Guild Wars 2

I’m lately thinking about it, due to the April Patch that should reduce the Grind in this game and lead to the point, that people should get faster to the fun stuff of this game, how this mentality aspect could affect maybe also in a more or less positive way the Character Progression Systems in GW2.
Now that there is also the Mastery System, alone its existence allows for Anet also to experimentate more in depthful ways around with the Character Progression Mechanics and reallocate them maybe also to different new systems where they might fit better to or could work more in synergy with other mechanics, well how shpold I say, so that everythign ends up just for the player that he/she feels, he/she has lesser to grind to reach the fun things of this game and become competitive to the point, that you can play faster together with your friends which have maybe already a head start of you.

The first thing that Anet did right here was to implement into the game a Scale Down Mechanic into the Beginner Maps and all others that aren’t Endgame Maps.
So lets take the note from this – anet owns already the technic of Scaling Down in this game.
How could ANet make an advantage out of this gameplay mechanic to reduce the grind in this game and to improve in overall the Character Progression System in this game at the same time???
This is what I requestioned myself and what I want to propose here now, how the answer to that question could end up:

• First Step:

We reduce the Maximum Level in GW2 down from 80 to 50!
While the Maximum Level gets reduced from 80 to 50 the Scaling System will be used to reallocate the Character Progression within these 50 Levels as if we would have still made 80 Levels!
The Result: Leveling Up feels instantly alot more meaningful, our Characters grow in strength alot faster now, each Level Up means instantly a much bigger significant growth in Character Progression.
We get faster our Skills and Traits unlocked, which means, we become faster competitive, have lesser to grind for stuff like Skill Points so that we can also unlock quicker the Elite Specializations. Simple said, we get quicker ready for also the Endgame Content – the Fun Stuff of GW2.
Tomes become more valuable now also to, because you can get now then with 50 instead of 80 tomes a Max Level Character already and be ready for the Endcontent Fun.

With the Mastery System now being there basically making the old Leveling System obsolete, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be more benefitial for the whole game to reduce the Level Cap down to 50 while rescaling the Character progression to make every of those remaining 50 Levels more meaniful and powerful for the Player, while certain Unlock Mechanics in regard of Character Progression could be moved over also to the Mastery System to improve them there and to add new aspects of Character progression, which would be under the normal old Leveling System not possible to be made by the developers I think.

• Second Step:

Rescale down the rest of the Game’s Balance to the new reduced Level Cap.
Instead of having MANY Maps that are differently scaled under the System of Level Caps like this:
1-15, 15-25, 25-35, 35,-45, 40,-50, kitten, 50-60, 55-65, 60-70, 70-75, 70-80, 75-80, 80

It can be drastically reduced and streamlined more to something like this:

1-10, 10-15, 15-20, 20-25, 25-30, 30-40, 40-45, kitten, 50, or even this

1-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-50, 50
This way become alot more of the later maps sooner already “End Content Maps”
A Map for example like Sparkfly Fen with Tequatl inside would be then not anymore just one maps, where you get downscaled, but instead it would be under the reduced level Cap then an Endcontent Map where Players don’t need to get downscaled then anymore and Sparkfly Fen is the first Map, where you meet on a real World Boss and not such laughable baby junk that we have to fight in the other earlier maps before.
So if you ask me, where the point is where a line should be drawn at where Endcontent should begin, then it is THIS MAP, where we meet on the first world boss that owns also the format to be a real world boss, unlike all the other junk before him like Fire Eemental, Behemoth and the Centaur Leader, which are all no World Bosses to me but more like just only “Grand Champions” – a new Category that should get introduced between Champion and Legendary (iE. World Boss), so that we clearly see, that World Bosses are Endgame Content, which you meet on only in Maps with Max Level Cap.

• Third Step:

Rebalancing Stats, Skills, Traits, Upgrades and so on based on the reduced Level Cap to 50. Here again could Anet make usage of the Down Scaling System. We know already how the Stats ect. must be under Level 50. So this rebalancing is basicalyl just a reducement in numbers with not a great effect on Class Balance in the end.
However, thigns like Upgrades ect. coudl become earlier accessable or could have bigger effects maybe already earlier in our Character Progression.

Currently it is like this:
Masterwork Gemstones have currently a required max level of 65 at the moment.
This could be reduced down to say 35, making the upgrade component then alot sooner usable for you and your character to progress.
Exotic Gemstones could be reduced from 80 to 50 as requirement, here it wouldnt have a big difference, but for the weaker upgrades becoming earlier accessible, this means alot. If the weaker upgrade components could then be also get improved to become a bit closer to the max stat versions, then they would become also more valuable. this could be done simply by removing the pointless limitation of the set bonus for example for runes, that also minor and major runes get set effects when used as complete set of 6, the exotic versions shouldnt be the only runes that have 6 effects.

• Fourth Step:

Move Mechanics that aren’t needed anymroe under the Leveling System over to the Mastery System and improve them there.

Example:

The Unlocking of Elite Specializations

Currently we all need to grind for Skill Points just to be able to unlock the Elite Specializations and their Traits and Utility Skills.
This leads to two problems.

• Skill Point Grind from unbalanced Champion Challenges in PvE that you can do only as a small group, but not alone, which causes frustration to players if you must rely yourself on others just to progress with your Character
• The issue is completely circumventable through WvW Grind, but completely defeats at the same time the purpose of the very existance from the skill point system in PvE, if you need to grind just enough WEXP until you have enough Skill Points to unlock everything for the Elite Specialization, when the solution would be alot better with havign this done by the Mastery System for PvE and by the WvW Rank Points for WvW, which is currently also in a huge lack of Character Progresison, because Anet has since year 1 of this game nearny done anythign anymore for WvW Character Progression by addign new WvW Rank Traits like they did in the first year basically with every patch to build up the Character Progression for WvW consistently.

So the soluton should look like this:

For WvW a Player needs from this Point on to spend instead of like 200 Skill Points instead 200 Rank Points and by spending them you completely unlock for WvW only the whole Elite Specialization for all Elite Specializations with the difference, its only WvW, so you can use them through this mechanic onlywhile playing WvW and usign this way won’t work towards Achievements, they will be earned only through the normal PvE method by using the class specific masteries…

For PvE, each Elite Specialization is its own Mastery, the first set of Elite Specializations is bonded to Heart of Thorns, this means, the first Elite Specializations will also be all Heart of Thorns Masteries so that HOT as content will receive through this change alot more HoT Mastery Points to earn. (Some Hot achievements that early rewarded no MP will reward now additionally MP for example and through additional added new Mp from new Achievements for HoT Fashion/Collections ect.

How could such a Elite Specialization Mastery look/work like?
Let’s do an example with the Thief

Teaching of the Daredevil

6 Ranks, Requires a Total of 30 MP, 5 per Rank, will require a new type of Mastery Point, so called “Master-Mastery Point” MMP (German for Meister-Beherrschungspunkt) which you can obtain in this case in HoT only from new Master NPC’s that are fitting to your Class, that teach you the Elite-Specializations.
You have to fulfill 6 Achievements/Tasks for them to earn the 30 points needed to master the Elite Specialization and to learn their teachings completely.

Rank 1 = Daredevil Basics > Unlock the Daredevil Elite Specialization for usage in PvE and PvP with its new Weapon, the Basic Traits (The first 4 Traits) and its Healing Skill

Rank 2 = Daredevil Adept > Unlock the Daredevil’s advanced Traits (The second 4 Traits), it’s first Daredevil Utility Skill and unlock the Daredevil’s unique Equipment Skin (Headgear, Shoulder Gear, Hand Hear)

Rank 3 = Daredevil Expert > Unlock the Daredevil’s last 4 Traits and its second Utility Skill

Rank 4 = Daredevil Master > Unlock the third Utility Skill of the Daredevil and unlock a Elite Specialization unique Weapon Skin together with an Exotic Weapon that gives you the Skin, which will unlock then also automatically the Collection Achievement to make out of it the Ascended Version

Rank 5 = Daredevil Grandmaster = Unlock the last fourth Utility Skill and the Elite Skill of the Daredevil

Rank 6 = Daredevil Sage = Unlocks the Collection for a Class Specific Legendary Back Item and Legendary Accessoire which can eaither be a Ring, an Earring or Amulet, 9 Classes = 3 different Legendary Rings, Earrigns and Amulets with different visual effects they offer in form of Skill Skins

1 for example will contain Skill Skins for Necronmancer Minions to change their looks to something more epic, creepy and dangerous looking (current minions turn into Hellhounds, Fleshreavers, Shadow Skelks ect)

1 other for example is the equivalent for lementalists, turning their Elementals into much more powerful, epic beast forms of elemental creatures to summon, so that the Fire Elementals are majestic Firebirds, the Ice Elemental are epic Frost Wolves, the Earth Elementals are beatiful Rock Kirins instead and the Air Elementals turn into some kind of thunder snakes or so, no clue, but Im sure you will find somethign nice for that too

Anothr one example could change the skins for the engineers turrets to make them look more epic n legendary through the usage of the skill skin change from the legendary accessoire when you equip it and activate the skill skin on the skills (hook symbol in the skill menu to activate/deativate the Skill Skins there)

I have been playing GW2 since the beta and headstart. I play nearly every day, I don’t miss playing very many days. I have NEVER grinded in this game. Where is this grind everyone talks about? I play and the gold comes, I play and the materials come, I play and the skins come …. no grinding, no doing something over and over and over and over and over. It would be very boring to do something over and over and over and over.

There is no grind in GW2 unless you want prestigious skins or some of the time consuming achievements

You two clearly don’t get the point here I’m speaking about..

maybe you would have understood it, if I would have named rather the thread

Character Progression and faster Endgame Content. (PS I’ll rename it i guess)

I just used the word grind here, because many people see leveling Characters as grind (me not really included)
However – the Mastery System has been developed as a tool for improving the Character Progression mainly and as such I want to see it getting more improved and becoming more of the core focus system around our Character Progression, because it makes in my opinion the old Leveling System obsolete!!!

So obsolete, that I believe by now, that it would be better for this game (and to reduce for some people unneccessary “grind”), if the Level Cap from the old system gets reduced.
I long time ago I would have proposed rather the quite opposite, wanting to get it increased to the classical 100 or even higher like 150.
That were at times, where I had no clue, that something like the Mastery System would exist in the future.
Anet self said, that they created with the mechanics that Heart of Thorns added to the game a new foundation onto which they will build up on for the future in regard of improving the factor of Character Progression for this game.
Thats the darn reason for why we had even a huge dedicated CDI all about this which was the beginning of why we received these features with Heart of Thorns, including Sub Classes, uhm Elite Specializations! Pardon.

But by now I clearly believe, under the Mastery System its much better to reduce the Level Cap down to 50, because this would bring to the game alot of advantages.

Character Progression becomes faster and more meaningful per Level you rise up, because due to the reallocated scaling of our attributes among the reduced amount of Levels do we receive then stronger strength boosts per Level Up.
So the points that you’d normally receive between Lvl 51 to 80 would get just merged into the 50 Levels before.

Using then the Scaling System of the Game to rebalance the Maps from Beginner Maps to the ones of to Lvl 50 will brign the advantage, that we will have then more “Endcontent Maps” sooner.
The Endcontent would begin then not first at Orr, but already around the Maps where we hit on the first real World Bosses that are Tequatl the Sunbringer and the Shatterer which are both World Bosses around Lvl 50+ (65 in case of Teq, but due to the point of making 50 the new 80 this change would litterally mean a BUFF for Teq, because currently we fight him with the Downscaling System in background weakining all 80s down to lvl 65 state…. so if we and all map, get reduced to Max Lvl lvl 50, but keep the Stats from Lvl 80 wouuld naturally mean that Anet would have to make Tequatl stronger, what could be easily explained due to another Elder Dragon beign slain and all of his huge amount of swallowed Magic being released, that Tequatl again got stronger from that released magic he could get a fair share of, like he got it too, when we had defeated Zhaitan before.

For alot of people this might be just perhaps only a meaningless change in numbers, but when Anet rescales the balance of us and the earlier maps with keeping the attributes from Level 80 in mind, then this can be used as a great way to improve Character Progression and to move old unlocking mechanics from Leveling Up over to the Mastery System, like I propose her,e because to me it makes absolutely no sense, that we should unlock the Elite Specializations through Skill Points…

Its lame, its not very depthfulyl thought out and it would simply strengthen the foundation of the Mastery System, when Anet would use it instead for unlocking the Elite Specializations and combines in this case the system with somethign new – Master-Mastery Points that you gain only from fulfilling special class specific tasks from a Teacher NPC, who teaches you how to become the Elite Specialization.

Thats how it should have been donw and not by this plain simple method of…just beat some champions and do meaningless tasks that have nothign to do at all with yopur Class, until you have enough Skill Points and PLOP, there you are, you are an Elite Specialization now without ever having done anythign at all, that shows your Character doing somethign class specific for its specialization…

That would be in regard of PvE the much bette,r more depth and flavorful way of how we should learn our Elite Specializations by makign usage of the Mastery System instead of using this silly old Level System that makes usage of boring simple Skill Points.

In regard of WvW there has been already way too long a drought of Character Progression…
Instead of grinding WEXP like crazy just to get again enough Skil lPoints to turn them in for slowly progressing with your traits, utlity skilsl and Elite skill at least in a character bound kind of way it should get improved by making this stuff faster accessible for WvW.
True WvWers – so people which basically play only this mode are already since years more than annoyed enough, that they have to do things in PvE, or that more and more PvE elements got introduced into WvW…anyone who doesn’t see this here in the forum must be seriously blind or biased towards a game mode, that is not WvW.

There has been in WvW a huge drought in content for basically anything – including especialyl Character progression basically since year 1 of the game after ANet basically shifted their focus more and more onto Living World with Season 2.
Before of that they consistently brought out with every greater patch something to improve the Character Progression for WvW by adding more WvW Traits for Rank Points.
So basically the best solution for Elite Specializations and to do something for a quick access for them for WvW to unlock Elite Specializations is via using Rank Points to unlock all Elite Specializations for all Classes AT ONCE, without that this unlock counts towards any achievements – it just allows WvW players for quick and grindless access to the Elite Specializations by using the TONS OF COLLECTED RANK POINT in a useful way!!
If you peopel already have forgotten, this game provides 10000 Rank Points, but provides so far only content and chraractr progression for roughtly 1400 Rank Points or so of those 10000.
So there would be more then enough Rank Point Space left over to use them to unlock via Rank Points Elite Specializations complete directly, if you own HoT in this case naturally.

Call this WvW Rank for example:

Combat Specialization I (for Set 1 of E-Specs), 9 Ranks, each Rank costs 10 Rank Points.
So 90 RP to unlock all E-Specs of Set I for WvW instantly with direct full access to all of their Traits, their Utilities, Healign and Elite, without that you have to do anything in PvE for them, where you would have to get alot more Skill Points just to unlock the E-Spec of choice completely and you’d have to repeat that (grind) for every single class, where you would get here acccess to all of them directly.
Even if 10 is too low, raise it to 15 per Rank, woudl be 135 RP then and still alot faster, tan to grind out the E Specs in PvE one by one or in WvW by the current System one by one

Thats the whole point of my thread.
improve Character progression, make more depthful usage of the Mastery Systenm, reduce unncessary high numbers and rescale the system accoundingly to the reduced numbers, while keeping the attributes around which the whole game is balanced about to make the game simply quicker accessible to the Endgame Content, so that all earlier maps get rescaled so that practicalyl the endgame begins already at Level 50 and not first at lvl 80.

Im clearly not speaking about reducing “grind” because of “something” beign too hard or so or due to wantign some stupid skins easier.
I’m talking about that kind of “grind” that should get reduced, that artificially slowes us down fro mreachign quicker the fun stuff oin this game – the endgame content and using this change to improve at the same time the feeling for everyone of receiving more depthful and flavorful Character progression by makign a strogner usage of that new developed foundation ANet speaks about, that is the Mastery System.

I hope I made myself clearer now.

But leveling is so quick. I really don’t see the need to cut things down. You get XP from doing anything. Levels come very quickly. End game in GW2 is also what ever you make it. Be it raids, world boss trains or meta maps, or my personal one world completion. I do not personally see why things need to change, maybe I’m alone on this.

Why on earth would you reduce the number of levels? That would be an extreme amount of work for no benefit. Changing the level of every single item, of every single npc, in addition to all the rebalancing and changing every damage and stats formula. It would be much easier, and more effective—who doesn’t like leveling up?—, to simply increase the amount of exp gained, if you want people to reach level cap faster.

You are fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.

The complaining about grinds is from the lack of PvE content combined with an over abundance of item and achievement grinds that have been added to stretch it out.

It really has nothing to do with leveling or progression. Pretty much every GW2 player at this point has multiple 80s. I have more tomes of knowledge than I know what to do with.

It’s the lack of endgame content that satisfies the expectations of the player base Anet has attracted, not the process of getting to it.

Orpheal.8263:

• Third Step:

Rebalancing Stats, Skills, Traits, Upgrades and so on based on the reduced Level Cap to 50. Here again could Anet make usage of the Down Scaling System. We know already how the Stats ect. must be under Level 50. So this rebalancing is basicalyl just a reducement in numbers with not a great effect on Class Balance in the end.
However, thigns like Upgrades ect. coudl become earlier accessable or could have bigger effects maybe already earlier in our Character Progression.

Currently it is like this:
Masterwork Gemstones have currently a required max level of 65 at the moment.
This could be reduced down to say 35, making the upgrade component then alot sooner usable for you and your character to progress.
Exotic Gemstones could be reduced from 80 to 50 as requirement, here it wouldnt have a big difference, but for the weaker upgrades becoming earlier accessible, this means alot. If the weaker upgrade components could then be also get improved to become a bit closer to the max stat versions, then they would become also more valuable. this could be done simply by removing the pointless limitation of the set bonus for example for runes, that also minor and major runes get set effects when used as complete set of 6, the exotic versions shouldnt be the only runes that have 6 effects.

The one thing that people seem to not understand when they mention these things is that the less at risk the lower your potential. You’re not asking for a power reallocation, though you may think you are, but instead a power cut. The more compact a game the less power you can acquire in it because power leaps are tabletops. A level 1 character is nowhere near the power of a level 3 enemy, expanded out slightly, Shadow Behemoth would be only level 9 under your system. The shift is not static so somewhere there either has to be a curve out or a lot of power gaps in which players like myself who run around maps they are sometimes up to 7 levels too low for couldn’t step foot into one in which they were 3 levels too low. . . Unless everything got nerfed.

I commend you for your ambition but this wouldn’t work. Level expansion and contraction are not so simple as “just redo it”; it would be a totally different game because that is a totally different type of game.

Such an undertaking, which achieve extremely little in the long term since the current system mostly works fine, albeit needs a bit of tweaking, would be monumental in terms of resources. Every last bit of the game would need to be looked at, including;
- story structure,
- re-visiting every heart in the game for the correct level and re-doing every vendor reward
- every single item would need re-valuing
- the TP would need re-structuring for the new values
- every mob, every map, every event re-valued and re-scaled.
- dungeons would need some re-working to adjust for the new values.

and so on and so on. These aren’t as simple as adjusting numbers. To reduce a level cap and re-work everything and stagger the system as you sugegst would take the team probably a year+ if they weren’t bogged down with other things like adding new content, re-working wvw (which already includes changes to the hero point system from what I read) and so forth.

Whilst it’s nice to see a constructive idea on the forums, it isn’t a feasible one nor would it gain anything.

Then Randulf, how would you “tweak” the system as you say ???

How would you change the system to make this game less “grindy/repetitive”, so that players can join quicker the Endgame Content.

How would you make gainign the Elite Specializations more of a depthful experience of being trustworthy character progression, that is more than just mind numbingly doing pointless taskas that have even absolutely nothing to do with your class that you play just so that you collect enough points till you can slowly unlock everything, when it could just go faster, more comfortable and more conviniently at the same time like I propose it, together with more trustworthy flavorful game design, what explains better how our classes exactly specialize in things by doing taskas, that are designed towards each specific class by having to search up a corresponding teacher kind of npc under which we have to learn like pupils their techniques through the Mastery System, until we can call us after a passed trial test an Elite-Specialization???

Or do you like this kind of boring, repetitive and slow flavorless system of how we unlock them currently that makes absolutely no usage of the Mastery System, when the opportunity for that would be so perfect to link both systems with each other??

You know, we would reach nothign in this game, if we would cringe everytime instantly at every kind of “effort” that would have to be made to significantly improve this game.
Sometimes you simply need to completely overhaul and rework old systems, if you want to bring a game like this forward and make it better than before.

I know such a change would take its time, but I think the advantages that these changes would bring would be worth the waiting time, regardless how long it may take.
Anet can use people of the size of 6 persons to work on content like Raids, continously new Gemstore Stuff, Legendaries, oh wait..delete this… however, you get my point – all I say is, wheres a will, theres also a way and if Anet has the will to singificantly improve their game, they will think over this change maybe – it won#t have surely now any kind of priority, because i know to, that Anet is currently too busy with other things like Expansion 2, LS3, WVW Reward Rework, the upcoming April Patch and the other stuff thats worked on to come this year as the third and last fourth big quarterly updates.

But it can be set up anytime onto their agenda when they think – nows the right time to do this to focus more on the aspects of charascter progression and for why we implemented the mastery system, which very obviously makes the old leveling system more or less obsolete, hence why i came up with this thread and that due to this system nows basically the best opportunity to reduce the level cap and do something, that would be rather unique for a MMORPG developr not to consistently raise the cap, but instead reduce it and shift over more elements of the character progression, like the Elite Spec System over to that and integrate it into the Mastery System instead of lettign it be a 0815 external progression mechanic thats working on a classical leveling grind mechanic like every other MMORPG out there, when that part of this game could be sooooo much more than it is right now…

You understand what I’m trying to say? ^^

I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
There is no grind to level 80.
You seem to believe that the endgame is the fun part you need to rush towards. It isn’t.
There isn’t a problem here you need to fix.

BrotherBelial.3094:

But leveling is so quick. I really don’t see the need to cut things down.

This actually might be a bit of the problem. The most obnoxious thing about leveling is keeping gear up to date, due to how fast you outpace the gear you get. And that causes all sorts of issues with the scaling system.

But the levelling system isn’t grindy or repetitive to me in the first place, so where is my incentive to change it? If anything, the game benefits from not rushing to this bizarre perception of “endgame”, as the zones are more fun progressing as you level. The levelling experience to me is a side bonus of “progression” whilst the real fun is the content itself.

What I’d prefer to see is new content in the zones so when I do level up an alt, it increases the variety further.

If I wanted to avoid the levelling system and get to my elites quickly, my bank is stacked full of unused level up tomes to get to level 80 instantly. As for new players, well elites are further progression for experienced players/characters to further their options. They aren’t designed for ppl to rush ahead and get them to act as a new class as quickly as possible.

Again, I commend your effort in theorizing, but you’ve created a solution for a problem that to me, simply does not exist. Or at least doesn’t exist in a way so vital, a sizeable dev team needs to be on it for such a considerable span of time.

You know, just cutting down the exp. required to level up solves all of this without shifting anything else. Do that by 10~12% and you get what you want for the most part. As for the hero challenges … I can’t really say there’s a fix for that.

DGraves.3720:

You know, just cutting down the exp. required to level up solves all of this without shifting anything else. Do that by 10~12% and you get what you want for the most part. As for the hero challenges … I can’t really say there’s a fix for that.

I think we level up too fast, though. At least from level-to-level. I do not like outleveling zones, despite the level scaling.

Sartharina.3542:

DGraves.3720:

You know, just cutting down the exp. required to level up solves all of this without shifting anything else. Do that by 10~12% and you get what you want for the most part. As for the hero challenges … I can’t really say there’s a fix for that.

I think we level up too fast, though. At least from level-to-level. I do not like outleveling zones, despite the level scaling.

I can see both sides.

I don’t want to level up my 10th character at the same speed as my first and wouldn’t mind playing without cheesing through Tomes of Knowledge and Birthday Scrolls to avoid the tedium but I definitely enjoyed leveling and exploring the first time go round.

If it were progressive that’d be awesome. Each character takes just a little less experience to level to 80 so that one your first and second it’s not that different but on the 9th and 10th and so on you can definitely feel more headway since you’re now not just learning how to play the game. Class mechanics are not so different or complex that it really requires you to focus each one in the same amount of time in my opinion.

Sartharina.3542:

DGraves.3720:

You know, just cutting down the exp. required to level up solves all of this without shifting anything else. Do that by 10~12% and you get what you want for the most part. As for the hero challenges … I can’t really say there’s a fix for that.

I think we level up too fast, though. At least from level-to-level. I do not like outleveling zones, despite the level scaling.

This! And that’s just normal game play…add in some crafting and you can really level quickly. I think my first character (about a year ago) took 3 weeks to hit cap, and that’s with no tomes, boosts, etc. I’m on my 8th character now and not a single one so far has taken more than a week or two to get to cap.

I have played many MMORPGs and none have so freely given out XP, nor allow you to hit cap so quickly through normal gameplay.

I honestly don’t want them wasting any more time revamping the New Player Experience, as they call it. Especially after spending the last 2 years essentially revamping the level up system and developing new systems to the detriment of new content.

Sure I understand the logic behind wanting to level up faster to get to the end game content but I believe it’s beneficial to the new player experience to go through the leveling progress we have at the moment. They’re able to play in the easier content and move on to the harder stuff at 80. What I don’t understand is that why is it lvl 50 instead of 30 or 10? Isn’t it all just numbers in the end.

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

Sure I understand the logic behind wanting to level up faster to get to the end game content but I believe it’s beneficial to the new player experience to go through the leveling progress we have at the moment. They’re able to play in the easier content and move on to the harder stuff at 80. What I don’t understand is that why is it lvl 50 instead of 30 or 10? Isn’t it all just numbers in the end.

I decided to go with 50 out of following reasons:

1) I find its a nicer number than 30 or 10, and a better number to work with in regard of bsalancing the maps over the longer stretch…
How do you want for example balance the maps of the beginning to the end of the story, if you have only 10 Levels?? Wouldn’t be really possible and way too much of a huge stretch. 50 works alot better for that and would give enough room to reallocate stats and all that stuff among the beginner maps to the last map, without that it feels of beign a huge stretch from the first to the last map with way too less levels to cover it.

2) 50 is the Level, where under my opinion the real deal about this game begins , because at that level you are far out of the beginner maps already, you meet the first bosses of real world boss format that require big amounts of players and player coordination to beat them, which all the junk before doesn’t really.
50 is for me personally the level to draw the line, that from this point on actually begins Endgame (for me)

Many things are i nthe end just numbrs, which is why I also think that the Mastery System basically makes alot of the old simple leveling system now obsolete and why I think its the best for the game to go from now on the routb to make the neccessary changes and preparations to go exactly the opposite way of game development now that th typical standard MMORPG would follow in its attempt to increase and improve Character Progression by raising the Level Cap and instead reduce it now in GW2 – that would be a unique change to this game from what players could only profitate in many different ways from if done right and with proper testing and rebalancing where neded via Test Servers to reduce also the usage of the Scaling System to an absolute most minimum and using it instead to reallocate the attributes and numbers ect. to the new reduced Max of 50, while keeping the game balance around the amount of attribute points, as if we would still have 80 levels, because that amount of points is it about all the current Game Balancings is turning around.
by keeping that amount of points in mind, it lets us also exactly know the difference of points between the old and the new level cap to be able to reallocance the difference in points in a best as possible way amogn the remaining 50 Levels, so that as said each Level Up from this point on feels more meaningful, because our Character would then grow faster in strenth than before, because it would require us then only 50 levels to reach the current amount of maximm attribute points, than like now 80 levels. We would simpyl get 30 levels faster to the current state, thus gettign quicker ready for all the Endgame Content, can work quicker on unlocking the Elite Specializatzions and if donw like proposed with a more flavorful kind of way that is linked to the Mastery System instead of the plain old standard Level up mechanic that lets us do sensefree taskas that have nothign to do even with our Class, that change would especially lead in my opinion to a significant improvement to the game and strenthen the “foundation” that ANet wants to see the Mastery System in it bny makign it actually a system, that has more influence on our Character Progression directly – what else, if does please fit better to the Mastery System for unlocking new Character progression Options, if not the Elite Specializations by lettign us unlock them via class specific Masetries that we can unlock by talking with our specific classes to according Specialization Teachers that grant us with their class specific tasks their wisdom once we fulfilled them.

Thats what i#d expect from a RPG in PvE content, that we actually need to learn from somebody how we specialize us and not do just unrelated things until we magically have enough Skill Points to slowly grind our way to a complete Elite Speciation, which could get done with 6 steps alot faster through the Mastery System and that with taskas, that are more fun, diverse and entertaining to do and especialyl for every classand their E-Spec you want to learn – completely different and fittign to the class you play

I can’t say that imprtant difference often enough, thats what would make the greatest benefit from this change to move more thigns over from the outdated old and now partwise obsolete Level System over into the Mastery System where the Developrs simply would have more potential within that system to significantly improve our feelign of getting Character Progression, withiout having to permanently chase after numbers, until we have enough numbers to unlock slowly step by step something, that could just get reduced down to 6 steps instead of like over 12+ ones due to havign to unlock every single trait and every single skill

Thats the grindy and repetive part of this, which I think should get also reduced and what would be easily doable through shiftign that part of the Character Progression over to the Mastery System and integrating it into this system rather, where I think it would work with it alot better in synergy, than with this old outdated obsolete classical Leveling System, which should be high enough at a cap of 50.

I remember myself also on alot of people, which demanded already years ago, that ANet should reduce the cap, or better, change the game even to the point that there would be no levels at all.
I think all these kind of people which favored for this back in the past, should kind of support my porposal of using the Mastery System to reduce the Level Cap, because what I propose here goes exactly towards their wanted changes, because now has the game a superior character progression system, that makes such a kind of change doable and that in a way, without that the feeling of getting progression in this game gets lost

I have to agree, the grind is now oppressive since i last played 2 years ago… (i thought it was bad then lol) now its just painful..

Legendary grind, Ascended Grind, Leveling Grind, Skills Grind, Money Grind, Achievements Grind, Items Grind… Probably wvw and pvp grind but i don’t play them.

Customers seem really enjoy the hamster tread wheel in these games huh..

The endgame is what you make it. Dont make the mistake of calling high-level maps “endgame” content.

reikken.4961:

Why on earth would you reduce the number of levels? That would be an extreme amount of work for no benefit. Changing the level of every single item, of every single npc, in addition to all the rebalancing and changing every damage and stats formula. It would be much easier, and more effective—who doesn’t like leveling up?—, to simply increase the amount of exp gained, if you want people to reach level cap faster.

Thank you for saying this for me. I was about to, but I’m glad others have already realized this obvious flaw in the OP’s plan.

I have more than enough tomes to bring a character to 80 as soon as I am done with the tutorial.

Actually, I consider leveling to be tutorial of sorts, since you really should have enough tomes after a couple of months to raise new characters to 80 whenever you want. Unless you obsessively create a new character every time you hit 80, you shouldn’t have to keep doing it.