After almost 200 hours on my summoner necromancer, I decided I want to try another class, so I cleaned up my stash and created a rogue (chose the skip campaign option).
When I entered the game, I was met with a map full of fog of war, and I just realized that there is no actual well thought out shared progression on the account, or realm for that
matter.
What you currently get on a new character are the renown bonuses already unlocked, like the potion charges, max obols, altars of Lilith stats points and paragon points, however for the gold bonuses you need to redo the renown related activities to “level up” the renown again.
Before I start putting my ideas down, yes, I am aware that the devs have stated that they are planning to work on the shared progression, such as unlocking the map for all current and future characters on your account, after you have explored it once.
Shared map
A shared map on the entire account (shared accross all game modes) is a must, I cannot stress how annoying it is to create a new character and start with an empty map, no waypoints, no nothing.
Side quests
While strongholds are fun to clear again, side quests are not, once you do them, they should be done for the entire account, there is no real incentive to them apart from clearing the map of blue exclamation marks.
There are some really cool side quests/quest lines, no spoilers, that provide a nice addition to the main story, but the rest, 90% of them, are pretty boring.
Side quest progress should be shared across the account, as in completed side quests should not show up on the map for subsequent characters on the same account.
Renown system
The renown system should need to be done just once on the account, for completion’s sake.
If they still want to keep it in the seasons, for the gold bonus, then they have to rework it.
Every activity you do in a region, cellars, dungeons, events, should add +X to the renown of the region, no matter how many times you do the exact same cellar, dungeon or event.
I’ll put altars of Lilith here, and say that the progression should be shared across the account.
Codex of power
I’m hesitant to say if the codex of power should be shared on the account level, I can see pros and cons to this, but I thought it’s worth mentioning that it could be implemented if enough people will ask for it.
Paragon
Paragon progression is way too grindy, it should be a shared progression on the entire account within the appropriate realm (separate progressions in normal, hardcore, normal season, hardcore season).
I can’t think of a good reason why this shouldn’t be done, as it will incentivize people to try new classes on and off season.
Imagine this: you’re playing in season, you have a level 72 barbarian, and you want to try out the sorcerer.
You roll your season sorcerer, level as usual from 1 to 50, then you go directly to 72, you get to use your paragon points and you get to start earning experience towards the shared paragon level.
You aren’t able to abuse the paragon points below level 50 anyway.
I know what you’re going to say about the sudden jump in level/difficulty, level scaling and all that, but you have the tiered system of the nightmare dungeons, you can pick your level and go there to farm for gear.
All glyphs should already be unlocked and available, not have them gated behind the Tree of Whispers cache drops, of course you’ll need to level them for each individual character.
New character experience option
Just like we have the skip campaign option for new characters (after you finished the campaign at least once on your account), they could put in an option for a new user experience.
You’ll start everything from scratch, map, side quests, dungeons, renown, but you’ll still share your paragon progression.
In my opinion, these changes would not adversely impact players, but would encourage them to jump in the game, play at their own pace and see that they’re always contributing to a shared progression, whether it’s exploring the map, doing the side quests, hunt for altars of Lilith or just grind the paragon system.
