Guild Wars 2

Its really not as bad as I expected. And the materials dropping is quite generous considering. If you a person that just generally plays and does something at 80 you are bound to get most of the materials, some will obviously get it faster then others.

The only true “grind” I see is more of the waste of money you have to throw at crafting to get it to 500. At 479 the crafting of Ascended materials is greyed out to me (other then the 500 recipe ones). Only a handful of discoveries left. Assuming they wanted you to do all the discoveries (and this is with a crafting booster even).

ehh…2 weeks for 1 weapon, I have 5 toons and on average 3 weapons per character, so its 30 weeks of work for me to catch up if I play everyday. A lot of the mmos I played had eventually became if you dont log in everyday you are behind stats wise, I thought GW2 was supposed to solve this problem, but I guess I am wrong, oh how about when the armors comes out? Much more work to do than weapons I assume. And next year, they gonna rise the level cap(I think I see this in articles somewhere), and make another tier to fill the gap on time consume between normal gear and legendary.

I have learned my lessons here, no hope for revolutionary mmos, all are same games with different skins.

BlusterWolf.2103:

ehh…2 weeks for 1 weapon, I have 5 toons and on average 3 weapons per character, so its 30 weeks of work for me to catch up if I play everyday. A lot of the mmos I played had eventually became if you dont log in everyday you are behind stats wise, I thought GW2 was supposed to solve this problem, but I guess I am wrong, oh how about when the armors comes out? Much more work to do than weapons I assume. And next year, they gonna rise the level cap(I think I see this in articles somewhere), and make another tier to fill the gap on time consume between normal gear and legendary.

I have learned my lessons here, no hope for revolutionary mmos, all are same games with different skins.

Most MMOs NEED you to have the latest gear in order to even access some of the content because they are gear-gated, thus far, GW2 hasn’t had anything gear-gated and the difference between Ascended and Exotics isn’t enough to gear gate anything.

They did say they plan to raise the level cap sometime in the future, but that was before the game even launched and by the look of things, they gave up (I hope) on that silly idea.

Infusion is coming next after armor -_- calling it now

Crafting materials are too expensive in TP so i need to gather everything every day.

Umm I think people are massively forgetting that all the places where ascended materials can be earned (expect the TP and salvaging exotics) you have a chance at getting an ascended weapon of your choice…. Hell I am just playing normally and hoping an ascended weapon drops. It has a higher chance then a precursor but a lower chance then a normal exotic. Overall that isn’t too bad and I am in no rush at getting them.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Heh, i would have preferred ascended weapons to not be account bound though. Having 8 avatars means i have to “discover” i ton of exotics

only 2 chars need the crafting disciplines to create all the weapons… They are account bound until equipped iirc.

Xae Isareth.1364:

BlusterWolf.2103:

ehh…2 weeks for 1 weapon, I have 5 toons and on average 3 weapons per character, so its 30 weeks of work for me to catch up if I play everyday. A lot of the mmos I played had eventually became if you dont log in everyday you are behind stats wise, I thought GW2 was supposed to solve this problem, but I guess I am wrong, oh how about when the armors comes out? Much more work to do than weapons I assume. And next year, they gonna rise the level cap(I think I see this in articles somewhere), and make another tier to fill the gap on time consume between normal gear and legendary.

I have learned my lessons here, no hope for revolutionary mmos, all are same games with different skins.

Most MMOs NEED you to have the latest gear in order to even access some of the content because they are gear-gated, thus far, GW2 hasn’t had anything gear-gated and the difference between Ascended and Exotics isn’t enough to gear gate anything.

They did say they plan to raise the level cap sometime in the future, but that was before the game even launched and by the look of things, they gave up (I hope) on that silly idea.

What is fractals intention if it’s not gear gated content? While I agree with you that GW2 has less gear gating than other mmo’s for doing different content, they implement their own “gating” systems in the form of time or rng. It’s not about being able to complete content for them, but rather forcing the speed in which you can obtain items. Basically it’s a response to trying to slow down the “content locusts” because Anet knows full well they can not actually put out enough content to keep those players satisfied and instead of just letting them go (which they most likely will anyway once another shiny game comes along) they chose to appease them with this carrot on the stick system they have now implemented. Anet with GW2 has done everything that every other major MMORPG does, they just do it different and then release pr spin to get people to buy into it. They simply want to keep people playing their game and are falling back on the tried and true methods that worked for other games instead of actually trying to be unique and it makes me sad to see another developer go this route.

Fractals is there to cater to people who wants a neverending progression in a piece of content, and it isn’t gear-gated because you can do every single fractal on lvl 1 without any AR.

We can’t be sure its a carrot and stick method until they raise the level cap, because if they don’t, Ascended items will be the be all and end all of the carrot and you can go eat it.

The problem with not using a tried and tested method is that it’s a huge gamble. If you’re a tiny developer with nothing to lose, then you can afford to be unique, but when you got a 300-man dev team to feed and a project which they’ve put 5 years of their lives into to manage, that gamble has a high cost attached to it.

They’ve shown quite a lot of balls already in what they’ve done, by getting rid of a lot of the traditional core elements of a MMO, even in terms of gear progression. The tried and tested method would be making Ascended gear so powerful you can’t go without it and then gate new content behind it so that it forces you to get it ASAP, then put some cash shop aids behind that as well to milk the content locusts dry.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Fractals is there to cater to people who wants a neverending progression in a piece of content, and it isn’t gear-gated because you can do every single fractal on lvl 1 without any AR.

You realize fractals have only 80 levels? They are not neverending. And that it’s the only challenging content at higher levels this game has? What can people who wants something remotely challenging suppose to do? Afk temple events to get additional AR?

Xae Isareth.1364:

Fractals is there to cater to people who wants a neverending progression in a piece of content, and it isn’t gear-gated because you can do every single fractal on lvl 1 without any AR.

We can’t be sure its a carrot and stick method until they raise the level cap, because if they don’t, Ascended items will be the be all and end all of the carrot and you can go eat it.

The problem with not using a tried and tested method is that it’s a huge gamble. If you’re a tiny developer with nothing to lose, then you can afford to be unique, but when you got a 300-man dev team to feed and a project which they’ve put 5 years of their lives into to manage, that gamble has a high cost attached to it.

They’ve shown quite a lot of balls already in what they’ve done, by getting rid of a lot of the traditional core elements of a MMO, even in terms of gear progression. The tried and tested method would be making Ascended gear so powerful you can’t go without it and then gate new content behind it so that it forces you to get it ASAP, then put some cash shop aids behind that as well to milk the content locusts dry.

It’s easy to tell if it’s a carrot on the stick, the intention is to keep people playing. It’s just that it is the same method that other games use in just increasing stats as opposed to content or horizontal progression. Obviously players need new things to keep playing or else they lose interest, but it is the types of things that are introduced that should be important. They chose to focus on the easiest method possible in order to maintain a group of players that will likely still leave the game once another comes out. Best example I can give is a game like EvE, yes it is niche and does not have the following that other more “successful” games have, but it has been steadily growing it’s base since it’s launch 10 years ago by sticking to it’s core concept and values by offering a largely player driven experience. I am quite certain CCP are in no danger of shutting down their doors anytime soon, so they chose a model that would ensure them long term stability versus the “get rich quick” methods that are so common now.

Vayne.8563:

Beldin.5498:

You have to look at the bigger picture .. not only ONE Weapon, but maybe 3 weapons and 6 pieces of armor in the next future. Oh and don’t forget people who have a lot alts and/or use more weapons and armorsets with different stats.

I am looking at the big picture. You don’t play an MMO for 2 weeks. You play it for months, maybe years. The whole idea is to give people stuff to do. You may not personally need that but a whole lot of people seem to.

That stuff to do doesn’t have to be grinding for weapons. Looking at this from a single char/single build perspective, it’s not bad. But as someone that plays every profession, with multiple sets of gear for most, it’s a massive grind. My options to actually do this are to take a year or more playing as I normally do, or cut that down to months (still a long time for just weapons, when I’m still nowhere near done with jewelry) of repeating world bosses/temples and jump puzzles on multiple characters every day.

The amount of dragonite ore and bloodstone dust available in the open world is fairly generous, but empyrean fragments are going to be a limiting factor, and an annoyance to get. I don’t do dungeons often, and I only have a desire to do them when I want a weapon or armor set from a dungeon. Even with dungeons, the ratio between reward and effort/time is less than with dragonite or bloodstone. We’re still early into the game on ascended weapons, so I’m hoping the rewards will be tweaked to keep the 3 materials more balanced with each other.

Xae Isareth.1364:

where is that grind?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empyreal_Fragment

Beldin.5498:

Xae Isareth.1364:

So ever since Ascended stuff came out everyone’s been screaming that the game turned into a huge grind. So…… where is that grind?

On paper, Ascended stuff looks like a hugeass list of mats to put on your to-grind list but if you just look at what it actually is, it’s basically stuff you get from playing any of the major contents of the game. Comparing it to a grind is like saying every Zelda game is a grind for pieces of the Triforce/whatever else is in its place.

There is a very subtle difference between a grind and not giving it to you on a silver platter.

You have to look at the bigger picture .. not only ONE Weapon, but maybe 3 weapons and 6 pieces of armor in the next future. Oh and don’t forget people who have a lot alts and/or use more weapons and armorsets with different stats.

Actually it is not all that unfriendly to alts here is why.

World Event bosses and other chests drop once per character per day. This is where you get the mats from that are not tradeable.

The crafting timegate is bypassable though the trading post.

You want grind I got it. Heres my shopping list. In order to have best in slot gear (regardless of whether or not you need BIS gear for the content thats out there, I dont care, I like having the best stuff), I need the following weapons:

Great Sword – for my fractal guardian
Bow – for my WvW warrior
Hammer – also my warrior
Dagger – my WvW thief
Pistol – for thief
Scepter – for my Fractal Guard, these will be his off hand set
Focus – my guard
Staff – my WvW mesmer
Scepter- mez
Focus – mez
Torch – mez
Great Sword – For my warrior for when he wants to do pve
Axe – my warrior
Mace – my warrior
Rifle – warrior
Staff – Be nice to have if I can ever get this far so I can take my guard into WvW
Mace – WvW guard
Shield – WvW guard

Thats just for 4 characters. And only for one or two builds of those 4 characters. If each weapon takes 2 weeks to get then it will be 36 weeks before Im done.
Before you call me entitled and lazy, and say that I want everything right away, Id like you to stop and think, and ask your self… Is there a middle ground somewhere between “right away” and 6 months. Cause thats what Im asking for. A middle ground.

Thank you.

Savoy.6824:

You want grind I got it. Heres my shopping list. In order to have best in slot gear (regardless of whether or not you need BIS gear for the content thats out there, I dont care, I like having the best stuff), I need the following weapons:

And thats not even including underwater weapons. :x Though I guess its not really a huge deal since not a lot of “end game” underwater content at the moment (aside from underwater fractal, but thats it).

I admit it is definitely a serious chore for anyone that uses lots of weapons or has alts they play regularly.

I play a staff ele so obviously not much for me to do there. But I was leveling a mesmer up before the addition but I pretty much have that on hold indefinitely because of it.

Savoy.6824:

You want grind I got it. Heres my shopping list. In order to have best in slot gear (regardless of whether or not you need BIS gear for the content thats out there, I dont care, I like having the best stuff), I need the following weapons:

Great Sword – for my fractal guardian
Bow – for my WvW warrior
Hammer – also my warrior
Dagger – my WvW thief
Pistol – for thief
Scepter – for my Fractal Guard, these will be his off hand set
Focus – my guard
Staff – my WvW mesmer
Scepter- mez
Focus – mez
Torch – mez
Great Sword – For my warrior for when he wants to do pve
Axe – my warrior
Mace – my warrior
Rifle – warrior
Staff – Be nice to have if I can ever get this far so I can take my guard into WvW
Mace – WvW guard
Shield – WvW guard

Thats just for 4 characters. And only for one or two builds of those 4 characters. If each weapon takes 2 weeks to get then it will be 36 weeks before Im done.
Before you call me entitled and lazy, and say that I want everything right away, Id like you to stop and think, and ask your self… Is there a middle ground somewhere between “right away” and 6 months. Cause thats what Im asking for. A middle ground.

Thank you.

I think it is only 9 weeks. I think the mats used to make the Vision Crystal are obtainable once per day per character(As they drop from the daily chests. The mats that are time gated by crafting are purchasable through the trading post.

Here is the information where I got in regards to the Daily chests. I have also seen players report they get the mats from the daily chest on multiple characters.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Upcoming-mega-boss-chest-change/first#post1656442

anzenketh.3759:

Here is the information where I got in regards to the Daily chests. I have also seen players report they get the mats from the daily chest on multiple characters.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Upcoming-mega-boss-chest-change/first#post1656442

Yeah, the dragonite ore is per character on the meta boss events/temples/etc. It’s not bad with events like Maw, Golem, and Fire Ele that have a short reset cycle. The same with empyrean fragments and jumping puzzles (not sure on dungeons), but these drop in lesser amounts from what I’ve seen.

WvW seems to lack daily limits at all on at least the empyrean fragments although the amount dropped in wvw per capture is still low, as with JPs. I assume this is true for dragonite as well, but I’ve not done much wvw since the update. Dragonite also drops in small amounts from what I’ve seen.

The empyrean fragments are really the limiting factor here. I know a lot of people do the meta boss events, but going out of our way for jump puzzles isn’t as common. I like JPs, but I don’t want do those anywhere near as often as I do combat oriented events. Unfortunately, you have to do more JPs than events to keep your empyrean drops up with the amount of dragonite.

mrstealth.6701:

anzenketh.3759:

Here is the information where I got in regards to the Daily chests. I have also seen players report they get the mats from the daily chest on multiple characters.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Upcoming-mega-boss-chest-change/first#post1656442

Yeah, the dragonite ore is per character on the meta boss events/temples/etc. It’s not bad with events like Maw, Golem, and Fire Ele that have a short reset cycle. The same with empyrean fragments and jumping puzzles (not sure on dungeons), but these drop in lesser amounts from what I’ve seen.

WvW seems to lack daily limits at all on at least the empyrean fragments although the amount dropped in wvw per capture is still low, as with JPs. I assume this is true for dragonite as well, but I’ve not done much wvw since the update. Dragonite also drops in small amounts from what I’ve seen.

The empyrean fragments are really the limiting factor here. I know a lot of people do the meta boss events, but going out of our way for jump puzzles isn’t as common. I like JPs, but I don’t want do those anywhere near as often as I do combat oriented events. Unfortunately, you have to do more JPs than events to keep your empyrean drops up with the amount of dragonite.

Thanks for confirming. The best way to get Empyreal Fragment is actually by Dungeons and fractals so that would be good information to find out. Interesting that there is no daily limit on WvW veterans and Towers. But they do have a time gate. It is just not as obvious. Best case scenario if they only dropped one or two you can get it once every about 12 minutes. However in all likelihood it is closer to one half hour to a hour if you are farming them.(Hard to do in WvW) Putting them in line with the 20 from dungeons.

anzenketh.3759:

Best case scenario if they only dropped one or two you can get it once every about 12 minutes. However in all likelihood it is closer to one half hour to a hour if you are farming them.(Hard to do in WvW) Putting them in line with the 20 from dungeons.

I only took a couple towers and camps while I was in wvw, but the number of empyrean fragments dropped was similar to JPs. The lower end seemed to be favored at 2-3 per, but I did get 9 from one tower lord. I think wvw would be the fastest way to get them, if you’re going with karma/wxp/T7 train with little resistance. On a more even field, I’d agree that it is a similar rate to dungeons, depending on the dungeon in question.

I agree that you could get two vision crystals a week. I think you would have to play every day. and probably for at least 4 hours every day to do so, but I wont deny its possible. But you cant get more than 7 deldrimore ingots in a given week(without buying them off the post) So Im looking at at least 18 weeks for my 18 weapons.

Which I guess is my middle ground that I was looking for. Its not bad and its not good. On a difficulty scale of one to 10, 10 being suck, Id give it a 6. Im deffinitly not going to gear any of my WvW guys till after the balance patch on October 1st. How suck would it be to get a dagger for my thief only to find that they nerf stealth

Very interesting to hear you can get ore and frags from chests on multiple characters. Guess I should get some alts to 80. :P

Also being able to get the fragments from the guarded chests is very handy. If you add that to a simple boss rotation if you have the time to wander its a couple frags for nothing (ie. veteran chest in wayfarer near maw, bandit camp by the dam has a chest in Queensdale as well). Not sure about all the places, but just the handful of easy stuff I do already they were a nice addition. Most even gave me more then my trouble for jp. I just hope its intended.

anzenketh.3759:

mrstealth.6701:

anzenketh.3759:

Here is the information where I got in regards to the Daily chests. I have also seen players report they get the mats from the daily chest on multiple characters.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Upcoming-mega-boss-chest-change/first#post1656442

Yeah, the dragonite ore is per character on the meta boss events/temples/etc. It’s not bad with events like Maw, Golem, and Fire Ele that have a short reset cycle. The same with empyrean fragments and jumping puzzles (not sure on dungeons), but these drop in lesser amounts from what I’ve seen.

WvW seems to lack daily limits at all on at least the empyrean fragments although the amount dropped in wvw per capture is still low, as with JPs. I assume this is true for dragonite as well, but I’ve not done much wvw since the update. Dragonite also drops in small amounts from what I’ve seen.

The empyrean fragments are really the limiting factor here. I know a lot of people do the meta boss events, but going out of our way for jump puzzles isn’t as common. I like JPs, but I don’t want do those anywhere near as often as I do combat oriented events. Unfortunately, you have to do more JPs than events to keep your empyrean drops up with the amount of dragonite.

Thanks for confirming. The best way to get Empyreal Fragment is actually by Dungeons and fractals so that would be good information to find out. Interesting that there is no daily limit on WvW veterans and Towers. But they do have a time gate. It is just not as obvious. Best case scenario if they only dropped one or two you can get it once every about 12 minutes. However in all likelihood it is closer to one half hour to a hour if you are farming them.(Hard to do in WvW) Putting them in line with the 20 from dungeons.

Mileage will certainly vary, but I just spent an hour in wvw, running camps/towers with a few keeps, earned 98 Empyreal fragments and like 25 champ bags, so alot of dust too. Dragonite was only like 15 though

Erick Alastor.3917:

Anet:

Fun 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.

The rarest item have unique looks. Stop.
They were taking about legendaies, but now they are on pair with ascended. Stop.
Do you have to repeat again and again a specific content to get them? Yes.
Even if you don’t like that specific content? Yes.
Are some of us interested in this form of gamplay. No.
Will we be less strong than people with an ascended set? Yes.
Is all this invalidating their last sentence that sold us this game? Yes.

In a recent interview Colin Johanson said that they were not happy that people were able to full-equip their character in 1 or 2 weeks with exotics.

So Ascended are here to be carrots.

At least Colin said that he really hopes that this is not the beginning of a treadmill.

Sometimes I wonder what people would have said if they had put ascended also in a dungeon merchant for an amount of tokens that devs consider appropriate.

So I thought: if a max stats exotic GS costs like 2g and its equivalent in dungeon’s tokens is 390 (6,5 runs) an ascended GS, that costs like 58g, should costs something like 11.310 tokens.
Well 188,5 runs, 3 at day for 2 months, just for a single item.
But the limit is set to a specific dungeon, so you can always do more thant 3 paths daily and do your JOB working on other pieces farming other dungeons.

Aaah this would be so cool, because I know for sure that people would still come here, on this forum, with their white armors swearing that there is no grind at all.

Thank you for pointing this out! I am just as amazed as you are that they actually think this is what people consider fun! And I’m a farmer! That’s all I do all day is gather and even I think this is overboard!

I’m hoping that they at least have some good things in store for engineers on Oct 1st considering the problems we’ve had including their most recent nerf of kits back to exotic damage tables which doesn’t help us at ALL in PVE!

Played wvw every day since this new stuff came out, current total Drag it out ore 53.

Remind me how many I need for even one weapon?

Didn’t capture a single keep or SM in wvw today, so a total of 0 drag ores. They don’t drop from camps or towers. If there isn’t a lot of action or one server is dominating and it isn’t yours, then the chances of getting even one keep during 2-3 hours of game time is pretty slim.

Have passed 1000 of the other material and almost 200 of the other, but drag it out is going to be a real pain.

Why they had to go and make this so alt-unfriendly by making all the drops account bound is beyond me- but then as they think wvw ranks should be character bound I shouldn’t really have been at all surprised.

At the current rate it will take well over a month (or two) to craft one weapon, need 3 for my engi, 4 for my ranger and 3 for my necro as an absolute minimum (although usually I run alternative builds too). That’s 10-20 months just for the main three, and only if I can face running around kissing nodes for the rest of my life.

I log on, do a couple fractal runs, finish daily, occasionally do the living story achievements. That’s casual. I will not have enough money or mats for crafting to 500 and getting ascended weapons for months, if that.

Some people don’t know what casual means. Or maybe they just look at their grind and say, oh a casual player can just do the same grind but less per day. Yea, casual players want to run content for two weeks of gameplay that is not fun or interesting. That’s totally what casual gaming is all about!

That said, I don’t really care about the weapons either. I will never craft them even when I get enough gold. 200 per craft plus the grind for mats? Forget it. I’d rather grind a legendary if I’m going to have such an expensive and unpleasant experience.

Victory.2879:

Played wvw every day since this new stuff came out, current total Drag it out ore 53.

Remind me how many I need for even one weapon?

Didn’t capture a single keep or SM in wvw today, so a total of 0 drag ores. They don’t drop from camps or towers. If there isn’t a lot of action or one server is dominating and it isn’t yours, then the chances of getting even one keep during 2-3 hours of game time is pretty slim.

Have passed 1000 of the other material and almost 200 of the other, but drag it out is going to be a real pain.

Why they had to go and make this so alt-unfriendly by making all the drops account bound is beyond me- but then as they think wvw ranks should be character bound I shouldn’t really have been at all surprised.

At the current rate it will take well over a month (or two) to craft one weapon, need 3 for my engi, 4 for my ranger and 3 for my necro as an absolute minimum (although usually I run alternative builds too). That’s 10-20 months just for the main three, and only if I can face running around kissing nodes for the rest of my life.

They did manage to suck all the fun out of the game, ill give them that.

Xae Isareth.1364:

So ever since Ascended stuff came out everyone’s been screaming that the game turned into a huge grind. So…… where is that grind?

On paper, Ascended stuff looks like a hugeass list of mats to put on your to-grind list but if you just look at what it actually is, it’s basically stuff you get from playing any of the major contents of the game.

Funny thing – playing the game normally gets me only a small trickle of the needed mats. If i wasn’t farming for it, i could reasonably expect to get one ascended weapon per several months perhaps.
In fact, even just doing the timegated components every day requires farming to keep up with disappearing t5 wood, metal and leather.
There’s practically no part of ascended crafting that is not based on heavy grind.

So, to answer your question: “Where is that grind?” “Everywhere”