Guild Wars 2

Found it:

MMORPG: Let’s talk about precursors! My favorite topic! Is it going to be sort of like Luminescent Armor, where you do a bunch of little things and it all comes together?

CJ: I think the Luminescent Armor collections are a really great example of the type of thing we can do in the game now with the collection system. When we originally talked about adding precursors and the ability to work toward them (“A long, long time ago”), it was always with this in mind. We had a plan, we decided to do collections, and felt like collections were just a much better way to do what we wanted to do with precursors than what our original plan was.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9340/page/2

Malthurius.6870:

darkm.4839:

I’ve been put off of making legendaries for a long time because of how tedious and resource intensive it is making them. It’s not “easy,” I’ve been at it for months and months. If you have any way I can get the materials as easily as you did, please enlighten me.

Well… Tedious=/=Hard

Time shouldn’t be the one and only gate for a legendary; skill should be part of it too. Mind you, I’ve never had a legendary, but I don’t like the fact that you can be a terrible player and still have what should be a “prestige item”.

It’s not a good thing that when I see a player with a legendary and think nothing of them… sometimes I think less of them if they actually prove to be incompetent.

The precursor collections could very well be an implementation of just that. We don’t know the details of that yet, all we know is that it could be a collection. One or more, or even all, of the collection items could require stripping off a component after defeating a hard-to-defeat boss.

Iason Evan.3806:

If you are going to gate game play at least let us choose which gate we want to enter by.

I think that’s how it will work, to an extent. They mentioned one example of being able to take down a boss by learning a special ability from a specific race, which would require lore mastery to discover/communicate with that race. Perhaps they could introduce other races which gives alternative abilities for taking down the same boss.

The system could grow to the point where unlocking one mastery allows you to unlock many more masteries, or unlocking a set of masteries is needed to unlock one mastery. It could be a massive web of interconnected masteries and abilities. Or maybe even choosing a way to unlock a specific mastery by unlocking one of five possible masteries.

If you could keep up with that, highfives. XD

I do very much like the idea of integrated and interweaved masteries and abilities.

Tron.3471:

Sebastian.4610:

Rashy.4165:

I’m done. Obvious troll is obvious.

im not trolling, i just disagree with you. That method of obtaining it is too easy.

This method we still no nothing about?? We dont know how involved the new method of obtaining a precursor will be. Why do people keep making threads complaining about things that we have no idea about. Stop being a troll on the forum please.

ArenaNet has dropped hints as to what it could be. They’ve mentioned the Luminescent armor collections alongside it, so there may be some similarities (obvious more collection items required perhaps, and we don’t know how those items will be obtained). Either way, I’d rather spent 2 months completing a collection than farming gold to buy the precursor. Gives much more of a sense of accomplishment to work towards it.

The answer is an absolute yes. All of the Living Story and HoT music was produced in-house by Maclaine Deimer and Leif Chappelle, and those are expected to be released at some point (probably with the launch of HoT).

I can’t wait.

In the mean-time, you can listen to some of it on their soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/arenanet

TheDaiBish.9735:

Sebastian.4610:

Rashy.4165:

Sebastian.4610:

Lazaar.9123:

The precursor collections will not be easier, as they are precursors. In fact, this system is likely to be harder than grinding gold (which isn’t hard to beat).

Grinding gold is easy, they are handing out legendarys now because social casual gamers cry. They dont want to put the time in to earn what everybody else has. They want it now and without a challenge.

Far from the truth.

What people want is a guaranteed way of getting a precursor. Right now, the only available methods are: relying on RNG (good luck), or farming gold to pay for someone elses luck. What people want is a third option: to work for their precursor through a scavenger hunt. Think Mawdrey – that required so many different components and steps, and a good portion of it was a scavenger hunt for items all over the world. People actually put enough effort into it to the point where they affectionately refer to Mawdrey II as a pet/person, and worry about her not eating too much.

The Luminescent armor collections is another example that combined RNG and guaranteed effort. You could either rely on RNG for the Carapace armor, or buy most of it for crests (guaranteed with time). You could either rely on RNG for the Mordrem parts, or buy the guaranteed part extractor. The remaining items are a matter of Story achievements, a guaranteed item which you need to hunt down/buy and then imbue after a successful boss kill, and an item you get for doing events in the SW (which really takes little time).

THAT is what people want for Precursors. Something to work towards, something that takes substantial effort.

so basically ur saying they just want it handed to them.

Where did you get that from?

My guess is lack of reading comprehension.

Malthurius.6870:

ekarat.1085:

Why this one spot? Because it’s the most finished.
Why not UI for masteries? Because it may change before release.
Why just 1 mushroom? Because it’s probably not done.

That’s exactly what people fear… and that’s really bad considering the client they were on said “beta” and they have a demo to present at Pax East in a few weeks.

Compared to the base game; they’ve been excruciatingly tight lipped about the content so far…

The demo they’ll present will likely be an expanded version of what they’re showing here.

Typically, demos are produced after most of their assets are done for world building. Say, you have all of the necessary building blocks in place, all of your core system functionality is in place, and all you’re really working on is finishing touches, adding in the necessary artwork, fixing up any issues that pop up, tweaking a few UI elements or some features. Portions of that can then be instanced and released as a demo.

I’m done. Obvious troll is obvious.

Sebastian.4610:

Lazaar.9123:

The precursor collections will not be easier, as they are precursors. In fact, this system is likely to be harder than grinding gold (which isn’t hard to beat).

Grinding gold is easy, they are handing out legendarys now because social casual gamers cry. They dont want to put the time in to earn what everybody else has. They want it now and without a challenge.

Far from the truth.

What people want is a guaranteed way of getting a precursor. Right now, the only available methods are: relying on RNG (good luck), or farming gold to pay for someone elses luck. What people want is a third option: to work for their precursor through a scavenger hunt. Think Mawdrey – that required so many different components and steps, and a good portion of it was a scavenger hunt for items all over the world. People actually put enough effort into it to the point where they affectionately refer to Mawdrey II as a pet/person, and worry about her not eating too much.

The Luminescent armor collections is another example that combined RNG and guaranteed effort. You could either rely on RNG for the Carapace armor, or buy most of it for crests (guaranteed with time). You could either rely on RNG for the Mordrem parts, or buy the guaranteed part extractor. The remaining items are a matter of Story achievements, a guaranteed item which you need to hunt down/buy and then imbue after a successful boss kill, and an item you get for doing events in the SW (which really takes little time).

THAT is what people want for Precursors. Something to work towards, something that takes substantial effort.

khani.4786:

Argon.1563:

At one point, David said “We wanted to give gliders a sense of freedom.”

hypocrite

If its meant to feel free, then why give it an endurance bar? The character shown was supposedly decked out with Masteries to make the endurance bar longer, and it still felt so restrictive. Even with the Masteries, she was barely scraping jumps by the skin of her teeth, thats not freedom, thats just a good way to give someone a nervous twitch.

They never said she wad decked out with masteries. And at one point they mentioned that her mastery points was at all of “2” so I’m guessing she’s at the base limit of masteries not at the end…

They mentioned that only a few abilities were unlocked. Those few abilities allowed them to reach the first mastery point they showed. Mastery points let you unlock the track, but actual progression of the track doesn’t depend on mastery points. Abilities are gained as the track progresses (which is just a question of time, or how often you used abilities, perhaps).

Do people seriously not pay attention? I was typing on reddit and keeping a friend updated while watching the stream and even I saw more actual gliding than “falling to their death”.

They gave an explanation of how masteries will work, and how masteries will tie into one another. For instance, the unbeatable boss until you learned an ability from a particular race, which would require some level of lore mastery to gain access to. Actual progress in mastery tracks has already been covered in the blog post, and we can make reasonable assumptions as to what it may be like by looking at existing, similar, progression systems.

They also showcased bouncing mushrooms, which is another ability gained through masteries, and explained that there will be many other types of mushrooms. They also explained how mastery points are obtained, which is in much the same way as skill points. The difference is that some mastery points will require having masteries unlocked to actually get to (the very first point they showed requires some level of gliding mastery).

They talked about a lot more, and there were a LOT of subtleties in the stream if people paid attention.

sorudo.9054:

Rashy.4165:

Well, the PoI showcased a fair amount of basic gliding, and mentioned updrafts, which will be available at the PAX East demos.

The endurance they showcased lasted about 10 seconds. These are after some Mastery abilities were unlocked (such as longer endurance, maybe). Also to note: as you fall after endurance runs out, you regenerate endurance, allowing you to pop your glider again as you fall.

seen that before, got enough endurance but not until i die falling, the reason why endurance with gliders are a horrible idea.

Mistakes happen, you die because of it. Gives you an opportunity to learn how to do it properly without dying, which comes with time and practice. The verticality in HoT should be high enough that should be able to regen enough endurance (before dying) to keep going a bit further.

The PoI showed enough endurance regen in 2-3 seconds to re-pop the glider long before dying. The deaths that occurred during the stream were due to not being absolutely amazing at using the glider.

Well, the PoI showcased a fair amount of basic gliding, and mentioned updrafts, which will be available at the PAX East demos.

The endurance they showcased lasted about 10 seconds. These are after some Mastery abilities were unlocked (such as longer endurance, maybe). Also to note: as you fall after endurance runs out, you regenerate endurance, allowing you to pop your glider again as you fall.

Invictus.1503:

I think it sounds very much like GvG. Though remember I’m talking about the actual GvG matchups from GW1. The blob battles that take place in WvW is just a joke in my opinion (though I’m sure I’ll get flamed for that statement)

The outcome of these depend largely on how quickly you can set up the battlefield to your advantage. I’ve mostly seen ambushes in EotM and some failed ambushes where a zerg expected one, prepared for it in advance, and took down the opposing zerg (could easily go both ways).

Assuming equal numbers.

Genesis.8572:

BrunoBRS.5178:

I find it hilarious that in one of the interviews, Colin said “we avoided the term GvG because there are two distinct GvG communities in GW2, that play very different games that they both call GvG, and they hate each other”

Pardon my ignorance, as someone who does not PvP much, but what are the two communities of GvG?

One wants the same game mode from GW1: 8v8, Stronghold-style, kill Guild lord.
The other wants large scale (20v20, 30v30, etc) fights. These happen a lot in WvW or EotM. Not many games officially support this game mode and leave it up to the players to decide how they want to organize it.

Stronghold in GW2 is tentatively 5v5, but ArenaNet is testing up to 10v10. It’s likely they’ll find a balancing point somewhere in between.

Mental Paradox.3845:

You don’t “fly”. You glide. Downwards.

You won’t use gliding for seeing the sights or exploring. It’s to get from A to B without dying.

http://www.scottishglidingcentre.co.uk/lift.htm

As you continue to explore the jungle, you’ll have the option to further develop your gliding skills by advancing this Mastery. Fly longer, jump higher, take advantage of strong wind currents, and launch yourself into the air with greater force—make your glider work harder for you, and use it to explore the Heart of Maguuma to its fullest.

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

sorudo.9054:

if gliding works like firefall then you can’t get up, only down.
you are able to angle the gliding to a point that you can fly longer but when you go to high the game simply sends you straight down again, sort of like a punishment system when you try it anyway. (well, not straight down but in an eagle diving angle)

Well, obviously the game will restrict how high you can go, but the point I’m trying to make is, you CAN fly up with a hang-glider.

As for whether or not it will resemble Aion, Firefall, or any other game with flight/gliding, that remains to be seen.

ANet mentioned wind currents in the Masteries blog post. It won’t be a straight downward glide.

sorudo.9054:

Rashy.4165:

sorudo.9054:

firefall doesn’t even have a glider endurance bar yet it works perfectly, i see no reason to add an endurance bar except to limit the players reaching further then intended.
then again, if they fear that, don’t add gliders in the first place.

People will always find creative uses of the glider, even with an endurance bar, and I don’t think ANet would be opposed to it. Breaking out of maps isn’t intended, but people do it and get away with it.

my point exactly, ppl will always find a way so adding such a bar has no use.

you have to realize that you can’t really fly, you go down slowly and never go up, all it does is enable players to glide down further without falling to your death.

Actually …

Gliding has many forms. Straight downward gliding assumes certain conditions and the type of glider used. You CAN actually “glide” upward if you can generate enough Lift to overcome your weight, and you do so by making use of air currents (if you’re gliding in a windy area, it’s entirely possible). This also has a fair bit to do with glider design, lift-to-drag ratios, etc, the basics of which can be simulated in a game. HoT will have wind currents as parts of its mastery, and DOES showcase flying upwards (ArenaNet’s trailers tend to be very similar to in-game footage, the only real difference is that some skills are one-shots whereas in game, it takes a lot more than one hit). If you have a powered glider which can produce a certain amount of thrust, then it can definitely fly upwards.

The gliding in Aion was straight downwards, but there were some clever tricks people used to gain a bit of height. Not a lot, but enough to glide slightly further.

silvermember.8941:

Rashy.4165:

Shakki.3219:

what about the 10 year guild wars anniversary in april? :P

Would be nicer, but that only leaves 6 weeks or so of beta testing. Depends how they plan on doing betas (BWEs like GW2 or longer ones).

You are assuming that it is actually testing and not simply a glorified preview.

Safe assumption. They obviously have an internal testing team, but they haven’t really gotten a large portion of the community to play through it and give feedback. The only way to get feedback is to have open beta events, and as many of them as necessary. They need to know that the systems they’ve designed will be well received by the majority of the community. 6 weeks is too short for that.

If the expansion is indeed fully complete and no longer requires community feedback to make certain changes (unlikely), I’d be obviously over the moon. I’d rather be realistic though.

Shakki.3219:

what about the 10 year guild wars anniversary in april? :P

Would be nicer, but that only leaves 6 weeks or so of beta testing. Depends how they plan on doing betas (BWEs like GW2 or longer ones).

The reason they’re not calling Stronghold GvG is for this very reason: players differ on the definition. Stronghold is staying loyal to the version in GW1, which was what GW1 players want.

GvG has existed in zerg vs. zerg for a lot longer, that’s true, but I’d imagine most of them makes use of existing systems and try to get around it. RuneScape, for instance, didn’t have a “Clan wars” arena until much later, and large scale clan fights were held in an open area where anyone could come in and break up the fight. Something similar, if organized, could be possible using WvW maps.

Stronghold shouldn’t necessarily be limited to only Guild teams and Guild leaderboards. The ranked version of it would probably require you to form a guild team, while the unranked version could be played as individuals or small parties. We’ll see based on the details revealed later on.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

I still think you have all wrong and its the dodge meter called wait for it: “ENDURANCE”
for aerial dodging the flying foes they will be adding. You can only glide/fly for so long as you descend to earth, so you’ll probably not need any gauge or anything for flight time as the trailers shown players going down rather quickly but not as fast as falling to your death normally.

Except that hang gliding isn’t just downward motion, you can fly upward by orienting the glider in just the right way and taking advantage of wind currents – which is a feature that should be available with the Mastery.

Lore books used to be in the game as skill challenges, but it was removed. Perhaps the Lore Mastery will have something like it.

sorudo.9054:

firefall doesn’t even have a glider endurance bar yet it works perfectly, i see no reason to add an endurance bar except to limit the players reaching further then intended.
then again, if they fear that, don’t add gliders in the first place.

People will always find creative uses of the glider, even with an endurance bar, and I don’t think ANet would be opposed to it. Breaking out of maps isn’t intended, but people do it and get away with it.

BlueOcean.5380:

Rashy.4165:

It’s a Korean MMO which really didn’t have much place in North America. Takes WoW’s gear grind to the next level.

This is one of the features that was introduced in a recent expansion: only the top ranked PvP player (only one) could purchase the best possible PvP gear. The person who got that rank was usually fed PvP points (called Abyss points) from other players/guildies to get to that point.

I would place Aion as an example of what not to do, EVER, in an MMO.

^^ NCSoft developed Aion. This is why I’m concerned. Just going into watch mode for now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSOFT

Luckily for us, NCSoft doesn’t have anything to do with GW2’s development.

A lot of the speculation is based on current content, which was most likely a testing ground for Anet to try new things. Each zone (Dry Top, SW, Southsun) has a single map-wide mechanic.

Of course, they don’t have to stop there. They could very well design zones with multiple map-wide mechanics with unique ways of interacting with each other. They could very well combine all three maps (which they probably did – verticality, pact camps, fighting against Mordrem) and have all three map-wide mechanics fuse together for unique experiences.

And that’s drawing from what we already know about HoT and the current game. It doesn’t have to stop there.

As is always the case with future updates: Wait and see.

saventis.1485:

how successful was aion? iv never heard much about it until now

Pretty active for the first 3-6 months as is the case with most new P2P MMOs. Their first server merge happened about a year or two in, and they went F2P within 2-3 years.

It’s a Korean MMO which really didn’t have much place in North America. Takes WoW’s gear grind to the next level.

This is one of the features that was introduced in a recent expansion: only the top ranked PvP player (only one) could purchase the best possible PvP gear. The person who got that rank was usually fed PvP points (called Abyss points) from other players/guildies to get to that point.

I would place Aion as an example of what not to do, EVER, in an MMO.

Sube Dai.8496:

Vinewrath people will rez during phase 1. Phase 2 is similar to breach. I will rez downed players but not dead. If people are dying you will probably fail the event anyway.

During Phase 1, I don’t always rez downed. If the player in question was getting ganged up on by a cluster of Mordrem, trying to rez them will result in 2 downed/dead. If I can get them up quickly without going down myself, I will rez them.

Here’s the thing about enemies in the Silverwastes – stopping to rez a dead player will get you killed. As a Thief, stealth should grant me immunity to targeted damage, and I often attempt to rez players in Shadow Refuge, but guess what? Thrasher and Teragriff tentacles still reach me, Teragriffs can still charge through my refuge (long after I’ve stealthed) and still hit me.

The point being: you’re doing nobody a favour by staying around dead, and it’s more advantageous to waypoint and run back. Even if it’s not an issue of event scaling, stopping to rez a dead player (which takes time) takes away from the overall damage done during events, therefore extending the events. This is especially the case in the Hidden depths where players tend to stay dead around the large chest – stopping to rez them puts players in a scenario where they will die in 2 seconds flat.

If you’re downed, rezzing is mandatory as it’s quicker and gives back the lost damage due to the player being downed. If you’re dead, waypoint.

Only comparison I have is Aion, so …

IIRC, Aion’s flight time started with just under a minute, and went up to about 3-4 minutes depending on conditions. Consumables to boost flight time, flight rings to pass through to get another boost, etc. Gliding was unlimited – jump off a cliff and glide down for as long/far as you can. Flight was restricted to cities/Abyss (PvP map), gliding could be done anywhere.

It wasn’t a perfect system, but it could be something to draw upon. Depending on how the maps are set up, I would expect a minimum of 10-15 seconds of flight, going up to 1-2 minutes as the Mastery track progresses. The trailer did show fairly lengthy flight times (longer than 2-3 seconds), which may be due to clever use of wind currents to extend flight/glide times.

Either way, I will wait to see how ANet implements it.

Lazaar.9123:

The change only applies to characters that are level 80…

Most people will have a handful or more Mastery points by the time they reach level 80, just by doing content. That applies to current level 80s who get retroactive Mastery points, and future level 80s (the system probably keeps track of Mastery points gained before level 80, and automatically awards it to players once they reach 80, immediately replacing their level).

I’m going to guess we’ll lose an entire Trait line, and any skills that may be related to it. Different specializations could remove different Trait lines and replace it with something else.

Eg. The first Trait line for Thief is Deadly Arts. If a specialization replaced it, the traits will have to have a different effect. Instead of Mug (which relies on Steal), Steal could have a different effect. Utility skills should also be replaced to reflect the different playstyle. All of the other trait lines should remain unchanged. Obviously you also get a different set of weapon skills from the specialization.

maddoctor.2738:

To be honest, the difference between Valkyrie and Berserker is that Valkyrie trades Precision for Vitality. With certain professions (Thief / Guardian) it’s easy to get to the sweet spot of 60% critical chance without using Berserker gear.

Keeping the meta traits as is, using Valkyrie still gives over 100% precision in Stealth. The typical dungeon rotation makes heavy use of stealth, so it works out. Difference in crit chance (un-stealthed) is 11% (53% zerker vs. 42% valkyrie – I don’t have ascended rings yet).

I’m hopeful for one.

Rytlock needs a companion.

Having played Aion, no.

Considering I’m having a hard time staying below 500 skillpoints … yeah. I’m glad they’re removing it for leveling above level 80.

Tachyon.5897:

How about a character creator like that of Black Desert Online?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TP4L1vHfpk

And I thought Aion’s character creation was amazing. That looks amazing!

Too bad it probably won’t be used in GW2.

We actually don’t know how many Mastery points we’ll have access to, how many points are needed to unlock tracks, and how long these tracks will take to complete. It’s possible they’ll keep players working on it for quite a while, but I wouldn’t assume it’s impossible to unlock all of the tracks (after doing every possible Mastery challenge for points).

PvP tracks, for instance, are all available account-wide and permanently once unlocked. The unlock requirements are also fairly simple in these cases (complete dungeon story, complete a specific Area track, etc).

Kal Spiro.9745:

Mastery points acquired from Old zones can only be used for Old zone Mastery Tracks. New Zone Mastery Tracks require New Zone Mastery Points, so no your concern is unfounded.

I’d like to contest this with a different take (which is the impression I got).

Mastery points are common to both zones. However, Mastery Tracks are zone specific. Players who have already done old content will get Mastery points, at which point, they can unlock Tracks in Maguuma and/or current world. It doesn’t make sense for players who have mastery points within the current world to not be able to unlock Mastery tracks in Maguuma right away.

The difference is that, when you’re in the old world, you’re progressing only the old world Mastery Track; when you’re in Maguuma, you’re progressing the Maguuma Track. As a result, Maguuma abilities are locked to Maguuma, Old world abilities/masteries are locked to old world.

BrunoBRS.5178:

just keep in mind that stuff like “do this world boss” and “do this group event”, among other things that can’t be tracked, will have to be redone (if they end up tied to masteries, that is).

I actually think they have ways of tracking things, at least some of the bigger world bosses (the ones which have a daily reward chest anyway). Anything that has an achievement tied to it will definitely be retroactive (since that information is stored).

Remains to be seen exactly what will grant Mastery points from current content.

Mastery points for existing content will be awarded retroactively, as long as any single one of your characters has done the content. So, you’ll get the points for 100% Map completion (since you have at least one character with it). No extra points for having 100% Map completion on multiple characters.

I think the logic behind Dungeon tracks was to give players a chance to obtain PvE-only skins in PvP (for players who exclusively wanted to PvP). The same probably won’t work for Matseries, as Masteries give players access to specific abilities, and not weapon/armor skins (as far as I know). The other tracks only grant hard to find items (fossils for the Ambrite weapons, for instance).

Masteries should be a PvE-only progression system, as all of the rewards from completing the various tracks are usable only in PvE.

PvP reward tracks and ranks are its own progression system, and should remain that way. However, if HoT does come with unique skins tied to doing content in the Heart of Maguuma, I expect to see a fair few Maguuma Jungle reward tracks (in addition to one we have right now).

Elegy.2159:

mXz.4512:

Nor should we have to lower or sound settings just because some people choose to be inconsiderate of others.

I don’t think this is inconsiderate though. The sound/particles aren’t that bad, and even you said it only lasts a minute.

Actually it can last a lot longer than a minute depending on number of stacks. Some people have way more than one.

A consume-all option without the lighting/animation would be nice.

There are a handful of guilds that popped up shortly after SW was released for that very purpose. You can try looking in Guild recruitment for some of them.

I’d personally be willing to join one and lead maps, since I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time there, and thoroughly enjoy the maps. I’m done with my Luminescent armor collection, but that doesn’t stop me from going back.

I mean, there’s a dedicated Dry Top guild that does it fairly often (not continuously/daily, but still).

Shameless self-promotion: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tgy37/essential_guide_to_the_silverwastes/

In terms of numbers: 5 players to defend each fortress, extra 2 in charge of escorts. Indigo will need at least 10 for the boss fights. 2-3 each (4-6 total) for keeping Hidden depths and Skritt tunnels open. If my math is correct, that’s 37 players give or take a few. Split up into groups of 12 for Vinewrath (more than plenty to deal with the champions).

I’m personally hoping for a collector’s edition priced around $80-90. -daydreams-

felessan.9587:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/journey-into-the-heart-of-maguuma-in-guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns/

Looks like we’re getting the “deep dive” for mastery tomorrow! Does this mean the trait update will be coming this spring?

It’s entirely possible that the Mastery system and the new Trait unlocks are somewhat related, and the details may provide hints as to whether that’s the case. If it is as they describe (account bound, etc), it would be a good way of introducing some form of progression to Traits, but not making it tedious (due to being per character).

dietzero.3514:

‘Complete a level 55 zone for your first level trait’.

Nice work, Anet…

Would have been more sensible to have a collection of different activities that gave trait points, which could then unlock the trait of your choosing. Choose which activity you want to do, choose which trait you unlock.

Which may very well be how the Mastery system works. We shall see tomorrow.

Zaxares.5419:

The interesting thing some people are reporting is that a full-time win in Hotjoin actually gives more reward track progress than a full-time loss in Unranked. I had thought that it was the same.

It’s possible that the base value for reward track process is the same in both cases (even though they’re not tied to rank points), but with a bonus for winning (Hotjoin) and a penalty for losing (Unranked).

Ranked loss

Seems consistent with unranked.