Guild Wars 2

Will we get any content for non-80s in Living World Season 2?

What I really liked in Season 1, despite all its flaws, was that anyone could partake in, say, Clockwork Chaos, Boss Blitz or the escape from Lion’s Arch. Levelling alts, or even making your first 80s, was truly interesting. I barely knew any GW2 lore at the time when I first saw Scarlet invade Lornar’s Pass with her clockwork minions other than “lol Mass Effect + Skyrim = dragon reepas” but seeing Clockwork Chaos gave me a very stunning impression, and from that point on I became more immersed in the lore. Dry Top, however, is 80 level only. Could we have any stuff for lowbies, too? We could, for example, repel Mordremoth’s hentai vines, or gather the armies of different races and orders, et cetera et cetera.

Also, will we have any large world events like Marionette or Lion’s Arch? They to me were the best feature in Season 1.

I think all of Season 2 will be in a level 80 zone(s). Would be nice to see people downleveled to 5 for a future season. But I imagine that would be a balancing hell, given the nature of the new mechanics found on Mordrem.

This must give the Devs headaches. Threads asking for content for sub-Level 80 characters, and threads asking for content that challenges even max-Level characters.

The Devs expressly stated there will be Open-World content akin to the Marionette, etc. released during Season Two on their Twitch Livestreams.

I loved Season 1 for the fact that I could do events with lower level char – Queen’s Jubilee helped me level 4 toons to 80.
I can imagine this is a nightmare for the devs, but see which way they went with it. No “real” open world events before lvl 80. Oh well.

Makes me wonder why they don’t implement a feature where people “upleveled” based on the zone.
Let people who just get the game jump right into the action in the new areas instead of make them level if they so choose.

Because the opening areas are supposed to be training so you learn how to play the game, rather than jumping straight to the endgame with a: no traits, b: no skills, c: no idea how to play the game or what your character can do. Won’t dry top be more fun with mapchat going “What weapons can a warrior use?” “What’s 100 blades do?” “What skills should I pick?” The reason why they upleveled you during season 1 was because the content was temporary. Now that it’s permanent, there’s no reason to do so. It gives you something to look forward to. There’s an endgame now. There’s a whole world out there for new players. They don’t need to jump directly to a level 80 zone to have fun.

Consider this:

All of the Living Story takes place after the hero has killed zhaitan. You’re bound to be level 80 by then. So just go play the original story all of the way through and you’ll definately be 80 before you even get there. So if its story content you’re after, finish what you’ve got going first.

Kaspar.3892:

Consider this:

All of the Living Story takes place after the hero has killed zhaitan. You’re bound to be level 80 by then. So just go play the original story all of the way through and you’ll definately be 80 before you even get there. So if its story content you’re after, finish what you’ve got going first.

Last LS season many people played the LS even though we hadn’t killed zhaitan yet. Didn’t make a difference to me. I have 2 80s that have not killed zhaitan yet, but I am playing the current LS with them. Still doesn’t make a difference so I’m not sure why they changed it to level 80 now.

People want to play what their friends and guildies are playing. Cutting them out of that participation because they aren’t level 80 yet is not a good strategy.

Djinn.9245:

Kaspar.3892:

Consider this:

All of the Living Story takes place after the hero has killed zhaitan. You’re bound to be level 80 by then. So just go play the original story all of the way through and you’ll definately be 80 before you even get there. So if its story content you’re after, finish what you’ve got going first.

Last LS season many people played the LS even though we hadn’t killed zhaitan yet. Didn’t make a difference to me. I have 2 80s that have not killed zhaitan yet, but I am playing the current LS with them. Still doesn’t make a difference so I’m not sure why they changed it to level 80 now.

People want to play what their friends and guildies are playing. Cutting them out of that participation because they aren’t level 80 yet is not a good strategy.

You call those “friends” that won’t come to a low-level zone to play with them?

One of the most annoying parts about Boss Blitz was the uplevels who’d scale the fights up but not be of any particular help because they’re wearing low level gear and don’t have the traits and possibly skills to be able to lend much of a hand. It was a complete pain to fight Boom Boom with half the group there being uplevels who are just making the turret harder to kill while supplying a quarter of the DPS that they should be bringing.

Additionally, the living story content comes after the personal story in chronology, so really, they should be doing the PS first. It was only fair to allow taking part in the previous season because it was temporary. This will be here forever, so there’s no rush.

As for:

Makes me wonder why they don’t implement a feature where people “upleveled” based on the zone.
Let people who just get the game jump right into the action in the new areas instead of make them level if they so choose.

So they can get annoyed and angry that the game is too hard because they just got it, don’t know what they’re doing or how to play their classes, and rushed into content with terrible gear and no traits or skills against swarms of enemies?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Filaha.1678:

One of the most annoying parts about Boss Blitz was the uplevels who’d scale the fights up but not be of any particular help because they’re wearing low level gear and don’t have the traits and possibly skills to be able to lend much of a hand. It was a complete pain to fight Boom Boom with half the group there being uplevels who are just making the turret harder to kill while supplying a quarter of the DPS that they should be bringing.

Additionally, the living story content comes after the personal story in chronology, so really, they should be doing the PS first. It was only fair to allow taking part in the previous season because it was temporary. This will be here forever, so there’s no rush.

As for:

Makes me wonder why they don’t implement a feature where people “upleveled” based on the zone.
Let people who just get the game jump right into the action in the new areas instead of make them level if they so choose.

So they can get annoyed and angry that the game is too hard because they just got it, don’t know what they’re doing or how to play their classes, and rushed into content with terrible gear and no traits or skills against swarms of enemies?

Yeah, that makes sense.

To clarify, Mordrem are terribly dangerous, they would tear through a low-level like paper. Then there’s the Dust Mites causing Blind, so many defeated bodies at Sand Giant..

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

Allowing new players to take part in the content can also cost players when they get annoyed that they keep dying because they don’t know, for example, what retaliation is and can’t remove it and have neither the gear nor the traits to survive the fights.

Also, should they make all dungeons and fractals available to everyone new to the game too? When new people hear about them, they might want to play them, and that might cost players too, right?

Personally, I don’t think any of the new season areas should be low level. It’s not hard to level to 80 anyway and it gives you extra incentive to when you do get to 80.

It’s nice to see more 80 zones because what is the point of maxing out your gear and not putting it to good use because everything is downgraded? Besides there are PLENTY of things to do BEFORE level 80. 80’s have what? 3 zones now?

I understand you want to experience the new content, but either play a character to 80 which takes under a week to level and then experience it or just enjoy the other 98% of the game that’s already there for you.

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

The map is not going anywhere.

It won’t take long to catch up. A few weeks to level up to 80. And you can do a living story episode in a few hours easily.

If you waited two years to buy the game, surely a few weeks catching up isn’t much to ask?

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

I suppose you think it’s unfair that you must be level 80 to kill Zhaitan also. Don’t you think that something should be reserved for end game?

Last season of the Living Story, players of high level characters were happy to help players of low level characters through the story. I remember during Halloween of 2012 high level characters would help low level characters run through a higher level area to reach the Halloween content. I guess those generous players aren’t represented on the forums.

The main problem is that scaling doesn’t work as well as we (and ArenaNet) would like. And as such it would either be way too hard for upscaled characters anyway, or it would be faceroll for lvl 80 characters. And none of those two situations are good, which makes the current version the best one.

It is supposed to be the new end-game after all.

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

Building up a guild and gathering on TS for an organised T5 run just to fail because of up-leveled noobs with poor gear, no traits and zero game skills who “want to participate” might cost players as well. Loyal and supporting ones, in this case.

Filaha.1678:

One of the most annoying parts about Boss Blitz was the uplevels who’d scale the fights up but not be of any particular help because they’re wearing low level gear and don’t have the traits and possibly skills to be able to lend much of a hand. It was a complete pain to fight Boom Boom with half the group there being uplevels who are just making the turret harder to kill while supplying a quarter of the DPS that they should be bringing.

Quoted for truth.

Leveling a character to 80 takes about 2-3 weeks even for a complete novice (talking from experience). That’s a single LS episode, seriously – just go and get your character ready.

If you haven’t yet gotten a character to 80 through the main game you should – it has its flaws here and there but the first 40+ hours of this game are as good as any other I’ve played, and better than most. I mean, who buys ice cream just to eat the cone? Eat the ice cream… eat it… it’s goooood.

For everyone else this is free expansion content. It’s awesome that a game that comes out of the box with 40+ hours content now gives people who’ve done that already permanent free expansion content across all characters, just for logging in once every 2 weeks. I mean, who pickets the ice cream truck that’s giving away free ice cream because it’s not the flavor they want? Look at all the happy kids in line for their free cone… now a little bit closer to onset of type 2 diabetes… eattt the freeee icee creeaaaammm….

As a casual gamer this is pretty sweet value for money for me. I’ve spent a lot more on games that were done after their first or second play through. I liked last year, but there were times I couldn’t get on during an event. It was also annoying that the gold-rush mentality meant by the mid-point everyone was simply farming, not exploring the event.

That’s going to be the big question for me tho – in 6 months, who will be in Dry Top doing LS1 content and group events? If there aren’t enough people, will I find it boring if I ever get an alt to 80?

maybe not. most maps have a level span of 10-15 (queensdale has 17), depending on how you level, the lower levels fly by really quick.

these areas are only_really_interesting if you are lower level, therefore up scaling makes the map viable for more levels than a 20 level range

However, they could explore some toxin-related interesting down scaling mechanics. A lot of people are still zerker so mobs just get one shot, feels nice and op

As precedent, just look at GW1, which the new LS format is designed after.

In GW1, you leveled to max and had the best stats about 1/10 through the game. Arenanet designed the entire game around playing at max level, and used the leveling process as a training tool, rather than the intended scope of your adventure like a lot of other games do. This is why it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see them raise the level cap, leveling isn’t the core experience in this game. It’s purposely quick and easy to level because the game isn’t about leveling, it’s about learning your character, becoming a legendary hero that helped slay zhaitan, then playing that legendary hero through all sorts of legendary hero style adventures.

That’s why they changed traits and such as well. It made it harder to level, but it encouraged and taught good long term habits (like paying attention to the stats on your gear, because they matter at low levels without traits, or really carefully considering your traits because they cost gold/unique feats to acquire) Those changes were made to make leveling better for new players, because the game is designed with the assumption that long term players aren’t leveling.

This is a better design because you don’t eventually find yourself in a situation like everquest or WoW wherin you’ve made the progression gap so wide between the new player and the current content that nobody can ever play with their friends, and end up having to have out high level characters. When you’re done “training” by leveling, you have access to all of the post release content at once with the new system, eventually you end up with more level 80 zones than lowbie zones because the game is designed around being able to continue to play and experience new things at 80, rather than finishing a character and starting a new one.

It’s also why downscaling works the way it does, because they purposely added more leveling content than one character would need, and they’d originally intended the open world to be the endgame, so that going to a L15 zone you’d never seen when you hit 80 would feel just like going to that zone at L15.

There’s already TONS of leveling content in the game, enough so that three different characters can have completely unique leveling experiences. If you need to level a fourth alt, well, it’s a fourth alt, how many alts did you expect to be able to make before you started repeating things?

GW2 doesn’t WANT you to play things at low level, it wants you to use leveling as a training mission. The new zones, events, and instances are permanent specifically so that they could move them higher up the difficulty curve, and thus have a better endgame, because the leveling experience is already really large in scope, but the endgame was virtually nonexistant before they started the living story.

The upleveling system of the last season, as others have noted, existed because the content was temporary and they wanted it to be inclusive. This is also why festival content will continue to uplevels lowbies, as well as other limited time engagements like super adventure box (which doesn’t really use your level or stats anyway)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

This must give the Devs headaches. Threads asking for content for sub-Level 80 characters, and threads asking for content that challenges even max-Level characters.

They knew what they were signing up for when they decided to develop an MMO lol. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.

Some other headache inducers:

-Underwater combat sucks! I miss underwater combat we need moar!
-Tequatl/Triple Trouble is too hard! Tequatl/Triple Trouble is a joke!
-We need more group based content! We need more solo content!
-Jumping puzzles are awesome! I hate jumping!
-We want vertical gear progression! Ascended gear? I quit!
-Give us mounts! We hate mounts!
-Player housing would be awesome! Player housing is a waste of resources!
-We want new zones! We don’t like the new zones!
-We need harder content for skilled players! Content is too hard we need it easier so it is more accessible!

I’m sure we could come up with more.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

Building up a guild and gathering on TS for an organised T5 run just to fail because of up-leveled noobs with poor gear, no traits and zero game skills who “want to participate” might cost players as well. Loyal and supporting ones, in this case.

Filaha.1678:

One of the most annoying parts about Boss Blitz was the uplevels who’d scale the fights up but not be of any particular help because they’re wearing low level gear and don’t have the traits and possibly skills to be able to lend much of a hand. It was a complete pain to fight Boom Boom with half the group there being uplevels who are just making the turret harder to kill while supplying a quarter of the DPS that they should be bringing.

Quoted for truth.

Leveling a character to 80 takes about 2-3 weeks even for a complete novice (talking from experience). That’s a single LS episode, seriously – just go and get your character ready.

This is my point in talking about last year – there wasn’t an issue with uplevels. Boss Blitz was a Festival event, not part of the Living Story.

As for leveling a character to 80 in 2-3 weeks: LOL! That’s a good one. If I was a new player I would want to experience the world, not just rush to 80. I would hate that.

Djinn.9245:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Djinn.9245:

When people read and hear about the new LS content, they are going to want to participate. Not being able to might just cost players.

Building up a guild and gathering on TS for an organised T5 run just to fail because of up-leveled noobs with poor gear, no traits and zero game skills who “want to participate” might cost players as well. Loyal and supporting ones, in this case.

Filaha.1678:

One of the most annoying parts about Boss Blitz was the uplevels who’d scale the fights up but not be of any particular help because they’re wearing low level gear and don’t have the traits and possibly skills to be able to lend much of a hand. It was a complete pain to fight Boom Boom with half the group there being uplevels who are just making the turret harder to kill while supplying a quarter of the DPS that they should be bringing.

Quoted for truth.

Leveling a character to 80 takes about 2-3 weeks even for a complete novice (talking from experience). That’s a single LS episode, seriously – just go and get your character ready.

This is my point in talking about last year – there wasn’t an issue with uplevels. Boss Blitz was a Festival event, not part of the Living Story.

As for leveling a character to 80 in 2-3 weeks: LOL! That’s a good one. If I was a new player I would want to experience the world, not just rush to 80. I would hate that.

Oh no, there was. A lot. Knight events, levelers who farmed instead of doing the group effort, platform wipes at Marionette and so on, and so on, and so on… Unfortunately, up-leveled characters are a liability in group events.

I leveled up to 80 by casually playing a bit in evenings for 2-3 weeks and exploring the world, and it was a first serious MMO I started playing. Haven’t even run the QD train – luckily, my main was a sylvari, not a human. Leveling is fast and easy in this game, without any LOLs; full exploration might be tedious, though, and trait acquisition should be quite boring for alts and new players after the latest “improvement”.