Guild Wars 2

So then I guess we agree that one of the big issues is that masteries are too focused on being necessary =)

I think that is fine for some things… like gliders…

In my opinion, it would be best if you’d sort of… slide into the necessary ones while playing… Like you start with HoT and with some exploring and doing events, you get your glider… while using the glider and exploring further, you unlock updrafts… by using what both combined can get you, you unlock the bouncy mushrooms… and voila, you now can explore HoT freely, meaning everything is accessible… but you can get further masteries to get some shortcuts and utilities… in case you don’t want to wait for a zerg to bring the event chain over, etc.

Merging them in sounds like a great idea to me.

My general thought is just that masteries, as said, should be an addition to what we have, not a gate we have to pass.

Taking the bypassing as example:
If we can earn masteries to bypass an otherwise locked gate that needs an event to open normally, that’s entirely fine!
The problem is that right now it feels like, even with the event completed, we need a mastery in order to open the gate we just fought to make available.

What I mean is that masteries should be utility… shortcuts… an addition to help us along…
What many are at the moment is a way to prevent access to various things entirely until they are unlocked… that’s basicly my biggest problem with HoT in general.

That being said, I don’t disagree with you, not at all! I just want to add in my line of thought.

So… if I had to put in my thoughts in short form:

Take your ideas in the original post, use them! Though change what masteries do and don’t do a little. Make less of them about accessing otherwise locked content. Have them be more like something useful, but not entirely necessary.

For example: Need to cross this poison field? you can! but you’ll take damage while in it (like 2% hp every second). But you can get this mastery to half the damage you take. The field is crossable either way, but having the mastery makes it safer to pass.

points to OP’s suggestions This… I like this!

Honestly do. A lot of good thoughts and ideas which I really hope will find recognition.
The only thing that made me unsure is the idea of further masteries to bypass the gating. Now, bypassing them in some way is a good idea, but I don’t really think gating even more behind masteries would be a good idea.

As I stated in my post in the main threat, I really believe masteries should be useful, not necessary (some for gliding/traveling can be an exception, but right now just too much is locked behind masteries to begin with… old tyria mastery ideas seem great in that regard).

I’ll toss in my thoughts on HoT as well.

First of all: I dislike about as much about it as I like, possibly a bit more. I’m fine with the fact that there is a larger progression to do, I just don’t think the way of doing it is right.

As far as my thoughts on masteries go, it feels kinda silly having to unlock the ability to unlock something in order to unlock something else…
Example here… I need the XP to unlock a mastery trait that allows me to earn a mastery point/hero points in order to unlock something else.

If you’d unlock mastery traits just with mastery points, which are earned by “leveling up” beyond 80 and from challenges in the world and achievements, that’d be totally fine. They could cost more than they do now too. The main issue is just that there is one single way to progress and that’s farming XP. I used to love gw2 for not forcing me to grind… Sure, I ran many champ trains, but I did because it was an option, something I chose. Now farming XP is necessary if I want to enjoy any of the new content.

Next up, elite specs! I really like the idea of them. And while not all are really interesting to me, I still want to try out a few, maybe weave the new trait likes in with classic play-styles. Though they feel discouraging. I held off on world completion with my thief, mostly since I thought I’d just do it for fun and hero points for the new specs… turns out doing old content for them is not really going to work out.
The masteries I can at least unlock account-wide, but all I can see myself do after having finished the new zones once is taking my alts, doing a run through to get the hero points only and likely never touch the new content again, which is a shame, considering the whole idea with gliders, etc.
In my opinion, a better way would have been to have the elite spec itself locked behind a quest-chain, or maybe a quest of the story that unlocks them and then having them cost as much as the old specs. That would also mean HoT hero point challenges giving 1 point instead of 10.

What I wonder here… since elite specs are so much more expensive, are they just flat out better than the old ones? In case of some berserker utility skills it nearly feels like it.
If so, that may be fine for veterans, but for new players, this practice will just make things worse and worse.

The reason why I liked GW2 to begin with was the fact that even if I didn’t play for a year, missed out on ascended items and such, I was still able to play on a even enough level with others.
Right now it feels that if I’d hop off now and return after the next expansion, those who kept playing would feel beyond reachable.

So to sum it up:
I love the idea with the gliding and the general thought of masteries. But the way they (and the elite specs) are gated just feels a bit too forced.

It might also be worth a consideration to lock less content behind masteries. Need one to unlock gliding? sure, sounds good! Another one for updrafts? alright I can live with that. Another one for bouncy mushrooms? well… okay…
But that’s about as far as it should go. As someone said (forgot who or where) masteries should make us feel empowered, they shouldn’t lock a good bunch of content away from us.

If I look at masteries for the old content, specifically what they unlock, not how they are unlocked (since I went through that before). That is the right way! The first mastery tree for example… Nothing of it is truly needed to access content, but it’s all helpful, it’s all quite cool. Automatically pick up loot? sure, I want that! It’s great to have, but nothing that locks me from playing parts of the game if I don’t have it.

Locking gliding, updrafts and bouncy mushrooms behind masteries is fine by me. But any more isn’t the right path to head down. Masteries should, as stated above, make us feel empowered. I see how the mastery implementation was meant as a long term motivation, but that also means, content will be locked away from those with less time to play for a long time. It’s going to be even worse for new players, especially after adding another expansion.
Masteries should be extras, not necessarities.

As some last word, I know someone is going to call me a whiner for not liking the implementation of mastery/elite spec progression. If people like it the way it is, fine! I don’t, I simply stated my opinion here.