Leveling Experience

[Einlanzer.1627]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:

80 levels feels like far too many

I don't see any problem with the number of levels. The only issue with levels is how they gate personal story with it, especially the idea to block the first instance until you reach level 10, giving players zero motivation to play.

The story doesn't motivate many people to play, lol. The issue with the number of levels is that there's too much fluff and leveling becomes trite instead of exciting.

Other/Miscellaneous

• LW1 still not being present in the game in any significant form is a huge issue with a presumed influx of new players that will be forced to skip all the content that introduced most the major characters and so forth. It's hard for me to understand how they have not figured out a simpler way to do at least parts of it in 6 years.

They still don't bundle Season 2 with a purchase to ease the entrance into HOT after Core... expecting a re-release of Season 1 is a fantasy at this point. At the very least they should give players that complete the Core game a -reason- to go to Southsun Cove. Those Young Karka are the first "graduation" enemy, the first tough enemy introduced in this game because we all know core is an absolute joke. Oh and Reef Drakes are also great, but those are much more rare in Southsun

The same way mounts were a fantasy? I think Anet knows they need a better solution to LW1 and they've even talked about it openly on the forum. It's just a question of when and how which is taking them FAR too long to solve.

• The PS feels extremely outdated and bland; I know they can't afford to dump a ton of time into changing it, but things like removing the awkward dialogue cutscenes could do a lot of good.

If they remove those how do you expect them to tell us the story?

The same way they do in the LW.

[Timbersword.9014]

I don't think there are too many levels, but in my experience, there are three sore spots for me in the leveling experience:

1. The first 20 or so levels. Just... slowly gaining one skill after the other before I'm even at my "baseline" for the character. Even brand new to a class, after my first play through, I don't need to be "drip fed" my weapon abilities and my skill slots. Weapon slots especially are pretty quick to grasp with just a few minutes with each weapon on said class.
2. Levels 40-60 feel the worst for whatever reason. Like the exp required and the rate of exp acquired is a bit off. I seriously feel like I get more bang for my buck after 60 doing events and the like.
3. We open our first trait line at level 21, second at level 45, third at level 71? I feel 71 is just a tad too far down along the road, personally?

Aside from that, the core game play doesn't really change from level 1 to level 80, just feels like character progression doesn't really start until level 20 and some pacing issues in places between there and 80.EDIT Also, it would help immensely if each specialization just straight up spelled out what it focused on, as seen on the wiki

[Einlanzer.1627]

@"Timbersword.9014" said:I don't think there are too many levels, but in my experience, there are three sore spots for me in the leveling experience:

1. The first 20 or so levels. Just... slowly gaining one skill after the other before I'm even at my "baseline" for the character. Even brand new to a class, after my first play through, I don't need to be "drip fed" my weapon abilities and my skill slots. Weapon slots especially are pretty quick to grasp with just a few minutes with each weapon on said class.
2. Levels 40-60 feel the worst for whatever reason. Like the exp required and the rate of exp acquired is a bit off. I seriously feel like I get more bang for my buck after 60 doing events and the like.
3. We open our first trait line at level 21, second at level 45, third at level 71? I feel 71 is just a tad too far down along the road, personally?

Aside from that, the core game play doesn't really change from level 1 to level 80, just feels like character progression doesn't really start until level 20 and some pacing issues in places between there and 80.EDIT Also, it would help immensely if each specialization just straight up spelled out what it focused on, as seen on the wiki

Yes, and all of those oddities exist because they were trying to distribute unlocks and rewards across too many levels. :)

[Linken.6345]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"Timbersword.9014" said:I don't think there are too many levels, but in my experience, there are three sore spots for me in the leveling experience:

1. The first 20 or so levels. Just... slowly gaining one skill after the other before I'm even at my "baseline" for the character. Even brand new to a class, after my first play through, I don't need to be "drip fed" my weapon abilities and my skill slots. Weapon slots especially are pretty quick to grasp with just a few minutes with each weapon on said class.
2. Levels 40-60 feel the worst for whatever reason. Like the exp required and the rate of exp acquired is a bit off. I seriously feel like I get more bang for my buck after 60 doing events and the like.
3. We open our first trait line at level 21, second at level 45, third at level 71? I feel 71 is just a tad too far down along the road, personally?

Aside from that, the core game play doesn't really change from level 1 to level 80, just feels like character progression doesn't really start until level 20 and some pacing issues in places between there and 80.

EDIT

Also, it would help immensely if each specialization just straight up spelled out what it focused on,

as seen on the wiki

Yes, and all of those oddities exist because they were trying to distribute unlocks and rewards

across too many levels

. :)

No all those exist becouse it was to much for new players apparently to get all skills and traits at once.

So anet implemented New Player Experience.

[ASP.8093]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

• The POF zones need some aggro/respawn reduction since they are designed as exploration zones and not meta zones.

Why does everyone go on about this?

Just this week, I ran a new player through three of the zones collecting HPs and Masteries, and it was absolutely fine. Completely manageable without being a total snoozefest.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"Timbersword.9014" said:I don't think there are too many levels, but in my experience, there are three sore spots for me in the leveling experience:

1. The first 20 or so levels. Just... slowly gaining one skill after the other before I'm even at my "baseline" for the character. Even brand new to a class, after my first play through, I don't need to be "drip fed" my weapon abilities and my skill slots. Weapon slots especially are pretty quick to grasp with just a few minutes with each weapon on said class.
2. Levels 40-60 feel the worst for whatever reason. Like the exp required and the rate of exp acquired is a bit off. I seriously feel like I get more bang for my buck after 60 doing events and the like.
3. We open our first trait line at level 21, second at level 45, third at level 71? I feel 71 is just a tad too far down along the road, personally?

Aside from that, the core game play doesn't really change from level 1 to level 80, just feels like character progression doesn't really start until level 20 and some pacing issues in places between there and 80.

EDIT

Also, it would help immensely if each specialization just straight up spelled out what it focused on,

as seen on the wiki

Yes, and all of those oddities exist because they were trying to distribute unlocks and rewards

across too many levels

. :)

Those "oddities" were added with the NPE and were not an issue when the game originally released, even with 80 levels.

If we estimate 24 hours of playtime for a new player from 1 to 80 (a rather conservative assumption at this point in the games live, unless the player really takes in the areas, at which point leveling speed is insignificant), and divide that into 80 levels, the resulting 0.3 means 1 level every 20 minutes on average. Which in turn means a player can feel as though he made some progress with his character level wise with as low a time investment as less than half an hour.

There are benefits to having "meaningful" levels, which here would be akin to unlocking additional traitlines, the utlility slots, the elite slot, getting enough skill points for new traits and skills, etc. as well as having a wide range of levels which give smaller sense of progress, keeping the player entertained.

In the end, the overall leveling time is of consequence, very short in this game compared to other MMOs, and the fun while leveling. Both are fine in GW2.

[Astralporing.1957]

@ASP.8093 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:

• The POF zones need some aggro/respawn reduction since they are designed as exploration zones and not meta zones.

Why does everyone go on about this?

Just this week, I ran a new player through three of the zones collecting HPs and Masteries, and it was absolutely fine. Completely manageable without being a total snoozefest.The key point here was the "I" in "

I

ran a new player". Sure, it's not as much of a problem for veterans that know those zones as well as their own backyards. For players new to the content, that do not know yet where exactly to go, it doesn't look as well, though.

The HPs and masteries are generally significantly easier in PoF than they were in HoT, that's true, but the overall mob density, mob aggro ranges, and the "nice" feature of some mobs allowing them to react to combat that is even further away from them than their usual aggo range can be a pain even for veterans, and a much greater problem for relatively new players.

[maddoctor.2738]

@ASP.8093 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

• The POF zones need some aggro/respawn reduction since they are designed as exploration zones and not meta zones.

Why does everyone go on about this?

Just this week, I ran a new player through three of the zones collecting HPs and Masteries, and it was absolutely fine. Completely manageable without being a total snoozefest.

Players that are built for high damage and have some knowledge of how to play the game have no issue with aggro ranges and respawn timers. The issue comes when someone without an idea of how to play the game engages in combat and by the time they kill the final enemy in a group of mobs, the first one already respawn. It gets worse if you are fighting a hero point veteran that has ads around it, you will likely kill those ads multiple times before finishing the veteran

[Laila Lightness.8742]

I think they should do like gw 1 lvl 20 max remove asc and exotic use gw 1 amot system this is easier and less complex. Maybe rework stats and spec to work like gw 1 you had atttibutes and just unlocked skills

[Hesione.9412]

@Goettel.4389 said:Compared to classic WoW's 60 levels and retail WoW's 120, GW2's 80 levels feel lighting fast. ANet shouldn't and won't spent any dev time on reducing the number. GW2 leveling is second to none; I hate it in pretty much every other MMO. GW2 is king of alting IMO.The Hero panel could use some improvements, sure, but it's perfectly usable as-is. Some (more) tutorials would be good though.I agree with the personal story being meh, I skip it as much as I can on alts.

I think I killed everything at least twice in STV just to get from 40 to 50, along with multiple dungeon runs (and in the days where everyone had to get there via airpaths, so it could take you over 15 mins to get everyone there).

GW2 leveling is super fast.

[ASP.8093]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:

• The POF zones need some aggro/respawn reduction since they are designed as exploration zones and not meta zones.

Why does everyone go on about this?

Just this week, I ran a new player through three of the zones collecting HPs and Masteries, and it was absolutely fine. Completely manageable without being a total snoozefest.

Players that are built for high damage and have some knowledge of how to play the game have no issue with aggro ranges and respawn timers. The issue comes when someone without an idea of how to play the game engages in combat and by the time they kill the final enemy in a group of mobs, the first one already respawn. It gets worse if you are fighting a hero point veteran that has ads around it, you will likely kill those ads multiple times before finishing the veteran

"Some knowledge of how to play the game."

It's an expansion. The whole game can't be a tutorial zone that just gets extended out infinitely with each release. Eventually there has to be some payoff to the tutorial, some areas that feel livelier than safe zones designed to let you pick and choose every encounter.

PoF had a very reasonable balance of meaty enemies and cakewalk portions, such that you'd actually look at a Forged outpost or some kind of Brand nexus and think "aha, this part is going to be a bit more punishing to traverse" while giving you plenty of ways to ride from one side of the map to the other in relative peace.

[Anchoku.8142]

Not sure there is a problem or anything to worry about. A month or two into the game and all new Steam players will find out the real progression is not in leveling but in

• personal story / living world,
• grinding the heck out of everything,
• learning to use 9 professions, each of which have two major derivatives,
• learning to WvW and PvP,
• seasonal PvE events

L1 - L79 is a tiny part of the GW2 experience and still has a lot of value for introducing new players to GW2. It goes by in a flash so abbreviating more may be even more confusing to new players. There are already plenty of shortcuts to L80 that shorten or skip the core PvE experience. For people who are truly new to the game, I recommend not taking shortcuts because there is a lot to enjoy while learning.

[Atomos.7593]

I think the 80 levels are ok. I started to play and still play because I wanted to avoid the constant level and gear grinds found in other MMOs. I stuck around because xp was very easy to get from many sources like exploration, events, hearts and story. You can even skip levels entirely with the tomes of knowledge that are easy to obtain.