Guild Wars 2

Been trying to level some new professions the past couple of days and it has been pretty brutal thus far. My main issue is that you don’t get enough XP to progress.

Case in point, I created a new charr character. I cleared out all 4 hearts, got the skill point, and did all of the events in the opening area around Gunbreach Hills. The only place left for me to go at that point is to an area where the enemies are level 6 and 7. Problem is, even after joining a PUG and clearing out some of the hearts/events in that level 6-7 area I was still level 4!!!!

This happens time and time again. What are we supposed to do, go all the way back to Lion’s Arch and clear out the first few hearts from each starting area and then keep rotating? Doesn’t this seem a little ridiculous. Should we be able to just progress smoothly through an area, particularly when it is the starting area?

ANet seriously needs to look into this. The balance seems completely off.

I found leveling being very quick and too easy.
I also do crafting which boosts xp tremendously, and the personal story.

I cleared a map with a friend while we were in a group togather, and when i got the 100% on the map, I was level 12. After crafting with the mats I collected and doing the personal story, I was 16.

Yesterday I got my 2nd character to level 80. I was 74 at 9pm, and 80 at 12:30 am. The major experience boost was crafting and personal story, not the hearts.

you do know Harts are not the only form of EXP there are also the DE’s that you should be doing ((when ever you see them)) and they are repeatable

and there’s plenty off them.

Crafting cost money and when you just start out the game you have none. Seriously just think about what you said, if crafting is how you are supposed to level rather than actually playing the game and doing things then there is seriously a problem. And not only that, you don’t even get that much XP from crafting. Going from 0-400 only gives you 10 levels (15 if you pay for the crafting XP booster).

Personal story helps some what but you can only do so much at a time before it out levels you.

I did a bunch more hearts and dynamic events (like a dozen more) and I’m still level 6. Meanwhile everything around me is level 10 now.

No-one said you have to fight a level 10 at level 6 if you want though why not go through the LA portal and from there to another races starting area and do their hearts,vistas and skill points that will level you up a bit .

Adine.2184:

No-one said you have to fight a level 10 at level 6 if you want though why not go through the LA portal and from there to another races starting area and do their hearts,vistas and skill points that will level you up a bit .

You shouldnt have to change areas to level up.

I can tell you now from experience, if you start at level 1 and explore all five Cities you will end up at level 8. Then if you do all the level 1-15 zones, you’ll end up around level 25 or so. With increased XP anyone completing all the low level zones in level order will find themselves vastly overleveled for all the content. As it stands, my first character was always overleveled, I was level 80 well before I ever stepped into Frostgorge Sound & Orr, simply by completing every single zone as I leveled in order.

So with that in mind, the XP does feel balanced to me, and to fully experience the world of GW2 you shouldn’t arbitrarily limit yourself to tunnel visioning your own races leveling zones and instead explore the world.

IMO what Arena Net should do is add an Asura Gate hub that leads to every single starter zone, somewhere easily and accessable so we can get there in 2 loading screens rather than 4, and to also make it more obvious to new players how to get to other areas and that they are in-fact viable and encouraged leveling strategies.

I’m inclined to agree. It was much faster to ignore hearts, leaving them for exploration at 80, and grind neutrals.

I had no problems on my way to 80 with so far 3 chars. If you do dynamic events as you come across them, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Ashes.6418:

So with that in mind, the XP does feel balanced to me, and to fully experience the world of GW2 you shouldn’t arbitrarily limit yourself to tunnel visioning your own races leveling zones and instead explore the world.

Except that the personal story gives the distinct impression that you could not be wandering into the world until you start working with the orders, meaning that in theory the racial zones should be enough to keep up with the personal story level until then.

This may be true if me make sure to complete our maps, but then that ties into completing certain skill challenges. Except that they love to throw us up against bunches of mobs that seems capable of flattening anyone attempting to solo them even after out-leveling the general area.

I don’t think leveling is as fast as it was in the betas. But you level faster in this game that almost any game I’ve ever played. But a level 10 area on a level 6 “is” going to be brutal…go back to a lower level area is what I suggest.

At level 6, your armor and weapons are likely looted and you haven’t made enough coin to get something better off the TP.

karma.8763:

Adine.2184:

No-one said you have to fight a level 10 at level 6 if you want though why not go through the LA portal and from there to another races starting area and do their hearts,vistas and skill points that will level you up a bit .

You shouldnt have to change areas to level up.

See I don’t understand this, WHY shouldn’t you?

Is is so bad to be encouraged to explore?

That being said, I’ve never had to leave an area because part of it was to high for me…….I’m honestly at a loss for how that would be possible unless you ignore most of the exp opportunities the game basically flings at you at every step.

It does feel a lot slower these days then when Guildwars 2 opened, back then each map completion i was on par with my correct level (including heart quests and Events etc) even a little over par.

Now 3 – 4 months on i’m really feeling the grind bad, and i’ve made 6 level 80s in that time, these last two were always a couple of levels behind par and sometimes even three.

I complete the whole maps the grind a little on events and still im too low, i even have to redo other zones at the same levels to compete..never needed to do that 3 or so months ago..

I found this incredibly frustrating as well and it’s why I quit GW2 the first time, when I was only lvl 11 or so.

Basically there is a huge amount of luck in the DE’s that spawn. If your goal is to go from heart to heart, you’re going to fall short. You need to waste time wandering around so that you run into more DE’s and get some additional minor xp from gathering and exploring. I now find it very fun and different, but for straight up race to lvl 80 I imagine it wouldn’t be so great.

Will.9785:

Been trying to level some new professions the past couple of days and it has been pretty brutal thus far. My main issue is that you don’t get enough XP to progress.

Case in point, I created a new charr character. I cleared out all 4 hearts, got the skill point, and did all of the events in the opening area around Gunbreach Hills. The only place left for me to go at that point is to an area where the enemies are level 6 and 7. Problem is, even after joining a PUG and clearing out some of the hearts/events in that level 6-7 area I was still level 4!!!!

This happens time and time again. What are we supposed to do, go all the way back to Lion’s Arch and clear out the first few hearts from each starting area and then keep rotating? Doesn’t this seem a little ridiculous. Should we be able to just progress smoothly through an area, particularly when it is the starting area?

ANet seriously needs to look into this. The balance seems completely off.

It’s actually too fast. Did you gather, discover, do your daily achievement, get every poi and waypoint? Did you explore the main cities before moving on to the rest of the world? I did that early on and it was a complete struggle to keep myself from leveling to 80 too fast.

Yeah, it’s the DE’s that you need for leveling XP. They are spread out through the game, but there are 4 or so areas where I camp out for a good 5 levels each done very quickly. Also recommend you invest in +10% food as every little bit helps. Add in crafting if you have the mats/gold and the leveling will be very fast.

There’s some slow time at start. But when you get to like lvl 30 you start to get experience really fast. I started Blootide coast at level ~47 and by the time I’ve completed Sparkfly Fen I was already around 75, skipping lvl 65+ zones completely and going straight to Orr where leveling is even faster.

You just need to get through first few slow levels. Crafting, story and exploring can really hep with it.

PS And you don’t really need much gold for crafting. I leveled crafting while leveling my very first character and still had enough gold to buy trait books and gear from TP.

I’ve also noticed the insufficient experience gain in the beginning of the game, but like said before, it seems to get into a balanced state at around level 30. Nonetheless it can be frustrating when you have to constantly fight against mobs who are 2-3 levels higher than you while you don’t even have all your skills. The atrocious mob respawn rate doesn’t really help either, but that’s another topic.

You should not have to visit other lowbie zones for additional XP. I can’t see any point why you should. Most games have it so that you can complete one zone without the need to waste time by jumping between zones. I believe this was intended in GW2 as well, but this part of the game seems to be poorly optimized at the moment.

To level fast enough you should only need to do the Hearts, Points of Interest, Waypoints, Skill Challenges, Vistas and maybe a couple of events. Nothing more.

This is part of what the massively article talked about. There is no flow of zones. As a brand new player, I found the exact same issues as the OP. I did all the heart quests, I found all POIs and vistas as I went, and did DEs whenever they spawned near my location. Even doing that, I was constantly 1-2 levels behind the next heart quest.

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to figure things out, I realized that the best way to progress is by going to other starting zones, doing lots more DEs, running dungeons, crafting, etc. It’s gotten me ahead of zones now. But as a brand new player, the game absolutely fails to explain any of these other options. I had no idea how to get to these other starting zones until I talked to the guild I joined and found out about Asura gates.

Xp is very easy to gain, it’s just that the game does absolutely nothing to inform you of your options.