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Does it also make you mad that bag slots are soul bound vs account bound?


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Hey all,I've been playing on and off again since launch but I'm new to the forums, so here goes....

Am I crazy to think bag slots should be account bound vs soul bound?I feel like I spent a decent amount of gems maxing my bag slots on my main, but it drives me crazy to think I'd have to spend the same amount of gems on alts, which is why I haven't done it. I'm sure there are people here maxing out all of their slots on all of their toons, but did that feel fair to you when you did that? Is there hope that this will change?

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There seem to be two ways to interpret what you're saying:

  • Buying a bag slot should add a bag slot to any character you make (like how accountwide inventory slots work)
  • Buying a bag slot should let you physically move the extra slot between characters (if you start to use one character more than the other, for instance)

Both interpretations would reduce revenue compared to the current system. We don't know how much money the average player pours into bag slots, but evidently it's some amount. If your change made people spend less money on bag slots, what would you recommend that ArenaNet do to make up the difference?

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@"AgentMoore.9453" said:We don't know how much money the average player pours into bag slots, but evidently it's some amount.

I think "some" amount is an understatement, I always felt that this is a big moneymaker for Anet, since this is the type of Utility that not only whales or fashionmongers want. Same with Bankslots, and also Characterslots and shared slots. Would love to see some numbers but do not think Anet will ever publish them. I think the brunt of their income comes from Skins and keys, but those Utilities surely must be a solid money maker across the whole playerbase.

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Yes although it doesn't really affect at all since my issue has more to do with the fact that if you delete a character that has an bought unlocks it is gone and there is no way to recover. Whether it adds a slot to one character or all characters on the account doesn't make a difference for me since if they made it an account unlock it probably would have been priced higher.

@Tyncale.1629 said:

@"AgentMoore.9453" said:We don't know how much money the average player pours into bag slots, but evidently it's
some
amount.

I think "some" amount is an understatement, I always felt that this is a big moneymaker for Anet, since this is the type of Utility that not only whales or fashionmongers want. Same with Bankslots, and also Characterslots and shared slots. Would love to see some numbers but do not think Anet will ever publish them. I think the brunt of their income comes from Skins and keys, but those Utilities surely must be a solid money maker across the whole playerbase.

On the other hand a lot of people(judging from how many posts come up talking about their "main") seems to stick with a small number of characters. If someone focus all their resources on only one character then account versus character bound won't make a huge difference.

GW2Efficiency doesn't currently show a bag slot unlock statistic but it does have the data to do so. It would be missing data on deleted characters but at least it will have the stats for existing characters.

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I don't have any strong feelings on it either way, but I probably would be more inclined to buy bag slots if they were for my whole account.

As it is i have to be sure that character will need the extra inventory space for an extended period of time to consider them worth buying, which means I've only ever bought 1 and that turned out to be largely pointless after equipment tabs were introduced. I'm not likely to buy any more under the current system. I'm not certain I'd buy any if they were account-wide either, but at least it would be easier to tell myself I'll probably get some use from them even if I'm not sure which character will need it.

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@AgentMoore.9453 said:There seem to be two ways to interpret what you're saying:

  • Buying a bag slot should add a bag slot to any character you make (like how accountwide inventory slots work)This is what I was expecting to happen
  • Buying a bag slot should let you physically move the extra slot between characters (if you start to use one character more than the other, for instance)Interesting, This would also be an awesome mechanic to have available. LOL God, the headache of what that UI would look like.

Both interpretations would reduce revenue compared to the current system. We don't know how much money the average player pours into bag slots, but evidently it's some amount. If your change made people spend less money on bag slots, what would you recommend that ArenaNet do to make up the difference?Yeah, you're right, we don't know how much players are pouring into bag space specifically. I guess I just felt let down when I saw that my alt didn't have those slots unlocked.

As far as how they make up the revenue, I wonder if people would be up for the idea of Anet giving an option of charging more for the slots if they were account wide?Instead of 400 gems, say 1000 per slot. Probably wouldn't make up for the offset of what they're making now on these specifically, but would be great if the option were there.

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They could sell a «bag slot extractor» for maybe half or two-third the price of a bag slot. This would allow you to put them on another character if you decide to delete a char with bag slots.

So, each time you want to remove a bag slot from a char, you would need to buy an extractor.

I bought some bag for one of my first chars that was my main at the time. I'm not playing it much now, and I feel like I wasted my money on those bag slots. I never bought anymore since then. Being able to remove them one way of the other would probably make me buy some more, since i would know I could remove them if I decide to not play/delete one of my chars.

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@Blanche Neige.7241 said:They could sell a «bag slot extractor» for maybe half or two-third the price of a bag slot. This would allow you to put them on another character if you decide to delete a char with bag slots.

So, each time you want to remove a bag slot from a char, you would need to buy an extractor.

You might as well just wait for a bag slot sale then. Probably cheaper.

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@hockyk.9814 said:

@"AgentMoore.9453" said:There seem to be two ways to interpret what you're saying:
  • Buying a bag slot should add a bag slot to any character you make (like how accountwide inventory slots work)This is what I was expecting to happen
  • Buying a bag slot should let you physically move the extra slot between characters (if you start to use one character more than the other, for instance)Interesting, This would also be an awesome mechanic to have available. LOL God, the headache of what that UI would look like.

Both interpretations would reduce revenue compared to the current system. We don't know how much money the average player pours into bag slots, but evidently it's
some
amount. If your change made people spend less money on bag slots, what would you recommend that ArenaNet do to make up the difference?Yeah, you're right, we don't know how much players are pouring into bag space specifically. I guess I just felt let down when I saw that my alt didn't have those slots unlocked.

As far as how they make up the revenue, I wonder if people would be up for the idea of Anet giving an option of charging more for the slots if they were account wide?Instead of 400 gems, say 1000 per slot. Probably wouldn't make up for the offset of what they're making now on these specifically, but would be great if the option were there.

You know we have bank which has account wide slots and on character level we have now also shared inventory slots (which is across all characters). I suspect you haven't really played and learned that there more option then you first see when you are new to this game.

There is also regular sale on all type of slots (bank, inventory and shared inventory). You can see how often those sales happen if you look up GW2 Wiki for Gem Store items. There is section with historical data for when there was a sale last time, what price reduction and so on.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store

We can move bags that are crafted or purchased on TP between characters on account, so I don't feel it is a big issue. You only have to make sure that the bag with items have less items then the one you want to replace it with. It will place the empty bag in inventory. If you play WvW you can also buy two types of bags. If you craft then you will pay the price ANet have set as minimum as you need Rune of Holding which is the most expensive part (if you collect all kind of mats).

From doing some achievements you also get a 32 slot bag (it is a long process from 24, 28 and then 32 slot).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bag

Don't forget that you actually have a "free" inventory management from Material Storage where you need to use to click in the right upper corner and all material (crafting) will be moved to this storage. You can upgrade in chunks of 250 stack.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Material_storage

This save a lot of space as for everything that is material for crafting or collectibles. With changes that gave us a Wallet we don't need to keep track of those items that work as tokens or currencies. Most items that is token can also be exchange into something else that doesn't take space in inventory (or bank).

You should know that with too large inventory you would instead have issues with how client need to sync with server database and that would add another problem with delay. A larger inventory isn't necessary a better inventory. As for your suggestion to make it fully account wide, it would cause problem as we already have a lot account wide (bank, shared inventory slot and Material Storage - all you can access from craftstation in the world). If you go to WvW panel and enter any WvW map you will also have access to bank, BLTP and vendors where you spawn (only no craft stations). Same in the lobby for PvP. I don't see any need to change this system as it work rather well. You can buy any of those Passes and you will have everything in one place the same way as WvW and PvP have it and go directly from you inventory (where there is a scroll) if you need check your bank or something.

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If bag slots were account wide then there'd never be a reason for anyone to buy more than whatever the maximum slots available per character would be. A dead end prospect for revenue. Shared inventory slots are the bridge here, albeit a VERY expensive alternative, and so far still very limited vs a set of whole bags. You also have the in-game option to work toward acquiring 32 slot bags--also a very gold intensive option--to offset the missing slots. Of course, then we'll want more bag slots so we can have more 32 slot bags.... It also might help if ANet would add more different loose items to "material storage" so we can further free our bags and bank slots of miscellaneous stuff that shouldn't have to take up paid-for slots. I mean, if they can add 40 or whatever material storage slots just for Scribe materials that I'd wager 10% of players use at all, they can add more for more common stuff nearly everyone has taking up bag/bank space.

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It doesn't make me mad, per say, but it's not something I like. Ultimately they are a business with costs that need to be paid for somehow, and if you're not cranking out new $60 titles to millions every few years it becomes difficult to pay your employees and keep the servers going for your customers.

I will say I think there are a lot of great things to spend gems on in this game, and I don't mind account wide storage upgrades like the bank slots, but per character bag slot extensions is something I dislike. I picked my warrior as my main character when the game came out and upgraded her bag slots, but every other character suffers with the default bags. And I've spent a good amount of money on gems, so not like I'm stingy or anything; like I said there are a lot of compelling items in the gem store that I do buy. I think Anet would be better served making them account wide so customers feel like they are getting better value for their money and thus more likely to spend it, but I'm not their economist.

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Convenience costs money in this game. Plain and simple. That's their business model in an F2P environment.

You want a city you can teleport to at will, where every important object is within arm's reach? Pay gems.

You want a bigger inventory/bank? Pay gems.

You want to have more character slots? Pay gems.

I think you see where I'm going with this. The list goes on and on. Games like these that don't charge a sub fee stay afloat by means of microtransactions. While other games like WoW and FF14 also do this in their business model, they're not nearly as aggressive as GW2's MTX campaign.

And you can't exactly be mad at them for that, either. I'll gladly funnel money into this game periodically, for things that I want, instead of paying what would otherwise be a sub fee to another MMO for things I'd never use on a regular basis. With GW2's system, you pay for what you want to use and nothing more.

And even still, if you want to be stubborn and still not pay for these things, that's OK! You can convert gold to gems as much as you'd like to slowly earn the item you want. You still essentially pay Anet with foot traffic by populating their game servers and active login statistics by farming. Plus, Anet still gets the real-world money from people going the other way and buying gold with gems. Everyone wins.

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Before you spend anymore on the Gemstore, I'd like to offer some advice. Unless there is a single certain skin, that you absolutely can't live without, QoL account upgrades are the absolute best use of your gems hands down. Of the QoL upgrades, Bag Slots are probably the least useful for a couple reasons, especially after taking advantage of some of the other account upgrades. Unidentified gear keeps loot bundled up nicely. Shared inventory slots means you don't have to carry multiple of the most useful items on each toon. Build templates mean you can carry an EXTRA full set of gear without any inventory investment. Bank Slots, Shared Inventory Slots, Material Storage Expanders and, of course, Character Slots are all AMAZING. Legendary gear drives the point home even further. Grab 1 or 2 bag slots for your open world or farming 'main' and that is about all you need (open unid bags on this char too). Really, the only other use for the bag slots is toons that run several builds that you can't share Legendary equipment with.

TLDR: Prioritize other Acoount Upgrades first and Bag Slots won't be needed AND you'll have MUCH BETTER Quality of Life :)

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I've never bought a bag slot expansion, simply because they are for a specific character - I could never be sure that character really needs it, that I'll keep playing it to the extent it will be needed on that character, etc. If they were account wide, even if more expensive (to a limit), I'd be more inclined to buy some, simply because I wouldn't have to think about it - it is useful no matter what character I'm playing.Which is why I've maxed out shared inventory slots and bank tab expansions - it is useful for all of my characters. So if they offered account wide bag slots, they may be able to sell to folks unwilling to buy before, but at the same time, might lose money for people that buy them for every character and have lots of characters. So it is hard to know how this would really balance out.

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@Solvar.7953 said:So if they offered account wide bag slots, they may be able to sell to folks unwilling to buy before, but at the same time, might lose money for people that buy them for every character and have lots of characters. So it is hard to know how this would really balance out.

this is why it wont happen. it would probably be a nightmare for support if suddenly account wide bag slots would happen... lots of potential complaints (from people with more than 1 character they actively play, some on the forums/reddit mention having a character for each: pvp/wvw/fractals/raids/ow, for example) and potential refund requests

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It doesn't make me mad that bag slots are per character, not per account.

It just makes me disinclined to actually invest in them at all. Especially given the history of ANet nerfing classes into uselessness. What if I spent a bunch of gems to get the extra bag slots on my favourite class and the next day a balance patch makes it complete garbage? (Of course there's theoretically the flipside too, of ANet making a class really fun so I want to switch "Mains" but that's far less likely than anything fun getting the nerfbat right to the face)

What makes me mad is how much "QoL" stuff there is on the gem store overall. Bag slots, character slots, bank expansion, material storage expansion, unbreakable gathering tools, build templates, gear templates...

That sort of stuff irks me, especially when such things feel purposfully limited at base in order to push people into buying them (For example, why can I only hold 2 gear templates when I have access to 3 build templates? Why is a bank that is accountwide only hold like 5 things by default?). Made even worse by the per character nature of some of them (Bag slots, build templates and gear templates. Gathering tools to an extent too as you only get 1 set per purchase which means constantly passing them between characters)

Like, fair enough on things like cosmetics and utility things such as boosters, account features (Name changes, makeover kits, hair style kits), dyes, home instance nodes etc. Those stuff have little impact on your actual gameplay and don't feel particularly egregious to exist behind MTX.

But those QoL features that can really impact gameplay... A whole load of FeelsBadMan in my opinion.

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I never bought a single slot bag in almost 8 years because of this.

I have 12 slots and 2/3 main characters I play a lot with, it's too expansive to buy slot bags for each of my chars, and it would be too expansive even for 3 chars anyway.

If it was account bound, I would have buy it. For now, the only upgrade useful is the character slot (for item storage / equipement and templates on wvw pvp and pve dedicated char / farming key etc etc...).

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This is a non issue.

Have you ever played other f2p mmos? You get not even half the space there and the games overload you with excessive trash loot for force you to invest in bags, because otherwise you have to clear your invenory every 30 minutes.

If GW2 does anything right (customer friendly) then it is the monetizing system.

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