Open world leveling feels too selfish and antisocial

Dear Anet,I am pointing you in the direction of a change into how leveling currently works when interacting with POI, vistas, doing hearts, discovering maps and killing monsters.I find it very annoying when leveling up with friends to slow myself down to let them catch up with me because I am a very fast paced player and I get things done quick.Can you change the way players experience leveling by sharing the contribution in a map when they are both on the same instance of the same map?This way leveling with friends would feel much more enjoyable and less frustrating and selfish as it is now. At the moment every contribution to map and hearts is totally individual even when partying with friends and it doesn't feel right to me.Regards

I disagree. The leveling is fine as it is. Maybe you could help teach your friends to play faster?

To summarize this as quickly as possible: They will never make the completion of the maps significantly easier by introducing power completion just because you don't want to wait for your friends. Also, with all due respect, isn't waiting for them the not selfish thing to do?

That would make power leveling in GW2 easy which in turn would create a bigger market for it which in turn would reduce the need/desire for people to buy level 80 character boosts. In other words, that's not going to happen.

If you want to play with friends, now is the time to learn how to do that (or accept you don't like leveling with friends and stop). Make a new character if you have to so you have another character to focus on when you start out-leveling your friends, but you are fully in control of yourself. Adding in an EXP share system would take time, resources, and make illegal services easier, more enticing, and cheaper which would then increase support's workload. So what's easier: one person adjusting how they play or a company sidelining work to make something that would benefit more power leveling services than individual players?

"Fix the game to suit me, as others don't matter".
Nothing selfish about that. /s

@Touchme.1097 said:Dear Anet,I am pointing you in the direction of a change into how leveling currently works when interacting with POI, vistas, doing hearts, discovering maps and killing monsters.I find it very annoying when leveling up with friends to slow myself down to let them catch up with me because I am a very fast paced player and I get things done quick.Can you change the way players experience leveling by sharing the contribution in a map when they are both on the same instance of the same map?This way leveling with friends would feel much more enjoyable and less frustrating and selfish as it is now. At the moment every contribution to map and hearts is totally individual even when partying with friends and it doesn't feel right to me.Regards

If you play WITH your friends, then play WITH them and you'll get the same/similar xp. If you want to run off wherever, then you're no longer leveling together. If you find yourself consistenly outpacing your friends when completing hearts in party, then stop racing them for the related activities/pickup and instead focus more on helping your friends, so you actually play together instead of just being together in the same instance.

I have to admit, this game makes playing around people easy, but playing with someone? Now that's hard, outside of instanced content.

People learn and explore at different rates, and hold different interests, so hurrying up or slowing down is tedius, moreso when you add mounts into the equasion. You could play mesmer or thief to speed up travel time through portals, but now you're making your friend feel like a burden...

@Westenev.5289 said:I have to admit, this game makes playing around people easy, but playing with someone? Now that's hard, outside of instanced content.

People learn and explore at different rates, and hold different interests, so hurrying up or slowing down is tedius, moreso when you add mounts into the equasion. You could play mesmer or thief to speed up travel time through portals, but now you're making your friend feel like a burden...

Playing with friends who don't have mounts and are much slower than you in completing hearts shouldn't feel like a burden, this is one of the major thing I am pointing out in my original post. I would be ok if ArenaNet introduced mounts that allowed players to carry their friends on them, an example of this is the mammoth mount in WoW which allows to accomodate passengers. Who knows? We might see these kind of mounts in GW2 as well more sooner than later.

So why don't you refrain from using a mount, to be courteous to your friend?

Dear Anet, change the way everyone plays the game because I don't like waiting for my slow friends. No, I don't think I'm being selfish. Gosh, why would you even think such a thing?

Karma hearts are widely considered the worst mechanic in this game and the game is often criticized for being anti-social. So if partying up would complete karma hearts faster that is a great thing to do. It is a smart thing to do to tackle two of the game's criticisms.

You want to play with friends? Then play with your friends.

You want to do your own thing and rush ahead pretending you are playing with your friends but in reality just having someone in your party whom you ignore? Then rush ahead.

Every game can provide situations/opportunities which can benefit social or anti social behavior. How a player manages and deals with those situations will make the experience more or less social. The game will not create social behavior, it merely lays a ground work. Social behavior comes from the player, always. Don't confuse which is which though and which behavior is anti social and most important, where to put the blame.

EDIT:I'm actually going to try to explain what I mean by examining 3 different approaches Guild Wars 2 has versus competitors.1. Resource NodesResource nodes are player unique here. This was rather novel back in the day and still is in some cases. Other MMORPGs had players compete for who got to the node first, making the aspect of gathering it competitive. Having personal gathering nodes was not social, it simply prevented "anti social" behavior by removing competition.2. Downstate/DefeatedSimilar to nodes, the ability for each player to be able to revive another play is rather unique. Other MMORPGs mostly still use resurrection abilities which are tied to classes. The implementation here ALLOWS for player to be social and supportive of each other, it does not force them to. You are merely given a choice if you want or do not want to help a fellow player, unlike other MMORPGs where your class might not poses a resurrection skill. That in turn does not make them unsocial in the other MMORPG (they simply might not be able to help), it merely allows them to be social here.3. MountsSince mounts were brought up. Mounts are neither social nor unsocial. They simply offer a different movement possibility to players. How a player utilizes this freedom will define how social or unsocial the interaction is. In essence, similar to reviving, the games give one the opportunity to be social and take ones time and forfeit the use of mounts if necessary, or be unsocial and simply move faster than others. That choice lies with the individual player.

I'm confused, how is what the OP requested less selfish? /s.

@Touchme.1097 said:

@Zephire.8049 said:

@Touchme.1097 said:

@Zephire.8049 said:That would make power leveling in GW2 easy which in turn would create a bigger market for it which in turn would reduce the need/desire for people to buy level 80 character boosts. In other words, that's not going to happen.

If you want to play with friends, now is the time to learn how to do that (or accept you don't like leveling with friends and stop). Make a new character if you have to so you have another character to focus on when you start out-leveling your friends, but you are fully in control of yourself. Adding in an EXP share system would take time, resources, and make illegal services easier, more enticing, and cheaper which would then increase support's workload. So what's easier: one person adjusting how they play or a company sidelining work to make something that would benefit more power leveling services than individual players?

You're also putting words into my mouth. I did say that the cost of features needs to be taken into consideration but that's because Anet is a business with hundreds of salaries to pay each month alone (that's not taking into account rent, utilities, sever costs, benefits, etc.). Alliances has at worst a net-neutral ratio between resources and benefit to the company. Gemstore, Living World, and expansions are net-positive. What you suggest is a net-loss unless they're already going back and changing the code and an EXP share can be tacked on, otherwise they won't do it because that would require multiple devs, testing, and iterations to make sure it's balanced and works and nothing else broke.

Or you could just... not use a mount when playing with friends.

Also when someone asks you to clarify why you think they're wrong, you typically go "You're mistaken with [examples] because of [reasons]" not "You are wrong but I won't tell you why." The former shows you've thought things through on multiple levels and are acting in good faith, the latter immaturity and bad faith.

Can you change the way players experience leveling by sharing the contribution in a map when they are both on the same instance of the same map?

You want when you find a POI/Vista/Heart/whatever to also be unlocked for party members? Is that it?What will stop 5 players from teaming up, splitting a map in 5, so everyone explores specific POIs/Vistas/Hearts on a map, then doing map completion in 1/5th of the time?

@Touchme.1097 said:Dear Anet,I am pointing you in the direction of a change into how leveling currently works when interacting with POI, vistas, doing hearts, discovering maps and killing monsters.I find it very annoying when leveling up with friends to slow myself down to let them catch up with me because I am a very fast paced player and I get things done quick.Can you change the way players experience leveling by sharing the contribution in a map when they are both on the same instance of the same map?This way leveling with friends would feel much more enjoyable and less frustrating and selfish as it is now. At the moment every contribution to map and hearts is totally individual even when partying with friends and it doesn't feel right to me.Regards

disagree with most except for hearts. game is fine as it is, but i suppose they could change hearts completion just a little bit by making progress on it shared amongst the party members only if they are within range/scope of the heart (discovery and progress of the heart completion wont happen if you aren't within it's range/scope)

I don't think there is a happy medium for this request. If I was playing with a friend who was flying through the content and completing all my hearts, vistas, POIs, etc. I would be annoyed, because it is taking away from me enjoying content. Therefore I would purposefully not play with my friend. I think it is more valuable for each player to enjoy and complete maps at their own pace than have someone with a different play speed finish everything for them. I do not doubt some people would prefer that, especially the ones that only care about getting to 80, but generally after 80 there are still many maps to complete. So I don't find a request like this reasonable or perhaps a request that would speak to a majority. But this is just my assumption.

Disagree = out of order / illogical?

Well, that's just like, your opinion, OP.I like open-world leveling with friends. I let them be and explore as a group. I don't lead, I just follow and help if they want or need. As a vet it gives me an interesting way to learn new classes. Sometimes my friends find places in odd nooks and crannies I've never even been to after years of playing.

I play with my friends, not with my friends.

Other MMORPGs allow you to level other player's characters with sharing experience while in party. I played a couple of those. It can be an option, if the grind towards endgame is tied to tedious slow exp-gain. We used this method a lot in Lineage II, created parties and pulled trains the size of village-population and watched the levelups rain down on the players. In Gw2, it would inevitably lead to yet another LFG sale-business branch, especially for leveling mastery-tracks. For the Mastery Tracks it would not be a problem, but the Black Lion Instant Level 80 Ticket would face competition from the playerbase. ANet currently allows a lot of questionable things, other competitors would ban on sight. The moment you threaten their income however, the fun is over. They may never implement any mechanic that renders a gemstore-item obsolete (imho). We do not have monthly subscriptions. They only make money with the gemstore and selling the game.

Two other things to keep in mind:

• Our leveling-curve is one of the flattest in the business. Players notice an increase in the required experience for levelups, but it is significantly lower than usual.
• Levelscaling allows you to always gain proper experience, no matter where you play. Staying in a lowlevel section with friends is promoted. This is one of the unique mechanics in GW2.

The forums are a place to discuss about the game. People having different opinions about the topics is normal. You cannot prevent people from disagreeing with you, neither can you prohibit them from posting in your thread. If you mark them as spam, there is a high chance you get moderated as well. In the worst case they even delete the topic, which means no one will read about your idea ever again. With suggestion-topics, this should never be the case. Even a bad suggestion can help to improve the game, giving thoughts and ideas about certain mechanics.

@Touchme.1097 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:

Can you change the way players experience leveling by sharing the contribution in a map when they are both on the same instance of the same map?

First of all, if your friend is having difficulty finding a POI you can show them how to get it. Getting it for them doesn't solve anything, showing them how to get it does. So in their future characters they can go get that POI themselves. You aren't really "Helping a friend discovering a hard to find POI", if you go grab it instead of them.

Now that's out of the way, I see your suggestion as a problem because your suggestion is indeed a problem. You don't really think of all the consequences of such a change, there are rewards for map completion, and allowing players to "split" to complete a map means much faster completions. A lot faster than using TACO, or imagine all 5 using TACO while map completing. Furthermore, doing 1/5th of each map will essentially lead your friends without the appropriate level to continue playing the story, unless they grind something else, which seems very counterproductive. Right now you are being "slowed" by your friends who don't know how to get hearts and POIs, with such a change you will be slowed as your friends will be far behind in level.

You really need to see the big picture and all your suggestion will affect.

If sharing XP/map completion, should the party share the rewards, as well?
Earn 2/5 of a Gift of Exploration, then? Must they complete all the maps several times for the equivalent rewards? That would only be fair, of course.

I agree with title of postcontent is mostly easy, so you rarly crate party to play togheter or interacte with other players on small scaleOnly hot bringed somethink like that wher you wanted explore togheter for safe/confusion reasons

i not agree with autor tho, if you play with friend you schold play with same speedor do only personal storys togheter if thats not posible

@Kiba.9743 said:I don't think there is a happy medium for this request. If I was playing with a friend who was flying through the content and completing all my hearts, vistas, POIs, etc. I would be annoyed, because it is taking away from me enjoying content. Therefore I would purposefully not play with my friend. I think it is more valuable for each player to enjoy and complete maps at their own pace than have someone with a different play speed finish everything for them. I do not doubt some people would prefer that, especially the ones that only care about getting to 80, but generally after 80 there are still many maps to complete. So I don't find a request like this reasonable or perhaps a request that would speak to a majority. But this is just my assumption.

That's my thinking too. If I started a new game and a friend offered to help me get started but then I found out anything they completed also showed up as completed for me I'd want to stop playing with them and do it solo. I don't play games to get them over with as quickly as possible, I play them to, well, play. I don't want someone to complete content for me or let me skip it because that just means I have less to do.

Early on it also adds the problem that you never learn how to play. If I see a vista at the top of a cliff and I'm not sure how to get up there having someone else do it for me (especially via a method that won't be available to me for a long time, like using the skyscale) teaches me nothing, except maybe giving me the false impression that it's impossible to complete base game maps without late-game mounts. I never find the cave around the corner that leads to a path up the cliff to the vista, I don't know that's a possibility. Later on I'm playing on my own doing my story or whatever and it's directing me to a place I can't obviously reach. Based on what I've learned so far this is content I cannot complete until I get to level 80 and get the skyscale. So now I have to give up on my story and find another way to gain XP because most of the game is unplayable until the maximum level.

Thankfully that didn't happen to me, but I do know similar things have happened to people in my guild. Their early experience is anything moderately difficult to reach is achieved by a level 80 player doing it on a mount then creating a portal for other people to get up. As far as they know that's how the game works, so they assume anything which isn't obviously accessible is impossible solo at low levels.

@kharmin.7683 said:I disagree. The leveling is fine as it is. Maybe you could help teach your friends to play faster?

Shared XP in party for these things wouldn't hurt too much I think. I think telling people to rush, rush in a game is insane.