00:00www.mesmerism.info
00:30These points can then be spent to purchase mastery line improvements or new abilities.
00:36So the mastery system's a little bit confusing.
00:39There's two aspects to it.
00:40One is improving the abilities you already have.
00:42The other is buying additional abilities.
00:45What the player can choose to do is increase their mastery by spending points.
00:49Increasing your mastery makes everything in the mastery get better.
00:53So if you have a fireball and it's part of the Path of Flame mastery,
00:56you put points into that mastery, your fireball will get stronger.
01:01However, in addition to that, for variety's sake, we've also put additional rewards.
01:05When you reach certain levels of mastery, you'll be able to buy new spells,
01:10like Conflagration of Doom, where the entire ground around you erupts in big burning boiling flames.
01:16These are optional.
01:17The player can choose to buy them if they want, but they're not something they have to get.
01:25There are two types of abilities you can get.
01:27Your base abilities and your additional abilities.
01:30Every mastery path will have an equal number of base abilities starting out.
01:35If a player class has a total of 20 abilities in it, for example,
01:38they will have 25%, five of them in core, and then 25%, five each, in each of the masteries.
01:45Up and beyond that, there are additional rewards, abilities, tactics, and morale,
01:49you can purchase through the mastery system.
01:51Those are all equivalent.
01:53There are just as many abilities available as there are tactics,
01:56and, however, there's only one really good morale ability.
01:59It's pretty impressive, so we only wanted to put one in there.
02:05Mastery isn't replacing the metagame that people find from fine-tuning tactics and controls of their character.
02:11It's just adding another layer to it.
02:14Tactics and morale are still going to be there.
02:15What the tactics and morale are are more of a play session choice.
02:20The mastery system is more of a lifetime choice.
02:23So you'll be able to unlock more tactics and morale through the mastery system,
02:27but then you'll still be able to fine-tune your character piece by piece as you play the game,
02:32depending on how you're playing the game and who you're playing the game with.
02:37Absolutely.
02:38You'll be able to respect your character.
02:40You'll be able to do so fairly easily.
02:42There will be a cost associated with it.
02:44We haven't determined what it is right now.
02:46Throughout beta, we're going to leave it in as free
02:48and slowly work on the cost for respec based off of feedback.
02:54Masteries are not focused on increasing passive skills.
02:57They're focused on improving the things that you are actively doing in combat.
03:01Things like statistics, passive bonuses to dodge, block, parry,
03:05those aren't encompassed in the mastery system.
03:07The only way they're improved there is if you improve a buff, for example.
03:11If you have a strength buff in your buff line mastery, and you improve that mastery,
03:16the strength buff will get better.
03:17But your stats are not going to be better the entire time.
03:22One thing we're trying to avoid with casters in general is a mastery focused around crowd control.
03:27In a PvP game, crowd control just is not fun to fight against.
03:32It's great for the person that's playing as the crowd controller,
03:34because you can just laugh as the guys sit there frozen.
03:37The important thing is classes like the Magus and the Bright Wizard
03:40that are really focused on doing damage and negative things to their enemies
03:43will continue to do so.
03:45So they will have lines that do direct damage,
03:48fast casting direct damage,
03:49slow but powerful direct damage,
03:52area effect direct damage,
03:53in all sorts of different types,
03:55whether it be explosive fireballs, flame breath,
03:58PBAoEs that happen around them.
03:59They'll also have a variety, depending on the class,
04:02of debuffs and other negative effects that they can apply to other people.
04:08The long story short is,
04:10we're working very hard on making sure everything is as viable as possible in PvE and RVR.
04:15The goal here is to continue tweaking throughout beta,
04:18so all of the paths given to a player
04:20can allow them to do whatever they want in the game.
04:24One might be better at one type of role,
04:26which might be a little bit more PvE oriented.
04:29Defense, for example.
04:30Whereas offense is, generally speaking, more PvP oriented.
04:34Does it mean you can't go out and play if you're that spec?
04:36Absolutely not.
04:37We're trying our best,
04:39and we're continuously balancing to make sure
04:41every choice a player makes is one they can play with.
04:45We're trying our best.
