Guild Wars Slowly Descends into Grind

Don't get me wrong on this, I think its great ANET actually attempts to evolve their creation, but it feels like they're quickly sucking the laid back nature out of this game.

Hard mode was a novel idea, but it's just like DoA... everywhere... Mobs with complementary skills, and innate advantages we can't obtain. Instead of looming environmental affects they get +50% to everything. I'm not as easily impressed as everyone else by these gimmicks. The complementary skills were a good improvement, but the extra was unnecessary. Sorrow's Furnace was a masterful addition. Why they couldn't make something in the same vein I don't understand. Instead they cripple us, then tell us to go kill mobs that can damn near single shot our support members. Furnace didn't need that, and it still takes a good team to do it effectively.

I'd rather they fixed the stuff they broke before fiddling with things we've had forever that aren't broken. Like soul reaping, it worked fine when spirits didn't count, and it would work fine returned to that instead of this 5 seconds nonsense. I have a necro, barely played him in the last year, but my heart goes out to those that use one as their primary char.

Hero AI is atrocious. I swear Zhed thinks he’s Chuck Norris now. Charges full bore into a pack of 50 mobs right after I’ve flagged him a half mile away.

This partial farming repair they did is ridiculous too. I think most can agree, not many items are worth anything. Now they've stripped the farming of quantity over quality. I have a pretty large sum stashed, but all the new players wanting 15k are fairly screwed, especially those without nightfall and "buried treasure". Maybe it's a marketing gimmick for NF, but I loved farming loads of white items. Even if I got nothing rare, dammit it was just plain fun. Didn’t have to spend hours in town trying to sell anything either. Was a nice way to put in a few minutes and actually draw in 5k or so, and figuring out how to get the most for your minute was a nice puzzle. Posting builds kinda ruined that, but I’m not a cookie cutter person. Better to make up your own and share with a few friends for maximum results. Maybe it has something to do with botting, but is spiting a minority of cheaters worth screwing a vast quantity out of something they enjoy?

I'm sure there's some farfetched idea that this will balance the economy. No money = no buyers, no buyers = must lower prices. Unfortunately 15k armor doesn't just decrease when no one is buying. You want to reduce prices, give us an auction house. A single location to concentrate sales will show the true rarity of items instead of rarity + odds of finding someone selling.

I know I'll get bombarded with a "stop whining" from tons of folk who'd be just as happy playing WoW on a 13 hour raid, but this isn't WoW. I joined GW opening day because I liked playing a game I didn’t have to live inside of. That’s slowly being bled out by changes to the core of what GW is. If it continues heading towards the WoWism it's slowly been adopting I'll be going to play somewhere else, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who don’t appreciate where the game is heading. They shouldn't need to ruin the classic things people enjoy when adding new ones. DoA was no big deal, it didn't affect the things people enjoyed already. Taking the large free for all out of HOH, hosing SR, turning heroes into brain damaged delusional noobs, and taking the simple farming away, does.

I didn’t say anything when HOH got mangled, AI got slapped hard, and SR was totally amputated, but it’s getting a little ridiculous. I’ve loved this game for far too long to let it all go to hell, I paid for a game I can come play for an hour and feel like I've gotten somewhere, not one they'll change to a grindfest on a dev's whim. Sorrow's Furnace still takes a fairly well oiled team to do effectively, without million level mobs and overly tedious innate abilities on the opposing side. Why they haven't been able to replicate that I am unsure. Hopefully I explained thoroughly enough to avoid the pointless flames and actually conjure some constructive discussion. If you have nothing constructive to say, please go elsewhere. Thank you. =)

Get over it. Weapon prices will soon go down to only 100K + 10 ecto's, and you only have to do 5 million troll runs if you want to buy it. DW, it'll take only 5 years, enough time to live.

what i see is the problem here is some things are just archieved to easily..imo 15k armors are not a must..if u wan it.u work for it..dont expect to gain it without working for it.u get the normal armor..they are just the same..no diff in stats..so if its cosmetics u want..earn it..atleast it gives u some pride wearing it.

I still don't think there is any mandatory grinding in this game.
Anything that could be considered a grind is just something that's either an item that is supposed to be rare or content put in to eat the time of people who play the game a lot.
I've never played another online RPG where I wasn't forced to constantly gain xp to get to new areas. I think Guild Wars has a very long way to go before anything that's mandatory is an actual grind.

Farming is supposed to be a grind. It's not mandatory. It's to buy luxuries.
15k armor and green items require grinding otherwise every casual gamer would be sporting them in no time. They are all supposed to be rarely seen and stand out.

hehe, you missed the /sarcasm


Anyways i dont really mind, people will just bitch until anet has no option but to fix it

I'd like to change one thing I said.
There is one mandatory grind in the game.
It's Nightfall's whole starting island.
Really didn't like having to kill monsters over and over to get sunspear ranks and xp, just to get further in the storyline.

It wasn't sarcasm :P

Weapon prices won't drop alot, if they drop at all. And you know how many troll runs are required for 100K + 10 ecto's when you only get 100 gold per run?

And if you play only 2 hours a day, you can make about 5K then. That is, if you waste ALL the time with farming ONLY. And nobody would do that.

I agree there should be some work involved, but I consider someone spending 5 runs a day for a month working towards getting their 15k.

I have about 4 million gold across my two accounts, farming isn't really necessary, but I enjoyed it anyway. I think grind may be the wrong terminology for the rest. There is nothing mandatory in a game, but when you pay $50-60 to play wouldn't you be a little irked you are forced to patch and they're going to destroy the parts you liked the most? Being able to toss in a competent AI monk instead of waiting 8 hours for a real one, or run out for a few farming waves to pick up some white dye, running minions during EG and knowing your energy wouldn't totally suck and make /mesmer required?

They added one giant tediousness with hard mode, and took away a lot of elements that made GW a game you didn't have to live in to accomplish lofty goals. People shouldn't have to farm stuff that takes hours to land a single item worth a fair amount, but now they have to. Sorrow's Furnace is proof they don't have to cheat and use time itself to make places challenging. They've crippled a lot of players lately and there's too many people who thinks it's alright.

I look at it this way.Do challenge missions with drops all day and use the faction to buy jade then sell it.OOOps I told everyone my secret.
(The new farming sux I agree)

Perhaps Anet wants to make 15ks and weapons more unaccessible, and encourage players to use collectors/greens/1.5ks?

At least it seems like what their trying to achieve.

tl;dr

Protip:Grind is only present when it is required to move forward in the game.Hardmode isn't needed to procede or enjoy the game.It's optional.

Thus,it isn't grind.

If they did that, they'd make collectible drops used for the weapons/armor drop more frequently, and they'd reduce the price of perfect forger weapons. (10K + materials for a 15^50 weapon? No thanks)

Well, nothing in this game was really intended to be over 100k, so is this really a bad thing?

As much as I like the Hard Mode update (farming nerfs excluded - but that's a different subject), there is one thing I am not so sure about.

To gain the Vanquisher title you have to clear each map in one sitting.

This is hardly friendly to the casual gamer. Some people I know, in my guild for example, share their PCs with the rest of the family.

Having cleared some of the mid level maps that take around 90 minutes, I am guessing that some of the larger area maps will take well over two hours to clear. If you have a brother, sister, parent or child trying to get on your PC while you are in the middle of one of these maps then you are in big trouble.

I know it is not possible, but it sure would be nice to be able to save mid-map (assuming that you were playing only with heros and hench).

eh.... guild wars started that descent a year ago when factions came out, then continued when nightfall was released...

Stop saying Hard Mode is grind, because it isn't...

But the title isn't meant to be friendly to the 'casual' gamer. Don't like it? Don't do it. You don't need it for anything.

Boohoo!

Luxuries aren't needed...you can manage fine without them. What's the point of them if everyone has them? It's like the Sunspear titles...almost every second person has Sunspear X displayed...I mean how boring! I see absolutely no prestige in wearing a Sunspear title. It would be the same if everyone was running around with FoW armour and the best weapon they can find...

No one is making you play the game in hard mode. If you want to attempt to Vanquish an area, you have to be prepared to deal with the fact that you may get interrupted. It's called HARD mode for a reason o.O

yet, anyway. anet has a track record of making random time consuming titles have a use (notable examples are wisdom, treasure hunter, and to the scorn of many, lucky)

But sadly half the game now revolves around "hardcore" gamers who have nothing better to do than spend 3 hours clearing a single map, then doing it over and over again so they can have 2 little words under their character that 90% of the world will never see. GG.

Playing hard mode isn't perhaps, but playing it for the reasons it was made(titles, more titles, maybe a few drops, and more titles) is grinding. 100%.


EDIT: To all you people saying "stop crying you dont HAVE to do it"... Whats the point then? Most players who have had this game more than a month have probably beat it all and worked up many titles, why introduce this hard mode if no one is going to play it?

The only "grind" trend that I'm personally annoyed by are titles that GIVE ADVANTAGES. Lightbringer... well meh, you get 1 better skill and some damage reduction vs demons, ok. However, stuff like Lucky (which is a piece of crap title that rich people AFK) is now used in determining things like lockpick break rates! As is treasure hunter! (which is a real kick to the pants now that chest running is much less profitable.) Wisdom is used to give people a higher salvage% etc... should I really have to transfer all my items to one character just to salvage? Should I really need to have treasure hunter maxed on every character I want to do hard mode with?

well, there IS a difference between hard and time consuming. someone might be doing great in hardmode but then need to shut guildwars down for whatever reason, thereby losing their progress in the zone...

Perhaps we can introduce a new item, a timeout token. using this item would freeze an instance, and allow for players to log out and log back in to the same instance. as soon as any human player moves or uses a skill within the instance, the timeout effect ends.

What Anet has discovered from this long experiment called Guild Wars, is that there are good reasons every MMO has grind. Players *want* to grind towards goals. So they are trying to find more and more ways to sate this desire without turning off the guy who picks up a new campaign for two-three weeks until finishing the storyline, or seriously imbalancing PvP. Hence useless prestige goals to grind for like titles and item skins. Vanquisher isn't for everyone, but it's probably for enough considering the not terribly monumental amount of coding required.

Play it for the enjoyment, not the title. If it's not enjoyable and you don't want the title, don't play it at all. This is really obvious, it shouldn't require explanation.

^I play and vanquish because I find it fun. I couldn't care less about the titles involved, except the one you get for beating missions, just because I feel those are the PvE titles you don't earn with grind, but with skill. Vanquisher would be cool but I'm in no rush O_O That's a tough one

To the OP: I got 15k armor without ever farming or using nightfall free chests. It really isn't THAT difficult. You just gotta save up and be patient.

Their idea of hard seems to be connected with making mobs get abilities we will never be able to get. I'd rather have mobs with a decent 8 skill bar, matching the size of my party, instead they make them deal a lot more dmg and do everything 33% faster. They activate, recharge, chase, flee faster. It's strange to see that a char shamam could just wand you to death if you don't kite. I agree with what someone said: sorrow's furnace was one of the best pve experience attempts so far.

Grinding is NOT a must in this game! You can get level 20, with maxed armor and a decent weapon(s) by just finishing the main missions. You can then go and play PvP with that character (normally) without any big problem. Anyway, I understand your point.

BTW, I love the grinding part of MMORPGs so, if GW is going to the "traditional" way MMORPGs normally are, I still will be happy because there are NOT monthly fee!!! (including GW2) I don't have any problem in level up 100 levels in one year if I am NOT paying a thing! I LOVE YOU ARENANET! (also, you can still make a PvP character with full level, skills, etc, so ... more love)

You know, I'm a vegetarian, and sometimes I'll end up in a situation where for one reason or another I'm at a restaurant or a house and there's nothing (or effectively nothing) that I can eat. And I'll pick at a piece of bread for a few hours while everyone else has a delicious meal.

Now, I *choose* to be a vegetarian, and I like being social, so I keep my mouth shut in those situations, but I can imagine that a lot of people sat down to try hard mode and ended up feeling like I do when I'm nibbling on bread and some talented hostess has piled the table high with meat-filled goodies, and everyone else is eating with great pleasure.

So, sure, choice is good and we all make priorities, but some things are still really disheartening.

I dont really see how these new things like hardmode and such offer that player anything that they HAVE TO DO.

15k armor - optional
Hardmode - optional
Most titles - optional
Super 1337 weapon skins - optional

Anet has designed their games to be grind-free as much as possible when being played by casual players.

Once you start wanting crystallines or elemental swords and obessing over FOW armor, dont start complaining that its turning into a grind when its of your own choosing.

I do play the game for fun. My point was that Hard Mode took away that fun and replaced it with grinding for titles. I have no interest in spending all the hours of the day to get something as pointless as a few words.

Once you beat all 3 campaigns and then do it again and again on all of your character, what else is there left to do? 15k armor, hard mode, titles, and super 1337 weapon skins. All for show, nothing more, but its all there is.

PvP maybe? Thats fun.

Yeah, once you have beaten all three games, if you don't want to grind to get rare items and don't like hardmode then you stop playing until the expansion comes out.
Anet won't mind.
The game is developed for fun of different levels. Everything in the game won't be fun for everyone. Do what you find is fun and enjoy it. Once you've done all that be patient and wait for the next expansion.
You don't have to play the game everyday. There's no way a full dev staff can produce enough content to keep a person who plays so much busy for long.

I like the new farming. Who cares about whites and blue drops and gold. I've gotten so many gold wep drops these past few days and a few of them very nice like a r9 strength gloom shield and golden machete.

The elite and non elite tomes are going for nice cash too which should make up for the lost whites/blues/coins.

Embrace change!

Until those people who sold their tomes and items for gold then buy stuff from merchants/material traders/crafters, removing gold from the economy.

What it amounts to is by reducing gold and farming, you're going to force a gold item barter system, similar to the SoJ system in D2. Fun for everyone.

Says the person with black 15K armour. Now that's hardly managing without luxuries isn't it?! Anyway... Draxanoth, a lot of what you are saying I can agree on. I dislike hard mode, and I shall only be taking part in it in order to get mesmer tomes (because lyssa knows, no one will be selling them). I mean, it would be nice if the enemies had powerful builds and knew how to use them, not give them crazy stats and mindlessly obliterate us. And yes Hero AI is embarassing at times, hence I avoid them. However, how and when did areanet turn them into demented imbeciles?

*Side note* what is it about Chuck Norris?! Over 1.5 years I have heard of him, but... I don't get it. I've meet (and killed) an assassin called Chuck Norris in an Alliance Battle, but what is the big deal about Chuck?

When it comes to making money, here's a secret: Faction Farm. It's quick and (usually) fun, and as long as you win most of the time, a good source of income. I sell amber for usually 500 gp, of which costs 1000 faction, made in about 10 mins. It's not much but I can afford my "luxuries". If you do have factions that is... (yes you guessed it a selling point for areanet).

The farming nerf? I haven't noticed anything. I never farm, but today I went around Ascalon on my own to see. All the drops were mine... is that meant to happen? It's sad to think that the rich will stay rich and the poor (aka me) will stay poor. Then again ectoplasm is apparently excempt from the 8/8 rule, so who knows?

The tome feature... isn't it massively overpowered? Imagine a level one with mind burn... I think I will make my own thread discussing this.

LoL simply gonna quote myself from another thread at GWO.... GJ once again Anet keep up the good work.

kaleban, you sir are absoloutly right and I agree with pretty much every point you have made. Two days ago I enjoyed playing and today I dont, it's that simple. And be sure about this: the mods are shutting down our ability to voice our unhappiness about this nerf. I feel scouned by the game I used to love. I've rolled with every change so far but I doubt I will continue to buy their games over this. /a dissapointed customer.

Let me continue the Mantra... Hard Mode is Optional!

With that out of the way, if a game can appeal to both the casual player and the grind fiend, how is that a bad thing?

Weapons - Collectible = Free
Armor - Collectible = Free
Runes/Insignias - Optional, Gained From Drops = Cost of Salvage Kit and ID kit
Skills - Scalable cost up to 1000 gold, (most free in Prophecies)
Elite Skill - 1000 gold points, optional

So if you have prophecies, the most you are "required" to pay is ... nothing.

For the others you pay a little for the skills. I'm sure you can find a way to get about 15k (which is I want to say at least 20 skills from) by the end of the game if you merchant everything.

How does this promote grind?

Sure, you may not have the "1337est!" skin, but is that Chaos axe or 15k armor going to make you any better of a player? There is no passive "ego stroking" effect as far as I am aware of.

Now if you WANT good things, of COURSE you will have to work for it. You certainly don't feel you are entitled to good things without effort, do you? Yet, these good things are only ascetic in value.

Elite Missions are Optional
Hard Mode is optional.
Cool Items/Armor are optional.
Elites are optional.

There is stuff for the casual player, and there is stuff for the grinder. Both are happy, where's the problem?

All i know is that i was playing around Ascalon in hard mode having fun because it brings me good memories and suddenly a vision of Ring of Fire missions, Real of Torment missions, Gyala Hatchery, Vizunah Square, Arborstone, etc... came to my mind and just thinking in playing them in hard mode made me feel sick
I am glad hard mode is optional like you people say it over and over because if it were mandatory...

Took the words out of my mouth. Or you could play another game or something.