Guild Wars 2

There’s one thing that has always annoyed me about the fast travel system. The fact that it costs to travel to Lions Arch. All the waypoints in LA should be free to use from anywhere.

Why?

Because traveling there is already free! Jumping into the mists and then running straight through the LA gate is basically free travel to LA without using the waypoint system. I appreciate this may seem like a minor issue but player engagement is important, and being forced to sit through just one more loading screen can have a negative effect on this, especially if you have a lower spec machine.

It seems odd that there is already a method of traveling to LA for free, yet it is never explained to a new player. Some players may never even find this out if they have no interest in PvP and will keep spending money on getting back to LA. Now the reason it’s never explained is probably because it’s technically an “exploit” of the system, however that’s not really an excuse. Implementing something like this and just hoping that people don’t use it/find it isn’t the right way means that you’ve probably not designed it right in the first place. It’s obviously not that much of a problem that people are doing this either, as if it was, this would have been changed. The existence of this “exploit” and the fact it hasn’t been changed means that free travel to LA is something that is not detrimental to the game, so let’s just make it a real thing rather than having to jump through hoops and multiple loading screens.

There are more problems with the waypoint system aside from this issue but making this small change would have more of a positive effect than most may think.

As a tangent to the OP’s post, I’ve always thought having a free “racial” teleport/waypoint skill would be nice… Humans get to zip back to DR for free, Charr to the Citadel, and so on. That would give players two locations to work with, really: the home city (which could also serve to make them more populated) as well as a more natural/logical way to get back to LA without the doesn’t-make-as-much-sense Mists route.

@Coopziana:
If this is how it had been implemented in the first place I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. The problem now however is that it would cause quite a lot of negative response if it was changed to work like this now. People are used to having a free LA travel option and wouldn’t react well to having it taken away. Obviously, negative response isn’t necessarily a good enough reason not to do it if the current state of having free LA travel is harmful to the money fast travel is intended to sink.

@jspencer:
This would be a really good way to address the problem. You could implement the above change alongside this and it would serve to remove the weird workaroundy way of getting free travel as well as help to populate the other cities more. Instead of a skill it could just be the fact that you get to use to your races city waypoints for free from anywhere. This could lead to some nice extras such as if you get 100% completion in the starter zone next to a city you unlock those waypoints for free travel as well.

LordHogFred.3691:

@Coopziana:
If this is how it had been implemented in the first place I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. The problem now however is that it would cause quite a lot of negative response if it was changed to work like this now. People are used to having a free LA travel option and wouldn’t react well to having it taken away.

I have a simple answer to this. Too bad.

Just like everything else they change and people whine and complain about, they’ll get over it and move on.

When is the last time you saw a “Change Dailies back to the way they were,” thread? People hated the change, for some reason, then got over it and shut up. The same would happen here.

Kal Spiro.9745:

LordHogFred.3691:

@Coopziana:
If this is how it had been implemented in the first place I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. The problem now however is that it would cause quite a lot of negative response if it was changed to work like this now. People are used to having a free LA travel option and wouldn’t react well to having it taken away.

I have a simple answer to this. Too bad.

Just like everything else they change and people whine and complain about, they’ll get over it and move on.

When is the last time you saw a “Change Dailies back to the way they were,” thread? People hated the change, for some reason, then got over it and shut up. The same would happen here.

While I agree to an extent, the main difference here is that this change would actively be removing something that many would now regard a feature of the game (and one which should exist IMO).