Talk:Grind

Grinding is encouraged by faction and faction farming. Having to play any mission or quest twice is a bore. Kiteeye 10:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

"Gameplay is more heavily based on skills, builds, and personal skill." lolz, good joke. I laughed hard. I would change it to:

"Gameplay is more heavily based on Copy+Paste, gimmicks, and rolling your head on the keyboard." Now that reflects the GW environment! Titani Ertan 11:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Rewrote the article, but mainly the PvE aspect of grinding; some PvP stuff could be added too, but that's not really my area. -- Brains12 \ talk 12:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

You know, you could have kept the useful information from my version. --Jette 13:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

You haven't edited this article; I assume you're talking about something else. -- Brains12 \ talk 13:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

@Titani Ertan: lol I can imagine new players following those steps. Paddymew 21:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

What does "Optional" mean?

I like how they use this word to defend some aspects of the game that require excessive grinding. So what does "optional" mean? Can anything in a game be "mandatory"? Of course not. Playing the game at all is optional too.

Lets look at how the things are in GW: you reach 20 level for, lets say, 10 days. What to do next? Well there is this title that requires estimated 1 real-life year time of hard grinding. Then there is the that title that requires estimated 2 real-life years of some other grinding. Then there is the other title that requires 5 real-life years of grinding. And 20 more titles like that. There are also some pvp titles that require a bit less grind time but for them you have to be very good in pvp and to be in very good guild (and the pvp in this game is quite a complex matter and is not for everyone, basically as they say "elite"). These titles (and some elite armor sets, which require similar grinding) are all you can do after you reach 20 lvl. This means the vast majority of the time you spend in the game, since 20 lvl is reached so fast and you keep playing for quite longer than that. Then you say "hey all those titles/elite armors/etc. are optional". So what? Of course, everything in a game is optional! The game itself is optional! In ALL games ALL grind is ALWAYS optional in this sense! You are NEVER obligated to do it (by the EULA or whatever other means).

The other day one friend of mine was arguing that, unlike other MMO games, in GW there is no grind and that was one of the reasons why he liked GW more than other games. Then he showed me his titles "Master Treasure Hunter" (halfway to Grandmaster) and "Source of Wisdom". Then i asked him "Whoa! So you don't call this grind?" and he told me "well this is optional!".

Please people, give up using this word when you want to describe GW as better than other games! It is plain stupid. Don't get me wrong! I like GW, it indeed is a great game. Also i don't say grind is bad per se, though i think it is way too much for some titles (lucky and threasure hunter come to mind). Just stop arguing that the grind is "optional" in this game. You are basically saying nothing. As i said everything about a game is necessarily optional as no one can force you to play the game. 213.240.234.31 20:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"Optional" in this case likely refers to not needing to grind to reach max level or max armor, or complete the campaign, or participate effectively in most of the game (all things which many other MMOs require grind for; WoW in particular comes to mind). You can have your own opinion but the page is neutral; Guild Wars does require less grind than other games. --Kyoshi (Talk) 20:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"To reach max level" is very arbitrary aim. One can also choose anything else as aim when he want to consider how much grind is needed to reach it. For example maybe in WoW may be needed less grind to reach level 2 than in GW. So what? To show you that max level as aim is nothing of big interest, i will just reiterate that to reach level 20 in GW you need max 10 days. Then you keep playing the game for another 2-5 years. So reaching lvl 20 is, lets say 1% of you played time. So what is the big deal that it didn't need much grind (while the other 99% are spent for heavy grinding for titles)?

As for the max gear, yes, but it only matters for pvp. I agree, for you should be able to participate in pvp with max gear/etc. without any grind at all. Then again you can just make pvp-only character.

As for pve - having a gear cap at all is not something very good (then you have left only silly skins to look for). Alright, you got your max gear very fast without much grind. Then you start the endless grind for the titles OR you stop playing the game. If you stop playing the game, what was that hasty getting of maxed gear at all? You got your max gear very fast just to stop playing the game (and so not using the max gear)? 213.240.234.31 20:44, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"To reach max level" in GW is basically to be able to participate most effectively, same for gear. If you don't like having a cap that's your opinion, but I like that it (ideally) leaves everyone on the same level of power and makes "skill, not skills", the deciding factor. Guild Wars has, of course, accidentally deviated from this equality over time, and that's why people say it's a dieing game, but the ideal still stands for most players.

You get to level 20, you get max armor, you complete the campaign, and it's all grinding or you're done with the game? BS. There are elite missions. There are competitive missions. There's PvP. Some people, believe it or not, do these things because they're kinda fun rather than to get gold/faction/titles/grindstuffs, though rewards are certainly a plus. Obviously it will eventually become repetitive and get old, and that's why people stop playing a particular game. Again, a matter of opinion, and you're entitled to yours. Personally, I have only completed the Underworld once (not interested in speed clearing), and so it's still "new content" to me, and still exciting to play, hopefully more when and if it gets balanced later on.

tl;dr: Some don't play games for the epeen, they play for fun and the epeen comes with it. --Kyoshi (Talk) 22:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

You diverged the discussion towards philosophical questions about who what finds to be fun in a game and what not. As i said i find the game to be good myself, i dont argue about such things. I didn't even state an opinion if the quantity of grinding "required" in GW is much or little, except for the titles i mentioned (for which i think it is way too much). But that was not my point at all. My point was exactly that the word "Optional" in the context of grinding in GW is less than appropriate then I also stated my arguments. I can say that so far you failed to counter my arguments in strict logical sense. You just keep diverting to different questions. For example you say "to reach max level is to be able to participate most effectively". Now tell me please how does this counter (or relate at all to) the argument that you get to max level/gear for negligible percent of your played time to be of any significance when you evaluate the quantity of grinding in GW? As for the "optional" thing - the argument was: everything in a game like GW is ALWAYS optional. In WoW the grinding is optional too (btw. you first mentioned WoW, not me - im not a fan of this game). So OF COURSE the grinding in GW is optional - it is not an exception and in no case it is something in what GW is better than other games. Thats why stating it as an exclusive quality of GW is wrong and misleading and stupid. I would be very interested if you can show me a game in which the grinding is mandatory. Actually the statement that "unlike other games, grinding here is optional" does indeed makes sense but only for the PVP. I was talking about the PVE aspect of the game. 77.70.56.64 22:45, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) If you really want to argue that absolutely everything is optional at some level, then you're the one posing the philosophical question, and no answer I can give will satisfy you without taking far more time than I want to bother spending on this issue. What is required or optional depends upon the conditional of which goals you intend to reach. Grinding is optional for the purposes of the goals of most GW players. Which is the point of the use of the word in this article.

Incidentally, I don't know why you exclude PvP from grinding. There are titles for that too, you know. --Kyoshi (Talk) 23:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Man, Whatever. I am already bored with this argument. Have a nice day.77.70.56.64 23:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

k --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:14, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

An interesting discussion, all I can say is that 77.70.56.64 is a grinding apologist. Kyoshi, I like you. Hope to see you in GW2! MadSkillz1o1 08:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)