Guild Wars 2

Shinoobi.1259:

This thread is really petty. I don’t even know what I could contribute to this thread that would make any sense. I don’t have any ascended pieces other than trinkets on my characters, and I have never encountered a situation where I needed BiS gear to complete content. I don’t run fractals or dungeons. I just PvP and WvW. Would I eventually get enough from salvaging and drops to maybe make a piece of ascended gear? Probably. Do I need it? No.

ohoh…the you don’t need it" plague again

well.
a need is a personal feel.
don t even try to define what i need. it s my right.

and i need BiS. and i need do obtain it quickly.
i bought this game instead of all of the games you all listed exactly because i need and want to gear up easily and than think only about explore, wvw and dungeon.
without even a hr grinding for it. without feeling forced to do it.
period.
the only grind i would appreciate is barely skins and titles.
period.
i need to be on a par with everybody of the server. period.

stop trying to define others’ desires.
stop comparing to other mmo.
you disagree? servers are on. enjoy it

Coldtart.4785:

Given that the game was sold on sound bites like ‘Everyone, including casual players, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game’ and ‘no-one finds that [grinding] fun’, I don’t see that they have any reason to exist. How can anyone enjoy working towards something that is based purely on grinding the same content that has existed since launch? How can anyone with even a miniscule amount of skill consider stats worthy of being called a reward?

If you don’t think it’s possible to get people to work towards something other than stats I would like to remind you that there are people that have unlocked every single crafting recipe in the game, despite most of them being irrelevant and that legendaries originally were just PVT exotics with a fancy skin that you had to transmute if you wanted a different stat type; that didn’t stop people grinding for it.

Grind doesn’t have to be for advantage for people to be willing to do it. More power doesn’t have to be on the table for a reward to be worthy of a player’s time.

that’s the perfect translation of what “no grind, no treadmill” means literally.
i hope it will be read from high clergy in anet.
that’s the real love for a game for what it is, and not a korean run towards which surely will be just a transient top of the hill.

a huge +1

already uninstalled.
just trying to make it worth to reinstall it.
but flaming is still fun, so here am I.
-and also just skipping threads we don’t like is a good solution.-

and it’s not only a problem for me, looking at the forum.
you’re just trying to convince other people that things are ok as they are, and they’re wrong to dislike some features.
typical of… a religion, politics or older philosophy.
or on the other hand, quite common nowadays.

just to point it out, i think that many casuals were perfectly ok at the beginning.
not anyone needs that powaaaaa endgame some new recruits want to find in gw2.
maybe, on the opposite, that it’s their “fault”, as they tried to make gw2 similar to other mmo they knew.
and anet tried to ensure economy luring them in.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yeah I caught this, but don’t quite agree with it. Not everyone does dailies, or wants to have to do dailies every day (have you not seen the gripes about this recently?)

The gripes have been going ever since the game started, first how there wasn’t any reason to do them short of the points . . . then after they dropped a Jug of Karma in the rewards, how it was now suddenly required to do anything.

It’s why I said Living Story as another thought – if you’re going to add something to entice people towards doing your content, let them pick and choose which they want to do. Dailies are incredibly flexible and can be done relatively quickly, fitting into the 4-5 hour a week window a lot of people have been bringing up.

We don’t need yet another currency, so that would kill your token exchange. (People have had a lot of gripes about the number of currencies we currently have since… well forever).

And I repeat the same thing to those gripes from long ago: did they not play GW1 with the VAST amount of trophy tokens going on? We have LESS in GW2.

My thought just uses the currencies we already have. Badges in WvW, dungeon tokens, karma, etc. Then people can simply play and not have to worry if they’ve done their daily, or their monthly, or whatever special thing they need to get the new currency.

I’d rather it not be something people can farm incredible amounts of and get in a week, to prevent people from complaining they’re forced to grind to keep up with the joneses. That’s what Laurels seemed driven to – everyone gets a Laurel a day in exchange for 1-3hrs of devotion. Nobody is getting things faster than that with the all-weekend no-sleep feeding-tube grind session.

Yeah, I don’t think there’s really anything that they can do that someone won’t gripe about.

I had thought about a token reward for the living story stuff, but I foresaw 2 loud complaints on here: a new currency, and LS involvement. It would probably also require some new development, which would take longer to implement in theory. Still it’s an option I suppose. I do the living story stuff normally.

I played GW1 but I don’t recall having that many currencies. I mean, sure, all the various trophy drops could generally be used at some vendor somewhere, but I don’t think the majority of people really bothered with that. It was all just garbage to them unless they were after something extremely specific… Generally speaking I think most people just worried about gold and ecto.

I can agree with not wanting people to be able to grind it out in a week, which for people that do tons and tons of WvW or dungeons probably could. Which was why I suggested making it expensive. When it comes to dungeon tokens, they could also set it up that a player had to buy the armor box, which would require all of the same dungeon token for the set. Rather than being able to buy the armor piecemeal like we can with exotics. Then you could set the price of the box to like 25k tokens. I guess you could potentially run a single dungeon enough to get that in one week, and I guess if they do, well more power to them.

In all honesty it doesn’t really matter how it’s implemented. There will still be the complaint of having to ‘grind to keep up with the joneses’ as you put it. Sadly, there really isn’t any way around that.

just a word…no. more money..more tokens…just more grind. definitely no.
i think this: want to make ascended so grindy?
ok. just make not people need them for endgame.
increase exotic stats and leave them just for skins or combat animations or a title or…boh.
in wvw and pve everybody would so be on a par.
and: end of a major part of the complaints on this forum.

too easy? (too little money from gems i think.)

no. it’s easier just to quit a game and start another, rather than to try to explain what do you expected from it (and of course anet knows what we all expected, as they stated it years ago).
anet should thank us for all the effort we put in this forum.

it’s not only your game. it a game for all of us who still try to “save” it.
if someone before in this forum asked for ascended (i don’t think anet listen to them. just decided it and did it without caring about the customers…..but let’s give t a try) , it’s our right to raise our voices and scream out what we need.
still, i think it’s all flaming…with no hope.

mergi.1407:

Judging by the manifesto be thankful Anet do not make pharmaceuticals.

“we found the eternal life elixir”.
and after the first deaths: ask the devs…

well, i hope that, after this bad experience, they’ll try at least to explain what they’re going to do with the game (a new manifesto? a real one)…don’t think i’ll spend any more money or time without knowing what direction it’s taking gw2.
ascended last tier? (and a decent way to acquire them…or better just improve exotics stats to be on a par with ascended) maybe i’llreinstall it.
a patch with new items and even a 90th level?
ultimate ragequit

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

“Must have BiS gear” is a conditioned mentality, you can overcome it.

and why ? because of the authority of anet?
also people who asked for ascended could overcome thier desires.
they also had manifesto against them.

we’re customers just like you.
it’s our right to struggle for what we like.

“optional.”
everything in the world is optional. also life is just an option. eating is an option.
and so on. there’s always another option.

everybody agrees that for any mmoplayer, also a minimum stat increase on a new item is a dinner call. you told that.
so, if they care so much, it must be important.
if it wasn’t so important, anet would’t bother to release ascend.
why just do’t go on with new map parts or new bosses?
because grinders need somthing to grind for. and just a skin is not sufficient. the asked for it.

the same, at the opposite, for casuals like me, who absolutely DON’T want that item stats increase. we just don’t have enough time to grind for it. even if i had that time, i would spend it listening to music or going out. we just want to spend that 5hours a week. period.
we feel betrayed as anet declared we were their main target, and to show it created a manifesto, to lure all of us who can’t afford that time and want to be always on par with other players and challenges gw2 offers.
even a plus 1 power is out of this pov.

then , it’s important for both of them?
yeah.

so stop calling ascended completely optional and skippable. it affects both parts.

TheGuy.3568:

. Truth is the part that seems to be the big issue is the promise that their would be nearly no gear grind and the fact we can’t get ascended gear through any means other than crafting or rare drops.

yeah. it’s a matter of truth and betrayal. and it passes through the new BiS and the grindy ways to acquire it.

about me (and me only): if anet creates more ways to obtain ascended and not only craft and actual stuff, i could forgive it and reinstall the game.
however: even a single peace of equip with a single more point in power prec etc would be the final high treason.

TheGuy.3568:

The main difference is that everybody can get ascended gear (from causal to hardcore) and that you can do it solo (vs raiding). Technically all they have done is added in one new tier of gear and gated it. The disturbing part is that Anet went back on it’s word. This isn’t the grind focused gear grind nor is it a necessary one as the stat increase is minimal and the effect will only truly be felt in fractals

necessary or not, it is the new BiS. and even if it just “cuts off” from casual player the high level fractal, it is a limitation to us.
even that little increase in stats.
and didn’t keep the word.
simple and brutal.

if you need more skins: ok, ask for what you want.

about future new BiS, i think that anet would face with a massive ragequitting of all the casuals they lured in by advertising “no treadmill”.

Kevan.8912:

and someone will say that they can gain ascended playing 1h a week without even looking at the screen while cooking,

here he comes xD

i have no mats, no gold, and no tolerance for any kind of crafting….
it’s my fault? i think it is.
in fact i accept my responsibility for not having had any legendary or rare dye or title.
i never argued about “voluntary” grinding.
i’m just a mediocre player, both in skills and in “aspect”.
if i can login only once in 2days for a pair of hours, i hoped i could play without any handicap (even that 12%) in any part of the game.
this is what i saw in the gw2, and what developers said about it.
simply now things are different. just admit it.

Reverence.6915:

Doesn’t take away from the fact that there is no grinding in gw2 unless you force it on yourself.

that’s exactly the opposite many players are complaining about.
for me, there a grinding, and it’s mandatory
because everything gives an advantage, also if it’s just 12.534423323233% AND AR, it’s very useful, especially in wvw and fractals.

skins are not mandatory legendary used to be not mandatory. titles, commander tag, dyes these are not mandatory. period.
mandatory doens’t necessarily mean that a charact absolutely needs it to access specific new content. it means it’s felt like a necessity because it gives a concrete, also if little, superiority.

you’ll answer that it’s still not so essential,
and someone will say again that if it wasn’t so useful there was no need to introduce it, and just continue without them and give some new only cosmetic content.
and someone believes that some mmo players NEED vertical progression…
and someone will say that they can gain ascended playing 1h a week without even looking at the screen while cooking,
and someone else will say he is still good at wvw without ascended…

imho, truth is simple.
and everybody knows it.
you like grind or not, love ascended or not, feel need to have or not,
anet stated some specific features in the game which no longer exist.
grinding and vertical progression are evident.
little progression but significative.
it’s a loss of time to demonstrate the opposite of evidence

tolunart.2095:

knives.6345:

This is the most ignored sentence in the announcement:

“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.”

Just saying…

This is the internet. “We’re thinking we might try something like X in the future,” means “We absolutely guarantee that we will have X ready within a week.”

it’s not correct.
nobody (or at least, not the larger part of players) is really whining about what anet didn’t yet deliver because a delay.
people complain about what THEY DID against what was quite clearly a promise,
as they sold the game to thousands of people thanks of it, people like me that if knew about grinding for BiS (i stress it once again. some of you are trying to convince other people that ascend\infuse is not required, and it’s optional. and everybody knews they are mandatory) exotics and legendaries, would never buy the game.

Le Pecheur.2074:

I’m confused… I used to play Everquest, and that was a grind. In fact, pretty much all of the game play I can remember in EQ was grinding, aside from the quest here and there.

I’ve also played Aion. That was a super grind for gear. I have 400 hours on it on steam from a year or 2 just to get a full set of level 30 armor when the max level was 50 or something like that at the time.

GW 2? I haven’t noticed any grind. In fact, I’d say it’s the least grindy MMO I’ve ever played in my life. The worst grinding I’ve experienced is dungeons to get exotic gear from there… which is just as good stat-wise as bought gear for relatively cheap so meh.

again, people just don’t care if any other game was less or more grindy.
there souldn’t be any grind AT ALL, dungeon or skin or anything, according to advertising they sold the game with.
but, ok, let’s try to accept it.

but, BiS grind no. it’s totally out of gw2 goals.
don’t care if gw1 was grinding. or if other mmo need even more hours to get it.
just excuses for people who like it.

Hjorje.9453:

This statement right here is where the posters mind set is wrong. They got money for the game we bought back last year. Guess what we got our money’s worth, and they got our money. The nice thing is they are still releasing content to us after that. If that statement is correct above, then they shouldn’t have to release any thing to us. They could just let us play the game we bought, without adding anything after the intial release, correct?

the funny part is…
yes, and i think that i would still love the game if they let it as it was at the beginning or nearly it. (while now because of their “new content” many of us left the game)
it would be more coherent with what they “promised\announced\expected to do” (choose the philosophically correct word. np).

many of what anet introduced, such as fotm and ascended and infusions and laurels, is just a palliative.

teegees.9638:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

teegees.9638:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I just gotta laugh over people talking about endless raid grinds in WoW. You can only complete them once per week and I spend about 4-5 hours doing so because it’s real, permanent content and it’s actually fun. How long would it take me to gear one character in GW2 if I only spent 4-5 hrs a week in game?

0 weeks.

You’d have enough money saved from leveling to buy multiple sets of level 80 exotics.

What if I want to do high level fractals? Or serious WvW. You need ascended.

You don’t need ascended for WvW serious or otherwise. You hardly even need exotics.

You do need ascended for high level fractals but I would still say 0 weeks. By the time you reach the fractal level where you need ascended you could easily have made yourself a full set.

Furthermore there is nothing new at high level fractals. Anything you can see or acquire in them can be seen or acquired through other means. As such you only ever need exotic gear to reach a point where you can see and experience all the content of the game without ever having to worry about having enough gear.

if it’s true, just remove ascended.
if nobody truly needs it, why introduce it and why bis?
legrndaries were still rare and only few people got them.
and nobody had colldcted them all.

for me, manifesto is a not a contract….(wait…well indeed it is, for the customer they sold the game to. Mislesding advertising i’d call it)
well, however it’s sign of reliability.

i believe you it could depend on publishers’ influence.
but unfortunately the result is the same.
it s not my duty to understand them. not any reverse psychology or philosophy,
it s theirs to suit the customers

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/ArenaNet's_MMO_Manifesto_trailer

it counts clearly as “promises”.
someone says it’s only marketing. or just hopes and dreams
not imho.
others says they keep their word…..mmmh.
judge yourselves

all true. again, people are quite bored and angry at it.
i think they should choose more wisely their perspectives xD

and…to be totally sincere, i think they considered many players “expendable”.
who cares for a part of population ragequitting?
we’ll earn even more players if we can provide a hardcore grinding.
they knew what they said in the beginning, and our hopes.
just broke promises because of money.

i trust people. and i know that it’s all around money in the world.
but they’ll not earn a coin from me

VOLKON.1290:

Ashen.2907:

VOLKON.1290:

The progression is false because it’s simply an illusion. They inflate your power and the raid boss power at the same rate, resulting in a net gain of zero.

I think that gaining in power so that you are capable of overcoming increasingly greater challenges is a pretty solid definition of progression in the context of a game.

That’s just it though… the gain in power has nothing to do with overcoming the new challenges. They could add the new challenges at the same power scale as the previous and you’d still have new challenges to overcome (without making obsolete the prior challenges). That’s the illusion of progression. ‘Congrats! You’ve earned gear that makes you 20% more powerful! Now meet Fluffy the Vampire Dragon Lich, who is 20% more powerful than the guys you just beat to become 20% more powerful! Yay!’

This illusory progression does two things. It deludes the player into thinking they’re more powerful when relative to the new content they’re not, and it funnels people through very narrow paths of content progression rendering prior content obsolete and barren. Neither of these is a good thing.

and..what’s your final idea about it?
mine is that every kind of grinding equipment is just a waste of time, a filler for the missing content…endgame or not.

also tiers in gw2 are illusory progress…still it’s a necessary progress if you want to compete on a par with top players (it’s not my situation) or in high level fractals.
as in other posts say, the best rational of your words would be that if don’t want any illusory progression, by the end of leveling you should instantly be able to face everything, and just concentrate on your knowledge of combat, best build, team tactics, and every tot. weeks on a new part of map, or a new event, or a new customization.
that’s horizontal progression.

everywhere there’s a BiS grind, it’s the same.

Reverence.6915:

What? If you play naturally for 1 or 2 months you’ll naturally get the mats to craft a piece of ascended gear. If you “grind” for it (i.e. do a few dungeons and buy the mats), you can get an entire set in that time period. Not quite sure how that constitutes a grind.

that’s a grind, just call it as you prefer.
we’ve already discussed about grinding, BiS, manifesto, angry players, et cetera.
if you don’t hate it, good for you.
it remains the same.

Reverence.6915:

Also, try playing Maplestory for a month, then tell me GW2 has grind. Seriously. That game has decent action based combat, but oh my god the grind!

again, that “grind-grindier-grindiest”competition.
wow…maple story….eq…don’t really need a comparative term.
this is not the point.
we just feel the grind. don’t like it.
and it wasn’t the same at the release time. period.

it’s not fair trying to “teach” us how to force ourselves to like it because it’s better than other games. (and also because anet already imposed it without asking)
-many don’t like it.

some try to teach that all mmo need grinding.
-good. still gw2 is not all mmos’. it’s gw2

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Only Ascended strikes me as any real ‘grind’ when it comes to gear in GW2, as it requires laurels, crafting, and special materials that you can’t even get unless you seek them out on a lvl 80.
…….
Outside of these two tiers, there really is no gear grind of note. Usable, decent armor seems to drop like rain for me when I play, and leveling the crafting is very easy so long as I gather as I go.

except for…uhm…legendary and ascended weapons…(one of the most important part in a mmo rpg is best equipment) there is no gear grind.
ohoh…i think it’s more than enough

however, everybody knows what’s the main issue.
(past)- ok, they put grind? nothing new.
i hate grind, so never even thought about getting a legendary.
but it was still ok for me and many others, altough it was boring.

but,
-(now) they actually put heavy grind for BiS gear.
that’s the issue.

every kind of grinding is boring. especially for some players.
the mandatory grinding is another thing.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

These things have been brought up, and discussed to death in the CDI and Chris has acknowledged that we have been heard. The ball is in Anet’s court now. Let’s give them some time to hash it out and see what they decide.

i hope they’ll really think about what we’re saying here at ANet.
but it’s extremely unlikely they’ll go back to what used to be.
i’ll eagerly wait for any kind of news. but with no concrete hopes.
i really loved gw2. waited for it to be launched and read every single preview from known websites in 2012.
i never even thought about of whining on this forum…until everything i liked in gw2 was changed.
really really hope in any sign of change, and until then i won’t log in

laokoko.7403:

I think Anet some what realize it is hard to keep people playing if they don’t reward something. Not everyone care about cosmetic

More over Anet is trying to sell GW2 in asia. I suppose a power creep of some kind is needed.

I dont’ think it take long to acquire ascended gear. At least not for me. If I dont’ have the time to play mmorpg, I simply dont’ play it. Which I don’t right now.

here some words O’Brien said time ago…my young brother in another post reminded me.
“If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2”

yeah. it was just marketing…only words.
and of course you’re right, anet now has different asian targets than before.
but beware, because that same new audience could go back to other games, eliminating any peculiarity that could make gw2 shine in the market (no grind! no treadmill! yes social life! play as you want!)…and any residual reliability of anet.

Sligh.2789:

I really think they released Ascended to give the “no end game” and “WoW” type player something to do rather than complain that they didn’t have raids and there was no endgame. Problem solved, and now they complain about Ascended. They will never stop complaining until they leave the game. I cant wait!

wait for what? for people who complain to leave?
enjoy the beginning of the endless grind. just another mmo like wow.

and yes, many unsatisfied players will leave the game.
because we feel betrayed.

bravoart.5308:

Legendaries: Barred by RNG and cash. Well beyond the means of any average player.

Ascended: Too much time investment to be at the whim of patch nerfs/buffs. Unnecessary time-gating and mat gathering to encourage cash shop conversions.

You made it a lot further than I did OP. The game has turned in to a completely unnecessary grind. I actually had to laugh at the Halloween Event. I wonder if anyone actually got one of the weapons.

the worse part is that grinding (that awful horrible thing anet wanted to avoid), if once was only a painful choice to visually differentiate from masses, now has also become a must.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Short answer to your evil question= Its not a forced grind.

In WoW you HAD to upgrade every few months and even then the time model your talking about was for the elite groups. Guild wars 2 carters more to the regular players and the casual more then the elites.
I actually enjoy the gear here because its less of a “your gear score is a little lower then what we want so your gonna be left out, sorry.” and more of a “welcome to the group friend. I see you spend some extra time to get that sweet weapon/armor skin. very nice”

that’s what we wanted gw2 to be like.
now we can see a grinding vertical progression of the equip, so get that extra damage/stats/ar gear is mandatory.
nobody would complain about some extra time for “that sweet new skin”.

(999th fanboy lesson incoming in 3…2….)

yes, skill is important.

so, why to give even that 5% improvement in stats? skill would become the ONLY important thing in a fight.

wasn’t it sufficient to create just more tiers of legendary weapons armor etc…or even “ascended”…but with same statistics with existing exotics?
just to give cosmetic advancement to players who dedicate enough time to get that equipment?
everybody would have played and grinded without flaming in this forum, and also “pro grinding” players could find their reason d’etre in grinding for a better appearance of their characters
pro’s would show their real qualities in battle, AND in appearance.
and everybody would be fine

Hayashi.3416:

I suppose there are three things that may lead to this very wide difference in opinion:

1. The kind of previous experience you have with grind, and negated max-tier equipment.

It took me a year and 2 months to max-lvl (99, btw) everything in RuneScape, and in that time I still didn’t have enough money to afford the BIS melee gear (lvl 80). Not to mention, there are three sets of BIS depending on your combat style.

Then recently they created level 90 equipment…

Not that that was the first time they did that. The lvl 80 gear invalidated the previous lvl 70 gear tier, etc etc. Every time a release like that happened, players lost hundreds of gold.

And I am one of the fastest people to ever max-lvl RuneScape without using any form of money trade. Back then, money trading for ingame currency was illegal – there was no official channel to do so. Most players, after spending 2-3 years at it, are barely level 80 everything, and the scale is exponential.

After getting used to that, this is a cakewalk. Especially given how much more fun the combat here is.

I can’t comment on what WoW would be like since by the time I got to try it, the game has become so ridiculously boring that I quit in less than a day. Even Ragnarok Online 2 occupied me for longer.

2&3. The economy between lvl 80 and pre-lvl 80 in GW2 is leagues apart, and the difference in resource-earning efficiency between players in lvl 80 is also leagues apart.

It took me 30 levels to earn my first gold, spending all my mats on crafting. It now takes 10 minutes via harvesting permanent locations for rich ore veins – which I don’t need to use to level crafting anymore. All of that goes directly into cost reduction for ascended gear, making it a cakewalk. Especially with multiple alts – each which can harvest the rich ore veins once.

Dungeons are fast as well, especially CoFp1. There is no such equivalent for a lower levelled player. And the more you uplevel your gear and abilities, the faster a dungeon run becomes, making gold per hour even greater.

To a player who’s only been around for a month, seeing a 500 gold price tag plus timegated resources plus the cost of levelling that craft in the first place looks truly ridiculous. But once you get used to gold farming at high speeds, it looks more reasonable, and the main problem now becomes the enforced timegate (because skipping the timegate by buying Damask is really, really expensive).

Furthermore, new characters don’t only need to pay for ascended, but also for 500 in the crafting stats; existing high level characters can sell all of the non tier 6 mats they have, and all the food mats… which generates more gold. This also leads to another major difference in perception.

P.S Zudet, you are correct though, in that my viewpoint does not take into account the previous situation. Still, I’d view the reduction in required effort to be a Good Thing, as long as Anet doesn’t magic up another +5% tier, call it Resplendent, and invalidate the entire Ascended tier with that.

However, we’re not talking 500 of each ascended tier resource every 9 days. To achieve the full set in 32 days, you require 1000 for weapons and 1800 for armor, or 2800. 2800/32 is 87.5 of each per day.

That requires only 5 dungeon runs to get for the empyreal crystals. This takes about 2 hours, if you run CoFp1,2 CoEp1,2,3.
Only 5-6 world bosses to get for the dragonite. This takes 1 hour.

To farm enough mats to get 12.5 gold per day… the dungeons already give you about 7 gold after taking into account the tokens that can be converted to ecto. 5.5 more gold at 1 gold/10 minutes takes another hour. This will definitely unlock your daily laurel as well.

And the chests you get from the above will give you double the amount of bloodstone you need. I’ve so much additional bloodstone dust lying around I was happy when Anet finally created Toxic consumables as a way which I can actually use them up with.

To get full ascended everything in 32 days, all you need is a level 80 character in a guild with missions available, and to play 4 hours a day.

To kit out all 8 classes with full asc requires 8 months from this point on. Given not everyone plays for that long, we should be seeing most efficient players having ascendeds on all slots on all characters by new year 2015, assuming current prices persist. And this is through playing alone.

People who know how to work the market have multiple legendaries by now, and wonder what this whole controversy is about. Remember that each legendary costs enough, when sold, to kit 4 characters in full ascended everything.

that’s just everything many of the early players bought gw2 to avoid: shoppings lists, efficient grinding-farming paths, “working-like” endgame.
that’s pro-gamer grinding. it’s not a game. it’s not fun.
it’s not the way i meant to play gw2.

lordkrall.7241:

But isn’t that the point though?
Legendaries aren’t supposed to be for the “average player” they are supposed to be there for the hardcore players.

if legendaries / ascended were still equivalent to exo, and just beautiful skins..ok.
that’s not what happened.

Mireles Lore.5942:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

However as far as I can tell GW2 has a much longer, less rewarding and more frequent gear grind then WoW ever had.

And with that statement you lost any credibility to make any point you might have wanted to make. GW2 gear being more “grind-ier” than WoW is just laughable.

i agree that wow is “grindier” by far.

wait…this is a grind vs grindier vs superipermegagrind contest? xD
i nearly forgot. wasn’t gw2 the game without grind AT ALL?

i know well what mmo are like. it’s not my first.
truth: all mmo rely on treadmill and progress.
(and i still think there’ll be new game mechanics to avoid it.)

simply, all what anet stated about gw2 future was pure rubbish.
what they said was obviously different from what we get now.

don’t care about why they did it. or if it was really feasible in the reality.
or the silly riddles hidden in their statements.
don’t care about marketing.
i’m a customer and a gamer. i bought it because of their promises of a new mmo, different from mass.

is it a bit different? perhaps it is. grind is less intense? if compared to wow, yes.
it is what they induced me to expect? no.
is it a grind? definitely it is.
is it a treadmill? as there is a new tier with better features, of course yes.
for now, it’s the second tier. and i feel it won’t be the last.

that’s all i need to decide gw2 is not for me. not another clone.
i hope all of you will be happy with it.

what you extrapolate from anet words is your interpretations, not “the very one interpretation”.
“no grind” means exactly “no grind”, not “no grind because someone else thinks that you don’t need it”.
because the simple fact that there is an improvement in gameplay, although it is very little, it’s a treadmill.
i never flamed against grinding for legendary items. it was only cosmetic.
ascended is totally different.
everything else is just talking.
that’s all for me.

and…happy new year ^^

1- grind is grind. and if it has any impact on charact. performance, it becomes necessary. nobody likes to be underequipped, also “only” 5-10perc. stats.

manifesto said clearly no grind. end.

however, just to answer:
2- a skilled player in exotic vs skilled in ascended would have different result.
3- you need it if doing fractals. and it’s very useful in wvw.

i think that everybody who likes grinding and treadmill should just say: "well, i like it. "
because for anet there are no excuses, what everybody links from manifesto is quite easy to understand.

“it’s sad that the Entitled players try to justify their complaints over their own misunderstandings of how things are.”
i don0t see any misunderstandings in quoting something. there no contextualization. the meaning is simply what they wrote.

it’s true anet must meet expectations to investors, not to players.
nonetheless, once i know that every single thing they say there is also a minimum risk to be contradicted earlier or later, anet trust is definitely gone.
and also many player go away together with trust.

Stormcrow.7513:

Its physically impossible for them to development content at a rate to keep everyone perpetually entertained.

of course it’s hard to publish new content every few weeks.
they should have thought it before boasting about they could overcome grinding and treadmill in a single hit.
everybody knows that the easy way is to apply just minor patches and put new stats to new items. they knew it and sold it to people who believed in the scream of no grind.

burnout? maybe it is it.
but i think here is not (only) the problem that people are simply bored from endgame.
it’s the opposite, at least for me: i used to play eagerly gw2. i like living story.
i’d better like minor changes in longer times to little things like city clothes and map little changes… than a brand new ascended equip tier.

i think that the contraposition between that words… and what really happened next, was really really suggestive!
maybe he/she just ragequitted…xD

it’s a sort of “Pxyy On My Head And Tell Me It’s Raining”
just gimme new ultramegapowa items with a pair more zeros…but don’t call it treadmill, it’s taboo.
call it “progression”
-end of joking-

i think volkon says that it ‘s not because you are not prevented from accessing a new tier if u don’t have previous contents.

however, that’s not true IMHO.
for me (a casual), gear treadmill is the easy way to improve game longevity by simply adding more powerful stats-etc items.
and that describes precisely what anet has just begun, although if from now to 100years they stop item quality to ascended.
they already broke their promises.

“That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun.”
cit.Colin Johansson

that phrase is the end of games i think

Tolmos.8395:

I can say with all honesty that if GW 2 ever truly implemented a gear treadmill, deleting the game and never looking back would be one of the easiest things I’ve ever done.

prepare for deleting
for me, even if it remains as it is in this moment, it’s already a treadmill.
first only ascended accessories, then 500-crafting and armor and weapons…
next…new level cap? xD
that’s what players want…a new tier just to start over grinding.
and reading forums our mates are satisfied with it.

uninstall incoming…

progression isn’t always a better gear.

could be something else.
could be elite classes. could be new story modes. skins. mounts. achievements. gold. a house. elite pets. more bag slots. portable bank express
heirloom weapons to level easily other characters.
exp or gold powerups. the cultural armors! (many of them already exist, but are only random drops or need gems)
or simply a better knowledge of gameplay.

anything merely cosmetic that doesnt alter or improve your character’s ingame performance, and doesn’t push you to do something to fight on a par with others.

you say high level fractals is not noobs’ interest. are you sure?
only because i can’t play 10hours a day for months i should have it in a year?
casual is not a b series player. sometimes it’s a lifestyle. a free decision.
not a handicap. only because the typical mmo player plays average 7-8hrs a day…

i’m pretty sure that many players need the carrot on a stick…
the global trend of mmo is quite evident. grind is the main part of the game, and sometimes the only part

but i’ll never stop saying that i bought gw2, and not “any mmo”,
because of what progs stated in their manifesto, and what the game was like in the very beginning.
and if nowadays it’s the main way to keep players on keyboard and mouse, it doesn’t mean that it is the only way.

gw2 progs affirmed that they could change it.
please anet keep your word.

Mireles Lore.5942:

So what your saying is yes, because ascended armor is not easy to get… by your definition makes it a gear treadmill.
……………………
you cant always have everything here and now.

what i’m saying is exactly what you read. i think it’s sufficiently self-explanatory xD
i’m not just saying “yes”.

ok. some of you is satisfied with this kind of things.
some others don’t.
the fact there was a clear manifesto remains.
true:(for now) there’s no need to change tier X equip every 3months.
still there’s a need to grind to get ascended equipment.
in contrast with the reasons progs gave us to buy their product.
if i knew it from the beginning, i wouldn’t have bought it
(sorry, i’m not english, i’m sure grammar is bad)

without any philosophy:
i played wow, until cataclysm. i do know the difference with wow.
i know what is a treadmill. however, showing that wow has more grinding than gw2 is not an excuse.

then:
“GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun”
just copy and paste.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

treadmill:
difference exotic-legendary-ascended is easy.
stop kidding. everybody of you knows it better than me.
-exotic is easy to obtain and gave access to almost all content in game until ascended.
-legendary is just a cosmetic matter. i don’t need it. nobody forced me to have one.
-ascended: it’s not cosmetic, it’s hard to acquire, it’s needed for AR high level fractals and bosses.

about daily and monthly:
true, anet obviously need to keep people playing.
ok. create new “optional” content. titles. mounts. gems. what do you prefer.
if a player wants to be admired because played for 4k hours, just show a brand new skin. a beautiful pet. a title. a…boh?
a miniature. a commander badge…

but time spent in game should not give any advantage in battle and characters’ “potential”. this is horizontal progression. that’s the opposite of treadmill. (everyone should be the same. if one is more skilled because is well trained playing several hours a day (and has a knowledge of the game different than a casual like me), wins…but only relying on his skill. not on a better piece of equip)
that’s why many people bought this game. as a casual game.

i want everything here and now?
definitely yes. it’s what they promised. fun. not grind to start to play.

Stars.2179:

The process of gathering mats for gear is part of the game. If you don’t have the patience to play the game it’s your problem. No one forces you to get the ascended / legendary gear now, asap. Do it in a year or two.

are you kidding???
the game itself forces you to do it.
fotm. wvw. bosses. everything pushes you to do it.
5-10% stats is not nothing. AR is not nothing.
the fact itself that someone has a minimum advantage on you is a reason to grind.

a beautiful expensive miniature doens’t force you to grind. a shiny black dye is not obligatory.
everything else is treadmill.

VOLKON.1290:

Show me where the endless gear grind is in this game and I’ll consider considering that they may have shifted from the ideas presented in the manifesto. Yes, ascended gear itself can be a bit grindy (read: Time consuming) to get. However there is no endless treadmill of tossing away old gear for newer, more powerful gear which is exactly what the manifesto was referring to.

There is no treadmill, as promised. The fact that they’ve stuck to the manifesto in that regards is commendable.

false. it’s a treadmill. and they broke their manifesto. period.
i don’t care if without dailies or monthly there would be less players online.

it’s not daily itself the problem for me.
if a guy needs grinding, do it yourself.
do it for a new color or skin or just to make money.
that’s ok.

that’s not ok: with dailies (or any other grind) you can craft ascended weapons and stuff.
it’s 5perc stats a very little advantage? or AR?
i don’t care. there is a difference with exotic.
(and AR is quite important for fotm.)

cosmetic upgrades are still allowed and aligned with manifesto.
but not gear treadmill.

i think it’s burnout too. 3k hours is definitely too much for nearly everything

nonetheless, the post is quite interesting.
i share many of these thoughts, although played less than a tenth of that time xD

but, IMHO, gw2 greatest issue is the grinding they introduced. it’s not what they promised. that’s all.
and they didn’t try to justify it to angry players.
i could stand bugs, lag, poor storyline…everything.
but the no grinding manifesto is the very reason i bought this game.
this “high treason” drives me crazy. no excuses.
farewell gw2…

in some months, i didn’t find a single line explaining why anet joined the dark side of mmo’s: massive grinding.
they just announced it like an ordinary news.

there are lots of flaming posts of people like me and you who noticed that anet betrayed manifesto.

but unfortunately, i read also too much people who want even more grinding.
because the typical mmo-nerd says: “if i play more hours than you, i’ll have better equip than you…and if u want to be competitive, just play more”
that’s the golden rule of mmo world.
many people can’t play 200h only for a skin. they want a carrot on a stick.
or a gear treadmill. a concrete advantage over “n00bs” playing 2-3times a week.
for these people, mostly coming from other mmos, ascended equip is still too little a difference.
as anet learned its new audience behavior (not the ones they targeted at the very beginning, who like an horizontal growth, but new people coming from wow or similar), just without any explanation to customers, introduced what make they earn more money, or have more players (i think both): making gw2 similar to any other mmo on the market.

but they will never openly admit what they did, or why.
it’s marketing, not coherence. it’ money.
they’ll just say: it’s no grind, it’s not necessary.
and many people mainly fanboys or “infiltrates”, will say the same.
but all of us do know the truth.
gw2 is nothing like the game anet promised.

the only thing to do then is…look for another game.

if anet really wants horizontal progress, please remove gear treadmill. remove ascended (or leave it just as skins).
grinding should be only cosmetic. it was your manifesto: respect the pact and your customers.

only then, horizontal growth of character would be possible.
increase maps. create bigger or longer events and quests.
new achievements. new dynamics (not just kill x or gather y.)
encourage group playing and not just zerg or autotarget.
create mounts or vehicles. new weapon classes.
there so much to try

but don t turn to grind and treadmill just as any other nerdy mmo.
it would be an easy way for a short time…and then only carrot on a stick…and finally lots of ragequits.
we re a different kind of players.

VOLKON.1290:

Conner.4702:

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Carighan.6758:

Honestly I see that as quite balanced, though. You have multiple toons fully decked out at the end, which gives you a very very high amount of flexibility in regards to gameplay. You can always relog to a character with specialized gear and trait setup and just the fitting utility skills.

That flexibility has a cost, in that you needed to spend the time for each character.

Seems fine to me?

Depends on how alt-friendly you want the game to be.

Most games have a pretty high vertical progression, so it’s extremly hard to equip many character, therefore you have only one main character, and your other toons are alts.

Gw1, like gw2 before, wasn’t like that. Equiping a toon to BiS was quite easy (the first one required a bit of time, after that it was easy to farm the stuff for the alts). So you could switch toons to play with friends, to have a team composition that was correct.

With the introduction of ascended, gw2 is taking the path most other games are taking, and it’s kinda sad, as the versatility we had before was really nice, we could switch to a guardian if the team needed it, or stay on our dps, etc. Now, with a new tier, we’ll feel compelled to stay on our only equiped character.

This is especially true with fractals. With the fractured patch, fractal level became account based. But now, the required AR is much more than before, so I can’t use my alts there, even if I want to. Kinda bad to make, in the same patch, a change to help alts (account based level), and one making it impossible to use alts (more AR required).

You are forgetting that in other games with high vertical progression you still have the option to gear up alts alongside your main. Depending on how much time you have to spare. This option is not available in GW2 unless you have an extreme amount of gold. Even then some items are still time gated.

Other games do not limit gearing of alts, for those with time, as much as GW2 currently does.

You’re forgetting that those games with the endless vertical progression you pretty much have nothing to do until the next latest raid (and tier of gear) is released in a few months. You raid, get geared, so you raid and gear an alt or two while you wait, only to start over again with the next raid. Ascended gear isn’t meant to be recycled every couple months or so… it’s a long term investment, especially when compared to vertical treadmill based games.

This is not disposable gear.

are you sure it’s not just the beginning of the endless vertical treadmill?
we do know right now there will be new max levels…new legendaries…maybe expansions.
i think it could be disposable gear.
it’s not the game anet announced. this is a typical-grind-mmo with just a bit less grind….disguised as events or other stuff.

i think that Anet launched the game with that starting idea that “GW2 could be different from other mmo’s” meaning that they could implement new gameplay dynamics avoiding grinding.
dynamic events, living story, world bosses.
but all turned to farming/grinding. even the smallest event turns to: "pick Xgems, convert to Y, search Z….for 30000000000000000000000times.

what they found is that the enormous zombie swarms of people coming from other mmo, who became a large percentage of total gw2 player, just don’t ask for more story or quests or dungeons. just needed more grind.
and that reward for grind couldn’t be just a skin or a gizmo or accessories.
it had to be armor, weapons, etc: had to give them a tangible advantage in combat.
repeat 300time same dungeon was too much for a new dye or weapon skin.
they instead would happily play 300hrs to get a better armor, and to make themselves “clearly better” than the casual player who doesn’t want or simply can’t spend his own life on the pc.

mmo philosophy says that: “if you play more and more, you deserve a better armor/weapon/title/skin/portrait/pet etc etc etc, against n00bs or casuals who just play 10hrs a week. if they want to improve, just grind more.”

i hoped until the very last weeks a step back, but nothing…
this change of direction, form casual oriented to a more “pro-nerd-farmer/grinder” one, shows me that it’s time to….change game

well….that’s all in the title.
as in the manifest, i bought and played a game for “casuals”. for people who don’t want to spend their whole lives for gaining an ascended sword…or a bunch of gold.

ok…in the beginning there were mainly “rare” skins, colors, various merely aesthetic mods…. and some legendary weapons. having a good to excellent equip was a good thing but wouldn’t alter in any way your game or others.

now…and i think beginning from fractals introduction..it’s become a run towards gold, loot and materials.
same thing for world events…people looking at countdowns and repeating same thing over and over.
finding a place in a dungeon team is very difficult for noobs or bad equipped.
crafting is way too long and expensive.

nothing like other mmo’s, but still i can find grind in this game. denying it is a lie.

well, you’ll answer: “no sacrifice, no victory…so if you don’t want to grind, stay with your crappy items and play for the sake of playing…as nobody forces you to have best equip and skins”
a mate said that you can play well and have fun without grind\acquired equip.
probably, true.

but obviously, i don’t think so. there are only low percentage improves in acquiring all ascended, but it’s a reason of gaming for many people.

i hope gw2 will still be a game like it was in the beginning: a casual-friendly, world-exploring, story-oriented, innovative game.
not the 9999999th game who tries to fulfill gamers’ desires with only higher level, rarer, more expensive items.
new tiers of items, new levels…smell too much of a palliative to make people busy and online playing and forget there’s no real new content.
also recent events, although i joined them little, appeared a bit repetitive.

what do you think?

hi!
a silly question.
i noticed that playing low level zones also drops low level items…but i also see that sometimes it drops higher lvl items (for ex, playing starting zones with 80lvl charact sometimes i found also 80lvl items.)
is there a specific rule behind?
ty ^^