Make max mastery level up more exciting

When a player with maxed masteries levels up, how about a small chance to get some other rewards to make it more exciting? Tomes of Knowledge, Laurels, and Mystic Coins are some generic examples. There can also be expansion specific rewards, such as Provisioner Tokens for HoT and Elegy Mosaics for PoF. No exclusive rewards that leaves out players who don’t have max masteries, and not so often that it has a huge effect on economy. I’m sure there are more other players can think of.

I think this would make leveling up maxed characters more interesting.

EDIT: Some good ideas below, but to be clear, my suggestion isn’t really about the use of Spirit Shards. It’s more about making level up more interesting. If there’s a small chance of getting some cool randomized rewards when maxed players level up, it can create a level of excitement that doesn’t exist when you simply get currencies.

EDIT 2: Cleared up title and post.

I would think a better solution is to give spirit shards more relevance. I mean I have thousands and I use a handful in a year. They are very close to being just a dead currency to me.

Alternatively, perhaps remove spirit shards entirely and reward Karma and turn the spirit shard vendor into a karma vendor instead. Karma at least has wider uses and giving it even more credence is unlikely to be a bad thing, esp as it will help with a rather bloated currency system in the game

@Randulf.7614 said:I would think a better solution is to give spirit shards more relevance. I mean I have thousands and I use a handful in a year. They are very close to being just a dead currency to me.

Alternatively, perhaps remove spirit shards entirely and reward Karma and turn the spirit shard vendor into a karma vendor instead. Karma at least has wider uses and giving it even more credence is unlikely to be a bad thing, esp as it will help with a rather bloated currency system in the game

Agreed with this.

Simplest solution would probably just make more items available for purchase by spirit shards. Even if they are not that great - sort of similar to how there are eaters for things like empyreal fragments, bloodstone dust, etc. You don't get anything too great from those eaters, but at least you an use up those material for something.

Still waiting for them to add more spirit shard sinks. Not daily limited sinks that only ask for 3 when I fill the exp bar a dozen times a day.

Im fine with levelling and exp stopping once youre maxed out. Tbh. I literally only pay attention to it when i need something specific from spiritshards, and actually love it that it has little to no impact.

I definitely don't want exp grind become anything more than what its now, even for progression, which is already lost once you have all masteries, except the newest one. And since that is accountbound, it really doesnt matter on other characters either.

@"FrizzFreston.5290" said:Im fine with levelling and exp stopping once youre maxed out. Tbh. I literally only pay attention to it when i need something specific from spiritshards, and actually love it that it has little to no impact.

I definitely don't want exp grind become anything more than what its now, even for progression, which is already lost once you have all masteries, except the newest one. And since that is accountbound, it really doesnt matter on other characters either.

I partially agree with you, but since experience points are awarded from anything you do in PvE regardless whether you will actually have any real use for it or not, it might as well be made generally useful. Spirit shards are definitely useful, but after a while you'll drown in them, and eventually gaining experience points becomes entirely meaningless.

Gaining exp doesn't have to be a grind, but being entirely useless is just as bad IMO. A middle ground should be found here; whenever you gain a "level", you'd get some nice little bonus that's actually useful, but not something you'd actually want to actively grind for. I'd like to see a new currency introduced at the end of the XP track, and with that currency we could choose to buy low amounts of transmutation charges, laurels, obsi shards, spirit shards, you get the idea. The XP requirement for the full bar could also be raised if this seems to threaten the economy.

Another option, as others have said, is to make spirit shards more useful by being able to buy more stuff with them. This could be an issue however, since the imbalance of the amount of spirit shards between new and veteran players would be insane. A new player would have to max their masteries before they can even begin to drop spirit shards, (and that's not going to happen very quickly) and in the meanwhile veteran players hoard thousands of them every year. So pricing these new items we would be able to buy with spirit shards would be extremely tricky, since newer players would have very limited access while veterans could buy everything straight away.

@"BlueJin.4127" said:How about a small chance to get some other rewards instead? Tomes of Knowledge, Laurels, and Mystic Coins are some generic examples. There can also be expansion specific rewards, such as Provisioner Tokens for HoT and Elegy Mosaics for PoF. I’m sure there are more other players can think of.

I think this would make leveling up maxed characters more interesting.

EDIT: Some good ideas below, but to be clear, my suggestion isn’t really about the use of Spirit Shards. It’s more about making level up more interesting. If there’s a small chance of getting some cool randomized rewards when maxed players level up, it can create a level of excitement that doesn’t exist when you simply get currencies.

As others have said.. It is more about having more uses for the shards.Having other items, currencies or resources as RNG rewards will likely just promote "the drop rate is too low, nerf please" threads.. best stick to shards but give them greater scope in the game imo.

@Hevoskuuri.3891 said:

@"FrizzFreston.5290" said:Im fine with levelling and exp stopping once youre maxed out. Tbh. I literally only pay attention to it when i need something specific from spiritshards, and actually love it that it has little to no impact.

I definitely don't want exp grind become anything more than what its now, even for progression, which is already lost once you have all masteries, except the newest one. And since that is accountbound, it really doesnt matter on other characters either.

Spirit Shards are acquired, by everyone, new or vet, from many places...not just leveling up. Even lowly mobs drop them.

I think this would be a bad idea.

Many people, myself included, will never finish off our masteries because getting enough points to do so requires doing content we don't like. Missing out on Spirit Shards is unfortunate, but no so much so that I feel compelled to drag myself through content I won't enjoy. Making the maxed mastery rewards better (by improving them or giving the current ones more uses) could change that. I don't want to feel punished or left behind for not doing content I don't enjoy.

Now, if they went with one of the suggestions such as making it so that you can slowly earn mastery points with EXP as well, then go for it! We'd be able to continue playing the parts we enjoy, with a new goal and rewards awaiting us once we catch up.

Even if a vendor for spirit shards wasn't available all the time, perhaps one or more could be linked to festivals. The Festival of the Four Winds comes to mind, Zommoros loves spirit shards and the entire festival is about trade. Plus with the introduction of the Mythwright Gambit, we know Zommoros is now willing to interact with us Glenna.

@Randulf.7614 said:I would think a better solution is to give spirit shards more relevance. I mean I have thousands and I use a handful in a year. They are very close to being just a dead currency to me.

Alternatively, perhaps remove spirit shards entirely and reward Karma and turn the spirit shard vendor into a karma vendor instead. Karma at least has wider uses and giving it even more credence is unlikely to be a bad thing, esp as it will help with a rather bloated currency system in the game

I would be very annoyed if spirit shards was removed as they have multiple gold making uses.

@Palador.2170 said:I think this would be a bad idea.

Many people, myself included, will never finish off our masteries because getting enough points to do so requires doing content we don't like. Missing out on Spirit Shards is unfortunate, but no so much so that I feel compelled to drag myself through content I won't enjoy. Making the maxed mastery rewards better (by improving them or giving the current ones more uses) could change that. I don't want to feel punished or left behind for not doing content I don't enjoy.

Now, if they went with one of the suggestions such as making it so that you can slowly earn mastery points with EXP as well, then go for it! We'd be able to continue playing the parts we enjoy, with a new goal and rewards awaiting us once we catch up.

Nobody ever said that new spirit shard sinks had to be exclusive to spirit shards. Letting them be used to buy bags of masterwork gear is one option. Or maybe existing crafting materials like blood (1 shard for T1, doubling in cost each tier until 32 shards for T6). It's just a more universally applicable sink that we're looking for so veterans might think about them once in a while.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Nobody ever said that new spirit shard sinks had to be exclusive to spirit shards. Letting them be used to buy bags of masterwork gear is one option. Or maybe existing crafting materials like blood (1 shard for T1, doubling in cost each tier until 32 shards for T6). It's just a more universally applicable sink that we're looking for so veterans might think about them once in a while.

Which is still increasing the value of the reward gained by having all masteries completed, making incomplete masteries more of a detriment.

@Palador.2170 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Nobody ever said that new spirit shard sinks had to be exclusive to spirit shards. Letting them be used to buy bags of masterwork gear is one option. Or maybe existing crafting materials like blood (1 shard for T1, doubling in cost each tier until 32 shards for T6). It's just a more universally applicable sink that we're looking for so veterans might think about them once in a while.

They already are more valuable to have all masteries completed, both in increased number of spirit shards and in the abilities themselves (which are far more valuable than a few items you can easily get elsewhere in the game). You do realize that you only have to complete the masteries for the region you play in, correct? You don't need to complete HoT masteries to get spirit shards in PoF or Core Tyria. Heck, you don't even have to complete HoT Raid masteries at all if you never set foot in a raid.

But this is about you not wanting to do the Fractals track, isn't it? You could always suck it up and do it so you get spirit shards once again. There are enough mastery points to complete the track without ever setting foot in Fractals.

I receive plenty of Spirit Shards without having maxed Mastery Tracks, so I'm all for more uses for Spirit Shards.

I use them all the time now to convert t5 mats to t6. Leave them alone!

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:But this is about you not wanting to do the Fractals track, isn't it?

Nope. If it was about spending the points I'd have done so by now. It's about getting the points.

Some players (like myself) like to simply log in and do whatever sounds fun. We'll wander around the game world, enjoying the parts we like and avoiding the parts we don't. A lot of the mastery points, though, are behind those parts we don't like. To complete the mastery lines, we would have to give up having fun in this game, and approach it as work to be done.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:You could always suck it up and do it so you get spirit shards once again.

And there it is. The expectation that people should do things they don't find enjoyable to avoid being left behind. And it's not like raids, where the system was built with the rewards in mind, this is adding to or improving the rewards to a system that already exists.

I'm not saying to not improve it. Actually, I agree that the reward could stand to be better. But the system it's connected to and restrained by would need to be opened up a bit at the same time to keep things fair.

@"Palador.2170" said:

Some players (like myself) like to simply log in and do whatever sounds fun. We'll wander around the game world, enjoying the parts we like and avoiding the parts we don't. A lot of the mastery points, though, are behind those parts we don't like. To complete the mastery lines, we would have to give up having fun in this game, and approach it as work to be done.Yeah, us casuals have this "problem". But, for me, I've come to the conclusion that there are aspects of GW2 that I simply won't attain.

Mastery points arnt compulsory to have in order to play the game and given that playing the game is itself undefined, you can do whatever you like , and ignore all you dont like and you are still playing the game.Mastery points are in effect a substitute for levels, as this game has a level cap , then players who have reached the level cap will still want to improve their characters in some other way and mastery points provides a substitute.I would expect that future expansions will have even more mastery points .

@Palador.2170 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:But this is about you not wanting to do the Fractals track, isn't it?

Nope. If it was about spending the points I'd have done so by now. It's about getting the points.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:You could always suck it up and do it so you get spirit shards once again.

As I said, the best new options they could add for purchase with spirit shards would be things you can get elsewhere. You, as a casual player who ignores most of the content, wouldn't be losing out on anything, because you could still get the same items from "doing whatever sounds fun."

Meanwhile, those of us who have maxxed out masteries might think about spirit shards once in a while again.

@"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:So, you want to get what people who do more than you get? Why?

As I said, the best new options they could add for purchase with spirit shards would be things you can get elsewhere. You, as a casual player who ignores most of the content, wouldn't be losing out on anything, because you could still get the same items from "doing whatever sounds fun."

Meanwhile, those of us who have maxxed out masteries might think about spirit shards once in a while again.

I'm already getting less than more intense players, and for now I'm okay with that. But by making spirit shards more valuable, you widen the pre-existing gap for casual players.

Please note that I'm not saying they should never improve the use of Spirit Shards. Nor am I telling you "If you want more rewards, stop having fun and work for it", which IS what you're telling me by the way. What I'm saying is that they shouldn't improve a pre-existing system's rewards to where casuals feel left out, unless they also open it up for the more casual players to complete it. Right now, a casual player can simply not finish the masteries they don't feel they need, and not care about the shards. If the shards gain more value, or other rewards are added in, then those masteries won't be as optional.

I don't think that leveling up masteries is exciting at all. Seriously. The game always gives us more mastery points than we actually need. I don't feel the need to complete certain achievements or do anything when I can just COMMUNE with most of the Mastery Points on the map. New Living World maps also give easy access to Mastery Points.

Wait this episode unlock new mastery?! WOW that would be fun. Except it won't because most of the players would be able to unlock the mastery without doing anything on the map. And if they lack a few points they will just commune with insights. So much fun! Mastery Points turned out to be a dead and meaningless system. Mainly because it's so easy to obtain them.

PS. At this point it makes no sense to even attach mastery point cost to masteries when you just give them away with no effort required. It's a waste of resources. Trivializing open world content makes me salty.

@"Assic.2746" said:I don't think that leveling up masteries is exciting at all. Seriously. The game always gives us more mastery points than we actually need. I don't feel the need to complete certain achievements or do anything when I can just COMMUNE with most of the Mastery Points on the map. New Living World maps also give easy access to Mastery Points.

Wait this episode unlock new mastery?! WOW that would be fun. Except it won't because most of the players would be able to unlock the mastery without doing anything on the map. And if they lack a few point they will just commune with insights. So much fun! Mastery Points turned out to be a dead and meaningless system. Mainly because it's so easy to obtain them.

I've got so many I'll never use and I'm always at cap instantly when some new line or ability comes out.

Hopefully the next expansion will make them rare enough where choosing which ones you want matters.

@Klipso.8653 said:

@"Assic.2746" said:I don't think that leveling up masteries is exciting at all. Seriously.

The game always gives us more mastery points than we actually need.

I don't feel the need to complete certain achievements or do anything when I can just

COMMUNE

with most of the Mastery Points on the map. New Living World maps also give easy access to Mastery Points.

Wait this episode unlock new mastery?! WOW that would be fun. Except it won't because most of the players would be able to unlock the mastery without doing anything on the map. And if they lack a few point they will just commune with insights.

So much fun!

Mastery Points turned out to be a dead and meaningless system. Mainly because it's so easy to obtain them.

No, the mastery system is simply not designed to entail that kind of choice. It is a system that expects you to get everything. Since content is then designed with that in mind, getting everything should be within reach of the majority of players.