Account Wide Essences!

[Augusta138]

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...ssences/111552

Made a post about Azerite Essences,
My main gripes with the system:
- Alt friendlyness or the lack there off. playing alts is becoming difficult because either:
A: getting the essences is a pain
B: without essences it isnt optimal for the things i like to do (in before all the shitposts: yes you can play them without essences, aware of that)

- repetitive and really boring content:
Nobody likes to farm the same reputation and materials over and over again to unlock essences. (Mechagon / Nazjatar / EP / Honor)

And for all the people saying that the progress or hard work from others who already have done the above things for alts:
- most essences will be easier to acquire with 8.3.

Although it still introduces a certain amount of time and reputation farming involved to actually take use of it.

Benthic Gear and the upcoming Black Empire gear will introduce a lot of systems to actually gear up alts to certain ilvls and get you started, however without essences they will still not be as strong or viable as other characters and introducing once again the same annoying grind for the same essences you already did grind multiple times.

[TOM_RUS]

Essences should have been account wide since very beginning.

[Augusta138]

Essences should have been account wide since very beginning.

Agreed, but its too late for that.

So i am on a crusade to get them account wide with 8.3.
The patch is still in development anyway and i think it is a very easy and simple fix. ''Convert'' the essence UI to the Heirloom style UI.

Prolly a bit more work than that, but you get the idea i guess

[Exeris]

I must have clicked that message away close to a thousand times so far on my alts.

[Ange]

The feature was not announced as account wide and its basicly a gearprogression. People who choose to put the time and effort into their toons should now be punished because you choose not to gear/get the essences for your alt-army?

It takes basicly the same amount of time as the gearing time in previous expansions.

What would you like next? Maybe accountwide mythic gear? Accountwide AP? So you can change anytime to the next FOTM and kill the last bit of RPG this MMO got?

Look at PvP and what the fast catch-up system done to the community. I guess you dont care or want to see the world burn?

[Unholyground]

Rank 1 of each one should be.

[munkeyinorbit]

Essences should have been account wide since very beginning.

No they shouldn't have. If you want the esscences then earn them. If your alt doesn't have them then they haven't earnt them. It's a pretty simple concept.

[Villager720]

I think we should get one rank lower than our "main's" top essence rank across our account.
Ex: If I have the legendary crucible of flame - all my alts would have the epic version.
Except for level one essences. If I only have the first rank of an essence, all the alts get rank one too.

[Great Destiny Man]

People who choose to put the time and effort into their toons should now be punished because you choose not to gear/get the essences for your alt-army

In what way is it punishment? I didn't feel punished in Legion when Legendaries were made significantly easier to obtain versus older patches and I sure as hell won't feel punished if the essences were made easier to obtain across alts (disclaimer: I have 4 toons that I've grinded my rank 3 essences for).

[exochaft]

I must have clicked that message away close to a thousand times so far on my alts.

Glad I'm not the only one who has been annoyed by this. Not only does it remind you that despite all the rank 4 essences you have on your main that your alts have to grind some more for them, but also it reminds you that this stupid pop-up will never go away no matter how much you close it.

[Augusta138]

The feature was not announced as account wide and its basicly a gearprogression. People who choose to put the time and effort into their toons should now be punished because you choose not to gear/get the essences for your alt-army?

It takes basicly the same amount of time as the gearing time in previous expansions.

What would you like next? Maybe accountwide mythic gear? Accountwide AP? So you can change anytime to the next FOTM and kill the last bit of RPG this MMO got?

Look at PvP and what the fast catch-up system done to the community. I guess you dont care or want to see the world burn?

All it does is being a major time sink with the current requirements.

Nothing is actually challenging about obtaining them.

They are a part to enhance / empower your character however not mandatory (which i am fully aware off)

But having to grind the same mindless factions for days / quests for weeks to gain the same powers as my main characyer that i did bother with is just plain annoying.

Lucid Dreams: the bodyguards already are pretty annoying to level up as is (working towards the 3x lvl 30 for mount on my main) however there is no challenge or actual skill required.

Doing this on an alt or however more characters is already really boring.

I can go on but you get the point.

About the fotm:
No i dont play certain classes for being fotm or being bis at a certain patch for certain tasks.

I like to play multiple classes to enjoy the game (different roles / speccs etc).
Having to invest a lot of extra time in the game to farm essences instead of raiding / m+ or pvp just because i can use the same essence i have on my main is just tedious and boring.

The system is flawed that is completely ruins the replayability for alts or new characters.

Since it is a system to enhance / change HoA till Shadowlands is all fine but not with the current way of refarming essences on all characters.

----‐-‐-------

The whole shared gear / account wide gear argument doesnt make any sense to me at all (like people are saying) because that is actually engaging gameplay and you are already doing the activity why you would wanna play in the 1st place.

Be that raids / m+ / pvp.

Having to choose between solo farming reputation for essences or playing with friends in a M+ run is just a bad design.

-----------

Also, with a change coming to essences would punish myself aswell because i did spend a fair amount of time already on essences on alts.

With all changes coming in 8.3 towards essences anyway:
- lowered rep / cost / requirements
Those people who already gotten the essences reap the benefits already or might also be disgruntled x got changed just after they acquired it.
(Hell i bought my rank 3 Nullifier Shield thingie the day before it was announced it will be cheaper in 8.3)

Catch up systems always help out players and are sometimes annoying for the people who put way more effort into this.

These so called early-adaptors are reaping the benefits a lot longer than the players using the catch up systems.

[schwarzkopf]

Essences should have been account wide since very beginning.

Yeah along with all your gear, reputations, quest completions, PvP honour ... make EVERYTHING account wide.

That way you don't need to have alts - because every time you create a character is is max level, fully geared and nothing to do.

/sarcasm off.

Seriously - if you don't want to play an alt, then don't play an alt. If you want to play one - then play one.

Having said that ... I think a rank 4 essence reward could be account wide - much better reward than some vague hard to see colour changes etc.

[exochaft]

Having said that ... I think a rank 4 essence reward could be account wide - much better reward than some vague hard to see colour changes etc.

I would be perfectly fine if having rank 4 of an essence makes the essence account-wide, as that generally shows you've put in more than enough effort to have grinded the essences several times over on one char. If anything, the time/effort of gaining essences on alts should be inherently much less, which is why there are some adjustments already in the works for 8.3.

The main issue is that essences are so bloody powerful for characters that it feels quite terrible if there's no catch-up mechanic for essences and you're stuck behind time-gated or long grinds for something that can make-or-break your spec. When it comes to a decent example of what's in the game already, the Crucible of Flame essence acquisition is a good example of how the essence acquisition could be across the board: initially upon release they're harder to get, but after a certain amount of time they should be really easy to get so you aren't constantly behind the power curve. Getting rank 3 of Crucible took a large amount of effort early on, but now it's relatively easy and much less effort to do. Don't have to tie everything to AP specifically, but having a scaling AK factor wouldn't be terrible.

[FelPlague]

Essences should have been account wide since very beginning.

Gear should be account wide
level should be account wide
yeh

[Terongor]

All it does is being a major time sink with the current requirements.

Nothing is actually challenging about obtaining them.

They are a part to enhance / empower your character however not mandatory (which i am fully aware off)

But having to grind the same mindless factions for days / quests for weeks to gain the same powers as my main characyer that i did bother with is just plain annoying.

Lucid Dreams: the bodyguards already are pretty annoying to level up as is (working towards the 3x lvl 30 for mount on my main) however there is no challenge or actual skill required.

Doing this on an alt or however more characters is already really boring.

I can go on but you get the point.

About the fotm:
No i dont play certain classes for being fotm or being bis at a certain patch for certain tasks.

I like to play multiple classes to enjoy the game (different roles / speccs etc).
Having to invest a lot of extra time in the game to farm essences instead of raiding / m+ or pvp just because i can use the same essence i have on my main is just tedious and boring.

The system is flawed that is completely ruins the replayability for alts or new characters.

Since it is a system to enhance / change HoA till Shadowlands is all fine but not with the current way of refarming essences on all characters.

----‐-‐-------

The whole shared gear / account wide gear argument doesnt make any sense to me at all (like people are saying) because that is actually engaging gameplay and you are already doing the activity why you would wanna play in the 1st place.

Be that raids / m+ / pvp.

Having to choose between solo farming reputation for essences or playing with friends in a M+ run is just a bad design.

-----------

Also, with a change coming to essences would punish myself aswell because i did spend a fair amount of time already on essences on alts.

With all changes coming in 8.3 towards essences anyway:
- lowered rep / cost / requirements
Those people who already gotten the essences reap the benefits already or might also be disgruntled x got changed just after they acquired it.
(Hell i bought my rank 3 Nullifier Shield thingie the day before it was announced it will be cheaper in 8.3)

Catch up systems always help out players and are sometimes annoying for the people who put way more effort into this.

These so called early-adaptors are reaping the benefits a lot longer than the players using the catch up systems.

Go get mythic azshara essence if its not challenging.

[Great Destiny Man]

Go get mythic azshara essence if its not challenging.

Can't say I give a solitary shit about having purely cosmetic essence ranks across alts.

[FelPlague]

Go get mythic azshara essence if its not challenging.

legendary essences provide no power.
mythic azshara essence is legendary
legendary is just cosmetic.

[shadowmatrix]

Its the battle of the century, posts asking for more account bound features versus posts saying account bound features are making the game less and less of a RPG. Who wins, who loses, who cares!

[Raugnaut]

In some sense, a few essences ARE account wide currently - You can acquire BoA Mechagon rep atm, allowing you to quickly hit revered with Mechagon for that essence. They are also making Naz BoA rep tokens next patch with pearls, and I believe its' 1 100 rep token for 5 pearls (And personally I'm sitting on so many damn pearls now it's crazy). As they are also lowering the requirement for the essences down a rank each, I feel the rep-related essences are a non-issue.

To be honest, there are only 2 category of essences I would make the requirements for BoA atm - The Honor essences (Because 30k honor IS a significant time grind atm - You basically get all the marks you need by the time you are done with that rep grind), and the Eternal Palace essences (Eternal Palace runs will be about as common as BoD runs are now - That is, not at all). It's not hard to get the rank 2 M+ essences, nor is it difficult to get rank 2 Conflict and Strife. For a decent number of the essences, their rank 3 powers are only a minor QoL/damage increase over their rank 2 variants.

[Dakara]

Yeah along with all your gear, reputations, quest completions, PvP honour ... make EVERYTHING account wide.

That way you don't need to have alts - because every time you create a character is is max level, fully geared and nothing to do.

/sarcasm off.

Seriously - if you don't want to play an alt, then don't play an alt. If you want to play one - then play one.

Having said that ... I think a rank 4 essence reward could be account wide - much better reward than some vague hard to see colour changes etc.

/Facepalm. Except no ones asking for that.... why that’s the typical counter point to account wide anything is beyond me.

Anyway, making essences account wide doesn’t actually fix the biggest flaw with them (imho). And that is, they’re 8.2 content which are virtually mandatory for anyone wanting to do anything meaningful in 8.3

New/Returning players will be grinding back in 8.2 while the rest of us enjoy 8.3... and it contradicts other design philosophies.

For several expansions now, Blizzard has wanted new/returning players to be able to jump into the current content each patch. As such, we see catchup gear implemented along with reduced AP grinds. But essences? Nope! Depending on class/spec, some are quite easy to get Rank 2 in a week, while others are geared behind rep, ridiculous currencies (Rustbolt FFS), raid drops etc etc

I agree though, it does suck for alts as well. I’m changing mains for 8.3 to go healing. All my healers are 415-430 ilvl but the only essences they have were achieved passively... I haven’t decided which one I’ll main for 8.3 so have been doing the weekly chest on all of them, but I simply don’t have the time (nor desire) to grind all the essences. Just focus on BiS? That could change with a patch note.

So, yes, I do enjoy playing my alts. But I don’t consider getting 6000 follower xp (which is gated OFC) in Naz, on my 4 healers to be “playing”.