Guild Wars 2

I’ve maxed out all available masteries except for the Raids track, which is still locked as I haven’t killed a boss. I’m unable to earn XP towards this track (obviously) but I’m also unable to earn XP towards Spirit Shards. To be clear, I have no interest in raiding content. I also don’t particularly care about Spirit Shards, I just want my XP bar to work.

This might seem like a frivolous concern, but I LIKE earning XP. I like watching the little golden motes zoom down towards the bottom of the screen, and seeing that bar fill up. It’s FUN. And at the end of the day, FUN is the reason I play this game.

If the raid mastery track unlocked automatically, that would be fine. I would fill up the bars, never set foot in a raid, and be happy as a clam.
OR
If the Spirit Shard XP bar were enabled when all unlocked masteries had been attained, i would be happy with that. I’d ignore raids altogether and swim in my yummy yummy shards.

Unfortunately, with the current system I don’t earn any experience at all in Maguuma. All those friendly little XP motes just vanish into the abyss of existential nothingness, and I have a little less FUN while playing. I have tried unsuccessfully a few times to get a boss kill. As someone who doesn’t enjoy the gameplay style of raiding, this feels like an arbitrary hurdle just to get a basic gameplay element to work properly.

What are the chances of getting this changed?

Not much unfortunately. People have been bringing it up since HoT came out and it hasn’t been fixed.

On the brightside, there are some fairly easy raid encounters, including the Escort event (which isn’t even a typical raid “boss”) that you could pug easily enough as long as you are even decent at your class. Its the best you can do right now.

Just do the escort – it’s faceroll easy and doable with pugs.

Besides: this is a very old topic and there are tons – if not megatons of threads and a mainthread somewhere in this forum (though I won’t blame you since the forum search is broken since the beginning of time and won’t be fixes – I know kittening hilarious).

Nothing Wrong with current system. The other Tracks are locked aswell unless you complete a certain task

I’m with you on the sentiment, having xp showing up after every kill only to do absolutely nothing is a bit annoying. Hopefully it can be changed so you can toggle between using xp for mastery or for spirit shards.

As I’ve said every time someone brings this up:

• ANet should adjust things so that raids aren’t a factor for non-raid-related rewards, such as XP→spirit shards. That seems more fair.
• I believe that they will, the next time the mastery system gets a major update (probably with Expac #2)
• In the mean time, I think it would be a poor use of ANet resources to invest any energy in worrying about it, never mind changing the system.

It’s almost certainly a temporary situation, brought on by two factors:

• ANet originally intended that XP would have zero value after maxing masteries. Zip, nadda, zilch.
• They changed their mind, after we complained (why they thought we’d be okay with getting nothing… dunno).

Because they changed their mind later, we have a kludged system — Central Tyria mastery is easily maxed, but HoT is mixed up with raids (because that’s how it was originally designed, when it didn’t matter).

Besides that, the reward is literally the least that ANet could have offered us — nearly all veterans have more spirit shards than they can ever use.

So, in short: the current system doesn’t feel fair and it’s worth ANet fixing it just to address that.
But, the actual advantage of maxing masteries is so tiny that it seems like it would be a waste for ANet to spend much time worrying about it now. Instead, this is precisely the sort of thing that will be easy-enough to adjust whenever the system gets a revamp, which almost certainly will happen when new masteries are added with a future expansion.

It’s just yet another indicator that Anet did not think through the impact raids – in the manner they chose to implement them – would have on the game.

It is what happens when the team approach to design (or any job, for that matter) takes place without proper management or oversight. Designing good content is well and good – but someone has to be taking the bigger picture stuff – and definitely how it impacts the rest of the game – into account.

Blaeys.3102:

It’s just yet another indicator that Anet did not think through the impact raids – in the manner they chose to implement them – would have on the game.

It is what happens when the team approach to design (or any job, for that matter) takes place without proper management or oversight. Designing good content is well and good – but someone has to be taking the bigger picture stuff – and definitely how it impacts the rest of the game – into account.

How can you think that they did no think through the impact on Raids, instead that they thought it through and went with the path that they felt was best.

Is it just because you don’t agree with what they are doing, or do you have some facts to back up the claim that they are not considering the changes that they are doing and lack direction?

Also, not getting experience once maxed was not a feature of Raids, that was already in the game. It was only changed after the fact, once all Mastery lines for the given region were unlocked would provide spirit shards. Raids are a part of the Heart of Maguuma region (both in map and masteries)

Fatalyz.7168:

Blaeys.3102:

It’s just yet another indicator that Anet did not think through the impact raids – in the manner they chose to implement them – would have on the game.

It is what happens when the team approach to design (or any job, for that matter) takes place without proper management or oversight. Designing good content is well and good – but someone has to be taking the bigger picture stuff – and definitely how it impacts the rest of the game – into account.

How can you think that they did no think through the impact on Raids, instead that they thought it through and went with the path that they felt was best.

Is it just because you don’t agree with what they are doing, or do you have some facts to back up the claim that they are not considering the changes that they are doing and lack direction?

Also, not getting experience once maxed was not a feature of Raids, that was already in the game. It was only changed after the fact, once all Mastery lines for the given region were unlocked would provide spirit shards. Raids are a part of the Heart of Maguuma region (both in map and masteries)

Of course I disagree with what they are doing, but that isnt the driver here. Im saying that raids cannot exist in a vacuum, as some kind of separate entity from the rest of the game.

There has to be someone paying attention to the big picture stuff – which would include things like the thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) who can no longer realistically gain experience from anything in the game because of a raid-related decision.

How they have chosen to implement raids has had (imo negative) impact on the game. This is just one small example.

Sorry, Blaeys, this is actually an example of how ANet thought things through and how the players weren’t careful about what they wished for, missing the big picture.

The original idea was post-max-mastery XP wouldn’t be worth anything. Raid masteries were integrated with the rest of HoT, the very opposite of existing as a separate entity from the rest of the game. That integration wasn’t a problem with their intended mechanics.

However, after listening to our complaints and agreeing that maybe XP should mean something, they changed the system. If raids had been a separate entity from the rest of the game, it would have been easy to offer spirit shards for HoT XP as well as core. It’s because raids are integrated in the the expansion that this wasn’t easy.

Again, I think ANet should change the system. I just don’t think it’s going to make a meaningful enough difference to enough people that it ought to be a priority.

Blaeys.3102:

Fatalyz.7168:

Blaeys.3102:

It’s just yet another indicator that Anet did not think through the impact raids – in the manner they chose to implement them – would have on the game.

It is what happens when the team approach to design (or any job, for that matter) takes place without proper management or oversight. Designing good content is well and good – but someone has to be taking the bigger picture stuff – and definitely how it impacts the rest of the game – into account.

How can you think that they did no think through the impact on Raids, instead that they thought it through and went with the path that they felt was best.

Is it just because you don’t agree with what they are doing, or do you have some facts to back up the claim that they are not considering the changes that they are doing and lack direction?

Also, not getting experience once maxed was not a feature of Raids, that was already in the game. It was only changed after the fact, once all Mastery lines for the given region were unlocked would provide spirit shards. Raids are a part of the Heart of Maguuma region (both in map and masteries)

Of course I disagree with what they are doing, but that isnt the driver here. Im saying that raids cannot exist in a vacuum, as some kind of separate entity from the rest of the game.

There has to be someone paying attention to the big picture stuff – which would include things like the thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) who can no longer realistically gain experience from anything in the game because of a raid-related decision.

How they have chosen to implement raids has had (imo negative) impact on the game. This is just one small example.

But again, you are assuming that someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture, instead of someone actually making conscious decisions on the direction of the game, that incidently some people don’t like. Even if most of people don’t like the changes, doesn’t mean it lacks direction and someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture. It just means that the direction of the game is moving on without them.

I personally like the current implementation because it encourages completionists to give raids a try when they might otherwise not do so. A good number of my guildies have started off with the opinion that “Raids are terrible for GW2!” and moved on to “Raids are awesome and I’m glad I gave them a try!” after asking the guild for help unlocking the mastery track.

Fatalyz.7168:

But again, you are assuming that someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture, instead of someone actually making conscious decisions on the direction of the game, that incidently some people don’t like. Even if most of people don’t like the changes, doesn’t mean it lacks direction and someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture. It just means that the direction of the game is moving on without them.

If the developers actually believe the appropriate response is “the game is moving on without them” (which I dont believe they do) then there is a deeper issue that Anet needs to be addressing.

You don’t mess with your core customers. Any good marketing pro knows that it is easier to keep existing customers than it is to bring in new ones – and that keeping those customers happy is your only real job.

And, in this case, there is, imo, definitely no reason to “move on without them.” There are some pretty basic solutions they could implement to address all issues related to this.

This whole thread is so uninformed.

There are literally adventures and mastery points that are more difficult to complete than unlocking the raid mastery (via escort). Such as chak rifle one.

There are literally open world bosses that require more coordination than unlocking the raid mastery (via escort). Such as the 4 octovines needing to die in the same time window.

But here you are complaining about raids.

Tell you what. Everyone on here who is angry they can’t unlock their raid mastery. PM me this weekend, I’ll lead you through an escort kill, you have to join my discord (you don’t need a microphone but you have to listen because I don’t feel like typing all the information). But in exchange, you have to post in this thread and mention that you unlocked your raid mastery, and give a ballpark estimate of how long it took to unlock raid mastery.

@thrag – You seem to be uninformed here. No adventure is needed to max your masteries, and even if they were, there are plenty of easy-ish ones to grab a few mastery points. You don’t have to get gold on all of them to max everything. But you DO have to complete a raid boss, or escort, to finish your masteries.

So comparing something that’s optional to something that isn’t doesn’t help anyone here.

Blaeys.3102:

Fatalyz.7168:

But again, you are assuming that someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture, instead of someone actually making conscious decisions on the direction of the game, that incidently some people don’t like. Even if most of people don’t like the changes, doesn’t mean it lacks direction and someone isn’t paying attention to the larger picture. It just means that the direction of the game is moving on without them.

If the developers actually believe the appropriate response is “the game is moving on without them” (which I dont believe they do) then there is a deeper issue that Anet needs to be addressing.

You don’t mess with your core customers. Any good marketing pro knows that it is easier to keep existing customers than it is to bring in new ones – and that keeping those customers happy is your only real job.

And, in this case, there is, imo, definitely no reason to “move on without them.” There are some pretty basic solutions they could implement to address all issues related to this.

But you are assuming that Anet sees those people as it’s core customer’s, and are also making the assumption of who Anet’s core customers are, unless you have some data to back it up?

Yes, there are some really basic solutions in the game already to address issues related to this.

OriOri.8724:

@thrag – You seem to be uninformed here. No adventure is needed to max your masteries, and even if they were, there are plenty of easy-ish ones to grab a few mastery points. You don’t have to get gold on all of them to max everything. But you DO have to complete a raid boss, or escort, to finish your masteries.

So comparing something that’s optional to something that isn’t doesn’t help anyone here.

So your argument is, hard mastery points are fine, because you have the option of doing easy mastery points.

But when I point out you have the option of doing an absurdly easy raid boss, that is literally easier than several examples of open world content, that isn’t valid?

If your only complaint about maxing raid mastery is having to do a single escort event, then YOU are the misinformed one. Because all the other grind you have to do along the way is a much larger amount of effort.

Again my offer stands, anyone who would rather unlock their raid mastery than spend hours kittening on the forums, shoot me a pm, I’ll get you a kill.

thrag.9740:

OriOri.8724:

@thrag – You seem to be uninformed here. No adventure is needed to max your masteries, and even if they were, there are plenty of easy-ish ones to grab a few mastery points. You don’t have to get gold on all of them to max everything. But you DO have to complete a raid boss, or escort, to finish your masteries.

So comparing something that’s optional to something that isn’t doesn’t help anyone here.

So your argument is, hard mastery points are fine, because you have the option of doing easy mastery points.

But when I point out you have the option of doing an absurdly easy raid boss, that is literally easier than several examples of open world content, that isn’t valid?

Yes. There is no hard requirement of doing adventures, for example. You need to do some of them only because there’s currently not enough mastery points available – but at the pace LS is going, soon that won’t be true.
There is a hard requirement of raiding.

thrag.9740:

If your only complaint about maxing raid mastery is having to do a single escort event, then YOU are the misinformed one. Because all the other grind you have to do along the way is a much larger amount of effort.

It’s not about difficulty. Some people just strongly dislike raids.

thrag.9740:

Again my offer stands, anyone who would rather unlock their raid mastery than spend hours kittening on the forums, shoot me a pm, I’ll get you a kill.

Thank you very much, i have it already unlocked. I still think that the interaction of this mastery lockout with the post-mastery xp gain was a really, really bad idea.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not about difficulty. Some people just strongly dislike raids.

I strongly dislike grinding open world pve for mastery points because its boring. Do you support removing that aspect of maxing masteries?

thrag.9740:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not about difficulty. Some people just strongly dislike raids.

I strongly dislike grinding open world pve for mastery points because its boring. Do you support removing that aspect of maxing masteries?

You don’t actually need to do that at all. There’s no grind involved, unless you mean the one for XP – in which case you do have other options.

What? To even unlock exalted lore I have to walk all the way over to auric basin. Now I know I could use teleport to a friend, or teleport to a guild hall. But it isn’t about difficulty. Some people just strongly dislike open world pve.

Not to mention the dozens of mastery points I need to earn via story, map exploration etc.

Shouldn’t I be able to get spirit shards without doing that?

thrag.9740:

What? To even unlock exalted lore I have to walk all the way over to auric basin.

That’s not a grind. You only need to enter that map, and you need to do it only once.

thrag.9740:

Now I know I could use teleport to a friend, or teleport to a guild hall. But it isn’t about difficulty. Some people just strongly dislike open world pve.

Then they should consider themselves lucky, that it’s not like the raid mastery, and they don’t need to succesfully do the map meta chain (or clear the map) to unlock the track. And of course if they think it’s still too much, they’re free to complain about it.

thrag.9740:

Shouldn’t I be able to get spirit shards without doing that?

Possibly. There were some suggestions to that end. Haven’t seen you supporting them, though, so maybe you weren’t really interested in it.

oh but I do support them, because I support multiple routes to getting the same rewards so players have choice.

But that isn’t what you are here advocating. Your not advocating that raiders and open worlders have equal access to the same things through different methods (I feel similarly about legendary armor before you ask).

Your here advocating so that raiders continue to have to do open world pve, but open worlders can skip the single ridiculously easy thing they have to do to get a spirit shard.

EDIT: Misread thread

Seems like a lot of pain would be saved if we add a Spirit Shard “opt out” track.

Its not about a single spirit shard. It is about the XP bar locking in place and not moving because you’ve done all masteries except for the ones in the raid.

That stops a player from getting hundreds or even thousands of spirit shards moving forward. I realize shards aren’t used for much right now, but if they ever are, it puts a lot of people way behind.

It was poorly thought out and illustrates a key systemic problem with the current raiding model, imo.

No, what stops the player from getting this reward is sheer stubbornness.

You don’t need to slay a boss, you literally just need to complete escort, which again, is easier than all the other tasks you have to do max your account progression through masteries.

If you really hate the idea of having to use simple teamwork in an mmo to unlock max account progression, and can’t even be bothered to do escort, go earn 100g (open world pve players should have no trouble doing this) and buy a single raid kill. Earning 100g isn’t any more grind than all the stuff you have to do to max your other masteries.

There are many paths to this goal, you can be a serious raider, you can do what is essentially an open world pve event, or you can grind about 100g using your favorite farm spot.

thrag.9740:

No, what stops the player from getting this reward is sheer stubbornness.

You don’t need to slay a boss, you literally just need to complete escort, which again, is easier than all the other tasks you have to do max your account progression through masteries.

If you really hate the idea of having to use simple teamwork in an mmo to unlock max account progression, and can’t even be bothered to do escort, go earn 100g (open world pve players should have no trouble doing this) and buy a single raid kill. Earning 100g isn’t any more grind than all the stuff you have to do to max your other masteries.

There are many paths to this goal, you can be a serious raider, you can do what is essentially an open world pve event, or you can grind about 100g using your favorite farm spot.

+1 to this. But I don’t think it is only about being stubborn. It also comes to being shy and/or somewhat ashamed. Anyway, it is not like there is absolutely no other way to gain spirit shards. I mean dailies and ToK also give spirit shards. I could gain 500 of these just by standing in LA if I wanted to. Spirit shards also drop occasionally in HoT maps from any chest or random mob. Personally the number of spirit shards I own have been increasing without forcing me to enter raid instances or grinding gold to buy a raid kill.

thrag.9740:

oh but I do support them, because I support multiple routes to getting the same rewards so players have choice.

But that isn’t what you are here advocating. Your not advocating that raiders and open worlders have equal access to the same things through different methods (I feel similarly about legendary armor before you ask).

Your here advocating so that raiders continue to have to do open world pve, but open worlders can skip the single ridiculously easy thing they have to do to get a spirit shard.

I am obviously going to suggest fixing things that annoy me. Unlike you however i’m not going to speak against fixing things for others too. In this casem, specifically, i have been supporting the idea of a separate “xp reward mastery” that could be selected instead of other mastery tracks. Even if those are not finished yet.

TL/DR: I keep asking Anet to fix things that are a problem to me. You however keep saying that things that aren’t problems to you should not be fixed.
It’s a really big difference in approach.

ArchonWing.9480:

EDIT: Misread thread

Seems like a lot of pain would be saved if we add a Spirit Shard “opt out” track.

This. Have been suggested many times already.

If you reread my posts you will see that I do not say I am against this, I just point out the otherside, which is raiders having to do open world pve grind that they may not enjoy. I think its stupid that you can’t earn spirit shards until you reach max mastery, when it use to be you could earn them once you were level 80 (I guess you still can in core tyria).

I am pointing this out because I know how ANet does things. They will look at this issue one single time every 3 years

A spirit shard opt out sounds solid. Total support. It would allow people to earn spirit shards without maxing mastery tracks. Free unlock for the raid masteries (one of OPs suggestions), I do not support.

thrag.9740:

No, what stops the player from getting this reward is sheer stubbornness.

You don’t need to slay a boss, you literally just need to complete escort, which again, is easier than all the other tasks you have to do max your account progression through masteries.

If you really hate the idea of having to use simple teamwork in an mmo to unlock max account progression, and can’t even be bothered to do escort, go earn 100g (open world pve players should have no trouble doing this) and buy a single raid kill. Earning 100g isn’t any more grind than all the stuff you have to do to max your other masteries.

There are many paths to this goal, you can be a serious raider, you can do what is essentially an open world pve event, or you can grind about 100g using your favorite farm spot.

I cannot upvote this more than once. But dear lord keep preaching.

can you still earn xp and mastery shards in central tyria without doing any raids just not in maguuma. imo your complains are just complaints.

sophiewhite.3149:

can you still earn xp and mastery shards in central tyria without doing any raids just not in maguuma. imo your complains are just complaints.

Actually, your XP bar stops progressing anywhere in the game, as far as I know.

As to the validity of the argument, keep in mind that, before people brought the issue to light on the forums, Anet didnt even let people open the mastery with the escort fight because “it wasn’t a raid boss.”

As long as they continue shortsighted designs like that (that, again, I believe would happen less with more team oversight regarding big picture issues), of course we need to keep bringing issues like this to light.

Blaeys.3102:

Actually, your XP bar stops progressing anywhere in the game, as far as I know.

Surprise, you are wrong. The raid mastery issue prevents XP bar progress only in HoT content.

thrag.9740:

If you reread my posts you will see that I do not say I am against this, I just point out the otherside, which is raiders having to do open world pve grind that they may not enjoy. I think its stupid that you can’t earn spirit shards until you reach max mastery, when it use to be you could earn them once you were level 80 (I guess you still can in core tyria).

I am pointing this out because I know how ANet does things. They will look at this issue one single time every 3 years

A spirit shard opt out sounds solid. Total support. It would allow people to earn spirit shards without maxing mastery tracks. Free unlock for the raid masteries (one of OPs suggestions), I do not support.

You clearly don’t even understand why OP is upset.

CptAurellian.9537:

Blaeys.3102:

Actually, your XP bar stops progressing anywhere in the game, as far as I know.

Surprise, you are wrong. The raid mastery issue prevents XP bar progress only in HoT content.

I realized this after I posted. Sorry. It never really applied to me since I unlocked the raid masteries early on so I guess I just forgot.

It is a bad design decision regardless.

Blaeys.3102:

It is a bad design decision regardless.

Except it wasn’t a design decision. It’s a result of making one design decision (XP was to have no value aside from masteries), creating mastery trees that assumed that decision, and then reversing that decision due to player demand.

The options were:

1. Do nothing (post-mastery XP remains valueless for everyone in all parts of the game)
2. Make a quick fix (our current situation: everyone gets spirit shards in Core Tyria; only some people get it in HoT). Wait for next major overhaul of mastery system to make things more fair.
3. Make a major change to the mastery system now (resulting in Kormir-knows how many bugs) and make another change to overhaul it later.

Given how little value spirit shards are to the vast majority of players, it should be easy to see why ANet presumed that (2) was by far the best option.

Hey, I don’t get xp in Core Tyria.

/salt

OriOri.8724:

You clearly don’t even understand why OP is upset.

Yes, but at least I don’t give vague single line responses without any intention of elaborating.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blaeys.3102:

It is a bad design decision regardless.

Except it wasn’t a design decision. It’s a result of making one design decision (XP was to have no value aside from masteries), creating mastery trees that assumed that decision, and then reversing that decision due to player demand.

And, as always, Anet didn’t bother to look deeper at what it really was what players asked about. and who asked about it. Thus, again, they played the role of Monkey’s Paw – doing what people asked, but in a way that was certain to bring dissatisfaction.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The options were:

1. Do nothing (post-mastery XP remains valueless for everyone in all parts of the game)
2. Make a quick fix (our current situation: everyone gets spirit shards in Core Tyria; only some people get it in HoT). Wait for next major overhaul of mastery system to make things more fair.
3. Make a major change to the mastery system now (resulting in Kormir-knows how many bugs) and make another change to overhaul it later.

Given how little value spirit shards are to the vast majority of players, it should be easy to see why ANet presumed that (2) was by far the best option.

They could have just done another quick fix and simply unlock the raid mastery track. It’s not like it being locked has any real meaning anyway.
That leads me to suspect that what they have done was option 4 – do a quick fix without bothering to consider first how it might interact with the existing system. It’s not like they delayed fixing the problem till later major system overhaul. They simply didn’t realize there even might be a problem with how they’ve done things.

You may think that the current situation is a result of forethought, but for me it seems to be a result of carelessnes.

Astralporing.1957:

You may think that the current situation is a result of forethought, but for me it seems to be a result of carelessnes.

The current situation is a result of ANet changing its design on short notice, in an effort to please the community. So I think that it’s a combination of forethought plus the need to make a change quickly.

To be fair, it’s possible that there was a fourth option: unlocking raid mastery for everyone. They might have not thought of it (which doesn’t count as “thoughtlessness”) or considered it and decided against it. (I can think of two reasons: it dilutes the progression value of ‘unlocks’ and/or they were worried that folks would invest in raid masteries by accident, without realize they only have value to raiders).

But the most important thing still remains:
The inability to earn post-mastery XP in HoT areas simply doesn’t impact that many players in any significant way.

I don’t like the idea that a basic reward is locked behind raids, but all we get from those XP are spirit shards. Anyone who played pre-HoT went for months without earning shards from XP; anyone who has unlocked all masteries (including Raid ones or not) has earned oodles of shards from other sources.

Of all the things that ANet ought to be looking at (and again, I agree that this deserves consideration), this is among the least impactful issues.

thrag.9740:

OriOri.8724:

You clearly don’t even understand why OP is upset.

Yes, but at least I don’t give vague single line responses without any intention of elaborating.

I have already explained to you the complaint, as well as various other people in this thread, and about how you are way off topic by trying to force adventures into the conversation.

If you haven’t understood the problem OP has by now, then its 100% because you don’t want to. So me explaining it again won’t change that.

I get the OP’s frustration and agree that the current system isn’t the best.

That being said, I think Anet may have given us the escort event as a way to work around this gate. The escort really is about the same difficulty level as the average dungeon path, can easily be finished with a group of pugs without voice in less time that it takes to do an Arah path. Just join a silent escort run, figure out who is running the turrets and who is protecting Glenna, and watch for the back wargs. That’s it. No complicated mechanics or team co-ordination necessary. Do it once, and the reward track is open and problem solved.

stone cold.8609:

I get the OP’s frustration and agree that the current system isn’t the best.

That being said, I think Anet may have given us the escort event as a way to work around this gate. The escort really is about the same difficulty level as the average dungeon path, can easily be finished with a group of pugs without voice in less time that it takes to do an Arah path. Just join a silent escort run, figure out who is running the turrets and who is protecting Glenna, and watch for the back wargs. That’s it. No complicated mechanics or team co-ordination necessary. Do it once, and the reward track is open and problem solved.

No man it’s too hard, we need ez mode anet plis.

stone cold.8609:

That being said, I think Anet may have given us the escort event as a way to work around this gate.

I can assure you that this is not the case. Whatever considerations resulted in this event being easier than other raid bosses, unlocking raid masteries was not one of them.

How do i know it, you ask? It’s because originally this event did not unlock the mastery track, and this was changed only after lot of players voiced their dissatisfaction with this fact.

Thanks for the info Astralporing! I didn’t know that.

Mastery levels should be locked behind raids etc but the spirit shard track should be active when not training any mastery.

Just create a raid section in the mastery menu and put all current and future raid masteries in it. That takes care of the problem completely and prevents it from ever being an issue again.

(also some better rewards from the XP thing would be nice, maybe a box with a choice of a spirit shard or one of a few other minor items).

OriOri.8724:

I have already explained to you the complaint, as well as various other people in this thread, and about how you are way off topic by trying to force adventures into the conversation.

If you haven’t understood the problem OP has by now, then its 100% because you don’t want to. So me explaining it again won’t change that.

I hear OP’s complaint: they can’t earn spirit shards. I support an action to fix that. A spirit shard mastery track. I don’t support giving out free masteries however. Just because you don’t like my solution doesn’t mean I don’t understand your complaint. I just don’t agree that you should be able to max the raid mastery line without even touching raid content.

thrag.9740:

I just don’t agree that you should be able to max the raid mastery line without even touching raid content.

Why? You can master the fractal mastery line without ever stepping into fractals, after all.

Astralporing.1957:

Why? You can master the fractal mastery line without ever stepping into fractals, after all.

I understand the point your making, which is that the two systems are not consistent with one another if I am interpreting you correctly.

However, my ideal would be that you should only be able to earn exp for fractal mastery in fractals, exp for raid mastery in raids, core tyria mastery exp in core tyria (maybe include dungeons here), and hot mastery in hot maps. I believe this would also fix OP’s spirit shard issue, as they would have HOT masteries maxed and so earn spirit shards in hot maps (I believe they can currently earn spirti shards in core tyria maps right now based on this same rule).

Obviously that is never going to happen, and instead we get stupid things like fractal potions which effectively serve the same purpose (progression in fractals earned only via playing fractals) as masteries but arn’t, grinding easy adventures like drone race to max raid mastery, and grinding cof to max fractal mastery.

So I support a compromise, you should have to do at least one thing in each of the piece’s of content to unlock the line. Its been so long since i maxed the fractal line, i don’t even remember if what you say is true. You should have to complete at least one fractal to unlock the fractal mastery imo.