Starting to feel the grind.

I bought the game the game the day it came out and have been playing it whenever time allowed. I've beaten all coop missions on a monk and unlocked aboud 50% of monk skills. Other characters were taken to at least level 10 and unlocked about ~30% skills from each class. That experience was very enjoyable. I've pretty much gotten the PvE fix and decided to start the best part of the game that I was saving for last-- PvP. When I bought the game, I figured the PvP would keep me busy for years, much like Diablo 2. With so many skills available, there are so many combinations to try.

I started to create a new custom PvP character and started trying out various builds I had in mind. My lvl 20 monk, with which I've beaten all missions, had some skill points left over so I spent them on skills I needed for my builds. Eventually, I ran out of skill points and was left with two choices; either farm exp to level and get skill points, or do quests. Obviously, farming exp would take forever, so I decided to see how questing goes.

I needed some mesmer spell so I started going from outpost to outpost looking for any NPC with a green exclamation mark. After a long search, I found one... but his reward was some wand. I searched some more but never found the guy with the skill I needed. I pretty much gave up on the idea of questing at that point. This method would work if someone compiles a list of all NPCs and their rewards.

So, I'm pretty much stuck. I have NO desire to farm exp for skill points, and I'm not interested in searching for NPCs that give quests for the skills I need. I want to be able to quickly create a PvP char, take it to an arena/team arena, see how it works, and start tweaking it. It's very difficult to tweak when you have to stop for HOURS to find a skill that might not even work for the current build.

Anyways, I'm all for UAS system. I don't understand why PvE people are complaining. Balance? You'll be able to make a PvP character just like everybody else. If you want to use your PvE char for PvP-- well then, YOU can sit there and farm your skills and gear to be competitive with the insta-lvl20 PvP chars.

So you went through all the missions and skipped all the sub-quests that actually GIVE you the skills?

No wonder you guys are complaining. You're not even doing 3/4 of the game.

I guess I should've mentioned that I was looking for a mesmer spell on my monk, whose secondary was originally a warrior, but later (after ascension) was changed to mesmer. So as I was progressing my monk, I did do the monk and warrior quests if I found them, but for mesmer I couldn't... which is why I had to go back and look for NPCs.

As far as 3/4 of the game... yeeeeaah. 3/4 of the game is all 'bout sub-quest, eh? I want whatever you're smoking, buddy! PUT SOME OF THAT IN MY PIPE!

I guess we aren't playing the same game. Anyways, if you ever decide to try guild wars, you can buy an account from NCSoft.

I think PvP is 3/4 of the game. PvE is just an annoying side game I am FORCED to partake in.

Personally (when I first started playing a month ago) I BOUGHT all the skills I needed at the skill trainers skipping all quests for them. You know because I thought the game was about player skill not time spent grinding for skills.

Boy did I find out how WRONG I was when I ran out of skill points. =(

The sad thing, is that a character is basically gimped skill wise if they take the non grind route buying from the trainers instead of doing the quests because they end up running out of skill pts.

It really sucks how badly the box lied regarding there being no grind.

People keep talking about how the grind in the game was misadvertised. Well, "grind" is extremely subjective. It's just like 'fun', all games promise "hours of enjoyment" or something along those lines. If you dont like the game, that doesnt mean they were lying, it means you have a different oppinion than the person who thought it was fun.

Bottom line, what is grind to you is not to me, what is fun to me is not to you. Thats life, if this isnt your type of game then dont buy the expansions and stop playing.

Thank you. That's pretty much what I've been trying to say, just more concise.

Myself, I'm having fun. I don't have to have every skill in the entire game to have fun, I do it perfectly fine with a fraction of them.


If you want to straight PvP that's fine but you're leaving out at LEAST half the game.

Just because YOU see PvP as the main focus point of the game doesn't mean everyone does.


So basically I just re-stated everything the guy I quoted did.

I battled my way through the campaign, had fun, got my skills, and now I'm ready for PvP. Not once did I grind.

You speak for yourself in this one.

See other threads on this issue;

I've taken my lvl 20 through the entire game, he's been level 20 since maybe 5 or 6 days after retail. I've done just about every quest I've found for skills and bought the rest I wish to use.

As for elites, it's a damn treadmill grind, to capture them. Case in point, Well of Power is in Mineral Springs. You have to leave from the Citadell, fight or attempt to run your way to the actual Mineral Springs zone point. There you have to find the Necro boss, there are 5 bosses. So after fighting through an armada of self healing, nuclear arrow firing tengu, you get to a boss spot, that boss being the 1 out of the 5 you haven't checked yet, to find he isn't the boss you need, so you have to restart the instance and hope he spawns, "this time". Rense and repeat x10+ until he does respawn, and that's assuming you live and are able to capture the god damn skill.

I don't mind working for it, to use it in PvP, but damn man, when you have to devote multiple days of playing to obtain a single skill, then you know the current system is a tad unfair.

So when you say we haven't done the game, or tried, stop and think that some of us HAVE done the quests, HAVE sought out all the skill NPCs in those little far-off-tiny towns in the middle of nowhere (Maguuma, Citadel, Port Sledge...), and HAVE attempted hours apon hours of item and skill runs to get what we want for PvP.

The only "grind" in this game is if you go for full infusion. Other than that, its fun.

Yes, I wish you only had to do one infusion run to be fully infused.

So what do you call it when you've done all the missions and have less than a half-dozen runes unlocked, and want the rest?

Un-Luc-KEEEEE. Go farm! :P

So doing FedEx quests for skills ain't grinding? Wha?

Actually, that is false. Not all non-elite skills can be obtained as quest rewards.

It's funny that a lot of my quests have led me to new towns that I would have otherwise ignored or passed by if I had just done the missions.

End game has about 1 of these quests.

Every game has grind. Even pvp is grinding: you play on the same pvp map over and over, same type of tournaments over and over. Try to name a thing in life that's not grind. Even life itself is grind: you weren't born with all skills or knowledge were you? Boy how I love to get to work without moving my legs.

Players are different , people evolve.

Key is not about grinding but how to make grinding fun. If there're more nice varieties of goodies drop, or different locations/baddies along the way, there are probably fewer people complaining. Like in D2 people get tiredless in doing Baal runs. That being said, I also hated those silly quests and opted to buy skills from trainers. Now I'm grinding to get more skill points through farming. In any RPG with leveling or xp involved, there's bound to be some grinding.

Like I said, I did play the game almost entirely and did enjoy it A LOT. Doing it again is not going to be fun for me-- it would be like a grind. I'd rather have all skills unlocked and play PvP without PvE interruptions. Why are people so against this? It's not going to affect PvE in any way. Do people just like to argue about anything, or what?