Please "lock" Level-80 Boosters for new players!

There's an issue that has been rising lately for the Guild Wars 2 community ever since these Boosters were added to the game. I personally don't mind them and I'm grateful that ArenaNet offered them to those who bought Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire. Unfortunately, there is a major issue that this gift provides.

Allow me to give you an example in order to make a point, but you can skip this paragraph if you wish. Me and a friend spent most of our free-time after school playing MMORPGs together. We did this for nearly six years and we always attempted to find a good new game to start out. Once University began we found ourselves on different courses and establishments and things ended up fading away just like that. During that time I placed a lot of focus onto Guild Wars 2 and had a blast. So naturally, I decided to convince my friend into trying it out. And he did; he even bought the game. The game suggested him to try out the Booster and he ended up finding his way to Heart of Thorns. Let's say that his experience with the game was pretty awful. And I haven't been able to get him to try the game ever since then. The same happened to another friend I had online.

What I'm trying to say is that Boosters are misplaced. They should not be accessible to brand-new accounts. It would be best if they were to be locked until an account reaches a certain amount of Achievement Points like 1,000 or manages to get one character to Level 80 all by itself. Because players need to get used to the game's flow and mechanics. They need to be familiar with what the game has to offer; with its community, content and most importantly: the mechanics.The seductive nature of the Booster makes it so that new players don't care about the base game, and they will skip right to end-game content, utilizing a faulty build. Not only will this impact their view on the game, it will also affect other players, including veterans... for Dungeons, Fractals and other major events.

I've lost track of the number of players who were outright lost and frustrated with their experience in Heart of Thorns and Path Fire. Their interest towards the game as a whole was immediately undermined. This might not be the cause for some players, but it's there. I like to help out new players, and many of said players end up quitting a while after starting. They can't even get into the story because it'll seem ridiculous right off the bat.

If you have anything else that you'd like to add to this topic at hand please do not hesitate to post it down below.

What you suggest may be right, but also could be perceived really bad by somebody who purchased the game.

A friend ask another friend to come to gw2 to play together.The friend is not sure cause he doesn't like to lvl up in another mmo, but hey there's a boost lvl cap!So the friend tries but he's stuck to use the boost till 1000 ap ( which are nothing to me... combo fields, mechanics, attack glitches and so on can be learned through hours of playing, and could not be necessarily related to the number of achies ).

Also what about a solo player?If you buy the game you'll have a boost! But you can only use it after hours of playing!

Though i pretty understand and share your thoughts, i am not sure about the solution you propose.

I would make it unlock at level 10 or 20. This is a good idea.

Making them not accesible for new accounts would lock out the people that actual end up liking the boost to 80 and playing from there.

However, there is definetly a valid point you make, i just think that making it unaccesable to people is a bit rash.it is an optional boost after all.

I'm not sure if it actually has any sort of notification when you try to use the boost (I simply don't remember) if it does, it is already a nice warning for newer players, if not it would be a great addition to inform new players that they might get disapointed by using the boost (although it would look strange for them to advertise like this, it could help)

You could have told your friends how this game is, and suggested to them to use the boost, but start playing the story and the starter maps. After all, the level gets adjusted and you cannot kill everything with ease in the starter zones after using the boost. The story leads you to many zones, and you will explore and learn the game and class along the way. There is nothing a character that got the boost cannot do that a low level character can. The boost is great, as long as you don't skip content as a newbie.

I would suggest to a new player to use the boost, get gliding and the raptor, then go back and start the main story, get hero points in the starter zones, explore, do events. And get into the jungle and the desert when the story leads you to them. The whole PoF story makes no sense if you don't know what happened before anyway.

@Faaris.8013 said:You could have told your friends how this game is, and suggested to them to use the boost, but start playing the story and the starter maps. After all, the level gets adjusted and you cannot kill everything with ease in the starter zones after using the boost. The story leads you to many zones, and you will explore and learn the game and class along the way. There is nothing a character that got the boost cannot do that a low level character can. The boost is great, as long as you don't skip content as a newbie.

I would suggest to a new player to use the boost, get gliding and the raptor, then go back and start the main story, get hero points in the starter zones, explore, do events. And get into the jungle and the desert when the story leads you to them. The whole PoF story makes no sense if you don't know what happened before anyway.

That is what I try telling to new players, but they just won't listen. :/

I have the exact same experience with those instant lvl 80 scrolls.2 friends of mine, one don't want to play WoW anymore, the other want to play a simple MMO again, bought HoT, I explained to them first to play the story... but the lvl 80 scroll was too seductive. They activated it, went to HoT, because they wanted to glide, died over and over and over and over again (we all know, that HoT maps are cancer for unexperienced players), lost their interest in this game, end of the story.

I agree on the level, having it unlock at level 10 could be quite good, since it doesn't take much time to get to level 10, and you learn the basics of combat during the time it takes to level up to level 10

They could change the description of the boost to"Warning: Best for alternative characters only. Please level at least one character to level 80 yourself before using this boost. You were warned."Or something like that.

I think that lvl 80 boosts are deliberate and right decision when introducing expansions. Anet is aware of the state of core Tyria. If you want new players to come for expansion it's logical you want this player to go with the swarm of others enjoying new stuff instead of leveling empty zones with mediocre content. I think a lot of potential players would be lost if they experienced old tyria before mounts, gliders etc in new maps.

I think I'd rather see them introduce a decent tutorial or instance with the option to skip it upon using a lvl 80 booster. Unfortunately, a new player choosing to lvl up the traditional way upon the release of a new expansion will probably not run into very many people which might also skew their concept of the game. Anet wants to get these players on the same maps as the 'vets' and most of the vets will be playing the new content. Still, I do think they need to address the obvious knowledge gap as well.

Just to say that I witnessed same cases of two friends, tentative GW2 players, new to the game, who ignored my recommendation to first play the "normal" game because they could not resist going to HoT for gliding. They used the booster to 80 and from there, hating all of HoT due to not understanding anything of it, hating foes, dying continuously, having no gold, having no material, no good equipment (what? We can't get an ascended armor yet?) and so on... They got fed up and were off GW2 after two weeks. Could never convince them to give it another try in different conditions. So, I agree with all of the above, except that I don't believe that a restriction on the booster to 80 could work.

I maybe wrong, but it looks to me like there is a "new" generation of players, since about one year, who want that everything goes fast. They are not interested in learning with time. Everything must happen immediately. They don't stay in the same game for years. They change all the time, need new all the time... The concept with the 80-boosters available to newbies is probably intended to match this type of players, to catch them from the first. Otherwise, they would not stay probably?

I wasn't sure where you were going until I read the entire thread.I see where you are coming from: brand new shiny players in over their heads tuning into button-mashers.Reading other posts am leaning more toward waiting until the Lvl 80 boost is active or providing a Lvl 40 boost.Another aspect is that new players are more likely to delete characters in favor to begin a new race/profession combo.

Just to say that I witnessed same cases of two friends, tentative GW2 players, new to the game, who ignored my recommendation to first play the "normal" game because they could not resist going to HoT for gliding. They used the booster to 80 and from there, hating all of HoT due to not understanding anything of it, hating foes, dying continuously,

These are things that long term core veterans complained about HoT too, so booster is not the problem here. Core Tyria in no way prepares you for difficulty jump in HoT and PoF areas.

I actually agree with the OP. I don't know when you get your first traits, it's after level 10 though and you need to tinker around a bit to understand how you want to play. If you get all options at once it might sound nice at first, but you will 'forever' be confused. It's really easy to rush to 80 even if you don't have boosters.I do get why people want to glide though. The one thing I really loved about HoT.

@Kheldorn.5123 said:These are things that long term core veterans complained about HoT too, so booster is not the problem here. Core Tyria in no way prepares you for difficulty jump in HoT and PoF areas.I never really had any problems on HoT maps - the frogs are pretty mean but other than that I was fine as a glass canon vanilla thief. The jump from orr to HoT is too high, yes. But I think HoT maps aren't really thought to be soloed anyway.

How do you tell a new player though? They could have been FTP for a year and decided to get a fresh start by buying the game and POF, which comes with a boost.

Why is this game full of people telling other how they should play the game? Would it be better if rank novice players worked through learning the mechanics than jumping into the deep end? Sure, but it should be their choice.

As much as I 'strongly suggest' to new players to level a character naturally to L80 when the topic arises, I don't think ArenaNet would lock the L80 Boost away from new players. For one, as mentioned above, it would be more difficult to tell who is 'new' and who is 'upgrading from P4F'. Another thing is that the L80 Boost is a big part of the advertising campaign, and locking it away from new players would mean they could not access the expansion content they just paid for.

The L80 Boost comes with the admonition, "For advanced players"; if a purchaser/player feels compelled to ignore that, that is really their choice.

Get one character to lvl 80 after that you can use your lvl 80 boosts.

@Blockhead Magee.3092 said:Why is this game full of people telling other how they should play the game? Would it be better if rank novice players worked through learning the mechanics than jumping into the deep end? Sure, but it should be their choice.

Not if it's making the life of other players harder.

I had no problem with the 80 boost and Im a brand new player too. But I went another way, after using the boost I startet the map completion of the lvl 1-80 maps and after 100% I startet with HoT. I can say for myself I have plenty of fun now :3

(exept for those mastery point mini game..Someone has to burn in hell for those >:3)

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

Just to say that I witnessed same cases of two friends, tentative GW2 players, new to the game, who ignored my recommendation to first play the "normal" game because they could not resist going to HoT for gliding. They used the booster to 80 and from there, hating all of HoT due to not understanding anything of it, hating foes, dying continuously,

I came back in first week of August after 4 years away from GW2 - when I left we didn't even have LWs1 let alone anything newer. I have had zero issues in the LW1-3 or HoT stories or any of the maps. So I am not sure what the fuss is about claiming HoT maps are too hard. And I solo'd all the stories.

The issue is more likely to be one of patience than map difficulty...

So I was one of those people. I bought GW2 just after it released and then stopped playing. I bought HoT about 5 months ago or so and I boosted a Mesmer. I hated it. The game was just too hard and I couldn't figure anything out. I wanted to quit.

I came to the forums and asked for help and the people there suggested I roll a new character and play through the game to get the hang of things.

Long story short, I rolled a ranger that I leveled from 1 and that's my main now.

Point of this post is, you choose to either give up or roll a new character and learn. I'm still learning. Don't suggest a mechanic because your friends were too lazy to take some time to actually get into the game (Which totally sucks. I'm a solo player myself but I get how tough it is when you're passionate about something and want to share it with friends, only to have that excitement dashed when something goes wrong). I totally understand wanting to jump into current content and I -hate- leveling but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet to eventually find your fun.

I don't know why real new players would want to jump straight to end game content. If you don't know how to play, why would it surprise you that you have trouble in the hardest maps?

On the other hand, not everyone who makes a new account is actually a new player. Some people are alt-aholics who make new accounts so they can get new character slots.

I don't really agree with telling people how they should be forced to play the game. I definitely wouldn't agree with locking the boosts behind acheivement points. I can sort of agree with locking it behind getting your first character to level 80. Even that I'm not really sure about though.

Personally, I don't even like the level 80 boosts. I prefer to level my characters normally. I have only used one of my boosts, and that was only so I could get the shared inventory slot. That is my preference though.

People who buy the expansions paid for that level boost. Is it really someone else's place to tell them when they should be able to use it?

I think that new players to GW2 should be encouraged to level at least one character to 80 without using a booster because that's the only way to really learn your profession and how GW2 really works. However, the freedom to buy a booster and hit level 80 content immediately is a huge selling point for new players to come into the community and it generates revenue for the franchise. Limiting this is counterproductive in a way .... As veteran players I think that we just need to be patient with new players because at one time or another we were all new to content too.....

Encourage new players to find a guild so that they can direct their questions about content to a target audience and wish them the best!