Guild Wars 2

I have a 24 lvl Sylvari. My friend has 10 lvl Sylvari. Whenever she logs in, I’m trying to play with her, but we’ve found it’s … difficult. We’re going through Caledon Forest, but:

a) I have done all the hearts, so when she approaches them, I don’t see them, I don’t know what to do and cannot really help (most of heart related stuff is gone for me)
b) There’s limit to how far we can go with story mode – she obviously has to level up to go for higher parts.
c) We have to run around the map to hunt for dynamic events – which is not always what we want. If we bump into one, that’s fine, but if not – there’s still nothing I can do to help.

Sure, we can go to see some vistas, etc. but that’s not enough for casual friend play. This turns into not so pleasant “i’ll just follow you and you keep telling me what I should do for you, if I can actually help”.

This is delicate problem and I realize it’s hard to fix. I could roll in new alt, but let’s put that away for the sake of the argument – after all it was a GW2 feat to downlevel char to make this possible. Is there a way to re-do the hearts with other player? From the time-continuum it wouldn’t make sense (I’ve already helped and they know me), but there are many tradeoffs in GW2 for the “quality of life” (like the instant mail out of thin air, for example), so this is not something that cannot be tweaked in future.

I would like to ask Arenanet about the intended gameplay in this situation and what improvements could happen in the future to help with this. Also, I would like to ask others, how do you play with your friends, that have lower lvl chars. Maybe we’re doing something wrong and it’s a matter of approach (PvP is ruled out though), but it’s simply not fun currently. Just the downleveling is not enough. Make me part of my friend’s gameplay, not a burden that is dragged behind.

You pretty much answered your question. You either make a new character and level with your friend or you follow your friend and wait for them to tell you what needs to be done for the quests/hearts.

If it’s awkward to do content you’ve already done, you could try playing in some other race’s starting area. That might get expensive though, if you travel back and forth for story quests.

I just follow my friend around wherever she is going and aggro and kill everything in my path. Works for me. =D

Thanks Deans, that might be a good solution., actually. As for others, yeah, you clearly don’t have the same problem I have.

I’ve also discovered that even downleveled, my utility skills and traits make a HUGE difference. As an D/D Ele I can faceroll through 6 mobs being downleveled to the same level as my friend is, yet she’s struggling as a Me to kill just one/two mobs. So the downleveling doesn’t really make any difference, other than the fact that I don’t have infinite health. What this means, is that I feel like an intruder when playing with my friend, because it’s not fun at all for her to see me killing everything in few secs, while she brings little to the game. I literally have to limit myself and not burst so many attacks, so that she can have some fighting too. It’s no longer her accomplishment or team accomplishment, it’s just me. Which is just the same old problem of high level player helping lowbies.

What I was trying to say is that (apparently, correct me if I’m wrong) GW2 did not solve the problem here, though they advertised they did. So I have my char downleveled, so what? I still can’t really play with my friend. In WoW there are repeatable quests or quests that can be shared. I was hoping for GW2 to introduce something new and refreshing here and I guess I’m somewhat disappointed. Let’s see how this will work out, once they stop fighting with hackers and bugs and can concentrate on bringing new features.

You should get a little heart next to her portrait I think, telling you the % that she is at. Otherwise, I’m sure she can work out what she needs to do from the description..telling her what to do. You can just help kill the mobs. In fact, this is a far more user friendly game than most MMO’s for playing with low levels.

Besides, you’re only 24, that won’t take long at all for her to catch up on.

It won’t as I play at my own pace and level up my character too :/ It was always a problem in all MMO’s before – that if you want to play with friends you have to synchronize your game time and always play and do stuff together to remain on the same page. But it’s terribly limiting and frustrating in actual world, and never works. Some people lag, some people are just too eager to go further. But, by then, the sync is gone and you cannot do the same quests, etc. etc.

Yes, I can help kill the mobs – sigh – I’ve described what happens when I try to help – it’s just 3 secs of pure madness and then dead bodies on the floor.

I just wish there was some kind of “leader” system. If I’m in party leaded by my friend, I could perceive the world from both points, mine and leader’s. So the heart would say: you’ve done this, but leader didn’t, so you can still do this with him if you wish so. This would be a solution for this problem. Not sure if this is a breach for some kind of grind or exploiting, but I’m sure there could be some rules around that (like no money / karma as a reward, or substantially smaller amount, xp is still the same though).

rattkin.3719:

It won’t as I play at my own pace and level up my character too :/ It was always a problem in all MMO’s before – that if you want to play with friends you have to synchronize your game time and always play and do stuff together to remain on the same page. But it’s terribly limiting and frustrating in actual world, and never works. Some people lag, some people are just too eager to go further. But, by then, the sync is gone and you cannot do the same quests, etc. etc.

Yes, I can help kill the mobs – sigh – I’ve described what happens when I try to help – it’s just 3 secs of pure madness and then dead bodies on the floor.

I just wish there was some kind of “leader” system. If I’m in party leaded by my friend, I could perceive the world from both points, mine and leader’s. So the heart would say: you’ve done this, but leader didn’t, so you can still do this with him if you wish so. This would be a solution for this problem. Not sure if this is a breach for some kind of grind or exploiting, but I’m sure there could be some rules around that (like no money / karma as a reward, or substantially smaller amount, xp is still the same though).

Well, it shouldn’t be a problem because as you level up there’s a wider range of zones to go to. Just go to a different one with your friend then you can both do the hearts together.

Hi- I play with a lower lvl friend a lot- my main is lvl 68 his highest is about 35ish.

We tried playing with alts but that sucked for us because we are both invested in our mains. We also tried doing stuff the other has done before to show the ropes kind of deal but that is not really fun for exactly the reasons you have said.

Our solution has been to pick a lvl appropriate for him on a map that neither of us have been to before- there are surprisingly many to choose from.

This worked really well, since we could both see new stuff, explore and help each-other do the hearts and vistas etc.

To my great surprise I have found this much more challenging even when down lvl-d as opposed to areas where I have been before where I pretty much march through.
I have also noticed that I get the correct drops for my level for those new areas.

You need to work on things that make you a ‘better escort.’ Naturally you don’t need to do the menial tasks that your friend is doing, so just ‘help’ with hearts by being there. Try to get to heart area’s that have DE’s in them and those will finish the heart for you. You get to kill things with your friend not instead of your friend. You are an Elly so switch to water and keep her alive. If D/D is not the best option for keeping her alive, get a staff. Maybe even take a low level staff with you so you don’t over kill things. You can work on your ‘team play’ instead of the ‘solo play’ meaning use a party buff element, spend more time concentrating on making your friend survive and play well instead of you playing well.

As a Warrior I switch to a bow when escorting and only go melee when we need me to. I do not attack first I usually wait until they are engaged and working on the target before I attack. I switch out skills that help the group rather than just me, more banners, shouts less signets. I also don’t unload the heavy attacks that will end the fight, unless needed. I act as a tour guide – “hey guys lets check out this cave.”

Idea’s for you, Switch to water:
Staff – Make sure your auto attack goes through your partner to heal on the way to hitting something. Concentrate on your use of Geyser and Healing Rain.
D/D (options limited): Auto attack is less damage but causes vulnerability that will help your friend do better damage. Make sure she is the recipient of cleansing wave.

I don’t think you understand what the problem is. You’re trying to push me to a specific “backstage” role of healer / buffer and you’re telling me that it should be fun. It’s not. I don’t want to be crippled and pushed to these roles, just so that I can play with my friend. All this reasoning really boils down to “just attack less, be more passive and use this passiveness to help friend, maybe”. It’s not about gamestyle, it’s about what the game has to offer for me to overcome these problems. Yes, I always can just go for healing. But it suddenly is no longer fun for me. I have 8 years of playing Druid Healer in WoW dungeons and raids. I liked healing, but I’m done with it. If I ever want it again, I’ll just go back to WoW, because it’s perfect there. In GW2 I want this equality everyone keeps talking about.

Morrigan, you said “Our solution has been to pick a lvl appropriate for him on a map that neither of us have been to before- there are surprisingly many to choose from.”. How do you actually do that? Just look at some map with lvls on it and pick the area?

@ Ratkin: I am not sure I understand your question but I’ll give a go at an answer

If you open your map tap you will see that the zones are roughly lvl graded. I don’t know how much you normally travel around on the map or if you just stick to one zone but you can essentially go to any other area via the asura gates in your main city that links to Lion’s Arch and from there to any other city.
Since your friend is lvl 10- I assume that you have been playing in the Sylvari starter area

That leaves the human Starter zone (Queensdale), The Charr (Plains of Ashford), Norn (Wayfarer Foothills) and the Asura ( Metrica Province). All those areas fall in the 1-15/17 lvl range) and are drastically different with different kinds of quests and events.

The other option, if you want more of a challenge – would be to go to the various 15-25 lvl areas. That might be very though on your friend (depending on what class she is) but it is do able. It really all depends on how much of a challenge you want in the game. Hopping around on the map can be great fun. I hope this was what you asked

Yeah that was a little bit silly question I forgot that in GW2 levels are there on map in game. I thought you went for wiki or external sources to gather this data.

rattkin.3719:

Yeah that was a little bit silly question I forgot that in GW2 levels are there on map in game. I thought you went for wiki or external sources to gather this data.

hahaha! np

So a few things… that “dagger/dagger facerolls mobs” thing? That’s going to end for you, very soon.

That “low-level mesmer can barely stay alive” thing? That’s going to end for your friend, very soon.

In a not-so-great amount of time, even downleveled, she’s going to be the one helping you to survive.

I play with my husband, my best friend and another really close friend… our levels are always different. We’re only now (three of us, anyway) becoming evenly matched… though my best friend is still something like level 40 because he can’t play as often as the rest of us.

We frequently accompany one another through lower levels… even though I’m currently level 76, they end up accompanying me because rather than rushing for the level 80 zones, I’ve been systematically working my way through every zone “in order” based on level. So I did all the starter zones, then all the 15-25’s, etc. I’m currently doing Timberline Falls. And then we’re also doing stuff with my best friend, working on getting him leveled up.

If one of us has done the heart already, it’s not a big deal… there’s always killing to be done as part of the RH or right nearby. The group presence usually makes it easier for the one going for the heart – and they tend to get it quicker because we’re helping to kill things.

Also, keep in mind that your XP is being downleveled as well… it’s taken me 200+ hours to get a single toon to level 76 because the content I’m playing gives much lower rewards.

My husband plays less than I do, but he’s level 73 – he does higher areas, so he’s leveled faster. My other bestie is level 80 and has been for about a week… she has spent a lot of time following me around, but has also done high level content which made her hit 80 first.

It all balances out in the end – and the important thing is, we’re able to play together as we want.

rattkin.3719:

Thanks Deans, that might be a good solution., actually. As for others, yeah, you clearly don’t have the same problem I have.

I’ve also discovered that even downleveled, my utility skills and traits make a HUGE difference. As an D/D Ele I can faceroll through 6 mobs being downleveled to the same level as my friend is, yet she’s struggling as a Me to kill just one/two mobs. So the downleveling doesn’t really make any difference, other than the fact that I don’t have infinite health. What this means, is that I feel like an intruder when playing with my friend, because it’s not fun at all for her to see me killing everything in few secs, while she brings little to the game. I literally have to limit myself and not burst so many attacks, so that she can have some fighting too. It’s no longer her accomplishment or team accomplishment, it’s just me. Which is just the same old problem of high level player helping lowbies.

What I was trying to say is that (apparently, correct me if I’m wrong) GW2 did not solve the problem here, though they advertised they did. So I have my char downleveled, so what? I still can’t really play with my friend. In WoW there are repeatable quests or quests that can be shared. I was hoping for GW2 to introduce something new and refreshing here and I guess I’m somewhat disappointed. Let’s see how this will work out, once they stop fighting with hackers and bugs and can concentrate on bringing new features.

I’m not sure what is your problem here. Is it the lack of rewards for you, as you already done the hearts yourself, or how strong your character is related to the low level mobs you are fighting, even downleveled?

You complained about two different things on your post. The first one, the answer is simple: ask your friend to go, with you, to another race’s starting zone… I’ve done this with multiple friends with my alts. Now if your problem is that you are strong enough to faceroll any low level mob, then, no repeatable quest will help you and you will still faceroll everything.

Now, I’m not sure if it is a zone related problem, because I only started to notice an increase in power on my elementalist after level 35, when rares started to drop for me. Before that, downleveling myself would make me stronger, compared to the low level content, yes, altho not that much as you are saying.

Anyways, I’m sorry your experience is somewhat different. I had a blast redoing all the low level content dozens of times with friends and their alts. Hopefully you figure it out. Have fun!

@ Airala

^ yes I see what you mean^

My main is a Mesmer and I play with my husband- Ranger and our friend lvl 35ish Ranger. The other night my husband was doing a dungeon that I had to miss out on and my husband told me afterward that he wished I had been in there because it would have made his life soo much easier.
High lvl Mesmers are awesome! Your set-up sounds very similar to ours.

I play with my wife (she’s level 25) with my level 80 guardian in full exotics. Yes I do more damage than her but trust me after you go out of the starting zone the scaling starts to work a lot better and you will find things that challenge you both. Those starting zones are just really easy to help new players, it gets harder.

They should have the heart info always stay on the side where events and the story quest info it. When completed it should just fill the heart rather then remove it completely.

But i agree though that the downleveling needs some serious work. When you are being dropped a couple levels it isn’t too bad (in some cases the several level drops hurt you alot), but when you are level 80 being downleveled in a low level zone you just roflstomp everything with little to no effort making it no fun for your low level friend/s and other people in the zone.

Playing with your low level friend = simply being their bodyguard/muscle. Nothing more.

Maybe. So far I, with right utility, good mobility and certain trait balance, D/D Ele is melting through things in no time. So far I did not notice any change in that pattern. I should probably mention that I’m minmaxer from WoW and it’s quite possible that I’m playing the strongest build and using it most effectively. I certainly put a lot of testing and calculation behind this.

I’ve complained about the general play with lowbie experience – and there are lots of things that influence it. First is the inability to take part in my friend’s experience and I’m mainly talking hearts here. Without seeing hearts, I cannot help, because I just don’t know what to do or I cannot do anything to help (heart mechanics is disabled for me). Second is the downlevel illusion – yes, I’m downleveled but I’m still significantly stronger, which means that there’s no point in pretending “lookie, we’re still equal so we can have a challenge”.

Yes, going to other area is a solution, but not a perfect one. I would imagine my friend would like to play in Sylvari zones, as this is the reason she rolled Sylvari. Going to other area feels out of focus, out of home and awkward, especially at the beginning.

Again, I do realize this is a complex problem – and so far I haven’t encountered MMO that solves this right. Mostly, because developers still feel that this is insignificant problem (“kittenjust roll another alt and play it”), which is bizarre, given the realities of friend MMO play (never synced).

I hoped GW2 could fix this, but it didn’t. It has the same issues as every other MMO out there. Which is not really a whine, but a slight shade of disappointment for a MMO that was advertised to bring a lot of quality of life and social feel to the game.

Whatever problems you are having still beats some of the alternatives offerred in other games.

Groonz.7825:

Playing with your low level friend = simply being their bodyguard/muscle. Nothing more.

Not really no.
Maybe that is just how you play and it might depend on your class.

But really there is no reason for that to be the case- as someone above me said the down leveling system works a lot better once you get out of the starter areas.

@ Rattkin: If you are really set on playing in Sylvari zone- have you tried Brisbane Wildlands? it is the 15+ Sylvari area.
After that you will have to go to other race zones though.

As an aside: I have a dagger/dagger Ele and I found her OP on lower levels but now I have retired her because she might as well have been called Fainting Maiden not for me I guess.

Been playing with low level friends for a couple of weeks without any kind of problems. DE’s are active for everyone so there’s nothing at all to inhibit us playing together. And since that is the majority of the content, there’s no problem. Then I accompany them on their personal stories, which is great because I’ve generally not seen any of them yet. Then there’s just exploring. As for hearts, yes, I’m done with them, but hearts are sideline content. That’s right — sideline content. They usually just take a few minutes to complete, so I let them do that while I farm mobs or nodes. Then we continue on our way.

I’ve found slumming with lowbie friends to be a completely seamless experience. My only gripe is that my presence makes the content too easy for them.

Well, my girlfriend started to play recently and she can only play on weekends, so she levels very slowly, but that wasnt a problem for me, as a Ranger lvl 80, i went to the first zone with her and we had alot of fun.
i also made a alt to play with her second toon, i made the same race and story so we could do everything together.

its been fun for me, maybe you should “play along” with what is happening around you and not really care about level.

as the part that you are much stronger than the mobs in the area, that is true… but isnt something ridiculous that takes always all the fun, and as you go up the mobs will get stronger and that problem will go away.

How about allowing players who have completed a task to be able to continue doing the task, but instead of working towards any sort of completion goal, you can just keep doing the tasks forever for a tiny bit of karma per thing done (or some other reward if there’s a karma farming issue with this idea). This way we can see the objectives and help out, and be a part of the lower level community if we wanted to.

I’ve helped lower level people complete hearts in zones I’ve completed. I follow them around and attack whatever they attack. If they don’t know what to do for the heart… well… that’s a personal problem.

This is a really easy question to answer: play a starter area that neither of you has completed? If you’ve literally played EVERY 1-15 zone then you’re SOL, but if not, have both of you travel to the Norn area, or the Charr area, or the Asura area, and play there.

That’s what I did with my friends. Kept it fresh for both of us.

Please read my other answers before you reply. It does not hurt.

Nah I’m good thanks.

Being so much more powerful probably should be tweaked, but it is hard to do. People would only complain if they ran back to the beginner area and suddenly lost all their utility skills (you know… for those areas that make you level 4 or lower…). But as long as you have them, you’re going to be just plain better than your lower level friends.

I tried to play TOR being a huge Star Wars fan, and got my friend and girlfriend to play too. But I wanted to play on a single character, and at the time I had more time than they did. So I just plain couldn’t play at all when they weren’t playing. It murdered my momentum and sense of fun, and was the main reason I left. I never got past level 25, despite enjoying the game, because I had no alternative except to play with another character over the same content, when I hadn’t even seen the whole game yet. THe downleveling thing is greatly preferred, IMO.

I don’t think you understand what the problem is. You’re trying to push me to a specific “backstage” role of healer / buffer and you’re telling me that it should be fun. It’s not. I don’t want to be crippled and pushed to these roles, just so that I can play with my friend. All this reasoning really boils down to “just attack less, be more passive and use this passiveness to help friend, maybe”. It’s not about gamestyle, it’s about what the game has to offer for me to overcome these problems. Yes, I always can just go for healing. But it suddenly is no longer fun for me. I have 8 years of playing Druid Healer in WoW dungeons and raids. I liked healing, but I’m done with it. If I ever want it again, I’ll just go back to WoW, because it’s perfect there. In GW2 I want this equality everyone keeps talking about.

The issue seems to be you want to “help” your friend, but lack the humility to do so.

“crippling yourself”
“backstage role”
“being more passive”

The fact that you seem inherently insulted, slighted or emasculated by the act of taking a supporting role in someone else’s journey seems to indicate the problem is not with the game design itself, but that your personality just doesn’t seem to square with doing so.

Like when a kid asks their dad to help build a derby racer and the dad ends up just doing the whole thing basically themselves while the kid watches, then wonders why the whole “bonding” experience didn’t really materialize.

Internet is not a place for a remote psychoanalysis, so your comment is a bit inappropriate.

If you’ve read the whole thread, you would learn that the issue is complex and has several aspects to it. I don’t want to “help” my friend, I want “play with” my friend, on equal terms, because that’s something that was “sort of” promised. If I want to just use the old model, I always have WoW. Lecturing others on how to play support role is just rude.

Summarizing, because it is slowly going nowhere. ArenaNet, couple of thoughts from this thread for ya:
- the most popular way to play together (with lowbie) and have fun for both parties is to go to area unknown to both. Pro: adventure. Con: out of story, out of place, out of context.
- downleveled characters are still very powerful and even on average same level, can do massive damage. This asks them to not attack or attack rarely, or switch entirely into support role, which might not be fun for everyone.
- lack of heart visibility after they’re done is an actual issue. A fix that would still show the heart text in quest log would be very welcome (could be a UI switch or enabled only in parties where some members don’t have these hearts yet). Heck, I can even pass on extra karma, the xp from mob killing is probably ok. But just allow me to see what this heart was all about, so that I can better help my friend without her stopping and describing what to do (breaks gameplay) or just me following blindly and killing what she targets. There could be also some sort of “quest text” sharing, via chat. Quality of life, that.

In the game Dead Island the enemies scale to meet you. I think this may be a possible solution.

The trick here is for the game to remain challenging and not require you to “hold back” just so others can have a chance. I think that it would work to have enemies of varying levels attack based on the players.

There must be a way to have the enemy adjust so everyone has an equal fight.

At very low levels (read: 1-15) players don’t have many utility skills unlocked and only 1-2 slots to put them in. Yes, as a downleveled player you have 3 utilities and an elite. So you will be more OP than your buddy cuz you have a greater range of skills and you have traited abilities. Even if you only use your 1-5 skills, you’ll probably be throwing out extra burns or something thanks to your traits. So yes, helping a 1-15 friend will be a bit awkward.

But when your friend breaks into the next zone, has a few points in traits, and a couple utilities, you’ll be on even ground again (mostly). In the meantime, instead of aggroing 1, aggro 5 and have fun saving your friend’s butt. He’ll have some fun being challenged and you can keep him alive.

There’s a problem with the system you want though, it means that afk levelling (where you get party member to help you do hearts, which will end up in they do ALL of it) will occur and I doubt that Anet would like that.

Why not make a main that you love and a second main that you also love but only use to play with your friends? Simple fix imo. How can you not like more than 1 profession in this game? >.>…