Suggestion: Cap character = Alts get 100% XP buff

WoW Classic Mists of Pandaria Classic Discussion
1

Hear me out.

Simple solution.
Upon achieving Level cap, you receive an account wide buff that gives you a permanent +100% XP increase from killing mobs and turning in quests.

|It incentivizes players to level a toon they have a passion to end game on
|The don’t have to slog though an entire zone to go to the next
|Dungeon groups pay off to commit through (BRD and its long list of quests)
|It stacks with rested. Go at your own pace mentality.
|It can eventually stack with BoA gear, double dipping.
|You can level x y & z class with a ‘side project’ amount of effort.

At this point you can cripple/kill off boosting - the crowd that prefers to pay gold to netflix and WA follow - might be upset but a viable alternative exists so long as they capped once.

4 Likes
2

So… Heirlooms?

3 Likes
3

It can eventually stack with BoA <(heirlooms) gear, double dipping.
It would be more potent than BoA and would increase to +120% with BoA gear. (125% if including the fishing tourney ring)

4

The solution isnt to skip content but to make content enjoyable

1 Like
5

In this suggestion, it is for the player to Cap a character at the current level cap. So 70 for BC - 80 for wrath.
The buff would go away when the account doesn’t have 1 character at cap.
So for the outcry of people wanting the authentic experience to level - they can have that for their main.
Once that main hits cap (again 80 wrath), the suggestion is to incorporate an account wide buff that grants them a 100% xp gain for any toons they play on that account.

Say right now, there is a 55 priest you want to disc on in wrath.

With the alt leveling meta that it is currently vs. what its being purposed to change to.

Would you be more inclined to:
Quest and Dungeon to cap if boosting was nerfed, you meet the criteria for a 100% xp gain, that stacks with rested?
or
Pay a mage/paladin to power house your toon to cap while afking with a follow function like an idle game?

Thats up to the community on which way they agree with vs which method they execute.

Heirlooms aren’t potent enough to incentives alt leveling. Imo, a significant reward/incentive for capping one toon would align with an agreeable side of sustainable interest/commitment to cap a roster of alts to play the game from different aspects in end game scenarios.

In MoP there was a potion, elixir-of-ancient-knowledge, gave 300% xp gain for 15m. Dropped from rares that was hounded around the clock. Sold for ridiculous money on AH, iirc.
People would scrounge up 25 quests to turnin the moment they popped it to capitalize on its xp gains. And have a dungeon, AoE pack, or xp clump ready for the remaining time.

In WoD, that elixir or something of its likeness was combined with “Zone like World Quests” that gave 100k xp raw, prep’d with 1 objective up to instantly complete and fly to the next.

Generally, players love playing alts. They dislike replaying 30-60 hours of content - just to alternate a character to raid/game with.
The economic solution so far has been, pay a guy to grind xp till that goal is achieved.
If you obsolete that method and incentivize game play via amazing xp gains upon main capping… I don’t see a world people aren’t playing or where you hear “alts are tasking” and “we want our boosts back”.

I instead see a game where people interact and thrive to participate any chance and anyway they want to.

6

Make content enjoyable is a one time thing.
Once you’ve done it once or twice, it becomes mundane.
You can’t ask them to make an entirely new path to cap.
There is not enough space, it’s too much money and man power, doubt they have an idea if they were able. It’s not going to happen.

World quests were absolute bores and chores… this is the reason threads of fate was a thing.

In wrath we have 2 paths.
1: Borean Tundra - work your way up.
2: Howling Fjord - work your way up.

You can wish in one had for a vague answer to “make content enjoyable”.
But without a proposal, there’s nothing to work with.

7

That’s fair but my post was meant to be a constructive criticism of your suggestion. It is flawed because it focuses on making already established players spend even less time with content that newcomers still need to complete and as a result makes finding participants for such content even more challenging.

Edit: As for a proposal, a rewards system could be implemented that encourages overleveled/geared players to help newbies through content. I am not familiar with WoW’s exploration of this territory but I do know that Everquest II had a temporary crunch system in place that allowed players to adopt weaker forms of themself to simulate level-appropriate grouping with lowbies. They were called Spirit Shrouds. The shrouded player would gain experience with their weaker party members that could either be spent towards advancing their own level (if not already at lv cap), enhancements to their shroud form, or other in-game rewards.

2 Likes
8

I like leveling but the reason I’m leveling an alt these days is to get it into arena. Spending ages leveling and then ages gearing for PvP leaves you with a lot less time to do the activity you leveled the alt for in the first place.

9

Or maybe people who don’t want to level alts should just not level alts. Don’t level alts if you hate leveling them so much. No one is forcing you to.

7 Likes
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That’s understandably frustrating but alts are supposed to be an investment. Changing the game so that established players withdraw from entry-level content even faster is doing any would-be new players a disservice unless a concurrent change is also made to encourage participation.

2 Likes
11

I’m not opposed but yea, I think heirlooms fill this niche. Still, I certainly wouldn’t say no to faster alt leveling. If it’s going to be something that some have that others don’t though, it would still need a way to be disabled. Now and again I like to level a character with friends and it’s no fun when you out level them :slight_smile:

1 Like
12

All of this content has been done considerably more than once or twice. Part of the point behind these classic servers IS doing this stuff again like we did before. If the content is not enjoyable to some degree, then maybe people should move on instead of trying to relive something they won’t get back. Not everyone is like that, but I’ve seen so many since Classic launched, knowing what they were getting into, just complain for the past few years as if it’s a surprise every time they play. It sounds like a medical condition they need to get worked out lol.

1 Like
13

Agree with others. Heirlooms already fill this niche, and while perhaps a subset, for some players the journey IS the enjoyable part.

I briefly returned to retail and the fact that levelling is irrelevant is the #1 reason I didn’t stay. Buffing leveling too much imo is easy to unbalance, and there are already boosts and heirlooms for those who just want more toons at max level for the sake of endgame or bragging rights or whatever.

Edit: ‘At this point you can cripple/kill off boosting’ Also note this isn’t really true either - there’s a subset of players who just don’t want to quest period. You might cut into the market a bit, but I doubt even a 100% xp buff would move the needle much.

14

Thank you for elaborating. I now see what constructive points you were bringing to the conversation.

Every approach to conflictions comes with positives and negatives.
It’s an ebb and flow of how much + vs how much - .
I feel the positives out weight the negatives but saying that is subjective to bias.

Your proposal does exist in retail, in some caveat. I don’t know about reward type incentive but you most definitely can down grade your homogenized stats/gear to a lower level players gear and group quest/dungeon with them.
In my experience, it was seldom used by a friend who wanted me on his server and the passion and drive from their end died out after a couple hours of dungeon diving and wasnt picked up there after… but thats a personal experience. I view it as a niche solution.

The option exists there, its just up to the community to determine its worth.
If personal experience reflexs a significant fraction of the general publics experience with that system - it would point toward remaining a niche solution.
Then again - Retail is an eco chamber where open communication isn’t prevalent, friends only type vibe. It could see success in classic.

1 Like
15

Majorly the reason I would like to see a Cap for XP bonus buff. Personal goal to see wrath from every raid on every toon on most specs. Arena is fun too with zug comps. But mines a mostly raid driven dream.

16

Thats an issue a few of my friends I raid with are having. They love the idea of raiding on an alt - they hate the idea of leveling that alt.

Some have main swapped or bit the bullet to play multiple toon - even paid gold to boost those characters through the parts they didn’t want repeats of (10-70).
Those that did just didn’t care for a replay of the content. They wanted the meat of the end game and proving they could heal, tank, dps BT outside of their main role with a different role they chose on their alt.

17

Long, long, slow level grinds are the rite of passage that contributes to the value of being at max-level in WoW Classic, imo.

18

That is definitely a downside. It’s not a complete withdrawl - if anything it would see more ‘traffic’ just the cars are going above the ‘speed limit’.

But I get you.
[Tubbly] 's suggestion below yours suggests an addendum to toggle the buff incase someone found someone else they wanted to pace with. I think that’d be neat for the occasion.

1 Like
21

I disagree. Heirlooms come in during the ToC patch. ICC is left at that point and ulduar, etc will be nerfed. Even then its slight uptick instead of a meaningful acceleration.

Firm believer 1st level is the journey. Journey becomes a chore when its on loop. Diablo is a flagship example - you just boost with someone else that is capped to cap. Gearing is the factor of significance.

Completionism is a thing and it is fun… again… once.

As for killing off boosting. If dungeon crawl with a capped escort is killed - sure it moves to open world but layer limit and specific grind spots will be contested.
Strickly on the boosting work around:

  1. no one wants to run to egypt each time they get 5 levels
  2. few will have lock alts to support that service, if at all
  3. their will be contested tags for each group participating

What I’m saying is boosting will die due to demand and supply. That pipe dream of salvage is dead before its off the ground. Which is fine - if there is a measure in place to meet the outcry of people wanting alts who don’t want to repeat their mains experience.

1 Like
22

There is no fishing tourney ring in WotLK.