Guild Wars 2

You play for a few minutes everyday to get your laurel. You don’t grind out a 12hr period in a day. You don’t grind for it, just wait for it. I don’t understand the problem.

penatbater.4710:

You play for a few minutes everyday to get your laurel. You don’t grind out a 12hr period in a day. You don’t grind for it, just wait for it. I don’t understand the problem.

50 dailies at 20 mins each (not really realistic) to get a BiS amulet with your choice of infusion, that is 16 hours of game play. Congrats it takes longer than 12 hour. The fact that it is dailies hides the fact it is a grind, and slows down the content locusts from getting the item, and releasing they get bored. This game is not long skill based, but grind based. Get best backpeice in game, stack of t6 mats or 1850 tokens, and at least 1 stack of ecto. Yeah there is no grind there. Now we have to grind daily quests to get one amulet per month, i hope you don’t run different builds or run different alts. Prior to Nov i ask question like which alt should i level next, or what new build should I make next for my main, now it just chase the gear treadmill.

PiSquare.2904:

So right now i have a serious issue. By now we already know that GW 2 alienated most of the GW 1 playerbase.

I wonder tough and i might get a ban for wording this so hard. What the kitten went trough the dev teams brains, when they implemented better gear that you cant get for a certain time period.

The charm of GW is and was that you could swap builds on the fly. Here? Oh you want to use the best gear with your build? Well you have to farm for at least 20 days now. And nope cant get it faster because there is a limit on how many laurels you can get per day. So if i grind an amulet for 20 days and at the end i want to swap my build, well guess what another 20 days, lets not even think about gearing a second character. I wouldnt mind it if those were only items that looked better, but no, these are items that have plain better stats.

I never really got into WoW because of this gear threadmill, but atm, it feels like it would be better to go play WoW as they handle the threadmill better at least.

Brilliant post. I agree with everything you said. Please post this into my In My Opinion this game has to much grind so the developers only have to look at 1 post and it will further add to the argument.

Vayne.8563:

I think you miss the point. Anet was placed in a position I don’t particularly envy. They have a bunch of players like me, who are happy to play for just cosmetic differences. Then they have a million or so players who play other MMOs who aren’t. So what should they do?

Not sell the game based on a false manifesto they never intended following.

I find it really hard to believe people get these new dailies done in 20 minutes.. takes me a good 2 to 3 hours to complete them and sometimes that’s lucky..

I don’t mind some Grind but when its forced on you and you get very little reward from doing it its not fun..and no surprise we are leaking players faster than they join..

The whole Ascended thing is a joke 23% boost is not a small jump, its the difference between life and death in WvW so yes people NEED them, but at what cost, terrible dungeon mechanics or a monthly wait, how do people find these things fun?

I have no idea what Anet did with the manifesto but in my eyes its gone and burned and my respect for them as a company went a similar way..sad really because when this game was released i thought it was great, now its a shocking example of what not to do in MMORPG..

It is grindy as and has very little appeal anymore..

The problem is that whenever there’s a reward involved, players invariably focus on the reward as the sole reason to do anything. They don’t care about what they’re doing, only what reward they’ll get for doing it.

Hence the ‘grind’ is born.

It’s a materialistic world we (most of us) choose to live in, and many bring that outlook into the gaming world.

Ask yourself why you play the game? If it’s to do with getting loot/material/equipment/looking the best/being the best/etc etc, well of course there’s going to be a grind for you involved.

Sure, game mechanics play a lesser, secondary role, but whether you grind or don’t grind is based largely on your own outlook. People that complain about grinding have created that as their own ‘reality’ in the game.

Dante.1508:

I find it really hard to believe people get these new dailies done in 20 minutes.. takes me a good 2 to 3 hours to complete them and sometimes that’s lucky..

Depends on where you do your daily. 20 minutes sounds about average…30 TOPS if events are popping slowly. If the daily took 2-3 hours, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. That would just turn even more people off from the game.

Dante.1508:

I don’t mind some Grind but when its forced on you and you get very little reward from doing it its not fun..and no surprise we are leaking players faster than they join..

The whole Ascended thing is a joke 23% boost is not a small jump, its the difference between life and death in WvW so yes people NEED them, but at what cost, terrible dungeon mechanics or a monthly wait, how do people find these things fun?

I have no idea what Anet did with the manifesto but in my eyes its gone and burned and my respect for them as a company went a similar way..sad really because when this game was released i thought it was great, now its a shocking example of what not to do in MMORPG..

It is grindy as and has very little appeal anymore..

Tried to make that point. Just a half-kitten effort by Anet over the past couple patches.

Shadowmoon.7986:

penatbater.4710:

You play for a few minutes everyday to get your laurel. You don’t grind out a 12hr period in a day. You don’t grind for it, just wait for it. I don’t understand the problem.

50 dailies at 20 mins each (not really realistic) to get a BiS amulet with your choice of infusion, that is 16 hours of game play. Congrats it takes longer than 12 hour. The fact that it is dailies hides the fact it is a grind, and slows down the content locusts from getting the item, and releasing they get bored. This game is not long skill based, but grind based. Get best backpeice in game, stack of t6 mats or 1850 tokens, and at least 1 stack of ecto. Yeah there is no grind there. Now we have to grind daily quests to get one amulet per month, i hope you don’t run different builds or run different alts. Prior to Nov i ask question like which alt should i level next, or what new build should I make next for my main, now it just chase the gear treadmill.

I do my daily in about 20 minutes. Just head down to Orr and run plinx. At the end fight the abomination and you will get your revives/dodges. After abomination go get some mats. I use my engineer who sits in LA to craft chef recipes if its daily crafter. People who say it takes hours are exaggerating or haven’t really thought it through.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I think you miss the point. Anet was placed in a position I don’t particularly envy. They have a bunch of players like me, who are happy to play for just cosmetic differences. Then they have a million or so players who play other MMOs who aren’t. So what should they do?

Not sell the game based on a false manifesto they never intended following.

YAY Someone else mentioned this. This post is so awsome you deserve +10000000000

Rhysati.4932:

Sorry, but I have a really hard time accepting that the amulets are a ‘grind’. You get laurels simply by playing the game. The daily doesn’t even require anything special outside of just doing what you’d do every day

You have to play every day. You must log for the 30mins-1hour every day (20 mins is only if you specifically grind for dailies.not if you “achieve them through playing normally” -and even then not everyone can do it that fast), instead of, for example, skipping monday and playing 2 hours on tuesday. Even if you do every daily and monthly, it takes too long. If you decide to play on the weekends only (as many players do), you are completely out of luck.
The game forces you into a repeating a set of actions over and over again, over a long time, purely for getting a stat advantage. That is a very definition of gear grind.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I think you miss the point. Anet was placed in a position I don’t particularly envy. They have a bunch of players like me, who are happy to play for just cosmetic differences. Then they have a million or so players who play other MMOs who aren’t. So what should they do?

Not sell the game based on a false manifesto they never intended following.

Yes. Mind you, GW2 is not a bad game – in fact it is quite good. It’s however not the game that was advertised, and not the one i thought i was buying (or wanted to buy). It is aimed at a completely different crowd than the one it was advertized to.

If Anet came clean and said straight what game they were going to make, it would have been much better. Who knows, i might even have bought it anyway. I certainly wouldn’t feel cheated.

A lot of people here have a misunderstanding of what a “gear treadmill” is, and grind.

Allow me to explain the concepts of gear treadmills, along with progression. Gear treadmill has roots in a game design from way back. Remember your old games like Mario or pokemon? Yep, those are some original roots of the gear treadmill. Basically, the gear treadmill is something seen in MMOs. It is meant to reward players for advancing in the game (progression), and make the player feel like they got their worth from leveling up or playing. It goes hand-in-hand with progression.

Now, there are varying levels of gear treadmill and such things. Take GW1 for example. Did it have a gear treadmill? Yes, you can argue it has a gear treadmill, but compared to WoW and other MMOs, it is hardly a gear treadmill. Now, we go to GW2. Is there a treadmill? Yes, but it is hardly a gear treadmill compared to WoW. Why? To put it simply, WoW’s gear treadmill is measured by how big of a difference your stats are compared to the previous tiers. In WoW, whenever there is a new patch or tier released, the difference between the tiers are nearly double, requiring you to keep up to with gearing or you’ll be at a disadvantage in the higher raids and PvP.

Examples:
Tier 12: http://www.wowhead.com/item=71481
Tier 11: http://www.wowhead.com/item=65188

These are similar gear but with just a difference of one tier level. They’re both tank gear, but let’s look at some of the stats and compare.

Tier 12:
3762 Armor
+420 Strength
+689 Stamina

Tier 11:
2669 Armor
+217 Strength
+429 Stamina

Difference:
Armor: 40%
Strength: 93%
Stamina: 60%

As you can see, these are huge stat differences between tiers.

Now, let us return to GW2.
GW2 has a gear treadmill and progression built in, but it is quite transparent. Similar to GW1, there is a gear treadmill when you level from 1-80.

There exist tiers in gear too:

Junk Gray N/A N/A
Basic White 1-80 100%
Fine Blue 1-80 125%
Masterwork Green 14-803 135%
Rare Yellow 35-80 145%
Exotic Orange 62-80 165%
Ascended Pink 80 175% (est.4)
Legendary
Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rare#Quality

Notice how the difference between Exotics and Ascended are 10%. If you have exotics, statistically you are at a small disadvantage compared to someone with Ascended. Hardly anything like WoW gear treadmill, am I right?

By the way, there is absolutely no gear treadmill in SPVP, where your stats are balanced and gear equal (and free). Why don’t people play there? There isn’t enough incentive and rewarding rewards. Not enough “progression”, the reverse of the things some of you guys complain about the other part of GW2 having.

Now, grind. This has been talked about to the death in another thread, but the people arguing that there is grind are the people refusing to see themselves at fault. Real grind is where you must do this and that in order to even get to a certain level of equal playability. It is when you’re forced to do something repeatedly without alternate options. As Anet already stated many times, ascended gear were introduced earlier for people to check it out and that ascended gear will have several ways of obtaining in due time. In GW2, I am able to do various activities to get my Exotics, and soon, fractals. Even if I don’t like some of the activities, it is not a grind because I have so many choices. Thus, grind is where you have very few options to get to a certain point in the game. So to be fair, the most grindy thing in GW2 would be legendary weapons and various cosmetic things. You don’t have to grind for your end-game gear. And with that, I conclude my point.

Any arguments?

In my opinion, the only grind in the game is self-induced.

I have a very close friend that cannot enjoy the game because of his obsession to have the best gear in the game at all times. He feels the same as the OP. Before he can enjoy the game, he has to grind to get the gear he “needs” so he can start to enjoy playing the game.

My point of view is vastly different than that of my friend and the OP. I play the game with the best gear I can reasonably obtain, and enjoy the challenges that this presents. I still do explorable dungeons. I still WvWvW. I still enjoy playing the game.

There is no grind for me. Just a game to play and enjoy.

Astralporing.1957:

Rhysati.4932:

Sorry, but I have a really hard time accepting that the amulets are a ‘grind’. You get laurels simply by playing the game. The daily doesn’t even require anything special outside of just doing what you’d do every day

You have to play every day. You must log for the 30mins-1hour every day (20 mins is only if you specifically grind for dailies.not if you “achieve them through playing normally” -and even then not everyone can do it that fast), instead of, for example, skipping monday and playing 2 hours on tuesday. Even if you do every daily and monthly, it takes too long. If you decide to play on the weekends only (as many players do), you are completely out of luck.
The game forces you into a repeating a set of actions over and over again, over a long time, purely for getting a stat advantage. That is a very definition of gear grind.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I think you miss the point. Anet was placed in a position I don’t particularly envy. They have a bunch of players like me, who are happy to play for just cosmetic differences. Then they have a million or so players who play other MMOs who aren’t. So what should they do?

Not sell the game based on a false manifesto they never intended following.

Yes. Mind you, GW2 is not a bad game – in fact it is quite good. It’s however not the game that was advertised, and not the one i thought i was buying (or wanted to buy). It is aimed at a completely different crowd than the one it was advertized to.

If Anet came clean and said straight what game they were going to make, it would have been much better. Who knows, i might even have bought it anyway. I certainly wouldn’t feel cheated.

You post was so perfect I thought my eyes were deceiving me.

I like to craft. I would rather craft than grind. Now, to craft a level 35 set of rares for my baby Thief, including weapons, requires 165 fine mats. (11 items)).

Crafting is a legitimate part of the game. Wishing to craft rare gear at level 35 (or any rare level) means that I am forced to “grind/farm” for those mats an inordinate period of time, or grind/farm gold to buy that at overinflated, manipulated TP prices.

A very low drop rate of these essential items means I am forced to grind. To participate in an area I have always enjoyed, I am forced to grind. I don’t wish to grind for a week just to produce one set of armor for an alt.. much less attempt to produce items for sale. I do it because it is a point of pride for me, in all games I can, to wear and use gear I have made. In EQ2 I lived with lower stats to use gear I made. This game is the worst grind to do basic crafting I have ever seen.

Now, according to some, because I would like to see a better drop rate, for these items in particular, I am a grinder, I love grinding, I live in a basement, have no intelligence, am just a lazy, no skill, no talent, donkey chasing a carrot. I’m part of a " vocal minority of grinders, farmers, addicts and exploiters who do not understand the concept of playing a game in order to have fun", (all terms taken from unmoderated anti “grinder” rants on this forum)

I just want to make my own gear. Cause I find it fun. Gosh, I’m sorry.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I like to craft. I would rather craft than grind. Now, to craft a level 35 set of rares for my baby Thief, including weapons, requires 165 fine mats. (11 items)).

Crafting is a legitimate part of the game. Wishing to craft rare gear at level 35 (or any rare level) means that I am forced to “grind/farm” for those mats an inordinate period of time, or grind/farm gold to buy that at overinflated, manipulated TP prices.

A very low drop rate of these essential items means I am forced to grind. To participate in an area I have always enjoyed, I am forced to grind. I don’t wish to grind for a week just to produce one set of armor for an alt.. much less attempt to produce items for sale. I do it because it is a point of pride for me, in all games I can, to wear and use gear I have made. In EQ2 I lived with lower stats to use gear I made. This game is the worst grind to do basic crafting I have ever seen.

Now, according to some, because I would like to see a better drop rate, for these items in particular, I am a grinder, I love grinding, I live in a basement, have no intelligence, am just a lazy, no skill, no talent, donkey chasing a carrot. I’m part of a " vocal minority of grinders, farmers, addicts and exploiters who do not understand the concept of playing a game in order to have fun", (all terms taken from unmoderated anti “grinder” rants on this forum)

I just want to make my own gear. Cause I find it fun. Gosh, I’m sorry.

This so much this. This is my biggest problem with the loot drop system in a nutshell.

morrolan.9608:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I like to craft. I would rather craft than grind. Now, to craft a level 35 set of rares for my baby Thief, including weapons, requires 165 fine mats. (11 items)).

Crafting is a legitimate part of the game. Wishing to craft rare gear at level 35 (or any rare level) means that I am forced to “grind/farm” for those mats an inordinate period of time, or grind/farm gold to buy that at overinflated, manipulated TP prices.

A very low drop rate of these essential items means I am forced to grind. To participate in an area I have always enjoyed, I am forced to grind. I don’t wish to grind for a week just to produce one set of armor for an alt.. much less attempt to produce items for sale. I do it because it is a point of pride for me, in all games I can, to wear and use gear I have made. In EQ2 I lived with lower stats to use gear I made. This game is the worst grind to do basic crafting I have ever seen.

Now, according to some, because I would like to see a better drop rate, for these items in particular, I am a grinder, I love grinding, I live in a basement, have no intelligence, am just a lazy, no skill, no talent, donkey chasing a carrot. I’m part of a " vocal minority of grinders, farmers, addicts and exploiters who do not understand the concept of playing a game in order to have fun", (all terms taken from unmoderated anti “grinder” rants on this forum)

I just want to make my own gear. Cause I find it fun. Gosh, I’m sorry.

This so much this. This is my biggest problem with the loot drop system in a nutshell.

sarcasm at its best

PiSquare.2904:

So right now i have a serious issue. By now we already know that GW 2 alienated most of the GW 1 playerbase.

I wonder tough and i might get a ban for wording this so hard. What the kitten went trough the dev teams brains, when they implemented better gear that you cant get for a certain time period.

The charm of GW is and was that you could swap builds on the fly. Here? Oh you want to use the best gear with your build? Well you have to farm for at least 20 days now. And nope cant get it faster because there is a limit on how many laurels you can get per day. So if i grind an amulet for 20 days and at the end i want to swap my build, well guess what another 20 days, lets not even think about gearing a second character. I wouldnt mind it if those were only items that looked better, but no, these are items that have plain better stats.

I never really got into WoW because of this gear threadmill, but atm, it feels like it would be better to go play WoW as they handle the threadmill better at least.

As a GW1 player I do feel aliented. I just wanted a game that improved aload on GW1. They had this great idea of making stats dirt cheap, ANYONE could get em but now its so unreasonably expensive its annoying to play at times.

I can deal with running dungeons over and over, but the new daily system is nuts. Mindless fetch quests that aren’t fun in any way as a requirement for the best gear ingame, fantastic idea really. Except it’s exactly the opposite of what was promised a few months ago.

Yes, I know I’m not forced to do them, no that is not a valid argument.

Psyke.6279:

I can deal with running dungeons over and over, but the new daily system is nuts. Mindless fetch quests that aren’t fun in any way as a requirement for the best gear ingame, fantastic idea really. Except it’s exactly the opposite of what was promised a few months ago.

Yes, I know I’m not forced to do them, no that is not a valid argument.

Sure your not forced but they are PART of the game. Why weren’t the players consulted before? That’s what puzzles me.

kenshinakh.3672:

A lot of people here have a misunderstanding of what a “gear treadmill” is, and grind.

Allow me to explain the concepts of gear treadmills, along with progression. Gear treadmill has roots in a game design from way back. Remember your old games like Mario or pokemon? Yep, those are some original roots of the gear treadmill. Basically, the gear treadmill is something seen in MMOs. It is meant to reward players for advancing in the game (progression), and make the player feel like they got their worth from leveling up or playing. It goes hand-in-hand with progression.

Now, there are varying levels of gear treadmill and such things. Take GW1 for example. Did it have a gear treadmill? Yes, you can argue it has a gear treadmill, but compared to WoW and other MMOs, it is hardly a gear treadmill. Now, we go to GW2. Is there a treadmill? Yes, but it is hardly a gear treadmill compared to WoW. Why? To put it simply, WoW’s gear treadmill is measured by how big of a difference your stats are compared to the previous tiers. In WoW, whenever there is a new patch or tier released, the difference between the tiers are nearly double, requiring you to keep up to with gearing or you’ll be at a disadvantage in the higher raids and PvP.

Examples:
Tier 12: http://www.wowhead.com/item=71481
Tier 11: http://www.wowhead.com/item=65188

These are similar gear but with just a difference of one tier level. They’re both tank gear, but let’s look at some of the stats and compare.

Tier 12:
3762 Armor
+420 Strength
+689 Stamina

Tier 11:
2669 Armor
+217 Strength
+429 Stamina

Difference:
Armor: 40%
Strength: 93%
Stamina: 60%

As you can see, these are huge stat differences between tiers.

Now, let us return to GW2.
GW2 has a gear treadmill and progression built in, but it is quite transparent. Similar to GW1, there is a gear treadmill when you level from 1-80.

There exist tiers in gear too:

Junk Gray N/A N/A
Basic White 1-80 100%
Fine Blue 1-80 125%
Masterwork Green 14-803 135%
Rare Yellow 35-80 145%
Exotic Orange 62-80 165%
Ascended Pink 80 175% (est.4)
Legendary
Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rare#Quality

Notice how the difference between Exotics and Ascended are 10%. If you have exotics, statistically you are at a small disadvantage compared to someone with Ascended. Hardly anything like WoW gear treadmill, am I right?

By the way, there is absolutely no gear treadmill in SPVP, where your stats are balanced and gear equal (and free). Why don’t people play there? There isn’t enough incentive and rewarding rewards. Not enough “progression”, the reverse of the things some of you guys complain about the other part of GW2 having.

Now, grind. This has been talked about to the death in another thread, but the people arguing that there is grind are the people refusing to see themselves at fault. Real grind is where you must do this and that in order to even get to a certain level of equal playability. It is when you’re forced to do something repeatedly without alternate options. As Anet already stated many times, ascended gear were introduced earlier for people to check it out and that ascended gear will have several ways of obtaining in due time. In GW2, I am able to do various activities to get my Exotics, and soon, fractals. Even if I don’t like some of the activities, it is not a grind because I have so many choices. Thus, grind is where you have very few options to get to a certain point in the game. So to be fair, the most grindy thing in GW2 would be legendary weapons and various cosmetic things. You don’t have to grind for your end-game gear. And with that, I conclude my point.

Any arguments?

TL:DR

You are comparing chest to shoulders btw

Bump because this is an actual issue.

It’s funny how a couple of months ago most forum posts were “Oh noes, i are 80 and have nothing to do”, and now everyone complains how they have to work to get something they want. Just an observation

Bruxae.4526:

If you are grinding you are doing it wrong.

If you are not grinding, you are doing it wrong.

runeblade.7514:

Bruxae.4526:

If you are grinding you are doing it wrong.

If you are not grinding, you are doing it wrong.

I think Bruxae was being facetious

alfista.6094:

It’s funny how a couple of months ago most forum posts were “Oh noes, i are 80 and have nothing to do”, and now everyone complains how they have to work to get something they want. Just an observation

Well that is true but it is the way Anet implemented it was the problem. For instance no one wanted a new gear tier, instead maybe some new activities or brand new skins. The issue is now we are grinding for stats for the most part not skins.

kenshinakh.3672:

-snip-

Just a few….

1) How do you consider a 10% advantage to be a “small” one?

2) How would you feel if I told you that in fact, a Berserker Ascended set actually provides a 23% boost in damage over an Exotic Berserker set, not a 10% boost?

3) In all current locations where Ascended gear can be obtained, you must run those locations an absolute minimum of 20 times (10 to reach Lvl 10 Fractals + 10 dailies, or 30-35 laurels) for a single piece of gear. Explain how this is not a textbook example of ‘grinding’, when grinding is simply defined as the repetition of actions for the sake of loot?

4) Explain what “gear treadmills” existed in Mario and Pokemon? I ask because I don’t think you actually understand what a gear treadmill is.

5) In a game advertised as “zero-grind” and coming from the same franchise as a game that ran for years on a model of horizontal progression, is it really enough for both the grind and vertical progression to be “less than WoW”, rather than minimized to a much more significant degree?

Vayne.8563:

Anet was placed in a position I don’t particularly envy. They have a bunch of players like me, who are happy to play for just cosmetic differences. Then they have a million or so players who play other MMOs who aren’t. So what should they do? After investing five years and however much money, there are two schools, incompatible and neither of them alone is big enough to support your vision of the game. You do what Anet did…you compromise.

You don’t introduce gear grind. You introduce a meaningless upgrade that has some numbers that don’t affect too much. Then the grinders will stay locked away in the fractals (and still maybe spend some money in the cash shop, and do some open world stuff or WvW) and the explorers can ignore it if they don’t want to grind. I truly believe this was done as a compromise.

You can’t please everyone. But you can create an illusion that will please most people, or at least let them keep playing. The fractals, screwed up as the introduction was, kept lots of people playing who normally would have left. I don’t see this as a bad thing.

I’m not convinced Anet wanted to introduce that stuff. Anet’s not a person. It’s a company with you know, 250 plus employees, many of them devs. You don’t think they discussed and argued about this, and some guys lost and some guys won? Cause I do.

In the end, they didn’t betray anyone. They made a necessary compromise. And as more content comes out and the games grow, you’ll see that that’s all it was.

You make a compelling argument. It would be really, really nice if ArenaNet came out and explained what their thinking and motivation really were. If it was this, or something similar, I would be ready and willing to forgive a LOT.

Unfortunately, they just don’t communicate if they don’t have to. I wish they’d wake up to the fact that if they were open with us, and were actually part of the community instead of aloof from it (like they were in Guild Wars), people like me would be a LOT more loyal, have more trust in their motivations, have faith in their direction, be a lot less combative and resistant to change, and a lot more forgiving.

A few notes if I may add to this discussion:

critickitten.1498:

1) How do you consider a 10% advantage to be a “small” one?
2) How would you feel if I told you that in fact, a Berserker Ascended set actually provides a 23% boost in damage over an Exotic Berserker set, not a 10% boost?

Judging by all the threads on Magic Find and its impact on player ability, I’d say lots of players would think that 10%/23% advantage in stats isn’t anything to consider, just go ask them, but that’s another topic altogether. Go check a topic on Magic Find about gear benefits and what lots of people believe.

However, there is another point to make here, how is someone doing 20% or even 100% more damage than you, affecting you in open PVE? Well, it doesn’t, and anyone who claims the opposite is sadly mistaken, getting those gold medals, or contribution for loot, is easy enough and since the game in open pve is cooperative (you are not enemies with other players) any stat boost doesn’t play an important role.

If someone has better gear, it will eventually help YOU, any other player, get more loot faster, it won’t deprive you of loot or experience. The only limiting factor in the game is RNG, someone might deal 98% of damage on a mob and get gray trash, and someone with blue gear that did the remaining 2% gets a precursor, that’s how it is. So in other words, any stat benefit another player has, won’t affect any other players in OPEN PVE in any way, it will AID them instead of hindering them.

3) In all current locations where Ascended gear can be obtained, you must run those locations an absolute minimum of 20 times (10 to reach Lvl 10 Fractals + 10 dailies, or 30-35 laurels) for a single piece of gear. Explain how this is not a textbook example of ‘grinding’, when grinding is simply defined as the repetition of actions for the sake of loot?

No it’s not a gear treadmill in a regular sense. You run 10 times to get to 10 then you don’t run the same thing 10 times to get your rings. You go higher in level, fractals level 20 and fractals level 30 are different experiences (not much though). What the devs should do is make more changes in higher Fractal levels so they feel completely different to lower levels, 10+ fractals get some nice changes compared to earlier ones, this should continue and it won’t be a treadmill anymore.

It’s not a treadmill if while you are getting your rings, you are also progressing towards another goal (getting on a higher fractal setting) just those higher levels need to be more interesting, and slightly different, than earlier levels.

From my understanding, the laurels were added for those players that do regular PVE, not dungeon runners, not WvW players. What I’m trying to get at is that I hope (and pray) that they add a challenging yet more rewarding way of getting all that gear, the same gear you get from Laurels but from difficult content instead. But I will redirect you to threads on Raids and similar “hard” content, and how lots of people are totally against them. I can understand why nobody should be left out, and the Laurels are a great way for everyone to get their gear, but shouldn’t there exist hard content to reward them FASTER? Effort should be rewarded in my opinion, and there is little to no reward for it atm, just pure RNG (and to an extent, grind)

For all i know there are a lot of people doing Fractals over and over to get certain mats they need for the next better piece of gear, and they do so for the reward (whether they “need” it or not) – not because they love Fractals so much. At best they love the rewards that Fractals has to offer.

That to me is grind. Yes i avoid it, just as i ignore dailies. But with so many people dungeon grinding, there are precious few out in the open world.

And putting a few high difficulty events out in the open world for “experienced players” does not do much to lure people out of the dungeons.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Snip

You make a compelling argument. It would be really, really nice if ArenaNet came out and explained what their thinking and motivation really were. If it was this, or something similar, I would be ready and willing to forgive a LOT.

Unfortunately, they just don’t communicate if they don’t have to. I wish they’d wake up to the fact that if they were open with us, and were actually part of the community instead of aloof from it (like they were in Guild Wars), people like me would be a LOT more loyal, have more trust in their motivations, have faith in their direction, be a lot less combative and resistant to change, and a lot more forgiving.

There’s an issue in that many seem to expect human responses from an inherently non-human entity, ie; a business. The application of a business’ motivations to a more traditional community (such as is found in a video game) is often awkward, and it’s incredibly rare for representatives of said businesses to discuss stickier topics with the community. I’m honestly impressed that Devs have gone on record in stating that Ascended gear wasn’t implemented as well as it could have been – that sort of statement can lose customers, faith and support from backers. It can cost money. Some of us may respect it, but it’s always a risk.

However, consumers see familiar names scattered about public places, and they come to think of an entity as being a handful of people, expecting a more personal level of service and communication. That immediacy and intimacy are things that customer relations has spent decades getting to grips with, and the levels of which they’ve managed it vary wildly all over the place. To what level are the Devs we see on the forums capable of discussing thornier topics?

I’ve been in the position where I’ve made adjustments to a live game based on balance, but for reasons that I couldn’t get into beyond ‘It was broken before’. I’d had a pretty close relationship with my players, as it was a (very) small community, but as soon as I was unable to state precisely why we’d made the changes we had, in levels of detail that we feared would lead to abuse of the systems in play, the situation became difficult to deal with. People took it personally, because they knew us personally – and it felt that it was even more personal because this was something that people did for fun. And, as has been mentioned, there are always people within the decision-making machine that disagree with the decision, and dealing with that’s a whole other deal. This experience isn’t really representative of GW2, as it’s a far bigger game with much bigger issues, but if it’s comparable, then I sympathise.

Heck, despite Devs owning up to a past mistake with Ascended gear introduction, some people still insist that they were lying about a significant part of the apology. It’s maddening.

TL;DR: Communication between businesses and customers is tough, particularly when things get as personal as entertainment can be.

kenshinakh.3672:

blabla.

Any arguments?

Utter failure across the board.

1. You compared chest to shoulders.
2. The relative difference between the stats of the actually relevant pieces of equipment (“elementium plate” vs. “magma plate”) in wow is actually even smaller then the difference between exotic and ascended pieces in gw2
3. The stats on the wow armor were “strength & stamina”, whereas gw2 has Power, precision & crit damage, all of which get increased by the same relative amount when you step up to ascended. The difference is, that the stats in gw2 work multiplicatively, (i.e. actual damage is: base (power) * crit chance (precision) * crit damage) so increasing all of these variables by the same amount (say, 10%) turns out to be a much greater difference in their product.

back on topic:
Yes, despite previous claims, they completely abandoned the whole no-grind philosophy. If we project the same progression logic, full ascended gear is expected to perform 20-30% better then full exotic, and it will most likely require grinding. Look at the “manifesto” again, what they promised there and what the implemented now are directly contradicting each other, no matter how you look at it.

They won’t admit it of course, but that’s just how it is, there no room for interpretation here, they literally just threw that “manifesto” out the window, whether you like that or not.

maddoctor.2738:

From my understanding, the laurels were added for those players that do regular PVE, not dungeon runners, not WvW players. What I’m trying to get at is that I hope (and pray) that they add a challenging yet more rewarding way of getting all that gear, the same gear you get from Laurels but from difficult content instead. But I will redirect you to threads on Raids and similar “hard” content, and how lots of people are totally against them. I can understand why nobody should be left out, and the Laurels are a great way for everyone to get their gear, but shouldn’t there exist hard content to reward them FASTER? Effort should be rewarded in my opinion, and there is little to no reward for it atm, just pure RNG (and to an extent, grind)

This is also higly debatable. I’d even say that those who enjoy wvw are actually the ones who are the most incentivized to grind out that ascended stuff, because in wvw, assuming players of equal skill that would normally have an roughly equal chance to win, a player with 30% stat advantage will beat the lesser equipped player any time of the day, extreme crit streaks and etc. aside.

PiSquare.2904:

I rather grind for 1 day, than wait for 20 every time i want to change my build. Or do you really think i should not be able to change a build or character for 20 days.

Nothing is stoping you to change builds every day, and if changing builds depends on 2 rings with +20 stat points total then your builds are joke. Get exotics for your various builds and stop making complaint threads that are based on nothing but your dissatisfaction with beeing unable to get all high-end gear in a day.

Grinding is in EVERY MMO in existence, only in varying degrees. Grinding can be seen as the time it takes to level up. Even if leveling up only took 5 minutes a level, it is still by definition a grind.

critickitten.1498:

kenshinakh.3672:

-snip-

Just a few….

1) How do you consider a 10% advantage to be a “small” one?

2) How would you feel if I told you that in fact, a Berserker Ascended set actually provides a 23% boost in damage over an Exotic Berserker set, not a 10% boost?

3) In all current locations where Ascended gear can be obtained, you must run those locations an absolute minimum of 20 times (10 to reach Lvl 10 Fractals + 10 dailies, or 30-35 laurels) for a single piece of gear. Explain how this is not a textbook example of ‘grinding’, when grinding is simply defined as the repetition of actions for the sake of loot?

4) Explain what “gear treadmills” existed in Mario and Pokemon? I ask because I don’t think you actually understand what a gear treadmill is.

5) In a game advertised as “zero-grind” and coming from the same franchise as a game that ran for years on a model of horizontal progression, is it really enough for both the grind and vertical progression to be “less than WoW”, rather than minimized to a much more significant degree?

If anyone doesn’t call what you describe as grind, I guess we both don’t know what grind is.

wintermute.4096:

maddoctor.2738:

From my understanding, the laurels were added for those players that do regular PVE, not dungeon runners, not WvW players. What I’m trying to get at is that I hope (and pray) that they add a challenging yet more rewarding way of getting all that gear, the same gear you get from Laurels but from difficult content instead. But I will redirect you to threads on Raids and similar “hard” content, and how lots of people are totally against them. I can understand why nobody should be left out, and the Laurels are a great way for everyone to get their gear, but shouldn’t there exist hard content to reward them FASTER? Effort should be rewarded in my opinion, and there is little to no reward for it atm, just pure RNG (and to an extent, grind)

This is also higly debatable. I’d even say that those who enjoy wvw are actually the ones who are the most incentivized to grind out that ascended stuff, because in wvw, assuming players of equal skill that would normally have an roughly equal chance to win, a player with 30% stat advantage will beat the lesser equipped player any time of the day, extreme crit streaks and etc. aside.

They are bringing new rewards for WvW this month, maybe even a way to acquire Ascended gear without leaving WvW? We’ll have to wait and see about that.

The only thing that really feels like a grind to me is leveling up a new character up to 35.
Anything after that I can enjoy at my own leisure, but I just can’t seem to enjoy the first 35 levels because only by then do I have access to all of the features in the game.

maddoctor.2738:

They are bringing new rewards for WvW this month, maybe even a way to acquire Ascended gear without leaving WvW? We’ll have to wait and see about that.

Wait and see. Wait and see. We hear that every day, but can we really afford to wait? If it all goes at the current speed, we’ll get the all (or not even all) avenues of getting ascended gear right when the next tier is rolled out. And then everything will start again from scratch.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

They are bringing new rewards for WvW this month, maybe even a way to acquire Ascended gear without leaving WvW? We’ll have to wait and see about that.

Wait and see. Wait and see. We hear that every day, but can we really afford to wait? If it all goes at the current speed, we’ll get the all (or not even all) avenues of getting ascended gear right when the next tier is rolled out. And then everything will start again from scratch.

How are you so sure there’s going to be a next tier and not just better rarities of infusions?

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

They are bringing new rewards for WvW this month, maybe even a way to acquire Ascended gear without leaving WvW? We’ll have to wait and see about that.

Wait and see. Wait and see. We hear that every day, but can we really afford to wait? If it all goes at the current speed, we’ll get the all (or not even all) avenues of getting ascended gear right when the next tier is rolled out. And then everything will start again from scratch.

Is there anything else we can do other than wait?

Yes we all agree Ascended are better than Exotics, some say its a small advancement i personally think other wise..

My main gripe isn’t that Ascended was added… its that we are forced into parts of the game we don’t want to do, open world sits dormant bar a few maps, Boss mobs (Champions and Veterans) walk around untouched, because they have no legitimate reward added to them, why?

Not everyone enjoys Dungeons and Fotm every day (i personally despise them) repetition is tedious to me.. why cant Ascended drop from monsters like its designed to be, then we’d actually kill the things on all maps…

I loved in Guildwars 1 where i could hunt certain bosses for a awesome green drop with my friends, sometimes it took 10 tries or 30 but we got the items in the end and we felt like we achieved something and open world didn’t feel repetitive…waiting 35 days with tokens i feel nothing but grind..

Mackdose.6504:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

They are bringing new rewards for WvW this month, maybe even a way to acquire Ascended gear without leaving WvW? We’ll have to wait and see about that.

Wait and see. Wait and see. We hear that every day, but can we really afford to wait? If it all goes at the current speed, we’ll get the all (or not even all) avenues of getting ascended gear right when the next tier is rolled out. And then everything will start again from scratch.

How are you so sure there’s going to be a next tier and not just better rarities of infusions?

If not next tier, then level cap raise. Or the new eq with better stats within already existing tier (they already raised possibility for that one). Specifics do not matter. What does matter is that so far it seems Anet is just unwilling to make top tier eq easily accessible, and would prefer us grinding for it, and that if we just wait, we will not see any improvement, Quite the opposite.

maddoctor.2738:

Is there anything else we can do other than wait?

We can try to change developers’ minds. Even if it’s going to fail, for me it’s still better than waiting and doing nothing while the core elements of the game are slowly being twisted away from what i bought this game for, into a shallow version of a average WoW-alike grinding MMO.

gw2 is different concerning gear(armor weapons and stuff)

i love the max is max filosofie from gw1 . max armor is max armor, max damage is max damage.

in gw2 we have white, blue, green, yellow, orange and whatnot.
personaly i think its a step back.

But it does not make me grind for the best.
I do with what i get, and thats fine with me to.

After some playing i got orange armor, but still a green weapon.
Works fine. When something better drops, i use it everything else get merched

concerning dailies, sometimes i get them sometimes not.
I did do them until i got enough karma to get my orange gear,
now i dont realy care.

I just play the game and 50% of the time the chest pops up anyway

i played aoc in the past, and i never worried about gear there either..
i used what dropped for me, and what i could afford to buy with just
playing the game.

worked great

For those who claim Guild Wars 2 betrayed fans from their manifesto, this is 100% totally untrue. I defy you to listen to the manifeso and write down what’s actually being said in it. Not one word about gear treadmill or about vertical progression. This is what the manifesto says about grind.

“I swung a sword, I swung it again, hey I swung it again…that’s just great. We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one likes to grind, no one finds it fun, we want to change the way that people view combat.”

This is the only place in the manifesto that Guild Wars 2 mentioned grind, and it clearly refers to combat grind as in having to kill monsters to level. Have you guys ever played Aion? In Aion, when it came out, you ran out of quests around level 25, and you had to either PvP or grind the same mobs over and over to level. That was it. There was no other way. And that’s clearly what Colin was talking about in the manifesto. And substantively, they’ve stayed true to the manifesto. Every single word of it.

In addition there were interviews, maybe two of them with single line quotes from a dev, who said they didn’t want to make a game about vertical progression.

So cut to the game. They had exotics, which are relatively easy to get, and then they had legendaries…with nothing in between. Nothing. And people, rightly, found that legendaries were just too far to go for just a cosmetic look. Most people can’t even get them, because the grind is too long…but it was just cosmetic.

There absolutely had to be a tier of gear between exotics and legendaries or this game would have lost far more players than it did (and it’s not dying by any means, it’s still healthy and my server is still busy).

This isn’t a gear treadmill for one single reason. Content isn’t gated by your gear. You can still do all the dungeons. You can still do SPvP. You can still WvW. I do all of it. And I do fine. Those who say you can’t WvW without ascended gear, well, that’s their opinion. I don’t agree with it. And certainly PVe is relatively easy and can be done with rares or even greens. You don’t need this stuff.

You can make the build of your choice without a ring or and still test it and then decide if you want to go for a ring. The ascended gear difference will not stop your build from being viable. This is just a red herring. If you like the build, then go for the gear. But you’ll be able to use the build in exotics just fine. And if you can’t, the build doesn’t work.

But stop bringing up the manifesto. Guild Wars 2, like every MMO on the planet, has changed a facet of the game to replace something the devs perceived was missing…a gear tier between legendary and exotic. But they didn’t gate content and they’re not going to keep doing it.

This is how games evolve. Deal with it.

maddoctor.2738:

-snip-

Firstly: Don’t know what threads you’ve observed, but in my history on these forums, MF discussions almost always conclude with the majority of people saying that MF is dysfunctional in its present form and needs to be changed.

This notion that more damage on someone else doesn’t hurt you personally is nice in theory but patently false in reality, as monsters need to be “tagged” in order to acquire loot from them, and your overall contribution to an event is calculated based on the number of tags you’ve earned and how highly you tagged those targets (in the case of vet/champ mobs). This is why people often use AoE in battles, in order to tag a larger number of monsters to receive full completion, while players who pick off single targets don’t get much at all.

This becomes a problem in guild raids or zergs, where the zerg might kill the monsters much faster than you can. And that doesn’t boil down to “skill”, it’s a simple matter of statistics. And if you can properly “tag” a monster with just one hit, you’ve got an advantage over the guy who needs 2 or 3 hits’ worth of damage to earn that tag. I’ve often run guild raids through the Cursed Shore with thirty other guild members, and people have complained they didn’t get proper credit because they didn’t have an abundance of AoE or high-damage builds at their disposal.

Secondly: No, it would still be a grind by definition because repetition is the only requirement for something to be technically “grinding”. The number of “goals” you are going after is completely irrelevant, what matters is the repetition. I’m really not sure why people continue to misunderstand this.

Also, actually, a lot of people have said they’re completely in favor of raids. Again, I don’t know which forum you read but it isn’t this one.

The problem here is that you’re fundamentally misunderstanding what I’ve said, or otherwise are trying to twist it into something I clearly do not mean. I have never once said that I thought RNG was “better” (I don’t believe that).

What I stated was that we’re talking about a game which claims to have “zero grind” even though this is clearly untrue. However, I also understand that it is impossible to remove all grind by definition. Ergo my goal is to reduce that grind to more reasonable levels than are present right now.

critickitten.1498:

kenshinakh.3672:

-snip-

Just a few….

1) How do you consider a 10% advantage to be a “small” one?

2) How would you feel if I told you that in fact, a Berserker Ascended set actually provides a 23% boost in damage over an Exotic Berserker set, not a 10% boost?

3) In all current locations where Ascended gear can be obtained, you must run those locations an absolute minimum of 20 times (10 to reach Lvl 10 Fractals + 10 dailies, or 30-35 laurels) for a single piece of gear. Explain how this is not a textbook example of ‘grinding’, when grinding is simply defined as the repetition of actions for the sake of loot?

4) Explain what “gear treadmills” existed in Mario and Pokemon? I ask because I don’t think you actually understand what a gear treadmill is.

5) In a game advertised as “zero-grind” and coming from the same franchise as a game that ran for years on a model of horizontal progression, is it really enough for both the grind and vertical progression to be “less than WoW”, rather than minimized to a much more significant degree?

1) It is quite small in dungeons and WvW, and also remember that this 10% you’re talking about are stats, not overall damage increase like skills that give 10% more damage.

2) I’d be mildly interested because these are the calculations I found:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/23183
Berserker’s Amulet
90 Power
64 Precision
5% Critical Damage

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24498
Exquisite Ruby Jewel
25 power
3% critical damage
15 precision

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark_of_the_Tethyos_Houses
Mark of the Tethyos Houses
94 Power
67 Precision
5% Critical damage
-
32 Power
4% Critical damage
18 Precision

3) You’re missing my point. I’m saying it isn’t a grind depending on your perspective. I can absolutely play through that without feeling grind because I know well enough to avoid grinding it out. Whether you like it or not, this entire game is a grind, and same with GW1, if you were to put it in the perspective of grind = repeatitive actions. However, pulling away from the textbook definition of grind, GW2 gives you a variety of things to do usually, and depending on your play style, you’re not going to feel grind.

4) I did not say gear treadmill existed in Mario and Pokemon. I said gear treadmill has roots from those games. Those games offer you a progression based system. You level up, get more power ups and etc. In pokemon, you capture stronger monsters, and train them and level them. It’s similar base concepts, except in MMOs it is applied to gear. It’s basically to give you a goal to shoot towards and give meaning for the “work” done.

5) Again, you forget to consider the developer’s view of their own model. http://www.shacknews.com/article/76799/guild-wars-2-team-addresses-gear-grind-complaints
I can play through this game without grind because I choose to. Why can’t you? Maybe you don’t want to or you haven’t figured out a way yet. You can surely learn from other players though instead of demanding Anet to change their game around your perspective. You forget that games are always evolving and changing. As developers, they know that your game has to evolve with the times. GW1 was great, but that doesn’t mean it is the ONLY thing that works. Ask yourself, are humans static? They’re not. They change over time, and so do the developers of games. Is GW2 bad? No, it’s still going strong, and the same “manefesto” they had at the start is still in progress. When the game first came out, it wasn’t true horizontal progression. It had elements of both horizontal and vertical, and it was unique BECAUSE of that. GW2 didn’t become great because of GW1. It is its own unique game.

wintermute.4096:

kenshinakh.3672:

blabla.

Any arguments?

Utter failure across the board.

1. You compared chest to shoulders.
2. The relative difference between the stats of the actually relevant pieces of equipment (“elementium plate” vs. “magma plate”) in wow is actually even smaller then the difference between exotic and ascended pieces in gw2
3. The stats on the wow armor were “strength & stamina”, whereas gw2 has Power, precision & crit damage, all of which get increased by the same relative amount when you step up to ascended. The difference is, that the stats in gw2 work multiplicatively, (i.e. actual damage is: base (power) * crit chance (precision) * crit damage) so increasing all of these variables by the same amount (say, 10%) turns out to be a much greater difference in their product.

back on topic:
Yes, despite previous claims, they completely abandoned the whole no-grind philosophy. If we project the same progression logic, full ascended gear is expected to perform 20-30% better then full exotic, and it will most likely require grinding. Look at the “manifesto” again, what they promised there and what the implemented now are directly contradicting each other, no matter how you look at it.

They won’t admit it of course, but that’s just how it is, there no room for interpretation here, they literally just threw that “manifesto” out the window, whether you like that or not.

maddoctor.2738:

From my understanding, the laurels were added for those players that do regular PVE, not dungeon runners, not WvW players. What I’m trying to get at is that I hope (and pray) that they add a challenging yet more rewarding way of getting all that gear, the same gear you get from Laurels but from difficult content instead. But I will redirect you to threads on Raids and similar “hard” content, and how lots of people are totally against them. I can understand why nobody should be left out, and the Laurels are a great way for everyone to get their gear, but shouldn’t there exist hard content to reward them FASTER? Effort should be rewarded in my opinion, and there is little to no reward for it atm, just pure RNG (and to an extent, grind)

This is also higly debatable. I’d even say that those who enjoy wvw are actually the ones who are the most incentivized to grind out that ascended stuff, because in wvw, assuming players of equal skill that would normally have an roughly equal chance to win, a player with 30% stat advantage will beat the lesser equipped player any time of the day, extreme crit streaks and etc. aside.

Failure? You sure are nice.

1. Sorry, my mistake. Here’s the chest piece: http://www.wowhead.com/item=60349
2. The difference between that and the other is quite different. Please recheck your math.

Magma Plated Chestguard
3426 Armor
+341 Strength
+512 Stamina
+168 Parry (0.63% @ L85)
+208 Mastery (1.16 @ L85)

Elementium Deathplate Chestguard
3762 Armor
+420 Strength
+689 Stamina
+316 Dodge (1.19% @ L85)
+271 Parry (1.02% @ L85)

Difference:
armor: 9.8%
Strength: 23.1%
Parry: 61.3%

Clearly they are different by a much bigger amount than Exotics vs Ascended.

3. Stats in WoW work multicatively too… 1 Stamina = 10 HP. 1 Str = 2 AP for certain classes. You get my point right?

Look, I bought GrindWars 2, this is the game we all bought! Why complain?

Debate is the key.

I bought GW2 because I wanted a MMO that changes/morphs overtime. Initially, I thought it was lame how legendary weapons were just the only endgame, but Anet had plans to keep adding more content while not forcing me to immediately upgrade my character’s gear.
Sure some parts are a grind, but with each patch, it gets less and less and there’s more content to go through.

Tarn.1374:

The problem is that whenever there’s a reward involved, players invariably focus on the reward as the sole reason to do anything. They don’t care about what they’re doing, only what reward they’ll get for doing it.

Hence the ‘grind’ is born.

It’s a materialistic world we (most of us) choose to live in, and many bring that outlook into the gaming world.

Ask yourself why you play the game? If it’s to do with getting loot/material/equipment/looking the best/being the best/etc etc, well of course there’s going to be a grind for you involved.

Sure, game mechanics play a lesser, secondary role, but whether you grind or don’t grind is based largely on your own outlook. People that complain about grinding have created that as their own ‘reality’ in the game.

The other problem is, and always has been with MMos in general is entitlement. Hardcore players always use this as an argument against casual players, but in actual reality, its the hardcore players who are to blame in the first place, since they assume they are entitled to everything.

Look at each event, look at Endless Tonics for instance ~ MMo developers always have made silly mistakes by creating content that only a small fraction of players will ever get, either by sheer RNG luck or by joining a super hardcore guild and wall slamming until you achieve your goals. GW2 was supposed to be different, and in the end ~ failed the same way D3 failed its community.

A grind by the very nature is required in some form in MMos to keep the players, playing simple as that ~ the trick is gating them so one core group will always be ‘slightly’ ahead of the rest, so it gives time for the developers to create new content without losing too much of the playerbase.

GW2 fails in this type of gated content because of a whole morass of issues, I think if GW2 followed the holy trinity path, I think some of the problems in game wouldn’t be so bad to be really honest even though, it would make doing dungeons far harder.

If you want something, you have to work for it. It’s called perspective.