[Suggestions] Don't gate unlocking mastery behind doing a story chapter

So I just came back to GW2 from a pretty long hiatus, and after getting my bearings and figuring out what end was up once more, I realized that my level 80 character was ready to pass from level 0 mastery to level 1. Hurrah, a little less of a noob I shall be!

Except... I couldn't. I was capped at 0 mastery, and needed to do a story quest to unlock it. Every mob I killed, every heart I completed, would cause that stupid little popup in the bottom left to scream bloody murder at me that I should level up, but I could not. :(

Now, the actual act of needing to do a story quest is no biggie. It took maybe 20-30 minutes; the time and effort are not my gripe. My gripe is that I am very far behind the point in the story that Heart of Thorns is at, and was greatly looking forward to taking my time working up to it. I've done really well to avoid most spoilers up until this point, but sure enough, in the final stretch I was foiled. The price I paid to no longer have that popup screaming at me, and to get to start using mastery points, was to sit through 30 minutes of spoiler hell as it told me in painstaking detail as much as it could about everything that had happened up until that point.

Needless to say, whatever feelings the first chapter of HoT were supposed to illicit from me, definitely missed their mark.

Anyhow, in the end it wasn't the end of the world. I basically muted my TV, and skipped cutscenes. I zoomed into my character's face for at least half of it to avoid what I could. I have no idea if I can replay that chapter, and may just have to not see it on this character. But I got my masteries, and am glad to be rid of that little popup box.

Thanks!

Think all chapters are replay able to get the achievements they have - just think cant do the external non-instanced running around on that character - can redo on all your other characters in full You just only get the mastery points the first time. Most of the masteries are like that ie need to play the first chapter to start them eg HOT, S3, POF, S4 - this needed prior to you being able to open that specific mastery path.

I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

@"mercury ranique.2170" said:I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

No, you only get spirit shards when all non-hidden masteries are completed.

Before that - I strongly advice everyone to just relax regarding xp. We get so much, so we really don't need to get something for it all the time. Once you unlock everything, the period of "locked" xp will no longer even be noticable.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"mercury ranique.2170" said:I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

It is not what the wiki is saying:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience If no tracks are available or selected, leveling past 80 will award 1 Spirit Shard.

But the wiki can be wrong and if not I think it would be an excellent suggestion to the team to implement it int such a way that you can gain spiritshards whenever you are level 80 by stoppingany mastery research.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"mercury ranique.2170" said:I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

That's incorrect because they removed the Raid mastery from holding people back on getting spirit shards, so therefore you don't need them all completed(and I'm pretty sure I get spirit shard every time I "level" up without having completed the Nuhoch mastery line),

@mercury ranique.2170 said:I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

You cant do that you get spammed with a popup reminding you to train your masteries every single time you gain exp. I made a post about it over 6 months ago and they said they would look into it but nothing got fixed.

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"mercury ranique.2170" said:I think it is perfectly ok to play it all in the order it is released (without LW s1 as it cant be played any more). Keep in mind that we did it without these masteries and to be fair, getting them to max will go fast.Till then, you should be able to turn off the mastery learning so you are not learning any at all. You can do so by unchecking it. The reward for gaining 254,000XP without a mastery selected is a spirit shard.

That's why I said non-hidden in my reply. The Raid track in HoT and the Griffon track in PoF are hidden until unlocked.