I never really understood the point of Waypoint fees and Trait fees within the context of gold sinks. In my opinion, they feel trivial and arbitrary, and detract from the immersion when playing the game. I love this game at its core, but when I see things like this, I get the overwhelming urge to post about it. I hope i’m not out of line here with my suggestions, and I really hope it doesn’t sound like i’m whining. These are simply suggestions, offered in the hopes of making this game the best it can be.
Waypoints: Everytime I log in, I think to myself “I’m about to lose 20-30 Silver for playing this game for a couple of hours”. Between WP fees, armor fees, and trait reset fees, it adds up. To break even, you need to ensure you’re farming the most profitable areas, or running dungeons. But what if you don’t want to? Or don’t have the time? Then you literally are losing money everytime you log in, because you are inevitably going to WP travel to and from somewhere in the game. Every time you log in, you’re paying out of your own in-game pocket to play the game. Events give you about 1s per chest, so you’re left to sell the greens for any profit, which is so small, you don’t notice it. Now that the chests have been buffed, the guaranteed gold drop is worth the time and effort, but still, just seeing that WP tax before I map travel unnerves and irritates me. It could be taken out and nothing would change, except people would be a couple of silver richer, and it would take the edge and pressure off from doing regular tasks. Which is important, because the casual regular tasks of playing the game require you to travel the world, and it feels like instead of being rewarded for my time spent around the world, im paying the piper. There is no monthly subscription fee to play this game, but its these small things like WP fees that really feel as if there are other ways we are being forced to pay additional fees.
Why must I pay a “tax” for lack of a better word, to move my character from one part of the world to another? By design, Waypoints exist everywhere and provide the only means of travel to the majority of the world’s zones, just like in GW1. You can port to LA and use the Asura gates, but somewhere down the line, you eventually would have to use another WP. And all this for what? A gold sink? GW1 never charged a fee to move your character. It’s very unrealistic, because you have no idea why the game insists on making you a couple of silver poorer everytime you click on the WP icon, and it just seems like a trivial tax. Whether you’re jumping from events from one part of the world to another, or farming, or exploring, you don’t really profit as much as you could, because the WP fees at lvl 80 usually average me about 3s and they add up to a large amount over the course of a play session.
Additional in-game fees = less in-game gold = more time spent grinding = not alot of profit because of said fees and DR (DR is a whole other issue) = not a lot fun.
Trait fees: Trait fees I can live with, but if they were removed, it would be a nice quality of life improvement. Why wouldn’t it work if we were allowed to retrait anywhere in the world for no fee? (provided we were outside of combat, outside of dungeons, and outside of PVP). It was exactly like this in GW1, and there were no problems with that. If I want to experiment with a certain build with the gear I have in PVE, I can’t do that on the fly. It doesn’t make any sense within the context of the game, since this whole game is built around putting less restrictions on your character. You can casually pick up and go for most of the content in this game, but I think paying a WP fee to go visit your trainer, and then pay your trainer to “magically” allow you to use your character a different way is very unrealistic and doesn’t fit the design of the game.
Armor fees: These can stay. They are a realistic feature and a realistic gold sink, because armour does get broke from fighting baddies all day.
Trading Post Fees: The 15% tax on the TP can also stay. It makes sense, because it sort of works as a finder’s fee, and limits the excessive profit players can make by buying and selling, and effectively controlling the market.
In Conclusion: I feel like there are these small barriers that prevent you from attaining the freedom to do with your character whatever it is you choose, whether it be a casual session or a hardcore session. What im outlining in this post is a very idealistic future, but not one that isn’t undeserved. I should conclude by saying that changes like this help the casuals more than anyone else, and I myself fall inbetween casual and hardcore.
(edited by cletiscake.9173)