Guild Wars 2

For the x-pac, I would like to suggest a mastery track for armor, weapon, and glider skins in Maguuma. Whatever happened to this game being about horizontal progression? Sure, you included a precursor track for Tyria, but I want a Maguuma Track to have a horizontal progression as well. It can only add to the longevity of the content that we players are paying for when we buy the x-pac.

As it stands now, all the masteries we know about in Maguuma are vertical progression. Wanna get up to that ledge? You need 5 Mushroom Mastery points spent. If there’s an armor vendor up there, then ignore my request. Same if there is a glider skin vendor. If there isn’t though, then I really desire progression that goes with what the progression in this game is supposed to be about.

If I am paying for this content, I want cosmetics that tell other players what I did to get said cosmetics.

Horizontal progression isn’t just about cosmetics though; it’s about options and tools as opposed to climbing stats.

If you can’t do something – jump on mushrooms – because you lack the ability and then you train a Mastery to gain that ability, it’s horizontal progression; it doesn’t make you more powerful, but it gives you another tool to explore.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Horizontal progression isn’t just about cosmetics though; it’s about options and tools as opposed to climbing stats.

If you can’t do something – jump on mushrooms – because you lack the ability and then you train a Mastery to gain that ability, it’s horizontal progression; it doesn’t make you more powerful, but it gives you another tool to explore.

I disagree. If you and I are both in the exact same gear and you have put points into the mastery for killing Mordrem and I haven’t, you can kill them and I can’t. The mushroom thing was a bad example. Heck, you could theoretically be a much worse player than I and if you’ve spent the points, you have the chance to kill the Mordrem whereas I would have zero chance if I hadn’t spent the points.

All I am saying is that I have seen no information that any of the Maguuma tracks are cosmetic at all and that is precisely what I feel all the tracks should be: Cosmetic. Killing enemies should be based on skill, not Mastery Score. In other games they call it gear score. This is just another arbitrary gating mechanism plain and simple. It’s very against the way GW2 has been since its inception. Fractals have gating but only at higher levels.

I am not against level 80 content at all. Any new, permanent content in this game is a good thing no matter what it is. I just don’t want this game to devolve into every time we get an expansion pack, the masteries for that x-pac are exclusive to that x-pac. Make it cosmetic and it doesn’t do that.

I also find the Tyrian Track to be lazy design. Instead of “jam packing” the old game with new content for the precursor track, we are either being awarded retroactive mastery points for it or we are new players and we are doing content in the game that has been there since day one. If they added new content for the precursor track, it would be new content for vets and newer players alike.

Hidden Arcana Blogpost 01

Masteries are contextual. What makes this system different? [from the traditional VP]
The abilities you’ll gain through the Masteries system can be employed in content designed from the ground up.
This provides a better sense of progression by letting players power up their character to challenge specific content instead of building generalized, stat-based power through gear and levels.

So we can call it a vertical and contextual abilities treadmill.
Many people complained that this game has no “endgame” and they will give us what grinders asked for.

Hidden Arcana Blogpost 02

Visual progression, expanded options, and difficulty progression are all important, but without real changes to how the player interacts with the game, progression systems are much less motivating.

Where motivating (probably and sadly) stands for lucrative.