The leveling experience - Feeling conflicted

[Vedras.5602]

(Disclaimer - A bit ranty, but trying to encourage discussion) 

I enjoy this game and always have. I decided to come back to it because I wanted to experience everything instead of getting bored at around level 30 then put it down again. So one fresh warrior and 50 levels later...I'm feeling conflicted. 

My issue is one of feeling as if I am being rail-roaded to the level cap far too quickly. I've played other MMO's and I suppose I am used to level grinding. Bit of a dirty word these days, however it means you've more scope to experience the content available to you more organically in order to progress to the the next area instead of out-leveling them outright. This may be a frustration for the few and not the majority. If so that's fair. In MMO's I like to change it up now and then. My problem is everything give you experience to the point of anxiety. 

For example 

Gathering:

I feel like crafting, lets take a time-out and do some chill gathering. While a gentle source of EXP drip, it's still there. Why is this adding to my adventure level instead of contributing to something more appropriate like crafting level, or some sort of general gathering perk/efficiency? 

Crafting: 

Its nice to visit you favourite city, hole yourself up in a crafting area then work on a separate facet of your char development. For me this typically serves as break away from the grind allowing for a different kind of immersion. This too is slowly but surely feeding level experience. I'm trying to take a break here to get my gear up to date (inefficient or not) but the game is pushing me. I'm here to craft not to continue gaining adventure experience. Seems most players wait unill they are 80 to begin crafting these days. Kinda takes the point and fun out of the idea surely? 

Events:

I genuinely really love the attention and care ANET put in to their events. Dragon Bash popped up the other day. Great, sounds like another change of pace!. Again in my mind this should sort of be a jolly away from the main experience - the ring/arena event is pissing experience and levelling me like mad.  I'm enjoying it, but again I'm worrying that this is throwing off my 'level/content ratio'.

Dungeons:

Yep these SHOULD give experience, but my point is I am trying to engage with many facets of the game and I'm just being pushed up faster before I even begin a basic story mode dungeon. 

Vistas & POI's

Again quite generous exp being thrown at you. You can get the best part of a level just by running around a new area.

Tomes of experience

Why? 

Why is this a big deal to me? 

It feels like I'm racing toward the cap too quickly. I COULD systematically experience each map area by level tier, restricting my gear for that area and ignore my actual level, but that shouldn't be the intended experience. If I just go ahead with current gear I feel like I'm just steamrolling things without really engaging the map areas fully. It devolves in to next area, tying to get a few waypoints and see the scenery....oh, I've just reach the level for the next and so on.  While doing this, I'm unlocking abilities and specialisations but there's nothing challenging enough that is making me stop to question or consider my class mechanics, interactions, synergies, what I use or how I use it. It sort of feels like no matter how much you slow down to take it in, you are still being forced along. This can be frustrating when you KNOW there are lots of quirky things that can happen in each map area if you take the time to explore and have a look around. There's a lot of hidden and not so obvious things new players would simply not see. Yes, you get down-levelled but the difficulty scaling isn't meaningful when you are still 1-2 hitting everything. 

I've not experienced the Xpacs yet. Nothing that remotely resembles end game.  But there's enough feedback on the forums to suggest that once you've unlocked the elite specs you may as well forget the core class. You still need a fundamental understanding of how your class works though, it's strengths/weaknesses etc. At this rate I feel that once I hit genuinely challenging content, it's going to be a baptism of fire and I'm going to be laughed out of a group for not having a clue what I am doing, where in truth I'd really like to engage in the hard stuff when I get there. and can definitely foresee a point the game will abruptly shift gear. This may be a potential flaw and breaking point for many who are neither familiar with any MMO tropes/conventions or used to what the game may later demand of them. 

It has certainly been implied on these forums that the Devs want players to hit the cap to reach the latest content ASAP. Does anyone else feel that this has let the core experience (even base classes) suffer? I feel by being allowed a little more control over my level gain I could be enjoying this more than I am. I'd rather be put through my paces, be more involved with building my character along with feeling a bit of accomplishment in my progression given breathing space to do it.

Or maybe as a gamer in his 30's with a lot of prior MMO experience I need to adjust my expectations *shrugs*. A lot of the frustration comes from a genuine love of the game, knowing it could be further refined and evolved in to something really amazing. I needed to post this a it has been on my mind for a while. 

Anyway, thanks for reading this. I'd love to get the points of view from players both new and well experienced. 

 

Narf

Edited June 8, 2022 by Vedras.5602

[Vilin.8056]

No offense, but it is because you have seen nothing yet.

In GW2, the REAL level grinding, build crafting experience begins after level 80. That is when you truly begin to climb the skill gap, filling up hero points for specializations, and building up mastery level through achievements.

Everything before that is just baby mode.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Vedras.5602]

Thanks for the reply @Vilin.8056.

I get that and realise its pretty typical. I just feel there's more that the baby mode could potentially teach/deliver.  

So far the range of reactions on the matter is quite varied so....I guess I may need to forge on to see the bigger picture. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Vedras.5602

[Danikat.8537]

My advice is to try to stop worrying about it. Yes you will frequently be over-levelled for the stuff you're doing and there will be some impact from that even with the down-levelling effect that's automatically applied if you're in lower level areas, but it's not as extreme as you seem to think.

If you're finding everything easy, even when you're down-levelled that's actually a good sign that you do understand how to build your character and use your skills effectively. This isn't a game where you can simply out-level (or out-gear) content to the point where you can one-shot everything, even in a lower level map. It is possible for one character to do a lot of damage very quickly, but it needs the right build and the right skills, being used effectively.

Likewise the change at level 80 or even going into expansion maps isn't quite as extreme as you're imagining, especially if you keep following the story and maps in order (so doing the personal story, then Living World season 1 and 2, then going into HoT). I wouldn't recommend signing up to do strike missions as soon as you reach level 80, and there probably are some things in HoT maps that will take you by surprise (and they're probably pocket raptors) but it's not like the game fundamentally changes at level 80.

Also while it's true that most players use elite specs once they have access to them an elite spec is 'just' a specialisation, a weapon and 5 skills and it's fairly unusual to use all of those together (you have to take the specialisation to gain access to the rest, but there's a lot of elite spec builds which don't use the new weapon, and most don't use all the new skills) so it won't completely over-write your core profession and there's a lot of value in knowing what the core skills and specialisations do and how to combine them effectively. Especially if you want to make your own builds.

As you said the game is designed so you level up quite quickly, but it's been like that since day 1 so it's also designed with the assumption that the majority of players will spend the majority of their time at level 80 and everything (including lower level maps) are designed to accommodate that. The idea is that once you reach level 80 you can go wherever and do whatever you want rather than being restricted to a few designed 'end game' activities and the levelling process is effectively an extended tutorial to prepare you for that.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Many players use Elite Specializations, but not all.  I'm still using a Core Ranger build (if you could call it a 'build') and I've been able to do all content sans high level Fractals and Raids (which I've never tried, so no idea if my build could handle them).

Try to ignore opinions (forum or otherwise), and just enjoy the game and work out what works best for you. 

Welcome return, and good luck.

[Taclism.2406]

I know I also felt my first character hit 80 way too fast, especially since I was doing 100% exploration on every map I visited, however its also the only game where I don't mind rerolling, because its not the usual pain of "play 100+h of slow paced game to reach the interesting part".
The actual XP grind is masteries, that's basically paragons levels shared for all characters. I didnt do the maths but I wouldnt be surprised if it took more xp to do 0-455 masteries, than 9 characters from 1 to 80. This system in itself also makes rerolling more enjoyable.

In a similar fashion, crafting and gathering giving xp is a nice touch to not only "play how you want to", but also to hint at new players they shouldnt ignore mats : the game economy and crafting system is made in such a way 95% of tradeable mats (especially low level ones) have value, because they are used for exotic, ascended and legendary gear. Speaking of that, you probably wanna look up a salvaging guide, its probably one of the most important thing to understand that's poorly explained by the game.

I can't count how many people bought a 80 boost only to realise they'd be far more ready if they just leveled in core, learning the basics while collecting mats
 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Taclism.2406

[Khisanth.2948]

So you think HP sponges would make excellent enemies? That is really what it boils down to because none of the enemies you are encountering does much. Players do need to learn their class but requiring you to hit a random boar 10 times instead of 5 isn't going to teach anything about fighting a boss with unique mechanics.

Also can you stop abusing the enter key?

[Vedras.5602]

1 hour ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

So you think HP sponges would make excellent enemies? That is really what it boils down to because none of the enemies you are encountering does much. Players do need to learn their class but requiring you to hit a random boar 10 times instead of 5 isn't going to teach anything about fighting a boss with unique mechanics.

Also can you stop abusing the enter key?

 

I'm afraid that was not the over-arcing point I'm making, and I'll present/categorise my posts in a way which best helps me convey what I am trying to say thanks. Honestly the spacing looks more sensible in creation/editing but really spreads out after posting. If there's a way to tighten that up I'm open to feedback. 

As a counter-argument, I'd ask you what the point of numerous zones of varying levels really means if everything just falls with little change to the engagement curve during the levelling phase?

(I've actually cleaned the spacing up a little in hindsight. You raised a fair point. Thank you) 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Vedras.5602

[AliamRationem.5172]

There's no reason to worry that you're missing out on anything here.  Your level downscales to match the content, so it's not much of an issue if you're level 50 and want to go play in a level 30 zone.

There's also no reason to worry about not being ready for organized group content.  Even at max level this game largely focuses on personal objectives as opposed to group play.  There are raids and all that, but there's also unlocking your elite specs, progressing your masteries, and a ton of story content to play through. 

You have more than enough content through which you can learn the basics before jumping into groups if that would be more comfortable for you.  Fractals also have a difficulty progression that starts very easy so nobody expects top tier performance as you learn.

 

[Khisanth.2948]

53 minutes ago, Vedras.5602 said:

 

I'm afraid that was not the over-arcing point I'm making, and I'll present/categorise my posts in a way which best helps me communicate my points(s) . Honestly the spacing looks more sensible in creation/editing but really spreads out after posting. if there's a way to tighten that up I'm open to feedback. 

There is no need to add extra line breaks because the forum will add them for you. There is also a preview button. The last one on the toolbar, magnifying glass on a sheet of paper.

Killing 100,000 easy enemies instead of 10,000 isn't going to make someone more prepared to fight a raid boss. Fighting 100 enemies and paying attention to what your skills do might. Quality rather than quantity is what matters.

23 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Fractals also have a difficulty progression that starts very easy so nobody expects top tier performance as you learn.

Well not exactly. There are definitely people with crazy expectations. Although most of those can be avoided by reading the group descriptions. A more useful  consideration would be actual requirements by the content itself and in that case even t4s do not require it. If you are in a group trying to speedrun the content then the top tier performance comes into play.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Khisanth.2948

[Linken.6345]

With the down scaling you dont out level any content you can go back as lvl 80 to any map and continue exploring.

You get rewards for both your level and sometimes the level of the map.

[Ashen.2907]

The core game leveling experience does not do much (if anything) to prepare you for harder content such as HoT, Strike Missions, Fractals, Raids, etc. Making it last longer will not change that fact. The difficulty curve upon hitting level 80 and going into traditional endgame style content is less a curve and more a brick wall. The wall can be climbed, and doing so is very rewarding, but only tidbits of the leveling experience will contribute to successfully scaling the wall.

So, just play, downscaling is not completely effective in preserving difficulty for characters that have outleveled an area, but it helps. Dont worry that going too fast will make the jump to post leveling content harder and just climb that wall when you get there. Never hesitate to ask questions when the time comes. One thing that forum goers and MMO players alike love to do is show off just how knowledgeable they are about their game of choice.

[ASP.8093]

Follow the story, enjoy yourself, don't sweat it if you're slightly over-leveled for something.

If you find that map completion is giving you "too much" XP, half-kitten the map completion and come back to it later.

Save your Tomes of Knowledge if you don't need them ASAP, you can turn them into Spirit Shards or level up a different character.

[Vidit.7108]

I think something for new players to keep in mind is that all the content you see below level 80 was almost all made nearly 10 years ago. The game since then is all built for level 80 with 99% of it's new content. I can see feeling like you're rushing on ahead with a lot of the world left to explore but you'll still be doing that at level 80, you still have old and new maps to take a look at lots of level 80 content will have you going back to places.

You've probably glanced over a few hidden jumping puzzles already on maps you "completed". If you ever work on a generation 1 legendary weapon collection you will see old spaces and places differently than you do now. 

[devastoscz.9851]

As several people have said on here, I wouldn't worry too much about being rushed to 80. You don't stop learning after you are max level; it could be argued that's when the real game begins.

The game is not designed for you to explore every nook and cranny before 80. In fact, that completionist exploration is part of legendary item crafting, a system of end-game progression. The difficulty does increase once you reach the expansions, and you will find that even map traversal becomes more challenging, needing masteries (another form of end-game progression) that will take you a considerable amount of time to max out.

My suggestion would be to just play the game. I've been at it for 8 years (7k hours) now and I am still by no means an expert at... anything. There's a ton of content to be enjoyed, played and re-played; lvl 80 is just the beginning.

 

[Rhingeim.3974]

Because of downscaling, there almost no difference in being a similar to zone level or higher. 

 

Core Tyria is like a child sandbox. DLC is where progression starts. Especially in HoT 🙂

[Bakeneko.5826]

Don't mind over leveling, you will be downscaled anyway. Core Tyria is just tutorial before HoT open world 😄

[Vedras.5602]

I just want to thank everyone who has posted their point of view and guidance. In a relatively short space of time this thread has received a lot of supportive and well-meaning feedback which has been frankly awesome.

As I've only ever seen the pre-80 experience, this has definitely grounded my perceptions and expectations. I'm also looking forward to the post-80 game much more now I understand the nature of the content ahead of me.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Vedras.5602

[captrowdy.9561]

After 80 the game begins. Hurry up and get to the expansions and then you will have a different outlook. 

[kharmin.7683]

4 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

After 80 the game begins. Hurry up and get to the expansions and then you will have a different outlook. 

No, don't hurry.  Learn the game.  Learn the profession(s).  Learn the mechanics.  Your post-80 experience will be less frustrating.

[Veprovina.4876]

Why are you worrying about over leveling?

The game scales you down to whatever area you're in, and it makes it still challanging, even if you're level 80.

Also, the fact that everything gives you XP isn't balanced just for the 1-80 leveling experience but after as well, you'll need XP to train masteries, and if you have nothing to train and are short on mastery points to unlock - leveling will give you spirit shards each level which are important for legendary crafting and material conversion.

 

So what if you're lvl 80 and you still haven't done anything in core tyria? Go back, do it, you'll be level appropriate and you can discover the world at your own pace.

 

Dungeons were supposed to be challanging when they came out, but since devs abandoned that content, they've been out-powercreeped by most professions. So that was the intended teaching moment before, but, since you only unlock your full traitline at 80, any build that you do will not matter, your buildcraft and learning about the game start at 80. 

The leveling experience isn't meant to teach you anything beyond some basics on purpose, it's supposed to be more chill so you get immersed in the world, not so that you have to pull out spreadsheets at level 20 wondering if what you're about to unlock is the most efficient thing for now, or should you focus on something else. That's not the kind of game this is.

[Ashen.2907]

To be fair, the downscaling is not particularly great at maintaining challenge for over leveled characters. Better than nothing though.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

Sounds like your worrying to much about levels. Levels don't mean much in gw2. It's just a way to trickle unlock skills so you learn to use them (in theory anyways, in practice it tricks you into adopting an ineffective build because you can't visualize synergy between skills when you can't access skills).

 

As for the difficulty spike. It's not that bad usually. You can find tons of core build suggestions online you can use once you max out your hero points.

[Darklord Roy.2514]

On 6/8/2022 at 8:45 AM, Vedras.5602 said:

(Disclaimer - A bit ranty, but trying to encourage discussion) 

I enjoy this game and always have. I decided to come back to it because I wanted to experience everything instead of getting bored at around level 30 then put it down again. So one fresh warrior and 50 levels later...I'm feeling conflicted. 

My issue is one of feeling as if I am being rail-roaded to the level cap far too quickly. I've played other MMO's and I suppose I am used to level grinding. Bit of a dirty word these days, however it means you've more scope to experience the content available to you more organically in order to progress to the the next area instead of out-leveling them outright. This may be a frustration for the few and not the majority. If so that's fair. In MMO's I like to change it up now and then. My problem is everything give you experience to the point of anxiety. 

For example 

Gathering:

I feel like crafting, lets take a time-out and do some chill gathering. While a gentle source of EXP drip, it's still there. Why is this adding to my adventure level instead of contributing to something more appropriate like crafting level, or some sort of general gathering perk/efficiency? 

Crafting: 

Its nice to visit you favourite city, hole yourself up in a crafting area then work on a separate facet of your char development. For me this typically serves as break away from the grind allowing for a different kind of immersion. This too is slowly but surely feeding level experience. I'm trying to take a break here to get my gear up to date (inefficient or not) but the game is pushing me. I'm here to craft not to continue gaining adventure experience. Seems most players wait unill they are 80 to begin crafting these days. Kinda takes the point and fun out of the idea surely? 

Events:

I genuinely really love the attention and care ANET put in to their events. Dragon Bash popped up the other day. Great, sounds like another change of pace!. Again in my mind this should sort of be a jolly away from the main experience - the ring/arena event is pissing experience and levelling me like mad.  I'm enjoying it, but again I'm worrying that this is throwing off my 'level/content ratio'.

Dungeons:

Yep these SHOULD give experience, but my point is I am trying to engage with many facets of the game and I'm just being pushed up faster before I even begin a basic story mode dungeon. 

Vistas & POI's

Again quite generous exp being thrown at you. You can get the best part of a level just by running around a new area.

Tomes of experience

Why? 

Why is this a big deal to me? 

It feels like I'm racing toward the cap too quickly. I COULD systematically experience each map area by level tier, restricting my gear for that area and ignore my actual level, but that shouldn't be the intended experience. If I just go ahead with current gear I feel like I'm just steamrolling things without really engaging the map areas fully. It devolves in to next area, tying to get a few waypoints and see the scenery....oh, I've just reach the level for the next and so on.  While doing this, I'm unlocking abilities and specialisations but there's nothing challenging enough that is making me stop to question or consider my class mechanics, interactions, synergies, what I use or how I use it. It sort of feels like no matter how much you slow down to take it in, you are still being forced along. This can be frustrating when you KNOW there are lots of quirky things that can happen in each map area if you take the time to explore and have a look around. There's a lot of hidden and not so obvious things new players would simply not see. Yes, you get down-levelled but the difficulty scaling isn't meaningful when you are still 1-2 hitting everything. 

I've not experienced the Xpacs yet. Nothing that remotely resembles end game.  But there's enough feedback on the forums to suggest that once you've unlocked the elite specs you may as well forget the core class. You still need a fundamental understanding of how your class works though, it's strengths/weaknesses etc. At this rate I feel that once I hit genuinely challenging content, it's going to be a baptism of fire and I'm going to be laughed out of a group for not having a clue what I am doing, where in truth I'd really like to engage in the hard stuff when I get there. and can definitely foresee a point the game will abruptly shift gear. This may be a potential flaw and breaking point for many who are neither familiar with any MMO tropes/conventions or used to what the game may later demand of them. 

It has certainly been implied on these forums that the Devs want players to hit the cap to reach the latest content ASAP. Does anyone else feel that this has let the core experience (even base classes) suffer? I feel by being allowed a little more control over my level gain I could be enjoying this more than I am. I'd rather be put through my paces, be more involved with building my character along with feeling a bit of accomplishment in my progression given breathing space to do it.

Or maybe as a gamer in his 30's with a lot of prior MMO experience I need to adjust my expectations *shrugs*. A lot of the frustration comes from a genuine love of the game, knowing it could be further refined and evolved in to something really amazing. I needed to post this a it has been on my mind for a while. 

Anyway, thanks for reading this. I'd love to get the points of view from players both new and well experienced. 

 

Narf

What your complaint boils down to at the end of the day is that the pre-endgame experience in GW2 (Core Tyria and the levelling experience from 1-80) has been neglected and downtrodden pretty much since the game's release. Every single important thing about GW2 for the past 9 years has involved post level 80 content, meaning that the actually levelling process realistically accounts for somewhere in the range of 5% of the game.

 

I can understand how, coming back into GW2 from other MMOs, that can be a bit of a jarring experience. Level cap in other MMOs is a long term goal and something that gets increased and experienced throughout the multitudes of expansions and content in those games, but because GW2 doesn't really have vertical progression we're never gonna see that here.

 

That being said, core Tyria and pre-80 content needs a massive touchup. It's all virtually in the same state that it was 10 years ago, so nothing has adapted or been adjusted to how content in other parts of the game has changed or how much of our current masteries and things completely trivializes those earlier maps. It's a fundamental issue with the game, and something that a lot of us veterans have been asking them to update for years.

[Lucy.3728]

On 6/8/2022 at 3:45 PM, Vedras.5602 said:

you've more scope to experience the content available to you more organically in order to progress to the the next area instead of out-leveling them outright

I've the opposite experience.

Got a GW2 Basic account for free from the Alienware giveaway and noticed that when I start a map and think I'll do it throughoutly, go for a 100%, participate in events because they give nice exp and are a change to the hearts, I quickly come to areas of the map that out-level me. Happened to me in Ascalon rather quickly.

 

And I cba to go back and smash the same mobs and do the same events until I'm high enough. So I leave that map and go to a different map for my level (e.g. I go to the Norn or Sylvari) and start there and experience the same. I level slower than I walk the map while I do all that comes across (I don't grind, that's too brain dead for me).

 

I guess the difference may make the story. I don't do story.