A Concern About Mid-Level PVE

[summourn]

I want to start off by saying I'm in love with GW2. I always was, but am especially after playing the BWE. One thing keeps sticking in my mind though that leaves me with a bit of uncertainty and sadness, and that's the mid-level range areas of the world.

I'm taking this example from my experience in Rift which honestly initially turned me off from that game, as much as I had wanted to enjoy it. Before they nerfed some of the rifts, they were much harder and basically required a group of people to do them (much like GW2's dynamic events.) However, the problem was that people either filtered into two areas mostly: max level areas (usually on their mains) or beginner/introduction areas (where they're either messing around on a new alt or hanging around in or near the main cities.)

That left the zones in between quite barren of activity for the most part and until that nerf, I found myself almost incapable of playing and enjoying the game because a rift (ie dynamic event) would appear every so often and I would simply get overwhelmed on my own, etc. I really want this game to succeed and am hoping it doesn't become insufferable once you get past the 1-15 range up until the 65-80 range.

I understand that the downleveling helps with this a bit, keeping all areas of the game relevant to all players even of max level, but what would make them want to come out to these zones that aren't around the main cities or the high level cool content? Will these areas be devoid of players after the initial release leveling wave has come and gone? What do you think?

[Mif]

World PVE content in GW2 scales to the number of participants involved. So you should be able to do most content solo.

For example, I personally had the wasp queen down to 80% in about 30 seconds until 10 people ran over and she scaled up into being the nasty bitch she was famous for.

[Lucky_]

Yes. Even if you downlevel, the interest in lowbie zones will be limited because there is simply nothing there or a high level character. You'll have the small bunch of people who are completionists likely run it once and some high level people helping friends do those.

Other then that, I would expect it to be just like in other games. People who're leveling, a few of those mentioned above every once in a while and that's it. I haven't really seen anything during BWE that would change that. So people will probably stick to farming relevant content that has relevant rewards (i.e. max level DEs and dungeons). And once they're done, it's either PvE or wait until expansion, which is pretty much the business model of the game.

[Deleted]

Yes. Even if you downlevel, the interest in lowbie zones will be limited because there is simply nothing there or a high level character.

Of course there is. Dynamic events and the rewards and loot they entail.

[Lucky_]

Of course there is. Dynamic events and the rewards and loot they entail.

Crappy rewards and small amount of karma is not going to be a meaningful reward for a character who could spend his time doing a high level event that will earn much better rewards and far more karma.

You're not even going to overpower the low level events, as you will be scaled down, removing most of not all reward-based motivators to visit low level areas.


I can see someone pulling mionelol and soloing shadow behemoth etc off prime time for kicks, but that's going to be rare.

[rhandric]

Crappy rewards and small amount of karma is not going to be a meaningful reward for a character who could spend his time doing a high level event that will earn much better rewards and far more karma.

You're not even going to overpower the low level events, as you will be scaled down, removing most of not all reward-based motivators to visit low level areas.


I can see someone pulling mionelol and soloing shadow behemoth etc off prime time for kicks, but that's going to be rare.

Unless you like the look of the gear from that area and you need a (new) set of it.

[Deleted]

Crappy rewards and small amount of karma is not going to be a meaningful reward for a character who could spend his time doing a high level event that will earn much better rewards and far more karma.

Loot apparently scales with lvl. At least i was looting level-appropriate stuff from lvl 2 mobs when my real lvl was 18.
Not to mention that at least the big meta events drop gems for item sockets, I got a lvl 39 gem from Shadow behemoth, so I would expect other big events to drop high quality gems as well.

[Bluedragonwolf]

What Falkman said. When you get downleveled the gear that drop will still be gear appropriate for your actual level. If you are level 80, and you feel like doing a lvl 5 event, the gear you will get will be appropriate for a lvl 80. Also, as far as I know, the amount of gold/silver/copper/karma will also scale; I do need to double check that though.

[Mif]

Loot apparently scales with lvl. At least i was looting level-appropriate stuff from lvl 2 mobs when my real lvl was 18.

I got a nice level 14 rifle for my level 15 Engineer while scaled down to level 6.

[Edge-]

Crappy rewards and small amount of karma is not going to be a meaningful reward for a character who could spend his time doing a high level event that will earn much better rewards and far more karma.

You're assuming people will only do it for the rewards, which isn't necessarily true (although a good chunk of people will only be motivated by the rewards). It's pretty clear that ArenaNet is making the game less for people who crave the reward grind and a bit more for people who are just interested in exploring and seeing new content, including going back to old zones and seeing new dynamic events and trying to find new places. With that in mind, there will also probably be a reasonably good chunk of people with that mindset as well.

Honestly, I'm far less worried about the lower level zones being abandoned in GW2 than I am in other games since the direction of the game is so different. It's not about a straight linear progression like most modern MMO's are focused on, and there is actually a lot of incentive to go back and explore old zones to find a lot of the most interesting/best hidden rewards.

[Herecius]

A wild idea, but what if ANet implemented some way for you to issue a general 'Call for Help' that pinged a map with an event you'd like some help with, alerting other players in the zone, or perhaps even alerting players outside of the zone?

It would be different from them just showing all of the current DEs on the map (which would suck and take all the fun away) while adding to the social aspects of the game. Of course you can also just call for help from your Guild, but half the fun is the ad hoc groups that form all over the place in GW2.

[summourn]

Thanks for the replies and thoughts.

I see a lot of people saying that these areas won't be so empty because people might want to go back and get rewards, but won't they have already gotten the rewards/armor skins etc they wanted while leveling through there the first time? Transmutation stones allow you to transfer armor looks, so getting a high level version of a nice looking mid-level armor won't really be necessary. Would rewards truly be enough to entice people to come back to zones they've already leveled through that aren't near a main city or the 70-80 areas?

A wild idea, but what if ANet implemented some way for you to issue a general 'Call for Help' that pinged a map with an event you'd like some help with, alerting other players in the zone, or perhaps even alerting players outside of the zone?

It would be different from them just showing all of the current DEs on the map (which would suck and take all the fun away) while adding to the social aspects of the game. Of course you can also just call for help from your Guild, but half the fun is the ad hoc groups that form all over the place in GW2.

Also, that's actually a really great suggestion. If you were in the beta, I actually recommend posting that in the suggestion forums. That might certainly draw attention to zones like that.

Another suggestion is this: Maybe if the game spawned rare bosses on occasion in those areas that drop special stuff? Maybe an icon for this boss when it appears in the world would appear on the world map so people would be alerted to it regardless of what zone they're in? Once word spreads, enough people are drawn, and the boss is downed, that might give some incentive to people to hang around in an old area like that and just have fun.

[Herecius]

Also, that's actually a really great suggestion. If you were in the beta, I actually recommend posting that in the suggestion forums. That might certainly draw attention to zones like that.

Just did so:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...e/1#post135849

If anybody would perhaps like to add comments and support for visibility to ANet as well as other players, that'd be awesome.

[Bluedragonwolf]

Another suggestion is this: Maybe if the game spawned rare bosses on occasion in those areas that drop special stuff? Maybe an icon for this boss when it appears in the world would appear on the world map so people would be alerted to it regardless of what zone they're in? Once word spreads, enough people are drawn, and the boss is downed, that might give some incentive to people to hang around in an old area like that and just have fun.

As far as I know that will happen. Some of the dragon "raids" are in zones that are less than 80. They tend to start with a certain DE, and you need to push it back to a certain point before the dragon spawns. There are also supposed to be some "raid" style bosses that can only be activated by doing jumping quests, or exploring certain areas, etc. These are, undoubtedly, not all going to be in zones close to, or at, max level. And the big dragon events and more special events similar to them are going to be where you want to go and from whence you get some really awesome gear. Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

[Jovanaar]

Some events weren't scaled correctly though. I was scaled down so badly that it was impossible to maintain ground against 2 enemies. While I had no problems with events during at my own level or even higher.

Hell, I even did level 25 events solo on level 18.

[Deleted]

World PVE content in GW2 scales to the number of participants involved. So you should be able to do most content solo.

For example, I personally had the wasp queen down to 80% in about 30 seconds until 10 people ran over and she scaled up into being the nasty bitch she was famous for.

Aye - I soloed that one with the bandits capturing the farm and you have to reduce their morale to 0. Gets quite tricky when there's a bunch of ya though.

[Zeek Daniels]

I dont think you have to worry about players abandoning low level zones. I spent alot of my level 15-20 leveling in 1-15 human and norn zones. Players will come back every now and then since exp gains are the same.

[Herecius]

I dont think you have to worry about players abandoning low level zones. I spent alot of my level 15-20 leveling in 1-15 human and norn zones.

But what about when a great many players are, eventually, done leveling? While GW2 doesn't have any endgame in the sense that many MMOs, it does have a point where you do simply stop leveling of course.

[grandpab]

But what about when a great many players are, eventually, done leveling? While GW2 doesn't have any endgame in the sense that many MMOs, it does have a point where you do simply stop leveling of course.

This is pretty much my only concern. The 1-25 content that I did was fun to level in, but I only saw a few events I would actually want to come back and do later. I know there's some things I missed though, so when I hear about them through friends or the forums it makes me want to go back and experience it. I'm hoping that there's more events in the higher levels that I'll enjoy enough to repeat, or that there will be enough elite events to keep me busy when I'm not pvping.

[Zeek Daniels]

But what about when a great many players are, eventually, done leveling? While GW2 doesn't have any endgame in the sense that many MMOs, it does have a point where you do simply stop leveling of course.

Theirs still events that you wont have completed. I know alot of players are not completionists but their are some who will want to do all the events. I had done most of the land events in the 1-15 human zone and a few in the 15-25 zone and did a small number in the 1-15 norn area and i was level 20 already. I still have the charr, sylvari and asura starting areas to do. Their are alot of zones to explore and as you get higher and higher the ammount of zones to go back and do will get bigger and bigger.

Even when your 80 their could still be some things to do out in the world that you find fun. Theirs currently nothing to do out in the world in WoW and yet people sit in cites all day long. So if people can do that people can do this.