Guild Wars 2

TLDR: Is there a reason karma is character bound instead of account bound, like gems and laurels?

Problematic Example: Like most people, I’m saving my karma for the day I want to start seriously pursuing my legendary, which means I have tons of karma jugs sitting in the bank for the day I claim all available buffs and boosters and rush to Orr. However, when I first started playing the game, I didn’t know about saving them up so I popped every karma item I got, leading to several hundred thousand karma just sitting on my main. A few days ago I was gearing an alt and wanted to buy some cultural weapons for karma, but he only had 50k or so on him from events and whatnot, meaning I had to “waste” a few jugs on him to get him the weapons (which are soulbound on acquire, or I’d just buy them with my main’s karma stash). If karma was account bound, I’d have been able to buy them with my main’s/account’s karma.

Possible Suggestion: Besides making karma account bound, perhaps a way to deposit karma into the bank like gold would be helpful, so that all characters could benefit from each others’ work.

you can attempt to transfer karma using orrian jewelry boxes, you on average will gain just a bit less karma than you put in in bankable form.

I wondered this too thought it never really bothered me but my friend explained it to me this way. Karma is basically earned via the good deeds you’ve done on your character. Hence why you get them from completing events and hearts. Rather than viewing them as a form of currency think of the objects you buy with karma as hand outs from the people of Tyria as a gesture of thanks in helping them out. Sure it doesn’t really help you out but I think it’s pretty neat how karma works. It would be weird if the good deeds done on your char rewards your newly made human.

Obsidian shards are account bound.
Buy them with one character and then deposit.
???
Profit.

Granted; this only helps in the pursuit of your legendary. There isn’t really anything that great from karma merchants otherwise though.

OP: I’d suggest looking up the definition of Karma, once you know what it is in the real world you will easily see the correlation into this game and why one toons actions shouldn’t benefit another.

Catisa.6507:

OP: I’d suggest looking up the definition of Karma, once you know what it is in the real world you will easily see the correlation into this game and why one toons actions shouldn’t benefit another.

Mind. Blown.

I’m well aware of what karma is in real life and how it was intended to work in the game, but are you going to tell me that a) you only use karma from one toon to work toward a legendary or other expensive gear (such as Orr temple armor); or b) you only pop karma jugs/vials you get from dailies and dungeons on the toon that actually earned them? No. No one does that. So the “real life” definition of karma is out the window. It’s already shareable between toons regardless of who actually did the good deeds, so why not remove a step and just pool it per account?

The only instance I can think of where it would need to be character-bound is when you’re leveling alts and buying gear through karma merchants. But even then, the gear is so inexpensive at low levels that one 4,500 karma jug from one daily will pretty much set you up for any karma gear you could want to buy while leveling. So it’s pointless. Just pool it.

plus with there no real negative karma or choice and it basically comes down to karma you the player earn rather than any pretense of characters making the choice.

you do realise that when karma was created in game there were no jugs right? Used to be no way to share at all.

Yes, which furthers my point that keeping it character-bound is now useless. As I said, the way karma was originally intended to work, it made sense keeping it character-bound. (I think it actually would have been cool if obi shards were character-bound as well, forcing you to play the toon you want to get a legendary for, though admittedly it would have been a looot of work and discouraged alt creation.)

With all the changes made to karma acquisition and distribution since launch, i.e. that it’s just another of the many forms of currency in the game , I’d like to be able to more easily share it between all of my characters in one account-bound karma pool.

No. I hate this account bound currency. Character bound currency is the best way to go, because then all my characters can earn the different currency’s and get the rewards at approximately the same speed. Take Laurels for instance, It will take years for all my character to get the rewards from the laurels, since it is only 1 laurel per day per account. If the Laurels were character bound instead, then they could have made it so that each character can earn 1 laurel per day.

This account bound currency is very much anti-multi character.

eisberg.2379:

No. I hate this account bound currency. Character bound currency is the best way to go, because then all my characters can earn the different currency’s and get the rewards at approximately the same speed. Take Laurels for instance, It will take years for all my character to get the rewards from the laurels, since it is only 1 laurel per day per account. If the Laurels were character bound instead, then they could have made it so that each character can earn 1 laurel per day.

This account bound currency is very much anti-multi character.

Prior to karma jugs, you would have to finish the daily on the account you wanted to get the karma. You could not do the daily on each character and get karma on each character. I’m sure laurels would be the same. I’d rather they have all currencies, including karma, be account wide and not in the form of tokens that you store somewhere.

Catisa.6507:

OP: I’d suggest looking up the definition of Karma, once you know what it is in the real world you will easily see the correlation into this game and why one toons actions shouldn’t benefit another.

Meh. Even in the “real” world, karma is an imaginary sort of spiritual currency to be awarded and spent in a manner that befits the “lore” of the people who invented it. I get your point, however.