Mastery: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

With the conclusion of the Mastery 7 race today, Mastery is officially "done." Let's reflect on how the new game mode holds up.

The Good:

• Mastery encourages the player to think. Some of the limitations force players to come up with unique solutions.
  

• Mastery provides new and unique challenges to overcome.
  

• Mastery raises player skill. Some of the challenges made me a much better player. Before, I used the same defenses everytime, and never had to think about how to tackle certain lane combinations or Chaos enemies.
  

• Hyper Shards. Some Hyper shards are insanely strong, if not game changers. Automation and Viscious Strikes stand out as among the best shards in the game, and more importantly fundamentally change how certain defenses can operate.
  

• Flairs. Some sweet new cosmetics, and free. No complaints here. Some of these look fantastic, and it's great to have something to show off.
• Some star rewards are very good. Extra hero slot, extra medals. Great.
  

The Bad:

• Many of the rewards are lackluster. A few 100k gold for doing half of the maps when a single Chaos 7 gives 50k or more? Many of the Hyper Shards are relatively average compared to non unique shards.
  

• Mastery mode drops no shards or useful loot.

• The Chaos enemies severely restrict build options. Mastery limitations do as well. Certain combinations really point to how strong certain defenses are, and narrow your options to basically a scant few.
  
• No sell restriction is less challenging and more obnoxious. Want to move your tower? Too bad, deal with it or restart. 
  

The Ugly:

• Mastery highlights just how obnoxious some situations are. Hex Throwers throwing javelins from spawn across the map to your core and ending your run. Lady Orks who moonlight as Cirque du Soleil performers jumping across lanes and over barricades. Wave 5 shenanigans? Time to start over.
  
• Enemies pathing to other lanes (most notable on Bastille and Little Horn Valley, especially with Skeleton spawns.
  

• Mastery heavily penalizes players without the extra heroes and duplicate shards. When I started Mastery, I had 4 Relics, and only 2 Power Transfer and Deadly Strikes. The build one max challenges were something else. I can't even imagine beating some of the challenges with the starting 4 heroes, and some are literally impossible (Unholy Catacombs M6 requires you to build 10 Towers, when the starting heroes only have 8.)
  

Suggested changes:

Fix enemy AI pathing. Notable offenders are Lady Orks and any summoned minions.

Create a toggle for no sell / no repair / no upgrade. You don't want to disable them so players can 2-3 star. Fine. Make a toggle. Or even change the text in the bottom (GEAR IS CAPPED) to what the current challenges are.

Increase the rewards for finishing a map. Increase the gold rewarded (the star reward one).

Social: Create a LFG Mastery mode lobby. I guess you can use Discord, but many players don't use the forums, discord, or anything outside of game. Do something to make it easier for players to find people looking for help in Mastery.

Golden pets should be Legendary. Keep all the different types, but just make them Legendary.

That's really it. Overall, the game mode was fantastic, and a few small changes would make it much better for players still going through it.

When Mastery started, I had already cleared Chaos 7, but I did not have all the heroes, and I had a very limited selection of Shards and Relics. By the time Mastery 5 rolled around, I decided to make a serious push for top 10. I made one of every hero, and multiple Mystics. I grabbed some extra Power Transfer and Deadly Strikes. I ironed out my hero builds. With the help of lekkin007 , I was able to take top 10 in Mastery 5, and again in 6 and 7 with It's An Otter.

Funny, I was just thinking of making a review of Mastery as well before I saw this. You made some good points in your review. The only thing i would disagree upon that Mastery was "fantastic". The entire ordeal was stressful and caused me nothing but pain.

I'm pretty sure PC has various advantages when it comes to Mastery and the game when compared to console. ( I have nothing against PC. )

Mastery does give you loot at least in m7 it does. It just looks like it isn't good or useful. 

i would like to know the % of players that complete Mastery  ?  i believe it would be low   

 Very good summary! Maybe add extra Ascension for Ch5,6,7? Then again, this new onslaught mode thingy coming might effectively do that.

Fix your balance and they will come...

http://steamcharts.com/app/236110

Very well said.  The game went way downhill with this game mode.

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine, but the in-game matchmaking isn't conducive to Mastery.  I can't tell you how many hours I sat in lobby trying to find a group for a specific Mastery/Map only to get frustrated and attempt the map (again) solo, or just log off and play something else.  And while it's possible to solo the entire thing, some maps are just darn difficult.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it should be easier for solo players.  I'm saying it should be easier to not to have to solo.

@Rentard quote:

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine, but the in-game matchmaking isn't conducive to Mastery.  I can't tell you how many hours I sat in lobby trying to find a group for a specific Mastery/Map only to get frustrated and attempt the map (again) solo, or just log off and play something else.  And while it's possible to solo the entire thing, some maps are just darn difficult.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it should be easier for solo players.  I'm saying it should be easier to not to have to solo.

Is it even possible to solo all of Mastery on console? I haven't heard about any players actually being able to do that.

@UnarmedReaper07 quote:

@Rentard quote:

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine, but the in-game matchmaking isn't conducive to Mastery.  I can't tell you how many hours I sat in lobby trying to find a group for a specific Mastery/Map only to get frustrated and attempt the map (again) solo, or just log off and play something else.  And while it's possible to solo the entire thing, some maps are just darn difficult.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it should be easier for solo players.  I'm saying it should be easier to not to have to solo.

Is it even possible to solo all of Mastery on console? I haven't heard about any players actually being able to do that.

No clue

@Rentard quote:

@UnarmedReaper07 quote:

@Rentard quote:

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine, but the in-game matchmaking isn't conducive to Mastery.  I can't tell you how many hours I sat in lobby trying to find a group for a specific Mastery/Map only to get frustrated and attempt the map (again) solo, or just log off and play something else.  And while it's possible to solo the entire thing, some maps are just darn difficult.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it should be easier for solo players.  I'm saying it should be easier to not to have to solo.

Is it even possible to solo all of Mastery on console? I haven't heard about any players actually being able to do that.

No clue

I tried a 30sec build solo on c1. I got the chest, built a wall on two lanes leaving two empty. I got destroyed.

i hate this mode. damn near impossible to find groups to help with X maps, 30 sec build map are a complete utter pain to do, and the loot(overall) just doesn't feel like it was worth going through this frustration. seriously why wasn't there any chaos shards in any of those maps?

Personally I really like that mastery is unreal hard in some challenges. The wings would be not half as cool and would not stand out as such a grand personal achievement as they do now if it was any easier. But I agree it should be easier to find a group ingame - I have done all my progress to the 420 star wings in solo and it was really hard for me. Yesterday I had the chance to do some c5 maps with a mate and it was soo much easier, no problem to get 5 stars with 2 people that know-how. So I strongly recommend Trendy to look at their options to push the social aspect of mastery - in the current state many will hate it and abandon the game because of this mode, which is sad.

@UnarmedReaper07 quote:

@Rentard quote:

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine, but the in-game matchmaking isn't conducive to Mastery.  I can't tell you how many hours I sat in lobby trying to find a group for a specific Mastery/Map only to get frustrated and attempt the map (again) solo, or just log off and play something else.  And while it's possible to solo the entire thing, some maps are just darn difficult.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it should be easier for solo players.  I'm saying it should be easier to not to have to solo.

Is it even possible to solo all of Mastery on console? I haven't heard about any players actually being able to do that.

Why wouldn´t it be possible on console? (Given there is no console specific lag or similar perfomance issues, of course.) 

@Rentard quote:

My biggest frustration is that, as the Masteries progress, it becomes harder and harder to play without a pre-formed group.  Want to force the socialization and encourage people to group up?  Fine [snip]

Nailed it.