Leveling, level scaling and XP boosters.

[Deleted]

One thing is sure, leveling in this game is fun. Maybe it's not THAT revolutionary as it is advertised, but the difference is still big enough to notice. Every other MMO I've played made me cringe whenever I had to level up a new toon. But in this game I just don't mind, It's really fun to just bounce around the zones, doing an event here, filling few hearts there and getting solid XP for things like gathering, crafting or just exploring. I'm finally leveling up in peace without the feeling that "OMG I'm in this zone 5min longer than I should and I've just wasted my time".

Unfortunately there is a bad side. Scaling doesn't work - or at least, it's not tuned yet. The idea behind scaling down level of a player was to make sure all the content is challenging and to prevent higher level players coming over to lowbie zones and one shotting everything and destroying (kinda) fun for still leveling players. It's just doesn't work that way.

I've started a new character(warrior, last bwe I've played engineer) this BWE and got him to 37level. So at 35lvl I've went to 15-25 zone and.. could one shot everything. Veterans didn't have chance either, 5->F1->SignetofMight->2->dead, as for champions had to throw in some regular attacks. Not even once, I was in danger no matter how many mobs I was pulling. As for 1-15 zones, I was killing monsters by looking at them :/.

Another "broken" thing was XP system. Thing is, this game gives you XP for everything - and that's good, cause you don't feel that you're wasting time crafting in the city or just running around the zone and taking pretty pictures. But.. XP boosters are an over kill. I went from 25 to 30 in just a bit over an hour. How? The 1hour 50% more XP booster stacks with extra 100% XP killing streak one (you have 30s to kill another monster before it wears off). Went to one of those mines with "mole people" where spawn rate is insane and there is that event which is repeating very often (every 5-8min or so) that's it :/. At 30lvl, went to AC and got almost 2 levels out of it.

After that I went to the city since I wanted to max out my armor crafting, got it to 190+, but had to stop since I couldn't get the reagents from +40lvl zones . Then I realized.. I'm 35 lvl :/, 3 levels in less than an hour for running between anvil and trading post. I dunno man...

The XP gain in this game should be toned down a bit, you are very quickly in a position where you can overpower whole zone after just entering it and since scaling down doesn't work it takes some fun out of it. The XP boosters shouldn't stack either or we may have 80lvl people running around, one shotting everything just few hours after launch. Or just remove the killing streak one completely, it's such an over kill..

I really, REALLY love this game, but they have still have so much left to tune...

[barackopala]

Are you really worried about people being 80 quickly?
Doubt that would be fun, rushing out the game getting little to no content at all is just... boring to say the least, live and let die, sure there could be a way were you can turn off the XP Gain (just like WoW did, like it or not, some people might find the concept appealing to say the least).

The game is meant to be fun, but getting intantly to the "end of the line" just for the sake of being "the N°1" is still kind of an empty achievement.

[Blufossa]

They said that the numbers aren't in yet. They were more worried about BIG changes to the game (UI, WvW, etc).

But hopefully come the BWE #3, we'll see some improvements to the Professions (some were really squishy) as well as the whole "leveling" process.

Not to worry, they'll get most of it figured out by release.

[Squirrelbanes]

More than likely a balancing issue that will be addressed.
I only made it to lvl 19 (I was busy ) so can't really comment too much on dropping down too far, but while things were easier when I went back to queensdale I don't think I 1 shotted anything.
Still, balancing I suppose.

[barackopala]

Most of the oneshot advantages issues can be focused on the traits/utility skills area, whereby you can have better stats/traits that can help you manage the lower level zones easier, I wanted to get most of the exploration rewards so I roamed between different starting areas of the game (being lvl 30), I felt like I was stronger, I could wreck enemies easier, but it wasn't as "point and click kill" as you affirm, there were parts where you had to at least be cautious.

[Deleted]

Most of the oneshot advantages issues can be focused on the traits/utility skills area, whereby you can have better stats/traits that can help you manage the lower level zones easier, I wanted to get most of the exploration rewards so I roamed between different starting areas of the game (being lvl 30), I felt like I was stronger, I could wreck enemies easier, but it wasn't as "point and click kill" as you affirm, there were parts where you had to at least be cautious.

Get crafting profession. Every five levels, you can craft a set for yourself which almost always is better (sometimes by leap and bounds better) than karma rewards. By level 25 I was getting reliable 2k crits, at 35lvl 3k was a norm. I don't think that even the term "obliterating" is enough to describe what I was doing as 35lvl in 15-25 zone ;s

[carnifex2005]

Interesting note about leveling and crafting from the GW2 Beta Forums....

"The way leveling XP gain works in crafting is this: For leveling a discipline from 0-400, you will gain 10 levels along the way. By maxing out all 8 disciplines, you will gain 80 levels. That means you could dedicate a character to crafting, feed it all the mats you get on other characters and level it all the way to 80 without ever needing to kill a thing. As hardcore crafters, we think that is pretty cool."

-Linsey Murdock via Beta Forums

[Fencers]

I really don't agree that XP should be toned down at all. It needs a rather big increase.

As I said in another thread: Currently, it seems as though mob XP is tuned around XP boosters as they are a significant advantage to leveling.

[Zeek Daniels]

exp is fine. You forget that were missing about 4-5 zones of the 1-35 experience. And i can say ive done maybe 85% of the human starting area 1-15 and im not even close to 50% in all the other zones ive been to. Theirs alot of stuff to do in this game while leveling. Even if u get to max fast theirs still fun stuff to do to farm gold and karma. I spent most my sunday running around doing events while mining iron silver and copper. Also chain pulled mobs in 15-25 zones for mats so i could craft later that evening where i leveled up twice from crafting alone.

Game seems fine to me.

[NightZero88]

One thing is sure, leveling in this game is fun. Maybe it's not THAT revolutionary as it is advertised, but the difference is still big enough to notice. Every other MMO I've played made me cringe whenever I had to level up a new toon. But in this game I just don't mind, It's really fun to just bounce around the zones, doing an event here, filling few hearts there and getting solid XP for things like gathering, crafting or just exploring. I'm finally leveling up in peace without the feeling that "OMG I'm in this zone 5min longer than I should and I've just wasted my time".

Unfortunately there is a bad side. Scaling doesn't work - or at least, it's not tuned yet. The idea behind scaling down level of a player was to make sure all the content is challenging and to prevent higher level players coming over to lowbie zones and one shotting everything and destroying (kinda) fun for still leveling players. It's just doesn't work that way.

Maybe your profession was different from mine (mesmer) but I completely disagree with you here. I managed to hit level 30 and in high-level zones where I had a bigger hp buffer I felt a lot more durable. Mobs hit harder so it's a bit of an illusion but I never worried about dying in high level zones. But I wanted to do catacombs before beta ended and it was bugged. So we went and did the harpy event and holy crap, I almost died like 15 times because I was scaled down to level 11 and only had about 600-800 health. So my experience was completely different than yours. I felt SAFER in higher level areas over lower ones.

I also agree with Fencer in that XP needs to be scaled up personally. I hit about level 22 on the first BWE. After that I had to go clear every 15-25 zone to hit 27 so I could go into the 25-35 zone without getting obliterated. If I have to do every races starter zones on one toon it kills replay value for future toons which is bad. You should be able to level up ONLY using your races zones so that if you start alts it's new.

[Zeek Daniels]

I hit about level 22 on the first BWE. After that I had to go clear every 15-25 zone to hit 27 so I could go into the 25-35 zone without getting obliterated. If I have to do every races starter zones on one toon it kills replay value for future toons which is bad. You should be able to level up ONLY using your races zones so that if you start alts it's new.

I agree it might kill replay value to do all the zones on your main toon but i dont agree that you should only be doing one 1-15 zone then one 15-25 zone then one 25-35 zone just to level. The world is big and events and zones are re playable. You may also have better luck with a group of players as a level 22 in a level 25-35 zone than trying to solo.

Oh and they said they are always going to be adding new events into the game so the early zones might not be all the same when u make a new toon.

[Lucky_]

Are you really worried about people being 80 quickly?
Doubt that would be fun, rushing out the game getting little to no content at all is just... boring to say the least, live and let die, sure there could be a way were you can turn off the XP Gain (just like WoW did, like it or not, some people might find the concept appealing to say the least).

The game is meant to be fun, but getting intantly to the "end of the line" just for the sake of being "the N°1" is still kind of an empty achievement.

You may want to study the case of SWTOR, which suffered from this exact issue, except that it actually had some proper old school end game on top of levelling process. You may note how that ended up for that particular game, with people leaving it en masse even with free month available before game was even half a year old, simply because there's nothing to do after you're done with what game has to offer.

There are quite a few people who will play casual and not care, just like you, but there is also a very large pool of players who will simply leave the game quietly and never come back. And that is a very real problem for retention, as these tend to be the people who build the actual communities in the game. As has been pointed out before, GW2 appears to be specifically aiming to cater to the casual croud leaving only PvP elements and no end game PvE for more hardcore types who will blow through the PvE available at release in days/weeks.

[Deleted]

I really don't agree that XP should be toned down at all. It needs a rather big increase.

As I said in another thread: Currently, it seems as though mob XP is tuned around XP boosters as they are a significant advantage to leveling.

I also agree with Fencer in that XP needs to be scaled up personally. I hit about level 22 on the first BWE. After that I had to go clear every 15-25 zone to hit 27 so I could go into the 25-35 zone without getting obliterated. If I have to do every races starter zones on one toon it kills replay value for future toons which is bad. You should be able to level up ONLY using your races zones so that if you start alts it's new.

So you both have no issues with me being 80lvl on the first day? I was pushing 4-5 lvls per hour ALONE, so.. with a small help of my friends.... It's just feels weird, I dunno. I know in GW2 rushing to top level is not that important.. but damn.. it's just happening too fast .

Neither me nor none of my guildies run out of content to do, I was lvl 15 before I was able to do half of the first zone. I think people just don't know how to approach GW2, I've seen them doing an event and running off before second phase starts (ironically, there is topic where guy is asking if multi-phase events even exist ROFL). No one is gathering anything (LOADS of xp), people just run from heart to heart and that's it. If by chance they miss a scout who would lead them to next heart, they are not even bother to look around the map to check if there are uncovered areas and try to go to next zone - then crying they have nothing to do :/.

When I was done with the first zone (100%), I was 19lvl. The materials I've gathered were enough to get me over 2 lvls through crafting. Thing is, exploring the whole map was NOT a waste of time, it is actually VERY efficient way to get XP.

All I'm saying is that when people will get their heads around GW2, they will level insanely fast.. and I'm not sure that Anet wants to have most of the population of players at 80lvl two days after launch :/.

[Drakhar]

no end game PvE for more hardcore types who will blow through the PvE available at release in days/weeks.

You know what? I think I can speak for most people in this subforum when I say good riddance.

Funny, OP, the beta forums were exploding with whiners saying they weren't leveling quick enough. I tried to put them in their place but they were content just crying their eyes out hoping ANet would read their pathetic QQ rather than actually discuss the issue with me and others.

CBA to find the quote but the design intent for leveling speed is that by engaging in some but not all of exp-gaining activities you will level normally. It sounds like you are like me, and do absolutely EVERYTHING (exploring/crafting/PvP/PvE/personal story) and end up overleveled. The "zomg increase xp gains" people were not using any boosts and were only engaging in 1 activity, and thought that it was ANet's fault that they were underleveled...

[Lucky_]

You know what? I think I can speak for most people in this subforum when I say good riddance.

Funny, OP, the beta forums were exploding with whiners saying they weren't leveling quick enough. I tried to put them in their place but they were content just crying their eyes out hoping ANet would read their pathetic QQ rather than actually discuss the issue with me and others.

Yeah, I saw many people on SWTOR that said the same thing. It's the people that don't care about other people, in fact in general appear to actively HATE other people. The type that wants to have his game experience alone, without someone else to make him look bad, or even disturb him. Hell, they were calling people with lvl50 characters "no life assholes who should just leave the game, good riddance" when info on free month came out. That was bloody five months after release. Apparently many of these God's gifts to humanity hadn't leveled to max level in five months because it would have required too much effort.

A rather interesting focus group for a game I'd say.

[Fencers]

So you both have no issues with me being 80lvl on the first day? I was pushing 4-5 lvls per hour ALONE, so.. with a small help of my friends.... It's just feels weird, I dunno. I know in GW2 rushing to top level is not that important.. but damn.. it's just happening too fast .

I have no problem with that at all.

I prefer very fast leveling in MMOs.

[Drakhar]

Yeah, I saw many people on SWTOR that said the same thing. It's the people that don't care about other people, in fact in general appear to actively HATE other people. The type that wants to have his game experience alone, without someone else to make him look bad, or even disturb him. Hell, they were calling people with lvl50 characters "no life assholes who should just leave the game, good riddance" when info on free month came out. That was bloody five months after release. Apparently many of these God's gifts to humanity hadn't leveled to max level in five months because it would have required too much effort.

A rather interesting focus group for a game I'd say.

I think you completely missed the point. People who are going to play GW2 like just another EQ/WoW-style MMO, can fuck off after rushing to 80 and "having nothing to do" because the game isn't designed for them in the first place. Problem?

The lack of "whar my endgame" derps will make the community a better place.

Let's be a bit more polite to other players and not promote this, "us vs. them" mentality please. -Edge

[Edge-]

I have no problem with that at all.

I prefer very fast leveling in MMOs.

I take it you love Battle of Immortals then? :P

I actually prefer a slower leveling pace so that levels feel like a bit more of an accomplishment (entirely artificial, I know).

[Gisei]

Leveling is a bit slow in my opinion. I know where most of the DEs in Queensdale are, but even after completing all the hearts, and doing most DEs at least once, many 5+ times, I still wasn't lv15. On my guardian, I captured Heartwood Pass nearly ten times, and followed each one with defending it. I then hopped into a zerg and killed the corrupted Oakheart 4 times, Wasp Queen 5 times, Giant Boar twice, Cave Troll twice, and the Shadow Behemoth, not to mention numerous other random DEs that appeared during travel times. Even with all hearts done, all the events completed, and Queensdale at 95%-ish, I was only lv13.

I'm not a big fan of fast leveling, as I like the journey to be as long as possible, but I'd prefer leveling to match zone progression. My Necro, lv28, had the same problem as my Guardian in both Queensdale and Kessex Hills.

[Fencers]

I take it you love Battle of Immortals then? :P

I actually prefer a slower leveling pace so that levels feel like a bit more of an accomplishment (entirely artificial, I know).

BotI sucks. But I do love level buying. Used to stand at the level 1 spawn point in RA and ding 70/70 on both classes in 10 mins.

Loved it.