How far can a grind be till it reach the fun limit?

[Tro]

Give your opinion on the fun factor of MMO grinding.

I notice that the term Grinding in a MMO seems to be a double edged sword.

You have some people that like it
and some people that dont.:sealed:

[Ryuujinx]

I'm on the fence on this. it depends a lot on the endgame content. If it takes a month to get to max level to access the endgame content you're thinking it sucks, but it may make up for it with said content in some cases.

There's no way to draw a line, some people will hate it if it's 5 minutes of grind and some people will grind until they pass out in front of their monitors and still be having fun. I'm going to pull a few things from FFXI as examples.

Endgame Content: Sea, Sky, Limbus, Dynamis, Assault, Salvage, Nyzul the list goes on and on.

However, getting to 75 can take 2 months or more of play. Yet they managed to keep it 'fun' by offering multiple ways to grind.

Aside from the partying and killing crap, you can solo, you can do besieged, quests, campaign, etc. In order to get up there, the variety of grind makes it tolerable. Grant it I just partied to 75 because I wanted to do it that way and my roommate always was making parties.

The content you can do along side the grind.

So it wasn't "grind grind grind" until 75 when you get to go kill gods and big dragons and crap, they have level capped battlefields for a few reasons - variety, and so lower level people can participate. You can do some of the mission storylines to a certain point regardless of your level, a variety of lower level quests, events that everyone can do regardless of level etc.

Content Next to grind is very important.

Then there's bad grind, grind to keep you playing that sderves no otehr purpose. In FFXi you grind your character you gain a level, you get new abilities other spells, if nothing else your stats go up and you do more damage.

In GW you grind for extremely slight amounts of power increase?

I guess I haven't really answered your question have I?

Well in the end, it depends on how much content the game has. So I can't give a real answer. All I know is if they make a WoW clone, I'll not buy it and just go play real WoW instead.

[shawn]

They finally decided to take a page out of FPS books and are making it so you when you pvp you get put at max level and have UAX.
0% grind, 100% fun.

[Ryuujinx]

They finally decided to take a page out of FPS books and are making it so you when you pvp you get put at max level and have UAX.
0% grind, 100% fun.

Generally when grind is mentioned I assume PvE :p

[SibbTigre]

The term "grinding" is a double edged sword:
1- There are those that hate going out, killing all the mobs, returning to rinse and repeat.
2- There are those that revel in the mass slaughter of pixels.

As Ryu said, its about how the grind can be approached. If its straight-up grind, it'll put off a very sizable portion of the community. Its the grind can be done in the guise of missions/quests, however, it doesn't so much (you'll always get those who don't like repeating things at all).

The advantage of GW1 really is that the grindable content only really gives cosmetic advantages, and can be done by the rinse-and-repeat-mob-slaughter or by missions and quests. This to me is the way to do it;

The grind should not be a required part of the game.

[raspberry jam]

Grind is often mindless. When I find myself reading a book or watching tv (and paying more attention to the tv than the game) while I play, then I feel that it's grind. It's also often easy: when I know I can do something, and yet the game makes me do it over and over and over (etc.) again even though I have a near 100% success rate, it feels like grind.

One of the guys at ANet (don't remember which, it was long ago. Jeff Strain maybe?) put it best when he said that GW is about "having fun now, instead of waiting to have fun". While that can be seen in an ironic light considering the total time I have waited to get a party for something, it's obvious that he hit the nail on the head: (bad) grind is when you need to do something boring to get at something that is fun. Some people like that because they connect the reward with the grind itself. But of course the game maker can choose to give you the reward without grind.

But then it would be a rather short game. So actual content is required, content which isn't mindless and easy (but not too hard, of course). Quests, mission, such things is what should lie between a player and the reward he seeks. There are two problems with that.

1) Content can't be endless. In an MMO you depend on a community, a group of players that as a group is continuously playing or at least logged on, for years. To have people play through in 3 weeks and then leave forever is no good; yet making enough quests to keep a certain player busy for years isn't possible unless he is very causal.

2) Some things are not appropriate for quests. A suit of armor could be given as a quest reward, but in general it feels more appropriate to buy it from a blacksmith (some players may prefer to create it themselves). Similarly, even if, say, "Malmac's Staff" is given as a quest reward for the quest "Kill Evil Wizard Malmac", you can only have so many assassination quests, and of course it might be weird to have the evil wizard not have his staff on him if you should happen to kill him without having the quest. So having Malmac drop his staff upon death, quest or no quest, is a better idea than having it as a quest reward.

Grind feels much less like grind if there are alternate, natural ways to get to where you are going. You can get gold from any amount of places, so gathering gold don't feel like too much of a grind (unless you have to get a lot of gold). Title tracks like in EotN though, are very limited in the ways they can be obtained. Many players think of them as just something to do in order to to have fun later (by getting the armor they want or making their title skills better).

Speaking of titles, the worst possible grind is the grind that, once it is over with, allows you to grind more. In GW, the perfect example is Lightbringer and pre-nerf Ursan Blessing. Grind title in the desolation/Varajar Fells, only to be able to grind for torment gems (or similar) afterwards. Similar to this is what Ryuujinx mentioned about FFXI, or WoW for that matter. When you grindgrindgrind until you reach max level, which in turn allows you to access endgame areas without getting instakilled, and what can you do in endgame areas? Grind more.

GW has a much better model then, in that completing "mandatory" pure storyline content will allow you to access any endgame area. I'd very much like to see that your progress in storyline (and, assuming a "big" game world, in locality) to be what progressively unlocks content. Not repetitive, mindless, boring action without thought.
Truly optional grind, the kind that doesn't unlock anything, I have nothing against, though. And that doesn't have to be in the endgame: if you, as you progress in the story, bump into a dungeon that you can stop to enter or continue past (and of course return to later on, hopefully being presented with the same level of challenge as if you had entered it right away) with no real penalties, it would be just fine. But if you reach that dungeon at level 20, and the next mission in line is impossible to complete unless you are level 30, and there isn't much else to do... That's not fine at all.

tl;dr: grind stops being fun when it starts being grind

[Simply Kedde]

Any kind of pve will need some kind of grind to cater to people who like that kind of playstyle and are true achievers. What it does need though, is to be rewarding it with something that doesn't give people extraordinary powers, but rather shows everyone else they did it.

Some people have a problem with that too though, they find that they have to be able to get 100% of the content in the game for it to be fair which is rather stupid.

Grind is such a subjective issue you cannot ever hope to find the ultimate balance for it, you'll have to just find a nice middle where it caters to the highest amount of people and is fun for everyone.

[Jae Onasi]

I would much rather do other meaningful activities than grind. That being said, I've done grinding for titles (legendary survivor--killing worms outside Boreal station a zillion times, holy lightbringer, legendary spearmarshal, etc.). I can deal with grinding because once I've got the technique down, it becomes rather mindless and for those days when I just need some no-brainer activities, it's OK for that.

I think one of the biggest problems with grinding is that it tends to become a solo activity, which is the antithesis of MMO group activities. Trying to build Asuran points? Farming the raptors in HM is a pretty fast way to do it, but it's generally a solo farming activity, as are SS/LB points unless someone else in the guild happens to be doing that activity at the same time or you like PUGs.

I can understand making some titles harder to achieve and working for it. Some titles should be hard to achieve, but I don't it want to be meaningless. For instance, increasing Asuran or LB rank actually has some use in making the related skills more powerful, but Legendary survivor, while cool to have, will do nothing more than make it one less thing to work for on the KoaBD track.

[drox]

i personally dont mind grinding a bit, if there are somethings that you need to grind for its ok, i do dislike the grind as it is set up in eotn where your only grind goal basicly is to earn points.

i'd rather see grinding for mats to get an armor crafted instead of buying the mats from an npc vendor. it just feels to easy, look on a website what and how many mats you need, run to a npc and voila.

so if i need to work to get some cool stuff (and ofcourse i dont mean 100hrs grind for a armor) then grinding is fine for me.

[Erasculio]

tl;dr: grind stops being fun when it starts being grind

I agree (I also agree with the wall of text version).

I think the main problems we have are...

1) The MMORPG community itself. Some players are so used to some flaws in MMORPGs that they ask for them, without noticing how they are flaws. An example is seen in "raiding" - some people ask for raids without realizing how they are a huge grind, by basically making people play through the same area over and over hoping for the 1 in one million chance that the boss will drop its rare item for them. Same with mounts, that is just a way of lessening the time sink of having to waste time walking from place to place.

2) The need to be always playing the game. This is something the MMORPGs with a monthly fee need, given how the longer someone plays, more money that someone is paying. But in a game without a monthly fee, if players are always coming and going, there is no need to keep players glued to their computers for years. I believe games like WoW try to be a lifestyle, while games like GW may be played once in a while without any loss to the players or to Arena Net.

3) Giving power or not. Some players think that a title which doesn't make them more powerful is worthless; others think that a title which makes characters more powerful is horrible for the game. Those are opposite views that may be applied to any kind of grind and in which there's no middle point - either Arena Net pleases one side or the other, they can't do both.

Erasculio

[Alaris]

Give your opinion on the fun factor of MMO grinding.

You have some people that like it
and some people that dont.

I don't think anyone really likes grind. As a psychologist, it makes no sense that they would like it. However, grind, if implemented well, is addictive.

People grind because of the rewards. The rewards are more "rewarding" if more effort has been made to get it. And as a bonus, the more work needed, the fewer people have it. So it also becomes somewhat exclusive.

But even then, developers have to do all kinds of loops to make grind acceptable in their game. Put in tons of content early on, have a fast progression early, and put in random rewards.

Basically, I have matured in my gaming. I understand grind and its effect on my gaming habits and my life. If the game is fun, I'll put up with the grind. If the rewards are good enough, I might also do it. But if I get bored, time to quit playing.

Do I quit? No, not always. It's addictive. But it's not fun. And I resent developers for "making me" grind. I'd much rather get the rewards with reasonable effort, or be able to buy them with online gold at reasonable price.

For example, I loved Diablo 2. Then I played it too much, and stayed mostly for the grind. Now I'm debating whether to get Diablo 3 or not... one argument against is whether Diablo 3 will also be a grindfest.


1) The MMORPG community itself.

2) The need to be always playing the game.

3) Giving power or not.

QFT. I believe the way out of much of this is to provide choices. You can walk or ride if you want, or you can use map travel.

You have things to keep you involved, but you won't really need to catch up, and you won't fall behind.

And the power you get is not gameplay-breaking. Like the KoaBD title in GW. It's impressive (at higher ranks), it might help you get in good groups, but it doesn't make you more powerful.

[The Iron Monkey]

I am about reward. I don't mind grind, if there is a reasonable chance of finding something special or cool. Loot is the game for me. I got a lot into the title chase and map uncover just because it gives me a reward at the end, but I still pick up every little thing that drops and to me thats the fun of it. When the controversy over loot scaling etc started, that killed the game to me. It turned into grind for the sake of points. Points are good as a secondary goal, but not the main goal.

As a similar example, I still play D2 because of the loot. I have done the game many times, I know the end, etc. I just like to hack around and find things.

I never PvP. So going in with a full level char to PvP is not my thing. I PvE, like to quest/solve things, but mostly as entertainment while I find things in the game.

It is too bad that people start using robots and farming as a business which in turn robs some of us of the pleasure/chance of finding rare things. When things are up for sale, they aren't rare, they are just expensive. And anybody with time can gather the game $$$ to buy it. So for us loot-driven players, the farmer/resell robs the game of some of the "magic" and wonder.

As many others, I don't mind some grind, depending on the reward. To me, the reward is loot.

[nkuvu]

I don't mind if grind is present in a game if the grind is optional.

For example, getting the maximum level in Norn points isn't required to complete the story. So it doesn't matter to me that it may take a lot of grind to get to that maximum level. I do see that it makes a character more powerful, but as long as I can complete the game without that extra power, I don't consider it an issue.

I do actually like having optional grind available if I end up choosing to work on it.

So as far as I'm concerned, Guild Wars is perfect in terms of game grind (with the small exception of armor in Eye of the North, which I find rather tedious for anything past the first set -- getting R5 in each of the titles is grind I don't want... even though it's optional).

[Balan Makki]

I really like how GW1 handles it. What's odd is that the very marginal differences between one rank or another, or one weapon or another actually means a lot more, in the context of the way GW works. Unfortunately, when you compare this to other games with Mega Stat grinds it "seems" weak by comparison.

Edit: To me, Grindy games are meant to addict the player, encouraging them to pay their monthly fee. . . you get what you pay for.

[Akirai Annuvil]

They finally decided to take a page out of FPS books and are making it so you when you pvp you get put at max level and have UAX.
0% grind, 100% fun.

If only they copied the template for PvE.

;_;

[Rastapopolous]

Grind is a cheap and easy to implement substitute for content >.<

as far as traditional mmorpgs are concerned, I neither blame developers for providing grind, nor the many poor souls who actually mistake grind for the real deal, for demanding it.
In a business model that requires customers to pay monthly fees and therefore to stay "hooked up" it makes perfect sense to throw out the smallest common denominator.
and as the wow tale tells, there is a great market for that.

in guild wars' case however, things were a little different from the get go...
a heavy focus on competitive PvP, an almost grindless (yeah yeah, obsidian armor... who cares) engaging, and to an extent almost cinematic PvE campaing, developers who took their time and seemed to had fun developing content (sorrows' furnace anyone?)

look at it now :(

[Dark Wolf]

0% grind, 100% fun.

I agree here. No grind equals tons of fun. Another MMO that is light grind generally (except for deeds and reps) is LOTRO, where a person like me who loves doing quests get rewarded, because in this game you get more XP doing quests than killing mobs. In LOTRO, You can live very well with the quest rewards you get while you play, and some rewards are really awesome too. No need to raid for months to play the game in LOTRO. I hope ArenaNet will copy many things from LOTRO frankly in term of making a casual light grind non-gear oriented MMO. GW was like that at first but it has turned since into a hardcore game and it is very sad indeed, Turbine has been wise enough to ignore the PvP and hardcore players so far which is something Arenanet has not done. Actually, Turbine has listened a lot from their main market, the casual players, and has softened certain areas and aspects of their game since it came out, despite the cries of the hardcore players.

[Jae Onasi]

developers who...seemed to had fun developing content (sorrows' furnace anyone?)

Some of us call that 'sadism'. :tongue:

[Akirai Annuvil]

GW was like that at first but it has turned since into a hardcore game and it is very sad indeed, Turbine has been wise enough to ignore the PvP and hardcore players so far which is something Arenanet has not done.
I wonder how the PvP crowd manages to turn GW into a more hardcore game than at release.

[Skyy High]

GW was like that at first but it has turned since into a hardcore game and it is very sad indeed, Turbine has been wise enough to ignore the PvP and hardcore players so far which is something Arenanet has not done. Actually, Turbine has listened a lot from their main market, the casual players, and has softened certain areas and aspects of their game since it came out, despite the cries of the hardcore players.
Name for me one thing that has gotten harder to do for casual players, or is more exclusive of casual players, in the present state of GW compared to release. To quote my own post in a CDF thread, here is a list of the best updates to the game, non-skill update related. The bolded ones explicitly help casual players.

- Refund points
- Changes to elite skill capping
- AoE flee
- Gear trick removal
- Build templates
- Equipment templates for PvP
- PvP chars
- Putting all PvP on the Battle Islands
- Balthazar faction, and subsequent increases in rate of acquisition
- Armor stats not being linked to appearance (first with the Factions method, and then with insignias).
- Inscriptions. High-end economy be damned, I actually find weapons I can use now.
- The original titles. This is indisputable - titles were simply fun before they became linked to skills, rewards, and rep grind
- Hard Mode. It may not be as good as we wanted, but damn, it's a lot better than being bored in NM.
The rest of them certainly don't hurt. HM, for example, plummeted prices on most weapons, helping casual players get better looking gear. You can throw on that list the addition of heroes, which was possibly the best thing casual players with not a lot of time to play could have asked for.

Now, to the actual topic. Grind is fine; forced grind, or grind that gives significant rewards that are beyond cosmetic, is bad. So, basically, keep the system we have now, with the addition of the excellent idea of removing the unlocking system for PvP play.

[raspberry jam]

Optional grindAll of GW, including playing it, is optional. So we should be careful with what we call "optional"... for example, I wouldn't say that the title requirement to get EotN armors is optional, for the simple reason that vanity in general and armor in particular is a big deal in GW, and getting armor always used to be about getting there and having enough money. (ANet obviously imposed additional constraints in order to prevent "rich" players from getting the armor on the first day: they wanted to make the reward greater by delaying it. IMO, a good thought, but they delayed it in the wrong way.)


2) The need to be always playing the game. This is something the MMORPGs with a monthly fee need, given how the longer someone plays, more money that someone is paying. But in a game without a monthly fee, if players are always coming and going, there is no need to keep players glued to their computers for years. I believe games like WoW try to be a lifestyle, while games like GW may be played once in a while without any loss to the players or to Arena Net.But don't you think that MMOs played like that will have a less dedicated and less engaged community?

[sorudo]

to me, grind is fun up until you're forced to grind for a certain thing.
a lvl grind isn't something i have problems with, but something like the EotN rep points is really an annoyance.

[Erasculio]

All of GW, including playing it, is optional. So we should be careful with what we call "optional"... for example, I wouldn't say that the title requirement to get EotN armors is optional, for the simple reason that vanity in general and armor in particular is a big deal in GW, and getting armor always used to be about getting there and having enough money. (ANet obviously imposed additional constraints in order to prevent "rich" players from getting the armor on the first day: they wanted to make the reward greater by delaying it. IMO, a good thought, but they delayed it in the wrong way.)
But thinking that earning armors is "required", we would end with the conclusion that grind has always existed in the game - before reputation titles, we were grinding for gold and materials for armor. This is what puzzles me the most on the complains about the EotN title grind - why is that specific grind so reviled (with reason, IMO) while the grind to earn gold and materials is usually ignored?



But don't you think that MMOs played like that will have a less dedicated and less engaged community?
Yep. However, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Guild Wars today has a very, very weak in-game community, IMO - I only see a community in forums and on the wiki, and a large number of people there are not playing the game right now. But that doesn't really bother me, nor do I think it's hurting the game.

Erasculio

[ThaddeusGolaas]

Lately I've been grinding the ultimate grind. I'm reading a book or watching TV in the evening while clicking on "Dwarven Ale" once every minute to keep my character max drunk. It's not much fun, but I'm doing it anyway. I probably wouldn't be logged in without title grind.

[Alaris]

Erasculio... the differences between armor grind and EotN are:

1) By the time you need max armor, you can usually afford it.
2) Elite armor gives no advantage whatsoever. It doesn't even help getting into groups.
3) EotN requires much more grind than needed for max armor, and some of it must be done in Hard Mode.
4) EotN rep level might mean the difference between getting in a group or not. It also is linked to your power when using those skills.

So the work needed to get the advantage is much higher with EotN than with armors.

[Erasculio]

Erasculio... the differences between armor grind and EotN are:
I meant in the context raspberry was talking about (although I should have clarified that), regarding title grind in order to earn the armors. In such meaning, the points you presented also are more or less the same for earning armors through gold or through farming points, for example...



1) By the time you need max armor, you can usually afford it.

...In Factions, when we reach the end of the game, I think we may have enough money and materials to buy one 15k armor set, but not two (without farming or any other kind of grind). In EotN, in the end of the game we have enough reputation points to buy armor from one source (thanks to the Hero Book), but not two (without grinding for the points).

While titles have plenty of problems that farming for gold does not have (like you said, the entire thing with the PvE skills), regarding specifically the armor concern I think both grinds are more or less the same (and equally bad).

Erasculio

[raspberry jam]

But thinking that earning armors is "required", we would end with the conclusion that grind has always existed in the game - before reputation titles, we were grinding for gold and materials for armor. This is what puzzles me the most on the complains about the EotN title grind - why is that specific grind so reviled (with reason, IMO) while the grind to earn gold and materials is usually ignored?Grinding for gold is grind too, but it's more universal. No matter what you do, you get gold. And while you can grind for specific materials, you can also skip that and just buy them. Asura (for example) points however, can be obtained only through certain comparatively limited means.

EDIT: Also, you need to obtain the points on the character you want to use the points on, so to speak. You can't farm points on your ele and let your assassin reap the benefits.

[Sir Jack]

I'll keep it simple (and IMO):

Good grind:
- the leveling (as is implemented): It's fairly fast in NF and Factions, but I found it rather good in Prophecies, where simply playing would put you at about the correct level.
- 15k/FoW Armor/Aestethic skins: Change nothing about the game, and all it does is make you look slightly better.

Bad Grind:
- Thou shallt not passeth: blocking entrance because of a too low rank (NF, EotN Weapons/Armor guys) or because you didn't do part of the story yet (Factions). Both of them don't promote very open play.
- If we kill 3,567,789 Boars in the next 3 weeks, we'll have a high enough Level: I don't need to explain where this comes from...
- Max Rank makes me better than you: Don't add added benefits to titles that require grinding.
- If I repeat this thing mindlessly for 2 months, I have max Rank for all my chars: Don't add retardedly high titles like Kurzick/Luxon into the game where the people who maxed it are the ones that were HFFF for extended periods of time.

[Erasculio]

Good grind:
- 15k/FoW Armor/Aestethic skins: Change nothing about the game, and all it does is make you look slightly better.
But couldn't the same thing be said about...



Bad Grind:
- Thou shallt not passeth: blocking entrance because of a too low rank (NF, EotN Weapons/Armor guys)
...Those, too? They just make you look slightly better (or actually rather worse, IMO, but that's a different issue).

Those two grinds have some small differences (farming gold may be done in many different ways and with any character, but it punishes party play and favors bots, something the title points don't do), but I don't see why one is a good grind and the other is a bad grind.

Erasculio

[sorudo]

IMO any armor that needs a massive amount of work and a big team just t get there is also a bad grind, FoW isn't actually an armor to just pickup for a fair price.(i think that, in return of the inability to get it without going trough tough quests, the armor should be a bit cheaper then 15K armor...but that's me)

[Sir Jack]

But couldn't the same thing be said about...

...Those, too? They just make you look slightly better (or actually rather worse, IMO, but that's a different issue).

Those two grinds have some small differences (farming gold may be done in many different ways and with any character, but it punishes party play and favors bots, something the title points don't do), but I don't see why one is a good grind and the other is a bad grind.

Erasculio

Yes and no. Title grind for weapon/armor access is actully 2 forms of grind. You grind fr the money and you grind for the title. Besides, you need some form of grind in the game, something to blow your money on if functionality comes rather cheap. It's either that or gold becomes practically worthless in the game.


IMO any armor that needs a massive amount of work and a big team just t get there is also a bad grind, FoW isn't actually an armor to just pickup for a fair price.(i think that, in return of the inability to get it without going trough tough quests, the armor should be a bit cheaper then 15K armor...but that's me)

The Germans (or rather people who like Oktoberfest and Lederhosen) disagree with you. You see, the Chinese brought really, really cheap imitation Lederhosen on the market. Most people won't be able to tell both apart immediatly, but the actual "fans" of it will, and do not like it and as such are trying to boycot Chinese Lederhosen from Oktoberfests and the likes.
It's basically the same thing as aesthetic armor in GW. People need something to stand out from time to time.

[raspberry jam]

Those two grinds have some small differences (farming gold may be done in many different ways and with any character, but it punishes party play and favors bots, something the title points don't do), but I don't see why one is a good grind and the other is a bad grind.Well


Gold is universal (you can get it from anywhere and spend it on anything), title points are not.
Gold goes away when you use it, title points do not (meaning title points has no economic characteristics).
Gold can be farmed in the way you want, title points only in the way ANet wants.
Gold can be transferred between characters both on the same account and other accounts, title points cannot (but some titles are account-wide).
Gold confers no in-game stats advantage (after getting a max damage weapon/s of appropriate type/s and buying your first set of max armor that is, something most players manage to do rather quickly due to the wonderful low power cap of GW, and unless you use it to buy weapon mods/runes/inscriptions), but title points do confer such an advantage.


These two grinds are completely different, I don't see how you can compare them.

[Erasculio]

Gold is universal (you can get it from anywhere and spend it on anything), title points are not.
Gold can be farmed in the way you want, title points only in the way ANet wants.
True in theory, but in practice grinding for gold is limited to a dozen options. No one bothers farming Ascalon with a Cyclone Axe build, for example - the options of where and how to farm are limited to those which are effective, just like farming title points isn't limited just to the areas that give them in EotN, but rather to the ways in which earning those points is effective.

I agree that farming has less restrictions than the reputation grind, but I see that as a difference in magnitude, not really in quality of the grinds. This is less pronounced than the difference between farming gold and farming Lightbringer points, for example - LB farming has only what, 3 viable ways to be earned?




Gold goes away when you use it, title points do not (meaning title points has no economic characteristics).

Which IMO is great. But say someone wants Canthan 15k armor and Primeval armor - he's going to farm until he earns enough gold to buy the Canthan armor and then get it, then farm until he has enough gold to buy Primeval armor and get it. Someone who wanted Norn armor and Asuran armor, in other hand, would farm Norn points until he earns enough to buy that armor, then farm Asuran points until he has enough to buy that other armor. The fact that titles aren't consumed has an economic impatc (or lack of : P), but to a player, IMO it's more or less the same thing, unless he wants multiple copies of the same armor.




Gold can be transferred between characters both on the same account and other accounts, title points cannot (but some titles are account-wide).

I agree, that's a difference. Which IMO has the advantage of not allowing title points to be traded between bot farmers and players, but restricts a bit how to farm points.



Gold confers no in-game stats advantage (after getting a max damage weapon/s of appropriate type/s and buying your first set of max armor that is, something most players manage to do rather quickly due to the wonderful low power cap of GW, and unless you use it to buy weapon mods/runes/inscriptions), but title points do confer such an advantage.

The weapons and armors from EotN also don't give in-game stats advantages.


These two grinds are completely different, I don't see how you can compare them.
IMO, they're pretty much the same. A player who wants an armor or a weapon would see...


What is preventing me from having that armor? Gold and/or reputation points.
Which are the viable ways of earning those points and/or that gold? Both have a list of ways that work.
Which of those ways is more suited to me? Then it would become a matter of finding the proper build for whatever option the player chose.
How many times must I repeat the farming process? The player would then farm, repeating the same thing over and over.
Now that I have gold and/or reputation points, what do I get? Then the player would earn a new skin, without any stats advantage.

While there are some differences, I see the process behind each farm to be pretty much the same. I'm likely going to agree to disagree, but I still don't get why the grind for gold is considered a good one. Is that because it's considered a "necessary evil" in order for the game to have an economy (despite how, from some points of view, the current economy sucks anyway), because it offers a bit more freedom than the title grind, or what?

Erasculio

[raspberry jam]

True in theory, but in practice grinding for gold is limited to a dozen options. No one bothers farming Ascalon with a Cyclone Axe build, for example - the options of where and how to farm are limited to those which are effective, just like farming title points isn't limited just to the areas that give them in EotN, but rather to the ways in which earning those points is effective.

I agree that farming has less restrictions than the reputation grind, but I see that as a difference in magnitude, not really in quality of the grinds. This is less pronounced than the difference between farming gold and farming Lightbringer points, for example - LB farming has only what, 3 viable ways to be earned?Do a mission, you get gold. Cap an elite, you get gold from everything you killed to reach the boss. Farm a boss for his green weapon, you'll get gold on the side.
Now that works for asura or LB etc. too, as long as you play in this specific limited group of areas and as long as you go get the blessing for the specific reason of getting these point and... well, then you might as well go to the preferred point farm spot and get it over with, right?
And then of course in EotN you have rampages and hunt bonuses etc. At first you say "hey, this makes it easier to max the title". RIght. But they also make sure that getting points "on the side" while you are doing other things is quite inefficient compared to grinding specifically for points - much more so than getting gold through normal play vs. solofarming, especially since the introduction of loot scaling.


Which IMO is great. But say someone wants Canthan 15k armor and Primeval armor - he's going to farm until he earns enough gold to buy the Canthan armor and then get it, then farm until he has enough gold to buy Primeval armor and get it. Someone who wanted Norn armor and Asuran armor, in other hand, would farm Norn points until he earns enough to buy that armor, then farm Asuran points until he has enough to buy that other armor. The fact that titles aren't consumed has an economic impatc (or lack of : P), but to a player, IMO it's more or less the same thing, unless he wants multiple copies of the same armor.No it's not, since for non-economic things you have to limit the rewards, or else you wouldn't have enough worth left to create an economy (GW has a joke economy, but at least the idea is still there). For economic rewards (currency) you will have an added layer of anonymity, giving a greater sense of freedom to the players. I agree that this freedom is an illusion, but so is the entire game (we are not controlling actual persons in some parallel dimension...)

There is also the problem of a global maximum goal. The global maximum of gold (including filling every bag and storage slot with 250-big stacks of ecto...) is hard to reach and meaningless (as a max limit) once you reached it, since as soon as you use your gold, you are not at max anymore. But the max of rep points (160 000 each track) isn't hard to reach, all you need is some time, and then you have that rank forever... which is very alluring, compelling to make you grind.


The weapons and armors from EotN also don't give in-game stats advantages.But the titles themselves do, with what all that means. After all you can't grind for just the armors.


I still don't get why the grind for gold is considered a good one. Is that because it's considered a "necessary evil" in order for the game to have an economy (despite how, from some points of view, the current economy sucks anyway), because it offers a bit more freedom than the title grind, or what?

ErasculioWell in short then, you don't need to grind for gold, if you play normally you'll get what you need anyway and trying to max it isn't possible or meaningful, but that said, you may grind if you wish to, to achieve some personal goal. Meanwhile, rep points are meaningful and very possible to max, making it feel like you are supposed to do so, to reach some goal that ANet, not you, set. (essentially, the same kind of goal as completing the last mission of a campaign, a personal goal only outside of the "reality" of the game)

Thus within the suspension of disbelief, gold grind is optional in every way, while rep grind isn't any more optional than playing the game is in itself.

[sorudo]

The Germans (or rather people who like Oktoberfest and Lederhosen) disagree with you. You see, the Chinese brought really, really cheap imitation Lederhosen on the market. Most people won't be able to tell both apart immediatly, but the actual "fans" of it will, and do not like it and as such are trying to boycot Chinese Lederhosen from Oktoberfests and the likes.
It's basically the same thing as aesthetic armor in GW. People need something to stand out from time to time.
bad example, even while it's a fake and low quality, it still looks the same.
so in your sentence, we should have a low quality FoW armor in cantha, but there is no low or high quality in GW so that fails miserable.
also, if we're talking about amplifiers and such tecs, all the inside is made from taiwan and/or china, you can't judge the quality of one with the other.
denon is designed around gemany while onkio is designed in asia, but there quality is still around the same.
a real fan would take a few day's out to get a game, but doesn't want to spent a few years for digital clothing.:wink:

[Sir Jack]

bad example, even while it's a fake and low quality, it still looks the same.
so in your sentence, we should have a low quality FoW armor in cantha, but there is no low or high quality in GW so that fails miserable.


They look the same, but there's still a difference, in regard to cracks etc. Plus, they sound different as well.
Low quality would be no/low AL value.
And even so, they're complaining about it looking the same.
So IMO, some kind of "elite" armor should be present in the game and should be harder to get than usual. IMO, GW has handled this well with several types of armor, cheap normal armor which everyone can get, 10k Armor, 15k Armor, 5k Gem Armor and FoW set.


also, if we're talking about amplifiers and such tecs, all the inside is made from taiwan and/or china, you can't judge the quality of one with the other.
denon is designed around gemany while onkio is designed in asia, but there quality is still around the same.

Except we're not. You do know what Lederhosen are I hope, especially if you're from Holland. They're pants. There's a significant difference in quality when it comes to Asian made sweatshop clothing and Asian made technological componants ordered by a compagny. In the first case, it doesn't matter where they come from, nor what quality they have, the cheaper the better. In the second, since compagnies actually order such things, quality becomes a more important factor and the reason they come from China/Thailand/... is because it's cheaper to make them there than in Europe.


a real fan would take a few day's out to get a game, but doesn't want to spent a few years for digital clothing.:wink:

This doesn't even make sense.

[sorudo]

Except we're not. You do know what Lederhosen are I hope, especially if you're from Holland. They're pants.
i'm a guy, i care more about computers and sound systems then clothing.:wink:

[Survivalist]

strictly speaking for pve I think acceptable grind is something like:
Acceptable grind = Doing all content once + 20%

so for say any of the gwen race titles its doing all quests, plus dungeons in nm and hm + vanquishing should give you 80% of the title cap.
for LB/SS then all the quests, vanquishing, co-ops in nm and hm - and DoA should give you 80% of the title cap.

When the title is across multiple characters then perhaps work it as if players are doing 4 or 5 characters and completing as above.

The gwen race titles were good examples of balanced titles as it didnt really require a heap of grind and there were a lot of ways of achieving it.
Kurzick and Luxon faction titles are good examples of unbalanced titles as the grind factor is far too much (and noting that HFFF is unbalanced vs other farming methods).

drunkard title is bad grind.
treasure hunter and the gold id'ing title are bad - but if they were across characters on an account they probably wouldnt be.

[Akirai Annuvil]

L'enfer, ce'st le sorudo.

[raspberry jam]

L'enfer, ce'st le sorudo.He speaks the charr language. KILL HIM