Just started GW2, pretty disappointment so far. possible to get some pointers?

[Deleted]

It's a good idea to have two zones going at once, if you don't hunt for events and just do hearts every 3/4 hearts will be above your level, at which point you go to your other zone and do those until its too high again, and just keep going like that.

[Karizee]

The first zone seems to be the most difficult for some new players to level through since they are not accustomed to how very different it is from a linear questing system. Pay particular attention to named NPCs, when they are waving you down and asking for help - they are not there just for flavor!

The game rewards exploration and discovery. Some event chains open hidden areas and mini dungeons like the Flame Temple Tombs or Hidden Gardens jumping puzzle.

Once you get the hang of it, it's hard going back to the spoon-fed experience - at least for me anyways

[Fhi]

For all the flaws of the "WoW system", at least it generally presented you with a story and sequence of events versus the GW2 system of "Hey, the centaurs are attacking the exact same place in the same formation that they did 5 minutes ago." and "Oh, that troll is mad again, better kill it again." Don't get me wrong, Events are a cool system, but especially when you're leveling it can quickly start to feel like you're either hunting for them or camping them because it's easy to do all the hearts and such in an area and still not be high enough level to move on. At the end of the day searching for events or camping events isn't much different than just bouncing back and forth between mob spawns in WoW and grinding that way.

I think this is the essence of what bothers me about the leveling in GW2. Without making direct comparisons to WoW, because I still think they are both very different games catered to very different demographics, the leveling in GW2 is -very- freeform. I have since made two additional characters for the sole purpose of testing whether I'm "doing it wrong". I made a new character, and ran around the zone doing map completion, and jumping into events nearby as I come across them.

In both trials, my character had to bounce back and forth between events just to get to the next heart (for instance, I would be at level 10 and the next available heart is at level 12). I did not do any crafting because I don't have the gold yet, and it is not enjoyable for me. I finished the zones at level 13, and I am still two levels short of the next zone. Don't forget, this is after I have gotten all the PoIs, vistas and skill challenges in the zone, gathered everything I came across, and gotten personal story. Now, yes, of course I could just go to the next starter zone, but I am thinking in terms of having to do this on every character every time.

My issue is that going to another starter zone, or leveling via crafting, or doing map completion should be a choice, but at least in the first couple of zones, it seems a necessity. I haven't gotten high enough to know if it is the same in the higher level zones. For instance, if I want to only do the human zones for story continuity, can I do that? Will I need to "grind" DEs every zone?

I think this issue will be less pronounced if the zones have overlapping levels. So for example, level 1-15, then 10-25, then 20-35, etc. In my example, people who choose not to do world completion + crafting + DE farming can go to the next zone whenever they please. It still keeps the structure of zone hierarchy intact, but allows for some flexibility in how players choose to level.

On the other hand, my first character, a warrior, did not have this problem. I realized now that it was because when I first played this game, I was playing with a couple of friends, so we helped each other in the zones, which means there were hearts that I have done multiple times (and their associated DEs). It seems that being underleveled is a problem for players who tries to level alone. Either way, more flexibility in how we choose to play could definitely help.

[Deleted]

Like the title said. I just started PLAYING GW2. So far all I have done is lvl a couple of characters to 10-12 before I got bored.

First thing. I often find myself w/o any quests to do, and I'm forced to wait on events to happen so I can level to do more quests. Is it really supposed to be like this? Having to just sit and wait for things to happen is mainly the only reason I got bored.

Is there anything else to do?
Pvp is not an option, mainly because I don't like to do PVP before I really understand how the game works, even yet play my own class properly.
also, no big fan of farming. Farming is something I would consider doing when I actually got a pretty nice overview on the game, know what to do and so on. Having to farm in such a low level because you don't have any quest or storyline to follow due to the fact that I'm forced to wait for events or something similiar is nothing but a huge disappointment

Sorry about the crappy English, as you can see not my mother tongue.

It was awesome when it got released because the world was very crowded and events were therefor way more fun. I can imagine it being quite boring now to level a new character.

[Deleted]

The world is really nice visually, active with world events and the stories are decent enough too (though some bits are REALLY cheesy and it does not have anything on SWTORs story) BUT what really disappointed me was how pathetic the end game was. Really disappointing. If it had a decent end game I would still be playing GW2, at this point it just seems as though you have people doing things in the game to make their gear prettier which I am not really keen on doing at all. I like doing big or decent sized challenging raids together with a bunch of people on voice comms. If I remember they don't have an arena system either right? Say what you want about WoW, arena give its way more re-playability and something for the PvP'ers to do instead of the disgustingly designed World PvP setup there is in GW2.

On paper the no holy trinity seemed amazing, but it severely hinders the mechanics and design of each fight. I really like the world in the game but it could have been so much better and still can be if they focus on the end game and a bit more on class balance (warriors were like the easiest class to play and did the most damage). I do like the combat system, it feels smooth enough (it's no WoW though) and the dual weapon thing is pretty nifty. I played Swtor for a few months on release that disappointed, I tried Neverwinter and Rift about a month or so ago, they both are not worth playing too many holes in those games and TERA just didn't seem to be my type of game at all plus it's quite dead.

Waiting on Wildstar...

[Lane]

My issue is that going to another starter zone, or leveling via crafting, or doing map completion should be a choice, but at least in the first couple of zones, it seems a necessity.

*snip*

On the other hand, my first character, a warrior, did not have this problem.

I didn't have this problem on most of my earlier alts. It seemed to start a few months ago, but I can't pinpoint exactly when. Suddenly, I was finding myself underleveled in my racial starting zone while not playing any differently.

I really think they stealth nerfed the starting zones, especially since it was also around this time that I noticed the karma I was getting from Queensdale events on my level 80 had been reduced by more than half.

What I've ended up doing on my last two alts is using the EXP boosters I'd saved from BLCs + food buffs. It seemed to offset the EXP reduction enough that I didn't have to bounce between starting zones. I haven't had any problems past the first starting zone, but I also do all zones by choice so I can't comment on what would have happened if I'd gone directly to a level 15-25 zone, etc.

As far as "playing the game wrong", I do 100% map completion every time, I do my personal story at least up to choosing an Order, and I hit up every single DE that flashes on my screen whether I've done it already or not. The only thing I don't do is crafting since I already have all crafts covered on other alts. This underleveled bit is semi-recent and it exists, even for players like myself.

[Meledelion]

Lane, another hypothesis is that you've gotten so efficient at doing hearts that you have less time to do DE's.

Let's say it used to take you 2h to do a heart (yes this is unrealistic but bear with me). So you have time to do 3 DE's.
After 11months of play you've halved the time to do a heart to 1h and now you have time to do 1DE meaning that 50% less time results in 2/3 less DE xp.

[Lane]

Highly unlikely, because that would have started happening after my 2nd alt, not my 7th.

Even if that were true, as many DEs as I hit up it's still completely ridiculous that I'd be underleveled. Unfortunately, I have no proof other than my level 80 karma gains that anything else has been reduced, it's just a suspicion especially since using +60% EXP boosts make things feel "normal".

[Meledelion]

Yea I know lane, I'm not saying that's the only factor but it surely will be a (small) part of what you're saying.

[Fhi]

As far as "playing the game wrong", I do 100% map completion every time, I do my personal story at least up to choosing an Order, and I hit up every single DE that flashes on my screen whether I've done it already or not. The only thing I don't do is crafting since I already have all crafts covered on other alts. This underleveled bit is semi-recent and it exists, even for players like myself.

This is how I feel too, and how I play. I like world completions, I will likely do it on every character I create (made 3 so far). If I am underleveled every time despite doing world completion minus crafting, I can't imagine how someone who chooses not to do world completion on their, say, 6th alt would ever get to the next zone without "buying" levels via crafting.

[papajohn4]

If anything, GW2 has the best leveling experience. The problem starts at the max level, for people used to have a character progression. But leveling is great. I don't understand why people feel lost when someone doesn't put them on rails and provide them with linear experience. You have a huge and beautiful world to level and every 5-10 levels you can chose between 2-3 zones. Can't imagine any better leveling experience. If only they had the trinity and gear progression...

[zed zebes]

The only time I get "stuck" in leveling is in the 40-60 range where zones tend to slow down in activity. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to level. My guardian that hit 80 last week hadn't been in a zone higher than the 50s range. Timberline Falls is basically the limits of his exploration. I did 50-80 via crafting and WvWvW. The last ten or so levels I banged out in a day. The last 5 levels I did within an hour of crafting.

[axaklelie]

No idea why people are still posting here, but to end the thread.

I did listen to you guys, I gave it another try and to be honest, I have been playing non stop.
Currently have a level 74 mesmer, explored 100% of 7 zones. Done the jumping puzzles in most of the zones I have explored, done ALOT of events, even a couple of dragon events so far.

So far I'm loving the game, I may be 74 allready, but I have no plans to stop going to new zones and do them as well when I ding 80. I love the fact that I can just chill out, do some exploring, join random events and doing the bosses atleast once a day if I got the time or bother (I have a habbit of ignoring them because of exploring them some days).

[Deleted]

Whoa that's good news! I'm glad you've found the enjoyment in the game.

[hrugner]

It took a couple months for GW2 to suck me in as well. It's just a little too different from other mmos, playing Skyrim was what made me go back and look at GW2 again.

[Asphyxiate9]

This might sound ridiculous, but I never want to play another MMO with leveling again. I feel like the entire game world should be explorable as soon as you log in. I think GW2 did a good job with scaling levels, but it wasn't enough. Don't get me wrong there were a lot of things I loved about the game, but I can't help that it just didn't interest me. If you feel like you are forcing yourself to play a game, I think that sort of defeats the purpose. I tried because I'm a fan of the artists who worked on the game: Kekai and Dociu, but it wasn't enough to get past the unpolished combat system, which is something WoW is still king at.

Sounds like you will like Ever Quest Next then lol, no levelling there I believe