Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing GW2 on and off since the Headstart Weekend.

And something is starting to make me suspicious.

For some reason that doesn’t fully make sense to me, the XP gained is always 2 levels behind the story requirement.

I have played 4 seperate characters and the progression is identical on all of them.
That’s too specific to be a coincidence.

This means that somehow, half my XP is missing.
And also, if I was to follow this to it’s logical progression, I’d reach level 80 in the storyline and be level 40.
I doubt that is good.
Also, I doubt it’s possible to fight an enemy with twice your stats.

And yes, I did a fair bit of exploring on my first character, but all it does is plug the gaps here and there.
And that’s mostly because of those Heart outpost assistance things, which I assume are not repeatable.
This is not a long term solution!

I read something about other ways to gain XP, crafting, pvp, etc, but none of that interests me.
In particular, I don’t have enough resources to craft across 4 different characters!

I’m the kind of player who just wants to follow the story.
But it seems GW2 was geared specifically to work against that.

To coin a metaphor, it’s like every time the Story Train stops at Plot Point Station, I have to get off and visit Grind City.

I think the only realistic option is to wait for an expansion (like Factions preferably), play through enough of the starter storyline to get me ahead of the XP curve, then go back to the main storyline and continue on from there, returning to the expansion when and if necessary.

Can’t believe the game’s just out and it already needs an expansion.

So, if I get it right, you mean you want to gain so much experience on each storyline quest so you can do the next storyline quest right away?

Yes, pretty much.

That’s how my other mmos worked.

You did the mission, you were 100% or 90% of the way to the next one.

Any extra XP you gained was just that, extra.

Gave you a boost if you wanted it, but wasn’t critical to the levelling process.

Yes well, since GW2 is not only built up around the storyline missions it is quiet obvious they couldn’t do it that way, there is so much to do in the game to earn XP, events, do hearts etc, plus it would only take a day or so to reach lvl 80 which would be pretty useless.

I’m not the kind of person who enjoys repetition.

I’m exploring the areas on one character only, for the novelty of doing 100% map completion once.

But does anyone seriously think I’m going to find hunting down every vista, point of interest and heart so fascinating the 2nd, 3rd and 4th times?

Which is why story should be key to the levelling process, it’s unique to each character, seeing as they are following a different story, so it will remain interesting and new.

Level 80 in a day?
If you can do all the GW2 stories in one day, you need to logoff and download the game “Real Life”.

Agree, had the same problem with SWTOR which was one of the reasons why i quit is that i couldn’t do the personal story all the way to the end because they never give enough EXP.

While i AM having a ton of fun doing it on my main character i probably will never do it again on any second or third character. And with that i will probably never do another storyline quest unless i level that character to 60 in WvW or something because i don’t want to stop doing the personal quest due to low level.

If there is some way to speed up leveling on subquecent characters so i don’t have to farm events all the way up to 80 AGAIN and stick mostly to personal quests then i’d be fine with leveling many characters and buying character slots and boosters, but so far i don’t see any “heirlooms” so i’ll probably just stick to sPvP and WvW on alts and perhaps some day in the future when one of them is lvl 70 ill do the personal storyline to hit 80 with it.

Still disappointed by the bell curve. rings Dredge gong

Knowing that story XP isn’t enough on it’s own, I accelerated two characters to 10 levels above the requirement in the hopes the boost would prevent the need to grind.

Then I took one of them through their story chain.

1 hour of gameplay later and +1 level, they’re right back where they started!

Mission Level: 14
Character Level: 24
Character Level after 1 hour: 25.
Current Story Mission Level: 24

That is just terrible!

In pretty much any other mmo, a +10 boost would mean you’d never have to stop the story for anything!

Is the Story XP that minimal that it barely counts for anything?

I can not say I have the problem. I just help some friends from time to time, participate in events I stumble upon and collect all the nodes along my path and am always 20 levels above my story. If Story would give more XP I would already be 80 when I am half way through the story.

@Whitepaws: Exactly!
I’m annyoed by how much the items I get as rewards are worth nothing to me because I outlevelled them so far, while everything else in the game gives you close-to-your-level rewards

Tilarta.9812:

I’ve been playing GW2 on and off since the Headstart Weekend.

And something is starting to make me suspicious.

For some reason that doesn’t fully make sense to me, the XP gained is always 2 levels behind the story requirement.

I have played 4 seperate characters and the progression is identical on all of them.
That’s too specific to be a coincidence.

This means that somehow, half my XP is missing.
And also, if I was to follow this to it’s logical progression, I’d reach level 80 in the storyline and be level 40.
I doubt that is good.
Also, I doubt it’s possible to fight an enemy with twice your stats.

And yes, I did a fair bit of exploring on my first character, but all it does is plug the gaps here and there.
And that’s mostly because of those Heart outpost assistance things, which I assume are not repeatable.
This is not a long term solution!

I read something about other ways to gain XP, crafting, pvp, etc, but none of that interests me.
In particular, I don’t have enough resources to craft across 4 different characters!

I’m the kind of player who just wants to follow the story.
But it seems GW2 was geared specifically to work against that.

To coin a metaphor, it’s like every time the Story Train stops at Plot Point Station, I have to get off and visit Grind City.

I think the only realistic option is to wait for an expansion (like Factions preferably), play through enough of the starter storyline to get me ahead of the XP curve, then go back to the main storyline and continue on from there, returning to the expansion when and if necessary.

Can’t believe the game’s just out and it already needs an expansion.

Have you ever played another MMO? Wait sorry in another post you did say you have….. But I dont know of any MMO that gives you 100% EXP to continue the next portion of the story….. Most MMO’s leave you 50% or more away from the next level…. Forcing you to kill mobs…… And while GW’s 2 makes you grind its in a most engaging and fun fashion

Try Aion or WoW……. Aion used to take weeks to go up 5 levels (at 1 stage there it took me a month to go up 5 levels before they SLIGHTLY increased the EXP)….

You couldn’t do the storyline because you were underleveled, you couldn’t even fight the mobs in the area if there was more than one at a time….. I gain at least 2 levels everyday in GW’s 2…..

The Storyline section in GW’s2 gives you the most EXP followed by Dynamic Events and Heart Quests and Crafting…… Do the Dynamic Events you can get some reasonable level equivalent gear from it every now and then and you level nicely.

YOUR SUPPOSED to go off and look around its the point of such a BEAUTIFUL looking game…… Have some fun, help some people, enjoy the game because thats what it is a GAME……

Not trying to be offensive but what you are trying to do is to run a single player game inside of an MMO and complain that it isn’t really working well. When you “just” do your personal storyline you’re more or less invisible to the rest of the world and an MMO that actually gives an MMO experience requires users to be “in the world” rather than inside their private instances.

So therefore it seems logical to me that ANet one in a while tries to get you out of that private instance and puts you out “into the fresh air” so that you can participate (i.e. HELP other players) with events and such.

If this is not at all to your liking than maybe you play the wrong game and would be better off with, say, Skyrim or somesuch single player focused game.

I have so much fun in the world that at one point my character was level 70 while my storyline was at 40something. After all – your storyline is always there and waits for you but who knows when that world boss is making his next appearance … ^^

Doesn’t the story takes you to all kind of different zones? Are you saying you always just run past all the hearts and dynamic events in the zone and just do the personal story quests? Doesn’t that feel a little bit.. odd? I don’t think MMO is the right kind of game for you.

EDIT: Also, saying that the game needs an expansion just because you refuse to do stuff is, pardon me, stupid. There is PLENTY of stuff to do. I can, however, see, that if you only run from green dot to green dot, you are missing out on 90% of the game. Literally everything in this game gives you XP. If you think you have to grind to stay on the level with your story quests, you’re doing it wrong.

Dude,

THIS IS NOT “SKYRIM”. (drop any kind of SOLO rpg instead of skyrim)

And not to mention, did you do all :

• the POI events ? because there is generally 1-3 chain quests in each spot which is simply fat XP;
• renown hearts ?

I can understand to not doing again&again the exploring stuff, but it’s not to much asked to grab the quest on the road.

And you can still level with all the crafting stuff …

Tilarta.9812:

In pretty much any other mmo, a +10 boost would mean you’d never have to stop the story for anything!

In pretty much any other MMO I’ve ever played, outleveling content means you get little to no experience from it, so how does that even work?

Let’s not fight over this hmk. From the outset it should be clear that GW2 doesn’t work like any other sRPG or MMORPG… so this is not a bug, it is merely an XP balance between all the various things you can do in the game…

To this i want to add that Anet specifically stated that crafting, while giving XP, can also be ignored completely. What does this mean, it means that there are enough XP to be gained from Hearts, Skillchallenges, Just killing Critters, Dynamic Events, Personal Story quests, Gathering, combined with Daily/Monthly achievement rewards; to get to level 80 and beyond…

So this is not a bug, it’s actually an intended feature, the storyline is there to guide those that need some direction, and lead them through a world full of things to do. Why are there ‘roadblocks’ in the level requirements for the personal story? So you are ‘forced’ to go out and explore and do some of the other things that are scatered around the game.

If you were to start a new character and follow the PS from the moment you get in, i think you run into this lvl-gate fairly quickly, so you do some hearts and likely grab a DE along the way (as it’s hard not to do atleast one while doing hearts). And fairly soon you will again be on par to continue your personal story. Now the lvl’curve’ is fast at the start and then flattens out after a certain lvl, this means you will have to do a lil more to close that PS gap untill a certain point, from which onwards you have to do an equal amount of ‘work’ to gain a lvl. I do not know where this flattening point is, but i still level atleast once every 1.5h or so.

And that is just how the game is played, the good thing is that if you get sidetracked and ‘outlevel’ the personal story, you will get scaled down and the story is still as ‘hard/difficult’ as it would have been (would you be ‘on level’). So that is the only advice i can give, make sure you allow yourself to get sidetracked… the easiest way i found keeping on track, is not to cheat to much with the waypoint system. If you run everywhere you will have to fight foes, you will run into dynamic events (which you might not have done yet), and you will run into empty hearts. If you check the map every once a while and plot alternative routes to your destination, with the goal to clear ‘fog of war’ this is almost a guarantee… Then take some time to do some stuff around a heart or a POI, do a vista or a skill point. Forget about that ‘story’ for a moment and become the hero that all the NPC on your route are waiting for …

Do this and i am fairly sure you have little problem staying ahead of the PS requirements. Actually I know for sure you will, because i hardly discovered any area where my PS didn’t take me, i completed 3 areas or so, of the 8 i been to (so there is still a lot to do in those areas), i hardly crafted, and i am level 39 doing a lvl35’ish personal story quest. (how? well i start my playing session with a PS step, (sometimes cutting some corners through major cities portals) then run there doing all sorts of stuff along the way, do the PS, run all the way back (using city portals), pick up the next PS, Run all the way back (using city portals). And yes i do run past DE’s i have done once or twice already (most of the time, as sometimes there are just a few ppl struggling to do it) …

TL&DR, you should now know the PS is not the whole game, so play the game as it is set up to be played and have fun

Tilarta.9812:

Can’t believe the game’s just out and it already needs an expansion.

If there was an expansion, it would be released on the same basis as the game which means that you would simply be in the same position and complaining again for the same reasons.

You are trying to ignore the majority of the game and the stories in the game, few of which are in your personal story and none of which have a massive green arrow pointing to them. You have to embrace the fact that this an mmoRPG with the emphasis on the RPG. That emphasis means that you have to listen to the NPCs, talk to the NPCs and follow them without the benefit of green arrow and some green dots or some other railroad to take you from a to b. Many of the stories are funny, interesting and rewarding – and the rewards come in the form of XP, karma, coin and fun.

I really think this thread is trolling. What other MMORPGs are there with story where you can level only with the story? I have never seen any other MMORPG with story like Guild Wars 2. Only other MMORPGs with quests. Maybe some main quests and quest chains that lead you from the starter area to the other areas. But this is no story. Only meant to lead you to other aeras. And in the beginning it is very easy to level and later you need to grind and kill hundres of mobs and it is taking ages. That’s why I stopped every other MMORPG I tried after reaching two third of the max level and never played longer than 6 months. It got boring for example in WoW to kill a mob. Sit down or drink a potion and wait for health to regen. Then kill the next mob. And only a few percent of the xp bar increasing.

Guild Wars 2 compared to other MMORPGs is very fast to level. A few events and you have 1 more level. XP from events is insanely high and with the event chains in certain areas where you don’t have to walk away to search for other events you can just do 3 events. Event XP and XP from killing the mobs while doing the event is getting you 1 level and you are getting lots of drops.

If this is not fast enough then play single player rpgs maybe?

Wow, I can’t believe this is even a topic. You seriously want to be able to level from 1 to 80 just doing story line quests? This is an MMO not a single player game. I would seriously quit playing if it was that easy to level. It’s already extremely easy to level if you just do the hearts and an event here and there. I mean, 1 to 80 in 1 week is possible and has been done already.

I remember when you had to play games for 4+ years to get to level max. WoW has created an instant-gratification monster…

Star Trek Online.
Champions Online.
Look them up.
You can level solely via story.
And this I know, because I did it!

GW1 was similar to, though not quite (thanks to Eye of the North!).
If I had XP problems, I just ran off to another expansion and got more XP.

And honestly, I’m getting bored with the hearts now.
I’m getting the “done one, done them all” feeling.
It’s all about repetive tasks to rank up completion of the heart.
The task itself is irrevalent, they’re all the same to me.

And I’ve always laughed at the idea of GW being an mmo!
Very rarely in GW1 did I get asked for a team to follow the story.
4 Campaigns, all done with maybe 10 teams along the way.

To me, it’s a soloplayer game with online social areas.

Also, I don’t know if you can team for personal story missions.

And also, I’m wary about teaming out in the “public world” as it were.
Let’s just say I’ve had bad experiences with loot/xp leeching and unless I really trust someone, I’m not going to team with them.

Yes you can team for personal story missions, with the exception of the quest that has you choose one of the orders! That one seems to cause a bug, where it sets all the players in the team to join that particular order, which then makes the others in the team ‘skip’ all the storyline quests from 30 to 48 (or so).

There is no loot/xp leeching, as all the loot is personal, and you get XP for every contribution to the kill. But there is no need to team unless you realy want to team with another person (except for the dungeons ofcourse).

In a sense i agree somewhat on the hearts, but you shouldn’t see them as the thing to do there, realize that hearts are one of the locations where DE’s start for sure. So you see the task of the heart, just something you ‘can’ do while you wait for something more fun to start. Other locations tend to be encampments (with or without hearts) … and almost every area has an overarcing event chain that is displayed in the top corner, which gives you some information about what the general status of that particular area is.

All these things together tell you the story of the world, and besides the PS, YOU make your own choices as to what your character’s story is. Now i won’t lie to you or sell you sparkling ponies, it may well be that this more ‘sandbox’ style of game, with only a mild personal storyline to give a general direction is not for you . ‘You can’t please everyone’ … so maybe GW2 isn’t for you, but i personally think it’s great, and i have no troubles keeping myself occupied and i am enjoying myself a lot. I truely hope you will come to see GW2 in a similar way, I can only show you the way, you will have to walk the walk yourself …

Tilarta.9812:

Star Trek Online.
Champions Online.
Look them up.
You can level solely via story.
And this I know, because I did it!

GW1 was similar to, though not quite (thanks to Eye of the North!).
If I had XP problems, I just ran off to another expansion and got more XP.

Yep, you should indeed give thanks to Eye of the North, otherwise you’ll be complaining like you are doing now when Prophecies first went out, then Factions (partly probably), and Nightfall.

Tilarta.9812:

And honestly, I’m getting bored with the hearts now.
I’m getting the “done one, done them all” feeling.
It’s all about repetive tasks to rank up completion of the heart.
The task itself is irrevalent, they’re all the same to me.

Then it is evident that the problem lies not with the game mechanics but with you

Tilarta.9812:

And I’ve always laughed at the idea of GW being an mmo!
Very rarely in GW1 did I get asked for a team to follow the story.
4 Campaigns, all done with maybe 10 teams along the way.

To me, it’s a soloplayer game with online social areas.

FYI: Guild Wars ¹ is NOT an MMO. ArenaNet never said it is an MMO. ArenaNet said it is a CORPG – Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game. They even repeatedly said in interviews that they do not consider and never considered GW as “MMO”.

So, yep, there’s no reason to laugh because GW is not an MMO, never was, never will.

Tilarta.9812:

Also, I don’t know if you can team for personal story missions.

You see, that’s the problem. You don’t know a thing about the game because you want to play a “singleplayer online role-playing game”. Then here you are complaining about not getting enough EXP to do the next part of your storyline mission.

Tilarta.9812:

And also, I’m wary about teaming out in the “public world” as it were.
Let’s just say I’ve had bad experiences with loot/xp leeching and unless I really trust someone, I’m not going to team with them.

And here we are again. You want to play a Singleplayer Online Role-Playing Game and the end-result is = you do not know a thing about the game, ever.

Secondly, you are locking yourself up in your own little world. Get out there! for crying-out-loud. How would you know how to play the game if you just keep to yourself and let your worries stop you? How?

Did you even know that what you are being wary of is totally non-existent in Guild Wars 2? Of course not, because you just want to play with yourself and you are letting your “this is how MMOs should be, my standard, my way” idea stop you. Don’t let it stop you!!

Loot in GW2 – we all get separate loots. There is no loot stealing in this game.
EXP leeching – we all get the same EXP, even the bonus EXP (I’ll bet you don’t know how bonux EXP works)
Kill-Stealing – KS is non-existent in this game.

Tag all the mobs you can tag, as long as you are still in range when the mob gets killed by another player, you get something from it (and probably some loot too, but you have to go back for it).

1,000 of us can kill the same mob and all of us 1,000 may get loots (I said may because getting loot is random – BUT it has nothing to do with – “he took my loot” concept).

And that is just the tip of what GW2 has to offer only if you will learn to play the game.

No offense, but your post and replies to the people helping you understand, it’s clear you don’t want to get rid of your notions and “ideal” MMO, the “this is how I envision an MMO” attitude. Either this is the game for you, or you go back to your other MMOs, or develop your own.

Again, learn to play the game. There is nothing wrong with the EXP rewards.

Shael.4703:

Tilarta.9812:

And honestly, I’m getting bored with the hearts now.
I’m getting the “done one, done them all” feeling.
It’s all about repetive tasks to rank up completion of the heart.
The task itself is irrevalent, they’re all the same to me.

Then it is evident that the problem lies not with the game mechanics but with you

Tilarta.9812:

And I’ve always laughed at the idea of GW being an mmo!
Very rarely in GW1 did I get asked for a team to follow the story.
4 Campaigns, all done with maybe 10 teams along the way.

To me, it’s a soloplayer game with online social areas.

FYI: Guild Wars ¹ is NOT an MMO. ArenaNet never said it is an MMO. ArenaNet said it is a CORPG – Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game. They even repeatedly said in interviews that they do not consider and never considered GW as “MMO”.

So, yep, there’s no reason to laugh because GW is not an MMO, never was, never will.

Tilarta.9812:

Also, I don’t know if you can team for personal story missions.

You see, that’s the problem. You don’t know a thing about the game because you want to play a “singleplayer online role-playing game”. Then here you are complaining about not getting enough EXP to do the next part of your storyline mission.

Tilarta.9812:

And also, I’m wary about teaming out in the “public world” as it were.
Let’s just say I’ve had bad experiences with loot/xp leeching and unless I really trust someone, I’m not going to team with them.

And here we are again. You want to play a Singleplayer Online Role-Playing Game and the end-result is = you do not know a thing about the game, ever.

Secondly, you are locking yourself up in your own little world. Get out there! for crying-out-loud. How would you know how to play the game if you just keep to yourself and let your worries stop you? How?

Did you even know that what you are being wary of is totally non-existent in Guild Wars 2? Of course not, because you just want to play with yourself and you are letting your “this is how MMOs should be, my standard, my way” idea stop you. Don’t let it stop you!!

Loot in GW2 – we all get separate loots. There is no loot stealing in this game.
EXP leeching – we all get the same EXP, even the bonus EXP (I’ll bet you don’t know how bonux EXP works)
Kill-Stealing – KS is non-existent in this game.

Tag all the mobs you can tag, as long as you are still in range when the mob gets killed by another player, you get something from it (and probably some loot too, but you have to go back for it).

1,000 of us can kill the same mob and all of us 1,000 may get loots (I said may because getting loot is random – BUT it has nothing to do with – “he took my loot” concept).

And that is just the tip of what GW2 has to offer only if you will learn to play the game.

No offense, but your post and replies to the people helping you understand, it’s clear you don’t want to get rid of your notions and “ideal” MMO, the “this is how I envision an MMO” attitude. Either this is the game for you, or you go back to your other MMOs, or develop your own.

Again, learn to play the game. There is nothing wrong with the EXP rewards.

Well Said………….

Play the game, enjoy the game, play with people, try crafting, try exploring, IF YOU REALLY HATE the other ways of gaining EXP then this isnt the game for you, go play something else.

The xp gained by completing all hearts and clearing the map is not enought to get to that area’s end level. Say a level 1- 15 areawould leave you at barely level 10 in the end (if you never did a event). The way its made is to force you to explore and participate, which i find actualy good since it draws you into the game more. Still there are time where i wish i would not need to grind or search for events just to level up for my next Story mission.

Also, the heart quest are ranked acording to a specific prefered/recommanded level to do them at, yet a story mission in conjunction with your current level heart quest can sometimes still leave you just short of the next missions level.

A slight increase in XP gain from some heartmission or events could balance this out a bit more. You often end up as little as 200 xp short, so even only 10 XP more per quest could even it out. Its never good to be forced to grind killing creatures to get to your next goal.

Now before i get hammered about this is not a single player mmo, like the op, sofar ive had relatively little need to grind, and i love doing events so i usualy get to my target level within short time, so im happy either way.

I did try to play GW2 as it was intended, but so far, I’m not seeing any improvement!

5 Characters, all level 30 (minimum) and it’s, well, boring.

Not once did they do story missions to achieve that!

What it basically consisted of was:

Waypoint Finding.
Hearts.
Whatever Random Event was nearby when I happened to be running around the map.

To me, it looks like this whole game is just an eternal Bloodmoon event.
To explain, Champions Online occassionally has this event where the goal is to defend certain portals and spawn a boss to fight (in the hopes of getting a unique boss drop item).
In practice however, it’s just a grind.
Players either wait for you to spawn the boss and leech the kill or kill everything, lowering your participation score.

And every time I do a Heart or Event, I see Bloodmoon leech style behavior!
Well, Hearts not so much, but when I do some Events, I wonder, why did I bother showing up at all?
There’s 20 people killing everything before it moves, my participation is limited to standing “in the circle” and watching.

Seriously, who designs an mmo where “story is optional” and not necessary to the levelling process?
Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Where the bulk of the XP comes from story and exploration is the kicker to the level up?

The idea of continuing this pattern to level 80 across 5 seperate characters (maybe 7 if they add Tengu and Kodan as playable races) just doesn’t appeal to me.