Idea: Mastery Resets

[Gazareth.7230]

I have recently been watching Preach Gaming play through Heart of Thorns for the first time and my oh my has it been entrancing. The zones are so inspired, and so well executed as to capture the vision of the game at that time. It blows me away to this day. It's one of the best gameplay experiences I've ever had.

 

But I can no longer experience that. I already have all the masteries for Heart of Thorns, so I can easily explore and reach all the secrets, which trivialises it all, and means I don't have to grind the events to get to new places. Yes, I could make a new account, but that would mean leaving behind my characters, my account upgrades, and potentially having to replay the core story, season 1 and season 2, in order for it to feel "right" in my head.

 

What I would propose is a feature to "reset" your masteries for a particular expansion. This way you can get the authentic day1 experience of playing through an expansion, while keeping your character build and gameplay intact. It would just feel like another endgame activity.

 

I think that doing this would permanently reset your masteries. So you have to grind them out again.

 

Why would someone do this? Bearing in mind this could potentially lead to people giving up their mounts and not realising how profoundly they relied on them: simple, you would also get compensated for this. Similarly to how 'prestige'-ing in Call of Duty allowed you to unlock new ranking symbols and callsigns, GW2 could provide additional titles and cosmetics. Or even currency to unlock existing rewards, like working towards a permanent wardrobe unlock, or remote bank access etc.

 

Additionally, more rewards would be offered for giving up more masteries. I.e. if you go through heart of thorns without mounts, that should provide more rewards since it will take longer and be more challenging!

 

I'm sure this idea has come up before but it's something that really excited me so wanted to share.

[Chichimec.9364]

Sadly, there are several reasons why I would have to disagree with you about Anet giving us the ability to reset mastery points. The first reason is the pragmatic reality of a company with limited resources and all the requests from players for things that would use up those limited resources. For example, right now as I type this, there are requests on the front page of this forum for Anet to give us mullets, add a new legendary ring, improve fishing, change the size of mechs, use AI to enhance GW2's graphics,  add more world bosses, and do something to tone down all the bright, flashy effects in the game. All of that just on this one page on this one day. If you look at the WvW forum, a lot of angry players are demanding that Anet fix the broken defense participation system, not to mention finally bring out the Alliance system that's been talked about for years. Other players I'm sure want new raids, new fractals, new strikes, as well as the next expansion. If you were to do a poll of all the things that players want Anet to develop, I suspect that mastery resets would be at or near the bottom of the list.

The second reason I would be against Anet putting resources into this idea is that I'm not sure it would be as much fun as you think it would be. After playing GW2 for two or three years, I got an alt account because I thought it would be fun to take everything I learned about the game and start over from scratch. YMMV of course but it turned out that wasn't fun for me. It was more like a pointless grind that quickly had me wondering why I was doing it. At this point, five years in, I have one main account and four alt accounts but the alt accounts are simply for doing dailies and mat farming, as well as collecting the daily log in rewards, then funneling all that back to my main account.

The final reason I'd be against Anet developers working on this idea is that if you really want such a challenge, you can do it on your own. Take a new character through the HoT story and all the maps without using any mounts or any of your mastery abilities. You could gradually add those abilities back in yourself as you completed whatever was necessary to achieve them in the first place. That way you can create the challenge you want yourself and redo it as many times as you'd like.

[Vavume.8065]

No thanks, I made a new alt account on steam on which I am able to relive the whole mastery system again. It has been a joy to play, and leaving behind a 10 year fully stacked account just makes you appreciate what you do have when you come back to that.

TLDR : Buy an alt account, you will not regret it.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Vavume.8065

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Chichimec.9364 said:

The second reason I would be against Anet putting resources into this idea is that I'm not sure it would be as much fun as you think it would be. After playing GW2 for two or three years, I got an alt account because I thought it would be fun to take everything I learned about the game and start over from scratch. YMMV of course but it turned out that wasn't fun for me. It was more like a pointless grind that quickly had me wondering why I was doing it. At this point, five years in, I have one main account and four alt accounts but the alt accounts are simply for doing dailies and mat farming, as well as collecting the daily log in rewards, then funneling all that back to my main account.

The final reason I'd be against Anet developers working on this idea is that if you really want such a challenge, you can do it on your own. Take a new character through the HoT story and all the maps without using any mounts or any of your mastery abilities. You could gradually add those abilities back in yourself as you completed whatever was necessary to achieve them in the first place. That way you can create the challenge you want yourself and redo it as many times as you'd like.

I agree with both these points.

I've done several 'challenges' and themed runs over the years. Right now I have a perma-death character (I have to delete and restart if I die) who is also not allowed to use mounts or waypoints, one who is strictly following the story and tutorial achievements (although I need to re-do that) and a free account for trying out playing with those limitations. They're fun for a while but not something I'd want to commit my whole account to permanently (or until I've unlocked everything again.) That would be impractical. What if you're just starting out doing this and then there's a new release, or you want to help a friend out with something in EoD which assumes you'll have some of those masteries unlocked?

But more importantly - I've been doing challenges like this for years. If you really think it would be fun to play like that you can do it now, you don't have to wait for Anet to give you permission, you can do it whenever you feel like. It doesn't even have to be an all-or-nothing decision, often I'll be in a pre-HoT map using mounts to get around, and I'll see a vista or something I know I could easily get to using a mount, but I know there must be another way because mounts didn't exist when the map was made, so I go looking for the intended path. That can be a lot of fun and it's someting you can do whenever you feel like it.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Einsof.1457]

Just go for gen 2 legendaries. It takes you through all sorts of HoT content. Or do achievements

[Gazareth.7230]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:57 PM, Chichimec.9364 said:

The first reason is the pragmatic reality of a company with limited resources and all the requests from players for things that would use up those limited resources.

Well that's exactly why you should agree with me. The point of this is to re-use older content. As opposed to making new. It's aimed at being an incredibly efficient way of providing much more for people to do in the game. Wanna re-run an expansion? Press a button and off you go.

[Gazareth.7230]

On 3/25/2023 at 10:10 PM, Danikat.8537 said:

If you really think it would be fun to play like that you can do it now, you don't have to wait for Anet to give you permission, you can do it whenever you feel like.

It's hard to emulate things like having low glider stamina, or only the short raptor jump.

Also, there would be achievements and rewards associated, so it's not just for the sake of challenge. It being a legitimate part of the game makes it more appealing, imo.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It is resource-intensive because the Devs/engine have no way of removing account unlocks.  If it were easy to do, they would have done it long ago so they could remove things from the Wardrobe and elsewhere on accounts.

[Khisanth.2948]

A lot of work for a very niche use.

The problem is that as soon as you start you have to undo everything else that needed the mastery in order to obtain otherwise you risk breakage and exploits from sequence breaking.

There is basically no benefit to ANet for all the work especially when they can just say "buy another copy of the game".

[Zzik.5873]

On 3/25/2023 at 1:23 PM, Gazareth.7230 said:

I have recently been watching Preach Gaming play through Heart of Thorns for the first time and my oh my has it been entrancing. The zones are so inspired, and so well executed as to capture the vision of the game at that time. It blows me away to this day. It's one of the best gameplay experiences I've ever had.

 

But I can no longer experience that. I already have all the masteries for Heart of Thorns, so I can easily explore and reach all the secrets, which trivialises it all, and means I don't have to grind the events to get to new places. Yes, I could make a new account, but that would mean leaving behind my characters, my account upgrades, and potentially having to replay the core story, season 1 and season 2, in order for it to feel "right" in my head.

 

What I would propose is a feature to "reset" your masteries for a particular expansion. This way you can get the authentic day1 experience of playing through an expansion, while keeping your character build and gameplay intact. It would just feel like another endgame activity.

 

I think that doing this would permanently reset your masteries. So you have to grind them out again.

 

Why would someone do this? Bearing in mind this could potentially lead to people giving up their mounts and not realising how profoundly they relied on them: simple, you would also get compensated for this. Similarly to how 'prestige'-ing in Call of Duty allowed you to unlock new ranking symbols and callsigns, GW2 could provide additional titles and cosmetics. Or even currency to unlock existing rewards, like working towards a permanent wardrobe unlock, or remote bank access etc.

 

Additionally, more rewards would be offered for giving up more masteries. I.e. if you go through heart of thorns without mounts, that should provide more rewards since it will take longer and be more challenging!

 

I'm sure this idea has come up before but it's something that really excited me so wanted to share.

Sound amazing!!!

[Danikat.8537]

6 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

It is resource-intensive because the Devs/engine have no way of removing account unlocks.  If it were easy to do, they would have done it long ago so they could remove things from the Wardrobe and elsewhere on accounts.

They'd also need either a way to disable/enable masteries on a per character basis, and/or a way to keep track of what you've unlocked even when it's disabled so you can turn it back on again when you want to do something which needs those masteries, like when a new episode or expansion comes out.

That could give the system wider appeal though. For example I'd really like to disable the speed boost from the Pact Commander mastery line. I got the masteries for the other benefits but I don't like that one (especially since it made the Troll's Revenge jumping puzzle even harder than it already was). I assume I'd have to enable or disable entire masteries rather than picking individual effects, but it would still be nice to be able to turn that off when I don't want it, and then turn it back on when I do. I'm sure there are other players who would like to disable certain masteries at times too.

But it's still a lot of work for a fairly niche benefit.

[Gazareth.7230]

On 3/29/2023 at 2:36 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

It is resource-intensive because the Devs/engine have no way of removing account unlocks.  If it were easy to do, they would have done it long ago so they could remove things from the Wardrobe and elsewhere on accounts.

Adding account unlocks isn't that much compared to e.g. creating new regions, encounters etc. It would be done by different team members as well; it would have more of a focus on database & UI as opposed to 3D artists & game programmers.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If it is not 'much', why hasn't it been implemented?  You know it's not baked into engine since launch, and would be easy to extract? 

[stormemperor.3745]

Can you like not use them instead?

[Gazareth.7230]

On 3/30/2023 at 9:49 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

If it is not 'much', why hasn't it been implemented?  You know it's not baked into engine since launch, and would be easy to extract? 

 

There would still be a lot of logistics to work out, such as whether it affects all characters, and whether you can revert to having full masteries etc.. But like I said, this is still less than genuinely new content such as maps or enemies, whilst providing even more replay value to existing expansions.

 

On 3/30/2023 at 10:21 PM, stormemperor.3745 said:

Can you like not use them instead?

As mentioned earlier, you can't easily emulate things like having low gliding stamina or lower skimmer hover.

 

But also, that's not really the point. There's a distinct difference between having the masteries and choosing not to press the buttons vs not even being able to. 

 

There's  inherent fun in the act of unlocking masteries and becoming incrementally more able to traverse and interact with the world as you play. If this were not true Anet would just give us all masteries from the beginning of the expansion.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It's good to know you are so familiar with the engine and the code of Guild Wars 2, and how much work is involved with changing code from launch.  I'm sure the Devs will give the suggestion all the attention it deserves.  Good luck.