Confused about experience bar past level 80

Humor.5763 · April 30, 2020

Hello all,

So being away for a long time, and never really doing anything past the base game, let alone mastery points (thought I think I get the gist of them), my experience bar has Halted at 2.54 million.

I tried asking in the game, but I feel like no one could really explain it well, or I just wasn't understanding all too well.

To me, leveling up a new character, and being able to continue leveling up and gaining "Hero Points"/Skill points every time I leveled felt nice, or at least I think I was earning Hero points anyways, maybe I wasn't, and I was just getting a sense of progression due to every so often seeing the experience go from full to empty.

So, got bored of playing my Renegade in the past week or so, and thought to level up a Necromancer due to never have played one, but always wanting to try.

So I leveled my Necromancer to lvl 80, got a little ways into the Reaper skill tree (Forgot they wouldn't allow you to save points for Elites, without spending EVERY SINGLE POINT on stuff i WON"T USE), and after level 80, I still seen my bar progressing from empty to full, back to empty again, and now just today I've noticed it just capped out at 2.54 million experience.

My mastery rank is 18, and I've no more mastery points to throw into the Masteries that already have a full experience bar, as it requires me to have more points in order to obtain said masteries.

Now my problem is, I just suddenly feel no need to do anything with my Necromancer now, or even on my Renegade as I've swapped back to the Renegade for a brief moment to see if my experience bar really was capped. Which it is.

Anyways, I'm someone who enjoys going from map to map, and completing them with new characters, leveling them up through hearts/completions, but seeing as my experience bar just won't budge anymore, I'm turned off, and no longer feel any need to do the maps now. It's basically turned into a mindless game of "Go and find Hero points now, because doing anything related to experience would be absolutely useless after level 80".

This of course is just how I'm feeling right now. I'm not even halfways through the maps with my Necromancer yet, and already hit level 80 plus the little ways I am into the Reaper Elite trait line, within a couple of days. And again, seeing my experience bar just straight up stop, really gives no motivation to continue playing past this point at all.

Sure I could do the HoT, and PoF expansions seeing how I've never actually done anything as of yet, except what Little I have in Dry Top, but making characters, and leveling up/gaining skill points for new classes is just sometimes more fun, and a much needed break from playing something already maxed out. Not even sure how I got that many skill points to max out my renegade, if I did it without touching a single expansion (Other than to get the class/raptor mount), I shouldn't be forced into doing them now to gain skill points/Hero Points.

Again, just how I feel. Might drop this game and move on for another 3-4 years, come back and see if GW 2 is still alive or not.

Randulf.7614 · May 1, 2020

Can’t you play for the content and not the xp? I mean I maxed out masteries and although I get spirit shards after that (which I have no use for), xp is mechanic I just ignore.

Your Xp bar not budging should in no way take anything away from whether the content itself is enjoyable or not surely?

Also I think you might be confusing hero points and mastery points. You seem to ramble a bit so I’m not sure if you are confusing the two or not. Hero points have nothing to do with levelling and are a sep progression system from capping certain map points marked and putting those points into your skill tree. They carry over from core campaigns and expansions hence why you had some to quickly max an elite

Mastery points work with your mastery Xp bar to progress account based generic skills like mounts, gliders, auto loot etc

Humor.5763 · May 1, 2020

@"Randulf.7614" said:Can’t you play for the content and not the xp? I mean I maxed out masteries and although I get spirit shards after that (which I have no use for), xp is mechanic I just ignore.
Your Xp bar not budging should in no way take anything away from whether the content itself is enjoyable or not surely?
Also I think you might be confusing hero points and mastery points. You seem to ramble a bit so I’m not sure if you are confusing the two or not. Hero points have nothing to do with levelling and are a sep progression system from capping certain map points marked and putting those points into your skill tree. They carry over from core campaigns and expansions hence why you had some to quickly max an elite
Mastery points work with your mastery Xp bar to progress account based generic skills like mounts, gliders, auto loot etc

What do you mean Hero Points carry over?

I could max out a class, and obtain hero points, which would then carry over to a new character? I have deleted a few lvl 80's before due to boredom, are you saying that's why I was able to max out my Renegade Elite trait?

Also, the content gets incredibly boring when the ONLY reason you're redoing the content is to max out another character, because you don't want to use a tome to insta level 80 yourself. So no, I can't play the game just for the content when it's the same exact thing, over, and over again. Especially when the majority of the content comes from the maps themselves, and events happening, and being level 80, you're rewarded with absolute trash that you can't even sell on the Market, and or use.

So when you cut the majority of maps /the game itself out, only to run around and gather Hero Points, one could very well see how boring that actually becomes.

I'm not one of those people who care a whole lot about Guild Wars 2 capping you out at level 80, and how majority of the stuff now is simply cosmetics, but when you're not really obtaining anything worth your time, the point of the game becomes stale.

I'm almost positive Guild Wars 2 has seen it's highest playerbase when the game launched, probably lasted a year tops, I know I was gone long before a year hit. When HoT came out, and the new class/elites came out, and when PoF came out. Soon afterwards dying down to players who have stuck around this long.

Heck, maybe the Quarantine has boosted Guild Wars 2's population, but we all know that's not going to last either.

Again, no hate towards the game itself, it's fun to hop back into every once in a while, (apparently not long enough to notice this until now) but, you can't even call Guild Wars 2 a social "Hub" since no one talks in it either, unless they're already in a guild or Discord Channel, etc, etc.

I wasn't confusing Hero Points, I simply call them skill points, because that's what they are. Mastery Points I might still be confused on sure.

I guess the main point is/question was; "am I capped with experience being stuck at 2.54 mill now?". Kinda seems like the answer is yes. And it very much can effect and take away from the enjoyment. Even if it's meant to be a "False" sense of progression, at least it was still there.

Randulf.7614 · May 1, 2020

Excess Hero points carry over on a given character (not across characters) in that if you have an excess, you can use them on future elites. Hero points are standardised across all content - eg HoT Hero Points work towards PoF elite specs

For example, if a character has every skill point from Core and HoT, unlocking one from PoF becomes suddenly incredibly easy because there are more than you need if you worked to get them. However a character who has only done enough to max out the core traits, will need to work harder to get enough hero points to finish an elite off.

Experience works like this in basic summary

1-80 - normal xp
post 80 - will either go into your mastery xp or will cycle round endlessly and give a spirit shard every time you level. The logistics are a bit complicated to explain, but xp usually always gets pumped somewhere. Once xp goes into a mastery bar, you the need mastery points (from the relevant region so HoT mastery points for HoT masteries) from achievements and exploration to unlock the skill the xp went into. If you have maxed out masteries for core or HoT or PoF etc then xp assign spirit shards on a level up until new masteries appear in future content and you select those. Gaining mastery points sounds like where your priority should be now.

That's rather simplified and is clearer explained on the wiki with the details and nuances involved

It sounds from your post that you prefer a more vertical progression system for an MMO, which is fine, but that isn't GW2. There is an enormous wealth of content and objectives to do once you hit level 80 and it has and continues to be a very popular system. Whether it has hit is peak is debatable (although likely) is irrelevant since the game has a high and healthy population enjoying playing the game post-80

Davros.9823 · May 1, 2020

As you mentioned, you currently have hit a little wall with Mastery points and unlocking new masteries.

How the mastery system works is you have 4 different Mastery pages (one fore core, HoT, PoF and icebrood) these pages all get xp seperatly. Each one has multiple mastery lines. And it is all account bound.

To unlock a mastery first you have to get enough xp to fill the bar (lvl up) then you can use your mastery points to unlock it permanantly on all of your characters.

If you fill up a bar and don't have enough mastery points to unlock it you can't progress further in that line, so your xp bar stays full.

Luckily there are several mastery lines, so if one is capped just swap to another and fill up that bar. Then look up what you nees to do to get the mastery points. There are way more mastery points available than you can actually use.

Hope this helps

Humor.5763 · May 1, 2020

@"Davros.9823" said:As you mentioned, you currently have hit a little wall with Mastery points and unlocking new masteries.
How the mastery system works is you have 4 different Mastery pages (one fore core, HoT, PoF and icebrood) these pages all get xp seperatly. Each one has multiple mastery lines. And it is all account bound.
To unlock a mastery first you have to get enough xp to fill the bar (lvl up) then you can use your mastery points to unlock it permanantly on all of your characters.
If you fill up a bar and don't have enough mastery points to unlock it you can't progress further in that line, so your xp bar stays full.
Luckily there are several mastery lines, so if one is capped just swap to another and fill up that bar. Then look up what you nees to do to get the mastery points. There are way more mastery points available than you can actually use.
Hope this helps

This is pretty much what I was wondering. My exp bar is capped then, because all the "Core" masteries I have are full, but can't proceed without more Mastery points.

So basically, the only way to get Hero/Skill points is through maps now? Thus map exploration/events/basically anything other than Hero Points in maps are pointless for characters at lvl 80 now? No wonder I see nothing but people flying around just hunting Hero Points, cause that's all there is to do with new characters.

Thanks.

Davros.9823 · May 1, 2020

You need the hero points for map compleation. Which you need to have to make legendary weapons (end game goals).

You also nees hero points to unlock both your specializations. Good thing is the hero points in hot and pof award 10 points each. Again there are way more hero points available than you can spend on a character.

But to get more mastery points check out your achievement tab and have a look at the wiki to see which points you want to go for.

Inculpatus cedo.9234 · May 1, 2020

It seems you are confusing Hero Challenges which give Hero Points with Mastery Points unlocks which give Mastery Points.Here is a list of all available Mastery Points (which, when used, will unlock your XP bar). You can tell what your XP is being used for by the little icon at the end of the XP bar. (Next Level number, Spirit Shard, or Mastery line.)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery_point_unlocks

Etria.3642 · May 1, 2020

It also sounds rather like when you stopped at Core Tyria, or when hitting 80, you swapped to another character....which indeed meant doing everything all over again until 80.

Why did you not go on to HoT and PoF and the living seasons you have access to? All of those will give you mastery points and progress a different mastery bar, AND HoT and PoF give hero points, only 10 at a time instead of 1.

I don't have it bookmarked, wish I did, but someone had a really awesome post with the "easy" Core Tyria mastery points. all four places for masteries will give you more mastery points than you actually need. Also if you do not wish to get hero points from the expansion areas, you can wvw and simply buy them.

Cuks.8241 · May 1, 2020

Hero points are a separate thing, have nothing to do with the bar on the bottom of the screen and are confusing the debate. Ignore hero points they come from different sources.The XP bar on the bottom has 3 functions:

below lvl 80 it will fill each lvl. Once full you will lvl up automatically.
at lvl 80 you start lvling masteries. You choose a mastery you want to lvl in you hero/mastery screen and once the bar on the bottom is full you can lvl up a mastery. You will need to spend mastery points to lvl up. I think you are here and you don't have or haven't spent mastery points that is why you bar is full.
once you lvled all the masteries the bar will start to fill up again automatically and each time it gets full you will get a spirit shard. So if your incentive to play is filling up the bar below, max out all the masteries and the bar will start filling up automatically again.

A note. Masteries are split between zones: core, Hot, Pof and icebrood. So if you don't have mastery points for core masteries you can still go to Hot, Pof, icebrood maps and lvl them separately. Core masteries are in my opinion the hardest to get maxed. Others are much easier to obtain.

There is a lot more to improve, obtain in this game than lvls or masteries or gear. If you want progress you might want to increase your achievement points, you also get nice rewards for that. You could also improve your home instance by getting all the nodes for it. You could increase the diversity of your characters, builds and gear for them. You can do map completion for all the maps (not just core).

You said you play mostly in core maps. You're missing on practically half of the game. The good half. Core is really outdated compared to expansions.You also mentioned nothing of value drops at max lvl. Everything has value and most you can sell on TP. Maybe you need to start salvaging stuff. There's a market for almost all materials.

Danikat.8537 · May 1, 2020

It sounds like you left before HoT was released (and before the skill and trait re-work which preceded that). It used to be that after reaching level 80 you could continue to fill the XP bar to get additional skill points, and these were used as a currency to buy various things (mainly items used for legendaries and other rare items) once you had all your skills unlocked. (And could also get skill points from challenges out in the world.)

That was changed before Heart of Thorns was released. Now there's a finite number of skill points (renamed hero points because they also get you traits) which only come from levelling to 80 and from hero challenges in the world. Levelling to 80 (by any method) will get you exactly enough hero points to unlock all the base game skills and traits. After that if you want more to unlock the elite specialisations you will need to do hero challenges. (There are more than enough points to unlock everything so you don't have to do every single hero challenge in the game to get both elite specs unlocked, any points you get over what you need can be saved so that character will have a headstart when new elite specs are added.)

After you reached level 80 XP is used to train masteries. You also need to earn mastery points from achievements to unlock them. Unlike hero points masteries are specific to areas of the game - you can only train core Tyria masteries while in base game maps, and can only use hero points from base game maps and achievements to unlock them once they're trained. (The points are colour coded - red for core tyria, green for HoT, purple for PoF and blue for Icebrood Saga, so you can easily see which achievements will give you the points you need.)

That means if you want to continue filling the XP bar and using it for something you need to focus on getting more mastery points so you can unlock the masteries you've trained and unlock and train new ones.

Once all the masteries in a section are fully trained XP will go towards spirit shards which are used to buy some of the same things you used to get with skill points, and some new stuff. (You can also get spirit shards from all kinds of other places, so you don't have to wait until you've got all the masteries trained to get them.)

So if your only concern is things which give your character additional abilities your priority now should be achievements for mastery points and hero challenges, then doing stuff to get XP to fill the bars so you can spend the mastery points and unlock all the masteries. (Oh, incidentally masteries are account-wide - progress towards filling the XP bar is shared by all level 80 characters, points earned by one character will show for the others and masteries completed on one character are completed for all the rest.)

But it's worth bearing in mind that sooner or later you will reach a point where you have all the masteries trained, both elite specs unlocked and there is nothing else you can do with XP that gives your character new abilities, it will only give you spirit shards. If new abilities for your characters is the only thing in the game which interests you and your only motivation for playing you're going to have this problem again, with brief breaks when new masteries or elite specs are released. It might be worth taking the opportunity to think about whether that's really the only reason you like doing map completion and what you actually enjoy playing instead of feeling obligated to do for the sake of progression so you have something which is actually fun for you to focus on when that time comes.

Luthan.5236 · May 1, 2020

Level 1-80 it levels you up and you get hero points to use on skills and trait lines (includnig elite specs). After that it goes towards the masteries.I have played back then at 2012/13 ... then break until June 2019. Back then it was different I think. (It was called "skill points" and the traits were separate from it I think an there were no masteries.)

The core idea behind it stayed the same afaik: You can level to 80 and with the points gained from leveling you can fully unlock your core skills and traits. For the elite you'd need to to the hero challenges. Would be too to easy to just give endless points from leveling.

Those hero points are per char. But the maps from HoT and PoF give more hero points (10 instead of 1) compared to the core maps - per challenge. Also there are items (I have not tried them yet) or currency (testimony of heroics thing - look in the wiki) that automatically complete some random hero challenge on use. (So you save time and don't need to do them.)

After level 80 and unlocking all masteries you can gain spirit shards by filling the exp bar (same experience requiremends as for level 80 repeatedly). Spirirt shards are a currency.

The only problem with the current system I see is that experience is wasted if you don't have enough mastery points and can't just decide to gain spirit shards but the bar stays full until you spent points to do the masteries. (Luckily the raid mastery seems "hidden" until you do a read. So after I did full HoT+LS3 - it took me only 3 months or so - without raids I am now getting spirit shards atm.)

ShadowCatz.8437 · May 1, 2020

@Cuks.8241 said:Hero points are a separate thing, have nothing to do with the bar on the bottom of the screen and are confusing the debate. Ignore hero points they come from different sources.The XP bar on the bottom has 3 functions:
below lvl 80 it will fill each lvl. Once full you will lvl up automatically.
at lvl 80 you start lvling masteries. You choose a mastery you want to lvl in you hero/mastery screen and once the bar on the bottom is full you can lvl up a mastery. You will need to spend mastery points to lvl up. I think you are here and you don't have or haven't spent mastery points that is why you bar is full.
once you lvled all the masteries the bar will start to fill up again automatically and each time it gets full you will get a spirit shard. So if your incentive to play is filling up the bar below, max out all the masteries and the bar will start filling up automatically again.
A note. Masteries are split between zones: core, Hot, Pof and icebrood. So if you don't have mastery points for core masteries you can still go to Hot, Pof, icebrood maps and lvl them separately. Core masteries are in my opinion the hardest to get maxed. Others are much easier to obtain.
There is a lot more to improve, obtain in this game than lvls or masteries or gear. If you want progress you might want to increase your achievement points, you also get nice rewards for that. You could also improve your home instance by getting all the nodes for it. You could increase the diversity of your characters, builds and gear for them. You can do map completion for all the maps (not just core).
You said you play mostly in core maps. You're missing on practically half of the game. The good half. Core is really outdated compared to expansions.You also mentioned nothing of value drops at max lvl. Everything has value and most you can sell on TP. Maybe you need to start salvaging stuff. There's a market for almost all materials.

@"Humor.5763"As explained above those Mastery are colour coded so you can easy find which is which. You will need to do Story content which is after you personal story ends and transition over into HoT and later PoF story lines with related Living World seasons, then you will also get Mastery Points for each episode and also more if you repeat it for achievements. There are now several ways to get those Mastery from doing raids, dungeons, PvE map completion etc. Look up wiki for which type of Mastery you want and how to get it.

I would suggest that you start to work in Gliding as that is a very useful ability in all maps (even Core Tyria maps).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gliding#Related_masteries

Mount came with PoF and adds another layer to exploration and also are useful as they have some skills, like Springer can knock down a group of enemies, Skimmer can randomly resurrect NPC/player and give a heal from unmounting etc. They are more then just simple tools for getting around like other MMO.

As for how XP gain in Mastery works: they are tracks that you have to activate and you "purchase" it with Mastery Points. That means that you can collect more MP then you can use as you also need to be at some stage from achievement (as a step by step guide). This happens at least for how mounts works.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mount

To sum it up: you don't need to keep your XP bar in check. What you need is to collect MP which get from different activities and sources that is related to the skills, abilities or to the mount you want to have access to. While you do that you also open up new parts on your main map through steps in story. You don't need to complete story to be able to go there for most parts, but it can be confusing if you jump around too much in chronology from story and to what is going on in open world PvE. You also will have access to 4 attribute vs the "old" 3 attribute system for gear. Some of these you need to go to vendors to get recipes and or to buy items, There is also collection which give you ascended item (long road ahead) instead of crafting it.

Linken.6345 · May 1, 2020

You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)

They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

kharmin.7683 · May 1, 2020

@Humor.5763 said:
So basically, the only way to get Hero/Skill points is through maps now? Thus map exploration/events/basically anything other than Hero Points in maps are pointless for characters at lvl 80 now? No wonder I see nothing but people flying around just hunting Hero Points, cause that's all there is to do with new characters.
No, I think that you're missing a lot with GW2 if this is your perception.

Inculpatus cedo.9234 · May 1, 2020

@Linken.6345 said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

Danikat.8537 · May 1, 2020

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:
@"Linken.6345" said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

It was changed in the June 2015 update, the same one which re-worked traitlines into specialisations and introduced the training tab instead of having separate menus for unlocking skills and traits.

For a few months after that XP gained after level 80 didn't do anything. When Heart of Thorns was released in October it added the Mastery system, but it wasn't until July 2016 that they added the ability to get spirit shards for filling the XP bar. (Although the patch notes say "Added back the ability to receive Spirit Shards..." and I'm not sure if that's referring to when we got skill points or if there was an earlier time when spirit shards dropped.

Maybe someday I'll write up a full history of different versions of the skill and trait system, and related things like spirit shards, just so I can refer back to it because I find it really difficult to remember all the different versions, when they happened and in what order. (For example I'm now not sure if the June 2015 update was the one which removed the horrible system of getting traits from events, or if it briefly reverted to the old version before that.)

Linken.6345 · May 1, 2020

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:
@Linken.6345 said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

Yea I forgot to put after 80 in there so correct.

Humor.5763 · May 1, 2020

Meh, I've been off and on, on this game clearly. Stuff changed. Not really my fault this game can't keep everyone's attention span forever. Anyways... If PoF, and HoT are what I need to do in order to get Hero Skills, or points whatever you all have me confused on calling them now, then I suppose I must.

Kind of odd that they would increase the Hero Point gain in expansions (Due to Elite traits I know), but then have the core game still 1 Hero point at a time. Oh well, won't change my new char from doing the story I suppose.

https://imgur.com/fmAS7ED

Inculpatus cedo.9234 · May 1, 2020

You only need Hero Points if you want to acquire Elite Specializations.If you want your XP bar to move, you need Mastery Points.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery

Good luck, and welcome return.

castlemanic.3198 · May 1, 2020

To get your experience bar moving, you need to get mastery points. mastery points are gained through achievements. if you open your achievements tab you'll find your tabs have four kinds of stars above them. those are mastery points. get those achievements and you have mastery points to spend on your mastery tab (the tab under the achievements tab in your hero panel). Your mastery tab fills up using the experience you gain from playing out in the world. Once a mastery bar is full up, you can spend your mastery points in your mastery tab to gain that mastery and achieve a higher mastery level (currently you're sitting at mastery level 18, your next masteries will up that number). Masteries and mastery points are account wide. So unlocking masteries on one character unlocks them for all characters. there are four kinds of masteries but since you haven't played heart of thorns or path of fire, the only ones to concern yourself with right now are the red ones. the red ones are core tyria mastery points. focus on getting the achievements that have the red mastery point icon on them so that you can spend them on your core tyria masteries.

Mastery points =/= hero points. they are different systems.

hero points are character bound. you get hero points upon leveling up or getting hero points from the hero challenges indicated by the upwards arrows on your map. Core tyria hero points are yellowish and worth 1 point, Heart of thorns and Path of fire hero points are green and worth ten points (some are repeatable but that's for a later day). collecting hero points on one character only benefits that one character. and on that character you can spend your hero points to get all your skills and then get elite specializations, such as reaper on your necromancer. Hero points do not affect your experience bar in any way, shape, or form.

Tommo Chocolate.5870 · May 1, 2020

@Linken.6345 said:
@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:
@Linken.6345 said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

Yea I forgot to put after 80 in there so correct.

I think what Inculpatus is referring to is that when the game was released, once you reached level 80 you got an extra skill point every time you levelled up, similar to GW1. This meant you could get arbitrarily many skill points, but excess ones could be spent on things that nowadays cost spirit shards. When the old traitlines got reworked into specialisations, they converted the pre-level-80 skill points into hero points, and the post-level-80 those ones into spirit shards, presumably so that players who had accumulated tons of skill points couldn't use them to unlock elite specs.

ShadowCatz.8437 · May 1, 2020

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:
@Linken.6345 said:
@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:
@Linken.6345 said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

Yea I forgot to put after 80 in there so correct.

I think what Inculpatus is referring to is that when the game was released, once you reached level 80 you got an extra skill point every time you levelled up, similar to GW1. This meant you could get arbitrarily many skill points, but excess ones could be spent on things that nowadays cost spirit shards. When the old traitlines got reworked into specialisations, they converted the pre-level-80 skill points into hero points, and the post-level-80 those ones into spirit shards, presumably so that players who had accumulated tons of skill points couldn't use them to unlock elite specs.

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 is right that when the system where changed that accumulated HP points after full skill bar and traits turned into Tome of Knowledge, these in turns could be used to get Spirit Shard (which work as a token to purchase things at vendors) and now there is also crafting recipes that make use of ToK. People complained that they had no use for the massive amount after lvl 80 of ToK that you gained over time. ToK can be used to fast level up another character to level 80, if you wish to use it for that.

**ToK could not be turned into anything from start (outside of levelling up to level 80), it came later that ANet changed into Spirit Shards and you got Spirit Shard as an compensation when that system changed. There have been several changes over the years so I will not claim to remember exact which happens first and it is not important here. What is important is that Spirit Shards are still useful as a vendor token (will be put into your Wallet) and ToK is used in recipes nowadays, so all in all it less of collecting dust in your inventory.

Anyway @"Humor.5763" you aren't new to this game and already got access to a mount (Raptor from your picture), so why do you complain? You can not be so confused that you don't know how this system work today when you already have a mount. It would be something else if you didn't know even how to get a mount or how to do things.

From my own PoV this system work well enough to make it easier from ingame achievement system to understand what option there is to gain Mastery and these aren't something you have to repeat for each character after you have gained it on one character, then next character will have a much easier time to explore or do things. Your progression is in that way accumulating on your account level and not on your character level (it is here where elite specialisation come in the picture).

It is meant that you can do jumping puzzle if that is your thing to get Mastery points or if you hate JP, you can focus on story or something else and get the same amount your need to unlock things. Changes where made after HoT introduced Mastery for the first time and made Mastery less depending on a very limited number of Mastery Points (meaning you had to do things very linear as there where not enough ways to get enough of MP to level up your rank in that line for Mastery).Most people also today get booster from different sources which make character level jump up to level 80 very fast, so Mastery is a way to expand on progression in way that it is shared among your characters. XP gain is something that you get while doing things in game independent of what type of PvE you are doing more or less as long your have activated that Mastery rank.

The only thing that matters is that you are in the right map for the right group of Mastery you want to gain XP in. Doing mounts you will need to be on one of those maps that is PoF or Living World that belongs to that expansion to gain progression for that mount you want to level up in rank. Game have been designed so that most part of your achievement will also keep you in those places (there are some exceptions where you need to go to core Tyria). And as you already now those achievement are built to guide you step by step what to do next (even if that is not always so helpful, it is still part of how it is built). On map you will also see symbol where your mount is based (where you first unlock it [training NPC] and where you need to go for next step). All in all Mastery ranks is connected to gaining experience where you also collect from map those MP (where you some is part of lore and some other is part of using your mount) is a better system then the old HP where some people could have hard time to get other player to help them with getting there or even fight something to gain HP.

If you do WvW or sPvP there is the same system, but here you have to pick which reward track you will want to have active. You can gain same kind of map token if you pick PoF reward tracks as you would be getting from playing in those maps in PvE. This is another option if you need a specific map token (you can see map token if you change view in Inventory - small symbol in lower left and filter it to only show map token). Just a warning: don't turn these map token into volatile magic as you want to move them into your Material Storage and not into your wallet. You can also check how many you already have stored in MS from your inventory if you hover with your mouse on that token before you use "Deposit from inventory" in the upper right corner of Inventory.

Progression for Skyscale as an example is not only based on level up your rank in Mastery by accumulating MP and XP to unlock next rank for Skyscale (and the general Crystal Champion mastery track), but also to play in those maps to gain token that you can not get by playing in other map then where this token exist. There is a vendor in Dragonfall where you can exchange VM (this token you get from several maps and can also buy gathering tools that will over time give you a small amount of VM as you farm mats) to one of five maps token for PoF. This can only be done on daily basis and for 5 pc of that token (so this is not an option to get 250 token in one go from conversation of VM, but helps). Doing repeatable Hearts also give access to purchase a small amount map token, so this is way to get ppl to do events (which rewards with small amount of token) and do Hearts (daily reset- limited number of Hearts for each map) on regular basis.

Map token is the real limit for your progression in combination of access to Gold to purchase certain object that you need for progressing in our achievement to get unlocked Skyscale for your own use. When you have triggered start of collecting for the mount achievement, you will also be able to borrow mount on certain places on map (look for new symbol on map where you can get those).

The basic Skyscale that you can borrow will feel very different when you don't have Gliding (HoT) unlocked. With Gliding (Skyscale Master and Crystal Desert) you can summon your Skyscale if you fall from high place and want to be able to move in the air where you lack updraft (Skyscale have another way to move in air then basic Gliding). What I try to explain it is not as simple as just get a mount, but how can use your mount when you add those other Mastery ranks into the sum. With my Skyscale I can now go up a tiny bit more when my Energy bar is empty to reach VM in the sky (which refills Energy bar) or use a close walls or anything that I can not land on to full charge my flight bar and exchange energy bar into flight bar (green). I can boost forward two time with this bar, so I can "dodge" projectiles from ground and when I can not completely reach some thing I can use Bond of Faith which work as an extra launch before you descend again (need to activate Gliding). This means that I can jump from cliffs with gliding, summon Skyscale and use Bond of Faith to jump of my mount or I can use an AoE fire field which start when I close enough of ground. There is also food that can be crafted that will give quickness from unmounting.

Combing all this and you have very different set of tools to get around in game. Looking down on the game world from the above the sky on my Skyscale is really something! ;)

keenedge.9675 · May 3, 2020

The /wiki has some information about this, but I think it has not be properly updated. The experience per mob experience page in the /wiki is also faulty.

Humor.5763 · May 4, 2020

@ShadowCatz.8437 said:
@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:
@Linken.6345 said:
@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:
@Linken.6345 said:You never got hero points from leveling up you got spirit shards. ( you still get this when you maxed out and trained all masteries in a region)
They even made it easier so now you get enough skillpoints to max out all core traitlines+utility skills just by getting to 80

Yes, characters used to get Skill Points when leveling up. Skill Points eventually turned into Hero Points and Spirit Shards after the time (a few months) when you got neither.

Characters didn't get Spirit Shards until the change to Hero Points.

Yea I forgot to put after 80 in there so correct.

I think what Inculpatus is referring to is that when the game was released, once you reached level 80 you got an extra skill point every time you levelled up, similar to GW1. This meant you could get arbitrarily many skill points, but excess ones could be spent on things that nowadays cost spirit shards. When the old traitlines got reworked into specialisations, they converted the pre-level-80 skill points into hero points, and the post-level-80 those ones into spirit shards, presumably so that players who had accumulated tons of skill points couldn't use them to unlock elite specs.

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 is right that when the system where changed that accumulated HP points after full skill bar and traits turned into

Tome of Knowledge

, these in turns could be used to get Spirit Shard (which work as a token to purchase things at vendors) and now there is also crafting recipes that make use of ToK. People complained that they had no use for the massive amount after lvl 80 of ToK that you gained over time. ToK can be used to fast level up another character to level 80, if you wish to use it for that.