Why is grinding okay now?

I just realized the answer to this question:

Grind in Guild Wars is okay because there's nothing left to do.

This is really pretty simple. Sunspear rank comes rather easily and with it the benefits from Sunspear skills. However, this is only for that one character.

Faction rank is harder to get, however it affects all of your characters. Characters that never saw the dark side of PvP will still benefit from the work of your PvP characters.

So yes, the one that affects all your characters is more grindage, as it should be. Besides, you can do quite well without these skills (we all have so far...), so it's a purely optional grind as it is.

in a nut shell, thats it. What else can you do as a seasoned player, cept for pvp .

Well i'm certainly not out of stuff to do. There are still elite skills out there i didn't capture yet and a lot of quests are still open. If i want i can take my Paragon trough Tyria and Cantha, but there isn't so much to get there for a pure elonian.

first goal is still having access to every single skill tough. then i can finally try some more serious pvp and maybe i even start looking for a guild to join.

People don't appreciate enough the huge ammount of game they got for 150 bucks. And it just gets more and more options for fun.

Sunspear max - 50'000 points
Lightbringer max - 50'000 points

Allegiance rank max - 10'000'000 points. Lets assume people only spend it on skills and donations which give double points. So 5 million.

So, assuming an equal points per minute rate, the account based title is 100 times the character based one. If someone can come up with the rates for the average player, we can calculate the actual difference in time invested. Then think of the people running only one or two characters.

But the reason people are against grinding is that they are being made to pay twice for the content. The first is the monetary cost of the game, the second is the grind required to access that content.

As for doing without those skills, thats true now. However hasn't ANET promised 100 PvE only title based skills in GW:EN, and that they will be on separate title tracks related to the various races there ?

If they are on titles like the SS and LB ones it will merely be annoying, but if they are on tracks like Kurzick/Luxon then they are going to lose a lot of the players that stay with guild wars because they like the skill > time played mechanic for PvE.

Also grind isn't really a good thing if your trying to have a game playable by people with only a few hours a week to play, because they will be forced to spend the little time they do get on the grind instead of the parts they enjoy.

Now if you feel the people doing the grinding should be rewarded, thats fine. Give them rewards that don't effect gameplay (armor/weapon skins, special emotes, minis, etc) or if they really deserve a reward something that allows them to earn gold faster (eg treasure hunter, wisdom and lucky title effects, items that can be resold, etc). But never give them anything that could get them into PUGs easier because they have better stats, no matter how small the benefit.

Sadly this might be the case.

If I had known from the beginning that going for Kurzick/Luxon title would have given me access to extra skills then I would have worked for it instead of trading them for amber/jade.
This is the first time I felt disappointed in an update. Now that I think about it, I'm starting to feel gutted by the loot scaling update too. But that's another story.

Oh well, it's still far from GW2... Need to work on titles. Might as well add this Kurzick/Luxon one to the list. I just hope ANet has solved problem with the AFK faction farmers in Aspenwood (or in AB).

Darktyco
I was responding to Amy Awien impling that I can sit in front of the computer all day grinding because I don't have a job and that I do nothing around the house. Neither of which is true.
And Amy Awien
You can get 50,000 faction in 5 hours because doing the Lutgardis run gets you 10,000 faction an hour. And you only need three other players to do the run. Also, repeating the same dull task over and over again is kind of like HA for Fame or TA or Gladiator points. And yes, for me all that is left is grinding for gold or grinding for faction or grinding for some other title because I have complete all three campaigns on all my characters. Since I don't like PVP, what else is there for me to do in the game?

because spamming in local chat isn't.

Wetsparks, you were implying that not wanting to grind would somehow be an attitude that somehow would be awful for a boss:

And you don't even have a boss.


If you don't mind the grind, that's fine, but don't expect others to be like you and do not insult them for not wanting to grind.

anet's stance:

Grinding is okay if you don't get rewarded. If somehow grinding rewards you, then the reward must be removed.

lol nice one

but ya i agree it does seem like a kind of stupid thing to spend time on that now rewards you at least make it not such a boring/long grind.

Horrible comparison.

Repeating a quest a million times is similar to TA or HA? One involves just running using the same build over and over again....the other involves more complex builds, more thinking, and more effort. I can't possible imagine spending 5 hours repeating the same quest and barely getting any progress at all towards the title.

Then again, I imagine that were complete opposites. I have lots of time to sit and play the game, but unlike many players I hate grind. I've been playing the game a long time and the only titles I've ever maxed are the protector titles, which I don't even wear.

Yes there's a huge difference. There's also between putting effort and working hard for somethin and just being bored and patient enough to get it. While you might like to think that you put effort and worked hard for your faction title, you arn't....sitting there dumbly for 5 hours using the same build doing the same easy thing is not hard work. You're just a patient person.

If you wanna feel a true sense of accomplishment, go win in the Hall of Heroes....the chest that appears has a slight possiblity of dropping a 500k+ item. That's real effort with a fine reward. You said you don't like pvp though so let's toss that idea out the window.....

I don't want to work in real life, only to find out that I have to work in-game also because I can as free as everybody else.

I hate grinding, these faction skills nearly made me quit the game. I will never get any of these skills, I simply don't have the time or the patience.

"It's optinal!!11one".

Oh yeah, oh well. Playing the game is optimal too right? How about, that before you can use any skills, you have to do run around whole Tyria with them. Remember, you really dont need any skills to complete the game, they are all pure optimal.

Sigh

I'd like to say "thread rez!!1!", but this is actually more relevent than it ever was before. Thanks, Deleet.

As far as KL/Sunspear skills go, they are quite literally optional, unlike standard skills. Nowhere are they required, I've never seen a PUG demand any for entry, or anything like that.

Plus, you don't have to grind to get the SS ones. I can't imagine how you could go through any portion of Nightfall and not get at least rank 5, which is more than enough to make them functional.

You're not listening. I was mostly refering to the insane ones, you see?
I'm aware that just playing normally will get you the LB/SS ones at nearly max level without much grind.



Besides, you're wrong. Standard skills are optimal too. Just like pugging is optimal. You can probably complete the game with nothing but the things you get in pre-searing and henchmen.

Yeah, I usually don't reread posts with death penalty but this is one of our friggin monks (not sure how that analogy worked out in the end).

I don't play WoW anymore because after about 5 months of that crap I caught on. I think the marketing term is, 'Artificial Demand'. Blizzard is the absolute best at wasting people's time jumping through "optional" hoops, just so they can find out that there's a new instance that will have quests with greens that make your epics look silly.

The titles never bothered me (well, except the balth ranks) until the pve skills were added. This crap sounds all too familiar. Is this what GW2 will look like?

? whats up with all this aggravation with the PVE skills ?
the max luxon/kurzick titles don't raise the skills power that much and i have yet to get in a pug that demanded any pve skills

I agree. At the lowest level, the skills are pretty useful. They don't go up in power much at the higher level. There's really no reason to grind beyond rank one if you want the skills. They're not mandatory skills for any mission.

I guess it's the principle of the thing. You shouldn't have to grind for anything, and this change goes against that spirit or philosophy of GW - however slightly.

I put this in the category of people looking for something to talk / complain about.

Although, I will say Summon Spirits is almost mandatory for a sprit spammer in PVE. It's fantastic to be able to teleport all spirits to my current location and heal them a bit. The spirit spammers becomes almost a mini-minion master with this skill. Rank 1 is fine for this great skill.

The question is:
Why does it need to be a faction-based skill?
I mean, they could have added it, just to balance things out. Anet seems to have this law against adding new skills between releases. Hasty generalization from me there, but before they added the PvE only skills.

Well... getting sunspear and lightbringer are quite easy and fast, thanks to Junundu and Hard Mode.

In the case of Kurzick/Luxon skills, most of them are quite usable with low ranks. (The Warrior shout should have variable armor and more time, though.)

Now, Anet says grinding is okay, so it is.

Seriously, that's how people playing the game think. Arena Net has proved that it's a horrible company.

With Prophecies, they set the bar high. They promised so much, but this game has gotten progressively worse. Titles have already made the game a complete grind. The Title system was probably the worst thing for the entire game. Now, instead of grinding for levels, you grind to have a little thing below your name...woo! It gives you absolutely no sense of accomplishment. The PVE Skills should not be linked to a title. It makes grinding completely necessary if you want to play with others. 90% of the time...people will get others with high titles, which means you will have to grind. ANET realizes it screwed up already, so that's why instead of expanding GW and fixing their mistakes, they are going to forget about it and move onto a new game.

Oh please, ANet has never said grinding was bad, what they've said is that you can do it if you want to, but YOU DON'T HAVE TO. As an example, Triple Shot, this skill does the exact same amount of damage as dualshot if you have 1 rank in Kurzick / Luxon.

Dualshot, 2 arrows - 25% damage, so 75%+75% = 150%
Tripleshot, 3 arrows - 50% damage, so 50%+50%+50% = 150%

Rangers have been using dualshot for the last 2 years, there is nothing in the game that forces them to grind up to use tripleshot, but they can if they want to.

I'm sorry, what?

The main use of Dual Shot has been to trigger things per arrow, most famously the Order and Conjure skills. With Triple Shot, you're getting an extra trigger for free, which means that while the arrow damage is comparable, the trigger damage is much higher. And then, as you mention, there's the ability for Triple Shot to scale up based on the title, which makes it a clear winner at higher allegiance ranks. If you're running a specific build that relies on Dual Shot, you would be crazy not to want Triple Shot - which makes grind mandatory rather than optional.

As for OP's question of why grinding is OK now, my understanding is that grinding feeds excellently into the new marketing model for GW. Titles and title grind keeps players playing longer, so rewarding this behavior is precisely what ANet needs to do to keep players in the game. Sure, it might turn off some people who don't feel like putting that much time into GW, but this new "core audience" of grinders is the one that will be buying GWEN and GW2 to capitalize on all that hard labor, first with the Hall of Monuments and then with the "inheritance."

It's sad to think that the rest of us will have to either walk the line or get left behind, but that's ANet's current marketing strategy, and the potential payoff in "loyal customer retention" is simply too large to pass up.

Yup , Anet is so horrible that the company has sold 4 million copies of Guild Wars. Its so horrible that they are expanding Guild Wars with Guild Wars 2 mmo. Its so horrible that many many people who started Prophecies still play this game. Obviously your comments here are just to flame Guild Wars. Instead of criticizing/flaming, constructive criticism would work alot better.

What I posted in another thread on the same topic:

Playing the game at all is optional. This isn't a matter of civil rights or anything critical to our lives. It's a matter of preserving one of the qualities of the game that draws me to it. I've said before that I don't mind the faction requirement to get skills, it's just (for instance the SS and LB titles) when I find myself doing something repetitive that I wouldn't do otherwise (that sounds like a reasonable definition of grinding) that I find gameplay too unpleasant. Yeah, they're optional just like playing the whole game is optional and posting my opinions on a fansite is optional. My gameplay style is to play the whole game at least once. I've played through almost all of the quests though I hate about 99% of the quests in this game. I've played all PvP Arenas (except HvH) at least a few times to get the feel for the whole game even though the guild I GvG'd in sucked and lost every match. Now I feel comfortable that I'm at least remotely knowledgeable about all aspects of the game...some a whole lot more than others.

Anyone who's recovering from playing WoW (I've been WoW-free for just over a year now...It's easier now but I still take it one day at a time) will recognise this title crap as the Blizzard, 'carrot on a stick,' model of account retention. We have a chance to keep GW2 from becoming a WoW emulator and we need to work together to keep that, "You've almost maxed your character out, almost..almost...NEW INSTANCE! Your gear is relative crap now! Try again and pay us more! Oh wait! EXPANSION! Duped again sucker! $15 please, ty...come again." from ruining he game. Believe me, WoW does a way better job of being WoW than Anet is capable of doing. Leave artificial demand to the masters and provide a fun game for the rest of us.

You make a good point, but...

This is a PVE Only skill. It's desirable, sure, but where serious competition matters, one player won't have it when the other does. Yes, some PVE build may be advantaged with this - but against Mobs. No one would possibly demand this skill in a build. It's a little PVE reward for a modest amount of account-wide grind.

Again, the spirit of the argument, I agree with. There should be no game-imbalancing rewards for serious grind. All Guild Wars players should agree with that.

I think we should all also agree that the current LB/SS/Factions skills do not do that.

I can't believe I just read people complaining about achieving rank 1, numerous times.

Though I'll admit I haven't read the entire thread no one in the first several pages of posts even mentioned that you can get Kurzick/Luxon points the same way you get Sunspear or Lightbringer points -- walk out of a town in HM, talk to the priest at the rez shrine and bang away at the monsters and bosses while collecting drops and earning faction. It doesn't take 1,000 hours and it's fun game play. If one town has gotten old move a little deeper into the forest or sea. And, depending on where the territorial line falls at the time, you might even be able to get Kurzick faction while vanquishing typically Luxon areas. It's game play. If you choose to grind, that's up to you, but there are other options, fun options, available.

Aye

i can only hope that gwen title tied skills sucks, or that the max lvl can be attained withouth grinding, dont say they are optional, if the team build for a place requires it it wont be optional. for example: an ele can finish the game withouth Meteor Shower and Searing Flames, can you say they are optional?