Guild Wars 2

I think most will agree that leveling in this game is a bit dull. What would make it more fun to you?

Leveling isn’t dull at all to me. Actually its more fun to level in this game (and its predecessor) than it has been for me in any other game.

I personally keep it fun by not doing the same thing for too long at a time. Here’s how I leveled my main (engineer):

Mapped the starter area
A guildie introduced me to EOTM, got tired with that after a few levels, did some personal story quests
Had some more fun in EOTM
Realized “hey, I’m a high enough level to try out that first dungeon. That should be fun!”
Realized that I needed traits and was too poor to buy them (got a few levels just tracking them down)
Back to EOTM a few times and did some personal story quests
“hmmmm I wonder what explorable modes are?”

before long I was level 80.

Now I’m doing the same thing on a couple alts… and having just as much fun!

TL/DR: Keep it varied and it shouldn’t be dull at all

It’s not dull to me. Best leveling of any game I’ve ever played for leveling. Other things, not so much.

Some things that I think would help would be:

More Reward – I never felt very rewarded while leveling up, especially in early levels.

More armor skins – It’s exciting to change your look up as you level. But when all the armor you can get is pretty much the same… it’s not very exciting

Unlock traits earlier than level 30 – No perks until level 30! Lame!

It got dull after the 6th time, but that’s to be expected. You need to keep things varied and participate in different activities and events (LS, champ train, crafting, map completion, personal story, WvW, sPvP, world events and DE chains such as those on Hirathi Hinterland). There are plenty of things to do the first few times that it shouldn’t get dull. I’m on my 7th so it’s a bit boring since I’ve done those low level events so many hundreds of times already and it comes down to just sPvP and WvW/EoTM for levels

I’ll agree with you on the trait part. You used to start accumulating trait points at level 11… why they changed it? I have no idea.

I think 11 is too soon for some people but 20 is much better than 30. Even level 15 to start would be better.

I probably should have said more exciting or something. Agreed, it is very nice to be able to have so many options to level with: crafting, PvP, dungeons, exploration, gathering.. So the title to this post is misleading, I guess. It’s not boring, or even dull like I said I suppose. But I do think it would be more exciting. I think it would just be nice to see some new stuff going into the game free of the LS.

I completely preferred leveling in GW2 than I ever did in any other MMO I have played. There is no ‘Go get me 10 things from the next map over and bring them back’ quests and there is no real ‘grinding’ (I mean old school, you go out to a group of monsters on a map and just kill over and over). Your hearts complete when you finish them, you don’t have to return to the npc. The Dynamic event system is brilliant and keeps things fluid and changing on a map. Sure we ‘grind’ the events but that is so much more interesting than sitting in the middle of a mob.

The new trait system sucks though. They really dropped the ball with that one, yes 11 was too early but level 30 is way too extreme. And to have the grandmaster traits not even usable until 80 is something I don’t understand. This makes leveling in PVE that much harder -.-

Vayne.8563:

I think 11 is too soon for some people but 20 is much better than 30. Even level 15 to start would be better.

Yeah 15 or 20 would be way better. Do you think it would be better spread out if tiers were unlocked at 25, 50 and 75?

What I like about the last tier unlocking at 80 is it makes your character feel like level 80 means something and opens up your character even more. Like the final level of vertical progression. But I’m not sure that it’s worth it.

Bolthar.7192:

Vayne.8563:

I think 11 is too soon for some people but 20 is much better than 30. Even level 15 to start would be better.

Yeah 15 or 20 would be way better. Do you think it would be better spread out if tiers were unlocked at 25, 50 and 75?

What I like about the last tier unlocking at 80 is it makes your character feel like level 80 means something and opens up your character even more. Like the final level of vertical progression. But I’m not sure that it’s worth it.

If I were to design it, I’d probably look at it like a math problem. You have to get 14 points all up. It’s not a real even number. If you multiply 14 × 4 you get 56. So in theory you could start at level 24 and have a point every four levels. If you want it earlier, you’d have to change the math.

Even 24 would be better than 30, if you got a trait point every four levels.

Leveling through GW2 is the best part of the game. Even though the trait reset killed most of the open-ended appeal to progression, it’s still a pretty decent experience the first run through.

Dull? Absolutely not! I don’t feel like I “level” in this game, I wander around, run into things and explore! It hasn’t gotten stale to me in the slightest, and I have a looooot of alts. :-P

Fixing traits would be the best way to make leveling in the game fun again, so that traits unlock at levels 15 and every 5 levels thereafter.

The trait progression starting at 30 has me a bit thrown. I like the GW1 idea of getting the major mechanics of the character out of the way early – so unlock at 10 and fully unlocked by ~40/50 is more the expectation.

Also a lot of classes don’t really become viable until they start picking up some required trait skills. At the very least you don’t get the real flavor of the class until the traits are there.

The method of getting unlocks for trait skills also seems very tacked on, and not really well thought out. I’d like to see instead maybe a set of training missions with some logical sequence and supporting story-line in the journal, as a parallel to the personal story.

The problem is, people complained about not feeling the progression at higher levels. That’s why Anet made it so when you hit 80 you’re finally unlocking grandmaster tier. Because it means something to hit 80 then (which it didn’t used to).

Frankly, what I think they should do with leveling is to make it so that when you level, you get a thing over your minimap, like when you complete a heart. When you click on it, it shows you what your old stats were, what your new stats are, including health. This way leveling will feel more like progression, even if you’re not getting a specific trait unlock.

Because stats DO go up when you level. Why not be able to see the progression?

Dull, compared to what?

I do agree that traits ought to be accessed earlier, though. Playing around with different trait combinations is a lot of fun, and essential to learning your profession. Restricting traits is essentially keeping your character “dumb” for as long as possible.