Guild Wars 2

Now that we have 80’s with current end game gear roaming around WvW, my lowb (which is 47) is feeling quite useless against these guys. Sometimes when checking my combat log I’m seeing myself get hit for up to 2500 damage just from someone’s #1 attack each while i only have 18k hp. I can only imagine how much worse sub 30’s have it without all their utilities and elite skills.

What are other non 80’s experiences?

I say this respectfully, but you really need to level up. WvW is the best of the best and that includes gear/level. If you look at the father of 3 way realm vs realm gaming (Dark Age of Camelot), you rarely saw a lower level trying to seriously pvp in open world. You actually have more of an advantage in this game because you are boosted up to level 80.

If I’m level 80 and I go and hit a level 47 (even boosted) I better sure as heck have a sizeable advantage on them. I put the time in to level and get geared (which truly is a joke to do in this game compared to others) It’s like a boy going into a fist-fight with a fully grown man. Go level, gear up, then come back on more even terms. A casual gamer can hit 80 in a few weeks (less if you know how to abuse crafting) and then go farm orichalcum ore to sell twice a day for about a week (to get all 12 nodes takes about 20-25 minutes) and you can buy solid, competitive gear.

Arenanet gave everyone the option of equal pvp through structured. But a lowbie should stand a very low chance to compete against a lvl 80. Just one of those “it is what it is” kind of things.

The problem is HOW the buff works. It’s a multiplier of the stats on your current gear. If you’re level 5 with as high stats as a level 5 possibly can, you’ll do alright. If you then level to 10, any piece of gear you don’t also update to level 10 is providing literally half the stats a level 80 piece would. You fall behind in stats as a percentage extremely quickly at low levels. In addition to this, you don’t have 3 stats per piece for the multiplier to affect until higher levels. The system is designed for levelers to be punching bags.

If ArenaNet wants to keep WvWvW open to lower level players in the same fight as 80s, they should give a bigger boost to stats. The verbal abuse of lower level players is constantly increasing, which is no fun for anyone. I’m hopeful ArenaNet will respond soon since they do seem to deal with a lot of problems early instead of waiting for things to get out of hand.

It’s possible 1-79 WvW getting split from 80 would be the better solution, but that would cause even more problems for Kaineng and Devona’s Rest. In all likelihood, ArenaNet has already decided what to do for this problem and many others and they are just waiting for development, testing, etc.

I like the idea of tiers in the WvW PvP personally. There is just no way a low level character is going to be competitive in WvW as it currently stands. If that’s the way the devs want it — fine. But by having this “scale up” feature it seems as if they wanted to encourage active engagement early on. That, coupled with the fact that you start running into NPCs talking about the “eternal war” as low as level 10.

Rimarlk — define “casual” gamer. 3 weeks to reach level 80? I’m on week 2 and level 34 — 30 of those levels I got in 3 days while on vacation. Not everyone can play every evening or spend the entirety of the weekend grinding out levels.

People have different play styles — should PvP be exclusively for the “hardcore” people who are lucky enough to have the time grind? I think their is room to accomadate a variety of players in the WvW system — it’s just not there yet.

1.5-2 hours a day is what I consider casual. It takes about 15-20 minutes of nonstop public questing/gathering to get one level in this game. Hardcore is 5+ hours a day. Anywhere in between is just… “dedicated” hahaha. But I mean you just said you got 30 levels in 3 days. What other MMO could you do this in? Leveling in this game is NOT hard. And that’s not even including crafting. Go look up a crafting guide and get jewelry/cooking to 375 and there’s like 15+ levels right there.

We’ll say 30 minutes a level. At 1.5 hours a day. That’s 3 levels a day. 3 weeks is 21 days. That’s 63 levels. All those mats you got gathering? Go do jewelry/cooking to at least 375 and boom you’re 80. Now obviously some days one won’t play at all and others you might get 5-6 hours. Still.

I’m not bringing this up in regards to the difficulty or speed in leveling (which IS fast). It’s about the inadequate boost which if the devs give to us in the first place like Sarah brings up then they obviously want to see lower levels participate. a lot of “solutions” posted here is to just avoid the problem altogether. I’d rather see it fixed so future new players don’t have to be a masochist to enjoy WvW.

scrubs are bad players. being 80 with better gear and more traits doesn’t make them a more skilled player than a lower level who might otherwise be able to beat them on even ground. just saying.

Personally, I’ve killed many 80s 1v1 and 1v2 on my (44) Guardian and (31) Elementalist.
I’d much rather have under-leveled people willing to listen than a geared out 80 who believes they are god in digital form charging into a zerg with a great sword. Elites hardly make much of a difference and I wish we could just use a utility instead of an elite.

2 hours every day? I must admit that I have played more so far on average, but if 2 hours every day is called casual we need more words; I consider ‘casual’ a few hours per week. Also, I would imagine if you only have a few hours you do not want to spend them all powerleveling.

Anyhow, one of the design pillars was that you could level to 80 by only playing WvW; disallowing sub-80 in WvW would certainly break that.

I also disagree that you should be able to shred through an opponent just because you spent more time with the game; sure you may have some advantage, but I don’t think it should be as big as it is now; the real advantage you should get is from actual real-life experience playing, and simply playing better, not because you can down them by hitting 1 a couple of times. Of course, whatever solution there would be, there should certainly not be a penalty for reaching 80. I think changing the way equipment scaling works sounds fine, so then the real difference would be that the end-level gear is just better, but not so incredibly much, and that you don’t have all traits and skills yet. That seems fine to me.

That said, there are still things you can do even if you can’t win in direct fights; support, repair duty, scouting, joining zergs (mostly support again), soloing single guards, or attacking the weather nodes. They may not be the most exciting or thankful things to do, but you do not have to be bored

(personally I think a bigger issue is player numbers, yesterday we had a moment where we were outmanned everywhere; as soon as we got a bit of a group effort going all our points were attacked at the same time, and after that every point was guarded so we couldn’t split up to keep more than 1 thing at a time; of course it was well-played by the opponents, but it is just not a lot of fun to be outnumber on all fronts, and the situation makes itself worse because a lot of players go and do something else then, and I can’t blame em for that)

-tjeb: I meant average. 2 hours is the max end of the spectrum for “casual” (again this is my personal opinion". If you’re playing 3-4 hours a week of course you aren’t going to level up very fast but if you did that in other mmo’s like say aion…lol you’d never reach max level. MMO’s are a time sink. That’s just what they are and are designed around. Guild Wars 2 is actually one of the better games to cater to casual gamers because the the time it takes to level is the same throughout all levels there’s no “level 30-40 takes 4 days of play and then level 40-50 takes 2-3 weeks” like other grindier MMO’s. That and you have Spvp too.

-DJ Penguin and Navaris: I understand what you’re saying and I agree, but you can’t just let in “those” types of underleveled players and not the other ones. Fact is a lvl 80 geared scrub is still better than a lvl 40 scrub just like a skilled level 40 will still be inferior to a skilled lvl 80. Skill plays a big part, it’s true, but in the spirit of competitive World vs. World you want to choose from your highest level/geared base to win. Letting in lower levels simply puts one side at a disadvantage and doesn’t let a server put out for the most part there best (again there are exception but for every skilled 40 that goes in there’s probably a scrub 40 as well that stands no chance). The day I lose to a lvl 40 in a completely fair 1v1 setting in WvW is the day I need to go take a pvp class or something. It shouldn’t happen.
It’s also just not fair to “theoretically” have a level 5 be in a WvW match with a lvl 80 stuck in a queue. The 80 leveled up, geared up, and now can’t play the content while a level 5, simply because he queued early, can? Nobody really wins there. Not the lowbie because he’s already at a disadvantage, not the 80 who put in the time and can’t play, and not the server the lowbie is playing for.

You say that was a pillar of the design to be able to play WvW from 1-80 and I get that, but I simply disagree with that thinking. However I’m always big supporter of compromise. I think there should be level tiers to WvW. It’s a fair solution for everybody.

i wouldn’t mind a level tier but unless the zone the lowbs are thrown in is considerably smaller, i don’t see how it would keep a large enough player base in the near-future.

I am “sub 30’s” (if you mean level) and I had a ton of fun 2 days ago (unfortunately I play rarely). There sure are 80lvl enemies that hit hard but I try to stay away from them (after I get hit few times). I also try to stay in a group. Maybe I have the advantage of playing ranged profession, so idk about melees.
Basically if I see I am getting hit hard I try to stay low – go back, attack some dudes that are busy fighting with someone else and try to stay away from AoEs and high level enemies. Also try using some siege like arrow cart.
In addition try thinking of it as a learning process It’s natural to be weaker than the more “experienced” players that have better gear at least until you reach them.
For me the artificial boost to lvl 80 (in hp and stats) is enough to have a lot of fun – being 26-28th level I had no problem being part of a small group of 5 to 20 brave warriors that was holding a tower for 4-5 hours with constant retakes of the nearest camps.
You can also ask in /team /map channels what to do if you don’t know. Find someone who knows and move with him/her. Or watch and ask where is the action and be part of it. But be aware of your weakness and don’t be too brave
Hope that helps

Some background: I do not have a single level 80, and I gain 85% of all XP through W3. (unless I’m exploring while waiting in the queue)

My opinion: I do not want any more boosts in W3. I can tell the difference between myself and geared 80s, and I like it that way. It gives me something to aspire too (since I level so slowly).