This is my first post in the forums ever so bear with me. This idea was partially inspired by reading this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-World-Map-Completion-Accountwide/first#post6246104
I’ve played this game for a very long time now and there has always been people who enjoy mapping & people who don’t, it seems there are more who don’t than do though but that’s irrelevant as this will benefit both (I think).
1 of the issues I’ve commonly found in my time playing, is that if you’re playing on a character who doesn’t have 100% map completion, a lot of the maps, bosses, jumping puzzles, events etc… are inaccessible to you even if you have completed the map 100% on another character, sometimes you just don’t feel like playing that particular character just to go to a certain spot in a specific map. Often if you do it on a lower level character or on a character that doesn’t have a waypoint you need, it can be frustrating and irritating having to trek to the waypoint at times, especially if you have to go through multiple maps to get there.
So my proposed suggestion is a permanent item that you can buy via coin (or dare I say gems), that will allow you to unlock almost any waypoint you want in the game, to make it more interesting the item could only be purchased after doing 100% map completion at least once. This allows people who want to fight certain bosses, do certain jumping puzzles, do certain events or visit a certain area for whatever reason the ability to do so without having to use another character they may not want to play for the time being.
In addition to this, keeping consistent with the game’s lore, since we know the Asurans like to charge a fee for using waypoints (even if you use a waypoint you’re literally standing on, shifty Asura), the item can work in a similar way to the ‘copper fed salvage o matic’ where each time you unlock a waypoint it costs you X gold or more, to discourage people from just using it for the hell of it. This would also allow you to continue map completion so that you can unlock the items for legendary stuff as you’d still need to look for viewpoints, points of interest, hearts etc…
Again in addition to this, the waypoints could alternatively remain locked until the player enters the map from a prior map and finds that waypoint manually, so e.g. If you used the item to go to a waypoint in Kessex Hills, it would cost you X gold each time you used it to go to that waypoint, until you manually entered the map from Queensdale or another map outside Kessex Hills. Sort of triggering the ability to actually unlock the waypoints in the map the original way. It’s a bit odd I know but it could help a bit with balancing things a bit so that you’re not just getting the waypoints purely for free.
Alternatively (my least favourite choice), there could be more Asura gates added to the game, 1 available in almost every map which is accessible in each city hub for the race of that particular map, i.e. in Divinity’s Reach there would be multiple Asura Gates, 1 leading to Kessex, 1 to Gendarran, 1 to Hirathi Hinterlands, 1 to Bloodtide etc…
Another alternative is to just make all the waypoints outright accessible but with a larger fee (similar to above) for 1s you’ve never visited and when you visit it, the fee goes back to it’s normal price, e.g. if you would have to pay 3 silver to waypoint from Queensdale to a waypoint in Kessex, if you’ve never visited that waypoint before, it may cost 3 gold? to unlock it, then once you’ve visited it, it goes back to it’s normal 3 silver that it would have cost if you had that waypoint.
Please let me know what you think of this idea or if you have any suggestions that could make it better or add to it. I’d love to hear what the devs think as well, because I think this would work really well in Guild Wars 2, I think a lot of people would like the idea if it’s done well and it can fit in very nicely with the game’s lore.