Why do I wanna level to 80?

[GW2 is LEGEND]

There's quite a few goals in this game. Don't know why you think there isn't. I shouldn't have to list it all when it's all readily apparent.

Agree'd, this is getting so tiring. But I will say one thing... Traits. Nuff said.

[rhinomatic]

That's a funny joke, I'm still holding my tummy because it aches so much.

Sorry but please don't compare these new mmos with UO or DAoC :/



And semi@topic: Of course you could advance in gear in these games.

And why not? The point I made was this: In UO and DAoC, we logged in because we wanted to play, not because we felt like there was something we had to do. We logged in because we enjoyed the game and had fun playing it. There was no carrot enticing us to play.

And gear, at least in DAoC, was pretty much the same as GW2. There was a hard limit to how much you could get from gear, and the trick became customizing your gear to get as many of your stats capped as possible. Getting more gear didn't make you more powerful because there was a hard cap on how much you could benefit from gear.

It's been over 10 years since I played UO, but I don't remember gear being the deciding factor that it is in more modern MMOs. In fact, I remember most people wearing armor that didn't have any sort of bonuses whatsoever because it looked cooler than random armor you pick up in the world.

[Fencers]

DAOC kits were brilliant. Loved that system.

However, people still log on to modern MMO because they enjoy the gameplay. I realize it was a generalization. That's cool. Not gonna bust your stones over it. In fairness though, many including myself log into their MMO of choice for the same reasons others logged into DAOC/UO/EQ/M59/AC/Whatevers.

[rhinomatic]

"Fun" is a rather obscure thing, and I do agree with that. Fun also isn't the same thing from game to game.

I did log in to WoW every day for the past few years because I enjoyed it. What I enjoyed was running dungeons, chasing loot, earning points to my next upgrade, all that stuff. There was a carrot and I logged in to chase it because for the longest time I enjoyed that.

It was different in DAoC though. I never logged on for any specific purpose. It was never "I'm gonna hit RR5 today!" or "I want to find the glowy 2H sword in Spindelhalla!". It was always "Let's see where I end up today."

UO was the same.

That's how I feel about GW2, anyway. Maybe when we get to Orr and see what's out there that might change, but I doubt it. The game is designed to take you wherever and reward you for doing whatever you feel like, and with the possible exception of some explorable dungeons there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of "Need to prepare for the content" options out there. Do whatever you want, whenever you want, without worry that it might set you back.

[subrosian]

This is actually one of the things I like most about GW2. In other MMOs, if you're not there at launch, you don't get to experience a community until level 80. In GW2, you can be playing WvW with your friends, or they can join your dynamic events, and that's 5 minutes after making your character.

That's pretty impressive, and also adds a whole new element to recruiting. While the traditional guilds are going to be missing out on this, there's no need to say "oh sorry, we can't recruit anyone under 80 because you're not useful to us" - players are immediately useful as soon as they start, which is great.

[thenewzero]

"Fun" is a rather obscure thing, and I do agree with that. Fun also isn't the same thing from game to game.

I did log in to WoW every day for the past few years because I enjoyed it. What I enjoyed was running dungeons, chasing loot, earning points to my next upgrade, all that stuff. There was a carrot and I logged in to chase it because for the longest time I enjoyed that.

It was different in DAoC though. I never logged on for any specific purpose. It was never "I'm gonna hit RR5 today!" or "I want to find the glowy 2H sword in Spindelhalla!". It was always "Let's see where I end up today."

UO was the same.

That's how I feel about GW2, anyway. Maybe when we get to Orr and see what's out there that might change, but I doubt it. The game is designed to take you wherever and reward you for doing whatever you feel like, and with the possible exception of some explorable dungeons there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of "Need to prepare for the content" options out there. Do whatever you want, whenever you want, without worry that it might set you back.

I agree with this, and it's probably what I like the most. GW2 seems to reward you relatively equally for all activities. When I was logging into the beta, I just kind of went wherever I felt, and never felt like I was wasting time. In other MMOs when leveling, it's usually like "Do I want to single player quest for hours? Or do something else and make almost no progress at all?" Even just running around exploring, or stopping and crafting for a while, rewarded me significantly with experience.

[Razeo]

When I was playing DAoC back in the day my motivation to login for the most part was RvR. Not to hit the next RR mind you but to actually help defend our Realm, sure I'd farm mats for my next set of gear and gold in DF or w/e but my drive in that game was mainly to defend from and/or attack the other 2 realms. I don't see how it'll be any different in GW2.

[Migrin]

Hopefully you play the game because it is fun to do so. Leveling is something that just happens.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

I plan on having at least one of every 80. I'll be prepared for whatever changes and new things they'll be adding in the game soon. Plus it COULD bring back that oh so epic feeling of having all this badass stuff and people just stop and look at you, sometimes get a whisper complimenting you or asking you where you got it. That's just me though. Because you know they'll add patches and expansion packs. I estimate one around Spring 2013.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I have a game using the treadmill model already, I don't need 2. In fact, if GW2 wasn't different in that aspect and regarding mounts and companion pets, I would probably not even bother with it. It's a different game, you either like it or you don't and just as the people moaning about the WoW model are free to go to a game catering to them, people disliking the GW2 formula are free to do the same. GW2 will for me be the game that I muck about in, play a dungeon with 4 friends when we feel like it and that's that. WoW is the game of optimization, long-term goals (200 mounts, yeeehaaw!) and that sense of "Man I've grown strong, Onyxia, prepare to die!!". ^^

And no, I'm not braindead from playing WoW (I play it for fun, YES, it's there without a problem no matter what some people spew) nor am I a super-casual not caring about progression because I feel drawn to GW2. I don't want 2-3 games that are identical, I want many different games.

I also can't wait for GW2 to release so that this Game VS Game discussion can die out. Once people realize it's STILL not rocket science (12+) and it IS possible to play more than one game, it should be more fun for everyone.

---------- Post added 2012-08-19 at 03:29 AM ----------

Plus dungeons - REAL dungeons, not some glorified loot hallway

Hm...funny, I thought I had been running REAL dungeons all these years.

What is a dungeon in one game, isn't in another. That doesn't mean jack really for each game.

[Deleted]

Ok i'm alittle confused here. I hope you guys can help me understand something better about GW2. So i get that there are no "raids", the endgame is large events that many people of all levels can help defeat. Why do i keep reading posts from people that then say "yeah it's gonna be so great now that there is the same level of gear for all lvl 80 (same amount but different stats) it's gonna be all about knowing your class, and everything will be sooo hard"?

how can they balance something like that. Wouldn't the events have to be absurdly easy to beat if you can bring low levels (i mean for a well organized full 80 group). Lets imagine that you have a full 80 group with optimized gear and understanding of how to play their class, if they can't beat a boss will that just mean that they will never have a chance of killing that event since there is no way of improving your character further? I'm just curious as to how they will handle that sort of thing since normally in mmo's you will kill some stuff to improve your overall team and that would allow you to get the last 1-2% you needed to bring it down, making it a hard/close challenge, but with fixed stats it sounds a lot like they would need raidfinder difficulty from wow, or am i missing something completely here?

[Delias]

Lets imagine that you have a full 80 group with optimized gear and understanding of how to play their class, if they can't beat a boss will that just mean that they will never have a chance of killing that event since there is no way of improving your character further?

When you failed at a mario level once, did you put it down and say "Whelp, guess this is impossible. Darn."? It's the same idea. Nobody is perfect, people make mistakes. The boss will die when the mistakes are gone. Also, most of the difficult content will be explorable dungeons, not events out in the world, and there are 80 specific zones that will not be balanced around "bringing low levels" (whatever you meant by that).

[DrakeWurrum]

Personal skill having an impact?

No way, it's always been about gear!

[Queen of Hamsters]

Ok i'm alittle confused here.

1. It's not as hard as people want to make it out to be. There's more e-peen in claiming that the game YOU play is the most challenging and dependant on skill of them all. NO game is so challenging and hard that it'll turn away mediocre players, since that'd exclude a huge part of the available customer base.

2. I have yet to see a single DE fail except for those that have been scaled up by lots of people in the area, but then nobody bothered engaging in them. World bosses have gone down smoothly. Sure there's been people dying, but most of the time people were jumping and managing their spells just fine. I doubt it'll be any different at level 80.

3. I doubt they're balancing stuff after the WoW model, so no...they don't need LFR difficulty for content just because stats are static. Static stats are only a problem if the content grows harder, but if it stagnates all you do is get at it and keep on until you're able to beat it. No different than any other game on that part. Mind you, this game is 12+, they won't have tuned it for the world ranking players and you optimize your static gear just the same.

All-in-all, just play and see how it turns out, that's really all we can do.

[Deleted]

When you failed at a mario level once, did you put it down and say "Whelp, guess this is impossible. Darn."? It's the same idea. Nobody is perfect, people make mistakes. The boss will die when the mistakes are gone. Also, most of the difficult content will be explorable dungeons, not events out in the world, and there are 80 specific zones that will not be balanced around "bringing low levels" (whatever you meant by that).

No i didn't give up but if you are missing 10% health on a boss and you think you are playing at your best of your ability and you have wiped on it 136 times i would put down the "mario" game.

And yeah sorry about that bringing low levels, had mistaken a post about defining "what a raid is" with how GW2 raids would be.

edit: What i meant is that i hear a lot of players saying it being soo hard, and i was just wondering what difficulty they would balance it around? if we use wow as a model again, would it be raidfinder for the 90% player base, would it be un-nerfed normal mode for the 40% or would it be hc-mode for the 2% how will they make it a challenge for all those people?

[Delias]

No i didn't give up but if you are missing 10% health on a boss and you think you are playing at your best of your ability and you have wiped on it 136 times i would put down the "mario" game.

The game will be however difficult anet intends it to be. No harder, no easier. If your group is getting a boss in an explorable to 10% every time, you will need to sit there and think about WHY your group is not passing that 10%, instead of waiting for the next teir so you can outgear it and cheese it. I personally don't see the issue with this, but I understand why it could be frustrating for some. However, (just like WoW heroics when they are relevant and pre-30% nerf) explorables are not designed to be completed by everyone. Some players will not be able to complete them until they are skilled enough. Back to the Mario reference, if you were not good enough to defeat Bowser you did not defeat Bowser. You didn't wait until the next world was out so that he would be easier. Wasn't the game's fault if you didn't complete it, you either got more skilled at the game or put it down.

There is a reason that story mode and explorable mode are different difficulties. One is designed for everyone to complete, the other is designed to be more difficult.

[Deleted]

The game will be however difficult anet intends it to be. No harder, no easier. If your group is getting a boss in an explorable to 10% every time, you will need to sit there and think about WHY your group is not passing that 10%, instead of waiting for the next teir so you can outgear it and cheese it. I personally don't see the issue with this, but I understand why it could be frustrating for some. However, (just like WoW heroics when they are relevant and pre-30% nerf) explorables are not designed to be completed by everyone. Some players will not be able to complete them until they are skilled enough. Back to the Mario reference, if you were not good enough to defeat Bowser you did not defeat Bowser. You didn't wait until the next world was out so that he would be easier. Wasn't the game's fault if you didn't complete it, you either got more skilled at the game or put it down.

There is a reason that story mode and explorable mode are different difficulties. One is designed for everyone to complete, the other is designed to be more difficult.

ohh ok so there is two difficulties? Sorry i have just started reading about the later stages of the game, thats why i'm making inquiries as how it will work :P so far i have only watched a couple of live streams but that was during the early zones when beta was first released. I'm just the kind of person that needs to be well informed before i go buy a game and i thought asking here, I would find people that knew the most about it.

[Delias]

ohh ok so there is two difficulties? Sorry i have just started reading about the later stages of the game, thats why i'm making inquiries as how it will work :P so far i have only watched a couple of live streams but that was during the early zones when beta was first released. I'm just the kind of person that needs to be well informed before i go buy a game and i thought asking here, I would find people that knew the most about it.

Kind of. From what we've seen explorable mode had 3 paths, each with mostly different bosses (sometimes one or two bosses are the same as story, but they're almost always new) and is significantly harder than story mode. You will not be spending weeks per boss on it like you would for a raid, so don't expect to be. They don't have lockouts, so are obviously not intended to be played in that way. Story mode is pretty easy to complete for your average player, though some bosses may take multiple attempts. (it's not a complete pushover, assuming your group is new to the game)

[Fencers]

It may look like a lot but; http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...tiated-READ-ME!

Is worth the read to familiarize yourself with some key features of the game.

[DrakeWurrum]

No i didn't give up but if you are missing 10% health on a boss and you think you are playing at your best of your ability and you have wiped on it 136 times i would put down the "mario" game.

136? Unlikely. I've wiped more than that on WoW hard modes, though. Especially Heroic Al'Akir.

So I'm not really against the idea of wiping a lot on a hard boss. I am against the idea of wiping a lot on a hard boss with people who refuse to learn/change/adapt.