Please add core mastery points to living world season one

[Kolzi.5928]

The main sources of core mastery points at the moment are fractals and living world season 2. Before the release of season one, this worked fairly well as the story content you would go into right after personal story was giving you points. With the current setup, you have to go through four (eventually six) full story chapters before getting a single point from doing them. Of course there are points scattered around at mastery insights and the like, but that won't get you too far in training your masteries and you will almost certainly hit a wall as a result. Your only options at that point are to skip ahead to season 2 stuff or doing things in the silverwastes, spoiling future directions of the story for yourself, or to jump into fractals. I enjoy fractals as much as the next person, but I don't think people should feel pressured to go into them just to complete low level masteries, not to mention the potential of actually spoiling the story for yourself by doing fractals as a number of fractals deal with the main story.

 

My suggestion is just to copy the season one model: one core mastery point for completing a chapter, and another point for completing all the achievements within a chapter.

[Fenom.9457]

I agree, just even one point for finishing the story or for the meta achievement would do wonders. It would be a nice introduction to that system for new players and relieve a little the core points being so strict - I’ve seen many people over the years, even to this day, dismayed that it’s too hard to get enough points for all the masteries in core. 

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

It is weird that Season 1 is the only story that doesn't reward any mastery points. Most Seasons give one per story instance, Season 2 gives 2 for each episode, but honestly even if it's just one per episode for the new masteries it'd be nice. 5 new points in total.

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It is weird that Season 1 is the only story that doesn't reward any mastery points. Most Seasons give one per story instance, Season 2 gives 2 for each episode, but honestly even if it's just one per episode for the new masteries it'd be nice. 5 new points in total.

The issue is, of course, that there was no mastery points when they made original Season 1, and no season 1 when they made core masteries and introduced core mastery points. Now that they are releasing Season 1, they are probably afraid of adding more easily accessible mastery points without any additional mastery to spend them on.

[Sobx.1758]

I think there's enough core mastery points as it is.

[Choyacute.8591]

It seem to be a very good idea, when i started gaining mastery point, the core one was a pain, but thanks to event like the triple wurm thing it helped a lot gather core mastery.

 

And one of the most important mastery is the autoloot if new players can access more easily mastery like this one, it would be very good for the game and the new players.

 

I see no downside to that.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

15 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The issue is, of course, that there was no mastery points when they made original Season 1, and no season 1 when they made core masteries and introduced core mastery points. Now that they are releasing Season 1, they are probably afraid of adding more easily accessible mastery points without any additional mastery to spend them on.

Not an issue at all.

There were no mastery points when they made the core story or Season 2. They added those in retroactively with Heart of Thorns. In Season 3, they added 9 new mastery points in core to add more easily accessible mastery points because it was an issue for many players to get enough.

There is a plethora of extra mastery points for HoT, PoF, IBS, and even EoD mastery lines as well as it stands - especially HoT and PoF.

 

That said, I have been and will continue to be in support of making warclaw a core mount, since it's the slowest and thus "most basic" mount, and giving it a core mastery line would be a great addition. Double so if you can unlock and use it in PvE separately (just keep the WvW Ability Point what locks the mount in WvW and unlocking it via that collection).

[Kolzi.5928]

On 9/14/2022 at 9:05 AM, Sobx.1758 said:

I think there's enough core mastery points as it is.

The issue is not if there is "enough", the issue is where they are located.

[Linken.6345]

4 minutes ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

The issue is not if there is "enough", the issue is where they are located.

And thats not an issue either.

[Kolzi.5928]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

And thats not an issue either.

You say this is not an issue, but I have been playing with someone new to the game over the past month and I can assure you, it definitely *is* an issue. She was capped on exp a lot of the time whilst trying to hunt down more and more masteries in ever more obscure places - at times even spoiling herself on story beats in the process.

There should be an obvious path to follow when you hit 80 and are working on your first few masteries. At the moment, that "path" is like... go to the silverwastes and hope for rare spawns, or try to do achievements in fractals, or skip straight past the first season of story content to do the second season.

The mastery insights scattered around the world are the only ones that aren't part of this, but there's only a handful and they're scattered all across the what... 25 core tyria zones? In my eyes, your mastery points (or at least, your earlier ones) should come to you naturally through gameplay. Not from looking in the UI to find which zones have insights and bee-lining for those.

 

edit: Plus I really do not understand why anyone would actually oppose this? Adding a mastery point reward to existing achievements could not possibly take much developer time.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Kolzi.5928
proofreading

[Cyninja.2954]

Currently there is a spare 33 core Tyria mastery points nearly covering the 49 mastery points required for the core masteries almost twice over.

 

What the game needs might be a slightly better visual system to let players plan which mastery points to go for as guidance.

 

The alternative of just lumping in more and more mastery points until they are even more meaningless could be just as well replaced by removing mastery points all together.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

28 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Currently there is a spare 33 core Tyria mastery points nearly covering the 49 mastery points required for the core masteries almost twice over.

That's a bit over generous. Consider what some of those achievements are.

You have 5 for Triple Trouble, which you need an organized full squad for, 4 for Tier 4 fractals, a handful of very expensive achievements like Emperor's Wardrobe or Golden Fractal Master, and the 5 points for the very RNG and super tedious Silverwaste legendary bosses, and there are even some locked behind doing stuff that are Season 3 spoilers.

 

Off-hand count, of those "spare 33", over 20 are as unreliable as the HoT/PoF raid mastery points.

And comparing to HoT, PoF, and EoD - they all have over 40 spare points for people wanting to avoid expensive or highly challenging content.

It's easy for vets to say "yes, there are enough" because we've already done the stuff to get it done. But for a new player, it isn't exactly so, and core masteries are not only the first encountered, but also among the hardest to get, especially if you don't own Season 2 (which is a whopping 19 mastery points).

Adding 5 more points won't be a bad thing no matter how you view it.

[Kolzi.5928]

46 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Currently there is a spare 33 core Tyria mastery points nearly covering the 49 mastery points required for the core masteries almost twice over.

 

What the game needs might be a slightly better visual system to let players plan which mastery points to go for as guidance.

 

The alternative of just lumping in more and more mastery points until they are even more meaningless could be just as well replaced by removing mastery points all together.

Let's analyze those 82 mastery points.

 

16 of them are located in season 2, so that is by all reasonable metrics off-limits to someone who has just hit 80. Another 7 are in the silverwastes, and one is in dry top, which should also be off-limits for the same reason.

 

18 are located in fractals of the mists. I would argue that fractals, even low level ones, are not somewhere that a new player should be immediately diving into. It is also worth pointing out that there are a number of fractals (including ones containing mastery points) which are direct spoilers for the story of season one. So these are also not great choices for new players, even if they are directed to them. At this point, we've already crossed 42 points off the list as being reasonable to approach for new players.

 

There are six which are tied to collections which are *definitely* not reasonable for new players to achieve, and another one is from buying a truly absurd amount of cultural armour which is also not reasonable for new players. There are two explorer achievements which are both massive undertakings to do without an external guide, which I would argue also makes them not reasonable for new players. We've crossed off another 9 at this point, for 51 that are not appropriate for new players.

 

Conservation of magic and transfer chaser each award one, but they are spoilers for season 3 story content. World completion gives one, that is a massive undertaking that we can't point to as a reasonable goal for new players. So we now have 54 that are not appropriate for new players.

 

You get eight for completing the personal story and one for completing all the dungeons in story mode. You also get one for hitting level 80. These are obviously pretty reasonable for new players. The hidden garden jumping puzzle contains one, kind of arguable how fair this one is without being directed to it. So that represents 10 mastery points that are reasonable and one that could be if the system were changed.

 

9 are scattered across the open world as mastery insights. These are reasonably attainable by a newly 80, however I would argue it is not reasonable to assume a newly 80 is going to find all of them (incidentally, the mastery insights from IBS dragon response missions need to be removed from being visible in the map normally or adjust visually somehow, because they look the same as core tyria mastery points when you haven't collected them and thus are very confusing to new players).

 

Tequatl, karka queen and triple trouble are not really reasonable for new players to be expected to get right now, but if there was a better system of pointing players towards them, KQ + Tequatl at least would probably be fair and there'd be a decent case for triple trouble as well. Between them, they represent 8 mastery points (5 of those in the relatively inaccessible triple trouble boss fight).

 

So in the current system, you have 9 points which all new players will get and a tenth which is not unreasonable to get (the dungeons one), and 9 insights of which a lucky player who isn't going out of their way to hunt them down using the achievement ui might find... four or five. That's not even enough to learn auto loot...

 

46 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The alternative of just lumping in more and more mastery points until they are even more meaningless could be just as well replaced by removing mastery points all together.

 

Are core mastery points actually particularly meaningful? Do we need to be elitist about core Tyria masteries? They're basically just an introduction to the system. Also let's be clear, even if you do all the story achievements to get all the points possible from story (which is a fair effort) - under what I am suggesting, personal story + season 1 + season 2 would still only amount to 35 of the 49 points you need. You will still need to go hunting at some point to finish off your masteries. You just have a reasonable way to spend your filled-up exp bar while progressing through the story and might actually unlock autoloot in a reasonable time frame.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Kolzi.5928

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

Let's analyze those 82 mastery points.

 

16 of them are located in season 2, so that is by all reasonable metrics off-limits to someone who has just hit 80. Another 7 are in the silverwastes, and one is in dry top, which should also be off-limits for the same reason.

These are off limits why exactly? To me it seems rather that this encourages players to play season 2, hence get involved with the story. Almost as though mastery points are a method of directing players to specific content.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

18 are located in fractals of the mists. I would argue that fractals, even low level ones, are not somewhere that a new player should be immediately diving into. It is also worth pointing out that there are a number of fractals (including ones containing mastery points) which are direct spoilers for the story of season one. So these are also not great choices for new players, even if they are directed to them. At this point, we've already crossed 42 points off the list as being reasonable to approach for new players.

At the same time, 11 of those points are used in fractals meaning if one is not interested in this, you lose out on 7 spare points. At the same time, a vast majority are doable in fractal T1, are very easy and once again: mastery points are used as a guide to encourage players get involved with content.

I do not share your assumption that these points are to be crossed off. On the contrary, these points are some of the few which actually achieve one of their intended purposes.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

There are six which are tied to collections which are *definitely* not reasonable for new players to achieve, and another one is from buying a truly absurd amount of cultural armour which is also not reasonable for new players. There are two explorer achievements which are both massive undertakings to do without an external guide, which I would argue also makes them not reasonable for new players. We've crossed off another 9 at this point, for 51 that are not appropriate for new players.

True, those 6 are to expensive.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

Conservation of magic and transfer chaser each award one, but they are spoilers for season 3 story content. World completion gives one, that is a massive undertaking that we can't point to as a reasonable goal for new players. So we now have 54 that are not appropriate for new players.

Debatable, but let's agree.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

You get eight for completing the personal story and one for completing all the dungeons in story mode. You also get one for hitting level 80. These are obviously pretty reasonable for new players. The hidden garden jumping puzzle contains one, kind of arguable how fair this one is without being directed to it. So that represents 10 mastery points that are reasonable and one that could be if the system were changed.

 

9 are scattered across the open world as mastery insights. These are reasonably attainable by a newly 80, however I would argue it is not reasonable to assume a newly 80 is going to find all of them (incidentally, the mastery insights from IBS dragon response missions need to be removed from being visible in the map normally or adjust visually somehow, because they look the same as core tyria mastery points when you haven't collected them and thus are very confusing to new players).

You mean a new player can't be expected to interact with the achievement panel or look up a guide on where to get mastery points? Seems to me you are assuming new players are idiots.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

Tequatl, karka queen and triple trouble are not really reasonable for new players to be expected to get right now, but if there was a better system of pointing players towards them, KQ + Tequatl at least would probably be fair and there'd be a decent case for triple trouble as well. Between them, they represent 8 mastery points (5 of those in the relatively inaccessible triple trouble boss fight).

Once again, mastery points serve as a guide to content. Tripple Trouble is pretty much the only fight I'd say is harder to get into, but even then it is a rather epic one.

1 hour ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

So in the current system, you have 9 points which all new players will get and a tenth which is not unreasonable to get (the dungeons one), and 9 insights of which a lucky player who isn't going out of their way to hunt them down using the achievement ui might find... four or five. That's not even enough to learn auto loot...

Are core mastery points actually particularly meaningful? Do we need to be elitist about core Tyria masteries? They're basically just an introduction to the system. Also let's be clear, even if you do all the story achievements to get all the points possible from story (which is a fair effort) - under what I am suggesting, personal story + season 1 + season 2 would still only amount to 35 of the 49 points you need. You will still need to go hunting at some point to finish off your masteries. You just have a reasonable way to spend your filled-up exp bar while progressing through the story and might actually unlock autoloot in a reasonable time frame.

Yes, core mastery points are meaningful. We could also just scrap the system entirely. Right now, mastery points are one of the few ways to guide players to content in a game where one of the main complaints is: what should I do.

This has nothing to do with being elitist even if you might want to lump this term onto anything you disagree with. Acknowledging that mastery points serve a specific function beside "keeping players from getting a mastery" might be a first step you could take in understanding how this game works.

All I am saying is: if mastery points become meaningless because you get them left and right, we might as well do away with them.

I don't expect a fresh 80 or new player to get all the mastery points they need within 2-3 days, not because I think they should "suffer" through content but rather because I think they should enjoy working towards completing the masteries while using mastery point unlocks to discover different aspects of the game. Now certainly this sentiment will not get shared by every player but it is something that needs to be considered as far as the game is concerned.

EDIT:

and on a more personal note: this entire "open world is the only content and we should get everything handed to us" mentality which has taken root in part of this games player base is sickening and destructive to say the least. Mastery points are fine for the most part (IBS could be arguable given there actually is a very low amount of spare points). Would 5 more points for completing the LWS1 story chapter be to much, certainly not, but to player which do not enjoy completing objectives to get their mastery points it would still be to little.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

That's a bit over generous. Consider what some of those achievements are.

You have 5 for Triple Trouble, which you need an organized full squad for, 4 for Tier 4 fractals, a handful of very expensive achievements like Emperor's Wardrobe or Golden Fractal Master, and the 5 points for the very RNG and super tedious Silverwaste legendary bosses, and there are even some locked behind doing stuff that are Season 3 spoilers.

 

Off-hand count, of those "spare 33", over 20 are as unreliable as the HoT/PoF raid mastery points.

True, but those are "spare" points. Even only 1 spare point is enough if the majority of points are easy to get.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And comparing to HoT, PoF, and EoD - they all have over 40 spare points for people wanting to avoid expensive or highly challenging content.

HoT, PoF and EoD all require vastly more mastery points in total. As the amount of points required grows, so should the amount of spare points.

In a direct comparison of spare points versus total points available:

- core 33/81 = 40% spare points

- HoT 55/213 = 25% spare points

- PoF 20/81 = 25% spare points

- IBS 13/31 = 41% spare points

- EoD 26/63 = 41% spare points

We can see that mastery points are approximately aimed at 25-40% spare points (astonishingly similar across all mastery lines btw) as to both not make points to limited as well as not to ample. Notice also that before the addition of the 9 extra points in core, the rate was 24/72, aka 33%. Which is probably the reason those 9 points got introduced in the first place.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It's easy for vets to say "yes, there are enough" because we've already done the stuff to get it done. But for a new player, it isn't exactly so, and core masteries are not only the first encountered, but also among the hardest to get, especially if you don't own Season 2 (which is a whopping 19 mastery points).

Yes, the more of a reason to get season 2 then and play the story in a coherent manner.

I'd be far more inclined to argue that making season 2 free is a more sensible approach than just lumping more and more spare mastery points in. It would also smoothen the transition into HoT and beyond.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Adding 5 more points won't be a bad thing no matter how you view it.

Adding 5 more points will do just as good as adding 0 more points: the players that struggle now will continue to struggle, the players that have no issue with it will continue to have no issue with it. The only thing it does is dilute the actual purpose and meaning to have mastery points in the first place: content guidance and minor goals.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

31 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

True, but those are "spare" points. Even only 1 spare point is enough if the majority of points are easy to get.

But my point is that of the core mastery points, most aren't "easy to get".

31 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Adding 5 more points will do just as good as adding 0 more points: the players that struggle now will continue to struggle, the players that have no issue with it will continue to have no issue with it. The only thing it does is dilute the actual purpose and meaning to have mastery points in the first place: content guidance and minor goals.

I firmly disagree here. If people are struggling it's because the remaining accessible mastery points are locked behind content they don't normally play or a expensive of challenging gate. And the idea behind Guild Wars 2 is to be both casual friendly and to let people focus on the content they prefer to play.

Core masteries might be 40% spare according to your maths (wiki is f'd up right now so I can't verify without putting more effort than I care to atm), but they're also some of the hardest to actually get overall. Players who don't enjoy fractals, forced organization world bosses, spending hundreds of gold, or waiting eternally for rare RNG bosses shouldn't be penalized in a game that promotes 'play your way'.

[Cyninja.2954]

22 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

But my point is that of the core mastery points, most aren't "easy to get".

and mine is: enough are easy and reasonable enough to get. There a tons of guides out there on how to get those "first" 48 points and none of them are difficult.

22 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I firmly disagree here. If people are struggling it's because the remaining accessible mastery points are locked behind content they don't normally play or a expensive of challenging gate. And the idea behind Guild Wars 2 is to be both casual friendly and to let people focus on the content they prefer to play.

Which does not have to exclude encouraging player to try other content at least once.

22 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Core masteries might be 40% spare according to your maths (wiki is f'd up right now so I can't verify without putting more effort than I care to atm), but they're also some of the hardest to actually get overall. Players who don't enjoy fractals, forced organization world bosses, spending hundreds of gold, or waiting eternally for rare RNG bosses shouldn't be penalized in a game that promotes 'play your way'.

You can play your way. You don't need maxed masteries for that. In fact, you can skip 2 of the core mastery lines all-together and not notice a single thing in your game play.

In fact, the only really "needed" mastery is the Pact Commander one and the 19 points needed for that one are easily attained from:

- level to 80 (1)

- finish the story once (8)

- get the core mastery insights (9)

- get any 1 more mastery point from anywhere

Fractals are self contained and the ONLY core mastery which takes some extra effort, and not much at that, would be legendary crafting which is neither essential nor needed and can be bypassed by buying the precursor from the TP if so inclined.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

and mine is: enough are easy and reasonable enough to get. There a tons of guides out there on how to get those "first" 48 points and none of them are difficult.

I don't think doing basic leveling of core mechanics should require a guide for players to max out. Nor do I think players should simply skip out because it "isn't necessary to master" (by that virtue, none by tier 1 or 2 and the occasional third of any mastery line is necessary).

So I guess we'll have to simply agree to disagree.

[Sobx.1758]

13 hours ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

The issue is not if there is "enough", the issue is where they are located.

13 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

And thats not an issue either.

Exactly, when I said there's enough mastery points, I wasn't counting season 2 points and where the rest is placed isn't an issue.

[Kolzi.5928]

On 9/16/2022 at 7:57 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

These are off limits why exactly? To me it seems rather that this encourages players to play season 2, hence get involved with the story. Almost as though mastery points are a method of directing players to specific content.

 

They're off-limits because you should finish season one first. That's why I'm suggesting that season one gets mastery points, so people do not feel starved for them and be encouraged by the games design to skip content... you're not making any kind of argument here as to why mastery points in season one is a bad idea.

 

On 9/16/2022 at 10:05 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

and mine is: enough are easy and reasonable enough to get. There a tons of guides out there on how to get those "first" 48 points and none of them are difficult.

 

You shouldn't need to use a guide to get your first batches of points, that's just bad game design.

 

On 9/16/2022 at 7:57 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

This has nothing to do with being elitist even if you might want to lump this term onto anything you disagree with. Acknowledging that mastery points serve a specific function beside "keeping players from getting a mastery" might be a first step you could take in understanding how this game works.

All I am saying is: if mastery points become meaningless because you get them left and right, we might as well do away with them.

 

I've already done the math, clearly showing how you still need to interact with the other mastery points in the system even if they added the ones I suggested. So no, you're just making a really bad slippery slope argument along with for some reason throwing in attacks on me, suggesting I don't understand how the game works.

 

Core tyria mastery points are not well designed for guiding people to various points in the game. They're incredibly clumped up in tiny areas (like fractals and silverwastes), attached to content that is loaded with spoilers and arbitrary, extremely expensive collections, and the UI is not well designed to use them as a guide towards content. You yourself suggest that they're easy to get "if you use a guide". It's not really doing the job of a guide properly then, is it?

 

If you're that worried about the amount of mastery points being too high, they can just reallocate some instead of adding (this is extremely unnecessary but whatever). Maybe we don't need so many in silverwastes or fractals, or whatever. The point is that there should be a smooth period of getting mastery points when you are early in the mastery system. That's how it worked until the season one release, and the season one release has disrupted that, I am suggest a simple solution. All you seem to be able to offer in response is some vague complaint that "The mastery points won't mean anything", something I've already shown to be incorrect with that mysterious power known as math.

[Kolzi.5928]

On 9/16/2022 at 7:57 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

and on a more personal note: this entire "open world is the only content and we should get everything handed to us"

 

This has nothing to do with that, you're just making up arguments whilst ignoring what is actually being said. What I am talking about is a smooth introduction to the mastery system which allows you to figure out how it works easily at a point in the game when you're already being overwhelmed with new systems and currencies, and that makes it easy to get a very basic game function that honestly shouldn't be locked behind a mastery, but is (auto loot). But above above all else, a change that fixes the perverse incentives of the current mastery layout which actively encourages you to spoil yourself on the games story in order to get those points. I don't understand how you could accuse someone else of not knowing how the game system works, and yet completely gloss over that issue.

[Sobx.1758]

On 9/17/2022 at 12:20 PM, Kolzi.5928 said:

They're off-limits because you should finish season one first. That's why I'm suggesting that season one gets mastery points, so people do not feel starved for them and be encouraged by the games design to skip content... you're not making any kind of argument here as to why mastery points in season one is a bad idea.

No worries, there's not some incredible amount of drops in season 1, you can easly play through it to get to season 2. Or just get different core achievement points, which -as already pointed out- are in accessible places and there's more of them than you need.

On 9/17/2022 at 12:24 PM, Kolzi.5928 said:

But above above all else, a change that fixes the perverse incentives of the current mastery layout which actively encourages you to spoil yourself on the games story in order to get those points.

No, it doesn't.

 

On 9/16/2022 at 8:42 AM, Kolzi.5928 said:

Are core mastery points actually particularly meaningful? Do we need to be elitist about core Tyria masteries? They're basically just an introduction to the system. Also let's be clear, even if you do all the story achievements to get all the points possible from story (which is a fair effort) - under what I am suggesting, personal story + season 1 + season 2 would still only amount to 35 of the 49 points you need. You will still need to go hunting at some point to finish off your masteries. You just have a reasonable way to spend your filled-up exp bar while progressing through the story and might actually unlock autoloot in a reasonable time frame.

And tbh I don't see by what logic you should be able to max core masteries by just playing through the story.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Sobx.1758
For some reason last quote was shown as if it was written by Cyninja instead of Kolzi, so fixed

[Cyninja.2954]

7 hours ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

They're off-limits because you should finish season one first. That's why I'm suggesting that season one gets mastery points, so people do not feel starved for them and be encouraged by the games design to skip content... you're not making any kind of argument here as to why mastery points in season one is a bad idea.

 

 

You shouldn't need to use a guide to get your first batches of points, that's just bad game design.

You don't need a guide at all. In fact, as mentioned, just finishing the core story, leveling to 80 and getting the insights, which could organically be done while leveling, provides a large amount of mastery points out the gate. More than enough for finishing pact commander for example.

Add to that the points from Silverwastes and fractals and any player is basically done with core Tyria mastery points.

The main difference I see here is:

I don't believe that a "new" players should have all the mastery points they need out the gate by simply playing the story. Nor do I see it as a large issue that they might have to go out of their way between ending the core story and season 2, something which happens after hitting level 80, to get more mastery points.

I actually think it's a good thing they might get "stuck" mastery point wise at some point, thus encouraging them to actually interact with the system and make meaningful decisions as to how to get more mastery points (something which is relevant in later content). The issue with automatic mastery point unlocks, especially in regards to story unlocks, is that they require 0 understanding or interaction with the mastery system.

7 hours ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

I've already done the math, clearly showing how you still need to interact with the other mastery points in the system even if they added the ones I suggested. So no, you're just making a really bad slippery slope argument along with for some reason throwing in attacks on me, suggesting I don't understand how the game works.

You did the math based around you desire/opinion that playing only the story should be sufficient to max the masteries. If you get enough points from only playing the story, the entire goal of encouraging players to try specific content is gone.

Again 5 points might not be a huge factor, nonetheless they are not needed.

7 hours ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

Core tyria mastery points are not well designed for guiding people to various points in the game. They're incredibly clumped up in tiny areas (like fractals and silverwastes), attached to content that is loaded with spoilers and arbitrary, extremely expensive collections, and the UI is not well designed to use them as a guide towards content. You yourself suggest that they're easy to get "if you use a guide". It's not really doing the job of a guide properly then, is it?

Yes, they are "clumped" in areas, most predominantly:

- core story

- fractals

- world bosses

- insights (aka exploration)

- living world season 2 (living world)

Seems to me like those are very different aspects of this game and one could say the only missing pve element are dungeons (which are replaced by fractals). So yes, mastery points ARE clumped as to encourage major areas of content to see players engage with them. Meanwhile offering a point here and there for smaller content areas.

7 hours ago, Kolzi.5928 said:

If you're that worried about the amount of mastery points being too high, they can just reallocate some instead of adding (this is extremely unnecessary but whatever). Maybe we don't need so many in silverwastes or fractals, or whatever. The point is that there should be a smooth period of getting mastery points when you are early in the mastery system. That's how it worked until the season one release, and the season one release has disrupted that, I am suggest a simple solution. All you seem to be able to offer in response is some vague complaint that "The mastery points won't mean anything", something I've already shown to be incorrect with that mysterious power known as math.

First off, it is always dangerous game design to take something away from players. As such redistributing points, even if it makes sense, would be met with a lot more frustration, and rightfully so, by players unhappy with having something taken away.

Second, you have shown nothing of the sorts. On the contrary, you mentioning how mastery points are clumped together only further demonstrates how they are specifically designed to lead players to specific content.

There is a smooth period of getting mastery points. The first 30% of mastery points needed total are behind story, leveling and exploration. Even more are behind getting to know the 5 man instanced content system (fractals) and world bosses, which are main areas of game defining content in pve.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Woof.8246]

If you need the extra mastery points  to fully unlock the Fractal's Masteries , i don't see why not .

i remember that i was missing 4-5 felt , and felt  like a grind

Edited September 17, 2022 by Woof.8246

[Aelin.9317]

Newbie here and I do have troubles with the core tyria masteries. I didn't have enough and could not find enough to finish the pact commander line so I had to swap to leveling others so I was not stuck with a full bar gaining nothing from my events etc. I see some mastery points on maps but when I go to them they are grey and I cannot do anything. 

So right now I have 4 points saved for that one and I really don't know where I will get the other four. I have not touched fractals, I still don't really know what they are. 

I ended up settling on continuing my story and I will just have to come back to the core ones later and hope I don't cap out in the mean time. It does not feel very good though, having some in season one would be helpful. It's not world ending not having more points at this point but it feels poopy if I cannot always be earning exp towards something, since this aspect I really like about GW2. I am always working towards something no matter what I do and I really like that. 

I am up to HoT now and I had a look at the extra points from season 2 and some of those achievements are hard .-. I am not sure I can do them, I will try but I think I will just get stuck. I will say I am preferring HoT for mastery points so far, it's fun to find them as I am exploring. I bumped into quite a few without trying it was fun!