Guild Wars 2

Lévis.5489:

Ascended gear should be available through tokens (you know, by actually play the game instead of sitting at the crafting bench) instead of being a costly grind like it is now.

I’d like it to drop like weapons and rings (presumably), or be available through other means than just crafting.

I had this comment similarly before when the only way to get the rings was drop or Fractal Relic exchange.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Then why put it in the game?

That’s an excellent question, why don’t you ask that of the people who can actually answer it instead of me?

Azure Prower.8701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You mean instead of finding myself getting OHKOd they can do it even faster? Awesome, how does that work? I die before they attack?

You must not be running a bunker build.

Not in the least. I run something I enjoy, with a few tweaks here and there. But I prefer being “Tobias Trueflight” instead of “cookie_cutter_ranger_o6”.

Kevan.8912:

uhm…progression….
for many players just mean a shining new tier of equipment with 2more zeros to stats every 6month…and of course a long long grindy way to obtain it.

that’s what people here are trying to make anet aware: many don’t like it xD

I quit EverQuest over that crap,. Go compare some of their equipment selections from various expansions and you can see how power creep set in. Worst being after Planes of Power when your “basic default armor” you normally saw people in near max level was more powerful than endgame stuff from the previous expansion.

It still isn’t as bad as Ultima Online was though. How do I mean, you might ask? Gear was almost pointless. It was all in your reflexes and timing, and your Magery skill

Azure Prower.8701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Azure Prower.8701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kevan.8912:

just a word…no. more money..more tokens…just more grind. definitely no.

Didn’t say anything about more grind, just sending it off differently. If you want to. I mean, really I’d just advocate people not bothering. But they’re not going to because they don’t want to be sub-par, so . . . I try to find a different way in theory.

It’s better than total RNG drop and nothing else. No. Let’s do that never again. Ever.

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.)

WvW everyone is already on par. They all die the same to well-played rogues

Ascended gear still makes every thing better.

You know, I’m going to quote you out of context on that for months now

By the way? Exotic weapon or Ascended weapon, still lose to excellent thieves and warriors. I don’t think it really matters what they were wearing when I spend almost all my time unable to see my target, or laying on the ground from knockdown / launches.

But having ascended gear as a thief or warrior makes the kill go oh so much faster.

You mean instead of finding myself getting OHKOd they can do it even faster? Awesome, how does that work? I die before they attack?

Kevan.8912:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kevan.8912:

vincecontix.1264:

Belenwyn.8674:

The infusions are the risk we cannot judge at the moment. Will Arenanet continue the vertical progression via infusions? What will be the “high level” infusions that were mentioned by Linsay Murdock in the blog post dealing fractals and ascended items?

If we see a vertical progression via infusions beyond AR then ascended items will be highly demanded for several aspects of the game.

We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

it s just the beginning of the treadmill.
and i think everyone of us knows it

You can’t know it, because it hasn’t happened yet. You merely fear it is so, and what’s more if it never happens it won’t be because they didn’t intend for it. It’ll be because “we complained so much they decided to reverse course”.

i really hope that anet still cares of its customers
of “all kinds of customers”, especially that casual kind their efforts seemed to be aimed to.
until then…

I’m sure they care. At least, I’m sure the individuals care, I don’t think a company in and of itself can care. It’s an entity on a piece of paper and not a person. But the people care, and just about all of them I actually get a chance to talk to when I see them slumming in LA are nice and responsive people.

However, being able to balance this all so they manage to keep going? There’s the real trick. I’m not as confident in their ability there as I am confident they care. But don’t take that too hard, devs, I don’t think any company really nails exactly what the players want.

. . . no, not even Mojang.

Talonblaze.3175:

The only thing it affects is her morality, which is really the thing at question.

Well, if we go about making up stuff about how she is a thief, a murderer, and a liar . . . of course it affects her morality.

I’d like to note, we have already seen a fair bit of Kiel before the election started. It’s pretty clear she does care about people, and does try to do the best thing for everyone involved and not just those in power. Consider the fate of the Consortium contracts . . .

Kevan.8912:

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

Not comparing to other MMOs, and not going to tell you your desires are wrong.

But most of GW2 isn’t designed so the power boost of Ascended makes any difference at all. Hence “it’s unnecessary”.

Azure Prower.8701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kevan.8912:

just a word…no. more money..more tokens…just more grind. definitely no.

Didn’t say anything about more grind, just sending it off differently. If you want to. I mean, really I’d just advocate people not bothering. But they’re not going to because they don’t want to be sub-par, so . . . I try to find a different way in theory.

It’s better than total RNG drop and nothing else. No. Let’s do that never again. Ever.

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.)

WvW everyone is already on par. They all die the same to well-played rogues

Ascended gear still makes every thing better.

You know, I’m going to quote you out of context on that for months now

By the way? Exotic weapon or Ascended weapon, still lose to excellent thieves and warriors. I don’t think it really matters what they were wearing when I spend almost all my time unable to see my target, or laying on the ground from knockdown / launches.

Kevan.8912:

vincecontix.1264:

Belenwyn.8674:

The infusions are the risk we cannot judge at the moment. Will Arenanet continue the vertical progression via infusions? What will be the “high level” infusions that were mentioned by Linsay Murdock in the blog post dealing fractals and ascended items?

If we see a vertical progression via infusions beyond AR then ascended items will be highly demanded for several aspects of the game.

We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

it s just the beginning of the treadmill.
and i think everyone of us knows it

You can’t know it, because it hasn’t happened yet. You merely fear it is so, and what’s more if it never happens it won’t be because they didn’t intend for it. It’ll be because “we complained so much they decided to reverse course”.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

So what you’re saying is that a hard working, business owning, entrepreneurial spirit like Evon is evil because he’s successful? Thanks to Evon, those “illicit Black Lion taxes” help regulate the value of Tyria’s currency, so as we don’t end up with inflation like another popular game.

I’m still not sure why people support a person who spends all day tinkering with Fractals, while the threat of Scarlet is still around. At least Mister E Evon and “Jory” are around to help protect Lion’s Arch, since a certain someone else has been neglecting her job as a Lionguard.

No I’m saying Evon is evil because he’s a charr. Try to keep up The rest just cements it down for me.

Bagel.4598:

Putting upgrade extractors in the gemstone, I don’t care if you can convert gold to gems, is a straight up kitten move.
Another one of those things they did right in GW1 but failed to carry over, expert salvage kits.

I wouldn’t know, most of my Black Lion Salvage Kits I get for free doing my Dailies. Or from chests by getting key drops.

I think you might mean “Perfect Salvage Kits” though, the ones you spent Skill Points to buy with some materials off EOTN consumable crafters? I used to love those things, made switching my runes out painless.

Kevan.8912:

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.

. . . yeah, no.

It’s not that things are okay as they are. I’m not entirely happy with it either. On the other hand, I am free to stop playing at any time without paying another dollar (much as you have) if I decide I don’t have time for it, or I just don’t like something.

Frankly, I’ve done that a couple times. I’ll probably put the game down again at some point in the near future, knowing my life, and I won’t feel ANet did something wrong or betrayed my trust. I don’t have an incredible personal attachment to this game or the company.

I like it, and I’m happy to play it. It’s a good game and I have a blast when I have a few hours and a stable internet connection. How we get from there to “religion” . . . well, you’ll explain it to me, I’m sure.

Here’s the thing. It is absolutely fine to dislike some features and just skip them if you don’t like them. I don’t do sPvP. At all. The difference between you and I is simple – I don’t run around the forums saying sPvP needs to go every time someone brings it up.

I keep it very, very simple. If I don’t want to do something in the game, or I find it boring? I don’t do it. And I tell people if they don’t like doing something in the game, feel free to not do it. it’s the same with Ascended gear, ever since November 2012 when it was introduced. It’s unnecessary, it’s a potential grind with no real impact on your performance, and it’s almost a complete waste of your time.

(Unless, of course, you’re out of other things to do. There’s that. Also it’s “potential grind” because some people can get lucky enough to have it drop and circumvent the whole boring slog.)

Don’t like it, don’t do it. Don’t want to play anymore and feel there’s nothing good for you left here? You probably could find better things to do than just messing with people.

Kevan.8912:

just a word…no. more money..more tokens…just more grind. definitely no.

Didn’t say anything about more grind, just sending it off differently. If you want to. I mean, really I’d just advocate people not bothering. But they’re not going to because they don’t want to be sub-par, so . . . I try to find a different way in theory.

It’s better than total RNG drop and nothing else. No. Let’s do that never again. Ever.

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.)

WvW everyone is already on par. They all die the same to well-played rogues

Kevan.8912:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

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

and why ? because of the authority of anet?

Because it’s easier to just enjoy a game for what it is rather than focusing on what you don’t have? That’s a good reason, I’d say.

But hey, it’s not my problem until you tell me I’m an idiot for not chasing gear which doesn’t really DO much for me Or that it’s my fault for it existing.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Teege.4623:

Just say NO to carrot chasing!

Well, I don’t mind a good carrot chase… but I prefer them to be reasonable, and there are much better options than climbing stats in my opinion. We all need things to work towards…

Yes, like the carrot being Scarlet and the goal line being the Ring of Fire where we can pitch her in with no escape.

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.

Kevan.8912:

“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.

It’s totally skippable. I skipped the weapon grind entirely until WvW dropped on in my lap on a bonus chest. Didn’t hurt me any I was missing one, and if I’d never gotten to craft it or as a drop I wouldn’t have cared. Ditto for Legendary items because I despise the skins for the weapon types I’d use.

Seriously. There isn’t anything PvE side, beyond Fractals 10+, which is suddenly not viable for you to do because you don’t have Ascended. PvP it doesn’t matter since the gear is all normalized. WvW it doesn’t matter because permastealthed thieves still will kill you.

It should be said before people explode too much:

This is a tongue in cheek thread. Don’t take it too seriously.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

chuckle

Have you seen AR’s standing for WvW? Not to mention, when I was in there last week I got my kitten chewed because (as someone so politely put it) I “suck and should get the kitten out of their game mode.” No thanks, if I want to get kittened at… I’ll just go visit family.

Sorry, SBI player here (and been there since launch) so I still see WvW as a viable way to earn stuff. I admit to a myopia on how easy other servers might be getting stuff. (And yes, that includes the Tier 1s also, because I hear their fights are less profitable but more technically pleasing.)

More than just fractals runners desire the new tier at this point. I would prefer ascended be available through at least all the same means as exotics, just more expensive so that it meets anets ‘desire’ for a longer acquisition time, while still giving the gear grinders a carrot to chase. Keep it account bound, so it can’t be sold on the auction house, and anyone should still be able to acquire it just through whatever their ‘normal’ play style is, with enough time of course.

Like I suggested:

Primary method: Fractals. Make it easiest to acquire through this method but still requiring some dedication.

Secondary method: Crafting. Make it easier to get materials through Laurel exchange or Living Story efforts, and the people who spent time leveling their crafting aren’t left out.

Longest method: Laurels or Token Exchanges. Flat transfer of, say, 25-35 Laurels for each piece but you don’t need to do crafting for anything or set foot in Fractals if you don’t want to. If you WvW heavily, a stack of Badges can substitute for 5-15 Laurels. Now you don’t have to scrounge crafting materials, you just . . . you know, play the game.

Honestly, if we’re going to add a new tier, let’s add it DOWNwards. You know, broken gear which is richer in basic salvage material (like cloth bits) but sells like crap.

Leo Paul.1659:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Leo Paul.1659:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Leo Paul.1659:

Your argument relies heavily on a vague definition of a grind. Whether one enjoys it or not is irrelevant, it’s simply doing repetitive tasks for new gear, which at this point (after doing it for a while), is what the OP is tired of. Please note that we are talking about ascended, your attempt at faulty generalization is impertinent to the topic.

A momentary caution. Grind is a vaguely defined term and usually is subjective to the person at hand. What one person finds “grindy as all heck” someone else might actually enjoy, or at least not be bothered by.

Yes, we are talking about the OP’s threshold of grind. But if we’re going to quibble that someone’s definition of grind is vague when it is . . . in itself, vague and subjective, we should acknowledge that detail.

Just go back to the OP’s POV on what grinding is. The fact that grinding can be enjoyable [for other people] isn’t the problem per se but the fact that the acquisition of a new tier is requiring him to repeat content that he has done several times already and serves no bigger purpose. Providing a different definition of grinding doesn’t help in this case.

Because I do not want to even think of farming for different tiers of cloth from mobs for ascended armors. Because I no longer want to repeat content I’ve done a thousand times before for an insignificant reward.

Point accepted. I still stand by my original point here – the tier in and of itself isn’t worth the hassle and it’s better to accept it’s not worth chasing and live without.

Also, really, hoping ANet DOES add other methods of acquiring armor.

I agree. I have edited my post when you quoted me to include that I think they had the right idea when they introduced Guild Missions as a means to acquire ascended. It’s doing something new in order to get something new in return.

I also agree w/ lanfear as far as employing more (old) options/curencies such as karma in order to get ascended so that we can go back to “playing how we want” and relieve us from feeling forced to do things we do not particularly enjoy.

Here’s hoping this gets stuck into the CDI somewhere where they are actively looking so it can be seen and possibly discussed

Because, honestly, I think they’re WELL AWARE they screwed up with how they handled the integration of Ascended gear (think there’s dev posts saying so) . . .

mergi.1407:

Danicco.3568:

I’m with OP, I am farming for my Ascended Gear (even weapons since I was taking a break when it was released) but I’m not really “enjoying” the game as I used to do…

Now, I log on and think “what am I farming today?”
Before the break, it was “what do I want to do today?”

You know, the idea of those Accound Bound Ascended Materials from various parts of the game (Champions, WvW/Dungeons, Bosses) is a great idea, but the part to spend hundreds of gold to level your crafting isn’t…

They could’ve just added more of it, or something more "adventure-sque " to it, but it’s just more grind grind grind.
Although I came back recently AND I have some new friends starting out might give me the push to keep playing, but I can say the interest/fun factor of playing clearly isn’t the same…

I have to agree with you Danicco, this is exactly how I am feeling when I log in now.
If DE’s rewarded more than champ trains, and the LS was actually fun maybe I would feel differently, unfortunately the need for gold / mats has overtaken the fun factor.

Not even sure what game GW2 is now.

Well if DEs awarded more than champ trains . . . there wouldn’t be champ trains, there’d be event trains. Such as there was in Cursed Shore. Which sucked a lot of people out of places and made it sometimes difficult to get credit for an event before it was crushed into finished by a rush of players.

Really, pick your poison. Whatever you make “more rewarding” is going to draw the people just in it for the phat lewt and other aspects will get ignored for not being rewarding enough.

Leo Paul.1659:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Leo Paul.1659:

Your argument relies heavily on a vague definition of a grind. Whether one enjoys it or not is irrelevant, it’s simply doing repetitive tasks for new gear, which at this point (after doing it for a while), is what the OP is tired of. Please note that we are talking about ascended, your attempt at faulty generalization is impertinent to the topic.

A momentary caution. Grind is a vaguely defined term and usually is subjective to the person at hand. What one person finds “grindy as all heck” someone else might actually enjoy, or at least not be bothered by.

Yes, we are talking about the OP’s threshold of grind. But if we’re going to quibble that someone’s definition of grind is vague when it is . . . in itself, vague and subjective, we should acknowledge that detail.

Just go back to the OP’s POV on what grinding is. The fact that grinding can be enjoyable [for other people] isn’t the problem per se but the fact that the acquisition of a new tier is requiring him to repeat content that he has done several times already and serves no bigger purpose. Providing a different definition of grinding doesn’t help in this case.

Because I do not want to even think of farming for different tiers of cloth from mobs for ascended armors. Because I no longer want to repeat content I’ve done a thousand times before for an insignificant reward.

Point accepted. I still stand by my original point here – the tier in and of itself isn’t worth the hassle and it’s better to accept it’s not worth chasing and live without.

Also, really, hoping ANet DOES add other methods of acquiring armor.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I do see your point. Several people with many alts having complained about this, and I can see their perspective… to an extent. I still argue that having ascended gear is a choice that we make. There is nothing presently that requires it. Not WvW, not the current top level fractals (you can do those with just the trinkets that we’ve had for over a year now).

It’s the power boost. It’s a dinner bell for some people to rush and push to get to it. I’d go so far as to call it a conditioned response gamers in general have to seeing something which has slightly better stats which doesn’t require figuring out if there’s a downside to it.

Having 10 personal characters that I would like to gear, and then 10 more on my husband’s account, I can see their issue. Although, the only material I have any difficulty getting (personally) is dragonite ore, since I don’t do world bosses and Anvil Rock never seems to bother with the temples….

I’m gonna advocate WvW – keep lord chests have Dragonite in it. I also swear I got some from the Tricolor Chest but I could be wrong. Also a few world boss events aren’t terribly bad. Shadow Behemoth, for instance, or the Frost Maw chain. Of course, that’s just my choice of fun ones.

On the other hand, there will be those who thrive on such things, and won’t be able to understand the perspective you’re putting forth. To them, doing things repetatively in order to obtain the top tier is the ‘standard’ for such games, and they have issues accepting not having the grind.

I think a lot of the former play style complaints will go away, if Anet heeds our cries for more means of acquisition. As I said in the CDI, let dungeoners dungeon. Let fractal runners play fractals. Let WvWer’s play WvW. Let event farmers use Karma. Just make it expensive to be on par with the crafting costs. Then, yes, it still requires some grind, but it is more a ‘your choice’ grind.

I’d rather see Ascended’s primary acquisition method to be Fractals, secondary being crafting, and longest method being getting the items via “Participation Rewards” (that is, Laurels or token drops during/from Living Story parts). That way you don’t have to do Fractals if you want to craft and if you find the materials too cumbersome to acquire and don’t want to spend gold you can either get friendly with Fractals or just wait it out.

Still say it’s less important since Fractals are still the place it matters most.

Ethics.4519:

Also, if this is mainly for fractals, why isn’t fractals the only source to get it?

Because that would make too much sense. /sarcasm

It’s because all of Ascended got added in a . . . very sloppy and staggered manner which was almost always reactive to complaints of the times before each new piece/method was getting put into play. It was said Fractals being the only source was unfair, so Laurels and purchasing through them was added. Following the addition of Guild Missions there was still talk about how there was a narrow method of getting them, so let’s add the next slot added through Guild Missions.

Hey, WvW wants to get Ascended access, so let’s add in a way of exchanging Badges of Honor AND Laurels (at a lesser amount) for that!

Weapons? Well we wanted to overhaul World Boss loot and there’s been complaints Crafting was pointless so let’s add on some Crafting levels and make an ultra-rare drop of an Ascended Weapon Chest to let some lucky people bypass the crafting requirement. Hey, tie those into WvW world bonus chests too since we have Season 1 starting soon . . .

Like I’ve said before and stated earlier. The staggered release method kind of spread out the acquisition methods (in a way I think is highly reactionary and not guided by a plan) when it could/should have been leashed to Fractals. The one place where it matters if you have your Ascended Agony Resist above all others.

Leo Paul.1659:

Your argument relies heavily on a vague definition of a grind. Whether one enjoys it or not is irrelevant, it’s simply doing repetitive tasks for new gear, which at this point (after doing it for a while), is what the OP is tired of. Please note that we are talking about ascended, your attempt at faulty generalization is impertinent to the topic.

A momentary caution. Grind is a vaguely defined term and usually is subjective to the person at hand. What one person finds “grindy as all heck” someone else might actually enjoy, or at least not be bothered by.

Yes, we are talking about the OP’s threshold of grind. But if we’re going to quibble that someone’s definition of grind is vague when it is . . . in itself, vague and subjective, we should acknowledge that detail.

Evelynddra.9265:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Leo Paul.1659:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Reverence.6915:

Azure Prower.8701:

Reverence.6915:

Kevan.8912:

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.

I see your point and I do agree that it’s a bit ridiculous to expect casuals (whom ArenaNet’s target audience is) to get ascended gear and stay competitive in the game. It’s a lot easier to get BiS in this game than in any other MMO though, given the number of paths available to get the mats required to craft them. In saying that however, it still doesn’t constitute a grind in my opinion, as there is little repetitive activity required in achieving said gear.

We all hope that there will be alternate methods to obtaining the gear soon though.

Little repetitive activity? Pray tell how do you obtain different tiers of cloth with out either:
A) Grinding the mobs at the correct levels.
B) Grinding gold so you can buy it off the TP.
C) Opening your wallet to skip the grinding for gold process.

D) Play an alt through those levels without doing champ trains. It nets you quite a lot of those mats and is very fun if you just relax and take it easy. I took my level 20 necro to WvW and got around 50 wool scraps in around 2 hours from salvaging the loot. Running through maps doing exploration also netted me a lot of mats. Think outside the box.

E) Event “farm” with some guildies, make a game of it
F) Help leveling guildies clear a map
G) Help a guildie through some dungeons

There are things we do, just simply to do them, that don’t necessarily constitute “farming” and still net you the mats or gold you so desire.

Your suggestions are nothing more than sugarcoated ways of saying the OP’s points A) and B )

Yes and no. Most people define grind as spending time doing something they don’t want to do and aren’t enjoying having to do it. If you’re out helping a friend or guildie by choice because you want to, it’s not the same thing because you should be enjoying yourself.

By your general thought line, simply leveling a character (your first or otherwise), enjoyable or otherwise, falls under points A and B. At which point you may as well not bother playing the game at all because absolutely everything you do is ‘grind’.

That’s what I’ve been thinking whenever people complain about a grind. Honestly, it just sounds like they don’t want to do anything. I LIKE doing world bosses, map exploration, and dungeons. I get plenty of mats/gold from doing them. Enough that I’ve made my two weapons, ankitten ow finishing leveling armorsmith while crafting ascended materials. I get enough gold/mats to finish the timegated ones everyday. Just by playing things I like.

So I do have to ask, those who seem to have trouble getting mats, or think everything is a grind. What do you even like to do then?

Playing devil’s advocate again.

It’s not about doing them, it’s about the amount of doing them. It’s doing them past the point where it’s fun for them and more “gotta do it again or else…”

And it’s a case of a lot of people having different thresholds for how they feel about repeating things. For instance, I enjoy repeating certain events over again because they’re fun for me to do. And some other events I simply DO NOT enjoy and feel more like chores.

(Solo doing the water pump event chain, because nobody else does, for instance. JUST to shut up the NPCs complaining about the water.)

mesme.5028:

Don’t get me wrong i think gw2 is a fab game, i have a lot of fun, but most of what made gw was left in gw1, we got a new game with the defining features of gw1 removed.

I find it more desirable for a game to be less “exactly as the preceding game, just better” and more its own entity with the sole exception of updated re-releases. I want sequels to have their own identity as a game to play rather than just the same game.

I totally blame growing up with the Final Fantasy, King’s Quest and Dragon Warrior series for this.

phys.7689:

I dont think people would hate ascended as much if it had new content modes/adventures/goals tied to obtaining it.

If Ascended had been:

- Released as an entire set. (All at once even if it waited six months from Lost Shores.)
- Available primarily from running Fractals, or at a longer-term pace elsewhere. (For instance, Fractal-dropped tokens to be traded like Dungeon Token trading but for those who didn’t like Fractals enough to do them, the crafting-or-drop option.)
- Not a power increase but an addition of Infusion slots as opposed to Runes/Sigils/Crests to Exotic stats. (To undercut “power creep” arguments, and make it a pure sidestep only more useful for Fractals.)

I really doubt we would have seen as much a problem.

mesme.5028:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

mesme.5028:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dunno about you, but it’s not about grind for BiS items for me. It’s more about “how shall I disappoint my ranger forefathers today?”.

chuckle

I don’t think my ranger is so bad, personally. I don’t have any issues playing ‘normally’ (by my standards of play) with a ranger. Still, I’m aware most classes still need tweaking. We’ll see how the guys doing the balancing for GW2 manage as time progresses. I’m sure balancing the skills and classes is an intricate nightmare for them. So many possibilities and variations that have to be considered for the class itself, and then additionally all of the outside influences of the other classes. I don’t envy their job at all…

Oh don’t get me wrong, I love my ranger too. But my ranger hundreds of years ago was a lot better at this whole “keep your pet in check” thing? Not to mention pretty much managing a solo kill of the Great Destroyer . . . not that it was hard to do that. But that veers off topic quite a distance.

It was a nice feature of gw1 that would could make our own builds, many loved this and the sig of capture, its also relevant as in the manifesto we were told
“Everything you loved about gw1” sadly this is something else untrue in the manifesto.

They couldn’t have done “everything you loved about GW1” without just remaking GW1 with prettier graphics. Because there would definitely be something left out which people liked (even if it was Kormir).

Really, from a nitpicker’s standpoint, right about there you should have walked away and realized they were never going to follow every minor comment in there to the letter.

Really i did hope it would have been more like gw1, all we got is lore.

To be honest? I found most of the basic framework of GW2 is exactly as I hoped it would be. The minor details and annoyances are what got me down a bit until I decided that mattered less and it was more “will I have more fun with this than I did with another game I could have bought instead?” . . .

So far finding an enjoyable way of playing Minecraft has cost me more than what it cost me to play GW2 :P

Shakkara.2641:

Flytrap.8075:

Ascended items were a terrible idea and ANet should feel bad.

I mean, it completely flies in the face of their “we don’t make grindy games” mantra.

This.

I don’t mind ascended, as long as it would have exactly the same stats as Exotic. The benefits should have been:

1) Cosmetic
2) Infusionstuff
3) Convenience such as ability to change stat layout, like legendary

This way, you remove all the downsides that they have now, because you don’t feel you have to gear all your alts with them as you only need the ascended gear if you want to do high lvl fractals (most people only have one character for fractals, right?). You also don’t have to have multiple sets of ascended armor in case you want to switch your character’s build (most people have different sets for PVE and WVW, etc).

Here’s hoping they do something along these lines, anything to try to make Ascended more interesting than “and now you have Agony Resistance you won’t need for 99% of the game” and “some people might really like this aesthetic design”.

mesme.5028:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dunno about you, but it’s not about grind for BiS items for me. It’s more about “how shall I disappoint my ranger forefathers today?”.

chuckle

I don’t think my ranger is so bad, personally. I don’t have any issues playing ‘normally’ (by my standards of play) with a ranger. Still, I’m aware most classes still need tweaking. We’ll see how the guys doing the balancing for GW2 manage as time progresses. I’m sure balancing the skills and classes is an intricate nightmare for them. So many possibilities and variations that have to be considered for the class itself, and then additionally all of the outside influences of the other classes. I don’t envy their job at all…

Oh don’t get me wrong, I love my ranger too. But my ranger hundreds of years ago was a lot better at this whole “keep your pet in check” thing? Not to mention pretty much managing a solo kill of the Great Destroyer . . . not that it was hard to do that. But that veers off topic quite a distance.

It was a nice feature of gw1 that would could make our own builds, many loved this and the sig of capture, its also relevant as in the manifesto we were told
“Everything you loved about gw1” sadly this is something else untrue in the manifesto.

They couldn’t have done “everything you loved about GW1” without just remaking GW1 with prettier graphics. Because there would definitely be something left out which people liked (even if it was Kormir).

Really, from a nitpicker’s standpoint, right about there you should have walked away and realized they were never going to follow every minor comment in there to the letter.

OmaiGodman.2098:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

We kinda got to see Captain Evon Gnashblade didn’t mind playing dirty, or bribing, or leaving veiled implications of more underhanded stuff going on.

And this is the reason I didn’t vote for Gnashblade. He stinks of corruption and if I want to vote for someone like him I’ll wait for real-life elections.

I dunno, it’s a little odd to say it’s corrupt when really the whole of Lion’s Arch is entirely not-on-the-level in comparison to what we consider ‘normal’ in the real world. So I find it hard to condemn him simply on that.

I’d rather do it for what appeared to be total naked greed and “win at any cost” when placed against someone I knew would work for other people as opposed to lining their pockets with illicit Black Lion taxes.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I agree, the bottleneck is definitely the fine materials for me. I usually have lots of tier 1, 2, and 5, but 3, 4, and (of course) 6 are non-existent for me. I’ve had to buy some of all the tiers, but usually that’s ‘after the fact’ when I’m making a specific set for a leveling alt. I think I’ve spent… between 10 and 15 gold, and I now have all 6 professions over 400.

Now it’s on to the daily ori and ancient farm runs… they were the only things I couldn’t really stock up on with normal play (avoiding orr and all lol).

Psst, your quote is broken.

Orichalcum and Ancient Wood can be found in Frostgorge and Eternal Battleground, though only a few bits. I get mine mostly from salvaging everything not Masterwork. I sell that.

Reverence.6915:

Azure Prower.8701:

Reverence.6915:

Kevan.8912:

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.

I see your point and I do agree that it’s a bit ridiculous to expect casuals (whom ArenaNet’s target audience is) to get ascended gear and stay competitive in the game. It’s a lot easier to get BiS in this game than in any other MMO though, given the number of paths available to get the mats required to craft them. In saying that however, it still doesn’t constitute a grind in my opinion, as there is little repetitive activity required in achieving said gear.

We all hope that there will be alternate methods to obtaining the gear soon though.

Little repetitive activity? Pray tell how do you obtain different tiers of cloth with out either:
A) Grinding the mobs at the correct levels.
B) Grinding gold so you can buy it off the TP.
C) Opening your wallet to skip the grinding for gold process.

D) Play an alt through those levels without doing champ trains. It nets you quite a lot of those mats and is very fun if you just relax and take it easy. I took my level 20 necro to WvW and got around 50 wool scraps in around 2 hours from salvaging the loot. Running through maps doing exploration also netted me a lot of mats. Think outside the box.

It’s weird, I got roughly enough materials for my Leatherworker and Huntsman to reach 350 by doing Map Exploration. The last 50 or so points were mostly focused Daily runs – that is, seeing what daily is up and focusing my attention on things which would get me the needed parts.

But seriously, WvW can give you a lot of raw basic materials if you break down drops when you have big peak-time fights. (Assuming you’re, you know, not in last place getting spawn camped.) The bottleneck isn’t the cloth/leather . . . it’s the Fine materials.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dunno about you, but it’s not about grind for BiS items for me. It’s more about “how shall I disappoint my ranger forefathers today?”.

chuckle

I don’t think my ranger is so bad, personally. I don’t have any issues playing ‘normally’ (by my standards of play) with a ranger. Still, I’m aware most classes still need tweaking. We’ll see how the guys doing the balancing for GW2 manage as time progresses. I’m sure balancing the skills and classes is an intricate nightmare for them. So many possibilities and variations that have to be considered for the class itself, and then additionally all of the outside influences of the other classes. I don’t envy their job at all…

Oh don’t get me wrong, I love my ranger too. But my ranger hundreds of years ago was a lot better at this whole “keep your pet in check” thing? Not to mention pretty much managing a solo kill of the Great Destroyer . . . not that it was hard to do that. But that veers off topic quite a distance.

If there’s any part of the manifesto claims I would take issue with, it’s not the grind. It’s the lack of a decent answer to all those zones now where the DEs have entered “default failed” status. Ascalon Settlement is fallen, the dredge have a lot of territory near Sorrow’s Furnace, and Nageling has a giant problem almost all the time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

morrolan.9608:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The addition of a single tier does not a treadmill make. It does set the precedent for a treadmill; however, they have assured us that they do not want to fall into that trap.

Like they assured us that the game would be about horizontal progression not grind for BiS items and ‘fun’ being the overriding development priority…………

Dunno about you, but it’s not about grind for BiS items for me. It’s more about “how shall I disappoint my ranger forefathers today?”.

If you don’t care about progression, why comment in response to a post alluding to a change in how the game handles it?

Because there’s a distinct lack of “it doesn’t matter to me” in the whole conversation. Because there’s talk from people who like it, people who don’t like it, but there is almost always a lack of people going “this stuff isn’t important to me”.

Because, as I have continuously said, Ascended/Legendary is a completely unnecessary BiS jump as Exotics work fine for the content in the game right now. It’s balanced so that even Exotics are unnecessary; I did quite a bit in Rares and am still doing things in rares on an alt.

But this topic is primarily about one aspect of the Manifesto video. (Which proves to me that companies need to stop releasing things like that, and players need to stop trying to make it heretical to miss the mark.) And it’s me pointing out the grind everyone wants to go nuts over isn’t really necessary to do well in the game. And no, not even in WvW.

morrolan.9608:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The addition of a single tier does not a treadmill make. It does set the precedent for a treadmill; however, they have assured us that they do not want to fall into that trap.

Like they assured us that the game would be about horizontal progression not grind for BiS items and ‘fun’ being the overriding development priority…………

Dunno about you, but it’s not about grind for BiS items for me. It’s more about “how shall I disappoint my ranger forefathers today?”.

Traveller.7496:

Oh, and by the way, I’m not so much pro-Evon or anti-Kiel than anti-establishment. I like that when being presented with an obvious choice, the mob can be a bit anarcistic and surprise the powers that be by doing something unexpected. In MMO’s, it would mean Evon winning despite Kiel being the ANet choice or something like killing Lord British in UO.

The killing Lord British thing was done, actually.

But the worst thing you can do for an actual game is to let the certain players run the story. Another lesson D&D GMs learned

Edit: For clarification

mtpelion.4562:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Mmm, no, I think there is an issue about developers opening their mouths about their games before they actually face reality.

(Exhibit A: John Romero’s Daikatana.)

I think there is a point when developers start going from concept to alpha testing where they discover some things are present for a reason. Not dirty money-grubbing reasons either, but play experience reasons. (Not everything goes back to Gold for Gems for Cash, my friends.)

Some limits and methods exist for a reason. D&D figured this out ages ago, and so did M:TG.

You can’t blame them though. Developers come up with ideas that they get excited about and want to share the ideas with their fellow gamers (who get equally excited). As for things being present for a “reason”, believe me, that “reason” can always, ALWAYS, be boiled down to “the publisher says we can’t spend the <insert ‘time’ and/or ‘money’> to make our vision a reality, thus we must reuse <insert old method>”.

Disappointment is the natural child of artists having their creativity limited by stock values.

I do blame them, if we have to dispassionately discuss where the fault lies. It’s not always the suits/publishers who are the reason things don’t make it into games. Sometimes the developers just can’t make it work.

I don’t, however, mean them any actual enmity for this. Things don’t always make it from “I want” to “I have”.

And “that reason” argument doesn’t exactly cover how this sort of thing happens in indie games too, where some idea might be talked about and it doesn’t make it in as nicely as it might have been thought to. Or games which were ideas which just didn’t pan out or go anywhere.

Traveller.7496:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, he’s a charr, and thus has a future as a rug. Or so I hear.

Indeed, did anyone ever see any of the loot Kiel seized and said she was gonna return?

Why would any of us see it? We’re not the ones it got stolen from, and the focus wasn’t on that afterwards so much as it awkwardly shifted to Divinity’s Reach.

Yet the “unpleasant” loser warns us that he foresees trouble a-brewin’ for LA while the winner focuses on badmouthing him. Class act all the way!

Are . . . are we going to go back and forth on this? All right, let’s be fair and look at the two.

We kinda got to see Captain Evon Gnashblade didn’t mind playing dirty, or bribing, or leaving veiled implications of more underhanded stuff going on. Now, this is Lion’s Arch where this sort of thing is . . . actually about par for the course. We have a retelling of Evon’s arrival in Lion’s Arch on the heels of putting down an attempt by an Ash Legion warband to subvert the town. And there’s talk he’s helping a small group of people corner the Black Lion Trading Post supply on certain goods, but that’s as yet unproven even with asura economists investigating.

Captain Ellen Kiel was backed by Captain Magnus with an incredible amount of push, and hadn’t considered running until he set her up in a position to run. She was commander of the Lionguard during the Southsun debacle (both of them) and took the lead of the Lionguard investigation into the Aetherblade interruption of the Dragon Bash festival. She’s conducted herself more or less fairly, and places the ideal of justice over personal gain. She also has an incredibly immediate focus on problems and tends not to look too far beyond a current predicament, which can cause future problems to stack up. Rumor also has it she did nothing about the incursion at Claw Island, but that could just be unfounded.

(I gotta admit they have at least done a semi-good job on writing this election, even though I still think it was rigged from the start.)

If you could get the playerbase as involved as they were during that chapter, and into it so deep they kind of forgot the problems LA is full of complaints about now? Yeah, it was worth it. I doubt “rigged” so much as “they had a favored outcome”.

mtpelion.4562:

VOLKON.1290:

If you’re going to try and claim that the manifesto was somehow disregarded you should provide some sort of evidence backing it up. Arguing by assertion really isn’t good enough.

My argument is that a manifesto is not a contract, because it is written by the workers, not the suits who tell the workers what to do. Developers are like us, Publishers are not.

Ergo, when there is a disparity between the manifesto and reality, you can be sure that the Publishers in suits are behind it, not the Developers (who wrote it because they believe in it).

Mmm, no, I think there is an issue about developers opening their mouths about their games before they actually face reality.

(Exhibit A: John Romero’s Daikatana.)

I think there is a point when developers start going from concept to alpha testing where they discover some things are present for a reason. Not dirty money-grubbing reasons either, but play experience reasons. (Not everything goes back to Gold for Gems for Cash, my friends.)

Some limits and methods exist for a reason. D&D figured this out ages ago, and so did M:TG.

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?

Define your parameters and I’ll take you up on an experiment to see how long it would take me to get a character to 80 and Exotic. I suspect it’ll go easier than you think, because I was 80 on my main character and in Exotic before Lost Shores, primarily due to the Temple of Balthazar event I was lucky enough to finish AND have the Karma banked up (from never using it, ever) for the armor there.

Pariah.8506:

Once again, stop trying to make amends by providing false info.

It had grind issues in places, just not all around. Some of them were nicer than others. The Faction requirement to proceed (10k score just to proceed on either path) was one of the more memorable ones for me. For some others the Sunspear rank parts were considered bad.

(Note, I was somewhat less hampered as I was working Cartography tracks as I played and thus was often over the maximum Sunspear rank for a region. By the way, Cartography? Big grind and one of the more annoying ones.)

The thing is, a lot of that grind was in places where it didn’t matter to just play the game. It was unnecessary to jump in and do something in 90% of the world. Strangely enough, that also applies to Guild Wars 2, though the addition of several layers of extra stuff has obscured it a bit.

Also, and to the point at the top – some people just have grown bored with what’s out there. This is okay, and I don’t mind if they do. I love the game and I barely play it amongst other titles on my computer.

OmaiGodman.2098:

Traveller.7496:

OmaiGodman.2098:

Traveller.7496:

Man, check out Kiel’s nasty comments about Evon. First she send me a vitreous mail “thanking” me for voting for her and now this? I never met a more sore winner than her.

What nasty comments?

She was saying something in the effect that even though I didn’t vote for her, she’d work for what I want (and still gave me the wrong fractal) unlike that OTHER candidate.

I don’t really see what part of that comment could be considered “nasty” then. Isn’t that what all officials say after elections anyway?

It’s not only that, Evon is incredibly unpleasant as a loser. As a winner who knows how he’d have treated those voting the other way . . . considering his game was to seize the Aetherblade loot and finance his own campaign instead of what Kiel wanted (to figure out whose it was and return it).

Also, he’s a charr, and thus has a future as a rug. Or so I hear.

Kevan.8912:

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….)

I’m not sure if “mandatory” is the right word, but also the experience the quoted person is listing is kind of what like . . . eh, 80% of the PUGs I get into are like. (Usually the answer is “Hall of Monuments” from me though.)

For what it’s worth, the same was true in GW1 also. for every four really decent groups there was one which . . . was not.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

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”

“Wait, you’re a longbow ranger? Is that a bear . . . . /kick”

bravoart.5308:

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.

. . . there were weapons which dropped? I was under the impression you had to camp the trading post in order to get those.

laokoko.7403:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

laokoko.7403:

And if you only wvw, kittened to be you. Since you can’t make money from wvw.

I’m going to call your bluff. I’ve made money at WvW before, just not at off-peak hours. All you have to do is not spend it on Golems getting blown up in ill-advises uses and not bankrolling upgrades for places which aren’t getting defended.

Also, sell everything.

I barely WvW. Havn’t even played the game for a few month so I don’t know how much things changed.

I mean WvW make much less money than PvE. At least it is like that before.

Well, possibly. I mean in PvE there’s chances for those high-selling skins you can get. Collect a couple of those and you might just make bank. WvW doesn’t exactly have that option.

However, still possible to make plenty to get by on. Especially if you just sell crafting mats instead of hoarding them. (More than a few players still do.)