Guild Wars 2

Sicarius.4639:

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?

Almost certainly impossible, but then you can happily play the game without having any of the r5+.

I personally am 2mil exp from maxing all HoT masteries now, I did repeat things to get this far but nothing I didn’t want to do (just played what I wanted to).

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.

Are you old?

A person’s answer to this will change over their life. And if you asked the you from 10 or 20 years ago (assuming you’re old enough), there’s a good chance that they would say that the you of now IS old, even if the you of now would say you are not. Perspective and experience changes things.

Do you know why we didn’t consider “Dynamic Events” grind back when EQ was new? Because there was no such thing. Yes, we might have had a griffon appear in the commons (and get trained to the tunnel), but that was just a random MOB of higher power than most in that area. It wasn’t an event, just a random roll on a spawn chart.

Now we have dynamic events. We’ve had the chance to play with them, learn from them, and consider what they are. Only after all that can we decide if they too fall into “grind”.

Sicarius.4639:

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?

Masteries are designed to take quite a while to max out. So no, you definitely cannot get all the masteries in the game without repeating content. The point is that you don’t need to do the exact same small set of content in order to acquire them. (There are tons of different event chains and meta events to participate in that you could probably go for several days without doing the same one twice if you wanted – besides the large-scale metas of course.)

Palador.2170:

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.

Are you old?

A person’s answer to this will change over their life. And if you asked the you from 10 or 20 years ago (assuming you’re old enough), there’s a good chance that they would say that the you of now IS old, even if the you of now would say you are not. Perspective and experience changes things.

Do you know why we didn’t consider “Dynamic Events” grind back when EQ was new? Because there was no such thing. Yes, we might have had a griffon appear in the commons (and get trained to the tunnel), but that was just a random MOB of higher power than most in that area. It wasn’t an event, just a random roll on a spawn chart.

Now we have dynamic events. We’ve had the chance to play with them, learn from them, and consider what they are. Only after all that can we decide if they too fall into “grind”.

So your first paragraph said “people can consider those who are 20 yrs older than themselves as ‘old’ but tend not to think the same of those the same age” <- I have no idea why you wrote this. I am not old (but as we’ve just discussed this means nothing).

You being too inexperienced to recognise grind in EQ (be it age or just that MMP was new for everyone and exploiting it hadn’t become common knowledge) doesn’t change anything. If that random roll griffon had been in today’s world there would be a “best griffon spawn” page on dulfy by now with hordes of them being tagged by farmers 24/7 (assuming it dropped something fancy).

HoT does not require any grinding to get full Elite Spec or all required masteries for story. Any that people are doing is purely self inflicted.

Coulter, you seem to be missing my point, somehow. I’m not sure if the fault lies with you or me, but there’s little point in trying to argue through such a communication failure.

Suffice it to say that it looks like you and I are having two different discussions, and so I’m going to just step away from it. My apologies.

softblackcarbon.1537:

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.

From the perspective of the player there is no difference. The person who wants to the raid will in one case need to go to a grind. The person who wants to get Bifrost will also need to grind.. the process of getting it is mainly grind.

The person who does not want to raid, and the person who does not want Bifrost will not care for that grind.

The question if the game makes it a ‘hard’ grind (the raid where you can’t enter without x) or a soft grind (you can enter but not succeed) is then not relevant. And in this case the Bifrost is even worse, because with the raid after the grind at least you have game-play. With Bifrost, the ‘game-play’ of getting the Bifrost is grind.

The last they did try to fix with precursor crafting, while looking at the forums it’s still grind. Anyway, it’s still true for most other cosmetics.

So depending on the players perspective there is no difference. You want to do raids and to do it (or to succeed in it) you need to grind, you dislike that just as much, as the player who is after cosmetics and the process of getting them is just all grind.

I remember people making fun of raiders and say “people only raid for shiny gear, they just want to look cool in town”.

I never believe it is true until I start playing this game. I always thought people want better gear to do harder raid.

There’s a definitive disconnect between what players are determining as a grind. I am of the category that looks back at old MMOs and remembers the gruesome monotony of having to farm a single type of mob or worse, a particular named mob for a RNG drop to get something required for content. That is what a Grind is. And Grind, in MMO speak, carries extremely bad consequences for the game. That’s why there’s such an opposition to it, because those of us who know what the original Grind in MMOs was are painfully aware what happens when that kind of news spreads, MMO players hate Grind overall.

That being said, I can agree that at the very worst the content is repetitive. That’s different, as although you are repeating most of the same stuff over and over again, you aren’t actually doing something singular, you are mixing it up. The Maps in HoT are just too massive to have you do everything in a few hours, you are doing something on the map that might be different each day, and it is progress towards your goal. That can never be called a grind.

Furthermore, Vayne is correct, the…I suppose true End-game content from Raids and Fractals carry a pseudo-gate on what gear you are wearing to succeed. I actually dislike the idea of Fractals more just because Agony is a thing, but given all the other content in the game right now, these two facets make an extreme minority of it all. Lastly, with Ascended/Legendary being the literal best-slot stat-wise, once you reach/craft/earn what you want for those stats (given Arenanet actually doesn’t add another Tier and break everyone’s hearts including my own) you are set for now and the future of GW2. The satisfaction of knowing my current Ascended Gear Set will never get outdated is beyond that which WoW or FF14 can pull off. Because that’s always a trendmill, you are never the best for long.

Vayne.8563:

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

Frankly, I’m not sure how this is still being argued. This is one of those dead horse arguments that keeps coming back like a horde of zombies.

Let’s see if I can sum this up in brief:

• 1: Whether you view the grinds in GW2 as optional depends almost entirely on how you play the game. If you enjoy virtually all of the content and enjoy changing it up all the time for variety, then yes, in most cases, you can avoid the heck out of the technical definition of “grind” (repetition).

• 2: If you play the game for a particular type of content primarily, whether it be open world events, Raids, EotM, WvW, PvP, etc… it’s all but guaranteed that there will be a grind, you will notice it, you won’t be able to avoid it (unless you break away and do content you’re not interested in for variety) and it will fit the technical definition of “grind” (repetition).

I don’t think I can make it much simpler than that.

When people like yourself say “the grind is optional for 90% plus of the game,” what they are saying is basically this: “The primary way in which I get enjoyment out of the game happens to be something that allows me to avoid most repetition and time blocks.” That doesn’t mean that, objectively, 90% of grinding in the game is avoidable. It means that for your playstyle, and others like it, 90% of grinding in the game is avoidable.

They are two different things.

Perhaps people would better understand each other is they used the phrase “time consuming.” This game is filled to the brim with massively time-consuming goals. I mean, I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen someone talking about taking a year to get a legendary, as if it’s this totally normal thing. And in fairness, yeah… it is totally normal in GW2 to spend an enormous amount of time to get a single item.

I think we can all agree, at least, on the factual nature of that – that the game is chock full of extremely time-consuming goals. In theory, this is a good thing, as it means people will never run out of stuff to do. But when it goes too far, for the wrong demographic, it can be overwhelming, off-putting, and quickly lead to burnout.

Sykper.6583:

There’s a definitive disconnect between what players are determining as a grind. I am of the category that looks back at old MMOs and remembers the gruesome monotony of having to farm a single type of mob or worse, a particular named mob for a RNG drop to get something required for content. *That is what a Grind is.

If the RNG is not to bad, or their are enough of those, and it’s mixed in with other ways to get other items you want or like I don’t find it as bad as grinding gold.

At least, today you are farming that named mob, tomorrow you are doing a dungeon, the day after you are doing a quest, the day after going for a specific boss.

You are always on your way.

Now when 90% of the items require you to grind gold, that is worse. While theoretically you can earn gold anywhere, there are mostly a few places to best get your gold. So today you are doing that for the item you want today, tomorrow you are doing the same, but for the next item, the day after you are doing the same but yet for another items and the day after that again.

I rather have a few specific items locked behind a specific named mob, then having nearly all items locked behind gold.

And then this is the worse case scenario, because indeed having it behind a named mob is the less interesting of the type of reward you would find in those games. However the items locked behind quests, dungeons, raids, crafting and bosses are much more interesting.

It’s however this mix that makes it fun.

65,000,000 xp to max out mastery’s and theirs a lot of repeating ie grind.the hard part is getting those last mastery few points from adventures.

This game has a massive gear grind for ascended armor and that´s why I´m leaving.

Not paying $80 just so that I can convert gems to gold and buy ascended armor. Not doing chest farming for 100+ hours either just to get geared for a raid.

Devata.6589:

Sykper.6583:

There’s a definitive disconnect between what players are determining as a grind. I am of the category that looks back at old MMOs and remembers the gruesome monotony of having to farm a single type of mob or worse, a particular named mob for a RNG drop to get something required for content. *That is what a Grind is.

If the RNG is not to bad, or their are enough of those, and it’s mixed in with other ways to get other items you want or like I don’t find it as bad as grinding gold.

At least, today you are farming that named mob, tomorrow you are doing a dungeon, the day after you are doing a quest, the day after going for a specific boss.

You are always on your way.

Now when 90% of the items require you to grind gold, that is worse. While theoretically you can earn gold anywhere, there are mostly a few places to best get your gold. So today you are doing that for the item you want today, tomorrow you are doing the same, but for the next item, the day after you are doing the same but yet for another items and the day after that again.

I rather have a few specific items locked behind a specific named mob, then having nearly all items locked behind gold.

And then this is the worse case scenario, because indeed having it behind a named mob is the less interesting of the type of reward you would find in those games. However the items locked behind quests, dungeons, raids, crafting and bosses are much more interesting.

It’s however this mix that makes it fun.

I can agree, we’ve had a massive gold-reliant only system of earning things for so long, that people are mistaking items that require certain collections as being too much of a grind when before HoT, they were literally doing Silverwastes and Dungeons everyday.

Personally, I think one of the best things to come from HoT were the collection specific items, more importantly the Ascended Specialization Weapons. Those weapons are extremely close or what I like to see future installments of ‘prestige’ items be balanced around. The gold sink isn’t too intense, there’s an investment from the player to go do much of the HoT content, and that kind of item isn’t required to do any of it, but it carries value regardless. I prefer that system to either a Gold-Extreme, or a full time-investment in a series of 1000+ token items.

displacedTitan.6897:

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.

It takes players months to get ascended gear, maybe longer. And hundreds of mats. It’s time gated behind laurels and mats. A three year old account won’t care about laurels, but a new player will quickly get locked behind this step, unlike other MMOs where the biggest challenge is just playing catch up. In GW2 you have to catch up, and wait. Ascended is BiS. So sure it could take months of raiding to get BiS, but it’s the same for ascended in GW2, only ascended takes a lot more work than raiding a few nights a week, which many find fun anyway. What fun about gathering 10k silk scraps? And let’s not forget the meta change which means many people have to either stat change their current set or get a new set of gear with desired stats like Sinister and Vipers for meta.

Vayne.8563:

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.

So rotating events in GW2 is playing the game but rotating dungeons in other MMOs is a grind?

Edit: I don’t consider GW2 grindy at all. I’ve done the miragent quest ( several times) in Aion back to 1.9 and the relic weapon in FF14 and even legendaries in GW2 aren’t that grindy. But I don’t understand how rotating the same 11111 events is actualy different than rotating dungeons in other games ( FF14 for example has a token system similar to GW2, so your gear is guaranted).

Nausicca.6038:

Vayne.8563:

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.

So rotating events in GW2 is playing the game but rotating dungeons in other MMOs is a grind?

Edit: I don’t consider GW2 grindy at all. I’ve done the miragent quest ( several times) in Aion back to 1.9 and the relic weapon in FF14 and even legendaries in GW2 aren’t that grindy. But I don’t understand how rotating the same 11111 events is actualy different than rotating dungeons in other games ( FF14 for example has a token system similar to GW2, so your gear is guaranted).

In other MMOs, the ones I played anyway, you don’t rotate dungeons to get gear. You only get the new gear in the new dungeons. It’s a very linear progression path.

It’s like the old dungeons in WOW. You don’t play them to get current gear. Most old dungeons in most games were abandoned, because level scaling doesn’t exist. You play the new stuff, you get the new gear.

Can a person in core Tyria get ascended gear without raiding? Sure they can.

So it’s different in this game.

When I played Rift, the progression was massively linear for BIS gear. Here, I can do pretty much anywhere to work on it.

Vayne.8563:

In other MMOs, the ones I played anyway, you don’t rotate dungeons to get gear. You only get the new gear in the new dungeons. It’s a very linear progression path.

It’s like the old dungeons in WOW. You don’t play them to get current gear. Most old dungeons in most games were abandoned, because level scaling doesn’t exist. You play the new stuff, you get the new gear.

Can a person in core Tyria get ascended gear without raiding? Sure they can.

So it’s different in this game.

When I played Rift, the progression was massively linear for BIS gear. Here, I can do pretty much anywhere to work on it.

You should give FF14 a try then. Old dungeons are part of the daily roulette ( you’re scaled to the dungeon level, which help new players to find groups for their low level content). Dungeons give 2 kind of tokens. One is unlimited and similar to the GW2 system. The other one is time gated and help you get your raid entry gear. You don’t have to make it like in GW2, you just need to play dungeons, get your two kind of tokens and you get your raid gear after a while.
You can get additional tokens with hunts ( open world pve), beast tribes dailies, casual raids ( 24 players), primals and pvp arenas. Yes even pvp arenas gives you pve tokens.
You can craft your gear as well, but it’s really expensive to slot materia, so it’s not for the casual gamer.

As you can see, GW2 isn’t unique at all.

Edit: For me, the biggest problem of GW2 pve is the stacking spam 1111 zerker meta. It’s boring, and has no real diversity. And unfortunatly, when you’re doing a boring task, it could feel like grinding ( and you’ll find this in any MMO, FF14 with its huge content has the same complains as GW2).

Vayne.8563:

In other MMOs, the ones I played anyway, you don’t rotate dungeons to get gear. You only get the new gear in the new dungeons. It’s a very linear progression path.

It’s like the old dungeons in WOW. You don’t play them to get current gear. Most old dungeons in most games were abandoned, because level scaling doesn’t exist. You play the new stuff, you get the new gear.

Can a person in core Tyria get ascended gear without raiding? Sure they can.

So it’s different in this game.

When I played Rift, the progression was massively linear for BIS gear. Here, I can do pretty much anywhere to work on it.

You describe Rift like you only played the first 3-4 months. You act like there are not other things to do in every MMO, but that GW2 is the only one that does offer these other things.

Rift has Achievements, Dungeons, PvP, etc, etc. When Rift went F2P they added Gear to the store that you could buy to begin raiding (if you desired). They also added multiple other ways to obtain and then to upgrade that gear without ever setting foot in a raid.

So I fail to see how your point means anything when it takes a snapshot of a game (from a historical time period that you played it) and compares it to GW2’s current state.

If you want to compare GW2 to Rift, do it as they both sit right now. I played GW from launch (still play). I pre-ordered GW2 and Hot. I have been a subscriber to Rift since launch. SWTOR as well. These 3 games were all launched relatively close together (about a 15 month spread). GW2 was the last launched, had the most promise and is currently the only one of the 3, that I think is in a worse state now, than at launch. From the looks of GW2 forums these days, most others agree as well.

People are really self enforced those grind.

For example if you never enjoy HoT zones, why are you even grinding those mastery.

You can even take the example to WoW. Why are people even grinding raid gear if they don’t like raid. Just wait for a year for the expansion and you can get better gear by doing a simple quest.

The thing about GW2 is mostly once you have the ascended gear you don’t need to do it again. I quit this game a bunch of time, and every time I get back I’m already good to go.

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, 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.

I can actually get top tier gear in wow in about 1 week a full set of 710 gear. It’s actually quite easy to do. This game haha it takes quite a while to get full ascended endless hours of grinding. Imagine if you could only play 12 hours a week, how long would it take to get full ascended gear and weapons for the raid?? I am betting about 8 months or longer minus the trinkets and rings from the laurel vendor which still takes time to build the laurels up.

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.

Yeah, like I said, killing mobs…

by the thousands…tens of thousands…hundreds of thousands…

Nausicca.6038:

Vayne.8563:

In other MMOs, the ones I played anyway, you don’t rotate dungeons to get gear. You only get the new gear in the new dungeons. It’s a very linear progression path.

It’s like the old dungeons in WOW. You don’t play them to get current gear. Most old dungeons in most games were abandoned, because level scaling doesn’t exist. You play the new stuff, you get the new gear.

Can a person in core Tyria get ascended gear without raiding? Sure they can.

So it’s different in this game.

When I played Rift, the progression was massively linear for BIS gear. Here, I can do pretty much anywhere to work on it.

You should give FF14 a try then. Old dungeons are part of the daily roulette ( you’re scaled to the dungeon level, which help new players to find groups for their low level content). Dungeons give 2 kind of tokens. One is unlimited and similar to the GW2 system. The other one is time gated and help you get your raid entry gear. You don’t have to make it like in GW2, you just need to play dungeons, get your two kind of tokens and you get your raid gear after a while.
You can get additional tokens with hunts ( open world pve), beast tribes dailies, casual raids ( 24 players), primals and pvp arenas. Yes even pvp arenas gives you pve tokens.
You can craft your gear as well, but it’s really expensive to slot materia, so it’s not for the casual gamer.

As you can see, GW2 isn’t unique at all.

Edit: For me, the biggest problem of GW2 pve is the stacking spam 1111 zerker meta. It’s boring, and has no real diversity. And unfortunatly, when you’re doing a boring task, it could feel like grinding ( and you’ll find this in any MMO, FF14 with its huge content has the same complains as GW2).

Guild Wars 2 is unique, but not for the reasons you say. Just because a game has something another game does, doesn’t mean it’s not unique.

There’s a combination of things that guild wars 2 has in open world PvE that makes it unique. For example, the combination of no kill stealing, no node stealing, and the lack of linear questing, combined iwth everyone being able to rez everyone. It makes most of the PvE experience nicely cooperative.

That’s what makes it unique. I tried FF XIV and the grind to level there was crap. The quests were boring, and you did them in order. I gave up on those games long ago.

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

“Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone.” What I said basically comes to the expansion has to be a solution to the problems (like the grind) that already existed. Many people who come back do in fact hope for that (again, see that show I linked). If it then turns out it’s grindy again many will leave again and you don’t get the more stable player-base Anet needed. And with more stable I mean losing the ever decrease GW2 had before the announcement.

You might not have a problem with it, but frankly you have mainly been defending the game the last 3 year. It’s very nice that you like it, but fact is that during those 3 years the income did keep decreasing and that would have become a problem. You can defend the game as much as you want, but that will stay a problem if they don’t fix the reasons for that (those that you try to talk away). Spikes and drops is indeed not a problem, but behind that you do need a stable player-base to keep the game running.

It’s that simple.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

It will never be cut and dry unfortunately due to the nature of not having a sub.

People cancel subs when not playing, it’s much easier to see how active or inactive your playerbase is (yes, some people forget and or don’t care about paying subs when inactive) but usually if you’re not playing, you’re not paying.

With GW, currently most of the people I’ve been playing with over the years sign in for 15 seconds and claim their daily chest (with the long term goal being, “well maybe it will get good”). Then when monthly active numbers roll around, you won’t have a good representation of who are actually in-game playing (3.1m half of which are F2P).

Grind is not optional.

This is like saying life is optional. You really don’t need to go to school, you can just stay at home all you want. That option still works. You don’t need to find a job, or you can just stay at home until you spend all the money and starve to death. nothing seems to be without a choice to those people. Even survive is just optional, you know you really could just jump down from high building and die. The option to really do something is only yours.
The grind is only your choice? really? Then the alternative is just idling in the city. Surely if I have no desire to do anything, play anything. no grind could ever happen.

But if the solution to reduce grind is not to play, then there is no reason discuss anything.

Vayne.8563:

That’s what makes it unique. I tried FF XIV and the grind to level there was crap. The quests were boring, and you did them in order. I gave up on those games long ago.

I think exactly the same about GW2. Hearts are really boring, grinding XP in EoTM ultra boring as well. I’m not leveling any new character unless I have a lvl 30 scroll + tomes. In my opinion, GW2 shines because of its combat system, and you can only fully experience it at 80 ( even worse now because you need to unlock the elite specs if you want to remain competitive).

We all have our own definition of grinding. For me, grinding = boring content. And I try to avoid it at all cost.

Sicarius.4639:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

It will never be cut and dry unfortunately due to the nature of not having a sub.

People cancel subs when not playing, it’s much easier to see how active or inactive your playerbase is (yes, some people forget and or don’t care about paying subs when inactive) but usually if you’re not playing, you’re not paying.

With GW, currently most of the people I’ve been playing with over the years sign in for 15 seconds and claim their daily chest (with the long term goal being, “well maybe it will get good”). Then when monthly active numbers roll around, you won’t have a good representation of who are actually in-game playing (3.1m half of which are F2P).

Depends on how you measure your numbers.

Numbers for ‘logged in for more than an hour a day’ would show a faction of the number of ‘active accounts’, which counts anyone who logged in during however long a period they use. For instance, if I log in, say, 6 accounts (remember those $10 days) just for the daily and maybe one vet mob guarding a box, that counts as 6 active ‘players’.

Would be interesting to see some figures for retention based on a reasonable time span in game and also how many F2P player convert.

Grind is defined by what you feel it is. For me, trying to do a JP over and over again is the most boring tedious frustrating grind – for someone else, this might be something they skip through in five minutes whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

Does the game contain a lot more activities that require repetition, time gating, event gating, laurel gating and gating behind JPs than there were at launch? Yes. To anyone other than the utterly besotted that’s more grind.

Notsoperky.2348:

Sicarius.4639:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

It will never be cut and dry unfortunately due to the nature of not having a sub.

People cancel subs when not playing, it’s much easier to see how active or inactive your playerbase is (yes, some people forget and or don’t care about paying subs when inactive) but usually if you’re not playing, you’re not paying.

With GW, currently most of the people I’ve been playing with over the years sign in for 15 seconds and claim their daily chest (with the long term goal being, “well maybe it will get good”). Then when monthly active numbers roll around, you won’t have a good representation of who are actually in-game playing (3.1m half of which are F2P).

Depends on how you measure your numbers.

Numbers for ‘logged in for more than an hour a day’ would show a faction of the number of ‘active accounts’, which counts anyone who logged in during however long a period they use. For instance, if I log in, say, 6 accounts (remember those $10 days) just for the daily and maybe one vet mob guarding a box, that counts as 6 active ‘players’.

Would be interesting to see some figures for retention based on a reasonable time span in game and also how many F2P player convert.

Grind is defined by what you feel it is. For me, trying to do a JP over and over again is the most boring tedious frustrating grind – for someone else, this might be something they skip through in five minutes whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

Does the game contain a lot more activities that require repetition, time gating, event gating, laurel gating and gating behind JPs than there were at launch? Yes. To anyone other than the utterly besotted that’s more grind.

Only metric I’ve seen Anet use is monthly actives (3.1 half being F2P). It’s going to be pretty vague going forward if they continue like this and probably one of the biggest catch alls.

morrolan.9608:

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

You’re right the ascended grind is worse.

But here is the thing. Once you have ascended you’re done forever.

In SW:TOR for example, every time they release a raid or a expac they increase the gear tier, rendering the previous tier of gear junk, and requiring everyone to grind the new tier.

In guild wars 2 I can grind ascended, quit the game for a year, and come back and ascended will still be the best gear.

Crinn.7864:

morrolan.9608:

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

You’re right the ascended grind is worse.

But here is the thing. Once you have ascended you’re done forever.

In SW:TOR for example, every time they release a raid or a expac they increase the gear tier, rendering the previous tier of gear junk, and requiring everyone to grind the new tier.

In guild wars 2 I can grind ascended, quit the game for a year, and come back and ascended will still be the best gear.

I disagree with the last two points you make. Ascended armor is best in slot now, but that´ll change once legendary armor gets introduced. In a year or so you´ll be at a disadvantage in raids if you only have ascended armor and not legendary armor because of the ability to switch stats for every raid boss. Ascended armor wont´be the best in slot anymore.

Also If I quit now and take a long break two things will happen:

1. I will fall behind when it comes to raiding. I´ll be a raid noob and it´ll be hard to find a group that wants to put up with a noob that wastes everyones time because he lacks experience. There is a lot more pressure to perform well.

2. Eventually I will want a legendary. It takes roughly 3000g+ to craft one of the new legendaries. If I don´t log in every single day and grind gold I have almost no chance to ever get a legendary because it´s mainly just a boring and massive gold sink with no skill involved (unless you are aiming for legendary armor). Raiding to get legendary armor precursors is the fun and easy part, but grinding thousands of gold is the hard and unfun part. If you don´t log in and grind gold every single day your chance of ever getting a legendary are slim to zero. In other words you fall behind if you don´t grind every single day. There might be players who are content waiting for 3+ years to craft finally craft a legendary, but those players are the exception.

I don’t grind. I agree it is optional. That is why I wouldn’t be able to craft or avail an ascended weapon or armor. Trinkets were a given because prior to HOT, fractals gave you, the player tons of ascended trinkets (I ended up making I think 4 silver each from them via the NPC merchant). Actually I got a Zojja box once from level 34 fractal (pre HOT). So, I do have a Zojja greatsword. That’s it. If you want ascended and above, YOU WILL GRIND. It’s required.

compers.9065:

Grind is not optional.

This is like saying life is optional. You really don’t need to go to school, you can just stay at home all you want. That option still works. You don’t need to find a job, or you can just stay at home until you spend all the money and starve to death. nothing seems to be without a choice to those people. Even survive is just optional, you know you really could just jump down from high building and die. The option to really do something is only yours.
The grind is only your choice? really? Then the alternative is just idling in the city. Surely if I have no desire to do anything, play anything. no grind could ever happen.

But if the solution to reduce grind is not to play, then there is no reason discuss anything.

See you’re now defining everything outside idling in cities as grind… Which is obviously ridiculous and also the reason you’re seeing grind everywhere – the problem lies in your point of view.

Just play what you like. I got all the story required Masteries without repeating any events, after that everything is optional – no need to rush anything – just play what you enjoy and you’ll get exp in the process.