Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer:

This is one of “those” threads that everyone got out of their system months ago when the GW1 community left en masse and everyone else carried on unscathed.

You may want to skip it.

…

Playing this game is like climbing the steepest mountain imaginable.

I jumped ship when ascended gear was announced, but like a true junkie I came back recently because friends of mine started playing.

Little did I know things have only gotten worse.

Making money is virtually impossible unless you’re willing to:

1) Manipulate the TP

2) Spend an unhealthy amount of time farming for pathetic yields

I refuse to seriously consider option 1 because it’s neither fun nor productive to fight against people who have fortunes ready to invest every day made in the earlier days of this game when gems were cheap and plinx was unnerfed.

And I have better things to do than option 2.

My beef with this is that the game was sold to me on the promise (a pitch Anet plastered all over the place, mind you) that it was everything BUT option 2. Oh no, grinding is for other games. Not us. No sir.

Except it is. It truly, truly is.

This post is long enough as it is so I’ll skip over all the disappointment on how much this deviates from the first title, for better or worse. Nobody here is arguing with the sheer amount of content provided at a kitten good price, either. I don’t think I am owed a refund. I simply do not understand Anet’s aversion to making this game accessible to the average joe they were so eager to appeal to during prelaunch.

Everyone who plays this will reach a point in the game where they will feel like picking a goal and working towards it, but they will quickly realize that all roads to anything worth having will ask a hefty sum of gold. Said gold is impossible to farm at a reasonable rate. Heck, inflation rises faster than you can make a few pennies. I’m sure people with a firmer grasp on economy can pinpoint the exact reasons, but the reality of the situation should be clear to most: everything you do gives you meager rewards. Everything.

I guess my point is this:

Arena Net, or whomever is responsible for decisions on what direction this game is taking, is so afraid that people will stop playing their game that they’re artificially prolonging activities and grinds past the point where they are fun.

I can only speak for myself, I suppose, but at the same time I imagine anyone who’s bothered to think just how much time lies ahead of them before embarking on whatever journey they happen to choose, might also be discouraged earlier than you would like.

TL;DR:

-Event rewards should scale better (if you take 20 mins to kill a dragon with a bunch of other people, why do you get virtually the same net profit as you would doing some random 5 min event out in the world that you can solo?)

-Map travel needs to cost less (the game already has so many money sinks, and if you don’t farm you just barely break even)

-Legendaries should be difficult to acquire as a result of challenge, not how long it takes to gather materials (and perhaps creating quests giving them some flavor wouldn’t hurt)

To the surely many people who will vehemently disagree with me:

I’m glad you’re having fun with the game, no hard feelings whatsoever. The best among you will try to help me out and give me tips on how to get slightly less meager results, and believe me while the thought is most certainly appreciated I’m more concerned by the overall economic infrastructure than finding ways to work around it. The worst among you will tell me to L2P or dismiss my critique because they hold a different point of view. I’m a fairly passionate person so I will make an effort not to engage in an exchange I know will drag on forever without a chance at a consensus. Which is to say, if I ignore you, don’t take offense. I’m sure you raised a perfectly good point, I’m just keeping my combative nature in check.

…

Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest and if this gets exposure before sinking into page 2 I’ll call it a success.

They are not scared that people will quit the game, they are simply protecting their monetary interests.

They allow you to make enough money to pay your repair bills, way point costs and the gearing out of a new character once in a while, but nothing beyond that, because they want people to buy gems → gold in the gem store. If you want to buy that Abyss dye for example, you have the option to either a) Grind for a prolonged period or b) Make a quick purchase in the gem store. A lot of people will choose option b).

That’s why you also see a static money-gain throughout all areas of the game. While your suggestions are good, they will never be implemented because of what I wrote above. It’s the price you pay for playing a B2P game (and having Nexon run the game now).

After playing the game for quite a few months I have learned that it is not hard to make money at all. Grinding dragons (I agree, they should reward more) (unless you want a chance of a precursor drop) and grinding events in orr is not the way to go.
The simplest way to get money is to play the game. My boyfriend and I have different play styles. I like dungeons and fractals. Running a fractal a day I can get anywhere between 1 to 5 G. That’s from one fractal or dungeon run if you choose to actually kill enemies. Now my boyfriend prefers PvP and normal Pve. He sells everything he gathers. He actually makes more than me by memorizing the zones that have expensive materials and bringing his alts to level there (there’s vanilla beans in Sylvari starter zone, cauliflower can be found in Sparkfly Fen, massing up mithril that feels very much everywhere in high level zones is still quite profitable too.) also sell mystic coins that you get from dailies and if possible salvage high level yellows and oranges if selling them is unprofitable and you’re not going to use them, because tomorrow while making my armor I noticed that ectos are hitting the price of 40s for each one. And the price will continue to rise because there’s so much demand.
Money will never rain from the sky, but making 5G a day by just playing is not that hard. Oh and when it comes to legendaries, they are supposed to take years of work. Don’t rush it

Gab Superstar.4059:

They are not scared that people will quit the game, they are simply protecting their monetary interests.

They allow you to make enough money to pay your repair bills, way point costs and the gearing out of a new character once in a while, but nothing beyond that, because they want people to buy gems -> gold in the gem store. If you want to buy that Abyss dye for example, you have the option to either a) Grind for a prolonged period or b) Make a quick purchase in the gem store. A lot of people will choose option b).

That’s why you also see a static money-gain throughout all areas of the game. While your suggestions are good, they will never be implemented because of what I wrote above. It’s the price you pay for playing a B2P game (and having Nexon run the game now).

I don’t think that that was their intention with allowing you to change gems for gold. I think that the function is only there, because you can change gold for gems and might want to get some gold back if you end up not using them. Why do I think this way?
There’s a limit on how much gems can you buy daily and how much gems can you buy monthly.

Gab Superstar.4059:

(and having Nexon run the game now).

What are you talking about? Nexon doesn’t run this game nor it will… it’ s a chinese company.

Thaiseeran.9243:

Gab Superstar.4059:

(and having Nexon run the game now).

What are you talking about? Nexon doesn’t run this game nor it will… it’ s a chinese company.

Actually it holds the majority share in NCSoft, for good or for bad.

Space Cow.2431:

2)
My beef with this is that the game was sold to me on the promise (a pitch Anet plastered all over the place, mind you) that it was everything BUT option 2. Oh no, grinding is for other games. Not us. No sir.

Except it is. It truly, truly is.

No, truly it isn’t. The only “grindy” part is making a legendary, getting those exotics is so easy it’s a joke to call it a grind.

The only real major problem with the game is to make a Legendary you have the above two ways you posted, for everything else, no, there IS no grind in this game to get Exotics, at least compared to any other mmorpg out there.

lol seriously?

As a GW1 player myself the fact that farming is not really a viable option in this game is one of the things I love about it.

I hated how it seemed to be the only thing anyone ever wanted to do in GW1. Clear the campains ASAP (or better yet pay someone to skip you past most the missions then just do the last one/s) then go to UW to farm ectos forever more. I can’t imagine anything more boring.

Of course people are clinging as close to it as they can, running dungeons every day on a routine as if it’s a second job, but at least it’s not having as big of an impact as farming in GW1.

As for making money I really don’t have a problem. I haven’t even got my first level 80 yet and I’ve gotten enough gold to buy almost all the minis. I’m saving for the last few now. I’ve also got almost all my karma saved up, and more in the form of jugs, ready and waiting to get exotic armor when I’m ready.

I’m sorry, but this whole argument is made null and void by the fact that these “unattainable goals” are completely optional by design. Why not choose a goal that corresponds with how much you play the game? Seems like logic to me.

Nevermind the fact that every major weapon is 100% cosmetic and does not have any influence over the game outside that whatsoever. “Baaaaaww I need my legendary but it’s ‘unobtainable’”. So kittening what? How does a shiny skin stop you from enjoying the game?

Not sure why I even bothered replying to this thread considering it’s blatantly written by someone who dislikes it and is convinced that everyone thinks the same way as they do.

Right now the best way to make money is via fractals. I did level 1 and 2 and made 6g. The net gain you attain from doing fracs is amazing. However one of my guildies who does fractals a lot says he noticed that whenever he takes a break for a couple of days and starts doing fracs again, he gets amazing drops for 2 days or so. However, if he does fractals for a week straight, or 2 weeks, his drops start getting progressively worse till all he is getting every 6 runs is one or 2 exotics, or maybe 2 cores. I did one run in fractals and got 3 cores, and it was my first time on level 1. He said he never sees anything like that where he was at.

Writetyper.1985:

I’m sorry, but this whole argument is made null and void by the fact that these “unattainable goals” are completely optional by design. Why not choose a goal that corresponds with how much you play the game? Seems like logic to me.

Nevermind the fact that every major weapon is 100% cosmetic and does not have any influence over the game outside that whatsoever. “Baaaaaww I need my legendary but it’s ‘unobtainable’”. So kittening what? How does a shiny skin stop you from enjoying the game?

Agreed ^^^

I can farm 3-5g an hour on average in fractals lvl 26/30. Nothing is out of my reach.

Im working towards 100% world completion (94% atm), im working towards a legendary but in no hurry to get one. If everything was easy to get why bother playing, what you going to do once your have EVERYTHING.??

I’m not quite sure what "goal*s*"you have that require more gold than you can make while playing the game the way you want. Ascended gear is not tied to gold(unless you want to infuse it which shouldn’t be that hard having in mind fotm drops), exotics and general expenses are also pretty easy to cover(unless you want to just port around randomly for no apparent reason). That leaves legendary…which is obviously meant as a carrot on a stick for pve players. What it could’ve been or should’ve been(according to you), doesn’t really matter. It is the way it is and it’s a beeping cosmetic item. If you want to drive a Porsche, you gotta put the money on the table but a VW will get you to the same place just fine.

I also don’t know what you like doing in the game, but…pve generates a good amount(dungeons, events, gathering or simply grinding mobs), spvp doesn’t generate income but it also requires no gold(which obviously makes sense), wvwvw…well, I don’t do that, but my fiancé lives there and he’s doing just fine(paying repairs, buying upgrades and siege quite often and supplying me with ectos and t6 mats for which i sent him about half the tp price xD).

OP you probably have the DR bug
these other people seem to have no problem keeping there head above financial waters but i do not
might put some feedback in the sticky

I do believe if people gave the fractals some time, learn them and do 2 runs per day, (about 2-3 hours) the gold turn around alone is worth this time.

Not to mention the skins and ascended rings

I’ve been doing Orr farming and I agree with you that most efficient ways for me to earn money on my 80 now that I’ve “completed” the world (hearts, vistas, skill challenges, etc.) is kind of boring and grindy.

I don’t do fractals or dungeons, so advice regarding that isn’t helpful to me. I don’t really PvP. Orr gets tedious, but it’s still a faster way to amass money and materials than leveling up a couple dozen characters to 80, selling everything I get as I go.

Mostly, I take breaks to ease the grind feeling, which is okay. I’m seriously beginning to consider how many alts I really want to keep since I don’t see myself with enough money and/or materials to get exotics for each of them.

Celtic Lady.3729:

I’ve been doing Orr farming and I agree with you that most efficient ways for me to earn money on my 80 now that I’ve “completed” the world (hearts, vistas, skill challenges, etc.) is kind of boring and grindy.

I don’t do fractals or dungeons, so advice regarding that isn’t helpful to me. I don’t really PvP. Orr gets tedious, but it’s still a faster way to amass money and materials than leveling up a couple dozen characters to 80, selling everything I get as I go.

Mostly, I take breaks to ease the grind feeling, which is okay. I’m seriously beginning to consider how many alts I really want to keep since I don’t see myself with enough money and/or materials to get exotics for each of them.

well, you re saying its “tedious” but thats all you seem to like doing in the game.
no dungeon, no pvp…
actually, “why” do you keep farming ?
to get that legendary weapon and put the game aside ?
i would like to understand you, but cant.

maybe this is the problem for some people, I only have one lvl 80 character so the game is not that costly to me, why try run 5 alts at once, level one and use that one to make gold and gradually lvl other alts if you wish.

Just curious, if you dont do anything, dungeons PvP what do you do with your time?

Avatar.1923:

Celtic Lady.3729:

I’ve been doing Orr farming and I agree with you that most efficient ways for me to earn money on my 80 now that I’ve “completed” the world (hearts, vistas, skill challenges, etc.) is kind of boring and grindy.

I don’t do fractals or dungeons, so advice regarding that isn’t helpful to me. I don’t really PvP. Orr gets tedious, but it’s still a faster way to amass money and materials than leveling up a couple dozen characters to 80, selling everything I get as I go.

Mostly, I take breaks to ease the grind feeling, which is okay. I’m seriously beginning to consider how many alts I really want to keep since I don’t see myself with enough money and/or materials to get exotics for each of them.

well, you re saying its “tedious” but thats all you seem to like doing in the game.
no dungeon, no pvp…
actually, “why” do you keep farming ?
to get that legendary weapon and put the game aside ?
i would like to understand you, but cant.

Yeah it’s like he doesn’t actually like the game, he just likes getting new stuff. In which case why not get real life new stuff instead

Well, I can understand what the OP is up to. This game is supposed to be wraped around cosmetics. Not only legendaries but also many, many other skins. Many, many skins can only be accquired through the mystic forge which mostly either needs loads of amounts of mats or are random gambling, sometimes both combined.

So grinding and farming those mats is what this game is about for a big deal. But if you are not playing a huge amount of time it will take months to gain the mats or you need to farm money or get it through other ways. For people who do not like fractals it’s even more annoying. So gaining a special skin is in most cases not that you did something special it is that you did repetively the same over and over again, or even more simple you put a lot of money in the tp and bought the whole stuff.

It is not a question if this grind is optional. So to say it is in any game (depending on you goals). It’s rather that the way to obtain something that is often rather boring grind. I think there is a lack of variety with lower level skins as goals for example. Or with goals which are not only related to gain money/gain mats at an insane amount.

What I miss is something that is maybe rather questbased. For example cultural gear can be bought with money. So the “challenge” is to raise enough money. Why is it not wrapped in a questline which recquires you to visit several places and do several tasks for some npc. Or why aren’t there more carfting-recepts with special skins maybe sold by karma-vendors maybe if you finished the map or maybe a bunch of maps. Ofc there are a few, but I would like to see more of these options.

Writetyper.1985

Yeah it’s like he doesn’t actually like the game, he just likes getting new stuff. In which case why not get real life new stuff instead

(I’m a she, fyi). I like the game just fine. I’m just not a dungeon crawler or PvPer. Lots of players in GW2 are like me. They’d rather explore and do PvE than other things. I’m farming to replace money I spent doing some other things like leveling my crafting professions and getting exotics for my main. Legendaries are not even on my radar for obvious reasons. I’d like some money to use for my alts, and Orr is a relatively fast and painless way to do this. Gets boring after a while, that’s all.

I admit that without dungeons and PvP there’s a limited amount of activities for a PvEer like me. The monthly updates have been nice, giving 80s something new to do. If they ever stopped having those and I run out of things to do, I’ll just play another game. Tons of ’em out there.

Point was, OP has felt the grind for various reasons and I have, too. And so have plenty of other players. Simple.

simply said. theres a big part of the game you dont do.

if you start an alt, do the story or map completion and itll be decked out in exotic.

its your logic that totally fails.
you dont need to grind for “more”.
just level up alts if its your game.
why stick in orr to level other toons faster ???

Welcome back. I hope you don’t jump ship out again soon enough. Anyway, I feel your pain man. I will just reply to your main points (the TLDR)

- For event rewards, I looked at it in a different way than you. Because of the lack of “raid” system in this game, there has to be a “Group” event to “gather” people and rally them for the “common good” of the “world” (or zone or map or whatever). If a Group Event always has better loots than solo (able) events, what would happen to Solo (able) events then? I’m pretty sure many will complain about “bla bla, I know this is an MMO, but I sometimes wish I can just solo mobs and get great rewards. I don’t like going in to big events, that lags me, or just plainly can’t see my toon” etc etc and so on and so forth.

I see Group vs Solo (able) a compromise. In group you get to have better chances (mostly because of more mobs, means more chance of better loots, and in some cases, better quality of loots from Chest {based on Anet’s feedback about chest loot table}). In solo (able) events, you get less mobs, so less chance to get loots or decent loots. If you think of it as a raffle draw (RNG system), then the more chances of getting raffles, the more chance of “winning”. But even those who only submit 1 raffle ticket, can get all the luck and get a pre cursor dropped on them (RNG system).

Also, Exotic are so easy to acquire which is all you need to roll thru the game except in FotM. But hey, Ascended rings drops so easy as well there, and if you play long enough, you can get infusion thru tokens. Some call it grinding, some call it farming, but FotM for is having fun!

-As for Map travel, at first I find it stupid as well. But since I mostly stay in L.A. it’s become cheaper. Also, if I just do my dailies, and a few events, I can afford jumping from any starter location to Orr without so much thinking of how much it costs. I mean, do 5 events at any starter, kill 15varieties, collect stuff, and by that time you complete them, you get enough money to go anywhere.

And if earning money becomes so easy, watch how fast the price of each items go up. I mean, your 100s of gold will be equal to 10s of silver because the price of items will go skyrocket? Why? Gold so easy to come by, many players can buy items in TP, so sellers keeps pushing prices to get even more gold, players have enough money to buy, so sellers keeps pushing it up. So it won’t be any much different than it is now.

So what I’m saying is, Map Travel costs is not as bad as you see it. If you look at it from a different point of view, it becomes reasonable (glass half full, empty kinda thingie)

- I think the new patch on Jan. 28 will address legendary. But really, unless you like the effects, Legendary has no better stat than exotic (till Ascended weapon is released that is). So I don’t mind people having shinier stuff than me, it’s the same thing stat-wise.

It’s the same for any “cosmetic” stuff in the game: you don’t need them, you even have an alternative. Unless the item is absolutely necessary to win in PvE or PvP, I don;t have any issue. It’s cosmetic, I get to have the same stat.

I know, some people “wants” their thing, and that’s cool. But like all things in the world, some things you have to work for, one way or another. If not, the challenge is no more, and without challenge, the game becomes boring. And boring means, death of the game. And sometimes, closure of the provider.

So people who grind for Legendary, have fun guys and gratz if you get one, you deserve it. Whether you flick a credit card to get them or did serious hard work, you still spent time on it.

Writetyper.1985:

Avatar.1923:

Celtic Lady.3729:

I’ve been doing Orr farming and I agree with you that most efficient ways for me to earn money on my 80 now that I’ve “completed” the world (hearts, vistas, skill challenges, etc.) is kind of boring and grindy.

I don’t do fractals or dungeons, so advice regarding that isn’t helpful to me. I don’t really PvP. Orr gets tedious, but it’s still a faster way to amass money and materials than leveling up a couple dozen characters to 80, selling everything I get as I go.

Mostly, I take breaks to ease the grind feeling, which is okay. I’m seriously beginning to consider how many alts I really want to keep since I don’t see myself with enough money and/or materials to get exotics for each of them.

well, you re saying its “tedious” but thats all you seem to like doing in the game.
no dungeon, no pvp…
actually, “why” do you keep farming ?
to get that legendary weapon and put the game aside ?
i would like to understand you, but cant.

Yeah it’s like he doesn’t actually like the game, he just likes getting new stuff. In which case why not get real life new stuff instead

because just like in the gam he probably dosnt know how to get cash :P

On one hand, I agree with you.
On the other hand, I was able to get good gear without a ton of work.
You’re right about legendaries and such… the amount of grind is stupid
But for lesser rewards, like dungeon armor/weapons, T-3 armor, or the maxed karma armor you get from orr’s event chains… it doesn’t take a lot of effort.
I can make roughly 1 to 1.5 gold pieces for every 6-20 minute CoF run I do. Say I spend 2 hours one week doing CoF runs… I can get an average of 13 gold pieces. Then say I spend another 2 hours per week doing general gaming… get 2 gold pieces from that.
15 gold pieces a week for only 4 hours of gaming isn’t a bad income. It won’t get you legendaries, but it will negate waypoint and repair costs, and it will fund a T-3 set in a relativley short amount of time.

Avatar.1923:

why stick in orr to level other toons faster ???

Actually, I don’t farm Orr to level my alts faster. lol They level the same when I play them whether I farm Orr or not. Since I went from a decent amount of gold down to next to nothing, I’ve been doing Orr to replace some, get crafting materials, and give my 80 something to do. A few of my alts have gear some 25 levels below them, so I’m looking to buy them more updated gear and keep going.

I think it’s amusing and sweet that ya’ll want to solve my “problem.” Let me guess, you’re all guys, right? I’m not looking for someone to solve my problem. I don’t have a problem. I’ve been farming and I’ll eventually move on to something else, either in this game or another one. I’m simply sympathizing with the OP since I’ve been having experiences with farming/grinding. I’m a jeweler that crafts passion flower jewelry. Farming and grinding (repetitive actions that accomplish a goal) are in every MMO including this one. It’s not a “problem” to solve, but we can sympathize with one another.

As a none GW1 player im curious as to what you actually did in the game that differs in a way that makes GW2 grindy and GW1 not? Was GW1 very easy?

I have almost 1200 hours played in GW2 and im no where near bored of the game, so much still to do, and new content all the time, what more could i ask for :P111

I only need money to complete my crafts, so once they are done, I’ll start finishing my monster hunts for all the kill counters. I am pretty OK with money. I’m not rich, yet I’m not poor either. Me and MMOs its like a love hate relationship when it comes to farming and grinding. I do it when I need to and hate it when I don’t or just find no value in doing it.

Like for instance, trying to find the best gear in a very old MMO I play and can’t get it without a holiday event increasing drop rates. If its too hard to get (legendaries), I don’t waste my time until it is made easier some way in the future of the game’s life span. I play for fun first and foremost.

Chances are 1-2 years from now, GW 2 will have new events and features like in gw 1 (heroes/7 heroes/ 5+ events a year/mini games) to allow us to get stuff much, much easier. If you can’t wait that long like I do, then you can’t wait for anything in life and will be miserable anywhere you go.

Weindrasi.3805:

I can make roughly 1 to 1.5 gold pieces for every 6-20 minute CoF run I do.

Alright I guess I’ll tackle this one.

The best I have managed to do was 1g/hour running CoF, which is not bad but I stopped immediately because it bored me tremendously. It made me not want to play the game.

Ever since I quit WoW I promised myself I would not play a game unless the activity itself is entertaining to me.

I remember exactly how I decided I was done with WoW. It was 2 am and I was doing “archaeology”, which essentially means I was flying around stopping by digsites to click a button and hope something rare drops, which most of the time it wouldn’t.

I stopped and said, out loud, “what the kitten am I doing?”.

Again, no disrespect meant towards anyone who finds joy in this kind of thing, but I have long since left that behind. I think the general IDEA of Guild Wars 2 in which they standardize rewards across the board is a good one, because it discourages farming, I just think that rewards should scale better depending on the level of difficulty and a ratio of time/effort involved. Maybe this is a matter of the game being young. Maybe six months from now or even a year a lot of these kinks will have been ironed out, but some alarm bells went off in my mind after coming back to see that the situation has not improved, but worsened instead.

And to address some comments about exotics being easy to acquire, here’s my stance on it:

I don’t actually think they’re hard to get. I don’t think I can even truly criticize ANet for their choices here, but it’s really a matter of what you consider the norm.

If you were happy with GW1’s method, exotics here seem way too time consuming. Understand that this is the point of view of someone who approaches this game very casually, which is probably why they enjoyed the first Guild Wars.

If you are used to almost every other MMORPG, then exotics here are certainly very very easy to get.

So if anything, ANet chose a middle-ground that most of us are comfortable with in that regard.

“archaeology” in WoW was seriously more boring than anything iv done in GW2

Nibiru.1423:

“archaeology” in WoW was seriously more boring than anything iv done in GW2

Oh, I quite agree there.

hmmm correct me if im wrong but the only thing grindy in this game is fotm gear and skins….i mean u dont need a kitten ton of money to be able to have fun right o.O

Maybe I’m missing something as I don’t even have a character at level 80 (my highest is a mesmer at 63), but I find that making money comes very very easily in this game.
You get equipment with karma from doing the hearth quests, if you feel there is a piece of equipment that you really need you can always buy it on the TP, everything is dirt cheap. If you are leveling a crafting profession, I know they are supposed to be a money sink, but i’ve actually made some money while leveling mine.
If you don’t want to indulge in the old buy cheap sell high TP game, there are loads of opportunities to do money through crafting if you take the time to investigate where the opportunities are. Maybe things will change at 80 but gold is definitely not a problem at the moment, and I can even afford to get my various alts with rare weapons for their appropriate levels.

I basically mess around and do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like when I play. I’m sitting on approaching 70g. Jormag’s Breath, Triforge, all the skins, dyes, etc I want for all my gear on my mesmer (crap farmer) main.

I’ve spent hours basically solo suicide rushing (and winning) against champions, who don’t pay well at all. On an undergeared alt. Because I felt like it. I bring consumable buffs to WvW when I participate. And I don’t farm beyond getting my accuracy stacks and the odd dungeon, because I feel like it.

I am pretty kitten rich as far as players go, and I don’t grind or farm beyond doing what I feel like doing. If the game (outside of legendaries) was meant to be some korean grinder where you have to sit down and farm to get anything, I wouldn’t be nearly as well off as I am.

id like to add one thing before i go to work…YOU ALL NEED IN GAME FRIENDS….. that do stuff lol and not worry about money…ive been daily running dungeons with friends and guild and ill tell u money adds up fast….and imo u dont need even 5 ar to reach level 20 fractals….i have 4 level 80s in exotic and ascended peices just from having fun..i think ppl just get a little out of hand the ppl that i see always complaining are the ones that grind one area ALONE for days just get some dam friends and have fun with the content given

Space Cow.2431:

Weindrasi.3805:

I can make roughly 1 to 1.5 gold pieces for every 6-20 minute CoF run I do.

Alright I guess I’ll tackle this one.

The best I have managed to do was 1g/hour running CoF, which is not bad but I stopped immediately because it bored me tremendously. It made me not want to play the game.

Ever since I quit WoW I promised myself I would not play a game unless the activity itself is entertaining to me.

I remember exactly how I decided I was done with WoW. It was 2 am and I was doing “archaeology”, which essentially means I was flying around stopping by digsites to click a button and hope something rare drops, which most of the time it wouldn’t.

I stopped and said, out loud, “what the kitten am I doing?”.

Again, no disrespect meant towards anyone who finds joy in this kind of thing, but I have long since left that behind. I think the general IDEA of Guild Wars 2 in which they standardize rewards across the board is a good one, because it discourages farming, I just think that rewards should scale better depending on the level of difficulty and a ratio of time/effort involved. Maybe this is a matter of the game being young. Maybe six months from now or even a year a lot of these kinks will have been ironed out, but some alarm bells went off in my mind after coming back to see that the situation has not improved, but worsened instead.

And to address some comments about exotics being easy to acquire, here’s my stance on it:

I don’t actually think they’re hard to get. I don’t think I can even truly criticize ANet for their choices here, but it’s really a matter of what you consider the norm.

If you were happy with GW1’s method, exotics here seem way too time consuming. Understand that this is the point of view of someone who approaches this game very casually, which is probably why they enjoyed the first Guild Wars.

If you are used to almost every other MMORPG, then exotics here are certainly very very easy to get.

So if anything, ANet chose a middle-ground that most of us are comfortable with in that regard.

Very good point. In that case, maybe this would work for you. I always bring gathering tools along so that, as I do my general gaming, I can harvest any resources I encounter. I’m not specifically looking for the resources or farming them, just taking what I find as I go. Give it time, and your resources will build up in the bank. They sell on the trading post very well, so every few weeks you can check your bank and sell all the resources. This won’t get you rich quick, but each time you sell out your materials inventory, it’ll give you a good money boost.

Also, if you save up your Karma, you can buy the event-chain Karma armor in orr, which gives you max armor stats.

When I first got to lvl 80, i spent a good few weeks farming Orr, plinx and the tunnels as i called them but that soon got boring, as you said I was doing it SOLO.

I love fractals for one reason, team work. You either communicate and work as a team, or fail. Its that simple.

What you didn’t get is that in an MMO, inflation is coupled to farming. The easier farming is, the higher the inflation. So OP claiming inflation is bad while income is meager, simply means the OP didn’t find a way to effectively create money. And with “create money”, I really mean, go out there and earn gold.

The truth of the matter is that, for all the TP playing and gem buying, gold is only ever created by playing the game in the open world or dungeons.

The only way to make good money in this game, is by NOT repeating content. If you do a lot of different things, you usually earn more than by grinding or farming. The best way to farm money is to not farm money. And because of that, this game is completely grind free to people who have a clue.

Absolutely agree. Aside from the obvious problems from making a mockery of 20th century military weaponry on what was supposed to be the most militant profession any mmo has ever seen, the grind for gold thing, yeah no longer appealing especially at the tiny sums one gets and the sheer lack of foresight into just how people are going to get those items. (two sets of RNG per item needed is not a success story it’s the problem. There’s 1 RNG just to get heavy bags to drop and then there’s 1 RNG to see what nonsense drops usually things one doesn’t need at all for anything, I’m speaking of T6 mats). Then there’s the issue of DR which has literally killed every game ever that’s used that as a means to stop bots, harming the players and thus scaring away customers causing the gaming companies to shut down. Yeah read up on the history folks that’s what happened to other games that used DR. Then there’s the broken MF that doesn’t work on 80% of the drops and I’m speaking of course about bags, containers, chests from events, chests discovered in zones, low level zone chests/bags…etc. Then there’s the bug that prevents anything from dropping from veterans and champions that literally no one has seen work since this was promised.

So yeah they have a very long way to go to get me back as a customer. Games should not be careers.

BTW OP You forgot

3: Spend an unhealthy amount of money in the gem store to convert them to gold.

He also forgot the other type of player, the one that hasn’t been hit with the permaDR across his entire account yet that would like to give him tips on how everything is perfectly fine so long as you run dungeons over and over again just to kill the trash mobs or teleport from one zone to the next to the next over and over again.

Oh mg…why do people always look to the game as it is some sort of thing that will end in 1 week and if you wont get something during those 7 days you will regret it for the rest of your life. The game is out for few months, it growing, grow together with it, stop rushing, stop caring about things that are not worth caring for. Like legendary weapons for example, i started playing like 1 month after the launch, since i wanted to finish up my HoM in GW1. Prices were high already, now they are sky high, but i could care less. I could care less about how much gold i have since is basically useless, unless you want to buy a precursor. Without that caring and playing daily I’m at 300+ gold + same amount spent on things, like gems, cool skins etc. I have like 40% of the mats needed for my ele’s Incinerator and i don’t care how long it will take me to get it, since this anet comes up with stuff every month, maybe it will be even easier next month, who knows. Point is – i don’t get the people who seem to hate and bash the game how they can, but still play it, there are hundreds of other mmos who offer exactly what you are looking for. Why not to try them? GW2 is specific kind of game, same like GW1 and rushers, grinders and farmers don’t last here, I play with the same people for around 6 years now, we played GW1, Lineage 2 and now GW2, and every day with loging in, at least i personally loose myself in this world, you know why ? Because i treat it as game not some duty that i must do or a job that has to pay me by the end of the week. Reinvent your approach to the game, adapt, or just move on, because believe me, even tho the forum is full of people like you, you are the 1% in this case.

Here we go, rant number 15. Addressed to all the people that fall in the category of “I see no problem with grinding 5-6 g/2 fractal runs all they way up to 600g for a precursor and 600g more g for the other 3 gifts + all the 10g for 2 crafting profs + 50g for all the exotics (assuming you don’t like dungeon models or simply hate dungeons) on each character. And most of it is optional vanity skins and if you really want them you should work for them hard and you will feel better when you get them and if it was easy you would run out of things to do”. Heh 6 line category name.

I would like to have something more to show for (for myself not to show of) after 1366h played in 4 months (I took a 3 week break) other than an unfinished Dusk that I flipped my fingers of for (which I hated, and I’m still doing and it is worse than archeology in WoW), inconveniencing ppl placing orders in TP (otherwise I wouldn’t be near the point where I only need Dusk).

No, I don’t want to work as hard (to be read as “LONG”) as we have to atm for ONE legendary/Mjolnir/and the like, sue me . And NOOOOOOOOOooooo, I will not run out of things to do should they make precursors and ascended gear and lodestones (for other cool looking exotics) easier (to be read as “faster” and “attainable through even more ways than atm”) to get. There are 20 legendaries (and more planed), 8 professions, dozens of cool weapons, predicted expansions with new classes/races, and new content almost every month for the next few years.

If you are the kind that plays 1 character every day 1h and 2h on weekends and like to work hard and long for something good looking that’s all find and dandy since you can do fractals until you can afford the 1900g legendary from the TP (in 1 year, well it will drop in price but you get the idea). It stops being ok as soon as everyone else that doesn’t want to play that way has no other options because you also want your long worked for items to be as exclusive as possible (acting like if I were to get a legendary on each alt I could/would eightuple log in and flaunt them and it would make them less special).

Yes, I want more worthwhile stuff faster instead of doing things I don’t like repeatedly only for 1 thing bound to only one character after 6 months.

Yes besides the flipping I did enjoy those 1300h but we are talking about some tangible “reward” “goal” here.

Yes, this post is just an opinion and NO I didn’t make it sound so cutting having anyone in this thread in mind even if there are some similarities in phrasing.

Yes, I admit to having a Dusk/legendary obsession >points at all his posts being mostly about that<.

Yes, I still want character specific keybinds…yesterday!

Great OP btw (well exotics are not that hard to get depending on how many characters you want them on).

Keep in mind that they are adding laurels and planning on some type of rewards for earned achievements and scavenger hunt (which hopefully will not have a hard time limitation – i.e. you need to do a specific daily x nr of times to infuse the precursor before it’s ready or farming some soulbound stuff with epic DR after 1h). Why should rushers not be welcome in here, it doesn’t affect you if each person’s progress towards legendary (for example) is individual (if they added a set nr of tasks you can complete as fast as humanly possible should you choose to do so instead of over a few months)?

Yes another wall of text with no TL:DR -sry.

in 4 hours of game time, you can make a MINIMUM of 4 gold, minus drops, from AC.

That’s more than enough to fund basic needs, including full exotics. Playing 2 hours a day for a week will get you a full set.

And I do understand some of your other points, and ANet is trying to address most of them…

Mirta.5029:

After playing the game for quite a few months I have learned that it is not hard to make money at all. Grinding dragons (I agree, they should reward more) (unless you want a chance of a precursor drop) and grinding events in orr is not the way to go.
The simplest way to get money is to play the game. My boyfriend and I have different play styles. I like dungeons and fractals. Running a fractal a day I can get anywhere between 1 to 5 G. That’s from one fractal or dungeon run if you choose to actually kill enemies. Now my boyfriend prefers PvP and normal Pve. He sells everything he gathers. He actually makes more than me by memorizing the zones that have expensive materials and bringing his alts to level there (there’s vanilla beans in Sylvari starter zone, cauliflower can be found in Sparkfly Fen, massing up mithril that feels very much everywhere in high level zones is still quite profitable too.) also sell mystic coins that you get from dailies and if possible salvage high level yellows and oranges if selling them is unprofitable and you’re not going to use them, because tomorrow while making my armor I noticed that ectos are hitting the price of 40s for each one. And the price will continue to rise because there’s so much demand.
Money will never rain from the sky, but making 5G a day by just playing is not that hard. Oh and when it comes to legendaries, they are supposed to take years of work. Don’t rush it

Gab Superstar.4059:

They are not scared that people will quit the game, they are simply protecting their monetary interests.

They allow you to make enough money to pay your repair bills, way point costs and the gearing out of a new character once in a while, but nothing beyond that, because they want people to buy gems -> gold in the gem store. If you want to buy that Abyss dye for example, you have the option to either a) Grind for a prolonged period or b) Make a quick purchase in the gem store. A lot of people will choose option b).

That’s why you also see a static money-gain throughout all areas of the game. While your suggestions are good, they will never be implemented because of what I wrote above. It’s the price you pay for playing a B2P game (and having Nexon run the game now).

I don’t think that that was their intention with allowing you to change gems for gold. I think that the function is only there, because you can change gold for gems and might want to get some gold back if you end up not using them. Why do I think this way?
There’s a limit on how much gems can you buy daily and how much gems can you buy monthly.

I have bolded the statement you made that I take issue with.

I play nearly every day for many hours. In general PVE I do not make 5G. In fact, at no time in the months I have played have I ever made 5G in a day. I have never had an exotic drop in general PVE, only chest rewards and they total 5 ( 1 was useable ).

5 in over 800 hours of play.

You may like to run repeatedly around the nonsense that is FotM. But I do not. FotM has sucked the life out of the game and demonstrated that the game is a grinder.

Making money in GW2 is easy. Just do what I did:

Step 1: Spend all your money buying a ridiculous amount of holiday item skins.
Step 2: Sit on your kitten for 5-10 years living your life. This step is the easiest because it doesn’t even require you to log into the game.
Step 3: After said 5-10 years, log back in and sell all the holiday item skins, and you will probably be the richest player in the game.

Just looking at halloween skins, most of them increased in price between 500-1000% from halloween to christmas. I have already purchased several christmas weapon skins when they were trading for around 50c each, now most are 150c to 200c each, so they have already tripled in price just a month after the event ended. Afraid of becoming obsolete due to Ascended gear coming out? I’m not, because I know that by the time it does come out, I’ll be so filthy rich I can instantly put all my characters in max gear.

You make a plethora of gold in fractals currently, also in WvW if your guild caps keeps quickly and farms a lot of people.
You might consider you’re doing it wrong OP.

I’m also one of those people who was apprehensive at the thought of making a legendary. It seemed too out of reach. But as I played I was able to get the things I need without actually sacrificing too much of my time doing things I don’t want. Now I’m working towards my 2nd legendary, and I have enough spare gold from my first that I was able to buy the things I like (like t3 cultural armor set and exotic mini).

The thing is, the road to making the legendary shouldn’t be rushed. You’ll get the things you want in time. They won’t be adding any tier higher than it and so you aren’t gonna miss out on being a bit slower in making it. Ascended items are what worried me initially, seeing as how they were attainable was severely limited (but the patch is going to redeem this i hope).

Trust me, I am by no means a TP player nor a grinder. Sure I may have gotten lucky from gambling with the Mystic Forge, but I was willing to take risks and it usually pays off. I’m so far into getting my 2nd legendary that sometimes I feel like I’m undertaking an impossible task. But I know it’s gonna happen eventually even if I play the game the way I enjoy.

Any game, no matter how designed, can be turned into a grind. ANY game. You could grind Pacman if all you cared for is the high score.

But let’s look at the real state of the game. Right now, you can deck out a character in high end-game (exotics) gear in about five days. Five days. Of casual play, pick-it-up-when-you-feel-like-it, no stress involved gameplay.

That’s not a grind. That is anything BUT a grind. You can make your character the epitome of awesomeness, with cool armor, cool weapons, fully leveled and stat-capped in no time with minimum hassle pretty much just by playing the game. No month-long raids, no frustration on loot rolls, just play the game normally and rewards are guaranteed.

And then there are legendaries. A handful of weapon skins designed to be attainable by only a few. Whether by those who wish to get them legit, by playing the game, or by those with money (and they’d get that gold by other means if there was no ingame gem exchange, so don’t kid yourselves). Since the rich boys are irrelevant, let’s focus on players who actually want to get the legendaries via playing the game.

You can totally do that.

It will take you many months.

That’s by design.

Your only choice is:

a) accept that you will get your legendary sometime early next year if you start now and play at a normal pace
b) grind like a maniac until the game itself makes you physically sick, then quit

Option a) is for human beings who like to spend their leisure time playing a game that is fun for them.
Option b) is for human equivalents of a hamster with OCD.

So pick one and quit complaining.

@Gaudrath

Totally! Was trying to say the same, but was struggling to do so without being OTT.
@OP
I know off-topic, but where did the GW1 players go ‘en-masse’? I know it isn’t back to GW1, cos I been there a few times since launch of GW2 and it is very sparsely populated. Last night I saw bout 5 people as I toured where 8 chars are, and Spamadan (EU) was ……..(suspense music in here please)…………..EMPTY!
I have a sneaky suspicion a lot of them are still playing here.

what I would like to see is anet treat everyone as an equal and have equal rewards. You know value me and my time. Allow me to play the way I want to and have fun.

What we have now is 1 group getting a hell of a lot more than any other for no reason at all. Fractal dungeon runners make 10X the amount everyone else does.

You either play the way anet wants – doing dungeons till only your bones are left on your fingers or you buy gems →gold. Otherwise you are poor.
That tells me I am not valued nor is my time so they dont get any money from me and I use their resources.
I think they should value everyones time equally WvW/PvE/PvP all rewarded the same but it isnt and has led to a mass exodus of people.
Play how they want to =gold. Play how you want=0 loot.
That is terribly terribly wrong.

An unattainable goal is getting a specific fractal weapon. You can either get nothing or a ring and the chance of getting a weapon seems very slim then there are 19 weapons and you can keep getting the same weapon over and over. It’s probably easier to make a legendary than get a specific fractal weapon

Narkosys.5173:

what I would like to see is anet treat everyone as an equal and have equal rewards. You know value me and my time. Allow me to play the way I want to and have fun.

Play how they want to =gold. Play how you want=0 loot.
That is terribly terribly wrong.

Yet another way in which the manifesto was thrown out. We were told for 7 years play how you want and enjoy the game the way you want to play it. Yet we’re now seeing that was about as true as the promise that this game would not turn into a gear treadmill. (not directed at Narkosys) Sorry people don’t want to hear it, and I’m sorry they can’t handle the truth about what happened on Nov 15th, but on that day this game became the opposite of what we were promised prelaunch.

Narkosys.5173:

what I would like to see is anet treat everyone as an equal and have equal rewards. You know value me and my time. Allow me to play the way I want to and have fun.

Wait, you mean someone that does content that is more demanding in a way should get equal rewards with someone who is doing nothing? I really don’t understand this logic, the harder the content, the better the rewards, otherwise why have hard content in the first place? Oh right people have been posting all over these forums how they want this game to be forever the easiest game in existence that rewards you for doing nothing.

What we have now is 1 group getting a hell of a lot more than any other for no reason at all. Fractal dungeon runners make 10X the amount everyone else does.

Fractals require a team, they are also the only challenging content in the game, is something isn’t doable by everyone, it stands to reason it will give more rewards, hopefully NOT exclusive, something Anet is already fixing. And no running Fractals doesn’t give 10x the amount of running AC or COF, or even doing all Dragon events each day + the temples in Orr.

The “best” money comes from doing events that spawns lots of mobs (events in Cursed Shore) those give more loot than Fractals.

You either play the way anet wants – doing dungeons till only your bones are left on your fingers or you buy gems ->gold. Otherwise you are poor.

That’s a lie, unless you are talking about fast running CoF p1 repeatedly, running Dungeons in general isn’t as good as you make it sound money-wise. Ever tried Arah or SE P1 or COF p3 or COE? Those are dungeons that can take up some time to do, in the same time you can have more money by doing other Events. If you said “Anet wants us to roll Warriors, give them Berserker gear and run CoF p1 till only your bones are left on your fingers” then yes I’d agree, there is a serious problem there as a money-making way, no risk, too much reward for too little time, something is obviously wrong, but not all Dungeons are the same, and Fractals, it takes some time to get to the higher tiers, and even more time to get used to all the mechanics.

That tells me I am not valued nor is my time so they dont get any money from me and I use their resources.
I think they should value everyones time equally WvW/PvE/PvP all rewarded the same but it isnt and has led to a mass exodus of people.

The new Laurels system will allow everyone doing regular PVE to get Ascended gear, a similar system is coming to WvW, sPVP should be left alone, it’s a separate game within the game.

Play how they want to =gold. Play how you want=0 loot.
That is terribly terribly wrong.

I have to ask, how exactly do you want to play the game and you are not getting any loot? If the answer is WvW then that will soon change, any other options?