Secrets of the Obscure - Wizard's Vault Shop Restrictions related to the new Janthir Wilds Discussion

[Shinobi.4589]

Why is the Wizard's Vault Shop (which is part of Secrets of the Obscure) having restrictions related to the new Janthir Wilds Discussion.

I mean the wizards shop has nothing to do with Janthir wilds, the shop is accesible for ppl that have SOTO expansion, I would like an explication regarding why is the explanation.

I mean, if you get HOT you get Hot content.

If you get POF you get POF content.

Why is there JW content in the SOTO store?

[Dibit.6259]

Because Wizard's vault was new reward system added to game when soto released. It's still available for those without soto with restrictions so makes sense it would have restrictions if you don't own Janthir Wilds.

Edited August 20 by Dibit.6259
Typos

[Torgaard.1864]

I think there's a few arguments that could be made for doing it. Dunno if they're good ones, but it's what pops into me noggin'.

First, I got the fairly clear impression the Wizard's Vault was more about augmenting the "Daily" mechanic (and Weekly, and "Special") more than anything, and a little less about being a rock hard thematic thing specific to SoTo. It's a nicely flexible game-wide grind(ish) system that lets you pick your rewards, and encourages people to revisit some old zones and whatnot.

Second, the Daily/Weekly tasks in the Vault aren't restricted to SoTo (as noted above, they often send you all over the game world), so it could maybe be argued it's clearly not playing favorites and making you do everything in SoTo. Quite the contrary, it often sends you out into the game world for many of its tasks. It occurs to me here that this could also be argued in the other direction: If the Vault is a game-wide mechanic, why lock things unless you have an expansion? Eeee, ya got me there. I'll cop-out and go to point three....

Third, I would never fault Anet for trying to encourage people to pay for their latest expansion. It's the same old thing everybody's heard before, but it bears repeating: It takes a small army of folks and a crapton of cash to make stuff like this. GW2 has no subscription fee, so I have zero problem supporting a company that has made and continues to make a staggering amount of content that I've enjoyed for a decade. I might sound like I've poisoned my brain drinking capitalistic Kool-Aid all my life, but I'd feel a little guilty if I didn't. Plus - it's $25. C'mon! I don't care who out there is gonna argue about how little money they might have, ya got twenty-five bucks for something that'll give you HUNDREDS of hours of entertainment. It's a little hyperbolic, but then again; that price is insanely low for what you get back in hours of fun.

[Shinobi.4589]

Big question is, why we could buy legendary packs before JW and not after ? just leave what it was the way it was and just add new stuff on a diferent section for JW

[Danikat.8537]

It's always worked that way. The Wizard's Vault is available to everyone, even free accounts can use it (as long as they have a level 80 character) but you had to own the newest expansion to buy certain items. All that's changed is which expansion is the newest.

[Cyninja.2954]

59 minutes ago, Shinobi.4589 said:

Big question is, why we could buy legendary packs before JW and not after ? just leave what it was the way it was and just add new stuff on a diferent section for JW

You couldn't. Legendary Starter Kits were SotO locked. Just as they are now JW locked.

They did keep it the way it was: start kits are most recent expansion locked, just as some of the other high desire/value items.

Edited August 20 by Cyninja.2954

[starhunter.6015]

I agree the legendary starter kits should of not been locked behind JW, and remained unlocked for SoTo. 
JW added the new quest you can buy, so why take from what SoTo brought ?

[Teknomancer.4895]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

It's always worked that way. The Wizard's Vault is available to everyone, even free accounts can use it (as long as they have a level 80 character) but you had to own the newest expansion to buy certain items. All that's changed is which expansion is the newest.

To be fair, "always worked that way" means it only started with SotO so this is the first time it's happened. I don't recall seeing where the legy box was locked to the current release, rather like the thing with the ancient/unusual coins. It may have been a line in something I overlooked, but the WV interface itself doesn't make any of that clear so confusion is understandable.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

Agreed that it was unclear whether the legendary starter kit was locked to SOTO or the latest expansion (since SOTO was also that).

That question has now been answered.

I don't have a problem with it. Anet need to encourage people to buy the latest expansion because otherwise they don't get the money to make the next expansion. This is very, very mild monetization. It just means that people who buy the latest expansion who also want to craft legendary weapons essentially get some of their $ purchase cost back as in game gold towards those legendary weapons (by buying the starter kits).

People who don't buy the latest expansion can still craft the legendaries, and in fact can also save a lot of gold if they want to buy them because the TP price for the legendaries and precursors in starter kits tends to drop significantly.

[Cyninja.2954]

4 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

To be fair, "always worked that way" means it only started with SotO so this is the first time it's happened. I don't recall seeing where the legy box was locked to the current release, rather like the thing with the ancient/unusual coins. It may have been a line in something I overlooked, but the WV interface itself doesn't make any of that clear so confusion is understandable.

You do know that any account not owning SotO was locked out of the same items, right?

Or were you unaware that the Wizard Vault is available to all payed GW2 accounts, even ones not owning SotO?

This is a continuation of how the Wizard Vault worked ever since it was introduced (so this is the 2nd time access to these items is tied to owning the current expansion), even if that introduction was parallel with the last mini expansion.

[LordMagus.3279]

I don't begrudge Anet for deciding that certain drops from the Wizard Vault should be locked to the latest expansion.

My issue is that (to my knowledge) they never provided this information that the Wizard Vault would lock EXISTING rewards to the next expansion.

So without warning you are forced to pay money to maintain the same feature you already had access to. This unfortunately seems like a bait and switch where you are promised access to certain rewards via the Wizards Vault and this is retroactively taken from you.

For those players that own multiple accounts, this is even more egregious as this would require buying the latest expansion on all their accounts just to maintain access to the same rewards they already used to receive.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

12 minutes ago, LordMagus.3279 said:

I don't begrudge Anet for deciding that certain drops from the Wizard Vault should be locked to the latest expansion.

My issue is that (to my knowledge) they never provided this information that the Wizard Vault would lock EXISTING rewards to the next expansion.

So without warning you are forced to pay money to maintain the same feature you already had access to. This unfortunately seems like a bait and switch where you are promised access to certain rewards via the Wizards Vault and this is retroactively taken from you.

For those players that own multiple accounts, this is even more egregious as this would require buying the latest expansion on all their accounts just to maintain access to the same rewards they already used to receive.

That's the thing, though: you HAD to own SoTO before to get the heavy bags and legendary kit. None of my alt accounts own SoTO (or JW), so they've never had access to those items. Which is honestly fine because value of the laurels/raw gold/mystic coins they do have access to is more than enough for those alt accounts......

[LordMagus.3279]

3 minutes ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

That's the thing, though: you HAD to own SoTO before to get the heavy bags and legendary kit. None of my alt accounts own SoTO (or JW), so they've never had access to those items. Which is honestly fine because value of the laurels/raw gold/mystic coins they do have access to is more than enough for those alt accounts......

Sure, and that was fine because Anet made it clear that was the deal. But I don't think anyone in this thread was made aware that our access to these specific rewards - which was previously advertised as a benefit of SOTO specifically - would be retroactively taken away.

[Cyninja.2954]

2 minutes ago, LordMagus.3279 said:

Sure, and that was fine because Anet made it clear that was the deal. But I don't think anyone in this thread was made aware that our access to these specific rewards - which was previously advertised as a benefit of SOTO specifically - would be retroactively taken away.

Then you misunderstood. Some of the rewards were SotO specific, most of the cosmetics, and some of the rewards were "most recent expansion" related, which relates to all the stuff NOT new with SotO.

Gen1 legendaries were not introduced with SotO, neither were heavy crafting bags, Mystic Coins, etc.

All of those benefits were related to owning the latest expansion. Good news, now that this has been cleared up for everyone who was unaware, those players won't be surprised next year all over.

[Zok.4956]

18 hours ago, Shinobi.4589 said:

Big question is, why we could buy legendary packs before JW and not after ? just leave what it was the way it was and just add new stuff on a diferent section for JW

The legendary packs where seasons (and expansions!) locked. When starter pack #2 was released you were not able to still buy starter pack #1 if you haven't done it before. Similar with the others. Now, the actual starter pack is #5 (requires JW expansion).

20 minutes ago, LordMagus.3279 said:

Sure, and that was fine because Anet made it clear that was the deal. But I don't think anyone in this thread was made aware that our access to these specific rewards - which was previously advertised as a benefit of SOTO specifically - would be retroactively taken away.

Well, all "Soto-Seasons" rewards in the Wizard's Vault are still available for purchase.

However, I don't think it's a good idea that you can't buy the older Legy starter packs that haven't been purchased yet. It's clear that Anet is experimenting with FOMO.

[Schimmi.6872]

44 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

However, I don't think it's a good idea that you can't buy the older Legy starter packs that haven't been purchased yet. It's clear that Anet is experimenting with FOMO.

Or they want to reduce the permanent impact on the market.

[Zok.4956]

26 minutes ago, Schimmi.6872 said:

Or they want to reduce the permanent impact on the market.

Maybe. But because battle pass systems typically use FOMO to influence player behavior and make money, I stick with FOMO as Anet's main reason for this.