Hmmm. Seems like it may go by a little quicker then I thought. I'm just short of 28 and the leveling seems to be getting a bit slower. The personal story seems like the best source of xp so far but I think they only roll around every 10 levels or so. Dungeons, as you say, seem like they'll be the way to go for best xp gains. They're designed for groups right?
Yep, 5-player groups for dungeons.
So, the XP required to level used to plateau around level 30 (instead of each level taking longer than the last, you just hit a point where every level takes approximately the same amount of time), but they changed things in September to make early leveling faster until Level 15 or so. I'm not sure if they changed anything beyond that, but the good news is that if it
is slowing down, it likely won't get any slower. It might even feel faster since the zones are a little more dense in terms of DEs and enemies (Orr is wall-to-wall assholes, even after they thinned them out).
Heh. Hadn't even thought of engineers till I seen a few running round flame throwering everything last night. I HAVE to get me some of that.
I was originally debating between Warrior and Guardian for my main, having come from other MMOs where I couldn't get into anything that wasn't melee ("casters are too squishy and stay far from danger," that sort of thing). I created an engineer because it fit a name I had grabbed and ended up
loving the shit out of the class. It's my go-to profession when I just want to have fun.
Tangent aside, and relating to GW2 I started out interested in about 3 classes. After having played a little now and seen the capabilities of some of the others, I reckon there's about 5 of the 8 that seem REALLY interesting, and the other 3 maybe I'll check out 1 day as well. I also feel like I'm missing out on a big part of the game if I don't at least TRY out the various classes and playstyles in these sorts of games. Some people like running around as the same character playing a gear refinement game for 100's of hours (and thats fine), while I prefer to try and play the goddam game in every way the developers made it to be played and then stick to whichever proves to be the best combination of fun/effective. In MMOS/RPGS/ARPGS where they're can be so much depth per class that can take a while.....
The only class I can't get into are Necromancers. Even professions I would have normally stayed away from I end up really enjoying. Elementalist, for example, can use daggers and conjured weapons to become a "melee caster." Mesmer is a riot once you get some of their key traits unlocked and plays like nothing else in gaming (like having a duelist with a small army of suicide bombers at your side). Don't be shocked if you end up with 8 character slots.
Yeah i've sort of noticed that with the world. Everything seems to have a purpose and be there for a reason. There's just so much of it too.
And more coming every two weeks for months at a time. =p
Heh. No probs. I'll work on asking shorter questions though. There will be crafting questions incoming soon, but I need to figure out some of the basics first. Then I'll ask the kind folk here to fill in the blanks
Crafting isn't the best I've seen (Vanguard is still the best... or was, since it's shuttered now), but there's a lot of convenience features like fast repeat crafting, stacking recipes and such. Discovering items always awards more XP than just following recipes. Most items are going to have two basic components (a sword will have a hilt and a blade, for example) and then an "Insignia / Inscription" item that determines the stats. In addition to gathered materials, those also require items that only drop from monsters, like fangs, blood, bone, scales, etc. If you've been using the "Deposit Collectables" feature, your bank probably already has some of this stuff accumulating.
There's more in-depth guides out there, but those are kind of the basics.
Ok then. I'm missing more then I thought. Wheres a goddam shiny map indicator telling me there's something good when you need one
Dynamic Events you can trigger will usually (but not always) have a little orange icon (
) on the map and over the NPC. It's usually worth it to chat with an NPC, especially if they're sort of hanging around an area or they seem chatty.
Not everything is going to be marked though. There's a little tiny decorative item in a little tiny room underneath a staircase in one of the dungeons that triggers an event, and you really only notice the trigger you stand right next to that object. I probably ran past it for a year before I found out about it, and I'd be willing to bet there's a ton of people who still don't know it's there.
Are the potential rewards consistent for each event or is it a randomised thing?
Rewards for DEs and hearts going to be XP, a little money and Karma. Instead of having to pick from a few quest rewards, Karma is sort of a "quest reward currency" that you can spend by talking to the Heart NPCs once you've completed their objective (all of them turn into vendors, and some of them have unique skins) or save if you don't like what they offer. That's a decent way to fill gaps in your gear, but apart from skins not terribly thrilling. Don't worry too much about hoarding karma either, once you get to max level you'll be sitting on a ton of it (I'm just over 4 million and I
just spent a shitload on Obsidian Shards).
Any events that grant chests (both physical ones in the world and the little ones that pop up in the UI) are usually going to be kind of junky, the notorious "Two blues and a green." They usually don't sell for much on the trading post or vendors, but you can salvage them for Essences of Luck which increases your Magic Find (an account-wide stat that improves your odds of getting better drops, at least in theory).
