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.
No, I am already not interested in Acended. But what is a little boring is that the cosmetics hunt I would love to do is just a boring gold-grind.
Not going to do that but then you take away a big part of the content and so things do become boring faster yes.
Hope this answered your questions.
Some people clearly need a recall :
- An MMO is considered “grindy” if one has to repeat a small set of simple and uninteresting tasks in order to reach the level cap and enjoy the “end-game content”
- Having objects or rewards that require grind in a game does not make it “grindy”
- In GW2 the end-game content can be summed up as : dry top + silverwastes ; megaboss ; living world ; dungeons and fractals. Of all these only fractals of level 10+ require ascended equipment. Thus one with exotic gear can access 100% of endgame content since you walk through the same fractals at level or 50 (only the difficulty changes).
- And GW2 gives you tools to bypass the leveling process for your alts (exp tomes + skill scrolls + gold to buy traits).
With that in mind, one cannot possibly claim that GW2 is a grindy MMO. The ones who do either :
- Want everything handeled to them immediately without breaking a sweat.
- bash the game for the sake of bashing Anet/the game.
Edit : I’d also like to remind you all that ascended tier items were added because a vocal minority (not pointing fingers here) asked for something to grind for once they’ve finished the game.
THIS. Just stick with this comment and erase the rest, please.
So the fact that many people experience a lot of grind in GW2 (again depending mainly on what game-play elements they prefer) should be dismissed, ignored and censored.
You know why censorship is so bad? Because if
Perhaps players complaining about grinding need to abandon this maximum-efficiency way of thinking.
Why the assumption those complaining are going for the maximum-efficiency way?
I simply want to hunt down items in the game but for most of them the only (viable) option is grinding gold.
‘just playing the game and earning the gold along the way’ is not an option because it does not give you enough money, but then again one of the things I like to do is the hunt.. that would be part of ‘playing the game’.
I can understand that if people only have the option of grinding for gold what they might not really like they will go for the most optimal approach to at least minimize the grind, doing else would in a way mean they are punishing themselves. Or like me, you don’t grind any gold but also miss out what usually would have been a big part of the game for you.
~
~
Maybe my guild isn’t special. Maybe there are a lot of guilds like mine out there. I seem to run into people from those guilds quite frequently, so it’s likely my guild isn’t the only one.
I see plenty of posts that agree with what I say on these forums and none of them people who post them…well sometimes one of them, is in my guild. The rest of the people posting agreement are in other guilds.
Your attempts to discredit me with those types of generalities are pretty silly. And that’s all they are.
For months and months you’ve been banging on about the one single issue that you’re obsessed about, and everything you say comes back to that single issue. It’s the root of all evil to you.
It doesn’t make any of your arguments stronger.
“Your attempts to discredit me with those types of generalities are pretty silly.”
You mean me saying you have a special guild? That is because in every discussion I see you have (also the ones I am not involved in) if somebody says ‘this is what I see in my guild’ you almost always answer ‘well I see something completely different in my guild.’ that’s all. No attempt to discredit you. There was just no need to say this here as I already know that. I also do not say it’s not true so it’s in no way discrediting your statement(s).
“For months and months”
About 2 years to be exact.
“you’ve been banging on about the one single issue”
In fact there are multiple issues I talk(ed) about. Here ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/8#post4741950 ) is a pretty complete list of what I dislike. Ofcourse there were also a few other like the fact that in WvW it became more about flipping keeps then really trying to get and hold your stuff (because that was less rewarding) plus that it seemed a little meaningless, something that should be fixed in HoT!! Great news. And the temporary content (where you were also active in, but then basically defending it or at least trying to dismiss what people where saying) what Anet did already change.
But yeah it’s a slim list and the cash-shop focus (that is the ‘one issue’ you talk about right?) is the number one on the list. But heey, isn’t that better? It shows I’m not here just to complain for the sake of complaining but I only talk about things I do indeed feel strongly about. That would be a positive one would think?, better than the people who pop up in almost so many completely unrelated threads seemingly just to argue, complain or defend for the sake of it.
“that you’re obsessed about, and everything you say comes back to that single issue. It’s the root of all evil to you.”
hmm did you even stop to think about the possibility that it’s the other way around? I find that one thing so very bad because I do run into things I dislike and that seem to have their cause (there root) into that one thing. I dislike the grind, the grind seems to be there because of the cash-shop focus and so I dislike the cash-shop focus.
“It doesn’t make any of your arguments stronger.” Nor weaker. My arguments are what they are and the grind is what it is.
(edited by Devata.6589)
You have to rune that gear, and the runes come at 6-12g a piece.
Depends on the runes you want, just saying…
You know what the runes that are expected are.
This is complete and utter bull. The runes as expected by who? Why do you let anyone dictate how you play?
HEY ANET. I WANT TO BE HANDED EVERYTHING AND TO BE GEARED OUT IN TWO WEEKS. ME-ME-ME, NOW-NOW-NOW. I can’t bear to work for anything and have long term goals.
That’s how most of you sound in this thread. What a joke.
I want to get all the cosmetic stuff more in a liadri or MF (remember the back-pack and the mini) way instead of the current brainless grind gold way or buy your way out of it. How is that for me me me me, now now now?
I think I did say it before to you (or it was somebody else). The ME ME ME, NOW NOW NOW crowd should be pretty happy with the current system. Me is easy enough, just a boring grind and now is also possible by buying their way out of most of the grind.
I think I get this now. And people like to ask for the impossible.
Each person here, individually, wants anet to design the game around THEIR needs, THEIR definitions of what is grind, THEIR wants. If anet fails to meet those standards, then its horrible, grindy, and unfun.
This thread is just starting to turn into a shouting match between people and clashing of ideals, all failing to accept one thing, anet’s definition. Apparently, just as we can’t accept each others, we can’t accept their. Tell me, in the example with DDO, what happens if someone says 20 times is too much of a grind? What about 10? Where is the line drawn?
Now, ask yourselves this. What content have you been denied? What haven’t you n able to play because you don’t have full ascended for, other than the obvious high level fractals? Did people fail the LS because of no ascended? Did people fail dungeons because of no ascended? What are you denied exactly without ascended? People gloat over gw1 with story and the pve and apparently never complained about do the same dungeons over and over again for collecting items for rare gear that was only for looks. How is that any different than now?
I could mention how path of exile or warframe have greater grind than gw2, but it wouldn’t matter. They would be dismissed in some way as they wouldn’t match with someone elses opinion.
In the end, what matters is, are you having fun? Yes? Great! Keep playing! Voice concerns or problems, but don’t act like you are a boss. A customer is a customer. Anet will try to keep you, but if demands become absurb, then its best to just ignore.
If you aren’t having fun, and if you feel anet is just ignoring you, then its time to just leave. Logging on, posting on forums, is still showing them you have interest. If you want to really see change, you need to stop showing up as numbers. TESO went b2p because not enough people signing up for subscription, rift and SWTOR went f2p after being buy and sub because of low numbers.
If anets numbers are in the area they want them, then they won’t worry. But continuing to post on forums or log in is saying the opposite to them.
But hey, why does my opinion matter? I’m having fun playing how the game is right now, which is taboo to everyone else apparently. I’m just the odd one out.
“Each person here, individually, wants anet to design the game around THEIR needs, THEIR definitions of what is grind, THEIR wants. If anet fails to meet those standards, then its horrible, grindy, and unfun.” No, basically only Vayne was going on about the definition. The only other discussion about the meaning of grind was if ‘need’ would be required. Overall it’s clear what people consider grind and there is also a market of MMO’s you can compare things to.
The only real difference between people here seems the one who want BiS gear and who do not want that to be grindy, and the cosmetics people who do not want that to be grindy. So the common thing (about tose complaining aobut this) here is that the game is grindy (at parts extremely, also when put against what the market does and Colin agreed there was grind) and people want that grind to be gone or less. That’s the common denominator here.
No need to design the game around every persons personal demands.
Anet’s ‘definition’ was about what fitted in the ‘no grind philosophy’ what is interesting to know but not relevant for the ask for less grind (also of types of grind that do not fall within the current no grind philosophy).
“all failing to accept one thing, anet’s definition.” There was only one person not accepting Anet’s definition / Colin’s post and that was Vayve. For the rest again this is interesting but irrelevant for the question for less grind.
“What content have you been denied?” A fun and direct way of hunting and collecting most of those cosmetics, other than the boring gold-grind.
About the ‘you should leave or else you still show interest’. We all still have interest and at the same time also a lot of people do leave. I see the payment-model as the biggest reason for this so I will not spend any money on the cash-shop but will on expansion. That also shows up in their numbers.
“I’m having fun playing how the game is right now, which is taboo to everyone else apparently.” What comment in here made you believe that?
(edited by Devata.6589)
I think Anet shouldn’t waste their time with those people. They should develop the game for the market they are targeting and if the market is there, they will have their share. The game can’t be everything to everyone.
You’re right.
Which is why Ascended shouldn’t exist in the first place at all. Because that’s not the market that ANet was ever targeting to begin with.
But ANet targeted them, and now we’re stuck with the Ascended Grind in a “no-grind philosphy” game. And as long as Ascended exists in its current form, we’re going to have yet another MMO where you still wind up grinding for BiS. Which this game was not supposed to be.
And, for the record, those people currently with one foot out the door that you don’t want ANet targeting? A good number of them are the original targets of this game. Not the people who want gear progression and grindy, time consuming BiS gear.
If they focus on the players they want to have and do a good job, they will keep and build on a strong, loyal playerbase. If players are flighty enough to leave over the questionable claim that the game is grindy, those players likely have other issues pushing them out the door, even if the grind was eliminated. Grind, especially the self-inflicted kind offered by this game, is not a motivator for the targeted players to leave the game.
You make 3 mistakes here.
1 How much you might want to deny it, the grind is not really questionable. There is an extreme amount of grind (while the amount of grind a person can put up with is personal) for specific parts of the game, especially the cosmetics part.
2 Is it self-inflicted grind? If they are leaving they are not self-inflicting the grind anymore do they? It’s likely not as simply as people say ‘oow it’s to grindy I leave’. It’s likely more so that what they like to do is grindy so they get tired of it, not self-inflicting any more grind (buying your way out of it also is boring), but then have the problem something they like (hunting items) is then taken away from the game for them, so there preferred end-game is pretty much gone so get bored with the game sooner and leave.
3 It for sure is a motivator for the targeted players to leave the game for this reason. See part 2 and combine that with the fact that the targeted players are those more interested in cosmetics then stats. The main goal for this game is a (well was) purely cosmetic item. They target exact these players.
Or do you think there targeted players are those being able to put up with a lot of grind? Because it isn’t. Let’s face it, they want people to skip the grind by buying the gold or the items from the cash-shop. They target people who like cosmetics and then try to make money on those cosmetics but by doing so remove the game-play (or make it its boring grind) around those cosmetics. Eventually scaring those same people they targeted away.
It’s something you will notice more in the long run (this I have been saying for about 2 years) and at this moment we are reaching the ‘long run’ point. HoT is there possibility to fix this, get those people back and hold them. But it will require them to rethink their current payment-model.
GW2 does not have a lot of grind… but to say they have “No Grind” is false.
Maybe they should start saying that Anet has a “Low Grind Philosophy”, then
maybe people wouldn’t get so upset.
That is still depending on what game-play you prefer the most. It might not have a lot of grind for the things you like to do. It has a lot, like the most I have ever seen, for people who like to hunt for cosmetics and other fun items. In fact nearly all those items are only viable obtainable by grinding gold (a never ending grind) with a few exceptions like Liadri that is talked so positively about by many, no wonder.
I could care less what they say because my reality is when I log in and play the game and see what I can do without full Ascended setups.
Then why did you even post in this thread to begin with? Seems to me the only one who wanted to argue for the sake of arguing was yourself, since you apparently don’t care about any of this in the first place.
Also it’s funny that you’re now saying you couldn’t care less what ANet says when just a moment ago you were arguing that it’s what ANet says that ultimately matters.
Anet’s word matters. When I say I don’t care what it is, that’s me saying it doesn’t impact or matter when I play the game. That’s not a contradiction. One is about control, the other is about impact.
Anet can say they intend to replace Charr with pink panda characters. That doesn’t impact my time ingame until it’s actually IN the game. It matters to me because I think it would be stupid to make that change and I don’t think I would like that change but until it actually HAPPENS, I’m going to enjoy this game as much as I do until it does.
I’m just presenting arguments for why the game shouldn’t change based on the premise it’s ‘grindy’ because I don’t feel it is. I think such a change would simply be a gesture to grasp at players with one foot out the door already. I think Anet shouldn’t waste their time with those people. They should develop the game for the market they are targeting and if the market is there, they will have their share. The game can’t be everything to everyone.
“I think such a change would simply be a gesture to grasp at players with one foot out the door already. I think Anet shouldn’t waste their time with those people. They should develop the game for the market they are targeting "
Or players who even left and will come back with HoT and then might stay if it’s better.
The market is people who are into cosmetics and that’s the group who will find the most grind.
To those who claim that grind lowers the population, there’s evidence it works both ways. Not enough grind can lower the population as well.
Anet was losing people who ran out of stuff to work on and too many people have been brainwashed by other games to think that they can just have a skin end game.
That’s the problem Anet ran into when they made the choice to add ascended gear.
You’re making assumption that more people leave because of grind than stay because of it. We simply don’t know that’s true.
“Anet was losing people who ran out of stuff to work on” there is a huge difference between having a boring brainless gold-grind to get everything and things to work to. If I again was to compare that to those other games the hunt for the skins (mini’s, wapons and armor, mounts, toys and other fun items, leveling crafts all about that sort of items) that could keep me busy for a long time, likely up until the next expansion.
If I compare this to GW2 that whole game-play is completely gone because I am not going to do this boring grind. Nonetheless the total amount of time you spend does not have to be so very different. The journey is different. The not so grindy one is better, while it still has parts of farming in it.
“too many people have been brainwashed by other games to think that they can just have a skin end game.” Just have a skin? It was not an endless gold grind as in GW2 (while usually you did have that option as well for many items) but you for sure did not just get it. And why use the term ‘brainwashed’ why then not use the term ‘spoiled’ (with fun way to obtain those skins) but then again, that is not a negative thing so that’s why you use the term ‘brainwashed’?
“You’re making assumption that more people leave because of grind than stay because of it. We simply don’t know that’s true.” That’s true while again common sense is useful here. Then again, you made clear you mixed up the terms (boring endless gold) grind with ‘things to do’. And then yes common sense is on your side. People will likely leave sooner when there is nothing to do then when there is something to do. But again, things to do, does not mean it has to be and endless boring gold grind. While I agree it will likely involve some farming as repeating content you can almost not get rid of in a game if you want to keep people busy for a longer time.
One thing I noticed in the guild is that you always have people more interested in specific parts of the game. The longest to stay where the WvW / PvP people. The cosmetics where one of the fastest to leave. Those now left are the ones not really interested in specific things but who just like the social interaction. Just in general what I see. I know Vayne, you have a very special guild where everything is different.
(edited by Devata.6589)
It is relevant because I am a player (and not the only player) who finds an element of the game not so great and so inform the developer of this who might use that information to prevent to many players leaving the game because they also might experience the same problem. That is known as player feedback. It’s one of the main reasons games have forums.
It’s interesting when a group of players lose perspective because of their self proclaimed importance as players. Feedback isn’t the problem. No one is saying you can give it. I think the take away here is that what you define as grind isn’t relevant to the concept of the game because you aren’t developing it or defining what the game is, even if your an almighty player.
In fact, players rarely have an influence in defining the concept of the game. Those things are set in stone long before it’s even released. Most of these arguments stem from the idea of players that think they do. Admittedly, I can think of an example of a game where the concept was completely rethought after release; Star Wars Galaxies. I’m not even sure that was due to player feedback. If it was, I’m not sure that’s a positive example for the players that want to influence concept.
So what are you doing here then?
And it sure as hell looked like you where saying I (and everybody here) could not give it.. you know because what we said was not what Anet has in it’s no grind philosophy?
Another thing I (and other players) did talk a lot about (complain) on this forums was the temporary content. We (the players) did manage to changes Anet’s opinion about that didn’t we? It has nothing to do with ‘’self proclaimed importance". We simply are the customer and that is the importance we have and we don’t have.. the importance of a customer.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Oow wait you are fine with that, you even tell them to leave. Thats completely no problem for the game. The fact that income and so likely player-base has been dropping since launch is perfectly fine of course.
Yes, In fact, I encourage people to leave if they don’t like playing it. I’m smart enough to know that not every game can be everything for everyone and I’m smart enough to know that if people think this game is a grind, they don’t understand what this game is about and who it caters to. GW2 shouldn’t try to be a Wow-clone. It should stick to it’s current business model. It works, otherwise they would have packed it in long ago.
Your attempt to link declining game population and income with grind is cute, but not based on any actual evidence; at least no information you have access to.
So you fail to see the game needs players to survive? And what is wrong with improving the game? Especially as the ways to reduce grind do not even have to change anything for players who prefer endless brainless grind. You just also get an option to directly work for the item without the grind. Is an addition option really.
They had the model of no expansions but only LS and then at some point decided that was not working and so did decided to go for an expansion after all. So seems like they them-self are not even completely sure / happy about the model.
Also I don’t try to link population to grind only. Things people dislike in general is linked to population, grind being one of them.
BTW ‘need’ is not something I see as a requirement for something to be grind. But it’s something many people bring up and what Colin mentioned as part of there ‘no grind philosophy’ so that’s why I to talk about it.
It’s not relevant what you think is a requirement for grind because you don’t develop the game around your idea. On the other hand, Colin does mention it because that IS what is relevant. Anet develops the game around their own concept of no-grinding. Twisting the definition to suit your own argument, then claiming Anet fail at their own no-grind approach because it doesn’t suit your own definition is just nonsense.
“It’s not relevant what you think is a requirement for grind because you don’t develop the game around your idea.”
It is relevant because I am a player (and not the only player) who finds an element of the game not so great and so inform the developer of this who might use that information to prevent to many players leaving the game because they also might experience the same problem. That is known as player feedback. It’s one of the main reasons games have forums.
Is this really so hard to grasp.
There are many, many, many, many threads on this forum of people talking about stuff that is not something Anet ever said anything about or in fact go’s exactly against what Anet is doing (possible on purpose) and all those threads and those comments are also 100% relevant as it’s all player feedback!
“Twisting the definition to suit your own argument, then claiming Anet fail at their own no-grind approach because it doesn’t suit your own definition is just nonsense. " Yeahhhh,, except.. that part is not happening is it?? Nobody (hyperbole!!) is saying (after Colin’s comment) Anet is failing there own no-grind approach. They are just saying that the game still is grindy for them and / or that the no-grind approach of Anet is not addressing the grind they experience or maybe even suggesting Anet’s grind philosophy is not very good because it does not addresses many types of grind. But nobody is saying Anet is failing at there own rules.. well nobody, not me at least and for sure not after Colin’s statement.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Nor is there any word (in that document) that states they do not consider gear or cosmetics grind as a grind or that it would not fit in there no grind philosophy.
Also this thread was created based on the no grind being talked about again during the announcement of HoT (where it was mentioned more in the context of doing something only once on your account instead of once per character, not leveling as there is no increase in level cap with HoT).
But seriously, are you now saying Colin is wrong?
However, again it’s not really relevant. It’s great Colin did clear up what they meant with their ‘no grind philosophy’ but that does not mean peoples complains about grind (that might not be the type of grind that Anet tries to prevent because of their ‘no grind philosophy’) is not valid. It still is. They have something in the game they dislike so they rightfully so talk about it on the forum hoping Anet will do something about it.
Sorry about I’m a writer and an editor. Colin is responding to an ever-changing industry, to specific complaints. I’m looking at the original manifesto. The words in it, period. Nothing else.
Colin has multiple responsibilities, including PR. The words of the manifesto, however, don’t change from year to year. They’re not like memories. They’re recorded. We KNOW what they say.
You ask anyone to describe anything from four years ago, and you’ll get discrepancies from reality. If you want to argue about what was meant in the manifesto, use the wording of the manifesto to back up what you meant. Do you know why you don’t? Because you can’t. The wording isn’t there to support what you’re saying. The wording is there to support what I’m saying. It really is that simple.
There is a paragraph in the manifesto where they talk about grind and in that paragraph they do NOT talk about gear, or gold. They talk about combat. They talk about people repeating stuff over and over again and want to make combat fun again. So they gave us multiple ways to level.
But in addition to that, in early panels where they spoke about it, BACK THEN, they reiterated this. They didn’t say anything about gear on those panels in reference to the manifesto.
I won’t bother arguing with you, you’ve made up your mind. But it doesn’t make you right.
“If you want to argue about what was meant in the manifesto, use the wording of the manifesto to back up what you meant. Do you know why you don’t?”
Because it is irrelevant?
“Because you can’t.”
Pff well if you say so.. No serious here you go.
“It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment. " FUN!!! as in FUN!!! rewards. Not great stats no FUN rewards. I want FUN items like toys and skins and mini’s. Because that is FUN! And this sentence says I can get them without grind.
Now it’s still irrelevant especially after Colin’s post here. But heey, you got what you asked for.
And about context. It’s in the combat chapter what seems correct as combat is what usually rewards you stuff in GW2, and it’s in a separate paragraph that does not say a thing about ‘need’, leveling, gear or whatsoever. All it says is what I quoted.. the whole paragraph!
I will also leave it with this as this discussion is just as irrelevant for this thread as your definition of grind is, or the manifesto is or what types of grind fall or do not fall within Anet’s ‘No grind philosophy’. All 100% irrelevant for people experiencing grind and talking about it in this thread hoping Anet will do something about it.
Sorry, Obtena. Chris Whiteside said in this very thread that Anet considers ascended top tier gear and expects people to get it. And besides that, I do not include ‘need’ in my definition of grind. If something is too much work, it’s a grind and I don’t do it. Period. Needed or not.
That’s a personal perception issue then. It’s irrelevant if someone expects players to get Ascended, it’s not necessary to play the game. Perhaps Anet has plans for content that requires Ascended. If that’s the case, we will have to wait a while before QQIng about grinding.
If your definition of grind doesn’t include need, then it’s not relevant to the discussion because it’s not you that is developing this game around your own definition of grind, it’s Anet.
I remember several raiding nights in vanilla wow I’d get two items for four hours of fairly enjoyable challenging work. That experience DOES NOT EXIST HERE.
That’s true, it doesn’t have that experience and that’s a good thing because if people want the WoW experience, they should just play WoW. GW2 provides it’s own experience. That’s why people play GW2.
“If your definition of grind doesn’t include need, then it’s not relevant to the discussion because it’s not you that is developing this game around your own definition of grind, it’s Anet.”
That is of course complete nonsense. If he experience grind and dislikes part of the game because of it his complain is completely relevant in this topic. What is irrelevant is that it does not fit in Anet ‘no grind philosophy’. That would only be relevant if Lheimroo would be pointing towards that as reason why it should not be in GW2. But he is not doing that. He is simply saying there is grind and he does not like it. (And maybe suggesting that is the reason it should not be here.. because people dislike it)
“That’s true, it doesn’t have that experience and that’s a good thing because if people want the WoW experience, they should just play WoW. GW2 provides it’s own experience. That’s why people play GW2.”
People play GW2 because of the boring grind in stead of fun rewards rewarded for content (and having the grind as option)? Seems highly unlikely. There might be many reasons why people play GW2 but I think the group that is playing GW2 for the grind is very slim I think. And there is nothing wrong with a game having a look at other games to try and take the best of those games into your game. It would only make the game better.
And to come back on your “That’s why people play GW2.”. How about.. That’s why people leave GW2?
Oow wait you are fine with that, you even tell them to leave. Thats completely no problem for the game. The fact that income and so likely player-base has been dropping since launch is perfectly fine of course.
You want to compare GW2’s current grinds to anything? I’d say.. the frostsaber rep, vanilla wow, would be appropriate.
You’re all missing a critical aspect of what defines grind; “NEED”. No part of GW2 requires the ‘grindy’ Ascended gear in the same way that you and your other WoW collegues describe what gear you DID need to do new content raids in WoW. Therefore, the WoW to GW2 gearing comparison is irrelevant if you are trying to say one is more grind than the other.
No it’s not because there was also no ‘need’ in WoW to grind. It’s exactly as you say “you DID need TO do new content raids in WoW” and that is a choice isn’kitten Just like fractals lvl 50 is a choice in GW2. IF you want to do the hardest raid THEN you ‘needed’ to grind (and how bad people did experience that grind is personal), else you did not ‘need’ to grind.
I was never interested in those hardest raids in WoW (not that I am against raids btw but they simply did not have my first priority). I have always been more interested in cosmetics (one of the reasons GW2 seemed interesting for me) and so I never experienced the heavy grind you talk about. There was some farming going on for my cosmetics (and fun items / toys / mini’s) hunt but never a very heavy grind. So I could just play that game completely the way I wanted without any grind what means the statement that you ‘need’ to grind there is false. You only ‘need’ it IF you want something.
Now in GW2 I would still prefer the cosmetic stuff but IF I want to get that here I ‘need’ to grind like hell (And since I do not do that, that part of the game is absent for me in GW2). So the ‘need’ is similar, it are both ‘need if’s’ just maybe for another part of the game and whether that effects you depends on what part you prefer.
Problem is GW2 did focus on cosmetics so did draw many people interested in that so you would expect the percentage of people preferring that is higher in a game like GW2. So maybe that group also has the highest percentage of players leaving GW2? And like I did say before in this thread, many of those people who left might come back for HoT but if they fall into the same traps (like the grind) again and so will leave within 6 months after the expansion Anet will have lost them forever. They will not be coming back for the second expansion. So HoT is the last opportunity to do something to not forever lose a lot of players.
BTW ‘need’ is not something I see as a requirement for something to be grind. But it’s something many people bring up and what Colin mentioned as part of there ‘no grind philosophy’ so that’s why I to talk about it. However, grind is grind also if there is no ‘need’ (as there is basically never).
(edited by Devata.6589)
After a short break from playing gw2 and coming back to it from other MMOs. You guys seriously don’t know what it means for an MMO to be grindy. Guildwars2 has it pretty good. If you’re upset, go try out other mmos and see for yourself.
I did play other games before GW2 and I recently also did play another MMO for a while again. Including MMO’s that are part of the so called grindy games, but the matter of fact is that for the part I like in mmo’s, my preferred game-play (And that is the important part here) GW2 is by far the most grindy of them all. So much that I don’t do that part of the game in GW2, what is sad as GW2 is known for this part (cosmetics).
So please don’t come here and tell people who complain about grind don’t know what they are talking about. They do.
Watch this.
I played other MMORPGs and I find them, almost universally, to be more grindy than Guild Wars 2. So the people who complain about grind don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s very easy to say that. It’s still just your opinion and other people have other opinions.
It all starts with your definition of grind. The grind in this game is comparable, to me, to the grind in Guild Wars 2. It’s not particularly bad.
Because in Guild Wars 2, to max my skills like Luxon and Sunspear and Lightbringer and all the Eye of the North skills, I had to farm a lot of points. It sure felt grindy to me.
In some cases, I wanted those stats more than I need ascended gear in Guild Wars 2.
In the end, it’s all just a matter of what you consider grind. I thought Lotro was far more grindy than Guild Wars 2. DDO is certainly more grindy than Guild Wars 2. And I certainly felt like I was grinding in AOC.
You run a raid in DDO 20 times and you are guaranteed a list of choices not to mention many of the raids you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting a loot drop and many times people get something they already have and put it up for grabs to the party. So in 60 days you are just about guaranteed to get your item. Crafting items and upgrading epics can feel like a grind but in all of those you know if you keep at it you will get what you want eventually.
The only guarantee in GW2 is that with enough gold you can get what you want. The only thing to work towards is gold. Save up gold to make this item. Now what do you do? Move on to something else to get the next item? Nope. You start grinding more gold doing the exact same thing you were doing. I prefer my grinds to change not be the exact same thing for the life of the game.
When I started doing dungeons I liked the way you earned tokens. It was nice to have a goal and know that when you reached it you start working on something else. It goes very nicely with the wardrobe. It would be nice if there was more of this, where you can work towards something other than gold.
Still, tokens are also just a currency like gold. What imho is a nice side thing you earn along the way but the main goal / item should be or some rng drop or a guaranteed drop for completing something like a dungeon or a quest.
(edited by Devata.6589)
After a short break from playing gw2 and coming back to it from other MMOs. You guys seriously don’t know what it means for an MMO to be grindy. Guildwars2 has it pretty good. If you’re upset, go try out other mmos and see for yourself.
Hey, well, there’s cow crap in the water over in India, so we shouldn’t complain about turds in ours? Bugger off.
There’s cow crap in every water, everywhere in the MMO world. There is grind in any game you can mention. Appreciate the fact this one is less so.
But it’s more so.. At least for the part I am most interested in.
I find this whole back and forth argument about the definition of grind to be both funny and a little sad; it’s nearly irrelevant and it will NEVER make anybody feel better.
What I said back on page seven stands. I have my own subjective experience of this game, and regardless of whether I use the word ‘grind’ to express that concept or some other word that might conceptually meet with Vayne’s approval, what I am saying is that I am having a problem that makes me not enjoy GW2.
I am having a problem that makes me not enjoy GW2. It is related to the amount of ‘work’ I have to do in game that infringes on my enjoyment of the game. That’s what matters here, and I hope Anet is wise enough to listen to that and not to bandy definitions around.
Arguing definitions is the weakest, most self-servingly soppy defense tactic. It solves nothing. Problems exist even if you try to make them not by redefining words.
That is exactly what I did try to explain to Vayne’s but like always I need many more words for it then other people do. Hope your short but to the point explanation makes it more clear for Vayne.
Also the discussion I have with him is not so much to define grind as like I said before and you said here is completely relevant. But what bugs me (and so why I go in a discussion with him) is that he is trying to use this definition of grind conversation basically in a way to dismiss what people have to say about it. As if the definition was relevant.
I also don’t plan on going on with that discussion with him, if he still does not get it, so be it.
@naiasonod.
Accept for the idea that Legendary’s look uhhm well as you said and the hate for cataclysm (They added some nice fun to get (grind free) cosmetics in that expansion). I do agree with the rest.
This game has so many good things but somehow for every positive thing they also did something bad.
- Make a game based on cosmetics: Love it! Make getting those cosmetics the worse grind I did ever see.. Noo. Why! (I know why, they monetize that part of the game).
What brings me to the second part:
- Release the game as B2P: Love it. No stupid cash-shop influence, no monthly fee and as they need to earn money it means many expansions to keep the game interesting for years to come.. Oow wait forget about all that, focus on the cash-shop creating the same negatives as all those F2P game.. Noo. Why?
- Introducing events to make the world more alive and making the you feel like you make a difference and no ’’ kill X of y): Love it (except that I never believed the second part). Remove the quest that in fact give more the feeling of making a difference then the events do (still loving the events for making the world feel alive), having the events being the being kill X for Y while missing the interesting quest and quest chains that send you all over the world and the fun way they can give you a reward with a story attached to the reward. Why?
- Making a beautiful where there are hidden areas you can discover: Love it! Add hearths, PoI, Vista’s and Waypoints you have to unlock for map completion what is important for creating the main goal in the game a legendary. Resulting in world exploration not being interesting exploration but having it be a boring checklist you are checking of.. Nooo Why?
- Going for an open world: Love it! Making all maps instances, putting in way-points making your experiencing not an open world and the joy of riding / walking into a new map having in stead of this open world feeling more the feeling of separated things linked with loading screens.
If all of the above (and grind being like number one on my list) would have been the positive GW2 approach but without the negative GW2 approach they seem to have coming with every positive GW2 approach this game would have easily been the best MMO on the market.
I still enjoy the game for other things but if I look at this list I keep asking myself… Yes I love it…. Nooo… Why???
(edited by Devata.6589)
The argument doesn’t work on you because you’ve already made up your mind. To people who haven’t made up their mind, they can make up their own minds whether my argument is sound.
You don’t get to define grind your way. You don’t get to make up your own definitions. In any statement using a word with multiple definitions, it’s the speaker who defines how he’s using the word. If people after that want to use the word differently and then call that speaker a liar, well, that’s their own affair. I don’t think it’s right and I’ll never think it’s right.
So yes, by your definition there is grind in this game. But since the original statements weren’t using your definition, I don’t see the relevance of your statement.
The manifesto, where all this started, never mentioned gear in the paragraph about grind. It never mentioned gold. It mentioned combat.
You want to go off in a different direction and talk about other stuff go ahead. But don’t try to pretend it’s reasonable.
Yes I agree with you. Your definition of grind, as used by you, is in the game. But it’s not the only definition of grind and it’s not the definition of grind as implied by the words of the manifesto.
Again, if you can see anything in that paragraph about gear or about gold or about vertical progression, I’d love to see it.
No one can produce that evidence because it doesn’t exist. I’m using the actual words of the manifesto, to which Anet referred.
You’re using another definition, which may not be empirically wrong, but it’s misleading when taken with what Anet said.
“You don’t get to define grind your way.”
Uhhm, you are the person here trying to define grind and define what Anet was talking about in an attempt to disprove or proof something people are saying. Not me.
I just talk about the grind me and other people experience. Besides, also Colin confirmed in this thread that there is the type of grind I talk about in GW2 (and so in the process of doing so showing also he does also define that as grind). It was just not on their ‘no grind philosophy’ list of the type of grind they wanted to prevent.
“It’s the speaker who defines how he’s using the word. If people after that want to use the word differently and then call that speaker a liar, well, that’s their own affair” Isn’t that exactly what you are doing? Where exactly did I do that?
“But since the original statements weren’t using your definition, I don’t see the relevance of your statement.” To what ‘original statements’ are you referring? You mean captainteemo’s statement? He said “You guys seriously don’t know what it means for an MMO to be grindy. Guildwars2 has it pretty good. ~, go try out other mmos and see for yourself.”, that is clearly a statement to everybody here saying there is a lot of grind.. So that’s also me. He does not say ‘people complaining about gear grind’ or something along those lines. No he says ‘you guys’ and refers very generally to ‘grind’ so that fully applies to me and so also to my definition of grind. Maybe he didn’t oversee that there are also other forms of grind then the one he sees or cares about in games but that’s then on his behalf. The way he said it, it was addresses at everybody talking about the bad grind and that includes me so that makes my definition relevant. While it might not be the grind he did talk about of simply forgot about this grind.
“The manifesto, where all this started, never mentioned gear in the paragraph about grind. It never mentioned gold. It mentioned combat.” So wait, with “original statements” you where referring to the manifesto? Again it’s still irrelevant even if the manifesto would not mention grind at all. People find the game grindy (also explaining what they find so grindy) so complain about it. No matter what the manifesto said.
“But it’s not the only definition of grind and it’s not the definition of grind as implied by the words of the manifesto.” What would be relevant if I would say “this grind is bad BECAUSE the manifesto says it’s not there.” However I don’t. I (and other with me) say it’s bad, that’s it.
“You’re using another definition, which may not be empirically wrong, but it’s misleading when taken with what Anet said.” Again.. What I don’t do! I say it’s bad, my point is, that it’s bad. My point is not Anet promised it would not be there. That was at best an additional reason for people to be mad about it but in the end it’s irrelevant for people disliking the grind.
It all starts with your definition of grind. The grind in this game is comparable, to me, to the grind in Guild Wars 2.
Indeed. And this topic has proved that your definition of grind (and that you claimed was ArenaNet’s definition) was wrong; it’s not ArenaNet’s definition of grind. From which we see that your interpretation of the Manifesto was wrong as well (see my signature for details). Thus, if that’s how the discussion starts, and in that you were wrong, well…
What was said in the manifesto was said in the manifesto. It’s a paragraph. You can ask anyone in the world to ask what they meant by something they said 4 years ago, and it has about as much chance as being wrong as right.
Do you even think Colin wrote the manifesto?
The paragraph is quite clear. All you have to do is look at the words in it.
Colin is answering questions from four years ago based on stuff that’s said since. But the manifesto is something that anyone can read and see, and without having a previous definition of grind, depending on the document itself for grind, it’s self-explanatory.
If you don’t agree, it doesn’t change anything. There’s not a single word in that paragraph about gear. Not one.
Nor is there any word (in that document) that states they do not consider gear or cosmetics grind as a grind or that it would not fit in there no grind philosophy.
Also this thread was created based on the no grind being talked about again during the announcement of HoT (where it was mentioned more in the context of doing something only once on your account instead of once per character, not leveling as there is no increase in level cap with HoT).
But seriously, are you now saying Colin is wrong?
However, again it’s not really relevant. It’s great Colin did clear up what they meant with their ‘no grind philosophy’ but that does not mean peoples complains about grind (that might not be the type of grind that Anet tries to prevent because of their ‘no grind philosophy’) is not valid. It still is. They have something in the game they dislike so they rightfully so talk about it on the forum hoping Anet will do something about it.
Watch this.
I played other MMORPGs and I find them, almost universally, to be more grindy than Guild Wars 2. So the people who complain about grind don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s very easy to say that. It’s still just your opinion and other people have other opinions.
It all starts with your definition of grind. The grind in this game is comparable, to me, to the grind in Guild Wars 2. It’s not particularly bad.
Because in Guild Wars 2, to max my skills like Luxon and Sunspear and Lightbringer and all the Eye of the North skills, I had to farm a lot of points. It sure felt grindy to me.
~ snap for space
What your basically saying is that factually you can’t say there is grind because grind is an opinion.
“It’s still just your opinion and other people have other opinions.” So it’s also NOT like captainteemo said that this game is not grindy and people who say so simply haven’t played any other games. That is FACTUALLY untrue! (What was my main point) Besides it’s not only about it being an opinion, it has also to do with what part of the game / game-play you like (something I did mention many times before). If he is a person who likes BiS gear he might not see the grind people see who like cosmetics and the other way around.
In addition it is also factual that there are many people grinding gold in this game, (like the champ trains or EotM). To throw in another fact, there are many, many items that you can only obtain yourself in two ways.. buying them for cash (what is not playing the game) or buying with gold.
Of course then there are the many things that are not really obtainable in a viable way in the game directly but where the only viable option is to grind gold to get them. But then you would of course say it’s technically possible and so factually untrue (plus that the grind is an opinion) what is correct if it comes to those items. Of course there is a big difference between realistically and technically and we also have something as common sense but I know those don’t really count for you when trying to make your point. That’s why I started with the facts here and this common sense paragraph is for other readers.
So factually people are grinding gold and factually there are many items only game wise obtainable in this game with gold.
Of course it’s personal how much grind you consider bad, no denying that (while again common sense does get you a long way here) but an item I earn by completing a quest does not fall in the category ‘grind’ what is a much used way to reward those items in the other games while for most of those items here I have as only option grinding gold what already would make it even more grindy based on that alone. Even without the common sense of the amount of grind is required in GW2 for collecting those type of items.
“So the people who complain about grind don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s very easy to say that. It’s still just your opinion and other people have other opinions.”
It was captainteemo who made a statement like this, not me. I am not saying he might not experience any grind in those games or less grind in this game. I think he is telling the truth about that part and likely experience less grind because he plays in another way prefers other parts of the game / gameplay.
You would have done a great job arguing why captainteemo’s statement is wrong, not mine.
So sorry, but this tactic of trying to disprove something with these sorts of arguments do not work on me, and really, why are you still using them? I did see you use the same tactics in discussions where people said many players where leaving the game, on what you basically said they could not make that statement, they did not have the numbers. Forums where just a minority and there guilds where just a subgroup and so on (basically also ignoring common sense because you could not factually proof it). Of course eventually Anet came with the NPE also saying they were losing to many players even before they got 80. Turns out those people you tried to knock down with this sort of arguments where right. Same for temporary content discussions, so Vayne please let’s try to have a normal discussion instead of trying to use these sort of tactics and let also no dismiss common sense.
I would appreciate that. The common sense stuff is also what the players experience you see. It’s irrelevant for the player that something as grind is also bound to opinion and so it can’t factually / scientifically be said it is a grind. Completely irrelevant, they experience a grind and might dislike that part of the game. That’s it, and that’s all that is relevant here.
(edited by Devata.6589)
After a short break from playing gw2 and coming back to it from other MMOs. You guys seriously don’t know what it means for an MMO to be grindy. Guildwars2 has it pretty good. If you’re upset, go try out other mmos and see for yourself.
I did play other games before GW2 and I recently also did play another MMO for a while again. Including MMO’s that are part of the so called grindy games, but the matter of fact is that for the part I like in mmo’s, my preferred game-play (And that is the important part here) GW2 is by far the most grindy of them all. So much that I don’t do that part of the game in GW2, what is sad as GW2 is known for this part (cosmetics).
So please don’t come here and tell people who complain about grind don’t know what they are talking about. They do.
to quote Colin
“- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)”
+5 of a stat doesn’t sound like alot, but +70 extra stats do really add up. Again it is a statistical advantage.
But the hole ‘need’ part is questionable. I do not ‘need’ BiS gear.. I do also not ‘need’ exotic gear and that is the same in those other games people point towards like WoW. Yeah maybe back in 1990 there where games where you needed to farm 1 mob to get gear to be able to kill the next mob meanwhile there is nothing else to do??? But that ‘need’ to grind does not exist in any of the modern game. You can simply play those games and level up while doing so and getting the required gear along the way.
So if you look at it from that way what does the whole ‘no grind philosophy‘ still stand for as if it’s a unique thing GW2 offers? All games on the market offer that.
Now of course the ‘need’ part does in those games exist at max level. You can do dungeons and some PvP and even raids with normal gear. The moment you need to grind for gear in those games is IF is you want BiS or IF you want to do PvP on the highest level or IF you want to do raids at the highest level. There is always the IF and it’s your choice.
But how is that then different from GW2? Some people here talk about ascended gear that you need IF you want to do fractals as the highest level and you need to do an endless gold grind IF you want to collect the coolest skins.
So I still find the ‘need’ part really questionable.
I wonder if Colin or other developers are still following this thread because there are some interesting discussions going on nice showing the the different type of players feeling different about the different types of grind (or absence thereof depending on the game-play) that are in this game.
It would not be bad at all as they used this information an an attempt to improve the whole rewarding in HoT as rewarding is one of the few / main things in GW2 that many people do feel negative about. While not all people do of course.
But again we get to the point where you would almost conclude that cosmetic people should play non-cosmetic games.
You should in fact, conclude that, to the extent that that’s all that matters to the player. That’s what happens when you remove gear progression, scarcity falls to cosmetics, and demand pushes up prices; where gear progression matters, it’s all about stats instead.
“Having more time gated but consistent payout systems would alleviate some of the rng pain” no that would not make it better, in a way the gold grind already does that. It’s a really consistent payout but just takes time to get the money you need to buy. Also I do not need to get stuff for free only by putting in ‘waiting time’. That sounds interesting to you?
About the materials, that would already be nice if it would be directly obtainable in a viable way instead of the only viable way being the grind gold and buy it. Even is the total time spend might still be similar (for most).
I’m sorry, I was not attempting to imply that said time gated but consistent payout systems had to look like login rewards, they should obviously be tied to content. They need to be time gated though, or the time to item for gear will drop dramatically; presumably the amount of time it takes the average player to acquire the types of gear we’re talking about is roughly where ArenaNet wants it to be, as they have metrics for that kind of thing. And things like sudden influxes of crafting mats would cause market collapses. The point of timed systems is to provide a casual alternative to gold farming; for anything that can be purchased, that’ll remain the most efficient method of acquisition, the consistent payout is a way to provide gradual, slower, access to that kind of item for players who don’t want to do that, without inducing inflation via lump sum gold payouts.
Edit: I suppose the big argument you could make is for a much greater amount of account bound on pickup cosmetic rewards available to solo players throughout the game, rather than relying primarily on crafting and group content. There’s a legitimate issue there I think.
“You should in fact, conclude that” and would it not be a really bad thing to have to conclude that you can better play a non cosmetic based game if you are into cosmetics in stead of a cosmetic based game like GW2? Your are really saying, all the people Anet is mainly aiming for should not play GW2.
“to the extent that that’s all that matters to the player.” Not so much if that is all that matter but more ‘concerning this part of the game-play’.
“demand pushes up prices” Well demand for gold, the items are all unlimited available in this current way (that’s mainly cash-shop) or the direct approach. And because the direct approach skips the gold part that demand is also gone there. So no, the ‘demand pushes up prices’ does not really apply to this example.
“They need to be time gated though, or the time to item for gear will drop dramatically;” as in, a specific item can max drops from a dungeon once a day you mean? Well if the drop-rate is not to high (could be higher if there would be no time-gate) then I could life with it. But if there are many items to go for this will not really slow down the total progression. Because in stead of doing a dungeon 10 times a day to get the item you now do 10 different dungeons to get one of the 10 different items you want still ending up with getting 1 item a day. To give a very simplistic example. So I think it would be possible and better without the time-gate but if it’s not to bad, combines with a not to bad rng (as that seems to be the example you talk about here) I would be fine with it. Of course I would not only want to see the RNG way, some items could work the RNG way (on specific content) but other should be a guaranteed reward for completing something.
“gold farming; for anything that can be purchased, that’ll remain the most efficient method of acquisition” No, hard to get items will likely cost you more gold then compared the time it takes you to earn the item. This is where the “demand pushes up prices” you talked about before indeed comes to play. Only a few items available will push the price while the work to get the item will always be the same (inflation free). Only when the items gets flushed on the marked having more available then demand the gold option becomes the optimal way.
“I suppose the big argument you could make is for a much greater amount of account bound on pickup cosmetic.” That would be nice for a limited number of items but mainly from a perspective that it adds more value (prestige) from a game-play perspective to the item (you know he had to complete x content). It’s not required to prevent the grind gold as only real viable option. I think a good mix between account-bound and not account bound items is the best.
(edited by Devata.6589)
~
“If you require 60 hours of, say, jumping puzzles to get a mini or a skin, then you’ve created a typical “grind” of the type Anet is trying to avoid.
To avoid that issue you can substitute gold. If everything generates gold, and gold can buy everything, then you can do whatever you want for 60 hours and buy your item”
I don’t think 60 is a realistic number. Also in those other games I don’t think I ever spend 60 full hours on one thing but if you would want to collect it all you could keep yourself busy likely until the next expansion.
Also the “play what you want and then buy it” sounds nice on paper but just is now how it works. First of all, in reality only a limited number of things would reward a descend amount of gold so if you don’t want to stretch your goals out to long time-wise you will end up doing one of those few things.
And that for all the items while with the direct way at least every item lets you do some other content but the gold way ends up you doing the same thing (like a set of 5 things) for all the items.
Seems like an even worse grind.
So that choice is a little fake and also the reason why we indeed see in the game there are about 5 things that are getting grinded for gold all the time while other content get pretty much ignored.
Also it’s just less fun, no rush of will it drop (in case RNG), no feeling of completion (what you would have in case of guaranteed reward for something like a quest-chain). No just always the one number (gold) slowly going up. And besides, when talking about choices, where is my choice to work directly for the item…. my preferred choice? For the not account bound items the gold option is still an option, next to the direct way, now however it’s only gold.
“or just buy gold with cash and fund the game”
How is buying gold paying the game? And wasn’t it important to have people spend time or else they would blow towards the content to fast you just said? But now suddenly it’s fine to skip the total time. But you likely did hit the nail here as to why it’s designed the way it is. They want you to buy the stuff.
Also this is another reason why it devaluates the items. You can get them by a brainless gold grind or by simply buying them. There is no real content linked to it so the item does not proof anything. Also for me it does not seem a way to so much fund the game but to fund this approach that I think is so bad for the game completely destroying the open world hunt for those items. No I rather fund the game by you know… buying the game / the content by buying expansions. I can’t help it if they only release an expansion once ever 3? years? Would be fine if they released one every year and then there might also not have been this need to sort of turn this part of the game in a grind because you are in fact trying to sell the items in stead of having people hunt them down in the game.
“or be an auction house trader” Yeah that is true, if you happed to love that this games gives you everything you like (for free) and it might even feel rewarding. But I (and most people) don’t happen to like that so much.
“the unintended side effect seems to be that people who are playing for direct pursuit of goals find themselves in a permanent “meta grind”…. grind gold, non-stop, for everything you want.” Yep, while there is likely also other things they like to do if it comes to the ‘hunting down items’ it is indeed only that.
“To avoid that issue you can time gate instead, but investing “waiting time” isn’t exactly riveting or challenging game play.” Yeah indeed, taking away the content for a while would indeed prevent them from endless grinding but does increase the total time grinding. Not sure how this is helping really and like you said, taking away game-play is also not really game-play. You know what happens with the ‘direct approach’. Even if it would all the rng and so farming, if people get tired from the farm for item c they are going for item y for w while that maybe is less of a farm, or no farm at all or a completely different type of farm (JP vs dungeon).
“I don’t know how you balance people who play two hours a week with those who play 6 hours a day ” You don’t really. The 6 hour player will also have it’s stuff faster, even with the time gate because if your time-gate would for example only make 3 hours of play ‘useful’ in this way the 2 hour player only has 2 hours of ‘useful’ play a day while the 6 hours players has 3. All you can do is make sure there are enough goals to go for. This cosmetics hunt is a good way for that because you can put so many different things in the game in a fairly easy way. Much of the content is already there you only have to use the cosmetics as a reward. A 3 hour player might then only go for the things like mini’s or all type of skins while the 6 hours guy will also go for all titles and AP’s.
~
~
“No, it isn’t perfectly reasonable to ask the same, as cosmetic items do not fill the same role in GW2’s content design. Cosmetic variations are GW2’s replacement for epic tier loot” that would even more reason to ask for it. I kind of do agree with you that cosmetics variations are GW2’s replacement for epic tier, or said in an other way, the main thing to go for, for most people.
But you do understand that by saying this you are basically also saying the game is P2W (winning is getting that epic tier loot right) as you can buy that epic tier loot here from the cash-shop? And what is then still interesting from the ‘no grind philosophy’? Yeah in our game BiS is not a grind like in those other games where you have to grind to get that epic tier, we do it different. Then again, in our game cosmetics are the epic tier and that is a grind from hell.
No, if it is like you say (and like I said I do sort of agree) then there is even more reason to ask this and the whole ‘no grind philosophy’ would be meaningless.
“When you compare time to Legendary in GW2 to time to a full max tier epic set in WoW” But I am a cosmetic guy so never did care for the max tier epic set in WoW. In fact that is one of the things that interest me in GW2, the cosmetic focus, that in combination with the game being B2P and not F2P because I dislike what cash-shops do to a game.
So as a cosmetics guy I might be better off in a game based around BiS gear while as a BiS gear guy you might be better off in a game based around cosmetics? Sad thing is that there is some truth in that as a game based on cosmetics seems to also monetize that part making the game-play aspect of it suffer. Now the B2P part should solve that but that worked out differently.
Still, while there is some truth in this it does not mean people should then not ask for the it to be not so grindy. It’s very reasonable to ask it. As you want to enjoy the main content instead of it being a boring grind.
“if the cosmetic unlocks were as easy in GW2 as they are in other MMOs there would be close to zero prestige items in the game.”
That is not true at all, it’s just the other way around. Many of those cosmetic unlocks in those other games are not easy, they might even be very hard and very rare, they just aren’t as much as a grind. That is something else. Because of that there is MORE prestige in having these cosmetics in those games.
What prestige is there in any of these cosmetics in GW2? None whatsoever. What prestige does a Legendary weapon give? OMG that guy has spent a lot of money buying that thing or did a lot of brainless grind to buy it. How awesome. Great prestige, not. One of the few prestige cosmetics in this game (and more in line with the prestige in those other games) is Liadri and that is because it is not a grind but associated with specific hard content!
Also getting a nice collecting of these cosmetics in those other games is by far an easy task or easy to reach goal. It might be not as grindy as in GW2 but in no way it’s an easy task. No, brainless farming is the easy way. It’s challenging but fun and the items a lot of game-value (prestige) to them. But again we get to the point where you would almost conclude that cosmetic people should play non-cosmetic games.
“Having more time gated but consistent payout systems would alleviate some of the rng pain” no that would not make it better, in a way the gold grind already does that. It’s a really consistent payout but just takes time to get the money you need to buy. Also I do not need to get stuff for free only by putting in ‘waiting time’. That sounds interesting to you?
About the materials, that would already be nice if it would be directly obtainable in a viable way instead of the only viable way being the grind gold and buy it. Even if the total time spend might still be similar (for most).
(edited by Devata.6589)
ascended isn’t the only 1, when trait change happened, their whole philosophy went out the window literally.
The trait change has nothing at all to do with grind. I dislike the trait change immensely, but having people do a bunch of different things to unlock a bunch of different traits isn’t grind.
If you have to clear a zone to unlock a trait and then kill the grub to unlock a different trait and then do a story mode dungeon to unlock a different trait, it sucks.
But I don’t see how you can classify it as grind.
Seems like we agree here. This is not grind. I don’t agree on the ‘it sucks’ part. It should have been there form release and should be account unlocks, not character. But it does give people reasons to go into the world to do some specific things. So I don’t think it sucks but it isn’t grind.
what people in this thread are trying to point out, is that regardless of what colin means when he says grindy, the game overall in fact feels very grindy to them. So much so that whenever they mention a lack of grind the players feel a strong disconect with how they expereince the game, and what the developers think is happening.
this bothers them a lot, not just because grind exists, but it makes it seem like the developers arent really on the same page as the players.
Sure, players have these perceptions. Let’s just say there is a disconnect. What is the alternative? Perhaps my big issue is that people feel it’s grindy but don’t recognize the measures Anet have in place to ease that feeling. Other than having new content for every time you venture out to get mats for things you want to make, what wouldn’t be grindy for people? At some point you DO hit a wall here. People DO have to recognize the very real limits of design and programming resources available to appease whatever definition they have for what is grindy.
Frankly, I think people complaining about grind are being obtuse, naive and unreasonable here. They want NO grinding? They need to stop playing MMO’s then. The fact they thought there would be no grind, just because Anet said so demonstrates how little they understand about how MMO’s work in the first place.
Sorry but what a nonsense. As if the people complaining just don’t know how mmo’s work and never played another mmo and so don’t understand Anet’s version is as grind-free as it can get.
I did play multiple other MMO’s and the fact is that if it comes to the game-play I like best (cosmetic stuff) guild-wars is the most grindy of them all, by far, the others didn’t even come close in amount of grind. (Resulting in me not doing this game-play in GW2) Sure, I had to farm a mob to get a mini to drop a few times in those other mmo’s but then there were also mini’s rewarded for quests, for dungeons (sometimes RNG other times 100%) and so on. All in all it was not so very grindy to collect all those items, it did feel much more like a hunt all over the world.
So it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for the same in GW2.
In GuildWars 2 however that is all grind gold, grind gold and grind gold.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Because right now, yes, getting Ascended Armor is either a very expensive endeavor, or a very long grind of doing the same mundane tasks to get the materials needed to make the armor. Hiding behind the arugment of “But we have more then one way to get those materials” doesn’t work either, as like I said before those other methods are either just as repetitive (replacing World Boss grinding with Guild Mission grinding for Dragonite Ore, as an example) or so unrewarding (PvP Tracks), that there’s very little reason to actually do it.
OK but that’s inventing your own definition of what grinding is so of course you conclude you have to grind. The relevant one is from Anet’s perspective because they design the game. If your definition of grind includes multiple methods to be done to get the mats then no reasonable content can be devised to ensure you don’t think the game will be a grind for ascended gear. Literally, Anet would have to devise content for EVERY instance of need some portion of the mats you need to satisfy an extreme definition of no grinding. I think we can agree that would be insurmountable.
he clarified what he means by grind, but regardless of what he means, the “grind” that people often dislike involves repetive non interesting tasks that you have to do many many times to achieve your goals.
now if he means by the definition i just gave, masteries, and this expansion wont be grindy, then many will be happy.
But if he simply means it will either not be required for survival, or that there will be multiple repetive, uninteresting things you can do 1000s of times, they wont be that happy.
what people in this thread are trying to point out, is that regardless of what colin means when he says grindy, the game overall in fact feels very grindy to them. So much so that whenever they mention a lack of grind the players feel a strong disconect with how they expereince the game, and what the developers think is happening.
this bothers them a lot, not just because grind exists, but it makes it seem like the developers arent really on the same page as the players.
a grindy game where the developers are like we want people who put a lot of time in to feel rewarded, or we want you to be working on X item for 3 months. At least you are sure the developers intent. But when people hear them say gw2 isnt grindy, they are often like wait what? you mean you didnt do that on purpose? Im not supposed to be gathering gold or grinding cloth for my ascended armor for 30 days?
And what is anet to do? Follow everyone’s own personal definition of grind? No, Colin stated what their definition is. People can argue what their definition is, but in truth, they did stick too it to 99%, the 1 being ascended, which again, Colin admitted to.
So, by their definition, they did not make a grindy game. And they didn’t. I don’t find myself having to run in circles killing mobs to get to the next level because I ran out of hearts. I agree with their definition, its the same one I’ve been saying.
But honestly, take a step back and look at what everyone considers a grind. Do you honestly want to get to a point where if you have to do something a second time in this game, people will throw rocks and scream “no grind!”. No. So to ask them to adhere to every different definition, is asking for the impossible.
You should read Colin’s post again. He did not define grind, he explained what grind fitted in there ‘no grind philosophy’ also acknowledging there was grind in the game and they might also could make that more fun but that grind (so he did see it as grind, it’s not like they had another definition for it) was not what they talked about when talking about the ‘no grind philosophy’. The definition of grind has not changed.
And of course people still mike dislike that grind there is and Colin acknowledged there is. Also if that is not what Anet talked about when mentioning the ‘no grind philosophy’.
“Do you honestly want to get to a point where if you have to do something a second time in this game” I think it’s pretty clear what people are referring to with grind and it’s not doing something a second time. For some it’s the ascended stuff, for other the gold grind and so on. I also don’t think this is not clear, the discussion is more how bad it is and that is where people have different options about how bad the different types of grind are for the game. Truth is, that depends mainly on what game-play elements you prefer.
(edited by Devata.6589)
~
~
~
That’s a good story but it doesn’t mean my statement is nonsense. Just because Wow give out an item with good stats once doesn’t mean that generally, you don’t grind for BiS in MMO’s. I know for some people MMO = WoW because theie experience is limited but the MMO industry has much more to offer.
“Gold or items, it’s the SAME THING with the exception that you can only get raid-won items from a specific raid. Gold can be obtained anywhere.”
That exception is what makes the gold way so boring, devaluates that reward so much (an item you can simply buy after some brainless grind does not have the same value as an item rewarded for challeging content) and does not give the thrill of ‘will it drop’ in case of RNG but in stead just a boring number (gold) slowly going up to the point where you can then buy the item.
It is also what causes the trend of grinding whatever rewards the best gold in stead of sending you over the world to do all types of content.Means to the end or ends to the mean? Yes there is a drawback for trending to best rewards content but the alternative is no better IMO because at least players have choice and I believe that’s what casual players want to do; choose what content they do with their limited game time.
Again, this all comes back to who this game is trying to appeal to. If you want to appeal to casual players as a developer, your NOT focused on putting in stupid crap like timed raids that you need to do 100 times with RNG loot to get one item; that’s an extreme example but I feel that’s where people are wishing this game would go. Forget it because it’s been tried and it sucks huge floppies for casual people.
The gold standard, the time gates, the low-quality gear balancing in dungeons, play-how-you-want philosophy … it couldn’t be more clear for whom this game is made to attract.
I say specific rewards for specific content and you translate that to “raiding-for-reward system” with a 1% drop change (explaining your 100 raids). Yes that would be one very specific way specific rewards for specific content could work and if that would be a good version is another discussion, but there are many other ways. If you for example put it in a raid it could also be a 100% drop change or a 10% and it’s not only for raids but also for events, mini-games, dungeons, JP’s, specific mob kills, world bosses, guild-missions. Holding a keep in WvW for x time, taking a keep in WvW or whatever.
So “you’re suggesting a raiding-for-reward system”, no, I did not even use the word ‘raids’.
“Loot from raids is a delicate balance and frankly” again, I did not even use the word raids. That’s something that somehow popped up into your mind at some point but is not what I said. And yes specific loot for specific content could also mean specific loot for a specific raid but focusing on this one element as if that is what I talked about is kinda useless because it’s not what I talked about. In addition you also ignore he optional gold grind way that could still be available (but new truly optional).
“Just because Wow give out an item with good stats once doesn’t mean that generally, you don’t grind for BiS in MMO’s. I know for some people MMO = WoW because theie experience is limited but the MMO industry has much more to offer.” I really think you are underestimating the percentage of people caring more for cosmetics then for BiS and that’s why I think you can’t say in general it’s BiS gear what people go for. I used the WoW example because it’s known as a tier grind game (and because everybody knows it).
“at least players have choice” so where is my choice to directly work towards these items?, hunt them down in the open world in a viable way?
Even for the limited number of items where that is technically possible (not realistically) you would be punishing yourself doing it that way because it would take much longer, time that you would then also lose trying to get another Item you might also want to get (meaning in the end it does not just take longer but you get less).
Meanwhile other people would be running around with the same item they grind gold for in some brainless for a day. So you don’t have the choice to hunt them down in the open world, the only choice you have is how to grind the gold (what I personally find boring) what is even a limited choice because many things simply reward way lower then some other content so you would be punishing yourself choosing the lesser optimal ways.
And if you really think the player base would hate this so much you should wonder why the MF dungeon used to be so popular. Might it have been also because of the mini and back-pack it rewarded. Only negative about it was that it was temporary.
Sigh…when I said “other than ascended gear”, it means its already admitted its grindy. I personally don’t view it as needed, and have only acquired pieces if I felt like it.
Throughout my gameplay in gw2, I never felt like I was grinding. Not. Once. But what you described there, and what everyone is confusing it with, is FARMING.
The champ FARM trains, the FARMING of Orr, the FARM in Silverwastes, is just that, FARMING. I didn’t see forum topics of nerfed grind spots, they were nerfed FARMED spots.
You FARM something that is optional and actually not needed to progress in content.
You GRIND for something that is REQUIRED to progress. In other words, you are prohibited from content you paid for. The only thing I see that with IS the ascended gear which is REQUIRED for higher level fractals. But at the same time, I don’t care for high level fractals, so I don’t feel its a grind for me at least.If people would start saying " wow, gw2 has a lot of farming in it". I would agree, a lot of optional farming. Now how bout that main story though? Isn’t it great we don’t have to grind in order to progress through it?
Isn’t farming going for a specific item while grinding is more like going for a currency grinding away. Well those champ trains where there for the gold, the items they got where to sell for gold. That makes it grinding, not farming. But whatever, people dislike it and it’s there. No mather if you call it grinding or farming.
Going for a specific item and getting the currency to buy it are both two ways of grinding… or farming, whatever you want to call it.
Sigh…OK, please actually read and try to understand….
You GRIND for something the game requires you to progress. Ex. Needing tier 1 gear to do the next dungeon.
You FARM for something optional that in no way impacts your progression or denies you content.What’s next? Gold Farmers being called Gold Grinders?
If that one item prevents you from continuing on to content meant to progress you, its a grind. If that item does none of that, that if you ignore it and it would have 0 impact in doing so, its a farm
I did hear many definitions of grind vs farm but this one is completely new. If it’s ‘required’ it’s grind and if it’s optional if ‘farming’. You do know thats something you made up. your personal definition?
I am willing to agree that there are multiple definitions of grinding and farming but really.. your version is completely new.
Also Colin referred to grinding for cosmetics as grinding, just saying.
Anyway, going back to the ‘Needed’ part. I did never feel this ‘need’ in any mmo. I could always just play the content I wanted. Maybe because I was not interested in the hardest raids but for the content I liked it was never a grind. Then that means you can consider that ‘need’ optional. If you want to do that hardest raid dungeon then you need it.
But by those standards cosmetics are just as needed. If you want to have that look you need to get that item.
Reality is of course that it’s both a choice.
I will also use the WoW example again. A game being used so much to point out this so called ‘required grind’. I never grinded there and did reach max level. I never grinded and got my goal of getting the most special hunter pets, I never grinded and achieved other goals I had like getting some specific mini’s and mounts. So that definition of ‘need’ is really based on what you like to do in those games and for that you need to grind… well just like people who like to get cosmetics have the same problem in GW2.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Yeah so again, rewarding rewards for specific content might be the solution.
Please, no. This is quite possibly the worst solution we have EVER seen, already demonstrated in many existing MMO’s. If you think GW2 is grindy, just wait until you need 100 raids of something to ‘win loot’ or ‘get tokens’ to buy things. People aren’t thinking of what they are asking for here.
“The general trend is that players grind for BiS” What a complete nonsense. Lets use a game that known for it so called gear grind.. WoW. What did wow do for it’s 19th anniversary. It gave everybody who logged in a mini (cosmetic), and it opened a PvP map that rewarded a title (not gear) and it opened a raid that rewarded two things. A mount (cosmetic, it was a ground mount so stat wise not much) but it also rewarded a hat piece stats. No guess what all those people care about.. the mount or the hat?
I’m made a general statement that games make you grind for BiS and you refute that by talking about how WoW gave out some hats and a title once upon a time? I didn’t know hats and titles were considered BiS items. >< I think you’re just trolling me now.
Who is talking about 100 raids or getting tokens (that btw already is in GW2, but is NOT directly rewarding specific content for specific content). Besides why the dislike? As long as those items are not account bound (I think some should be and some should not be) there is still the option for you to do the brainless grind if that is what you like. It might not always be the most effective way anymore but it’s still an option.
“I didn’t know hats and titles were considered BiS items. >< I think you’re just trolling me now.” The hat was gear with good stats. All the other where not indeed. That was the point.. People there where there for the cosmetics.. not for the stats. While you said “The general trend is that players grind for BiS”. As if that is what people are most interested in. Well that example did show that is not the case. There are also many people more interested in cosmetic stuff then in BiS stuff.
“Gold or items, it’s the SAME THING with the exception that you can only get raid-won items from a specific raid. Gold can be obtained anywhere.”
That exception is what makes the gold way so boring, devaluates that reward so much (an item you can simply buy after some brainless grind does not have the same value as an item rewarded for challeging content) and does not give the thrill of ‘will it drop’ in case of RNG but in stead just a boring number (gold) slowly going up to the point where you can then buy the item.
It is also what causes the trend of grinding whatever rewards the best gold in stead of sending you over the world to do all types of content.
And I say it again, for the items that are not account bound you still have the brainless grind option. So don’t be afraid you will lose your favorite way of earning the rewards. It just adds another option to obtain them. Sure there will also be account bound things but thats already the case in GW2 with multiple items so that won’t change that much eater.
(edited by Devata.6589)
The game has alot more grind, than many people think .
Other than ascended gear, name one other thing that is a grind in this game. Colin even gave their definition of what grind is to them. So by his definition (as everyone is just ignoring it and submitting their own), name one other.
there is a ton of grindy things in this game, but you will say most of that is cosmetic. Ascended however is in bounds in the discussion on required grinds, according to colin. He said something to the effect that is not considered a cosmetic goal.
in order to communicate well, you generally have to be on the same page with your terminology. If he defines grind of having only one possible choice of repetive tasks, he is correct. However, for most people having two choices or thee choices of repetitive tasks doesnt really change the feeling of grind.
lets say in order to get something you want you can.
A) write i want X item 10,000 times
B) Walk on a treadmill for 20 miles
C) put in 10,000 batteries in remotesall of those options are grindy, having the option to do 3 grindy things barely lessens the actual feeling of grind.
now lets say they throw in more interesting things, but reduce the effeviency
D) skateboard for 1000 hours
E) draw 2000 illustrations
F) dance the samba 30,000 timeswhile those options are more interesting, they are not real options due to how ineffecient they are, also, even if you enjoy these things, given those numbers, they will, for most people begin to feel grindy.
so really, i would say what makes something feel grindy, is how interesting it is, and how many repetitions you have to do to achieve a certain goal.
Varying the methods of aquisition is one good way to lower the feelings of grind, but the methods of aquisition have to be compareable, and no matter what if all of them have a huge amount of repetitions, it will feel grindy as long as you are focused on the goal. Now, yes, everyone has different feelings/definitions/thresholds for grind. Still there is some common points, between people, and somethings that you just have to look at the numbers to know, this will be grindy.
Sigh…when I said “other than ascended gear”, it means its already admitted its grindy. I personally don’t view it as needed, and have only acquired pieces if I felt like it.
Throughout my gameplay in gw2, I never felt like I was grinding. Not. Once. But what you described there, and what everyone is confusing it with, is FARMING.
The champ FARM trains, the FARMING of Orr, the FARM in Silverwastes, is just that, FARMING. I didn’t see forum topics of nerfed grind spots, they were nerfed FARMED spots.
You FARM something that is optional and actually not needed to progress in content.
You GRIND for something that is REQUIRED to progress. In other words, you are prohibited from content you paid for. The only thing I see that with IS the ascended gear which is REQUIRED for higher level fractals. But at the same time, I don’t care for high level fractals, so I don’t feel its a grind for me at least.If people would start saying " wow, gw2 has a lot of farming in it". I would agree, a lot of optional farming. Now how bout that main story though? Isn’t it great we don’t have to grind in order to progress through it?
Isn’t farming going for a specific item while grinding is more like going for a currency grinding away. Well those champ trains where there for the gold, the items they got where to sell for gold. That makes it grinding, not farming. But whatever, people dislike it and it’s there. No mather if you call it grinding or farming.
Going for a specific item and getting the currency to buy it are both two ways of grinding… or farming, whatever you want to call it.
Going for a specific item can be farming (if it’s RNG) but still less boring because for this item you do this content and for another item you need to do other content. Not to mention that it makes the item itself more interesting because it’s a reward for doing that content (much like a title is).
Of course going for a specific item could also mean something like completing a quest-line (as far as they exist in GW2 Event chain?) or completing some specific hard content (think liadri) and then it not farming and not grinding.
So the currency way is always grinding while the direct way can be farming will not always be farming.
But even more important, it’s more fun. At least to me completing specific content to get a specific item is more fun then grinding some random brainless content all the time to get money to buy the thing. And ‘fun’ was also one of those pillars.
“Grinding” is perception. You can get a majority of the materials you need for ascended armor, just by going through each of the maps on your toons or even doing the LS content.
No you can’t, not due to the sheer volume required. To get the mats in any sort of timeframe requires grinding for the mats and gold.
You’re confusing grinding with farming. Not the same thing. Grinding would be doing the SAME thing to get gold and mats. Anet has fixed that; you can do ANYTHING to give you gold and mats.
yeah and somethings will take you 2-10 times as much time to achieve the same goal.
illusions of choice are not real choices.
I would argue that is less relevant to the guy who’s not dedicating too much time to the game or doesn’t care about their time spent in game, simply because they like playing it. These are the same people I believe the game is targeted to. I don’t care what MMO you want to talk about. The general trend is that players grind for BiS, or get really lucky. The thing that makes GW2 stand out from this trend:
1. You don’t need BiS everywhere to compete, even in WvW. There are exceptions to that but those are due to player choice.
2. You don’t need to repeat the same content over and over to achieve gear or cosmetic goals. That’s a significant departure from MANY games.It’s not that the game is grindy that people should really complain about. It’s that Anet has tied everything to a gold standard and targeted a larger demographic.
“The general trend is that players grind for BiS” What a complete nonsense. Lets use a game that known for it so called gear grind.. WoW. What did wow do for it’s 19th anniversary. It gave everybody who logged in a mini (cosmetic), and it opened a PvP map that rewarded a title (not gear) and it opened a raid that rewarded two things. A mount (cosmetic, it was a ground mount so stat wise not much) but it also rewarded a hat piece stats. No guess what all those people care about.. the mount or the hat?
All those players where not going for the BiS but for the cosmetics. Are there at the same time people likely doing other content for BiS sure but notion that this group would be the biggest is imho just false. And this is an example from a game that is known for it’s gear grind.
Now in GW2 that is knows for the cosmetics the percentage of people wanting to go for skins is likely even higher. And let also not fool each other, that is likely exactly why they make that part grindy and sell it in the cash-shop. They know people want that so they sell it. That worked in the long run but eventually people start leaving because buying and grinding gold for those items simply is not fun.
Phys makes an excellent point in how something that isn’t grindy in theory becomes grindy when you take into account that all the “other” choices you have are far away from the most efficient.
It’s interesting, Anet worked on this already when we take a look at dungeons. They changed the gold-rewards so that it’s not very rewarding to repeat the fastest dungeon path over and over again.
I think it’s difficult to balance ALL activities to reward the same amount of gold/rewards in a specific timeframe because of the fact that people could easily exploit those options.
just naming 2 examples:
-) a jumping puzzle which has much better rewards: guilds will have their Mesmers port hundrets of people in a very short timeframe which breaks this time-reward szenario.
-) defending in WvW… would lead to tons of AFK farmers who just stand around and wait for their gold / also discourages active offensive playI guess it’s really difficult to balance required time / effort with rewards because of all the ways people could exploit that options.
“I think it’s difficult to balance ALL activities to reward the same amount of gold/rewards in a specific timeframe because of the fact that people could easily exploit those options. " Then don’t.. let them all rewards there own thing in stead of all rewarding gold and other junk people sell for gold.
"
-) a jumping puzzle which has much better rewards: guilds will have their Mesmers port hundrets of people in a very short timeframe which breaks this time-reward szenario.
-) defending in WvW… would lead to tons of AFK farmers who just stand around and wait for their gold / also discourages active offensive play
"
Funny enough you name the two thing I like best. (well this and guild-missions)’
“I guess it’s really difficult to balance required time / effort with rewards because of all the ways people could exploit that options.”
Yeah so again, rewarding rewards for specific content might be the solution.
The game has alot more grind, than many people think .
Other than ascended gear, name one other thing that is a grind in this game. Colin even gave their definition of what grind is to them. So by his definition (as everyone is just ignoring it and submitting their own), name one other.
there is a ton of grindy things in this game, but you will say most of that is cosmetic. Ascended however is in bounds in the discussion on required grinds, according to colin. He said something to the effect that is not considered a cosmetic goal.
in order to communicate well, you generally have to be on the same page with your terminology. If he defines grind of having only one possible choice of repetive tasks, he is correct. However, for most people having two choices or thee choices of repetitive tasks doesnt really change the feeling of grind.
lets say in order to get something you want you can.
A) write i want X item 10,000 times
B) Walk on a treadmill for 20 miles
C) put in 10,000 batteries in remotesall of those options are grindy, having the option to do 3 grindy things barely lessens the actual feeling of grind.
now lets say they throw in more interesting things, but reduce the effeviency
D) skateboard for 1000 hours
E) draw 2000 illustrations
F) dance the samba 30,000 timeswhile those options are more interesting, they are not real options due to how ineffecient they are, also, even if you enjoy these things, given those numbers, they will, for most people begin to feel grindy.
so really, i would say what makes something feel grindy, is how interesting it is, and how many repetitions you have to do to achieve a certain goal.
Varying the methods of aquisition is one good way to lower the feelings of grind, but the methods of aquisition have to be compareable, and no matter what if all of them have a huge amount of repetitions, it will feel grindy as long as you are focused on the goal. Now, yes, everyone has different feelings/definitions/thresholds for grind. Still there is some common points, between people, and somethings that you just have to look at the numbers to know, this will be grindy.
Sigh…when I said “other than ascended gear”, it means its already admitted its grindy. I personally don’t view it as needed, and have only acquired pieces if I felt like it.
Throughout my gameplay in gw2, I never felt like I was grinding. Not. Once. But what you described there, and what everyone is confusing it with, is FARMING.
The champ FARM trains, the FARMING of Orr, the FARM in Silverwastes, is just that, FARMING. I didn’t see forum topics of nerfed grind spots, they were nerfed FARMED spots.
You FARM something that is optional and actually not needed to progress in content.
You GRIND for something that is REQUIRED to progress. In other words, you are prohibited from content you paid for. The only thing I see that with IS the ascended gear which is REQUIRED for higher level fractals. But at the same time, I don’t care for high level fractals, so I don’t feel its a grind for me at least.If people would start saying " wow, gw2 has a lot of farming in it". I would agree, a lot of optional farming. Now how bout that main story though? Isn’t it great we don’t have to grind in order to progress through it?
Isn’t farming going for a specific item while grinding is more like going for a currency grinding away. Well those champ trains where there for the gold, the items they got where to sell for gold. That makes it grinding, not farming. But whatever, people dislike it and it’s there. No mather if you call it grinding or farming.
I believe the problem people having is not that the game has a grind. It’s the fact that the developers keep saying it doesn’t have a grind that bothers people.
No, the grind bothers me. If you look 2 pages back Colin does say the game has grind. So they don’t say it does not have a grind. But I happed to dislike that grind that they seem to find acceptable.
(edited by Devata.6589)
since GW2 isn’t about stats but about skins. It’s like, to put it hyperbolic, the devs of Tetris saying they’ve aimed for the best possible story ever told in a videogame.
But we can see how your motive influenced the game:
Nearly all rewards are given through RNG. You have the chance to get everything from nearly everywhere and if you don’t you can atleast buy it from the traiding post.
Now the problem is that this design creates new issues, funny enough, those issues lead to feeling the need to grind.
As I’ve said, the RNG lets you get everything almost everywhere. This has two consequences:
- First, the player is never able to say “I am going for X”. You are not able to say at the moment: “I am going for a precursor right now.” or “I am going for tier 5 blood”, you can just say: “I am doing this activity and hope that I get what I want.” This creates dissatisfaction for the player because he can’t control when he gets the items he wants, other than rolling the RNG dice a second, third or fourth time.
- Second, the player is creating items he can’t use. He is selling them because he want atleast to get some gold for those items. This creates another two issues:
- If the item is unwanted, the traiding post gets flooded with it. The devs then can’t use this item for new possible uses, because their metrics tell them that this item is way too common, unless the increase the quantity you need for the new use. this happened with ascended gear. And what is the complaint about ascneded gear? That it feels too grindy.
- If the item is listed in the traiding post, it’s most of the time easier to get the gold to buy the item instead of playing the game to get the item as drop. So the average player of GW2 will start to get gold. To make more gold, he’ll start to look for the best way to make gold. Once he has found it, he will do it over and over until he got enough gold to get what he wants. And that repeats for every item he wants. And what do we call doing the same thing over and over? Grinding.
So in the end, by not giving the player a special way of obtaining an item reliably, so this special way doesn’t get grinded, you’ve created a grind for the only option left to obtain an item reliably: Buying it from the traiding post.
And I’ll go out on a limb and say that acquiring an item yourself feels more awesome than running to the traiding post with all your savings to buy it.
Indeed!
(edited by Devata.6589)
“They also need to consider Anet’s definition” Why? If Anet says ‘well we are not going to have x type of grind’ people are not allowed to say ‘thats great but I (still) dislike y type of grind’? Sure they can.
That’s not the argument here … the argument is IF the game is grindy according to Anet’s definition. It’s clearly not. People can complain about certain kind of grind, but I haven’t seen anyone demonstrate there is a massive portion of the game that goes against the definition that Anet has for it.
“Finally, they have to consider the target market of this game; it’s the casual player market and grindy activities are NOT endearing to those people.” Indeed, and what do you think ‘casual players’ might be more interested in?
I could venture a guess, but I don’t see the relevance. Casual players don’t like grinding content, period. The game is targetted at those players. It wouldn’t exist after 2 years if the game didn’t give casual players the experience they are after.
“YOu don’t need to look too far to convince yourself this game is pretty successful with the casual players” Yeah and they have also been losing a lot of players, income has been dropping since release so maybe, just maybe this has something to do with what just said?
Maybe, maybe not. You don’t know the cause of those things; it’s probably not the grindy nature of the game, since the game isn’t.
“That’s not the argument here … the argument is IF the game is grindy according to Anet’s definition. It’s clearly not.” That is the argument, for me at least. Maybe not for you? Besides Colin even did say the grind (I am talking about) is there so it does fits there definition of grind as well. All they said is that, that grind is not part of the ‘no grind philosophy’ they talked about. What is nice but does not make the grind irrelevant for those disliking it.
“Simply playing the game for a few hours here and there. Casual players don’t really target short term goals like ‘STATS’. Maybe they want to look a certain way, but that’s simply purchased for most looks you can get, for little money.” Oow so we agree that cosmetics are very likely a goal for those players. Is it then also possible that hunting those items down is content they like? Also don’t forget we are talking about playing the game here. How is buying your way out of the grind playing the game or how does that make the grind go away. What if I suggested Anet could have removed the BiS gear by selling that. (what many people consider P2W) Thats what you are suggesting here for cosmetics. If cosmetics is your goal that is just as bad as P2W is when BiS gear is your goal.
“Maybe, maybe not. You don’t know the cause of those things; it’s probably not the grindy nature of the game, since it’s not.” Or maybe it is. Oow now it’s not grindy anymore. Wasn’t it so that it might be grindy but that suddenly wasn’t relevant, what was relevant according to you was Anet’s definition. That basically what you seem to say in the first part of your comment. But now you forget about that and it’s just not grindy again.
Well fool yourself as much as you want, it is grindy, even Colin agreed that that par was grindy and there are many casual players who like that part of the game wasn’t it for that grind.
Nothing .. those are content meant for many teams, not a single team. The content you mentioned isn’t balanced around gear, it’s balanced around co-operation and player volume; those are RAID content, not instanced (re. dungeon/fractals) content.
Point still stands … in the industry, GW2 is not grindy by traditional definitions. Maybe in 10 years it might be considered so, but for now, only the most noob players would QQ about grindy GW2.
If you have no real arguments just start naming people you disagree with ‘Noobs’.
Not to mention that those ‘noobs’ are asking for something more interesting than the grind there is now. The defenders seem to like the brainless grind (or are not interested in the collecting (also mention as one of the important things for GW2 in the presentation!) those thing). So now wanting challenging content makes you a noob? But being fine with brainless grinding makes you a pro?
Makes sense!
My real argument is that people need a minimum perspective to be able to comment about what grind really is. They also need to consider Anet’s definition, which is genuine and realistic. Finally, they have to consider the target market of this game; it’s the casual player market and grindy activities are NOT endearing to those people. YOu don’t need to look too far to convince yourself this game is pretty successful with the casual players, indicating that the things they want to see and appeal to them, the game does deliver.
It offends you that I label those people as noobs? Too bad; that’s what people QQIng about grind tend to be because they have little MMO gaming experience. Real game vets would think this game is a joke in terms of grind level. It’s targeted at the casual player market an enables that level of player to obtain gear they can compete in very easily by simply BUYING it. To boot, you can get gear with karma, or gold you earn, or gold you got with gem exchange. Seriously, perspective, get some.
“They also need to consider Anet’s definition” Why? If Anet says ‘well we are not going to have x type of grind’ people are not allowed to say ‘thats great but I (still) dislike y type of grind’? Sure they can.
“Finally, they have to consider the target market of this game; it’s the casual player market and grindy activities are NOT endearing to those people.” Indeed, and what do you think ‘casual players’ might be more interested in? Highest stats or cosmetic items. If anything I think with the casual crowd the percentage of people preferring the cosmetics stuff and not caring so much about the stats is much higher.
“YOu don’t need to look too far to convince yourself this game is pretty successful with the casual players” Yeah and they have also been losing a lot of players, income has been dropping since release so maybe, just maybe this has something to do with what just said? Maybe they want to go for those cosmetics but then find that wall of grind they don’t like and maybe in stead of all of them buying it or grinding it many of them leave?
“indicating that the things they want to see and appeal to them, the game does deliver.” But then why do the eventually leave again? Maybe because the game delivers it, but in a way they don’t like it?
“Real game vets would think this game is a joke in terms of grind level.” No not ‘real vets’ but people who like to go for BiS gear. Those people think this game is a joke in terms of grind. I did play multiple other games and then this game is the most grindy of them all, but that is because I did never go for BiS gear but for special items, for nice looking skins, for cool mini’s. And if you compare that with multiple other games (also as a vet) you will see it very much is a grind in this game, much more compared to those games in fact.
" It’s targeted at the casual player market an enables that level of player to obtain gear they can compete in very easily by simply BUYING it." And then you forget about all the ‘casuals’ that don’t care about that gear but just like the cosmetics. But heey, don’t complain, you can get the gear you don’t care for grind-free.
“Seriously, perspective, get some. " I did. You didn’t as you are fixated at gear, as if that is what everybody cares about (I don’t, tent to forget upgrading it when leveling, running around with ‘to’ low gear all the time. So much I personally care about it). Your fixation on that one element results in you forgetting or seeing there are also other things other people might care more about and (especially those casuals) it happens to be that those things are extremely grindy in GW2.
~
I get what you are saying, but the big flaw in your reasoning, is assuming that multiple avenues are not also grindy.
For example, in general, the other avenue is to earn gold. Like you mention in traits, or in ascended, you could try to get 100 silk a day, or you can buy it.
but the reality is that once you enter the earning gold system, there will generally be a meta, or most effecient means to earn gold. Though in theory people can do anything, most people are going to do what is most effecient, the more the difference in effeciency, the less options you have. for example, doing jumping puzzles is not a viable alterantive to EOTM, Completing random dynamic events througout the world, likewise cannot compete.Also, with the price thing, you have to realize, that if you set something at an equivalent value of say 2-3 hours worth of a players work (like getting 100 silk, 40 linen, 30 cotton) then people will roughly sell it for what they feel is a similar value. aka 2-3 hours work. This means the only way that you get to do these things without a large amount of work, via gold, is by being much more effecient at obtaining it. Which, will lead to grinding the most effecient gold earning mechanisms.
I get that you have options, but like you guys said with skills, bad skills are not real options, likewise alternate methods, that are highly ineffecient are not going to make the game feel less grindy.
Also, if you set something to take a large amount of grind in order to get, that will generally translate to a large grind in whatever form you want to play to earn gold that is equivalent. Having like 2 options doesnt change the actual feeling of grind on the streets.
True and not only will people automatically just go for the optimal thing, by doing other activities you are basically punishing yourself. The JP’s are a great example. It’s something I do like to do but I will never get the gold to buy any of the cosmetics I like by doing JP’s.
In WvW I preferred to stay at a keep, upgrade it and so on but that even cost me money (Great that that gets fixed in HoT!!) while brainlessly running with the zerg would make me money.
In addition it also devalues the items from a game-play perspective. I mean I could have done a JP for a year to get the gold to buy an item I like while other guy did some brainless champ training for a week and also got that same item. So what is the value of that item? It would be much more fun if the JP directly rewarded the item, maybe with an 1/50 drop rate or something. Make it not account bound and people still have the grind option but at least it’s more viable and a little more linked to that content. Account-bound items would give the item even more value from that perspective as it showed you completed that JP.
Now Anet might not care very much for cosmetics being a boring grind, probably wanting people simply to buy them, but I think that is a mistake. Like I said, this people gets the attention from people who like cosmetics, maybe gets them to buy a few things from the cash-shop but then also scares them away again. It would be better if the game could hold them. (And likely make money on them another way then gems like expansions. Then there would also not be the need to have this grind)
The game has alot more grind, than many people think .
Other than ascended gear, name one other thing that is a grind in this game. Colin even gave their definition of what grind is to them. So by his definition (as everyone is just ignoring it and submitting their own), name one other.
Colin said what fits into there no grind philosophy but also said there where also other types of grind (like cosmetic grind) in GW2. That does not mean players should suddenly be fine with those types of grind. It only means then when Anet was talking about no grind they where mentioning a specific type of grind in stead of all grind. What might explain them not trying to prevent the endless grind there is in GW2 if it comes to some of those other things.
As hunting down cosmetics is usually (well not in GW2 because of the grind, but in any other MMO I played) something I like to do, I still dislike the endless (gold) grind that comes with those things. And that so called ‘required’ grind for gear that some other games have.. well I never did feel that grind while playing those games because I did not care about BiS gear and I did not need it to play the game (so still not sure where the ‘need’ idea comes from.. well I have an idea, from the people who want to get BiS, for them thats a need just as much as for those wanting cosmetics in GW2 there is a need for grind).
So there is grind and Colin even agreed on that "There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. "
Makes me wonder why you are asking to name one other thing then ascended grind that is grindy in this game and even pointing out Colin as if that was to proof there is no other type of grind. Colin did give you an answer.
(as everyone is just ignoring it and submitting their own) Who is ignoring what?
People who think this game is grindy are part of the now-now-now-me-me-me generation.
Ridiculous. I’d die to see them play Everquest.
How so? Those complaining ask for items they like to hunt down (and are now a grind) to be rewarded for fun, challenging game-play.
In fact you can now now now buy your way out of that grind to get that items for me me me. What would likely not be possible in the other way.
So the now now now, me me me generation should love this grind system you can buy your way out of. No need for them to complain.
You complain if you want interesting game-play to get them. What does not really fit now now now, me me me.
Traits are something that is very close to ‘you need it’ (is mandatory), however to get them, the grind is tremendously high, especially all of them.
I’ve been trying to shortcut my way into the only other way to get traits (gold + skill points), so far in those few months, i only managed to get 300 skill point scrolls. Your most likely response: ‘WHAT? 300? That’s a hell ot of a lot’. It is. But in the way for unlocking traits its absolutely nothing. It’s barely enough to get one character all the traits (240 if you don’t count the XIII traits). If I imagined, that i didn’t level all character to 8 (and all professions) before the trait update, having to do this trait grind 1-7 times, that would be an extremely big grind. Potentially 1680 skill point scrolls necessary and 350 gold.
You could say, just do normal way then? That is just as much of a grind AND limits your choice a lot in how to get them. Only ONE CHOICE then to get them. The other option is like above skill point scrolls, wich luckely, quite some content now gives.
So to stay true to this pilosophy, either traits must be able to be unlocked in a lot more content (even pvp, that can unlock pve traits), wvw, etc, or the skill point requirement must be lowered a hell of a lot, (to something like 50-100 per profession to get all but the XIII traits).
How is unlocking a trait grindy by the definition provided? Each trait is associated with a different event (in many cases different game modes) – so, by the definition set, this is the opposite (and you can always just buy them for a minimal cost).
I think I have to agree with this one. I did not do any real leveling after they added / changed this but what I know of it there is specific content you need to do (complete a dungeon, do a JP, kill a boss) that will reward you a specific trait.
Thats correct right?
So that is then not really a grind is it. In fact I think it is positive as it sends you out in the world (an element that we did not really have, I mean usually quest do that or the cosmetic hunts (or crafts) but in GW2 thats not the case). Now if you need to kill 10000 enemies to unlock a trait it is something else but needing to complete one dungeon seems fine.
You want a specific traint, do that specific content and done. Could be improved by making the unlock account bound but thats about it. You can also unlock it with gold but there you can really talk about an optional grind.
Traits are something that is very close to ‘you need it’ (is mandatory), however to get them, the grind is tremendously high, especially all of them.
I’ve been trying to shortcut my way into the only other way to get traits (gold + skill points), so far in those few months, i only managed to get 300 skill point scrolls. Your most likely response: ‘WHAT? 300? That’s a hell ot of a lot’. It is. But in the way for unlocking traits its absolutely nothing. It’s barely enough to get one character all the traits (240 if you don’t count the XIII traits). If I imagined, that i didn’t level all character to 8 (and all professions) before the trait update, having to do this trait grind 1-7 times, that would be an extremely big grind. Potentially 1680 skill point scrolls necessary and 350 gold.
You could say, just do normal way then? That is just as much of a grind AND limits your choice a lot in how to get them. Only ONE CHOICE then to get them. The other option is like above skill point scrolls, wich luckely, quite some content now gives.
So to stay true to this pilosophy, either traits must be able to be unlocked in a lot more content (even pvp, that can unlock pve traits), wvw, etc, or the skill point requirement must be lowered a hell of a lot, (to something like 50-100 per profession to get all but the XIII traits).
How is unlocking a trait grindy by the definition provided? Each trait is associated with a different event (in many cases different game modes) – so, by the definition set, this is the opposite (and you can always just buy them for a minimal cost).
I think I have to agree with this one. I did not do any real leveling after they added / changed this but what I know of it there is specific content you need to do (complete a dungeon, do a JP, kill a boss) that will reward you a specific trait.
Thats correct right?
So that is then not really a grind is it. In fact I think it is positive as it sends you out in the world (an element that we did not really have, I mean usually quest do that or the cosmetic hunts (or crafts) but in GW2 thats not the case). Now if you need to kill 10000 enemies to unlock a trait it is something else but needing to complete one dungeon seems fine.
You want a specific traint, do that specific content and done. Could be improved by making the unlock account bound but thats about it. You can also unlock it with gold but there you can really talk about an optional grind.
Hey folks,
~ Snap for space.
Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.
Thanks for your statement. It’s very good to hear your / Anet’s opinion about that.
For my opinion about grind it does not change a lot, I even said that before in this topic (does not matter what Anet means with grind) but still it’s good to know what you consider grind or better what type of grind you try to prevent.
About the ‘need’ part I still say the same, there is a never a need, it’s a game. Many people say there is that need for grind in a game like WoW but I for once never fled that need, I was just happy hunting down cosmetics. So if I could play it would that grind it looks like there is no real ‘need’ for it.
What brings me to the point why I still find it grindy in GW2 (you also confirm in your post that cosmetics hunt is indeed grindy). You may say ’it’s optinal’, sure but that does not change that it’s the type of content I would usually like to do and so also would like to do in GW2 wasn’t it that it’s such a grind here.
Now I get it, you need to make money so sell these things in the cash-shop and thats mainly how they become a grind (might also be the reason why Anet makes farming for items nearly impossible to increase the value of gold?) but there is also no fun for me in buying them. Spending money on the game is fine (I did buy the CE edition of the game) but buying items in the game is not playing the game for me. I rather buy more expansions and have the ability to hunt these items down in the world instead of having the option to buy or grind those items and don’t have the need to buy an expansion every year.
I also hope you and your team do think about the possibility that many people who do like that cosmetics hunts, are very likely being drawn to this game because it’s so cosmetic based and then get scared off because going for those items is such a grind. And they will also not be supporting the game financially once they left. They might come back for HoT but if they get disappointed about this again they might not come back after that.
Another example of a way what is now grind could be game-play are the instruments. I, and many people would probably love to have a musicians craft in stead of grinding (or buying) instruments. We would love to hunt cosmetics like skins, mini’s, glider-skins and so on all over the world (hardest content rewarding the best looking skins). But that end-game simply does not exist or only in the form of a grind (and then mainly grinding gold, you need to much to earn it along the way while playing, besides hunting down is playing the game for many people.).
So I hope you guys will find a good way of making that more fun as you state. The only way I would see that being possible is by financing the game more based on expansions then those cosmetic items, but if you find other ways I’m happy as well.
Anyway, I do hope this form of end-game will come to the game in a less grindy, more fun way and I assure you that it will be something that can keep a big group of players playing, a group that now might not be playing (anymore).
Again, thanks for your comment.
(edited by Devata.6589)
There is a difference between no mandatory grind and no grind at all. They will always be grind in a MMO. Devs just CAN’T (in like physically impossible) to create content faster than ppl can experience it. So at some ppl either ppl do the same stuff over and over or they stop playing.
You don’t need to grind for anything in this game. But you can grind if you want something special. People can disagree if they want, but personally this game fit the majority of the manifesto (can’t believe we are still talking about that )
The OP was more talking about Colin’s talk last week, not about the manifesto so much. And there is a difference between repeatable content and grinding. Having to farm a dungeon for an items is something else then having to grind gold for anything.
“But you can grind if you want something special.” Well no, if you want any of those items you need to grind. It’s not like you have the option to grind for them but also have the option to do some fun, or challenging content or even farming that dungeon. For many of those items the only viable option is grinding gold.