Guild Wars 2

Nuka Cola.8520:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Only the most blind fanboy would still defend Anet at this point.
The game is a mess on most fronts. From SPvP, WvW to the PvE side. Not properly tested updates and badly designed content is running rampant.

Anyone who starts a post like this doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. Essentially you’re saying if you don’t agree with me, you’re not only a fan boy, but blind.

No one is saying the game is perfect, but as far as MMOs go, for some of us, this is the best that’s out there. It may not make it a great game, but it does make it the only choice in MMO for some people.

its you who don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Every single day you come on here to prove hundreds of other players how ‘swell’ gw2 is doing when the large majority of this forum/in game agrees that gw2 is lacking and lacking on all fronts from pve to spvp or wvw. So keep telling yourself its the best game ever made all you want but its sadly not the case and with latest updates/patches its only getting worst. I also like how you call everyone troll/hater if they say something negative about gw2, typical forum fanboy.

After the last few posts from you, I can’t even imagine you’d try to call me out. I get it. You don’t like the game. That doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t like it. It doesn’t mean most people don’t like it.

I worked on a forum for quite a while…well over a year. And during that time, the negative posts came to outnumber the positive posts. So much so that the positive people left. Many of them are still in my guild, they just avoid the forums. Why? Because they enjoy the game but don’t need the drama.

Forums are here for people to come and vent on. Every MMORPG forum I’ve been on has an excess of negative posts, including WoW. The forums being negative means nothing.

I said in two years you’ll still be here saying this stuff, and the game will still be going along fine. Year one is coming up and if anything the game is picking up steam.

Your negativity doesn’t change reality. You are right. There are people who don’t like the direction this game has gone in. A lot of people.

There are also a lot of people still playing and enjoying the game.

One of us is saying that some people like it and some people don’t like it. One of us is saying almost no one likes it. Which of us is more plausible?

I think everyone can make that determination on their own.

I like the game, playing it every day and probably have x2 or more the amount of hours you have, so yes, i like the game ty come again. What i want is for it to get better so i have a good time in a month, 6 months or years. What you want is for gw2 to stay as is because everything is swell for your liking.

Yet you ignore the complaint posts I make, because they’re not your complaints. I wonder why that is. I wonder when I agree with someone’s complaint or I complain myself, you take no notice of it.

Could it be I want the game to be better also, but better for me might be completely different than better for you?

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behellagh.1468:

Viking Jorun.5413:

They already changed AoE circles from a thin red line that had what looked like heart monster lines to a super thick obnoxious red circle.

Turning a thin line of color A that can’t be distinguished from the background in color B by some into a thick line of color A on a background of color B doesn’t solve the problem does it? It’s not that the line was too thin to see.

It solved it for me, and I’m colorblind. Because they didn’t just change the thickness of it, they animated it too. It moves, like a small flame wall…and that I can see.

This one mystifies me too. They were originally account bound and Anet changed it. I have no idea why, but I don’t think it was a good move on their part.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Only the most blind fanboy would still defend Anet at this point.
The game is a mess on most fronts. From SPvP, WvW to the PvE side. Not properly tested updates and badly designed content is running rampant.

Anyone who starts a post like this doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. Essentially you’re saying if you don’t agree with me, you’re not only a fan boy, but blind.

No one is saying the game is perfect, but as far as MMOs go, for some of us, this is the best that’s out there. It may not make it a great game, but it does make it the only choice in MMO for some people.

its you who don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Every single day you come on here to prove hundreds of other players how ‘swell’ gw2 is doing when the large majority of this forum/in game agrees that gw2 is lacking and lacking on all fronts from pve to spvp or wvw. So keep telling yourself its the best game ever made all you want but its sadly not the case and with latest updates/patches its only getting worst. I also like how you call everyone troll/hater if they say something negative about gw2, typical forum fanboy.

After the last few posts from you, I can’t even imagine you’d try to call me out. I get it. You don’t like the game. That doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t like it. It doesn’t mean most people don’t like it.

I worked on a forum for quite a while…well over a year. And during that time, the negative posts came to outnumber the positive posts. So much so that the positive people left. Many of them are still in my guild, they just avoid the forums. Why? Because they enjoy the game but don’t need the drama.

Forums are here for people to come and vent on. Every MMORPG forum I’ve been on has an excess of negative posts, including WoW. The forums being negative means nothing.

I said in two years you’ll still be here saying this stuff, and the game will still be going along fine. Year one is coming up and if anything the game is picking up steam.

Your negativity doesn’t change reality. You are right. There are people who don’t like the direction this game has gone in. A lot of people.

There are also a lot of people still playing and enjoying the game.

One of us is saying that some people like it and some people don’t like it. One of us is saying almost no one likes it. Which of us is more plausible?

I think everyone can make that determination on their own.

Astralporing.1957:

knives.6345:

---

Quote is somewhat broke, so here’s my response.
You can’t please everyone. So, they’ll please the majority instead.

Then why they are aiming and tuning all their content thinking about the hardcore crowd that “can chew through all the content faster than anet can make it”? Everythink they do to slow down that group (which is a tiny, tiny minority) affect casuals (your majority) many times stronger.
They don’t please majority. They ignore that group completely. All they think about are Vayne’s – people with over 10k achievement points and 3k hours of logged time. The top 1%.

I don’t know about this. I have a casual guild with tons of people who can’t log in hardly ever. It doesn’t matter to them that there’s new content every 2 weeks…they haven’t finished the old content.

It’s like going on a walk in the woods. For them, there’s always something new and different to do…some of it fun for them, some not. But they’re never going to compete with achievement points, so they just play for fun.

And it’s true a couple of people walked from the game, but far more of them are hanging out, logging in for their 4-6 hours a week and having a good time when they do, even if they only do some dungeons or fractals in their in game time.

I think Anet is appealing to a range of people. Take the current update.

You have the ultra hard core players and the Queen’s Gaunlet. None of the casuals in my guild are even attempting it. But there are balloons and torch races for them. And for people who like to farm, there’s the Pavillion.

I don’t really think Anet is just catering to one crowd. That doesn’t mean they’re catering to you personally, but they are catering to more than one demographic. If they were only making it for me, they wouldn’t need the balloon DEs.

Vanthian.9267:

ArenaNet disappointed their original fan base on launch, so they left after about 3 months (a vast majority of the original top GvG guilds and players). Now they are left with whatever has decided to try the game instead of the hardcore following they once had. If they want that hardcore following again then they are going to have to step up and make some major overhauls to their systems/game mechanics to what the original manifesto stated/promised.

Just some quick suggestions:
-Get rid of all the cheesy builds (heavy passive builds, stealth, one shot, etc)
-heavily reduce the grind needed for the ascended items (it shouldn’t take more than 2 days to redo every piece of equipment with new stats) so you can actually try different builds. (in guild was 1 it took less than 30 minutes for a casual to completely redo their build)
-make achievements actual achievements. No more of this grind mentality. Stop with the kill 100 of this, now run over here and kill 100 more. Those are not achievements. (Kill the tier three boss in the gauntlet is a step in the right direction, as well as the gambit system. Those are achievements as it takes some slight skill to accomplish).

Anet disappointed a portion of their original fan base…maybe most, maybe not. Certainly they kitten ed off a vocal part of the forums. But how much of the fan base is that?

I’m not sure anyone is qualified to say. I do see a ton of people wandering around with the GWAMM title active.

I don’t think Anet will make open world bosses more challenging. The reason for this is the response of players.

The problem is lots of people say they want more challenge, but lots of people don’t actually want more challenge. Many do, but too many don’t. And the open world is for everyone.

You can have hard bosses on guild missions, or in instances, but not generally in the open world. It’s simply not fair to the bulk of the players. And even if it was, Anet isn’t going to want to discourage the bulk of players.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Its players that are disappointed by ArenaNet

Some certainly are. Some are not. Half the story is not the story.

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

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

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

Frrz.5086:

knives.6345:

Oh for crying out loud.

ANet can change the game’s direction as they see fit whether you like it or not. It’s their game. I am not telling people to stop suggesting or something, but clinging to an old design, really?

If the old design doesn’t match what majority of people like, what the current trend is or doesn’t promote the gameplay longetivity to the masses and doesn’t promote income – they will change it.

They are a company for god’s sake – they will want to earn as much as they can. They are not a charity to make people happy all the time.

Making their customers happy should be on their priority list. If the customers aren’t happy then they aren’t going to make ‘all the money they can.’

Vayne.8563:

3335 Hours over the past 9 months.

So many hours. I’ve only got ~300 over 11 months. How do you find the time to play?

On a side note, some simple math calculates that to 9-10 hours a day.[/quote]

Logged in is not necessarily playing. I’ve said this before and people love to misrepresent me. I care for a handicapped person full time. I’m often logged in but unable to be at the computer. I play in drips and drabs as I can through the day. That’s how I find so much time to “play”. Not that it’s anyone’s concern, but I figured it’s better than people thinking I actually play that much more than I do.

Age counts hours logged in, not hours active.

God Of Fissures.8627:

It is obvious that the developers didn’t stick to the things they stated in the Manifesto. If they did, the game would be good and people wouldn’t be quitting to go back to GW1 (like me).

People can leave a game even if the manifesto was stuck to. One thing has nothing to do with another. This is flawed logic.

What do Guild Wars 1 people miss the most. Skill depth and PvP modes, neither of which were mentioned in the manifesto.

Beyond that, there are so many people in game wearing GWAMM titles, I’m not sure the majority of Guild Wars 1 players aren’t still playing.

I am pretty sure the majority didn’t go back to Guild Wars 1 whether they’re playing or not.

The design didn’t change, because all the original stuff is still there. The problem is people consume content faster than any publisher can create it. So every publisher needs ways to slow things down. That’s what time gating is.

But if you really think the ticket system for the Queen’s Gauntlet is a grind, I don’t really know what to say.

Because I don’t see it that way, and I doubt I ever will.

BlueZone.4236:

Astralporing.1957:

MrRuin.9740:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Anet certainly never said that.

Icebreaker from the Hall of Monuments is what I’m currently using on my norn. Admittedly you have to have played a fair bit of Guild Wars 1 to get it.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

The personal story in Guild Wars 2 was known long before the manifesto.

Just to clarify the personal story for SWToR was announced in 2008. That’s almost a full year before the GW2 story was talked about, unless you have a source predating Oct 2008. If so please share it, I would like to add that in to a source list.

Anyone that thinks the manifesto was anything more than a hype engine for the game is sorely mistaken. After years of playing games we should all know what those are for. Sure Anet said things that weren’t true, if you don’t expect that from a company at this point you are going to have a rough time in life.

edit

Forgot to link my sources, sorry guys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Old_Republic
http://www.gamespot.com/star-wars-the-old-republic/videos/star-wars-the-old-republic-revealed-6199708/?tag=topslot%3Bwatchlink%3B1
http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wars-the-old-republic-revealed-6199726
*I can link a few more if needed.

Even if this is true (and I can’t say it is from sources you see here, because there were things mentioned that didn’t get as much press as a Star Wars article. Guild Wars isn’t as big a name as Star Wars), it doesn’t chance the fact that when the manifesto was released, no existing MMO had a personal story in it.

Even if SWToR had mentioned that they were including a personal story, there’s no reason in the world for Anet not to mention theirs, particularly in a market where to date, no released MMO had a personal story at all.

The problem with going back to find these quotes years later is that the companies with the most money get the most exposure. So if I heard about the personal story through channels that don’t really receive much attention, there’s no guarantee on the net that information about it would still be available years later.

Anet was toying with personal story type ideas already, all the way back in Nightfall. When you played Nightfall, you did different missions depending on which heroes you took. So if at a certain turning point in the game you took the Master of Whispers you’d do one mission and if you took Mhargrid the Sly you did another mission. Surely this is the forerunner of the personal story as we’ve seen it in Guild Wars 2. The choices you make affect your play through of the game.

And Nightfall certainly predated anything released about SWToR.

Gehenna.3625:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Anyone that thinks the manifesto was anything more than a hype engine for the game is sorely mistaken. After years of playing games we should all know what those are for. Sure Anet said things that weren’t true, if you don’t expect that from a company at this point you are going to have a rough time in life.

Well, I do agree with this. I think what happened is that the way Anet handled GW1 and such they had a bit more credibility than a lot of other game developers, including NcSoft who were only their publisher back then. They can now be classed with the rest of them. Guess I was stupid to think they were a bit more honest than other companies…oh well, live and learn.

NcSoft owned Anet outright before the release of Guild Wars 1. They were never only just their publisher. At least not since before Prophecies launched.

Astralporing.1957:

MrRuin.9740:

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

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

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

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

Except that it’s only your opinion that they’ve done a complete turn around. No one is saying that changes weren’t made. But the ascended gear isn’t a complete turnaround to everyone (and most of those who felt it was are long gone).

I’m sure the loyalists would have been very happy to have a situation where a significant portion of the staff was fire (a la SWToR and TSW), and having no one playing the game, because Anet refused to compromise.

Anet said loudly and clearly they were a company that iterated and iteration means change. I’m not sure why no one takes that into account. I at least knew the game would change and evolve. And while I’m not thrilled with the advent of ascended gear, it’s easy to see why Anet included it.

Essence Snow.3194:

Let’s take a second look….

people believe they can’t have misunderstood

I couldn’t have possibly misunderstood the manifesto, because I know what I’m talking about.

it’s just human nature.

You’re making the same error you claim others are making while claiming such. I might be wrong here (as nothing is 100%), but that sounds like cognitive bias more specifically self-serving bias and belief bias.

I’m not looking at the manifesto as a stand alone item, and those who claim to understand it are. I’m actually remembering how Anet clarified it in the weeks and months after.

It’s a very different situation. Just as people didn’t believe me when I said there was a clarification and what it said (and it was finally produced). The stuff I said that Colin and Eric said was said.

So you can either say they didn’t know what the manifesto was about, or you can say that my memory is so bad that I don’t remember it.

Those who try to interpret the manifesto as a stand alone document without looking at everything that was said after the fact about it directly are more likely to be in error, just logically.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

You have no evidence of most people believing anything.

Then I guess you can’t say…

Vayne.8563:

Most people are playing the game and having fun.

…Since you have no evidence of most people doing anything.

I can say most people are playing the game and having fun. The reason for this is because of the small percentage of any population that post to the forums. I think it’s pretty well known that forums for MMORPGs tend toward negativity, no matter how popular a game is. Because if you’re happy in the game, you have less reason to be on the forums, or at least post.

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

MrRuin.9740:

Why are you clinging to this manifesto like its the final word on this game, forever? Let it go.
Yes, you are free to express displeasure and want changes to how you see fit. Can there not be a discussion about the current state of the game without this manifesto being whipped out like its black and white fact?
You can’t hold them to this because it means different things to different people. As evidenced by this thread and others, grind means different things to different people. To some, the almighty manifesto is holding true, to others it is not.
Nevermind the fact that things change. It’ll be 5 years from now and Anet will change something else and someone will whip out this manifesto as some kind of ‘evidence’ they’re doing it wrong.

No one wants to believe they misunderstood something. They’d rather blame someone else. It’s just human nature.

I couldn’t have possibly misunderstood the manifesto, because I know what I’m talking about. And as long as people believe they can’t have misunderstood it, even though Anet spent a whole lot of time after explaining it, then they’ll just continue to say things like Anet lied to them.

Again, it’s just human nature.

LoL…this one is good! Just quoting it b4 it gets edited…gold Jerry GOLD!

Edited by who? I have no intention of editing it.

Edit: In case you didn’t realize it, the line about not misunderstanding the manifesto was my imitation of the public at large. The reason why I believe I know what the manifesto means is because Anet explained it and I listened to the explanation.

Even I’m not happy with the way Anet handles precusors (and I both have a precusor and I’m a rabid fan boi…ask anyone lol).

It’s too random, too hard, too annoying. It’s not legendary. It’s luck. And yes you can farm gold and buy one, but that’s not particularly legendary either.

I think the way legendary weapons are acquired is one of the big problems with the game as it stands.

MrRuin.9740:

Why are you clinging to this manifesto like its the final word on this game, forever? Let it go.
Yes, you are free to express displeasure and want changes to how you see fit. Can there not be a discussion about the current state of the game without this manifesto being whipped out like its black and white fact?
You can’t hold them to this because it means different things to different people. As evidenced by this thread and others, grind means different things to different people. To some, the almighty manifesto is holding true, to others it is not.
Nevermind the fact that things change. It’ll be 5 years from now and Anet will change something else and someone will whip out this manifesto as some kind of ‘evidence’ they’re doing it wrong.

No one wants to believe they misunderstood something. They’d rather blame someone else. It’s just human nature.

I couldn’t have possibly misunderstood the manifesto, because I know what I’m talking about. And as long as people believe they can’t have misunderstood it, even though Anet spent a whole lot of time after explaining it, then they’ll just continue to say things like Anet lied to them.

Again, it’s just human nature.

Erasculio.2914:

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

You can count most the posters in this thread as part of that flood, not just him.

Yep. I think most people have realized that Vayne’s two points are wrong:

1. In the Manifesto, ArenaNet was talking about all grind, not just level grind. We have proved that already.

2. GW2 is rather grindy now. This one is easy to prove as well.

With those points having been stated and not replied to with convincing evidence, all that is left is repeating the same points over and over. Which is, too, rather grindy.

Most people are playing the game and having fun. Most people on the forums are here to complain. Typical forum. You have no evidence of most people believing anything.

And Guild Wars 2 is rather grindy now if you play it that way. If you don’t play it that way, it’s not. It’s a choice.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

You can count most the posters in this thread as part of that flood, not just him. Debating with you is grindy and not fun at all so most simply stop doing so as it is not worth their time, which = less posters.

Not trying to be mean, just telling you why things are the way they are using generalizations (since you like them).

+ Over 9000.

My grandmother had a saying “Never try to teach a pig to whistle. It only frustrates you, and annoys the pig”.

(please note, that is a common rural saying. No one is calling anyone a pig, or actually teaching whistling)

Pretty rude anyway, since everyone knows who you’re talking about. But that’s okay. I don’t really mind.

I have plenty of support on these forums.

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

You can count most the posters in this thread as part of that flood, not just him. Debating with you is grindy and not fun at all so most simply stop doing so as it is not worth their time, which = less posters.

Not trying to be mean, just telling you why things are the way they are using generalizations (since you like them).

Believe me, other people would have corrected me if they thought I was wrong. It was happening all thread, but not on that topic.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

snip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I’m not grinding. You may be, but I suggest that’s not anyone’s problem but yours. You seem to be the main voice on this issue.

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

I have a guild with an Australian presence…but it’s not an Australian guild. We’re mostly focused on PvE though, not PvP or WvW. Which means you can play with us no matter which server you’re on (except for WvW). The guild is on Tarnished Coast.

It’s a casual guild, that just plays for the fun of things. Inclusive rather than exclusive.

At any rate, welcome to the game mate. I’m down in Tassie.

Gehenna.3625:

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

snip

Having said that, it probably is he first place where problems come to light. So it can be a good starting point for investigating issues.

As for karma, there is a reason why karma grinding exists. The game doesn’t reward karma equally for different activities. People will find out what the easiest way is to get the most karma in the shortest possible time and then start farming or grinding karma there over and over and over….Why? Because of the immense karma requirement for certain items. Karma gear itself (exotic from the temples) is not bad at all. In fact I just turned 80 yesterday and had 252500 karma, which was just enough to buy the whole set the day I turned 80. Well I see there are backs to get there too now so that’s another 42k but that won’t take too long.

I am not sure what people need all that karma for these days but I guess some things still take a lot of karma.

For me, the problem is this. Once you are level 80 and you set a goal and require x amount of something for it, you want to get it sooner rather than later. At least a lot of people do. So you look at what you need to do to get to that amount at a good pace. If you wanted a million karma for a legendary, you will want to get that together asap, because it’s just a small part of the total. And so you start doing specific things only because otherwise the process is too long. So then you grind karma, then another item or combine things to be more efficient etc. Goal oriented people don’t just play for months and months to suddenly realise they are close to reaching their goal of getting a legendary weapon.

So, since rewards are better in a couple of places, people will gravitate towards them because they have that goal they want to reach. Then to make legendaries tradeable/sellable cheapens the effort in my view. Should’ve been account bound at the least. It’s when you decide that you don’t want a legendary (also because the skins so far are dreadful), that suddenly level 80 leaves a void. What to do then? You got exotic armour and weapons, ascended trinkets are done with dailies and you only need infusions if you want to go grind the tetris dungeon.

I’ve seen more people who (I think wisely but to each their own) avoided fotm and grinding for a legendary. It’s two small parts of the game and yet they seem to constitute GW2’s endgame….meaning stuff to do at 80 that you couldn’t do before.

So if you ignore those two small elements of the game, it’s really just repetition of the same old stuff you’ve already done. That’s what makes GW2 a casual game for me even though I had hoped at one time to make it my main game.

See, this post shows the difference between how I play and how other people play. And I’m not in any way trying to say anyone’s way of playing is invalid, so much as Anet’s thought process in designing the game wasn’t the grinding mentality.

I wanted a legendary weapon. Not to be uber cool, I barely ever use it, but to get that blank icon off my load in screen. I was lucky enough to get a precusor drop (but the second legendary I’m going for is an under water weapon).

However, I’m in no rush at all to get this stuff. I don’t want to farm, or do anything I don’t find fun. So I run around Orr for a while, when I feel like it, go to Southsun for the event, and I save the stuff I’ll eventually need. Then, when I have enough, I’ll probably have enough gold to buy the rest from the marketplace. So what if it takes six months? A year? I don’t need it to play the game. It’s not that important to me.

The grinding mentality is just that. It’s the thought process that says I want to have stuff fast. And if you have that mentality, you’ll find grind in any game…but I’m not sure most people have that mentality (though undeniably some do).

You’ll see people on these forums claiming they’re grinding and you’ll see people on these forums saying there’s no grind. The grind isn’t required by the game. The grind is part of the state of mind that says I need this thing ASAP. As long as that mentality exists, some people will grind.

But it’s unlike other MMOs because you don’t need to get that stuff. You don’t even need exotic armor. You can play the entire game in rares. That’s the truth of it.

Anet really believe if they made a fun game, people would play for fun. Anet was probably wrong.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

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

Too bad the living story events like the gauntlet isn’t “normal stuff”. Oh wait, it is.
What I’m doing is grinding to get to the fun stuff. That stuff is currently the gauntlet.

snip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that I have to check out. Good catch!

Nuka Cola.8520:

all legendary weapons are garbage and are only here to give you a fake impression thakittens gw2’s end game

I don’t know. I rather like the Predator and I’m working on Kraitkin right now. It has eels! EELS!

(Eels are cool. lol)

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long load times are due to the popularity of the patch. When I go to other destinations in the world besides LA or DR, my load time is about what you used to be.

Redfeather.6401:

Yeah it’s the difference between playing with content, and playing through content. However, the game actively commits to rewarding consumption over creativity. A mind-boggling direction IMO.

Welll sure, because only a percentage of players play the game. Most just use the game to get their rewards. And since play is its own reward, the in game rewards have to exist for the majority.

I’m saddened that it is the majority, but I’m not surprised. I blame WoW. lol

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have 19 characters…it would be hard to make them all unique as far as profession goes.

For me, the characters have some life/will of their own…and they have ways to play. For example, one of my guardians is more of a solo sort of DPS guy that doesn’t really play the support role at all. My human guardian, however is all about support.

Not because I can’t change back and forth on one but because it would be out of character for my Norn to be that way. He’s more of an in your fact, let me hit you with the mace/hammer type of guy.

It’s just a different thought process to how most people play.

Serelisk.6573:

hurrdurr look at the screenshot

There was no screen shot when I posted.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

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

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

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

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

Getting tickets to do the gauntlet…not so much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t have received your birthday present yet, unless you’re talking about Guild Wars 1.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the proper quote from the video:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting tickets to do the gauntlet…not so much.

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

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

@Vayne. I will reply to this singular statement you made.

“They’re saying that this game is different and it is. I just don’t see how you can’t recognize it.” end quote.

That is my issue. I don’t see enough real difference. I’ve leveled 8 chars to 80, not in any hurry to do so, but mainly out of boredom once I hit 80. I find no challenge in playing a downleveled character. I found the rise to 80 to be too fast, too unavoidable, too streamlined. At 80, I found the game to be just as “grindy” as any other MMO I have ever played, in different ways, but still a “grind” by my definition of doing the same tasks, over and over, day after day. I have not found the “Living” stories to be any respite from that grind, and in fact found them to be just added “grind” on a timer.

I don’t see the Manifesto as anything but what it was, but, I did find it exciting at the time it was made, and a possible new direction for MMOs. What I found, personally, in game was anything but that.. New mechanics, new methods, but in the end, a faster rush to level 80 than ever before, and less to do there than ever before. That is my opinion. That is why I am only playing GW2 30 mins a day rather than 4-5 hours. That is why the funds I would have spent on Gems were spent, instead, on an expansion for another game that did guarantee fresh, new overland content that would not be exhausted in a month’s time.

You cannot force me to see, interpret, experience what you do. My perception of how much they succeeded in matching game to manifesto “spirit” is dramatically opposed to yours, and will not change given the current direction of the game.

I am not saying ANET failed. I will say, they are failing for me. Not much you can say, define, link, no semantics will change that. That is the bottom line. Unfortunate, because I do love the Art, the world, and my Norn.

Yes, Anet failed for you. 100% true. Because you came to this game looking for something it’s not. You want some uber challenge at level 80 to keep you playing. You say things like there’s no reason to go back to early zones. And for you that’s true.

But this is where I feel the manifesto was talking to people like me. I do things for fun, not reward. I look and explore and always find new stuff in early zones. I turn off my map markers and try to complete zones that way. More typical old school RPG stuff.

I don’t care about a boss, or about loot. Well, that’s not 100% true. I don’t care enough about them. Sure I like getting loot, everyone does, but my game isn’t centered around loot. And Anet, in the manifesto, they didn’t talk about loot either. They talked about having fun things to do.

Now if you don’t find those things fun to do that’s fair enough…but it’s what the game is about. Fun things to do. Hence mini games. For a lot of people those are fun things to do. I think Anet was stunned by the percentage of people who play just for reward…because in Guild Wars 1 that was a vast minority. People played that game for years…I know I did. Five years. And I repeated a lot of stuff that would be in the equivalent of the open world. That’s what I wanted from this game. That’s what I got from this game.

Anet was tailored to people like me…and I believe we’re a bigger demographic than most people think we are. Clearly a lot of people play like me, because I’ve asked in the forums. I had a thread about it. We were the red-headed step children of MMOs. We didn’t care about another PvP arena or even a new dungeon. We only cared about the world.

And many of us, though we like the occasional challenge, don’t need to be constantly challenged. We’re a different demographic. In my opinion we’re the people the game was made for.

To some that makes me sound like a fan boy, because finally, some developers get what I wanted from an MMO. But I asked for these things long before the manifesto came out. Anet is just approaching the game from the point of view of people who play like me.

It’s why I feel like I “got” the manifesto and others may not have. I don’t think they’re on the same page. But the manifesto is true to me, because for the most part, Anet delivered what they said they would.

I think stuff like the leaderboards can destroy this game for some people. All of a sudden, everything is about getting that next achievement point, and for some people that might be fine, but for many, it’s just pressure.

I play games to relax. If I wanted to work, I’d still be writing.

Addy Bee.1746:

This is messed up. ArenaNet shouldn’t get a free pass on disrespecting a portion of their playerbase even if it is small.
I don’t even like Keg Brawl that much, but I know if ArenaNet took something out of the game that I enjoy without consulting or even explaining it, I’d be pretty kitten ed.

The problem is, for many of us, Keg Brawl was broken. Not the OP certainly, but I used to love Keg Brawl and due to the way the game was, I started to dislike it immensely. Sure the potential is there, but as it stood, Keg Brawl was an awful game.

Maybe, hopefully, Anet is working on some fixes for it, before bringing it into the rotation. That’s my hope, because the potential is there.

But taking it out of the game in it’s current form probably isn’t a bad idea, because they way it’s structured, it’s very very hard for new people to get into it (unlike most of the other minigame activities).

OP, the game isn’t even a year old yet…they’re still working on content. Furthermore, I believe the game released early, just like every other MMO I can think of. Too few features, not enough end game content, lots of bugs…all the signs are there. This game just now is getting to where it should be at the start.

This is true of most new MMOs. Most new MMOs need a year or two to become what they’re going to become and the stuff released during that time becomes the “backbone” of the game.

But I don’t think most people realize this and I don’t think most people are patient. Believe me when I tell you, what we’ve seen so far is just a setup for what’s to come later.

Nuka Cola.8520:

This is what i’ve been saying and your pics sums it up. Guess how next update will be? and the one after, can you guess it? I sure can… NEW important GEM STORE ITEMS!!!

You’ve been saying a lot of things that are just your opinion just as the OP’s opinion is his. There are a whole lot of people that really enjoy these updates.

Like the current update has more challenging content for people who want to try to beat the Queen’s Guantlet with gambits, easier content for the people who like the torch mini game or just dynamic events running around doing balloons, farming content, for people who like to zerg, achievements for those who like those…Anet has provided a range of activities.

The cash shop stuff this time around and last time too was meaningless and isnt’ required. Buy a pass to enter a convenience area, which drops in the game too. Big deal.

Maybe your point of view is jaded because you don’t like the game. I’ve been on overflow servers in Divinity’s Reach since this event started. I’ve not once gotten to my home server.

Someone obviously likes the game.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

@Vayne.
You wrote. “What he’s saying is that other games aren’t fun until you hit level cap. If you’ve been around other MMOs, you’ll find that everyone hates leveling, that they do it to get through it. They look for the fastest way to do it…because it’s not fun. All the cool fights are later in the game.”
end quote.

Absolutes? “everyone hates leveling”. No, not “everyone”. In fact, I can think of at least 4 games that allow you to turn off leveling exp in order to experience more low level content while it is still challenging. Personally, I have a level 43 character in Everquest2 that is 3 years old, simply because I chose to try and do all content in the game at the level intended on a single character, and there is a lot of it. I don’t play that character exclusively, but she has been level locked a huge majority of the time.

Not “all” of the “cool fights” are just at end game, in any game.

GW allows players to experience low level “cool stuff” by level adjustment. Other games allow players to do so by level locking. Everquest2 allows a player to do so by mentoring, or by using an NPC to set your level to a desired one.

When discussing opinion, stating an absolute is generally invalid.

Kind of like stating that your opinion of what someone meant is absolutely what that person meant, in the absence of clarification by that person.

“This is the song that never ends, and it goes on and on my friends”

Let’s not talk about absolutes. Let’s talk about generalities instead. Since I don’t really believe in absolute truths, and since I’m one of the guys who dislikes end game content in other games, I got what Anet was saying…the same thing they said about end game content.

This game doesn’t really change at max level like other games do. In other games you explore the world and then you raid or PvP. And I hated it. I didn’t enjoy that at all. I didn’t want to raid, and I didn’t want to PvP but in just about every game the open world was crap at max level. Most of it was locked out.

They’re saying that this game is different and it is. I just don’t see how you can’t recognize it.

There are tons of people like me who wish games were more centered on the open world and not dungeon instances. I’m not alone here. And that’s the demographic Anet was trying to reach with the manifesto.

The fun stuff can start early. I’ve heard a whole lot of people say the leveling experience in this game was more fun than the leveling experience in most MMOs. Not all people, but a whole lot of them.

And that’s what he’s talking about. Fun stuff to do right away. And some of that stuff is/was fun. But of course fun is a matter of opinion.

It’s still a very different experience leveling here than in most MMOs. And Anet made a five minute video, about 30 seconds of which was set aside to explain that. People can say anything they want, but 30 seconds to explain what I just did is tough. They did a pretty good job…at least I understood what was being said…and so did other people.

Unfortunately Colin used the word grind and the multiple definitions of that word set everyone’s mind in different directions.

ilr.9675:

Is this thread a joke? All I see is Vanye Vanye Vanye. No Dev clarification either.
At what point do they consider a poster guilty of Spamming and then lock a thread on those grounds too? Why have posting Standards at all if they’re not going to be enforced consistently?

Look at the top of this page for instance. …anyone else who was caught BACK TO BACK TO BACK “Chain” replying would be infracted for it.

I’m answering different people with different posts. It’s easier for me to organize that way. It’s less work. Since I do post a lot, and since it’s not against the rules, there’s no problem with it.

If it was against the rules I’d probably post less. But it’s not.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

Still has nothing to do with backpeddling.

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

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

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

But it still has zero to do with the manifesto.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the proper quote from the video:

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

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

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

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

Gehenna.3625:

GW2 is different in some ways and not so different in other ways.

Everybody will have their own interpretation of the Manifesto, as the terminology based in the Manefisto are things that are completely open to personal interpretation.

People can call other people ignorant but in the end it’s just a different opinion based on a different frame of reference.

Now I got myself caught into a big discussion and I do apologise for that. All I can say is that I’ve done my best to avoid replying to the other person involved since the mods rightfully took out the posts involved.

The bottom line for me is though that nobody can prove anything. There is no scientific fact or legal document to prove anybody right. We can only see that the Manifesto was worded in a way that brought out lots of emotion and sadly still does. It has been years and the opinions haven’t really changed and never will, because it’s everybody’s personal interpretation in the end. There is no proving wrong or right.

Some will say this game is a breath of fresh air and is exactly what it promised to be and others will see it’s the biggest lie a company ever made. Interestingly enough both can be right at the same time. Just not right for each other.

And it just shows how much it was open for interpretation, because years later it’s still being discussed and still not resolved.

My view is that there is nothing to resolve and everybody is right in his opinion about it and just cannot expect other people to look at it the same way. There is no evidence in this matter, just opinion.

So is this game grindy? For me yes, but more to the point of boredom than hard work and I will add that I don’t always see grind as bad. I’ve seen worse grind.
Is this game heroic? Not for me. Poor story telling, horrible voice acting…Not heroic for me.
Did this game take what I liked from GW1 and put it into a persistent world? Not for me.
Is the combat exciting? No, not for me. Too much dodge and auto attack. There are expections, just not enough. The depth that does exist in the combat system is basically optional.

So, for a casual game to play between other games or for just a little something different to do… sure I play this game from time to time.

Is this a game that will ever be my main game like GW1 was for me for 6 years? Obviously no.

See, that’s my opinion. That’s how I feel the Manifesto didn’t represent the atual game.

And you cannot disprove that I feel that way, cause it is just that: an opinion.

You’re right. We can’t prove anything.

But the manifesto wasn’t only clarified by one published clarification. It was talked about by Anet devs for quite a time after. The stuff I’m saying I didn’t pull out of the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet.

Colin did use the Shadow Behemoth as an example of fun things to do. Where is it? Why don’t I post it? Because I watched literally hundreds of videos and read hundreds of articles and you try finding one reference in one video at one convention two years later. It’s not worth my time. Either people believe me or they don’t.

They talked about what they meant about a lot of things. This isn’t something I’m just making up. I’m going to by Anet’s own explanation of what they meant.

Just as people forget that Eric Flannum said straight out there will be things to grind for for people who like that play style. Where did he say it? Was it in a Reddit AMA? Was it in a video interview from Gamescon? I don’t know…but I know he said it.

So I can’t provide quotes, because back then when I was watching, no one told me to index them. It doesn’t mean these things weren’t said.