Curse

gw2master · Jan 30, 2009, 05:21 PM // 17:21

GW1's best aspect is the level cap, the quickness of the game and changeability so you do not have to restart that character you have spent months on just 'cause of a minimum mistake, present in most MMORPGS. Getting to level 20 can be accomplished in a week and a half, without even finishing the storyline. Mastering the game requires much more experience and strategy than just reaching level 20. Enough good points, now the bad one: GW's developers have thought that a skill point is valuable and would motivate people to keep leveling and caring about exp. But particularly or not, I have NEVER been missing a skill point and needed to level up to be able to buy a skill, actually my skill points are always above 15 or so, you really do not need to buy dozens of skills, you buy the ones that fit in your build and some others you just wanna try.

Now finally the suggestion: PLEASE, ANet, don't take this really good feature of GW out! After getting to level 20, there should be a real motivation to keep caring for experience other than maybe titles, something that does not end, something you can keep training up and up, getting better and better, but still do not create disadvantages. Maybe each level higher after 20, you get some kind of point you can spend to access something of your choice, this way the advantages of keep leveling beyond level 20 are not gradual but of your choice. I mean, you won't get each level more powerful or have more items or anything like that. You can spend your extra levels just as it is done with faction currently, but not to unlock skills, heroes or items, but to unlock locations and PvE exclusive facilitative stuff like faster ways of moving around maybe as map travels if they aren't included on GW2, or shortcuts from a point (town/oupost) on the storyline of one campaign to a equivalent point on another campaign (a Ascended Prophecies character would expend some of these hypothetical extra level points to teleport to the equivalent outpost on another campaign (Weh no Su on factions or having "Hunted!" quest on night fall completed). This would minimizate problems like the dificulty to get to an outpost which is far from the port city of the campaign.

Also, expansions and additional campaigns should include higher levels... I mean: for example you start a Prophecies character, get to level 20 and to the port city, then you go to another campaign or EoTN and then you will level up in your second storyline up to level 30 then you will choose your third storyline and level up to 40 and finally the last sotryline and level 50. Maybe it is a bit confused, I will try to get to my point another way: let's consider GW2 will have five paralell storylines (five campaigns/expansions), when you create a new character, you would be able to choose one of the five stories to start from. When you get to level 20, you will probably have gotten to the port city already, where you will choose your second story, do a quest to go to the other continent and start doing the primary quests there, until you get to level 30 and to the outpost that will let you choose your next story to go. Access to other continent while this not being the one you want to be your next storyline would be allowed, just because would be non sense you buy 4 extra campaigns and have to wait to use what you bought... I am considering "storyline" here as the sequence of primary quests and missions and not the secondary quests. Getting from 1 to 10 should be as quick as getting from 11 to 20, 21 to 30 and etc...

Summing it all up:

* Leveling up beyond level 20 and maximum cap level would give each level a small amount of points which you can use for PvE exclusive stuff, and still give the skill points it currently does.
* The sorylines should be used one as continuation of the other, on the sequence the player may want while not blocking access to secondary quests and outposts, areas, etc of the continent where you aren't yet playing its storyline.
* The first storyline you play should get you to level 20 and to port city, the two requirements to play additional storylines you have bought.
* Each additional storyline you play, provides a increase on maximum level cap of 10, so the level cap would increase along with the stories you buy and play.
* Leveling shouldn't get longer on higher levels; leveling from 1 to 10 is as fast as leveling from 51 to 60 (if this level can be reached)

Why this could work

* Would keep the special and unique feature of GW of changeability and quickness.
* Would REALLY motivate to keep leveling
* Players would have much more to do other than getting to maximum level caps and finishing storylines, there would be locations paralell to any storylines, or even little storylines paralell to the main one.
* The game in my opinion would be almost perfect(i think there should be the option to do something like scrimmage (on GH) but on PvE areas, with your friends which are not from your guild or ally)

Why this may not work

* Anet isn't planning to have so much of a storyline, but according to Gaile it will have a more 'sandbox' environment.

and tell me where is the guild wars 2 forum link

draxynnic · Feb 03, 2009, 01:44 AM // 01:44

This looks to me like it belongs in Sardelac.

As a couple of comments...

First, on skill points: From my viewpoint, there were two problems with the idea of skill points as an incentive to continue gaining experience. One is that there is the tendency, especially before EOTN, to run out of things to spend your skill points on. Consumables help here, but this segues nicely into the second and possibly more important problem: Using skill points requires money, roughly to the tune of one platinum per skill point. In my experience, however, normal play typically gathers skill points at a much faster rate than platinum, especially when you consider the number of other gold sinks there are out there.

For instance, between my characters, I probably have one, maybe even two thousand unspent skill points. I have quest rewards to accept that include Stars of Transference that will probably end up being salvaged for plant fibers. I certainly do not have the platinum to spare that would be required to burn through over a thousand skill points.

Slowing down the rate of skill point gain wouldn't really be fair to people making new characters, as it would make it hard for them to collect a broad range of skills. In my opinion, what the skill point system really needs is some 'cheap' method of spending them - one that perhaps doesn't reap as many benefits as the uses which also require a gold or material price, but which allows skill points in excess of the wealth available to a player remain meaningful. One possibility could be allowing spending of additional skill points when buying skills to reduce the gold price of the skills.

Personally, to be honest, I wouldn't be too sad if experience pretty much disappeared entirely, or was used purely as a marker of how much you've done with a character.

On your second point: I'm leery of the idea of progressive leveling as applied to GW1's structure. By the time of Nightfall, for instance, such a system would have required ANet to balance zones for the possibility of characters with a range of level caps from 20 (Nightfall only) to 40 (all three campaigns), while furthermore leaving room for potentially higher-level characters to join in after further releases. Within GW2, however, it might work, as that is planned to use more traditional expansions that could be expected to be played in sequence. However, as mentioned above, I'd be just as happy if they removed levelling entirely and allowed players to concentrate on getting better at using their character.

Ariena Najea · Feb 03, 2009, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Moved to Sardelac.

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Something to note about the experience system in Guild Wars is that you keep gaining more after reaching level 20. If you scan the forums, you will find players who have so much experience on their characters from playing for so long, that they measure experience growth by the tens of millions. You only need ~150,000 experience to get to level 20, but as a player you can see just how much you have accomplished experience-wise without limit. A prime example of experience achievement is in the survivor titles; the experience required to obtain tier 3 is approximately equal to the amount of experience required for "level 100" according to the level equation.

I don't think that this should be implemented, if for no other reason than it creates more grind for no real gains. Sure, you could better scan other players to figure out how "long" they have been playing that character, but that only leads to the showoff mentality that already plagues the game.

This may also confuse newer players who are more familiar with other MMORPGs such as WoW that expect gains at all levels, and would be put off by only receiving skill points for reaching the next level, as opposed to gaining additional Health as well as Attribute Points from 2-20.

It is likely, however, that Guild Wars 2 will have a more extended level system that will be more typical of other MMOs such as WoW. ANet is trying to compete after all.

Faer · Feb 03, 2009, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Hello. It appears you would like to make a suggestion for the upcoming ArenaNet game, Guild Wars 2. We have a sticky dedicated to the discussion and review of ideas for Guild Wars 2, found here: GW2 Suggestions Thread. If you would like to discuss changes to the current game mechanics and how those changes should be implemented in Guild Wars 2, please do so in that sticky thread. Thank you!