Curse

Szechwan Chi Qin · May 03, 2005, 12:22 AM // 00:22

I'm a big PvE MMORPG player, and I purchased this game on Thursday, with the game's claim of removing "grinding and leveling" as one of my main purchasing decisions. After playing the game a bit (I am now at Nolani Academy) and after reading on the boards, I think I'm beginning to understand the whole level cap concept (it is a bit hard for us MMORPGers to move beyond the whole "leveling thing"

), so please let me know if I am on the right track:

1) When I reach Lion's Arch (this is the place to be from what I've read?) or when I reach level 20, will I still be able to go back to Pockmark Flats (a place I missed while doing missions) with the same amount of challenge as when I was level 10?

2) If Arena.Net is stating levels are pretty much meaningless, why do they implement levels in GW the first place? It seems a bit confusing; "We don't have the grind and leveling of MMORPGs, but we still have 20 levels for you to get through before you really see what the game is all about!"

3) When Arena.Net folks are stating that GW is "based more on the skills than the time played", what do they specifically mean by skills? Skills as in a player's skill to efficiently use the interface? Skills as a player to coordinate with others? Skills as in the choice of class skills I use to fill the eight slots? All of the above?

4) Instead of asking "Will Arena.Net raise the level cap in the expansions", should I really be asking "Will Arena.Net release new skills, and will they increase the skill slots from 8 to 12 in the next expansion?" As previously mentioned here, If I think along the terms of MtG, Can I envision having new skills (cards) to customize my skill slots (deck)?

Loviatar · May 03, 2005, 02:51 AM // 02:51

you can go anywhere anytime

on the level thing here it is from them and i am a complete PVE player with zero PVP

from GW

there are 25 missions (non pvp) to start
there are 60-70 explorable areas (non pvp, not small) to start with additional content to be added by streaming in

Guild Wars, in contrast, is based around your skill as a player. Our maximum level is twenty and you hit that very quickly, after about 20-30 hours of play. ,We call that 'The Point of Ascension'. Almost all of the content in the game and in the future Chapters is only available to Ascended characters, which means we don't have to worry about providing different levels of content. All the good stuff will be available to everyone. It's not our intent to force people onto the levelling up treadmill, so the level cap in Guild Wars is almost meaningless.

edit for bold

Lunachanter · May 03, 2005, 02:51 AM // 02:51

Dark age of Camelot...my bad :8

waldemar · May 03, 2005, 03:19 PM // 15:19

[Szechwan Chi Qin]I'm a big PvE MMORPG player, and I purchased this game on Thursday, with the game's claim of removing "grinding and leveling" as one of my main purchasing decisions. After playing the game a bit (I am now at Nolani Academy) and after reading on the boards, I think I'm beginning to understand the whole level cap concept (it is a bit hard for us MMORPGers to move beyond the whole "leveling thing"

), so please let me know if I am on the right track:

1) When I reach Lion's Arch (this is the place to be from what I've read?) or when I reach level 20, will I still be able to go back to Pockmark Flats (a place I missed while doing missions) with the same amount of challenge as when I was level 10?

2) If Arena.Net is stating levels are pretty much meaningless, why do they implement levels in GW the first place? It seems a bit confusing; "We don't have the grind and leveling of MMORPGs, but we still have 20 levels for you to get through before you really see what the game is all about!"

The levels were put in place in order to avoid completely alienating hardcore MMORPGrs. You should think about the 20 levels as 20 steps of coming out of noobiness. It like a tutorial for the game. Once you hit lvl 20 that's when real life begins.

3) When Arena.Net folks are stating that GW is "based more on the skills than the time played", what do they specifically mean by skills? Skills as in a player's skill to efficiently use the interface? Skills as a player to coordinate with others? Skills as in the choice of class skills I use to fill the eight slots? All of the above?

Skills in GW means learning various strategies and counter strategies in order to defeat various types of foes. Ex. poison might be GREAT for killing a humanoid but it won't do jack against undead b/c they're immune to poisons. This is just one example, there are countless more. Basically you need to learn how to strategically fight various foes and what skills to bring into each fight.

4) Instead of asking "Will Arena.Net raise the level cap in the expansions", should I really be asking "Will Arena.Net release new skills, and will they increase the skill slots from 8 to 12 in the next expansion?" As previously mentioned here, If I think along the terms of MtG, Can I envision having new skills (cards) to customize my skill slots (deck)?

Yes that is one of the things they might do. Basically expansions will introduce new foes for which you will require knowledge of different strategies than you were using before. For example it was very popular to use a "healing ball" strategy in the beta where a team would all use AoE healing spells and would be very difficult to defeat. But this was countered by properly using damaging AoEs which countered the benefits. There are many other examples of strategy available.

Hope this helps.

-waldemar

General Grievous · May 04, 2005, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Gese guys come one everyone knows that level 20 isnt the end its just the begining thanx for the chance to proove everyone wrong

Xenobia · May 04, 2005, 10:00 PM // 22:00

One thing I hated about Everquest was the constant level grind. No sooner would I finish hitting the max level than a new expansion would come out with five to ten more levels. My friends always rushed to hit these new levels, so I felt compelled to as well, otherwise I might fall behind (it's amazing how much a couple of levels difference can make post 60 in EQ). Add the frustration of new Alternate Advancements constantly flooding in and you've got an endgame that consists of nothing but exp grinding.

I think it's a good thing that they've got a set level and plan to stick with it. I was a little surprised to learn that it was only level 20, but I haven't played the game enough to see for myself yet how much there is to do after you've reached that level cap. It sounds like hitting maximum level doesn't automatically mean character retirement, so that's a good thing.

Kalnaur · May 05, 2005, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Ok, so give it to me straight:

Is this game only geared towards PvP?

Is this game the RP equivalent to an FPS?

OR

Does this game have continued growth for a character wishing to never touch the PvP aspect of the game. Will I get new armor/weapons/spells/abilities/Health/Mana? Does my character evolve at all? OR is the point of this game to play the RP so you can go kill other players. (Because killing other players is boring, in my opinion.)

Edit: is this the correct representation of the reason for a level cap as I have looked at it?

Some people like soloing, but it does not seem that this game supports that way of thinking because all players are equal in level once they reach the cap, and so soloing seems a poor idea. This is because as close to "perfect" as a character can get, they still have weaknesses that cannot be fixed by adding more skills or more levels. All players seem, as far as my (extensive) research has shown, to be an incomplete build, unable to function well without others to support them.

One can only hope that the horrors of past MMOs, where parties were worse off to be in on account of the players does not happen here.

Nainara · May 05, 2005, 07:09 AM // 07:09

What possibilities does guild wars offer for character growth in the later stages of the game? Just equipment?

While I can appreciate that the focus of the game is shifted away from hours of bopping enemies, it seems that a game loses much of its appeal if there's no possibility to strengthen your character after the initial 40 or so hours of gameplay. In that case you may as well go grab a copy of Nox out of the discount bin at your local walmart; a pvp game where everyone's got an identical character with a customizable set of skills drawn from a large pool.

thejynxed · May 05, 2005, 02:18 PM // 14:18

I plan on getting every chapter, this game is the best MMO ever. It has a great balance between level grinding, pvp, pve, questing and crafting, the only thing lacking at the moment is significant roleplaying, which is all on the players to do atm. I've already had a few RP sessions with other players and it's been great. The only real things I could ask for are a rebalance of cost vs results when harvesting crafting materials (400 for an expert kit and only getting 1 fur square out of 50 odd char hides is rediculous) and a map % explored stat.

Zfactor · May 05, 2005, 05:35 PM // 17:35

I read some posts on the first page and pretty much it all made me sick. First of all, whoever it was that said something like "if you feel accomplished by leveling to 500034045 you are an idiot go play everquest" is a real asshole--Grow up. Some people enjoy playing the games and having a goal of leveling to 99 no matter how long it takes them. Just because you do not enjoy it doesn't mean you have to be an asshole to everybody else who does.

The great thing about this game is that you do not have to level up by going out and killing things over and over and over again until you are sick of it. Most of the XP comes by way of the quests, which EVERYBODY can do. Get yourself a group and go on out questing, you level up really fast. That is REALLY how they make it so time played does not make you a god in the game. Getting to level 20 is very easy, and doing so is made much more enjoyable simply because it involves the quests and missions. Keeping the cap at 20 forever is just going to be lame. It would be far better to raise it and then put more quests that give you good XP and make the monsters in the areas much more challenging so that you can level up while enjoying the game. Keeping the fact that you get ZERO XP from way low level monsters when you are high level, and making the drops in these low level zones not as good gives a perfect balance. As a result there is no real benefit for somebody to go back and just slaughter hoards of monsters.

If you want to PvP then make a PvP only character, or (here is a thought) don't challenge guilds with higher level charactes. Putting the level cap at 20 and then NEVER raising it is poor for the PvE experience, since half the fun of the quests is the XP. Quite frankly, now that I am at level 20, the value of doing quests that do not give me anything I need (like items or skills) has lowered significantly. Its not even that bad now, but if it is always going to be 20 I do not forsee much fun for me in the future.

Loviatar · May 05, 2005, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zfactor

Keeping the cap at 20 forever is just going to be lame. It would be far better to raise it and then put more quests that give you good XP and make the monsters in the areas much more challenging so that you can level up while enjoying the game.

it seems a few people still seem to think that a continued level grind is needed for it to be a challenge

they can keep it level 20 forever and make it just as much of a challenge as they want it to be.

this way they only have to produce level 20 content which gives them time to make more of it and better.

go back and look at the games that raised the level with expansions and soon most of the people migrated to the higher level content while just passing through the lower level stuff they used to think was so nice to explore

if you gave the complainers just the few more levels how long would it be before they said *everybody is the same level as i am..give me some more levels so i can be special again*

venus_dark · May 05, 2005, 05:55 PM // 17:55

If GW had created a game with infinite levels, would that make you happy? Bottom line...no one can make you happy but you. So please, go play Everquest 2. I guarantee they will add an additional 20 levels per expansion for your level grinding pleasure...or maybe just 10 per so they can make more money off you. This game is awesome, but not everyone is going to think that. Those that don't need to find another game and leave the rest of us in peace. Level 20 cap? *cheer*!

Star Dragon · May 05, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Just a suggestion as GW has no official forums, GW staff and other Devs could indicate who they are in their sigs or title under name. (to weed out those actually in the Know from those who just conjecture)

I heard about GW late (a few days ago) and just bought it. I played two days (not counting the 2-3 hours I hope to get in today). Just some things I noticed...

I enjoy the level grind so far (although it's a little boring running the same quests for all 4 characters simultaneously (they are between levels 6-8 all duel professioned). The starting merchants have absolutely nothing of interest aside from ID kits and salvage kits. On the plus side I absolutely adore the noob, camper, PK free world enviroment that is a big plus for why I bought the game. (can't seem to get rid of the party window in cities though... I hate when my screen is cluttered with interfaces I dont need,

I'm a little concerned about the "cap" as I am used to that kind of character growth (but I am a hard core Role Player first before mere game mechanics as I have been playing RPG's for over 24 years and online ones for the last 10) So I am willing to wait and see what happens later. If I dont like the game play beyond `(or rather at) 20th then I won't get the expansions no matter what the "toys" are.

I absolutely positively HATE pvp and PK's/trainers and only got involved in those situations to bring justice to the evil perpitrators.

99% of the time I like to solo and disliked the two missions, so far, where I had to get another player to help (when it was stated we could hire a henchman to help instead of waiting around for another player)...

As for the expansions... In anticipation of them I already built 2 of my existing characters as elves and secured thier names and how I will recreate their professions when the expansion is released (delete original and then remake it immediately after).

If you see a member of the Atherian Trading Company Guild (my home Campaign) feel free to hail these planeswalkers as they are always willing to assist other newcommers or even veterans of Ascalon.

One last thing as someone already mentioned before me. People like me have played these games a LONG TIME as a result we usually have tolerance and understanding of people's views that are new or different from our own. Instead of tearing others down (who you have no knowledge of online or offline exccept for these threads) why take the chance to educate and convert. Once someone starts throwing names around or offhandedly decides the other person's view is irrelevant I tend to ignore peopel like that as you can never have a real debate or discussion. It turns into mindless arguments.

Looking forward to role playing with you all in the world (as I have many stories to tell of my misplaced travlers)

Star Dragon - Human Paladin (War/monk)
Priest tarden - Sylvan Elf Nature Priest (Ranger(for bow)/Monk)
Mourn DeVir - Drow Warrior Mage (War/Elementalist)
William D'amberville - Necromancer (Necro/Elementalist)

Still figuring out how profession affects armor look/wearing ability for best results later on... Woud like all the character physical look options to be unlocked in the future.

I have about 60 characters on paper still of many races and would suggest the ability to have 4 more slots opened per expansion (or even just 2).

Future characters to create:

Tristan Sunstar - Grey Elven War Wizard (Elementalist/War)
Ratari Malsombra- Half Orc Thief/Fighter (I know no thieves are enabled yet)
Phoebus - Grey Elven archer/mage (Ranger/Elementalist)
EON - Lizardman Warrior and Cleric (War/Monk) Yes you dont have reptiles ...yet!

Loviatar · May 05, 2005, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Dragon

Just a suggestion as GW has no official forums, GW staff and other Devs could indicate who they are in their sigs or title under name. (to weed out those actually in the Know from those who just conjecture)
!

the officials who regularly visit here have RED titles and are clearly marked at bottom of each post as to their position
so you recognize them they are

Gaile Gray
Alex Weekes

Kalnaur · May 05, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

it seems a few people still seem to think that a continued level grind is needed for it to be a challenge

they can keep it level 20 forever and make it just as much of a challenge as they want it to be.

Not everyone wants "challenge". Some people play RPGs for the rewards they are given, not for the challenge the game provides. What of them?

kain611 · May 06, 2005, 03:06 AM // 03:06

I would just like to say I love what I've played of Guild Wars so far.

What I would like to see in future expansions is not levels per say but lots and lots and lots more skills. I know this may end up being hard with the already insane amount of skills avialable but I would like to see more. Also more weapons and armor's need to be inserted in due time. Also the guy that mentioned different looks for the character models I agree 100%. My Necro/Warrior should look alot different form that Necro/Mesmer over there. Tattoos and stuff like that should be added as well. I also would like to see an area created where there could be 1vs.1 PvPing. So far the only classes I could think that should be added would be a rogue type class and maybe another style of a hybrid healer like a shaman or something. I know if you study your skills you can almost make this classes out of the existing 6 by the way you spec. But the designers could come up with something. Also I want them when they make expansions to make stuff for the whole gambit of the game. In other words make something in Pre-Searing that makes me want to start a new character and go through that again. Maybe make some hidden quests that if all quests avialable to your professions are completed you get like a special custom style armor or weapon. Just thoughts I've had. Well thanks for listening and reading and keep playing!

Ps. whisper any of my toons to join up with my Guild or to group up.

1. Doom Bladez lvl 10 Necro/Warrior
2. Kaiz Strife Lvl 5 Necro/Mesmer
3. Khaiz Noret lvl 8 Ranger/Elementalist
4. Hiigh Resser Lvl 2 Elementalist/?

Guild Leader of Dooms Ordinance

Zfactor · May 06, 2005, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

it seems a few people still seem to think that a continued level grind is needed for it to be a challenge

When did I ever say that... at all? I said that it is more enjoyable for some to have leveling up to look forward to. And its not a "leveling grind" when it so easy to level up with the quests. Stop making assumptions

Pendragon · May 07, 2005, 01:56 AM // 01:56

I would like to see the lvl cap raised to 30 next expansion. Just my opinion.

Kalnaur · May 07, 2005, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pendragon

I would like to see the lvl cap raised to 30 next expansion. Just my opinion.

Really? I would prefer, if the level cap were raised, that they raise it by 5s not 10s. I would still prefer they raise it somewhat though.

I also think it would be a novel idea to institute, upon higher level cap, a new addition to PvP, an "Average level" algorithim that would lower all PvP participant's levels to the average level of the two apposing teams combined in a PvP battle. Then that is kept "balanced" for all the PvP nuts, and RPers can continue to build their character ad nauseum.

Unless they are going to give RP gamers another reason to play this game that eludes me. . .

Barbarianofdiablo · May 07, 2005, 05:30 PM // 17:30

The game is great... why ruin it by putting a level cap... im lvl 12 ... and im sick to my stomach to think that in 8 lvls im going to be done...if they dont raise the lvl cap... the game will get very boring... very quickly...im sorry but its true... they say it will make it unfair for PVP... then just DO WHAT YOUR DOING KEEP GETTING NEW STAT POINT AND NOT RAISE THE HEALTH ...continue leveling without raising the health... to prove that you have worked for the level 30,40,50 character etc. thanx alot and the lvl cap is the only thing wrong with the game... because i am used to diablo2... and the level cap disappoints me... sorry