Guild Wars 2

I just bought the infinite watchknight tonic from a laurel vendor today. 25 laurels and 15 gold isn’t cheap, and on top of that, it comes with the handicap of not being useable in WvW… for some inexplicable reason.

Still, no problem, I thought. It’s like the Potion of Ascalonian Mages, only infinite. For the first time, I can stay transformed permanently!

Can anyone guess where I’m going with this yet?

WHY!? WHY WOULD YOU INTENTIONALLY RUIN SOMETHING SO AWESOME ANET!?

It has a duration of 5 minutes… and a cooldown of half an hour.
Why!? =’(

It’s a purely cosmetic item – basically just a better version of wearing an outfit. So why limit it in such an absurd, pointless way?

I for one would like to suggest that any future combat tonics (or any other kinds of tonics, for that matter) not be so stupidly hindered. If that means putting them on the gem store then so be it, but please just don’t put such arbitrary limitations on otherwise awesome items.

There was a lot of rage when they made the changes to some tonics. Made no sense then, makes no sense now.

Okay, I’ve been having a think about this today, and let me start off by apologising for the tone of my first comment. I had just wasted 25 laurels and 15 gold on an utterly worthless item, and so was – fairly, I think – more than a little upset.

With that said, I’m fairly sure I’ve pinpointed the reason behind this move by Anet… and actually, in retrospect, it really seems both quite obvious and perfectly understandable.

Any transformation effect which could truly be maintained indefinitely (in and out of combat) would steal sales from the gem store.

Right now, people wanting to customise their characters (myself included) will often buy skins or outfits from the gem store, and some optimistic individuals might even purchase the dye packs for gems as well, hoping to get given something half decent.

Because the Watchknight tonic is a) not purchased from the gem store, and b) undyeable, that eliminates both of these potential sources of income.

Having taken this into account, I would like to suggest adding the watchknight and any future infinite combat tonics to the store, much as outfits are, rather than tying them to in-game content or to the laurel vendor. This would allow a profit to be made from them, and, since they would then be bringing in a profit, that hideous 30-minute cooldown could then be removed from them, without having to worry about losing sales.

And if you’re worried that that might annoy some players, who may prefer getting them for free, then you could always just release the regular cooldown-included versions with the content, whilst selling an ‘unlimited’ version on the store… or possibly just some sort of item which, when applied a combat tonic, permanently removes the cooldown (this way ensuring both that money is made for you, and that those willing to spend money can’t necessarily get their hands on the content any easier than those who aren’t).

To any devs who may stumble across this post; I know that you must have a lot going on right now, with HoT coming ever closer to being released and all, but please do consider my proposition; combat tonics offer a potentially amazing amount of character customisation, and should not be cast aside so lightly;

Want to play a Skrit? A Dredge? A Hylek? A Tengu? A Kodan…? Even something as epic as a Largos or one of these new ‘Exalted’ (who may or may not be Mursaat in disguise)? Combat tonics have the potential to allow this, without having to wait for a dozen or so expansions, and for the devs to design an enormous amount of new content to accommodate any new races which might potentially be included in the game at some unspecified point in the future.

The armour sets and outfits are great, certainly, but combat tonics could potentially be far, far better if you would just allow them the opportunity. I know that I, at least, would be willing to pay many more gems for something like that than for any other outfit or armour set.

And if you’re not yet swayed by anything I’ve mentioned so far then consider this; these tonics are even (comparatively) easy to make! True, you’d need to assign motions for all of the different attacks/skills which could be used, but the models themselves are all already in the game, so unlike with outfits, no more new designs would necessarily need to be created to accommodate them.

TL;DR – Combat tonics being put on the gem store would mean that the 30-minute cooldown could be removed from the items, since it wouldn’t matter if people chose to use them constantly, and therefore had no need of skins and outfits; if the tonics themselves were being paid for in gems anyway, then Anet would still make a profit.

Apparently transformation items with short activities and long cooldowns are not unique to this game. They were complaining about it in the WoW forum, some transformation item was reduced in time and increased in cooldown. Maybe there is some ingame reason for it.

Really? That’s interesting.

I’m not particularly sure why it would have an effect on the game, though; all it does is replace your character model with a new one. On top of that, none of the regular tonics have been nerfed like this, only the watchknight one.

Is it possible that that change could have come about for the same reason I suggested in my previous post? Does WoW have a cash shop, and if so then was that item something bought on it, or something that could be acquired without spending real money?

DelusionsOfGrandeur.9287:

Really? That’s interesting.

I’m not particularly sure why it would have an effect on the game, though; all it does is replace your character model with a new one. On top of that, none of the regular tonics have been nerfed like this, only the watchknight one.

Is it possible that that change could have come about for the same reason I suggested in my previous post? Does WoW have a cash shop, and if so then was that item something bought on it, or something that could be acquired without spending real money?

Don’t know. I don’t play WoW though I read the forums occasionally, so I don’t know what they sell in the cash shop or remember the name of the Transformation item. Maybe someone who does play can comment.