Guild Wars 2

What happened to no grind?

They changed their mind. Just like with having the best gear upon reaching level 80.

I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I pressed F to loot.

You know… You guys didn’t have to do the event at all. With some of these responses, you’d think ANet put a gun to their head and forced them to do it. The event may not be very good at all but I hardly think it’s as bad as what people make it out to be.

And in any case, I thought it was, at the very least, fun to watch the Mordrem just crumble so fast under the heat of 40+ players swarming them and wasting all in their path.

Arnox.5128:

You know… You guys didn’t have to do the event at all. With some of these responses, you’d think ANet put a gun to their head and forced them to do it. The event may not be very good at all but I hardly think it’s as bad as what people make it out to be.

And in any case, I thought it was, at the very least, fun to watch the Mordrem just crumble so fast under the heat of 40+ players swarming them and wasting all in their path.

Are you serious? No one is saying that at all. Yes you don’t have to do the events or grind them out. However, if you want the rewards from the events, then YES, you DO need to grind the event for the entire weekend. That is because it’s time-gated per hour (30 minutes of an event, 30 minutes of waiting), time-gated per reward and it’s a limited time event.

Yes, anything in the kitten game is optional, you don’t need to log in, you don’t need to make a character, you don’t need to play, you don’t need to talk. But for those that actually want to play there is a grind in certain aspects. That’s not really a bad thing but the implementation of said grind is bad.

And their entire grind philosophy went out the door as soon as the game was released. But that’s a different story.

People wouldn’t even be complaining about needing to grind the events if Anet had bothered to make them enjoyable on some level instead of a tag and dash fest with a lot of waiting inbetween.

There is nothing particularly new or engaging in any of this.

chemiclord.3978:

It boils down to Arena.net having a very specific definition of “grind” that doesn’t entirely mesh with what gamers have come to define the term.

Gamers don’t have a single definition. ANet’s definition is well in line with a lot of people’s. It’s also confusing to a lot of people. ANet is pretty terrible about hyping their own philosophy so that everyone shares the same understanding of what ANet is offering.

Players happened. A large amount of players have gravitated to the most efficient farming spots, and ANet seems to be catering to that group to a certain extent.

Celtus.8456:

I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I pressed F to loot.

You got loot?

Roquen.5406:

Arnox.5128:

You know… You guys didn’t have to do the event at all. With some of these responses, you’d think ANet put a gun to their head and forced them to do it. The event may not be very good at all but I hardly think it’s as bad as what people make it out to be.

And in any case, I thought it was, at the very least, fun to watch the Mordrem just crumble so fast under the heat of 40+ players swarming them and wasting all in their path.

Are you serious? No one is saying that at all. Yes you don’t have to do the events or grind them out. However, if you want the rewards from the events, then YES, you DO need to grind the event for the entire weekend. That is because it’s time-gated per hour (30 minutes of an event, 30 minutes of waiting), time-gated per reward and it’s a limited time event.

Yes, anything in the kitten game is optional, you don’t need to log in, you don’t need to make a character, you don’t need to play, you don’t need to talk. But for those that actually want to play there is a grind in certain aspects. That’s not really a bad thing but the implementation of said grind is bad.

And their entire grind philosophy went out the door as soon as the game was released. But that’s a different story.

I think you’re missing the point. When you need certain gear to do certain content, within the context of the game that gear is not optional.

When I played Rift, you needed a certain amount of focus or you couldn’t even queue for a dungeon. You couldn’t enter it at all. Within the context of Rift, I was locked out of content by not having certain equipment.

You don’t need anything from that vendor to play the content in this game. If you want it, have at it. But you’re not disadvantaged in the game by not having it.

We were told that there wouldnt be grind for BiS gear but that there would be for cosmetics. Is anything in the vendor other than cosmetic?

Vayne.8563:

Roquen.5406:

Arnox.5128:

You know… You guys didn’t have to do the event at all. With some of these responses, you’d think ANet put a gun to their head and forced them to do it. The event may not be very good at all but I hardly think it’s as bad as what people make it out to be.

And in any case, I thought it was, at the very least, fun to watch the Mordrem just crumble so fast under the heat of 40+ players swarming them and wasting all in their path.

Are you serious? No one is saying that at all. Yes you don’t have to do the events or grind them out. However, if you want the rewards from the events, then YES, you DO need to grind the event for the entire weekend. That is because it’s time-gated per hour (30 minutes of an event, 30 minutes of waiting), time-gated per reward and it’s a limited time event.

Yes, anything in the kitten game is optional, you don’t need to log in, you don’t need to make a character, you don’t need to play, you don’t need to talk. But for those that actually want to play there is a grind in certain aspects. That’s not really a bad thing but the implementation of said grind is bad.

And their entire grind philosophy went out the door as soon as the game was released. But that’s a different story.

I think you’re missing the point. When you need certain gear to do certain content, within the context of the game that gear is not optional.

When I played Rift, you needed a certain amount of focus or you couldn’t even queue for a dungeon. You couldn’t enter it at all. Within the context of Rift, I was locked out of content by not having certain equipment.

You don’t need anything from that vendor to play the content in this game. If you want it, have at it. But you’re not disadvantaged in the game by not having it.

I addressed that in one of my previous posts…but since you use “optional” so loosely, in Rift you don’t need to dungeon, that is something you CHOOSE to do. If you want to dungeon you have to get focus. You can do other stuff if you want and that doesn’t all require attunements or gear or anything of the sort.

The optional argument doesn’t really work because you can apply that to anything. The point was GW2 doesn’t want to be like any other game, right? So why design it in a similar fashion? They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff, yet they design the game in such a way that the only REASONABLE way to get it is to grind endlessly or be praised by the RNG gods.

Look at GW2 in the context of gear-treadmill being a cosmetic-treadmill. In that case this game is very grindy.

“They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff”

They said that they don’t want people grinding for stats but that it would be expected for cosmetics.

Ashen.2907:

“They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff”

They said that they don’t want people grinding for stats but that it would be expected for cosmetics.

. . . and for Ascended. I don’t think they ever dissembled about that.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ashen.2907:

“They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff”

They said that they don’t want people grinding for stats but that it would be expected for cosmetics.

. . . and for Ascended. I don’t think they ever dissembled about that.

Well they added that after the statement that there would be no grind for BiS gear.

Ashen.2907:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ashen.2907:

“They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff”

They said that they don’t want people grinding for stats but that it would be expected for cosmetics.

. . . and for Ascended. I don’t think they ever dissembled about that.

Well they added that after the statement that there would be no grind for BiS gear.

So far, they’re 0 for 2 on that front – Exotics were either not really a grind or were too terrible of a grind, and Ascended is something even developers come in here and go “yeah, that’s kind of a bit much” to paraphrase.

I suppose it’s much more amusing these are items which either used to be gem store items or were specifically available for the finale of Season 1 and went away . . . I didn’t see anything in there which was new as far as items went. This is another open availability for these items if you want them that badly.

But everyone’s flipping out like they’re going away again for good. Folks, it’s like Disney and their movies – it’ll be back out at some time in the future. We all know it’s very likely now since they did this as well at the Laurel Merchants with other LS1 goods.

Sheesh, it’s like listening to the outcry about the freaking Mini Polar Bear all over again.

If anything this newest event is the polar opposite of grind.
It is dull, it is not well rewarded and it is drawn out. Perfect for not doing, thus zero grind.
Masochists however love it and come here to express their love in the way they do best.

Pino.5209:

Ha, lol. No such thing as grinding? Karma train, zerk train, chest train, shovel train etc … grind grind grind.
We also don’t have attunement. We called it Masteries
No, no kill 10 rats quest. We have Heart system, go kill bunch of skritts fill up a bar on your top right. As if there is much difference.
Dynamic events, revolutionary. Reality, heavily scripted events.
Bottom line, don’t believe everything they tell you.

Well, after playing ESO for a bit now I have come to really, really like the events because the players work on the same goal and you do not have a lot of solo players phasing in and out of the world fighting stuff only they can see … so, yes, evenmts are different to quests and they’re better …

There has always been grind in GW2 for high end items/skins,and that grind is as heavy as a grind can be,but the difference with other games is that gameplay wise,you can get a set of second best in slot gear and do 99.99% of the content for no grind at all.
Look at what this new event gives you(I suppose that this is what you are talking about).Some skins ,minis,and mats of questionable value.
Nothing that excludes a player from accessing game content.

Just out of curiosity: what do you think a game dev can fill their game with to keep players busy for 3 years? Content? Seriously? 3 years of content with some players playing 5 hours daily on average throughout those 3 years?

Any persistent game needs grind. There is now way that a game lasting that long can prevent repetitiveness. The only question is: do you require grind to access specific content? And to that I have to tell you: up to now, no – with the exception of acquiring ascended equipment/agony resistance for high level fractals.

Roquen.5406:

Vayne.8563:

Roquen.5406:

Arnox.5128:

You know… You guys didn’t have to do the event at all. With some of these responses, you’d think ANet put a gun to their head and forced them to do it. The event may not be very good at all but I hardly think it’s as bad as what people make it out to be.

And in any case, I thought it was, at the very least, fun to watch the Mordrem just crumble so fast under the heat of 40+ players swarming them and wasting all in their path.

Are you serious? No one is saying that at all. Yes you don’t have to do the events or grind them out. However, if you want the rewards from the events, then YES, you DO need to grind the event for the entire weekend. That is because it’s time-gated per hour (30 minutes of an event, 30 minutes of waiting), time-gated per reward and it’s a limited time event.

Yes, anything in the kitten game is optional, you don’t need to log in, you don’t need to make a character, you don’t need to play, you don’t need to talk. But for those that actually want to play there is a grind in certain aspects. That’s not really a bad thing but the implementation of said grind is bad.

And their entire grind philosophy went out the door as soon as the game was released. But that’s a different story.

I think you’re missing the point. When you need certain gear to do certain content, within the context of the game that gear is not optional.

When I played Rift, you needed a certain amount of focus or you couldn’t even queue for a dungeon. You couldn’t enter it at all. Within the context of Rift, I was locked out of content by not having certain equipment.

You don’t need anything from that vendor to play the content in this game. If you want it, have at it. But you’re not disadvantaged in the game by not having it.

I addressed that in one of my previous posts…but since you use “optional” so loosely, in Rift you don’t need to dungeon, that is something you CHOOSE to do. If you want to dungeon you have to get focus. You can do other stuff if you want and that doesn’t all require attunements or gear or anything of the sort.

The optional argument doesn’t really work because you can apply that to anything. The point was GW2 doesn’t want to be like any other game, right? So why design it in a similar fashion? They said they don’t want people grinding/farming endlessly for stuff, yet they design the game in such a way that the only REASONABLE way to get it is to grind endlessly or be praised by the RNG gods.

Look at GW2 in the context of gear-treadmill being a cosmetic-treadmill. In that case this game is very grindy.

Rift you do need to dungeon if you want to progress in the game, as that’s the only path to progression open in the game. As an example, in the main quest chain in the base Rift game, you MUST raid to complete it. The last step of that story is a raid, which leads to other raids.

Yes you don’t have to finish the main story but at that point, why buy the game at all? Your semantic arguments don’t change the fact that content isn’t gated by making cosmetic items.

And that’s all Anet has ever talked about. In fact, prior to launch Eric Flannum told us there would be stuff to grind for for people who like that play style.

It all boils down to difference of personal definition.

For me “grind” is doing something I don’t want to do in order to stay relevant and on an equal power tier to the majority or say a player who has been playing this game every day since release and has 20 lvl 80’s and 12 legendaries.

In this regard GW2 has very little “grind” as it’s easy to level and get gear that will get you through 99% of the content. I can take 4 months off when I get bored and play other games to come back and still be relevant and have import. In most MMO’s if you do that you might as well /uninstall as it will take as long to “grind” your way back to being relevant in-game.

I think where people get confused is when they burn through the games main content, have nothing left to do or see that is new and then QQ every time new content comes out as it usually represents a small amount of content that can be repeated if one chooses.

Like a small fat kid who has been denied a Big Mac for a month many players glutton themselves on it then complain about the belly ache.

Repetition of content should not be confused with what I personally would call actual “grind”, which again I see as being forced by the games mechanics to repeat content in order to attain relevance in-game.

I also want to point out that the meaning of the word grind has changed from its original meaning, and its original mean was the reason why its such a negative word.

Grind use to be what people use to do in older games. See you would get like one quest per level or multiple quests per level that would give you XP at a portion of your XP required to level up. So you would then have to stand in a field of mobs, killing them one after another, for hours or days, getting fractional % gains, just to level up and repeat the process. Typically there were no drop loot mechanisms that were rewarding for doing this either.

You would move up the field once leveled.

This was how most Korean grinder games worked, and they were the biggest culprits of this.

People didn’t want grind, they wanted stuff to do that was beyond just standing there killing mob after mob for fractional gains.

Now grind is used to describe anything that requires effort and isn’t immediately handed to you….yet still carries the negative meaning that the real meaning of the word holds.

I remember, I think it was lineage 2, standing in the same place every day for something like 8-10 hours a day, for a week, before getting a level, and this was a process repeated for more than just a couple of levels. That was what grind means.

This game doesn’t have that. You have multiple game mechanics to progress, even for things that take longer than other things in game. I might consider crafting a grind, but then, I can get the materials while clearing maps, I can get the materials via buying them, I can get gold to buy them through multiple means, I don’t need to craft. So no that’s not really a grind imo, but its the closest thing I see in this game to anything remotely “painfully long and tedious” even then, I’m a like a week or two old in this game I have two crafting professions around 200 out of a what 500 max?

Go hop in an older Korean free to play game (hell most of those have added stuff to bypass the grind by now) and go try killing mobs to level to max level. Then come back to gw2 and see how “non grindy” it is.

Grind shouldn’t mean “doing repeatable stuff to be relevant” if this is a thing you hate, you my friend are playing the wrong genre of game. RPG games have always been about doing stuff over and over to get stronger (or relevant) that’s their nature. Many find this fun. Hell I love ARPG games (notice RPG in the name) like Diablo, where you slaughter mobs over and over and over for years to get good loot (granted loot mechanics need to be rewarding for this to work)

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

FONGORE.7410:

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

I saw the same manifesto and it’s the very reason I will be getting HoT.

The game is perfectly designed in a no-grind way :

“No grind as long as you use your credit card”.

I may have seen the manifesto … not sure, I don’t remember. I do know that I have played the first GW for years and liked it a lot. Then seen lots of information on what GW2 would be like and decided to get it. I have played since beta and head start and just about every day. I still play quite a bit and since I have seen what is going into the expansion so far I have already gotten the Ultimate.
I don’t need to know every little detail about the expansion, I didn’t know every little detail about the original when I bought it. Actually I am still finding things and events I had not seen before, even after 3 yrs of playing.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Anet defined grind so that nothing in their game could ever be defined as a grind, while in reality you would need to grind much more than any other game in existence.

And people will actually defend this like you were trying to murder their child.

Hrm, I disagree, though I suspect you already made up your mind.

That is, I disagree about the “more than in any other game”. Coming from EQ1, DAoC and WoW, GW2 is the least grindy of the games. By a fair margin. There’s still a lot of grind in it ofc, but then, I’m playing a MMORPG. If I didn’t like grinding, I wouldn’t be playing this genre in the first place. :P

Carighan.6758:

If I didn’t like grinding, I wouldn’t be playing this genre in the first place. :P

No, you’d be playing League, right? No grind there! (He says with a bitter laugh.)

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Are you all fine with grinding now? Because this event is absolutely atrocious.

Did you miss the part where Anet admitted this event was a bust and asked for suggestions about how to improve it in its next iteration? Because you’re kinda beating a dead horse right now. A horse that is so dead it’s been stuffed, placed in a museum for years, and then thrown into the dump after a guest spilled their Cherry Coke Slushie over it.

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

I saw the same manifesto and it’s the very reason I will be getting HoT.

Well its a combination between that & the fact that having to buy parts of the living story if you missed any part of it via gems of cash. But Ive learned my lesson about paying for a F2P game in advance. Came to the conclusion that it is not a wise decision.

FONGORE.7410:

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

I saw the same manifesto and it’s the very reason I will be getting HoT.

Well its a combination between that & the fact that having to buy parts of the living story if you missed any part of it via gems of cash. But Ive learned my lesson about paying for a F2P game in advance. Came to the conclusion that it is not a wise decision.

Except that you can pay in game gold for the living story and most of the playerbase got it for free, by logging in when it was available.

It’s one of the ways (often ignored) that Anet rewarded veteran players.

You don’t need the living story season 2 to play the game anyway. It’s a nice thing, but it’s not a necessary thing.

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

I saw the same manifesto and it’s the very reason I will be getting HoT.

Well its a combination between that & the fact that having to buy parts of the living story if you missed any part of it via gems of cash. But Ive learned my lesson about paying for a F2P game in advance. Came to the conclusion that it is not a wise decision.

Except that you can pay in game gold for the living story and most of the playerbase got it for free, by logging in when it was available.

It’s one of the ways (often ignored) that Anet rewarded veteran players.

You don’t need the living story season 2 to play the game anyway. It’s a nice thing, but it’s not a necessary thing.

So a needless grind for gold to buy the gems (Which I mentioned). To play content that was free to the players that were able to be around those few weeks. Or pay more cash for a game you already bought. Yeah… sounds fun.

Its fine if that’s alright with you. But me? I think I will pass.

StrangerDanger.3496:

Grind shouldn’t mean “doing repeatable stuff to be relevant” if this is a thing you hate, you my friend are playing the wrong genre of game. RPG games have always been about doing stuff over and over to get stronger (or relevant) that’s their nature.

Have to disagree there as I play GW2 purely for the fact it’s a non-“grind” based game in regards to staying relevant. Name me another game in the genre where you can take 6 months off, come back, and then jump straight back in and still play the newest end-game content.

Outside that there are a plethora of RPG’s that are completely linear and never involve repetition of content, unless you just forgot the “MMO” part.

FONGORE.7410:

Or pay more cash for a game you already bought. Yeah… sounds fun.

I’m not sure if you realize, but that sort of model is why we don’t have a monthly fee.

As for the “cost” aspect . . . seriously speaking here. Set aside $20 from a paycheck and use it for your entertainment budget. Just forego that beer one week, or stay in for dinner. Or skip going to see the new Sandler flick (speaking of content not worth a dime).

In the meantime, has it been considered to have Vinewrath’s chest drop an item which unlocks one of the LS2 chapters? Or scatter the random drops between Dry Top / Silverwastes in the chests? Or both?

fireflyry.7023:

It all boils down to difference of personal definition.

For me “grind” is doing something I don’t want to do in order to stay relevant and on an equal power tier to the majority or say a player who has been playing this game every day since release and has 20 lvl 80’s and 12 legendaries.

In this regard GW2 has very little “grind” as it’s easy to level and get gear that will get you through 99% of the content. I can take 4 months off when I get bored and play other games to come back and still be relevant and have import. In most MMO’s if you do that you might as well /uninstall as it will take as long to “grind” your way back to being relevant in-game.

I think where people get confused is when they burn through the games main content, have nothing left to do or see that is new and then QQ every time new content comes out as it usually represents a small amount of content that can be repeated if one chooses.

Like a small fat kid who has been denied a Big Mac for a month many players glutton themselves on it then complain about the belly ache.

Repetition of content should not be confused with what I personally would call actual “grind”, which again I see as being forced by the games mechanics to repeat content in order to attain relevance in-game.

This is grinding for me

It all boils down to this: There is no content that you can’t do because you don’t have gear for it, or the attunement for it. Once you reach lvl 80 you can do whatever you want, even in green or gold gear. Ascended is the best stat and it can be totally gotten trough gameplay or even just logging in. It can also be gotten trough crafting. With rewards you get from any 80 gameplay.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Are you all fine with grinding now? Because this event is absolutely atrocious.

Don’t do the event then o.O

The grind this event is not the Problepm. The Problepm is that the event is only 4 days and 1 day was lost for europeans because of bugs.

If anet would just let the event stay for 1-2 weeks, then amount of time needed for blossoms would be perfect!

FONGORE.7410:

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

Vayne.8563:

FONGORE.7410:

The manifesto is what got me to get the game to begin with. Ironically the manifesto is also the reason why I wont be getting HoT.

I saw the same manifesto and it’s the very reason I will be getting HoT.

Well its a combination between that & the fact that having to buy parts of the living story if you missed any part of it via gems of cash. But Ive learned my lesson about paying for a F2P game in advance. Came to the conclusion that it is not a wise decision.

Except that you can pay in game gold for the living story and most of the playerbase got it for free, by logging in when it was available.

It’s one of the ways (often ignored) that Anet rewarded veteran players.

You don’t need the living story season 2 to play the game anyway. It’s a nice thing, but it’s not a necessary thing.

So a needless grind for gold to buy the gems (Which I mentioned). To play content that was free to the players that were able to be around those few weeks. Or pay more cash for a game you already bought. Yeah… sounds fun.

Its fine if that’s alright with you. But me? I think I will pass.

Then pass. It doesn’t affect the people playing the game. You’re one person out of what? A million since they’ve gone free to play? More?

You won’t buy the Living Story or the expansion? And you know, it’s not even that much gold. It’s not that much of a grind.

But hey, in my opinion, you’re making a mountain out of something that’s not even a molehill.

Beldin.5498:

You still don’t have to stand at the same spot killing the same mobs for 50 hours
just to make ONE MORE LEVEL .. like in real grinders like the original Lineage 2.

Thats all they said .. farming for some stuff takes time but is totally optional.

Errmm, 50h/level was pretty nice. Things got weird when u had to farm 1% for 10-15h.

I am a returning player and have been enjoying the game so far getting a few characters to 80. The last few weeks I have been doing PvP and noticed the PvP reward tracks to getting loot chests. Great, I thought alternative ways to achieve loot. Now, I didn’t know what was in these chests but noticed that the Maguma track gave me an insect which a quick google search showed that this allowed me to craft a very nice Ambrite weapon skin (so thats where they came from). I little more research and I’m off to Dry Top and working on getting some of these weapon skins. For me, the combination of PvP and Events is effort = reward.

I then decided to look in the wardrobe and see what other skins were available and came across the weapons of the sunless. Very nice! and goes really well with my necromancer. So off I go and start researching what I need to do…. I have to say I was a little amazed.

In another post I read that this is an end game event that normally fills out an hour before the allotted time. You have to kill the boss (understandably) and are then faced with RNG. The RNG drop rate however in this case is evidently abysmal. As one person noted at current rates it was estimated that it could take just over 5 years spending 3hrs a day to get all the weapon skins (thats 5475 hours). see: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Tequatl-and-Wurm-box-drop-rates
(i have also read that some people have fears that with raiding coming to GW2 that these events may die, though not sure about that one)

So while I don’t mind grind and yes do believe that there should be some effort required, I think it should be balanced and this does not sound balanced?

Some background, I have played a lot of different MMO’s and have enjoyed them all for one reason or another, but it was essentially to enjoy the world and character development. However when presented with “the choice” of whether I want to spend 5475 hours of my time grinding for nice weapon skins does not spring to mind.

Now some of you will respond with comments such as it makes the achievement that much more rewarding, people who spend the time should be rewarded and those that don’t should not etc etc. However I have to admit this thinking is a little lost on me.
Why should a player that is unable or unwilling to spend 3 hours of their day in game grinding these events for 5yrs be penalised?

I don’t mind some grind, but there should be some balance. Someone who can spend that time should be able to earn it quicker, but I don’t quite get why the drop rates are so abysmal that it requires that much effort that it becomes a non starter (Just as attaining a Legendary is seen as a non starter for many players, however the fact that you can buy them on the TP makes up for it to a certain degree imo).

Effort should = Reward and not RNG or at least if RNG is especially unkind then there is a limit placed on how long it should take to earn said item, skin, thin. An RNG system that for a lot of players essentially rules out even attempting such end game content.

Don’t get me wrong, I think GW2 is a very good MMO that provides a great choice of things to do. However, I am left wondering that if certain content and or desirable items are so gated, what is the effort to reward ratio and is it something I want to invest in?

TLDR: Grind is OK, providing it is balanced with a time limit on achievement. I think the game would benefit more by adding some sort of currency in addition to the RNG that guarantees a time limit on gaining said item, skin, thing.

apologies, I meant to post it in the Whats up with drop rates? thread