Meet my little friend.

All hail Tod! yes Tod, i went from level one to level 20 with the little fella, so i had to call him something.

 

But who is Tod and why am i so attached?

Tod or ‘Fire Imp (Summon)’ ah he is better known is an allied NPC that is available to players who have specific versions of the game, the list is pretty long but basically if you have all the campaigns (And the expansion) you get a Tod. You can also get a Tod by purchasing him from the in-game store, or having Guild Wars One Million edition (variant of the game that was released to celebrate 1 million sales) there are other ways to be eligible for one but those are the most common ways.

so once you have an account that's eligible you can log in on many character that is NOT maximum level (level 20) and in the chat box you can type ‘/Bonus’ this will add some various items into your inventory (depending on your account perks)

The item you should be interested in is something called an ‘Igneous Summoning Stone’ it looks a little bit like this…

Okay, it looks exactly like that does (as that is a screen shot). now once you are in a combat area (not a town or outpost) you can double click the item in your inventory to summon Tod. Tod is always your level and you can summon him once an hour (unless your change zone, that resets the timer) and only one Tod can be summoned at a time, so you and your friends can not have one each, well, not at the same time. It is also worth knowing that you can not use the stone at level 20, its a levelling aid nothing more.

Well, are you following so far? yes, great ill get to my point.

Tod, is a fantastic levelling aid, he is attacks your enemies with little remorse but in the process of doing this it becomes apparent that he makes your party (a good party at least) a little over powered for same level content.

Granted he is not a crazed killer Ninja with combat armour and a minigun but he does tip the balance in your favour, just enough to make mission’s easier and general XP gathering faster.

i am not sure i object to this in principle but while levelling my ranger i really did feel like the content had gotten easier. don't misunderstand i am not complaining about it, its nice to see content with less stress and this is probably a better way to get people to maximum level than an XP curve change.

you still have to go through all the content but you get to be it faster and with more success generally.

my only concern is how Tod effected the small percentage of pre-searing community. They can now use Tod to gather XP easier and die less. meaning its a definite aid to the Survivor and Legendary defender titles.

My other observation here is that with this kind of game addition making content easier (i know, not vastly) then ArenaNet are actually doing the opposite of keeping people playing until Guild Wars 2.

this about it, lots of people finish content and switch game or at least play it less, so shouldn't ArenaNet be adding one or two near impossible dungeons or making hard mode harder?

What is their game plan here? are we going to see some additional content like we did with the Codex Arena or the Zaishen Menagerie or is the game at the point now where they are simply leaving things as they are until the sequel is released?

This post is of course little more than the thoughts of a single player, and I'm sure there are many people who have still not touched the content that is already there.