Guild Wars 2

excellent post, i’ve +1 this and am adding my plea for this

But the game is not about grinding….
I remember a famous quote by General Ackbar.

You forgot ectos. They are now a currency along with laurels rather than simply crafting materials.

I disagree. We need about 16 more currencies before I can take this game seriously. I’ve always wanted to know what Bourne felt like with a backpack full of random foreign currency. Don’t take my dream away from me.

Anet please listen to this man (or woman).
The OP is being coherent and logical, and is completely right.

I used to think that grinding was about be required to do one task repetitively over a long period of time.

What appears to be happening here is that we are now having to do 4-6 different tasks on a regular basis in order to have the BiS gear.

I’m not opposed to adding different playstyles, but having to do partake in 4 or 5 different playstyles, over a long period of time, to have BiS gear on ONE CHARACTER is silly.

I know they said they would add additional ascended pieces and add new ways of getting them. I am simply asking that you provide a method to achieve every piece BiS gear for each of the existing currencies BEFORE adding more.

Avecess.8513:

Anet please listen to this man (or woman).
The OP is being coherent and logical, and is completely right.

Thank you. And I’m a dude.

I’m a casual player and I’ve not had any problems with multiple currencies.

I agree. LOTRO made this mistake (although that was 4 years in), paid for it and is trying to uncomplicate itself. Unfortunately it’s got a lot of work to do to untangle the mess it made of its currency issues.

The most important thing I saw was this:

Add all ascended gear types to
Guild Merits
Dungeons (i.e. require 3-4 gifts to make an accessory)
WvW
CRAFTING

It drives me absolutely bonkers that you can only get certain ascended things from doing a large list of random and unrelated activities.

Ascended gear was added for fractals. That was good because….if you don’t run fractals, you didn’t need the gear.

Then they decided to “support” ALL gameplay types. Except they made the methods toward getting ascended gear so incredibly varied, unrelated, and disjunct, that you cannot get the ascended gear without significantly impacting the way you WANT to play the game.

I get to play the game for 2-3 hours a day tops. I spend most of that time working on the daily which requires me to do stupid crap I really have no interest in. So instead of loving the game, I’m growing to resent it because in order to get that amulet for my 40+ fractal running…I can’t even run fractals. That is absolutely absurd and nonsensical.

They need to drop this paradigm right now. If I want to progress in the fractals past the 40s, I should be able to get what I need to get for progression IN THE FRACTALS. Instead I’m being forced to do something I have no desire to do whatsoever. It’s sapping the life out of the game for me.

I’ve never had a problem with multiple currencies as long as they are simple to remember.

My only concern is that if they continue to add more, it may get to the point where it becomes difficult for newer players to understand the system.

When they announced karma as the game was being developed, it sounded like an amazing step forward. Truly next gen MMO thinking.

Whatever you do in the world, whatever quest, you get this currency called karma and it piles up as you play. Use it now for something at level, or save it down the road for a rainy day. But no matter which direction I went, or what quest types I picked, I would get this same currency that at the end, had the same value as what someone else got by doing something totally different than me, that they liked instead.

Now its practically worthless.

When the game launched think of all the ways you could get Best in Slot gear, playing the way you chose.

- Via Drops
- Via Crafting (now ruined thanks to Ascended)
- Via Dungeon Tokens
- Via Trade Post
- Via WvW Badges
- Via Karma Vendors (that could not be bought with real money via gems)

Play the way you want! And still gear up!

Why didn’t they stick with this? They traded in this awesome system that did everything they initially claimed as their philosophy, for a grindy, and in many parts ‘not fun’ treadmill, that makes you jump through hoops and frequently do things you don’t prefer in the game, just to progress along with everyone else.

Even if they did feel it necessary for a new tier of gear, there was no reason it could not have followed the same currencies, just taking many more of those currencies to set up the proper timetable they wanted. And still allowed the player to play the game the way they liked and not fall behind or miss out, for not liking this or that specific game mode.

Vorch.2985:

I used to think that grinding was about be required to do one task repetitively over a long period of time.

What appears to be happening here is that we are now having to do 4-6 different tasks on a regular basis in order to have the BiS gear.

I’m not opposed to adding different playstyles, but having to do partake in 4 or 5 different playstyles, over a long period of time, to have BiS gear on ONE CHARACTER is silly.

I know they said they would add additional ascended pieces and add new ways of getting them. I am simply asking that you provide a method to achieve every piece BiS gear for each of the existing currencies BEFORE adding more.

This is what I have been trying to say as well. If you want the accended items, you are being forced to possibly play in a style that you really do not want to. If I wanted to go play DE’s all day, I should be able to buy the accended items with Karma. If I wanted to do WvWvW all day, I should be able to use tokens, etc, etc,. I took a break for a couple of months because of personal reasons and now just came back and feel so left behind which I thought was not suppose to happen. Bring the items out the same way that exotics were with just a higher reasonalbe cost and I think many would be happy with that.

Anet, listen to the OP

Please…

We will send you cookies!

Sardonia.8196:

Vorch.2985:

I used to think that grinding was about be required to do one task repetitively over a long period of time.

What appears to be happening here is that we are now having to do 4-6 different tasks on a regular basis in order to have the BiS gear.

I’m not opposed to adding different playstyles, but having to do partake in 4 or 5 different playstyles, over a long period of time, to have BiS gear on ONE CHARACTER is silly.

I know they said they would add additional ascended pieces and add new ways of getting them. I am simply asking that you provide a method to achieve every piece BiS gear for each of the existing currencies BEFORE adding more.

This is what I have been trying to say as well. If you want the accended items, you are being forced to possibly play in a style that you really do not want to. If I wanted to go play DE’s all day, I should be able to buy the accended items with Karma. If I wanted to do WvWvW all day, I should be able to use tokens, etc, etc,. I took a break for a couple of months because of personal reasons and now just came back and feel so left behind which I thought was not suppose to happen. Bring the items out the same way that exotics were with just a higher reasonalbe cost and I think many would be happy with that.

QFT. I didn’t read all the replies and missed this, but these basically echo the same sentiment I’m feeling at the moment. I’m really wearing thin from all the various garbage activities they want me to do in order to get what I need to do the one thing I really DO want to do: Fractals.

Nice, thoughtful post. +1

We certainly didn’t need any more currencies before the Laurel and it was simply a stab at damage control over the debacle of their initial introduction of vertical progression. And, who knows they may want additional gates around armor and weapons. That said, I support the OP 100%. Please Anet no more currencies. I also agree it would be preferable to return to the original game vision which was antithetical to vertical progression.

Pendragon.8735:

When they announced karma as the game was being developed, it sounded like an amazing step forward. Truly next gen MMO thinking.

Whatever you do in the world, whatever quest, you get this currency called karma and it piles up as you play. Use it now for something at level, or save it down the road for a rainy day. But no matter which direction I went, or what quest types I picked, I would get this same currency that at the end, had the same value as what someone else got by doing something totally different than me, that they liked instead.

Now its practically worthless.

When the game launched think of all the ways you could get Best in Slot gear, playing the way you chose.

- Via Drops
- Via Crafting (now ruined thanks to Ascended)
- Via Dungeon Tokens
- Via Trade Post
- Via WvW Badges
- Via Karma Vendors (that could not be bought with real money via gems)

Play the way you want! And still gear up!

Why didn’t they stick with this? They traded in this awesome system that did everything they initially claimed as their philosophy, for a grindy, and in many parts ‘not fun’ treadmill, that makes you jump through hoops and frequently do things you don’t prefer in the game, just to progress along with everyone else.

This is exactly how I’m feeling right now. And it is, quite frankly, INFURIATING.

They have ALL the systems in place for everyone to play the way that they want.

• Gold for farmers
• Gems for increased revenue and people who don’t want to farm gold
• Karma as a currency for doing pretty much anything in game
• Dungeon Tokens for dungeon lovers
• Relics for fractal enthusiasts
• Badges of Honor for WvW gamers
• Guild Commendations for large group play.

With all these different methods of playing, there is SOMETHING for almost everyone.

However, instead of adding new rewards to ALL currencies, they have decided to make certain rewards EXCLUSIVE to some currencies. That would be fine if the rewards were skins, dyes, or minipets…those are justifiable incentives.

Instead, it appears that every currency is going to have an exclusive STATISTICAL increase going forward.

It would be AWESOME if we could play ANY of 5 or 6 ways to get BiS gear.

Instead, we are being required to play ALL 5 or 6 ways to get BiS gear.

QFT. I didn’t read all the replies and missed this, but these basically echo the same sentiment I’m feeling at the moment. I’m really wearing thin from all the various garbage activities they want me to do in order to get what I need to do the one thing I really DO want to do: Fractals.[/quote]

I believe if you want to run fractals all day to gain the items, I think you should. Same with any other type of playstyle, crafting, WvWvW, Karma, dungeons, etc.

I agree. I can manage to keep track of the currencies pretty well, but that is because I am an information junk who spends way too much of her time on the forums, wiki and youtube. But for my friend, who is a starting gamer, it’s all very confusing. It’s hard for her to set priorities, so she feels kind of lost in the huge forest of options.

Having multiple currencies does nothing but make your game more complex than need be. And for a game that prides itself on the “easy to learn, difficult to master” concept, it’s really not a step forward.

+1 for this, as it is completely true. The more convoluted you make things, the less enjoyable they become.

Glad I’m not the only one who thinks this. It is getting ridiculous how many different currencies we need to gather now. Wonder how many we will have by the end of this year….

+1’d. i was pretty bummed to see they added yet another new currency with the guild missions. I don’t understand why they don’t do ascended gear like they did exotic? that was perfect. you could get it through WvW, crafting, karma, or dungeons. now we have to do one thing to get one piece, and something completely different to get another piece. not psyched

You actually missed some currencies in your original list of currencies.

The original list should read:

• Gold, Karma and Dungeon Tokens for PvE.
• Badges of Honor for WvW.
• Glory for PvP.
• Skill Points for the Mystic Forge.
• Gems for the Cash Shop.
• Other Tokens (Pact Victory Token).
• Influence for guilds.

And they’ve since added:

• More Dungeon Tokens (Fractal Relics and Pristine Fractal Relics), Laurels and More Tokens (Commendations) for PvE.
• Merits and Guild Commendations for guilds.

And there’s already talk of more possible currencies. I recall Colin suggesting that retroactive achievements might end up using a different currency altogether if they proved too difficult to balance with laurels.

I have to agree. There’s too many now, and there’s no place to store them all. It’s going to start occupying a lot of space in inventories and banks if they keep this up.

critickitten.1498:

I have to agree. There’s too many now, and there’s no place to store them all. It’s going to start occupying a lot of space in inventories and banks if they keep this up.

Not only that, its downright confusing. Even for us forum readers that probably have a good handle on the game. Just think how overwhelming all these systems are to a new gamer.

And Colin was just talking in a recent interview about how they are surprised starting players have been saying the game is hard to learn, and they are looking at ways for helping that along as it rolls out in new regions.

Well duh, each content patch introduces whole new systems, when they have perfectly good existing ones to just build upon.

I ArenaNet kept using old currencies, they would retain their use after we had initially purchased what they were intended for. If karma or badges of honour could be used to buy ascended gear, a lot of people would have gotten all BiS within a week of it becoming available because these currencies aren’t used for anything and people have it sitting around. If Pristine Relics were used for amulets, plenty of people would have purchased their amulet as soon as it was available. Waiting 20 days and blowing your monthly laurels wouldn’t be something many would do because Pristine Relics are “easier” (harder content, less restrictive artificial calendar gating used) to get (an account has the ability to get 5 a day without upgrades).

I all comes back to this quote from Colin Johanson:

“…what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible?”

ArenaNet recognised that other MMOs create content with design motivations to keep people playing as long as possible. Very shortly after launch they did a complete 180 and now all their “progression” content is designed specifically to keep people playing as long as possible regardless of time commitment, skill level or ability. Because they use unique currencies, each new grind they introduce (Pristine Relics, Laurels, Guild Commendation) to represent the new “progression” (it’s ironic to me that an MMO that was developed and launched as a forward thinking one is now showing industry regression in the name of player “progression”) is immune to the built up resources of the last. The viable ways of obtaining them are also less. This allows ArenaNet to place a hard cap on how much of all of these resources players are able to access and control, not through challenging or difficult or rewarding content, but through days of the year (dailies – Fractal daily, Laurel Daily, days of research for Guild Missions and a weekly cap on how much can be earned). All these currencies are separate to force you into playing every day for a longer period of time, regardless of how much you play on any given day. They force you to do specific content instead of playing how you want to play. It’s ArenaNet taking more and more control over not only how, but when, players can access stuff.

It’s becoming exhausting for me personally. Keeping track of dailies, not being able to prioritise where I play, having to log in every day to keep up, now I need to find a guild to access this new stuff, the game feels more like a job than it does a game – and that’s just to equip one character, I have six level 80s now. I’ll probably keep playing for a while longer but GW2 is fast approaching a point where all the artificial gating and barriers and currencies and dailies is just going to wear me down and put the final nail in the MMO coffin for me.

50 ectos for a piece of gear thats asking too much, if you put that into golds it would be 16 golds for a gear….

But you can play your way, as long as your way is the same as Anet’s.

I don’t really have a problem with new currencies.
However, they should be in the collection, preferably with larger stacks than just 250.

Babychoochoo.5690:

I disagree. We need about 16 more currencies before I can take this game seriously. I’ve always wanted to know what Bourne felt like with a backpack full of random foreign currency. Don’t take my dream away from me.

LOL :-D

Enough is enough!

Panzen.4625:

I don’t really have a problem with new currencies.
However, they should be in the collection, preferably with larger stacks than just 250.

It’s not so much the fact that there are multiple currencies that bothers me.

It’s the fact that in order to acquire BiS gear, you must do a wide-variety of thing, all regularly, and all over a long period of time…for each character.

There is a wide variety of stuff to do in GW2, which is good.
If I could acquire ascended rings, accessories, amulets, and backpieces by playing in any of the varieties of playstyles offered, I wouldn’t have any grievances.

However, I am now required to play an unhealthy amount of time doing Dungeons, Fractals, Guild Missions, dailies, and monthlies in order to get BiS gear. And that would take months to achieve on one character…I’m not even going to do the calculation for all 8 of my alts.

It’s one thing to offer a variety of ways to play. It’s quite another to offer exclusive statistical advantages for each playstyle while requiring the player to log on regularly to even hope to keep up.

I remember in GW1 there was a little message that said “You’ve been playing for 2 hours. Please take a break.” There’s no way that someone will get BiS on a character playing 2 hours a day in a month. Forget about the alts…

I agree with everything you said OP, especially what you said about new skins as incentives instead of statistical increases (ascended gear)

+1!

Vorch.2985:

And for the sake of Lyssa, +use NEW SKINS AS INCENTIVES INSTEAD OF STATISTICAL INCREASES

Good, God yes. the chasing of stats blows. It’s boring to spend tons of time doing something & as a “reward” have some numbers. The difference is imperceptible. with agony it made sense but the 9 billion stat combos are not FUN. It’s min-maxing BS for people who can’t think in any terms but treadmills. We only needed a small number of Ascended garbage.

Either that or make currency exchange vendor.

Vorch.2985:

I humbly submit that you +do not add any more currencies.

Again, YES. Karma was supposed to be the currency for everything so that you could play any part of the game & choose your reward. now it’s all but useless & we have 500 things to chase at extremely slow rates that are mutually exclusive. On top of that we’ll probably get a NEW one when you figure out what to do with the achievement points. It’s annoying.

Babychoochoo.5690:

I disagree. We need about 16 more currencies before I can take this game seriously. I’ve always wanted to know what Bourne felt like with a backpack full of random foreign currency. Don’t take my dream away from me.

Man, I never thought of it like this before.

Such positive thinking…way to turn those lemons into lemonade!

In the Suggestion Forum, someone asked ArenaNet if they could do something to manage all the currencies we have.

ArenaNet acknowledged they have a problem with having too many types:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Currencies/first#post1465154

Evan Lesh.3295:

You’re right that we do have a lot of currencies. We certainly know we could improve the experience here

Unfortunately, I don’t know if that will translate into a currency tab or a streamlining of how many currencies we need to manage.

Kingfisher.7213:

Babychoochoo.5690:

I disagree. We need about 16 more currencies before I can take this game seriously. I’ve always wanted to know what Bourne felt like with a backpack full of random foreign currency. Don’t take my dream away from me.

Man, I never thought of it like this before.

Such positive thinking…way to turn those lemons into lemonade!

In the Suggestion Forum, someone asked ArenaNet if they could do something to manage all the currencies we have.

ArenaNet acknowledged they have a problem with having too many types:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Currencies/first#post1465154

Evan Lesh.3295:

You’re right that we do have a lot of currencies. We certainly know we could improve the experience here

Unfortunately, I don’t know if that will translate into a currency tab or a streamlining of how many currencies we need to manage.

I’ll reiterate.

I inherently do not have a problem with having a different type of currency for different play styles.

My issue is that each new currency now has exclusive, statistical advantages as rewards. Simply adding more space to store these currencies does not solve the problem.

It now takes over a month of playing religiously for 3-4 hours a day to acquire BiS gear for ONE CHARACTER. That is not ok.

ESPECIALLY when entire playstyles are left out (WvW in particular).

+1 from me too OP.

It’s getting a little ridiculous.

The reasons why currencies exist is to enforce specific non-RNG rewards for specific playstyles.

Specific playstyles for specific rewards isn’t a consequence of the currencies. The currencies is the result of a design decision to reward specific rewards for specific playstyles. Big difference, because it seems to me what you have problems is with this design decision, not the currencies themselves.

The currency themselves are perfectly fine in the context of this system. It gets rid of RNG, which is the biggest advantage of the currency system. Want armor that just drops from CoF? Instead of running it repeatedly, you can run it for CoF tokens to buy it without RNG. Want ascended rings? You can run Fractals repeated to get its tokens to eventually buy it with RNG.

I guess I post this because I feel the topic is a bit misleading. Different currencies is really good, because it removes the RNG element from the rewards where they are concerned. But again, what you have problem with is design decisions Anet made purposely to give specific rewards for specific playstyles. Currency is simply a result of this design decision. it’s fine to have a problem with this design decision, but currency really isn’t the culprit here.

Too many posts to QFT; this is a thread of reason.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have to go down the path that almost every other MMO goes down. WvW/sPvP/Dungeons are enough. They are fun, and as long as your game is fun you don’t need grind.

If people want more progression then horizontal is enough. Things like Legendary weapons and unique skin exotics are exactly what this game needs. Instead of Ascended gear, why not completely new and unique skins? Why not add unique skins to crafting that require quests or currencies to get the recipes for? Why not add unique skins as rewards for badges of honor? Why not add cool new items like the unbreakable choir bell? These kinds of things people love to work for, especially when they can earn them by doing more of what they enjoy doing.

Add to the strengths of the game; don’t add things that take away from it’s enjoyment and what it was made to be.

Added a +1 because I’ve posted two of these kinds of topics in the past and they all got misinterpreted or moved to the suggestions forum.

On topic: Yes, there are too many currencies floating around. I do hope Anet stops adding more and instead adds more of previous types instead. At this rate, it seems as if the content teams aren’t communicating with each other so that their content can integrate well with each other’s content (if that made sense in any way).

I know it doesn’t help to say, “I told you so,” but it feels kitten good.

Join the club. I’ve already seen at least one other play who agreed with me that reliance on the daily system spearheaded the soul-sucking content that convinced me to leave WoW, and that was relatively benign compared to ANet’s vision for dailies.

At the other end of the spectrum: Fractals weapons cannot be bought with any currency. Which RNG god do I need to sacrifice to get even one of any type? After 500 fractals.

Kingfisher.7213:

Evan Lesh.3295:

You’re right that we do have a lot of currencies. We certainly know we could improve the experience here

Unfortunately, I don’t know if that will translate into a currency tab or a streamlining of how many currencies we need to manage.

The problem is that you cant convert from one currency to another directly. Boom problem solved

Agreed with OP, too many currencies.

There is also a lack of options to obtain the currencies.

Another big issue with the recent patch is with guild missions. You know need to rely on the higher ranks in the guild to understand the system so they can get missions rolling asap so you can progress and get the accessories. Which currently has me worried in the guild I recently joined. They have AoW rank 5, but are currently queuing politics, economy and other things instead of bounty missions…

Is it me whos missing something or are they wasting time queuing those? I thought you needed AoW5, then bounties to get the new guild currency to unlock the other missions with.

Why are so many currencies needed anyway? Especially with no exchange rate. I understand that having a currency like Karma which cannot necessarily be purchased with real money is important, because it allows for certain things to be segregated into groups that require certain accomplishments, but to have so many?

Seems like more trouble than it’s worth. They are creating a tangled network of interwoven threads connecting various currencies to item types and so on. The players may not see the effect of it, but it could get down right ugly on the coding side if they decide to make major changes in the future. :/

SneakyErvin.3056:

There is also a lack of options to obtain the currencies.

That’s really the point of currencies though. To make certain non-RNG rewards exclusive to specific portions of the game.

Neural.1824:

Why are so many currencies needed anyway? Especially with no exchange rate. I understand that having a currency like Karma which cannot necessarily be purchased with real money is important, because it allows for certain things to be segregated into groups that require certain accomplishments, but to have so many?

Seems like more trouble than it’s worth. They are creating a tangled network of interwoven threads connecting various currencies to item types and so on. The players may not see the effect of it, but it could get down right ugly on the coding side if they decide to make major changes in the future. :/

Because they want to have specific non-RNG rewards for specific tasks in this game.

Hickeroar.9734:

Ascended gear was added for fractals. That was good because….if you don’t run fractals, you didn’t need the gear.

I thought ascended gear was to fill a gap between legendary and exotic?

They added the agony resist and fractals to work around that concept, though I could be wrong. Regardless, stats are stats and more is better in games of numbers. People shouldn’t relate fractals to what ascended gear really is. It wouldn’t surprise me if ascended armor and weapons will have combat effects on them like exotic runes and sigils with their very own currencies. Currently the difference between a full set of both is like 8-14% better. Add on another 6-8 pieces with infusions giving more stats (and possibly combat effects) that number could double. Now that number might be skewed unless I am mistaken because of mf. I don’t have a link to exact numbers but I remember reading crit mag and chance will notice it the most.

IMO (captain hindsight here) gw2 should have launched after the wow expansion. The security features put them behind the 8ball and they have been straying from their initial plan since which could explain the way ascended gear was handled as well as the multiple new currencies. I remember reading on forums in November something about a plinx run nerf where players could stockpile ectos saturating the market running this dungeon path. The black loin salvage kits were nerfed and world loot tables nerfed. Mystic forge crit chance also nerfed because of legendary’s. Fractal loot tables were awesome compared to world tables, but I haven’t pve’d in awhile so not sure what’s changed.

Unless I am mistaken gw2 left it open for additional tiers of gear to be introduced after ascended. With ascended gear based off of multiple currency’s it is a deterrent from stockpiling currency’s for new or seasonal/annual gear. IMO this is almost similar to putting a cap on a currency in order to prevent stockpiling.

The laurel is why I quit pve. I still play spvp which I am addicted to so whatever happens best of luck to all you pve’ers.

I agree that there are a lot of currencies now I think the main problem is that you can get a bit of ascended gear with each type of currency. What they should do is provide all gear types for all currency types but give them different looks.

I have stopped playing this game as a result of the Feb patch. I have concluded that the developers don’t know what they’re doing.

Exactly….This is getting rediculous

The reason for introducing a new currency every few months is simple…
You keep people playing for the Flavor-of-the-Month currency.

The issue is, it burns people out.

WoW converted all of its currency to Justice and Valor points in Cataclysm. Valor being limited (you can only get so much each week) and Justice being easier to get.

Each update, they’d downconvert Valor to Justice and make the Valor gear available for Justice Points. New gear would then be available for Valor.

I totaly agree with original post. No more currencies please. There are just too many.

This game was announced as a no grind type of game. I never really believed that since almost all MMOs have to have some sort of grind to keep us working at our goals. It was just up to the developer to make the grind fun/interesting.

But what they DID say about this game was that the gameplay type you choose to do could contribute towards ALL the rewards in the game since everything you did would reward you with karma. That was such a forward thinking idea which I loved. If I got bored of doing one particular thing, I could switch it up and do something else and always work towards that common type of currency.

Whether you wanted to do wvw or pve you always got karma. But now we have all these other currencies that are specific to one particular type of task which really closes off other content and compartmentalizes it all. Which goes back to the tired MMO mechanic of ‘reputation grinding’.

Let us get these new currencies in a variety of different ways. But perhaps make the specific tasks wield MORE of that currency. OR perhaps introduce the ability to exchange currencies for another?

Something like:
20000 karma = 1 guild commendation
40 dungeon tokens = 1 guild commendation
1 guild commendation = 10 fractal relics
20000 karma = 1 laurel = 5 dungeon tokens
(just as a suggestion off the top of my head)

That way we can do what Arenanet originally set out for us to do. Play the game the way we wanted to play it. Not ‘do this to get that’. More like ‘do anything, to get anything’.

Well, I guess I’m not the only one -_-

I love the game and I love all the options.

It’s just that all the options are becoming much less optional.