Comments on: Really, Why Are There Levels in Guild Wars 2? [GW2]

By: Bosstiger

Bosstiger — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:27:06 +0000

By: rowan

rowan — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:01:28 +0000

I fel tthat same “one more thing” pull in WoW for a few years.

By: Adaram

Adaram — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:09:40 +0000

LOL. Another difference arises. I feel likely I hardly know you anymore!! I currently have 6 characters, the lowest one is level 6, the highest is 28. I have already deleted 2-3 characters, one of which was a Level 14 Engineer. I admit it, I am an altoholic!

By: Ocho

Ocho — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 02:22:12 +0000

Haha! Well I guess there had to at least be one game.

I don’t think I plan on making an alt anytime soon. I think I’m going to max out my first character, at least to max level, if not world completion, before I make another. I WILL of course have to make another. Just not yet.

By: Adaram

Adaram — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:09:54 +0000

Funny thing. I finally note a game that you love, that I don’t. I just cannot seem to “get into” Civ games — it’s weird. And I have definitely tried!

With respect to Guild Wars 2, I also have extreme trouble leaving the lower zones. I have purposed, for myself, that I will avoid new zones unless they are the zone that has my “quest line”. That way, when I play my many alts, I will still have some “new” stuff to do

By: Ocho

Ocho — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:16:11 +0000

@Jeromai You make a great point on the skill points, but I think the best builds aren’t necessarily based on skills, as you can pick up all of them over time. It’s based on the trait lines, which aren’t infinite. Expanding them could be easy for expansions. However, Guild Wars 1, like @Joao suggested, was very horizontal in nature. The level cap never changed, and all expansions were tuned for max level. They may repeat this process again, which would still make ALL the dragons still be the threat they should be treated as.

You’re both right. I take it back… I don’t believe they will add levels now. More content for expansions is really what they will give. See how the other Guild Wars lands fared, for example. It’s a proven successful structure for ArenaNet, and I certainly wouldn’t knock it.

By: João Carlos

João Carlos — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:43:28 +0000

@Jeromai,

IMHO, the expansions will be horizontal, not vertical: the level cap will stay at 80, but they will add new zones, new races and new starting cities. If they are bold, they will change too some old zones. For example, if the alliance is moving to kill the next elder dragon, the Orr zones need change for reflect the fact they won the battle there. Suspiciouslly, a possible place for a starting city of a new player race, the tengu, is one or two zones near Orr. And a good place for a quaggan starting city is just the sea next to Orr.

However, all that are my conjectures. We will need wait for the expansions for see how they make them.

By: Jeromai

Jeromai — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:34:10 +0000

Now that, my personal gut feel is that it’s unlikely they’ll raise it once they’ve settled on a cap. All the max stat exotic gear and sPvP and WvW is set to be at 80. Having to recalculate and retune everything to be 85, 90, 95, 100 per expansion seems excessively complicated.

And past 80, you’re still earning skill points – there’s already plenty of 80s who have leveled many times. If you raise the level cap, are you going to award those retroactively? Doesn’t make much sense.

1 level is calculated to be an average of 1.5 hours in GW2. They must have settled for 120 hours being ok to hit max cap, which seems a decent mix of not too short, not too long.

By: Ocho

Ocho — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:15:37 +0000

Yup. Same here… it’s all about those little unfilled points of interest, hearts, vistas, and skill challenges. Which is why I have such trouble leaving the lower zones, and also have been having trouble sleeping… that “one more thing” pull is so strong, it rivals Civilization for it’s pull to keep playing.

By: Adaram

Adaram — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:30:21 +0000

It’s funny, but in most MMO’s, leveling is the thing that I enjoy the most. In GW2, so far, I rarely even know/look at the level of my character, since it really doesn’t matter very much. What seems to be driving me, thus far, is fully completing all the hearts, views, poi’s, and skill’s on every map. It’s very different for me, and I almost didn’t buy GW2 after playing in Beta since I wasn’t sure I would be comfortable with not being “pulled along” by the story.