ArenaNet: Linsey Murdock unveils High End Ascended Gear (2012-11-13)

[Vayne]

SAY WHAT!!! NO gear grind? Dude I need freaking 250 ectos to craft 1 weapon, do you know how much freaking grind is involve to get 250 ectos??? I am a jeweler 400, every single jewelry recipe exotic requires 1 to 3 ectos where the heck can I get ectos except grinding. C'mon Mr V dont keep defending what cannot be defended.

The DR BS that ANET pulled over us is making near impossible to get anything worth crap to trade or to convert. Until when you are going to remain with your eyes closed? Sheeesssshhhh

So what content, exactly, can't you do with rare gear? I'll wait here, for you to get back to me.

There is no content in this game that you need to grind gear for, except for one single dungeon, and the gear you need for that dungeon is found in that dungeon. That's not what people mean when they say gear grind.

Have you ever played an MMO that locked you out of instances completely because you didn't have the right stats? Rift does that. Want to do this dungeon? No worries. But you'd better make sure you have the right amount of focus or you can't queue for it.

Guild Wars 1 had plenty of grind too...but it was voluntary. The same can be said for Guild Wars 2.

[mayito7777]

Nevermind, We have a saying that "there is not worst blind that the one who chooses not to see". Because you dont need it to do anything does not mean is not in the game, we all strive in getting the best and when the best means you have to grind, it means you have to GRIND, there is no excuse that this optional grinding been on the game. But you have your mind made so no need to keep discussing about it.

[Vayne]

Nevermind, We have a saying that "there is not worst blind that the one who chooses not to see". Because you dont need it to do anything does not mean is not in the game, we all strive in getting the best and when the best means you have to grind, it means you have to GRIND, there is no excuse that this optional grinding been on the game. But you have your mind made so no need to keep discussing about it.

The only person who is blind is the person who refuses to see what is obviously true, and hides behind language in order to prove a point. We have a word for people like that. It's called politician.

I'm not being politic. We knew from day one there would be things to grind for in Guild Wars 2. Things to work for over a longer period of time. Everyone knew this. We knew it from betas by looking at achievements if nothing else. This isn't something unknown.

We had definitions, things we've said all along to define what that word meant. We often compared it to what Anet did in Guild Wars 1, which is where the biggest amount of anger is coming from about the changes to the game. The people most angry about the changes to the game, most vocal, are Guild Wars 1 fans.

So if you wanted a frog scepter in Guild Wars 1, the way to get it was to buy it, assuming the one you wanted was available, or you went into the dungeon Bogroot Growths and you ran it over and over an over again. I've run that dungeon probably hundreds of times, and never once had a frog scepter drop. That was the only place in the game to get that scepter. Because it was incredibly rare, getting one was a grind...but you didn't need one.

Guild Wars 1 had plenty to grind for and the people complaining about Guild Wars 2 are complaining it's not like Guild Wars 1, so lets drop the horse shit about what we're really talking about. What was spoken about, and has been spoken about all along is mandatory grind. Just because I understand this and you don't, doesn't make me blind.

The problem is, the word grind means different things to different people and we didn't sit down before this conversation and define our terms. So when Anet went and made a change, some people said, "OMFG they lied to us in the manifesto, because they said there would be no grind". This was the first bit of hyperbole I addressed, because frankly, the manifesto is what sold this game to me.

The word grind was indeed mentioned in the manifesto by Colin. It's very clear if you actually listen to the context EXACTLY what he means. Not approximately. Exactly. Here's the quote.

Colin Johanson: "When you look at the art in our game, you say 'Wow, that's visually stunning. I've never seen anything like that before,' and then when you play the combat in our game, you say 'Wow, that's incredible. I've never seen anything like that.' In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. 'I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.' That's great. We just don't want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat."

All of this is true. Because he's talking about grinding mobs to level. Or to get something you need to play the game. I have to do this unfun stuff in order to get to this fun stuff. I have to run this dungeon 800 times to do this raid I want to do. That's what he's talking about.

But that's not what happens in Guild Wars 2. In fact, Anet has said over and over again in many places you can play Guild Wars 2 your way. You CHOOSE what you want to do. And over time, it became obvious there was a big group of players who couldn't choose to play their way, because there wasn't anything to grind for with a stat attached to it and that's how THEY played. So Anet made a compromise. They said, let's give this people something to do so they can play their way, that wouldn't badly effect the rest of the game. It won't stop people from being able to do dungeons, except the lowest levels of the dungeons that you get that stuff in anyway. Can you run all the explorable modes of Arah? Yes. Can you go anywhere in the open world? Yes. Can you run WvW or SPvP? Yes.

So who exactly is blind here? The guy who understands exactly what Anet is doing, or the guy who uses the word grind, uses one way in the manifesto, and then using an alternate version just to make an argument.

Anet did indeed change some things they said. For example, Christin Perry DEFINITELY 100% said that dyes would be account bound, not character bound. That was definitely said. Is there really anyone here who believes when she said this she didn't believe it to be true? I'm curious about that, because people have said she lied. Or did that change? Because at the time that she said this, there was a dye NPC in each home instance, that you went to with a dye seed, that took a day to grow, unless you bought plant food from the marketplace. And you could only do one dye at a time, once per day. It was even in beta, not just something someone said. And you know, Anet changed that. But no one ever said Anet lied to us about dye seeds. Not one person complained when dye seeds were taken out of the game. Dye seeds are even talked about in the Guild Wars 2 strategy guide. Did Anet lie about dye seeds? No. They made a change to the game.

Do you know why no one said that Anet lied about dye seeds? Because they LIKED that change. So this is how it works.

Company A says thousands of things before a game comes out.

If I like the changes, that's okay, and they didn't lie, they made changes to improve the game.
If I don't like the changes, the company lied to me. They made a change I didn't like.

But you know, a company isn't a person. There are 270 game developers working on Guild Wars 2, and within that there are factions...people who have different ideas. And sometimes, the guys making statements get it wrong because what they think is going to happen isn't in fact what ends up happening. Energy is another example. When they started talking about this game, energy was a resource and Anet said straight out there would be energy potions in this game. Obviously, Anet changed it and took out energy. That's a MAJOR change to a game. It affected everything. There are no energy potions.

Wait a second, Anet lied to me. They said there would be energy potions and their aren't.

The reason no one is saying Anet lied about that, is because people LIKE not having energy potions.

So as long as people will continue to use the word lie, as if Anet employees KNEW that things would go this way and intentionally said something to mislead, then I think I'll have to stand against those people.

And as long as people use the word grind in a way that wasn't being used in the beginning by people who just don't know (this would include you Mayito), then I'll continue to say that you simply didn't understand what was being said. I'm not blaming you for not knowing better. You've proved over and over again that you like to shoot first and ask questions later.

I've watched the MMO manifesto again, because it's the reason I bought the game. Everything said in it is still true. Anet hasn't abandoned their core intention of making a game, not even including another way to play for another group of people.

The only way this would happen is if you simply can't do content, because you haven't sat there and grinded away to get something you specifically needed to do that content.

I have yet to grind in Guild Wars 2 and I don't plan on grinding in Guild Wars 2 ever. The day this game forces me to grind, I will be playing another game.

[Fey]

SAY WHAT!!! NO gear grind? Dude I need freaking 250 ectos to craft 1 weapon, do you know how much freaking grind is involve to get 250 ectos???

Oh you mean, buying lvl 70-79 rare items for 10s since people don't understand the value of pricing and then salvaging them for 1-2 ectos consistently? Oh man. What a grind.

[Hardist]

Well said Vayne. And people who cannot or do not want to understand that things can and will change, are hypocrites.

[Vayne]

Well said Vayne. And people who cannot or do not want to understand that things can and will change, are hypocrites.

Thank you. But some of the things have changed do come with warning bells even for me. I'm simply not assuming the worst, while others are. I don't mean to make light of other people's concerns, I just wish they were registered more fairly, without the accompanying assumption. No one has a crystal ball....not even me. It could turn out some of those people are quite right...I just don't think they are.

[bokiz333]

Oh you mean, buying lvl 70-79 rare items for 10s since people don't understand the value of pricing and then salvaging them for 1-2 ectos consistently? Oh man. What a grind.

Your salvage rate must have been better than mine. I found that lvl 78 (and obv 80) gave the best rate. lvl 72 rare for example was very hit or miss for me. The lvl 78 stuff was 18s to 30s and ecto's were going for low 20's. So wasnt that much of a difference. I found that I was able to get more ecto's by buying rares than salavaging but it wasn't saving me THAT much money AND the black lion kit ain't free. Plus you have to have the gold. (and no guarantee you will get an ecto since the salvage rates were nerfed for a while)

[bokiz333]

ETA: Let's say with the salvage kit cost, cost of material, salvage rates...it works out to 15s an ecto. For 250 that's 37.5 gold. Plus other materials...so over 40. You don't think that 240g for armor (if it's same rates) plus 6 accessories also being 240...you don't think that almost 500g for a complete set of armor is grind? When you can get exotics for like 20g? Now you can argue that you don'y need the gear like Vayne (I disagree but that's not the point) but you can't argue that getting the gear based on the rules as they are now (they may change) is very grindy solely due to the # of ecto's/T6 mats needed.

[mayito7777]

Oh you mean, buying lvl 70-79 rare items for 10s since people don't understand the value of pricing and then salvaging them for 1-2 ectos consistently? Oh man. What a grind.

ROFLMAO, right now you dont get ectos from rare (maybe 0.01% I'll give you that), the only ones who drop ectos are exotic. Also for players with no money 10s is a lot of money.

[Alexanian]

ROFLMAO, right now you dont get ectos from rare (maybe 0.01% I'll give you that), the only ones who drop ectos are exotic. Also for players with no money 10s is a lot of money.

This Statement is flat out wrong.

I receive ectos from rares constantly.

Idk why your so broke. after exotics, there is very little to spend money on regularly. You must die a LOT. And i beleive anet believes that your legendary isnt a grind becasue you can get the materials from doing basically anything in the game. Just playing consistently will move you closer to your legendary.