Definitely missing something – There are weapon/armour vendors for gear levels of every multiple of 5. They are the shops on the map labeled “buy weapons” or “buy armour” , should be able to find a lot of it in main city though they are scattered in the little towns as well.
maxle
1682
I went to one heart, completed it, then went to the next. If an event popped, great, I’d definitely participate. I ignored explortaion as much as I could and ignored crafting and PvP completely. I was consistently underleveled, to the point where I had to regularly and deliberately go gain xp by exploring and, yes, doing the personal quest as often as my level permitted. Because if I didn’t, the monsters at the next heart I hadn’t completed would stomp my guts out. This was true on multiple characters.
So I guess the xp gain was bad for both our play styles; you (your fiance?) gained too much, I gained too little.
I think the main difference in leveling speed is your choice not to explore. Exploring all the points of interest is great, it’s not just about extra scenery/lore/exp boost.
Many of the points of interest have triggered events (if you examine various items), or at least challenging circumstances leading up to a treasure chest. I can see how you’d have a lot less exp minus these events and fights, but I guess it’s mostly a philosophical clash.
To me, I find GW really rewards you for visiting all of their map. I was very liberal with the teleportation system, so I never felt punished by travel times.
Oh, also, I am kind of a crafting hater in general. I vendored everything in the first beta weekend. I gave it a try this time around, and it’s not onerous. If nothing else, I’d definitely simply buy the harvesting tools and harvest nodes that are in my way. You get a decent amount of exp, and everything that it harvested can be swept out of your inventory with “deposit collectible”. The actual crafting has the usual fussy inventory management concerns, but I would definitely at least gather and sell or gift to a friend.
[EDIT?? SORRY YOU DID DO PERSONAL QUESTS] I was thinking that would close the exploration gap, but I guess it does not. I suppose I am a lot more worried about later areas/progression than these earlier levels. Even if you absolutely detested pvp, crafting and exploration, there are plenty of other hearts in other realms that are fairly short teleport/walks away.
I guess I am mentally comparing it to content pacing of Age of Conan (horrid) and even to some extent, early WoW (starting with long stupid odes to Mankirk’s wife). So far I am quite happy with GW2.
Yep, I zipped through about 5 personal story quests (didn’t want to spoil anything) and I gained A TON of experience. About half a bar for each quest plus some really nice loot rewards. Totally worth it.
maxle
1685
The personal quest goes some way to closing the gap, but not all the way. I wish I liked exploring; I’d say Skyrim did it much better than GW2, and I still stopped playing Skyrim after about twenty hours. I did end up “grinding” xp by going out of my way to hit some points of interest and teleport pylons, but I wasn’t doing that because I enjoyed it (it wasn’t bad, but I’d rather be doing hearts/events). I was doing it so that I could gain a level and hopefully be not quite so outmatched at that heart that just kicked my teeth in.
The other thing is that the PQs aren’t exactly integrated into the rest of the game. They’re something you have to remember to go do, not something that’s just part of the zone’s natural flow. Or at least they weren’t the way I played.
Many of the points of interest have triggered events (if you examine various items
I wondered about that. There were a couple times I clicked on an NPC, chose the only conversation option, and then that NPC started a group event. Were there a lot of those? Was a missing them? Was it just my imagination? I wasn’t about to go around clicking on everyone I saw in order to find out.
KevinC
1686
Maxle, don’t restrict yourself to one race’s zone. Traveling to other zones is painless and a solution if you somehow end up under-leveled.
As a disclaimer, I’m one of those who likes a more sedate leveling speed.
Leveling speed is always going to be subjective. There are a lot of folks who like to explore every facet of the game and delve into every nook and cranny. For them, fortunately, Arenanet auto-adjusts your level downward to match the area you’re questing in. While overleveling content can make it easier (due to your traits and skill unlocks), it is not trivial. For those who feel it’s too slow, there’s no such solution. They are either forced to engage in gameplay that they don’t enjoy or are forced to “grind”.
I do feel that a part of the issue with the complaints of the leveling being too slow is that Guild Wars 2 has done away with the traditional questing train ride, but people are so used to that style of gameplay that they instinctively try to play GW2 like it was that style of game. If you just hit the hearts or you just concentrate on your story, you’re going to feel like the leveling speed is off.
Now, since most of the comments on the Arenanet beta forums are saying leveling speed is too slow, I suspect Anet will tweak it upward. I just hope that they don’t counter it by lowering the exp rewards from other activities. I really enjoy getting significant exp from harvesting materials, crafting, exploring, and PvP.
There is a good number of these simple conversation events. Basically a nice suggestion is to just walk up to everybody with a name and plow through their conversations. Additionally in more remote areas you can see a plaque or statue or ruins that triggered events with ghostly attacks or beasts or mini-bosses.
I saw some folks near the well outside the human city with a green blob above their names, and ended up starting an event to muck about at the pumps because of the poison. It didn’t occur to me how all that rolled together.
I only went into a city fairly late in the beta. Although I saw a number of armourers I didn’t see any dudes selling weapons. I’ll take a closer look next time around.
JM1
1691
Don’t forget to check your map. They’ll have a little sword icon.
Jag
1692
Yeah, a very good tip is to visit the weapons vendor. Especially at level 10 if you haven’t yet received a decent upgrade. You can get quest level weapons for a few silver.
walTer
1693
I put about 5 hours into my Necro and got him to level 7 before I decided to stop. I definitely took my time, explored, wandered around the towns, looked for events etc…
I then tried out my Engineer and basically powered through a few events but especially my personal quests. I hit level 7 in about 2 1/2 hours. For me anyway, it really seemed to be based on how I played.
That said, fast leveling in a new game is NOT what I want. Sure in WoW after 6 years, I am no longer enamored by leveling…get me to at least 80 as fast as possible then let me play. And that is exactly what they do now. Rest xp, heirlooms, guild bonus’s…it takes no time to level anymore. But I don’t want that in GW. It is new, and frankly I want to take a long time to level so I can enjoy every area as much as possible.
KevinC
1694
Another point is that in GW2 there isn’t a rush to get to L80 and the “real game”. You can start playing the “real game” from level 1. I love the design… it still gives me carrots and things to look forward to in leveling, but I don’t feel like I have to grind through all the levels just to play the end game with my friends. In the end it doesn’t matter much how long leveling takes, because it doesn’t restrict game options from you in the same way that typical MMOs do.
skyride
1695
I agree with that for the PvE game but I still feel slightly rushed because of WvW since a natural level 80 is going to have a significant edge over a scaled level 80.
KevinC
1696
A L80 is going to have advantages over a L1, but I think even by L30 the playing field is going to be leveled pretty well (i.e. once you get your Elite skill, but I’m not too interested in those for most classes anyway).
Derbain
1697
A level 80 is going to have 50 more trait points than a level 30, which while not the advantage that a level 80 would have over a 30 in any other game, is still going to be fairly significant.
The stat bonuses from gear will also be noticeable when comparing 80s with folks under 30 as well. Fortunately, from what I’ve seen, GW2 seems to be following the original GW’s fairly modest gear curve.
Reldan
1698
You can gain up to 80 levels from experience from crafting alone. If the assumption is that people will do some crafting, that may be where the extra experience to “catch up” is expected to come from.
One of the great things about this game is the dynamic level scaling. As you move into a zone with lower level content, it changes your level down to more properly match the area. What that does is open up vast amounts of content and zones throughout the game. Rather than winnowing down the number of areas you can go as you move upward and pushing you out, the flow between zones is more natural; Leveling opens up new areas and content rather than locking you out of old areas and forcing you to a restrictive number of zones.
I was a few levels behind on my Norn Warrior’s personal story (14 rather than the 16 recommended) and as this was the last beta day, I just wanted to see how far I could go and what places I wasn’t supposed to be I could get into. I ended up exploring all of Diessa and Snowdon (sp?) and making almost 4 levels off of exploration alone. A couple of events I found along the way I took part in (as ranged) and was able to do some damage, enough to get gold contribution, including a couple of 5+ higher level skill challenges. I can’t say enough about the branching dynamic events; at least one in passing seemed to take a completely different track based upon how successful we were in completing the challenges, including one with a giant attacking a town and killing everyone inside for a long while.
It took me almost until the very end to start adapting to needing to actively move to avoid help mitigate damage. For the last couple of beta events I have stood there like I have in every other MMO, not thinking about how different GW2 is. By the end of this one, I was able to complete a couple of challenges I had not gotten close to finishing earlier by being much more careful, strategic, and active. Having friends always helps, too. :) For me without a doubt this comes together as the freshest take I have seen in the MMO space in a long time.
A scaled level 80 will probably not be able to defeat a natural lvl 80 in a 1v1 fight (although even that will probably be affected by players’ skill) but a scaled lvl 80 can still participate in WvW and be an asset to their team. Building and mounting siege machines, maintaining supply chain, raiding enemy’s supply chain, PvE events that benefit PvP, group PvP fights and so on.
As opposed to other games where everyone under the level cap was completely excluded from the “endgame activities”. Dozens of lvl 10 characters can do squat to a lvl 80 one in WoW, while, hopefully, in GW2 a couple of lvl 10 guys (scaled to lvl 80) will be able to kill a natural lvl 80. The exact curve remains to be seen though.
That’s what people mean when they say “ability to play the endgame from level 1”. Inability to defeat a natural lvl 80 is one the carrots to make you interested in the levelup process. :)
