Guild Wars 2

WRay.2391:

spiritus.7983:

Kevan.8912:

vertical progression binds me to a sense of inferiority, grind like a necessary work to be done for a mandatory aim.

tell this to “dedicated players”

I believe you meant “dedicated grinders” here ? If it’s a gameplay then I will definitely leave this game. For now I’m just hanging here waiting for results of CDI thread.

so am I.
the only reason to write here is waiting for any concrete news about the future of the game. (and the other is that there isnt an mmo i like atm, just wait for Q1\2 2014)
although, I wonder if there’ll be any and if these news will be somewhat trustworthy.

Kevan.8912:

WRay.2391:

spiritus.7983:

Kevan.8912:

vertical progression binds me to a sense of inferiority, grind like a necessary work to be done for a mandatory aim.

tell this to “dedicated players”

I believe you meant “dedicated grinders” here ? If it’s a gameplay then I will definitely leave this game. For now I’m just hanging here waiting for results of CDI thread.

so am I.
the only reason to write here is waiting for any concrete news about the future of the game. (and the other is that there isnt an mmo i like atm, just wait for Q1\2 2014)
although, I wonder if there’ll be any and if these news will be somewhat trustworthy.

Many of us are waiting for the news to see what direction this is all going for the upcoming year. IMO there is nothing good coming to the MMO this year, everything seems to be just more gear grinding themeparks. Hopefully this year Anet focuses on all horizontal progression and get things back on track to the original goals they set forth pre- launch.

WRay.2391:

timidobserver.7925:

WRay.2391:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I do believe that economics played an important role in the Ascended decision. We’ll never know what might have happened if ANet had opted to provide the promised horizontal/cosmetic progression rather than shallow vertical progression. They had the opportunity to push the alternative MMO progression they advertised. However, it doesn’t take an economist to realize that adding Ascended Rings and a back-piece took a lot less resources than developing the robust options for skill-based and/or cosmetic progression that would have been needed for HP.

It also doesn’t take a programmer to realize the difficulty of retooling some things which are desperately called for (ranger pets, “DPS is king”, “Traherne killed my story”) are expensive in employee hours and requirement for creating new assets in some cases to handle it without botching.

Right now, Arenanet has their focus on finishing out their Living World “Season 1” with Scarlet. They have their CDI notes, but we know nothing significant and quick is going to come out of them.

Even if they hit the brakes right now on everything else and started working on something purely horizontal progression, we would probably be . . . I’ll say three months from seeing it hit live release.

During which, there’s the risk of people departing because there’s no longer anything to do except wait.

Yeah. If ANET will not change things until D3 RoS will be released I’m out. Grinding for gear is much more fun in D3 as it was DESIGNED for this. You get gear by killing monster – simple what about this game is. And Blizzard at least heard players – no more RMAH, loot better, mystic that will allow to change stats on the gear.

GW2 was designed to not have gear grind. They added it but didn’t give any new content with it. Like really ?! I need to go and grind for middle tier mats with my lvl 80 char in low level zones ?! Best design ever !

Your point is absolutely the only valid point I have ever seen against vertical progression. I am for vertical progression, but I agree entirely that it is pretty lame to release a new gear tier with no content to support it.

Instead, you go and farm eons of low level mats or….. convert money to gems and buy the mats.

LoL I’m sure that was one of the reasons. Exactly that is why I will never buy gems from ANET anymore until they’ll fix this at least at some extent. If I’ll need gold so badly I’ll prefer to buy it from some gold spammer in current circumstances.

Because supporting people who used hacked and stolen accounts is going to help the game. There’s never an excuse to buy from a gold seller.

Vayne.8563:

People played Guild Wars 1 for years, without any stat progression on armor or weapons. What they got instead was new and better skills. And you could level up some skills, so they did more. That to me was far more fun than getting better gear.

Honestly, I fail to see the difference, really.

They’re BOTH tedium, whether you’re grinding reputation to improve your skills or grinding to get materials to craft gear. I also find it rather silly that players think one is awesome (probably because of the novelty) and the other is a soul-crushing chore.

Vertical progression is vertical progression, no matter what pretty wrapping paper you put it in.

chemiclord.3978:

Vayne.8563:

People played Guild Wars 1 for years, without any stat progression on armor or weapons. What they got instead was new and better skills. And you could level up some skills, so they did more. That to me was far more fun than getting better gear.

Honestly, I fail to see the difference, really.

They’re BOTH tedium, whether you’re grinding reputation to improve your skills or grinding to get materials to craft gear. I also find it rather silly that players think one is awesome (probably because of the novelty) and the other is a soul-crushing chore.

Vertical progression is vertical progression, no matter what pretty wrapping paper you put it in.

both boring, but VP through new better gear is a direct “power” increase.
skills and rep is a more “oblique” way, but i’m sure it’s long and grindy too.

so would be better to remove grind at all.
grind is only a trick to make people play, without admitting a lack of contents.
and VP is the most effective way to force ppl to grind,
while cosmetic items , for the typical mmo gamer, is not sufficiently rewarding to deserve 10000000hrs of repetitive tasks

chemiclord.3978:

Vayne.8563:

People played Guild Wars 1 for years, without any stat progression on armor or weapons. What they got instead was new and better skills. And you could level up some skills, so they did more. That to me was far more fun than getting better gear.

Honestly, I fail to see the difference, really.

They’re BOTH tedium, whether you’re grinding reputation to improve your skills or grinding to get materials to craft gear. I also find it rather silly that players think one is awesome (probably because of the novelty) and the other is a soul-crushing chore.

Vertical progression is vertical progression, no matter what pretty wrapping paper you put it in.

I loved getting new skills in gw1, thinking on new builds and testing them out was fab,
some things worked some didnt, peeps would give ideas on how they used the skill and you adjusted their ideas, it really was fun.

Kevan.8912:

chemiclord.3978:

Vayne.8563:

People played Guild Wars 1 for years, without any stat progression on armor or weapons. What they got instead was new and better skills. And you could level up some skills, so they did more. That to me was far more fun than getting better gear.

Honestly, I fail to see the difference, really.

They’re BOTH tedium, whether you’re grinding reputation to improve your skills or grinding to get materials to craft gear. I also find it rather silly that players think one is awesome (probably because of the novelty) and the other is a soul-crushing chore.

Vertical progression is vertical progression, no matter what pretty wrapping paper you put it in.

both boring, but VP through new better gear is a direct “power” increase.
skills and rep is a more “oblique” way, but i’m sure it’s long and grindy too.

so would be better to remove grind at all.
grind is only a trick to make people play, without admitting a lack of contents.
and VP is the most effective way to force ppl to grind,
while cosmetic items , for the typical mmo gamer, is not sufficiently rewarding to deserve 10000000hrs of repetitive tasks

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO.

The math is pretty simple. You can make X number of hours of content for any MMO. That’s it. That’s what you can make. If you program for five years, maybe that’s 100 hours of content…if that. (Yes I’m making these numbers up but the point is valid anyway).

People expect to spend hundreds if not thousands of hours on an MMO. It’s the expectation. If you don’t give people something to do, even if it is busy work, no one will stay in the game…and nothing dies faster than an MMO that no one is playing.

Guild Wars 1 had grind too….it wasn’t required grind, but a lot of the titles were grindy. People stayed to do those titles and for other reasons as well. Without the people who did that, you’d end up with a whole lot less people playing.

Less people mean less funding.

So, a themepark MMO (which this is), can’t create infinite content, and as a result goes under if all grind is removed.

Which means companies stop investing millions of dollars in MMOs, because why put that kind of money into a project and take that kind of risk if no one is going to play it.

I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.

The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

Vayne.8563:

I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.

The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

While I agree with what you’re saying about some level of grind needed in any MMO, I do wonder with your last statement if that is a fact? I mean, we know games go through various stages of influx and people leaving, and also a lot of other things have happened besides just Ascended gear etc in the game since that November. How do we know it is the grind specifically that has added players to the game?

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 had grind too….it wasn’t required grind, but a lot of the titles were grindy.

Actually ironically enough in GW1 there actually WERE required grind.
As in unable to continue with the main story without reaching certain levels of points.

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO.

The math is pretty simple. You can make X number of hours of content for any MMO. That’s it. That’s what you can make. If you program for five years, maybe that’s 100 hours of content…if that. (Yes I’m making these numbers up but the point is valid anyway).

People expect to spend hundreds if not thousands of hours on an MMO. It’s the expectation. If you don’t give people something to do, even if it is busy work, no one will stay in the game…and nothing dies faster than an MMO that no one is playing.
Guild Wars 1 had grind too….it wasn’t required grind, but a lot of the titles were grindy. People stayed to do those titles and for other reasons as well. Without the people who did that, you’d end up with a whole lot less people playing.
Less people mean less funding.
So, a themepark MMO (which this is), can’t create infinite content, and as a result goes under if all grind is removed.
Which means companies stop investing millions of dollars in MMOs, because why put that kind of money into a project and take that kind of risk if no one is going to play it.
I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.
The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

it was just an instigation, as there is no chance for now that grind could be totally bypassed (although i do dislike it in any form it comes.)

but the fact that people expect to stay online for thousands hours it’s not an excuse for devs, that use grind as a simple means when every other gameplay feature fails to satisfy people for more than some hours.
some grind is one thing, intensive grind as the main trick to stick ppl to the game is another.

and this difference (less grind, only cosmetic grind) is the only one thing (or at least one of the most important) that can really make gw2 different for players.
if gw2 wants to follow that way, there is nothing that makes it better than many other games we already know. just another korean-style game, with less rewards.
anet should think that what made it sell so much (not ppl stay many hours. just sell) is that same manifesto they’re actually ignoring.

about the number of players. i’m not so sure you can directly infer that grind for ascended has increased it. it’s simplistic.
what we know that some ppl asked for ascended, and some others quited/complained about it when was introduced.
and that asc. it’s not what a large part of audience expected when bought the game at launch.
i’m sure that anet needs both of these ppl to “make numbers”, because also pro grinders could feel betrayed by bland gear upgrades.

satisfying ppl with opposite tastes about game, casuals and “farmers”, is really possible?
my humble opinion is that horiz. progression can work for both.
but VP is a cul-de-sac.
so…choose wisely

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO..

mmo = massively multiplayer online, not massively grinding online

indoctrinated ppl like you shoud go back to the everlasting chinese grinding games

spiritus.7983:

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO..

mmo = massively multiplayer online, not massively grinding online

indoctrinated ppl like you shoud go back to the everlasting chinese grinding games

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Sometimes when this is brought up (and don’t think this is the first MMO board this has been brought up on), someone suggests randomizing dungeons. But randomized dungeons aren’t scripted dungeons and you don’t end up with content people play anyway, because randomizing things like dungeons means a limited pool of creatures, tricks and traps, and the random elements get figured out and posted and people learn them and it’s the same thing. Scripted dungeons are better.

So since you think I should go back to where I was indoctrinated (which was mostly Guild Wars 1, btw), why not suggest a solution to the problem…because it is a problem.

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

Vayne.8563:

spiritus.7983:

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO..

mmo = massively multiplayer online, not massively grinding online

indoctrinated ppl like you shoud go back to the everlasting chinese grinding games

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Sometimes when this is brought up (and don’t think this is the first MMO board this has been brought up on), someone suggests randomizing dungeons. But randomized dungeons aren’t scripted dungeons and you don’t end up with content people play anyway, because randomizing things like dungeons means a limited pool of creatures, tricks and traps, and the random elements get figured out and posted and people learn them and it’s the same thing. Scripted dungeons are better.

So since you think I should go back to where I was indoctrinated (which was mostly Guild Wars 1, btw), why not suggest a solution to the problem…because it is a problem.

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

I think, but I’m not sure, that the problem is that people require an objective. Vertical progression can serve as an objective, but it’s not the only possibility.

The mistake, IMO, that ANet made at launch was underestimating how quickly people would both a) finish the core content and b) abandon objectives that seems too out of reach.

There were (and are) a lot of different weapon skins that people could use to trick out their character, but most people either weren’t interested in cosmetics or figured out how hard it would be to get 100 charged lodestones and said forget it. (I got firebringer and I’m sorry I did, since it’s not even ascended)

A few examples I’ve seen over the past year.

For example, you have the dungeon master title, what if, upon getting that title you received a precursor. (Remember, not everyone got one in the Karka event). You work for it and at some predetermined point you get one.

With the precursor out of the way, you’d have an actual incentive to grind out the rest of the materials.

Or, alternatively, what if you had a wardrobe and you had to earn each skin (or buy some of them). Once they were earned they were unlocked (even at a character level) so you could customize your look. Suppose there were lots of different skins to try and get. I’d like that much better than 800 gems for a single use skin.

Or, what if you could actually outfit your home with useful stuff. The nodes are are decent start, but ugh how you get them.

Or, you can have a large number of skills that interact in different ways and make different builds viable. Or you can have 4 “prototypical” builds that ANet always keeps viable, and let people figure out their own weird optimized hybrids, instead of 1-2 viable builds per class. Of course, this may require a non-punishing way to change from Zerker to clerics.

tl;dr: Objectives are needed, they don’t have to be vertical

imsoenthused.1634:

And what you are ignoring is that for many gamers, myself included, ascended armor is required by the the simple virtue of being BiS. So, again for me and gamers like me, the ony difference between ascended gear and grinding out those kurzick and luxon points is that getting the the points was something that didn’t take too long and that I enjoyed doing, while ascended gear takes way too long and I don’t enjoy doing it at all.

That really is your own personal play style choice though… what it comes to though, and why you’re frustrated – if you don’t like the game in the first place, then playing more of it to get your perceived “required” gear is going to feel even worse.

If you enjoy the game, and are simply playing more of it, then there should be no issue.

Vayne.8563:

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

There are still people that play the game. The key to me is make more team based activities (raiding) for progression, instead of everyone clumping up and running around Queensdale with strangers.

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

spiritus.7983:

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO..

mmo = massively multiplayer online, not massively grinding online

indoctrinated ppl like you shoud go back to the everlasting chinese grinding games

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Sometimes when this is brought up (and don’t think this is the first MMO board this has been brought up on), someone suggests randomizing dungeons. But randomized dungeons aren’t scripted dungeons and you don’t end up with content people play anyway, because randomizing things like dungeons means a limited pool of creatures, tricks and traps, and the random elements get figured out and posted and people learn them and it’s the same thing. Scripted dungeons are better.

So since you think I should go back to where I was indoctrinated (which was mostly Guild Wars 1, btw), why not suggest a solution to the problem…because it is a problem.

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

I think, but I’m not sure, that the problem is that people require an objective. Vertical progression can serve as an objective, but it’s not the only possibility.

The mistake, IMO, that ANet made at launch was underestimating how quickly people would both a) finish the core content and b) abandon objectives that seems too out of reach.

There were (and are) a lot of different weapon skins that people could use to trick out their character, but most people either weren’t interested in cosmetics or figured out how hard it would be to get 100 charged lodestones and said forget it. (I got firebringer and I’m sorry I did, since it’s not even ascended)

A few examples I’ve seen over the past year.

For example, you have the dungeon master title, what if, upon getting that title you received a precursor. (Remember, not everyone got one in the Karka event). You work for it and at some predetermined point you get one.

With the precursor out of the way, you’d have an actual incentive to grind out the rest of the materials.

Or, alternatively, what if you had a wardrobe and you had to earn each skin (or buy some of them). Once they were earned they were unlocked (even at a character level) so you could customize your look. Suppose there were lots of different skins to try and get. I’d like that much better than 800 gems for a single use skin.

Or, what if you could actually outfit your home with useful stuff. The nodes are are decent start, but ugh how you get them.

Or, you can have a large number of skills that interact in different ways and make different builds viable. Or you can have 4 “prototypical” builds that ANet always keeps viable, and let people figure out their own weird optimized hybrids, instead of 1-2 viable builds per class. Of course, this may require a non-punishing way to change from Zerker to clerics.

tl;dr: Objectives are needed, they don’t have to be vertical

I’m not saying they have to be vertical. The comment I was responding to said there doesn’t have to be grind. That I disagree with 100%. Guild Wars 1 had grind. There’s got to be some grind.

Did Anet screw up the reward system in this game initially? Of course they did. There were too many easy things and too many hard things to get and nothing really in the middle.

The problem is, even if they gave away a precusor for the dungeon master title, people would still have to grind out the rest of it, and some people here are saying the game shouldn’t have any grind.

I don’t think that’s realistic.

I’ve said all along that precusors are too hard to get and that they shouldn’t have this huge RNG attached to them. But that has nothing to do with my response or what I was discussing.

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

there’s MASSIVE horizontal progression thread, which should keep devs busy for years.
and also in this “commentary” thread, many people proposed:
- no more tiers or infusions
- “democratic” methods to get ascended we already have, so that anyone can do what likes more and still get everything needed for the game
ie. good mats from the early levels, so that leveling alts is not a waste of time until 80.
ie. make crafting a choice, not obligatory.
- reduce the grind “feeling”, making everything you do ingame equally useful in progressing your char (just like exp, so that you res a npc or do hearts or do an event, nothing is a waste of time)
- cosmetic items, such as skins-mounts (etc, it’s discussed about elsewhere) instead of more powerful gear

i think there’s so much on anet’s table, that insisting on THAT kitten kind of gear VP is a huge demostration of anet’s greed and unwillingness.

Zeldain.5710:

Vayne.8563:

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

There are still people that play the game. The key to me is make more team based activities (raiding) for progression, instead of everyone clumping up and running around Queensdale with strangers.

Yes there are still people that play the game. Part of that is because Anet added grind. Before the Fractals were released, there were people leaving more. Fractals gave people something to do….all MMOs need to give people something to do.

To be sure there are people who can make their own fun and not be led around by the nose, but they’re not the bulk of the population. A lot of people need a clear path. They need busy-work. They need stuff to do in game…and that’s all they need.

I’m not talking about competitive people who’ll bang their head against Liadri or a hard raid for a few days. I’m talking about most people….again, the masses.

Most people never touched the hardest content in Guild Wars 1 either. There was plenty to do for people who wanted to run DOA or the Underworld, or Slavers. But there was also plenty of busy work for everyone else.

MMOs need a certain amount of grind. What it shouldn’t be is required grind.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Vayne.8563:

I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.

The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

While I agree with what you’re saying about some level of grind needed in any MMO, I do wonder with your last statement if that is a fact? I mean, we know games go through various stages of influx and people leaving, and also a lot of other things have happened besides just Ascended gear etc in the game since that November. How do we know it is the grind specifically that has added players to the game?

I know what I saw back in November, before Fractals came out. Yes it’s annecdotal, but Anet didn’t go against years of what they’d been saying just to kitten off their core fans. They had a reason.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the reason didn’t have something to do with people not playing.

What other reason could they have for putting ascended gear in the game, when they knew full well what the reaction would be (and they did know).

Vayne.8563:

Snip

Yeah, wasn’t meant to be hostile, sorry if it sounded that way. I’ve just been thinking a lot about progression recently (since the CDI stuff is up.) I don’t really have great ideas, just a sense the there must be something better than VP. So I was presenting some of the better ideas I’ve seen (to me)

I like flexibility and change more than I like progression. So time gated gear is terrible for me. Also, the introduction was so slow that it didn’t seem terrible.

I don’t blame ANet for the decisions they’ve made. I understand that experiences MMO players understood that they should have a “main” (the same way they all understand what “Unique” means). I didn’t understand it, and so, now I have many characters in exotic gear, a smattering of ascended stuff on each of them, no laurels banked, no guild commodation, and no real “plan” as to where to go from here.

So I’m waiting for the next game where I can have a fresh start and use the things I’ve learned here.

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

Snip

Yeah, wasn’t meant to be hostile, sorry if it sounded that way. I’ve just been thinking a lot about progression recently (since the CDI stuff is up.) I don’t really have great ideas, just a sense the there must be something better than VP. So I was presenting some of the better ideas I’ve seen (to me)

I like flexibility and change more than I like progression. So time gated gear is terrible for me. Also, the introduction was so slow that it didn’t seem terrible.

I don’t blame ANet for the decisions they’ve made. I understand that experiences MMO players understood that they should have a “main” (the same way they all understand what “Unique” means). I didn’t understand it, and so, now I have many characters in exotic gear, a smattering of ascended stuff on each of them, no laurels banked, no guild commodation, and no real “plan” as to where to go from here.

So I’m waiting for the next game where I can have a fresh start and use the things I’ve learned here.

I’m against vertical progression too. I don’t like it and never particularly wanted it to come to Guild Wars 2. Understanding why Anet did it doesn’t make it something I like.

I’d prefer horizontal progression, particularly more skills and builds.

After playing at least one of the new betas for one of the upcoming games, I’m sort of happy I basically like it here. Because I don’t think I can make that game work for me.

Vayne.8563:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Vayne.8563:

I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.

The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

While I agree with what you’re saying about some level of grind needed in any MMO, I do wonder with your last statement if that is a fact? I mean, we know games go through various stages of influx and people leaving, and also a lot of other things have happened besides just Ascended gear etc in the game since that November. How do we know it is the grind specifically that has added players to the game?

I know what I saw back in November, before Fractals came out. Yes it’s annecdotal, but Anet didn’t go against years of what they’d been saying just to kitten off their core fans. They had a reason.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the reason didn’t have something to do with people not playing.

What other reason could they have for putting ascended gear in the game, when they knew full well what the reaction would be (and they did know).

What I meant is, has that actually increased the number of players? I agree completely that a lack of things to do at end-game probably definitely contributed to the people leaving. I am just not sure if Ascended or added grind is attracting people. Maybe convincing some who might have left to stay on, but I certainly don’t think it’s attracting people.

Zeldain.5710:

imsoenthused.1634:

And what you are ignoring is that for many gamers, myself included, ascended armor is required by the the simple virtue of being BiS. So, again for me and gamers like me, the ony difference between ascended gear and grinding out those kurzick and luxon points is that getting the the points was something that didn’t take too long and that I enjoyed doing, while ascended gear takes way too long and I don’t enjoy doing it at all.

That really is your own personal play style choice though… what it comes to though, and why you’re frustrated – if you don’t like the game in the first place, then playing more of it to get your perceived “required” gear is going to feel even worse.

If you enjoy the game, and are simply playing more of it, then there should be no issue.

Yes, I admit that the frustration has a lot to with my psychology, but that’s why I had such high hopes for this game. I find it incredibly difficult to relax and just have fun without having BiS gear. No matter how viable my character might be, I don’t feel like they are “ready” until they do. Many Achiever style gamers feel this way. Some of them enjoy that progression, some of us don’t. I don’t, so I loved Guild Wars. I liked the fact that levels stopped at 20 and never went up with expansions. I liked the fact that BiS gear was ubiquitous.

There are lots of things I enjoy about GW2, but some of the changes since the first one, like increased level cap, the majority of the world map being low level areas, and BiS gear being extremely tedious and time consuming to attain just feel like a huge divergence from some of the things I loved the most about GW1.

I don’t state my complaints thinking that what we have now is going to get changed. I do it to let the devs know what I came in to this game expecting, and in the hopes that them know that somehow keeps it from sliding in to what I see as the wrong direction. I want to preserve what fun I am having(while madly scrambling to grind out ascended gear) from future changes.

Vayne.8563:

spiritus.7983:

Vayne.8563:

This is just a bad idea. Removing grind altogether will kill any MMO..

mmo = massively multiplayer online, not massively grinding online

indoctrinated ppl like you shoud go back to the everlasting chinese grinding games

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Sometimes when this is brought up (and don’t think this is the first MMO board this has been brought up on), someone suggests randomizing dungeons. But randomized dungeons aren’t scripted dungeons and you don’t end up with content people play anyway, because randomizing things like dungeons means a limited pool of creatures, tricks and traps, and the random elements get figured out and posted and people learn them and it’s the same thing. Scripted dungeons are better.

So since you think I should go back to where I was indoctrinated (which was mostly Guild Wars 1, btw), why not suggest a solution to the problem…because it is a problem.

You can’t have a MASSIVE multiplayer game without masses. And if everyone walks away…no masses.

All games have grinds. The key distinction around grinds is that there are optional grinds and there are non-optional grinds. Vertical progression, by definition, describes a non-optional grind. And, it’s called a treadmill for a reason. It doesn’t really take you anywhere; you get on and off at the same place. Horizontal progression, when well implemented describes a variety of optional grinds.

I played under vertical progression for years without really thinking about it. It actually wasn’t until I came into contact with ideas from GW1 that I started thinking about it. In my years playing WoW I saw my HP go from 10k to 500k, but nothing changed gameplay-wise. Mobs still took just as long to kill and I died just as quickly. Nothing had actually changed and I had a the emperor has no clothes moment. VP really wasn’t taking me anywhere progression-wise, it was just a forced exercise to keep me playing. And, herein lies the solution you asked for. When Anet saw players complaining about “nothing to do”, they should have recognized it as a teachable moment. I had come to GW2 precisely because it had superior ideas around character progression. Instead they immediately gave up superior ideas for inferior ones. I believe Anet should have at least attempted to educate the player base before succumbing to inferior ideas around character progression.

Vayne.8563:

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Like most MMO’s, GW2 launched before it was ready. There’s only one solution for that. However, some people did not have the patience to wait for ANet to get around to finishing stuff. PvE was in a much better state than either PvP or WvW, and those modes were supposed to constitute a big part of endgame. Given the many bugs in PvE at launch, that says a lot about how unfinished the other two game modes were. Features that probably should have been in PvP at launch (multiple game modes, ladders, etc.) are now being talked up as being added in 2014, more than 16 months after launch.

Adding VP was a quick and dirty fix, requiring relatively little in the way of developer resources. The only cosmetics needed initially were the back-pieces, which afaik don’t need the many iterations that armor requires for character race/sex. Weapons appeared months later, armor over a year later. The only calculations required involved determining the relation between Agony and resistance, and how much of a stat increase to provide (and it looks like that got scaled back later, because weapons and armor provide smaller percentage gains than trinkets). Ascended was for buying time.

And, yeah, no MMO is going to be grind-free, at least until developers can program things with the speed of thought.

Raine.1394:

I believe Anet should have at least attempted to educate the player base before succumbing to inferior ideas around character progression.

i think “superior/inferior” ideas is not correct.

of course, that of horizontal progression is the most desireable solution, requires a lot of work but can provide a better game experience.
and yes, vertical gear progression is a “apparent” growth of the character, because it’ s necessary just to be on a par with more powerful mobs.
and what is more, no VP was the very reason we’ve bought gw2 instead of any other clone mmo.

anet knows what has done, it was conscient, and sacrificed everything good there was in gw2. knows our complaints.
a reason or another, every choice has a price.
horiz progression maybe the hardest to realize, but relatively painless for everyone.
the “ascended” way? more grinders. less casuals. someone will leave the game.
but face the reality: if starts a treadmill, it’ll be a hard fight with wow and co.

it’s just a matter of time to make another step and see in what direction it is.
and i fear, not in the right one.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

So what’s your solution? This game launched with almost no grind and people left in droves. They left much faster than Anet expected them to (at least that seems to be the case).

Everyone wants to offer commentary, but no one proposes a solution.

Like most MMO’s, GW2 launched before it was ready. There’s only one solution for that. However, some people did not have the patience to wait for ANet to get around to finishing stuff. PvE was in a much better state than either PvP or WvW, and those modes were supposed to constitute a big part of endgame. Given the many bugs in PvE at launch, that says a lot about how unfinished the other two game modes were. Features that probably should have been in PvP at launch (multiple game modes, ladders, etc.) are now being talked up as being added in 2014, more than 16 months after launch.

Adding VP was a quick and dirty fix, requiring relatively little in the way of developer resources. The only cosmetics needed initially were the back-pieces, which afaik don’t need the many iterations that armor requires for character race/sex. Weapons appeared months later, armor over a year later. The only calculations required involved determining the relation between Agony and resistance, and how much of a stat increase to provide (and it looks like that got scaled back later, because weapons and armor provide smaller percentage gains than trinkets). Ascended was for buying time.

And, yeah, no MMO is going to be grind-free, at least until developers can program things with the speed of thought.

i do hope that ascended was really a “quick fix”, and the only fix of this kind.
but there is no clue if it’ll be the last…
my personal solution is uninstall, and wait if anything occurs to convince me to change idea. it’s a temporary measure, that could be reverted or become permanent.

and + 1,
some grind is almost necessary atm to keep people logged in, because every content need time. but not so much grind and so boring as anet asks us to do. and not for new gear.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

but…uhm.
is it….that kitten ed word?
how did you translate it?

Kevan.8912:

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

but…uhm.
is it….that kitten ed word?
how did you translate it?

It could be vertical… it could be horizontal…
Vertical is the easy way and you can find it in every other game on the market, if they still go with that good luck to them with those competitors and the new upcoming ones.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Vayne.8563:

I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.

The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.

While I agree with what you’re saying about some level of grind needed in any MMO, I do wonder with your last statement if that is a fact? I mean, we know games go through various stages of influx and people leaving, and also a lot of other things have happened besides just Ascended gear etc in the game since that November. How do we know it is the grind specifically that has added players to the game?

I’d argue he’s dead wrong on that, but that’s just in the group of people I personally know. Quite literally, hundreds of people I was playing with left, and haven’t come back. Some of them went back to GW1, more of them stopped playing any ANet product.

What they achieved was a blatant “kitten you” to the original fanbase – the people who funded gw2. I’m one of two people left who came to GW2 as a group of upwards of 500. That’s over 490 people who quit – the bulk of them (call it 350) the moment “gear grind” was introduced.

What happened wasn’t that we started retaining existing players – we started getting the wowgrindfanboi freaks, and people who bought the game with absolutely no idea about what it was advertised as. Even with that, there’s a huge retention problem – for every active person in my guild, there’s probably been 50 kicked for inactivity.

Raine.1394:

All games have grinds.

Sorry, going to be a pedant here, but it’s only because I see a lot off MMO gamers using the same quote.

MMOs are NOT “all games”.

Quake doesn’t have grind.
Doom doesn’t have grind.
Mario Galaxy doesn’t have grind.
Tetris doesn’t have grind.
Hell, there’s a lot of single-player RPGs out there that don’t even have grind.

Grind is a disease that’s particularly virulent in the MMO genre.
It really isn’t needed, but it’s one of the most basic tools in an MMO developer’s toolbox to ensure player retention. You know that eventually, players will exhaust all of your meaningful content, stop playing and therefore stop paying.

So you find artificial ways of extending the amount of time players are playing your game and therefore being exposed to your monetisation systems. Things like time-gated materials, equipment damage, achievement points, etc. All of these epitomise the idea of “grind”. Increasing a progress bar by repeating the same content continuously for a lengthy period of time. Thus ensuring that the developers have more time to sell you more crap.

My “ideal” would have been to leave the tutorial at lvl 80, in some seriously fugly gear with stats tied to traits/runes/accessories, not weapons or armour, rather like the PvP gear system, and have the rest of the game’s “VP” be purely finding skills, unlocking traits, and learning your class.

(Skills/traits were handled poorly, IMO. Skills should only be available from NPC’s spread over the world – elite skills being captured from bosses. Traits should be unlocked at the current Skill Point Challenge/Commune spots.)

All gear choices should have been cosmetic. The dev’s could then have focused on bugfixing, making actual content, and improving what we have for wvw/pvp.

Yeah, we probably wouldn’t have retained the people who need grind to feel happy about their game, but we’d have gotten the other end of the spectrum – people who truly want a game where skill trumps gear, and horizontal progression is the norm.

Mungrul.9358:

Raine.1394:

All games have grinds.

Sorry, going to be a pedant here, but it’s only because I see a lot off MMO gamers using the same quote.

MMOs are NOT “all games”.

Quake doesn’t have grind.
Doom doesn’t have grind.

Sure they do. It’s called the “how the heck do I beat this freaking level?!” quickload-die-quicksave waltzing. Repeating the same stuff over and over trying to get through it.

Mario Galaxy doesn’t have grind.

You must have X stars to reach the next level.

Tetris doesn’t have grind.

Depends, I’d say the whole game of Tetris is a pointless grindfest for a score or to relax.

Hell, there’s a lot of single-player RPGs out there that don’t even have grind.

Start naming them, because every single one of the ones I’ve played has had it in there somewhere. Even if for the peripheral bonus rewards.

So you find artificial ways of extending the amount of time players are playing your game and therefore being exposed to your monetisation systems. Things like time-gated materials, equipment damage, achievement points, etc. All of these epitomise the idea of “grind”. Increasing a progress bar by repeating the same content continuously for a lengthy period of time. Thus ensuring that the developers have more time to sell you more crap.

In the case of MMO’s its seated in two predicates:
- The Monthly Fee, where you are paying per month. When this gave way to “Free to Play” other options needed to exist, which is where you get things like “VIP Bypass”, where you pay a nominal amount per month to bypass cooldowns or the waiting game. Essentially, the game needs to make money . . . to pay the bills and the investors, or shut down . . . so they need to get as many Monthly Fees as they can.

- The Massively Multiplayer Need, because you need players playing in order for them to do some things which require multiple people. Can’t have 15-person raids if you can’t get 15 people interested in the raid. The smaller your at-the-moment userbase gets, the more likely things will not be utilized and the more likely people gravitate just to a small bit of what’s in your game. Increasing the chance they get bored and sign off for good one day.

An MMO without grind would have to solve these in development. They need both people playing and income to survive.

Tobias, I usually agree with your posts, but I think your definition of “Grind” has become incredibly distorted.
Come on, really, quicksave/quickload is a grind?
And even then, if you’re quicksaving and quickloading too much, you’re probably playing at a level beyond your ability.

But even then I don’t think you can equate it to grinding.
Grinding is mindlessly repeating the same activity hundreds or thousands of times for minimal reward. More often than not, that activity will be identical to the previous time you did it.

In a quicksave / quickload scenario, if you’re anything like me, you’re doing it because you’re approaching the scenario in different ways in order to perfect it. You’re not doing the same thing every time, you’re honing your technique, gradually narrowing down on the best way you can achieve a certain goal in a certain game.

Take a recent game for example: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
I’d played it on the PS3 before and gladly bought it when it came out on PC.
I played certain sections over and over again; not because it was making a progress bar go higher and pushing my power level higher. Because I wanted to master those sections, get through them without taking a hit. It wasn’t a grind, because I was learning the whole time, approaching things differently, experimenting, enjoying.
I didn’t find it a grind in the slightest.

But to refute your other attempted rebuttals (and I suspect you know you’re on shaky ground here):
Mario Galaxy and stars required to unlock levels.
Getting those stars involves a myriad of different activities. Indeed, you can’t get the same star twice, meaning every single one is different, therefore the very opposite of a grind.

RPGs with no grind:
I’ll go for the big one: Fallout.
Not Fallout 2, Tactics, Brotherhood, 3, or New Vegas.
The daddy: Fallout.
You grind in Fallout, you lose, as you have to achieve your objectives within a very tight time limit.

Or let’s go for Baldur’s Gate.
There’s really no opportunity to grind, as areas that you can revisit are rare and they don’t really re-populate with monsters. There are very few ways to grind in Baldur’s Gate, and your experience generally comes from fighting creatures in different places, exploring and talking to people.

Or how about Vampire Bloodlines?
Once a quest is completed, it’s gone, and usually the monsters, areas and NPCs associated with it. How do you grind there?

Deus Ex? Any of them? Tell me, where’s the grind?

Grind is running the champ train in Queensdale.
Running the ore veins in Orr.
World boss farming.
Invasion stopping.
Even repeating the same kitten jumping puzzle every day because you get a shiny at the end.

Anywhere where the variables and outcome are entirely predictable and easy allowing infinite repetition is where you’ll find grind.

Mungrul.9358:

Tobias, I usually agree with your posts, but I think your definition of “Grind” has become incredibly distorted.

Not my definition, just realigning it to what everyone tells me is a grind: any repeated part of a game I don’t find enjoyable anymore but instead tedious and frustrating.

Come on, really, quicksave/quickload is a grind?
And even then, if you’re quicksaving and quickloading too much, you’re probably playing at a level beyond your ability.

Tedious and frustrated.

But even then I don’t think you can equate it to grinding.
Grinding is mindlessly repeating the same activity hundreds or thousands of times for minimal reward. More often than not, that activity will be identical to the previous time you did it.

If you’ve seen the endings of Quake and Doom, “minimal reward” is really the definition of those endings

In a quicksave / quickload scenario, if you’re anything like me, you’re doing it because you’re approaching the scenario in different ways in order to perfect it. You’re not doing the same thing every time, you’re honing your technique, gradually narrowing down on the best way you can achieve a certain goal in a certain game.

Final battle of Quake 1 was more about timing that last teleporter exactly, and there was a high chance of needing to quickload if you failed.

But to refute your other attempted rebuttals (and I suspect you know you’re on shaky ground here):
Mario Galaxy and stars required to unlock levels.
Getting those stars involves a myriad of different activities. Indeed, you can’t get the same star twice, meaning every single one is different, therefore the very opposite of a grind.

Again, we go back to “tedious and not fun”, which is how I got to view particular levels. Especially the shadow races when you were Luigi.

Like I said though, I don’t truly subscribe to it but I’ve heard so many arguments about “X is grind” where I go “. . . but, that’s just playing the game . . .” I just gave up and gave in to using it that way. “Grind” has become synonymous for “things I don’t want to do but feel I have to” for a while now, and I just give up trying to stick a particular usage of “grind” to things.

RPGs with no grind:
I’ll go for the big one: Fallout.
Not Fallout 2, Tactics, Brotherhood, 3, or New Vegas.
The daddy: Fallout.
You grind in Fallout, you lose, as you have to achieve your objectives within a very tight time limit.

Never touched the Fallout series, but I do note I said the ones I played.

Grind is running the champ train in Queensdale.
Running the ore veins in Orr.
World boss farming.
Invasion stopping.
Even repeating the same kitten jumping puzzle every day because you get a shiny at the end.

The champ trains are incredibly boring, and I run them only when I just want to do something to kill time. Or kill things. The ore veins in Orr I find more fun than grind, especially given how vacant the place is many times. I consider it practice for avoiding combat I don’t want.

And none of this is really required anyway, it’s just doing something because you want something to do or you want to earn some shiny thing.

If I want to 100% Mario Galaxy, you better believe I’m going to call that “a grind for no reason”. (Still won’t beat Pokemon EV training.)

I did 100% Mario Galaxy, and while it was frustrating at times, I never saw it than other than a test of my skill at playing the game.
One of those blue coin challenges in particular drove me to the brink, but I’d never say it was grind.

And I saw the ending of Doom for the umpteenth time quite recently thankyouverymuch (20 years old and still kicking phenomenal amounts of tail, especially with Brutal Doom).
The play through both that and Doom 2 were refreshing blasts from a past when levels were abstract because designers realised it was the gameplay that counted and not the slavish recreation of reality.
:D

Mungrul.9358:

I did 100% Mario Galaxy, and while it was frustrating at times, I never saw it than other than a test of my skill at playing the game.
One of those blue coin challenges in particular drove me to the brink, but I’d never say it was grind.

Was it Luigi’s Blue Coins? That one made my roommate almost throw a controller.

And I saw the ending of Doom for the umpteenth time quite recently thankyouverymuch (20 years old and still kicking phenomenal amounts of tail, especially with Brutal Doom).
The play through both that and Doom 2 were refreshing blasts from a past when levels were abstract because designers realised it was the gameplay that counted and not the slavish recreation of reality.
:D

I’m not sure I’d hold up Doom as a pinnacle of gameplay, but that’s just me. It was technically impressive compared to some of the things but it’s overshadowed for me with Dark Forces and Duke Nukem 3D.

By the way, personal threshold of grind? In any non-RPG game it’s trying something over and over and over and over again trying to hope you manage to make the jump or kill the boss. The words normally used instead of “grind” are “quarter-muncher” because these are based on the idea of the arcade “get those kids’ quarters to keep playing” mentality.

Ghouls and Ghosts comes to mind as a game which went from fun to frustrating to “why am I playing this?” in about two hours.

RPGs, the “grind threshold” for me is “out of the X hours I have gameplay wise, how much of that was spent leveling up or gearing up to have the bare minimum to pass the next boss/dungeon/area?”.

Yeah, Luigi’s Blue Coins. The added extra slippiness to Luigi’s movement made things just the little bit harder, but that was enough to drive me to distraction.

You should really revisit Doom as well. While it may seem that other games have surpassed it, something has definitely been lost over the years.
And that shotgun is STILL the best in gaming.

But I’ll shut up now, as I’m in danger of dragging the topic severely off.

Needless to say, vertical progression and grind? Don’t like ‘em, and they’re a big part of the reason I’m not playing GW2 any more.

Mungrul.9358:

You should really revisit Doom as well. While it may seem that other games have surpassed it, something has definitely been lost over the years.
And that shotgun is STILL the best in gaming.

I have it still installed here (taps computer) and play it from time to time. Though like I said, I have other games of its ilk and era I prefer more. And more than current ones too.

But I’ll shut up now, as I’m in danger of dragging the topic severely off.

Needless to say, vertical progression and grind? Don’t like ‘em, and they’re a big part of the reason I’m not playing GW2 any more.

I don’t mind vertical progression.

Vertical progression married to a system where only roughly 10% of the population are going to have it thanks to drop rates, skill gates, or really odd processes? Yeah.

Similarly, I have an issue with grind when it is necessary to advance. When it is not necessary to advance and has limited bearing on character performance? It becomes something to do when I’ve done the rest.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

RPGs, the “grind threshold” for me is “out of the X hours I have gameplay wise, how much of that was spent leveling up or gearing up to have the bare minimum to pass the next boss/dungeon/area?”.

for me, grind is the time spent doing the same thing repetitively for…anything.
1000teq….or 50000silks…..or 1000000000000 dragonite ores.
or 500cof for the skins.
that repetitivity because of lack of new content, just a time/money sink.

i do not condemn it (not totally). i’m sure that creating so much gaming contents to keep people thousand hours always happy with brand new stuff is impossible.
a great story like that in bioshock infinite has a longevity of some dozen hours, not more…and needed years to be developed.

what i condemn is that cheap, sad, tricky way of doing it with gear treadmill/ “power” progression….making people a mindless zombie horde.

if anet wants to make people login for thousand hours, doing something to “distinguish among the masses of casuals”, just make it cosmetic. living story you’re discussing elsewhere. legendary we already have. new skins. elite mounts. elite pets for hunters.
new skills. reputation to get new factions’ skins.
a massive pair of boobs for your norn girl. a kittenty animation for a female elf.
a hot love story with a npc. (i’m horny tonight xD)
what you want.
anything is better than just AR and more stats. literally anything.

Kevan.8912:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

RPGs, the “grind threshold” for me is “out of the X hours I have gameplay wise, how much of that was spent leveling up or gearing up to have the bare minimum to pass the next boss/dungeon/area?”.

for me, grind is the time spent doing the same thing repetitively for…anything.
1000teq….or 50000silks…..or 1000000000000 dragonite ores.
or 500cof for the skins.
that repetitivity because of lack of new content, just a time/money sink.

Understand me when I say – I don’t mind that flavor of grind if and only if it’s not required to advance. As something left to do for extras I don’t need? Sure. I did play GW1 and subject myself to unholy grinds for titles because it was literally all I had left three years later.

That Sulfurous Wastes grind for Lightbringer . . . ugh . . .

what i condemn is that cheap, sad, tricky way of doing it with gear treadmill/ “power” progression….making people a mindless zombie horde.

Agreed. No to vertical progression which is chasing after the 1% of strength. Of course, I’ve always said no except in times when it was . . . again . . . all I had left to do.

anything is better than just AR and more stats. literally anything.

People would debate whether Scarlet’s mad little giggling crazy is better than that.

Mungrul.9358:

Raine.1394:

All games have grinds.

Sorry, going to be a pedant here, but it’s only because I see a lot off MMO gamers using the same quote.

MMOs are NOT “all games”.

Quake doesn’t have grind.
Doom doesn’t have grind.
Mario Galaxy doesn’t have grind.
Tetris doesn’t have grind.
Hell, there’s a lot of single-player RPGs out there that don’t even have grind.

Grind is a disease that’s particularly virulent in the MMO genre.
It really isn’t needed, but it’s one of the most basic tools in an MMO developer’s toolbox to ensure player retention. You know that eventually, players will exhaust all of your meaningful content, stop playing and therefore stop paying.

So you find artificial ways of extending the amount of time players are playing your game and therefore being exposed to your monetisation systems. Things like time-gated materials, equipment damage, achievement points, etc. All of these epitomise the idea of “grind”. Increasing a progress bar by repeating the same content continuously for a lengthy period of time. Thus ensuring that the developers have more time to sell you more crap.

I’m going to touch on this. I do agree that not ALL games have grinds. Not even all MMOs. I see a lot of people just short terming MMORPG into MMO. This bothers me. While a lot of MMOs are RPGS, not all of them are. It’s not MMOs that have grind, but RPGs. So that being said, you are right. None of the games you listed here have grinds. None of those were RPGs.

As for RPGs and grind, many, if not all RPGs have “grind”. Or what these forums seem to call it. When I first came into the term grind, it was literally being required to do the same thing hundreds of times to play content. Think clearing the same mobs for hours, upon hours, sometimes weeks in order to get one level. When people talk about Korean gridners THAT’S what they mean. So when people say GW2 is grindy, I laugh. So if we use this idea that grind is simply “repeating the same thing” then really basically every RPG is grindy.

Evelynddra.9265:

Think clearing the same mobs for hours, upon hours, sometimes weeks in order to get one level.

EverQuest, South Karana, the Aviak village farm. That’s what comes to mind. Or even “better”, how about faction work in Highhold Keep . . .

See also “Legendary Defender of Ascalon” in GW1.

When people talk about Korean gridners THAT’S what they mean. So when people say GW2 is grindy, I laugh.

Not a lot of people have played those games (or have much interest in them because of that fact) so those who didn’t don’t really understand the scope of what you’re talking about with this.

I kind of do, mostly this starts to become more evident on mobile platforms like iOS and Android. And a flash/Facebook game or two which get advertised on sidebars now and then and are really uncomfortably grind-oriented even if you’re “VIP/Premium Member”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Evelynddra.9265:

Think clearing the same mobs for hours, upon hours, sometimes weeks in order to get one level.

EverQuest, South Karana, the Aviak village farm. That’s what comes to mind. Or even “better”, how about faction work in Highhold Keep . . .

See also “Legendary Defender of Ascalon” in GW1.

When people talk about Korean gridners THAT’S what they mean. So when people say GW2 is grindy, I laugh.

Not a lot of people have played those games (or have much interest in them because of that fact) so those who didn’t don’t really understand the scope of what you’re talking about with this.

I kind of do, mostly this starts to become more evident on mobile platforms like iOS and Android. And a flash/Facebook game or two which get advertised on sidebars now and then and are really uncomfortably grind-oriented even if you’re “VIP/Premium Member”.

Which I get. I actually more or less enjoyed those games. I had lots of fun just killing things in Shaiya with a party. I’m actually a HUGE dungeon crawler fan, having played Baldurs Gate, the Champions games, and Titan Quest before I got into MMORPGs. It’s totally not for everyone which I get. It’s just people come screaming grind, but have no idea what it is. It’s now some watered-down version basically used to say “I don’t like doing this”. Not liking something is perfectly valid, but call it what it is.

Evelynddra.9265:

Which I get. I actually more or less enjoyed those games. I had lots of fun just killing things in Shaiya with a party. I’m actually a HUGE dungeon crawler fan, having played Baldurs Gate, the Champions games, and Titan Quest before I got into MMORPGs. It’s totally not for everyone which I get. It’s just people come screaming grind, but have no idea what it is. It’s now some watered-down version basically used to say “I don’t like doing this”. Not liking something is perfectly valid, but call it what it is.

It seems here to be more “this isn’t fun anymore, I’m repeating this too much”.

Evelynddra.9265:

It’s totally not for everyone which I get. It’s just people come screaming grind, but have no idea what it is. It’s now some watered-down version basically used to say “I don’t like doing this”. Not liking something is perfectly valid, but call it what it is.

well, evelynddra…
it is BOTH a “don’t like it” AND a “it’s a grind”.
i call it for what it is. GRIND.

and i don’t like it BECAUSE it’s a grind…and a grind for better gear.
i thought it was extremely clear from the OP.

Kevan.8912:

Evelynddra.9265:

It’s totally not for everyone which I get. It’s just people come screaming grind, but have no idea what it is. It’s now some watered-down version basically used to say “I don’t like doing this”. Not liking something is perfectly valid, but call it what it is.

well, evelynddra…
it is BOTH a “don’t like it” AND a “it’s a grind”.
i call it for what it is. GRIND.

and i don’t like it BECAUSE it’s a grind…and a grind for better gear.
i thought it was extremely clear from the OP.

Well Kevan, if you’re doing what you’d normally do and get all that mats you need from that, you’d not consider it a grind. So grind does become a matter of opinion.

I got ascended weapons and didn’t really grind at all. I have four of them, with no actual grinding. Naturally I could have had them faster, but I chose not to grind.

Vayne.8563:

Well Kevan, if you’re doing what you’d normally do and get all that mats you need from that, you’d not consider it a grind. So grind does become a matter of opinion.

I got ascended weapons and didn’t really grind at all. I have four of them, with no actual grinding. Naturally I could have had them faster, but I chose not to grind.

i used to play as I’d have played without ascended.
and I didn’t get any ascended. nor sufficient mats (and laurels,) required to craft them.
and also if i had that mats, i will never increase crafting skills to 500…
so, also if you don’t call it a grind, for me it would be a grind.

and, what is more…i think that ALSO for those who don’t feel it boring, it’s hard not to call it a grind.

Kevan.8912:

Vayne.8563:

Well Kevan, if you’re doing what you’d normally do and get all that mats you need from that, you’d not consider it a grind. So grind does become a matter of opinion.

I got ascended weapons and didn’t really grind at all. I have four of them, with no actual grinding. Naturally I could have had them faster, but I chose not to grind.

i used to play as I’d have played without ascended.
and I didn’t get any ascended. nor sufficient mats (and laurels,) required to craft them.
and also if i had that mats, i will never increase crafting skills to 500…
so, also if you don’t call it a grind, for me it would be a grind.

and, what is more…i think that ALSO for those who don’t feel it boring, it’s hard not to call it a grind.

Yes, I agree with you. For you it is a grind. But for some people it wasn’t a grind or didn’t feel like one. Particularly those who enjoy crafting, I would imagine, or people who stockpile lots of mats, because they’re pack rats.

In fact, a lot of people made a whole lot of money off their tendency to stockpile mats from this. I don’t hear many of those people complaining. lol