Guild Wars 2

Caliane · Mar 16, 2015

Mr Creed_sl said:
There's a cave of veteran hylek in the sylvari newbie zone that takes you from 1-80 with an EQ-style "sit in this room and kill frogs" leveling experience. Not what the game is made for but you can do it!

Really though pretty much anything you do in this game gives xp. Just do the stuff you enjoy and the levels will come. If there's nothing you actually do enjoy, why would you even be playing. GW2 isnt doing the switcheroo to raids at cap either, nor does it have meaningful item progression. Rushing to 80 is pointless, you still have the same activities you had at 20, 40 and 60.

ps, there is also totally a puzzle in that cave too.
To get in the cave in the first place, you pick up a boulder, and throw it at a gong on the wall. then theres the vetern hylek you can kill or run by. at the end of the cave, there is a giant face, with orbs on the ground, and some rocks. going left to right, match the rocks on the ground with the patterns in the eye. do it 4 times, to light the torches and open the door.

Draegan_sl · Mar 16, 2015

When I played, I achievement whored my way through and 100%'d every map and then moved on. Was pretty fun I guess.

Vorph · Mar 16, 2015

Caliane_sl said:
yeah. People have gotten so used to following ! around, when presented with a game that doesn't follow that, they latch on to the closest thing to it, and can't let go. Same thing has come up over and over since day 1.

I would argue that people want so bad for something to not be the same old 'follow ! around' model that they are willing to delude themselves into believing that a simple presentation/UI change is actually a totally different system. Hearts and events are just quests that don't require you to talk to a NPC and then hike your ass back to turn it in.

Dynamic events aren't really dynamic at all. Timers are predictable even if some require proximity/talking to a NPC, as are the chains that lead from one to the next. Once they start they are the exact same event as they were the last 1000 times they ran. They're no different from hearts except that they're harder to find on your map if you aren't close by, and some of them result in a boss fight at the end of a chain.

I definitely agree that the game is about exploration, especially for someone who refuses to touch PVP at all, and that's cool. However, I'd be having a lot more fun exploring if I had been max level in 4-12 hours (GW times, which varied based on which expansion pack you started in) and could be working on ascended/legendary items while doing my exploring. Honestly, what the fuck is the point of levels 32-80? I got my elite skill at 31, and had my introduction to traits. I have access to all my class abilities if I have the skill points to buy them. I have been doing the exact same thing on my warrior for the last 33 levels, and I still have 15 more to go. Pretty sure I'm not going to magically learn anything new about the class that I somehow missed up to now. There's not one single good reason for the existence of a level treadmill in GW2.

bytes · Mar 16, 2015

It's pretty obvious at this point that Anet agrees on leveling being useless. There's no increased cap coming with the addon and they hand out leveling items like candy, although they're easier to acquire for established players who want to level an alt. My Revenant will play through the tutorial and then go from 2-80 in about 3 minutes sitting at the bank while I click through my tomes.

Completely reworking the game and cutting everything down to say level 20 like it was in the original GW would be way too much effort though. Anet is moving at a Blizzard-tier pacing already, can't bog them down any further.

Mr Creed · Mar 16, 2015

Vorph_sl said:
I would argue that people want so bad for something to not be the same old 'follow ! around' model that they are willing to delude themselves into believing that a simple presentation/UI change is actually a totally different system. Hearts and events are just quests that don't require you to talk to a NPC and then hike your ass back to turn it in.

Dynamic events aren't really dynamic at all. Timers are predictable even if some require proximity/talking to a NPC, as are the chains that lead from one to the next. Once they start they are the exact same event as they were the last 1000 times they ran. They're no different from hearts except that they're harder to find on your map if you aren't close by, and some of them result in a boss fight at the end of a chain.

I definitely agree that the game is about exploration, especially for someone who refuses to touch PVP at all, and that's cool. However, I'd be having a lot more fun exploring if I had been max level in 4-12 hours (GW times, which varied based on which expansion pack you started in) and could be working on ascended/legendary items while doing my exploring. Honestly, what the fuck is the point of levels 32-80? I got my elite skill at 31, and had my introduction to traits. I have access to all my class abilities if I have the skill points to buy them. I have been doing the exact same thing on my warrior for the last 33 levels, and I still have 15 more to go. Pretty sure I'm not going to magically learn anything new about the class that I somehow missed up to now. There's not one single good reason for the existence of a level treadmill in GW2.

Agreed, levels are pointless, they could just as well have done 1-20 or 1-200. Actually levels are a negative to me because they invalidate content, I really do love the automated downscaling GW2 has.

However I wouldnt say that GW2 is a WoW/clone quest setup in a different dress, quite the opposite. The trained reaction in WoW is to not go into a cave without the respective quest, because a) it's pointless and b) you'll be send there soon enough if you follow the quests (lately timeless isle and MoP added some exploration). GW2 is quite the opposite in that regard and encourages me to check out that cave. To me that made leveling a much more enjoyable experience.

Vorph · Mar 16, 2015

bytes_sl said:
It's pretty obvious at this point that Anet agrees on leveling being useless. There's no increased cap coming with the addon and they hand out leveling items like candy, although they're easier to acquire for established players who want to level an alt. My Revenant will play through the tutorial and then go from 2-80 in about 3 minutes sitting at the bank while I click through my tomes.

I wish they were easier to acquire for everyone, or that the expansion was going to do to 1-80 what Factions did to 1-20 compared to Prophecies (read: knock about 75% off the time required to level to max). As I've said a few times, I'm not really sold on warrior being the class I want to play and, more importantly, sink the time required to get ascended and/or legendary gear. I feel like I'm stuck with the class though, because I just cannot do the 1-80 grind again without being able to plow through most of it with either crafting or tomes.

Mr Creed_sl said:
However I wouldnt say that GW2 is a WoW/clone quest setup in a different dress, quite the opposite. The trained reaction in WoW is to not go into a cave without the respective quest, because a) it's pointless and b) you'll be send there soon enough if you follow the quests (lately timeless isle and MoP added some exploration). GW2 is quite the opposite in that regard and encourages me to check out that cave. To me that made leveling a much more enjoyable experience.

I still think it's basically the same thing. GW2 just saves you the trouble of finding the quest hub and picking up all the quests before you set out. Yes, that's a nice QoL change, and one that Blizzard has partially embraced in WoW with quests that auto-add and auto-complete, but it's hardly anything revolutionary.

Camera changes today are really nice. Only thing I wish is that they would let me see the FOV degrees as a number instead of just a slider. Max FOV is too much fish-eye on a 16:9 panel, and I'd rather just be able to set it to 90 degrees like I do in every other game, instead of having to slowly increase the FOV until it starts to make me nauseous.

Mr Creed · Mar 16, 2015

Vorph_sl said:
I still think it's basically the same thing. GW2 just saves you the trouble of finding the quest hub and picking up all the quests before you set out. Yes, that's a nice QoL change, and one that Blizzard has partially embraced in WoW with quests that auto-add and auto-complete, but it's hardly anything revolutionary.

WoW has partially embraced it, but not with auto-questing. Moreso with the hidden rares and the timeless isle treasures etc. I think one difference between our views is that you still talk about the hearts/vistas, while I'm actually thinking of the stuff in GW2 that isnt marked on the map. For me knowing that visiting a corner of a map without the associated quests is mostly pointless made leveling less enjoyable in standard quest hub games. It was especially bad in Cata era content. I like exploring, GW2 encourages it. WoW tells me to not go explore and wait for the quest hub.

Zaphid · Mar 16, 2015

GW2 is designed for all this stuff from the ground up, the interaction with the environment, jumping puzzles, skills, all those are made for you to be essentially self sufficient in the exploration. WoW has to nail this stuff on top of all its rickety old systems.

I have no idea what I'm going to do in my GW2 session, it's what up to is going on in the world, whereas in WoW you are almost encouraged to plan it ahead.

Caliane · Mar 16, 2015

Zaphid_sl said:
GW2 is designed for all this stuff from the ground up, the interaction with the environment, jumping puzzles, skills, all those are made for you to be essentially self sufficient in the exploration. WoW has to nail this stuff on top of all its rickety old systems.

I have no idea what I'm going to do in my GW2 session, it's what up to is going on in the world, whereas in WoW you are almost encouraged to plan it ahead.

I feel GW2's elder game is SUPER wiki friendly, btw. the end game here almost requires you to google the hell out of what does what, where to collect things, where to get achievements, how to get them, etc.
Trying to plan out ascended gear, legendary gear, dyes, unlocking wardrobes, etc.. I can't imagine trying to play this without a second monitor, and the wiki open on the other screen half the time.

Vorph · Mar 16, 2015

Mr Creed_sl said:
I think one difference between our views is that you still talk about the hearts/vistas, while I'm actually thinking of the stuff in GW2 that isnt marked on the map.

Well, right now I talk about whatever gets me done with this dumb leveling treadmill fastest. In my experience so far, doing anything other than what is actually marked on the map is not an efficient way to level. If I could get from 65 to 80 by standing in some random cave tonight quicker than by doing hearts and events, I would be all over that shit, trust me. (Seriously, if there's a way to do this faster, enlighten me.)

I'm all for exploration, but it takes a distant back seat to "argh, why the fuck am I not done leveling yet?!@?~"

Zaphid_sl said:
I have no idea what I'm going to do in my GW2 session, it's what up to is going on in the world, whereas in WoW you are almost encouraged to plan it ahead.

I don't understand what you mean by "what is going on in the world" unless you're referring to some WvW stuff that I won't ever be doing. Which is fine, I realize I'm ignoring a sizable portion of the game by refusing to do PVP, and I'm ok with that. Especially after today's patch that removed WvW from map completion reqs.

I queue up all the boss timers that I am high enough level for and that have a high chance of success (Triple Trouble can suck it), I do my daily achievements, I run down a checklist of jumping puzzles that aren't too obnoxious, and I work on getting zones to ~99% completion (saving 100% for when I'm closer to 80). I plan to add doing dungeons and fractals to that list soon.

The stuff I do takes quite a large chunk of time each day even without any group stuff at all yet, but it's all static and predictable; even the dailies aren't random, just like in GW the upcoming ones can be found on the wiki. What am I missing?

penalty_sl · Mar 16, 2015

Yea people keep saying you can level just exploring but in reality its actually shit experience compared to rushing hearts and doing events that pop up on the way. Or thats how its been in my case.

I actually found a spot where theres 3-4 events that happen one after the next right near eachother by the Mrot boru waypoint, I just do these over and over and it seems to be the fastest exp I've found so far, and its brainless.

Valderen · Mar 16, 2015

While I agree with Vorph that the Hearts/Events aren't that different than WoW's quest system, it's mostly how it is presented.

GW2 makes me have ADHD, I get distracted...sometimes it will take me an hour or more to reach the first heart.

Janx · Mar 16, 2015

Started playing again and got a Mesmer up to 34-35ish. Are there any QOL stuff I may be missing out on just wandering around all the areas completing events as I go?

Mr Creed · Mar 16, 2015

If you are trying to rush levels, crafting is fastest - if it is affordable for you (either in gold or in $). I think in this game rushing to cap is more then pointless though (no raid game, equal footing in PvP, zerg trains in WvW dont care about individuals). But to each their own.

Zaphid · Mar 16, 2015

Vorph_sl said:
Well, right now I talk about whatever gets me done with this dumb leveling treadmill fastest. In my experience so far, doing anything other than what is actually marked on the map is not an efficient way to level. If I could get from 65 to 80 by standing in some random cave tonight quicker than by doing hearts and events, I would be all over that shit, trust me. (Seriously, if there's a way to do this faster, enlighten me.)

I'm all for exploration, but it takes a distant back seat to "argh, why the fuck am I not done leveling yet?!@?~"

I don't understand what you mean by "what is going on in the world" unless you're referring to some WvW stuff that I won't ever be doing. Which is fine, I realize I'm ignoring a sizable portion of the game by refusing to do PVP, and I'm ok with that. Especially after today's patch that removed WvW from map completion reqs.

I queue up all the boss timers that I am high enough level for and that have a high chance of success (Triple Trouble can suck it), I do my daily achievements, I run down a checklist of jumping puzzles that aren't too obnoxious, and I work on getting zones to ~99% completion (saving 100% for when I'm closer to 80). I plan to add doing dungeons and fractals to that list soon.

The stuff I do takes quite a large chunk of time each day even without any group stuff at all yet, but it's all static and predictable; even the dailies aren't random, just like in GW the upcoming ones can be found on the wiki. What am I missing?

What Valderen said, TP somewhere "oh there's an event going on here, let's help with that" "Oh it chains, let's finish it." "Damn, CoF is closed, need to do the events to unlock it first" And so on. Same for farming jumping puzzles and other stuff, it's very easy to get sidetracked. If you play for 3 hours, sure you will do everything, but there's enough events randomly happening to last me an hour. The fastest way to level is zerg train through Edge of the Mists I think, but you might need a birthday booster for that and somebody has to lead it.

Fractals are 80 only and I recommend getting full exotic gear before doing them. Dungeons in general have a lot of people averse to taking characters below 80 through exploration paths because the gear bump is pretty noticeable and most people just want to get it over with, but YMMV. The experience and gold income is very solid and you should run a dungeon or two every day at 80. Fractals are more hit or miss without solid party, you will probably get to the end, but sometimes it takes the patience of a saint.

The best advice for leveling a new character is to hoard all the shit you harvest, especially food (get full stack every time you get a vendor selling cooking ingredients for karma) and once you hit ~70, level that and another profession of your choice to hit 80 in about 30 minutes. Look up some crafting guides and save a crafting booster for the occasion to make as cheap as possible.

Janx · Mar 16, 2015

Nah not really rushing. More along the lines of, are there any sweet events etc.. that I should be sure to watch for/backtrack to check out in some of the lower level zones.

Zaphid · Mar 16, 2015

Janx_sl said:
Nah not really rushing. More along the lines of, are there any sweet events etc.. that I should be sure to watch for/backtrack to check out in some of the lower level zones.

There are world bosses that are kinda cool, they are on a timer so there's usually a zerg porting from zone to zone doing them, they give some decent level-appropriate loot, but you can do them all at 80 anyway. At least they give you a reason to explore some new zones.Dragon Timer | Guild Wars TempleThe game does fairly solid job of scaling you down in easy zones, so you can always come back and not be greeted by gray mobs. If you like jumping look up jumping puzzles on gw2wiki in the zones you are going through and do those, even with walkthrough they aren't that easy.

Kovaks · Mar 16, 2015

what I'm reading here is two different mindsets and I am playing this with a total different mindset than I have any other mmo and that is. Fuck leveling out. I don't care about getting to 80 fast, I am just enjoying where I am and will get there when I do. I am sure eventually this might get old and that is why I am hording tomes but for now I am just enjoying the world and while I know that blocks me from some higher level content for now I'll get to it eventually I don't see the point of maxing out fast. From my days in wow and eq I can understand that mindset but I came into this game focused on just enjoying the journey.

Vorph · Mar 16, 2015

The only difference in my mindset is that I've realized that 20-80 is a pointless treadmill that serves no purpose in a game that scales your level down to the level of the zone you're in. If I was 80, I'd still be doing pretty much the exact same stuff I already am, but I'd also be working towards ascended and legendary gear instead of wasting my time with shit that's obsolete the moment I loot it. "The journey" argument only makes sense if you miss out on content by leveling past it too quickly, and that never happens in GW2.

Also, a big part of why I am frustrated with wasting my time sub-80 is probably due to having played a ridiculous amount of GW1. I know how absurd ANet likes to make the process of crafting the 'endgame' items, and I can tell just by looking at the wiki that GW2 is no different. I'm probably not even going to try to make a legendary even though I think Eternity is really sweet looking, but from checking the wiki just getting ascended stuff is going to make the 1-80 grind look like child's play.

Zaphid_sl said:
The best advice for leveling a new character is to hoard all the shit you harvest, especially food (get full stack every time you get a vendor selling cooking ingredients for karma) and once you hit ~70, level that and another profession of your choice to hit 80 in about 30 minutes. Look up some crafting guides and save a crafting booster for the occasion to make as cheap as possible.

I think I'll do this on my warrior. From what I remember, I can get to 73 and then going 1-400 cooking will take me to 80... right?

If I did some Armorsmithing, say like 1 to maybe 150, how much of 71-73 would that be? I'd do all of 66-80 with two crafting skills to 400, but I don't have anywhere near enough gold for that yet.

Vorph · Mar 16, 2015

double

Edit: Since I already double posted by accident anyway...

Can someone explain to me why it's suggested to open bags on a L55 character instead of an 80?

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Guild Wars 2

Caliane

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Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate

Vorph

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bytes

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Mr Creed

Too old for this shit

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Mr Creed

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Caliane

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Vorph

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Mr Creed

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Janx

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Kovaks

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Vorph

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Vorph

Silver Baronet of the Realm