WHAT Grind?

Howdy,

I've read a handful of threads that involve people complaining about the Guild Wars Grind.

Being a graduate of Lineage 2, I'm confused.

If you're one of these people complaining, are you doing so because:

1) You can't immediately do what you want to do, as was seemingly advertised in beta? A bait and switch, as it were?

2) .. that.. there's actual Grind? 'cause I haven't really seen anything.

I've spent 20 hours farming for runes and I'm still missing half of what I need. That my friend is grind. Over 100 hours and I'm still not completely ready for PvP. Pretty sad if you ask me.

Make sure you remember, before using this for your argument..

It was beta..of course you would have all of the skills, in order to test them out.

I really do not see why everybody is complaining, by the time you've completed the PvE mode once, you should have enough runes and skills to keep you going.

Also bear in mind..the game has been out for two weeks today..you can't expect to unlock everything in that time.

The (minimal compared to most games) grind is optional, as you do not require every skill, you just want them..and even then, go and do some PvE with your guild, you may even find you enjoy it in a decent group with whom you can mess around and have fun.

Whether or not you're ready for PvP, I've noticed PvP has been pretty non-stop since the game went live.

No, the game is advertised as being about "skill, not hours played", yet it very much is "skill, not hours played in excess of that required to get the skills unlocked and the items unlocked". And "skill, not hours played in excess of that required to get the skills unlocked and the items unlocked" equates to "skill, not hours played in excess of a constant", which is true for any game with a level cap, attribute caps and a "best weapon" type thing. If Arenanet is trying to break away from the rest they aren't with the current system, they are just lowering the constant, which means that it's still about grind up to some point, which is easier to get to. They haven't really stepped away from grind until you can just make a PvP character and equip them up.

How many hours of playing an FPS does it take to become really good? Probably a year of playing before you are REALLY good, able to compete in tournaments very well. Put that into prospective here.

This is not Lineage 2. Will you geniuses stop comparing other MMOs to GW? The whole point of GW was to reduce the grind. But sadly, with the Elite capture system, the difficulty in getting runes (I havent gotten one Ranger rune and I'm level 19) and miscellaneous things, the grind is that much reduced in GW. You'll still be farming a lot.

A lot of people playing GW will never play a grind based MMO and picked up GW for the reason that it's supposed to have very minimal grind, but we sure were fooled.

How can you say that there's no grind in GW just because compared to a bad game like Lineage the grind is less and therefore there's no grind? That's like comparing Rosie O'Donnell to Joan Rivers and saying that Joan Rivers is hot because she's less ugly than Rosie. Or vice versa. Take your pick.

I myself am still trying to figure out how some people can complain about grinding in this game. You expect to have everything in the game within the first 2 weeks?

you can though. you just can't equip them all up with everything in the game.
maybe there should be a "no grind" league or something. guilds that play with only the base skills and items. no one even plays the PvE. Just PvP characters on the account.

total balance.

no grinding.

no whining?

people are just disappointed because it's not like beta, which had NO grind.

there is "grind" but i wouldn't call it false advertisement because compared to other games, there's relatively none. i think the statement was made in comparison to this.

I wonder if all these skills and items are really *needed* to be competitive, or simply *desired* for some specific build. The true player skill may be the ability to make a good build with the available skills and items, rather than farming for some abstract perfection that doesn't mean much in a rock/scissor/paper game anyway.

Very few skills or items are obviously superior to other, it depend on how they are combined. Health runes and minor runes the most noticeable exception.

Whether or not that is the case, I predict a similar amount of whining about broken promisses when the first expansion come out. Even though the new skills and items won't be obviously superior, they will allow for new combinations, and the whiners will claim they are forced to buy it, as if the old combinations no longer works.

I have to agree with them because, after all, Guild Wars was advertised as "skill, not hours played."

My reasons for comparing Guild Wars with Lineage 2 are compartively speaking. It simply struck me as odd that people would even dream of complaining about GW considering how awful L2 was.

"I bet you didnt even think that people could be just asking for the grind to be reduced NOT asking for "Everything handed to them" But nooo, you'd rather dole out that cliche line that every fanboy uses nowadays. Stop using exaggerations and outright lies, geniuses."

.. so, you want the grind to be reduced, not outright removed.

Considering how simple and straightforward Guild Wars is as compared to other MMORPGs, isn't that a little extreme?

I mean, by your statement, you infer that you expect -some- grind, but what we already have is too much for you?

- edit -

Incidentally, what Deagol said.

I'd kind of like to see some.. "random draw" battles where all teams are given a random assortment of items and forced to make do with those. ;D

Like in M:tG?

people, maybe not you specifically, are asking for an "unlock everything" button for pvp.

what would be an exceptable level of grind? just curious.

People, the game has been out for 14 days...14! Release is a MUCH different story than problems in beta. There are SO many more people in the game world right now as I post this (Almost 1PM Pacific) than there were in any of the busiest beta weekends (I played in several). You really can't expect Arenanet to cover thousands of peoples' whining and groaning in two weeks.

So, why don't we give 'em a break and a couple months, then the game will have some polish and most minor and major issues will be solved. Have patience.

First of all, I don't think leveling is a grind at all. Not at all. But the skill capture system is a grind. I'm level 19 and havent one single Elite. Or a ranger rune, but that's probably horrible luck. I've played since release and done a lot of farming which I don't mind too much but I find myself having fun less and less with the repetition. It's the grind.

I'd rather play through the missions normally and have the runes I need drop and not have to surf the forums looking for Elite locations and spending hours capturing one skill. It simply turned into work for me. And I find myself feeling like I'm just playing another grind based MMO. GW is no longer a unique creature.

and there is your problem right there. You don't NEED runes. There is no "completely" ready for PvP. People are stuck way far back in the Diablo 2 mindset of "OMG need uber lootz or I die!11!!!"

"Guild Wars was advertised as "skill, not hours played."

^
With that said, I can take a pre-made character with no extra unlocked skills and only 1 rune (inprove curses) and kill 9/10 of my targets.. why you may ask? Its about skill not the hours i've played

See, that's what I was thinking--that the runes and such only made a minor difference as far as PvP was concerned. I haven't done it yet though, so.

I like farming for items, myself. I remember spending hours at a time on D2 going "JUST ONE MORE. JUST ONE MORE." It's proven no different here.

Lol, that's funny. What about those of us who bought the game as adults with jobs, families and responsibilities? It's not 1 1/2 days, that's probably over a week of play. 100 hours is probably a month and a half.

Let me be clear: I don't mind the grind, because I also enjoy playing PvE, but if you bought the game to play PvP it is annoying.

I play FPS in leagues, have for nearly 3 years. The difference is that when I started playing I was on an even footing with my "character", and while it may have taken me years to get to this stage, I wasn't purposefully at a disadvantage when I started. It isn't "whining" to state factually that the game IS about grind to an extent.

What I find funny is that people want so desperately to be equipped better and that they think that they have earned the right to better gear and skills, and thus deserve the advantages. Are they scared of a fair fight? If it's skill, like an FPS, you wouldn't care that they start even. You don't get a better weapon than I do in CS just because you have more free time. The really pathetic whiners are those clinging desperately to the traditional MMORPG notion of time=power. I view PvP as being analogous to an FPS, and I think PvP only characters should be fully unlocked...but if it doesn't happen I'll just become competitive later on down the road. I don't have much of a stake in this anyway, it'll be ages till I am able to PvP on an even footing, and I play in all my spare time, which is about 20 hours a week (and that's a TON given that I have a 2 year old, a job, a wife and a baby on the way, as well as a house that needs renovations and so on...and I have put my league play on hold in my FPS while I try to level here) and I know it'll drop even lower when the baby arrives, when my job hits busy periods etc...

It isn't whining to say that there is grind, there is. If they wanted a game without grind they'd make one, it's easy to do. They probably want to catch a share of the MMORPG market, which necessitates the grind approach.