Is grinding worth it vs Shark Cards?

[CosmicBuffalo]

No, the exchange rate is garbage for gta$. It would take two days worth of minimum wage work to buy a yacht. Or a day and a half of $10 per hour to get a yacht. Bottomline, if prices remained the same and $5 got you 8million, then yes, but as it stands, the pac standard takes an just over hour and the host gets about 325-400k. Get a friend or two and play heists..to make the most legit gta$, then buy an office and two warehouses and go at it. The profit is 30-40k every 10 min depending on speed and success rate.

 

Edit: I think there is an assumption here, that your free time/nonwork time/gta time, could be used to make money, to buy shark cards.

 

Lets say there that you are on twitch, and making money while playing, then maybe it would make sense to buy shark cards, but for most of players, we are not making money while playing gta and are not foregoing making money, maybe I could be making money...idk, but I still wouldnt buy shark cards, because the exchange rate is garbage, $100 should get 200 milllion, then dupes wouldnt be a problem and they could focus on fixing broken things in game...only people affected...crappy yters.

Edited May 19, 2017 by GenericGTAO

[M*A*R*I*N*A]

I work and I'm in Uni. I don't have the time to grind away at whatever so I usually just spend my own money on game cash if I really want something but most of the time I save for things that are more first priority like fuel and public transport top-up.

Edited May 17, 2017 by N R G

[doomsday2004]

I'm with the grinding. Grind hard or take the easy way out aka shark cards.

[polaris23]

I wouldn't be opposed to Shark Cards actually, but only if they weren't worth $20 for a mere million GTA bucks. That's not a lot with the way things are priced in the game.

Spending $20 IRL cash on a single shark card still wouldn't get you, say, a Hydra or a Ruiner 2G.

So no, Shark Cards are not worth it.

[Smokewood]

GTA O - grind for cash to buy stuff you don't need.

 

I quit about a month ago....

 

Story mode is awesome, online is a waste of time.

[derek0514]

Absolutely - making money major part of gane

[Rabid Vulpix]

The only time I play to grind now, is combining Fortified (glitching it after completion to bypass the 30 minute cooldown) with daily workout routines.

So when it comes to playing to just earn cash, in my opinion it's just too time consuming.

 

If you have alot of friends that enjoy teamwork modes like Heists, CEO work, & CMs, then by all means it's alot of fun.

Now on the other hand, I'm ok with shark cards, however I feel more items in-game should be unlockables for purchase.

Sort of like how the Heist vehicles were at first, before R* recently made them available to everyone.

That in turn is a big middle finger to someone who plays alot & earns the cash for them, when some newbie can just buy a shark card & have it too.

 

So in a nutshell, if you love working for every cent in-game, then grind.

It's more universally fun if you have other people to team up with, even with randoms.

 

Sharks cards are for those that may be more time restricted or just don't have the long term grinding eagerness in mind.

 

However like I said before, more vehicles & items need to have unlock requirements in addition to costs.

R* making everything available to everyone without completing tasks anymore really divides players' opinions on Shark Cards

Edited May 17, 2017 by Foreverpast

[Ghoffman9]

I say grinding is worth it because the shark card prices are ludicrous.

Like paying 100 dollars would only get you a measly eight million. Such money carried more weight three years ago, but these days you can easily piss away eight million quickly. You are not getting your money's worth at all, so I think its crazy to spend money on them at all.

 

Back in the early days where the most expensive things out there were the super cars which sold for a million dollars at most, but these days things cost several million.

If Rockstar was not being greedy douchebags and gave us more for what we're putting in to compensate for the ever inflating prices of in-game items, I would find it to be more fair and feasible.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Ghoffman9

[Blasterman4EVER]

I've never bought one. I think it's too much to buy one as an adult unless you're making over $100,000 a year. If mom and dad are paying, that's different. Otherwise, I just play the promo stuff and earn as much money as I can playing lucrative game modes and modes that I enjoy.

[drizzi_b]

Eh it's the easy way, or rewarding way. All depends on how patient you are, or lack thereof. I've never purchased a shark card, and don't cheat, and I have $92 million, plus 46 out of my 60 slots full of custom cars all over the board.. Some have to have everything right away without trying. It is what it is.

[AmyStone]

I was watching Broughy's podcast thing yesterday and they touched upon an interesting point I hadn't really thought about before;

 

You can only make about $200k/hr at most grinding legitimately, and you can buy $500k for £6 (UK). UK minimum wage is £7.20/hr so grinding irl and buying shark cards will earn you twice as much as grinding in-game. You need to earn $500k/hr+ before it starts to make sense.

 

It's a stupid dilemma that's really made me question what I'm doing, I grind a fair bit but I've also spent about £50 on shark cards. Grinding isn't fun, but at the same time, shark cards are too expensive (even if it works out 'cheaper' time-wise) and I'm currently on sick-leave with an injured back so I don't have the luxury of picking overtime hours to fund my GTA lifestyle. Personally I would much rather work for an hour than grind doing something I don't enjoy for an hour.

 

So what does everyone else think? Grind until you've got a headache and your fed up whilst sticking it to R* for their extortionate prices, or, don't be such a lazy prick, get out and help your employers business, help the economy grow, get some fresh air, do the normal things that humans should do, all the while pandering to R*'s sh*t and throwing all your money down the drain?

 

If you think the game is a grind then why bother playing it?

[Ghoffman9]

Grinding is a state of mind. Never grind, as this is a game one does for fun. Why make it like ditch digging?

Hardly, to grind in video games means repeating the same actions/events to reach some ultimate goal. You can paint it however you want, its still grinding, regardless of whether you enjoy it or not. There are lots of people out there who enjoy grinding because they cannot truly enjoy a game unless them have some objective they are striving for. Without that objective they are without purpose. Which in reality is what you mostly do in Gta Online.

Running heists over and over with your buddies? Grinding

Running crates, cars, biker product? Grinding

Missions? Grinding

Competing in Deathmatches and races? Grinding

 

Most of Gta consists of you doing the same activities over and over for the goal of attaining money to spend on things. That is the foundation of Gta Online, and there is no denying that. Its just that it gives you a good variety of options to do your grinding. Get sick of one form of grinding you move onto another form of grinding.

[Blasterman4EVER]

It's not grinding if you diversify your game modes and play with friends and have fun.

[DoomAkuma]

It would be cheaper to take that time and effort to get hierd as a rockstar dev to get a god account and work on gtao.

 

That's how much of a time investment grinding feels like. All that time could be spent doing a million things.

 

Buy shark cards if u want insant high, or just play daily for like 30 min to a hour. You should earn on a weekly basis 1/2 a million to a million. In a month you'll have around 3 mil to 5 mil or more and you can buy whatever you want

 

Play the long game without grinding or game will become boring. Make a solid plan to earn cash and set up meet ups with crew and friends to earn more cash with heists ceos etc

Edited May 18, 2017 by WanderingDrifterDoomin

[yomum21]

Grinding because unless you are super rich, you make fun grinding and that there is no point buying a shark card when you have to pay for gta v as well

[malcolm_tucker]

 

I was watching Broughy's podcast thing yesterday and they touched upon an interesting point I hadn't really thought about before;

 

You can only make about $200k/hr at most grinding legitimately, and you can buy $500k for £6 (UK). UK minimum wage is £7.20/hr so grinding irl and buying shark cards will earn you twice as much as grinding in-game. You need to earn $500k/hr+ before it starts to make sense.

 

It's a stupid dilemma that's really made me question what I'm doing, I grind a fair bit but I've also spent about £50 on shark cards. Grinding isn't fun, but at the same time, shark cards are too expensive (even if it works out 'cheaper' time-wise) and I'm currently on sick-leave with an injured back so I don't have the luxury of picking overtime hours to fund my GTA lifestyle. Personally I would much rather work for an hour than grind doing something I don't enjoy for an hour.

 

So what does everyone else think? Grind until you've got a headache and your fed up whilst sticking it to R* for their extortionate prices, or, don't be such a lazy prick, get out and help your employers business, help the economy grow, get some fresh air, do the normal things that humans should do, all the while pandering to R*'s sh*t and throwing all your money down the drain?

 

If you think the game is a grind then why bother playing it?

 

Stupid response, obviously because I enjoy playing it?! Why would I stop playing a game I love, just because I don't agree with the payout economy and need to spend 10-20% of my playtime focused on earning money rather than having peak fun? I never said 'the game is a grind', you jumped to a conclusion too early because you disagree with me on a minor point, and ignored the main point I was trying to make. I have to grind a little bit to get maximum enjoyment out of it, the point of making the thread is I'm probably better off time-wise just buying shark cards and working extra hours at work (1hr grinding equals 200-300k, 1hr working equals 500k-1mil of shark cards), despite the fact that the idea of spending real money on fake money initially seems silly to me.

[Raj The Rager]

It's your descion. But I only brought GTA dollars 3 times and the last time I did it was almost 2 years ago. I got majority of my money from actually playing the game. So I'd recommend you just play GTAO instead of wasting your real life cash on something you could easily earn in 2-3 hours.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Raj Brunner

[Lonely-Martin]

@ Geoffman9... While I fully agree to an extent that repeating jobs can be seen as grinding... However, DM's and races, anything versus other actual players, be it fighting, racing or even darts & golf... That is NOT grinding, that is competing... Major difference...

[AmyStone]

Stupid response, obviously because I enjoy playing it?! Why would I stop playing a game I love, just because I don't agree with the payout economy and need to spend 10-20% of my playtime focused on earning money rather than having peak fun? I never said 'the game is a grind', you jumped to a conclusion too early because you disagree with me on a minor point, and ignored the main point I was trying to make. I have to grind a little bit to get maximum enjoyment out of it, the point of making the thread is I'm probably better off time-wise just buying shark cards and working extra hours at work (1hr grinding equals 200-300k, 1hr working equals 500k-1mil of shark cards), despite the fact that the idea of spending real money on fake money initially seems silly to me.

 

How can a question ever be a stupid response? Anyway, I suppose our enjoyment of the game is different. None of it is ever a grind for me. The fun is in playing the game and any money I earn is a bonus. But thanks for clarifiying, even though you were a little bit rude with your reply.

[Jenkiiii]

I don't think grinding is a problem because most of us have an in-built defence mechanism that says 'stop, I'm not having fun at the moment', and so we do something else.

 

And people who buy shark cards tend to have an in-built common sense mechanism, and won't buy excessive amounts if they don't feel like they're getting good value for money.

 

So most of us are pretty clued up when it comes to grinding vs. shark cards, and don't push it too far either way.

 

But there are people who are unhinged, who don't enjoy playing GTA online to get in-game cash and refuse to buy shark cards either, which can become a mental dilemma if you're not careful. The worst case scenario I have come across is a group of friends who relentlessly duped street cars for 3-4 hours every evening to bypass the grind vs. shark card scenario, believing themselves to be a little bit smarter than most. In fact, all they did was grew to hate GTA online more and more every week because instead of playing the game for fun, or buying shark cards to by-pass the grind, they did neither. They logged in for 3-4 hours every evening and had no fun and no major bypass, just duping street cars for 200k an hour, which is money you could pretty much earn in-game anyway.

 

I don't know if that makes sense, but this is an insight into people who don't have fun actually playing GTA online, and who don't make enough money to stop the duping habit either, because all they do is buy an item and then need more money to buy another item, and so on... and endless process of logging in to make money to buy pointless stuff, rinse and repeat.

Try and have fun with the game while keeping an eye on making money - which is the core of the game anyway. Or buy a few shark cards if you can't be bothered with that.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Jenkiiii

[malcolm_tucker]

 

 

How can a question ever be a stupid response? Anyway, I suppose our enjoyment of the game is different. None of it is ever a grind for me. The fun is in playing the game and any money I earn is a bonus. But thanks for clarifiying, even though you were a little bit rude with your reply.

 

I read it as an insult disguised as a rhetorical question, hence the rudeness! Apologies if I mis-read it, I also just noticed you're a girl so I feel bad now #positivesexism

 

I think a lot of it is down to how we define the word 'grinding', you could argue that if you're playing to a target and you enjoy the target once you've achieved it, you weren't really grinding to get it

[Ghoffman9]

Again, since people seem to whether intentionally or obliviously refer to "grinding" as a state of mind instead of what it is. Grinding describes an action, that action being repeating the same actions/events to reach some ultimate goal. This is exactly what you do in Gta online, repeating the same jobs and activities to attain money for the ultimate purpose of buying in-game items you are saving up that money for. What keeps people from burning out on this game is that you have a bigger list of options to do that grinding.

If Rockstar was lazy and only gave us one or two options I can guarantee you this game would not have the lifespan it does now. This still though does not change the fact you're repeating the same activities and jobs, hopping around from one form of grinding to another and back again.

 

I myself done everything thats available so much I pretty much got most of it nailed down by memory. Like knowing where all the enemies are gonna pop up from in missions, the best lines and shortcuts on race tracks, where the weapon pickups are and best places to dig in for deathmatches and these are just a few examples.

 

People do not always inherently consider grinding to be a negative thing, if this were the case lots of MMORPGS out there like World of Warcraft would never have gotten off the ground. It just has to be done right. Rockstar did the smart thing of giving you a wider range of options to do your grinding instead of just one or two, that is what preserved the life of the game cause if you only got one or two options to choose from people get very bored very fast.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Ghoffman9

[Lonely-Martin]

@ Geoffman9... Say what you want buddy...

 

Competing against other players, is never a grind... Just nonsense to even suggest so...

 

So my favourite football team was just grinding the season away, Lewis Hamilton is just grinding away... Any competitive person, a boxer, olympic runner, and anything that millions do to feed of that competitive desire, AND repeats tasks, must then too be grinding...

 

Now, before anyone starts complaining that I'm comparing games to real life... I'm not. Just pointing out to this guy that there is a HUGE difference between competing and grinding/earning money...

 

Regardless of opinion regarding an actual grind vs shark cards, competing MUST be excluded... Daft POV, IMO... Seriously, I've never entered a fight/race for anything other than to fight or race, money in these regards is futile, and inconsequential... A mere bonus/reward...

 

It's about the adrenaline, the battle, they may know the same things I do, or more, or less... But that's completely irrelevant to the discussion...

Edited May 19, 2017 by KWF1981

[Forza Harrd]

That's exactly what he is saying. It's not a grind if you can find ways to make it an involving experience. Or like I say, if it's FUN.

[Pedinhuh]

GTA O - grind for cash to buy stuff you don't need.

 

I quit about a month ago....

 

Story mode is awesome, online is a waste of time.

Hell yeah, I hope you enjoy the lack of content post-story mode, half assed story endings, no story DLC and all the DLC vehicles, clothes, weapons, houses, etc...you're not getting because they are exclusive to Online.

 

And let's not forget that you don't get to make serious money in story mode until you have finished the last heist and played the final mission...Oops!

 

But hey I hope that not having to work for your money pays it off in the end for you.

 

In fact, if you had quit Online a month ago, why did you even bothered coming here in the first place?

Edited May 19, 2017 by Pedinhuh

[Lonely-Martin]

@ Forza Harrd... Well, if that's the case, then none of GTA is a grind then... I do enjoy everything I do... Most do... Whatever they do... Haven't played specifically for cash for a very long time, granted, I took my fun to the contact missions, and really mixed up what I did, met many a good player to chat with, same for the heists event... The cash was just a pleasant bonus... The one true grind I did do consciously was the last 200 or 300 crates, to get the statue, not for the cash as much...

 

That's the only thing that bored me, nor stimulated my gaming desires at the time... Buy in pairs, sell in 8's... That last few hundred really dragged, but I wanted it done, so I plodded away... I'm pleased I did it, but never again... Since then, only half-assed Bikers, and plod with a cargobob on I/E now and then...

 

I can see the point, and agree that many ways to grind and keep it fun too, and grinding to an extent, or playing smart is a must, to be able to buy more expensive things... And I agree that's others interpretations of grinding is different...

 

But fighting players, and competing is a different mind-set all together... Only a few (idiots, IMO) play a game in their spare time they don't enjoy, regardless of the task...

 

@ Pedinhuh... He returned to quote that crap because he's one of those cool kids in class... Must be different, you know?... Bless him...

[Ghoffman9]

@ Geoffman9... Say what you want buddy...

 

Competing against other players, is never a grind... Just nonsense to even suggest so...

 

So my favourite football team was just grinding the season away, Lewis Hamilton is just grinding away... Any competitive person, a boxer, olympic runner, and anything that millions do to feed of that competitive desire, AND repeats tasks, must then too be grinding...

 

Now, before anyone starts complaining that I'm comparing games to real life... I'm not. Just pointing out to this guy that there is a HUGE difference between competing and grinding/earning money...

 

Regardless of opinion regarding an actual grind vs shark cards, competing MUST be excluded... Daft POV, IMO... Seriously, I've never entered a fight/race for anything other than to fight or race, money in these regards is futile, and inconsequential... A mere bonus/reward...

 

It's about the adrenaline, the battle, they may know the same things I do, or more, or less... But that's completely irrelevant to the discussion...

Oh? So playing matches in Call of Duty to reach that next rank isn't grinding?

Is competing in matches in Halo to get the rank/currency needed to be able to purchase that next armor cosmetic not grinding?

Is playing in Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft to reach that next level of prestige not grinding?

 

You're still repeating the same actions/events to reach some ultimate goal. The only difference being its other players trying to kill you instead of NPCs.

 

My definition is considered the universal definition, there is never any mention of a state of mind but the definition of an action. You're just taking the word and running off the rails with it by associating it with something else completely different.

[EkaSwede]

It's probably been said before, and it's cliché as all heck, but I'm going for it.

 

If I have fun doing it, then yes, it's worth it.

[Lonely-Martin]

@ Geoffman... Err, sorry... I thought we were talking GTA, a game where the better, and more sensible cash to be earned is elsewhere, away from the competitive side of the game...

 

Exceptions being, possibly, 2x events on things, but for me, someone that, when the time calls for it, feeds off the rush and adrenaline of competing against other players, mainly races or real deathmatches & last team standings, captures are fun, as the packages add another dimension to a fight too...

 

Not a grind in the slightest, never is that about money, if it comes, great, but I'm fighting, racing and competing, not earning...

 

Many aspects to GTA, and it's clear you blanket all games the same, based off of your last comment...

 

In short, none of that is grinding if you feed off of competitive game modes, repeating missions the same way, repeating glitched heists too, anything to gain what you are after as an unlock can be considered a grind...

 

But competing... Absolutely not.

[Jenkiiii]

The word 'grinding' literally means doing something over and over again without any obvious conclusion. So what? It all depends what the 'grind' actually is.

 

Scrubbing dirty underpants all day to make a living would be a seriously tedious and boring grind.

 

Playing GTA online all day would be a seriously decent grind. A grind that I don't mind.