Guild Wars 2

In the old times when character reached 80lvl, it was still able to “lvl up” by filling again experience bar and by doing so it was rewarded with skill point. Somewhere along the way skillpoint were converted into spirit shards and those were then the reward for ‘leveling up’. And then came HoT, we got introduced to Mastery Ranks and we can train those in our past-80’s-lives. But what when someone has already mastered all mastery paths? All that gained exp is being ‘wasted’ and here is an idea about getting back some symbolic rewards for filling up that huge exp bar again and again.

First of all I would like to stress that I dont mean it as a way to profit. I just would like to see some symbolic reward for getting a level again.

First of all anet would have to implement some kind of mechanic or check-function if character has nothing more to put their experience in, in their Tyria/HoT tab. Some sort of “max developement” point (which naturally will be going up as we will be getting some new masteries in the future), and if the requirement is met then experience bar can be filled again and again at the highest mastery level in the tab (currently 5,1kk exp if Im not mistaken?). And ofcourse after filling it the character will receive some king of reward.

Type of the reward and the amount in my opinion can be almost anything, 10 random t6 mats, 10 spirit shards, some random exotic part, I personally dont mind getting anything, I would like that all that exp wont simply be for nothing in the endgame.

Lets face it, old skill points were after some time useless as well, but we all felt at least a little rewarded after getting one Even if it was already our 10th full stack in wh :P

I have to say I agree with this. I’ve completed my Tyria masteries. I’m nearing completion of my HoT masteries. Karma continues to have value, experience should have some sort of value associated with it as well. Once the masteries are complete, then setting the experience bar pool back to 254,000 and and giving the player a ding, a leveling animation, and a spirit shard (or something) would be a welcome change.

Skill points were converted into spirit shards some time before HoT launched.

Spirit shards were never awarded for filling your XP bar on a level 80 character. In fact, from the time they converted skill points to the time HoT launched, filling the XP bar did absolutely nothing.

Now with HoT out, filling the XP bar goes towards the mastery you have selected. If you haven’t purchased the HoT expansion, filling your XP bar over and over will do nothing since you need HoT to gain access to masteries.

You get 3 spirit shards per day from completing your daily achievement meta.
Using a tome of knowledge on a level 80 character will give you 1 spirit shard per tome.
You can buy Dessa’s Experiment Journal from fractal vendors to get 1 spirit shard each.

They did say ahead of time we could get spirit shards as random loot drops from enemies when playing level 80 characters., but I don’t know if I’ve ever got any that way. From the looks of things they actually have a chance to drop from various loot/reward boxes and bags, as well as being rewarded sometimes when completing personal story missions.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spirit_Shard

Okay, so we got 5 paragraphs pointing out the single sentence in the OP’s post with a minor mistake in it…

Um, got something to say about whether or not it’d be nice to get some kibble for filling the exp bar again after Masteries are completed?

I wonder if anybody at Anet has designed, or even played, an RPG before because they’d know this is just terrible psychology for a gamer. Sitting with a solid yellow bar across the bottom of the screen and knowing it is never going to progress in Tyria is annoying the kitten out of me. It really says “hey buddy you’re done.”

And on another point of psychology, seeing the bunny rabbit icon on the character screen every time I change alts (for having only one point in PvP) ain’t doing much for my self-esteem. But I’ll live with it.

Hitting max level and having the exp do nothing isn’t all that unusual. There are also other games that makes it extremely grindy to hit max level so most people never get there.

And this is why everyone was trying to tell people to not rush through masteries. Because chances are, we may not get any new ones till the start of the next living season (MAYBE) which could come between late jan to march (MAYBE).

Thank you for this. My bar is full, I know my exp is going right out the window and it sucks. I keep thinking I missed something, so I keep going back. I hate this system so bad I want the HOT removed from my game. If Gw2 started this way I could then understand it so much more than I do now. This should not of been applied to account wide but to Character. I don’t care what other games do, this is not about other games this is about a game called GW2. I think Anet should of come out and told people how this would affect their Account wide, there exp would no longer count until that bar clears. The moment a Character turns 80, this system of HOT kicks in…I don’t recall anyone ever saying it, nor reading it on Reddit or in the update news.

Timely.1480:

Thank you for this. My bar is full, I know my exp is going right out the window and it sucks. I keep thinking I missed something, so I keep going back. I hate this system so bad I want the HOT removed from my game. If Gw2 started this way I could then understand it so much more than I do now. This should not of been applied to account wide but to Character. I don’t care what other games do, this is not about other games this is about a game called GW2. I think Anet should of come out and told people how this would affect their Account wide, there exp would no longer count until that bar clears. The moment a Character turns 80, this system of HOT kicks in…I don’t recall anyone ever saying it, nor reading it on Reddit or in the update news.

It was announced, and discussed for months on the forums, and elsewhere, I’m sure.

Hell, you don’t even need to complete all the masteries. Not having all of the mastery points has a similar effect. It wouldn’t hurt to sweeten the pot.

I say, bring on more masteries, stat! I don’t care if they’re trivial – for example, a mastery that, once fully trained, allows me to wear my hat at a jaunty angle. I just want more things to complete. And I want to wear my hat at a jaunty angle.

The thing about experience bars is that they can be addictive. I was having a personal crisis where having completed all the HoT masteries that I personally am going to do, It felt wrong being in HoT zones when I could be filling Central Tyria masteries.

Now that I have all the central Tyria masteries that I have an interest in I am happily back playing WvW and HoT areas.

It is hard to explain but the feeling of “waste” can make the game less enjoyable. The removal of the chase can be very relaxing.

i don’t mind so long as the experience bar is “locked” at 100%. it annoys me to see my exp bar go from 0% to 100% for nothing.

on the flip side, endless experience just feels too “grindy”. paragon levels in diablo 3 is an example of a system i am not a fan of.

Like somebody above already said, you never got spirit shard for leveling. Gaining experience on a lvl 80 did nothing between the time they split skill points into hero points and spirit shards and the release of HoT.

Currently, some people (not many judging by the numbers I see in-game) have maxed their masteries at 163 points, effectively making experience “useless” to them again. The problem I see with masteries when compared to the old lvl 80 skill point gain is that masteries take a lot longer to complete, months and possibly years for a large part of the playerbase.

Right now there already is a “division” between players that have farmed their masteries (or simply played a lot after the expansion released) and those that don’t play that much or have playstyles that don’t allow them to gain much mastery experience (and points). There is, however, a definite end in sight, so you know that a more casual, less time-consuming, less-optimized playstyle will not permanently put you on a disadvantage to other people.

Compare this to a more expansive (and for many seemingly open-ended) endgame progression system like the ESO champion points. You know from the start that you will never reach the points to rival the people that spend a ton of time and energy on farming those points. While it does make the people able to farm those points feel great, it also discourages a lot of the more casual playerbase.

Now if you want to put in an un-ending “experience reward” in this game (again) you’ll have to be very careful about how to do it, so that it does in fact feel like a reward to those people gaining it while not making the people for whom max-mastery is out of reach feel permanently crippled.

Personally, I could see an additional, repeatable, mastery track in each region. Make it one tier only, require as much experience as the most expensive track/tier (that would be 4,318,000 for HoT and 5,080,000 for Core Tyria according to the wiki), cost 0 mastery points to unlock, and reward a new token currency that you can trade at a special mastery token vendor for things like area currencies (leyline crystals anyone? ), karma, keys (vials of acid, bandit skeleton keys, …), and similar, as well as a few fun goodies like special minis (similar to the ones the laurel vendor sells), tonics, and more.

Why new currencies when we already have a bunch clogging up our wallet? Because a new currency tied to gaining (account) experience in a specific region would allow them to tie special cosmetic rewards like new minis to it, as well as give people a chance to trade it in for whatever they feel is worth it. If you just give out generic spirit shards, karma, or similar, there will always be people that feel like they’re not getting anything worthwhile because it’s just the kind of stuff they don’t need.

Lastly, being a mastery track to choose for each region, people that value the token rewards from the new vendors more than what masteries give their account are free to just choose this track early on. For example, if I don’t care for fractals or legendaries I can just choose the repeatable track instead of pumping my experience and mastery points into tracks I don’t care about. My account mastery level (that I don’t care about anyway) will stay below maximum that way, but instead I may get that sweet mini I absolutely adore, a win-win in my book . And if I find I just can’t gain those last few HoT mastery points to fill out the final tracks, then I can still have fun with the repeatable track instead.

I don’t participate in events anymore, unless I need something from them.

I just stand around chatting while people scurry about doing pre events for the main events I want to do. If there’s someone to chat to. If not, I just stand around.

Lifting a finger for a few copper and a bit of karma? Not worth it.

Unless you have an “active” mastery bar selected the default should be the old XP bar that just wraps round when it is full and gives us a trivial reward. Maybe a few achievement points or a point on a new “over-leveller” title track with a crazy-high max tier.

On a related note, I do miss the “scaled level” number that we used to have on the left of the XP bar.

I would enjoy more tyria masteries. Like the 25% movementspeed. Maybe add factions. So we can grind some faction exp.

Something should certainly be added to “eat up” the XP and provide something else in exchange. Masteries are great but really short-term.

I was expecting raid masteries take like 5 to 10 times more experience to level (like 10 to 40 million XP) because they specifically mentioned that raid bosses should drop XP books or something like that, but they ended up requiring just ~500k XP and 1 mastery point – that was a disappointment for me. I guess they decided to change something or maybe next raid masteries coming out with next wings will be much tougher to get – will see how that turns out.

And I know I rushed through content and because of that I got all XP I need in first four days of HoT but it was totally worth it I should say – I got to see stuff other people might still not be able to, I’ve got full map completion a few times already, I am working towards all new legendaries and I was fully ready for raids when they came out.

But now it is already slightly over a month of XP going nowhere. I still do a lot of events to get map participation and a bit of map currency (on new maps) but that is mostly required to get a full bonus from map meta event to get keys/currency to get mats for legendary. At this point I could have probably leveled all HoT masteries like three times from zero with all XP gained, but its just going to waste and that is kinda sad.

Some ideas on what can be done:

- Repeatable mastery tracks – they won’t require mastery points (or just 1 at the first time) and will give you spirit shards or some map currency or simply some mats as output each time you complete it. It would be the best to have multiple tracks available so you can choose something you need to progress towards – like the ascended account-bound mats from new maps for example.

- Simply return spirit shards for each level up like it was working before so you can get them again after you finish up with masteries or probably even can switch back to leveling up at any time.

- Give increased event bonuses instead of XP – like double karma/gold OR simply some bonus mats OR spirit shards. It is still much better than nothing, right? Otherwise it feels like all you are doing for event is a waste of time because you don’t even need the reward.

I wondered the same thing too. I miss having the 1 spirit shard from leveling up.

Is ANET going to do something about this…? Or are lvl163 people stuck with 0/0 and exp going to waste…? Why bother rewarding us exp if we’re not going to get anything? scratches head

Ehm… I have an idea. I’m not sure if it’s usefull or anything or if you will agree with me. They could make a new currency that we would receive when we level up. This currency we could spend to buy toys and level banners. There are banners to show your PvP rank so we could use this as a banner to show level ranks. I would like it, seems like a fun way to show your actual play time instead of afk time. This or achievement points would be nice.

The expansion has been out for just over a month. What to do with exp after you maxed all your mastery would be the least of my concerns.

Wiella.8567:

Something should certainly be added to “eat up” the XP and provide something else in exchange. Masteries are great but really short-term.

I was expecting raid masteries take like 5 to 10 times more experience to level (like 10 to 40 million XP) because they specifically mentioned that raid bosses should drop XP books or something like that, but they ended up requiring just ~500k XP and 1 mastery point – that was a disappointment for me. I guess they decided to change something or maybe next raid masteries coming out with next wings will be much tougher to get – will see how that turns out.

And I know I rushed through content and because of that I got all XP I need in first four days of HoT but it was totally worth it I should say – I got to see stuff other people might still not be able to, I’ve got full map completion a few times already, I am working towards all new legendaries and I was fully ready for raids when they came out.

But now it is already slightly over a month of XP going nowhere. I still do a lot of events to get map participation and a bit of map currency (on new maps) but that is mostly required to get a full bonus from map meta event to get keys/currency to get mats for legendary. At this point I could have probably leveled all HoT masteries like three times from zero with all XP gained, but its just going to waste and that is kinda sad.

Some ideas on what can be done:

- Repeatable mastery tracks – they won’t require mastery points (or just 1 at the first time) and will give you spirit shards or some map currency or simply some mats as output each time you complete it. It would be the best to have multiple tracks available so you can choose something you need to progress towards – like the ascended account-bound mats from new maps for example.

- Simply return spirit shards for each level up like it was working before so you can get them again after you finish up with masteries or probably even can switch back to leveling up at any time.

- Give increased event bonuses instead of XP – like double karma/gold OR simply some bonus mats OR spirit shards. It is still much better than nothing, right? Otherwise it feels like all you are doing for event is a waste of time because you don’t even need the reward.

It may be a bad idea, but what about reducing recharge times on racial skills? It’s still something.

I agree. It’s annoying to lose the sense of progression after feeling it for a while. Having finished all my core tyria masteries, it’s anti-climatic.

Vayne.8563:

I agree. It’s annoying to lose the sense of progression after feeling it for a while. Having finished all my core tyria masteries, it’s anti-climatic.

Couldn’t have said it better.

Vayne.8563:

I agree. It’s annoying to lose the sense of progression after feeling it for a while. Having finished all my core tyria masteries, it’s anti-climatic.

Vayne saying some thing critical of the game. I need to screen shot this!

I would just be happy if i could store the experience for later, when another mastery track comes out.

I know it’s not likely to happen, but i can dream.

Azure Prower.8701:

Vayne.8563:

I agree. It’s annoying to lose the sense of progression after feeling it for a while. Having finished all my core tyria masteries, it’s anti-climatic.

Vayne saying some thing critical of the game. I need to screen shot this!

I’ve said other stuff as well. Some people just don’t pay attention. My problem isn’t criticism of the game. It’s hyperbole and people taking their criticism and making it personal. If someone calls the devs lazy I’ll always comment.

It would be nice to have something, yes.

The old system was much nicer: The reward was such that you didn’t grind for it (because it was not that worthwhile), yet receiving it was always a nice feeling.

There could be a ‘mastery’ track that acts a bit like PvP reward tracks.

Once you’ve completed all other tracks in a region, you gain access to a reward track with several bonus rewards paths, each one requiring more experience than the previous one.

Instead requiring mastery points to click the lock icon and ‘master the mastery’ , the icon is chest instead, and clicking it gives you a loot bag with some goodies, locking the reward path again and unlocking the next. Once you unlock all rewards by completing them one after another, the track resets to the first one.

But first they’ll need to fix the quick exp gain schemes. And remove exp from enemies in events that spawn lots of enemies. Or people would just farm the thing like they do with the masteries, and the rewards would have to be crappy to compensate.

Like it or not, you have to cut the easy schemes to make things rewarding.

Look at jumping puzzles. Without some sort of checkpoint system that gives you a stacking effect as you go through the puzzle until you reach the chest, then the chest giving rewards based on the number of checkpoints you gathered, people can just mesmer portal to the end, and the rewards are crap because they consider the easiest method to reach the chest over any other, never the hardest one.

They aren’t likely to let us ‘save experience’ for when the next set of masteries comes out — after all, look at how many people maxed the current set within the first month (and now are complaining about not having any more progression to work on). Similarly, they aren’t likely to let non-HoT save up the XP for buying HoT (for the same reason).

What they could do, however, is offer up some sort of currency or item that has only a secondary or tertiary impact on the economy, but would relieve some pressure on players in other ways.

To illustrate the point, consider unrefined ascended mats (bloodstone, dragonite, empyreal):

• Although lots of people have too many of two of these, it’s pretty common for folks to be short on one.
• There are converters for all three types.
• It’s unlikely to encourage people to feel more pressure to finish masteries, because it’s ultimately not all that valuable, about 16-20s/stack on average.

Other possibilities are scribe supplies, karma mats, obsidian, etc.

tl;dr what about rewarding a minor amount of something with a minor impact (so it’s not worth farming xp)?