New Accounts and Mount Availability Solution - [Merged]

Hey All-I bought a second account recently and it made me think about the sequence that new players must go through to get mounts.

The problem: starting out, you dont have mounts, but a lot of people in the vanilla maps do. Mobs get destroyed before you can get there. It is hard to participate in events. For players that are just starting out in GW2, if they want to get a mount, they have to figure out how to change the personal story and use their level 80 boost. Even if they do figure all of that out, asking to play the story out of sequence for someone new to GW2 is just not a good option at all.

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Not sure if anyone else has any other thoughts, but I think this would help integrate new players.

I'd like to hear from an actual new player who knows little about GW2.

It may take longer to level up due to mobs and meta events being offed before you arrive, but, hey, that happens to me as well and I have all the mounts.

It wouldn't bother me at all if a temporary mount or two were available once a player would reach a certain level.

I mean, I guess something like this could work? I mean, you can already pick up a Roller Beetle from next to the adventures/race locations (Which I often used before getting my own Roller Beetle so I could Nyoom across the map)

The question is just how necessary is it to have something like this?

I mean, pre-level 80 it's not so important since you don't have access to Daily Achievements so you don't need to do the 4 Events in a zone and Hearts and random trash enemies offer far more than enough EXP to get you to level 80. With World Bosses often being announced in chat well before they're active so even plebs can walk across the zone to get there in time.

At level 80, a new player is likely going to end up playing the story out of order anyway, unless they sink in more than the cost of the expansions to buy gems to unlock LW2/LW3 which provide the set up for HoT and PoF respectively. Which is one of the issues for new players, is this paywall on the story (Compounded by the non-playability of LW1 which sets up for LW2 and provides all the information on who the random people you're stuck with for the rest of the game even are, meaning that even if a new player does instantly buy all the LW available and play them in order, they'll still be greeted by the feeling of "Who tf is Braham, Rox, Taimi, Marjory and Kasmeer and why should I care?")

@Opopanax.1803 said:

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Players would not need to do PoF. They would just use the rental mount.

@"Taril.8619" said:I mean, I guess something like this could work? I mean, you can already pick up a Roller Beetle from next to the adventures/race locations (Which I often used before getting my own Roller Beetle so I could Nyoom across the map)

The question is just how necessary is it to have something like this?

I mean, pre-level 80 it's not so important since you don't have access to Daily Achievements so you don't need to do the 4 Events in a zone and Hearts and random trash enemies offer far more than enough EXP to get you to level 80. With World Bosses often being announced in chat well before they're active so even plebs can walk across the zone to get there in time.

At level 80, a new player is likely going to end up playing the story out of order anyway, unless they sink in more than the cost of the expansions to buy gems to unlock LW2/LW3 which provide the set up for HoT and PoF respectively. Which is one of the issues for new players, is this paywall on the story (Compounded by the non-playability of LW1 which sets up for LW2 and provides all the information on who the random people you're stuck with for the rest of the game even are, meaning that even if a new player does instantly buy all the LW available and play them in order, they'll still be greeted by the feeling of "Who tf is Braham, Rox, Taimi, Marjory and Kasmeer and why should I care?")

Pretty sure character L2+ have access to Daily Achievements. I know my characters do.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:I mean, I guess something like this could work? I mean, you can already pick up a Roller Beetle from next to the adventures/race locations (Which I often used before getting my own Roller Beetle so I could Nyoom across the map)

The question is just how necessary is it to have something like this?

I mean, pre-level 80 it's not so important since you don't have access to Daily Achievements so you don't need to do the 4 Events in a zone and Hearts and random trash enemies offer far more than enough EXP to get you to level 80. With World Bosses often being announced in chat well before they're active so even plebs can walk across the zone to get there in time.

At level 80, a new player is likely going to end up playing the story out of order anyway, unless they sink in more than the cost of the expansions to buy gems to unlock LW2/LW3 which provide the set up for HoT and PoF respectively. Which is one of the issues for new players, is this paywall on the story (Compounded by the non-playability of LW1 which sets up for LW2 and provides all the information on who the random people you're stuck with for the rest of the game even are, meaning that even if a new player does instantly buy all the LW available and play them in order, they'll still be greeted by the feeling of "Who tf is Braham, Rox, Taimi, Marjory and Kasmeer and why should I care?")

It unlocks based on your highest level character on the account.

Low level new players, have limited Daily Achievements.

Indeed. Low-level characters have 3 choices per game mode, rather than 4. (One of the 3 choices may include, depending on the day, the Daily Event Completer. Like today: Daily Queensdale Event Completer)Regardless, they do have access to Daily Achievements; it was stated they do not.

Mounts are little issue in some places for (new) players.

I don't have mouth, so I run everywhere and getting in time for events is sometimes issue. But I think it's little issue for all in sometimes. Without mouth just little bigger issue.

Core lands in lower levels you can run places pretty easy because roads are clear from mobs. In higher levels You don't get in time many even'ts because you have to stop so many times to kill some small mobs. Even if you can continue running pass those mobs, range attackes have slowed you down. HoT is pure hell without mouth. Also sometimes it's not just the mobs slowing you down, but pure traveling distance can be issue.

So in my opinion it would be nice if new players would have easyer option to have mouth. It would be really usefull sometimes. I have played also many other mmorpgs and usually getting some basic mouth is alot easyer.

Yes, I could get my mouth just doing PoF first missions. How ever this way I know how it feels to be without it. Also it's easy to see how problematic some maps are for players who don't have mouth.

And yet, players played in HoT maps for 2 years without Mounts.

The only time where that is even sometimes an issue is during daily event completer in low level maps but the game is played a lot more outside of those times.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Players would not need to do PoF. They would just use the rental mount.

There are no rental mounts now, that is the point.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:And yet, players played in HoT maps for 2 years without Mounts.

Not sure what this has to do with anything. At that point no one had mounts.

I've just seen that other players race to events on mounts, bomb them with a dismount ability, and by the time I get there on foot, there is no ability to help complete the event.

This is not how it works out on all events, but certainly on a lot of them. It would be nice to have at least some ability for new players to access mounts to at least get them to events.

I've just observed this as a problem.

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Players would not need to do PoF. They would just use the rental mount.

Right. So, Anet implements rental mounts and new players do not purchase PoF because they have a mount that they can use for a few coppers. Where is the incentive for Anet to do this?

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Players would not need to do PoF. They would just use the rental mount.

You're confusing with the player needing to do Path of Fire story (which is 5-6 years ahead & out of order) before Personal Story with the player not buying the game. They're two completely unrelated things and Mounts require PoF to use anyways, even rentals.

This is a little QoL change that would help new players alot.

@ ThreadI'm really exhausted of mentalities like "it was hard for me, it should be hard for everyone else too, or its unfair". Similar to how people don't want new features introduced that "negate" past work. Life goes on, please quit living in the past.

Rentable warclaw would be a nice addition for both pve & wvw. No special skills just perma swiftness when mounted.

I started back in april of this year and found it hard to get anywhere without a mount. I didn’t do events because of distance, but I did follow the story line , hearts, etc. After finishing the main story..I skipped to POF to work on the mounts. I recently obtained the griffin mount and it has made a world of difference. I wouldn’t mind seeing a hover feature for the griffin. It cost too much not to have it :)

Living world I thought was with the package hot/pof...it said access to living world ... but was surprised to see it locked behind a pay wall. So the overall game will be played out of order with HOT being last. I did the first part to get the glider up to lvl 3 then went back to POF.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Players would not need to do PoF. They would just use the rental mount.

I could see the incentive to let people have a taste of mounts, but not the convenience of mounting up whenever and wherever they are.

Also, expansions are outright better than vanilla Tyria. Why would you not buy both expansions for a low $20 dollars when they give you so much content and features? I think mount rentals would help sell that, personally.

I could be wrong; who knows how many people are just f2p without ever buying the expacs... I personally couldnt play GW2 like that.

@"Opopanax.1803" said:Hey All-I bought a second account recently and it made me think about the sequence that new players must go through to get mounts.

The problem: starting out, you dont have mounts, but a lot of people in the vanilla maps do. Mobs get destroyed before you can get there.Anyone in this thread who doesn't believe this is a problem needs to get a new account and try to level their first toon again. A dear friend of mine picked up this game for the first time last year and this was a real issue.The GW2 community being what it is, doesn't really give a flying you-know-what about what it's like for new players and happily goes screwing people trying to level their first toons out of participation in events and exp. It's worse than anyone wants to admit.They run a OP raptor engage into the group of mobs, then pull out their legendary and mow down what's left before remounting and doing the same thing to the next group, not caring that someone is huffing it behind them just trying to tag mobs and can't keep up because no mounts....their only concern credit towards their event completer daily and their 2g.Then these same people jump into every thread where this issue is brought up and pretend it isn't an problem.It is.A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.Wouldn't an easier solution just be to nerf the damage on the engages?A few numbers changes on the coefficients would solve this far quicker."Recuded damage of Raptor Engage Skill by 75% on all maps below level 80."

@Opopanax.1803 said:Hey All-I bought a second account recently and it made me think about the sequence that new players must go through to get mounts.

The problem: starting out, you dont have mounts, but a lot of people in the vanilla maps do. Mobs get destroyed before you can get there. It is hard to participate in events. For players that are just starting out in GW2, if they want to get a mount, they have to figure out how to change the personal story and use their level 80 boost. Even if they do figure all of that out, asking to play the story out of sequence for someone new to GW2 is just not a good option at all.

A possible solution: make a mount like raptor available from outposts like a rental npc (such as in Dragonfall's skyscale rentals); or incorporate this into any vendor for only a copper or two. This wouldnt be a perfect solution, but it would at least make up some of the difference for not having completed the POF story.

Not sure if anyone else has any other thoughts, but I think this would help integrate new players.

Players can be any level and get the raptor mount so long as they have the PoF expansion and someone to carry them through the first instance.

I also want to point out that people had issues tagging enemies before mounts. This only matters for dailies which I'm fairly certain that new players are not going to focus and complete right away like more seasoned players would be doing. I've actually watched some streams of new players playing and they completely ignore the achievements.

I've put forward my own arguments in the past for why the Warclaw should be made available to the core game to act like a starter mount.

I still stand by this and believe it will be a great incentive for new players to both try WvW and for them to want to invest in PoF and Living world 4 for the others.It would also serve as a good core game end-game reward for new players to persue as well should they choose to.

@mindcircus.1506 said:Anyone in this thread who doesn't believe this is a problem needs to get a new account and try to level their first toon again. A dear friend of mine picked up this game for the first time last year and this was a real issue.

I literally have.

It wasn't that long ago (Maybe like 2-3 months now) that I came back to this game after leaving pre-HoT.

I came back, rolled a new Rev and got to work on leveling 1-80 to try and remember how to play the game. No Glider. No Mount. I didn't use any Exp boosters or level up scrolls (Level 80 boost from Expac or my plethora of level 20/30/40/50/60 scrolls from 1-7 year Birthday rewards).

Just went around, doing Hearts and events.

I had absolutely no issues. Even after hitting level 80, I had no issues playing without a mount (At this time I still didn't know how to get a mount)

Even doing some Dailies was not too bad even without a mount. Though the most notable issue is many lower level zone events being short with few mobs spawning and people (Mostly Rangers with their Barrage) spam all their AoEs on them so they die instantly - Which as I was playing Rev, whom has melee or a single ranged weapon that has cast times measurable in years, made it impossible to get credit on the event.

Engages on mounts at least buy a second to tag a mob, unlike constant Barrage spam that is dealing constant tick damage (Especially when overlapped by multiple people's Barrage's), not that I really see people using mounts to do events outside of ironically, level 80 ones where Raptor to group up the large masses of enemies for AoE's is useful.

OK. I am an actual new player. I started playing this game in mid-April.

For leveling my first character, I did not really need any mount. There are way points everywhere in Tyria. BTW I don't think Tyria was designed for mounts at all.

Once I reached level 80, I went to the first chapter of PoF and grabbed a raptor, which took me less than an hour. Then I went to HoT, did everything with raptor+gliding, which worked just fine.

What gave me a lot of trouble was running around LW3 maps. Picking blood rubies without a skyscale was legitimately annoying. I stopped doing it immediately after getting my ascended ring. I had no clue how easy it is to get ascended rings with LW4 currencies, so I spent a lot of time grinding the nasty LW3 maps.

Later I got my griffon and skyscale, which I think happened 3 days before the first 28-day loyalty chest. I went back to bloodstone fen, and picking blood rubies is almost trivial.

So in short, I do not believe you need a mount before you are given one, but a skyscale would help a lot getting through LW3 maps.

Mount allow faster travel, what allow player to get first in many places and run pass some enemies. They are used allmost every where in Tyria lands. So it's advance what these players have. Now, new player in lower levels. How does it hurt anyone if they also have access to somekind of mount system, as long they have PoF access in general. New players can basicly play only levels what they characters are able.

So should we make so that on all maps in lower levels mount access would be denied from everyone.

If You say big NO, then think why are you saying it.

Example: Rent mount in every under level 80 zones. You can't only use rent mount in that zone. You character needs to be at least minimum level of that zone to be able rent mount. When You hit level 80, you should go and get real mount from PoF.

@Lumikki.1725 said:Mount allow faster travel, what allow player to get first in many places and run pass some enemies. They are used allmost every where in Tyria lands. So it's advance what these players have. Now, new player in lower levels. How does it hurt anyone if they also have access to somekind of mount system, as long they have PoF access in general. New players can basicly play only levels what they characters are able.

So should we make so that on all maps in lower levels mount access would be denied from everyone.

If You say big NO, then think why are you saying it.

You're assuming that new players are rushing to events to do their daily and also just happen to be on that particular map. Enemies are so spread out in core Tyria that players can easily run past them without any issues. They also have various means of movement speed increases available to them.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You're assuming that new players are rushing to events to do their daily and also just happen to be on that particular map. Enemies are so spread out in core Tyria that players can easily run past them without any issues. They also have various means of movement speed increases available to them.

Yes, in Tyria lower core lands player can run pass enemies with easy. How ever that doesn't solve all the issues. What is, that mounted player has allready done the event, because the player without mount is still running. Also speed increase is possible many ways, but does new player even know how to do it? Does new player even know what Dailies are?

PS: I don't do dailies at all.