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Guild Wars 2: Character Progression Information
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
To get the biggest news out of the way, Isaiah Cartwright has revealed that the Guild Wars 2 level cap is 80. That said, Cartwright spends a lot of time in this latest Guild Wars 2 blog talking about character progression and the leveling curve in most games as compared to that envisioned by the ArenaNet team.
Basically, the time between levels will remain a static and known entity. Compared to most games where the leveling curve increases dramatically between levels, in Guild Wars 2, it will not. According to Cartwright, this accommodates all player styles, whether casual or hardcore. If you’re a causal gamer who plays for a few hours here and there, why should you feel like it’s going to take you a decade to finish your character? If you’re a hardcore player, why shouldn’t you be able to blast through the game with skill and speed, trying to experience every last bit of content?, Cartwright opined.
ArenaNet is trying, Cartwright comments, to give players more to do than simply level. There are achievements, traits collection, dungeons to explore, crafting, skill collection, items and "much more". Players should not have to grind out the levels. Content is the driving force behind level progression, not the endless repetition of tasks. We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance. And because our world is ever-changing and dynamic, you can play our content again and again!
That pretty much sums up Cartwright's article and Guild Wars 2 devs continue to show a refreshingly new look at MMOs. Read the entire article on the ArenaNet blog.
Comments
This will be a relief.
Well it sounds good to me 80 levels with a static amount between levels. Either way GW bascially didnt make you worry about leveling and they game stayed fun in PvE.
Well, when you take out the subscription based model out of the equation, this makes sense. No single player games cares if you finish the game in a day or 3 months. You bought the box, end of sale.
Keeping the interest in the game so future expansions can be sold will be the key
oh dear, this doesnt sound good.
People like leveling, so knowing that level 1-2 is going to be just as long as 79-80 means that yet again, leveling in guildwars means nothing, its not going to feel like an acheivment.
people think that the problem with guildwars 1 was the instancing.. but actually what most MMO players didnt like was the leveling.
No doubt this will suit a lot of players, but those expecting Guildwars to be more 'MMOish' are going to be disapointed.
also, the only real way to acheive a 1-80 with no leveling curve is to make the content linear, as Guildwars 1 was. Again another flaw with guildwars.
I've not seen anything about GW2 yet which sparks my interest, and articles like this are fluff.. they arnt telling you the whole truth about their system, and when it comes out ppl will be disapointed.
Actually I intensly dislike level based gameplay...
GW mostly met my dislike, as the L20 cap was very quickly achieved, which then left me to focus on content exploration, skill aquisition and build development and testing.
I play Eve because there are only 'skill levels' ... my character is defined by the skills I have aquired, not some arbitrary 'xp level'.
I have played, EQ2, Wow, Conan, WH & Aion, and they were intensely level based.
Equipment restricted by Level
Content restricted by Level
Skills/abilities restricted by Level
Some people prefer and enjoy this 'playstyle' .. that is thier choice, I have tried it and it leaves me feeling restrained, restricted and limited in my options.
Actually, why should levelling feel like an achivement, i don't understand that line of thought. There are so many other ways they can reward the player, than "..grats you have gained another 1 billion exp you are now level 80.."
I'd rather the achievement being that i'm now level 80 and completed that very hard Quest/instance/event whatever.
Levelling is a way to keep track of how far along a given path you character is, not an achievement in and of itself... well except for heavy grind games :P
Its human nature, something you cant avoid. We love to be different or better or unique compared to our peers.
The ONLY way to be unique in guildwars 1 is to have the 'rare' skinned weapons or armor or pets. They arnt actually different, the armors arnt different (statistically) so thats the only thing you could do in GW1 to make yourself seem like your own character, and not some duplicate.
So, while leveling may not seem like an acheivment as such, it does set you apart from the crowd, its a measring stick if you like. Its why MMO's are popular, its called a Role Playing Game.. but wheres the attraction if the character your playing is no better or worse than anyone else?
This leveling system is more like Eve's leveling system.. its not something you need determination to do, its just a natural inevitability.
I will agree with you that people love to be different or set apart. But there need not be a level system to do this. You can have rare and very hard to get weapons and armors, a good paint/dye system for armors, the ability to fuse armor like in Aion where you can give an armor a different look, but keep stats.
A level system is indeed a measuring stick, but it doesn't need to be the primary driving force behind the player.
good news for altholics
now let´s see how that work with dynamic events and personal story.
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
great news i think. I like the linear lvl progression, and the anti grind idea involved
I disagree in two ways:
(1) ANet are just talking fluff here, that's very true, but the talk concerns reevaluating/reworking assumptions.
This is a lot more dependable talk than fluff/talk that is talking about all the little extras that they want to include in the game and tell ppl they are including so everyone with all their mulitude of pecadillos feel appeased by this sort of bs announcement. EG fix the roots not the branches it's as much as you can expect from any talk at the start of things.
EG So far: 1) Levels 2) Healers 3) Death 4) Combat have all had reevaluations. Is talking my language.
(2) : I don't care for levelling.
Analogy, back in the day, if I was playing a platform game, I'd want to play crafty sections that are well designed ("they thought of everything!") than chore through levels that are mind-numbingly difficult mechanics and require sheer number of attempts and one good/lucky/probability attempt and you move on to the next level. The origin of grind, maybe, for a high score reward?? I'm the player that wants to play each level and see how skillfully and how many different competing solutions per level I can come up with that all of them are fun, use gameplay flow and are the antithesis of brute force on the logic of the game mechanics to "clear" the level.
It is true also that what they are suggesting is very ambitious to pull off and therefore expectations need checking. But I'd prefer quality moments that can be redone with a twist than current levelling concepts: Feeding loads of candy at the start then retracting each "hit" further apart: A small carrot and large stick, imo!
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I swear that they're doing their utmost to insure that I won't play GW2, after absolutely loving the original. Static or not, leveling is leveling, and an annoyance.
Shame, really. Ah well, just one more thing to add to the pile of "forget this game" I've got going. I was so hoping for some actual GOOD news this time around, like perhaps retracting some of the things that have previously been announced.
High lvl caps are the most simplistic forms of achievement. Its just above hampsters running in a treadmill.
Its also something players often would like to skip on their second toon. Especially if the lvlcap will introduce restrictions on lower lvl. Thats when a high lvl cap turns out not to be fun and only be put in place to make ppl stay longer. While this works for subbased games, GW2's payment model doesnt need that, so I hope they will avoid the typical drawbacks of a high lvl cap.
actually most people don't like leveling, but they know they have to endure the nonsense of leveling in order to get to the fun part of MMOs.
as someone put on another forum i follow "leveling is the punishment players have to go through in order to access the fun of the game."
This is awesome news for GW2.
I will say this though, I had hoped that AN would take the next step from GW1 and get rid of levels. SWG had a great system for creating character advancement without levels pre-cu with skill ranks & trees. Unfortunately, no developers yet will take the risk in such a bold mechanic.
I guess I'm too old-fashioned from my Pen and Paper D&D days, where gaining a level was huge and exciting. In thiose days, the next level would take weeks or months. Leveling was pretty much the point back then, and it was exciting. This "rush to end" game is not my bag. That's why I quit WoW with a bunch of 80s. End-game was "work".
I think there are just camps of people want "end-game" right away, and then there are people that like to play RPGs with other people. It appears that GW2 is going for the instant-end-game crowd. Those, those are not my kind of people. So it stands to reason that GW2 is not going to be my kind of game. Crap. It was atop my list. I thought it was going to be the game I was looking for.
Guess I'll be hopping on the LotRO F2P when it comes along instead.
I so completely agree with this! The first time through, I have the desire to level up all the way to the top. It's all new and exciting. The second, third, fourth, ad nauseum, is dull as dirt. I could live without having to level up the slow, painful way that you have to in most games. That way becomes work.
I don't necessarily want end game content as much as I want something different to do than I did the first time 'round. Sure, you can start a new char of a different race in a different starting area but it boils down to the same quests and the same grind to the top. Blech.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IMO this is more good news on the GW2 front. I personally like gaining levels for the purpose of seeing my character advance not as a sign of an achievement. I like the feeling of gaining a level simply because it is receiving some positive feedback from the system. Leveling to me is generally just an indication of time played anyway, not of any real accomplishment. In the vast majority of games one can level to max level while wiping every single party you join and being a total fail as a player. This is why I don't put much stock in levels. Personally, I find achievement and accomplishment to come in the form of downing difficult pve content, which has its own rewards and visual cues to others outside of a level number, and whooping opponents behinds in pvp. In addition, leveling tends to be what everyone rushes and grinds through anyway, so why not take the focus off the numbers and put it back on the content.
Steam: Neph
I thought having great adventures and fun was the point? Oh dear, I've been doing P&P wrong all these years!
GW has never been about a "rush to end game" seeing as max level is easily achieved 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through their storylines, and I see no reason to assume that GW2 will be any different, regardless of the amount of levels. In the blog post itself it is stated that content will be the driving principle, not achieving other levels or getting to "end game".
Wasn't levelling in P&P about access to new weapons/spells/skills/abilities... that allowed more complex planning of various stories and more ambitious ideas generation??
I am not sure your example is the right one... compare levelling in MMO's to a platform game/old-skool scrolling-shooter levels is more appropriate. What do you favor as a gamesplayer: 1) Rock-hard levels and huge number and amount of time to achieve a highscore or 2) Quality design that shows imagination and gameplay flexibility to complete, pitched at a steady and even challenge with lots of features per level but fewer of them?
Anway for RP:
Personality is a mechanic that gives players a method to roleplay their characters. The game keeps track of three categories: ferocity, dignity, and charm. Players may get a chance to say something to an NPC that corresponds to a category, and based on the mix of responses, a character is allocated a personality. This may cause NPCs to react differently to characters and open further options during dialogue; for example, a barbaric character could punch an NPC in the face.
A character with lots of charm and ferocity has the personality of a scoundrel.[1]
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
so its 80 instead of 20...level never ment much in GW anyway and people seem like this game is going to a copy of GW1 but with levels...GUYS the game will be leagues different that 80 levels could work...
dynamic events keep leveling fresh.. quests will not have to be repeated and different races start in their different areas so the worst part about leveling (at least for me is just starting out) will be removed if you pick a different race. classes play so differently that not only will PvP be different but PvE will change as well.
longer time between level cap helps the lower level areas not get left in dust and new players may still see others in the long run (unlike GW now)
PvP can still be played at lower levels and they will be boosted. levels may end up meaning nothing and you may hit 80 in the middle your personal story.,.who knows.
i am very happy about this
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
From the article: "Overall, we expect our content to be the driving force behind how long it takes to do things in-game. Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content, but our world is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do." This is excellent.
If, and not to drive the point home too much, NCSoft doesn't force ArenaNet to push this game out too soon the above statements will really help to reinvigorate the MMORPG genre. I'm holding on to hope with this game and with all that I've been reading, with each and every content-rich announcement, it seems like Guild Wars 2 is going to be not just a damn fine game but the MMORPG. That last bit may be pushing a bit too much but, still, it's hard to not get so excited and hopeful when we're being fed detailed, progressive announcements rather than marketing ploys and propaganda. I really think we're going to be in for something special here.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Ironically, these things you cite as negatives, to me are positives. I was taken aback at first, by the fact that you could hit level 20 so quickly, but soon learned that capping level in GW is just part of your character's progression, and really, a minor one. It's the rich and detailed storyline that keeps you moving forward, not the carrot at the end of the levelling stick. And the "linear" storyline gives the impression that you actually are on a grand adventure, where the repercussions of your last quest can have a far-reaching influence on how the story unfolds. Besides, the greatest literary works ever penned, were completely and totally, "linear" in nature. But they are still engaging, thought-provoking and absorbing. This is not a flaw, in my opinion.
Plus, I like the instancing. Nothing ruins the ambience of an unfolding quest like tripping over the dozen whooping chimpanzees, running around you shrieking "pwnzurmamaz!11!!", as they rush forward to complete the same quest. Yeah, I'm quite happy keeping these ravening idiots the hell out of my story, tyvm.
Yeah, I have to agree with a few others in that though this might seem like a negative to some, it will seem like a positive to others.
Some people hate levels so already there is a win there. I seem to remember a lot of GW players praising the fact that the 20 levels were relatively painless.
People also liked the story parts of GW so linear content was a no issue.
I think that hardcore GW players might be dissapointed but those who liked the feeling and, er, "gestalt" of GW will probably like it.
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