Did you have leveling issues in the BWE?

I found a great editorial about GW2 leveling during the BWE. Link to Video: Leveling Too Slow? - Enigmius Talks Guild Wars 2 (beta)

I began poking around Enigmius channel after Themau posted a really great crafting video series located here: GW2 a Very Very great Guide bout Crafting. 

I have to say, I was disappointed in how slowly my character was leveling during the BWE. However, after watching the video I have to admit the following:

• I did not fully explore my races main city as well as Lion Arch. I did notice there was a lot of experience to be gained in exploration, I was just too busy wanting to see what was over the next hill or river out in the map.
• I did not complete any of my personal story. Not because I'm not interested, but rather I did not want to have any spoilers. I plan on completing all of my personal story lines for all characters.
• I did no gathering as I had no plans on crafting during the BWE. I will however assign 2 crafting professions to each of my characters.
• I did no crafting during the BWE as I wanted to spend time getting to know the professions to determine what would be my main toons when the game was released.

hahhah nice i was tihnking of posting it but was too lazy doing it this time good job anyway ^^ that enigmius guy has some nice vids doesnt he ;)

While I do agree with him in most ways, I actually think low level renown hearts could be better designed to ease you into the dynamic events leveling concept. I am not sure exactly *how*, but that's my feeling... overall I don't think leveling speed is bad at all right now, I think it is maybe a little bit slow but perhaps that isn't a bad thing.

Being going from level 1 to 2 is the same length as from 79 to 80 I don't think its bad at all. They're still fine tuning things at i suspect it will be smoothed out by BW3. Just at our two WvWvW events I went from 1 to 6 and from 6 to 11. If I can go from 1-11 in 6 hours of events then it's looking like 40 hours to get to rank 80. That's a wee too quick if you ask me. I would rather that a long road and enjoy the scenery that be able to blow through the content without even noticing the stuff around me.

hmm, I had forgotten that there wasn't the same kind of leveling curve in this game as in others. I was overall very happy with the amount of exp I got out of WvWvW. I think perhaps it was more that I have spent so much time in WoW-style MMOs that it was a bit different when I wasn't getting handheld everywhere. Perhaps the reason it felt slower was that I wasn't really 'grinding quests' like I feel like I end up doing in other MMOs, but exploring a world. I actually liked it, though... exploring was very fun.

» Edited on: 2012-06-24 16:20:04

WvWvW is a bit trickier than most places for levelling. Given how dependant it is on the participation of live players, it seems a really tough prospect to balance out accumulating XP with any consistency. I found a good 4hr span where I barely levelled at all, because my side wasn't really accomplishing anything (other than some awesome running skirmishes). Then the Gaiscioch event got going and I suddenly had 3-4 more levels to my name within but a few more hours, due to being able to capture multiple objectives. PvE, I had no issues with levelling (quite the opposite), but then I was attempting everything - crafting, questing, exploring (not just my own home map but also the other two available starter areas), personal story questing, participating in every world event I happened to stumble across. About the only thing I didn't try out was gathering, and that was only because I couldn't figure out where to buy the gathering tools.

I did a combo of everything but crafting. I found no issues with leveling and not much issue with having enough money when I needed it. I only went into WvWvW when I could group with other family members doing it and I felt able to keep up with it. Overall, thinking leveling and money were tweaked better this weekend than the first one.

For my play style, I think it will be perfect if it stays about the same. I got to level 8 in about 8 hours PvE only. So 80 hours for a max level character. That is going to be WAY fast for a lot of people. But I tend to get bored with leveling a character at about the 3-4 days played and switch to a new alt. If I can have a max character by about that time I think it would be good. I'll be able to then experience whatever PvE content I want. I'll still have alts...I always will, but I can easily see this being the first game I'll truly have multiple max level characters. Whether its too fast or too slow, it doesn't really matter since I'm thinking at least half my time is going to be spent Wv3. I 'probably' wont do too much structrured PvP...especially since there are talks about ANet kinda hoping it turns into an eSport. That usually means there will be a lot of elitism involved. And that's not for me.

Honestly, I feel like I was leveling too fast last beta... I was consistently about 5 or so levels above the content I was facing and was outleveing zones too early. I think the difference was that I explored all the areas, was crafting, was gathering and did renowned hearts for multiple newbie areas. I am kind of a completionist when it comes to games like this. The next beta weekend, I am going to focus on figuring out where the crafting nodes are an what timer they are on. I am going to try to keep my leveling in tandem with my crafting skills so I can make my own gear. Since crafting involves a bunch of grinding monsters for activation components, that means that I am probably going to have to cut back on exploring and renowned hearts some.

This is the cool thing though - you get sidekicked down to the appropriate level so even at 80 you'll be able to go into starting areas to help people. Of course, you will have the chance of feeling more uber only due to having all your skills open and better armor. ::chuckles:: I know L20 in L3 area felt a bit too easy, but it was still fun checking things out and even being able to help out friends and others without being a one shot monstrosity like happened in Rift before mentoring. As for the leveling, I'm like Jerich in that I do a variety of things and like to complete things let alone see every nook and cranny of a game. To give this a test, I spent about 5 hours or a tad more messing with a Charr Ranger on Sunday of the last BWE. I did not craft on her and just progressed through the game. I was heading to content a level ahead of time, but I think from hard playing in two BWEs helped since I had a grasp on game mechanics by the time I made her. The game is one of the easiest to play for the old fashioned keyboard and mouse players. =)