Guild Wars 2

So I started a new necro today cause I decided I don’t like the asura race and I found out that I get absolutely no skills but my auto and I have no deathshroud until god knows what level. What I’d like first is an explanation from a dev as to how they find that to be easier to help people level and why an experienced player like myself has to endure all that nonsense when I really just wanted to jump back into my necro’s competitive gameplay.
Next, I would like to make a request that there be a way to make the leveling process less of a bore/ introduction for a player who is, again, already experienced and just wants to jump into high level gameplay instead of grinding levels for all eternity.
I mean, the trait changes were annoying enough but the skill lockout is where I draw the line with tolerance. Anet, why in the name of the eternal alchemy did you find this the least bit necessary? I honestly don’t see how this helps anyone and it makes leveling even more frustrating to the people who already hate leveling after the first character (like myself).

I apologize for the rage but I needed to get the point across somehow. Any explanations anet can give me I’d be happy to listen to and consider next time I want to say something.

Leveling couldn’t be any easier than it already is. Between crafting and just running from waypoint to waypoint, it’s laughable.

Use scrolls? You can bypass some of the early leveling ‘lock-outs’ that way.

Personally, I enjoy the new leveling…it’s very, very quick.

Or just spend a little gold on crafting. it only takes like 200 or something crafting levels to get to lvl15 now.

Kinda makes the lvl20 scrolls much less useful now. I wish they make it lvl30 or 40 now.

I do not have the money to craft and unlike some I do not find it the least it enjoyable to run around looking for waypoints and poi’s. Once was enough for me and I know I am not the only player who feels like this. I do not enjoy being locked out of content I want to participate in because I am being help back by a system that I already dislike.

While I agree it’s fairly easy if you have the money for crafting and the patience for running around from place to place with absolutely no competitive side to your gameplay, I still am going to assert my position that there needs to be an alternative to just grinding boring things over and over again when you get nothing but frustration from a system that has been unnecessarily messed with for no real purpose that was already unenjoyable for me, and others, in the beginning.

I have no idea how much sense I am making so I hope I have made a clear point.

Want competitive? Try PvP, and obtain leveling scrolls, perhaps. Don’t like PvP, take your character to a higher level in the zone.

I’m confused about why you feel it is grinding levels now, when it is much faster to level up, compared to before, when it took more time in the maps.

Regardless, another option would be EotM. I hear people use that to level quickly, as well. Or the Labyrinth…lots of XP to be had there.

I think it is only a gold or less (at max 4g) to get to lvl15. You can also use tome of knowledge from pvp if you enjoy competition.

how has making an unenjoyable part (your words) shorter make it messier (your words again)?

As has been stated that there are numerous alternative to exploration (you aren’t grinding things over and over again but doing different things…), there is crafting (cheap and takes like 10 minutes), there are lvl20 scrolls, tome of knowledge (reliably gotten through spvp), eotm, wvw, labyrinth. These methods can me made faster using numerous boosters.
heck walk in a line without so much as touching a mob from divinity’s reach to cursed shore and you’ll find yourself leveling up again and again…

Basically it is QQ, entitlement, I want this, my way, right now. It is amusing the posts around here demanding a dev answer them. If you don’t like the game why do you play it/post about it?

go Mad King Labyrinth… you’ll be amazed how fast you level up there….

Eotm + bday booster will get you to 80 in ~20 hours.

My problem with leveling is I have to be 80 to unlock grandmaster traits. I releveled my Guardian as an Asura but my build had almost all of my condition clears on a grandmaster trait. Considering the amount of muscle memory I placed into this build, that made leveling very, very, very painful.

My only problem with leveling is the armor.

Loot armor all looks the same, So I am stuck with ugly armor from level 1-79 unless I want to spend real money on transmuting my temporarily armor or use that lag-infested TP.

Level 20 Exp scroll, EXP booster, Killspeed booster, Birthday booster = 1-80 in less than 24 hours playtime, if you farm Labyrinth while it’s here.

61 on my new ranger currently, still have 13 hours of time on my birthday booster, and several of those hours used were spent partially AFK or mapping cities. Considering I’ve been getting ~10 levels from 1.5-2 hours of farming, I’ll hit 80 way before the booster comes close to running out.

I really recommend speedleveling alts through Labyrinth if you’re starting one now. It’s a hell of a lot faster than EotM. Leveling the normal way really sucks with everything being level-locked and traits being pretty much inaccessible until 60-80.

I have spent 130 hours on my Main… Some events a lot of wandering around exploring.. I am level 73 half way to 74.. I see no issues leveling here at all… But that may just be my way of playing….

Ari it takes like an hour to get to level 10. I’m not sure what your problem is.

Leveling is the worst part of any game, OP. Sadly I doubt it’ll be gone, unless anet goes nuts a lá Blizzard and introduces a $40 package which will boost your character to max level. Imagine the cries of rage and dissent on the forums afterwards…

How far in have you actually played? Looking at the level rewards , you gain your 2nd weapon skill by the end of the tutorial, 3rd at lvl 4, death shroud at lvl 5 (which you almost can’t avoid reaching in a few minutes if you do anything but stand in place), and the final two weapon skills by lvl 7 and 10.

From my NPE experience, getting to lvl 10 took a lot less than an hour, even though I only casually went out into the first area, doing a couple of events I stumbled upon and spending half the time chatting with friends rather than “seriously” playing (and I didn’t even use any kind of consumables or boosters on that character, an elementalist).

To me, lvl 1-10 seem to be nothing more than an extended tutorial, quick and painless for experienced players, but really helpful for new people. Certainly nothing to make a fuss about. And if you absolutely can’t stand an hour of beginner’s leveling, and have an account not old enough for scrolls that take you to lvl 20 instantly (like the ones you get for 5k achievement points or a character’s first birthday), take one of your characters to pvp, you gain level-up tomes quickly in any reward track.

It’s not as frustrating as it seems. Tested it on my brand new mesmer norn – I did some heart quests in sylvari area and quickly got to level 10. You get around 1/2 level a heart nowadays, so you can easily just push your way to unlock things if you wish to do so.

(Although these simplified heart quests are ridiculous XD)

I apologize, I don’t believe I made the intent of my post clear (mostly because I worded it wrong). My intent was to look at the amount of things you get locked out of now compared to before they started messing with skill lockouts and trait lockouts. I did not mean that actually getting levels was bad, cause like we all have pointed out (including myself) levels are very easily found. I would be okay with getting the levels if I wasn’t being locked out of everything but my AA and forced to level to unlock my weapon skills rather than getting them by killing so I have access to all of my weapon skills early on. And rasimir, thanks for informing me that I get Deathshroud at 5. I was wondering about that.

OP is just complaining because it’s “different” than it used to be. I can get that, but this change has been in place for months now…..how is this a surprise to anyone (especially one that claims to be a long time player).

No problem with complaining it’s different and you don’t like it, but leveling is NOT harder than it used to be in any way.

NOW, once you get to the point of obtaining TRAITS, feel free to rant as that system is still pretty FUBAR (and has been much longer than the leveling changes). The few minor tweaks they have made to it since release aren’t even a dent in what needs to be done to even attempt to fix turning TRAIT unlocks into a gold / skill point sink.

Leveling itself is easy, like I and others have pointed out, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the lockout from parts of your character is frustrating. That’s what I am trying to address. I’d be all for the option during character selection to play with “introductory setting” like the lockouts that help introduce you to the game slower but not make it a forced lockout. Again, gaining levels is easy, lockouts are the frustrating part.

Just had to step in with a quick off-topic observation. You tell us you don’t like the Asura race. Then you go on to ask “why in the name of the eternal alchemy did you find this the least bit necessary?” I suspect you like them more than you realize. Just something I noticed. I’ll let you continue with your discussion now. Sorry for the interruption.

Leveling isn’t really frustrating to me. Like most mmos, it just feels pointless and boring to me.
This is a game I rushed to max level. You can do everything at level 80 and only a few things at 20, might as well be in a position to do whatever I want.

Leveling got hella boring in this game with the trait update. That’s why I quit at level 52.

Vayne.8563:

Ari it takes like an hour to get to level 10. I’m not sure what your problem is.

It takes me longer than an hour, and I don’t appreciate that you assume that I have a problem because of it.

Your not the only one, I agree completely. The changes they made in character advancement is abysmal. NPE my kitten . Only because any new player won’t know any different. Between the old way and new way, the old way was better. Much, much better.

As it stand, map completion is the only real way to level. I say that because leveling through crafting is costly, leveling through WvW is for masochists, and I’d rather do the map completion over and over than repeat the same couple events over and over.

As it is, I put up with grinding my way to level 70 then I get started on the personal story. I can then do the story back to back right to the end and level 80. Much more enjoyable. At least there I can mix it up by making different choices. Even if it all ends up the same at the halfway point.

Leveling other characters via the personal story using different race/choice combos would be ideal. Too bad you are expected to stop and do map completion between bouts of personal story if you start it right away.

Leveling isn’t the problem, it is the ridiculous requirements for traits…you know those things we never had to worry about for 2 years.

I left the game about 4 months and made a new character. At first I thought they would unlock as you level, because one of the traits did unlock fairly early. Then I started reading, and HOLY CRAP…are you kidding me…like I am gonna do most of that crap on an alt. Heck, I have never even done a dungeon on my main…you know why…BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS IN ANY MMO.

I play to PvP…and I don’t appreciate having to sink a ton of gold and a CRAP TON of skill points just to have access to traits to go into WvW.

experienced player complaining about how “nonsense” it is fight with limited skills, so that what it means to be experienced, interesting.

SkyShroud.2865:

experienced player complaining about how “nonsense” it is fight with limited skills, so that what it means to be experienced, interesting.

You like to play games with limited number of skills? I can recommend a game I’m sure you’ll enjoy. It’s called rock-paper-scissors. Only 3 skills to choose from!

Ario.8964:

I do not have the money to craft and unlike some I do not find it the least it enjoyable to run around looking for waypoints and poi’s. Once was enough for me and I know I am not the only player who feels like this. I do not enjoy being locked out of content I want to participate in because I am being help back by a system that I already dislike.

While I agree it’s fairly easy if you have the money for crafting and the patience for running around from place to place with absolutely no competitive side to your gameplay, I still am going to assert my position that there needs to be an alternative to just grinding boring things over and over again when you get nothing but frustration from a system that has been unnecessarily messed with for no real purpose that was already unenjoyable for me, and others, in the beginning.

I have no idea how much sense I am making so I hope I have made a clear point.

Makes sense to me. I can sympathize because every time I level a new character, I find myself going for options that involve zerging with a group and requiring no effort to learn my class. Not because I don’t want to put in the effort, but because I feel it’s pointless to try to sort things out under so many arbitrary restrictions. Skills, traits, etc… there’s no motivation for me to really learn until I’ve hit 80 and can start accessing everything.

If acquisition was more linear, I would probably take the time to learn, but so much of it is a “big jump” game. Weapon skills 1-5 from levels 1-10, steadily, then BOOM. You now have every skill unlocked for every weapon you can equip. Utility skills 1-3 at 13, 17, and 19 (glad that they’re early at least). But then…

Nothing noteworthy for 11 levels until you finally hit 30. Whoo, first trait point that gives you a passive bonus. Nothing to learn there other than picking one and moving on. 31, Elite skill. Ok, again, at least it’s not pushed way back as it was at one point.

But then… nothing of note for another five levels, until you get trait point #2. Which you probably won’t be able to use to pick an unlockable trait and will put it into another new tree, because at that point, you’re lucky if you’ve unlocked a single trait, much less one that you want to use.

And then after that, 6 levels between anything of note (yay, another trait point to put into unlocks that you don’t have yet). 42, 1 point. 48, 1 point. 54, 1 point. 60, 1 point. 66, WHOA, 2 points – where’d that come from? Ok I’ll take it (still don’t have many traits unlocked tho). 72, 2 points again. 78, 2 points. Sheesh, so many points all at once. 80, 2 points. OK, slow down. Haven’t even figured out the last two yet.

In short, it feels like the system can’t make up its mind between:
1) Keeping veterans happy by having certain unlocks early.
and
2) Ensuring that new players are introduced to stuff steadily.

Which has resulted in a strange mixture of clustered level-up skills, stuff pushed way back, other stuff pushed early, and generally a lot of levels in there that don’t seem to be for anything, other than boring people who have gone through the experience more than once.

I’m hoping that a strong revamp of the botched trait system will alleviate a lot of this.

Black Frog.9274:

Leveling couldn’t be any easier than it already is. Between crafting and just running from waypoint to waypoint, it’s laughable.

That’s kinda the real issue. Aside from most levels feeling like they are just there to be there, leveling is very easy, repetitive and the story unimaginative with terrible voice acting.

I only play this game once a year because that’s about as much as I can take. Of course each time I do have to get my account recovered because it gets hacked every year as well. Oh well, there’s nothing much to get on my account anymore anyways.

I do like some of the zones but for me there’s just too much of the same stuff without an engaging story and after about level 30-35 the levels just seem pointless. I think if they had only had 35 or 40 levels from the start instead of 80 the leveling experience would’ve been much better.

Oh well, this is that time a year again that I’m giving GW2 another shot. I suspect I’ll level a toon again and get bored and then it’s off for another year again. It’s just fun enough for once a year.

Labjax.2465:

If acquisition was more linear, I would probably take the time to learn, but so much of it is a “big jump” game. Weapon skills 1-5 from levels 1-10, steadily, then BOOM. You now have every skill unlocked for every weapon you can equip. Utility skills 1-3 at 13, 17, and 19 (glad that they’re early at least). But then…

Nothing noteworthy for 11 levels until you finally hit 30. Whoo, first trait point that gives you a passive bonus. Nothing to learn there other than picking one and moving on. 31, Elite skill. Ok, again, at least it’s not pushed way back as it was at one point.

But then… nothing of note for another five levels, until you get trait point #2. Which you probably won’t be able to use to pick an unlockable trait and will put it into another new tree, because at that point, you’re lucky if you’ve unlocked a single trait, much less one that you want to use.

And then after that, 6 levels between anything of note (yay, another trait point to put into unlocks that you don’t have yet). 42, 1 point. 48, 1 point. 54, 1 point. 60, 1 point.

That’s my biggest problem with this game. I haven’t tried out the new NPE yet but back when I started right around April the first 30 levels were fine, then suddenly it got extremely boring because leveling up didn’t really unlock anything, except a trait point every six kitten levels. Holy crap it’s so slow and boring. And with the trait unlock requirements it’s even worse.

tofumon.5924:

SkyShroud.2865:

experienced player complaining about how “nonsense” it is fight with limited skills, so that what it means to be experienced, interesting.

You like to play games with limited number of skills? I can recommend a game I’m sure you’ll enjoy. It’s called rock-paper-scissors. Only 3 skills to choose from!

You mean like chess?

In short, the new version of leveling is aimed at new players (and thus potential new players). However, it has unintentionally upset a lot of alt-happy veterans, who are used to having more freedom in low-level play, (among other things).

Results from vets who’ve gone all the way through the new system are mixed. Several of the changes are surprisingly good, once you get used to them. Others, not so much. A few feel downright unpleasant.

For now, I recommend continuing the leveling process with an open mind, treating it as a brand new experience. Holding onto expectations from the old system aren’t going to help you enjoy what’s there currently.

I used to really enjoy levelling. The NPE doesn’t really bother me (the rewards are actually pretty nice), but the trait changes have kind of killed it.

Vayne.8563:

Ari it takes like an hour to get to level 10. I’m not sure what your problem is.

as a key runner (not a good one mind you), I get to level 10 in about 15min (depending if I hit events). And that’s simply doing 5 hearts and then cooking crafting.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I used to really enjoy levelling. The NPE doesn’t really bother me (the rewards are actually pretty nice), but the trait changes have kind of killed it.

I don’t think I found a person yet who likes the trait change. We wanted to capture and earn new traits like capturing skills in gw1. But what we got was nothing like what I assume the community wanted.

You don’t mind the grind to unlock traits but unlocking skills put you over the edge. This makes no sense.

I genuinely feel sorry for new players. When I quit the game back in February, 2013, I had 6 L80’s a L60 and a L40, one of each profession. Now, all their traits except for 5 each are unlocked. It cost me 3.1gold on each character AND I got to level them anyway I wanted. I crafted, explored, dungeoned, wvwd, zerged, personal storied, wandered … it didnt matter how I chose to level up.

If a new player wants 8 L80’s they have 2 choices. Do all the content Anet wants you to do (map complete, dungeons, wvw etc…) or pay 43Gold, 360 Skill points per character for a total of 344 Gold and 2880 Skill points!

I never once did map complete on any of my alts or my main. The closest I’ve come to map complete is on a recent L80 NPE character that I made. She’s at 96% complete and has … 30/65 traits unlocked. I then made another L80 NPE character and played it how I wanted, she has about 5 traits unlocked and is forever kitten. I will not spend the gold or hunt and peck to unlock her traits. Unlocking traits for one NPE character is enough of a chore.

Unlocking traits is the leveling grind and getting to L19 is the quickest part of that grind.