I’ve been thinking about mastery system and there are a few pitfalls in implementing such a system. Hopefully Arenanet is aware of them.
So instead of gaining levels and gear in this expansion (which I wholeheartedly agree with) we will gain account wide master points. But does this eliminate all of the downsides to levels and gear? potentially not.
What we know:
- You gain mastery points per hard “achievement” eg jumping puzzle, kill boss etc etc
- They are “unlocked” so you only get a mastery point/s the first time you complete one thing.
- you gain points and presumably spend them in gaining masteries in 4 current trees: exploration, lore, combat, collections/crafting
- There is a progression in each tree eg Hanglider —> learn to use winds etc..
- There is more importantly progression in combat tree requiring eg Mordrem bark tearing? in order to defeat a boss which then in turn unlocks more bosses/events which in turn unlocks more mastery points etc.
Some Potential Pitfalls:
- What happens if presumably you spend points in lore and then cant spend points in combat to get Mordrem bark tearing. Can you purchase that on another character? can you respec? presumably you can but then that still is a bit rubbish. It almost gimps your characters that you choose one line or another as you cant have hangliding on all characters for instance unless you spend X amount of points in exploration?
- Will there be enough points to unlock everything on one character or will you need “the lore toon”.. “the exploring toon”?
- Don’t you think Mordrem bark tearing is a bit dull? or any potential “agony” type buff/debuff that helps you defeat a boss/event. just seems so cheap. We want more skill in PvE not cheesing fights. It is essentially the same thing as a gear check but no excitement/choice in finding said gear.
- Combat masteries sound like attunements and everyone familiar with MMOs knows about attunements. Some players will have them and some wont and the frustration begins in finding players with them. The one upside being they are account bound although are they if you have to choose to spec combat masteries in order for your character to get them?
- Will you essentially be stuck for mastery points? with no way to get more as you cannot defeat a boss at a certain point and that is the only way to unlock more?
- Is it fair to have big lore reveals in the lore branch when not all players will do that? You kind of have to have some interesting lore in the lore branch. So does that mean almost intentionally hiding story/bigger picture from other players? Potentially not.. a minor point.
A lot of these potential issues are similar to issues with gear and additional levels so I’m wondering how Arenanet will overcome them. Some are almost inherent in any system of advancement such as this.
Some thoughts on overcoming pifalls:
- You could potentially with each mastery point allow for give a point/advancement in each line.. essentially 4 points. So all lines increase by one.
- There might just be an abundance of mastery points so that you can with a fairly casual amount of time max out everything. although they have stated that “they wont be falling from trees”
- Potentially the combat line (which sounds to be the more important) is advanced separately.
- have the more essential masteries to unlocking content (attunement type masteries) very early in any given line but then will there be anything worthwhile later on?
What does everyone think? This is obviously heavy speculation but Im just wondering what people will want from the mastery system?
TL;DR: Masteries.. What are they good for.. well hopefully something.