Grind Wars: Bound by Blood

[Syrus.2174]

First of all, let me say that Grothmar Valley is a beautiful region, despite my dislike for Charr and their lore, I enjoy playing there. I can't say too much about the story yet, as we only got a glimpse into what's coming, from what I can tell. My gripe with this place though is how grindy everything is.

I could understand many things, having to kill many enemies, requiring you to do events multiple times. Annoying, but not the worst. Even if some of the numbers are bit high.Next comes having to do the meta events many times over for achievements - again, it's annoying, but neither impossible nor something that one has to very much go out of their way for to finish, as meta events are usually what people are on a map for.Another step further - repeat the daily meta achievement 15 times. So, in other words, 15 days of doing dailies on the map. Still nothing one has to go out of their way for to finish, but it's really quite a long time. Half a month doing the dailies just for one achievement? I mean, with any halfway decent reward, people probably do that anyway. Maybe not grind per se, still an unnecessary long "wait time".

Of course, there are also those achievements "Pest Control" and "Professional Bouncer", which just make me wonder, why so many? Couldn't 50 and 100 or maybe 200 have been fine as well?

But the once that finally made me write this post were "Crater Circuit: Top Three" and "Grothmar Grand Tour: Pole Position".When I got top three in each race I was so happy to be done with the achievements ... only to realize some time later that: "nope, do it FOUR more times!" ... I apparently had missed that it wasn't just aI'm not a good racer, and I know I could still finish these achievements doing them during the concert or at night or something. But it just will make me hate other players if they participate as well and win instead of myself, and I'm trying to finally fix my screwed up sleep schedule due to how unhealthy it is and how it affects my life.If it had been "finish the race 5 times", I'd be fine with it. If there were two achievements, one with getting the top three finish ONCE, the other with having to do the race five times, fine.But finishing top three, FIVE times... I guess that's just the that one step too far.

This is not the Guild Wars I remember, and I know of grindy stuff in the game, I do play WvW, I keep a constant eye on my progress towards the "Realm Avenger" achievement, but at least that is not depended as much on competing against players, ironically, despite me having to kill them for it - the races can only be completed at certain times and at most three people can get progress on the achievement each time.

Why are Bound by Blood's achievement such a massive grindfest?

[Trise.2865]

Because they're not meant to be accomplished in a couple of hours. They're only grindy because you're grinding for them.

[ugrakarma.9416]

this achivment 15 days pass in a blink of a eye, i rarely play more than 3 hours a day, and i did it.. just because the title is cool.

professional bouncer and others "die hard" achievments just ignore it.

Achievments in GW2 is something u better not try it when is burned out of the game.

[kharmin.7683]

3 hours a day?? Would that I had that kind of time! :)

[Poormany.4507]

Agree with OP on this one - so many of the achievements in the prologue rely on group events and require you to compete with other players for completion and it is to your advantage to get the least number of players around as possible. The events themselves don't even need that many players and it just takes away from your own progress and makes you wait hours if there's more than 2 or 3 players doing them each time. I don't think previous episodes have this kind, or at least that many, of this kind of achievement. I don't want to compete with others during events and be mad at other players for taking away from my own achievement progress. I really hope they don't keep doing these during LWS5.

[ugrakarma.9416]

@kharmin.7683 said:3 hours a day?? Would that I had that kind of time! :)

theoretically it should be lesser, but i had insomnia atm. i only play after the gym.

[Westenev.5289]

I mean, they would hardly be achievements if everyone could collect all the ap within a week, and from what I remember, isn't Grothmar supposed to be an expanding map?

Still, one of my biggest gripes with AP is how the achievements interact with group events. Take the flame legion effigy torch run, for example. 100 torch passes? Can you blame people for just throwing the torches at the unlit torch stacks that people are picking up for easy (albeit, annoying) AP?

[Linken.6345]

I did them during the night got place 1 2 and 3 in one race of each so only had to do 2 more in another of each.

[thepenmonster.3621]

@Syrus.2174 said:Why are Bound by Blood's achievement such a massive grindfest?

Because there's always someone dumb enough to want to do this stuff for little to no reward.

[Lambent.6375]

Vertical progression or a niche is part of what keeps a lot of mmos alive, gw2 doesn't have vertical progression as an option, so....

(I just included that niche part so someone wouldn't quote me listing older mmos that haven't gotten vertical progression updates in years, still being alive and kicking)

[Swagg.9236]

They're "grindy" because everything is gated by timers and materials bound to certain, tedious activities. If Anet didn't do this, it would be even more obvious to everyone how little actual content that any sort of addition to this game has.

[Dante.1508]

Its grindy because making content takes time.. They need to keep customers slaving away to slow them down.. Personally i ignore most achievements these days.

I never even got the new T shirt.. That said i also detest the charr and their GW2 lore, GW1 Charr were excellent and they should have stayed the enemy.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

@Lambent.6375 said:Vertical progression or a niche is part of what keeps a lot of mmos alive, gw2 doesn't have vertical progression as an option, so....

(I just included that niche part so someone wouldn't quote me listing older mmos that haven't gotten vertical progression updates in years, still being alive and kicking)

At least GW2 isn't a certain big MMO that just announced they will be squashing player level from 120 back down to 60. Can you imagine re-gearing each time the level was raised, only for it to be reduced again? I bet those forums will be a mess.

[Jojo.6140]

If you are the only one participating at a race you can actually get 3 times credit for the achievement. Just when you finished your first round talk to the event organizer and say you want to participate and do another round, and then a third one after that.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

These achievements are tame compared to previous LW maps where you needed to sink tons of gold or return for weeks. These are to keep some players coming back to certain maps regularly at least for a little while.

[Brycar.2651]

I have many alts. Others may not. I did the story and map complete on four alts, one for each legion. I enjoyed it the whole time for each because of my head cannon role play. It went by fast and fun to complete the achievements

[Ayrilana.1396]

Grindy achievements have existed in the game since launch. They’re nothing new and are very similar to the grindy titles in GW1.

As for the episode’s achievements, I didn’t find any of them grindy. I certainly wouldn’t call getting top 3 a grind. It’s fairly easy to do when a meta is going on and/or it’s not a daily.

It’s also a bit funny that people complain about grindy achievements, or just grinding in this game period, but have absolutely no issues spending hours upon hours grinding in the lab during Halloween. It’s as if grind is only bad if it inconveniences you.

[Syrus.2174]

@whoeverxwins.1279 said:

@"Lambent.6375" said:Vertical progression or a niche is part of what keeps a lot of mmos alive, gw2 doesn't have vertical progression as an option, so....

(I just included that niche part so someone wouldn't quote me listing older mmos that haven't gotten vertical progression updates in years, still being alive and kicking)

At least GW2 isn't a certain big MMO that just announced they will be squashing player level from 120 back down to 60. Can you imagine re-gearing each time the level was raised, only for it to be reduced again? I bet those forums will be a mess.

I never felt like this in WoW before the dailies were implemented. Then again, that was literally tens years ago, so the game probably changed since that. But it doesn't really matter either way, since it is also a reason why I probably started to not like WoW anymore as much and why I enjoyed GW2 much more ever since I came back.

Didn't they state Guild Wars would try to abstain from the insane grind other games have? 500 Crazed Fans with how hard it can be to tag them, I call that quite a grind. And yes, Dragonfall with its 1000 kills for the achievements is also plagued with such. Luckily you aren't competing with other players on the latter, the Crazed Fans on the other hand can be quite competitive with how fast they can go down and how the damage needed to tag seems a bit higher than usual (though it's better than it was at the start, from what I gathered).

The race achievements are clearly competitive though. Maybe it's just the disappointment that kicked in when I realized "I ... didn't finish it", and the annoyance when I realized I would have to do it another 4 times. Maybe it's just how I don't understand why it couldn't just have been "finish the race 5 times" instead.

Maybe it is just the overall realization that for players coming later, after new maps are released, these will be quite a slowdown. As the map is the current "endgame content", it is very active and it is natural to spend a lot of time there, so finishing the achievements may not feel as grindy.

Overall it just feels unnecessarily grindy: I have proven I can do this, why do I need to prove it another 4 times? Another 50 times? Another 300 times? The feeling of accomplishment is just too little for how long it takes for some of these to be finished, in my opinion.250 additional Crazed Fans, for 3 APs, no title, no reward...50 additional Devourer Nests for 1 AP...4 additional times race top three? 2 AP...At least the 15x daily meta one has a reward to it.

I would just prefer a less monotonous approach to keeping people on a map. Fun events with decent rewards and such. I'm not saying you should be able to do the achievements in one day, that would also be boring, I just would prefer to see them be less of the "do this x times, kill those y times" - or at least not require such high numbers of repeats. And of course there's the problem with making achievements which mean you actually do better if there are less people, so you work against each others instead of together.

(If Grothmar is going to be expanded, they should make new achievements for the map when that happens. Better than putting in high bars now.)

[mortrialus.3062]

100% disagree. I've gotten most of the achievements except Merchandise Collector and 500 Crazed Fans.

I love how a lot of the map's unique rewards are tied to certain events and were actually relevant to said event. The way you unlock the cooking recipes for completing the achievement with the Chef, the Shooting Gallery Achievements, the derby achievement. It was a lot of fun going into a zone and actually having some decently paced goals for a change. It's probably why it's the first time since LSW3 I've gotten the meta reward from actual PvE and not just the PvP reward track and why I feel like I got a lot more content and replayability out of Grothmar Valley than most of the LWS4 maps.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

I stink at the beetle racing, so obviously I won't get those, but the rest I've done easily. I don't sit and grind out anything. For instance I'm going for my first legendary (Nevermore). I do a bit, then go do something else. Things are only a grind when you do them to the exclusion of things you enjoy.

For the crazed fans, focus on them instead of trying to run around doing everything, and use a ranged weapon. It's not that difficult.

[Tukaram.8256]

@whoeverxwins.1279 said:

For the crazed fans, focus on them instead of trying to run around doing everything, and use a ranged weapon. It's not that difficult.

Yeah, that was the easiest one. I just let my minions loose and dumped marks all over the place. I would easily get 40-50 each concert.

I have always found most achievements to be too grindy for me. I guess I am not the target demographic - but so far I have done more in this area than any other.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

@Tukaram.8256 said:

@"whoeverxwins.1279" said:

For the crazed fans, focus on them instead of trying to run around doing everything, and use a ranged weapon. It's not that difficult.

Yeah, that was the easiest one. I just let my minions loose and dumped marks all over the place. I would easily get 40-50 each concert.

I have always found most achievements to be too grindy for me. I guess I am not the target demographic - but so far I have done more in this area than any other.

I think I used my reaper for this too. Minions definitely make it easier, and throw out "Rise!" occasionally to hit anything in range.

[Thalimae.3406]

The only one of these I find even remotely grindy is the 500 fans and I would agree that 200-300 would have been enough. But otherwise these achievements are doable if you play the map at your own leisure for a while . Those achievements are not made for you to grind them but to get a bit of a reward if you repeat the map content. You only need 54 for the meta anyway if you're after that.

I mean, the game also has a list of Slayer achievements under the General tab which are "Kill 1000 of Type X enemies" - doesn't mean that the game devs expect you to stand around in the desert and kill 1000 sand lions for a few weeks.

[Linken.6345]

@"Thalimae.3406" said:The only one of these I find even remotely grindy is the 500 fans and I would agree that 200-300 would have been enough. But otherwise these achievements are doable if you play the map at your own leisure for a while . Those achievements are not made for you to grind them but to get a bit of a reward if you repeat the map content. You only need 54 for the meta anyway if you're after that.

I mean, the game also has a list of Slayer achievements under the General tab which are "Kill 1000 of Type X enemies" - doesn't mean that the game devs expect you to stand around in the desert and kill 1000 sand lions for a few weeks.

Done all of the kill 1000 enemies by now except the giants, hope anet add more giants then the 3 champ/legendary in core + 1 event and the elon riverland camp sometime in the future.

[Gop.8713]

@Linken.6345 said:

@"Thalimae.3406" said:The only one of these I find even remotely grindy is the 500 fans and I would agree that 200-300 would have been enough. But otherwise these achievements are doable if you play the map at your own leisure for a while . Those achievements are not made for you to grind them but to get a bit of a reward if you repeat the map content. You only need 54 for the meta anyway if you're after that.

I mean, the game also has a list of Slayer achievements under the General tab which are "Kill 1000 of Type X enemies" - doesn't mean that the game devs expect you to stand around in the desert and kill 1000 sand lions for a few weeks.

Done all of the kill 1000 enemies by now except the giants, hope anet add more giants then the 3 champ/legendary in core + 1 event and the elon riverland camp sometime in the future.

I feel like there are enough giants in pof to make them farmable if you so chose, but in relation to IBS the strike mission boss also counts, fwiw . . .

EDIT: And on topic, there is that certain cheeve in the prologue that I wish was grindable ;p