Guild Wars Slowly Descends into Grind

If you can only get 15k by the end of the game without grinding, then you are doing something wrong IMO.

Hardmode showed me one thing...I like normal mode.

Of course none of this is mandatory but there is a point where you've done all the missions with all you characters...and you want something new.

So you stick em in cool armour.....15k or worse ;-)

So the game was getting a bit boring so hardmode should help...for some it does the trick, for some it doesn't.

For me, it is a easier to get lb points and 6 points a kill. That is about all I like in hardmode.

My guild is mostly going for vanquishing area's right now...well that gets boring real fast.

Doing missions in hardmode...well I have 12 chars and have done all missions a billion times...a tougher version makes it harder but it's still the same missions except they take twice as long.

Eating stale bread without using your hands is still gonna taste like...stale bread.

Hardmode makes you dependent on players again...and that automatically is the problem.

Wizard's first rule....ain't it a bitch?

My point exactly! And I just did the math after looking at the Wiki, 15k earns you 33 skills which is more than enough to create several builds and make mistakes.

So honestly, just the gold someone receives from completing quests, killing mobs during quests and merchanting items is MORE than enough to buy basic needs.

I must say that I was hugely disappointed in seeing the lucky title in the mix. It is a title that you have to buy. Which means that you need a lot of gold, so does not support the 'casual' gamer. I am not 'Casual' but I have a life outside the game. I do not have the time nor the cash to build up a lucky title.

If you are going to include this ANET please allow another way to build up - like every time you successfully salvage a rune or inscription without destroying the item it is part of?

Maybe even gold chest could add one (double bonus I know - but I could wish )

To add to this:
Runes for heroes - optional
Super 1337 weapons for heroes - optional

I'm surprised at the number of players who try to rice out their heroes with sup vigors and green or perfect gold weapons, and then wonder why they don't have any money for skills. Just get some collector weapons or an imperfect purple. A good hero build will make them infinitely more effective than a few extra damage points on their weapon.

It is not hard at all for casual players to get themselves to a competitive level without tons of money.

To be perfectly honest, hard mode was to keep players' interests untill the later-than-expected release of GW:EN. However, it is true that more and more of the game is turning into a grind to the horror of some people. Hard mode was nice, it gave you the OPTION of doing it one way or the other. Still, the basis of the game is going towards longer, more intricate group farming that requires alot of time and an active guild.

The changes are pretty obvious if you look at earlier farming and the farming of today... Sorrow's Furnace was a fun, quick update that was easy to farm with a group of friends. Before the item aggro nerf it took 30 mins-1 hr with a good, fast grp. And because it only took that long, you could easily break in between. Once anet started working on reconnect, they figured "Ok, now because we have this feature, everyone can waste their time on 6 hour farming (for example DoA)." While reconnect was an awesome feature, it doesn't mean everyone has the patience or spare time for a farming party. The fact is, the game is moving towards more in depth PvE, and unfortunately "in depth" to anet just means you have to spend more time because of the game's unique and unavoidable balance. Basically, Anet has to make PvE more lengthy while going for depth.

Everyone needs to remember too that Anet discussed GW and agreed that it wasn't exactly what many of the community really wanted, and it was a pain to make new campaigns, so they decided to make an expansion instead and a GW2 to concentrate on all the things that they couldn't do before.

Let's just wait and see what the expansion and GW2 Beta will be.

I would recommend to the OP that if you have the money give WoW a try. Several people I game with in GW tried wow out when the nerfs here got too bad and we all love it. You don't have to give up gW since it's a pay and play for life. Just use your money for WoW in the future. The grind really is not bad. There are tons and tons of storylines, all your armour can be gotten via drops (as well as weapons) and you don't have to grind for anything unless you are looking for faction rewards or special armours (like 15k/fow armour in GW), which is not even a bad grind either and can be fun. The only time you really get grind is the same in GW, when you have 5 or 6 characters that are doing the same thing. Stick to one character and you'll have a blast. There's things to grind if you really want to grind, but otherwise you can avoid it. Besides, with GW2 having a high level cap there will actually be less 'level grind, if you call it grind' in WoW than GW. Once you get to Outland then you'll really start getting some aweseom weapon and armour drops.

If they really wanted the rp'ers to get the best stuff without farming then our characters would've been able to get all the best stuff just by playing the game. I don't mean best-stat stuff. I mean best stuff that you can actually be proud to wear around town. Each time you complete the storyline, another piece of shithot armour. They learned to do that with weapons, but armour is still something that you grind out. If it's really about playing, I mean cmon most of us saved the whoel friggin world many times. FoW armour would not even compare to what we shoudlv'e been given as a material reward. PvP'ers don't need fancy looking stuff, they just need effective stuff, so they assume that's how the pve'ers play as well. Blizzard's devs also start talking about mods and proposed updates well before they actually happen in the forums. They actually let the players know what is going on to try and prevent any big cluster-fu**s. They aren't of the mindset, you'll take what you get and you'll be happy about it or else we'll do something else and say you're complaints are unproductive.

With a subscription system you don't have to worry about them abandoning the game and moving onto a new game either. Anyways, it's just a suggestion. There are other games out there. If you settle for only the stuff you need instead of the stuff you really like and want then you're just settling for mediocrity. Many people settle for that in real life but to settle for that in a game is kind of pointless and sad.

So in short, try some other games OP. There are some good ones out there. Don't let these guys tell you that you should just settle for your hero being an average joe. My bet is quite a few of those people in real life are like that as well..

It's good advice CyberNigma, because the OP has just about seen and done everything in GW that he needed to. Everyone when they play a game long enough ends up HAVING to do the things they avoided at some point because they have done everything else. Rather than convince yourself bit by bit that the game is doomed, you need to play something else and relive the excitement of fresh new content to explore and tackle. It's the best thing to do.

I play NECRO primary, got almost 1,000 hours on Razor of Death alone. I had a little problem with the nerfing of the #'s of pets I could have, but figured how to make that work. I have been working all weekend to figure hour to get my energy back without sacrificing either # of pets, self protection, or energy gains using messmer skills.

as of yet I havent found a MM build that is logical to play, right now my BEST NECRO is a RIT primary and necro second, playing as a Explosive Rit. very fun, very damaging and very healing for the party, and NOT NERFED, yet.

sad I worked all that time on her to get her Jagged Bones, so after I made my first set of pets I could re cast JB forever and have constant energy and damage, but they nerfed it right before I reached the end of NF, where you get that elite hehe, now instead of 5 seconds, it is 15 recharge, making it a worthless skill in my opinion.

so, the ONLY toon I have thats beat NF is the Rit because of trying to get her the skill, that NOW I dont even use.

take the soul reap nerf off or put my JB back to 5 seconds so I dotn have to keep raising pets, either way is now very hard to do MM.

yeah, like I said before I can make 10 pets, but then out of energy for a logn time, and cant heal them, or I do heal them and I die because Im trying to save space to get energy back, or run with 5 pets and protect myself and get energy, but if cant raise the 10 pets, whats the use in a MM ?

dont know.

sorry for length, Queen out

I agree with the OP completely. Grinding is pretty much the only endgame content you'll get.

In relation to CyberNigma's post...
My only advice for when/if you play WoW:

1. Don't go to the forums (ever. you'll hate the game).
2. Know what you're getting into if you roll a Shaman - think of how badly nerfed the Paragon is...then triple it.

Remember my key point though, you paid for GW so you don't EVER have to quit. Just try something else for a while and keep it like that old Privateer/King's Quest game you have in the closet to come back to every now and then. What you spend your future money on is entirely up to you though.

If you want a game without any grind whatsoever, you aren't going to find it, anywhere. At least I haven't. You can try ProgressQuest though lol..

If you put everything you have in GW which has probably been changed from the original game almost as much as SWG, then it's your fault. Diversify just like you would any other investment.

LOL!

33 skills. Enough to create several builds AND make mistakes?

LOL!

Basic needs won't allow you to play anywhere near competitively in PvP for one. Basic needs gives us people in starting areas begging for money to open a Xunlai account. Basic needs ensures that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.

I'm said in multiple threads ANet needs to up the party rewards, rather than decrease the solo rewards. You know what your reward is for doing the entire Vabbi questline? Enough gold to buy one gem, 3 gems through trade in, and experience. Great, so you don't have enough money to buy skills, you have enough gems to taunt you with the unattainable carrot that is Vabbi armor, but plenty of skill points that you can't afford to use. AND you just saved an entire country from certain doom.

God forbid you're trying to play a NF Minionmaster, when you need to shell out 10k in gold for an inscription just to give you a chance vs. AI corpse useage.

For some grinding can be fun if done creatively. For some it won't. I've said time and again in various threads that ANet needs to implement a broader spectrum token system that allows for trade-in for armor, but ANet doesn't want that apparently. Too bad players, suck it up and grind!

I don't even care that it costs gold, you get a return on it anyway.... What pisses me off is that it was ONLY available during certain events, and I was busy when those events were taking place. So I only have a few points from Christmas.

There is one common factor to downfall of all game genres - niche specialization.

GW attracted many because it was casual friendly. It offered *entire* content to *everyone*.

Saying that hard mode and vanquisher titles are optional is just that, it excludes a large playerbase. As a result, the future request will be made by hard core niche - and they'll be catered to. Until that niche will be split further by new additions, and so on.

The changes that were first made from Factions on have started to violate the core principle of what defined GW. The skill-based aproach to combat is mere history - at least half of mobs in Nightfall contain monster skills, or get some additional bonuses on top of their inherently higher level. All of DoA, RoT, hard mode is simply handicaps player with artificial uncounterable handicaps.

What if hard mode had an environmental effect: While in hard mode, you move 50% slower, attack 50% slower and your skills recharge twice as long? Because this is what hard mode combat is.

Soul reaping got nerfed because it was too powerful. Zealous benediction got changed into 7 energy return because it was too powerful. But here, player is handicapped with doubling the recharge rates - let's just throw all the skills out the window, with all the high and mighty talk about balance, it's being completely disregarded here.

How many groups do you see forming for hard mode? Check that again in one month. The remember what PvE used to be, when outposts were full, when pugs were plentiful.

No, hardmode is not apealing, nor are the additions. It's a way to keep the hard core playing until GWEN is released, when money can be spent on marketing again, to bring in fresh blood. But it adds little to further the game.

WoW, LOTRO and EQ2 do the grind, PvE and PvP better - those that prefer linear advancement will have much more enjoyment there. GW was the alternative for those that didn't want it, who preferred hard caps, who preferred high accessibility.

Remember, new titles will give skills, bonuses and legacy for GWEN - in GW, grind is the norm and pre-requisite for the sequel. It's no longer optional in any way.

This would all be nice and increased the drop rate significantly and quit worrying about botters.This doesn't happen and no matter what farming isn't going to get you way over the top like it use to since the drop has been decreased.The rate of ectos drop was far better in the first half of 05 compared to the last half of 05 and eventually got worse in 06.This was never intended to be a grind fest game and in HM it is just best to go and play gvg atleast you don't have all those high lvl mobs to kill.

If my Master of Whispers can keep 10 minions up constantly in HM, healed, spread some death novas around, AND cast any other offensive stuff I give him occasionally, you can frickin do it to.

I'm sorry, I find little to no truth in what the OP posted.

Hard Mode is NOT DoA. That's just untrue. Some place really hard? yes. Everything in HM DoA? No way.

Soul Reaping has ALLWAYS been broken. it was ridiculously powerful. I thought something was wrong when I first made my Necro. After the "huge nurf" even Olias can manage his energy. It works fine.

AI got slapped? So, what did you do when the AI got improved?

Farming repair ridiculous? Why am I making more money now, and getting more rares? Hmmmmm..

"Far fetched" idea that this will balance the economy? You didn't even read their notes did you? This is not a simple issue, their solution is complex and intelligent.

I love how blind ppl are to all the additions & improvements, but explode in a rage quit when they have perceived nurf. It makes everything they say have little to no credibility.

Thank you. At least someone is actually connected to reality. I like hypocricy of the AI being dumb, yet able to keep up a 10 minion army & yet SR is "nurfed". think people.

He meant that Hard Mode is considered "difficult" and "challenging" simply by upping their attributes, attack and movement speed, and pretty much everything - just like DoA. It's not challenging, just tedious.

Zhed is still being "courageous" and rushing into mobs, and still half the time the heroes and henchies don't kite or cast.

its really easy to see how unnecessary farming of any kind is IF YOU PLAY THE GAME!!!

Common armor is armor. once its max at min price of FREE in the Crystal desert from collectors OR 1k a piece from Koruna that lets you upgrade it However you want. There is not reason to waste gold other then vanity. Every perfect weapon is either craftable or collectible. May not be that high demand skin but it is an equivalent. And if you want it so bad instead of going and wasting tons of gold on it, form up a party and go get it yourself till you get it. I mean COME ON!!! If you didn't want to play the game as it was designed why the hell did you buy it to begin with?

Gold is plentiful if you play the game, not only from FREEBE giveaway chest every month in Nightfall, but just from playing and collecting gold and whit items and selling them to merchant NPCs. I average 2 or 3 k just messing around for 45mins. And since I DONT WASTE MY GOLD, thats plenty for normal game play.

If it was not for wanting to play with others on occasion I would NEVER EVER use all chat. Indeed trade channel is perminatly off on my game NEVER to return. All it ever did was piss me off anyway.

If there was any way to enact punitive action to the spammers in all chat that ruin the game for all the others every day I would be in full support of it. Hell I would even be in support of a trade town that I could then avoid at all costs. that way those losers could hang out in there and play with themselves all they want.

You know what, I give up. If people have not been able to figure this out yet, there is no hope for them. Might as well allow these posers to make a character with 10 million gold and go buy everything they want instantly. Nothing less will ever satisfy these these these... I can not express what I want to say without the filter going crazy, but needless to say they are less then the scum of the earth.