We all know the 1-80 leveling experience needs an overhaul. But I think the Mastery unlock system for brand new accounts needs a look as well.

[nakieon.8513]

Check out this image I uploaded to imgur of my friend, who is new to GW2, complaining about the mastery unlock system.

https://i.imgur.com/V26ECWZ.png

Context: My friend likes to take things very very slow and "smell the roses", maybe roleplay a bit, etc. He's still working on the vanilla story, nowhere near doing HoT or PoF's first mission to unlock the mastery system on his account. He's already maxed out his experience bar and does not want to skip over the story to play in a further story stage, get spoiled on lore etc. The notification constantly pops up telling him to master the ability and he's getting pissed. I keep hearing that the 1-80 leveling system for new players really needs an overhaul or facelift but I've never heard of anyone having this issue, so I think this gets overlooked as well and wanted to comment on it.

Edited June 5, 2021 by nakieon.8513
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[Danikat.8537]

There's been many, many requests to disable that pop up or at least make it less frequent. Here's a couple of relatively recent ones I found: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/88236-spammed-by-the-mastery-notification/

 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/73830-reliving-experience-as-a-newbie-impossible-now/

 

I'm not sure why it's never been changed but I agree it's annoying if you want to do things in order.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I will profess from the tallest mountain that the new player experience update was the worse update in the games history. That was the update that added those annoying leveling popup boxes and the stupid indicators. If anets tries again to revamp leveling, they will only make it worse not better. The only exemption would be to revert to vanilla leveling.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Your friend can also unlock the Mastery system by completing the first Icebrood Saga story step (Silence - no combat).

 

It has also been reported that completing a Mastery Insight inside any DRM will unlock the Mastery system (no story, basically).  I am unsure if this is true, but worth a try.

 

Good luck. 

[Mungrul.9358]

Didn't WoW reduce max level to 60 recently?

How about GW2 reduces to say, 20?

😄

 

(I never did understand why GW2 released with 80 levels; the first game didn't need them)

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I think early leveling experience should get more skills available to them and let players repurchase skills in case they pick ones that are useless at low level.

 

Core Masteries should also become available the minute you get to level 80.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Your friend can also unlock the Mastery system by completing the first Icebrood Saga story step (Silence - no combat).

 

It has also been reported that completing a Mastery Insight inside any DRM will unlock the Mastery system (no story, basically).  I am unsure if this is true, but worth a try.

 

Good luck. 

You might want to reread OP's post again. Specifically this part:

 

 

4 hours ago, nakieon.8513 said:

Context: My friend likes to take things very very slow and "smell the roses", maybe roleplay a bit, etc. He's still working on the vanilla story, nowhere near doing HoT or PoF's first mission to unlock the mastery system on his account. He's already maxed out his experience bar and does not want to skip over the story to play in a further story stage, get spoiled on lore etc.

 

So, it seems that this player is already aware of the ways to unlock the mastery tab - unfortunatelly, all of them do require doing a story step (in this case, out of order)

Edited June 6, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Well, there's not much lore in a DRM (one doesn't have to finish it, just run to the Mastery Point), which is why I suggested it.

And, since there's no combat in 'Silence', easy enough to tag along with a friend and minimize to desktop the entire encounter. 

 

Thus, no need to 're-read'. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[BlueJin.4127]

I don't know if this is something your friend may be interested in, but... One thing I did when I wanted to unlock a mastery/mount, but did not want story I have yet to reach be spoiled, was that I played through the story with the volume off. I also didn't read anything. The game's green markers were enough to get me to the new map without spoiling the story.

Edited June 6, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[Danger Ferret.6342]

2 hours ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Didn't WoW reduce max level to 60 recently?

How about GW2 reduces to say, 20?

😄

 

(I never did understand why GW2 released with 80 levels; the first game didn't need them)

I recall reading that GW2 developers wanted the user to experience leveling about once every 90 minutes of play. That might explain all the levels.

[XenesisII.1540]

2 hours ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Didn't WoW reduce max level to 60 recently?

How about GW2 reduces to say, 20?

😄

 

(I never did understand why GW2 released with 80 levels; the first game didn't need them)

 

I think one of the reasons games have high level caps is to spread out the character unlocks (and of course stretch content), and for gw2 there's a lot with the extra skills and traits. That's also a reason I believe why the leveling experience was updated in gw2 as well, with every level unlocking something new and the game letting you know about it, since apparently many new players complained about being overwhelmed or lost. Imagine the overwhelming spam you would get for all the unlocks 1-80 squished to 1-20.

 

The leveling experience also gives you a lot of time to learn the game and the class you're playing, and you really only need to do this one time because of stuff like birthday boosters and tomes of knowledge.

 

I believe WoW did a level squish because it was taking longer for new players to catch up to end game. It was a good time for them to redo and smooth out the leveling experience through their 8 expansions.

 

As for mastery, one thing I think they should change with the system, since you have to gain both mastery experience and mastery points, I feel like they should just let the experience be earnable from any zone, and not be specific, since they already have it locked with mastery points which you need to get from those zones already.

[Mungrul.9358]

Nah, I was kidding when I said I didn't know why they set max level to 80 for GW2.

The real reason was to attract players from other MMOs, plain and simple, most of whom didn't take GW1's 20 levels seriously.

 

Nevermind that GW1's system worked well at teaching you your class, but at the same time was FAR more complex at high level play than GW2 (or many other MMOs out there), thanks to almost endless build diversity.

 

The misconception that you need more levels to properly teach someone their class stems from the Blizzard school of "RPG" design, and can be traced back to original Diablo.

This reveals the true reason for implementation of a higher level cap: The constant lizard-brained need to see numbers go higher.

 

Original Guild Wars didn't need 80 levels, and neither does the grandaddy of all RPGs, D&D.

Neither does GW2.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Mungrul.9358

[Teratus.2859]

The whole core game could use a bit of an upgrade tbh, I've been banging my head on that wall for a good few years now lol

There's quite a bit in the early game that is just outdated or inferior compared to newer content added over time.
It's easy to watch a trailer for LW3-4 or IBS or PoF and HoT and then start playing Gw2 and get the impression that you're playing a completely different game.

It doesn't matter how good Gw2 is in it's newer content.. first impressions are important and the core world game will always dictate how much new players will like Gw2.

That's why the core world experience needs improving.. that's why living world 1 being reintroduced is so important.
If I were new to Gw2 and I had just beaten the core world story and experienced that largely disappointing finale and then I learned that the next story content, an entire years worth of story.. was missing from the game and inaccessible to me and that all the content I would have to pay for to unlocked was based after that content I couldn't play.. I can guarantee that I would not invest in Gw2 under those circumstances.. even if I overall liked the game.
That would be a deal breaker for me.
And I know people personally who don't play Gw2 and have written the game off largely because of that gaping hole in the story left by the absence of LW1.
They've no interest in paying to play an "incomplete game".

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

This happens because they bought the expansions before completing the Core content. The devs assume that because they bought the expos, they'll jump right into them, as the metrics have shown most players just skip the story and levelling process altogether, boost to 80, and immediately join in the latest Living World and play from there.

 

This is even one of the main selling points of LW.

 

Though I do agree something should be done about it, unfortunately those of us wanting to play through everything in a more lore-friendly way are a minority.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Hannelore.8153