I'm tired of extremely high level characters tearing through low level zones.

[SponTen.1267]

I feel like a solution to everything here would be for ANet, as part of their Core Game Updates, to allow players to pick a higher difficulty in OW (or maybe only level <80 zones), which also bumps up rewards.

Thus, new/inexperienced players who find the current level of difficulty sufficient can continue to play as they currently do, and everyone else can choose to do reduced damage to mobs while taking more damage, but also get rewards more on-par with Expansion zones.

Everyone wins, right? Most experienced players would pick the harder difficulty for Core zones while being rewarded better, and mobs wouldn't be obliterated in <0.5 seconds during group events.

[BatelGeuce.3591]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:14 AM, drachehexe.6425 said:

It doesn't help that most of these arrogant, selfish players are not in the least apologetic.

I hate people with this kind of approach so now I'll cleave through the starting areas even harder.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

In my first MMORPG there was a very interesting NPC. It had very much HP and hit not so hard. Once it was around 20 % health, it transformed into its next tier. This creature had like 4 tiers in total and in the end you were rewarded with a massive chunk of EXP and some pretty good loot. Its final form however hit so excruciating hard, that you had a serious chance to fail even with an outmaxed character. I would not go that far, because we are still in low-level areas. 

I would use this concept partially and combine it with our event-system, parallel to the stat-scaling. Let us say every mob gets a vengeance-buff with a 2-3 second duration. If it dies while the buff is active, it respawns as a higher tier with the doubled duration of the buff (normal mob -> veteran -> elite -> champion -> Legendary). This means the presence of highlevel characters would result in both better loot and EXP gain for all participants. It would promote the core idea of  people of different levels playing together in the same maps. 

In addition, we could deactivate the broken number-scaling system which is not really healthy for the servers anyway. As the numbers of NPCs present would be constant and not skyrocketing. The people who invest a lot into their gear and rotations would also be rewarded for their skill = the argument we had in the previous threads. And one final positive aspect: the presence of afk-players would no longer result in insane event-upscaling.

It should only apply to event NPCs, not regular mobs. I would however add one ambient creature (white NPC) with the same mechanic somewhere random in every map. With an achievement to hunt all of them. Would definitely be entertaining to fight a legendary pigeon for once.

Thanks for reading 🙂

[eXruina.4956]

is this really a thing? i've played mmorpgs in the era before shared credit, and kill stealing was a thing, gw2 is nowhere near those games, in fact gw2 was one of the few mmos that pioneered shared credit at the time that ultimately killed this toxic behavior.

here are some things that make your claims not add up for me, these and my personal experience with the leveling process of the game.

- those high level characters you speak of, are scaled down to the level of the zone you're in, and it would still normally take more than 1 hit to kill something, unless its an ambient creature.

- you get all the credit and rewards just for getting a hit in. all the experience, all the drops, are character exclusive, in fact if they're doing the killing its just making things easier for you, specially on veterans and champions.

- those high level players, have absolutely nothing to gain from clearing those mobs, absolutely nothing. either they're questing, which honestly won't take too long and they'll be on their way or they're there to deliberately spite you.

[Nabbut.7480]

The reasons I, a high-level player visit low-level zones:

• Bandit Leader bounties: low-level players are unable to do these without a high-level one
• World Bosses. Same.
• Events like Svanir Dome or Nebo Terrace: very hard to impossible for low-levels alone
• Gathering Iron Ore for Deldrimor Steel crafting

I do kill things in my way but usually I don't see low-level players around doing so.

[Dayra.7405]

15 minutes ago, SpiderZ.9146 said:

The reasons I, a high-level player visit low-level zones:

• Bandit Leader bounties: low-level players are unable to do these without a high-level one
• World Bosses. Same.
• Events like Svanir Dome or Nebo Terrace: very hard to impossible for low-levels alone
• Gathering Iron Ore for Deldrimor Steel crafting

I do kill things in my way but usually I don't see low-level players around doing so.

I would add map-completion, I.e when I make a new char she goes to the bank after the tutorial and is 80 (birthday scrolls & tomes). But even if you level normally, you are probably closer to 80 than to 10 when you reach the 5th start area depending on the order in which you play the maps. Doing map-completion of 1/3 of all core-tyria maps let you hit lvl 80.

Edited June 1, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Khisanth.2948]

7 hours ago, SponTen.1267 said:

I feel like a solution to everything here would be for ANet, as part of their Core Game Updates, to allow players to pick a higher difficulty in OW (or maybe only level <80 zones), which also bumps up rewards.

Thus, new/inexperienced players who find the current level of difficulty sufficient can continue to play as they currently do, and everyone else can choose to do reduced damage to mobs while taking more damage, but also get rewards more on-par with Expansion zones.

Everyone wins, right? Most experienced players would pick the harder difficulty for Core zones while being rewarded better, and mobs wouldn't be obliterated in <0.5 seconds during group events.

You are asserting the problem exist instead of demonstrating that it exists.

If ANet spends time solving a problem that doesn't exist then we are lose.  Your solution replicates the exact same problem we had back when Magic Find was on gear. People would simply pick it for the extra loot regardless of whether or not they can handle it and simply expect other people to pick up the slack.

[Krexen.9057]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:14 PM, drachehexe.6425 said:

Why aren't these super high leveled characters banned from starting areas

Metrica is my favorite map, and you want me banned from it, because of other players?

I mean, I've quit other games over less, so go for it, idc.

[workit.3092]

Why should I penalize my abilities to those who have not PAID for the game?😅🤣

[Obfuscate.6430]

I strongly doubt people are being malicious when they are simply out in the world map exploring or gathering. Some people might think they are helping for instance. I know it can be frustrating however, as I often level alts from scratch and have run in to similar issues but I've never believed anyone was out there intentionally ruining my fun. High levels go through the zone so quickly, it's kind of strange that their brief presence would affect you as much as it seems to. 
Also, if there is a daily that involves the map you will definitely see high level characters more. 
Just be patient, it's going to be ok! 

[Gibson.4036]

On 5/31/2023 at 7:59 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

The complaint has little merit. Mobs respawn. There are map instances. There are multiple areas of similar level. Those players do move on from those areas. It's simply not the problem that the OP indicates. The game is designed for people to have reasons for being in all areas, no matter what their level. 

Depends on the area and event.

Harathi can be particularly bad because the camps get taken by humans, and players repel the centaur attempts to retake them extremely quickly. There are times where it is difficult to find any centaurs to fight, and you’re stuck destroying a weapon rack here or there to try and get a heart complete.

Add to this events like centaurs who come in clumped waves to attack several camp entrances. High levels will mount up and get to each wave before it even enters the camp leaving at-levels chasing behind. These kinds of events can go on for a decent amount of time leaving the at-levels stymied.

And then there’re events here and there that are notorious for not spawning enough mobs. I’m fuzzy on where it is, but one spawns ice elementals in a tunnel and you have to kill and collect. One person killing them quickly is enough to leave the tunnel empty for a bit, and then you wait and kill each one the moment it spawns. I’ve followed low levels around this one waiting for them to do damage before I one shot the mob for the rest of the health.

I’m not saying it’s a huge problem everywhere, but it can be enough of the new player experience it shouldn’t be dismissed as having “little merit”.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Gibson.4036]

19 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

 

- those high level characters you speak of, are scaled down to the level of the zone you're in, and it would still normally take more than 1 hit to kill something, unless its an ambient creature.

 

Yeah, downscaling isn’t that effective. My power Herald one shots groups of low level mobs with a single utility skill.

With an espec, optimized gear and build, downscaling isn’t very effective. And that’s without running food/utility buffs and jade protocols.

19 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

 

- you get all the credit and rewards just for getting a hit in. all the experience, all the drops, are character exclusive, in fact if they're doing the killing its just making things easier for you, specially on veterans and champions.

 

It’s the regular mobs that can be cleared by level 80s before at-levels can even reach them.

Run around some level 80s on a pure melee character, and if there are a few rifle mechanists in the area it can be difficult to get mobs tagged, and that’s without the power difference between 80s and lower levels as well as out leveling the mobs.

19 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

 

- those high level players, have absolutely nothing to gain from clearing those mobs, absolutely nothing. either they're questing, which honestly won't take too long and they'll be on their way or they're there to deliberately spite you.

I posted something like this earlier in the thread. 80s there for zone completion will finish a heart and be on their way quickly. 

In my experience, the pain point is typically events that have a set duration defending against waves of mobs. If that zone has the event daily, high levels will hang around to get event credit, wiping out the mobs that spawn very quickly.

I’d like ANet to take a look at downscaling purely for selfish reasons. It’d be more fun to do low level zones if I wasn’t one-shotting things. I don’t know the math behind it, but wouldn’t it be a matter of tweaking some variables so that the downscaling dampens damage output a bit more for 80s? Seems like a thing you could tweak in small increments to see how it impacts things.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[SnackParty.3178]

Some folks, just like chill farming mats and baubles. Low level zones, can give decent gold, depending on tp demands. Can higher players, control themselves, better? Yeah, sure. There's no sense in raptor bashing, then insta deleting mobs, lower level players, are trying to tag.

A good tip, for if it's daily events, is high players, can equip a hylek blowgun. It's an awesome tagger, without destroying everything.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

Extremely high levels - like my weekly BL key Warrior/Guardian - tearing through the starting zone is quite fun.

[idpersona.3810]

5 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Harathi can be particularly bad because the camps get taken by humans, and players repel the centaur attempts to retake them extremely quickly. There are times where it is difficult to find any centaurs to fight, and you’re stuck destroying a weapon rack here or there to try and get a heart complete.

Add to this events like centaurs who come in clumped waves to attack several camp entrances. High levels will mount up and get to each wave before it even enters the camp leaving at-levels chasing behind. These kinds of events can go on for a decent amount of time leaving the at-levels stymied.

Not disagree in general, but my experience has been different. In the last couple of week I've leveled 3 or 4 alts through Harathi. I never had an issue. The centaur shortage is just a matter of finding where they actually are.
Per the event, it goes on for several minutes. and it's a good way to finish out one of 2 of the adventure guide tasks. It can be frustrating to tag the mobs, but overall it wasn't overly difficult.

[Bunter.3795]

For the OP.  As others have stated there are many reasons why higher level characters are in the low level zones. 

Here are a few things to help you get credit for mobs/events:

1) Know your weapons - AoE weapons are important when you are going to events.  When I leveled my first thief at game launch i made sure to use short bow.  Why?  Well it had the best AoE for a thief at the time.  I had ranged options with pistol or even sword allowed me to bridge gaps quickly but short bow allowed me to tag the most mobs so I made sure I always had that equipped.  Make sure you do the same with your character Always have at least one AoE weapon equipped.

2) Learn your events:  When you take part in an event that has waves of mobs attacking most events (that's most, not all) have an invulnerability aspect where the mobs are invulnerable until they reach a certain point.  Use your AoE skills at that point.   This is especially useful for DoT skills such as necro wells, some ele skills, etc.   Some of those same events have waves come from more than one point, don't try to run between the different points, Higher level characters will usually beat you to the next spot.  So stay at one spot and be at the invulnerability spot or spawn point and use your AoE.   Learning the way the events work will really help the frustation you experience.

3) Know your Mob:  When you are in a starter zone are you doing hearts or just trying to level?  Yes hearts can give you exp but you'll actually get more experience by killing the yellow mobs.  All mobs gain exp the longer they've existed on the map.  If you are trying to kill mobs for a heart and have a higher level character causing problems, just go off and kill the yellow mobs for a little bit and you'll find you'll make more exp than you would by completing the heart.   It's not perfect but at least you'll avoid the frustration you've been experiencing.  Remember core map hearts save your progress so you can kill one mob a week ago and it will still count for completion when you go back.  When you've killed enough of those yellow mobs, you'll be high level and can complete the hearts that much faster.

4) Know the dailies: When deciding on which map to work on, look at the dailies, if it's (for example) Daily Queensdale event completer either be prepared to be frustrated as some people are trying to get their dailies done as fast as possible so they can go onto other activities such as Fractals, WvW, etc.  2 gold is 2 gold and people want to get the dailies done using the 3 choices they can do the fastest.  If you're not doing dailies, or have completed the daily for a zone, move to another zone.  With daily gatherers you'll usually not have as many higher level characters but you will have some.  

5) Know your hearts:  Some hearts have aspects where you need to interact with an object and then a mob may spawn.  Those are usually character specific if you are in the area though it may count you in as well.   Keep your distance in such cases.  After the other person has killed the mob, you'll be able to go in an activate it again.  (Note: This is not true for all hearts). Now if you see a higher level character waiting on you be aware.  Are they waiting until you spawn it and then just killing it or are they holding back?  I do this all the time when I'm in lower level zones.  I let the low level spawn the mob, get a hit in and then I one shot them.  We both get credit this way.  This is really easy to do with ranged weapons.   If (I know it's an if) you see someone doing this, don't run to the next interact object, wait for the high level to come up and interact and then you are right there to get a hit in.  If I'm trying to be nice like that and a low level moves off to the next interact or doesn't respond to my queries of "map completion?" or "leveling?" I'll just go through as fast as possible as my time is just as important as yours.  I'll kill the mobs faster and then it can really slow your completion.

 

I hope these things help you.  These are not "rules" but just things that I do when I'm either a leveling an alt or doing stuff with a higher level in a zone.  
 

[Khisanth.2948]

6 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Harathi can be particularly bad because the camps get taken by humans, and players repel the centaur attempts to retake them extremely quickly. There are times where it is difficult to find any centaurs to fight, and you’re stuck destroying a weapon rack here or there to try and get a heart complete.

Add to this events like centaurs who come in clumped waves to attack several camp entrances. High levels will mount up and get to each wave before it even enters the camp leaving at-levels chasing behind. These kinds of events can go on for a decent amount of time leaving the at-levels stymied.

A lot of that is due to very badly defined areas for the heart. There are too many cases where the nearby area is obviously related to the heart but it is not defined to be within the range of the heart.

6 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

And then there’re events here and there that are notorious for not spawning enough mobs. I’m fuzzy on where it is, but one spawns ice elementals in a tunnel and you have to kill and collect. One person killing them quickly is enough to leave the tunnel empty for a bit, and then you wait and kill each one the moment it spawns. I’ve followed low levels around this one waiting for them to do damage before I one shot the mob for the rest of the health.

That event is in Wayfarer. Southeast corner. 3 part event. Events like that are bad for everyone, everywhere and not something exclusive to low level zones. The actual problem there is that the devs probably forgot to enable scaling so this is basically a 10 year old bug. Granted scaling itself can cause other problems so overall it is the game's lack of polish. 😕

A well polished game would look at each of them individually and make appropriate adjustments.

There is also various events where the last group of mobs will not give you credit for the event. One of them is the pack bull escort in Sparkfly.

[SponTen.1267]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:31 AM, Khisanth.2948 said:

You are asserting the problem exist instead of demonstrating that it exists.

If ANet spends time solving a problem that doesn't exist then we are lose.  Your solution replicates the exact same problem we had back when Magic Find was on gear. People would simply pick it for the extra loot regardless of whether or not they can handle it and simply expect other people to pick up the slack.

Problems have already been demonstrated in this thread, and many others:
Core zones are so easy that new players can't even participate in some events because all mobs are obliterated in an instant, and additionally the rewards in these zones are so far behind the rest of the game that the only reason to visit them is for very specific achievements.

Why would having a way to increase difficulty and rewards in these zones not solve this problem?

[Lucy.3728]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:14 AM, drachehexe.6425 said:

Now I am going through starting zones and have several times encountered extremely high leveled players just tearing up the zone killing everything in one shot leaving nothing for new character to do, including the special event encounters where there is no time to engage and be a part of the event to get the rewards

I don't think it's because they're max-level players and you're not.

It's because they have much better mobility than you do.

When I restarted the game, after a 7-year break, I immediately got to level 80 with a certain item and was transported to a level 80 zone from where I continued playing. I was too slow and often missed getting to events fast enough to counted for me. 😞

So I complained in Verdant Brink's map chat about people being too fast and hitting too hard and me not getting anything, and someone suggested doing the first PoF mission to get the Raptor and then continue with HoT.

And that's exactly what I did. I got the Raptor from the first PoF mission, then cancelled the PoF story and resumed the HoT story and did the HoT maps (which you need to glide anyway). Much better. Of course, it was still slower because I didn't have Skyscale (and that's very noticeable), but it wasn't as frustrating a non-fun as before.

I made a new Charr 6 months ago, and instead of instantly boosting him up to level 80, like I usually do, I played through the whole story, explored the first maps (to level ahead) and just equipped what I found and what I got for karma from heart sellers, and I didn't have your problems. I had all mounts and everything by that point. My mobility was like everyone else's. Low level or not, I didn't miss anything.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, SponTen.1267 said:

Problems have already been demonstrated in this thread, and many others:
Core zones are so easy that new players can't even participate in some events because all mobs are obliterated in an instant, and additionally the rewards in these zones are so far behind the rest of the game that the only reason to visit them is for very specific achievements.

Why would having a way to increase difficulty and rewards in these zones not solve this problem?

Man if only annecdotal evidence was all that was necessary for a problem to exist. I've talked to many people who have problems with something that simply didn't know how to handle stuff, they learned and the problem was solved. There are tons of things that seem like problems that really aren't. And there are tons of things that are problems for some people and not others. 

You need to see a significant percentage of the player base experiencing it, enough to spend resources on it. This thread doesn't show that, or rather, it's not evidence of that one way or another. It might or might not be true. But what you've seen in this thread is the experience of a handful of people who choose to share it. 

I once had a critique group comment on a short story I was writing. Three people said it was too short and needed a longer treatment to be effective. Three people said it was too long and needed to be paired down a couple of pages because the idea doesn't support a longer story.

I see people saying it's a problem and I know people who think it's not a problem , even new people just starting the game, and I interact with plenty of those. At the end of the day, nothing has been proven here. There are just opinions on both sides.

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 6/2/2023 at 8:44 PM, Khisanth.2948 said:

A lot of that is due to very badly defined areas for the heart. There are too many cases where the nearby area is obviously related to the heart but it is not defined to be within the range of the heart.

This right here is 90% of the problem. Some hearts lack the necessary objective density to feed multiple players at once. This scarcity encourage player to mow even faster through mobs. That is a very solvable Problem. 

Edited June 4, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Shuzuru.3651]

On 6/2/2023 at 2:07 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

Yeah, downscaling isn’t that effective. My power Herald one shots groups of low level mobs with a single utility skill.

With an espec, optimized gear and build, downscaling isn’t very effective. And that’s without running food/utility buffs and jade protocols.

And so does my low level guardian, equipped with power equipment. 

I didn't do the test, but it look like someone did it, and the low level character got more stat than the well equipped lvl80 character.

I really don't think the downscaling is the problem of core zone, more the resistance of enemies. 

[StuckHat.8061]

On 6/1/2023 at 7:41 AM, BatelGeuce.3591 said:

I hate people with this kind of approach so now I'll cleave through the starting areas even harder.

Funny, but also representative of a good point. You really don't wanna antagonize people who are just doing their collections or whatever, OP. I hang out in Caledon Province fairly often just to idle or do some events. Maybe my timing is just fortunate, but I'm usually the only one out of maybe three level 80s in it at any given time.

That being said: It doesn't really invalidate the point that the mobs are a bit too squishy. I've made a Thief recently and I've been gutting everything from the word go. Increase EXP yield if you must, but making them at least able to slap you more than once (assuming reasonable level disparity) might be good.

[Bolbo Baggins.8594]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:22 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

They have just as much right to be there as you do.  Unlike other MMOs, in GW2 there are reasons for max level players to be in lower level zones.  I think it would be better if ANet rebalanced the downscaling to make it more appropriate to what max level stats actually are, but don't blame the players for that.

By deliberately making the life of new players miserable? The OP has a point about egocentric high level players area of effect/one shothing everything. You dont need to smash every enemy for dailies. Thats why i always shut of autotarget when new players are doing dynamic events in low level areas and use skill one. The type of players he is talking about are not normal civilised players. Its always the same Full elite, flash fluff glitter, full legendary, hyperactive on their mounts (mount smashing/elite spec killing everything in one blow) type of player. They are not entitled to anything, what they could learn is a little respect to the newbies, and grow up.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Bolbo Baggins.8594

[Justforvisit.3709]

I really don't want to be offensive here, but the whole discussion pretty much falls flat when you take this into consideration:

By just playing the game naturally: Doing Story, Map Completion, Events etc. you can, even as a new player, be Level 80 in less in 3 weeks, even if you take your time. You level so fast in GW2 that you can become one of those "High Level Players" very very fast.

Of course their is still the advantage of mounts, equipments and skill that has been gained over the years, but apart from the mounts for which you have to pay a DLC's price, the other two factors can be worked on really quick as well and you can join these "extremely high level characters tearing through low level zones" as well in as good as no time.

All it takes is a little bit of committment.