Guild Wars 2

Many of us have asked ourselves the same question, “Why isn’t our WxP account bound?” It’s still US no matter what character we’re rolling at the moment, right? We’re still putting in the same amount of man hours in WvW. Thus, why aren’t we given experience for those hours? Instead of it being divided down, requiring more and more for each alt. Heaven forbid we decide in the future to reroll a character and lose all that WxP.

In my point of view, it’s a ridiculous concept to put a virtual character ahead of the living breathing, real life person who paid to play the game.

I’ve got 15 supply and a print that say’s we can do something about this! :-)

DeWolfe.2174:

In my point of view, it’s a ridiculous concept to put a virtual character ahead of the living breathing, real life person who paid to play the game.

So when you go up a level in PVE, all your alts should go up a level, right?

And if your Warrior character learns a new elite skill, all your other chars should have access to it too, right?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

DeWolfe.2174:

In my point of view, it’s a ridiculous concept to put a virtual character ahead of the living breathing, real life person who paid to play the game.

So when you go up a level in PVE, all your alts should go up a level, right?

And if your Warrior character learns a new elite skill, all your other chars should have access to it too, right?

Not even close to being the same thing.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

DeWolfe.2174:

In my point of view, it’s a ridiculous concept to put a virtual character ahead of the living breathing, real life person who paid to play the game.

So when you go up a level in PVE, all your alts should go up a level, right?

And if your Warrior character learns a new elite skill, all your other chars should have access to it too, right?

You aren’t earning access to profession specific skills, character specific traits, gear, etc. You are being rewarded for putting time and effort into WvW, you shouldn’t be punished (in either rank or passive buffs) for wanting to play on an alt.

My titles aren’t lost when I switch characters, my sPvP level and rewards aren’t lost, why should my WvW rewards? It’s a backwards system based on previous precedents. If the WvW rewards were something itemizable, I would agree with you, but they aren’t.

Graybes.8251:

Not even close to being the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

With one character I do PVE activity X enough times to get Y xp and that character goes up a level.

now replace PVE for WvW and level for rank

In GW1 I had to level up my lightbringer title on each character to get the benefit for PvE, and since many of the WvW rank effects give a bonus against NPCs I don’t see why GW2 should be any different.

Now in GW1 the PvP titles were account bound, but the GW1 style of PvP is much closer to sPvP, which has titles that match the GW1 PvP title system perfectly. WvW is something else.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Graybes.8251:

Not even close to being the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

Not in the slightest

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Graybes.8251:

Not even close to being the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

With one character I do PVE activity X enough times to get Y xp and that character goes up a level.

now replace PVE for WvW and level for rank

Agreed, it’s exactly the same thing. This isn’t just an achievement or title, you are buying abilities with these points, and I am going to be taking different paths with each character.

Yes, you can eventually max them all, but that’s not going to be for a while and in the mean-time different characters will specialize differently.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Graybes.8251:

Not even close to being the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

With one character I do PVE activity X enough times to get Y xp and that character goes up a level.

now replace PVE for WvW and level for rank

Except for the timeframe of course. 500 hours to level 80 would be rather excessive, and that’s arguing for a constant 500 hours of WvW ikittenerg. Considering level to 80 takes 60 hours on average, that is a huge slap in the face for those of us that like to play multiple characters. It stifles us and prevents us from using our characters, that we have already built up in WvW, unless we decide to take the hit and repeat the experience, skills and buffs we’ve already earned.

edit: why is “in” “a” “zerg” being filtered out?

Nabrok.9023:

Agreed, it’s exactly the same thing. This isn’t just an achievement or title, you are buying abilities with these points, and I am going to be taking different paths with each character.

Yes, you can eventually max them all, but that’s not going to be for a while and in the mean-time different characters will specialize differently.

If you have several level 80s of the same profession I might agree. However, these skills are not professions specific, they are passive buffs and reaching the end takes almost 10 times longer than leveling a character to 80. Beyond that, there really isn’t much variety in the skills.

If there was variety, if there was profession specific abilities, and if the timeframe was reasonable, I would agree. But unfortunately that is not the case.

If the bonus effects from the new WvW ranks are actively preventing you from playing other characters… You’ve got some other problems there. The siege weapon skills you get from ranks are about all you need in the long run, the rest is just shiny goodness that is not needed to play WvW effectively. Even the new siege skills are not required to win a fight, though if you’re on a ballista the difference could be noticeable.

It’s not even close to the same thing as level experience, and I agree that it should be account wide and not character specific. It will pigeonhole people into single characters.
“Oh, I can’t play the character I actually would like to play because I need the +5 supply for my group.”

I’ve already found myself not logging into my other level 80s other than my primary because it feels wasteful.

Kincaidia.3192:

It’s not even close to the same thing as level experience, and I agree that it should be account wide and not character specific. It will pigeonhole people into single characters.
“Oh, I can’t play the character I actually would like to play because I need the +5 supply for my group.”

I’ve already found myself not logging into my other level 80s other than my primary because it feels wasteful.

Exactly. Yes, it is our personal preferences. But when the game actively discourages playing on alts because of a lack of reward for the time and effort you spend into it (especially when it takes hundreds of hours of zerging), it’s very frustrating.

That’s great that they got more people involved in WvW, don’t isolate those of us that already enjoyed it thoroughly.

That wasteful feeling is quite literally all that is preventing you from playing your other characters. These ranks do not give a large enough bonus to one player that, if in an even fight, one would win only because of their ranks. In fact it does not give any bonus that would help in such a fight, unless it’s a ballista vs ballista fight.

Graybes.8251:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Graybes.8251:

Not even close to being the same thing.

It’s exactly the same thing.

Not in the slightest

Your eloquence has moved me and proved that your point of view is the only true one.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Nabrok.9023:

Agreed, it’s exactly the same thing. This isn’t just an achievement or title, you are buying abilities with these points, and I am going to be taking different paths with each character.

Yes, you can eventually max them all, but that’s not going to be for a while and in the mean-time different characters will specialize differently.

If you have several level 80s of the same profession I might agree. However, these skills are not professions specific, they are passive buffs and reaching the end takes almost 10 times longer than leveling a character to 80. Beyond that, there really isn’t much variety in the skills.

If there was variety, if there was profession specific abilities, and if the timeframe was reasonable, I would agree. But unfortunately that is not the case.

Even if they’re not profession specific the way I play my necro is different from the way I play my ranger which is different from the way I play my warrior. Those differences mean I will be prioritizing different lines for each of those characters.

The time line is reasonable. I actually think it’s a bit short. This stuff should take an extremely long time. I’m worried some people will have level 2000 in months when it should take years.

Btw: I have 5 level 80s chars and they already all have rank 5.

Took about 8 hours.

Vv W.7821:

That wasteful feeling is quite literally all that is preventing you from playing your other characters. These ranks do not give a large enough bonus to one player that, if in an even fight, one would win only because of their ranks. In fact it does not give any bonus that would help in such a fight, unless it’s a ballista vs ballista fight.

The fight advantage isn’t what matters. What matters is losing what you have earned. Passive abilities, rank, and especially the enemy title associated with the rank. These weren’t introduced as something that would give players a huge advantage over, but something to reward time spent in WvW, these rewards are lost when you switch characters. It’s disillusioning, especially you play on multiple alts.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Btw: I have 5 level 80s chars and they already all have rank 5.

Took about 8 hours.

You realize that the first five levels are equivalent of leveling from 5 to 6, right? Leveling to 5 is easy.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Vv W.7821:

That wasteful feeling is quite literally all that is preventing you from playing your other characters. These ranks do not give a large enough bonus to one player that, if in an even fight, one would win only because of their ranks. In fact it does not give any bonus that would help in such a fight, unless it’s a ballista vs ballista fight.

The fight advantage isn’t what matters. What matters is losing what you have earned. Passive abilities, rank, and especially the enemy title associated with the rank. These weren’t introduced as something that would give players a huge advantage over, but something to reward time spent in WvW, these rewards are lost when you switch characters. It’s disillusioning, especially you play on multiple alts.

You’re not losing them though, they are passive abilities that you earned for another character. It’s exactly like the GW1 PvE titles that gave passive abilities to help in PvE.

Vv W.7821:

You’re not losing them though, they are passive abilities that you earned for another character. It’s exactly like the GW1 PvE titles that gave passive abilities to help in PvE.

You are losing them unless you play that character. If the time investment was more reasonable, it wouldn’t be an issue, but the combination of the time investment and the lack of rewards between characters is significant to many people.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

You realize that the first five levels are equivalent of leveling from 5 to 6, right? Leveling to 5 is easy.

Never said it was hard, just wanted to put things in perspectives for those weeping over having to do it for each alt.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

You realize that the first five levels are equivalent of leveling from 5 to 6, right? Leveling to 5 is easy.

Never said it was hard, just wanted to put things in perspectives for those weeping over having to do it for each alt.

That’s not perspective though, that is misinformation. If leveling 1-5 takes as much time as 5-6 and every level until at least 27 that’s rather excessive. Especially when the first supply upgrade is 30 points.

Beyond that I find it hard to believe you have 5 at level 5 unless you have been constantly zerging for 20-30~ hours total since the patch, which is rather ridiculous considering it came out two days ago.

nope, 2 sessions of about 4 hours each. no zerging required.

Take a char into red bl, cap all the camps and sentries,
go into green bl and do the same.
then spend some time defending keep and home towers in EB.

swap chars and repeat,

maybe I was especially lucky that BLs were quiet and that EB was packed. /shrug

dude they are giving it away as is . All you have to do is follow a zerg ball and spam your none targeted ae . How much easier do you want it?

Filthy casuals.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

nope, 2 sessions of about 4 hours each. no zerging required.

Take a char into red bl, cap all the camps and sentries,
go into green bl and do the same.
then spend some time defending keep and home towers in EB.

swap chars and repeat,

maybe I was especially lucky that BLs were quiet and that EB was packed. /shrug

12 × 38 = 456 (all sentries in both borderlands)
14 × 10 = 140 (all camps in both borderlands)
19 × 20 = 380 (assuming each camp had two dolyaks)

Without the defenses, that’s not even enough to get up to rank 2.

You would have had to have done 50-60~ tower defenses to make the rest of the experience needed to get to level 5.

edit: that’s each character as well … that seems like quite a bit more than two four hour sessions.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

12 × 38 = 456 (all sentries in both borderlands)
14 × 10 = 140 (all camps in both borderlands)

btw there’s 7 sentries per BL and camps are not worth 10(wiki says 75 but I can’t confirm off the top of my head, definitely more than ten though). You also appear to be ignoring player kills, which is where I got most of the WXP… melting away enemy zerglings with siege during those keep/tower defenses.

I didn’t break down the math or pay attention to the numbers while playing, I just kept doing my usual thing till I hit rank 5 and then switched chars.. after those two sessions all 5 were done. Not much more I can say.

Feel free to keep trying to compute some kind of answer that satisfies you.

Even with an excess of kills (which would be really hard to get since killing bodies in zergs becomes inefficient after a 5-10 min fight since the exp DR hits), that’s still a significant amount of time.

And past that, even if you did manage to get to 5 on 5 characters in 8 hours. thats 25 levels in 8 hours, as opposed to 5 every 8 hours if you keep that same WXP rate. So to get all 5 characters the first supply tier (one additional supply per char) you’d need 575 points, which would take roughly 920 additional hours past getting them to the initial level 5.

There’s the perspective you were pushing, just for clarification.

I was waiting for the update to make me play again GW2, now I am totally disappointed.
I have 4 chars playing WvW and now I know all of them will stay forever mediocre or I should invest 10000 hours just to make them equal.

Since I wont invest so many hours I will play only one or two, they will bore me to death and I will play GW2 even less. Good job devs!

Chavdar.9432:

I was waiting for the update to make me play again GW2, now I am totally disappointed.
I have 4 chars playing WvW and now I know all of them will stay forever mediocre or I should invest 10000 hours just to make them equal.

Since I wont invest so many hours I will play only one or two, they will bore me to death and I will play GW2 even less. Good job devs!

if you are really not going to play the game again because of passive abilities that barely do anything then you really weren’t waiting to play this game again. Claiming that one of your characters will be “mediocre” because they don’t have a slight damage boost against NPCs or wall is just looking for excuses to not play this game.

Having them be character bound is the way to go.

In the future, I hope they use this as a platform to introduce neat new personal statements like profession-specific finishers.

Balance permitting, they could have WEXP skills grant small profession specific boosts which could, for example, make Thieves even better roamers, Guardians apply small boosts to their allies, etc.

What then if these achievements are account bound? There could still be solutions, but all of them would be clumsier than having left WEXP character bound to start with.

The “there are no unique boosts, thus it should be account bound” view is very short sighted. I understand that instant gratification is the best kind of gratification for the player as an individual, but that sequestering the WEXP to separate characters creates the most flexible platform for future modification/improvement of the game as a whole.

From a game design perspective, closing off your opportunities for future improvement is senseless.

Leave WEXP Character bound.

LFk.1408:

Having them be character bound is the way to go.

In the future, I hope they use this as a platform to introduce neat new personal statements like profession-specific finishers.

Balance permitting, they could even have profession specific boosts in WvW, which would make thieves even better roamers, Guardians apply small boosts to their allies, etc.

What then if these achievements are account bound? There could still be solutions, but all of them would be clumsier than having left WEXP character bound to start with.

The “there are no unique boosts, thus it should be account bound” view is very short sighted. I understand that instant gratification is the best kind of gratification for the player as an individual, but that sequestering the WEXP to separate characters creates the most flexible platform for future modification/improvement of the game as a whole.

From a game design perspective, closing off your opportunities for future improvement is senseless.

Leave WEXP Character bound.

Instant gratification is a nice way to belittle the arguments, especially when you ignore them all, 500 hours per character is too much. I’m not quitting the game over this, I’m not stopping to play. The fact that it takes that long to get that high is disincentive to play my other characters, it is not how I enjoy the game. In the sense of progression, that incentive took how I played the game away from me.

It is irritating, it would be appreciated if it was looked into. Not everyone is a casual with a single character they play.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Vv W.7821:

You’re not losing them though, they are passive abilities that you earned for another character. It’s exactly like the GW1 PvE titles that gave passive abilities to help in PvE.

You are losing them unless you play that character. If the time investment was more reasonable, it wouldn’t be an issue, but the combination of the time investment and the lack of rewards between characters is significant to many people.

My GW1 example still stands, this is how it worked before, it’s no surprise that it works this way now. The amount of time it takes is reasonable in the long term, it’s a bonus to people who stay around and play the game, not to people who just want to grind out more abilities.

EDIT: 500 hours per character is a character and a third finished per month, hardly unreasonable.

Vv W.7821:

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Vv W.7821:

You’re not losing them though, they are passive abilities that you earned for another character. It’s exactly like the GW1 PvE titles that gave passive abilities to help in PvE.

You are losing them unless you play that character. If the time investment was more reasonable, it wouldn’t be an issue, but the combination of the time investment and the lack of rewards between characters is significant to many people.

My GW1 example still stands, this is how it worked before, it’s no surprise that it works this way now. The amount of time it takes is reasonable in the long term, it’s a bonus to people who stay around and play the game, not to people who just want to grind out more abilities.

Nothing in GW1 required 500 hours per character afaik. Please show me where I am wrong.

Even if you’re being really liberal with your skill points per hour, you’re looking probably at 1 point an hour max (the first few levels go quickly – they scale up to level 5). For mastering supply, it’s 700 skill – that’s 700 hours.

If you take that phenomenal rate, and you wvw for 4 hours a day, that’s 6 months of playing. I leveled 3 characters to 80, and probably spent 2 weeks per character or less.

This is a time commitment WAY beyond simply getting to 80 – by 10 or 12 times longer.

Things take longer in GW2, if you just want to grind things out you’re going to be sad. However if you play the game for a while you’ll eventually get it all.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Instant gratification is a nice way to belittle the arguments, especially when you ignore them all, 500 hours per character is too much. I’m not quitting the game over this, I’m not stopping to play. The fact that it takes that long to get that high is disincentive to play my other characters, it is not how I enjoy the game. In the sense of progression, that incentive took how I played the game away from me.

It is irritating, it would be appreciated if it was looked into. Not everyone is a casual with a single character they play.

Really? You’re going to take the argument that because it isn’t max-able, thus you must keep playing one character until it’s maxed?

That’s not even an argument. That’s a personal choice. I don’t deal with that.

I try to view it as objectively as possible: you know that having them be Acc. Bound would be easier for me as well, right? I play 5 characters, and don’t actually have that much time on a given day.

Still, you’ll notice that I tried to observe which platform would leave the most flexibility for the overall design of the game, leaving the most potential for the future.

Vv W.7821:

Things take longer in GW2, if you just want to grind things out you’re going to be sad. However if you play the game for a while you’ll eventually get it all.

You’re seriously arguing that 500 hours per character for those minimal rewards is practical? That goes against being alt-friendly in every other aspect of the game. Nothing else takes that long. Titles are earned across accounts, you could get a legendary with world completion on each character in less time.

What makes these rewards so much more valuable that they should disincentivize playing alternate characters? Beyond that, because of the time investment and like of respecing, you are making permanent choices that you have to live with this character through. If you really don’t change your playstyle and goals in that many hours, I’d be very impressed.

Graybes.8251:

Chavdar.9432:

I was waiting for the update to make me play again GW2, now I am totally disappointed.
I have 4 chars playing WvW and now I know all of them will stay forever mediocre or I should invest 10000 hours just to make them equal.

Since I wont invest so many hours I will play only one or two, they will bore me to death and I will play GW2 even less. Good job devs!

if you are really not going to play the game again because of passive abilities that barely do anything then you really weren’t waiting to play this game again. Claiming that one of your characters will be “mediocre” because they don’t have a slight damage boost against NPCs or wall is just looking for excuses to not play this game.

If you have played Diablo 3 you can understand me, since they introduced paragon level there, 90% of players play only their main, because he is getting better and better with every level. Playing your alt is not worthy and please don’t come up with “you should play the game for fun and don’t care for stats”, we all do care for stats.
I don’t want to see the same in GW2, I want to play all my chars.

Make 5 times harder to level, but make it account wide.
It should be like in multiplayer shooters. Level up your class skills and weapons and then no matter which one you play you level in rank. YOU the player, not the class.
I want to be efficient in WvW. I want all my chars to be able to hold more provisions, I want to be able to switch to different class depending on the situation.
No, I wont grind more to make them all higher ranks, I will just play less and less.

LFk.1408:

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Instant gratification is a nice way to belittle the arguments, especially when you ignore them all, 500 hours per character is too much. I’m not quitting the game over this, I’m not stopping to play. The fact that it takes that long to get that high is disincentive to play my other characters, it is not how I enjoy the game. In the sense of progression, that incentive took how I played the game away from me.

It is irritating, it would be appreciated if it was looked into. Not everyone is a casual with a single character they play.

Really? You’re going to take the argument that because it isn’t max-able, thus you must keep playing one character until it’s maxed?

That’s not even an argument. That’s a personal choice. I don’t deal with that.

I try to view it as objectively as possible: you know that having them be Acc. Bound would be easier for me as well, right? I play 5 characters, and don’t actually have that much time on a given day.

Still, you’ll notice that I tried to observe which platform would leave the most flexibility for the overall design of the game, leaving the most potential for the future.

Actually they are maxable, that’s why the designers and dev’s left out the ability to respec (read the interviews and dev posts, its intentionally stated several times). The time investment for that is the point. It’s great that you don’t care about completing things, other people do. Everything else in this game can be completed in a practical manner. Even sPvP which takes a ridiculous amount of time to get up there, may even take years to get to the final tier, at least that is account bound.

At the very least the design is inconsistent since glory rank is account bound whereas wvw rank is character bound.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Vv W.7821:

Things take longer in GW2, if you just want to grind things out you’re going to be sad. However if you play the game for a while you’ll eventually get it all.

You’re seriously arguing that 500 hours per character for those minimal rewards is practical? That goes against being alt-friendly in every other aspect of the game. Nothing else takes that long. Titles are earned across accounts, you could get a legendary with world completion on each character in less time.

What makes these rewards so much more valuable that they should disincentivize playing alternate characters? Beyond that, because of the time investment and like of respecing, you are making permanent choices that you have to live with this character through. If you really don’t change your playstyle and goals in that many hours, I’d be very impressed.

Permanent choices that, after roughly 20 days of grinding world xp are only permanent, no choice matters after you have everything. That’s 20 days of actual play time, using your time estimate. For the casual player it might take a year or two to max this on a character or two, but by the end of april there will be players who have maxed it on at least one character. I don’t know about you, but if you can get a legendary on each character in under 20 days of game time you should be able to max your WvW ranks on a couple of alts…

20 game days? What does that even mean? Assuming you’re playing 4 hours a day (which is way above casual by the way), it would take you just over 4 months to get 500 hours.

Assuming you spend every second of those 500 hours in the most efficient zerg possible. It’s more realistic that it could take 700 on average as someone calculated above with the hour average that dev’s cited.

Now, that’s over 4 months, to max JUST the supply bonus, on ONE character. I’m sorry, but that’s just dumb. No other part of the game functions like this, it’s fine with goals that take years, make them vanity items and account bound, like sPvP does.

These ‘rewards’ are unnecessarily time consuming.

This is, of course, assuming it actually takes 500 hours of in game grinding time to reach max rank on a single character. I myself am a casual player who has about 712 logged hours in game since launch. If this was out at launch and I didn’t play my alts I would have maxed my ranks by now. If you want to talk about an unnecessary amount of time look at the titles for defending keeps/tower/what not, these ranks are not supposed to be something you get as quickly as you reach level 80, it’s something to give people who spend a lot of time playing a reward for that time spent. And 20 game days (20.8) is how many days 500 hours fits into.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

20 game days? What does that even mean? Assuming you’re playing 4 hours a day (which is way above casual by the way), it would take you just over 4 months to get 500 hours.

Assuming you spend every second of those 500 hours in the most efficient zerg possible. It’s more realistic that it could take 700 on average as someone calculated above with the hour average that dev’s cited.

Now, that’s over 4 months, to max JUST the supply bonus, on ONE character. I’m sorry, but that’s just dumb. No other part of the game functions like this, it’s fine with goals that take years, make them vanity items and account bound, like sPvP does.

These ‘rewards’ are unnecessarily time consuming.

This ^

But hey, it’s getting closer to summer. More reason to go outside more often.

Falling behind the curve of power creep won’t motivate me to play a game more. Not having 8 hours a day to play WvW will make me fall behind, nothing I can do to change that.

There’s a ton of "Assaulter"s running around already. I have two rank 4 "Invader"s at the moment. I probably won’t level up my guardian or engineer any time soon, will be trying to get the wxp on my “mains”. What will take a year for the average player, will take me three years (or would, if it didn’t act to discourage me rather than entice me to grind).

“Play your way” as long as that way doesn’t include having alts.

(There’s also the issues of much less wxp for support roles, none for rezzing allies or guarding dolyaks, but that’s another rant, for another thread.)

It would make sense that it’s character bound if we couldn’t unlock all the abilities but we can so its obviously worthless and makes it a huge grind keeping it this way.

Either change it so we have to choose between a limited amount of skills to specialize in certain tasks for each character or make it account bound instead of character bound so we aren’t spending time grinding threw the levels on each of our toons for the same benefit as before.

Account wide like in GW1 would be nice.
We did get that eventually so. I totally am expecting it here.

Emmet.2943:

It would make sense that it’s character bound if we couldn’t unlock all the abilities but we can so its obviously worthless and makes it a huge grind keeping it this way.

Either change it so we have to choose between a limited amount of skills to specialize in certain tasks for each character or make it account bound instead of character bound so we aren’t spending time grinding threw the levels on each of our toons for the same benefit as before.

As I said before, I think leaving the system open to allow for character specialization in the future is the best route.

Why can something not be allowing room for improvement down the road?

I guess i’ll say it again:

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Instant gratification is a nice way to belittle the arguments, especially when you ignore them all.

I suppose it could be seen as belittling, but unfortunately I have to say what I think is the truth. The sad thing is I agree that account bound WEXP is a slightly (very slightly) more fluid system with the current rewards, but unfortunately it is a very narrow and closed system that makes future addition of class specialization very clumsy.

“I don’t care about leaving the platform open to improvement months or years down the road, I want a slightly easier system now” is the attitude I see. Hence, my comments above.

Everything about the number of hours it takes to max, the tendency to focus on one character .. none of these are arguments at all! Merely commentary on personal playstyle and should not be factored into discussion on which choice is considered sound game design. It would be great to provide reasons to change to Account Bound design that were rooted in what this system can offer the game going forward (in terms of improvements and content) versus Character Bound. I have stated what I view as potential improvements with a CB model, and so far no one has listed any for AB.

If ArenaNet, for whatever reason, acknowledged that they will never, ever, add character based / profession based WvW abilities, then I’ll feel less strongly about this.

maloki.3527:

Account wide like in GW1 would be nice.
We did get that eventually so. I totally am expecting it here.

Those titles did not give any mechanical bonus. They match the way the sPvP titles work.