Guild Wars 2

It’s almost like flipping out about something you don’t even remotely understand is a bad idea. Or something.

So, here we go:

When this ability is unlocked, your character’s experience bar will change to become a Mastery training bar while in PvE zones. This bar will track your progress on training the Mastery track you currently have selected, showing both the abilities you are training toward and those already earned from the track. To see all your Mastery tracks, spend Mastery points, and change which Mastery you are currently training, click the Mastery training bar to bring up the Mastery tray. Because the Mastery training bar completely replaces the experience bar, players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.

TL;DR: to level Masteries, you play in the new zone.

Now the important part is… How grindy and annoying these levels are? Is it like SW and DT collections, or more like a couple of PvE levels? How much can you actually play what you want now, instead of grinding the allowed content until you’re so bored to death that the new gated content is no longer intriguing?

To train a specific Mastery track, you must first unlock it by spending Mastery points. Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content. Things like completing a chapter in your personal story, completing certain achievements, reaching hard-to-find locations, overcoming challenging encounters, excelling at adventures found within the Heart of Maguuma, or earning 100% completion for a map will award Mastery points.

TL;DR: to unlock Masteries, you do what we currently do in the LS: grind obligatory achievement tasks until you succeed.

Now the important part is… How grindy and annoying these tasks are? Can you get them naturally, like climbing up a mountain to a vista in the current maps, or they’re similar to the revamped Traits and LS achievements?

timmyf.1490:

It’s almost like flipping out about something you don’t even remotely understand is a bad idea. Or something.

dont really see how he was worrying over nothing, far as the reveal says, masteries may in fact be as grindy or grindier than ascended, and certain content is locked behind them.

the key here is, as he says, how much is required, is it grindy?

If you played GW1, tier 10 titles were extremely grindy.

I never needed more than r5 or r6 to do content.

Lishtenbird.2814:

So, here we go:

When this ability is unlocked, your character’s experience bar will change to become a Mastery training bar while in PvE zones. This bar will track your progress on training the Mastery track you currently have selected, showing both the abilities you are training toward and those already earned from the track. To see all your Mastery tracks, spend Mastery points, and change which Mastery you are currently training, click the Mastery training bar to bring up the Mastery tray. Because the Mastery training bar completely replaces the experience bar, players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.

TL;DR: to level Masteries, you play in the new zone.

Now the important part is… How grindy and annoying these levels are? Is it like SW and DT collections, or more like a couple of PvE levels? How much can you actually play what you want now, instead of grinding the allowed content until you’re so bored to death that the new gated content is no longer intriguing?

To train a specific Mastery track, you must first unlock it by spending Mastery points. Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content. Things like completing a chapter in your personal story, completing certain achievements, reaching hard-to-find locations, overcoming challenging encounters, excelling at adventures found within the Heart of Maguuma, or earning 100% completion for a map will award Mastery points.

TL;DR: to unlock Masteries, you do what we currently do in the LS: grind obligatory achievement tasks until you succeed.

Now the important part is… How grindy and annoying these tasks are? Can you get them naturally, like climbing up a mountain to a vista in the current maps, or they’re similar to the revamped Traits and LS achievements?

It is one of the two, either there is alot of masteries or they are grindy. Considering the fact that they are account-bound and they are being labeled as the main part of end-game progression, I await them to be grindy.

Grind is in every game though so I don’t mind it. I don’t believe there could be an MMO without grind and there haven’t been so far. However, I honestly do want to see the system being introduced in a good way, that it would be interesting despite its’ grindy side. I want fancy challenging content and fun stuff to do to gain access to more masteries and therefore be able to explore the game even further.

Information are too vague however I do have hopes for the mastery system. It could be something that can add the motivation players need to play the game and explore.

I know there would be people shouting ‘’we don’t want grind, we want fun content’’. No offense but you should leave MMORPGs and play single player games instead because there haven’t been a single MMORPG that wasn’t grindy and there probably never be. Imagining that GW2 can offer content that will please everyone, content that is enough and yet not repeatable, content that is fun and yet should statisfy the players for months… well, this doesn’t excist with our current technology. Maybe in 20 years or so, but not atm.

timmyf.1490:

I think I’ll riff on the term “precog” and call this “preQQ.”

I can’t imagine a grind they could put in place that would be worse than needing to level my 10 toons from 80 to 90 and replacing two full sets of Ascended armor as well as dozens of Ascended weapons.

Increasing the level cap as a form of progression is a terrible idea. But we do still need progression. Masteries seem like a very good solution to that problem.

agreed, i got really excited when reading the blog. really looking forward to HoT now after today.

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

So far, how I’ve taken the “masteries” information, is basically a leveling system, without actually leveling. A system that makes you capable of accessing and completing these new areas without making you overpowered for the old zones. The delivery will be the most essential part. Does it feel like you have to spend too much time in areas “leveling” masteries to get to the next area? There will have to be a good balance, similar to the balance of starting a new character and leveling through PvE before you can go to each new zone without being 1-shotted.

I like the idea of it because as said at PAX it won’t kill other areas or content, while still adding progression. I’m not at all worried about the “grind” if that is even what it will be. Delivery is key, and we won’t know until launch if it’s a great system, or a bust. If overall content (quests, missions, etc) drives the “grind” then I think many people will be very satisfied.

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

the key is for it to feel like real choice,
so yeah they have to consider time, difficulty and how much the content fits the spirit of the game.

also one should generally avoid large numbers to begin with, because then even if you have a choice, you may just say its not worth the hassle. 10000 activities is probably gonna feel bad no matter how you slice it.

Some people are wired to worry about things constantly.

In this case, the OP is deeply worried about a hypothetical situation with hardly any information to go on either way.

Let’s start asking questions, wait for the answers, and not worry so much.

If Arena.Net has disappointed you so often that you are really that worried, GW2 just might not be the game for you. Don’t expect your waffle-iron to make pancakes.

Great post. They’re introducing Vertical progression while being hesitant about admitting it.

Personally one of the things I love so much (and was even discussing with a friend last night) about GW2 is the fact that it doesn’t have that vertical progression. The fact that the game is about content, styles, and just having fun. Grinding and working on things are there if you want to do it but there’s no hand on your back pushing you to do it only carrots that I can choose to go after or not.

Getting a legendary or even ascended didn’t make or break me, it was done to give a little bump or just for a cool style.

I fear these masterys will become a grindy time sink that you have to go through just to enjoy the content at the end of the expansion… in other words it sounds like they’ve gotten away from one of the beautiful aspects of GW2 and has gone the way of other MMOs.

Jerus.4350:

Great post. They’re introducing Vertical progression while being hesitant about admitting it.

Personally one of the things I love so much (and was even discussing with a friend last night) about GW2 is the fact that it doesn’t have that vertical progression. The fact that the game is about content, styles, and just having fun. Grinding and working on things are there if you want to do it but there’s no hand on your back pushing you to do it only carrots that I can choose to go after or not.

Getting a legendary or even ascended didn’t make or break me, it was done to give a little bump or just for a cool style.

I fear these masterys will become a grindy time sink that you have to go through just to enjoy the content at the end of the expansion… in other words it sounds like they’ve gotten away from one of the beautiful aspects of GW2 and has gone the way of other MMOs.

they have always wanted vertical progression, they were initially planning to increase level cap, then they tried ascended, they had a cdi on it a ways back.

gw2 was never meant to be that horizontal. Honestly though, vertical progression is something that will always be around, i mean even back in the day playing NES castlevania and ghouls and ghost, you vertically progress through the content.

It really comes down to how well its handled.

I can very much get behind that last sentence. I just really don’t want to have GW2 turn into the same feeling I get in other MMOs where it’s like “kitten… I can’t even do this because I took a couple months off and now I’m behind a months work in older content people aren’t doing as often” That’s my fear and why the entire idea of vertical progression annoys me, because again that’s one of the big things I love about this game is the escape from that.

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

I think you are following along the same tracks as the Anet definition of grind, but I don’t think it serves well as a guide for what “feels grindy”. The players who complain about all of the above are coming from something more like along the lines of this:

It becomes grindy when the player feels:
1) It is not fun or inherently rewarding to do X,
2) but they have to do a lot of X to get Y,
3) and they want Y.
and maybe also 4) but they don’t think it is worth that much X.

In that case, the player is stuck between doing a lot of not fun or rewarding gameplay to get what they want or going without. Ideally everything should be so inherently fun and rewarding that it is worth doing for its own sake regardless of repetition or item rewards. Realistically, most of us are okay with a certain level of not fun play as long as we don’t have to do it for too long and the reward is worth it.

When too many Ys are locked behind too much X that isn’t inherently fun, you get complaints that the game is too grindy. But that is really hard to measure or define… how “fun” is X? How much is too much X? How badly do you want or need Y? Is Y just rewarding enough to get people to want it or is it so rewarding that people feel it makes all the X they suffered worthwhile?

The entire concept is so subjective that it not only varies greatly between players but it also varies greatly for individual players as circumstances and stages in their lives change.

I agree, David. At the same time, there are enough sources of Experience in this game that no player should feel like they can’t earn enough to unlock Mastery points.

There will be ideal ways for sure (and my guess is dungeons will see a nice boost in popularity), but since EVERYTHING in the game gives XP, I think it’ll make things seem like less of a grind and more of a “I’ll get points as I play and don’t need to worry much about it.”

DavidH.7380:

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

I think you are following along the same tracks as the Anet definition of grind, but I don’t think it serves well as a guide for what “feels grindy”. The players who complain about all of the above are coming from something more like along the lines of this:

It becomes grindy when the player feels:
1) It is not fun or inherently rewarding to do X,
2) but they have to do a lot of X to get Y,
3) and they want Y.

In that case, the player is stuck between doing a lot of not fun or rewarding gameplay to get what they want or going without. Ideally everything should be so inherently fun and rewarding that it is worth doing for its own sake regardless of repetition or item rewards. Realistically, most of us are okay with a certain level of not fun play as long as we don’t have to do it for too long and the reward is worth it.

When too many Ys are locked behind too much X that isn’t inherently fun, you get complaints that the game is too grindy. But that is really hard to measure or define… how “fun” is X? How much is too much X? How badly do you want or need Y? Is Y just rewarding enough to get people to want it or is it so rewarding that people feel it makes all the X they suffered worthwhile?

The entire concept is so subjective that it not only varies greatly between players but it also varies greatly for individual players as circumstances and stages in their lives change.

use small numbers and over arching achievements.
in terms of reducing the feeling of grind, it feels less grindy to need to beat a game that takes you 40 hours to beat, than to beat a 1 hour game 40 times for the same reward(in general)

Im curious what happens to our skill points, and their relation to the mastery system?

timmyf.1490:

I agree, David. At the same time, there are enough sources of Experience in this game that no player should feel like they can’t earn enough to unlock Mastery points.

There will be ideal ways for sure (and my guess is dungeons will see a nice boost in popularity), but since EVERYTHING in the game gives XP, I think it’ll make things seem like less of a grind and more of a “I’ll get points as I play and don’t need to worry much about it.”

You may well be right. Extremely preliminarily, it seems like they are trying to split the baby between “play how you want” and “do these challenges and spread your play around the new zones”.

phys.7689:

DavidH.7380:

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

I think you are following along the same tracks as the Anet definition of grind, but I don’t think it serves well as a guide for what “feels grindy”. The players who complain about all of the above are coming from something more like along the lines of this:

It becomes grindy when the player feels:
1) It is not fun or inherently rewarding to do X,
2) but they have to do a lot of X to get Y,
3) and they want Y.

In that case, the player is stuck between doing a lot of not fun or rewarding gameplay to get what they want or going without. Ideally everything should be so inherently fun and rewarding that it is worth doing for its own sake regardless of repetition or item rewards. Realistically, most of us are okay with a certain level of not fun play as long as we don’t have to do it for too long and the reward is worth it.

When too many Ys are locked behind too much X that isn’t inherently fun, you get complaints that the game is too grindy. But that is really hard to measure or define… how “fun” is X? How much is too much X? How badly do you want or need Y? Is Y just rewarding enough to get people to want it or is it so rewarding that people feel it makes all the X they suffered worthwhile?

The entire concept is so subjective that it not only varies greatly between players but it also varies greatly for individual players as circumstances and stages in their lives change.

use small numbers and over arching achievements.
in terms of reducing the feeling of grind, it feels less grindy to need to beat a game that takes you 40 hours to beat, than to beat a 1 hour game 40 times for the same reward(in general)

Yeah, I think those are generally positive strategies as well since, generally speaking:

- We perceive things as less and less fun the more we repeat them after we’ve mastered them (with interesting exceptions that might be the basis for great research for future MMO design).

- We feel less discouraged when there are rewarding milestones along the way and not just one long journey to a single reward.

On the latter, I wonder if they overlooked that useless intermediate stages don’t feel particularly rewarding. A raw ore, to a refined bar, to a hilt, to a charged hilt, to a blah, blah, blah, to a super awesome sword is not as rewarding as getting a really basic sword, then a minor sword, then an okay sword, then a good sword, then a better sword, then a great sword, and finally a super awesome sword! The inherent usefulness of the intermediate stages matters.

Gear grind invalidates gear you acquired before. Skill grind isn’t invalidating anything. Your old gear is still as awesome as it used to be. The thing they were trying to avoid is making things obsolete with new content.

Jerus.4350:

I can very much get behind that last sentence. I just really don’t want to have GW2 turn into the same feeling I get in other MMOs where it’s like “kitten… I can’t even do this because I took a couple months off and now I’m behind a months work in older content people aren’t doing as often” That’s my fear and why the entire idea of vertical progression annoys me, because again that’s one of the big things I love about this game is the escape from that.

This is horizontal progression, as horizontal as creating a vertical progression graphic then asking people to lie down on their side and watch it again.
Well anyway we still don’t know how much time it will be required to collect points, but when they said they see this system as a long term goal I can’t help worrying about it.

DavidH.7380:

timmyf.1490:

I agree, David. At the same time, there are enough sources of Experience in this game that no player should feel like they can’t earn enough to unlock Mastery points.

There will be ideal ways for sure (and my guess is dungeons will see a nice boost in popularity), but since EVERYTHING in the game gives XP, I think it’ll make things seem like less of a grind and more of a “I’ll get points as I play and don’t need to worry much about it.”

You may well be right. Extremely preliminarily, it seems like they are trying to split the baby between “play how you want” and “do these challenges and spread your play around the new zones”.

This seems likely. You gain a mastery points for “leveling” above 80…but you must do required content to actually train in an unlocked mastery.

One, it seems, will very slowly amass the mastery points by playing what you want, but you will not be able to train in an unlocked mastery without playing the required content.

I expect traits and specializations to follow a similar scheme.

I actually have played very little since the trait system change, as I dislike it. I was hoping for changes with the coming of the xpac, that would bring me back. It seems unlikely though. The changes in the game are contrary to what attracted me in the first place

Not what I had originally started playing GW2 for long ago; I liked that I could do the events I chose and ignore things I do not care for. This, it seems, will be no longer possible.

If it is not fun for me, I really have no desire to it. That was what attracted me to the game, personally.

GW2 now is feeling much more like other games to me. I have not played much since the trait change, but returned to see how things were going with the coming of the xpac.

Certainly there will be players who like this new direction of the game. But it seems that gw2 is probably really not for me anymore. It was a cool change from other games, but feels as if it is loosing that which attracted me in the beginning.

Oh well, I had fun while it lasted, but feel less and less reason to play gw2 than my other game I play. I played GW2 for its’ very different character, for the very different nature of the game.

All a matter of taste; I am certain many will love what is happening. More “raid like” stuff in way, the jungle seems like it will have some sort of raid-like features involved. Basically vertical profession via another route than gear and level cap increases.

This is not so much a complaint, it is just my disappointment. I loved how the game was, and not how it is becoming. I’ll miss it.

inb4 this gets moved to the HOT sub forum.

Guild Wars 1 had an enemy called Mursaat.

At first they were invisible and had a 1 hit KO attack. Then you got ascended and could see them, but they still had that attack. Then you got your armor piece infused and could resist the attack, but it didn’t help much. Then you got your whole armor infused and could laugh off the attack.

Btw: Mursaat are in the trailer for HoT.

See what I’m getting at?

Its about subjective things and most importantly: the holy grail aka dont make players feel like their efforts arent worth anything.

Gear grind: you lose whatever effort you put into your last tier of gear whenever you are forced to upgrade.

Skill grind: you dont lose anything, whatever you got previously is still useful and you build onto that, rather than replacing it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I just hope that the acquisition of the new progression does not involve the Mystic Forge and/or the need for a spreadsheet to keep track of excessively long lists of the stuff needed to “make” them. There are already too many incremental rewards that require too many different types of increments in the game for my taste. There is also too much collect-virtual-things to eventually get reward in the game for my tastes.

One of the worst parts of the trait system (for me) is the level-gating of the content needed to unlock traits. The slot opens at level 36 but the event needed to unlock trait Y is a L60 champion, for instance. That should not be a problem with HoT masteries. I’m expecting the new content to be L80, and many players already have L80’s. Of course, the Revenant that everyone is likely to make will need to reach L80, but unless HoT features level-up areas, that will be taking place via the normal leveling means. I’m expecting at least some people will save up Tomes and Writs and have an 80 Revenant as soon as HoT launches, anyway.

Sounds to me it’ll be like the PvP reward tracks, which keep track of themselves.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Jerus.4350:

I can very much get behind that last sentence. I just really don’t want to have GW2 turn into the same feeling I get in other MMOs where it’s like “kitten… I can’t even do this because I took a couple months off and now I’m behind a months work in older content people aren’t doing as often” That’s my fear and why the entire idea of vertical progression annoys me, because again that’s one of the big things I love about this game is the escape from that.

This is horizontal progression, as horizontal as creating a vertical progression graphic then asking people to lie down on their side and watch it again.
Well anyway we still don’t know how much time it will be required to collect points, but when they said they see this system as a long term goal I can’t help worrying about it.

See I don’t get this. What is worrying about something taking a long time.

People play MMOs to be there a long time. If there are no long term goals, then people stop playing. Not all people but enough people. If enough people stop playing, there is no MMO and you have to find another one.

All any MMO ever is is a list of things to do. Guild Wars 1 was even like that. Once there’s nothing left to do, people leave.

You stay with or leave an MMO based on how much you like the list of things to do.

Leveling Off

Lishtenbird.2814:

What we know by now:
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for gear grind or level cap increase; I’m just voicing concern that with the current policy of making people grind more and more for everything, gear grind and level cap might have actually been a more user-friendly solution.

I’m interested in the new “skill grind”, but as much as I love GW2, I would have flat-out quit and uninstalled the game client permanently if they had raised the level cap, so clearly there’s a difference in how I perceive these things.

I think the key difference is that raising the level cap would have meant instant obsolescence of the gear on my 27 level 80s, and I’m already turned off by the NPE/trait changes (which have put five alts on indefinite hold), so it would have been a final nail in the coffin, so to speak.

I left LOTRO and came to GW2 over that (among other things), so if GW2 were to become too much more like LOTRO (or WoW), I’m outta here forever.

Unless I’m missing something, using the new Mastery system will be necessary for some new content, but won’t be necessary for existing content, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes all the difference in the world.

It remains to be seen how the new systems will play out, and I do share some of your concerns — especially given some of the ill turns the game took last year — but I’m cautiously optimistic that Heart of Thorns will, overall, be a good thing.

And I could be dead wrong about that.

Vayne.8563:

Erick Alastor.3917:

Jerus.4350:

I can very much get behind that last sentence. I just really don’t want to have GW2 turn into the same feeling I get in other MMOs where it’s like “kitten… I can’t even do this because I took a couple months off and now I’m behind a months work in older content people aren’t doing as often” That’s my fear and why the entire idea of vertical progression annoys me, because again that’s one of the big things I love about this game is the escape from that.

This is horizontal progression, as horizontal as creating a vertical progression graphic then asking people to lie down on their side and watch it again.
Well anyway we still don’t know how much time it will be required to collect points, but when they said they see this system as a long term goal I can’t help worrying about it.

See I don’t get this. What is worrying about something taking a long time.

People play MMOs to be there a long time. If there are no long term goals, then people stop playing. Not all people but enough people. If enough people stop playing, there is no MMO and you have to find another one.

All any MMO ever is is a list of things to do. Guild Wars 1 was even like that. Once there’s nothing left to do, people leave.

You stay with or leave an MMO based on how much you like the list of things to do.

That’s the beauty of GW2 currently though. If I had quit 6 months ago and came back today the only thing I could be missing are some styles, no functional power. So I could hop in and play with my friends on whatever they are working on without having to jump through hoops first.

I tried dabbling in one of my other games a little bit back, I simply couldn’t care enough to spend a month farming to catch up.

Of course the devil’s in the details, we’ll see what these mastery’s have in store. But artificially locking content through months of farming… what happened to the “this game isn’t grindy”, at least we now know why they emphasized that so much in their presentation, they knew they were going to get called out on it.

Actually, I want to see some grinding in this game. I lose my point to play if there’s nothing to grind in an mmorpg.

lol… people complained when anet didn’t give them level grind, and they also complain when anet give another way to grind the game.

kids nowadays, always want everything to be spoon-fed to them…

Actually, the masteries unlocking system sounds a lot like unlocking WvW masteries through grinding WvW rank points.

I forgot to mention, WvW masteries are also account-wide, just like the new skill masteries will be.

The new masteries sound like a grind activity to me. As others have pointed out, MMOs keep you in-game longer with long-term grind activities.

I think there is a common misconception here – Having a goal to work toward is not the same as grinding.

Grinding involves doing the same thing over and over past the point we find that thing fun. We dont know what masteries will involve specifically, so we cannot say that we will be repeating mundane tasks we dont enjoy over and over for them.

If they take all goals out of the game, we arent really left with a game. Again, working toward a goal does not mean the same thing as grinding.

Can you link me to the part that says obtaining masteries will be grindy?

Also, if there’s no long term goal for players, what’s gonna keep people playing?

Altair.8402:

Can you link me to the part that says obtaining masteries will be grindy?

Also, if there’s no long term goal for players, what’s gonna keep people playing?

You don’t get it!

What if I have to play the new content and earn mastery points by doing basicly ANYTHING that gives me XP? Doing anything is super Grindy! Give me mastery points in log-in rewards!

Jump on the Grind-Worry-Train! (what?)

nGumball.1283:

Some of the most devestating changes during the past 2 years were suggested by players INCLUDING the addition of ascended gear.

Bullkitten. It’s one of the continuously returning misconceptions, but it’s simply not true. People at the time were asking for more content, but the idea of gear grind was attacked even more savagely than it is now. Ascended gear is something Anet did completely on their own.
And lot of other problematic changes were not due to the player ideas, but to the modifications Anet tagged on top of those.

If it is going to be like progression in Zelda..can we then also please have the matching outfit? <3

Astralporing.1957:

nGumball.1283:

Some of the most devestating changes during the past 2 years were suggested by players INCLUDING the addition of ascended gear.

Bullkitten. It’s one of the continuously returning misconceptions, but it’s simply not true. People at the time were asking for more content, but the idea of gear grind was attacked even more savagely than it is now. Ascended gear is something Anet did completely on their own.
And lot of other problematic changes were not due to the player ideas, but to the modifications Anet tagged on top of those.

This is true. Very few people asked for gear progression in this game. Far far more people were against it. Anet knew this when they introduced ascended gear. So why did they do it? There has to be a reason to kitten off your core fan base.

In my opinion, they felt, rightly or wrongly, that they didn’t have a choice.

But you can’t really pin this one on the fans.

Bubi.7942:

Altair.8402:

Can you link me to the part that says obtaining masteries will be grindy?

Also, if there’s no long term goal for players, what’s gonna keep people playing?

You don’t get it!

What if I have to play the new content and earn mastery points by doing basicly ANYTHING that gives me XP? Doing anything is super Grindy! Give me mastery points in log-in rewards!

Jump on the Grind-Worry-Train! (what?)

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives XP… on those 10 square meters which are not locked behind new mastery levels!

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives me XP… once you’ve grinded that adventure for a month, succeeded and unlocked the mastery which gates the rest of content!

But I just remembered you, Bubi. You’re the one who taught mesmers the mesmer basics in that LS thread, told Miku to L2P, and then linked his own video.

Seriously, we need to be able to assign tags/groups/notes to forum users so that we know what kind of reasoning we’re dealing with once we meet on the forum again. It will save time in so many arguments.

nGumball.1283:

I don’t believe there could be an MMO without grind and there haven’t been so far.

nGumball.1283:

No offense but you should leave MMORPGs and play single player games instead because there haven’t been a single MMORPG that wasn’t grindy and there probably never be.

Fun fact: there was! It was called Guild Wars 2.

I could level to 80 and experience all content in the game, including Arah and all the Fractals from lvl 1 to 9, which featured all the existing fractal maps.

Will I be able to in HoT? No.

Why? Probably because “casuals” didn’t stay long enough to pay enough money to let the game stay as is. I’m afraid some people cannot cope with getting instant freedom and setting the goals themselves – they need to be restricted, constrained and gated, and only then they will stay and fight for freedom they could’ve enjoyed straight away. That’s a weird psychological phenomenon, but it’s here.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Bubi.7942:

Altair.8402:

Can you link me to the part that says obtaining masteries will be grindy?

Also, if there’s no long term goal for players, what’s gonna keep people playing?

You don’t get it!

What if I have to play the new content and earn mastery points by doing basicly ANYTHING that gives me XP? Doing anything is super Grindy! Give me mastery points in log-in rewards!

Jump on the Grind-Worry-Train! (what?)

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives XP… on those 10 square meters which are not locked behind new mastery levels!

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives me XP… once you’ve grinded that adventure for a month, succeeded and unlocked the mastery which gates the rest of content!

But I just remembered you, Bubi. You’re the one who taught mesmers the mesmer basics in that LS thread, told Miku to L2P, and then linked his own video.

Seriously, we need to be able to assign tags/groups/notes to forum users so that we know what kind of reasoning we’re dealing with once we meet on the forum again. It will save time in so many arguments.

nGumball.1283:

I don’t believe there could be an MMO without grind and there haven’t been so far.

nGumball.1283:

No offense but you should leave MMORPGs and play single player games instead because there haven’t been a single MMORPG that wasn’t grindy and there probably never be.

Fun fact: there was! It was called Guild Wars 2.

I could level to 80 and experience all content in the game, including Arah and all the Fractals from lvl 1 to 9, which featured all the existing fractal maps.

Will I be able to in HoT? No.

Why? Probably because “casuals” didn’t stay long enough to pay enough money to let the game stay as is. I’m afraid some people cannot cope with getting instant freedom and setting the goals themselves – they need to be restricted, constrained and gated, and only then they will stay and fight for freedom they could’ve enjoyed straight away. That’s a weird psychological phenomenon, but it’s here.

Ever hear of the knife of phaedrus. You make it sound so cut and dried, but it’s really not.

I’d like to see you take a party of 20th level guys into Arah and beat it. I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure it’s possible.

At any rate, you can’t even attempt the 70th level personal story without having to get to the level 60th personal story. It’s linear.

Now we don’t know that this stuff is gated in the sense you’re suggesting. It simply could be unlocked in linear fashion. That is you have to do certain things before other things.

In Guild Wars Eye of the North, you could do the Ebon Vanguard, Asura or Norn path in any order you liked…but the Deldrimor path was always the last one. That content was gated by having to finish the other content first.

Until you see what is going on, this sort of thing is meaningless.

Vayne.8563:

Ever hear of the knife of phaedrus. You make it sound so cut and dried, but it’s really not.

I’d like to see you take a party of 20th level guys into Arah and beat it. I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure it’s possible.

At any rate, you can’t even attempt the 70th level personal story without having to get to the level 60th personal story. It’s linear.

Now we don’t know that this stuff is gated in the sense you’re suggesting. It simply could be unlocked in linear fashion. That is you have to do certain things before other things.

In Guild Wars Eye of the North, you could do the Ebon Vanguard, Asura or Norn path in any order you liked…but the Deldrimor path was always the last one. That content was gated by having to finish the other content first.

Until you see what is going on, this sort of thing is meaningless.

“Once I leveled to 80,” that is. However I could level by doing (almost) anything in the game – be it crafting, exploring, gathering, or killing. I didn’t have to go and do PS chapter 7 to move from lvl 70 to 71 – for which in turn I also had to do chapters 1-6. Fun fact: I finished my personal story almost 1 year after I started playing the game, simply because I found it boring… and no content was restricted from me during all that time (I even killed Zhaitan!), the only content PS was gating was PS itself.

There is a point. The point is in raising awareness before it’s too late and everything is set in stone. Because I really want to enjoy HoT the same as I enjoy GW2, and I don’t want to sigh and ignore the expansion because it becomes the same “grind or stay behind” as all the other MMOs out there that I refuse to buy, and mastery points which replace my level become the new Gear Score.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Bubi.7942:

Altair.8402:

Can you link me to the part that says obtaining masteries will be grindy?

Also, if there’s no long term goal for players, what’s gonna keep people playing?

You don’t get it!

What if I have to play the new content and earn mastery points by doing basicly ANYTHING that gives me XP? Doing anything is super Grindy! Give me mastery points in log-in rewards!

Jump on the Grind-Worry-Train! (what?)

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives XP… on those 10 square meters which are not locked behind new mastery levels!

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives me XP… once you’ve grinded that adventure for a month, succeeded and unlocked the mastery which gates the rest of content!

But I just remembered you, Bubi. You’re the one who taught mesmers the mesmer basics in that LS thread, told Miku to L2P, and then linked his own video.

Seriously, we need to be able to assign tags/groups/notes to forum users so that we know what kind of reasoning we’re dealing with once we meet on the forum again. It will save time in so many arguments.

nGumball.1283:

I don’t believe there could be an MMO without grind and there haven’t been so far.

nGumball.1283:

No offense but you should leave MMORPGs and play single player games instead because there haven’t been a single MMORPG that wasn’t grindy and there probably never be.

Fun fact: there was! It was called Guild Wars 2.

I could level to 80 and experience all content in the game, including Arah and all the Fractals from lvl 1 to 9, which featured all the existing fractal maps.

Will I be able to in HoT? No.

Why? Probably because “casuals” didn’t stay long enough to pay enough money to let the game stay as is. I’m afraid some people cannot cope with getting instant freedom and setting the goals themselves – they need to be restricted, constrained and gated, and only then they will stay and fight for freedom they could’ve enjoyed straight away. That’s a weird psychological phenomenon, but it’s here.

Man take a deep breath and let’s think about it calmly shall we ?

• When you release an expansion for an MMO, you don’t want players to clear the content in 3 days.
• To prevent this, you must introduce some kind of gating.
• It can be level gating, gear gating or both or something completely different
• In any case, there is a gating

Anet chose not to follow in the footsteps of more traditionnal MMOs and instead of raising level cap, introduced masteries.
Think of this as a level increase/gating but account bound instead of character bound. That’s a progress isn’kitten

Also a few détails that you might have missed :

• Only characters that own HoT can progress in masteries
• Mastery point CAN be earned in already existing zones. So you will NOT be forced to grind in the first zones of the heart of maguuma.
• MP will be added retroactively to veteran players who have already completed certain tasks that will give MP.

In the end, you’ll probably be among those who will be seen hangliding on day 1. So stop yelling please.

VodCom.6924:

Also a few détails that you might have missed :

• Only characters that own HoT can progress in masteries
• Mastery point CAN be earned in already existing zones. So you will NOT be forced to grind in the first zones of the heart of maguuma.
• MP will be added retroactively to veteran players who have already completed certain tasks that will give MP.

• The already existing zones (“core GW2”) will have their own masteries. To get HoT masteries, you’ll have to grind HoT.
• You will only get masteries retroactively for the already existing zones, not HoT. Everyone will grind HoT, no exceptions.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Vayne.8563:

Ever hear of the knife of phaedrus. You make it sound so cut and dried, but it’s really not.

I’d like to see you take a party of 20th level guys into Arah and beat it. I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure it’s possible.

At any rate, you can’t even attempt the 70th level personal story without having to get to the level 60th personal story. It’s linear.

Now we don’t know that this stuff is gated in the sense you’re suggesting. It simply could be unlocked in linear fashion. That is you have to do certain things before other things.

In Guild Wars Eye of the North, you could do the Ebon Vanguard, Asura or Norn path in any order you liked…but the Deldrimor path was always the last one. That content was gated by having to finish the other content first.

Until you see what is going on, this sort of thing is meaningless.

“Once I leveled to 80,” that is. However I could level by doing (almost) anything in the game – be it crafting, exploring, gathering, or killing. I didn’t have to go and do PS chapter 7 to move from lvl 70 to 71 – for which in turn I also had to do chapters 1-6. Fun fact: I finished my personal story almost 1 year after I started playing the game, simply because I found it boring… and no content was restricted from me during all that time (I even killed Zhaitan!), the only content PS was gating was PS itself.

There is a point. The point is in raising awareness before it’s too late and everything is set in stone. Because I really want to enjoy HoT the same as I enjoy GW2, and I don’t want to sigh and ignore the expansion because it becomes the same “grind or stay behind” as all the other MMOs out there that I refuse to buy, and mastery points which replace my level become the new Gear Score.

Hot isn’t going to change that drastically before it’s released. That kind of change would set the game back months if not years. It’s never going to happen. Anet is talking about it and showing it. If this is how it pans out, then your words at this point won’t change it.

But my Eye of the North example STILL applies. You couldn’t do the Deldrimor story until you did the other 3. It was gated at max level.

Even the Living Story within each chapter right now is gated.

This might very well be a type of progression that’s linear, rather than what you’re implying it is. That is to say it’s easy to get the stuff you need to do it, but you have to make choices about where you want to go first.

Getting people up in arms when it’s not out yet, and when it’s not going to change anyway at this late date, I repeat, pointless.

What you’re really saying here, if it’s this then it’s bad. Maybe. But we won’t know until we see it, and when we see it it’s too late.

Lishtenbird.2814:

To train a specific Mastery track, you must first unlock it by spending Mastery points. Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content. Things like completing a chapter in your personal story, completing certain achievements, reaching hard-to-find locations, overcoming challenging encounters, excelling at adventures found within the Heart of Maguuma, or earning 100% completion for a map will award Mastery points.

TL;DR: to unlock Masteries, you do what we currently do in the LS: grind obligatory achievement tasks until you succeed.

Lol yea, pick the part that emphasizes your point the most when the whole paragraph actually lists a bunch of tasks for you to do.

The description of Masteries is broken down as this, to unlock Gliding, you can play any content to gain the mastery points. To level up Gliding, you must play in the Maguuma jungle because it’s a Maguuma track.

Not bad if you ask me. It won’t feel like grinding unless you as the player deliberately make it so.

Lishtenbird.2814:

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives XP… on those 10 square meters which are not locked behind new mastery levels!

You can earn mastery levels by doing basically anything that gives me XP… once you’ve grinded that adventure for a month, succeeded and unlocked the mastery which gates the rest of content!

But I just remembered you, Bubi. You’re the one who taught mesmers the mesmer basics in that LS thread, told Miku to L2P, and then linked his own video.

1. That thread has nothing to do with this one
2. Not once have I said l2p, it was the Miku or whatever guy’s freind constantly saying that
3. Miku guy was complaining about boss being too hard for mesmers, then some random guy (not me) links in a video of himself beating the boss in a speedrun under 2 minutes, and he still complains… uhm, what?

Aaaaaanyway, back on topic.

You said you are a PvE player, and don’t like WvW, right? I wonder, what do you do in PvE? I mean, the game has been out for 2 and a half years, is there any cnew content left for you to do that’s not repetative? Is there any content you do that’s not granting you XP (I can think of 2 activities as such, one being chatting in LA, the other flipping the TP)?

Just wondering what can you do that does not progress your masteries, which btw are still not out, and you know nothing about progression. Yes, it is possible that the new area is gonna be a 2 square meter place with 1 mob that you have to kill over and over. But let’s face it, that’s unlikely, like winning the lottery.

Feel free to ride your phobia train though, if that’s what floats your boat.

Btw, can you recommend a better solution to – anything you do gets you points?

Another example from Guild Wars 1. During the story, you had to stop at one point and farm 10,000 Kurzick or Luxon points to continue to the next mission. It wasn’t particularly grindy but it did require you to stop moving forward until that was done.

It’s a moot point. It’s all speculation for now. But, as far as grinding, Silverwastes already bears this out. It’s not something new. And, honestly, we should expect it in the expansion.

If the size of the overall content is any indication, again speculation, it’ll be the only way to increase the overall interest before there’s another mass exodus.

But, again, we’ll see.