The math behind broken waypoint travel.
I don’t think it should be free and I certainly don’t think it should pay, but it is too high and needs to be looked at. Since low level zones never change what they pay, events, hearts, etc pay the same regardless what level you are, but your travel expenses go up and stay up I think waypoints fees should be based on the zone. Travel distance could still be taken into consideration, but traveling within the same zone should scale down when completing low level content.
Here’s a trick to skip at least some of the fees. You can go to the Heart of the Mists and port to Lion’s Arch for free. From Lion’s Arch, heading south a short distance will bring you to Whispers Sanctuary which can port you to Fort Trinity for free as well. From there you can go to any of the Pact headquarters.
From Lion’s Arch you can also reach any starting city for free, which in turn means access to Ebonhawke from Divinity’s Reach.
And that’s all of the free ports I know of, but using this I never have to pay over 1.5s for any port at lvl 80.
There’s the cost, and the total break of immersion.
Why does it get more expensive the higher my level?
A clunky game design, all cuz they want to be the one game without mounts.
What can you do?
Again,
eat 1 omnomberry bar. Go kill 3 monsters. You just paid for your waypoint to that area. Go kill 4 more monsters, you have now profited.
Do 3 events in an 80 zone, make your money back
Do 4 events in an 80 zone, profit
Vendor 3-6 blues, you have now profited.
Way points at MOST cost 3-4 silver. That’s near nothing, and beyond esay to get. If you don’t like way points, they are a 100% optional convenience. Don’t want to pay, start running.
To all the supporters:
It takes (even without omnomberry bars) 5 seconds to kill a mob that drops 9c worth of “stuff”. It takes (on my midlevel machine) 20 seconds to load a new zone when I hit a waypoint.
Please explain to me exactly why I should get “paid” for one, and have to pay for the other…
The apologists are also trying to tell me to go out there and explore the world… well I AM. I’m trying to play the game the way YOU are telling me to. And I am getting no gold here going for all the skill points… and walking all over the map because I have 24 silver now to my name is RIDICULOUSLY NOT FUN.
I just want to hop to another zone closest to some skill events that were bugged as I was leveling. But I can’t because it is stupidly expensive. So I have to hoof through all the content I’ve already seen… back and forth… and EXPLOIT going to PVP for a “free” time consuming port to WvWvW then out again.
How utterly STUPID. Not fun. And making a liar out of ArenaNet’s “we value your time.” Bull kitten you do. If you actually did, you wouldn’t force me to grind just to use your stupid WP system.
I am starting to hate this game.
Some parts of the current system are just stupid.
For example that it costs you to travel into capitals and from one capital to another.
Since you can travel via Heart of the mists to Lions Arch for free, you dont really walk or pay anyway; you just spend more time looking at loading screens.
That being said, its a good thing that travelling costs something. It emphasizes you to do something in the areas you visit or at least makes you think about where to go instead of hopping around like a frog.
And it isnt really expensive either. From Lions Arch, nothing costs more than 2s50c
“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140
Gunnar’s Hold
Gunnar’s Hold
The apologists are also trying to tell me to go out there and explore the world… well I AM. I’m trying to play the game the way YOU are telling me to. And I am getting no gold here going for all the skill points… and walking all over the map because I have 24 silver now to my name is RIDICULOUSLY NOT FUN.
I just want to hop to another zone closest to some skill events that were bugged as I was leveling. But I can’t because it is stupidly expensive. So I have to hoof through all the content I’ve already seen… back and forth… and EXPLOIT going to PVP for a “free” time consuming port to WvWvW then out again.
How utterly STUPID. Not fun. And making a liar out of ArenaNet’s “we value your time.” Bull kitten you do. If you actually did, you wouldn’t force me to grind just to use your stupid WP system.
I am starting to hate this game.
For what it’s worth, be at peace with the fact that they will change this. As much as I’m disappointed with the difference between what was promised and what was released, unlike any other game company I can think of (coughblizzardcough) I think these guys at anet really want to make a great game, rather than just build another profit-cog in some machine.
It may take some time, but I think/hope/believe they’ll get there.
I would REALLY like to see a bit more communication from them however. Not trying to be arrogant (but obviously will sound arrogant), this argument in my prior post stands all scrutiny to which I can put it. But as I’m not a game developer, I’m curious if I’m missing something and I hope to get some official feedback on it.
So let me just restate it: if I get paid for killing a mob which takes 5 seconds, why do I have to pay for a zone transfer via waypoint that takes 20 seconds? I can “farm” mobs all day to pay for travel expenses, but it’s simply not fun and since control of the game is inherent in being a “developer”, why would you make me do something that’s unfun and unprofitable in A GAME?
Some parts of the current system are just stupid.
For example that it costs you to travel into capitals and from one capital to another.
Since you can travel via Heart of the mists to Lions Arch for free, you dont really walk or pay anyway; you just spend more time looking at loading screens.That being said, its a good thing that travelling costs something. It emphasizes you to do something in the areas you visit or at least makes you think about where to go instead of hopping around like a frog.
And it isnt really expensive either. From Lions Arch, nothing costs more than 2s50c
It is expensive in my opinion, but apparently you value your real life time less than I. So again, let me ask you:
Why should I get paid for spending 5 seconds killing a mob, yet have to pay for waiting for a loading screen for 20 seconds?
In real life, I’m still just mashing buttons and waiting for things to happen. Why is one version a “cost” and the other a “profit”?
Hahaha, so let me get this right. You want to get PAID to quick travel around the map. So.. heh.. ok. So. So I could just quick travel from the top to the bottom of them map non stop to get cash. For pressing a button every few seconds. And you want it to be a decent amount? Have you heard of this thing called inflation? What do you think infinite money in an economy is going to achieve? Have you heard of the concept of a gold sink?
Let me explain to you why gold sinks are necessary: In a game like guild wars there is no mint that controls how much currency there is in the economy. Instead currency is magically created whenever you do things that generate money (DEs, killing mobs, doing dungeons). Thus there is in essence an infinite stream of money entering the game. If this were left unchecked there would be such an increase in the amount of currency that soon you would be paying for everything in the hundreds of gold. New players would be unable to break through this crazy barrier of entry as they would always be so far behind the curve, because any money they make in the game you will also be making at the same time, but you will have a head start on them, meaning they can never catch up to the inflation that is forever occuring.
On the other hand. Lets say you were to create the opposite of a gold font. Perhaps call it a gold sink? Now this way the gold leaves the economy, hopefully balancing out with the gold fonts to maintain an equilibrium of gold in the economy. This would mean prices would be more stable and the currency would retain its value.
And thus repairs and waypoint travel was invented. Also the 15% TP cut which is REDICULOUS, but whatever, man up. Its a necessary gold sink, because there are no others in the game that players are almost forced into using, aside from repairs.
Despite people saying it turns it into a korean grind fest, things like this stop you from having to grind just to keep up with the games economy. Or do you want it to be like Aion where things cost hundreds to thousands on release then a year down the track everything was in the millions to billions in price and a new player had no way to buy anything they needed.
tl;dr: Gold sinks are necessary in a game economy because currency is generated infinitely. Gold sinks actually stop this from getting more grindy down the track for newer players.
(edited by Crake.5827)
Blame the asuras :P
That happens when u give Skitties some brain :P
But if u dont like ths cost , u can always walk :P
@Crake
Sorry but this is definitely too much cost involved. I grind on an 8 minute event and am rewarded 1.5 silver for my time. 1.5 silver, my friend. That 1.5 silver can barely cover travel costs IN A LEVEL 1-15 ZONE from 1 point to one that is nearly visible while standing on top of the other point.
I would pay 5 gold to permanently unlock travel on my character. This nickle and diming me is just stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
Instead of getting me to want to go grind to pay for the right to travel in the game it is having the opposite affect on me. I just want to say kitten you to Anet and be done with it. They don’t value my time at all. What a joke. Your dragon events award only certain players… even with everyone actively participating… you have SKILL EVENTS arguably one of the most important character building items that are bugged and unusable… and world events that launch and then bug out wasting my time… and now you want to charge me tons more money to travel in your game while not giving me any method at all to speed up the walking process.
kitten. I even have teleport, invis, and other spells on my mesmer just to get an edge on traveling… but man is this monotonous, tedious, and not fun hoofing on foot zone to zone since I can’t afford the silver to use the WP system. I can’t even unlock speed-me-up abilities on my character.
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
“Rediculous” brings nothing but ridicule…
Gold sinks are necessary.
Now that we’ve had that discussion and no-one has disputed it can we actually talk about waypoint costs instead of putting everyone in the MMO 101 kiddy chair and ignoring their points like they are children with nothing informed to say?
I think it’s funny they had all that talk about how they didn’t want the game to suddenly change once you got to max level. When was the last time anyone used a core system of the game (waypoint travel) at level 80 the same casualness and frequency they used it at level 6? They fundamentally changed the way players approached waypoint travel and essentially negated a lot of the work it does to eliminate needless time sinks in MMOs by making it’s costs scale out of control compared to cash coming in. Gold sinks don’t cost more than gold received. That’s not a gold sink.
Most players used to use waypoints to help other players with events or even just with a res. Someone would call out on map chat saying they needed help with a group event or a defence event (not everyone can solo most events, a lot of people need help or just shock like playing with others) at lower levels and plenty of people would come rushing to their aid. Most of them excited to be participating in an event and playing with others. I even see people teleporting across the map to resurrect someone who made a bad jumping decision or needing help with a skillpoint the helper has already recieved. I almost never see people doing that at 80 and the only reason people chase events any more is because Orr can be very starved of functioning events resulting in a giant zerg devouring the first working event they can find. The scaling of waypoint costs fundamentally changed the way players approched the game once they reached max level, for the worse.
There isn’t really anything new to this discussion, people have been saying this since they reach 80 early on. Now all that’s left to do is see how long ArenaNet is willing to wait before they act on it. If they are anything like Blizzard it could be a few more months.
@Crake
Sorry but this is definitely too much cost involved. I grind on an 8 minute event and am rewarded 1.5 silver for my time. 1.5 silver, my friend. That 1.5 silver can barely cover travel costs IN A LEVEL 1-15 ZONE from 1 point to one that is nearly visible while standing on top of the other point.
I would pay 5 gold to permanently unlock travel on my character. This nickle and diming me is just stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
You would get more than 1.5s out of the entire event, mobs will drop loot and gold, or there will be a chest, or both. Unless you’re doing some “kill an easy veteran mob” event. Not to mention you’re probably doing more than one event per use of a waypoint.
If you could get around it with a one time payment it wouldn’t be a gold sink, merely a gold hole that can be filled, like skillbooks, merely delaying inflation as opposed to preventing it.
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
If you looked into how the gem store works you’d know that the more people that flock to buy gems, the less valuable it becomes, eventually to the point where gems become worthless to buy. If it was Anet’s end goal to get everyone to supply themselves with gold through gems then this mechanic wouldn’t work. It instead relies on two way trade to function properly and is actually a gold sink in of itself. This means that pay to win is impossible because eventually the value of gems would depreciate to 0 and Anet would have to stop gem for gold trading and only accept gold for gem trading until the value of gems increased. If you played guild wars 1, imagine the gem trader like the old material traders. Only in this case the materials are gw2 gems and gw1 gold is gw2 gold. The more gems you sell to the trader the lower the price becomes, until eventually its stuck at a measly 10c or something.
So yeah, please don’t go talking about play to win, the gem store’s very nature prevents it from happening.
This buy to play game is trying to get purchasers to buy their gold instead of from the Chinese, but the Chinese is cheaper to be honest.
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
Yup. I am seeing this trending now.
I would pay a monthly fee… it’s not like I haven’t almost the majority of my gaming life. (I was one of the first in Ultima Online… like day 1 I was there… with friends and familly going: “WTF: you are paying a MONTHLY FEE??!!!” )
I would pay a monthly fee to avoid paying for travel costs. I just don’t want to see this nickle and dime garbage on in game currency. Especially when the tool tips themselves say something about a miniscule cost. Yeah ok. It’s not miniscule when you are awarding us like 1-1.5 silver per event… the quickest ones being like 8 mins… the longer ones more like 10-15 mins or more. Especially if you factor in other costs in the game like repair costs, crafting costs, buying manuals for your own character advancement, buying gems from other players or even buying things on the market or for your alts. There’s PLENTY of gold sinks already. There’s no need to pick my bank apart on travel fees.
Anyways. I’ll leave it at that for tonight.
You make about 1 gold every 3 level around lv 40 and waypoint only start costing 1silver at lv 50+ So either you spend all your money on things you don’t need, and seeing how cheap everything is on TP you probably buy more than you’ll ever need in your lifetime.
Or you afk farm events in lv 1~15 zone and expect that it will make you rich.
The later is more probable.
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
Yup. I am seeing this trending now.
I would pay a monthly fee… it’s not like I haven’t almost the majority of my gaming life. (I was one of the first in Ultima Online… like day 1 I was there… with friends and familly going: “WTF: you are paying a MONTHLY FEE??!!!” )
I would pay a monthly fee to avoid paying for travel costs. I just don’t want to see this nickle and dime garbage on in game currency. Especially when the tool tips themselves say something about a miniscule cost. Yeah ok. It’s not miniscule when you are awarding us like 1-1.5 silver per event… the quickest ones being like 8 mins… the longer ones more like 10-15 mins or more. Especially if you factor in other costs in the game like repair costs, crafting costs, buying manuals for your own character advancement, buying gems from other players or even buying things on the market or for your alts. There’s PLENTY of gold sinks already. There’s no need to pick my bank apart on travel fees.
Anyways. I’ll leave it at that for tonight.
Last I checked paying monthly fees didn’t stop wow from charging for quick travel. And their quick travel wasn’t even that quick.
Also, aside from repairs and the hilariously cheap trait retraining name me one of these “plenty” of other gold sinks. As I said earlier manuals are holes to be filled since they are one time payments. Crafting, you pay for materials which go to other players. And there is nothing from the gem store that really requires at all to be bought, so thats an optional sink. The only real sinks in the game are the TP and travel.
(edited by Crake.5827)
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
Yup. I am seeing this trending now.
I would pay a monthly fee… it’s not like I haven’t almost the majority of my gaming life. (I was one of the first in Ultima Online… like day 1 I was there… with friends and familly going: “WTF: you are paying a MONTHLY FEE??!!!” )
I would pay a monthly fee to avoid paying for travel costs. I just don’t want to see this nickle and dime garbage on in game currency. Especially when the tool tips themselves say something about a miniscule cost. Yeah ok. It’s not miniscule when you are awarding us like 1-1.5 silver per event… the quickest ones being like 8 mins… the longer ones more like 10-15 mins or more. Especially if you factor in other costs in the game like repair costs, crafting costs, buying manuals for your own character advancement, buying gems from other players or even buying things on the market or for your alts. There’s PLENTY of gold sinks already. There’s no need to pick my bank apart on travel fees.
Anyways. I’ll leave it at that for tonight.
Last I checked paying monthly fees didn’t stop wow from charging for quick travel. And their quick travel wasn’t even that quick.
Also, aside from repairs and the hilariously cheap trait retraining name me one of these “plenty” of other gold sinks
Yeah, but in WoW the travel fees are around the same they are here, and a quest reward is upwards of 15-20g. % wise its like 5-10% of a quest, here its like 200-400% of a quest.
Well, in Aion I don’t even remember exact number of transportation fees. Too cheap to care. 5-10k kinah I think. And you vendor a common grade weapon drop for 700k.
Also. Return to Capital city skill? Or Return to bindpoint? Free ress @ bindpoint? Return to [location] scrolls?
Here’s a trick to skip at least some of the fees. You can go to the Heart of the Mists and port to Lion’s Arch for free. From Lion’s Arch, heading south a short distance will bring you to Whispers Sanctuary which can port you to Fort Trinity for free as well. From there you can go to any of the Pact headquarters.
From Lion’s Arch you can also reach any starting city for free, which in turn means access to Ebonhawke from Divinity’s Reach.
And that’s all of the free ports I know of, but using this I never have to pay over 1.5s for any port at lvl 80.
I wish you wouldn’t have been so helpful. Anet has been very keen to nerf player “discoveries”.
And yes, I agree that waypoint travel is expensive and should be more travel friendly.
HotM “detouring” will be nerfed, as Amon said, mark our words.
And to these people telling others to just “start running” … you can safely stay out of this discussion… please. It is stupid to say that fast-travel is 100% optional in a world this size, with dynamic player interactions and events occurring all over it.
Enjoy explaining to your guild or parties every time that you’re running across the world to get to the dungeon they want to run. You’re not going to be running that dungeon.
There are real problems with this game, so please stop being dismissive jerks to the people who want to discuss them.
Video games have title screens. Please give us back the GW2 title screen.
tl;dr: Gold sinks are necessary in a game economy because currency is generated infinitely. Gold sinks actually stop this from getting more grindy down the track for newer players.
/snore
Gold sinks are necessary. I agree.
Travel isn’t one of the necessary one because it causes more harm than good by a large margin.
tl’dr: Ignoreme.
You make about 1 gold every 3 level around lv 40 and waypoint only start costing 1silver at lv 50+ So either you spend all your money on things you don’t need, and seeing how cheap everything is on TP you probably buy more than you’ll ever need in your lifetime.
Or you afk farm events in lv 1~15 zone and expect that it will make you rich.
The later is more probable.
Um, no. Maybe, MAYBE, you do. But definitely not everyone, and we have no way of knowing if the majority do
And even if they do, we have no way of know if that’s because they’re “putting up” with something they actually hate or whether they’re truly ok with it. Or even like it.
I highly doubt both of these, but I will admit that we can’t know.,
The company that makes the game sells gold (Gems, that sell for gold). You are not going to catch them giving people a break on money management. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to buy gems for gold or items. This is why you can’t make money from dugeon runs anymore in my opinion.
Honestly, if they keep the game content up (Add dungeons, PVP maps, world events….you know, stuff we wanna do) there is no reason they shouldn’t want to be paid for the development costs. I would personally rather see dungeons sold for 5 bucks instead of gold sold though.
I have a feeling its going to create a “pay to win” system in the end. But I am sure smarter minds than mine have thought this over before the game came out.
Yup. I am seeing this trending now.
I would pay a monthly fee… it’s not like I haven’t almost the majority of my gaming life. (I was one of the first in Ultima Online… like day 1 I was there… with friends and familly going: “WTF: you are paying a MONTHLY FEE??!!!” )
I would pay a monthly fee to avoid paying for travel costs. I just don’t want to see this nickle and dime garbage on in game currency. Especially when the tool tips themselves say something about a miniscule cost. Yeah ok. It’s not miniscule when you are awarding us like 1-1.5 silver per event… the quickest ones being like 8 mins… the longer ones more like 10-15 mins or more. Especially if you factor in other costs in the game like repair costs, crafting costs, buying manuals for your own character advancement, buying gems from other players or even buying things on the market or for your alts. There’s PLENTY of gold sinks already. There’s no need to pick my bank apart on travel fees.
Anyways. I’ll leave it at that for tonight.
Last I checked paying monthly fees didn’t stop wow from charging for quick travel. And their quick travel wasn’t even that quick.
Also, aside from repairs and the hilariously cheap trait retraining name me one of these “plenty” of other gold sinks. As I said earlier manuals are holes to be filled since they are one time payments. Crafting, you pay for materials which go to other players. And there is nothing from the gem store that really requires at all to be bought, so thats an optional sink. The only real sinks in the game are the TP and travel.
Let’s back up a second here.
The purpose of a gold sink is to stabilize the economy.
The economy consists of people who rely on trading of in game materials because they can’t get what they need/want on their own.
They can’t get what they need/want on their own because of designer decisions.
So… designers deciding that there has to be an “economy” causes one to exist. It’s not reality and therefore the only “need” for gold sinks exists because designers say there needs to be one, and that’s only because they decided there needed to be game-wide scarcity.
We seem to have forgotten that it’s a game, in a game world, designed by and controlled by people.
So you’re willing to pay a monthly fee to travel… why again?
The concept is good but the implementation needs a bit of hashing out. Paying several silver makes me stop and really consider how much more annoying it would be to just walk across the zone. I usually end up walking and finding a new event or seeing something interesting while being an extra player in the field for people doing the content for the first time. Price is my only complaint. We should be able to WP around with costs that make sense based on stops in the way, distance travelled, trade routes in the lore, etc and not some arbitrary fee.
They just need to tone down the price. The up side is because I get discouraged using waypoints, I opted to walk and happened to discover DEs along the way. But they definitely shouldn’t pay the player. It’s a convenience that should naturally cost something.
(edited by KhinRunite.2749)
I don’t see how 2-3s is a big deal. You just need to mine a node or two to make that much.
Having to pay 2s for travel within the same map is a bit extreme, but I don’t think it’s an issue in general.
making 2 stops should not be cheaper than a direct trip….what planet are you on bro
Fan with a plan,
Zora
Zora