Is Legion the MOST Alt-Friendly Expansion Yet?

[Relapses]

Legendaries are not required in order to raid. An alt with no legendaries is not a drain for Heroic raiding. Even for mythic raiding they wouldn't be a drain with 0 legendaries right now. Time lost on main is irrelevant since you said all you do is raiding. You would not be spending all of your time on your main raiding if you played on an alt for a few hours. You can be prepared for raiding on your main and still have time to play an alt so that isn't even an argument.

The few hours I spend on an alt could instead be spent on my main grinding AP. Oh, and good job ignoring the part where I described the main reason I'm not playing an alt to tell me how I should enjoy this game. I'm glad there are people like you out there to help me determine what I should consider fun.

[Spl4sh3r]

Absolutely not.

I'd say Cataclysm was more alt friendly honestly.

You still have to
1) Finish your class hall campaign
2) Grind out Nethershards if you want 880 gear from invasions that happen once a day
3) Get 2 additional pieces of gear extra now (Since Relics, although that would be 1 compared to Cataclysm)
4) Complete reps if you want profession rewards
5) Farm Class Hall Resources for the Class hall perks.

That's just off the top of my head.

Don't think OP is refering to alt-friendly in starting to hardcore raid. You can casually raid with alts without doing all of the above.

[Jaylock]

That been the way since release? My shaman didn't have them available until getting the rep which required the quest lines done across the account. Either way it doesn't disregard the rest of my points.

Maybe you have plenty of time in a day to level alts and get them raid ready while keeping them up to par but I certainly don't and other people feel the same way. I've always had several alts in past expansions and I was able to keep them current without much work but Legion feels like a daily chore and whether YOU feel it to be that way it's still the case and it's a pretty common agreement. I barely have enough time to deal with the daily chores on a main. Any time spent on an alt is taking away from the main. In the past after I hit a certain point all I needed to do in a week was spend a short time getting materials ready for that week's raiding. With the lack of warforged there was no reason to run a raid at a certain point because 0 upgrades would be in there. This is no longer the case either.

As I said before, sure you can choose not to do any of that. Still doesn't hide the fact that it makes a player feel like it's necessary and if you want to be as current as possible then you do need to do it.

If you call playing a game a "chore" then why are you playing the game?

At the start of every expansion its a common practice to design it in such a way that it incentivizes people to focus on 1-2 characters. As the expansions progresses the game becomes easier and more alt friendly naturally because people start to understand the zone layout, they know the quests by heart, they know exactly where to go to get proper reps, and on top of that, blizzard then also makes changes via patches and hotfixes to reduce requirements to increasingly make the game MORE alt friendly. They didn't have to do that, but they do because it allows an easier time for people to try other characters and maybe play a different storyline.

It also depends on what your objective is for your alt. Don't you think its a little unrealistic to expect that you have 5-7 characters that have heroic current tier gear without putting the effort required to do that, which naturally would mean you spend several hours on each of them to accomplish that?

[rhorle]

As I said before, sure you can choose not to do any of that. Still doesn't hide the fact that it makes a player feel like it's necessary and if you want to be as current as possible then you do need to do it.

You don't have to be as current as possible to raid on an alt though. The problem, as you say, is the perception in players minds on what is necessary in order to play a character. Even with Warforged drops you won't have many upgrades on your main. Tomb would quickly replace any potential Warforged upgrade. So you don't have to be going 100% on your main. Even with AP you can do enough quickly to keep them close enough to current. You don't have to farm AP 24/7 in order to current.

Then again if it truly is an alt then why does it have to be as current as possible? Why does an alt have to equal a main otherwise it sucks? The AK catch up puts alts close to mains.

[Relapses]

It also depends on what your objective is for your alt. Don't you think its a little unrealistic to expect that you have 5-7 characters that have heroic current tier gear without putting the effort required to do that, which naturally would mean you spend several hours on each of them to accomplish that?

If you're doing content you enjoy (ie, raiding) while gearing your alt, who cares? You do not get to determine wholesale what does or does not constitute enjoyable content for players. Legion's concept of content is dramatically different than it has been in the past and it's extremely narrow-minded and arrogant to pretend that every player should enjoy it more simply because it's different.

[Jaylock]

Don't think OP is refering to alt-friendly in starting to hardcore raid. You can casually raid with alts without doing all of the above.

Exactly. I'm amazed that people keep screaming that the game is alt-unfriendly because they dont like the "grind" of AP or the legendary system. They somehow feel it is MANDATORY to have a level 100 trait weapon and the 2 bis legendaries on every alt they have. Thats just fucking asinine. It took me a LOT of TIME AND EFFORT to gear up my second character during TBC. I had to spend equal amounts of time as my main if i wanted to get anywhere in terms of progression and power. WoTLK was no different, Cata was no different, but in Mop, Wod, and now Legion, the game has become much more alt friendly, and its the most alt friendly, and has become that way faster than any expansion before it.

[G3istly]

No, but it wouldn't be a Jaylock thread if you weren't asking stupid questions.

[Soeroah]

Depends on what you prioritise and how often you play.

For a collector, it's the least friendly yet.

[Jaylock]

If you're doing content you enjoy (ie, raiding) while gearing your alt, who cares? You do not get to determine wholesale what does or does not constitute enjoyable content for players. Legion's concept of content is dramatically different than it has been in the past and it's extremely narrow-minded and arrogant to pretend that every player should enjoy it more simply because it's different.

Then you will put in similar effort to do the same things as your main. And the argument is easily seeable that you can do many of the same things on your alts right now as your main with a fraction of the effort. If you want full BIS legendary items, a weapon that is equally as powerful as your main's weapon, then you will put in the effort, and even then, the effort required is much less than when you did it the first time on your main because they made the legendary drop rate higher when you dont have any, AND they give you a free AK 25+ book which reduces the time to make your weapon as powerful by 4-5 months.

You must have some alternative facts version of alt-friendliness than everyone else.

- - - Updated - - -

Depends on what you prioritise and how often you play.

For a collector, it's the least friendly yet.

How so? What are you trying to collect on your alt that you cant do on your main? Getting maxed out reputations on your main gives you all the toys and pets and mounts. What else are you trying to collect?

[Arbiter]

If you call playing a game a "chore" then why are you playing the game?

Because I enjoy raiding and I enjoy playing with friends.

It's not a chore because it's always been a chore. It's because 7 months into the tier and I don't feel like my daily activities have been able to subside to a reasonable level without feeling like it's going to negatively impact me. I'd love to skip a couple weeks of emissaries and broken shore WQs to go level a different class and get him geared for low level raiding or dungeons, but by the time I catch up on the daily shit on the main it's time for real life responsibilities.

I don't have all the legendaries I need. I don't have my weps maxed out. Now I have a mount I want and I still need to keep up to date on the class hall quests.

You can also try to ignore the facts by looking at something like AK and seeing it as alt friendly. AK isn't the problem (even though higher lvls are still time gated which isn't alt friendly at all. 26 don't mean shit at this point), it's the entire AP system. The legendary system. All of it.

[Relapses]

Then you will put in similar effort to do the same things as your main. And the argument is easily seeable that you can do many of the same things on your alts right now as your main with a fraction of the effort. If you want full BIS legendary items, a weapon that is equally as powerful as your main's weapon, then you will put in the effort, and even then, the effort required is much less than when you did it the first time on your main because they made the legendary drop rate higher when you dont have any, AND they give you a free AK 25+ book which reduces the time to make your weapon as powerful by 4-5 months.

You must have some alternative facts version of alt-friendliness than everyone else.

Again, the very idea that the content which Legion requires you to do en masse is not universally accepted to be superior to any of its previous iterations. In Legion, the amount of time required to keep more than one toon on the same level as your main is much, much higher. You can say shit like, "it takes a fraction of the time to get it 80% of the way there," but I never played my alts to be 80% of my main. In order to be on the same level, the time investment is much higher as is the onus on content which I personally do not enjoy.

You're making an argument that the game is more "alt friendly" because you like the current system while simultaneously pretending there isn't even a possibility that there may be players who simply do not enjoy the way Legion's grinding systems work.

[Jaylock]

Because I enjoy raiding and I enjoy playing with friends.

It's not a chore because it's always been a chore. It's because 7 months into the tier and I don't feel like my daily activities have been able to subside to a reasonable level without feeling like it's going to negatively impact me. I'd love to skip a couple weeks of emissaries and broken shore WQs to go level a different class and get him geared for low level raiding or dungeons, but by the time I catch up on the daily shit on the main it's time for real life responsibilities.

I don't have all the legendaries I need. I don't have my weps maxed out. Now I have a mount I want and I still need to keep up to date on the class hall quests.

What level do you raid at? Is skipping a few days of emissaries, and broken shore WQs really going to make that much of a difference in the long run?

Does your guild leader put some sort of requirement on you and others in your guild to all the time be grinding AP? It feels like you are burning yourself out unreasonably.

I don't think its a problem with the game as much as it is a problem of you.

[rhorle]

The few hours I spend on an alt could instead be spent on my main grinding AP. Oh, and good job ignoring the part where I described the main reason I'm not playing an alt to tell me how I should enjoy this game. I'm glad there are people like you out there to help me determine what I should consider fun.

I didn't ignore it. It isn't relevant to anything I have said because I was not commenting on the main reason why you are not playing an alt. Nor did I tell you how you should enjoy the game. Just because I disagree with you and see things differently does not mean I'm ignoring you. There is no need to invent arguments in a discussion.

That still doesn't change the point that Legendaries are not required to raid. If you enjoy raiding then you can enjoy that with out legendaries on your alt. If you are grinding AP on your main then you lied. Because you are doing something other then raiding. Raiding can't be all you do if you are grinding AP on your main outside of raids. But even ignoring that you don't have to grind AP on your main for every second you can play in order for your main to remain competitive and be able to raid what they consider progression.

There is a limit to AP gains per day, and you can easily clear AP WQ in an hour or two. A token or two won't hurt your main in the long run so that isn't a reason why you can't play an alt.

[Soeroah]

How so? What are you trying to collect on your alt that you cant do on your main? Getting maxed out reputations on your main gives you all the toys and pets and mounts. What else are you trying to collect?

Appearances.

Also, a fair chunk of pets and mounts in 7.2 require "maxing out" the artifact on each class with a unique pet or mount or toy. Plus you need to do the Legionfall campaign on each alt to get the class mount.

[rhorle]

If you're doing content you enjoy (ie, raiding) while gearing your alt, who cares?

You do? You can enjoy content, raiding, while gearing your alt right now. But now you care about legendaries, rep, order hall, AP being maxed, etc on your alt. You can quickly get an alt to 36 traits 3 relic slot and gear for entry raiding. It can be done in a week of focusing on those tasks. More or less depending on how much you play the alt. That means you can enjoy up to Heroic Nighthold on your alt with minimal effort. And if all you care about is raiding and gearing your alt out then Heroic Nighthold will afford that.

Don't try to make this out to be a simple issue when you yourself is not making it simple.

[Jaylock]

Again, the very idea that the content which Legion requires you to do en masse is not universally accepted to be superior to any of its previous iterations. In Legion, the amount of time required to keep more than one toon on the same level as your main is much, much higher. You can say shit like, "it takes a fraction of the time to get it 80% of the way there," but I never played my alts to be 80% of my main. In order to be on the same level, the time investment is much higher as is the onus on content which I personally do not enjoy.

You're making an argument that the game is more "alt friendly" because you like the current system while simultaneously pretending there isn't even a possibility that there may be players who simply do not enjoy the way Legion's grinding systems work.

The game has ALWAYS required similar effort as a main if you wanted an alt as geared and as powerful as your main. In WoD you still had to gear up and enter high end raids to get high end raid gear. You have to do the same in Legion. It was the same in MoP.

You just "FEELING" like you are not as powerful unless you grind AP and grind legendaries is your own damn fault. Its optional and isn't required to complete the highest level content in the game. I mean shit, just by casually fucking playing on an alt, you can complete everything the game has to offer in terms of high end raiding..

You are making yourself suffer. Let me repeat, you should NOT be able to have an alt on the same level as your main unless you put the effort into it like you did with your main. And EVEN NOW, you dont have to put nearly as much time into an alt to get it to the same level as your main. The time it took to go from 1 AK to 30+ ak right now was 5-6 months. You can instantly skip that and thus beef up your weapon similarly to your main weapon in a fraction of the amount of time.

-Alt Friendly - Check mark.

[rhorle]

Also, a fair chunk of pets and mounts in 7.2 require "maxing out" the artifact on each class with a unique pet or mount or toy. Plus you need to do the Legionfall campaign on each alt to get the class mount.

But you don't need to do that right this second. Maxing out your 7.2 artifact will become easier at the end of the expansion just like matching out your launch artifact traits can be done in a day with a handful of AP tokens with the BoA AK. The Legionfall campaign can also be completed quicker once it is all unlocked. Your alt won't have to wait 11 weeks in order to complete it.

How much friendlier do you want those things to be though? Short of blizzard giving you those things for dinging 110 on an alt it can't really be done in a different way.

[Jaylock]

Appearances.

Also, a fair chunk of pets and mounts in 7.2 require "maxing out" the artifact on each class with a unique pet or mount or toy. Plus you need to do the Legionfall campaign on each alt to get the class mount.

Then you have a ton of content to complete in the months and years ahead!

Lots of content to do is a good thing. Not a bad thing.

Alt-friendliness doesn't mean that you have to have EVERYTHING your main has in a fraction of the time, it means its relatively easier to obtain the same things as your main in less time. Doesn't mean EVERYTHING. But, everything is easier to get and takes less time.

- Alt Friendly - Check mark.

[Arbiter]

What level do you raid at? Is skipping a few days of emissaries, and broken shore WQs really going to make that much of a difference in the long run?

Does your guild leader put some sort of requirement on you and others in your guild to all the time be grinding AP? It feels like you are burning yourself out unreasonably.

I don't think its a problem with the game as much as it is a problem of you.

Heroic so far for this xpac. I'm playing casually because I wouln't be able to fathom having the same raid schedule I did in MoP for Mythic (then Heroic) raiding on top of having to keep up with the bullshit grinding. Doesn't mean I still don't have my mythic mentality.

I keep my shit up to date because I care about my performance and by not doing it you are hindering yourself.

And yes any of that can make the difference. It's less AP for your wep which means less traits to help your damage. It's less chances at getting the legendaries you need.

Frankly you aren't in a position to judge anything being alt friendly though. Your main sitting in your sig barely has done anything. WoWProgress doesn't pick up alts with implies either you don't have any or they're even in a more casual status. Being that your biggest qualification is shit posting on mmochamp, I'd say you're not in a position to tell the rest of the player base how they're supposed to feel.

[Jaylock]

But you don't need to do that right this second. Maxing out your 7.2 artifact will become easier at the end of the expansion just like matching out your launch artifact traits can be done in a day with a handful of AP tokens with the BoA AK. The Legionfall campaign can also be completed quicker once it is all unlocked. Your alt won't have to wait 11 weeks in order to complete it.

How much friendlier do you want those things to be though? Short of blizzard giving you those things for dinging 110 on an alt it can't really be done in a different way.

This. So this.