A Critical Flaw with the Mastery System

[Tyncale.1629]

I am hugely against this proposal. It would go directly against Anet very successful policy of keeping old zones and content current *and* populated. One of the things I love in this game, is that I always see people playing somewhere.  I also love having an incentive for myself to go to places that I may not have visited for a while. 

 

I hope they never do what the OP proposes. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Tyncale.1629

[Danikat.8537]

13 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

Ok, I don't think people are being entirely fair to OP here.

It's easy to dismiss the complaints as, "Oh, you're just being lazy," and "Oh, you don't have to do it if you don't want to." But some Masteries are quite literally needed to do a few basic things in the game such as building gen. 2 legendary weapons or accessing certain areas of the game.

If all the Masteries were just like a fun little perk system that wasn't ever needed to acquire items and experience content in the game, I don't think OP and me would have nearly as much of an issue with it. But it is needed, and there's no way to get past it for those core things. Therefore, it feels like grinding. Because it is. You have to get the right Masteries in order to progress.

The masteries you need for the story or to navigate areas of the map are always the first few tiers, so they're relatively easy to get.

Take gliding for example, you only need gliding basics and updraft mastery, which costs 3 mastery points and 1,524,000 XP to complete the HoT story and the vast majority of the maps. The other 28 points and 11,938,000 XP is only for bonuses that make it a bit easier to use and for a small number of optional achievements (like one for gliding the full length of the Tangled Depths map which awards 5AP).

Doing the first part of the HoT story (which unlocks the masteries) will give you 1 mastery point and I was able to get enough XP for gliding basics from the first half of an event chain in the cliffs immediately south of the entry point into Verdant Brink, which the story pointed me towards. So just following the story got me the first tier and by the time I needed updraft use I'd gotten enough mastery points and XP from a mix of story instances and open-world events to unlock that too.

It took me over a year to unlock the complete mastery chain but that's precisely because I didn't need it. Once I had those two I prioritised the other masteries needed for the story and then unlocked whichever was cheapest or sounded most interesting whenever I happened to have points available. I didn't want to grind for them so I didn't and making that choice didn't affect my ability to play the rest of the game. That's what's meant by you don't have to do it if you don't want to - it's literally not required for anything except some optional achievements so you're not missing anything if you don't get it.

[Borked.6824]

3 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I have maxed out my mastery points. I have never grinded to get there.  People who play the game get masteries organically.  People who play to get masteries and nothing else choose to grind them.  I just play the game.  

I applaud the system for this reason, and I know it works because I have a history of being compulsive with this type of stuff, but just spending a week "trying" to grind them out you get a very clear spelling, that the intended sensible way of approaching masteries is to keep them parallel to your other progress, and they'll come to you.

 

Regarding the continuity of the masteries within the OP: It's obviously slippery, because on paper it just makes sense that reminders of their presence encourages breaking habituation and creates nuance.  I don't discourage the thought.  However, there is a false sentiment that hovers around most games today that people desire continuity and modes to immerse their time.  But a deeper analysis probably finds that people really just want completion.  GW2 isn't a terrible offender, but it teeters on investing too much in the former.  The feeling of achieving the mountain peak is a nod to move on to better things because you've earned it.  The moment the journey becomes a test to kitten around with my time/wits is where the cool attitude goes out the window and enjoyment comes into question.

[robertthebard.8150]

16 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

It's not about whether you can do it or not. It's about choice. Some people want to get the mounts and/or move on with the story in a timely manner. The required Masteries make that speed of acquisition not possible at all for little, if any reason. This just creates a new level cap with extra steps.

Yes, that's why I applied the edit.

What's wrong with that?  When I read the OP, I'm reading that they want to advance PoF Mastery, for example, in Core Tyria, again, for example.  If one wants to advance the story of a region, they're going to have to be in that region.  Since Mastery XP is rewarded for playing in that region, and assuming you're correct, and I'm misunderstanding the intent, then there's no issue anyway, because you're going to have to be there to do it.

I wanted my Skimmer, and I was already playing on that map.  I went to where the Skimmer is awarded, did the associated quests, got my Mastery right, and got my Skimmer.  It didn't require any grinding, unless one wants to use basic gameplay as grinding?  Masteries are, after all, a new level cap.  More accurately, they're character advancement beyond the level cap, in specific areas of expertise, mounts in general, gliding, skimmers, etc.  I don't see any issue at all with doing them where they're located.

[Lyssia.4637]

On 11/4/2021 at 1:58 PM, Khisanth.2948 said:

That is not a flaw in the mastery system. That is a "how the heck are people still having problem gaining exp in this game?" problem. You are going to have to spend time in the relevant area anyway to get the mastery points otherwise you'll just be stuck with filled exp bars and no way to level the mastery.

This.  I am so glad they fixed the popup that used to yell at me when I had full exp but couldn't "level up", because I STILL have very few mastery points, simply because, outside of the mounts, a handful of QoL core game things, and unlocking the ability to converse with HoT groups for merchant access, none of the masteries are useful enough to me for me to go hunting the points.  I've always found getting the points more "grindy" and annoying than getting the experience. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Lyssia.4637

[ArchonWing.9480]

Breaking down the masteries

Central Tyria

Pact Commander-- Although technically optional, it does provide a lot of abilities with autoloot and running faster in cities. The later is not nearly as needed anymore thanks to mounts though. Pact supply agents are a decent amount of gold. But all and all, the difference between this and a core account is pretty big. You can file this under needed if you wish.

Legendary Crafting-- Only useful for Gen 2 legendaries and this is muted because of the Legendary Armory, not that it meant much in the first place. However, it'd be very strange if you had the time to grind out a gen 2 legendary and not get this... Only possibility is if you don't have access to LS2 but even with that it's possible. Use LFG for Silverwastes.

Fractal Attunement-- Needed if you want to do fractals. While technically optional, it would be recommended if you do fractals at all.

For the most part Central Tyria masteries are very useful, but you really can't escape Core Tyria anyways, and most  of the points and XP are in your face anyways. Even map exploration on a level 80 gives you a fair bit.

Heart of Maguuma

Gliding-- Mostly mandatory in HoT maps unless you bypass it with mounts. Leyline is more or less optional though.

Itzel Lore-- Mostly obsolete with mounts except the poison part.  It really only blocks access to a few mastery points and hero points that you really don't need. Adrenal Mushrooms are cool but not needed

Exalted Lore-- Pretty useless outside of the first two abilities. unless you want speciifc items to the map.... Then you would play it anyways.

Nuhloc Lore

Wallows can be useful and Stealth Collection if you want to bother with treasure mushrooms. Last two I forgot what they even do.

Raids

Required but it's just 8 points. Whatever.

HoT masteries were important for the zones and are very annoying to play without. But it's mostly confined to HoT.

Counter Magic

Just thermal vents and unbound magic collection. Most of this crap doesn't even work elsewhere and is obsoleted by mounts. You need a whole 4 points. The horror!

Path of Fire

 

Raptor

You need Canyon Jumping which takes  a little effort (the horror!). It's not hard to max this out. I don't, because engage attacks are just 1 attack anyways and overkilling open world enemies is w/e

Springer

You need High Vault for sure. The last mastery is cool but some of your mounts never take fall damage anyways....

Skimmer

Skimmer is pretty functional at base, but Ride the Wind is needed for its full potential. Not the end of the world if you don't max it.

Jackal

You don't need the jackal at all, except for some map completion. Any of its abilities is just a plus.

Griffon

Idk, I don't have it.

Roller Bettle

Don't have it either

Skyscale

Yes, but why would you grind out a skyscale and not put the time to level it?

Crystal Champion

They're all very useful but there are other option. You just want Volatile Magic

PoF masteries are necessary to play the maps and story. They also help a lot everywhere. However, you need relatively few of these points for great impact.

IBS

🤥

So in practice, you probably need to grind out about 2/3rds of these, and there are usually alternatives. In reality, you can't really avoid getting the masteries if you're using them as intended unless you're trying really hard. If you're trying to get map related abilities and don't want to actually play the relevant maps, well...

Remember that the Gen 2+ legendaries will take either a HoT or a PoF map compleition so just pick which one you like more. (I prefer HoT myself)

Edited November 5, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Lyssia.4637]

4 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Breaking down the masteries

 

Raids

Required but it's just 8 points. Whatever.

 

Honest question - I don't have this showing up as a track at all yet - required for what?  Just for doing raids, or is this necessary for part of the story somewhere?  Is there actually a raid as mandatory content somewhere, or is this like one of those random "level this mastery to proceed" gates I recall one of the living worlds throwing at me at one point?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

My problem with the Mastery system is all the Masteries that you level up that don't work elsewhere. For some of them, this makes sense, but for example alot of the Heart of Thorns Masteries would still function elsewhere in Tyria.

 

Examples:

- Poison Lore could give resistance to some toxic conditions, while Alchemy could make your dodge cleanse them.

- Stealth Detection could let you see Snow Leopards, Skelks, etc.

- Koda's Flame could be a summonable item that you could use anywhere, similar to Waystations.

 

Of coures, all of these would only work in open-world for balance, but you can see how Masteries could be applied anywhere. Yes, it would make players a little stronger, but isn't that the point of progression?

 

Right now most Masteries are simply discardable content, which is becoming a meme in this game.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[ArchonWing.9480]

8 minutes ago, Lyssia.4637 said:

Honest question - I don't have this showing up as a track at all yet - required for what?  Just for doing raids, or is this necessary for part of the story somewhere?  Is there actually a raid as mandatory content somewhere, or is this like one of those random "level this mastery to proceed" gates I recall one of the living worlds throwing at me at one point?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_Thorns_mastery_tracks

Unlocked after completing any encounter of either Forsaken Thicket and Bastion of the Penitent raids.^[1] (This includes killing bosses or completing events, but Spirit Woods and Twisted Castle will not unlock the track.) [

So you wouldn't get this normally.

Edited November 5, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Danikat.8537]

16 minutes ago, Lyssia.4637 said:

Honest question - I don't have this showing up as a track at all yet - required for what?  Just for doing raids, or is this necessary for part of the story somewhere?  Is there actually a raid as mandatory content somewhere, or is this like one of those random "level this mastery to proceed" gates I recall one of the living worlds throwing at me at one point?

The raid track is hidden precisely because it's not necessary unless you're doing raids and raiding is optional. It's hidden so players who aren't interested in raiding can still complete all the raids.

The masteries only work inside raids, and they're not even required for raiding, they just make some things quicker, so you're not missing anything if you're not raiding and don't unlock them.

[Gibson.4036]

27 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

My problem with the Mastery system is all the Masteries that you level up that don't work elsewhere. For some of them, this makes sense, but for example alot of the Heart of Thorns Masteries would still function elsewhere in Tyria.

 

Examples:

- Poison Lore could give resistance to some toxic conditions, while Alchemy could make your dodge cleanse them.

- Stealth Detection could let you see Snow Leopards, Skelks, etc.

- Koda's Flame could be a summonable item that you could use anywhere, similar to Waystations.

 

Of coures, all of these would only work in open-world for balance, but you can see how Masteries could be applied anywhere. Yes, it would make players a little stronger, but isn't that the point of progression?

 

Right now most Masteries are simply discardable content, which is becoming a meme in this game.

It would be nice if there was use for them in later content. Just this week I encountered the poison haze area on the lowest level of the light puzzle tower in Bjora Marches. That should totally be an area where Poison Lore comes into effect.

I could swear there is a cave in Sandswept Isles that uses Itzel Poison Lore, but when I look on the wiki it doesn't mention it. I run into it whenever I do Difluorite node runs. I remember dying to the grreen mist, but now don't after I've gotten poison lore. Looking at the wiki, this green mist might not be poison at all, but radiation from Inquest experiments. In that case, though, I have no explanation why I'm no longer damaged by it.

[Lyssia.4637]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_Thorns_mastery_tracks

Unlocked after completing any encounter of either Forsaken Thicket and Bastion of the Penitent raids.^[1] (This includes killing bosses or completing events, but Spirit Woods and Twisted Castle will not unlock the track.) [

So you wouldn't get this normally.

 

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

The raid track is hidden precisely because it's not necessary unless you're doing raids and raiding is optional. It's hidden so players who aren't interested in raiding can still complete all the raids.

The masteries only work inside raids, and they're not even required for raiding, they just make some things quicker, so you're not missing anything if you're not raiding and don't unlock them.

Ah, thanks for the info!  That makes sense.  

[Astralporing.1957]

23 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

If all the Masteries were just like a fun little perk system that wasn't ever needed to acquire items and experience content in the game, I don't think OP and me would have nearly as much of an issue with it. But it is needed, and there's no way to get past it for those core things. Therefore, it feels like grinding. Because it is. You have to get the right Masteries in order to progress.

But that's primarily a problem of mastery points accessibility and, in general, a lot of mastery tiers (or whole mastery lines) being pretty much useless beyond confines of one map/region. And sometimes less than useful even there. Mastery XP is possibly the least of the problems people might have with this system.

[Cuks.8241]

Never really had problems acquiring mastery points or exp and soon I just had excess of everything without really noticing it. The points are just something I picked along the way and exp came in between naturally.

And I wouldn's say masteries are grindy at all as some wrote in this thread. Really not much repetitive grind in there. It's actually much easier if you play all types of pve content as each have some masteries.

 

[ugrakarma.9416]

On 11/4/2021 at 5:36 PM, MikeG.6389 said:

According to gw2efficiency.com, only about 15% of the players have already collected the 366 Mastery Points needed to max out the Mastery Levels. Granted, it's not evenly distributed among the regions, but even in the case of core masteries, it only goes up to 40% of the players.

I think the problem of grinding is one that you imposed on yourself. There are achievements that fit that categorisation better than the mastery system. You can always opt not to do all of them. It's only a race if you make it to be.

theres masteries behind raids.  so this average will be always low.

[Handsel.2891]

3 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

theres masteries behind raids.  so this average will be always low.

Yeah, 8 Points. As it has already been pointed out. Doesn't change much.

[Sobx.1758]

22 hours ago, MikeG.6389 said:

Yeah, 8 Points. As it has already been pointed out. Doesn't change much.

It changes a lot when you see he's responding to the post that brings up some statistics in regards of getting all mastery points. In which case someone just skips those 8 if they're not interested in the content anyways and tbh I don't see the problem with someone not having maxed out mastery points if they don't need them anyway. Not sure how that was supposed to be an argument for anything.

[Astralporing.1957]

41 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

It changes a lot when you see he's responding to the post that brings up some statistics in regards of getting all mastery points.

As a side comment - notice, that those statictics do not count unlocked masteries, merely total number of mastery points posessed - which can be much higher than the max mastery level of 366 (top players on that statistics list have 487 points). Which of course means that the statistics of unlocked mastery levels will be even lower than those, btw. And that, indeed, for those statistics 8 mastery points from raids really do not make all that much difference - it increases the percentage by one percentage point, to 16%.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

31 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

As a side comment - notice, that those statictics do not count unlocked masteries

Oh, then I've misunderstood the initial comment and took it as "unlocked masteries"/"mastery score" instead of "total mastery points unlocked through any means". In that case it really doesn't matter.

[Handsel.2891]

7 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Oh, then I've misunderstood the initial comment and took it as "unlocked masteries"/"mastery score" instead of "total mastery points unlocked through any means". In that case it really doesn't matter.

I explained in a later post why I thought the statistic was relevant. That's why I wrote that the 8 points for Raids doesn't change much.

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, MikeG.6389 said:

I explained in a later post why I thought the statistic was relevant. That's why I wrote that the 8 points for Raids doesn't change much.

...I already wrote I misunderstood it, which means now I do understand it and don't need further explanations, thanks 😛

Edited November 7, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Handsel.2891]

12 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

...I already wrote I misunderstood it, which means now I do understand it and don't need further explanations, thanks 😛

"All right, we'll call it a draw."

[ASP.8093]

On 11/5/2021 at 3:48 PM, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Griffon

Idk, I don't have it.

Roller Bettle

Don't have it either

You're missing out.

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, ASP.8093 said:

You're missing out.

I'll get the Rolling Bettle eventually. Still working on Skyscale.

Not getting Griffon because I don't want to finish PoF story and it would seem redundant with Skyscale.

Edited November 7, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Gehenna.3625]

On 11/5/2021 at 12:23 AM, Arnox.5128 said:

Are you one of those people who thinks legendary weapons are "mostly cosmetic"?

EDIT: Actually, on second thought, I know what you're talking about now, but even putting gen. 2 legendaries aside, some Masteries are still absolutely required.

Other things like fractals are required for gen 2 legendaries. I don't actually like fractals but I wanted to have Nevermore and so I did the fractals required. Getting masteries are no different from that.

For legendary items, that are essentially a mixture between cosmetics and convenience, it's just those two elements that exist. The legendary armory addition makes gen 2 weapons almost just about cosmetics since gen 1 weapons are a lot easier/cheaper to make. Ok there are dual wielders of swords or axes but I'm sure EoD will provide another opportunity for those.

 

But yeah masteries are required for some things. Also levels are required for some content and fractals are required for some things, WvW is required for some thing, sPvP is required for some thing, Raids are required for some things etc. You just happen to not like to do the masteries and that's your prerogative, but if you don't want to do the content you don't get to win the prizes. /shrug