Guild Wars 2

Once a player has discovered all the map “markers”, (waypoints, vistas, POIs, etc.) and reached “100% map completion”, eliminate teleportation costs inside that map (or to other contiguous fully explored maps).

In addition, eliminate scaling of the cost based on character level (make it based on zone level).

The teleportation fees are there to encourage players to explore (and encounter events, etc.), not to serve as a barrier to people meeting up with friends (or forcing them to wait while I walk to them, because I can’t afford the fees – which for some weird reason scale with level; do I get heavier? Is that why it costs so much more to teleport me across Queensdale at 60 than it did at 20?).

In fact, in several cases I’ve heard people ask for help with some event on the other end of the map and I simply couldn’t afford to teleport there because I had recently spent all my money on crafting ingredients. So, rather than encourage people to explore and encounter more events, the fees are serving as a barrier to group play.

To sum it up, the new system would work like this:

• Fully explored map? Free travel.
• Map not fully explored? Teleportation cost dependant on area “level”, not on character level.

In fact tele cost is something ‘professionally’ called “Gold Sink” or “Cash Sink”.

All games need such things (other such are repairing broken armour for example).
Those are to not let people get wealthy too easy :>

So, while exploration encouragement may be one of the reasons, it is not the only one…

I didn’t know that playing MMOs was a “profession”, but hey…

Regardless of its potential as a gold sink, it’s getting in the way of group play and it’s effectively punishing players for levelling up (because it makes the same trip cost more).

It’s a badly designed mechanic (and has a couple of exploitable bugs that I’ve been mentioning since BWE1, but that’s a different issue).

There are much better ways to implement gold sinks. In fact, if they think there’s too much gold in circulation, they can simply reduce the amount of gold players get from vendors / events / hearts. That avoids the negative aspects mentioned above and has the added advantage of making botting / farming less appealing.

Creating is the profession, and gold sinks are an important part of an MMO economy.

You don’t have to use WP to get around if it’s costing you too much, and frankly, I avoid using it whenever possible.

Making it free would remove that gold sink, and you would have rampant inflation.

Right now the economy fairly stable, though that will change as people hit 80 and start raking in the cash.

Colonel Kernel.7506:

You don’t have to use WP to get around […] I avoid using it whenever possible.

Making it free would remove that gold sink, and you would have rampant inflation.

So “you don’t have to use it”, “you avoid using it whenever possible” but somehow making it free would “cause rampant inflation”…?

How, exactly? Would it suddenly generate money?

By your own logic, the “gold sink” part is totally avoidable, so making it free would merely lead to people using it more often to meet up with friends, because they wouldn’t have to worry about the cost.

If there’s too much gold in circulation, simply reduce the amount vendors pay for items or reduce the gold rewards from events. That is what actually injects gold into the economy, not free travel.

The current system (high rewards with high travel costs) only favours bots (that grind events and never spend money travelling to meet friends).

There have been several times in guild chat when some kitten had to send some other Panda gold because they were broke. Maybe they can’t manage their gold, I don’t know. I do know that I RP more than I do anything else and one day I might be the broke kitten calling for coin.

I’d like to see waypoint fees removed as well. ArenaNet once said regarding GW1 that they didn’t want to make players regularly go through content they weren’t interested in to get to the content they were interested in. Waypoint fees appear to be contrary to that philosophy. My RL allows gaming time only in small pockets, and especially as waypoint fees rise as I level up, they make me think twice about simply going where I want via waypoint. Often I’ll just sigh and stay in the area I’m in for a few minutes before signing out to attend to RL.

If it’s a matter of needing a money sink, I’m sure ArenaNet can come up with other ideas that don’t inhibit quick travel to the content people desire to consume. If it’s a matter of wanting to encourage exploration, possibly require sometime to walk to a waypoint before being able to use it to travel to another waypoint? Or make intra-map waypoints free.

Anyway, I admit I don’t know the best solution, but I do know that waypoint fees are not a good part of the game.

i think this is a good idea… but i think it should be half charge not free. i always save a bit of money for traveling and you should too. plus thats a hell of an incentive to explore everything fully

I would not go as far as free, but:
- Teleporting to any city should be free, as you can do that already through the mists.
- Teleporting to any place that is not a city should cost as much as from the nearest waypoint in the nearest city, since, again, you can already do that.
This will save server loads and get less overflow, as less people has to pass by to save some silver, leaving non-overflow slots for those who want to be in the cities.

Also:
- Teleporting within an area under your level should cost a fraction of what it costs now, depending on the level of the area and your level. A level 80 teleporting within a level 80 area would get level 80 costs. A level 80 teleporting within a level 1-15 area would get higher costs than a level 15 teleporting within a level 1-15 area, but much less than within a level 80. Areas with your level or higher would not be affected.
For example, a level 80 traveling to waypoints in a level 1-15 area would get just about 20 copper for the longest travel within the area.

MithranArkanere.8957:

A level 80 teleporting within a level 1-15 area would get higher costs than a level 15 teleporting within a level 1-15 area

Why? What’s the logic in that? Did the character become heavier? Does it take more energy to teleport him?

I can understand the justification that maintaining the teleportation beacons in “dangerous” (ie, higher level) areas might cost more than in low level areas, and so teleportation in those areas might be more expensive.

But I can’t think of any logical reason (or any benefit to gameplay) for charging players different prices based on their level. That’s effectively punishing players for levelling up (making them pay more for the same service), which is something they can’t even avoid.

The reason you don’t understand the logic is that you didn’t pay attention to the answers you got or even worse made snide uneducated comments to divert them.

Again, gold sink’s are a good thing, noone likes extreme inflation. Arenanet has done a very good job so far in that regard. Going forward I hope they can keep the economy in check.

This is a core design issue (which by the way was what your first replier meant when he said professionaly) that is working great so far. the end.

I understand the “gold sink” aspect of games. With generated currency you need a place to dump it so the market doesn’t get flooded. Understandable. I’m not asking for waypoint fees to go away. I’d like to see the costs reduced tho in some way. At low levels, no big deal. Your whole world only spans 1-2 maps and you’re slowly learning the profession/game so most of your travel is by foot. But by higher levels (and I’m talking like 30-40) it starts getting cost prohibitive to explore too much not on foot. My Sylvari Ranger storyline constantly had me porting back to the Grove after encounters 2-3 maps away. Now my storyline has me clear on the other side of the world, forcing me to map to the nearest city, then Asura Gate hop back to the closest city to my destination, just to avoid spending silver I don’t have. Especially since I just hit 40 and dropped 1/2 my total money on a manual.

Sorry for the rant…

Not to bring up this game here, I generally hate the comparisons but…I played WoW and flight costs compared to the general economy was relatively low. Now, yes, you paid a time fee because travel was real time so it sometimes took 7-10 mins of watching your toon fly. I’m just saying is all….

I was hoping teleporting costs would be based on distance. It boggles my mind that I had to pay over 1s to teleport to a waypoint 5 feet away from me. Even more so when it was because someone pulled aggro on me while I was waiting close to the WP where I thought I was safe.

The economy is much more important in this game than in wow because there is an connection to real money through gems. It was also very endgame centric where there was always heavy gold sinks. They also did an terrible job at keeping the economy from inflating so it’s not an good example, they didn’t care because it didn’t really hurt them since they didn’t make any monies our of it. I’d rather pay 2s to port than pay a monthly fee and I honestly think most people would prefer that too.

1) Make a free port (3 to 6) based on time – every few hours or daily. Right now, it can easily cost a lot of money to do jump puzzles in anything but the end game. This is dumb, as it limits content.

2) Use H→Go to the heart of the mists→Asura gate to LA → Go to nearest city from LA. It’ll save you some silver in the long run.

gold sinks are exclusive optional features like the commander book for 100g. The Waypoint fees are just ridiculous, so everyone avoids them if possible and your “gold sink” is not working. Just kills fun and social gaming, since there is no other form of travel.

Implement some other form of gold sink like mounts or housing and let the players travel for free where they have explored already.