Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by 1carcarah1

Those same kind of people who was asking about rushing to lvl80 were also following hearts, grinding mobs, going for personal story cause there werent enough hearts to level, and then when BWE ended, they got angry cause the game didnt delivered what ANet promised. 

"GW2 leveling is nothing especial. There are hearts instead exclamation points and lots of grind." As lot of them said.

People who..... oh you mean dumbasses.

I LOL'd.  :)

Originally posted by 1carcarah1

Those same kind of people who was asking about rushing to lvl80 were also following hearts, grinding mobs, going for personal story cause there werent enough hearts to level, and then when BWE ended, they got angry cause the game didnt delivered what ANet promised. 

"GW2 leveling is nothing especial. There are hearts instead exclamation points and lots of grind." As lot of them said.

Yeah ANet finally decided to reel in more market share by adding map markers. That pissed me off. They said it's just to get players to find out more easily where to go, but in fact it destroys the game a little bit. Now I don't have to use map markers myself, but I don't like if others do and get this QQ going.

easiest to treat everything like level 1 is max level.

Hopefully people will start to realize that you are SUPPOSED to slow down and enjoy the journey of the game.  Here is a great thread (with a video link) that talks about what you miss if you don't slow down with GW2:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/349936/page/1

The video really opened my eyes to what GW2 truly has to offer to those willing to slow down and actually play the game, not rush to the end hoping for something special.  The something special is right there from the beginning.

Originally posted by 1carcarah1

Those same kind of people who was asking about rushing to lvl80 were also following hearts, grinding mobs, going for personal story cause there werent enough hearts to level, and then when BWE ended, they got angry cause the game didnt delivered what ANet promised. 

"GW2 leveling is nothing especial. There are hearts instead exclamation points and lots of grind." As lot of them said.

 you can take grind out of game, but you can't take the grinding out of a gamer!

Originally posted by lilHeala

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I disagree with the OP. WvW is much more fun as a max level character with all skills and full action bar unlocked

Er you know that skills aren't unlocked in WvW right? I was stuck with only the fire spells I unlocked on my Ele and WvW'd quite a lot. Yes you're scaled in level but not in gear, skills and traits. That's only done in sPvP and while inside the Heart of the Mist starter portal to PvP but not when in the actual WvW maps.

Thats why he was disaggreeing with the OP. He/She was stating why they would want the quickest path to 80 such that they have everything unlocked for the WvWvW. To them that is the game - for others the pve journey for many its a combo of both.

As far as xp gain goes, the most efficient way to gain it was  personal story (in BWE , at least) Why  youd want to rush to 80 is something that eludes me too. Gameplay is not going to change significantly after you hit level 30 and unlock your elite skill. You may get a wider selection of skills and traits to choose from, but thats about all.

So this game requires a specific mindset too? Does that come with the ce or ddl version?

Only cynical, jaded mmo'ers don't realise every mmo is enriched while actually playing the game they buy how is this any different to any other mmo.

Im gonna hook on caffeine IV, powerlevel myself 24/7 (while skipping 70% of content) till I get to 80 and then spend rest of a month whining about how the end game sucks!

I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."  

Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players.  I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas.  Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness.   It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas.  If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking.  That is an issue.  

I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today.  Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light.  In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.

If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.

Originally posted by SuperXero89

I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."  

Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players.  I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas.  Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness.   It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas.  If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking.  That is an issue.  

I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today.  Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light.  In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.

If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.

I think that truer words have never been said in this forum...

I think there's a pretty easy way to solve the issues with people misunderstanding the way combat and content in general works in GW2.

They need to add a "new player" channel which is zone-wide or game-wide, and can be toggled on and off. They should also add zone-wide channels for every zone which can be toggled on and off.

This would allow the community to help out. New players could ask questions and express their concerns, and players who understand the game a bit better could point them in the right direction and help them understand the differences between this game and previous MMORPGs. A great side-benefit is that each time a new player is helped, it creates another positive impression of the game and community, and draws players in to the mindset of "we're all in this together".

Another aspect of MMORPGs that's been deeply ingrained into players is that it's totally solo... everything you need to know should be explained by a tutorial, or totally intuitive within the UI, because players should never have to talk or ask questions or get help from the in-game community. I'm all for having a good tutorial, but I think this game is a golden opportunity to refocus players on being part of a server community and contributing in a positive way.

Anyway, I just think it would help those players the OP is talking about a great deal to have a channel where they could ask questions and get things explained to them immediately, rather than waiting and complaining two days later on the message boards that there wasn't enough content.

"I did all the hearts in this zone, and I'm nowhere near high enough level for the next zone. What am I supposed to do?"

"Go exploring, and follow dynamic events as they unfold. Head over to XYZ right now, there's an event going on that will get you started!"

"Crap! This combat is WAY to hard! I keep dying."

"Try moving a bit more and using dodge and your abilities at the right moments, you'll get much better results. Start with a ranged weapon, you'll have more time to react."

Positive interactions like that create friendships, longevity for the game, and grow the community in a worthwhile way. And, they would put a stop to most of the people complaining about things they don't understand. ;)

I just wrote a blog entry about pretty much this same topic, it's really interesting what they've done with core approach to the MMORPG concept. Most of the basic mechanics are same or little bit polished, but this approach and mentality is something truly innovative. As we've seen already it can be quite hard to understand why GW2 actually is innovative if you observe it as any standard MMO. My firm opinion is that ArenaNet is on the right path but they need to make people more aware of how the game flows rather than expect people to adjust to that. Lots of people coming from classical MMORPG's will find themselves underwhelmed if they approach the game like any other MMO.

Originally posted by Ganathar

Originally posted by SuperXero89

I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today.  Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light.  In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.

I think that truer words have never been said in this forum...

You are both missing the entire point of this thread. Not to mention you both seem rather clueless about this game as well.

How many MMOs do you know today that still reward exploration? Closest thing I can think of is a very weak example, and that would be SWTOR (in the form of holocrons / datacrons). Every other MMO tells you exactly where you need to go, and what you need to do.

GW2 isn't designed this way, and it's pretty obvious this is the case. Many players who are aware that they are used to the linear quest mindset have even admitted that they are completely lost in GW2, because they aren't used to having to figure out what to do on their own.

The main reason why this mindset is a detriment to GW2 specifically, is because GW2 is designed around exploration, discovery, and having to think for yourself. Most MMOs just aren't. There's an extreme amount of handholding that most games do, and GW2 is one of the few games that is trying to keep that to a minimum. It goes beyond burning through content to reach max lvl. The game has lots of hidden benefits all around the world. It would be like if you powered to max lvl in another MMO, only to realize that some of the coolest weapons & armor you had skipped, because you assumed they would all be in the max lvl dungeon. Not many games really do that. Especially not MMOs.

People who powerlvl in GW2 will not only be skipping a lot of content, they will be ignoring a lot of the progression the game offers in favor of the most shallow option. Lvling in GW2 really takes a side role to all the other forms of customization in the game. Skill challenges, gear, sigils / runes, having hte proper weapon sets. It's really amazing just how often this still needs to be spelled out for people.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I disagree with the OP. WvW is much more fun as a max level character with all skills and full action bar unlocked

I disagree that you had anything to disagree about.

---

Originally posted by pharazonic
I noticed something during the BWE - in chat, or on the forums, some people asked or said things along the lines of, "What's the fastest way to 80?" 
 
Now you're entitled to whichever playstyle you find the most fun, and if for you, that's hitting max level very fast, then so be it. That said, if you treat the sub-80 PvE in this game as a chore, fluff to blow through, or some silly sideshow that preceeds the true content, you're most certianly doing it wrong. 
 
From all the people I have spoken too, and from my experience as well,  found that simply doing stuff was a better experience than focusing on the Hearts progress bar or running from waypoint to waypoint judging from the map.
 
Perhaps most importantly, there are all sorts of events, NPCs and surprises in the game taht don't have a counter, or marker. So if you tunnel vision on the event counter, for example,  you're bound to miss most of what this game has to offer. 
 
 

---

Im realy not bother with this you will prolly have many players that come from other games and have this mindset, but bought GW2 and not even investigate how game works before buying it. Then come ingame and start complaining becouse its not what they thought it would be or not play like WoW for example.

So i realy don't bother with those who can't adept/adjust to this new kind of gameplay.

I come from sandbox called Darkfall but you won't hear me asking silly questions or saying it ain't what it thought it would be. Ive read or looked alot of videos before i desided to jump on the GW2 WAGON so im not gonne complain or whine becouse game is so much different from what im used to.

If people asking in a normal friendly way how things work ill help if they start screaming or whine i IGNORE:P

Originally posted by Fozzik

I think there's a pretty easy way to solve the issues with people misunderstanding the way combat and content in general works in GW2.

They need to add a "new player" channel which is zone-wide or game-wide, and can be toggled on and off. They should also add zone-wide channels for every zone which can be toggled on and off.

This would allow the community to help out. New players could ask questions and express their concerns, and players who understand the game a bit better could point them in the right direction and help them understand the differences between this game and previous MMORPGs. A great side-benefit is that each time a new player is helped, it creates another positive impression of the game and community, and draws players in to the mindset of "we're all in this together".

Not a bad idea.

To be honest though, the problem is not a lack of help from the community. Even in some of the videos posted about people livestreaming this game as if it were WoW2.0, you can hear people repeatedly telling them what they need to do. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, and that's the problem. In one of the videos the guy is basically whinning for 10-15mins straight about how he can't tame any pets! and you can hear a guy telling him repeatedly 'you can only tame green, juvenile animals, there's some here, and here'. It's really quite annoying.

What I think the game needs is a basic tutorial event. IE a combat training event, with maybe certain segments pertaining to each of the class-specific mechanics.

It's kind of a tricky balance, because this game is good due to how challenging it can be. You don't want to make it too noob friendly, or people will never bother to learn the game, and instead it will just bring down the game as a whole (a lot of games make this mistake). They basically need to find a good starting guide that will lead people down the right path, without removing the need for players to actually think about what they are doing. This game really revolves around players thinking for themselves, unlike most MMOs.

Good luck to those who have the patience to help players who refuse adept/adjust or learn anything no matter how much you help them, believe many will enter game with irritating attitudes like that.

If people are friendly and i see there willing to learn and not demand help ill help but those who just whine and scream and to dumb to learn anything before buying i won't help hehe.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with the drastically reduced hand-holding and the focus on meaningful rewards for exploration. Allowing the bulk of the content to unfold naturally as a player discovers it on their own is almost like the ideal that these games have always been striving for...they've just been doing it in very artificial, contrived ways by setting up a linear path that is supposed to LOOK like the game unfolding as you explore.

Adding tutorials is fine, but I REALLY hope they don't dumb the game down and start hand-holding...it will ruin one of the biggest selling points of this game.

Originally posted by lilHeala

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I disagree with the OP. WvW is much more fun as a max level character with all skills and full action bar unlocked

Er you know that skills aren't unlocked in WvW right? I was stuck with only the fire spells I unlocked on my Ele and WvW'd quite a lot. Yes you're scaled in level but not in gear, skills and traits. That's only done in sPvP and while inside the Heart of the Mist starter portal to PvP but not when in the actual WvW maps.

There appear to be some odd understandings about World vs World that need to be cleared up.

Structured PvP

This is the instanced/arena form of PvP in GW2. Similar to WoW battlegrounds, but with private match servers, casual matches, casual tournaments, formal tournaments that can be a day, a month or a quarter long. Leader boards may even determine the most skilled and accomplished teams and players for a full year.

In SPVP, you play an idealized doppleganger of your character. It has no ties to the PvE or WvW game, everyone is made a true level 80, with all skills, slots and traits unlocked and free access to max stat gear.

It's skill based, rather than gear progression based.

World vs World (vs. World)

This is the two week long warfare that takes place in four massive  zones for each three server match up, with fortresses, towers, outposts, resource camps, resource caravans, PvE and PvP related Dynamic Events and objectives and so much more.

In WvW, Everyone is bolstered up to level 80, but they still retain their true level, which limits their access to skills, skill slots, traits and gear. You actually do level up while in WvW. Most of that XP comes from Dynamic Events, which along with events similar to those found in the PvE world, also include Events for attacking or defending various objectives in the WvW realm.

In the first Beta Weekend Event, the ability to earn additional skill points, beyond those awarded for leveling, was limited. The PvE world has over 250 skill point challanges through out, which characters can do to earn additional skill points. Arenanet are looking at a way to allow players to earn more skill points in WvW, but it's just not in yet.

So yes, you do progress your character in WvW, including loot, xp, crafting nodes and access to crafting stations, as well as weapon skill unlocking and leveling.

There was a mini-review by a couple who play together and it was mentioned that the Husband played WvW for three hours while the wife went back to do personal story and content in the PvE world. In their experience, they both earned about the same amount of XP over those three hours, but the xp in WvW came in less frequent, but larger chunks, almost entirely from Dynamic Events that were triggered by attacking or defending objectives.

Arenanet has said all along that their goal is for players to be able to level at the same pace in WvW as in PvE. However, all they can do is tune it so they average out about the same, since they can't control how individual players play the game and it's possible some will play in ways much more efficient for leveling than others.

(BTW, for weapon unlocks for the Elementalist, I think Water attunement opens up around level 3, but you still have to unlock the weapon skills for a given attunement the same way you unlock any weapon skills, by using them. So, once you unlock Water Attunement, you will only have the 1 slot skill unlocked for the water attunment for your weapons until you start getting kills with those weapons while in Water attunement, which will start to unlock the rest of the weapon skills.

Yes, it's a pain for Elementalist to unlock all their skills for all weapons and all attunments, but you do indeed unlock attunments and weapon skills via WvW).