Account Progression and Achievements

[SlayerXX.7138]

Anet over the years placed a lot of Account progression into the achievement tab. In an effort to provide content for the player base who already progressed their account fully a lot of these include busy work. Some of these achievements look more like a work report of the dev team, then engaging gameplay. I like finding Diving googles or doing the light puzzle of IBS. However I do not like doing every single one the devs ever created.  In these cases alternative to get mastery points do exist, but they often include the same formula of devouring content to the bone. That is a necessary evil for current content, but for older content not so much. Casual and new player shouldn't need to interact with everything the devs put in the game over the last 10 years to progress their account. Collecting/doing everything is a nice achievement, it isn't a nice progression system.
Speaking of things that shouldn't be achievements: Quests. Anet did implement a lot of quest like content with the achievement system. Skimmer diving and skyscale would probably work better as quest chain, then 20+ step achievements. EoD has a lot of quest that are annoying to keep track of with the achievement tab. One of them even necessary to complete echo Wald.

[Sobx.1758]

16 minutes ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Anet over the years placed a lot of Account progression into the achievement tab. In an effort to provide content for the player base who already progressed their account fully a lot of these include busy work. Some of these achievements look more like a work report of the dev team, then engaging gameplay. I like finding Diving googles or doing the light puzzle of IBS. However I do not like doing every single one the devs ever created.  In these cases alternative to get mastery points do exist, but they often include the same formula of devouring content to the bone. That is a necessary evil for current content, but for older content not so much. Casual and new player shouldn't need to interact with everything the devs put in the game over the last 10 years to progress their account. Collecting/doing everything is a nice achievement, it isn't a nice progression system.

They don't need to. Moreover, since the masteries are tied to the content of their respective expansions, if they want to skip content, they simply don't need most of the masteries anyways. The issue here is that you seem to believe you (or "a new player") need to somehow "progress your account" through masteries (as far as I understand what you're saying here?), but don't want to play the content related to those masteries. So here's the good news: you don't need to. But if you want to then playing the content seems like a reasonable requirement. 
If, by any chance, you weren't talking about masteries points, but about achievemnet points then it's even less of a "requirement" or an "account progression".

16 minutes ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Speaking of things that shouldn't be achievements: Quests. Anet did implement a lot of quest like content with the achievement system. Skimmer diving and skyscale would probably work better as quest chain, then 20+ step achievements. EoD has a lot of quest that are annoying to keep track of with the achievement tab. One of them even necessary to complete echo Wald.

You claim "it shouldn't be", but I don't see you saying why it shouldn't be. For now I don't see any reason for it not to be like this, it's a rather convenient way to track the progress of what you want to do.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[SlayerXX.7138]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

don't want to play the content related to those masteries.

I do want to play the related content, just not everything the devs did develop in the last 10 years. I like Pizza. That doesn't mean I want to eat 20 margherita to unlock salami. Eating 32 pineapple pizza to unlock stuffed crust is heavy sacrifice. I don't want to taste test the cooks kitten chocolate pizza creation, to get the privilege's the buy a large pizza. Jumping from 32 different cliffs may not be related to auto loot.

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

skip content

Yes. I neither live in GW neither did I start at launch. I would like full power mounts without turning every stone in the dessert. I personally play this game too much, so I only lack skimmer diving. I do want to play the game, not follow a checklist. Achievements are limiting and often boil down to a checklist or repeat action. That ages horrible if you have better thing to do.

Edited June 12, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Danikat.8537]

You don't need all the mastery points, there are more than you need to unlock everything.

If you don't intended to do everything you don't even need all the masteries. Some of the tracks are specific to one area of the game (for example Fractal and raid masteries only work in Fractals and raids respectively, so unless you spend a lot of time in those game modes they're useless). Likewise unless you're planning to craft a precursor or Gen 2 legendary weapon you don't need Legendary Crafting.

In general the later tiers of all masteries are less useful (and only the earliest ones are required to complete the story and most other activities) so if you're finding it boring or difficult to get enough points it's best to unlock the lower tiers and then wait and see which ones you really want to use before putting points into the higher ones.

[Sobx.1758]

1 minute ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

I do want to play the related content, just not everything the devs did develop in the last 10 years.

And why do you think you somehow need to play everything if you don't want to play everything?

1 minute ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Yes. I neither live in GW neither did I start at launch. I would like full power mounts without turning every stone in the dessert.

You don't need to "turn every stone in the desert" (and no, I'm not taking that literally) -like, not even close- to have full power mounts.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[SlayerXX.7138]

9 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

If you don't intended to do everything you don't even need all the masteries. Some of the tracks are specific to one area of the game (for example Fractal and raid masteries only work in Fractals and raids respectively, so unless you spend a lot of time in those game modes they're useless).

Fractals are mostly fine IMO. Attunement mastery relates pretty close to how you get them. Besides the fractal weapon collection and maybe the chicken hunt. "Research how to activate the lifesaving Mistlock Singularities within the Fractals of the Mists. Fractal potion conversion improves." seemed important before reaching tier 4. That could be subjective. On the objective side you really needed the anvil mastery even for testing raids before the anvil rework. I'm getting off track here. Mastery points are not the problem in isolation, them tied to  achievement that are repetitive or checklist-style action is the problem.

29 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Likewise unless you're planning to craft a precursor or Gen 2 legendary weapon you don't need Legendary Crafting.

Untrue. You need runestones for a lot of legendary weapons.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

2 hours ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Anet over the years placed a lot of Account progression into the achievement tab. In an effort to provide content for the player base who already progressed their account fully a lot of these include busy work. Some of these achievements look more like a work report of the dev team, then engaging gameplay. I like finding Diving googles or doing the light puzzle of IBS. However I do not like doing every single one the devs ever created.  In these cases alternative to get mastery points do exist, but they often include the same formula of devouring content to the bone. That is a necessary evil for current content, but for older content not so much. Casual and new player shouldn't need to interact with everything the devs put in the game over the last 10 years to progress their account. Collecting/doing everything is a nice achievement, it isn't a nice progression system.
Speaking of things that shouldn't be achievements: Quests. Anet did implement a lot of quest like content with the achievement system. Skimmer diving and skyscale would probably work better as quest chain, then 20+ step achievements. EoD has a lot of quest that are annoying to keep track of with the achievement tab. One of them even necessary to complete echo Wald.

If they invent a battle-pass-like system , one of the reward could be a Mastery Point.

So  the system forces  to go back in old other areas to repopulate and not be forced to 100% complete everything like was intended. Like the Turtle !

 

 (imagine Diablo Portal that teleports you 5.000 yards away  , into a "red-schreen-hue Soo-Woo Event" , or "red Cleansing Ire".. which are different things from the normal events 😛)

Edited June 12, 2023 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Chichimec.9364]

1 hour ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

...Casual and new player shouldn't need to interact with everything the devs put in the game over the last 10 years to progress their account. Collecting/doing everything is a nice achievement, it isn't a nice progression system...

Sorry, but I really am not sure what the issue is here. I've been playing for 5 1/2 years, have all three sets of leggy armor, all the other leggy gear except for Aurora and Vision, thirteen leggy weapons, as well as all the mounts unlocked with full masteries for each one. So my account is pretty well progressed and I've done it by playing game modes I like. The only checklists I don't like are those for Aurora and Vision but I have more than enough LS3 and LS4 currencies to buy ascended accessories whenever I want so that's not an  issue for me. There's nothing forcing me to play game modes I don't like to play.

[Danikat.8537]

8 hours ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Untrue. You need runestones for a lot of legendary weapons.

But importantly there are two different types of runestones used for legendaries. They come from different places and have different requirements and if you mix them up you've wasted 100g (and possibly time getting a mastery you didn't need) so it's a good idea to check before you start.

Generation 1 legendaries need Icy Runestones from Rojan the Penitent in Frostgorge Sound, which do not require the mastery to buy. It's only later legendaries that use Mystic Runestones from Miyani by the Mystic Forge.

[vares.8457]

14 hours ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

more like a work report of the dev team, then engaging gameplay

If you don’t like them don’t do them but others do enjoy them. I don’t see the need to change anything. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by vares.8457