Guild Wars 2

When I first started playing this game, I was really captivated by the personal story. The use of cut scenes and gearing the story to the character creation options really brought the missions to life and were a great way to explore the world. Once I realized that subsequent missions were +2 or higher than my toon, I became dismayed. I’m finding the game to be one long grind now, because I am simply unable to pursue my personal story arc. Breaking up the stroy arc by sometimes weeks of play makes the concept of the story irrelevant. When I’m supposed to meet my companions someplace to confront some bad guy, I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean 2 weeks from then.

I was stunned by the breathtaking imagery of GW2 when I forst played it. The game has a lot going for it, yet I’m bored and considering moving on. I just can’t stand grinding away night after night chopping down trees, picking at rocks and helping farmers, only to remain 2 levels away from even attempting the way overpowered personal story. What’s with that, by the way? My toon is suppressed to the mission level, while adversaries are +1 or +2 and outnumber me 5 to one most of the time.

Maybe I’m alone in these criticisms. It’s been many years since I played a period adventure (full disclosure: I’m a City of Heroes refugee). I’m just not having fun with this game any longer (after all of 7 weeks or so?) and my toons are all stuck in rutts between 8 and 16.

I strongly advise that you watch this video:

http://youtu.be/g36woC3LJ8Y

It just isn’t possible to level using the personal story on its own; there is good news though, pretty much everything you do yields experience! So explore, do events, renown hearts, gather ore and wood and vegetables, resurrect people you find on the ground, craft equipment, kill mobs, go do some WvWvW … there are so many things that you can do to gain experience that really if you’re finding yourself grinding you are either not aware of the different avenues open to you … or GW2 isn’t the game for you. I don’t mean this to sound in any way nasty or elitist by the way, GW2 plays in such a different way than other MMOs that people often don’t realise quite how easy it is to level.

Done all of that. In fact, I completed the entire zone, and I’m still 3 levels below my next mission. On the other hand, I’m also too low to begin grinding away at the adjacent zone. So, stuck.

In terms of teaming up, I only ever see people broadcasting for special missions that are 30 levels above me. The chat system is quite frustrating, with everyone using the same channel in the tiny window provided, messages come and go before they can even be read.

I have zero interst in PVP, so no xp that way. I have to disagree that it’s easy to gain experience through the means you described. I found that stopped around level 8. After that, the returns were too low to advance my toon significantly. The only thing I haven’t resorted to is killing everything in my path, which is equally unappealing.

I think you may have said it when you suggested this isn’t the game for me.

i was immediately intrigued by the title of this post, because i too found personal story to show amazing promise, but had those hopes dashed rather violently as the thing unfolded.

however, the problem i have is not at all yours. your problem is that you haven’t found the asuran portals to the other capitals, and then, the other low level zones. you are not “stuck” at all. there are at least four other 1-15 zones for you to experiment in. you may have to walk to the level 15 end, but there’s xp and resources along the way. i’ve not struggled at all to find more sources of easy xp (i have an 80 and a 40 as well as a smattering of lower levels). i’ve found the quickest way to gain easy xp is to work through all the hearts in a zone (nabbing mats and easy vistas and skillpoints), liquidate assets, and craft. you don’t have to craft though, but i try not to do zones that aren’t in my character’s race’s area, so i like the 2-3 levels every other zone.

to be honest though, the only reason i do personal story at all is that it’s an excellent source of xp if you are geared much higher than the mission’s level and can complete it quickly. i do them a chapter at a time, when i’m 10 levels higher than my current mission. why? because the storyline itself could pass for generic fantasy fanfiction penned on a forum by a fourteen year old. the dialogue, if possible, is worse, and there were several times when i have been actually embarrassed for the voice actors forced to try to render such witless drivel as entertaining. when mine finally bugged out at 62 on my level 80 guardian, i quit and haven’t looked back.

dungeons are what you want to be doing. as far as i’m concerned, if you don’t do pvp at all (which i very rarely have dabbled in yet), the first 30 levels are by far the most boring. seriously, if you don’t enjoy dungeons, or pvp, there is very little to offer you past level 80 except world completion. but not being able to find xp is a terrible reason to quit, because it is certainly more than possible to gain more than 2-3 levels a week (unless you are only playing 2-3 hours a week).

LegionofOne.7138:

Done all of that. In fact, I completed the entire zone, and I’m still 3 levels below my next mission. On the other hand, I’m also too low to begin grinding away at the adjacent zone. So, stuck.

You aren’t stuck at at all, there are dynamic events to do, gathering, crafting, explore your home city, explore someone else’s home city, go into someone else’s starting zone and look at the renown hearts there.

I have 6 alts, all a higher level than you, of different races and professions; I have had no trouble at all with experience on any of them. I can only assume that there is some aspect of the game that you are ignoring (usually that’s crafting and gathering) without compensating for that elsewhere.

LegionofOne.7138:

The chat system is quite frustrating, with everyone using the same channel in the tiny window provided, messages come and go before they can even be read.

You can resize the chat window and, even if you prefer not to resize it, you can still scroll up an d down.

LegionofOne.7138:

I have zero interst in PVP, so no xp that way. I have to disagree that it’s easy to gain experience through the means you described. I found that stopped around level 8. After that, the returns were too low to advance my toon significantly. The only thing I haven’t resorted to is killing everything in my path, which is equally unappealing.

I think you may have said it when you suggested this isn’t the game for me.

I haven’t done any PvP at all on any of my characters so that doesn’t explain the difference in our experiences. So I can only conclude that either you’re trolling (possible) or you’re missing out something fairly fundamental in the way you’re approaching the game.