Mastery points

[Mechtec.3827]

Just taking notice of everyones Mastery points, and wondering if one could approximate how many yrs/hours they have been playing. I seen 500++ numbers out there.

[Randulf.7614]

Day one player. All masteries completed except the 8 raid points

[RoseofGilead.8907]

Also a day one player. I'm at 523  I'm missing one of the later Icebrood Saga Masteries and the raid ones,

[Randulf.7614]

“We’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe”

Except raid bosses ….

[RoseofGilead.8907]

I saw one, and then I ran back home.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The Mastery system was introduced in October of 2015.  Thus it took approximately 8 1/2 years for those who were around at inception to attain the 500+ Mastery Points (needing to wait for each set of Mastery Points to be released).  For those starting later, it depends on how many hours/days/months/etc. they have played and how much time they have dedicated to acquiring Mastery Points. 

Edited April 22 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[Mechtec.3827]

2 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

The Mastery system was introduced in October of 2015.  Thus it took approximately 9 years for those who were around at inception to attain the 500+ Mastery Points (needing to wait for each set of Mastery Points to be released).  For those starting later, it depends on how many hours/days/months/etc. they have played and how much time they have dedicated to acquiring Mastery Points. 

Thanks for being helpful

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

No problem. 

[RavensSorrow.6128]

If you are looking for "how many hours did it take to get all masterties" I'd point you to Mightyteapot and his youtube series "Zero to hero". This is were he started a new account and got it up to full masteries (455*) in about 430hrs. Though he knew what he was do it so it would be slower for a new player. He also wasn't racing them and only focused them at around 380 hrs. Season 1 Review in case you want to look at it yourself. It's worth a watch how he prioritizes maps and unlocks to keep gold up while still doing what he enjoys.

I myself didn't start until Path of Fire (or just before) released. I still have all masteries (except raids). It was never something that distracted me from doing what I was doing in game. Just more of a bonus. Only a few times did I stop and actually go "Oh I need a point" and look through my achievements. So, yea it takes some time but most of them fall into your lap as you go.  Hope that helps.

 

*SotO was not out at the time he did this.

[synk.6907]

23 hours ago, Mechtec.3827 said:

I seen 500++ numbers out there.

To note -- the total number you can get increases as new content has been released. The first set of masteries, arriving with HoT and fleshing out the "Core" and "Heart of Thorns" lists, totaled 193 and was the highest you'd see. As more have been added, it has grown to 536, the current highest Mastery total you can get as of this writing.

So the 500+ folks are those of us who have done them across the content. This still implies time taken, but is itself not a measure of time. You could get to the max for the current date and not make any additional progress until new mastery tracks were developed and released.

Edited April 23 by synk.6907

[Danikat.8537]

Is it odd that I don't actually know how many Mastery Points I have? I know it's not the maximum, I'm missing some from Icebrood Saga, End of Dragons and Secrets of the Obscure, but I don't know what my current total is.

I do agree that how long an account has existed and/or how many total hours it's got are not a good measure of how long it would take a new player to get mastery points. They only come from specific places so most players will likely spend a lot of time on things which will never award mastery points, or repeating things after they've gotten the points. Also the earliest players will have had a few years before mastery points even existed (although some achievements did retroactively award core mastery points).

I was going to say it's maybe a bit misleading that the number shows next to your name like other games post-max level progression systems, when masteries are not necessarily reflective of how much you've done. But then my other MMO, Elder Scrolls Online, has the opposite problem. Their champion points come from XP so they are nominally reflective of how much time you've spent, but most of mine have come from doing crafting quests (especially master writs) on an alt, so they're not reflective of how much of the game I've played and which areas I can be trusted to know what I'm doing. I'm not sure there is a good way to get a numerical display for how experienced players are.

[Cyninja.2954]

Not to scare anyone, but strait from the wiki:

Quote

A total of 197,470,158 experience is required to reach mastery rank 536, including the 4,860,359 necessary to reach level 80.

- https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery

Now assuming:

- a player is level 80 and has the mastery system unlocked (any expansion mission will do)

- is constantly able to acquire experience which progresses any master track (this becomes relevant once a certain area is completed in regards to all masteries related)

- is acquiring around 1 million experience per hour (rather high, requires booster and completion of high experience yielding events/content)

- is not at any time limited or locked out of advancing masteries due to lack of mastery points

 

It would take said individual approximately 200 hours to attain max mastery rank.A more realistic assumption here is 400 - 800 hours for more natural play or players which are not maximizing their experience gain, etc.

This might seem like a huge investment, and it is, but contrary to other games, this progression is account wide and 1 time only. So while this might seem daunting at first, it is something which comes by naturally if one enjoys and sticks with the game.

Another thing to note is:: of those 536 mastery ranks, only 1/4 or at best 1/3 will have a significant impact on the games experience, most notably the mastery related to character movement (aka gliding and mounts) as well as the Pact Commander mastery for the auto loot.

There is also no "rush" in getting to max mastery rank. The pace at which new masteries are added is akin to around 20 million experience per year (Soto most recently added around 27 million experience worth of additional mastery ranks).

Edited April 23 by Cyninja.2954

[Danikat.8537]

31 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It would take said individual approximately 200 hours to attain max mastery rank.A more realistic assumption here is 400 - 800 hours for more natural play or players which are not maximizing their experience gain, etc.

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that someone managed to do it in about 430 hours. Not a new player, but on a new account, so that's likely a lower estimate.

I think these cover this is the most important thing for new players to know:

32 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Another thing to note is:: of those 536 mastery ranks, only 1/4 or at best 1/3 will have a significant impact on the games experience, most notably the mastery related to character movement (aka gliding and mounts) as well as the Pact Commander mastery for the auto loot.

There is also no "rush" in getting to max mastery rank. The pace at which new masteries are added is akin to around 20 million experience per year (Soto most recently added around 27 million experience worth of additional mastery ranks).

It's easy for new players to see mastery points as some sort of overall rank or score and think they need as many as possible as soon as possible, but the reality is each mastery does a specific thing and you only need the ones you're actually going to use, and as a general rule masteries get less useful as you go up the tracks. If you don't do raids or Fractals you don't need those mastery tracks at all, the final tier of the Exalted Lore mastery is only used to craft auric weapons, the final tier of the Inner Nyos mastery just gives you more kryptis essence from Convergences, and so on. There's a lot which new players could safely ignore until they want a new optional goal to aim for.

I know the other concern will be that other players might judge you based on your mastery points (like some people used to do with achievement points) but I've very rarely seen that happen. If it does it's likely to be well intentioned - like checking if a player with very few mastery points has done that part of the game before and knows what to expect, or it will be a misinformed individual/group who don't understand how masteries work (or are just looking for an excuse to exclude people) and it's best to ignore them.

[Tinker.6924]

Not a day 1 player exactly. I started and quit long before lw1 originally came out and I played during the original skill point system  before hero points and masteries were in the game. I didn't come back until LW4 (post PoF) was out. I've bounced in and out of the game since then going mainly between FF14, SWTOR, WoW, and GW2.  

I'm currently maxed on all masteries, 536 points. My guess is if you play regularly every week (at least 10 hours/week), focus on grinding masteries, you could max all masteries in 3-4 months. 95% of this  would be pure solo or joining open world groups for metas and HP trains.  Only the raid masteries truly require organized group play because you have to kill 1 raids boss just to unlock that hot mastery line.  

Open World groups barely qualifies as group content. Think of it like "queued dungeons" that other  games have. You get dropped into a group of randos, no one talks to each other because you don't need to, everyone is just a warm body, no one cares if you are any good at your class.  However, there's less need to know what you're doing in gw2; just follow  the crowd and you're good. Joining groups in open world to complete metas is about working smarter than harder, it’s not really necessary but if you’re grinding towards a goal it’s stupid not do it efficiently  

If you're not focused on mastery grinding it might take 2 years or longer.  

No one really cares if you have a lot of masteries. Some of the best players I know who have played forever don't bother with many masteries. The only 2 "mandatory" masteries are gliding and skyscale.  Get gliding by starting EoD xpac and skyscale from SoTo.  Don't really have to do more than that.  The only reason I consider those "mandatory" is that the qol they offer is too much to skip them.

Edited April 24 by Tinker.6924