Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-fresh-start-the-new-player-experience-in-guild-wars-2/

Hi I am one of those new/ returning players you speak of and I just wanted to say although I am thoroughly enjoying my GW2 experience and am ever overwhelmingly impressed by it I just feel like more is needed to be done “to create a better sense of pacing in the progression of the game”.

Ive noticed this around level 30 and 38 which is currently where my two main toons are, one being from when I first started the game (38) and one I started anew to get accustomed to the game again. I personally dont like questing nor do I want to pick up crafting. I would much prefer just to grind of mobs at my; level so firstly my suggestion would be more xp from mobs.

I would also recommend a more drastic/major change by re-adjusting the whole xp needed to level up as the grind seems to hit a bit of a difficulty/ abhorrent spike around 30 to 38 which is a little off putting considering this is just barely under halfway.

Also a change/suggestion would be a dungeon queue/finder but maybe there is already one implemented and I just can’t find it or I guess this would be way too much of a change to be viably implemented.

I will endeavour to try and enjoy this game while I am on my way it to max level I really do want to stick with it hence posting this in the hope it might help your excellent ethos of creating “a better sense of pacing in the progression of the game”.

One Tamriel or in this case One Tyria would improve things immensely i feel

(Also a slight suggestion DO NOT up the max level in next expansion keep it at level 80 and just find other ways of instilling progression. If there is anything that puts me off getting into an mmo its that the max level is to high it is not necessary to up the max level DO NOT DO IT please. Well I think that is all for now.)

That is all, much much much love from Banfa

For dungeon hit the ’’Y’’ button, that will open up the ‘’Looking for Group’’ panel.

The internet has a lot to answer for, we used to just play and enjoy games, now we feel the need to recommending changes – in this case for a game that has had millions of toons pass through the leveling experience already. The trick with good mmorpg is that its not about ‘pacing’ (a term that came from games that are all about getting to ‘end game’) its about simply doing what you enjoy in game. My advise is diversify what you do in game while leveling:

1 Most important, Dont watch xp bar!
2 Try exploring in high level zones gaining XP from node gathering and discovery and dodging fast death from mobs
3. Don’t use map, speak to npc and get into your character
4. Look at what is at offer in LFG
5. WVW
6. Crafting and discover – the xp gains can be quite satisfying if you are so inclined and max level gear and food that you craft is always relevant.
7. Do achievements as you go

Just so you’re aware GW2 (and GW1) was deliberately designed to make grinding kills a sub-optimal way of levelling because the developers don’t like it and don’t think it should be encouraged. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, just that you’re making things harder than they need to be by focusing on it and that’s highly unlikely to ever change.

But if you want to level that way there are a few things that can make it easier:

• Whenever possible kill enemies in range of a renowned heart or, even better a dynamic event (orange text and markers) – I don’t know if that comes too close to “questing” for you but literally all you need to do is kill enemies and you’ll get credit for the heart/event and therefore more XP. Some events also spawn large waves of enemies which makes it faster.
• Go to World vs. World and join a zerg group. You’ll still be running around killing enemies (a mix of NPCs and other players) but because that’s what the game mode is designed around you’ll get better XP for it.
• Kill passive creatures – the ones with yellow names that don’t attack unless you hit them first. Creatures award more XP if they’ve been on the map longer and people are less likely to kill these than the enemies.

But also, what do you mean when you say you don’t like questing? Is it just the personal story you’re not interested in, or are you avoiding hearts and events as well? If it’s the first one then that’s fair enough, but if you’re avoiding hearts and events you’re not going to have a lot to do once you reach level 80. This game isn’t really any different at max level, there are no special ‘end game’ modes which are only accessible then. (Well, there’s 1 raid, but that’s basically a more complicated dungeon.)

There are a few maps and dungeons which aren’t accessible until level 80, but they’re not really any different to the ones you’ve already got.

If you don’t mind doing events then my advice would be to focus on them – most of them revolve around killing enemies anyway, and they give much more XP than simply grinding kills.

Katastroff.1045 :: Thank you so much!

vesica tempestas.1563 :: Than you for your feedback

Danikat.8537 :: To me questing/ hearts are like “flavouring” for killing mobs the quests mix it up but with menial tasks mind you. I prefer to just kill mobs for level progression it feels more natural and less menial to me personally, if that makes sense… Thank you for your advice and indepth feedback it is very much appreciated They could implement something akin to One Tamriel that would open up a world of content and relax that minimally jarring search for new quests etc. I mean surely they have stats on new/ returning players retention/ staying power.

Update :: Okay so ive tried the dungeon and its not a bad option for what im after just not sure how i feel about it yet though, I mean its just the one dungeon so far I dont like booby traps and the feel of the classes ie its not your typical tank/heals/dps but everything else is fantastic. Id also like to point out I like the story missions.

2nd Update :: The Deposit All Materials in the inventory selection is warming me to crafting at first I just didnt know what to do with all the stuff not enough bags and I just ended up selling or deleting. Alos Boosts in the Gem Store seem like a viable option.

Still my opinion remains that I feel player retention/ staying power would be much better if grind from level 35 above was minimised by lowering the xp amount needed and possibly more xp from choirs. I am just wondering if the statistics show this need for improvement cause I feel the grind is way to harsh.

I’m not sure how quickly you got to level 30, how you felt that progress was, but that should be the teaching method of how you acquire levels and progress through the world. Also, can you be a bit more detailed on this “One Tamriel” mechanic? I’ve never heard of it, and I can’t even guess which game it’s from.

I’m going to try not to repeat any of the suggestions other people have made, but you have to understand that a lot of the design choices for GW2 was made intentionally to be different from other MMOs at the time, and much of it is still unique.

1. If you haven’t already, equip a sickle, logging axe and pickaxe and go harvest all the nodes around the world. At your level, it’ll be only tier 1 and 2 materials, but that’ll get you started on crafting when you do get the urge to try it out. Plus, you get XP every time you harvest them.
2. Explore the zones fully. Each time you uncover a new bit of map, XP. Each time you reach a new waypoint (after the first one), XP. Each time you view a vista, XP. Map completion also gives you a chest of gear and bonus XP.
3. Events and renown hearts are definitely your early methods to get XP. You get better rewards the more you participate in events, and often the events chain, so that the conclusion of one event leads to another happening. Follow one of the NPCs after the event is over and see if they trigger something new.
4. Go try and find monsters that haven’t been killed for a while. Killing the same fresh mobs over and over will only give you a little bit of XP, but the ones that haven’t been killed for a while can grant up to an additional 2x the base XP.
5. Give crafting a try anyway. It gives XP, and some equipment for either your current characters or new characters of a lower level to give them. They’ve set it up so that grinding is relatively painless (ie. quickly smelt all your metal into bars, and gets faster the more you do at once), and you get far more crafting XP discovering new recipes than grinding out the exact same weapon.
6. Do the personal story. Even if you skip all the cutscenes, each instance usually gives about a level each, meaning each packet of 4 should give you a 4 level boost. It is also designed to lead you to higher zones until you reach what was, initially, the most difficult map. It helps give a little direction in your exploration.

If you don’t enjoy these aspects of the game, GW2 might not be right for you. I always loathe telling people to leave, but if you aren’t having fun, don’t force yourself to stick with it. As there aren’t any subscription fees, you are of course welcome to come back at another time to try it out again, but it should never be a chore to play the game.

One Tamriel is an update to The Elder Scrolls Online. (Tamriel is the name of the world where the game is set.)

It’s basically game-wide level scaling. Players and enemies on all maps across the entire game world are always scaled up to the maximum level. So you still gain levels and therefore skills and abilities and can equip better equipment as you level up but it doesn’t gate you any more – you can go anywhere any time you want.

It’s an interesting concept, or at least it is to me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d like to see an RPG without any kind of level system and this is about 1/2 way there. It gives players a lot more freedom – if you want to you can still follow the storyline through the maps but you can also go anywhere at any time. One of my characters is only level 11 but he’s been around more of the high level maps than my level 30 character.

A lot of people struggle with the lack of structure and the loss of a sense of progression that came from unlocking new maps as you levelled up.

Danikat.8537:

It’s an interesting concept, or at least it is to me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d like to see an RPG without any kind of level system and this is about 1/2 way there.

They originally didn’t want leveling in GW2, but ended up abandoning the idea because it didn’t feel right.

Healix.5819:

Danikat.8537:

It’s an interesting concept, or at least it is to me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d like to see an RPG without any kind of level system and this is about 1/2 way there.

They originally didn’t want leveling in GW2, but ended up abandoning the idea because it didn’t feel right.

I know. I can understand why they gave up on it, because it would make for a very different and probably kind of weird game. But I’d still like to see it done because I think it could be interesting.

I’m in a different position than OP since I find leveling too fast! I have 70+ warrior and guardian already, leveled just by running around doing events, hearts, vista, collecting, etc and the world boss on those maps (lots of Frozen Shaman because of the Norm warrior). I have only visited the starter areas and only just started going to level 30+ maps.

Now my problem is I kinda suck at combat because I did not do too many fighting I think. For example in Kesses Hills, I die on those Toxic Allegiance mobs, got cocooned by a fat spider, downed by a giant toxic worm when I was soo far away. And those those champ bandits, ugh.

It’s a learn to play issue for me tho, so no complaints for now

Do the Renown Hearts (quests). I know it’s boring and a lot of them feel shallow but they rack your xp up quickly (plus you get a huge reward for 100% map completion!)

The best answer to this, OP, is that pacing varies for everyone. Some people will choose to grind dungeons, some will do map completion, some won’t level at all, etc.

@banfakitten.5498

Just to clarify one thing, most things in this game actually give % of level XP. Like Exploration, waypoints, POI, vistas, hearts etc. Think also Events.

So doing these will level you up exactly as fast between level 30-40 as 70-80 or 20-30. The only difference I know of is that 1-20 was set to be faster (on purpose).

Even monsters XP scales somewhat to your level, so you gain mostly the same no matter what level etc. Slightly slower if you’re higher level (downscaled etc), and slightly higher if you’re in higher level areas.

Really, as other have said before in this thread, the best advice really is to just not care about it, walk around and do whatever catches your fancy. You’ll level up eventually no matter what you do, for the first toon or two, the most important thing is to take your time and learn the game, controls, combat etc. Not how fast you get to 80.

Healix.5819:

Danikat.8537:

It’s an interesting concept, or at least it is to me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d like to see an RPG without any kind of level system and this is about 1/2 way there.

They originally didn’t want leveling in GW2, but ended up abandoning the idea because it didn’t feel right.

Considering how easily some people get lost already it would be even worse if they got rid of leveling.