Guild Wars 2

I beat the entirety of Prophecies as a Ranger/Warrior using a Sword/Shield with nothing but henchmen. I didn’t find the game very difficult by the end because it’s not very difficult for me to look at a bunch of very similar skills and put together a build that works. You might doubt that claim, but then, I beat the entirety of Prophecies as a Ranger/Warrior using Sword/Shield with nothing but henchmen.

I found the game more challenging when I was fresh out of the searing, didn’t have a complete attack chain, didn’t have many defensive skills, and didn’t have the stats to make much out of them anyway. I had to learn how to command my henchmen to get things done as I myself was fairly weak. Now that I am a kitten Ranger/Assassin with a Death Blossom skill chain I can pretty much walk up to every encounter, AOE it to death, and then heal myself afterwards. My henchmen are there but I mostly just ignore them.

As far as “skill diversity” goes, there honestly isn’t that much of it. A lot of skills are so situational that you’d need a really specific party composition to make much use out of them, and since you’re usually dealing with only a passable AI you tend to stick to more general things. My strategy was to pick four attacks that had the least amount of conditional situations applied to them with good damage and put them on my skill bar. Then I picked some utilities that healed me, removed conditions, and let me just ignore 75% of everything for the next 12 seconds.

Game stopped being hard around Fisherman’s Haven because my build was more or less “done” by that point. I wasn’t learning any new skills that were useful. I wasn’t acquiring new armor that would make a difference, and the enemy AI wasn’t capable of becoming more complex. The vertical progression was “done” and so the game was quickly “done” after that. Enemies, mathematically, could not do more damage than they were doing in Hell’s Precipice without giving me more power, so that is where the game peaked.

Again, I don’t mean to turn this into “look at how good I am at GW1”, I mean to point out that I found the game challenging when I was fighting my way up the power chain in it. I felt a sense of progression as I emerged from the harsh landscape of Ascalon. I felt a general sense of stability by the time I casually tossed a lich into a volcano. His friggin’ imps were more of a problem than he was.

Vertical Progression is not inherently bad, although it certainly can go that way (WoW). Vertical Progression is GOOD when it gives you a sense of progression, and I really do think that’s the key word there. It allows a developer to make a player focus on a piece of content and get used to how it works, then it can make that content more complex and force the player to learn things again. So long as the player is actively engaged and getting better at playing your game, I think vertical progression is doing its’ job.

When vertical progression is just about getting an arbitrarily more powerful piece of armor so that you can go face the exact same level of difficulty it’s not really progression anymore. It’s just rehashing old crap and putting a shinier coat of paint on it.

So in conclusion; GW1 really wasn’t that great. Also it’s bonus missions are horrible.

siralius.9517:

Rhyse.8179:

siralius.9517:

First off, not going to read this novel.

If you’re too lazy to read, you’re too lazy to play the kind of game you’re asking for.

Yeah, maybe I should go pick up GW1.

You don’t need to get snarky when you basically said “too long, won’t read” in response to someone trying to disagree with you with more than a soundbyte. If you really won’t put the effort into reading opposing views, why should anyone who does disagree speak up?

Honestly, if you think games were “better” in past ages, you are mistaken. Most older games were grindy pieces of “buy this for $30 and stay busy for 10 hours”. Even the “classics” were short, criminally short by today’s yardsticks. For instance, with no codes and no glitches, it’s possible to beat Legend of Zelda in two and a half hours. (I’ve personally done it.) It’s impossible to beat several older games because they simply keep going.

If you want to reflect on old RPGs any more, consider this: Final Fantasy 1 and Dragon Quest 1 both were insanely grind-intensive. Outside of that, you had Wizardry, Ultima, and the Gold Box games which were incredibly difficult since . . . more often than not, you had no clue what you had to do or it was incredibly hard to follow through.

Roguelikes (another type of RPG) were incredibly unfair to people who didn’t have an encyclopekittennowledge of what things were. Platformers as we know them were full of cheap ways to drop you to your death, or otherwise instant-death spikes. There were no RTS or FPS games.

And if you really want to talk about “games were better back on the NES days” then I’ll leave you with one thing to make you think about how messed up it got:

Battletoads.

Warkupo.1025:

So in conclusion; GW1 really wasn’t that great. Also it’s bonus missions are horrible.

It wasn’t that great, but it had its moments. Also, the Bonus Missions were okay but really required some work figuring them out. I did enjoy Gwen’s Story and Saul’s Story, but didn’t try the others.

I recently watched an interview from Warhammer 40k (new game releasing in a year or so), and they have plans to make leveling something that is actually meaningful. You can use your experience to buy armour, weapons, cosmetic skins, etc. That way it’s not just “ding”, but “ding” + unlock this + unlock that + unlock …

The levels in GW2 feel kind of useless. Traits… ehh why do we even need levels for them? Armour… why do we need “Basic”, “Fine”, “Master”, “Rare” if those tiers are all useless at level 80?

Imo, just make all armour Exotic, delete levels and let us gain traits another way.

It’s been noted – GW2 “had plans” to do the same with leveling, but it wasn’t working out so they scrapped that notion.

A game “having plans” . . . is really not saying much, unfortunately. There are a lot of games which exist “having plans” for cool ideas. So few pull it off

OP, you answered your own question. Because anet are trying to appease the WoW crowd. They are trying to leech off wows success instead of GW1. GW2 stands for Guild WoW 2. It’s a clever move from a business stand point as they wouldn’t want to directly compete with their own already successful GW1.

Yes of course Tobias, was just throwing it in the discussion because I think it a good idea. I would have a lot more fun leveling up if I unlocked a new armour skin on every level I got, maybe a slight weapon change or a new skill unlock.

That way leveling would involve something new every time, and would not just be an endless repetition of “Kill this”, “Defend that”, “Gather these”. It would still be a bit of a grind, but would encourage me to do it nonetheless, weighing advantages against disadvantages.

Kartel.2561:

So why not “know your audience” and just continue being awesome like before?

I have a feeling these guys changed staff and their business structure at some point. The current staff may only have experience with MMOs and other games that offer the traditional grind.

Sirendor.1394:

Yes of course Tobias, was just throwing it in the discussion because I think it a good idea. I would have a lot more fun leveling up if I unlocked a new armour skin on every level I got, maybe a slight weapon change or a new skill unlock.

That way leveling would involve something new every time, and would not just be an endless repetition of “Kill this”, “Defend that”, “Gather these”. It would still be a bit of a grind, but would encourage me to do it nonetheless, weighing advantages against disadvantages.

I’d like that too, but those are three general building blocks of content. Anything can be reduced down into those three and one more: “Dialogue options”. Which can be unsatisfying quite a bit.

Honestly, the only game without leveling I found compelling enough to work on deeply was Monster Hunter. And that has so many other flaws I’d not recommend it as a complete template. Even Ultima 4 had leveling.

well…

why do we have age in the first place ?

it is because God want us to have a gated content of our life….

azizul.8469:

well…

why do we have age in the first place ?

it is because God want us to have a gated content of our life….

And we learn new skills as we grow. Though breathing is OP and everyone starts with it.

We have levels because people are used to them and don’t feel like they are progressing and developing is there isn’t some arbitrary number going up.
Well, mainstream MMO-people, that is.

I loved GW1s system of only having 20 levels in which you got to know your profession and unlocked its skills, after which you could play wherever and whatever you wanted.
GW2 has this too with its first 30 levels, but to make the vertical progression folks happy, we keep adding numbers until we reach 80.

Consider leveling to be your tutorial.Another thing that i don’t understand,why is someone complaining about leveling in this game since it takes a short time to lvl your cherecter from 0 to 80. We all know the players are lazy in this “era” not like they used to be and they are still going in that direction.I am not a casual player or hardcore,maybe in between,but what are you asking for makes you below casual and you will probably become bored even faster.I don’t see how this can appeal to Anet or the game itself.

It’s true many/most games have worse leveling, but it’s still there and does still take a while if you’re not spending a fortune craft-leveling, or following a train around. I have 5 lvl80s and about 1500hrs so far. Maybe that’s casual or sub-casual for some? In any case, I dread the thought of leveling up any more toons. I will of course, if they ever add more races (I have one of each), but I dread the thought of actually going through the process, making all my numbers go up until they stop so I can finally just play how and where I want. Trying to insult me as a “casual” because of that really says more about you than me, btw.

The GW franchise has always had its strongest appeal in being "not like those other games. (Levels/gear don’t matter much, etc). They had success with that and earned a lot of respect for it. They earned a lot of longtime loyal fans such as myself for it. Turning their back on that philosophy was a mistake I think, especially since they didn’t even fully commit (such as having level scaling). They made some pretty shameless moves to appeal to a certain type of gamer that could never really be satisfied due to level scaling, and in doing so, spit in the faces of the fans who had believed in them all along.

They failed to win over the WoW crowd, as all wow-clones tend to, and they have negatively affected future purchasing decisions for people like me. But hey, at least they tricked a bunch of extra people into making those initial purchases even if they didn’t stick around, so it must have been worth it huh? Guess that’s more important than remembering and respecting your fanbase.

Imo, experience points and level are as ancient and redundant for a ~2010 released rpg as many other things like spreadsheet based combat, overly complex exponential functions and their vacuous values as an expression for “how many hits something needs to be dead”, waypoints as an excuse for how undesireable extended traveling is (even 2mins are tedious) and much more, while on the other hand the physical environment of a character and his position on the battle field mean so little that a pure melee meta can evolve in wvw (essentially castle siege scenarios).
There is a lot of possible innovation that could have happened with the amount of time and money spent on a project like GW2, but innovation wasn’t their goal. Their goal was to be successful by creating a product that almost every possible customer would at least try out. I don’t think abandoning a proven and traditional concept like exp and level up would have been a good idea in this case.

Kartel.2561:

That seems to be a clear attempt at appealing to the wow-clone crowd (who can never “really” be satisfied anyway).

You are My Hero :p ,..

You just said it all ^ This is the current mmo situation, Everyone is trying to please the WoW Crowd, completly forgetting about the non WoW Crowd and then they wonder why games Fail….

WoW Crowd CANNOT be please :P

I hope that didn’t sound like a hate post, it is just how i feel about the mmo’s situation and i think it should change, let’s see what 2014 brings for the mmo World and mainly for Guild Wars 2 because i’m not leaving yet, i have hope ^^

levels are stupid and pointless, keeps people from trying out all classes/race combos because it’s so tedious.

Frozencore.5017:

WoW Crowd CANNOT be please :P

It’s not that.

It’s that the people playing WoW would rather be playing WoW, where all their work has gone into it. This has been proven time and time again any time a new MMO comes out which is “Like WoW but X”. It’s just a known factor in video games in general – companies would rather back something trying to emulate something proven successful than try something different.

Hence a ton of GTA-like sandbox games of which Saint’s Row started out being. Until it found and lost it’s identity in going more over the top. Or God of War style third-person brawlers with the same atrocious camera. (Lords of Shadow, I’m looking at you.)

And that’s not even getting into things like the Mystery Dungeon games which span many many franchises and are bizarrely popular.

Sunshine.4680:

levels are stupid and pointless, keeps people from trying out all classes/race combos because it’s so tedious.

Methinks you missed the mark. Levels aren’t stupid and pointless because of that – the (somewhat) tedious leveling process makes it difficult to draw people into trying new characters.

Again, and it’s been said here, not quite what went on with GW1. Though that had its own tedium (cough, skill unlocks, cough).

Kartel.2561:

One of the many things that excite me about EQNext is that it isn’t supposed to have levels.

And how do you know that this solution works? And it’s fun? They talk a lot about EQNext and have showed only a fracture of it.

Lack of VP creates a lot of problems and after playing gw2 I know it for sure (like boring rewards, lack of long term goals and no sense of progression). And really can’t see anything that makes it unbearable (grind and VP are two different things).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Frozencore.5017:

WoW Crowd CANNOT be please :P

It’s not that.

It’s that the people playing WoW would rather be playing WoW, where all their work has gone into it. This has been proven time and time again any time a new MMO comes out which is “Like WoW but X”. It’s just a known factor in video games in general – companies would rather back something trying to emulate something proven successful than try something different.

Hence a ton of GTA-like sandbox games of which Saint’s Row started out being. Until it found and lost it’s identity in going more over the top. Or God of War style third-person brawlers with the same atrocious camera. (Lords of Shadow, I’m looking at you.)

And that’s not even getting into things like the Mystery Dungeon games which span many many franchises and are bizarrely popular.

You got a point there, a good point

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s that the people playing WoW would rather be playing WoW, where all their work has gone into it.

Do you think people playing WoW would rathe be playing WoW than a WoW sequel?

As has already been mentioned, leveling serves only one purpose. To time gate content. Leveling has nothing to do with progressing your power or making you feel stronger. It is purely to gate your progression through the world and the content in it.

Personally, I would prefer no levels at all (gaining progression horozontally through gaining more skills, etc.) and have the world a more sanbox environment, where you can explore anywhere you like at your own risk (high difficulty areas would require more skills/traits in order to survive or deal with the mobs there). But GW2 is not a sandbox game and that is the key difference between it and EQNext (which I am very much looking forward to btw).

GW2 has been designed to be more arcade like, or more theme park like if you will. There is nothing wrong with this of course, because many people want this kind of experience. And so long as there is plenty to do at all stages along your ‘levelling’ progression there really is no problem with it. Just don’t expect the kind of progression experience you get with a sandbox style MMO, because that is not what GW2 is offering.

That said, for a non-sandbox game, GW2 offers a great deal of freedom (through down-scaling for one thing), and for the most part leveling is a quick and enjoyable experience first time round. Where it falls down a little is when leveling alts, but even then you can find ways to level quickly. We just need more fun ways to level our alts, but that is another topic entirely.

Overall, for someone who would rather not have any kind of levelling system whatsoever, I am happy with the levelling in GW2, because it doesn’t feel like a chore, like it does in pretty much every other MMO out there.

Rangersix.1754:

Leveling served its purpose the first time. The second, third and fourth time it’s just tedious waste of time that gates off content for no reason.

The solution is obvious, allow level 80 characters to invest their spare skillpoints into levels for alts. Just don’t do something stupid like requiring 50 skillpoints for one level.

People with level 80 characters should know well enough that you don’t learn to properly play a class until you’ve unlocked its full potential at maximum level anyway. This way you also still leave the option open to level the normal way, for those that like it.

This is a brilliant idea.

Levels truly are pointless in this game. While it is considerably easier to level than in many other MMOs, there’s still an overwhelming sense of tedium because everything you do between between levels 30 and 80 is time-gating filler.

Everything about GW2 just feels like it’s meant to be played at endgame, but somewhere along the line the devs decided to keep a more or less ‘traditional’ levelling structure without really adding anything meaningful for the players to do or attain at intervals between starting and max level (aside from T1 and T2 cultural gear). And of course, most of the player base tries to work around this by power levelling through dungeons and crafting – anything to avoid the wasteland of open world PvE events and exploration.

It would be great if the devs took a clear stance on this, and either made levelling alts easier after your first 80 or added some rewards to the open world maps to encourage players to go out and play in them to gain levels (I’d prefer the latter, to be honest).

Omg yes. Let us buy a level for a skill point. That would make me happy and might give me some goals again, aswell as character slot purchases.

Kartel.2561:

I can’t help but wonder if these things were more an Anet decision, or NCSoft.

I know it’s tempting to blame shareholders and corporate controllers, but the reality is a little more subtle and nuanced.

Mike O’Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain founded ArenaNet.
Development of GW2 started when all of the founders were still around.

In 2009, Jeff Strain left ArenaNet to form Undead Labs, who went on to make the excellent and incredibly popular Xbox Live title “State of Decay”.

In 2010, Patrick Wyatt left ArenaNet to become Chief Operations Officer for En Masse Entertainment, who would later release “Tera”.

So that leaves Mike as the only founder still present.

And while there are certain names recognisable from the days of GW1 that still work for the company, like Gaile & Izzy (I have screenshots of Izzy setting off the Wurm invasion of LA in one of the Guild Wars betas ), one must assume that the rest of the company has similarly changed make-up.
Given the comments on various websites, ArenaNet seems to get through a lot of contractors and graduates, so I’d hazard a guess and say that less than a third of the original GW1 team still work at ArenaNet.

That being the case, it’s no wonder the company culture seems to have changed. And I’d also argue that employing more people new to the industry rather than veterans also results in people who are unsure of how to innovate, or not in a position with enough power to do so, so they stick with what’s tried and tested.

So while it’s tempting to blame NCSoft and Nexon for the radical shift in design philosophy, I think it’s better to acknowledge that ArenaNet simply isn’t the same company that started the Guild Wars franchise.

Heck, it’s not even the same as the company that released GW2.

Edit: Interesting development as of today: Patrick Wyatt now works for Undead Labs alongside Jeff Strain. That’s 2 out of the 3 founders of ArenaNet working for Undead Labs, probably on “Class 4”, the MMO version of Dead State.
My bet?
For innovation in the MMO space, watch those guys.

Escadin.9482:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s that the people playing WoW would rather be playing WoW, where all their work has gone into it.

Do you think people playing WoW would rathe be playing WoW than a WoW sequel?

Everquest vs Everquest 2 says “yes”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Warkupo.1025:

So in conclusion; GW1 really wasn’t that great. Also it’s bonus missions are horrible.

It wasn’t that great, but it had its moments. Also, the Bonus Missions were okay but really required some work figuring them out. I did enjoy Gwen’s Story and Saul’s Story, but didn’t try the others.

The Bonus Missions usually consisted of carrying a thing halfway across the map, or talking to an NPC halfway across the map and then escorting him halfway across the other side of the map. The first time you did it you would fail, then you would figure out where you were supposed to take him, then you could clear out the path, GO BACK, get him, GO BACK, and then finish the bonus. There was a lot of unnecessary, boring walking to almost every bonus mission in the game. “Carry thing” or “Escort Guy” where way overused.

On the other hand, I did like the instanced nature of the game. One of the things I kind of dislike about GW2 is that I roll up to an event, save the day, and then everything is in peril again the second I turn away. Because GW1 was instanced it meant that things I did could actually change the world I interacted with, so it felt more like what I was doing mattered. I have a hard time keeping up that enthusiasm with GW2 because I feel less like a wandering hero and more like a guest at a carnival who gets on a ride that resets as soon as I am off of it. The world doesn’t feel REAL, it feels staged. It IS staged.

I also liked how the skills were handled (even though I just spent a paragraph complaining about them). I like that I can use a sword, and then PICK sword skills. I don’t necessarily like being handed all of them; I think it is more fun to unlock them as I go so I don’t have to go out of my way to try them out, but I liked that I could customize my skill bar so completely. It is very rare for your character to “suck” or your weapon to “suck” because you usually had enough options available to you that you could find something that worked.

In GW2 if you don’t like how your weapon works you just switch to another weapon and hope that it has enough skills you like to stick with it. That’s fine except that if I had a particular IDEA for a character it can only work provided my weapon set isn’t terrible or the developers had same idea as me. I mean, how many weapon sets do we have in the game that has several abilities you just… don’t ever use?

Mungrul.9358:

So while it’s tempting to blame NCSoft and Nexon for the radical shift in design philosophy, I think it’s better to acknowledge that ArenaNet simply isn’t the same company that started the Guild Wars franchise.

I think you had a good point right up until this right here.

See, part of the problem is it is the same company. And I don’t doubt they really do want to fulfill their lofty goals. But as you said, the suggestion of circumstances lead to a bunch of younger developers involved who probably don’t yet have experience in why things are certain ways, they just assume it is so. Or, in a more positive light, they don’t mess with what works because they know it works.

Take for instance, people who cut their teeth playing D&D. A lot of them aren’t going to be able to immediately translate that over into, say, a World of Darkness game. Or something else like Nobilis. Sit the ones who are great at GMing D&D and tell them to make a game, they’re probably going to make something derived out of the D&D rules they know.

ArenaNet did GuildWars. And it was really successful to the point they thought ‘we can push this to a full-fledged MMO instead of this half-and-half thing’. And there were ideas for how to make things different, make it unique . . . which when it came time to play it instead of theorize it, didn’t work so well. Which meant a swerve right back to the comfortable choice people know: levels.

And levels exist for a reason, and it’s not solely to gate content. If you want to be very pedantic about it, there have been people who got to Cursed Shore (Gates of Arah) at incredibly unlikely levels. (I think the record was level 7?) I’ve seen people who were incredibly low messing around in events they shouldn’t be able to do because they could use the dodge mechanic to avoid damage or just get downed and picked up by people. Content can technically be experienced at nearly any level. Except 1, since the tutorial mission pumps you right to level 2.

They exist as:

- A rough estimate of power. Presumably, two level 57 Rangers will have the same potential for abilities, just have them in different places. So it’s understood when they balance a place for level 57 what should be possible. Note that the downscaling effectively makes this really dicey since a level 80 has access to all the trait points possible, and probably has a lot more skills (if not all of them) rather than the two dozen a level 57 might have.

- A “soft measure” of progress. People know there are 80 levels you can have, therefore by knowing they’ve hit level 40, they’re “halfway to maximum potential”. Rather than always just guessing if they’ve peaked or how close they are to it. It also allows people who want to to plan ahead to try to get the most effectiveness out of their growth.

- A rough estimate of how tough an enemy is. If you’re level 60, you’re going to have a different experience attacking a level 50 enemy than you do at level 40. By seeing that Risen Abomination is level 50, you know you’re either not ready, or very likely ready to take them on. (Note: Tequatl is an exception now, no matter what level his event is, you’re not going to cakewalk it.)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They exist as:

- A rough estimate of power. Presumably, two level 57 Rangers will have the same potential for abilities, just have them in different places. So it’s understood when they balance a place for level 57 what should be possible. Note that the downscaling effectively makes this really dicey since a level 80 has access to all the trait points possible, and probably has a lot more skills (if not all of them) rather than the two dozen a level 57 might have.

- A “soft measure” of progress. People know there are 80 levels you can have, therefore by knowing they’ve hit level 40, they’re “halfway to maximum potential”. Rather than always just guessing if they’ve peaked or how close they are to it. It also allows people who want to to plan ahead to try to get the most effectiveness out of their growth.

- A rough estimate of how tough an enemy is. If you’re level 60, you’re going to have a different experience attacking a level 50 enemy than you do at level 40. By seeing that Risen Abomination is level 50, you know you’re either not ready, or very likely ready to take them on. (Note: Tequatl is an exception now, no matter what level his event is, you’re not going to cakewalk it.)

Yes that’s what a level system as well as character charts, damage values, hit crit and dodge chances, etc have been invented for: Representing the flow of the game, giving us a hint of what we have to imagine just happened. They had to invent those because there was no way of showing that character A has just dodged an attack from monster B, especially if you go all the way back to table-top games, but things have changed.

Everything those numbers and keywords represent can actually be simulated by computers now and therefor doesn’t need to be “told”. 1 example: When was the first time we were able to score critical hits through proper aiming (first FPS involving headshots?). We don’t need an RNG to tell us about successful and critical hits anymore. Basic concepts of RPGs and MMORPGs are way behind technological development.

Tied to that is the whole concept of improvements for any part of a characterchart that we currently have, like the whole “hunt for gear with better stats” as one of the most important motivations which is then obsolete in it’s current form as well.

The point is: You can actually make characters look kitten and “highlevel” enough to discourage newbies fighting them. On the other hand what was wrong with learning the hard way in the first place? Physical barriers can prevent the wrong fights too. I miss that about modern games sometimes… Offering a community based prestigesystem could help regarding pvp particularly, because one does not simply mess with the #1 killer on your server.

It is a nice and easy way to meassure progress, strength and replace playerskill / effort with hardcoded values. However it results in min/max builds and eventually makes ‘experience points/ money/ high end gear per minute’ a much more interesting thing to care about than the game’s story, environment or how challenging (in other words: fun) an encounter is.

There are tons of games out there without any levelsystem and they still manage to gateconnect. You should also consider that the progress of your exp bar doesn’t always represent how fast you pick up new strategies and proper use of abilities.

Personally, I would enjoy the learning process alot better if it was part of the main gamingexperience rather than a prolonged preludium to the actually important late game content. Being unrestricted from the skills I want to learn and master right now for as long and intensivly as I see fit, is what a level-up system can’t offer.

Ok, leveling is what you make of it. I own a paltry 6 lvl 80 characters. I only know this cause I was chatting with one of my guild officers about it.

I don’t level. I “live” I have been known to play VERY oddly. I will fail a portion of my story or area I am in as if they are learning. I own 12 toons. I can’t even tell you what level they are. I do know where each one is in their “life”.

So maybe take the number outta the picture and add some personality to each person. I have a noble human guardian in Orr right now working on her nerve. She’s at the final piece of the story but she’s terrified of the elder Dragon and of failing. She’s been lvl 80 for over a year. So maybe adding a twist to each person.

And yes I happen to know that’s an odd way to play! But it’s fun!

Yea, leveling is stupid. It always feel like a chore to me. I would have no problem with it if a single 1-15 zone really gives me enough experience to go to lvl15 just by map completion. But the fact is I always have to grind many more mobs or go complete another 1-15 zone to move on to the next level segment.

I like leveling. Maybe because I play RPGs since the early 90ies.

You play a game to progress. If there is no progression at all, why play at all?

The logical consequence to have no levels is to have no gear grind and to have nothing to do at all and get all the coolest looking armor (there are no stats) just after logging in.

Just let a game be a game. Levels and levelling is a part of it. And on top of this: levelling in GW2 is very easy and fast. Try other MMOs, it’s much more tedious and slow.

I really hope they will add an expansion with a higher level cap.

ProtoGunner

See, a lot of people don’t associate numerical progression as something inherent in gaming though. RPG’ers tend to…a lot. Not sure why that is, maybe it comes from the D&Der inside many of us, who knows. I think GW2 was made with someone exactly like you in mind, someone that craves the gradual leveling process and being rewarded for it.

But there are lots of players who don’t play to “progress” really. There are legions of PvPers who only like to kill each other endlessly and could care less for levels. It just depends on the kind of player you are.

Myself, I only play games for a few reasons: mass PvP, exploration, escapism, good story(not in this game lol), and hanging out with friends/guildies. I could care less for the levels.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I like leveling. Maybe because I play RPGs since the early 90ies.

You play a game to progress. If there is no progression at all, why play at all?

The logical consequence to have no levels is to have no gear grind and to have nothing to do at all and get all the coolest looking armor (there are no stats) just after logging in.

Just let a game be a game. Levels and levelling is a part of it. And on top of this: levelling in GW2 is very easy and fast. Try other MMOs, it’s much more tedious and slow.

I really hope they will add an expansion with a higher level cap.

By your logic all racing games, FPS, arcadegames, storytelling games, RTS, TBS, etc are complete fails and no one ever wants to play them because there is no reason to. They usally don’t involve any numeric progression, anyway. Though I think people know that other MMO are way worse concerning alot of things, which is because we are here of course.^^

It’s such an out-dated concept. What’s the deal with vertical progression anyway? It’s all an illusion. As you get more powerful, you don’t actually USE that power (aside from a little lowbie griefing maybe). But in terms of actually being challenged, you stick to “end game” stuff which is balanced around max lvl and BiS. Then new content / lvls come out which make you weak again and you have to start all over (see: treadmill). The levels and stats are really just a formality, completely superfluous to the content itself. The content could just as well have been balanced to existing power levels and balanced accordingly so as to be challenging. Anet talks about “the whole game is end game” ..well no, that’s not actually true here. But it WOULD BE true if there were no lvls / stats.

Isn’t it ultimately experiences we’re looking for? And I don’t mean the bar at the bottom of the screen, It’s actually going places and actually doing things (well ..in-game, that is). In the end, numerical formalities aside, that’s what it’s all about, what the real progress is ..new content and situations, new challenges and accomplishments. Being able to say “I’ve been there and done that”. We want places to go and things to do, preferably not all focused around mindlessly grinding. Nowhere in that equation are levels or BiS actually needed.

“Tried and true” is nice up to a point, and then it’s just holding you back and homogenizing everything. Anet’s greatest claim to fame was always that they were one of the few devs willing to think outside the box. It’s sad that this appears less and less to be the case.

Jahroots.6791:

Levels truly are pointless in this game. While it is considerably easier to level than in many other MMOs, there’s still an overwhelming sense of tedium because everything you do between between levels 30 and 80 is time-gating filler.

Everything about GW2 just feels like it’s meant to be played at endgame, but somewhere along the line the devs decided to keep a more or less ‘traditional’ levelling structure without really adding anything meaningful for the players to do or attain at intervals between starting and max level (aside from T1 and T2 cultural gear). And of course, most of the player base tries to work around this by power levelling through dungeons and crafting – anything to avoid the wasteland of open world PvE events and exploration.

It would be great if the devs took a clear stance on this, and either made levelling alts easier after your first 80 or added some rewards to the open world maps to encourage players to go out and play in them to gain levels (I’d prefer the latter, to be honest).

I must say, while this is a good argument I disagree with it entirely. Levels are anything but pointless in this game – they serve whether people like it or not first and foremost as an indicator of progression. Not to mention the fact that the level number is a great barometer for where on this massive world map a player is meant to be.

That process is an important one – it’s the period of time where a player becomes accustomed to their character, its mechanics and skills etc. Whenever the conversation about buying a max level toon comes up the first argument out the gate is “but the player won’t know what they’re doing/won’t have learned the character”, same argument here, you need a learning curve, levels offer that.

People slam vertical progression, I think, because of all the examples of it done badly, here we have a system where it’s been implemented near perfectly.

Yep there’s a lot of good stuff at endgame, but there’s also a lot of good stuff on the way there too. One criticism I would make is that dungeons seem to be poorly implemented – check out FFXIV for an example of dungeons properly integrated into the levelling process. Other than that, it’s a fully fleshed out and realised game from levels 1-80. It also has multiple starting zones and more content than is needed to reach cap – so mix it up with your alts a little!

On the subject of alts, even mixing it up I admit it can become a little stale. The skill point suggestion, along with the option to sell tome of knowledge on the TP would go some way to alleviating that. But on levels themselves, I think they should stay where they belong – in game!

What about letting us play how we want (something I think Anet has mentioned in the past). Seems to me that would include playing WHERE we want. I don’t like the idea of the devs defining where I’m “supposed to be”, especially based on some arbitrary counting system that doesn’t actually need to have anything to do with the content.

I don’t mind STORY-BASED gates on “where I’m supposed to be” (such as having to go certain places for the personal / living story). But being effectively locked out of regions solely because of some collection of levels that didn’t even need to be there to begin with? Not cool.

I don’t need to watch a bunch of dumb numbers go up to know where I am in the game or where I want to be. I look at skills / skins / etc I’ve unlocked, at where I’ve been and where I still want to go. I look at what secrets I’ve found and challenges I’ve defeated. I have plenty of legitimate things to look at to know how I’m “progressing” in the world, but it’s my journey to make. It feels so much less natural, and more linear/forced (and increasingly tedious with each alt) with everything predefined for where I’m “supposed to be”. Levels are indeed pointless and a hindrance.

We have levels in fantasy games because the most often used trope in fantasy literature is the coming of age story. The protagonist(s) start(s) out as young servant(s), apprentice(s), farmer(s), etc. who are fated to get involved in bigger things. They run away from basic enemies and rely on more powerful characters. They train or otherwise come into their power and by the end are taking on the big bad. Wheel of Time is a classic example.

That, and because the PnP RPG’s that sprung up based on fantasy literature used levels to simulate getting better.

Well, i agree with the OP. Why have levels? I liked that gw1 had only 20 levels, because it mattered more “how you played the game”. You could learn from the start what made you a better player, which spells to take, how to position yourself in fights etc.. In leveling mmo, all that is ignored until reaching max level, also, i have never heard anyone saying they liked leveling their character in a mmo. But, i have to say, i’m a bit scared of no levels, it sure is great, but i would want a verry small part in the beginning that gives you some power, like, a trainer, explaining you things and giving your first spells. I don’t know why, but i feel that such thing makes a game good. Not a tutorial, but just something that gives you the feeling that you are getting prepared for an adventure

The scaling down of levels in low level zones has been a complete farce, essentially dooming those zones to being empty of players.

Had there been a very low level cap (just enough to introduce players to the game), we’d have more top level zones and thus more gameplay variety.

Imperatora.7654:

the primary reason is to gate content.

As a game designer, one of our major concerns is not to overwhelm players by letting them do EVERYTHING right off the start while having no idea how. Levels let us give players an idea of what is within their scope.

Levels also allow us to scale the complexity of the game. Intro zones need to be simple for new players (and less so for experienced players trying out classes they have never used before). However, the game would be extremely dull if the mechanics never evolved beyond that. As the player gains knowledge of mechanics, those mechanics can be combined in new ways to create more and more difficult encounters.

Without level as a gate however, it is far more difficult to design one area to be more complex and difficult than others. We can’t be sure if that player in our “end-game” zone has <1h of /played under their belt, or 100h.

This would be logically true if not for the flaw in this logic which is WvW/SPvP, which is far more harder to master than anything in PvE.

Yet people can freely enter it from low level.

I like leveling, I am good at it xD But the levels in this game add to little, 1 trait point,1 skill point. In my opinion, poorly designed outfits that are all nearly identical from 1 to 79 aren’t a great motivation either. (While it is usually one of the biggest motivations for me to level along with new skills and new COOL looking weapons aka not the same skin you already had when you created your character..)

Kalarchis.8635:

Apparently there were no levels in the alpha and it freaked out testers so much that they put them back in. People just can’t handle change I guess.

If thats tthe case than why is EQN so popular for getting rid of levels??

ANet should just make Tomes of Knowledge purchasable through in-game currencies, such as Karma.

Played long enough that you have boatloads of karma stocked up? You probably don’t need to go through the leveling process with a new alt. Spend some currency to gain instant levels.

That, or slap an instant 80 consumable in the gem store. I’d sure buy one…

Knighthonor.4061:

Kalarchis.8635:

Apparently there were no levels in the alpha and it freaked out testers so much that they put them back in. People just can’t handle change I guess.

If thats tthe case than why is EQN so popular for getting rid of levels??

Because its easy to love an idea when you’re not actually experiencing the consequences?

Ah to exist in the magical land of potential, where a game can do no wrong and doesn’t have to pay its bills yet…

A lot of people here are saying that levels are in the game for absolutely no reason. Those people are wrong.

The levels still create a difficulty curve, but the slope is much flatter than other MMOs. Level 20 content is easier than level 50 content to a level 80 player. All you need to do is try fighting the same mobs in different level regions to see this. Leveling definitely has its place in this game because there is still a sense of progression – it’s just such that you can’t completely trivialize low level content. Try to solo an elite ascalonian (L35) in AC at level 40, then try again at level 80. Compare L35 dungeon elites with L80 dungeon elites. There is a difference.

GW1 did just fine with only 20 levels, and they sped the early parts up even further with the expansions. I can easily see that extrapolated to a no level system that I would enjoy immensely. All it takes is a developer with some guts to step outside of the expected norm, like the old Arenanet did.

Kartel.2561:

What about letting us play how we want (something I think Anet has mentioned in the past).

I’m starting to wish they had never said that because it’s been used as a rallying cry for everything from “I want to play a fat human” to “I want to never have to ever wait for anything ever” to “I want rifles on my ranger, master of ranged combat my left nut”.

The instant a speech writer used “we want to let you play as you want” in any mission statement for this game, there should have been someone behind him with a two by four to remind them about how idiotic people can be over phrases like that. Remind them gently, of course.

quote=3563048;Knighthonor.4061:]
This would be logically true if not for the flaw in this logic which is WvW/SPvP, which is far more harder to master than anything in PvE.

Yet people can freely enter it from low level.[/quote]

By doing so, they enter without a full array of traits/masteries, possibly without even an elite skill, and are weaker than even a level 80 ranger.

And again, sometimes I run into people far . . . far underleveled for some areas in a zone who get away with it. Heck I’ve done that myself on some of my lower level characters.

imsoenthused.1634:

GW1 did just fine with only 20 levels, and they sped the early parts up even further with the expansions. I can easily see that extrapolated to a no level system that I would enjoy immensely. All it takes is a developer with some guts to step outside of the expected norm, like the old Arenanet did.

The old ArenaNet which had GuildWars take off like a bullet instead of being a niche game?

By the way, last video game I played without levels . . . wait, no that was Gnomoria, a Dwarf Fortress derived game. Hmmm. And before that was XCom which definitely had levels . . . Minecraft didn’t really have levels but . . . hmm. Then Civilization 5 for a demo time . . .

(What was the last RPG I played? Hmmm, Ys Origins, not technically an RPG and has levels anyway. Legend of Grimrock, yeah, had levels even if it was partly a puzzle game. Pokemon X and Y? Yeah right . . . huh . . .)

Seriously, I had to go back quite a ways to even begin to think of an RPG where levels weren’t included. And even then, that was good ol Ars Magica about ten years ago, around a tabletop. Even so, it had a progression of skill levels rather than character levels. And I would have said Call of Cthulhu but I remembered we had another Ars Magica game after we died horribly.