Grind? What grind?

I'm relatively new to this game, having bought it a week ago. I must say I'm surprised to find people complaining about grind in GW. Three weeks of playing Matrix Online probably wrapped my mind a little. To me, grind means running the exact same mission over and over and over again. And once you level, you do the same thing again and again until you hit level 50. I'm level 8 in GW right now and I haven't experienced anything that resembles grind. Over the course of doing quests you level up naturally. Because the skills you unlock doesn't give you that big of an advantage anyway, I never felt like I had to go kill monsters just to get XP.

If people want to do PvP, they can just create a PvP character at level 20, right? Or am I missing something?

P.S. The PvE in this game is great. I love the fact that they tell you what's going on in the story.

That's about right,the people complaining are the ones that want pvp made characters with all skills. If they took the time to just play through the missions there is no grind,unless your farming.

Wait until you hit lvl 20 and are a wee bit short on skill pts or you need a number of elites.

Then you'll see what we are talking about.

In the early stages (PvE wise) the game plays like a dream come true. Fun and fast missions, easy lvling, skill pts galore.

And then you ascend and reality hits. You don't have all the skills you want for PvP. You dont' have enough skill pts to buy those skills. You dont' have the elites you need. You dont' have the runes you need for competitive play. The list goes on and on.

Bamelin

The grind people are referring to is not leveling grind. I think 3 ppl leveled to the max in around a day or so after release and a bunch followed them soon after.

There are 3 ways to play pvp in this game:
1) Make a pvp character and use one of the premade templates (which generally are pretty bad and become obselete quickly).
2) Run a pve character through the whole game, collecting weapons and items and skills to use in pvp.
3) Run a pve character through the whole game multiple times, unlocking a large majority of all useful skills, runes, and weapon mods, then using those unlocked items (to unlock something you use an ID kit on a blue, purple, or gold item and it may unlock something for pvp) so that you can recreate and change around your pvp character at will.

Obviously if you want to perform up to your best or you and your guild want to compete for high rankings option 3 is the only valid one to go with.

The grind comes in the unlocking process. There are just so many skills in this game and many of them useful at some point or another and you get so few skill points even with quests that you have to rerun through the campaigns multiple times. Unlocking runes and weapon mods is even harder and by far more random; to give you an idea, I've played about 150 hours on 3 characters (100 on my main though) and even through I've specifically used much of that time to collect runes/mods in the most efficient way possible I still have few good weapon mods, maybe 10 minors, 5 majors, and 1 superior unlocked. There are 30-40 different runes I believe and while some are definitely useless, like superior strength/fast casting/energy storage or are rarely useful like superior beastmastery, there are still a substantial amount that you need if you want a flexible character. Elite skills are in the same scenario: You need to look online, find the skill you want, find the monster you get it from, find that monster (takes many many tries often because spawning is random), and then hope he uses the skill. Sometimes they just don't.

That repetitive process in those 3 areas is what is commonly referred to as grind. You may agree/disagree but you probably should try it out first and see the rate of progress before making your own opinions. If you're only lvl 8 though, there's a lot more of the game for you before that. The first time through, pve is a good deal of fun

Zeru has a very good synopsis of the grind in this game.

What do you mean you get 'so few skill points'?

I have 35 skill points that I'm not even using and I've finished the game and am in the PvP phase of the game.

There is no 'grind'.

The grind is made by the people who are too lazy to do things themselves and want instant gratification. They call it 'grind' cause they actually have to work for something.

To that extent you're right, but to capture elite skills you may need to grind. On another note, if you wanted to change your second proffession, you would then need to buy the skills for that, and if you wanted to somehow down the line change to another one, the same thing applies.

But then you're playing the game in a whole new way if you change your profession. Yeah it's a grind. But you can also just make a new char for that.

I'm looking forward to the end game grind/farming with checking out the other professions.

It means loot for me and friends, better gear, and the game doesn't stop growing so there will be new things to explore with that char.

He asked for why people were saying there was grind, and I told him the rationale and also to try it and make his own decision about it.

Coming in and saying the exact opposite without any rationale or logical reasoning to support it is just plain silly.

So few skill points is simply this: You gain 1 xp per level and 1 for completing a mission. After you ascend you gain 1 skill point at a very large amount of xp per skill point. So thats 19+25=44 skill points gained regularly, then X number after (lots and lots of farming for them). Quests help allievate that somewhat but then you run into the problem of a) finding the right ones for skills you need and b) some of the quests are actually very difficult/time consuming. There are what, around 75 skills per profession? Say 60-90% are going to be deemed useful at some point in pvp depending on profession. There's a pretty big discrepancy there, even with quests. That's why some of the pvpers in top guilds were having their guild members run them through the game over and over so they could ascend in 4 hours and gain that 24 or whatever skill points because it was a such higher rate of return than the other choices.

You mean arguing against you...

Anyways. I have 35 skill points left over. I did Warrior and Monk both as secondary professions, buying skills (olnly the ones I *need*, mind you) and I STILL have a ton of leftover skill points.

I really don't see the problem. And I don't grind, I don't farm, I don't play 1000 hours a day getting that extra skill point after I'm level 20 (though that is where at least 4 of them are from)

I still don't see the problem.



Actually I do. I got a lot of my skills from missions.

Ya'll don't want to do the missions, you don't want to work for your skills. Thus you term it as 'grind' and label it 'bad' so hopefully Anet will baby ya'll.

Thank you for the illuminating explanation. Since I don't plan to do competitive PvP, I guess I won't be affected much. After lvl 20 can you still PvP for fun or are you always pitted against people trying to climb the ladder?

My opinion is that whenever you're doing something in a game for not the enjoyment of it, then it's grind. They were so successful at getting rid of level grind, why did they put it back in for PvP? Seems like it's just a misguided attempt to add replay-value to the game. Time spent in a game doesn't automatically translate to value. The player has to feel entertained. When playing is a chore that it's just a waste of time.

Having a lot of people running around just looking for stuff is detrimental to the RPG aspect of the game too. How can you play in-character when your teammates are clearly aiming for some out-of-character purpose?

Just my thoughts.

It all comes down to what certain types expect out of the game. Those of us who are mostly into PvE will likely be very pleased with the lack of grind, while those who are mostly into PvP will likely be quite taken aback by the amount of grinding they should do. It's all perspective. Myself, I'd like to see a way for PvE to contribute to PvP players so they don't have to grind so much.

You are making a specific character and concentrating on a small set of skills, and so your needs are much smaller. People who play PvP exclusively have to play the meta-game. For them, they need maximum diversity in order to change builds often. The number of skills they should buy in order to be competitive easily outnumbers the number of skill points they're provided.

It's such a problem grinding for more skill points that it's often better to just start a new character and have your friends run you through to Ascension in a day. That's indicative of a problem with earning skills for older characters.

Doing all the missions is still insufficient for a full profession unlock. We're complaining because after we've completed all the quests, we still have to earn tens of thousands of experience in a game whose monsters rarely award more than a hundred.

I still don't see what you're talking about.

I PvP and have no problem with my one build.

Maybe it's just diverse enough, I dunno, but I've never had to change up my build just to do HoH (ToPK.....never noticed the Acronym before, weird).

Perhaps you can explain WHY you need 500 skill points and every skill in the game (when some are literally worthless, check out all the Mantras of the Mesmer, yah..when are you gonna use those? Mesmers don't even GET stances).

Perhaps you just need to weed through what is essential and what's just fluff.There's only about 20 or so mesmer skills that are actually valuable. The rest do random worthless stuff.

You don't NEED a full proffesion unlock though.

Zoolooman did a very good job of explaining. However, I do want to add a few things.

The prerequisite of "fun" and playing is very different between a PvPer, and a PvEr. While PvE preparation consists of opening the box, and then just experiencing the game as it goes, PvP preparation involves at least 200 hours of PvE.

In other words, those who are interested primarily in PvE get what they want the moment they hop into the game. Those who wish for the experience of competitive PvP, however, must wait at least those 200 hours.

Now, there are a lot of people who argue that you can be competitive without needing 200 hours of PvE, and to those who are serious about PvP competition, that is simply not true. In fact, it's utterly false. Pre-mades are limited, and some are jokes. In a game based on strategy and the functionality of those eight skills you bring, flexibility is key. In a truly competitive team, when you go against a team who has a certain strategy, to effectively counter that attack, you will need certain skills. Fun is *not* stopping PvP, spending the next 5 days outfitting your team with those skills, capping elites, etc, and then picking up the battle again a week later.

This is why PvPers especially rush the game so fast -- because in order to compete, we need almost all of the available skills for that flexibility. Even if a player only wants to play one role -- for example, that of the monk, the secondary class is also subject to frequent change. Again, these changes might be a spur of the moment counter to an enemy build. Does your team really want to wait five hours for you to find that skill?

As for people complaining about grind because they want everything handed to them on a silver platter, that's a gross over-generalization. The common consensus for most top PvP guilds seems to be that 100 hours in preparation for competitive PvP is not grind. 200 hours is pushing it. However, in the current state of the game, it will take upwards of 600 hours to unlock all skills, items, and runes.

For the top PvP guilds who want the flexibility required to both put together a build as well as be entirely responsive to the challenges that they will face as a team, yes, there is too much grind. About 500 hours too much.

P.S.. this is just an explanation to those who are confused about the grind argument. Yes, ANet is working on it.

Wait until later, the game starts getting hard when you get to level 20, thus not only will you be repeating many missions due to failure but you will often be required to repeat missions. How about the infusion mission, to beat the mission you'd want to get around 3 pieces of equipment infused (please feel free to say how great you are and how you didn't need to infuse anything) which requires repeating the mission. That is the ultimate definition of grind. Not to mention grinding for money and runes.

I'm a rational man I realise how much of a grind games can be, and this is a huge call but I'm going to say that this game is a bigger grind than you would expect. You need good equipment to compete, you need money to buy stuff, you need to repeat missions, you should get bonuses. People just farm, collecting items they want and since they now have 1000000gp they can charge whatever they want for them. The advantage of some weapons is small over others but they are still wanted even moreso for that extra performance. Those expecting to be rewarded on skill need to chose another game.

The fact that people "rush" through the missions to unlock skills is another reason to add this game to the grind list. Also I strongly object to rushing through the missions, what's the point? It's just useless time spent for PvPers, if ArenaNet want people playing through the single player then stop this rushing else PvP should be back where it was. Skills unlocked at start, weapon choice from zero hour.

One note:

Every single thread entitled, WTF WHERE IS THE GRIND? STOP CRYING?

always starts with..

Well i'm new to this game and have got to Lion's arch and so far I haven't noticed any grind?

Well Gee Mister, maybe thats cuz you haven't played long enough?


http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/a...tachmentid=586

here is a checklist of skills in the game. How many have you got? Even close?

Now add in runes, then item mods.

Thaumturge:

I'm level 20, have every piece infused, have a pretty nice wand but it's not golden, or blue...or even purple...I found it once and am not so focused on PvP that I feel I need to redo a mission 2000 times to get the one thing I need.

I'll admit though, I don't have the 15k armor, so I guess I"m still a newb since I don't have 75k and don't wanna run the infusion mission 11 times (10 to get every piece infused, 15k and regular set, and then once more to kill ...that guy (don't wanna spoil anything)).


200 hours? Bullshit. WHY do you need 200 hours? I have 158 hours and am perfectly fine. I have 4 elite skills.

Admittedly I don't have every freakin skill in the game but I re-iterate. WHY do you need them? You have to be flexible? Ok fine, but why? Look at this:

I don't know about you but I don't have a super awesome 1337 program that tells me what the other team has. So you never know what the other team will have to coutner what you have. If they have something geared that way well that's just luck of the draw.

Don't know what game you're playing but every time I've been through the HoH it's pretty much random and far too late to modify skill sets.


By the way I have 42 Mesmer skills. I don't forsee me needing the other 33 (or however many there are).

I've been through teh skill list, know which ones I want, and I have them too. And it iddn't take 600 hours either.


I'm still not seeing why ya'll need a UAS button. I have far more skills than I could use (I even have some warrior skills that I've never once used, they were just by-products of my Mesmer skill missions. Also I have some ranger skills and monk skills too from my alt that I just play whenever I'm bored of my main.)

Edit: Took out a part I didn't need, changed my mind.

You can think the way you want and I'll think the way I want. I just hope Anet doesn't give everyone a "Get everything you want because you don't wanna play the game" card.

Caco, your statements only serve to point on that you are not familiar with high end pvp.

Yes, your 40 something skills might do quite nicely against people who don't know what they are doing. But when you finally get to any sort of serious competative level such as Guild vs Guild or even an organized team build you will be snuffed plain and simple. When you are up against a team that is completely upgraded with ideal runes and ideal equipment and doing enough spike damage to kill you in 2 1/2 seconds while managing to shut down your monks at the same time you might get some idea of what this game is really about.

This isn't meant as an attack on you, but you are operating under delusions of adequacy.

The people that are making PVE chars just to unlock skills don't do anything PVE wise until after assention. Infact rushing chars straight to assention at lvl 4-5 works very well if they took mesmer sub. Experienced players know what they need, and they go get it. Unexperienced players unlock every skill they find because they think its a "useful thing to do".

Oh, and you don't repeat missions to get the best elites. The best elites can easily be found in the explorable areas.

I don't know why I bother saying I won't return to posts, it never happens. I always have to defend myself again.

Not true. What do you define as 'high end' PvP? Hall of Heros serves me quite well. And the fact remains that they can't tell what you're using so how the hell are they gonna defend against it if they don't know what to defned against?

I don't have 'delusions of adequacy'. I've played the game since the betas and am 99% confident in what I"m saying.

I still see no need for a UAS button. Didn't back then and still don't.

And you can't tell me I haven't fought against organized teams because I have. Have fought in and against them.

And ok yes I can die in 2 seconds if I can't ether feast. But that's because Mesmers are inherently weak. It comes with the territory.

But then again I can spirit shackle them, Energy surge them, energy tap them, and uh oh there goes their energy. Hope they have a monk backing them up while Phantasm is eating at their health.

And by no means do I have 'ideal runes and ideal equipment'.

I have full runes and one major vigor (to help counter my major) if that's what your talking about. I see no reason to have full Superior rune set though. That's just a waste of health. Minor does me just fine (12 domination, 12 inspiration, 11 fast casting, 7 illusion).

But do I really need a staff that does beyond 11-21 damage (what I have, pre-customized damage)?

I rarely use my staff as it is. I don't lay off the spell casting enough to warrant a better staff than that.

Still not seeing the need of a "give me everything I want with the click of a button" button.

Anyways, time to sleep, I'll get back to this when I get home tomorrow.

I am not and never have been... (and never will be) and advocate of the unlock all skills button. It was fun for beta but I'm glad it stayed there.

Here is my argument for getting the best possible selection of skills... there are many skills that are nearly useless by themselves but are insanely powerful when used in a combo with a team build. However, team builds like that are only possible if the person designing them can be confidant that the people playing with them have access to those skills. Your attidude is fine for pick up groups in tombs and I'm sure you have one build that works well for you. But it does make you rather one dimensional when it comes to diverse strategy. Pick up groups are the kiddie pool. It is a whole different game when you are with a team of people you know using a build that has been refined and designed from the entire skill list. Many characters in these builds are specifically designed to play off the strengths of the other team members to form a more powerful whole. And when builds like this are correctly executed, they will demolish any pick up group out there.

It basically comes down to the fact that if you only have the skills that you deem useful at the moment, it will severly limit you later on. The name of the game is versatility. And at the moment it doesn't seem like you are going to have much of that.

Everytime I login to these forums, I am reminded just how SERIOUS this game is taken by a large number of highly intelligent, but emotionally over-invested people. I am still not ascended, and am just now exploring Lion's Arch, but I am getting all I need for the road ahead...So...I guess I am trying to say "calm down and play"

You sir, are wrong.

I love PvE, and I'm a huge PvPer. I love going out and hunting mass amounts of mobs for cash and loot. I've done this so many hours, in so many MMO's and other rpgs that I've lost count.

And I do it in GW. And yet, in GW it is a god damn grind. "Oh look I got 3 purples, 1 gold and 5 blues out of 5 runs" maybe 2 of them are runes, 1 being a rune I've already unlocked, another rune that is completely useless to me.

"K, I'm going to capture this skill we really need for PvP" Attempt 1, spend 30 minutes getting to location of boss, he doesn't spawn. Attempt 2, see Attempt 1. Attempts 3-8, see Attempt 1.

And so on and so forth.

I do not mind working through mobs, to get what I need. I do not mind multiple tries. I do mind spending the majority of my time doing this. I've been lvl 20, the cap, ascended, completed the game, for some time now. Quite some time now. I've gotten enough gold off of skill hunting, and rune hunting to buy the 15k armor set, three times over, and yet not find 1 single rune I really need, or cap the skills I really need.

So please, don't compare your experience that may have gone to your liking, to that of others who hate this grind.

There is very little grind involved in getting your character through the game... but a massive amount currently required to flesh out your skill set with elites and get your rune and item upgrade library up to par.

I would say about 5-10% of the total grind required actually has anything to do with leveling up your characters. The other 90% is the invisible grind tied to the unlocking system.

It seems people like to consistently argue about this topic... I've been following on several threads in a few forums (and I've posted this comment in a few threads I think too)

I play PvE, I don't see grind at all.
I think PvP players are right, they're grinding pointlessly.

What if, in order to play the role-play aspect of the game, what if in order to go through the storyline and even leave pre-searing ascalon, I had to first win 100 matches in PvP with pick-up groups? How long do you think I (or any other player who's primarily interested in PvE) would play the game? Probably not long enough to rack up the 100 wins needed to start. For PvP players this is a very similar situation, in order to seriously compete they must play through a game that they're not so interested in and would rather bypass entirely.

Does this make them wrong or blind for "playing the game wrong"??? Of course not, the versatility of the game allows them to do this, I think it's a great versatility.

A proposed solution (if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem). I love when my server wins the favor of the gods, not because I can go to the underworld, I've never been there. I love it because I know that I have heroes fighting on my behalf in the HoH and winning the favor of the gods for me. I want to contribute as well, but as a PvE player. I want to be able to do certain quests that would unlock specific runes or skills for the next 5 teams entering the Arena, or to do something that unlocks a skill for people in my class in the Arena, or perhaps makes the skill available for a limited time from a specific skill trainer.

PvP players are valid in their complaints about grind and PvE players are valid when they say "what grind?" I want to be able to contribute to PvP and reducing their grind by "grinding on their behalf."

This post just owned every single person who dare claims there is no grind :P

For sure, Halls is pretty decent, but again, you have no idea what your talking about. It'd take a bookload to type out all the reasons why you are wrong, all the theories and crap. Experience teaches much faster. Try winning HoH from any of top guilds or teams. Then try holding it.

Time doesn't mean skill, that's what was advertised. Are you claiming your time is equal to other's skill?

I'm confused about the second sentence. Fought in and against them? Me confused

Ether Feast is 2 second cast, since they cast first obviously, how do you plan on living?

Please don't try to make it sound like you know top tier metagame. If you went to another forum, people would laugh and point out. If you want to prove your creditable, don't list things like our victories, or your strategies, rather show how you understand the game mechanics. No one can argue with that.

Well, I believe it is nice that people are taking a vested interest in the game, and are willing to put hours and hours just to back up what they say. It proves the game is a success. But when people put their emotions into the game, it somewhat gives a big bullseye on their face, one which if punched, will make the mods angry

Lvl 3 ascenscion, more like .01%.

I think there needs to be like, a debate rule thread. Because constant emotional and personal input really kills the arguements, plus it sometimes pushes people over the board and start violating the other rules.

This idea is gold. GOLD.

xellos, do you remember ensign's sig quote?

pm me if you don't and i'll remind you what you're doing wrong =)

No matter what ANet does, someone will whine. That's life.

I now have 2 ascended characters and NEVER farmed for upgrades/runes. I have superior vigor, 2 warrior, 2 ranger, 1 monk, 4 ele, 1 necro, and for the mesmer I have 3 minor and 2 major. Maybe I'm just super lucky, because 90% of them were from doing missions (and since I usually only do missions with henchmen and had 14 deaths when I completed ascention, guess how often I had to repeat missions). The other 10% were while messing around exploring and getting to all the minor towns for additional skill vendors.

Now, if you want to try and tell me that you *need* every single skill to be viable in PvP, I'm going to laugh in your face. How are the beastmastery skills useful in PvP? Oh, they aren't because bringing a pet into PvP is pretty dumb when their death makes you unable to do anything for 10 seconds. If I know I will only ever play Domination/Inspiration mesmer, guess what? I won't need to buy any skills from the Illusion line.

My mesmer has 141 hours into her and a healthy collection of skills including 10 mesmer, 7 monk, and 2 necro elites. I went hog wild and bought more skills than I will probably use. I never actually ran out of skill points when I really wanted a specific skill.

Xellos:

I post on 4 forums acutally. This one, The Guild Hall, GW Europe (hate their theme though, eye sore), and RPG stars sparingly (it's not really all that active, this and Guild Hall seem to be the most active).

My second statement of me playing against and in the groups means I"ve played against the groups and in them, I don't see how you don't understand that.

Ether Feast isn't a two second cast when you have 11 fast cast.

Yah that doesn't make sense. You're contradictin gyourself saying I don't understand how the game works yet I just told you how to combine 4 skills effectively with one another and there's a lot more you can do with that.

Telling me to win the HoH against a top guild is pretty stupid. I'm not even in a guild at the moment so an organized PUG is hard to come by. I got one last night but we had like 1 healer for the whole team and it just didn't work out that well. We got to the third match (not counting the first part where you get the morale boosts) and then lost.

That was one of the better PUGs I've been in on HoH. By no means the best but one of the better ones.




And Wesley what are you talking about? You want every drop to drop a gold? Is that what you're saying? Sure seems like it.

Nothing says you have to grind, that's just that nagging voice int eh back of your head that cries out 'I have to have the most ubar equipment in the game to even compete!'

Maybe if you're a warrior I guess, maybe a ranger. All the other classes really rely on skills though. (actually EVERY class does to some extent but warriors can dish out damage without their skills, just not as much. Rangers not as much but their skills compliment their weapon so, yah, Same thing pretty much).

At least I know Mesmer does. I do a whole 6 damage with my cane (11-21 +20% req 9 domination magic, which I have and then some.)

Combining 4 whole skills together doesn't exactly require any sort of virtuoso level of skill you know. It does show competence, (which is sometimes in short supply) but it isn't going to impress anybody.

I'm also a little dismayed that one of the BETTER pick up groups you've been in only had one person healing and only made it through the first three matches.

Now the point of this isn't "oh i'm so much better than you blah blah blah" What I'm trying to say is that the level of competition on which you are playing is not the level people are grinding to prepare for. You're right, it is overkill to grind to prepare for the kind of stuff you are doing. However, if you never grind, you will never rise above the kiddie pool you're swimming in right now. If you never intend to get into competative play (which is the purpose of the game) then you will never NEED to make your character more adaptable and get all the best upgrades unlocked. However, if you ever do get around to joining a competative guild, you will find yourself at a serious disadvantage.

The majority of the grind comes into play for people who are interested at competing at the top level. To compete at that level demands that you have enough skills to follow the metagame and enough upgrades to not be at a statistical disadvantage. In this case "enough" generally will mean "All" With the exception of one skill... Holy Wrath. That skill is worthless in its current state.

I grind but I choose to grind I want every skill in the game with every best weapon upgrade in the game with all the runes... yep I grind alot.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I haven't been to HoH recently, but isn't the fighting to get to HoH only 4-5 stages long?

3rd tier was half way in beta, may of changed since then.

And I"m not bragging about anything. My Mesmer build is by far not the best but I do know how to combine spells and play my class.

And never once did I say that I was better than you.

I'm probably not, I dont' grind after all.


And you STILL haven't defined at what level the game play actually becomes 'competitive'.

It's all been pretty competitive so far. Only once have I had a team just run up to us and start dancing (funny, though 4 of their team members left which is why they did it).

They've always fought back.

Now there's varying degrees to how WELL they fought back but I'm not sure where the line is where it's just "oh you're stupid, shut up you don't know what you're talking about cause you don't play 'competitively and don't grind for 600 hours to get every freakin skill in the game along with every rune" and then where it's actually 'competitive'.

HoH? Arenas? Guild matches? Please, I'm curious.

Done 2/3 of it and am currently seeking to get in touch with a guild (gotta find one of there members, forgot to get the leaders name).