Guild Wars 2

Ughhh I hate this. I’m an altoholic struggling against my addiction. I’m bored of leveling and I still have a number of characters to get to 80. I’ve got a warrior, guardian, and necro at 80, but I still have another warrior, necro, thief, and elementalist to go. And I want to create another character so bad ARGHH. I WILL NOT!

Maybe, one day, when all seven of my peeps have 100% map completion, the armor I want, and a finished personal story, I’ll allow myself to design no.8…. sigh

I levelled up all 5 of my characters at the same time. I now have 5 level 80’s, and I actually thought they levelled up TOO fast. :P I ended up having to equip everybody with level 79 Masterwork gear because they’re not at the stage yet when I’m ready to kit everybody out in Rares/Exotics.

I’m bored of these “I am bored” posts

Jack Daniels.9723:

SHM.7628:

Vayne.8563:

I think your logic is out of whack. In the beginning, Orr was the most rewarding place in the game and people were there. Anet is now making other places more rewarding, by making it so the reward is more spread out.

Not to interject myself into your argument but I feel that their effort to uncluster people on the map has not worked as planned . It seems they just moved the clusters around a bit. The maps are 98% empty with clusters at certain events.

Ex- you mentioned Hairathi Hinterlands. I’m there a lot too. You know why? There’s people there for the chest. After I’ve done the event chain a 100+ times, I’d like to do something else. There’s a ton of empty events.

If their aim was to get people out of Orr then they were sucessful. The events are virtually undoable now. The problem still exists, they’ve just shifted it a little. I love the chests and loot, but I think it may be part of the problem now.

Yep, exactly. I forgot to mention the chests, but yes that’s another one of those things that you see people piling up at, but virtually nowhere else.

Vayne, I didn’t mean to sound so condescending, and I will give a curt apology: sorry. It just gets very annoying when I have to try to explain the same thing in several essay-sized posts. To me that’s a sign that you didn’t try to understand at all. You simply BS’d it. I understand what you’re afraid of, but I’m telling you that it’s already happened… just in a different way.

Here, Vayne:
Seriously. Get a character. Come to somewhere like Stormbluff Isle. Now just go into an area like Lornar’s pass, or any map that is large, and preferably one that does not have an event chest. Now, explore a bit. Tell me how many champions you encounter that sit around for ages without anyone killing them. FYI, this generally only gets worse as you go to higher level zones. Try tracing the route you would go to get to the second dragon (forgot his name) for the first time. Tell me how many zones you go through where you could go almost half the map without hardly encountering anyone, or how many champions you see just sitting around, with no one to fight them. I have done the same on my warrior, and I will tell you that my list is huge. I encountered no less than four to five champion events, probably in the same map, that had absolutely no one fighting them.

The problem is that people gather people, and that’s causing people to gravitate to certain locations where there are (gasp) a lot of people! Go to Queensdale, and tell me how many champions go unfought. I don’t know about you, but I see the troll getting his kitten handed to him on about 30-40 occasions per hour, usually as soon as he spawns. I have also hardly seen any events really go empty, and I see plenty of higher-level people (30-40+) still running around the zone just obviously grinding on dynamics. Why would they be anywhere else (aside from event chests) when that’s the safest and fastest way to go? Sure, you could argue that they could explore if they wanted to, but going by the “human nature” analysis, why would they do that when there is another path of obviously less resistance? The more people in the zone, the safer it is to do. So I essentially see three types of places get a large population, and every other zone get effectively nothing:

1. Places near event chests.
2. Areas with a high population (Queensdale, Norn, and all places in #1).
3. Dungeons, all that other stuff.

You should quickly be able to see that the issue here is that issue #2 CAUSES issue #2, and without any reason for people to drain from areas that have issue #2, issue #2 just keeps getting worse and worse, aside from the few oddballs that are either going for a legendary weapon or actually care about exploring enough to hinder their progress in the game.

Wow, great post!

Jack Daniels.9723:

Vayne.8563:

Since all you’ve done is dismiss perfectly valid points I’ll leave you with this. I’m not the only person who has stated they have busy servers. I’ve played at least ten other MMOs and usually, in fact almost always, it’s the end zones where all the people stack. Most zones are pretty dead in most MMOs. Guild Wars 2 is an improvement over them.

1. It’s not called “dismissing”. It’s called countering. You stated points, I gave you counterarguments. Learn proper vocabulary.

I reread your post, but all you did was dismissing. You didn’t present any counter-arguments. Let’s not get into semantics but a yes-no-yes-no discussion does not contain “arguments” in my vocabulary.
I understand why Vayne can’t answer on your dismissals. They don’t contain any arguments so there’s nothing to answer to except repeating what has been said before.

2. This hasn’t really changed at all. Instead of stacking at endzones they’re stacking at PVP and dungeons. All you’ve done is change the location. The only reason you see so many endgame people elsewhere (which “elsewhere” generally only implies lower level zones such as Queensdale) is because of the global events such as SB and Shatterer. Or maybe they’re making a bit of easy karma at the low level events there, but most of the time they’re just stacked in the area where each of those bosses spawn.

3. And honestly what the hell is wrong with having people mostly in zones for their level? I’m not saying that we should just make low level zones worth trash for higher level people, I’m just saying that the risk they take at higher level zones should actually be worth a bit more. ie, it needs to be worth it.

Let’s counter that with a real argument.

What is wrong with having people in the entire world instead of cornered in one part that matches a completely arbitrary number that doesn’t exist in real life. Even the best RL big game hunters still shoot simple rabbits and birds. Tackling a big challenge usually doesn’t make the small challenge easier irl.

As for gaming examples, in Zelda, getting the megaton hammer didn’t mean your regular sword was worthless. It was merely different. While the AK is the best weapon in Counter-Strike, a well placed pistol shot counters it just as well.

So why do MMOs use such a stupid system as levels to gate content? I do know where it comes from, but I don’t understand why it still exists.

I don’t need hundreds of people for that group, because the events are balanced for less. Normal events are balanced for up to 10 players, and group events for about 50. So you don’t need more players than that.

That assumes that everyone in a zone can do every event. That’s a mathematical impossibility because not everyone in a zone will be the same level, nor do they have the waypoint for where you’re at.

Which would be fixed if a.net just did away with levels altogether and invented something that was more meaningful than number crunching.

Thething an MMO needs to keep people interested is “achievement” and by that I don’t neccesarily mean “gaining” something like an item or even an “achievement”. Its just an undefined sense of having either accomplished something or being on the way towards it.

For me, in this game, that is lacking. I find it harder and harder with each patch to gain money, which I believe would be my preferred method of getting the precursor, having thrown well over 200g worth of greatswords in the mystic toilet. Previously, like many other people I used to grind penitent / shelters and cof p1 like a lot of people…but anyone that says Orr is still viable either has better luck than I do or I am under some ridiculous DR 99% of the time. I genuinely suspect the drop rate of heavy Moldy bags has been nerfed and so has the drop of t6 mats from them…but thats just me maybe? Opened 100 a couple of days ago and got 5 t6…none of them the valuable ones. Lodestones? Have seen like 3 since game began. Exotics? 90% of them are worth about 1g.

Anyway, I grinded like a grindy thing for the mats (well money tbh) to make Volcanus…made it and now I dont know what to play for? I’ve got “some” money, but not enough for precursor and certainly nowhere near enough for everything else associated with it. There is nothing else in the game I want for either my main or any of my alts apart from the legendary and I can just see it taking forever to get that without boring myself stupid doing the same things every day.

Guild missions are fun, I like running temples and dungeons with guildies, but its only really the social aspect that keeps me playing at all. If i’m solo…im bored and log off within half an hour.

I dont know exactly whats missing, but something is because I havent played an MMO that I got this bored of this quickly. There was always “something” to do.

I got 4 alts to 80, but because the game is so alt unfriendly….I obviously mostly play the one that has map complete, ascended gear, high fractals level etc etc. Why would you not? My level 80 warrior hasnt even been to Orr yet, so gets mainly used for doing the Maw. I can’t even be bothered to run it through the areas to get the waypoints.

DE’s to me are great…once. Hearts are just like every other MMo ever made since the beginning of time. Group events and World events are just zergs. WvW is just a zerg. Gathering mats is hideously boring and not particularly profitable. I can equip any gear and any traits and it makes next to no difference to effectiveness or playstyle. I don’t have any particualr role to play.

I just don’t “get” this game I guess. Sorry for when that predictably offends someone, but I find it basically very boring. Although I have a great guild, so that what keeps me playing mainly now. Without that I’d be long gone.

lookitsandrea.8531:

Jack Daniels.9723:

SHM.7628:

Vayne.8563:

I think your logic is out of whack. In the beginning, Orr was the most rewarding place in the game and people were there. Anet is now making other places more rewarding, by making it so the reward is more spread out.

Not to interject myself into your argument but I feel that their effort to uncluster people on the map has not worked as planned . It seems they just moved the clusters around a bit. The maps are 98% empty with clusters at certain events.

Ex- you mentioned Hairathi Hinterlands. I’m there a lot too. You know why? There’s people there for the chest. After I’ve done the event chain a 100+ times, I’d like to do something else. There’s a ton of empty events.

If their aim was to get people out of Orr then they were sucessful. The events are virtually undoable now. The problem still exists, they’ve just shifted it a little. I love the chests and loot, but I think it may be part of the problem now.

Here, Vayne:
Seriously. Get a character. Come to somewhere like Stormbluff Isle. Now just go into an area like Lornar’s pass, or any map that is large, and preferably one that does not have an event chest. Now, explore a bit. Tell me how many champions you encounter that sit around for ages without anyone killing them. FYI, this generally only gets worse as you go to higher level zones. Try tracing the route you would go to get to the second dragon (forgot his name) for the first time. Tell me how many zones you go through where you could go almost half the map without hardly encountering anyone, or how many champions you see just sitting around, with no one to fight them. I have done the same on my warrior, and I will tell you that my list is huge. I encountered no less than four to five champion events, probably in the same map, that had absolutely no one fighting them.

snip for space

1. Places near event chests.
2. Areas with a high population (Queensdale, Norn, and all places in #1).
3. Dungeons, all that other stuff.

You should quickly be able to see that the issue here is that issue #2 CAUSES issue #2, and without any reason for people to drain from areas that have issue #2, issue #2 just keeps getting worse and worse, aside from the few oddballs that are either going for a legendary weapon or actually care about exploring enough to hinder their progress in the game.

Lornar’s Pass is a perfect example. It’s such an incredibly beautiful map, but so empty. And while I was pushing my Norn through there, I had used the map to ask for help in defeating champions… And on a “Very High” population server I usually did not see a response. Not because I was being ignored, but because people weren’t there.

On my higher level characters, I go to the first area zones to complete the daily achievement events. People are always going to go back to the beginner zones for this reason, and offering higher rewards in higher zones won’t change this. During the week, I don’t have the time to do those so even if the reward is weaker, I just want to get my dailies done in the beginner zones.

Also, something important to remember about the low reward for the higher zones is the cost of WPs. WP cost increases the higher level you get, and the rewards you receive in the high-end zones do not compensate the costs of travel. If you read any WP complaint threads, people talk about this. They are discouraged from hanging around away from major cities, grouping up to go to a higher-level area, etc. because the WP cost is just too much and the reward does not balance out.

This is a problem in every single MMO I’ve ever played. Every one, no exception. Some maps are popular, because of some great reward/quest chain/reason to be there and some maps are empty.

If you take the population of most MMO servers and divide them amounts every possible location, no one would have anyone to play with. That’s why MMO developers work hard to keep people in specific zones.

High end zones are normal to be in, for high end mats and end game content. But the question is how do you get people to other zones. And again, this isn’t a Guild Wars specific problem, this is an MMO-wide problem.

So you put stuff in other zones. Dragon events. Shiverpeake killer. Guild missions. Whatever you can get to people to go back to other zones. Because if you don’t, they won’t. It’s human nature.

There are people who dont’ care about those things and just want to go where they want. The rewards don’t matter to them (like me). Those people are going to be the minority.

Saying this is a problem is legit. Saying it’s different in any other MMO isn’t. The game is trying to get people to gather at certain spots, because that is the only way to get people together.

I don’t really see any other way to fix it.

I’ve finally started really working on an alt and getting into it. I built my thief to 80 with lots of enjoyment. But like other posters said, most the game really starts at 80. The game is more build around play style and builds and gear and leveling is this thing that’s kind of in the way lol

I went through my thief and kind of payed little attention to my story. This time though with my alt. I’m taking in the story, I’m taking in all the vistas and just trying to check out all the details in the map. Ill get to 80 when I get there I guess.

I’ve heard before on here about how they thought of having no levels but figured it’d probably shake the mmorpg community too much.

I do agree however that levelin can be a pain since it usually revolves around clearing te same maps you’ve done before. My suggestion is to just try and let it all sink in. I’m not much of a story guy but I’m finding that tryin to let it sink in is making for a fun game.

I have 6 level 80’s. Working on a 2nd Guardian…mostly because the last 2 classes are just sorta blah to me (mesmer & warrior). I’m not bored with the game though..leveling alts is my thing. Much more so than wvw, dungeons or special events.