Heads Up! Iteration Incoming

[Beazy]

OK Good. I thought I was going to be banned when I seen the "New Build in 10 minutes" warning and I logged back in and used my spec was almost complete. I went from 50% to 90%.

[Kelimbror]

I find it odd they see the problem from feedback with the Elite spec, but don't admit masteries have the same problem...maybe I'll keep playing in the old world for another month until they realize what an arduous task they've made the game as opposed to the very open, exploratory nature of the original game. At this point I could be a free player and have as much fun as I am now...so I feel like buying HoT was a giant waste of money.

[Beazy]

I find it odd they see the problem from feedback with the Elite spec, but don't admit masteries have the same problem...maybe I'll keep playing in the old world for another month until they realize what an arduous task they've made the game as opposed to the very open, exploratory nature of the original game. At this point I could be a free player and have as much fun as I am now...so I feel like buying HoT was a giant waste of money.

I dont mind the mastery grind. I reminds me of Medroid / Castlevania. Do some stuff, and get an ability that lets you do more stuff in the same area.

I did kind of hate the eSpec grind because I wanted to use my great sword to earn all of the mastery points on my Necro. But looks like they changed that somewhat, so it shouldnt be so bad.

[Kelimbror]

I dont mind the mastery grind. I reminds me of Medroid / Castlevania. Do some stuff, and get an ability that lets you do more stuff in the same area.

I'm not sure how. Metroid didn't require you to repeat the same event 20 times and then just mindlessly kill things in order to go to new places. This is really nothing like that. Now if you had to complete a section of the story and then you were rewarded with the new ability, that would be like Metroid.

[Beazy]

I'm not sure how. Metroid didn't require you to repeat the same event 20 times and then just mindlessly kill things in order to go to new places. This is really nothing like that. Now if you had to complete a section of the story and then you were rewarded with the new ability, that would be like Metroid.

Well, I didn't repeat anything, I just started in the jungle and made may way down to the 3rd jungle zone, doing everything in my path. by the time I reached the 3rd zone, I could train for updrafts and I went back to the first zone to explore the areas I couldn't reach or didn't even know existed. All while doing the main quest line.

I bet I could have gotten it all if I didn't get so addicted to the damn PvP in this game.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure how. Metroid didn't require you to repeat the same event 20 times and then just mindlessly kill things in order to go to new places. This is really nothing like that. Now if you had to complete a section of the story and then you were rewarded with the new ability, that would be like Metroid.

Repeat? Grind? Go do the really fun and unique meta events in Dragon's Stand. They always have a bunch of people doing them and the map isn't empty 9 times out of 10 at all. It's always an effective way to spend your time.

Now that I'm done choking on my own sarcasm, I really wish they had made more events that were at least doable by a smaller amount of people. Failing an event just cause we don't have enough hands is getting a little tiresome. I just assume the megaservers are kinda fucked at the moment but Dragon's Stand is almost always empty when I go there, so I can't even farm exp on event chains.

[Beazy]

Repeat? Grind? Go do the really fun and unique meta events in Dragon's Stand. They always have a bunch of people doing them and the map isn't empty 9 times out of 10 at all. It's always an effective way to spend your time.

Now that I'm done choking on my own sarcasm, I really wish they had made more events that were at least doable by a smaller amount of people. Failing an event just cause we don't have enough hands is getting a little tiresome. I just assume the megaservers are kinda fucked at the moment but Dragon's Stand is almost always empty when I go there, so I can't even farm exp on event chains.

Is dragons stand the 4th jungle zone?

[Deleted]

Is dragons stand the 4th jungle zone?

Aye. It's basically a huge event chain zone. All waypoints are unlocked immediately and the entire zone is to facilitate a meta event. Most of the waypoints are contested until you complete events that span out in 3, or maybe 4 paths around the starter waypoint. Most hero points are blocked off until their respective events have been completed.

Naturally this means that if nobody is in the zone, it's practically impossible to travel around safely + quickly, literally impossible to get most of the hero points + there's nothing else to do.

It's odd. It definitely suffers when nobody is there.

[Kelimbror]

Well, I didn't repeat anything, I just started in the jungle and made may way down to the 3rd jungle zone, doing everything in my path. by the time I reached the 3rd zone, I could train for updrafts and I went back to the first zone to explore the areas I couldn't reach or didn't even know existed. All while doing the main quest line.

I bet I could have gotten it all if I didn't get so addicted to the damn PvP in this game.

I felt really awkward following the main story, especially since I had to 'cheat' to continue one objective as it stated I needed mushroom jumping (rightly so) but I managed to glide my way to an outcropping and jump puzzle myself on to the structure to continue the quest. I feel like I may hit another mastery road block since I'm already sent into Auric Basin...but...I'll try your method and maybe it will make it feel better for me. The story was engaging too, so that was probably the most fun I was having.

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

[Karizee]

Thanks to the Hero Points nerf I was able to max out my Reaper in less than 2 hours yesterday, so now I have 2 elites! Going for Chronomancer next, then a Revenant.

Mastery is progressing nicely just by playing and Verdant Brink is full of players gliding and bouncing all over the zone. Honestly my only concern at this point is Mastery Points, will probably have to do the LS achievements as I get further into it.

[DrMcNinja]

250 points seems fair to me. I guess it's a change for the better.

[Edge-]

Honestly my only concern at this point is Mastery Points, will probably have to do the LS achievements as I get further into it.

This is one thing I noticed that I am not looking forward to. AT ALL. Hate many of these specific nonsense achievements and have no desire to get them, hence why I don't bloody already have them.

Seriously, I miss the days when the game provided me with a series of different activities (not just events) that allowed me to progress my character. When are those coming back?

[Karizee]

Yeah, I been gaining the xp for Mastery at a reasonable pace, been leveling them all equally for Hot zones, but just glancing at it I can see I'm going to need a ton more mastery points to cap them all - that or make a hard choice on which one(s) to advance. I know there's a ton dotted around the maps you can simply channel, but it's not well documented yet where they are located or even how many there are since we are still very fresh into the discovery phase.

Good thing you don't need the points to get your elites.

[Kazgrel]

This is one thing I noticed that I am not looking forward to. AT ALL. Hate many of these specific nonsense achievements and have no desire to get them, hence why I don't bloody already have them.

Seriously, I miss the days when the game provided me with a series of different activities (not just events) that allowed me to progress my character. When are those coming back?

You mean things like how a bunch of central Tyria MP are from doing all the random ass achievements for Living Story Season 2? Yeah...people CBA to do them for the luminiscent armor skins, so hey, let's put MP behind them as well! Gotta sell that LS Season 2 bundle, yo.

[Edge-]

You mean things like how a bunch of central Tyria MP are from doing all the random ass achievements for Living Story Season 2? Yeah...people CBA to do them for the luminiscent armor skins, so hey, let's put MP behind them as well! Gotta sell that LS Season 2 bundle, yo.

Snaps, honestly didn't even think about that, nice catch.

There's so much about this expansion I'm strongly disliking, and it seems every day there's something else that I find out about and facepalm at. LS S2 should have been part of the expansion : /

Ugh, it's like every day Anet is making me regret my early preorder (and extra character slot purchase on top of it) more and more. STAHP

[Valeron]

I'm sure they will give you a refund if you are disliking it so much.

[Kazgrel]

Snaps, honestly didn't even think about that, nice catch.

There's so much about this expansion I'm strongly disliking, and it seems every day there's something else that I find out about and facepalm at. LS S2 should have been part of the expansion : /

Ugh, it's like every day Anet is making me regret my early preorder (and extra character slot purchase on top of it) more and more. STAHP

I happened to see those, and I simply went "meh, whatever".

What I really don't like: I would have to get about 9-10 more MP in central Tyria in order to be able to work on the new HoT legendary precursors. Wouldn't it make more sense for HoT precursor crafting MP coming from the new zones? I think it would.

I'm not the least bit regretting the preorder, though. Been enjoying the journey through the jungle, despite the occasional wtfs with some of the champion mobs and one of the story quests bugging out on me twice (but was able to complete it). Not a perfect xpac. Not a perfect game. Pretty darn good, though.

[Karizee]

You mean things like how a bunch of central Tyria MP are from doing all the random ass achievements for Living Story Season 2? Yeah...people CBA to do them for the luminiscent armor skins, so hey, let's put MP behind them as well! Gotta sell that LS Season 2 bundle, yo.

Ok, you made me curious so I went to look - LS2 does NOT count towards HoT masteries :P

Looking at the achievement panel, this is what I've come up with - to max all HoT masteries requires 112 pts.

• The story achievements only reward 17 mastery pts.
• The zone achievements reward 111 mastery pts. (these range from getting Bronze in an adventure to defeating all the Nightfall bosses).

The channeled mastery points I mentioned earlier are under the Insights section of the zone achievements - 23 in total for those. It cleverly tells you where to find them without showing you how. And it's obvious that most players will not require all these masteries.


The question is how will some of these masteries relate to raiding. For instance, they've shown one of the raid bosses where you use gliding + updraft to avoid a boss's big hit by flying off the platform at the right time. That would be T2 gliding. Now, would getting T4 gliding (lose the endurance bar) give you some cushion to get back in the fight? We don't know yet.

[Edge-]

Ok, you made me curious so I went to look - LS2 does NOT count towards HoT masteries :P.

No, but it is needed for many of the Tyria mastery points (which is what they were talking about) : P

[zito]

I really don't see why people are hating on mastery. It feels like zelda where you need something to unlock more stuff. You also don't have to grind the same events. There's fucking 4 zones and the majority doesn't need more than basic gliding.

It's horizontal progression. It's working fine imo. There's also only 16 mastery levels in the jungle which are account bound

Everyone was so excited for horizontal progression and now it's the opposite because they don't understand how it works