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  1. #1

    Cool Is MoP really as unfriendly to alts as it seems like in my mind?

    Since MoP was released and maybe a bit before that even, I've been under the impression that the way Mists of Pandaria was designed was aggressively harsh towards players that enjoy playing characters other than their main. For this reason, I cancelled my account a few months ago. I've been watching to see if Blizzard was going to relax its stance on alts, but if anything they seem to be taking an increasingly hard line. For instance, they have removed automatic flight point discovery just lately, and they've basically said flat out that they have no plans on ever giving us heirloom MoP flying.

    I'd kinda like to get back into WoW, but there's just no chance of that as long as my NINE alts are basically unplayable. But I have to wonder...does this situation really seem as bad to everyone else as it does to me, or am I exaggerating it in my mind?

  2. #2
    Over 9000! Gimlix's Avatar
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    Removing fly points doesn't make it unfriendly to alts, it's just a thing for players to explore the world more, for old players this isn't new or they dont care, but for new players its nice to explore, it became a little to easy to just take a flight path to next zone when they dinged, now they actually have to walk around to get there, which i think myself is a great step back they did. flying mounts is to late to remove, so this is a nice thing to do!

    And i've lvled 2 alts to 90 since MoP and they are doing fine, and in previous expansions i just had a main and nothing else, so i don't find it that unfriendly to alts.
    Also rep and everything has their new bonus things, like 100% more reputation bonuses.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    having something to do on your main, doesn't mean that the game is alt unfriendly.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by nemro82 View Post
    having something to do on your main, doesn't mean that the game is alt unfriendly.
    ..what? having something to do on your main has nothing to do with whether or not the game is alt unfriendly

  5. #5
    I'm a pretty extreme altoholic myself, and I don't really get why people keep saying MoP is unfriendly to alts.. Not like you need the flight paths, as you point out; it worked perfectly fine before we had them, which i believe only got implemented mid /early cata.. And Pandaland is really easy to level through without flying, so what's the issue. Just because it aint all as easy as you would like it to be, doesn't mean it's unfriendly. It could simply be that you're lazy and want stuff handed to you for no effort

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by OnyxShadow View Post
    I'd kinda like to get back into WoW, but there's just no chance of that as long as my NINE alts are basically unplayable.
    Why are they unplayable? Because you can't use flying mounts? Because you have to discover flight paths yourself again? How does that make them unplayable?

    Are you still able to move your alts? In other words, if you press movement keys, do they move? If you press attack keys, do they attack? Does the game go a bright blue on your screen every time you log in? If not, then your alts are perfectly playable, and you are being a drama queen.

  7. #7
    Ill be quite honest IMO my Alts that I actually enjoy this xpac are doing better than ever. Yea I maybe had to do some dailies last tier but besides that being in a pretty decent raiding guild I was able to go to alt runs and get geared with out really doing much in dailies. Especially now with 5.2, unless you just dont want to raid at all you dont need to do dailies.

  8. #8
    The Undying Slowpoke is a Gamer's Avatar
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    People roll alts when they have nothing to do on their main. Well the only time I'd be rolling an alt is month 7 of SoO. Assuming I've gotten good LFR RNG and am able to run normal SoO.
    FFXIV - Maduin (Dynamis DC)

  9. #9
    The questing seems to feel like a slog, at least after the first two times (Lookin' at VotFW, Dread Wastes, and the end half of Townlong, here). That being said, I'd say it's probably more unfriendly to gear all your alts in anything other than 463 blues, (Or some 476 purples if you get lucky from scenario boxes or end bosses.) the rep system being what it is. Especially if you haven't been to revered with a faction on a character yet.
    Last edited by Vorticough; 2013-03-16 at 03:21 PM.

  10. #10
    Flight paths aside, I definitely find it more difficult to alt-ercise in this expansion than in prior expansions.

    I've had a very long grind gearing up my main (now ilvl 491) and trying to keep up with progress him, his dailies, his achievements, pet collecting, mount farming, etc. So much so that all of my alts are still sitting at 85. Even if I were just doing dailies and a dungeon or two a day on him, I still don't see how there would be room to level and maintain an alt with a casual play schedule.

    I find that in this expansion, in order to maintain an alt, you really have to sacrifice extra stuff from your main. There so much do to in MoP that if you were playing 2-3 hours a few nights a week, I think it would be extremely difficult to be up-to-date on a main and work on an alt (unless, of course, you're either not doing the rep grinds or set aside time to really grind the &%@! out of them and are already exalted with everything).

    Quote Originally Posted by Vorticough View Post
    The questing seems to feel like a slog, at least after the first two times. That being said, I'd say it's probably more unfriendly to gear all your alts in anything other than 463 blues, (Or some 476 purples if you get lucky from scenario boxes or end bosses.) the rep system being what it is. Especially if you haven't been to revered with a faction on a character yet.
    Also agree with this, without rep gear, even in 5.2 you're going to be hard pressed to quickly get alts up to your main's raid level. My main isn't exalted with all factions yet and probably won't be for a while because I can't stomach working on more than 2-3 hubs a day and up until 5.2 he's had a ton of valor simply going to waste because damn near everything is behind rep gates. Looks like this has been alleviated some with 5.2, but for a fresh alt, the rep gating is still brutal and slows down alt progression considerably.

    TL;DR - I like that there is a ton to do in MoP, but it certainly does lean to the unfriendly side when it comes to alts.
    Last edited by spectrefax; 2013-03-16 at 03:22 PM.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    I agree, since you have to do your dailies if you want to get the double drop tokens, it almost felt mandatory, i'm only playing PvP with my main and i wanted to do some LFR with an alt, but finally, no.

  12. #12
    Just to clarify a few things...

    I feel like I get tired of things after a reasonable amount of time. Maybe I could stomach the whole ground travel from 85-90 thing again once...maybe twice. After that, its just going to be painful for me. After two expansions of having a very reasonable remedy to the monotony of ground travel, its a hard pill to swallow going back to the vanilla/TBC model. Furthermore, I have no intention whatsoever of EVER grinding reps again on alts so long as that's tied to monotonous actions like dailies or farming. Some players may not mind doing hundreds of asinine quests every week to be able to keep up with alts. I'm not one of them. The problem with all these things is that they add nothing to the experience but hours played.

    As for the lack of heirloom flying (again, I have no problem with being grounded that first time), I think its fairly obvious that the maps are designed frequently to more or less troll you. There are unnecessarily long routes in many places and slight hills which are unpassable for no good reason that you are forced to take huge detours. Again, I can stomach all that once, but the thought of literally hundreds of hours of trudging along at ground mount speed to max level all my characters is untenable.

    I bought this game on the day it was released after playing a couple weeks of the BETA. I'm not some dude that's only seen the game since Cata/WotLK. This game has always been a more casual MMORPG, and its trended further in that direction for years...until MoP. Incidentally, subscriber levels have almost always increased or remained stable when the game followed that trend and dropped rapidly when Blizzard lost their way and designed for the hardcore minority.

    Looking at the big picture, almost all of the things I have against the MoP experience are tied to Blizzard subtlety building in huge amounts of tedium to artificially lengthen all aspects of the game. MoP seems extraordinarily watered down to me. When I get on an alt, I have the expectation that I won't get him to anywhere near the level of progression as my hardcore raiding main, but I will be able to casually enjoy the basics on a completely different type of character than my main. That's very simply the way it was for years until just recently. As subscriptions continue to plummet, I hope Blizzard realizes the cause before its too late. They seemed to wake up a bit towards the end of Cata, and player populations stabilized for a long time despite the low-quality final raid and an over-long gap between the last major patch and MoP.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Kuragalolz View Post
    I agree, since you have to do your dailies if you want to get the double drop tokens, it almost felt mandatory, i'm only playing PvP with my main and i wanted to do some LFR with an alt, but finally, no.
    That's only 45 dailies a week. You can do the 8 Klaxxi dailies in under 45 minutes every day, and from there, you can just complete the easy,small hubs of dailies every day and you should have your 90 tokens by the end of the week, ready to be turned in.

    I've switched mains twice in Mists of Pandaria. If you're willing to put in the work, you can keep an alt geared. But that's how it should be. If you want to progress on two characters, you have to put the work in instead of getting free raid gear from 5 mans.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by elfox View Post
    I'm a pretty extreme altoholic myself, and I don't really get why people keep saying MoP is unfriendly to alts..
    lvl 84 you need about 4 million XP to level up.
    lvl 85 you need about 15 million.

    How is this not unfriendly to alts?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Hardstyler01 View Post
    lvl 84 you need about 4 million XP to level up.
    lvl 85 you need about 15 million.

    How is this not unfriendly to alts?
    Have you seen quest experience? Once you're in Dread Wastes, you're getting 260k exp a quest.

  16. #16
    Mechagnome Xenyatta's Avatar
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    I leveled my DK first and realized I hated it so I leveled a monk from 1-90 and geared her up without guild help while raiding on my DK. I always had 90 tokens to turn in and I LOATHE dailies and questing. I manage 2 full farms and I have 2 alts that are 88 now. I also am leveling a new priest and 2nd monk. I do a lot of AH babysitting as well. Now if you think I can handle all this because I'm a no lifer, I have a 4 year old and an 8 month old plus a household I take care of when I'm not exhausted from being up all night with the baby. I think things are just fine for alts. Stop whining like my 4 year old loves to do.

  17. #17
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    Would be easier to why you think it's not friendly to alts so it's easier to adress those statement.
    Sure it's tougher to gear up alts since there not "catch up directly" sort of way now but other than that it's allright,
    Even the rep isn't a big deal after the revered commendation thingies ^^

  18. #18
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    we went from Wrath and Cata where it was "go play alts, its a great way to keep the game fresh"
    to Mop where its "abandon your alts, we dont care you put time and effort into them and got attached, you can go grind dailies and damm well like it because we told you to".

  19. #19
    Pandaren Monk Paladin885's Avatar
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    I think anyone who starts an MMO and see's that this game has 90 levels you have to trek before you get to the top is unfriendly and uninviting.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    i am biased because i despise flying mounts and all they have done to the game.
    But this has no impacts on your alts, the game is so generous and easy now that you can literally (i have done it multiple times) level a character to 68 without even leaving orgrimmar/sw

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