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Forced to grind levels, even on a paid account?


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So, I have not naturally levelled a character in over 7 years.

I started a play-through with my friend today, starting from scratch - both on Paid accounts & it appears we are forced to grind to the "recommended level" to continue the personal story?

Is this the way is it suppose to be? It wasn't like this at launch.

Guild Wars, all the way back to Prophecies has never been about grinding repetitive quests for levels.

Why has aNet done this? Do they not see this is driving potential new players away because this is not a generic MMORPG and personal story should not be gated by level.

Its absolute madness.

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yeah, they did change this a long time ago when they revamped the starter experience

it's been so long ago, but I think it was back before the change it was taking longer to level, so you had to spend a lot of time doing hearts and dynamic eventsthe change they made it easier to level just from doing hearts, and sectioned out the personal stories into different level tiers(?)

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You call that grinding? Wait till you try to get the mount Skyscale. It's kind of ridiculous to lock a mount under such intensive grinding thus discouraging many veterans from getting it. They could have made it much less 'grindy' like all previous mounts and many more players will make an effort to get it, and ANet will definitely sell more skins for the dragon. Win-win. I wonder who is their marketing head.

Now almost every thing is grind-to-get. Even LWS, these days playing through the story is not good enough. You have to grind for mastery points, grind for days or weeks in order to get a long list of achievements required to unlock the new stuffs from the story.

Grinding is content in GW2. Yes, it's in this state now. The last leg.

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The story-instances always had some kind of level-requirements. At launch, story-instances got higher-level enemies with each step, and while you were never hard-locked out of them, at some point it wouldve been impossible to beat them if your level was to low. They made the change for mainly two reasons, to let players play larger chunks of the story at once and to not have new players frustrated who might accidentally walk into story-instances underleveled.

Also if you find the leveling in this game grindy, im not sure you will like the endgame-content.

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Yes, maybe it would have been impossible to beat them - but the freedom to challenge yourself by playing personal story 20+ levels higher than your own level was part of the Guild Wars charm.

Level restrictions on story mode is crazy & completely against everything I believed Guild Wars was about.

I was actually shocked when I saw this mechanic, it is just not something I would believe existed in the Guild Wars universe.

I was wondering why already 3 of my friends who have moved from WoW quit the game after 4 days because it was too "grindy". I never had that experience.

My account is 7 years old now, so I have over 1000 tomes of knowledge, level 80 scrolls etc. I have not had to level naturally since my first character.

Anet, what are you doing.

P.S - grinding for Skyscale is different in my opinion, that should require a grind.

It should not require a grind just to play the game. What the hell is this? Silkroad Online (Referencing a highly generic Korean MMORPG).

I am literally is shock that Guild Wars 2 has resorted to this, it is certainly a sign of near death.

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Trying to rush through the story is like skipping 90% of the quests in other MMOs. The personal story was intended to be the epic story quest, while the bulk of quests were replaced by events. You're not meant to run straight through it, you're expected to do whatever you want to do along side it. General play in the open world was always intended to be the main focus.

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@ConorT.5396 said:Why has aNet done this? Do they not see this is driving potential new players away because this is not a generic MMORPG and personal story should not be gated by level.

It was done because a lot of new players where doing the personal story and then getting upset when they get trucked by enemies much higher level than them because the game never prevented them from going into their level 20 personal story quests at level 5...

So, instead of having the personal story jump up 2 levels per quest and be unrestricted in minimum level, they changed it so each arc of the personal story is now entirely done at the previous maximum level for the arc in a single block (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80) so there's no issues with players being underleveled in their personal stories.

@Mil.3562 said:You call that grinding? Wait till you try to get the mount Skyscale. It's kind of ridiculous to lock a mount under such intensive grinding thus discouraging many veterans get it.

Wait... What part of Skyscale is grindy?

I literally started it 3 days ago and am almost finished, just a few mistborn motes left to get (Luckily today is Dragonfall daily for bonus motes). With much of the reason it even took that long being the timegates enforced on it (2 hours after each step and then can only feed skyscale 4x a day meaning 3 days minimum to get the 12x feed done)

Griffon feels grindier... Farming out 250g is pretty grindy (I guess unless you happen to luck across a precursor then it's pretty quick)

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@"ConorT.5396" said:So, I have not naturally levelled a character in over 7 years.

I started a play-through with my friend today, starting from scratch - both on Paid accounts & it appears we are forced to grind to the "recommended level" to continue the personal story?

@"Mil.3562" said:You call that grinding? Wait till you try to get the mount Skyscale.

i know it's very subjective and depends on the player's perspective but having played older mmorpgs before (the grindy ones like Tibia and Ragnarok Online), i found the grind in GW2 almost non-existent. maybe my tolerance for "grinding" in games is so high that it doesn't even bother me the slightest. -and- i still play those grindy mmorpgs still.

that said, OP, it doesn't take long to get up to the level requirement for each part of the personal story if you plan a route for zone/map completion (which doesn't take long to 100% a zone, if you do things efficiently, while tagging and getting gold on events you happen to pass by)

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It was done because a lot of new players where doing the personal story and then getting upset when they get trucked by enemies much higher level than them because the game never prevented them from going into their level 20 personal story quests at level 5...

Non-sense.

Players will be MUCH more upset by been restricted in a cage than failing because they are not high enough level. When the "RECOMMENDED LEVEL" was highlighted so clearly.

Either way, a game like Guild Wars 2 should encourage a community of players who want to try running a level 50 Personal story mission at level 30.

Compared to the people who cry because they fail when the RECOMMENDED LEVEL is (or was) so clearly outlined.

A huge part of my enjoyment of the game was finishing personal story quests 10+ levels higher than my level. It made me feel like I was achieving something.

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@Astyrah.4015 said:

@"ConorT.5396" said:So, I have not naturally levelled a character in over 7 years.

I started a play-through with my friend today, starting from scratch - both on Paid accounts & it appears we are forced to grind to the "recommended level" to continue the personal story?

@"Mil.3562" said:You call that grinding? Wait till you try to get the mount Skyscale.

i know it's very subjective and depends on the player's perspective but having played older mmorpgs before (the grindy ones like Tibia and Ragnarok Online), i found the grind in GW2 almost non-existent. maybe my tolerance for "grinding" in games is so high that it doesn't even bother me the slightest. -and- i still play those grindy mmorpgs still.

that said, OP, it doesn't take long to get up to the level requirement for each part of the personal story if you plan a route for zone/map completion (which doesn't take long to 100% a zone, if you do things efficiently, while tagging and getting gold on events you happen to pass by)

I understand that, but what I am trying to get across here is that, ever since GW1 was released - the game has NEVER BEEN ABOUT GRINDING.

This is why we expect a higher quality player base compared to WoW.

The freedom to do WHAT EVER, at WHAT EVER level - even if you failed.

People were motivated to get better & work on their level because they WANTED TO. Not because they were FORCED TOO.

Does this not make anyone else absolutely furious?

This is not what Guild Wars is. It never has been.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

@ConorT.5396 said:So, I have not naturally levelled a character in over 7 years.

I started a play-through with my friend today, starting from scratch - both on Paid accounts & it appears we are forced to grind to the "recommended level" to continue the personal story?

@"Mil.3562" said:You call that grinding? Wait till you try to get the mount Skyscale.

i know it's very subjective and depends on the player's perspective but having played older mmorpgs before (the grindy ones like Tibia and Ragnarok Online), i found the grind in GW2 almost non-existent. maybe my tolerance for "grinding" in games is so high that it doesn't even bother me the slightest. -and- i still play those grindy mmorpgs still.

that said, OP, it doesn't take long to get up to the level requirement for each part of the personal story if you plan a route for zone/map completion (which doesn't take long to 100% a zone, if you do things efficiently, while tagging and getting gold on events you happen to pass by)

I understand that, but what I am trying to get across here is that, ever since GW1 was release - the game has NEVER BEEN ABOUT GRINDING.

This is why we expect a high quality player base compared to WoW.

The freedom to do WHAT EVER, at WHAT EVER level - even if you failed.

i am with you on the freedom part of not being restricted in how you want to play.

but unfortunately, modern MMORPGs (which gw2 is part of) has succumbed to the trend of spoon-feeding and hand-holding (and the multiple restrictions that bore as a result) to make it easier for first time gamers and new MMORPG players to get the hang of the game and hopefully stick with it.

and there's nothing wrong with that too: if it brings more players in, it brings more money (potentially).

i remember a few times where ff14 and ff11 where being talked about just like how we talk about gw1 and gw2 (not entirely the same but it's like how the older game had this why doesn't the newer game have it too? or this x and y system was better than the system we have now)

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To be fair :

Experience is ridiculously easy to get, generally just going to the quest area and doing things on the way is enough to cover it

Doing -any- content where your level is 5+level below monster levels = all your attacks graze (vastly reduced damage) all attacks done to you will hit hard enough to remove 15% of your hp up to one hit kill you if your level is 10 level below that of monster, and you dont have gear sufficiently potent to shave off -just- enough to survive a couple of hits. Again, the fact that your damage are reduced to mosquito bites, means you will take far too long to deal significant damage, and that -any- hit you incur will be too high to recover, further applied due to the fact that reduced levels = reduced skill availability.

Generally this problem has only came up for people who rush the storyline and dont do the content that leads to said storyline. Exploration being the foremost. We're not talking map completion here either, just some basic exploration to get to the quest area, a couple of orange events and golden hearts that you found on the way. Take the time. None should engage in a MMo with the purpose to be done with it within the month. Those are games meant for continued enjoyment.

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Hand holding is one thing - which was clearly covered by the Recommended Level notice when you started each instance.

THE RECOMMENDED LEVEL FOR THIS MISSION IS XX.

I don't understand how anyone old enough to use a computer would not understand that.

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@"ConorT.5396" said:

It was done because a lot of new players where doing the personal story and then getting upset when they get trucked by enemies much higher level than them because the game never prevented them from going into their level 20 personal story quests at level 5...

Non-sense.

Players will be MUCH more upset by been restricted in a cage than failing because they are not high enough level. When the "RECOMMENDED LEVEL" was highlighted so clearly.

Except, literally the case is the opposite of what you state.

People complained a lot back on the old system. Which is why it was changed. Very few people complain in the new system.

@"ConorT.5396" said:People were motivated to get better & work on their level because they WANTED TO. Not because they were FORCED TOO.

Does this not make anyone else absolutely furious?

Not really.

Since you're not FORCED to do anything in the game.

You don't have to "Grind" in order to get levels. You don't HAVE to even play the personal story if you don't want to.

The only thing that's existing now that wasn't back then, is a minimum level requirement on personal story quests. Which is not out of place, given the minimum level requirements to access skills (2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, 31), minimum level requirements to access dungeons (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 76, 78, 80), minimum level requirements to access equipment rarities (14, 30, 62) which have all existed since the start of the game.

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@"Naxos.2503" said:To be fair :

Experience is ridiculously easy to get, generally just going to the quest area and doing things on the way is enough to cover it

Doing -any- content where your level is 5+level below monster levels = all your attacks graze (vastly reduced damage) all attacks done to you will hit hard enough to remove 15% of your hp up to one hit kill you if your level is 10 level below that of monster, and you dont have gear sufficiently potent to shave off -just- enough to survive a couple of hits. Again, the fact that your damage are reduced to mosquito bites, means you will take far too long to deal significant damage, and that -any- hit you incur will be too high to recover, further applied due to the fact that reduced levels = reduced skill availability.

Generally this problem has only came up for people who rush the storyline and dont do the content that leads to said storyline. Exploration being the foremost. We're not talking map completion here either, just some basic exploration to get to the quest area, a couple of orange events and golden hearts that you found on the way. Take the time. None should engage in a MMo with the purpose to be done with it within the month. Those are games meant for continued enjoyment.

This is just not true, remember that the game was designed NOT to have this restriction.

Progression through the story-line meant that players would naturally explore real time world events, meta events & even hearts.

If a player is going to ask a higher level friend to run him through the maps, then so be it - its obvious that he is missing a large part of the game, and this was also a very large part of GW1.

Hearts were originally put there for End Game users to go back & grind for the title, not as a time-gate.

Natural curiosity of "What is in that blurry part of the map" is enough, for any player to take a wonder over there to see.

They should not be forced.

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@Taril.8619 said:

@"ConorT.5396" said:

It was done because a lot of new players where doing the personal story and then getting upset when they get trucked by enemies much higher level than them because the game never prevented them from going into their level 20 personal story quests at level 5...

Non-sense.

Players will be MUCH more upset by been restricted in a cage than failing because they are not high enough level. When the "RECOMMENDED LEVEL" was highlighted so clearly.

Except, literally the case is the opposite of what you state.

People complained a lot back on the old system. Which is why it was changed. Very few people complain in the new system.

Very few players complain now, because there is substantially less NEW players entering the game.

That is not a win.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

It was done because a lot of new players where doing the personal story and then getting upset when they get trucked by enemies much higher level than them because the game never prevented them from going into their level 20 personal story quests at level 5...

Non-sense.

Players will be MUCH more upset by been restricted in a cage than failing because they are not high enough level. When the "RECOMMENDED LEVEL" was highlighted so clearly.

Except, literally the case is the opposite of what you state.

People complained a lot back on the old system. Which is why it was changed. Very few people complain in the new system.

Very few players complain now, because there is substantially less NEW players entering the game.

That is not a win.

You got data to back up that claim?

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The only thing that's existing now that wasn't back then, is a minimum level requirement on personal story quests. Which is not out of place, given the minimum level requirements to access skills (2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, 31), minimum level requirements to access dungeons (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 76, 78, 80), minimum level requirements to access equipment rarities (14, 30, 62) which have all existed since the start of the game.

You are completely ignoring the fact that once you reach the required levels to unlock (for example), the Elite, it is yours & you can move forward freely.

Not expecting to hit another gate in 10 more levels time.

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You got data to back up that claim?

Really?

Please, I will leave you to go get the stats - for when each server had separate instances (before the mega server) - and Queensdale was full of 100+ people starting, exploring & excited.

Now we get key farmers.

There has been a HUGE uptick in new members due to the Lockdown - I know this because I spend 2 hours a day in Queensdale recruiting for my guild, but apart from that we are no were near the levels when the game was highly anticipated by 10+ year veterans of Guild Wars 1.

8 years ago, just before launch.

Please do not bring silly statistically claims to this discussion, I am talking about the soul of Guild Wars.

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@Naxos.2503 said:To be fair :

Experience is ridiculously easy to get, generally just going to the quest area and doing things on the way is enough to cover it

Just another note on this - lots of people are now leaving WoW because they are unhappy with the direction of the game.

Do you really expect 10+ year WoW veterans to come to GW2 and milk cows, open lobster pots & clean up Graffiti just to progress the story line?

I have never seen anything so patronising to new players moving from other MMO's.

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@ConorT.5396 said:Yes, maybe it would have been impossible to beat them - but the freedom to challenge yourself by playing personal story 20+ levels higher than your own level was part of the Guild Wars charm.

That was never possible. Enemies 10 levels above your character level become literally immune to your attacks. Not reduced damage, but immune.

The New Player Experience, with all its faults, did change and push multiple story steps onto the level 10 steps, but those story steps were otherwise distributed between the next 10 levels. You were never able to level ahead of your character level.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@"ConorT.5396" said:Yes, maybe it would have been impossible to beat them - but the freedom to challenge yourself by playing personal story 20+ levels higher than your own level was part of the Guild Wars charm.

That was never possible. Enemies 10 levels above your character level become literally immune to your attacks. Not reduced damage, but immune.

The New Player Experience, with all its faults, did change and push multiple story steps onto the level 10 steps, but those story steps were otherwise distributed between the next 10 levels. You were never able to level ahead of your character level.

Well, when I say "20 levels above" - I am talking from 7 year old memory.

Perhaps it was 5, perhaps it was 8.

But the point still stands. We had the freedom to try.

When a game tells you what you cannot do specifically, its no longer "Open World".

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