Improved Pre-Searing AI

Apperiantly they improved the Atrificial Intelegence (AI) of the monsters in Pre-Searing. They no long follow you to a certain distance away from a respawn point. You probably wonder why (and if you don't, just pretend like you do! ), and the reason is (most likely) like this. Some people thought it would be a nice idea to get to lvl 20 in Pre-Searing, and it is, I was trying it myself, though, you can't (unless you really feel like spending 1000 hours doing so) anymore.

The "trick" used to be like this. You let alot of mobs (mostly Charr) follow you to the nearest respawn point and let them all hit the Acadamy Monk, which is at every respawn point in Pre-Searing, then you keep getting more mobs and eventually the group is big enough to get the Acadamy Monk down. Then you just stand on the respawn point and let the mobs kill you. When you're dead, you'll respawn, but the mobs didn't have time to get away from the respawn point yet, so you get aggro again, and they kill you again and again and again. Eventually THEY'll start to lvl up, and eventually they'll be high enough lvl to give you experience.

Anyway. I think it's pretty unnessecary to change this. It's not much of an exploit, it takes far more time then normal lvl'ing, by just playing the game, and what can a lvl 20 character in Pre-Searing do harm? Maybe it doesn't matter much to you, but it does to me, I was getting closer to lvl 20 already, and spent over 50 hours getting so far, though, now I can forgot I'll ever get that far. Don't you think this is just stupid?

ANET, GIVE ME MY LOVELY PRE-SEARING BACK!

To the tune of "Why would you even want to" I just sit back in amazement over what GW players can think up as ways to play this game in an absurd manner.

Hehe, I know, it's a pretty strange thing to do. But to you it might be a 'Why not?' on this nerf, but for me, it's just 'Why?', since because this is something absurd and totally useless unless for fun, why nerf it?

So what's the point again?
In one line please.

Why not - I wanted to see how high I could level too, but when they nerfed that it made it next to impossible to get above 16.

Yep.. I'm lvl 15 now, 81% of lvl 16, and my goal was to get lvl 20, not lvl 16, and this just totally ruined it.

Nice - if you want help running in pre I'm game - I'm only level 13 though, about halfway to 14; I decided that it was going to take too long without a partner dedicated to running in, killing the bosses, re-zoning etc...

It could still be done, but it would require teamwork, running to the charr and dying, then probably zoning after the first groups of 4 are done, as the run is too long to the others. I was debating rerolling the toon as part warrior so I could get frenzy + healing signet to die faster.

I'm a W/R, Warrior is great in Pre-Searing, nice armor, much dmg etc. And Ranger is just nice, the pet gives you about 10 Damage Per Second for free, since there's no 8 (?) seconds of skill recharge time when he dies

Actually, I had wanted to try the pet level up thing (get them up to high level before charming etc) but I suppose that is out the window now also.

It is always strange why some "quirks" are fixed and others aren't....and, although I have no desire to get a char to lvl 20 in Pre....I would consider it pretty harmless.


Now if the respawn fix actually helps monster spawn camping in places I don't like it (but I doubt it did).....

hehe i didn't know monster could level up from killing you. There was a time when henchman would level up after a lot of killing.. i miss that.

As i love how monster stop chasing you after a while i feel bad for you. I hope you find a new way to become lv20 in pre-searing.

It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that wants this fixed.

Gaile or Alex, help us out, why in the world did the team deside this?

I think the primary reason is ink drops. In pre-searing you can run around alone, no DP penalty, easy monsters to kill (especially when you get your level up), and you get all the low value drops. I'm starting a new char and had four ink drops the first day. I can move my char to post-searing but it is harder to run alone. If you can pick up a bunch of black and silver ink in pre-searing easily, you will have quite a bank roll in post-searing, and buy armour and runes right away.

I also hear a lot of players spamming to buy black and silver ink. I announce the scam while I am in Old Ascalon every time I go in to warn the new players, but it goes on all the time.

Yeah.. You've got a point there Griff, never thought about the Dye farming. I would give up all my dyes to lvl up though, I don't care about the dyes, I just want to get to lvl 20

Powerleveling maybe, being grouped with level 20 ?

How would that help in pre sear?

I don't think they purposely made it so you can't pull charr, I think it was just a game update that made alll mobs not follow as far.

I said mobs, not Charr. I'm not sure it's just Pre-Searing either, didn't test it in Post-Searing yet.

Hi all


First of all I'd like to mention that I aswell have a high level toon in pre (a level 15 R/Me) and found out that levelling charr up now involves way more grind then it used to

But first of all;
What's the point of playing guildwars?


And about;

Well, for once level 14's can farm dye (I reckon that thats what you ment with ink) just as easy as level 20's can...
AND....Levelling to 20 already took a lot of time (which dye farmers rather spend in farming dyes)


And just to let anyone know why on earth people would even want to grind to level 20, I can give you my reason for doing so in the hopes that it might clear things up a little
it's realy simple actually; I go to pre whenever I (for whatever reason) am tired of post, or just feel like chattin in ranik d1 (ascalon belongs to dancing lvl1 eles mind you :P ). Pre compared to post is almost like a village where everyone knows everyone so to speak.
It's a small world that has its own set of rules and makes for a nice change from running in post / farming / helping peeps with whatever / selling parchment and steel in ranik / you name it

Also I have some personal goals that I'm striving towards, whether I can reach them or not is irrelevant. Reaching level 20 was (or still is I hope) one of them. It took me over 5 months to reach level 15 (way slower then most but I'm not in a hurry)
Another is making atleast 50k in pre and expanding my dye collection
I have over 200 dyes right now and have no intend on bringing them to post.

Sometimes after a succesfull hunt in the northlands I'll share an ale with my hunting partner
Also dropping 74 red dyes and picking them up again gets the greatest reactions I get in the entire game.
Also when i feel like it I'll offer to show (show, not sell) my pre 12-20 'uber' bow or my dye collection for a rediculously low amount like 10 gold or so (and yes I actually get 'clients' :P ) and so far all of them were the opinion it was worth their 10 gold.
I already have a @$#%load of hillarious reactions sceencapped

All in short, I like it there and making people astounded, surprised or just plain curious makes being level 15 in pre all worthwile for me.


However, having the opportunity to reach level 20 is one of the reasons for me staying in gw and having this option removed (for no good reason, see above) also removes a good reason for me to keep logging


Say Maximonster, if you're a high level in amerikan pre we probably already know eachother hehe

You're indeed very right about Pre-Searing. Everything is alot different in there, I know nearly every high lvl'ed guy (except the arrogant ones..) in there, just chatting, buying high Damage weapons (even though I know I won't get the best weapon by trading in game) and trying to get that last Vial of Dye [Black] and [Silver] for my last armor part.

And yes, I'm in the American Servers My IGN is Pre Maxiemonster. 90% towards 16 now, so I'll probably be 16 when you get online

Bah! There is a higher damage bow out there than my 12-19! The quest continues. Is there a good high level pre character chat forum/thread out there somewhere, btw?

I can think of two ways you could still get to 20 in pre. One of them would break the EULA; the other wouldn't but would be painfully slow. I guess I can think of a third that wouldn't break the EULA but would be drive anyone doing it quite mad.

Let's make this a high Pre character chat

And please, please, tell me those ways, even if I have to brake the EULA, everything to get to lvl 20

And by the way, the Ithas Bow is definitly the best bow in Pre-Searing, and the War Pick is the best Warrior weapon (probably getting the War Pick soon).

I thought that the pre order items could no longer be equipped?...

(the ithas bow is a pre order item, right??)

The Ithas Bow is indeed a Pre-Order item, and it, together with all the other Pre-Order items can still be equiped.

By the way, for the people that like Pre-Searing, I've started a guild for people with (a) Pre-Searing only character(s) and I've created a site with a forum. In case you've got (a) Pre-Searing only character(s), visit the forum. Here's the link:

http://www.presearingguild.tk/

Well, I'm already in a guild but thanks for the offer anyway.

And

Posted by King's Spectre: Actually I've seen 3 12-20 bows so far . A hornbow with high req and another bow which had some not too good bonus. All 3 are/were purple btw

Ithas bow is 13-25 though, your bow isn't perfect

And the site, it's not just for my guild, you can talk on the forum too (even though it's kinda quit there atm )

How do you know when a creature has leveled up on you?

Then he'll be a level higher of course..

I've looked at that health bar of a creature so much that I don't pay attention to the level designation

Does it take a long time?

it does now...

But I'm not sure i wanna mention how to do that for fear of nerfbatting. it would close up the most remote hopes I have left at attaining 20 in pre

Long? Not at all! Only 45 minutes to level up Charr from lvl 8, to lvl 9. Don't start it, the idea is ruined, and practicly impossible. It'll take you literally over 1000 hours to get to lvl 20.

I'm still looking for other ways, but no succes. DreamCatcher, feel like being nice and tell me how to get to lvl 20 in Pre?

Haha

I was just doing some math and now I know for sure it's practicly impossible to get to lvl 20. From the beginning of level 16 to level 17 with just the 'let the Charr kill you' method you'd need to let the Charr kill you 10290 times. Getting killed, takes 5 seconds without equipment and Frenzy on, so that's not too bad. But you also need to run to the Charr, that costs about 30 seconds, each time. So that would mean 10290 x 35 seconds. That's 360117 seconds, that means 6001 minutes and that means 100 hours, excluded the time you need to get someone that opens the door for you, and the run from Ascalon to the door. That would mean roughly 400 hours, to get from level 16 to level 20 (since they will level quicker, you will level slower). I've got much time, but no, I don't have that much time.

I think this is just like those weapon "nerfs". At those weapons, everyone that got them before the update, can use them forever, the people that were too late, have to give up endlessly much to get their hands on one. In this case, the people that got to level 20 before this certain update got there without any trouble, but now, it's practicly impossible. Lame, if you ask me.

EDIT: Without doing any quest, you can get from lvl 16 to 17 without doing quest, if GuildWiki's quest list is correct.