This addition of stat grind is good for no one. There were complaints about this game not having endgame content, not having no “high end” gear to repetitively grind for. There are already the legendaries for kitten strokers. As Colin said in the manifesto from a time that seems long ago and forgotten now, no one enjoys or wants grind.
Now why would they add something like this:
The end result they hope to achieve is to get more people to play and for longer.
This helps business by maintaining a more populated world that will persuade new players and generate more box sales. It also maintains interest in those who have already made the initial purchase to buy gems/expansions.
Well guess what Anet, I would have gladly paid real money to get this new lost shores content, if it is truly as fun and expansive as its being made out to be.
With that revenue, you could have hired more content designers to make more truly engaging, varied, and above all fun content at a greater frequency to keep us satisfied (hint: it doesn’t include arbitrary difficulty, content gating mechanisms).
We now go down the road of geargrind instead of content of a higher quality and quantity. They both achieve (or hope to achieve) the same goal in the end: to keep people playing. But one route is obviously better for us players and most likely less work/easier for Anet.
As someone who got GWAMM in GW1, I’m certainly not opposed to grind. But the grind in GW1 never had any impact on stats and my effectiveness in combat (for the most part in pve) and was entirely optional. Worse yet with this new statgrind in GW2 will be the possible impact it will have on WvW, which last time I checked is still pvp and hence skill>time played, no matter what arguments you make about it being imbalanced.
In GW1 things like hardmode, title grind, and later Zaishen dailies and Nick weeklies were added to the game when new and varying content could no longer be added, whether through more campaigns or free updates. These things kept me playing since I liked to grind titles and weapon skins. But the bottomline was that these things were purely optional and the ability to play the way I wanted was maintained.
Don’t like to grind the same dungeon over and over again (or w/e other fashion of grind they might add to get ascended in the future)? Don’t have 10+ hours to play per week? Too bad, you’ll forever be of a lesser breed than the statgrinders and may soon be locked out of new content entirely.
The geargrind being introduced now goes against this basic principle of allowing us to play the way we want for something called “fun” (remember, ANet?).
TL,DR: Statgrind is good for no one as it is meant as a substitute for more content and content of higher quality to keep us playing. Statgrind will segregate players and restrict people from playing the way they want for something called “fun”.
