577 replies to this topic

[raspberry jam]

Lordkrall, on 18 February 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

It is more likely that someone with lets say a Mesmer at lvl 80 have at least a bit more understanding about the Mesmer profession than someone that have a Mesmer at lvl 10 yeah.
There are of course exceptions, but there are exceptions to everything.

Especially as time goes on, that assumption is tenuous to say the least. Even regardless of that, since GW2 is a game played mostly solo (or in ridiculous zergs that people can't be excluded from anyway), the daunting boringness of leveling to 80 is more of a discouragement from having an alt (or several of them) than any sort of reward.

[atreoo]

Everyone should of been lvl 80 at the start and given Legendary weapons and access to all waypoints and full sets of each dungeon gear and Ascended gear and 5k gold. I bet people would still be complaining about something.

[Ritualist]

atreoo, on 18 February 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

Everyone should of been lvl 80 at the start and given Legendary weapons and access to all waypoints and full sets of each dungeon gear and Ascended gear and 5k gold. I bet people would still be complaining about something.

And?
Different people like different things.



EDIT:

raspberry jam, on 18 February 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

Especially as time goes on, that assumption is tenuous to say the least. Even regardless of that, since GW2 is a game played mostly solo (or in ridiculous zergs that people can't be excluded from anyway), the daunting boringness of leveling to 80 is more of a discouragement from having an alt (or several of them) than any sort of reward.

This. Levels not only poorly represent skill, they also bring with them actual negative consequences - as mentioned, forced gating.

Edited by Ritualist, 18 February 2013 - 02:43 PM.

[Lordkrall]

Ritualist, on 18 February 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

This. Levels not only poorly represent skill, they also bring with them actual negative consequences - as mentioned, forced gating.

Who have even said anything about skill?

Knowledge != Skill. nor does Experience != Skill.

[Kuskah]

Maybe. Everything could work if you design it well. What I personally don't understand is why there are exactly 80 levels. What is so magical about the number?

[FoxBat]

For GW2 I'd say level 30 (or 40) is a better breakpoint to consider. 20 is alot faster in this game than say, prophecies. 30 gets you done with your race stories, and gives more room for them to introduce the various systems like traits, elites, etc. After level 30 is when you start feeling like most classes hardly advance anyway.

Kuskah, on 18 February 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Maybe. Everything could work if you design it well. What I personally don't understand is why there are exactly 80 levels. What is so magical about the number?

They had a target leveling rate (level/90 mins) for psychological reasons, and they have X hours of content (i.e. Y map completions) they want you to go through before finishing the story. 80 is presumably a rounded approximation that matches these targets.

Alternatively, it was just because it was close to WoW's current cap at the time.

Edited by FoxBat, 18 February 2013 - 02:50 PM.

[XPhiler]

I think the fact people are complaining about leveling is perfect proof why leveling up to 80 was essential.

Leveling is there to slow down players and prevent them from skipping too much content in pursuit of higher rewards. If there were no levels it would have been up to the players to go through that content and regulate their own pace and clearly some people are just not able to do that.

As someone who doesnt care about levels and just plays to enjoy the content rather then to get to max level I can tell you that by playing only one zone of each level tier (IE a single 1 ~ 15 zone, a single 15 ~ 30 zone etc...) I hit level 80 by the time I started level 60 content.That means excluding 4x extra level 1 ~ 15 zones, 4x 15 - 30 zones and 3x 30 ~ 60 zones that needless to say would have been enough to level to 80 4 - 5 more times.

Also I am not sure how having 16 zones all level 20 would have changed anything in terms of stated concerns. If you're a player who only care about the highest rewards you're going to play content that has the highest rewards. No amount of balance can ensure every single zone has exactly the same reward level or not. Thats why even though people hated the undead, the majority of the playerbase before FoTM stuck with orr and very few played in Frostgorge sound even though they're all max level zones. Ask yourself this. The Arid Sea zone was a level 20 zone in gw1. How many of you regularly played there?

In my opinion Leveling is a problem when it keeps you from content.
If you played all there is in a level 1 - 15 zone and you still are far off from reach level 15 then level is a problem.

Leveling is a problem when it introduces power creep.
If by the time I reach max level I have no were to discover, no content to do and no reward to be gotten on any zone below my level then thats a problem

Gw2 doesnt have any of these issues but it surely does seem to have players that all they seem interested about is getting the best rewards in the quickest time possible. So personally I vote that level 80 was a good choice anyhow short of gw1 it still has the fastest time to max level compared with any other MMO I have played. Not just that but it also has the most abundant amount of content per level by far.

Edited by XPhiler, 18 February 2013 - 03:19 PM.

[Sandpit]

Ritualist, on 18 February 2013 - 12:37 PM, said:

By "easy" I hope you mean "it takes no skill" rather than "it takes no time".

No, I meant easy in all senses of the word. Quick and achievable even by the least skilled. With all the XP boots that are available and crafting, gathering etc, you don;t even have to progress much in story or high end content.

Anyone can be level 80 in a few weeks of semi-casual play. So most of the game play you are at level 80, so why bother with levels?

[Ritualist]

Sandpit, on 18 February 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

No, I meant easy in all senses of the word. Quick and achievable even by the least skilled. With all the XP boots that are available and crafting, gathering etc, you don;t even have to progress much in story or high end content.

Anyone can be level 80 in a few weeks of semi-casual play. So most of the game play you are at level 80, so why bother with levels?

Yeah, I simply can't agree with that. I absolutely agree that levelling doesn't take much skill, but I certainly can't agree with the idea that it's fast - especially coming from a GW/non-MMO background. And while I appreciate the XP given for crafting/gathering/exploration/... the problem is that without these activities, the game simply doesn't give you enough XP to advance and as such I don't see it as a bonus, or something that makes levelling easier - ultimately, it's something that makes levelling possible.

And this is exactly why I am so bothered by levels in GW2 - without the levels, I'd never be exploring the world to the extent I did on my first playthrough. And it's not because I don't like exploring, on the contrary, the problem was that I wanted to explore other places more and levels wouldn't allow me to do that.
Levels in GW2 didn't give me a sense of progression - they were just holding me back from the shit I wanted to be doing.

[Serris]

XPhiler, on 18 February 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

I think the fact people are complaining about leveling is perfect proof why leveling up to 80 was essential.

Leveling is there to slow down players and prevent them from skipping too much content in pursuit of higher rewards. If there were no levels it would have been up to the players to go through that content and regulate their own pace and clearly some people are just not able to do that.

you mean playing the way we want to play? the thing they were so big on before the game got released?

Quote

As someone who doesnt care about levels and just plays to enjoy the content rather then to get to max level I can tell you that by playing only one zone of each level tier (IE a single 1 ~ 15 zone, a single 15 ~ 30 zone etc...) I hit level 80 by the time I started level 60 content.That means excluding 4x extra level 1 ~ 15 zones, 4x 15 - 30 zones and 3x 30 ~ 60 zones that needless to say would have been enough to level to 80 4 - 5 more times.

i like to play at my own pace and enjoy the content too. i just run around looking for stuff to do. and before you know it, you hit events 5 levels higher than you and you have to go back to lower areas. i also have no clue how you got to level 80 by doing one zone per level tier.

Quote

Also I am not sure how having 16 zones all level 20 would have changed anything in terms of stated concerns. If you're a player who only care about the highest rewards you're going to play content that has the highest rewards. No amount of balance can ensure every single zone has exactly the same reward level or not. Thats why even though people hated the undead, the majority of the playerbase before FoTM stuck with orr and very few played in Frostgorge sound even though they're all max level zones. Ask yourself this. The Arid Sea zone was a level 20 zone in gw1. How many of you regularly played there?

it would have given more incentive to play in different zones. would you still farm highlevel mats in orr if you had only a slightly worse droprate someplace?
also, afaik frostgorge is a pretty well populated zone, and not just during dragon

i see your points, but i can't help but feel that a gw1 approach would have been better. while i was doing mapcompletion in gw1, i never felt like i was losing out a lot of loot/karma (and thus progression towards the only longterm goals Anet put out there)

[raspberry jam]

Kuskah, on 18 February 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Maybe. Everything could work if you design it well. What I personally don't understand is why there are exactly 80 levels. What is so magical about the number?

Nothing magical about it. Actually, if they had to have levels, I'd like to have seen an infinite level cap. Or well, it wouldn't be a cap, I guess, so no cap.

Ideally, you'd start at level 1 with 50% of the maximum on everything, and then get half of what's left every time you level up. So level 2 would be 75%, level 3 would be 87.5% and so on. Each level might take an hour or whatever. Anything past level 10 would be pretty much the same, with ever so slight increases in power as you level up.

The sad thing is that there probably would be like level 500s who would not accept anyone lower than level 300 in their parties. lol

XPhiler, on 18 February 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

Leveling is there to slow down players
(...)
Leveling is a problem when it keeps you from content.

Brilliant logic please tell me more.

[The_Blades]

Not 20, but not 80 either. i would settle for 50 or so.

And the skill aquisition system sucks, its meaningless, just spending another currency called skill points.

It should have been done like in pre-searing, with specific quests giving the skills, that would have been a great way to implement the skill system, even if the quest to get the skill was instanced, or a trigered dinamic event chain or something. Or even a simple dinamic event where people would have to scout the area to get the skill they wanted. What happened to the rpg elements?

[Elcee]

(This is written from the perspective of someone who quit a few months ago but checks the forum out of curiosity from time to time ).

The more I thought about it the more I realized how pointless level 80 was in this game.

Was it to give a sense of progression? If so then it didn't really work. You get the exact same weapon skills all 80 levels, you have a VERY small viable selection of utility skills, and eventually your 1 or 2 viable elites. Traits? The traits were largely uninspired, awful or both and didn't do anything that giving all the traits at level 20 would have given. We were obviously fine with lack of progression in GW1 where it was incredibly simple to get max of almost everything. They tried to appeal the "progression" group which I am normally part of but was totally fine with the GW franchise not being that because that's not what GW1 was. It ended up just being done badly.

And what's the point of having a level 80 cap if you're going to encourage them to go to lower level zones? There's no point in having people get to level 80 when they only get to be level 80 in 10% of the game.

All the leveling did was make zones very awkward. There would be like 3-5 zones of your level. You'd finish one, but when you did, it meant the others gave almost useless rewards and loot. Did that big update change the zone COMPLETION rewards to scale for your level? If so, why wasn't it that way to start with?

They should have taken one extreme and either A)made the cap 20 or B)made downleveling less sharp and made leveling take much longer so that people could easily visit multiple zones at their level. Instead they took a crappy in-between that made both sides unhappy.

edited because I didn't proofread

Edited by Elcee, 18 February 2013 - 03:50 PM.

[Doctor Overlord]

I wouldn't have wanted to see the level 20 cap from GW1 (along with several other elements from that game which GW2 dropped) but I think a slightly lower cap of say 50-60 as some suggested might have worked.

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 18 February 2013 - 04:02 PM.

[El Duderino]

Why ANet didn't make GW2 more like GW1, I'll never know.

GW1 was a great game and still had a ton of potential. Instead of making GW2 a better GW1, they made GW2 just another game that has some great ideas and inventions, but clearly did not build on the successes learned (or mistakes learned) from GW1.

Getting to max level quick, with lots of max level content was one of the best reasons why Factions and Nightfall were so great and why I never leveled another character through Prophecies after Factions ever. (Although I did have an Ele in Pre-searing that never left.)

raspberry jam, on 18 February 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

Yeah, it should have been level 20, with the entire world (almost) as max level areas. That model was perfected in GW1 and then abandoned for some reason, at the same time as when ANet invented a way to make lots of areas attractive.

Thrown away potential if you ask me.

QFT

[Kuskah]

FoxBat, on 18 February 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

For GW2 I'd say level 30 (or 40) is a better breakpoint to consider. 20 is alot faster in this game than say, prophecies. 30 gets you done with your race stories, and gives more room for them to introduce the various systems like traits, elites, etc. After level 30 is when you start feeling like most classes hardly advance anyway.



They had a target leveling rate (level/90 mins) for psychological reasons, and they have X hours of content (i.e. Y map completions) they want you to go through before finishing the story. 80 is presumably a rounded approximation that matches these targets.

Alternatively, it was just because it was close to WoW's current cap at the time.

As for the leveling rate, they could've decreased the rate, say level/120 minutes or whatever and still have the same content completion, yet with level cap at 60.

When it comes to the level cap effect on the traits - with a different level cap, traits would be readjusted, say getting more trait points per level or alternatively changing it from 30 points max per line to like 6. I mean, who makes a final build like 23/17/3/7/16/4? I don't know anybody who does traits for the stat bonuses, so getting any other number than one that unlocks a Major or Minor Trait (5/10/15/20/25/30) is basically a waste.

Edited by Kuskah, 18 February 2013 - 04:56 PM.

[mdapol]

matsif, on 18 February 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

I'd much rather it be level 20 than 80, or even the above of dropping levels all together.  Leveling to 20 in Prophecies was fun because all you had to do was go through the missions/main quests between the missions, and you were 20 by the time you left the crystal desert.  The game then took you right to Droks for max armor and such.  Factions and Nightfall were even better from a leveling perspective as you could easily hit 20 (and were encouraged to) before you left Shing Jea/Istan.

Leveling to 80 by just playing GW2 is boring and it doesn't actually feel like I'm progressing through a story like in GW1.  Hearts are essentially the same as the old "gather this, kill this" quests from other mmos, events are nice the first 5 times you do them, then are just essentially a repeatable quest that is boring and grindy and only useful for finishing the daily.  crafting I view the same way as the quick level method after EotN was released by taking your character into the one dungeon with a triple xp scroll and hitting 80 in like 2 hours of total game time.  Switching the character in at the end of AC explorable runs is annoying and only 1 or 2 party members can do it, but it's honestly the best way to level a character in the game.  You come out of 50 levels in AC with full exotic weapons (multiple sets) and armor and probably enough karma to get at least a few exotic trinkets from orr temples, and you've made money the whole time instead of spending it buying new armor, porting all over the world for the PS, and such.

I have a strong feeling that whatever game you would want to play would not be interesting to me at all.  Given that GW2 is so successful, do you think that your type of game would be more or less appealing to the vast majority of players?

[mdapol]

Serris, on 18 February 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

you mean playing the way we want to play? the thing they were so big on before the game got released?

Oh, come on.  Why do people always throw that around like it means something?  Are you seriously telling me that when Arenanet said "play the way you want to play" you -actually- took that -literally-?  You thought that meant that people who wanted to go straight to the level 80 zones could do that? That people who wanted to spend all their time killing new players in the starting zone could do that?  That people could solo dungeons if they wanted?  That you could -literally- do -anything- the way you wanted to do it?  I don't believe you are that stupid or naive. So don't start quoting that line. You didn't believe that then, so don't pretend to be disappointed now.

If you -really- want to play a game like that, then why not put your money where your mouth is and play EVE online where you really -can- do -anything- you want?

Edited by mdapol, 18 February 2013 - 05:21 PM.

[MisterB]

mdapol, on 18 February 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

I have a strong feeling that whatever game you would want to play would not be interesting to me at all.  Given that GW2 is so successful, do you think that your type of game would be more or less appealing to the vast majority of players?

Many people who play video games do not play MMOs. ArenaNet chose to make an MMO, so they made several design decisions that appeal to that audience, including the level 80 slogfest.

Quantity of purchasers does not equal quality of product.

[mdapol]

MisterB, on 18 February 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Many people who play video games do not play MMOs. ArenaNet chose to make an MMO, so they made several design decisions that appeal to that audience, including the level 80 slogfest.

Quantity of purchasers does not equal quality of product.

Right, and players chose to purchase said product.  They could have waited and read reviews, or watched YouTube videos to get an idea of whether they would like it.  They didn't have to buy it right away with big expectations.  They could have been more careful.  In my opinion, some of the responsibility is on the purchaser.

Haven't you ever purchased something that didn't turn out to be what you expected?   Life is like that.  A lot.  You better get used to it.  You'll be happier if you do.

Edited by mdapol, 18 February 2013 - 05:36 PM.

[MisterB]

mdapol, on 18 February 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

Right, and players chose to purchase said product.  Haven't you ever purchased something that didn't turn out to be what you expected?   Life is like that.  A lot.  You better get used to it.  You'll be happier if you do.

Alternately, a person could instead choose to learn from their mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future. You may choose to live how you like, and please refrain from unsolicited advice in my direction.

[Specialz]

One of the many things I hated about guild wars 1 was the fact that you only had 20 levels. In guild wars, I think the level should be at 80, BUT for alts you get a buff that cuts the leveling speed to the equivalent of 50 to 60.

Anyways, the reason they probably moved to 80 was because RPG players love big numbers (they don't love being handed big numbers), but they love seeing really big numbers. as long as they work for it they tend to love big numbers.

A lot of people are going to complain how guild wars 1 had 20 levels, but the design intention of those numbers was to prep you for PvP. Leveling in guild wars 1 was meant as a prelude to PvP or to be more precise PvE was an afterthought, while in Guild wars 2 PvE is the main or equal focus.

Actually, if you look at level expansion it is apparent Arenanet regretted their decision to limit levels to 20 and so they started cheating the system, by making using titles and attaching bonuses to it. So they can pretend to have no level increase, while hiding behind titles.

Edited by Specialz, 18 February 2013 - 05:49 PM.

[matsif]

mdapol, on 18 February 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

I have a strong feeling that whatever game you would want to play would not be interesting to me at all.  Given that GW2 is so successful, do you think that your type of game would be more or less appealing to the vast majority of players?

every idea I had a complaint about could easily be remedied with a better, more engaging story that, like in GW1, carried you across the world without needing excessive WP costs and got you worthwhile rewards for endgame content like dungeons, pre-agony fractals, and orr.  That was the beauty of GW1, all one had to do was actually play the game, and it provided the necessary gear for endgame content like UW, FoW, DoA, Urgoz/The Deep, and EotN dungeons.

I'm not saying that I'm not having fun playing GW2, cause I am having fun.  I have a few goals in game, I have friends that I play with daily, so on and so forth.  I'm saying that the game has some holes in it that makes leveling to 80 such a bore that I end up craft leveling 50 levels on all my alts so I can play the content I find fun with them.  Lowering the level cap would make the game more fun than it is already for me.

I don't presume to write for every player or for your opinion.  If what I find fun you would find bad, then we can agree to disagree.  I'm not trying to be inconsiderate of others opinions like you are.

[Myugen]

I'm baffled at all these "leveling is boring" when you can just dump 25g on a character and level him to 80 in a few hours. This is THE EASIEST game to level characters on that I have ever played.

My vote is no. 5 chars at 80 and max gear. Not sure why this idea comes up, not too sure what the problem is.

[Kymeric]

Yes, it would have been nice to have only 20 levels.  Imagine if every zone we currently have that is 20+ was an "endgame" zone giving equally challenging content and equally valuable rewards.  You'd hit max stats and have a huge world to wander through, earning skill points, harvesting top tier crafting materials, and getting relatively rewarding loot.

Would the game have sold as many copies, though?  It's amazing how many people still look at GW1's 20 levels and assume a lack of content based on the number alone.

[Elcee]

mdapol, on 18 February 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

I have a strong feeling that whatever game you would want to play would not be interesting to me at all.  Given that GW2 is so successful, do you think that your type of game would be more or less appealing to the vast majority of players?

There has to be some perspective, given that a HUGE amount of the game's success came from the fact that it was a 5 year hyped "sequel" to +6 million copy game(that started with a low profile) he just described.

mdapol, on 18 February 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

Right, and players chose to purchase said product.  They could have waited and read reviews, or watched YouTube videos to get an idea of whether they would like it.  They didn't have to buy it right away with big expectations.  They could have been more careful.  In my opinion, some of the responsibility is on the purchaser.

Haven't you ever purchased something that didn't turn out to be what you expected?   Life is like that.  A lot.  You better get used to it.  You'll be happier if you do.

Obviously some of the responsibility is on the purchaser(hell I don't buy game consoles until 2 years after they come out), but maybe if we started calling game developers on their hype bullshit they'd actually quit doing it. I'm more frustrated with developers ramping the hype meter Up to Eleven and then fans somehow absolving the developers of any blame

Like part of the reason I bought the game was because they said repeatedly guesting would be a release feature, meaning I'd actually be able to play with my friends without a bunch of world hopping crap and whatnot. Took them months. Is that "buying into hype" or buying into what was actually promised and not delivered?

Edited by Elcee, 18 February 2013 - 06:14 PM.

[Mastruq]

They shouldnt have any levels in the game. You get upscaled for any PvP, you get downscaled for any PvE. The only thing levels do is keeping people limited to certain areas while leveling up. Its no big deal because there are enough zones to level 2 or 3 chars without repetition and getting to 80 is fast and easy. but it would also be mostly the same if the cap was 60/40/20/nolevelsatall.

[Bad Company Sin]

Hmmmm, didn't they say "Forget everything you know about GW1, This is totally different and new." Or something of that sort?? People are still grasping on to GW1 for dear life. Move on.

[The_Blades]

Myugen, on 18 February 2013 - 05:52 PM, said:

I'm baffled at all these "leveling is boring" when you can just dump 25g on a character and level him to 80 in a few hours. This is THE EASIEST game to level characters on that I have ever played.

My vote is no. 5 chars at 80 and max gear. Not sure why this idea comes up, not too sure what the problem is.

Levelling fast or slow is not the same as saying boring or fun. I can level via Crafting but that is so BORING!

I wasnt bored while leveling my first toon. sometimes im bored to level my alts, so i dont. but i can relate to the people who say levelling is boring, because the content, when playing solo, is not that appealing.

EDIT: sucess of GW2 is still hardly guaranteed. its an mmo, its a long term deal. so far the sales are sucessfull, however nothing can tell us if the actual game is a sucess.

You cant compare GW2 numbers to GW1, GW1 was in the shadow of WoW, and it did great. to bad for the wow players who never experienced GW1 in my honest opinion.

Edited by The_Blades, 18 February 2013 - 06:44 PM.

[Ritualist]

Bad Company Sin, on 18 February 2013 - 06:40 PM, said:

Hmmmm, didn't they say "Forget everything you know about GW1, This is totally different and new." Or something of that sort?? People are still grasping on to GW1 for dear life. Move on.

You mean:

Quote

" ... Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that's got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees."

They sure did!