Why not an account wide system?

[Deleted]

So, the main issue with the current artifact power is that people feel they are behind with alts or by starting later. This got me thinking:

What if next expansion introduced something similar, but account wide? Think off the following:

1.The basics work exactly like right now, maybe some tweaks if necessary.
2.Some of the bonusses are character based, these take like 2 months to unlock in total and are just for the character you are playing. The last trait opens up a bonus speeding up this process by 100% for the rest of your account.
3.After this there are various account wide bonusses both in power and cosmetic, think the current bonus that offers a +0.5% damage every trait. This is instantly for -all- your characters! This is the longer expansion wide progression.
4.These account wide bonusses are sometimes alternated by character-only bonusses, these are purely cosmetic and are aimed at folks just playing a single character. This are mostly alternative bonusses for whenever an account wide bonus wouldn't do anything for a person just playing one character. Think of a title, a tabard or a toy.
5.Other bonusses can be more cosmetic or offer a fun feature for your account that you'd unlock. Who wants a service that teleports you to the nearest archeology digsite once every 30 minutes?
6.Power gained through quests and such give the full 100% power the first time you use it. For your alts it gives 100% if you work towards your character bonusses and 25% if you work towards your account wide bonusses.

Some of the account-wide bonusses you should think off: An extra character slot, increased bank space. Allowing you to start a single character at 60, a free month of gametime or a weekly reset of a non-current expansion lockout of your choosing (allowing you to get loot twice from an old raid in the same week). On top of this some power-boosting bonusses think bonusses giving you +0.5% damage, higher Ilevel drops from worldquests and increased chance for items to warforge in dungeons. Maybe even halving the required WQ's done for an emmisary quest if you already did it on another character on your account.

The great thing about this is, catch up for alts, progress for your main and plenty of rewards to progress through in an expansions duration. After the expansion new rewards can be added and old rewards can be kept.

What do you guys think?

[Deleted]

thats the point for someone to be ahead

[Nevcairiel]

If you want to play an alt, you should actually play the alt. There is no reason to give it the same power as your main basically just for free and for doing nothing.

Should alts have catch-up? Sure.
Should they be given the same power level as your main for free? Certainly not.

[Rusken]

Alts don't need anymore catch up systems, it's already so easy to gear up and with 7.1.5's AP catch up, it takes so little time to get alts geared enough for raids. My Warlock has 1 day 10 hours /played at 110 and is 857 ilvl at Artifact lvl 29. How much easier does it need to be? You immediately jump to AK 20 and get 23 traits from a few WQs.

The only thing I think should always been done to help alts, is after the first 6 months of an expansion, drop the experience required to level through the new zones by 20-30%. By that point people are over the novelty of new zones and just want to get through it to try their other classes.

[Deleted]

@OP; So what you want is more freebies?
Some of them you already have, like the free-levels... The catch is; you need to convert a friend and play with him.

The only thing I think should always been done to help alts, is after the first 6 months of an expansion, drop the experience required to level through the new zones by 20-30%. By that point people are over the novelty of new zones and just want to get through it to try their other classes.

Didn't they kind of do this by increasing how much "rested XP" one can save up?
I mean; I've gained 3 levels on my monk yesterday and i still have Rested XP=254%

Besides, we are getting Legion Invasions Reloaded next patch... I sure as hell hope those will help.

[Deleted]

account wallet/rep would be nice

[Rend Blackhand]

The whole point of having an alt is to play another character and therefore that should come with all of the progression experience of a full character.

Having said that, I would like reputation bars to be account bound. I have spent a lot of time on my main getting old factions to exalted and the reputation tab on all of my alts look such a mess.

[Dracullus]

Exponential grow of every next trait is good answer for alt situation - you are always one step behind your main. For example my first 35 weapon took about 3 months, second 15 days, third - a week. On AK 40 it will take probably about few hours. Right now problem is with 35-54 traits - grow is linear and there are no more AK, so it take same time as two months ago.

With current 7.0 system 35-54 should be account-wide, but let's see how it will work in 7.2.

[Rusken]

@OP; So what you want is more freebies?
Some of them you already have, like the free-levels... The catch is; you need to convert a friend and play with him.



Didn't they kind of do this by increasing how much "rested XP" one can save up?
I mean; I've gained 3 levels on my monk yesterday and i still have Rested XP=254%

Besides, we are getting Legion Invasions Reloaded next patch... I sure as hell hope those will help.

It's true that makes a difference, my Warrior went until half way through 108 rested, but it only helps characters who have been sitting around for months collecting rested xp. Legion questing without any rested xp is stretched pretty thin to hit 110, it takes doing 90-100% of the storylines in each zone if you don't spend any time in dungeons or hunting for all the hidden quests around. They could also buff xp gained from the exorbitant amount of bonus objectives while leveling for a similar effect.

[Deleted]

It's true that makes a difference, my Warrior went until half way through 108 rested, but it only helps characters who have been sitting around for months collecting rested xp. Legion questing without any rested xp is stretched pretty thin to hit 110, it takes doing 90-100% of the storylines in each zone if you don't spend any time in dungeons or hunting for all the hidden quests around. They could also buff xp gained from the exorbitant amount of bonus objectives while leveling for a similar effect.

To be honest i still didn't run in this issue people have.
On all 4 of my level 110s i have only done 3 zones and stepped into the 4th one when i dinged 110.

I'm planning to level my monk to 110 by exclusively dungeons...

[ls-]

Alts shouldn't be as powerful as your main. If you want your chars to be equally powerful then you have to put more time/effort into it

[Deleted]

Alts shouldn't be as powerful as your main. If you want your chars to be equally powerful then you have to put more time/effort into it

But that isn't what my suggestion is saying. Its making your alts be less behind and makes your alts more viable for those with not a lot of playtime. Ultimately, your main will always be further ahead. But if you decide to switch mains mid expansion it should be relatively easy to do because of all account-bound perks.

[Silver-Fox]

But that isn't what my suggestion is saying. Its making your alts be less behind and makes your alts more viable for those with not a lot of playtime. Ultimately, your main will always be further ahead. But if you decide to switch mains mid expansion it should be relatively easy to do because of all account-bound perks.

But I think this would be more harmful to players than helpful to characters. A player could arguably not secure a slot in a raid even because where you would otherwise fill this spot with a qualified player/character to fill a role, you just have someone else swap to their other, now equally powerful character. If all your characters, almost right off the bat, were equally geared or powerful there would be no need to play with other people because you could just jump between different characters for every encounter, rather than sticking to a specific role and having other players with different characters fill in the blanks.

[Teri]

Right now the easiest to implement "account wide" system they should implement is reputation, once 1 character on account hits exalted, the account is flagged as such by default.

Of course exceptions should exist for the Pirate/goblin reps if you purposely farmed the Insane title, or the choice between Aldor/Scryers or Wolvar/Frenzyheart.

[Deleted]

But I think this would be more harmful to players than helpful to characters. A player could arguably not secure a slot in a raid even because where you would otherwise fill this spot with a qualified player/character to fill a role, you just have someone else swap to their other, now equally powerful character. If all your characters, almost right off the bat, were equally geared or powerful there would be no need to play with other people because you could just jump between different characters for every encounter, rather than sticking to a specific role and having other players with different characters fill in the blanks.

But all this system does is reduce the gap. It doesn't make your character equally strong as your main, it makes your alt less behind. That are two different things.

The system right now is that alts are always worse, the further the expansion progresses the longer the catchup and the worse your alt is. In the system I propose alts are always viable, there is a catchup and it might take a while. But the catchup doesn't increase between the start and the end of the expansion.

[Aleax]

Right now the easiest to implement "account wide" system they should implement is reputation, once 1 character on account hits exalted, the account is flagged as such by default.

Of course exceptions should exist for the Pirate/goblin reps if you purposely farmed the Insane title, or the choice between Aldor/Scryers or Wolvar/Frenzyheart.

I would like that. Would definetly help myself switching main from time to time..

@zylathas: my opinion on this subject is rather heresy but I will tell you that since AP and all, are not shared by all alts, this is almost always a bad move to split your efforts on more than one character through an expansion. If for competitive sake that is.
Just addying this to the subject, I read you would like to lessen the grinding between an old main and a new main, why not, can't say that this is bad.

[Deleted]

No! Let this abomination die with Legion.

[clevin]

But all this system does is reduce the gap. It doesn't make your character equally strong as your main, it makes your alt less behind. That are two different things.

The system right now is that alts are always worse, the further the expansion progresses the longer the catchup and the worse your alt is. In the system I propose alts are always viable, there is a catchup and it might take a while. But the catchup doesn't increase between the start and the end of the expansion.

So you roll, say, a mage. You DPS for a year. I roll a druid and gear it out to heal, healing for that same year.

A year in, you're a little bored of the mage and level your druid. Within a VERY short time, you have the same advantages as I do. Same item level, AP, etc.

What's my incentive again? Why should I work hard at all on my main if it can be overtaken and matched within a couple of weeks?

PS: as with others, I leveled my druid and now, with barely 4 days /played (maybe not even that...) I have a it at 864 in BOTH balance and resto with 35 resto traits and 33 or 34 in Balance. How much easier or quicker does it need to BE?

[DrStiglit]

Why shouldn't an alt be as powerful as a main? You out the effort in on the main. You did the content on the main. I've worked in my industry for 10 years you think when I get a new job I start at in an entry level position? No, I start at the new place, get a 1-2 week on boarding and then I'm expected to perform, and that's a job. Changing jobs takes less work than changing classes..

- - - Updated - - -

So you roll, say, a mage. You DPS for a year. I roll a druid and gear it out to heal, healing for that same year.

A year in, you're a little bored of the mage and level your druid. Within a VERY short time, you have the same advantages as I do. Same item level, AP, etc.

What's my incentive again? Why should I work hard at all on my main if it can be overtaken and matched within a couple of weeks?

PS: as with others, I leveled my druid and now, with barely 4 days /played (maybe not even that...) I have a it at 864 in BOTH balance and resto with 35 resto traits and 33 or 34 in Balance. How much easier or quicker does it need to BE?

It wasn't hard to get their on the main eithe. The area you have to play catch up is with raid progression. But if you don't raid you overpower WQ's at like 830-840 anyways and can still get alright gear. If you're in a decent guild you don't even really have to play catch up with raids.

Sometimes you get bored of a class or they make changes that ruin what you enjoyed about it. It should be such a tedious pain in the ass to try a different class.

[Deleted]

Alts should not be as powerful as your main, but a mechanism has to be found to avoid every minute you spend on an alt is not a minute lost for your main.

Maybe having the last "infinite" trait upgradable through alts based on the number of quests, missions, boss kills, pvp honor and so on that increases an account wide "parangon" you spend and consume buying levels of the trait for the character you want.

Account wide AP tokens provided by activities of any level that gives experience and honor could also be a solution to get rerolling as efficient for the main and grinding AP with it.