To Ebhilin: I totally agree with your point about Anet having more important things to be doing and I’d hope they would get these things resolved before working on something like this. The ‘buyers remorse’ thing wouldn’t in any way be a result of this new option. As we’ve already seen there are plenty of people who feel that way about the character they’ve created. I might even suggest that forcing a player to reroll the same character to experience their alternative storyline would be even more likely to upset people because there’s no way back, with this system you can change back if you like. I think suggesting that people might resent the fact that some people use real money to by it is a bit strange considering you can buy gems with in game money. I don’t really see a problem with it the game rewarding experience from the missions you haven’t done, you’re still playing the game and investing time but I would totally want to leave that up to Anet to do the math on cause after all they have all the numbers. I think a lot of this is basically people (and I think there are plenty who feel this way) wanting to have more of their game experience to be ‘account bound’ instead of ‘character bound’. Also I’m curious if you could elaborate on how you feel this would make the game ‘pay to win’.
In terms of buying gems with in-game money, I know several people who mismanage their money in game as badly as they do in real life, so for them it’d be more of an undertaking than someone who could put it on credit/debit. It might not be entirely rational, (I don’t really care either way) but I do know people that think this way. (This is the same way in which I perceive buyers remorse occuring, people without the resources or the patience to alleviate the situation themselves. I’m more or less playing Devil’s Advocate here.)
How this would be ‘pay to win’, it depends on where you’re coming from in terms of how you prioritize gameplay. If you “started over” with a level 80 character, you could probably blow through the story elements of each race in one, maybe two days. You wouldn’t be restricted by level to progress through this content, so you would have it all available to you immediately. For a player like me, I would probably be tempted to do this. I’m a story junky, but it would entirely devalue the experience for me. I wouldn’t have incentive to continue playing. I’d feel the same as if I’d gone through Skyrim or Mass Effect in god mode just to get the story elements, and I’d be done with it. Understanding that of myself, I wouldn’t, as I’d feel like I killed an individual with a unique life experience. But this is where I see the most potential for resentment. Balance in these areas is important, and how it’s executed even moreso.
Given the mechanics of this game, and the heavy emphasis on storytelling, it doesn’t make sense to implement that functionality unless you want story driven players to power through all the story content and be done with it. There are still the “map completion” and gear based carrots on a stick post-events and story content, but for many of us achievements and completion ratios aren’t enough to keep us playing, and often in the moment we don’t exercise the best judgement as to the end outcome of taking such actions.
In a new game plus, my experience has been that “remorted” characters restart at level 1, with story based items/background removed and items still retaining level restrictions to that you could only equip them when you react an adequate level. This I’d be fine with, it’s not really terribly different from rolling a new character. You get spiffs and benefits for it, sure, but at that point you’re still working for the content.
I’d rather… not exacerbate the “OMG thieves are SO OP” mentality. Especially when we’re so squishy. Sooo sooo squishy.