Reduce Grind?

Out of the many things that have out of the SF debacle going on across the forum, one thing Upier said made sense to me: the amount of the grind in the game is out of touch with reality. And while I don't agree with Upier's assertion that SF is an acceptable way to get around the problem, the problem does still exist.

As an example, consider the rep and faction titles, which confer actual gameplay advantages. Sometimes they are minor, other times they are not (Aura of Holy Might, I'm looking at you). For a game that is supposed to not involve grinding to reach your character's maximum potential power, grinding out 7 or so titles seems counterintuitive. There's no excuse for these titles to be difficult to attain. Heck, they shouldn't even exist in the first place.

But then there are the e-peen titles like Drunkard or Sweet Tooth. These titles don't affect your character in any way, but they also take an insane amount of time to attain.

The fact is, the game is reaching (some would even say it has exceeded) the end of its lifespan. And while I'm not saying players deserve to be able to fill their HOM, it should be a reasonably achievable goal for a good player who plays regularly, but doesn't spend every waking moment doing so. After all, some of us have lives and jobs and families.

Personally, the only titles I care about are the faction and rep ones. If the other titles suddenly became easier to obtain, I probably wouldn't bat an eyelash. But there are many players out there who would be willing to grind out those titles if the wall wasn't so infeasably high. And with GW2 looming over the horizon...

Basically, what I'm saying is, there is an unreasonable amount of grind in the game. Not only does this breed SCs that cheapen the achievements, but it also discourages players from even trying. And that isn't good.

So, why not make the requirements for titles a little less insane? Maybe 3/4 of what they are now, so that they're reasonable goals for those players who are willing to invest a significant amount of time into it but aren't obsessive enough for the loony bin? Elitists can just boast about how they got the titles back when they were difficult, if e-peen is an issue.

*ninjas away before flamestorm begins*

I always felt the PvE skills and ranks were a bad idea.

They are usually overpowered and being that they're tied to a grind based title, they give added benefit to those players with time on their hands rather than skill in their brains. The other titles mean little to me, I've never tried to achieve any title, don't care about GWAMM, but having some players gain an advantage based on the amount of grind they put in is ridiculous in GW. It's as if they had special weapons that went above the max damage, but you had to do x amount of vanquishes or handbooks to get them. It goes against the very basis of GW.

The skills and ranks are here to stay, so the only way to rectify this major oversight is to reduce the grind involved in maxing these skills as to level the playing field for everyone.

why? expand your reasoning here

First of all - a short explanation:
A reduction of grind would be the optimal solution.
The problem is that given the lack of A.Net's resources, I do not see this solution from happening. Ever. That's why I am looking for options that demand as little A.Net's resources as possible yet still help (at least) reduce the problem. And it's the insane farming options that are currently in the game that achieve that.
SF is the dark side of the game that I am willing to tolerate because of the positive effects it has.


So if we overlook the fact the grind reduction is pretty much impossible to ever happen, we can be slightly more on topic:
I consider titles in it's core to be good additions. They give players a bit of a reward and give us something to strive for. But what is important to keep in mind is that titles do not have a limited supply (meaning that a person obtaining a title does not somehow prevent another person from obtaining the same title) and we are dealing with a game that is in it's core a casual game. And the game's goals should reflect that.
Currently, they do not. (Of course this is all BEFORE we even get to issue of titles giving a player an in-game benefit, but that a whole new subject.)
That's why I can only support the grind reduction.

The difference between max Allegiance and EotN ranks compared to a few tiers below, which are attainable by regular play, are minimal. Some extra damage, a second extra on your enchant... those differences are not game- or buildbreaking.

Those are the only titles you could consider 'grind', although 'grind' can be defined as 'the need to do something over and over to progress further into the game', and by that definition, only the 10k Allegiance quest in Factions and the Sunspear Rank restriction on Istan should be considered grind.

In the end, titles are optional. If you want to max them, and experience that as grind and find out you can't stand it...

So, I think GW has nearly no grind. Just achievements that take a lot of dedication and time to get.

I'm one of those players who has been discouraged to get the titles because they take so much time to get. But I don't think anet will ever lower them and if they were to somehow...the hardcore players would QQ night and day.

They reduced the grind for Lux/Kurz titles and even lowered the max if I remember correctly. LB/SS titles have had the grind reduced, vanquish areas or complete missions in HM, heck do a couple DOA runs & you will max LB. EOTN Rep title numbers were changed to help reduce rank discrimination. Treasure/Wisdom titles were made account wide to alleviate having to do this on multiple toons. What more do you want them to do? ANet already ticked a lot of people off that had completed said titles before they decided to change them.

Its not broken, no need to fix.

They just don't know how to get rid of grind,their methods are too deeply conservative,if you will,in Guild Wars thinking. At this stage of the game there should be epic amounts of GOOD loot everywhere. We shouldn't have to pay 100hours worth of game time for a moderately flashy spear. It's just not fun anymore, a few elitist pricks may be happy twith prices of 100e's of e's,but most people will never,ever see them even if they've been playing the full 4 years.

We need rewarding gameplay that makes the time worth it. Half my 2000hours of play is probably made up of farming or doign stuff in preparation for farming. We don't want this kind of crap nowadays,sure it may be 'dam kids and their impatience', but long gone are the days of pen and paper RPG's with 'dedication and patience'.
I've played GW for 3 years and the most leet item i've ever owned was a torm sword, which I subsequently sold. Was it worth the many hours of farming? No. Mybe I didn't show enough dedication... Is this rewarding gameplay? I don't think so.

Reduce the grind,save lives.

So what would that reward be Xsiriss? All we can be given are skins of weapons, of armors, of minipets. Isn't the reward of saving the Princess enough? What is it more that you want? New elite skins will be common in a matter of months anyway.

And if those skins are easy to come by, no-one would want it, because they aren't elite anymore.

Agreed that character power should never be tied to grind. Either skill-linked titles should be easily maxable, or PvE skills should work at 100% effectiveness from rank 0.

None of the PvE titles are particularly time consuming except for LDoA.
The only titles that need to be nerfed are PvP titles, zaishen and LDoA.

It's to hide the fact that there is actually not that much appealing content. What I mean is having more gold drops,so it doesn't directly effect things like torm stuff or things obtained from chests. They will still hold their value, and would still be there at the top tiers.
It's about people having a fighting chance to enjoy the game without having to pour hours in to it...I can't see why anyone would disagree. E-blades etc. will still be much more expensive than the other stuff if that's what the 'hardcore' players want. They aren't indication of skill anyway,just their tolerance for grind/farming/samething.

I actually like the fact that certain skills become more powerful when progress is made in a title. Yes it's grind-inducing, but then again, it gives you a reason to play. You can decide for yourself if it's worth the extra grind to get the highest rank in order to get that extra second of enchantment or not, nobody is forcing you. Overpowered PvE skill? Nerf the skill as they did it with Ursan.

And as long as they are PvE-only skills there is no 'unfair' advantage in PvP. As long as the only advantage you have is against NPC's, who cares?

Tharg

Meh, most titles are purely optional and shouldn't be made easier... they've been nerfed enough already to cater to the whiny QQ carebears...

As for the rep titles and their effect on PvE skills... rework the skills so they reach maximum effectiveness at a lower rank, have your Luxon skills max out at rank six for all I care, something easy and obtainable for the whiners... the rest of the title ranks having no effect on the skills, just something to grind for as a vanity item, maxed titles...

Free maxed titles for every whiny bitch who can't be bothered working for them? Nah, please, they've been nerfed enough to cater to the QQ crowd. There is no hard title left in the game on the PvE side... many have been reduced to just a few days effort, some are weekend jobs... only Drunkard and LDoA stand out, and most whiners macro drunkard...

Unlinking skills from titles, or lessening the rank at which those skills max out is fine and good... making the titles easier to max... whiny carebear land.

They already have reduced grind. Luxon/Kurzick offers more faction per kill under a blessing, we have 2 books now (Young Heroes and Shiro's Return), and we have Zaishen quests as well. Except for the PvP titles, all the grind has been reduced in some way, some of the grind was reduced in several ways.

For PvE, the only thing there is to do is grind.... if that is what you want to call it. If you consider it grind, maybe find something else to do (new game, PvP, etc.). I don't find any grind in the game, which is good because I don't enjoy grind. If I couldn't enjoy the game, I'd stop playing.

GW has never required grind, in the sense that it's not difficult to obtain gear with max stats just by playing through the game's storyline. Epen items like chaos gloves and FoW armor are another matter, but those are just shiny things that don't confer any direct gameplay advantage.

I can see the point about allegiance titles and skills, but would also note that any toon which has played through EoTN should end up with around rank 4-5 in each allegiance title just by going through the storyline.

Reduce grind? After EOTN and their talks about GW2 you think they want to cater to the minority that doesn't like grind?

I disagree. As people above have mentioned stats on the skills gained by allegance titles are minimal and you do get decent ranks from finishing all the Eotn Content. Does anyone actually know what ranks you'd get approximately from completing the Master of the North Title?

Anyway, the way I see it is that in this game the grind is really optional, whereas in other games like Aion for example, grinding is a much bigger part of the game and really is essential to leveling and crafting.

Back onto Gws:
Other than Lx/Kz, I don't think the grind is too bad anyway.

You can't reduce the grind. You need something in the game to give people something to obtain. If you get all the titles and your not a PVP person then what, another toon doing the same thing. You would then move on to something else. I enjoy the game but if there wasn't something to log on and kill some time working towards I am not sure I would still be playing. At the moment I am working on the grind titles, LDOA, wisdom, treasure, lucky, and unlucky. Will I finish them, probably not but it still gives me something to do when guild groups aren't forming or I just have a few minutes.

As for the rep titles there really isn't much of a grind until you hit the last 2 tiers and at the point the advantage isn't a huge effect on game play.

We see this thread at least once a month crying about making it easier to do this, or cutting the requirement for that because I play once a month and want to max everything. Well how about this, I play about 8 hours a week and want something that takes a little time to get so I have something to do in the hour I log in. I am a casual player who has had the game for 4 years. I got my GWaMM (on my necro with no SF or afk dungeons,vanq,etc...) a couple months ago and was happy about the achievement because it was something that took effort to obtain.

People always think the game is about them, when you have to realize there is a larger pool of people out there and ANET has to keep them all happy. Just as you need to have missions that are short and some that are long, some that are hard some that are easy, you need to have titles that are both achievable for the short time player (legendary guardian for example) but some that are only achievable if you invest significant time into them (like treasure hunter) to keep everyone satisfied.

As for cheapening the title with SF, how so? I did the title for fun. Its a game and the worth of in game accomplishments are based on how you feel about completing them. ANET didn't mail me a trophy and interview me when I got it.

So I will end this with this: for those who think ANET needs to make the titles easier to obtain stop ruining my game and try something like Super Mario Brothers. I am sure you can beat that in an hour or so.

Ive maxed all bar the factions allegiance titles and none of them are particularly grindy even for me as a reasonably casual player.

Also , weren't the titles already rebalanced so that they were much more effective at earlier levels ?

There were also more ways of getting points for titles introduced making it very much easier to max these titles without repeated grind.

/not signed anyway , they aren't grind so why should they be made simple to get.

for me I think that grinding is all about personal preference.

1. most titles can be easily acheived now, plan example is ss/lb before you either grind farm in DoA to get LB or do desolation run for both, but I found on my 2nd gwamm that I more or less maxed the titles just by playing through NF NM/HM missions and vanq np to max titles.

2. If you dont wanna grind titles dont play for fun, o wait this is guild wars your not allowed to have fun anymore :S

3. I have to agree with LDOA is really the only grind pve title these days cause everything else kinda blends into each other with all the books/bounties/quests that you have.

We could always go back to trying to max un/lucky without lockpicks or Treasure Hunter and Wisdom character based instead of account if you like, then QQ about grind

As for making pve only skills requirements lower, sorry no I think if you want to use a pve skill and want max damage/heal w/e for minimum effort your lazy and need to get out there and work for what you want.

GG GL BB

[QUOTE= At the moment I am working on the grind titles, LDOA, wisdom, treasure, lucky, and unlucky. Will I finish them, probably not but it still gives me something to do when guild groups aren't forming or I just have a few minutes. [/QUOTE]

Sorry dude I disagree about wisdom TH Un/lucky these are pretty good synergy together now that picks are about and sure its a grind but when you can get between 0-3 chests every 45 seconds *coughs ice cliff chasms coughs* It isnt that hard to get these titles anymore.

Only titles now (PVE ONLY) that is considered grind are luxon/kurzick and LdoA <---------afk dl ftw

The name of this thread should be..."Why you should just give me the titles". Everyone else before us had to work at them.
My feeling is if you don't want to "waste" your time getting them, then don't. I don't feeling that I'm ENTITLED to these titles because I own the games.
Bad thread.

/not signed

I agree Treasure, wisdom, lucky, and unlucky can all be worked on at the same time. So really its only a single grind for 4 titles. Even those aren't too bad.

I was going to say that GW has no grind, but then spotted title skills on your third line.

So, uh, yeah... in future, titles that involve actual skills usable ingame should be confined to things like campaign completion. Doing missions - and doing them only once, or twice if you count hard mode - not grinding.

id like to say that survivor is a pain to completly max because i swear anet sets the monsters on u when you are near max (i had max armor and +hp and still got targeted) so pve titles are way easy besides LDoA (ovious reasons ) drunkard (expensive and time consuming) survivor (hard to survive on the last few exps) if you want to complain about unfairness look at like the gladiator title raised becuase of TA from 25 for r1 50 r2 and so on to 100 r1 200r2 with TA gone put it back instead of winiers complaining about easy titles?

This is something that many just seem to not understand or seem to ignore.

People like grind

Look at how many games are grind heavy that are beloved: WoW, EQ, Diablo. If its poorly designed then grind is monotonous, but if its well done then grind is just more time that one is spent enjoying the game. Grinding games are synonymous with gear or powers that improve over time. This creates an atmosphere of seniority, where long time players have more advantages over the new superstars other than knowledge of the surroundings; the old players generally prefer this while new player generally don't mind it.

This isn't to say that games should all be grinding based, this is simply why many people enjoy grinding, why many people that enjoy grinding don't realize that they enjoy a grinding game. There are so many people that think that they don't want a grinding game, but in reality they don't like the attributes of a non-grind game and prefer those of a grinding game.

I think a lot has been confused over the years as many people that actually would prefer a grinding game (or a single player game) have had too much influence in their feedback.

Thank you for a well written and structured paragraph that conveys your ideas.
So much more welcome than the random idiot who posts a page long rant.

I absolutely agree with you and think that the faction and rep titles could be lowered to 3/4 their current maximum to make it easier to obtain them.

i dont agree all rep titles should be lowered the luxon and kurzick ones are fine i dont grind i rarly ever farm luxon points yet i can get 55,000 points being afk (not leeching or botting) i think anet should just lower the Eton ones if they lower any

Good to know, I find it boring, repetitive and disgusting but apparently I like it.
I wonder why I'm not playing WoW or Aion.

Hmm, yes. Anet deviated a bit too much from their skill>time in that case.

But mostly I think because people wanted to.

and that's all. the reputation titles ain't insane, anyway - i've maxed them with no rush, just doing a few quests when i had some spare time, and eventually turned in all remaining books to max everything. it felt rewarding and i haven't frustrated along the way about the grind, maybe just about the irritating flame traps at oola's or long and boring fights at dd.
what i found more irritating is the cash titles. drunkard, party animal and sweet tooth should be somehow eased. since the prices are stable for a looong time now, i'd like to see anet introducing alcohol/sweets/party stuff at the merchants (in just one area per campaign for example) near or lower than the current market price. a dwarven ale for 100g at the merchant would eventually lead to a lowered market price. same with the other two. it is insane that one has to spend over 2M gold or insanely much time of grinding to attain a title that gives relatively nothing except fun.

No. See my post here. People don't like grind, they like having things that other people don't, which they can then use to try to make themselves feel like they aren't miserable failures in real life. Grind is merely the easiest means of bringing this about.

ArenaNet were smart about this and made these advantages purely cosmetic, so that those who wanted could have them and the rest of us could play a game. Unfortunately they've been turning in the direction of rewarding grind with more potent ingame abilities, something that they used to be strongly against. (They went from smart to idiots.)

Anyways, yeah, people don't like grind, they just like things that they can try to feel superior about. If we could keep these things and replace the grind with a different way of getting them (like, as a random example, win:loss ratio on a given day for a particular arena, displayable as a title) people would just as easily leap to that instead. And that way there'd be some actual skill and gameplay involved. Instead of WoW grind titles, we could have titles that proclaim the user's current skill in the manner of an FPS scoreboard.

So ... you are free to disregard them, the same way you are free to not take SF into your instance if you don't like it?
And if that is reason enough to not change titles, is that reason enough to not change SF?
AKA don't like it, don't use it?

Age of Conan
Aion
City of Heroes/Villains
Dark Ages of Camelot
Diablo
Everquest
Final Fantasy XI
Granada Espada
Lineage
Maple Story
Perfect World
Ragnarok
Shadowbane
Star Wars: Galaxies
Ultima Online
Warhammer online
World of Warcraft

No, people like grind. Just because you don't like grind, doesn't mean everyone agrees with you. (or you are one of the many people where what you want and what you think you want are two different things)

Lets take away all grind. We are left with a game where your last gaming session will have no influence upon your next gaming session. This really is fine for PvP, your old matches really don't have an influence on your next match. This has worked well for games such as Starcraft, Warcraft (& DotA), and a number of FPS's, but in case you haven't noticed those games are just much different and attract a different crowd from RPG players.

It is flat out impossible to have an RPG PvE game without having grind. PRG PvE is grind. The carrot of a new level, a new power, or a new magic item constantly dangling in front of the player, that is grind. The trick to game design is to hide the grind or make the grind enjoyable. Some companies have done a fairly good job of this (even though I don't personally enjoy the game, Blizzard has done a very good job) while others have done so poor a job that the game itself appears as nothing more than grind (FFXI, Lineage).

PvP-based games can eliminate grind entirely. The grind for PvP titles in GW is irrelevant to the people that matter. A player with a good attitude, reasonably intelligent, a little sociable, and no talent what-so-ever is going to go farther than someone with just hero r12 and champ r5. PvE RPG games simply cannot eliminate grind, because that is the basis of PvE RPG games.

Oh, okay I guess that just means I'm not a person.
As stated above, PEOPLE want to be unique. Unfortunately most MMO devs aren't creative enough to think of a way to be unique without grind. If they came up with it and removed the grind people would still play the game.

How the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO do I make an RPG game where my last game session has no effect upon my current game session?

Only after you answer that will you have a way to eliminate grind.

Hint: Anet based GW on skill>time. No where in that do they say that the game doesn't have grind, nor do they insinuate anything of the sort.

Why would you and what has that to do with grind?

What carries over, that is your progress, that is grind, that is why RPG and grind are synonymous.

EDIT: Whether that progress be thinly veiled as numbers along a title or something deeper like a mission/quest chain, it is grind.

Lolno. That's not grind. Even better, RPGs and grind were never synonymous. MMOs and grind were.