Guild Wars 2

Hello Every one,

I’d like to touch two major topics that i believe are problematic and if solved correctly will give us a better gaming experience. As stated the no levels and Server re-population topics are up for discussion. They are very tied together so it’s one thread for both of them, you’ll see why in a minute.

Problem:

Every one i believe just like my self noticed that all those beautifully crafted zones are dead for the most part. After player takes his character through leveling zone he never returns there unless to hit the dungeon or a raid dragon (boss), with only exception being Arah for the events. This really gives me a sense of dead content, this also makes people think that there no end game ( i do not mean hard, job alike raids from WOW, but actual content to keep us engaged). I also don’t think that we need to level, leveling is purely a wasted time that only forces us to go through the story line and go through zones to see them and once again, never return.

My solution idea:

1. levels.
I think that it would be best to remove leveling entirely, it’s waste of time any ways. Just give us the base stat re-balanced by customization at the start (like let’s say noble warrior will get more stamina, or endurance than let’s say ferocity warrior who will get few more points of base damage). The talent points you should make farmable just like Skill points. Farmable in a sense of those quests and personal story line.

You will say “well people will grind talent points in one place, so what’s the reason to do it?”, well the reason is simple, to repopulate the zones. Also those talent point will be scattered and if let’s say you hate one zone, you will be able to make them up in another. Overall i don’t see why we need levels any ways, first character we get through story to enjoy, after it we rush every character to level 80 to enjoy the “end content”. The end content i will cover in another Thread but i do have great idea.

2. Server Re-population.

So once again, all zones are vacant, there are servers that are nearly dead and this is just demoralizing, gives feeling of game dying.

First of all i don’t think we need all those servers to choose from when we choose regional server. I believe we should have servers based on game zones and work similar to Lion’s Arch overflow mechanic. This will help re-populate dead zones like diessa plateau (considering there are no levels of course).

• so let’s say we have no servers like we do now and just have one big world and zones act as servers.
• Now with one world we have all those Players around the world who are in diessa plateau right now (on different servers) meet on one diessa plateau server single server.
• Let’s say server capacity is 100 people, and there are 5 servers where all this 5 servers are only 10/100 full (only 10 people play and there 90 empty slots).

• Now imagine these servers are not scattered are rather part of one big world. and now we have 5 servers only for diessa plateau which grants same capacity, except those people who played on separate servers can play on diessa plateau “server 1”with 100 people capacity making it 50/100 occupied and other 4 ready for more people once the first server is filled. If population on server 1 empties people from server 2 will be able to transfer there without loosing progression.

Same drill with Lions Arch. we will have LA1,2,3,4,5 as much as needed to fit us all and as population drops on the previous servers people from higher server will be able to relocate and stay in perfectly populated zone.

Now please let’s discuss This Ideas, feel free to change and/or add to them as well. I will open another thread on End game content which will touch a little on the zones re-population. Along with servers merge and re-population strategy zone strategy will add to a good constantly busy world and we’ll never feel lonely. I’ll discuss all changes and new ideas regarding the levels and servers re-population.

(1) My friends and I love and/or loved leveling. At least for our first few characters. After a while it becomes a drag and I guess that’s what those Level 20 Experience scrolls are for. Please don’t touch it. It is NOT a waste of time.

(2) Want to keep all areas of Tyria occupied? Then all events, quests and hearts should have their booty increased exponentially versus the time they haven’t been completed. Suddenly the lonely places in Tyria won’t be quite so lonely. Players would search all over Tyria for the most remote locales in hope of cashing in.

(3) Folks who haven’t played in a good while shouldn’t be counted in a server population numbers. I would even encourage kicking them out. Then the tallies would be more realistic and we could seriously talk about server merging.

Henri, i do partially agree with you.

1. is valid, except i’d prefer to level only 1 character and for all the alts i would like to have a choice to level them up again or just get instant 80 and enjoy end content.
2. absolutely for increasing the bounty and make the events a little longer/harder but only as end game portion not during leveling (if it’s kept)
3. valid, don’t count them in server pop, remove them to hold up servers and when they return they should get prompt which server they want to be on and continue playing.

For PvE, repop seems fine beacause zones are created and recreated as each of them fills up (aka overflow). However, anet may have real difficulty in the technicalities due to database, etc.

Also, serverless totally removes WvWvW because there’s no more other servers.

Unless Anet can think of a different WvW, serverless is a fail idea.

As for leveling, for a lot of new players, it may feel like there’s nothing to go for. Leveling is one of “carrot” to go for, to give new players a goal so they keep playing and exploring. Giving a totally new player a max lvl, then letting them do content might actually be detrimental i.e. Lv80 should know the basics of the game, but now, everyone’s 80 and these newbie 80s are totally clueless and do not even know what to do.

Unless Anet gives a clear and easy goal for totally new players, Lv80 at the start is not a good idea.

However, a workaround is an Instant-Lv80 scroll for gems, and only limited to players who have at least one lvl80 done the traditional way or maybe other “gating” that anet may think of (i.e. if a players has completed the whole map, or completed personal story, or even completed all paths of at least one dungeon, or max out at least 4 crafting professions, etc etc etc)

WvW has easy solution, it still requires 3 sides to fight, don’t have to be servers. Say vigil, priory and whispers want to take the zone for them selves, and when during your story line you pick your side, that’s the side you get to play for in WvW.

As for leveling i might agree with you, keep it at 80 but after level 80 give people options to get insta-80 for alts, be it a gesture of pure heart, or buy it at gem store. I honestly don’t want to re-level another character, even if there 10 possible story lines.

WvW need some improvements too, all it is right now is a big ball of players rolling and capturing staff back and forth. that’s just not interesting enough, also there no rewards, or they are way to insignificant.

GW1 had basically no leveling Factions and later (you got to max level in the starter/tutorial area). Anet explicitly went away from this for GW2. There is pretty much zero chance that they would revert to the GW1 system (which, imo was much better).

In fact, Anet has all but promised we will have increased level cap in the future. After Ascended Armor is out for a bit, you can be sure they level cap will be raised so that people can keep their illusion of progression.

Lord Kuru, i do understand you, however for PVE specifically people do need a carrot, thus means a vertical gear progression. I don’t want bigger level cap for sure, but i do want a better pve end game, be it gear progression or some thing else they come up with, but i for sure don’t want to level.