Game changes for Steam players

[Serynna.3786]

It seems to me that there have been a number of changes to the game, intended to benefit Steam players.

Levelling is so much faster now (and I don't think this is a good thing) and things are generally easier.

Does Anet believe that Steam players have no patience and are lazy? That they  don't want to work for anything and that they want everything for free and they want it right now? I suspect that this is probably not true. Discuss?

[Markodius.4076]

13 minutes ago, Serynna.3786 said:

Discuss?

No.

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Serynna.3786 said:

It seems to me that there have been a number of changes to the game, intended to benefit Steam players.

Levelling is so much faster now (and I don't think this is a good thing) and things are generally easier.

Does Anet believe that Steam players have no patience and are lazy? That they  don't want to work for anything and that they want everything for free and they want it right now? I suspect that this is probably not true. Discuss?

There had been people complaining about exp for many years. I guess ANet decide to address the complaints.This probably all started back before they introduced the lv80 boost. That was added because they got complaints that it took too long to start playing the expansion. The obvious issue is that you only get one free boost and same people who complained would move on to complaining about having to do that for the next character.

Things being easier is just power creep and the fault of the balance team but most of the game has never been all that challenging anyway. Especially the content encountered while leveling.

[Rogue.8235]

8 hours ago, Serynna.3786 said:

It seems to me that there have been a number of changes to the game, intended to benefit Steam players.

Levelling is so much faster now (and I don't think this is a good thing) and things are generally easier.

Does Anet believe that Steam players have no patience and are lazy? That they  don't want to work for anything and that they want everything for free and they want it right now? I suspect that this is probably not true. Discuss?

 

Umm, leveling was extremely quick far before Steam release.  Being level 80 is less consequential than being an actually skilled player.  There is no way to out-stat the content, so level doesn't matter.  

The only lengthy level 80 I remember is my first character from launch.  I don't really remember level 80 taking long outside of that.  There have always been ways to quickly level up.  I tend to level very quickly because I kill everything, and mobs provide bonus experience for the length of time they've been alive.  I kill what the majority of the player base skips.  I also do map completion as I'm playing a new character.  When tomes and birthdays came around, I used those.  Level 80 has been quickly attainable before Steam was a consideration.

 

[Danikat.8537]

Levelling has always been quick relative to other games. If I remember correctly when the game launched the first people got to level 80 in about 3 or 4 days, and a lot more did it within a month. It took me about 7 months, but by then I had 5 characters, I was away a lot and I play slowly, including wasting a lot of time on things like trying to climb things which aren't supposed to be climbable.

The character guide achievements did make it quicker, but I don't think it's a big change. It seems more extreme if you had a mid-level character when they were added because they'd complete a lot of the achievements automatically and then could quickly complete more, but with new characters it doesn't seem as dramatic.

Also unless you're following their directions it slows down a lot after the first 1-2 tiers of achievements. Most of my characters are 'stuck' on the higher tier ones because the achievements require playing in specific maps and since I don't want the XP I've been focusing on other things so I've made no progress. (If I ever feel like it I'll make the effort to complete them, or it will happen by chance one day.)

Other than that and unlocking the raptor earlier for players with the expansion I'm not sure what they've done recently that makes it easier.

I know there was a lot of talk on the forums before the Steam launch about things which Steam players would 'need', which often seemed to assume that Steam players are idiots who have never heard of an RPG before, but that was mostly people trying to present things they wanted as being helpful for new players because they seemed to think it was a guarenteed way to make it happen. But I don't think any of those ideas made it into the game.

[Buran.3796]

  You can level instantly with the 80 lvl booster, or you can get up to 60 levels with the higher birthay booster, and of course both PvP and WvW reward tracks provide large amounts of knownledge tomes to rise 1 lv x tome. Outside that, rising a crafting skill from 0 to 400 rises a character level exactly to 80 (ideal for alts).

   While leveling your first character it takes you like an hour to reach 10 (when you get 10 hours of the raptor mount for free) and you'll reach 15 in less that 2 hours (at that point the experience boost switches to "normal". From 15 to 30 you can rise 1 level each 15 minutes just completing low level maps (without hearts) with no xp buffs. Once you reach level 30 you can do Dungeons and get 70% of a level x run x day, but that means that that method is only better (faster) than exploration if you close the dungon in less than 11 minutes. The overall process to rise a new character from 1 to 80 with no boosters, no crafting and just exploring is around ~24 hours, which is faster than in most MMOs but still could be better since you really don't start to play the game untill you have a full core character and start to try builds, unlock specs and to craft/gather some exotic (or bettr) gear.

[Vayne.8563]

When the game launched, leveling was the bulk of the game so it made sense to have it slow. But let's say you're a guy that wants to follow the story and not go out of order.  Besides getting a basic raptor, you'd have to now go through all of your personally story, Season 1 and two of the living world, before you get to HoT  and just get gliding. Then you'd have to go through all of HoT, all of Season 3, to get to POF where you start getting your other mounts.

Most of the content is post 80 now. When most of the content was lower than 80, it made sense to have slower leveling. Faster leveling is much better for a game where most of the best and most profitable content is post 80.  Fractals are 80th level content. Obviously raids and strikes are.  WvW is best at max level.  All the best dynamic events are max level 2.   I mean Triple Trouble, Teq and the Shatterer are fine, but most world bosses are just dull now.  Is this how you think you're going to keep new players? 

What's the purpose of slowing down leveling in a game where you can go back and do that content anyway? Who's interest does it really serve?

I strongly suggest the game would lost more people to slow leveling than fast leveling.