Essence Manipulation Mastery

[Braynz.2906]

I'm always wary of being told that something will be fun - it reminds me of team building days when they tell you that it will include role-playing and collaborative challenges designed to build bridges and other management BS.

[Dante.1508]

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@"Dante.1508" said:You seem to be on a very different server to me.. and you realize a majority of customers do not use dps meters to play their mmo's.. hell i bet most don't even bother with mods at all.. i know i don't..

What? We're talking about the same map right? Siren's Landing. Next to Straits of Devastation in Orr. The Living World 3 Season's episode 6. Since its release I've never seen the shrine meta fail when I was there and this event is up every 30 minutes. You have to kill a wraith, a gorilla, a spider and a drake and you can do that one after the other which is easy doable in small group/s of 5 casual players - skilled players should be able to solo/duo those without problems. It's one of the easiest metas in the game considering the very low amount of players you need to succeed. I think you heavily mix things up here because there really isn't any difficult thing in this map. The most demanding task there is the jumping puzzle if you do it without any help (mesmers or xera portals and nowadays mounts).

One note to your statement to dps meters: It doesn't matter if the majority of players use them or not. I was just pointing out that a small amount of players are actually doing most of the damage on encounters in the open world. That's not bragging, complaining or anything else but a pure fact. This is observable on almost every meta/group event in the game...just neutral data you can collect. I also wrote the majority doesn't even know about the numbers which I think is a good thing because some of those players would maybe lose their immersion if they could realize that their impact on the success was almost negligible.

But that's also the reason why I think that those masteries aren't mandatory for being successful in killing mobs/champs because the majority of GW2 players would be unable to cope with that once the mixture of players in a map is in favor for a very casual spectrum - they have to balance open world and did so in the past for the casual crowd. Just think about it: If players with suboptimal builds or just usual "play how I want" builds are able to be successful the system cannot be complex otherwise they would fail since lots of open world players cannot react properly to damage indicators nor break a cc bar. Mike Z made a statement between players that use meta builds and others. The difference is huge and therefore meta players will definitely be able to be successful beating encounters without the mastery since we already have the numbers of the buffs.Prevented from looting a blue/red/green chest because you don't have the mastery is a different thing and not related to difficulty or beating an encounter a.k.a. irrelevant for my remarks.I've been there doing my stories, i've never even see a meta event there honestly, never seen any siren broadcasts etc. Doric sure Sirens landing nope, map is dead, at least on SoS.

[Dante.1763]

@Dante.1508 said:

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@Dante.1508 said:You seem to be on a very different server to me.. and you realize a majority of customers do not use dps meters to play their mmo's.. hell i bet most don't even bother with mods at all.. i know i don't..

What? We're talking about the same map right? Siren's Landing. Next to Straits of Devastation in Orr. The Living World 3 Season's episode 6. Since its release I've never seen the shrine meta fail when I was there and this event is up every 30 minutes. You have to kill a wraith, a gorilla, a spider and a drake and you can do that one after the other which is easy doable in small group/s of 5 casual players - skilled players should be able to solo/duo those without problems. It's one of the easiest metas in the game considering the very low amount of players you need to succeed. I think you heavily mix things up here because there really isn't any difficult thing in this map. The most demanding task there is the jumping puzzle if you do it without any help (mesmers or xera portals and nowadays mounts).

One note to your statement to dps meters: It doesn't matter if the majority of players use them or not. I was just pointing out that a small amount of players are actually doing most of the damage on encounters in the open world. That's not bragging, complaining or anything else but a pure fact. This is observable on almost every meta/group event in the game...just neutral data you can collect. I also wrote the majority doesn't even know about the numbers which I think is a good thing because some of those players would maybe lose their immersion if they could realize that their impact on the success was almost negligible.

But that's also the reason why I think that those masteries aren't mandatory for being successful in killing mobs/champs because the majority of GW2 players would be unable to cope with that once the mixture of players in a map is in favor for a very casual spectrum - they have to balance open world and did so in the past for the casual crowd. Just think about it: If players with suboptimal builds or just usual "play how I want" builds are able to be successful the system cannot be complex otherwise they would fail since lots of open world players cannot react properly to damage indicators nor break a cc bar. Mike Z made a statement between players that use meta builds and others. The difference is huge and therefore meta players will definitely be able to be successful beating encounters without the mastery since we already have the numbers of the buffs.Prevented from looting a blue/red/green chest because you don't have the mastery is a different thing and not related to difficulty or beating an encounter a.k.a. irrelevant for my remarks.I've been there doing my stories, i've never even see a meta event there honestly, never seen any siren broadcasts etc. Doric sure Sirens landing nope, map is dead, at least on SoS.

Uhhhh..individual servers dont get their own maps anymore due to mega servers. If a map gets to empty it gets merged with another and so on. It may have more to do with what time you are playing rather than what server you are on. Ive been to sirens landing recently and while there werent many players on the map, when an event was up players where doing it.

[Vinceman.4572]

@Dante.1508 said:I've been there doing my stories, i've never even see a meta event there honestly, never seen any siren broadcasts etc. Doric sure Sirens landing nope, map is dead, at least on SoS.

So, not that you missed out me saying Siren's Landing had (and still has) a very easy meta you don't even have any clue about the map. Wonderful...why arguing against then?

The map was released in July 2017. Maybe you weren't there at that time but that's on you not on me. And it's a fact that the mastery there was never necessary at all or gave any significant advantage/buff/w/e to be successful. If the mastery was there or not. It hasn't had any influence on the players or on their success.

Uhhhh..individual servers dont get their own maps anymore due to mega servers. If a map gets to empty it gets merged with another and so on. It may have more to do with what time you are playing rather than what server you are on. Ive been to sirens landing recently and while there werent many players on the map, when an event was up players where doing it.

Argh, wrong.Megaservers were installed in 2014 even before HoT. That has nothing to do with it. You just visited an old map from July 2017. Of course it's empty now and you don't find many players there. That's why the LS system isn't very clever since lots of maps will scatter players more and more.Anyways, we were talking about a mastery that is mandatory or not and Siren's Landing was an excellent example for being a useless mastery since nobody needed it to proceed. The same will happen with the new map because they can't hide map/encounter success behind a complex system since the majority of casual players wouldn't be able to pass and that's not what open world content in GW2 stands for. So, overall high skilled players will breeze through the map and while some of them will be present there in the next weeks there won't be any issue for casuals with or without having the mastery.Btw. make your home work next time.

[Hashberry.4510]

This dance of the Dantes is so confusing sometimes =) .

[Ayrilana.1396]

After reading the article, it feels like “rock, paper, scissors” isn’t applicable because there are no downsides. It’s more closer to the weaknesses that you see see many RPG’s do. If it were a true “rock, paper, scissors”, each essence buff should leave you weak to another so that there’s an actual trade off.

That aside, it feels like out of the three, the quickness one would be more beneficial than the other two by a fair margin.

It also feels like the effort to farm up the other orbs may not even be worth the effort for the increased DPS so you may as well maintain the quickness one if that’s possible.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Dante.1508" said:I've been there doing my stories, i've never even see a meta event there honestly, never seen any siren broadcasts etc. Doric sure Sirens landing nope, map is dead, at least on SoS.

Most probably you didn't notice the meta of Siren's Landing because it's not as pronounced as other meta events. I find it weird that you never got the "Shrines are low on Power!" message, or an event to defend a shrine, it has only 30 minutes cooldown, either you haven't played around the map enough or you forgot about it.

Edit: Or you didn't notice the event you were doing was the actual meta

[Ayrilana.1396]

Maybe I missed this but what enemy type are Kodan? Are they Fallen or Aberration?

Edit: Nvm. Watched the video again and they called them out as Fallen. So I guess if I'm going to do one of the three first, I should do the vigilance one for the extra strike chest reward.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Maybe I missed this but what enemy type are Kodan? Are they Fallen or Aberration?

My impression is Fallen, I think one of the devs talked about the Kodan strike mission bosses as "fallen Kodan". Nothing actually confirmed that I know, though!

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Maybe I missed this but what enemy type are Kodan? Are they Fallen or Aberration?

My impression is Fallen, I think one of the devs talked about the Kodan strike mission bosses as "fallen Kodan". Nothing actually confirmed that I know, though!

Yeah. I went through last week's video to confirm that the Kodan bosses would be first and they said they were Fallen. Completely missed that the first time. I was going to go for valor first, but depending on the XP needed, and whether all of my saved daily chests that give desert mastery XP count towards the new mastery track, I may just go for vigilance first.

[Pagan Highlander.5948]

For me, it is a waste of effort for something not needed nor wanted. Please ANET, do not expand this beyond the new maps or into PvP or WvW. This is definitely something myself and most have no interest in or desire to use.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:[...]and whether all of my saved daily chests that give desert mastery XP count[...]Seems unlikely since it's a new set of mastery points. Possibly the daily chests from Grothmar, if they change it to Saga XP. Of course, we'll also have to go through 2 tiers of Raven mastery to start Essence Manipulation...

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:[...]and whether all of my saved daily chests that give desert mastery XP count[...]Seems unlikely since it's a new set of mastery points. Possibly the daily chests from Grothmar, if they change it to Saga XP. Of course, we'll also have to go through 2 tiers of Raven mastery to

start

Essence Manipulation...

Yeah. Oh well if that's the case.

It looks like we need 8 of the new mastery points to max out all of the new masteries based on the new image on reddit with the new max mastery level going to 303. So essentially they're one MP each (per level).

[AgentMoore.9453]

Just coming back to this now that I've had more time to play around with it.

Sadly I was right, and the essence system really does feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack. Then, when I have a 30 stack, it always seems to run out too quickly. Lastly, some of the special attacks are fun, but they don't trigger very often and they usually trigger when I'm fighting an enemy of the wrong faction or when an enemy runs out of the line of sight and the attack gets wasted on a wall.

Potential improvements:

• Add an Essence Absorption mastery that causes essences to get 'sucked up' by your character when within a certain range
• Extend the length of time that essences remain on the ground
• Adjust the visuals for essence blobs to look less like player effects
• Expand the 30-stack buff timer to half an hour (or a full hour).
• Alternatively, consider making the 30-stack buff a 24hr buff (like the raven mini-dungeon buff) and lessen the amount of special attacks that get triggered by it to compensate for the convenience
• Check and see if the system is assigning the correct special attack based on the enemy you are currently fighting
• Leave the special attack visible until it is used (I find it flickering on and off a lot, often gone before I can use it)

If this is a feature you intend to use for the rest of this story (or intend to bring back for future content), it's definitely got room for improvement.

[Fueki.4753]

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Just coming back to this now that I've had more time to play around with it.

Sadly I was right, and the essence system really does feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack.It feels like the amount of stacks were decided exclusively with the meta event in mind.During the meta it is extremely easy to accumulate 30 stacks and remain at around 15 minutes buff time.

[LucianDK.8615]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Just coming back to this now that I've had more time to play around with it.

Sadly I was right, and the essence system really

does

feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack.It feels like the amount of stacks were decided exclusively with the meta event in mind.During the meta it is extremely easy to accumulate 30 stacks and remain at around 15 minutes buff time.

And the meta is a joke, they really didnt think it through. Everything will be zerged down fast, rendering the essence masteries pointless.

[Fueki.4753]

@LucianDK.8615 said:And the meta is a joke, they really didnt think it through. Everything will be zerged down fast, rendering the essence masteries pointless.But do you want Champions to scale up to 100 people? They would one-should players, even with AoEs.

[LucianDK.8615]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:And the meta is a joke, they really didnt think it through. Everything will be zerged down fast, rendering the essence masteries pointless.But do you want Champions to scale up to 100 people? They would one-should players, even with AoEs.

What im saying is that the essence masteries is pointless in the meta, even if theyve been designed for it. Everything dies so fast that theres no need for them at all.

[Fueki.4753]

@LucianDK.8615 said:What im saying is that the essence masteries is pointless in the meta, even if theyve been designed for it. Everything dies so fast that theres no need for them at all.

I didn't mean the essences were designed for it, I just meant the need for 30 stacks.

[DaFishBob.6518]

Noticed that the special skill shows up when veterans and champions of the correct type are in range, but not elites. That's a grating discrepancy.

[Guest]

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Sadly I was right, and the essence system really does feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack. Then, when I have a 30 stack, it always seems to run out too quickly.

Totally agree. This system is way more frustrating than fun. I was just trying to casually build up stacks (noting that when you pick up an orb it resets the buff timer to 10 minutes) for almost half an hour before I realized stacks were dropping off. Playing solo and killing mobs you'll have a very hard time accumulating 30 stacks. And once you do get 30, you only get the full buff for 15 minutes and you can't extend it by gathering more orbs.

Some improvement suggestions to make this actually useful:

1. Reduce the number of stacks required to get the full buff.
2. Timer is reset when you gather any stacks, and you don't lose any until the timer runs out (where you would lose them all), like Killstreak XP booster stacks
3. When you have the full buff, either the time is extended, it resets when you gather more orbs, or both.
4. Add in some essence pillars like the one in the strike mission to the open world. At least have the ones by the trainer allow you to hit them for a few stacks.

You could tie some of this to the masteries - as it is, it is very unclear what the difference is between mastery level 1 and 2 for each of the essences. Any of those things would be a much more tangible benefit than... what ever it is now.

Right now the masteries are only required for three things - breaking the boneskinner's bar, opening the essence chests, and the strike. Strike is no big deal because of the pillar. The chests right now are just an annoyance - once you've done the achievement, you'll grab one if you just happen to have the right buff but otherwise it's just an irritant to try to find the right enemy and get back to the chest. Boneskinner you can't even get 30 stacks if the Fallen event is up; I've never seen his bar broken.

In sum, improving this mechanic would bring value to the couple of pieces of content that use it and have no downside that I can see.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Sadly I was right, and the essence system really

does

feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack. Then, when I have a 30 stack, it always seems to run out too quickly.

Totally agree. This system is way more frustrating than fun. I was just trying to casually build up stacks (noting that when you pick up an orb it resets the buff timer to 10 minutes) for almost half an hour before I realized stacks were dropping off. Playing solo and killing mobs you'll have a very hard time accumulating 30 stacks. And once you

do

get 30, you only get the full buff for 15 minutes

and

you can't extend it by gathering more orbs.

Some improvement suggestions to make this actually useful:

1. Reduce the number of stacks required to get the full buff.
2. Timer is reset when you gather any stacks, and you don't lose any until the timer runs out (where you would lose them all), like Killstreak XP booster stacks
3. When you have the full buff, either the time is extended, it resets when you gather more orbs, or both.
4. Add in some essence pillars like the one in the strike mission to the open world. At least have the ones by the trainer allow you to hit them for a few stacks.

You could tie some of this to the masteries - as it is, it is very unclear what the difference is between mastery level 1 and 2 for each of the essences. Any of those things would be a much more tangible benefit than... what ever it is now.

Right now the masteries are only required for three things - breaking the boneskinner's bar, opening the essence chests, and the strike. Strike is no big deal because of the pillar. The chests right now are just an annoyance - once you've done the achievement, you'll grab one if you just happen to have the right buff but otherwise it's just an irritant to try to find the right enemy and get back to the chest. Boneskinner you can't even get 30 stacks if the Fallen event is up; I've never seen his bar broken.

In sum, improving this mechanic would bring value to the couple of pieces of content that use it and have no downside that I can see.

Pretty sure you don't need any stacks to open chests. At least, I never have. Just the Mastery.

[LucianDK.8615]

You dont need any stacks aye, its just knowing the masteries thats needed. I know a lot makes that misasumption they need to be maxed out in stacks.

[Guest]

Seems like you guys are right. Another point in the "Effects of mastery levels not clearly communicated" column...

[DaFishBob.6518]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Sadly I was right, and the essence system really

does

feel more like work than fun. Most often, I'm hit with getting 18-25 stacks of a faction's buff and then losing stacks before I can kill the rest of the mobs needed to get a 30 stack. Then, when I have a 30 stack, it always seems to run out too quickly.

Totally agree. This system is way more frustrating than fun. I was just trying to casually build up stacks (noting that when you pick up an orb it resets the buff timer to 10 minutes) for almost half an hour before I realized stacks were dropping off. Playing solo and killing mobs you'll have a very hard time accumulating 30 stacks. And once you

do

get 30, you only get the full buff for 15 minutes

and

you can't extend it by gathering more orbs.

Some improvement suggestions to make this actually useful:

1. Reduce the number of stacks required to get the full buff.
2. Timer is reset when you gather any stacks, and you don't lose any until the timer runs out (where you would lose them all), like Killstreak XP booster stacks
3. When you have the full buff, either the time is extended, it resets when you gather more orbs, or both.
4. Add in some essence pillars like the one in the strike mission to the open world. At least have the ones by the trainer allow you to hit them for a few stacks.

You could tie some of this to the masteries - as it is, it is very unclear what the difference is between mastery level 1 and 2 for each of the essences. Any of those things would be a much more tangible benefit than... what ever it is now.

Right now the masteries are only required for three things - breaking the boneskinner's bar, opening the essence chests, and the strike. Strike is no big deal because of the pillar. The chests right now are just an annoyance - once you've done the achievement, you'll grab one if you just happen to have the right buff but otherwise it's just an irritant to try to find the right enemy and get back to the chest. Boneskinner you can't even get 30 stacks if the Fallen event is up; I've never seen his bar broken.

In sum, improving this mechanic would bring value to the couple of pieces of content that use it and have no downside that I can see.

Just to help you out, you can actually extend the full buff by gathering more orbs. The problem is it only adds maybe 30 seconds per orb.