[Dr. Zeppers]

Well, your experience, is why alot of the newer pirates dont understand where the older pirates are coming from. For some of us, its not a matter of how you choose to play your pirate simply because 1/2 of the stuff you have at your disposal now wasnt available when we started the game. We didnt have the choices you have now.

Some perspective maybe.

We started a pirate, got to level 40, maxed weapons... wait for new content. (all we had were story quest, standard weapons and tp quests.. nothing else).
We started another pirate, got to level 40, maxed weapons... wait for new content.

Now anything these pirates do, is worth ZERO, even if it says 100 notoriety, we get ZERO.
(all we had were story quest, standard weapons and tp quests.. nothing else, not much 'choice' as to how to proceed, other than the speed at which you leveled your weapons).

They come out with new level 4 weapons quests (what you get when you hit level 15 weapon)! New Clothing quests, etc. (These were already available when you started, but not to us until AFTER we were maxed).
Wow, weve been bored! something new to do! We rush our level 40s out theyve been bored so long, and do those quests (all the notoriety for them is now wasted as we are already maxed).

We are now bored again, and start additional pirates.. and max them
and then another...

Wait! More weapons quests (lv5 weapons at weapon level 20)!

We rush our maxed pirates to continue to be busy and finish these quests (all the notoriety for them goes to waste).

OK.. now, lets say they raise the level cap to 50.

Make it so a new pirate, doing all these quests, being able to make all those choices, can get to level 50.

Will they add enough for the old pirates that did NOT have the choices of making their pirates the way they wanted to because of limited game content to make it to 50 also?
Once those quests are completed, the notoriety is wasted, and cannot be re-obtained by us once the cap is raised, unless they give us credit for it. Why shouldnt they? You'll in theory get credit for all of it (until you max). We did the work, shouldnt we get credit for it once the game cap allows it?

From my perspective... losing a title such as "mastered" is nothing, I dont see it as I earned a title, I see as I maxed my weapons, and thats the term applied to a maxed weapon. What I earned was weapon level 25.
Added: I wouldnt mind if they came up with an idea such as Hawke presented to represent the various levels of "mastery", it's just not that important to me, not really effecting the game play like a loss of EARNED points is. The point of never being satisfied wasnt directed at Hawke, its that we always want more, another facet to the updates, and thats ok, just gives them ALOT to work on.

Added: By the way, way back when? DxD used to reflect notoriety points earned past 40, and even notoriety levels (I heard there was a level 43 pirate on DxD). This was an indication to us back then, that we would still receive credit for these points later on, effecting what choices we COULD make. Then they changed DxD to no longer show this information, so now it becomes a valid question.. will we get credit for the work we've already done, that the game couldnt reflect due to notoriety cap.