These quests feel like the worst kind of grind

[Elytius]

Hello, I've just gotten my foot in the door in GW2, I've been trying to give it a chance for the sake of a friend, but these quests are awful imo. Do they get any better? I'm still doing stuff involving my own story which could be the issue, but I'm barely level 4 and even that felt like it took forever. I have to travel so far for so little reward, I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything, I feel like I would get more out of staying in one place and killing monsters.

[bigsav1]

you must be one of those people who started playing world of warcraft in wrath because you clearly have no idea how WoW used to be if you think guild wars 2 is bad

[Elytius]

I started WoW at the tail end of vanilla actually, and I remember level 40-50 being god awful, I was a noob though and I picked a bad zone, so I decided I'd rather grind monsters than do the quests. At least it started out well in WoW, there was a good amount of quest density. I'm just begging GW2 to give me "kill x amount of this in this local area" quests because these quests are slow torture at the beginning, they could at least wait until further in the game to kill my enthusiasm for it.

[Flaks]

you must be one of those people who started playing world of warcraft in wrath because you clearly have no idea how WoW used to be if you think guild wars 2 is bad

And WoW leveling was undeniably shitty before Cataclysm revamp.

[LilSaihah]

I'm confused. What exactly have you been doing? Just the personal story stuff?

[Deleted]

And WoW leveling was undeniably shitty before Cataclysm revamp.

WoW levelling still is shitty. The massive nerf to the current portion is testament to that; people were just so sick of the super slow pace and massive amount of tasks needing to be done for a single level.

GW2 levelling is awesome. I honestly don't know how people have any trouble with it.

[Elytius]

I'm confused. What exactly have you been doing? Just the personal story stuff?

Yeah, just that. I'm new to the game, and the game hasn't done a very good job of setting me up for any other way to level, so I've just been sticking with that.

[Kylecat15]

I honestly loathe the game, I've played most mmos that are popular and i couldn't play Guild wars for more than an hour, I just got very bored that early :/ some love it and some cant stand it.

[Jassinia]

Funny, I usually forget about the personal story stuff.

So there are events, orange circles on the map near you. These happen randomly. There are hearts, these are your please go kill or gather x for me. There are the vistas, triangles, that you have to figure out how to get to. There are the skill points, blue chevrons where you either fight your way to get there or you get there and fight to earn the point. There are points of interest, just places to discover. There are world boss events, happen every hour or so. Gather, mine, or chop trees. Craft from the materials you gather. Rez npcs or other players. Or just run around killing stuff. All of the above provide xp in addition to your personal story line. There are dungeons as well when you get higher and there are periodic events to participate in. You usually receive an in game mail telling you about them. I'm only level 40, so I don't yet know what level 80 brings, but I'm having a blast making my way there.

[zed zebes]

Go out and explore the world. The personal story is just one part of the game. Events, puzzles, discoveries, skill points, vistas, and just about everything rewards experience.

Also, there's no race to level up. It's a game for the adventurous explorer.

[Tewhot]

Not to mention you can literally hit max level from crafting alone.

[ice216]

I never even finished the Personal Story I also found it boring. I did 100% zone completion instead which I found much more fun

[yuca247]

WoW levelling still is shitty. The massive nerf to the current portion is testament to that; people were just so sick of the super slow pace and massive amount of tasks needing to be done for a single level.

GW2 levelling is awesome. I honestly don't know how people have any trouble with it.

I don't know I tried not once not twice but thrice to give gw2 a chance but I felt the same way about leveling. I don't think I can put my finger on one single thing I think it's the sum of several things. The worst part for me was leveling from 10-20 felt exactly the same as 60-70.

Now this is not just gw2 most MMOs have similar problems but in gw2 the whole game is the endgame so it has a ceiling that is very easy to reach.

[mizeri]

WoW's quests improved much since vanilla, gw2 questing isn't really fun to me either, I just did the world events and what not.

[barackopala]

As far as I've seen on this forum, new players have been commenting about their experiences with this game, some are rather positive in certain aspects that others consider them their weakest spot, but now lets talk about a big mistake everyone is doing (even I did it when critizicing the game and lots of people too) this is the way Dynamic Events work and how they have a "lack of storyline or depth" claiming that the game just throws you random events to protect the dolyak or do A-B-C without any context whatsoever... let me tell you this idea is wrong, why will you say? It's quite simple: It's the mentality you're used to play with.


"Mentality" we are used to play with?

-This image sums up pretty much what we're used to see on our common MMO-RPG, directed questlines, you can be helping farmer johnson to kill his bears while your friend that's 1 level ahead of you already killed those bears and is now helping him to repair his lands, this breaks the immersion from a "global perspective", the idea of phasing is amazingly good when looked as a single player experience but if you look it from the outside it ends up a bit too immersion breaking. Keep in mind guild wars2 is not totally safe from this idea, having hearts as this sort-of single player model can be also critiziced by it, but you can say the hearts end up being sort of "war efforts" where you have to help your desired "heartgiver" (still can be critiziced, traditional mmo-rpg style is a bit too stagnant in this point).


Now up with Dynamic Events and it's storyline:
-Dynamic events (as the name says) are events, they are meant to be done not individually but as an event it's meant to be done with other people, it's not necessary to have a party or some sort of communication, people will help you, this game does this extremely well (you can discuss if newcomers have more trouble finding lowbies but that's up for another discussion that A-Net will have to lead sooner or later).
The way Dynamic Events work is that they end up happening without your necessary intervention, some cases might not apply, some scort events have to be "triggered" by talking to the starting npc, which ends up making a Dynamic Event chain! Which ends up being a STORYLINE that you can follow if you're cautious, the storyline is "hidden" in the events themselves by talking to npc's or following the start of the chain (which most of the time it's complicated due to you not arriving at the start but you can get a general idea on what you have to do and why you do it in that specific moment).


Now let me present a video that explains how dynamic events work, this will present some examples and the idea I presented above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CyqGJHTjes

TL DR: Get the wow mentality out of your body.

[Deleted]

Well GW 2 isn´t WoW and you sound like your playing it just as WoW.

We had tons of Threads about this. Just read a little bit of them :3

One of those Threads

[axaklelie]

TL DR: Get the wow mentality out of your body.

I myself made a post kinda like this not so long ago. Had just started GW2 because I was bored of wow.
After leveling alittle, doing some exploring and events. I got bored easily.
I gave it a second try and have been playing kinda non stop to be honest.

Look around, do hearts, events, personal story, do some gathering, dailies (daily achievements), map completion (points of interest, vistas, skill points, waypoints) - you shouldn't have problem with XP.

[Fencers]

I have to travel so far for so little reward, I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything, I feel like I would get more out of staying in one place and killing monsters.

Well, there aren't actually any quests. There are local objectives one can participate in- if they wish. GW2 has no object quests though. Even the personal story is designed as a campaign.

Also, one would not enjoy more progress by killing monsters in the same area over & over. There are diminishing returns for doing so. A major goal of the game design is to inspire exploration- roaming, in other words.

Level is relatively meaningless in GW2 after about L30 too. There is no design goal to truly level up as transitional mode. One will do the same activities at level 80, 72 or 67 and as at level 10, 8 or 2.

[Management]

Funny, I usually forget about the personal story stuff.

So there are events, orange circles on the map near you. These happen randomly. There are hearts, these are your please go kill or gather x for me. There are the vistas, triangles, that you have to figure out how to get to. There are the skill points, blue chevrons where you either fight your way to get there or you get there and fight to earn the point. There are points of interest, just places to discover. There are world boss events, happen every hour or so. Gather, mine, or chop trees. Craft from the materials you gather. Rez npcs or other players. Or just run around killing stuff. All of the above provide xp in addition to your personal story line. There are dungeons as well when you get higher and there are periodic events to participate in. You usually receive an in game mail telling you about them. I'm only level 40, so I don't yet know what level 80 brings, but I'm having a blast making my way there.

Pretty much this, OP.

OP you're doing it wrong. You can't expect the XP from your personal story will be enough to get you to 80. Do the hearts (hearts = quests) Do the skillpoints and visit vistas and other locations on the map. Collect materials like ores, wood and herbs and use them to craft. All of these things along with a lot of other things give you XP. WoW =/= GW2.

[Gray_Matter]

Hello, I've just gotten my foot in the door in GW2, I've been trying to give it a chance for the sake of a friend, but these quests are awful imo. Do they get any better? I'm still doing stuff involving my own story which could be the issue, but I'm barely level 4 and even that felt like it took forever. I have to travel so far for so little reward, I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything, I feel like I would get more out of staying in one place and killing monsters.

The premise is slightly different from what you are used to. IIRC, in Queensdale at least, one of the original people will direct you to some hearts around the map. These hearts are a bit like traditional quest hubs. The people in the area will give you a task to do. Completing these will give you XP and a little bit of money in the mail. They also sort of direct you around the early stages of the zone. Along the way there you will see events happening. These are highlighted on the map with a red circle. There will also be a message on your screen when they occur. Try and pick up a sickle, pick and axe ASAP and use these to gather resources. Gathering can be quite lucrative in the way of XP. I found that I was level 14 when I completed my first mp so it helps to fill in with a bit of crafting or personal story to top up.