Guild Wars 2

it’s MORE of a grind.

“Hi we’re Anet and we believe that our game should have minimal or no grind so that everyone can enjoy it!

We believe that only tiny, marginal improvements on stats for some armor/weapons will mean that nobody will be barred from any gameplay. So yeah sure, go ahead and grind out ascended and legendary stuff, but if you can’t afford the time to do that – don’t worry! Nobody will bar you from dungeons/raids/PvE/guilds/team roaming just because you have slightly lower armor stats than them!"

“Also, you can’t enjoy the Elite Spec you basically bought HoT for because we’ve locked that behind a load of HP grind too! Oh, and you’ll have to do it aaaalll over again for each of the 8 other Elite Specs. Enjoy!”

Doesn’t matter how small the difference is, to MMO players better gear is better gear. And if you don’t have the best gear, you’re not gonna be included. Because Anet created such a huge grind gap between exotic and ascended stuff, the casuals are paying the price. I can’t comment on official stats, but I’d imagine there’s a not-insignificant number of casual players who are entirely put off particularly after the implementation of HoT, myself included. I guess this is just a non-casual-friendly game anymore and I should find something else. Fallout 4 seems pretty good.

Grind is optional

Have you played other games or are you just miming what others say?

In other games getting top tier gear usually takes just as long to get as ascended, and even if its slightly less work, pretty much all the other games will force you to do it all over again every few months or so.

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

In order simply to play through the story it is, let’s not even think about gearing for raiding or other end-game-like stuff.

In the total absence of pre-HOT questing (aka. ‘hearts’) the only way to get XP to unlock Masteries (let’s not even talk about how MPs are obtained) is grind the zone metas endlessly .. that’s as good a definition of ‘grinding’ as any.

I levelled a character to max in AION and got her the ‘legendary’ gear for that game. I’m starting to feel it wasn’t half as bad as HoT is turning out to be.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

I meant you don’t need to grind in order to advance in the game, mostly reffer to PvE, not a PvP expert but stats are standardized for everyone and all skills/traits auto unlocked to keep the gameplay fair, as of Raids FULL ascended gears are recommended (not required), yet you can craft them with mats you acquire basically everywhere, none requires extensive zone specific farms aka grinding. Rings, amulets, etc can be obtained with Laurels that now come free in huge amounts, etc… don’t mean to extend, just saying there’s different ways to get the stuff you need to progress in game.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

It’s relevant to the discussion because it’s not like grind in other MMOs. Now, I played Rift and if I wanted to do dungeons at all, I couldn’t do them in the equivalent of greens and rares. Once you got to max level, you needed certain special stats which you could only get from doing dungeons and hoping to get them as random drops. That was the only path available. If you didn’t get the drop, or if the piece dropped and someone rolled higher than you, you were pretty much screwed. You had to run that exact same content again.

The dungeons and even fractals until you get to the top top levels aren’t cut off from me for not grinding. I can do fractals casually in whatever I’m wearing. I can do dungeons casually in whatever I’m wearing.

Sure I can grind out a set of ascended gear. But I don’t have to. I can just casually go about my business, doing other stuff, and I’ll eventually have a set of ascended gear. What I don’t have to do is run the same dungeon over and over again for a chance of getting the gear I need to PROGRESS IN THE GAME.

That’s the key difference between Guild Wars 2 and most MMOs. If I don’t have BIS gear, I’m not very limited at all.

Bryzy.2719:

Because Anet created such a huge grind gap between exotic and ascended stuff, the casuals are paying the price.

The majority of players in any MMO tend to play solo, so most people likely don’t care about ascended at all. Regardless, anyone can casually obtain ascended armor by simply playing an hour a day for a few months and the other parts are easy to acquire, which is what you need most. Besides, the only place where ascended gear is actually required (high level fractals and likely later raids) isn’t really intended for casual play.

Bryzy.2719:

“Also, you can’t enjoy the Elite Spec you basically bought HoT for because we’ve locked that behind a load of HP grind too! Oh, and you’ll have to do it aaaalll over again for each of the 8 other Elite Specs. Enjoy!”

I know, right? They should have just increased the level cap to make it more obvious that you’re actually intended to play through the game.

Kraggy.4169:

In order simply to play through the story it is, let’s not even think about gearing for raiding or other end-game-like stuff.

Fractals were meant to appeal to those wanting that endgame grind. You can assume the same for raiding, considering that’s all it is in other MMOs.

Kraggy.4169:

In the total absence of pre-HOT questing (aka. ‘hearts’) the only way to get XP to unlock Masteries (let’s not even talk about how MPs are obtained) is grind the zone metas endlessly .. that’s as good a definition of ‘grinding’ as any.

Hearts were intended to trick players into playing the game. They only exist because they basically found that WoW players would skip through everything.

HoT masteries are trivial to acquire, especially considering that what you absolutely require is only the first few of them. If you actually play through all the content available, you should have no problems unlocking what you need as you progress. Playing through the adventures is easily ~700k XP a day or ~3 million XP your first time.

GW2 is not meant to be played like every other generic MMO, but rather like Skryim or Fallout. You’re meant to actually explore your way through the game. If you rush to Dulfy, you’re doing it wrong.

In terms of leveling 1-80. No it’s not that grindy.

However if you want to view mastries as level (which they are), then it’s pretty grindy.
Casually playing will get you nowhere in masteries. It’ll get you the necessities like poison lore, updraft etc, but getting the later levels in mastries is pretty bad.

But you know what? I don’t mind. It’s fine. Grinds for MMOs have to exist in some form.
What I DON’T like however is RNG grinding. Grinding that is solely dependent on pure luck, which HoT has far more of than the base game.

Sure, most of the RNG stuff is more “vanity” like the Leystone armour, but it doesn’t take away that RNG is one of the worst concepts for players in video games. RNG is only there to benefit the developer at the cost of player enjoyment.

Nothing like spending 60-90 minutes in places like Dragon Stand in hopes of getting a piece of leystone armor, only to get nothing, then desperately trying to get noxious pods to get it and still get nothing. Meanwhile some other person gets 3 pieces because… Luck.

Vayne.8563:

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

You do grind. Remember we had this discussion a year or so ago and talked about what you did. You told you did do a lot of things with guild-members. When asked what those things where, it turned out it where grindy things.

So you do grind, but define it as “doing things with guild-members.”

Btw, remember all our talk about grind and how I said it would be bad for the game, and that with an expansion people who they scared of before would come back and you would not want to have that grind with HoT because the release of HoT was very important.

Now HoT is here, and while Anet did try to make steps in the right direction (specific rewards for raids, precursor crafting, mats by mats) it also made steps in the wrong direction.

Now Lo And Behold.. many many threads of people complaining about the grind. I might have been right after all.

Of course you can say it’s optional (While I am pretty sure, the (type of) people calling it optional here now, back then considered what we now have with ascended gear and raids as required) but that does not matter to the people that feel the grind. Like I also said that.

But all those who say it’s optional are right. It is.. You can buy your way out most of it. And besides, the whole game is optional.

Anyway, as I said (over the last 2,5 years) people feel the grind (no matter if you feel it or not) and that is what matters. They are now (back) here and you don’t want to scare them away again.

Anet had a few more months to fix this if it does not want to scare those people away. Problem simply is that gold is still to important, for a big reason because of the gem-store.

I guess this is in a way my “Told you so” comment. Have said enough about it the last 2,5 year. Hope they finally manage to fix it.

Kayberz.5346:

Have you played other games or are you just miming what others say?

In other games getting top tier gear usually takes just as long to get as ascended,

No it doesn’t, it takes far less time in other games to get top tier gear and with less grind than ascended. The reason is ascended is the only top tier gear GW2 will ever have so they have to have it take a long time to get.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

I just want to reiterate this. I have played swtor and Wildstar and the grind in GW2 is worse than both those games.

I have played since the beta and head start over 3 years ago, pretty much every day for an average of about 2 hours a day. At no time have I grinded anything in this game. Just playing in core and HoT and having loads of fun with no grinding. Got loads of gold and stuff from just playing where I feel like playing. Doing what I feel like doing and changing my mind when I feel like it. No grinding at all. Oh wait did I mention I have not grinded at all? I just play and have a blast doing it. I am in the middle of doing all the new collections for the legendries’ and not even trying to do them, the parts just come from playing. I am also in process of doing Mawdry and Bolt from the old way of legendries’. I don’t care when I get them done as they are for me and no one else.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

You do grind. Remember we had this discussion a year or so ago and talked about what you did. You told you did do a lot of things with guild-members. When asked what those things where, it turned out it where grindy things.

So you do grind, but define it as “doing things with guild-members.”

Btw, remember all our talk about grind and how I said it would be bad for the game, and that with an expansion people who they scared of before would come back and you would not want to have that grind with HoT because the release of HoT was very important.

Now HoT is here, and while Anet did try to make steps in the right direction (specific rewards for raids, precursor crafting, mats by mats) it also made steps in the wrong direction.

Now Lo And Behold.. many many threads of people complaining about the grind. I might have been right after all.

Of course you can say it’s optional (While I am pretty sure, the (type of) people calling it optional here now, back then considered what we now have with ascended gear and raids as required) but that does not matter to the people that feel the grind. Like I also said that.

But all those who say it’s optional are right. It is.. You can buy your way out most of it. And besides, the whole game is optional.

Anyway, as I said (over the last 2,5 years) people feel the grind (no matter if you feel it or not) and that is what matters. They are now (back) here and you don’t want to scare them away again.

Anet had a few more months to fix this if it does not want to scare those people away. Problem simply is that gold is still to important, for a big reason because of the gem-store.

I guess this is in a way my “Told you so” comment. Have said enough about it the last 2,5 year. Hope they finally manage to fix it.

Grind to me, is defined as doing the same thing over and over to get a specific reward. Not a bunch of different stuff at different times with no reward in mind.

Grind has an implication.

So I play the game.

Leveling in this game isn’t a grind, because I can do virtually anything and level.

Masteries would be slightly more of a grind, but I’m still just playing the entire game in those areas.

I can get lost playing some of the adventures for fun. I’m playing for fun. That’s not grinding. It’s playing for fun. Do I get experience for it, sure, I do.

I can get lost doing events in the new zones, or exploring looking for stuff. Is that grinding? No.

But I’m getting stuff done as I do it.

And of course, helping people is repeating content, but I’m not repeating specific content.

Grinding has always had a definition in the past, which was killing mobs to level because there weren’t enough quests. That’s what it originally meant. It says so in Wikipedia even.

People keep shifting the bar with the definition of what grind is, but you know, its’ never once felt to me like I’m grinding because I’m PLAYING.

I’m not doing what I did in AIon where I ran out of quests and the only way to level was to kill the same three bosses over and over again, because there was nothing else I could do. That was grinding.

If I wanted grind out masteries, I could, by killiing spiders over and over again, but that would be a choice and it’s not what I’m doing.

In fact, I did choose to grind out some of the Tyrian masteries, by doing events in Orr this time. I didn’t have to. I CHOSE to grind.

But if I didn’t, I’d have gotten there without actually doing anything different than I normally do. So if you want it NOW you have to grind.

On the other hand, I don’t want things now. In fact, now that I have gotten all my Tyrian masteries, I sorta of regret grinding, because now, I have no use for the experience at all, I preferred it when I was progressing.

I think the problem here is that there’s a noun grind and a verb grind.

Saying something is grindy doesn’t mean I grind it anyway. I take my time and get stuff eventually. Or you can choose to grind.

But it is a choice.

Vayne.8563:

Grind to me, is defined as doing the same thing over and over to get a specific reward. Not a bunch of different stuff at different times with no reward in mind.

…………………….

Grinding has always had a definition in the past, which was killing mobs to level because there weren’t enough quests. That’s what it originally meant. It says so in Wikipedia even.

People keep shifting the bar with the definition of what grind is, but you know, its’ never once felt to me like I’m grinding because I’m PLAYING.

I want to take a small moment to address the points I’m quoting, if you don’t mind.

First of all, I took the time to look it up on Wikipedia. It says that is what it commonly meant, but not all. Here’s the link for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Now, that is indeed what it used to mean, back in the day. Back when that’s how the problem manifested, in those older games. But as games themselves change and improve, it’s only natural that the target of “what is a grind” should shift some as well. At least, I’d hope people’s views on games have changed over the years. If they haven’t, something is wrong.

I think a more general definition of “Grind” might be “An unenjoyable extended process engaged in strictly to advance towards a goal.” “Unenjoyable” is pretty subjective, however, so one person’s grind is another person’s enjoyable gameplay.

For someone that doesn’t like the personal story, but wants the rewards at the end, doing the personal story may be a grind. For someone new to the game that is only interested in raids, getting to level 80 may be a grind. For someone that loves playing with crafting systems in games, going out into the game world and clearing hearts to buy account bound materials and recipes may be a grind.

Grind is in the eye of the beholder. It’s in ANet’s best interests to keep the game from feeling grindy for as many people as possible, so long as it does not harm the game itself. Going by an outdated and set in stone definition of what “Grind” is would be a disservice to them and us as well.

Palador.2170:

Vayne.8563:

Grind to me, is defined as doing the same thing over and over to get a specific reward. Not a bunch of different stuff at different times with no reward in mind.

…………………….

Grinding has always had a definition in the past, which was killing mobs to level because there weren’t enough quests. That’s what it originally meant. It says so in Wikipedia even.

People keep shifting the bar with the definition of what grind is, but you know, its’ never once felt to me like I’m grinding because I’m PLAYING.

I want to take a small moment to address the points I’m quoting, if you don’t mind.

First of all, I took the time to look it up on Wikipedia. It says that is what it commonly meant, but not all. Here’s the link for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Now, that is indeed what it used to mean, back in the day. Back when that’s how the problem manifested, in those older games. But as games themselves change and improve, it’s only natural that the target of “what is a grind” should shift some as well. At least, I’d hope people’s views on games have changed over the years. If they haven’t, something is wrong.

I think a more general definition of “Grind” might be “An unenjoyable extended process engaged in strictly to advance towards a goal.” “Unenjoyable” is pretty subjective, however, so one person’s grind is another person’s enjoyable gameplay.

For someone that doesn’t like the personal story, but wants the rewards at the end, doing the personal story may be a grind. For someone new to the game that is only interested in raids, getting to level 80 may be a grind. For someone that loves playing with crafting systems in games, going out into the game world and clearing hearts to buy account bound materials and recipes may be a grind.

Grind is in the eye of the beholder. It’s in ANet’s best interests to keep the game from feeling grindy for as many people as possible, so long as it does not harm the game itself. Going by an outdated and set in stone definition of what “Grind” is would be a disservice to them and us as well.

Meaning and change in words isn’t always a good thing and in this sense, for this debate, it muddies the waters considerably.

The manifesto was made five years ago. The definition of long term players, people that have played since EQ lets say is dfferent from today.

So new guys come in and say there’s grind but odds are the devs have been playing games for longer. From their defintion, as they said it, there isn’t grind, because it’s optional.

They’ve now given us their definition and if we want to say there’s a different definition that’s fine. But quoting them when we now know that’s what they’re talking about is either disingenuous or uninformed.

The devs defined what they meant and by their definition there is very little grind in this game. By other defintions their might be, but now that they’ve defined it, it’s irrelevant to say my definition is different. Because they have defined it.

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

Nope. It’s not. Having to repeat the same event is. But since there are dozens and dozens of events, and adventures, and now a raid, and killing and gathering, you’d be incorrect.

The difference between grinding spiders, and doing events spread across four zones is myriad.

So, vayne. Let’s say there’s no grind in this game.

Then why do some people feel as if there is?

Vayne.8563:

Meaning and change in words isn’t always a good thing and in this sense, for this debate, it muddies the waters considerably.

The manifesto was made five years ago. The definition of long term players, people that have played since EQ lets say is dfferent from today.

So new guys come in and say there’s grind but odds are the devs have been playing games for longer. From their defintion, as they said it, there isn’t grind, because it’s optional.

They’ve now given us their definition and if we want to say there’s a different definition that’s fine. But quoting them when we now know that’s what they’re talking about is either disingenuous or uninformed.

The devs defined what they meant and by their definition there is very little grind in this game. By other defintions their might be, but now that they’ve defined it, it’s irrelevant to say my definition is different. Because they have defined it.

(Just to be clear, I used to play EQ. I soloed in that game, and not with a drood or necro ((never could get the hang of enjoying them)). I soloed mostly a Human Mage, an Iksar Monk, and a Vah Shir Beastmaster. All of them got to a point where I was losing EXP as fast as I gained it, but I kept trying. Trust me, I know old school grind…)

Now, first of all, it IS important to use the new meaning of the term. Why? Because it’s not “old school grind” that’s the problem. It’s “grind”. Old or new, it makes people unhappy. ANet needs to deal with it in whatever form it arrives in. They know people dislike grinding, calling it good to eliminate only one kind would be ridiculous.

Furthermore, it’s really the same old grind, with a coat of paint on it. Most events are still “kill the MOB”, they’re just a bit more organized now. Maybe it’s “kill all the MOBs that try to enter the area” or “kill all the MOBs that try to leave the area” or even “kill all the mobs before they kill the NPC”, but it’s still the heart of most events. Yes, events give a reward at the end, but the reward is balanced with the rewards of killing things. It’s basically EXP and rewards that could have come from the MOBs themselves, had they wanted it to. And what’s worse is that there’s a trend towards events where the MOBs give even less rewards, the event gives it instead. It’s the same grind, in a new package.

Imagine an English class where the teacher tells the students “I know you dislike reading multiple books for these classes, so I’ve done away with that.” Sounds like the students will be happy, right? But then the teacher says, “I’ve instead organized them into this single omnibus for ease of reading.” That’s not REALLY an improvement, is it?

(I may have drifted off point here, if so, sorry. Tired, and should have been asleep an hour ago. Hope what I said still gets the point across.)

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

Nope. It’s not. Having to repeat the same event is.

See you’re playing semantic games and using that as an excuse to be dismissive when in fact functionally it is a grind by the definition above, plus you’re factually wrong with regard to HOT.

The good thing is that the grind is optional, you don´t need it to progress your character or gear. But if you want something let´s say some loot from collections this game is grindy as kitten. And the worst thing is that even if you accept that, you can´t even grind if or when you want, because the stupid maps are empty with the exception of dragons stand. And even there you have to be quick at the beginning of the event that you find a populated map, good luck with the broken lfg “tool” or should i say lfg pain in the butt ? So working toward something feels more annoying than anything else, fun is something different.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

Thank god somebody gets this.

When your primary goal-based content is grindy, either it’s not optional (much like gearing up in treadmill games) or all of it is optional (including treadmill gearing in other games).

Here’s an example of how jacked the logic is that people use: In Rift (assuming the mechanics are still the same) there’s something called Instant Adventures, that are sort of like a variety show of open world repeatable quests. I could therefore look at Rift and say, “The gear grind is completely optional. You can play Adventures all day without having to grind anything.” Which would technically be true, but it misses the point; if you’re after the primary content in Rift (raids and treadmill gearing) then the grind is not optional.

Much like how in GW2, you can do open world events, or EotM, or heck, jumping puzzles, but if you’re after the primary goal-based content in GW2 (skins and end-game gear) then the grind is not optional.

Whether somebody considers these things optional depends on how much they care about the primary content in the game. How people walk around thinking that GW2’s primary content is not primary content simply because they don’t care that much about it is beyond me. It’s superimposing opinion into fact, is what it is.

I mean it isn’t that hard to figure out what 90% of the game goals are (it’s skins – and since the mini acc bound, minis to a lesser extent). WvW tournament tokens have skins amongst their rewards, high-end sPvP has skins amongst its rewards (Glorious Armor), raiding is (from what we’ve heard so far) going to lead to legendary armor, Tequatl, Jungle Wurm, Carapace Armor, Bladed Armor, Chak, Leyline… ascended and legendary gear are like the one clear instance where power effectiveness and desirable skins overlap. But outside of raids, which are relatively recent, the power aspect of legendary and ascended gear is barely noticeable or useful.

Hell, people call it Fashion Wars 2 for a reason. Sure, I’ll grant the deniers that GW2 has various content that is easy to access without heavy grinds and it’s got enough variety that if you ignore end-game goals then you can keep yourself busy pretty well. But if you’re after end-game goals, the grind really is just as bad or worse as many other games in the market. Some call it optional, but for many of us, no end-game goal means no reason to log in. So the grind is not optional for those of us who feel that way… it’s that or leave.

Meanwhile, Anet acts like its game has no treadmills, while putting out “optional” content that will take the average player (especially newer players, with no end in sight) more time to complete than games have existed for.

Zero Day.2594:

So, vayne. Let’s say there’s no grind in this game.

Then why do some people feel as if there is?

Hit the nail on the head.

You can’t argue with feeling, and I for one feel like this game – in certain aspects of progression – is a massive grind. It’s just disguised by how easily you can get to level 80.

If Anet wanted to avoid grind while still requiring tasks to be completed to achieve legendary weapons, armour, ascended gear and certain skins/items, why did they make it such a chore?

That brings me to the key point I want to make. I’d be happy to play and progress through content to achieve these things if that content progression was actually fun.

I don’t log in for more than an hour per night now, and that’s only to play a few pvp matches and maybe some WvW. But hey, who am I to say that other people don’t find that content progression fun? I find it difficult to believe but as I said, you can’t argue with feeling.

Grind is part of any MMO. From lvl1 to lvlmax. You grind your real life too. Grind money, grind your stupid farm, grind your girlfriend, grind your wife.

newbihack.7180:

Grind is part of any MMO. From lvl1 to lvlmax. You grind your real life too. Grind money, grind your stupid farm, grind your girlfriend, grind your wife.

LOL

So are you a married farmer with a mistress who works hard for his money?

In GW2 it doesn’t feel like a grind to get from 1-80 unless you’re having to do it over and over (which you don’t because of tomes thank God). That’s because you have the whole game to play through and can earn exp from pretty much anything, so you can pick and choose exactly what you want to do to level up. Unfortunately that’s not the case for progressing gear, and there are specific tasks and mind-numbing things you get pidgeon-holed into doing.

I don’t disagree with the real-life grind though. I’m sat typing this from my office while I should probably be doing some work. God I hate this job but gotta grind that money.

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

Actually, grind is highly subjective.

I think it’s quite acceptable to expect players to level up to 80 to complete the story and level up a few basic masteries to complete the HoT story. I think when it comes to gearing up exotic is fine on the basis that Raids and Fractals are very, very optional content, and that exotic gear is very easy and quick to obtain once you have reached level 80.

After that, grinding for skins…totally fine with that.

But you see, some people seem to have got it into their heads that even entering their bank card details to buy the game in the first case is grind. None of them ever stop and cancel their purchase on the basis of this, they all carry on and proceed to whine about grind for the rest of their days, but wont quit playing, because they need to justify (to themselves) the amount they spent on the game.

Bryzy.2719:

“Also, you can’t enjoy the Elite Spec you basically bought HoT for because we’ve locked that behind a load of HP grind too! Oh, and you’ll have to do it aaaalll over again for each of the 8 other Elite Specs. Enjoy!”

Seen people complaining about this before. As I said right at the start: grind is subjective. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for ArenaNet to expect you to work on your elite specialisation. They wanted to introduce further progression into the game and I think they achieved that well with a mixture of Elite Specs and Masteries. Personally wouldn’t change a thing about it. You would though, I know, because if it’s not right here, right now, it’s intolerable grind.

Tell me something. You seem to be in the camp of “I paid for this game so I could use the elite spec so I should just have it unlocked”. Would you also like them to unlock every skin, reward, story, waypoint, PvP rank, WvW rank and auto-complete every single achievement on your account when you buy it also so that you can just log in, maybe play the final instance of the story just to get a taste of it, then leave?

Perhaps there should be a legendary item seller who sells every legendary item for zero copper so you can just gear up how you want, load on any skin you want, and play that final story mission like a pro.

Nah, that would still be “too much grind”.

Bryzy.2719:

Fallout 4 seems pretty good.

I don’t know anything about Fallout 4. Is this a game that doesn’t require you to undertake any character progression or unlock anything? Is everything fully unlocked from the start so you don’t actually need to try?

I guess it must be like that. Off you go then..it sounds perfect!

@Sarie your entire post is one gigantic straw man argument. Nobody is asking for everything “straight away” so stop being ridiculous. In response, I’ll refer you to my post above:

Bryzy.2719:

-snip-

You can’t argue with feeling, and I for one feel like this game – in certain aspects of progression – is a massive grind. It’s just disguised by how easily you can get to level 80.

If Anet wanted to avoid grind while still requiring tasks to be completed to achieve legendary weapons, armour, ascended gear and certain skins/items, why did they make it such a chore?

That brings me to the key point I want to make. I’d be happy to play and progress through content to achieve these things if that content progression was actually fun.

I don’t log in for more than an hour per night now, and that’s only to play a few pvp matches and maybe some WvW. But hey, who am I to say that other people don’t find that content progression fun? I find it difficult to believe but as I said, you can’t argue with feeling.

I’ll be fast.

You never played a grindy game that wants to grind in order to access things.
YES in in GW2 you have to work A LITTLE in order to unlock the “must”: I mean, even for the exotics, you have to run some dungeons or earn some gold right? In order to be 80 you have to play a bit RIGHT?
Are those things a grind?
If your reply is yes then change game, MMOs are this, if you expect everything handed to you play an FPS, that’s not your cup of tea.

On your specific issue.
Elite spec are 250 friggin HP, like 25 in HoT or 250 in core tyria or a mix. kitten? is that a grind?

Challenging content. People ASKED for that, there’s the whole rest of the game that’s terribly casual, leave something to the guys that want to be challenged and that like to work for their goals.

The best argument I’ve read in these days is “hey I’m a casual but i want to work towards a totally non casual goal (Legendary Armor) but I can’t, it’s locked behind a non casual content (Raids)!!!”. SERIOUSLY GUYS?

Also for raid the only ascended you really need is Weapon and Trinkets and those are bloody easy to get, almost like an exotic. It’s not arenanet’s fault if people are so dumb to want full asc for raids. For example it has been proven you need something like 6k DPS on avg for your whole squad to beat Vale Guardian by enrage time. 6K.
Of course this depends on your skill and not on your +70 stat over exotic armor.

Final note, no i’m not whiteknightin, i’m just so much sick of those empty and useless threads. There’s plenty of space for every taste in GW2, is not that everything must appease everyone! I, for example, don’t play casual content, but i’m not demanding Anet to change it. Viceversa leave my challenging content as it is. THANKS.

Now, if you want to talk about bugs or systems that can be improved i’m all ears and Anet has much work to do in that regard, but please stop this “OMG GRIND” nonsense.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

You do grind. Remember we had this discussion a year or so ago and talked about what you did. You told you did do a lot of things with guild-members. When asked what those things where, it turned out it where grindy things.

So you do grind, but define it as “doing things with guild-members.”

Btw, remember all our talk about grind and how I said it would be bad for the game, and that with an expansion people who they scared of before would come back and you would not want to have that grind with HoT because the release of HoT was very important.

Now HoT is here, and while Anet did try to make steps in the right direction (specific rewards for raids, precursor crafting, mats by mats) it also made steps in the wrong direction.

Now Lo And Behold.. many many threads of people complaining about the grind. I might have been right after all.

Of course you can say it’s optional (While I am pretty sure, the (type of) people calling it optional here now, back then considered what we now have with ascended gear and raids as required) but that does not matter to the people that feel the grind. Like I also said that.

But all those who say it’s optional are right. It is.. You can buy your way out most of it. And besides, the whole game is optional.

Anyway, as I said (over the last 2,5 years) people feel the grind (no matter if you feel it or not) and that is what matters. They are now (back) here and you don’t want to scare them away again.

Anet had a few more months to fix this if it does not want to scare those people away. Problem simply is that gold is still to important, for a big reason because of the gem-store.

I guess this is in a way my “Told you so” comment. Have said enough about it the last 2,5 year. Hope they finally manage to fix it.

Grind to me, is defined as doing the same thing over and over to get a specific reward. Not a bunch of different stuff at different times with no reward in mind.

Grind has an implication.

So I play the game.

Leveling in this game isn’t a grind, because I can do virtually anything and level.

Masteries would be slightly more of a grind, but I’m still just playing the entire game in those areas.

I can get lost playing some of the adventures for fun. I’m playing for fun. That’s not grinding. It’s playing for fun. Do I get experience for it, sure, I do.

I can get lost doing events in the new zones, or exploring looking for stuff. Is that grinding? No.

But I’m getting stuff done as I do it.

And of course, helping people is repeating content, but I’m not repeating specific content.

Grinding has always had a definition in the past, which was killing mobs to level because there weren’t enough quests. That’s what it originally meant. It says so in Wikipedia even.

People keep shifting the bar with the definition of what grind is, but you know, its’ never once felt to me like I’m grinding because I’m PLAYING.

I’m not doing what I did in AIon where I ran out of quests and the only way to level was to kill the same three bosses over and over again, because there was nothing else I could do. That was grinding.

If I wanted grind out masteries, I could, by killiing spiders over and over again, but that would be a choice and it’s not what I’m doing.

In fact, I did choose to grind out some of the Tyrian masteries, by doing events in Orr this time. I didn’t have to. I CHOSE to grind.

But if I didn’t, I’d have gotten there without actually doing anything different than I normally do. So if you want it NOW you have to grind.

On the other hand, I don’t want things now. In fact, now that I have gotten all my Tyrian masteries, I sorta of regret grinding, because now, I have no use for the experience at all, I preferred it when I was progressing.

I think the problem here is that there’s a noun grind and a verb grind.

Saying something is grindy doesn’t mean I grind it anyway. I take my time and get stuff eventually. Or you can choose to grind.

But it is a choice.

That is the point isn’t it. You might not find it grindy or people might consider cosmetic grind optional and so not bad grind. All that is worthless if there are many people that do feel a grind (because of these things).

Btw, if you read the Wiki page you might have also noticed this sentence. “Some games, especially free-to-play games, allow players to bypass grinding by paying additional fees.”. As you know, I have always considered the cash-shop model (A focus on the cash-shop vs a focus on expansion like you see with a B2P model). As the main reason for much of the grind and why the game is so build around currency, mainly gold.

As you seem to be interested in what Wiki had to say, maybe you should also take that sentence into consideration and try to find out how that fits in GW2. Maybe you then understand what I have been trying to say all this time.

Personally I don’t mind some farming, but when everything (For me especially cosmetics!) becomes a grind for some currency I do find it a grind.

That is true for other people as well, but not for all. And then there is the nerf to dungeons meaning that those who happened to like doing dungeons might not have been bothered with the grind. But now that is nerved they also start to complain about grind.

It’s very simply really, when many items are locked behind some sort of currency (requiring a lot of that currency). You need to grind for that. That does not hurt you if: 1. You are not interested in those items / things / stats, 2. You happen to like doing the content that rewards the currency a lot or 3. You like to grind.

For you 2 seems to be the case. For those who did dungeons 2 was also the case until the nerve. For people purely interested in WvW or PvP 1 might be in place and for some other 3 is in place. But if none of these applies to you, you will find GW2 very grindy because everything is than behind a huge currency grind.

During the +- 3 years this system basically worked as a filter, filtering out most of the people where 1, 2 or 3 did not apply to. That was a problem as income did keep dropping. With the expansion They have now many new players, but also many where 1, 2 or 3 does not apply to meaning an increase in complains about the grind. The only problem is that at this problem Anet would not want to filter out those people again as they will not come back for the second expansion.

That is the problem, and that there are people that have no problem with the grind (Because 1, 2 or 3 does apply to them) is irrelevant.

It’s simple really, Put many rewards and unlocks behind (specific) content. You might say that is a grind.. but there is one place where this very clearly happened.. legendary armor. I did see people complain about a grind for ascended gear to be able to do raids. But I did not see complains about the grind for legendary armor.
I did not even see people complain about these TA Atherblade skins being a grind, only complaining that it was a way to low drop rate (This farm is by your definition a grind).
It shows, it’s not about you or I or anybody defines grind. It’s about what people feel.

It’s up to Anet to fix this problem before the filter starts working again. Imho that is within the first half year of the release of HoT.

All the discussion about if it is grindy or not, if it’s a choice or not, if it’s optional or not is useless. Many people do find it grindy and that is the problem.

Anyway, I have said enough about this for over 2,5 years. It’s now up to Anet. I will not keep wasting time trying to bring this problem to their attention.

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

Nope. It’s not. Having to repeat the same event is. But since there are dozens and dozens of events, and adventures, and now a raid, and killing and gathering, you’d be incorrect.

The difference between grinding spiders, and doing events spread across four zones is myriad.

Lol, you do understand that by this definition you also destroy the definition of grind you talked about before.. killing mobs… because you know.. there are many different mobs you could kill, all with their own mechanics and looks.

Same as with the events. Multiple events is not grind? Sure then multiple mobs is also not grind.

You successfully destroyed the definition of grind you were holding so strong on to yourself.

Let me try to clarify why people say this game isn’t very grindy:

About 2.5 years ago, after getting my first character to 80, I spent maybe 3 days running CoF to acquire my first exotic set for this character. This is the same set I’m running today. Essentially, I spent three days unlocking all of the content in the game for the next 2.5 years.

Compare this to WoW. The expansion releases and you re-level (~1-10 days depending on how much you play on average?). Then you run heroics for a while to get a full set of like rare/epic gear. Then you run the first raid for weeks for a full set of bis epic gear. Then a new raid comes out and you run that for weeks for a new set of bis gear. And then you do that again and again. This is the fairly standard model for MMOs that GW2 has avoided.

For the vast, vast majority of actual content in GW2 (so we’re talking combat here), ascended gear is not required. It’s not even required for raids (though I will admit that it does help). There is also a guarantee that once you’ve completed your ascended set, you will never need to craft a new set of better gear (especially with stat switching now available).

I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.

Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need. Is that content grindy? Of course. I worked on crafting The Bifrost for over a year before I finally got it, but my god did it feel great when I finally got it. I didn’t so much mind the “grind”. I put that in quotes because to me, the process didn’t really feel that grindy. Sure it took a long time, but I almost never found myself doing things I didn’t want to do in order to specifically acquire materials for its completion. (No repeated gathering, no event chain running, no dungeon farming, etc.) I sort of just did what I wanted, and the materials/gold came naturally. The most grindy part by far was acquiring The Legend which I bought from the trading post. But there are even solutions to that now with the new precursor collections. Yes, these collections take time to complete, but I’d argue that they are the opposite of a grind in that you’re playing lots of different parts of the game in order to get the objects you need – not just saying run the silverwastes chest farm for 11 hours a day to get a bunch of gold to buy the item.

You’re always going to have to work for the things you want in an MMO – that’s a given. Things like legendaries, nightfury, bioluminescence, etc. are in the game for people who want to have long-term goals and to work towards a big achievement. There are plenty of other shinies in the game you can work towards without nearly that much work. If you want the bigger shinies, but don’t want to put in the work, I don’t really know how I can help you. I know lots of people who decided very early on they would never build a legendary weapon, but instead set their sights on things like cheaper (<100g) weapon skins, nice dyes, mini pets, etc. which can be acquired much more quickly/with much less work.

I think I’d more understand the “this game is too grindy” argument if people felt like they were actually being gated from real content in the game, and not just specific appearances by the grind. (And yes, I understand that skins are a huge part of this game, but it’s not like you literally can’t have fun/play parts of the game if you don’t have a nice looking chest-plate or something. We don’t get everything exactly when we want it.)

softblackcarbon.1537:

Let me try to clarify why people say this game isn’t very grindy:

About 2.5 years ago, after getting my first character to 80, I spent maybe 3 days running CoF to acquire my first exotic set for this character. This is the same set I’m running today. Essentially, I spent three days unlocking all of the content in the game for the next 2.5 years.

Compare this to WoW. The expansion releases and you re-level (~1-10 days depending on how much you play on average?). Then you run heroics for a while to get a full set of like rare/epic gear. Then you run the first raid for weeks for a full set of bis epic gear. Then a new raid comes out and you run that for weeks for a new set of bis gear. And then you do that again and again. This is the fairly standard model for MMOs that GW2 has avoided.

For the vast, vast majority of actual content in GW2 (so we’re talking combat here), ascended gear is not required. It’s not even required for raids (though I will admit that it does help). There is also a guarantee that once you’ve completed your ascended set, you will never need to craft a new set of better gear (especially with stat switching now available).

I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.

Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need. Is that content grindy? Of course. I worked on crafting The Bifrost for over a year before I finally got it, but my god did it feel great when I finally got it. I didn’t so much mind the “grind”. I put that in quotes because to me, the process didn’t really feel that grindy. Sure it took a long time, but I almost never found myself doing things I didn’t want to do in order to specifically acquire materials for its completion. (No repeated gathering, no event chain running, no dungeon farming, etc.) I sort of just did what I wanted, and the materials/gold came naturally. The most grindy part by far was acquiring The Legend which I bought from the trading post. But there are even solutions to that now with the new precursor collections. Yes, these collections take time to complete, but I’d argue that they are the opposite of a grind in that you’re playing lots of different parts of the game in order to get the objects you need – not just saying run the silverwastes chest farm for 11 hours a day to get a bunch of gold to buy the item.

You’re always going to have to work for the things you want in an MMO – that’s a given. Things like legendaries, nightfury, bioluminescence, etc. are in the game for people who want to have long-term goals and to work towards a big achievement. There are plenty of other shinies in the game you can work towards without nearly that much work. If you want the bigger shinies, but don’t want to put in the work, I don’t really know how I can help you. I know lots of people who decided very early on they would never build a legendary weapon, but instead set their sights on things like cheaper (<100g) weapon skins, nice dyes, mini pets, etc. which can be acquired much more quickly/with much less work.

I think I’d more understand the “this game is too grindy” argument if people felt like they were actually being gated from real content in the game, and not just specific appearances by the grind. (And yes, I understand that skins are a huge part of this game, but it’s not like you literally can’t have fun/play parts of the game if you don’t have a nice looking chest-plate or something. We don’t get everything exactly when we want it.)

“I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.”

It’s not ‘whatever content you want’, for the future raids it is required (Anet said so, and that is also good, because if it’s doable with exotic it becomes too easy with full ascended), and it is required for higher level fractals.

But that is not very different from your WoW example. I did play that game mainly without doing any raids (I did not have interest in doing hard raids). I mainly was busy with crafting (engineering) and collecting fun items and skins (mini’s and hunter pets, mounts). For that I did not even have to really look at my armor. Whenever I got an item that had better stats I equipped that.

Maybe some items I was after would eventually get me into raids but because of the system they have in place I would be able to do that raid when it had become easier (because of the next expansion).

So I the minimum requirements for success (armor wise) in the content I wanted to tackle was very accessible. No grind in that whatsoever. Getting the items themselves sometimes did mean farming a mob, but the next item would send me on another quest so I was doing all different things all the time.

“Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need.” Not very grey. You do not need to play this game, you might want to. Just as you did not need to do raids in WoW while you might want to. So there is not a big difference between wanting to do a raid or wanting to get Bifrost. You could say.. Bifrost is an item and a Raid is content so that is different. True but the road towards getting Bifrost is content, and that can be fun content or grindy content. Also you should not look at it in perspective of 1 item, more as in.. You want cosmetics, because that is a more realistic scenario.

Currently I am mainly interested in the guild-hall stuff and raids. While I was always more about cosmetics (and there still are cosmetics I want), chasing them I simply do not consider fun in GW2 because it’s grindy. I found other things that I do like so I am still here, but the fact is that if people don’t find other things then they leave. No matter if somebody else consider it optional because they used to do raids in WoW, had to grind for that and considered that as required.

“The Bifrost for over a year before I finally got it, but my god did it feel great when I finally got it. I didn’t so much mind the “grind”. Sadly, because of the way it works in GW2 I do not even really have had that feeling a lot. Most items simply mean you spend a lot of gold, so you slowly see the gold increasing and then buy what you want. Then you buy it. That feels less rewarding, to me at least. The Legendary armor from raids might in fact give me that feeling as it requires you to beat content.

Bryzy.2719:

@Sarie your entire post is one gigantic straw man argument. Nobody is asking for everything “straight away” so stop being ridiculous. In response, I’ll refer you to my post above:

My post was meant to be ridiculous. Had a serious undertone though.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

Because of progression
In other games sometimes a grind is needed for you to progress
If you want to play wow now, raid its latest content, raid leaders will ask you for a legendary ring. If you don’t have it then no raid for you <———- Mandatory grind

In this game nope nothing like that

JVJD.4912:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

Because of progression
In other games sometimes a grind is needed for you to progress
If you want to play wow now, raid its latest content, raid leaders will ask you for a legendary ring. If you don’t have it then no raid for you <———- Mandatory grind

In this game nope nothing like that

Raiding WoW latest content is optional. So that’s not mandatory grind.

I think people are over estimating how long it takes to get gear in most MMOs. To get to raiding level can require, depending on the MMO, 1 day to 2 weeks worth of play, maybe 3 weeks. When I returned to WoW in WoD it took one day to get high enough item level to begin LFR raiding and some of the gear I got that day was the same item level as normal raid gear. In FFXIV it took me about two weeks to get enough gear to get into the raids before the expansion, and that was with the majority of my play time leveling crafting for kicks. I don’t think you can craft full ascended armor in 1 day, unless you are sitting on 1k gold right now. Which btw you could do in WoW and FFXIV, buy raid or crafting gear that’s raid level.

JVJD.4912:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

kuritsutian.2987:

Grind is optional

I never understood this response yet I hear it all the time.

Yes of course the grind is optional. This is a video game, the whole thing is optional. How is this relevant to the discussion?

The grind is optional in ALL MMO’s. You never have to grind if you don’t want to. But compared to the optional grind in other MMO’s GW2 has much more grind for a similar level of achievement.

At least based on my personal experience with SWG, SWTOR, WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WildStar and GW2.

Because of progression
In other games sometimes a grind is needed for you to progress
If you want to play wow now, raid its latest content, raid leaders will ask you for a legendary ring. If you don’t have it then no raid for you <———- Mandatory grind

In this game nope nothing like that

I don’t know how you can say that when literally every raid leader in GW2 is asking for full ascended gear which takes 10x longer to get than raid gear in WoW does.

Plus in WoW you can progress just by doing the story/zone quests. If they raise the level cap from 90→100 then the quests that level you from 90 to 100 also give you gear for leveling. I don’t think i’ve ever finished leveling in WoW without ending up in a full set of blue gear, letting me get into dungeons without an issue. 2-3 run throughs of each dungeon got me enough gear to do heroic dungeons. Then 2-3 run throughs of Heroic dungeons got me enough gear to get into raids. Steady easy progress, no grinding required. Compare that to GW2 where I need to collect 20,000 silk scraps to make a single armor set, or grind 1100g (over 100 hours of grinding) just to get into a raid.

GW2 after HoT is sure one of the grindiest MMORPGs out there.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

Nope. It’s not. Having to repeat the same event is. But since there are dozens and dozens of events, and adventures, and now a raid, and killing and gathering, you’d be incorrect.

The difference between grinding spiders, and doing events spread across four zones is myriad.

Lol, you do understand that by this definition you also destroy the definition of grind you talked about before.. killing mobs… because you know.. there are many different mobs you could kill, all with their own mechanics and looks.

Same as with the events. Multiple events is not grind? Sure then multiple mobs is also not grind.

You successfully destroyed the definition of grind you were holding so strong on to yourself.

You’re still not getting it, so I’ll say it again.

There are five day time event chains in VB. That’s a number of event chains that are all substantially different. There is night which has very similar events all over but lead to five different bosses. There are adventures which give you experience each day, and they’re very varied.

You can call it grind if you want, but you’d be wrong for the standard definition of what grind meant.

If you kill spiders or farmed CoF to grind up your masteries, that’s grind. 100% choice, but it’s grind.

But Anet greated four big zones to play in, and you can play in any of them, doing any of the things in those zones,. including gathering and now raids, and get experience for doing stuff in those zones.

You can call it grinding. But I’m doing different stuff all the time, in different places, with different bosses, different AI, different skills.

And my masteries go up pretty fast, using boosters particularly.

Coyote.7031:

I think people are over estimating how long it takes to get gear in most MMOs. To get to raiding level can require, depending on the MMO, 1 day to 2 weeks worth of play, maybe 3 weeks. When I returned to WoW in WoD it took one day to get high enough item level to begin LFR raiding and some of the gear I got that day was the same item level as normal raid gear. In FFXIV it took me about two weeks to get enough gear to get into the raids before the expansion, and that was with the majority of my play time leveling crafting for kicks. I don’t think you can craft full ascended armor in 1 day, unless you are sitting on 1k gold right now. Which btw you could do in WoW and FFXIV, buy raid or crafting gear that’s raid level.

Is that gear you picked up in a week BIS? Because thats what ascended gear is in GW2.

I see people make your false argument all the time, comparing the Exotics of other MMOS to the Ascended here. Why not compare apples to apples, how long does it take in WoW or FF14 to get all BIS gear?

MONTHS and a boatload of good RNG both from boss drops and rolls, typically only a single place to get that gear. You have to do both the old and new definition of grind for that gear. In FF14 before 3.2, <1% of the playerbase had ilvl210 gear. Wanna take bets on if more people in GW2 had BIS gear?
I didnt even mention the fact that as soon as they patch a new raid you have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. Thats right, all that grind both new and old, you get the pleasure of praying to RNGesus once more to get gear. Hop on that treadmill boys!!!

I get that you all want to hate this and call it grind wars or whatever but your arguments are just awful. You make these comparisons but dont actually think about them at all.

Devata.6589:

“I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.”

It’s not ‘whatever content you want’, for the future raids it is required (Anet said so, and that is also good, because if it’s doable with exotic it becomes too easy with full ascended), and it is required for higher level fractals.

I really highly doubt that Anet will be able to tune raids to the point where they are only possible if everyone in your group is wearing a full ascended armor set. Weapons and trinkets are much more important to have upgraded as they provide fairly significant stat boosts, but it’s just too hard to tune an encounter around the ~5% stat boost ascended armor provides.

Devata.6589:

But that is not very different from your WoW example. I did play that game mainly without doing any raids (I did not have interest in doing hard raids). I mainly was busy with crafting (engineering) and collecting fun items and skins (mini’s and hunter pets, mounts). For that I did not even have to really look at my armor. Whenever I got an item that had better stats I equipped that.

Maybe some items I was after would eventually get me into raids but because of the system they have in place I would be able to do that raid when it had become easier (because of the next expansion).

So I the minimum requirements for success (armor wise) in the content I wanted to tackle was very accessible. No grind in that whatsoever. Getting the items themselves sometimes did mean farming a mob, but the next item would send me on another quest so I was doing all different things all the time.

I think the whole point is that in WoW you actually wouldn’t be able to go directly into a raid without first grinding heroic dungeons for a bit as the iLvL you have from just leveling and playing in the open world is not high enough to even enter the queue for LRF. The point isn’t whether you have to grind for the content you want to play, but whether you have to grind in order to access any part of the entire game. In WoW you do. In GW2 you don’t. (Keep in mind, ‘access’ is different that ‘acquire’.)

Devata.6589:

“Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need.” Not very grey. You do not need to play this game, you might want to. Just as you did not need to do raids in WoW while you might want to. So there is not a big difference between wanting to do a raid or wanting to get Bifrost. You could say.. Bifrost is an item and a Raid is content so that is different. True but the road towards getting Bifrost is content, and that can be fun content or grindy content. Also you should not look at it in perspective of 1 item, more as in.. You want cosmetics, because that is a more realistic scenario.

Currently I am mainly interested in the guild-hall stuff and raids. While I was always more about cosmetics (and there still are cosmetics I want), chasing them I simply do not consider fun in GW2 because it’s grindy. I found other things that I do like so I am still here, but the fact is that if people don’t find other things then they leave. No matter if somebody else consider it optional because they used to do raids in WoW, had to grind for that and considered that as required.

I actually there there is a pretty large fundamental difference between wanting to do a raid and wanting to acquire the Bifrost. In WoW, if you do not have the appropriate iLvL gear, you are 100% not allowed to do the raid you want to. If you want to access that content, you must grind your iLvL in order to be allowed inside. If you want the Bifrost (which is purely cosmetic – no combat upgrades what-so-ever), you can start making progress on that literally whenever you want. I’m not saying that getting the Bifrost isn’t grindy – it unquestionably is. But the difference is that you’re not missing out on fun content in the game if you don’t have the Bifrost – you’re just missing something pretty (which again, can be fun for you – I <3 my Bifrost). Missing out on a raid though, well that’s actual content and something to do in the game. I don’t really consider staring at my Bifrost something to do. XD

I think you’ve figured it out though. If you don’t like the cosmetic grind (which I’m fully saying is literally everywhere in GW2), you either have to get over it and not do it, or you should probably find a different game which rewards cosmetics more easily. You can quite literally do anything you want in GW2 within a few days of starting a new account (depending obviously on how efficient you are) and the equipment you’re using will last you literally a lifetime. Eventually the cosmetics will come over time if you want them. In a game like WoW, the grind for content literally never ends (and I’m not necessarily saying that’s a bad thing – it’s just different).

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t know how you can say that when literally every raid leader in GW2 is asking for full ascended gear which takes 10x longer to get than raid gear in WoW does.

Plus in WoW you can progress just by doing the story/zone quests. If they raise the level cap from 90->100 then the quests that level you from 90 to 100 also give you gear for leveling. I don’t think i’ve ever finished leveling in WoW without ending up in a full set of blue gear, letting me get into dungeons without an issue. 2-3 run throughs of each dungeon got me enough gear to do heroic dungeons. Then 2-3 run throughs of Heroic dungeons got me enough gear to get into raids. Steady easy progress, no grinding required. Compare that to GW2 where I need to collect 20,000 silk scraps to make a single armor set, or grind 1100g (over 100 hours of grinding) just to get into a raid.

Not sure what raid groups you’re getting in, but my group has been downing bosses and we basically just ask that people are holding an ascended weapon and using ascended trinkets (and honestly, several people in our group for VG only had the ascended trinkets and we still beat it with over a minute left on the timer). We’re happy to take people not wearing full ascended armor sets, even for Gorseval who has the hardest dps checks of the bosses, because the stat difference from exotic to ascended armor is so small, it’s impossible to tune an encounter to account for that.

Plus, once you do acquire an ascended set, you never need to get a new set. Ever. What you described above with WoW is the exact definition of the gear grind that GW2 explicitly avoids. In WoW, you must do the same content multiple times in order to even be allowed into further content (you literally can’t queue for heroics or lfr raids without a certain iLvL in WoW). That’s the big difference.

nope. you re confusing grind, which actually is here, with gear treadmill…that is putting new items and trash what previously called the BiS gear.

the grind in gw2 exists and is a heavy one. for cosmetics. for ascended. titles. legendaries. masteries.

Kevan.8912:

nope. you re confusing grind, which actually is here, with gear treadmill…that is putting new items and trash what previously called the BiS gear.

the grind in gw2 exists and is a heavy one. for cosmetics. for ascended. titles. legendaries. masteries.

No one said grind didn’t exist. What most of us have been saying is grind isn’t required. In essence you can access well over 90% of the game without grinding anything, the exception being high level Fractals and now raids.

But you don’t need ascended gear to run around HoT because I have a lot of alts and most of them don’t have ascended gear at all, except for rings, which are easy to get.

In fact, ascended jewelry isn’t a grind at all.

So the question is, with ascended jewelry alone, what can’t you do in the game. High level fractals, and maybe raids.

Now compare this to other games. Without upgrading your gear you can’t compete in PvP, you can’t do new content, you can’t play the game. In most MMOs this is exacerbated by the lack of downleveling.

When I played RIft, I got to the point where I maxed out my planarite (open world currency from Rifts), there was nothing left to buy at all, and I couldn’t go back and replay earlier zones because nothing attacked me and I got nothing from killing there. That left me with dungeons and raids.

But I couldn’t do the top level stuff, because I required a certain specific stat that didn’t exist while I was leveling. I had to run the only dungeon I could that dropped loot with that specific stat, to get to the next dungeon to farm that for the loot to do the first raid because there was pretty much nothing else I could do.

This game I can still do jumping puzzles, I can still do events in lower level zones or Orr or Southsun. I can still do the world boss train. I can still do PvP or WvW or Edge of the Mists….and while doing that stuff, if I don’t spend gold and I gather as I go, I’ll eventually have enough materials to level crafting to 500 and make my ascended gear, without too much hassles.

People make it sound like it takes years. What really takes a long time is time gating…which actually slows down grind. You can grind as much as you want, but if you’re making it yourself, you can only make it so fast. So you have to grind less.

If you choose to buy the stuff from the TP, you mgiht feel like you have to grind gold, but only if you want it now.

However, unlike a game like Rift, you haven’t maxed out your open world currency, you can’t go anywhere, and you can farm in many many locations. Or just play the game and that stuff will come to you.

The grind is optional for 90% plus of the game.

Palador.2170:

Here’s the link for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Now, that is indeed what it used to mean, back in the day. Back when that’s how the problem manifested, in those older games.

The definition doesn’t match my point so I’m off to change it blah blah blah.

The only grind in HoT is the stuff you made yourself do, I got all the necessary Masteries without repeating a SINGLE event.

Coulter.2315:

Palador.2170:

Here’s the link for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Now, that is indeed what it used to mean, back in the day. Back when that’s how the problem manifested, in those older games.

The definition doesn’t match my point so I’m off to change it blah blah blah.

The only grind in HoT is the stuff you made yourself do, I got all the necessary Masteries without repeating a SINGLE event.

I’m interested to know if you can acquire all masteries without repetition, if not, how much is required to fulfil the mastery trees?