Garrisons should've been account-wide and bigger

[Deleted]

Two core problems are I currently see with Garrisons are:

- people with several max. level characters are abusing the system and stockpiling mats and flooding the market
- leveling followers, gearing and unlocking all blue prints will get old fast. Not to mention that it won't be *necessary* once Raids are released

I have 2 level 100 characters, several others sitting at 90 and I can't see myself doing the Garrison chores on all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a hardcore raider and my main got 650+ ilvl from doing a mix of missions (30 level 100 followers, 10 of them 615+, 5 at 655 ilvl), CM dailies, bmah and craftables. I'll be ignoring the Garrison on all future alts, since it'll be easier to straight jump into LFR and higher difficulties. Guild will provide all the flasks and other buff food, like it always does. Same goes for enchants, gems and so on. Guess we farmed like 20 million gold on SoO sell runs, some of us got this amount on their chars due to CM sell runs alone.

Imagine your Garrison would have the size of Admiral Taylor's Garrison, with 5-6 small plots for your characters professions and generally being bigger, like Blizzard planned it to be. I don't know why Blizzard got the idea that every decision should be meaningful and punishing (outpost followers came to my mind). It also sucks that you can't carry over your Garrison (followers, unlocked buildings) into the next expansion - guess they gave up on their major selling point of this expansion midway in development.

[Fascinate]

Most people will disagree with you but even as someone without a job i agree with this lol. Blizz dropped the ball.

[Cwimge]

Garrisons are exhausting to think about. Every day I log in, collect my stuff and spam the work order button then sit and afk until people come back with the incremental amount of xp they get. All the while lamenting my green and blue minions and wondering if its worth equipping them. Doing this on several alts, juggleing the changes in rarity and the absolute fucking meta that is keeping them on rotating work crushes any real joy in alting.

and this is without going into soulbound mats and the worthlessness of it all

[Manabomb]

With Garrisons current iteration, I find that spending an hour a day to run my alts followers missions through, set up work orders and play farmer man with the garden in the mine is acceptable. Repetitive, but acceptable. It's a higher class version of the MoP farm when you get down to it.

But I would have really liked being able to make your own city. Having the ability to unlock everything in said city after a while and forcing you to make choices on what you would want. Take the current buildings for Garrisons now, but simply make all the plots for buildings time gated and all the achievements that aren't account bound (the 250 work order one for t3 profession blueprints is the only one that comes to mind) account bound and make the entire city-garrison account bound. This would also reduce the abuse and increase the need of crafting reagents as the mine and the garden would directly not be able to naturally keep up with the work orders and daily cooldowns of every profession. (Think of like, being able to build a Stormshield, where you have practically every garrison building there.)

But, as I said, the current iteration is acceptable. It could be better, it could have way more customization in terms of work, general theme, location and functionality, but those have been discussed to death.

[Alvito]

It is far too much like freemium phone games that keep you logging back onto your game every few hours to try and max output. If they can work out the system I completely expect to see garrisons go mobile soon just like the mobile AH. Even if it is just the simple things like sending followers on missions.

[Seezer]

Most people will disagree with you but even as someone without a job i agree with this lol. Blizz dropped the ball.

It's brand new. There is plenty of time to tweak. This is just the beginning.

[Wildtree]

Two core problems are I currently see with Garrisons are:

- people with several max. level characters are abusing the system and stockpiling mats and flooding the market
- leveling followers, gearing and unlocking all blue prints will get old fast. Not to mention that it won't be *necessary* once Raids are released

I have 2 level 100 characters, several others sitting at 90 and I can't see myself doing the Garrison chores on all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a hardcore raider and my main got 650+ ilvl from doing a mix of missions (30 level 100 followers, 10 of them 615+, 5 at 655 ilvl), CM dailies, bmah and craftables. I'll be ignoring the Garrison on all future alts, since it'll be easier to straight jump into LFR and higher difficulties. Guild will provide all the flasks and other buff food, like it always does. Same goes for enchants, gems and so on. Guess we farmed like 20 million gold on SoO sell runs, some of us got this amount on their chars due to CM sell runs alone.

Imagine your Garrison would have the size of Admiral Taylor's Garrison, with 5-6 small plots for your characters professions and generally being bigger, like Blizzard planned it to be. I don't know why Blizzard got the idea that every decision should be meaningful and punishing (outpost followers came to my mind). It also sucks that you can't carry over your Garrison (followers, unlocked buildings) into the next expansion - guess they gave up on their major selling point of this expansion midway in development.

Nope, just nope..
You complain how people can exploit the system now with multiple toons. At the same token you want a solution that would basically eliminate the professions, and with that most of the games trade economy.
I disagree.. Multi-toon players might have an advantage at the moment, IF they are willing to level their fleet.
In order to have some market share, you have to have the following:
1. at least enough progress to have level 2 small plot unlocked, for whatever buildings you choose.
2. have to be ideally level 96 to unlock the herb garden.
3. have to be able to finance all of these things.

To be effective you need access to the buildings feature that unlock at level 2.. Mines require level 92, and Herbs level 96....
Blizzard did in fact build a hurdle in right there..
account wide would have more negative impact than good.
Plus, there's nothing wrong with giving altoholics an advantage over non altoholics.. Much like hardcore raiders get better gear too...
You can't have everything at equal chance and opportunity, if you neglect some parts.
You don't have to do it, it's optional.. But you can't complain over the benefits it has if you do it.

[Rafoel]

MMMMMmmmmm

There are 2 possibilites. Either farming garrisons IS OBLIGATORY for being competitive and then everybody do it, or it ISN'T OBLIGATORY and then only a few do it. If it is, then the market will get flooded by mats soon, so that the prices drop and and farming will become less and less profitable until it isn't obligatory anymore. If it isn't obligatory... well, why all the whine? Aren't you by any chance the same people that whined about dailies in MoP? Maybe you just can't stand having a specific list of things to do every day? Why play MMO then?

[Deleted]

Nope, just nope..
You complain how people can exploit the system now with multiple toons. At the same token you want a solution that would basically eliminate the professions, and with that most of the games trade economy.
I disagree.. Multi-toon players might have an advantage at the moment, IF they are willing to level their fleet.
In order to have some market share, you have to have the following:
1. at least enough progress to have level 2 small plot unlocked, for whatever buildings you choose.
2. have to be ideally level 96 to unlock the herb garden.
3. have to be able to finance all of these things.

To be effective you need access to the buildings feature that unlock at level 2.. Mines require level 92, and Herbs level 96....
Blizzard did in fact build a hurdle in right there..
account wide would have more negative impact than good.
Plus, there's nothing wrong with giving altoholics an advantage over non altoholics.. Much like hardcore raiders get better gear too...
You can't have everything at equal chance and opportunity, if you neglect some parts.
You don't have to do it, it's optional.. But you can't complain over the benefits it has if you do it.

You can level a char 90-100 in under 5 hours using the exp potion, which costs 100 resources, eg nothing.

MMMMMmmmmm

There are 2 possibilites. Either farming garrisons IS OBLIGATORY for being competitive and then everybody do it, or it ISN'T OBLIGATORY and then only a few do it. If it is, then the market will get flooded by mats soon, so that the prices drop and and farming will become less and less profitable until it isn't obligatory anymore. If it isn't obligatory... well, why all the whine? Aren't you by any chance the same people that whined about dailies in MoP? Maybe you just can't stand having a specific list of things to do every day? Why play MMO then?

I was the first on my realm to have all MoP factions exalted. But the point of this thread is, that I never repeated this grind on any of my other chars. In fact, I never touched any daily on any of my alts, except for the mandatory ones like bonus rolls.

[Terahertz]

I agree that garrisons should've been BoA. While many items you get from the buildings are already BoA (which means blizzard wants you to have numerous alts, at least in my eyes), it does seem silly how you can loot so much ore and so many herbs per day on as many characters as you like. The work orders are OK since they basically substitute the profession dailies from MoP, but being able to loot the mines and the herb gardens every day does seem silly.

It is far too much like freemium phone games that keep you logging back onto your game every few hours to try and max output.

So? How is this a bad thing? I for one enjoy these type of games where I can just activate something and log back in later to see some stuff I can collect.

[Biggles Worth]

Two core problems are I currently see with Garrisons are:

- people with several max. level characters are abusing the system and stockpiling mats and flooding the market
- leveling followers, gearing and unlocking all blue prints will get old fast. Not to mention that it won't be *necessary* once Raids are released

I have 2 level 100 characters, several others sitting at 90 and I can't see myself doing the Garrison chores on all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a hardcore raider and my main got 650+ ilvl from doing a mix of missions (30 level 100 followers, 10 of them 615+, 5 at 655 ilvl), CM dailies, bmah and craftables. I'll be ignoring the Garrison on all future alts, since it'll be easier to straight jump into LFR and higher difficulties. Guild will provide all the flasks and other buff food, like it always does. Same goes for enchants, gems and so on. Guess we farmed like 20 million gold on SoO sell runs, some of us got this amount on their chars due to CM sell runs alone.

Imagine your Garrison would have the size of Admiral Taylor's Garrison, with 5-6 small plots for your characters professions and generally being bigger, like Blizzard planned it to be. I don't know why Blizzard got the idea that every decision should be meaningful and punishing (outpost followers came to my mind). It also sucks that you can't carry over your Garrison (followers, unlocked buildings) into the next expansion - guess they gave up on their major selling point of this expansion midway in development.

Yeah I already abused the system. Setup to have a full tier 3 set of truesteel armor in ONE month. Would never happen if it was account bound.

[cuafpr]

totally agree... should be one per realm, and your alts on that realm should be part of your followers and you could use their trade skills / level them via follower missions. would be so neat!

[rda]

I completely agree that there should have been just ONE garrison per realm / faction, or even per account / faction, which all alts would be able to contribute to.

Garrisons on multiple alts are a big, big, big chore. Much worse than the farm in MoP, and that farm was quite a chore in itself...

[Lothrik]

Garrisons should be account wide. The fact they aren't is honestly worse than how Diablo-esque this expansion is.

You should be able to have different buildings active on different characters, with a very long cooldown associated with swapping active buildings.

Grinding out garrison resources to unlock buildings you already have access to on another character feels idiotic.

Levelling up followers when you already have dozens of level 100s on another character feels idiotic.

Imagine the outrage if pet battles worked the way Garrisons do now. Start a new character? Gotta re-capture and re-level all of those Pokémon--I mean pets.

I strongly resent the fact that Blizzard has essentially turned a Facebook minigame into the main attraction of this expansion.

[rda]

Imagine the outrage if pet battles worked the way Garrisons do now. Start a new character? Gotta re-capture and re-level all of those Pokémon--I mean pets.

Exactly.

Same for mounts. Same for achievements. Same for toys (it's no surprise the most often seen complaint wrt toys is that not enough of items that could have been toys = account-wide, are). Same for heirlooms (remember how ecstatic people were when they added these - they wouldn't have been that ecstatic if heirlooms weren't BoA). Etc, etc, etc.

Take achievements - they were once per-char. That was REMOVING gameplay - people were very reluctant to do achievements on anything other than main. Once most of the achievements went account-wide, people started doing them on all chars - this removed a lot of stress and ADDED gameplay. It's the same with garrisons.

[Surabe]

1 account = 1 garrison....

That would be so fucking awesome!!

[Lothrik]

people were very reluctant to make achievements on anything but their main.

It's exactly the same case here. I feel 100% obligated to log back on my main whenever possible and can never actually focus on levelling an alt for more than a few hours, because garrison progress on my main trumps everything else. It's very frustrating and anti-fun. Having my alts get better RNG with garrison followers just adds salt to the wound.

[risingforce]

Here's why you are wrong.

It was the same at launch with MoP -everyone QQ'ing over the dailies and their associated reputation; the problem is that players feel compelled to finish every damned facet of the game, or out of obligation. Both compulsion and obligation are player decisions and not a design fault. By design, as is World of Warcraft, Garrisons can be min-maxed and can take as much (or as little) time as you wish.

If you don't have the time to max your Garrison(s) then simply don't max them.

On the bright side -and by design -to alleviate that compulsion/obligation complex, Blizzard have designed Garrisons as an accumulator so that your Garrison Resources and Work Orders can generate over time with little interaction.

Garrisons are a game designer's wet dream.

[cFortyfive]

basically eliminate the professions

Don't see how that would have been so bad given the state of professions. Just roll it completely into the garrison and be done with it nothing of value would be lost.
I am already annoyed as fuck managing 6 garrisons. Wouldn't mind having less but bigger ones and some more customization but well they just ran out of time anyways.

[rda]

Garrisons are a game designer's wet dream.

We'll see about that a couple months into WoD. My prediction is that WoD will lose a lot of subs, primarily because it has little content, but also because garrisons are the chore that they are and are pretty boring / annoying.