There is something I must not be understanding with this game. Maybe someone can help me out…
I have hit a wall with both my characters, a Nord in her early teens and a Charr in his late aughts (zeros?, whatever, he is level 6-8). I have completed all the heart quests available to them, found all the points of interest, visited all the overlook points. In both cases, the next batches of quests are 2+ levels beyond me. In the case of the Nord, I have 100% completed the starting area and am still below level for my next story quest and map quests.
Where am I supposed to be making up this extra xp from? Dailes give me some, but obviously can only be done once a day. Standing in a field and killing monsters barely gives me anything.
It seems like this game was tuned around the initial zerg of new players, when being off by a few levels didn’t matter much because there were so many other people doing the quests with you. Now the areas I am in are mostly barren and I am solo 80% of the time.
I am also a bit disappointed because I thought the game was giving me a giant area to play with and allowing me to do the things I only found interesting, instead I am playing RPG lawn mower trying to wring out every drop of xp from the nooks and crannies of the map.
What am I missing here?
KevinC
4362
Crafting, WvW, and the other four races’ starting areas. The racial areas are easy to get to, there’s a portal from every capital city to Lion’s Arch. The portal will dump you right in a hub with portals leading to the other four capitals. You can also enter WvW from anywhere (‘B’ key) and there’ll be a portal to Lion’s Arch where you spawn.
So I need to go the other starting areas? How do I get there?
I’ve done some crafting, but I guess not enough to make a difference.
Thanks for the info. I see how to get the other areas now.
Also found this:
Guess I am off to bake my way to the appropriate level.
The easiest and cheapest way to get to the other starting areas, is to open your player screen and go to heart of the mist (pvp thingy staging area). Once there, run straight ahead about 50 feet and you’ll go through the lions arch portal. From there you can take a port to any of the other starting areas.
If you go to the other starting areas, it becomes very easy to stay on top of the level curve.
You aren’t missing anything. There is a small (going by my experience 30%'ish) chance that at low levels you won’t “happen upon” enough random events to keep up with the level progression of rep/story quests. If you’re hit with this, you basically either need to wander around hoping you “happen upon” a bunch of random events or do another race’s starter area.
A pretty bad move on arenaNet’s part that could have been fixed by providing more rep quests during early levels where players normally don’t feel very mobile.
And yes, i am an avid crafter on all of my characters so it isn’t that i just skipped crafting or getting exploration points or doing story quests or anything. It is a content progression flaw at low levels.
Human and Norn starting areas seem to be the most populated, which makes it easier to complete DEs. Around level 30+, WvW is a good way to get experience as long as your match isn’t too one-sided. Just keep your gear around your level in WvW so that your stats are ok when you’re boosted to level 80 (and stay with the zerg). It’s also a nice change from PvE.
Crafting is most efficient via discoveries, except for some easy to grind items (mostly in cooking).
Funnily enough I find I level too quickly for most zones, ending up in the next zone’s level band before I feel like I’ve spent enough time in the current one. Then again I never seem to have a problem getting involved in DEs, and often end up repeating them just because they’re enjoyable. But on the occasions that I do feel like I need a change, I just try another zone in a similar level band, plus I find that I can handle mobs easily 2-3 levels higher than I am anyway (just not too many of them!). Finally, the best way of getting extra levels very quickly is to WvW. You can do this at any stage, and in fact I frequently come away from it with an extra few levels without realising it. Undoubtedly the least onerous leveling experience I’ve had in an MMO, and I hardly did any crafting at all (I blew past the areas where the relevants mats were too quickly, and never really went back to catch up).
Oh yes, and try to complete the Daily requirements, some decent XP from that lot.
maxle
4369
I ran into this problem in the beta, though I haven’t in live play. I’m pretty sure the primary difference is that in live I harvest every resource node I come across, which generates significantly xp due to the steps tied to the daily achievements. Crafting itself seems much less lucrative in terms of xp.
KevinC
4370
Each trade skill will give you 10 levels worth of EXP.
Timex
4371
Just run around… Don’t sit and murderize random mobs over and over, as it’s not really a good source of XP. Run around, and talk to NPC’s with the little wheel thing over their head, and participate in any random events that are around… the random events will give you a ton of XP.
As someone else pointed out, you apparently just had some rough luck and didn’t happen upon the random events while going through the areas. Just go back and run around, and you’ll likely hit them and level up fast.
Or, as others have said, you can go to other starting areas.
If you’re only level 6 or so? I’d say just wander around… you can’t have really explored much of even your own starting area at that point.
I don’t think Angrycoder mentioned Dynamic Events even once: Look for events occurring that are mini-missions, which leave a darker-orange objective in the top right. This is where the magic of the game happens. Several random events should be firing regularly in the first start zone to give you enough XP to fill the level gap. Really, though, the best way to level is to find things you like to do and then do them. :)
maxle
4373
Oh? The bit of crafting I did seemed to result in trivial xp rewards. My mistake.
Kyle700
4374
I don’t see how you could have not been a high enough level if you 100% the zone. I was way over leveled… Also, how did you 100% the zone at level 8
? Weird.
I would be curious about this as well. I certainly couldn’t do the higher level yellow hearts in my starter zone at level 8.
Reemul
4376
Aren’t the starter areas 1-15 as well, maybe you need to spread out more and have missed some of the zone.
tryte
4377
Thanks for the Seraph wing tips! (mmmm buffalo seraph wiiiiings) I’ll let you guys know how the next run goes.
Very frustrated last night with world events. I participated in two very long ones, right from the start of each. The first had us taking two towers and then a central camp from Sons of Svanir, concluded by a lengthy fight against an uber-boss Svanir guy. I participated heavily in each portion, nabbing gold at the first tower and at the end, but somehow only nabbing bronze at the second tower despite killing plenty of Svanir. Apparently this resulted in no chest spawning at the end of the event. Not for me, nor anyone as near as I could tell.
Second event was Frozen Maw. I did all the lead-ins, scoring gold each time. I only scored Bronze somehow in the bit right before the boss shows up, when you have to fight several tough Svanir protecting the ritual. This despite being engaged with two of said Svanir the entire time. Finally I nabbed gold for my participation in taking down the big boss, and the chest spawned, but I could not click it or loot it.
Do you have to get GOLD in every bit of an event to spawn/loot a chest? Can you get chest loot from the same event more than once? I nabbed chest loot a couple days ago from the Frozen Maw event when I didn’t know what it was, just jumped in on the end when the big bad appeared. Does that mean I can never get chest loot again for that event?
I’ve done that event multiple times getting a gold each time and never found a chest anywhere. I might have missed it though. I did also hear other people asking where the chest was before they gave up.
No, it is pure luck and the majority of time you will not run in to it.
My behavior with each character is to focus on doing rep quests, but along the way i do EVERY random event i come across, get EVERY exploration point i come across, get EVERY skill point i come across, harvest EVER node of EVERY type and use the resources on two crafting professions. I also look at the world map and get every skill point i can, even if it is off my map, and of course along the way i do everything previously mentioned.
I’ve got 5 characters and 2 of them hit the quest gap during the sub 20’s.
The issue that causes this is running in to random events while traveling is… random and arenaNet designed content progression with the idea you would do X random events. Well sometimes you don’t naturally encounter X random events, and then the game becomes a huge grind as you wander the wilds.
Thankfully, this problem does not happen a majority of the time AND it appears to only occur at low levels.
