Guild Wars 2

In any kind of game that has a massive player base you’re going to have players who fall into various levels of skill, laziness or patience. The “endgame” of Guild Wars 2 has evolved into something SO far from it’s original release design, that they might as well be considered different titles.

Guild Wars 2 has outstanding graphics and music, as well as a combat system completely unique to other mainstream MMO’s. One of the biggest selling points, however, was the open world. Renown quests, events, group events, massive world bosses, and eventually guild bounties. More dynamic events than even Rift!

Despite nearly every server population being described as High or Very High. The open world is dead. Most of the renown quests and events in zones have been completed by the first generation of players to play GW2 that you’re lucky to run into anyone at all while leveling, let alone someone to help you with that champ mob in Lornar’s Pass or Fields of Ruin. Mid-level zones such as those are such “ghost towns” it can feel like playing a single player game.

World bosses were once my favorite aspect of the game. The newly added mechanics to world bosses have ruined the experience for myself and I’d speculate many people as well. Claw of Jormag’s monotonous chain fears, unforgiving fire/ice tornadoes on Fire Ele/Maw, Golem Mark II’s ground AE that can not only 2 shot you but also renders your downed state nearly useless. People on many servers don’t even bother to turn up for Teq. While I don’t agree that people should just auto-attack and get loot, I would take that over sad turnouts to world bosses. There needs to be a middle ground.

Certain aspects of dungeons could use similar attention as well. When a large percentage of groups will flat out not invite you if you aren’t a heavy profession or experienced it’s not very inviting to everyone else, and not much incentive for new/returning players when you can buy a full set of exotic gear for 2-3 gold an item.

Guild missions could use some love. While I can only speculate from my own experience, I would say a large portion of level 80 players have their ascended accessories and most guilds who do still run missions do them mostly as a social event for cosmetic rewards moreso than any real reward that impacts gameplay. Perhaps make commendations tradeable for an Empyreal star, Dragonite ingot or Bloodstone brick?

At 37/38 Dive locations and closing in on finishing my remaining jumping puzzles I literally ragequit from the Not So Secret jumping puzzle and have “retired” from attempting it any further as well as any other jumping puzzle, thus ruining another aspect of the game. While this is only one isolated instance I truly empathize for players who don’t even bother with this type of content based on how unforgiving is can be.

While you’re always going to have players who are competitive or casual, it’s my observation that most recent content only caters to the competitive, leaving many casual players in the dust. The most recent influx of activity with the, albiet short, living story chapter The Nightmare is Over (an adaption of the Queensdale champ train) and Wintersday (recycled from last year) should be more than enough evidence that getting the “poo” kicked out of you isn’t always fun. While you do need enough challenge and competition to not trivialize content, some players just want to play your game and the results by getting people out in the world wanting to do so would give the game a much more positive and cooperative feel.

I’ve actually felt the opposite. The game is very casual friendly. You can be in any gear, run any skills and still win any content. Also, the rewards are very lacklustre and trivialises the end-game content by rewarding blues, greens and junk.

The game is very casual. If recent content you mean living story, then we can agree that’s a casual content, with occasional “tedious” achievement.

“a combat system completely unique to other mainstream MMO’s.”

Err…

Dungeons requiring heavies? Even in 40+ FotM barely any parties are Warr/Guard only.

The whole point is that you can buy an exotic set for 2-3 gold, but generally that set will look ugly. You do dungeons and work for the expensive stuff to look kitten.

NOS is one of the harder JPs in the game, you got easy JPs, you got hard JPs, quite logical.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Despite nearly every server population being described as High or Very High. The open world is dead. Most of the renown quests and events in zones have been completed by the first generation of players to play GW2 that you’re lucky to run into anyone at all while leveling, let alone someone to help you with that champ mob in Lornar’s Pass or Fields of Ruin. Mid-level zones such as those are such “ghost towns” it can feel like playing a single player game.

I started playing during the headstart. Fields of Ruin and Lornar’s Pass have always been near empty places. Like Snowden or Iron Marches, or like you said any mid level zones. Players don’t play in Fields of Ruin because a lot of them don’t even know how to easily get there.

Squee Squashington.5189:

World bosses were once my favorite aspect of the game. The newly added mechanics to world bosses have ruined the experience for myself and I’d speculate many people as well. Claw of Jormag’s monotonous chain fears, unforgiving fire/ice tornadoes on Fire Ele/Maw, Golem Mark II’s ground AE that can not only 2 shot you but also renders your downed state nearly useless. People on many servers don’t even bother to turn up for Teq. While I don’t agree that people should just auto-attack and get loot, I would take that over sad turnouts to world bosses. There needs to be a middle ground.

Aside from Teq, which needs coordination and a lot of players, the rest is a personal issue. If you still die from any world boss, you need to learn to move around…
The Fire Ele gives you plenty of time to move around, except if you start saving downed players. The Maw…you shouldn’t even die more than once (hopefully because you were afk) and Mark II is a matter of not being blind and seeing the 2 seconds tell to move out of the way.
As for Jormag : the first phase is boring, the second is annoying because more than half of the players seem to still not understand that you need to protect those golems.

Darkobra.6439:

I’ve actually felt the opposite. The game is very casual friendly. You can be in any gear, run any skills and still win any content. Also, the rewards are very lacklustre and trivialises the end-game content by rewarding blues, greens and junk.

That’s how I felt with the addition and approach to ascended weapons and armor. But that’s a topic for another thread.

Giving some value to blues and greens via essences of luck was a good step towards adding value to those items, so kudos to that. There are however many aspects of the game, many challenging aspects, that offer very little incentive for doing so.

RedStar.4218:

Aside from Teq, which needs coordination and a lot of players, the rest is a personal issue. If you still die from any world boss, you need to learn to move around…
The Fire Ele gives you plenty of time to move around, except if you start saving downed players. The Maw…you shouldn’t even die more than once (hopefully because you were afk) and Mark II is a matter of not being blind and seeing the 2 seconds tell to move out of the way.
As for Jormag : the first phase is boring, the second is annoying because more than half of the players seem to still not understand that you need to protect those golems.

I don’t typically die on most boss encounters. A lot of my frustration extends to experiences with my class. Maw is frustrating because clones are killed by ice storms before they can get to boss and the shatter is still on CD regardless. Ele is frustrating for the very reason you stated; trying to rezz downed players with embers, ground aoe, and the linear flame spike is a little much. Golem can catch me in if I’m not quick enough to dodge out of aoe because I had to make clones with deceptive evasion. Wurm’s fear will leave clones and phantasms staring at the wall at the end of the fear rendering them useless. Even Shatterer will one shot most if not all of your phantasms (traited & signet’ed) every single air phase. While I’m sure some classes aren’t impacted as much I can’t say for other classes/builds where minions are more vital. But the initial intent of have people not stand around auto-attacking has pretty much forced me and people with similar builds or playstyles to standing around auto-attacking.

Please, try other games and then come back to say how bad it its in here and how many games rewards you more.

This game has very many flaws but it is EXTREMALY casual friendly.

Septemptus.7164:

Please, try other games and then come back to say how bad it its in here and how many games rewards you more.

This game has very many flaws but it is EXTREMALY casual friendly.

I have played other games including but not limited to Rift, World of Warcraft, SWtoR, RO2, a little bit of GW1, as well as a little bit of some of the more ancient korean mmorpg’s. The risk vs reward in GW2 has more in common with the ancient korean mmo’s than any of the others I mentioned.

gw2 had never endgame – just a themepark

Squee Squashington.5189:

I don’t typically die on most boss encounters. A lot of my frustration extends to experiences with my class.

Oh you are a mesmer :/ yeah it’s probably the most troublesome classes against World bosses. When I farmed the bosses, my mesmer was the last class I used because of that (and since I have 6 others, it was pretty rare for me to take him out).

Hmm, I wouldn’t say pve is dead-people still do dungeons and fractals and those are pve. I would say the exploration is dead-all that’s here is farming (efficient farming at that-which results in the exclusivity you see in dungeons and all the trains). If you want to see more people (double edged sword imo) visit Queensdale, Frostgorge and w/e random zone the LS is centered in, but you’re right-venture out of those zones and it’s a single player game without designs made for a single player game.

I’m not part of this reward-driven-carrot-on-a-stick generation of gamers so I honestly don’t know how to even begin fixing it. Increase the rewards in one are and all the hamsters flock to that area and you end up with the same problem. Perhaps levels are part of the problem as it makes downlevelled zones far easier to handle. If QD had lots of poison mobs and Iron Marshes had protection mobs then rather than QD being easier it’ll be more along the lines of pick condi removal for QD and either burst or boon strip for IM so the difference is in flavour. But they won’t suddenly remove all levelling so idk (and that doesn’t solve the exclusivity resulting form ‘efficient’ farming in dungeons/fractals either).

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

Squee Squashington.5189:

… I literally ragequit from the Not So Secret jumping puzzle and have “retired” from attempting it any further as well as any other jumping puzzle, thus ruining another aspect of the game.

Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting, but it sounds like ‘Not So Secret’ was too hard and frustrating for you to complete (I don’t blame you), so you made a choice to stop doing jumping puzzles altogether and now you blame ANet for ‘ruining another aspect of the game.’

If this is the gist of it, it seems like you’re just ruining an aspect of the game for yourself. Can’t do ‘Not So Secret?’ Who care? Shrug it off and enjoy the rest of the jumping puzzles.

Mesket.5728:

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

Pretty much this. It is one of the most casual games, but at the same time if you are serious at all about your character and having the best shinies, it reminds me of early day Lineage 2, nothing but grind after grind.

Mesket.5728:

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

You never played any Korean grind MMO’s have you? I remember one I’ve played where gaining 1 level took 12 hours (and that was at the mid level range, near cap it was easily 20-24 hours if not more). Loot was not shared and everything worked on the honor system when you did dungeon runs as drops were based on who did the most damage. The most sought out items dropped extremely rarely, the only place that dropped them at a more common area was a PvP map and there were no level restrictions on who could kill who (unless you were on the PvP server, then every map was PvP other then the starters). These items that were most sought after were used to buff the damage of your weapons. You needed 64 of these items to get your weapon from +0 to +9 (if you were lucky that is, most of the time the weapon would break at +5 or +6). Then in later patches they added all the way to +12 which really was impossible to get to I think you need 150-200 of those items).

There are much, much worse grind games out there then this one. Exotic’s are cheap and will hold you over for a while. If you just relax and don’t race to get the best of the best you will have a lot more fun and you will think of this as less of a grind.

The rewards don’t usually match the risk, I think from day one arenanet has had that unbalanced. Some of the world bosses they dragged from a 2 minute to a 10 minute fight for the same rewards, I’d rather just run the champ train 2 rounds in that time, although I haven’t done either in quite some time, only put time into wvw now.

They ruined Tequalt, I love big outdoor fights like this but they overdid it on his revamp, how many servers haven’t killed him yet still? His rewards are not spectacular for the time and effort you need to put in either, a lot won’t bother even for the miniscule chance at an ascended weapon. Jormag to this day I still never see people use the shield on the gun to defend against his fear, I feel like I’m the only person that has learned that strategy to his fight, and yes a lot only bother trying to smack his nose than protect the golems.

As for zones they were designed so that players from higher levels can always go back to the lower ones and still get rewarded, but you won’t get rewarded as much as playing in a zone at your level anyways. I think they figured the combination of higher level players coming back to do zone completions and newer characters being leveled would keep zones alive. They’ve fallen into the same old dead zone problem of other mmos which means dynamic events are not triggering as often. WoW is now fixing the dead zone problem with cross realm zone mechanics.

I don’t bother with the jumping puzzles unless it’s giving me something unique like a skin, otherwise just not worth the time playing super mario in gw2. I don’t run dungeons or fractuals, cosmetic gear that doesn’t matter in wvw, I run on low texture for best frame rates which means everyone looks the same anyways, and frankly I don’t really care what the person next to me is wearing either.

There’s very few items in the game I find look good, too many back pieces to change, too many one sided shoulder pieces, but need to buy the level 80 transmutation stones or buy the piece again to do the transmutation, ugh I just don’t bother anymore. Please steal Rifts wardrobe idea.

Not So Secret was difficult, but there are certainly more difficult JPs in this game. Skipping Stones, Clock Tower, Dark Revery, Chaos Crystal Cavern, Snow Globe (Especially last year, when you had to do the entire thing in one run). NSS is much easier if you do it with others so you don’t have to worry about the mobs as much and you have to be able to land on target as the spacing for some of it is less than your max jump distance, greatly increasing the difficulty…and wait for agro to wear off. IMO, Skipping Stones is, by far, the most difficult/maddening JP in the game.

Leamas.5803:

Not So Secret was difficult, but there are certainly more difficult JPs in this game. Skipping Stones, Clock Tower, Dark Revery, Chaos Crystal Cavern, Snow Globe (Especially last year, when you had to do the entire thing in one run). NSS is much easier if you do it with others so you don’t have to worry about the mobs as much and you have to be able to land on target as the spacing for some of it is less than your max jump distance, greatly increasing the difficulty…and wait for agro to wear off. IMO, Skipping Stones is, by far, the most difficult/maddening JP in the game.

If I remember correctly, I’ve completed all the puzzles you listed besides Clock Tower. While I didn’t have too many issues with the others, I would certainly put Skipping Stones and Not So Secret in an entire league of their own.

Part of my inspiration for including jumping puzzles in this post is because I WAS running it with a friendly pug who gave up at the small brown platforms just after you go through the balloon. So while it was nice to have a little company and help killing nearby mobs, it’s disheartening to see someone get just as frustrated and not want to bother with the content.

Skipping Stones was the only JP that I was willing to cheat and accept a friendly mesmer’s portal to the end, for similar reasons to Not So Secret. There’s no wiggle room at all. One wrong move doesn’t have you doing a portion of the puzzle over again, but puts you entirely outside the puzzle having to start over completely. I made it to the top where the path splits towards either the balloon or the diving goggles, so while I’m not the best in the game I know I’m not entirely inept.

I may give this another go in the coming days as it’s only an isolated incident from my personal play experience, but as a part of a multi-faceted list of concerns, I felt it deserved mention.

coolmanx.5726:

Mesket.5728:

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

You never played any Korean grind MMO’s have you? I remember one I’ve played where gaining 1 level took 12 hours (and that was at the mid level range, near cap it was easily 20-24 hours if not more). Loot was not shared and everything worked on the honor system when you did dungeon runs as drops were based on who did the most damage. The most sought out items dropped extremely rarely, the only place that dropped them at a more common area was a PvP map and there were no level restrictions on who could kill who (unless you were on the PvP server, then every map was PvP other then the starters). These items that were most sought after were used to buff the damage of your weapons. You needed 64 of these items to get your weapon from +0 to +9 (if you were lucky that is, most of the time the weapon would break at +5 or +6). Then in later patches they added all the way to +12 which really was impossible to get to I think you need 150-200 of those items).

There are much, much worse grind games out there then this one. Exotic’s are cheap and will hold you over for a while. If you just relax and don’t race to get the best of the best you will have a lot more fun and you will think of this as less of a grind.

Played many… I played more than 30 MMOs (probably more than 50) since 1997. It is the only game genre I actually spend time on. Most of them were Asians and only a few had a working quest system to level… I remember the “good’ol’days” of “I need to kill 3K wolfs to make a level” (and I was only at lvl 20 ish out of hundreds so yeah, I did my share of grindfest… but you know what? those games are designed for that. You accept to grind in a grinding game because it is made in a way it is actually relaxing… you know you won’t go faster than that so you just enjoy each round of killing. This game is so inconsistence with itself that it requires HUGE loads of grinding… probably more than a lifetime to get all by yourself (if you are willing to make some math) but at the same it has a LOT of counter-grinding mechanism implemented to stop the bots. So,.. they are not worst, and again… make some maths and you will see that even taking Asian games into account… this game has a LOT more grinding than those games, even when it was not designed for grinding.

“Underflow” would be great for those in-between zones that have sparse populations outside of being chosen for a LS event.

I’m not sure about the Dungeon issue. Have you joined a guild ? I only started doing Dungeons recently because of that. We have done dungeons with one/no “heavy” class. We had three Mesmers once ! If you join a guild where people aren’t looking to speedrun as fast as possible you should be fine.

I don’t think the low-ish cost of exotic gear is an issue. It means you run dungeons if you WANT to, but you don’t HAVE to in order to get that gear. I think that’s a good thing and something that was promised for GW2.

I agree that the Not So Secret dive location shouldn’t count toward that meta – it should be its own thing. I have come to really enjoy JPs. I never thought I’d be able to, yet I’ve finally done Skipping Stones and the Wintersday JP ! This month my monthly JPs were all new ones and I love the challenge and “different” kind of activity. Not So Secret was my first JP I ever tried – and I didn’t make it, but I hope new or frustrated players will try some of the easier ones if they’re interested but not ready for something like that yet.

I would consider myself “casual” and I feel this game is really “friendly” to me. I can join in things if I want to, but I don’t have to. I excitedly made it to 400 Cooking and 400 Jewelcrafting recently – out of almost all stuff I’d gathered myself. I know I will probably never get Ascended crafted armor – but then again I said the same thing about JPs. But it’s not a big deal either way – I don’t do high-level fractals. I can get a character to 80 and just buy them a set of plain old rares and do basically anything I want to. I don’t even feel pressure to get a set of exotics – although it’s something to “work toward”. Now WvWvW will be account-bound, too.

It is worth to be mentioned that for some reason, some servers (like Anvil Rock) are supposedly “heavily populated” but very few people do anything on the PvE map, barring Living Story achievements and specific events (even “champ trains” are relatively empty over there). That makes look the less popular maps even more desolate (I am leveling a Charr character on all Ascalonian maps-people hate Charr zones for one reason or the other). On other servers, even those “empty” maps are bound to have more players, so do not rely on the “very high population” notice as any sort of indicator of PvE map players.

In short, the PvE maps are not as empty as they may appear-it may be an issue on your particular server, so feel free to guest around at times.

Mesket.5728:

coolmanx.5726:

Mesket.5728:

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

You never played any Korean grind MMO’s have you? I remember one I’ve played where gaining 1 level took 12 hours (and that was at the mid level range, near cap it was easily 20-24 hours if not more). Loot was not shared and everything worked on the honor system when you did dungeon runs as drops were based on who did the most damage. The most sought out items dropped extremely rarely, the only place that dropped them at a more common area was a PvP map and there were no level restrictions on who could kill who (unless you were on the PvP server, then every map was PvP other then the starters). These items that were most sought after were used to buff the damage of your weapons. You needed 64 of these items to get your weapon from +0 to +9 (if you were lucky that is, most of the time the weapon would break at +5 or +6). Then in later patches they added all the way to +12 which really was impossible to get to I think you need 150-200 of those items).

There are much, much worse grind games out there then this one. Exotic’s are cheap and will hold you over for a while. If you just relax and don’t race to get the best of the best you will have a lot more fun and you will think of this as less of a grind.

Played many… I played more than 30 MMOs (probably more than 50) since 1997. It is the only game genre I actually spend time on. Most of them were Asians and only a few had a working quest system to level… I remember the “good’ol’days” of “I need to kill 3K wolfs to make a level” (and I was only at lvl 20 ish out of hundreds so yeah, I did my share of grindfest… but you know what? those games are designed for that. You accept to grind in a grinding game because it is made in a way it is actually relaxing… you know you won’t go faster than that so you just enjoy each round of killing. This game is so inconsistence with itself that it requires HUGE loads of grinding… probably more than a lifetime to get all by yourself (if you are willing to make some math) but at the same it has a LOT of counter-grinding mechanism implemented to stop the bots. So,.. they are not worst, and again… make some maths and you will see that even taking Asian games into account… this game has a LOT more grinding than those games, even when it was not designed for grinding.

I never really felt any grinding in this game. I have 3 level 80’s with another one close behind. One of them is in full exotics/ascended gems, the other 2 are about half built. I have most of my crafting to 400 (taloring is at 457). I believe I joined around the end of dragon bash so I’ve been playing for 5-6 months. I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time. I will give you some of the material farming feels too grindy (especially with the cost of using them, like some mystic forge recipes use 250t6 material, but that’s where I feel anet needs to work on) but other normal materials are fine. I get a good chunk of them when I run from place to place or when I feel like doing champ farm. Most of the really crazy recipes that require 250 of an item are just for vanity anyway, just like Arah zerker armor and CoF zerker armor.

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

Yeah, that’s casual. “Hardcore” involves quitting your job, living on Hot Pockets & Ensure, and keeping a bucket next to the computer.

They don’t make many Hardcore MMOs any more.

WOW, I guess I’m casual even for casuals. :P I might get a an hour or two of actual play a day, on average, less on the weekends.

tbh I think people exaggerate the term “casual” already… no one that is, in my eyes, casual even plays every day, let alone 3-4 hours a day. Casual to me is someone who comes and goes, plays maybe 2-4 days a week maybe an hour or 2 each time.. the problem is that most people don’t realize theres a middle ground between casual and hardcore being the “serious” crowd… serious enough about the game to want to get some of the high end shinies but not hardcore enough that missing something is the end of the world to them.

Ceallach.8740:

“Underflow” would be great for those in-between zones that have sparse populations outside of being chosen for a LS event.

Not a bad idea at all.

Star Ace.5207:

In short, the PvE maps are not as empty as they may appear-it may be an issue on your particular server, so feel free to guest around at times.

It could be, but again my server is listed High/Very High population depending on time of day. While I know quite a lot of people run WvW and Fractals, after recently leveling a
theif to 40, necro to 30, and just general roaming around on my main, the open world feels very dead. :-\

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

LOL :P

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

tbh I think people exaggerate the term “casual” already… no one that is, in my eyes, casual even plays every day, let alone 3-4 hours a day. Casual to me is someone who comes and goes, plays maybe 2-4 days a week maybe an hour or 2 each time.. the problem is that most people don’t realize theres a middle ground between casual and hardcore being the “serious” crowd… serious enough about the game to want to get some of the high end shinies but not hardcore enough that missing something is the end of the world to them.

I was refering to it more as a spectrum than a 3 part social class system, but by that logic; Catering to the competitive/tryhard group would exclude not only the casuals but the players who fall in the middle as well, a substantial if not majority of the player base.

coolmanx.5726:

Mesket.5728:

coolmanx.5726:

Mesket.5728:

This game can be considered casual because it has no real goals…

But if you consider the harder things to acquire as end game, this game is far from being casual friendly and its actually one of the most hardcore/grindfest games currently online. Few games demand as many hours online dedicated entirely to farming like GW2,… again, if you are looking for the hard-to-get shinnies.

You never played any Korean grind MMO’s have you? I remember one I’ve played where gaining 1 level took 12 hours (and that was at the mid level range, near cap it was easily 20-24 hours if not more). Loot was not shared and everything worked on the honor system when you did dungeon runs as drops were based on who did the most damage. The most sought out items dropped extremely rarely, the only place that dropped them at a more common area was a PvP map and there were no level restrictions on who could kill who (unless you were on the PvP server, then every map was PvP other then the starters). These items that were most sought after were used to buff the damage of your weapons. You needed 64 of these items to get your weapon from +0 to +9 (if you were lucky that is, most of the time the weapon would break at +5 or +6). Then in later patches they added all the way to +12 which really was impossible to get to I think you need 150-200 of those items).

There are much, much worse grind games out there then this one. Exotic’s are cheap and will hold you over for a while. If you just relax and don’t race to get the best of the best you will have a lot more fun and you will think of this as less of a grind.

Played many… I played more than 30 MMOs (probably more than 50) since 1997. It is the only game genre I actually spend time on. Most of them were Asians and only a few had a working quest system to level… I remember the “good’ol’days” of “I need to kill 3K wolfs to make a level” (and I was only at lvl 20 ish out of hundreds so yeah, I did my share of grindfest… but you know what? those games are designed for that. You accept to grind in a grinding game because it is made in a way it is actually relaxing… you know you won’t go faster than that so you just enjoy each round of killing. This game is so inconsistence with itself that it requires HUGE loads of grinding… probably more than a lifetime to get all by yourself (if you are willing to make some math) but at the same it has a LOT of counter-grinding mechanism implemented to stop the bots. So,.. they are not worst, and again… make some maths and you will see that even taking Asian games into account… this game has a LOT more grinding than those games, even when it was not designed for grinding.

I never really felt any grinding in this game. I have 3 level 80’s with another one close behind. One of them is in full exotics/ascended gems, the other 2 are about half built. I have most of my crafting to 400 (taloring is at 457). I believe I joined around the end of dragon bash so I’ve been playing for 5-6 months. I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time. I will give you some of the material farming feels too grindy (especially with the cost of using them, like some mystic forge recipes use 250t6 material, but that’s where I feel anet needs to work on) but other normal materials are fine. I get a good chunk of them when I run from place to place or when I feel like doing champ farm. Most of the really crazy recipes that require 250 of an item are just for vanity anyway, just like Arah zerker armor and CoF zerker armor.

stupid forum breaks converstaions as it won’t let you add more than 2 quotes… but in the original post it was already clarified that we are talking about the “end game”… what you refer as vanity. Those shinnies are the only thing left for most vet players and it is in fact a huge load of farming.

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

3-4 hours a day is anything but casual lol.

Aeonblade.8709:

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

3-4 hours a day is anything but casual lol.

3 hours is on the casual side of being a progressionist to be honest. In most games if you play DPS you’ll spend about 30 mins to a hour waiting in a dungeon queue, and around 30 mins to complete a dungeon run, and 30 mins to do dailies, and then you’ll probably spend 30mins chatting to friends. That’s 2 hours doing bare minimum already.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Aeonblade.8709:

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

3-4 hours a day is anything but casual lol.

3 hours is on the casual side of being a progressionist to be honest. In most games if you play DPS you’ll spend about 30 mins to a hour waiting in a dungeon queue, and around 30 mins to complete a dungeon run, and 30 mins to do dailies, and then you’ll probably spend 30mins chatting to friends. That’s 2 hours doing bare minimum already.

I do dungeons very rarely. I play for AP. So, I do dailies at ~20-30 minutes (Preferably those that involve living world), adjust TP (Usually 3 times a week at ~20 minutes each), and sometimes a little exploration on my alt and time varies as I have time, every few days on average. While I have it open quite often all evening just to monitor chat and TP things as I walk by the computer, on average, I probably “play” less than an hour a day.