Guild Wars 2

Hey, everyone! I’m just getting into GW2 and I was wondering whether there was any sort of big advantage to ‘doing everything’ (all 100% map completion, all achievements, etc) on a single character, or if it works just as well to parcel content out to a stable of characters.

I hope you don’t mind if I use WoW as an example. Now that WoW has account-wide achievements, mounts, battle-pets, heirlooms, and so forth, you can play a variety of characters that all contribute to a shared ‘pool’ of achievements and resources. Five years ago, if you liked getting achievements and collecting cool stuff, you usually had only one character who did that since it was really time-consuming. You didn’t really get much in the way of rewards if you did 25% of the game on Character A, 50% on Character B, and the last 25% on Character C.

I hope you get my meaning here.

I ask because other MMOs have sort of conditioned me into having one singular “do everything” character because a single level capped character that has ‘done everything’ is going to be much richer and get cooler rewards than four level capped characters who each experienced a smaller slice of the game.

Thanks!

I have 8 characters, all different professions. I have also at least one character of each race. I have tried to select different personal story paths for my 8 different characters. I find several advantages in this approach:

1. Less chance for boredom. The skill system of this game is quite simple and using the same 2-3 weapon combinations with the same character gets boring. With many different characters you get to experience all the 3 different orders (Durmond Priory, Vigil and Whispers) and get to know more about the lore of the game. Some races, especially the Arura, have really great introduction missions (1-30 level missions).
2. Chance to learn how each profession works. This is especially useful in WvWvW or pvp, because you know the weaknesses and strong points, skills of each profession.
3. If you play just one character you often get random drops or map completion rewards, which your character is unable to use. With 8 different professions you can use any item in the game to their max potential.
4. I also have 8 different crafting talents. I can craft items for my other characters. E.g. one of my characters has 400 in cooking and she is able to cook delicious (and highly useful) foods for all my characters.

It is true that the high level pve give better drop than the low level areas, but if you are just into farming you can make decent money also farming some low to middle level areas. A lot of people need the basic materials (copper, iron, wood, vial of blood, venom sacs) for crafting. Anycase I am not into farming and none of my character is rich, so I am not expert on this topic.

Deniara

There are some advantages to focusing on one character, mainly for world completion.

The big one for a lot of people is that in order to get a legendary weapon you need to have gotten 100% world completion on one character (it will track completion on all of them, but for the item you need 100% on one).

The other big advantage IMO is that it’s just easier if you’re going to play with friends a lot to have one chracter who has been to most places so you don’t have to keep changing characters for different activities.

But other than world completion most achivements are account wide, so it’s really up to you if you want to have just one character, many or what most people do which is to have one “main” who is used most often and the first priority for gear and things and then a bunch of secondary characters.

I’d be bored to tears by now with only one character. Like Deniara, I have one of each profession. 2 lvl 80’s the rest of them spead between level 15 to lvl 70. Another nice thng about a spread of diff leveled toons is your harvest box stays full for beginning or finsihing a tradeskill.

Great points from both sides from Deniara and Danikat

It really depends on your preference. Some people feel more comfortable focusing on one Character, some like a number of alts.

Personally I’m very OCD and like everything to be perfectly neat and tidy, so I never like having alts in games as I like one perfect character instead of having to get more than one perfect character. When I say I’m OCD I mean I’m OCD :P I don’t even like my level being a non even number…

So I just wanna get everything on one character before I get heavily invested in any other character. Right now its a lvl 80 elementalist and with the conjure weapons its a fun play everytime.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I have 8 characters, all different professions. I have also at least one character of each race. I have tried to select different personal story paths for my 8 different characters. I find several advantages in this approach:

1. Less chance for boredom. The skill system of this game is quite simple and using the same 2-3 weapon combinations with the same character gets boring. With many different characters you get to experience all the 3 different orders (Durmond Priory, Vigil and Whispers) and get to know more about the lore of the game. Some races, especially the Arura, have really great introduction missions (1-30 level missions).
2. Chance to learn how each profession works. This is especially useful in WvWvW or pvp, because you know the weaknesses and strong points, skills of each profession.
3. If you play just one character you often get random drops or map completion rewards, which your character is unable to use. With 8 different professions you can use any item in the game to their max potential.
4. I also have 8 different crafting talents. I can craft items for my other characters. E.g. one of my characters has 400 in cooking and she is able to cook delicious (and highly useful) foods for all my characters.

It is true that the high level pve give better drop than the low level areas, but if you are just into farming you can make decent money also farming some low to middle level areas. A lot of people need the basic materials (copper, iron, wood, vial of blood, venom sacs) for crafting. Anycase I am not into farming and none of my character is rich, so I am not expert on this topic.

Deniara

haha that is hilarious i have the same way

8 characters, all different profession, each a different race so i can go through all the game and race content, and i level all the professions, some have 2 others have one because i never level the same profession again we play the same way

DancinPuppeh.8421:

Great points from both sides from Deniara and Danikat

It really depends on your preference. Some people feel more comfortable focusing on one Character, some like a number of alts.

Personally I’m very OCD and like everything to be perfectly neat and tidy, so I never like having alts in games as I like one perfect character instead of having to get more than one perfect character. When I say I’m OCD I mean I’m OCD :P I don’t even like my level being a non even number…

wow that, that really is ocd, there’s many things tho that you can do to cure your ocd, i used to have ocd too and now i got ZERO dude, zero ocd, i was the same way :p but then one day i realized that some day i will die, that the universe is chaos and chaos is order and that i have no control, so i let go and all my ocd problems went away in a few weeks after i developed that proper healthy mentality

For your first character I would prioritize getting to 80. This gives you firsthand experience of everything in the game, and ensures that you have access to it. There are also economic advantages since some rewards are scaled by level for doing the exact same thing (daily chest), while festival activities scale up to 80, which puts low-level characters at a gear handicap.

Leveling multiple characters simultaneously carries the danger of excessive grind and burnout. GW2 only has a couple zone branches (mainly the newbie areas) and you’re otherwise playing through the same content 5 times in a row. At this rate you might get sick of the game before you even make it to 80.

On the other hand, you should feel free to experiment with different professions to find one that you are most comfortable with, but don’t take too long in making up your mind.

100% map completion can only be done by a character. It is not account-wide.

Achievement chasing also effectively requires a level 80, as many are related to the storyline, jumping puzzles, exploration, dungeons, etc. all of which go up to 80. While some achievements (racial) also necessitate having multiple characters, these are more limited in scope.

In short, GW2 still encourages having a main for getting things done.

Leablo.2651:

Leveling multiple characters simultaneously carries the danger of excessive grind and burnout. GW2 only has a couple zone branches (mainly the newbie areas) and you’re otherwise playing through the same content 5 times in a row. At this rate you might get sick of the game before you even make it to 80.

I disagree with this. It could be an issue if you were levelling multiple characters equally and focusing on levelling/grinding rewards, but from what I’ve heard on the forum I think most people with multiple characters do it more the way I am: My characters are all fairly spread out across the levels so when I do repeat content it’s stuff I haven’t done for a while and it’s more of a fun “nostalgic” feeling than boring (if you can feel nostalgia for stuff you did weeks/months ago).

I also think a lot of people playing alts are more inclined to be interested in exploring and lore than rewards, so we’re more likely to enjoy things like exploring the racial cities again. You might be visiting the same POI’s and seeing the same vistas but you often get different dialogue choices with a character of another race or Order, which makes it well worth doing IMO.

Also I’m finding that even in zones I’ve been through before there is still stuff I haven’t done. I must have gone through the first part of Queensdale a dozen times, but the other day is the first time I remember seeing the Elder Earth Elemental attack the quarry.

Add on the fact that I always aim choose personal story choices I haven’t done before (when I can) and it’s never felt repetative. If taking a particular character through an area does feel repetative I can just switch to another one and come back to them when I do feel like doing that content again.