Guild Wars 2

Anet, I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me my life back. I dread the thought of another day of mindless farming and crafting, and I am now cured of my gaming addiction. You are my heroes.

Jokes aside, though, I always give new content and changes a chance. I’ve given this a few weeks. I’ve completed the story line in my journal. And honestly, the bulk of what this season has been so far is endless grinding in order to craft one of the few event rewards (among other things we have to grind to find or buy). I’ve tried, but I just can’t stay interested. Even my son, who is practically a walking encyclopedia of Tyrian lore and an avid story completionist, is losing interest in the story and the event. He’s never been bothered by event grinding before, but has lost all interested in making his second event weapon even though he has the bug in his bank (ditto for me).

I gave the story journal a chance and personally don’t like it (the whole thing irritates me because I don’t really want to have to replay the whole story with each and every alt in order to unlock any achievements that I may want to play with a different profession), but that’s not really the issue. The bulk of my game for seemingly endless months was farming and crafting gear, but my little escape from it in events and LW is now more of the tedious same, the pace of which can be frustrating to downright excruciating depending on the random megaserver you get put in [repetitive guild chat lately: “Anyone in a Dry Top server that doesn’t suck?”]. Very uncharacteristically, I haven’t even looked up the recipe for the event back piece made from the stuff you get from the journal chapters because I know it’s going to take even more grinding and crafting to get it made. Ugh.

With the way the reward structure is now, there isn’t even the enticement of a special drop (crafting recipes? OMG, no.) or an event-specific title or even a special mini that you aren’t required to buy from the gem store. What do we get now for our story achievement rewards? A box of crafting mats we may not even care about.

Real life can be enough of a grind. I can’t be the only one who likes getting the toy prize in the box for an individual challenge or the meta, or to have a fun title as a souvenir that makes us smile, shows off our hard work, or is a badge of how long we’ve been dedicated to playing the game. I had fun working towards those things and they made it seem like a real progression of time and were pieces that brought back fun memories of past content. I have a hard time feeling that way about this new season because there is so little to show for so much grinding.

And that’s my two cents, adjusted for inflation.

But, but… Anet doesn’t make grindy games.

Man, if I knew then what I know now….

Any grind associated with the living world is optional. I’ve yet to even bother attempting any of the associated achievements, but I’ve enjoyed the story without them.

Similarly, any stress you might suffer from with regards to grinding for lw rewards is self inflicted.

>My son.

Stopped there. You are hanging in there to much. Personal Story is improved and isn’t grindy. You do this once or get the achiements once and that’s it. The new area whatever has new to offer and how can’t it be not grindy otherwise it would be more empty? Atleast they did something new which fits to the variety.

Not sure if troll thread…

The grind is too kitten high

Who is forcing you to grind? You did. You brought yourself in this situation.

Exosferatu.2961:

Who is forcing you to grind? You did. You brought yourself in this situation.

You must be joking right? There is nothing you can do in PVE except grinding for cosmetics.

Malediktus.9250:

Exosferatu.2961:

Who is forcing you to grind? You did. You brought yourself in this situation.

You must be joking right? There is nothing you can do in PVE except grinding for cosmetics.

That’s true but the thing is that this kind of grind is kinda new, challenging and has a bit variety. If they make the other maps with different modes it would be fine.

The problem are the other things like trains and dungeongrind. Those things are repetitive and old.

Omg Im Target.3095:

Malediktus.9250:

Exosferatu.2961:

Who is forcing you to grind? You did. You brought yourself in this situation.

You must be joking right? There is nothing you can do in PVE except grinding for cosmetics.

That’s true but the thing is that this kind of grind is kinda new, challenging and has a bit variety. If they make the other maps with different modes it would be fine.

The problem are the other things like trains and dungeongrind. Those things are repetitive and old.

What problem? Those are optional, you dont have to do it.

> What problem? Those are optional, you dont have to do it.

Ironic as you are grinding the moment you start playing any MMO, if you notice that or not is another matter.

sharkstein.2109:

> What problem? Those are optional, you dont have to do it.

Ironic as you are grinding the moment you start playing any MMO, if you notice that or not is another matter.

Optional grind =/= mandatory grind.

sharkstein.2109:

> What problem? Those are optional, you dont have to do it.

Ironic as you are grinding the moment you start playing any MMO, if you notice that or not is another matter.

This. And in GW2, you do notice it.

Grind…yeah.
The thing you need to do for every event-item.

I was more than pleasantly surprised with the exotic item for the current backpack-crafting. Earned through a story and activated by special places.

I’d rather have all crafting in GW2 be like this. Some semi-hard to acquire special items, a tiny bit of grind.

“If I want shiny stuff, I will have to invest some effort into the task.”

I think we can agree on that. What this LS does wrong so far is the combination of RNG + dependence on community + repetitiveness of item acquisition (= “grind”). No past event has been related to all three aspects so much.

Lets take a look at the ambrite weapons
1. RNG luck to get a fossilized insect
2. Repetitive events to get Geodes which are in low numbers in lower tiers of Dry Top
3. Trying to find a server shard “that does not suck”
4. Having enough Geodes to buy recipes (exotics first)
5. Its cheaper to buy them on higher (=better community organized maps) or get them at all (T4 for weapon recipe)
6. Having to get an exotic nomad inscription requires Sheets of Ambrite, which exclusively come from locked boxes (which require lock picks bought with Geodes, because RNG and not getting enough LPs from reward boxes of instances)
7. Buy lock picks ? Buy recipe for weapon?
8. Go back to 2.

If you only want to create one weapon, you should be fine, but you want to unlock a second or a third skin (out of all the weapons available) you are in trouble.
Does it come over time? Dry Top will eventually get emptier. DEs in that map will be very difficult to do alone then, not even thinking about T4 merchant access.

But all those skins are optional you might say (which is correct), but skins are also content of the new patch / living story.
So it is annoying to work fo hard for the content and it takes out a lot of the fun we should have with it.
At this point the player has not bought any new food recipes (because they cost Geodes) or has started to find those T5 wood nodes to get Foxfire clusters for the back item (my current ratio is 1.25 Foxfires a day).

Malediktus.9250:

Exosferatu.2961:

Who is forcing you to grind? You did. You brought yourself in this situation.

You must be joking right? There is nothing you can do in PVE except grinding for cosmetics.

“You must be joking right?” I bet roleplayers grind to be in character. Again… who is forcing people to grind? Themselves. Humans are programmed to do repetitive task. Are you obligated to grind? Who is demanding you to grind this game? If you can’t take Shinnies, don’t take Shinnies. Oh, wait I forgot that Skritts play this game. Moving on.