Account bound essences would be a net positive for the game

[Notagin-kul-tiras (Notagin)]

They actually duped you into getting ranked essences on alts?

Players like you only encourage Blizzard to make these kinds of systems in the future.

[Tjphess-zuljin]

oh hey

new bellular video also agrees with boa essences

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I thought only a tiny minority wanted them ?!

[Wildlife-lightnings-blade]

I dont raid so havent even done it once. Whatever i get, i get. No grind or stress.

[Turandotte-icecrown (Turandotte)]

I don’t think so, I’m a person who has done the grind three times and the people who are usually actively arguing against it either haven’t done it themselves or don’t have any alts at all.

This is the real issue… People who have only one character get their underwear in a twist that someone else might get “more” of something for the same effort. Also, I feel people who have only one character are the fastest to get pissed other people have alts. Just stop already. Stop worrying about what the next guy has got and pretending that somehow cheapens what you’re doing.

Bottom line is, Blizzard is getting LESS play out of me due to essences not being account wide. If essences were account wide, first, I would be playing more because I would still be able to play ALL my alts effectively. As it stands, I have mostly shelved all but four out of my ten. That’s six characters of time I’m not playing. Six characters of WQs not run. Six characters of raids not raided and M+ not run. Six characters of being out and around and questing for other players to have someone else with which to interact. Additionally, account wide essences would make me more inclined to chase essences locked behind content I dislike. I have all of ZERO interest in trying to get Blood of the Enemy, for example, if my effort rewards only a single character out of my ten. I detest PvP to levels other people will never understand… but I do still occasionally participate if given a significant incentive. One character is not enough incentive, but all my characters would be enough incentive to try. So by being sticks in the mud, Blizzard loses the time I would have played getting some of the essences at all on top of the time I would have played on the alts they decided to hobble.

It really makes no sense.

[Fezzy-draenor (Fezzy)]

I support BoA essences. Its ridiculous to have to grind so much for them again and again. Severely limits alts.

[Zarikas-ysera]

I propose a compromise…how about your alts. Once you get Rank 3 on your main…once you hit Rank 2 on your alt you’re also given rank 3?

[Mulux-tichondrius]

+1 for OP. I just capped a Mage and started gearing up, then remembered the essences. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to wait for the next xpac.

Also: the essences that you can buy off the reputation vendors. Why can’t I gey those at least? They’re not BIS for anyone as far as I know, and we were able to purchase items from vendors in previous xpacs after getting exalted on our mains. Why???

[Submitt-frostmourne]

I do think that essences are a barrier for alts. I used to have 8 characters. Now I have 1 main who I have most essences on and a few alts I half play.

[Cbegswar-bleeding-hollow]

AGREED!

When’s the last time you heard blizzard use the term “quality of life improvement”?

I think the last time they cared about quality of life changes was when ghostcrawler worked here. Can you guys rehire him?

Thanks!

[Timboslizzle-frostmourne]

I’m loving this pro bind on account essences conversation today.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease guys!

[Malicity-pagle]

I believe It would be an overall improvement to the game for everyone.

Of course it would benefit everyone to simultaneously progress all your toons just by playing one of them. Wouldn’t say it’d be super great for the game though.

[Timboslizzle-frostmourne]

Wouldn’t say it’d be super great for the game though.

What damage would it do exactly?

[Timbourine-frostmourne (Timbourine)]

Just a reminder all of the BFA content creators support BOA essences.

[Malicity-pagle]

What damage would it do exactly?

Well it would fundamentally change the nature of our characters. It would mean that every alt I had would get better regardless of whether or not I was playing it. It would mean that my main would get better as I played my alts. It would mean that the more alts you had at your disposal, the more powerful all of them would get in aggregate.

[Plantains-shattered-hand (Plantains)]

I think Yesuna is missing the point a bit.

Anyone whose done mythic content at a high end level knows that every little bit helps and that the essences do play a significant role in the current tier.

With the state of the tier, as well as several guilds losing large portion of their playerbase due to classic, a lot of players have been feeling forced to re-roll (or bring in alts) so that they can better optimise their raiding composition and contribute towards a kill - which is precisely what Tim has done. Therefore, he has had to re-grind all of those essences AGAIN, after just finishing up on one character, and feels like a lot of that time was wasted because it cannot be transferred to a new toon, which as a result cannot optimally perform until the rank 3 essences have been acquired.

There is nothing players can do to speed up the process; it is merely a time-gated and extremely boring grind. Meanwhile, raids continue. As a result, from what I’ve heard from several players, most feel punished in their decision: “do I re-roll to play a better class to better support my team which will not be fully optimised until 2 months’ time or do I stay on the ‘worse’ class which I’ve already finished the grind on.” This can lead to players being burnt out or feeling locked to their current character. I’ve seen players re-roll their class only to quit a few weeks after because they are too burnt out by the essence grind. Tim seems to be among the few who have persisted, and maybe that’s because of his guild and friends.

At least, this is how I see the issue - Tim, correct me if I’m wrong. Having essences account-bound would help to negate these issues, such maximising the player’s ability (ie. bring them in on alts) or help players re-rolling not to feel so punished, “behind” or burnt-out as a result of their choice. The removal of the mindless boredom and mundane nature of the essence grind is really just a bonus, imo, and I commend you for still playing the game on your third essence grind - that’s impressive lol.

This is so correct I am praying it gets upvoted more.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

How is doing 10 minutes of world quests a few days a week for a month a steep climb?

1. Mechangon and Nazjatar world quests take much longer than 10 minutes per day.
2. You have to do it every day for over a month to get rank 3 essences.

So why lie so much? Can you not make an argument defending essence grind without literally lying?

[Fevir-stormrage]

For the naysayers could you explain to me how boa essences are any different from other new game plus type reward system blizzard has put in through the years? This .2 patch added a new system that made alts more unfriendly then they’ve been in a decade, in contrast the legion .2 patch added boa legiondaries and crafted BOE legendaries to the pool. We’ve had and still have late game boe gear that any fresh alt can use, we already have a set of boa gear that is still bis in the current raid in fact. We’ve had sets of boa gear for the later patches of the last 4 expansions including bfa.

As it stands right now essences are busywork that you do to make your alts competitive, IE able to compete with other players who want to do the same content you do. A few months ago this system didn’t even exist and alts were fine, in a year or less this system will be gone and i really hope alts will be fine there too. But for now this system could use some work on essence acquisition and I really don’t get how anyone could think otherwise.

Keep in mind Boa essences could be anything from having all essences you’ve unlocked on all characters once a character has the heart of azeroth(which would be awesome for leveling), to something as simple as the essence items being boa but obtained the same way on all characters. If we’re talking about character progression its not a radical idea, if we’re talking about precedents maybe it would be better if we had an auction house full of blood of the enemy(rank 2) going at 1 million gold a pop.

[Daark-cenarius]

You are doing it wrong if it takes you that long. There are literal groups that farm enough rep in a few hours, let alone a month. With the ability to send rep tokens across characters.

The oscillators are craft-able now and the amounts are being reduced a crazy amount.

This is not WoD. We don’t sit afk in our garrison picking flowers and doing mission boards for millions of gold on 14 alts…

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

You are doing it wrong if it takes you that long. There are literal groups that farm enough rep in a few hours, let alone a month. With the ability to send rep tokens across characters.

AFAIK the rep is time gated, at least on the first character you do it on. If I’m wrong then it’s good news for my alts.

I’ve done every daily available on my main for the last 2 weeks (after spending a few months playing classic) and only just got the rank 2 essences today. Rank 3 is at least another 2 weeks away.

And I’m sorry but the Mechagon dailies take way longer than 10 minutes, when you don’t have flying. Which you don’t have, until you are revered with Mechagon. 30 minutes minimum, closer to an hour if it’s the rare spawn daily.

[Spodge-stormreaver]

Are you seriously sockpuppeting to bump this thread up. And content creators are like less than 10 people - should 10 people decide this game for millions ?