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Thoughts on low level grouping
encopitt
Member UncommonPosts: 36
So,
I've already pre-ordered GW2, played BWE2, and plan on playing once it's released. That said, I enjoy playing PvE stuff with my wife, so I got a beta key for her this weekend so she could check the game out and decide if she wants to play or not.
After playing 5 sets of characters, all to somewhere between lvl 10 and 12, I have to say that low level grouping was kind of a pain in the ass.
With our first set of characters (Norn and Asura) it took forever just to get in the same zone (granted I had no idea about the portals until I started digging through the forums to find out where the hell they were.) and once we did it wasn't too big of a deal since we just ran through the asura story quests together.
The second set, we rolled two humans, and that's where things were rediculously painful. Basically having to go through the same quests twice with slight variations based on what we picked during level creation was irritating.
In addition, the starter areas were just too freaking easy for a two person party. We tried to rush through to get to higher level areas, but found that we could barely hit things that were 3 or more levels higher than us (got to 11 with the Norn/Asura combo). Anything less than that though was just cake.
Now, I'm a glutton for pain, loved EQ and the actual challenges it posed in terms of gameplay, but it seems artificially difficult that there was an inability to take on mobs that would be challenging due to the constant "missing" and "glancing" blows...
Does this dynamic ease up after a certain level, or is it just that the challenge in GW2 is based on soloing?
I was wondering who else had issues (if at all) with this.
Comments
It sounds like your were playing each others' personal story quests, which are meant to be just that: personal. They've allowed the option for friends to join in on your personal story for the fun of it if they wish to, but you're not meant to run through the same phases of a personal story over and over again for each player in your party.
The open world on the other hand is meant to be experienced universally by everyone.
Concerning difficulty, I don't think they intend the very first 10 levels to be an absolute masochistic slaughterfest. Though it still seems you have to be on your guard much moreso than the majority of other MMOs.
I personally haven't had a problem taking down enemies solo or otherwise that are 3 levels higher than me. Maintain a proper rotation of blinds, knockdowns and dodges and they shouldn't be a problem. I haven't noticed a severe decline in my damage done either. During the 2nd BWE, myself and 2 friends quested through the human 15-25 zone perpetually 3, 4 or even 5 levels below the content. It was fun and challenging. Sometimes we got in over our head, but we often succeeded.
Unfortunately some people complained in BWE1 and 2 about the starter area mobs 2 shotting them and ANet adjusted the difficulty for BWE3. I'm hoping that the high level areas are still as tough as they were before and that this change is only for starting areas.
As for the personal story, that's just how it is. If you don't like doing them twice then split up and do your own stories.
I'm interested to know where you got your information from?
Playing the game and reading the official forums.
I wonder if they changed the hit rate % or something. We actually tried to hit the 15-25 area @ lvl 12, but litterally couldn't hit the mobs.
I wonder if anyone else saw this during BWE3, or if there was another reason (gear, skills, class, etc...)
What me and my friend did is that we picked the same 3 questions at the start so that we would have the exact same personal story and we can play together (I think gender matters too, but i'm not too sure on that)... Granted, this option is only good when you plan to ALWAYS play together (like we do), otherwise you might still need to help her if you ended up doing some of the personal story yourself. ..
Just as an info, the last 3 questions in character creation is the one that decides what your personal story would be. So just pick the same ones as they have NO other effect on your character.
I got sick of very little challenge with normal mobs of same or slighty higher level as I was so tried 4-5 levels ahead and I did notice a lot of 'glancing' blows and it took a lot longer but still killed stuff ok. Pulling more than 1 mob often led to my (expected) demise but overall I enjoyed the added challenge.
Starter areas are supposed to be easy.
You can always play together regardless of story, race, or even server since you can guest on to other servers to play with friends, so finding each other really should never be an issue.
As for grouping, I feel there is no reason to group beyond just running next to each other, you dont need to accualy party, you both still get the xp, loot, and complete the events perfectly fine. Granted I never did my personal story with anyone, everything besides the story scales appropriately and should give a little challenge atleast, GW2 is by far the most difficult MMO to come out in the past few years, not that that is really saying alot, just that it is.
I as a ranger didnt have any issue hitting and fighting stuff 3 levels beyond me, but anything like 4 or above was to high above my paygrade, honoestly you shouldnt be going for speed and just enjoy the areas, this game isnt about leveling the fastest since it doesnt reward you in any way to do so. I found its the best idea to do 1 or 2 different starter areas before going to the next areas inorder to keep up with your personal story quest which constantly outlevel you.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
No arguement there but this was at lvl 21 (which i guess is still very early in the game) which is a little past what I considered a starter area /shrug.
Well... first off, it sounds like you were spending a lot of times in each other's personal stories. Nothing wrong with that, but you can expect to be doing a lot of back and forth as they are the only quests that are specific to your character, and yours alone. Completing your wife's personal story will do nothing to advance your own, and visa versa.
As for actual grouping, I found it very easy and painless. No real effort involved. Didn't even run into many issues w/ overflow problems, which were a problem in past betas.
If you found that 2 manning the content was too easy, I would strongly suggest tackling harder mobs. I can tell you that one of my characters (got her to lvl 22 in the beta) was taking on enemies 4-7 lvls higher and winning. That can be a bit tougher to do at earlier lvls (I'd strongly suggest avoiding high-lvl centaur archers, for example), but it is doable.
To put it bluntly, the challenge is there, but you have to go for it. The starter zones are very much that, starter zones. Their main function is to ease people into the game, and start getting people comfortable with the different mechanics. Once you start getting out of the starting areas, the game really starts to kick it up a notch or two. I even stumbled across certain areas I just couldn't handle on my own, or even w/ a friend. They were too difficult.
- Personal story aside, all of the content in this game is automatically shared. (Actually, jumping puzzles would be an exception). Whether you choose to group, or not, is mostly a social decision. It makes it easier to communicate, and you can meet some new friends, but it's entirely optional.
This is something Anet tends to do, that comes differently from other games.
In most MMOs the expectation is you are supposed to be fighting mobs about your same lvl. I don't know if it's intentional, but i know in GW1 the harder content had you fighting enemies sometimes 8-10 lvls higher than max lvl.
One thing I noticed in GW2, was that after you leave the starting area, there are places where you are forced to fight mobs above your lvl. There is an added challenge to that, and it is something I generally enjoy. It is more difficult, but it's also your own choice if you want to take on that additional risk.
You will glance more (unless your based on condition damage), but the challenge comes in fighting those tougher opponents and staying alive.
- Maybe it's just me, but it does seem kind of silly to complain about normal mobs being too easy, then openly admitting to not going after tougher fights where you might die. If you can handle 1 mob 4-5 lvls ahead, try taking on 2, or even 3. It's definitely doable in this game, especially if you have 2 or more people with you.
So you are basing the difficulty of the entire game off the first 10 levels of content? This is the newbie area. Things are going to be simple and straight forward. Even then though, you obviously didn't try anything truely challenging ... like killing a champion DE boss with your so called "elite 2 man squad". If you explore more, you will find many champion mobs guarding treasures and resource nodes.
Things are only going to get more difficult and more intense as you go on. Even in the 15+ areas there are some pretty rough monsters that can 1-2 shot you if you are not careful.
While it isn't "bat to the face hard" like EQ was (which I loved by the way), I think they are trying to ease people into the experience. Some of the WoW kid videos I have seen show people have literally lost the ability to think and reason to any degree what so ever. So I am not surprised it is dumbed down.
I just hope the ass kicking gets worse as you level up. I know the first dungeon wasn't very easy, and the explorable modes are probably even more difficult. Some of the best times in the beta were killing champion mobs with just 2-3 friends. Other times it was us running into some cave only to get jumped by a champion 2-3 levels higher and smoking us in seconds. If you want a challenge, seek it out. Just plowing thorugh renown hearts isn't "the real game" anyways.
Agreed.
That's kinda the point, I wanted to know whether the difficulty ramps as you level or if it was cake like the noob areas for the whole game.
Sounds like I just needed to get up a few more levels and some better gear to take on mobs that would actually be a challenge.
I managed to kill several level 7 monsters when being level 3 or 4. It was hard work and did not always work out, but it didn't feel like they had artifically creared a limit where you simply miss or anything. I don't think they've done anything different at the higher levels regarding this, it should actually be easier to take on higher leveled opponents due to having more options to deal with them.
Also, regarding the personal story: As long as everyone is at the same stage, you can actually keep the progess you just made while being in someone else's group. So if some people answer the questions in the same way, if they always play it together, they can play through the whole personal story without having to do even one thing twice.
If you are at a different stage, whether it's because you simply are at a different point of the story, or if you actually chose different answers to the questions, it doesn't work. Those quests are usually different enough though.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
What gear were you running at level 11? If any of it was below level 10 then hitting higher level stuff would be much much harder. I'm a crafter and have noticed during BWEs the characters I don't make gear for really began to feel weak starting at level 10.
Me and my hubby ignored personal story in the BWEs so I can't comment on that.
This BWE we had an interesting problem in that I was downleveled (about 5 levels) through most of our time together and he was underleveled (about 3 levels). For best game experience I would not suggest this particular combination. It was very frustrating for him and in some cases actually boring to me. In the past when we've both been downlevelled in an area it isn't bad at all because we can just complete it all fast, Both being underlevelled also works as we both slow down and take our time. But one being higher and the other lower just gives a weird rhythm that we had trouble getting into.
BWE #2 we completed the Norn starting area pretty much within a level of each other and that was a lot of fun.
Is there any penalty to just ignoring the personal quests? I played enough class/race combos that I didn't get past the 4th or 5th personal quests, but played them anyway because I didn't want to miss out on any skill unlocks or anything like that.
From my understanding there is no profession (class) implications to not completing them. You do miss out on a lot of experience and good profession specific gear rewards. We actually had no problem skipping it and instead making up the difference in experience when we were out gathering materials for all our crafting experiments (that plus crafting itself gives you adventuring experience). We do plan on doing them at launch - just didn't want to spoil the story during BWEs.
Keep in mind though, that the starter areas are packed with so many people, that the events and quests are being zerged right now.
I'm confused by the comment on the personal story. The personal story is either identical (Because you made the same choice out of 3 for the race, initially), in which case you can accept the other person finishing it as your own, and progress together...), or it's actually different. There's quite a difference between the noble, middle class and poor person stories. Sometimes the same locations (Sometimes unique ones), but what's actually going on isn't the same at all.
Another the game does not addapt to my personal wishes post.
You just can group up and do the Dynamic events, hearts together, there will be many others there to join you. Most of the world is meant to be coop play anyway.
Leave the personal story for those moments your friends cant be online.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I also had a feeleing previous Betas MObs scaling were better
in a DE mobs against 10 ppl were almost same as single and died way tooo fast Yes champions still were sometimes pain but regular mobs became a bit easier well not easier but not harder if you are in a group
For now only chalenging hopes are for Explorable Dungeons
story mode atleast AC wasn't as fun as at least i expected Beautiful maps but bosses felt all the same 