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Why is the mastery level (number) displayed next to the character name?


Luthan.5236

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I'm wondering about this. I guess back then when it was new (with HoT) people liked to have something different to show to others - for progress - besides the level that existed prior to this.

But nowadays ... unless you have pretty much maxed all the stuff I guess it is meaningless. Someone with like 100-200 could have done HoT first ... or he started with PoF and rushed Skyscale. You just don't know by looking at that number. And for the early progress a lot of stuff is easy to obtain. Just at the very high numbers it might mean anything. (When for a maxed number you know "he even did grind the HoT stuff to max tier" - which in my personal opinion isn't even really grindy.)

I think there could be other stuff. (Or an option for the player to display other stuff.) I like the world completion star. (I guess not many new players do it ... until they might need for the gift for legendaries much later ... but there are other legendaries that do not need core world completion.)

In fractals the party UI already shows (if i am not mistaken) the agony resistance. (Could display on the normal game screen the agony restistance as well - instead of mastery leve l - while in fractals.

For open world maybe some "badges" (like the PvP one) where can chose one. (Similar to titles but harder to obtain. Like the world completion star something for doing all meta achievements of one story season or expansion.)

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It's basically a continuation of showing your level, which I think is why it replaces the level indicator next to your name. You reach level 80 and then (if you have at least one expansion) you start earning XP towards mastery tracks instead of levels.

You're right that it doesn't show which masteries a person has done, or even which expansion/s they've been playing, but the same is true of levels. You can't tell if someone got to level 80 by doing map completion alone, dungeons, meta-events, using tomes of knowledge or whatever else. Similarly I don't think the mastery level is supposed to show what you've completed, just how much you've done in total. It's more like showing how much time you've spent on post-level 80 content.

Personally I'd rather not try to crowd name plates with too much information, and asking players to swap round badges or whatever each time they enter content sounds annoying. (It was bad enough in GW1 where certain titles gave you bonuses in certain areas, I'd often be 1/2 way through before I remembered to change it.)

If you need to know if someone has a specific mastery trained, or other stuff like whether they've done this dungeon or fractal before I think the solution is to ask them about it. That's what my raid training group does - before starting the leader will ask if anyone doesn't have the raid mastery that lets you use rifts, or can't use updrafts or whatever else is going to come up so they can adjust how we do it.

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Yeah. But with the level you actually knew if someone had at least the appropiate level for the map/region. (Back then in the low level regions.) If you have to ask for the masteries first ... then this does not convey any useful information. They could remove the mastery number. (I don't think there is an option in the menu to manually disable so you can hide yours from others or decide to not get it displayed at others.)

Making it customizable would not force/ask players to change it depending on the region - if it was just something to show off ... but customizable. AP actually are much harder to earn. If we consider the highest AP players are in the 5 digits regions now ... and the current mastery numbers are 3 digits ... they could as well decide to show the AP divided by 100.

And I actually would prefer ot show these off next to the name. When you have players with 200 or 300 mastery points spend but only less than 10k or even 5k AP they probably played less than someone with less mastery points spend but more than 20k AP (if he played chronologically in release order ... this might happen).

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@Luthan.5236 said:Yeah. But with the level you actually knew if someone had at least the appropiate level for the map/region. (Back then in the low level regions.) If you have to ask for the masteries first ... then this does not convey any useful information. They could remove the mastery number. (I don't think there is an option in the menu to manually disable so you can hide yours from others or decide to not get it displayed at others.)

Making it customizable would not force/ask players to change it depending on the region - if it was just something to show off ... but customizable. AP actually are much harder to earn. If we consider the highest AP players are in the 5 digits regions now ... and the current mastery numbers are 3 digits ... they could as well decide to show the AP divided by 100.

And I actually would prefer ot show these off next to the name. When you have players with 200 or 300 mastery points spend but only less than 10k or even 5k AP they probably played less than someone with less mastery points spend but more than 20k AP (if he played chronologically in release order ... this might happen).

I really don't put much value in Mastery or AP numbers so my comments are without a preference for change or keeping the same.

Overall, what purpose does a change like this serve? Why does displaying Mastery or AP in a different way matter? What benefit would players get from this, or what problem exists that could be improved upon by this type of change?

As AP already give titles based upon the level of AP, players have an existing choice for displaying that level of accomplishment. I don't believe Raw AP is a good value as it combines Daily rewarded AP (10 per day you complete dailies on) and all other AP. It might be interesting to see AP without Daily AP awards as a shared value.

Regarding Mastery, I agree that until someone gets over 300 MP you really have no idea what they have experience with or what Masteries they may have. Again I don't believe this info is necessary except for a handful of situations. That said, it might be interesting to have Mastery displayed by Region. This way in Core zones you see Core Mastery level, HoT MP in HoT zones etc etc.

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It is to some extent show of experience and probably the best we have. You can see if someone is a fresh lvl 80 somewhere in between or have seen everything including raids. AP is similar but unless someone has really high numbers you don't really know if majority comes from dailies or actually something worth calling achievement.Neither is a show of skill. I wouldn't care if it got removed, don't put much on it.

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Here is the official statement on Masteries:

We want to introduce a new framework for endgame progression and a meaningful way for players to grow their characters and their experience once they’ve reached the maximum level in the game.

Through Masteries, players who’ve reached level 80 will have the opportunity to continue their journey by acquiring powerful new abilities for their entire account. Masteries are the way you will progress after reaching level 80 in PvE...

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

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Some good points here. I don't really like the AP titles. You can only display 1 title and you might want to display one from a specific hard achievement. Also as others already mentioned: A lot of AP can come from daily.

Mastery number per region (when in that maps) ... that might be interesting though.

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@Hesione.9412 said:For mastery per region - that brings in a new wrinkle - mastery points for fractals and raids, both of which are PvE. So, would these PvE mastery points only show once inside the relevant place (staging areas)?Since the Fractal Masteries technically are Core Tyria, they would count towards the number for Core Tyria.

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There is alot of information to get form the mastery level, if you know what to look for. If they lvl 80 with no mastery points, they are probably a free to play account. If they have around 340 mastery, they probably do all content but raids. If they are between 100 to 300 you can safely assume either a casual or an alt. This allow you to have a expectation that is pretty close to their actually play style and game skill. In my experience, alot of toxicity happens when players do not live up to expectations of other players.

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it still says nothing, someone with 200 can just get them from doing everything with others, someone of just 100 could just be 10X better but doesn't care as much.the same goes with AP, someone with 20K+ AP just might have gotten it from mindless grinding while someone with 5K AP could be a master but simply doesn't care about AP's.

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I use the MP number as a reference point to see if people are new to level cap. That way I can suggest early expac content to help their account (mounts, gliding and getting auto loot). It also helps me tell if people have done enough on a new map, if they are close to cap, to understand what is going on.

The only numbers that matter is the lowest and highest 50. Until they make a way to investigate what Masteries each player has directly, this is as good as it gets.

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@sorudo.9054 said:it still says nothing, someone with 200 can just get them from doing everything with others, someone of just 100 could just be 10X better but doesn't care as much.the same goes with AP, someone with 20K+ AP just might have gotten it from mindless grinding while someone with 5K AP could be a master but simply doesn't care about AP's.

This is true, and that's also why I don't even pay attention to it outside of people at the very high or very low end of mastery.

When I play, I still run dungeons a lot, and it helps to have a quick way to assess where people are to avoid unnecessary pug drama. So if I see low AP and single digit mastery points, it's safe to assume they're newer to the game and don't know any of the expected speed/convenience strategies. That gives me a chance to ask if they want to learn the big-boy methods, or if they'd like to take it slower.

If I have a group of 349s with a 341 mixed in there, I know the 341 has done every mastery point except for raids, and there's actually a good chance they would absolutely bristle at the group if we just wordlessly did all the speed clear tactics. Again, seeing that specific 341 number gives me the chance to check with that player to see what they want out of the run.

Of course, the easiest is with a full team of 349s. Chances are they know the game, and know the dungeon. Even if they're clearly running some meme build, that won't matter to me, because it's very likely that they know basic things about not breaking stealth, stacking with the group, cc, and all the other little things that go into making a smooth run regardless of builds. I don't even have to bother to ask anyone anything, we all just know what to do and expect.

But outside of either end, I agree that especially in the 100-250 range it's a real mixed bag and tells me nothing at a glance. I don't think that's reason enough to encourage getting rid of the display entirely, it's just the nature of having a wide range of numbers.

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@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:it still says nothing, someone with 200 can just get them from doing everything with others, someone of just 100 could just be 10X better but doesn't care as much.the same goes with AP, someone with 20K+ AP just might have gotten it from mindless grinding while someone with 5K AP could be a master but simply doesn't care about AP's.

This is true, and that's also why I don't even pay attention to it outside of people at the very high or very low end of mastery.

When I play, I still run dungeons a lot, and it helps to have a quick way to assess where people are to avoid unnecessary pug drama. So if I see low AP and single digit mastery points, it's safe to assume they're newer to the game and don't know any of the expected speed/convenience strategies. That gives me a chance to ask if they want to learn the big-boy methods, or if they'd like to take it slower.

If I have a group of 349s with a 341 mixed in there, I know the 341 has done every mastery point except for raids, and there's actually a good chance they would absolutely bristle at the group if we just wordlessly did all the speed clear tactics. Again, seeing that specific 341 number gives me the chance to check with that player to see what they want out of the run.

Of course, the easiest is with a full team of 349s. Chances are they know the game, and know the dungeon. Even if they're clearly running some meme build, that won't matter to me, because it's
very
likely that they know basic things about not breaking stealth, stacking with the group, cc, and all the other little things that go into making a smooth run regardless of builds. I don't even have to bother to ask anyone anything, we all just know what to do and expect.

But outside of either end, I agree that especially in the 100-250 range it's a real mixed bag and tells me nothing at a glance. I don't think that's reason enough to encourage getting rid of the display entirely, it's just the nature of having a wide range of numbers.

Playing in world events, many players either don't know there is a break bar, don't know what skills to use, or can't be bothered. And people do stuff without wondering about the consequences (let me tell you about the time three players new to the tier 1 swampland fractal decided to click on the challenge mote...). I've also had low mastery-point, low-AP people put out high DPS, not die, in a chak gerent lane because that character was on the alt account of a regularly raiding player.

There are so many ways to get mastery points, and so many carries for players, and the ability to have multiple alt accounts, that mastery points are meaningless in most situations. If 90% of the player base has only 10% of the DPS of the top players, it suggests that many players have high mastery points but hit like a wet blanket. And possibly don't react to fights properly (step out of AoEs, reserve dodge for when you really need it, don't hit the NPC when reflects are up, etc).

Check out WvW where players put down the wrong field, won't stack with everyone else, stand back and won't engage the enemy,... While the bronze, silver, etc show time spent in WvW, time is not necessarily a marker of ability.

tl;dr information such as mastery points is not a marker of player ability/knowledge of the game.

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@voltaicbore.8012 said:Of course, the easiest is with a full team of 349s. Chances are they know the game, and know the dungeon. Even if they're clearly running some meme build, that won't matter to me, because it's very likely that they know basic things about not breaking stealth, stacking with the group, cc, and all the other little things that go into making a smooth run regardless of builds. I don't even have to bother to ask anyone anything, we all just know what to do and expect.

This sort of thing is why I'm glad we have the LFG tool and not just an automated queue that dumps you into any group with a space. I think it's a huge jump in logic to assume that just because someone's spent enough time doing expansion and living world content (mainly open-world stuff) to unlock all the masteries that they want to speed run dungeons and know the routes to do so. I'd hate to have to pick less important materies to skip (it can't be the raids ones, I've got those) just to maintain the courtesy of being asked if I'm aiming for a speed run or actually want to go through the dungeon as designed instead of skipping and stealthing everything.

Fortunately I can either specify if I'm creating the group or look for 'everyone welcome' and other wording that implies they're not expecting a speed run and then discuss what we're doing.

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Yeah. The lfg tool is important. Noticed this with fractals. I'd expect a newbie to announce in his lfg request that he is new. Similar to someone new joining a group. He should mention it. Groups without any further specification probably will expect newbies to join as well (and might be okay with it) but should know about them being new.

Someone mentioned above how he uses the mastery points to assess players. It might work in a lot of cases. Though it necessarily needs to be true every time. Someone with full masteries could even have "bought" a raid boss kill to unlock them to maximize his masteries. I mean ... there are people "selling" raid achievements and stuff.

He does not need to be strong at dungeons automatically. (Also someone that did raids might not have dungeons before. He probably knows lots of combat and usually use mechanics about stealth and stuff. But might be slightly slower than someone that knows the dungeon map - if he never saw that map/rout before. He could be expected to learn it fast though.)

Low mastery people could still be experienced ... if they are doing stuff in release order.

I mean ... I see even people with the title "Hero of Lion's Arch" with low mastery level. According to wiki this was only awarded back then at content not available anymore (living world season 1). They must have stopped playing at some point ... then came back much later. They might not necessarily be unexperienced about mechanics. Maybe they had to get into their elite specs ... but are already good at it and need only time to max other stuff. Especially if they focus on PoF first and maybe even doing raids ... and taking not too much time to maximize the HoT masteries that need a bit more exp.


And no, I am not "salty". (Since someone just popped up to throw in this commend - without anything further helpful in his post.) I'm acutally doing everything in chronolocigal order. And the thing with the expexctations (someone mentioned this) is right: People tend to get angry if there expectations are not met. There might still be some people that interpret the numbers wrong. (Seeing someone with high mastery number thinking he must be good.) I'd rather hide my number having others still available to show theirs.

More about customization for me. Not about forcing you to change stuff every time. Not about taking away the fun from people that want to show off their numbers.

I mean: I saw some old fractal vid where in the party UI it showed mastery level. Now there it shows the agony resistance. So they seem to be open for changes. For the PvP badge you can disable it. (If you want to avoid looking like a noob. Or don't want others to have high expectations in PvE as well - if you have a high rank in PvP.)

And of course my beloved account medals (only visible for us - not to others) that got unimportant much later. (I really liked the order banners that you saw at login. And they changed that as well. Would love to have the order specifig stuff like order backpacks ... with a badge visible. And the sunspear/amnoon/joko banners from PoF. But I guess they will never bring something like that. Only our plain mastey level and the other stuff that I barely found nice to look at.)

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@Hesione.9412 said:

tl;dr information such as mastery points is not a marker of player ability/knowledge of the game.

Eh.

I was speaking about probability. It is far more likely that someone at cap knows certain basic elements of group play and fundamental combat. Yes, you can get carried through a number of achievements. That being said, I doubt that anyone cared enough to ping every single mastery without learning basic things about how fighting and this entire game generally works. So yeah, a hard disagree with you on this one. It is a marker. It's just not a maximally precise or guaranteed one, and I never pretended it was.

@"Danikat.8537" said:

Fortunately I can either specify if I'm creating the group or look for 'everyone welcome' and other wording that implies they're not expecting a speed run and then discuss what we're doing.

Another eh.

I guess your reaction was somewhat my fault because I thought further discussion of how I list things in LFG was tangential at best.

I solo a lot of dungeons faster than working groups, but sometimes post in LFG anyways just to change things up. I rarely list any requirements on either end of the "all welcome" and "experienced only" spectrum, and therefore l treat every single one of my postings as an "all welcome" run.

What this really means is that I never actually get to preemptively take advantage of my own mastery heuristics, but instead am always checking with everyone all the time anyways.

It's precisely this check-with-everyone procedure that confirmed, for me, many of the details I mentioned my earlier post. And yes, I have run into 349s who are not into speeding through things. But guess what? Without exception, they have all known how to handle combat and working with the group. In fact, many run interesting builds to compensate for their preference (and in some cases, their disabilities) that perform admirably.

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@voltaicbore.8012 said:

tl;dr information such as mastery points is not a marker of player ability/knowledge of the game.

Eh.

I was speaking about probability. It is far more likely that someone at cap knows certain basic elements of group play and fundamental combat. Yes, you can get carried through a number of achievements. That being said, I doubt that anyone cared enough to ping every single mastery without learning basic things about how fighting and this entire game generally works. So yeah, a hard disagree with you on this one. It
is
a marker. It's just not a maximally precise or guaranteed one, and I never pretended it was.

You can't talk to probability, you have no evidence either way.

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@Hesione.9412 said:

tl;dr information such as mastery points is not a marker of player ability/knowledge of the game.

Eh.

I was speaking about probability. It is far more likely that someone at cap knows certain basic elements of group play and fundamental combat. Yes, you can get carried through a number of achievements. That being said, I doubt that anyone cared enough to ping every single mastery without learning basic things about how fighting and this entire game generally works. So yeah, a hard disagree with you on this one. It
is
a marker. It's just not a maximally precise or guaranteed one, and I never pretended it was.

You can't talk to probability, you have no evidence either way.

I do, though I haven't documented it. Read the rest of the post.

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@voltaicbore.8012 said:

tl;dr information such as mastery points is not a marker of player ability/knowledge of the game.

Eh.

I was speaking about probability. It is far more likely that someone at cap knows certain basic elements of group play and fundamental combat. Yes, you can get carried through a number of achievements. That being said, I doubt that anyone cared enough to ping every single mastery without learning basic things about how fighting and this entire game generally works. So yeah, a hard disagree with you on this one. It
is
a marker. It's just not a maximally precise or guaranteed one, and I never pretended it was.

You can't talk to probability, you have no evidence either way.

I do, though I haven't documented it. Read the rest of the post.

I did read your post. You have anecdotes. You do not have probability.

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  • 1 year later...

I would like the option to 'Turn OFF' the mastery number over my head. I don't like feeling judged by some number over my head. If someone wants to see that number then they can right click on me and inspect me or something. I feel like it makes me feel horrible for not completing enough or feeling behind. I don't want to feel rushed or incompetent. That's just me though. I know some people will say just ignore it, well then you might as well let me officially ignore it by letting me turn it off lol.  It actually ruins the relaxed game experience I want to feel.

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