It’s been quite a number of expansions, not since Cata… but chiefly Vanilla, where there have been reputations where the main goal of the reputation was to become Hated/Hostile with or check the “At War” checkbox so you can intentionally trash your reputation with them in order to gain favor (positive rep) with other reputation factions.
Please bring back some reputations where players can choose to become hostile with in order to gain favor with one or more other factions, or vice versa. Plus it was nice to be able to just randomly decide to check the At War box and raid previously friendly or neutral towns/camps (i.e. Gadgetzhan and the other goblin settlements). With us likely going back to Azeroth for the next upcoming expansion, it’s a good opportunity to bring back some of these reputations where we can choose to wage war on or ally with for rewards.
I’d rather not see this happen personally for a few reasons
1: If we go back to azeroth and this comes back, quest giver greifing WILL come back.
2: Unless there is 100% parity of rep rewards, which isn’t exactly good for factions these days, there will be a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ choice, it’d be like covenants all over again (speaking of, covenants really felt like they’d actually be at war with each other for most of SL but that was changed at last minute, I mean, why else have the hard lockins like they did?)
3: It would be convoluted for newer players. Reps are already a weird thing that, honestly, only exists in WoW atm to the best of my knowledge and some of them are absurdly weird for how to advance them (Sons of Jotheim, Tillers, and Anglers all come to mind) so do we need, yet another, rep sub system?
-edit- forgot a single word in point one that’s needed to make sense
Easily solved by:
A. making important questgivers always friendly/immune.
B. Reintroduce elite guards at least 5-10 levels higher than max leveled players that root, stun, and wreck players, including stealthed rogue players (i.e. similar to MoP shrine guards or the Celestial Court guards on Timeless Isle) that trigger when certain NPCs are killed.
And/Or
C. simply doing what a friend and I helped to eliminate during WoD with a certain classic bottleneck NPC that was notoriously griefed for over a decade, Farmer Saldean in Westfall, where Blizzard blessed him with an instant respawn timer and as a result eliminated the decade+ greifing of this formerly constantly griefed bottleneck NPC (https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/us-en/20743706549-hotfix-farmer-saldean-now/).
It should be optional, not required. Think Bloodsail Buccineers, where the only reason you’d go hostile with the goblins of Booty Bay for example, is to gain rep with the Bloodsail Buccineers simply for cosmetic rewards, toys, or a title/achievement. So being hostile or going at war with a rep, should not be required as part of the storyline or progression of your character, rather simply a fun side thing to do during expansion downtime.
again, it would simply be akin to cata and prior reps, so no weird convoluted rep systems as introduced with MoP and later. Just simple basic if you kill these certain mobs or npcs, you either gain or lose rep type of reputation. Then much like the Goblins, could even have a npc to help regain rep with the faction you trashed your rep with (i.e. the goblin you turn in reagents/mats to in order to gain reputation back to neutral/friendly)
There is a reason why, forced Hostile Reps were Bad In order to get to exalted with the faction you had to grind out about 78 thousand reputation for it.
and I’m not kidding when I say you Barely got any rep for them when it was deemed Current.
which is Why Brood of Nozdormu, and Bloodsail Buccaneers were and are the worst reputations still in the game.
Just for a silly title called “the Insane” or “Salty” No mount or anything other than the Buccaneer’s admiral hat which was Cloth of all things.
So Bad Idea just saying for the reputation part.
NPC quest givers should always Be Neutral Unhostile. to both factions to deny griefing, which is the Only good idea.
these issues are easily fixed, infact, they are already fixed in current wow.
Adjustments to the amount of rep given to be similar to gaining rep with any other faction these days.
As for certain class only rewards, they are cosmetic these days. You can wear that formerly “Cloth Only” Buccaneer’s Admiral Hat on any class these days, including Plate Wearers, as it’s a cosmetic item now.
The Vanilla-era guards at Cenarion Hold in Silithus and post-Naxxramas Light’s Hope Chapel would absolutely destroy even the most geared players. The latter of those two even had a charge ability that would punt and stun their targets so players would effectively be stunlocked when aggroing multiple. They were not to be messed around with.
I don’t know why newer guards aren’t like this. It neatly solves a lot of griefing problems even outside of hated/at-war factions (questers in war mode Hellfire Peninsula sure would love this, for example).
I’d be okay with this if it were like two factions that are naturally at war with each other and are built around this conflict in game. Players choose which one they want and can grind rep by murdering enemy NPCs or doing dailies and turning in resources.
Make both factions optional things not the center of the story and grind and give players an item that flags them for a unique pvp flag when used which is required to attack their enemy factions NPCs and keeps them friendly to other players of the same faction that have used the same item to flag up regardless of alliance or horde.
I can sympathize that reps are a mechanic the game has never used to their full potential to create complex politics, but for me personally mixing characters with different allegiances trying to either use or attack the same locations/NPCs feels dangerous close to PvP for my taste. Alas, I’ve also become rather fond of collecting reps which doesn’t make trading them off against each other feel fun.