Guild Wars 2

I propose decreasing costs to distance traveled.

In the current system, we see increasing costs to distance traveled. This discourages people from traveling to different zones, particularly if those zones are far away. This, in turn, has the effect of keeping far away, lower level zones unpopulated and frustrates people who are, for example, traveling from Orr to Frostgorge or anything of similar distance. Many people resort to using the heart of the mists as a lower cost alternative, but this also entails many loading screens and even then you will pay a cost if your final destination is not Lion’s Arch.

On the other hand, one of the stated goals of the waypoint costs system is to encourage exploration and participation in the world by making fast travel less palatable. I would argue that in fact, by using increasing costs to distance traveled, you are reducing rather than increasing exploration.

My reasoning is as follows: exploration involves two main things: 1) traveling between zones and 2) traveling within a zone. The main complaint for those who want to encourage exploration is that no one stops to “smell the roses” and everyone just skips content by traveling using waypoints. However, if you think about it, is it realistic to expect someone to “stop and smell the roses” if the distance they must travel is extremely far (such as Orr to Frostgorge)?

It seems to me that to enjoy the scenery, we should be encouraging foot travel within a particular zone and discouraging waypoint use within a zone. However, we should also be encouraging more zones to be populated by making access to them easier (and lower cost) and thereby encouraging travel between zones. By inversing the current waypoint rate scheme, we can accomplish both of these goals.

For those who are impatient and prefer not to travel by foot, they can still pay a (larger) price to move short distances (with perhaps a slight discount if they are traveling to the waypoints at the entrances/exits to a particular zone, but not as deep a discount as if they were to switch zones).

In summary:

- Invert the current waypoint rate scheme to encourage travel between zones with low waypoint costs and discourage waypoint travel within a zone (with high waypoint costs) as compared to the current system which does the opposite.

Potential Counter-arguments:

- it is inconvenient to spend a long time on foot travel
- waypoint costs discourage waypoint use just by existing (all methods have downsides – no costs, increasing costs to distance traveled and decreasing costs to distance traveled are all guaranteed to make at least someone unhappy)

I wasn’t aware we had a “waypoint conundrum”…

There isn’t a solution to a problem here because there is no problem. Waypoints are part of the game and they work just fine. They’re not expensive at all, I don’t get why people can’t pay 4 copper – 4 silver to go somewhere.

Thanks for the feedback. I, for one, don’t mind paying for waypoints either. This is not about whether or not paying for waypoints is a good idea or not, it is about whether the current rate structure gives an incentive to explore in an optimal way.

In other words, which do you prefer: paying less to waypoint short distances and more to move long distances or vice versa?

The argument is that paying more for short distances encourages foot traffic within a particular zone and paying less for long distances makes people more comfortable switching between zones or moving from their current zone to a dungeon or things like this.

I get that waypoint costs are trivial for some people. However, we are talking about marginal incentives here. That is, all else being equal, which rate structure would encourage players to explore more without penalizing those who really want to fast travel too much?

There is already very good incentive to foot-travel across an entire map – map completion, to get very worthwhile rewards. I don’t see a problem here. I already travel nearly an entire map, and have my screenshot folder already bursting with pictures of cool things I stumble upon (much less vistas). I can see an argument made that higher level players are less inclined to travel to distant locations due to coin, but just like everything else in life, you pay for convenience. You can either warp directly, or do HotM/LA to cheapen the expenditures at the cost of a few loading screens.

I don’t really see an issue here, personally.

I guess I should clarify that I mean long-run exploration and/or non-achievement related exploration.