Guild Wars 2

Anyone who’s ever changed their main or leveled an alt can tell you: one of the most annoying things about it is not having any waypoints, leaving you with the unattractive options of:

• Running around and “discovering” them all at once – a project that takes several days and is mindnumbingly dull
• Accepting that any time you want to do something on that character it’s going to take a lot of running before you get to the place you need to be
• or if you’re rich you can buy Teleport to Friend gizmos from the store. Also requires friends to teleport to.

The solution: Every player who has a character at level 80 gets an option to unlock all waypoints (only the waypoints – no vistas or hearts etc) on their new character – either bought at a vendor in game for some kind of in-game currency, or even at the gem store if Anet wants to be like that (I’d definitely pay for it). Unlocking the waypoints this way gives no xp and there are several ways in which this can be implemented without messing things up for people who do enjoy leveling and uncovering the world for each and every alt – this would just be an option for people who want it.

This leaves more time for actual fun gameplay, keeps in line with the other mechanics that encourage players to switch between characters and level new ones (account bound ascended gear, tomes of knowledge, etc), less annoyance and generally kind of just seems like a no-brainer.

this has been brought up probably as many times as the mounts suggestion. I don’t think anet will ever do this. I personally have 16 characters and 15 of them have 100% map completion cause its not as bad as most people say it is. don’t do it in a marathon session just spread it out like do a zone every couple days or something.

as was suggested in a previous post with this suggestion I don’t care if people want the easy way to get the waypoints with some in game gizmo that unlocks them all. however you should have a trade off for that convenience. for example if you choose that route you can no longer get map completion at all for the character in question.

Togo.7094:

for example if you choose that route you can no longer get map completion at all for the character in question.

Punishment for being lazy. I like it. xD

In all seriousness, though. This is a roleplaying game. By that logic every character should unlock maps and the points on those maps themselves, not by some mechanic. The comparison to ascended gear etc. is like comparing apples and pears. Not the same thing.

Also, OP says it takes days to unlock all WP’s. His/her character must be walking instead of running around the maps. Because unlocking all WP’s (and only WP’s) should only take a few hours, unless you get sidetracked by events and mobs. But that’s a choice the OP makes, not something the game forces upon us. Personally, if I find something annoying (which is an entirely personal opinion and nowhere near objective or representative of the larger community) I just don’t do it.

Manually unlocking the WP can be half the fun in exploration.

I would rather have them give the option to disable the GPS (without requiring unofficial addons) and instead give us the location of nearby events in compass mode.
You’ll find that the game would be much of immersive that way.

Alternatively, they could have certain heart merchants allowing one of your alts to buy his way into certain way-points similar to the LWS3 maps for a hefty amount of… expensive… something!
Giving a free “unlock everything” button out in the open will ruin the fun for those who intentionally want to explore, even if they don’t intent to use it.
It’ll be a similar feeling as trying to play game normally after having completed it with cheat-codes. Once you do it, and you know in your mind that the cheatcodes are available, you’ll loose all interest of playing it again in the future.

mia.8209:

• or if you’re rich you can buy Teleport to Friend gizmos from the store. Also requires friends to teleport to.

I have no friends, either in real life or in-game.. yet I’m still able to make use of one of those tele to friends. Haven’t bought with gems either. I got about 10 of them in tote from b’day gifts, since my account is kinda that old (not even playing since beta or release like some here). So where are u looking to get to? I’m just curious to know. Don’t say everywhere either cos yeah that’s kinda why u have a main in 1st place.

You can within few secs travel to any city or (ipso facto) any neighboring or connected region as well. If u need to get to hot maps, easier to use one of those teles. Honestly it’s not that hard..

I am the laziest map explorer I know and it doesn’t take me days to unlock waypoints, mostly because I don’t bother unlocking stuff until it’s needed. (See above about my laziness.)

I’m not against the idea of a waypoint unlock. I just don’t think you’ll get far trying to justify it as a major quality of life improvement that benefits everyone, especially if there’s no way to go back and get map completion on that character — I can guarantee that a year after the feature launches, there will be all sorts of complaints from people who say, “yeah I knew about the restriction, but I never expected it to matter because that character was never intended to be a main.”

There’s an alternative solution with a parallel already in the game: the use of Proofs of Heroics to unlock hero challenges. The idea is that WvWers don’t necessarily want to spend time in PvE to upgrade their specializations. Ranking up in one game mode grants them 5-10 or so random hero challenges (if they want; these can also be exchanged for other PvE items).

I imagine that ANet could also offer to unlock waypoints with Proofs of Heroics.

Of course, while that works out okay for WvW, it doesn’t help the PvE-focused players. There are a number of options, including some combination of things that veterans have too much of: tomes of knowledge, spirit shards, luck, etc. I’m not sure what the right balance would be.

tl;dr I’m not against the idea of unlocking waypoints. However, I don’t think it should prevent people from ever getting map completion. Instead, I’d like to see a pay-to-unlock option similar to that used for hero challenges paid for by Proofs of Heroics.

Togo.7094:

this has been brought up probably as many times as the mounts suggestion. I don’t think anet will ever do this.

Well I hope you’re wrong cause this is seriously frustrating and downgrading my quality of life in game.

however you should have a trade off for that convenience. for example if you choose that route you can no longer get map completion at all for the character in question.

Seems a bit extreme – paying for the service and not getting the xp for it seems like enough “punishment”.

In all seriousness, though. This is a roleplaying game. By that logic every character should unlock maps and the points on those maps themselves, not by some mechanic. The comparison to ascended gear etc. is like comparing apples and pears. Not the same thing.

Operative word there being “game” – there are loads of mechanics in game that should be there if we stuck to the roleplaying aspect (instant mail, waypoints existing in the first place, teleportation to PVP/WVW instances etc etc etc). It’s a game, games are supposed to be enjoyable, this mechanic makes it less so. And I wasn’t comparing so much as pointing out that other parts of the game have been adjusted to facilitate things for players – which isn’t the case with other MMOs so it’s not a given. WoW’s top tier gear is soulbound, the only account bound stuff is heirlooms for leveling.

Also, OP says it takes days to unlock all WP’s. His/her character must be walking instead of running around the maps. Because unlocking all WP’s (and only WP’s) should only take a few hours, unless you get sidetracked by events and mobs. But that’s a choice the OP makes, not something the game forces upon us. Personally, if I find something annoying (which is an entirely personal opinion and nowhere near objective or representative of the larger community) I just don’t do it.

OP runs using every speed booster in the book, and if it takes you a few hours to unlock the wps of the entire world then I’d like to see some youtube proof please.
And as I mentioned in my post, it’s not forced on us – we have choices, they’re just really kittenty choices.

Manually unlocking the WP can be half the fun in exploration.

Again, this would just be an option that everyone is completely free to not use – you could still unlock WPs by exploration if you wanted to.

Giving a free “unlock everything” button out in the open will ruin the fun for those who intentionally want to explore, even if they don’t intent to use it.
It’ll be a similar feeling as trying to play game normally after having completed it with cheat-codes. Once you do it, and you know in your mind that the cheatcodes are available, you’ll loose all interest of playing it again in the future.

This is just ridiculous? By this logic they should immediately remove the tomes of knowledge because it ruins leveling for people, but people are still leveling alts even though it’s entirely possible to farm up 80 tomes and skip leveling entirely. Basically if you feel like this the game is already ruined for you.

I have no friends, either in real life or in-game.. yet I’m still able to make use of one of those tele to friends. Haven’t bought with gems either. I got about 10 of them in tote from b’day gifts, since my account is kinda that old (not even playing since beta or release like some here). So where are u looking to get to? I’m just curious to know. Don’t say everywhere either cos yeah that’s kinda why u have a main in 1st place.

Everywhere. No really – as I mentioned in my first post, sometimes you want to change your main, maybe even several times. It keeps the game fresh and new for people who (like me) otherwise get bored faster, which keeps people playing, which presumably is what Anet wants. And I also want the peace of mind and freedom that comes with knowing that whatever I decide to do next, I won’t have to run through 3 maps to get there.
And how many TTFs you get depends on luck/RNG – I usually get repair canisters.

I really wonder if it’s possible to suggest anything on a game forum without people fighting you on it… Like you could go “everyone should get a free glider” and some people would still be like “THAT IS UNFAIR TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE GETTING FREE THINGS!!” – it’s amazing how even to have the option of something, for a price and with restrictions, that would make the game more enjoyable for some people and have absolute no effect on others, is still somehow a controversial thing.

I don’t see a point to this. Its already pretty kitten quick to move around the world even without WP. If you absolutely need this the only thing I could support is unlocking 1 WP per map, and then only if the map has at least 6 WPs in it (which excludes Southsun, the two new maps)

mia.8209:

And how many TTFs you get depends on luck/RNG – I usually get repair canisters.

There are various other ways to get those than BL chests and yeah I agree RNG on those is terrible most times. If you don’t have any chars at least 3 years old, not to worry there are other options. There’s a few of them from lvl 80 boost that u receive with HoT. Then there’s the achieve for them as well that I’ve never personally done.

In regards to switching alts, well maybe I could accept that. But basically a scroll or something that would do just that: allow u to transfer map completion from one alt to another. So if u have world completion on ur main, u can transfer it to an alt while removing all progress and wp’s from ur main. I don’t see anything technically wrong with that tbh.. but again not something I’d ever care for. It’s not true that everyone’s fighting u on it.. it’s just I guess when someone complains abt having no wps on alt, u usually assume they are just lazy or something. Plus it’s not fair to those of us with world completion on 2+ alts.. it would mean our hard work is meaningless then. But yeah swapping map completion progress between alts.. that’s not a bad idea imo. I could see why ppl could want that, esp since u can’t exactly switch professions on ur alts.

nagr.1593:

Plus it’s not fair to those of us with world completion on 2+ alts.. it would mean our hard work is meaningless then.

Again, by that logic you should all be raging against the existence of tomes of knowledge and hero point unlocking through WVW because that’s “not fair” to people who level all their alts the slow way and do the actual hero points out in the world. Not to mention people buying gold with IRL money instead of earning it in game, which is pretty much Anet’s business model. And again – this would just be the wps: it wouldn’t affect vistas, hearts, events, hero points.,.. It would just be the waypoints.

I could also see a service in game as an acceptable alternative – WoW has a flight service as an alternative to flying yourself, Wildstar has a taxi system, maybe something similar could be implemented that got you a bit closer at least. I’ll settle for just running through half a map to get where I’m going instead of a whole or two maps.

mia.8209:

nagr.1593:

Plus it’s not fair to those of us with world completion on 2+ alts.. it would mean our hard work is meaningless then.

Again, by that logic you should all be raging against the existence of tomes of knowledge and hero point unlocking through WVW because that’s “not fair” to people who level all their alts the slow way and do the actual hero points out in the world. Not to mention people buying gold with IRL money instead of earning it in game, which is pretty much Anet’s business model. And again – this would just be the wps: it wouldn’t affect vistas, hearts, events, hero points.,.. It would just be the waypoints.

I could also see a service in game as an acceptable alternative – WoW has a flight service as an alternative to flying yourself, Wildstar has a taxi system, maybe something similar could be implemented that got you a bit closer at least. I’ll settle for just running through half a map to get where I’m going instead of a whole or two maps.

They already have it and its called teleport to friend stones.

How about a compromise.
No unlocking of the WPs, but you can buy a gizmo in the gem store which marks on the maps where they are and their name.
This only works after you have a LV80 with 100% map completion.
You still have to run to them to unlock them for your alts.
A common problem I find with the dailies is that you have to do them all on a character that has 100% map completion as many people in a zone will indicate that there is an event going on near WP XXX, which is meaningless for a char who hasnt as yet been to that map.

How about unlocking the starting waypoint on a map account wide when a character achieves 100% for that particular map?

come on , it’s only few hundreds WP. i unlocked them all 9 characters. no issue. i’m sure many others have done it too.. it’s doable . unless you’re lazy kitten ….

Takes about 15 minutes to run from Black Citadel to the far side of Blazeridge. About the same amount of time to run from DR to Verdant Brink. Get a couple of speed boosters and ignore all the mobs on the way, ignore POI’s and only hit the waypoints that are in your immediate path. At most, it would take around 45 minutes to run from Verdant Brink to Blazeridge if you ignore everything along the way… and that wouldn’t even be the most efficient way to travel. As of HoT and the incorporation of F2P accounts, all new characters get the first waypoint of every starting map unlocked upon character creation, so right off the bat you have 4 or 5 centralized starting locations.

As mentioned, there are Teleport to Friend items you could use to expedite all of this. There are also portals scattered throughout Tyria which speed up travel (such as the one in DR which leads to Fields of Ruin). There are portal items you can buy now that are infinite use which take you to every city map in the game (though with starter zone waypoints, this is probably unnecessary). There are portal items that take you to the new maps, Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay. You can buy gem store scrolls to take you immediately to specific destinations within maps, and the one in VB gives you quick access to HoT maps. I’m probably forgetting a few others.

Personally, I really don’t think it’s necessary to implement more travel options. There’s a lot available.

Well, yall clearly value your time a lot less than I do.

I would neither value, use nor pay for such a feature. I don’t oppose the idea as long as producing it is trivial. My opposition would grow in proportion to the amount of other features that might be delayed or back-burnered.

I wished that at least the level 80 boost thing would have had that option, but noh.

mia.8209:

I really wonder if it’s possible to suggest anything on a game forum without people fighting you on it…

No, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I wish it was but it isn’t. Human nature I guess…

I see no problem with your suggestion. It’s not something I’d pay for but if others want to do so then it’s no skin off my nose.

mia.8209:

• Running around and “discovering” them all at once – a project that takes several days and is mindnumbingly dull

I tried that once in the lull before the expansion release last year. Took a brand new character and went across the world to unlock every single waypoint there is (which is a lot more than the ones you need to just be moderately mobile in this world). I used a few tomes inbetween (around 35 if I recall correctly) whenever she was too badly underlevel for the next area, but other than that just went from waypoint to waypoint in a fairly straight but far from optimized manner.

The “several days” turned out to be less than 10 hours gametime, and since I was underleveled for most of the areas I was in it often proved quite interesting rather than “mindnumbingly dull” . And this was, as mentioned, for every last waypoint on the core Tyria maps. You probably don’t even need half of them if your goal is just to get to the interesting places, and you’ll grab a lot of them automatically on e.g. material gathering rounds.

Then there’s a lot of shortcuts like having somebody open dungeons for you, then walk out of the dungeon door to grab the wp right in front of the dungeon, taking guild portals to guild mission locations and so on. If you want to play on alts, waypoints should really be the least of your problems.

mia.8209:

I really wonder if it’s possible to suggest anything on a game forum without people fighting you on it…

Thank you so very much for making my day… I’m gonna send you some in-game gold if I remember.

You do realise you are on an official ANet forum, where ANet can absolutely never do anything wrong, right? You do also realise that if it doesn’t involve separating you from your money in some way, they don’t actually care either, right?

I say the core game’s mob design is also a problem, when thinking about exploring the core maps, since the best build is full direct DPS and every other build is struggling most of the time (by being borderline useless most of the time), especially in group events, which hurts the replay value.

Atleast in my case, I haven’t got 100% on any character, only 2 has about 80-90%, and every other have here and there, including that I have just stopped revisiting the old maps, few reasons to revisit them are mostly getting resources and daily achievements.

KyreneZA.8617:

mia.8209:

I really wonder if it’s possible to suggest anything on a game forum without people fighting you on it…

Thank you so very much for making my day… I’m gonna send you some in-game gold if I remember.

You do realise you are on an official ANet forum, where ANet can absolutely never do anything wrong, right? You do also realise that if it doesn’t involve separating you from your money in some way, they don’t actually care either, right?

This sounds a bit cynical and overdramatic. People aren’t fighting the suggestion. They’re giving their opinion on it, which in some cases happens to be an opposing opinion. If that is considered fighting then all people fight every day over the simplest and most trivial of things.

And because this is the official forum, ANet can never do anything wrong? There are so many threads on this forum complaining about things ANet has implemented. A few examples: the suspension of new legendary weapons, the Chalice of Tears JP, the lack of new armor sets against the many new outfits released, glider skins being solely gemstore items, the lack of new festival content, the game being too difficult, the game being too easy, etc. etc. One wonders if you even read the forum.

But back to OP’s post. Apparently there are a lot of people who don’t agree. They are allowed their opinion, just like you are allowed yours. Calling it “fighting your suggestion” would be equivalent to calling your suggestion “whining”, for instance (which I don’t consider whining, but I’m sure there are people who do). Yes, some things are accountbound, others are not. It is my opinion that exploration should be soulbound, not accountbound. Unlocking WP’s to the interesting places does not equate unlocking all WP’s, unless you find every corner of Tyria an interesting place. Exploration is part of playing the game.

mia.8209:

Anyone who’s ever changed their main or leveled an alt can tell you: one of the most annoying things about it is not having any waypoints

This might have something to do with the opposition OP gets. He/she is claiming to speak for everyone who’s ever levelled an alt. I can only speak for myself, and with 15 characters and 10 world completions I can say that not having any WP’s is most certainly not the most annoying thing to me. In fact, it’s not in the least bit annoying at all. I combine exploration with other things, for example, first and foremost material gathering. Map completion rewards are another thing that motivate me to explore the maps on alts. And considering that WP’s are part of map completion, not getting any XP for them should not be the only “penalty”. Doing less work but still getting the same map completion rewards does not sound fair to me. The fact that people use a luxury item to circumvent part of the process means it should be reflected in the rewards you get.

mia.8209:

Togo.7094:

this has been brought up probably as many times as the mounts suggestion. I don’t think anet will ever do this.

Well I hope you’re wrong cause this is seriously frustrating and downgrading my quality of life in game.

I share his opinion: this comes up often, and it likely won’t be addressed. Treadmills are a primary way MMOs stay lucrative, and exploration is a tried-and-true treadmill. As things currently are, the best way is to try to approach it in the least grindy way you can. For example, when I was leveling my new main, I did only one map per day at most… and a few days when I wasn’t feeling up to doing hearts, I just ran around killing trash mobs going from waypoint to waypoint – something I don’t mind doing at all. For me that lessened the grind to more of the treadmill I think is intended.

The suggestion/solution/compromise I’m most fond of is for a level 80 to be able to exchange a gift of exploration for core-tyria map completion (w/o gaining any xp from it, nor new gifts of exploration).

~EW

The suggestion/solution/compromise I’m most fond of is for a level 80 to be able to exchange a gift of exploration for core-tyria map completion (w/o gaining any xp from it, nor new gifts of exploration).

~EW[/quote]

I think this is a great idea for players that have 2 gifts of exploration from map completion but have no desire to make a legendary weapon. This is really something Anet should look into with of course not getting anything, gifts of exploration, in return.

You basically loose a lot of the content if all you’re looking to do is unlock WP which would be great for guild missions on a alt toon, but completely missing the point of everything this game has to offer. If you need WP in a new zone teleport to friend, otherwise grind like the rest of us

Nah. “Discovery” is a useful experience gainer.

What I do want is for certain things to be marked, as if revealed by a scout NPC, except it being universal to my account for 100% completion. Which includes map exits, goshdarnit.

Personally the biggest offender to map completion is hearts I would say. Getting to the WP, vistas and PoIs are fun as you freely travel by taking part in dynamic events. But having to stop your exploration because you need to complete a heart if you are planing on crafting a legendary is really not fun. A little suggestion: players gain an account bound additional title when getting map completion for the first time and when they start an alt, they can display this title, talk to the npc and automatically fill this heart. However, they don’t get the xp, karma, money and other benefits tied to it. If this heart is required as part of a collection for example, then they just complete the needed hearts. Edit: I have no clue if it is possible to do so from a technical point of view

OMg I almost thought you were going to suggest mounts after reading the first sentence!

I don’t mind your suggestion, though I think it opens the door to powerleveling, which I would believe is unintended.

mia.8209:

I really wonder if it’s possible to suggest anything on a game forum without people fighting you on it… Like you could go “everyone should get a free glider” and some people would still be like “THAT IS UNFAIR TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE GETTING FREE THINGS!!” – it’s amazing how even to have the option of something, for a price and with restrictions, that would make the game more enjoyable for some people and have absolute no effect on others, is still somehow a controversial thing.

Best quote in any forum, ever.

It’s seriously like there’s 10 or so people on these forums who exist to take the opposite stance on every issue and they stick together like a pack of raptors.

BTW @OP if you want free WP’s without having to run all over Tyria just take your toon to Fields of Ruin (Via Rurikton in DR) and pick up a rift stabilizer. It takes you to just about every zone and gives you an easy starting WP to return to local events. I wouldn’t care if they ever actually finish the rift event tbh i’m just happy my alt army now can WP everywhere

If people want all waypoints, then fine with me. However it should have a few restrictions. It should be optional and character specific and in addition, no map completion rewards or Gifts of Exploration for that character.

I suggested something like this like one week ago, i got bashed too and the main reason is

I ENJOY DOING MAP COMPLETION IN 20 DIFFERENT CHARS SO YOU MUST ENJOY IT TOO

i was doing facepalms..

However i suggested 1 gift of exploration will be 100% map completion with no rewards at all, no possible rewards at all, in a character of choice

You get 2 gifts for map completions, and if you dont plan to craft a legendary with it, it will become obsolete

I don’t agree with the ‘its not fair to people who have done map completion’ argument. Its not like the WPs pose a challenge (like Hero Points), and POIs still force people to explore the map. WP requires nothing more then walking in close proximity to it to discover and usually there is a POI right next to it anyway.
I think WP should be unlocked to all alts when discovered for the first time, and the XP from discovering should be distributed and added to the maps POIs XP.
Remove WP from map completion all together.
This is still fair to map completers cause like i said, chances r u still had to explore that area for POIs.