainly did them for the experience, I get that after lvl 79 back then it got very repetitive, not questioning that.
But wasnt the reasoning for doing the new specialization and mastery leveling not for it to become about having the fell of 1-79 while leveling while still having a reason to do so?

(Think I heard it somewhere, maybe on stream or youtube, that the reasons behind masteries was for it to be deeper).

And to every other comment be4 this one above.

The question was if A-Net was heading towards that direction, not if I should just ignore it, or go around it.
But based on your comments, I am guessing that based on your experience, you are feeling that this repetition is a thing that A-Net is depending more and more on.
and explains a ways to play around that fact.

Kal Spiro.9745:

It is only a grind if you make it a grind. I am not grinding the JP for presents to get things. I’m doing the JP because I love the JP and am good at it. The fact that it also hands out the best rate of presents it secondary. If it only dropped two presents a run I would still do it to the exclusion of all else because I enjoy it. The point where I grind is when I open those presents to get the alcohol to work toward the absurd goal of 10k. A goal I’m pretty sure I can’t meet by the end of the event in order to get a skin I’ll never use because it takes up the shoulder spot.

I’m also not grinding for mithril. I’m playing the game the way I normally do and gradually accruing mithril by salvaging junk, since I get a lot of junk in HoT. Once I’ve gotten enough mithril, something to the effect of 2500 ore, I’ll move forward in my efforts to craft Inferno through the new system.

If you don’t want to grind, don’t grind. If you want the skin more than you want to not grind, then maybe grinding isn’t a problem. It is entirely up to you. But no one, not a single person, not a dev and not a player, is making you grind.

Oh my. Are you real? I didn’t think such sensible thoughts were permitted any longer.

zengara.8301:

IndigoSundown.5419:

MMO’s consist of lists of things to do. Some of those lists have rewards at the end of a task. Those rewards are usually gained by the completion of repetitive tasks because MMO developers make a great deal of money by keeping players p(l)aying (whether that be sub or store). This is the nature of MMO’s. If you don’t like repetitive tasks, don’t do them, but realize that the rewards that you want are there specifically to encourage that repetition. MMO’s will be like this until either the genre fades away or until development tools are created that make generating new content trivial.

I dont know about that, please again…do correct me if I am wrong. But I remember Gw2 tryieng to stay away from that?

The rewards was gained by doing hearts instead of quests, where you dont have to hand anything in, you could do a whole map, which might require some time, but it would not be repetitive, because the tasks would simply be different(they simply hid the repetitive tasks that take just as long time behind something fun). Again I might be wrong, but seems like it was not like this, or at least, more well hidden than this?

But again, some streamers (WP too) explained that the world might be the disappointing part, because having an endless leveling curve was an amazing detail to Gw2, the reason people left was because there was nothing to do after 80, the world was amazing, but they needed a thrive. Thoug they would need to implement a lot more stuff to make people keep playing

And you have answered your own query. Before launch, ANet advertised they would provide content that people would do because it was fun. This goal ran head-on into the MMO fans who won’t repeat anything without sufficient reward. Since no MMO company can generate content fast enough to keep up with the MMO fan, they all resort to enticing repetition of content to keep the fans playing and the game going. WoW uses a changing-target gear chase. GW used the title chase along with pursuit of elite armor skins and rare weapon skins. GW2 uses the pursuit of Asc. crafted gear and rare skins.

Could GW2 use more goals? Yes, all MMO’s could.

I think the game feels grindier now with the addition of HoT partly because all MMOs seem to get to a point where their developers depend on grind to fill the content gap and keep people busy and partly because HoT didn’t have a huge amount of content that would naturally keep people busy without a lot of repetition (i.e. 22 maps to explore and complete, new dungeons, etc).

So, they added things like masteries, which can begin to feel like a grind after a while, and mini-games that can be repeated endlessly. Even having to earn regional currency (ley line crystals) in order to buy items like collection parts and recipes basically encourages the repetition of a (more or less) small amount of content.

It’s what MMO developers design in order to keep people busy.

Yeah I was ecstatic when hearing that masteries was like a leveling system because I absolutely loved lvl 1-79, it was truly an amazing journey.

But yeah, I should have guessed that repetition was a gonna be a huge part of it when maps small, even with the different levels from ground to sky.

Personally, I played through HoT exploration style. I probably spent 24 hours of play time per zone, witnessed every event and completed most achievements without even looking at what was available. Each day, I would do the adventures I had already found, which was a large source of experience. By the time I got to the end of Tangled Depths, which was a little over a week in, I was basically done with masteries. I had leyline gliding and the first 2-3 of everything else. About 2 weeks later, continuing to do the daily adventures, I was actually finished. I however wanted to play the adventures, so the experience was just a bonus.

HoT was designed to be explored. What it lacks however is the randomness of dynamic events to make the world seem more alive.

During the sneak peeks and interviews that ANet was releasing over the months leading up to the release, one of the things that was pointed out (by Colin, I believe) was that even years after release people were still discovering things about GW2 Core (like you can /threaten Ornery Crabs and that would cause them to run away) and they really wanted to recreate that in the new maps. I can see that they did try very hard to do that and there are indeed some things you can discover… but there’s a flaw to their approach.

Namely people don’t notice small details when the world is falling down around their heads.

Few are going to stop to look at little curiosities when they’re busy repeating the same events over and over to get the map to Tier 4, or busy hunting ariship/wrapped/crystallized boxes/pods for the map-specific currencies. The first few weeks, or even months, that most people spend doing the maps will invariably be to grind for the rewards – and by the time they’re done getting the rewards they might be too sick of the map to actually appreciate those discoveries that the developers put in.

The maps are very much designed to be explored, the problem is the meta events contradicts that design by making the players feel like they have to rush.

What happens is that a very, very, VEEERY few players get very good at doing things fast.

They came up with nice ways to slow them down, like time-gate recipes, limited materials like mystic coins and currencies like laurels. But since they also made parts of those recipes or the results tradeable, that was pointless, and they still were able to get things extremely fast, only slowing down even more the rest of the players.

So they increased costs of everything so the fastest guys couldn’t do everything so fast.

As a result, those who where ludicrously fast at getting stuff now get it at a reasonable speed, and everyone else gets everything ludicrously slow.

As long as they keep using the wealthiest, fastest, grindiest players as a baseline, the rest are screwed.

I come from Squeenix counterpart because after 17 months I could not stand Final Fantasy 14’s repetetive, bullkitten gameplay design anymore.

FF14 defines tedious, repetitive RNG nonsense that is wrong on so many things. I like many responses in this thread because it keeps my faith in some “oldschool” attitudes I like. Nowadays, kids want to jump around in “da endgame” without actually playing the “early game”. You can see that in FF14 where new players get pushed everything into their…you know, where the sun does not shine. So you have tons of noobs in the endgame pugs and that sucks. Repetitive things make clear that someone spent some time and effort to get (ITEM NAME) or (DUNGEON/MAP NAME). And if I do so, I want that the nice thing I carry, wield or wear is a hurdle to lazy people or, as you call them, people with a “short attention span”. Don’t get me wrong here: I also have a full-time job and a household to manage, but when I go online in GW2 I can advance in tiny steps while it’s impossible in other games.

Just check the reddit of Final Fantasy 14. People, even the fanboys, complain about how tediously repetitive it is to advance. And those guys even pay for it. EVEN WORSE: That still will be nerfed to pull in newbies. So you are supposed to: Play and suffer or don’t play and get it easier later on. Both are terrible gameplay designs.

I quitted after I had to wait for hours for one FATE (random event) to spawn and when it spawned I have been on the restroom and others killed it. That was the moment I realized how awfully boring a game can be. Then, on Heavensward release, I pre-ordered HoT and GW2 is such a balm for the soul for the MMO player in almost any aspect in the game. Older players might not realize it (anymore), but I still do.

You should play Mobas maybe. Level 18 in 15 minutes and in 45 minutes all starts from scratch. Do I want this in an MMO? Never. If people waste time on Facebook (and their games) they have the time.

Zedek.8932:

I come from Squeenix counterpart because after 17 months I could not stand Final Fantasy 14’s repetetive, bullkitten gameplay design anymore.

FF14 defines tedious, repetitive RNG nonsense that is wrong on so many things. I like many responses in this thread because it keeps my faith in some “oldschool” attitudes I like. Nowadays, kids want to jump around in “da endgame” without actually playing the “early game”. You can see that in FF14 where new players get pushed everything into their…you know, where the sun does not shine. So you have tons of noobs in the endgame pugs and that sucks. Repetitive things make clear that someone spent some time and effort to get (ITEM NAME) or (DUNGEON/MAP NAME). And if I do so, I want that the nice thing I carry, wield or wear is a hurdle to lazy people or, as you call them, people with a “short attention span”. Don’t get me wrong here: I also have a full-time job and a household to manage, but when I go online in GW2 I can advance in tiny steps while it’s impossible in other games.

Just check the reddit of Final Fantasy 14. People, even the fanboys, complain about how tediously repetitive it is to advance. And those guys even pay for it. EVEN WORSE: That still will be nerfed to pull in newbies. So you are supposed to: Play and suffer or don’t play and get it easier later on. Both are terrible gameplay designs.

I quitted after I had to wait for hours for one FATE (random event) to spawn and when it spawned I have been on the restroom and others killed it. That was the moment I realized how awfully boring a game can be. Then, on Heavensward release, I pre-ordered HoT and GW2 is such a balm for the soul for the MMO player in almost any aspect in the game. Older players might not realize it (anymore), but I still do.

You should play Mobas maybe. Level 18 in 15 minutes and in 45 minutes all starts from scratch. Do I want this in an MMO? Never. If people waste time on Facebook (and their games) they have the time.

First of all, you either did not read my post entirely or simply decided to ignore that it is not what to do, or in general if other games is doing worse/better. My only question was if this game is depending more on repetition, not if the alternatives is better or worse, like FF14………………..
When I say “Short attention span” I mean people with different sicknesses that makes them unable, or mentally hurt when actually doing repetitive tasks like ADD, not lazy people…..Even if I meant lazy people, in the end this is a game. Doing a lot of fun tasks, rather than same task over and over is a lot more rewarding and more fun in general, is it not?
At least I think so, do not get me wrong, I am not tryieng to say that working hard should not be rewarded. But doing same thing over and over seems like going back a step, rather going forward. The reason why people liked Gw2 alot more, was because it was not repetitive, everything felt new fresh, instead of a person clicking same red button over and over.
I am not saying this game is that, but it feels like it is going from this open, explorable, nothing matters, but your adventure and the world will be amazing to explore, the people around you will help you……to a WoW/Wildstar mmorpg like game.

I get that there are worse game, I get that a lot of MMORPG´s is doing this, I get that it is hard to do a lot to do…..I get all that, but I did not complete any of the other MMORPG´s I did not stay for long on any of the other, I joined and stayed in Gw2 for the reason that it was an example for MMORPG´s not just another grind meel, just less grindy, or less annoying………..I know I am asking for a lot, but not asking for more than what they promised.

I agree that there is a definite trend of “grindification” in GW2, combined with a truly annoying dependence on map-scale meta events in order to explore everything. Doing repetitive chores and banding together with occasionally huge crowds feels less and less like something I can do in order to achieve anything and more like a thing I have to do to get anything worthwhile out of new content.
And that worries me, because it saps the fun right out of the game and turns it into something that feels like a job, complete with an equivalent time investment. If I only have 1 hour or 90 minutes of playtime I do not bother logging in at all, because I have to get incredibly lucky to be able to get anything completed in that timespan.

You can’t build an MMO around world exploration, because you can only do that once.

All MMOs have grinding.
Grinding Is absolutely necessary, otherwise the entire player base would get to the level cap, do all the content just once and then complain that there is nothing left to do.
Making new content takes far longer than it does for the player base to go thru the new content, so some mechanism has to be in place to make the player base do the same content multiple times.
Hence rewards based on RNGs .

Phy.2913:

You can’t build an MMO around world exploration, because you can only do that once.

Twice if they would add hard mode instanced versions of the maps

No need to do that.
You can achieve exactly the same effect by levelling a new character, but doing quests in a zone thats double your characters level.

But wasn’t the idea behind the new maps that they should last longer? A-Net explained that they would innovate the idea behind expansion.

Normally you just got a ton of new content that you burned through and it was it. I personally feel like getting all that content would be better?

I like repeating the repetively redundant repeating events repetitiously and over and over again. -_-

I do not feel any grind so far. I think the game offers a good variation of tasks for achieving certain goals.
For example masteries: you do them by contributing to a good number of events, adventures, exploring, helping others. All contributes to mastery-xp and u find mastery-points on your way.
It is also an account-bound system, so u can contribute with different characters which also spices things up (at least for me).
I can see that I am not the fastest progresser and also bought HoT about a month after release so i haven’t seen everything so far. I know Verdant Brink and Auric Basin very well and have only stumbled through Tangled Depths and Dragons Stand once for story. There might come a time when I know every map and every event on it by heart and it starts to feel repetitive.
But exactly that was the case in the core game when you have played for more than 2 years pre HoT. You couldn’t do much besides farming dungeons, fractals or orr (from a PvE point of view).
So I don’t see the overall gameplay has changed very much.