Guild Wars 2

Khai.6435:

AntiGw.9367:

Khai.6435:

If the community ignores a zone; I want it overrun. I want to feel like what we do matters.

You mean, like Orr? Because that’s already in the game.

Orr doesn’t change… oh you lose a few bases.. that’s not the same thing I am describing..

I’m talking dropping in events which change the state of map. If the orrions take over a base; modify it. change the architecture over time; change the surrounding terrain; likewise when the sylvarri beat them back show reclamation.

I am talking advancing fronts. You can never take back Orr.. Even though you have killed in the story the primary influence.. you have undead.. just mindlessly loitering around.. there is no story to their movements; no reason for why they are standing there if they are an undead army under the direction of dark magic.

Set your clock it’s time for the hourly Orr event farm; Plinx is up. There should be generals leading the army; their deaths should be felt across the zone. You should fear their presence on the battlefield.

This is where I think Rift really took the crown with dynamic events. Strip away the WoW style gear progression and all the other regurgitated crap that Rift was and just look at the way they did Zone events, Rifts, Invasions and footholds and they were very epic. They didn’t have much of a permanent effect either but they ensured everyone stopped what they were doing and took part when fifty rifts opened up and a megaboss marched ttoward the major population hub.

That is what Orr is missing for me, with Orr being a permanent wasteland full of undead you don’t really care what happens. However if There was a level 80 map that was a fully civilised poplation hub with a few isolated hostile areas that could suddenly become besieged by dozens of invading forces in a huge meta event….. that would be epic. People would actually care because their routines would be interrupted until the invasion was beaten back.

I don’t care what happens to Orr. If Divinities Reach was suddenly under attack and flooded with undead I might actually give a kitten

Look, we are not the developers let alone designers. However, we are people, who play for fun, and actually provide a source of income so they can continue doing what they do. Design stuff and release content. If the income dries up then, well, has the mightly Led Zeppelin once sang about…. “When the Levee Breaks”

Anyway, the game has a lot going for it which is good. You can, to some degree, take a break, return, and pick back up. However, for other things there is a pretty hefty grind. For gold, for precursors, for the fancy armor. If you happen to be on break while the short term content comes out, well, your hosed. So there is this to think about. Then there is the whole ascended debate which regardless of which side humpty dumpty is on, there was a major thread in the general forums with thousands of thousands of posts most of which disliked the whole idea (regardless if the intent was to always release). Most had the mindset (right or wrong) that exotic was it outside skins or textures.

For me, the game and/or content moves too quickly. While I log on daily I don’t really keep up with the content Jones so miss things. Then when I look, read, hear, or see something it usually is too late. My issue, my lack of time management, but other things are usually more fun and/or interesting. Catch 22 and I’m not so sure the developers can “FIX” that.

What “I” think to do maybe isn’t something they have planned or already thought about it and said, er, no. Me, it is bridge the gap in regards to loot tables for PvE and WvW. If players don’t visit the PvE side of the house (fracs for example) or living story thsoe skins or chances of precursors should fall over to WvW kills be it player, npc, chest, or random mob. Furthermore, I would expand upon the WvW jump puzzles to increase both the risk and reward to those engaging in it. To include things like champions, veterans, random patrolling mobs, more traps, and things that increase the rewards or modifiers for entering. Ties back to keep control, fighting, and overall hide and seek vs. thrill.

In summary many of us have seen, heard, or read the 80 things to do at 80. Until all 80 are done then there is still plenty to do. But we also know at least one or two people who have left the game due to various reasons. It isn’t dead or dieing but it is Arena Nets to loose.

HiddenNick.7206:

…and it wasn’t because there was more mini-games.

At launch the game was about dynamic events, leveling, crafting and gear progression. I had more fun back then. I really miss that time. I loved the feeling that there is a reason to fight that monster and help those peasants. Now I feel that the game is about farming achievements and getting 8th back piece that I really don’t need and don’t care about… I never cared much about achievements. That didn’t change. But AN puts most of their effort on mini games and achievement system instead of that what was really fun for me – dynamic events, fighting giants and dragons with crowd of people!

After launch I was playing a LOT. Now I rarely log in. Just to check out new area or dungeon. After an hour I’m done and bored. I spend more time on the forums now.

So destroy all your materials and delete your characters and start over again from square one?

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shiren.9532:

Raine.1394:

OP, if I thought all the future held was mini-game platformers I’d pull the plug now. And I think that the AP system introduced was important as an enhancement to perceived reward for play which was lacking in the game. I believe the next frontier for GW2 will be a move to focus on an evolving, permanent living world, which I think is the best thing they can do. It’s the alternative to the expansion, which I really don’t want. I don’t know their plans but Colin’s statements have contained enough to give me hope for the future of GW2. (Colin, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Did you follow any of ArenaNet’s statements before GW2 launched? They’ve backtracked on so many of them, their talk never matches their walk.

Anet made tens of thousands of statements before launch. The percentage they’ve “backtracked on” is neglible.

If that’s all you focus on, that’s fine. But to say that game developers who claim to have an iterative process might change things as they go…oh yeah, that’s right, they wrote whole articles about how they iterate and change things.

I guess that means that you CHOSE to listen to some things that were said while ignoring other things that were said.

Vayne, you didn’t even mention the irony in seeing me being educated on the fact that they’ve backtracked on promises. Just when you think you’ve built a solid reputation on the forums.

Backtracking on promises, overall, is negligible and nothing that should define Anet’s name. VP, in fact, is the only area i feel is worth continued comment. And, my thought there is only to work to eliminate it or minimize it. It would be a better game without it.

Anet didn’t backtrack on PROMISES. Anet said a few things which changed. I don’t understand how you can say a change is a promise. This is what I don’t get.

Every MMO makes changes. The try things, they don’t work, they try different things. They experiment. Something doesn’t work they modifiy it. Before launch they said they had energy and energy potions. They later ditched that.

But most people aren’t calling them on getting rid of energy potions. Why wasn’t that a promise?

Backtracking on a promise is simply hyperbole. Anet designed a game and during the design of that game they made sure everyone knew they were iterative. They said straight out there were times when they tried something and threw the whole thing away. Did you read that article? Did you see just how many articles Anet used the word Iterative and Iteration in? I even named a character Iteration, when the game first lauched, because my wife and I had a personal joke about them overusing the word.

So if I come to you and say I try all sorts of different things and then I change them…when I try different things and change them, I’m proving what I said.

You can use the word promise from today till doomsday but all Anet did was see what they thought worked. See what didn’t worked and make changes.

If you want to feel like a jilted lover over it, be my guest. It doesn’t change the reality of the situation.

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

One word: Sandbox.

Unless an MMO company chooses Sandbox as there gaming style it will just be boring at level cap forever.

Villious.8530:

Vayne.8563:

I have the same problem in most MMOs. Leveling is usually fun for me and end game stuff usually isn’t.

However, I still think my guild has a lot to do with how entertained I am. There’s always someone that needs help in the open world and I go help them and boom, I find something I’ve either never seen before or an event that I’ve not entered from that point in time, or some detail that I either overlooked or perhaps forgot.

I still spend a lot of time in the open world doing events and enjoying them.

I guess the difference is, I really like some of the new stuff that’s come out.

Vayne, I find that I’m liking your post more and more. Wait….OH MY GOD! Am I being assimilated??!! ;-)

Seriously, I don’t always agree with what you might say 100% of the time, but I do believe you always try to be fair and unbiased. Cheers!

Careful what you say. If you like my posts too publicly, you’ll only become a target. lol

And thanks.

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

I think most of us understand there is a context in which a “declaration of intent” constitutes a promise, and when it is simply a statement of someone’s thoughts or plans.

If you and I are out to breakfast and I say "I think I’ll have some OJ with breakfast’ only to when they waitress comes I say, “You know, coffee actually sounds good, I think I’ll have that to drink”, would I have broken a promise and lied to you? Most people understand that given the social context it would not be considered a lie. Sure I said one thing, then change my mind and did another, but people would not call it a promise or a lie. There was no intention to deceive, it was simply a change in plans for whatever the reason.

Saying I’m going to buy your lunch, then when the check arrives tell you that I actually have no money and you will need to pick up the check, would be a broken promise and a lie since there was a clear intent to deceive.

Stone.6751:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

I think most of us understand there is a context in which a “declaration of intent” constitutes a promise, and when it is simply a statement of someone’s thoughts or plans.

If you and I are out to breakfast and I say "I think I’ll have some OJ with breakfast’ only to when they waitress comes I say, “You know, coffee actually sounds good, I think I’ll have that to drink”, would I have broken a promise and lied to you? Most people understand that given the social context it would not be considered a lie. Sure I said one thing, then change my mind and did another, but people would not call it a promise or a lie. There was no intention to deceive, it was simply a change in plans for whatever the reason.

Saying I’m going to buy your lunch, then when the check arrives tell you that I actually have no money and you will need to pick up the check, would be a broken promise and a lie since there was a clear intent to deceive.

To answer your question as to whether you would have lied to me, no. And, I make no presuppositions about intent and especially no presuppositions about intent to deceive. My post above only concerns what constitutes a promise. I actually don’t believe that Anet lied when making pre-launch declarations of what the game would be about and what it would not be about. I believe that they felt they needed to change what they said the game would be about to meet what they saw as the demands of the player base. Many people immediately go to “they lied” when dealing with an unfulfilled promise. I don’t go there. I don’t believe they lied. But I do hold to a conventional understanding of the word promise in the context of the current discussion.

Raine.1394:

Stone.6751:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

I think most of us understand there is a context in which a “declaration of intent” constitutes a promise, and when it is simply a statement of someone’s thoughts or plans.

If you and I are out to breakfast and I say "I think I’ll have some OJ with breakfast’ only to when they waitress comes I say, “You know, coffee actually sounds good, I think I’ll have that to drink”, would I have broken a promise and lied to you? Most people understand that given the social context it would not be considered a lie. Sure I said one thing, then change my mind and did another, but people would not call it a promise or a lie. There was no intention to deceive, it was simply a change in plans for whatever the reason.

Saying I’m going to buy your lunch, then when the check arrives tell you that I actually have no money and you will need to pick up the check, would be a broken promise and a lie since there was a clear intent to deceive.

To answer your question as to whether you would have lied to me, no. And, I make no presuppositions about intent and especially no presuppositions about intent to deceive. My post above only concerns what constitutes a promise. I actually don’t believe that Anet lied when making pre-launch declarations of what the game would be about and what it would not be about. I believe that they felt they needed to change what they said the game would be about to meet what they saw as the demands of the player base. Many people immediately go to “they lied” when dealing with an unfulfilled promise. I don’t go there. I don’t believe they lied. But I do hold to a conventional understanding of the word promise in the context of the current discussion.

A promise, to most people, isn’t just saying you’re going to do something. A promise is a guarantee of you doing something.

If I tell my wife, I’m going to put up the dishes and I get distracted, I didn’t promise her I’d put up the dishes. The casual nature of what I said to her was understood that I’d do it assuming nothing else came up or I couldn’t get to it. She wouldn’t take it as a promise either.

But this is just a semantic conversation at this point. Because promise, whether you like it or not, means something more to a whole lot of people, so using the word promise compromises what you’re trying to say.

Breaking a promise is very different to most people than not doing something you said you were going to do.

It might not be to you,. but you’re not talking to yourself here.

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Stone.6751:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

I think most of us understand there is a context in which a “declaration of intent” constitutes a promise, and when it is simply a statement of someone’s thoughts or plans.

If you and I are out to breakfast and I say "I think I’ll have some OJ with breakfast’ only to when they waitress comes I say, “You know, coffee actually sounds good, I think I’ll have that to drink”, would I have broken a promise and lied to you? Most people understand that given the social context it would not be considered a lie. Sure I said one thing, then change my mind and did another, but people would not call it a promise or a lie. There was no intention to deceive, it was simply a change in plans for whatever the reason.

Saying I’m going to buy your lunch, then when the check arrives tell you that I actually have no money and you will need to pick up the check, would be a broken promise and a lie since there was a clear intent to deceive.

To answer your question as to whether you would have lied to me, no. And, I make no presuppositions about intent and especially no presuppositions about intent to deceive. My post above only concerns what constitutes a promise. I actually don’t believe that Anet lied when making pre-launch declarations of what the game would be about and what it would not be about. I believe that they felt they needed to change what they said the game would be about to meet what they saw as the demands of the player base. Many people immediately go to “they lied” when dealing with an unfulfilled promise. I don’t go there. I don’t believe they lied. But I do hold to a conventional understanding of the word promise in the context of the current discussion.

A promise, to most people, isn’t just saying you’re going to do something. A promise is a guarantee of you doing something.

If I tell my wife, I’m going to put up the dishes and I get distracted, I didn’t promise her I’d put up the dishes. The casual nature of what I said to her was understood that I’d do it assuming nothing else came up or I couldn’t get to it. She wouldn’t take it as a promise either.

But this is just a semantic conversation at this point. Because promise, whether you like it or not, means something more to a whole lot of people, so using the word promise compromises what you’re trying to say.

Breaking a promise is very different to most people than not doing something you said you were going to do.

It might not be to you,. but you’re not talking to yourself here.

No, a promise is what a promise is. It means what the definition of the word says it means. And, that’s why I used the dictionary definition. This isn’t a subjective question or one of semantics. I’m not talking to myself or from myself. I’m using English in its plain meaning. All words have a range of meaning, but there is no sense in which special guarantees are required to constitute a promise. If I say I am going to do something, I have made a promise to do something. How do I know that’s true? Not by what a lot of people around here believe is a promise, but by the dictionary definition of the word promise.

I do agree that most people tend to bring extra baggage to a discussion of what constitutes a promise. Lying for instance. I can certainly lie when making a promise, but that doesn’t make it a promise or not. It’s a separate issue.

@Raine, @Vayne

This thread is not about what the game was promised to be. It’s about what the game WAS. There was a lot of issues at launch as there are now. But still – the game was a lot more fun back then! Why it’s not so fun anymore? Why it’s something completely different now?

I don’t know that making gw2 more like Rift or WoW is the solution. I really doubt it. But I know that when the game launched I was doing certain things and had a lot of fun with it. And the things I was doing had nothing to do with collecting kites and playing a game about drinking beer…

@Raine reguarding the word promise

The dictionary definitions have nothing to do with how words are used by people in the real world. There are tons of examples, not a few but literally tons I could bring up that come from years of editing.

When you say to a kid I’m going to do this, what does the kid say? Promise? If you don’t say it’s a promise, to a kid, it’s not a promise.

To put this into focus, according to theasaurus.com this is a list of words that might be used instead of promise:

promise
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: give word that something will be done
Synonyms: accede, affiance, affirm, agree, answer for, assent, asservate, assure, bargain, betroth, bind, commit, compact, consent, contract, covenant, cross heart, declare, engage, ensure, espouse, guarantee, hock, insure, live up to, mortgage, obligate, pass, pawn, pledge, plight, profess, say so, secure, stipulate, string along, subscribe, swear, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath, undertake, underwrite, vouch, vow, warrant
Antonyms: break, renege

Many of the words listed here show the bias of how people interpret the word (rather than what the word actually means). Words like cross heart, guarantee, insure, pledge, profess, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath….

I agree you CAN use the word promise the way you’re using it, but those who are claiming Anet broke their promise…well you can’t break an intention. You can only break a guarantee or the OTHER type of promise.

Because of the ambiguousness of the word, using it plays into the multiple defintions of the word. Saying something and promising something, to many people, including me, have completely different implications.

So some people will read your words one way and some people (in my mind most) will read your words a different way.

If you’re trying to communicate, promise is too ambiguous a word to use.

HiddenNick.7206:

@Raine, @Vayne

This thread is not about what the game was promised to be. It’s about what the game WAS. There was a lot of issues at launch as there are now. But still – the game was a lot more fun back then! Why it’s not so fun anymore? Why it’s something completely different now?

I don’t know that making gw2 more like Rift or WoW is the solution. I really doubt it. But I know that when the game launched I was doing certain things and had a lot of fun with it. And the things I was doing had nothing to do with collecting kites and playing a game about drinking beer…

I think part of the problem is that those things are still there, it’s just with level 80 characters you either rush through them (because killing 40 Ascalonians with a level 80 is so much faster for the daily than using those kills to level an alt at levels 1-10) and they lose their charm.

This is one of the reasons I have so many alts (the other being I’m a sucker for customisation and keep trying to create characters from various books I’ve read, lol – right now I’m working on Joe Abercrombie’s books). I LOVE Queensdale, but I’ve done it so many times I could walk it blindfold, and each time I get faster, so what once would have taken me at least to level 10, now only gets me to level 5. Again, because I dash through it. It’s also one of the reasons I delete so many alts. Which is a shame.

I don’t know how to bring that “magic” back to these things. They are still there – they ARE helped by starting afresh with a new character. I try to build each new alt now with a specific goal in mind – like, this one will get map completion, this one will do all the jumping puzzles etc, which can help a bit. And generally, though I love my level 80 Necro, it IS nice to change up the playstyle with different professions a lot.

Also, with my alt firmly loaded, I tend to find I ignore the LS stuff better. I know the areas level you up and there’s nothing stopping me running Sanctum Sprint or what have you, but because scaling isn’t great and I can do all of that stuff so much faster with my 80 Necro, I tend to focus once again on the actual game, the very core stuff that made it up from the beginning, and I enjoy it.

I don’t know if any of this will help you. And I’m sorry you’ve lost that feeling of fun you used to get at the beginning. Maybe put it down for a month or so? Get completely out of the LS stuff and come back fresh with a new char and new goals?

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

The game gives you choices on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Players make the mistake of chasing rewards to the detriment of enjoying the game. Unless ANet began restricting player’s freedom to choose how to play I don’t see how its preventable in an open game like GW2. At least they have made some effort to discourage it by including diminishing returns or by limiting certain things like Laurels to daily events, which prevents people from farming and grinding even more than they already do.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

If the dungeons had more mechanics that encouraged replayability, or if there was some sort of light ‘token exchange’ system to grant some more freedom in acquiring a specific set, I could probably forgive the price. As is, it seems excessive.

Smith.1826:

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

The game gives you choices on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Players make the mistake of chasing rewards to the detriment of enjoying the game. Unless ANet began restricting player’s freedom to choose how to play I don’t see how its preventable in an open game like GW2. At least they have made some effort to discourage it by including diminishing returns or by limiting certain things like Laurels to daily events, which prevents people from farming and grinding even more than they already do.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

If the dungeons had more mechanics that encouraged replayability, or if there was some sort of light ‘token exchange’ system to grant some more freedom in acquiring a specific set, I could probably forgive the price. As is, it seems excessive.

23 runs for a guaranteed set of armor?

I don’t see this as excessive. Of course, not everyone wants every piece from one dungeon either and this can encourage people to mix and match. If you insist on having all pieces from one dungeon…

I mean every dungeon has one “faster” path. Even CoE has the submarine path. People have Arah runs down to half an hour.

I think if you have to do them all in a row, of course you’re going to suffer. If you’re in a rush you pay the price. If you do a couple of runs a week, in a few weeks you’ll have your armor.

I mean compared to other games, where you have to run dungeons and you’re not even guaranteed the drop you want (much less whether you’ll get it if it does drop), this really isnt’ bad at all.

And most of those other games have only 1 path. That’s it. 1. Where’s the replayability in dungeons in most games?

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

Smith.1826:

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

And good luck finding those 100 Charged Lodestones for the Gift of Light required for a bunch of weapons, right now you would pay more or less 300 gold for that.

Not to mention the entire Legendary grind.

“Nothing in this game is a grind”? Hah! Guild Wars 2 is filled with grind. Someone may reply, “You could simply not get any of those skins”, to which I reply – you could also simply not play the game. The issue is that the reward system in GW2 rewards grind, so much more than anything else, that unless you are a grinder you are going to miss most of the rewards in the game.

IMO, the only “stupid fault” in the game is pretending it’s perfect and refusing to give ArenaNet any constructive criticism. They should change the reward system so it’s closer to their told stated goal of “skill > time spent”, instead of being a matter of who’s willing to grind so much.

Anet should focus on making open world content more fun and rewarding. At the moment, trying to farm open world mobs for anything is just an exercise in frustration and events are all but a waste of time since the drop rates on mobs sucks and the 378 karma you get from an event is a waste of time since you can run a dungeon and get 3 times that much plus better loot/gold. Anet is turning this game into a cash grab where you just stand in Lion’s Arch and buy stuff off the Gem store with real cash and model it in Lion’s Arch.

Smith.1826:

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

If the dungeons had more mechanics that encouraged replayability, or if there was some sort of light ‘token exchange’ system to grant some more freedom in acquiring a specific set, I could probably forgive the price. As is, it seems excessive.

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind. There are also tokens dropped inside a dungeon, in addition to the guaranteed 60 per path.

You need to do much more to even learn a dungeon, nevermind master it.

Vayne.8563:

…

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

That’s still at least 7 runs per path, with a couple more required, for a full set of armor. This would be the best case scenario for the dungeon to feel as ‘fresh’ as possible, a scenario that’s hard to achieve with the popular ‘easier’ paths.

I’m aware that it’s not required – that a player can ‘mix and match’ his armor if he chooses – and I’m also aware that it can be acquired at one’s own pace. This is the specific example of a player wanting a complete and coherent set of armor. Whether he acquires it over a week or a year isn’t relevant, he’s still expected to repeat a lot of the same content.

I’m also aware how other MMOs handle their rewards systems, especially in this circumstance, but that’s not relevant to me, nor do I think it relative to my point. “X did a better job than Y” isn’t the same as “X did a good job”.

Erasculio.2914:

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

I actually don’t have much of an issue with the cultural armor. They’re some of the best designed sets in the game (justifying the cost) and there are plenty more options in earning gold than, say, Ascalonian Tears.

HiddenNick.7206:

…and it wasn’t because there was more mini-games.

At launch the game was about dynamic events, leveling, crafting and gear progression. I had more fun back then. I really miss that time. I loved the feeling that there is a reason to fight that monster and help those peasants. Now I feel that the game is about farming achievements and getting 8th back piece that I really don’t need and don’t care about… I never cared much about achievements. That didn’t change. But AN puts most of their effort on mini games and achievement system instead of that what was really fun for me – dynamic events, fighting giants and dragons with crowd of people!

After launch I was playing a LOT. Now I rarely log in. Just to check out new area or dungeon. After an hour I’m done and bored. I spend more time on the forums now.

Yup. Exactly how I feel. Ofcourse theres always a honeymoon period with any game. But even after max level, for a few months the game was just pure fun. No insane and intricate reward system. No crazy number of currencies to farm. It was just pure fun. Help the farmers, help the soldiers. Defeat Zhaitan. But like you said, now its achievements, checking off Daily boxes, rewards, rewards, rewards, rewards, currencies, farming/grinding, legendaries, meta events, meta events, dragon fights, and kittenty living story.

Gone are the days where it was a simple exploration game where you just had fun. It is hard to just explore and have fun with 50 carrots dangling in your face to chase after. For me personally, this game was hyped to be an explorers dream and my dream MMO. It started out that way. It was the BEST MMO I’ve ever played. Until November and until every patch after that. Since November, it has failed me personally and this may be the game that has burnt me out on MMOs because of its insane amount of grinding, developer half-truths and half promises, and the change in direction.

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

The game isn’t supposed to be a grind. They said they dont want us to simply swing our swords over and over again. Doing the same boring tasks. But that is ALL we do. Grind. This is the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played. No, I haven’t played Lineage or the likes. But this is far more grindy than any decent MMO still on the market.

They really failed on this one. They dont want us to grind but give us a ton of currencies and rewards to go after. They want to keep us playing, keep us in the game because the more time we spend in game, the more likely we are to spend $$. Which means that they need to give us a system that takes a long while to “complete”. Grind.

cesmode.4257:

This is the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played.

What MMO’s have you played? Which ones do you consider less grindy then gw2? And which one was the least grindy?

Edit: I don’t want to argue with you. I’m just curious.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

…

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

That’s still at least 7 runs per path, with a couple more required, for a full set of armor. This would be the best case scenario for the dungeon to feel as ‘fresh’ as possible, a scenario that’s hard to achieve with the popular ‘easier’ paths.

I’m aware that it’s not required – that a player can ‘mix and match’ his armor if he chooses – and I’m also aware that it can be acquired at one’s own pace. This is the specific example of a player wanting a complete and coherent set of armor. Whether he acquires it over a week or a year isn’t relevant, he’s still expected to repeat a lot of the same content.

I’m also aware how other MMOs handle their rewards systems, especially in this circumstance, but that’s not relevant to me, nor do I think it relative to my point. “X did a better job than Y” isn’t the same as “X did a good job”.

Erasculio.2914:

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

I actually don’t have much of an issue with the cultural armor. They’re some of the best designed sets in the game (justifying the cost) and there are plenty more options in earning gold than, say, Ascalonian Tears.

I think how other games handle dungeons is quite relevant. This is a huge improvement on what else is out there.

The other option would be to give you a full set of armor for 3 runs.

There’s no company in the world who can balance everything so everyone is happy. You get stuff too fast and it’s worth nothing. You get stuff too slow it’s a grind.

If you’re arguing about pacing, argue away. It won’t change the fact that no decision Anet makes on this matter will please everyone.

Raine.1394:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

You do realise that this is probably the main reason why we have to remain in the dark for so long about what they plan to do with the game? It just unfair to hold them to every word spoken without giving them a bit of leeway to course correct if in the future they’d see their original idea wasnt the right way to go.

I think people just expect too much.

Example, what is a manifesto? A manifesto is a declaration of intent. Its not promises, its what you believe and what you’re planning to achieve. To make matters worst the implementation you make can be subjective. Example probably the biggest thing that gets criticized about the manifesto is Ree Soesbee’s famous statement “You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

People say Arenanet clearly Lied there. The village doesnt stay rescued 15 minutes later its invaded again. But did they? I personally dont think they lied and I will explain why.

Remember this is a manifesto a declaration of what you intend to do that is what you intend to do differently from everyone else.

Rescuing villages is not something thats only done in Gw2, you get such quests in many other MMOs. Whats the difference between the two? Again looking at the manifesto as a whole its easy to see what the intention is. They want change, visual change, an evolving world. In your typical MMO saving the village is nearly always, Creature / faction X is threatening us go thin their numbers. By the end of the quest you’ll be thanked for saving the village but apart from that how is that change represented? it just isnt the herd you “thinned” has already re-spawned so in actual fact if thinning the herd is what would save the village the village was saved for only 5 seconds (until what you killed re-spawned). In Gw2 once you save a village, what ever was threatening it will retreat. You can clearly see the difference between the village under assault and the village saved. It stays rescued it doesn’t reset immediately like other MMOs do. It is also true villagers will remember you rescued them. If you take part in a village defense and talk to npcs they will thank you for rescuing them. It doesnt stay rescued forever of course, It will eventually reset and the invasion will happen again but they never implied forever. Stay whatever doesnt imply that whatever will persist forever.

If I dont eat, I will die, If I eat I will stay alive. That doesnt mean If I eat I will become immortal.

Yet time and time again people point at that statement as proof that Arenanet lied in their manifesto.

What I am trying to say with this example is it is really dangerous to judge these things. using this as an example again I have no doubt people pointing at the above statement were disappointed because thats something that didnt meet their expectations, but that alone doesnt make it a lie. We knew dynamic events would be cyclic even before the manifesto was released. Proof this interview dated may 2010 (manifesto was released aug 2010):
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/4235/Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic-Events-Interview.html

“It’s important to clarify that the event system is cyclical in nature. Events will occur again in the game world”

So here we have a situation of something that didnt live up to people’s expectations fine but it was not neither a lie nor a broken promise.

yet now that false assumption is being used as a basis to doubt whatever Arenanet claim because they lied / broken promises before even when they really didnt? I honestly think thats very wrong.

Galen Grey.4709:

Raine.1394:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

snip

I think people just expect too much.

Example, what is a manifesto? A manifesto is a declaration of intent. Its not promises, its what you believe and what you’re planning to achieve. To make matters worst the implementation you make can be subjective. Example probably the biggest thing that gets criticized about the manifesto is Ree Soesbee’s famous statement “You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

People say Arenanet clearly Lied there. The village doesnt stay rescued 15 minutes later its invaded again. But did they? I personally dont think they lied and I will explain why.

Remember this is a manifesto a declaration of what you intend to do that is what you intend to do differently from everyone else.

Rescuing villages is not something thats only done in Gw2, you get such quests in many other MMOs. Whats the difference between the two? Again looking at the manifesto as a whole its easy to see what the intention is. They want change, visual change, an evolving world. In your typical MMO saving the village is nearly always, Creature / faction X is threatening us go thin their numbers. By the end of the quest you’ll be thanked for saving the village but apart from that how is that change represented? it just isnt the herd you “thinned” has already re-spawned so in actual fact if thinning the herd is what would save the village the village was saved for only 5 seconds (until what you killed re-spawned). In Gw2 once you save a village, what ever was threatening it will retreat. You can clearly see the difference between the village under assault and the village saved. It stays rescued it doesn’t reset immediately like other MMOs do. It is also true villagers will remember you rescued them. If you take part in a village defense and talk to npcs they will thank you for rescuing them. It doesnt stay rescued forever of course, It will eventually reset and the invasion will happen again but they never implied forever. Stay whatever doesnt imply that whatever will persist forever.

If I dont eat, I will die, If I eat I will stay alive. That doesnt mean If I eat I will become immortal.

Yet time and time again people point at that statement as proof that Arenanet lied in their manifesto.

What I am trying to say with this example is it is really dangerous to judge these things. using this as an example again I have no doubt people pointing at the above statement were disappointed because thats something that didnt meet their expectations, but that alone doesnt make it a lie. We knew dynamic events would be cyclic even before the manifesto was released. Proof this interview dated may 2010 (manifesto was released aug 2010):
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/4235/Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic-Events-Interview.html

“It’s important to clarify that the event system is cyclical in nature. Events will occur again in the game world”

So here we have a situation of something that didnt live up to people’s expectations fine but it was not neither a lie nor a broken promise.

yet now that false assumption is being used as a basis to doubt whatever Arenanet claim because they lied / broken promises before even when they really didnt? I honestly think thats very wrong.

Ree was talking about personal story, not dynamic events. Anet said it directly. It’s not a guess.

So when Ree was saying you rescue a village that stays rescued, the example she gave had nothing to do with events. This was from Anet’s own clarification of the manifesto, due to the confusion it caused on release.

HiddenNick.7206:

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

7 dungeon runs is a week’s worth of content. You can do it in a week. A week.

You want to finish with a dungeon in 3 days? Then complain about temporary content that also takes a few days of playing?

Seriously, this game is not for you. Go away.

I have to be ‘’that guy’’ but doesn’t this happen in every MMO why would GW2 be any different? i know level scaling blah blah but this isnt the first tittle to use scaling of this type (first mmo sure but not game).

AntiGw.9367:

HiddenNick.7206:

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

7 dungeon runs is a week’s worth of content. You can do it in a week. A week.

You want to finish with a dungeon in 3 days? Then complain about temporary content that also takes a few days of playing?

Seriously, this game is not for you. Go away.

Depends on the time you have, your level of experience in dungeons, finding a group etc. For people not in a very active guild, or running one of the less “desirable” dungeon classes and/or builds, for people who usually play solo or for people who still need to do whichever dungeon people want to do at the moment in story mode (not many people are willing to run story), it can be quite a pain.

I agree that it’s not much if all the above things are running in your favour. But for those of us with some or all of that against us … well, it’s a lot longer than a week.

CrossedHorse.4261:

AntiGw.9367:

HiddenNick.7206:

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

7 dungeon runs is a week’s worth of content. You can do it in a week. A week.

You want to finish with a dungeon in 3 days? Then complain about temporary content that also takes a few days of playing?

Seriously, this game is not for you. Go away.

Depends on the time you have, your level of experience in dungeons, finding a group etc. For people not in a very active guild, or running one of the less “desirable” dungeon classes and/or builds, for people who usually play solo or for people who still need to do whichever dungeon people want to do at the moment in story mode (not many people are willing to run story), it can be quite a pain.

I agree that it’s not much if all the above things are running in your favour. But for those of us with some or all of that against us … well, it’s a lot longer than a week.

But if you want to do it, anyone can join a guild. It’s multiplayer content. So you need to find people to run it with.

And there are plenty of casual guilds that run dungeons often, without being total elitist kittens. They run for fun.

Find the right guild, even if it’s not on your server, and you can guest over and play with them or just do dungeons from where you are.

Vayne.8563:

CrossedHorse.4261:

AntiGw.9367:

HiddenNick.7206:

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

7 dungeon runs is a week’s worth of content. You can do it in a week. A week.

You want to finish with a dungeon in 3 days? Then complain about temporary content that also takes a few days of playing?

Seriously, this game is not for you. Go away.

Depends on the time you have, your level of experience in dungeons, finding a group etc. For people not in a very active guild, or running one of the less “desirable” dungeon classes and/or builds, for people who usually play solo or for people who still need to do whichever dungeon people want to do at the moment in story mode (not many people are willing to run story), it can be quite a pain.

I agree that it’s not much if all the above things are running in your favour. But for those of us with some or all of that against us … well, it’s a lot longer than a week.

But if you want to do it, anyone can join a guild. It’s multiplayer content. So you need to find people to run it with.

And there are plenty of casual guilds that run dungeons often, without being total elitist kittens. They run for fun.

Find the right guild, even if it’s not on your server, and you can guest over and play with them or just do dungeons from where you are.

Oh, I’m not crying about it. I’m just trying to say it’s not quite as simple as some people make it out to be. And it CAN take a lot longer than 20 mins per run … some people on the forums are saying that their first run with a PUG can take up to three hours. That’s not something I can even potentially commit to most days. Let alone more than once a week.

Erasculio.2914:

Smith.1826:

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

And good luck finding those 100 Charged Lodestones for the Gift of Light required for a bunch of weapons, right now you would pay more or less 300 gold for that.

Not to mention the entire Legendary grind.

“Nothing in this game is a grind”? Hah! Guild Wars 2 is filled with grind. Someone may reply, “You could simply not get any of those skins”, to which I reply – you could also simply not play the game. The issue is that the reward system in GW2 rewards grind, so much more than anything else, that unless you are a grinder you are going to miss most of the rewards in the game.

IMO, the only “stupid fault” in the game is pretending it’s perfect and refusing to give ArenaNet any constructive criticism. They should change the reward system so it’s closer to their told stated goal of “skill > time spent”, instead of being a matter of who’s willing to grind so much.

That’s correct, none of those things need be a grind that you just cited as an example, even the 23 dungeon runs or whatever.

Its ONLY a grind if YOU GRIND IT to earn it. You see, you can simply play the game casually and not chase the reward at the expense of your fun and experience, run that dungeon every so often instead of back to back to back day after day, and get yourself a full set of dungeon gear.

Playing the game and grinding are NOT the same thing, heck, playing the game to earn a difficult reward isn’t even grinding, doing the same thing over and over in succession to the point that you don’t find it enjoyable and at the expense of the rest of your game experience is a grind. At no time in this game are you required to play that way. Again, players just get too caught up in the game’s rewards and honestly I think those players have a problem of sorts. Anytime people treat any game like work, where its not fun, and dump hours into it in misery need to step back from the game and look at their life.

its HOW you play the game that results in a grind.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Oh, I’m not crying about it. I’m just trying to say it’s not quite as simple as some people make it out to be. And it CAN take a lot longer than 20 mins per run … some people on the forums are saying that their first run with a PUG can take up to three hours. That’s not something I can even potentially commit to most days. Let alone more than once a week.

I expect a typical dungeon path to last for up to an hour, not 20 minutes. It improves as you do more runs. The gear is there to show your mastery of a dungeon, not that you did two clears and got all the items.

As for having time, you just have to prioritize. The dungeons are not balanced around 30-minute runs, and shouldn’t be (even though some groups can do them even faster). If you can’t dedicate an hour or two, it’s too bad.

So if you think that 7 clears (3 hours each) is too much, try doing some other type of content, or even playing another game that fits your schedule and/or your personal definition of “no grind”.

Vayne.8563:

I think how other games handle dungeons is quite relevant. This is a huge improvement on what else is out there.

The other option would be to give you a full set of armor for 3 runs.

There’s no company in the world who can balance everything so everyone is happy. You get stuff too fast and it’s worth nothing. You get stuff too slow it’s a grind.

If you’re arguing about pacing, argue away. It won’t change the fact that no decision Anet makes on this matter will please everyone.

I don’t want to compare GW2 to other games because there’s a lot of games I can look at, not just MMOs and not just RPGs, in regards to this specific circumstance. It’d get complicated, likely rather quickly. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because X being ‘better’ than Y doesn’t automatically make X flawless.

And obviously, I don’t think this certain area of GW2 is flawless, and I think it could be made to be a lot more rewarding, more ‘fun’, and not in a way that just gives you the goods outright. Some things ANet could do are:
-Look into reward scaling in regards to more difficult paths (should CoF P3 be as rewarding as P1?)
-A method of converting tokens (barebones example: convert 250 tokens from any one dungeon into 50 tokens of your choosing)
-Introduce more ‘random’ gameplay mechanics similar (or even better) to what we’ve seen in Fractals.

It’s not about removing the progression, it’s about maintaining it, making it more interesting, rewarding, and open-ended than just having to run the same three paths repeatedly.

And no, you can’t make everyone happy, fact of gaming, fact of live. That doesn’t excuse you from trying.

I would like to know what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses NOT to grind.

World exploration is a mathematical grind. Gold farming is grinding by its very own nature. Getting dungeon armor is grinding. Fractals at some point also start to be highly repetitive, especially when grinding ascended gear. Dailies are grinding. All of them are highly repetitive, and outside of one or two dungeons and high-level fractals, they’re mindless.

So, what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses not to grind?

Following the storyline? GW2 is not particularly good at this, and the living story’s content has been only worth one or two cutscenes every month, and is constantly cycling through different plot archs pretty fast, not unlike the main narrative. Very few are excited by this.
Doing dungeons once? That’s fine, if unrewarding. This game does not have the best dungeons ever, but it can work… for a few hours. Many players find most dungeons in this game boring, however.
Doing jumping puzzles? That’s fine, but not to everyone’s tastes. Let’s not forget that GW2 is primarly a mmorpg.
Doing mini-games? Like-wise.
Doing PvP? GW2’s pvp has a lot of problems, and those are getting fixed at a snail’s pace. Generally, players don’t spend much time there, and most of the pvp community has left or is inactive.
Doing guild missions? Gated to once per week or so.
Interacting with the community? Nearly non-existent in GW2 due to the lack of mechanics that support or incentivate it.
Doing repetable content that’s actually challenging and varied? There’s almost none.
Exploring the dangerous parts of the world and working hard to beat challenging, exciting encounters? This is nearly non-existant in this game.
Having fun creating, customising and experimenting your own builds? GW2 is not very exciting at this, and it actually punishes you with massive money sinks and lack of mechanics to make it convenient (like the lack of templates).
Doing fun stuff with friends? Content that requires group play, especially deep team-playing team-building strategy, is almost non-existent in this game.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I would like to know what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses NOT to grind.

With your definition of a grind, even chess is about grinding stuff.

Doesn’t work for me either. When i learned that they didn’t retro the rewards for the achieves like the salvage ones that I’ve been doing every day since before launch, which would have added up to thousands of achievement points, I was highly disappointed. Yet again another promise not fulfilled.

The way this game was at launch for the first month was the only time everything was perfect. Even with the engineers problems we could actually do great damage, conditions weren’t nerfed in PVE, kit refinement made sense. I could go out into the world and get rewards for finding chests hidden at the top of some jump puzzle and the rewards were appropriate to my level and often were rares. I got the feeling of actually mattering when killing things for events. You could actually farm the materials you needed for anything relatively quickly just be being in the open world where the game was originally focused and those who wanted to run dungeons and who ran WvW were a separate castes and it was rightly done so people could actually play their way.

Just so much broken now it’s impossible to even begin to list it all.

AntiGw.9367:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I would like to know what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses NOT to grind.

With your definition of a grind, even chess is about grinding stuff.

By “my” definition of grinding, chess the is the opposite of grinding.

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games (…) which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over again.

Gathering, killing 10 rats, repeating cof, and all the stuff that is both mindless and repetitive is grinding. Exploring the world is mindless and repetitive. Farming events is mindless and repetitive.

Chess, in comparison, requires a lot of improvisation and strategy, and is challenging to master. Every match can be completely different from the previous one, and every match can offer an unexpected challenge. It’s the complete opposite of mindless repetition ( = grinding).

DiogoSilva.7089:

I would like to know what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses NOT to grind.

World exploration is a mathematical grind. Gold farming is grinding by its very own nature. Getting dungeon armor is grinding. Fractals at some point also start to be highly repetitive, especially when grinding ascended gear. Dailies are grinding. All of them are highly repetitive, and outside of one or two dungeons and high-level fractals, they’re mindless.

So, what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses not to grind?

Following the storyline? GW2 is not particularly good at this, and the living story’s content has been only worth one or two cutscenes every month, and is constantly cycling through different plot archs pretty fast, not unlike the main narrative. Very few are excited by this.
Doing dungeons once? That’s fine, if unrewarding. This game does not have the best dungeons ever, but it can work… for a few hours. Many players find most dungeons in this game boring, however.
Doing jumping puzzles? That’s fine, but not to everyone’s tastes. Let’s not forget that GW2 is primarly a mmorpg.
Doing mini-games? Like-wise.
Doing PvP? GW2’s pvp has a lot of problems, and those are getting fixed at a snail’s pace. Generally, players don’t spend much time there, and most of the pvp community has left or is inactive.
Doing guild missions? Gated to once per week or so.
Interacting with the community? Nearly non-existent in GW2 due to the lack of mechanics that support or incentivate it.
Doing repetable content that’s actually challenging and varied? There’s almost none.
Exploring the dangerous parts of the world and working hard to beat challenging, exciting encounters? This is nearly non-existant in this game.
Having fun creating, customising and experimenting your own builds? GW2 is not very exciting at this, and it actually punishes you with massive money sinks and lack of mechanics to make it convenient (like the lack of templates).
Doing fun stuff with friends? Content that requires group play, especially deep team-playing team-building strategy, is almost non-existent in this game.

I don’t think you have a clue what grind actually is.

I’m very well aware of what grind is.

tigirius.9014:

Doesn’t work for me either. When i learned that they didn’t retro the rewards for the achieves like the salvage ones that I’ve been doing every day since before launch, which would have added up to thousands of achievement points, I was highly disappointed. Yet again another promise not fulfilled.

The way this game was at launch for the first month was the only time everything was perfect. Even with the engineers problems we could actually do great damage, conditions weren’t nerfed in PVE, kit refinement made sense. I could go out into the world and get rewards for finding chests hidden at the top of some jump puzzle and the rewards were appropriate to my level and often were rares. I got the feeling of actually mattering when killing things for events. You could actually farm the materials you needed for anything relatively quickly just be being in the open world where the game was originally focused and those who wanted to run dungeons and who ran WvW were a separate castes and it was rightly done so people could actually play their way.

Just so much broken now it’s impossible to even begin to list it all.

Another unfulfilled promise? Really?

You’ll have to show me the quote where Anet said they’d reward the unlimited achievements.

All I saw was a general post saying they’re reward achievements without any specifics at all. They didn’t give the specifics, possibly because they haven’t finalized them, or possibly because no matter what they said, someone would twist it anyway.

I no longer think your expectation are too high. I think you are reading things into what’s been said that were never there.

You know, a lot of the issues mentioned here, Grind, LS taking away the fun etc.. all boils down to actual player choices.

If a player makes the game about the reward…. I have 16 achievements that I need to quickly finish in order to get my quartz node. That player is going to be done in a couple of days and take all the fun out of it. Thats not the game shedding away its fun, thats the person in question taking the game like a job. On the other hand if you use achievements as guidelines rather then tasks the story will change dramatically. Okey I feel like a jumping puzzle which one do I do ? ohh there is an achievement for one of these this month so I will do some of them. I feel like doing Dynamic events today, ohh look While doing that I Can open baskets and there is an achievement for that. I have to explore this new zone, while doing that I can get these sky crystals etc.. you’ll get a completely different experiance.

Same thing with grinding. Grinding isnt simply doing a task more then once. Grinding is repeating a task you hate for a long time. Now granted dungeon sets grinding is unfortunately a bit hard to avoid cause if you dont like dungeons you have no other options to get them but lets not forget the game still tries its best to avoid having you grind there by making sets you get outside dungeons have the same stats. Its not ideal if you like the looks of one dungeon set above everything else but what else can the game do? Make it so a single run gets you an item? then 6-8 runs and you’re done. What content will people who like to run dungeons have to do then? Its a double edge sword.

Avoiding grinding is up to you. No one can ever make an MMO that has 0 grind. Every MMO has to have some repeatable content else people will get bored with having nothing to do. What developers can do and what GW2 does very well is giving you the tools to avoid Grind. Take legendary weapons for example. They require massive effort and are what people use to claim GW2 is just one big grind. Can you get a legendary weapon without grinding a single bit? Sure… Because if you look at what you need for a legendary you’ll find there is stuff you get playing every single type of content Gw2 has to offer. So Why not play what you feel like playing? Today I feel like doing Dynamic Events in Sparkfly. Great playing there can get me what i need for the gift of wood, the gift of metal, the gift of exploration as well as karma and gold that will both be very useful for my legendary.

Today I feel like Dungeons, Today I feel like WvW, Today I feel like exploring? they all give you stuff you need for your legendary and you dont have to do anything other then play the game just like you did from level 1 – 80 and enjoyed yourself doing.

Its entirely up to the player. If you look at a legendary and think, so I need 250 vicious claws for my gift of might so I need and kill 1000s of mobs until I get all my 250 vicious claws and do nothing else then yeah the game is going to feel extremely grindy. But If I do what I enjoy doing and use the requirements as just directions. I can enjoy the game and still get what I need. It will take longer sure but why is that a problem?

It’s not up to the player, it’s up to Anet and how they design this game. The argument that this game is perfect and players are to blame is not a very good one.

Anet has promised us that skill would take players to the top. I don’t even mind the existance of grinding, so that less skilled players can get the best stuff too. But for those who don’t like grinding, where is the alternative challenging content that was promised to us?

Blaming the players’ choices is a bad argument, because there are no meaningful choices to be made. There’s no choice such as “I can play this really challening content and get things faster, or go the easier way and grind for a long time”. You either grind for most of the rewards in this game, or you don’t get them at all.

Players can’t create new content. Players can’t redesign existing content. Players can’t make existing content more difficult and fun. It’s all up to Anet. So no, the problem isn’t with the players’ choices.

Also, not every player is a wandering “today I feel going there doing this stuff” type. Especially when GW2 offers “so much to do”, yet most of it isn’t special at all.

Tell me, what’s there to explore, outside of grinding hearts and rushing to vistas/ points? There’s almost no lore to be found. Most maps play the same way. There’s almost no exciting hidden places nor dangerous creatures to fear. Outside of a few hidden jumping puzzles, exploring is heart grinding and point rushing.

WvW is mostly driven by zergs, with poor support for smaller squads. Dungeons are mostly filled with boring encounters that can one-hit kill most builds, and are otherwise boring and easy because, as long as you can dodge everything, all they have is high HP.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not up to the player, it’s up to Anet and how they design this game. The argument that this game is perfect and players are to blame is not a very good one.

Anet has promised us that skill would take players to the top. I don’t even mind the existance of grinding, so that less skilled players can get the best stuff too. But for those who don’t like grinding, where is the alternative challenging content that was promised to us?

Blaming the players’ choices is a bad argument, because there are no meaningful choices to be made. There’s no choice such as “I can play this really challening content and get things faster, or go the easier way and grind for a long time”. You either grind for most of the rewards in this game, or you don’t get them at all.

Players can’t create new content. Players can’t redesign existing content. Players can’t make existing content more difficult and fun. It’s all up to Anet. So no, the problem isn’t with the players’ choices.

Also, not every player is a wandering “today I feel going there doing this stuff” type. Especially when GW2 offers “so much to do”, yet most of it isn’t special at all.

Tell me, what’s there to explore, outside of grinding hearts and rushing to vistas/ points? There’s almost no lore to be found. Most maps play the same way. There’s almost no exciting hidden places nor dangerous creatures to fear. Outside of a few hidden jumping puzzles, exploring is heart grinding and point rushing.

WvW is mostly driven by zergs, with poor support for smaller squads. Dungeons are mostly filled with boring encounters that can one-hit kill most builds, and are otherwise boring and easy because, as long as you can dodge everything, all they have is high HP.

Yep, you’re right. There’s no challenging content here at all for players like you. Or very little. Hopefully one day there will be, but right now, there’s not much to challenge someone of your caliber.

The difficulty level is just about right for me (with most of the stuff achievable and a few odds and ends I can’t get) but for the uber l33t guys, you’re just basically screwed.

I’m thinking, it’s lucky for Anet there are a lot more people like me than like you.

Vayne.8563:

snip

I’m thinking, it’s lucky for Anet there are a lot more people like me than like you.

Wow someone got real statistics or is simply based on forum opinions.

AntiGw.9367:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Oh, I’m not crying about it. I’m just trying to say it’s not quite as simple as some people make it out to be. And it CAN take a lot longer than 20 mins per run … some people on the forums are saying that their first run with a PUG can take up to three hours. That’s not something I can even potentially commit to most days. Let alone more than once a week.

I expect a typical dungeon path to last for up to an hour, not 20 minutes. It improves as you do more runs. The gear is there to show your mastery of a dungeon, not that you did two clears and got all the items.

As for having time, you just have to prioritize. The dungeons are not balanced around 30-minute runs, and shouldn’t be (even though some groups can do them even faster). If you can’t dedicate an hour or two, it’s too bad.

So if you think that 7 clears (3 hours each) is too much, try doing some other type of content, or even playing another game that fits your schedule and/or your personal definition of “no grind”.

Thanks – but I don’t need telling. I already decided how I like to play the game and I enjoy it and don’t consider myself to be grinding. I was just trying to point out a flaw in the particular argument that made it seem like 7 dungeon runs was “nothing”. When in fact, it can be quite a commitment for some.

Vayne.8563:

@Raine reguarding the word promise

The dictionary definitions have nothing to do with how words are used by people in the real world. There are tons of examples, not a few but literally tons I could bring up that come from years of editing.

When you say to a kid I’m going to do this, what does the kid say? Promise? If you don’t say it’s a promise, to a kid, it’s not a promise.

To put this into focus, according to theasaurus.com this is a list of words that might be used instead of promise:

promise
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: give word that something will be done
Synonyms: accede, affiance, affirm, agree, answer for, assent, asservate, assure, bargain, betroth, bind, commit, compact, consent, contract, covenant, cross heart, declare, engage, ensure, espouse, guarantee, hock, insure, live up to, mortgage, obligate, pass, pawn, pledge, plight, profess, say so, secure, stipulate, string along, subscribe, swear, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath, undertake, underwrite, vouch, vow, warrant
Antonyms: break, renege

Many of the words listed here show the bias of how people interpret the word (rather than what the word actually means). Words like cross heart, guarantee, insure, pledge, profess, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath….

I agree you CAN use the word promise the way you’re using it, but those who are claiming Anet broke their promise…well you can’t break an intention. You can only break a guarantee or the OTHER type of promise.

Because of the ambiguousness of the word, using it plays into the multiple defintions of the word. Saying something and promising something, to many people, including me, have completely different implications.

So some people will read your words one way and some people (in my mind most) will read your words a different way.

If you’re trying to communicate, promise is too ambiguous a word to use.

Vayne, at this point, your argument is not with me, it’s with the English language. The word promise is not ambiguous, it’s straightforward. And, the reason I gave the definition, a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified, was to exclude ambiguity. I wanted you, and others, to understand exactly what I meant. And, of course, that wasn’t really difficult as you only needed to be able to define the word promise.

Look at your closing statement: “If you’re trying to communicate, promise is too ambiguous a word to use.”

You are actually suggesting that we exclude the word promise when we are trying to communicate. Why? Promise is a very important word. It’s the basis of our legal contracts. What happens in a legally binding contract? Parties exchange promises (what kind of promise? a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified), and in the US, consideration (money). If we were to exclude the concept of the promise from our lives, we couldn’t have contracts. Do you remember getting married? If it was at all traditional there was an exchange of promises. Were they anything but a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified? No they were exactly that, now with the force of a legally binding contract because of the context in which they were given.

No, I won’t remove the word promise from my vocabulary because you don’t understand what it means. It’s simply too important a word. I will give the definition periodically so that you have the opportunity to understand me if you wish.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not up to the player, it’s up to Anet and how they design this game. The argument that this game is perfect and players are to blame is not a very good one.

Anet has promised us that skill would take players to the top. I don’t even mind the existance of grinding, so that less skilled players can get the best stuff too. But for those who don’t like grinding, where is the alternative challenging content that was promised to us?

Blaming the players’ choices is a bad argument, because there are no meaningful choices to be made. There’s no choice such as “I can play this really challening content and get things faster, or go the easier way and grind for a long time”. You either grind for most of the rewards in this game, or you don’t get them at all.

Players can’t create new content. Players can’t redesign existing content. Players can’t make existing content more difficult and fun. It’s all up to Anet. So no, the problem isn’t with the players’ choices.

Also, not every player is a wandering “today I feel going there doing this stuff” type. Especially when GW2 offers “so much to do”, yet most of it isn’t special at all.

Tell me, what’s there to explore, outside of grinding hearts and rushing to vistas/ points? There’s almost no lore to be found. Most maps play the same way. There’s almost no exciting hidden places nor dangerous creatures to fear. Outside of a few hidden jumping puzzles, exploring is heart grinding and point rushing.

WvW is mostly driven by zergs, with poor support for smaller squads. Dungeons are mostly filled with boring encounters that can one-hit kill most builds, and are otherwise boring and easy because, as long as you can dodge everything, all they have is high HP.

What you describe isnt grinding, its playing the game. What is there to do in a racing game outside of running the same tracks again? Is that a grind? What is there to do in a game like Call of Duty after you have beat it once? “Grind” through it again? No dude, no. Playing a game is not grinding. If you dint have the imagination or dont find playing fun then consider a new game as I would do with any game.

Grinding forced in a game is being forced, with no other option to progress, to do the same thing repetitively over and over. GW2 is masterful in avoiding this to a great extent.

It is about choices, you are just choosing to focus on rewards over play.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not up to the player, it’s up to Anet and how they design this game. The argument that this game is perfect and players are to blame is not a very good one.

snip..

You missunderstand me, I am not blaming the players for anything, I am saying its up to them to do what they will. Thats the game design. Gw2 is a hybrid between a themepark and a sandbox on many levels. To explain myself a bit better, just imaging getting BIS armor on a typical MMO… That involves the same thing in most of them. IE get to max level then raid until you get that drop. There is no devation from that because the game is designed with that 1 progression path in mind. Now lets take GW2. Some people are just accustomed to that path and get to level 80 and then repeat arah 23 times for the armor set. That person then states GW2 is no different because it made him repeat dungeons just like any other MMO. Would that be the players fault? nope, the player did what he wanted to do there is nothing good or bad about that. Is it bad Game design? Of course no, what that player choose to do isnt the only way to got an exotic armor set. He could have played WvW, He could have Crafted a set, He could have done Dynamic Events and bought the set with money off the TP, he could have done Dynamic Events and bought it with karma. etc… The game does the only thing it can do, leave the player free to make his/her choice. Thats not bad game design, thats what more games will hopefully do in the future.

As for player skills, what they promised is actually the opposite I am afraid. They promised you dont have to be a hardcore player to keep up. They promised you can take a break, come back and not find yourself fallen behind. They promised accessability that to get the best armor / weapon all you had to do is play the content you enjoy.

I am afraid that you’re missing a lot of what the game has to offer. This MMO is one of the few where there is some real exploring to do. I would call POI or vista exploring at all. There are hidden events, there is hidden lore, there are hidden areas and even hidden rewards. Even lore, there is lore absolutely everywhere in the game. Its just not in your face. If you talk to NPCs, read scrolls/books, interact with objects you’ll get tons of lore etc.. Every NPC in a dynamic event will explain their role in that event’s story etc.. As for stuff to discover here are a couple of examples if you want to know the sort of things you can discover:

There are many such secrets scattered all around. Some even give unique rewards like town cloths. Some just make you laugh. Others provide lore. But there is much more to exploration than running from POI to vistas I assure you.

Valento.9852:

Vayne.8563:

snip

I’m thinking, it’s lucky for Anet there are a lot more people like me than like you.

Wow someone got real statistics or is simply based on forum opinions.

The real statistics I don’t have, but aside from the myriad comments by devs over the years (including panels at trade shows), it’s not that hard to figure out.

Anyway it really is simple logic. In any group there’s the top percentage, the middle percentage and the lower percentage.

So if you take 100 people of all different skills, logically, there will be people at the top, people in the middle and peoiple at the bottom.

I’ve seen just as much complaining on these forums about the game being too hard as I have about the game being too easy. Those are the edges of the spectrum.

In a typical bell curve (and most social classification systems fall along a bell curve), you’re going to have more people in the middle or the average then at either end of the spectrum. It’s simple, basic, logic.

Ghost Crawler, the lead dev of WoW, has gone on record saying only 5% of the playerbase have ever completed the hardest content.

There are still tons of people in this game who have never beaten Arah. This isn’t a fantasy, it’s true.

There are people who have failed CoF path 1. I know it sounds amazing, but that’s true also.

And then there’s Anet. Most of the stuff in this game is clearly targeted at a casual player base. If most of the game was hard core gamers, don’t you think Anet would be making more stuff for that group faster?

I’m pretty sure Anet has the information of who does what, and how often people die. If the money was in the hard stuff, there would be more hard stuff. If you ever really want to know what’s going on, you follow the money.

But this has been discussed on so many game forums over the years, it’s hard to believe anyone thinks hard core players make up the majority. It really is relatively common knowledge.