Guild Wars 2

I rolled a toon a few weeks ago and joined a guild that was very social and tried helping me out for being new to GW2.
So i happen to be an altoholic and have rolled all the classes and races and deleted and kept only a few and have not really leveled past 11 due to lack of knowledge of leveling up in pve. What he said to me that has stuck in my head is how I can’t keep leveling up 5 characters and playing them all and that “The game starts at 80!”.

I wondered on your opinion at that statement since i see a lot of complaints about reaching level 80 and people disappointed.

“The Game Starts at 80”? Really? That is completely against the design of this game. The game starts at lvl 1. The game also does not end at lvl 80 even though certain people feel that way. The statement sounds like it came from other games, not this one.

Reaching lvl 80 is not the thing you have to do to get to play this game. However, the journey to lvl 80 can be an interesting experience. I recommend doing that for that reason. At level 80 not much at all changes. You get a bit better gear, sure. But you’ll still do the same things you did before.

I hope someone can give you tips on levelling. I have to be on the bus in 8 minutes, so I cannot tackle that right now.

hmm i personally loved the game from beginning until well.. now : )) been lvl 80 for a while now, and it’s more or less true the statement tha tyou keep doing the same thing holds.. to a certain extent.

dungeons – i didn’t do ‘em until lvl 80. and by that time, i knew by class a lot more, allowing me to learn faster and actually know why i’m doing what i need to be doing to survive and com eout on top

WvW – being abel to get better gear and have all my utilities and traits available helped a lot in this sense. i first did it at lvl 21 and i see a noticeable difference. : )) definitely more confident as well

content wise – you’ll be doing map complete for a while —> so vistas, hearts, etc..

i will add that i have been having a lot more fun after having been 80. the whole “i need to level up” mentality was out the window. not that i was ever in a rush, but you’re always watching when you’ll level up next, etc. and now, i can focus on getting the gearsets i want to match certain builds. collect even more skins. and going for a legendayr as well now. also slowly learning to help other first timers make it through their dungeons. or play a bigger roll in WvW. i’ll take it on as a personal challenge as well to beter take on champs solo, just for kicks : )))

in terms of leveling up.. is it cause you don’t stick with your characters or you don’t feel attached? i rolled a Guardian as my first.. and rolled all these other alts as well, diff races, classes. i couldn’t decide in the beginning who i wanted to play as my main, and i happen to stick with my Guardian and i am glad i did. partially i think it’s because i got ot know my class a lot better. things really starting kicking in around lvl 30 for me. and i loved the way this class plays : )) so try to level a bit more and i think you’ll be able to find a class that you enjoy more than others, if even slightly. hope this helps!

and leveling.. everything gives you XP : )) map complete zones, do hearts, do a lot of events, mine and harvest everything, revive everything, head into dungeons, try out WvW (as you can tell, i’m not big on PvP-PvP lol). good luck and have fun! don’t feel pressure to be lvl 80, but after high 60’s and up, your mentality does change : ))

Game does not start at 80. It ends at 80. The grind is the VERY BEST part of this game! Because you can level doing nearly anything! Its super easy and super fun and super rewarding. Once your 80 the games over. No incentive to do anything. You may enjoy WvW for a week or month and you may do dungeons that give you style armor. The fact is there are not many things to do in this game. It lacks “Systems”. The hype from the fanbois secured this games success. The word of mouth from us players who have invested 1k hours. Well, from what I understand were all about done with this kiddy themepark. Its not for hardcore players. Its for casuals.

I play a Ranger, Mesmer, Thief, and Elementalist.

I’m starting to hate my thief, so I usually only play the three characters. I’ve also done a Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer, and Engineer to at least 50, trying to figure out what I want in the last character slot.

Now, I’m done with the game. On the eight characters I’ve played, four of them are 80, I’ve done all 8 dungeons, all 25 explorable paths, and the new Fractals. I’ve done at least one personal story branch for each race, one branch for each order, the Grawl, Hylek, Skritt, Ogre, and Quaggan sympathy quests, and all three of the Fear’s lines. I’ve mastered most of the crafting disciplines, only never bothering with Armorsmithing because I don’t really like any Soldier type profession. I’ve reached Wolf rank in sPvP, and done enough PvDoor to decide I don’t really like it.

What I can tell you, from doing all of this, is that the game neither stops, nor starts at 80. Reaching the maximum level makes it so that you are level-appropriate for a personal story quest, a dungeons, 10 explorable modes, fractals, and can more easily reach the highest tiers of crafting. While you are level appropriate for those things at 80, though, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing them at level 2, which is immediately after character creation, and your race’s Tutorial quest.

When you look at it, level 2 is when you can enter PvP, all 8 dungeons, all 25 exporables, fractals, WvW, start world completion, start crafting, start your personal story, do mini-games like Keg Brawl, and do any Dynamic Event. With higher level friends to help you, you can easily complete any content, even if you’re not level appropriate for it, so really, 80’s not that big of a deal.

TL:DR
The game starts at level 2, and ends when you get bored.

GW1 the game really started at max level, since leveling really didn’t mean anything and was done quickly. It’s true that the first chapter extended the leveling throughout most of the PvE story, but still level didn’t mean much. In other MMOs there are kind of two games -- that of leveling and that of endgame.

Here in GW2, the game is whenever you log in to play. Leveling is just kind of a thing that happens. Doing it this way certainly has some positives.