Guild Wars 2

…and instead, have a gold sink else where? (or slightly adjust current ones to make up for this?)

I feel the current gold sinks are doing a good job of preventing runaway inflation but at the same time, the way point costs are deterring me from what I would normally do if they did not exist. I only travel where I ‘need’ to go, as opposed to traveling where I’d like to go.

For example, in GW1, whenever I was in game, but not actively doing anything, I would port to a location that I found nostalgic, or enjoyable, while talking with a guild or with my friends. In Gw2, I feel that this goes against acquiring wealth (at the very casual and slow rate that I have been working towards that goal)…I feel this is having a larger effect on the community as cities are feeling somewhat deserted other than Lion’s Arch. If WP costs were free; I would find myself in Divinity’s reach a heck of alot more often. I have the urge to port there often as it stands, but 3 silver says no…

Respec costs, although not NEARLY as big of an issue as WP costs, still bother me; this cost includes having to visit a trainer and pay a direct fee + WP cost…If I did not have to go through this, I would find myself experimenting with builds much more often. If I had it my way, I would have a little minus icon right below the plus icon on the traits, so that I could pull points out as I pleased and move them around, similiar to guild wars 1 (or a button at the top like in the mists area). Perhaps making it only possible to respec in one of the large cities may prevent excessive retooling of builds (like in dungeons for example, as that is not my desire here).

To summarize, I feel these 2 “taxes” have a noticeable effect on the decisions I make when playing the game including how often I travel using waypoints (and where I would travel to) and restricting how often I experiment with my build. I feel Guild Wars 2 is very respectful of my time and directly contrasts the time sinks like Wow and other related games; however, in these 2 specific areas, I feel Guild Wars 2 slightly goes against the casual spirit of the first game.

It is likely possible to eliminate these 2 costs for the sake of increasing the feeling of freedom and choice of desired game play, and make up for the removed costs in a less noticeable way such as repair costs, tradepost fees, trait manuals, ect…

Maybe reduce the cost significantly for porting, but I don’t feel it should be free… The cost to get from Orr to Frostgorge can float at almost 5s, which is prohibitively expensive.

As for respeccing, and “retooling” I usually take that to the mists, where it is free… As far as I can tell, respec costs aren’t THAT bad…

Oh no, the respec costs are perfectly reasonable. My argument is more of a nod to what I liked about Guild Wars 1; the fact that these costs exist and that you have to go and find a specific trainer reduces how much you might tweak the smaller details in your build.

Respec is so cheap comparitively that I don’t really care about it. I would love to see way-pointing get a bit of a price nerf, at least in the interim until the economy really solidifies and takes off. The way I play the game I’m basically sitting at 1g 85s and staying there because I earn the amount of money that it costs to waypoint around. :-(

If you feel you can afford to go to LA, then you can go to DR too.
In fact, dont skip the whole map, go to the nearest city, use the FREE city waypoints to get to the portals, go to LA, and from there, go to any other city.

You can get to LA for free by using the mist or RvR.

I see no problems here really

…but I want to jump around as I please. I will just flat out admit it…it’s one of those little things I liked about GW1 that would increase my enjoyment of GW2.

And since everyone wants to just jump around, then its a very good gold sink

Sorry to be a bit newbie but how exactly can one get to Lions Arch for free from the Mist? Do you mean the PvP Mists? And where is the LA portal in the PvP area? (I’m not a PvPer but would go there to hop about for free to LA)

Well, everyone wants to jump around…but they aren’t jumping around nearly as much as they would be if there were no costs associated. Some of the cities wouldn’t be so empty already.

The costs say to me: “if you would like to travel, you need to work for it or else you will run out of money, AND, if you would like to travel and at the same time continue to accumulate money for whatever it is you are saving for, then you need to travel ONLY when necessary or else you will reduce your efficiency.”

I am basically saying that while most aspects of the game respect our time, this one is somewhat inconsistent with that premise. The WP tax acts as both a gold sink AND a determent, and I am questioning whether or not this is exactly what A-net had in mind, given their experience with the first game.

Press H

Choose PvP tab

Go to Heart of the Mist

Complete training (or don’t)

Go to Hall of Memories

Enter Big Purple Portal

Lions Arch

After you done it the first time, it gets even easier.

Yes it take a little time and effort, but not much. It is a couple of minutes to get around to almost all cities.

If you want to talk about how expensive it is to portal jump when you are playing with your friends at low levels…
Well, I just dont portal jump with them, they should be running around more than porting anyways.

Broseph.9283:

Well, everyone wants to jump around…but they aren’t jumping around nearly as much as they would be if there were no costs associated. Some of the cities wouldn’t be so empty already.

The costs say to me: “if you would like to travel, you need to work for it or else you will run out of money, AND, if you would like to travel and at the same time continue to accumulate money for whatever it is you are saving for, then you need to travel ONLY when necessary or else you will reduce your efficiency.”

I am basically saying that while most aspects of the game respect our time, this one is somewhat inconsistent with that premise. The WP tax acts as both a gold sink AND a determent, and I am questioning whether or not this is exactly what A-net had in mind, given their experience with the first game.

You also mentioned that all cities, except for Lions Arch, are empty.
Hello. Hold it right there. There is NO cost in going from Lions Arch to any other city, unless you are extreeeeeeeeemly lazy and do not want to spend 2 minutes at most to go there.
But if you can’t figure out how to get around without using the WPs every time you have to go somewhere, then I guess its more a tax on the less fortunate ones.

Where is it you want to go to all the time that is really expensive?
And from where do you want to go?

It’s just unnecessary. Extra steps. Extra time spent; the game could be more efficient…that is all I am saying. I see your point; your point is exactly how I am currently working around the issue. I still think it is unnecessary, and quite possibly an unintended consequence.

Edit: I would like to be able to port directly from various zones (checking for major events quickly), port to Divinity’s Reach from Orr, or to any places I have previously been where I just like the atmosphere (like Queensdale and some of the earlier norn zones). This last thing I mentioned is what is currently impacted the most by WP costs, because it is unnecessary, but desired. The costs make it to where I only travel when necessary.

Here is the problem though.

Where in the game would you put goldsinks that effect everyone?
You do understand the point of having goldsinks I gather.

It is always the same. People want the gold sinks away from the things THEY are doing and onto things they are not doing.
Its like paying taxes. We all know taxes are needed, but we just want someone else to pay them.

Honestly, I would be totally fine making these both free and rolling the costs into repair bills. Sure it might make it hurt when you die a bunch in a dungeon, but at least then the gold sinks are punishing you for sucking, not for experimenting with your build or traveling to meet friends.

The less gold is in the hands of the player, the lower the inflation rate will be, which is a very good thing. Any gold sink is an artificial drain on the player’s time(cause time=wealth). Those cost aren’t disproportionally high, but high enough to matter to people. In GW1 mapping was completely free, even between worlds(districts), which made it a hell of a lot harder to track down and report gold sellers. Discouraging unnecessary travel and respeccing creates more consistency within these systems and arguably even increases the amount of freedom on an individual scale.
Relevant video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNrzomrC6OM&t=10m43s

I am a libertarian and not much a fan of taxes, haha. But in a game, gold sinks do something different than taxes, they help prevent the currency from losing value (otherwise everyone would gain so much wealth that prices would have to rise on things to counterbalance that).

I feel gold sinks are necessary. I would like to pay it in a different form rather than not paying it. I would gladly pay more in repair costs, or a higher % cut on the TP, and so on. My preference is to pay nothing to teleport and more on something else that still affects me, but doesnt limit my options so directly.

Edit: Katie Feathermoore, your answer rocks.

Very good point ASB

It is sometimes hard for people to see the larger picture.

Broseph.9283:

I am a libertarian and not much a fan of taxes, haha. But in a game, gold sinks do something different than taxes, they help prevent the currency from losing value (otherwise everyone would gain so much wealth that prices would have to rise on things to counterbalance that).

I feel gold sinks are necessary. I would like to pay it in a different form rather than not paying it. I would gladly pay more in repair costs, or a higher % cut on the TP, and so on. My preference is to pay nothing to teleport and more on something else that still affects me, but doesnt limit my options so directly.

Edit: Katie Feathermoore, your answer rocks.

I take it you do not do dungeons much or sell a whole lot of stuff on the TP.
As it is now, people choose not to repair in dungeons and the prices on the TP is in many cases so low that you loose money selling things there, compared to selling to merchants.

Oh and I do know that taxes and goldsinks are not doing the same things.
I was comparing it because no one wants to pay either.
And obviously you do not want to pay taxes, so.. go figure.

Up the repair bills!
It is the only money sink that you are obligated to use and the only one I currently use.

I am ok with retraining costs but I would probably be a bit more experimental if they weren’t there.

The waypoint cost doesn’t bother me, because I stop using waypoints when I reach silver prices.

If you just slap the teleport price from the nearest teleport onto the repair bills, you will see the same money from me.

Also consumables! Interesting consumables like risen repels whioch would allow you to walk through Orr without pulling aggro of every mob you walk by.

There are a lot of money sinks in the game like WvW the waypoint costs are not an efective money sink because many people I know straight out refuse to teleport because it costs money.

Mikpet,I dont know if I understand the repair portion of your comment. What choice do people have other than to repair when their gear breaks if they want to continue? Are the repair costs different directly at the dungeon vs elsewhere?

As far as trading post is concerned, I believe the current issue is more of a supply exceeding demand sort of thing; I could be wrong however.

At risk of derailing the thread, I can’t respond to your tax comment; I will say that I still believe in some taxation and feel I should pay.

Thank you for posting that Mikpet – I was trying to find the Asura gate portal on the map and it’s not there ;P Found it with your directions. {hugglies}

I also agree that teleporting is much too dear and stops me wandering about as much as I would, looking at all the beautiful graphics they’ve done. Would be far happier with higher repair costs but then am only a baby so don’t know what they are at higher levels.

Free teleports within a region would be ideal with more stringent charges by repairing merchants.

mikpet.7458:

I take it you do not do dungeons much or sell a whole lot of stuff on the TP.
As it is now, people choose not to repair in dungeons and the prices on the TP is in many cases so low that you loose money selling things there, compared to selling to merchants.

Oh and I do know that taxes and goldsinks are not doing the same things.
I was comparing it because no one wants to pay either.
And obviously you do not want to pay taxes, so.. go figure.

I also haven’t completed many dungeons, but I eventually plan on doing them all. The real question is to we want gold sinks to be in places where it limits our fun by making us pay to experiment or meet up with people, or places where we feel like we pay for our own failures, like repair bills?

This also serves as a nice bonus for becoming more skillful because you pay less repair costs. And in WvW, I have always found that my drops far outweigh my repair bills if I’m smart.

Unfortunately I don’t think most players from other MMOs are going to “get it,” since most other MMOs are absolutely terrible about these sorts of things, so the low cost is something they naturally will lay down and accept.

I think they should. They assigned gold costs to waypoints “because everyone will use them all the time.” The result? People never use them unless they absolutely have to. All that money adds up very easily. They assigned gold costs to rerolls “because most MMOs do it, and everyone will do it all the time.” The result? People come up with a build that can use as many trait variations as possible while losing as little as possible, min-max it and then never change it again.

The worst thing about it is that these are key features of the game. Waypoints are the gateway to enjoying as much of the world as possible, which is high on the list of ANet’s goals for the game; you don’t want people locked to Orr, using the HotM trick all the time to avoid losing money constantly. Locking attributes prevents people from trying out new kinds of builds all the time. Considering all the complaints about combat being dull over time, this especially needs to go, as the game already has a very low amount of build variety, and locking players to one build for long stretches (unless they want to warp back to a city EVERY time they want a reroll, regardless of the money cost), simply is not cutting it. Both are terrible ideas I hope the developers understand better than most of the players will. Again, it’s impacting the way the game is played far more than it’s serving as a minor gold sink. No cost reductions. Just get rid of it entirely. Judging from how hard it is to make money already, GW2 doesn’t need it.

Is it possible to have too many gold sinks in a game? Like more money is taken out of the economy than being added? Just a thought…

Well I can tell you that WP costs have stopped me from joining/helping out guildies playing in other map areas. At the moment everyone is just doing their own thing alone to save some cash.
And the respec fee has stopped me from ever trying a different trait build on my guardian ever since I chose the one I currently use. I have no clue if the other builds are better suited for me.

Yeah, yeah, the economy would go in the gutter without gold sinks! Oh nooo, what would we do without the ‘economy’. We can’t have fun in a GAME, without the ‘economy’.
As far as I can tell, everything is dirt cheap and devalued in the trade post because gold is scarce. Because people don’t have cash to spend. And it’s going to be that way because people will never have enough gold to spend.

Meh, armor repair costs are fine. Waypoint costs could use some tweaking though. Never understood why the cost associated with any given waypoint wasn’t determined by A) Distance from your starting locations or Level of the zone it was in (or both).

I feel it should be based on the proximity you are to the nearest WP; not the map’s level. In the starter area my charr thief only has to pay 6 to clear the map whereas in a 60-70 area my asura elementalist has to pay 2+ s to get too a wp he’s sitting on top of.

that’s my take on it. And a quick question; where does all the wp money go?

^ It doesn’t “go” anywhere. It’s just a number that gets deleted. I guess if you want a story answer, the Asura use it to maintain the waypoint system, or something. I guess they bought out whoever was managing resurrection shrines and town waypoints for free, 250 years ago.

I will be all for a rebalanced, but not for a removal.

They should be low enough for people not to mind paying. But high as they are now, people avoid them.
With a price of 25 copper, a person will travel more often, and actually spend more than if it cost more.

Look at Steam games. They actually earn more when they have massive sales than they would have earned if they didn’t have sales at all, as people buy more when prices are lower.

One of the best suggestions I’ve read balanecs prices by matching the two locations you are traveling to.
You assign each waypoint a level, and the cost of the travel depends on the average of both.
Travel from level 3 to level 3 areas, and you’ll have a level 3 waypoint cost. Travel from level 10 to level 80 area, and you’ll get level 45 costs. Travel around in level 80 areas, and you have level 80 costs.
The distance multiplier still applies, but scaled to areas, instead to levels.

And when you are defeated, the cost goes back to your level, as you are supposed to avoid being defeated anyways.

That’ll ensure that you’ll get enough for waypoints for the areas you are playing.

As for respecs, I beleive they should increase if you do many in short time, as you have the Heart of the Mysts to try out builds, but not cost so much if you only change once in a while.

IMHO:

- Travel to any city waypoint should be free from anywhere, not just from inside the city. This should include Ebonhawke, BTW.

- Travel costs inside a single zone should be based on the character’s effective level, and not on his real level. This would mostly fix the fact playing at higher levels in lowbie zones is prohibitively expensive.

- Only tangentially related, but I would love to see added to the game ways to get to events faster. For example, a “go to a random event” button, which ported the player to a random event that is at the player’s level or lower, somewhere in the world where the player has already explored, and that is at half the progression or earlier. Or else make those NPCs that call us to events also grant a speed buff that lasts until we get to the event or if we go anywhere except the direct route to the event.