Guild Wars 2

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

That is nothing really new. They even state that on the website
“The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80, and it does away with the traditional gear and level grind that leaves a content wasteland and widens the gap between new and veteran players. The Mastery system establishes exciting goals to achieve that increase your abilities and powers after level 80, allowing you to overcome greater challenges and creating truly meaningful endgame progression.”

Regarding forcing players to buy HoT none of the HoT specific masteries like gliding for example have any benefit outside of the new maps.

The gear stays the same, they don’t give advantages in WvW or PvP. The answer to your question is no. The old content will work the same. The perks the mastery system will give players will be minimal at best. QoL for the most part.

Masteries will make you more powerful, but only within HoT and only against certain enemies. GW1 did the same thing with title tracks (Lightbringer for example).

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

Ascii Red.4029:

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

They have no influence on old content so how is it invalidated through the masteries?

Ascii Red.4029:

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

But the new progression system does in no way or form effect the old stuff. You will still have just as hard time to finish dungeon X as you did before.

Lightbringer was multiple skills AND outright stat-increase against certain mobs.

We as players wanted more content, and they cant raise the level cap because that would make their previous content outdated and useless, so they add masteries that will basically just affect your gameplay in Heart of Thorns areas of the map since they are related to mobs there along with mechanics that only exist there. So, no, if you keep your account the base-version, you are not getting a devalued game because your gear is still relevant, your damage is still relevant. The only thing might be the post 50 fractals, but those were part of the expac and thus included in the previous statement.

As for the “f2p” its more of an extended trial. If you think that amount of restrictions for a buy to play base game is fine, go ahead. Id rather spend 50 bucks on a game without monthly fee than put up with that.

I am sorry OP, but you are recalling the past as way better than it was.
When Nightfall was released there was a series of skills / professions that were better than everything else.
Dervishes dominated PvP.
Searing Flames was (by a long margin) the best elite skill available to elementalists.
And so on.

HoT won’t be different, some stuff on it is going to be over powered (and this is imposible toa void when releasing so many new mechanics) and while everything will eventually get honestly balanced, ANET is not going to be overly zealous about nerfing it too fast unless it’s blatantly broken (*), it’s just the way the world works.

(*) Dervishes were nerfed pretty fast because PvP got for a few days just [self redacted]. SF on the other hand was the best elementalist skill for a long time.

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

It’s very funny that you mentioned GW1 because that was a prime example of an “increased level cap by the back…” if you consider how for example NF introduced the most powerful and meta Elementalist skills, making all Eles without NF being complete garbage in any game mode. Mesmers were mostly Prophecies, tough luck if you started with NF or Factions, Monks were mostly NF too. Let’s not start with PVE-only skills (especially EotN skills)

GW1 expansions de-valued your characters by so much that is not even funny to compare. It was impossible to join groups without having certain skills, and lots of them were available at specific expansions. I think you don’t remember GW1 very well.

As for masteries, they are mostly used in HoT content so your point is null.

Ascii Red.4029:

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being increased so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

It’s really not.

Level 80 is still the maximum level.
Ascended / Legendary is still the top tier.

These Masteries are progression tied to a specific area of content. If you level up gliding, you don’t suddenly invalidate Fractals, and if you level up the Fractal mastery, you don’t suddenly invalidate dungeons.

After all, a few title tracks in GW were like this:

• Lightbringer (damage reduction and damage increase to Abaddon and his servants. Also improved 2 skills)
• Sunspear Rank (improved 11 skills)
• Allegiance rank (improved 10 skills)
• Asura rank (max energy increase in Asuran territory. Also improved 12 skills)
• Deldrimor rank (damage and health gain against Destroyers. Also improved 14 skills)
• Ebon Vanguard rank (armour, adrenaline and energy gain against Charr. Also improved 12 skills)
• Norn rank (max health increase in Norn territory. Also improved 12 skills).

What I would say, however, is that Anet are wrong in saying they don’t have an attunement process if Masteries tie heavily into raids and being able to complete them.

The price of progression. People want it. They asked for it. Anet provided it. Not sure what else to say, but horizontal progression is not vertical progression. This is what the playerbase asked for.

Ascii Red.4029:

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

That’s a poor example you’ve quoted. Again, masteries won’t make anyone more powerful in the old content. Does it really matter if it makes people more powerful in the new content only? How does that matter for people that don’t have access to it? It doesn’t. If you don’t get HoT, you don’t get the raids you just quoted.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

Ascii Red.4029:

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

That’s a poor example you’ve quoted. Again, masteries won’t make anyone more powerful in the old content. Does it really matter if it makes people more powerful in the new content only? How does that matter for people that don’t have access to it? It doesn’t. If you don’t get HoT, you don’t get the raids you just quoted.

On the contrary, I think the OP got it partly right: HoT introduced horizontal progression, which means max characters from the core game will have to “level up” again. What’s different from vertical progression is that there’s no need to upgrade gear — that doesn’t mean you can just take your L80 character direct from core to HoT.

In playing the BETA, I found the first zone was horribly dull until I unlocked gliding — without that mastery, I was locked out of the critical tool for traveling.

Still, it’s a moot point: as Vayne says above, players asked for progression and ANet delivered it, GW2-style (no new gear requirements, happens near-automatically).

People wanted horizontal progression for god’s sake. Do you seriously want no progression in the game at all? That’s not really good for the game…

xarallei.4279:

People wanted horizontal progression for god’s sake. Do you seriously want no progression in the game at all? That’s not really good for the game…

Actually, I prefer being able to ‘rest’ after leveling. For me, the fun is in the challenge of the game, not the challenge of needing to keep adding to my character’s abilities. I am not sure that horizontal progression is good for games. However, it’s cheaper than updating instances and combat AI and it’s what everyone expects from expacs — if ANet can’t figure out a way to avoid it, I doubt any other gaming company is going to try.

Ascii Red.4029:

“getting your account to maximum”.

Fixed. Considering Masteries are account wide.

They’ve been up front for a long time that they planned to continue a steady vertical progression.

Back when people were defending the introduction of Ascended gear by parroting ArenaNet that there would never be another gear tier added to the game, there were plenty of us warning that there are many other ways of creating a power treadmill without another tier of gear.

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Coulter.2315:

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Adding new skills at the same level increases the number of options, but it doesn’t increase character power or allow them to do anything they couldn’t already do. That is horizontal progression.

Masteries are more similar to the title track lines/skills added to GW1. They increase character effectiveness in certain situations, and allow access to new areas and items. It’s a less vertical progression than adding more levels or gear tiers, but it’s certainly not only horizontal.

The main factor that makes me mostly ok with it, is the fact that masteries are account based and don’t have game-wide effects. But that could change after seeing the details of each mastery.

Rather than working like a traditional MMO that invalidates months of work gearing your character, ANet chose instead to give us a method of progressiom that will work by giving us new tools with which to experience content. Progression is necessary for an MMO and if we’re not working toward gaining something it’s not progression. Masteries simply allow us to keep building our repetoir of skills in a cumulative manner, whereas most MMOs force you to basically start from scratch each time the level cap increases.

While masteries are certainly a lot a better than having a new level cap and new gear, they could also be done without having any impact on character power/combat effectiveness. Anet has shown their willingness to go down the power increase path in the past (wvw masteries) and we already know that at least one HoT mastery (Exalted) does it to some degree.

There really has to be a sense of progression and customization going forward, given the genre of the game. If not levels, if not gear… this seems like a great alternative.

Lethality.1732:

There really has to be a sense of progression and customization going forward, given the genre of the game. If not levels, if not gear… this seems like a great alternative.

I don’t think progression is necessary, at least not in any vertical sense. Customization usually falls under horizontal progression. You can add more content, more rewards, more activities, all without any actual character power progression.

The limited power progression added to GW1 in Nightfall and Eye of the North became major points of contention in the community. Enough so that Anet eventually capped their benefits to a rather low, and much more easily attained, level. I just hope they still remember that lesson today.

However, when that progression is so easily attained, there is little point in having it at all. It’s better to simply focus on other, purely horizontal progression and throw out the token vertical bits.

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Adding new skills at the same level increases the number of options, but it doesn’t increase character power or allow them to do anything they couldn’t already do. That is horizontal progression.

Masteries are more similar to the title track lines/skills added to GW1. They increase character effectiveness in certain situations, and allow access to new areas and items. It’s a less vertical progression than adding more levels or gear tiers, but it’s certainly not only horizontal.

The main factor that makes me mostly ok with it, is the fact that masteries are account based and don’t have game-wide effects. But that could change after seeing the details of each mastery.

Sure, go play HA Mesmer without PD.

Ascii Red.4029:

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

I do not share your opinion.

Masteries is a way of progression that does not devalue existing content and existing gear because masteries help you only to overcome new content/maps for which that special masteries are made.

They do not make you any stronger in “old-Tyria” and they do not force you to get new gear with a higher level.

Ascii Red.4029:

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

You had the title tracks in GW1 and without them some builds were rather hard to maintain. This was a huge grind, especially the Luxon/Kurzick title.

And as if progression in an expansion is bad? What is bad about this? Why sneaky? You see demons where there no are. Don’t put the devs into a shady light, it’s just unfair.

Coulter.2315:

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Adding new skills at the same level increases the number of options, but it doesn’t increase character power or allow them to do anything they couldn’t already do. That is horizontal progression.

Masteries are more similar to the title track lines/skills added to GW1. They increase character effectiveness in certain situations, and allow access to new areas and items. It’s a less vertical progression than adding more levels or gear tiers, but it’s certainly not only horizontal.

The main factor that makes me mostly ok with it, is the fact that masteries are account based and don’t have game-wide effects. But that could change after seeing the details of each mastery.

Sure, go play HA Mesmer without PD.

I don’t see what one popular/meta skill has to do with this. Some skills are always going to be more suited for a given situation for others. That that in no way means that adding skills is adding vertical progression. It doesn’t even mean that skill is more powerful than another. It’s just better suited for one build/purpose.

A number of the skills added in GW1’s later campaigns were (initially, at least) quite powerful. But that is power creep within skill balancing, not vertical progression. It is caused by the individual skills being unbalanced, and does not equate to more skill options adding more power. There were even more skills added in those same campaigns that were underpowered.

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Adding new skills at the same level increases the number of options, but it doesn’t increase character power or allow them to do anything they couldn’t already do. That is horizontal progression.

Masteries are more similar to the title track lines/skills added to GW1. They increase character effectiveness in certain situations, and allow access to new areas and items. It’s a less vertical progression than adding more levels or gear tiers, but it’s certainly not only horizontal.

The main factor that makes me mostly ok with it, is the fact that masteries are account based and don’t have game-wide effects. But that could change after seeing the details of each mastery.

Sure, go play HA Mesmer without PD.

I don’t see what one popular/meta skill has to do with this. Some skills are always going to be more suited for a given situation for others. That that in no way means that adding skills is adding vertical progression. It doesn’t even mean that skill is more powerful than another. It’s just better suited for one build/purpose.

A number of the skills added in GW1’s later campaigns were (initially, at least) quite powerful. But that is power creep within skill balancing, not vertical progression. It is caused by the individual skills being unbalanced, and does not equate to more skill options adding more power. There were even more skills added in those same campaigns that were underpowered.

I was being kind to you by offering a simple example on Mesmer (who barely changed any skills over the years I played the first game). Since you failed to understand my point I’ll broaden it.

Unable to take /A (there go your runners), /Rt (there goes a lot of Necros), /D (oops no farming for you), /P (looks like your Hero got rupted).

Want to join SFway?
Want to play GvG monk?
Want to play GvG ranger?
Want to play Icy Shackles?

etc.

Saying “no increase in power level” completely ignores the fact that powerful builds becoming available IS an increase in power level..

Every MMO increases the power level of its player base with an expansion, Guild Wars is kinder to its players than most BUT saying you weren’t more powerful after an exapnsion when you had access to many other skills and second professions is a joke.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Ascii Red.4029:

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

You had the title tracks in GW1 and without them some builds were rather hard to maintain. This was a huge grind, especially the Luxon/Kurzick title.

And as if progression in an expansion is bad? What is bad about this? Why sneaky? You see demons where there no are. Don’t put the devs into a shady light, it’s just unfair.

To someone not buying HoT, masteries don’t really change anything. It doesn’t force me to buy HoT when the mastery is useless without HoT. Only two of them have any effect outside of HoT-only maps, and I don’t think we even have a solid confirmation that those two masteries are restricted to HoT buyers.

The biggest chance for an actual problem I see here is if the fractal mastery adds some additional agony resistance or other combat boost for fractals. If it adds that and is HoT-exclusive, then there is a definite issue where players not buying HoT have a distinct disadvantage.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Ascii Red.4029:

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

You had the title tracks in GW1 and without them some builds were rather hard to maintain. This was a huge grind, especially the Luxon/Kurzick title.

And as if progression in an expansion is bad? What is bad about this? Why sneaky? You see demons where there no are. Don’t put the devs into a shady light, it’s just unfair.

and dont forget the ebon,asura rank farming that was done for the skills to be better , which were required in some situations, i remember farming ebon for that ebon assasin skill , but i dont even know why or for what use it was lol….but it had to be done

Yeah, that’s what I meant with farming titles, there was asura, norn, ebon vanguard, the dwarf one and one other? And they weren’t even account wide. You had to farm every single time, you brought a new character to those regions.

Coulter.2315:

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

mrstealth.6701:

Coulter.2315:

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

GW1 introduced new skills with each exp, you were never at maximum with just the core game after their release.

They need to provide some sort of progression with new exp.

Adding new skills at the same level increases the number of options, but it doesn’t increase character power or allow them to do anything they couldn’t already do. That is horizontal progression.

Masteries are more similar to the title track lines/skills added to GW1. They increase character effectiveness in certain situations, and allow access to new areas and items. It’s a less vertical progression than adding more levels or gear tiers, but it’s certainly not only horizontal.

The main factor that makes me mostly ok with it, is the fact that masteries are account based and don’t have game-wide effects. But that could change after seeing the details of each mastery.

Sure, go play HA Mesmer without PD.

I don’t see what one popular/meta skill has to do with this. Some skills are always going to be more suited for a given situation for others. That that in no way means that adding skills is adding vertical progression. It doesn’t even mean that skill is more powerful than another. It’s just better suited for one build/purpose.

A number of the skills added in GW1’s later campaigns were (initially, at least) quite powerful. But that is power creep within skill balancing, not vertical progression. It is caused by the individual skills being unbalanced, and does not equate to more skill options adding more power. There were even more skills added in those same campaigns that were underpowered.

I was being kind to you by offering a simple example on Mesmer (who barely changed any skills over the years I played the first game). Since you failed to understand my point I’ll broaden it.

Unable to take /A (there go your runners), /Rt (there goes a lot of Necros), /D (oops no farming for you), /P (looks like your Hero got rupted).

Want to join SFway?
Want to play GvG monk?
Want to play GvG ranger?
Want to play Icy Shackles?

etc.

Saying “no increase in power level” completely ignores the fact that powerful builds becoming available IS an increase in power level..

Every MMO increases the power level of its player base with an expansion, Guild Wars is kinder to its players than most BUT saying you weren’t more powerful after an exapnsion when you had access to many other skills and second professions is a joke.

Again, that is called power creep, not vertical progression. It is an issue of the skills themselves being unbalanced/more powerful, not an indication that more options equals more power. Having more options only gives you more possibilities. It doesn’t make those possibilities inherently better. It does increase your chance of finding a particularly powerful combination, but that is the result of more possible combos being more difficult to balance.

And listing a bunch of meta builds doesn’t really mean anything to that point. It’s not as if those were the only, or even the best options. As much as people stuck in a meta mindset might think otherwise, they are just that…options. Popular options, and popular because they are effective. But they are not a requirement, nor proof that other equal options don’t exist, with or without added campaigns.

The reason this power creep was an issue in GW1 was the fact that every player, no matter their class, had access to every professions’ skills. And the fact that there were hundreds of skills for those classes. By the time EotN was out, there were something like 1500 skills in the game. You end up with powerful combinations because it’s not feasible to predict and balance that many possible builds.

In contrast, GW2’s skills are locked to single professions, and there are a lot less of them. It is many magnitudes easier to maintain balance while adding more options to that mix. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any power creep, but it does make it easier to avoid that happening.

I like how this works. It gives you things to do without making you OP for older content. And here’s what I imagine will happen with GW2: Expansion 3, there will be a new area with new masteries to unlock. Some HoT masteries, like mushroom bouncing, might be completely irrelevant to the new areas (but still useful if you return to Maguuma), while others, like gliding, might still work, but perhaps require you to “relearn” an element to get it to function properly in the new area.

New players of Xpac3 should be able to skip HoT’s masteries entirely if they want, and start fresh with the new set, picking up complimentary abilities that duplicate the old, and be just as strong as someone who’s mastered both so long as they stay in the new areas (but weaker if they try to enter Maguuma Jungle).

Likewise, I would expect that even after Xpac4 and 5 come out, if a player returns to the game and had completed HoT’s masteries but nothing since, he should be able to hop in with a team running the HoT raid and be just as strong as players who have cleared the 3-4-5 masteries, within that raid (and would only need to pick up the other masteries if he wanted to pursue that new content).

It’s gaining power, but situational power, specific to the new content, rather than generalized power that invalidates all other content.

mrstealth.6701:

Again, that is called power creep, not vertical progression. It is an issue of the skills themselves being unbalanced/more powerful, not an indication that more options equals more power. Having more options only gives you more possibilities. It doesn’t make those possibilities inherently better. It does increase your chance of finding a particularly powerful combination, but that is the result of more possible combos being more difficult to balance.

Power creep that is the consequence of something that is supposed to be horizontal progression, is de facto vertical progression.

Diovid.9506:

mrstealth.6701:

Again, that is called power creep, not vertical progression. It is an issue of the skills themselves being unbalanced/more powerful, not an indication that more options equals more power. Having more options only gives you more possibilities. It doesn’t make those possibilities inherently better. It does increase your chance of finding a particularly powerful combination, but that is the result of more possible combos being more difficult to balance.

Power creep that is the consequence of something that is supposed to be horizontal progression, is de facto vertical progression.

In those cases, the two do have the same end result, a more powerful character. But power creep coming from intended horizontal progression is a side effect, often resulting from carelessness or adding too much to be able to balance. You can have horizontal progression without increasing power. That is the goal with that type of progression.

Vertical progression is directly and purposefully increasing power. You can’t have vertical progression without increasing power, because the entire purpose of it is to do just that.

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

You aren’t wrong. The masteries are new things that characters can work on at 80 to “progress” your character. I think you’re wrong about the ‘increased level cap’ comparison. None of those masteries make you any stronger as far as I know. In most cases they apply to HoT exclusive content, meaning if you don’t have HoT, then the masteries do you no good anyway.

I am curious why you think this is a bad thing? They’ve never claimed there would be no additional progression, they’ve been touting horizontal progression from the start, which is what this is.

PS: pre-emptively calling out people’s ‘worthless troll opinions’ sounds a bit trolly in and of itself.

Take a step back and drop the “traditional MMO glasses” for once to see this point:

HoT will introduce a new progression stretch for playing and completing the new content for the first time. Which is just natural, because playing through (progressing through) new content for the first time is just what you usually do and did when you first played 1-80. And this is fun to do: explore, challenge, discover, unlock, complete.
Yet since the masteries are account based you don’t even have to do it for every character again, as you had to with 1-80 (unless you dropped lots of craftin/tomes on them).
Yet since Masteries are made so that they do not modify the lvl 80 baseline they do not modify the established content and player progression state, as any other MMO expansion has done.
So while giving you a nice global further progression inside new content, which is pretty much the essence of progression based gameplay your individual pogression state does not change, all the stuff you accrued so far is still worth the same.

New content brings an expansion of dimensions to progress into (here masteries).
But the way GW2 does it keeps the value of the progression that you already did on the old content. Your Level 80 progression, Skill/Trais unlocks and all of your gear and the training and personal skill you acquired during Core gameplay will matter just as much when you bring them to the new expansion.
This is fundamentally different from traditional expansion level/gear-raise model where when you log in after an xpac you would have to through out all the items you played lots of iterations to get earlier just to get stuck in what basically is “starter gear for level x+ new endgame”, just acquire new gear that puts you in the same spot to be competitive for endgame all over again. Nothing changed you just ran the re-equip treadmill for no other reason than to prolongue your running subscription.

To conclude:
In HoTs there will be NEW progression but your progression so far will NOT BE INVALIDATED.
New progression is fun to do, invalidating previous progression just to have you do the same step all over again would not.

Maybe you can see the difference in that.

Draknar.5748:

You aren’t wrong. The masteries are new things that characters can work on at 80 to “progress” your character. I think you’re wrong about the ‘increased level cap’ comparison. None of those masteries make you any stronger as far as I know. In most cases they apply to HoT exclusive content, meaning if you don’t have HoT, then the masteries do you no good anyway.

That’s true for most of them. The majority seem to be based on gaining abilities to explore or unlock access to new areas.

Exalted mastery does have a couple to improve effectiveness vs mordrem, so that is limited to HoT areas and perhaps Dry Top/Silverwastes if the mobs still count as the same types. Pact Tyria mastery has a buff to crafting XP. The Fractal mastery line’s description on the HoT site mentions unlocking “powerful new abilities” as well as infusions.

Out of those, the only one I can see causing a problem is the Fractals line. If these “new abilities” are usable in all levels of Fractals, then that line needs to be accessible to all players (to my knowledge, they’ve not confirmed either way) and be fairly quick to unlock. If this is locked off behind HoT’s paywall, then it could cause a split where those without access to these new abilities are unwanted in groups. I’m guessing they are probably only for higher levels that are only unlocked with HoT/mastery, but it’s something that we do need more info on.

mrstealth.6701:

Out of those, the only one I can see causing a problem is the Fractals line. If these “new abilities” are usable in all levels of Fractals, then that line needs to be accessible to all players (to my knowledge, they’ve not confirmed either way) and be fairly quick to unlock. If this is locked off behind HoT’s paywall, then it could cause a split where those without access to these new abilities are unwanted in groups. I’m guessing they are probably only for higher levels that are only unlocked with HoT/mastery, but it’s something that we do need more info on.

Well causing a split there indeed would not be too cool.
Yet fractals are kinda the niche for gear up grind treadmill and they were supposed to be for the ones that want it.
As long as new fractal maps aren’t kept exclusively to super high levels some power creep in that special game mode isn’t too surprising and somewhat the core of what this special mode was about.

not to get all techncal, but we are partly on a vertical progression here. Anet has stated that you “WIL HAVE” to get masteries in order to handle the new harder content. While it isnt a level up type progression, we have been told we earn masteries the EXACT same way as leveling… So basically its a level treadmill progression minus the official tag of a level… its a sneaky way of catering to white knights through technicalities… but keep on being lemmings!!! by all means!!!

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

Here’s the difference between masteries and a higher level cap:

With Masteries, you’re expanding your range abilities and not just increasing your base stats in order to keep up with higher level mobs.

The only thing that masteries and a level cap have in common is that they require gameplay and progression to be achieved.

As someone who’s done the extra leveling in several WoW expansions, I can attest that leveling masteries is very different than having to quest through 10 more levels that do absolutely nothing more than allow you to play the game again.

This really boils down to the difference between grinding experience that makes no difference in gameplay and having progression to unlock, which gives the player continued goals that have worthwhile rewards.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

not to get all techncal, but we are partly on a vertical progression here. Anet has stated that you “WIL HAVE” to get masteries in order to handle the new harder content. While it isnt a level up type progression, we have been told we earn masteries the EXACT same way as leveling… So basically its a level treadmill progression minus the official tag of a level… its a sneaky way of catering to white knights through technicalities… but keep on being lemmings!!! by all means!!!

There is no hidden technicality, it was like this:
1) new progression was asked for and announced to come
2) invalidating-type further vertical progression after ascended was definitely denied
3) HoT will bring masteries which progress into a new dimension, and they will use the same resource that you previously used for vertical level progression as that resource has become almost meaningless after lvl 80.
4) progression on masteries will be exactly as demanded and announced:
→ new way to progress, without making the same treadmill “levels/equip” go around the same way once again

The technicality here is:
- classic vertical progression by raising the primary level cap dimension will invalidate previous top tier content, also nullify previous progress investments and kind of be a forced requirement even if you did not buy into the new stuff
- the presented horizontal progression on the other hand gives you a new stretch to progress without touching the validity of the achievements already done towards “character level” up, as that one stays fixed at the top cap that it was before and thus all content referrring to that only will stay the same

- if a mastery though would give you anything that would make you like for instance eat lupicus even faster than in 10 seconds, then that would indeed be a hidden power creep

I think decisions like having the raid boss shown at PAX require multiple levels in glider mastery are a bit questionable. To me, that is a lot less understandable/reasonable than having the same requirement to reach a point for world exploration, or accessing hidden areas by having the necessary lore mastery to unlock them.

Are raids, or any other content requiring these, going to have upfront disclosure that you will not be able to complete them without a certain level in some masteries? It would be a pretty awful game experience to find out the hard way that some of your party lacks a mastery needed to continue.

How bad (or not so bad) this really is will depend on just what the requirement is, and how much time and effort it takes to meet it. But I do think using mastery levels as such a hard-line barrier within content that appears open without them is a mistake.

Ascii Red.4029:

From the official ANet Raid blog – "Raids will also tie into our new, advanced Mastery system of progression. "

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being incresed so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

Its also moronical to use that as any excuse, since raids will be unavailable to those who can’t get masteries, so what’s your point again?

Its not even clear if a mastery will be necessary for a boss, or just make it more doable.

Plus free players can’t go anywhere they want, they can only go to where you can go atm, not to any area of HoT and future expansions (or maybe they can get hot after the next expansion releases since that one will make HoT free, right?).
Levels and gear are NOT being increased, what’s being increased is the requirement levels for SOME content. Its pretty much like requiring you being ascended to fight Mursaat, except that was part of the story, and masteries aren’t.

mrstealth.6701:

I think decisions like having the raid boss shown at PAX require multiple levels in glider mastery are a bit questionable. To me, that is a lot less understandable/reasonable than having the same requirement to reach a point for world exploration, or accessing hidden areas by having the necessary lore mastery to unlock them.

Are raids, or any other content requiring these, going to have upfront disclosure that you will not be able to complete them without a certain level in some masteries? It would be a pretty awful game experience to find out the hard way that some of your party lacks a mastery needed to continue.

How bad (or not so bad) this really is will depend on just what the requirement is, and how much time and effort it takes to meet it. But I do think using mastery levels as such a hard-line barrier within content that appears open without them is a mistake.

Yeah the way it sounded seemed to be a bit in contrast to the “no attunement required” statement.
But we had something similar to this when they presented that Wyvern fight.
People also asked if that glider mastery would work like an attunement and at least for that instance it was clarified that use of the glider would give you an easy option to recover from being blown off the place by making a mistake to not doge/stability during the fight.
If it works similar to that in raids, so that using masteries will add more options to you to recover from sub-optimal play execution it wouldn’t be super required.
You could just bring that extra competency required to not having to use the mastery.
So when you find out during a fight that a certain aspect is just too hard for you to consistently (every time) get right, but you could get a mastery that would let you recover from a slip up on your end once in a while, why not.
Things like basic glider mastery for 1 point being a requirement is pretty much not an issue, as you practically get that much by just walking into Maguuma already.
Higher far more expensive levels of masteries though should not be a hard requirement but it would be fun if those added some additional strategy options to a raid fight.

It’s strange when people complain about stuff that encourages but doesn’t prevent them from playing a game they like.

Ascii Red.4029:

Ignoring the price of HoT and the fact that F2P accounts can now lvl to 80 and go anywhere (both of which I find insulting) I have a serious question with respect to the level cap.

lvl 80 is still “maximum” however it seems clear to me now that masteries are the new “maximum” and if your char does not have them (or cannot because you are F2P/have not bought HoT) then you are not done yet in terms of “getting your char to maximum”.

GW1 never raised the level cap during expansions, your older lvl 20 chars never became “underpowered” because the “maximum” stayed at lvl 20. Sure extra char classes and content was added but what you had was not de-valued.

I think ANet are being sneeky and de-valuing existing chars/accounts in order to force people to buy HoT, masteries are being sold as new-content when infact they are the new level 80.

Thoughts? (keep comments on-topic or take your worthless troll-opinion elsewhere :p)

Masteries sound like the Guild Wars 1 implementation of Contextual Character Progression Titles. It’s something they’ve done since Factions, and I liked it in GW1.

No complaints from me for bringing it into GW2.

Factions
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Allegiance_rank

Nightfall
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sunspear_rank
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lightbringer_rank

Eye of the North
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Asura_rank
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Deldrimor_rank
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ebon_Vanguard_rank
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Norn_rank

Shockwave.1230:

Masteries sound like the Guild Wars 1 implementation of Contextual Character Progression Titles. It’s something they’ve done since Factions, and I liked it in GW1.

No complaints from me for bringing it into GW2.

Most of the complaints about them in GW1 were because they were quite time-consuming/grindy, and were (except allegiance) character-based. Masteries seem to already be much better from the start.

Not that I don’t see potential problems, but it just depends on how these are implemented and integrated with other content.

It seems like an impossible to task to provide the progression that many are asking for without there being progression. Progression has to provide some benefit or it will be ignored. The trick is in providing progression that has a lesser impact on the game experience.

1. No power creep in terms of older content.
2. No grind to obtain (unless grind means playing the game to you — if that’s the case you’re really playing the wrong game genre).
3. No need to re-gear with the same type of stats (i.e., no new gear tiers).

I’d say that increased level cap come with #’s 1 and 3, above … maybe #2 as well depending on the game. So, are Masteries similar? I guess you could make that case. Are they the same as leveling? Not really. Does it matter? Only to those who want to enhance their game experience with regard to what Masteries will provide.