Guild Wars 2

I have this idea where in you can exchange karma points for faction currencies, which you can then use to buy faction specific items or boosts. This karma to faction currency exchange will use the gems to gold system, where the more people exchange karma, the higher it is needed to exchange for a faction currency over time. That solves the over inflation of karma points, although you could tone it down a little. If not this, maybe you could track the supply and demand of faction specific items, and adjust the faction currency price accordingly, like in Guild Wars 1 where runes and materials change prices depending on demand of players.

what the F is a faction currency & why would I want to buy it with karma?
More importantly, why do I need an artificial inflation for a artificial currency, not linked in any way to real money & economy.

Why is it an advantage to exchange one currency to another to buy something. Why not have the karma buy these items directly? If there is yet another currency put in the game it’s either going to take up inventory space or need a place in the wallet.

It’s like countries having multiple exchange rates. The more you buy from one faction, the lesser it is for the other factions (supporting one faction will also affect other factions). Also some incentive to buy karma boosters. ^^;; It will decrease over time though, unlike gems to gold.

One of the ideas of map-specific currency is to get people to play that specific part of content, e.g. play the Silverwastes to gather bandid crests. Making those exchangeable for karma would just lead to the same problem we already have with gold: instead of playing different content for different currencies, a sizeable number of people would end up grinding karma in whatever content is presumed to give the best karma:time ratio at that time, leading to all of the secondary effects we already see with gold farming these days. Somehow I don’t think that’s ANet’s vision of this game .

Why should I support one faction over another? Why not simply buy whichever faction gives me the best rates? if there is no reason to support one over another, the difference between the two price wise is going to be zero, or close to it. You just can’t put in vendors alone for this to work.

There’s already something in place like that (ie. Dry Top), but instead of it just being tied to a map dynamic, it will be affected by factions as well.

HaxTester.9816:

There’s already something in place like that (ie. Dry Top), but instead of it just being tied to a map dynamic, it will be affected by factions as well.

That’s too vague and doesn’t answer my question.

Let’s say there is faction A and faction B. Why should players support A over B consistently over time when switching to the cheapest faction at each purchase will give them the best prices. If everyone is doing this then there will be no difference in the prices and you have faction currency that could just as well be karma for all the difference it makes.

And you can blow your karma on skins, linen cloth gloves, Lost Orrian Jewelry Box
or if you have the karmic converter you can use that.

So the question really is, why havent you?

As more people buy faction specific items, the prices quickly soar up. The only way to bring it down is to support that faction. You can buy faction currency when it is still low and save it, so in future updates, you can exchange it for better goods and buffs (just like stockpiling gems early in the game). Take note this is a global exchange rate, not just a map wide exchange rate, but an exchange rate that affects all worlds, in all maps, just like GW1 factions.

Maybe this is an alternative to karma point use? ^^;;

HaxTester.9816:

As more people buy faction specific items, the prices quickly soar up. The only way to bring it down is to support that faction. You can buy faction currency when it is still low and save it, so in future updates, you can exchange it for better goods and buffs (just like stockpiling gems early in the game). Take note this is a global exchange rate, not just a map wide exchange rate, but an exchange rate that affects all worlds, in all maps, just like GW1 factions.

Maybe this is an alternative to karma point use? ^^;;

And if half the populace supports A and half supports B, the prices will be kept low by that alone. Even moreso once everyone has everything they would want or need from the vendors and no longer buy from them.

It also sounds like an awful lot of places for code to bug out and cause either hyper inflation (not calculating the people supporting the faction properly) or hyper deflation (not calculating the quantities bought properly).

We don’t need complicated means to turn one currency into another. We either need to just not have the new currency at all or no means to turn one currency into the other. And we’ll likely have the latter as ANet wants players to play the content, not use their stockpiled karma/gold/etc to buy the new shinies the moment the zone opens up on day 1.

HaxTester.9816:

As more people buy faction specific items, the prices quickly soar up. The only way to bring it down is to support that faction. You can buy faction currency when it is still low and save it, so in future updates, you can exchange it for better goods and buffs (just like stockpiling gems early in the game). Take note this is a global exchange rate, not just a map wide exchange rate, but an exchange rate that affects all worlds, in all maps, just like GW1 factions.

Maybe this is an alternative to karma point use? ^^;;

I’m still not seeing how this works.

“As more people buy faction specific items, the prices quickly soar up. The only way to bring it down is to support that faction”

you sort of neglected to explain how a faction is supported. Can’t be by buying, as buying causes the price to go up. You’re not putting in critical details of this system. Your system as currently (not) explained is unworkable.