I’m a bit annoyed that most allied races have now been easier for Horde players to access in both Legion and BFA.
In Legion, Alliance players had to become exalted with the two newest/latest introduced factions of Legion–the Army of the Light and Argussian Reach–to get Lightforged Draenei and Void Elves. By contrast, Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren both required Exalted with factions that had been available since the expansion dropped (Nightfallen and Highmountain Tribe), and therefore, most people were already exalted or had substantial rep with the requisite factions when the races became playable. The Broken Isles Pathfinder achievement (flying in Legion) required Revered with the Horde-Allied Race factions, so this increased the value of rep with those factions. Meanwhile, Alliance players had to start reps for their Allied Races from scratch and, oh, in the zones with no flying even after Pathfinder achievement.
Okay so, that sucked, and while it annoyed me back then, too, I probably would’ve never come to make a post about it except that: WTF they did it again.
Coming up is Visions of N’Zoth patch which will release the Allied Races of Vulpera for Horde and Mechagnomes for Alliance. Here again, Horde probably already have met the requirement for access to the Vulpera. They have to be exalted with the Voldunai and complete the Voldun major questline. BFA Pathfinder already requires revered with this faction and completion of the very same questline. Alliance has to become exalted with the Rustbolt Resistance, once again one of the two newest factions and arguably the most infuriating faction this expansion to gain rep with: a single world quest per day (plus dailies), no Emissaries, and you get to start off with them at Neutral.
I mean, way to reward your Alliance players who played an expansion from the start? I get that lore-wise it makes sense to require rep with those factions, and they were gated for later release. It could also make sense lore-wise to just require exalted with your faction’s primary rep for the War Campaign (7th Legion or Honorbound) and the questlines for allied race. But alternatively–here’s an idea–just allow your players who pay to play this game to get one tiny thing without having to grind their butts off.
I’ve been exalted with both reputations on both factions for a while now, so if your playing the game and really want to unlock an allied race its pretty easy honestly, just don’t be lazy
A single world quest per day, which gives as much rep as 11 normal world quests (850 vs 75) and is essentially like having an emissary every other day. And which was part of Pathfinder pt. 2, meaning many players would already have revered.
Honestly, if you’re going to talk about disparity between Alliance and Horde, I would have thought the dungeon requirement for Kul Tirans would be a better example.
Sorry, but rustbolt resistance is by far easier to get rep with. Yes, you don’t get emissaries. But instead you get a daily “mini emissary” guaranteed every single day, and it’s incredibly easy to do in a short amount of time.
The bee thing sucks, but not as much as rep grind. It does feel off, even if the mechagon rep isn’t too bad with about 1k rep a day. Do mechagnomes unlock if you have the achievements from horde side? My friends are horde and I’m a ways off on my alliance character, just been taking my time and doing Drustvar so far
That single quest is worth a LOT of rep… not even trying anything more than killing a rare or 2 and doing the daily will get you 1k rep a day. So yes it is sorta time gated but you can only gain so much rep per day with the Vulpera. Getting 1k rep with the vulpera takes a lot more effort than the 1k with rustbolt.
That’s a fair point that in a rep for rep comparison, the time input is likely higher for Vulpera for the same amount of rep. My main beef is that they keep giving Alliance the later introduced factions. Honestly, I wish they’d just let players have something as simple as an allied race without having to do a major grind.
It is kind of hard to bring up the Legion Allied Races, because even Argus was old content by the time we knew Allied Races were going to be a thing. Most people who played Legion had at the very least Revered with both Argus reps by the time we got the pre patch.
I agree the reps are a stupid decision for ARs, it is too much of a slow down.
What I would do, is if a totally new player wanted to unlock an AR, is the option to create a special instanced character of level to access the relevant quests for that faction’s main story. Once that is completed, they can create the AR and the temp character can be deleted. Like one giant scenario quest.
The point of the requirement is that we are helping the faction who then chooses to join us, instead of seeing the quest from the faction’s point of view like the base races.
Outside of that, I would lower the rep to revered and only make the story chapters a requirement for existing characters. Needing max rep is a tedious slowdown for anyone who wasn’t around for the expansion where the AR was introduced.
Honestly I am on the side of everyone else here, if you are not exalted with Mechagon by now it wasn’t your priority. You have no reason to complain for something that was your fault.
That is a fine point, and I mostly agree, but in an expansion’s time, if someone who didn’t play BfA at all wants a Junker Gnome, they have to go back and spend a tedious amount of time to just get the rep up.
Rep collecting should be for the Rep collectors and faction rewards, not to unlock the feature content from past expansions.
I really like your interpretations and ideas. For Legion, I played A LOT at the beginning of the expac but then took a long break because of life. I missed the Argus drop and kinda came in at the end and so was playing catch up like you said. I think you’re really right in that at some point it’s going to be really hard for new players to get to play these races, because these requirements do lean heavily on a player having been present for the expac.
I’m a Horde player but would’ve played Kul Tirans and Mechagnomes if dungeons weren’t required. Not sure why Alliance AR’s need to do dungeons. I will not do dungeons with a faction and race I don’t like in order to unlock one I do.
Removing dungeons from AR unlocks.