Guild Wars 2

Honestly, the NPE needs to be totally eliminated and the game needs to be returned to what it was before, which was a joy to play.

There is no sense of progression. As I level my characters, I am sorely missing all the little story parts that we progressed through. I’m missing the traits, give me back my traits. I wander around aimlessly opening areas and looking for hearts at my level to do and honestly, I don’t know if they reduced the XP or if it’s just that there are no story parts to level through but one of my characters is level 18 and has done all the hearts to level 20 and killed everything in between, done every event more than once and still isn’t at level.

ANet killed the wonder of the game for leveling alts (I have a level 80). In it’s place, they left frustration and boredom. I’m a SWTOR player and there is a sense of progression throughout the game. I don’t have that with GW2. I caught myself looking for a story area today. There was none. Why, because I’m level 18.

Honestly, at this stage, I would not recommend this game to someone who solos a lot. The way it was before NPE, I would have and did recommend it to everyone. Honestly, now, the only fun this game has is to zerg at level 80 in Orr. That was a blast. My friends and I had a great time. I am not having a great time with my characters that are leveling though 1-30.

ANet, what were you thinking. That this would be a good experience for a new player? No, it is not, and I’m being nice about it. You really need to fix the mess you’ve made of it.

I have a feeling they made leveling from 1 to 30 slower because of the Black Lion Key farming. I could be wrong. I don’t see how it doesn’t feel any sense of progression. I levelled 2 character last year (before patch) and just start a new mesmer this year (after patch). Honestly speaking, even though it seems a little slower from 1-30 now it really isn’t as bad as you make it sound. Have you tried map completing all the cities and beginning stage maps?

Traits unlock is interesting to me because you need to do something in order to unlock a certain passive ability. It is no longer about getting skill points and inputing the points. It is to actually go out and explore and unlock. Anet also give some players the choice to obtain the skill without doing the quest at a price, which I feel is reasonable. It gives a sense of achievement.

One thing Anet can improve on is guide new players into other races map during level 1-30. This can encourage exploration.

Just my 2cent.

They castrated the game long ago. And now they are skinning it alive. Leveling is kittening slow now because they are artifically slowing down your progression to enhance the playtime without adding new major content. And you cant even properly level your character up with crafting because they nerfed the experience you can get from it. Pre NPE it was possible to level up your character only with crafting. Now you wont be even close to max level even if you finished all crafting professions.
I stopped recommending the game after LS season 1. Now Im warning people to play this game. This is actually one of the biggest fraud on the internet. Everything they promised at the release of the game seems to be forgotten.

What race/class are you leveling? How many different characters have you tried? Did you map-explore (search out vistas, skill points and similar once they are available) or just do hearts? Did you check out the different race starting areas?

There are a lot of different impressions of the NPE, and lots of posts about it on these forums. Personally, I did create a new alt (Norn elementalist) after the september feature patch specifically to try the early leveling experience for myself, and I enjoyed the new leveling and the feeling of progression so much that I took her all the way to 80 (and I already had 11 other chars at 80 before her).

I can’t quite figure out what to you is or used to be “the wonder of the game for leveling alts”, and what exactly you are missing from the old experience. You did mention the story coming in blocks rather than single episodes, which I personally enjoyed a lot more, because I can now do the whole story arch for my level range in a block, where before I either had to fill in lots of other content between story steps (sometimes making it hard to even remember what the current story arch is about), or do a large chunk of the story over-level if I wanted to do each arc in a block.

There are people who dislike the new leveling experience intensely. There are people who like it better than it used to be.

One thing you should realize is that the NPE isn’t the trait revamp which happened many months before that.

I like the NPE but strongly dislike the trait revamp. They’re different animals.

Schwarzseher.9873:

They castrated the game long ago. And now they are skinning it alive. Leveling is kittening slow now because they are artifically slowing down your progression to enhance the playtime without adding new major content. And you cant even properly level your character up with crafting because they nerfed the experience you can get from it. Pre NPE it was possible to level up your character only with crafting. Now you wont be even close to max level even if you finished all crafting professions.
I stopped recommending the game after LS season 1. Now Im warning people to play this game. This is actually one of the biggest fraud on the internet. Everything they promised at the release of the game seems to be forgotten.

Nomen est omen – your name from a German figure of speech fits your post :-)
Really, don’t exaggerate it. It’s neither the ‘biggest fraud on the internet’ nor ‘everything promised is forgotten’. It’s of course questionnable and no one asked for this change. Luckily, I have all classes on max level (though tried to level to see the NPE with a Engineer – horrible!).

Best would be to revert it and please change the trait unlocking – it’s an abysmal idea to lock that behind timed and sometimes grouped content. It leaves two options: a) either you wait at the place until a certain event starts or MAY start (I once waited 40mins to see nothing) or b) you just wait until you can unlock the trait by luck. It’s terrible design. I really don’t know what the people behind this were thinking.

Schwarzseher.9873:

They castrated the game long ago. And now they are skinning it alive. Leveling is kittening slow now because they are artifically slowing down your progression to enhance the playtime without adding new major content. And you cant even properly level your character up with crafting because they nerfed the experience you can get from it. Pre NPE it was possible to level up your character only with crafting. Now you wont be even close to max level even if you finished all crafting professions.
I stopped recommending the game after LS season 1. Now Im warning people to play this game. This is actually one of the biggest fraud on the internet. Everything they promised at the release of the game seems to be forgotten.

Er, no level 1-15 is much faster under the NPE. 20+ becomes normal from what I’ve read, if anything it was much slower under the old system. You got a point about crafting though. The issue this game had, was in fact retention – they’ve “addressed” this under the NPE. And you call adding 2 new maps not major content??. Isn’t that what people want?. We all know development can change at any time. Whilst quite a few things were omitted or not added. I highly doubt you can call it fraud.

CJames.2354:

I have a feeling they made leveling from 1 to 30 slower because of the Black Lion Key farming.

The key is at the end of the level 20 personal story chapter.

Leveling from 1-15 was made much faster. From there however, leveling returns to the way it was originally. The problem with that however is that from 1-15 you can basically level by only running from heart to heart whereas after that, you must explore or run around to various zones.

The game was not intended to be played like every other quest based MMO. Originally for example, hearts did not exist. You’re meant to explore the map and by 100%’ing it, you should easily be able to keep up in levels.

Tere.4759:

Honestly, at this stage, I would not recommend this game to someone who solos a lot.

I’ve never played SWToR, I heard it had a decent personal/solo story, but as a soloist, GW2 is the most solo friendly MMO I’ve played due to the lack of forced group content. Unlike other MMOs, GW2 isn’t focused on endgame dungeon/raid/group-only content.

When complaining about traits, keep in mind that the way you unlock individual traits was not a part of the NPE. Only the level at which you first unlock the tier was a part of it. Also keep in mind that leveling from 1 to 15 takes roughly 90 minutes compared to the several hours it used to take, so overall, the changes to when traits, utilities and elites are unlocked isn’t as big as a difference as it first looks.

CalamityO.2890:

Schwarzseher.9873:

They castrated the game long ago. And now they are skinning it alive. Leveling is kittening slow now because they are artifically slowing down your progression to enhance the playtime without adding new major content. And you cant even properly level your character up with crafting because they nerfed the experience you can get from it. Pre NPE it was possible to level up your character only with crafting. Now you wont be even close to max level even if you finished all crafting professions.
I stopped recommending the game after LS season 1. Now Im warning people to play this game. This is actually one of the biggest fraud on the internet. Everything they promised at the release of the game seems to be forgotten.

Er, no level 1-15 is much faster under the NPE. 20+ becomes normal from what I’ve read, if anything it was much slower under the old system. You got a point about crafting though. The issue this game had, was in fact retention – they’ve “addressed” this under the NPE. And you call adding 2 new maps not major content??. Isn’t that what people want?. We all know development can change at any time. Whilst quite a few things were omitted or not added. I highly doubt you can call it fraud.

They could have used their ressources to make a proper expansion with a new class and maybe access to another continent. In the same time we are stucked on 1 continent in GW2 we got 2 full expansions in GW1 with 4 classes and a kittenload of new maps. And back there the developer studio was much smaller than now.

2 New maps which can be played trough in under 1h are certainly no major content.
This game is unique in 1 point. Normally many games have DLCs/expansions which are not needed or not wanted. Here we have many people who want a new expansion but cant spend their money on it because there wont be one.

I have every class, every race and it’s all the same. ANet screwed up the game in my opinion. It was much better the first 6 months and that is my opinion. This is far from my first MMO. I came here as a soothing experience and am left with frustration.

Healix.5819:

CJames.2354:

I have a feeling they made leveling from 1 to 30 slower because of the Black Lion Key farming.

The key is at the end of the level 20 personal story chapter.

Leveling from 1-15 was made much faster. From there however, leveling returns to the way it was originally. The problem with that however is that from 1-15 you can basically level by only running from heart to heart whereas after that, you must explore or run around to various zones.

The game was not intended to be played like every other quest based MMO. Originally for example, hearts did not exist. You’re meant to explore the map and by 100%’ing it, you should easily be able to keep up in levels.

Tere.4759:

Honestly, at this stage, I would not recommend this game to someone who solos a lot.

I’ve never played SWToR, I heard it had a decent personal/solo story, but as a soloist, GW2 is the most solo friendly MMO I’ve played due to the lack of forced group content. Unlike other MMOs, GW2 isn’t focused on endgame dungeon/raid/group-only content.

When complaining about traits, keep in mind that the way you unlock individual traits was not a part of the NPE. Only the level at which you first unlock the tier was a part of it. Also keep in mind that leveling from 1 to 15 takes roughly 90 minutes compared to the several hours it used to take, so overall, the changes to when traits, utilities and elites are unlocked isn’t as big as a difference as it first looks.

The character I was leveling was level 15 before I left the game. He is now level 18. He would have had traits already. Traits do make a difference when leveling. I disagree with you. I don’t feel a sense of progression.

As for soloing, I soloed several characters in TOR from 1 to 55. I don’t know what it is about GW2 now, but it’s not the GW2 they presented when it came out, the GW2 we loved during the beta. They changed it and in my opinion, not for the better.

Also keep in mind I am sharing my impressions and when it comes to the people I know, my impressions will determine whether I tell them to play or not play. At this time, I am not recommending this game.

‘This can encourage exploration.’

That should never have to be the case. If they have to ‘force’ players to do that, something’s wrong somewhere.

Healix.5819:

CJames.2354:

I have a feeling they made leveling from 1 to 30 slower because of the Black Lion Key farming.

The key is at the end of the level 20 personal story chapter.

Leveling from 1-15 was made much faster. From there however, leveling returns to the way it was originally. The problem with that however is that from 1-15 you can basically level by only running from heart to heart whereas after that, you must explore or run around to various zones.

The game was not intended to be played like every other quest based MMO. Originally for example, hearts did not exist. You’re meant to explore the map and by 100%’ing it, you should easily be able to keep up in levels.

Tere.4759:

Honestly, at this stage, I would not recommend this game to someone who solos a lot.

I’ve never played SWToR, I heard it had a decent personal/solo story, but as a soloist, GW2 is the most solo friendly MMO I’ve played due to the lack of forced group content. Unlike other MMOs, GW2 isn’t focused on endgame dungeon/raid/group-only content.

When complaining about traits, keep in mind that the way you unlock individual traits was not a part of the NPE. Only the level at which you first unlock the tier was a part of it. Also keep in mind that leveling from 1 to 15 takes roughly 90 minutes compared to the several hours it used to take, so overall, the changes to when traits, utilities and elites are unlocked isn’t as big as a difference as it first looks.

The key is at the end of the level 10 personal story chapter.

Tere.4759:

The character I was leveling was level 15 before I left the game. He is now level 18. He would have had traits already. Traits do make a difference when leveling. I disagree with you. I don’t feel a sense of progression.

So you are basing your sense of progression and your whole view of the NPE on playing a character for 3(!) levels??? Out of 80?

What “sense of progression” did you get when leveling 15→18 in the old system? You didn’t get any extra trait points in that level range either.

Tere.4759:

Honestly, the NPE needs to be totally eliminated and the game needs to be returned to what it was before, which was a joy to play.

There is no sense of progression. As I level my characters, I am sorely missing all the little story parts that we progressed through. I’m missing the traits, give me back my traits. I wander around aimlessly opening areas and looking for hearts at my level to do and honestly, I don’t know if they reduced the XP or if it’s just that there are no story parts to level through but one of my characters is level 18 and has done all the hearts to level 20 and killed everything in between, done every event more than once and still isn’t at level.

ANet killed the wonder of the game for leveling alts (I have a level 80). In it’s place, they left frustration and boredom. I’m a SWTOR player and there is a sense of progression throughout the game. I don’t have that with GW2. I caught myself looking for a story area today. There was none. Why, because I’m level 18.

Honestly, at this stage, I would not recommend this game to someone who solos a lot. The way it was before NPE, I would have and did recommend it to everyone. Honestly, now, the only fun this game has is to zerg at level 80 in Orr. That was a blast. My friends and I had a great time. I am not having a great time with my characters that are leveling though 1-30.

ANet, what were you thinking. That this would be a good experience for a new player? No, it is not, and I’m being nice about it. You really need to fix the mess you’ve made of it.

Honestly sounds like you are staying in one zone.

I’m a veteran player, many alts. Without any kind of XP boost, at level 18, you should be leveling once an hour or so. That pace should stay constant pretty much through to 80. Focus on dailies and exploring zones you have not.

That’s all I can really say. I level alts regularly, so I really have a tough time believing you are having that much trouble leveling. I’ve never noticed a difference in time to level pre-NPE to post-NPE. If anything, the earlier levels were faster.

The trait changes are indeed a problem for a lot of people. Personally, I was one of those people that leveled up so quickly I would be 80 with all of my trait points to spend, or almost all of them still left to spend. I never found the traits necessary to level up, but some people found the changes game-breaking. Different strokes I suppose.

Yeah I just came back to the game about a week ago, after a break of several months, and instead of starting with one of my several lvl 80 characters I decided to just create a new character with a new class and start fresh.

It is now level 58 by literally just exploring maps and I honestly haven’t noticed anything different from what I was used to when levelling my other characters many months ago. In fact, this thread is the first time I read about the NPE as I didn’t really keep up to date with any news on the game during the months I wasn’t playing.

So yeah, I also have a hard time understanding where this frustrating of your’s is coming from.
Just exploring maps and working on getting all the hearts, vistas and pois and skill points should honestly be more than enough to maintain a steady pace in levelling up your character.