Guild wars or... Title Wars?

[Arkhan The Black]

The game doesn't force you to grind titles. Sure you can grind the Sunspear title if you feel like it, but just playing the game will bring it up to level pretty quick.

[Erasculio]

We have title-tied skills, title-tied effectiveness, titles per se, now even title-tied favor system! I can't help but think that for more than 6 months now, all Anet can think of to add to the gameplay is more titles and more grind. It worries me a lot..

Arena Net is aiming to ways of rewarding players - and PvE wise, the only real accomplishment players have is earning titles. Finishing a campaign is nice, but it's easy, fast and it already has a reward on its own (Book of Secrets/Amulet of the Mists/seeing the end of the storyline for that chapter). And farming...Reward farming is shooting your own feet, since bots are capable of farming better than human beings.

Is that a bad thing? IMO, no. It all depends of how a title is earned. We have titles that require an unreasonable ammount of grind (Luxon and Kurzick) and titles that don't require any grind to reach decent levels (Sunspear title). If all new GW:EN titles are like the Sunspear title - whatever benefit they give is earned just by playing the game normally, without having to farm them even once - then I don't see any significant grind being introduced into the game. If they are like the Luxon and Kurzick skills, I'll join the wave of complainers.

The problem, IMO, is that the community as a whole is too quick to judge. We know GW:EN is going to have titles for the new factions it has; we know those titles will be earned as we play; we know there are benefits for doing so. Yet that's not a problem, as I mentioned above, as long as there's no grind in getting those titles at a high level (like the Sunspear rank 8 - it's not maximum, but it's enough to make all Sunspear skills powerful, almost as powerful as the maximum). But I doubt the community will wait to see that before judging - and we already have players who know (or think they know) that those titles will be huge grinds and are eager to start complaining about them. The same thing has happened with the change to the favor system - it does not promote grind, but it's going to take a long time before everyone understands this idea.

Erasculio

[ArichValtrahn]

Titles are great. Small rewards for titles are great (IE additional balts faction storage). Skill access for titles is bad.

[Fay Vert]

I agree with OP, titles should be optional vanity items, ANet are tying them more and more into essential gameplay, looks like the GWEN titles will even be the main point of the expansion.

I hope you all like grind, because GW looks set to be the mother or all grind games.

[De Daniel]

Tittles should be removed entirely it brings more whining than anything. Titles give sertain grinning players advantages and last but not least titles are being used to show of(we got enought things besides titles to show of like tormented weapons)...

[Dallcingi]

Titles are just something to do after you beat the game.

[Xelonir]

Titles are just something to do after you beat the game.

And of course ANet want's you to have something to do after you beat the game ... so you keep playing GW until GW2 is released.

[Forgotten Legend]

titles offer ways to make an "easy" mode for players.

Hard mode was introduced for the people who wanted more of a challenge.
titles and their related skills were introduced to make the game less challenging.

Gosh!

[cyberlord]

2 year skill grind wars? :/
World of TitleCraft

[Karadoth]

What do they gain from you playing the game after you buy all the chapters and the expansion? You using up a bit of their bandwidth?