Guild Wars 2

What is the meaning of leveling if leveling is meaningless. And if that’s the case why do it?

Try to make a list of things you can do at 80 that you can’t at level 79 and you’ll see that this list is very small. Reaching level 80 therefore has very little meaning in this game other than that it’s an activity that has ended and doens’t give you an achievement.

So anyone who says that leveling is just a precursor to the full game are talking out of their rear ends. You can do almost anything before you are level 80.

There is hardly any level 80 content
You don’t get any new skills or abilities at 80
You can go to lower areas but that kills the replay value for alts
Most dungeons are pre-80
WvW doesn’t require level 80
Story line ends in a most non-epic way
etc.

It’s just a silly idea to artificially create additional levels that don’t actually add any value. The game could’ve gone to level 30-50 max and it wouldn’t have made any real difference.

The story line could’ve been done within that time. Just do one or two story line quests per level and presto.
All skill slots are unlocked by then anyway.
Traits are a system with all kinds of unnecessary things in it so can easily be simplified and actually might make sense then.

And you needed a lot less persistent areas to level in per race so each race could level most of the time in their own regions adding to the replay value or use fewer areas so people are less spread out while leveling.

And then you could unlock dungeons and certain cool skills at max level giving max level something useful and thereby meaning. And a better story line would’ve helped also making it feel more of an achievement.

Just some ideas.

Gehenna.3625:

What is the meaning of leveling if leveling is meaningless. And if that’s the case why do it?

Try to make a list of things you can do at 80 that you can’t at level 79 and you’ll see that this list is very small. Reaching level 80 therefore has very little meaning in this game other than that it’s an activity that has ended and doens’t give you an achievement.

So anyone who says that leveling is just a precursor to the full game are talking out of their rear ends. You can do almost anything before you are level 80.

There is hardly any level 80 content
You don’t get any new skills or abilities at 80
You can go to lower areas but that kills the replay value for alts
Most dungeons are pre-80
WvW doesn’t require level 80
Story line ends in a most non-epic way
etc.

It’s just a silly idea to artificially create additional levels that don’t actually add any value. The game could’ve gone to level 30-50 max and it wouldn’t have made any real difference.

The story line could’ve been done within that time. Just do one or two story line quests per level and presto.
All skill slots are unlocked by then anyway.
Traits are a system with all kinds of unnecessary things in it so can easily be simplified and actually might make sense then.

And you needed a lot less persistent areas to level in per race so each race could level most of the time in their own regions adding to the replay value or use fewer areas so people are less spread out while leveling.

And then you could unlock dungeons and certain cool skills at max level giving max level something useful and thereby meaning. And a better story line would’ve helped also making it feel more of an achievement.

Just some ideas.

so your saying levelling is not meaningless.

unless its this game where it is meaningless because you get almost nothing for levelling.

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Gehenna.3625:

What is the meaning of leveling if leveling is meaningless. And if that’s the case why do it?

Try to make a list of things you can do at 80 that you can’t at level 79 and you’ll see that this list is very small. Reaching level 80 therefore has very little meaning in this game other than that it’s an activity that has ended and doens’t give you an achievement.

So anyone who says that leveling is just a precursor to the full game are talking out of their rear ends. You can do almost anything before you are level 80.

There is hardly any level 80 content
You don’t get any new skills or abilities at 80
You can go to lower areas but that kills the replay value for alts
Most dungeons are pre-80
WvW doesn’t require level 80
Story line ends in a most non-epic way
etc.

It’s just a silly idea to artificially create additional levels that don’t actually add any value. The game could’ve gone to level 30-50 max and it wouldn’t have made any real difference.

The story line could’ve been done within that time. Just do one or two story line quests per level and presto.
All skill slots are unlocked by then anyway.
Traits are a system with all kinds of unnecessary things in it so can easily be simplified and actually might make sense then.

And you needed a lot less persistent areas to level in per race so each race could level most of the time in their own regions adding to the replay value or use fewer areas so people are less spread out while leveling.

And then you could unlock dungeons and certain cool skills at max level giving max level something useful and thereby meaning. And a better story line would’ve helped also making it feel more of an achievement.

Just some ideas.

so your saying levelling is not meaningless.

unless its this game where it is meaningless because you get almost nothing for levelling.

The end conclusion is that leveling after level 30 in GW2 pretty much is meaningless because it essentially adds nothing to your character. In other MMOs I’ve played you do get things that add to your character progression, therefore giving it meaning by design.

I would actually prefer an MMO without leveling at all as it feels like a forced game element. What I would prefer is a relatively short tutorial story that gets you equipped for adventuring in the world of Tyria and then releases you into it. This is where your adventure and achievement begins, not ends.

For a horizontal progression game (which is very much what a lot of the game is built around), it really does the bare minimum or nothing in terms of your failures/success having impact and in that way doesn’t give players the sense of achievement.

Events are kind of dynamic, but in the bare minimum sense. Other than a point becoming permanently contested (and the NPCs dead on the ground), there’s no real consequence of failing. Succeeding doesn’t do a whole lot either especially when the event starts again in 20 minutes. Completing dungeons of either mode have no real impact on the world either. The LS zone imo is a huge fail not due to the one-time event and DC/crashes, but because there’s no horizontal progression…. no events afterwards, no real story (told through a series of quests or even a karka-filled dungeon), no consequences on the world for succeeding or failing.

Combined with wp costs and uniform karma/xp/coin rewards for events of certain levels, there’s not a lot of incentive to move about at higher levels… in a lot of ways being 80 becomes more of a burden because the game imposes a certain expectation on you, the player, and your time spent in Tyria. Why defend the gates of arah for 14 minutes and get the same karma/xp/coin as doing one part of the Plinx run, or staying at the pent/shelter area doing one of those for a few minutes? Why travel over to Wayfarer Foothills to do events that are less rewarding and cost you time/coin to get over there?

WvW is kinda like whatever…. sure, there’s small global benefits for doing well, but there’s really no noticeable impact for winning/losing other than changing the rotation of servers you fight. I’ll leave sPvP alone since that’s basically it’s own thing.

We all know why there’s a level cap of 80, it’s so they can sell us an expansion to the next level cap down the road. This is OK with me, I would rather buy an expansion pack every 12-16 months vs. paying $15+ a month.

tigirius.9014:

Nothing drops in the one dungeon they wanted us to do endless due to the age old and tired RNG system.

Really?

There is no RNG needed to get your exotics of any kind.
Karma and Orr gives you a nice boost upon hitting 80.
A 3 or 4 dungeon runs gives you another item plus the nice gold.
You can get exotic trinkets from TP really cheap.

Where is the RNG? Where is the grind?

I really don’t understand how people can say, that it is hard to get end-game items in GW2 =\

Isslair.4908:

tigirius.9014:

Nothing drops in the one dungeon they wanted us to do endless due to the age old and tired RNG system.

Really?

There is no RNG needed to get your exotics of any kind.
Karma and Orr gives you a nice boost upon hitting 80.
A 3 or 4 dungeon runs gives you another item plus the nice gold.
You can get exotic trinkets from TP really cheap.

Where is the RNG? Where is the grind?

I really don’t understand how people can say, that it is hard to get end-game items in GW2 =\

I think he meant Fractals, not the other dungeons. And he is right about that one….it’s about ascended items that don’t drop anywhere else. Not about the exotics.

What if I tell you, that you don’t need ascended items anywhere besides the fractals.

And if you wanna do fractals, it means you like them, means it’s okay to repeat them over and over.

And agony resistance is not that necessary to progress there. Just dodge and you’re good.

So again – people criticize GW2 without actual reason, just for kicks.

For me while level 80 itself didn’t feel like an achievement, finishing the storyline for the game and killing Zhatian certainly did.

Also if you want a real achievement, do world completion. It requires hard work, concerted effort (especially if you’ve run these levels a few times on other characters), and has lead to some surprising discoveries even in levels I’ve run a few times on other characters.

I’d actually say 80 levels are too much. Your skills are flushed out fully by 50. The remaining 30 levels to get trait points feels grindy and tedious. It’s a departure from GW1 where you can be max level in a weekend or less (i.e. Nightfall).

It’s part of a collection of things in GW2 that seem “contrived” in order to be familiar to other MMO players (like WoW).

I don’t want anything “grindy” in this game. Players shouldn’t need to play 200 hours to feel “accomplished”. A game should be fun, pure and simple.

As it is right now, this game has lots of grind. If you need examples, just post a Q/A topic stating “what parts of GW2 are grindy” and watch the fire fly.

Isslair.4908:

What if I tell you, that you don’t need ascended items anywhere besides the fractals.

And if you wanna do fractals, it means you like them, means it’s okay to repeat them over and over.

And agony resistance is not that necessary to progress there. Just dodge and you’re good.

So again – people criticize GW2 without actual reason, just for kicks.

Stats are 20-50% higher than comparable exotics. Yes, you do need them.

juno.1840:

I’d actually say 80 levels are too much. Your skills are flushed out fully by 50. The remaining 30 levels to get trait points feels grindy and tedious. It’s a departure from GW1 where you can be max level in a weekend or less (i.e. Nightfall).

It’s part of a collection of things in GW2 that seem “contrived” in order to be familiar to other MMO players (like WoW).

I don’t want anything “grindy” in this game. Players shouldn’t need to play 200 hours to feel “accomplished”. A game should be fun, pure and simple.

As it is right now, this game has lots of grind. If you need examples, just post a Q/A topic stating “what parts of GW2 are grindy” and watch the fire fly.

This is the hopes I had for this game when I started it and levelled up to 80 only to be let down, I didn’t see the need for any of the grind, why the aesthetic progression could take months or a real money infusion or any of the other contrived stuff. Sadly one third of the community that posts on the forums hates it all, the other loves it all and the third part just post nonsense.

Columba.9730:

Stats are 20-50% higher than comparable exotics. Yes, you do need them.

I like it how people state something basing only on forum rumors, instead of actual facts.

Then again, need for what reason? The 10% stat increase on 3 items (out of 12) is no way near something important And all content besides fractals is designed to be played without ascended items.

So if you like fractals you can just run them and get needed items naturally. If you don’t like ’em you can ignore them completely and still enjoy every other aspect of the game.

Hellkaiser.6025:

juno.1840:

I’d actually say 80 levels are too much. Your skills are flushed out fully by 50. The remaining 30 levels to get trait points feels grindy and tedious. It’s a departure from GW1 where you can be max level in a weekend or less (i.e. Nightfall).

It’s part of a collection of things in GW2 that seem “contrived” in order to be familiar to other MMO players (like WoW).

I don’t want anything “grindy” in this game. Players shouldn’t need to play 200 hours to feel “accomplished”. A game should be fun, pure and simple.

As it is right now, this game has lots of grind. If you need examples, just post a Q/A topic stating “what parts of GW2 are grindy” and watch the fire fly.

This is the hopes I had for this game when I started it and levelled up to 80 only to be let down, I didn’t see the need for any of the grind, why the aesthetic progression could take months or a real money infusion or any of the other contrived stuff. Sadly one third of the community that posts on the forums hates it all, the other loves it all and the third part just post nonsense.

I love the “[last third] just post nonsense” part!

Sadly it does seem that a significant portion of the population likes the grind and seems to view it as “good MMO design”, or possibly even “fun” although I’m not sure how.

Another equally significant portion of the populations wants GW1 version 2.0. I can only guess that this is the player base that came from GW1. Whereas the folks who enjoy grind are from other MMOs. This is an ignorant view, but would make sense.

There is wisdom in both sides of the grind argument (or about any argument for that matter). Myself, I wanted GW1 version 2.0.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Grind, in this game? Where?

hmm… almost all the game is grind, sir. t get exotics, you must grind. to get ascended, you must grind a lot. to get legendary, you must grind a real lot. so either you grind or you dont do endgame properly, only carried.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Sure the legendaries are a grind, but no one is forcing it upon you.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Besides that there is no grind, sure the doomsayers claim fractals are a grind for ascended gear, but that isnt true. It’s just a short run per day. Gearing up isnt a grind either.

I dont think you are seeing things clearly. One piece costs 1350 fractal tokens. fractal 1=15 tokens. fractal 2=30 tokens. fractal 3=15 tokens. wait, how many runs to 1350? And that is for only 1 piece. And not even the ascended one, which will be an upgrade of this one.

SneakyErvin.3056:

The “grind” parts in this game doesnt even come close to asian games.

if that is your standard, then I agree.

First acknowledgement: leveling is pointless. I played GW1 for over 1000 hours over the last 7 years so I honestly don’t care about leveling being pointless.

The problem I have is that GW2 has a relatively high level cap of 80 despite leveling being pointless, and it takes 80 hours of regular play to achieve that cap. Even the crafting method takes 4-5 hours, which is at parity with if not slightly longer than the Factions leveling speed.

So what we end up with is the leveling process just being an artificial wall between the player and player abilities. It’s not even a content wall – the content difference between low and max level is downright negligible. It’s apparently just there because Anet doesn’t feel like letting new players have their Elite until 30 hours in, and a full Trait set until 80 hours in. And don’t even get me started on my “desynced level” complaint that I’ve been moaning about since BWE1.

I sincerely wish that GW2 either had a considerably lower level cap, no leveling whatsoever, or a leveling process that’s so fast it feels as though the cap is either lower or nonexistent. The third option is pretty darn sub-optimal though. Levels are supposed to mean nothing, so why are levels constantly gating me for the first 80 hours of play?

And yes, I recongize that 80 hours to the cap is flipping fast, even compared to today’s WoW. But the objective of Lv 80 is inherently meaningless so I don’t understand why I need to labour my way there. I recall that the idea was to give people the pleasure of dinging…but where’s the pleasure to dinging when the ding doesn’t give you anything?

Mind you, I’ve had the pleasure of being addicted to Ragnarok Online before, so it’s not as though I despise months-on-end grinding. But in RO, you had the tiered objectives of 1 – 1 > 2 – 1/2 – 2 > Lv 99 > Trans > 1 – 1 Trans > 2 – 1/ 2 – 2 Trans > Lv 99 (new: 3 – 1/ 3 – 2, Lv 150). And when you finally hit those tiers, it felt GOOD to get there. Even intermediate rewards like unlocking particular skills felt good. It doesn’t feel good to ding in GW2. Heck, I scarcely notice or care.

In several classes (mesmer being a great example) there are specific levels where you gain a lot in terms of what you can do due to new traits available at your level.

I do agree that the last few levels don’t usually mean a whole lot in terms of what you can do with your character. Those last 10 trait points usually don’t make a ton of difference… I didn’t make a large difference on my mesmer, theif, or eng… but it did on my guard’s build however… so it’s pretty class/build dependent imo.

Also the dev’s said that they regret adding in ascended gear in such a limited way… and that’ll be expanded in the future. When that happens that’ll help free everyone up to do what they want to do and still be rewarded. I am mostly pvp-er (I’ve only recently started to do dungs at all due to the increased cost of exotic gear) and this will mean a LOT to me.

ProphetSword.5427:

- Consider playing with a perma-death rule of some kind (like only allowing 5 defeats). Then, getting to 80 will be a real accomplishment.

I deleted over 40 toons doing a true self imposed permadeath rule (I was a very avid Diablo 2 hard-core player). The highest level I could get to was 30 without dying. However, I was getting so frustrated with the game while playing this way because 90% of my deaths were super-cheap, i.e. a fall or 1 hit death (bloody troll in cave!!!), which made me think the game wasn’t designed to have 0 deaths…

So I’ve left PvE for good and I now spend all my time in WvW where I don’t view deaths as a blot on my toon. This is where I’ve finally found enjoyment in the game, not sPvP or PvE.

PS, I got the survival achievement award in WvW 2 hours after a death. So I spent over 2 months in PvE with no award (despite some of my toons surviving up to 2 weeks), but a couple of days in WvW with hundreds of deaths I get the award… go figure. :s

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, it’s not an achievement. You have just finished the intro part, now get ready for the real game.

Hope you like zergs & gear grinds!

Isslair.4908:

tigirius.9014:

Nothing drops in the one dungeon they wanted us to do endless due to the age old and tired RNG system.

Really?

There is no RNG needed to get your exotics of any kind.
Karma and Orr gives you a nice boost upon hitting 80.
A 3 or 4 dungeon runs gives you another item plus the nice gold.
You can get exotic trinkets from TP really cheap.

Where is the RNG? Where is the grind?

I really don’t understand how people can say, that it is hard to get end-game items in GW2 =\

Yeah, I just got another alt to 80, had exotic couple of weapons and a full suit of runed armor all set to go, yellows for the others, but all lvl 80 before I even hit 80, with nothing from the trading post, even.

It’s why so many negative reviews of “no end game” cuz you gear so fast.

Yes it’s not a struggle like FFXI (was…long long ago, not any more). Instead it’s fun. It’s worth playing 1-80 for the content kind of like playing a single player game, not some MMO grind.

of course isnt an archivement because is very easy/fast, you dont even say ‘’ahh finally iam max level’’ you say ‘’lul iam already lvl 80’’

Yes getting to level 80 is not an achievement.

Now getting that super time consuming legendary now that’s an achievement. Not just everyone can sit on their butts all day long and repeat the same easy processes over and over again, this takes what the new age call “Skill”.

It’s quite different from the old Skill which involved difficult challenges and overcoming them using what you had to work with. This new “Skill” is much more involved!