Make all grind-based titles account based.

You can try to argue against maths all you want. What, was I wrong somewhere?
Are you even listening to yourself, genius?
Maybe I'll quote you to help you out.
Where the hell is here even a word about giving books?

BlackSephir your trying to argue against something which is fact! It doesnt matter what calculations you have done or whether you include the handbooks or not.

I attaind rank 5 on all races by just playing the game, and yet your trying to suggest thats impossible.

Yet I did it!!!

It thats simple... I really dont get why you have an issue with that? Have I offended you somehow, or hurt your feelings because I got rank 5 on all and you seem to be having trouble?

As for mentioning books. Thats my point. I managed rank 5 very easily on all before this huge advantage from the books. So its staggeringly easier now!

It's way too easy to get to Rank 5 by just playing through the game.

/not signed

what about for the other titles then? any objections?
fish?
doug?

So because you can quickly reach a point that is not even a quarter of the way through 4 of the titles I'd like changed, you are rejecting changes to all of them ?

Maybe that's because I'm an atheist but I don't believe every stupid crap people post on the internetz.
I did my math and turns out you earned 13400 rep by 'exploring' 3 small areas.
Right.

No, your point was that you can get R5 in every faction just by doing: quests, dungeons and getting bounties. I'm tired of quoting myself and moreover, I'm tired of quoting you because it turns out even you can't read your god damn posts.


Ontopic: I don't care if my necro will be able to wield the Asuran title but on my ass I'm R6 Asura and it'd pain in the ass to do the same things just so Pain Inverter could work properly.

Believe me if you want to, your choice! Its no loss to me!

If you look back on another post I made, I clearly stated that I can understand certain titles being made account based.

Titles such as wisdom and treasure hunter which have HUGE levels to max and which will truly take a long time and alot of gold to do.

But the reputation ranks are a joke at how easy they are to max out. I even found out last night you can pay to have your NM handbook and dungeon book filled (although I think that only works once).

I went from rank5 to rank8 Asura within 5 seconds by doing that and it cost pittance!

This is combined with the huge amount of points you get now from filling them in NM and HM. It really is laughable that people are still complaining about getting rank 5 reputation points in GWEN anymore.

But yes... some titles should be account based, but only those which are really hard to do or take a staggering amount of time to do.

And where do you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable grind ?

And how do you define grind?

Grind IMO is something that cannot be achieved by simply playing the game as you normally would, via the storyline and quests and dungeons and missions.

Grind IMO is also when you are expected to do the same thing excessively to reach a max level.

In terms of the reputation points.. those can be achieved very easily by doing that. Regardless of what some narrow minded posters continue to spout, you can achieve rank 5 on all races by just doing all the content.

Not to mention the 20k+ points from handbooks and dungeons books depending on HM and NM.

Not to mention the fact you can pay to have atleast one NM handbook and one NM dungeon book filled for you and then hand them in.

Not to mention that you can replay all quest and dungeons with new books in both NM and HM and soon max all reputation titles.

How much easier do you want reputation ranks to be? Those ranks dont require excessively repeating the same stuff! Your talking maybe 2 or 3 times.

But wisdom and treasure hunting isnt something you can do by just playing the storylines and all contents. It requires opening chests and ID'ing drops in your own time and excessively repeating the same stuff ALOT.

Neither widsom or treasure hunting titles are hard, but they require huge, excessive amounts of time. This is compared to getting rank 5 on all races within a week of playing. This is compared to getting rank 8 on all races within a month of playing.

Grind is all about perspective and what you do and dont like doing, what you
want and dont want and how much effort you willing to put in.

But the point with the reputation points is that it doesnt require any effort outside of the storylines or quests or dungeons. You earn those points basically doing what you would do anyway.

While treasure hunting requires you to open chests over and over and over and over again, which has NOTHING to do with the storyline or missions or quests and dungeons... other then the tiny few you might come accross during them.



Bottom line is that no grind is fun or acceptable, but nothing that requires staggering amounts of grind is critical. And things such as reputation points and elite armor and skill hunting and exploration dont require huge amounts of grind and they are optional.

But wisdom and treasure do, but are those really important?

I sorta have to agree with freekedoutfish here... with the adition of the high faction gain for books, this thread should not even be alive anymore. i mean lets use logic here, if u want 1 set of armor(even if its ebon vanguard) then you have to do the storyline and hand in the book, that should equal almost 26k(if not, quest for like 5 seconds) . If however you want 2 sets of the presitge armor, then some grind should be necissary, i mean, you grinded for the cash right? In all those armor, for all the classes, i see 1 ranger armor, and 1 dervish armor that are not craptastic reskins so i dont see why you even want them in the first place

Grind is any time where your rewarding for completing a task multiple times, especially if the task gave you no trouble the first time. The only way a task can be repeated without calling it grind is if you didn't complete it well enough the first time (eg, your repeating it to get under a time limit).

Note that I'm using a definition that calls it grind if your only required to do the task successfully twice.

And where is the line between excessive and not excessive ?
Why do you put the line there instead of one repeat either side ?

And what is so important about rank 5 ?
The armor is vanity only, so I don't care about it. And at rank 5 your not even a quarter of the way through the title.

Can we stop confusing difficult tasks with tasks that simply take a long time please ?

The grind titles are titles that take a long time because you have to repeat the same tasks, even if you had no trouble the first time. And if you had no trouble the first time, how can you claim that its a difficult task if it simply requires you to repeat that task again ?
With the titles being character based its one month per character. So I'm looking at 7 months across all my characters, assuming I only work towards the titles (instead of say, helping guildies with their tasks). And rank 10 is the max, not rank 8.

Yet the reputation titles require grind to max them out, and maxing them out gives stat bonuses (however minor those bonuses are).
If a player is less skilled than another, then the first player might require a stat bonus for the same task that the second player doesn't. So what level of player skill do you use to decide if a stat bonus is required or not for a particular task ?

/signed x 1000000

for players who would want the recognition of "Source of Wisdom" title they have to max out the title for each character, doing it 10x the effort, given they have one of each class in PvE. No one gives credit that someone's MONK or RANGER has one of these titles but rather the fact that the player has attained such title, so being able to flash it on any of your characters shows YOU (the player) has accomplished this and don't have to always come back to the main character that aqcuired it to show it off.

It useful as that would be, it does not make any sense at all. Max a title on 1 char and use that titles effect on all other chars.

Well, tell that to the Kurzick/Luxon Faction, then.

So..

1) Your idea of grind is anything that has to be done more then once?

You must consider missions, quests and dungeons as grind in that case because those are the main aspect of the pve side and you have to re-do those every single time you make a new char. Should we make it so that if one character has completed a mission, then all your characters have completed it?

That way you dont have to redo them! Obviously that is just a daft idea and I hope you dont like it.

You will struggle to find any game in existance that doesnt contain what you define as grind. All games on the market have aspects that you re-do or re-play.

But again.... why do you need to have max reputation or other max titles on all your characters? Is it a necessity or a choice?


2) Im sorry if this sound incensitive, but ive said this before. You knew fine well when you created those 1-8 other characters that you would have to re-play the same content. Its no ones fault but your own if you have to replay stuff.

You should have considered that before you made so many at one time. Im not suggesting people dont create other characters, but have some common sense.

If you create 9 chars at once and play them all at the same time (more or less) then the content will soon get boring and feel like grind.

But if you create 1 or 2 and finish them off before creating a new character then the content lasts longer and doesnt feel like such a grind. Its just common sense.

You dont read 9 books at once and then complain you've read all the books you have. You read one or two books at a time and make it last longer.


The point is if you want the content to feel fresh for longer and you dont want to be re-playing everything over and over and over again, then dont create so many characters at once.

Make 1 or 2 and play them all the way through and then do another! You cant blame Anet and say "oh this game is all grind" if your the one playing 9 characters at once and it all feels repetative!

3) But as ive said, some titles should be account based like the ones which cant be achieved by just doin the storyline. But reputation ranks CAN. Try to accept that! Anet is only expecting you to complete the game to get rank 5 and then replay some quests and dungeons once or twice to get max levels.

And you can also pay to fill your NM books atleast once... that is a huge advantage.

/Signed

I am sure a lot of us have a life outside of playing Guild Wars, even if you are hard-core gamer you are going to need to devote all of your gaming time on GW getting grind-based title. I do not have as much free time to play Guild Wars as I used to do therefore by the time I have time to play, I don't think I want to repeat doing the same thing over and over again. Beside if I recall Anet said Guild Wars reward player by their skill not by how much time they have spend in the game or something along those line.

/Signed

What he said.

/unsigned

Anet has a reason they programmed it the way that it is. People should learn to except the way the game is designed instead of wanting Anet to redesign it the way they want just so they don't have to do something they don't like or want to do. I find that childish in people for the most part. But, I guess we have a lot of babies playing this game.

/signed
Great idea! Plain and simple

Oh and by the way, Red Sonya, we have a community for a reason. If those things you mentioned were true, then how come they changed Favor of the Gods and HA? (Just to mention a few)
A community is for discussing and suggesting new ways for the franchise to develop. In the end, the designers are always the ones to decide, of course.

But, I guess we must have some babies playing this game.

You, sir, make an excellent point. One question though... Why would one spend their time by working (or otherwise: doing something unpleasant) in game for acquiring something that is part of something he paid (worked before he could buy it) for? Oh...wait a second -- it's because ANET designed it that way... Very well...let's work in RL instead of grinding so I can buy another game, where I could play!

I agree that the SweetTooth, Drunkard, Wisdom, Treasure Hunter, Lucky, Unlucky, etc should be account based. All the ones like those I agree. Even on the Cartography titles I say sure... let your other characters display the cartography title if you took your War or w/e and cleared out the entire map. Its not like it actually GIVES you any boost to display the "100% Cartography" title like some titles do so no harm. Besides who wants to try to unfog the entire map on 6 to 12 different characters? Thats alot of free time on someone's hands.

The titles that should NOT be account based though are the titles for beating campaigns, vanquisher titles, Norn, Dwarven, Asuran, Vanguard, and all the other "character reputation" titles with a storyline-specific group. As pointed out earlier, those titles affect quests/missions respective to the titles themselves. And if you made a new character for PvE, you just accepted the fact that you have to do those PvE storyline tasks again.

My Warrior has rank 5-7 on the various EoTN aka GW:EN titles like Norn and Asuran and such. Just because of that, my other characters shouldn't get rank in those titles as it is specific to what that character accomplished in the storyline.




Personally, I doubt i'd work on Sweet Tooth or Drunkard unless it gets changed to account based. And I just chalk up the losses on lockpicks and salvages because I don't feel like being bothered with making two character changes every time just to salvage something. But I feel your pain on those.


/signed (excluding storyline specific reputation titles).

Have you been completely and utterly incapacitated ingame just because you dont have rank 5 or rank 10 reputation?

Does not having max rank LB or SS prevent you from playing?

Does not having that elite armor set or those new GWEN weapons stop you playing?

Does not havin 100% exploration mean you're unable to play and people pick on you?

Are you unable to play because you dont have a certain green weapon, or because you dont have 100k gold?

Simple answer is no!

How is having stuff n GWs that requires a degree of grind to achieve, which is completely optional prevent you from playing just because you dont have it?

Try to grow up and be realistic. There is nothing ingame which requires staggering amounts of grind which is critical to anything. There is nothing preventing you from playing or enjoying this game just because you dont have a certain max title or elite armor set or a weapon or all the elite skills.

If you think otherwise, then im worried! If you choose to grind for these things on one or more of your characters, then that is your choice. But it makes no difference to whether you can play or not.

We have 1.5k armor, we have cheap max weapons, we have hundreds of alternative skills. You dont need any titles or need any skills to do anything. Even LB gaze isnt critical and no pve only skills are important to anything.

You dont need that minipet or you dont need 100% exploration. You dont need to increase your luck % and you dont need to increase your gaming or drunk'n ranks. You are not prevented from playing or enjoying yourself without all this content you grind for.

At the end of the day, go play a different game. Go play WoW and you will soon come running back when you actually realise how easy we have it in GWs.

I'm not sure what part of "You don't even need to play the game" you don't quite get. Nothing is needed, period. No one is disputing that. This isn't about a need. This is about a want - in a game that people play for fun. Let's get some priorities here now that that's out of the way.

Is 15k or FoW armor needed for maximum efficiency? No.
Are minipets needed for maximum efficiency? No.
Is 100% exploration needed for maximum efficiency? No.
Are protector, drunkard, vanquisher, sweet tooth, etc titles needed for maximum efficency? No.
Is treasure hunter, sunspear, lightbringer, reputation, friend of, etc titles needed for maximum efficiency? Why yes, yes they are.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Instead of flatly saying "You don't need it," consider adding "You don't need it for maximum efficiency" and see how truthful it becomes. Is maximum efficiency needed? That is the question, and where I think you'll find the major split in opinion. Please leave out those factors which are clearly vanity, and definitely not needed for maximum efficiency. It drags down any real points you may have.


EDIT: Of course my solution would involve making it so that those titles that are currently needed for maximum efficiency are no longer needed. Unlink them to skills and effects. The compromise would be to make all titles that have skills and effects account-based, as this thread suggests, and I would agree to that. I still wouldn't like it, but it would be much better than what we have now. In the end, no grind for maximum efficiency is optimal, and it is how GW was, back when I fell in love with this game.

Having the Ebon/Norn/Dwarf/Asura title tracks account based would be nice.

It would give me a reason to actually bring my other characters past the Eye of the North.

Can you also appreciate that one persons perspective on grind is completely their own. You might consider one thing grind and someone else doesnt. While I might consider something grind and you dont.

It all depends on what we all see as important and what we all want and need. One person might want FOW armor and they cant get it, so they conisider it grind while others would disagree.

I dont see reputation points as grind because they were easy to make, while someone else disagrees obviously.

Grind has NO definition ingame. Its all depends on perspective!

Its not just a case of making a thread with a title of "make all grind based ttles account based" because that could be anything.

I mean doing an identical task more than once. Doing it on a different character changes most tasks simply due to the skills used, so it doesn't count as grind.

So, how would you go about deciding if they are a necessity or a choice for the general Guild Wars playerbase ?

I knew I would have to replay the campaigns with them. However apart from my paragon, all were created before ANET introduced the PvE skills (other than the sunspear sig), so I had no way of knowing that I would need to repeat the grinding.

That is how I do things. The grinding parts feel like grind either way, but the missions don't.

Its the repeating it once or twice that is the issue here.

Yes, the rep boost is a reduction in the grind. But not an elimination of it.

So should we go back to having attribute refund points, instead of freely being able to change attributes in towns, because that is how ANET designed Guild Wars ?

Or how about having the skill trainers only let you know if your current character has a skill listed there, and not let you know if you have it unlocked for PvP ?

By your logic of leaving the game as ANET programmed it, we should never of got those changes. But we got them and Guild Wars is better for it.

So how to those titles effect the quests/missions ?

I accepted having to repeat the storyline. But when I created 6 of my characters there weren't any PvE skills worth grinding for, just the sunspear sig and LB gaze. So how could I accept something when I didn't know about it beforehand ?

You still haven't told us where you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable grind, or why you put your line there.
So where do you draw the line between something being grind or not ?

Which is why I defined what I meant by "grind based title" in the OP as the titles which reward you for completing the same task over and over. I even listed which titles were covered.

Ive said dozens of times in the guru what my definition of grind is.

Something is excessively grind if it cant be achieved by simply playing the storyline once, or by replaying quests, missions or dungeons again.

In other words, grind is something that asks you to do something outside of the main story. But how is it terrible bad to have to replay some quests and dungeons in one character once or twice?

Thats the point of pve to do quests, dungeons and missions. If you dont enjoy doing them, then why play a game which is primarily that kind of thing?

Having to re-do a quest or mission once or twice really isnt excessive! You get 20k points now for a full handbook in HM, 30k for all dungeons in NM and that increases in HM.

Now concidering you can get rank 5 on all races from just doing the storyline, combine that with the 20k+30k + the HM points + the ability to pay for those books to be filled atleast once...

...and that removes any excessive grind IMO.

Excessive grind is the drunken title, the wisdom title and the treasure hunter titles. Those are completely unrealistic to complete without spending endless hours doin the sae thing for months.

Reputation points dont take long to earn.

I had rank 5 on all within a week, I now have rank 8 on all withn about a month and im close to rank 10 drawf.

Now I chose to go above rank 5 so thats my choice to earn more points. But going from rank 5-10 isnt that excessive considering how many points you get in HM for the handbooks.

Reputation ranks really are some of the easiest ingame to earn.

Thats where I draw the line at what grind is. If its very easy to attain and takes little time then its not grind. If its easy but requires hour and weeks and months to max out then its different.


Again im sorry if ths sounds rude, but I have to question why people play RPGs and/or MMOs if they dislike playing games that inherantly require you to re-play stuff. Whether it be quests, missions, dungeons, exploration, gold earning, buying armor and weapons, hunting skills or increasing title ranks.

Repeating stuff is inherant to an RPG and/or MMO. You cant have one without the other, so how can you complain about redoing stuff?

Ok so certain things require more repeating then other, but you have to be less general about it and be more explicit as to what exactly it is you dont like. You cant label everything that has to be repeated as grind. That would include the main aspects of a pve game such as quests!

So, by your own definitions, it takes excessive grind in order to have maximum efficiency with title-based skills and effects.

Are we on the level, here? Am I understanding you correctly?

If so, then we are only arguing one thing: Is maximum efficiency needed? If it is, why must we be forced to excessively grind for it? If it isn't, why not?

Each of these questions have answers that are entirely subjective. In other words, there are no correct answers, only a matter of opinion. The only way to really know whether this is a good idea is to weigh the pros and cons of it. The pros are outlined in the OP. Since you oppose it, why don't you outline the Cons, freeked. Of course this is open to all, so anyone who wants to help, please, do so.

really it depends on your definition of grind, for example

"Grind based titles where you perform one task over and over again until you have enough points"

One may find the Vanquisher title a "Grind" as you kill monsters repeatedly in many areas, over and over. amybe an hour an area even of just killing.

Skill Hunter : CApping 290 skills, same thing ,kill boss zone out to next area, kill boss, zone out

Cartographer:...Wall Hugging

just an idea of how osme titles may be considered grinds, other could be too im tired tho.

If this was to be implemented it would be very hard to do proper imo
lets take Lightbringer as an example.
50k to max.
Maybe 500k to max account wide ( as there still should be effort in..hence title)
this will create some mixed gamer feelings
as the person with 4 characters would have to work ALOT Harder for the title then his buddy with 8 characters,when both playing the same campaign. even so more the solo character palyer, which will in no way eliminate grind for him.

personally i do think that Wisdom and Treasure hunter should be account wide as those are really high, dont think it sohuld be lowered tho.

This said i should mention i have 1 main which i title hunt on, but use other chars for campaign.

Once or twice isn't too bad. But where do you draw the line between it being an acceptable number of repeats and being an unacceptable number ?

Without knowing that condition I'm having a bit of trouble viewing your definition as complete, because I can't use it to tell if you would consider something a grind or not.

I enjoy doing them the first time, and the ones I do enjoy a second time I'll do a second time. What I'm against is linking a players efficiency to how many times they repeat a task.

So how many repeats does it take to become excessive ?
5 ?
10 ?
100 ?

Why do you keep bringing up rank 5 in response to me ?
I've already said I don't care about the armor.

Call me when you have a time estimate for getting rank 10 across all reputation titles.

Prophesies didn't require us to repeat anything on a single character. Sure a lot of people did repeat things because they wanted to, but it didn't effect how efficient our characters were. Then ANET added in titles, which wasn't too bad until they linked them to a characters efficiency at salvaging things.

So how did Prophesies manage without any repeating ?

Using my definition, how would the non-repeatable quests be considered grind ?
Even the fed-ex quests are slightly different because they have different start and end locations. Remember that I'm talking about repeating identical tasks and not including tasks if they differ in the slightest. This means that a task to take a package from A to B wouldn't be considered grind even if it had a pre-requisite of taking the same package from B to A, even if they were in the same town.
But taking a package from A to B twice would be considered grind, unless at least one thing was changed on route (such as a single non-random enemy only being there for one run).

Also why is it a good thing that peoples efficiency be linked to repeating a task multiple times ?

But each enemy killed is slightly different due to the location of the kill and enemies around it. So although it feels like a grind, it isn't under my definition because the task isn't identical.

Most of the bosses would be in a different location to each other, and they would all have different skill bars. So each boss is at least slightly different.

Wall hugging in different areas. It would only be a grind if you had to hug the same wall over and over after you got it all the first time.
I'm not against raising the points required for a title, but the people with only one character would be. Also you are another person confusing difficult tasks with time consuming ones. For instance if we tripled the points required for max LB without changing anything else, that wouldn't make it any harder, it will just increase the time required to max it.

Wisdom and treasure hunting effect your lucky level, so yes they did/do have titles which effect you as a player.

But this is where your problem is...

..your putting some undue importance on the effects of these titles!

The only titles which effect anything to do with your character or pve only skills are the lightbringer title, the drawf title, the norn title, the asura title and the vanguard title and luxon title and the kuzack title.

None of those titles and their status effects or effects on pve only skills effect whether you can or cant complete the game in NM or HM.

You dont need pve only skills to be max or to use them at all, to do anything in GWs. Even LB gaze is effective at level 1.

You dont need the status effects from skills to be max or to even use them, to do anything in GWs.

This is why people are complaining about grind becase their putting some unneeded importance on the titles. There is nothing important or critical about having these titles be max or using them.

Im not giving you a definitive answer like "oh yes repeating a quest or mission 5 times is excessive" because I dont consider repeating quests or missions or dungeons to be grind.

They are the main aspect of the entire game.

It all depends if you choose to increase these titles as to whether you subject yourself to (what you consider) grind. But these titles are not important, try to understand that.

You dont need rank 10 drawf to complete GWEN. You dont need max rank lightbringer to complete NF. You dont need max rank luxon or kuzack just to make those skills more powerfull.

Grind becomes excessive when a player spends 24/7 of every day for a month in FA, killing luxons to earn faction points.

Grind becomes excessive when a player spends 24/7 in the snowman dungeon earning drawf points in NM or HM.

Grind becomes excessive when a player spends 24/7 in the yellow desert of NF farming LB and SS points.

Grind becomes excessive when a player does a dungeon in GWEN 24/7, over and over again to get the "oober green" they want or to farm diamonds or something.

Grind becomes excessive when you spend 24/7 of every day farming gold to buy something really expensive like FOW armor, or a green weapon or a mini pet.

Yet are/is any of that necessary? Will you game be completely un-doable without those things? Do you need to be doing that 24/7 to progress?

No!

You may want the end result and that is your choice. But you dont [b][need/b] the end result. So if you choose to spend 24/7 of every day for a month doing the same task to achieve something you put importance on then fine. But dont complain to Anet because it requires excessive grind.

All these things that people are labelling as excessive grind are not important. They dont have to be re-done or re-played or repeated 100 times. Those players are simply putting some undue importance on the end-result or its vanity thing about wanting some green weapon or a new elite armor set or having their skills be max.

This "its all grind" is driven purely by this idea of "oh that guy next to me has rank 10 drawf and his skills will be better then mine... thats not fair...".

Its all about ego, not whats important.

Again I ask, how are you determining if someone needs the end result or not ?

Also, are you going to answer arcanemacabre's post ?

i wouldnt do it just bc u could have lvl 1 koabds, shich would really piss me off. and for a super grinder, u could get dwarven, asura, norn, vanguard, lb, ss, lux, and kurz, and then u get a lvl 1 thats 9/10 for r2 koabd. no thanks

personally i do not worry about those titles (9 max characters, 1 pre, 1 pvp, 4k+ hours and not a single KoaBD to my name) maybe with the norn skills I *might* someday get a drunkard title lol

Around the time nightfall came out, I decided that all my booze, sugar, etc etc would go to one character, and I decided my paragon would be the only char on my account to ID items.


As far as the PvE titles go, yes, for people who have many characters it would be very easy to have ALL rep (instead of just lux/kurz) work for any character... but then we would all have max... so it really would work out to be another kuz/lux type faction farming with the max rank set so high that you would never max it in such a small amount of game hours-- anyways

Speaking of faction farming, I VOTE NERF that Kurzick FFF hax- Im kind of proud of my kill-for-kill luxon title and the skills it allows me to use in pve :/

But do I think that the pve-rep titles should be account based? Nope. Leave it all how it is. I would benefit greatly from getting a few free points to my account-wide kobd+ titles, but it makes more sense as far as quasi-mmo's go to keep it character to character.

we need a poll dammit!! lol..
All u ppl are arguing around in circles.. cos in the end is what people think of the game that counts.

Anyway heres something for Anet to consider:
If you made account based titles wouldn't people be more enticed into purchasing extra character slots? I know I'd definetly purchase 3 of em if the proposal goes through.
Why in a game marketed for it's focus on skill, are there such disincentives for the creation of extra strategic options ( ie extra characters to beat missions with )?

No in the end is what Anet thinks is best as a whole and I also think like they think right now that it is NOT account based for titles and you should have to do each one by each individual character on their own. If I win a bowling tournament should everyone in my household get a trophy? See how rediculous your ideas are?

well from my subjective view, I dont understand why people feel their being "forced" to grind these things.

I think people are only grinding to increase titles or to increase status effects or the power of skills to "be better then the next guy".

There is no logical arguemnt that anything which requires grind is critical or important. Its all about what people want, not what they need. I agree thats its subjective in that case.

But its very simple to determine is someone "needs" the end result. Ask the question..

..can you complete the game, or that aspet of the game (quest, dungeon, mission, vanquishing, elite zone, etc etc) without the end result?

Example:

Can you complete the game or all aspects without rank10 reputation on all races? Yes!

Can you complete the game or all aspects without max rank LB or SS? Yes!

Can you complete the gaame or all aspects without max rank luxon or Kurzick? Yes!

Can you complete the game or all aspects without having your pve only skills maxed? Yes!

Can you complete the game or all aspects without elite armor or fow armor? Yes!

Can you complete the game or all aspects without having 100% exploration? Yes!

Can you complete the game or all aspects without having all elites or all normal skills? Yes!

Etc etc etc etc!

That determines whether something is critical or just a case of "I want it"!

Well, that is part of his post answered. So I'll quote the part you haven't answered.

So, where is the harm ?

So we have a lot of people running around with KOBD rank 2. Where is the harm in this ?

Your assuming that ANET will alter the number the titles need. To do that they would first need to justify the multiplier they use.

Just because something is a tradition isn't a good reason to keep it around. So why is it a good thing to keep grind titles character based ?

If someone is willing to make a poll, I'd suggest having these options:
1 - Make all PvE grind titles character based
2 - Make all PvE grind titles account based
3 - Leave things as they are
4 - Make the PvE grind titles that effect your combat ability account based. Make the rest character based.
5 - Make all PvE grind titles that effect your gameplay account based. Make the rest character based.
6 - A generic other option.

Yes, having multiple characters does make you more flexible when helping a friend through a difficult area.

And here I thought that the Sardelac Sanitarium was where we try to change ANET's mind on things.
The tournament is a show of skill, grind titles just show that you repeated the same thing multiple times. So your analogy doesn't work.

I hate to say it, but that rationale can be given for every aspect of the game, freeked. If warriors were only able to access AR 70 armor, but with excessive grind finally able to get AR 80 (except in PvP), that would be acceptable to you Same with weapons. Same with skills\attributes. Is there any limit to it in your mind? If so, where, and why?