Guild Wars 2

I’m sure this has been talked about to death, but I am really concerned with this.

This games way of fast travelling is completely counter-intuitive, and completely counter productive. How things generally work in games with waypoints (from my experience) is that at low levels they are almost unavailable, or restricted access.

This allows lower level characters to travel on foot more often, encountering events, enemies, hearts, vistas and PoI’s more often, in order to level up a bit easier. Then, at higher levels, since you don’t need to walk through already completed areas you have the option of fast travelling through it.

It is completely opposite in this game. At low levels I used waypoints ALOT. And I mean a lot. I would WP to 3 waypoints away to get to a heart, vista, or my story. I only walked if it was close enough. Killing less than 5 enemies would get me enough cash for multiple waypoints, and one heart or DE would cover literally 10+ waypoints.

At higher levels (I just hit 68 the other day) I find I am not using waypoints at all. With a cost of 1s50b on average to go somewhere two waypoints over from me it is insane. To travel to my story quest which goes through areas I have already completed 100% it costs upwards of 3 silver.

I now find myself using the mists to get to Lions Arch, and portaling to the closest city to where I’m going and walking from there. And these aren’t short walks to my destination either, its usually at least one full zone I’m walking through. The rewards are no longer covering the costs of waypoint travel. I am receiving around 2s 11b per heart quest, which is less than, or equal to, the cost of travel.

Even with the minimal travel I DO use, I find myself going broke. I had around 5 gold, and after buying my grandmaster trait book and general waypoint use, I’m down to 1g20s on me and about 1g50s in the bank. Let me point out that I don’t die often, and when I do its on purpose by jumping off large cliffs for fun. I don’t use the trading post often as well – I even avoid buying new gear (I still have a few pieces of level 45 gear and I’m almost 70)

Sorry for the wall of text, but I’m getting fairly frustrated with having to walk through the same areas multiple times and I can’t even explore areas lower level than me without going bankrupt.

Base cost for a level 80 waypointing: 1 silver, 39 copper. Average loot from 3 minutes of killing in a level 3 area: 2 silver. So no, you’re not going broke because of waypointing, unless you’re just waypointing back and forth.

Next, let’s look at the professions that have an ability to increase their run speed. Everyone. Now that that’s established, walking across the very *small* world doesn’t take you long at all. To walk from Metrica Province to Fields of Ruin, I simply walk in to Rata Sum, Gate to Lions Arch, Gate to Divinity’s Reach, Gate to Ebonhawke. And there you have it, in under two minutes, I went from the farthest west to the farthest east zone in the game. You already pointed out that you can travel to the mists, gate to lions arch, gate from lions arch to the nearest capital city to your destination, and then walk.

Now let’s look at the pro’s of the Waypoint cost: It’s a very effective gold sink, capable of removing hundreds if not thousands of gold an hour from a single server, while offering a useful, but unnecessary service to those who can afford it. Without it, the 1.39 silver or more that it takes from a level 80 every time they use it would stay in the hands of the players.

If someone waypoints every 15 minutes at the level cap, they’re spending at least 1.39 silver each time. That’s 487g 5s, 60c in a year. If this game lasts for the seven years that Guild Wars did, that’s 3,949g, 39s, 20c in the life of the game. Now, those might seem like high numbers, but considering the number of people who had 100g in the first two weeks of the game, they’re really not. You’d have to be playing all day, every day, waypointing four times an hour to get that cost.

The average loot may be that high for you, but not quite for me. I’m not selling all my weapons I find. I salvage them for materials for my crafting professions. I have 2 on each of my 3 characters and to save money buying things on the TP I need to salvage every little thing I get.

I know there need to be money sinks to prevent inflation, but I find this a little high. A level 80 should not be forced to run through completed areas multiple times just because of WP cost.

I don’t know about you, but in the duration of my online play, waypointing 4 times in one hour is easily do-able. In fact, at level 30 and under, I was probably averaging 10 times or more an hour.

There is absolutely no need to run to your destination if you have no plans on doing the DE’s in between. All it is, is a time waster. My main (necro) has no traits for speed boosts. I have ONE utility for swiftness that I almost always keep on lately just because I travel so much. I don’t want to waste 2 utility slots because sometimes I cannot get out of combat while running, and have to kill things.

I salvage all my gear and keep all of the mats, I even buy crafting mats from TP to continue to max out my two trade skills. I’m level 73 and never have a problem affording the cost of WPs even if I’m shooting from the Grove to the Iron Marches. One and a half silver isn’t bad.

Jhu.3965:

I salvage all my gear and keep all of the mats, I even buy crafting mats from TP to continue to max out my two trade skills. I’m level 73 and never have a problem affording the cost of WPs even if I’m shooting from the Grove to the Iron Marches. One and a half silver isn’t bad.

Once you hit level 80, that travel, for some reason, will cost you more, around 2s 50c.

My personal beef with the way point cost is not about the way point cost, it’s the reason why I use the way point.

Currently, when a skill challenge bugged, I have to skip that challenge and wait for a fix. With no indication in the world map, eventually I lose track of all the area with 99%, so I have to WP in each place to check if they are fixed. Checking multiple places burns a hole in my pocket due to the cost of WP.

If a world map indicator is created, I personally wouldn’t mind the current WP cost.

So in my case, either lower the WP cost or create a world map indicator showing which areas are 99% complete.

I completely agree that waypoint costs are ridiculous. Most importantly, in a game that in every other aspect encourages me to explore every corner, the fees make me avoid exploration.

The people most hurt by the cost are the casual players like me who love the game but just don’t have time to make a pile of money. Even halfway through leveling I was traveling by waypoint very sparingly, using the mists to get to Lion’s Arch, and usually opting to run across a zone to a story point, vista, or heart to save the cash. This does not add to my play experience in a positive way. It just makes me never go look at that amazing vista ever again, because I can’t afford to travel anywhere on a whim.

This just isn’t good design. I get that there needs to be a gold sink in games like these with huge economies. But find a way to make that gold sink actually affect the people with large amounts of gold. A flat tax on everyone that penalizes experiencing the (beautiful!) world that Arenanet has created just makes no sense to me.

I think waypoint travel should be completely free (the economy in GW1 was fine with free travel— it can work), but a good compromise for me would be making travel within the same zone free.

Arenanet I hope that you are looking at this issue. I love this world you have created… so please let me experience it at my pace, and in whatever order I choose! =)