WoW & “Alts” in 2020

[Tojara]

They seem to have the idea that making alt characters should require just as much of an investment, or slightly less than your main character. You can speculate as to why they take this approach, whether it be something nefarious like trying to increase play time, or simply a philosophy they have in regards to every character requiring the same amount of work.

Most people I know don't "mind" systems like reputation, expansive quest lines, or other mechanics such as essences being in the game. What they don't like is having to do them multiple times, even if some of the requirements are eased quite a bit. My group of people simply want an easy way to pick up alternate characters, with essentially the only real barrier to entry being that gear is the only thing holding them back. Aside from reaching certain pillars in the game for the first time (PvP, raiding, M+, etc), most people I think would agree that one of the more enjoyable aspects of your main and alt characters, is the actual growth through gear.

If we assume that Blizzard has nefarious logic in regards to their view of alts, it's a pretty retarded stance for them to have. If they honestly think that playtime will increase because alternate characters have to do some portion of essence, AP and questlines (or all) as your main, they're sorely mistaken. What ends up happening is people don't even bother making an alt because there's a monumental task set forth for them to get that character up to snuff, and it's always something lingering on your mind. The gear grind is fun, but knowing that you're weeks behind on potential reputation grinds, AP and the newly introduced essence system makes the experience of playing an alternate character fairly sour.

This isn't actually a new phenomenon. There were periods in the game where pretty much nothing mattered but your gear, and during those eras it was fairly difficult to gear your character, but most people were okay with that. WoD/MoP started introducing aspects that made you feel behind (the legendary items), and Legion/BFA really accelerated this to levels far beyond both WoD/MoP with both legendary items, AP, and other systems that make catching up an alternate character a pain in the ass.

In my opinion playtime can only be increased by making alternate characters very easy to transition too. Reputation, essences and even AP could be account wide. All of those systems are far more bearable (even AP/Rep) if you only have to do them once, and I don't think anybody would argue that most of the essences are okay to great to get the first time. If they made that compromise they could even reign back the shower of loot that we've been getting slowly over the past several expansions, and I doubt anybody would care.

TLDR; Make most systems account wide, or have massive catch up mechanics in place for alternate characters. The only difference between you main/alt should be the time investment you put into them in regards to getting gear.

[Adoxe]

Whenever it became super easy to maintain alts and actually became beneficial to have as many as possible (WoD), everyone jumped on that ship, but the moment it became difficult they were overburdened by it all and not capable of maintaining them at the same level anymore without insane time investment. I will never understand people who try to keep their alts at the same level as their mains unless they're in one of the top 10 guilds in the world.

[Tradu]

Focusing on 1 character requires that character to have enough depth/room to min/max and get noticeable performance improvements from doing so to last an entire patch/expansion, which has not been the case for a while. It also requires better balance so you don't just end up stuck working on mastering Windwalker (a historically weak spec) and are held back by that when you could be playing Affliction(a historically very strong spec) instead.

[Sansnom]

Would the game/community be better today if players went back to focusing and MASTERING a single class? Maybe 1 “alt” is all we need. Maybe what the game really needs is the player base focusing on their favorite character and not our meta favorites. Maybe playing an “alt” should be hard?

You can focus on just one character if you want. You do not have to have alts.

This way the game is not littered with mediocre players?

Just can't stop with the insults. Why is this a problem?

[CrawlFromThePit]

That's because there are more reasons to play alts than just the one way that you described. For instance, some people enjoy different playstyles that can't be held in a single character. What should they do, just not play a style they enjoy because someone somewhere arbitrarily determined that "alts" are less important?

Someone earlier hit on it pretty well earlier in the thread: The idea of alts and mains stems from an older style of game which doesn't necessarily apply as well today. People are more capable of multitasking, or investing time into multiple goals. Many people are interested in more fully exploring everything the game has to offer. Telling those people that they can't enjoy the game as much because of an outdated concept of "alts" and "mains" seems like a bad approach.

There's a reason one toon is considered your main and the others are called alts. Hint: it's not because they're equally as strong.

[Zyrinx]

There's a reason one toon is considered your main and the others are called alts. Hint: it's not because they're equally as strong.

Where is this etched in stone? That's just one playstyle option, among many.

[Rotted]

With millions of players (even under a million) people are just different. If you force them into something, they might just fuck off.

And catering to everyone - from the guy who plays just 1 main to the guy who thinks he needs to be able to do Mythic+15 and raids competitively on 20 alts is just impossible.

I never understood this mentality

I have two examples. The first is a woman who has every class to 120 and her favorite classes x3 for each spec. Fair enough, not that unusual at all. But on every single alt she insists on grinding out every single reputation, from every single expansion to exalted. She will re run every raid to re get the achievement - not for x mog. If theres a item that class specific she will get it on that class. For example the glaives. The day mounts became BoA, she raised holy hell. Shes a collector and shes at the max mount achi every expansion, but prior to them being BoA, she would grind the same mounts on new alts. Again, not because she wanted to use a specific mount but because she wanted them all. Imagine grinding ashes or invincible every week on 10 toons for the sake of having it.

My other example was a former raid I had to boot off the team. He had a solid 10 characters capable of raiding in the team during legion, all of which he grinded in our raids and mains mythic + runs. I actually had to pull him from the team in the end, people were getting pissed they were losing rolls with some gear to someone alt hoping.

But yea, baffles me how people want to be that much of a perfectionist in a game, especially with the boa stuff,

[Kelxin]

Would the game/community be better today if players went back to focusing and MASTERING a single class? Maybe 1 “alt” is all we need.

Problem with that is Blizzard limited certain items / achievements / mounts / unlockables to certain class / race / faction.
It's like unlocking the new allied races you MUST have an alliance character AND a horde character. Unlocking specific features requires a night elf, others require other races. Some achievements require that you have every race and every class leveled to max. They (Bliz) keep switching in between "embracing" the alt community and punishing them.

I've now put 6 characters through the 8.3 quests and NONE of them let me skip any instance or quest chain. I think in total, I've already invested over 10 hours in those quests. (And they get REALLY old REALLY fast)

[matrix123mko]

I like alts because playing one character is boring.

[Twdft]

and NONE of them let me skip any instance or quest chain.

Ahem, you can skip about half of the scenarios by talking to Brann/Raden or whoever again.

[Aliven]

Well, as somebody who has 1-2 character(s) of each class at 120, and some more coming up - I can't wait that you share your insight (that devs don't have) on how we all who have alts like to play them.

With the catch up mechanisms since TBC, they seem to be erfectly aware that thing like alts and returning players exist. Personally I think my alts should not be where my main is, the moment they hit max level.

Care to explain why? I see that argument but, other than sematics in terms of words "main" and "alt" cant really pinpoint it.
Or, for switch things off, why would it matter if alt be on main level in terms of power (not progression, alto most should be account wide if person desire) rather quickly.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Where is this etched in stone? That's just one playstyle option, among many.

Words have definitions, I know it's 2020 but making shit up to fit what you believe in isn't a real thing.

[Tomana]

Would the game/community be better today if players went back to focusing and MASTERING a single class? Maybe 1 “alt” is all we need. Maybe what the game really needs is the player base focusing on their favorite character and not our meta favorites. Maybe playing an “alt” should be hard? This way the game is not littered with mediocre players?

I may be a minority on this one, but after I leveled a lot of alts in Cata/MOP/Legion, I actually like to be able to concentrate on a single character.
Then again, I main a paladin, so I can do any role if needs be. It must be harder to justify for people maining a mage or a warlock.

In any case, I think Blizzard needs to remove that silly profession cap and allow at least 1/2 gathering and 2 crafting professions so that you can at least sustain yourself without having to level alts just for herb and/or mining. Or better yet, fold the corresponding gathering skill into the crafting skill.

[Traveler Voltin]

Whenever it became super easy to maintain alts and actually became beneficial to have as many as possible (WoD), everyone jumped on that ship, but the moment it became difficult they were overburdened by it all and not capable of maintaining them at the same level anymore without insane time investment. I will never understand people who try to keep their alts at the same level as their mains unless they're in one of the top 10 guilds in the world.

have you ever been in a raid guild?

[In Ogres We Trust]

Alts are the main reason I play this game, if I was limited to just my Paladin or my Warrior then I'd probably only play about a quarter of what I play right now.

Things need to be made more alt friendly. Account wide essences, the 8.3 intro should just auto complete for alts so they can start picking away at assaults and horrific visions as they see fit. Stuff like that.

Nah! You should have a main and, by extension, only a limited number of alternates.

[Edlarel]

I enjoy alts, including playing them and gearing them up in the current content. My play style doesn't match yours, and that's okay. I won't keep creating pointless threads about how the game should cater to only me and my select group of players. You should probably consider doing the same next time.

[Gasblossom]

They want you to have to play a lot to get what you want. It's all just artificial gating to extend sub time nothing more. They think making alts easier will make people run out of content and quit. They are clueless of course but that is why it is the way it is.

[Cyi]

I can't even assume good faith on their part anymore. No reputation perks like the revered bonuses, no reputation tokens, no catch up mechanics. You can skip a few scenarios, but other than that the goal seems to force people to waste more of their time redoing annoying bullshit they've already done to milk subs. At this point, atl east from my experience talking with friends playing WoW, it's having the opposite effect. It's just making them not want to play their alts at all.

I can attest this is exactly why my sub ends in a few more days. I have a main that I have played for years, has fishing, archeology, professions and reputations all at max, yet I find myself board playing her now. Every time I log into an alto to try it though, I start thinking about all the things I am losing by not being on my main. It sucks. I have said it before and will say it again even if it isnt popular, we need a "family" type system that when one of your toons earns reputation, the whole of them do. If my brother is an amazing archer and everyone knows him for it and he is going around giving me a recommendation as to my abilities, people would trust that and believe him.

I would also like secondary professions to be known by all my characters. I know blizzard is trying to make you play the game more, however it is doing the exact opposite for me.

[SirCowdog]

There's a reason one toon is considered your main and the others are called alts. Hint: it's not because they're equally as strong.

That's what I was saying though. The very concept of mains and alts is outdated.

Anyway, the point being that if a player has already done the work to unlock something as important as essences, and wants to switch their "main" focus to another character, it seems unnecessarily tedious(and in some cases alt-discouraging) to require that same level of grind again.

Now...I'm not saying that every character in an account should get everything for free that the furthest progressed character has. But if we concede that alts are a valid, and important, part of the game, then it seems reasonable to include mechanics to facilitate them.

Granted, Blizzard has a vested interest in getting players to spend as much time playing as possible. But there needs to be a better balance struck between increasing that time via repetitive grinds(essences as they are now)and increasing that time with alt-friendly mechanics(such as account wide essences) that would keep altaholics playing.

[ArkantosChampion]

Legion i had 15 max level characters and 8-9 of them was playable (good gear/rep etc etc)
BFA i have 11 max level characters and 7 of them is playable
BFA essence patch, still 11 characters and 4 of them is playable
BFA 8.3 patch (quest line) still 11 characters and ONE OF THEM IS PLAYABLE (will do one more) so i will stop AT 2 CHARACTERS
And im fking hardcore nerd, playing from actul classic, play time 70% of every expansion. BFA IS A SH T SHOW! Sorry but im MAD ASF

p.s. in legion i had 15 characters and ALL of them got mage tower on all specs and full class campaign quests/mount/gear(Class Hall Set)