For a game whose original core values included the elimination of repetitive grind...

[Artemis.8034]

If someone would have said the gw2 forums would be a hot topic of fishing 3 months ago, I would have laughed them off the forums. My god how fishing has become the top content for a lot of people. 

[Gibson.4036]

10 minutes ago, Artemis.8034 said:

If someone would have said the gw2 forums would be a hot topic of fishing 3 months ago, I would have laughed them off the forums. My god how fishing has become the top content for a lot of people. 

I was a fishing skeptic, but now I’ve fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

[ugrakarma.9416]

36 minutes ago, Artemis.8034 said:

If someone would have said the gw2 forums would be a hot topic of fishing 3 months ago, I would have laughed them off the forums. My god how fishing has become the top content for a lot of people. 

im myself was extremy skeptical, but im addicted now.

but i like "deep economics" theres need more: i mean, more rods, more stuff to craft/sell;

i even have a dedicated "wrangler" alt now.. lolll

Edited March 12, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[ugrakarma.9416]

ppl like "grind", not so much, but like, thats why zergs exists.

[SatyricL.2784]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Sure, and the giant slayer achievement took forever back when the game launched. If you don't get those collections what are you missing out on? We've always had grindy achievements that was my point. If you're going to achievement hunt, as I do, there are going to be achievements that are a huge time sink.  My wife just got her 43k chest and I'm not far behind her.  I've been doing grindy achievements since launch.  It's a bit late to complain about them, unless there's something special we need those achievements for.

I cant tell if you are choosing to be ignorant of the difference in these two achievements or just actually confused. Theres a difference between "grindy" in effort, and "grindy" in pure RNG. No one is sitting at risen giant spawns, cracked out, trying desperately to farm 1000 giants, but if they were, you could calculate the exact amount of time it would take them based on the respawn timer. Meanwhile, mackerel is tied directly into the ENTIRE fishing achievement section, and you never know when you will get enough.

So I am pretty sure you are being intentionally disingenuous, and leave it at that.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Harrada.8041

[SatyricL.2784]

1 hour ago, LadyHawk.5319 said:

MMO's have a grind aspect. All of them do, including GW2. But, what makes a really good MMO is how they disguise the grind. Does the game make you grind in such a way that you think you are playing for fun and it's your idea? Guild Wars 2 used to be this way; they accomplished that. I used to brag on GW2 with regards to the grind aspect. It was cleverly done. Yes, there were a few dailies and do some achieves here and there, but it never felt grindy. They cleverly masked that and tricked you into thinking that you were completing that content because you wanted to. 

Notice, I have been talking in the past tense. I am sad to say that the cleverly hidden grind is gone and has been since at least Ice Brood Saga. Now it is blatant, in your face, do this strike mission 50 kittening times for an achieve. There is nothing clever about it. There is nothing unique about it. The people who brought us that cleverness, I guess, are gone. It is sad. 

True. But this is the first time they have stepped into absolute RNG with no per-determined requirement to reach your goal. The amount of time it will take you to get the mackerel you need for the fishing achievements is completely up in the air thanks to two folds of RNG gatekeeping you.

[Vayne.8563]

14 minutes ago, Harrada.8041 said:

I cant tell if you are choosing to be ignorant of the difference in these two achievements or just actually confused. Theres a difference between "grindy" in effort, and "grindy" in pure RNG. No one is sitting at risen giant spawns, cracked out, trying desperately to farm 1000 giants, but if they were, you could calculate the exact amount of time it would take them based on the respawn timer. Meanwhile, mackerel is tied directly into the ENTIRE fishing achievement section, and you never know when you will get enough.

So I am pretty sure you are being intentionally disingenuous, and leave it at that.

I'm not being intentionally disingenuous. I'm saying you're picking and random achievement you want, that's probably meant to be gotten over time and not grinded out and you're grinding it. What happens if you don't get that achievement. There are plenty of collections that have lousy RNG. The one that gives you the fractal reliquary for example, or even worse, the one for ecto gambling.  If it's just for an achievement, but the achievement doesn't block progress, don't be so attached to that specific achievement and play the rest of the game. Fish when you want and you'll eventually get it, or they'll eventually fix a bug.

 

 

[SatyricL.2784]

11 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I'm not being intentionally disingenuous. I'm saying you're picking and random achievement you want, that's probably meant to be gotten over time and not grinded out and you're grinding it.

No, I am picking the only achievement in the game that has no direct action course of completion. There is no way to directly guarantee mackerel and no other courses of action to get it beyond standing in place and clicking over and over and over for hours, days, or even weeks, if you need them for many of the maps.

 

Quote

What happens if you don't get that achievement.

You get unique titles and skins. The only rewards aside from convince that gw2 offers.

 

Quote

There are plenty of collections that have lousy RNG. The one that gives you the fractal reliquary for example, or even worse, the one for ecto gambling.

Absolutely incorrect. Both of these achievements can be completed by spending gold. Meaning there is a metric for gauging exactly how long it will take you to complete them. The Fractal Reliquary takes roughly 430 gold to acquire. Ecto gambling requires exactly 10,000 gold, and 25000 ecto (In bulk or from winnings). So far you have only proved my point with this.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Harrada.8041

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, Harrada.8041 said:

No, I am picking the only achievement in the game that has no direct action course of completion. There is no way to directly guarantee mackerel and no other courses of action to get it beyond standing in place and clicking over and over and over for hours, days, or even weeks, if you need them for many of the maps.

 

You get unique titles and skins. The only rewards aside from convince that gw2 offers.

 

Absolutely incorrect. Both of these achievements can be completed by spending gold. Meaning there is a metric for gauging exactly how long it will take you to complete them. The Fractal Reliquary takes roughly 430 gold to acquire. Ecto gambling requires exactly 10,000 gold, and 25000 ecto (In bulk or from winnings). So far you have only proved my point with this.

Okay you win. It's a terrible thing. They should fix it.

[AgentMoore.9453]

Pedantic arguments about game manifestos aside, RNG bait is annoying, and there should be a steady way to get/purchase mackerel without having to cross your fingers and waste other bait.

I'd also appreciate if:
- A fully-leveled Arborstone offered all possible baits at the same vendor (since it's meant to be the big EoD hub and all)
- Fishing vendors were present in Core Tyria maps for easier access to lures and other supplies. Feels crummy having to trot across the ocean just to buy a handful of leeches.
- Fishing vendors had a unique icon over their heads out in the open world (a simple fish silhouette would do) since right now most of them are virtually invisible in a sea of surrounding NPCs.

Fishing should be way less tedious than it currently is - and hopefully it will be with some feedback and additional dev time.

Also, I see this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but yes, there is a vendor in Sandswept Isles (out on the wooden scaffolding left of Atholma) who will sell you fish eggs (which are normally an RNG bait you get from breaking down certain fish). If someone finds a vendor selling mackerels, please respond here so we can reel 'em in.

[LadyHawk.5319]

5 hours ago, Harrada.8041 said:

True. But this is the first time they have stepped into absolute RNG with no per-determined requirement to reach your goal. The amount of time it will take you to get the mackerel you need for the fishing achievements is completely up in the air thanks to two folds of RNG gatekeeping you.

I agree. The cleverly disguised grind that GW2 used to do became extinct with Ice Brood Saga and has gone even further into the mundane and dim-wittedness with EoD and it's rng. 

[Talae.4086]

11 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Okay you win. It's a terrible thing. They should fix it.

Yeah, he's made up his mind, that this is gamebreaking and makes the game unplayable..

 

I don't think anet intended a game feature that was so hyped and wanted to be done and completed (achievement-wise) in two weeks after expansion launch. Yes, it sucks that you have such bad luck with mackerels, but I don't really think you should care this much about an achievement, which was obviously something you were meant to work on over a longer period of time (just like the weapon killing and slayer achievements). You're making this into a grind by rushing it. Just enjoy fishing and vary your fishing locations, then suddenly you're done 🙂 

 

Just don't let this frustration affect your real life, cause the way you discuss this so passionately kinda indicates it does in a negative way 😞

Good luck on your fishing achievements though! 🙂 

[Luthan.5236]

Still less grindy than other "classic" MMORPG with the gear treadmill where you need to find a group of (mostly toxic) players to do the same raid over and over ... until you have enough gear to play the next raid.

Cause here we have tons of easy accessible content and can switch and not focus on playing only 1 stuff. Of course fishing feels grindy if you feel you have to grind for the achievements - instead of fishing every now and then and maxing one achievement every now and then.

The mackerels ... seem to be annoying though. They might change that - maybe. I guess adding 1 to the daily fishing achievement + making a vendor with daily limit ... would not be too bad for this.

There is other luck reladed bad stuff in the game as well though. Collection items with rare drops where people reportedly got it on the first try while others took almost forever.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Vayne.8563]

19 minutes ago, Talae.4086 said:

Yeah, he's made up his mind, that this is gamebreaking and makes the game unplayable..

 

I don't think anet intended a game feature that was so hyped and wanted to be done and completed (achievement-wise) in two weeks after expansion launch. Yes, it sucks that you have such bad luck with mackerels, but I don't really think you should care this much about an achievement, which was obviously something you were meant to work on over a longer period of time (just like the weapon killing and slayer achievements). You're making this into a grind by rushing it. Just enjoy fishing and vary your fishing locations, then suddenly you're done 🙂 

 

Just don't let this frustration affect your real life, cause the way you discuss this so passionately kinda indicates it does in a negative way 😞

Good luck on your fishing achievements though! 🙂 

I got four mackerals today just fishing not even in a fishing hole, just in the water in Seitung harbor in about 20 minutes. Shrugs.

[SexyMofo.8923]

Is fishing considered combat?  Because I fight with my fish when it’s on the line irl. 

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

I feel like once every few months there's a post that says one of the core philosophies behind the gameplay of Guild Wars 2 was no grind. This is completely incorrect and you won't find anyone from Arenanet saying there won't be any grind in Guild Wars 2. What they said is there is no gear progression grind and there's no grind to reach max level, which there absolutely is not. Most players are thankful that there are elements of grindy content in the game, that's a pretty core part of almost all RPGs.

[Boneheart.3561]

Guess I got lucky. I caught the swordfish and bluefin tuna in one cycle with about fifteen of my twenty-plus mackerel.

The blue dorado was the biggest pain, but, coincidentally, caught it alongside the tuna and swordfish.

[mythical.6315]

Quote

Hey folks,

I just want to take a second to address this topic, because it’s something we state as one of our key philosophies – but don’t often clarify exactly what we mean we say it. And because everyone and their mother has their own unique interpretation of what grind can mean, it’s very simple for this to feel like we’re not following our own guidelines when we build and implement content.

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

There are certainly optional activities in the game players can embark on that I think we’d openly accept fall into the category of our definition of more “grindy”. Earning certain unique skins, and in particular some titles absolutely qualify as things we’d put on this list. Legendary weapons have components to them that fall into this category, though we’ll be doing work in HOT to make this much less the case. We feel these are optional choices players don’t need to do, but can if they want, and because they are optional are acceptable within our statement that “Gw2 doesn’t make you grind to have the best gear/stats”. That doesn’t mean we can’t make those activities more fun as well, but when we say “no grind philosophy” we’re not including optional things you can do, but don’t need to do, in our definition.

Hope that helps a bit, that’s our philosophy and definition we’re going by when we make those statements. They may not align to your definition of grind, and that’s ok – we’re fine with that! It’s just important you know what we mean when we make that statement so you can make decisions about how you view Gw2 and judge us by our actions/words.

Thanks again for being so passionate about this topic and the game which ever side of the discussion you fall on. It’s something incredibly important to modern MMO’s and gamers in general, and we truly appreciate the dialogue you all are having on topics like this. It’s what makes better games for all of us.

I did a bit of research and found a post (quoted above) addressing this "issue" on what looks to be an archive of the old forums.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

Edited March 13, 2022 by mythical.6315

[SatyricL.2784]

8 hours ago, Talae.4086 said:

Yeah, he's made up his mind, that this is gamebreaking and makes the game unplayable..

Lmao. Good response, having all his points completely dis-proven. Almost has dismissive and disingenuous as he has been the entire time. Good one though. 🤣

Also, sick strawmanning on top of that, given I never said it was gamebreaking or made the game unplayable. Would love to see if you have any actual legit points or counter arguments, or if thats just your go to strat for engaging with debates where you have nothing to offer.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Harrada.8041

[omgdracula.6345]

Some of you don't know what a grind is and it shows. I just came back to guild wars 2 after a couple years. No gear to catch up on. Instantly was able to unlock my new elite spec. Wasn't gated by my level being too low. I could do all the content I wanted. 

[SatyricL.2784]

7 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I got four mackerals today just fishing not even in a fishing hole, just in the water in Seitung harbor in about 20 minutes. Shrugs.

Nice. Only 20 minutes for 4 of them? Thats awesome. Only about 46 more to go to have a decent chance to roll one of the dozen fish you need it for. See you after 4 more hours of standing there rolling the dice. Of course if you have slightly unfavorable luck, you can chalk that up to a total of 8.5. For that one fish. Oh but wait, you need about a dozen more fish. So lets just round that up to potentially a week of standing in place rolling the dice for mackerel.

We can be dismissive, sarcastic, and passive-aggressive in your comments all you want, but at the end of the day you were wrong on all of your points. Or do you have another RNG collection to compare it to that you will ignore all the other means of acquiring?

Edited March 13, 2022 by Harrada.8041

[Snowmane.5826]

6 minutes ago, Harrada.8041 said:

Nice. Only 20 minutes for 4 of them? Thats awesome. Only about 46 more to go to have a decent chance to roll one of the dozen fish you need it for. See you after 4 more hours of standing there rolling the dice. Of course if you have slightly unfavorable luck, you can chalk that up to a total of 8.5. For that one fish. Oh but wait, you need about a dozen more fish. So lets just round that up to potentially a week of standing in place rolling the dice for mackerel.

We can be dismissive, sarcastic, and passive-aggressive in your comments all you want, but at the end of the day you were wrong on all of your points. Or do you have another RNG collection to compare it to that you will ignore all the other means of acquiring?

 

I've caught like 6, maybe 7 of the Mackeral fish and have put maybe 4-5 hours into fishing. Has it occurred to you you have just had crummy luck?

 

But sure, you want other RNG collections - how about literally all of the Black Lion skin collections? Those rely on unreliable drops (or paying). Fractal stuff? Unreliable drops. Legendaries (or specifically pre-cursors)? Unreliable drops. All of the above are only not RNG dependent if you pay money. Even some of the specialization collections are heavily reliant on RNG, they just have RNG that's in the 10-20% drop chance thus don't seem it. Also Spoons. I could probably go on...

[SatyricL.2784]

10 minutes ago, Snowmane.5826 said:

 

I've caught like 6, maybe 7 of the Mackeral fish and have put maybe 4-5 hours into fishing. Has it occurred to you you have just had crummy luck?

 

Im going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and assume you misunderstood thinking that it takes 4.5 hours to catch one mackerel, given what you just stated here was that you caught 1 mackerel per 42 minutes spent fishing.

We are talking about the legendary fish that require mackerel. At the rate you caught those mackerel, if you had average luck and it only took you 50 mackerel to catch the legendery, you will need to spend 35 HOURS fishing for mackerel to catch that ONE legendary.

 

Quote

how about literally all of the Black Lion skin collections? Those rely on unreliable drops (or paying).

These were always guaranteed to be acquirable when they came out, and they are always on rotation. You can also purchase most, if not all of them from the TP.

 

Quote

Fractal stuff? Unreliable drops.

You would have to be more specific on these fractal drops you are talking about.

 

Quote

Legendaries (or specifically pre-cursors)

You can literally craft these.
 

Quote

All of the above are only not RNG dependent if you pay money.

That is LITERALLY MY POINT. I think you just haven't read this thread clearly enough...

Edited March 13, 2022 by Harrada.8041

[AgentMoore.9453]

3 minutes ago, Snowmane.5826 said:

Has it occurred to you you have just had crummy luck?

That's kind of the point though. The luck aspect of fishing should be in the actual fishing, not in acquiring bait.

I don't like having to sink random amounts of time (hoping for The Big Mack and wasting bait in the process) before I can go have fun (fish for things I actually want). It's fine if mackerel can sometimes drop during the course of the activity, it just shouldn't be the only way to get them.

[Snowmane.5826]

6 minutes ago, Harrada.8041 said:

Im going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and assume you misunderstood thinking that it takes 4.5 hours to catch one mackerel, given what you just stated here was that you caught 1 mackerel per 42 minutes spent fishing.

We are talking about the legendary fish that require mackerel. At the rate you caught those mackerel, if you had average luck and it only took you 50 mackerel to catch the legendery, you will need to spend 35 HOURS fishing for mackerel to catch that ONE legendary.

 

These were always guaranteed to be acquirable when they came out, and they are always on rotation. You can also purchase most of them from the TP.

 

You would have to be more specific on these fractal drops you are talking about.

 

You can literally craft these.
 

That is LITERALLY MY POINT. I think you just haven't read this thread clearly enough...

 

You cannot craft legendary precursors from the first generation of legendaries without randomised drops, Fractals I was referring to the fractal weapon skins, relying on buying things is not a reasonable solution. 

 

Lemme be clear - I wasn't disagreeing entirely with your point - as someone with terrible luck historically on drops, I dislike relying on RNG (side note - I meant the fish you *catch* with Mackeral, not Mackeral themselves, though given I caught one of those by sheer fluke - as it was the first Mackeral I cast and it *happened* to be the right time and right spot - I am willing to concede I got absurdly lucky in this case).

My point was you are wrong to say none of the previous collections required RNG, they did, and some of them (notably the spoons, I still haven't got the damned Fractal spoon and it took me like 50 Teqs for the Teq spoon) actually have mastery points tied to them.