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Guild Wars 2 |OT2| Funding An MMO Entirely On Quaggan Backpacks

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Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
But if I go back to a starter zone with my level 80 character, I do not play or feel like a level 4 character. As far as I can tell, I am capable of ripping stuff up like a low level character simply cannot. The difference is that I can't play on auto-pilot.
That is such a great way of putting a concept I've been trying to define concisely for a while. You can absolutely wreck shit at level 80 in lower zones, but the scaling means you still have to pay attention. I'm going to use that auto-pilot line sometimes if you don't mind!
 

Levyne

Banned
Yeah that is a good way to put it. One common (poorly thought out) criticism is that the scaling mean "you never feel stronger, leveling is pointless", but if you take your 80 to a lower level zone and you do not feel like an absolute monster stomping around level 10 centaurs, something is wrong.
 

Levyne

Banned
I am so-so about the combat which seems to be a hang up for a lot of people. I love the loss of the trinity, but I wish the aggro mechanic was a little more defined.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Yeah that is a good way to put it. One common (poorly thought out) criticism is that the scaling mean "you never feel stronger, leveling is pointless", but if you take your 80 to a lower level zone and you do not feel like an absolute monster stomping around level 10 centaurs, something is wrong.
i saw that complain on the official forums once- "I don't feel any stronger at 80 than I did at level 5." I was pretty flabbergasted. Dancing Dagger is a great skill in many contexts but in low level zones with my 80 it's a goddamn Mob Eraser.
 

Lunar15

Member
Oh no problem, I just wanted to clarify what happened so I didn't look like I was being an irrational dick.

No, no. The only irrational dick was me, for a brief moment. Then reason came back and posts were edited. I should have known that everything is permanent on the internets!

Lunar, none of those people have experiences Guardian Chaos WvW Whiskey night so that's why they don't like the game.

They will never know how REFINED and CLASSY it is to attack a dolyak while slightly intoxicated on Crown.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
That is such a great way of putting a concept I've been trying to define concisely for a while. You can absolutely wreck shit at level 80 in lower zones, but the scaling means you still have to pay attention. I'm going to use that auto-pilot line sometimes if you don't mind!

Ha ha, sure, if you like.

Last night I was going around Ashford as 80 warrior looking for something and had no trouble providing support for actual low level characters. Played smartly, it was like being a one-man army.

To be fair, I agree with what was pointed out in the new thread; there aren't enough resources out there for PVE to get people up to speed on playing well and building PVE characters. I had a lot more fun with my current class after I started researching how to properly make use of traits in PVE and dungeons. That's when I realized how strong you are in a lower level area.

The funny part is, when I originally read about the general concepts behind the game, this is what I imagined: endgame or level 80 players patrolling lower level zones to put out fires. Keeping dynamic events tended for the "good guys" and making things easier for characters still leveling for the first time. I think there's more that could be done to encourage that; and to tighten up the PVE to reward non-lazy playing. (Perhaps some kind of kill timer system, where figuring out how to kill a particular mob within a certain amount of time increases drop rate?) But once in a while I've found situations where the game really does work like I imagined. The "elder" characters feel as if they're keeping an eye on things for the noobs, contributing to the state of the world.
 
That's what I've been doing on my quest to World Completion Kaijima. It's more effecient for me to just knock stuff out and move on but if I see lower levels having trouble, I'll roll over and help them out. Paying it forward. :D
 
I can't get any calculator sites to work properly right now but here's an image of my build.



In DA I have Mug and Venoms recharge 20% faster.
In Acro I have Gain Might when you Dodge
In Trickery I have Leave Caltrops behind when you Dodge, Might Fury and Swiftness when you Steal, and Allies Gain Vigor for 15 seconds when you Steal. Sometimes I switch out the gain Vigor with target gets dazed for 1 second when you Steal. Depends on if I'm soloing a lot or not.

For Signets I have Hide in Shadows for the Heal. I always have Spider Venom and the rest I switch around situationally between Devourer Venom or Scale Venom, and in the last slot between Infiltrator (Soloing), Shadowstep (PvP or Soloing high level Veterans or Champs), and Shadow Refuge (Group Utility). My Elite is Thieves Guild.

The build focuses on Condition Damage and Mobility. Rotation is Pop Venoms, Steal, Cloak and Dagger, Dodge to get space, might, and caltrops (to slow the mob), then Sneak Attack. Then I just Vital Shot and kite, dodging as necessary to slow. This applies Poison and Bleeds that tick simultaneously and Vital Shot keeps the bleeds around 8 stacks even when the poison wears off. Repeat if necessary.

Mug dmgs on Steal, faster recharge on Venoms means less downtime between mobs. 15 pts into Acro gives increased dodge regen so I get 3 dodges in the time span that others only get 2. Buffs on Stealing, Venoms, and Mug all work together to front load the damage when everything is applied (as well as group utility). Shortbow adds mobility as well as Cluster Bomb which applies a load of bleeds to a group. Really good in close range where you can just double tap Cluster in quick succession to load up groups then dodge your way to distance again. Thieves Guild if I'm way over my head or fighting Champs.

There's lots of variations too. You can use Basilisk Venom to make sure your target is still before you Cload and Dagger, or throw Tripwire in there in place of Devourer or Scale Venom to get a knockdown on mobs instead.

The build can be used in WvW or SPvP as well but most classes go Glass Cannon in those modes so if you're not extremely on point, you'll die before the Condition Dmg pays off.

Sorry for the big post guys.

Your build looks awesome. Sadly since I'm only level 21 with my thief I don't have anything in concrete, though I do have to say that my main focus was on shadow hearts for toughness (I was focused mainly on trying to stay alive more then damage output). I didn't notice later until I got a skill for caltrops to realize how helpful they are. I'm planning on restarting my traits because your build gave me a good idea. Don't worry I'm not copying it but I did realize something after seeing your battle strategy what my build should look like to use the thief to its full potential.
 

Retro

Member
He originally said something akin to "oh, I must have been imagining I was enjoying the game," then changed it to what got quoted.

Yeah, I refreshed and saw the edits, made changes to my post. Was just such a weird contradiction I had to comment.

I don't get why the same guy who supposedly complained about the game and got his money back always posts new threads about GW2 whenever there is some slightly "negative news" about it.

As someone who's been enjoying the SimCity implosion far more than is healthy, I have to say that I understand the mentality behind wanting to slap around something we consider to have wronged us or to be found wanting. However, GW2's issues are mostly a matter of personal preference whereas SimCity's issues are fuckin' bonkers.

Oh no problem, I just wanted to clarify what happened so I didn't look like I was being an irrational dick.

Eh, we're all irrational dicks in this thread, welcome to the party.

They will never know how REFINED and CLASSY it is to attack a dolyak while slightly intoxicated on Crown.

I prefer a Siege Engine & Tonic.

The funny part is, when I originally read about the general concepts behind the game, this is what I imagined: endgame or level 80 players patrolling lower level zones to put out fires. Keeping dynamic events tended for the "good guys" and making things easier for characters still leveling for the first time. I think there's more that could be done to encourage that; and to tighten up the PVE to reward non-lazy playing. (Perhaps some kind of kill timer system, where figuring out how to kill a particular mob within a certain amount of time increases drop rate?) But once in a while I've found situations where the game really does work like I imagined. The "elder" characters feel as if they're keeping an eye on things for the noobs, contributing to the state of the world.

To be fair, their latest thing seems to be a push to get players back into lower level zones, and it seems to be working. I can't speak for everyone, but I've spent more time in Metrica, Queensdale, Caledon Forest and Wayfarer Foothills lately than I had in the months before and it's not hard to see why; Fire Elemental, Shadow Behemoth, Jungle Wurm and the Frozen Maw all give level-appropriate rares. A reason to revisit old areas is the holy grail of MMO content, most developers are content to let you level through a zone and then never go back it it unless you're on an alt. If the whole Rare Chest thing is their immediate solution and a taste of things to come, I am one happy Retro.
 
Your build looks awesome. Sadly since I'm only level 21 with my thief I don't have anything in concrete, though I do have to say that my main focus was on shadow hearts for toughness (I was focused mainly on trying to stay alive more then damage output). I didn't notice later until I got a skill for caltrops to realize how helpful they are. I'm planning on restarting my traits because your build gave me a good idea. Don't worry I'm not copying it but I did realize something after seeing your battle strategy what my build should look like to use the thief to its full potential.

At the lowest levels, it would probably pay to just go full DA and double dagger and just burst things down quickly then switch it up when you get your skill book at I think it's level 40? But you could use similar builds to mine sooner if you want to get the rotation and playstyle down sooner.

And no worries on copying or not copying. My build was a tweak on another build I found way back during the weekend beta's. It was more potent before release but I still like the way it is. Mess around with it as much as you like and find what works for you. That's the beauty of the way they designed these classes. :D
 

Trey

Member
As an elementalist and warrior player, I feel I can have no other opinion than think the combat is fuck-amazing.

Shit just clicks.

Now it's a party.
 
so they put out a new state of the game on gw2guru for those that care since it focuses a bit more on pvp. Didn't get to really watch all of the class changes, but i saw that there are some nice mesmer changes.

In relation to engi supposedly they are looking into kit refinement and maybe revamping what the spells do. Supposedly giving them more of a utility ability rather than damage.
 

Katoki

Member
Oh my god change! Can't handle.

But really, I read that one comment in the other thread regarding being told having to strafe to be effective. What strafing? I run head-first.

Retro is also very correct about the personal preference part though. In this day and age, your personal preference is what everyone else should see equally with. It's blasphemy if someone disagrees with you because they are clearly wrong.
 

birdchili

Member
re: scaling...

i pretty-much feel like i'm wrecking people's fun when i'm in low-level zones, since i can one-shot lots of common stuff and it just sucks the challenge out of the game for anyone near me a lot of the time (i'm doing map-completes, fwiw:)

still... there are some (rare) events that play out just *savage* in the low-level zones in spite of my nice gear and general play-experience... the difficulty isn't really all over the place... it's 99% too easy, and 1% hard.

they've got a lot of work to do making the low-level zones *fun* for high-level characters combat-wise.
 

Einbroch

Banned
Jeez people, you can argue with us (the people who don't like the game) and we won't bite. At least I won't. Debate is healthy, it's how things change.

That said, I'm firing up the game right now. I want to love it so bad.
 
Jeez people, you can argue with us (the people who don't like the game) and we won't bite. At least I won't. Debate is healthy, it's how things change.

That said, I'm firing up the game right now. I want to love it so bad.

Well there are those on both sides that DO bite and it's plagued threads before so a lot of people tend to play it safe.
 

birdchili

Member
The thing about thieves is, they're the best class.

i can't even get myself to set up an alt.

i wanted a thief as soon as i learned about initiative (i so hate cooldown mechanics).

now i'm addicted to initiative, dodge, swift-on-dodge, evasive weapon skills, and the general frenetic playstyle.

i don't have an alt problem. i have a main problem.
 

Retro

Member
Retro is also very correct

Quoting this so my wife sees it
JUWnj.gif
.

Jeez people, you can argue with us (the people who don't like the game) and we won't bite. At least I won't. Debate is healthy, it's how things change.

That said, I'm firing up the game right now. I want to love it so bad.

There are people we can discuss the game with, and then there are people who are adverse to strafing (really?), refer to the game as "incredibly grindy", throw around terms like "Gear Treadmills" and "one of the most closed and linear MMOs" etc. who fall into the "unreachable" category. Stuff that can be easily proven factually incorrect, but will only be passed off as 'personal preference'. Going into the thread to convince those sort of folks otherwise or point out where they are wrong is only going to come off as defensive or incendiary, because they've already made up their mind. It's also a lot of the usual characters, making their usual appearances to rag on the game that somehow wronged them. I especially like the hipster hater who was 'jaded before everyone else was'.

It's a shite article that spawned the usual "This article says Game X is bad, let's discuss how bad it is" shite thread. Letting it fall off the front page is the best thing for just about everybody.
 
Here are the only important things mentioned in the state of game.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641 (Engi Discussion at 33m 30s)
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641?t=33m30s
Kit Refinement nerfs towards utility. “… more utility and less damage output.” 100 Nades and Super Elixir were too good compared to the rest. 100 Nades mentioned specifically, in that a 10 point trait isn’t meant to be that powerful. 24k damage mentioned, which while up in the top end of possible damage is still possible. “…we wanted to normalize how this works and make it useful for all kits.”

Turret buffs such as Thumper gaining AoE Cripple (3s every 5s) and Rifle Turret getting more damage. “… and some other cool stuff that you’ll see.”

Overall a lot of changes planned, mostly buff-centric. “…couple pages worth of notes…” It appeared it was data for the next patch, but isn’t necessarily the case. “…pretty heavy focus…” Globally some changes are planned in increasing the strength of the weaker utilities, so perhaps that may be addressed here as well.

Described as mid-range skirmishers that can control battlefield in various ways such as with turrets, control skills, AoE, and other ways. “…they are going to be impactful in close range fights and have the ability to control space…” Intended on buffing the things that aren’t used as often so that they do get used as different playstyles.

RNG toned down, but not necessarily removed. Example is Elixir U only has Frenzy and Haste variants and the Toss lacks Veil now so it always blocks projectiles in some fashion. Not much done in the March patch yet though. “… smaller subsets [of RNG].”

Condition buffs, non-specific. Mentioned offhand during the Thief discussion, but it was in reference to Engineers and Thieves in particular.

edit: Taken from the gw2 engi forums
 

Retro

Member
The article itself is fairly positive, or at least optimistic. At least that's how I read the end of it.

Exactly why it's a shite article. "IS GUILD WARS 2 BAD?" followed by bait like "LOL, this guy doesn't even have some factoid about the game memorized" and then finished off with a nice, safe "No, it's not bad, not really, but thanks for the traffic!"
 

Retro

Member
Letting it fall off the front page is the best thing for just about everybody.

Suggests letting the thread fall off the front page.
image.php

Double bumps thread.

I really should learn to take my own advice.

I have a strong feeling that GW2 will have a presence on next gen consoles by the end of 2014 at the latest.

Any reason why? So far the only things we've seen to suggest this are datamined 360 buttons in the UI and one of the developers mentioning there was a team 'investigating it'.

I think I'm done with consoles, honestly, but I think GW2 could do really well on the right system. The payment model is perfect, the gameplay is much more action-oriented... it's certainly the best MMO for a console that I've ever played.
 

Trey

Member
No concrete reason, just conjecture. The specs of next gen consoles would be perfect, as you said the GW2 model and gameplay is extremely console friendly, and further GW2 is a hot item. MS and Sony could make a lot of money hosting a buy to play modeled action MMO that by design is very appealing to casual players, especially since the genre is a significant market that console gaming just isn't tapping into.

Also, the next gen's focus on social gaming is a good fit for GW2, especially things like live streaming.
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Man people really love that holy trinity. Is it fun being told what to do before the fight even begins?
 

Jira

Member
Man people really love that holy trinity. Is it fun being told what to do before the fight even begins?

You don't like doing an identical rotation every single time you do the same fight over and over again? You want choice in how you play your character, the build you run, and the stats you choose? GTFO with that shit.

I'm joking of course.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
I caught up (both on the article and the thread).

On the article, Retro is right. It sucks. Not because it's negative (it really isn't), but because it's bad. The interview contains no new information and the presentation of the article is essentially provocative in premise without following through on that premise, existing just to get clicks. Everyone should agree that consolidating and streamlining the use of the various currencies in the game would be a good thing. I cannot imagine who would oppose such a change. Simply making every kind of account-bound stackable item able to be deposited in the bank would, for me, get us 90% of the way there.

The thread, on the other hand, isn't about the article. The thread is "post what you think is good or bad about Guild Wars 2." And I have yet to see any compelling explanation as to how such a "debate"- more a series of isolated lists of complaints occasionally countered with either contrasting opinion or objective correction, both of which will be largely ignored- is good for anyone on any "side" of the discussion.

I'd like to make a single post in there essentially extending an invitation to people who are interested to join the guild and experience the best the game has to offer, but despite the good intentions of the few (credit due to Einbroch, indeed) the overarching atmosphere is hostile. This is incredibly common in discussions about MMOs that are not self-selecting; i.e., people joining that thread to post a comment may have been browsing GAF for absolutely any purpose, not specifically to talk about GW2 (whether they enjoy it or not). The exact same thing was witnessed in the OT in the first weeks after launch, and the first few pages of this OT2. So I will continue to do what I began to do then, which is simply PM the above invitation personally to those posting in the thread who might get something out of it, rather than engaging directly.

I was surprised and sort of humbled that so many of you (GAFGuild) were in there posting factual counters and defending the game. It does make me feel a little guilty for not getting involved when I see obvious misinformation or deeply lazy criticisms, just because I don't want to deal with getting embroiled in it. I admit it's mainly a pet peeve, but it is always excruciating to read "the combat is shit." Everyone should be able to recognize the difference between this, a subjective opinion expressed as objective fact, and "I hate the combat," which is an opinion expressed as an opinion.

This has already been covered, but it's pretty important to acknowledge the difference between true problems- I'd use the number of currency items that occupy bank space, and culling as very solid examples- and issues of personal preference. The vast majority of complaints in that thread and about the game in general really do fall into the latter category. No one, no one is on the side of "culling is great for the game and should stay in." But when it comes to ascended gear, the holy trinity, the combat, "grind," "gear treadmills," vertical versus horizontal progression, content additions, "endgame," dungeon quality, how much there is to do, how fun or stable WvW or PvP are, how unique or bland the skills are, how traditional an MMO it is, the direction the game needs to go- all of this comes down to personal preference, and ArenaNet cannot and should not code their game to cater to your individual personal preferences. What they should do is devote resources to solving true problems and adding new stuff. I've been thrilled to see that the overwhelming majority of the time, this is exactly what they have been doing every month.

I did want to address a small number of posts in there.
The new daily grind 'living story' and downright terrible Lost Shores stuff certainly didn't help. Why launch a new zone devoid of interesting content (other than a mining node) ?
I am dying for what's coming to live up to its potential, rendering this pair of sentences hilarious in hindsight.
Spend most of my time as a Guardian cycling through my auto attack animations. Every 5 seconds when using a hammer I can press 2 for extra damage.

What a riot.
My friend, my Guardian is level 16 and I can already tell there is way more to it than that. With the trait options I've been looking over plus full runes and sigils it's pretty clear to me that it will eclipse my expectations for the class as far as depth. I previously assumed all your comments about Guardian being boring were coming from a place of knowing the class really well and just not finding it to your taste, but maybe you need to dive into it a little more?

Trying to please to cater for all, instead of just providing for the core. No one is happy.
Since you came into this thread and called us out for not engaging in conversation in that thread, I feel compelled to point out how absolutely unconstructive your posts in the thread in question have been. A vague, subjective generalization like this with zero basis in fact adds nothing to the discussion and, were the discussion actually worthwhile, would actually get in the way of the debate by being so void of value.

  1. ArenaNet is not trying to please or cater to everyone. If you are looking for an actual hardcore gear grind, which in the right game can be deeply addictive and enjoyable, Guild Wars 2 will be incredibly disappointing. They do not care at all about providing that sort of experience. In the same vein, ArenaNet will never remove downscaling/sidekicking from the game. If you want to be invincible in the newbie zones at max level, GW2 is not the game for you.
  2. They are absolutely providing for the core. Providing an enormous number of things, actually. More than I would have expected this far out from launch, and more types of changes for the core than it would even have occurred to me to provide. The problem is that you are considering the wrong segment of the playerbase to be the core. Hint: the vocal minority is not the core, and it is barely ever even close to a decent representation of it.
  3. I don't know how one would gauge player happiness by any reasonable metric, but if we can agree just to use concurrency, literally hundreds of thousands of people are happy, which would make "no one" something of an undersell.

"Yes, but that's not grinding. It's just a reward for playing the game!" but if WoW does it... yeah that's grinding, cos it's bad, mkay.
This appears to be basic trolling. It should be obvious to anyone who has played a single character halfway to max level how wholly distinct the design philosophy is with regard to this sort of thing between the two games. If you wish to label both "grinding" nonetheless then go for it, but that does nothing to change the reality of the experience. Maybe you could clarify why you said this.
 

etiolate

Banned
If GW2 ends up on consoles, I don't think ANet will have much to do with it. They just don't have the personnel. They're hiring in prep for the China release as of now and if there's any release they'working on it would be that one.

Also, the Escapist article is far worse than the Forbes one. The Forbes one is from the same woman who wrote "GW2 from a WoW player's perspective." She basically does outsider viewpoints of the game and that's going to be different, but totally fine for its own purpose. The Escapist article is just opinion tied with false information. So bad I shouldn't have brought it up.
 

Einbroch

Banned
Excellent post, Hawkian. I have absolutely no intention to bring up game issues in the official thread (especially since I had not played the game in four or five months) and sorry if I seemed confrontational or like I was trying to instigate a fight. I just really, really love everything about the game outside of a few issues. Unfortunately, those issues are very big issues to me.

I've been playing for the past few hours and I feel myself falling into it again. Did they change something about the combat? I still have issues with it, but it feels better. Or maybe my memory was just bad. Or maybe my class (Mesmer) felt awful and just exaggerated the issues I had with it. I don't know, but I'm enjoying myself again. Whether or not this lasts, time will tell, but so far, so good.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Excellent post, Hawkian. I have absolutely no intention to bring up game issues in the official thread (especially since I had not played the game in four or five months) and sorry if I seemed confrontational or like I was trying to instigate a fight. I just really, really love everything about the game outside of a few issues. Unfortunately, those issues are very big issues to me.
You didn't seem confrontational or anything of the sort- the contrast between your comment and Luchador's, especially in light of the corresponding posts in the other thread, should be clear to any observer.

I can really relate to what you're talking about, too- it's something I've experienced with plenty of games. One thing that's nice to ask yourself is, "are the big issues I dislike things that can be fixed?" If they can, you're in an uncommonly wonderful position. Were this a singleplayer game, you couldn't reasonably expect them to ever be fixed, even years later. In this case, you have the rest of the lifespan of the game and come back to see how things have changed, in a month, three months, two years. And without having to pay a cent more to do so. If they can't be fixed, then eventually you will just lose the desire, and that's the way it's supposed to work.

I've been playing for the past few hours and I feel myself falling into it again. Did they change something about the combat? I still have issues with it, but it feels better. Or maybe my memory was just bad. Or maybe my class (Mesmer) felt awful and just exaggerated the issues I had with it. I don't know, but I'm enjoying myself again. Whether or not this lasts, time will tell, but so far, so good.
Mesmer did get some tightening-up buffs; no changes to the combat as a whole except for some basic stuff (attacking inanimate structures is FINALLY right in melee). I love my Mesmer though, so who knows :)

...

Guys, we have a new event to try!!!!

Reddit said:
Giant-ass Devourer - The Infestation, Iron Marches. Take the waypoint at Champion's Shield and look for an event at the heart where you turn in devourer eggs and fight off the flame legion. This is a really long event chain that takes you all the way north until you fight against a giant purple devourer. If you don't see the event at the renown heart try running north to Monger's Sink and look for an event where you help train unruly devourers. note: you can tell if these events are broken by running even further north to the Obsidian Run and looking for an event with Sentinel Whiptail. If that event is up by itself you are out of luck :c
I hope I can find a free chunk of time to try it out with you all- but if you get the chance, try to confirm as soon as possible! Remember you can send a scout guesting to another server to see the event status there.:)
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
My friend, my Guardian is level 16 and I can already tell there is way more to it than that. With the trait options I've been looking over plus full runes and sigils it's pretty clear to me that it will eclipse my expectations for the class as far as depth. I previously assumed all your comments about Guardian being boring were coming from a place of knowing the class really well and just not finding it to your taste, but maybe you need to dive into it a little more?
Nope. I most certainly do not. I do however invite you to test the class out like Proven and others have.

As for the living story stuff - like I said, I hope ArenaNet strikes gold at some point. So far, all the world content updates have been incredibly disappointing. The world event rewards is the best thing they're done to Tyria since launch.
 

Jira

Member
I'll never understand why the word "grind" is thrown around with reckless abandon.

There's two types of grinds:

Required Grinds - These are grinds where you have no choice but to do them in order to get X piece of gear in order to see Y content. There was even a time in MMOs where you sat in one place, in one zone, and pulled one type of mob back to you over, and over, and over in order to level and you had NO CHOICE but to do this.

Optional Grinds - These are grinds that you do for cosmetic reasons such as a gear skin, or bragging rights or a title. These kinds of grinds have no bearing on your ability to take part in content within a game.

Where does GW2 fall in all of this? Well that would be the optional grind category. I've seen people who say "GW2 is a grind because you have to kill things and do quests". To this I say so every video game ever created is a "grind" by that definition since you have to DO something?

GW2 does not have a single required grind, you can access every single piece of content in the game and complete it with items you picked up off mobs while playing at 80. Every single grind that does exist is entirely optional to the player and are no worse off for not having done them. Other MMOs have some required grinds to access specific content with hard gating via arbitrary number requirements.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Compared to a lot of MMOs, you progress quickly from basic leveling in GW2 and you get a lot of skill points - especially when you combine skill point challenges with your own leveling. I think if you're paying attention to the game system itself, that's decently rewarding.

Leveling up to progress out of a zone doesn't take long, and as I said elsewhere it seems to function in part to slow the player's progress down just enough so that they figure out how to play the game. But it doesn't really gate getting to the "fun part" unfairly.

Which maybe is a psychological problem some players had with this game. At launch there seemed a mad rush to hit 80 ASAP and "get to the real game". It was assumed that the point of this game was basically WoW. So a lot of people beat their head against the wall, complaining it was "too hard" to level out of a zone (was it because they were rushing?), then saying there was absolutely no point to the game when they hit 80 and there was no WoW raid culture to slip into.

It says a lot that one of the common stories, repeated in the other thread is "Me and everyone I know played it for two weeks then quit. Worst MMO of all time." Yah, two weeks to hit 80 at most, then everyone left.

Meanwhile, in my mind the joke is that while everyone was struggling to get to 80 and play the real game, nobody realized they were running past the real game as fast as they could.

Perhaps there has never been a greater example of incorrect expectations slamming into reality.
 

Jira

Member
Compared to a lot of MMOs, you progress quickly from basic leveling in GW2 and you get a lot of skill points - especially when you combine skill point challenges with your own leveling. I think if you're paying attention to the game system itself, that's decently rewarding.

Leveling up to progress out of a zone doesn't take long, and as I said elsewhere it seems to function in part to slow the player's progress down just enough so that they figure out how to play the game. But it doesn't really gate getting to the "fun part" unfairly.

Which maybe is a psychological problem some players had with this game. At launch there seemed a mad rush to hit 80 ASAP and "get to the real game". It was assumed that the point of this game was basically WoW. So a lot of people beat their head against the wall, complaining it was "too hard" to level out of a zone (was it because they were rushing?), then saying there was absolutely no point to the game when they hit 80 and there was no WoW raid culture to slip into.

It says a lot that one of the common stories, repeated in the other thread is "Me and everyone I know played it for two weeks then quit. Worst MMO of all time." Yah, two weeks to hit 80 at most, then everyone left.

Meanwhile, in my mind the joke is that while everyone was struggling to get to 80 and play the real game, nobody realized they were running past the real game as fast as they could.

Perhaps there has never been a greater example of incorrect expectations slamming into reality.

This pretty much sums it up. People have been so indoctrinated with other MMOs that they expected GW2 to work just like all of the others they've played since no one bothered to reshape how MMOs work in nearly a decade. I don't blame them on one hand, but on the other it's also very narrow-minded of them to dismiss a game because it's not identical to one they played before. It's like me dismissing Super Meat Boy because you don't collect items like you do in Mario. There's a ridicoulous catch-22 amongst MMO gamers where an MMO comes out and they bitch that it's too much like WoW and proceed to go back to playing WoW. Then an MMO comes out that is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from WoW and they then too bitch because it's not enough like WoW. 95% of the genre is made from the same cloth, if people want that type of game the majority of the genre is right there waiting for them. For the rest of us there's GW2.
 

Ashodin

Member
hawkian said:
Guys, we have a new event to try!!!!


I hope I can find a free chunk of time to try it out with you all- but if you get the chance, try to confirm as soon as possible! Remember you can send a scout guesting to another server to see the event status there.:)

Nope. Confirmed by Jira and I that it does not have updated rewards. It's a Meta, and has shit for rewards. I know, sucks.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Nope. I most certainly do not. I do however invite you to test the class out like Proven and others have.
Proven created and shared an incredibly detailed and unique scepter build that will influence my own play, demonstrating a high level of mastery of the class and I give a lot of credence to anything he says about it. I'm saying that at level 16, I'm already utilizing the hammer with more depth than you described in that post. In fact I'm using the two individual skills you identified more strategically than "autoattack and hit 2 every 5 seconds for extra damage," and I found that troubling.

As for the living story stuff - like I said, I hope ArenaNet strikes gold at some point. So far, all the world content updates have been incredibly disappointing. The world event rewards is the best thing they're done to Tyria since launch.
I was referring to something specific; we will have to see though. I have high hopes- this may in fact be the first time I'm really setting myself up for disappointment since launch, though.
I'll never understand why the word "grind" is thrown around with reckless abandon.

Required Grinds - These are grinds where you have no choice but to do them in order to get X piece of gear in order to see Y content. There was even a time in MMOs where you sat in one place, in one zone, and pulled one type of mob back to you over, and over, and over in order to level and you had NO CHOICE but to do this.
I hate discussions about MMOs because this kind is all I've ever considered "grind." It's not something unique to MMOs or even inordinately present in them compared to other games. My biggest and most frustrating grind memory was realizing after 6 attempts at a boss in FF7 that I had simply not leveled enough beforehand and no amount of strategizing was going to allow me to win the fight. I just had to leave the town and kill stuff on the overworld for a few hours to level up a couple of times. That's shitty and I hate it. It is artificially extending the life of the game by placing barriers you don't want to cross between you and the content you do want to do. It's nothing new. Castlevania 2 for NES had extreme grind in that if you had to continue, you lost all your hearts, and saving hearts was what you needed to do to buy items that allowed you to progress. So instead of going forward, you returned to an area and mindlessly killed stuff for however long it took to get enough to progress.

GW2 basically never does this ever at all, or at the very least, does it less than any other RPG I've played besides Guild Wars 1. The closest I can think of is running into a wall with a story quest and needing to level up to continue it, but 1) you can experience unique content to do so, rather than returning to a previous area and killing enough mobs over and over again, and 2) I've actually completely story quests 4 levels above my character level just with patience, trial and error, skill and strategy.

Putting in the effort required to get an item that you want, but do not need to progress, is never something I have considered grind, and it bugs the crap out of me that the term has almost become synonymous with this concept rather than the traditional notion of grind I always understood.
as I said elsewhere it seems to function in part to slow the player's progress down just enough so that they figure out how to play the game
This is another concept I've always believed crystallized in a concise way.

Leveling up in this game should and does happen naturally, even accidentally, as you said, and serves almost symbolic importance more than any stat boost or trait point. It is a simple indicator of the degree to which you should be progressing as a player in the mastery of your class and build. The fact that you can hit 80 without doing this (say, by crafting) is almost a bit of a design flaw in my opinion- though I can't deny how cool it is that you can hit the level cap without ever killing a centaur.
Ashodin said:
no devourer rares
Lame as all hell. I'm sure it's been posted by now but I'll go mention it as well.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Oh, you can definitely do more with it. 2 is a bread and butter self combo with better retaliation upkeep than any other skill (auto attack symbol).

Is it fun? No. I don't think so. As I've said before in guild chat, the guardian is one of the most effective and boring classes I've ever played in a video game.
 
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