Guild Wars 2

The only thing missing from your list (or maybe not really) are guild missions, but could be considered an open world variation of the list you’ve provided and with more people (some coordination and a decent number of people is required to get them done):
Guild Trek, Guild Rush, Guild Challenge, Guild Puzzle

Vayne.8563:

It’s not a “big grind”. This is silly. Two of my guildies have an ascended weapon already. You really call that a big grind?

You can talk in circles as much as you like, but really, this isn’t the mountain people are making it out to be. It’s more like a foothill.

Of course it’s not a considered a big grind to you or your guild mates, because farmers such as yourself and your two guild mates enjoy farming.

Ykfox.3825:

You’re right this is ridiculous. Why, even with me logging on to my Mesmer and porting people into the JP’s in LA for free empyreals, it’s going to take them a while to get BiS….. clearly, there’s something wrong when you actually have to devote a little bit of time to getting the absolute best weapons.

As others have suggested before (or something similar), I’d prefer if anet took advantage of it’s personal story/living story (minus the temporary aspect) and make you obtain pieces as quest to “craft” your weapon, not farm the same content again and again.
I don’t want to be like Trahearne who was handed Caladbolg on a silver platter.
If done right, at least then I’d have a (hopefully memorable) story and feel like it was an accomplishment.

Less traditional MMO, more RPG, please. But I’m most likely in the minority, so that isn’t going to happen.

Sentry.3691:

The best way to get Empyreal Fragments is wvw, not dungeons. They are ridiculously easy to get just by capturing camps and towers.

Assuming you’re logged in during the active time of your server’s WvW, and/or assuming your opponent’s server doesn’t have 24/7 WvW defense coverage, and/or assuming you can solo camps, and/or assuming your server hasn’t been demoralized by its current match up, it is absolutely ridiculously easy.

azurrei has the best advice for guaranteed fragment farming. Farm the open world chests with multiple level 80s (do it while you still can).
WvW is hit or miss. It’s a miss on my server this week.

azurrei.5691:

Khal Drogo.9631:

azurrei.5691:

I’ve been spending 2-3 hours a day running around looting chests in the open world / doing a single JP for the last 4 daily CD’s and have over 1400 fragments – so that is probably about 10ish hours of work for almost 3 weapons worth.

Care to give the exact breakdown? 2-3hrs a day ONLY opening chests + 1 JP sounds about right as for 1400 I would like to see how even with alts.

Sure. I do probably 75% of all the open world chests on a main, then do rounds in wayfarer and queensdale only on all my level 80 alts (7 total level 80’s.) I then do one of the jumping puzzles in Caledon forest that gives 6-9 fragments on all 7 80’s as well. I also loot maybe 40% of the “easy” chests in Orr on 4 of those 80’s while gathering wood/ore. It all adds up rather quickly…

If you only had one level 80. obviously it would take a lot longer to gather the shards or you would have to work harder at it doing say, a bunch of dungeon paths. BUT, it’s all the same in the end as someone with a bunch of alts needs to make weapons for those alts eventually, the only benefit is gearing out your main faster.

Thanks for this breakdown.
It’s too bad I only have two 80 characters, but thankfully 1 has all waypoints and the other has 80-90% all waypoints.
Time to play the game, ie. farming chests.

In before empyreal fragment daily account bound locks/nerfs.

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but you’re wrong. Just because I used a word, doesn’t mean I actually farm. What I do mean by this is that when I’m running an event with lots of people, I get lots of drops.

Now you can say that’s farming if you want…such as running the zone wide events that pop up, but I’m not actually running those events TO farm. I’m running those events because I find them fun.

Some people understand this sort of thing and some don’t.

My comment was that someone said you have to be on X character to farm. I get plenty of drops and kill plenty of stuff on my necro.

Why do I play my necro. Because it’s fun. Why do I do zone events, because I like them. They remind me of the only thing I liked about Rift.

It’s farming, without actually attempting to accumulate materials. I just do what I want, when I want.

You enjoy farming, but don’t want to call it that because of the negative connotation attached to that word.
Events with lots of people, hmm. I, too, have been on champ farming trains to get lots of loot.

Vayne.8563:

I’m a casual player who plays a lot of hours, but I never grind. I just do what I think is fun, when I think it’s fun. Somehow, I get achievements, gold and karma…without grinding. I don’t know how. I just play the game.

I always found this post rather suspect.

Vayne.8563:

I do fine farming on my necro.

Ah, there we go. You do actually grind for materials.
Not that it wasn’t obvious before, but thank you for the open admission.

Copestetic.5174:

Congrats! That’s insane that you’ve already made one. Good job though. I’m interested to see what ( if any ) ANet’s response is.

I know the answer to this!
Another weapon tier with 10 times more grind.

Tiger.7506:

many exaggerations .

Especially your post.

LOL.

Is there going to be more ascended gear or something above ascended gear later on? Are you going for that, like every year or 2, you update the weapons or the next tier of crafting?

You know, I really hope not.
I think that when we put the game out our hope was exotic had a certain amount of time it would take to get it and I think that we did a really poor job of calculating how long it would take to them, the effort that would be required and ended up just being a lot easier than what we were hoping for.

In some ways they were way harder, like if you’re trying to get them through random drops it’s really hard to get them, and if you go buy them off the places they are available, on a regular basis, they’re really easy to get.
You know, in a week or two, you can equip your whole character out, and we really wanted to find a middle ground between that, and exotic was supposed to be that middle ground.

It wasn’t, and we felt like we had introduce ascended, basically to get that point of this is where we want characters to feel like this is a growth they have available to him statistically and so we put ascended in to basically get that in the game.
Now that being said, I don’t wanna promise we’re never gonna do it because seven years from now we might turn around and put another tier in, who knows.
Or somebody else might be in charge in the game seven years from now and they may do it.

But to me I feel like, this should be it, you know, Guild Wars is about getting out there and playing and having fun, playing with your friends, it’s not about being on this endless gear grind that every six months we’re putting another tier gear you go after, so I would say right now, our hope would be ascended and, you know, we’re going to add more legendaries but they’re no more powerful than ascended gear.
It’s tiers that we have are what we like, we’re really happy with them, we’re happy with the time it takes to get them and I don’t see any need any time in the near future for us to even consider adding another tier gear.

Lots of “wishful” personal thoughts on not adding another tier.
Basically, they underestimated the hardcore grinders.
Honestly, I still think they’ve underestimated them, so yes, you can bet on another tier in the near future, and the players who don’t want grind will be collateral damage (again).

I haven’t played yet, but one thing to be assured, is that the culture of grinding is becoming embraced internally, if people are still in doubt.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ant.3415:

I’m looking forward to this but I think having a grind for continue coins is a mistake, and as others have said I hope we don’t have to go through that intro dialogue each time.

I remember back in the day grinding for gold in Final Fantasy 1 and Dragon Warrior 1 to be able to buy enough potions to beat the bosses and dungeons. That’s essentially what you’ll be doing. The time invested in doing so ratchets up the tension.

While this quote was in response to the hard mode of the new SAB, I’ve read some people having difficulty in world 2 in normal mode (haven’t played yet, so can’t comment myself, though I do know I do expect to die a lot initially, so grinding will be required for me even in normal mode).

I’m a bit more optimistic, in that for the first couple of weeks or so the zerg will be coordinated enough to beat Teq (and there will be enough players to make a zerg).
Once you miss that window of opportunity, though, expect it to go the way of the karka queen, pirate invasion champ farming, etc.

Moral of the story is always do content asap or miss out.

If discovering a recipe cost 10g worth of materials, and selling the crafted item is 5g, that’s only a 5g loss (and yes, most recipes are a gold sink).
If person A discovered it a couple of months ago, then discovers it again post-patch, that’s 10g loss (I’m ignoring inflation).
If person B waits, he only discovers it once and that’s a 5g loss.

The proper solution would have been to just retroactively reward crafting XP to any discovered recipe, but the thoughtlessness of this whole thing is not surprising.
It’s no different to the deadeye box “reward” change and karma “accident”.

EDIT: actually, the other solution is to leave the cap alone, but anet wanted another gold sink, so they can’t do that.

No, the book itself it the “recipe”. The resulting product obtained from the “reading” book itself is kept (eg. weapon), but you lose the book.

Ignoring the silly analogy, there is a loss in crafting XP for any discovery done at the cap (which comes from the time/effort/gold for obtaining the materials needed).

Wrei Mors Les.8406:

I don’t understand the fuss. People keep quoting normal exotic recipe discovery as though they can no longer craft the item without it (unlike the various recipes bought from Miyani or celestial ones). Placing the components in the same predictable pattern (weapons part a + b + ecto + insig) mearly opens up a shortcut the first time so that u can mass produce it later on (assuming any1 actually wants to do so for w/e reason).

Its like a list of books you’ve read. Scrap the list but the BOOK IS STILL THERE. You just have to read it again. The list serves no other purpose then as a reminder or for bragging rights (“I’ve read more books than you” ) cause you got such an amazing library that no one else could see.
Sense of completionist? Show me the achievement title, otherwise its just another obsessive compulsive issue (ego thing), but I digress.

Let me instead show an example of what could happen if Anet instead allowed you to keep your precious recipe ‘discoveries’.
Update comes. Everyone tries to level 400>>500. Guys like me with NO weapon exotic discoveries (except celestial) actually bothers to unlock ‘discoveries’. Fast tracks crafting level (I have all 8 btw).
Guys who already have ‘discoveries’ unlock. Tries to lv up >>500. Realise with NO new discovery, they spend twice as much material crafting things they already ‘discovered’ for the same level of crafting progression…….RAGES at Anet as a result………

So any more complaints?

Thankfully, I haven’t done any discovery at the crafting cap, but this post here shows a pretty silly analogy.
Try this analogy:
Its like a list of books you’ve read, that you buy from a store.
Now the store removes the book from your possession.
THE BOOK IS STILL THERE IN THE STORE FOR YOU TO PURCHASE.

What’s the problem?

Considering anyone who purchased the tickets, this is just a straight up loss. It’s not even a breakeven reward.
Terrible thinking from anet.

Asbrandr.6324:

BlueZone.4236:

Stating the median number alone doesn’t really give people much to work on, only confuses the less informed people even more (what’s worse is them restating this information to other people, but then uses the word “average”).
As an example, if 80% of players earned 2g, and 20% earned 100g, the median is still only 2g, but the average gold earned per person would be 21.6g.

In any case, if the solution is to provide a more, and bigger gold sinks, I’m scared of what it’d mean for me (though I’ve earned more than 2-3g, but nowhere near the 300g+ that some are claiming…).
From what I’ve been reading about their future plans, I’d say they’ll make gold a little less relevant and emphasize on new currencies and resources, and these would all be time gated, and maybe account bound (which would be a good thing for me so I don’t need to constantly play catch-up, but not for hardcore grinders who worked for endless hours).

Actually, the median is a better number to use when there are excessively high or low outliers, as those outliers will provide misleading averages. For example (using a small sample), one person may make 500g, whereas the other 10 make 3g, as suggested. The median would be 3g, but the average would be 48.18g. The average is misleading because it suggests that the average player made 48.18g, which is clearly not the case in this scenario, as one outlier skewed the average.

True in some cases, but this is why I said the median alone doesn’t suffice. Neither the median or the average by themselves tell the full story.
Without knowing the further information, we can’t tell how much influence these outliers would have on the average, nor what percentage of these outliers consist of.
It could be 51% earned 2g and 49% earned 1000g, or 51% earned 2g and 49% earned 3g. We can’t tell, and ill-informed people are misinterpreting this number.

Stating the median number alone doesn’t really give people much to work on, only confuses the less informed people even more (what’s worse is them restating this information to other people, but then uses the word “average”).
As an example, if 80% of players earned 2g, and 20% earned 100g, the median is still only 2g, but the average gold earned per person would be 21.6g.

In any case, if the solution is to provide a more, and bigger gold sinks, I’m scared of what it’d mean for me (though I’ve earned more than 2-3g, but nowhere near the 300g+ that some are claiming…).
From what I’ve been reading about their future plans, I’d say they’ll make gold a little less relevant and emphasize on new currencies and resources, and these would all be time gated, and maybe account bound (which would be a good thing for me so I don’t need to constantly play catch-up, but not for hardcore grinders who worked for endless hours).

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

Well 30 sprockets is 10 tickets and 45 is 15. Something you need to factor into your calculations.

And I really do believe that content was made for the hard core crowd. The casuals I know want very little to do with it. There may be a small segment of casual people that like really difficult, challenging, solo content, but I don’t think it’s a huge demographic. I could be wrong.

Generally speaking, the people in my guild who’s doing that are the people who play for hours a day.

FYI, it’s late and I can’t be bothered with showing my working, but the gold + TP for sprockets + farmed sprockets would give 112 tickets per hour to break even (exclude wp, repair cost, bug that skip your turn, bug that includes yourself, your foe with another person and their foe, etc), but at the moment I’m wanting to do 3-5 gambits instead of 0 gambits since I’ve finally beat Liadri.
Considering my situation now, that’s around 20-40 games available per hour of grind depending on the gambits, which still isn’t that great of a deal in terms of effort vs reward.

The other option is to make it free. Do it whenever you want. You’d have beaten it in two hours, never looked at it again, and you’d have nothing to do for two weeks.

I think game designers do things for very specific reasons. A lot of people think the game would be better without those things, but in something like an MMO, without some of those things, there would be no game at all.

MMOs are the only game where you’re expected to play for hundreds of hours. It’s not reasonable to expect enough content that’s original, compelling and challenging enough to keep enough people busy for that long.

A whole lot of people wanted legendaries to be easier to get, but once they got them, they stopped playing.

People don’t always know what’s best for the game. Sometimes Anet doesn’t either (because it’s run by people) but in this case, I think they got it right.

That wasn’t 2 hours, if you’ve played it, either you’d know, or just a much better player than I am.
Remember when I said triple or quadruple your estimate?
I just happened to pull more hours into grinding and playing for this than usual. Not doing that anymore. The effort isn’t worth it.

Difficult content does not mean requiring grind to access it, eg. explorer mode dungeons.
Feel free to continue to disagree, but that’s really the end of what I had to say on this.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Over 12 hours of logged in time, but even so, 9-10 hours per day does sound reasonable considering your posts…
Sorry, but I can clearly see why your sense of time and patience is completely off for a proper casual player.
Whatever estimate is in your head, please triple or quadruple that estimate.

Anyway, here’s some something interesting that happened today.
I asked in map chat how many tickets they had and how long they were farming at the pavilion.
One person replied ~300 tickets over 20 hours (person was general farming, not ticket farming).
Judging by the number of tickets I had and how long I farmed, that was about the same amount (well, I think I got slightly less, because RNG).
That amounts to 15 tickets per hour.
1 ticket = 1 admission.
1 ticket = 1 gambit (5 gambit max).
Therefore, a game can cost anywhere between 1 ticket to 6 tickets.
One game takes about 4 minutes on average for me (includes queue and running back up after dying).
4 minutes * 15 tickets = 60 minutes MAXIMUM.
Amazing how I need to spend at least as much time grinding as playing the gauntlet.
Readers themselves can calculate what happens if you want to try and attempt the game with 5 gambit on multiple times…
Well, looks like I’ve given up on grinding for this, and won’t play it as much as I’d like. Disappointing, to say the least.

Of course, you’ll also see people in map chat saying “I don’t even want to think about how much I spent on the tickets…”, and it’s clear that the money sink is working as intended (and others replying “just farm it, lol”).

Are you cashing in your sprockets for tickets or not? Because once you factor in sprockets, the drop rate increases quite a bit.

I did not do a proper tracking of those, but I’m guessing around 30-40 sprockets per hour and 5 g per hour.
If there’s faster way to grind the gold/sprockets, I haven’t found it yet (I was farming in pav).

Well 30 sprockets is 10 tickets and 45 is 15. Something you need to factor into your calculations.

And I really do believe that content was made for the hard core crowd. The casuals I know want very little to do with it. There may be a small segment of casual people that like really difficult, challenging, solo content, but I don’t think it’s a huge demographic. I could be wrong.

Generally speaking, the people in my guild who’s doing that are the people who play for hours a day.

FYI, it’s late and I can’t be bothered with showing my working, but the gold + TP for sprockets + farmed sprockets would give 112 tickets per hour to break even (exclude wp, repair cost, bug that skip your turn, bug that includes yourself, your foe with another person and their foe, etc), but at the moment I’m wanting to do 3-5 gambits instead of 0 gambits since I’ve finally beat Liadri.
Considering my situation now, that’s around 20-40 games available per hour of grind depending on the gambits, which still isn’t that great of a deal in terms of effort vs reward.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Over 12 hours of logged in time, but even so, 9-10 hours per day does sound reasonable considering your posts…
Sorry, but I can clearly see why your sense of time and patience is completely off for a proper casual player.
Whatever estimate is in your head, please triple or quadruple that estimate.

Anyway, here’s some something interesting that happened today.
I asked in map chat how many tickets they had and how long they were farming at the pavilion.
One person replied ~300 tickets over 20 hours (person was general farming, not ticket farming).
Judging by the number of tickets I had and how long I farmed, that was about the same amount (well, I think I got slightly less, because RNG).
That amounts to 15 tickets per hour.
1 ticket = 1 admission.
1 ticket = 1 gambit (5 gambit max).
Therefore, a game can cost anywhere between 1 ticket to 6 tickets.
One game takes about 4 minutes on average for me (includes queue and running back up after dying).
4 minutes * 15 tickets = 60 minutes MAXIMUM.
Amazing how I need to spend at least as much time grinding as playing the gauntlet.
Readers themselves can calculate what happens if you want to try and attempt the game with 5 gambit on multiple times…
Well, looks like I’ve given up on grinding for this, and won’t play it as much as I’d like. Disappointing, to say the least.

Of course, you’ll also see people in map chat saying “I don’t even want to think about how much I spent on the tickets…”, and it’s clear that the money sink is working as intended (and others replying “just farm it, lol”).

Are you cashing in your sprockets for tickets or not? Because once you factor in sprockets, the drop rate increases quite a bit.

I did not do a proper tracking of those, but I’m guessing around 30-40 sprockets per hour and 5 g per hour.
If there’s faster way to grind the gold/sprockets, I haven’t found it yet (I was farming in pav).

Over 12 hours of logged in time, but even so, 9-10 hours per day does sound reasonable considering your posts…
Sorry, but I can clearly see why your sense of time and patience is completely off for a proper casual player.
Whatever estimate is in your head, please triple or quadruple that estimate.

Anyway, here’s some something interesting that happened today.
I asked in map chat how many tickets they had and how long they were farming at the pavilion.
One person replied ~300 tickets over 20 hours (person was general farming, not ticket farming).
Judging by the number of tickets I had and how long I farmed, that was about the same amount (well, I think I got slightly less, because RNG).
That amounts to 15 tickets per hour.
1 ticket = 1 admission.
1 ticket = 1 gambit (5 gambit max).
Therefore, a game can cost anywhere between 1 ticket to 6 tickets.
One game takes about 4 minutes on average for me (includes queue and running back up after dying).
4 minutes * 15 tickets = 60 minutes MAXIMUM.
Amazing how I need to spend at least as much time grinding as playing the gauntlet.
Readers themselves can calculate what happens if you want to try and attempt the game with 5 gambit on multiple times…
Well, looks like I’ve given up on grinding for this, and won’t play it as much as I’d like. Disappointing, to say the least.

Of course, you’ll also see people in map chat saying “I don’t even want to think about how much I spent on the tickets…”, and it’s clear that the money sink is working as intended (and others replying “just farm it, lol”).

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Well, hold on! As a meat eater, that dish had LESS meat than a typical meat dish, therefore is still considered a vegetarian dish.

Anyway, I agree with you about being interested by the concepts of the manifesto. Just because a concept does not operate word by word the same as stated, doesn’t always make it different.
XP vs items to get to fun stuff is just a redressing of the same underlying mechanic.
In the case of the gauntlet, it seems like they’ve brought back the very mechanic they said they didn’t want people to do.
Of course people won’t complain since they’re already conditioned to grind through prior experience. Even if every other content within this game did not do it, just a little bit won’t hurt now. Then just a bit more…then a little more, etc.
It also helps by flooding them with other distractions so they don’t notice it (eg. farming in the arena area).

Vayne, I’m curious on your /age and AP, because you certainly sound like someone in the hardcore group, rather than the majority.

I’m over 10,000 AP and I’ve played a whole lot of hours. I’m not casual in the sense of hours played, but I’m very much casual in my attitude toward things. In other words, I don’t grind.

However, I’m also patient. I don’t see new content and think, I must do this NOW. I go and do my normal stuff and I get passes to the Gauntlet. Then I do the Gauntlet.

And having funs thing to do up front doesn’t imply there won’t be other fun things to do that you don’t need to work towards. They’re different things.

It would be like me saying as soon as you enter the garden you’ll see beautiful flowers. Then there are other, different beautiful flowers at the other side of the garden. You’re saying, I had to walk all this way to see beautiful flowers, and that’s not true.

Anet didn’t say there would never been any work to get to a specific event. They just said there’s be fun pretty much throughout. You’re interpreting the manifesto as saying there would never be anything fun that didn’t require you to do something else first.

And Anet certainly never said that.

They expressed a desire for people not to grind to get to the fun stuff.
Your AP and omission of actual hours (but I can guesstimate the hours), and it’s clear your idea of “a little” is in the range of hours which you clearly have an abundant of.
It’s not surprising your social circle would agree with you, since they’re probably hardcore people such as yourself (like people attracts, obviously).

Thanks for the flawed analogy. If I have to look at the existing flowers that I’ve already seen 1,000,000 times in order to look at the new flowers, that’s silly.

Was there a promise that people will not to grind to get to the fun stuff ever? No.
But, actions speak louder than words, and those action in the past agreed with their original philosophy. Seems they no longer agree with their original philosophy and the gauntlet is starting proof of that.
You should also be aware that all of the existing content’s “work” that requires unlocking, remains unlocked. Here it is not.
Continuous access is not a challenging task. It is mundane work.
They’ve laid the ground work and people already conditioned to this don’t notice.
You don’t see it as work because you’re not actively wanting to play it. Watch what happens when you burn through your tickets and want to play some more. Farm or buy more tickets (which is obviously easy enough since everyone has the same number of hours to play as yourself).
You also don’t realize people are adverse to difficult things thus will skip this anyway.
There is also a good reason to play it “now”. Shorter queues because the majority are still in farming mode.

I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I can definitely see the next SAB iteration doing the same trick as the gauntlet, and probably bigger requirement to gain access.
What a shame if it happens.

Astralporing.1957:

MrRuin.9740:

Why are you clinging to this manifesto like its the final word on this game, forever? Let it go.

I don’t care about the manifesto per se. I do care about the fact, that Anet sold me the game using some concepts, and then did an almost complete turnaround in one of the first major patches, 3 months after launch.
I do care that the game goes in a different direction than it was originally supposed to go. I do care about the fact that I bought this game because it advertised it won’t follow certain paths common to other MMO’s, and that it is doing now exactly what they promised they won’t.

Basically, i care because what Anet is doing with GW2 changes this game from something i wanted to buy into something i am certain i will not be interested in.

When i order vegetarian dish and see that i got served meat, telling me that i should not care too much about what was written on the menu is not exactly a good advice.

Well, hold on! As a meat eater, that dish had LESS meat than a typical meat dish, therefore is still considered a vegetarian dish.

Anyway, I agree with you about being interested by the concepts of the manifesto. Just because a concept does not operate word by word the same as stated, doesn’t always make it different.
XP vs items to get to fun stuff is just a redressing of the same underlying mechanic.
In the case of the gauntlet, it seems like they’ve brought back the very mechanic they said they didn’t want people to do.
Of course people won’t complain since they’re already conditioned to grind through prior experience. Even if every other content within this game did not do it, just a little bit won’t hurt now. Then just a bit more…then a little more, etc.
It also helps by flooding them with other distractions so they don’t notice it (eg. farming in the arena area).

Vayne, I’m curious on your /age and AP, because you certainly sound like someone in the hardcore group, rather than the majority.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

People posting on this particular forum represents the percentage of people’s views? Wow.
Also, number people disagreeing the manifesto is also wrong because you’re right, obviously. Okay.

Funny you’ve never heard of karma grind. I guess you were never in Orr in the early days.
Nor were you there when people exploited karma for gold.
Also, karma doesn’t give you access to a new dungeon, map etc.

Of course I’ve heard of karma grind. I’ve said you CAN grind karma. Therefore I’ve heard of it. But most people accumulate karma without grinding. Grinding karma is a choice that I’m convinced most people don’t engage in.

It can’t be that hard to grind if it’s only going to be here for a matter of weeks. What you’re doing is exaggerating the situation to suit your own conclusion. In your opinion it’s grind. In my opinion it’s not.

I don’t know anyone who says farming for a legendary weapon isn’t a grind. I don’t know a whole lot of people who think getting tickets is a grind. I thoroughly accept you find it a grind….but that doesn’t make it a grind. It only makes it a grind to you.

Grind isn’t difficult. Grind is boring repetitive busy work to get to the fun stuff and/or get items.

Karma has been nerfed multiple times making the incentive to grind karma pointless, and/or those that managed to grind karma prior to the nerf got enough karma to “bank” the rest. It happened, it wasn’t some theory. Map chat constantly came up with “where’s the zerg?”. Where all those participants are now, or whether they grinded enough in time, I don’t know. It’s pretty obviously the majority of legendary owners did it, though.
In any case, there is no time sensitive content involving karma, nor is it a currency to access “fun stuff”.

It’s clear you don’t see how this is going to be the start of required tokens/tickets/currency to access “fun” events, ie. we will most likely get more living story the will make grind to get to the fun stuff in the future. What a shame.

All I can say is that if you think this is grind..the stuff we’re doing now, I suggest you never play any other MMO. Because by those standards, this isn’t grind (and those standards are pretty much what we have to go by).

Grind isn’t just doing the same thing repetitively for a reward. It’s doing the same thing repetitively for a reward long term. I was out just running around the world today, doing dailies and I got a bunch of tickets.

You’re of course entitled to your opinion that this is grind, but it’s just that. Your opinion. I don’t believe this is grind and I don’t believe most other people do either.

Just because one thing is comparatively more worse than another, it doesn’t nullify the less worse one. Is this concept hard to grasp, or something? I guess some people can’t see the bigger picture.
The original philosophy of not wanting to people to grind to get to the fun stuff held up well up until now.

I’m not sure what your level of reading comprehension skills are, so I’ll rephrase this again: Grinding is not hard. It is boring, repetitive work, and that time could be better spent in the fun stuff rather than getting to the fun stuff. To me, fun stuff now = gauntlet. Getting to the fun stuff = getting the tickets (hint: grind).
Funny how you’re insisting on comparing grind on other MMOs, instead of what GW2 has been over the last year.
They could have just as easily not add in a ticket requirement (multiple tickets if you include gambits), and it’d be just like how all their previous content is: no grind required to play them if you just want to dive into them!

Thank you for your definition of grind to include an ambiguous time frame, despite the definition of grinding not requiring time frame as a cut-off point of when something is a grind or not.

It’s great you got a bunch of tickets out in the open world, so did I while grinding, and then I used those tickets to access the fun stuff. I’m pretty sure I got more tickets than you from my grinding, too!

Going by your post, it’s clear the “majority” is ready to accept grind to get to the fun stuff again, like every other MMO.
Anet’s started on a good path here for people like you, and will probably gradually increase the grind amount for future content, so over time so you won’t notice that it’s the same as every other MMO. But you’re also easily distract by the other carrots so you won’t notice the grind anyway, so it’ll work better for you.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

A person with only 10 coppers is poor. A person with only 1 gold is also poor.
No, sorry, the latter person isn’t poor because of the former. My bad.

Too bad the living story events like the gauntlet isn’t “normal stuff”. Oh wait, it is.
What I’m doing is grinding to get to the fun stuff. That stuff is currently the gauntlet.
Fun stuff becomes boring over time due to repetition, or do you not know that that happens to people?
Here is something new, challenging and refreshing (read: fun), so what’s the best way to get the tickets so I can play this fun stuff…?
Oh, play existing content that I’ve already done, instead of this fun stuff? Okay, makes sense.
If you are easily entertained by repeating the same content again and again, then more power to you.

Just saying something is less grindy doesn’t automatically change to mean not a grind.
That’s not how it works. Actually never mind, repetitively saying it’s not a grind does work.

Everything in every game, akittens basic level is repetition. You’re always killing, protecting, exploring. It’s all repetitive. Something being repetitive isn’t quite what is usually meant by grind.

Because you can get tickets in multiple ways, including running dungeons, doing events, killing mobs in the open world, running with the zerg in the Pavillion, even WvW, most people wouldn’t qualify it as grind…because you can do different things to get it.

You grind mobs to level in some games. You grind faction in Guild Wars 1 to level your Luxon or Kurzick title. It takes days/weeks/months…doing the same thing over and over.

This just isn’t what most people would refer to as grind, even though you say it’s repetitive.

Repetition to get a specific reward. The reward being tickets to gain admission to the fun stuff, which is my goal. The most efficient way to achieve this goal means being able to spend more time within said fun stuff, and that involves grinding to get the reward.

Thank you for repeating yourself by insisting because this is less grind compared to other grind, therefore no longer a grind. It really makes it true!
Here’s 1 internet for you.

So far you’re the only person I’ve seen or heard complain about this. The percentage of people who seem to agree with you are pretty thin on the ground. And YOU seeing something as grind, doesn’t make it grind. It may very well feel like grinding to you, but if you get stuff by just playing the game normally, it’s not grind.

In theory you CAN grind karma…but karma is not a grind. Why? Because everything you do gives you karma. The same is true of these tickets.

People posting on this particular forum represents the percentage of people’s views? Wow.
Also, number people disagreeing the manifesto is also wrong because you’re right, obviously. Okay.

Funny you’ve never heard of karma grind. I guess you were never in Orr in the early days.
Nor were you there when people exploited karma for gold.
Also, karma doesn’t give you access to a new dungeon, map etc.

Of course I’ve heard of karma grind. I’ve said you CAN grind karma. Therefore I’ve heard of it. But most people accumulate karma without grinding. Grinding karma is a choice that I’m convinced most people don’t engage in.

It can’t be that hard to grind if it’s only going to be here for a matter of weeks. What you’re doing is exaggerating the situation to suit your own conclusion. In your opinion it’s grind. In my opinion it’s not.

I don’t know anyone who says farming for a legendary weapon isn’t a grind. I don’t know a whole lot of people who think getting tickets is a grind. I thoroughly accept you find it a grind….but that doesn’t make it a grind. It only makes it a grind to you.

Grind isn’t difficult. Grind is boring repetitive busy work to get to the fun stuff and/or get items.

Karma has been nerfed multiple times making the incentive to grind karma pointless, and/or those that managed to grind karma prior to the nerf got enough karma to “bank” the rest. It happened, it wasn’t some theory. Map chat constantly came up with “where’s the zerg?”. Where all those participants are now, or whether they grinded enough in time, I don’t know. It’s pretty obviously the majority of legendary owners did it, though.
In any case, there is no time sensitive content involving karma, nor is it a currency to access “fun stuff”.

It’s clear you don’t see how this is going to be the start of required tokens/tickets/currency to access “fun” events, ie. we will most likely get more living story the will make grind to get to the fun stuff in the future. What a shame.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

A person with only 10 coppers is poor. A person with only 1 gold is also poor.
No, sorry, the latter person isn’t poor because of the former. My bad.

Too bad the living story events like the gauntlet isn’t “normal stuff”. Oh wait, it is.
What I’m doing is grinding to get to the fun stuff. That stuff is currently the gauntlet.
Fun stuff becomes boring over time due to repetition, or do you not know that that happens to people?
Here is something new, challenging and refreshing (read: fun), so what’s the best way to get the tickets so I can play this fun stuff…?
Oh, play existing content that I’ve already done, instead of this fun stuff? Okay, makes sense.
If you are easily entertained by repeating the same content again and again, then more power to you.

Just saying something is less grindy doesn’t automatically change to mean not a grind.
That’s not how it works. Actually never mind, repetitively saying it’s not a grind does work.

Everything in every game, akittens basic level is repetition. You’re always killing, protecting, exploring. It’s all repetitive. Something being repetitive isn’t quite what is usually meant by grind.

Because you can get tickets in multiple ways, including running dungeons, doing events, killing mobs in the open world, running with the zerg in the Pavillion, even WvW, most people wouldn’t qualify it as grind…because you can do different things to get it.

You grind mobs to level in some games. You grind faction in Guild Wars 1 to level your Luxon or Kurzick title. It takes days/weeks/months…doing the same thing over and over.

This just isn’t what most people would refer to as grind, even though you say it’s repetitive.

Repetition to get a specific reward. The reward being tickets to gain admission to the fun stuff, which is my goal. The most efficient way to achieve this goal means being able to spend more time within said fun stuff, and that involves grinding to get the reward.

Thank you for repeating yourself by insisting because this is less grind compared to other grind, therefore no longer a grind. It really makes it true!
Here’s 1 internet for you.

So far you’re the only person I’ve seen or heard complain about this. The percentage of people who seem to agree with you are pretty thin on the ground. And YOU seeing something as grind, doesn’t make it grind. It may very well feel like grinding to you, but if you get stuff by just playing the game normally, it’s not grind.

In theory you CAN grind karma…but karma is not a grind. Why? Because everything you do gives you karma. The same is true of these tickets.

People posting on this particular forum represents the percentage of people’s views? Wow.
Also, number people disagreeing the manifesto is also wrong because you’re right, obviously. Okay.

Funny you’ve never heard of karma grind. I guess you were never in Orr in the early days.
Nor were you there when people exploited karma for gold.
Also, karma doesn’t give you access to a new dungeon, map etc.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

A person with only 10 coppers is poor. A person with only 1 gold is also poor.
No, sorry, the latter person isn’t poor because of the former. My bad.

Too bad the living story events like the gauntlet isn’t “normal stuff”. Oh wait, it is.
What I’m doing is grinding to get to the fun stuff. That stuff is currently the gauntlet.
Fun stuff becomes boring over time due to repetition, or do you not know that that happens to people?
Here is something new, challenging and refreshing (read: fun), so what’s the best way to get the tickets so I can play this fun stuff…?
Oh, play existing content that I’ve already done, instead of this fun stuff? Okay, makes sense.
If you are easily entertained by repeating the same content again and again, then more power to you.

Just saying something is less grindy doesn’t automatically change to mean not a grind.
That’s not how it works. Actually never mind, repetitively saying it’s not a grind does work.

Everything in every game, akittens basic level is repetition. You’re always killing, protecting, exploring. It’s all repetitive. Something being repetitive isn’t quite what is usually meant by grind.

Because you can get tickets in multiple ways, including running dungeons, doing events, killing mobs in the open world, running with the zerg in the Pavillion, even WvW, most people wouldn’t qualify it as grind…because you can do different things to get it.

You grind mobs to level in some games. You grind faction in Guild Wars 1 to level your Luxon or Kurzick title. It takes days/weeks/months…doing the same thing over and over.

This just isn’t what most people would refer to as grind, even though you say it’s repetitive.

Repetition to get a specific reward. The reward being tickets to gain admission to the fun stuff, which is my goal. The most efficient way to achieve this goal means being able to spend more time within said fun stuff, and that involves grinding to get the reward.

Thank you for repeating yourself by insisting because this is less grind compared to other grind, therefore no longer a grind. It really makes it true!
Here’s 1 internet for you.

Vayne.8563:

What you’re doing is calling playing the game grinding. Playing the game is playing the game. The Gauntlet is part of the game. I’m on the sniper, tier 3. It’s here for two weeks. As I play the game and do stuff, whatever the stuff is, I get tickets. My character got five tickets for free.

Just in the course of normally doing stuff I had a hundred tickets and lord knows how many sprockets on the character I was using.

For me, it’s a bit tougher, because I have a ton of alts. So I’m not getting all tickets on one character. I don’t see why they were made soul bound instead of account bound. But aside from that,, these things drop.

You’re taking the word grind, and you’re applying it to a single instance of something that drops all the time. I don’t see anyone else saying getting tickets is a grind. And you may even FEEL like it’s a grind. But grinding levels in MMOs or grinding for a legendary…those things are grindy.

Getting tickets to do the gauntlet…not so much.

Seems to me that people feel if they have to actually play the game, they’re grinding.

A person with only 10 coppers is poor. A person with only 1 gold is also poor.
No, sorry, the latter person isn’t poor because of the former. My bad.

Too bad the living story events like the gauntlet isn’t “normal stuff”. Oh wait, it is.
What I’m doing is grinding to get to the fun stuff. That stuff is currently the gauntlet.
Fun stuff becomes boring over time due to repetition, or do you not know that that happens to people?
Here is something new, challenging and refreshing (read: fun), so what’s the best way to get the tickets so I can play this fun stuff…?
Oh, play existing content that I’ve already done, instead of this fun stuff? Okay, makes sense.
If you are easily entertained by repeating the same content again and again, then more power to you.

Just saying something is less grindy doesn’t automatically change to mean not a grind.
That’s not how it works. Actually never mind, repetitively saying it’s not a grind does work.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. The manifesto doesn’t say there won’t be fun stuff that you have to work to get to. It simply says there will be fun stuff up front. There’s no guarantee there that says ALL fun stuff will instantly attainable.

At any rate, it’s still not a grind. If you play the game normally for bit, you’ll get plenty of those tickets…and gears to buy tickets with.

I guess you haven’t seen how accessible a lot of the major previous content was, then? (EDIT: I am talking about “fun stuff” to do, not gear if you’re going to argue that)

At any rate, a grind for the gauntlet is still a grind for the gauntlet, regardless if you are easily distracted by other carrots.

And all this, even if it is is grind is still not relevant to my point. The point is only that there would be fun stuff to do early on. Not that there would never be anything to work towards.

Again, working towards grinding for gear is not the same as grinding for fun stuff to do.
Locking activities via grinding for admission tickets (be it sprockets + coins, drops) still requires “grinding to get to the fun stuff”.
In this game, what is the “fun stuff” after grinding to obtain gear? Nothing; Only looks.
What is the “fun stuff” after grinding for gauntlet tickets? The gauntlet (ie. the fun stuff)

Here’s the proper quote from the video:

In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.

Nothing to say like “initially” or “in the beginning”. Any player can tell you that the first sentence is true and is NOT restricted to the start of the game.
From the key word “occasionally”, you can tell the context is not restricted to the start of the game as well. In some games, it’s level requirements (+ absurd xp requirement get to that level), other games it’s gear grind. It’s the same thing under a different dressing.
With respect to the gauntlet in GW2, guess what’s the fastest way to get the tickets…?
Saying there are alternative activities doesn’t change the fact that the gauntlet still requires grinding for continuous admission.

To go back to my first post in this thread, this is probably the start of them re-introducing grind to get to the fun stuff. What a shame.

15 sprockets get you 5 tickets. Tickets drop from other stuff as well. If this is grind, you need to get out and play some other MMOs.

This is not some other MMO. This is Guild Wars 2. And clearly you haven’t played the gauntlet or don’t enjoy it.
It’s 15 sprockets and 20 silvers. I’ve already gotten ~100 tickets from grinding and already burnt through them.
I’m sure many people have burnt many times more than that.
Without grind and purchasing it through the merchant using the TP for the sprockets, that’s just under 30g for 100 games.
You might not think that’s a lot of time to recover the cost, but for someone like me, that’s a lot of gold to burn and time to recover. Grinding for the tickets is faster, but clearly that is still grinding.
And let’s not forget the cost involved in WP after losing, time to run back, waiting in the queue…y’know, temporary content, huh.
Saying another MMO is requires comparatively more grind than this is an excuse to accept grind to get to the fun stuff. Clearly, you are ready to accept more grind just because MMO X, Y or Z had it worst.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

Still has nothing to do with backpeddling.

All the manifesto says is that there will be fun stuff to do up front. That’s it. It never says you’ll never have to put effort into getting something.

Take dungeon tokens. Been in the game since day 1. If you want to get a full set of armor from a dungeon that’s a whole lot of runs. But that has nothing to do with having to grind to get to the fun stuff. Because you can run the dungeon once.

This isn’t any difference. You don’t need to do that content. It’s an option. If you like it, and you find it worth it, you’ll do it. If you don’t find it worth it you won’t. The amount of “grind” unquote to get those tickets is neglible considering everything drops them. I got three of them doing a fractal run today.

But it still has zero to do with the manifesto.

The manifesto is a general statement about the game, not a specific discussion of any single aspect of it. You’re picking one temporary two week content that was never conceived before the manifesto.

Have you ever played Guild Wars 1. Are you saying 9 rings wasn’t a grind?

Playing different aspects of the game is optional. So what?
Doing grind to continuously access the gauntlet is a requirement.
Your dungeon token argument makes zero sense. It’s not like dungeon tokens are a requirement to access certain parts of a dungeon. But this is akin to what the gauntlet requirement is.

If your argument was they conceived the gauntlet requirement prior to the manifest, that would make sense. Since it’s after, they clearly think “grinding to get to fun stuff” is now okay.

I disagree. The manifesto doesn’t say there won’t be fun stuff that you have to work to get to. It simply says there will be fun stuff up front. There’s no guarantee there that says ALL fun stuff will instantly attainable.

At any rate, it’s still not a grind. If you play the game normally for bit, you’ll get plenty of those tickets…and gears to buy tickets with.

I guess you haven’t seen how accessible a lot of the major previous content was, then? (EDIT: I am talking about “fun stuff” to do, not gear if you’re going to argue that)

At any rate, a grind for the gauntlet is still a grind for the gauntlet, regardless if you are easily distracted by other carrots.

And all this, even if it is is grind is still not relevant to my point. The point is only that there would be fun stuff to do early on. Not that there would never be anything to work towards.

Again, working towards grinding for gear is not the same as grinding for fun stuff to do.
Locking activities via grinding for admission tickets (be it sprockets + coins, drops) still requires “grinding to get to the fun stuff”.
In this game, what is the “fun stuff” after grinding to obtain gear? Nothing; Only looks.
What is the “fun stuff” after grinding for gauntlet tickets? The gauntlet (ie. the fun stuff)

Here’s the proper quote from the video:

In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.

Nothing to say like “initially” or “in the beginning”. Any player can tell you that the first sentence is true and is NOT restricted to the start of the game.
From the key word “occasionally”, you can tell the context is not restricted to the start of the game as well. In some games, it’s level requirements (+ absurd xp requirement get to that level), other games it’s gear grind. It’s the same thing under a different dressing.
With respect to the gauntlet in GW2, guess what’s the fastest way to get the tickets…?
Saying there are alternative activities doesn’t change the fact that the gauntlet still requires grinding for continuous admission.

To go back to my first post in this thread, this is probably the start of them re-introducing grind to get to the fun stuff. What a shame.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

Still has nothing to do with backpeddling.

All the manifesto says is that there will be fun stuff to do up front. That’s it. It never says you’ll never have to put effort into getting something.

Take dungeon tokens. Been in the game since day 1. If you want to get a full set of armor from a dungeon that’s a whole lot of runs. But that has nothing to do with having to grind to get to the fun stuff. Because you can run the dungeon once.

This isn’t any difference. You don’t need to do that content. It’s an option. If you like it, and you find it worth it, you’ll do it. If you don’t find it worth it you won’t. The amount of “grind” unquote to get those tickets is neglible considering everything drops them. I got three of them doing a fractal run today.

But it still has zero to do with the manifesto.

The manifesto is a general statement about the game, not a specific discussion of any single aspect of it. You’re picking one temporary two week content that was never conceived before the manifesto.

Have you ever played Guild Wars 1. Are you saying 9 rings wasn’t a grind?

Playing different aspects of the game is optional. So what?
Doing grind to continuously access the gauntlet is a requirement.
Your dungeon token argument makes zero sense. It’s not like dungeon tokens are a requirement to access certain parts of a dungeon. But this is akin to what the gauntlet requirement is.

If your argument was they conceived the gauntlet requirement prior to the manifest, that would make sense. Since it’s after, they clearly think “grinding to get to fun stuff” is now okay.

I disagree. The manifesto doesn’t say there won’t be fun stuff that you have to work to get to. It simply says there will be fun stuff up front. There’s no guarantee there that says ALL fun stuff will instantly attainable.

At any rate, it’s still not a grind. If you play the game normally for bit, you’ll get plenty of those tickets…and gears to buy tickets with.

I guess you haven’t seen how accessible a lot of the major previous content was, then? (EDIT: I am talking about “fun stuff” to do, not gear if you’re going to argue that)

At any rate, a grind for the gauntlet is still a grind for the gauntlet, regardless if you are easily distracted by other carrots.

Vayne.8563:

Still has nothing to do with backpeddling.

All the manifesto says is that there will be fun stuff to do up front. That’s it. It never says you’ll never have to put effort into getting something.

Take dungeon tokens. Been in the game since day 1. If you want to get a full set of armor from a dungeon that’s a whole lot of runs. But that has nothing to do with having to grind to get to the fun stuff. Because you can run the dungeon once.

This isn’t any difference. You don’t need to do that content. It’s an option. If you like it, and you find it worth it, you’ll do it. If you don’t find it worth it you won’t. The amount of “grind” unquote to get those tickets is neglible considering everything drops them. I got three of them doing a fractal run today.

But it still has zero to do with the manifesto.

The manifesto is a general statement about the game, not a specific discussion of any single aspect of it. You’re picking one temporary two week content that was never conceived before the manifesto.

Have you ever played Guild Wars 1. Are you saying 9 rings wasn’t a grind?

Playing different aspects of the game is optional. So what?
Doing grind to continuously access the gauntlet is a requirement.
Your dungeon token argument makes zero sense. It’s not like dungeon tokens are a requirement to access certain parts of a dungeon. But this is akin to what the gauntlet requirement is.

If your argument was they conceived the gauntlet requirement prior to the manifest, that would make sense. Since it’s after, they clearly think “grinding to get to fun stuff” is now okay.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Dressing the same thing in a slightly different manner really doesn’t make it different.
It is irrelevant that the old method was to restrict “fun stuff” via levels. The “fun stuff” here requires grind to get access. Same difference.

There’s a logical fallacy in your argument.

We don’t want you to have to grind to get to the fun stuff. Therefore, if there’s fun stuff to do BEFORE you grind, you’ve already gotten to the fun stuff. It’s not saying there’s nothing in the game to grind for. That’s the logical fallacy.

Guild Wars 1 had tons of stuff to grind for…it’s just that that stuff wasn’t required. More to the point, Guild Wars 2 is talking about how other games are. Leveling is one experience and playing after level cap something else. You speed level/power level to do raids. That’s how this game is different. The fun stuff, the stuff you do in the beginning, is the stuff you do later on.

I’ve lost count of how many times Anet has said this and it remains true.

Oh, so you’re saying having different fun stuff makes grinding for this particular fun stuff/activity makes it okay. No backpedaling then.
The stuff you have to do now to get to retain access to Queen’s Gauntlet is…?

I have no idea what you’re arguing about regarding Guild Wars 1 and it’s non-activity (eg. gear) grind. I don’t care about that. What I was talking about is them starting to make “fun stuff” (ie. Queen’s Gauntlet) requiring a grind to get access to, which I expect the first of many.

I don’t see why you say it’s back peddling. Saying there will be stuff to do that’s fun right away, isn’t the same as saying there will never be anything to grind for. They’re two different statements.

They were saying there’s fun stuff to do before the grind. And since you can buy tickets with sprockets if you need them, it’s not even that hard to acquire the stuff you need. What they created here was a challenging event for people who want the challenge. That’s it.

But then, if you find the farming below fun, and some do, then what Anet said is completely true…even if for your usage of the word grind. Fun is subjective.

“Starting to” backpedal on their philosophy. This is testing the water.
Again, grinding for gear is one thing, grinding to access fun stuff is another.
Yes, they have a challenging event, but in order to attempt it multiple times (and with gambits) requires…what now?
Farming for gear is not the same as farming for access to events.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Dressing the same thing in a slightly different manner really doesn’t make it different.
It is irrelevant that the old method was to restrict “fun stuff” via levels. The “fun stuff” here requires grind to get access. Same difference.

There’s a logical fallacy in your argument.

We don’t want you to have to grind to get to the fun stuff. Therefore, if there’s fun stuff to do BEFORE you grind, you’ve already gotten to the fun stuff. It’s not saying there’s nothing in the game to grind for. That’s the logical fallacy.

Guild Wars 1 had tons of stuff to grind for…it’s just that that stuff wasn’t required. More to the point, Guild Wars 2 is talking about how other games are. Leveling is one experience and playing after level cap something else. You speed level/power level to do raids. That’s how this game is different. The fun stuff, the stuff you do in the beginning, is the stuff you do later on.

I’ve lost count of how many times Anet has said this and it remains true.

Oh, so you’re saying having different fun stuff makes grinding for this particular fun stuff/activity makes it okay. No backpedaling then.
The stuff you have to do now to get to retain access to Queen’s Gauntlet is…?

I have no idea what you’re arguing about regarding Guild Wars 1 and it’s non-activity (eg. gear) grind. I don’t care about that. What I was talking about is them starting to make “fun stuff” (ie. Queen’s Gauntlet) requiring a grind to get access to, which I expect the first of many.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Dressing the same thing in a slightly different manner really doesn’t make it different.
It is irrelevant that the old method was to restrict “fun stuff” via levels. The “fun stuff” here requires grind to get access. Same difference.

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

In other games there’s this boring grind to get to the fun stuff…

Okay.