Guild Wars 2

How many times have you leveled up since skill points were replaced with spirit shards? I’m sure nobody keeps track, since right now the reward for leveling up is nothing. Unless you count the AoE knockback and full health refill – hardly any sort of reward for filling up an entire experience bar – there’s no tangible reward. But when Heart of Thorns eventually comes out, that will be fixed, right?

Only temporarily.

See, right now a mastery track requires two things – sufficient mastery points to unlock the track, followed by a certain amount of experience to make its benefits yours. Don’t have enough mastery points to unlock a track? Your experience will go to waste. 3 months in and you’ve completed all the tracks? Same again. Spend all your mastery points on Exalted Lore and stoner frog shroom bouncing, but don’t have any mastery points left to level gliding so that you can reach all the mastery nodes that require gliding to access? Hope you enjoy never, ever getting to fly around the Maguuma Jungle. Also, your experience points will go to waste. (But also you don’t get to glide. This is an actual thing that needs to be fixed independent of my following suggestions.)

Why are these two separate systems? Why is the only way to get mastery points by finding them in the world, instead of allowing us to unlock them directly with experience? This was how skill points used to work, and nobody complained about that. It was a great system – level up to unlock your skills, or find nodes scattered about the world to unlock them a bit faster. And once you hit level 80, you could keep leveling up to get more skill points, which could be used in the Mystic Forge if you had an excess (we all did). I opened up my mastery page on the beta and was bombarded with eight help bubbles trying to tell me how the system works. I already know how experience works; why not just use that? You don’t ‘train’ gliding by gliding, or exalted lore by reading books, or stoner frog jumping mushrooms by seeing how high they can get you, you gain it by murdering things, gathering resources and completing events. Mastery experience is identical to regular experience and does not need to be gated by exploring specific developer-sanctioned areas of the world. And what if maxing out your masteries requires completion of an adventure or event that’s just too hard for you? Let’s not be elitist – some content is hard. What if Liadry awarded the last mastery point you need to unlock real-life superpowers and 10% off your insurance, but you can’t beat her? You’re stuck.

Masteries should work like the old skill point system. Once you hit level 80, leveling up stops giving… well, levels, and starts giving mastery points. Masteries should cost a certain number of points to unlock, and once you decide to pay those points, there’s no nonsense about ‘training’ them – it’s yours. You’ve already earned the experience, you gained however many mastery points you needed, and you bought the mastery. Transaction completed.

Now thinking long-term: Progression-wise, as time goes on past Heart of Thorns’ release, under this revised system players are going to be earning a lot of mastery points. My main character (guardian) had over 800 skill points when they got changed to spirit shards, without using any scrolls (post-patch I ended up with over 4500 shards, 3000 from scrolls). It’s not unreasonable to assume that dedicated players will be earning several hundred mastery points, and any new masteries introduced in following patches would be immediately gobbled up by people like myself with an overabundance of mastery points. That’s fine – we already earned the experience, but there should still be sinks for mastery points. Ergo, I propose three ‘tiers’ (if you like) of masteries.

5k char limit, cont.

1. Essential
Required to access core content of the game, these are the cheapest tier of mastery, and the most important. Gliding, bouncing mushrooms, masteries that unlock adventures or let you access areas of the game, all go into this category. These masteries would require a minimal number of points to unlock, because they let you play the content you paid for. And if you want to play with your friends, the barrier to entry is going to be low. There’s not a lot in this category, but if you need it to access significant parts of the game, it goes in here.

2. Useful
Things that are nice to have, quality of life, convenience. Includes the masteries that let you do tricks with your glider or fly with it forever, or eat the stoner frog mushrooms and fight the resulting hallucinations for a daily prize (which is actually the frogs paying you to leave), or combat stuff like tearing the bark off that one Mordrem guy that the developers talk about, or automatic looting, or any number of nice things that don’t actually bar access to important parts of the game.

3. Luxury
When you’ve got too many points and need something to spend them on, like this uh, brand new Lamborghini here. Since this is Guild Wars 2, that Lamborghini is actually a legendary precursor collection. But precursor crafting only goes in this tier as an example; what I actually propose goes into this tier are masteries that essentially act as dumps for your excess mastery points. I’m talking 25 points per tier for a mastery that increases your chance to get rare gathering materials, or 100 points to unlock waypoints for all your characters, or 200 points per tier to increase how many items you get from map reward bonuses. Purely luxury things for people who already have everything else.

I think I’m supposed to do closing words but I already wrote a lot of them, please let me know what you think. I wrote this because the developers seem to actually be reading and responding to feedback and are willing to change things based on it (e.g. adding weapon swap to revenant), so I am hoping to get some discussion going.

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

As opposed to the current situation of tomes gathering dust in the bank because they are useless?

Yeah.

Remember, this is supposed to be the lateral progression grind going forward.
It’s supposed to be as grindy as possible.
At best we’ll get some sort of roll-over so when a track is full the exp is dumped into the next level of the same track or a different track or something.

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

I really like this suggestion. I mean, think about it…the core systems of this game have been through a number of revisions since release, and the ones that have been successful (yes, I’m avoiding look at you, Mr. Complete-World-Exploration-to-Unlock-Traits!) are the ones that have simplified and slimmed down the game experience, leaving us free to just enjoy playing in this lovely world.

Boosters? First there were a bunch. Then a few more. Then there was dust that made many into two, and now all of that is by the wayside, and there are a total of, what, three different boosters I think?

Skill points? First you only got them from skill challenges in the world. Then from challenges and level-up. Now we get so many from level-ups that there’s no need to do the hero challenges in the world unless you’re a completionist (which I am).

Weapon skill unlocks, PvP skins, PvP titles/progression/rewards, WvW skills….all of these things have gone through multiple iterations and eventually come out LESS complicated than they started.

TL;DR – I agree with the original poster 100%, and think that his suggestion is very much in line with how the design philosophy of GW2 appears to have evolved over time.

Dreggon.6598:

It’s not unreasonable to assume that dedicated players will be earning several hundred mastery points, and any new masteries introduced in following patches would be immediately gobbled up by people like myself with an overabundance of mastery points.

The system is literally design to avoid this very thing, you’re proposing something opposite to what the devs want.

Its not a good idea.

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

I doubt there will be many players after the first week or three that run into the situation in which they can’t direct XP gained to at least one mastery track. It might be a problem on the first day and it might be an issue for newly-minted L80 characters; it won’t be an issue for veterans in the long run. Also, if I recall correctly, L80 characters will have some mastery points to spend the day HoT releases.

tl;dr I expect this to be a problem in theory, not in practice.

Ganathar.4956:

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

If all Masteries are maxed return it to Spirit Shard generation I guess?

Coulter.2315:

Dreggon.6598:

It’s not unreasonable to assume that dedicated players will be earning several hundred mastery points, and any new masteries introduced in following patches would be immediately gobbled up by people like myself with an overabundance of mastery points.

The system is literally design to avoid this very thing, you’re proposing something opposite to what the devs want.

Its not a good idea.

Could you provide a source for this? I have not seen any developers mention it.

Dreggon.6598:

Coulter.2315:

Dreggon.6598:

It’s not unreasonable to assume that dedicated players will be earning several hundred mastery points, and any new masteries introduced in following patches would be immediately gobbled up by people like myself with an overabundance of mastery points.

The system is literally design to avoid this very thing, you’re proposing something opposite to what the devs want.

Its not a good idea.

Could you provide a source for this? I have not seen any developers mention it.

Do you think they are hoping to introduce a progression system which can be preprogressed in?

My source is just some inductive reasoning given the system they designed and common sense answer to my above question.

Ganathar.4956:

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

I suggest that both if you try to use a writ of experience on a level 80 character today.

Coulter.2315:

Dreggon.6598:

Coulter.2315:

Dreggon.6598:

It’s not unreasonable to assume that dedicated players will be earning several hundred mastery points, and any new masteries introduced in following patches would be immediately gobbled up by people like myself with an overabundance of mastery points.

The system is literally design to avoid this very thing, you’re proposing something opposite to what the devs want.

Its not a good idea.

Could you provide a source for this? I have not seen any developers mention it.

Do you think they are hoping to introduce a progression system which can be preprogressed in?

My source is just some inductive reasoning given the system they designed and common sense answer to my above question.

Anet is definitely trying to minimize pre-progress. Their removal of the Karma boosters from enchanted boosters and their decision to not add a Karma bonus to the new boosters are likely for this very reason.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ganathar.4956:

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

I suggest that both if you try to use a writ of experience on a level 80 character today.

Ah forgot they changed them, regardless the new way Masteries interact with experience so they cannot be “pre-progressed” is by design and allowing you to save up experience to burn through them after a new expansion launch is a bad idea.

I had no idea this was how masteries worked (can you tell how much “fun” I had in Maguuma?) I’d assumed (yeah, yeah, I know) that all I needed to do in order to increase my mastery level was to … level. I genuinely don’t care about disabling tomes or writs or any other means of fast-loading experience post-80 but I do not want to have to jump through some ridiculous hoops in order to progress through the expansion. Good grief if I didn’t enjoy the jungle already, having to get mastery points as well as exp will pretty much ensure that I hardly ever go there.

Please ANet, ditch the concept of mastery points … entirely and forever.

Coulter.2315:

Ayrilana.1396:

Ganathar.4956:

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

I suggest that both if you try to use a writ of experience on a level 80 character today.

Ah forgot they changed them, regardless the new way Masteries interact with experience so they cannot be “pre-progressed” is by design and allowing you to save up experience to burn through them after a new expansion launch is a bad idea.

Agreed. Which is exactly why tomes and writs don’t work for progressing these bars. These were a big concern for a lot of people, here on the forums, I think they were discussed on reddit, and I know even WoodenPotatoes expressed a concern in a couple of his vids. I agree with Anet’s approach to this system, so people don’t just burn through the tracks at launch. The kittening that “we have nothing to do” will come soon enough, we don’t need to hurry it along.

Coulter.2315:

Do you think they are hoping to introduce a progression system which can be preprogressed in?

So as someone said, just disable tomes at 80. Then you can’t preprogress but still get the streamlined system, which is the main purpose of this suggestion. Your fixation on tomes and preprogression is a red herring and completely missing the point.

Coulter.2315:

My source is just some inductive reasoning given the system they designed and common sense answer to my above question.

ArenaNet has been steadily streamlining all aspects of character progression! By inductive reasoning and common sense, they should prefer that their new systems be polished and streamlined as well.

Jan.9102:

Coulter.2315:

Do you think they are hoping to introduce a progression system which can be preprogressed in?

So as someone said, just disable tomes at 80. Then you can’t preprogress but still get the streamlined system, which is the main purpose of this suggestion. Your fixation on tomes and preprogression is a red herring and completely missing the point.

Coulter.2315:

My source is just some inductive reasoning given the system they designed and common sense answer to my above question.

ArenaNet has been steadily streamlining all aspects of character progression! By inductive reasoning and common sense, they should prefer that their new systems be polished and streamlined as well.

Did you not read the OP? He is asking that Mastery points are gained from ANY exp generation and can be saved up. This means no incentive to go to the new area (farming dungeons will probably still be best exp), and instant splurge of saved up points given any new addition to the Mastery system OR new expansion.

Saying “polish and streamline” doesn’t shift the fact that the suggestion goes against the design of the Mastery system (ie. make you explore the new maps, feel like you are progressing during the expansion, no saved up redundant currency that causes trouble for later expansions/additions to the Mastery system).

They are adding lots of new systems in HoT to be the grounding for all additional content from here on out, you are treating it like HoT will be the only release that involves Mastery points. They need to include safeguards to keep the new system robust and able to last.

The mastery system is simply a way to simulate an increased level cap. People want that sense of progression and ArenaNet wants you to level through the new content like you would do in any other MMO. The problem that ArenaNet has to deal with is the fact that you can basically do whatever you want. Mastery XP is just a distraction. Its only purpose is to simulate leveling. Mastery points are the main goal. They ensure that you’re actually playing the game, rather than, for example, grinding the entrance.

The mastery system ArenaNet chose is identical to “mastery” systems seen other games. In some RPGs for example, you equip a skill and improve it by gaining XP with it equipped. Sometimes it’s simply based on number of uses or targets killed however. In action games, this system can be used with combos instead. For example, you might find a new weapon with various combos. To unlock them, you first have to do the basic combos a certain amount of times to level them. ArenaNet could have gone with either one, but the other way would certainly require more resources. Imagine having to take ~100k fall damage to unlock gliding, glide for ~5 minutes to unlock updrafts, use ~20 updrafts to unlock the next and so on. Finally mastering gliding would require completion of a timed glider “jumping” puzzle.

Considering the failure of the old trait unlocks, I doubt mastery points will be hard to acquire for the average player. They would have to offer alternatives if they were, which would just bloat the system.

I don’t like the idea of getting mastery points for level ups one bit. If you look at what happened with the skill points, it’s obvious that people will eventually end up with more mastery points than the game has masteries to spend them on. That’s completely inane when you think about what the mastery system is attempting to accomplish. Masteries are the key to our post level 80 content. These maps where you get the mastery points like we get hero points in vanilla maps are going to be challenging and they are meant to be played multiple times with multiple different experiences going through them. Metroidvania, right? The first time you go through you have no masteries. I was playing the beta during the event last weekend and it was thrilling to see mushrooms everywhere that I couldn’t use yet, and ledges that I couldn’t glide to cause I hadn’t gotten the updraft mastery yet. It made me feel like the map was far more complex than what I could see in front of me. It also made me want those upgrades with a fever I haven’t had in a while in this game. Not having these skill force you to experience the world in certain ways and think about your approach to situations differently. If you just tie masteries to level ups after lvl 80 that defeats the whole bloody purpose of the system. What is the point of putting the bouncing and speedy shrooms or updrafts or lore stuff in there if someone can have them all before they even enter the area where they exist. And bypass the whole ‘mastering’ of the area. That’s what it’s really about people, mastering the maps. Getting points and using them proves that you’ve gone through the content, that you’ve glided and jumped to the precarious mastery point locations, or you beat that stoneskin monster before you got a passive buff that helped you mitigate his charge attack. (That’s just a hypothetical) I can’t understand why any logical person would even think about giving mastery points out on level ups. You haven’t mastered anything that way. You’ve just leveled up which as we all know is super easy even at level 80. In my opinion it was great the way it was in the beta. You had to select a mastery to train, then once you leveled up, that mastery would be available to master. Then you could spend your much treasured mastery points, that took you a while to find and obtain, on the mastery. If you tie mastery points to level ups, people will get tons from not even touching the content. And u can just spend em willy nilly. “Sure, I’ll drop 20 points here to get the speed boost shrooms, and I’ll max out my gliding masteries, and I’ll throw the rest into precursor crafting cause that’ll be nice to have.” For the love of all things eternal alchemy, NO!
I would also like to see the later, more powerful masteries down a track take more than one level up to unlock, and lots of points to master. However, the last two or three masteries in a track should also be FAR more powerful/useful than the first 1-4. I wasn’t getting that vibe from the beta. I felt some of the earlier masteries were better than the later ones in some tracks.

Healix.5819:

Imagine having to take ~100k fall damage to unlock gliding, glide for ~5 minutes to unlock updrafts, use ~20 updrafts to unlock the next and so on. Finally mastering gliding would require completion of a timed glider “jumping” puzzle.

THIS IS PERFECT. I want some hybrid of this concept and the current system we saw in the beta.

Healix.5819:

The mastery system is simply a way to simulate an increased level cap. People want that sense of progression and ArenaNet wants you to level through the new content like you would do in any other MMO. The problem that ArenaNet has to deal with is the fact that you can basically do whatever you want. Mastery XP is just a distraction. Its only purpose is to simulate leveling. Mastery points are the main goal. They ensure that you’re actually playing the game, rather than, for example, grinding the entrance.

The mastery system ArenaNet chose is identical to “mastery” systems seen other games. In some RPGs for example, you equip a skill and improve it by gaining XP with it equipped. Sometimes it’s simply based on number of uses or targets killed however. In action games, this system can be used with combos instead. For example, you might find a new weapon with various combos. To unlock them, you first have to do the basic combos a certain amount of times to level them. ArenaNet could have gone with either one, but the other way would certainly require more resources. Imagine having to take ~100k fall damage to unlock gliding, glide for ~5 minutes to unlock updrafts, use ~20 updrafts to unlock the next and so on. Finally mastering gliding would require completion of a timed glider “jumping” puzzle.

Considering the failure of the old trait unlocks, I doubt mastery points will be hard to acquire for the average player. They would have to offer alternatives if they were, which would just bloat the system.

I could go for a mix of this and my suggestion – instead of being able to immediately splurge on the latest masteries (as I suggest), or grind unrelated events to gain XP and find mastery points to unlock them (as the current system works), require players to do content that is relevant to the mastery being unlocked before you can spend points in it.

You’d still have a glut of mastery points, but you wouldn’t be able to mass dump them into whatever new masteries come out – you’d have to complete relevant content first. It would be better than the existing system.

If you could get mastery points, just by leveling then do you even need to try the harder stuff until you have all your Masteries? In theory, someone could stay at the first waypoint and do the first events over and over again, leveling up and getting mastery points while never venturing deeper into the jungle. You could have zergs of people farming mastery points in this manner, following a series of frequent, easy events It’s exactly this sort of scenario that means they had to separate mastery points from leveling.

I just hope that Spirit Shards can be used towards progressing Masteries. The exchange rate can be really poor for all I care. Just make Spirit Shards more relevant. Having 1.7k of them sit in the wallet with nothing to spend on, is irritating.

Pretty sure Spirit Shards won’t be used for either XP gain or MPs. I think we will all do just fine with the new system of earning XP and completing MP challenges; just as we did with Skill Points/Challenges long ago.

Considering you’re mastery progress doesn’t change between all characters… No, tomes should have zero effect on mastery. When you level to 80 it is only for that character… when you unlock a mastery it is for all characters.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you could get mastery points, just by leveling then do you even need to try the harder stuff until you have all your Masteries? In theory, someone could stay at the first waypoint and do the first events over and over again, leveling up and getting mastery points while never venturing deeper into the jungle.

So what? If that’s the way someone wants to approach the expansion why shouldn’t they? I really don’t like the Verdant Brink design, and playing there is going to be a chore for me; if I can make my passage through the zone less annoying by building up masteries before I go in there then why shouldn’t I? How I choose to progress my character doesn’t impact on how you choose to progress yours.

binidj.5734:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you could get mastery points, just by leveling then do you even need to try the harder stuff until you have all your Masteries? In theory, someone could stay at the first waypoint and do the first events over and over again, leveling up and getting mastery points while never venturing deeper into the jungle.

So what? If that’s the way someone wants to approach the expansion why shouldn’t they? I really don’t like the Verdant Brink design, and playing there is going to be a chore for me; if I can make my passage through the zone less annoying by building up masteries before I go in there then why shouldn’t I? How I choose to progress my character doesn’t impact on how you choose to progress yours.

It doesn’t affect me directly but it affects longevity of play. Just like the first players who at launch leveled the char to 80 quickly by crafting, bought the first Legendary with gold as soon as they could, then said there was nothing to do in the game and left, having the ability to progress Masteries by building up points beforehand means there will be a lot of people who do this then complain about how the expansion has nothing to do. Explain to ANet how this is an advantage for them having people quickly whip through their character progression model they’ve set up, and then have nothing to do till the next expansion.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Explain to ANet how this is an advantage for them having people quickly whip through their character progression model they’ve set up, and then have nothing to do till the next expansion.

I’m still here, playing my casual game and spending money in the Gem Store; I’ve been here since beta and I probably won’t quit any time soon. What will they lose if they make the expansion non-casual friendly? If they make progression a chore (for me) rather than a pleasure, chances are I won’t spend as much money next time around. That’s what.

binidj.5734:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Explain to ANet how this is an advantage for them having people quickly whip through their character progression model they’ve set up, and then have nothing to do till the next expansion.

I’m still here, playing my casual game and spending money in the Gem Store; I’ve been here since beta and I probably won’t quit any time soon. What will they lose if they make the expansion non-casual friendly? If they make progression a chore (for me) rather than a pleasure, chances are I won’t spend as much money next time around. That’s what.

As far as I can tell, a main point of the expansion is to progress your character by a different way than adding 10 new levels. The new maps, imo, have their playability based on calculations on how long it will take people to play there to max out each mastery line. It’s also based on making it more rewarding to get mastery points. When you first get there you can’t glide, talk to the Itzel or trade with them, can’t immediately start crafting a legendary, etc. You need to play to get rewarded these abilities.

What you are asking for is no different than asking for the ability to buy an expansion in a game, such as WoW, immediately get those 10 new levels and have all the faction grinding done so you can be at max strength on day one. It’s like a new person buying this game and wanting to be a day one max strength level 80 with full exotic gear. It’s not good for the character and it’s not good for the game for an expansion to hand out the rewards of playing before you actually play.

Dreggon. We don’t know how many Mastery Points there will be in total at launch. But you make a great point, what if I end up with not enough Points to get basic gliding if I went for everything else? I think the devs have seen that as a potential risk and made sure that will not be a problem.

Ganathar.4956:

Coulter.2315:

Ganathar.4956:

GummiBear.2756:

and then everyone will hord up on tomes and instaunlock every single masteries a few minutes after HoT is released… That is beyond stupid

Anet could just make tomes continue to give you spirit shards at 80 instead of giving you levels. That way, there would be no abuse of tomes to unlock the reward tracks instantly.

Writ of experience still exists.

The system they chose was deliberate so people couldn’t cheese their way through the Mastery system immediately. Having the Mastery Exp dependent on the area it is earned allows them to not worry about people hoarding items to burn through requirements at the launch of each new expansion.

Its a goood system.

They could always disable the functionality of writs at max level. However, there may be people hoarding xp boosts. There is a decision to be made here for sure, but having xp being useless after a certain limit doesn’t seem to be the solution to me. It needs to be useful for something, even if it is not masteries.

I thought they already did, I was under the impression that writs of exp stopped working when you hit 80.

Yes, Writs of Experience don’t give XP to post-L80s.

From the 23 June 2015 update onwards, Writs of Experience can no longer be used at level 80.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Writ_of_Experience

Nothing will work on Mastery level to my knowledge.
Tomes of Knowledge.
Writs of Experience.
Dessa’s Experiemental Journal
or anything else like that

Just a flesh wound.3589:

What you are asking for is no different than asking for the ability to buy an expansion in a game, such as WoW, immediately get those 10 new levels and have all the faction grinding done so you can be at max strength on day one. It’s like a new person buying this game and wanting to be a day one max strength level 80 with full exotic gear. It’s not good for the character and it’s not good for the game for an expansion to hand out the rewards of playing before you actually play.

That’s not even vaguely what I’m asking for. What I actually am asking for is to not have to contend with picking up Mastery Points around the map (I’m fine if they confer a chunk of exp or whatever, just don’t make them essential to advancement). I want to progress through the masteries (and even if they did work – which they don’t by the way – I wouldn’t use tomes to get them) via regular post-80 exp gain. Why does that offend so many people? I’m not campaigning to take anything away from your game at all, I just want to make mine more accessible.

binidj.5734:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

What you are asking for is no different than asking for the ability to buy an expansion in a game, such as WoW, immediately get those 10 new levels and have all the faction grinding done so you can be at max strength on day one. It’s like a new person buying this game and wanting to be a day one max strength level 80 with full exotic gear. It’s not good for the character and it’s not good for the game for an expansion to hand out the rewards of playing before you actually play.

That’s not even vaguely what I’m asking for. What I actually am asking for is to not have to contend with picking up Mastery Points around the map (I’m fine if they confer a chunk of exp or whatever, just don’t make them essential to advancement). I want to progress through the masteries (and even if they did work – which they don’t by the way – I wouldn’t use tomes to get them) via regular post-80 exp gain. Why does that offend so many people? I’m not campaigning to take anything away from your game at all, I just want to make mine more accessible.

You’re removing the exploration and play in the new zones though, which is not good for the expansion for a lot of people. Sometimes people don’t know whats good for them and will gorge on dungeons to get Mastery points and miss out on a lot of content, sometimes leaving the box of chocolate on the table and saying “eat when you like” ends up with no chocolate and sick humans.

binidj.5734:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

What you are asking for is no different than asking for the ability to buy an expansion in a game, such as WoW, immediately get those 10 new levels and have all the faction grinding done so you can be at max strength on day one. It’s like a new person buying this game and wanting to be a day one max strength level 80 with full exotic gear. It’s not good for the character and it’s not good for the game for an expansion to hand out the rewards of playing before you actually play.

That’s not even vaguely what I’m asking for. What I actually am asking for is to not have to contend with picking up Mastery Points around the map (I’m fine if they confer a chunk of exp or whatever, just don’t make them essential to advancement). I want to progress through the masteries (and even if they did work – which they don’t by the way – I wouldn’t use tomes to get them) via regular post-80 exp gain. Why does that offend so many people? I’m not campaigning to take anything away from your game at all, I just want to make mine more accessible.

What you said was: “So what? If that’s the way someone wants to approach the expansion why shouldn’t they? I really don’t like the Verdant Brink design, and playing there is going to be a chore for me; if I can make my passage through the zone less annoying by building up masteries before I go in there then why shouldn’t I? How I choose to progress my character doesn’t impact on how you choose to progress yours.”

To me, building up Masteries before I go in there sounds a lot like someone saying, in a game like WoW and a new expansion, “why can’t I do my faction grinding in the old expansion area before I get to the new areas so it’s done before I go in there? Why can’t I get my 10 levels done in the map of the last expansion before I go into the new maps?” It’s the same thing. The point of an expansion is to go into the new areas and progess your character while in the expansion area. It’s not to progress your character by running around and doing the same old things on the vanilla maps and reach max Masteries for the new area and you never had to touch the new content.

I’m not offended by this. I just think it’s very short sighted both for your character and for how it would affect the repeat playability of the expansion for all characters.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you could get mastery points, just by leveling then do you even need to try the harder stuff until you have all your Masteries? In theory, someone could stay at the first waypoint and do the first events over and over again, leveling up and getting mastery points while never venturing deeper into the jungle. You could have zergs of people farming mastery points in this manner, following a series of frequent, easy events It’s exactly this sort of scenario that means they had to separate mastery points from leveling.

If that’s how they want to play that’s their choice. You can play as you want. And they can too.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It doesn’t affect me directly but it affects longevity of play. Just like the first players who at launch leveled the char to 80 quickly by crafting, bought the first Legendary with gold as soon as they could, then said there was nothing to do in the game and left, having the ability to progress Masteries by building up points beforehand means there will be a lot of people who do this then complain about how the expansion has nothing to do. Explain to ANet how this is an advantage for them having people quickly whip through their character progression model they’ve set up, and then have nothing to do till the next expansion.

or alternatevely they could come up with an advancement system that didn’t feel so empty and pointless as the one they came up with. There’s a reason expansions in other mmos add lvls, and anet isn’t the gaming guru who came up with the golden alternative. Surely this isn’t the best they could come up with…

PorceleinEve.2973:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you could get mastery points, just by leveling then do you even need to try the harder stuff until you have all your Masteries? In theory, someone could stay at the first waypoint and do the first events over and over again, leveling up and getting mastery points while never venturing deeper into the jungle. You could have zergs of people farming mastery points in this manner, following a series of frequent, easy events It’s exactly this sort of scenario that means they had to separate mastery points from leveling.

If that’s how they want to play that’s their choice. You can play as you want. And they can too.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It doesn’t affect me directly but it affects longevity of play. Just like the first players who at launch leveled the char to 80 quickly by crafting, bought the first Legendary with gold as soon as they could, then said there was nothing to do in the game and left, having the ability to progress Masteries by building up points beforehand means there will be a lot of people who do this then complain about how the expansion has nothing to do. Explain to ANet how this is an advantage for them having people quickly whip through their character progression model they’ve set up, and then have nothing to do till the next expansion.

or alternatevely they could come up with an advancement system that didn’t feel so empty and pointless as the one they came up with. There’s a reason expansions in other mmos add lvls, and anet isn’t the gaming guru who came up with the golden alternative. Surely this isn’t the best they could come up with…

No doubt they could have made a completely different advancement system. One possible one I can think of that I would personally like is where I harvest onions and do jumping puzzles in the old maps to advance the mastery line of learning how to speak to the Itzel and rip the husks off Mordrem, because I don’t want to earn the points in the new maps.

However they didn’t. The one they designed is one similar to other expacks, where you progress your character by “leveling” it in the new map and asking them to redesign the whole thing now is an excercise in futility. The only thing I can think of is to answer the guy why his idea is bad when combined with the new system and how it works and not encourage him to hope for the impossible.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

No doubt they could have made a completely different advancement system. One possible one I can think of is where I harvest onions and do jumping puzzles in the old maps to advance the mastery line of learning how to speak to the Itzel and rip the husks off Mordrem, because I don’t want to earn the points in the new maps.

However they didn’t. The one they designed is one similar to other expacks, where you progress your character by “leveling” it in the new map and asking them to redesign the whole thing now is an excercise in futility. The only thing I can think of is to answer the guy why his idea is bad when combined with the new system and how it works and not encourage him to hope for the impossible.

Yours sounds more promising. Just saying…

The one they designed is a badly designed one. The choices in there are poor and meaningless, and are restricted in a way that feels and is artificial.

The difference with the guy and you, is that he tried to come up with something better and in the spirit of the game’s experience so far, and you didn’t (props for that last effort though).

Of course his system would work just fine if only we had many masteries to choose from, giving us trully unique results and the ability to experience the game differently with our characters. So masteries could include access to new zones, tons of lore, sets of emotes, sets of titles, silly convenience stuff you’d love to have just to show off, the occasional skin here and there, alternative animations for your abilities, nice visual auras to add to your weapons or your armour, fancy icons next to your name to show off what path you’ve chosen (like the world exploration star), exclusive hair cuts and hair colours, manes and horns for charr, all sorts of things to keep people in the game playing and staying busy. But that requires planing and effort, and anet is kinda in a hurry. But don’t bash the guy for trying. At least he tried.

I’m with you guy, I like your idea, with a bit of tweeking it could be a really nice system to keep us in game for a long time.

igotnacho.7164:

Healix.5819:

Imagine having to take ~100k fall damage to unlock gliding, glide for ~5 minutes to unlock updrafts, use ~20 updrafts to unlock the next and so on. Finally mastering gliding would require completion of a timed glider “jumping” puzzle.

THIS IS PERFECT. I want some hybrid of this concept and the current system we saw in the beta.

In a sense that’s what already exists. Some of the mastery points are locked behind getting the gold rank in adventures, many of which require low level masteries to achieve (e.g. the burning tendrils one, where there’s no way you’re getting gold without access to bouncing mushrooms). So there’s no direct ties to using masteries and progressing masteries, but you’ll need to use masteries to get enough mastery points to fully unlock them.

Dreggon.6598:

~Snip~

You’d still have a glut of mastery points, but you wouldn’t be able to mass dump them into whatever new masteries come out – you’d have to complete relevant content first. It would be better than the existing system.

You realize that you can only complete events in the area that the Mastery applies to it in order to gain experience for that Mastery…i.e., you can only gain Gliding experience in HoT areas, Pact Commander in Core Tyria, etc., etc., so in essence you are doing relevant content to the Mastery you’re leveling up.

glehmann.9586:

Some of the mastery points are locked behind getting the gold rank in adventures, many of which require low level masteries to achieve (e.g. the burning tendrils one, where there’s no way you’re getting gold without access to bouncing mushrooms). So there’s no direct ties to using masteries and progressing masteries, but you’ll need to use masteries to get enough mastery points to fully unlock them.

I would like this to be true, an I think this is the case. But we don’t know how many Mastery Points in total there is in HoT. I hope its only like 10 extra or something at maximum, so we don’t end up with people just doing the easy low tire Mastery Points and unlock everything within the first week. (In my perfect world, the Mastery system will last the whole xpac)

PorceleinEve.2973:

Snips..
So masteries could include access to new zones, tons of lore, sets of emotes, sets of titles, silly convenience stuff you’d love to have just to show off, the occasional skin here and there, alternative animations for your abilities, nice visual auras to add to your weapons or your armour, fancy icons next to your name to show off what path you’ve chosen (like the world exploration star), exclusive hair cuts and hair colours, manes and horns for charr, all sorts of things to keep people in the game playing and staying busy. But that requires planing and effort, and anet is kinda in a hurry. But don’t bash the guy for trying. At least he tried.

I’m with you guy, I like your idea, with a bit of tweeking it could be a really nice system to keep us in game for a long time.

Much of this doesn’t fit the Mastery System.
I am mastering the ability to grow new horns.
I am mastering the ability to dye my hair in a new color.
I am mastering the ability to cut my hair differently.
I am mastering the art of waveing differently.
And more
How does this sound more interesting than the ability to glide, and with the ability to glide, get to new areas where you can find a person to lets say, teach you a recipe for a unique hair color. Or at the end of a hard JP where you have to use speed mushrooms to get accros a unstable floor without falling, using updrafts and stealth gliding to in the end, find a guy or recipe that unlocks a new hair cut.

I think not being able to use the Tomes, Writs or anything like that is a great thing, otherwise, even with you guys suggestion, it would still be over in a week at most, unless they can come up with over 100 different things for your version of Masteries.

I have an idea that may satisfy most complaints, inspired by the very Metroid-vania genre that HoT seeks to ape, and it’s actually a remarkably simple change: have Mastery Points and MP Challenges unlock specific mastery tracks, which then must be “equipped” and then “leveled”. This allows clear and specific progression paths (“do X, then you can do Y, in order to do Z”), continues making levelling meaningful (realistically, people would identify that a skill exists, then, over time, learn how to do it), and tie progression to related actions (i.e. get better at gliding by getting better at gliding).

A further improvement, borrowed from Final Fantasy 9 and a few other RPG games, would let unleveled Mastery tracks provide benefits while it is equipped (perhaps to a slightly lesser degree?), and become permanently/fully unlocked once fully mastered with XP. This would allow not only immediate reward for performing Mastery Point challenges, but immediate benefit for doing so, while still encouraging development of those abilities.

Afterthought: It occurs to me this may violate the “play your way” philosophy ANet aspires to, and may very well block progress for players with no desire to perform certain tasks. This could be alleviated, though not easily, by allowing the mastery tracks to be unlocked by various methods (which itself poses a problem, as “certain players” will merely calculate which method is easier/quicker, then only ever do that).

Manifibel.8420:

Much of this doesn’t fit the Mastery System.
I am mastering the ability to grow new horns.
I am mastering the ability to dye my hair in a new color.
I am mastering the ability to cut my hair differently.
I am mastering the art of waveing differently.
And more
How does this sound more interesting than the ability to glide, and with the ability to glide, get to new areas where you can find a person to lets say, teach you a recipe for a unique hair color. Or at the end of a hard JP where you have to use speed mushrooms to get accros a unstable floor without falling, using updrafts and stealth gliding to in the end, find a guy or recipe that unlocks a new hair cut.

I think not being able to use the Tomes, Writs or anything like that is a great thing, otherwise, even with you guys suggestion, it would still be over in a week at most, unless they can come up with over 100 different things for your version of Masteries.

Oh you person of limited imagination. When you train for the option to use the frog merchants do you think that you’re mastering the ability to trade with the frog village people? no, you say you’re mastering lore. So those new horns would be a nice side effect, side reward for you mastering this or that bit of the charr lore. Same context can be used for everything else. All you need is a bit of imagination to dress up stuff with the appropriate text and you’re good to go.

And why would you think gliding wouldn’t be in there too? there’s room for pretty much everything in there. And the difference is that it allows for players to get the rewards they want by playing how they want and using up all that experience they keep getting.

On the other hand your suggestion is pretty nice too, it doesn’t correspond to the current reality we’re discussing, but it is a nice suggestion indeed. Wish they’d do that. but they haven’t.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The one they designed is one similar to other expacks, where you progress your character by “leveling” it in the new map and asking them to redesign the whole thing now is an excercise in futility. The only thing I can think of is to answer the guy why his idea is bad when combined with the new system and how it works and not encourage him to hope for the impossible.

Well that would be fine if it was the case … but it isn’t. If I had to level masteries in a region relevant to those masteries that would be fine, I’m sure even I could find an area of Verdant Brink that I didn’t hate. ;-) However what they actually gave us is this kittening stupid idea of having to get mastery points in order to use the experience we’ve already earned. It’s like if you wanted to level up in the vanilla game you would have to complete a skill challenge; if you didn’t complete a skill challenge, all experience earned after the bar was full would be wasted. It’s a ridiculous system and one that really punishes the lower skilled (for whatever reason) player beyond what is reasonable. As I’ve said before, by all means let the acquisition of mastery points give a substantial bonus (maybe even as much as giving a full mastery level) but to make them a road-block is a bad idea that will alienate players initially and, when they redo the system in the future (which will happen) will annoy all the players who completed that content to advance their masteries.

Frankly I’m not sure how murdering mordrem helps me understand the Itzel any better than jumping around in the Shiverpeaks can help me learn to glide but hey, whatever floats your boat.