Old map currency in new maps?
Anything is possible, but I doubt it. Unbound Magic is pretty generic. All of the other currencies are rather specific to their respective zones.
Plus, Unbound Magic isn’t the only currency in BF and EB. You’ve also got Bloodstone Rubies and Petrified Wood, which are zone-specific. Which acts as a “limiter” to keep players who have stockpiled a lot of Unbound Magic from just buying everything without ever needing to do content in that area. The devs don’t want players to be able to bypass content with previous grinding.
(edited by Electro.4173)
Since ANet decided to use Unbound Magic as currency in both Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay is it possible we will get new maps with old currencies ( Geodes, Bandit Crests, Airship Parts, Lumps of Aurilium, Ley Line Crystals. ) so all of us who are sick of farming same content over and over again can finish achievements/crafting.
The point of map currencies is to allow people to work towards long-term goals by farming. That’s actually been a frequent request by the community, because the alternatives are RNG or using coin (the universal unbound currency) or karma (the universal bound currency).
I happen to like coin, because it means I can play anything I like and save up for the things I want. Still, a lot of people like the idea of making a little progress each time they play, without having to ‘save up’. The downside is, as the OP noted: it feels like grinding to go back to the same maps/events. It’s hard to balance it — if the numbers are too low, people finish it quickly and burn out and if they are too high, people despair and do something else before there’s a chance of burn out (and everyone’s personal threshold is different).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I think zone specific map currencies should stay in the zone they were created with (though hopefully no more zone specific keys unless we get a keyring), but I wouldn’t be opposed to implementing a generic currency converter similar to the ley line converter you can get from DS achievements. The rate should be fairly low (and catered to each map, since currency is easier to get on some maps than others), but probably around trading in ~15-20 of one type of currency for another would be a good start? It allows people to play on any map they want and eventually earn their rewards, but they would have to play longer. It would turn into a choice of whether they want to play the maps they enjoy more or get their rewards faster, which I think is a fairly good tradeoff for players to make
Anything is possible, but I doubt it. Unbound Magic is pretty generic. All of the other currencies are rather specific to their respective zones.
I’d say ley line crystals are pretty generic when we’re dealing with so much ley line energy. Same with ley line sparks. Airship Parts/Oil could become used in future Pact Stronghold maps too.
Similarly, Auric Dust/Auric Lumps can be used in any future Forgotten-based maps, especially if we’re going to the Crystal Desert as the “leaks” want us to think.
Plus, Unbound Magic isn’t the only currency in BF and EB. You’ve also got Bloodstone Rubies and Petrified Wood, which are zone-specific. Which acts as a “limiter” to keep players who have stockpiled a lot of Unbound Magic from just buying everything without ever needing to do content in that area. The devs don’t want players to be able to bypass content with previous grinding.
Ember Bay also uses karma a lot.
I think karma and old map currencies could be mixed in with smaller-gained “new map currencies” and said “new map currencies” could eventually be used again later on. Like if we go to another Bloodstone map, rather than Unbound Magic we get Blood Rubies + something new. Or heck, even Blood Rubies + Ley Line Crystals + Karma, just to make things interesting.
Personally, I think that would be a better use of the map currency system than just making a new currency every map. That way we don’t end up flooding the wallet so quickly with dozens of unwanted map currencies.
I could easily imagine the reformed Pact’s frontal assault map against Kralkatorrik being Airship Parts + Geodes, for example. Or if they were to bring Lake Doric into the game, I could see that being Bandit Crests + <Something New>.
The point of map currencies is to allow people to work towards long-term goals by farming. That’s actually been a frequent request by the community, because the alternatives are RNG or using coin (the universal unbound currency) or karma (the universal bound currency).
The problem with this argument is that there is no alternative. What’s gained by RNG is still gained by RNG only, and what’s gained by vendors is gained by vendors only.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
The point of map currencies is to allow people to work towards long-term goals by farming. That’s actually been a frequent request by the community, because the alternatives are RNG or using coin (the universal unbound currency) or karma (the universal bound currency).
The problem with this argument is that there is no alternative. What’s gained by RNG is still gained by RNG only, and what’s gained by vendors is gained by vendors only.
You’re misunderstanding my point: different people like different sorts of acquisition methods. RNG works for me; map currencies work for other people. The game offers a diversity of techniques, but it can usually only use one of them per item (although plenty of exceptions exist).
It’s a design choice, based on appealing to different gameplay styles; it’s not a matter of technical or lore-based limitations (each of which can be overcome).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
They could combine older currencies with new ones in different ways, I suppose.
But I doubt they’d ever introduce a new zone with only old currencies, even if it was a combination of multiple currencies. They need a new one in the mix to get around the “someone with a huge stockpile of stuff can just buy everything” issue. For example, if they did, say, Bandit Crests + Unbound Magic, I could easily buy everything in the zone without doing a single piece of content in said zone. I have a crap ton of bandit crests saved up as I enjoy running SW events for fun but rarely do shovel runs so the crests just pile up, and I have enough Rubies and Wood that I could salvage for Magic.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t do that because I actually enjoy doing new content (plus I’m saving my Rubies / Wood for accessories). But any time someone could just get everything the first second a new area launches, it’d be a big problem for overall retention of interest in the zone. Which is what all these map currencies are meant to reduce.