Mastery System's main flaw

[Linken.6345]

12 minutes ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Having returned to playing GW2 in August 2020 after last playing the game back in 2013, I must admit that the Masteries system confused the hell out of me when I got to HoT, and indicators as to how best advance the masteries in order to advance the story were pretty opaque.

But once I got in to the groove, they came pretty fast.

 

My biggest mastery complaint is with the IBS track.

All previous tracks included enough open world mastery points in order to be completed without having to set foot in an instance (except the raid track, naturally).

Yet if I want to complete the IBS track, there's not enough open world mastery points to complete the track. You have to grind out the four "Glory to the X Legion" cheevos, which are HUGE grinds, and/or shove your head in to strikes and DRMs.

 

But then again, there are enough to complete up to United Legions Waystation Synchronization, with the last section (Dragon Slayer) only being useful in DRMs which I don't play, I've made my peace with that, in much the same way I'll never unlock the Raid-related mastery points.

 

In short, the IBS track is probably the grindiest yet, but at the same time, is less impactful at higher levels than previous tracks.

But dragon response mission are just go in do a instance like a normal story step and commune with a mastery point in each one.

[Mungrul.9358]

42 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

But dragon response mission are just go in do a instance like a normal story step and commune with a mastery point in each one.

 

Sorry, should have been more clear; the ones present in the world in mission I have less of a problem with (do DRM once, get those mastery points).

It's the ones tied to DRMs or strikes that have other requirements, like "Complete 30/40 Dragon Response Missions" or "Defeat the Minister of Morale 50 times in the Cold War Strike Mission" that I find particularly obnoxious.

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

 

Sorry, should have been more clear; the ones present in the world in mission I have less of a problem with (do DRM once, get those mastery points).

It's the ones tied to DRMs or strikes that have other requirements, like "Complete 30/40 Dragon Response Missions" or "Defeat the Minister of Morale 50 times in the Cold War Strike Mission" that I find particularly obnoxious.

it is not 50 times cold war  it is 1 for first play through and a second for 10.

you dont have to do it in a day do it one time a week for 10 weeks mate.

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

It's time boys, GW2 Season Pass, now XP in PvE is valuable again xD.

[Mungrul.9358]

29 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

it is not 50 times cold war  it is 1 for first play through and a second for 10.

you dont have to do it in a day do it one time a week for 10 weeks mate.

I don't think you get the point here.

Before IBS, none of the mastery tracks were this grindy, and there's no need to make these that grindy, besides artificially extending the longevity of limited content developed while resources were limited.

[Gibson.4036]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Nah. While some griefers do that in order to be noticed (and they just do not care how they're perceived), others do it because they derive their enjoyment from ruining enjoyment of someone else. There's no way to fulfill that desire in non-abusive ways.

You and I probably have deep differences in the way we see people, then. I don't think anyone does something just to be evil. Somewhere in there is pain born of an unmet desire. Like you, I expect griefers are largely in a state of arrested development, still doing that thing all children do, where they will provoke negative attention just to get attention. Griefers have just never matured out of it.

If it is purely a desire to inflict harm, then there's a rage in there that has a reason behind it, some perception of an unmet desire.

At any rate, my original post was not intended to uphold griefing as a legitimate form of play. I linked Bartle's player taxonomy to say that Achiever is just as legitimate a player type as Socializer or Explorer. There is nothing wrong with playing games for rewards, though there is something wrong with creating games to exploit and abuse that and there is something wrong if it becomes addiction.

A reductio ad absurdum argument was used in response, implying that I was saying griefing was  legit. In fact, the article I linked even spells out that Bartle identified griefers as a subtype of his "Killer" player. Killer players play for competition, and we have no problem with them in the bounds of legit PvP, or climbing ranking boards in PvE. I expect if griefers could get the kind of attention they desire by being really good players, they'd lose the desire to grief.

[Gibson.4036]

20 minutes ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

I don't think you get the point here.

Before IBS, none of the mastery tracks were this grindy, and there's no need to make these that grindy, besides artificially extending the longevity of limited content developed while resources were limited.

Agreed.

Any goal in game that is simply, "Do this X times over," just looks like the devs' imaginations failed. It becomes transparent that the design idea is entirely, "How can we make people redo things they otherwise wouldn't".

Now, I'm aware that this is behind a great number of things. "Kill these 4 Champs that have a rare chance of spawning during the meta" is still just "Keep doing this meta", but at least it's better disguised.

[Linken.6345]

18 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Agreed.

Any goal in game that is simply, "Do this X times over," just looks like the devs' imaginations failed. It becomes transparent that the design idea is entirely, "How can we make people redo things they otherwise wouldn't".

Now, I'm aware that this is behind a great number of things. "Kill these 4 Champs that have a rare chance of spawning during the meta" is still just "Keep doing this meta", but at least it's better disguised.

There are more people complaining about silverwaste rng bosses then cold war tho were you know exactly how many times you have to do it.

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

There are more people complaining about silverwaste rng bosses then cold war tho were you know exactly how many times you have to do it.

That is a good point, and one I thought about when I was writing my post.

I got three of the silverwaste bosses naturally in the course of just doing RIBA a few times, but I still have yet to get the fourth, in spite of camping its area.

Knowing there is a guaranteed payoff at the end can be helpful, as opposed to just rolling the dice over and over. Still, "do x times" exposes the one for what they both are, which is an artificial content stretch. Like butter scraped over too much bread. 😄

Edited December 7, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[kharmin.7683]

13 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I got three of the silverwaste bosses natually in the course of just doing RIBA a few times, but I still have yet to get the fourth, in spite of camping its area.

I tried that, too.  Didn't work out so well.  Finally got lucky on a day when Silverwastes was a daily.  Hope you get it soon.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

There are threads specifically thinking the xp grind for filling the Mastery bar is too much. I think it is fine just where they are, minus some IBS Masteries.

[Obtena.7952]

Just going to put this out there ... playing a game like this to achieve most of what it offers takes time and it sounds to me like it's time the OP doesn't have to begin with. 

As for IBS mastery track ... it's probably the most restricting, especially if strikes aren't your thing. Still, not unreasonable IMO. A few are grindy? Well, yeah, a few are ... but the fact is that you have choices. If you are being so choosy that none of the options are appealing, you don't really need them anyways. 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952