Guild Wars 2

If everything else remained virtually the same, but with no levels, the game would have earned its place as a true MMO maverick.

After all, nearly all the foundations were in place at launch for a solid horizontal progression based game. Perhaps with a few tweaks:

• The Karma system could have become far more meaningful (assuming it wasn’t so dumbed down)

• Gear would still have stats and the same tier system but no longer tied to levels

• More unlocks could be added where they made sense. Example: rare quality gear could unlock with the first Master Trait Unlock

• Crafting would become more meaningful (with a few adjustments) because crafted items would remain useful for longer periods instead of being quickly out-leveled by the user

• Players might actually have greater interest in dungeons.

• The whole hassle and headache of level scaling would go away, ANet could spend more time tuning challenge levels in PvE and less time trying to make “level appropriate” mobs.

• Trait unlocking could have been more like the original Guild Wars and less…then what we have at present

• Maps wouldn’t be avoided for level reasons anymore, no more content dead zones because maps are “out leveled” or deemed unrewarding

• Everything thing in the game would have become more meaningful, unlocks, skins, best in game gear, all of it would matter more.

Yep, levels don’t really add anything to a game. On the contrary, they hinder and hold back. If the playing experience is so empty that you need that “ding” to feel like you accomplished anything, maybe that playing experience should be re-evaluated.

You don’t need a ding to want to explore or want to move forward in a story, or want to defeat some challenge to gain something (be it new loot, new features, new places, etc). Certainly don’t need it for smashing face in pvp. Leveling is just this pointless arbitrary thing that gets in the way of what you want to be doing.

I loved that GW1 had only 20 levels (still could have been 0, but a low number is still better than high). And I look forward to EQN having no character levels (instead, class “tiers” and only up to 5).

The low level-cap in GW was also one of my favorite things. I’d love to see A-Net lower the cap to 20 and make the leveling experience like it was in Nightfall; was perfect, not to long and not to quick while allowing you to learn your profession before getting into meat of the story. You also had 75% of the story left to complete. Would also like to see A-Net allow us to roll PvP-only toons like we could in GW.

@Galphar:

Yes, every-time I load into the PvP Lobby I am struck by how silly the idea of leveling is when the game already has an unlock system in place that could have been further refined.

level progression is necessary for the skill and traits system, but imagine if it was separate from your actual stats lvl and you could just roam around anywhere from lvl 1

Immensus.9732:

level progression is necessary for the skill and traits system

Well, actually it isn’t. The only reason it has any relationship in the current game is because it was gated out that way.

Trait and other Skill/Ability unlocks could be tied to any number of requirements, character level is but one of many possibilities. (Log your low level character into HotM and see for yourself.)

hm, we could’ve then implemented some system of progression where you have to complete certain tasks to acquire your traits, like killing a certain mob, completing an event….

people would get behind that, right?

It was discussed quite a bit at launch actually.

A lot of gw1 vets held the view that levels were useless but the wow heads couldn’t get their head around it.

Also anet incorrectly assumed that it would take a while to get to 80.

Too late now, the levels system is way too far ingrained.

probably dont’ really matter to me.

I saw someone have full map completion in 30 hours played. Compare that to the several thousands playing hours I have.

Pretty much only 1% of the time I actually spend not being lvl80.

And I think I made like 50 tome of knowledge this week. So another free lvl80 I suppose.

I miss the leveling of GW1. Hell, I miss a lot about GW1. A real shame that Mike O’Brien’s “GW2 takes everything you love about GW1 and puts it in a persistent world.” Turned out to be only slightly true

I was thinking about how after the NPE patch we get (most) stat-boosts and unlocks at steps of 6 levels, 14 steps in total. Which made me think that after the NPE Anet could easily revamp the level system to be a lvl 1-to-15 system instead of 1-to-80.
Right now there really is no reason for there to be more than 15 levels and with the NPE it actually became more confusing because you don’t actually gain anything when you level up until you reach lvl 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58, 64, 70, 76 or 80.

So why not change that to lvl 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, make level 15 the new cap and then make gaining a level go a little slower? Make the leveling-up experience more similar to GW1 but with only 15 levels instead of 20. Wouldn’t that make more sense than the leveling-system we have now after the NPE?

In brief, it would be a bad game that would feel far more ruined and dumbed down, than it is already now after the NPE and would remove one of the nearly non existant character progression systems of the game, that GW2 has so far and is required also to have to give the player a red guiding line to lose not the track of what to do and when to go where in the story of the game.
Otherwise ANet would have to implement again such stupid mechanics, like they did with GW1 Factions to place everywhere at each Zone Instance silly GATES that block off the player’s exploration progression to ensure, that players don’t rush to quickly with their characters to places in the game, where they don’t belong to with their experience and equipment ect., what was already something, that really peeped off extremely alot of people in GW1.

How fricking easy do you people still want to get it more???? How lazy can people just be? Just missing that people wish to get introduced instant Level 80 scrolls buyable from karma or so …
GW2 is outstanding by far one of the most absolutest easy MMORPG’s ever in history, when it comes to Character Leveling and reachign the Max.
With the last patch Anet introduced now even Writs of Experience, that you can easily farm now with the dailies to give easy Extra Exp to your New characters together with tomes of experience to make it even more easier to get Characters to Max Level without having to play them even for a god darn single second!!!

If peopel hate it so much that they have to level here more, why donät you go back then to GW1, if its there so much better?
Stop trying to turn GW2 into a GW1 Clone!
The Devs have always said from begin on, that GW2 will be a completely different game than GW2.
It has also always been very clear from begin on, that GW2 will be an alot more traditional MMORPG compared to GW1 that was a COORPG.

So stop complainign about things after 2+ years that you dislike, when it has been from begin on clear enough, how GW2 will be like compared to the first game.
ANet won’t change such a basic system of this game after such a long tme after release anymore. You have no clues, what ANet would have to undergo for a huge effort just to change this in the whole game.
It’s not simply done with a little removal of some numbers or a reduction of them. There are alot more mechanics and gameplay systems connected to the leveling progression system than you think there are, which would need to get completely changed or removed too and if thats so easily possible, is something totally different and very questionable.
People should start for once to think outside of the box, before suggesting such big game changes of things, that they seem not to understand, how far reaching these changes would be in real for the game.

When you would research also for what people data mine all so from GW2, then you would know, that Anet leaves themself the option also open to introduce in the future more of those instant level up items basically for futurous birthday presents as the game grows older, like instant Level 40 and instant Level 60 scrolls of experience!!!

Its just a matter of time, when they will find their way into the game…

Kuldebar.1897:

• Crafting would become more meaningful (with a few adjustments) because crafted items would remain useful for longer periods instead of being quickly out-leveled by the user

What about harvesting ? If we remove all other metals than mithril and orichalcum for
example, because we only have lvl 80 armor, mithril would maybe go finally down
to NPC price, and even orichalcum would be worth nothing.

Also crafting and destroying stuff for leveling new character is of course a big material sink.

Doing something like that now at least would totally crash the economy i think.
Maybe even worse than the “precursor hunt” .. at least its my opinion that thats
the main reason why we don’t get it.

Orpheal not sure if you directed your reply to me, but I don’t think you understand what I (or others) proposed.

I would be the first to agree that GW2 is already the easiest and most casual MMO out there. I really wasn’t saying that GW2 should become easier and I don’t think the OP was saying that either. If anything I think Anet should make GW2 harder and more difficult.

However, leveling-up seems to be such a shoe-horned mechanic that developers put in their (MMO)RPGs simply because they think they should. Most devs don’t even think about it. They just automatically go by the logic that RPGs should have a leveling system. Why?

You ask us to think outside of the box, but I don’t think it means what you think it means. If anything YOU should think outside of the box and ask yourself if a leveling system is really necessary and if it really makes the game more challenging and rewarding.

Wanting a lower level-cap (what I suggested) or no leveling at all doesn’t mean we want the game to be easier. Having a higher level cap (80 instead of 20) =/= a higher challenge.

You also claim that we’re making suggestions about things we don’t understand. I actually studied Game Architecture & Design and I worked as a game-designer and artist myself. I’m pretty sure I have a good understanding of what I’m talking about.

As a designer you constantly have to ask yourself what certain features or mechanics will really add to your game, whether it’s truly needed and if it’s possible to do it in a different (better) way.

Why do we need leveling in (MMO)RPGs? Do we really? And why does the cap have to be at level 80? Why that number? Does having a higher level cap really add something significant to the game? What about a lower level cap but with more effort required to level up? For example instead of gaining 1 level every 30 minutes, you’ll gain 1 level every 3 hours? Will that be better? Will it be worse? Or will the game stay virtually the same except with different arbitrary numbers?

These are all questions that – when asked and answered – will lead to better design decisions.

One thing is for sure, the NPE broke more than it fixed and it made things more contrived and complex than needed. With the NPE, Anet tried to address certain “issues” that they feel needed to be addressed. One of the “issues” they wanted to “fix” is to make leveling-up more rewarding and give players bigger stat-boosts at certain thresholds instead of gradual stat-boosts for every level. That’s okay, that’s good. But I don’t think their “solution” with the NPE is the best solution. The new distribution of stat-boosts introduced some (big) balance issues in PvE. Those issues need to be fixed.

I think what the NPE changed could be a step in the right direction and Anet can still achieve their vision of a more rewarding leveling-experience, but to achieve that the idea should be taken a step further. As it stands now, all the levels between each thresholds are pointless, meaningless and literally don’t add anything. You grow stronger when you reach lvl 10, but lvl 5, 6, 7 and 9 are meaningless and don’t make you grow stronger. They add nothing. So why not get rid of all the inbetween levels and just stick with the thresholds? Why not reduce the leveling system to a lvl 1-to-15 scale? Then you can make monsters of the same levels? That would fix the balance issues that the NPE introduced and make leveling-up a lot less confusing for new players.

I mean really, the leveling system we have now is actually MORE confusing for new players than the leveling system we had before. A friend of mine who just recently started playing this game didn’t understand why he as a lvl 9 character had so much trouble killing a lvl 9 monster. When I explained to him that he’s technically still lvl 4 and won’t grow stronger until he’s lvl 10 and that’s why the lvl 9 monster is so much stronger than him, he simply stared at me all confused and asked me: “Wait… what? Why?”

Gaining levels also always gives a feeling of progression .. so if we had less levels but
need the same time for max level, it feels like you play forever and nothing happens.

That for me is also the bad part of the NPE .. that it makes a lot of the levels simply
feel like there is no progression at all so that you can really remove 4 of 5 levels and
make level 20 max.

P1:
I understood fully well, what you (or others) proposed.
You just proposed to turn GW2 into a GW1 clone, that this game should have basically the same system.
But this doesn’t work out so easy with a game anymore, which is in nearly 9 months 3 years old.
People seem to think here, that changing a leveling system for a already 2 year old game, whose whole game design was from begin on based on this Level Cap is one of the most easiest things for Anet. Thats WRONG.
You ask Anet basically here to completely revamp the WHOLE GAME. Get real.
What you propose here is absolutely not worth all the time, ressources and massive effort, which would be alot better spent in many other areas of this game, which need alot more improvement and were neglected so far since game release basically:

- Redesign of the Trait System, which is the real reason, why many people dislike the changes from the NPE, not the Leveling Rewards and that fighting has finally become more challening due to enemies of your same level finally not dieing anymore like flies so easily, so that people have a little incentive to play more together, because when you play in a group, also as a Low Level Player, you get easily doen everythign in this game in the Starter Areas until you reach the said Levels where you become stronger to the point, that you can easily solo everything. Don’t forgetGW2 is a MMO, not a Solo Player Console RPG what many people seem to think like, when I read how easy many people want GW2 to see to become!!!

- Improvement and complete Rebalancing/Redesign of the whole Underwater Content of GW2

- Implemention of alot of missing things and features, which should have been in the Game from begin on and still are 2 years later not in the game – hello Polymock, hello Bar Brawls, hello Target Shooting, hello Precursor Crafting, hello Jeweler and Chef 500 and all the Ascended Stuff that these 2 bring into the game… and alot more

- Adding finally more PvP Content in form of more different Gameplay Modes, so that PvP isn’t always just the same anymore. (1v1.2v2.3v3 Duels, Codex Arena, Collusseum Tournaments, All vs all Last man Standing ect. pp, pvP could be so much more, than right now to attract alot more people into PvP)

- Fixing finally the WvW Achievements, merging EotM with Eternal Battlefields and change the 3 borderlands into 3 different unique maps that includign all the current improvements from EotM in regard of Map Design ect. to the other maps so that WvW should consist then out of 4 different unique maps
Redesign the WvW point System to be more fair and get rid of “Server Worlds” and rename the gameplay mode to “RvR” Realm versus Realm with just 3 rotating Realms to which all servers get randomly rotated through, as that will solve alot of issues, like make low populated servers competitive again, cause they will just play together like in EotM with other servers that are for the match in their same realm (Faction) together.
If 3 Realms shouldnt be enough, maybe increase it to 4. We have currently Red, Green and Blue, basicalyl there would be space for a fourth Yellow Side, what woudl solve also the problem of they boring and lame 2v1 matches.

Just to name a few things, where Anet should put soon more focus on finally instead of wastign time ressources and effort to screw up the game even far more, than already the NPE changes did by completely changing the games leveling system and tons of other mechanics, systems and concepts of this game together too as a rattail from the leveling change, which nobody seems to think about here, what for massive huge consequences this change would bring to GW2.

and thats what I meant with look more outside of the box.
You all see currently only what you want to see, a small piece of a puzzle, but not the whole picture.

P2:

Leveling Systems have a clear and simply reason for why they exist and I have said it also in my last posting.
Levelign System are required to give the player a clear and simple to understand red guiding line and where to be in the game and what to do in it at certain times based on which level your character is currently.
Leveling Systems are basically the invisible compasses that tell you what to do in the game and when.
In GW1 factions you leveled basically so fast, anet had to forcefully slow the players with silly gates downso that players couldn’t be at places in the game too early.
Thats why for example Creatures here in GW2 also get so quickly exponentially too strong for players with a level different of 4-5 Levels beign able to basically instant kill players, just to stop players from rushign the game, like people did in GW1 just to complain then about it, how fats they were finished with the game >.>
One reason, why we have – god thank you – not such idiotic mechanics in GW2 can can explore at our own risk the game world freely.

Leveling is a mechanic, that enables with the higher level Number to finetune the difficulty increase of the game in much more little steps.
So lesser the Level cap is, so lesser is the character progression. Yes, naturally it means that every progression in itself feels more meaningful, due to reachign the max quicker, but it also means, that Anet has lesser options to let the difficulty progress over the course of the game alot slower.

Another problem, which alot of peopel seem to sadly oversee here that would be a massive consequence from reducing or even removign the levelign system for why ANet woudl have basically completely redesign the whole game.
Anet woudl have to rebalance everythign. every thing monster, every dugneon mechanic in regard of their difficulties, skills, the whole scalign system just to new a few things, just to make your arbitrary wish for a GW1.5 clone to come true with just better graphics

Arbitrary – a word that I hate – a word that gets used in these forums way too often and which many people absolutely don’t understand, what it really means and now you made me use it :P.
The used numbers surely aren’t arbitrary, only because you dislike the system.
Theres a concept and a reason behind the leveling system for why Anet decided to use it for their game. deal with it and accept it.
If you can’t do that, then feel free to go back to GW1 at any time, nobody forces you to play something, that you dislike.

You claim to be a Game Designer and you ask yourself not the question:
“Must really every Level Up be connected to a growth in Character Stats?”

I say absolutely no to this. A Level Up isn’t meaningless, only beause you didn’t become super much more stronger with it than before and can one hit now some creatures, where you struggled before and needed a few hits longer to kill them >.>
Anet rewards therefore Players with Items instead, Level appropiate Equipment and other things.

Sure, the very first levels (1-15 around feel like a big joke, because of the rewards beign no rewards at all, but just locked up mechanics, that were before of that idiotic NPE usable mechanics for everyone, which didn’t needed to be unlocked first by reaching a certain character level and that is one of the only biggest gripes, that many people have about the NPE and why so many people think, that the NPE did nothing, but just dumbing down the game, because what Anet did there with the NPE, should they have put into a proper Tutorial System from the begin on of the game, when it got released, not 2 years later, where siuch idiotic changes are absolutely far too late and where it is clear, that such changes will alienate people only to the point, that they feel being insulted by those changes due to Anet seemign to think, we are all little babies, which need to be hand held everywhere now, cause anythign else is too confusing now, where we had the years before absolutely no problems with all of this and were used to how the game was before just by learnign by doing/seeing!!

@Locus: You’re making it way too complicated for yourself. The problem with GW2’s leveling system is not the amount of levels we have, how the mobs scale and all those other things you propose to change, but how the NPE botched the progression. Why are you trying to solve clunky progression by decreasing the amount of levels and re-balancing the entire game instead of just… you know… de-clunking progression?

You don’t see the point of having lvls 1 through 80 and you have studied game design? How about the very point of levels themselves – a measurable sense of progression? It is true that GW2, just as GW1 focuses mainly on vertical progression, but if you want your game to appeal to a mass market I imagine it really helps to give new players (as in, who didnt play GW1 either) something tangible to ease them into the concept of horizontal progression. I could be wrong of course, but I’m pretty sure that that was the reason the amount of levels was made to be 80 – had they set it at 20 like in GW1 it would have arguably not diminished the amount of pve content required to grind out max level through hearts, meta events and an occasional dungeon, it would’ve simply given you more content for each level which might or might not have felt grindier (I imagine in the age of fast everything and instant gratification people would much rather spend 30 minutes on a level than 3 hours, even if there are more levels and reaching max lvl takes the exact same amount of time.)

Again, I’m not by any means saying this new system is flawless or even good – but your solution is really overkill and requires an absolutely unnecessary amount of effort.

I do think that it would’ve been cool had GW2 not had levels at all, but that ship has sailed – instead of wasting more time fixing things that aren’t broken and adding temporary content that gets taken down again 2 weeks later anet reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaalllly need to start adding fun, meaningful, new and permanent content to the game.

@Orpheal: I would disagree with you that GW2 is the easiest mmo out there. It has an extremely low skill floor yet the skill cap isn’t the lowest I’ve seen (that said, it’s not insanely high either, but there’s definitely potential). People get the impression that GW2 is easy because from what I can tell the developers tried to appeal to both casual and hardcore players within the same game. They did an alright job seeing that you can either take 4 hours to run a dungeon path in full soldier or cleric’s gear totally ignoring the damage/control/support trinity mechanic, or you can stick everyone in zerker, “l2p” and clear the same dungeon in 17 minutes. What’s wrong with the NPE is not that it’s “too easy” – why wouldn’t the game want to cater to the casual half of it’s audience? – but that it doesn’t provide players that are looking for a challenge with said challenge (and a reasonable reward, as in: increased leveling speed, basically skipping past parts of the “tutorial” lvl 1 through 80 has fashioned itself to be).
That said though, I don’t think the “easy” is implemented well either, it may be plenty easy but it is dreadfully boring; I will never understand who thought it was a great idea for us to spend our entire starter mission just spamming the auto attack button.

I don’t really disagree with most of the rest of what you said though – there are far more important things the developers should be working on rather than something as nonsensical as lowering the level cap for no reason.
(Just for the record though – the “improvements” you suggested for WvW would absolutely 100% make me quit the game. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about anything in any game, but I happen to strongly dislike eotm and everything it did to wvw so… ugh…. )

I hate character levels in MMOs period. I will leave it at that.
Love non-level progression.
NPE may be better than grinding pointless levels…

Orpheal.8263:

-snip-

You are certainly right about it being a lot to revamp (and then you go on to talk about revamping entire other systems). I’d also like to remind you that as is, your leveled up or down automatically in areas to be within a certain range of the content expected there-in.
I’d argue on the importance of levels though, as I don’t think it’s nearly as important to someone familiar with games. Plenty of games handle RPG aspects without real levels simply by unlocking actual usable features for the player instead – such as moves or abilities. In the long run, “level” is really just a number for people to throw around that implies power and skill level (which can lead to player relation issues – “I’m level 80, and you are level 1, you must be a noob!”).

At this point in the game, I would say it would definitely be easier to leave the level numbers alone – I mean, they are just numbers anyways. On the other hand, I totally agree with what Lucos was saying in

-snip-

when he elaborated on how the NPE revamp made things feel a lot more worthless and confusing when it came to levels. Half the time, it feels like the (and mostly is) only thing I’m getting from leveling up is tooltips (that should be explained when I’m trying to do something, not randomly as I’m leveling) and a piece of loot. Where’s the progressions? Sure, it makes that one level when you get all those trait/skill/attribute points feel better – but it also make it feel like the rest of the levels are pointless. In that respect, the old leveling system was way better.

The other issue with levels that I’d like to bring up here for the sake that no one else mentioned it is that it doesn’t take skill into account. Now, story missions are Level-locked, and you have to be that level in order to do it or you can’t do it at all. Now, for a starting player, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – they don’t know their way around the characters, the mechanics, all of that stuff- but for people with higher skill levels… it’s frustrating. My second character I got to 80 went most the way through his story under-leveled for what it was, but I was fully capable of doing so solo with not real issues – and that’s an option I feel should still be available. Levels are just about other numbers, but doesn’t take into account the player’s capability at handling those numbers to play the game and progress through provided content.

I think there would have been monumentally more doubt and unrest over a total lack of leveling, and the game would probably have missed out on a considerable number of players. I don’t think the world is ready for a no-leveling MMO, leastwise one that can actually compete in the market.

Human beings enjoy the feeling of progression, this is why many grindy as hell games are still super popular. The level/skill point bar is an enticement for people to play. removing the journey of levelling up will turn off a lot of people (I myself would feel no sense of accomplishment having no levelling grind. I feel accomplished when I get a character to 80)

Replies in bold:

Orpheal.8263:

P1:
I understood fully well, what you (or others) proposed.
You just proposed to turn GW2 into a GW1 clone, that this game should have basically the same system.

Seems like you didn’t understand what I proposed at all.

But this doesn’t work out so easy with a game anymore, which is in nearly 9 months 3 years old.

It’s also not nearly as difficult as you think it is. And the age of the game doesn’t matter. Guild Wars 2 being 2,5 years old (not 3 years and 9 months, get your facts straight) didn’t stop Anet from completely revamping the leveling experience with the NPE or the dailies with the latest patch.

People seem to think here, that changing a leveling system for a already 2 year old game, whose whole game design was from begin on based on this Level Cap is one of the most easiest things for Anet. Thats WRONG.
You ask Anet basically here to completely revamp the WHOLE GAME. Get real.
What you propose here is absolutely not worth all the time, ressources and massive effort, which would be alot better spent in many other areas of this game, which need alot more improvement and were neglected so far since game release

That’s not true at all. Anet ALREADY revamped the leveling system, all we’re asking is to revamp it just a little more. It’s not as much work or as difficult as you think it is, trust me.

- Redesign of the Trait System, which is the real reason, why many people dislike the changes from the NPE, not the Leveling Rewards and that fighting has finally become more challening due to enemies of your same level finally not dieing anymore like flies so easily, so that people have a little incentive to play more together, because when you play in a group, also as a Low Level Player, you get easily doen everythign in this game in the Starter Areas until you reach the said Levels where you become stronger to the point, that you can easily solo everything. Don’t forgetGW2 is a MMO, not a Solo Player Console RPG what many people seem to think like, when I read how easy many people want GW2 to see to become!!!

Speak for yourself. The redesign of the trait system is NOT the reason why I dislike the NPE. I dislike the new trait system as much as the next person, but what I really dislike about the NPE is how 90% of the game is hidden or locked during the first +/- 8 hours of the game (until you reach lvl 31) and the arbitrary confusing stat-gain thresholds. It just doesn’t make any sense.

You all see currently only what you want to see, a small piece of a puzzle, but not the whole picture.

That’s not even remotely true.
Just because we talk about 1 issue here or suggest fixes/changes to 1 part of the game doesn’t mean we’re blind to the other parts of the game. I want precursor crafting or new dungeons as much as the next person, but right now we’ve got to deal with this horrible mess called the NPE and the ridiculous “features” that it introduced. We’re trying to come up with solutions to the new issues introduced with the NPE and we try to think of solutions that follows Anet vision but at the same time makes the (veteran) players happy again.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

1) you misread him “which is in nearly 9 months 3 years old” – misreading is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t look good coupled with a “get your facts straight” accusation.

2) they didnt revamp the leveling system, they gated the rewards differently. You’re asking for mobs to be balanced differently and all that jazz, which didnt happen. Plus, no one’s going to disagree with you that the first NPE were an utter waste of time – but why does that justify a second waste of time?

3) pretty sure this thread isnt about the NPE but a big wonderful “what if there were no levels in GW2”. On that note, I should probably come up with something constructive to respond to that too, rather than continuing to point out more holes in your swiss cheese-esque logic.

Kuldebar.1897:

Trait and other Skill/Ability unlocks could be tied to any number of requirements

LOL!

This is funny since I see almost everyone that complains about the current trait system point directly at the “do this to unlock _ trait” process as the worst part of it.

Peace.

Castrin.8972:

LOL!

This is funny since I see almost everyone that complains about the current trait system point directly at the “do this to unlock _ trait” process as the worst part of it.

Peace.

Yes, you do see a lot of complaints, but it’s not the unlocks so much as how and what Anet decided to tie the Trait/Skill Unlocks to…being polite, it was a trashy job:

• Unlock tasks are often in map zones that are levels out of sync with the character level.

• Unlocks are often tied to broken or narrow event windows.

• Traits are level gated, often making for some really dull game-play for pre-80 characters.

• Traits Unlocks are treated the same for all Professions, not given lore appropriate of game world rationality.

• Vendor coin/SP costs are extremely high for newer player characters.

There’s a whole thread…but I implore you to see what people are saying; it’s not the Unlock mechanism that’s riling people up, it’s how ANet implemented it.

The original Guild Wars Elite Skill Hunting appealed to many GW2 players, but not this hodge-podge, tacked on system we have now.

I actually agree, that in the case of Guild Wars 2’s design mantras, levels are actually a bad thing and the game would be better off without them.

At the very least, there should be a lot fewer of them. Like 40, maybe.

It would be great. The game doesn’t really start until level 80 anyways

Levels do nothing. If you want, the zones could have just been difficulty levels and have people learn the game that way.

There are two main issues the developers would need to think about if they want to get rid of the levels in GW2
1) They need to create new incentive to continue playing. Ewe all know that the majority of peoplep laying a MMO are asking/searching what is the fastest way to level because the game starts at max level.
2) They need to redesign the whole game mechanic from the start which would fit in a huge feature pack. From our experice so far, they have not released any patch without bugs and some of them really bad ones. So redesigning the game will send GW2 into a new bata phase which I dont belive they want to do.

All these being said, although I would like to develop some ideas about how the game might work whitout the levels in the traditional way – even a CDI could be started about this – I highly doubt they will ever do it.

It would be simple, honestly.

1) Queensdale and equivalent areas are the tutorial areas. Each would need hearts, vistas, a JP, some dynamic events and a world boss.

2) The remaining areas progress in terms of difficulty – as you progress through the world, mobs have build/ai that are gradually better – with proper use of traits, weapon swap, dodging, etc as you advance. Queensdale would have it’s current bandits, with their limited kitten nal. Orr would have meta-build enemies, patrolling in groups. You either get good, get a party, or get dead. The zones in-between would have appropriate levels of difficulty. You could colour code the zones – white, blue, green, yellow, gold.

3) Traits – the current trait system sucks and blows, but could be fixed simply by placing traits in their respective zones. All adept traits would come from the current 15-25 zones. Master traits the current 25-55 zones. Grandmaster traits would come from Orr and FGS/Southsun. You would unlock each tier as you enter into a zone of the respective difficulty. (Perhaps as you completed mapping of a zone of the previous difficulty level?)

4) Keep the current gear setup – white, blue, green, yellow, gold, pink, purple. Crafting/gear becomes the major form of progression, and for the vast majority, once you’ve gotten exotics, you’re set for anything.

This all presumes that the NPE is essentially done away with, in favour of a proper tutorial in the starter zones.

That would be a game that is a proper sequel to GW1, and one I would gladly support.

Liz.1497:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

1) you misread him “which is in nearly 9 months 3 years old” – misreading is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t look good coupled with a “get your facts straight” accusation.

2) they didnt revamp the leveling system, they gated the rewards differently. You’re asking for mobs to be balanced differently and all that jazz, which didnt happen. Plus, no one’s going to disagree with you that the first NPE were an utter waste of time – but why does that justify a second waste of time?

3) pretty sure this thread isnt about the NPE but a big wonderful “what if there were no levels in GW2”. On that note, I should probably come up with something constructive to respond to that too, rather than continuing to point out more holes in your swiss cheese-esque logic.

1) You’re right.

2) That’s not true. Stat gains actually are gated now. When you level up you won’t gain any stats boosts until you reach lvl 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58, 64, 70, 76 and 80. All the levels inbetween you literally gain nothing. The result of this redistribution of stat gains is that many parts of the game are now unbalanced. If you’re lvl 9 and you’re fighting a few lvl 9 mobs, don’t expect to win the fight. Previously before the NPE you might have had a chance, but right now you can forget it, because at lvl 9 you’re technically still lvl 4 under the hood. This is really weird and confusing.
To me it seems Anet didn’t think this one through. They should either have re-balanced the mobs in this game to fit the new NPE stats gain distribution, or never changed the stats gain distribution at all. Right now it’s unbalanced, confusing and weird.

3) I’ve yet to see the holes in my own logic and I’ve yet to see you pointing out any holes. To me it seems more likely that you just misunderstood what I said. I’m not yet convinced on completely removing the leveling system on GW2, but I most certainly see a possibility to lower the level-cap to lvl 15 based on Anet’s vision and what they hoped to achieve with the NPE (but failed). I think my idea of lowering the level cap might actually achieve what Anet hoped to achieve with the NPE (but didn’t).

stale.9785:

It would be simple, honestly.

1) Queensdale and equivalent areas are the tutorial areas. Each would need hearts, vistas, a JP, some dynamic events and a world boss.

2) The remaining areas progress in terms of difficulty – as you progress through the world, mobs have build/ai that are gradually better – with proper use of traits, weapon swap, dodging, etc as you advance. Queensdale would have it’s current bandits, with their limited kitten nal. Orr would have meta-build enemies, patrolling in groups. You either get good, get a party, or get dead. The zones in-between would have appropriate levels of difficulty. You could colour code the zones – white, blue, green, yellow, gold.

3) Traits – the current trait system sucks and blows, but could be fixed simply by placing traits in their respective zones. All adept traits would come from the current 15-25 zones. Master traits the current 25-55 zones. Grandmaster traits would come from Orr and FGS/Southsun. You would unlock each tier as you enter into a zone of the respective difficulty. (Perhaps as you completed mapping of a zone of the previous difficulty level?)

4) Keep the current gear setup – white, blue, green, yellow, gold, pink, purple. Crafting/gear becomes the major form of progression, and for the vast majority, once you’ve gotten exotics, you’re set for anything.

This all presumes that the NPE is essentially done away with, in favour of a proper tutorial in the starter zones.

That would be a game that is a proper sequel to GW1, and one I would gladly support.

I doubt this would actually solve the problem of dead maps. Most people would gather in either the hardest or the most profitable maps, with just a trickle of newbies populating Queensdale and even less in the areas directly after.