All toons share rep and currencies. Why don’t they do this? I’ve done some reading and blizz’s official answer is that they don’t want to share player power, only player cosmetics. The community mostly thinks its Blizz’s way of artificially extending MAU’s with an arbitrary grind to keep players playing longer. I believe these to both be wrong.
As for the sharing player power really, what is the harm? You telling me its game breaking to have some high end raider funnel some goodies to an alt when there is nothing else he wants on his main? You telling me the community would suffer if you spun up an alt and he walked in the door with an exalted rep or a large quantity of whatever relevant currency is going on? Worried about inflation? Cap all currencies except gold. Use it or lose it. Think these shares will mean everyone maxes out too fast? Increase the rep/currencies needed for stuff.
These seem like simple and logical steps that could make the entirety of WoW alt friendly. Its works in Diablo 3, why couldn’t it work here? Love it hate it, Diablo had and still has legs on it. I think the sharing between toons is one of the reasons. Keep gear soulbound, levels, and questing progress all separate but I see no harm in the rest.
As for the artifical extension of MAU’s, that seems off as well. The new MO for many WoW players is come in, see new stuff, do what you want, then bail out until the new shiny drops. Seems like if everything shared, players would have more “do what you want” in that equation. Now they can step right in to new content with their alts, get them caught up quick and not fall behind some rep grind or currency they haven’t earned yet on that toon. Would you honestly play less than you do now if your alt could use the badges you earn on raid night for a shiny new blade? Would you play less if your alt could walk into a zone and see the whole story without grinding a rep?
TL:DR
Share reps and currencies. MAU extension and player-power sharing excuses don’t hold water. Give alt players ability to do what they want without multiple arbitrary grinds (one is enough). Community is happy. Profit.
Given your suggestion what happens to existing characters that have capped rep?
My two I’m progressing this season have capped all BfA minus the new ones. Do I still get access to the Paragon caches as usual (maybe even a bonus cache for my efforts), do my War Resources get pooled?
(Not against this suggestion, wondering how they’d go about it).
You’d also greatly diminish replay value.
MoP had almost the right idea (no wonder it is the best xpac IMO).
I like the idea that each “capped” activity reduces the amount of grinding your next alt has to do. For each exalted you got on a char, the next one would get a 2x boost on rep.
That could work for every other system too, like ilvl scaling and some other currency acquisition, based on some threshold.
AND it has to be optional, because for some people, regrinding is fun.
Heck I’d be happy if they just made azerite essences account-wide.
But I agree with OP - almost all of the stuff associated with sharing reputation across an account is overstated to a spectacular degree. There are some valid concerns regarding how to handle dailies, and the larger rep bonuses given with quest progression itself (instead of grinding dailies to exalted, I could do the quest chains on multiple characters) but these are issues that can be worked out in comparison to the actual conceptual change (which I don’t think Blizzard will embrace, but should).
A simpler system that wouldn’t have longterm ramifications would be to simply make Essences account wide.
Because you’ve got this scenario backwards:
What would end up happening is people would do what they did with Benthic items in 8.2, and funnel all the gear off their alts towards their mains.
So instead of having to run a 15 for your weekly cache, you’d be expected to run half a dozen so you could get one (or more) 475 Azerite pieces from the Vendor to increase your odds of rolling a good one.
Not shared but there has to be something to make things faster on alts for sure. On one hand they add pathfinder that gives alts flying (good thing) but then removed one of the best thing for alts (mop items 50% more rep)
What happens if you already capped on two or more toons? Nothing, stay capped… enjoy. Spin up a third toon and they’re capped as well.
What if those reps have paragon caches? Get one, get two or more depending on high your number goes with your alts. Does it really matter? At best you get a better chance for a cool mount, whoopie.
Spend all your time WQ’ing and getting multiple caches a day? Thats cool enjoy, so what? At least your playing and that MAU number is ticking up for the Blizz overlords.
Shortens replay value? Really, thats the hill you wanna die on? People replay for story and lore and gameplay differences between toons. Find me someone who replays for the sole aspect of raising rep bars or farming currencies they don’t wish they had on their main. Replay value is untouched. Still gotta gain levels, progress quests and get gear. Just have a quicker or more enjoyable time doing it since the grindy aspects have already been done.
I want less things account wide. I want to keep the character progression in a character progression game, and not trend towards making it an account progression game.
I don’t care if you think the excuses “don’t hold water”.
I think the reasons alts need things account wide “don’t hold water”.
Man, its easy to dismiss people when you just blanket say their reasons don’t matter.
Get over yourself. Society caters to masses, not individuals and WoW is no different. Maybe theres a few purists who want to keep things separate, grindy, and convoluted. However ask yourself, why and to what cause? Will the game break for you? Will you be unable to do what you want to do? Theres bound to be someone out there that loves leveling toons for the sole reason of getting to Outland and grind farming sporeggar rep over and over. Kudos to them for doing it and they can continue forever.
Keeping things the same is fine and great… until its not. One day that dude might get bored and want to step out of Zangarmarsh with a new toon and he’ll be sad he doesnt have the rep he worked so hard for.