Guild Wars 2

Hello guys! My first post on the official forums.
I’ve been playing game since it came out and I’m still an active player with a single goal of obtaining legendary weapon after which I’ll find myself searching for a new goal (or game?) depending on, well, mostly Anet and their plans for this game.

Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you for making ultimate farming game! Congrats!

“Wait, wait… what are you talking about? Living story, man, epic adventures, lots of fun!”
Right. More content, linked events with a more less fixed timer that repeat on and on so people can farm all day long going into circles.

Fact remains; It’s impossible to make a non farming game. Period. Players do the story line, as in every game that has it, then proceed into investigating where are the best drops, which weapons are best in stats/looks and then an phenomenon called concentration kicks in. All players concentrate in that small area where drops are best, loot is coolest and most money can be made. Of course, some do pvp, wvw and other stuff, but in pve, it all comes to farming in orr. Then you guys make a move by nerfing the loot, prolong the timers for events, reduce drops when farming hoping to discourage players from farming. Players then change farming place and it all goes around. A never ending battle indeed. (At least you promised and delivered that.)

Now, lets ask ourselves why do people farm? It’s more than obvious – cool looking stuff, weapons, gear. Am I right? Yes, I am.

So… what does a normal, regular player need to make such a thing? Let me answer that! He needs to farm his brains out. Lets make an example to clarify, ok?

I want a cool looking focus (right… a focus… or underwater weapons… come on)
Okay, cool. Lets make one…

Step 1 – Get 4 ingredients needed to put into mystic forge.
(I check wiki for recipe and its super easy… i need 1 gift and 2 SP stuff and 250 of something which i can get in few days)
Step 2- I found out I need 4 different ingredients to put into mystic forge to get that gift
(Oh well… 2 of those ingredients arent that easy to get, it will take me more time bit I think i can get them, and other 2 are easy, some gift and something random)
Step 3 – I found out I need 4 diff ingredients to put into mystic forge to get that other gift
(Now I’m like WTF?! Okay okay, calm down… so I only need … Whaaaaaaat? 250 lodestones? 250 cores? 250 ectos?)

Okay, lets do some math and see how many stuff do we need

350 cores
250 lodestones
250 ectos
200 mystic tokens
250 orichalcum items for wep which means 750 ingots or so

Uhm… I don’t really need that focus….

Basically, not only did u make it super hard with these crazy recipes, but you also managed to make drop rates like 0.1% for materials needed to craft those cool looking stuff.
A normal, regular player will NEVER obtain those stuff, not even 1 of them, unless he pays real life money to 3rd party site to buy ingame currency.

When using Money <-> Gem calculation, one would need to spend over 1000 euros for one of those shiny things.

Possible solutions!
Major increase in drop rate of lodestones and cores. (Major as in A LOT)
Cheaper transformation core -> lodestone (also for lower lvls of materials like fragments, shards etc.)
Vendor who will accept something in exchange for materials. (Karma, Laurels)

It’s so painful to create most of items listen on wiki. Please, make it possible for us to create them without farming 24/7.

P.S. Dungeons aren’t fun to play.

Disclaimer: This is not only my opinion, but of almost all players I talked to about this.
I am not attacking or saying anything bad about game designers and/or developers or anyone else who is working on game, but farming hard-to-get materials isn’t making me want to play this game more, but less.

Thanks.

bakalarko.4850:

Fact remains; It’s impossible to make a non farming game. Period.

So Mass Effect is a farming game now? Super Mario Brothers is a farming game? The Longest Journey is a farming game, too?

I don’t farm. I play the game. Whatever I get is incidental to me playing the game. Saying that everyone plays the way you do is a misnomer.

Legendaries exist for the people who love farming for items that most people will not get. It is really easy to get, meaning it takes nothing more then farming and playing the RNG game.

Checkers is a non farming game too.
Erasculio, come on, you know he meant mmorg type games, not single player games.

I think the way to get a Legendary in this game is an utter disgrace. A complete farm fest.

Why should I have to do repetitive tasks in order to get something of prestigious value? look at EverQuest 2’s way of getting your Epic/Mythical weapon – http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Epic_Weapon_Timeline

It’s a series of quests that take you on a journey across the game and makes you feel like you’re on a ‘legendary’ adventure.. the weapon is part of the lore (or your personal ‘story’).

I really do want my legendary but every time I look at the wiki I just see “you need 250 of this, this this, rng this, that 100 gold here, there, 100 again, 250 of this, grind this dungeon 30 times, karma karma” etc etc.

I don’t care what anyone here says, obtaining this stuff ISN’T fun.

*If Super Mario was an MMORPG like GW2, then you’d be collecting 1 million coins to get super mushroom. *

Calm on mate, you are obviously lost, comparing wrong type of games.

@Vayne: I never said I am farming, I’m playing the game, but in order to get something I am forced to farm, which I don’t. But again I also got nothing so far.

I surely won’t hope for rain to fall or precursor to drop… It’s a game and SHOULD BE MORE REWARDING for the time spent playing it.

ye im not too bothered with farming either im just playing and selling all the crap i find eventually ill have enough gold and ill just buy a legendary not gonna go through years of farming just to get one

I would define an ultimate farming game as one you could farm in predictably and profitably. In another well known MMO I supported myself, very well, for years, by crafting entry level PvP and heroic’s gear. I could have a crazy farming day and make the whole set. That is nice farming and nice crafting. While GW2 requires EPIC farming to make anything of value, I wouldn’t call it an ultimate farming game by my definition.

Lyenyo.2891:

I think the way to get a Legendary in this game is an utter disgrace. A complete farm fest.

Why should I have to do repetitive tasks in order to get something of prestigious value? look at EverQuest 2’s way of getting your Epic/Mythical weapon – http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Epic_Weapon_Timeline

It’s a series of quests that take you on a journey across the game and makes you feel like you’re on a ‘legendary’ adventure.. the weapon is part of the lore (or your personal ‘story’).

I really do want my legendary but every time I look at the wiki I just see “you need 250 of this, this this, rng this, that 100 gold here, there, 100 again, 250 of this, grind this dungeon 30 times, karma karma” etc etc.

I don’t care what anyone here says, obtaining this stuff ISN’T fun.

The problem is they wanted to create an item that few people will get, really with this game the only way to do that is by making it nothing more then a massive grind against RNG. It if was quest based, then there would be a whole lot more people with them, a whole lot more people.

Legendary weapons are in the only thing you really need to farm items for it. Just through playing the game I collected enough stuff to craft exotics.

You are complaining about one set of items and having to farm for them. You are supposed to farm for the Legendary items, that is why they are Legendary.

you not supposed to farm for legendary, you have item shop for it.=D

beside once you finished story, got crafting done, and lvl 80, what else left to do?
exploration is one more form of grind, same is for dungeons (or you find them fun to run? then all good, enjoy).

so farming is all about gaming here, IMO. or may be we have hidden content I can’t see? or we have tons of missions, HM, special raids and events like in GW1?

well, you can sure enjoy WvW if you can enjoy it. =D

still nice game to farm when have nothing much to do on winter weekends.

P.S. all is my own appreciation only, I don’t want to criticize anyone or, less again, offence. just bored I guess…

eisberg.2379:

Lyenyo.2891:

I think the way to get a Legendary in this game is an utter disgrace. A complete farm fest.

Why should I have to do repetitive tasks in order to get something of prestigious value? look at EverQuest 2’s way of getting your Epic/Mythical weapon – http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Epic_Weapon_Timeline

It’s a series of quests that take you on a journey across the game and makes you feel like you’re on a ‘legendary’ adventure.. the weapon is part of the lore (or your personal ‘story’).

I really do want my legendary but every time I look at the wiki I just see “you need 250 of this, this this, rng this, that 100 gold here, there, 100 again, 250 of this, grind this dungeon 30 times, karma karma” etc etc.

I don’t care what anyone here says, obtaining this stuff ISN’T fun.

The problem is they wanted to create an item that few people will get, really with this game the only way to do that is by making it nothing more then a massive grind against RNG. It if was quest based, then there would be a whole lot more people with them, a whole lot more people.

I disagree with this, if done right a quest/achievement/skill/time based system for getting legendary’s would not only make the path to ones weapon a truly legendary experience but would put these weapons in the hands of players who truly earned it, instead of the current system now of googling “buy twilight”, insert credit card, win! Granted not many have taken this approach but the fact that the option exist destroys the entire legendary concept. Right now 75% of the legendary process is 100% luck based, its a terrible system that has not worked very well in games past. There will be players who will never have a shot at wielding one of these great weapons due to poor RNG even though they are some of the most skilled players in the game and thats sad!

The truth is that to get people to play in the long run you need to give them long-term goals; and for PvE players what else if not a big huge gold sink?
PvE players don’t PvP so they continue to want new and new and new content.
This is the issue, not games; unlimited PvE does not exist as a material possibility, unless devs work for 50 years before releasing to make hopefully 10 years worth of content.
But by that time, technology evolved and your game is a joke.

See the pattern here? It’s all about PvE players.
Look at the updates of GW2, 99% of them are PvE-related.

It’s naive to believe that games are not like gamers want them, it’s like politicians people complain about and the go elect.
If games are grindy is because most gamers want them grindy.
The majority, the people who give more money.

GW2 was meant to be “a game for fun” and it only took 3 months for Anet to notice people who play for fun like me and you are not enough to get billions, so they quickly put in some traditional MMO features to rack in more users.

Oh well, we gotta deal with it.
No amount of posts from us minority will change the graphs showing Anet how much money the majority is giving them.

Well, people didn’t wan’t new Wow-clone. I praised breaking something that Wow started and milion games followed. What we got is much worse than Wow and Korean grind, but without brain and skills. Shame on me I fell on manifesto, worst scam ever. At least, I hope next Blizz expansion will be worth than Pandas.

Erasculio.2914:

The MMO genre is stagnant. Normal people look at MMOs with disgust, as they are not so easily deceived by the grind. Whenever someone tries to do something new, grinders complain since they believe all MMOs should be only a new place to grind, and nothing else.

GW2 is trying to advance the genre, though, hence the small army of annoyed grinders in this forum. ArenaNet’s strategies are far from perfect, not to mention incomplete, but they are going in the right direction. Just as people used to say “If you want a good story don’t play FPS, go play RPGs” and then were forced to shut their mouths after the release of Half-Life and Bioshock, so will one day all the grinders who say “If yu don’t like grind don’t play MMOs, go play single player RPGs” will also be forced to shut their mouths. I wait eagerly for that day, and hope GW2 will manage to be it.

[/quote]

I agree very much, and I almost regret missing your first point.
I might complain sometimes but overall I appreciate very much what Anet has done with GW1 and GW2, especially that they stick with it and gives years of value and new content. Not everything is a home run, but they keep trying.

Hey OP and rest of the posters. I really like your thoughts on this. Please post in my thread IMO this game as to much grind.

On topic:
We were told that you wouldn’t feel forced to play a certian way and the way you play is up to you. This is not true. If you want to grind you do the Tunnel grind, if you want dungeon now you do fotm (oh I know about the others but this one HAS the best stats now).

Crafting is seriously kittened up at end game now. I decided to see what it would cost for a set of exotic mixture of beserker and knights gear, ran me over 30 gold! Probably more if i haent (you guessed it) FARMED some mats myself.

I wanted to get a destroyer axe, or try for one of the NON legendary items that require a gift, but even those are insane.

Why cant we just make the dungeon vendors in LA do what lion guard lyss does. Turn in crappy peices of armor and weapons for tokens that can be used to get mats? They dont have to be the same conversion rate as lionguard lyss, but WITHIN REASON. Along with the prices.

The people that make post like this are unbelievable, the legendaries and their gift required ilk where specifically added to be Grindy for those that like long term goals, are you like me and hate the grind? Then don’t do it, get an exotic from any dungeon and enjoy the game

Unbelievable

Why is everyone here mentioning and talking about legendaries?

Im talking about EXOTIC items that can be crafted thru mystic forge. List can be found on WIKI if u search for it.

Examples: Jormag’s Breath, Volcanos, Foefire’s Essence, etc.

Legendary since its ultimate weapon of the game is an exception of my point, meaning, okay, i understand farming for legendary, but why are players forced to farm like crazy for exotic items, which are often as unobtainable as legendaries.

You only need to farm if you want it (want the carrot/reward). This is one of the few games that you really do not need to farm so much to advance in content. I’ve stopped farming for a month now, only playing a couple dungeon runs a week and struggling to finish my daillies, but still my main char is not left behind, and my alt is now lvl 80 in full exotic armor and weaps (trinkets still pending).

Red Falcon.8257:

The truth is that to get people to play in the long run you need to give them long-term goals; and for PvE players what else if not a big huge gold sink?

The best way to get people to play the game in the long run is to make it fun. If you think farming is not fun, why in the world are you trying to get a legendary? The legendaries were put in the game as a goal for people who find that long farm fun. Yeah it’d be nice to have a legendary, but it’s just a skin. The stats on the exotic I bought for a few gold off TP are the same.

Anet has it right – you should play games to have fun. You shouldn’t feel like you’re required to do hundreds of hours of unfun grinding or your gear will be substandard and put you at a disadvantage against other players. The same philosophy is why they let you level to 80 entirely via PvP, or via crafting, or via quests, or via killing mobs, or via exploring. You’re free to progress in this game in the way you find to be fun. You don’t have to jump through one set of hoops that you may find unfun.

I despise what Everquest and WoW did to MMORPGs – turned them into grinds where only kids who neglect their schoolwork and the unemployed had the best stuff. GW2 (and GW1) is very friendly to the casual player. You can get the equivalent of the best stuff fairly easily (just do the dailies for karma and a few dungeons). The challenge in this game comes from learning how to best use your and your party’s skills for greater synergistic effect. Not amassing better gear. If you need to have better gear than everyone else to have fun, well then this isn’t the game for you.

I always thought of Harvest Moon as the ultimate farming game. Guess I was wrong.

Erasculio.2914:

ArenaNet’s strategies are far from perfect, not to mention incomplete, but they are going in the right direction.

Excuse me good sir, may you explain how they are going in the right direction?
The initial direction was to have a game for fun with cosmetic rewards, no grinds and no fetch quests; in the last 5 months we got exactly this, instead.

Try to think why almost every single player deems leveling as a much more fun experience in GW2 than it’s endgame.
It’s because we weren’t pidgeon-holed somewhere to grind the same things, we were wandering a gigantic map to do all sorts of different things.

Why can’t endgame also be about that? At least as an option.
For instance they could make that the first time you do an event you get much more reward, so we complete all events around the world and get some kind of tokens to buy endgame gear with.

Not that fractals isn’t awesome mind you, but I believe the world of Tyria should be included in the endgame-related activities.
It’s the best virtual world I’ve ever seen in a MMO, let me get my endgame items by doing a bundle of events spread all over the world.

That would be the right direction – the initial direction of Anet, and imo the correct one.

Okay, i made the mistake and others are too.

Lets not talk about legendaries, lets talk exotics.

Destroyer weapons, patterns from the jormag event, they are simply exotics, yet look at some of the requirements. With the way lodestones drop, even with the new karma chests, you might as well feel like you’re going for a legendary.
I dont know why more people go for infinite light than twilight or sunrise. You would stand out more

Red Falcon.8257:

GW2 was meant to be “a game for fun” and it only took 3 months for Anet to notice people who play for fun like me and you are not enough to get billions, so they quickly put in some traditional MMO features to rack in more users.

If obtaining the penultimate weapon in an MMO is the only means by which you can have fun, then I’d suggest that you should find something else to play.

By the way, it didn’t take ArenaNet three months to implement Legendary weapons; they’ve been in the game since day one. But coming from a guy who complained that the Warrior’s only source of Swiftness was their elite skill, I’m not at all surprised that you didn’t know that.

I know a gorgeous game in which there was no grind – Warhammer Online. What happened with it? So far, miss WAR.

The point, is that the very essence of such thing as MMO based exactly on the grind. So it was from the time of Ultima and, may be, before. Grind – exactly, what looking for people, coming to the MMO. In one form or another.

My verdict GW2 – is, no exaggeration, the first game, about which can be said: it is not tied to grind and it is good at it.

This game – a masterpiece. I run ower the world, I admire the scenery, talk to all NPCs, I try to look at all game events, scenes, dialogues. I am looking for a mini dungeons, jumping puzzles, go through different story lines of different races. In passing I walk dungeons, story mode and exp. E T C. And it’s not bother me at all. Such as Skyrim. I can not finish it more than once….

Money and badges, that I collected duringin my exploration, quite enough to buy a racial or dungeons sets for my new characters to walk around the world “beautiful.” Dress up the character – it’s about 20g or a couple evenings of grind.

People can not see the beauty of this game, because they do not need it. Because they came here looking for one thing – grind. They may unconsciously deny it. But it is so. Ask him – why do you need a legendary weapon? Do you think you’ll feel a difference with it, at all? Looks nice? Bow-pony, shooting rainbows? Oh come’on!

GW2 gives you the perfect kind of grind. Grind for the sake of grinding. No one is forcing you to spend hours, farming pour critters for loot, or do the same daly every day, month after month, or attend the same dungeon for years, "because if you do not do that "you are not wanted in this game "".
In GW2 – You want – you’ll grind. Don’t want – u’r not.. No one will say that you suck because you do not grind 24×7, or you do not have the best set of equipment, which will cease to be the best in a week. You farm because you want it, not because someone is forcing you. While this is the only game about which I may say so.

bakalarko.4850:

P.S. Dungeons aren’t fun to play.

Then why are you even playing?

There’s no farming in this game at all except what you put on yourself. I get more than enough gold for everything I need just doing whatever I normally do.

I love that I can log in and there’s lots of stuff to do: explore the world, run dungeons, WvWvW, complete daily, etc. Compare that to say, WoW, where there’s nothing to do. Oh sure, you can do your raid once a week, then you just sit around and wait for the next week. Joy!

Yaki.9563:

bakalarko.4850:

P.S. Dungeons aren’t fun to play.

Then why are you even playing?

Because, unlike World of Warcraft, dungeons are only a miniscule portion of this game (or at least were prior to the Nov 15th “WoW conversion” patch, where everyone got funneled into fractals). Because an extremely large portion of MMO players will never set foot in a dungeon more than 1 time, and some not even that many.

Because this isn’t a dungeon crawler?

Red Falcon.8257:

The truth is that to get people to play in the long run you need to give them long-term goals; and for PvE players what else if not a big huge gold sink?
PvE players don’t PvP so they continue to want new and new and new content.
This is the issue, not games; unlimited PvE does not exist as a material possibility, unless devs work for 50 years before releasing to make hopefully 10 years worth of content.
But by that time, technology evolved and your game is a joke.

See the pattern here? It’s all about PvE players.
Look at the updates of GW2, 99% of them are PvE-related.

It’s naive to believe that games are not like gamers want them, it’s like politicians people complain about and the go elect.
If games are grindy is because most gamers want them grindy.
The majority, the people who give more money.

GW2 was meant to be “a game for fun” and it only took 3 months for Anet to notice people who play for fun like me and you are not enough to get billions, so they quickly put in some traditional MMO features to rack in more users.

Oh well, we gotta deal with it.
No amount of posts from us minority will change the graphs showing Anet how much money the majority is giving them.

But that is a key problem. Why wasn’t GW2 marketed towards the hardcore gammers then?
I just want an answer as to why then I’d be content.
And if we gota grind please make it interesting, different grind spots that is not just Tunnel.

Rare exotics like destroyer weapons are meant to be a middle ground between normal exotics and legendaries so they require a grind toget but nowhere near the craziness of legendaries

The point is that if you go and get an exotic from AC it’s just as good as any destroyer weapon or legendary, there is no grind to be geared up

For now, if they end up adding ascended weapons and armor, then you will have a point.

It would say: It’s impossible to make an non-farming MMO. PERIOD.

Max Lexandre.6279:

It would say: It’s impossible to make an non-farming MMO. PERIOD.

*It’s impossible for non-creative developers with no imagination to make a non-farming MMO. PERIOD.

Fixed that for you.

SouthernCross.5286:

Rare exotics like destroyer weapons are meant to be a middle ground between normal exotics and legendaries so they require a grind toget but nowhere near the craziness of legendaries

The point is that if you go and get an exotic from AC it’s just as good as any destroyer weapon or legendary, there is no grind to be geared up

For now, if they end up adding ascended weapons and armor, then you will have a point.

Well thats the thing though they are going to be adding ascended level weapons and armor, so its a waste of time and resources to craft anything but a legendary at this time, even though I agree with the fact that some of these rare exotics look a lot better than most legendary’s.

Look at it this way, would you rather spend 100’s of gold and 250 destroyer lodestones on an exotic level weapon that is guaranteed to become obsolete in times to come or use those resources on a weapon that will last you a life time? IMO the requirements to craft those rarer exotics either need to be drastically reduced or turned into legendary’s themselves or at the very least precursors for future legendary’s.

Tolmos.8395:

Max Lexandre.6279:

It would say: It’s impossible to make an non-farming MMO. PERIOD.

*It’s impossible for non-creative developers with no imagination to make a non-farming MMO. PERIOD.

Fixed that for you.

They were creative but it feels like the game is 2/3 done. I mean so many amazing looking areas they serve NO purpose. The taverns are just there and for what? That could be fixed by adding the keg contest and making it worth doing.
More side activities please instead of opening up new areas. And please NO MORE GRIND IN ORR. Please Anet. The logic kitten even agrees with me.

I still believe they implemented legendary weapons in a horrible way. They should not have been rgn guess games nor be the richest person on the server weapons. They should have followed through with their claim on this being a skill based game and gave it to those with achievements. Such as, completing all dungeons would get you a token for the mystic forge. Then mapping the entire game would grant you the second token. Have a third and fourth for something similar then throw the tokens in the mystic forge to get a special currency that a npc will trade for legendary weapons.

This way it is a actual achievement and not “look at me, I have money”.

I feel your pain…

I hate dungeons too, i always have, once is great but 500 times later no rewards is worth that frustration and same repetitive crap day in day out, and no open world isn’t repetitive unless you grind, but guess what, to get anything good out in the world Anet decided you need a Grind amount of items, but the catch is they wont allow you to grind, so your screwed if you liked open world (the actual Major part of the game)….

Honestly WoW has killed the MMO genre pretty nastily..

Ok lets assume that everyone gets all of the end-game goals…what happens next?

I’ll tell you what happend next…

-> Next game please.

Dante.1508:

I feel your pain…

I hate dungeons too, i always have, once is great but 500 times later no rewards is worth that frustration and same repetitive crap day in day out, and no open world isn’t repetitive unless you grind, but guess what, to get anything good out in the world Anet decided you need a Grind amount of items, but the catch is they wont allow you to grind, so your screwed if you liked open world (the actual Major part of the game)….

Honestly WoW has killed the MMO genre pretty nastily..

Hi, I really like your opinion so please post in my thread in the thread ‘In my opinion this game has to much grind’.

Anyways what your saying for the most part is true, but I feel that Anet can change this if they want to.

I think OP is just venting about putting in some actual effort into the game….

Due to the inflammatory tone of this thread, it will be closed. Please keep in mind that if you want to discuss issues on our forums, you have to do it in a constructive way.