Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

Just posting here to discuss something and maybe get some feedback on something I’m noticing as I play GW2. Well, a couple things, when I think about it.

To start off, I’m loving the game. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed exploring a game world so much as this. I can’t compliment the designers enough on the job they’ve done. The content is (for the most part) a lot of fun, the characters are interesting and the dialog at times is outright hilarious.

That said, I’m noticing something as I play that I’m hoping is a temporary thing.

For the first 10-20 levels or so, I felt like the game was pretty consistently giving me a challenge. I had to tread carefully when entering new areas, I had to learn how to avoid certain mobs or to do my best to deal with only one at a time, because much more than that and me and my pet (I’m a Ranger) were finished.

Story quest battles often gave me a serious run for my money and I had to really pull out all the stops and use my character’s skills as well as I knew how, dodging and avoiding attacks hoping my heal would cool-down before I was killed.

In short, the combat was always fun and the content was often challenging. Each level felt well-fought for and well-earned; getting a new level was satisfying.

I just dinged 40 earlier today and it occurred to me that the game seems to be getting easier – and not in a “I’m more familiar with the game” kind of way. Even going into new, higher level areas, fighting enemies 2 or 3 levels above me is starting to feel routine. Where once upon a time, my pet would be in trouble dealing with more than 2 enemies, it can now handle up to 4 or 5 without losing more than half its HP.

Where Veteran enemies used to give me and my pet a run for our money, nearly killing me several times, now they seem to fall with little effort and barely a scratch to me or my pet. Keep in mind, this is stuff at, just over, or very near my actual level – not just the lower level content when I’m sync’d down (I’m aware having higher level/better gear is always going to make the lower level content easier, so I’m not even counting that kind of stuff).

Of course, I don’t include group/world enemies in this, as they’re clearly not intended to be taken on solo regardless.

It feels like the levels are coming much more quickly and with far less effort and challenge than they were, and it’s kinda bumming me out, because I hate leveling fast (I like the adventure to last as long as it can) and because I hate content to feel like a cakewalk, and it seems to me that, as I level, both of those things are starting to happen.

Where before, I’d say “oh sweet!” when I’d gain a level, because it felt well-earned, now I find myself saying “wow, already?”.

I’m really enjoying all that GW2 offers, and this isn’t a bash against the game. It’s just kinda irking me that I feel like it’s beginning to rush me through the levels, even though I’m not trying to do so.

Is this trend going to continue, or is it something that maybe happens at the mid-point of the game (levels-wise anyway), but then slows down again as I move toward the upper levels?

Thanks in advance

What class are you out of curiosity?

Also, the early levels tend to be the easiest to die in simply because you have so few tools to help you survive. A basic heal and a skill or two in most cases. If you aren’t smart you can be overwhelmed.

As you get higher in level, your gear gets better overall and your added skills can make things easier as well. I’m sure your gaming helped a tad in utilizing combos more effectively, but those things are what I feel can make or break you. This could be the reason.

Either that or you got used to the game and the skill ceiling wasn’t as high as you thought.

The leveling curve doesn’t go up too much in this game. Leveling from 10 – 20 takes around the same time as leveling from 70 – 80. It’s not really rushing you, it’s just keeping a consistent pace.

Tougher enemies are probably easier because you have more power and tools under your belt than you did in the beginning.

Open World generally just isn’t that hard period as you learn to play the game. You can challenge yourself by trying one of the dungeons though and you will have access to them as you get higher.

Also, the Orr zones may start ramping up the difficulty a little at the end.

Thanks for the responses so far.

I figured more tools at my disposal would be a factor in it, as well. Though I wouldn’t have guessed it would make a difference in terms of how much of a beating I could take, regardless of level.

In other words, I would expect to get my butt kicked as much by a level 41 Veteran mob when I’m in level 40 gear as I did by a level 15 mob when I was in level 15 gear. Everything would remain relative.

My expectation (and maybe that’s where I went ‘wrong’ here) is that all those new skills I’d be picking up as I went would be necessary when dealing with higher level, more advanced encounters. Choosing the right skills for a given encounter would “matter more”, etc. I’m finding, instead, that it seems to be giving me an edge in the fights… which kinda leads back to that feeling of it getting easier.

I’m not following any particular guide, either. Just picking the skills that seem to suit my particular playstyle the best (I use my pet quite a bit to help control and ‘gather’ enemies while I pluck away from a distance. I suppose Rytlock would refer to me as a ‘cowardly Ranger’, based on his description of Nente :p). Though I will jump in with Horn and Sword from time to time and mix it up that way.

I have been looking to start doing dungeons more, and maybe give WvW a try, because that seems like it can be fun from what I’ve seen (I follow a couple Twitch channels for it).

Well, I guess I’ll continue on and see how it goes!

Thanks for the feedback.

ArchonWing.9480:

Also, the Orr zones may start ramping up the difficulty a little at the end.

This is what I found. There’s a pretty big step up when you get to the level 60+ areas.

Well there come point when you need to two man/solo dungeons or play PvP if you want challenge. Of course it depends little bit about play style and spec too. If you play some knight geared warrior only champs can kill you in open world PvE no matter how badly you play.

Qaelyn.7612:

ArchonWing.9480:

Also, the Orr zones may start ramping up the difficulty a little at the end.

This is what I found. There’s a pretty big step up when you get to the level 60+ areas.

That sounds promising, then.

Might sound strange, but I enjoy it more when I get my butt handed to me and have to “work harder” for my wins.

On that note, how are the dungeons in general? I did the Ascalon Story mission dungeon last night and, while the narrative and such behind it was neat, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the encounters. It felt difficult only because it was often so chaotic that it was hard to even figure out what was going on, much less how to deal with it.

If I had to describe that particular dungeon in a word, I’d say “messy” – especially a few fights in particular. Now, maybe that was the group I was in, maybe that’s just the nature of that dungeon, but I hope it doesn’t always feel like that.

Junkpile.7439:

Well there come point when you need to two man/solo dungeons or play PvP if you want challenge. Of course it depends little bit about play style and spec too. If you play some knight geared warrior only champs can kill you in open world PvE no matter how badly you play.

Well, I play a Ranger which are traditionally pretty squishy. Maybe that’s not so in GW2. I am playing a pet-heavy setup; using the Ice Drake as my pet, and it does an awesome job of gaining and maintaining aggro. Though sometimes the enemies will get “smart” and come after its master.

I dunno, I suppose I’ll see how it goes as I progress. Maybe I’ll just need to try pushing myself a bit more beyond my own level, ’til I bite off more than I can chew. See how that works.

Well crazed mobs in south sun are fun. Good practice. There should be some zone full of very hard mobs and even harder mobs.

Orr is horrible. Most waypoints are contested. And the mobs tend to be in groups or close enough that you and aggro them when you didn’t mean too. South sun can be qute hard too if you wander in to the wrong place at the wrong time.

The personal story should keep giving you some trouble even if you have a tough bear pet boosted with traits and signets. You’ll also find that when you get into more difficult content, like dungeons, the pet can die quickly and hiding at the back with a bow isn’t actually doing much for your group. Most players have to relearn their class for dungeons.

Stooperdale.3560:

The personal story should keep giving you some trouble even if you have a tough bear pet boosted with traits and signets. You’ll also find that when you get into more difficult content, like dungeons, the pet can die quickly and hiding at the back with a bow isn’t actually doing much for your group. Most players have to relearn their class for dungeons.

Not sure if you’re implying something here or not… but I’m not “hiding at the back with my bow” in dungeons. I’m not even doing that in solo stuff. I’m actively fighting, throwing down heals where/when I can for my allies, etc. My pet isn’t taking all the action.

The personal story missions have not been that challenging to me since, I’d say, the early 30s. At the end of the last few I’ve done, I’ve been thinking “Wow, that’s it?”. They’re over pretty fast and I need to use maybe one heal to get through it. I have to work to get through them.. but not much. Not nearly as much as I had to.

That said… I just did an experiment to see how far I could push myself. I’m in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, down around the level 46 mobs. I just tamed a Lynx and am testing it out, etc. I had the Lynx attack a level 46 Veteran Lynx here. I didn’t fire a single shot. I just stood and watched. My pet won. A level 41 pet against a level 46 Veteran, with no assistance from me. I don’t think that should even be possible. It certainly wasn’t earlier on. That fight would have been over before it began – even with me helping. But there ya go. I think that says it better than I ever could. The game is definitely getting easier as I progress. At least the world PvE stuff.

Ah well.. Like I said, there’s still dungeons and WvW to keep me challenged, even if the World PvE content no longer is.

As for the difficulty idk other that you’re getting access to a fair amount of traits that can really make a huge difference as well as skills and equipment stat options get better around mid-level. As for why you seem to be leveling faster/easier as you progress to the mid-level zones is because you are. GW2 has a system in place of ‘Bonus XP’ where mobs give an XP bonus based on how long they’ve stayed alive in the world. In the lower level zones there are many players running around killing things so few creatures give this bonus but as you progress to the higher level zones, the population quickly dwindles allowing mobs to build up their maximum amount of bonus xp which is roughly an EXTRA 150% increase in xp. This essentially cuts your leveling time by more than half. The fact that as you level, you get access to better skills, traits, runes, and sigils will make a big difference also because you’re much more likely to have a much more synergetic build by that point where your skills work much more efficiently with each other as well synergies with your pet also. This may not be precisely what is going on but I think it’s very plausible so I hope it helps.

The personal stories after the battle of claw island get long. Much longer than I was used to. It was sort of am chore for me to do them. (Around level 60).

If you want a challenge, try a squishy class. I had a lot of fun and challenge soloing with my elementalist. I think necromancer could also give you that challenge.

I easily leveled my ranger. With sword/war horn enemies melted. With my elementalist I struggled a whole lot more, and felt like it was more of a challenge.

wolfsong.1857:

Well, I play a Ranger which are traditionally pretty squishy. Maybe that’s not so in GW2. I am playing a pet-heavy setup; using the Ice Drake as my pet, and it does an awesome job of gaining and maintaining aggro. Though sometimes the enemies will get “smart” and come after its master.

I dunno, I suppose I’ll see how it goes as I progress. Maybe I’ll just need to try pushing myself a bit more beyond my own level, ’til I bite off more than I can chew. See how that works.

It’s not. Rangers are deceptively sturdy. It can take a LOT on the PvE side of things for mobs to bring one down, especially when the mobs outside of a handful of exceptions will think your pet is the most fascinating thing they have ever seen.

wolfsong, the game is just pretty easy all around. your pet can tank stuff easily because they were buffed a while back I believe since they died all the time in dungeons. you may want to look into fractals, but it’s a pity there’s a gear grind involved with that.

Rangers are probably the number one solo class because they refuse to die- I have done insane things on my Ranger simply because I can and I use a raven/ eagle pet.

Higher level zones are more tough than lower level zones because the mobs have better mechanics but by then you also have your traits and skills working for you so as long as you play intelligently it will balance out.

Also keep in mind that your pet and a Ranger is sort of one thing- they work off each other and your pets deal a big amount of your damage so it is very worth it to learn to micromanage your pet.

Old Orr used to be a very nice place to fine tune your build because it ramps up a lot from the rest of the world- but sadly Orr is both easier now and more dead since almost no one hangs out there any more.

Southsun is still s decent challenge and I hang out there a lot on my Ranger.

I do think you could benefit from trying a class that is a bit harder though.
Engi, Mesmer and Ele comes to mind- all those classes have interesting mechanics with a fairly high skill ceiling- keep in mind that you will always get more effective as your skills open up and your traits come into play.

All challenge in this game was removed in beta. There was a time in beta where the game was challenging and it was fun. Fighting enemies was not a faceroll event. Unfortunately, Anet changed everything not long before release for what they called “balance.” The reality was that they nerfed everything because a few people on the forums were crying about dying. So here the game is today. So easy a bot can do it.

I think most people have made some very good points about why the OP might be finding levelling much easier at the moment – particularly comments about the bonus XP mobs give on more deserted areas of the map and also how much more “full” a build you have after 30.

I would also add that I find there’s a period with most classes where things sort of seem very easy for a while – different periods for different classes. For instance, levels 1-20 were easy as pie for my Necro, then 20-30 were actually easier. But then 40-50 suddenly got really hard, then it eased off a bit again for 50-60. With my Ranger, however, 1-10 were easy but 10-30 proved much harder than it was for my Necro, while 30-50 was much easier.

wolfsong.1857:

That said… I just did an experiment to see how far I could push myself. I’m in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, down around the level 46 mobs. I just tamed a Lynx and am testing it out, etc. I had the Lynx attack a level 46 Veteran Lynx here. I didn’t fire a single shot. I just stood and watched. My pet won. A level 41 pet against a level 46 Veteran, with no assistance from me. I don’t think that should even be possible. It certainly wasn’t earlier on. That fight would have been over before it began – even with me helping. But there ya go. I think that says it better than I ever could. The game is definitely getting easier as I progress. At least the world PvE stuff.

How many points of Beast Mastery do you have, sir? Also, which traits have you selected within the Beast Mastery line?

wolfsong.1857:

Junkpile.7439:

Well there come point when you need to two man/solo dungeons or play PvP if you want challenge. Of course it depends little bit about play style and spec too. If you play some knight geared warrior only champs can kill you in open world PvE no matter how badly you play.

Well, I play a Ranger which are traditionally pretty squishy. Maybe that’s not so in GW2. I am playing a pet-heavy setup; using the Ice Drake as my pet, and it does an awesome job of gaining and maintaining aggro. Though sometimes the enemies will get “smart” and come after its master.

I dunno, I suppose I’ll see how it goes as I progress. Maybe I’ll just need to try pushing myself a bit more beyond my own level, ’til I bite off more than I can chew. See how that works.

That’s why. Rangers have a sweet spot around level 20-60. Mainly because your pet is an effective tank. However, later in the game, enemies get smarter about coming after you and ignoring your pet.

Malchior.5042:

wolfsong.1857:

That said… I just did an experiment to see how far I could push myself. I’m in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, down around the level 46 mobs. I just tamed a Lynx and am testing it out, etc. I had the Lynx attack a level 46 Veteran Lynx here. I didn’t fire a single shot. I just stood and watched. My pet won. A level 41 pet against a level 46 Veteran, with no assistance from me. I don’t think that should even be possible. It certainly wasn’t earlier on. That fight would have been over before it began – even with me helping. But there ya go. I think that says it better than I ever could. The game is definitely getting easier as I progress. At least the world PvE stuff.

How many points of Beast Mastery do you have, sir? Also, which traits have you selected within the Beast Mastery line?

I want to know this too.

I pretty much had the same experience you are having wolfsong when I was leveling my ranger. Between the levels of 30-50 or so I would marvel that I could just set a spirit to auto-attack and let my pet take out 2-3 mobs at a time without even having to be at the keyboard (just as an experiment mind you). There was a reason that the majority of bots back then were rangers. This changed quickly sometime after level 50-60 and the challenge returned.

I think the difficulty curve really does depend on the profession while leveling. My thief for instance died constantly in PvE from levels 1-40 but is now in a good spot at level 80. My necro seemed easier at earlier levels, difficult at mid levels 30-40, and easier at high levels.

And as others have said Orr & Southsun Cove can be really challenging even at level 80 with any profession.

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

Vol.7601:

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

I have to mist form / arcane shield / every invuln I have in my kitten nal to get to Karka queen alive..

LittleLepton.8915:

Vol.7601:

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

I have to mist form / arcane shield / every invuln I have in my kitten nal to get to Karka queen alive..

Yup Karka Queen is better than Teq for a hard fight imo

and then of coure you also have regular Karkas- they eat Risen for breakfast

Morrigan.2809:

LittleLepton.8915:

Vol.7601:

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

I have to mist form / arcane shield / every invuln I have in my kitten nal to get to Karka queen alive..

Yup Karka Queen is better than Teq for a hard fight imo

and then of coure you also have regular Karkas- they eat Risen for breakfast

Ew, no wonder they’re angry!

LittleLepton.8915:

Vol.7601:

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

I have to mist form / arcane shield / every invuln I have in my kitten nal to get to Karka queen alive..

If the Karka Queen is up the Camp Karka waypoint should be available, which is a faster way to get to her. Or you can take the safe west WP if needed.

Those karka in the Steampipe camp are pretty good at farming though. You just need a ton of reflections or else the zerg wipes lol.

Power, precision, and critical damage combine in a perfect storm to make you more powerful than that stats alone would suggest and the game isn’t really balanced for that. As you level, you get more of these stats and that may be behind some of what you’re seeing.