Guild Wars 2

Im bringing this up because i seem to spending to much on traveling. Here’s some examples why i believe its too exspensive to travel.

-I go to SPvP or WvW for a while, ending up in Lions Arch when done, and have to spend a little over 3s to get back to cursed shore or another high lvl place.

-I do my personal story and it tells me to talk with somebody in Fort Trinity, which cost about 1-2s then i have to travel to a new place where the story is now. So im ending up speding the reward i just got from the story quest.

-Im trying to find more members to do a dungeon, i gotta travel to a high lvl location so i can search for players via the “map” chat. Thats 6s, (back and forth) and the dungeon might fail ending up costing much in repairs as well, with no end reward.

A high lvl event almost gives 2s. Maybe events should just give more and travel stay as it is?

What do you think? Is it fair enough prices?

Yep, it’s definitely too expensive.

I had to start walking everywhere to not go broke at the same time you get to Orr where you can’t walk 5 feet without hitting an undead.

Needless to say nobody is having that great a time at Orr.

i agree way too expensive
i started using gate travel then just walking to save silver

I discussed this with my guild and we all agreed it was to expensive. As a result most of us walk to every location which is wasted time in my opinion.

Coming from the ability to move across Tyria, Cantha, and Elona in GW1 for FREE it is rather difficult to be paying 1-3 silver whenever you want to go join a friend in another zone.

Another negative is that when you die you are hit with a repair fee and a waypoint fee, hope this gets changed.

I’m finding the traveling cost a bit prohibitive as well. If a guildie needs help with something on another map, by the time I get there on foot it’s over so I have to weigh the travel cost to take a waypoint. Or even if someone announces an event in map chat, again I have to consider the cost instead of just going YEAH! and porting over.

A closely related issue I’ve been running into is every time I die now I need to repair. The locations to repair always seem to be farther away so it’s a double cost with repair & travel.

Now this wouldn’t have been a problem if you guys hadn’t created such a beautiful expansive world with so much going on in it that we want to do everything
Love the game, but can we get a reduction in travel costs please?

It’d be okay if the stuff scaled with it but it doesn’t. Vendored items at level 10 yield about 25-50 copper, with travel costs of about 8-9 copper. Vendored items at level 60 yield about 25-99 copper, with travel costs of 2 silver. The same goes for renown quests and dynamic events.

I feel like somebody at Anet seriously dropped the ball on this.

It gets waaaaay too expensive. Right now it costs me 1s25c if I’m standing right next to the waypoint. That’s simply ridiculous.

I gate to LA as much as I can, but that really only helps if you’re going somewhere connected to a city. Being as I’m mostly hitting up the level 70 areas right now…it really doesn’t help.

Agreed, it’s too expensive.

Every time I need to travel to a far away place I either have to spend a lot of money, which makes me not want to play; or I have to walk forever and a day, which makes me not want to play.

So I really dont understand where you are all coming from.. I have a level 70 warrior I mean I am not rich but I have made over 10 gold.. Paying 2-4 silver for traveling really isnt a big deal when I usually make a few gold in a zone..

lol make a few gold in whatkittenzone lol

It really just sounds like you guys are using portals way more than intended. Try running around and doing some events and looting some items. I know that’s not what you want to hear but that’s what it sounds like to me.

This pretty much sums it up, I think.

Seriously though, there are already plenty of money sinks in this game. Burning over three silver to go help my low level friend, and then another three to get back to Orr feels like a “good guy” tax.

I’m gonna have to start charging people for my assistance at this rate.

What sucks is when the personal story makes you go back to your home city (AKA the grove) to talk to the Pale Tree or some NPC. So you pay to travel there, and then your story takes you somewhere else and you have to travel back.

I at least think the story should subsidize the cost when it is hard to walk there.

Also currently, if you go to WvW from a zone, you have to log out of your character and log back in to return to your previous zone instead of Lion’s Arch. Just give us a “Leave WvW” button so people aren’t doing weird roundabout tricks to get somewhere!

Probably by staying in the zone for a few hours before porting again elsewhere :P

While I guess moneysinks are needed, the moment they are so absurd that they stop you from interacting with other people (we are playing a MMO right?), simply because the fee to port to the guy that needs help and back to where you were is getting absurd I’d say something is wrong.

I’d rather see inflation than not wanting to help out a guildie/friend because I’d spend a gold a day if I help everyone out.

I think it’s more than just the travel costs. Repair costs are also extremely pricey, actually making GW2 have one of the stiffer punishments for death in a modern MMO. Pretty much everything requires a lot of money, when money is given out in very small amounts by events and hearts.

The economy in this game in general is kind of weird.

The travel money sink really isn’t needed, though. As it is, with how stingy the game is with cash, I can’t justify the travel expenses. I basically run everywhere, and only use a waypoint when I absolutely have to (meaning I was defeated and no one is around to revive me.)

it’s ridiculous, why does it cost more to travel between points just because you’re higher level? They should just limit it by distance

I agree that the travel costs are too high, and particularly because the loot drop prices do not scale appropriately with level increases.

I would be fine with the increased costs, and I use WP’s a lot, if I knew that I could spend some time killing and looting to get a fair value in loot.

As it is now, I spend the days moving all around Tyria, for events, for my guildmates, working on map completion, farming for mats…and I basically break even or lose money each day. I then have to spend a few hours standing at the TP and working it the best I can to get a couple gold to make me feel better.

I dont play this game for the TP. So it would be nice to be able to play the game with my friends and still make a small profit.

Scale of loot is the solution, but I wouldnt cry over a slight decrease in travel prices either.

well said Nuprin Feelgood

My suggestions on travel costs:

#1. Traveling to any major city, Fort Trinity, Order Headquarters, or Ebonhawke needs to be free.

#3. Travel WITHIN a zone needs to cap at no more than 1s, preferrably less, and scaling by distance should be more dramatic. Traveling from inside of a cave to the nearest waypoint shouldn’t be costing me 1.5s while traveling from one corner of the zone to the other costing 1s96c. Traveling to a WP that is really close should be really cheap.

Seriously WP’s were used as the reason we don’t have mounts, but with these costs, I end up having to hoof it everywhere, wishing I had a mount.

Devildoc.6721:

My suggestions on travel costs:

#1. Traveling to any major city, Fort Trinity, Order Headquarters, or Ebonhawke needs to be free.

You can already get to Ebonhawke and Fort Trinity for free. There’s a portal to Ebonhawke in the Rurikton district of Divinity’s Reach.

As for Fort Trinity, you’ll eventually do some personal story quest involving asura portals and defending the fort. From that point on you can go into the Order of Whispers base and talk to some NPC near the front which will let you into the portal to Fort Trinity. The Order of Whispers base is just a few yards south of Lion’s Arch.

Vargs.6234:

Devildoc.6721:

My suggestions on travel costs:

#1. Traveling to any major city, Fort Trinity, Order Headquarters, or Ebonhawke needs to be free.

You can already get to Ebonhawke and Fort Trinity for free. There’s a portal to Ebonhawke in the Rurikton district of Divinity’s Reach.

As for Fort Trinity, you’ll eventually do some personal story quest involving asura portals and defending the fort. From that point on you can go into the Order of Whispers base and talk to some NPC near the front which will let you into the portal to Fort Trinity. The Order of Whispers base is just a few yards south of Lion’s Arch.

Right which is part of why I want travel to be free to there by default. Since there is a workaround why bother with charging in the first place?

Though you should remember, you can only use the order of whispers portal to Fort Trinity if you are yourself a member of the order of whispers. The other orders won’t let you in the gate (at least the vigil wouldn’t let me back through)

How have people not noticed that the entire mechanic is specifically designed for players to want to spend money buying gold? The Trading Post has hidden and prohibitive costs, traveling is incredibly expensive, repairs cost more than your gear did, items do not scale in sell price, and switching between tradeskills costs ~40s at lv. 400, far more than you can possibly make when you swap over to it.

The entire game is focused around needed to spend the money obtained through trading Gems for Gold. Suprise!

A solution would be to just make the waypoint pricing scale on the level of the zone and not the level of your character. Because yes, it is a tad expensive once you reach the higher levels.

Chaarmed.3061:

The entire game is focused around needed to spend the money obtained through trading Gems for Gold. Suprise!

Uh, no it isn’t. In fact you’re way, way off. I got to 80 and used extra gold to get a free character slot, and still have all my crafting mats and 2g50s left. It’s not that we’re completely broke, it’s just the mechanic isn’t remotely fun. Suddenly everyone is walking just because it makes more financial sense, but it really isn’t fun to be dodging monsters (and getting that slower combat speed tossed on you constantly) for a couple minutes just to get somewhere else.

I don’t think it’s too expensive, at least not at level 80. In fact, I find that the price is very much close to perfect, if not a little too cheap. I personally spend a lot of time farming and have found several good farming / gold earning locations, I’m currently sitting at around 25 gold, so these 5-10 silver trips mean rather little to me. You all just need to take better management of your gold, and make wiser decisions.

Sterling.6908:

I don’t think it’s too expensive, at least not at level 80. In fact, I find that the price is very much close to perfect, if not a little too cheap. I personally spend a lot of time farming and have found several good farming / gold earning locations, I’m currently sitting at around 25 gold, so these 5-10 silver trips mean rather little to me. You all just need to take better management of your gold, and make wiser decisions.

so we should have to stand around and farm gold instead of just playing the game to be able to travel?

Go watch the GW2 Manifesto sometime.

This is the kind of thing Arenanet claimed they wanted to avoid.

Black.9412:

I discussed this with my guild and we all agreed it was to expensive. As a result most of us walk to every location which is wasted time in my opinion.

Coming from the ability to move across Tyria, Cantha, and Elona in GW1 for FREE it is rather difficult to be paying 1-3 silver whenever you want to go join a friend in another zone.

Another negative is that when you die you are hit with a repair fee and a waypoint fee, hope this gets changed.

I agree. I want to play with lower levels but paying 6S for a one way trip is high. I can see if it was 2S one way, considering i’m nearly traveling across the map, but 6S is steep.

What I would prefer is a 2S cap at lvl 80. This still takes money out, but you can more freely move to another location more often to help others. Afterall, isn’t the main point of this game is to come together and make friends? Helping friends matter too.

kroney.9462:

I agree. I want to play with lower levels but paying 6S for a one way trip is high. I can see if it was 2S one way, considering i’m nearly traveling across the map, but 6S is steep.

What I would prefer is a 2S cap at lvl 80. This still takes money out, but you can more freely move to another location more often to help others. Afterall, isn’t the main point of this game is to come together and make friends? Helping friends matter too.

Hooray! I’m glad I’m not the only one who has noticed the fact that a lot of my profits are going to WP travel. (And I agree, 2s makes sense at lvl 80.) We often spend more traveling than we earn as a reward from an event – and most items I make/find to sell don’t go for a whole lot at this point in the game.

I’m only lvl 35, but today I noticed on the map that to go from one WP to the next one over (literally, less than a 2 minute walk) the charge was going to be 29c. 29c isn’t a heck of a lot, but it ads up really fast. I don’t want to spend all my time in game farming gold so I can afford to travel around to make more gold!

Also, most of my traveling is done to access banks/crafting stations. I usually pay close to a silver now to make it back to a location where I’m able to access my crafting – and the items I craft barely cover the fee to map travel once I’ve made them! I hope this is something that gets adjusted sooner or later.

There are a few problems I’ve noticed spinning off the back of the scaled waypoint pricing.

People are driven to heavily using the WvW/Mists=>Lion’s Arch=>Home hub method to get cheaper waypointing. This places unnecessary pressure on the WvW servers, there are unnecessary queues and users have to go through several additional loading screens due to the prices. This is surely costing A-Net money, as unnecessary bandwidth usages are a very real cost. The silver we ‘pay’ them will never convert to real money, so how about reducing waypoint costs to something more sustainable?

To make it worse, disproportionate monetary event rewards in level 80 areas and aggressive negative reward scaling in lower level areas (1 to 2 silver for a 15 minute event at level 80 is certainly not sustaining enough to cover the costs of waypointing to a buddy halfway across tyria to help them out) means running everywhere or exploiting the WvW/Mists method are the only financially viable solutions.

I do not think the current waypoint system is feasible as a money sink. In fact I would prefer higher repair costs and lower waypoint costs so that players can hop around to their friends more, which would certainly encourage less anti-social play.

@Sterling; I don’t know about others, but my gold management is perfectly fine, I salvage only ‘salvage’ items, while looking out for how much I can sell things on the trading post to make a profit. I do quite well out of this combined with efficient guild dungeon running.

Despite this, when the initial cost of helping someone out at lower levels is approaching 4 silver from Orr, it personally makes me think twice about aiding others in the world, save for immediate surroundings. I don’t think you have the right to say how every other player should manage their gold better, because not everybody has the same playstyle as you.

I don’t want to sit in a location and farm for an hour to make it feel like that waypoint was worth it. I want to jump about the world and explore, help people, and the costs of the waypoint system combined with poor monetary rewards despite being level 80 culminate in a restrictive set of playstyles that are not for everyone.

corpsekin.4601:

it’s ridiculous, why does it cost more to travel between points just because you’re higher level? They should just limit it by distance

I agree with this 100%. Way Point cost should be based on the distance you’re traveling, not the level you are when you travel.

too expensive!
I don’t really have nothing to say that have not been said already.

I’m actually really surprised there isn’t more outrage. I think it is completely unacceptable and needs to be scaled down ASAP.

This thread is silly the travel cost are fine I travel all the time to help people sense I’m 80 and never drop below 1 gold from managing my drops for cash crafting and running exploreable instances the cash flow is fairly even spending 3s a way point isnt bad at all as I make 40 silver within the way points zone with people out there having 50g plus this is not a problem for most players other then tho’s that toss cash at things.

(from77-80 i was traveling with a pocket of 27 silver from buying all exotic earings/rings/ect) Maybe stay in a zone longer then 5 mins and you make cash running a exploreable instances yields plenty for daily travel cash.

tl:dl why cant I have 10000g I wanna be rich, cause you bad with money and item management

I don’t mean to be a put down or anything but this problem is user/player error and sadly its always the talkative players that complain tho most on forums while tho’s who don’t have problems hardly post.

I don`t even know why there is a price on teleporting to beginwith. We never had in the original game. I could teleport to different continents all days long and do whatever mission i wanted without ever having to worry about paying to travel.

This is more of an NCSoft trademark then Arenanet. I actually saw a guy begging for a rez because he said he didn`t have enough silver on him to go to the waypoint.

Gold we earn at higher levels is very very near the amount we earn at early levels at 20-30 lvl u earn like 1.20 and at 80 u earn like 2.80-3.20 for a quest/event which is fairly LOW… at lvl 20 i could travel from one point of the map to the other at 50-60 copper max and now at 80 i need like 2,80 silver to go to the nearest other area… that is very stupid… allowing low level players to travel so cheap while they should travel by foot to be familiar with the world and make high lvls to have to travel by foot for 1000th time is just lame… there should be a solid-default travel fee for all levels depending on the length of travel.. at the start that might feels a bit expencive for low levels but later on will be ok.. and ofc that price should be less that it is now by about 80%…

I for one don’t agree with this.
It’s a gold sink, it must be there or else people will contintue to spam that they have too much money, look at gw1, people needed different types of currency just because they had too much money. The traveling costs are allright, and 3s isn’t that big of a deal, just make sure to get the money back every time you get into an area, then it just becomes easy.

I don’t mind that its expensive for long distances but its terribly wrong that the waypoint right next to me still costs over a silver, they need to redo the waypoint pricing by distance not by levels, like every 50 yards or so costs a copper more starting from 1c.

Now when your going across half the map thats still going to be expensive but at least the waypoints in the same zone won’t be ridiculous anymore, and people can find ways to be money conscious like using the gates in lions arch instead of teleporting between 2 cities directly.

TheKow.7604:

This thread is silly the travel cost are fine I travel all the time to help people sense I’m 80 and never drop below 1 gold from managing my drops for cash crafting and running exploreable instances the cash flow is fairly even spending 3s a way point isnt bad at all as I make 40 silver within the way points zone with people out there having 50g plus this is not a problem for most players other then tho’s that toss cash at things.

(from77-80 i was traveling with a pocket of 27 silver from buying all exotic earings/rings/ect) Maybe stay in a zone longer then 5 mins and you make cash running a exploreable instances yields plenty for daily travel cash.

tl:dl why cant I have 10000g I wanna be rich, cause you bad with money and item management

I don’t mean to be a put down or anything but this problem is user/player error and sadly its always the talkative players that complain tho most on forums while tho’s who don’t have problems hardly post.

You are telling people how to play the game. That in and of itself should give you an idea of why the waypoint system is broken, when a person tells everyone how to play the game just to keep their balance even. I don’t want “10000g” I want to do an event, then hop around with my buddies/anyone calling for help out on /map or heck, even just hop around and see what events are going on. Heaven forbid I want to do that without having to do instances.

I understand the problem of free waypoint costs, and the inflation associated with it. I played Guild Wars for years and it wasn’t long before money went haywire and people were trading rare materials as currency instead. I’m not asking for free waypoints, I’m asking for a balancing of the money sinks. Instead we have people on the other side of the coin trying to rationalise everyone having to do a certain task or a certain playstyle for a certain amount of time to get some money.

This is an MMO, there are varying setups and playstyles, and the economy and its corresponding money sinks should account for diversity of play. If someone runs 1 event (which, by the way, at level 80 take somewhat quite a bit more than your supposed 5 minutes), that should be enough to cover costs to travel across to the lowbie zones and back to lend a hand to a mate. Unfortunately it is nowhere near enough, unless we put a hard cap on maximum waypoint costs, or even scale the entire thing back a bit, people are less inclined to play with each other.

The forums are here for suggestions and complaints, and I find that your ‘Oh it’s the minority’ outcry a little bit perplexing. You’re entitled to your opinion, and you can offer a rebuttal to my arguments all you want, but please don’t discount what people are saying entirely just because you believe they are all playing the game wrong with your ‘player error’ theory.

Don’t put down ‘talkative’ players, because they tend to be the ones who can elaborate the most on bugs, issues and exploits for Arenanet to track down as quick as possible, so that they can make this into a better game. Not just for you, or just for me, but for all of us.

TL:DR Waypoint costs are not fine, if they were, nobody would be bothered, let other people play the game how they want as long as they’re playing legitimately, and don’t discount other people’s playstyles and opinions because of them being ‘talkative’ or different to yours.

Waypointing costs were implemented in the game as a gold sink to ensure the game economy doesn’t go haywire. I completely agree with this philosophy, the game economy should be a stable thing. I also agree with the idea that things should become more expensive as you level.

From a lore perspective, it makes no sense that more powerful entities require more energy (and thus money) to teleport. If anything, this should be by mass, so Norn waypoint costs should be higher than Asura. They’re not going to do this, because this would upset game balance (and a lot of players). However it would make sense that waypointing to a location that is more remote or dangerous is more expensive, because implementation of a waypoint would be more costly due to danger to workers and waypointing there would require more energy.

Then there is the third pillar of gaming (the other two are balance and consistency), which is philosophy. As far as I know, the most important question Anet asks whenever they implement something is “Is it fun?”. And waypointing costs aren’t. They are necessary, but not fun. In fact, if a higher level player wants to help out his lower level buddies, the player has to pay a “Tax on Fun” to get there and back again.
From a gameplay perspective, as far as playing on your own or with comparably leveled buddies, the waypointing costs ARE actually fun, because it encourages teamwork and solidarity between friends in order to stay alive and not get wiped, and rewards this very directly when it works. The same can be said for repair costs.

Now here is my suggestion to Arenanet (for free!) (also TL;DR):
Make waypoint costs based on geographic location of the waypoint rather than player level. This still encourages good gameplay, but does give some room for helping out lower level friends. This is easily implemented as a system that calculates a cost to get to the nearest waypoint and then add a surcharge for every other waypoint (node) hit in the waypoint network to get to the desired waypoint. This surcharge is constant in every map. This makes waypointing costs more transparent and keeps players gruntled. Perhaps add a resurrection surcharge.
If this system does not give enough of a goldsink for the economy, simply raise repair costs more for high level gear.

Comments? Suggestions? Criticism? Positive reinforcements? Please post!

everything in the game is a gold sink and it is abusive.

BadJas has it right, waypoint costs are anti-fun especially for players hoping to travel a lot and meet a lot of friends in a lot of different places, then jump right back to where they were.

Solution: Double/Triple repair costs. Gold sinks stay the same, but are more a punishment for sucking and less an incentive to be anti-social. I would much rather pay a higher penalty for dying than meeting my friends.

Alternatively, they could scale all WP costs up to their current level 80 values, thereby discouraging (and by extension reliance on) their use entirely.

100% zone completion should permit discounted travel to/in that zone.

Costs should scale with level, or money earned from DEs/hearts should.

The WP to Lion’s Arch should be free – it currently comes at the expense of two loading screens instead of one.

I see no problem with the way-point costs. If a WP right next to me costs 3S to port to I’d much rather walk the 30 seconds. After refusing to use the WP system you begin to discover the value of your time.
Yes, there is a value to my time. If I just need to get two zones away I usually walk/run and end up making money along the way. If time is pressing I’ll WP; when it really will cut into what I’d much rather be doing.
I feel they are fine the way they are; most likely an unpopular opinion. However; I do think there needs to be more available for the player out in the field. Merchants are nice. Trading post access is nice. But WHY do I almost always NEED to go back to a city to craft!?!?

P.S. I agree with what Venator ^ says regardless.

I just started walking. I get XP,karma,coin,loot and see dynamic events I may have missed along the way.

In the words of Rikkiti.

Shiny…

Agreed. Waypointing is way too expensive.
It should (according to me XD):
-More about distance, rather than level
-Make waypoints in same area a lot cheaper
-Make waypoint cost depend on zone (low level zones costing much less)

I am walking now too.

Personally I do hope this is an oversight and it gets corrected.

ITs to much maybe its time to lower it and place mounts im wasting all my money on traveling also its made per lvl travel at lvl 80 u are fuc…

Mounts, we need mounts. Mounts now!

I agree!! Travelling costs are WAY too high! Drains about 20% of the money I make! Either lower them BY A TON or add mounts!

At least for me at level 56 the ratio of coin’s earned and travel costs just seem very off comparing my play style back to when I was in the 20’s.

It’s just frustrating when you start weighing the cost of travel when a friend pops on over in Snowden Drifts and you just ran to Sparkfly Fen.

Frustrating != Fun