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Forced to grind levels, even on a paid account?


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@kharmin.7683 said:

@TracksOne.2548 said:Doing all the events in the different areas and exploring was part of the fun. Im not sure why people have an issue with actually playing the game.

wait until you reach orr and the expansions. its almost a completely different game. if you really like the casual experience of core tyria, then you prolly wont like it therei loved the organic, low key feel of the lower levels, it was so natural...fighting normal enemies over outposts and forts...it felt REALthe later stuff is all about gods and doomsday scenarios, that gets boring VERY fast

Yes! So much this. I loved the early part of the game. Hot was horrid, but PoF has some fun areas, if you skip the story. I was glad to see more hearts, but I do not care for repeatable hearts...

repeatable hearts are still better, than all those metas IMOWish they were made optional after completing them the first time. Hate having to do them again just to deal with the vendor.

Or they could just leave the vendor unlocked. Having to repeat hearts every time you need a vendor can get grindy... the only grind I have found (I just try to find the items somewhere else).

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@Tumult.2578 said:I might have missed it but I do not see comment on the effect of mounts here. Once you have a level 80 character with mount(s), leveling with other characters becomes much easier, because of the mounts. I don't think they had a choice in using level restrictions in the Personal Story when mounts were added. If you start a new toon and just plop it on a roller beetle and stay on the main roads, nothing hits you and experience increases rapidly as you fly past poi's and waypoints and an occasional vista. I don't even consider needing to level up a character, it goes so quickly. Just stay in maps close to your current level.With this in mind it shouldn't be hard to see why the Story has level restrictions and needs them.

This happened already during HoT when got access to Gliding which also could be used in starter maps. When you can elements like Mushroom to get higher instead of walking (to high enough to glide down), then it will cut down both distance and time to get from point to point. Mount just add on that layer that are already introduced with Gliding mastery and related support abilities like Mushroom jumping.

On the other side if you are put into combat (you can't use mount), then you need those elements to get around.

Look at how DWC have been designed. There are elevation now that you can't get up on as there is no path and you will need some way to jump to get up on that level of ground (mountain, hills etc). That is why also can find Mushroom to jump on to get to higher ground.

We also don't need fall damage mitigation the way we had before gliding as we can now almost always enable gliding to prevent falling down. We had trait line that only had focus on reduction and some special effect that happen when you did hit the ground, not much useful in normal game play as weren't supposed to get that high in air to kill NPCs or players (for WvW and PvP). There where places you start to slide down and take heavy fall damage (and there are still places this happens without needing to be on a steep hill side), so there where situation like this those traits could prevent insta death.

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I like how we have the system in gw2 as it is untill icebrood saga. First of all, all MMO's are grind, no matter how you turn it around. It is always gather x amount of things, kill x mobs or without quests, kill x amount of mobs to get exp or repeat x dungeon x times to get exp or gear. Gw2 I find the least of a grind, especially for core Tyria. You do not need to farm for gears as they will never be outdated once you have them and theres so many different ways to obtain them just by doing what you would be doing already. From the Icebrood Saga the grind went up by a lot for achievements and skins attached as well. This is something I do not like. It is too repetative and you get easily burned out. Yes you can spread out the time playing in said map but then you often lack players for the meta's as the community behaves like "fast fast and be done with it and then abbandon".

When it comes to new players theres a variety of scenario's I have seen.

1) Some enjoy the game and stick2) Some play it temporarily coz their other game/work/study has no new content/holidays/ too much spare time and leave as soon as the previous picks up again3) Real life situation changes and they cannot play the game anymore due to personal reasons4) Some come from another MMO because of (usually negative) reasons but are still so in love / invested with it that they will just go back to their nostalgic game.

When it comes to playing the game itself, everyone is different.

1) Some players like to follow their friends and do what they do2) Some players like to play solo fully3) Some players like to mainly play solo but do hop into muliplayer content now and then (dungeons/fractals/meta's/worldbosses)4) Some like to experience the game and level just by playing what they want (can range from group content to gathering/crafting to exploring to jump puzzles to events to achievement hunting, doing story, do hearts (the typical quests from other mmo's),...)5) Some like to be instant endgame and do things like raids, speedclearings, challenging things mostly6) Some players like to emerge into the world via roleplay and the likes.7) Some prefer PvE, some PVP and some PVE/PVP called WvW and some like to mix and match.8) Some prefer to continuously hoard gold or gems and play for max efficiency and max profits.

Bottom line, the players are so diverse that you cannot force them into a style of gameplay that you personally prefer or want them to do. It is extremely easy and fast to level up in GW2 by doing about anything as everything gives EXP and gears. If someone likes to use a boost or tomes, that is up to them. If the game is not for a certain person, that is up to them. The good thing of GW2 is that your items never go outdated and you can always return without loosing out on anything (apart from not getting some Living World Episodes for free if you don't log in for a minute on release). Theres also nothing wrong with players taking a break of gaming now and then (it's actually healthy to do now and then).

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Bottom line, the players are so diverse that you cannot force them into a style of gameplay that you personally prefer or want them to do. It is extremely easy and fast to level up in GW2 by doing about anything as everything gives EXP and gears. If someone likes to use a boost or tomes, that is up to them. If the game is not for a certain person, that is up to them. The good thing of GW2 is that your items never go outdated and you can always return without loosing out on anything (apart from not getting some Living World Episodes for free if you don't log in for a minute on release). Theres also nothing wrong with players taking a break of gaming now and then (it's actually healthy to do now and then).

This is what the level restriction does exactly.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

Bottom line, the players are so diverse that you cannot force them into a style of gameplay that you personally prefer or want them to do.
It is extremely easy and fast to level up in GW2 by doing about anything as everything gives EXP and gears. If someone likes to use a boost or tomes, that is up to them. If the game is not for a certain person, that is up to them. The good thing of GW2 is that your items never go outdated and you can always return without loosing out on anything (apart from not getting some Living World Episodes for free if you don't log in for a minute on release). Theres also nothing wrong with players taking a break of gaming now and then (it's actually healthy to do now and then).

This is what the level restriction does exactly.

Its hardly a restriction tho. Level 10, 20 30,... If you take your time to play the game you are lvl 10-15 on the first map you enter (excl tutorial fight) and without booster. The next story part is like a map further or even a few further. You get exp from poi/vista/hearts/events/gathering/crafting/worldbosses etc. Dungeons are available before lvl 80 as well. In some you get scaled up (think in fractals you get scaled to lvl 80). And then ofcourse there are boosters (guild/consumables/tomes). Players wouldn't do key farms if those levels were hard to get.

A real restriction for me personally would be being stuck behind not having the gear to do an instance to progress so you can do enough dps in a new map for quests in example.

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@Tukaram.8256 said:

@TracksOne.2548 said:Doing all the events in the different areas and exploring was part of the fun. Im not sure why people have an issue with actually playing the game.

wait until you reach orr and the expansions. its almost a completely different game. if you really like the casual experience of core tyria, then you prolly wont like it therei loved the organic, low key feel of the lower levels, it was so natural...fighting normal enemies over outposts and forts...it felt REALthe later stuff is all about gods and doomsday scenarios, that gets boring VERY fast

Yes! So much this. I loved the early part of the game. Hot was horrid, but PoF has some fun areas, if you skip the story. I was glad to see more hearts, but I do not care for repeatable hearts...

repeatable hearts are still better, than all those metas IMOWish they were made optional after completing them the first time. Hate having to do them again just to deal with the vendor.

Or they could just leave the vendor unlocked. Having to repeat hearts every time you need a vendor can get grindy... the only grind I have found (I just try to find the items somewhere else).

Sure ... but arguably, those are not areas of the game where you LEVEL as the subject of the thread ... they are areas of the game where you play when you are likely already level 80.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

Bottom line, the players are so diverse that you cannot force them into a style of gameplay that you personally prefer or want them to do.
It is extremely easy and fast to level up in GW2 by doing about anything as everything gives EXP and gears. If someone likes to use a boost or tomes, that is up to them. If the game is not for a certain person, that is up to them. The good thing of GW2 is that your items never go outdated and you can always return without loosing out on anything (apart from not getting some Living World Episodes for free if you don't log in for a minute on release). Theres also nothing wrong with players taking a break of gaming now and then (it's actually healthy to do now and then).

This is what the level restriction does exactly.

Then it sounds to me like your problem isn't grinding to level (which Anet has most definitely accomodated most players with variety in content already)

... it's leveling at all. I'm wondering what kind of MMO player has the problems you state unless their experience is so limited that they have no points of reference OTHER than GW2.

Your thread is very weird ... it's almost like you expect you SHOULDN'T need to level on a paid account. That sounds very exceptional in MMO's if it even exists.

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@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:OP just has his feathers ruffled because he/she left the game for 7 years, came back, and something was changed.

Unfortunately, for him/her, skritt happens.

I agree with this assessment. I've read every single post thus far, including OP's responses.

These vaunted "facts" that @"ConorT.5396" insists supports his super objectively unquestionable alarm turned out to be mostly raw conjecture on his part. OP alleges that the level restrictions on story missions are exactly why new players are leaving in droves. Even if OP has managed to conduct a consistent exit survey of new recruits leaving his guild (which I highly doubt, given the nature of quitters - mostly they just stop showing up with no explanation), one has to wonder how many "yeah, the level restrictions on story sux" responses are colored by how many times OP spammed his guild chat with random tirades about this matter, every time some fresh recruit has some questions or issues with initial leveling.

Of course, that is mostly conjecture on my part as well. Perhaps OP never once complained to new recruits about level restrictions, but instead just helped them fill a few hearts and pop a few levels, as guild officers tend to do. I actually find this scenario much more likely than the one above. In this case, maybe hearts and early levels feel grindy for OP purely because he's doing similar low-level tasks for so many different people. The same leveling experience that a new player goes through the first time could feel fresh for them, but it'd be the 20th time OP has done that same stretch and guess what? It feels grindy for the mentor, no surprise there.

I might take your entire premise more seriously, OP, if you could actually tell us what makes you so sure new players are turned off by this, and it turned out that there was at least a quasi-reliable measure for it. As it stands now, all you're doing is spouting that you know better than anyone else about what the new player wants, and we have no reason to believe you. At all.

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@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:OP just has his feathers ruffled because he/she left the game for 7 years, came back, and something was changed.

Unfortunately, for him/her, skritt happens.

I agree with this assessment. I've read every single post thus far, including OP's responses.

These vaunted "facts" that @"ConorT.5396" insists supports his super objectively unquestionable alarm turned out to be mostly raw conjecture on his part. OP alleges that the level restrictions on story missions are exactly why new players are leaving in droves. Even if OP has managed to conduct a consistent exit survey of new recruits leaving his guild (which I highly doubt, given the nature of quitters - mostly they just stop showing up with no explanation), one has to wonder how many "yeah, the level restrictions on story sux" responses are colored by how many times OP spammed his guild chat with random tirades about this matter, every time some fresh recruit has some questions or issues with initial leveling.

Of course, that is mostly conjecture on my part as well. Perhaps OP never once complained to new recruits about level restrictions, but instead just helped them fill a few hearts and pop a few levels, as guild officers tend to do. I actually find this scenario much more likely than the one above. In this case, maybe hearts and early levels
feel grindy for OP
purely because he's doing similar low-level tasks for so many different people. The same leveling experience that a new player goes through the first time could feel fresh for them, but it'd be the 20th time OP has done that same stretch and guess what? It feels grindy for the mentor, no surprise there.

I might take your entire premise more seriously, OP, if you could actually tell us what makes you so sure new players are turned off by this, and it turned out that there was at least a quasi-reliable measure for it. As it stands now, all you're doing is spouting that you know better than anyone else about what the new player wants, and we have no reason to believe you. At all.

Just 2 points on this:

  1. I have never complained about this mechanic in guild chat, only in officer specific chat on Discord that contains experienced, veteran players.
  2. A lot of new players were complaining about "Not knowing what to do now" - and I never understood their confusion until I did a natural play through myself again to see the restriction was there.
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@Blude.6812 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:OP just has his feathers ruffled because he/she left the game for 7 years, came back, and something was changed.

Unfortunately, for him/her, skritt happens.

Yep, time to the let the thread go and quit the feeding. Let it the thread die.

Please do, I have only posted twice within the last 2 days. But the fact this issue got the attention is has proves that there is something to be discussed here.

But since the thread has turned into a "Lets slander him & his guild" - situation, I no longer have interest in discussing my points and my "quasi-reliable measurements".

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@ConorT.5396 said:And people are not going to spend time complaining if they only spend 2 days in the game, get bored and decide to leave.

You veteran players are been genuinely selfish in not thinking what the NEW PLAYER wants in this game.

Ok, just found this thread and am only on page three when commenting, so I know that everyone has moved far past this comment. But thank you all for the much needed entertainment. I needed this today.

@OP, if you are even still here by page 5, really? REALLY? Let's just lump in all Vets and call them all selfish for not sharing your fairly narrow perspective? I happen to concur with you in so far as I think the New Player Experience was not a successful and beneficial change. But that said, leveling is just the very beginning of playing GW2. The vast majority of content in the game is not even accessible to sub-80 players. So why are you dedicating so much fervor on something that frankly is really a minor part of the game? And I saw, sorry forgot to quote that you are spending hours, days and weeks in low-level maps. Seriously, you are doing more than one thing wrong if it takes you that long to get out of a map and move on in both leveling and story progression.

But keep up the drama, like I said, I needed the diversion and this was just the thing. Sorry, that probably isn't being as nice as I really ought to be. Let me try again. I'm sorry you find the new player experience frustrating. I find it frustrating too. Might I suggest you spend some fraction of the time that you have being upset here instead on learning good strategies for leveling and progression that might improve how you can best take advantage of the flawed systems available so that you along with your friend can (once again) join the ranks of jaded and selfish veterans in playing end game content?

Drat. Sorry, just couldn't keep it up. It's been that kind of week.

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@Moira Shalaar.5620 said:

@ConorT.5396 said:And people are not going to spend time complaining if they only spend 2 days in the game, get bored and decide to leave.

You veteran players are been genuinely selfish in not thinking what the NEW PLAYER wants in this game.

Ok, just found this thread and am only on page three when commenting, so I know that everyone has moved far past this comment. But thank you all for the much needed entertainment. I needed this today.

@OP, if you are even still here by page 5, really? REALLY? Let's just lump in all Vets and call them all selfish for not sharing your fairly narrow perspective? I happen to concur with you in so far as I think the New Player Experience was not a successful and beneficial change. But that said, leveling is just the very beginning of playing GW2. The vast majority of content in the game is not even accessible to sub-80 players. So why are you dedicating so much fervor on something that frankly is really a minor part of the game? And I saw, sorry forgot to quote that you are spending hours, days and weeks in low-level maps. Seriously, you are doing more than one thing wrong if it takes you that long to get out of a map and move on in both leveling and story progression.

But keep up the drama, like I said, I needed the diversion and this was just the thing. Sorry, that probably isn't being as nice as I really ought to be. Let me try again. I'm sorry you find the new player experience frustrating. I find it frustrating too. Might I suggest you spend some fraction of the time that you have being upset here instead on learning good strategies for leveling and progression that might improve how you can best take advantage of the flawed systems available so that you along with your friend can (once again) join the ranks of jaded and selfish veterans in playing end game content?

Drat. Sorry, just couldn't keep it up. It's been that kind of week.

As mentioned previously, my concerns are not based on my own experience as I have 7 level 80 characters & over 1000 tomes of knowledge.

My concern is that the new player experience is not inviting to veteran MMORPG players which are moving from other games - and aNet are loosing potential revenue by restricting players in progressing in the story while the starter area's are not as polished as much as the newer content in the game.

I lost interest in this thread as soon as people who disagreed with me, and could not accept the fact that my points held true - started insulting me directly

If you have not fully read the entire thread, I suggest you do - because if there was not a discussion to be had here, it would not have reached 5 pages.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

As mentioned previously, my concerns are not based on my own experience as I have 7 level 80 characters & over 1000 tomes of knowledge.

My concern is that the new player experience is not inviting to veteran MMORPG players which are moving from other games - and aNet are loosing potential revenue by restricting players in progressing in the story while the starter area's are not as polished as much as the newer content in the game.

I lost interest in this thread as soon as people who disagreed with me, and could not accept the fact that my points held true - started insulting me directly

If you have not fully read the entire thread, I suggest you do - because if there was not a discussion to be had here, it would not have reached 5 pages.So what would happen if they remove the requirement? Basically nothing. You could play a few levels below the level the instances are set at, though many new players wouldn't manage that, and it would be easier or harder depending on the class they picked. And to keep playing at a similar level of difficulty, you'd still need to gain on average 10 levels between story steps.

The only practical difference would be the option of people joining underlevelled players to quickly run them through the story.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

@ConorT.5396 said:And people are not going to spend time complaining if they only spend 2 days in the game, get bored and decide to leave.

You veteran players are been genuinely selfish in not thinking what the NEW PLAYER wants in this game.

Ok, just found this thread and am only on page three when commenting, so I know that everyone has moved far past this comment. But thank you all for the much needed entertainment. I needed this today.

@OP, if you are even still here by page 5, really? REALLY? Let's just lump in all Vets and call them all selfish for not sharing your fairly narrow perspective? I happen to concur with you in so far as I think the New Player Experience was not a successful and beneficial change. But that said, leveling is just the very beginning of playing GW2. The vast majority of content in the game is not even accessible to sub-80 players. So why are you dedicating so much fervor on something that frankly is really a minor part of the game? And I saw, sorry forgot to quote that you are spending hours, days and weeks in low-level maps. Seriously, you are doing more than one thing wrong if it takes you that long to get out of a map and move on in both leveling and story progression.

But keep up the drama, like I said, I needed the diversion and this was just the thing. Sorry, that probably isn't being as nice as I really ought to be. Let me try again. I'm sorry you find the new player experience frustrating. I find it frustrating too. Might I suggest you spend some fraction of the time that you have being upset here instead on learning good strategies for leveling and progression that might improve how you can best take advantage of the flawed systems available so that you along with your friend can (once again) join the ranks of jaded and selfish veterans in playing end game content?

Drat. Sorry, just couldn't keep it up. It's been that kind of week.

As mentioned previously, my concerns are not based on my own experience as I have 7 level 80 characters & over 1000 tomes of knowledge.

My concern is that the new player experience is not inviting to veteran MMORPG players which are moving from other games - and aNet are loosing potential revenue by restricting players in progressing in the story while the starter area's are not as polished as much as the newer content in the game.

I lost interest in this thread as soon as people who disagreed with me, and could not accept the fact that my points held true - started insulting me directly

If you have not fully read the entire thread, I suggest you do - because if there was not a discussion to be had here, it would not have reached 5 pages.

if the starter zones sucked, this game wouldnt be so popular, since it is content, that everyone passses throughnewbie zones are prolly the best in the business, something that cant be said about the later contenteverybody can play the newbie zones IF THEY WANT TO, that is certainly not the case in end game

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I recently levelled a character to cap. You can get a lot of xp from just exploring the maps. If new players don't want to explore the maps then they probably won't bother continuing the story, since the story requires you to go to a lot of different maps.

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@"ConorT.5396" said:As mentioned previously, my concerns are not based on my own experience as I have 7 level 80 characters & over 1000 tomes of knowledge.

My concern is that the new player experience is not inviting to veteran MMORPG players which are moving from other games - and aNet are loosing potential revenue by restricting players in progressing in the story while the starter area's are not as polished as much as the newer content in the game.

I lost interest in this thread as soon as people who disagreed with me, and could not accept the fact that my points held true - started insulting me directly

If you have not fully read the entire thread, I suggest you do - because if there was not a discussion to be had here, it would not have reached 5 pages.

I'm going to reply here and then set the conversation aside, in large part so I don't keep contributing to the length of something that I personally consider a pretty minor issue.

I humbly propose that the issue here is one of perception. From the comments I have read from others posting here, completely aside from comments from my own friends who are new to GW2, your view is not universally shared. Others do not have the same problem facing the same limitations that have driven you to perpetuate at least 3/5 pages worth of comments. Given that there is not a universally shared view concerning this, I propose that YOUR own perception of this setting will influence your friend's views as they come to GW2 for the first time. YOU can make or break their initial enjoyment of the game in how you present it to them as you play along with them. If you frame everything as "I hate this, it is bad game design, you as a new player shouldn't have to grind like this" that sets their perception of the game at an early stage before they have really been exposed to even a fraction of what GW2 has to offer. However, if you present it in a fun and engaging way "ok in between story steps, lets explore the world so we can understand some of the different elements Anet has built in and appreciate the detail they have gone to" then YOU have the power to set your friends on a path to look at GW2 in a positive light and be able to appreciate the game, even though there are elements that might have been done differently or better. Any which way, I wish you luck in game, and hope that whether in GW2 or other things you fine your time with friends rewarding and fulfilling, all the more so given the current circumstances we all face together.

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@ConorT.5396 said:

I lost interest in this thread as soon as people who disagreed with me, and could not accept the fact that my points held trueAre you saying that you didn't expect disagreement? Your points never held true. They were suspect from the start due to confirmation bias. Then, other posters asked for detailed data from you to support your points, which you haven't been able to supply.

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It's insane how times change and people's perception of MMORPGs.

Mind you I have played dozens of mmos, alot of them Eastern. 13-15 years ago grinding thousands upon thousands of same monsters just to get 4% an hour, to reach those max gear armors was acceptable. Nobody ever complained.Now... GW2... playing the game freely, doing what ever you want, explore, craft, do hundreds of different hearts, all unique, just moving about the map... levels you up. And people complain...

Just a fun thought...

But yeah like someone said above. If people play this game just for story... bad news. This is not a single player game. This is an MMORPG to the core and putting time and effort into your character just kind of goes with out saying. You will have to do things you don't like. Your characters don't just get stronger by following a story arc! You gotta put some work in! Go kill some butterflys and turtles!

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You're expecting no grind, for your friends, in an MMO genre? Huh? Why are you even playing mmos if you don't want that?

I don't get this unrealistic expectations players want. They keep going through this hamster wheel saying that this next generation game is gonna be AMAZING. And then it turns out being trash on release. Like, when are we going to actually stop thinking that new=better?

If you actually want to be helpful and get your friends into gw2, how about you actually help them through that 'grinding'. Laugh, talk it up, something. You sound like you are just going to drop and leave them there to do their own thing until y'all converge to do something together, which is not the point of the game.

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