Guild Wars 2

Introduce in-game currency conversion to provide more accessibility to gears of various sources.
The exception to currency conversion is gold, gems, laurels, PvP glory, guild influence, guild merits and guild commendations.

The idea here is to be able to convert PvE currency based on a certain exchange rate determined by how hard it is to obtain a certain currency. The objective here is to provide more accessibility to gears that otherwise would not possible to obtain without playing certain content. I think it is important to respect the fact that there are players that do not like to play dungeons, or fractals; and thus, would not be able to obtain gears without forcing themselves to go through the motion (that they find little fun in).

Having a conversion system would allow these players to obtain the gears for progression or aesthetics. However, I think it is also critical to encourage the use of the various content so, the conversion rate must work in such a way that it is always most efficient to obtain the currency through its intended source; whenever conversion takes place, the value of the source currency should drop in comparison to the targeted currency.

For example:

1. Karma conversion to Fractal Relics. Given how much easier it is to obtain Karma (through many sources), we could have a conversion of 300 Karma -> 1 Fractal Relic and, 1 Fractal Relic -> 0 Karma. This will work out to be hefty 405,000 Karma for the exotic Prototype Fractal Capacitor (1350 Fractal Relics) which is still attainable. The reason for 0 Karma conversion is that we need to take into consideration that Fractals of the Mists also rewards Karma in high amounts.
2. Karma conversion to Dungeon Tokens. Proposing a 200 Karma -> 1 Dungeon Token and 1 Dungeon Token -> 100 Karma, which works out to be 66,000 Karma for an exotic dungeon chest piece. Comparing using Dungeon Tokens to obtain an exotic chest piece at Karma vendor (at 42,000 Karma), 420 Dungeon Tokens are required as compared to 330 Dungeon Tokens at a specific Dungeon vendor. If a player prefers dungeons over world PvE, this might work out better for them.
3. Dungeon Token A conversion to Dungeon Token B. I propose that this should work at 2/3 the efficiency and 3/5 in respect to Arah. This means that if I wanted to convert my Ascalonian Catacombs (AC) tokens for Crucible of Eternity (CoE) ones, it will be 3 AC -> 2 CoE. For Arah specifically, it will be 5 of any Dungeon Tokens -> 3 Arah.
4. Karma conversion to Badges of Honor. I’m hoping it is possible to align Badges of Honor to Dungeon Tokens (as stated below in other proposed changes). Then we can apply 400 Karma -> 1 Badge of Honor and, 1 Badge of Honor -> 0 Karma; keeping in mind that we do get huge amounts of Karma in WvWvW. This works out to 132,000 Karma for an exotic chest piece (assuming we only need 330 Badges of Honor instead of 354). 132,000 Karma might seem alot at first, however, WvWvW accessible gears provide the widest variety of inscriptions that would otherwise be available only through crafting.
5. Badges of Honor conversion to Dungeon Tokens. I’m proposing a 1:1 for any dungeon and 2:1 for specifically Arah. The reason for 1:1 conversion is because it is harder to obtain Badges of Honor reliably compared to Dungeon Tokens. For a working example, we will then require 660 Badges of Honor (based on proposed change to the amount required) for an exotic Arah chest piece. On the reverse side (Dungeon Tokens to Badges of Honor), I’m proposing a 3:2 for any dungeons and 2:3 for Arah, making it less effective to convert from all dungeons except Arah. This works out to be 495 Dungeon Tokens to get an exotic WvWvW chest piece by converting to Badges of Honor. On the reverse side (Dungeon Tokens to Badges of Honor), I’m proposing a 3:2 for all dungeons. This makes less effective to purchase WvWvW gear via Dungeon Tokens. For example, it will require 495 Dungeon Tokens to get an exotic chest piece in WvWvW; however, they may then obtain the gears with a wide variety of inscription choices.

Some other proposed changes

1. Exotic Temple gears should re-adjust their Karma requirements. We can use 42,000 Karma for chest piece as the base and reduce the other pieces accordingly by cross-referencing the amount of dungeon tokens required. Back pieces could probably stick to their current pricing due to its limited availability.
2. Align the amount of Badges of Honor required for each gear item to the respective amounts required using Dungeon Tokens at dungeon vendor, i.e. 330 Badge of Honor for an exotic chest piece instead of 354 (current).
3. To encourage aesthetics experimentation, I feel that it might be better to lower the costs of Transmutation Crystals slightly to 5 crystals -> 150 gems. Just a 2 cents suggestion, as I think this might actually hurt ANet sales if it doesn’t work well.