Guild Wars 2

Katalos.5038:

nachtnebel.9168:

Compared to GW1 leveling is already painfully slow in GW2. Getting all professions to lvl 80 and fully equiped is really tedious. Making it even slower would be a real disservice to Anets faithful fans.

With that being said I understand where the OP is coming from, I get what he seeks in a MMORPG and why he is disappointed about not finding it in GW2. If you come here not knowing anything about GW1 and 2, expecting the game to follow the same rules as most other MMORPGs do, than you are in for a nasty surprise.

This however doesn’t mean GW2 has to change. Not at all. If you don’t like the way leveling in GW2 works than GW2 is simply not the MMORPG for you. Go and play another one, there are plenty out there that give you what you want.

Yup, I don’t know anything about GW1, a little bit about 2. Nope, no nasty surprise here. It’s more like a “cultural shock”. Nope, if I don’t like it, I will leave it and wouldn’t even find my way here to the forum. I am just expressing my comments about the leveling speed.

out of curiousity what games did you play that had such a painful experience?

You should try Guild Wars 1. The level cap in that game is level 20 and when you hit it you’ll have barely started the game. GW2 is kind of a compromise between that and more traditional memos, but it’s still not a game where anyone will need to spend ages levelling up.

As other people have said the important thing is that levelling is not really a goal in it’s own right. It unlocks new skills, and abilities and enables you to get to new areas (or more precisely to survive in them, since you can enter any zone at any level). But its just a mechanic, or one of many goals, not the main focus of the game.

Katalos.5038:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

and I know it isn’t this way now, and I think it might be a mistake on Anets part, but when the game first came out, for a long time, people WERE doing dungeons of the appropriate level. that “80+ only” junk has only developed once people got to that level and made their legendaries and junk and now they feel like they’re superior and don’t want to waste time with the likes of a *gasp/ newww playerrr

That makes new players like me very sad. I can’t even find players to run dungeon at my level with me through LFG. I only ran AC twice, once with some very helpful players, who kept telling me I am doing great while I kept dying, and once with my guild mates.

It makes (semi-)veterans like me sad too. it’s why my lfg always states that anyone of any level is welcome to join, and while i can’t account for other players in the party, i never ragequit on them either :P

IMO, at this point, it’s just something that happens as mmos age. and I think gw2 does it a bit better than some, in that aside from story-modes, all the dungeons are still fairly popular, even at max level, which is better than a level 30 dungeon just dying because it is useless to max level players.

I do agree that it’s something that needs to be looked into though

and @lastshot, that’s somewhat of what i’m implying. they feel like they shouldn’t spend the time “dealing” with low levels

Wolfe.3097:

Katalos.5038:

nachtnebel.9168:

Compared to GW1 leveling is already painfully slow in GW2. Getting all professions to lvl 80 and fully equiped is really tedious. Making it even slower would be a real disservice to Anets faithful fans.

With that being said I understand where the OP is coming from, I get what he seeks in a MMORPG and why he is disappointed about not finding it in GW2. If you come here not knowing anything about GW1 and 2, expecting the game to follow the same rules as most other MMORPGs do, than you are in for a nasty surprise.

This however doesn’t mean GW2 has to change. Not at all. If you don’t like the way leveling in GW2 works than GW2 is simply not the MMORPG for you. Go and play another one, there are plenty out there that give you what you want.

Yup, I don’t know anything about GW1, a little bit about 2. Nope, no nasty surprise here. It’s more like a “cultural shock”. Nope, if I don’t like it, I will leave it and wouldn’t even find my way here to the forum. I am just expressing my comments about the leveling speed.

out of curiousity what games did you play that had such a painful experience?

Mainly Korean/Japanese/Chinese MMORPGs that you have never heard of. The only old MMORPG that I played and you probably know is Maple Story, but I did not spend too much time in it.

And no, it wasn’t painful. I love those games. There are OP players and dominating guilds that control the economy, dungeons and etc.. I actually like it, but I know modern players do not. Modern players look for fairness. Mostly, I am not one of the OP players, but I still enjoy the game. I have two choices in those games. Join the “govern” side or the “resistant” side. I can join the dominating guilds and be the “bad guys”. Or I can fight against OP players by joining many small and normal players, or forming alliances with weaker guilds to fight dominating guilds and stuffs like that. These are mechanisms that are not natively in the game, but created by players. I LOVE it. The world channel is never so quiet like GW2. Players are constantly shouting at their enemies, and it is fun to watch. There are big news in game consistently, such as “xx guild has fallen, they are no longer controlling yy dungeon”, “the top player, aa player, lost in a pk fight with bb player just now”, and etc.. They are exciting. Players with high level or nice gear are always surrounded by new players. I have not seen in GW2, EVER.

Do you watch One Piece? I like characters that are very OP like the marine admirals, shichibukai, or yonko. I don’t mind not being one of them, but they are very fun to watch. “One of the yonko has just declared a war with another yonko. What will happen? Will marine admirals intervene? What is the fate of normal people?” These are exciting even I am not part of the fight. I will look at the world channel (which does not even exist in GW2, seriously???) all day to find out what happened. In GW2, I don’t even know what the top guild is (hopefully guild hall in HoT will change this), nor who the top player is. I just play and meet different players everyday. If they are good, I will say, “Oh, they are playing very well.”, and that’s it, I forget about them. There isn’t thing like, “OMG, I met aa player in yy map!!!!” or “OMG!!!!! xx guild is fighting with yy guild”, screenshot and post it in the forum. Everyone in GW2 play on the same ground, no special guy, no special guilds, nothing. Just boring.

That being said, I know those old school days are long dead. I study/work now so I won’t be spending so much time in an MMORPG. GW2 is not perfect, but good, and I like it.

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t supposed to be about leveling. The game is about just playing the game. What difference does it really make how fast you level?

Julie Yann.5379:

Vertical=grinding out levels you access gear that will allow you to do content previously inaccessible.

Horizontal=levels up and getting best gear real fast allowing you to access all the content now and grinding for cosmetics and perks like magic find, permanent contract and other fancy convenience items that aren’t required to enjoy the content.

i don’t think thats what vertical and horizontal really means

vertical is like climbing a ladder, you have to climb the ladder to become more powerful. higher level is more powerful; high level character, high level skills (mastery), high level gears (exotic/ascended), gaining additional skill points after level 80

horizontal is like on a journey to discover things. combinations of different skills to create different results, skill points from map explorations. ability to dodge and utilize your skills to win, crafting because you need to get the materials.

the new mastery thing in HOT, is both a horizontal and vertical thingy

there are no games that are pure vertical or horizontal, all games will adapt both. there are games that are more towards vertical while there are games that are towards horizontal. at the end of the day, it doesnt matter if the game is towards horizontal or vertical, the only thing that truly matter is the overall design of the game if it is fun or not.

Julie Yann.5379:

Vertical=grinding out levels you access gear that will allow you to do content previously inaccessible.

Horizontal=levels up and getting best gear real fast allowing you to access all the content now and grinding for cosmetics and perks like magic find, permanent contract and other fancy convenience items that aren’t required to enjoy the content.

SkyShroud.2865:

i don’t think thats what vertical and horizontal really means

vertical is like climbing a ladder, you have to climb the ladder to become more powerful. higher level is more powerful; high level character, high level skills (mastery), high level gears (exotic/ascended), gaining additional skill points after level 80

horizontal is like on a journey to discover things. combinations of different skills to create different results, skill points from map explorations. ability to dodge and utilize your skills to win, crafting because you need to get the materials.

Whichever explanation, I prefer the vertical one. Horizontal explained by SkyShroud will definitely make the game much enjoyable. I don’t really like the game with horizontal explained by Julie Yann. It sounds like a single player game. Combination of both vertical+horizontal explained by SkyShroud sounds like the perfect game of me.

SkyShroud.2865:

the new mastery thing in HOT, is both a horizontal and vertical thingy

Wow, I am all hyped up for HoT. *throw money at the screen

I find leveling to easy/fast too, but i don’t take pleasure in it, like i did in other mmos. To those who say that they want to me max level for endgame, there is no "endgame " the game is the journey there (quests, mega events …)

SkyShroud.2865:

Julie Yann.5379:

Vertical=grinding out levels you access gear that will allow you to do content previously inaccessible.

Horizontal=levels up and getting best gear real fast allowing you to access all the content now and grinding for cosmetics and perks like magic find, permanent contract and other fancy convenience items that aren’t required to enjoy the content.

i don’t think thats what vertical and horizontal really means

vertical is like climbing a ladder, you have to climb the ladder to become more powerful. higher level is more powerful; high level character, high level skills (mastery), high level gears (exotic/ascended), gaining additional skill points after level 80

horizontal is like on a journey to discover things. combinations of different skills to create different results, skill points from map explorations. ability to dodge and utilize your skills to win, crafting because you need to get the materials.

the new mastery thing in HOT, is both a horizontal and vertical thingy

there are no games that are pure vertical or horizontal, all games will adapt both. there are games that are more towards vertical while there are games that are towards horizontal. at the end of the day, it doesnt matter if the game is towards horizontal or vertical, the only thing that truly matter is the overall design of the game if it is fun or not.

That is pretty much what I was saying using different words.

Play the game for another 2 years, and you’ll soon change your opinion to “leveling is slow”.

It’s not like “levels” is a concept of this time and age. In my opinion, their worth has been compromised long ago. I simply do not care about seeing a number go up every few hours. Games should be a lot less about metrics, and a lot more about “playing the game”.

Just to throw in my $0.02, I used to enjoy level grinding and watching my characters produce bigger and bigger numbers. But after a while, that appeal pretty much vanished. At this point, levels are, at best, an inconsequential thing that get’s taken care of passively through the normal course of playing the game.
Which leaves me wondering what purpose they actually serve? I’ve heard that they are supposed to act as a tutorial, but while I would hope that you would have figured out a few things about the game after playing for a few hours, what part of that process is actually tied to levels in any way? It’s not location, open world is easy across the board, dungeons don’t scale difficulty to level at all, and fractals are all level 80 with their own difficulty scale.
What what are levels actually for in this game? If they don’t do anything, would it be beneficial to remove them entirely for GW3?

no such thing as leveling to fast maybe you should play anarchy online and see how you feel when you have to level from 1-100 all over again just to hit 120 its not fun and thats not how mmo’s should be as it takes all the fun out of the game in general -1000000 rep
for this op’s post infact it should be deleted for mindless trolling

I always thought 1 to 80 in GW2 was just right. I grew tired of the leveling system in MMOs years ago (been MMOing for over 15 years at this point… you can only go from 1 to max so many times before it just becomes duuulllll), but they spaces the levels out enough and made them fast enough that I always felt rewarded.

Honestly, hitting 80 is only the start. Even if you never touch another dungeon, 100% map completion will take a good long while on a newly reached level 80 character, and then you have alts, pvp, dungeons, crafting + mat grinding, etc…

No, I can’t say I would support the idea of even slower leveling, and that’s despite me having three 80s and about to hit 80 on my fourth.

Excell.1687:

Just to throw in my $0.02, I used to enjoy level grinding and watching my characters produce bigger and bigger numbers. But after a while, that appeal pretty much vanished. At this point, levels are, at best, an inconsequential thing that get’s taken care of passively through the normal course of playing the game.
Which leaves me wondering what purpose they actually serve? I’ve heard that they are supposed to act as a tutorial, but while I would hope that you would have figured out a few things about the game after playing for a few hours, what part of that process is actually tied to levels in any way? It’s not location, open world is easy across the board, dungeons don’t scale difficulty to level at all, and fractals are all level 80 with their own difficulty scale.
What what are levels actually for in this game? If they don’t do anything, would it be beneficial to remove them entirely for GW3?

When people say levelling acts as an extended tutorial they’re referring to gradually unlocking your skills, traits and other ways to customise your character (like armor going from 1 to 2 to 3 stats). Plus gradually encountering new mechanics, like conditions and attacks which have to be dodged to survive.

It’s supposed to give you time to familiarise yourself with each system and skill/trait before getting a new one, instead of having all the options of a level 80 character dropped on you right at the start.

Which is why it can be a problem when people try to power-level their first character. I once did a dungeon with a guy whose friend had persuaded him to buy the game and sent him a bunch of gold and materials so he could level up quickly by crafting. He’d been playing a week, almost finished levelling and didn’t know the most basic things. As in he didn’t know it was possible to dodge attacks, let alone what key to press or when to do it, he didn’t know what his skills did and couldn’t understand the descriptions so he just equipped signets and didn’t activate them. As you can probably imagine he died a lot.

That’s why levelling can be helpful. The levels themselves may not mean much but even for experienced gamers RPGs are complicated and no two are completely identical so it’s helpful to be introduced to the mechanics gradually. I’ve been playing RPGs for 22 years and my newest one (Dragon Age: Inquisition) still confuses me sometimes, and that’s seriously dumbed down compared to a lot of others.

In Guild Wars 1, the level cap was set at 20 and never increased. Truly, levelling was the tutorial experience and in subsequent expansions, you were expected to be at or near the cap before you even left the little tutorial islands.

When I heard that the maximum level in Guild Wars 2 would be 80, I was unimpressed. I hated the level grind and had come to associate it with barriers that prevented me from accessing the content I actually wanted to play.

Then I got to playing the game and levelling happened so swiftly, so smoothly that I almost forgot about it completely. I was busy getting this vista, that point of interest, capturing that supply camp or running through this jumping puzzle. Eventually I realised that levelling in GW2 is ancillary to the actual game.

Not quite on topic, but a point I wanted to raise…

Over the past week or so I have been doing a crap load of PvP with my Ranger, which was only level 5 at the time. Anyway, I was wondering what is the quickest way to level up in PvE without running dungeon after dungeon all day long and boring yourself to death? While doing PvP, it occurred to me that if you dislike spamming dungeons all day long and doing the same content all day long, PvP is the quickest way to level up. Let me explain…

All reward tracks in PvP give Tomes of Knowledge, which grant your character 1 level in PvE. Without any bonuses, I was getting 1 Tome of Knowledge every 4-5 games of Unranked Arena, getting top 3 in my team (don’t think you need to be any good at PvP for this to work; I myself am quite bad). After some quick calculations, I worked out that doing PvP would actually get me to level 80 faster than doing your average PvE activities (map completing, occasional dungeon, crafting, story).

Considering that the outcome in a PvP game is never the same, unlike the content in PvE, I believe that PvP is not only a quicker way to level up, and a good way to get some pretty good exotic gear, but a more enjoyable way to level up as well.

This is just my point of view, most of you may think that I am completely wrong.

Just wanted to get it out there.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t supposed to be about leveling. The game is about just playing the game. What difference does it really make how fast you level?

Don’t agree with you here. How can a game not be about leveling when you can only complete a lot of the content when you are at level 80? Most dungeon and fractal groups only let people in who are level 80. Not so long ago, I got kicked from a fractal group because I was level 79 and not 80.

Because of this I feel as though at the start of the game, it is all about leveling, and then at level 80, it is about playing the game.

Danikat.8537:

You should try Guild Wars 1. The level cap in that game is level 20 and when you hit it you’ll have barely started the game. GW2 is kind of a compromise between that and more traditional memos, but it’s still not a game where anyone will need to spend ages levelling up.

That is not quite true if you start with Prophecies.
In Factions you are pretty much lv80 by the time you leave the starter island.
IIRC Nightfall dials it back slightly to around 18 by the time you leave the starter island.

The fast leveling in Factions and Nightfall is mostly out of necessity though. It had to be kept short to keep as much of the game relevant to owners of the previous campaigns.

Katalos.5038:

“Last gen” MMORPGs I used to played take months, if not years, to reach the level cap and level was very valuable. Only a handful of players in the server actually reach the level cap. Low level gameplay is fun and “end game contents” can be accessed by not-so-low-level players. Players generally do not own many characters and even they do, the sub characters only act as a bank or something. Therefore, choosing a class to main is a much more intense process.

Fast leveling is nothing new, not even for first gen mmo’s. Themeparks did take time, usually months. But sandbox mmo’s you could generally cap a character in a couple weeks, depending on the characters skill selection (skill based etc).

Of course the difference was that sandbox games are more end-game centric while themeparks are all about progression. GW2 is a progression themepark, but seems to try to meld in some sandbox style elements. So yeah you don’t have the leveling commitment like in EQ1 (or it’s clones such as WoW), yet while leveling you are able to scale as if you were in a more skill based sandbox style environment (like UO or SWG etc).

So what do you do when you level so fast? Gear grind. I mean if you are traditionally a themepark player, that is pretty much what they have given you to do rather than level grinding. Or of course, you can do as some have done and level 25 character slots. So I can see how the more dedicated traditional themepark players can get all confusicalled here.

DirtDowney.5187:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t supposed to be about leveling. The game is about just playing the game. What difference does it really make how fast you level?

Don’t agree with you here. How can a game not be about leveling when you can only complete a lot of the content when you are at level 80? Most dungeon and fractal groups only let people in who are level 80. Not so long ago, I got kicked from a fractal group because I was level 79 and not 80.

Because of this I feel as though at the start of the game, it is all about leveling, and then at level 80, it is about playing the game.

You’re talking about two things that are not just “playing the game.”

1. Level requirements for many dungeons are quite a bit lower than the L80 you reference. There can be a player requirement for L80 in all of them, but the game does not enforce this, players do. Not all groups enforce this ‘requirement." It’s also true that in some groups there are player requirements for gear, build, etc. Again, not all groups enforce these. You can also start your own group.
2. Preferred content. Playing the game includes everything you could do. You can PvP, WvW or EotM from level 1 (assuming you aren’t new or that you find out how to get there). You can PvE from level 1, and there are several low-level zones. However, if you prefer certain content, then there might be level requirements for it. If you take the content as it comes, there’s plenty to do until you reach cap. If you can’t wait to get to certain things, and the rest of what’s out there does not appeal, then yes, the game is about leveling. However, it doesn’t have to be — you’re choosing to make it that way. There’s nothing wrong with that — so, you and Vayne are both right, just talking about different preferences.

I think it’s great to have multiple 80s. It helps you learn the game better.

Fermi.2409:

Ephemiel.5694:

L Step.8659:

Leveling shouldn’t even exist in games. It’s just a way to timegate/make you grind for actual fun things/keep you around longer. If GW2 didn’t have levels would the game be any different at all? I don’t think so, there’d be a lot more alts I’d think though.

So you want a game that just gives you everything instantly?

That’s not what he said at all and you know it.

I also see the 1-79 as pointless. To me, it’s just a total waste of resources to code that progression and an annoyance to have to level a character up so I can get my decent gear on. Just start at 80 and then downscale for starter areas.

TANGENT TIME:
Horizontal progression means more options. When they add new skills and traits in GW2 that’s generally horizontal growth. Like if necromancers had an elite well that immobilized, damaged and blinded. It might be cool, but you’d have to take off lich form to use it.

Vertical progression means more power. That’d be like if they added a skill ‘Improved Lich Form’ that did 30% more damage. Everyone who used Lich Form would want it because it’s an improvement.

That kind of vertical growth is often used to create a sense of progression. You do content X and get your +10 power gear, and then your numbers are big enough to do content Y. Once you do content Y, you get your +20 power gear. With the +20 gear, you can do content Z.

One of the problems with that is it’s often kind of illusionary progression. Your numbers are bigger, but if it still takes kittens to kill a monster it doesn’t really matter.
/TANGENT

All of that said, I found the new leveling experience to be very slow. It takes too long to get to the good parts. Maybe if I didn’t know about the good parts already I wouldn’t mind, but I do, and it’s not good. I want to play with my toys, not fart around repeating content until I’m allowed to.

Aside, I’ve had no trouble getting sub-80 dungeons going using the LFG tool.

Danikat.8537:

Excell.1687:

Just to throw in my $0.02, I used to enjoy level grinding and watching my characters produce bigger and bigger numbers. But after a while, that appeal pretty much vanished. At this point, levels are, at best, an inconsequential thing that get’s taken care of passively through the normal course of playing the game.
Which leaves me wondering what purpose they actually serve? I’ve heard that they are supposed to act as a tutorial, but while I would hope that you would have figured out a few things about the game after playing for a few hours, what part of that process is actually tied to levels in any way? It’s not location, open world is easy across the board, dungeons don’t scale difficulty to level at all, and fractals are all level 80 with their own difficulty scale.
What what are levels actually for in this game? If they don’t do anything, would it be beneficial to remove them entirely for GW3?

When people say levelling acts as an extended tutorial they’re referring to gradually unlocking your skills, traits and other ways to customise your character (like armor going from 1 to 2 to 3 stats). Plus gradually encountering new mechanics, like conditions and attacks which have to be dodged to survive.

It’s supposed to give you time to familiarise yourself with each system and skill/trait before getting a new one, instead of having all the options of a level 80 character dropped on you right at the start.

Which is why it can be a problem when people try to power-level their first character. I once did a dungeon with a guy whose friend had persuaded him to buy the game and sent him a bunch of gold and materials so he could level up quickly by crafting. He’d been playing a week, almost finished levelling and didn’t know the most basic things. As in he didn’t know it was possible to dodge attacks, let alone what key to press or when to do it, he didn’t know what his skills did and couldn’t understand the descriptions so he just equipped signets and didn’t activate them. As you can probably imagine he died a lot.

That’s why levelling can be helpful. The levels themselves may not mean much but even for experienced gamers RPGs are complicated and no two are completely identical so it’s helpful to be introduced to the mechanics gradually. I’ve been playing RPGs for 22 years and my newest one (Dragon Age: Inquisition) still confuses me sometimes, and that’s seriously dumbed down compared to a lot of others.

There are some merits to having pieces given to you slowly. However, sometimes it can create a can’t see the forest for the trees effect.

I personally find it easier to learn game systems when I’m immediately given access to everything that they have available, because I immediately look over everything and try to determine synergies between things, whereas if I were given things a piece at a time, I might instead have focused on them merely as individual pieces rather than a unified whole.

Additionally, the thing that helps you learn a class isn’t the rate at which things are given to you, it’s the need to use them, and the realisation that they exist. I didn’t figure out how shatters worked until I started playing PvP, nor did my thief steal, nor did my ranger every activate a pet command, nor did my guardian ever use a virtue, nor did my elementalist ever leave fire attunement when using a staff, because, through the entire course of leveling them, I never ever needed to.

The only time I learned anything from leveling content was because for some reason I decided to grab the skill point in the Temple of Balthazar as quickly as possible instead of waiting for a zerg to clear it. In order to do that, I looked at my screen and found a specific set of traits and utilities designed to maximise my stealth/invulnerability/interrupts without cancelling my channeling.

The only time I learned something from it, and it was because I decided to do what I wasn’t supposed to, and it only worked because I had everything available to me.

Holding back abilities wont teach anyone anything. Giving them the need to use them will.

Took me 3 days to hit level 80 in Edge of the Mists. Did that for 5 toons.

Yes, it is both incredibly quick and easy to level up in GW2.

The specific reason why I encourage power leveling: You can enjoy completing your Personal Story from beginning to end uninterrupted. Preventing players from progressing for the sole reason that “You’re not level _” is incredibly stupid.

Already completed Personal Story 8 times and plan on doing the same with my revenant when HoT is released

Julie Yann.5379:

Vertical=grinding out levels you access gear that will allow you to do content previously inaccessible.

Horizontal=levels up and getting best gear real fast allowing you to access all the content now and grinding for cosmetics and perks like magic find, permanent contract and other fancy convenience items that aren’t required to enjoy the content.

Well that’s not what horizontal progress classically means. Horizontal progress could be required to access content (think metrovania where a new weapon or ability is required to access an area or kill a monster).

Safer Saviour.9685:

Then I got to playing the game and levelling happened so swiftly, so smoothly that I almost forgot about it completely. I was busy getting this vista, that point of interest, capturing that supply camp or running through this jumping puzzle. Eventually I realised that levelling in GW2 is ancillary to the actual game.

This is how I try to approach levelling in all games, and it really frustrates me when it’s not possible.

I don’t think about “I’m level X, the cap is level Y and I need N XP to get to level X+1 so therefore I should do this activity because it’s the most efficient way to get it”. I just focus on the storyline and quests (hearts/events in GW2) available to me, and exploring to find more (or simply to explore) and then every so often I find I’ve gained a level. I spend whatever points it gives me and carry on playing.

The funny thing is sometimes I don’t even notice. Before they added the level up rewards pop-up to GW2 I’d often go several levels before realising I’d levelled up at all.

I think the only time I do notice is in JRPGs where it’s not uncommon to do all the quests in an area and find you’re still a few levels short for the next area/boss, then you have to grind XP to move on.

Khisanth.2948:

Danikat.8537:

You should try Guild Wars 1. The level cap in that game is level 20 and when you hit it you’ll have barely started the game. GW2 is kind of a compromise between that and more traditional memos, but it’s still not a game where anyone will need to spend ages levelling up.

That is not quite true if you start with Prophecies.
In Factions you are pretty much lv80 by the time you leave the starter island.
IIRC Nightfall dials it back slightly to around 18 by the time you leave the starter island.

The fast leveling in Factions and Nightfall is mostly out of necessity though. It had to be kept short to keep as much of the game relevant to owners of the previous campaigns.

I don’t know, my first campaign was Prophecies and I got my first character to level 20 just before leaving Kryta (in fact I think it was during the Divinity Coast mission). I still had the Maguuma Jungle, Crystal Desert, South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire to go, had barely started the ‘real’ storyline (I still thought it’d be all about the charr).

It wasn’t as fast as Factions or Nightfall, but still pretty quick compared to other games. Even in non-grindy single-player RPGs you usually won’t hit the max level until very close to the end of the game.

I played Lineage2 befor guild wars. That was a farmfest my friend. A day of farm for 0.4% xp… Maybe asians enjoy that but i like what is going on in gw2. Im a good player because my skills and not because i dont have life.
Do jumping puzzles, farm champions, bosses, do dungeon runs, make some massacre in wvw or kill your arch enemy in pvp.
If you want to farm make a legendary or 2 but if you want slow lvling gw and gw2 are not your games

On my first character to 80, the speed was just right, maybe even a little fast, compared to other MMOs I have played before.

On my second character onwards, it’s much too slow.

I may be taking this the wrong way, but I think I can relate. I also like to take things pretty slowly, mainly due to being a completionist. It’s a bit different than other games, but try thinking of level as more of a minor goal. The end goal is simply building up your characters. Go for all the achievements, gear, appearance, and above all personal skill level. It’s actually pretty nice being able to do this on multiple characters (though I’ve always been an altoholic). The classes all play very differently and are very fun to experiment with.

I read your post about the games you used to play and the lack of well known players/guilds here. I came from those type of games as well. (Ever play Grand Fantasia?) At least in what I played, the biggest reasons some people were well known was 1.) small population and 2.) world chat. It would be pretty nice if people and guilds who did well were better recognized though. Hopefully they could get better leader boards, including a focus on guilds and wvw.

Long post aside, hope you enjoy GW2. It’s quite different compared to most MMOs, but that’s definately not always a bad thing.

Nah leveling is fine.

First GW was even better as it helps with balance.

Answer : No. The leveling is just fine here.

I’ve noticed the quick leveling speed too but I tend to look at it a different way. In WoW (my previous game where I spent most of my time) it was EXTREMELY competitive. You had to fight for boars, dragons, mob tags, etc. It was frustrating though somewhat rewarding.

Here, with an open tag system, it makes things much easier; a good thing from experience. And there’s no sense of being excluded unless it’s being gated by zone. See that world boss pop up? Run and grab the way point and hang with the group and get your loot and kill. It’s stuff like that that might add to the quick leveling process but not something I’m seeing being considered.

But is it good?

Honestly, I’m enjoying it immensely. I feel it’s easier to play alts and prepare them (thus being more player friendly in terms of finding a main) with a quicker leveling process. But if you think THIS is bad?

World of Warcraft, at level 90 you get sent to Pandaria. When it launched, I had to quest through EVERY ZONE to get to level 95 (including multiple dungeons). The last time I leveled an alt, I went to Pandaria without the benefit of any ‘BoA gear’, did each dungeon ONCE, and did every quest in the first zone…I was max level before finishing the starting zone.

So while GW2 has quick leveling, it’s NOTHING compared to WoW. This is a far more enjoyable experience even if it is quick.

On top of that, unlike WoW, the game doesn’t ‘end’ by funneling you into a particular progression path. All of the zones remain relevant for exploration and achievements and with the scaling down mechanism, it’s not like you can just go into, say Gendarren Fields, and stomp on everything and win (you CAN) but it’s still somewhat difficult due to the scaling down.

Danikat.8537:

When people say levelling acts as an extended tutorial they’re referring to gradually unlocking your skills, traits and other ways to customise your character (like armor going from 1 to 2 to 3 stats). Plus gradually encountering new mechanics, like conditions and attacks which have to be dodged to survive.

It’s supposed to give you time to familiarise yourself with each system and skill/trait before getting a new one, instead of having all the options of a level 80 character dropped on you right at the start.

Which is why it can be a problem when people try to power-level their first character. I once did a dungeon with a guy whose friend had persuaded him to buy the game and sent him a bunch of gold and materials so he could level up quickly by crafting. He’d been playing a week, almost finished levelling and didn’t know the most basic things. As in he didn’t know it was possible to dodge attacks, let alone what key to press or when to do it, he didn’t know what his skills did and couldn’t understand the descriptions so he just equipped signets and didn’t activate them. As you can probably imagine he died a lot.

That’s why levelling can be helpful. The levels themselves may not mean much but even for experienced gamers RPGs are complicated and no two are completely identical so it’s helpful to be introduced to the mechanics gradually. I’ve been playing RPGs for 22 years and my newest one (Dragon Age: Inquisition) still confuses me sometimes, and that’s seriously dumbed down compared to a lot of others.

A game wiithout any levels could still effectively teach the same things through personal story instances.

Julie Yann.5379:

A game wiithout any levels could still effectively teach the same things through personal story instances.

^ this.

GW2 has no need for leveling, and really hurts the game more so then helps. Having zones that are level based only creates the mentality that after you surpass the level req. that zone is no longer needed. Gw2 could easily survive and be better imo, if they removed levels, used the PS as a tutorial, and revamped Tyria to mimic more of a sandbox style world.

Kury.8210:

I may be taking this the wrong way, but I think I can relate. I also like to take things pretty slowly, mainly due to being a completionist. It’s a bit different than other games, but try thinking of level as more of a minor goal. The end goal is simply building up your characters. Go for all the achievements, gear, appearance, and above all personal skill level. It’s actually pretty nice being able to do this on multiple characters (though I’ve always been an altoholic). The classes all play very differently and are very fun to experiment with.

I read your post about the games you used to play and the lack of well known players/guilds here. I came from those type of games as well. (Ever play Grand Fantasia?) At least in what I played, the biggest reasons some people were well known was 1.) small population and 2.) world chat. It would be pretty nice if people and guilds who did well were better recognized though. Hopefully they could get better leader boards, including a focus on guilds and wvw.

Long post aside, hope you enjoy GW2. It’s quite different compared to most MMOs, but that’s definately not always a bad thing.

Yup, that’s what I am doing now. I have already ignore the “level” in GW2. It is pointless, and that’s the main reason I have started this post. However, I don’t like the idea of achievement. I mean, what are achievements? It does not make the character stronger. It’s kind-of like a cosmetic thing. I remember the first time seeing achievement system is on an iOS game, since then, every games have this useless system. I never like achievements. AP hunters please do not get me wrong here. I do not like the system, not AP hunters. I am impressed that you guys being so dedicated.

Nope, I did not play Grant Fantasia before. I google searched it and it looks great. I think I will like it.
1) Agree. This is the first MMO I play that has soooo many worlds.
2) Agree. Why no world chat?? I love world chat. Without world chat I feel like playing a single player game with multiplayer option enabled (Yes, it’s not the same as MMO).

The leaderboard definitely needs to be touched. I like WvW and PvP leaderboards. I never look at AP leaderboard, although I don’t mind it being there. Guilds leaderboard is NEEDED, now. WvW rank/kill leaderboard is a MUST too. I hope Anet can award top ranked players (even though I will never be one) too, probably by giving some special effects when they are in the open world. Players who do not look at the leaderboard have no way to know a player is a top ranked player. Some cosmetic effects like a big floating crown on top players head (so everyone can notice) will be so cooool.

I enjoy GW2. I am just pointing out something I am not used to.

I feel like the levelling is way too fast. I don’t even bother to use all of the boosters, tomes etc. that I received over time because if I make a new character i would be level 80 within a week of casual play anyway, and within days of hardcore play.

Another problem is, the levelling curve being so shallow means that players never need other players help to level. I’m not talking about grinding here, I am talking about killing mobs and doing events in a party so that you get the most benefit. The current system enforces soloing because it is not difficult enough to warrant partying.

I know the system has alot of positives, but it also has alot of negatives, and I hope that eventually ArenaNet (and players) will understand those negatives.

Danikat.8537:

I don’t know, my first campaign was Prophecies and I got my first character to level 20 just before leaving Kryta (in fact I think it was during the Divinity Coast mission). I still had the Maguuma Jungle, Crystal Desert, South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire to go, had barely started the ‘real’ storyline (I still thought it’d be all about the charr).

It wasn’t as fast as Factions or Nightfall, but still pretty quick compared to other games. Even in non-grindy single-player RPGs you usually won’t hit the max level until very close to the end of the game.

That does not sound very “normal”. Mobs outside of LA is lv11. Mobs outside of Sanctum Cay is lv17. Arriving at LA a character should be lv15 +/-2. If the level difference is more than 6 mobs give no experience. A 19 character would not have gotten any exp from the mobs in Divinity’s Coast. Completing the mission and bonus would have given 2k exp but you would have had to somehow get within 2k exp of leveling from even lower level mobs.

Going back on to the topic of the thread though. I have yet to see any reason given for the benefit of loitering about at lower level. “Too fast” implies there are reasons to not level. The only benefit I can think of is for opening champ bags and even that is only slightly useful.

Khisanth.2948:

Danikat.8537:

I don’t know, my first campaign was Prophecies and I got my first character to level 20 just before leaving Kryta (in fact I think it was during the Divinity Coast mission). I still had the Maguuma Jungle, Crystal Desert, South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire to go, had barely started the ‘real’ storyline (I still thought it’d be all about the charr).

It wasn’t as fast as Factions or Nightfall, but still pretty quick compared to other games. Even in non-grindy single-player RPGs you usually won’t hit the max level until very close to the end of the game.

That does not sound very “normal”. Mobs outside of LA is lv11. Mobs outside of Sanctum Cay is lv17. Arriving at LA a character should be lv15 +/-2. If the level difference is more than 6 mobs give no experience. A 19 character would not have gotten any exp from the mobs in Divinity’s Coast. Completing the mission and bonus would have given 2k exp but you would have had to somehow get within 2k exp of leveling from even lower level mobs.

Going back on to the topic of the thread though. I have yet to see any reason given for the benefit of loitering about at lower level. “Too fast” implies there are reasons to not level. The only benefit I can think of is for opening champ bags and even that is only slightly useful.

The reason to not level is that the horrible downscaling system renders all pre-80 content childs play for a player with even a mediocre skill level. It completely ruins the fun of exploring the world, map completion, etc. because what is a serious threat to newbies turns into “kill 20 mobs at once with my whirl -sunglasses-”.

Fixing the scaling could help, but ultimately there is far too much pre-80 content in this game (most of it, in fact) to justify the current levelling speed.

And as I pointed out earlier, levelling is something that can provide alot of value to a game, despite how many people do not like it. When properly implemented, it encourages socializing, teamwork, and can even be relaxing.

ArenaNet clearly realized this with HoT, or we wouldn’t have masteries… :P

Katalos.5038:

The leaderboard definitely needs to be touched. I like WvW and PvP leaderboards. I never look at AP leaderboard, although I don’t mind it being there. Guilds leaderboard is NEEDED, now. WvW rank/kill leaderboard is a MUST too. I hope Anet can award top ranked players (even though I will never be one) too, probably by giving some special effects when they are in the open world. Players who do not look at the leaderboard have no way to know a player is a top ranked player. Some cosmetic effects like a big floating crown on top players head (so everyone can notice) will be so cooool.

I enjoy GW2. I am just pointing out something I am not used to.

I agree the game would benefit from leaderboards, though I’m not sure what metrics would make for the best system. Best times for dungeons? Some kind of arcade point system? Number of kills? Kdr? Points scored for your world? I don’t know, but a more competitive angle would be good I think.

Hannelore.8153:

I feel like the levelling is way too fast. I don’t even bother to use all of the boosters, tomes etc. that I received over time because if I make a new character i would be level 80 within a week of casual play anyway, and within days of hardcore play.

Another problem is, the levelling curve being so shallow means that players never need other players help to level. I’m not talking about grinding here, I am talking about killing mobs and doing events in a party so that you get the most benefit. The current system enforces soloing because it is not difficult enough to warrant partying.

I know the system has alot of positives, but it also has alot of negatives, and I hope that eventually ArenaNet (and players) will understand those negatives.

This as more a symptom of the game being easy than any issue with leveling. Simply put, almost nothing in open world requires you to use even a fraction of the tools available, so a lot of the people that play there never actually learn to play the game, because they never have to.

As for boosters being useless, that’s purely Anets problem in the gem store, not the
players, and I’d rather Anet kept the gem store focused on selling hats than anything that effects gameplay.

I don’t even know why leveling exists in GW2. Really the only purpose it serves is to unlock traits, skills, and armor for PvE. I guess some people really enjoy progression style games? I leveled 2 characters in PvE, but I found it slow so I leveled a few with crafting and then the rest through WvW. I rush to 80 so that I can stop wasting time with throw-away gear, and so that I can do fractals and daily dungeons. I personally am glad that I can level quickly. I think it would be maddening for someone like me to not be able to play all the content in the game. I think leveling one or two characters in PvE is fun, but it soon looses its novelty and starts to feel like a chore.

BrooksP.4318:

GW2 has no need for leveling

It also had no need for a lot of other standard MMO “features,” like stats on gear — and yet we have them. Why is that? Could it be that ANet decided to try to attract MMO fans other than just sticking with their fan-base from GW?

IndigoSundown.5419:

BrooksP.4318:

GW2 has no need for leveling

It also had no need for a lot of other standard MMO “features,” like stats on gear — and yet we have them. Why is that? Could it be that ANet decided to try to attract MMO fans other than just sticking with their fan-base from GW?

Apples and oranges. Gear stats allow for diversity as well as goals, while I don’t disagree there are other elements of “standard MMOs” that aren’t needed in GW2, but leveling is one that seems counter intuitive.

Leveling is generally used in MMOs as a timegate for endgame content, since Gw2 is “all endgame” it makes leveling almost harmful. Since after spending time leveling and finally hitting cap you are faced with the idea that everything you did while leveling is in fact all you will do at cap. This is why you get so many “Just hit 80, what now?” threads.

E: Also cannot comment on the comparison to GW1 since I only tried it out years ago, but never actually got into it(for whatever reason), and really don’t remember it at all.

Hannelore.8153:

Khisanth.2948:

Danikat.8537:

I don’t know, my first campaign was Prophecies and I got my first character to level 20 just before leaving Kryta (in fact I think it was during the Divinity Coast mission). I still had the Maguuma Jungle, Crystal Desert, South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire to go, had barely started the ‘real’ storyline (I still thought it’d be all about the charr).

It wasn’t as fast as Factions or Nightfall, but still pretty quick compared to other games. Even in non-grindy single-player RPGs you usually won’t hit the max level until very close to the end of the game.

That does not sound very “normal”. Mobs outside of LA is lv11. Mobs outside of Sanctum Cay is lv17. Arriving at LA a character should be lv15 +/-2. If the level difference is more than 6 mobs give no experience. A 19 character would not have gotten any exp from the mobs in Divinity’s Coast. Completing the mission and bonus would have given 2k exp but you would have had to somehow get within 2k exp of leveling from even lower level mobs.

Going back on to the topic of the thread though. I have yet to see any reason given for the benefit of loitering about at lower level. “Too fast” implies there are reasons to not level. The only benefit I can think of is for opening champ bags and even that is only slightly useful.

The reason to not level is that the horrible downscaling system renders all pre-80 content childs play for a player with even a mediocre skill level. It completely ruins the fun of exploring the world, map completion, etc. because what is a serious threat to newbies turns into “kill 20 mobs at once with my whirl -sunglasses-”.

Fixing the scaling could help, but ultimately there is far too much pre-80 content in this game (most of it, in fact) to justify the current levelling speed.

And as I pointed out earlier, levelling is something that can provide alot of value to a game, despite how many people do not like it. When properly implemented, it encourages socializing, teamwork, and can even be relaxing.

ArenaNet clearly realized this with HoT, or we wouldn’t have masteries… :P

I’m pretty sure downscaling used to be more aggressive. I remember seeing a lot of people whine about how they couldn’t faceroll through low level content with their level 80 characters. My reaction was basically “if you can’t faceroll through the starting area, you’re bad at the game.” That was not received.

I’d be happy if they got rid of levels. It’s an archaic concept. Of course, some people are a bit reactionary in their game tastes and think an RPG isn’t an RPG without levels. (Hope they never see a whitewolf game. their brain might explode)

Hannelore.8153:

The reason to not level is that the horrible downscaling system renders all pre-80 content childs play for a player with even a mediocre skill level. It completely ruins the fun of exploring the world, map completion, etc. because what is a serious threat to newbies turns into “kill 20 mobs at once with my whirl -sunglasses-”.

Fixing the scaling could help, but ultimately there is far too much pre-80 content in this game (most of it, in fact) to justify the current levelling speed.

And as I pointed out earlier, levelling is something that can provide alot of value to a game, despite how many people do not like it. When properly implemented, it encourages socializing, teamwork, and can even be relaxing.

ArenaNet clearly realized this with HoT, or we wouldn’t have masteries… :P

A level 80 fighting level 80 mobs aren’t much of a challenge either. Unless you are in the habit of fighting multiple charging teragriffs simultaneously or certain veteran risen there is really not much of a difference. It’s not even possible to do either except at specific locations/events.

Teamwork? I encounter way more people who contribute negatively than people who contribute positively.

BrooksP.4318:

IndigoSundown.5419:

BrooksP.4318:

GW2 has no need for leveling

It also had no need for a lot of other standard MMO “features,” like stats on gear — and yet we have them. Why is that? Could it be that ANet decided to try to attract MMO fans other than just sticking with their fan-base from GW?

Apples and oranges. Gear stats allow for diversity as well as goals, while I don’t disagree there are other elements of “standard MMOs” that aren’t needed in GW2, but leveling is one that seems counter intuitive.

Leveling is generally used in MMOs as a timegate for endgame content, since Gw2 is “all endgame” it makes leveling almost harmful. Since after spending time leveling and finally hitting cap you are faced with the idea that everything you did while leveling is in fact all you will do at cap. This is why you get so many “Just hit 80, what now?” threads.

E: Also cannot comment on the comparison to GW1 since I only tried it out years ago, but never actually got into it(for whatever reason), and really don’t remember it at all.

MMO’s generally feature progression. Many games are not about progression, but MMO’s are not among them. MMO’s use ongoing anticipation/reward cycles as a means of keeping players in the game. Progression is the main cycle they use. Levels are not just time gates. Levels represent progression. Other than gear tiers, they’re the most recognizable progression system in MMO’s.

It’s possible to create MMO’s without levels. However, those MMO’s had better implement some kind of progression system in their place. TSW did it, and its character development system is either relatively simple or a massive grind depending on what you’re going for. What they did not do was implement a level-free system that had no time gates to content.

I suspect, had the original “no-levels” plan been followed, GW2 would still have had time gates. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all build elements would have been available at character creation. Maybe all mobs would have been equally hard. But, I doubt it.

I’m probably in the minority here, but I actually dislike most forms of progression. The only kinds I don’t mind are ‘bragging rights’ like pvp/achievement ranks/titles in this game that don’t affect gameplay or the kind built into the flow of the game, ie metroidvanias and the like. As I mentioned earlier, simply getting more powerful just annoys me.
If the game had been leveless, would there still be content gates? Probably, though I’d like to think they would have been based on completing specific challenges designed to test a players skill up to a certain capacity. Or just replace levels with ranks ala fractals.

I think the leveling is just right in GW2. It’s not too slow, not too fast, and there’s always stuff to do at each level to keep you entertained. If you ask me I think you’ve gotten your money’s worth already OP, putting in around 60-80 hours to level 60 is pretty kitten good value for your dollar. That’s not even counting the various other activities you can try, like PvP, WvW, mini-games, Silverwastes, Fractals, Dungeons, etc.

Arcadio.6875:

ExtraCosmic.9082:

The generational difference is likely because early MMO’s were all subscription fee games, while today the free to play model is popular (and, obviously, used in GW2). Subscription games have an active interest in everything taking you as long as possible, so their leveling is far slower.

F2P and B2P games also need to make players stick around for a long time. That way they are more likely to make cash shop purchases or get friends into the game who may make purchases as well. GW2 has a lot of things that are grindy or time-gated in order to keep people playing. It just doesn’t do that with levels. FFXIV has a subscription, but leveling is fast as well.

I think people just got tired of leveling so modern games made it faster and moved the grind to something players were more willing to accept.

Nah b2p just need to send notifications about updates and sales. P2p are the ones that people playing at least once a month.

Hannelore.8153:

I feel like the levelling is way too fast. I don’t even bother to use all of the boosters, tomes etc. that I received over time because if I make a new character i would be level 80 within a week of casual play anyway, and within days of hardcore play.

Another problem is, the levelling curve being so shallow means that players never need other players help to level. I’m not talking about grinding here, I am talking about killing mobs and doing events in a party so that you get the most benefit. The current system enforces soloing because it is not difficult enough to warrant partying.

I know the system has alot of positives, but it also has alot of negatives, and I hope that eventually ArenaNet (and players) will understand those negatives.

YES. Oh yes. I agree with you 100%. I never used any booster because it will make leveling even faster and I hate that.

A BIG agree on the players interaction during leveling. I feel like playing a single player game when leveling. Other players can’t affect my leveling positively or negatively. By positively, I mean help from other players. By negatively, I mean ks or pk. I agree they are annoying, but that’s life. You have to deal with problems. I don’t understand why modern MMORPGs are so paranoid about cyber bullies. Most of them even removed open world pk and GW2, even better, removed ks. In the old days, you can’t even report for such silly things. You have to deal with it. You can join guilds, meet friends, make alliances and fight back. That’s the BEST part of MMORPG. Modern MMORPGs have so much peacefulness, so much fairness, so much protection, and are so boring.