Other than the leveling time, Classic WoW is more alt friendly than BFA, lol.
Everquest had BoP items all through Kunark, Velious, and onward though. Crafting was tied to characters in EQ; you could have level 1 alts that were specific types of crafters though. I never played anything pre EQ so I canât speak for Ultima and such.
Now? In WotLK I had 0 issues keeping up 3-4 classes at about the same point simply because there was nothing tied to their progression other than gear. Gear was the progression. Everything but gear is the progression now and it feels horrible.
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Ultima and Lineage where the two I played and they never have those systems. Everquest was the start of modern MMORPGs and WoW is the king. Original MMORPGs largely were character agnostic. Everything you obtained and achieved was tied to your account. Crafting wasnât anything you had to learn you just had to collect the base material and either turn into an NPC or use a certain âworkbenchâ in the game to make the item. Levels didnât matter too much because all they did was provide minimal stat increases. Progression was largely gear based which as I said before was not bound to specific characters. You could have a lvl 20 dark elf do more and live longer than a lvl 60 in Lineage if the lvl 20 had the better gear.
Progression was also risky back then too. If you died someone could loot your body and get that gear you worked so hard for (I donât miss that). If you had bad RNG while trying to upgrade an item to make it stronger it could blow up and you lose everything (also donât miss that).
Interesting. Yea those were completely different 
Just one more vote for account wide essences.
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Blizzard thinks these roadblocks keep people in the game more. Which makes no sense because any rational person would see that it just makes people nope out and do something else IRL.
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I was just making a broader point about account versus character.
Gear was specific to the character in Lich King, to use that example, but it was possible to progress several characters because progression was only about obtaining gear.
Of course that essentially meant raiding on multiple characters, which only some players were able to do, but it was possible.
I donât think that having a second progression system like essences is bad, but making it character-specific is too much, especially for certain essences, like the ones from reputation or earlier raid tiers.
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This, 1000%.
The only relevant Rank 3 essence I have is Memebeam, and that Essence is basically equally good at ranks 1 and 2 as long as you donât use it at a bad position and need to cancel it.
Still pull 60k+ on the regular in my dungeon runs over the course of the whole thing.
And no, Iâm not propped up by TwiDev. Yet.
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It certainly did my friends list. BFA is the most grey it has ever been with people on wow. Not even remotely close.
That is vanilla. That is the hwl/ gm grind. That system encouraged cheating, botting, and account sharing your way to character power. Players complained and that system was changed for BC.
Now, they attempt to balance no lifing/ vs qol through time gates. Otherwise peopleâs necks and cloaks would be infinitely higher than your alt and youâd never catch up.
But that really isnât what you want to hear. You want peopleâs mains to be gated with an un-passable ceiling that way your alt that you invest nearly no time in is guaranteed to never be far behind.
Classic⊠more than a week of /played to hit max level. Players: This is fun!
BFA⊠a week of /played unlocks max level, multiple r3 essences and heroic level gear. Players: This is impossible to play on alts!
LoL.
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It was that way for half this expansion as well. Sure there was the AP grind but the catch-up system was actually pretty good. While none of my other characters were ever the same neck level as my main they were usually pretty close. With little effort outside of playing the characters in the content I wanted to play them in.
Thatâs back to the whole âI suffered so you should tooâ mentality. The difference between necks and essences is there was a catch-up system that allowed alts to be close to mains without significant time investment. There is no such system for essences.
Getting an alt from 0-70 neck level today takes a week. 75 takes an additional week. Getting 3-4 rank 3 essences is minimum 3 weeks (requires being carried) and realistically a month or more. God forbid someone main swapped or wants to main swap.
Other than the VoP, what essences are rank 3 in a week?
No its not. Itâs a âhow free does this game need to be mentality.â Iâm sorry you canât have WoD Back.
Iris is two keys.
Bote can be unlocked in a weekend, less during an honor week.
Crucible is free.
VoP can be done in a few hours.
R1 breath is more powerful that the majority of the essences available, unlocked through 5 minute scenarios.
Yeah no, you are 100% saying you suffered through some pointless time-gate and everyone else should for every character they want to play. If I wanted old school things back I would want no BoP, BoA, BoE. I would want to take that mythic 2h off Nyzoth and throw it on a lvl 1 warrior. Sorry, if people wanting to play more than one character but not repeat the same dull time-gated content daily for a month or more hurts your feels and since of accomplishment.
Iris is 2 weeks if you are doing a 15 each week and 3 if you do a 10. Both 10 and 15 are not something a fresh alt can walk into. Or even a brand knew player. Rank 1 does damage but its not nearly as good as rank 3.
BoTE, maybe but you are doing a lot BGs and pretty much only playing that specific toon.
VoP is true, I will give you that but its not one too many use.
BotD, rank 1 is garbage outside the corruption resist. Rank 3 is at least three weeks.
For someone spending significant amounts of time they will probably have the rank 3 essences they need in 3 weeks to a month. For casual or brand new players its longer. Considering the right essences at rank 3 can more than double a personâs DPS its crap system to have no catch-up.
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3 weeks to a month to get Rank 3 BIS essences and it will take you a bit of time to get raid ready anyways and m15+ ready. Just like you said above. A new player or alt isnât jumping right into 15âs. After a week or two of gearing you will have adequate essences from that 2 week process to start progressing that character.
You can get 460+ in a week if you put enough time in the game. You canât get all the rank 3 essences no matter how much time you spend in a week.
The system is designed that way on purpose.
Raiding, dungeons, pvp, and world content are boring? What do you need your alt for when you hate this game?
You are worried about your alts bis essences but canât do a 10 key? Youâve got bigger problems than essences at that point.
??? Breath R1 is one of the best st minors not including the corrupt resistâŠ
No they canât. And they all have gotten catchup.