Can gating be made into a win-win case?

[RemasteredClassic]

If more of the gated systems are made account-wide, would that not make players want to play alts with the incentive of progressing whatever this account-wide system happens to be? For example, make system "A" account wide, make it so a single character can only do it 3 times a week, but progress is account-wide.

If I have 12 alts/different classes at max level, I get to repeat the same gated-grind 12 times x three a week. Would this kind of design make gated systems feel like a win-win where players are happy their progress is account-wide, alt friendly and not boring since the player gets to play using different alts/specs/classes...etc?

This can't burn out players if the grind takes 10-15min and is limited to once or twice per WEEK per character. Let's say you have all 50 alts max level, which many altaholics already do anyway. 50 times 10 minutes divided by 60 minutes equals around 8 hours per week which is a little over an hour a day.

In Shadowlands, leveling an alt from 1 to 60 will probably take half the time it takes to get to max in BfA. Alt friendly systems and account wide progress is what you all want, right? That's the win for the players, and the win for Blizz can't be even more obvious than that.

Another option would be to let players do all the above 8 hours worth of grinding per week on a single character (main) if they want to bore themselves to death. That way, nobody can complain about being forced to level up 50 alts.

But then again, Blizz probably thinks most its players are dense and troubled addicts, so they will just do what they think is OK regardless of feedback.

[RemasteredClassic]

It would force people to max out all characters on the account just to be able to grind the system. That would suck.

But Blizzard wants people to play endlessly anyway lol...at least this way, it becomes kind of a win-win situation compared to anything now or in the past. Players have been asking for alt friendly, account wide systems since forever.

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I'd rather see a system where progress on your main is rewarded by progress on your alts - so for example, getting rank 4 essence, would then (and only then) unlock rank 3 of the same essence account wide.

Yeah, but this wouldn't count as a win-win for Blizzard though...they want us all to be subbed every month and playing endlessly...

[Razion]

It would kind of force people to play ALL their characters in order to get over gated systems. Slight workaround: The gating could scale based on the number of relevant characters that can participate in it. But that still doesn't solve people only wanting to dedicate their progression on their main if they want to. So, another slight workaround: is only to have the gated content balanced to be reasonably doable by one character in the first place, and people with tons of alts basically just run over the gate and brute-force it really quickly. This would be fun and cool, if it didn't make people feel like they "had" to have tons of alts to be competitive. Another kind of solution: if gating is only really applied to superficial, non-competitive rewards, it kind of alleviates the need people may feel to have lots of alts to get over the gating faster. But it still leaves people unsatisfied when the alts feel mandatory on superficial rewards they really want. Ultimately I think it kind of boils down to gating being largely negative as a whole. It's seen negatively, so naturally people want to avoid it. Being able to experience the gating on many characters isn't seen as replay value, it's seen as torture. The best course of action may be to just remove gating when it feels like gating entirely, but only leave gating in when it actually feels like it truly has good replay value.

[RemasteredClassic]

It would kind of force people to play ALL their characters in order to get over gated systems. Slight workaround: The gating could scale based on the number of relevant characters that can participate in it. But that still doesn't solve people only wanting to dedicate their progression on their main if they want to. So, another slight workaround: is only to have the gated content balanced to be reasonably doable by one character in the first place, and people with tons of alts basically just run over the gate and brute-force it really quickly. This would be fun and cool, if it didn't make people feel like they "had" to have tons of alts to be competitive. Another kind of solution: if gating is only really applied to superficial, non-competitive rewards, it kind of alleviates the need people may feel to have lots of alts to get over the gating faster. But it still leaves people unsatisfied when the alts feel mandatory on superficial rewards they really want. Ultimately I think it kind of boils down to gating being largely negative as a whole. It's seen negatively, so naturally people want to avoid it. Being able to experience the gating on many characters isn't seen as replay value, it's seen as torture. The best course of action may be to just remove gating when it feels like gating entirely, but only leave gating in when it actually feels like it truly has good replay value.

You're preaching to the choir. The entire playerbase hated/hates gating, but it's considered as good for the business by Blizzard...we all know it's negative....but at the same time a necessary evil for Blizz to keep mliking the cash cows....a good solution should make both sides happy-ish.

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Who the fuck knows "Blizzard" thinks or what "they" want?
I thought you wanted to discuss a potential, hypothetical solution to current system.

We all know Blizzard doesn't care about what we think is bad and how to solve it as long as it's not in line with their player retention and how to increase their monthly active sub strategies ...

[Tradu]

Destiny 2 does this and it's shit. You shouldn't need alts to progress your main.

[RemasteredClassic]

and don't let that tinfoil hat bother you too much!

Speak for yourself.

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Destiny 2 does this and it's shit. You shouldn't need alts to progress your main.

It's not a progress your alt vs your main, it's account progression, but less gated. Obviously, I'd rather there be no gating and everything made into account wide, like BfA's PvP honor system.
This wouldn't be applied to "character power" systems, obviously, so as not to force players to max out many alts.

[Tradu]

But Blizzard wants people to play endlessly anyway lol...at least this way, it becomes kind of a win-win situation compared to anything now or in the past. Players have been asking for alt friendly, account wide systems since forever.

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Yeah, but this wouldn't count as a win-win for Blizzard though...they want us all to be subbed every month and playing endlessly...

There's a difference between alt friendly and alt forcing.

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Speak for yourself.

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It's not a progress your alt vs your main, it's account progression, but less gated. Obviously, I'd rather there be no gating and everything made into account wide, like BfA's PvP honor system.
This wouldn't be applied to "character power" systems, obviously, so as not to force players to max out many alts.

I don't mind account progression, it just shouldn't require alts. It should allow you to play any character you want and still progress, but people with alts shouldn't progress faster than people who just play 1 character.

[RemasteredClassic]

There's a difference between alt friendly and alt forcing.

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I don't mind account progression, it just shouldn't require alts. It should allow you to play any character you want and still progress, but people with alts shouldn't progress faster than people who just play 1 character.

What you're saying is the obvious, ideal situation. What I was suggesting is a middle ground between the ideal and Blizzard being OK with it.

[Lord Pebbleton]

Gating needs to be varied and interesting in order to not be a chore, which is a difficult task.

An example of successful gating can be Firelands assault. It was a gated quest experience but I did not feel bored because quests were sufficiently varied, gave you clear goals, dailies were added based on progress and the location was interesting. I was also a hunter, so I looked forward to taming the rares too.

An example done wrong is early Mop dailies. Repetitive, barely rewarding and all over the place.

Gating is fine only when it does not feel like gating.

[Einsz]

Gating is never a win-win. It ALWAYS fucks players up.

[Relapses]

A part of me wishes that Blizzard would just eliminate all time gating in the game for a single content patch and just let people go wild. Just so I can laugh at the sheer number of unhappy players who will begin whining about feeling compelled to no-life the game so they can keep up with the top 1%. And even though it would be glorious, we all know it'll never happen. A shared negative experience, however, might help players understand the very real purpose time gating serves in this game. It'd also help prevent people like the OP from trying to reinvent the fucking wheel with convoluted ridiculous solutions to problems that aren't problems.

[Seranthor]

If more of the gated systems are made account-wide, would that not make players want to play alts with the incentive of progressing whatever this account-wide system happens to be? For example, make system "A" account wide, make it so a single character can only do it 3 times a week, but progress is account-wide.

If I have 12 alts/different classes at max level, I get to repeat the same gated-grind 12 times x three a week. Would this kind of design make gated systems feel like a win-win where players are happy their progress is account-wide, alt friendly and not boring since the player gets to play using different alts/specs/classes...etc?

You've described the win for the players, but you've failed to describe the '-win' for Blizzard.

[Zmagoslav]

You just described a perfect system to burn players out even faster. Compared to that, just removing all time-gates sounds like a good idea.

A part of me wishes that Blizzard would just eliminate all time gating in the game for a single content patch and just let people go wild. Just so I can laugh at the sheer number of unhappy players who will begin whining about feeling compelled to no-life the game so they can keep up with the top 1%. And even though it would be glorious, we all know it'll never happen. A shared negative experience, however, might help players understand the very real purpose time gating serves in this game. It'd also help prevent people like the OP from trying to reinvent the fucking wheel with convoluted ridiculous solutions to problems that aren't problems.

Do you truly think they would learn anything from it?

[Lolites]

You've described the win for the players, but you've failed to describe the '-win' for Blizzard.

eh, you would NEED more alts to keep progress on main, so its not even win for players

[Relapses]

Do you truly think they would learn anything from it?

I can't know for sure obviously... but for some reason people still remember the shitshow that was Cataclysm Heroics shortly after launch so something tells me if it's bad enough they will.

[Eace]

What you're saying is the obvious, ideal situation. What I was suggesting is a middle ground between the ideal and Blizzard being OK with it.

Your suggestion is not the middle ground, it's the exact opposite of the current situation. Going from extreme alt unfriendliness to alts being mandatory is not a happy compromise.

So no, I don't think timegating can be made a win-win as you suggested.

In my opinion, the only good solution would be if there was a way to keep up to speed without being forced to log in all day. For example, Uldum dailies. There's 3-4 them every day, to a total maximum of 21 or 28 (depending on if it's a major or a minor assault) in a week. Now, if you miss a day, you miss a day and you can't get that "lost reputation" back. But what if the "lost dailies" stayed available for the remainder of the week? Let's say you didn't have time to play on Wednesday and Thursday. Now you could do three days worth of dailies on Friday. You would still need to put in the same effort as everyone else did, but you wouldn't feel pressured to play every day. That would be the ideal middle ground, in my opinion.

[Aphrel]

Has any1 seen a horse race?
You know in the beginning, when a car with a wide fence is driving slowly infront of the riders to keep them all in a line?

Thats how the gating system feels to me. Its a fence, preventing me to stretch my legs and sprint ahead. Instead forcing me into a boring trott.
I wanna blast off like a fucking rocket...

[Asaliah]

Stuff like access to Nazjatar or the quest line for 8.3 should be done once and unlock the content for all your rerolls directly.

[Seranthor]

eh, you would NEED more alts to keep progress on main, so its not even win for players

Thats a good point... so, its a lose-lose...

[RemasteredClassic]

Stuff like access to Nazjatar or the quest line for 8.3 should be done once and unlock the content for all your rerolls directly.

That's the ideal situation, but Blizzard will never do it.