[Feedback] Mastery Points
Very similar to my experience and belief. The mastery system is a mechanism to implement horizontal progression. As such, you should be making progress when you play the game. When the mastery system came out I very quickly got 9 mastery points but never got another one even after months of daily play. How could this happen? I was playing the game my way (Colin’s way) and not as the developers intended.
The long and short of it is very simple: if you are going to implement horizontal progression it should progress for everyone through playing the game. The easiest way to implement this is through XP. Other kinds of masteries could also be present to enrich the baseline XP progression.
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
You’re focusing on the wrong problem. The point system they use ultimately isn’t a problem compared to how things are obtained, and how mastery points are expressly used as a gating mechanism for each relevant mechanic, and region of the game that uses them. Trivialize it, and the gating mechanism falls apart….. but we have nothing to replace it with, because GW2 doesn’t use level caps and gear checks as a universal system. More importantly, if they were made map specific nodes (like Gliding was originally going be for HOT), it ends up disrupting the exploration aspect of the game, and forces it to behave more like a puzzle. Think Zephyerite aspects in Drytop, and how Gliding completely circumvented every major restriction on that map. That difference in application is SIGNIFICANT in ways you aren’t even bothering to consider.
HOT mobility masteries, and nearly all the initial complaints with the mastery system, can easily be boiled down to the design of Verdant Brink, and how it had to condense several hours of early progress (more or less a soft tutorial) into a space the size of Drytop. Once you had Updraft Gliding and Bouncing mushroom (a whole 4 Mastery points total) nearly all of those problems go away. The reason was simple….. VB is an extremely vertical map, with a lot of vertical access ways. AB doesn’t have that problem, because all the transit zones are ground level, and the map is circular (easy to get around by converging on the central ring of Tarir’s outer gates). TD problems were the exact opposite, because there were very few vertical path ways, but each Meta region (the space above each lane) is its own vertical map.
All they really needed to do different in the early section of HOT was to define a clearer pathway for how to spend points, and being more cognizant of map signalling in Metroidvania map design methodology. And if you look back…. that was the big problem with figuring out to navigate VB.
As for utilizing content…. technically you only need to unlock all the materies if you plan to do achievements and/or legendary weapons. You only “need” Gliding 3 to complete the expansion (the Modremoth battle), and they took out the requirement for Itzel Poison… which was the only other “requirement” for the story.
But the reason they chained content into requisites was to lessen the amount of compartmentalization required of the maps. Because what you’re asking is effectively removing mastery points as a gating system for general progress, and replacing it with the ever growing trivialness that is Spirit Shards, and its Predecessor the Skill point system. This would force those mechanics to be map specific elements, rather then general abilities of the character, if there was any hope to control how they progressed through the map.
As weird as it sounds…. it has to work the way it does with finite collected points, because its the only way to ensure you’re being forced to exercise certain abilities in order to progress toward others further in the list. And of everything that can be considered “bad” about the current system- using EXP gating when its completely disconnected from how those abilities are used, is by far, the most blatant, unimaginative way to slow progress.
Theres also a conscious excess of points spread out in other areas of the game, allowing you skip certain things and changing the path taken to unlocking everything you need/want. Again… its another Metroidvania concept, where speed runners can figure out alternate pathways either changing the order of what they collect, or skipping their collection if they aren’t entirely necessary nor have a beneficial time/cost. And its pretty clear that Living Season chapters add to the excess, allowing a very easy to way backfill missing mastery tracks without having to complete the base content of the expansion.
Don’t confuse “progress” with “accumulation”…… because that distinction is important when talking about how many of the older systems were design, compared to the newer ones.
(edited by starlinvf.1358)
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
(edited by Raine.1394)
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Raine, if you read alot of my posts, I complain about MP collecting, and at various stages of the game, I have been happy with just 33 MPs, and then 69, and now after 2 years of on and off play, I am at 98. I will never get to 186 MPs, nor will I try, but thankfully, it appears that PoF will not have a gloat of MPs needed to progress through the maps. From the example of gameplay, there are some jumps you have to make in the story, which are frustrating for me too, but it’s not an obscene amount, and while progressing through the story, it unlocks the mount mastery. I don’t consider HoT fun, but I’m willing to meet anet halfway on PoF to be able to get out and explore again.
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Earning XP from just playing the game is doing so passively. It’s the difference between farming gold in SW or Fractal 40 vs earning gold from monsters/events as they do whatever. It’d be like Anet removing all farms and increasing that players earned from just playing the game. Earning that gold becomes a passive effect just as earning progressing masteries if they only needed XP.
You also forget that the masteries of HoT tended to be spread out to get players do to a wide range of content to experience more of HoT. Otherwise, players would have done the AB farm only and have all of their masteries maxed. It makes the masteries kind of pointless as a progression system at that point.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
You’re focusing on the wrong problem. The point system they use ultimately isn’t a problem compared to how things are obtained, and how mastery points are expressly used as a gating mechanism for each relevant mechanic, and region of the game that uses them. Trivialize it, and the gating mechanism falls apart….. but we have nothing to replace it with, because GW2 doesn’t use level caps and gear checks as a universal system. More importantly, if they were made map specific nodes (like Gliding was originally going be for HOT), it ends up disrupting the exploration aspect of the game, and forces it to behave more like a puzzle. Think Zephyerite aspects in Drytop, and how Gliding completely circumvented every major restriction on that map. That difference in application is SIGNIFICANT in ways you aren’t even bothering to consider.
I respect your opinion, but I strongly disagree. Early progression is not the issue I have with the system. Early progression is fairly easy to earn enough mastery points in a variety of ‘play it your way’ methods. Though once all of those are used up, progression comes to a grinding halt and the player is then left either attempting content that may be well above their skill level (which leads to frustration), grinding content they do not enjoy, or giving up on any future lateral progress completely. That doesn’t seem all that fun to me.
HOT mobility masteries, and nearly all the initial complaints with the mastery system, can easily be boiled down to the design of Verdant Brink, and how it had to condense several hours of early progress (more or less a soft tutorial) into a space the size of Drytop. Once you had Updraft Gliding and Bouncing mushroom (a whole 4 Mastery points total) nearly all of those problems go away. The reason was simple….. VB is an extremely vertical map, with a lot of vertical access ways. AB doesn’t have that problem, because all the transit zones are ground level, and the map is circular (easy to get around by converging on the central ring of Tarir’s outer gates). TD problems were the exact opposite, because there were very few vertical path ways, but each Meta region (the space above each lane) is its own vertical map.
Again, not my complaint. Early progression offers a wide variety of ways to earn mastery points. Story, event achievements, exploration, etc. Those are all available for early progress. It’s when you get into later levels of progression that this really becomes an issue for me. I understand we don’t agree on that, but it is one of the major factors in why my personal play time tapered off significantly once I hit that wall.
All they really needed to do different in the early section of HOT was to define a clearer pathway for how to spend points, and being more cognizant of map signalling in Metroidvania map design methodology. And if you look back…. that was the big problem with figuring out to navigate VB.
This would not address the main point of concern for me, since it is not early progression that I found unenjoyable.
As for utilizing content…. technically you only need to unlock all the materies if you plan to do achievements and/or legendary weapons. You only “need” Gliding 3 to complete the expansion (the Modremoth battle), and they took out the requirement for Itzel Poison… which was the only other “requirement” for the story.
But the reason they chained content into requisites was to lessen the amount of compartmentalization required of the maps. Because what you’re asking is effectively removing mastery points as a gating system for general progress, and replacing it with the ever growing trivialness that is Spirit Shards, and its Predecessor the Skill point system. This would force those mechanics to be map specific elements, rather then general abilities of the character, if there was any hope to control how they progressed through the map.
Since when has progression ever been solely about what you need? That’s not entirely the point of progression. Certainly some things are needed for later content, but progression gives players a sense of moving forward. When you hit a wall where progress stops and all the goals are out of your reach, then what? It gets boring, because you have nothing to strive for, no sense of character growth or development, and the fun stops pretty quick.
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Earning XP from just playing the game is doing so passively. It’s the difference between farming gold in SW or Fractal 40 vs earning gold from monsters/events as they do whatever. It’d be like Anet removing all farms and increasing that players earned from just playing the game. Earning that gold becomes a passive effect just as earning progressing masteries if they only needed XP.
You also forget that the masteries of HoT tended to be spread out to get players do to a wide range of content to experience more of HoT. Otherwise, players would have done the AB farm only and have all of their masteries maxed. It makes the masteries kind of pointless as a progression system at that point.
I see where you’re coming from on this but I feel that the Mastery point system is two concepts that don’t mesh well with the rest of progression in the game. I think the Mastery Skills and trait lines are one concept, and the points earned for special achievements are another entirely and should be treated as such.
If you are willing to go above and beyond to achieve special goals and complete specific content, GREAT! You absolutely should be rewarded for that. I do not feel that continued lateral progression should be directly tied to these feats. They are two different concepts, achievements vs continued progress after cap.
I like the idea of masteries but I dislike the need for mastery points in order to complete the training.
I don’t like doing most of the adventures that give them or am not good enough to get gold and only on some am I good enough to get silver. I can’t always get (or get help with) getting story achievements for masteries. The easiest ones are the ones on the map.
But every new release they have a new mastery with a decent MP cost in order to fully train. Which means I always have to go back and do something I hate doing just to be able to train is as sometimes the new map mechanic that you need the mastery for is required to get all the masteries on the new map, but I get what I can.
So if they change the point requirement thing, I will be all in favor of that.
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What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Earning XP from just playing the game is doing so passively. It’s the difference between farming gold in SW or Fractal 40 vs earning gold from monsters/events as they do whatever. It’d be like Anet removing all farms and increasing that players earned from just playing the game. Earning that gold becomes a passive effect just as earning progressing masteries if they only needed XP.
You also forget that the masteries of HoT tended to be spread out to get players do to a wide range of content to experience more of HoT. Otherwise, players would have done the AB farm only and have all of their masteries maxed. It makes the masteries kind of pointless as a progression system at that point.
Please demonstrate earning XP passively. I’ve never seen it done. Try it for yourself. Make a character and go stand in a corner of Lion’s Arch and watch your XP bar. What happens?
Yes, I understand perfectly well that masteries in HoT are meant to channel players into game modes and activities. This would be the very definition of “play it our way, the way we intend it to be played”. I was championing the opposite: play it my way. It’s an old value from before the release of GW2—admittedly it hasn’t been gaining ground as a principle of design since then.
And, progression through playing the game would never be pointless—it would rather be progression.
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Earning XP from just playing the game is doing so passively. It’s the difference between farming gold in SW or Fractal 40 vs earning gold from monsters/events as they do whatever. It’d be like Anet removing all farms and increasing that players earned from just playing the game. Earning that gold becomes a passive effect just as earning progressing masteries if they only needed XP.
You also forget that the masteries of HoT tended to be spread out to get players do to a wide range of content to experience more of HoT. Otherwise, players would have done the AB farm only and have all of their masteries maxed. It makes the masteries kind of pointless as a progression system at that point.
I see where you’re coming from on this but I feel that the Mastery point system is two concepts that don’t mesh well with the rest of progression in the game. I think the Mastery Skills and trait lines are one concept, and the points earned for special achievements are another entirely and should be treated as such.
If you are willing to go above and beyond to achieve special goals and complete specific content, GREAT! You absolutely should be rewarded for that. I do not feel that continued lateral progression should be directly tied to these feats. They are two different concepts, achievements vs continued progress after cap.
I personally have no issues if the entire thing was scrapped as progression was instead done by using those masteries. Kind of like what Elder Scrolls does with its skills. One difference being that you have to meaningfully use them instead of something like AFK stealth walking into a corner like in those games.
What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?
It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.
I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.
Earning XP from just playing the game is doing so passively. It’s the difference between farming gold in SW or Fractal 40 vs earning gold from monsters/events as they do whatever. It’d be like Anet removing all farms and increasing that players earned from just playing the game. Earning that gold becomes a passive effect just as earning progressing masteries if they only needed XP.
You also forget that the masteries of HoT tended to be spread out to get players do to a wide range of content to experience more of HoT. Otherwise, players would have done the AB farm only and have all of their masteries maxed. It makes the masteries kind of pointless as a progression system at that point.
I see where you’re coming from on this but I feel that the Mastery point system is two concepts that don’t mesh well with the rest of progression in the game. I think the Mastery Skills and trait lines are one concept, and the points earned for special achievements are another entirely and should be treated as such.
If you are willing to go above and beyond to achieve special goals and complete specific content, GREAT! You absolutely should be rewarded for that. I do not feel that continued lateral progression should be directly tied to these feats. They are two different concepts, achievements vs continued progress after cap.
I personally have no issues if the entire thing was scrapped as progression was instead done by using those masteries. Kind of like what Elder Scrolls does with its skills. One difference being that you have to meaningfully use them instead of something like AFK stealth walking into a corner like in those games.
That’s a rather interesting concept, and one I would find enjoyable compared to the current point gated system. Either way, I do feel that there needs to be a change that allows a sense of progression that isn’t gated by ‘achievements’. I’m hesitant to get fully behind the Skryim concept though, because I get the sense it would end up being implemented in a way that still felt like achievement grind, just with a different label.
(edited by Sondergaard.8469)
And let me give one final example. I’ve talked about XP as a basis for progression of some kind post cap. What is XP? Well, let me google ‘XP in games’:
First hit: “An experience point (often abbreviated to exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character’s progression through the game.”
Ah, experience denoting progression in the game. Why would they use the term experience to denote the thing gained from playing? Let me give an analog. You take a job for which you have no experience and start at minimum wage. Time goes by and you gain experience. As you gain experience your salary goes up. Why? You’ve progressed in terms of your abilities and knowledge gained; you’ve progressed in terms of your experience. Your reward (salary) now reflects your gain in experience. BTW, was that experience gained passively?
This is the concept I’m talking about, progression through experience. It doesn’t mean there are no other mechanism’s for character progression, we want those too (horizontal anyways). What I’m talking about is a baseline form of progression gained by experience, i.e., by playing the game.
(edited by Raine.1394)