14 replies to this topic

[Frakov]

Background first. During the first beta I played, I leveled and mastered weapon skills in standard PvE. Everything was pretty much as expected. Enough stuff to do to gain decent exp and enough coins to buy stuff like new weapons when I needed to. After making 4 alts though, I got tired of doing the same stuff in all the starting zones. I read that some reward bugs in WvW were fixed this time around so I decided to try leveling a fresh lvl 2 character in WvW. So far it's ridiculously slow.

I was using a guardian so when I got in all I had was a mace and shield (mace mastered, no shield skills). Players I helped kill were only giving like +6 exp and a pretty insignificant bonus. It was also a lot more effort than just killing stuff in standard PvE (I can only imagine how difficult it'll be like when the majority of players doing WvW are true 80s). Since that wasn't working out very well, I tried leveling off trash mobs like skales, cats (forgot what kind), etc. They were still giving only +6 exp with a +25 exp bonus. A little better but still a lot slower than doing renown hearts and DEs in standard PvE. I even completed an event in WvW, but that only gave a little over 200 exp (gold contribution reward) and it was about 3x as long as starter DEs that give more exp.

The other problem is that coins still seem difficult to earn compared to just doing PvE content so you have to rely on random drops a lot more, but you'll be finding loot less frequently because lvl 80 mobs take longer to kill when your true level is less than 10. Not saying they're difficult to kill because they're not (I can usually kill trash mobs just by circling them and letting auto-attack do the work), they just take longer.

I want to believe that come launch time, we won't be punished for wanting to skip renown hearts or starter DEs if those aren't things we want to do. As it stands now, it seems you either have to do them or enjoy grinding mobs to level. So, am I missing some key exp/coin-earning element in WvW that is at least comparable to the reward-rate in PvE?

[CharliePrince]

you're not missing anything..

you're limiting yourself is what you doing

admittedly, WvW levelling is the way to go, you get xp/levels and it never feels like you're actually levelling.. which is amazing

problem is you get less loot/drops/coins if you focus strictly on WvW, gotta balance it out and do some PVE

no grinding necessary and nobody's forcing you .. just be aware you're limiting yourself if you only do 1 aspect of the game

[drkn]

Even in PvE, exping up by killing mobs is NOT the way to go; the personal story yields lots of xp, and the renowned hearts / dynamic events reward some nice xp, too. In WvW, your main focus should be put onto defending/capturing points with other players, which gives you rewards for WvW 'events', letting you exp up insanely fast.

[Goldenrice]

You need to find a balance between taking forts and roaming around taking supply camps and doing random mob events.

[Istaf]

My Guild leader and I have been doing WvWvW over the weekend, and hes made it to level 60 from just WvWvW. I started at level 20ish and made it to 29 in just a few hrs. We've been zergging in large groups taking over towers, and we're getting a tower about every 10mins or so.


Also the exp scales with your level. So if a level 10 and a level 50 both are in a group and take over a tower, the level 10 will get say 500exp, and the level 50 will get 5,000exp.

[Sidhardha]

I leveled entirely in WvW. Level 38 on current character at the moment of this post. Imho, the leveling speed is just right. Didn't do any specific events for xp - just fighting and capturing and defending the keeps.

Edited by Sidhardha, 10 June 2012 - 08:03 PM.

[1Jammie1]

Sidhardha, on 10 June 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

I leveled entirely in WvW. Level 38 on current character at the moment of this post. Imho, the leveling speed is just right. Didn't do any specific events for xp - just fighting and capturing and defending the keeps.

Bit off topic but i've seen you're guild getting people together and getting them in TS, seems now Gandara is finally getting better against the two french servers.

I find a good way to level is to escort caravans, you usually don't get too bored.

Edited by 1Jammie1, 10 June 2012 - 08:16 PM.

[nurt]

I roamed with a 5 man last BWE and we were getting a ton of XP because we were killing people and not dying, but this BWE the amount of XP you get from killing players is laughable.  You get around 6 or 7 hp for a solo kill against another player... and like 80 for killing a wolf and way more if it's your first wolf kill of the day... what.. the.. *..  You absolutely can't get XP in WvW unless you're doing objectives, which means zerg humping or holding hands with dolyaks.  That or grind mobs like it's PvE.  I really hope they revert xp from PvP kills back to what it was last BWE.  Killing a player is worth nothing right now.

Edited by nurt, 10 June 2012 - 08:14 PM.

[Omega_Topfox]

I believe the trade off for coins is perfectly okay. If you're doing things right in WvW and travelling with a large group taking towers, the amount of karma you get in an hour is insane... I play on the Fort Aspenwood server and I racked up 700 karma without knowing half of the game mechanics. Mind you, were were rolling through towers like childs-play. I have a screenshot of just how many points were were earning, I think at one stage it got up to 600. Now that I understand more of how the mechanics works, I'm sure next time it'll be much better. The weapons and armor I got from the karma were just as good as what coin could get me in the PvE world as well, so I think the trade off was fine.

The experience I found was okay. I played a bit of PvE and personal story and gained exp just as fast. I guess for me it comes down to preference.

[Trixh]

Tried to lvl in WvW. I have gotten from lvl 2 to lvl 4 in about 6 hours . Why you ask? There was nothing to do because we owned the entire map for the whole weekend. At the end of the beta I started playing PvE since yeah gotta do something. Reached lvl 7,5 in less then 1 hour.

[Specialz]

Leveling XP in WvW sucks especially the events. Sometimes it awards you, other times it doesn't its kinda wonky. Personally, given the choice between leveling in WvW and PvE, I would take PvE every single time. Ofc, I still PvP'd in WvW and since my intent was to have fun, I did.

[Valius]

Can someone let us know what exactly you're doing to gain all this xp? Really, all you're doing is running to capture towers and camps? On my server it seemed like we were in battles in the SAME SPOT for hours on end and it never progressed. If I went to a camp to take it over I was always there by myself.

Maybe my server just sucks at WvW?

[1Jammie1]

Chromatic, on 11 June 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

Can someone let us know what exactly you're doing to gain all this xp? Really, all you're doing is running to capture towers and camps? On my server it seemed like we were in battles in the SAME SPOT for hours on end and it never progressed. If I went to a camp to take it over I was always there by myself.

Maybe my server just sucks at WvW?

You might of been on one of the new servers. That's probably why.

[flea1]

Omega_Topfox, on 11 June 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

I believe the trade off for coins is perfectly okay. If you're doing things right in WvW and travelling with a large group taking towers, the amount of karma you get in an hour is insane... I play on the Fort Aspenwood server and I racked up 700 karma without knowing half of the game mechanics. Mind you, were were rolling through towers like childs-play. I have a screenshot of just how many points were were earning, I think at one stage it got up to 600. Now that I understand more of how the mechanics works, I'm sure next time it'll be much better. The weapons and armor I got from the karma were just as good as what coin could get me in the PvE world as well, so I think the trade off was fine.

The experience I found was okay. I played a bit of PvE and personal story and gained exp just as fast. I guess for me it comes down to preference.

Heres the rub. If your on a full heavy rvr server. Then you can tower zerg and gain exp fast. If your not. Then you have to fight that massive zerg with smaller numbers. You dont take keeps easily wvw becomes a struggle. Everyone leaves rvr and the super server claims complete dominance. They need an under dog bonus. Your severely out numbered in the zone. Kills of players start racking up exp. Then small squads can zap straglers from the zerg and lvl.

[Yphex]

I can only say that again but WvW levelin isn't slow it's actually the fastest way to level atm.

Run with an organized group that keeps taking undefended keeps and you will level up in no time.

The system atm is setup that you only get points for taking a keep and defending it but not while you attack.

A lot of people are still drawn to the big fights but they aren't getting you anywhere because you can't gain sufficient XP or karma from those fights.

I made a topic about that problem sadly in the wrong part of the forum but have a look here: http://www.guildwars...points-as-well/

The current system discourages PvP encounters, at least for the attacking teams.