Guild Wars 2

Leveling all the way to 80 gets to be boring after awhile. Some people would like to be able to pay to get there fast. But on the other hand, if you’ve never played a specific Profession before and jump straight to 80, you won’t know what you’re doing.

I also feel the pain of leveling, having 5 level 80’s of different professions (and nearly a sixth). But don’t quite agree with “instant leveling”. The player needs to learn at and pay his way through Leveling College.

The player must level one character on his account to 80 the old-fashioned way. Only then can another character on the account be granted admission to Leveling College.

Leveling College is a Four-Year school. Okay, a Four-STEP School. Freshmen will be Level 20 when they graduate. Sophomores will be level 40 when they graduate. Juniors will be Level 60 when they graduate. Seniors will graduate to level 80.

If a character is already level 20+, he has earned college credit and can enter Leveling College as a Sophomore. If he is level 40+, he can enter as a Junior. And if he is level 60+ he can enter Leveling College as a Senior. Each grade costs the same. You do NOT have to pay for grades you skip.

Leveling College is designed to teach the player a little about how to play their Profession. A “year” consists of up to 4 personal story-like episodes (personal instances) where the player is given a chance to learn his new skills. While in these classroom instances, he will be artificially bumped up to the appropriate classroom level (a Freshman will play at level 20, a Sophomore will play at level 40, a Junior will play at level 60, and a Senior will play at level 80).

The character is allowed to select gear, skills, and traits of his classroom level for use in the personal classroom instance. He can not use his own gear. Each episode of the training course can be repeated as often as desired while the player experiments with different builds. The player must succeed in the current episode of training before he can advance to the next.

The Leveling College is open to all, but if the player has already leveled one Profession to 80, then he need no longer do the classroom instances to level the same Profession to 80. He only needs to pay for the necessary classes to advance his level.

This need not affect Personal Story at all. The character can still go back and follow it if the likes. He will naturally be underwhelmed by the challenge and rewards for lower level content, but it is still there for him. He might even take this as a good opportunity for post-graduate work… the chance to fine-tune his new Profession in an instanced scenario where his lack of experience won’t hinder the efforts of other players.

(Gw1 had something very similar to this with the FACTIONS campaign. Low level characters did high-XP earning tasks for their teachers, who gave them new skills to use to complete their assignments. You could level up faster in Factions than in any of the other expansions.)

Tuition 10,000 gold a semester.

No – I leveled a toon to 80, without dying just doing content and exploration (no boosts, etc). I think it is a very bad idea. Factions was the worst chapter of the GW1, it was so shallow.

People are already saying GW2 is easy-peasy and you want to make it easier?

No. If you honestly have that much issue leveling to 80, then just admit it and spend the gold to level crafts to 500/400 and gain levels that way.

Well guys you have to admit. It’s a lot better than those instant lvl 80 suggestions you often see.

how about maxed everything at level 20 then 21-80 give other wierd and exciting rewards at each level..? and max armor requirement would be level 20 too.

What happens if i forget my gym kit – do i have to play in my pants?

I’m bored and you want me to stand around at a crafting table instead of running around the world adventuring? That will certainly raise my level of excitement! Not to mention, your solution will get me zero experience in actually knowing how to play a new Profession. (I don’t care for PvP of any sort. Please don’t tell me to go there and try it out at level 80).

This is not about making it easier. I am fully capable of becoming competent in a new Profession a lot faster than it currently takes to get to level 80 following the Personal Storyline. Much of the first few trips up the ladder involve learning the game mechanics. How to dodge. How to spot enemy “tells”. When to heal. When to run. I know all that now, and don’t need to learn it again. But even with different races and different paths to follow, much of the Personal Story is still the same for every character. This is about making repeated trips to 80 less boring.

The trip to 80 IS boring. The trip to 80 in front of a crafting bench may be boring, but it’s boring for less time. Not to mention if you find a lot of this stuff boring, then it’s probably you getting bored of the game.

If it bores you, don’t do it.

zwierz.9012:

If it bores you, don’t do it.

After 5+ level 80 characters, leveling bores me, yes. But I do want to experience each of the Professions. Can you tell me how to do that without leveling?

Aidan Savage.2078:

The trip to 80 IS boring. The trip to 80 in front of a crafting bench may be boring, but it’s boring for less time. Not to mention if you find a lot of this stuff boring, then it’s probably you getting bored of the game.

I am bored of the pve side of the game, it is grindy and the enemy ai is terrible. I still somewhat enjoy WvW and would like to have more characters on rotation without having to grind them to 80 in pve.

And I know you can level in WvW but being an uplevel hurts your server. In gw1 I could create a character and have him fully leveled and geared in a day, I shouldn’t have to spend weeks doing stuff that I’m burnt out on to play the parts of the game I enjoy.

The first time I went to Disney World I was excited. The six hour drive was full of anticipation. The pretty countryside and the time just flew by.

Disney World is a big place. I enjoy returning, and there is always something new and exciting to see and do. But the six hour drive ain’t what it used to be. Much better now when I take an airplane.

I regularly take my level 42 necro (now 49) to EotM because I find it more fun than attaching myself to the weeniedale train and press 1 for a couple hours. Being upleveled means I’m taking more damage at worst, at best the condi damage she does is actually substantial.

Borderlands are another story entirely.

Hamfast.8719:

zwierz.9012:

If it bores you, don’t do it.

After 5+ level 80 characters, leveling bores me, yes. But I do want to experience each of the Professions. Can you tell me how to do that without leveling?

sPVP

I wonder what the point of leveling to 80 without going through the only parts of the game that are interesting is? To skip-run through dungeons as fast as possible? To do LW updates? To do the meta-event cycle? I suppose I’ll grant that if WvW is your poison, the experience is somewhat better at max level — but failing that, what’s the point?

Celestina.2894:

Hamfast.8719:

zwierz.9012:

If it bores you, don’t do it.

After 5+ level 80 characters, leveling bores me, yes. But I do want to experience each of the Professions. Can you tell me how to do that without leveling?

sPVP

I guess you didn’t read my post 7 spots up from yours (end of first paragraph). I am die-hard PvE. And I guess I shouldn’t have said “experience”… I want an actual level 80 character of each profession. Not just temporarily leveled for the “experience” of it. I want to do level 80 PvE events.

Then bite the bullet and do some boring content so you can get to the content you want to do. There really is no other way around it. Not to mention you’d get there faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar faster than waiting for such a thing as this being introduced.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well guys you have to admit. It’s a lot better than those instant lvl 80 suggestions you often see.

The frequency at which those pop up does mean something. Leveling is plain bad in this game.

There is a long list of 1000 pages with suggestions to be prioritized before this one. When we reach page 1000, I will comment seriously on this thread.

Sirendor.1394:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well guys you have to admit. It’s a lot better than those instant lvl 80 suggestions you often see.

The frequency at which those pop up does mean something. Leveling is plain bad in this game. People want everything on a silver platter.

Corrected for what it actually is. Leveling is far easier in gw2 than a lot of other games. Why? because events give 7-10% exp just for completing them. Depending on the event itself, you could make up to that much again just from kills. 10-15 events a level is not hard to do, especially when you can just do events in low level areas for comparable exp. Hell, I still take a trip every hour or so up to Eda’s orchard and mass murder spiders and collect apples. With the right timing, I’m done with 3 events in 5 minutes. Add in the harpies or elemental at the dam, giant wurm at jeb’s farm, and the water pump station event, I’m looking at close to half a level in 10 minutes.

Sirendor.1394:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well guys you have to admit. It’s a lot better than those instant lvl 80 suggestions you often see.

The frequency at which those pop up does mean something. Leveling is plain bad in this game.

And who is commenting? You and 5 others, I can even post the account names of the people commenting on these threads.

Just because a minority of 20, 200 or 2000 people want something, doesn’t mean we should get it. On a side note, leveling in GW2 is one of the most impressing exerpiences in the MMO industry. if you want to re-do it 5 times because you want to have 5 different chars, that’s your issue.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I wonder what the point of leveling to 80 without going through the only parts of the game that are interesting is? To skip-run through dungeons as fast as possible? To do LW updates? To do the meta-event cycle? I suppose I’ll grant that if WvW is your poison, the experience is somewhat better at max level — but failing that, what’s the point?

If the only parts of the game that were interesting was the leveling, then nobody would be using level 80 characters.

I appreciate learning. I don’t want to skip through stuff and be an incompetent. But as I said earlier, I already know much of what I’m supposed to learn in the leveling process. I would like to skip the stuff I know, and be able to have a little practice with a new Profession. Personal Story (now) and Crafting (always) bore me to tears.

If I learn High School Algebra, I have already learned the basics of math. If I then decide to take High School Geometry, I don’t have to start back at first grade and re-learn the basics of math.

With the ability to level by practically doing anything, a lot of players never actually learn how to play the game. I’ve seen many players not know basic mechanics, like what to do when downed or what a combo is. Back during Queen’s Gauntlet, I even had a warrior ask me how I was “dodging” without dodging. The funny part was, he was in t3 dyed black/white and had twilight. This is what happens when people aren’t forced to solo high level content and instead are given the option to zerg everything.

Regardless of being a leveling option, an area to teach the basics is needed and it should be something people want to do, to encourage everyone to do it, rather than skip it.

Although this would never happen, it’d be great if there was a training area specifically setup to challenge all aspects of your class and your ability to play. On completion of these tests, you’d be assigned a rank based on your performance, which would be used when matching players.

Leveling just needs to be faster, not instant or accomplishable in 4 hours.

If they had a place where you could do a scavenger hunt (it could be a leveling college or whatever) where once per hour the reward for the scavenger hunt was a level that’d be great. The hunts would have whatever theme, do this dynamic event, kill champion, help 2 people in X zone (Hearts), be a cartographer, find X vistas & Y PoIs, etc.

Every hour, you could get 1 level by doing this scavenger hunt. It already is fairly normal to get 1 level per hour. This extra level per hour would cut the leveling time in half via regular play for most people.

People could game the system and do tricks like, only logging in once per hour to do the scavenger hunt for 10-20 minutes and get a level. Effectively allowing them get max level in 800+ minutes over 10 days assuming they logged in 8 times a day (assumption is 16 hours on work and sleep). So it might be good to make this only available to level 30+ characters. Or make it only available every 2 hours, so it’d take 800+ minutes over 20 days assuming they logged in 4 times a day.

Or an even better safety for the system would be to make the scavenger hunt available X times per day (we’ll say 3), create a counter that makes a hunt only available after playing a day for 45 minutes (so a player who plays for 2 hours 15 minutes in a day can do all three hunts). This would effectively prevent the gaming above and result in about 1 extra level per hour.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Sirendor.1394:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well guys you have to admit. It’s a lot better than those instant lvl 80 suggestions you often see.

The frequency at which those pop up does mean something. Leveling is plain bad in this game. People want everything on a silver platter.

Corrected for what it actually is. Leveling is far easier in gw2 than a lot of other games. Why? because events give 7-10% exp just for completing them. Depending on the event itself, you could make up to that much again just from kills. 10-15 events a level is not hard to do, especially when you can just do events in low level areas for comparable exp. Hell, I still take a trip every hour or so up to Eda’s orchard and mass murder spiders and collect apples. With the right timing, I’m done with 3 events in 5 minutes. Add in the harpies or elemental at the dam, giant wurm at jeb’s farm, and the water pump station event, I’m looking at close to half a level in 10 minutes.

Not the point.

I never said leveling was easy or hard. I said the process after 5+ characters is mind-numbing, and I am suggesting a way to skip unnecessary repetitiveness in the learning method.

I don’t want to instantly pay my way to 80.

I don’t want to skip learning about my new Profession.

I want to streamline the process because I don’t need the whole 1-80 learning curve anymore.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Then bite the bullet and do some boring content so you can get to the content you want to do. There really is no other way around it. Not to mention you’d get there faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar faster than waiting for such a thing as this being introduced.

I am biting the bullet and doing some boring content.

I know there’s really no other way around it.

That is the point of this thread. A suggestion so that in the future we might not have to bite the bullet and do boring content.

If I remember correctly you can get “level up!” books from sPvP chests. There you go, you can roll a lvl 1 character from any class, do Spvp which puts you on same foot as any other player and use the books to reach lvl 80.

There you go!? (Corrct me if I’m wrong about the books, I don’t pvp much lately)

Hamfast.8719:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I wonder what the point of leveling to 80 without going through the only parts of the game that are interesting is? To skip-run through dungeons as fast as possible? To do LW updates? To do the meta-event cycle? I suppose I’ll grant that if WvW is your poison, the experience is somewhat better at max level — but failing that, what’s the point?

If the only parts of the game that were interesting was the leveling, then nobody would be using level 80 characters.

I appreciate learning. I don’t want to skip through stuff and be an incompetent. But as I said earlier, I already know much of what I’m supposed to learn in the leveling process. I would like to skip the stuff I know, and be able to have a little practice with a new Profession. Personal Story (now) and Crafting (always) bore me to tears.

If I learn High School Algebra, I have already learned the basics of math. If I then decide to take High School Geometry, I don’t have to start back at first grade and re-learn the basics of math.

Interest is a subjective phenomenon. I recognize that what interests me might not interest you. MMO’s are massive time sinks. There’s nothing more to our different preferences for which time sink gets worked on than that I’m process-oriented and you seem to be more goal-oriented. Nothing against your idea, but I’d sooner the devs spent resources on my preferences than yours.

One of the oddities about MMO’s as a genre is that many players insist that the game has to have a massive world that gets used primarily for leveling. However, once the leveling has been done once, they don’t ever want to do it again. That strikes me as odd, to say the least. Why not just create max level characters, run them through your expanded tutorial, and have everything else be max-level content? Why require the developer to create a massive world if it’s just going to be under-utilized once the game is a month old? The obvious answer is that leveling is a time sink. So, what’s the developer’s motivation to remove it?

zwierz.9012:

If I remember correctly you can get “level up!” books from sPvP chests. There you go, you can roll a lvl 1 character from any class, do Spvp which puts you on same foot as any other player and use the books to reach lvl 80.

There you go!? (Corrct me if I’m wrong about the books, I don’t pvp much lately)

I don’t know about that. They have books to get you to level 20 if you are lower than that. I got my first ones (I have something like 14 now) when they added Achievement Chests. Never got a chance to use one though, since by that time all of my characters were past 20. But if I see the need for another character (which won’t likely happen unless they introduce some new Professions), then I will be able to zap them up instantly to level 20. I still think the idea of “practice time” with a new Profession is good, but there’s not much to learn at the 1-20 range. Only new skills. You don’t have traits to learn yet at that point. Probably why they added the books… because below level 20 you aren’t really missing much if you skip over it.

Hamfast.8719:

Celestina.2894:

Hamfast.8719:

zwierz.9012:

If it bores you, don’t do it.

After 5+ level 80 characters, leveling bores me, yes. But I do want to experience each of the Professions. Can you tell me how to do that without leveling?

sPVP

I guess you didn’t read my post 7 spots up from yours (end of first paragraph). I am die-hard PvE. And I guess I shouldn’t have said “experience”… I want an actual level 80 character of each profession. Not just temporarily leveled for the “experience” of it. I want to do level 80 PvE events.

Again, sPVP. You’ll be able to level up in there after the patch on the 15th IIRC.

They are numerous ways to level in this game quickly.

I think the OP has a interesting idea, a bit of a compromise between instant 80 gem store items and grinding to 80 the traditional way and it would be new content. I would like to think of it more as a proving grounds though. Perhaps have various level of difficulty that forces the player to practice their skills and ending with a solo dungeon of a fair degree of difficulty that would reward the final level 80. Of course no other rewards would be given while in the proving ground aside from levels. Once entering the proving ground players cannot leave until completed or quitting, quitting would negate all progress. Access to the proving ground would require having at least 2-3 level 80s already and a pass purchased from the gem store.

reintroduce Gauntlet Arena from Queen’s Pavilion. Every win considered a dynamic event for 7% of your current XP bar. Lvl tiers to match the 3 different categories of champs 20/40/60.

@OP: great idea!

Celestina.2894:

Again, sPVP. You’ll be able to level up in there after the patch on the 15th IIRC

Sorry… IIRC? Translation?

I don’t suppose I can earn levels quickly in sPvP without fighting other players? I’ve tried many forms of PvP in many different games. I enjoy friendly rivalries and good sportsmanship, but that attitude seems to be missing these days. Many PvP games seem to turn into ganging up exercises (boring zerging that takes very little of skill into account on either side) and bad attitudes from losers and winners alike. It just seems that trash-talk is today’s standard for success in PvP. So I’ve stayed away whenever possible. It just isn’t enjoyable for me when played that way.

Hamfast.8719:

zwierz.9012:

If it bores you, don’t do it.

After 5+ level 80 characters, leveling bores me, yes. But I do want to experience each of the Professions. Can you tell me how to do that without leveling?

I think the best solution would be to open up Cantha/Elona.

I don’t get why Anet wanted to go from 20 to 80.

I don’t know why people want a PvE moba.

No one wants to level for the third or eighth time. True. But no one wants low level zones being empty, either. And I can assure you that no one wants to pay 4 silver for a bolt of wool.

Dusty Moon.4382:

No – I leveled a toon to 80, without dying just doing content and exploration (no boosts, etc). I think it is a very bad idea. Factions was the worst chapter of the GW1, it was so shallow.

People are already saying GW2 is easy-peasy and you want to make it easier?

I think what he’s suggesting is instead of the boring grind to 80, we have challenging content designed to teach us our profession. This will make the game much more difficult than the leveling grind.

It could be done similarly to the Queens Gauntlet. Easy opponents are worth half a level, whereas a very difficult opponent would be worth 5 levels. It should also teach profession specific roles, like for a Guardian you would have to keep the conditions from a boss from killing the NPC allies, or to use Wall of Reflection time properly to keep an NPC party from wiping. Other challenges could consist of having an instant-kill enemy that needs to be taken down, and an enemy that takes no damage from you but dies slowly over time, or an enemy that can only be hit by conditions and an enemy immune to conditions. If this college can teach players to do something besides just grind to 80 and then grind dungeons that would be great.

GW2 used to be challenging, in Beta, then people complained that it’s too hard until you have what you have now. Thank them.

I learned to play my class in first beta, when a veteran was a veteran, men were men, women were women and fluffy bunnies were fluffy bunnies. Back in the days everything was better

IIRC=If I recall correctly.

I am really baffled at how you can claim to be about PvE and still not want to level up in PvE. Is what you’re planning to do at 80 really that different from what you’re doing before 80?

I don’t see how it is so hard, I leveled 18 characters to level 80 in one day and I actually got about 10g as a bonus with no cost. It only took me about 6 hours too.

Stars.2179:

I don’t see how it is so hard, I leveled 18 characters to level 80 in one day and I actually got about 10g as a bonus with no cost. It only took me about 6 hours too.

Post your guide, people would be appreciative

I see you peeps are WoW fans ei?
WoW took what? 7 years to implement the instant max lvl scroll? Plus, how long did it take to get to max lvl back in the time? Whatever the answer to that is, I’m pretty sure getting to 80 in GW2 is a lot faster.
It’s because of people like you that want gratification immediately that the maps are empty. I would nerf crafting xp even more, so people would actually have explore the world to get to 80.

Guhracie.3419:

IIRC=If I recall correctly.

I am really baffled at how you can claim to be about PvE and still not want to level up in PvE. Is what you’re planning to do at 80 really that different from what you’re doing before 80?

What’s the confusion? I will be leveling in PvE. Each “year” of College would be comprised of about 4 personal story-like episodes designed to let me learn about the Profession, each replayable if I want to tweak my play style to see what works best for me.

Speed of leveling is not really my concern either. Just boredom factor. But I don’t see them expanding the current Personal Story into a bunch of new paths to give us more variety. If they did go that route, I wouldn’t have a problem. But right now it’s like I’m watching the same TV show over and over again, especially after the Pact is created.

Thank you for the “IIRC” translation!

Fasalina.6571:

I see you peeps are WoW fans ei?
WoW took what? 7 years to implement the instant max lvl scroll? Plus, how long did it take to get to max lvl back in the time? Whatever the answer to that is, I’m pretty sure getting to 80 in GW2 is a lot faster.
It’s because of people like you that want gratification immediately that the maps are empty. I would nerf crafting xp even more, so people would actually have explore the world to get to 80.

Never played WoW. But someone always comes along on these threads and makes a comparison. “People like me” aren’t asking for immediate gratification. Read my posts. It isn’t speed I’m after. It is an alleviation of the repetitiveness. (But all it seems I am doing here is repeating myself).

Wouldn’t it be simpler to allow max level characters to obtain account bound items with +EXP% attributes. Get, say, two +50% EXP trinkets, equip them on your alt, and bingo, leveling takes half the time.

It would probably be slow enough to allow people who already know the game to learn the mechanics of a new profession before hitting 80, would require almost no new programming (the coding for +EXP is already there for the boosters), and would make leveling new characters a little less “grindy”.

Hamfast.8719:

Fasalina.6571:

I see you peeps are WoW fans ei?
WoW took what? 7 years to implement the instant max lvl scroll? Plus, how long did it take to get to max lvl back in the time? Whatever the answer to that is, I’m pretty sure getting to 80 in GW2 is a lot faster.
It’s because of people like you that want gratification immediately that the maps are empty. I would nerf crafting xp even more, so people would actually have explore the world to get to 80.

Never played WoW. But someone always comes along on these threads and makes a comparison. “People like me” aren’t asking for immediate gratification. Read my posts. It isn’t speed I’m after. It is an alleviation of the repetitiveness. (But all it seems I am doing here is repeating myself).

I haven’t played wow either. You don’t need to play wow to know the game and how it works. You don’t have to play wow to know they added an insta max lvl scroll lately

Thing is I don’t really get how you can get bored.
I’ve got 5 toons at lvl 80 so far. 2 of them have 100%. The other 3 are at 85% because of WvW. I enjoyed exploring the world of tyria 5 times now, and as soon as I fall in love with another profession I’ll do it again. I always find a small place that I didn’t pay enough attention to during my previous runs. Stop considering getting to 80 a chore and your main goal. Enjoy the world and enjoy the profession you picked. Try stupid builds, “chain” awsome combos! Use you imagination.
ENJOY THE TRIP, not the end of it.
Did you play any other MMOs before this one?

Guhracie.3419:

IIRC=If I recall correctly.

I am really baffled at how you can claim to be about PvE and still not want to level up in PvE. Is what you’re planning to do at 80 really that different from what you’re doing before 80?

In my case, yes. Few people want to bring someone who just barely meets the level requirement for a dungeon, and when I do find a group I’m not nearly as effective as I am at level 80.

You keep talking about boring content here and boring content there. It seems you didn’t quite get the fact the GW2 is about the trip and not the end game. That’s also why there’s no real “end game” in GW2. Assuming you’ll be able to get 80 on a new profession in say a few minutes using a scroll or in 2 days using some other thing like this accademy nonsense. Then what? What are you going to do with your toon? Dungeons? There’s only one or 2 dungeons that require you to be 80
WvW? You’ll be 80 anyway, and the considering the zerg fest, it doesn’t even matter if you’re really 80 or not.
WorldBoses? you don’t really need to be max lvl for them either…
The only content you actually need to be 80 in this game is Fractals.
Again, GW2 is about the adventure, not the end game.

I’ll tell you something. I actually have 6 toons at lvl 80. The 6th one was leveled by crafting. After I got him to 80 and gave him full exotics, I never played him again. I don’t really know why but I don’t feel any form of attachment to him now that he’s 80 but with only 20% world completion.
Also your point of view is biased, you might know how stuff works and don’t want to lvl it to80 again. But all the new players that just recently started playing, will most likely want to use your suggested system. The result would be a flock of clueless new players failing miserably.