Guild Wars 2

I am a kill first kind of player and doing just heart and dynamic events for the race I am playing I am always behind in the leveling curve. I am not a explorer, I am not a crafter, but I feel I am being penalized for not liking those game styles when the style I prefer yields a inferior amount of Xp. I have not gone to any other races lands to level because I want it to be fresh when I make a alt and not feel like the same treadmill.

Thats why there are several level range zones in the game. You are not suppose to do only 1 zone, and that’s it.

I’ve found that Hearts and Dynamic events typically give more than crafting or just plain exploring, however you do really have to grab POI/Vistas in order to keep up with the Personal Story quests.

Exactly, go to other zones. Don’t be afraid to do lower level zones, there’s not much of an XP drop.

The hearts are really more of a guide for where to be, and what level that surrounding area is. Doing just those will only give you a small amount of XP. Dynamic events are the main method, but if you only do those 2 things you will still be behind. The game is all about exploring, and they reward you for it.

Here’s my list of XP outlets in the game:

• Renowned Hearts - The heart quests, really meant to show you where to go. These are only a fraction of your leveling XP.
• Dynamic Events - Dynamic Events are the meat and potatoes of the questing. These are the replacement to traditional quest you get from NPCs. They happen on their own throughout the world and you can particiapte if you like, or keep walking. These start on their own without your interaction and are a good portion of your leveling XP.
• Triggered Dynamic Events - Explore everywhere, the game rewards random exploration, chances are that cave over there will start an event when you get close! Listen for NPCs talking about stuff – they are often referring to events, or secrets.
• Points of Interest/Vistas - Grab these around the world, you get XP for them, and finishing an entire zone’s collectibles will give you great rewards.
• Story Line - Do your story line when you’re an appropriate level for it.
• Gathering - Get the 3 gathering tools from a vendor and loot all plants/trees/ores you see as you get lots of XP from that!
• Crafting - Crafting gives XP as you create stuff, and a good amount too. Approximately 1 level for every 4 PvE levels (if you craft throughout leveling)
• Daily Achievement - If you check your achievements tab you’ll see that there’s a list of objectives for a daily goal. Completing this will give you a chest with XP, Money, and maybe an item. Repeatable each day.
• WvW - The World Vs. World PvP can be accessed even at level 1. Everything you do there counts towards your PvE character. You’ll get XP, Karma, Gold, even Items!

gather.

do you see a node on the way to a DE/heart? gather it. it’s free XP and money. why would you not gather? since you don’t like crafting, it’s pure profit. you can recoup the money needed to buy tools within the first node usually.

get food. go to lion’s arch and buy rice in bulk. it’s 47 karma, iirc, and its a food buff. +20 power and +10 XP per kill for 10 minutes and you get 25 of them. the only problem is its technically an “ingredient”, so, using deposit all collectibles will cause it to deposit. if you don’t want to deal with that, buy food off the TP. other then the level 70-80 food, everything else is extremely cheap, a few copper per.

@CarP But I do go to the correct zones for my race and I am always behind in Xp I do all of the hearts and all of the Dynamic Events I find. I do not want to be forced to go to another races zones to level. I want to save that for Alts. At the moment I am a human so I go to all of the human zones but now at 30 I am facing level 32 plus dynamic events and heart events. It does not make for a smooth leveling path. This game I thought was a bout choice in how you wish to level be it exploring, crafting, Hearts and Dynamic Events, or World vs World. But so far it feels like the game is fighting me all the way for leveling which no game should feel like to a player.

Of course you could just stay in the human zones and do the DE’s there. But the game is not going to spoon feed you experience just because you chose such a linear path for yourself.

DEs and Hearts give plenty of experience, not too sure what you’re talking about.

Sure a level 3 DE won’t give much experience for a level 15 but well, it’s expected, the content couldn’t and shouldn’t scale that much up.

@ Kazma I am not asking for the game to spoon feed me experience but the XP from doing all Hearts and Dynamic events should be enough to keep you in line with the requirements of the zones as you progress. It breaks immersion to be forced to go from helping the humans to suddenly going to the other side of the planet to help Charr. I enjoy the game I just think I should not be forced to jump through hoops to level a character. I expect at max level you have to put in work to make your character the best he or she can be but leveling should be fun and relaxing and not feel like the game is fighting you.

I’m curious as to how you’re deciding you’re now under-leveled. If you’re gauging it by “I’m now 100% completed in this zone”, then that’s not a good way to do so. Dynamic events are the main content in this game, so if you’re focusing on the items that are always up (and only completing events as you come across), you may not have completed enough events in that area to get enough experience to be at the max level for the zone.

Essentially, if the above is true, you may be focusing on the “support content” instead of the “main content”, because this is one of the first games where event-type content is the main part. There’s not enough support content to carry you through the levels. There are far more events than what you’ll find only while hitting all of the POIs, waypoints, hearts, etc.

If you are basically running from one poi/waypoint/heart/vista to another and only doing a few events, then you will not get the most out of that area. You are supposed to explore the areas naturally and come across these things as you go, and in the mean time take on plenty of the events that pop up all over the map.

If you do lots of events and really take your time exploring each area then you’ll level up very quickly.

if you are lvl 30 and doing lvl 32 hearts i dont see problem…. It is normal when you complete map you are under max lvl of zone. I did lvl 40-50 started at lvl 42 and ended with lvl 48…. still i dont see game fighting with me because there is another zone of lvl 45-55 so you can go to other zone. If you are lvl 30 and finish at lvl 31 you still have 2 zones to complete with lvl 31

You obviously haven’t been to Orr or the Volcano event. Those events give 10-17K XP and spawn very quickly.

And if you’re not 70-80, go fight Kol’s lvl 42 meta. 4-5 events that give 2K XP per event

Agreed, at least for the starting zones.
I fully explored/completed the Asura zone, while mining everything I saw and did a bit of crafting and still wasn’t high enough level by the time I finished, had to go fully complete the Norn zone too.

I don’t want to be doing 2 starter zones every time I make a new character.
I shouldn’t have to fully complete 1 zone in order to be the right level. No point giving players choice if they still have to do all of them.

I’m a level 26 Human and I’ve just completed the 2nd area of my start zone (if that makes sense – Kessex Hills, level 15 – 25 area) and I haven’t been to the other start zones at all. I gather, chop, mine and explore everything. I also fight mobs in between running around area to area ‘just because’. I’ve had no probs with levelling at all.

Both zones are 100% complete. I think you’re only limiting yourself, not the game limiting you.

@ajlee. I did the exact same thing – I had Queensland, Kessex Hills, and Divinity’s Reach at 100% map completion by level 26.

I found keeping up with your personal story gets you moving around the maps and gives a lot of XP. after each story section completes.

I like the exploration aspect and happy the game rewards you for doing it. I find locating all the PoI’s and Viewpoints in a map more challenging than doing DE’s.

I play a Ranger on a medium populated server, and at times there are too many players piled on making the DE too easy. At least I can stand off firing arrows and not be stuck in a swarming melee cluster.

Talking to some guildmates of mine this appears to be a human race starter issue. I tested it out and made a Charr and by the time I ended the first zone I was right spot on where I should have been for level versus behind like I was on my human doing the same thing…. You think something like that would have been caught in beta and fixed

Not necessarily. Everyone in beta probably wasn’t playing in a linear fashion like you have and went off exploring every nook and cranny, which is what the devs wanted.

I changes drastically as you level. I was 14 when I finished Queensdale. By the time I hit 80, I only had about 40% map completion. I had to start abandoning zones I hadn’t completed yet because I was out-leveling them by so much. I barely got started into any 70-80 zones, and had already abandoned the 60-70 zone I was in without completing it.

I had more than half the game to still see when I dinged 80. I can’t imagine how much I’d have over-leveled if the experience were even faster.

Just no. There are way too many easy XP sources in this game for anyone to complain. Finishing events/hearts always gives a lot of exp.

Just because the OP doesn’t want to explore every inch of Tyria with just one character doesn’t mean he is playing linearly, and it’s a valid criticism. I want to visit each area and explore as much as possible, but I want the experience spread out over multiple characters. When I create a character I’m always roleplaying slightly in the back of my head, and it has to make sense in my mind as to why they would suddenly go tramping off to another corner of the globe. It’s also about stretching the game out as long as possible, I don’t want to experience everything on just one character.

People seem to be having different experiences with levelling, some level really quickly and others level much slower. I’m getting there quite slowly, but it hasn’t been a problem for me. Either way I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss peoples concerns with levelling, as the game should cater the different play styles surely?

There should be more heart quests as, even with doing the event at each one, I still reach a point in each area where the next heart is 3 levels above me, meaning that the mobs are 4-5 levels above me. Various workaround options exist, such as grinding while watching television, going to a different race’s area, etc., but I shouldn’t have to resort to those measures.

More heart quests would be good.