Leveling up too fast, any tips?

[Alexander.5796]

Ok, so I decided to start a new character but the XP goes up WAY too quickly. I am at a loss, in no time I can be level 8, what with the Adventurer's Guide and everything. What bothers me about this is that I won't be able to make many quests before the next part of the personal story occurs and it feels unatural to continue to do whatever I was doing before. Any tips anyone can give me? What happens if I decide to make the level 10 mission a couple of levels later, I know the game auto-levels you per zone but what about the gear you get?

I just don't know what to do. Am I overthinking this? Or if there is any tip anyone can give me I'd love to have it.

[Ukronblake.8265]

Yeah, I kinda wish there were level locking like in WoW.

[Draygo.9473]

There is no real consequence on just doing your story quest at a higher level. It will downlevel you.

[lezbefriends.7516]

You’re not supposed to do “quests.” Just run around and explore the map, occasionally an event will pop up, renown hearts are optional.

 

And leveling is only fast in the beginning, it slows down as you gain levels.

[Dayra.7405]

Dynamic Level Adjustment in GW2 works quite well. As long as your real level is 1 higher than the mobs level, it doesn't really matter what your real level is, your attributes are downscaled to an effective level of mobs lvl +1.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustment

Due to better traits and skills unlocked you may be a bit stronger than a lower level char, but a lvl 15 char with lvl 15 armor has better stats than a lvl 80 with lvl 15 armor downscaled to lvl 15 as stats from armor are downscaled as well. (A well equiped char stays well equiped, an underequiped char stays underequiped.)

But you are NOT upscaled, so avoid it to fight mobs of much higher level. If mobs are 5 level higher it's hard, if mobs are 10 level higher you are 1-hitted.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Dayra.7405

[Linken.6345]

Yea they crap exp out on you even more now so no time to smell the roses.

[Randulf.7614]

This is the only game that over levelling doesn’t matter as you get scaled down to the content you are playing.

[TexZero.7910]

1 minute ago, Linken.6345 said:

Yea they crap exp out on you even more now so no time to smell the roses.

There's always time to smell the roses. You just have to make time to do so instead of beign pre-occupied doing story or something else.

[lezbefriends.7516]

Someone wanting SLOWER leveling in an MMORPG, devs just can’t win.

Edited September 21, 2022 by lezbefriends.7516

[Glacial.9516]

You can postpone the story for as long as you'd like. I sometimes prefer to wait until 25-30 to start so that I can comfortably do the first 3 chapters one after another without pausing to level up in-between. The rewarded gear you get will indeed be a little outdated, but it's not a big deal and chances are you'd have replaced them shortly anyway. I actually very much like that there is little pressure to level up or do the story chapters immediately.

As for gear from drops, that depends. Some rewards are based on your level while others are based on the level of the mobs you are killing. This tends to be a good thing because it provides you with a wider variety of materials when you salvage the items, but it can be a little annoying if you're lacking an upgrade for a particular slot of gear and get a lower level item.

[Alexander.5796]

6 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

Dynamic Level Adjustment in GW2 works quite well. As long as your real level is 1 higher than the mobs level it doesn't really matter what your real level is, your attributes are downscaled to an effective level of mobs lvl +1.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustment

Due to better traits and skills unlocked you may be a bit stronger than a lower level char, but a lvl 15 char with lvl 15 armor has better stats than a lvl 80 with lvl 15 armor downscaled to lvl 15.

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, TexZero.7910 said:

There's always time to smell the roses. You just have to make time to do so instead of beign pre-occupied doing story or something else.

Ok, so, say I wanna do the quests in Ascalon first zone, I am two or one level ahead of many of them with strong gear I get from those levels, I am not gonna get overpowered due to the leveling. When I do the first story mission I will be adjusted too and not even the gear I get will make me OP?

[Dayra.7405]

1 minute ago, Alexander.5796 said:

When I do the first story mission I will be adjusted too and not even the gear I get will make me OP?

The gear stats are downscaled as well. If you don't upgrade your gear, you get weaker. 😉

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Alexander.5796 said:

 

Ok, so, say I wanna do the quests in Ascalon first zone, I am two or one level ahead of many of them with strong gear I get from those levels, I am not gonna get overpowered due to the leveling. When I do the first story mission I will be adjusted too and not even the gear I get will make me OP?

Your stats from the armour will be scaled and nothing you get from levelling will be strong enough to overpower you anyway. Only at level 80 with proper gear will you notice some effect of being slightly overpowered whilst being downscaled.

1-2 levels or even 10 levels above content and you will be as if you are on level. Don’t worry about it

[Dayra.7405]

In fact, in core Tyria you will be higher level than the area in most cases. You will hit lvl 80 after you have done map exploration of 30% of core Tyria and only 3 of the maps are lvl 80.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

On alts how I handle it is sometimes just doing map completions between stories. Story brings me to a map, I complete the map THEN do the story.

 

It does level you very quickly but leveling is a tutorial in this game anyway.

 

(It can also net you a decent amount of black lion keys if you're lucky)

[god fragment.5716]

Many of the adventure acheavements can only be completed in certain maps, so if you skip those it's probaby possible to stay in tier 2 acheavements.

Or clear maps by level. Starter zones first, then the 15-25 maps and so on. 

[Danikat.8537]

My advice is don't worry about it. It was always impossible to do everything in this game at the recommended level, even before the new achievements came in. Completing a level 1-15 map will give you more than 15 levels and there's 5 of those. Completing all of them and doing your personal story would get you to about level 40, whereas the next maps are level 15-25. No matter how you do it you'll be level 80 long before completing the majority of stuff in the base game.

But as mentioned it's also not a game where you can out-level or out-gear areas and enemies to the point where it becomes stupidly easy and you'll never be locked out of completing something or getting rewards from it because of your level. Downscaling will adjust your level and stats (including those from equipment), the items you get as story rewards aren't that great, and even at level 80 it's not a game where you can simply out-gear things anyway. Item progression is relatively minimal (there's only 6 tiers and the last one is such a small difference it's optional) and knowing how to play your character makes a much bigger difference than getting better equipment (although it's worth doing that as well, if you want a strong character).

It's an unusual situation. Especially since conventional wisdom says if a game has a cash shop the developers will cause problems to sell the solution, so in a game where you can buy XP boosters and an instant level 80 boost you'd expect them to make levelling up harder, not easier. But it doesn't need to change how you play, the best approach is always to focus on what you want to do.
 

2 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Your stats from the armour will be scaled and nothing you get from levelling will be strong enough to overpower you anyway. Only at level 80 with proper gear will you notice some effect of being slightly overpowered whilst being downscaled.

1-2 levels or even 10 levels above content and you will be as if you are on level. Don’t worry about it

In theory you could notice problems with downscaling as soon as you can get equipment with 2 stats and upgrades, and even more so when you start getting 3-stat pieces (around level 65 I think), because the problem is it scales down each stat individually so with higher level equipment you'll still have more in total. But it's pretty unlikely anyone below level 80 will have equipment with matching stats and a full set of upgrades, because it's not worth doing, and the fact that your stats will be all over the place will balance out the problems with the downscaling.

[Westenev.5289]

Exp in gw2 is generally granted as a % of level, rather than a flat sum (I believe it's 70% for a dungeon, 2% for a point of interest or waypoint) - so you can explore 1-15 maps all you like and not hinder your progress.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

5 hours ago, Alexander.5796 said:

I just don't know what to do. Am I overthinking this? Or if there is any tip anyone can give me I'd love to have it.

there is no way to win. Ether is too fast or too slow or things just don't make sense. I tried to make a new character when I returned but the personal story and the leveling system just don't work together.

best you can do is either ignore the personal story and just go do map exploring (which of course make no sense when a story step takes you to an already explored part but assume you've never been there before) or just use Tomes of Knowledge to insta-lvl 80 and forget about the leveling process altogether.

[DeanBB.4268]

8 hours ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

You’re not supposed to do “quests.” Just run around and explore the map, occasionally an event will pop up, renown hearts are optional.

 

And leveling is only fast in the beginning, it slows down as you gain levels.

I'm thinking you haven't leveled a character with the new higher XP gains and the personal achievements. I've been leveling some characters, starting at level 50ish with tomes then reaching level 80 in about 4 hours.

[Gryphon.2875]

8 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

This is the only game that over levelling doesn’t matter as you get scaled down to the content you are playing.

No, there is another.

[Khisanth.2948]

Levels are mostly irrelevant in this game. The game would work fine without them except there would be even be more lost and confused people. Levels are more of a guide around content. Do you really need something holding your hands telling you to "first you do this then do that then there is this other thing"? Just do them in whatever order you feel like.

With the way lower level maps are arranged you are always going to out level them.

I usually did map completion then the story until it took me to a new map, complete that map then repeat. Even without the new achievements that would result in being lv80 by the time I get to the lv60 story.

 

So yes you are overthinking things.

[Alexander.5796]

7 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Levels are mostly irrelevant in this game. The game would work fine without them except there would be even be more lost and confused people. Levels are more of a guide around content. Do you really need something holding your hands telling you to "first you do this then do that then there is this other thing"? Just do them in whatever order you feel like.

With the way lower level maps are arranged you are always going to out level them.

I usually did map completion then the story until it took me to a new map, complete that map then repeat. Even without the new achievements that would result in being lv80 by the time I get to the lv60 story.

 

So yes you are overthinking things.

So, I wouldn’t be OP if I did a level 10 story mission at level 15? 

[DeanBB.4268]

That'll make no difference.

The real power difference when being of higher level is access to traits. If you have all 3 trait lines open, and traits that synergize with your build (chosen weapons + attributes to match), you will be stronger. But a level 80 can't generally just stand in a starter zone and let enemies beat on them without getting killed. They may one-shot normal enemies using skills other than auto-attack, and may need 2-3 hits for auto-attack. Vets and above will prove a little tougher.

[Strider Pj.2193]

1 hour ago, Gryphon.2875 said:

No, there is another.

Thank you Yoda.  🙂