Guild Wars 2

Since the BWE is done now it is not that relevant but it would be nice to know for next time. How do I apply mastery points to mastery tracks? It said I had 2 points but no matter where I clicked I was unable to assign them.

Also, do different tracks unlock at different times or how does it work? I would like to get the mentor track done ASAP.

There are 2 parts for the mastery:
1 – Choose a mastery to level it up
2 – Spend your mastery point in one that is fully leveled.

By default you’ll have the Glide mastery to level up, you level it up with regular leveling exp from killing mobs, finishing events and so on.
After that mastery is fully leveled you’ll get a notice and then you can spend your mastery point to learn and use it.

Thanks, but my question was it said I had 2 mastery points and there was no obvious way to use those two points. Did it automatically assign them to gliding (I did notice it was 27%, but I am not sure if that is the starting value) and still say I had 2 points anyway maybe?

You probably didn’t had a mastery leveled up to be able to spend the mastery point.
Yes, it begins automatically at gliding but you can pick any other if you want.
It starts at 0%, from playing you leveled it to 27%, you need it at 100% to spend the mastery point and be able to actually glide.

The issue with mastery points is they are redundant and confusing. You need “mastery experience points” first in order to spend them on the thing that you’ve already chosen (or was chosen for you by default) to level up via normal experience.

The only reason they exist is that you have to “find” them in lieu of just sitting in one spot in the game world and doing the same event grind/dungeon grind/etc. over and over. Ironically, that’s what the beta event felt like because it was confined to such a small area and the events were broken more often than not :/

I thought you got mastery points for each time you leveled after 80? If not, I hope they have mastery points throughout Tyria as not all of my characters will enjoy maguuma wastes as it is already.

Menadena.7482:

I thought you got mastery points for each time you leveled after 80? If not, I hope they have mastery points throughout Tyria as not all of my characters will enjoy maguuma wastes as it is already.

You don’t. You’ll start out with a fair amount of Tyria mastery points if you’ve done world completion and finished the personal story. There may be other points awarded retroactively as well.

For Maguuma mastery points, finish the LS Season 2. There may be additional points for finishing all of the story achievements.

What the OP has said was exactly what I found confusing in BETA too. The only way to level up Gliding Mastery it seemed, was me killing monsters and doing events (most of which were bugged and couldn’t be completed anyway). It was really slow, and even when I managed to accumulate 2 or 3 mastery points from various areas in Verdant Brink, I wasn’t able to spend them, and all the icons for gliding were locked. I thought to myself – wait, what is the point in getting these mastery points when the only way to level my gliding is through killing monsters and doing events?

Found the whole thing really confusing.

I thought the masteries would be a system where you could select a mastery track to train it, and obviously gain xp for it via killing monsters and doing events etc. but if you wanted to fast-track it, you could go hunting for those mastery points and, once obtained, spend them on said mastery to make things go faster.

Correct me if I’m wrong but Mastery progression is also account based so you only have to do it once then all your characters have it. It seemed to be the case with the 3 beta characters I made.

Yup they’re account bound. Once unlocked, it’s unlocked for all your characters.

The new Mastery system could use some tweaks. It just seems redundant to have to fill an XP bar to unlock mere access to a skill, AND earn mastery points to spend to fully activate the skill. It’s an unnecessary level of complexity. Choosing one or the other should be good enough.

Let me see if I can explain this in a way that is easy to understand.

1. You open your Hero panel and open the Mastery tab.
2. Choose the Mastery that you want to level.
3. Run around killing things, doing events, getting xp. As your experience bar fills (like it would if you were trying to level your character) it fills your Mastery bar up.
4. Once said bar is full you choose to use a Mastery point to train that Mastery.
5. Once that is done you choose the next one that you wish to train.

I had trouble figuring out how to do this so I have no doubt that others were also confused.

person i played w/ was excited about finishing gliding.

we did, we glided.

then we thought, not much time, let us bounce those shrooms.

i leveled it, then said hey you almost have urs? they sayd, no what do u mean, i sayd, you click to spend the point after it is fully leveled up, they sayd, what are you talking about

another 5 mins of this went on

they sayd, ‘you mean you have to clikc to change it to train the shrooms?? i didn’t kno that.’ i sayd well… how did you think the points would get there? they said, i thought i just finished another mastery level, then i can pick a place to spend the point.

i sayd sorry, they sayd nothing, just ragequit

then i played rest of beta solo. was sad and lonely…

I also had trouble with this, it’s not very intuitive at all.
I think it would be more logical if it worked the other way around
ie spend a mastery point (MP) to unlock a track level then your XP levels it up and you gain that function as soon as it maxes out. Use another MP to unlock the next level or a different track etc.
T

jamesg.7128:

I also had trouble with this, it’s not very intuitive at all.
I think it would be more logical if it worked the other way around
ie spend a mastery point (MP) to unlock a track level then your XP levels it up and you gain that function as soon as it maxes out. Use another MP to unlock the next level or a different track etc.
T

That’s actually how I originally thought it would work.

yeah the way it works could be improved, but there is actually a tutorial how to use it after you open the mastery tab the first time on a beta character

Miellyn.6847:

yeah the way it works could be improved, but there is actually a tutorial how to use it after you open the mastery tab the first time on a beta character

Bah, tutorial! Whoever pays attention to pesky things like instructions?

Oh yeah, I did and had no problems with the system.

I didn’t play much PvE in HoT, so I’m not so sure about it, but it seemed as if you had to select a mastery to train it. Does that mean for some masteries you have to select it to train it? If so why when I selected gliding and mushroom bouncing only the gliding exp bar was progressing but not the one for mushrooms. My first impressions was the whole system didn’t seem clear or particularly logical to me.

Ayrilana.1396:

Menadena.7482:

I thought you got mastery points for each time you leveled after 80? If not, I hope they have mastery points throughout Tyria as not all of my characters will enjoy maguuma wastes as it is already.

You don’t. You’ll start out with a fair amount of Tyria mastery points if you’ve done world completion and finished the personal story. There may be other points awarded retroactively as well.

For Maguuma mastery points, finish the LS Season 2. There may be additional points for finishing all of the story achievements.

I certainly hope there are other ways of getting the points! I was not here for all of the LS (and did not especially like the ep I got partway through), typically consider my PS over once Ft Trinity has been captured, and highly doubt I will ever get 100% completion (there is always one annoying vista or POI). A way to earn the points for those of us not “hardcore gamers” please?

its hardcore to map complete now gosh I must be getting old.

Menadena.7482:

Ayrilana.1396:

Menadena.7482:

I thought you got mastery points for each time you leveled after 80? If not, I hope they have mastery points throughout Tyria as not all of my characters will enjoy maguuma wastes as it is already.

You don’t. You’ll start out with a fair amount of Tyria mastery points if you’ve done world completion and finished the personal story. There may be other points awarded retroactively as well.

For Maguuma mastery points, finish the LS Season 2. There may be additional points for finishing all of the story achievements.

I certainly hope there are other ways of getting the points! I was not here for all of the LS (and did not especially like the ep I got partway through), typically consider my PS over once Ft Trinity has been captured, and highly doubt I will ever get 100% completion (there is always one annoying vista or POI). A way to earn the points for those of us not “hardcore gamers” please?

This may be where the new mentor mastery track may help. I personally will be going for that mastery because that is how I like to play, helping others. I see a downed or dead player, I always head that way to help. Maybe someone will be nice enough to help you get your vistas and POI’s, that is what that mastery is for.

Yes, I like helping other players too. It is why I bought a commander tag before the mentor tag we will now have. The blog post was a bit vague on the details of mastery points and mastery lines, hopefully some of the things will be common high-level group content (fight a boss, take a cathedral) for us more casual players who do not feel an urgent need to get every single vista or single-handedly take on one of the VW champs. If not they would be getting away from the ‘play your way’ philosophy and akin to if the restricted the game to PVE-only, PVP-only, or WVW-only: no matter which you picked quite a few fans of the other 2 would be upset.

It sounds like you will get some points for completing some parts of some things, even if you did not do all of it. For example, they referred to chapters of living stories: 4 of my characters have completed the battle for ft trinity, however only 2 of my characters have an interest (yes, I give them all different personalities) in doing anything at all in Orr, and that is mainly when they get bored. I thought it was in this thread, maybe not, but someone said that, while 100% world completion would give you all the points you could do, say, 50% and get half of them.

For me the most important line will be being able to mentor. I am probably going to be having so much fun with things like specializations and a new class that the new regions (which is the only place you can use most of the lines) would be far down on my todo list.

It’s better than the first stress test, but still confusing. I have a friend who thought that she couldn’t glide because she had an asura. I had to explain how to find the mastery line, how to then select it, then level it, then get mastery points to assign to the mastery line that she had just leveled. For some reason after my explanation, she was still confused.

Heck, I was confused after explaining it to her.

Yes, once HOT goes live we can answer things. A lot right now, especially with the masteries, is so vague that nobody knows exactly what will happen. Even with the beta weekends we can not really say because things can and will change.

I wonder if we will get another blog post or something outlining masteries in a bit more detail as things get firmed up? It would go a long way to clearing up some of the confusion out there right now. For example, with the big trait changes we knew 80s would have enough points to unlock everything. We have no real idea with masteries if most 80s will already have unlocked all of the mastery lines or if not what they will need to do.

You get master points from doing events or some other activities in HoT from what I gather. But you can’t spend those points until you fill up your selected mastery bar (be it gliders, mushrooms, etc). That mastery bar replaces your XP bar once you hit 80, so it’s basically like leveling. The progress of your “XP bar” is specific to whatever mastery you have selected. So if you are at, let’s say, 90% to finishing the first glider mastery, but decide to swap to shrooms, your bar would go back to 0% (or whatever progress you have on shrooms). If you decide to go back to glider, your “XP bar” will go back up to 90%.

Once you fill up the bar, you can spend a mastery point or points (depending on what level it is) on it.

I hope this makes sense. They could have done much better at explaining it, I had to explain it to at least 10 people in game who were thoroughly confused. And for good reason.

It’s a pity that ppl can’t understand even this mastery system. There was a table with masteries, a status bar that was filling while i were doing events on the map and it’s logical when it’s full you can use your mastery point. Dev even put an icon of MP on the right side after the status bar. And when it was full i spent my MP for basic glider lvl. Is it difficult to guess? Ooh… People, did you play this game before? It seems like no…

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do. While I was explaining it to my friend, map chat was explaining it to another confused person. This system is different enough from the old system that ANet might consider having an NPC in game with a repeatedable cutscene explanation of how it works. They could tie an achieve point and maybe a small gift of some sort, nothing big, an omnomberry bar or something like that to have people go there and see the cutscene.

All they really need to do is provide some quick explanation that you need to train your mastery first before you can unlock the mastery with mastery points.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do. While I was explaining it to my friend, map chat was explaining it to another confused person. This system is different enough from the old system that ANet might consider having an NPC in game with a repeatedable cutscene explanation of how it works. They could tie an achieve point and maybe a small gift of some sort, nothing big, an omnomberry bar or something like that to have people go there and see the cutscene.

That would be a great idea! Right now it is ‘uh-huh, I think I understand’ but I do not have the mastery stuff in front of me anymore to go by. Some way of ‘this does this and that does whatever’ would go a LONG way to helping the explanation, especially if it also included shots of the UI somehow rather than someone just talking about it. For example, the people in the SW saying to get items and cause your armor to glow is a huge hint of what to do, unfortunately it would be nice to go further (do I mystic forge everything? does it automagically happen? Do I even need to keep the original rares?). A concrete set of information would go a long way when I have the UI in front of me, especially if they can demo the UI in the cutscene.

I think I understand how things work now but am not sure. The bar increases with normal xp (they were talking about that in the POI)? When a bar fills up you can spend points on a new bar? It would be nice to know how we get those points though as the blog was a bit vague on that point. Or did I totally misunderstand it? How does the first bar open or was it open before I even did anything (and what if I do not want flight as the first bar I fill up)?

For example, Do I have to earn the xp & points in Maguuma Wastes or can it be anywhere? I would prefer to throw the elite specializations at my normal stuff.

Sorry, I tend to learn better visually so when I do not have the UI in front of me it is a bit harder to work out what is going on.

Ayrilana.1396:

All they really need to do is provide some quick explanation that you need to train your mastery first before you can unlock the mastery with mastery points.

So if I have gliding at, say, 50% I can not use a glider at all?

There is a list of ways to acquire Mastery Points in the Wiki, if you are interested. =)

Good luck.

Agrotera.1254:

Let me see if I can explain this in a way that is easy to understand.

1. You open your Hero panel and open the Mastery tab.
2. Choose the Mastery that you want to level.
3. Run around killing things, doing events, getting xp. As your experience bar fills (like it would if you were trying to level your character) it fills your Mastery bar up.
4. Once said bar is full you choose to use a Mastery point to train that Mastery.
5. Once that is done you choose the next one that you wish to train.

I had trouble figuring out how to do this so I have no doubt that others were also confused.

Part of the problem is that there are a number of different places to click. You pick the overall mastery line to work on by clicking the gold blob/star at the top next to the mastery line name. Then I think you also have to click to the left of the tier you’re working on, though it did seem to automatically advance through the tiers. Whichever tier of whichever line you are on becomes your xp bar, applied specifically to that tier. To the right of the tier line in the UI there is a little mastery point icon with a small easy to miss number, which is how many points you will need. Once you fill the xp and have enough points, you can spend the points on that tier, gaining access to the abilities it contains and moving on to the next tier or else selecting another overall trait completely.

So it’s pick the area (Gliding, Itzel Lore, and such like), make sure the next available tier is active, do events — they seem to say it’s not straight xp filling it up but participation in the map? This is unclear — and the moment you can spend your points, do so and choose what you want to advance next, thus allowing you to immediately work on the next line without wasting xp.

Gaining points to spend is murkier. Obviously there are the communing mastery points, and I think you get them from doing activities (each time you do an activity? The first time you do one and achieve gold?), but until that’s clearer the points could become a bottleneck. Though at least it seems you can advance the xp of other lines while searching out points to spend.

Menadena.7482:

Ayrilana.1396:

All they really need to do is provide some quick explanation that you need to train your mastery first before you can unlock the mastery with mastery points.

So if I have gliding at, say, 50% I can not use a glider at all?

Think of it a needing your glider to be level 1 in order to use. You can’t use it at level 0.5 now can you?

The hard part when I was explaining it was telling her where to look and click.

Ok. Now. Look at the bottom right of your exp bar. You see the star like icon? Click on that. Did a panel pull up? No? Did you click on the right hand side of your exp bar? Look down at bottom right and click on the little star. Yes. That. Click on that. (Friend says a panel shows up). Ok. Now top left of that panel……. (Yah. She can be a little dizzy at times. But she wasn’t the only confused person there).

It was an excruciating experience trying to tell her what and where to click since I can’t see what she is seeing or point to it. This is really something that needs an ingame mechanic to walk people through and visually demonstrate it, step by step.

And If there was a tutorial at the beginning, I most definitely did not see it and obviously neither did she or the other confused guy in the map.

Menadena.7482:

Ayrilana.1396:

All they really need to do is provide some quick explanation that you need to train your mastery first before you can unlock the mastery with mastery points.

So if I have gliding at, say, 50% I can not use a glider at all?

That is correct.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

There is a list of ways to acquire Mastery Points in the Wiki, if you are interested. =)

Good luck.

Thanks, I found that list at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery#Mastery_points … handy. Does anyone know if we will get retroactive points? For example, I would assume the vast majority of 80s have entered every zone and got a few achievements. The other options depend on your playstyle and things like what is considered as a hard champ.

The Devs did mention some retroactive acquisition of Mastery Points. What they will come from is unknown exactly, I believe.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

Annette.6278:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

Not all people are equal. The person I had to explain it to is older, has a chronic illness that leaves her in constant pain, was fired from her new job recently because she is older and Ill and on top of that, her and her partner have to leave their home because they can’t afford it any more and move into a trailer. Her illness and her troubles means she has some problems focusing.

It’s not always laziness and maybe you should remember that life hits some people harder than others and show a little compassion.

I found it simple to understand. You get experience to fill the bar to “unlock” that tier of mastery, then you can spend mastery point into it to unlock the use of that ability.

There is a bar and on the right end of itm there is Mastery Icon that screams “click me”.

Dunno what the confusion is about tbh:P

One can figure it out in 10-20 sec if he just thinks about it without knowing anything or just read the tutorial :P

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Annette.6278:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

Not all people are equal. The person I had to explain it to is older, has a chronic illness that leaves her in constant pain, was fired from her new job recently because she is older and Ill and on top of that, her and her partner have to leave their home because they can’t afford it any more and move into a trailer. Her illness and her troubles means she has some problems focusing.

It’s not always laziness and if you maybe you should remember that life hits some people harder than others and show a little compassion.

But that would mean that
a) every content has to be made with such people in mind which would be bad because then it would be “dumbed down” and people who din’t suffer from such illnesses would have nothing because everything would be made with all those incapable people in mind

b) no money for house/rent etc but money for PC/internet/electricity and new expansion… ok

c) there is only so much AN can do without making this game totally thoughtless and automated, if you know such people then simply help them understand, one of the reasons mentor system is being introduced

d) by that chain of thought we can also argue that GW2 should support hands-free playing for those with no hands + bazillion other disabilities.

Killyox.3950:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Annette.6278:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

Not all people are equal. The person I had to explain it to is older, has a chronic illness that leaves her in constant pain, was fired from her new job recently because she is older and Ill and on top of that, her and her partner have to leave their home because they can’t afford it any more and move into a trailer. Her illness and her troubles means she has some problems focusing.

It’s not always laziness and if you maybe you should remember that life hits some people harder than others and show a little compassion.

But that would mean that
a) every content has to be made with such people in mind which would be bad because then it would be “dumbed down” and people who din’t suffer from such illnesses would have nothing because everything would be made with all those incapable people in mind

b) no money for house/rent etc but money for PC/internet/electricity and new expansion… ok

c) there is only so much AN can do without making this game totally thoughtless and automated, if you know such people then simply help them understand, one of the reasons mentor system is being introduced

No. I just suggested a tutorial NPC for those who might have some troubles figuring it out for various reasons. Tutorials are common and accepted in a game to explain new game mechanisms. I have no idea why suddenly a tutorial NPC is something that is controversial.

I was not referring to Tutorial NPC at all since that was not present in the post I quoted.

There also is a tutorial for mastery points when you open them. Whos fault is it that people don’t bother reading it?

Killyox.3950:

I was not referring to Tutorial NPC at all since that was not present in the post I quoted.

There also is a tutorial for mastery points when you open them. Whos fault is it that people don’t bother reading it?

You got into the middle of a conversation between that person and me so that quote didn’t have it, as my previous post referring to a tutorial is up above it. if you weren’t reading the thread and remembering, well, I can’t help that.

The mastery points system is completely bonkos right now. I was also very confused as to how to spend them.
My understanding was, each time i’ll level up I’ll get a mastery point, and then I’ll spend them. So for instance Gliding lvl 1 would cost say 5 points to unlock, level 2 10, lvl 3 20 etc. Something of the sort – like WvW system.

But the way it is yeah you have to get the bar to fill, I was under the impression I use mastery points to unlock the tier to fill with XP, but ppl here say I unlock the tier I already filled with XP… whatever, it’s weird.

Gimli.9461:

The mastery points system is completely bonkos right now. I was also very confused as to how to spend them.
My understanding was, each time i’ll level up I’ll get a mastery point, and then I’ll spend them. So for instance Gliding lvl 1 would cost say 5 points to unlock, level 2 10, lvl 3 20 etc. Something of the sort – like WvW system.

But the way it is yeah you have to get the bar to fill, I was under the impression I use mastery points to unlock the tier to fill with XP, but ppl here say I unlock the tier I already filled with XP… whatever, it’s weird.

It’s easier to understand if you think of it as a combination of leveling and spending Hero points that were only gained from Hero challenges or specific content, not from leveling.

You level up (progress the selected mastery to the end) then use a Mastery point. The mastery point is gained from communing at a Mastery site or by doing specific content, such as using the rifles on top of the hill to shoot Mordrem.

The mastery point that you gained is used to buy the unlock at the end of the full mastery line (sort of like buying a utility skill when you have leveled high enough for the utility skill to unlock). The higher up in the mastery line, the more points are needed to unlock at the end of each level, like utility skills cost more skill points at higher levels than at low levels.

Annette.6278:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

I get what you’re saying, believe me I do. It was actually really frustrating when people kept asking the same questions. I was in their same boat and I took the time to figure it out, so why can’t they?

Nowadays everyone is used to instant gratification. If they can’t figure something out immediately, then they go directly to the Internet for the answer. In game they just type out their question in /map rather than in Google.

It’s a real problem, honestly, but seriously, tone down the superiority complex, you don’t have to be a kitten about it. You used your brain, we get it.

Draknar.5748:

Annette.6278:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s simple enough to understand once explained, but it’s not intuitive and it’s a different system from what people have been using the last 3 years. If they haven’t been following the forums or blogs they could easily have no idea at all what to do.

What about to use your brain? (I mean any player) Yes, it’s new but does it mean that it’s impossible to understand by yourself? To look, to try, to look again, to think in the end ><
Players of GW2 are too lazy and if they can’t do something in one second they came here to whine! I think even Six Gods couldn’t help them.

I get what you’re saying, believe me I do. It was actually really frustrating when people kept asking the same questions. I was in their same boat and I took the time to figure it out, so why can’t they?

Nowadays everyone is used to instant gratification. If they can’t figure something out immediately, then they go directly to the Internet for the answer. In game they just type out their question in /map rather than in Google.

It’s a real problem, honestly, but seriously, tone down the superiority complex, you don’t have to be a kitten about it. You used your brain, we get it.

That person also snipped my post without even having the forum courtesy of adding the words snip to show it was cut to fit his rant. >.>

In the original post I suggested a tutorial NPC to go over the new system for those who need a little extra help, because it is a new system that’s different from the one they have used for up to 3 years now and some people do need a little extra help in understanding.