Should Blizzard do more to support Alts?

[Sharby]

Not creating a poll because I'd rather have discussion over silent votes.


In my experience I tend to play the game longer the more alt-friendly it is at the moment; And in modern WoW where classes change so often penalizing players for swapping mains isn't agreeable to me.


What I'd like to see:

The biggest one is def acc-wide essences(including the ranks) and azerite level, being forced to go back to old content to re-grind items I've already gotten on my main is nonsensical and the biggest barrier to me playing my alts more.

Mop-esque rep boosts for alts- Self-explanatory esp if power is locked behind rep/dailies.

Full skips of certain quest chains, its not enough to only be able to skip a portion of a chain especially a longer one like 8.3, allow me to skip the entire thing and give me the quest rewards as an option for turning it in. None of these quests test your ability as a player and are almost entirely story based, many skips already exist so this isn't new just a bit expanded on. For the record I'm not talking about regular quest chains and am only referring to shit like BFA intros and 8.3 cloak quest chain.

Add items to the appearance tab even if the character that looted it cannot use it, makes no sense to have to re-run a raid for a piece of transmog that I looted on a previous character. I'd def do old raids more on alts if this was the case.

Server-wide gold wallet/bank. Self explanatory, I don't think cross-server shared wallets should be a thing though and it should be faction restricted. The heirloom tab is a good example of this idea in practice.

I already know its coming but I'll preemptively address to counter-argument now, none of what I'm suggesting would detract from game-difficulty, nor am I 'lazy.' It simply just encourages players who like having multiple characters to play around with and helps to keep the game from being stale, if I have a lot of different play-styles to experiment with it leads to more engagement overall. And for the record, hard work and player prestige should show through avenues such as difficult content (mythic/rated arena) via gear/ilvl/titles. Timegated content is not hard work. I am more than willing to spend the time pushing myself to defeat difficult encounters to earn powerful items, I am not willing to spend time doing the same timegated mundane chores to accomplish something I already did on my main.


Lazy is: Asking gear to be shared across all characters removing the need to actually do content on the character for ilvl.

Lazy is not: Removing superficial barriers that don't test or prove my ability as a player and instead exist only to elongate how long it takes a character to be able to do relevant content.

Don't waste my time and yours trying to argue this.

[MoanaLisa]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

[George Costanza]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

Yeah

I mean making it easier for alts to catch up is fine, but account-wide/server wide is kinda too much.

[Sharby]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

I agree with this sentiment except for the fact that WoW is not an RPG only its a multiplayer game with very little focus on single-player. Your character, regardless if you care about it or not is still being weighed and judged against other players and their maximum potential changes as time goes on via patches.

Part of the reason that FFXIV kept me subbed for so long despite being completely unfamiliar to me was the fact that every single time I got bored with my current playstyle I could level a new job and once maxed there was nothing stopping me from jumping into current content as you could essentially use a set of BiS gear right off the bat due to the facts of shared sets and being able to be all the classes on one character. This isn't to say that gearing should be easy, but the barriers that hinder one from gearing in the first place absolutely should go.

The problem with alts on WoW is that none of the content I am forced to do on alts challenge me as a player on that class nor are they meaningful or a stepping stone. I think alts should be required to do engaging content to rise to the levels of their mains, I don't mind doing M0's and building my way up to M10's and beyond. I don't mind starting with a shit ilvl and working my way up. That should be the same.


But doing timegated content just for fundamentals of my character (AP/Essences) is none of that, its not prestigious, its not engaging, there's no agency or player choice, there's no unique experience to be had that would make it worthwhile. Its literally just the same thing with a different character name and abilities.

In most RPG's if I make a new character I can choose different story options for a unique, enriching experience, even a differing choice of gender or class can almost completely change how the game is played and/or experienced. There is nothing to do like that on WoW and if there are any examples they are extremely muted. The only time making an alt is different is if its on a different faction and even then its still a one time experience.

If it isn't an important milestone nor a defining experience of a character recognizable by others it should not be required to do as an alt.

[zlygork]

I'm on the BoA everything but gear and levels camp. I consider that progress should be largely a player thing and not a character thing. It's not like there is anything that is in any way immersive about getting to exalted with people to get a random item that somehow powers up your necklace and then abandoning them. And it's likewise not like many people chose to make new characters for the joy of grinding XYZ thing again, the reason they make alts is so that they can play through whatever content they enjoy with the new play style.
Hell, even if you didn't have to grind for grear and levels (not that I support this), you could still make a case for the player having to actually progress with their alt in terms of mastering it.

[Echeyakee]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

I would of agreed to that in the past, but today's wow is a different game. I made, and actually played a ton of alts in LK, and gear was the only real limiter. Once you got that, you're free to enjoy a different class. Today gear is the least of your issues, especially with m+ being the unlimited dispenser of end-game grade gear. Instead we have this web of RNG and grind based mechanics that can only be overcome with significant time investment in to boring activities. It's something you deal with on your main, but even the though of grinding for lucid dreams ever again makes me nauseous. At least AP has decent catch up, and thankfully they kept the main story line stocked up with big AP payouts, but it's just a cog in the playtime wasting machine. And for some reason it never feels just as good as simply getting steady gear upgrades, I can't pinpoint exactly why.

[LordVargK]

There are things that are currently account (server) wide but not well implemented: all the things that you can mail come to mind. I would therefore approve a serverwide gold pool and a shared (any WAAAAY bigger crafting-)bank. I think GW2 handles this pretty good, maybe Blizz could learn something from them. Account bound currency (pet charms, etc) should also be a shared pool.

On the topic of rep: I think the MoP model of buffing rep gain of alts after your main hit exalted was a perfect compromise.
Artifact power should be abolished as a system alltogether. It just does not fit WoW. But if it has to stay, then take the game you imported this system from as an example: In diablo Paragon is account wide and this should be the same for WoW as well.
Skipping of questlines? why? most of them can be skipped already or are short enough to do.
And yes, gear should not be shared.

Basically you can revert the game back to MoP in that regard and it would be fine. Alts worked fine in the past, and would work fine now. Problem was that in WoD and Legion alts were expoitable and in Legion and BfA they are very hard to maintain on a even semi-competitive level (not even a problem of alts, also off-specs are harder to maintain then necessary). Solve the mistakes those expansions did and then you have a working system.

[thilicen]

8.3 is much less grindy (unless you feel you need those last 5% of rep and visions you can get on a single day from rares and events), most major sources of "income" is now mostly doable within a few hours of play giving you quite a bit more time to focus on alts.

The patch also introduces catch-up gear you can get on your main and pass down.

Alt leveling is being much improved in Shadowlands.

AP grind, to my knowledge, is going away or will at least be heavily mitigated.

Could probably do more but I'd say we're headed in the right direction as far as time needed on main characters goes.

[Boricha]

Considering many of the systems which make alts untenable are late additions to supplement Azerite traits and won't be following us into Shadowlands, I would say yes. The game isn't in a good enough state to justify so much essence farming just to make our characters viable for the core of the game, raids, arena, and m+. I don't really think of WoW as an RPG anymore, but even when it's RPG elements were strongest the grinds weren't for direct power increases and ability acquisition. It would also make sense considering Blizz claims that Shadowlands will be extremely alt friendly.

[Thetruth1400]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

I'm torn on it. On the one hand, I agree with you; very little should be account wide as characters are unique experiences (not super unique as the game play has been watered down, but unique enough.) and some things just shouldn't be account wide.

On the other hand, the long grind systems, sometimes locked behind content that we don't want to do and that are often just nerfed in the future, there's no reason not to have account wide.

Azerite is a horrible system. It could easily be account wide because what do they do anyway? They boost the gains week to week to the point there really isn't much of a difference except at the extreme high end. I leveled an alt the other day and the neck is basically caught up to within 5 of my main. What's the point in that not just being account wide? Likewise, is doing the same little scenario to unlock the same essence really fun? Is it fun to have to redo rep for a second, third, 10th, 20th time just to unlock a pattern?

Gear and hard weekly limits on rep gains could be the new norm and a perfectly acceptable system for unlocking things, not just repeated slogs through the same daily quests just to unlock a pattern on yet another alt.

[Zyky]

No they shouldn't do more to support alts, alts should feel rewarding if you invest some time into them.

The issue currently is that there's too much time investment required on a single toon if you intend on doing raiding or competitive PvP. You can find yourself frequently feeling like if you're putting time into an alt you're not putting in adequate time onto your "main". Legion had this same problem and a lot of it was because of the endless grind on Artifacts and Legiondaries(but this got better with the last patch to have BoA tokens drop on your main). BFA takes that a step further with Artifacts, Essences, and now Corruption grinding.

[Imurbandaid]

Its more alt supportive than its ever been. I had alts in BC and it was way worse. Leveling, gearing, attunement, everything was way harder for alts. It got really easy towards the end of WotLK with THE SAME SYSTEMS STILL IN PLAY. Catchup gear every patch that is farmable on a main and trade-able to an alt...YOU DONT EVEN NEED TO PLAY YOUR ALT TO START CATCHING UP, no raid attunements, BoA flying to make leveling an alt take 1 weekend from 1-120, I mean what more do you want? You don't even need to keep up with an alt to do the content, you can just farm catch up gear on your main and trade it to your alt and he can step into easy-mid level RELEVANT content. I play like 1-2hours 3 days a week and sometimes a bit more on weekends and I have 4 toons over 445 right now and 3 more over 410, and even I think that is too much and makes my main lose importance. The only thing arguably hard about alts is artifact power systems (only new to legion and bfa) and if YOU CANT BE BOTHERED TO DO THE BARE MINIMUM FOR THAT, even with its catchup mechanic as well, then YOU CANT BE BOTHERED TO REALLY HAVE/NEED AN ALT.

[arkanon]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

So Final Fantasy doesnt tick the "oldschool RPG" box?

[Dakhath]

With the fallout of 8.3, I imagine its only a matter of time before they throw the players a bone, not unlike the changes that went in today. Need to keep those quarterly numbers up after all.

[beanman12345]

imo yes. i dont think there is as much variety in content to have too many unique experiences with different alts, like back in the bc/vanilla days. even though back then it was mostly doing the exact same content at end game as well. But now you are just doing the same stuff which is all very linear with only mostly a different cosmetic look and a different rotation. I don't believe in hurdles to get to what you want to do.

[MoanaLisa]

So Final Fantasy doesnt tick the "oldschool RPG" box?

No, not for me. But Final Fantasy is something of a special case because I'm all for the kind of open-RPG's where characters can be defined with multiple-classes (as was common in D&D and the many variations on it over the years) and I've always said that Blizzard is being silly by not deepening professions and making all professions available to player characters.

To everyone else: I'm not saying the game should stay as it is if there's much less account-wide stuff. In fact, a game that encourages alts, has incentives for alts, could and should ramp the grindy systems back by quite a bit. See above how you could make professions a much deeper system with a lot of variability and substitute that--in a system retention sense--for stuff like Azerite grinds. There are others things that could be done as well. Blizzard has trapped everyone in a gear-as-progression paradigm and I think that of the RPG choices for power progression for characters that's the least interesting one I can imagine. Player power can be a mix of things (including gear).

[Phurox]

With the fallout of 8.3, I imagine its only a matter of time before they throw the players a bone, not unlike the changes that went in today. Need to keep those quarterly numbers up after all.

They already did. Sub for six months and get a rat

[Mirishka]

There should be very little account-wide anything if you ask me. People make alts of their own free will then ask Blizzard for help in supporting them because it's too much to do. I'm very old school about this. In an RPG you make a character. Whatever happens to that character stays with that character. It doesn't automatically advance other characters you make for that RPG.

I largely agree with this. We already get to use (almost) all our mounts, our pets, rep tokens, unlock flight, and several other things across all our toons - so there's already a big reduction in barrier of entry.

Can you imagine if we had to do pathfinder 1 and 2 across all our toons? People would burn Blizz to the ground.

[Sharby]

I largely agree with this. We already get to use (almost) all our mounts, our pets, rep tokens, unlock flight, and several other things across all our toons - so there's already a big reduction in barrier of entry.

Can you imagine if we had to do pathfinder 1 and 2 across all our toons? People would burn Blizz to the ground.

These are largely vanity/convenience aspects of the game though, the actual barrier to entry I am addressing is the one preventing players from having all of their fundamental power aspects via Azerite/Essences.

Legion had the same problem with the third relic slot being locked until you finished the intitial order hall campaign and it sucked big time because you literally could not do anything on an alt until you got it because it was such a massive power chunk missing, same goes for artifact power. They rectified both in the later patches but it shouldn't have been a thing to start.


Now the same problem is happening in BFA, your power is locked behind timegated content that isn't engaging or meaningful but necessary to be on an even playing field as other players. To that I end the only part of character progression I feel is fine to keep uneven and reward people for doing it sooner is actual items from raid/dungeon lockouts and such.

To reiterate I am perfectly okay having to grind out dungeons or wait for weekly lockouts to get more gear drops, I think raid gear is valid to timegate because raiding is a rewarding experience that is meaningful, the product of the effort you put into raiding is easily recognizable and prestigious.

Doing 14 days or Naz dailies or timegated missions for ranks in an essence is not. Ergo alts should not have to participate in it because it adds nothing to the value of the character or is encouraging to create alts in the first place.


EDIT: Furthermore by encouraging people to make alts via a seamless transition from Main to Alt would only benefit the game in the long run, not only for people playing longer but it would also help people adjusting their played class/spec for their raid teams as an example.

[DechCJC]

I think that having some items locked behind a time gate is fine as it gives the sense of constant progression and a reason to log in. However, when an alt becomes borderline unplayable until you’ve essentially just logged in on 20 different days, I think there’s a problem.

What’s the point? MoP had the right idea with catch-up mechanics, I don’t think everything should automatically be account bound but I do strongly believe that time gated content should lighten up after it’s been completed once on the account.

There’s nothing worse than wanting to play your alt but feeling like there’s literally no point until you get item xyz and the only way to get it is to wait.