Guild Wars Slowly Descends into Grind

The only "grind" trend that I'm personally annoyed by are titles that GIVE ADVANTAGES. Lightbringer... well meh, you get 1 better skill and some damage reduction vs demons, ok. However, stuff like Lucky (which is a piece of crap title that rich people AFK) is now used in determining things like lockpick break rates! As is treasure hunter! (which is a real kick to the pants now that chest running is much less profitable.) Wisdom is used to give people a higher salvage% etc... should I really have to transfer all my items to one character just to salvage? Should I really need to have treasure hunter maxed on every character I want to do hard mode with?

well, there IS a difference between hard and time consuming. someone might be doing great in hardmode but then need to shut guildwars down for whatever reason, thereby losing their progress in the zone...

Perhaps we can introduce a new item, a timeout token. using this item would freeze an instance, and allow for players to log out and log back in to the same instance. as soon as any human player moves or uses a skill within the instance, the timeout effect ends.

What Anet has discovered from this long experiment called Guild Wars, is that there are good reasons every MMO has grind. Players *want* to grind towards goals. So they are trying to find more and more ways to sate this desire without turning off the guy who picks up a new campaign for two-three weeks until finishing the storyline, or seriously imbalancing PvP. Hence useless prestige goals to grind for like titles and item skins. Vanquisher isn't for everyone, but it's probably for enough considering the not terribly monumental amount of coding required.

Play it for the enjoyment, not the title. If it's not enjoyable and you don't want the title, don't play it at all. This is really obvious, it shouldn't require explanation.

^I play and vanquish because I find it fun. I couldn't care less about the titles involved, except the one you get for beating missions, just because I feel those are the PvE titles you don't earn with grind, but with skill. Vanquisher would be cool but I'm in no rush O_O That's a tough one

To the OP: I got 15k armor without ever farming or using nightfall free chests. It really isn't THAT difficult. You just gotta save up and be patient.

Their idea of hard seems to be connected with making mobs get abilities we will never be able to get. I'd rather have mobs with a decent 8 skill bar, matching the size of my party, instead they make them deal a lot more dmg and do everything 33% faster. They activate, recharge, chase, flee faster. It's strange to see that a char shamam could just wand you to death if you don't kite. I agree with what someone said: sorrow's furnace was one of the best pve experience attempts so far.

Grinding is NOT a must in this game! You can get level 20, with maxed armor and a decent weapon(s) by just finishing the main missions. You can then go and play PvP with that character (normally) without any big problem. Anyway, I understand your point.

BTW, I love the grinding part of MMORPGs so, if GW is going to the "traditional" way MMORPGs normally are, I still will be happy because there are NOT monthly fee!!! (including GW2) I don't have any problem in level up 100 levels in one year if I am NOT paying a thing! I LOVE YOU ARENANET! (also, you can still make a PvP character with full level, skills, etc, so ... more love)

You know, I'm a vegetarian, and sometimes I'll end up in a situation where for one reason or another I'm at a restaurant or a house and there's nothing (or effectively nothing) that I can eat. And I'll pick at a piece of bread for a few hours while everyone else has a delicious meal.

Now, I *choose* to be a vegetarian, and I like being social, so I keep my mouth shut in those situations, but I can imagine that a lot of people sat down to try hard mode and ended up feeling like I do when I'm nibbling on bread and some talented hostess has piled the table high with meat-filled goodies, and everyone else is eating with great pleasure.

So, sure, choice is good and we all make priorities, but some things are still really disheartening.

I dont really see how these new things like hardmode and such offer that player anything that they HAVE TO DO.

15k armor - optional
Hardmode - optional
Most titles - optional
Super 1337 weapon skins - optional

Anet has designed their games to be grind-free as much as possible when being played by casual players.

Once you start wanting crystallines or elemental swords and obessing over FOW armor, dont start complaining that its turning into a grind when its of your own choosing.

I do play the game for fun. My point was that Hard Mode took away that fun and replaced it with grinding for titles. I have no interest in spending all the hours of the day to get something as pointless as a few words.

Once you beat all 3 campaigns and then do it again and again on all of your character, what else is there left to do? 15k armor, hard mode, titles, and super 1337 weapon skins. All for show, nothing more, but its all there is.

PvP maybe? Thats fun.

Yeah, once you have beaten all three games, if you don't want to grind to get rare items and don't like hardmode then you stop playing until the expansion comes out.
Anet won't mind.
The game is developed for fun of different levels. Everything in the game won't be fun for everyone. Do what you find is fun and enjoy it. Once you've done all that be patient and wait for the next expansion.
You don't have to play the game everyday. There's no way a full dev staff can produce enough content to keep a person who plays so much busy for long.

I like the new farming. Who cares about whites and blue drops and gold. I've gotten so many gold wep drops these past few days and a few of them very nice like a r9 strength gloom shield and golden machete.

The elite and non elite tomes are going for nice cash too which should make up for the lost whites/blues/coins.

Embrace change!

Until those people who sold their tomes and items for gold then buy stuff from merchants/material traders/crafters, removing gold from the economy.

What it amounts to is by reducing gold and farming, you're going to force a gold item barter system, similar to the SoJ system in D2. Fun for everyone.

Says the person with black 15K armour. Now that's hardly managing without luxuries isn't it?! Anyway... Draxanoth, a lot of what you are saying I can agree on. I dislike hard mode, and I shall only be taking part in it in order to get mesmer tomes (because lyssa knows, no one will be selling them). I mean, it would be nice if the enemies had powerful builds and knew how to use them, not give them crazy stats and mindlessly obliterate us. And yes Hero AI is embarassing at times, hence I avoid them. However, how and when did areanet turn them into demented imbeciles?

*Side note* what is it about Chuck Norris?! Over 1.5 years I have heard of him, but... I don't get it. I've meet (and killed) an assassin called Chuck Norris in an Alliance Battle, but what is the big deal about Chuck?

When it comes to making money, here's a secret: Faction Farm. It's quick and (usually) fun, and as long as you win most of the time, a good source of income. I sell amber for usually 500 gp, of which costs 1000 faction, made in about 10 mins. It's not much but I can afford my "luxuries". If you do have factions that is... (yes you guessed it a selling point for areanet).

The farming nerf? I haven't noticed anything. I never farm, but today I went around Ascalon on my own to see. All the drops were mine... is that meant to happen? It's sad to think that the rich will stay rich and the poor (aka me) will stay poor. Then again ectoplasm is apparently excempt from the 8/8 rule, so who knows?

The tome feature... isn't it massively overpowered? Imagine a level one with mind burn... I think I will make my own thread discussing this.

LoL simply gonna quote myself from another thread at GWO.... GJ once again Anet keep up the good work.

kaleban, you sir are absoloutly right and I agree with pretty much every point you have made. Two days ago I enjoyed playing and today I dont, it's that simple. And be sure about this: the mods are shutting down our ability to voice our unhappiness about this nerf. I feel scouned by the game I used to love. I've rolled with every change so far but I doubt I will continue to buy their games over this. /a dissapointed customer.

Let me continue the Mantra... Hard Mode is Optional!

With that out of the way, if a game can appeal to both the casual player and the grind fiend, how is that a bad thing?

Weapons - Collectible = Free
Armor - Collectible = Free
Runes/Insignias - Optional, Gained From Drops = Cost of Salvage Kit and ID kit
Skills - Scalable cost up to 1000 gold, (most free in Prophecies)
Elite Skill - 1000 gold points, optional

So if you have prophecies, the most you are "required" to pay is ... nothing.

For the others you pay a little for the skills. I'm sure you can find a way to get about 15k (which is I want to say at least 20 skills from) by the end of the game if you merchant everything.

How does this promote grind?

Sure, you may not have the "1337est!" skin, but is that Chaos axe or 15k armor going to make you any better of a player? There is no passive "ego stroking" effect as far as I am aware of.

Now if you WANT good things, of COURSE you will have to work for it. You certainly don't feel you are entitled to good things without effort, do you? Yet, these good things are only ascetic in value.

Elite Missions are Optional
Hard Mode is optional.
Cool Items/Armor are optional.
Elites are optional.

There is stuff for the casual player, and there is stuff for the grinder. Both are happy, where's the problem?

All i know is that i was playing around Ascalon in hard mode having fun because it brings me good memories and suddenly a vision of Ring of Fire missions, Real of Torment missions, Gyala Hatchery, Vizunah Square, Arborstone, etc... came to my mind and just thinking in playing them in hard mode made me feel sick
I am glad hard mode is optional like you people say it over and over because if it were mandatory...

Took the words out of my mouth. Or you could play another game or something.