I don’t get it. Other mmos can be very alt friendly (ESO and SWTOR allow you to share gear for example which is one of the features I enjoy most about them). What is the harm in allowing us to play and gear alts more easily? I know I would play 3 times as much as I do now if I could keep my alts up to par without an ungodly time investment…
This really needs to be addressed… I really want to play my alts, but no one has time to keep every alt up to date with the million systems in play and being unable to share gear. I really don’t understand why they hate us playing alts so much.
Some people want their characters to be independent of each other for RP reasons. That of course is no reason to not give you what you want as well since something could easily be implemented that a player can opt into or not.
Like an alliance between your characters where any of your characters in the alliance has access to certain benefits and your characters outside of the alliance function as they do now.
Blizzard has been unintentionally helping me with my alts. Usually I focus almost exclusively on one main through the majority of an expansion. I will then begin to expand into alts as things clearly die down. Kind of a catch up just to make sure nothing is left behind in case they are better to play next expansion.
Now, my main has basically hit the ilvl cap, completed the covenant upgrades, all the renown armor and other mogs. Farming anima is about all that can be done now in case something pops up in the future, but even that will end as a time killer.
As a result, I have already started working on Alts. I have a hunter that from pure luck of world boss drops will surpass ilvl of my main by the time it completes some known content. It is in Night Faie (ugh!) and I hate the look of their mogs, so that is off the table for anima needs. It’s upgrade is about half way. Another hunter is running a close second behind this one too.
I have a lock also at 60 and in Night Fae (UHG!) and is cleaning house. My mage is with the undead dudes so at least that is something different. This pally is still leveling in Venthyr, but at least I enjoyed that storyline.
(I hated the Night Fae portion of the great big into story and the covenant campaign, so I am dragging my feat on those on the second hunter and lock. I am hoping Blizzard will do something to make me avoid it before forcing my hand when it is all that is left to do.)
So, I must disagree. Blizzard has made it easy for me to work on alts by putting a swift end to content for doing casual play.
Yeah I get the rp element. Just some of the game design is so frustrating for no reason. Like if I get a soul bound drop from a world boss that’s not an upgrade for that character, but would be an upgrade for another one of my characters I can’t mail it to them?? Ever had to vendor a soul bound item even though it would be an upgrade for another one of your characters? It’s beyond annoying. Need more account bound and just do away with soulbound. Also let me mail from my alliance characters to my horde characters on the same server.
Alt friendliness is a spectrum though, not a binary yes/no. Shadowlands probably sits lower among xpac rankings for it, but just about every expansion has been “alt friendly” if you’re fine with 2-4 alts and aren’t trying to maintain a fleet of near-equal main-like “alts” so you can switch to the current FotM on a whim.
I think it’s less a spectrum and more of a collage I don’t like the term ‘alt friendly’ because what does it even mean? When I hear alt friendly I honestly think less of gear and more of skips. If I’ve done it already I don’t want to do it again especially if it’s just RP.
I already don’t trade gear to others
I get all my gear straight to the mailbox
Actually, for me, BfA is the one that gave me my “fleet” of alts. Now, thanks to the mechanics and schemas of SL, I have “scuttled” or “mothballed” many of them. I am actually heading towards my 10th 60 but only because so much else in SL is a dead end. I’m only playing 1-2 generally on a daily basis, and each successive alt does less and less to advance…to what? Just the same old same old.
We already see this in effect with specs. Tell people that you play a class for a particular spec instead of whichever spec is “good” at the moment and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.
I think it’s possible to add in skips but also keep character individuality. I think my approach would be to add catchup to “essential” systems while leaving the rest entirely per-character. Like what sense would it make if you ground up to Exalted with Bloodsail Buccaneers on one character and that transferred to other characters?
To me this just says that the core gameplay loop being centered on gear acquisition is too naked in Shadowlands. If you’ve hit a ceiling on gear progression there’s not much else to do.
Because blizz and players believe alts arent supposed to be mains. If you want them to be mains, then you gotta do it all over again.
I disagree with this concept and just want to have fun with my alt at the same level my main plays at without the slog to get it there. I’d play more as well
I don’t like the term ‘alt friendly’ because what does it even mean? When I hear alt friendly I honestly think less of gear and more of skips. If I’ve done it already I don’t want to do it again especially if it’s just RP.