Guild Wars 2

Firstly, great game with some really interesting features that, to my mind, have contributed greatly to promoting creativity and innovation within the MMO space.

Having said that, there are some aspects of the game that have lead to me, and my friends, playing less or leaving entirely for our old MMOs; chief among these would be the lack of player progression beyond level 30 (we’re big PvE players).

Before level 30 this game is great, I spend the first 15-20 levels trying out all the available weapon sets, mixing and matching and finding my favorites. Unlocking my utility skills is also new and exciting, it’s something to look forward to, to work towards! Then I hit level 30, get my elite skill and maybe work towards a few more utility skills, which often see little use when compared to my 1-5 weapon skills, which by this point are beginning to grow a little too familiar.

Now, I look ahead and realize I have nothing to look forward to in terms of progression. Oh sure, I have traits, but forgive me if I’m not especially excited for gameplay-altering changes like, “Dazes you inflict last 1 second longer”, “5% increased damage to inactive foes”, or “cloaking skills last 1 second longer”.

These don’t change up the way I play, I’m still using the same 1-5 skills the majority of the time, maybe switching to my other weapon-set occasionally and popping a utility or two, but they’re not something to call home about.

I’ve also noticed that trait lines and their specific strengths tend to have weapon sets that play to that strength the best, this greatly limits customization.
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Solutions?

Unlockable weapon skills within trait lines that play to the line’s specific strengths. It’s a problem when your trait line enhances your poison damage, but your chosen weapon set doesn’t have a poison attack. If the attack itself was unlockable within the trait line, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Unlockable weapon sets within trait lines, maybe at level 40, 60, 80, something to keep the player interested, excited for the expanded possibilities that come with new usable weapons.

Get rid of straight damage/duration increase traits, or merge them with more interesting traits. Adding some procs, and a final game-changing trait at the end for a little more insentive.

Any other suggestions people have would be great! It’s an interesting topic.

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I realize that much of this would create balancing issues throughout the game, especially in PvP, infact the reason progression stagnates at level 30 and your skill selection is so limited (i believe), is because it makes balancing PvP so much easier.

Never-the-less, I thought I’d put this here, I love this game, and it’s so close to being perfect! And yes, this is subjective, but from talking to people I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

You know I felt the same way.. leveling up to 30 is all fun then it just seems bland. I’m sure if Arenanet knew about this and wanted to fix it that they could.

Brewergamer.8357:

You know I felt the same way.. leveling up to 30 is all fun then it just seems bland. I’m sure if Arenanet knew about this and wanted to fix it that they could.

I think they’re aware, and I think it was likely deliberate because of the way WvW works. Everyone gets leveled up to 80 in WvW, so if higher level traits and unlockables were significant and game-play altering enough it would put the lower level characters at a greater disadvantage… That’s my theory, at least… I really don’t think it works though, such a massive sacrifice.

I’d hate to use WoW as an example, but remember the talent trees? And how at the end of each one there was always something that made you insanely excited to level? GW2 traits, as they are now, are more like WoW traits were when it first released, petty and boring for the most part. The philosophy to make every talent interesting and significant came much later for Blizzard.

BananaMatrix.3702:

Brewergamer.8357:

You know I felt the same way.. leveling up to 30 is all fun then it just seems bland. I’m sure if Arenanet knew about this and wanted to fix it that they could.

I think they’re aware, and I think it was likely deliberate because of the way WvW works. Everyone gets leveled up to 80 in WvW, so if higher level traits and unlockables were significant and game-play altering enough it would put the lower level characters at a greater disadvantage… That’s my theory, at least… I really don’t think it works though, such a massive sacrifice.

I’d hate to use WoW as an example, but remember the talent trees? And how at the end of each one there was always something that made you insanely excited to level? GW2 traits, as they are now, are more like WoW traits were when it first released, petty and boring for the most part. The philosophy to make every talent interesting and significant came much later for Blizzard.

Yea it’d be awesome in my opinion if getting to the end of a traitline or something gave you a new cool class-specific ability. It is all passive stuff as of current.

To be honest, I don’t feel it gets boring after level 30. I find that it can get boring at all levels. I say this because I’m primarily a PVE player (never could get into PVP). It was really fun and exciting to progress through the story line – until … I had to start farming for level up points.

Once I was forced into farming for level up points so I was a high enough level to proceed with my story line, it got boring. It seems like I’m almost the only one who feels like this, but being forced to do heart after heart and each event 50 times just to level up to progress is not my idea of fun and exciting.

I agree with you that if there was something to work toward like a cool class-specific ability or something to work toward. I can’t even work toward getting armor or weapons because I don’t know what they look like yet. Just something to break up the feeling of grinding for promotion points would be really nice.

Silken Mist.1703:

It seems like I’m almost the only one who feels like this, but being forced to do heart after heart and each event 50 times just to level up to progress is not my idea of fun and exciting.

I played to 80 as a human. What I did was, if I wasn’t high enough for my storyline after doing the hearts at my level in a zone, I went to the Charr area and then the Sylvari area, etc. That way I worked on map completion while not having to repeat any particular thing.

It would be more interesting if skills had ranks instead of have/don’t have.
There is also no skill tree progression. Have a pt – spend a pt. No prerequisites.
Instead we have a trait system that feels a bit tacked on.

Buffs/Spells could last longer. Instead of twitch-fest effects.

Longer Duration spells could use up initiative until the spell ends.
Lower-level spells/abilities might last longer than the initiative cost return:
e.g. a low-level ability/spell might last 5 or 10 minutes (or more) and the initiative might return in 1-5 minutes or less.

Picture a benevolent spell-caster that runs around buffing ppl – or healing (of which experience should be acquired for doing so).

It’s true, lvl 30-50 is a bit boring. You can skip those lvls by crafting (use crafting guides). At lvl 50 you can start doing dungeons easier and they’re a lot of fun (don’t come with cof^^)

I felt the same way from 30-45….But right about 50 I realized how massively my traits changed my characters performance. After that I was dying to get all my traits to see what I could get my character to do.

Also, try out WvW. I got through 70/80 levels for my first character there and still spend 95% of my time there now. It never gets old for me as there is always something new and exciting going on.

Do it however you can to lvl35 (preferable 40) and then go to Ascalon Catacombs Explorable mode. Gives awesome XP upon competition, can farm good gear and awesome weapons there. I leveled my necro there at least 20 levels.

Doing hearts and mundane stuff up to 30 and beyond can get boring.

Hearts, what are they there for, just to level.

For me it was the other way around…

Levels 1-35 where horrible, they were bland, uninteresting and where mostly about grinding (Grinding weapons skills to see whether I liked them, grinding renown hearts for experience and karma equipment a complete lack of utility skills available and no traits)

Levels 35-65 where fun for me, since after that point you start getting gear with 2/3 stats on, combined with the ability to go fairly deep into trait trees allowed for some nice traits to be used (Master traits tend to have the most gameplay altering effects) these 2 things meant that it actually felt like I was making a character, since before that point most gear just had a very small amount of 1 stat on which really didn’t do anything significant.

You’d also have enough skill points to not only get your tier 2 elite but also more than the basic 5 utilities that you need to unlock the next tier (Also more of the tier 3 utilities) allowing more options about swapping between them depending on the situation and also allows you to try out some that you may not have realised the potential of.

Then of course after that when you’re about level 70 you can go into Frostgorge Sound and such and level up really quickly due to all the dynamic events that go on.

Dynamic Events, WvWvW, Crafting and Exploration really help not only boost exp gain but do provide a nice break from the dull “Pick up quests from hub, kill things, hand in quests” regime of other MMO’s. Especially if you do dynamic events in groups so that the spawns increase.