Guild Wars 2

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a community so divided about an issue with developers such as this, so I thought I’d also put my opinions all over this mess.

WvW should never be account-bound. It makes no sense for them to be! I play a multitude of characters in WvW and I like to think each and every one of them plays a specific role in my server’s success.

-My warrior is my tank (he’s sort of close to the guard defense trait).
-My guard is another frontliner (also sort of close to that trait).
-My thief enjoys sitting on an AC all day (but he doesn’t have enough WvW ranks to get AC mastery sadly).
-My mesmer is excellent at ramming doors and the flame ram mastery was excellent for him (except I’ll need to designate some time for him to rank that trait line up).
-My necro loves LOVES catapulting walls (however needs considerable more ranks before he can use that trait line fully).

Now, it would be great to combine all those wvw ranks into one account bound rank so all my toons could get what they want, but that goes against the whole spirit of Guild Wars 2.

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

Everything I do on one character in this game cannot directly help my other characters gain levels or gain gear.

Except, all of those things ARE account bound, except for WvW ranks. WvW ranks should be account bound as well.

WvW ranks should not be an exception. Everything in this game is about sharing between your account. We even have a free wallet now to more easily do this. Why are WvW ranks any different? If the reasoning is that they give a direct benefit over other players, then all account bound anything should be removed from WvW as well.

Picking WvW ranks to be soul bound out of so many other aspects of the game are account bound makes absolutely no sense and kills players ability to swap between alts.

Ideally soulbound is good if you play the game 247 and have enough wxp for all. You just need to grind them in wxp train.

Unfortunately, I don’t actually play wvw that much now ever since they introduce the wxp skill rank system. Only when people shout in LA asking for help to defend or friends call. Reason is simple, all my char are little in wxp and I just don’t want to bother to level them all. Plus there is no wxp train in certain time zone. Any of my char is noob to the invader’s eye even though I had more than 2500 hr previously in wvw. XD I don’t even want to touch siege when you know others have siege mastery.

I am just reading forum to see if anything new in wvw and see if it can bring interest back to people. But then if they do change it to account bound now, I am not sure if I still have the enthusiasm to play wvw as much as I once had ’casue I am away from it too long. XD

Ummm….. I think you meant to say, WxP should NOT remain soulbound and become account wide. Because having it soulbound IS killing the usefulness of alts.

Title is misleading. That said, anyone that spends a significant time in wvw knows the obvious answer to this. Unfortunately Anet doesn’t spend enough time playing there to see it.

Is there anyone (outside of the WvW dev team) that legitimately feels that WvW rank shouldn’t be account bound, with character-bound traits? I came here expecting to see a logical thought-out argument (probably written by someone on the WvW dev team) in favor of an unpopular position. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed, and I blame my sleepiness in this regard.

I’ll go one step further and say they should decouple WvW traits from WvW ranks entirely and rework/balance them around a set budget that everyone has in common regardless of rank. Then WvW rank would provide prestige alone: titles, improved aesthetics, exclusive skins, etc.

Making WvW rank account bound would probably mitigate my growing distaste for the game mode, but in my sleep-deprived state I can’t think of the word that would adequately describe my feelings towards WvW if traits were decoupled from rank.

DeWolfe.2174:

Ummm….. I think you meant to say, WxP should NOT remain soulbound and become account wide. Because having it soulbound IS killing the usefulness of alts.

I am agreeing with you. The whole post was delving into the various ways GW2 is anything but “per character” and that WvW ranks should be account wide as well.

traeler.5274:

Is there anyone (outside of the WvW dev team) that legitimately feels that WvW rank shouldn’t be account bound, with character-bound traits? I came here expecting to see a logical thought-out argument (probably written by someone on the WvW dev team) in favor of an unpopular position. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed, and I blame my sleepiness in this regard.

I’ll go one step further and say they should decouple WvW traits from WvW ranks entirely and rework/balance them around a set budget that everyone has in common regardless of rank. Then WvW rank would provide prestige alone: titles, improved aesthetics, exclusive skins, etc.

Making WvW rank account bound would probably mitigate my growing distaste for the game mode, but in my sleep-deprived state I can’t think of the word that would adequately describe my feelings towards WvW if traits were decoupled from rank.

I would absolutely hate account bound ranks. Totally invalidates my character’s progression and would make my characters just a tool to level up my account. I feel more represented in game by my character and less by my account. Same reason I don’t play sPvP: no character progression outside from improved skill in playing that character

PvE personal story progression is soulbound

PvP finisher is soulbound ( gems = kaching )

Rank is soulbound ( WXP booster = gems = kaching )

You cannot argue with gems.

I enjoyed the build up in OP, was wondering where you were going with a title like that. +1

ranks should just give skins… similar to the achievement point chests.

Zulubeast.8519:

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

1. All your gold is added into a “wallet” so that means your chars will share the same gold. Your gold earned on char x can be used on char y.
2. Dungeon tokens are also added to the “wallet”, same thing there.
3. Karma is not soulbound, also added to the wallet. Karma was soulbound before the wallet tho.
4. All legendary components are not soulbound, some are , but not all.
5. Badges of honor are also added to the “wallet”.
6. Yes WvW Ranks are per char.

You’re pretty much wrong.

most of your arguments are wrong by now.

I say again. Karma was soulbound, but with the wallet, it’s acc bount. all share the same karma.
BoH was acc bound before wallet.
Tokens was acc bound before wallet.
And even before the wallet, you could deposit gold in bank, and withdraw it from another char, with the wallet they removed that function.

According to these arguments WvW ranks should be acc bound.

UnknownFreak.2805:

Zulubeast.8519:

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

1. All your gold is added into a “wallet” so that means your chars will share the same gold. Your gold earned on char x can be used on char y.
2. Dungeon tokens are also added to the “wallet”, same thing there.
3. Karma is not soulbound, also added to the wallet. Karma was soulbound before the wallet tho.
4. All legendary components are not soulbound, some are , but not all.
5. Badges of honor are also added to the “wallet”.
6. Yes WvW Ranks are per char.

You’re pretty much wrong.

most of your arguments are wrong by now.

I say again. Karma was soulbound, but with the wallet, it’s acc bount. all share the same karma.
BoH was acc bound before wallet.
Tokens was acc bound before wallet.
And even before the wallet, you could deposit gold in bank, and withdraw it from another char, with the wallet they removed that function.

According to these arguments WvW ranks should be acc bound.

Dude read the rest of his post…

Zulubeast.8519:

Except, all of those things ARE account bound, except for WvW ranks. WvW ranks should be account bound as well.

WvW ranks should not be an exception. Everything in this game is about sharing between your account. We even have a free wallet now to more easily do this. Why are WvW ranks any different? If the reasoning is that they give a direct benefit over other players, then all account bound anything should be removed from WvW as well.

Picking WvW ranks to be soul bound out of so many other aspects of the game are account bound makes absolutely no sense and kills players ability to swap between alts.

It appears you shut down your brain and stopped reading halfway through.

WvW rank should be account bound however how you place the points should be specific to character

DeckerDontPlay.1639:

WvW rank should be account bound however how you place the points should be specific to character

^ This at the VERY least should be an option.

Better still: allow us to reset WXP point allocation and cap the number of points that can be used on a WXP build.

This way we get build diversity rather than the massive incentive to build a monolithic do-everything-WvW toon.

Anet atleast make WvW ranks account-bound just like how it works in PvP, but let the ability points stay character-bound.

I want to know my total rank! Why would I only care how many/few ranks I have ranked on my Huntard?

Make it like you did in PvP. You can even make a little info-box the same way you did in PvP (ranks per character, kills per character, caps per character etc.).

Why isn’t PvP-ranks soulbound to my Huntard?
Because it removes half of the progression. Yes I have some progression on that character, but what do I do when I decide to play a new class (or even delete it because I like Charr more than Asura)? I lose all that progression. Why would you want that?

Ability points can (wouldn’t mind it being account-bound either) stay the way it is. You level up and you get ability points (just like skill-points and trait-points work) and you put it where you feel it would fit your character the best.

Anet if you ever made PvP rewards (depending on your PvP-rank etc.) would you make them character-bound or account-bound? One of these two options will make only those with one (yes one) character happy.

Anet why is PvP-ranks not soulbound? I want more “progression” for my character!
Anet why is my achievements not soulbound? I want more “progression” for my character!
Anet why is my gold not soulbound? I want more “progression” for my character!
Anet why is my bank not soulbound? I want more “progression” for my character!

Anet if you want character progression and souldbind random things do it in all aspects of the game. Be consistent! Don’t do things half!

Your WXP-boosters will sell no matter if ranks are account- or soulbound so if you keeping it soulbound for the money – don’t. You will still make money on the boosters and you will make everyone happy.

Character-binding ranks doesn’t add more progression. It ruins progression for anyone with more than one character.
Account-binding ranks doesn’t add less progression. It doesn’t ruin progression for anyone and those with only one character (who have only one character???) gets the same amount of progression.

UnknownFreak.2805:

Zulubeast.8519:

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

1. All your gold is added into a “wallet” so that means your chars will share the same gold. Your gold earned on char x can be used on char y.
2. Dungeon tokens are also added to the “wallet”, same thing there.
3. Karma is not soulbound, also added to the wallet. Karma was soulbound before the wallet tho.
4. All legendary components are not soulbound, some are , but not all.
5. Badges of honor are also added to the “wallet”.
6. Yes WvW Ranks are per char.

You’re pretty much wrong.

most of your arguments are wrong by now.

I say again. Karma was soulbound, but with the wallet, it’s acc bount. all share the same karma.
BoH was acc bound before wallet.
Tokens was acc bound before wallet.
And even before the wallet, you could deposit gold in bank, and withdraw it from another char, with the wallet they removed that function.

According to these arguments WvW ranks should be acc bound.

If only you had kept reading…

The thing is some players had one main since launch, and are rank 600 now with MASSIVE advantages (better treb/cata/ramming, defense/offence guard buff etc). Like i mained necro for long time and loved the Fortified buff (+2500 hp). After the update i dislike necro, he’s ‘shelved for good’. Now those 145 ranks are stinking on that character for nothing, i must start all over. I’ve been hardcore farming wxp lately and it’s still going slow. Secondly ‘needing’ this wxp is bad cause you do things, that do not support your server, to rather get more wxp. and that’s silly.

Fully accound bound may be wrong. But the rewards should be boosted then a bit. Now it takes 1 year (at least, unless super hardcore), to get rank 1300 and max all the stuff. That means if you have 8 alts like me, 8 years to max all. I’m not saying i should have all chars maxed. But every char i want the buff, it feels stupid after hard work, you loose it again because alting. so my minimum is r226 for every char. And that will take ages to get. Only after r226 the fun beings (ram, supply etc master).

Well this was a surprise.

On topic I don’t really like this idea of letting different chars take different traits. That pushes down the overall number of points that you can actually meaningfully get; if that entire sheet is across your account, then you need to get 1000 or whatever number ranks to get everything, and that’s part of the reason- It’s supposed to be a very long-term goal to fill your sheet. If you can have each different character with a different setup, that’s cut down to about 350 to comfortably get everything on at least one character.

Zulubeast.8519:

UnknownFreak.2805:

Zulubeast.8519:

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

1. All your gold is added into a “wallet” so that means your chars will share the same gold. Your gold earned on char x can be used on char y.
2. Dungeon tokens are also added to the “wallet”, same thing there.
3. Karma is not soulbound, also added to the wallet. Karma was soulbound before the wallet tho.
4. All legendary components are not soulbound, some are , but not all.
5. Badges of honor are also added to the “wallet”.
6. Yes WvW Ranks are per char.

You’re pretty much wrong.

most of your arguments are wrong by now.

I say again. Karma was soulbound, but with the wallet, it’s acc bount. all share the same karma.
BoH was acc bound before wallet.
Tokens was acc bound before wallet.
And even before the wallet, you could deposit gold in bank, and withdraw it from another char, with the wallet they removed that function.

According to these arguments WvW ranks should be acc bound.

If only you had kept reading…

I loled at his response….

Developers have stated that they think of WvW ranks as personal progression record. Much like levels as opposed to traits or any currency. The difference between PvP ranks and WvW ranks is that former do not give any battle advantage, they are pretty much achievements with “bells and whistles” kinds of rewards.

That is not to say I agree with it, as I think it goes against the idea of “playing the game the way you want” and levels are not time-gated, as you can basically pay to get from 1 to 80 in a couple of hours.
I for one have leveled and geared 6 out of 8 professions mainly for WvW and was enjoying the full breadth of experience WvW provides for different professions without “falling behind the crowd” with any of them.

Nowadays I can’t, as each of my characters basically needs about 230+ ranks to stay on top of the arm race. Which is impossible for me. It is really sad and harms greatly my interest in the game.

Simply put, NO.

Rider.6024:

Simply put, NO.

Definitely shows how many people get past the title and read the rest of the post…

If there is going to be a ranking system related to WvW, whici is a supposedly “Alt Friendly Game”, but the ranking is soulbound, it keeps the player from wanting to play other classes.

I support changing this.

What I don’t understand is, I made a fuss about this the day the Ranks went live. How has it taken this long to get everyone on board with how bad of an idea Soulbound ranking was. My PERSONAL progression is tied to ME, the player. Not the pixels on the screen.

These WxP boosters better drop like candy from a Pinata. Because WvW was never supposed to be a treadmill.

DeWolfe.2174:

These WxP boosters better drop like candy from a Pinata. Because WvW was never supposed to be a treadmill.

164 ranks in the last week and only 1 WxP booster. Gotta Love it.

I am amazed how many people clearly didn’t read the full post before responding. On topic though, keeping WvW ranks soulbound just discourages people from fully enjoying the game and playing other classes that they may have and enjoy playing, but are being barred from playing because of the grind. For some reason WvW is one of, if not the biggest grind in the game even though it shouldn’t be. Let’s not forget about those achievements!

Good post by the OP in any case. Hopefully the devs pay attention.

DeWolfe.2174:

What I don’t understand is, I made a fuss about this the day the Ranks went live. How has it taken this long to get everyone on board with how bad of an idea Soulbound ranking was. My PERSONAL progression is tied to ME, the player. Not the pixels on the screen.

These WxP boosters better drop like candy from a Pinata. Because WvW was never supposed to be a treadmill.

There’s been numerous topics about it, just no real answer from Devon besides the “we want your characters to show individual progression” schpeel.

I like that the ranks are character bound. Getting rewarded for playing a character instead of jumping to whatever the next flavor of the month is is better …..

covenn.7165:

I like that the ranks are character bound. Getting rewarded for playing a character instead of jumping to whatever the next flavor of the month is is better …..

Getting rewarding for playing a character then being useless because your class got gutted*

assumes OP is T1
checks chat logs
Suspicions confirmed, spend a day in one of the lower tiers and maybe you’ll feel the sting of the few and far between rank-ups and the fact that you are actively being punished for having so many alts. Two words: Guard. Stacks.

Going up 164 ranks in a week, I would expect, is highly abnormal for most players. You’d have to train the map pretty much unchallenged all day long.

melodey.4652:

assumes OP is T1
checks chat logs
Suspicions confirmed, spend a day in one of the lower tiers and maybe you’ll feel the sting of the few and far between rank-ups and the fact that you are actively being punished for having so many alts. Two words: Guard. Stacks.

So you took the time to check OP previous posts and confirm your suspicions, but didn’t take the time to actually read what he posted. He is agreeing with you that you should have account bound ranks so you are not punished.

Yudge.4867:

melodey.4652:

assumes OP is T1
checks chat logs
Suspicions confirmed, spend a day in one of the lower tiers and maybe you’ll feel the sting of the few and far between rank-ups and the fact that you are actively being punished for having so many alts. Two words: Guard. Stacks.

So you took the time to check OP previous posts and confirm your suspicions, but didn’t take the time to actually read what he posted. He is agreeing with you that you should have account bound ranks so you are not punished.

OP was exceptionally decieving, there’s no need to ridicule people who fell to that. Title says “should remain soulbound” and actual message is buried in poorly executed attempt at debate trap.

UltraHiDef.4809:

Zulubeast.8519:

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a community so divided about an issue with developers such as this, so I thought I’d also put my opinions all over this mess.

WvW should never be account-bound. It makes no sense for them to be! I play a multitude of characters in WvW and I like to think each and every one of them plays a specific role in my server’s success.

-My warrior is my tank (he’s sort of close to the guard defense trait).
-My guard is another frontliner (also sort of close to that trait).
-My thief enjoys sitting on an AC all day (but he doesn’t have enough WvW ranks to get AC mastery sadly).
-My mesmer is excellent at ramming doors and the flame ram mastery was excellent for him (except I’ll need to designate some time for him to rank that trait line up).
-My necro loves LOVES catapulting walls (however needs considerable more ranks before he can use that trait line fully).

Now, it would be great to combine all those wvw ranks into one account bound rank so all my toons could get what they want, but that goes against the whole spirit of Guild Wars 2.

Is the gold I earn on a specific character used on my other characters? No.
When I run a dungeon on one of my characters, can I use those tokens to gear the others? No.
Even karma is soul bound to character! If I want those temple trinkets, I diligently grind out the karma on my new 80 so I can get them.
All the components to a legendary are soul bound.
Badges of Honor are soul bound.
WvW Ranks are per character.

Everything I do on one character in this game cannot directly help my other characters gain levels or gain gear.

Except, all of those things ARE account bound, except for WvW ranks. WvW ranks should be account bound as well.

WvW ranks should not be an exception. Everything in this game is about sharing between your account. We even have a free wallet now to more easily do this. Why are WvW ranks any different? If the reasoning is that they give a direct benefit over other players, then all account bound anything should be removed from WvW as well.

Picking WvW ranks to be soul bound out of so many other aspects of the game are account bound makes absolutely no sense and kills players ability to swap between alts.

I get the impression that you haven’t played GW2 for 3 months, as gold is now shared amongst your toons and you don’t have to earn it on one toon to spend it on the other, and so is karma. And not to mention, the achievement system and bonuses help all of your alts and not just one, and that excludes WXP.

lol