Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

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Oke, lets for a moment, just for the sake of argument and to prevent repeating everything again play on your turn.

I dislike the ‘type of grind’ and the ‘quantity’ of grind, and find that especially the case for the element of the game I personally prefer the most. The same part that happens to also be the focus point of this game. Cosmetics.

I also find this grind or this type of grind, especially for this part of the game to be way worse that the way many other mmo’s reward there stuff.

This is not how I alone feel but how many people feel.

Because of that I would suggest Anet does something about it. (I just have an example of how it could be better) I don’t care how they fix it as long as they fix it. And while it seems completely logically that it’s linked to the cash-shop focus this link is not the important thing for me. What is important for me is that they fix it. The only reason I do point towards that link is because I think to solve a problem you need to find the cause of the problem. But again, in the end it’s the result that I care for the most.

How is this Vaye? Can you live with this formulation of the problem we are talking about here?

I can live with it.

Oke great, then every time you see a comment from me about the grind or the cash-shop simply think back about this and translate my comment for yourself back to fit along these lines.

Vayne.8563:

It won’t happen because there is no way for the company to produce content fast enough for the content locusts. Even in Guild Wars 1’s time, people finished Factions in weeks and claimed there was nothing to do.

You mean the 1 to 1,5 year between an expansion would be to short?
I think it should be doable, GW1 fastest expansion was 6 months later. I even think they would be able to keep a very minimal LS going on and have one bigger patch in-between the expansions.

Vayne.8563:

The strategy here is that you don’t get these big drops but you can get drops from anywhere, making the world feel bigger, to me anyway, because you can go anywhere. I don’t want to be standing around in zone X waiting for Y to drop. I don’t particularly like it in Drytop and the Silverwastes, which was a change in the direction you liked.

What you want is very specific. You want to go to a specific place and have a chance to get a specific reward, without grinding and without ridiculous RNG and without spending gold. You want what you want. You’ve narrowed down what you want to such a narrow point that you won’t get it, because other people want other things, even if there are other people who want what you want.

I want the freedom to roam in any map and have a chance of getting something cool. That’s what I want. So, yes, your very specific, needlessly restrictive set of desires, is incompatible with my desires.

Because if it getting the carapace armor worked your way, everyone would have it in two days or three days and then they’d be crying there’s nothing to do.

How do you solve that problem and your problem at the same time?

First of all, most of the content is already there / being developed, only the traditional quests should be added. The rewards should be the easy part and are already being created but end up in the cash-shop. So the trick is to put them all over the world behind content. I also did say rng would be fine as long as it was doable / reasonable / viable. That also helps to keep people busy for a long time.

Of course you are also not required to always stay at one place. If you really get tired of one place you can go to another place for an item you like there and come back at a later time when you feel like it.

In addition, for all the items that are not account-bound the gold-grind option is still there for people like you.

And let’s be fair. You say this current model makes the world bigger because you can go anywhere (what might also be true for you), but in reality it results in attrackting most people to a few locations where they grind gold, while the other system would be more likely to get people to explore the world more, indeed making it feel bigger.

Sure I explain it in details because If I don’t you keep getting questions like ‘but what if’ and ’how you solve this; . Much like you now do. The vaguer I am the more you get this sorts of questions. That does not mean they could design the reward system along these lines without following the details.

phys.7689:

Serophous.9085:

DavidH.7380:

Like Vayne, I’ve played (not a whole lot) traditional MMOs that would do things like require you to kill 1,000 centaurs in Queensdale to get a rare drop or to level the faction reputation necessary to purchase the fractal dungeon key that is required to even enter a level one fractal and see the content. And there is no other way to see the content / item except to spend days doing nothing but running in circles killing centaurs. And as soon as the next content or items are added you’ll have another similar gatekeeper grind to do somewhere else.

In my opinion, Anet does a decent job of avoiding that kind of traditional and content limiting grind in the game. They don’t, however, eliminate the necessity to engage in significant repetition of content in order to obtain worthwhile rewards. I doubt that is even possible. IMHO, that is really the heart of this discussion… is it even possible for a MMO to largely eliminate significant content repetition, and if not, how do we make what clearly IS a grind / farm not feel so grindy / farmy?

Then let’s actually discuss the heart of the discussion rather than go around in in a circle like we have.

So you run a dungeon once, and your are garunteed an item you wanted, why do you want to go back? Sure, can be fun the first five times, but it gets boring, specially if you are getting the same item over and over.

Make the dungeons harder or longer? Yeah, I think anet will tick off the demographic they are aiming for doing that.

Let’s face it, in this day of age, those of us who look at YouTube or the net for guides get content done fast, because in pve, its all scripted. Even if you change it up, there are only so many variables that it wouldn’t matter since it will still be memorized.

Anet only has so much man power to pump out content and test it privately, then release on a two week schedule, so adding content faster is really asking for a lot.

So how exactly do you implement something that retains players, and isn’t considered grind?

the game doesnt have a good balance of rewards. Other games juggle it a lot better. SAB (the first one)juggled it waaaay better.
A) you get content sensitive rewards/abilities from mastering the area (find this go here, etc)
B) you have a rare chance of sellable drop on success.
C) you can get a non sellable version by either mastering the levels (finding and getting all the hidden marbles as fast as possible) or at a slower pace with low mastery through repetition.

there are even better versions, but the main point is gw2 current system isnt working very well, loot/grind/rewarding feeling wise

Agreed about SAB version 1. It was still not optimal but much better then most of what we see in GW2. If only the SAB mini’s would also have been available in SAB (in a not time limited way).

With the first version I also leveled all my alts up to the max in SAB and had fun doing it, with the second version only one as it was not rewarding to do it with the others. And it’s safe to assume that this reward model was also part of the reason for it’s popularity.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

And if they dont reach the ’’satisfiing’’ boxxes sold , then what ?
Reduce the 2-week update ?
Sell DLC ?

Their x-pack should not suck balls at any cost :PPP
Edit" going to sleep , cya :P

Thats the risk I talked about. But then again with any model it’s possible you don’t make enough money.

Good night

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Maybe GW2 should remove the Cash Shop and force ppl to buy DLC instead with real money instead

Force? But sure and then they do that once a year / 1,5 year, make the DLC the size of an expansion and also sell it as a boxed version.
Great idea!

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Devata.6589:

So explain me, how they did pay the money during the multiple years of development-time. Or you know what, explain me how a game like series as GTA get payed.

Do you know the cost to make a GTA game ? Or an MMO ?
Because i dont .
Or how many pplare needed to create a single player game vs an MMO ?

Because frankly i dont ….

I guess NOW with the 21 milion dollars per 3 months they gain , the 50% of that is used to payback the ‘’development-time’’ . That why they dont push even more with the gems items , nor get ’’fired’’ from the NCsoft

In fact I do. GTA was at it’s release the most expensive game made so that means also more expensive then any MMO made by that time:

http://www.ibtimes.com/gta-5-costs-265-million-develop-market-making-it-most-expensive-video-game-ever-produced-report

The number of people is irrelevant, it´s about the total cost.

I think at this moment Destiny is the most expensive game on the market. A game that happens to be more in-line with the model I am suggesting here. Not completely as they also push out DLC but it’s more in line with it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

No I’m not going to argue with you that WoW’s cash shop is similar to Guild Wars 2. Because WoW makes I don’t know, $150,000,000 per month in subscription fees. They don’t update content regularly, they just sell you an expansion every couple of years. So no big content updates. You pay for the expansion. you pay for the monthly fee AND there’s a cash shop. If that doesn’t strike you as greedy, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about. On top of that:

http://www.themarysue.com/celestial-steed-world-of-warcraft/

This game is far less greedy than that game….in my opinion.

I don’t know but it seems to me that the WoW players, of which there are many and I am not one of them, are willing to fork out cash for that game.

So is Blizzard more greedy or are their customers less stingy? Apparently these players enjoy the game to the point of having no issue spending money on it even for something as a shiny horse.

And correct me if I am wrong, there are also content updates in WoW between the major expansions. Blizzard certainly knows how to make money with WoW, but I don’t think they would be successful if it was just them being greedy. Perhaps they are simply able to create an experience where people enjoy the game to the point of spending some extra cash on it. I never liked WoW but I can’t argue with those numbers and it seems to simple to just pin the pricing down to greed.

There are precious few content updates between expansions. That’s why people play for three months and then subs fall off until the next expansion comes out.

But don’t make the mistake that WOW has these numbers because it’s such a great game. It is definitely an addictive game, though, I’ll give it that.

I have two sons that are subscribed to WoW again, and they’re bored already. But this happens every time an expansion comes out. They buy it. They subscribe to it. One of my sons doesn’t even like it that much but he does it anyway. He ends up not playing more than he plays…but he still subscribes.

WoW does advertise heavily and they have tons of people vested in the game for years on end, so sure, they have that advantage. But they don’t have regular content updates, trust me on that.

There’s also plenty of grind. Ask people about faction grind one day.

Those sons that also stopped playing GW2? So maybe the lack of updates you talk about (The ones GW2 does have) is not the reason?

If I read this I would almost conclude the solution would be more regular expansions… Oow wait, thats what I have been suggesting all the time.

No, they essentially play games to grind. As long as grind is present they seem to play. When they complete the current grind they move games.

So they got all the mini’s, all the armor, the highest stats, all the other cosmetics and items in GW2?

No. they don’t care about minis. They care about stats. That’s why ascended armor drew them back here, but minis and armor don’t.

You love cosmetics, and you think lots of people go through cosmetics. WoW’s popularity is based, at least in part, 1 on making your numbers bigger. In Guild Wars 2 your numbers aren’t going to get bigger and so they just don’t care.

Oke, lets for a moment, just for the sake of argument and to prevent repeating everything again play on your turn.

I dislike the ‘type of grind’ and the ‘quantity’ of grind, and find that especially the case for the element of the game I personally prefer the most. The same part that happens to also be the focus point of this game. Cosmetics.

I also find this grind or this type of grind, especially for this part of the game to be way worse that the way many other mmo’s reward there stuff.

This is not how I alone feel but how many people feel.

Because of that I would suggest Anet does something about it. (I just have an example of how it could be better) I don’t care how they fix it as long as they fix it. And while it seems completely logically that it’s linked to the cash-shop focus this link is not the important thing for me. What is important for me is that they fix it. The only reason I do point towards that link is because I think to solve a problem you need to find the cause of the problem. But again, in the end it’s the result that I care for the most.

How is this Vaye? Can you live with this formulation of the problem we are talking about here?

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

No I’m not going to argue with you that WoW’s cash shop is similar to Guild Wars 2. Because WoW makes I don’t know, $150,000,000 per month in subscription fees. They don’t update content regularly, they just sell you an expansion every couple of years. So no big content updates. You pay for the expansion. you pay for the monthly fee AND there’s a cash shop. If that doesn’t strike you as greedy, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about. On top of that:

http://www.themarysue.com/celestial-steed-world-of-warcraft/

This game is far less greedy than that game….in my opinion.

I don’t know but it seems to me that the WoW players, of which there are many and I am not one of them, are willing to fork out cash for that game.

So is Blizzard more greedy or are their customers less stingy? Apparently these players enjoy the game to the point of having no issue spending money on it even for something as a shiny horse.

And correct me if I am wrong, there are also content updates in WoW between the major expansions. Blizzard certainly knows how to make money with WoW, but I don’t think they would be successful if it was just them being greedy. Perhaps they are simply able to create an experience where people enjoy the game to the point of spending some extra cash on it. I never liked WoW but I can’t argue with those numbers and it seems to simple to just pin the pricing down to greed.

There are precious few content updates between expansions. That’s why people play for three months and then subs fall off until the next expansion comes out.

But don’t make the mistake that WOW has these numbers because it’s such a great game. It is definitely an addictive game, though, I’ll give it that.

I have two sons that are subscribed to WoW again, and they’re bored already. But this happens every time an expansion comes out. They buy it. They subscribe to it. One of my sons doesn’t even like it that much but he does it anyway. He ends up not playing more than he plays…but he still subscribes.

WoW does advertise heavily and they have tons of people vested in the game for years on end, so sure, they have that advantage. But they don’t have regular content updates, trust me on that.

There’s also plenty of grind. Ask people about faction grind one day.

Those sons that also stopped playing GW2? So maybe the lack of updates you talk about (The ones GW2 does have) is not the reason?

If I read this I would almost conclude the solution would be more regular expansions… Oow wait, thats what I have been suggesting all the time.

No, they essentially play games to grind. As long as grind is present they seem to play. When they complete the current grind they move games.

So they got all the mini’s, all the armor, the highest stats, all the other cosmetics and items in GW2?

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Devata.6589:

Oow and how do you pay this without the cash-shop. By releasing more regular expansions once a year max 1,5 year.
The only items you ‘hand out for free’ would be something like hairstyles at a barber.

You know , in order to create GW2 , they had some1 lend them some money ?
And by having that ’’contract’’ , they are obligated each month to show up a profit and return it back to payback the debt ?
If profit is within the contract rules , then no1 will forced to be ’’fired’’ .

We dont know the financial/situation of everything in the globe .

So they have to pay that money back on a monthly base. So explain me, how they did pay the money during the multiple years of development-time. Or you know what, explain me how a game serie like GTA gets payed.

They don’t have to get payed on a only base. People invest, earn money on release of the game invest, earn back 1 year / 1,5 year later at the expansion, invest again and so on, and so on. That works perfectly fine. It’s how like all B2P games (also the not mmo’s) get funded or really any big projects that require investments. As long as the total amount is enough. And if I base my numbers on how well GW1’s expansions sold compared to it’s initial release and see how much the cash-shop earned compared to GW2 initial released GW2 would have earned more money by now with the expansion-based model then with the cash-shop model.

Oow and just for the record. I do think those expansions would have sold along a similar percentages (based on initial sale) as GW1’s expansions did. However I think HoT will sell less then that because Anet already did some irreversible damage as in scared people of that won’t come back after such a long time.

The risk is a little higher but still something pretty common on the market of games. A lot of companies don’t earn money on a daily or monthly base. Yearly is very common, or multiple years for B2P games is also very common or some companies (outside of the gaming industry) even invest money into projects they expect to pay of 50 years later.

I have seen this argument multiple times, as if they need a steady flow of income, but thats simply false.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/151443/1q14_NCSoft.jpg

The way stuff should have been rewarded has come up multiple times, what makes sense. Grind is a rewarding system and so the subjects are linked together. To make better clear what I dislike and to also explain how I would imho solve the grind I will explain how I would design the reward system.

There are two premises that are basically required to start with. That is that we have to take the cash-shop out of the picture here. It’s simple, every item put in there adds another item you can only grind gold for. The other would be addition of traditional quest. It could go without and I might have a little bias here as I think they should be added also outside of this discussion for other reasons but especially quest chains simply are very good ways to reward items and also give more meaning to those items.

I would use the 3 systems I talked about before. Direct reward for completing, rng and tokens you earn along the way.

Content, being it a dungeon, a boss, a JP or whatever could and in some cases should (a simple mob should not) reward a (or more) good item simply for completing it.

You can make this more interesting by adding multiple difficulty levels. Every level could add a different reward or like I said before an upgraded version. First you get a stone hammer skin, second difficulty you get the same hammer but the head is silver and with the hardest level it gets a nice glow over it. Preferably it’s always one item but you unlock an effect that you can also turn of independently if you want to. If somebody does not like the glow you do not want to punish him by giving the glow because he completed the highest level.

Secondly you also put some rng in there. All within limits, and that really depends on the content. Just killing a mob where there are plenty of you can give lower drop-rates then a dungeon you can only do once a day. It can also be multiple items but then usually different things. So not two different hammer skins but a mini or a skin and a dye or a mount (mount in GW2 being a glider skin, that could be a little dragon having you in it’s claws I guess).

This is a farm but again should be within limits. For a dungeon I would say 1 to 5 % but really this is something you need to see using statistics you collect in the game. It should be low enough to make it a rare drop but easy enough to prevent a boring grind.

Some items should be account-bound, else should not be, the once that are not should be rare enough to not flood the TP.

Then there is also a token system linked to that content. The items rewarding should not be among the most desirable. More of the type ‘nice to have’ or maybe just one part of them somebody might want. So people should have no real reason to farm them. I think most dungeon tokens in GW2 are a good example.
The amount of tokens you need to buy everything you can with them (like a full set of armor) is based on the drop-rate of the rng items. You calculate at what number of runs the person has a 50% drop chance in total for it to drop. Just before you reach this you should have earned all the required tokens.

All the items should be in style / connected to the content that rewards them.

Next to that there should be plenty of quest-chains that give nice rewards telling you not only about the NPC’s you meet but also a story about the items you eventually get. Recipe’s for crafts are also earned in these ways while the grind for the mats should be an fairly easy task. It’s getting the recipe’s that sends you all over the world and is the hard part.

Lastly some exceptions to the things above might be made. Like a few items with an extremely low drop rate or that do require an extremely high number of tokens (or other currency) are oke just to create some of those extremely rare items.
Still if tokens or mats are what you need don’t simply make it extremely hard to get them (like you need 250 but after an hour of farming mobs that there are only a few of you still have zero) simply making the farm doable but the number high.
These items should really be a few exceptions but they might be in there simply to create a few of those ‘woow’ items.

Oow and how do you pay this without the cash-shop. By releasing more regular expansions once a year max 1,5 year.
The only items you ‘hand out for free’ would be something like hairstyles at a barber.

Serophous.9085:

DavidH.7380:

Like Vayne, I’ve played (not a whole lot) traditional MMOs that would do things like require you to kill 1,000 centaurs in Queensdale to get a rare drop or to level the faction reputation necessary to purchase the fractal dungeon key that is required to even enter a level one fractal and see the content. And there is no other way to see the content / item except to spend days doing nothing but running in circles killing centaurs. And as soon as the next content or items are added you’ll have another similar gatekeeper grind to do somewhere else.

In my opinion, Anet does a decent job of avoiding that kind of traditional and content limiting grind in the game. They don’t, however, eliminate the necessity to engage in significant repetition of content in order to obtain worthwhile rewards. I doubt that is even possible. IMHO, that is really the heart of this discussion… is it even possible for a MMO to largely eliminate significant content repetition, and if not, how do we make what clearly IS a grind / farm not feel so grindy / farmy?

Then let’s actually discuss the heart of the discussion rather than go around in in a circle like we have.

So you run a dungeon once, and your are garunteed an item you wanted, why do you want to go back? Sure, can be fun the first five times, but it gets boring, specially if you are getting the same item over and over.

Make the dungeons harder or longer? Yeah, I think anet will tick off the demographic they are aiming for doing that.

Let’s face it, in this day of age, those of us who look at YouTube or the net for guides get content done fast, because in pve, its all scripted. Even if you change it up, there are only so many variables that it wouldn’t matter since it will still be memorized.

Anet only has so much man power to pump out content and test it privately, then release on a two week schedule, so adding content faster is really asking for a lot.

So how exactly do you implement something that retains players, and isn’t considered grind?

About the memorized part. I agree totally. That is also Why I did disagree with Chris in the raid CDI where he said knowledge > skill > group composition. I think knowledge should be the lowest as thats eventually is a trick you learn.

My solution for that would be better AI and a lot use of the randomizer. Really, if I was developing a game the randomizer would be my best friend and I would use it for about everything. That and involving other players (PvP) because they are also unpredictable. Think of a dungeon that has two separate rooms with two teams both needing to complete the goal first and having abilities to slow down the enemy team.

Or an easy example of AI would be a JP. Imaging moving blocks, you can learn how they move and so the JP becomes easy. But what if you apply a randomizer to the speed and moment of movement to those blocks you need to jump on. That is stays unpredictable and so skill becomes more important then having learned the thing or having watched a youtube video.

DavidH.7380:

Behellagh.1468:

DavidH.7380:

Devata.6589:

The game itself has less or really no influence from the cash-shop and there is less grind (like the type we see in Gw2) for these type of items, you earn by far most of them directly ingame.. what is what we were talking about, not what company was more greedy.

You seem to mention earning items directly in game in some kind contrast to grind or as a way to mitigate grind in GW2 fairly often. I understand how that might affect the perception of grind, but I don’t see how it relates to presence of grind.

Obtaining / collecting mounts in WoW was discussed earlier. Deathcharger’s Reins can only be obtained as a 1% drop from a dungeon boss. If the RNG is running at average for you, that means you need to complete that dungeon and kill that boss roughly 100 times to obtain the mount. That seems to be the kind of “earned directly ingame” you are talking about, but it also seems to clearly be a grind/farm.

But activity X leeds to reward Y, guarantee. It may take you 200 times to get one but you get it. And that’s the only place you can get it.

In our case you are not only grinding for a chance of the item but stuff to trade for gold to trade to acquire that item from the TP.

Is it more heroic, valiant, satisfying to receive that reward from defeating a particular boss at an event, even if you have to do that event a lot versus buying one from cashing in all the loot you get from repeating the event, from the corner shop?

In the first case you know everyone who has one got it the same way, doing the same activity. You are comrades in arms, you can kick back at the tavern with your flagon of mead and talk about that time when such and such happened.

Our way, someone who never ran level 80 content could earn enough to buy it outright. They heroic activity could just be shrewd use of the TP. While not forcing players into doing things they aren’t comfortable with while giving them the ability to get those same items sounds great, those of the first school of thought despise it. It cheapened the reward in their mind.

I don’t disagree, but that just makes the grind more acceptable, or worthwhile to do, or less perceived, correct? You aren’t trying to claim that doing things that way results in no grind existing, are you?

Talking about it the way you are makes sense to me… This kind of grind is preferable to that kind of grind. But people do seem to be talking about the concept of no grind of any kind as if that is achievable.

As I understood it, the overall discussion is that when Anet says “no grind”, and by grind we mean having to do only one specific thing over and over, people accuse them of ignoring or being blind to the other kinds of grind they have created in the game. I completely get discussing whether one grind is better than another grind, but I keep trying to wrap my head around how “no grind at all” could work.

Well maybe it’s a perception of words but I see the GW2 version as one big grind for most of those items. The other is a mix of direct ways, mixed with smaller farms (with different rewards per content) and the tokens you simply earn along the way.

You grind a currency, being it XP, gold, tokens, stats, reputation and so on. But that is also only a grind if you do it for the sole purpose of getting the currency, doing a quest because you like it and earning XP for it is not a grind.
(This one also feels like real-life work. Something I do not play a game for)

You farm a dungeon / mob for an item you know it drops. Again, completing a dungeon for fun that rewards you an item is not a farm.

The problem is that these are like Internet words so interpreted a little different by different people but I do think this is the general idea of grinding vs farming.

Still if everything was just farming I would also dislike it, the solution would be that mix I talked about. But I do think you could remove the ‘need’ (if you want those items) for the big grind by implementing other systems including the smaller farms.

So the one I do consider a big grind, the other not so much.

DavidH.7380:

Devata.6589:

The game itself has less or really no influence from the cash-shop and there is less grind (like the type we see in Gw2) for these type of items, you earn by far most of them directly ingame.. what is what we were talking about, not what company was more greedy.

You seem to mention earning items directly in game in some kind contrast to grind or as a way to mitigate grind in GW2 fairly often. I understand how that might affect the perception of grind, but I don’t see how it relates to presence of grind.

Obtaining / collecting mounts in WoW was discussed earlier. Deathcharger’s Reins can only be obtained as a 1% drop from a dungeon boss. If the RNG is running at average for you, that means you need to complete that dungeon and kill that boss roughly 100 times to obtain the mount. That seems to be the kind of “earned directly ingame” you are talking about, but it also seems to clearly be a grind/farm.

Again it’s a mix of things that make it more interesting. And 1% isn’t always as bad as it seems while I would suggest usually trying to be around 5%. With some incorrect but guide-lining math 1% means at 25 times you already have a 1/4 drop-chance, 50 times it’s 1/2 and the chance it drops after that becomes bigger then that it does not drop (as you over the 1/2 drop change). It’s not completely correct but a guide-line.

I also never said there would be completely no farming. Sure this is farming a dungeon but if drop-changes are acceptable it’s not that bad, and then you move on the the next item. Does it take to long you can also go for another item for a while (including the ones that you get for completing content, so no RNG). Something you can’t do if almost all items require the same gold-grind.

Not to mention that it adds value to the item.. It’s rewarded for that content or sometimes even has a complete story behind it (usually rewards you get from quest-chains).

Now in GW2 it’s grinding gold for most of the items. And the ‘earn gold while playing’ simply won’t do it. Never gonna make the amounts of gold you need if you are a collector.

Lastly the gold-grind option is still available for the non-account-bound items while not the most optimal way anymore (if the rng is not so high the marked gets exaggerated with them). Not to say I would want none of them account-bound as that also adds value. Just saying that for those that aren’t the gold-grind option is still there.

DavidH.7380:

Devata.6589:

“I’ve almost never had a problem with the cash shop in this game.” Well I run into them all the time. You see what I just said about those 80 mounts, I like to hunt down in WoW (or special ranger pets, or toys, or mini’s or other skins). I did try to do the same in GW2.. Oow he has a cool mini oow need to grind gold for it. Oow nice weapon skin.. oow Black lion scrap skin. If I was to make a list of 80 cosmetics I would like in GW2 I would be very lucky if 10 would be available in a viable way ingame without some boring grind. And thats just how it is, that has nothing to do with opinions or seeing problems magnified. That’s just a fact. And when of those 80 things 10 are reasonable to get the whole fun of collecting them is gone (including those 10) at least for me. If it was the other way around I could be fine with it.

RE: my previous post, I just realized that part of my skepticism may be that I personally don’t care much about skins or collections or minis, so I focus primarily on weapons and armor. There are a lot fewer weapons and armor slots to fill, so I tend to think in terms of a need to spread out upgrades to a relatively small number of items over a long period of gameplay.

In your case, that probably doesn’t apply as much. It might be more possible than I previously thought to add large numbers of items to collect spread out over all kinds of tasks that keep players playing for large amounts of cumulative time without requiring as large an investment per item as might be necessary for armor and weapons.

Yeah some RNG is still fine to create that rarity but it’s indeed not needed to have extremely low drop-rates on most of them just to keep people busy.

DavidH.7380:

Devata.6589:

It’s basically like the dungeon token systems, and what I have always said about the dungeon token system is that they are great but only as a side thing! Your main goal for items in a dungeon should imho firstly be some special reward you get for completing it (maybe depending on the difficulty levels or on the paths), then there might be some special RNG drops in there you might wanna get, that should be like your second most reason to wanna do the dungeon (based on the way they put the items in there) and then the tokens would be a great thing your would earn along the way. Something you are not even really farming but you earn it while going for those other things. [I think the caparace stuff is an better example of something you earn along the way and the coat as a direct reward for completing something.]
…
“You were saying?” That there is way to much grind (mainly gold grind) in this game.
Have been saying that all the time, you have not been paying attention?

Anyway, this is a good addition to the thread. Maybe Anet also thinks the grind get less if they also make some stuff available in-game, but that is of cource not the case. If I want to collect skins and special items the grind is still just as much there and if I want to hunt down for specific items changes are big those are still behind the gold-grind (or another currency grind).

It sounds like what you are describing is a system where new content (dungeon,puzzle,quest chain, boss, LS chapter, etc.) is released and completing it once or twice more or less automatically gives you the best / majority of the rewards from that content. If you want an item then you complete the associated content or, looked at from the other direction, when you complete fresh content (for you) then you obtain the important associated items and you can move on to something else that is fresh.
~Skip for space

No I said it would work with 3 types of reward at the same time. The one for completing it (and you can be creative with this, like complete it at easy mode and get the skin, complete it at hard mode and you get the skin but one part of it is silver, complete it in epic mode and you get the skin to also glow)

Then there are also some rng drops in there (thats what makes it more interesting to repeat) and at the same time there is a token system that should not be designed like you have to grind it but while playing for the rng drops you get it along the way so even if you are unlucky you are not leaving empty handed.

Having one group of mobs that does drop one mini version of itself with a very rare drop-change at multiple places in the world is by itself indeed also a boring farm but mixed in with other systems it’s not that bad.

And there are so many places you can easily put those sorts of rewards they should be able to keep you going for a long time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

IndigoSundown.5419:

- snip -

Well GW2 has them all but mainly has 3 then 2 (or if you would count gold as tokens 2 would be first) and then 1.

To simplify even further, break rewards down to those which are: randomly obtained; obtained incrementally; or both. Gold serves the purpose of a token (because you obtain what you need for item X in increments). Gold has the benefit (or drawback) of being a “token” that one can obtain anywhere in game, though some activities are vastly more profitable than others.

Number 4 is separate as it simply uses the other 3. And the mats you usually need simply drop in to low quantity’s to really being farmed by yourself. If I compare that to other MMO’s I never really had a problem with collecting mats. I checked what mob drops the maps, I went there and farmed them for a few min, an hour max and I got what I needed. The real time went into getting the recipe’s I needed to make what I wanted. Again like all cosmetics they usually where rewarded for a dungeon, or dropped from a mob or where rewarded from a quest-line. That is how you earned them and that’s what kept you busy. It’s also way more interesting sending you all over the world with a much more clear goal, that one recipe. In stead of.. I need 250 charged lodestones then I can not really get anywhere so lets start gold-grinding to buy them.

Leaving aside the subjective nature of what you like v. what someone else may like, I thought number 4 deserved its own mention because the two most desirable reward categories in the game are Ascended and Legendary items. Asc. weapons and armor crafting require a large list of items, as do Legendary Weapons.

What is the problem you have with your number 3 is drops are to low.

Another way to look at that would be to say that the overwhelming majority of items in the drop tables are salvage bait or outright junk. Yes, it’s a given that the more items you add to a table, the lower the percentage chance that a particular item will turn up. That’s if all items are weighted equally. If item drop chances are weighted to produce degrees of rarity, then the chance the most rare items will appear use negative exponents (example: [1e-1]% would be .1 percent).

The token system imho should be something you would in most cases something you earn along the way. The goals you want people to go for would be items directly rewarded from completing something or that are RNG based but also in a doable way. And of course a few exceptions to this to create some really rare items is oke.

While there are some items that are obtained as rare drops from specific content, these items are neither common nor among the most widely desirable in this game.

While i do not have the same negative attitude towards the cash shop you do, I think that the game needs a few more Eureka! drops. However, anytime ANet puts a desirable item behind RNG, they get flamed. They put desirable items behind a collection system, they get flamed. They’re never going to please everyone with the same system.

ANet has chosen to please people who value accessibility more than those who value exclusivity and to please those who prefer slow, sure acquisition over those who prefer the Eureka moment of getting that desired drop. That design direction will be even more apparent when (if) precursors no longer require RNG or outright purchase.

For all items that are not account bound the gold grind options is still there for those who prefer the brainless grind. So they would only need to complain about the really rare ones. But then again, has a very rare RNG drop really so much less accessibility then for example infinity or the MF backpack?

And let me say this again.. I don’t so much dislike the cash-shop as a thing. I dislike how the cash-shop focus influence the game like (mainly) the grind we are talking about here.

Loiterer.4235:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Loiterer.4235:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

/Log in
/push ’’O’’
/go ’’Others’’ and the ’’Minis’’
/count 182

/go in ‘’Gem Store ’’ section
/count 10

Bored to look in the Wiki about limited pets from the Achivement-2week stories or the Limited edition Gem store sale .

“Too bored to look. Will just throw out random data.”

That is a great way to win a debate.

Hey !
I tried !
(But still in the Ah version there are 182 … did i calculate wrong ?)
Atleast i dont have to pay 15 euro per months (to access the servers) + the real money in the Store :P
But rather farm some dungeons if i need to , and not drop a single penny to the company (uneployed) :P

I’m not entirely sure but the AH listing might not include items that were/are bind on pick-up because you wouldn’t be able to list them anyway.

Your reasoning of grinding gold is sound but don’t forget that for that to happen, Arenanet has to rope in others to pay your share. Which was always my main issue with games that don’t have a subscription. Paying 15 dollars or 13 euros a month and getting access to 99% of the content comes out far cheaper than paying the same amount for a single cosmetic armour set.

In essence, the F2P and B2P model mainly appeals to those who can’t pay and those who can pay an obscure amount. The average user will either end up grinding too much or overspending to acquire the same amount of content that they get from a subscription game.

The gaming market shows that it’s viable model but to say that WoW depends on its cash shop as an argument for GW2’s own cash shop is such a bizarre statement that I have to question whether Vayne was simply trolling.

Please don’t mix up the B2P and F2P model. While GW2 says they use a B2P model they are now financing the game with the cash-shop not with game-sales (including expansions). A true B2P model would not need to have this problem. A F2P or better cash-shop model can not really exist any other way.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Loiterer.4235:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

/Log in
/push ’’O’’
/go ’’Others’’ and the ’’Minis’’
/count 182

/go in ‘’Gem Store ’’ section
/count 10

Bored to look in the Wiki about limited pets from the Achivement-2week stories or the Limited edition Gem store sale .

“Too bored to look. Will just throw out random data.”

That is a great way to win a debate.

Hey !
I tried !
(But still in the Ah version there are 182 … did i calculate wrong ?)
Atleast i dont have to pay 15 euro per months (to access the servers) + the real money in the Store :P
But rather farm some dungeons if i need to , and not drop a single penny to the company (uneployed) :P

That is the ‘grind gold’ part we where talking about. You see the title of the thread.. It’s about the grind. You can get all the ones from the cash-shop with gold, being it by buying gems from gold or from the TP (So from people who did buy the boxes from the cash-shop but did not get the minis they wanted). But is results in the grind.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So now the thread is arguing whether cash shops are “intrusive” or not? Here you go. It’s subjective.

As far as repeating content (possible perceived grind) for rewards, some people prefer:

1) RNG based rewards with specific mobs or types of mobs dropping Desirable Item
2) Incremental rewards, where you collect tokens and buy Desirable Item from a vendor

GW2 has both, but it also has

3) Get Desirable Item from drops which can happen everywhere
4) Craft Desirable Item using materials collected or bought

There are drawbacks to all 4 systems.

1. Accessibility of content; the rarity of the item depends on the relative inaccessibility of content. For some people rarity = desirability and an item can stop being desirable if everyone has it. If the content is inaccessible, then those who want it but cannot or will not access the content are unhappy.
2. Set the required token count too high and people complain. Set it too low and people get the item quickly and then complain they want something else to play for.
3. Massive drop tables. If a large variety of items can be gained from “everywhere,” the chances of getting the one item a player might want are reduced.
4. Can have any of the above drawbacks depending on the nature of the various items one needs to collect. GW2’s implementation requires RNG drops (precursors, T6 Blood, Scales, etc. if farmed) which , while not available everywhere, are available in enough areas that the drop tables for them result in very small chances to get some items. It also has the added drawback of the sheer number of materials needed to craft Ascended or Legendary items. I know a couple of people who are in the process of collecting to make a legendary weapon. Both are using a spreadsheet to track what they need to get. One even made a second sheet to track what had been acquired, because of how depressing the first list was.

But it’s neither “grind mob kills to level” nor “grind dungeons/raids for BiS gear over and over” so I guess it’s all good… :/

Well GW2 has them all but mainly has 3 then 2 (or if you would count gold as tokens 2 would be first) and then 1.

Number 4 is separate as it simply uses the other 3. And the mats you usually need simply drop in to low quantity’s to really being farmed by yourself. If I compare that to other MMO’s I never really had a problem with collecting mats. I checked what mob drops the maps, I went there and farmed them for a few min, an hour max and I got what I needed. The real time went into getting the recipe’s I needed to make what I wanted. Again like all cosmetics they usually where rewarded for a dungeon, or dropped from a mob or where rewarded from a quest-line. That is how you earned them and that’s what kept you busy. It’s also way more interesting sending you all over the world with a much more clear goal, that one recipe. In stead of.. I need 250 charged lodestones then I can not really get anywhere so lets start gold-grinding to buy them.

What is the problem you have with your number 3 is drops are to low.

The token system imho should be something you would in most cases something you earn along the way. The goals you want people to go for would be items directly rewarded from completing something or that are RNG based but also in a doable way. And of course a few exceptions to this to create some really rare items is oke.

Serophous.9085:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

No I’m not going to argue with you that WoW’s cash shop is similar to Guild Wars 2. Because WoW makes I don’t know, $150,000,000 per month in subscription fees. They don’t update content regularly, they just sell you an expansion every couple of years. So no big content updates. You pay for the expansion. you pay for the monthly fee AND there’s a cash shop. If that doesn’t strike you as greedy, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about. On top of that:

http://www.themarysue.com/celestial-steed-world-of-warcraft/

This game is far less greedy than that game….in my opinion.

I don’t know but it seems to me that the WoW players, of which there are many and I am not one of them, are willing to fork out cash for that game.

So is Blizzard more greedy or are their customers less stingy? Apparently these players enjoy the game to the point of having no issue spending money on it even for something as a shiny horse.

And correct me if I am wrong, there are also content updates in WoW between the major expansions. Blizzard certainly knows how to make money with WoW, but I don’t think they would be successful if it was just them being greedy. Perhaps they are simply able to create an experience where people enjoy the game to the point of spending some extra cash on it. I never liked WoW but I can’t argue with those numbers and it seems to simple to just pin the pricing down to greed.

WoW has content every three months, mostly in the form of a raid (which they time gate nowadays so players don’t burn through it) and maybe a dungeon or two or a new area. That’s the usual content update. Once in a rare while they add a new system (I think twitter is the new one now) or something else big.

But they have never been good with the lack of content between xpacs. What was it between MoP and WoD? A year+? Then there was the lack between wotlk and cata….

And so wait, so now “grinding” for mounts in WoW isn’t “grinding?” I could’ve sworn it was. I kept going for that tiger mount every reset and never got it. Then there was the lightsaber sword that dropped off of a rarespawn that you had to check every so often, see if it was there, pray someone else wasn’t near to steal or backstab (if on PvP), kill it, then hope RNG was good to you.

I mean, if that’s the type of system we are looking for….wtf?

There are indeed a few very hard to get ones but also a lot more doable or enough that simply reward for completing content. That is the same in GW2, there are some very hard to get (as in, require a lot of gold grind) cosmetics and less hard (less gold to grind) cosmetics. The difference is that it’s mostly rewarded direct from the content while in many cases grinding gold is also an option. In GW2 grinding gold is usually the only option. So yes that would be the type of system we are looking for.. Not with only the extremely hard to get because very low RNG, the ones you are now pointing to, but the complete total system that has a nice mix and also the RNG ones should all be doable.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

No I’m not going to argue with you that WoW’s cash shop is similar to Guild Wars 2. Because WoW makes I don’t know, $150,000,000 per month in subscription fees. They don’t update content regularly, they just sell you an expansion every couple of years. So no big content updates. You pay for the expansion. you pay for the monthly fee AND there’s a cash shop. If that doesn’t strike you as greedy, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about. On top of that:

http://www.themarysue.com/celestial-steed-world-of-warcraft/

This game is far less greedy than that game….in my opinion.

I don’t know but it seems to me that the WoW players, of which there are many and I am not one of them, are willing to fork out cash for that game.

So is Blizzard more greedy or are their customers less stingy? Apparently these players enjoy the game to the point of having no issue spending money on it even for something as a shiny horse.

And correct me if I am wrong, there are also content updates in WoW between the major expansions. Blizzard certainly knows how to make money with WoW, but I don’t think they would be successful if it was just them being greedy. Perhaps they are simply able to create an experience where people enjoy the game to the point of spending some extra cash on it. I never liked WoW but I can’t argue with those numbers and it seems to simple to just pin the pricing down to greed.

There are precious few content updates between expansions. That’s why people play for three months and then subs fall off until the next expansion comes out.

But don’t make the mistake that WOW has these numbers because it’s such a great game. It is definitely an addictive game, though, I’ll give it that.

I have two sons that are subscribed to WoW again, and they’re bored already. But this happens every time an expansion comes out. They buy it. They subscribe to it. One of my sons doesn’t even like it that much but he does it anyway. He ends up not playing more than he plays…but he still subscribes.

WoW does advertise heavily and they have tons of people vested in the game for years on end, so sure, they have that advantage. But they don’t have regular content updates, trust me on that.

There’s also plenty of grind. Ask people about faction grind one day.

Those sons that also stopped playing GW2? So maybe the lack of updates you talk about (The ones GW2 does have) is not the reason?

If I read this I would almost conclude the solution would be more regular expansions… Oow wait, thats what I have been suggesting all the time.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

@Devata,

I haven’t come to the same conclusions you have. I think WoW depends more heavily on the cash shop than you think (plenty if their really cool mounts are only available in the cash shop) and I don’t think that this game has the issues you think.

That is to say I agree that the game is funded by the cash shop, but I don’t see the problems you do. I think your dislike of it magnifies a lot of the issues with it. I’ve almost never had a problem with the cash shop in this game.

Of course, I’ve played Turbine games and Perfect World before this, and that might be way.

Compared to most MMOs with a cash shop that have no subscription, this game still feels like a breath of fresh air.

Did a google search for you. WoW has a total of 425 mounts, there are 343 mounts available in-game so that excludes all the ones that where removed (I think) or the ones you get with expansions pack or the cash-shop or you get for inviting people to the game and so on. In there shop (what has 36 items in total!) they have 9 mounts! And we can have different tastes I am also willing to agree most of those 9 are cool but still some of the coolest are in fact available in-game. I once made a list of all mounts I might want to get in WoW and only one of them was in the cash-shop, two where removed at some point, 1 was in the cash-hop. (It where about 80 mounts.. you see thats what I like, hunting down these sorts of things in the game)

Now imagine we do the same with mini’s (as you have them in both games). Really wanna go argue with me that WoW’s cash-shop is similar to GW2’s? Come on Vayne. You might want to defend Anet’s approach but lets try to fool each other.

If you focus on the cash-shop to earn most of your money it will have more effect on the game then if you don’t.

“I’ve almost never had a problem with the cash shop in this game.” Well I run into them all the time. You see what I just said about those 80 mounts I like to hunt down in WoW (or special ranger pets, or toys, or mini’s or other skins). I did try to do the same in GW2.. Oow he has a cool mini oow need to grind gold for it. Oow nice weapon skin.. oow Black lion scrap skin. If I was to make a list of 80 cosmetics I would like in GW2 I would be happy is 10 would be available in a viable way ingame without some boring currency grind mainly gold. And thats just how it is, that has nothing to do with opinions or seeing problems magnified. That’s just a fact. And when of those 80 things 10 are reasonable to get the whole fun of collecting them is gone (including those 10) at least for me. If it was the other way around I could be fine with it.

I am not saying ‘compared to other cash-shop games’ this game is bad. I say for a B2P game this game is bad. Simply because I expect a B2P game to focus on the game / expansions to earn money (like GW1) while I expect a F2P / cash-shop game to focus on the cash-shop. You see, there is a reason I do not play those other games but I did come to GW2. So that comparison does not make it any better.

No I’m not going to argue with you that WoW’s cash shop is similar to Guild Wars 2. Because WoW makes I don’t know, $150,000,000 per month in subscription fees. They don’t update content regularly, they just sell you an expansion every couple of years. So no big content updates. You pay for the expansion. you pay for the monthly fee AND there’s a cash shop. If that doesn’t strike you as greedy, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about. On top of that:

http://www.themarysue.com/celestial-steed-world-of-warcraft/

This game is far less greedy than that game….in my opinion.

I see what you did there. Changing the subject to what is more greedy to end with a ‘in the end I am right’ as if that was the subject. Yes WoW is more greedy, thats what I dislike about WoW. But you where talking about there cash-shop before, saying how intrusive that was, what is simply untrue, just as you now say they don’t have bigger patches in-between what is also untrue. The game itself has less or really no influence from the cash-shop and there is less grind (like the type we see in Gw2) for these type of items, you earn by far most of them directly ingame.. what is what we where talking about, not what company was more greedy.

This might all be very interesting but in the end the discussion is about the grind in GW2 (or the sub discussion between us, the cash-shop involvement between them… btw a sub-discussion you started, not me). And then GW2 still is very grindy if it comes to those things, the cash-shop is very likely to blame for it. Therefor the solution likely also lays in there payment model.

Vayne.8563:

@Devata,

I haven’t come to the same conclusions you have. I think WoW depends more heavily on the cash shop than you think (plenty if their really cool mounts are only available in the cash shop) and I don’t think that this game has the issues you think.

That is to say I agree that the game is funded by the cash shop, but I don’t see the problems you do. I think your dislike of it magnifies a lot of the issues with it. I’ve almost never had a problem with the cash shop in this game.

Of course, I’ve played Turbine games and Perfect World before this, and that might be way.

Compared to most MMOs with a cash shop that have no subscription, this game still feels like a breath of fresh air.

Did a google search for you. WoW has a total of 425 mounts, there are 343 mounts available in-game so that excludes all the ones that where removed or the ones you get with expansion packs or the cash-shop or you get for inviting people to the game and so on. In there shop (what has 36 items in total!) they have 9 mounts! And we can have different tastes I am also willing to agree most of those 9 are cool but still some of the coolest are in fact available in-game. I once made a list of all mounts I might want to collect in WoW, only 1 was in the cash-shop. (It where about 80 mounts.. you see that’s what I like, hunting down these sorts of things in the game)

Now imagine we do the same with mini’s (as you have them in both games). Really wanna go argue with me that WoW’s cash-shop is similar to GW2’s? Come on Vayne. You might want to defend Anet’s approach but lets try not to fool each other.

If you focus on the cash-shop to earn most of your money it will have more effect on the game then if you don’t.

“I’ve almost never had a problem with the cash shop in this game.” Well I run into them all the time. You see what I just said about those 80 mounts, I like to hunt down in WoW (or special ranger pets, or toys, or mini’s or other skins). I did try to do the same in GW2.. Oow he has a cool mini oow need to grind gold for it. Oow nice weapon skin.. oow Black lion scrap skin. If I was to make a list of 80 cosmetics I would like in GW2 I would be very lucky if 10 would be available in a viable way ingame without some boring grind. And thats just how it is, that has nothing to do with opinions or seeing problems magnified. That’s just a fact. And when of those 80 things 10 are reasonable to get the whole fun of collecting them is gone (including those 10) at least for me. If it was the other way around I could be fine with it.

I am not saying ‘compared to other cash-shop games’ this game is bad. I say for a B2P game this game is bad. Simply because I expect a B2P game to focus on the game / expansions to earn money (like GW1) and so have very cash-shop influence while I expect a F2P / cash-shop game to focus on the cash-shop. You see, there is a reason I do not play those other games but I did come to GW2. So that comparison does not make it any better.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Vayne.8563:

~

~

I’m not arguing it is or isn’t. I’m saying the newest stuff available to us in game doesn’t depend on the gold standard. That’s fairly self explanatory.

Every business is generally centered on making money. In WoW it’s a monthly fee and a cash shop both. Clearly the gem store is a part of the game’s income. Clearly Anet is going to want to encourage gem store sales.

That said I don’t personally find the gem store that intrusive.

Obviously a balance has to exist between in game rewards and gem store rewards. For a while, the balance was in favor of the gem store but more recently that’s changed.

And that’s all I’m saying.

Nice to see that people finally come to the same conclusions as the ones I came to what resulted in my dislike for the cash-shop focus. Of course what you find intrusive is personal and depends on what you like. Btw WoW focuses on the monthly free not on the cash-shop. If GW2 would focus on expansions but also had a cash-shop things could be very different (that is a difference). And to Kaiyanwan this is not so much the B2P model as that suggest finance the game on game-sales but with them releasing the first expansion more then 2,5 years after release thats not the case, they are focusing on the cash-shop like a F2P model or let’s name it a cash-shop model. Again why I always ask for a true B2P model with more regular expansion.

You see, it’s not like I simply have some unfounded hate for the cash-shop. While that would be a easy way to dismiss my statements it’s not that simple. Thinks are connected to each other, I dislike the rewarding system / the grind what seems related to the cash-shop. First there was the temporary nature of the LD what I did at least partly also see as a way to get people to buy more of the stuff ‘before it’s gone’. Was that a false idea because they removed the temporary nature? Well when removing the temporary nature they added the fact that you have to pay gems to unlock missed episodes. I see this as a way to compensate what they figure they would lose by not having the temporary pressure for people to get there stuff. Meaning they did did think about in correlation of the temporary pressure and the gem-sales. Sure we will never know for sure but at least all the puzzle peaces seem to fit.
Even in those discussions I often said ‘they can remove this but as long as they focus on the cash-shop they will try to replace it with something else’.

What brings me to the to the base point if it comes to monetization. A sensitization does effect the game and imho a F2P or cash-shop model does so the most because the company must! find ways to get people to spend money in the game, meaning some decisions in-game are not based on ‘what is best for the game’ or ‘what is the most fun’ but on ‘how d we get people to spend money in the game’. Is a true B2P always free of this sort of bad decisions? No it’s possible they want to leave out elements just to release them in later expansions (we did see this recently with The Sims. Luckily people did not accept it) but overall I find it the least intrusive system in the game. The company can simply focus on building the best, most fun game and hopefully get rewarded by the sales of the game and expansions in stead of having to build the game around ‘how to get people to spend money’ resulting into game-mechanics like the gold-grind. What finally brings us back to the subject.

PS: “Devata’s complains is focused on the fact that everything comes back to gold. That is to say that you have to endlessly farm gold to buy what you want.” Most, not all. I am guessing you are using a hyperbole here what is fine by me but you always attack people who use hyperboles by saying it’s factually wrong what they say.

Vayne.8563:

Test.8734:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You also get them for doing the Living Story parts. I got all of mine doing that, plus the one guaranteed Coat box for beating the Vinewrath.

So . . . do you even play this game anymore, yourself?

Yep. I never said there isn’t a way to get them without gold; only that it’s not true that you cannot use gold to get them, as Vayne said.

You need to follow the argument better. Devata is saying the only way to get this stuff it to grind gold.

I’m saying you don’t have to grind gold to get this stuff. That is to say you have to play a lot of stuff in game to get this stuff. There is a NOMINAL gold fee associated with it which is very small. But many of the pieces you can get by just playing the story anyway and not paying any gold at all.

It’s nice to try to nitpick specific sentiments, but since my response was to Devata talking about farming gold to buy new stuff, this doesn’t really fall under that umbrella. And you can’t buy it with gold. Gold is one small component of what you need. You’re buying it with badges, which you can’t buy with gold.

Just because gold is needed for a small portion of some of it, doesn’t mean you can buy it with gold. If you had nothing but gold, you couldn’t get it.

Lets just keep it on the subject in stead of fighting with each other. Yes I talk about the grind, the only way to get something is with a currency it mainly being gold. So at that you are right Vayne the fact that you have one option where you also can spend partly gold is not what we talked about. But I did not day that specifically about ‘this stuff’ but in general about that is how you earn most. So there you are completely wrong.

I will add this about it.. While sure it’s not that much gold it’s the same as with some of the guild items you can buy with guild-tokens…. AND 5 gold. Then I am always like.. Come on.. really? Why always the gold again. I know the answer, gold drain but the problem is everything is already so much a gold grind we really don’t need a gold drain until they remove the grind.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

@Vayne

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

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And with a lot of the new stuff there is a direct way to get it. That is to say you can get ambrite weapons without gold. You can get carapace armor without gold. You can get luminencent armor without gold. you can get the new PvP armor without gold.

Do you even play this game anymore?

Tigirius is wrong because there was RNG for many of the things you needed or you farmed gold to get them. He has a bug with the RNG in this game even though RNG existed in the last game. He believes he has an unlucky account. He has an hot button issue just like you do. Those issues are related but not the same.

So the last three armor sets added to this game you can actually get without spending gold, but yes, you have to farm for them. In fact, there’s no way to get them with gold.

You were saying?

I don’t play it as much anymore as I used to but yeah I do still play and I know you can get those items without gold, however now it’s with another currency so in stead of grinding gold people need to be grinding the new currency (like for the Ambrite) if they want that. Still not really a direct way. Nonetheless, the way it’s implemented is a step in the right direction but it’s far from optimal.

It’s basically like the dungeon token systems, and what I have always said about the dungeon token system is that they are great but only as a side thing! Your main goal for items in a dungeon should imho firstly be some special reward you get for completing it (maybe depending on the difficulty levels or on the paths), then there might be some special RNG drops in there you might wanna get, that should be like your second most reason to wanna do the dungeon (based on the way they put the items in there) and then the tokens would be a great thing your would earn along the way. Something you are not even really farming but you earn it while going for those other things. [I think the caparace stuff is an better example of something you earn along the way and the coat as a direct reward for completing something.]

So the tokens in the new map you can use to buy the skins are for sure better then ones that are only obtainable by grinding gold but are still far from an interesting hunt imho. It’s also not something you do earn along the way while trying to work towards other goals in the area, it’s something people are grinding for.

And personally I don’t even like the skins but that of course personal (while I think it’s easy to see why some of the BL weapons skins like the Tempest skins will be preferred more then the Ambrite skins). The things I do like still mainly require gold grinds.

But I agree not only since S2 but during the whole lifespan of the game it does look like they did try to improve the game on the part of rewards by putting some more rewards in the game, but at the same time they have also have been putting most fun items or good looking skins behind the gold-grind (this is where I blame the cash-shop focus again.. it’s not really like they had a choice then focusing on that thing to generate income). It’s not really like the gold-grind for such items has gotten any less or there are less items to grind gold for.. that also has still been going up. Meaning the grind (we talk about here) has not gone down simply because they also put some items in the game. They simply also have been putting some more stuff in the game itself (of what some behind another currency grind). What is nice for sure but does not solve the grind problem.

“Tigirius is wrong because there was RNG.” I personally have not a big problem with RNG as long as it’s within reasonable numbers. I prefer it over currency grinds! Like I just said the way I would structure a dungeon reward system is a reward for completing, then RNG and then tokens you earn along the way. So I am not really against RNG if it’s a part of the total reward system.

“You were saying?” That there is way to much grind (mainly gold grind) in this game.
Have been saying that all the time, you have not been paying attention?

Anyway, this is a good addition to the thread. Maybe Anet also thinks the grind get less if they also make some stuff available in-game, but that is of cource not the case. If I want to collect skins and special items the grind is still just as much there and if I want to hunt down for specific items changes are big those are still behind the gold-grind (or another currency grind).

There is a Savage and a Elegant Guild Back Banner I the game (5 gold and 5 guild tokens). Later they did put the Mist Herald Back Item Skin set in the cash-shop. That one is using the coloring of the Savage guild Back Banner.

So I would suggest putting that same Mist Herald Back Item Skin set from the cash-shop in the game being sold for 10 guild tokens but then with the coloring from the Elegant Guild Back Banner. Then the set seems more complete and at least for that item there is a next to the cash-shop also an in-game version available.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

Do you really make the money you need to buy all the cosmetics you need? Well maybe you do depending on how much you like cosmetics but I can tell you I don’t even get close to the money I would need and so the only option left would be grinding. (What I do not do)

Do you need them or do you want them?

I mean, I don’t make nearly enough money to afford Dusk. But then, I don’t need Dusk.

It’s not relevant. I like to collect them, to hunt for them and if I was to do that grind is the only option. That’s the problem.

I do not need them just as much as I do not need BiS gear in other so called grindy games like WoW.

Geneaux.9547:

And today I learned that players don’t want to work towards anything and have everything handed to them on silver platter, grind or no grind.

So asking for items being rewarmed more in ways like for example the Liadri way and simply other ways then a brainless grind is the same as asking for getting everything handed out to them?

Because what I get from the topic is that people simply want to have other, more fun and also more challenging ways to get items. I would in fact hate it if Anet would put in a vendor that gave all items out for free. Hope Anet interpreted the thread like I did and not like you did.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

The combination of what people were saying on the forums at that time and people not logging in makes it hard to assume anything else though…and it’s a good bet that at least part of those people, including both my sons, left after they got max level gear. They were simply more used to WOW and without being told what to do, they found the game boring.

Orrrrr people did find the game boring because in games like WoW they would then started to hunt down cosmetics. But also this was not really an option other then grinding gold. You know, to come back to the topic.

So when i play PvP to get ontop of the ladderboard spots , while i get some gold from te reward tracks , i grind ?

When i am using my Elementalist on the Piken Square and try to help my server (we dont have nightcappers , its all lies!) and i get gold , then i grind ?

When i got the rings + earings from the Guild Missions + Fractals and the amulet from the Lurel i grind ?

When i am not foolish enought to waste a lot of gold for 7-9 increase stats. in each 6-piece set gear ( 36 more stats in Ferocity + 36 Precision + 36 Streagh) , i grind ?

Edit: They learned their lesson , not to hear the vocal minority and they are willing to take the blame , like ‘’real man’’ about that Ascended , that was their own decision and mistake and not of the vocal community that demanded it at the first place ….

No, you grind when you are going out to grind gold to buy the items you like because doing the normal activities (you are now talking about) do not make you the money you need.

When I was upgrading a PikenSquare keep at night it cost me money, did not make me money. Basically all the money I really earn to buy a cosmetics once in a while is from guild-missions but that will never get me the skins I like to get. And I am willing to play for the items but not grind gold for them.

Do you really make the money you need to buy all the cosmetics you need? Well maybe you do depending on how much you like cosmetics but I can tell you I don’t even get close to the money I would need and so the only option left would be grinding. (What I do not do)

Rin.1046:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Broom.2561:

Of course there are no grind free games. I’ve been around for over a decade in various MMO, and never found one yet. But this game is rather grindier than most. I think it’s really funny developers can actually come out and say it’s not…

It’s been my observation that MMO’s in general are by their nature going to include systems that entice repetition even if they do not outright enforce that repetition. Those systems all include some form of carrot. Many players will not repeat MMO content indefinitely without reward, so that’s what the game genre offers.

The disconnect comes because grind is ultimately a subjective experience. That’s why you see so many different takes on the word in these threads. Also, the word is evolving, as words used in popular culture often do. As words evolve, the “authorities” who publish the definitions are usually the last to adapt to the new usage.

A statement by ANet that they do not “make grindy games” is based on a definition they adopted which is narrow in scope in comparison to the evolving usage of the word. So, why do they do it? “Grind” has become a negative buzzword. Once you understand that, it’s easy to see that the statement is advertising, a selling point.

These discussions often devolve down to arguments about the definition in use. This is unfortunate. These arguments detract from the real issue, which is the negative experiences of players when they interact with certain systems over time. So, on one hand you have posters using the buzzword “grind” to try to shame the developer into giving them what they want. Meanwhile, other posters vigorously defend the developer over the definition.

Perhaps a better way for posters to phrase their complaints would be to say, “Doing content X for Y times to get reward Z takes too long and is boring as a result.” When you really look at the experience of grind, it devolves down to boredom that people are enduring in order to get a reward. Getting posters to stop using buzz words, or other posters to refrain from “Making people wrong on the internet” is a big ask, though.

Good post, Indigo, and I agree with your points completely. However, I feel I should point out, in no way to try to discredit what you said, that this thread is talking about the no grind philosophy, so it would make sense to discuss the definitions of it.

However, I totally agree with your suggestion and feel this thread is not really achieving anything productive.

I do feel the thread is really productive. Some really interesting things have been said. It’s true that there are also side discussions going on like definitions and stuff. The problem is that if somebody tries to dismiss your complain about grind (oow and I do explain the grind I talk about.. it’s not just a buss word) by saying your definition of grind is wrong and so basically your complain is wrong what are you supposed to do? You ignore him? I then tell him why it’s irrelevant but then you do have a discussion going on that is not relevant or helpful for the topic.

But maybe it’s a good idea as indeed everybody would simply talk about there complains, tell what they find grindy and why. Simply ignore the useless comments about something not being grindy because definition / because not required and so on. The thread has debugged the ‘wrong definition’ argument enough times by now I think.

Obtena.7952:

Test.8734:

I guess it’s easy to see which one was the right answer, and which one was the wrong one.

The statement in this thread is pretty definitive. If people want to be convincing, they can’t just tell Anet their definition of grind is wrong.

Nobody really is. They are just saying they still find the game grindy because [reasons] .

Test.8734:

WhiteKnight.6759:

This is a really fantastic example. I guess the only question I’d ask about it is what’s the speed at which Arena Net could have introduced enough new content to make a difference, compared with the speed at which they could have implemented ascended gear?

Considering how three years after the release of Guild Wars they had already released Factions, which was nearly as big as the original game, plus another chapter in Nightfall, plus some other content such as the Bonus Mission Pack and Sorrow’s Furnace, plus one expansion, and had already began working on GW2…

If they wanted, they could have released far more than the couple new maps we have right now.

Yeah agreed. It all depends where you put your focus. It’s not like Anet has been sitting still. All those LS stuff many people might not consider as real content does take a lot of work to make. Al them mini instances, all the dialogs that had to be recorded and so on. Their focus was the LS approach, it being funded with the cash-shop. So that is what we got.

If they would have focused on expansions and used that to fund the game we would have seen far less LS but we could have gotten the first expansion after 1 to 1,5 year and another one a year later and we would now then be playing in the second expansion waiting for the third to be released.

The HoT introduction could have been the introduction of the third expansion. It’s the approach I would have preferred also because it would have giving more reason to put things in-game we now see in the cash-shop. Instruments could have been put into the game as fun game-play that could keep you playing for a long time for example in the form of a musicians craft.

Most of the hairstyles could have been added with the first expansion where we got a barber in-game and the second expansion would have added some more hairstyles. They earned there money, we had a more fun (likely less grindy) game.

Vayne.8563:

The combination of what people were saying on the forums at that time and people not logging in makes it hard to assume anything else though…and it’s a good bet that at least part of those people, including both my sons, left after they got max level gear. They were simply more used to WOW and without being told what to do, they found the game boring.

Orrrrr people did find the game boring because in games like WoW they would then started to hunt down cosmetics. But also this was not really an option other then grinding gold. You know, to come back to the topic.

I can tell you I had this for a while. Just standing in LA, chatting with the guild but nothing to do. There was plenty to do (PS, GW2 crafts, grinding gold) but not what I liked. Usually at that point I would have started to hunt down mini’s, but in GW2 that was grinding gold what I did not like. Meaning that end-game I like was not here for me.

Eventually they came with guild-missions and I started to do more WvW and that where the things that kept me going, but if WvW or the guild-missions weren’t your thing eater then I can understand people getting bored and leaving.

I don’t say this is true for most of the people who left back then but it’s a just as viable option as not having the hard to get BiS gear.

Obtena.7952:

Yes, that’s my point … you got their attention, they responded. More posts doesn’t change the outcome. The only reason this thread persists is because of campaigning.

You know what is really not adding to this thread is making it longer. These sorts of post.

Anyway, define ‘campaigning’ in this context.

I already said why that post does not mean the thread has ended. Not even close, if anything it was good information to start the second part of the discussion.

Obtena.7952:

Test.8734:

Obtena.7952:

Frankly, this topic should be locked:

1. Anet replied to the concern
2. I think everyone has covered both sides of the topic thoroughly

Not much left. The only reason anyone would want to have it left open is because they are campaigning.

To be honest, the amount of posts help. The circular discussions don’t do anything, but it’s different for ArenaNet to see, “Look, there are 4 THOUSAND posts complaining about traits!” than “Look, there are 8 posts talking about how Defiance sucks”.

Just see Vayne’s post a bit above mine – he claims that he knew a lot of people felt they didn’t have anything do to at max level because a lot of people were complaining on the forum about it. If we see a lot of people complaining about grind on the forum (and better to do that in a single topic than have dozen topics about the same thing), maybe ArenaNet will do something about it.

Spamming posts does not help. Just because a thread has an overwhelming number of posts does not indicate it’s more of an issue to players than one that does not. The fact that ANet has replied with their position on this is pretty much a /thread right there.

Nonsense. Anet explained what types of grind they tried to prevent with their ‘no grind philosophy’. What is great information but then it’s also great if players say how they feel about that. What other types of grind they might find just as bad or even worse and so on. And even multiple pages in I see some good and new comments being added. The simple fact that you want it closed also says a lot about the quality of the thread.

You probably would not care about it if you did feel your idea’s where well represented in this tread.

If you dislike it so much just go to another thread in stead coming here just to suggest to close / censure it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

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snip

There were two sets of armor that was massively hard to get and a boatload of rare weapon skins as well.

I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter. Then even if you did get one as a drop, it might not have been for the stats you wanted anyway.

There were also minis that were so rare, even as rich as I got, I’d never have been able to afford them. The mini polar bear for example, if you wanted to buy it with gold, you’d have to farm endlessly for years.

And you’d have to buy it from another player, because there was no marketplace there. You’d have to stand around kamadan and negotiate to buy or sell anything.

So Guild Wars 2, which had the update model you keep saying is better, still had the same type of grind for cosmetics.

“I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter.”

Wait, so you could get it without gold but by directly working for it. Well if they could do that in GW2 I would already be very happy. And then it would be in line with GW1 as well. It sounds like the drop-rate was a little to low (it should be viable to get it) but again I can’t say much about it as I did not play it a lot. Maybe the scepter was equal to the GW2 legendary, I don’t know?

Maybe GW1 had 1 extremely rare (legendary) version of everything (every weapons, 1 armor set and one mini) while the rest was doable. Without knowing that sort of things I sadly can’t really say much about it.

What surprises me is this part: “Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it.” so then you should perfectly understand why I say I don’t want the gold grind but why I want to directly work towards it.

When I say I could have bought it with gold it was a lot of gold. I’d have had to grind/farm the gold to get the gold to buy it. Afterwhich Id’ have spent all my gold. It’s EXACTLY like this game in that way. Same deal.

With ascended stuff you can farm the gold to buy the components to craft it with no waiting. In that game, I’d have had to farm the gold to buy the scepter and bankrupt myself in the process and then start all over.

The fact is, the thing you’re saying would make some sort of difference, didn’t make that sort of difference in Guild Wars 1.

Only you completely ignore the fact that you could directly work towards those items as well what makes it completely different in this game.

Also you ignore the idea / question if there where only a few extremely hard to get / grindy things while the rest was maybe all more viable and less grindy to get. The fact that you do makes me wonder if that is the case what would indeed make that on part with the legendaries.

If only the legendaries would be like this I would be oke with it, but the problem is that it’s the case for most of the cosmetics in GW2 so it still seems to be very different.

The point is I worked for that other thing for years and didn’t get it due to RNG. And somehow you think that’s better?

Buying it was an option but it was just too much money to spend. There were other things I wanted more.

The point is, that game wasn’t so different from this game, but you keep saying if this game was more like that, making money off expansions it would be different.

It’s not really. Not in the sense you’re claiming it would be.

What I say is that it would or well could (As we don’t life in that parallel universe we never know for sure) be better in the way that it would allow for direct options to work for items others then gold. Only the viable /doable part might be missing but then the question is for how many of the items that was the case in GW1.

You say it’s almost the same because you never got that item and it was very expensive to get with gold. But my biggest problem is that the only viable option, or really the only option for many items is the gold grind way. Not if it’s very hard do get an item.

You consider that a minor thing but it is the one thing I talk about. “Not in the sense you’re claiming it would be.” so yeah exactly in the sense I claim it to be.

Maybe with the exception of ‘viable’ but again I don’t know for how many items in GW1 that holds true.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Brahmincorle.1264:

Mo Mo.1947:

Zenith.7301:

What part of not “optional” do people not get from fractal 50. 70 AR is not OPTIONAL.

Fractals are a kind of dungeon run. Dungeons are like the very definition of grinding. You run them over and over.

I’ve done dungeons maybe like 5-10 times in the history of the game release and I’m doing fine playing all the non-grind content with my exotic non-ascended gear.

You say 70 AR is not optional. But fractals level 50 is very optional, lol.

If you play dungeons or fractals you are CHOOSING to grind. You can always choose to play something non-grindy.

Thus: Grind not required.

By this logic WoW, SWTOR or TESO are also “no grind” games

Everything is on the same level in GW2, while in the other games raiding is the final point.

No, thats personal. High level raiding is only for a small group the final point in those game, for other it isn’t. Many people don’t care about that part. Much like many GW2 players don’t care to do fractals as the highest level.

@Vayne

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

I grinded just as much in Guild Wars 1 as I did here, to make my skills more powerful. It wasn’t GEAR grind, but it was still grind to become more powerful.

Considering that in GW2 the materials to craft and the drops from bosses are all locked behind a pretty hefty and manipulated (with DR no less) RNG system that statement is a lie. Sorry, but you had a direct result for completing the tasks for obtaining the skills you wanted, there was no dice roll to see if you got it or got some other ability.

The two are not the same.

You see, this is why discussing the GW1 example is useless. You could try and tell me anything and I don’t know how is really worked in GW1.

What tigirius says here makes a huge difference.

I don’t mind being busy collecting those cosmetics in GW2 like for ever (different cosmetics all the time) as long as there is a more direct and viable way to get them. A more direct result also. (even if there is some RNG involved in it).

If the cosmetics work like tigirius explains the skills work, I would have been fine with it and then it does indeed look there is a big difference between GW1 and GW2. What dismisses your idea that it was already exactly like this in GW1 and so it is completely cash-shop unrelated.

Vayne.8563:

Edit: Oh and let’s not forget ecto farming on solo rits in the Underworld. We never ever called it grinding. We called it farming.

That is funny because I usually don’t mind some farming but I do hate the grind. Biggest difference for me in those words is that farming is doing something more specific to get an item.

Like killing a mob x times because I know it drops a mini version of itself, or doing a dungeon x times because I know it drops a cool weapon skin or killing a group of mobs a few times because it drops a material I need for my crafting. And as long as all these separate farms are generally not to bad (doable / viable) (I won’t complain about a few exceptions on this) I don’t mind it, I consider it farming, it always give that rush of ‘will it drop this time’. That mixed with more non-grind ways like complete a quest and get x, or that mob / boss drops y at first kill or complete that dungeon to get z and I consider it fun.

Now grinding is what I consider what happens in GW2. People are not farming for something they specifically want, no they just grind to get gold (a currency) or get items they do not want and then sell it to get gold, it does not matter that much to them what they do as long as it rewards them gold. That way they slowly see there gold number going up till the point where they have the money to buy what they want (never the rush of ‘will it drop’) and then they start over for the next item. That I consider a boring brainless grind and I hate it.

Stark.1350:

Devata.6589:

Stark.1350:

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

…I don’t see ascended CRAFT especially grindy – most of materials needed for it drops EVERYWHERE – the only issue of it it limit of one ecto refine of each type per day – but that have nothing to do with grind – you have materials you are just required to wait and can do other stuff meanwhile….

The ascended light armor set requires 36 bolts of damask which means you have to collect 10800(!!) silk scraps. Of course you can buy the damask. At 12g each you need to grind around 430 gold. All of that is pure grind!

The “Light of Dwayna” requires 4500 scraps of silk. I got down to only a few silvers three times in order to get that item. I went down to only a few silvers three times in order to get the silk. Just that ONE item required for the crafting cost that much. The grind was so kitten and boring I nearly quit playing the game entirely! ANet nearly lost a customer because of their kittenty decision with the amount of silk required.

This. This right here is the world’s perfect example. The game has been out 2.5 years. An expansion is coming that does nothing to raise the cap or negate your gear. That’ll probably be around for let’s say, 1-2 years.

So at the minimum, you have/had 3.5 years to get silk enough to craft it. Silk drops like candy. After a week of playing I’ll have 500 in my bank. Just by playing the game however I want.

Not to mention the item isn’t anything you need. It’s just a special cosmetic that you want.

So, once again. “Grind” in this game is only caused by self-inflicted want that you don’t have the willpower to control.

/thread

It’s always funny if people end a statement with something like /thread. Seems like they think their statement is so strong it completely destroys everything that has been said and so the thread can be closed.

But you still simply don’t get it. For those who ‘self-inflict’ the grind (that we know a lot of people do because all the grinding going on GW2 (based on that alone you can consider the game grindy)) it is because most of the stuff they want in this game they can only get (in a viable way) by grinding gold for it. Others might not self-inflict the grind, but that means the whole experience of collecting such items is removed from the game for them.

That is why the grind, or the need to grind IF you want to go for those things, is bad for the game. You can not in a fun (or less grindy) way directly work towards most of those items, and this being a game that should be the case. It would not have to be easy but there should be a better way then grinding… And buying is not playing!

The game maybe makes people self-inflict ´optional´ grind because it’s the only viable way. But in the end, grind is grind and there is no real good in-game alternative for this grind and that is bad.

Please explain how grind equates to playing the game normally and allowing things to come to you over time.

Things don’t just come over time, I never make the amount of gold I would need to buy the cosmetics I like, by playing the game ‘normally’.

Not to mention that hunting down items is what I like to do.. so what would be the preferred way of ‘playing the game normally’ for me.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

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I did not play a lot of GW1 but as far as I know GW1 was way more about lore and PvP then cosmetics. Mini’s you mainly got from birthdays and then there where like two sets of armor of what at least one was really grindy?

Could be wrong but thats what I know about it. I don’t think you can really compare that to how GW2 works. It’s much more an MMO where collecting items is also a more important part of the game. So turning that into a grind also different then doing that in GW1 I would think.

Then again, I could not really start a discussion with you about GW1 as I simply don’t know enough about it.

Guild Wars 1 was a grind for cosmetics. Just about everything in that game was about having different look to your armor or weapon.

A basic set of armor costs 10% of the elite armor, but elite armor had the same stats. Exactly the same stats.

The people who came from Guild Wars 1, always expected this cosmetics grind. What we didn’t want was ascended gear, or level cap increases. That’s because we had the same stats from the first game through all the rest of the games. We didn’t want or need more. We didn’t want ascended gear, because it was too hard to get and it remains, in my mind, too hard to get. The only good thing about it to me is that you don’t need it. I don’t feel it adds anything to the game.

There were two sets of armor that was massively hard to get and a boatload of rare weapon skins as well.

I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter. Then even if you did get one as a drop, it might not have been for the stats you wanted anyway.

There were also minis that were so rare, even as rich as I got, I’d never have been able to afford them. The mini polar bear for example, if you wanted to buy it with gold, you’d have to farm endlessly for years.

And you’d have to buy it from another player, because there was no marketplace there. You’d have to stand around kamadan and negotiate to buy or sell anything.

So Guild Wars 2, which had the update model you keep saying is better, still had the same type of grind for cosmetics.

“I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter.”

Wait, so you could get it without gold but by directly working for it. Well if they could do that in GW2 I would already be very happy. And then it would be in line with GW1 as well. It sounds like the drop-rate was a little to low (it should be viable to get it) but again I can’t say much about it as I did not play it a lot. Maybe the scepter was equal to the GW2 legendary, I don’t know?

Maybe GW1 had 1 extremely rare (legendary) version of everything (every weapons, 1 armor set and one mini) while the rest was doable. Without knowing that sort of things I sadly can’t really say much about it.

What surprises me is this part: “Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it.” so then you should perfectly understand why I say I don’t want the gold grind but why I want to directly work towards it.

When I say I could have bought it with gold it was a lot of gold. I’d have had to grind/farm the gold to get the gold to buy it. Afterwhich Id’ have spent all my gold. It’s EXACTLY like this game in that way. Same deal.

With ascended stuff you can farm the gold to buy the components to craft it with no waiting. In that game, I’d have had to farm the gold to buy the scepter and bankrupt myself in the process and then start all over.

The fact is, the thing you’re saying would make some sort of difference, didn’t make that sort of difference in Guild Wars 1.

Only you completely ignore the fact that you could directly work towards those items as well what makes it completely different in this game.

Also you ignore the idea / question if there where only a few extremely hard to get / grindy things while the rest was maybe all more viable and less grindy to get. The fact that you do makes me wonder if that is the case what would indeed make that on part with the legendaries.

If only the legendaries would be like this I would be oke with it, but the problem is that it’s the case for most of the cosmetics in GW2 so it still seems to be very different.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

~

~

~

Well-founded or not, it’s an opinion. I have full ascended items on three characters and I’ll never have to grind on those characters again. Not for gear.

More to the point, I have a boatload of other characters who don’t have a single piece of ascended gear…well maybe rings from fractals that I’ve done but that’s it, and none of those characters are excluded from content.

That’s the difference that you refuse to acknowledge.

You have one aspect of the game that you can’t stand and you blame everything else for it, but you don’t acknowledge that others, not just me, find other MMOs more grindy than this one.

You have an opinion and it’s a strong one and everything is jaded based on that opinion. I don’t think you could approach this game in an unbiased manner because you’re looking for things to support your dislike of the business model. That’s the worst kind of science.

~

Guild Wars has always had grind for cosmetics. It was always supposed to. I don’t see why you can’t recognize that.

I did not play a lot of GW1 but as far as I know GW1 was way more about lore and PvP then cosmetics. Mini’s you mainly got from birthdays and then there where like two sets of armor of what at least one was really grindy?

Could be wrong but thats what I know about it. I don’t think you can really compare that to how GW2 works. It’s much more an MMO where collecting items is also a more important part of the game. So turning that into a grind also different then doing that in GW1 I would think.

Then again, I could not really start a discussion with you about GW1 as I simply don’t know enough about it.

Guild Wars 1 was a grind for cosmetics. Just about everything in that game was about having different look to your armor or weapon.

A basic set of armor costs 10% of the elite armor, but elite armor had the same stats. Exactly the same stats.

The people who came from Guild Wars 1, always expected this cosmetics grind. What we didn’t want was ascended gear, or level cap increases. That’s because we had the same stats from the first game through all the rest of the games. We didn’t want or need more. We didn’t want ascended gear, because it was too hard to get and it remains, in my mind, too hard to get. The only good thing about it to me is that you don’t need it. I don’t feel it adds anything to the game.

There were two sets of armor that was massively hard to get and a boatload of rare weapon skins as well.

I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter. Then even if you did get one as a drop, it might not have been for the stats you wanted anyway.

There were also minis that were so rare, even as rich as I got, I’d never have been able to afford them. The mini polar bear for example, if you wanted to buy it with gold, you’d have to farm endlessly for years.

And you’d have to buy it from another player, because there was no marketplace there. You’d have to stand around kamadan and negotiate to buy or sell anything.

So Guild Wars 2, which had the update model you keep saying is better, still had the same type of grind for cosmetics.

“I tried to get a frog scepter for years in Guild Wars 1. Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it. I ran the dungeon bogroot growths until I couldn’t look at it any more. No frog scepter.”

Wait, so you could get it without gold but by directly working for it. Well if they could do that in GW2 I would already be very happy. And then it would be in line with GW1 as well. It sounds like the drop-rate was a little to low (it should be viable to get it) but again I can’t say much about it as I did not play it a lot. Maybe the scepter was equal to the GW2 legendary, I don’t know?

Maybe GW1 had 1 extremely rare (legendary) version of everything (every weapons, 1 armor set and one mini) while the rest was doable. Without knowing that sort of things I sadly can’t really say much about it.

What surprises me is this part: “Yes I could have bought it with gold, but I wanted to get it.” so then you should perfectly understand why I say I don’t want the gold grind but why I want to directly work towards it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

~

~

~

Well-founded or not, it’s an opinion. I have full ascended items on three characters and I’ll never have to grind on those characters again. Not for gear.

More to the point, I have a boatload of other characters who don’t have a single piece of ascended gear…well maybe rings from fractals that I’ve done but that’s it, and none of those characters are excluded from content.

That’s the difference that you refuse to acknowledge.

You have one aspect of the game that you can’t stand and you blame everything else for it, but you don’t acknowledge that others, not just me, find other MMOs more grindy than this one.

You have an opinion and it’s a strong one and everything is jaded based on that opinion. I don’t think you could approach this game in an unbiased manner because you’re looking for things to support your dislike of the business model. That’s the worst kind of science.

~

Guild Wars has always had grind for cosmetics. It was always supposed to. I don’t see why you can’t recognize that.

I did not play a lot of GW1 but as far as I know GW1 was way more about lore and PvP then cosmetics. Mini’s you mainly got from birthdays and then there where like two sets of prestige armor of what at least one was really grindy?

That would then be similar to only the legendary being a grind in GW2.

Could be wrong but thats what I know about it. I don’t think you can really compare that to how GW2 works. It’s much more an MMO where collecting items is also a more important part of the game. So turning that into a grind is also different then doing that in GW1 I would think.

Then again, I could not really start a discussion with you about GW1 as I simply don’t know enough about it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

~

~

~

Well-founded or not, it’s an opinion. I have full ascended items on three characters and I’ll never have to grind on those characters again. Not for gear.

More to the point, I have a boatload of other characters who don’t have a single piece of ascended gear…well maybe rings from fractals that I’ve done but that’s it, and none of those characters are excluded from content.

That’s the difference that you refuse to acknowledge.

You have one aspect of the game that you can’t stand and you blame everything else for it, but you don’t acknowledge that others, not just me, find other MMOs more grindy than this one.

You have an opinion and it’s a strong one and everything is jaded based on that opinion. I don’t think you could approach this game in an unbiased manner because you’re looking for things to support your dislike of the business model. That’s the worst kind of science.

“~Stuff about ascended gear~
That’s the difference that you refuse to acknowledge.”

Uhhm no I don’t refuse that. For me it’s about cosmetics. I couldn’t care less about BiS gear. That’s likely why those other games where never a grind for me.

“You have one aspect of the game that you can’t stand and you blame everything else for it”
No, Vayne, the other way around. There are a few things I dislike and I ‘well-founded’ blame (mainly) one aspect of the game for most of those things. This is also where the `Well-founded or not” part is kinda important.. the part you try to dismiss before starting the rest of your comment.

“but you don’t acknowledge that others, not just me, find other MMOs more grindy than this one.”
Come on Vayne, how many times did I not already acknowledge that in this thread??
I could start quoting them all but I would suggest you go and read back.

I do acknowledge that, I also say that it’s mainly depending on what part of the game you focus / what game-play you prefer. (next to how well you can tolerate the grind)
For example you are now talking about ascended stuff, so BiS gear. Maybe that part is grindy in WoW and I so do acknowledge that people who prefer that sort of stuff might then find WoW more grindy as GW2.

I really couldn’t say much about that because as I don’t care even a little bit for BiS stuff, I never tried to get it in WoW and have also not been trying to get it in GW2 so I can’t compare it.

What I prefer is the hunt for cosmetics, toys, mini’s, mounts, finishers and all that sort of fun items. I did try to go for those things in both games (as far as they exist in the games) and had fun doing that in WoW, it sometimes was some farming for one item, other where challenging but the total experience was never a grind, in fact it was a lot of fun.
In GW2 on the other hand the only real way to get most of these items is grinding gold and I never really could set myself to do that. I have been ask by friends to come along when they where grinding but 10 min in I was gone. (one exception ever, guess I had a strange day).

So it’s completely possible that some people think GW2 is more grindy and others think another MMO is more grindy. It really depends on what you are most interested in and I acknowledge this fact for much longer as this thread exists.

“I don’t think you could approach this game in an unbiased manner because you’re looking for things to support your dislike of the business model.” Again, it’s just the other way around.

I do wonder, if I was not arguing mainly about only a few issues (The fact that you are now trying to use to discredit my comments you seemingly can’t argue against in another way) but I would complain about a lot, would you then try to discredit my comments by saying I did just argue for the sake of arguing because I complained about so many things and so I could not be unbiased?

Stark.1350:

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

…I don’t see ascended CRAFT especially grindy – most of materials needed for it drops EVERYWHERE – the only issue of it it limit of one ecto refine of each type per day – but that have nothing to do with grind – you have materials you are just required to wait and can do other stuff meanwhile….

The ascended light armor set requires 36 bolts of damask which means you have to collect 10800(!!) silk scraps. Of course you can buy the damask. At 12g each you need to grind around 430 gold. All of that is pure grind!

The “Light of Dwayna” requires 4500 scraps of silk. I got down to only a few silvers three times in order to get that item. I went down to only a few silvers three times in order to get the silk. Just that ONE item required for the crafting cost that much. The grind was so kitten and boring I nearly quit playing the game entirely! ANet nearly lost a customer because of their kittenty decision with the amount of silk required.

This. This right here is the world’s perfect example. The game has been out 2.5 years. An expansion is coming that does nothing to raise the cap or negate your gear. That’ll probably be around for let’s say, 1-2 years.

So at the minimum, you have/had 3.5 years to get silk enough to craft it. Silk drops like candy. After a week of playing I’ll have 500 in my bank. Just by playing the game however I want.

Not to mention the item isn’t anything you need. It’s just a special cosmetic that you want.

So, once again. “Grind” in this game is only caused by self-inflicted want that you don’t have the willpower to control.

/thread

It’s always funny if people end a statement with something like /thread. Seems like they think their statement is so strong it completely destroys everything that has been said and so the thread can be closed.

But you still simply don’t get it. For those who ‘self-inflict’ the grind (that we know a lot of people do because all the grinding going on GW2 (based on that alone you can consider the game grindy)) it is because most of the stuff they want in this game they can only get (in a viable way) by grinding gold for it. Others might not self-inflict the grind, but that means the whole experience of collecting such items is removed from the game for them.

That is why the grind, or the need to grind IF you want to go for those things, is bad for the game. You can not in a fun (or less grindy) way directly work towards most of those items, and this being a game that should be the case. It would not have to be easy but there should be a better way then grinding… And buying is not playing!

The game maybe makes people self-inflict ´optional´ grind because it’s the only viable way. But in the end, grind is grind and there is no real good in-game alternative for this grind and that is bad.

Photonman.6241:

Add back all the interesting questing mechanics. Questing is boring as kitten now without them. What the kitten Colin?!

You mean like the more traditional quest? Yeah I am in favor of them. Not the kill x of y but the nice interesting quest chains. I also want to know about the NPC’s in this world. In fact I care more about those small stories then the big story.

Dynamic events are great to make the world feel more alive. But they don’t feel like you make a difference because they keep repeating while with a quest, if you helped a guy, you helped him.. something changed.

So a mix of both would be great I think (even since I played back in beta) and they do fit into the no grind discussion as they are very suited for rewarding specific rewards linked to them, even telling a little story about the item you get rewarded.

As long as you will not need to complete all the quests to get map-completion or anything along those lines.

aerial.7021:

Devata.6589:

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

Eh. I’m going sour on the whole MMO market. Show me a single player game that subjects it’s players to either periodic bi-or-tri-yearly grinds or single mountain-like grinds. They don’t exist, and they’d get savaged by critics and players alike if they tried.

Oh they exist heard of Skyrim, but why does no one complain? simple we can without discrimination or recrimination cheat, if I want a billion gold its just a tip toe through to Google and its good as done, we have our fun with them and move on.

Devata.6589:

I am pointing to that story for two years. I never forget it in the fog. And if you don’t like it, why support it because by buying you wait out of the grind you support the grind. Spend your money on expansions, buy expensive collectors edition if you want to support the game but don’t buy your way out of the grind because that way you only hurt the game.

I look at that differently, in the end I’m hurting myself so here is my calculation;

Life is finite, mine being half over at 40 time is at a premium and every hour wasted mashing a mouse button for a virtual achievement which doesn’t really exist other than a graphical representation on my screen and a collection of finely adjusted atoms on AreanNet’s hard drive database, is time wasted. Life should not be wasted doing frivolous tasks that in the end amount to ‘work’ not ‘play’.

So you don’t look at it any different. Your comment is a long version of telling you don’t like grind and should not grind. The thing I say is,.. don’t support it. If enough people won’t support it, it will go away. As long as people support it, it will continue to come and will only get worse.

Besides, you are not only hurting yourself, you are hurting all the players. (Well of course not you personally but as a group of people who support the grind by buying their way out of it)

My efforts as singularity are meaningless, it would require a large chunk of players in order for that to have any effect at all, and even then it’s ArenaNet’s game they can run it how they choose too at the end of the day for all the love & care they give there community the brass tacks of it is they have to make money period.

Those crafting sites on the net should be also displaying how many gems you’d have to buy for each item and how much in real world cash it would cost you, then I’d think we’d have some sort of evaluation in which to have a better argument.

Like I said, not you personal but you as a group. If all you individuals would not support the grind the group would likely be big enough.

Yes they need to make money, thats exactly why they can’t just run the their game as they want if that system does not earn them enough. I would still prefer the B2P model with regular expansion over this current model.

In time it’s likely cheaper to use real money then game-time if that is what you mean. While not a perfect comparison because at the moments you are gaming you would likely not be working / making money anyway, also if you were not gaming.

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

Eh. I’m going sour on the whole MMO market. Show me a single player game that subjects it’s players to either periodic bi-or-tri-yearly grinds or single mountain-like grinds. They don’t exist, and they’d get savaged by critics and players alike if they tried.

Oh they exist heard of Skyrim, but why does no one complain? simple we can without discrimination or recrimination cheat, if I want a billion gold its just a tip toe through to Google and its good as done, we have our fun with them and move on.

Devata.6589:

I am pointing to that story for two years. I never forget it in the fog. And if you don’t like it, why support it because by buying you wait out of the grind you support the grind. Spend your money on expansions, buy expensive collectors edition if you want to support the game but don’t buy your way out of the grind because that way you only hurt the game.

I look at that differently, in the end I’m hurting myself so here is my calculation;

Life is finite, mine being half over at 40 time is at a premium and every hour wasted mashing a mouse button for a virtual achievement which doesn’t really exist other than a graphical representation on my screen and a collection of finely adjusted atoms on AreanNet’s hard drive database, is time wasted. Life should not be wasted doing frivolous tasks that in the end amount to ‘work’ not ‘play’.

So you don’t look at it any different. Your comment is a long version of telling you don’t like grind and should not grind. The thing I say is,.. don’t support it. If enough people won’t support it, it will go away. As long as people support it, it will continue to come and will only get worse.

Besides, you are not only hurting yourself, you are hurting all the players. (Well of course not you personally but as a group of people who support the grind by buying their way out of it)

aerial.7021:

Lheimroo.2947:

Seems to me that WoW got more popular when it dropped grind and eased barriers to entry to raids, and that it got less popular when it added grind and raised barriers to play. Seems to me that that’s the formula for the whole market, in fact.

Close so very close its actually grind vs money, subject player(s) to an increased volume of grind and the player(s) will either choose the grind or pay money to escape said grind (me being one of those people), get the balance just right and you’ll get comments like what we see here, and the actual real story gets forgotten in the fog.

I am pointing to that story for two years. I never forget it in the fog. And if you don’t like it, why support it because by buying your way out of the grind you support the grind. Spend your money on expansions, buy expensive collectors edition if you want to support the game but don’t buy your way out of the grind because that way you only hurt the game.

However I think it’s still great you know this from yourself and are openly telling that here. Other people would try to even fool themselves talking about wanting to support the game and bla bla. Even going as far as there is no grind, the grind they buy themselves out of.

So point for you on that part however I would still suggest working on the first part.

@ Vayne Did you read that?

And this:

NiBlack.3149:

NiBlack.3149:

As person who just began ascended crafting I don’t mind “some” grind. Honestly the only issue with ascended crafting I have with cloth and probably later with leather.

I’m sort in the same boat as you, I will say this if it wasn’t for my (Credit Card) I highly doubt I would have gotten my currently 1 and only 500 ranked crafting to that point, even maxing 7 characters to 80 salvaging everything that lands in my inventory, I’m still left with resorting to my credit card.

?

So maybe it’s not a blind hate, that cash-shop focus dislike of me (as you suggested). Maybe I am not making excuses simply because of my dislike, but what I am saying is simply reality and the dislike is born out of that reality? These people at least seems to proof the grind works for the cash-shop focus. And so is it that hard to think the grind in there because of this reason?

But that would of course made all my statements about this well-founded.

Deamhan.9538:

Stark.1350:

Alright, I’m going to ask everyone in this thread a very simple question.

Say ascended armor was made much easier to obtain. Say it only took a month to complete “challenging content” to fully deck out your character.

With nothing else to work towards, yes or no – would you get bored with the game? And for people that answer yes, isn’t that a major problem for a non-subscription MMO?

Also keep in mind, that there are not adding any gear progression or level changes in the expansion. The game has been out for 2.5 years. And it’s going to be another couple before we see another. So let’s say, you’ve had 4.5 years to obtain your ascended gear and you can get it done in a month now. See if that changes your answer.

For the number of hours played (1800), I actually find it deterring that not one of my characters is in BiS gear. I find it even further deterring that the only way to get there is by crafting it.

I WvW and I’m in a good guild. So no it wouldn’t cause things to get boring. Rather I may even enjoy it more.

There are many reasons to play and keep on playing that have nothing to do with getting your characters equipped in BiS gear.

PvP
WvW
LS (for the actual story)
LS (for new skins)
Achievements
Trading/Farming (for simply amassing gold)

In fact, since they don’t plan on going any further than ascended, then activities that have nothing to do with getting BiS gear is all that remains once you get it. So unless one of those reasons is enough, ANet was going to lose you as a player sooner or later. The question is, does it make a difference if it was sooner or later wrt these types of players?

These players can be put into three groups.

1. Those that simply buy their way into it as much as possible. RL cash -> Gems -> Gold. Use the gold to buy what you need to power level the crafting (plenty of guides), then use the gold to buy what ever mats you need. Any mats that can’t be bought you just have to do what is required to collect. Regardless if it takes 1 month or 1 year, they spent the same amount of RL cash on it. ANet is paid the same.

2. Those that will play the game to gather mats and/or earn gold to level their crafting and craft the gear. Doesn’t matter if it takes them 1 month or 1 year, they won’t put up RL cash regardless. ANet is not paid.

3. Those that will only spend the RL money if it’s expected to take 1 year but won’t bother if it’ll only take them 1 month. This is the only case where the difference in time determines if ANet is paid or not.

So were talking a fraction of a fraction of the player base.

And how many of those do you think would be willing to buy an expansion on a more regular base (about 1 a year) if that would then add new interesting stuff to do but would also mean there was no need for the gold-grind for almost everything in the game?