Icebrood Saga Mastery points available to needed ratio is a bit tight

[Ayrilana.1396]

You can casually obtain the mastery points between the release of the episode and the next. There’s nothing casual about someone trying to get everything within the first couple days.

[coso.9173]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> You can casually obtain the mastery points between the release of the episode and the next. There’s nothing casual about someone trying to get everything within the first couple days.

 

i've been playing months for the mastery points and still need lots of more points. MANY of them require a lot of grinding. all the 20x events, 5k deaths for example.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > You can casually obtain the mastery points between the release of the episode and the next. There’s nothing casual about someone trying to get everything within the first couple days.

>

> i've been playing months for the mastery points and still need lots of more points. MANY of them require a lot of grinding. all the 20x events, 5k deaths for example.

 

You could do one event a day for twenty days. If you spread that across many months then the interval between doing the event can be longer.

[LucianDK.8615]

I believe that the smaller amount of mastery points is because of the legion claiming they had too many and wanting something to use them for , or to trade to something else.

 

I think its pretty sure that the upcomming skimmer mastery is going to require pof mastery points. got 18 spare there.

[rrusse.7058]

Thankfully this is something they discussed in the last Guild Chat and said they are and will continue to include Mastery Points as rewards for various activities. Some people want to explore, there will be your exploration Mastery Points, others like playing the map meta, and there will be points for that too.

 

If you want more evidence that is what they will do, just look at the HoT and PoF masteries. Players can easily find themselves sitting with 20+ points with nothing to spend them on by the time the season/saga is done.

 

If you're a completionist, go for it and if not then don't worry there will be activities for you.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

 

> You are right that as a season/saga goes on the number of spare points increase. I just don't remember the last living stories feeling like this.

That's because other seasons were part of an earlier expansion. You started them already having some spare points. In this case however we have no non-LS sources of mastery points at all.

 

> It seems like with the increase in the ratio they are also increasing how grindy the achievements that give the masteries feel.

Well, yeah, the achieves do seem more grindy overall

 

[Ayrilana.1396]

The number of excess mastery points has been comparable to LS4.

 

LS3 had a lot of excess but it was due to players wanting them for HoT masteries as they didn’t want to do adventures.

[Sarie.1630]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > > > Currently the icebrood saga requires 43 mastery points to have completed while there is only 50 available points.

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > The wiki is missing some points. I have 9 spare points. From what I can tell, the wiki does not account for multiple mastery points being available from the same achievements track. Case in point: the Moral Breaker achievement, which goes up to 50 completions of the Cold War strike, rewards 2 mastery points, 1 at first completion and another at 10. This is not accounted for in the wiki. Not sure which other achievement is missing.

> > > > >

> > > > > The spare and total amount of mastery points have steadily been increasing with the release of more episodes. Making it easier to acquire sufficient mastery points as the Season/Saga progresses. If memory serves me right, after the first Episode, there was only 1 spare mastery point, after the previous episode it was 6, now it's 9.

> > > > >

> > > > > This is likely to not make mastery points meaningless to early.

> > > >

> > > > You are ring that as a season/saga goes on the number of spare points increase. I just don't remember the last living stories feeling like this. It seems like with the increase in the ratio they are also increasing how grindy the achievements that give the masteries feel.

> > > >

> > > > Maybe it's just me though. I work more hours now. So having less time to play makes grinding a lot more frustrating.

> > >

> > > I mean achievements in general have gotten more grindy but thats unrelated to how tight or not the mastery points have been, you could have the same tightness and the achievements be less grindy.

> >

> > Right now I think the tight feeling is closely tied with the fact that I have played on the maps enough to have more than enough XP but I am still chasing those points.

> >

> > I even spent a good amount of gold getting the points that are locked behind the early tiers of the weapon collections.

>

> Im still chasing masteries, im nowhere near capped. I prefer it over it just sorta being drowned in mp and it feeling worthless.

 

I agree with this. I don’t mind that it takes a bit more time to work through the masteries - the effort alone makes them feel better paced than just getting everything super quick like we had with HoT

 

This is also true, however:

 

> @"coso.9173" said:

> i partiularly dislike mastery points being given as a reward for doing the same event 15 to 20 times. i just loathe that kind of line of thought. specially when the event is in itself a meta event that takes a long time.

 

I would prefer the points to be gained from doing things that were more about proving mastery than just following an owl dude around for 10 mins.

[Lottie.5370]

I actually found it to be pretty good with Icebrood Saga. I ended up with spare masteries by the time I had the experience accrued - but I did also play each release when it came out, not all at once (which helped me build a few up). I think there are a lot of plain insights, and quite a few you can get with just a little bit of time (the challenges, one Cold War (or try it daily for 10 days to get your 2nd if you enjoy it, saves you doing something else), story instances... the more I tried to make this list I found that I wanted to list nearly all of them, I truly think this is something they did well this time.)

 

I haven't done any of the weapon collections besides Boreal, not even sure if that gave a mastery. I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind. The 5000 commendations went pretty good for me, I just bought the ones each day for materials and did a few metas whilst going for events. The missions unlocked with the mission documents give quite a few commendations, but some of them are REALLY annoying (thank god you don't need them for anything else.)

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Lottie.5370" said:

> I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind.

 

You only need to do it 15 times or maybe it was 20. The rest of the rewards are just armor skins.

 

 

[Lottie.5370]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind.

>

> You only need to do it 15 times or maybe it was 20. The rest of the rewards are just armor skins.

>

>

 

For the 2nd mastery point it's 10, the third one comes from 50.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > > I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind.

> >

> > You only need to do it 15 times or maybe it was 20. The rest of the rewards are just armor skins.

> >

> >

>

> For the 2nd mastery point it's 10, the third one comes from 50.

 

No. Mastery point is awards for tiers 1 and 3. I just looked at tier one is one completion and tier 3 is ten completions.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission:_Cold_War#Achievements

[coso.9173]

> @"Sarie.1630" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > > > > Currently the icebrood saga requires 43 mastery points to have completed while there is only 50 available points.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > The wiki is missing some points. I have 9 spare points. From what I can tell, the wiki does not account for multiple mastery points being available from the same achievements track. Case in point: the Moral Breaker achievement, which goes up to 50 completions of the Cold War strike, rewards 2 mastery points, 1 at first completion and another at 10. This is not accounted for in the wiki. Not sure which other achievement is missing.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > The spare and total amount of mastery points have steadily been increasing with the release of more episodes. Making it easier to acquire sufficient mastery points as the Season/Saga progresses. If memory serves me right, after the first Episode, there was only 1 spare mastery point, after the previous episode it was 6, now it's 9.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > This is likely to not make mastery points meaningless to early.

> > > > >

> > > > > You are ring that as a season/saga goes on the number of spare points increase. I just don't remember the last living stories feeling like this. It seems like with the increase in the ratio they are also increasing how grindy the achievements that give the masteries feel.

> > > > >

> > > > > Maybe it's just me though. I work more hours now. So having less time to play makes grinding a lot more frustrating.

> > > >

> > > > I mean achievements in general have gotten more grindy but thats unrelated to how tight or not the mastery points have been, you could have the same tightness and the achievements be less grindy.

> > >

> > > Right now I think the tight feeling is closely tied with the fact that I have played on the maps enough to have more than enough XP but I am still chasing those points.

> > >

> > > I even spent a good amount of gold getting the points that are locked behind the early tiers of the weapon collections.

> >

> > Im still chasing masteries, im nowhere near capped. I prefer it over it just sorta being drowned in mp and it feeling worthless.

>

> I agree with this. I don’t mind that it takes a bit more time to work through the masteries - the effort alone makes them feel better paced than just getting everything super quick like we had with HoT

>

> This is also true, however:

>

> > @"coso.9173" said:

> > i partiularly dislike mastery points being given as a reward for doing the same event 15 to 20 times. i just loathe that kind of line of thought. specially when the event is in itself a meta event that takes a long time.

>

> I would prefer the points to be gained from doing things that were more about proving mastery than just following an owl dude around for 10 mins.

 

I agree. and doing the same event 10 20 or 50 times definitely doesn't require any "mastery" at all.

[Croc.1978]

It's actually 6 legion commendation achievements that give mastery points: ash, blood, flame, iron, dominion, frost.

 

> @"Lottie.5370" said:

> The 5000 commendations went pretty good for me, I just bought the ones each day for materials and did a few metas whilst going for events.

 

This is what I do. If you buy all the 250 daily donation stacks at the Quaestor and also the 125 ones when they are cheap (100 mithril ore), it will take a couple of weeks to get to the 30k needed but you won't have to grind the insane meta.

 

Just be sure to distribute them evenly (either by repeatedly changing where they go or by selecting to split them between the legions).

 

 

[LucianDK.8615]

> @"Lottie.5370" said:

> I actually found it to be pretty good with Icebrood Saga. I ended up with spare masteries by the time I had the experience accrued - but I did also play each release when it came out, not all at once (which helped me build a few up). I think there are a lot of plain insights, and quite a few you can get with just a little bit of time (the challenges, one Cold War (or try it daily for 10 days to get your 2nd if you enjoy it, saves you doing something else), story instances... the more I tried to make this list I found that I wanted to list nearly all of them, I truly think this is something they did well this time.)

>

> I haven't done any of the weapon collections besides Boreal, not even sure if that gave a mastery. I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind. The 5000 commendations went pretty good for me, I just bought the ones each day for materials and did a few metas whilst going for events. The missions unlocked with the mission documents give quite a few commendations, but some of them are REALLY annoying (thank god you don't need them for anything else.)

 

For cold war you get first at first kill if i remember right. And the second by the 10th kill.

[Lottie.5370]

> @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > I actually found it to be pretty good with Icebrood Saga. I ended up with spare masteries by the time I had the experience accrued - but I did also play each release when it came out, not all at once (which helped me build a few up). I think there are a lot of plain insights, and quite a few you can get with just a little bit of time (the challenges, one Cold War (or try it daily for 10 days to get your 2nd if you enjoy it, saves you doing something else), story instances... the more I tried to make this list I found that I wanted to list nearly all of them, I truly think this is something they did well this time.)

> >

> > I haven't done any of the weapon collections besides Boreal, not even sure if that gave a mastery. I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind. The 5000 commendations went pretty good for me, I just bought the ones each day for materials and did a few metas whilst going for events. The missions unlocked with the mission documents give quite a few commendations, but some of them are REALLY annoying (thank god you don't need them for anything else.)

>

> For cold war you get first at first kill if i remember right. And the second by the 10th kill.

 

That's why I said "one Cold War" and "or try it *daily* for 10 days to get your 2nd".

[Mewcifer.5198]

About the mastery points not requiring any actual mastery. I literally bought 3 of them by just buying weapons from the tp. A bit pricey but also no real effort required.

 

I would prefer more masteries to be unique one off tasks as opposed to repeating things ad nauseam. With some requiring a decent challenge to obtain, but not so many that it frustrates people trying to get mastery points.

 

Whatever happened to bounty boards? A mastery point for killing every bounty on a board at least once is a good way to give points.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > > @"Lottie.5370" said:

> > > I actually found it to be pretty good with Icebrood Saga. I ended up with spare masteries by the time I had the experience accrued - but I did also play each release when it came out, not all at once (which helped me build a few up). I think there are a lot of plain insights, and quite a few you can get with just a little bit of time (the challenges, one Cold War (or try it daily for 10 days to get your 2nd if you enjoy it, saves you doing something else), story instances... the more I tried to make this list I found that I wanted to list nearly all of them, I truly think this is something they did well this time.)

> > >

> > > I haven't done any of the weapon collections besides Boreal, not even sure if that gave a mastery. I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times... that IS a kitten grind. The 5000 commendations went pretty good for me, I just bought the ones each day for materials and did a few metas whilst going for events. The missions unlocked with the mission documents give quite a few commendations, but some of them are REALLY annoying (thank god you don't need them for anything else.)

> >

> > For cold war you get first at first kill if i remember right. And the second by the 10th kill.

>

> That's why I said "one Cold War" and "or try it *daily* for 10 days to get your 2nd".

 

Except

 

> I haven't done any of the weapon collections besides Boreal, not even sure if that gave a mastery. **I think the masteries are all quite easy to get, except for Cold War 50 times**... that IS a kitten grind.

 

You don't get any more MP after the 10th kill

[Fenom.9457]

I know, FINALLY masteries feel like an experience again! It doesn’t all just fall into your lap day one without trying. I LOVE leveling in games so I’ve always wanted to see masteries fill that gap more than they do besides HoT (since they generally lowered the amount of xp needed after that), and I’m glad now gaining more levels takes real effort and actually has the slightest bit of prestige

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > Currently the icebrood saga requires 43 mastery points to have completed while there is only 50 available points.

> > > >

> > >

> > > The wiki is missing some points. I have 9 spare points. From what I can tell, the wiki does not account for multiple mastery points being available from the same achievements track. Case in point: the Moral Breaker achievement, which goes up to 50 completions of the Cold War strike, rewards 2 mastery points, 1 at first completion and another at 10. This is not accounted for in the wiki. Not sure which other achievement is missing.

> > >

> > > The spare and total amount of mastery points have steadily been increasing with the release of more episodes. Making it easier to acquire sufficient mastery points as the Season/Saga progresses. If memory serves me right, after the first Episode, there was only 1 spare mastery point, after the previous episode it was 6, now it's 9.

> > >

> > > This is likely to not make mastery points meaningless to early.

> >

> > You are right that as a season/saga goes on the number of spare points increase. I just don't remember the last living stories feeling like this. It seems like with the increase in the ratio they are also increasing how grindy the achievements that give the masteries feel.

> >

> > Maybe it's just me though. I work more hours now. So having less time to play makes grinding a lot more frustrating.

>

> This is due to I believe 2 factors:

> 1.) any previous season after Expansion used the same mastery points as the expansion preceding it, thus both requiring but also expanding upon the mastery points available and starting with a far bigger pool of potential spare points

>

> 2.) previous season masteries were far less comprehensive. They were minor additions on top, while this Saga/Season, they are of central importance. Ancient Magics required 24 mastery points to finish, Rollarbeetle (12), Skyscale (12) and Crystal Champion (14) required a total of 38 mastery points. The Icebrood Saga masteries already out require them with 43 points required, without the benefit of left overs from a preceding expansion.

>

> Both of those points make it seem as though it is far harder to get the required mastery points this time around, which is actually true. Given the overall total spare points for past content though, I am sure this will be far less of an issue towards the end of this "mastery point cycle".

 

Not HoT was similar people complained and in season 3 people who where still on the hunt for more could finally catch up until season 3 came out . PoF was more liberal with the point in the beginning and had the some amount in season 4. Season 5 now is more like HoT in many points which many people didn't liked and we are already in a LW I don't think the next expansion will have the same points.

 

Achievements in general were in season 3&4 organized in a way that they alternately became difficulty and easy especially the meta achievements . Which I kinda still see with season 5 but for the mastery it doesn't seem to help. What also different is most of the masteries were self-contained on one map in the LW except mount skills but now you kinda need them to progress they built up on each other .

 

I have little hope that I can progress with this the new map is just to grindy and some of the older are behind stuff I will never do(e.g strike missions or meta events 25 times for nothing except this) or the events for them are never there this is absolute bricked content.

 

 

[coso.9173]

Hot masteries needed a group to be done many times, but still were simpler to get than to do a meta 30 or 50 times.

This is just grind.

[DesiRe.1348]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> Hot masteries needed a group to be done many times, but still were simpler to get than to do a meta 30 or 50 times.

> This is just grind.

 

do you even read what other people write? you dont HAVE to do any meta 30 or 50 times.

[Friday.7864]

Doing something on repeat for masteries is a... bother, to put it lightly.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > > > Currently the icebrood saga requires 43 mastery points to have completed while there is only 50 available points.

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > The wiki is missing some points. I have 9 spare points. From what I can tell, the wiki does not account for multiple mastery points being available from the same achievements track. Case in point: the Moral Breaker achievement, which goes up to 50 completions of the Cold War strike, rewards 2 mastery points, 1 at first completion and another at 10. This is not accounted for in the wiki. Not sure which other achievement is missing.

> > > >

> > > > The spare and total amount of mastery points have steadily been increasing with the release of more episodes. Making it easier to acquire sufficient mastery points as the Season/Saga progresses. If memory serves me right, after the first Episode, there was only 1 spare mastery point, after the previous episode it was 6, now it's 9.

> > > >

> > > > This is likely to not make mastery points meaningless to early.

> > >

> > > You are right that as a season/saga goes on the number of spare points increase. I just don't remember the last living stories feeling like this. It seems like with the increase in the ratio they are also increasing how grindy the achievements that give the masteries feel.

> > >

> > > Maybe it's just me though. I work more hours now. So having less time to play makes grinding a lot more frustrating.

> >

> > This is due to I believe 2 factors:

> > 1.) any previous season after Expansion used the same mastery points as the expansion preceding it, thus both requiring but also expanding upon the mastery points available and starting with a far bigger pool of potential spare points

> >

> > 2.) previous season masteries were far less comprehensive. They were minor additions on top, while this Saga/Season, they are of central importance. Ancient Magics required 24 mastery points to finish, Rollarbeetle (12), Skyscale (12) and Crystal Champion (14) required a total of 38 mastery points. The Icebrood Saga masteries already out require them with 43 points required, without the benefit of left overs from a preceding expansion.

> >

> > Both of those points make it seem as though it is far harder to get the required mastery points this time around, which is actually true. Given the overall total spare points for past content though, I am sure this will be far less of an issue towards the end of this "mastery point cycle".

>

> Not HoT was similar people complained and in season 3 people who where still on the hunt for more could finally catch up until season 3 came out . PoF was more liberal with the point in the beginning and had the some amount in season 4. Season 5 now is more like HoT in many points which many people didn't liked and we are already in a LW I don't think the next expansion will have the same points.

>

 

Well players complain about pretty much anything nowadays which they can't get within 2 minutes. I don't recall HoT being all to difficult mastery point wise. Even without the Season 3 after, there were around 30 spare mastery points. The issue most players had was that many mastery points were behind content they did not enjoy or want to play, like adventures and many avoided HoT due to the initial difficulty spike. Season 3 made it easier in that while adding a new mastery track, it added a lot of easier to acquire mastery points. Most behind story or channeled achievements.

 

That doesn't change the fact though that many dedicated players started past seasons with spare mastery points, unlike now.

 

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> Achievements in general were in season 3&4 organized in a way that they alternately became difficulty and easy especially the meta achievements . Which I kinda still see with season 5 but for the mastery it doesn't seem to help. What also different is most of the masteries were self-contained on one map in the LW except mount skills but now you kinda need them to progress they built up on each other .

 

Yes, some of the recent achievements have been a lot more grind related than past ones. Also again yes, the current Season/Saga is a lot closer in working like an expansion than with previous seasons, because mastery points and uses are cross map.

 

As to why we are seeing more grind, my person reasoning on this is simple:

1.) metrics have shown that active players and players who are actively playing the game, spend money. Players who take breaks, do not. The easiest way to keep players "working" on things is make them grindy.

2.) with lack of challenging content to keep players attention for part of the player base, grind is added into other parts of the game to try to hold on to those players.

 

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> I have little hope that I can progress with this the new map is just to grindy and some of the older are behind stuff I will never do(e.g strike missions or meta events 25 times for nothing except this) or the events for them are never there this is absolute bricked content.

 

I think the most I have seen for completing a mastery point is completing the Cold War Strike mission 10 times for the second one. I do agree though, for players who do not participate in strikes at all, and with limited time, and with not completing the weapon collections (which are rather pricy for regular players), mastery points would be tight.

 

I still believe that by the end of the Season/Saga, we will end up with a big chunk of spare mastery points, maybe in the range of 20-30 spare points. The developers have retroactively added content into past current Season/Saga maps, so this could be as simple as adding a few mastery point channels per map. The reason this is not done yet is to keep some type of progression as far as masterys is concerned.

[coso.9173]

> @"DesiRe.1348" said:

> > @"coso.9173" said:

> > Hot masteries needed a group to be done many times, but still were simpler to get than to do a meta 30 or 50 times.

> > This is just grind.

>

> do you even read what other people write? you dont HAVE to do any meta 30 or 50 times.

 

-for citadel crasher you need 10 times for a meta that takes around 2 hours each time. that's 20 hours alone for 1 masteyr point. I've done it ONCE and I'd loather to do it ever again. it's terribly long and tiring without much rest.

-raven's favor asks for 15 times doing the meta (which is at least shorter)

-no quarter mastery requires 22 achievements for 1 MP too.

-glory to the X legion require 5k kills EACH for mastery points.

-death to the X require 5k kills each too.

 

ALL of this is VERY grindy. HoT had difficult to get mastery points, but they were doable with a small group. Now they decided it's best to keep us doing events forever to get some single mastery points. this is not fun. grind is not fun. and it wasn't necesary to get mastery points before.

I don't say that mastery points should be easy to get, to me HoT did it right, group activities that cna be achieveable in a while. it's exciting tobeat a boss to get a reward. it's NOT excited to do a 2 hours event TEN times to get a masteyr points, it's awful. even if it's doable only 1 daily it's already terrible for lots of people (myself included)