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Guild Wars 2 |OT3| Two Week Updates, One Box, Zero Subscriptions

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Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Can we just vote for Mr. E so we can eventually get a lovely story involving the return of Abaddon in a world where the other gods have vanished?
 

Anno

Member
See I think him being a crazy, potentially corrupt guy who can single handedly influence the economy makes him a much more interesting potential politician. My votes will go for Evon.

And happy birthday Roxie!
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Can we just vote for Mr. E so we can eventually get a lovely story involving the return of Abaddon in a world where the other gods have vanished?
Nah Abbadon is straight up dead now, there's nothing to return

edit: I'm actually leaning toward Kiel now. Evon Gnashblade seems like he's gonna have an awful lot of institutional support as well as "doesn't matter; want fractal" votes. We'll see if they actually start campaigning, though, who knows.

So this is what it feels like to be an undecided voter...
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Nah Abbadon is straight up dead now, there's nothing to return

edit: I'm actually leaning toward Kiel now. Evon Gnashblade seems like he's gonna have an awful lot of institutional support as well as "doesn't matter; want fractal" votes. We'll see if they actually start campaigning, though, who knows.

So this is what it feels like to be an undecided voter...

I like to pretend that Abaddon could somehow corrupt through us visiting him in the fractals.

I just really want fractals to have some kind of story-significance. A place that plays with time and space - there should be some kind of world consequences.
 
I just really want fractals to have some kind of story-significance. A place that plays with time and space - there should be some kind of world consequences.

I was really hoping the achievement reward system would have a grounded world base--like a new version of the Hall of Monuments for everyone. Sure, the achievements panel is convenient, but I'd like some more immersion (new things that are permanent beyond jumping puzzles.) I know they're getting there with future living story changes, but eh.

That was a random tangent. Yes--it would be great to see fractals/the mists in general affect the world more.
 

Dunlop

Member
Gotta learn to love my engineer again, hit 35 on my Guardian but game is definitely grind like I remember :p

At least 15 of those levels was just from crafting
 

Jira

Member
Gotta learn to love my engineer again, hit 35 on my Guardian but game is definitely grind like I remember :p

At least 15 of those levels was just from crafting

Could you tell me what you're doing when you play? GW2 has one of the fastest leveling systems in the genre and if not THE fastest through crafting if you have the gold.

Grinding = FFXI or EQ1. GW2 is the anti-grind. The game throws experience at you for everything you do to where you level every hour if not a bit faster. Have you done a dungeon yet? That's pretty much a guaranteed level per run, you can do Ascalon Catacombs now that you're 35. Though it's important to point out that if you're trying to blow through to hit the cap so you can do stuff, you're going to be disappointed when you hit 80. The game isn't designed where there's a bait & switch at the cap. The game is just the game and anything you're doing now is the same as what you're doing at 80 besides access to more dungeons.
 

Dunlop

Member
completed the map for the first zone, alternated crafting leveling with story quest and have been doing hearts and whatever else I find.

Definitely not EQ grindy :p but very monotonous as the lower zones are pretty empty.
 
Could you tell me what you're doing when you play? GW2 has one of the fastest leveling systems in the genre and if not THE fastest through crafting if you have the gold.

Grinding = FFXI or EQ1. GW2 is the anti-grind. The game throws experience at you for everything you do to where you level every hour if not a bit faster. Have you done a dungeon yet? That's pretty much a guaranteed level per run, you can do Ascalon Catacombs now that you're 35. Though it's important to point out that if you're trying to blow through to hit the cap so you can do stuff, you're going to be disappointed when you hit 80. The game isn't designed where there's a bait & switch at the cap. The game is just the game and anything you're doing now is the same as what you're doing at 80 besides access to more dungeons.

I've given up trying to understand where the people calling GW2 "grindy" come from. The most I've managed to wrestle out of them is a confession that they call "grindy" any gameplay they don't like, which they then apply to all of Guild Wars 2. Apparently making that statement somehow makes more sense for them than just calling it like it is, "I don't like GW2".
 

Levyne

Banned
I know what you mean. I leveled my last two 80s primarily from crafting. Whenever I do my next (probably not soon) will probably just be when I have ballpark 100 gold to throw at it to craft up again.
 

jersoc

Member
it feels grindy because you've done everything before. I'm a huge proponent that leveling is dated. it's lazy game design now for mmos and it's clear that GW2 was trying to do away with it as much as possible.

you go from a guy with full skills and traits unlock, to do one with nothing and no gear. it takes way longer to kill shit.

i know a lot of people here like leveling, but to dismiss that doing it again isn't grindy is a bit...well ridiculous. i say this as im crafting a mesmer right now.
 

xeris

Member
I don't think I've done more than 10 levels yet through crafting on any of my 6 80's. May change that once I start working on my wvw duplicates but dunno. Mostly I level by doing the dailies, a few extra events, living story, and occasional dungeons.
 

Dunlop

Member
I've given up trying to understand where the people calling GW2 "grindy" come from. The most I've managed to wrestle out of them is a confession that they call "grindy" any gameplay they don't like, which they then apply to all of Guild Wars 2. Apparently making that statement somehow makes more sense for them than just calling it like it is, "I don't like GW2".

easy now not sure why you are taking it personally, levelling is grindy for me. The zones are empty, I have discovered a lot of the map on my main so there is no interest to do it again. There is no LFG utility to mix it up, etc

It is not a black and white statement that makes the game a piece of sh^t. I easy got my $60 worth

GW2 is a fun game, leveling an alt is not for ME
 
What I'm reading here is that people lose interest in doing the same content on a new character that they already did on their first. And I can understand that. It's why I always struggle with alts. But I wouldn't call it a grind per say. It's just not as intriguing the second, third and fourth time around (especially if you doing world complete on multiple characters.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
it feels grindy because you've done everything before. I'm a huge proponent that leveling is dated. it's lazy game design now for mmos and it's clear that GW2 was trying to do away with it as much as possible.

you go from a guy with full skills and traits unlock, to do one with nothing and no gear. it takes way longer to kill shit.

i know a lot of people here like leveling, but to dismiss that doing it again isn't grindy is a bit...well ridiculous. i say this as im crafting a mesmer right now.

I don't think I've done more than 10 levels yet through crafting on any of my 6 80's. May change that once I start working on my wvw duplicates but dunno. Mostly I level by doing the dailies, a few extra events, living story, and occasional dungeons.

easy now not sure why you are taking it personally, levelling is grindy for me. The zones are empty, I have discovered a lot of the map on my main so there is no interest to do it again. There is no LFG utility to mix it up, etc

It is not a black and white statement that makes the game a piece of sh^t. I easy got my $60 worth

GW2 is a fun game, leveling an alt is not for ME
I keep forgetting he's not talking about a first character.

On my alts I did way more dungeons, way more WvW, and way more of the living story content going on at the time (which wasn't actually even available for my first character's rise to 80), as an augment to the simple "pick a zone and go adventuring."

Dunlop, when you say there's no LFG utility to mix it up, I assume you mean you're precluded from doing group instances; are you averse to using www.gw2lfg.com for some reason?

Are you on our server? I seem to always see people in the newbie zones. But anyway, at 35 a lot more of the world is open to you. You may even enjoy taking on content above your level for extra XP if you're confident with your character. 4 more levels and you can hop on the rare bonus event train, which is also totally relevant XP.

I did about 10 levels of crafting per character. I really haven't considered it grindy at any point, but I also didn't particularly attempt to do it quickly with any character including my first.
 

Sophia

Member
What I'm reading here is that people lose interest in doing the same content on a new character that they already did on their first. And I can understand that. It's why I always struggle with alts. But I wouldn't call it a grind per say. It's just not as intriguing the second, third and fourth time around (especially if you doing world complete on multiple characters.

This is why you save world completion for something to do after you've gotten a toon to 30+ in levels. When I level, I explicitly don't plan things out. I just set a loose goal and go for it. That way I never lose interest, even on a new character.

It's the nature of all games anyhow for it to not quite be as interesting the second or third time around, so it's up to the player to make the most of the experience.

Ayou on our server? I seem to always see people in the newbie zones. But anyway, at 35 a lot more of the world is open to you. You may even enjoy taking on content above your level for extra XP if you're confident with your character. 4 more levels and you can hop on the rare bonus event train, which is also totally relevant XP.

Most people don't seem to realize that there's almost no penalty for taking on higher level stuff. If you're skilled enough to be a Veteran that's 5+ levels ahead of you, you can do it.
 

hythloday

Member
I can definitely see the frustration in leveling an alt. When the experience of exploring a map is no longer new, it can still be fun but just a little less magical because you already know what to expect. It's why I have never really enjoyed having 'alt' characters in most games.

About the election, I wonder if ArenaNet will clarify if it's totally black and white about the Abaddon (hi Ash) fractal vs the reactor. Like, if Kiel wins, we might still get the Abaddon fractal someday, just not before the one about the reactor. They obviously know players are excited about both possibilities, and they're probably both themes that the devs would love to explore. They would just have to find a different story reason to bring it in the losing choice.
 

Complistic

Member
yeah, you can get to level 80 only seeing 1/4 of the game easily. If you plan it out, and don't go into other zones when leveling, and save them for another character it's going to feel a lot more fresh. can use crafting to help with this. Maybe level from 20 to 40 with crafting from one character and save some of the lower level areas for another character while leveling 60 - 80 on another.

I found completing each zone i was in before moving on helped a lot as well. You gain a lot of levels doing this and little goals while leveling make all the difference.
 
Gotta agree that GW2 is not alt friendly.
Stull like map completion and Hearts should be 100% from the start, and WPs unlocked for easy running. WvW skills should be account-wide. + other stuff I can't recall.

To be fair, most MMOs are not alt friendly, and basically have you restart from scratch with alts.

My dream MMO would have your main be able to just change class at will.
No more starting up an alt, and feel dread when seeing the full log of old quests (hearts) and undiscovered world.
 

Sophia

Member
I don't agree with map completion being filled out. Save for waypoints, having all the stuff from the get go on an alt would ruin the fun of leveling.

Now having waypoints be account wide would be nice. Far too often I've wanted to go somewhere for a guild event, but the character I'm using doesn't have the waypoint.
 

Aquila

Member
I don't think the factors she identified are precisely in favor of having all makeups on a single weekday so much as they are merely contributing factors to low attendance for makeups across the board. I'm sure on some days we'd have few participants even if it was just a single day a week, and that's kind of the way it goes. But it's something we can consider doing for reasons of simplicity and lessening repetition, anyway.

The idea with having multiple chances during the week was the give guild members as much of an opportunity as possible to get the commendations that were needed during the week. That's why we started out with so many (basically missioning every single night!) and then after observation whittled it down to the more popular/successful evenings and shifted things around a little.

With the current schedule, there are two chances besides Saturday nights (Sunday + the corresponding weekday) to try for all mission types. Sunday makeups have been very successful, so those will definitely stay. But for people who can't make Sunday/Weekends, I hope we can still do something to try to get them their weekly comms.

Bearing that in mind, having a single weeknight mission makeup is certainly less of a burden on the officers so in that respect I certainly have no objection. The key is basically: for the people who consistently cannot make Sunday 3:00PM makeups, what weeknight and time is most helpful to the most people?

The current schedule is fine. It strikes a good balance of trying to get enough people together at a decent hour to get comms. It's only occasionally difficult for those on pacific coast (like me) or oceanic time to attend since we'll usually still be at work or enjoying daylight. And I'm not going to ask whatever officer is online to stay up til the wee hours of the morning and get me some commendations; that's just absurdly rude and pointless for some shiny gear. I have no idea what the demographics of this guild are, but the lackluster attendance for some missions is probably us west coasters and beyond.
 

LkPr

Member
yeah, you can get to level 80 only seeing 1/4 of the game easily. If you plan it out, and don't go into other zones when leveling, and save them for another character it's going to feel a lot more fresh. can use crafting to help with this. Maybe level from 20 to 40 with crafting from one character and save some of the lower level areas for another character while leveling 60 - 80 on another.

I found completing each zone i was in before moving on helped a lot as well. You gain a lot of levels doing this and little goals while leveling make all the difference.

I can 100% agree with this. On my very first launch character I think I completed less then 40% of the map. At the time it was a race to 80 against my friends so I max levelled 2 crafts and then started grinding the meta events in Orr and what not daily until DRM kicked in.

Now that I am on my way levelling Alts the game still feels "new" to me because there are so many places I just haven't explored.
 

Dunlop

Member
I keep forgetting he's not talking about a first character.

On my alts I did way more dungeons, way more WvW, and way more of the living story content going on at the time (which wasn't actually even available for my first character's rise to 80), as an augment to the simple "pick a zone and go adventuring."

Dunlop, when you say there's no LFG utility to mix it up, I assume you mean you're precluded from doing group instances; are you averse to using www.gw2lfg.com for some reason?

Are you on our server? I seem to always see people in the newbie zones. But anyway, at 35 a lot more of the world is open to you. You may even enjoy taking on content above your level for extra XP if you're confident with your character. 4 more levels and you can hop on the rare bonus event train, which is also totally relevant XP.

I did about 10 levels of crafting per character. I really haven't considered it grindy at any point, but I also didn't particularly attempt to do it quickly with any character including my first.

thanks for the tips, totally forgot about www.gw2lfg.com!

on a plus side found a pretty cool engineer build to try on my main so that will distract me for a while, I will look into actually gearing him up properly for now
 

LkPr

Member
I don't agree with map completion being filled out. Save for waypoints, having all the stuff from the get go on an alt would ruin the fun of leveling.

Now having waypoints be account wide would be nice. Far too often I've wanted to go somewhere for a guild event, but the character I'm using doesn't have the waypoint.

that is something I have always wished for too... open access to all WPs that I have found with other chars.

That is actually what i find "grindy" in the game (as others have talked about).. having to do content that I have already fully explored with my other toons just so I can unlock a WP I need for a Guild event or something.
 

Sophia

Member
that is something I have always wished for too... open access to all WPs that I have found with other chars.

That is actually what i find "grindy" in the game (as others have talked about).. having to do content that I have already fully explored with my other toons just so I can unlock a WP I need for way a Guild event or something.

I mean that's not really a grind. Waypoints are pretty easy to get. It's just infuriating to have to yell at everyone to hold their asses because have to go from D to C to B to A where as they can just start at B. :p
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Gotta agree that GW2 is not alt friendly.
Stull like map completion and Hearts should be 100% from the start, and WPs unlocked for easy running. WvW skills should be account-wide. + other stuff I can't recall.

To be fair, most MMOs are not alt friendly, and basically have you restart from scratch with alts.

My dream MMO would have your main be able to just change class at will.
No more starting up an alt, and feel dread when seeing the full log of old quests (hearts) and undiscovered world.
I guess it's tricky, I definitely like that all that stuff on the map isn't unlocked by default for every new character, because I enjoy the gobs of shiny XP. I actually enjoyed redoing some of the more clever hearts on alts, too.

As for the dread... At least there's no actual log. Unfilled-in hearts on my third alt are really not something that bothers me.

It's a step up that it's like you want for PvP, at least, except that you do need a character slot for each one you want to switch between.
 
easy now not sure why you are taking it personally, levelling is grindy for me. The zones are empty, I have discovered a lot of the map on my main so there is no interest to do it again. There is no LFG utility to mix it up, etc

It is not a black and white statement that makes the game a piece of sh^t. I easy got my $60 worth

But see, that's the point; it's the terminology you're using wrong. I have no issue of you call GW2 a piece of shit, repetitive, or a lot of other things. But calling it grindy is simply using the wrong term (and worse, perpetuating both a wrong use of the term AND the wrong fact that GW2 needs a grind to reach 80).

A MMO grind is, by definition, doing literally the same thing over and over in order to reach some goal (typically leveling up). It used to refer to killing the exact same (type of) mob over and over, and was quite common in older MMOs that didn't even have quests; nowadays, it can describe also doing the same piece of content (ex. dungeon) over and over (and GW2 DOES have such a grind, in fact, but of course it's entirely optional). It is NOT a catch-all term you can stick onto anything you consider repetitive, least of all if the reason it feels so in the first place is because you're playing the game again with an alt.
 

Katoki

Member
Unfortunately the internet has also changed in the sense that a lot of things don't mean what they used to anymore due to overuse after it gains popularity of some sort.

I can't disagree on some areas being incredibly boring and uninspired but I also do the "grind" where I'll usually try to clear an entire zone before moving on. I'm somewhat motivated by having the star next to my character's name in the end as some people have noticed. On the other hand, some zones are still incredibly magical each time I go through it, albeit a little less each time but the magic is still there. One example is of certain corners of the skritt city in Brisban Wildlands that look so nice regardless of the time of day in game.
 
As someone who has been playing MMO's since Everquest the idea that Guild Wars 2 is grindy is baffling. Guild Wars 2 is like easy mode (in a good way)
 

Jira

Member
As someone who has been playing MMO's since Everquest the idea that Guild Wars 2 is grindy is baffling. Guild Wars 2 is like easy mode (in a good way)

Indeed. I can gain a level in an hour or less in GW2, in FFXI I'd be lucky if I had a group in that time and then proceed to spend hours pulling a single mob back to camp in order to level. THAT was grinding. The nice thing about GW2 is as you level you gain more areas in which you can level in rather than less since scaling keeps everything relevant. Makes it so you can easily switch things up.
 

Sophia

Member
I wish they'd fix the range on some of these events. This event was going on right next to me, and I couldn't even see it. Yet the group event nobody does can be seen for ages.... :\

gw144osubf.jpg
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
I wish they'd fix the range on some of these events. This event was going on right next to me, and I couldn't even see it. Yet the group event nobody does can be seen for ages.... :\
I know EXACTLY the one you're referring to, it almost seems intentionally harsh. If you never push that liiittle bit further into the cave, you'll never see it.

edit:
2cd4dcb1d9f24ccf88cc704258314e52.png

Maybe ANet should allow write-in candidates
 

Dunlop

Member
As someone who has been playing MMO's since Everquest the idea that Guild Wars 2 is grindy is baffling. Guild Wars 2 is like easy mode (in a good way)

Aside from EQ (I knew I would flunk out of college if I started playing it) I have probably played 90% of the MMO's out there. I have played hard core PVP and was on a realm leading Horde Raiding Guild back in Vanilla wow.

Every MMO is easy to level, they are all crazy repetitive (TSW was actually pretty interesting though)

Like any mature MMO most of the playerbase is at the "end game" now but the early levels to not adjust to this.

My issue is because my sole goal is to hit 80 to effectively change my main, GW2 scales lineally after a certain level but there are a TON of levels to do, Pretty much by level 30 if you runaround and get skill points you have almost all of the abilities you class will use but still 50 levels to start working on cosmetic gear.

Again I think GW2 is a good game, I left screaming after hitting 80 ecause I love dungeon running and it was a huge mess at the time. They have put a lot of work into it since then and kudos to them.

Won't change my opinion that levelling an alt is a GRIND

:p
 

Sophia

Member
Fighting Veterans and Champions in the Bazaar is awesome AND you get the monthly AND 2000 XP a pop!

My poor PC cannot hold all these frames tho. :(
 
Happy Birthday Roxie!!!

Happy Roxie Day!

Happy Birthday Roxie!

Mister E is Mr. Evon Gnashblade.

See I think him being a crazy, potentially corrupt guy who can single handedly influence the economy makes him a much more interesting potential politician. My votes will go for Evon.

And happy birthday Roxie!

Kiel all the way, can't resist dat haircut.

Happy Birthday Roxie~!

Happy Birthday Roxie!

Thanks everyone! :D
 
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