Guild Wars 2

So after 9 months of no new content and just rerunning the same stale content, you’d expect to just be able to do the new content and progress your character right?

No. Not if you want to progress core masteries. You need to run that stale content even more, and more, and over, and over and over and over (20 dungeon runs to be able to spend 1 mastery point).. in a game that has a core “no grind” philosophy.

At first I thought.. well, I’ll do the Mad King’s Labyrinth, at least that only comes around once a year so it’s not TOO stale

None of the xp counted towards my core mastery.

So I went into WvW, thinking, well, there’s a new borderland at least, that could be fun. I took some towers, camps, sentries, you know, I should have gotten about 10% of the way towards being able to spend a mastery point….

But none of that xp counted towards my core mastery either.

You can’t use tomes or scrolls of xp, and so far the only ways I have seen that actually add xp towards your core masteries are open world events in stale zones we’ve been doing for months if not years, dungeons (60k/1.2 million, so that’s 20 runs to spend a point, and if they’re like Maguuma masteries (which at least that content is new and there’s story stuff to progress it faster) that 1.2 million doubles every tier), and um.. fractals maybe (haven’t tried that yet)

Can we at least have WvW and holiday events count towards these core masteries? Can we at least play our way if we really have to grind?

“We don’t make grindy games.”

“No, you cannot explore this new zone until you’ve “mastered” hang gliding."
“No, you cannot play as a Reaper until you’ve “acquired” more Hero Points."
“No, you cannot…”
etc, etc, etc

Yeah, I must admit I’m not much feeling the ‘’play your way’’ motto, I’m stuck with a forced grind for Maguuma mastery exp just so I can continue the story. >.>

At least the maguuma masteries are in new content.

It sure is a good thing anet stopped spouting “play your way” years ago when they realized that players interpreted their intent very differently than what they actually meant with that statement.

It was only ever literally about gear grinding and hard-gating content behind gear. That was it. Now content is hard-gated behind XP, and you can do whatever to get XP. Would it be nice to progress masteries from any source of XP? Yeah it would. But I also kinda get way they didn’t do it that way, as it makes sure each section of the game has ongoing rewards for investing time in it, and that prevents content from becoming obsolete.

Masteries are just a different way of adding leveling without actually adding leveling, and they gate content exactly the same way leveling does.

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

darkace.8925:

“We don’t make grindy games.”

“No, you cannot play as a Reaper until you’ve “acquired” more Hero Points."
“No, you cannot…”
etc, etc, etc

It’s almost as if you need to play the game to play the game…I’d be furious if I was forced to play a game I’d purchased. I’d go and speak up in the senate about it, the world needs to know your plight.

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

Devildoc.6721:

At first I thought.. well, I’ll do the Mad King’s Labyrinth, at least that only comes around once a year so it’s not TOO stale

None of the xp counted towards my core mastery.

That is what I thought too and I only HOPE it is a bug. There is no use doing any open world events in the next few weeks. Things all over are failing rather spectacularly because everyone is either doing Halloween stuff or HOT. Fine, I would have been in the labyrinth anyway so will advance that way …. nope.

Ninjah.6298:

darkace.8925:

“We don’t make grindy games.”

“No, you cannot play as a Reaper until you’ve “acquired” more Hero Points."
“No, you cannot…”
etc, etc, etc

It’s almost as if you need to play the game to play the game…I’d be furious if I was forced to play a game I’d purchased. I’d go and speak up in the senate about it, the world needs to know your plight.

It’s almost as if you don’t fully understand the subject that’s being discussed.

Agreed and once you get that mastery its time to hope back into the same WB, Fractals, and world events I was going to make precursor to quip but that legendary journey is horrible. The hammer gets to kneel at statues and visit obscure locations in the world map while the pistol has to hunt down timed and bosses locked into fractals. Were is the balance!? Even had to redo an old event just to get started and wait for that event to spawn.

I agree with this topic 100%

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

That has nothing to do with it, this isn’t new content that we just run out of this is content they KNEW we’d already done to death.

Ninjah.6298:

darkace.8925:

“We don’t make grindy games.”

“No, you cannot play as a Reaper until you’ve “acquired” more Hero Points."
“No, you cannot…”
etc, etc, etc

It’s almost as if you need to play the game to play the game…I’d be furious if I was forced to play a game I’d purchased. I’d go and speak up in the senate about it, the world needs to know your plight.

“Alright! I have wanted to watch this show ever since it started! Now I finally have a huge chunk of free time and I bought the blu-rays for the whole 5 seasons!”

(whirr) (click) “Huh? What is this message?”

“In order to maximize your enjoyment of the first five episodes they will only be fully unlocked when you have watched the entirety of episodes 6 through the finale. That is the way we like to watch shows so you should too!”

As much as you anet excusers try to downplay it a large part of what we were sold WAS the mechanics (look at practically everything they have hyped about HOT since the announcement). Yes, they are called elites, but everyone took that as meaning you were a level 80 and anet never once corrected that. It is not like they are some all-powerful professions as some are worse than the base one so there was no hint at all that there was anything extra-special about them.

Devildoc.6721:

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

That has nothing to do with it, this isn’t new content that we just run out of this is content they KNEW we’d already done to death.

Existing players are not the only players in the game however. Part of it is making sure the content is compelling and has longevity for new players as well. basically, the idea is that if you know your game is going to require people to repeat stuff somehow, the goal is to make it feel rewarding to repeat that.

Map rewards and masteries are an attempt at making it worthwhile to repeat that core content rather than simply abandoning it, and overall making the game as a whole feel more valuable no matter where you spend your time.

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

They have content they can use but are not though. There is absolutely no reason why the xp from the Halloween events can not be used.

Daily Reminder:

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun”(…) – Mike O’Brien.

Jeez, I thought I found a way to do this effectively.. using a character that hasn’t completed the personal story.. did a personal story step in Orr cause I remembered those used to give a lot of xp..

26k xp.

Seems they’ve just up and decided the best way to do things is outright soul sucking grind.

Menadena.7482:

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

They have content they can use but are not though. There is absolutely no reason why the xp from the Halloween events can not be used.

Totally agree with this point. Halloween content should totally progress core masteries, or its own set of masteries. I could see festival masteries working for recurring temporary events like halloween, so you’d have maybe better loot next halloween or whatever. The mastry system pretty much necessitates that all content be handing out some form of mastry XP, or it becomes a really uneven system.

Same boat here. I was gifted 37 mastery points upon loading into HoT that were grandfathered in. Although this was nice I cannot, after 3 years understand why they choose to make me do the same old areas over and over and over again to just get the auto loot I wanted, so as to relieve my poor keyboard.

It might be different if I could, for instance, go into the labyrinth and have it count towards tyria mastery, or the jungle, but NO. I cannot enjoy the new things HoT has to offer nor will enjoy this Halloween until I farm events that I have farmed time and time again over 3 bloody years!

And yes I know it is my choice to not go into HoT or the labyrinth until I have this mastery unlocked. However, when they announced it was going to be added I, and a few others I’m sure really looked forward to having it. Unfortunately I, and I am sure others, didn’t think it would be just another grind!

Guess I will see you all in the labyrinth in a few days (if I grind like a kitten that is).

So progression through the map is interlocked with masteries. We had something like that before, but it was called levels. But since we don’t have levels this makes a bit of sense.

Same with not having enough HP to insta max a specialization. Unlocking skills and traits while we were leveling and so now since we don’t level, we still have to work for them.

So, dead whoop.

Thursday I bought the expansion. Friday I came home from work, was tired so I thought login and see the new world. I couldn’t, first I had to do quests, I only wanted to roam a bit. then I couldn’t fly, I have to do a lot more. I’m afraid HOT is not my MMO.
Once in a while you buy a game that doesn’t suit you. I think I stay at the core game till I find annother one that suits me.

Behellagh.1468:

So progression through the map is interlocked with masteries. We had something like that before, but it was called levels. But since we don’t have levels this makes a bit of sense.

Same with not having enough HP to insta max a specialization. Unlocking skills and traits while we were leveling and so now since we don’t level, we still have to work for them.

So, dead whoop.

This is not Maguuma masteries. I’m okay with Maguuma masteries because that is NEW CONTENT I can play through.

I don’t like CORE MASTERIES because it is OLD content I have already done to death.

I won’t go into the whole ‘play your way’ thing but wow. I’m currently working on Dawn and the first level alone was literally more grindy and boring than anything I’ve ever done in GW2 in the past 3 years.

Can’t even imagine how bad the second and third level are going to be. It is what it is now and if that’s what it takes then maybe I’ll grind it out over a few weeks. I doubt they’ll change this bad design but cheesus christ…
I can only imagine that those who are saying it’s not that bad haven’t actually subjected themselves to this.

So today, after dabbling in the new expansion for a bit (got about half of the first map done, and got to spend 4 mastery points). I said to myself, lets get some exp in “old” part of the continent and maybe I get to spend a few of these 40 mastery points I’ve got. I did ALL daily fractals (that’s 10 fractals, without the gated one that required a mastery point to unlock), 1 CoF run (because I remembered you almost got 1 lvl from a run) and Tequatl, after the beauty of all that, I got the beauty of HALF OF AN EXP BAR.

This is a bug right? It has to be a bug, there’s no way after doing LL that stuff, I only got HALF OF AN EXP BAR. After running 10 fractals I couldn’t even unlock the first mastery for it. I didn’t use 1 mastery point for tyria today…

I wasn’t expecting to use 5-10 mastery points in one go, but holy kitten at least one…

Judge Banks.9018:

Daily Reminder:

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun”(…) – Mike O’Brien.

Lol, this game has veered off course from this statement to the point of no return.
Mastery is grindy as hell to the point it’s extremely agitating and rage inducing.

Really they should have grandfathered in some core mastery levels for veteran players. I mean if you have a lot of characters who have all done world completion, and their entire personal story, you’re at a disadvantage vs a newer player who has not done any of the content yet, for one since you’d be just repeating stuff you’ve already done, it’s just plain not as fun as it is for a new player who hasn’t done the content yet. Secondly, you have less sources of fresh xp available to you for your core masteries as all those POI’s, hero points, vistas, hearts, and waypoints you’ve already discovered and all the story quests you’ve already done? That’s xp you could have gotten towards your mastery, but you don’t get it. so you can only do repeatable events and dungeons/fractals or grinding mobs.

But at the very least we should be able to earn mastery xp with world vs world and festivals.

I’ve read that the festivals are SUPPOSED to give mastery xp, but due to a bug they are not, and anet won’t fix the festival so that it DOES give xp UNTIL NEXT HALLOWEEN.

What this all basically strikes me as feeling like.. it’s like they raised the level cap without adding new content to level in (again talking core masteries not Maguuma), and worse, reducing xp on content already had available.

I know right? I went to queensdale and killed moas for an hour and i didnt even have every mastery unlocked! Dont these devs know what “play how you want” means!!!

Devildoc.6721:

in a game that has a core “no grind” philosophy.

psh, whoever said they have a ‘no grind’ philosophy?

Considering Guild Wars is an inaccurate and completely misleading game name. The only name that fits is Grind wars.

EVERYTHING is RNG and Grind.

Name me one ONE single thing you can do without hours of grinding! just one. Dont worry i’ll wait.

You can’t do it. Everything in this game is a grind. Aside from leveling (a grind) The ONLY thing you have to do at level 80 is GRIND!

want better gear? VERY low ceiling and GRIND! with stupid absurd RNG thrown in there to kitten you off.

when was this game ever not meant to be a grind? its policy at Anet.

“uh, tom, players are tired of grinding what are we going to do?”

“Nerf viable options to do other things, and introduce content that forces them to grind….we’ll just call it something else.”

Sizer.3987:

I know right? I went to queensdale and killed moas for an hour and i didnt even have every mastery unlocked! Dont these devs know what “play how you want” means!!!

Don’t build strawmen, please.

Devildoc.6721:

Sizer.3987:

I know right? I went to queensdale and killed moas for an hour and i didnt even have every mastery unlocked! Dont these devs know what “play how you want” means!!!

Don’t build strawmen, please.

Sometimes that is all someone has.

Not to be a negative Nelly, but you haven’t been able to play your own way for awhile now. Pretty much since feature pack 2, is when it really hit.

Kythan Myr.4719:

Not to be a negative Nelly, but you haven’t been able to play your own way for awhile now. Pretty much since feature pack 2, is when it really hit.

Not really, you’ve been able to level up a character through solo PVE (world completion, personal story), group PVE (dungeons), sPVP (tomes as rewards), and WvW (and some leveling through crafting even) since they made the new PVP reward system, you were able to progress your character through multiple gameplay styles Want Ascended gear? It can drop in WvW, group PVE (world boss chests, fractals), or be crafted. Not that ascended drops were all that reliable but.. could be done.

But now you want to progress your character in core tyria masteries? You can do PVE events, or dungeons/fractals.

You cannot level masteries through sPVP or WvW at all.

Anet directed you to one single hamster wheel and told you to run if you want to get the carrot.

Judge Banks.9018:

Daily Reminder:

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun”(…) – Mike O’Brien.

LOL. Oh, the irony…

Menadena.7482:

Devildoc.6721:

At first I thought.. well, I’ll do the Mad King’s Labyrinth, at least that only comes around once a year so it’s not TOO stale

None of the xp counted towards my core mastery.

That is what I thought too and I only HOPE it is a bug. There is no use doing any open world events in the next few weeks. Things all over are failing rather spectacularly because everyone is either doing Halloween stuff or HOT. Fine, I would have been in the labyrinth anyway so will advance that way …. nope.

It is a bug – and they are not fixing it. They are worried it’ll break the game LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Too late for that.

Here’s an idea: spirit shards. You know how when you gained a level at level 80 you got skillpoints? You know how those extra skillpoints became spirit shards? Why not have an item that costs spirit shards give core mastery experience? Actually, I haven’t checked Miyani since the patch, does that exist?

No, such an item doesn’t exist.