User talk:Xeeron/suggestions/Title Grind

Well I suppose ANET could just give everyone the titles, and save themselves and everyone a great deal of headaches. :P #1 Faction has been made so much easier to get, that I've actually begun to attain ever since the last major update back in November I think it was, and have already put on 6.5 million faction points. Now I agree, that it took me a few hours a day for several days to get this, but it is by far, much faster than it was. #2 Drunkard, Sugar, and Party titles are NOT that hard. You say it's a grind for money, but it isn't if you're willing to do one thing: farm for the trophies that you can trade in for the sugar, party, or alcohol items for upcoming holiday events. Yeah, it can be a little boring, and a little grindy, but what good would a title be if you weren't able to say that I spent 'x' amount of time to get it? Me an my girlfriend farmed 15,000 singed gargoyle skulls in about a 2 month period two years ago in order to obtain the alcohol we needed for the drunkard title. Yeah it was long and a bit boring, but we are damn proud to be able to say that we did that, and did that without bots for that matter, and that we both have the max drunk title. I myself have attained GWAMM, and it did not take 10,000 hours. In fact, it probably didn't even take half that time, because I had played the ~two years prior to the titles even existing. The point is, that it can be done, but that it also must be something that one must feel as though they have accomplished something, otherwise the titles aren't worth getting. Less QQ and more pew pew please.--Cattivo 23:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Ideally a title would be saying, "I have accomplished something", not "I have endured something". Farming isn't really an accomplishment - anything a bot can do isn't the best way to display skill or worth. Erasculio 23:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

So...don't go for party, or drunkard, or life of the party, or protector, or guardian, or lightbringer...in fact don't do any of the titles, because let's face it; pretty much every title in this game CAN be done with a bot. In fact, even PvP titles are not really an accomplishment by your standard, of displaying skill or worth, because it's a GAME, and does not require that much skill to push buttons, and to repeat past accomplishments like winning in AB or Hall of Heroes. By your standards, all you have to do is accomplish everything in the game once, and THAT is all you need to prove your skill or worth. Otherwise, it's all grind to win x number of times in a row, etc.--Cattivo 23:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Earning the GvG championship cannot be done through a bot, and it requires skill to know which build to use, when to use each skill, how to move, etc. Even plenty of PvE titles that resolve around more than just repeating the same activity over and over (vanquisher, guardian, protector, etc) show a minimum of skill (and they don't require players to do anything "x number of times in a row"). You can have accomplishments in which the challenge is doing it once, like those I mentioned; or those in which the "challenge" is doing the same thing (usually an easy task) multiple times over and over. The latter isn't a sign of skill, it's just a sign of time spent. A bad player farming 24 hours per day will eventually have more gold than a good player farming 1 hour per day. Erasculio 23:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh please, a bot can be made to do vanquisher, guardian, or protector. And as for PvP, yeah it's more challenging, but once you've won a battle once, why even bother doing it again just for points. You've already proven that you could do it once, isn't that enough? Otherwise, you're just grinding for the points just like anyone else just for a title by repeating the skills that you've practiced. The simple point is, if you don't want the titles, don't go for them. It does not demonstrate any useful skill in life, or make you important in any way, so don't bother with it. You can avoid the 'grind' of any title by simply not doing it. I presume you put in the suggestion, thus your comments, and if you did, then why even ask for making the grind easier if you don't think it's something to accomplish? And even if you didn't make the suggestion, why even defend it for that same reason? --Cattivo 23:50, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

A bot would have to receive every command manually in order to do guardian or protector, to the point in which the programmer would just be playing the game by proxy; it's different from programming an easily repeteable task and leaving the bot to do it over and over. Same thing with PvP - no two fights are the same. The fact you have won one battle does not mean the same exact strategy will work the next time, so again it's not a matter of repetition, rather of adaptability (not to mention how the idea in a championship isn't to get points). The user who made this suggestion isn't me (you can see his name by looking at the suggestion's history), but there's a very good reason to not want this kind of thing in the game: each resource spent rewarding grinding (which isn't something worth rewarding) is a resource that could have used to improve something else in the game. The option isn't having less of these titles and that's it; it's having less of these titles and more of something else. Erasculio 00:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well that's untrue. A bot can be made to perform a lot of things that a player can do. Sure it might be hard to program, and take alot of work to tweak it to do things the right way, but it can be done. You underestimate the abilities and skill of others. Now whether it is worth the time and effort of a programmer is another thing. And your opinion on whether or not to reward grind is flawed, because even though PvP may require some adaptability and some matches may not be exactly the same, in the end you really are using a series of character builds and team builds which eventually require some level of repetition, as well as, a level of repeating victories over other players trying to do the same just to earn points. It is that 'adding up of points' that you are grinding to get, because let's face it, after you've beaten this team or that team once, twice, a thousand times, it still eventually becomes a grind and no longer demonstrates your skills, but rather your ability to repeat the skills you have learned. Once you have reached that level there is no reason to continue to grind to get the points for any PvP title. Regardless of your opinion on grinding or how much skill it takes to do 'anything' in this game from PvP or farming, achieving any title without cheating, is an accomplishment. You say that enduring something is not an accomplishment, but let's take climbing a mountain for instance. I take one step up the slope, then another, and another, and on my way I may have to use some skills I have learned and practiced, but eventually, after repeating my skills, and enduring the hardships of the climb I reach the top. THAT is an accomplishment, whether you like to believe it or not. Farming to get 15,000 gargoyle skulls may not require a high level of skills to achieve, nor did I claim that it did, but doing it without cheating IS still an accomplishment, and if you or anyone else doesn't want to do that, then that is an accomplishment that you will never achieve.--Cattivo 01:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

A bot could be made to earn Guardian, but a programmer would have to program each step of the way; instead of telling his/her character to use skill X at moment Y, he would only be telling the bot tell the character to use skill X at moment Y. In other words, it would be the same thing as playing the game. Farming is simpler because it's just one task repeteated over and over, but even then bots are only used for simple tasks (compare how many bots used to farm at Augury Rocks to how often bots are used for Shadow Form runs at the Underworld).

I'm not talking about PvP titles; rather, I'm talking about the GvG championship. As mentioned, the idea in those championships isn't to get "points", it's to win after defeating the best GW players. There's little to no repetition, especially at such high level of play. That's an accomplishment, just like climbing a mountain is an accomplishment given how the steps aren't the same, as no mountain has a perfect degree of regularity. Farming, in other hand, is purely repetition; it's as much of an accomplishment as sitting still for one hour, something easy to do that is just a matter of time. To have 15,000 gargoyle skulls is a perfect example: what accomplishment is there in killing level 1 enemies for hours and hours and hours? That's something anyone would be able to do, even with no skill, as long as enough time were available. Erasculio 01:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

So then do it, and prove that you can without cheating. The accomplishment is not giving up. Very skillful players have not won a GvG championship either, but do you lay claim that the haven't accomplished anything by not doing so? To me, for those players to continue to try to win the championship, and not giving up is an accomplishment in itself. One which may be more admirable than actually winning. And I never said that earning a GvG Championship wasn't an accomplishment, just that the skills required to do that are on some level a form of repetition. 9 times out of 10 I bet you use the same character, character skills, and team build to achieve most of your victories. Why? Because what worked before, may work again. I don't doubt that you may have to adjust your strategy mid-battle, but you do eventually repeat the same steps on a certain level. The difficulty of a task, and overcoming that task is what an accomplishment is about. Yeah it's not difficult to kill a low level gargoyle for a skull, but that's not the task. The task is to repeat that in spite of how many times you would have to do it to achieve maxing out the drunkard title. So if it's so easy, then I dare you to do that...no bots.--Cattivo 01:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

See, that's easy. Trying to win the championship is easy, anyone can try. Winning, in other hand...Same with the farming. Anyone can do that. It's not a matter of skill, it's just a matter of time. Killing a hard enemy would be a challenge; killing a low level gargoyle...Is just grind. Given enough time, anyone can do that. It's "time > skill" to its most, rewarding people who chose to work in a game instead of playing the game. I see nothing worth of a reward in that. Erasculio 02:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

LOL I never said that it took skill. But accomplishments are not always a matter of skill over time. Anyone can peddle a bike. Well anyone with normal abilities (i.e. not handicapped), but winning, or for that matter, finishing the Tour De France is an accomplishment. It doesn't take great skill to do that. Just time, and conditioning. Your inability to see a reward in that, or in farming for a title is your own problem. Clearly, others must consider the farmable titles to be something to achieve, otherwise, they wouldn't have put it in the game, and people wouldn't try to attain it. No matter how great you think you are, you're still just playing a game. What's the accomplishment in that? The answer: To entertain oneself in whatever manner he or she chooses. As for killing a hard enemy as you mentioned being a challenge, you're right. And I have done that as well, in many ways. Several in hard mode while soloing, and even a great many just to farm sugar and party drops, and no it wasn't raptor farming, and no it wasn't any build that I stole from anyone else. The point being that, just repeatedly killing gargoyles to attain the drunkard title is not the only thing I have accomplished in this game. The point of the original suggestion was to make attaining the 'farmable' titles easier, and I merely answered that it's not that hard, but that it is still challenging as it is, because it does take someone the time to do that. If it's not so challenging, then please achieve it, in whatever manner you see fit. Farm all the hard enemies you want for gold to get it if you must make it more challenging than it already is, but you don't impress me whether you won a GvG championship or not, because in the end, we are both just playing a game, and there won't be any fanfare for our accomplishments worth etching on our tombstones.--Cattivo 03:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but that's the thing - if those titles are not a matter of skill, and given how (regardless of your opinion) Arena Net has often said how they value skill over time spent (in other words, the expression "skill > time" came from them, not from the players), then the titles mentioned in this suggestion clearly need to be changed. Given how there's little to no skill involved, anyone who manages to get 10 Drunkard points could get 100 or 1.000, as it's just a matter of time. Therefore, it would be only fitting if Arena Net changed those titles so they require only 50%, 10% or less of the current points to max; and while such change would mean your time spent farming thousands of gargoyle skills would have been mostly a waste of time, that doesn't really bother me. Erasculio 03:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but I sincerely doubt that ANET intended the skill over time statement to refer to everything in the game, but rather, only in the main aspects of completing the game and competing in PvP. Meaning, that they didn't want to make you have to grind heavily to get to the max level, or grind to get all the skills just to PvP, or grind to do any of the major aspects of the game. The titles are not anything that anyone has to complete in order to finish the game, or be competitive with each other. The titles are an option, and as an option, you the player has a choice to complete them or not, but are not required to do so. Now if ANET said that you HAD to complete Vanquishing in order to open up the PvP areas, then I would agree with you. But they didn't, and that is the true nature of their skill over time statement.--Cattivo 03:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)