|
Hefty posted:There are actually mastery points you can find and commune with, but they don't unlock anything. Also, the fact that points are separate from the xp required to use them is confusing and unintuitive. While I found it simple to figure out, the double-step for those things definitely was another "this is bad or at least not-fun design" I felt. Not that this doesn't have issues too - but I would enjoyed masteries more if the absence of them didn't block you from content, but rather made you better. Much like how traditional leveling and the AA system (from EQ1) did. Don't make it "oh now you can glide" make it "now you can glide farther / faster". Not "now you can harvest this special mushroom" but "now you get more per harvest". Don't block the content. I thought Pact Commander does a pretty decent job of feeling this way, and some of the later steps of the Maguuma ones do too. But the first rank in them are all terrible. If you've used up your points (or just don't want to spend them in a specific mastery track yet), can you still at least gain exp and unlock later tiers? Otherwise it seems like you could end up "wasting exp" while you try to collect armor suits or something for Tyria masteries.
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:35 |
|
|
I think the only thing they'd need to do to tune mastery experience to something not rear end is to just tone the requirements down to what a typical level's worth of EXP is and then scale up gradually from there rather than starting at the relatively huge numbers and going up to insanity.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:16
|
|
|
Aesis posted:There's a control setting in GW2 that lets you enable action camera (toggle action camera, I think). It essentially does the same thing as ICM. Except you can't assign right click to dodge BobTheJanitor posted:There's an updated version of it that was linked somewhere up the thread that is designed to work with the new action camera. It lets you rebind right mouse to whatever you want, too. It made the game a ton more playable for me, since I had a lot of muscle memory of using skill 2 on right mouse and not having that was killing me. I'd provide the link but I'm at work, so let your google be your guide. Oh wow they actually finally added that into the base game??!! I don't use right button for dodge anyway so I will have to give this a look see. Thanks 
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:18
|
|
|
YoshiOfYellow posted:I think the only thing they'd need to do to tune mastery experience to something not rear end is to just tone the requirements down to what a typical level's worth of EXP is and then scale up gradually from there rather than starting at the relatively huge numbers and going up to insanity. In their defense, I think the idea is that they don't expect you to get the top-level masteries quickly. They probably expect an average player to get things like Ley Line Gliding or Exalted Gathering in a couple months, not right away, and I guess that's okay. I think the way we unlock them (gain XP, pick from a list) is really boring and disconnected, but the pace is probably okay. I think they should've just outright given us any story-gating masteries during the story. Have Canach give you your glider in the first HoT mission. He can say, "Commander, you'll need a glider to get around. Take this one. It's basic, but it should be enough to get you around the jungle." Have the Itzel teach you how to bounce on mushrooms when you first meet them (because you need the mushroom bouncing to access the very next story mission). Do that, and I can live with the rest of the system. Harrow fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Nov 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:21
|
|
|
I actually like the mastery gating of the story now that they've taken out the worst offender. It works out to the game introducing you to a new zone and then you play in that zone for an hour or two, unlock the mastery and continue with the story. I actually appreciated the game basically telling me to chill out and go get a feel for the area before I kept going. I guess if you explored all the areas before doing the storyline it might not work out like that but then you'd probably have gotten the first level masteries before you needed them anyway. The first level ones really just don't take that long to get through at all.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:27
|
|
|
Part of my bias here with all my mastery-related whining probably comes down to my own dissatisfaction with standard RPG/MMORPG mechanics these days. Like, I think GW2 would be better off if stats like Power and Precision went away entirely and we just equipped runes and weapon sigils. Get rid of any traits that directly modify damage unconditionally (more traits like Compounding Power which make you do something to get your damage bonus, and fewer like Pyromancer's Training that just give you a flat bonus to a certain set of skills). I think we'd immediately have a more compelling way of building our characters: build for specific effects and define your build by your skills and traits and don't worry about "better make sure everything is Berserker" or anything like that. You don't have to be like, "Eh, these two weapon sets won't work well together, because this is a Power weapon and this is a Condition Damage weapon." I like masteries in theory because every time you get a new one, you're getting an actual new ability, and not just gaining more numbers, and that's super neat. Organza Quiz posted:I actually like the mastery gating of the story now that they've taken out the worst offender. It works out to the game introducing you to a new zone and then you play in that zone for an hour or two, unlock the mastery and continue with the story. I actually appreciated the game basically telling me to chill out and go get a feel for the area before I kept going. I guess if you explored all the areas before doing the storyline it might not work out like that but then you'd probably have gotten the first level masteries before you needed them anyway. The first level ones really just don't take that long to get through at all. That might be the case. What hurts masteries for me is just that the way you unlock them feels totally disconnected from what they are. Unlocking Basic Gliding and Exalted Purification the same way just seems so... weak. Like there's nothing special about it at all. Harrow fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Nov 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:32
|
|
|
Yup. And it wouldn't even have been that hard to fix. Just tie each mastery point to a specific track instead of a specific region, and make the stuff you have to do to earn the points related to the mastery. So for your third gliding mastery point, you have to show that you know how to use updrafts, etc.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:38
|
|
|
I would be okay with the state of masteries and unlocking if they cut the XP required by like 40%+. It's way too much for a casual player. I see the poison mastery required to access some areas I can't enter and get so frustrated that I won't be able to enter that area for probably a month at this rate. Dragonhunter being so good makes up for half the sins of the xpack though tbf
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
xZAOx posted:If you've used up your points (or just don't want to spend them in a specific mastery track yet), can you still at least gain exp and unlock later tiers? Otherwise it seems like you could end up "wasting exp" while you try to collect armor suits or something for Tyria masteries. Is this a made-up problem or did you actually run out of mastery points? I have way more than I can spend at this point, but I've done a lot of exploring. You can still gain experience in a different line if you don't unlock the one that's full.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
I dunno... you used to have to be at a certain level to unlock the next part of your storyline too. And don't forget Ascension in Guild Wars 1. Anet has always liked gating content to extend playtime.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:46
|
|
|
CLAM DOWN posted:I would be okay with the state of masteries and unlocking if they cut the XP required by like 40%+. It's way too much for a casual player. I see the poison mastery required to access some areas I can't enter and get so frustrated that I won't be able to enter that area for probably a month at this rate. The whole thing strikes me like that's the intention which I can sort of respect. Where it falls down is that XP is pretty easy to farm if you really put your mind to it. If they wanted masteries to take a long time to get so that players get to continually discover new areas months from now, this was not at all the way to do it. It frustrates more casual players (like us) because we see this huge XP wall and it feels like we have to grind for it for ages. It doesn't satisfy more "hardcore" players because all it does is incentivize them to do boring things to get XP really quickly, which then also invalidates the long-term nature of masteries. It's just not a good implementation of their intention. I agree with some of the Reddit and official forums folks that a game like GW2 needs a variety of long-term goals, and that sometimes, cool-looking skins aren't enough. I like the idea that we can still be unlocking actual new abilities a couple months into HoT. I just think that the way they're doing it is exactly the most boring way they could've possibly done it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:47
|
|
|
People are going to get a lot more bent put of shape when they piece together the requirements for the elite weapon collections. So far it's something like... Stealth Gliding (IV) Nuhoch Stealth Detection (IV) Exalted Gathering (V) Itzel Poison (IV) You also need to beat Mordremoth a couple times, probably at least 4, in order to farm the crystalline ore and unlock the vendors.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:49
|
|
|
Plavski posted:I dunno... you used to have to be at a certain level to unlock the next part of your storyline too. The only hard gating I recall from GW1 was having to get faction rank in Factions and sunspear rank if you were a derv or paragon in Nightfall. Those were annoying too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:52
|
|
|
ItBurns posted:Is this a made-up problem or did you actually run out of mastery points? I have way more than I can spend at this point, but I've done a lot of exploring. You can still gain experience in a different line if you don't unlock the one that's full. The only mastery I'm interested in is pact commander, & I will run out of points there pretty quickly I am expecting.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 17:58
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:The only hard gating I recall from GW1 was having to get faction rank in Factions and sunspear rank if you were a derv or paragon in Nightfall. Those were annoying too. Also the hard build/gear requirements for dungeons which often required you to grind tracks to a certain level, abilities from specific areas and/or missions that were inaccessible or difficult to beat without a group or map completion on a specific expansion. You'd also better hope that you had a monk/ele/assassin in order to farm (depending on which meta you were in) in addition to the Warrior/Ele/Monk that you used for group content. And let's not forget about needing to win a PvP tournament in order to pay for the privilege of farming the handful of mobs that (maybe) dropped the valuable materials you needed for the top end armors.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:01
|
|
|
xZAOx posted:The only mastery I'm interested in is pact commander, & I will run out of points there pretty quickly I am expecting. That's a Tyria mastery so you could probably run out of points if you're on a brand-new account and do nothing but cheese XP in CoF. That's on you though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:03
|
|
|
I see a lot of heralds not using shield. I assume this is a max pve dps thing because holy gently caress shield owns bones for pvp. Also super pro rev tip- if you use an ability with a long animation (sword 3 ) then swap legends you will generate energy during the channel. Aforementioned anime attack lets you get to almost 70 energy and really lets you go ham on someone if you switched to shiro.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:08
|
|
|
Been glued to my computer ever since HoT launched, have to say I'm pretty happy with it. Spent the first few days getting to fractal level 100 (and maxing that mastery), and while complaints about boss HP are absolutely warranted (the first champ you fight on level 100 is a perfect example), I feel that they managed to mix things up enough with the instabilities to make it interesting and challenging. Also did some pretty princessing, of course. First I updated the look of my   Then I made a new Engineer, and decided to go for some kind of post-apocalyptic gunslinger look which I'm pretty happy with:  And of course, I needed a  
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:41
|
|
|
tyblazitar posted:Been glued to my computer ever since HoT launched, have to say I'm pretty happy with it. Spent the first few days getting to fractal level 100 (and maxing that mastery), and while complaints about boss HP are absolutely warranted (the first champ you fight on level 100 is a perfect example), I feel that they managed to mix things up enough with the instabilities to make it interesting and challenging. Those all look awesome, specially the chronomancer. What shield is that?
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:45
|
|
|
Harrow posted:[...] That's pretty much my biggest disappointment and no amount of fine tuning the numbers will ever fix it. It's all very obviously gamey and "get this much XP to unlock X" and they're not even trying. After the HoT intro the game goes "to progress you need gliding" which is a progress bar in a menu somewhere that fills up if you do stuff instead of actually learning gliding from, I don't know, NPCs or ancient texts or by putting together your first glider or what have you. After the whole trait unlock failure, when they mentioned something like the reason they couldn't discuss the revamp was HoT/mastery, I hoped they had figured out creative ways to let us unlock these new shiny things which would take over from trait unlocking. The 2014 trait unlock system wasn't a bad idea, it was just badly implemented (not account-wide, some unlocks made no sense, no choice eg. to unlock the same traits in different ways). And stuff like what you're describing is what I had in mind - for a game that supposedly takes exploration seriously, there sure aren't many things to explore that aren't "go there check off map completion objective/loot chest". But nope, can't have that. Fill up bar in game menu, learn new thing. ItBurns posted:Is this a made-up problem or did you actually run out of mastery points? I have way more than I can spend at this point, but I've done a lot of exploring. You can still gain experience in a different line if you don't unlock the one that's full. I'm pretty sure I don't have enough mastery points for all the Tyria stuff (about 10 short), no amount of playing normally in not-HoT zones that would potentially give me the required XP is going to fix that because I just have very specific tasks left (LS2 achievements, collections, etc.). If I went out of my way to grind XP I think it would be possible (but gently caress that - just in theory) orcane fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Nov 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
Speaking of the original trait/skill system - I suspect at some point we'll see a mastery overhaul too. Might be a year or whatever, but it seems likely that they'll be made more friendly and less grindy at some point. Less exp required in some form/fashion seems a given. Just not right away.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:17
|
|
|
Unrelated to HoL really, but I can't find good info on this on the wiki and I'm dumb. I've still got masterwork jewelry and trinkets on my level 80. Where do I find ascended or, even bette, exotic stuff for these slots?
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:17
|
|
|
Farbror posted:Unrelated to HoL really, but I can't find good info on this on the wiki and I'm dumb. For exotic stuff, you're probably best off buying it from the Trading Post or crafting it with Jewelcrafting. It's probably less expensive than ever to just buy the exotic rings/amulets/trinkets that you want. For ascended (a tier above exotic), you can spend those Laurels you get as login rewards on them. You can also get ascended trinkets using Guild Commendations that you get for doing guild missions, or get ascended rings as drops in Fractals.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:20
|
|
|
Here's my CritReaper Algol Paradox after I realized how powerful they were during beta.
Lemon King fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Nov 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:26
|
|
|
malhavok posted:Those all look awesome, specially the chronomancer. What shield is that?
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:29
|
|
|
does any one elses launcher get stuck on "initializing" randomly until you restart a couple times, only started happening after the update that broke poo poo for a lot of people
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:32
|
|
|
YoshiOfYellow posted:I think the only thing they'd need to do to tune mastery experience to something not rear end is to just tone the requirements down to what a typical level's worth of EXP is and then scale up gradually from there rather than starting at the relatively huge numbers and going up to insanity. The masteries are equivalent to a couple levels each. You need 254,000 experience to gain a level when you're at level 80. Level 1 masteries are 508,000, or 2 levels. Level 2 masteries are 4 levels, level 3 are 7 levels... OK yeah, that's a lot of experience. The last tier of the Legendary Crafting mastery is 20 levels worth of XP! So really they could cut the XP in half and it would be more fun, probably. Farbror posted:Unrelated to HoL really, but I can't find good info on this on the wiki and I'm dumb. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinkets
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:33
|
|
|
I think masteries are cool idea and I like the whole alternative advancement at level cap thing without new gear tiers, gear levels, etc. If they tone down the xp requirements, they could do some fun stuff with the system I think and that'll be good to me. Aside from that the only real outstanding concern I have is being able to unlock elite specs on my alts, I have a large number of alts and I can foresee it taking a very very very long time for someone like me with much lower playtime than some.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:36
|
|
|
How do the specs work? I've barely played this game since the revamp. I got my mesmer to 45 and got the second spec tree, so I tried picking the one that sounded heal-y, in case I grouped, but I don't see a button to make that active instead of my first (chaos) spec. Also I was in a wvw and some guy kept saying I was playing mesmer wrong and was a noob (which, I am, so thanks?) but are there any major tips I'm missing? I run around with staff most of the time, use my shatters once in a while, and pve seems pretty easy.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:44
|
|
|
My big thing that I want for future HoT updates is more "fast" content and more small-group content. As it stands, once you're done with the story, the things you can do solo and with only a short amount of time to play are pretty much limited to Fractals (which are not in a good place right now and aren't fun) or Adventures. The best things that you can get in the open-world zones are tied to long meta-events with involved world bosses at the end which, while I very much enjoy those and think they're cool, don't lend themselves to short bursts of play or solo/small-group play. I'd like to see more Fractals, reworked rewards from Fractals, and then something else that follows the Fractal model for solo or small-group play. Give us little instanced missions that reuse open world areas like the story quests do. They can even reuse some of the cool boss mechanics from LS2/HoT story bosses and scale them up for five-player groups. I posted about this before, but it's basically how Destiny does "Strikes"--reuse some of the patrol zone areas so they don't have to make new level geometry, then just build a short, 10-15 minute dungeon around them with some fun encounters and a neat boss at the end. That'd be a good fit for GW2, I think. (They could take it to the next level by having one or two unique weapon or armor skins that can only drop from individual mini-dungeons so people really want to do them.) I'm optimistic about the idea that they might be willing to have unique drops in certain places because of things like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3r4y0z/lets_try_and_find_the_new_skins/ Cool-looking new weapon skins that apparently only come from drops in specific areas or from specific activities? More of that, please, and fewer Mystic Forge recipes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
effectual posted:How do the specs work? I've barely played this game since the revamp. I got my mesmer to 45 and got the second spec tree, so I tried picking the one that sounded heal-y, in case I grouped, but I don't see a button to make that active instead of my first (chaos) spec. You can click the little arrow to the left of your Chaos spec and it'll let you replace it with another. As you level up, you'll unlock the ability to have up to three specs slotted at once. (I think you'll get your second slot at 50 and third at 70? I don't remember.) Also, I recommend picking up Dueling for leveling purposes. It's an extremely versatile spec that helps a lot with generating clones and doing damage. If you're having fun and doing well you don't need to rush to grab it, but it's worth looking at. Harrow fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:47
|
|
|
Harrow posted:My big thing that I want for future HoT updates is more "fast" content and more small-group content. As it stands, once you're done with the story, the things you can do solo and with only a short amount of time to play are pretty much limited to Fractals (which are not in a good place right now and aren't fun) or Adventures. The best things that you can get in the open-world zones are tied to long meta-events with involved world bosses at the end which, while I very much enjoy those and think they're cool, don't lend themselves to short bursts of play or solo/small-group play. I did some fractals yesterday and enjoyed them, are the new levels broken? I'm only on like personal reward level 27 or something because I'm not a masochist. Adventures are fun but my issue with them is that some are a big pain to access. If they were easier/faster to get it, I can see myself doing them more!
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:49
|
|
|
CLAM DOWN posted:I did some fractals yesterday and enjoyed them, are the new levels broken? I'm only on like personal reward level 27 or something because I'm not a masochist. The higher-level Fractals apparently bring back the old health-sponge design and people aren't finding them very fun.  I hope they take another look at that in a future update, especially given that Colin recently gave an interview at Gamasutra where he said that's exactly what he doesn't want to do to increase difficulty.quote:So in Johanson’s mind, he’s kind of done scaling numbers up as a major form of difficulty management--he's rather use monsters and their magic. “We found that's just a much better method of difficulty scaling then any of our other levers. When it changes the way you play, that's awesome. When it's just numerical, that's not interesting. And so more and more, as we go for, we're trying to find creative ways to scale as you play our game.”
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:52
|
|
|
effectual posted:How do the specs work? I've barely played this game since the revamp. I got my mesmer to 45 and got the second spec tree, so I tried picking the one that sounded heal-y, in case I grouped, but I don't see a button to make that active instead of my first (chaos) spec. Anyone doing WvW isn't worth listening to. It exists for power leveling and for pubbies to farm whatever the hell they get from circle capping. You'll eventually get slots for three trait lines and will be able to slot a line in each slot. Each trait line has 3 choices you can make and 3 traits built-in. I wouldn't worry too much about your traits until you're 80, but Dueling has a decent trait called 'Deceptive Evasion' that's good for leveling, and that line has a decent mix of survivability and damage to pick from.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:52
|
|
|
ItBurns posted:Anyone doing WvW isn't worth listening to. It exists for power leveling and for pubbies to farm whatever the hell they get from circle capping. Yeah I have the trait lines, but how do I switch which is active? I don't even know how to power level in wvw since there are usually only a few people on the map and you can't take a castle with just a couple guys. Those should really scale 
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:55
|
|
|
effectual posted:Yeah I have the trait lines, but how do I switch which is active? You can click on your currently-equipped trait line to switch it. Also, he means that eventually you'll be able to have more equipped at once. Two at level 50, three at level 70. (Also, he's telling the truth about Dueling. It's a great line and worth picking up in the near future.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
Raids and stuff coming mid-November! PvP League starting Dec 1! Wintersday Dec 15! https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-road-ahead-for-2015/
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:57
|
|
|
As a returning player who's here mostly for PvP and some casual PvE, Mastery feels...okay. I would just settle for indicators telling me which masteries are needed for story missions, because I spent a night unlocking the upgraded glider mastery to find out I should have been working on the mushroom jumping mastery instead, since I need that for my next story mission. The only real ire I have is I was peeking at Tyria masteries and saw the devs actually implemented auto-loot, but gated it behind the top-tier Tyria masteries. And it looks like a lot of mastery points are from the Living Story or Fractals, neither of which I'm super interested in playing (or purchasing).
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 19:58
|
|
|
Harrow posted:You can click on your currently-equipped trait line to switch it. Wait, both trait lines work at the same time? Cool, but kinda annoying since I'd rather have it save a set of my spells for each trait line, so I can switch with 1 button instead of needing to tinker with each spell choice every time I swap.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:35 |
|
|
effectual posted:Wait, both trait lines work at the same time? Cool, but kinda annoying since I'd rather have it save a set of my spells for each trait line, so I can switch with 1 button instead of needing to tinker with each spell choice every time I swap. Eventually. If you go to the build tab on your Hero panel you can set which is active. At first you only get one. Eventually you'll get three.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2015 20:03
|
|