So “you will have the same number of points to spend on each of your characters”.
Does that mean that each character has the maximum points determined by how much wxp is in your account? For example, a 100 ranger and 50 engineer are now in a pool and they each can spend 150 OR
Each character pulls from the same pool and it divides the total? For example, a 100 ranger and a 50 engineer are pooled and each can now spend 75?
Each character will have access to the total number of points you have on your account.
So, if you are rank 100, and have 10 characters. All ten characters will have 100 points to spend.
Here’s some examples that should cover all questions. If I’ve missed anything, please do point it out. All characters listed in examples are shown as pre-April 15th. Resulting accounts are post-April 15th.
Example 1) WXP is summed, not Rank.
Character A
Rank 2 exactly
1,000 WXP
Character B
Rank 1 exactly
0 WXP
Resulting Account
Rank 2 exactly
1,000 WXP
Example 2) Remember that Ranks 1-5 are easier to acquire.
Character A
Rank 5 exactly
4,000 WXP
Character B
Rank 5 exactly
4,000 WXP
Resulting Account
Rank 5, with 4/5 progress to Rank 6 (5 -> 6 is 5,000 WXP)
8,000 WXP
Example 3) Rank 3 -> 4 now takes 1,000 WXP (used to be 2,000)
Character A
Rank 4 and 1,000 of 2,000 WXP progress to Rank 5
4,000 WXP
Resulting Account
Rank 5 exactly
4,000 WXP
Both pre- and post-April 15th, all characters have a number of World Ability Points to spend equal to their Rank. Post-April 15th, that Rank comes from the account’s total WXP instead of the character’s individual WXP. Spending one of these points on one character has zero effect on your other characters (same as pre-April 15th). So if your account is Rank 5, every character can spend its own 5 Points in any way you want.
For some interesting (I think), tangential insight on the account-bound WXP feature, read on.
The original WXP-per-Rank table we shipped when WXP launched had a typo. Rank 2 -> 3 took 999 WXP, and Rank 3 -> 4 took 1,001 WXP. We’ve been careful to make this feature’s changes to the Live game in stages so correctness could be confirmed (as much as possible) in advance of the feature being released completely. That typo was already fixed for the Live game, but it means that anyone with exactly 1,999 WXP dropped from Rank 3 to Rank 2 with 1 WXP to go until being Rank 3 again.
Seems like a rare case, but with the sheer number of players in the Live game, there was one character who was not only at 1,999 WXP exactly, but they also encountered a bug. Remember way back when gaining a WvW Rank meant you had another Ability point to spend, and maybe a new title? Back before we gave chests whenever you gained a Rank. When Rank-gain chests were added, some extra logic was added with them to retro-actively give people a second Rank-gain chest whenever they gained a Rank, until they gained everything they should have. This way, those who already earned a bunch of Ranks didn’t miss out on the loot. I won’t go into great detail on the bug itself, but if a character was from before those Rank-gain chests were added and tried to enter the game, and they lost a Rank, that character wouldn’t be allowed into the game. Because of that WXP-per-Rank typo fix, it became possible in that one case to decrease in Rank— that was never possible before. Apologies to the asura that tried to play those handful of times one Sunday evening! After seeing those failed attempts, the bug was quickly fixed.
So, the point of the story is that even relatively “simple” changes (“sum some values and use that sum instead of a different value”) require a lot of testing. Even with that testing, we may not hit every possible case. However, the impressive force of tons of players all causing the code to run undoubtedly will.
Hello, could you please tell me if the nametags will be account bound or character bound? If I make a new character, will it be Legend or Invader?
Nametags are directly based on Rank. Post-April 15th, no matter which character you play with, every one of them will share your account’s single Rank/nametag. If your account is at Rank 120, you’re a Legend no matter which character you use.
Also, will we still get WXP Mini-Boosters for the first 4 ranks?
Yes. But, now you only go through the first 4 Ranks once. Even if you create a new character, they’ll still be at your account’s Rank, and rolling on the appropriate loot tables for higher-Ranked chests.