It’s all relative. Me? I would never faction change to do that, as I never want to faction change my main. I got a horde character to 120 and unlocked all the bfa horde allied races (unlocked the legion ones earlier with requirements met on an alliance character). It wasn’t that hard, and i now have a 120 vulpera dk thanks to the shadowlands 120 boost. If people want to spend the money to faction change, that’s their business. They are easily unlockable without it.
The AR unlock is fine and if anything they should put a 1 month freeze on unlocking allied races after you faction transfer. Then you solve the “incentive” in doing it.
I’ve read through it and my paragraphs address your suggestions to the fix you’ve put forward.
However the basis for your whole suggestion is that ‘there may be effects on people’s characters being screwed up’ would require evidence to suggest that there is an issue in the first place.
I’ve got several characters faction changed and back again already so I’m more than happy to check for you if there’s any actual concerns you’d like me to look into.
I already know faction changes cause issues. The most obvious one is the Argent Tournament (unless they’ve fixed it, Faction Changing makes the daily progression there impossible), although that is pretty niche, so I’m not sure if anyone would consider it worth bringing up until/unless they decide to try collect the mounts available there on a lark.
Having said that, what bothers me is that it’s clear people are willing to both pay to unlock ARs without the grind even if it costs them every faction-specific quest they’ve ever done on a given character. From the Faction Change Effects support article:
- Faction-specific completed quests will be lost and will no longer count toward any completed quests counters
- Progress on character-specific achievements, such as for quests and PVP, will be reset
I do, of course, understand that there are people willing to make these sacrifices to cut short the rep grinds, and I’m not in any way trying to deny their agency. What I’m pointing out (or trying to, anyway) is that a Faction Change is not an ideal means to accomplish this goal.
If people are paying to easily unlock ARs and doing so via Faction Change, then the Faction Change service is not being used to actually change Factions with the intent to play the character in earnest on the new faction. This forces people to accept the limitations of the Faction Change service when doing so should not be necessary.
You mention a fix – I proposed three fixes. One is good for Blizzard and bad for us (in that it makes them money, but is somewhat predatory to consumers). One is bad for Blizzard and good (in that it reduces the amount of time required for the unlocks) for us. One is bad for us and bad for Blizzard (in that it reduces their income and forces people to grind their reps naturally).
You criticized only one of those. While that’s fine, the end goal is to ensure that the Faction Change service is not causing people to lose long-term character progress (for example, a Faction Change basically eliminates any contribution toward Loremaster that a character may have completed) in order to bypass a grind.
If a given method accomplishes that, I’m open to alternative suggestions.
The people doing it are for a means to an end and if they’re buying a service they are already taking into account changes to character progress that they have completed. There’s no need for criticism of your other points, since they’re merely just game suggestions that can be assessed by Blizzard when/if they read this thread, I don’t see why rep conversion is an issue either as a part of your suggestion C) - something you haven’t provided justification for.
Just because it’s a process that some people are doing it doesn’t necessarily mean Blizzard needs to cater to it or ‘fix’ it as you suggest.
However that is a difference of opinion between me and you, so i’ll leave it at that.
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Because it incentivizes using the Faction Change for rep. Removing that incentive will stop people from buying Faction Changes they don’t actually want in order to bypass rep grinds. I thought that was obvious, but I apologize if it was unclear.
Just because people are driving nails with frying pans doesn’t mean you should offer them a hammer either, but it’s the kind thing to do.
How would you determine that though? What makes changing faction for rep conversion an ‘invalid want’ for a faction change? Player already have the agency to not faction change and experience the other faction. Especially now.
I did it on my Demon Hunter.
Just because people are driving nails with frying pans doesn’t mean you should offer them a hammer either, but it’s the kind thing to do.
Yet one of your suggestions is to ask them to use their hands instead.
I’m unsure if you’re asking this question seriously. Why would anyone want to use a clumsy tool if it was possible to use a good tool? As a business, why would you want to sell a clumsy tool when you could sell a good tool?
You’re misunderstanding the point of that. It’s meant to illustrate in stark contrast why using a bad tool is a bad thing.
If the removal of conversion of AR reputations from the Faction Change process is enough to make a person not want to use the Faction Change service, the person did not want the Faction Change – they wanted the rep conversion.
Ergo, offer the rep conversion or another alternative tool in order to remove the need for using the bad tool.
We already had a Dark Iron skin for dwarves. All they had to do was up the customizations, which they’re doing now.
Most of the races could have been customizations. The problem comes into play with Nightborne and Velfs. I was fine with AR when they were reskins, though I wasn’t fine with how Dark Irons were handled over Wildhammers.
Allied Races took a turn for the worse for me when they introduced an entirely new rig, then an entirely new model, and locked them behind rep with the reskins. It set a bad precedent moving forward.
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I’m unsure if you’re asking this question seriously. Why would anyone want to use a clumsy tool if it was possible to use a good tool? As a business, why would you want to sell a clumsy tool when you could sell a good tool?
Your analogies are working against you, friend.
You’re misunderstanding the point of that. It’s meant to illustrate in stark contrast why using a bad tool is a bad thing.
I’ve continued your analogy with your own suggestion.
Correct me if I’m wrong but you’ve written:
Assuming they implemented this;
So someone paying for a service would be missing Zandalari rep if they were previously exalted with Kul Tirans.
Would that not be crippling an existing service and creating extra work for anyone who wants to unlock that Zandalari trolls?
Have you put this in just to try and make your other ideas look more pallatable? Because it looks like you have.
In any case I’ll leave you to it, all the best for your suggestion.
Nah, you’re just being obtuse, though I can’t understand why.
Again, the point was to draw a contrast. Under ideal circumstances, the change to reputation would never need to be implemented – because Blizzard would either be selling a better tool for rep/AR unlocks, or a better tool wouldn’t be needed for AR unlocks at all.
This isn’t as complicated as you’re attempting to make it. So far everything you’ve said amounts to, “Well if people want to drive nails with a frying pan, what business of yours is it? If people want to drive nails with their bare hands, who are you to say they shouldn’t?”
These protestations are not an argument against a better tool. Just offer them a hammer.
Honestly, I think this is a stretch. We had a skin tone that was darker than the rest. There really wasn’t much distinction between clans there. That said, you are right that most of the races could have been customizations. Every option the Dark Irons have could have easily been added to baseline Dwarves.
The eye color was also different. That customization matched what they had for DI in Cata and was added in Cata for that very reason. I’m not saying it was spectacular. But back then, it’s why they added it.
Indeed. I’m actually miffed that DI got special treatment and Wildhammers got shoved into normal dwarves.
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I don’t know if I’d go so far myself, but if we’re gonna split Dwarf clans up into different races based on their elemental affinities, then Wildhammers and their air elemental affinity deserve just as much attention as Bronzebeards and their earth and Dark Irons and their fire.
This is what messes things up. One clan got special treatment, the others get some random customizations all shoved together. It kind of created a mess. 
To be fair, Blizz devs couldn’t even remember whether Falstad was alive or dead. I’m not surprised they kind of ignore the Wildhammers.
LOL… fair enough.
Because getting those turtles into the water 5000 times makes such a difference to the allied races.
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I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Tortollan quests don’t have anything to do with AR unlocks.
Thanks for the insult, don’t worry I’m better than to do the same.
You might want to read what I’ve written more carefully though and stop playing around with analogies that you’re not willing to follow through.
Just saying there isn’t a ‘need’ for a better tool and that the premise of lost progress is already made clear to players prior to the faction change.
He is right Tortollan rep has nothing to do with AR unlocks.
It wasn’t intended as an insult. I feel I’ve been very clear, and it seems like you’re dodging around the point on the basis that a tool with obvious drawbacks is fine despite those drawbacks and no tool that eliminates those drawbacks is needed.
By that logic, power tools are not needed if one has hand tools. Hand tools are not needed if one has hands. It’s bizarrely reductive – hence, obtuse. I genuinely did not mean any offense by it.
To continue with the metaphor we seem to have agreed upon, a lack of need does not indicate a lack of want. The fact that one can successfully drive a nail with a frying pan does not mean that the frying pan is an adequate tool for driving nails. If we’ve established that people want to drive nails, the goal of any enterprising entity should be to design a tool that most efficiently allows those people to drive said nails.
Why did humans bother with metallurgy when their stone tools accomplished the tasks at hand? Because metal tools did the job better, were less prone to breakage, and required less effort to produce.
A better tool justifies its own existence. Its development does not need to be justified.