Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration. I would prefer to have some action instead of a running simulator……leveling through dungeons would be nice or through pvp. Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.
Rest of the leveling expierience is a unrewarding grind and running simulator: Walk to a) intertact with stuff/kill mobs. And there is never enough to complete the “heart” fast enough. You end up running arround looking for quest relevant stuff. EVERY heart is a variation of the same stuff and it gets old really fast.

Events: Events are fine and i’m having fun while doing them with one exeption : Bosses.
The bosses are some other kind of bs. Almost every event boss has unavoidable oneshot mechanics : being chaincocooned and then blown up by the spiderqueen for example. 2 dodges don’t cut it when you’re constantly slowed. I know it is a group event but i remember that someone said this is a skillbased game. Instead of interesting cool mechanics there is oneshot bs.

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Classes/Depth: There is not a single class i completely enjoy. There is always one or two skills that i don’t like using. Skills in general are boring. You just spam skills that come off cooldown. No rotation, no thought, no depth behind it. This feels like League of Legends when it should feel like a complex and deep roleplaying expierience.

World Bosses: Zergfest….nothing more to mention here.

General : Xp gain is godawful or i haven’t found a efficient way to level wich makes everything feel really slow and grindy. Not that xp matters anyway because you get downscaled in areas too low for your level so you never ever feel powerful in this game.
Feeling powerful is fun from time to time you know?
Idk if i will continue playing this game. I feel like maybe i should push through to max level to get the whole picture but i would really have to force myself and THAT is the cardinal sin imho.

I really don’t see the appeal. Sure other MMOs are mostly the same but some of them at least have an interesting story or in depth combat/skill mechanics and dungeons.

Is this your first MMO or have you played others much? I’m always curious when someone doesn’t like a game where they came from since prior experience tends to create expectations.

As for leveling speed, I think this game levels you fairly quickly compared to other games I’ve played like LOTRO and Rift. I can level a character here way faster than on those games. Crafting and map completions are fairly fast leveling, but there’s also WvW, which if you get a good commander that keeps moving around and taking things, the leveling is insane.

I must concur with Celtic Lady. Pretty much disagreed with almost all your points, Aphex. No, Guild Wars 2 isn’t the best thing since sliced bread. But I do respect your right to disagree.

To each their own.

I’ve played almost every mmo out there. My favourite was Anarchy Online because of the depth ,dependance on other professions and the community.

lol You know, I don’t mind helping you out in game.
This clearly is a Learn to play issue which I’d be glad to help you with.

Yes you can level up in PvP btw.

It sounds like mmorpgs are not for you. You may want to keep to single player rpg games or co op rpgs games. GW2 is the lightest of mmorpgs for both grind in items and exp out there.
The main thing about your comments about zergfest it is that way becuse there is no calming system in most mmorpgs whom ever hits first or the group hits first gets the loot so yes you can have more then one group taking down a boss BUT only one group gets one set of loot drops where in GW2 every one gets a set of loot drop. So with out letting every one get loot you cant have a counter to a zergfest.

XP gain… way… too… low…?

By all six gods, too low compared to WHAT?

Also you can solo most group events, you just need to know the combat system in depth.

You can level through pvp using tomes of knowledge.

you know that dodge isn’t there to pe spamed but actually used with head. And also you have stun breakers, and condition cleaners, and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone. Champions are by definition something you do with a party or a group of people.

The skillbased part is meant for higher level content and mobs…not Bosses. Also you need at least one more, or two players to beat a champion…

I don’t know what other games or mmo’s you’ve played, but i do prefer the heart thingys instead of going to a npc with a " ! " above the head, take the quest, kill 5 x mobs go back to the npc that now has a “?” turn in the quest, get xp and money. That’s even more walking, that is busy work.

Also leveling is slow? it takes a week to hit level cap… 7 day, hell if you really take your time…like really explore everything on every single map, 2 weeks.

World bosses, yea it’s a zerg fest…i mean there are 100+ ppl at one boss, what strategy will you use? each take a turn at hitting him, maybe take some numbers? go mano a mano with the boss? Also isn’t this what it’s in every game? at least the countless that i’ve played.

Also the game kinda starts after lvl 80. So i would suggest you get there, maybe join a guild, play with some friends, do different things.

I didn’t like the game at the beggining either, it was wayyyy to different from what i was used. But it did grow on me, and now i can’t go back to how things were before.

9Dragons, Cabal, WoW, SWOTR, Lineage? no thank you…

also tell us what level you got, maybe we can give you some advices…

Your complaint about questing can be said for any MMO. In my opinion, though, the monotony is mitigated by the fact that most offer multiple ways to complete the quest, allowing for more variety from quest to quest. Experience gain is also faster than in most MMOs I’ve played, especially considering you gain experience from a wide variety of activities. Killing mobs, completing quests, skill point challenges, vistas, POIs, events, map completions, crafting, bosses, all reward experience. Personal story quests are also a great source of EXP, and help break up monotony of map exploration. Also, you can level through Edge of the Mists PvP, just not sPvP.

The game is skill-based, more so than other MMOs that are largely gear dependant; it is also cooperation dependant. Bosses are not meant to be soloed. The mechanics of boss encounters are tailored to encourage cooperative game play. This is part of the reason this game has such a great community. You are rewarded for working together, rather than punished for helping others.

RE: Poison/bleed (and other conditions)- Every profession has some condition clearing skill available to them. Use them. Part of the skill in this game comes from balancing damage skills with damage mitigation/support skills.

Classes/Depth: There are so many ways to play each individual profession. Different trait builds, skill builds, gear sets, weapon sets, etc. Your available skills, and even the basic play style, changes completely depending on which weapon/weapons you have equipped. Choosing a favorite class involves a lot more than just choosing a profession: it’s also about finding the profession/weapon/build/utility skill set that best matches your preffered style of play.

World Boses: Zergfest. No argument there.

Downscaling is, in my opinion, one of the better aspects of this game. It keeps lower-level maps from becoming ghost towns where new players feel lost and alone. It also gives incentive to help new players even when you are higher level. Even on my 80s, there is still much for me to gain by going to low-level maps. You also do keep some of the gear bonuses from your high-level gear when you downscale to a low-level map. An 80 in full exotic armor still feels powerful on lower level maps.

My suggestion is to not try and compare GW2 to other MMOs; it really is quite different. Join a guild, talk to people, experiment with different professions, weapon sets, and builds to find one you enjoy. There is so much more to this game than the usual grind to max level followed by endless gear grind.

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

Aphex.9782:

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

I sent you a PM offering to help ya.
=) Did you get it?

Aphex.9782:

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

PvP, WvW are both generally considered faster ways of levelling. Dungeons are very fast too.

You just need to get used to the game, as someone who has played tons of MMO’s to the point I couldn’te ven name them all…This one is 100% the easiest to level. People go 1-80 in one day (this isn’t by tomes of knowledge). I see how map exploration might not be yoru cup of tea, explore into other parts of the game in that case.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Aphex.9782:

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

I sent you a PM offering to help ya.
=) Did you get it?

Yes unfortunately i couldn’t answer due to some bs spam prevention. 7hours to be able to answer a pm….yeah right. Anyway i am german so i can’t speak english pretty well. May cause earcancer so i prefer not to join a voicechat.

Aphex.9782:

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

Give PvP a chance then, it will be a difficult way to get started, and you may need to turn off your chat window from time to time….but:

• you gain an alternative way of leveling and acquiring loot

• you can fully explore the combat system, traits, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.

• you will improve as a player, since low-mid range PvE will rarely utilitze certain systems effectively, such as dodging, condition management, CC effects, etc.

Akagami.9861:

…and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone. Champions are by definition something you do with a party or a group of people. …

The majority of the champions in the game can be defeated solo….

I also agree with the OP. Level experience is even worst now under the NPE and bores more of the avg MMO player. NPE only appeals to grindoholics

Aphex.9782:

Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration.

Found your problem.

Aphex.9782:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Aphex.9782:

I have one 29 Warrior and a 20 Elemental that i want to focus on. Map exploration is fine as i said if you like that kind of stuff but i prefer other ways of leveling.

I sent you a PM offering to help ya.
=) Did you get it?

Yes unfortunately i couldn’t answer due to some bs spam prevention. 7hours to be able to answer a pm….yeah right. Anyway i am german so i can’t speak english pretty well. May cause earcancer so i prefer not to join a voicechat.

If it makes you feel any better, I’ve helped many people who where in the same position as you are. It’s okay if you can’t speak english well, as long as you’re able to listen to me talk and explain on voice chat while understanding then it’s good enough. You can type to me in skype your questions too if you feel comfortable that way.

Just let me know if you’re interested cause I’m playing right now. =)

I somewhat agree with the leveling. Upscaling sucks and you just end up being a rally bag in WvW. Fractals are for 80’s and dungeons are level dependent. This leaves hearts and events as the primary way to level. With that said, this is where the personal story could’ve shined. A story to follow that should’ve been a way to level your character. Instead, it gets broken up and gated behind 10 level segments leaving you forced to do other things to level.

You are wrong about PvP. You get a decent supply of Tomes of Knowledge which can be used to level the character you are PvP’ing with.

There is a decent amount of depth and it does take player skill. Spam skills when they are off CD? Clearly you lack the mentioned skill. Skills have a purpose, use them for their purpose. This is like watching rangers use Point Blank Shot when ever it’s off CD just because it’s off CD or players using their healing skill when ever it’s off CD regardless of where their HP are at. Then you die because your healing skill was on CD.

I have, on a number of occasions, solo’ed AC story on my ranger. I’ve soled HotW story on my ranger as well. Just earlier today I solo’ed TA story on my thief. Yet, I too get blown up by that Spider Queen. So don’t let one event boss meant for a group get ya down just because you couldn’t solo it.

Aphex.9782:

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Poison is overpowered? Most of the forum would disagree with you.
And if you’re having trouble with PvE in the open world I would suggest staying out of dungeons…

Wolfheart.7483:

Akagami.9861:

…and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone. Champions are by definition something you do with a party or a group of people. …

The majority of the champions in the game can be defeated solo….

I dare you, i double dare you to defeat them alone. They are created to encourage team play…otherwise what’s the point.

Sure maybe with a ranger or mesmer from a safe distance and in like 30 minutes…sure…but that’s no fun

Lorgus.6148:

Aphex.9782:

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Poison is overpowered? Most of the forum would disagree with you.
And if you’re having trouble with PvE in the open world I would suggest staying out of dungeons…

Maybe he is talking about the Hylek poison darts, in Sparkfly. Those things will kill you if you don’t know how to deal with them. The bleeds they apply last a long time. (Possibly they are bugged. They seem stronger on that map then other maps).

Akagami.9861:

Wolfheart.7483:

Akagami.9861:

…and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone. Champions are by definition something you do with a party or a group of people. …

The majority of the champions in the game can be defeated solo….

I dare you, i double dare you to defeat them alone. They are created to encourage team play…otherwise what’s the point.

Sure maybe with a ranger or mesmer from a safe distance and in like 30 minutes…sure…but that’s no fun

Actually you can solo some champions and most group events with any class.
How is it fun? It’s actually challenging and takes a lot of skills doing it solo that’s how it’s actually fun.

Though playing with groups I prefer dungeon and fractal, and PvP/WvW for that but I dont mind people helping out in Events as I explore. =) Im just glad there are no Kill stealing <3

OP, it’s absolutely okay to hate this game. I hate lots of games that other people enjoy. Nothing wrong with it.

I like this game because it was designed for my general demographic. I enjoy exploring. Aside from the fact that you can level in PvP (which others have said), it’s entirely possible that there’s nothing wrong with the game or your opinion, they simply don’t match.

But since I can level in the open world at better than an hour a level (much better actually), I can’t really see the issue here.

My guess is there’s an incompatibility between this game and your needs as a gamer. But I don’t think that means there’s necessarily something wrong with the leveling process, per se.

Aphex.9782:

I’ve played almost every mmo out there. My favourite was Anarchy Online because of the depth ,dependance on other professions and the community.

That explains alot. I also played AO for 7 years … if that’s your favourite, this game will NOT be your favourite. They are polar opposites.

The fact is that this game doesn’t fit your gaming needs and you should stop wasting your time playing it if that is the case. It won’t change for that.

I don’t really enjoy exploring either; but I have 5 of lv 80 now. None of my character has explored more than 35% of the World.

Heck, I barely do any dungeon at all either. I should, though.

I do agree that lvling is a bit boring. Killing monsters isn’t the way in GW2. You want to focus on events instead.

The community need to learn this Anet want this to be different from other mmos and I like that I’m sick of all these negative people who don’t read the manifestos for GW2 and still complain its not like traditional MMOs.

Akagami.9861:

.. and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone.

I (and a lot of others) disagree:

i have to say that the NPE is somehow hurting the new players….. i don’t blame them for not clicking with the game after few weeks of play… i blame Anet…

azizul.8469:

i have to say that the NPE is somehow hurting the new players….. i don’t blame them for not clicking with the game after few weeks of play… i blame Anet…

I disagree. If those players don’t like the game now then they would not have liked it before either. The early leveling is pretty quick, and its the same stuff to do as you would have had to do then. Except skill points on first characters.

(edited to include a fairly important word)

The game is aoe and zerg based, this reduces the fun of WvW/hotjoin pvp. But after trying all of current mmos, this game is still the best. Most of those mmos are ruined by pay to win shops or hacks/exploits. Their companies just did a suicide with free to play system, one of those games died and lost 90% of players in just 5 months. Gw2’s payment system has done very good job, and the game is still very crowded.

I don’t agree with you on leveling system, gw2’s quests and events are quite good compared to “kill 100 mobs and get x amount xp” quests of many other mmos.
And leveling is not even a problem after the first 2 characters, you get tons of “tomes of knowledge”s and “experience scroll”s to gain levels for alt characters.

One big problem with this game is, I can’t find a “hardcore” goal to reach. I play WvW but getting WXP or WvW levels feel so pointless. If they introduce hardcore goals for the game, it would make me play more. For example, non-sellable legendary skins which only craftable through dominator titles etc…

Aphex.9782:

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration. I would prefer to have some action instead of a running simulator……leveling through dungeons would be nice or through pvp. Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.
Rest of the leveling expierience is a unrewarding grind and running simulator: Walk to a) intertact with stuff/kill mobs. And there is never enough to complete the “heart” fast enough. You end up running arround looking for quest relevant stuff. EVERY heart is a variation of the same stuff and it gets old really fast.

Events: Events are fine and i’m having fun while doing them with one exeption : Bosses.
The bosses are some other kind of bs. Almost every event boss has unavoidable oneshot mechanics : being chaincocooned and then blown up by the spiderqueen for example. 2 dodges don’t cut it when you’re constantly slowed. I know it is a group event but i remember that someone said this is a skillbased game. Instead of interesting cool mechanics there is oneshot bs.

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Classes/Depth: There is not a single class i completely enjoy. There is always one or two skills that i don’t like using. Skills in general are boring. You just spam skills that come off cooldown. No rotation, no thought, no depth behind it. This feels like League of Legends when it should feel like a complex and deep roleplaying expierience.

World Bosses: Zergfest….nothing more to mention here.

General : Xp gain is godawful or i haven’t found a efficient way to level wich makes everything feel really slow and grindy. Not that xp matters anyway because you get downscaled in areas too low for your level so you never ever feel powerful in this game.
Feeling powerful is fun from time to time you know?
Idk if i will continue playing this game. I feel like maybe i should push through to max level to get the whole picture but i would really have to force myself and THAT is the cardinal sin imho.

I really don’t see the appeal. Sure other MMOs are mostly the same but some of them at least have an interesting story or in depth combat/skill mechanics and dungeons.

Most hearts suck(entertainment wise), only do a heart if its easy and gets filled while you do dynamic events.

honestly the game wasnt designed for you to be completely alone, although you can be. Even having one more person with you makes the things that were kinda hard, fairly doable. Doing the story missions give big EXP, its a shame they only come once every 10 levels now. Though, a lot of people dont actually like story, so that might be a mixed bag.

leveling isnt really as fast as people make it out to be, yeah there are a few lulls. based on what you said, spvp might be your best bet, i think you get level scrolls there which can give you levels, its not very fast though.

as far as rotations, depends on the job, they have some profitable skill se

Jana.6831:

Akagami.9861:

.. and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone.

I (and a lot of others) disagree:

lets be accurate here, a new charachter most likely cant solo many champions, you dont have all weapon skills, traits, runes, sigils
Some classes might be able to, but its not really a realistic expectation for new players to be able to solo champions or do some of the dynamic events.

You can reach level 30 in a couple of hours. Then you can do dungeons if you so desire.
The game throws xp at you for everything, events, killing mobs, gathering, exploring, crafting.

No xp gain for pvp? My 550 tomes of knowledge beg to disagree.

Aphex.9782:

I’ve played almost every mmo out there. My favourite was Anarchy Online because of the depth ,dependance on other professions and the community.

GW2 breaks the mold with class dependencies. The days of waiting for a healer or tank to join your party are over. Why play in such constricted fashion?

Aphex.9782:

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. (bla bla bla bla) Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.

Stopped reading. I just can’t take serious this, therefore I’ll avoid the rest.

Why? simple… Based on my own experience:

- I joined GW2 a month ago (yes the promo, never expected this MMO would be worth tbh). Made a Thief, got to lvl 50 in matter of days, got bored. Now my main is a Necro fully L80 with 3 ascended items. Also I created another char (mostly for mule and store of sort of random stuff I think is valuable) and it’s already level 60 DOING NOTHING. All my sPvP and rewards from cleaning maps with the Necro gave me enough xp sheets + books of lvl up. So, basically… YES you do a lot of XP by PvP.

About the variety. OH yeah, like I would want to kill 20 pigs to do a quest or to travel to “x” position to gather an item and then go back the entire way on foot. I mean, don’t get me wrong… I don’t come from a WoW MMO, in fact I am familiar with Ncsoft stuff like Lineage II and Aion and the variety on GW2 is way more huge than both L2 and Aion together (without counting Reshanta on Aion because that’s unique of that game, still is a dead content after 4.0).

I can stand that there are people that doesn’t like Blue color (for example), instead they will preffer pink or other thing. What I do not know is why they bother to try change that blue color into THEIR pink or whatsoever. I do really like fresh ideas, really solid ones i.e: “Take away WvW map completion”, that would be great and many will say “kitten yeah!” but exp improvement?… more? seriously?.

I think that MMO’s are not the type of game you are able to criticize “deeply”.

Have nice day.

Aphex.9782:

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration. I would prefer to have some action instead of a running simulator……leveling through dungeons would be nice or through pvp. Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.
Rest of the leveling expierience is a unrewarding grind and running simulator: Walk to a) intertact with stuff/kill mobs. And there is never enough to complete the “heart” fast enough. You end up running arround looking for quest relevant stuff. EVERY heart is a variation of the same stuff and it gets old really fast.

Events: Events are fine and i’m having fun while doing them with one exeption : Bosses.
The bosses are some other kind of bs. Almost every event boss has unavoidable oneshot mechanics : being chaincocooned and then blown up by the spiderqueen for example. 2 dodges don’t cut it when you’re constantly slowed. I know it is a group event but i remember that someone said this is a skillbased game. Instead of interesting cool mechanics there is oneshot bs.

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Classes/Depth: There is not a single class i completely enjoy. There is always one or two skills that i don’t like using. Skills in general are boring. You just spam skills that come off cooldown. No rotation, no thought, no depth behind it. This feels like League of Legends when it should feel like a complex and deep roleplaying expierience.

World Bosses: Zergfest….nothing more to mention here.

General : Xp gain is godawful or i haven’t found a efficient way to level wich makes everything feel really slow and grindy. Not that xp matters anyway because you get downscaled in areas too low for your level so you never ever feel powerful in this game.
Feeling powerful is fun from time to time you know?
Idk if i will continue playing this game. I feel like maybe i should push through to max level to get the whole picture but i would really have to force myself and THAT is the cardinal sin imho.

I really don’t see the appeal. Sure other MMOs are mostly the same but some of them at least have an interesting story or in depth combat/skill mechanics and dungeons.

No leveling through exp? whew where are the tome’s? man play the game further instead of making a rant 2-3 hours in the game.

Jana.6831:

Akagami.9861:

.. and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone.

I (and a lot of others) disagree:

^ this, not being able to kill a champion implies a fairly low skill level at this point in the game’s lifecycle to be honest…

Hey OP!

From your post I am guessing you are kinda new to this game, so some things may not be too clear yet. I would liek to clear things a bit up, so maybe it will make more sense.

Aphex.9782:

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration. I would prefer to have some action instead of a running simulator……leveling through dungeons would be nice or through pvp. Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.

As others have mentioned, you actually do level up from PvP in forms of “Tomes of knowledge”. You just need to choose the right reward track.
Everything, and I mean everything in this game gives you exp. From exploration, through ressing, to crafting. If exploration is not your thing, you ca go crafting, dungeons, WvW (Edge of the Mists is highly recommended if you want to level fast) and PvP.

You also may not have noticed, but mobs in the open world, who have not been killed for a long time reward more than double the XP.

You also get said ’Tomes of knowledge" now by logging in, and doing some dailies, so if anything, leveling is far easier and faster than it used to be.

Aphex.9782:

Rest of the leveling expierience is a unrewarding grind and running simulator: Walk to a) intertact with stuff/kill mobs. And there is never enough to complete the “heart” fast enough. You end up running arround looking for quest relevant stuff. EVERY heart is a variation of the same stuff and it gets old really fast.

I have to agree, I hate the hearts, they are the most boring thing you can do. But as said above, just avoid them if you don’t like them, lots of other ways to gain XP.

Aphex.9782:

Events: Events are fine and i’m having fun while doing them with one exeption : Bosses.
The bosses are some other kind of bs. Almost every event boss has unavoidable oneshot mechanics : being chaincocooned and then blown up by the spiderqueen for example. 2 dodges don’t cut it when you’re constantly slowed. I know it is a group event but i remember that someone said this is a skillbased game. Instead of interesting cool mechanics there is oneshot bs.

Hm, I’m guessing you mean Champions and you ran into the Spider Queen in Kessex Hills? 90% of the open world champions are soloable, even group event ones, you just need a little bit more experience (and some decent gear doesn’t hurt either for doing it faster).
As for the Spider Queen, that is actually one of the few bosses you cannot solo (altough… I think you actually can with skilled play – have not tried). It’s meachincs are:
- 1 player gets cocooned if hit by it’s projectile
- Queen approaches said victim slowly and if it reaches, kills him
- Other players have to breack the cocoon before that happens

As far as I remember you cannot dodge the cocooc spit, but reflects may work. If they do work, then it’s completely soloable.

Aphex.9782:

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Every class has access to multiple ways to remove conditions (via skills or traits). If you are having problems with conditions, it’s time to reconsider the skills/weapons/traits you are using.

Aphex.9782:

Classes/Depth: There is not a single class i completely enjoy. There is always one or two skills that i don’t like using. Skills in general are boring. You just spam skills that come off cooldown. No rotation, no thought, no depth behind it. This feels like League of Legends when it should feel like a complex and deep roleplaying expierience.

Actually smart use of combo fields and finishers require quite a bit of thinking and precise execution. Sadly it is true, that PvE is so easy, that it doesn’t really matter there, in WvW and PvP however, if you just spam your skills, you are as good as dead.
Also, do you just spam skills in League? Uhm… that’s not ideal?

Aphex.9782:

World Bosses: Zergfest….nothing more to mention here.

Sadly yes.

Aphex.9782:

Feeling powerful is fun from time to time you know?

Actually you still oneshot starter area mobs on lv80 in exo gear.

Aphex.9782:

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Well, no. You basically dislike the entire game, including many of the things that make GW2 what it is. That’s fine – no game is for everyone, and apparently GW2 isn’t for you. Or at least, you dislike it enough to play long enough to learn the things you need in relation to several of your complaints.

But they’re not going to completely alter everything about the game because you don’t like it. Even the most egregious changes that Anet has made, the ones which are near-universally disliked in the community, like the trait change… these didn’t change anything fundamental about the game at all.

Aphex.9782:

Xp gain is godawful

Add you say you played AO?!? When? Did you play before SL expansion, stupid heckler farms with a kiting NT and Penu/Inf mission grind?

Even without using ToK or other aid I get a char to max level in no time in GW2 compared to AO by just playing the game (and yes, I had a 220/30, what an insane amount of effort).

Leveling: this game has by far the easiest and fastest leveling I have ever seen in an MMORPG
Events: Well, it is not hard at all – I love how people always pick some thing they are not able to manage and tell everyone “hey, that is not what I define as skill” – simply a l2p issue here.
Posion/Bleed: not at all, not even close
Classes: well, a matter of taste really – but defining traditional mmorpg skill rotations as thought requiring and deep is really, really silly.
World Bosses: you couldn´t be more on spot
General: You get xp for everything in this game, in huge amounts, safe of sneezing your nose.

Your review is completely off mark I should say. And that comes from a person with a dislike of GW2, so don´t embarass yourself with the fanboy-card.

The NPE and the trait overhaul did hurt the leveling experience imo. The game gates so much behind arbitrary level restrictions.

Before the NPE and trait overhaul you got traits at lv11. Every level you’d get a traitpoint and you could see where you were working towards. “Ow, movement speed? that sounds great”. Now you need to wait till lv30 to even get traits, and before you even reach your first Adept trait you are lv36(?). But of course by then you would’ve found out you don’t even have any traits. And you don’t have the gold or the spare skillpoints to go around buying them all.

Because skillpoints are used to buy skills. And that is also heavily gated. You can do map completion, but often that gives you less skillpoints than when the game decides it’s now time for you to buy new skills and gives you like 8 instantly.
And except for seeing vaguely what your next level-up reward is you just don’t have much of an objective or feel of character progression.

Before, for me at least, it was like:
“Okay so in 5 levels ill have enough trait points to get +50 in these two stats, but more importantly I can get that trait that looks really interesting. And in 3 levels i’ll have gathered enough skillpoints to buy SkillX”.
Now I just sit around pretty much waiting to see what bone the game throws me, and hope that it’s going to be anything good.

And the trait overhaul, as has been discussed to death, has been terrible. I’d get traitpoints but no actual traits to equip!

Of course there are more problems, some are more inherent. Such as skills being kinda dull in leveling. For example a 60sec cooldown skill that clears all conditions and stun, how is that interesting for leveling? When dealing with the average mobs out in the wild such a skill is very uninteresting. Sure it might save your life once in a while, but usually it’s a button that’s not going to get pressed.
So the game quickly gravitates towards a fairly limited selection of skills that are fun and useful while also being something you can use frequently enough. With that you than play out the rest of the game to lv80.

Especially late during leveling I found the NPE+trait overhaul to really fall short. You have all the good/fun skills unlocked so there is little to still look forward to in that department. Or you are saving up skillpoints for the super expensive stuff, like the 30point Elite.
And you don’t have any of the traits needed to actually make good use of the traitpoints that get thrown at you, 2 at a time now. And at 50s per master trait you don’t want to go around buying them either. So at this point of the game I really felt like I was just sitting out my time toward lv80, and the gear rewards I kept getting for leveling up didn’t match my build so it was often worst and I ended up deleting it.

Terrahero.9358:

The NPE and the trait overhaul did hurt the leveling experience imo. The game gates so much behind arbitrary level restrictions.

Before the NPE and trait overhaul you got traits at lv11. Every level you’d get a traitpoint and you could see where you were working towards. “Ow, movement speed? that sounds great”. Now you need to wait till lv30 to even get traits, and before you even reach your first Adept trait you are lv36(?). But of course by then you would’ve found out you don’t even have any traits. And you don’t have the gold or the spare skillpoints to go around buying them all.

Because skillpoints are used to buy skills. And that is also heavily gated. You can do map completion, but often that gives you less skillpoints than when the game decides it’s now time for you to buy new skills and gives you like 8 instantly.
And except for seeing vaguely what your next level-up reward is you just don’t have much of an objective or feel of character progression.

Before, for me at least, it was like:
“Okay so in 5 levels ill have enough trait points to get +50 in these two stats, but more importantly I can get that trait that looks really interesting. And in 3 levels i’ll have gathered enough skillpoints to buy SkillX”.
Now I just sit around pretty much waiting to see what bone the game throws me, and hope that it’s going to be anything good.

And the trait overhaul, as has been discussed to death, has been terrible. I’d get traitpoints but no actual traits to equip!

Of course there are more problems, some are more inherent. Such as skills being kinda dull in leveling. For example a 60sec cooldown skill that clears all conditions and stun, how is that interesting for leveling? When dealing with the average mobs out in the wild such a skill is very uninteresting. Sure it might save your life once in a while, but usually it’s a button that’s not going to get pressed.
So the game quickly gravitates towards a fairly limited selection of skills that are fun and useful while also being something you can use frequently enough. With that you than play out the rest of the game to lv80.

Especially late during leveling I found the NPE+trait overhaul to really fall short. You have all the good/fun skills unlocked so there is little to still look forward to in that department. Or you are saving up skillpoints for the super expensive stuff, like the 30point Elite.
And you don’t have any of the traits needed to actually make good use of the traitpoints that get thrown at you, 2 at a time now. And at 50s per master trait you don’t want to go around buying them either. So at this point of the game I really felt like I was just sitting out my time toward lv80, and the gear rewards I kept getting for leveling up didn’t match my build so it was often worst and I ended up deleting it.

NPE leveling was a bad move, it is not fun and calling it not thought out very well would be a tremendous euphemism – still, leveling is not hard or slow at all.

I think this game has one of the easiest ways of getting experience, no matter what kind

Be it :
XP (from almosty everything) foor and utility will add 21% for a few copper, guild tends to add, banners will add..
Karma (from all events, and drops), run the eotm train to nowhere
Laurels (all ascended jewel stuff, but mostly amulets )well logging in is enough, it’s a shame there is no other way to earn one or some laurels a day anymore. but you’ll get more then before
WvW tokens (cheaper ascneded jewels with laurels): run the eotm train to nowhere/ or go WVW
Guild commedations (ascended trinkets): well do guild missions
Skillpoints, scrolls are abundant in champion boxes
Dungeon tokens (exotic armor/insignias). well from level 35 you can start gaining dungeon tokens.
pristine fractal relics (ascended rings): from l80 you can earn them

You could even get lvl 80 without fighting by just ressing people, crafting, harvesting and exploring… quite alot of hearts have alternative stuff so you do not een have to fight.

Oh and the NPE as such isn’t that bad, the removal of the old trait system was… It was a major mistake, levelling when you know what to do (dungeons/ EotM/and running around the map opening waypoints and poi’s and the vistas AND HARVESTING/crafting) willlevel you a character in 20-35 hrs to 80. If you are playing for a while you can level even faster as you could stock up some ToK (now with the max 16 ToK you can get a 28 days, you should be able to level quite quick already depending on how much time you have, and when you do get your celebration booster and know it will stack with food and normal xp boosters you should figure out you could be able to earn 170% of normal XP just by stacking them and going into EotM, just make sure you can salvage all stuff you do not not need to wear.

There’s tons of ways to get fast experience. Get plant harvesting sickle, and farm plants in area. It still give about 0,5% towards a level. (200 plants = full level, not a single other mmo rpg would let you lvl that fast via that way).

Mobs with a yellow name are ‘friendly’ or juvenile so to speak. Most ppl don’t attack them cause the mobs don’t attack them. However if you kill those, you get tons of experience.

Always use a tuning crystal/sharpening stone/maintenance oil + some kind of food. There’s ultra cheap versions of both (low lvl ones). Just buy those, and have them permanent on you. Especially the 45 minute lasting food that grants 15% instead of 10% exp boost.

Just having the game for a long time/playing it for a long time, will make leveling, a hell of a lot faster. So this is the biggest burden, your first char leveling. Now you ask why probably? Every 2500 achievement you earn, you get about 2,5% permanent passive experience boost. Yes that’s right, you read it correctly.

Owning 1 char for a year, will give you level 20 scroll (will make char instantly lvl 20). If you own more characters, that all become a year old, you will get MULTIPLE. It’s a snowball effect, wich is why I encourage making chars first (all the ones you want to play for sure), and only then start playing.

There’s two dailies (and playing pvp) that grants Tomes of knowledge. They grant a free level up. Doing fractals of mist may be hard if your experience is a bit low (there’s plenty of ppl willing to help though), and capturing a keep (daily achievement) also grants such a book.

Exploring helps a lot to get experience. Heart quest may feel boring, but doing them gives a lot of experience.

Part of the problem is that very few people level their chars the way you do atm (at launch, the lvl 1-15 area’s were litteraly overflowed with people). Maybe at expansions launch, with the revenant hype, many ppl will go to new level area’s again (wich means you follow them, do events, and get generally more experience, except for mobs ‘bonus experience’, cause the longer a mob isn’t killed, the more experience it gives. Go to area’s, where people never come. Then kill all mobs there, including yellob mobs. Trust me it’s good exp

phys.7689:

Jana.6831:

Akagami.9861:

.. and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone.

I (and a lot of others) disagree:

lets be accurate here, a new charachter most likely cant solo many champions, you dont have all weapon skills, traits, runes, sigils
Some classes might be able to, but its not really a realistic expectation for new players to be able to solo champions or do some of the dynamic events.

Well, it didn’t sound as if only new players were meant with this and to that I responded.
I think there are videos of any class soloing champs around – you don’t need to be a certain class to be able to do it – you just need enough skill and know your class.

Never have i played an MMO in which leveling is as easy as GW2, I’m not going to say it’s “FUN” but it is way less boring then any other MMO I’ve played.