Guild Wars 2

Razor.9872:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m not sure where the ‘earn Spirit Shards again’ comes from. We could never earn Spirit Shards in the past by leveling; only Skill Points.

Oh, well, memory is a funny thing.

Excess skill points earned after 80 were converted to a new currency called spirit shards in a previous patch. Thus, every new level would reward spirit shards. However, due to the way the mastery system works, one can only begin earning them again (through leveling [not including other ways]) if all mysteries are maxed out — which many seem incapable of doing.

True, excess Skill Points were converted into Hero Points and Spirit Shards long before the release of HoT. Between that time, and the release of HoT, nothing was earned for leveling. Nothing. XP was ‘wasted’. It was not until the Mastery system was implemented with the release of HoT that XP was useful again, for any L80 characters.

Thus, we never earned Spirit Shards before by leveling, and can’t earn them in that manner ‘again’.

Chaos.5072:

The funny thing is, out of all the ways to earn masteries, raids are actually the easiest. You only have to do one single encounter of your choice, which means you can do the easiest one (escort) and never touch raids again. It’s not like you need to clear the entire raid 100 times or something.

You can’t say the same for adventures, story achievements, bosses, etc.

Man I would love to only have to do a single adventure of my choice to unlock all mastery points!

You’re comparing unlocking mastery tracks with gaining mastery points. If you compare unlocking tracks with unlocking tracks, you’ll find that there isn’t a single track that requires doing something more than once to unlock it.

The victim card is strong.

I like how this isn’t phrased as “I don’t like this decision” but rather “YOU ARE ACTIVELY PERSECUTING ME WITH MALICIOUS INTENT!”

This isn’t discriminatory action. Everyone that plays the game has perfectly equal opportunity. This is about you choosing not to use that opportunity because of personal preference.

The game is not discriminating against anyone. You are simply unwilling to engage with the same rules as everyone else and, like most players that have a problem with the game (all players ever) wish the rules were tweaked so as to support your individual preferences.

Mandar.9813:

---

Now a rant to all the casual whiners….
To the casuals who want to earn rewards and haven’t completed these masteries…well I dunno what to tell you to help you see the flaw in your logic if you don’t already get it. Did you grow up in a world where people who didn’t do the same work and put in the same effort as others get the same reward? Because that’s not the world I know. The bottom line is that a casual gamer is never going to get to reap the full benefits of what a hardcore gamer will, and you just gotta deal with that. What kind of terrible idea would it be to screw over all the people who work hard and long for those rewards if they just let any casual player have them? How in your right mind can you think that that is a good idea?

But you just standing in WvW gives you rewards. You can run in a circle and get rewards. You don’t even have to do anything. Same is true with PvP tracks. Screw the legendary backpack which is a total PoS and sort of ugly when I can just join a match, jump off a cliff, and finish my dailies in 6 minutes flat while also getting progress along an infinite track for doing nothing more than mindlessly pressing 1.

IS THIS THE WORLD YOU ENVISION?

The whole freaking point of a REWARD is that people who put in the effort get something special in return. Basically arguing “I don’t have the time to [blah blah blah] and its not my fault because [blah blah blah] so I should still be able to get [blah blah blah]” is just plain idiotic and represents what is wrong with today’s first-world nations. Get a freakin grip kitten . Anet has loads of ways now to reward you, whether its PvP, WvW, and PvE. PvEers get the best loot just by doing events. Some things are simply reserved for people who go the extra mile (the mile being full mastery) and you just gotta get over the fact that you can’t have what they have if you can’t or won’t do the work they did and do.

Preach! I mean so what I got thousands just leveling up mindlessly before the change, now I am a real girl by having to earn them through significantly more difficult content!

I feel so bad for new players. It’s like this in every MMO in existence; if you weren’t there on day one and they change something it will be so freakin’ murder for you. I don’t even know what to do with my shards and I am trying to wrap my head around people not having any. It’s so sad!

Another way to look at it is that choosing to be casual is a choice, and so is being hardcore. People who choose to be casual are not rewarded in GAME as well as the hardcores, but one could argue that casual players are rewarded better as far as things that matter to them in LIFE. Hardcore gamers often give up a lot of their real LIFE rewards for things that matter to them in a GAME. So make your choice and then to the responsible and adult thing, accept all the pros and cons that go along with that choice.

Whatever you DO, get OUT of this baby-bird mentality.
/endrant

But being a casual and being a hardcore has nothing to do with developer behavior.

PopeUrban.2578:

The victim card is strong.

I like how this isn’t phrased as “I don’t like this decision” but rather “YOU ARE ACTIVELY PERSECUTING ME WITH MALICIOUS INTENT!”

This isn’t discriminatory action. Everyone that plays the game has perfectly equal opportunity. This is about you choosing not to use that opportunity because of personal preference.

The game is not discriminating against anyone. You are simply unwilling to engage with the same rules as everyone else and, like most players that have a problem with the game (all players ever) wish the rules were tweaked so as to support your individual preferences.

In the real world we say it like this:

“Sure, anyone can get a college education in Financial Analysis! It’s open to everyone. What? You want to be a lyricist? A freelance writer? Well, that is your choice, and may the welfare line save your soul.”

But really, you can’t “play/live your way” and then suffer “equal opportunity” clauses at the same time. It’s funny though if you think about it.

Mandar.9813:

Did you grow up in a world where people who didn’t do the same work and put in the same effort as others get the same reward? Because that’s not the world I know.

Then we really live in a different world, because in the one where I live that’s pretty common. Some people work hard and still get nothing, while others work half as hard (or not at all) and get rewarded better, simply because they happened to be born in a different country or a different social strata.

Whis is besides the point, seeing as one of the reasons why we play games is because they happen to be different from the real world.

Mandar.9813:

The bottom line is that a casual gamer is never going to get to reap the full benefits of what a hardcore gamer will, and you just gotta deal with that.

That’s indeed true, but there’s no need to increase this difference by creating hard restrictions that penalize casuals.

Mandar.9813:

What kind of terrible idea would it be to screw over all the people who work hard and long for those rewards if they just let any casual player have them?

I don’t know… good business perhaps? Remember, those casuals you deride are usually a bigger income source than those hardcores you want to promote.

Mandar.9813:

How in your right mind can you think that that is a good idea?

Why would you think alienating a majority of players just to give one more advantage to a small minority moght be a good idea?

Mandar.9813:

The whole freaking point of a REWARD is that people who put in the effort get something special in return.

In this case the “effort” is getting 250k xp. It’s just some players are rewarded for it, while others aren’t.

Mandar.9813:

Another way to look at it is that choosing to be casual is a choice, and so is being hardcore.

Yes, it’s a choice of playing style. I’d like to remind you however that neither choice is superior to others – you shouldn’t be rewarded simply because you like a different playstyle.

Chaos.5072:

The funny thing is, out of all the ways to earn masteries, raids are actually the easiest. You only have to do one single encounter of your choice, which means you can do the easiest one (escort) and never touch raids again. It’s not like you need to clear the entire raid 100 times or something.

You can’t say the same for adventures, story achievements, bosses, etc.

Man I would love to only have to do a single adventure of my choice to unlock all mastery points!

Then i have a good news to you. You don’t need to do even a single adventure to unlock all mastery tracks. Nor you do need any story achievements for that. You do need to kill at least one raid boss to unlock raid mastery track however, which is in strong contrast to all other mastery lines.

Mandar.9813:

Did you grow up in a world where people who didn’t do the same work and put in the same effort as others get the same reward?

Yes.

Mandar.9813:

Djinn.9245:

It is definitely the case that Mastery Points are locked behind a great variety of content. It would be nice if we ALL could progress the game by playing the content we prefer rather than being forced to play how someone else has decided we should play.

Are you really not aware that that is the entire point of a game? A developer has an idea and content they want to share with gamers, and they decide how you will progress through the content. This game is not a sandbox and has never been described as one, and only a sandbox game is going to give you an experience where play without any restrictions and get all the rewards you want. I mean… my mind is literally boggled trying to think about all the various ways I could try to explain to you why you are so wrong with saying “you are forced to play the way someone decides you should play”. I have to stop. My head is going to explode from trying to ponder ways to counter your sense of entitlement.

Prior to HoT, I could level my character in whatever mode I wished: PvP, WvW, Crafting, Dungeons, Fractals, JP, open world PvE, Champ Train, whatever. Once you enable Masteries, that is no longer the case. I don’t know why Anet decided to go from “progress your character in the mode you like” to the current on-rails system, but it looks like I’m not the one who doesn’t understand.

Mandar.9813:

Are you really not aware that that is the entire point of a game?

You are mistaken.

The point of a game is to play and, ideally, have fun doing so.

Djinn.9245:

Obtena.7952:

What I said still stands … the complaint is that you have to do something to get the reward … complaining something changed is just stupid … things change in games all the time.

What we’re talking about is XP. Of course we don’t want to do nothing to get XP. I personally would like to be able to receive XP whether I cap Masteries or not. I shouldn’t need to cap Masteries just to get XP for doing anything else in the game.

Um, I know you are talking about XP. I don’t see what that would change about what I said here. It’s irrelevant if you get XP if you don’t get something for it.

I’m curious about one thing. When there are some guys complain about not getting anything when their exp bar were full (before this patch), did you guys say he complain too much? That he can’t make any suggestion? Show me that you did it? Then why he can and we can’t? Because you also like his idea and support him that’s why you guys kept your mouth shut.

Why not just learn to accept different people will have different opinion? Is it that hard to do? Let ANet decide since they’re the one in-charge.

Edit: Don’t bother reply me because I won’t reply back. And if you still want to do it, that’s it you won the argument over the internet. I /surrender (Funny thing is that this is available to raiders).

Lambent.6375:

I always wondered why we weren’t able to switch between our normal experience bar and mastery. Kinda comes off as being punished for buying the expansion.

Not buying the expansion would just leave your exp bar frozen in place as well.

Mandar.9813:

Are you really not aware that that is the entire point of a game? A developer has an idea and content they want to share with gamers, and they decide how you will progress through the content. This game is not a sandbox and has never been described as one, and only a sandbox game is going to give you an experience where play without any restrictions and get all the rewards you want.

Because the developer made it that way is a weak defense. ANet planned that GW2 would not feature raids. The game was that way for years. Raids are here because of a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons was player demands. If “That’s the way they designed it.” was gospel, raids would not now be part of the game.

While GW2 is indeed not a sandbox, the original game offered the broadest range of ways to level of any MMO. Gaining “something” for “leveling” after cap has been part of the franchise for more than a decade. Now, that’s changed, and the leveling stand-ins in GW2 are gated to specific content more than traditional MMO’s, never mind the vanilla GW2.

I’m a proponent of specific rewards for specific content. That’s why I don’t complain about L. Armor and raids, even though I think it’s a mistake on ANet’s part. However, leveling (or its stand-ins) has always been a wide-open system in MMO’s. There needs to be some of that in MMO’s too, because the developer makes more money if they appeal to a wide range of demographics.

Come on, it’s not like we’re talking about something significant. Shards are not the end of the world either way. However, the principle is worth arguing. Is “everything” to be gated behind specifics because Anet has no clue how to make some content appeal to a broader range of players on its own merit? In the long run, that woould be worse for the the game.

Mandar.9813:

Djinn.9245:

Mandar.9813:

Now a rant to all the casual whiners….

How rude – didn’t bother to read the rest of your post because of this rudeness.

I’m just gonna imagine you said that like Stephanie Tanner.

And also its probably for the best that you didn’t read because if you’re that easily offended I doubt we’d get to have productive discourse.

Also I hope you can distinguish between the nuanced assertion that I am not saying casual players are whiners, but rather trying to address the casual players that whine. If you are offended its simply a sign that you are self-aware.

If your intent was to foster productive discourse, beginning with a pejorative was not a good idea. Productive discourse requires a cooperative exchange, and pejoratives create the opposite. They almost always generate negative reactions. It seems more likely that your real intent was to disenfranchise and marginalize.

Chaos.5072:

The funny thing is, out of all the ways to earn masteries, raids are actually the easiest. You only have to do one single encounter of your choice, which means you can do the easiest one (escort) and never touch raids again. It’s not like you need to clear the entire raid 100 times or something.

You can’t say the same for adventures, story achievements, bosses, etc.

Man I would love to only have to do a single adventure of my choice to unlock all mastery points!

That conveniently leaves out an important detail. In order to do that escort at least half the group needs to have a mastery from the Forsaken Thicket line already.

[Thank you for the feedback. It appears this topic has been discussed at length. It is now closed.]