Guild Wars 2

Say you needed medicine, but the fellow who had said medicine was only willing to trade it for bread to satisfy his current need and you did not happen to have any. You only had clothing to trade. You then have to seek out someone who was willing to trade bread for clothing or, worse yet, trade another item that could be traded for bread and then for medicine.

That’s what happens when there’s no common medium for trade. Every simple thing requires a specific item, task or whatnot.

Now in Guild Wars 2… heh… let’s just say I’m a pretty casual player, but seemingly every time I log in I discover new currencies in the game. I don’t even know what half of them are for, I just see a rainbow of numbers cluttering up my inventory. Heck, I still don’t even get what Karma is suppose to add to the game besides being inconvenient, but I’ve just been rolling with it.

Then seemingly every single NPC in the game has come up with their own unique currency that only they are willing to accept. I pretty much don’t even worry about it anymore. “You just got a laurel!” Yay, I’m an Olympian now! Oh nevermind, that’s just the new money of the week, I’ll just throw this in the big pile of other useless monies.

I’m sure there’s something I should know if anyone cares to enlighten me, but if not I’m just going to worry about gold/gems so I can just play the darn game like I have been.

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

GIVE ME MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRREEEEE … its not a real game until it has 24,503 currencies.. 100 times more then planet earth’s nations combined

PS: you also forgot that Ecto’s are now a Currency that you need to use to purchase an ascended accessory along with laurels

I suspect a tonne of those currencies exist to force you to buy more storage if you keep earning them. They aren’t design decisions because they make the game better for the player, they are design decisions which intentionally inconvenience the player so that they buy more storage slots.

Ojimaru.8970- Remove Captains’ Council Commendation since there is no NPC to spend it on anyways.

Remove Pact Victory Token since it is meant to be there to choose your own reward for completing a one time content. Just think of it like when you reach to this NPC, the NPC gives you a list of item you can get as your reward.

Remove Traits and supply since they are not currency. They don’t even take up inventory space in the game.

Wow, there are dozens of them! I thought the ugly sweater and the like were jokes until I /wiki’d it. Some of these are understandable, but I cannot say I understand the effort put into taking it to such an extent.

Kyran Foxfire.4139:

Wow, there are dozens of them! I thought the ugly sweater and the like were jokes until I /wiki’d it. Some of these are understandable, but I cannot say I understand the effort put into taking it to such an extent.

Because it’s easier to dream up of another silly currency than work out a balanced way of using existing currency for new items. More specifically, they don’t want players to complete new content or obtain new items too quickly by using their existing stockpile of bibbobs.

I was thinning of this as well. However the economical dilemmas don’t bother me as much as the impact these things probably have on the game engine and the learning curve.

Let me start with the technical aspect. More stuff equals more complex code and more dependencies between architectural elements. Each new ganeplay elements (e.g. currency) brings with it a series of rules and dependencies. A simple example is “a character can earn World XP. World XP can only be earned while in WvW.”. Now if something changes to the definition of WvW, for example a new area pops up, the code for World XP needs to be adjusted. Ok, this might not be the best example but you should get the idea. The thing is that if Anet continues adding completely new gameplay elements every month, then, within a few years, the game engine should be a maze of rules, conditions and exceptions, each one waiting for a mistake by an unlucky programmer to trigger a massive domino effect. I’m sure the Anet coders are very good and that they are aware of this issue and are probably using a gazillion of tools to monitor the evolution of the source code, but still, I have a feeling that one-purpose gameplay elements are not the best option from a long term perspective.

Now in terms of the learning curve, as the OP mentioned, having 10 different currencies will be very confusing for any newbie or for anyone who does not monitor the devblogs like a maniac. I mean let us look at the new World XP coming out in March. Basically, when you do something in WvW, you will earn xp and world xp. If both of these are displayed on the gui, best case, people will ignore it. Worst case, they will experience sensory overload (or the equivalent for information).

The reason why I’m writing this wall of text is because I care. I want to still play the game in 3 years from now and I’m afraid that the road chosen by Anet might lead to a dead end.

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

Traits aren’t a currency as they can’t be bought or sold. Supply is more a resource than currency, and the Pact Victory Token is a one-time-per-character exchange. And you want to add in the Festival tokens?

You really want to split hairs on what currency is, though, I’ll tell you something.

Take a look back at Guild Wars 1, and note how many different “trophy” drops existed. Consider that at the end of the game’s life cycle? Every one was a currency.

The different currencies relate to the different methods of playing. That was what was intended. I.e. you like wvw = badges / karma, pve = gold / karma, dungeons = gold / tokens.
I have no problem on them extending on this system to an extent but there should be a limit.

My biggest issue is that the currencies are not equal and that gold has too much power over the rest

Anzu.5702:

The different currencies relate to the different methods of playing. That was what was intended. I.e. you like wvw = badges / karma, pve = gold / karma, dungeons = gold / tokens.
I have no problem on them extending on this system to an extent but there should be a limit.

My biggest issue is that the currencies are not equal and that gold has too much power over the rest

Well, the problem there is more that while gold has power over many things, it can also be bought via a real money avenue. And on the one hand there are things money can’t buy (Karma, Laurels, Tokens/Trophies…) are often the thing needed the most for progression of any sort past Exotic.

(Excepting Legendary weapons. I literally have no idea how those slipped through, and figure it was someone going “nobody will ever sell those, that’d be silly” followed by “oh crap it’s too late to turn back now”. )

So the problem isn’t that gold has any sort of power . . . it’s that the stuff which does have power at the highest point is controlled via certain avenues of distribution.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Take a look back at Guild Wars 1, and note how many different “trophy” drops existed. Consider that at the end of the game’s life cycle? Every one was a currency.

Considering Nicholas the Traveler who needed virtually every random drop in the game, GW2 is developed considerably better. There are some currencies, but not nearly as bad as they could be. All currencies have a clear purpose, both in how to gain and why to spend.

Considering how I have, IRL, Euros, Pounds and Dollars in my wallet just to be sure I can pay where ever I go. Considering I am virtually required to have a visa card to travel. I don’t think it is possible to avoid the many currency problem. If anything, it adds charm.

marnick.4305:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Take a look back at Guild Wars 1, and note how many different “trophy” drops existed. Consider that at the end of the game’s life cycle? Every one was a currency.

Considering Nicholas the Traveler who needed virtually every random drop in the game, GW2 is developed considerably better. There are some currencies, but not nearly as bad as they could be. All currencies have a clear purpose, both in how to gain and why to spend.

Considering how I have, IRL, Euros, Pounds and Dollars in my wallet just to be sure I can pay where ever I go. Considering I am virtually required to have a visa card to travel. I don’t think it is possible to avoid the many currency problem. If anything, it adds charm.

Also worth noting, technically those trophies were currency before Nicholas, but nobody ever thought of them like that whom I ran across, Usually they referred to the trophies as “salvage bait” if it gave up something like dust or feathers or “vendor bait” if it didn’t.

yes, please.

No More Currencies

signed.

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

This intentionally misleading list is doing more harm to the proposal than good.

I too agree that adding more in-game currencies and tokens is ridiculous, but it’s now as dramatic as people make it sound. The problem is that it’s not intuitive and as the OP said it’s hard on new and casual players.

Nicholas was the Daily of GW1. I rather liked hit, it was like getting 5 RNG Lion chests for some random effort. It was a good twist over all, but nothing overly impressive.

Wayfinder.8452:

I too agree that adding more in-game currencies and tokens is ridiculous, but it’s now as dramatic as people make it sound. The problem is that it’s not intuitive and as the OP said it’s hard on new and casual players.

Nicholas was the Daily of GW1. I rather liked hit, it was like getting 5 RNG Lion chests for some random effort. It was a good twist over all, but nothing overly impressive.

Zaishen Missions were the Dailies of GW1, Nicholas was a “Weekly”

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

You missed another one that’s soon™ to be added, currency for the Super Adventure Box.

Mr Crazy Moose.5760:

You missed another one that’s soon™ to be added, currency for the Super Adventure Box.

You’re also missing:

Orrian Energy Source (for the Scavenger’s Chasm jumping puzzle)
Dwarven Keys (in Dredgehaunt Cliffs)
Bunnies, rocks, iron bars, and supplies (Jotun in Wayfarer’s Foothills)

The only real annoyance is not having collectable tabs for dungeon tokens. Outside of that I don’t mind it. Gives me a way to make sure I get what I want that is available, while to some extent having you play most of the game. Its nice to see the game say if you want CoF gear, run CoF, without forcing you to sift through random drops and hope to eventually drop that last pair of boots. It’s nice to see people running other dungeons outside of just the easy runs because they want things from other dungeons. If all gear was on one currency how long would it take to get full ascended if all you had to run was CoF? I know for some all that matters is getting the reward as fast as possible to boast and beam about it for a day then complain how bored they are, for me I play to play a game and have fun.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Wayfinder.8452:

I too agree that adding more in-game currencies and tokens is ridiculous, but it’s now as dramatic as people make it sound. The problem is that it’s not intuitive and as the OP said it’s hard on new and casual players.

Nicholas was the Daily of GW1. I rather liked hit, it was like getting 5 RNG Lion chests for some random effort. It was a good twist over all, but nothing overly impressive.

Zaishen Missions were the Dailies of GW1, Nicholas was a “Weekly”

My bad. I didn’t really do all of them, there were missions and bounties that I hated in general.

Wayfinder.8452:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Wayfinder.8452:

I too agree that adding more in-game currencies and tokens is ridiculous, but it’s now as dramatic as people make it sound. The problem is that it’s not intuitive and as the OP said it’s hard on new and casual players.

Nicholas was the Daily of GW1. I rather liked hit, it was like getting 5 RNG Lion chests for some random effort. It was a good twist over all, but nothing overly impressive.

Zaishen Missions were the Dailies of GW1, Nicholas was a “Weekly”

My bad. I didn’t really do all of them, there were missions and bounties that I hated in general.

Zaishen Bounty: “Kill Rotscale”
/guild: “So who wants to do the bounty?”
- crickets -
/guild “Yeah, didn’t think so. I got this one for Myrish of the Lake from a couple days ago who wants in on that?”

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

Quoted for freakin TRUTH. This is utterly out of control.

The currency additions remind me of the same tactics WOW uses ti keep players grinding. I just ignore them because I view them as archaic and I refuse to put time into such a lame excuse for a gameplay addition.

Hickeroar.9734:

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

Quoted for freakin TRUTH. This is utterly out of control.

Again, this still isn’t as bad as Guild Wars 1, since anything which wasn’t equipment, material, or a “Salvage Item” was currency.

These currencies are perfectly justifiable. It would be a chaos if there were currencies that were basically replacing other currencies, which doesn’t happen. Each currency has, had or will have an important enough role for its existence to be justifiable.

I would know, because I am your karka overlord.

Flamenco.3894:

These currencies are perfectly justifiable. It would be a chaos if there were currencies that were basically replacing other currencies, which doesn’t happen. Each currency has, had or will have an important enough role for its existence to be justifiable.

I would know, because I am your karka overlord.

Please do not do a barrel roll.

;)

I would have listed all the dungeon tokens under “Dungeon tokens” instead of spreading them out. And I wouldn’t have included the pact victory token.

However, the rest stands.

I made a thread discussing this a few days ago until it was sent to the “Suggestions” forum to die under the weight of “Largos must be new race”, “Costume brawl as daily”, and “A request from me”.

I hope to keep it alive in my sig

However, imo, it’s not the fact that there are so many currencies that is a problem. The issue is that each new currency, especially laurels and merits, give STATISTICAL rewards that can ONLY be obtained with that currency.

Karma was an ingenious system that has now been thrown to the waist side.

The rest stands? “Ugly Socks, Sweaters, and Wool Hats”? Karka Shells?

Again, if we’re going to count those, you need to also count:

- Orrian Energy Source
- Dwarven Key
- Hare
- Loose Ore
- Griffon Egg
- Runestone
- Norn Supplies

Vorch.2985:

Karma was an ingenious system that has now been thrown to the waist side.

It was far too easily gamed by people and was thus highly subject to inflation. Seriously, that’s one of the big problems with it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vorch.2985:

Karma was an ingenious system that has now been thrown to the waist side.

It was far too easily gamed by people and was thus highly subject to inflation. Seriously, that’s one of the big problems with it.

They could have combined karma with other currency to acquire gear.

For example: 200k karma + 40 skill points; 100k Karma + 50 ecto; 250k Karma + 5 gold; 200k Karma + 500 dungeon tokens.

They had options…but instead chose to time gate.

Well ppl have gone out of there way to say they hate RNG of drops so currency is a counter to this but you must run the event to get the currency. You should not be able to run CoF to get AC gear. There only realty 4 true currency every thing else is just a simple place holder. Gold, and Krama are the main ones Laurel and Guild Commendation are the very off ones that are not comply true currency.

Vorch.2985:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vorch.2985:

Karma was an ingenious system that has now been thrown to the waist side.

It was far too easily gamed by people and was thus highly subject to inflation. Seriously, that’s one of the big problems with it.

They could have combined karma with other currency to acquire gear.

For example: 200k karma + 40 skill points; 100k Karma + 50 ecto; 250k Karma + 5 gold; 200k Karma + 500 dungeon tokens.

They had options…but instead chose to time gate.

Most of those . . . not all but most, were subject to just as much farming as Karma was. Especially gold and Ectoplasm.

Given that, it’s a thorny problem about “how much of the existing currency do we expect people to have on hand?” This high Influence cost for the Guild Missions is a symptom of guessing wrong on that score.

I’m not sure exp, skill points, traits and supply are precisely currency, but they are things that you accumulate and trade for other things, so I can see why they got included in the list. Even taking out those, we still have way, way too many currencies in this game. Use karma for more stuff for crying out loud. It’s OK for people who have more currency to be able to get more stuff with it. That’s perfectly fine. Shifting the burden onto players to track and manage all the tokens and currencies isn’t cool.

Dungeon tokens definitely need to be included separately – each type of token is traded for a different set of things and they all are separate systems.

Jski.6180:

Well ppl have gone out of there way to say they hate RNG of drops so currency is a counter to this but you must run the event to get the currency. You should not be able to run CoF to get AC gear. There only realty 4 true currency every thing else is just a simple place holder. Gold, and Krama are the main ones Laurel and Guild Commendation are the very off ones that are not comply true currency.

Methods of acquiring gear:

1. Gold
2. Gems
3. Karma
4. Dungeon Tokens
5. Relics
6 Badges of honor
7. Pristine Relics
8. Laurels
9. Merits

The time-gated mechanism in front of statistical advantages on the last 3 are what’s causing a problem. At least pristine relics can be mitigated with multiple characters or higher tiers in fractals.

Laurels require a daily log on to keep up. Merits require a large, active guild that does frequent guild missions.

I wouldn’t be complaining if there were aesthetic and convenience items behind those time-gates…but instead, we have advantages.

There aren’t that many currencies in-game.

1. Gold
2. Karma
3. Gems
4. Laurel
5. Skill points

Everything else are “tokens”. Which, while acting as currencies, are rather reward items that you get in relation to a specific task. Dungeon tokens for dungeons, wvw badges for wvw, fractal tokens for fractals. The main difference between these tokens and the currencies up above is that the ones above you can attain by doing a myriad of activities. The tokens that take up inventory are representation of specific tasks that you have achieved and also acting as a reward for doing said tasks. I think it helps decrease the overwhelming-ness of these things.

Ojimaru.8970:

ANet, stop.

*

Seriously, stop.

Vorch.2985:

Jski.6180:

Well ppl have gone out of there way to say they hate RNG of drops so currency is a counter to this but you must run the event to get the currency. You should not be able to run CoF to get AC gear. There only realty 4 true currency every thing else is just a simple place holder. Gold, and Krama are the main ones Laurel and Guild Commendation are the very off ones that are not comply true currency.

Methods of acquiring gear:

1. Gold
2. Gems
3. Karma
4. Dungeon Tokens
5. Relics
6 Badges of honor
7. Pristine Relics
8. Laurels
9. Merits

The time-gated mechanism in front of statistical advantages on the last 3 are what’s causing a problem. At least pristine relics can be mitigated with multiple characters or higher tiers in fractals.

Laurels require a daily log on to keep up. Merits require a large, active guild that does frequent guild missions.

I wouldn’t be complaining if there were aesthetic and convenience items behind those time-gates…but instead, we have advantages.

I think we agree.

Some of though are means of crafting gear. Would you call powerful bloods a type of currency? All the Tokens are effectively means of crafting gear. Its just a lot more user friendly to have token vs having a number of items to craft some of the gear.
Look at games like MH every thing is “crafted” but you must get bits off the mobs to craft these items if you would just get tokens from killing mobs you would get your items much faster then trying to do runs where you must brake parts of the mobs off.

The best way i can put it the barter system is tokens the money system is gold.

Yup, I think we’re on the same page. It’s not the number of currencies that really bothers me; they all serve the same purpose.

Except unlike other currencies in the game, there are two that I can not earn more by playing more.

Laurels and Merits can only be earned at a pre-set pace.

Which would be fine if there wasn’t statistically significant gear behind them.