Guild Wars 2

Don’t brush this off! Listen to what I have to say.

I used to be one of the people saying Karma shouldn’t be account-bound, however now that I’m at “end-game” (yes yes, I know, it doesn’t technically exist, blah blah, just go with it) I’m realizing why that was wrong.

The end-game Karma resources cost a LOT of Karma. Between exotics and Legendaries, you will be aiming for millions of Karma, millions! But the thing is, I totally don’t mind! It gives me things to do, a long-term goal. I’d love to be playing GW2 for 2 years and suddenly realize I have the ability to get some incredibly epic piece of gear that shows me dedication.

What I ~don’t~ want, is to spend 2 years on the same character, doing the same skill rotations, the same content, the same way, ALL THE TIME. That is likely to make me quit the game more than any grind will. The karma rewards prior to that point are paltry, there’s really nothing else you can’t afford (even the highest level recipes) with some time and effort. So, the idea that karma shouldn’t be account-bound just based on those items is silly; realistically, it doesn’t affect anyone either way. The karma end-game rewards however, those are the ones that take huuuuge amounts of time and dedication, and I think most people would find it a more enjoyable experience if this was karma they could build up over different characters, different storylines, etc. If this was the case, I’d ~want~ to level up every class, because I know by that time I could pick a favorite and he or she’d be well on their way to that epic item to show off all the time and effort I put into the game thus far.

Right now, this is not the case. I love my mesmer, but I don’t want to play him non-stop, forever. The only current option is to play the same character and basically run ‘zerg’ parties throughout the 75+ regions for Karma, which is fun, but gets old. I don’t want to burn out on the game, I want to be playing this for years to come, which means variation is an absolute given.

Hopefully the reasoning behind my suggestion has gotten through clearly. Thanks!

I’m all for this. Just from reading this you convinced me entirely… let’s hope this is the same for ArenaNet…

I hope so. Most things in the game are achievable very easily. Getting to 80, completed story, etc. And that’s fine, I like that the game is accessable and don’t want that to change. But, at least for me and the people I play with, the longetivity factor comes from making alts and playing through new storylines and running through content with new characters, because the classes all feel very different. It’s just a shame that our progress with another character, in regards to karma (and possible dungeon tokens) sits in limbo as we try to find ways to extend our enjoyment of the game. It’s still effort, dedication and time spent playing, even if it’s not on the same character. If the higher price of those exclusive items is meant to show that, then people who like alts shouldn’t be getting shafted.

I agree with you 100%. You should take this post to the Reddit as well, if you haven’t already. I was already thinking karma WAS account bound…I made a new character to find out that it wasn’t. I’m extremely upset and I’ve pretty much lost my motive to make a new character. I was really looking forward to progressing BOTH of my characters while sharing karma. Spending karma on my new character which then would lead to farming karma on him later on. Playing the same character in grind mode can get very boring especially with the restriction of skill/spell setup. I’m not all about the premade setup of skills (excluding utility’s) but I love the game and I can learn to adjust.

In lore wise, It sounds really funny, a new character who has not done any deeds still gets the benefit earned by the tasks done by older, experienced characters. And they might not even know each other.

But for Anet’s GW 2 motto, which “quit the grind and have fun”. I don’t see why not.

YES. Good suggestion. Account based karma would allow you to move right into having another character to play. Besides, there’s better stuff than Karma gear in my opinion, and they take just as much work so I don’t see why this shouldn’t be account based.

I’m going to disagree with this for the time being . Do to fact the game is young they should be given some leeway on working out the kinks as far as Karma item costs and the like .

I actually was really interested in the karma rewards, once I realized that they would require me to play one and only one character the whole time. I decided that I would just ignore them, same goes for legendaries and dungeon token.

I think making more of these things account bound would help the long-term motivation a lot since those rewards are ment as long-term motivation, but of cause only work a such, if you don’t ignore them (like I do at the moment).

I like this, was thinking something similar as I am working on my third 80 and you either have to focus on one character and grind karma for that one but all the other work goes for nought. Besides the pvp, I’ve been doing it since the stories besides endings have been great.

Hadn’t really thought about it until I read this post. You make a convincing argument and I agree with what you say.