Guild Wars 2

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

Grinding in games occurs when you have to perform actions to produce desired results. Broadly, all games have the concept of ‘grind’. However, we are usually talking about gear grinds on the forums. That’s where stats are periodically raised on gear and you have to grind to chase the stat inflation. Since the outcome is that all people performing the grind end up in the same place relative to each other and the environment in terms of power level, it’s called a treadmill. It has the illusion of progress but in fact no one goes anywhere; there is no actual progression with vertical progression and it’s an unneeded concept in an MMO.

You mention the grind from 1 to 80. I don’t believe that is necessary either. I would much prefer to eliminate that grind by starting with a tutorial story that left you equipped and ready for the game and then unleashed you on the open world to pursue your adventure. Let’s do away with all ‘forced’ grinds and leave the ‘Legendary’ grinds to those who chose to pursue them.

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

It’s true but some people on this forum like to exaggerate things. Every mmo has you grinding some instance for gear or grinding out materials for crafting or grinding out some pvp instance for currency to buy armor. I wouldn’t even call this game a grind because it extremely easy to obtain things here minus the legendary weapons. But those are suppose to take a while to get just like Obsidian took a while to get in GW Prophecies.

Walle.6087:

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

You were “grinding” for gear and stats before fractals came out. You weren’t given a full exotic set at 80 so you had to either craft it, buy it from the TP, run instances to get it or WvW your way to the highest armor stats.

Walle.6087:

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

You missed one:

We are collectively punished with DR because of the actions of unrelated botters, and therefore have to grind to even break even on waypoint costs.

We then get to look in despair at the TP as the legendaries we were told we should be able to eventually attain fly further and further into the stratosphere.

Easy or short? Cause a legendary takes a lot of time acquiring things mostly through easy activities. Even exotics are easy to get but take a significantly shorter amount of time. Non-grindy games allow you the ability to get things through challenges that maybe short in time, but hard in execution…. so it takes a long time to get depending on how fast you can learn and be skillful. Why legendary requirements are what they are have no place whatsoever in a game that touts itself as being skill-based and non-traditional from other MMOs.

Scourge.4317:

Walle.6087:

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

You were “grinding” for gear and stats before fractals came out. You weren’t given a full exotic set at 80 so you had to either craft it, buy it from the TP, run instances to get it or WvW your way to the highest armor stats.

if you noticed I never said fractals I was talking about the game from August until now.

plasmacutter.2709:

Walle.6087:

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

You missed one:

We are collectively punished with DR because of the actions of unrelated botters, and therefore have to grind to even break even on waypoint costs.

We then get to look in despair at the TP as the legendaries we were told we should be able to eventually attain fly further and further into the stratosphere.

Just wanted to correct one thing. We are punished with DR because of the actions of the game company, not the botters. They chose to pursue botters by punishing players. Other game companies have tried the same actions (D3 anyone) and then reversed them after the outcry from players. Players play games to be rewarded. You never make your game unrewarding to address botting.

What we have is a misconception of what defines the word grind in a video game.

Grind is repeating something to gain levels of advancement.

Farming is repeating something to acquire gear.

There is a difference.

Rustypipes.6238:

What we have is a misconception of what defines the word grind in a video game.

Grind is repeating something to gain levels of advancement.

Farming is repeating something to acquire gear.

There is a difference.

My distinction around grinding is that there are forced grinds and there are voluntary grinds. An example of a forced grind is vertical progression where if you don’t grind and keep up you eventually will not be able to play the game. An example of a voluntary grind would be the pursuit of a Legendary or farming mats for crafting. All these activities require grinding of some kind. I would prefer to be able to choose the kinds of activities I pursue in a game.

Players can progress through programmed content much faster than new content can be generated. Give everyone what they want as soon as they want it, and they will then be complaining about nothing to do. Giving them something to do that is within the scope of what programmers can produce involves those players repeating content. Provide said repeating content and you’ve produced “grind” because people want the rewards now.

How would you do it differently given the limitations on programming?

All grind in this game is completely voluntary. You’re not forced to do anything you don’t want to do. So, when people tell me that this game has “unacceptable grind,” I tell them to quit grinding…because you aren’t required to do it.

Grind is usually associated with repeating a task into extreme monotony. If you go out and kill 1000 monsters, just because you enjoy killing them, then you are not grinding. If you go kill them, not because you want to, but for some other reason,(e.g. profit) then you are grinding.

I never grinded anything on my first character. I got to 80 just by playing content and exploring the world with a little crafting here and there. I got exotics by doing dungeons, playing content I missed, WvW, and helping friends.

On my second character though, I grinded. I was more concerned with getting him to lv80 and geared than actually engaging myself with the content.

My 4th character, lv42 now, I’m not grinding at all with. I just WvW and play with friends.

Now my goal is to get a legendary. I am in no way forced to get one to be competitive. I’m not trying to keep up with anyone. I’m simply want one because it looks cool. Am I grinding? Yes, but not that much. I invest about 15mins of my time into the TP a few times a day. The rest of my time, I spend doing things I enjoy. Progress is being made, but I’m not burning myself out with grind.

Grind is certainly a part of GW2, but it is at an acceptable level. I allow myself to grind a little, but I will never grind so much that I begin to resent it. I’ll get my Legendary, and when I look back at the time between deciding to get it, and obtaining it, I won’t see “One Large Grind”. That’s much more than some games offer.

GW1 was not an MMORPG!
GW2 is a MMORP and need a little grind!
I’m casual but still love grind!
A small vertical progression is very good, without it the game is empty!
Grind is certainly a part of GW2, but it is at an acceptable level.
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose!

The thing that bugs me is the whole manipulation of the economy and having the price of items like the dyes being driven up because they have to nerf the drops. The price of abyss die went from 5g to 17g just seems a little crazy where they manipulate items like that.

They should focus more on the game breaking problems with this game instead of making sure people have to spend hours of their time just to try to get something a little bit special. (like getting dc’ed in fractals or Orr quest chains)

ProphetSword.5427:

All grind in this game is completely voluntary. You’re not forced to do anything you don’t want to do. So, when people tell me that this game has “unacceptable grind,” I tell them to quit grinding…because you aren’t required to do it.

Remember the AMA? They said that moving forward we would have vertical progression. Vertical progression is just another way of saying “forced gear grind”. To help you see this let’s consider vertical progression described by an integer series 1,2,3,4,5,n, where each number represents a tier of gear and the higher the number, the higher the power level. Now the difference between 1 and 2 is very low and may be ignored where the power curve is low as they said it would be. But, you must admit by the time you get to, say, 5 the difference will be significant. No matter how low the power curve, there will be a point at which you can no longer play at your current power level. The choice will be either to grind or quit playing. The grind is forced if you want to continue the game.

Sometimes I think the concepts are difficult for people when applying this to GW2. Many people like the game, I do, and want to support it. But, we have the answer from Anet: “we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”. You can argue about the degree of any given increase in power level, but you can’t argue that there won’t be a point at which I’m forced to grind to acquire the stats which are required to play the game at the then current power level. This is really straightforward following an understanding of what vertical progression is. If you get that, you will understand that it involves a forced grind.

Walle.6087:

I agree all games do have a grind.

GW1
– Had an acceptable grind
– Players were able to get max level stats and play everything in the game with their friends rather quickly.
– Armor was about looks not stats.
– We were able to have as many alternate characters as we wanted.

GW2
– Unacceptable grind, I find it more like a Korean MMO rather and a Western AAA title.
– We are now grinding for gear and stats.
– making harder to level alternate characters.

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien

^ exactly. People keep forgetting that quote down there about “not make grindy games” yet GW2 is a huge grind fest.

I know all mmo’s have a grind but to lie and say “your game” isn’t grindy is just ridiculous.

Scourge.4317:

It’s true but some people on this forum like to exaggerate things. Every mmo has you grinding some instance for gear or grinding out materials for crafting or grinding out some pvp instance for currency to buy armor. I wouldn’t even call this game a grind because it extremely easy to obtain things here minus the legendary weapons. But those are suppose to take a while to get just like Obsidian took a while to get in GW Prophecies.

I like how you say minus legendary weapons because that is a huge part of the game. Exotics and the new stuff are all going to be a huge grind as well. Also people seem to have to keep farming dungeons. That is called a grind.

So I have no clue what game you are playing but GW2 is a huge grind.

The terminology as we use it goes back to 1851 and refers to an oppressive task that is unpleasant or difficult to perform.

This evolved in to meaning monotonous labor and became a slang term for work.

So absolutely anything, in the existence of ever, can be considered a grind if you are forced to do it and find it (such as society demanding we have a job, or go to school) unpleasant, difficult, and monotonous.

One person might not consider doing three paths of a dungeon every day, for a week or so to get an exotic set, a grind because they enjoy the dungeon and the people they are playing with; while another person may think it is a grind because they loathe every minute of it and feel like they are forced to do it to keep up.

Etymologically, Guild Wars 2 has no grind because it’s not something you are forced to play. It is a recreational activity that you have complete free will to decide that you want to participate in. At any moment you feel any part of it becoming “grindy” you can stop and do something else. Simply, unless you are a gold farmer trying to pay your bills, no one is oppressively forcing you to play the game.

Now, if you are choosing to participate, free of obligation, in an optional activity you think is monotonous, laborious, and difficult, then proceed to complain on the internet about it…you may want to look a little more closely at how much you value your free time and you decision making abilities.

There are very real mental illnesses out there that are characterized by someone voluntarily exposing themselves over and over again to activities that cause them frustration, stress, anger, and disappointment, and then proceed to try and convince themselves and others that it’s not their own fault. Just something to think about.

Tiger.7506:

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

There was a point going from 1-80 where you absolutely had to repeat content? When I hit 80, I still had 4 zones I had not even entered yet.

AcidicVision.5498:

The terminology as we use it goes back to 1851 and refers to an oppressive task that is unpleasant or difficult to perform.

This evolved in to meaning monotonous labor and became a slang term for work.

So absolutely anything, in the existence of ever, can be considered a grind if you are forced to do it and find it (such as society demanding we have a job, or go to school) unpleasant, difficult, and monotonous.

One person might not consider doing three paths of a dungeon every day, for a week or so to get an exotic set, a grind because they enjoy the dungeon and the people they are playing with; while another person may think it is a grind because they loathe every minute of it and feel like they are forced to do it to keep up.

Etymologically, Guild Wars 2 has no grind because it’s not something you are forced to play. It is a recreational activity that you have complete free will to decide that you want to participate in. At any moment you feel any part of it becoming “grindy” you can stop and do something else. Simply, unless you are a gold farmer trying to pay your bills, no one is oppressively forcing you to play the game.

Now, if you are choosing to participate, free of obligation, in an optional activity you think is monotonous, laborious, and difficult, then proceed to complain on the internet about it…you may want to look a little more closely at how much you value your free time and you decision making abilities.

There are very real mental illnesses out there that are categorized by someone voluntarily exposing themselves over and over again to activities that cause them frustration, stress, anger, and disappointment, and then proceed to try and convince themselves and others that it’s not their own fault. Just something to think about.

Not sure the etymological discursion pertains to the current thread. I believe what I am saying is that, free of obligation, I would like to play the non-grindy game promised in the Manifesto. I don’t want to chose to play or quit freely. (Though I admit that is the choice with vertical progression—grind or quit.) What I want to do is play the game without being forced to grind after attaining level 80 and exotic gear.

Geewoody.2017:

Tiger.7506:

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

There was a point going from 1-80 where you absolutely had to repeat content? When I hit 80, I still had 4 zones I had not even entered yet.

kill mobs and get your reward!
kill other mobs and get your reward …
the grind is disguised!

It’s not a grind though right now.

You either exploited and have the money to get what’s on the TP

Or you’re punished with DR and have no money for the tp and so no hope of ever actually attaining the gear.

so, no grind.

Frankly, given the above scenario, i’d prefer the grind. At least in grind there’s hope

Raine.1394:

Not sure the etymological discursion pertains to the current thread. I believe what I am saying is that, free of obligation, I would like to play the non-grindy game promised in the Manifesto. I don’t want to chose to play or quit freely. (Though I admit that is the choice with vertical progression—grind or quit.) What I want to do is play the game without being forced to grind after attaining level 80 and exotic gear.

It does. And this is exactly why I brought it up. “Grindy” is 100% subjective. The second you feel like something is a grind, then it is and the idea of a non-grindy game is gone.

No one can agree on the exact parameters, different people like different things, it’s impossible to please one sub-set of people without displeasing another and each sub-set thinks their way of doing things is the best.

If you are going to allow grind to be an applicable concept to a voluntary activity, then you should also be accepting of the fact that content you totally enjoy, someone else loathes and considers a grind; content you hate, other’s will love and repeat without feeling put out at all. So every single aspect of the game is potentially a grind to someone, somewhere.

This discussion can never end. There is no resolution. So it’s not particularly worth having.

GW2 can feel a bit grindy to me from a lesser extent. Farming to me is also considered grinding even if it has its own technical meaning. But, my definition of grinding is when you have to kill mobs over and over just to be within proper level so that your character can progress because the quests alone were not sufficient enough to advance you.

redsolarmoon.1054:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtGxVj3msM#t=82s

Yep, that’s the game I want. From the written manifesto:

“It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

They knew what term “grinding” meant when they used it. It is the common understanding we all share from experience with other grindy MMO’s. It’s vertical progression, being forced to “gear up” to the next level where you can finally relax…for a time…until the next level and grind. I want the game described by the Manifesto, that’s all I’m saying.

AcidicVision.5498:

Raine.1394:

Not sure the etymological discursion pertains to the current thread. I believe what I am saying is that, free of obligation, I would like to play the non-grindy game promised in the Manifesto. I don’t want to chose to play or quit freely. (Though I admit that is the choice with vertical progression—grind or quit.) What I want to do is play the game without being forced to grind after attaining level 80 and exotic gear.

It does. And this is exactly why I brought it up. “Grindy” is 100% subjective. The second you feel like something is a grind, then it is and the idea of a non-grindy game is gone.

No one can agree on the exact parameters, different people like different things, it’s impossible to please one sub-set of people without displeasing another and each sub-set thinks their way of doing things is the best.

If you are going to allow grind to be an applicable concept to a voluntary activity, then you should also be accepting of the fact that content you totally enjoy, someone else loathes and considers a grind; content you hate, other’s will love and repeat without feeling put out at all. So every single aspect of the game is potentially a grind to someone, somewhere.

This discussion can never end. There is no resolution. So it’s not particularly worth having.

The key to your understanding this will be in understanding the distinction between forced and voluntary when it comes to grinds. And when dealing with the question of forced and voluntary we take subjectivity out of it completely. You are either forced to do or not. It matters little whether you like it or not. Some like farming mats, some detest it. Either way you are are free to to farm or play the TP game system and buy your mats. You are not forced to do it one way or the other.

And, let’s take off the table the point that I can quit the game if I don’t like it—that’s a given and doesn’t pertain to or further the discussion.

The question is whether or not one is forced to grind gear in the context of vertical progression (and keep playing the game). The answer is 100% non-subjective and I’ve made my position clear my above posts. If you take issue with my position, quote it and show me where I am in error. Saying well it’s all subjective doesn’t advance a reasoned discussion.

To me grind occurs when the gameplay becomes a second job where you simply must get the items you need in order to remain competative. Do we have a system in GW2 where one must have gear to be competative? Yes, two of them actually. Right now whether it’s intended or not, it is considered competative to run dungeons, so the faster the run the better, the best geared is usually the most successful so we see people requesting only certain classes and certain levels and certain gear level. The second one? WvW gear matters in WvW i hate to tell you guys this but it’s definitely a must. I know this and I don’t even pvp. It’s common knowledge. If someone claims otherwise they are either trying to trick the readers into thinking you don’t need gear in WvW or they are delusional. It’s notably important for many of the classes that are either broken or have massive amounts of bugs as the only thing that keeps them alive longer is toughness and vitality.

So the grind people talk about here in the forums is having to spend and unusually long period of time (months) trying to get gear (ascended legendary or even exotic which is sad the way loot drops DR etc has slowed even this down) in order to remain competative.

See you can’t have a competative atmosphere without grind dropping in there somewhere. It’s just not going to happen. Grind for the duration of months in order to achieve a goal is never good, and that’s what people are complaining about in these forums.

That being said, multiple devs have come forth about these issues (loot drops, DR, availability of ascended gear) and have made statements suggesting they are working on these problems. Only time will tell what they have in store for us.

“Grindy” is 100% subjective.
up 1-80 is grind ( for me )

Tiger.7506:

“Grindy” is 100% subjective.
up 1-80 is grind ( for me )

I think from all the definitions above we can simplify it using AcidicVision’s post and just realize it’s slang for work. Maybe actions performed in pursuit of a goal. A grind is work. Whether you like work is subjective, whether it’s happening or not is not subjective. Whether any given grind is grindy (too much work?) would be subjective because of people’s differing tolerances around work.

So, if you replying to me, I was not talking about how ‘grindy’ vertical progression was. I merely noted that it is a forced grind (work) and I don’t want to be constantly involved in preparing to have fun—I want to have fun like the Manifesto says, moment to moment. Whether vertical progression represents a forced grind/work is 100% non-subjective.

GW2 has the worst grind IMO, The Heart system was a cool way to break away from the traditional questing system, but I find it even more boring. Just go to a heart, do what it says, go on to next one, repeat again and again. At least with questing zones there was something of a story (Even if that story is boring as hell)

All games have grind. Mebbe. But not all games have … a Legendary Grind.

I like to grind thats why i play mmos.
MMO and every mmo before this had some aspect of grinding wether you liked their grinding or this grinding ITS your opinion.

Also remove DR ANET if your gonna force people TO GRIND, DO NOT punish PEOPLE for GRINDING.

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

“Grindy” is 100% subjective.
up 1-80 is grind ( for me )

Whether vertical progression represents a forced grind/work is 100% non-subjective.

Up 1-80 represents a forced grind !

bojangles.6912:

Scourge.4317:

It’s true but some people on this forum like to exaggerate things. Every mmo has you grinding some instance for gear or grinding out materials for crafting or grinding out some pvp instance for currency to buy armor. I wouldn’t even call this game a grind because it extremely easy to obtain things here minus the legendary weapons. But those are suppose to take a while to get just like Obsidian took a while to get in GW Prophecies.

I like how you say minus legendary weapons because that is a huge part of the game. Exotics and the new stuff are all going to be a huge grind as well. Also people seem to have to keep farming dungeons. That is called a grind.

So I have no clue what game you are playing but GW2 is a huge grind.

I left out legendary because right now they are prestige items (just like obsidian armor in GWP) and aren’t needed to obtain max weapon stats at all. They are there for people who want the look. So yeah i said minus legendary. You what a huge grind is? Playing Aion and running instances for years and never seeing a thing from them because bosses had a very high chance to drop absolutely nothing. My ex ran Adma Stronghold for 2 years and not once did she get lannoks staff. I mean this game is so easy and the “grind” is voluntary.

Tiger.7506:

GW1 was not an MMORPG!
GW2 is a MMORP and need a little grind!
I’m casual but still love grind!
A small vertical progression is very good, without it the game is empty!
Grind is certainly a part of GW2, but it is at an acceptable level.
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose!

Often times these lines are stated (GW1 wasn’t an MMO, therefore GW2 needs grind, and treadmills are good)… but these statements are never, ever explained in a way that actually makes any sense.

There was a whole lot else going on in GW2 before everyone was robbed of their max level (max stats), and were forced into the treadmill if they wanted to regain those max stats. The world in general was a lot more populated, people were much more focused on legendary, or other exotic skins. Now since Anet added “something to do”, everyone is still just doing Fractals. The grind for max stats is absolutely ridiculous now…. I honestly fear that I might never have more than one character at max stats ever again.

Why pursue awesome skins, when you still don’t have the max stat gear to complete your character? “Adding something to do” by adding a gear treadmill actually destroyed the all the “things to do” that we had before.

Scourge.4317:

bojangles.6912:

Scourge.4317:

It’s true but some people on this forum like to exaggerate things. Every mmo has you grinding some instance for gear or grinding out materials for crafting or grinding out some pvp instance for currency to buy armor. I wouldn’t even call this game a grind because it extremely easy to obtain things here minus the legendary weapons. But those are suppose to take a while to get just like Obsidian took a while to get in GW Prophecies.

I like how you say minus legendary weapons because that is a huge part of the game. Exotics and the new stuff are all going to be a huge grind as well. Also people seem to have to keep farming dungeons. That is called a grind.

So I have no clue what game you are playing but GW2 is a huge grind.

I left out legendary because right now they are prestige items (just like obsidian armor in GWP) and aren’t needed to obtain max weapon stats at all. They are there for people who want the look. So yeah i said minus legendary. You know what a huge grind is? Playing Aion and running instances for years and never seeing a thing from them because bosses had a very high chance to drop absolutely nothing. My ex ran Adma Stronghold for 2 years and not once did she get lannoks staff (made a huge difference in pvp). I mean this game is so easy and the “grind” is voluntary.

I believe a lot of the misunderstanding in the thread has to do with opposing definitions of ‘grind’. The OP wants a gear grind. He said he “needed” it. I suppose this is for a sense of progression in the game.

I recall an interview between the lead designer of Firefall and the guy from extra credits where the designer described a grind in the game as “work” and the guy from extra credits caught him on the word work and said, ah, work is good in a game? I suppose it was a raising awareness moment.

I personally have no problem with the concept of work or grind as a synonym for work. Why? To me work is simply actions performed in pursuit of a goal. I don’t see how one could even conceive of a game without actions in pursuit of goals—something I must do in order to achieve what I desire.

Some work in a game is needful and some is busy work. Busy work is not needful and should not be forced on a player. An example of busy work that detracts from game enjoyment is the work involved in keeping up with stat inflation. This is the grind I’m claiming is forced (and needless) in vertical progression. I just wanted to clarify a bit on what meaning I’m bringing to the terms grind and work.

Tiger.7506:

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

Is posting this some sort of therapy for you? Saying it out loud makes it ok?

The problem here is that there is zero context for the grinds in this game and they are of monumental proportions. To top it off, they are relieved it you just spend some cash in the cash shop.

And that, my friend, is the problem.

I have played many games that lack a grind, many.

It’s true that all games or rather most MMO’s (not all) have some form of grind. However do you know of any that gives out so much punishment for grinding? They have a poor control over their economy and they want Gems to be worth something. So we are all effected by DR and other things. Grinding wouldn’t be so bad, it’s the grinding and the punishment on top that makes it frustrating for a lot of people. I personally can’t do it, I can’t grind knowing that eventually my efforts will be diminished just because I had the time to do something. If i’m putting in the same amount of effort I should get the same amount of reward back.

Yeah, in Tera when you upgrade your armor there is a large chance it will fail unless you buy kitten from the store.

PearlGore.7419:

I have played many games that lack a grind, many.

GW2 is actually the first game I’ve played since Pokemon Red and Diablo2 that has grind, and that I’ve played for longer than a couple weeks. The idea that grind is a good thing is a very foreign idea to me, it seems to be almost entirely purposeless other than appealing to people that have problems with addictive behaviours… or for giving a sense of loss to those that would think of stopping their subscription. Since GW2 doesn’t have a subscription, and most of the people with problems with addictive behaviours are playing other games (ones that are better at harnessing their addiction), then there really is no reason for excessive grind to be in this game.

Not every Game has a grind…

Rustypipes.6238:

What we have is a misconception of what defines the word grind in a video game.

Grind is repeating something to gain levels of advancement.

Farming is repeating something to acquire gear.

There is a difference.

But you need gear to Advance, so yes its a grind to Advance.

Also the loot tables in this game are atrocious, worst loot chances i’ve ever experienced in an MMO and i’ve even played multiple Korean grinding MMO’s and they weren’t this bad..

That ET game on the Atari 2600 had no grind.

Primarily because no one could play that piece of crap for more than 5 minutes. I don’t think the people who made it knew what to do.

Tiger.7506:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

“Grindy” is 100% subjective.
up 1-80 is grind ( for me )

Whether vertical progression represents a forced grind/work is 100% non-subjective.

Up 1-80 represents a forced grind !

It’s a fact and why I stated elsewhere I would prefer a tutorial story that gets you equipped (story-wise and gameplay-wise and gear-wise) for the game. At that point you would be released into the open world to pursue your adventure. From my perspective, the 1-80 grind is not needed. That said, I would be OK with it if it represented a grind that has an ending in terms of stat progression. Knowing I could rest in that regard at 80 was refreshing after years of grindy MMO’s with vertical progression. So, yes, I agree with you that 1-80 is a grind. I’m objecting to the introduction of post level 80 vertical progression and a never-ending gear treadmill.

Tiger.7506:

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

True, But why did Aeananet make people grind in one spot for ascended gear?