I have an issue with the cost of travel around Tyria as a L80 in particular. I’m currently trying to complete 100% world map and have to do all the various starter areas as I’m sure everyone doing exploration already knows.
The problem is, I’m being charged on average 1.5s -1.9s per waypoint in these noob areas, depending on how far it is. If you were doing these maps on level, you would be paying less than 20c per trip.
So even though my level has been scaled down to the area and the reward where I get mere 40-60c for completing hearts, the charges have been scaled up. And its not just travel either, the repairs are just as expensive.
So while I’m doing these noob areas, I’m running at a massive loss and having to lay out money that I worked so hard to earn. I guess they assume since you’re L80, you must be loaded and able to afford it. Well, I’m not rich by no means, I don’t farm, I don’t bot, I don’t use exploits. I’m basically an honest player trying to work my way through content and enjoy the game best way I can, but these costs are really hurting me.
If the Devs don’t fix this issue, I see these exorbitant charges facilitating a situation where honest players will be forced to join things like exploits, bots farming etc, just to stay ahead, let alone save enough money to buy that cultural armor set that costs a small fortune!
You are 100% correct. The fact you put the exact issue in there.
I am levelling a ranger in the Norn area its a few copper to port from one waypoint to another and it is over a silver and a half for my level 80 to do the same exact port
That is defintely an issue
I could care less about paying to travel that only makes sense but it should be exactly the same for every player at any level
I think it should become obvious to everyone by now that high costs (you can add armor repair, skill books, runes of holding) are there because Anet doesn’t want the average player to have any significant amount of money in game.
I believe it is their hope that this will push more people into buying stuff with real cash (character slots, extra storage, etc).
It’s as simple as that. If you argue against harsh moeny sinks you argue against their philosophy of generating income with the cash shop.
I play GW2 “honestly,” and I make frequent use of waypoints. Sure, I’ll run here and there from time to time, or I’ll use Asura Gates, but I still end up using waypoints a couple of times during my sessions. However, I’m consistently bringing in more money than I spend on waypoints.
Please understand the purpose of waypoints fees. They are a money sink. Even someone like myself who spends little to no money through the TP or NPC merchants must spend in some silver at some point. There’s purpose in that. It reduces the liquidity (overall volume) of money in the game, which is important to maintaining a healthy in-game economy.
GW2 is all about Time vs Money. This is reflected with their Waypoint travel system. The same goes for people trading real life cash for game currency through the Gem Exchange system. Even the Boosts in the gem store follow this philosophy.
Like it or not, GW2 is consistent about this theme.
We are Test Group F. (Don’t ask about what happened to the previous Test Groups.)
I gladly pay my 4s to waypoint across thekittenworld every time, why?
1) Because it’s convenient.
2) Because I’m making at minimum 10x that much in return for whatever I end up doing there.
Waypoints are a luxury, not mandatory. If you don’t want to spend 15-20s porting around “noob areas” (the term alone just makes me think you’re all of 13 years old) then you can always run, for free.
I play GW2 “honestly,” and I make frequent use of waypoints. Sure, I’ll run here and there from time to time, or I’ll use Asura Gates, but I still end up using waypoints a couple of times during my sessions. However, I’m consistently bringing in more money than I spend on waypoints.
Please understand the purpose of waypoints fees. They are a money sink. Even someone like myself who spends little to no money through the TP or NPC merchants must spend in some silver at some point. There’s purpose in that. It reduces the liquidity (overall volume) of money in the game, which is important to maintaining a healthy in-game economy.
Funny you should say that. Because reading the trading forum, the devs acknowledge that the scarcity of gold drives prices on everything down. Everything sells for dirt cheap because people don’t want to spend hard earned gold. Demand is very low. As an example, just yesterday I purchased 500 cookies (player crafted items) for 5 silver.
So no, low liquidity doesn’t create healthy economy. I’m not an expert, I might be wrong, but that’s what I see now.
Food in general is cheap because the materials needed to make it are cheap and abundant. Try purchasing 500 major runes and see how much that costs you.
The money is out there, the onus is on the players to go and earn it. Not have it handed to you. The avenues for which you can earn gold are numerous and easier the more gold you have to begin with.
They milk us out of our ingame gold to encourage the official gold selling by themselves. It’s a shame they have to resort to such shrewd money-grabbing methods, although we already paid hard bucks for this.
I think it should become obvious to everyone by now that high costs (you can add armor repair, skill books, runes of holding) are there because Anet doesn’t want the average player to have any significant amount of money in game.
I believe it is their hope that this will push more people into buying stuff with real cash (character slots, extra storage, etc).
It’s as simple as that. If you argue against harsh money sinks you argue against their philosophy of generating income with the cash shop.
I guess so. I had really hoped ANet wouldn’t jump on that same band wagon as other games have done. Not everyone can afford to keep buying game gold. I bought the Deluxe version of the game and bought $50 worth of gems since release, just to get extra storage space, which I feel we should have been given anyway. So 1 month into the game, I’ve already spent $130 on this game and I imagine there will be more costs in the future. But that is all I can afford to spend right now and these travel and repair costs, not just in noob areas really, but everywhere as a L80, are bleeding me dry, which I feel will put me at a disadvantage against other players who can afford to buy things I cannot.
They milk us out of our ingame gold to encourage the official gold selling by themselves. It’s a shame they have to resort to such shrewd money-grabbing methods, although we already paid hard bucks for this.
Where? I’ve only been compelled to do it once to generate some seed money, to go out and make gold. I’ve made probably 14x as much as I bought with gems since then.
Food in general is cheap because the materials needed to make it are cheap and abundant. Try purchasing 500 major runes and see how much that costs you.
The money is out there, the onus is on the players to go and earn it. Not have it handed to you. The avenues for which you can earn gold are numerous and easier the more gold you have to begin with.
Hey. I’m not against earning your cash. I just brought up an argument that generally low income doesn’t stimulate an economy.
PS: I don’t see where you go with your runes example. Some are very cheap.
I play GW2 “honestly,” and I make frequent use of waypoints. Sure, I’ll run here and there from time to time, or I’ll use Asura Gates, but I still end up using waypoints a couple of times during my sessions. However, I’m consistently bringing in more money than I spend on waypoints.
Please understand the purpose of waypoints fees. They are a money sink. Even someone like myself who spends little to no money through the TP or NPC merchants must spend in some silver at some point. There’s purpose in that. It reduces the liquidity (overall volume) of money in the game, which is important to maintaining a healthy in-game economy.
Funny you should say that. Because reading the trading forum, the devs acknowledge that the scarcity of gold drives prices on everything down. Everything sells for dirt cheap because people don’t want to spend hard earned gold. Demand is very low. As an example, just yesterday I purchased 500 cookies (player crafted items) for 5 silver.
So no, low liquidity doesn’t create healthy economy. I’m not an expert, I might be wrong, but that’s what I see now.
You’re right, it does affect the economy in a way that “drives everything down,” but this effect actively counters inflation. ANet wants stability in their economy, but this (more importantly) translates into accessibility. The people who are hitting 80 now are able to afford many different things. They have access to many goods, whether that be crafting materials or that one exotic weapon etc. However, will the players who first hit 80 in a year or two have the same access to goods? They won’t if prices on everything is constantly increasing due to the lose of value of gold decreasing due to an overall saturated volume of gold in the economy. I hope this makes sense lol.
The WP fee is not the only goldsink in the game, but it is one of the most universal goldsinks along with repair fees and skill book fees.
I don’t really mind the WP fees anymore, other than the closest WP. When you die and that there is no one around to revive you.. why are the closest WPs that expensive? We already have repair fees, the price for the closest WP should atleast be reduced, if not free(only on deaths)..
I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.
The cheap ones are cheap because they’re not in demand. Others are quite pricy for their level reqs and then there’s Superior runes which range from like 10s to 2g. It’s not that it’s a low income base, there are many things wrong with the economic model, most importantly people using the TP as their mobile bank, which has more to do with 1c over vendor prices than anything. Which in itself is just strange to me, but yeah people are doing it…
The whole concept of keeping gold scarce to drive people to the gem market though is ludicrous. The only people it will drive there are the lazy.
This thread makes me sad. I don’t enjoy the economic side of MMO’s. I want to have fun. Worrying about money is for real life.
Currently at level 56, I’m watching every penny and hoping things improve at 80. If I have to turn my gameplay focus towards how I can earn gold, I can’t see how I’ll enjoy playing long-term. I won’t buy gold. It feels like cheating.
Other MMO’s have gold-sinks but I’ve never felt as poor and limited as I do in this game.
There are lots of ways to make money, some of them don’t involve leaving Lion’s Arch. I made about 7g last night in an hour and half, just talking to guildmates. I’d tell you how, but that’d be giving away my secrets (not really secrets :P).
Events slightly scale to your level in terms of their money payout…. Not saying it’ll cover the fees, but if I do the Wolfman in that starting Norn area… that’s usually a silver piece at least.
Also, think of the mats. What are the metals in the zone and how much are they going for on the TP? What about the wood or materials you can salvage for?
I was helping my buddy in the Dredgehaunt Cliff areas and I walked out with easy money from all the gold ore mined, seasoned wood harvested, cotton and leather salvaged off items. I easily paid for the wp traveling and then some… Sure I had to take a slight detour to get the mats, but small deviation for gains is worth it.
Doing low level stuff to help friends? Gather all the things. You can make an absolute mint in low level mats these days if you have the stock. Or save it for alt crafting.
the costs aren’t a big deal at all. you shouldn’t really die, because you have all your traits and gear lined up. you still get good loots which will offset travel costs.
it’s for the best, dude. inflation is a dangerous thing for an MMO, and we need all the sinks we can get.
Baiyun – Necromancer
Member of Talons [BT]
Fort Aspenwood
We were doing a bunch of the dredge areas for vistas and whatnot and we were getting swamped due to the fast respawns…. yet me and my buddy manage to not die once (I think my buddy went into downed state once or twice, but he’s like lvl 46 and I’m lvl 80 in full exotics). Yeah, it sucks that the costs seem so high, but compared to the gains it’s not much…. Also remember, you can get drops around your level; I definitely got a handful of level 76-80 items while I was helping my buddy out.
If you’re dying a bunch in the lower areas, you might need to examine what you’re doing more closely.
… you shouldn’t really die, because you have all your traits and gear lined up.
This is only true if you are a “play it safe” player. I like to do silly things like solo a group event. This morning I took on the giant worm event in Blazeridge Steps. After I died the second time, I starting thinking I shouldn’t keep going because it was going to be expensive.
This thread makes me sad. I don’t enjoy the economic side of MMO’s. I want to have fun. Worrying about money is for real life.
Currently at level 56, I’m watching every penny and hoping things improve at 80. If I have to turn my gameplay focus towards how I can earn gold, I can’t see how I’ll enjoy playing long-term. I won’t buy gold. It feels like cheating.
Other MMO’s have gold-sinks but I’ve never felt as poor and limited as I do in this game.
Wow, really? I have maxed two crafting professions and have nearly all exotic gear. I’ve spent MAYBE 4g on the TP. With a bit of ingenuity, you can do everything in this game with little-to-no spending involved. I think this game is really refreshing in that regard. I don’t have to have certain gear(wealth) to do this activity etc.
On a side note, I think GW2’s approach with money sinks can be summarized with this:
Earning money is rewarded. Having money is not rewarded. If you have money, you will lose money, unless you earn more. This is important, because if simply having money was rewarded, new players would be perpetually behind the economic curve.
We were doing a bunch of the dredge areas for vistas and whatnot and we were getting swamped due to the fast respawns…. yet me and my buddy manage to not die once (I think my buddy went into downed state once or twice, but he’s like lvl 46 and I’m lvl 80 in full exotics). Yeah, it sucks that the costs seem so high, but compared to the gains it’s not much…. Also remember, you can get drops around your level; I definitely got a handful of level 76-80 items while I was helping my buddy out.
If you’re dying a bunch in the lower areas, you might need to examine what you’re doing more closely.
Yeah if you’ve got the right gear for doing Dungeons, something with some survivability in it Toughness/Vitality, slumming through low level zones is almost hilarious in how many things you can kill at once.
I’m actually in all berserker gear, runes of the pack. I do have points in the alchemy trait so I have a bit of a health pool. The rifle going through multiple targets when they basically line up is great. The baddies mainly not moving is helpful too for jump shotting onto them and using acid bomb to just tear them apart.
I’ve started a topic called Let’s Find Out Waypoint Costs in the Players Helping Players forum. If you could contribute, I think it would allow us to get a better overview on waypoint costs!
With it being just as hard to get money in GW2 as it was in the launch of GW1 i think waypoints cost to much. Max of 20 silver to travel some where is ridiculous. I understand you need a money sink but with how hard it is for the average player to get money, your fee’s are too high.
for some reason even getting 100% on maps feels punishing later on when you want to go back to the map to say mine ore or help friends it does suck something has to be done about this its really bad
Custom built rig-
AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE 3.20 GHz DDR3 1600 8GB 4×2gb Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB DDR5
From my experience, it seems one of the problems with getting money are players selling things on the TP for barely above what they’d sell it for at a merchant. I remember ANet really wanted the players to make use of the TP, which explains why things don’t sell for lots with merchants. But, this doesn’t work if players aren’t trying to make a decent profit (and I don’t mean people selling things for enormous amounts of money either as would happen in Aion, for instance).
The thing that really pisses me off is that the common player is punished for playing. do a dungeon you get a drop but its hardly worth the cost of doing the dungeon at all. Travel around to do things with your friends your punished for doing so, and even worse when your going to try to do map completion and traveling… And finally Map travel… Totally a WASTE of money to travel. I’m at a point where people ask for help with stuff I tell them to go to hell its not worth it to have to treavel back to where they are then pay for all the repairs to help them and then pay again top travel back.
Hell now that I’m getting up there in level the cost to just cross the SAME MAP! is more then it used to cost to go from one end of the world to the other! Even if you use the PvP trick to travel its still expensive. I get you want to keep everyone poor so they dont sell to resellers… How about removing the ability to trade money at all instead and turn back on free map travel in exchange. If it meant I could never again buy anything in the game for currency and only transact everything in karma alone so that I could have Map travel as we had in the original game I would do it in a heart beat and NEVER EVER miss currency in the game at all. everything can be 100% karma based and cut those worthless pieces of garbage gold sellers out of the game forever. Seems that is what YOU want after all so why punish players with the added expense of playing. its at a point no one can afford anything even from merchants anymore cause of the CONSTANT damage repairs and OVERCHARGED expense of map travel. I’m lucky if I can manage to keep 1 gold on me at all anymore. Let alone being able to get a trait book or being able to buy better armors and weapons… I just settle for whatever trash drops in the game. And salvage the rest. Sure one can play the market a little get some uber drop that you cant use and try to sell it there, but even still that is short lived cause of the constant costs of playing. its almost like the only winning move is NOT TO PLAY AT ALL! I CAN NOT believe anet wants that attitude in their gameplay. Even when I was WvW the rewards awere hardly worth the effort when the cost in repairs was so high. YET THERE we dont have cost to map travel? if its the case in towns and in WvW then it should be the same in PvE. I am beginning very quickitteno hate everything about the game unless I go off on my own and just do hearts and exploration. anytime I do a dungeon I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE this game to all hell! I’m done with them from now on I want nothing from them and never ever to do them again. there is no benefit to them when it cost MORE to finikitten then you can ever pull out of it in reward. Map travel costs need to be removed or have some way in the game to remove them, or else there is zero reason to play at all with others anymore. the punishment you impose on players that DARE to get to a high level in the game is ridiculous. Were better off never advancing beyond level 30 and having cheaper map travel then finishing the game. Taking so much money makes it impossible for a player to SAVE for anything in the game especially high cost things they NEED to advance their characters like master trait books. I am just getting sick of this, no matter what I do no matter if I play for 30 hours straight or just 3 or 4 hours a day its all the same I’M F..KING BROKE! because of map travel and equipment repairs just for F..king Playing the game. I dont buy from these kitten, I dont sell to them, But I am being punished for their actions. STOP ALLOWING CURRENCY TO BE TRADED IN THE GAME AND THEY ARE GONE FOREVER! YOU should not be punishing your player base for the action of those worthless pieces of flesh cheaters.
The thing that really pisses me off is that the common player is punished for playing. do a dungeon you get a drop but its hardly worth the cost of doing the dungeon at all. Travel around to do things with your friends your punished for doing so, and even worse when your going to try to do map completion and traveling… And finally Map travel… Totally a WASTE of money to travel. I’m at a point where people ask for help with stuff I tell them to go to hell its not worth it to have to treavel back to where they are then pay for all the repairs to help them and then pay again top travel back.
Hell now that I’m getting up there in level the cost to just cross the SAME MAP! is more then it used to cost to go from one end of the world to the other! Even if you use the PvP trick to travel its still expensive. I get you want to keep everyone poor so they dont sell to resellers… How about removing the ability to trade money at all instead and turn back on free map travel in exchange. If it meant I could never again buy anything in the game for currency and only transact everything in karma alone so that I could have Map travel as we had in the original game I would do it in a heart beat and NEVER EVER miss currency in the game at all. everything can be 100% karma based and cut those worthless pieces of garbage gold sellers out of the game forever. Seems that is what YOU want after all so why punish players with the added expense of playing. its at a point no one can afford anything even from merchants anymore cause of the CONSTANT damage repairs and OVERCHARGED expense of map travel. I’m lucky if I can manage to keep 1 gold on me at all anymore. Let alone being able to get a trait book or being able to buy better armors and weapons… I just settle for whatever trash drops in the game. And salvage the rest. Sure one can play the market a little get some uber drop that you cant use and try to sell it there, but even still that is short lived cause of the constant costs of playing. its almost like the only winning move is NOT TO PLAY AT ALL! I CAN NOT believe anet wants that attitude in their gameplay. Even when I was WvW the rewards awere hardly worth the effort when the cost in repairs was so high. YET THERE we dont have cost to map travel? if its the case in towns and in WvW then it should be the same in PvE. I am beginning very quickitteno hate everything about the game unless I go off on my own and just do hearts and exploration. anytime I do a dungeon I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE this game to all hell! I’m dune with them from now on I want nothing from them and never ever to do them again. there is no benefit to them when it cost MORE to finikitten then you can ever pull out of it in reward. Map travel costs need to be removed or have some way in teh game to remove them, or else there is zero reason to play at all with others anymore. the punishment you impose on players that DARE to get to a high level in the game is ridiculous. Were better off never advancing beyond level 30 and having cheaper map travel then finishing the game.
This is one of the many reasons why some people stop playing and are playing borderlands 2 or MOP or some other game. I’m at a point to join them well I wouldn’t be playing those games I’d most likely be playing Assassin’s Creed or Halo 4 when they come out.
Hell I’ve said a million times in other threads if its a matter of milking us for money then say so and put a free map travel upgrade in the Gem store and I’ll buy the kittenhing. I wouldnt care if it were another $50 to get this BASIC function back. its costing TOO DAM MUCH to just be able to play causally in the game. That was NEVER the way ArenaNet treated its players in the past. NEVER. I smell NCSofts filth behind this. And if something is not done they will get their wish cause western markets will not want anything to do with them. Just as they do not want to have anything to do with us.
There is so many way to correct this.
Paying for the upgrade; fine Gems to solve the problem.
Finish a map to 100% and it doesnt cost to get there anymore; FINE
Having a Guild Perk that we have to earn to get this; FINE its SOMETHING at least!
fixed map travel costs based on distance not the level of the character; not as good but acceptable cause then traveling back to town is always the same cost not some crazy amount of money that takes everything you just earned from playing in the last few hours.
But the way it is right now where we are punished for leveling up in the game so you cant afford to travel to town anymore or go help your friends that’s ridiculous. Standardize SOMETHING for crying out loud… give us some options that does not entail CHEATING just to be able to play for a little while in the evenings with your friends! As it is I find it very hard to justify doing ANYTHING in this game anymore with anyone. I just solo it and hope I find strangers to help along the way. What kind of game is that? What kind of teamplay is that? We got nothing that is an EARNED reward that encourages us to keep playing. its just cost to do this cost to do that cost to breath. if I wanted that garbage would just do things in real life and not online.
If a waypoint cost 50c on lvl20 then its rather strange for them to bump up the price when i reach lvl80..since im now the hero of tyria and all,i find it weird that they charge me more.Infact,for what ive done for tyria,they shouldnt be charging me anything.Infact,citizens of tyria should pay me rent for still being able to live in their houses and me still saving the day,while they keep upping the price for me to travel kitten kittens…i think one day i’l just join Zaithan’s successor and get rid of them all…that’l show them for asking me money to travel.
