As more and more Guild Wars 2 players are reaching higher levels, the playerbase is finding out one very interesting fact about being higher leveled in the game– Waypoint prices can get pretty high. Instead of Waypoint costs being dictated by an area’s level range, they’re dictated by the actual level of the player. And by actual level I mean real level, not adjusted level. This effectively means that doing a large amount of traveling– even on low-level maps– after a character gains a solid amount of levels under their belt can be pretty detrimental to a player’s gold funds.

This discovery has surprised quite a few players. Not only can it make low-level material farming difficult, but it also affects higher-level players who travel with lower-level friends. To make matters worse, the price jump between levels is actually pretty significant, rising to well over 1 silver. Gold in Guild Wars 2 isn’t ridiculously hard to come by, but it can take a bit of farming and careful saving. The ironic part? Sometimes the travel costs seem to discourage farming altogether.

In this forum thread created on the official GW2 forums, players discuss their reactions to this Waypoint cost system. Here are some players’ opinions:

“Obviously, increasing waypoint costs is intended functionality, but it seems like waypoint costs should be based on the level of the zone and the distance traveled, not the level of player. As it stands now, playing with a lower-level friend in a lower-level zone is frustrating because I’m hemorrhaging silver every time we bounce from point to point.”

One solution to this issue, of course, is to play on an alt with lower-level friends. This solution kind of downplays the game’s down-leveling feature as a whole, however, which is a shame, because it really is a nice feature. Players should be eager to use it, even at level 80, not the other way around.

“I strongly agree – waypoint costs are too high from about the 50’s on to the point that I can’t afford to play my high level character with low level friends.

Suggestions for the game mechanic:
* Have waypoints costs scale with zone level
* Discount waypoint costs for fully explored zones
* Have DE gold reward scale with level”

All of these suggestions sound like much better alternatives than switching to a low-level alt every time a friend or guildmate asks for assistance.

Should ArenaNet do anything about high-level Waypoint costs, or should we all just buckle down and do our best to save up a decent stash of traveling funds? What do you think?