Guild Wars 2

With the new daily system and the mess amount of Tomes of Knowledge you get from Reward tracks in pvp i’m getting way to many.

So i probably use 60 to get a Instant revenant.
But whats gone happen when i use a tome of knowledge on a level 80 after the expansion is here.

Because i quote from the following link: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

This means characters that have reached level 80 will no longer gain skill points through leveling. Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.’

A Tome of Knowledge = a Free 1 level.
So will it just giveing you a 1 Skill Point same as it does now.
Or will it change to giveing you exp to a mastery track?
Or ….

Was just something on my mind.

technically speaking its a free “level up” or 100% of the exp you’d need to gain 1 level.
So in theory its going to be 1 mastery point.
I’m sat on around 160 of them at the moment myself. Suffice it to say the mastery system will need a LONG progression or it’s not going to take some of us long to finish everything..

personally, i believe that it will still give a level to a char under level 80, but will only give a skill point to a char at 80. Surely they wouldnt let you get “mastery levels” (for lack of a better term) from it just judging by how many time gated/grind gates they have added recently (time gated crafting, geodes, bandit crests etc)

regardless, we can only speculate about it now. Theres nothing wrong with hoarding tomes on the very low chance they do allow you to gain “mastery levels”

use it on keyfarm characters. that way we never have to find out

I don’t see why ToK would have other function after the update.
Currently it just gives 1 level to a character and nothing else, the rest are the result of the leveling, if after HoT a lvl 80 player will get mastery point from every level up then ToK will result in the character getting the mastery point.

I expect they won’t give mastery points. From what I’ve read, mastery is more like achievements in that you do something and you get a point for it when you do it for the first time.

For example, in one of the previous videos, the char used a stationary gun on a mordrem and a mastery point icon showed on the right hand side of the screen. (She commented on it at that time. It was the one where they showed the jumping mushrooms and gliding).

Imo, the tomes will either be redone to only affect below level 80 and for level 80s they will be like skill point scrolls.

It is my understanding that there are 2 different things. There are mastery points that are used to unlock progression tracks and to unlock higher tiers inside these tracks. And then there is experience that you use to actually progress. You can earn mastery points everywhere once and use them to unlock whatever track you like. There is a limited amount of mastery points you can earn, to be extended whenever a new update gets released. Experience for a specific track however, you can only earn on a specific map through playing. Depending on how many stages there are per track, and if the experience required for an old level up and for a single stage are the same, Tomes may work to “level” these progression tracks. It’s also possible that a Tome may work to advance a track, but wont give you enough experience for a full stage.

If we look at pvp reward tracks, I would define every time you get a reward as a stage. In PvP each track has 8 tiers, each tier has 5 rewards.
To unlock a dungeon reward track, one has to finish the story path of a dungeon. Instead of Dungeon story modes, in pve we get mastery points to unlock the tracks.

I really hope they wont give mastery points. Few of my guildies and I are approaching the ends of our 3rd stack and I am sure that there are people with more. If they’d give mastery points that would just speed up the content. Log in click 750 times and your masteries are half done. No thanks.

Nephziel.6053:

I really hope they wont give mastery points. Few of my guildies and I are approaching the ends of our 3rd stack and I am sure that there are people with more. If they’d give mastery points that would just speed up the content. Log in click 750 times and your masteries are half done. No thanks.

You could always opt not to use the tomes for that purpose? They’re your tomes and it’s (barring any supernatural possession or transplant surgeries due to unfortunate accidents) your finger, just don’t spam click it, grind masteries the hard way, and keep the option to not grind them open. It’s always nice to have options.

Also nice to not have arbitrary and inconsistent restrictions imposed on game features to accommodate a subset of players. Leveling tomes give you enough experience to level up, that’s how they work and how they should continue to work; if that results in them giving something other than skill points post-HoT then so be it.

I don’t think this is going to happen because this would make it way too easy to get them and goes against the whole “mastery points as prestige” idea.

While tombs are stackable, having 160 tombs means you’ve at least played the game for a few months, and then the dev’s know you probably can level a character in a week anyway so taking away that option would have an outcry of people mad about their leveling tombs disappearing.

Stormbrook Thunderbinger.4369:

While tombs are stackable, having 160 tombs means you’ve at least played the game for a few months, and then the dev’s know you probably can level a character in a week anyway so taking away that option would have an outcry of people mad about their leveling tombs disappearing.

To use to get to level 80 is one thing. To use stacks of tomes to advance your account’s mastery bar towards the max, quite possibly another thing all together.

Can’t see them giving mastery points, that would give some players an incredibly huge edge over others.

They’ll probably be changed to either grant skill points past level 80, or do nothing at all and unable to be used on a level 80, but who knows, this is just what I would do.

There is something inherently wrong with the Mastery system if Tomes giving Mastery points is a bad thing.

Tomes simply level your character up. That’s all they do, they do not interact at all with the reward unlocked for leveling up.
The reward for leveling up at lv80 now is a skill point. This is going to be changed in HoT to giving mastery instead.

Since tomes do not interact with the reward I expect that using tomes will simply give you mastery points. Keep in mind this isn’t the same as unlocking mastery tracks. From what I understand you do certain things (i.e. map completion) to unlock a specific mastery track. Which you can then set as active and mastery points gained progress that mastery track.

Back to the original statement.

Why would it be bad if people can spend all their tomes and rush through a mastery track?
What possible thing do we know these tracks unlock that unlocking them faster with tomes would constitute an unfair advantage over people who don’t have a lot of tomes?

As said there will be content impossible to overcome without certain masteries.
So I just finished my 3rd stack which means I would have some sort of advantage my mastery is pumped with tomes.

They should give you 100% of exp bar and a skill level just like they do now.

P.S.
For those who say its optional to use.
If there is some content that is unbeatable without mastery why would someone just lolligag around if they can click 1500 times and have it.

The worst case scenario could be:

LF This Only Bla Bla and Bla mastery maxed or kick

Nephziel.6053:

For those who say its optional to use.
If there is some content that is unbeatable without mastery why would someone just lolligag around if they can click 1500 times and have it.

Because you have the ability to exert self-control?

You’re the one who doesn’t want to get mastery points just by clicking the tomes, so you should be the one not clicking on them, why does ANet have to change how an item works for everyone else in the game just to accommodate you? If you really can’t prevent yourself from doing something you don’t want to do, then how about just using up the tomes now to stockpile skillpoints? Failing that you could always use them up for keyfarming or have a friend come over to delete them for you.

Tomes had better give mastery points at level 80 because otherwise what use would they serve?

With luck, ANet will put more effort into the PvE mastery system than they did with the WvW system and we’ll actually see regular, meaningful updates so there will be no shortage of things to put mastery points in.

ZhouFusion.1826:

With the new daily system and the mess amount of Tomes of Knowledge you get from Reward tracks in pvp i’m getting way to many.

So i probably use 60 to get a Instant revenant.
But whats gone happen when i use a tome of knowledge on a level 80 after the expansion is here.

Because i quote from the following link: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

This means characters that have reached level 80 will no longer gain skill points through leveling. Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.’

A Tome of Knowledge = a Free 1 level.
So will it just giveing you a 1 Skill Point same as it does now.
Or will it change to giveing you exp to a mastery track?
Or ….

Was just something on my mind.

What is the Tome of Knowledge farm you speak of? I seem to get them at a very slow rate.

Daily Keep Capture,(2-4Times a week)
Daily Fractals. (2-3times a week)
And Pvp Reward tracks.
Those give me around 10+ a week. depending on how much i do pvp.

Doing that since they changed the daily system.
And thats not even talking about the Writs of Exp. for all the normal World dailies.

Guys read the blog post, it says “Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content.” and “…players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.”

Just think of Mastery points as doing a certain content to get the point (kinda like trait unlocks right now).

Think of the Experience Bar becoming like a PVP reward track, except for Mastery rewards.

That’s all there is to it. I expect Tomes of Knowledge to still grant levels under 80 and skill points 80+. But Mastery points do not come from leveling up the Mastery Bar.

Mar.4839:

Guys read the blog post, it says “Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content.” and “…players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.”

Just think of Mastery points as doing a certain content to get the point (kinda like trait unlocks right now).

Think of the Experience Bar becoming like a PVP reward track, except for Mastery rewards.

That’s all there is to it. I expect Tomes of Knowledge to still grant levels under 80 and skill points 80+. But Mastery points do not come from leveling up the Mastery Bar.

They also said (I think this is where the confusion is coming from)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/
“Mastery tracks are trained by gaining experience while the Mastery track is slotted on the Mastery training bar.”

Since the Tomes give one levels worth of experience, it’s a valid question to wonder if they will also advance the Mastery bar. It depends if ANet is meaning the old term of experience or if they are being inexact with their language and it’s gaining mastery experience through doing activities that are on a mastery track, such as (possible example) using a stationary cannon on mordrem gets you better at it and causes more damage as using the cannon advances that mastery track)

if it works like that we will see fully maxed masteries on the first day….

there are people with over 500 tomes of knowledge that will probably farm a few more until expansion…

We already have the tome of mentorship (from the final personal story reward), that is a tome of knowledge only usable by characters below level 80. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if tomes of knowledge work the same way (only usable below 80) once HoT hits.

The difference between gaining a character level (→ 1 skill point at level 80) and gaining a level of (account-bound) mastery training is huge. Tomes of knowledge were originally be brought into the game to allow veterans easier leveling of additional characters. Skipping account progression (mastery training) seems to be a whole different story, and I’d be surprised if ArenaNet would actually introduce the new system if there was a way to skip it built into the game from the start.

Christopher Lambert voice: I don’t think so.

They would shoot their own foot if they let us obtain mastery points via books, only to zip through content or at least most of it’s barriers on the first day.

The whole pve part of expansion seems to be about exploration and adapting to new environment, not going “Jolly good chaps, we’re in a jungle with wild savage unknown beasts, but worry not, i got 100 tomes of knowledge. Now serve us tea, James, before we got kill a dragon or ten.”

I’m personally hoping for a double gated system. Think the rank system in wvw, were we get mastery points for each level up. But each track needs to be unlocked with some kind of challenge or event.

Say the mastery of krait slaying (hoping for them to obsolete slayer potions because of all the new utilities they have given us) needs to be unlocked by doing some event in the game that has heavy involvement with krait. Then you need to spend points for each rank in the mastery.

This way the people with 2-3 stacks of tomes can do something with them without having a straight up advantage in hot. They may even give us a say to turn mastery points in to skill points

now that i think of it. they said that mastery tracks can only be advance in PvE. I think the bigger question is whether you can still gain skill points by leveling in WvW or if they’ll just remove experience from it (WvW that is). If the keep skill point gain in WvW, then there is a good chance that theyll keep tomes the same (you gain level and get skill point). They might disable using tomes in PvE.

At this point it is ALL speculation.

So far I am thinking of the mastery system similar to the PvP rank mechanically(but having a meaning and progression ofc).

when in Heart of the Mists, the exp bar is turned purple and is then turned into your PvP rank. If you use a tome of knowledge it only gives you a level or a skill point, not a pvp rank, completely ignoring the fact that your exp bar is showing your pvp rank.

now, looking at the videos of HoT demo and screenshots, the exp bar is a very light yellow, almost white basically noting the fact that it’s different from normal exp, so I’m guessing the Tomes will just ignore the mastery system and still give a level/skill point

As far as Anet saying “the player will gain experience to increase mastery level” … I feel that they are just using the word experience as a blanket statement, similar to how they did when the WvW levels/masteries came out they said something along the line of “the character will gain experience in WvW”

Sidenote: Also, I am hoping there will be mini-caps occasionally in the mastery system where the player has to do some event or find a specific item to continue

just my .02 , personally don’t care either way :|

Venatorn.7619:

now, looking at the videos of HoT demo and screenshots, the exp bar is a very light yellow, almost white basically noting the fact that it’s different from normal exp, so I’m guessing the Tomes will just ignore the mastery system and still give a level/skill point

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

“Because the Mastery training bar completely replaces the experience bar, players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries. This means characters that have reached level 80 will no longer gain skill points through leveling. Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.”

It’s unambiguous: when you gain a level past 80 you will progress in the mastery instead of gaining a skill point. It’s not covering up your experience progress, it’s changing the reward for your experience progress (post 80).

Perhaps when you hit 80 they will give skill points. Or they could do something interesting…

They could be used in some recipes. They could make it so you can sell them on the market or trade them to an NPC for something. They could make it so that let’s say…for every 50 you get, you can turn them into one mastery point.

Pandaman.4758:

Venatorn.7619:

now, looking at the videos of HoT demo and screenshots, the exp bar is a very light yellow, almost white basically noting the fact that it’s different from normal exp, so I’m guessing the Tomes will just ignore the mastery system and still give a level/skill point

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

“Because the Mastery training bar completely replaces the experience bar, players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries. This means characters that have reached level 80 will no longer gain skill points through leveling. Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.”

It’s unambiguous: when you gain a level past 80 you will progress in the mastery instead of gaining a skill point. It’s not covering up your experience progress, it’s changing the reward for your experience progress (post 80).

Ahhh totally missread that .. my bad

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Mar.4839:

Guys read the blog post, it says “Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content.” and “…players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.”

Just think of Mastery points as doing a certain content to get the point (kinda like trait unlocks right now).

Think of the Experience Bar becoming like a PVP reward track, except for Mastery rewards.

That’s all there is to it. I expect Tomes of Knowledge to still grant levels under 80 and skill points 80+. But Mastery points do not come from leveling up the Mastery Bar.

They also said (I think this is where the confusion is coming from)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/
“Mastery tracks are trained by gaining experience while the Mastery track is slotted on the Mastery training bar.”

Since the Tomes give one levels worth of experience, it’s a valid question to wonder if they will also advance the Mastery bar. It depends if ANet is meaning the old term of experience or if they are being inexact with their language and it’s gaining mastery experience through doing activities that are on a mastery track, such as (possible example) using a stationary cannon on mordrem gets you better at it and causes more damage as using the cannon advances that mastery track)

I was trying to point out that we don’t receive Mastery Points from training our mastery. A lot of people in the thread earlier are talking about using tomes to gain a “ton of Mastery Points” but those points only come from doing specific content and are only for unlocking a Mastery track that’s it. They are not used to advance within the Mastery themselves.

I would be surprised if Tomes gained experience for Masteries, as yes then people will have full masteries really quickly. I highly doubt this will happen though as that just seems way too unlikely. Masteries seem like a long-term progression mechanic so I figure Tomes will just stay the same way as they are now and will probably have an updated toolkit that explains a character using it at level 80 will just gain 1 skill point.

This would be similar to how when transmutation stones were changed to transmutation charges with the introduction of the wardrobe system, and the stones then when double clicked on just gave the function of a certain number of transmutation charges.

Haha, yeah sure.

The newly introduced long-term goal done on the first day.

Would be kind of silly wouldn’kitten

What I like to know is, will the accound bound bonus XP you get from achie points boost your progress?

ANet wants you to buy character slots.

If you have many tomes of knowledge it is very tempting to just level another character. That is what ANet wants.

They want you to feel the desire to do stuff. Those tomes won’t get any other use. They are here to convince you to buy character slots. It is as simple as that.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

ANet wants you to buy character slots.

If you have many tomes of knowledge it is very tempting to just level another character. That is what ANet wants.

They want you to feel the desire to do stuff. Those tomes won’t get any other use. They are here to convince you to buy character slots. It is as simple as that.

Dat Evil Anet!

Actually tomes were introduced after a lot of crying on the forums for faster way to level alts.

So with PvP reward track + log-in rewards we got a lot of those. Right now, i’m using them to level up characters to level 10 for key farming and for the skills points. But with the expansion, we won’t gain skills point by leveling, we will fill our mastery bar.

What will happen with tome of knowledge then? If these tome can still be used past level 80 like right now, then we could stockpile them and unlock masteries very quickly right when the expansion is available.

If they no longer do anything once you past level 80 then most ppl will truly have no use for those tome anymore after they have all their alt at 80. Ppl would need an additional empty charater slot, create a character, use tome to level up to 80, then use the skills points and delete the character, rinse and repeat. Or just trash the tomes all together.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Tome-of-Knowledge/first#content

This question has been asked a couple times already. Anet has refused to answer it so far.

So… for all the people who think tomes will NOT work… you expect ArenaNet to just say “Hey, sPvP players — your advancement stops dead at 80”? Because tomes are how you get XP playing in sPvP.

Actually, yes. I expect Anet to do that. I also expect Tomes to do absolutely nothing for masteries and only have use for anyone under 80.

Do I want it? No. Do I expect it, yes.

Nike.2631:

So… for all the people who think tomes will NOT work… you expect ArenaNet to just say “Hey, sPvP players — your advancement stops dead at 80”? Because tomes are how you get XP playing in sPvP.

If you’re a 100% pure PvP player you aren’t going to be able to use masteries anyway, since in order to unlock the mastery tracks in the first place you need to do things which get you mastery points, and those are going to be given for specific tasks, like story missions and finding hidden spots on the map.

And 95% of masteries are going to be useless in PvP anyway from what we’ve seen. There are no gliders or NPC races or Fractals in PvP. The only one that would have any relevance to PvP whatsoever is legendary crafting, and even that would just be for the sake of aesthetics since PvP gear is standardized.

Besides, mastery tracks seem very much akin to PvP reward tracks, except for PvE players. PvE players can’t progress their PvP reward tracks in PvE, so it wouldn’t be all that different if PvP players couldn’t progress the Mastery system either.

Being able to use something is NOT one of the requirements for the appeal of progression. If you’re a pure sPvP player the only thing that advances is a rank that gives you finishers and paying coin to unlock some traits/runes/sigils… And yet they shower me with all kinds of loot that doesn’t really do anything in sPvP. Its not like I need Tomes from sPvP to advance in sPvP. Those tomes are to advance my character in other parts of the game while I’m playing sPvP.

Masteries are one of those other parts of the game.

Electro.4173:

Besides, mastery tracks seem very much akin to PvP reward tracks, except for PvE players. PvE players can’t progress their PvP reward tracks in PvE, so it wouldn’t be all that different if PvP players couldn’t progress the Mastery system either.

Maybe. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess.

Nike.2631:

So… for all the people who think tomes will NOT work… you expect ArenaNet to just say “Hey, sPvP players — your advancement stops dead at 80”? Because tomes are how you get XP playing in sPvP.

Yes, I expect it to be exactly that. As a matter of fact would get mad if it weren’t so.

You “need” masteries in the new areas. You get mastery points by doing stuff in the new area – this much has been said. You have absolutely no use for the points in PvP.

I’m not sure why PvP-ers feel entitled to get a lot of stuff easier than everyone else with playing the same 4 maps over and over. WvW players don’t have it that good. As a side note, I also fail to understand why Dungeon collection achievments are way easier to complete via PvP than you know, actual dungeons.

(disclaimer: I do play PvP, I just hate it’s reward system)

Venatorn.7619:

So far I am thinking of the mastery system similar to the PvP rank mechanically(but having a meaning and progression ofc).

when in Heart of the Mists, the exp bar is turned purple and is then turned into your PvP rank. If you use a tome of knowledge it only gives you a level or a skill point, not a pvp rank, completely ignoring the fact that your exp bar is showing your pvp rank.

now, looking at the videos of HoT demo and screenshots, the exp bar is a very light yellow, almost white basically noting the fact that it’s different from normal exp, so I’m guessing the Tomes will just ignore the mastery system and still give a level/skill point

As far as Anet saying “the player will gain experience to increase mastery level” … I feel that they are just using the word experience as a blanket statement, similar to how they did when the WvW levels/masteries came out they said something along the line of “the character will gain experience in WvW”

Sidenote: Also, I am hoping there will be mini-caps occasionally in the mastery system where the player has to do some event or find a specific item to continue

just my .02 , personally don’t care either way :|

I hope they completly rid xp from wvw and they add an npc merchant where you can change badges for tomes, scrolls, mats, minipet commander icons etc

Bubi.7942:

Nike.2631:

So… for all the people who think tomes will NOT work… you expect ArenaNet to just say “Hey, sPvP players — your advancement stops dead at 80”? Because tomes are how you get XP playing in sPvP.

Yes, I expect it to be exactly that. As a matter of fact would get mad if it weren’t so.

Wait, hang on, why should you get mad at how others progress through the game? I can understand it if we’re talking about PvP or WvW where some someone being able to click a hundred times can suddenly have an advantage over you and thus negatively impact your experience, but this is PvE; how other people are getting their masteries done has absolutely no bearing on how you get masteries done, it’s not a zero sum game where them getting masteries somehow prevents you from doing the same.

So any displeasure you suffer from someone else maxing out a mastery through tomes is purely of your own creation and you’re asking to change their experience of the game based on this. Doesn’t that strike you as being incredibly unreasonable? Would you support any change that affects the rewards you’ve already earned simply because someone else doesn’t like it?

Pandaman.4758:

So any displeasure you suffer from someone else maxing out a mastery through tomes is purely of your own creation and you’re asking to change their experience of the game based on this and you’re asking to change their experience of the game based on this. Doesn’t that strike you as being incredibly unreasonable? Would you support any change that affects the rewards you’ve already earned simply because someone else doesn’t like it?

- Yes, every displeasure you feel is your own creation.

- Change? What change? It’s not even in the game yet.

- It strikes me incredibly reasonable that you have to actually do the work for your reward. You don’t play Legend of Zelda and complete FFVI with it.

It’s a pretty simple system that works (or should) in-game and IRL too. I also find it fair that people start from the same base.

This newly found everybody is and should be a winner attitude makes me sick (general statement, not meant as an offesne against you presonally).

Work for my reward? Because those tomes just fell out of the sky, right?

Most common wisdom approves of delayed gratification. I’m doing the work NOW, and instead of cashing out, I’m holding on to it until that work can do me the most good for something I’ll want later.

Nike.2631:

Work for my reward? Because those tomes just fell out of the sky, right?

Actually yes, yes they did.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Login_rewards

Bubi.7942:

- Change? What change? It’s not even in the game yet.

Well, we know how mastery progression will be rewarded from the details that have already been released: every time you level past 80 it will progress a Mastery instead of giving you a skill point; we also know that Tomes of Knowledge work by giving you the current level’s maximum amount experience in one go; so preventing ToKs from giving the same rewards after level 80 as leveling normally means you’re changing the ToK’s function. The Mastery system doesn’t need to be implemented yet to recognize there will be a change to existing mechanics if such restrictions are announced.

- It strikes me incredibly reasonable that you have to actually do the work for your reward. You don’t play Legend of Zelda and complete FFVI with it.

You would if Legend of Zelda dropped “FFVI progress packs”

In all seriousness ToKs are rewards for the effort you put into the game (the ones that drop like flies from daily logins notwithstanding); you essentially exchange them for the rewards you would normally get from leveling up, whether it be the skill point for leveling up after 80 or progressing a low level alt. The Mastery system is changing that skill point reward to a progression reward, so ToKs should be giving you that progression reward after level 80.

And saying that has given me an epiphany, but I’ll explain after the next point.

It’s a pretty simple system that works (or should) in-game and IRL too. I also find it fair that people start from the same base.

At the risk of sounding pedantic I’d say that it’s impossible to be fair or start from the same base in an MMO unless we all get our levels reset and items wiped. I understand you want everyone who completes a Mastery to have put in exactly the same amount of effort as everyone else, but Masteries are about personal progress, it’s not a race to see who finishes first.

Now, about that epiphany I mentioned: we have to keep in mind that Masteries aren’t rewards, completing a Mastery doesn’t give you anything, it simply unlocks content. Completing the Itzel Lore Mastery unlocks the wyvern fights, the Legendary Precusor Mastery unlocks the grind to craft precursors, so on and so forth; it’s essentially no different than using ToKs to level up an alt to unlock access to new zones, gear, crafting recipes, etc.

If you have no qualms about someone using ToKs to unlock content for their alts, then there should be nothing objectionable about using ToKs to unlock content for their account (although I would agree that Masteries might be better as character unlocks than account unlocks, but that’s a whole other can of worms).

This newly found everybody is and should be a winner attitude makes me sick (general statement, not meant as an offesne against you presonally).

No offense taken!

The whole idea of pvp/pve unification was that you earn rewards that are of use in pve while doing pvp and vice versa. There are a lot of stuff you get in pvp that is completely useless for you if you play strictly pvp but we still get it. You can come to pvp with your shiny legendaries while still being a noob.

Let’s not forget there are also masteries for Tyria, not just Maguuma.

@Pandaman:
I see where you are coming from now.

However I do not believe that masteries are only there to lock you out of content. If that was the case, then by all means it’s fine (and if that will be the case, my point is moot).

When Anet announced it they called it “meaningful”, “long-term” progression for our characters. It seems to me that people saving up ToK despite saying things like “delayed gratification” want quite the opposite. Day 1, I’m maxed, gg, y u no endgame Anet? Basically with allowing players to use them the would shoot themselves in the foot.

@rotten:
And I see that as a problem. PvP should have it’s own shiny “from PvP only” rewards, like the glorious armor set and maybe generic rewards like champ bags what you currently get. Getting everything from the same game mode with very little variety is not a good thing.

It should not have dungeoen gear, or any other “exclusive to other gamestyle” rewards. It just makes 0 sense. Of course, the explaination for it is putting in already existing stuff as rewards is way easier than making new ones. Sad really.

I mean they could add a WvW reward track which let’s you get Liquid World XP, badges, and maybe even points for your server, but I hope we all agree that that makes no sense. Well, same with PvE.

And with all that said

I find it highly unlikely Tomes will grant mastery levels/points because:
- Tomes are ridicilously easy to obtain
- Would make for an unfair start
- Having your whole audience experience and discover things roughly at the same time is better than a few people “running ahead”
- Mastery levels are progessively harder to get (dunno where I read that), so it just doesn’t make sense that Tomes get stronger and stronger
- Tomes were origanally designed for skipping leveling with alts

If they do implement it:
- Paint me poppy and call me Susie
- Tomes will grant 1 point, but you’ll need ~ 2000 points to upgrade a level (do we really want that?)
- Tomes may grant you a level at first, but then they will become less effective as XP point gain for masteries will increase

What likely is to happen:
- Tomes of Knowledge get converted to Tomes of Mentorship http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tome_of_Mentorship
- Tomes of Knowledge grant 1 Skillpoint after lv 80 (Skillpoint problem solved)