Guild Wars 2

Vissarion.6509:

SW chest farm.

WAIT FOR IT, nerf is coming at next patch, if something its too good to farm its nerfable.

I play SW regularly. It’s my favorite zone. In my experience, chests really dont give a whole lot of rares. My base magic find is at 103% so maybe its different with higher mf. In that zone I get most of my rares from the champions that spawn after the breach. There’s 5 on the map and they spawn twice. Once after the breach and once before the reset. Farming those, I’m pretty much guaranteed a rare.

I never understood why ectos were priced so high relative to say something like chili peppers. It’s outside my area of expertise, maybe and economist can post and explain it.

I have 237 Ectos, 0 Chili Peppers, 0 Sesame Seeds and 0 Clovers. It’s extremely easy to farm Ectos. I have no idea where to farm chili peppers. Chili peppers sell for like 27s!

(Lol, the only reason I’m using cooking ingredients for the compare is because I just recently power leveled cooking.)

Lazaar.9123:

Your wife could have just waited to do stuff in Caledon tomorrow, there are other zones.

Wow. I can’t believe you posted this.

I can imagine his wife, firing up the game, choosing the Salad people cause they looked the best to her and spending lots of time at character creation make a good looking character and then when ready to play the game she’s greedted with “hey, go someplace else or just wait for tomorrow while us Vets curb stomp the entire zone. oh and welcome to GW2”

I agree with the op that this is a major problem for new players. I don’t think there is an easy way to fix this problem. What do you do for the new players that work their way out of the starter zones? They’ll run into the exact same problem in the next zone and the next zone and the next zone, until they are geared and traited to hang with the zerker zergs.

Sadly, the newbs are going to have to suffer through this change just like us vets have to suffer through it. It’s either this or Anet changes it to be more general and less specific like the old dailies.

I guess I’d like to ask people: Where does it End?

So Anet after a few weeks looks at their metrics. Everyone is going to the same/easiest vista. They’ve gone into a routine. Well this is not what they intended! So what now. Do they spend time and money on naming each vista and randomizing them into the daily: View Vista1 in Kryta, View Vista2 in Kryta, View VistaX in Y. Where does it end?

Teon.5168:

America.9437:

Teon.5168:

America.9437:

I logged in to do my dailies and one of them was to view a vista in ascalon. I lol’d and said ok. I had a character parked in Black Citadel and went to one of the easiest vistas in the city and in less than 10 secs had that one checked off my checklist. Ugh! Why!? Just…uh…why!?

So if the intent of the new dailies was to get me to experience new things and places, welp it failed. IT FAILED. A huge majority of players when faced with this item on their checklist will take the path of least resistance and always go to the easiest vista to check that item off their list. You’ve created a chore for the player base.

Here’s how you get people to experience new things and new places….CREATE NEW THINGS AND NEW PLACES! STOP ALTERING CONTENT AND PASSING IT OFF AS NEW CONTENT. Sometime I feel as if Anet is just rearranging the furniture and calling it a new living room.

NPE – rearranging & removing furniture. Trait Overhaul – rearranging furniture. Dailies – rearranging furniture. I think the player base is being trolled.

You’re seriously whining about something that took you all of 10 seconds to complete?

Wow, the game will probably die tomorrow because of this horrid change.

It’s certainly enough to rage-quit over.

/sarcasm off

You’re not understanding. The argument that the new dailies are trying to get us to experience new content doesn’t work. People will take the path of least resistance to check the daily task off their checklist and hence fall into another routine.

1) Find a waypoint that has easiest(least amount of time and effort) vista to view.
2) Waypoint
3) View (but not really because 99.999% of playerbase will escape out of the view.)

What in 1-3 above is gonna make me change my habit if all I want to do is check the kitten item off my daily checklist in the least amount of time possible.

I guarantee you a majority of the players will find the vistas that take the least amount of effort. So let me explain it so its not ambiguous to you. I’m not complaining that it takes 10 secs to do, I’m complaining that its poor game design.

Maybe I’m wrong, but after people have “viewed/but-not-really-viewed-like-the-game-designers-intended-us-to-view” the same vistas over and over and over and over and over and over, welp, I think some of us are gonna rage.

Then go ahead and rage. The rest of the players will be playing the game, shrugging at the 10-30 seconds it took to get 1 daily accomplished, think nothing of it, and move onto the next task, or whatever part of the game they feel like doing.

Btw, with the time it took for your last post, you could have taken care of the harvest or mining daily and now had 2 of your daily tasks done.

But then again, complaining about it is so much more fun, huh?

And yes, most of us players who have been playing the game for awhile will try and complete these tasks as quickly as possible. Others that are newer to the game?? Yea, it might actually get them to check out areas on the map they haven’t been to. And then again, maybe not. Probably all depends on the player.

But if you feel the need to rage about something so incredibly minor, knock yourself out.

Me, I get a lot more aps and laurels with the new patch. I like it.

Fair enough. I wont begrudge you if want to praise Anet for rearranging the furniture.

Teon.5168:

America.9437:

I logged in to do my dailies and one of them was to view a vista in ascalon. I lol’d and said ok. I had a character parked in Black Citadel and went to one of the easiest vistas in the city and in less than 10 secs had that one checked off my checklist. Ugh! Why!? Just…uh…why!?

So if the intent of the new dailies was to get me to experience new things and places, welp it failed. IT FAILED. A huge majority of players when faced with this item on their checklist will take the path of least resistance and always go to the easiest vista to check that item off their list. You’ve created a chore for the player base.

Here’s how you get people to experience new things and new places….CREATE NEW THINGS AND NEW PLACES! STOP ALTERING CONTENT AND PASSING IT OFF AS NEW CONTENT. Sometime I feel as if Anet is just rearranging the furniture and calling it a new living room.

NPE – rearranging & removing furniture. Trait Overhaul – rearranging furniture. Dailies – rearranging furniture. I think the player base is being trolled.

You’re seriously whining about something that took you all of 10 seconds to complete?

Wow, the game will probably die tomorrow because of this horrid change.

It’s certainly enough to rage-quit over.

/sarcasm off

You’re not understanding. The argument that the new dailies are trying to get us to experience new content doesn’t work. People will take the path of least resistance to check the daily task off their checklist and hence fall into another routine.

1) Find a waypoint that has easiest(least amount of time and effort) vista to view.
2) Waypoint
3) View (but not really because 99.999% of playerbase will escape out of the view.)

What in 1-3 above is gonna make me change my habit if all I want to do is check the kitten item off my daily checklist in the least amount of time possible.

I guarantee you a majority of the players will find the vistas that take the least amount of effort. So let me explain it so its not ambiguous to you. I’m not complaining that it takes 10 secs to do, I’m complaining that its poor game design.

Maybe I’m wrong, but after people have “viewed/but-not-really-viewed-like-the-game-designers-intended-us-to-view” the same vistas over and over and over and over and over and over, welp, I think some of us are gonna rage.

Amroth.2170:

Ayrilana.1396:

Maybe just makes them regional events rather than a specific zone

I think this is what everyone wants. I’d go a step further and reintroduce the general do-anywhere tasks like gatherer/event completer/veteran killer. That way if people want to go to Ascalon for a vista, they can, or they can still get the daily through their run of play.

But this defeats exactly what they were trying to accomplish. What they were trying to accomplish is anyone’s guess. Apparently the new player base likes it when they’re told exactly what to do and when to do it.

Mojo Gris Gris.5941:

Yeah, it’s great that they put more RNG in my RNG, so now I can RNG while I RNG right after I RNG!

Open a chest to get a box to open a box to get a bag to open a bag to get an item to salvage. Phew! I’m a winner! … (i think)

Did Today’s Daily:

1) View Vista In Kryta (never left the city – absolute waste of my time)
2) Gathering Ore In Ascalon (went to a noob zone and gathered ore as quickly as possibly, i dont need the ore but ok, whatever, as quickly as I was there I left)
3) Iron Marsh Events (OMG this was a total pain in my kitten , I just cant/won’t do that again, I finished it as quickly as I could and left.)

WHY!? Why is everything so kitten ed specific!

Crysto.7089:

I hate it when I go to run a dungeon but then an ANet GM assumes manual control of my computer and makes me play PvP (and sabotages my team!). +10 OP could not agree more.

Well. To be fair they’re making you play PvP as a Male Charr on a Thief with Healing Stats and Sub-optimal Traiting. So.. yah ..we wanna be fair when we criticize.

Anet should put a dump in LA where you go there and click through thousands upon thousands of pieces of garbage. A garbage mountain. The more people there clicking the more the mountain starts to disappear. Refill the mountain every half hour. They could put Dolyaks throughout all Tyria carrying refuse and garabage to LA. It could be a mini game.

BlueBoy.1236:

One day you cry abt the game doesn’t give you enough reward, the next day you cry abt the game give you more reward. Seriously

Its not about getting more or less of something, its about HOW you go about getting the reward. If you can’t see that you’re being intentionally obtuse or you have a low IQ.

Old Dailies:
Anet: here’s a piece of cheese!
Player: cool. how do I get the cheese?
Anet: play how you want. it’ll more or less comes organically through play!
Player:noice!

New Dailies:
Anet: here’s even more pieces of cheese!
Player: ok, whats the catch?
Anet: play exactly as we want, you’ll have to jump through XYZ hoops!
Player: huh?
Fanbois: more cheese!

Torsailr.8456:

Personally I think the changes are an overall improvement but they are problematic as well.

I like that we have more options for doing the dailies and we get better rewards from them.

I don’t like that the PVE rewards are so specific. They changed from being filled through playing what/where I wanted to something I have to actually seek out. While there was an element of it before, now it’s just been pushed over the edge into grind territory.

If they made the dailies a little more generic such as: Gather anything in kryta or Gather logs anywhere, then I’d be satisfied with it.

The hoops we have to jump through to get the dailies done are too specific. They need to create more generic tasks for each category. That way people can play how they want and be rewarded for doing the things they enjoy doing.

I’ll never do PvP. Ever. WvW isn’t too bad but I don’t really see much of a difference between it and PvE.

It’s a psychological trick that casinos in Vegas use. You get a bunch of flashing lights and beeping sounds to trick your senses into thinking that you’re getting something when you pull that slot handle.

There’s a post on reddit about the absurdity of the current state of GW2 looting with respect to mouse clicks. You open a bouncy chest to get a container to open the container to get a bag to open the bag to get and item that you’ll either end up salvaging or selling.

Softspoken.2410:

America.9437:

Softspoken, i’ve viewed every vista in the game and have pics of them saved on my hard drive.

“I saw this location once and stored a picture, now I never want to see it again”?

Like okay maybe I shouldn’t criticize your life decisions but this still seems like a weird thing to be proud of?

Why are you attacking me? I sometimes like to go through them and use them as a background for my screen. Don’t hate the player…hate the game.

I +1’d you. It’s been a slow, 2 year process but yes, the frog is now boiled. Play as you want as long as you play as we want you to play.

Filaha – It’s not about how fast you can do the dailies…yes, they’re faster to do in some cases.

Seera – they never said the dailies were aimed at new players

Softspoken, i’ve viewed every vista in the game and have pics of them saved on my hard drive.

I logged in to do my dailies and one of them was to view a vista in ascalon. I lol’d and said ok. I had a character parked in Black Citadel and went to one of the easiest vistas in the city and in less than 10 secs had that one checked off my checklist. Ugh! Why!? Just…uh…why!?

So if the intent of the new dailies was to get me to experience new things and places, welp it failed. IT FAILED. A huge majority of players when faced with this item on their checklist will take the path of least resistance and always go to the easiest vista to check that item off their list. You’ve created a chore for the player base.

Here’s how you get people to experience new things and new places….CREATE NEW THINGS AND NEW PLACES! STOP ALTERING CONTENT AND PASSING IT OFF AS NEW CONTENT. Sometime I feel as if Anet is just rearranging the furniture and calling it a new living room.

NPE – rearranging & removing furniture. Trait Overhaul – rearranging furniture. Dailies – rearranging furniture. I think the player base is being trolled.

nethykins.7986:

“Let’s make this happen! Folks, go on Twitter, facebook or whatever and get attention to this thread. Anet themselves have “told” us that nothing changes unless enough noise is made. We want this to change, right? Let’s start making some noise.”

+1

lol. cops in America are killing people left and right, indiscriminately, without consequence, and you think posting to facekitten and twizzler is gonna change things?

lol. the new narrative is … wait for it…. wait for it….

DO YOU REALLY NEED ALL THOSE TRAITS?

as if….

Aerinndis.2730:

America.9437:

Aerinndis.2730:

America.9437:

1380 hours. not. one. precursor. ever.

How many hours does a person have to play in order for that to be considered having “worked” for it? 1000? 2000? 3000? …

“…play in order for that to be considered having ‘worked’ for it” screams, I was here long enough so I am now entitled…. I see at no point where you “earn” a precursor that way. You either get really lucky or work to purchase one. Then more work to make a Legendary if that is your ultimate goal. I would love to see everyone be able to craft one some day and like Mawdry II I am sure it will take time, some tasks and a lot of perseverance. You have to decide if you want that precursor bad enough to either try the luck angle or work to buy it.

So how long does a person have to play to be considered having “worked” for it?

I have close to 300 gold, tons of mats, 6 L80s and 3 L60’s with inventories filled with loot. Filled. With. Loot. I never buy anything with gold off the TP and I never convert gems to gold. I have over 5000 AP. AND I KNOW THAT I AM POOR compared to others that have 20x the in game resources I have.

I grind the hard way. Have I earned it? Am I earning it the right way? Which is the “correct” way to earn? How long? You dodged the question. “Work to buy it” WTF are you talking about?

No clue what you are getting at. What is this about ‘earning?’ Earning the right for a precursor by ‘grinding the hard way’ whatever that is…

I play the game (read: do what I enjoy doing when I am in), I sell what I get carefully on the TP, salvage carefully what I need and plan for what goals I have in mind. I have 5 level 80s with two more professions to go that I have not even done yet. I got 15K AP and have barely done any dungeons or fractals. My gold fluctuates with what I have amassed and what I decide a character may need that I cannot craft or have in my inventory for them to use. Yet hubby bought me a precursor and I finally made enough to buy another one by myself. Now we are looking at our goals to make these Legendary.

There is no correct way to ‘earn’ something. Some are just better at it than others. Other just have the disposable income to buy and kudos to them. Some get lucky and yeah, I bought someone’s luck because mine isn’t as good as theirs. But I worked for the gold to do it so same difference earning something…. If Anet said you have to do this or that or just be in the game for so long to earn a precursor or a Legendary then there you go. But they haven’t so here we go, trying our luck, earning what we can and buying other’s luck.

The time it takes is up to each individual and how they set their goals and plan out the map to get there within the time they have to play the game. Asking someone to specify how long it will take you to earn your prezzie is silly – only you can answer that one…..

So I guess the narrative is changing? You don’t EARN a legendary? You don’t WORK for a legendary? You’re either lucky to have one or you pay gold to get one. Getting the gold is either a massive grind or you pay anet for the gold. Got it.

penelopehannibal.8947:

America.9437:

penelopehannibal.8947:

America.9437:

1380 hours. not. one. precursor. ever.

How many hours does a person have to play in order for that to be considered having “worked” for it? 1000? 2000? 3000? …

The point of a precursor is that you don’t actually “work” for it. It’s a lucky, very rare drop for anyone. The only time you work for it is when you save up on TP.

8,790 Hours and I’ve had no drop. I don’t expect one either to be honest.

8790 Hours. What I’m about to say is not meant to disrespect you in any way. I know I’m insane. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve been crazy since I was a little child. Crazy as in clinically insane but I’m that type of insane where one is aware of being so. A typical work week in the US is 40 hours. 2080 hours per year ( with 52 work weeks). The average US worker will work from age 20-60 or lets say 40ish years. 8790/2080 = 4.22. You’ve spent a little over 1/10th of your working years playing a game for a virtual reward that you haven’t seen and probably will never see. You could conceivable spend your entire working life(you only get one – reincarnation is a myth) and never get that precursor. I may be insane but I think this might be a grind of legendary stature. Most children can count to 10 and you’ve just used up 1 of those counts. I’m depressed now and will go pour myself another drink.

Also, if precursors and legendaries are supposed to be rare, then why when I log in do I see so many people toting them around. They’re ubiquitous. Something doesn’t add up.

Legendary Weapons are not the only reward you can get from the game.

True. In what other mmo can you play as a cat and be the master race of all creation.

penelopehannibal.8947:

America.9437:

1380 hours. not. one. precursor. ever.

How many hours does a person have to play in order for that to be considered having “worked” for it? 1000? 2000? 3000? …

The point of a precursor is that you don’t actually “work” for it. It’s a lucky, very rare drop for anyone. The only time you work for it is when you save up on TP.

8,790 Hours and I’ve had no drop. I don’t expect one either to be honest.

8790 Hours. What I’m about to say is not meant to disrespect you in any way. I know I’m insane. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve been crazy since I was a little child. Crazy as in clinically insane but I’m that type of insane where one is aware of being so. A typical work week in the US is 40 hours. 2080 hours per year ( with 52 work weeks). The average US worker will work from age 20-60 or lets say 40ish years. 8790/2080 = 4.22. You’ve spent a little over 1/10th of your working years playing a game for a virtual reward that you haven’t seen and probably will never see. You could conceivable spend your entire working life(you only get one – reincarnation is a myth) and never get that precursor. I may be insane but I think this might be a grind of legendary stature. Most children can count to 10 and you’ve just used up 1 of those counts. I’m depressed now and will go pour myself another drink.

Also, if precursors and legendaries are supposed to be rare, then why when I log in do I see so many people toting them around. They’re ubiquitous. Something doesn’t add up.

Aerinndis.2730:

America.9437:

1380 hours. not. one. precursor. ever.

How many hours does a person have to play in order for that to be considered having “worked” for it? 1000? 2000? 3000? …

“…play in order for that to be considered having ‘worked’ for it” screams, I was here long enough so I am now entitled…. I see at no point where you “earn” a precursor that way. You either get really lucky or work to purchase one. Then more work to make a Legendary if that is your ultimate goal. I would love to see everyone be able to craft one some day and like Mawdry II I am sure it will take time, some tasks and a lot of perseverance. You have to decide if you want that precursor bad enough to either try the luck angle or work to buy it.

So how long does a person have to play to be considered having “worked” for it?

I have close to 300 gold, tons of mats, 6 L80s and 3 L60’s with inventories filled with loot. Filled. With. Loot. I never buy anything with gold off the TP and I never convert gems to gold. I have over 5000 AP. AND I KNOW THAT I AM POOR compared to others that have 20x the in game resources I have.

I grind the hard way. Have I earned it? Am I earning it the right way? Which is the “correct” way to earn? How long? You dodged the question. “Work to buy it” WTF are you talking about?

1380 hours. not. one. precursor. ever.

How many hours does a person have to play in order for that to be considered having “worked” for it? 1000? 2000? 3000? …

Deamhan.9538:

@America. There is a problem with having changing prices. Make it cheaper for the first timer and then progressively more expensive for each alt and you alienate your more experienced players. Make it cheaper for each alt and you are alienating your newer players by having it most expensive for them.

Either way is a bad deal. So leaving the price constant for both groups is the most fair. However, they could allow cross purchasing. So I can spend my necro’s skill points on traits for my mesmer. Once you buy all your skills and have all your traits, there really isn’t much to continue to spend skill points on. When you level a character, your skill points should go toward skill before traits. So to use another characters skills instead would help.

Deanhan, I think you misunderstood what I said. The simple fix I proposed was not to increase the cost of traits. The fix was to decrease the cost of traits as you get L80’s. The decreased cost is permanent and retroactive, so it applies to any character you currently have and all characters you make in the future.

I don’t like the idea of cross purchasing because from an rpg viewpoint it makes no sense. This game all ready blurs the line between your characters far too much for an rpg. Any farther and you may as well not even have separate characters. (But this is another discussion onto itself)

Obviously the best solution for players is to revert the trait cost back to its original design. But that is not ever gonna happen. Why? Because Anet created a massive gold sink and it’s probably working as designed. (However I think another reason is that it would bruise the egos of the “designers” who think they’ve created a really cool trait unlocking system. In reality they’ve created a horrible system for leveling alts. One of the worst in mmorpg history. There is a sort of cognitive dissonance going on with the design team about this topic. They know it is kitten but at the same time it can’t be because, well, their egos are telling them that they don’t design kitten.)

I’m convinced that Anet will not change the trait buying system. When you think about it, less gold in the players pockets means a higher probability for players to buy gems and convert them to gold. If they do change the system I’m convinced it will be some horribly complicated idea that further ruin the game.

I made a post 10 days ago about a very simple fix to the trait problem. They deleted the thread! Not locked. Deleted. The fix was as such:

For each level 80 character lower the cost of buying traits for any character(including the one that was just leveled) by 18%. When an account has 5 L80’s, lock the cost of buying traits at 10% of what it currently costs.

Thus, when you level your 5th L80 the total cost to buy all traits for any character(including the 5 L80’s) would be 4.3gold and 36Skill points. IE a cost almost similar to what it cost to trait a character before the stupid change. Everyone wins. Anet gets a gold sink for 5 characters leveled, vets get to play how they used to (assuming they have 5 level 80’s), altaholics are not shafted with one of the worst gold sinks imaginable and the world is still populated with people leveling toons.

Kaleban.9834:

I ask this in all seriousness, will GW2 ever be anything more than a Las Vegas slot machine or mouse-button-cheese psychological conditioning experiment? Silverwastes is a good example of this, with the hordes of players scrambling from Bandit Chest to Bandit Chest desperately hoping for something other than Account bound, un-sellable crafting materials to drop.

I have yet to play an MMORPG that wasn’t a fancy glorified slot machine or a maze-rat-cheese simulator. If there are any out there please let me know.

Compared to the old way of unlocking traits, the NPE way is kitten-ed.

1) It’s basically a gold sink. It used to cost 3.10 gold to unlock all your traits. Now it costs 43 gold + 360 skill points.

2) It discourages experimentation and encourages meta building. After all if it’s going to cost you gold and sp’s then a person will seek the most bang for their buck, ie, unlocking only the traits that are the current meta.

I have an NPE alt at 100% map complete, and 70% trait complete, I refuse to pay the gold to get the other traits unless it helps make a very good build, of which there seem to be few.

This is an awesome idea! There should be a “chest of medals” NPC in lions arch. You talk to him and he will unlock all your traits for only 3.10 gold, Happy Veteran’s Day.

Before:
3.10 gold to unlock ALL traits AND play as you want

Current:
43 gold + 360 skill points to unlock ALL traits OR play as they want

This is quite a change. When I wanna recommend this game to new players I tell them that unlocking traits is a grind and you will be behind the curve for conceivable a long while.

The. Glove.

Skill 4: Slap your opponent silly. Applies confusion for each second slapped. Channeled 10 sec on 11 second cooldown.
Skill 5: Grab groin, point to the sky and yell “Hee Hee!”

In general, if I’m required to complete a task more than 3 times to get a reward, it’s a grind. Everyone’s tolerance is different. I say in general because if I’m aware that I’m only doing the “maze” just to get the “cheese” then it lowers my tolerance.

Crafting ascended gear is a herculean grind because it goes far beyond the bounds of my tolerance. I’m running the same “maze” over and over and over to get many pieces “cheese”, all so that I can get a different piece of cheese (which is actual the same piece of cheese, ad infinitum).

Labjax.2465:

America.9437:

I just unlocked the karka queen trait for her this morning and thought… why? It took us less than 5 mins to beat down the karka queen and the only reason I was there was to unlock my trait. It sure didn’t feel like I earned it but at the same time that trait is not worth 3 gold + 20 skill points. I’d say that trait is worth 10 maybe 20 silver at most and 0 skill points.

Right, as some of us have mentioned, the choices for unlocks aren’t even consistently challenging or interesting, but many of them are rather based on long event chains or big bosses like karka (which are entirely subject – in difficulty – to whether players decide they are worth farming). Imagine if KQ was a boss that nobody did. Then it’d suddenly be super inconvenient and annoying to acquire the trait.

No doubt. I’ll admit that I was carried during that fight. It was my first time and I’m not sure I’ll ever go back because I’m not really sure why I’d wanna be there at all. As you mentioned it took me a long time to get the Shark trait in the Hinterlands. Not because it was a tough fight but because the kittener would never spawn while I was in the area. I think I spent more silver way-pointing to the hinterlands trying to unlock that trait than just paying for it from a trainer. And the funny thing is that when it did spawn, I was the only one fighting it and that icon came up asking me if I wanted to change to a more populated map. At that point I felt like the game was intentionally screwing with me.

I recently leveled 2 80 NPE characters after having left the game back in 2013.

The first character I leveled I was fairly methodical while unlocking traits. I followed my personal story and completed each map it took me to. I did no dungeons and no wvw. At L80 I had a total 11 traits unlocked (2 I bought not knowing what I was doing and I couldnt even use them after I bought them). So really I unlocked 9, no grandmaster traits unlocked.

The second character I leveled I played how I wanted. I’d log in to do stuff with a guildmate. We’d do jumping puzzles for fun. I’d run to his area of the map to do hearts with him. I completed 1 map (a starter map), did my personal story up to battle for claw island, did 2 dungeons, did some wvw, did halloween stuff, dabbled a little in crafting, and showed my guildmate a few world bosses. In short, I just played to have fun. She had a total of 5 traits unlocked at L80. All adept. No master or grandmaster traits unlocked. I barely had enough skill points to get skills let only pay for traits.

Runeblade, I think you may be a plant or a white knight or just like to be contrarian. Cause the trait unlock system is fubar.

Also, my first NPE character is at 98% map complete. She has about 60% of her traits unlocked. I just unlocked the karka queen trait for her this morning and thought… why? It took us less than 5 mins to beat down the karka queen and the only reason I was there was to unlock my trait. It sure didn’t feel like I earned it but at the same time that trait is not worth 3 gold + 20 skill points. I’d say that trait is worth 10 maybe 20 silver at most and 0 skill points.

You don’t mind the grind to unlock traits but unlocking skills put you over the edge. This makes no sense.

I genuinely feel sorry for new players. When I quit the game back in February, 2013, I had 6 L80’s a L60 and a L40, one of each profession. Now, all their traits except for 5 each are unlocked. It cost me 3.1gold on each character AND I got to level them anyway I wanted. I crafted, explored, dungeoned, wvwd, zerged, personal storied, wandered … it didnt matter how I chose to level up.

If a new player wants 8 L80’s they have 2 choices. Do all the content Anet wants you to do (map complete, dungeons, wvw etc…) or pay 43Gold, 360 Skill points per character for a total of 344 Gold and 2880 Skill points!

I never once did map complete on any of my alts or my main. The closest I’ve come to map complete is on a recent L80 NPE character that I made. She’s at 96% complete and has … 30/65 traits unlocked. I then made another L80 NPE character and played it how I wanted, she has about 5 traits unlocked and is forever kitten. I will not spend the gold or hunt and peck to unlock her traits. Unlocking traits for one NPE character is enough of a chore.

Unlocking traits is the leveling grind and getting to L19 is the quickest part of that grind.

I’m one of those people that suffers from Altitis. I stopped playing back in February, 2013. I had 6 L80’s, a L60 and a L40, (one of each profession) who are now grandfathered into the new trait unlock system. I recently started playing again. I threw Anet $10 to level a new character to re-learn how to play the game. I still have yet to unlock all the traits on the new character and I’m at 90% map complete. Leveling a character used to be a pleasant experience. Now, it feels like a massive grind. What used to cost 3.1 gold and play as you want has now turned into pay 43 gold and 360 skill points or play as we want you to play. I don’t regret paying $10 to level the new character, it’s been fun. What’s not fun is grinding out trait unlocks. So, yeah, I’m cured of my altitis and will never level another GW2 character so long as the current trait unlock system is in place.

Sinifair.1026:

Ok, for all of you guys out there saying that the game is of course a grind, let me ask my question differently.
Does Guild Wars 2 FEEL like a grind?

- Of course there has to be some content, and levelling up is part of it as always in the MMO genre, and that is a feature considered a grind.
- My point was ANet did not WANT the game to feel like a grind but does it, and why?

I hope this will lead some of you guys in the right direction as to the answers I am looking for.

If you’re trying to vertically progress in the game through gear, then yes, this game feels like a massive grind.

Acquiring any type of currency in this game is a massive grind. I started running the karma train in Straits of Devastation. There are 7 stops on the route. You get about 350 karma for completing each stop. Each run lasts about 20 mins with a 5 min break in between each run. So thats 25 mins for about 2500 karma. A full set of 42k karma gear (no weapons or jewelry) is 252K. That’s around 100 ktrain runs at 25 mins per run. It will take around 40 hours of grinding karma to get the set of 6 exotics. That’s one hell of a grind by my standards.

Talking about the bots is shunned upon. As Rukia said, there are no bots. I’m pretty sure this thread will get locked.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

For many a gear grind is the opposite of fun. They realize that when all players hop off the gear treadmill they are at the same relative power to each other as they were when they hopped on. Meanwhile the environment has attained the new power level as well so they are at the same power relative to the environment as they were before the new tier of gear. Nothing has changed. No one has gone anywhere. They have just expended in-game time and effort to keep up with the stat progression. This is an example of a forced grind. A forced grind is one you must do to continue playing the game. Examples are pretty much all other MMO’s that have vertical progression.

You do realize that you’re arguing a net gain of zero in both vertical and horizontal models, right?

Horizontal: no progression in stats, completing content for skins, zero relative gain.
Vertical: Small progression in stats, still completing content for skins, zero relative gain.

So what point exactly are you trying to make here?

One is a requirement if you want to be competitive, the other is not.

Desamos.1836:

about Ascended weapons. Got my inquest longbow, inquest sword, inquest dagger, inquest harpoon, and inquest spear gun. Put superior sigil of fire, and energy runes on them. Now Ascended weapons have come to my attention, and that I will soon no longer have max damage weapons. What was the point of me working so hard getting all this gear?

I suggest that you get on that gear treadmill and start running. You will be left behind if you do not grind. Do not try to make sense of it. Start grinding. Do it now before it’s too late.

The tragedy of Orr is that it can be extremely frustrating, and for some people, it can halt playing the game. Can’t do that skill point by yourself because of the mobs insane spawn rate? Halt. You’ve been spamming map chat and still can’t find a group to do the skill point? Halt. You’re guild mates don’t wanna help you. Halt. Can’t find a good guild to help you? Halt. Can’t find another guild to join and help you? Halt. Did not log in at the right time for random people to hook up with? Halt. Did not log in at the right time for your guild mates to hook up with? Halt. No one wants to do Orr areas because the rewards suck, so yeah …. Halt. By now, you should have gotten the message. Orr is just a plateful of stop, wait, and finally quit.

However, if you pray to the RNG gods, (and are sincere), you just might log in and find another knucklehead that wants to complete the areas. The drop rate on this is extremely low. You’re better off spending your time queuing for dungeons and fractals.

The mechanics are there to make a the entire world of Tyria the endgame. However, I don’t think it will happen. I’m convinced that GW2 will be a stepping stone game and another developer will come along to fill the niche.

I don’t think it will happen for a couple of reasons. Bots. It’s virtually impossible to eliminate them in the open world, just as it’s virtually impossible to have a group of bots run a dungeon. In a dungeon, you can detect bots by talking to them, aka the Turing Test. Bots exits because there is a grind. The grind exists because there is a economy. Get rid of the economy and it get’s rid of the grind which gets rid of the bots. This isn’t going to happen in GW2. For once I’d like to play an MMO without a economy. Virtual scarcity is insanity. The concept of “working/grinding” in a virtual world for a scarce virtual item is essentially insane. This would be an excellent study for a PhD candidate in psychology or economics.

Secondly, people are lazy. WoW did not start out as a lobby game. It evolved into what it was because people were just lazy. In vanilla WoW, everyone that wanted to do a dungeon had to travel to the dungeon. Then they put in summoning stones whereby two people had to be at the dungeon to summon their party. Then they did away with that and added the dungeon finder. You could log in, queue up for the dungeon, stand in one spot and go directly to the dungeon. In evolved into a lobby game. The consequence being that they had to drastically make the world easier to traverse.

Anet is smart. They put elements of different MMO’s into the game and will let the playerbase decide where to take it. They have an open world, dungeons, fractal progression, WvWvW, sPvP. The playerbase has spoken. They want fractals and dungeons. They want an pyramid economy. They want a lobby game. They want their gear grind.

Exterminans.9723:

Anet is aware of the problem.

Anet is not going to do ANYTHING about that issue.

Anet is going to delete this topic because they don’t like it.

Anet wants you to buy gems and to forget about the existence of cheats.

New players will figure it out as they level in the PVE zones. Bots exits. In massive numbers. Talking about botting on the forums is a no-no. Because there are no discussions, there are no bots. Botting problem solved.

Concrete data.
Perceived strange drop behavior.

If the glove don’t fit …

1) How are we supposed to collected concrete data, when we do not have the adequate tools to do so.

2) If we had the adequate tools to collect the data then what would be the expected drop behavior?

3) Perception is reality.

4) Sometimes perception is not reality. Sometimes reality is … reality. I farmed a group of mobs, they dropped nothing. Nothing is not perception. It’s reality. Is nothing the actual drop behavior you expect? How would I prove that nothing dropped?

Esturk.2183:

Nothing should be RNG. Why would anything need to be?

This. When you have the ability to create supply on demand there is no such thing as scarcity. Trying to model scarcity between players in such a system is tantamount to insanity. Why do we have to collect umpteen-million dooppity-doos to create one whoopity-whoo?

Why can’t I just log in, randomly find a person for example, say in Cleveland and it go something like this:

America: Wassup?
Cleveland: Nuthin. Wassup?
America: Nuthin.
<pause>
<pause>
America: You know, the Browns suck this year…
Cleveland: Sigh. They suck every year.
America: I know what’ll chear ya up.
Cleveland: What?
America: Lets go kill that Thingy.
Cleveland: What Thingy?
America: The Thingy that drops that Whatchamacallit.
Cleveland: Sure! I need one of those to craft my HootyMaWhat!
America: Sweet.
Cleveland: Nice.

Can you imagine being on the Starship Enterprise…

Cptn Piccard: Computer. Tea. Earl grey. Hot.
Computer: No! You didn’t EARN this!

Or how about this…

Cptn Piccard: Computer. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
<Computer produces 200 mystical cogs>
Cptn Piccard: WTF?!

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

What exactly was the point of implementing DR?

Botters still exist in large numbers. I run into the same botter using a teleport hack all the time on my server. So it can’t be to combat them.

So why would Anet want to discourage people from farming by implementing DR? For a healthy player economy? Is there a way to even define a healthy player economy?

I’ve already won the game. Everything I currently do in the game is repetitive and boring.

I have a L80 Guardian. I was going to finish his personal story, but then I read that there is forced grouping to finish it. So that pretty much ended that goal.

I wanted to get to 400 in armor crafting but grinding for materials is a hellish grind. So I stopped at 370.

Then I was going to get him exotics but after doing a couple of the group events in endzones I found out i’d need over 200K Karma, just for armor. He has 60K right now and I just do not want to grind out the rest. I’m not even sure how to get that much and I don’t care to find out.

I was going to get 100% map, managed to get 60%, but found out the rewards for completing the low level areas are worthless for my L80. And had the rewards been appropriate for my level, I doubt I would have completed it because there would be some other obstacle which I would not want to grind.

Then I tried an alt with a different profession and race. It was fun up to around L30. Now, everything feels like a grind. I grind hearts, point’s of interest, vistas, skill points, crafting levels, and occasionaly DE’s. She’s now L61, and I have to force myself to play for more than 30 mins because everything feels like a grind.

I haven’t tried sPvP or WvWvW and have no inclination to do so. Besides, I’ve done it before in other mmo’s. I haven’t done any dungeons by choice. Ugh. No, I will not grind dungeons ever again. They are torture.

I don’t think this game has anything left to offer. The only fun I had was randomly meeting people while doing DE’s. But the frequency of that interaction is incredibly too low to justify loggin in to the game.

I think I may have finished the game. Winning in an MMO is subjective.