New player experience: Hitting level 80 feels like someone nearly poking you in the eye

"Congrats on the level-up! Here's a popup reminder that you have something to do, but you're not done with the story yet, and you may not even have that expansion, but the popup is still there! Yeah, you can close it, no problem. Oh, look, now it's back! Hey, POPUP!"It's quite a travesty that this thing is in the game, and has been for more than half a decade now. Steam release gonna be fun!

And...which to which particular 'pop-up' are you referring?

"Masteries are a thing, yo."The popup is a hyper-annoying plate that takes up like 10% of your screen, is highly distracting, and refreshes in seconds when removed.

@The Boz.2038 said:It's quite a travesty that this thing is in the game, and has been for more than half a decade now.

also

@The Boz.2038 said:"Masteries are a thing, yo."The popup is a hyper-annoying plate that takes up like 10% of your screen, is highly distracting, and refreshes in seconds when removed.

So you have been playing this game for half a decade, yet decided that at no point in time you feel like spending some money on the expansions?

Are you sure you are the target revenue generating audience for QoL features or fixes?

I'd imagine that the main focus right now would be with issues which affect players that have spent at least the minimal amount of getting the buy to play portions of the game (core+PoF).

Not saying that this is great and in a world of infinite resources certainly could use some fixing, but I kind of would understand the developers focusing on other things first or having this issue very far at the bottom of the "issues which need addressing" list given it is affecting at best a minor segment of the players on top of all which are likely not revenue generators.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear if one does not have the expansions.

Though not ideal, one need only complete the first chapter of the first Episode of either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to permanently dismiss it. (To avoid spoilers, ask someone to play it with you, and turn off sound and close eyes for all dialogue, etc.)

Good luck.

This notification is super annoying tbh.

@Cyninja.2954 said:So you have been playing this game for half a decade, yet decided that at no point in time you feel like spending some money on the expansions?I bought the game at release, played for a year, and then stopped until recently. Got back a month ago, bought expansion, started playing with my girlfriend, and the experience I'm relaying is her own, as I unlocked the masteries through some arcane magic with no popup somehow.But thanks for your input!

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear if one does not have the expansions.

Though not ideal, one need only complete the first chapter of the first Episode of either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to permanently dismiss it. (To avoid spoilers, ask someone to play it with you, and turn off sound and close eyes for all dialogue, etc.)This is what we ended up doing. Kinda daft that you need to play the expansion mission as soon as you're 80, which is three full story lines away from your current position, just to reclaim your screen realestate.

@"firedragon.8953" said:This notification is super annoying tbh.

To a lesser extent, but still annoying: "HEY! YOU HAVE SOME NEW UNUSED SKILL POINTS! OR A TRAIT THAT IS STILL LOCKED! OR SOMETHING! I DUNNO! BUT HERE'S THE EXCLAMATION MARK AGAIN!" thing on your Hero button. Utterly useless.

Really? A small exclamation mark causes distress?
For myself, I can just ignore it; it's not like a pop-up, or anything.

It's not distress, but it is entirely useless, and prevents you from noticing if anything actually relevant could happen there.Like, imagine if your inventory button got an exclamation mark every time something was added to or removed from your inventory. What would be the use for that?

Pay attention to the forums for a bit longer.

You'd be surprised how often new players are confused on elite specializations, masteries, starting the expansion campaigns, etc.

The popup is that obnoxious because not every player has someone to guide them, or is similar attentive. The popup is literally a: you missed something, pay attention to this to guide less attentive players.

Ideally though yes, these type of popups should react to past player interaction, aka remember if they were clicked away multiple times.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear if one does not have the expansions.

Though not ideal, one need only complete the first chapter of the first Episode of either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to permanently dismiss it. (To avoid spoilers, ask someone to play it with you, and turn off sound and close eyes for all dialogue, etc.)

Good luck.

This is wrong.The Mastery popup just pops up when people follow your tip.

I played POF for the Raptor once and had this pop-up all the time until it annoyed me so much that I just mastert gliding full.

But far away from this, a game shouldn't pop pop-ups at your eyes over and over again. why is it not enough to get it once and then click away?No, after every log-in, after every character change, it will show up again until you do what ANET wants you to do ...I can absolutely understand if that annoys people.I mean, on the Internet I have an ad blocker for that.

It should just pop up once when a character hits lvl 80 and also send a mail regarding the mastery system. That's it.

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear if one does

not

have the expansions.

Though not ideal, one need only complete the first chapter of the first Episode of either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to permanently dismiss it. (To avoid spoilers, ask someone to play it with you, and turn off sound and close eyes for all dialogue, etc.)

Good luck.

It's not wrong.But, if you feel it is, and have proof, feel free to edit the Wiki.

Good luck.

@Fuchslein.8639 said:No, after every log-in, after every character change, it will show up again until you do what ANET wants you to do ...For her, the popup showed up every five seconds after being clicked off, not just on log-ins, character changes, map loads, etc.

@The Boz.2038 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:No, after every log-in, after every character change, it will show up again until you do what ANET wants you to do ...For her, the popup showed up

every five seconds

after being clicked off, not just on log-ins, character changes, map loads, etc.

If this had happened to me I would have uninstalled the game. Uff, sorry for her.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear if one does

not

have the expansions.

Though not ideal, one need only complete the first chapter of the first Episode of either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to permanently dismiss it. (To avoid spoilers, ask someone to play it with you, and turn off sound and close eyes for all dialogue, etc.)

Good luck.

I can only speak from personal experience. Wiki's do not interest me.

@The Boz.2038 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:So you have been playing this game for half a decade, yet decided that at no point in time you feel like spending some money on the expansions?I bought the game at release, played for a year, and then stopped until recently. Got back a month ago, bought expansion, started playing with my girlfriend, and the experience I'm relaying is her own, as I unlocked the masteries through some arcane magic with no popup somehow.But thanks for your input!

Well played.

by that note, has the super-annoying skyscale rift popup been fixed yet? the skyscale is very very late if you play the game normally yet there is that rift on the iron farm in brisbane that always pops up the note that you HAVE TO UNLOCK YOUR SKYSCALE when you just jump down from the rich node ledge to the normal nodes below. nearly every player will at some point in their game pass that particular rift and many many players multiple times before they even started LS4.

popups need to be toned down. but no the last change to notifications was that the tradingpost now shines in a bright light if a totally uninteresting thing is on sale. great.

I don't recall any pop up taking up 10% of the screen. Can you provide a screenshot? Sounds like a bug if true.

This is something I’d like to see some UI customization around. Potentially options to show/hide/limit pop ups and other ‘system’ messages.

I personally don’t mind the way it is implemented now, for the most part. As a visually impaired player I’d like more UI options in general (color, size, location on screen) but I’d like that for pretty much all aspects of the game.

@"The Boz.2038" said:"Congrats on the level-up! Here's a popup reminder that you have something to do, but you're not done with the story yet, and you may not even have that expansion, but the popup is still there! Yeah, you can close it, no problem. Oh, look, now it's back! Hey, POPUP!"yes, you mostly complete this game. Also don't forget cap 40k AP, and it is mostly done!!! welcome!!

@WorldofBay.8160 said:by that note, has the super-annoying skyscale rift popup been fixed yet? the skyscale is very very late if you play the game normally yet there is that rift on the iron farm in brisbane that always pops up the note that you HAVE TO UNLOCK YOUR SKYSCALE when you just jump down from the rich node ledge to the normal nodes below. nearly every player will at some point in their game pass that particular rift and many many players multiple times before they even started LS4.

popups need to be toned down. but no the last change to notifications was that the tradingpost now shines in a bright light if a totally uninteresting thing is on sale. great.

Nope this got not fixed. Get this everytime i pass such a Thing.

@Super Hayes.6890 said:I don't recall any pop up taking up 10% of the screen. Can you provide a screenshot? Sounds like a bug if true.Probably depends on your resolution.

I don't think you know how getting poked in the eye feels if this is what you think that feels like.Notifications tell you that something has happened. They "notify" you of actions that you might want to take.If you don't know what a notification means, you have exactly two options: figure out what it is, or ignore it. Everything you do that isn't trying to figure out what it is and what it's doing is just ignoring it, and vice versa.