Cleaning up the lobby !

Hello,

In the previous forum, our beloved McKenna said a new currency would be introduced, as a trade for PoF's recipes, sigils, runes and hero challenges. The addition of a 4th currency to WvW brings the need to tidy things up amongst all the vendors in the WvW spawn, all the currencies serving various purposes, so that it'd bring a better lisibility in the "who sells what ?" and "what currency for what stuff ?" departements.

Currently, the following vendors asking for badges of honor are available :

• Armor master : sells exotic armor (various stats), exotic trinkets (various stats) and karma skins (exotics excluded)
• Weapon master : exotic weapons (various stats), cultural weapon skins (excl. T3)
• Traps and tricks : WvW traps
• Siege master : basic siege blueprints
• Skritt trader : cultural armor skins
• Laurel merchant : ascended trinkets and infusions

For Proof of heroics, the heroics notary sells HP Completion (core+HoT), superior siege blueprints, HoT recipes, runes, and sigils.

For Skirmish claim tickets, the skirmish supervisor sells : exotics armors (selectable stats, 2 skins), ascended armor (selectable stats, 2 skins), exotics and ascended weapons, specific crafting recipes, blueprints and traps, infusions, misc.

Now for the reminder, BoH are earned when just doing WvW stuff. PoH are earned when leveling and as a possible choice in skirmish chests, and SCT are earned with skirmish chests.

As it is, I think it's a huge mess. If you only consider siege blueprints, you can buy them from 3 vendors (siege master for basic, notary for superior, supervisor for random) in 3 different currencies. Likewise, there's also a karma merchant that sells blue/green/yellow stuff, which is mostly useless, there're 2 armor sellers etc.On the currency side, SCT and PoH are overlapping a lot in the way they're acquired, and it's obvious the latter has been created in order to forbid players with lots of PoH to get access to new stuff.

My first suggestion is a redifinition of the purpose of each currency. Namely :

• Badges of Honor should be the all-purpose WvW specific currency. Used to buy WvW stuff like siege blueprints, traps, or damper the gold value of equivalent PvE basic stuff (like bags). BoH would be earned through "just doing stuff".
• Proof of Heroics should be the currency that allows WvW only player to get stuff that's normally found in PvE (like gear). PoH would belong to a currency selection in skirmish chests.
• Skirmish claim tickets should just vanish, and more or less get turned into a crafting material that'd be required for grandmaster marks (so that ascended gear remains gated).It leaves room for adding a new currency for "XPac's recipes, runes, HP completion, and sigils".

My second suggestion is a merge of each vendor's display for more consistency. Namely :

• Armor master should sell each and every exotic (for PoH) and ascended armors (PoH+marks+memory of battle), alongside cultural and karma skins, including the exotic one (PoH), and the marks recipes.
• Weapon master should sell ech and every exotic (for PoH) and ascended weapons (PoH+marks+memory of battle), alongside cultural skins up to T3 (PoH), and the marks recipes.
• Siege master should sell both standard and superior siege blueprints (for BoH)
• Traps and tricks : doesn't change. Maybe merge it with siege master ?
• Skritt trader : no longer needed
• Skirmish supervisor : no longer needed

The heroics notary would become a tab vendor :

• Core tyria : HP completion, LWS1 runes and sigils (malice, perplexity...), maybe some recipes ? Uses PoH
• HoT : HP completion, runes, sigils, recipes, with its own currency.
• PoF : HP completion, runes, sigils, recipes, with its own currency.

To conclude on that topic, skirmish chests shouldn't have BoH in them, but PoH and HoT or PoF currencies.

I know that may be a big change, and I really want to thinnk that adding new vendors for new things wasn't a lazy move of ANet's, rather a "old NPC's are too hard to change" one. Yet, there're these old things that are making clutter, and really impairing the lisibility of what you can get (materialism) from WvW. It'd be a really nice QoL improvement to clean and tidy all that.

Thanks for attention, feel free to comment.

I have to agree. there are a lot of vendors, and it could be made much cleaner and simpler to get what you want.

Yeah, my memory is not the greatest and I keep forgetting who sells what and just end up running from vendor to vendor. I'd love it if that could be much more streamlined.

no you can't just change what the currency is for something from one thing to another. YOu can't because they decided not to do stuff like that. So your posting is asking the impossible.

Equally true the game relies on tons of micro management to prevent you from getting bored. It wants you to farm nodes and manage inventory and all that constantly. Equally true it wants you to have to go to as many places as possible to get something generic done. There isn't a black lion trading post person anywhere other than spawn for a reason. Same with many other things, being gated behind walls and what not.

also you can use badges to buy stuff from the guild hall, ur missing that one

@Cerby.1069 said:also you can use badges to buy stuff from the guild hall, ur missing that one

I'm not, I'm specifically focusing on the lobby and all the things that overlap and make knowing "who sells what and for what currency ?" a hassle. In the same fashion, I didn't mention the legendary vendor, because his stuff is specific enough not to be confusing.

@Cerby.1069 said:Equally true the game relies on tons of micro management to prevent you from getting bored. It wants you to farm nodes and manage inventory and all that constantly. Equally true it wants you to have to go to as many places as possible to get something generic done. There isn't a black lion trading post person anywhere other than spawn for a reason. Same with many other things, being gated behind walls and what not.

I have to disagree on that one. It's not a matter of having to run to many places to get something done, like legendary journeys. It's not a matter of putting every NPC everywhere for "convenience", or removing grinding or whatever time-gating. Heck, I'm even asking for more grinding since I'm suggesting a way to put more currencies.

I'm here all for lisibility, quality of life and user experience. Whatever stuff is involved in what I'm saying isn't time gated or need to see 5 different vendors, and it's not really grind gated because grind comes with currencies. I'm only asking, for, say, armors, to put everything that involves armors (and you buy a piece at once) in a single vendor display.

@Cerby.1069 said:no you can't just change what the currency is for something from one thing to another. YOu can't because they decided not to do stuff like that. So your posting is asking the impossible.

I agree that one will be really hard. I'm not expecting anything to change, to be honest. I'm only underlining that things are getting messy at WvW spawn, and some care will have to be taken in the future. Hopefully.