Possible changes to LB and Sunspear (coming soon...maybe)

I'm not entirely sure what this means...but cross your fingers.

OMG HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY

As you may have seen, I'm very happy about this.

About time!

This would be great.

It sounds like they're just gonna give us updates on the progress on the tiles on Monday...

standard run around on the broken promises

5 months late, hurray!

I doubt that it'll be fixed this soon. On monday it will just be Anet saying "well we have almost worked out the new system for the titles, so they should be implemented soon". And 2 months later it'll still not be finished. Like every other part of GW

I thought they were still working on the whole new control system for Ranger’s pets and the PvE Mesmer fixes.

I just hope they don't add another rank to the LB title. I really don't feel like maxing it out for a second time.

According to some of Gaile's past posts, the maxxing out of Sunspear is tied to the whole Hard Mode thing. My guess is that you get SP points past Castellan when doing Elonian missions on Hard Mode.

Not sure what Lightbringer has to do with it- isn't that already maxxable?

Gaile said earlier this week that we would have this info by Friday. So is the info we get on Monday going to be "we'll have more info on this later?"

Maybe like...make it so more enemies give more points, so it's not a pain in the ass, and thus "fixed"?

And yeah, I'm hoping they don't add another tier to it. While a few people exploited it, even more actually grinded their asses off for it (and Anet, don't you say you too dislike grinding?)

And they added a tier to Sunspear, which makes even less sense. The people who got this title through the possible means should be able to keep their reward. Now it's nullified.

Anyways, I'm hoping they just make Lightbringer a little less pain in the boo-tah cus I'd hate to see people lose their max title.

And Hell...if their willing to unmax the Lightbringer title, what about the Protector titles?

Eh, I still don't care about those titles.

People maxed out sunspear on a bug, that is why another tier was added, so that they wouldnt get the point towards koabd. I just hope that it wont take forever to get the points to max it out, something that gives out points faster that 7 per kill of a specific monster.

Well see, that was the thing that confused me. I remember Gaile in response to the non-maxed Sunspear title, I thought I read that she encouraged the little blessing exploit. Does anyone have a link to that, or am I wrong?

What she probably did was commend people on the ingenuity of finding the exploit and using it, but that doesn't mean that ANET as a whole encouraged it. I just hope its maxable for people that don't want to spend every waking minute farming like the way the Kurzick and Luxon titles are.

I thought farming was what this game was about >.<

Farming for xp, for gold, for faction, for greens, and so one....

The best possible change would be to remove them from the game.

the sunspear title was probably added because as anyone who can read probably realized from day one the title would stop at 10 because of sunspear rebirth signet, and it made sense for it to stop at ten, to make that skill very good.

having it stop at 9 should have been a surprise to most people, and as I have been, ye shoulda been waiting for the r10 to arrive ~_~.

I'm indifferent to LB 'cause I was lame and farmed it afk.. I have 7,499 sunspear points 'cause I never got around to farming until [my goal] of 50k sunspear points, oh well.

Hopefully this will happen soon....

Not holding my breath on a "fix" to this title or the skill hunter title.

I hope they don't touch Lightbringer.. It took me almost 2 months hard grinding to get it. As I was doing it, I did 4,000 minutes towards the alcohol title as well.

Gail also said this evening that there would be SOME info on this on Monday too, but not a complete answer

be glad u arent waiting on the automated tournaments for gvg.... oh wait i am. shit.

exactly!
lightbringer is a title gone just wrong and sunspear is just insane grind for elonian characters! it artificialy tries to make the game longer by forcing stupid rules onto the players!

That's "soon" enough.

lawl, tied to hard mode. The more sneaky members of the community already maxed out our Sunspear and LB titles.

sneaky-ness ftw.

Hope it won't be too easy.

They better not add another rank to the Lightbringer title track. 50,000 points for rank 8 is plenty of grinding for a title that consists of killing the same enemies over and over and over again. Not to mention that snatching max titles out of people's hands will only piss them off.

Completely agree. They didn't even try to hide the grinds they were introducing.

Yeah, I'm with that, too. In all seriousness, I'm in favor of getting rid of titles altogether.

haha thumbs up Paloma, so true, and so well put!

I have the feeling hard mode is going to be more of the same......

(off topic: probably not related, but Paloma is a winery on Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley that makes one of California's best Merlots, and is a gorgeous place to visit)

edit: we can pretty much divide titles into two groups: those that are pure, shameless grind aimed at keeping people playing without feeding them new content, and those which actually have a fun factor and serve as personal accomplishment. I agree the former were totally ill-conceived and should have never been introduced, but I'm not in favor of getting rid of the rest.

examples of grind-oriented, no fun titles:
friend of kurz/lux
fame crap I dont give a monkey's butt about
lb/sunspear

feats of accomplishments, have value titles:
skill cap
survivor
protector of.....
grandmaster cartographer

You can argue Cartographer is a grind, running along the edge of every map?

Except it can be fun, since you're seeing areas you've never seen before - unless this is like your 5th char going for a carto title. The grind-oriented titles just keep taking you back to the same places, over and over again. No fun.

VitisVinifera, you made some really stiff generalizations there.
I'd say that you cannot, without being arrogant, choose which titles who serve as a personal accomplishment. I think it's a personal choice, you may choose different than me or a fellow player.

People....if you think a title is all about grind, DON'T TRY TO MAX IT.

I've taken 3 elonian chars through the game so far (deleted 2), and I never had to grind for points. Just take the bounties, do the quests, voila you're a general. For everyone else, neither sunspear nor lightbringer matters at all. Just playing the game normally will get you lb rank 2 around the gate of secrets (that's where I picked it up on all 10 characters I've beaten the game with). There's your lb gaze if you want it so bad. Every rank above that is just gravy.

The titles are there for those who like to have a high target to shoot for, like a high level cap. Just because you don't like such things, doesn't mean they should be removed. ALL the titles are pretty much grind-oriented by your definition, in that they all require you to do one activity or group of activities over and over again in order to max them. Some are also huge gold sinks, which again introduces the "grind" of earning the gold. *GASP*

The titles are fine, or they will be fine once the possibility of maxing them becomes available. If you loathe "grind" so much...don't do them. Easiest fix of all.

While I do agree that it may seem harsh, I agree fully with her post.

The ones she listed as grind titles are, in fact, grind. You do the same thing continously with little change, with little difference in the environment, with the only reward your title.

The only titles actually worth something, to me personally, are the Treasure and Wisdom Hunter titles, cause those actually give you some real benefit upon maxing them.

FAME FTW. Don't Talk shit about pvp titles if u don't pvp. I suppose u'll say champion title is a waste of time too.

Like Skyy High said, if you don't want to grind for it, then DON'T. You can't max your sunspear? So what. You need sunspear 2 for the res sig, the rest? A foreigner doesn't need sunspear points anymore, and a elonian who doesn't have enough just from quests and bounties while travelling? Your own fault. Just playing the game through and taking bounties (ooh, I have to walk a few extra steps to talk to that wandering priest, grind, grind) is more than enough to get you castellen well before you finish the game.

As for LB points. I reckon that only 2 points per kill is a bit low, but so what. You would want to get LB 2 to get gaze and maybe 3 for the sig. But after that? No one says you have to max LB. No one says you need max LB. First week of nightfall, people finished the game without even knowing what LB or LB gaze was. Just take the bounties and quests as they come, you'll be killing stuff to get around the RoT and DoA anyway. So its not like you're losing anything. If anything, its a bonus. I'm on rank 5 with my main, and I doubt I'll make it more than rank 6. My other characters? Doubt I'll take it pass rank 4. So what? It's too much work to max title on all your characters? So is every other title really. But its there for you to do after you've finished the game for the nth time.

Go kill mobs in tyria or cantha, nothing except loot. Kill in late game elona, loot+LB/sunspear+hero skill points. And if you're complaining about not having as many hero skill points as someone with max LB+sunspear, people got through tyria and cantha without them.

Oh and VitisVinifera. Your list of grind and accomplishment titles is just weird.
Your grind titles (and non-accomplishment since its not in the other group)
Friends of kurz/lux: yeah its a grind, but unless you're in an alliance to own a town you never really have to max this. The story itself only needs you to get 10k on you account (not 10k per character). Hardly difficult.
Fame: yeah, need lots if you want that phoenix, but again you don't need to max this, and if you're a pver not at all. I must say though, if you think it doesn't actually take skill, or is not an accomplishment to get the higher ranks in this (let alone max it), then you don't know much at all.
LB/sunspear: yeah, grind, but the game doesn't need LB ranks at all, and the sunspear ranks are pretty easy to get.

Your list of 'value' and accomplishment titles
skill cap: grind, and while I have respect for anyone who has maxed this out, how is this an indication of skill? Persistance and determination yeah, but what? How many of those skills can one character use? Most are unusable except for the class they're meant for. So you got all the skills on your one character. I have all the skills spread over all my characters. Does that make me less skilled then you?
survivor: if you're a real survivor, that is you actually played through the game with you character and got this then mad props. But the number of survivors I've seen who just leech at the fringes of a party and leave at the first sign of trouble? How's that an accomplishment? I could just load up on scrolls and leech off guildies to max this.
Protector of: this is grind, especially if done multiple times. On one character is fine, shows you put in the effort, but later characters? Some missions (the canthan defend missions) are just annoying if you not a monk. And with heroes nowadays, its easier than ever to get the titles. So not so valuable nowadays, as when it was first introduced.
cartographer: how's this not grind? I mean, for one character its fine. But more? Would someone who has this maxed on several characters say it wasn't grind? They did it because it was a challenge or was fun, sure, but I doubt they could deny it was a grind?

The fact is that all titles are grind of some kind. So what? You don't ever have to max them, and if the game actually requires you to get the title, the rank is usually pathetically low. You don't ever have to grind for them, but if you want to you should be able to. Take the titles out of the game? Why? If people want to put the time into getting the title, then good on them. If you don't want to 'grind' for titles, good on you too. But don't turn around an complain that you should get the same thing that other people have worked for, or that the titles should be removed since you can't get them without work.