Guild Wars 2

HoT – 7.5 metacritic score. Good, but not great.

Mastery system – great idea, so-so implementation. The naysayers touch a lot about it being “Grind Wars 2” with it’s release and there is some truth to that.

The culprit here is the mastery system. Is suffers from quite large design flaws that should be addressed to make it what it really should be.

#1. Masteries are just few skills miles apart rather then a true mastery
Currently instead of having a lot of small steps to make, that over time, build a strong mastery in given discipline, we’re stuck with very few, often logically disjointed ones, that by their nature have huge gaping holes of nothing in between (long hard grinds for a level up).

How much fun would it be if we had 24 points in a given mastery instead of 6, each less meaningful then current ones, but 3 times easier to level up and as they pile up on top of each other something powerful would be happening?

For example the glider. Why do i get extra endurance with step #4? If it’s mastery then shouldn’t it be that i start with really small endurance pool but with every or at least most steps of the way i get a little more until at the end or near it it becomes unlimited? Why does it have to be a sudden leap and at that particular point?

And why are my mastery points only about flying with it? What about getting friendlier with pact engineers and getting some extra visual perks or additional boosts for the glider? There’s room to improve and speculate!

#2. Meaningless masteries We all know which masteries we need to get most of hero points. And 3 of these 4 are forced on us by personal story. Why the others mean so little and offer so little value, especially since they’re higher up in the mastery tree?

And why is it so easy to get a hp without proper mastery for it? I want a verdant brink hero point behind a poisoned bush. No problem. Grab your glider and just glider over the bush into the point. So why should i care about that itzel poison mastery again?

Now using another mastery to get past such obstacle can be good design, as long as priorities are respected. If it’s designed for itzel mastery users, then other masteries should require far higher level on them and much more working around to get it. If let’s say poison mastery was a level 2 itzel lore skill, and to grab it with glider i would need lvl 5 gliding mastery, that would be fair game. But it’s not.

3. Boring acquisition – getting mastery points is cool. Complete your story, glide, do mini-games, search for hidden areas. But leveling mastery levels is boooring. Why? because there’s no diversity!

I want to level Exalted mastery. What do i do? Grind map events. Which map? Any.
Itzel? Same! Glider? Same!

No wonder people complain it’s grindy! Why can’t we have specific masteries be affected more by specific events and activities and others less. And while we’re at it, why not have certain actions influence more then one mastery!

I go to auric basin and help defend it. Is it not obvious that my exalted mastery should shoot up from it, while others not budge one bit or only a little? If i get a mastery point reachable only with glider, should i not get some sweet glider points for it? And if i’m on verdant brink and doing mission for the Pact, like taking out lot of modrem, should i not receive major love from pact engies (who upgrade my glider in this scenario) and a bit of love from the Itzel (because while not directly helping them, less mordrem is always good news).

If we had a system like that i think players would feel their event and map choices are much more meanigful and while still being there and doing the same map events, they would feel their choices matter!

If you agree +1 this sucker, and post below to keep it afloat, if not feel free to correct me or let it die out;)

HoT only got 7.5 oj meta critic because there was forum campain that tell people on forum to bomb HoT with 0. Seriously look at these 0 do these people even know what a 0 means? It blew my mind.

Agree with point 1 and 2, great ideas.

Number 3 however,the complexity of such system would make it nightmare to develop and expand on. And gw2 coding is already a huge mess, could probably break the whole game.

Didn’t even know about that one. Well can’t argue about 0’s being pointless, but then again i wouldn’t say HoT is 10 off the bat either. Extremes somehow balanced eachother there.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Didn’t even know about that one. Well can’t argue about 0’s being pointless, but then again i wouldn’t say HoT is 10 off the bat either. Extremes somehow balanced eachother there.

A 0 and a 10 result in a 5 with means a terrible game. A 0 and a 10 does not cancle each other out. As showed on meta critic we can also see there are more people like HoT than dislike. I don’t think HoT got score it deserves.

warbignime.4610:

HoT only got 7.5 oj meta critic because there was forum campain that tell people on forum to bomb HoT with 0. Seriously look at these 0 do these people even know what a 0 means? It blew my mind.

Agree with point 1 and 2, great ideas.

Number 3 however,the complexity of such system would make it nightmare to develop and expand on. And gw2 coding is already a huge mess, could probably break the whole game.

Actually, it’s only so high because there was a forum/reddit campaign to bomb it with 10s.

I have the opposite opinion on point #3. I think the mastery points should be dropped. Filling the mastery bar with experience should be enough to get your mastery. All the mastery points do is force players into content Anet dictates. Player freedom is hindered in such a system. They need to go back to when GW2 first launched. Content was never forced to progress a character.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I have the opposite opinion on point #3. I think the mastery points should be dropped. Filling the mastery bar with experience should be enough to get your mastery. All the mastery points do is force players into content Anet dictates. Player freedom is hindered in such a system. They need to go back to when GW2 first launched. Content was never forced to progress a character.

What the mastery points to, IMO, is discourage bad behavior. You can grind out all the experience you want, but unless you actually go and play some the content to get the mastery points to spend, it’s wasted effort. Other than some of the mini-game MPs and those blocked behind other MPs (In some cases, both), most of them, probably 80%, are easy to get. Land on a branch…commune…oh look, land on another branch…this time there’s a chest…YAY…do this jumping puzzle…commune!! God forbid one has to play the content.

It’s not the MPs that’s the issue for me, I almost consider them to be part of map completion, so it’s a foregon conclusion that I will do them…it’s that massive amount of XP once needs to actually unlock them and the only way to make decent XP in the new maps is events. Killing mobs is so chinsy for XP it’s hardly worth the effort, even with boosters. Can make more XP off a node of ore than you can from a whole pack of pocket raptors…which is arguably WAY more annoying. :P

Leamas.5803:

It’s not the MPs that’s the issue for me, I almost consider them to be part of map completion, so it’s a foregon conclusion that I will do them…it’s that massive amount of XP once needs to actually unlock them and the only way to make decent XP in the new maps is events. Killing mobs is so chinsy for XP it’s hardly worth the effort, even with boosters. Can make more XP off a node of ore than you can from a whole pack of pocket raptors…which is arguably WAY more annoying. :P

Actually the trick here is neither events nor killing. If you’ve got more than one character at level 80, the trick is map exploration. Unfogging the map, discovering waypoints, pois, and vistas, does give a generous amount of experience, more so if you happen to have boosters (wvw daily chests, opened on your exploration character, are a good source of experience boosts if you don’t have any others at hand).

That said, the most painless method really is to just do a good mix of whatever and don’t pay attention to your mastery bar. Play events, kill whatever comes your way, don’t forget to harvest all the nodes you pass, it all adds up. Any adventures and hero point champions you haven’t done that day are another puzzle piece that adds a decent amount of experience.

The “trick” about the mastery system, as with many other game mechanics in GW2, seems to be to not concentrate on one thing only, and beeline for that thing with avoiding as much of the rest of the game as possible, but instead to just loosely set a goal and play along with whatever crosses your path. Experience comes by itself, just try to see the world from different views, set out towards a goal but don’t hesitate to smell the flowers as you go and deviate from your path any chance you get. The awesome thing about experience in this game is that you get it from pretty much anything you do. The later masteries aren’t time-crucial, enjoy the world around you the way you can see it now, and you’ll have enough time to test out what abilities the next mastery offers you once the experience comes in naturally.

Lord Kuru.3685:

warbignime.4610:

HoT only got 7.5 oj meta critic because there was forum campain that tell people on forum to bomb HoT with 0. Seriously look at these 0 do these people even know what a 0 means? It blew my mind.

Agree with point 1 and 2, great ideas.

Number 3 however,the complexity of such system would make it nightmare to develop and expand on. And gw2 coding is already a huge mess, could probably break the whole game.

Actually, it’s only so high because there was a forum/reddit campaign to bomb it with 10s.

Oh really? so you mean HoT does not deserve that high? There was campain on both side to bomb HoT with 0 and 10s, fact proved that there are way more people enjoying HoT than people who are not. A 10 and a 0 net a 5 which is terrible game so 0 and 10s does not cancel each other out. Also are you gonna ignore the fact that most critic and gaming site gave HoT a positive review, or are you gonna say Anet paid them all.

Fact is forum is only vocal minority and are far from actual opinion of the vast majority of gw2 players.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

…..snip….

What you are suggesting will make leveling mastery too easy. If I want to max out Exalted mastery, then I just hang out in Auric Basin and continuously do the event or find the strongboxes and mastery points to level up the mastery in a few hours or just a day or two.

That is not what Arenanet wanted. They put like 3million XP points on tier 4 mastery to get people to grind out the XP to prolong the experiences. What you are suggesting is making is easy to get a certain mastery leveled at a decent pace which would shorten the grind.
I don’t think ANET wants that.

the mastery tier progression should be based on how many mastery point captured while that tier progression is active, not by grinding exp.

for example, if a particular mastery tier require 8 mastery points, each mastery point captured while that tier is active should progress 1/8 of the exp/progression bar.

for points accumulated retrospectively like Central Tyria, if the points are sufficient once a tier is selected , that tier can be completed already.

current system is flawed…

Aside from a certain someone religiously defending HoT in every single thread…
Ahem.

I agree with the 3rd design flaw, which could have been addressed with more adventures.
But, then there is the issue of adventures just being mini-games, and I think a wider range of adventures with different challenges and goals in mind would easily fix this issue.
Adventures have a lot of room for improvement, and they still can expand on them if they wanted.

For example, what if there was an adventure with a mordrem sniper/sharpshooter ace and you had to have a sniper’s duel and utilize stealth and positioning to beat him, as well as well aimed shots.

Or what if there was one with infiltrating a mordrem camp and rescuing pact soldiers?

In my opinion, the problem with adventures is that they are set up as time trials with a goal attached, and none of them offer slower paced, but equally challenging and rewarding content.

warbignime.4610:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Didn’t even know about that one. Well can’t argue about 0’s being pointless, but then again i wouldn’t say HoT is 10 off the bat either. Extremes somehow balanced eachother there.

A 0 and a 10 result in a 5 with means a terrible game. A 0 and a 10 does not cancle each other out. As showed on meta critic we can also see there are more people like HoT than dislike. I don’t think HoT got score it deserves.

First time I’ve agreed with something you’ve said, it doesn’t deserve that score .. that number’s way too high.

I’m not even going to rate it. I’ll give my vote when they release a TRUE expansion. Not one that hides its diminutive self behind time & gold gates. THAT being said, I am still having a ton of fun playing, would just prefer they sold HoT as is. a $29 something-to-do for a couple of months, and NOT an expansion.

The 7.5 is way too high, I’ll give 4.5 at most. And it’s funny how all the fanboys make excuses for the score.

I would drop its Mesta Score to a 5 based on the kitten map design alone, never mind the grinding.

[quote=5801364;SirDrygan.1823:

What you are suggesting will make leveling mastery too easy.

…snip;)
[/quote]

Objection! These things are not related!
Splitting a mastery into many more chunks that are much easier to master does not have to make reaching the end goal easier. It all depends on numbers used. 4 times the masteries per line, with each being 3x faster to level is still 33% more experience total to get compared to previous version.

Having a particular mastery be leveled by the choice of event and not player’s choice in mastery window also does not mean faster mastery leveling. That would be dependant on actual numbers a-net would implement.

The point of these changes is for player to feel his efforts and choices matter and are fruitful in their own unique ways. I just saved Itzel village from Hylek fanatics. Why on earth would that help me train my gliding mastery? Where’s the sense in that? I would think i don’t know…actual GLIDING would push that forward?

Similarly saving Tarir only to see Itzel lore exp go up (cause that’s what i selected), with exalted themselves not giving a flying …flamingo about it (their mastery line not budging one inch) also feels odd.

The reason why the masterys arnt really needed for too much anymore besides a few core ones like gliding and mushrooms is because people complained that they couldbt complete everything IMMEDIATELY without having certain masterys so after the first week anet pretty much removed all the mastery gateing like needing poison lore to get to certain places, whiners git their way and made parts of the game that were supposed to require progression meaningless

The reality is that they have to make it hard or they will lose their core players very quickly. Masteries aren’t meant to be done quickly by an average player. As much as I don’t like it because I am one those average players that doesn’t have nearly enough time, I understand why it’s like this. I’ve already seen a number of people with the max 163 mastery and it’s barely been out a month. Even with the XP farm in COF, I can’t even imagine the amount of time a day one would have to do to have 163 already. The point is people like this would have finished it in days if it were as easy as some people would like.

Kayberz.5346:

The reason why the masterys arnt really needed for too much anymore besides a few core ones like gliding and mushrooms is because people complained that they couldbt complete everything IMMEDIATELY without having certain masterys so after the first week anet pretty much removed all the mastery gateing like needing poison lore to get to certain places, whiners git their way and made parts of the game that were supposed to require progression meaningless

Not everywhere, I think it was just in VB. Poison lore is still required in TD for a HP, bouncing mushrooms, ley gliding and/or nuhoch wallows in AB (But they can be skipped with a Mes or teleport to friend). You also need exalted acceptance before you can get map completion in AB again, unless you teleport to a friend.

On the importance of Metacritic:

Who gives a flying skrit’s backside about a casually corrupted sheeple-counter? If you’re on this board you own a copy of the game. Go form your own opinion!

warbignime.4610:

fact proved that there are way more people enjoying HoT than people who are not.

This has never been proven. We don’t have conclusive numbers proving anything either way.

Celtic Lady.3729:

warbignime.4610:

fact proved that there are way more people enjoying HoT than people who are not.

This has never been proven. We don’t have conclusive numbers proving anything either way.

Well, I enjoy HoT and with a full time job, a wife who doesn’t game and two kids, I am as about as casual as one gets in this game. Took me near 3 years to craft a legendary (Using no IRL money) and I’ve only managed mastery level 15 thus far, but I haven’t really been focusing hard on it either. If you’re having problems with elements of the expansion then you need to look at your play-style and/or build. HoT is not a “mash #1” kind of area and you need a much higher level of spacial awareness than anywhere else in the core game.

I think the mastery system is meant to be long term for an intermediate player. Players like me will take a VERY long time to get though it and then there’s the ultra hardcore who’ve already leveled it up to 163…imagine if it were easier…