Downscaling is one of the features that makes Guild Wars 2 a constant challenge, everywhere you go. You don't outlevel the content, and you won't miss any zone because it'ss lower level than you. If you are level 60 and go to lv 20 zone, mobs will often drop lv 60 gear! So In a way, zones level up with you! Ever thought about that?
My opinion is it sucks.. Everyone has a right to feel the way they feel but when i have a very hard time doing quest and go out to level up one more level just to go back to finish a hard quest to find out i am being down leveled that really pissed me off and that is why i have stopped playing for now.
Not that i hate the game because it is a nice game just not the type of game for me.
So what is everyone's opinion on the down leveling?
I love it so far and I think you are mistaken.
AS many have pointed out a level 5 and a level 80 downgraded to 5 are not the same. The level 80 has access to much more skills, traits and way better gear that will make him more powerful than the level 5. SLIGHTLY more powerful because your hit points and stats are squashed to level 5 (but you keep some part of your items bonuses + traits/skills).
So if you have issues with a storyline quest, you CAN gain a few levels, get a few trait points, maybe get a better quality item in one of your slots and you WILL have an easier time of it. But it will never trivialize content, also keep in mind starting areas are kept easy on purpose, so a high level returning to Queensdale will have a field day, yes. Higher level areas are harder and so having more levels will make it easier but not "walk in the park" easy.
It is truly a nice system, a shame you do not like it.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Originally posted by Aerowyn one of the games best features IMHO.. keeps all content relevant and any future content releveant.. say in 6 months they add a new level 30 dungeon well guess what my level 80 can go their and still have a challenge.. for me it's one of the best things about this game... oh also helping out my friends of lower level and not facerolling everything is nice as well..:)
I can say proudly that i helped the members of my guild and new players as well to level and get the basics of the game and i had sweat and died with them. And yea... got more than 5 levels with them.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2 Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
Originally posted by Zeus.CM Downscaling is one of the features that makes Guild Wars 2 a constant challenge, everywhere you go. You don't outlevel the content, and you won't miss any zone because it'ss lower level than you. If you are level 60 and go to lv 20 zone, mobs will often drop lv 60 gear! So In a way, zones level up with you! Ever thought about that?
I've noticed while in a downleveled zone, I still get that zones level gear, and only in the events that happened, do I get some gear level appropriate, still get that zone level gear too though.
I'm kind of mixed on the downleveling myself. I like it so that I can go to lower levels to help friends/family out when they need it, and they don't feel like I'm one shotting everything, taking away their fun.
I dislike the feature because you feel weak while downleveled. Some previous, posts above say that it's your gear if you're having problems when you go back to old content that was difficult before. I don't think thats always true. I know people that go to the level 30 dungeon in their 60s and 70s and clearly have the gear for it, complaining because the mobs have so many hit points and take so long to kill, end up spending what little they do make in the dungeon on repairs.
The loot is whacky too so far for me. I mean, I expect crap coin the first 1-30 levels or so, but you get into your 50's, 60's, etc. the coin should be much better for hearts and mob drops, but it isn't. At 60 I was getting a llittle more than 2 s for a heart and mobs still dropping coppers, ughhh.
Originally posted by Aerowyn one of the games best features IMHO.. keeps all content relevant and any future content releveant.. say in 6 months they add a new level 30 dungeon well guess what my level 80 can go their and still have a challenge.. for me it's one of the best things about this game... oh also helping out my friends of lower level and not facerolling everything is nice as well..:)
I can say proudly that i helped the members of my guild and new players as well to level and get the basics of the game and i had sweat and died with them. And yea... got more than 5 levels with them.
I went back to the starter area to help some friends, I am level 78, there was no way I was going to get 5 levels at all, unless I was maybe 5-10 levels above them, I barely got half a bar by doing two whole areas, I would need to run pretty much the game with them all the way up to 40-50 to get maybe 2 levels.
What level were you? And what levels were your friends? Unless you were lower level anyway I call shenanigans on this, you are not gonna level up on the starter areas at all once you get past level 70, you go back for mats ( if you are a cook since you can still use lower level mats effectively ), and to explore areas you havent been, and ofc to just help people for free which is fair enough I dont need to gain XP to help my friends, but it is hardly challenging, sure I can still die if I just stand there and take hits from a champion mobs or something, but I can pretty much 2 shot everything, and I can take many more hits than a person of the same level so I can always escape if I am in trouble, which hardly happens.
My pet alone dishes out an insane amount of damage.
Originally posted by Aerowyn one of the games best features IMHO.. keeps all content relevant and any future content releveant.. say in 6 months they add a new level 30 dungeon well guess what my level 80 can go their and still have a challenge.. for me it's one of the best things about this game... oh also helping out my friends of lower level and not facerolling everything is nice as well..:)
^^this^^ and also alot of funn when your playing with friends there is always a challenge instead of rushing trough content with a higher lvl by your side......the feature EVER.
It's a great feature, theres nothing worse in these type of games where a high level twink, comes into an area to spoil the show for those that are finding content challenging, only to have a high level one shot everything.
Originally posted by Aerowyn one of the games best features IMHO.. keeps all content relevant and any future content releveant.. say in 6 months they add a new level 30 dungeon well guess what my level 80 can go their and still have a challenge.. for me it's one of the best things about this game... oh also helping out my friends of lower level and not facerolling everything is nice as well..:)
I can say proudly that i helped the members of my guild and new players as well to level and get the basics of the game and i had sweat and died with them. And yea... got more than 5 levels with them.
I went back to the starter area to help some friends, I am level 78, there was no way I was going to get 5 levels at all, unless I was maybe 5-10 levels above them, I barely got half a bar by doing two whole areas, I would need to run pretty much the game with them all the way up to 40-50 to get maybe 2 levels.
What level were you? And what levels were your friends? Unless you were lower level anyway I call shenanigans on this, you are not gonna level up on the starter areas at all once you get past level 70, you go back for mats ( if you are a cook since you can still use lower level mats effectively ), and to explore areas you havent been, and ofc to just help people for free which is fair enough I dont need to gain XP to help my friends, but it is hardly challenging, sure I can still die if I just stand there and take hits from a champion mobs or something, but I can pretty much 2 shot everything, and I can take many more hits than a person of the same level so I can always escape if I am in trouble, which hardly happens.
My pet alone dishes out an insane amount of damage.
I was around level 34 and now i am 43 at the moment. Still it is not to say i didnt leveled on my current areas by myself.
Anyway, levels are irrelevant in this game (thanks god) anyway, so the most important thing is that i had bunch of fun and didnt facerolled anywhere. That is the "win" for me.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2 Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
My opinion is it sucks.. Everyone has a right to feel the way they feel but when i have a very hard time doing quest and go out to level up one more level just to go back to finish a hard quest to find out i am being down leveled that really pissed me off and that is why i have stopped playing for now.
Not that i hate the game because it is a nice game just not the type of game for me.
So what is everyone's opinion on the down leveling?
You will still be better, eventho you're downleveled.
You still have more skills at your disposal and still have spend more traits.
Your stats get adjusted with % based formula, so if you spend points in traits to increase for example your critical %, it will still be higher with downleveling, then the crit % you originally had at that level.
This is for every stat, including vitality. So if you have better gear and accessories, you will also have a higher HP pool.
Like others already said. I love the auto downlevel mechanism, as it also eleminates the griefing that often happens in other MMO's, where high level players just wipe out entire low level areas to grief new players.
Especially in Rift it was a huge pain in the butt, where level50's are constantly griefing in low level rifts, preventing low level players getting blue and purple rift tokens!
It does not down level your gears protection apparently. I'm a human and started in the Human area. I went to go catch up to the level I need to be for my main storyline and did the Asura starter area and everything was really easy. I'm a guardian and I felt like a brick wall facing everything over there. I was being down leveled and facing Veteran mobs solo. And it was almost effortless. Almost. So if you're looking for a 'completely' effortless experience, well then you're out of luck. Because it will still be a little bit of a challenge.
Originally posted by seniorfrito It does not down level your gears protection apparently. I'm a human and started in the Human area. I went to go catch up to the level I need to be for my main storyline and did the Asura starter area and everything was really easy. I'm a guardian and I felt like a brick wall facing everything over there. I was being down leveled and facing Veteran mobs solo. And it was almost effortless. Almost. So if you're looking for a 'completely' effortless experience, well then you're out of luck. Because it will still be a little bit of a challenge.
The same is true if you are actually looking for a challenge cause it isnt challenging at all. Its a gimmick, its good that you can actually still die if you get overrun or too cocky but anyone with half a working brain will just faceroll the lower level areas, I think the downlevel does work really well if you are doing multiple low level tiers at the lower levels, so if you are level 15 just finished a 1-15 area and decide to do all the others then it might be a challenge, if your level gap is not big enough ( you are ~10-20 levels above I would say ) it still might be a bit of a challenge, once you get to 80, the only challenging areas are 70+, the downlevel breaks down after 70+.
Even the 60-70 areas were pretty much faceroll, just pull as many passive mobs as I could and AOE them down for the bonus XP, since no one kills them. It was great for mats and decent XP farming.
On the one hand, it's hugely useful in that it doesn't outright kill off the lower level content. You can always go back to redo stuff, do stuff you skipped, or just help a friend. Plus, none of the dungeons fade into irrelevance. The gameworld becomes "bigger" in a sense - because, let's face it, most people don't go back to the lower level zones in standard MMORPGs.
The thing is, if that's what you're shooting for with your design, why have levels in the first place? Levels are all about progression and becoming "overpowered" for some stuff is a big part of that - that's how you weigh your newfound powers against the now-old-and-weak stuff. It gives a sense of scale to the power your character is gaining. Now, I like the Elder Scroll games but I've never enjoyed the level-scaling there, either.
That said, a game like GW2 would benefit more from a skill system like in TSW, in my opinion. That game has no levels and level-tiered zones (which makes no sense to me); GW2 on the other hand has level-scaling (granted, only down), but has both levels and, again, level-tiered zones. Blend the two together, get rid of the levels and tiered zones, and it would make much more sense.
On the other hand, I must admit, I just like the idea of levels. I like being both too weak and too powerful for stuff. Might sound odd, but I guess I outright dislike the idea of "perfect balance" in RPGs. Most memorable RPG encounters I've had (both CRPGs, MMOs, and PnP) have to do with either too powerful foes, or us being too powerful. Call me masochistic but I get a rush walking into an area and being one-shot by a mob, just like that, no questions asked, no chance given. It gives me some goal to work towards, some motivation, as I do /sYou have struck me down, but now I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!!1! - only to be treated to utter nonchalance.
I don't recall playing a MMO where mobs don't drop crafting materials. That includes the current FFXIV. Not sure about 2.0 though.
Also, is there no player boosting going on in any MMO you've played? Have you never experienced this before?
Read my last 2 post and you will see I addressed your concerns also. You did say something about ganking lowbies but Guild Wars 2 is not a pvp game. I am talking about how it should work in Guild Wars 2.
My opinion is it sucks.. Everyone has a right to feel the way they feel but when i have a very hard time doing quest and go out to level up one more level just to go back to finish a hard quest to find out i am being down leveled that really pissed me off and that is why i have stopped playing for now.
Not that i hate the game because it is a nice game just not the type of game for me.
So what is everyone's opinion on the down leveling?
I'm getting a strong feeling that this is an argument from ignorance. Not an isult, just a very poor reason to make the claims you did.
My opinion is it sucks.. Everyone has a right to feel the way they feel but when i have a very hard time doing quest and go out to level up one more level just to go back to finish a hard quest to find out i am being down leveled that really pissed me off and that is why i have stopped playing for now.
Not that i hate the game because it is a nice game just not the type of game for me.
So what is everyone's opinion on the down leveling?
Good Morning,
Hey I read some of your posts...I was going to ask, do you have anyone to level with. I would help if needed but I forgot what server I'm on lol. You seem to have a sensible attitude as is evidenced in y our replies. That I can respect. The personal story quests can get a bit hard at times and the leveling up doesn't really help much lol. As one person stated yeah better gear...honestly I don't buy even karma gear I just get what ever drops and use that. I hate buying gear only to give it up a couple levels later...and none of it matches.....ARRRRRRGGGGG!!!
It is one of the tools Anet uses to give players the illusion of a huge game world.
By always down leveling your character they make sure that you can play in all the zones while in other MMOs you will start a new Race to go through the leveling experience of there starter zone GW2 allows you to do it all on 1 character since lvls are completely pointless.
The game does not have more content for you could always go into low lvl zones in any MMo and do the quests there but it would be pointless to do so.
It also is a mechanic to ensure that there game works as intended if you would go into low lvl areas as lvl 80 you could change the outcome of all the DE by yourself so Anet does not have a choice in this matter they limited there options greatly with the choices they made so now ppl have to be downscaled or there game would break.
It does kill any serious attempt to play this game as an RPG for me it is just stupid but like i already pointed out i do understand why they use the mechanic.
Some mentioned the possibilities to do dungeons regardless of your level and i somewhat agree with that...HOWEVER they could just have a lvl cap for dungeons only and it would have the same result and i actually do not see much sense in doing lvl 30 dungeons if i am lvl 80 that is unless the drops in this game are pointless anyway (i guess cosmetic items could be the carrot on the stick to do low lvl dungeons for some tho)
best feature in the game in my opinion. A good freind of mine just bought it and I can go back and duo with him using my main toon w/o dominating the combat
Down leveling would have been awesome had I not played TSW before trying out GW2. Just getting rid of levels in the first place >>> artificial mechanics, especially in an area where you downleveled to 20 and say... all the mobs are 22. My character ended up with all of the skills I wanted at level 25, so I don't really see the point of even having levels in GW2 other than to just waste more time and to hide the relatively shallow experience. I was trying new stuff in TSW all the way up through the game, playing through the zones many times en route.
It is one of the tools Anet uses to give players the illusion of a huge game world.
By always down leveling your character they make sure that you can play in all the zones while in other MMOs you will start a new Race to go through the leveling experience of there starter zone GW2 allows you to do it all on 1 character since lvls are completely pointless.
The game does not have more content for you could always go into low lvl zones in any MMo and do the quests there but it would be pointless to do so.
It also is a mechanic to ensure that there game works as intended if you would go into low lvl areas as lvl 80 you could change the outcome of all the DE by yourself so Anet does not have a choice in this matter they limited there options greatly with the choices they made so now ppl have to be downscaled or there game would break.
It does kill any serious attempt to play this game as an RPG for me it is just stupid but like i already pointed out i do understand why they use the mechanic.
Some mentioned the possibilities to do dungeons regardless of your level and i somewhat agree with that...HOWEVER they could just have a lvl cap for dungeons only and it would have the same result and i actually do not see much sense in doing lvl 30 dungeons if i am lvl 80 that is unless the drops in this game are pointless anyway (i guess cosmetic items could be the carrot on the stick to do low lvl dungeons for some tho)
Have you actually played the game? It does have a huge amount of content. I have talked to lvl 80 players and many of them have only done or been 20-30% of all the content.
I guess you really don't understand the idea of downleveling. It is so you can play with lower level guildmates/players and NOT 'one shot' everything in sight. Basically, it is preventing powerleveling. It is also there to make the game a challenge, not make it a walk in the park.
Why don't you actually play the game before you have an opinion - you can then have an educated one.
My opinion is it sucks.. Everyone has a right to feel the way they feel but when i have a very hard time doing quest and go out to level up one more level just to go back to finish a hard quest to find out i am being down leveled that really pissed me off and that is why i have stopped playing for now.
Not that i hate the game because it is a nice game just not the type of game for me.
So what is everyone's opinion on the down leveling?
Do you have any people you play online with together?
If you did, you would not say what you said. When I played WoW a few months before Wrath was released, My brother and I decided we wanted new toons for the release, so we went and made ourselves new mains and focused on leveling them together. The fact that is was my brother and we had plenty of out of game communication and a commitment to eachother to stay together was the only reason we were able to succeed in this. Even then, it was alomst impossible. We did it, but I said I'd never do that again.
GW2 is not like that. I have a few guys I work with. We all play. But no one plays the same race and no one plays at the same times, we are all different levels now. But none of that matters. when we all sign on, we all team up and we go have a blast.
Comments
Love it. Keeps the game fresh. I wan't nice fights and good XP for exploring and doing the events in lower level zones.
Guild Wars 2 Youtube Croatian Maniacs
My Guild Wars titles
I love it so far and I think you are mistaken.
AS many have pointed out a level 5 and a level 80 downgraded to 5 are not the same. The level 80 has access to much more skills, traits and way better gear that will make him more powerful than the level 5. SLIGHTLY more powerful because your hit points and stats are squashed to level 5 (but you keep some part of your items bonuses + traits/skills).
So if you have issues with a storyline quest, you CAN gain a few levels, get a few trait points, maybe get a better quality item in one of your slots and you WILL have an easier time of it. But it will never trivialize content, also keep in mind starting areas are kept easy on purpose, so a high level returning to Queensdale will have a field day, yes. Higher level areas are harder and so having more levels will make it easier but not "walk in the park" easy.
It is truly a nice system, a shame you do not like it.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
I can say proudly that i helped the members of my guild and new players as well to level and get the basics of the game and i had sweat and died with them. And yea... got more than 5 levels with them.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
I've noticed while in a downleveled zone, I still get that zones level gear, and only in the events that happened, do I get some gear level appropriate, still get that zone level gear too though.
I'm kind of mixed on the downleveling myself. I like it so that I can go to lower levels to help friends/family out when they need it, and they don't feel like I'm one shotting everything, taking away their fun.
I dislike the feature because you feel weak while downleveled. Some previous, posts above say that it's your gear if you're having problems when you go back to old content that was difficult before. I don't think thats always true. I know people that go to the level 30 dungeon in their 60s and 70s and clearly have the gear for it, complaining because the mobs have so many hit points and take so long to kill, end up spending what little they do make in the dungeon on repairs.
The loot is whacky too so far for me. I mean, I expect crap coin the first 1-30 levels or so, but you get into your 50's, 60's, etc. the coin should be much better for hearts and mob drops, but it isn't. At 60 I was getting a llittle more than 2 s for a heart and mobs still dropping coppers, ughhh.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I went back to the starter area to help some friends, I am level 78, there was no way I was going to get 5 levels at all, unless I was maybe 5-10 levels above them, I barely got half a bar by doing two whole areas, I would need to run pretty much the game with them all the way up to 40-50 to get maybe 2 levels.
What level were you? And what levels were your friends? Unless you were lower level anyway I call shenanigans on this, you are not gonna level up on the starter areas at all once you get past level 70, you go back for mats ( if you are a cook since you can still use lower level mats effectively ), and to explore areas you havent been, and ofc to just help people for free which is fair enough I dont need to gain XP to help my friends, but it is hardly challenging, sure I can still die if I just stand there and take hits from a champion mobs or something, but I can pretty much 2 shot everything, and I can take many more hits than a person of the same level so I can always escape if I am in trouble, which hardly happens.
My pet alone dishes out an insane amount of damage.
^^this^^ and also alot of funn when your playing with friends there is always a challenge instead of rushing trough content with a higher lvl by your side......the feature EVER.
Try doing them with some buddies. I think the personal story cant be soloed at some spots.
It's a great feature, theres nothing worse in these type of games where a high level twink, comes into an area to spoil the show for those that are finding content challenging, only to have a high level one shot everything.
Equality for the win, well done ANET.
when quests get harder you need to kite more.....just my 2 coppers
I was around level 34 and now i am 43 at the moment. Still it is not to say i didnt leveled on my current areas by myself.
Anyway, levels are irrelevant in this game (thanks god) anyway, so the most important thing is that i had bunch of fun and didnt facerolled anywhere. That is the "win" for me.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
You will still be better, eventho you're downleveled.
You still have more skills at your disposal and still have spend more traits.
Your stats get adjusted with % based formula, so if you spend points in traits to increase for example your critical %, it will still be higher with downleveling, then the crit % you originally had at that level.
This is for every stat, including vitality. So if you have better gear and accessories, you will also have a higher HP pool.
Like others already said. I love the auto downlevel mechanism, as it also eleminates the griefing that often happens in other MMO's, where high level players just wipe out entire low level areas to grief new players.
Especially in Rift it was a huge pain in the butt, where level50's are constantly griefing in low level rifts, preventing low level players getting blue and purple rift tokens!
The same is true if you are actually looking for a challenge cause it isnt challenging at all. Its a gimmick, its good that you can actually still die if you get overrun or too cocky but anyone with half a working brain will just faceroll the lower level areas, I think the downlevel does work really well if you are doing multiple low level tiers at the lower levels, so if you are level 15 just finished a 1-15 area and decide to do all the others then it might be a challenge, if your level gap is not big enough ( you are ~10-20 levels above I would say ) it still might be a bit of a challenge, once you get to 80, the only challenging areas are 70+, the downlevel breaks down after 70+.
Even the 60-70 areas were pretty much faceroll, just pull as many passive mobs as I could and AOE them down for the bonus XP, since no one kills them. It was great for mats and decent XP farming.
A double-edged sword if there ever was one.
On the one hand, it's hugely useful in that it doesn't outright kill off the lower level content. You can always go back to redo stuff, do stuff you skipped, or just help a friend. Plus, none of the dungeons fade into irrelevance. The gameworld becomes "bigger" in a sense - because, let's face it, most people don't go back to the lower level zones in standard MMORPGs.
The thing is, if that's what you're shooting for with your design, why have levels in the first place? Levels are all about progression and becoming "overpowered" for some stuff is a big part of that - that's how you weigh your newfound powers against the now-old-and-weak stuff. It gives a sense of scale to the power your character is gaining. Now, I like the Elder Scroll games but I've never enjoyed the level-scaling there, either.
That said, a game like GW2 would benefit more from a skill system like in TSW, in my opinion. That game has no levels and level-tiered zones (which makes no sense to me); GW2 on the other hand has level-scaling (granted, only down), but has both levels and, again, level-tiered zones. Blend the two together, get rid of the levels and tiered zones, and it would make much more sense.
On the other hand, I must admit, I just like the idea of levels. I like being both too weak and too powerful for stuff. Might sound odd, but I guess I outright dislike the idea of "perfect balance" in RPGs. Most memorable RPG encounters I've had (both CRPGs, MMOs, and PnP) have to do with either too powerful foes, or us being too powerful. Call me masochistic but I get a rush walking into an area and being one-shot by a mob, just like that, no questions asked, no chance given.
It gives me some goal to work towards, some motivation, as I do /s You have struck me down, but now I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!!1! - only to be treated to utter nonchalance. 
Read my last 2 post and you will see I addressed your concerns also. You did say something about ganking lowbies but Guild Wars 2 is not a pvp game. I am talking about how it should work in Guild Wars 2.
I'm getting a strong feeling that this is an argument from ignorance. Not an isult, just a very poor reason to make the claims you did.
Good Morning,
Hey I read some of your posts...I was going to ask, do you have anyone to level with. I would help if needed but I forgot what server I'm on lol. You seem to have a sensible attitude as is evidenced in y our replies. That I can respect. The personal story quests can get a bit hard at times and the leveling up doesn't really help much lol. As one person stated yeah better gear...honestly I don't buy even karma gear I just get what ever drops and use that. I hate buying gear only to give it up a couple levels later...and none of it matches.....ARRRRRRGGGGG!!!
It is one of the tools Anet uses to give players the illusion of a huge game world.
By always down leveling your character they make sure that you can play in all the zones while in other MMOs you will start a new Race to go through the leveling experience of there starter zone GW2 allows you to do it all on 1 character since lvls are completely pointless.
The game does not have more content for you could always go into low lvl zones in any MMo and do the quests there but it would be pointless to do so.
It also is a mechanic to ensure that there game works as intended if you would go into low lvl areas as lvl 80 you could change the outcome of all the DE by yourself so Anet does not have a choice in this matter they limited there options greatly with the choices they made so now ppl have to be downscaled or there game would break.
It does kill any serious attempt to play this game as an RPG for me it is just stupid but like i already pointed out i do understand why they use the mechanic.
Some mentioned the possibilities to do dungeons regardless of your level and i somewhat agree with that...HOWEVER they could just have a lvl cap for dungeons only and it would have the same result and i actually do not see much sense in doing lvl 30 dungeons if i am lvl 80 that is unless the drops in this game are pointless anyway (i guess cosmetic items could be the carrot on the stick to do low lvl dungeons for some tho)
I miss DAoC
What lvl of story?
Have you actually played the game? It does have a huge amount of content. I have talked to lvl 80 players and many of them have only done or been 20-30% of all the content.
I guess you really don't understand the idea of downleveling. It is so you can play with lower level guildmates/players and NOT 'one shot' everything in sight. Basically, it is preventing powerleveling. It is also there to make the game a challenge, not make it a walk in the park.
Why don't you actually play the game before you have an opinion - you can then have an educated one.
Do you have any people you play online with together?
If you did, you would not say what you said. When I played WoW a few months before Wrath was released, My brother and I decided we wanted new toons for the release, so we went and made ourselves new mains and focused on leveling them together. The fact that is was my brother and we had plenty of out of game communication and a commitment to eachother to stay together was the only reason we were able to succeed in this. Even then, it was alomst impossible. We did it, but I said I'd never do that again.
GW2 is not like that. I have a few guys I work with. We all play. But no one plays the same race and no one plays at the same times, we are all different levels now. But none of that matters. when we all sign on, we all team up and we go have a blast.