Guild Wars 2

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Swift.1930:

And thus the burnout. We’re forced to level and go through entire trees of things we will never ever use just to unlock something minor.

Bingo. Not only is the training of the masteries completely divorced from their purpose (as you, myself and others have pointed out) but you also make the excellent point that we’re forced to go through things we don’t want to get to what we do.

Case in point: I’m on the last tier of the PACT Commander mastery, trying to get the ability to pick up loot automatically, a simple QOL feature that would affect only me and would reduce some of the administrative tedium in the game. Yet, this feature is the last tier and requires not only completion of all the previous tier which I’m not greatly interested in but it also requires an exhorbitant amount of xp. It’s not something worth working up to over months. It’s a useful feature that should be tier 1.

Instead, tier 1 is mentor, although it affects multiple people and is causing a lot of headaches because it’s so easy to get. This is a mastery that should be tier 5, and should take months of effort to acquire, to demonstrate that someone is worthy of being a mentor.

Imho these two masteries should have been reversed. But what do I know?

Mentoring, yes, that was a funny one. Tier 1 (free) Apple-store-customer-support commander tags for everyone. You don’t need to know how to play the game to hit level 81, hah.

(On that note… while I’m probably just misremembering, wasn’t the level cap supposed to go up to 90 with the addition of specializations?)

People get burn out so easily nowadays. Think if you would have to work or do something else boring irl stuff.

Swift.1930:

Funny, because first you say that unless the thing I said was implemented, what I said would not be viable. If you’re arguing that a single-mushroom daily limit is a gate, then clearly you’ve not seen the current mission gates based on masteries… single-mushroom limitation is not a gate when you can still wander around and find more mushrooms. Think map completion – we can’t sit around and complete a single heart eighteen times over to complete all the hearts on a map. Do we consider that gated?

The real gating is when you lock masteries behind each other. For instance, if you could pick and choose any of the masteries to level at any given time, and then the next one costs more xp, etc, etc, it would be less gated. But currently each one is tiered, even though (apart from the gliding mastery) nothing is related to its preceding mastery point.

A bit like the new skill circle setup (which replaced the old pick-and-choose skill tree), where we have to level our skill trees with 80% of skills our characters wouldn’t even pretend to practice or care about before unlocking the skills we care about.

And thus the burnout. We’re forced to level and go through entire trees of things we will never ever use just to unlock something minor. This is a huge change compared to the vanilla release of Guild Wars 2, which (minus bugs, but certainly not closed to additions) is what we paid for.

Also, keep in mind that at least 60% of the GW2 playerbase came directly from GW1, and there were very, very few gates in that game. Nearly pure customization.

But then the whole issue isn’t that the system is poorly made, the issue you have is that you don’t get what you want when you want it. I understand that you would rather be able to pick which masteries you want to level in a non-tier order but the result is the same as the current system, you end up with some masteries taking much longer to get. So it isn’t so much that the system is bad/poorly designed, it’s just that you don’t want to level up the other tiers of stuff to get to the one thing you want, you don’t want to take a long time to get them, and you don’t want to do things unrelated to them is what i’m getting from your posts. Also that heart example was terrible example because once you do a heart, it’s finished. Hearts in a map are not one giant cumulative, they are separate things.

Yes, you can’t choose and pick from your skills anymore. Okay, but is that really such a game-breaking thing? Like, are you that flustered that you have to spend 12 skill points before getting the specific shout you want on your warrior? Or having to do 5 HoT HP’s to unlock something you are looking forward to?

I hate to break it to everyone who agrees, but the mastery system was designed for long-term goals upon hitting level 80. It is a well designed system that allows you to do multiple things to earn experience for each mastery and provides incentive for playing all of the content. Maybe you don’t like that and that’s fine but it’s what Anet wanted to do with masteries and they aren’t going to change.

I can’t really debate about the whole system with you if you simply write it off as things that you don’t enjoy because then that’s your opinion. I’ve still yet to see what is so bad about the current mastery system from your posts and more just like “I don’t like this”.

I’ll also ask the question again, because everyone seems to side-step it despite wholeheartedly agreeing that the system should be like this: What is a viable way of obtaining a mastery through physical interaction with the specific task it is related to, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared and without being too repetitive or limiting?

Zelkovan.2630:

What is a viable way of obtaining a mastery through physical interaction with the specific task it is related to, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared and without being too repetitive or limiting?

Seems to me there’s a question that needs to be asked before we even get to your question:

“How is the existing mastery system prevented from being easily cleared and not being too repetitive or limiting?”

The answer is: it isn’t. CoF farming is legal and clearly repetitive. HOT masteries can only be trained in HOT maps, so it’s limiting. People are claiming it’s not hard to train the masteries by doing events, especially DS which apparently gives millions of xp(?), especially with boosters.

So if the existing system already suffers from these issues, clearly anything that builds on the existing system but adds more variety has to be better by definition, surely?

Here’s my simple suggestion (which has been raised by others too): allow any mastery to be trained anywhere. Easy to implement, introduces variety, doesn’t disadvantage anyone.

Zelkovan.2630:

But then the whole issue isn’t that the system is poorly made, the issue you have is that you don’t get what you want when you want it. I understand that you would rather be able to pick which masteries you want to level in a non-tier order but the result is the same as the current system, you end up with some masteries taking much longer to get. So it isn’t so much that the system is bad/poorly designed, it’s just that you don’t want to level up the other tiers of stuff to get to the one thing you want, you don’t want to take a long time to get them, and you don’t want to do things unrelated to them is what i’m getting from your posts. Also that heart example was terrible example because once you do a heart, it’s finished. Hearts in a map are not one giant cumulative, they are separate things.

Yes, you can’t choose and pick from your skills anymore. Okay, but is that really such a game-breaking thing? Like, are you that flustered that you have to spend 12 skill points before getting the specific shout you want on your warrior? Or having to do 5 HoT HP’s to unlock something you are looking forward to?

I hate to break it to everyone who agrees, but the mastery system was designed for long-term goals upon hitting level 80. It is a well designed system that allows you to do multiple things to earn experience for each mastery and provides incentive for playing all of the content. Maybe you don’t like that and that’s fine but it’s what Anet wanted to do with masteries and they aren’t going to change.

I can’t really debate about the whole system with you if you simply write it off as things that you don’t enjoy because then that’s your opinion. I’ve still yet to see what is so bad about the current mastery system from your posts and more just like “I don’t like this”.

I’ll also ask the question again, because everyone seems to side-step it despite wholeheartedly agreeing that the system should be like this: What is a viable way of obtaining a mastery through physical interaction with the specific task it is related to, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared and without being too repetitive or limiting?

I’m realizing that you’re just setting each of my sentences up as individual straw men and then battering them down… with (as you criticized me for doing) your own opinions, and it appears you directly ignore other comments entirely (or maybe you just overlook them).

I’m not sure why you claim that the hearts example was terrible, because when you have all the hearts (and PoIs and HPs and exploration areas), you have a cumulative whole that awards you with a map completion reward. Hearts are both singular and cumulative. Take the PoIs and HPs and other things away, keep the cumulative heart (mushroom) system by itself, and you have a viable option for training masteries. Sure, it’s not that simple for all the masteries, but it’s an beginning.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Zelkovan.2630:

What is a viable way of obtaining a mastery through physical interaction with the specific task it is related to, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared and without being too repetitive or limiting?

Seems to me there’s a question that needs to be asked before we even get to your question:

“How is the existing mastery system prevented from being easily cleared and not being too repetitive or limiting?”

The answer is: it isn’t. CoF farming is legal and clearly repetitive. HOT masteries can only be trained in HOT maps, so it’s limiting. People are claiming it’s not hard to train the masteries by doing events, especially DS which apparently gives millions of xp(?), especially with boosters.

So if the existing system already suffers from these issues, clearly anything that builds on the existing system but adds more variety has to be better by definition, surely?

Here’s my simple suggestion (which has been raised by others too): allow any mastery to be trained anywhere. Easy to implement, introduces variety, doesn’t disadvantage anyone.

Although I hold to my suggestion that masteries be made more… innovative, I would also support this. If my entire mastery leveling is going to be purely through grinding XP, why can’t I do that anywhere? I have no interest in leveling any of the non-HoT masteries, and I’m not a fan of wandering the event-clogged HoT maps (it was fun the first two times…).

I think progression is the big issue. People feel a need to complete things and it feels like masteries are levels they need to gain to make their characters complete. When you think about the main game, you were level 80 through the main story at least a few missions even before the final one. In HoT you gain maybe 1-2 levels of each tier by the time you reach the end of the expansion, leaving so much more crap to to gain, but what incentive is there to do this stuff really, except to show off your kitten? Leveling up masteries shouldn’t be the focus of the content, just like leveling to 80 wasn’t for the main story. But that’s how Arenanet has designed it this time around.

So much QQ. Feel free to send me your items and go play another game. HoT is a great expansion, hands down. All of the “I’m burnt out” is only coming from those who didn’t get handed everything immediately with a bow or from those who blaze through everything and no have nothing to do.

AlphaWolf.2709:

So much QQ. Feel free to send me your items and go play another game. HoT is a great expansion, hands down. All of the “I’m burnt out” is only coming from those who didn’t get handed everything immediately with a bow or from those who blaze through everything and no have nothing to do.

Read again before spouting more blind and shortsighted nonsense.

HoT is a very very poor expansion. It decimated WvW, dungeons and many other parts of the game.

I haven’t asked for my money back but that is only because ANET created some of the best game experiences out there in GW1 and the original GW2. I am hoping that at least some of that old talent can fix HoT.

But for now, HoT is garbage and not worth my time, or money.

I took a two month break before hot b/c I was getting burned out. Come back to HoT and two weeks later I am disappointed and burned out again. Did I play a lot to do this? Nope. HoT has very little unpaid content, most of it is in the cash shop; rewards in game for playing sucks big time. ie. ley line med armor looks like crap yet cash shop stuff looks amazing. Coincidence? I think not.

Clearly GW2 is going the korean f2p direction where less is supposed to be more and all the best content is paid for beyond the box price. Obviously the cash shoppers LOVE this though so it’s all good. Done with gw2 for now I guess and no you can’t have my stuff.

AlphaWolf.2709:

So much QQ. Feel free to send me your items and go play another game. HoT is a great expansion, hands down. All of the “I’m burnt out” is only coming from those who didn’t get handed everything immediately with a bow or from those who blaze through everything and no have nothing to do.

No it’s not. And if you’d have bothered to read this thread, you’d have seen that. A lot are simply unhappy with the type of content. Personally, I burn out waaaaaaaaaaaay faster on event-only zones that I do on dungeons and fractals or world bosses. This is what the OP was expressing. It’s the type of content, lack of variety in the new zones (as in, it’s only events.. no new dungeon cluster to work on masteries in) that has burned them out.

I’ve played my share of MMOs in the last ~10 years and HoT is some of the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO. Verdant Brink especially, I have 100% exploration and I still find little jump puzzles and hidden stuff when I’m there.

I am a Mesmer in beserker stats ascended armor and I tried to solo walk through Dragon Stand map and I was annoyed that I saw no events on going at the time, but like all but 2 waypoints were contested.

Everywhere I tried to walk, I saw groups of mobs in threes, 2 normal + 1 veteran. I can take on a vet or I can take on 2 mobs, but I can’t take on all 3 by myself.

It would be nice is Anet didn’t make changing stats on our gear so expensive. I can’t afford the runes as it is, let alone to pay for the gem store extractor that goes away after you use it. I know it’s for revenue, but it would be so nice if Anet would give us an rune/sigil/infusion extracting device that is permanent. I will pay 2,500 gems for it. Heck, charge what you want, I’ll probably pay. But I can’t keep paying for multiple single use extraction items from gem store.

I’m pretty sure Anet won’t do this because it may not be a significant enough revenue stream for them. But, for us, it would be nice.

AlphaWolf.2709:

So much QQ. Feel free to send me your items and go play another game. HoT is a great expansion, hands down. All of the “I’m burnt out” is only coming from those who didn’t get handed everything immediately with a bow or from those who blaze through everything and no have nothing to do.

Ah, broad generalisations. They save so much time that could otherwise be spent getting to know people and figuring out why they think the way they do.

I feel like its only grindy if you try to rush for certain rewards. People seem to want their rewards ASAP and if they can’t get them within a week they cry.

I’m actually enjoying the new maps & events and i’ve been doing them whenever I feel like it.

That being said, content wise there isn’t too much. It’s more like the rewards we get from doing them makes us do the bit of new content over and over again.

Ofc its going to get boring & grindy if you do the same map/event multiple times a day to get your reward ASAP. But if you don’t feel like doing any of the events (because you’ve been farming them too much so they got boring) then just don’t. And continue when you feel like it.

Honestly I would say I feel somewhat burned out (although that might be the wrong choice of words) because I can’t play it for hours and hours on end and yet the gameplay requires that to unlock just a few simple elements. Work, study, other responsibilities… even when I put in about seven hours per week, I see the XP bar go up by only about 40-50%. Oh, and that was with a celebration booster ticking (and several meta events progressing/finishing).

Im playing all different game modes shuffled. Like one hours continue my sylvari guardian on the hot maps, then half an hour leveling my charr revenant in his personal story then some fractals with my nekro, then some wvw with my engineer , back to my guardian collecting some more items for a precursor, dig some ores and materials , lfg cause tequatl is to arrive, etc etc.

Basically i try to keep being involved in alot different stuff to not let it be too monotone cause everything monotone gets you more to a point where you cant eat as much as you want to puke. Its for gw the same as its for work, for daily meal, for life , for everything.

Grim West.3194:

HoT is a very very poor expansion. It decimated WvW, dungeons and many other parts of the game.

I’ve seen this statement a couple of times, and I’d like to know: How did they do that exactly? I’m not saying I agree/disagree, I just want an objective (!) explanation on what changes that came with HoT caused this. Thanks in advance

Thornum.8607:

Grim West.3194:

HoT is a very very poor expansion. It decimated WvW, dungeons and many other parts of the game.

I’ve seen this statement a couple of times, and I’d like to know: How did they do that exactly? I’m not saying I agree/disagree, I just want an objective (!) explanation on what changes that came with HoT caused this. Thanks in advance

In the new WvW maps they removed the old smaller ones, and put (amazing looking) but very large new maps in their place. The old maps were barely full as is, making the new maps just about empty. (granted i’m not on a top server maybe they are different, but I shouldn’t have to be just to play wvw).

With dungeons I believe he is referring to them nerfing the gold rewards at the end of paths making it not worth your time to do them.

stop power gaming easy fix

A few things that are Burning me out right now in HoT:
1. Map completions: A lot of the places you need to get to in order to get that POI/HP/Vista/WP and Mastery Points, are either gated off by Events that you MUST complete in order to get to them, not to mention the maps are confusing the difficult to navigate, it’s beyond aggravating to have to navigate a darn maze of a map just to get Map completion, been working on it since the launch of HoT and only have Verdant Brink done, and stuck in Auric Basin due to Event gated areas, and being confused AF on where to go…

2. Collections: Trying to get all I need so I can get my Revenant his skins, but there again, ANet decides to gate things behind the fake “Challenge” wall and just make it one huge hassle…

We get it ANet you wanted people to slow down and explore the maps, and participate in the events you all came up with, but gating off or making the maps confusing AF, isn’t fun at all…