Guild Wars 2

Grind is when progression ceases to be a rewarding experience and becomes a job.

I’ve dealt with all manner of time gates in my time playing MMOs and when a grind is implemented it’s a huge turn off but not just that it makes the company lose money because they lose huge groups of players when they do that. Every major AAA MMO that’s come out since 2011 has suddenly lost players directly after they implemented a grind of some kind. Every single one!

So when I see players on these forums trying to argue that there’s no grind here I have to point out not only the empty zones where it constantly asks you to be placed somewhere else in the game but also the amount of money they’ve lost in their last quarterly gains report. The evidence is there whether people like it or not, grind harms games, HoT is the chance to remedy that situation. Nogrind = moreplayers = moreprofit. All other statements about the issue are irrelevant. From a business standpoint to not remove the grind would mean the game would remain at mediocre sales because not fixing it would mean that even if they have great sales for the expansion post sales gains would dwindle again.

^^ This so much THIS!

Thanks for posting this. This pretty much destroys two arguments we keep hearing from the people who continue to support the grind for ascended in this game.

The first argument which is the most used, is there is no grind because you can get gold from farming mats. Farming doesn’t exist in this title, it hasn’t since the first day they added DR but trying to get these people who have rose tinted glasses on about it to see the truth of it just doesn’t seem to work because no matter how much evidence you present them it’s easier for them to believe the hype then to accept the truth.

The second one is, it hasn’t happened to me so therefore it doesn’t exist. The grind very much exists in this game. Some people and I’ll admit it’s few because that’s how their loot system works, do get drops worth getting when playing. However in order to maintain their TP centric economic model they have to nerf loot for everyone else which makes it extremely difficult to even farm for gold! Loot matters, rewards matter, and when people claim that everyone has equal chance they simply aren’t being honest with us or themselves.

Ascended is the worst grind I’ve seen in years it’s actually worse than the grind found in games like AA in which you have to build up points in your profession not to the level of 500 but to thousands!

Ascended made me quit the game as well as the problems with a lack of meaningful rewards for playing. People are complaining in the forums of the elephant in the room right now that garrisons are a grind however I can spend 5 days doing 1 daily quest to get 1 piece of gear, that doesn’t happen here in GW2 GW2 has a true grind when it comes to Ascended.

I’d like to point out that time gate doesn’t equal grind however an enormous amount of time getting the materials, then getting those materials refined, then getting those materials put together for parts, then getting those materials into a piece of gear = grind. There IS a difference and these people just don’t see it.

I agree OP I hope that the devs are listening to players like you who’ve spent the time examining in detail what’s required to accomplish what you need for gear progression and make important changes in HoT!

phys.7689:

eithinan.9841:

phys.7689:

as to the last part, i dont know why that would make you hate analogies,
Dont think for 1 second you can impact my life in any way, that didn’t make me hate analogies, it simply illustrated why I hate them on forums
i made an error in the description, it would be 2 levels(but only 1 level able to be gained), but the point really is just that when all of your progress points and growth is back loaded, you are almost guanteeing that the path will begin to feel grindy.

80 levels may feel fine, but spread the same 80 levels into fewer points of change/growth/reward and the process feels grindy.

Because it goes into some tangential discussion about a hypothetical situation no one cares about

just as an excerise, how i would design mjolinir?

id make you need
1 gift of ascalon
[Snip]

There is nothing in this game that meets the definition of grind better than the gifts from dungeons.

As to the rest of your thought experiment, interesting idea but there is something that doesn’t sit right with me.

analogies and hypotheticals are used to test and evaluate conceptual models, but if you dont like them, i will avoid using them when talking to you specifically(if i remember).
anyhow

dungeon tokens meets anets definition of grind, but actually their definition is pretty poor, it doesnt consider the magnitude of repetitions, and it would mean that as long as you have two methods of doing something, it can never be a grind.

That said, anet still has a way out in this case, as you can buy dungeon runs with gold. So i guess even dungeon tokens wouldnt be considered grind by anet, as it has at least two methods of aquisition.

But yeah, as i said, Anet says they want the game to be about the journey, and i think rewarding the journey is probably the best way to highlight that.

I agree their definition which the opposing arguments have been based on in this and other threads, is completely disregarding several factors that happen to make the grind worse in this game than others. For example, people keep arguing that you have a choice. Well I’m sorry but unless those who’ve argued choice have actually experienced the whole account lockout of loot or the DR bug that makes whole chests disappear or the mountains of skulls as rewards for every loot drop, there is no choice. People keep forgetting that not everyone has the same access to loot in this game. It’s not like any of the other games out there because they are using things like DR something that many companies did away with years ago because of these types of problems.

Those factors make the grind even worse and completely nullifies any of the arguments of choice and any of the arguments that Anet’s definition of grind matches their game experience and can therefore somehow be used as a picket sign for protests against those of us who prefer that content be content and not busy work, and those of us who prefer that no grind of any kind exist in the titles we enjoy.

eithinan.9841:

About the definition of what grind is. It was defined by anet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

In the context of gw2, this is the definition of grind. People who do not agree with that definition are wrong. Not because their opinion contradicts it but because they do not acknowledge that definition as being what the devs are working under.

To me “grind” is being required to do the same content(for example, instanced dungeons) for BIS items. Many other mmo’s have this kind of grind. The whole thing where you run a raid/dungeon and gather a piece of armor here or a weapon there from a certain boss only, so you can get all the gear to do the hard mode of that same raid/dungeon. That is locking content behind a grind. Or even worse, the whole xpac thing where other mmo’s jack the max level up and introduce a new line of gear you need to have to participate in the new content or areas. This is also always locked behind the same “repeat content” grind in those games.

Going out and playing this game and getting rewarded with items you can vendor or trade for what you need is great because GW2’s economy and primary currency(gold) are not in the toilet like a lot of those other repeatable content grind mmo’s. In Gw2 there are more rewarding play styles compared to others in gold terms, but in the end anything you choose to do advances you toward whatever goal a player has. If you want mjolnir you can go farm sparks, farm Dust Mites(grindy activity but not grind because you can also..) run COE for cores and lodestones, among other activities you can choose to do.

Absolutely false! You cannot sit there and tell everyone that they have the ability to farm for items in a game that has criminalized legit farmer players and brought back several terrible precedents in mmo history for the control of loot just to keep the TP centric nature of the game alive for their own gold farmer market. That simply won’t fly sorry.

Sitting there and telling everyone who disagrees that they are wrong simply because Anet’s personal definition trumps reality isn’t going to work either.

The grind exists here, it shouldn’t the original design boasted that it wouldn’t be here and adding an endless series of new grinds in no way enhances the gameplay.

Soooo many things wrong with this way of thinking. The grind doesn’t exist argument is pretty much just filled with anecdotal so-called evidence to the contrary of any argument that points out the facts. I think we need to stop giving these people a platform because it’s getting these threads in circles. Saying the grind doesn’t exist is just as false a statement as saying that everyone can farm for mats!

To those who keep using that falsehood, DR, Loot nerfs and double RNG bags would like to have a word with you about how wonderful the farming experience is in games with economies like this one has and I’m not even touching on the legendary process I’m simply making commentary on top tier gear which has yet to be restricted to being useful solely for fractals which was what it was originally intended for.

I think the OP is correct however it doesn’t matter if people find it grindy or not, it doesn’t matter if people say it’s optional or not it’s a grind. There is a clear definition for a grind outside of what the devs have said they feel is a grind or not and this game has that definition. Until that changes, until certain restrictions like DR and extreme RNG and the TPcentric nature of the game, and an actual function rewards system is in place and the lack of a use for Karma in ascended gear acquisition, grind is here to stay no one can deny that and as Picard said in the episode The Measure of a Man, ""Your honor, the courtroom is a crucible; in it, we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a purer product: the truth, for all time." That’s pretty much what we’ve already done in the first thread, all of these irrelevant arguments are done, they are finished, they’ve been disproven. We’re left with a pure product, the truth. GW2 has a grind.

It needs to go. simple, and they’ve got the funds and the ability to make it happen now, the ball is in their court when HoT is released, will this grind still exist or will it continue?

Serophous.9085:

tigirius.9014:

I agree we shouldn’t give them an excuse to close anything. Grind is still a grind. None of the arguments that are against it being called a grind are relevant. This game was not supposed to have it. It’s not healthy to have a grind and it needs to be removed from the title. I think now that they have plenty of money to work with, several things including a grind for ascended could easily be adjusted in no time prior to the launch of HoT and it would be an amazing gesture to the community on the part of Arenanet if they did do that. (much like the removal of the requirement of WvW from the world completion Achievement was received by those of us in the PVE community).

Grind whether people perceive it as optional or not is the mmo equivalent of adding shaky cam to a movie fight scene because the acting is so bad that the actors can’t carry out a believeable fight scene and the directors are trying to hide it. It’s not a valid substitute for content in any shape or form in any game genre and it shouldn’t allowed to continue. That’s the point people are missing.

I for one am not complaining about the grind because it’s simply a matter of my getting gear fast I’m complaining about it because it’s almost always used as a “busy work” alternative to try to tide the players over until the real content is released and it’s never ever a good thing for the games that suffer from the grind.

One person finds something in the game Grindy. A second person does not. Is there, or isnt there grind?

There is because in games in which there aren’t grinds no one talks about the game being grindy. I can list loads of games all of which have a perfectly free environment for economics and for gathering and some of which actually have pvp death penalties where you lose all of your stuff and competitive gathering and those games are not grinds because some draconian measures weren’t placed on loot and there are no limitations on what you can earn for your time in game and there are no limitations on the economies. ;D There is a difference.

gathering/kills aren’t competitive

rules regarding the gathering of nodes are great

the world is beautiful to experience down to the npcs and their scripting

Leveling is an even keel experience across all characters

ui elements that are QoL requirements in every MMO are for the most part present here (wardrobe wallet accountbank etc)

I agree we shouldn’t give them an excuse to close anything. Grind is still a grind. None of the arguments that are against it being called a grind are relevant. This game was not supposed to have it. It’s not healthy to have a grind and it needs to be removed from the title. I think now that they have plenty of money to work with, several things including a grind for ascended could easily be adjusted in no time prior to the launch of HoT and it would be an amazing gesture to the community on the part of Arenanet if they did do that. (much like the removal of the requirement of WvW from the world completion Achievement was received by those of us in the PVE community).

Grind whether people perceive it as optional or not is the mmo equivalent of adding shaky cam to a movie fight scene because the acting is so bad that the actors can’t carry out a believeable fight scene and the directors are trying to hide it. It’s not a valid substitute for content in any shape or form in any game genre and it shouldn’t allowed to continue. That’s the point people are missing.

I for one am not complaining about the grind because it’s simply a matter of my getting gear fast I’m complaining about it because it’s almost always used as a “busy work” alternative to try to tide the players over until the real content is released and it’s never ever a good thing for the games that suffer from the grind.

Seishiro.7468:

I actually have one cleric Guardian(I have 2 guards and wanted to try it out) and found one major problem with it. While beeing able to keep almost everyone alive in any kind of situation whatsoever, there are way to many scenarios where you need to kill something really quikly, and therefore need the dps rather then the heals(examples would be: having to kill flame legion assassins before they reach magg, killing bosses within their time limits, outdamaging the regeneration of some opponents).

There are just way to many situations where you have to kill something in a certain timelimit, thats the mainproblem I found while running a cleric build. the only time you can really get value out of a healbuild is when you are in a long fight where the opponent does lots of damage over time, because if the damage is to bursty and just downs people instantly, healing is just not valuable anymore But hey, maybe if we should really get 10 man raids in Hot, my Cleric-Guardian might get dungeonplaytime again

I found that I had to create a guardian in order to enjoy a healing role because it was the only one of the classes that seemed to have come close to having that role. Heals automatically with a trait, heals when you dodge, heals when you put down zones with certain weapons. And unlike the Engineer for example, you didn’t have to press 3 buttons for the big heals instead of just one like all of the other classes out there can do.

Yet isn’t it interesting how even with these options, it still didn’t scale properly as a healing spec. It didn’t didn’t get the full benefit of getting + healing across the board on every item I put on the character to boost this stat?! That’s part of the problem here. Certain classes get it extremely easy and there’s a problem with scaling. It needs a serious looking into.

Yet another reported Quatlity of Life improvement by another game developer that doesn’t have an Expansion coming out but has enough money to make these improvements.

Anet is getting more money to change up the game and improve it because of the expansion and how it works financially. I’d hate to see them getting showed up by another company for not fixing things like hobosacks.

That’s great that healing works so well in PVP however it doesn’t work that well in PVE which is the argument people are posting about specifically when we’ve spoken out against the Zerker meta and for trinity like controls for the battlefield it’s always been in favor of PVE changes not PVP.

I find it very telling that people keep posting about PVP as an argument that PVE is functioning fine and is diverse and that there doesn’t need to be a large effort on the part of Anet to both buff Healing and Conditions due to their inherent problems they face right now.

Simply not related sorry.

Even I know as a long time critic that it’s waaaaaay to early to make a comment on content yet.

Rebound.3409:

The hype kinda died in me after seeing the constant lack of meaningful new info. They only show the same things over and over again and evade every other question for ex “is it just a 1 map expansion?”…because after seeing how religiously they have evaded this instead talking almost exclusively about “but but..look at the gliders!”….. i tend to think it is.

For me right now, with what they’ve showed, it’s an overglorified feature patch and a “1 map” living story update. Not an expansion. They keep hyping up stuff (features) that honestly are important but are not what u think of when u think about a proper expansion, content wise.

I hope to god i am wrong. What they showed off so far is definitely NOT the work of an expansion “years in the making” like they stated.

Would be even more sad if the mighty beta is the exact same 15 min of gameplay showed at PAX.

I seem to be having the same troubles when it comes to the excitement surrounding this it seems the news on this is almost done by someone who suffers from bipolar disorder where it’s enormously excited one second and completely quiet and depressed the next.

Where are the beta announcements where are the videos. I’ve gone through the list they had on the news area where people pointed out all of the limited footage we’ve seen. Where is the HoT survival videos or the how to prepare for HoT videos?

This is what I mean by props btw, there’s some sortof like parasols in the background of this video that are close to what I mean by props when I’ve asked for props to be included with fishing. I think it would be awesome if they’d go all out with it complete with outfits etc.

I have to agree that confusion isn’t a problem and shouldn’t be ‘fixed’ at all! Particularly in PVE in which confusion often is the only thing helping certain classes with some of the changes coming down the line for combat with PVE.

Confusion is fine in PVE and shouldn’t be nerfed for the sake of PVP.

Would like a response. Please continue this thread so we can keep it on the main page, this is an absolute must for HoT release now that they have the money and resources to fix the hobosack problem!

Fishing is less about mechanics or crafting and more about appreciating the world and doing passive calming activities while enjoying the view at least for me.

I’ve been critical of the game I have and I admit that but there’s one thing that I’ve always said and that’s it’s a beautiful world to play in, non-combat activities like farming, housing, fishing allow you to stop and appreciate the world for more than 30 seconds just to get a clip for your youtube channel.

I’d also like to point out that every time this subject comes up it explodes on the front page. There’s alot of people who love this idea.

Many.8419:

Though it isnt announced as feature pack we’re getting camera and stability changes together with some not showed features soon. It shouldve been last tueasday but it was delayed due to some more testing.

I hope there are some more exciting new features added other than those announced because it’s always nice to have a large number of fixes in features.

McWolfy.5924:

Fishing in any game = fishing bots

Actually that’s false, been fishing for years in WoW never heard or seen a fishing bot once because of how they designed it.

That’s also a false argument against fishing, saying that anything shouldn’t be added to a game just because someone down the road might actually find a way to exploit it is like saying that nothing should ever be added because someone somewhere might exploit it. It’s not a strong argument sorry.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Sounds hectic, right? Well here’s the thing. We all know how condition warfare is botched in pve boss encounters, unless you’re in a small group that knows what it’s doing. And that’s a horse that’s been beaten to burgers now.

What has not been addressed as far as i know, and is a thorn in my side, is how direct damage gets all those % boosts not only via traits but also via boss mechanics. When you manage to knock wyvern out of air your damage triples. Wanna bet it’s just your direct damage that triples? I sincerely hope a-net won’t forget about condis and that gets 3x boost too.

Please don’t forget to include condi damage for any spikey damage opportunities when fighting the bosses

Oh and….kicks dead horse …fix that condi cap in pve boss encounters…

I’d like to add to this, add crits that actually matter on condi damage to PVE that should help the condi builds as well. It might have even helped in PVE open world boss fights had crits been a thing in the first place.

I think the implementation of a parachute might be in order for the purpose of falling and keeping the players from falling damage. It’s something I enjoy as an engineer in WoW. I have a parachute attached to my back so when I’m in a high area and need to drop down to a specific location I can.

I also have goblin gliders which I deploy while falling if I need something to take me to a more controlled landing.

If they attached a parachute to the jumping mechanic and gave us a keybinding for the parachute that might solve the problem.

I also see a problem with not catching at least 1 gust of air like the gliders in AA did (not multiple but just one would be nice) to be able to stay aloft at least a little longer you could keep it locked behind max glider mastery and keep it on a long cooldown which would prevent abusing it.

It would be an improvement over simply making it deploy when jumping.

It’s about time now I have a reason to finally complete map completion!

Lishtenbird.2814:

According to rumours about Chinese patch notes, falling damage and some shadowstep fails might get fixed with the next patch. Progress, hooray for progress!

That is progress! I hate walking downhill and then suddenly dying!

Actually I wouldn’t say 90% because there are large numbers of us who left this game as seen by their Q4 earnings report last year which was released just prior to their announcement of HoT.

If non-trinity was so awesomesauce why did all those people leave?

It’s been well established that they can add trinity elements without making the holy trinity a requirement.

HawkMeister.4758:

You people defending Living Story have bought the cool aid, plain and simple.

The Megaserver structure cunningly disguised how many people like me simple left the game for more interesting game play.

Bottom line is, the only thing this game has to show for after 3(?) years is two/threeish new maps, some ruins and 3 new fractals that the community had to fight tooth and claw to get added instead of outright deleted again like the rest of the content.

BY NOW we should already have the 2nd expansion, not waiting for the first probably till summer at the earliest.

I wish the guy luck but if he was the main inventor and driving force behind LS then good riddance.

I’m wondering the same….

What did he contribute specifically? Was he responsible for the ongoing nerfs to PVE loot in open world? Did he single-handedly setup the draconian DR system? Did he help bring back the Pay to Progress model in this game which influenced the rest of the MMO’s out there?

If so than he’s on the lowest of the low pedestals just like Ghostcrawler in my book because many of the things that he helped dupe the fans into believing were okay have done a great disservice to not just this game but almost all of the MMOs that have released since 2012.

If not then I wish him well.

Nope if engis can’t have it neither can Revs.

Shaogin.2679:

I wish people would ask more. Fishing is great.

I do too. It would be nice if we got props boats outfits nets and new cooking recipes etc.

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Gene Archer.8560:

Vayne.8563:

Anet absolute changed direction when they brought out ascended gear. 100% true. So?

So?

The fact they changed direction in the blink of an eye is the “So”!

They made this manifesto, made a kittening huge deal about it BY calling it a manifesto, and then they couldn’t even wait two kittening months before completely changing direction and leaving skid marks in the road while they were at, they turned so fast!

Vayne.8563:

Sometimes you have to change direction.

Sure. But maybe wait and see how that coat of paint looks dried before saying the wet application was a failure and dumping a different coat of paint on top of the still wet coat. Cause let me tell you, two wet coats of different colors creates a ton of issues down the road.

Much like what the snap decision implementation of Ascended did.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t mean you intended to mislead nor does it make you a liar.

But regardless of their intention, they still wound up misleading people because of it, and they have still failed to set things right to this day.

And I would argue it’s the failing to set it right again that creates the perception of lying.

Same applies to SAB, actually. But that’s a different topic, so I won’t harp on that past this.

Vayne.8563:

It’s entirely possible that Anet overreacted with the way ascended gear was introduced.

Entirely possible? No, no. They definitely overreacted and panicked. The haphazard implementation of Ascended is more than enough proof that they were just throwing darts blindly, hoping something would land even the tiniest inch close to the board.

Vayne.8563:

Anet has always had a tendency to over-react.

Blizzard suffers from that, too. It’s the reason their newest expansion is starting to catch really heavy flak from within the community.

ANet would do well not to make the same mistakes.

Vayne.8563:

Nightfall came out and they recorrrected again. I don’t know why anyone should be surprised.

They sure are dragging their kitten on re-correcting their overreaction with Ascended, seeing as it still remains crafting and RNG only.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it’s been a huge grind since they implemented it, it’s forced people of all walks to have to grind for mostly one material, it’s unevenly balanced, and it even requires players who are not normally crafters to now have to deal with the TP to get enough mats to do something they don’t like doing, it’s the crafting equivalent of forcing RPers or Casual players to dungeon. It’s wrong on all fronts and now that they have enough money coming in there’s no excuse not to fix it.

There are more ways to get ascended mats now than doing dungeons. In fact most people have too many ascended mats now. Some would say that is fixed.

Silk would like to have a word with you.

Gene Archer.8560:

Vayne.8563:

Anet absolute changed direction when they brought out ascended gear. 100% true. So?

So?

The fact they changed direction in the blink of an eye is the “So”!

They made this manifesto, made a kittening huge deal about it BY calling it a manifesto, and then they couldn’t even wait two kittening months before completely changing direction and leaving skid marks in the road while they were at, they turned so fast!

Vayne.8563:

Sometimes you have to change direction.

Sure. But maybe wait and see how that coat of paint looks dried before saying the wet application was a failure and dumping a different coat of paint on top of the still wet coat. Cause let me tell you, two wet coats of different colors creates a ton of issues down the road.

Much like what the snap decision implementation of Ascended did.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t mean you intended to mislead nor does it make you a liar.

But regardless of their intention, they still wound up misleading people because of it, and they have still failed to set things right to this day.

And I would argue it’s the failing to set it right again that creates the perception of lying.

Same applies to SAB, actually. But that’s a different topic, so I won’t harp on that past this.

Vayne.8563:

It’s entirely possible that Anet overreacted with the way ascended gear was introduced.

Entirely possible? No, no. They definitely overreacted and panicked. The haphazard implementation of Ascended is more than enough proof that they were just throwing darts blindly, hoping something would land even the tiniest inch close to the board.

Vayne.8563:

Anet has always had a tendency to over-react.

Blizzard suffers from that, too. It’s the reason their newest expansion is starting to catch really heavy flak from within the community.

ANet would do well not to make the same mistakes.

Vayne.8563:

Nightfall came out and they recorrrected again. I don’t know why anyone should be surprised.

They sure are dragging their kitten on re-correcting their overreaction with Ascended, seeing as it still remains crafting and RNG only.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it’s been a huge grind since they implemented it, it’s forced people of all walks to have to grind for mostly one material, it’s unevenly balanced, and it even requires players who are not normally crafters to now have to deal with the TP to get enough mats to do something they don’t like doing, it’s the crafting equivalent of forcing RPers or Casual players to dungeon. It’s wrong on all fronts and now that they have enough money coming in there’s no excuse not to fix it.

John Smith.4610:

Still catching up, but I wanted to stop to be clear. No to this. This doesn’t happen, it’s a cognitive bias. There’s virtually no DR active on any given day.

Please explain how DR doesn’t occur when loads of skulls start appearing from standard loot rolls in events and when something somewhere on server side is causing whole chests to not be visible anymore? If it’s not DR you’ve got a serious ongoing problem with the algorithm you’re using for the loot i’d say because it’s absolutely not in our heads when we can check and see this happening on a daily basis. There’s also the issue of unlucky accounts, in while whole accounts once skulls begin to drop and chests begin to disappear, are plagued with an ongoing lack of meaningful loot from events week after week. If that’s not DR then someone there needs to do something about the basic loot system because it’s not normal sorry.

It becomes a problem when people can’t farm for the most basic of items to get what they need to progress in anything including gearing or leveling crafting on these accounts.

I don’t know about the rest of you but when I look in my wallet after being paid and there’s no money there but it’s filled with lint I wouldn’t call that cognitive bias would you?

What disturbs me about this list is their reaction to some of the items on the list. Like Collin saying recently that Build Templates is a good idea (rather than a staple in modern MMO life much like wallets and cross character storage on the same account). It makes no sense really, and I question whether they are really gamers at this point because to say things like that really means that you’ve not played any modern MMO’s for years up to this point yourself.

Build Templates or multispec is absolutely a must in mmo’s with complex combat systems.

My personal set would be:

1. templates for both gear and traits
2. auto switching to templates when swimming
3. condition damage stacking per toon and crits
4. proper healing power scaling in PVE on all skills
5. non-RNG progression (also non TP methods of progression by getting materials for projects that require an enormous insane amount of grinding for gold and for materials)
6. a return to their original philosophy of how to get gear (Buy Ascended pieces from karma vendors, not talking about legendaries)
7. Absolute separate PVE and PVP skill balancing (Explosives for engineers would like to have a word for the people who keep spreading the falsehood that everything is fine in their balance and range of attacks in PVE and don’t get me started on mines!)
8. 100% AOE loot pickup with one click or autoloot on kill (which I enjoyed in LOTRO if Turbine can do it so can Anet)
9. restoring materials to karma vendors for commonly used items for crafting (instead of having to travel the world to buy these items to craft. Crafting centers exist for a reason in towns let’s use them properly please especially with Cooking!)
10. proper rewards for completing tasks in open world (instead of a few pieces of silver and a green item that gives us something we can turn in for copper. When I get gold for participating it should produce gold from the event I participated in)

Crovax.7854:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Devata.6589:

Rin.1046:

Aidenwolf.5964:

The grind is in making those ascended mats into armor. Low level mats are either bought at insane prices of grinding the kitten out low maps praying for bags to drop since gear drops won’t be map level but character level.

Here is how I think Anet looks at this:

You need mats? Go do what you want and earn the gold to buy them. Or make a new character (if you want to) and level them, gaining the mats as you go.

This may not be your ideal solution, but the fact is you CAN do want you want (PvP, WvW, dungeons, fractals, world bosses, dynamic events) and this WILL earn you gold with which to buy whatever mats you need (with the exception of ascended, which can be aquired from drops in many different areas of the game and doing many different activities). You are not restricted to low level zones and you do not NEED to grind those zones and pray for the bags. This is a limit you have imposed on yourself, not one Anet has imposed on you.

Ascended mat acquisition, in my opinion, needs to be improved. It is getting better though, so I am not worried about this too much.

snip.

Well reasoned. I definitely believe the game was rebuilt around the TP as it shares a UI with the gem store.

In my opinion it’s a shame they insist on their precious ‘economy’. Diablo 3 had the same problem until Blizzard wisened up and removed the AH completely, which in return made it possible to significatnly improve the rate at which highly sought after legendaries and other rare items dropped.
Now that game is more fun and rewarding than it could’ve ever been before the loot patch.
The things the TP in GW has brought us are:
- a lot of junk and vendor items
- reliance on gold for everything, making grinding the most optimal way to obtain ‘prestigious’ (I guess they were at least meant to be) skins.
- droprates and a rewardsystem that make it possible for account with over 3k hours to never have seen a precursor if not bought from the TP.
- very long stretches of gameplay between ‘meaningful’ drops i.e. high value items/skins.
- an overall unrewarding and boring experience that makes obtaining skins seem like a dayjob or a mortage which you chip away at bit by bit.

I guess those are all very subjective but it’s how I view the TP. Blizz proved they value fun more anything. Why can’t ANet?

I absolutely agree, Blizz also proved that the same type of economy that GW2 has right now just doesn’t work. 60% of their players left D3 because everything worth getting, required purchasing and required real money for thousands to reach max level gear.

The same thing is happening here but because not everyone has the same chances at getting the loot they need or the type of loot they need, we have people who keep insisting nothing like this is happening because they just happened to be on accounts that weren’t drastically affected negatively by systems like DR that prevent people from farming.

Really what they could do is change the requirement for ascended make the item a karma item that you need to get directly (without bags) from a vendor and poof this conversation would be over and people wouldn’t be worried about collecting thousands of silk.

If this were minecraft I’d be able to build a mountain and a castle in the sky with all of the skulls I’ve received from events in this game instead of the loot I deserve for participating and getting gold status (rather than gold coins) in events and that’s another thing!

If we got proper currency rewards from events this type of thing wouldn’t be a problem either instead of relying on the TP, like other MMO’s out there do. It’s like saying that because you’re not a broker who has insider trading, even though you are participating in the economy and work hard, that you don’t deserve to be rewarded for your time doing the same things other players are doing.

That’s basically what these people’s arguments are at this point.

No one’s asking for prices to drop, no one’s asking for things to be given to them freely, no one is saying that they should have things without playing the game, people are saying and rightly so that playing the game doesn’t give you the progression, playing the TP does and that’s never fun nor should it be necessary.

phys.7689:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Exactly. It’s like saying that we could always take a steam powered ferry in order to get to the other side of the US to have a meeting we’d get there of course and that technically is a choice but really would it let you do what you need to do? You’d never make it to the meetings you’d be going to. There’s a reason why planes were invented just as there’s a reason why multiple games once used the system that’s here in this game right now for progression for gear, but no longer do that because they learned from experience and they learned that it makes players stop playing en masse when these systems are in place! Several examples out there.

You wouldn’t use a fishing boat to get to a foreign country just to have a meeting and that’s analogous to the situation with gear.

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Bernie.8674:

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

You’re making a mistake here. What Colin said is that you shouldn’t have to grind for the best gear. Ascended weapons and armor are not a grind, by Anet’s definitions. They are a long term goal, but not as long term as Legendaries.

My eye sight isn’t what it once was either. I’ve left the part that completely contradicts what you just said bolded for your convenience.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Players choose to make getting the best gear fast, thus they create their own “grind”. Because the players are responsible for this, they have no rights to complain. It’s like me deciding to go for my PhD in Economics, then complaining to the university that my degree is a grind.

If you’re suggesting that the work required to obtain gear in a video game well should approximate the amount of work required to obtain a doctorate then I think you and I have completely different perspectives on what a game should and shouldn’t be.

I’d like to point out that when this game launched they specifically made Exotic easily obtainable because in their interviews they said that gear shouldn’t be used to keep players playing, that one of the goals of GW2 was to NOT have players coming back doing repeats of the same things over and over again in place of content. That’s exactly what’s happening now with Ascended so the grind involved in getting the material for ascended goes against their original design statements and thus a new definition of a grind is irrelevant under these circumstances.

Having to go to the TP for silk is not part of the original design philosophy when Exotics were obtainable by buying items with karma and you could gear including all necessary runes and sigils direct from vendors. They’ve also nerfed the ability to obtain materials from vendors with karma because people were then able to craft with very little grind which was far superior then having to turn to the silk trade in order to do anything meaningful with max gear and that’s the point of the thread really, that you have to buy silk now instead of using salvaging from karma vendors or buying silk directly or farming it for your own purposes. If there was an alternative to the TP and it’s prices this thread wouldn’t exist.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

Wanze.8410:

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

snip

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Not necessarily as the prices fluctuate. It might not be worth it if the linen costs are very low. However, if there was a way of getting silk by buying karma items from vendors that too would be far superior to the system we have now because then even with the salvage kits cost you’d have people who could actually get directly the kind of materials they need without the use of the TP which was a secondary problem people face with this game, the game is too TP centric.

The TP is a part of Tyria. It’s a system that helps facilitate trade between players. People only feel the game is TP centric because they feel Entitled to getting everything they want fast. That allows people to profit off of items from those who demand it here and now.

Using the TP is optional. You don’t need to get your Legendary within a day. You don’t need to get Silk from other players. Game mechanics allow people to target and farm any material they need, albeit at a cost. That cost can be either coin or Karma.

Silk is expensive because it’s needed. Demand > Supply. To break that down further, the Demand is modified by how quickly a player wants to gather the required sub-materials for crafting T7 mats. Anet did this on purpose. You may not agree with it, but that’s how it is, that any changes to this would break the market in ways that John wouldn’t want.

That’s a false premise designed to try to make people’s arguments invalid and it’s a logical fallacy. Sorry you’re going to have to do better than “people just want things instantly” as an argument against the draconian systems in place right now which historically have been proven to cause populations to drop significantly in these games and historically have been proven to be not as profitable as people might think! I have several examples all of which have had to drastically change the AH centric nature of their games in order to keep their populations as well as their profits high.

So until you can come up with another argument I suggest we keep on target as to why silk is not available from karma and the damage that TP centric progression does to the playerbase.

It’s also not a natural progression nothing is natural here in this title, so bringing nature into this is not relevant and it’s no more relevant than the notion that the TP is optional. For many an account (and yes whole accounts we’re talking about here) the TP is not optional at all because you can’t farm for the materials.

I was also not talking about legendaries I was talking about making ascended gear.

Wanze.8410:

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Not necessarily as the prices fluctuate. It might not be worth it if the linen costs are very low. However, if there was a way of getting silk by buying karma items from vendors that too would be far superior to the system we have now because then even with the salvage kits cost you’d have people who could actually get directly the kind of materials they need without the use of the TP which was a secondary problem people face with this game, the game is too TP centric.

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

Ithilwen.1529:

I disagree totally with the posters who claim this is about “pay to win.” My main Mesmer is in a full set of ascended armor. It took time and salvage but I’ve never ( that I recall ) bought gold.

Making Ascended gear is frustrating and time consuming. Just wait till you start on Legendary and have to grind out those Mystic Clovers, 2 at a time.

People like you often forget that the way their RNG system works in this game cuts several thousand people off from the type of loot needed to actually make any gold in the game. It prevents people from getting the currency they need to progress with their system that requires that you buy what you need from the TP when it doesn’t drop. It’s a terrible system and it’s further exacerbated by the use of DR a system that’s never done any player any good at any point in MMO history.

So while there are some few who have been able to get what they need to progress, there are many more who are not and that’s the issue here.

It’s not just RNG it’s RNG plus DR plus several anti-farming systems in place to prevent people from getting the materials they need themselves without the need for gold at all or the use of the TP and that’s central to the issue.

If for example, it wasn’t silk but some other form of cloth that was only available from Karma vendors, this situation would have never come up in conversation because that would have been superior to the system they have right now in that you would actually have to have played the game to get the karma you need, you would have to buy the items not from the TP but from vendors in towns, and there would be no worries over if Karma had dropped for you during your activities, and you wouldn’t have to worry about drops not occurring on your account at all because DR has cut you off from everything in game that is a reward.

That’s the issue I’m seeing with this situation, is it’s not so much that some people CAN get these with gold for the TP it’s that it’s designed in such a way that loot, DR, and the use of gold determines where you’re character can progress which are all dependent on RNG (when we ignore the purchase of gold direct from the gem store).

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

Ayrilana.1396:

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

Saying there’s a tier above exotics and saying you have to grind for it are completely different things. You don’t know. You’re assuming. You’re using the assumption to malign. It’s obvious to most people what you’re doing.

One could easily counter argument that you’re trying to defend ArenaNet while ignoring the evidence in front of you, and that it’s obvious to most people what you’re doing.

As an example, there is zero assumptions in saying that, by the time of release, ArenaNet knew very well that there was a huge grind in the game in order to get legendaries, at the same time they had at the front of their website the video in which they claimed they don’t want players to grind.

There is no way around it. It’s simply a fact – the Manifesto was something ArenaNet knew wasn’t true at the very same time they were using it as a marketing tool.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

Also the video. Pay attention to exactly what he says starting around the the 1:15 mark. Listen to everything that he says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY

Might I point out that even the most basic of activities, say collections for example, has turned into a grind as well because of the final pieces being locked behind RNG. It’s no different to me than say, open world LS supposedly being said that you don’t need to do what others have to do in other aspects of PVE to enjoy those stories yet over and over again we kept seeing the final stories with the most important lore being locked behind a group content situation yet LS was touted as something that everyone could enjoy, everyone can’t unless you have a team to go into those 5 mans.

So it’s a game of semantics here really, and I for one say that not only did they not deliver on what they said they did on multiple fronts but they have the chance now with the expansion to make up for all of the incessant RNG in this title and the long drawn out time gating that’s been going on.

The absolute only thing that has helped me is getting inexpensive mice that have multiple buttons. ( I say inexpensive because I am poor and usually the games I play I play alot and end up going through them quickly. )

These mice are really nice they don’t take much maintenance and the software is good.

I’m right now using one made by Logitech G502 but I also have a backup or two by Azio and I started off using the Azio but I got some money for my birthday and got the Logitech. I can say I’ve noticed no difference in the two they have great software and the Azio had programmable buttons as well. I then just set the buttons to keyboard keys I only use for gaming and I’ve been able to do everything in this game and in games like NWO which has just as many commands but also a mount to use (and it’s best to use mounts in that game as quickly as possible if mobs are around.)

Not saying they shouldn’t work on it because it is annoying but just trying to help with a solution I found that works for me.

I would love for Karma to matter again as well!

If there was some way of converting it to gold that would be nice.

If not please find some other direct way of our being able to convert it into resources we can either sell or rare resources that many of us are cut off from due to DR and the loot restrictions on unlucky accounts.

I would also like to see the ability to buy Ascended set pieces so that we can more easily get ascended gear by combining purchases and crafting as the means to obtain them (outside of the jewelry that is).

As a long time WoW player I can say no thank you, I’ve had my fill of capes and I am grateful that they added more backpacks for jobs! That was one thing that I found about LOTRO that was superior to WoW were the backpacks for the “jobs” of that virtual society.

And also it would clip on charr. I don’t want to be running on all fours and look like I’m about to trip. I also don’t want my Charr to start scratching holes in it like it’s some sort of curtain in my living room thanks!

Apparently now there’s a cry that dailies aren’t hard enough.I mean really, that’s what I got out of the OP’s post.

can we stop with the requests to make everything harder until they actually fix all the grinding to begin with please? That’s all I ask.

Cazamar.7148:

A lot of people on this thread have the wrong definition of grind. They think if some is not handed to them and they have to work for it than it’s grindy. Grind refers to leveling therefore all these other things such as ascended gear and legendaries are not grindy because you do not need then. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It still doesn’t change what grind is.

There’s reasonable and then there’s grind. We’re all talking about grind here not the aspect of going and doing something to achieve something. there is a difference and it’s easy to see the difference. For example, STO added specializations to their game, it takes 1 character 3.5 years to completely fillout the initial specializations they added. That to me is no different than what’s happening here with the gear progression in this game and it’s a rational fear some of us have that specs in this game may become just as crazy when HoT releases considering the mountain of evidence of what even the most basic of activities like my example above of the collection achievements were turned into.

Kal Spiro.9745:

dcbone.9581:

1. Fix necro pets ai/pathing so they no longer sit there doing nothing while you’re getting pummeled

This has nothing to do with the expansion. This is something you want for the game, not the expansion. As such this is not an update that should be tied to it.

2. A recall/attack button for necro pets, not sure if this is intentional

Just like Mesmers, Elementalists, Thieves, Humans, Sylvari, Charr and Asura, Necros are not meant to have this level of control over their pets. Only Rangers can do it as it is their class mechanic. All summons are meant to just place a body on the field that follows the summoner but otherwise acts independently.

3. The ability to save trait/equipment builds. With how much I switch between pve, pvp and WvW in a given play session it’s pretty tedious to manually swap all of this a multitude of times

I could see this being locked behind the xpack. It would be kind of a kitten move, but I could see it.

number 3 please yes! Absolutely!

Considering they nerfed stealth on the engineer I doubt it.

Ayrilana.1396:

Test.8734:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s because the same people that have argued against grind are the same ones that don’t want challenging and hard content.

Who?

If it’s as common as you say, and considering this is a topic complaining about grind, there should be examples easily available. I’m curious as to who has claimed that grind and hard content should go.

It’s more difficult to find them now that they’ve hidden the old BLTC archive forum so I don’t think it’s worth it. I could probably search through the post history of the more vocal people in this thread but would it really achieve anything? i will take a look in this thread though to see if someone did make that statement.

Actually, I just remembered. I believe this was brought up briefly in one if the threads about SW. Someone was complaining about how grindy getting the parts was but also complaining about how difficult some of the story achievements were and that they should just be able to buy them (the episode achievement rewards) from the vendor

They should just make these achievements sellable in the TP I mean really everything else of value is there even stuff you can’t get in the game from drops any longer is in the TP why not. Then there would be so few of those that people would have to buy gems just to get those too. Isn’t that part of the philosophy we’re seeing here anyway?

MMORPGames have gone from playing to get what you’d like to buying them and really I’ve not seen a game thats been released since 2011 that hasn’t had the buy it if you want it philosophy (many are cleverly disguised) which is a direct reflection on just who came into the gaming market for mmo’s around 2011 as far as the types of gamers.

I’m all for achievements but at the same time I’m for reasonable time frames. GW2 doesn’t have as crazy a time frame as some I’ll admit for some of it’s items but some of them are just outright impossible because they rely on old algorithms from when MMOs were in their infancy and people didn’t know better. They couldn’t even leave RNG out of the latest collector achievements, really why was that a thing? I’d much rather go and do the tasks to complete them to be able to get the special items from collecting then wait and see if an item actually dropped that day on one of my characters from chests you either had to find from shovels or find when a storm hit only to have to farm to open them. I mean why is it that some of the most basic aspects of the game like collecting stuff, why is even that stuck behind an RNG wall as well? Shouldn’t they change the name from “collections” to “lotteries”?

Collections is supposed to be just that collecting. Go here get this item there bam you’re done or go and find the items but they’ll actually drop 100% when you pick them up so you can complete the set. So it really amazes me that they think this is normal. It’s like going to use the restroom and you don’t know if you are going to or not you have to see what drops. /sarcasm.

The “no grind” philosophy is something that doesn’t exist in the minds of the developers of this game they really have no idea how to design something without using RNG and it just astonishes some of us.

What gets me is the philosophy behind this decision bled over into the open world. Instead of easily being able to jump into events that were open world with the LS system, it too was plagued by group only instances at the end and we had miles of players sitting around an instance entrance in LS.

I still haven’t finished my personal story either because quite frankly it’s not made for storytelling purposes despite what we’ve been told. Apparently, they think it should be locked behind group content and as we’ve seen from history, that never works with storytelling in PVE.

It’s gotta go. If they want dungeon content locked behind group content that’s fine, but leave the personal story and LS system out of that group dynamic unless you are planning on making more world bosses.

5 mans should not even come into the picture for PS and LS.

I recently logged back in and I have to agree with most of the people here, fractals should never be part of the daily experience unless you are going to give us more open world stuff to do to complete.

Limiting the choices to 4 and have 2 fractals on the list like yesterday just isn’t compelling sorry.

I’d suggest increasing the number of PVE choices to 6 or 8 or leaving instances out of it entirely.

Andred.1087:

tigirius.9014:

People don’t understand sometimes that even though posts might seem negative when we come here to voice our concerns for the direction the game is taking in certain areas that it’s not because we hate the game or hate the people making it, it’s actually quite the opposite really we care enough about the game to put together our threads to let the developers know this is what they need to work on the game to make it so that those decisions that didn’t quite make the cut will be remedied in the future.

Yes but many of those posts are still uninformed and completely inconsiderate of the sheer volume of research and information ArenaNet has that we do not. And many of those posters, while they think they have good intentions, can’t even see that all they are really doing is demanding things be their way, rather than the way that might be best for everybody, which is often not clear to the players, especially not here on the forums, where a lot of people come solely to express dissatisfaction.

The biggest problem people consistently have with this game is setting their own expectations too high, and that’s not ArenaNet’s fault. That’s just those players’ inability to accept less than what they’ve come to think they deserve, or to understand how inconsequential all of this is compared to reality. At the end of the day, it’s just a video game, it’s purpose is purely for entertainment, so why are there so many people pouring out their hearts in the name of “trying to make it better” instead of just enjoying what it is? There are a hundred million other things you can do on the Internet. If GW2 doesn’t scratch all your itches, you’re welcome to fill that void with other things, too.

It’s interesting to hear people say that because the Sales figures speaks volumes about just what is actually wrong with the game. You can say you have all the accuracy in demographics in the world but when it really comes down to it if people aren’t happy they’ll stop spending and that my friend trumps anything else you can say about the issues this game faces. Supply demand my friend. I also find it interesting that you think that people who complain are automatically setting expectations too high, it’s a product, the consumer drives the product or the product is not successful.

Anyway I too hope OP that this expansion is a huge success and I think it will get there by their taking the time as Jon Peters said in the interview to review certain problems they’ve had in PVE combat that they never really had the time to take care of and that what Colin has said about traits is true as well which I think will help the NPExperience.