Guild Wars 2

I am really disappointed in the Mastery System.
The Mastery System is suppost to be a really nice and fun feature that grants players new abilitys and let them interact with the world in a new way (like granting access to new hidden path that give you access to new content or hidden story thats not a part of the main story)
The Heart of Maguma Masterys:
They are a fram fest that froceses you the GRIND THE LIVING kitten (cures) out of areas 4 (3.5 cuz Dragon Stand isn’s always up), to get a reword that does not fit the amout of time that it takes to achive.
You don’t allow people to level up the Heart of Maguuma masterys in Central Tyria (I can get that you want people to do the new content), but you don’t give us enough contetnt in the new maps it’s frustrating (AND I AM SICK OF DOING THE SAME MATE EVENTS FOR THE 10000000000 MILION TIME).
Most of these masterys does not appy to Central Tyria which make them fill like a huge waste of time.

The Central Tyria Masterys:
The Central Tyria Masterys don’t really involve you in exploring Central Tyria for new interesting thing. Insted they grant you acess to Lion Arch Masterys because most of the masterys apply to Lion’s Arch. you should have called it Lion’s Arch Masteys.

I have 97 masterys points, I am missing alot of Heart of Maguma, missing the legendery masterys (because I am not interested of framing the legendery).
I see no resone to FRAM the other masterys or the new conternt.

the way it is atm its a half fail for me…its nice for a small moment..and then its either over and u feel u gained nothing..or it takes ages..

there r maaaaaany masteries missing..an they should be some really cool things that improve the gameplay nd provide fun.

also the way masteries r unlocked is stupid…its brainless exp farm….i dont mind farms..but at least something that is fun and u r free to do it ur way.

i got some suggestions for masteries that would really be cool

• Huntsman masteries:
  allows u to have higher drop rates of certain items..like leather and meat and such. You can choose which item u wanna increase..and switch out the one that is active. (so u can have leather active…but others not..so if u wanna have more blood now u need activate it but the leather goes away). Also…i think to avoid the stupid exp farm it would be cool to develop these masteries when u do these things….so when u r hunting wild animals u increase the masteries lvl step by step.

• Secret/Chest Hunter (or something like this ;D):
  increase the chance of finding chests in the world(such like in the end of JP´s) and make the loot better from them.
  also finding new entrances of caves or such would be cool.

• Challanger:
  beeing able to summon a challange in the open world. Like suddenly appearing 20-30 monster. I really love running around the open world and finding these mini dungeons where r many monster just to lure all and kill them all. but i feel like the population of monster decreased since release..and events r not the same anymore…they r not a challange anymore..but its a challange to hit every monster at least 1 time so u get loot.
  or any other challange is welcome something for soloplayer also..

• Skillmaster
  allows u to change some weapon skills. The more u play the skills u wanna change the more this masterie lvls up.
  (an example…revenant sword skill 2 gives 5 projectiles but less dmg (that max dmg is the same)….or 10 projectiles but again lower dmg)

something like a bandit masterie would also be fun…like doing bad stuff XD…attacking on going events like escorts

and a masterie for fighting those bad guys xP

I think Thee mastery system is mostly fine,

The rewards for having unlocks are -ACCOUNT- wide so after unlockig gliding on 1 character ALL your characters can glide, same for the rest. As most experience tends to come with the normal “hunt” for mastery points I had little probelms maxing most of them. I must admit I was at 58/49 mastery points for tyria (I still have 9 to spare after max levvelling those) and I CoF-ed my tyria levels….~10-12 hours of pure boredom and dropping flame legions by bushels later I finished my Tyria track. Had good fun though with ppl some on TS as well with music bot, bad jokes and a good drink.

As for HoT masteries I farmed points and did some spider mayhem, then went on to do events and Meta’s while trying to get the remaining 40 points or so i was still missing… With regards of slow experience gains:

-Use Food/Utility/Fireworks/Banner/guild booster for ~50%
-Use celebration boosters (or birthday boosters) for 100%
-Use heroic boosters/ experience boosters (old and new) for 50-100%

And make good time…. having + 200 – 250 % XP tends to help..

Apparently everything these days is a fail of someone doesn’t like it.

Drop mastery points…… Let experience fill the mastery bars and let that be the end of it. Anet, please go back to the original “play as you want” philosophy that gw2 started out with.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Apparently everything these days is a fail of someone doesn’t like it.

The “Fail” is a headline to attract more people to come to this thred.

Kingsdavid.3598:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Apparently everything these days is a fail of someone doesn’t like it.

The “Fail” is a headline to attract more people to come to this thred.

“Norn in Snowden Drift found a dead dolyak. What he did with the corpse will blow your mind!”

Can we have mount threads in instead... I’m so sick of the mastery fail arguments, at least dead horses being beat are fun to look at.

The mastery system has not been fun for me; if anything it has decreased my enjoyment of the game. Especially the required mastery needed to progress in HoT content. It has slowed my progress due to lack of fun. Glad some people like it, I just don’t see the point. But the reason I enjoyed this game in the first place was because it was less grindy than others out there. So adding more grind seems like moving in the wrong direction.

It is one of the poorer AA systems I’ve encountered. Still, it’s not the worst.

The main problem for me is putting them in jumping puzzles, mini games and behind time gated / meta events that lock you out. That being said, I have two character with 100% map completes , all strong boxes and mastery poi. But now I am stuck playing aspects of the game I have never cared for like JPs and those mini games. There has to be a better way to let players earn mastery points playing the game as one wants to. So I agree, it’s a fail for me.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I think Thee mastery system is mostly fine,

The rewards for having unlocks are -ACCOUNT- wide so after unlockig gliding on 1 character ALL your characters can glide, same for the rest. As most experience tends to come with the normal “hunt” for mastery points I had little probelms maxing most of them. I must admit I was at 58/49 mastery points for tyria (I still have 9 to spare after max levvelling those) and I CoF-ed my tyria levels….~10-12 hours of pure boredom and dropping flame legions by bushels later I finished my Tyria track. Had good fun though with ppl some on TS as well with music bot, bad jokes and a good drink.

As for HoT masteries I farmed points and did some spider mayhem, then went on to do events and Meta’s while trying to get the remaining 40 points or so i was still missing… With regards of slow experience gains:

-Use Food/Utility/Fireworks/Banner/guild booster for ~50%
-Use celebration boosters (or birthday boosters) for 100%
-Use heroic boosters/ experience boosters (old and new) for 50-100%

And make good time…. having + 200 – 250 % XP tends to help..

Getting EXP is not the problem with mastery system, it getting points to unlock after you have enough exp that are behind aspects of the game that people don’t care for or can’t be accessed unless you are there at the right time. Anet is mistakenly forcing people to play aspect of the game they may hate.

What Anet could do is move all mastery points to communes. This way players can complete all masteries without much effort.

In place of the mastery points that they removed from things, they can add a token specific to that activity, avhievement, or whatever. These tokens are used for another collection to gain access to craft HoT legendary weapons.

I’m stuck in the masteries system and so until I can figure a way to get it moving again, I can’t level (not that leveling does anything). It’s a bit of a pain, but not earth shattering.

The thing I don’t like is how they have used the Tyria masteries to either force you into doing content that you’ve opted not to complete or the system was just duct taped to parts of existing game play. It feels clunky and not thought out.

Perhaps it would be less of a problem if it wasn’t so much grinding. Whole weapon collections for one mastery point? I think not.

I wouldn’t call it a fail, but it is flawed.

I think the best thing to do right now would be to remove the Mastery Points required to unlock/learn Masteries. Yes, that means that many people will avoid the content that used to have the MPs behind it. But, there’s a reason they’re wanting to avoid that content, and they shouldn’t feel pressured into it.

If it was mine to do over, I would have skipped on the MPs, and had some of the Masteries set up so that story goals gave you the first level of it, with later levels needing to be earned. Finish the first part of the story? Scout should hand you a glider, unlocking Gliding Basics. Saved the froggies? “Here, let me show you how to use this mushroom to get up to our village.” Helped the Exalted? They give you a book to help translate their writings into something you can understand. And so on.

That would go for Central Tyria, too. Finish the personal story, and you unlock the Pact Mastery. Read a scattered series of books on old legends, and you unlock the Legendary Crafting Mastery.

A Mastery should NEVER become a barrier to part of the central story of the game. Instead, Mastery lines should flow from the story, so you have reason to know of them and then have the option to pursue them further.

I’m not willing to do the tasks associated with getting the core mastery points so I simply don’t participate. I don’t plan on building a legendary, so that whole line is out. Not willing to farm five more points so I can res folks faster (effort vs. reward).

After the April update, I’ll see if I like playing the new maps. If so, I may try to get some of those skills, but only if I feel the effort will be worth the reward. As things stand now, I simply don’t care enough to put forth the effort.

Palador.2170:

If it was mine to do over, I would have skipped on the MPs, and had some of the Masteries set up so that story goals gave you the first level of it, with later levels needing to be earned. Finish the first part of the story? Scout should hand you a glider, unlocking Gliding Basics. Saved the froggies? “Here, let me show you how to use this mushroom to get up to our village.” Helped the Exalted? They give you a book to help translate their writings into something you can understand. And so on.

Exactly what people, including myself, were saying soon after HOT release. The masteries are too divorced from what they represent. But it is what it is. All you can do is knuckle down and complete them… if you want. We can only hope future masteries have a little more connection to the world.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Kingsdavid.3598:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Apparently everything these days is a fail of someone doesn’t like it.

The “Fail” is a headline to attract more people to come to this thred.

“Norn in Snowden Drift found a dead dolyak. What he did with the corpse will blow your mind!”

I laughed SO hard at this.

Blude.6812:

The main problem for me is putting them in jumping puzzles, mini games and behind time gated / meta events that lock you out. That being said, I have two character with 100% map completes , all strong boxes and mastery poi. But now I am stuck playing aspects of the game I have never cared for like JPs and those mini games. There has to be a better way to let players earn mastery points playing the game as one wants to. So I agree, it’s a fail for me.

So I need 12 more points to complete the central tyria masteries and decided to take a break from my usual routine and have a go at them. Worst decision ever.

I swear to God, for the first time in almost three years playing I legit raged trying to complete Zephyr’s Ascent, to get one manky little mastery point under the Point of No Return achievements. Like, literal veins-bulging, cursing-and-sputtering, keyboard-smashing anger.

Skipped that and checked out the rest of my options. Pretty much all of ‘em suck. All of the points are distributed between the kittenty achievements and collections that I kittening ignored for a reason – I don’t kittenin enjoy that stuff.

Now, I don’t like those either, but I can at least understand the logic behind the placement of HoT masteries. But for core tyria, just to access some basic-kitten features touted as selling points for the expansion, I need to endure the tedium I ignored the first time around? Not fun, not fun at all.

/rant

I think anyone complaining about the xp required doesn’t really have a leg to stand on, all you have to do is play the content and the xp comes pouring in, if it isnt fast enough for you there are numerous ways to boost incoming xp even before you consider grinding.

The masteries themselves have been great too

Deedrick.4372:

Can we have mount threads in instead… I’m so sick of the mastery fail arguments, at least dead horses being beat are fun to look at.

Masteries are mostly ok,the game badly needed a post lvl cap advancement system,
and now it’s got one.They are account bound,and are supposed to take you a few weeks to max them all up.

Kingsdavid.3598:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Apparently everything these days is a fail of someone doesn’t like it.

The “Fail” is a headline to attract more people to come to this thred.

So it’s like click bait. All the fail does for me is make me want to ignore the thread, because anyone who categorically says something failed is stating their opinion as some kind of fact.

What you’ll end up getting is people disagreeing with you just because you’re using confrontational wording.

If you’d written I don’t like the mastery system, I wouldn’t be in here not at all. You’re entitled to that opinion.

Instead what you get is a contrary opinion. I think the mastery system is just fine.

Pretty sure using Fail is going to invite more people with a contrary opinion than the same one.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Anet, please go back to the original “play as you want” philosophy that gw2 started out with.

Wow, that I want everything but don’t want to work for it argument disguised as “play as you want”. There was never a “play as you want” philosophy in such a way.

When exactly was the time when you could progress PvP Reward Track while playing PvE, or get Dungeon Tokens while playing WvW, or earn a Prototype Fractal Capacitor in Dungeons … ?

If you wanted something you always needed to earn it in a specified way.

Aenaos.8160:

Deedrick.4372:

Can we have mount threads in instead… I’m so sick of the mastery fail arguments, at least dead horses being beat are fun to look at.

Masteries are mostly ok,the game badly needed a post lvl cap advancement system,
and now it’s got one.They are account bound,and are supposed to take you a few weeks to max them all up.

But it did have one of sorts, you leveled and you got another skill point that could be used in game to buy things.

Now you do all of the leveling, and I have done to complete Nevermore, and then, nothing?

This was one thing that went all the way through GW1 and most of the way through GW2 – untouched for a reason. It might be a small change, and I don’t know about anyone else, but it certainly reduced the game for me. Getting XP was worth something and now it isn’t. There is no point to getting XP any more.

Shylock.4653:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Anet, please go back to the original “play as you want” philosophy that gw2 started out with.

Wow, that I want everything but don’t want to work for it argument disguised as “play as you want”. There was never a “play as you want” philosophy in such a way.

When exactly was the time when you could progress PvP Reward Track while playing PvE, or get Dungeon Tokens while playing WvW, or earn a Prototype Fractal Capacitor in Dungeons … ?

If you wanted something you always needed to earn it in a specified way.

I believe you are misinterpreting this post. I believe the context of the thread extends into what this poster was trying to express. It is not about not wanting to earn rewards. It is not about not wanting to play specific game modes to earn rewards for those game modes. It is about ANET’s obvious hostage taking tactic of bonding the advertised elements of HoT to game elements that they clearly knew players do/would not like. For example, legendary weapons require full completions of HoT mastery tracks…which by itself is not a problem. The problem comes in with the acquisition of the mastery points to accomplish that (jumping puzzles, mini games, story achievements). These are game elements that they are fully aware that a significant portion of their player base dislikes. Instead of just acknowledging this reality…or making these game elements more enjoyable…they try to force players into them with hostage taking tactics (you can’t have the things you bought the expansion for unless you do those things that we know you dislike). One of many problems I have with this approach is that this is an artificial restriction. This restriction exists purely because they inserted mastery points into these game elements…and purposely omitted them from other game elements…with the express intention to force players to do those things they dislike. Ultimately, this is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Why would anyone think its a good idea to make their game not be fun? I don’t mind content that is difficult…but is still fun. I do mind being pressured into content that I find so boring and uninteresting, that I intentionally avoid it…especially when I have made it clear with past game play patterns that I dislike it. This is the kind of “play how I want” that I believe this poster was referring to…simply spreading out mastery point acquisition over more game elements…so as not to force jumping puzzles, mini games, and living story achievements onto players that dislike them. Would it really have killed them to make more mastery point communes or strong boxes? Would it really have been so terrible to attach more mastery points to other activities? Its a problem when you have to resort to distasteful tactics to get people to play your content. Its personally, got me to the point where I can barely make myself login to the game….just for the daily login reward lately…and then log out within a few minutes. I’ve done the new HoT maps to the point where I really don’t have the desire to repeat them anymore. I dislike having to wait around for the map metas to start again…just to grind out more map currency or to get access to mini games for more mastery points. I find myself doing exactly what they said we would not be doing in HoT….waiting to have fun. In this case though…its waiting to still not have fun…but to grind some more towards map currencies and tries at more mastery points.

I enjoyed this game much more when I could login anytime I felt like it and make decent progress towards goals and have semi-immediate fun. Now everything is a map wide zerg, a planned guild event, or extortion into some game element I dislike. The primary content I did like (fractals and dungeons) are terrible now. Dungeons are not rewarding and therefore dead content…part of the extortion policy of HoT. The ANET mafia came in and broke the dungeon knee caps to make sure we played the new maps and the “new and unimproved” fractals. Removing the randomization from fractals was the worst decision…second only to mastery points tied to specific game elements. Why would any fractal veteran do anything besides swamp/duo without randomization….or significantly better rewards? They have clearly proven that they are never going to actually give significantly better rewards for different fractal levels/tiers. They temporarily increase drop rates when we complain enough…then secretly revert them back in a day or so. I see the hype they are trying to sell us….again…about fixing fractals and fixing rewards, but I’ve lost the ability to believe ANET hype from past experience. I also see the somewhat vague information about adding raids to the LFG. I would be more hyped about that if there were more specifics (filters included or the standard random hot joins). I guess I’ll see if these things actually happen during my daily rewards login lol.

The mastery system needs fewer trashy filler masteries.

These mastery provide very little benefit for what they require.
Itzel Language
Itzel Leadership
Exalted Acceptance
Exalted Assistance
Exalted Purification
Exalted Gather(maybe)
Nuhoch Language
Nuhoch Proving
Nuhoch Alchemy