It’s been a while now since this game began. I think certain changes have taken place in player behaviour that are not reflected in the UI, and it’s past time these were addressed.
One change in behaviour is the number of toons we use. Alts are on the rise. With the new 50 character limit on each realm, players are diversifying and experimenting. With catch-up mechanisms in place it’s relatively easy to develop a roster of toons that are viable in the end game.
However there are virtually no tools ingame to keep track of this stable of alts. We cannot access data (item counts / professions learnt / gear equipped / reputation levels etc) on alts. There is no way to track this within each character apart from a. remembering, b. logging in and checking manually, c. keeping notes d. using an addon.
Obviously a, b and c are not satisfactory. Several addons provide item counts, and for me these are as vital as knowing what time it is. But only one (that I am aware of) provides data about recipes learnt / gear equipped / reputation etc). That’s Altoholic. The owner of this addon however is frequently absent for long periods of time and updates are very irregular.
It seems to me that these features should be a core part of the UI, at least to some extent. Mainly these changes could be confined to the tooltip, with toggles for things like “Item Count” “Characters On This Realm”. A separate UI feature could be implemented, maybe on the Collections tab, where you can view data about each character on this realm / this account etc.
In many ways I think WoW would benefit from moving closer toward a design similar to Diablo III or StarCraft II, where information and progress happens on an account-wide level. It’s just more seamless and easy to work with.
Either this… or go back to a fully individual character system. Cause tbh. shared progression have no place in a RPG. However given how it is right now, they could just share everything instead, a quick look on forums sort of tells the story of outrage once something “ain’t shared”(Don’t talk about OP).
While they are at it, they could just open up alts to buy rep rewards with the mains reputations… that way the lacluster rewards(gear cought) whould at least have a purpose.
One of the more far-seeing decisions the original devs ever made was to provide an API for players to make their own addons. They knew thay development would always fall behind what players want, and allowing players to do their own thing was a source of creativity and choice.
And so we have Altoholic, with which I have no complaints, and if the author is sufficiently absent, or abandons it, someone else will take it up or fork it or create their own. And I don’t think the devs either should or would be motivated to write their own.
I agree with this. Once upon a time it was not uncommon to see class and spec listed in the member notes of guilds. Then they made respeccing much easier, so players could easily swap between two roles. Which is both good and bad. It is good because it allows players to be more flexible with their role within guilds but it’s bad because, as Ghimrizz sort of pointed out, it diminishes the feeling of an RPG. Of an individual character progression.
These days I feel like I play an account more than an individual character that I’m developing. When I unlock something I unlock it on all my characters which makes it less rewarding to be honest.
Well I’m currently working towards the “story both sides achivement” and then also Kul Tiran master of all achivements. It’s sort of a funny side thing to do, which whould not been possible in the individual progress era. However I could had survived without these features. Another thing which I also like with the shared progression are that you are not really locked down to a class in the same sense…
However As you said, It also devalues alot of investments into a “main”. These days I have five chars played as a main whould. It’s really draining tbh… since finding the time for them are so… ugh. But flexible healers must be flexible in a world of 10-20% nerfs and hotfixes.
Well shared AP I whould really not mind due to the direction of the game being so “well this week everyone plays classes x-y-z” etc. Which makes alts almost mandatory for higher content. I mean just look at pretty much every 9/9 mythic guild; they either A, have tons of members who mains classes or B, have everyone play at least 2-3 classes. Perseverence still exist, but then you also face the “benching” or “group struggle”.
This don’t mean I can always dream back too the days I could choose a main and stick to it a whole expansion without it being worthless every 2nd tier/season(w/e).
Yes, same here. I have three characters at max level that I try to play equally much and I couldn’t tell you which the “main” one is. They’re all kinda the main now. I guess that’s the way the game is played today, but I do miss the days when class and spec mattered and was part of your in-game identity, and where one character might stick out because a player had invested a lot of time into it.
I guess there are pros and cons to everything. I’m not sure modern WoW would be as fun if we were pigeonholed into playing one character, but I sure am looking forward to re-experiencing that old feeling in classic WoW.
I’ll probably skip classic. Been there done that and I can just imagine the modern gamer playing in that enviroment. Don’t get me wrong I remember Vanilla fondly and I’d rather keep doing that.
Anyhow for me it’s mostly a matter of either;
Everything with possible shared value should be shared or nothing. Since this mixed bag of selected parts sort of don’t make sense as either a collectivist, RPG player or even progression gamer.
Just to counter this narrative that everyone has an army of characters - I only have this character who I consider my main. I have one alt who I don’t devote much time to and nothing else. I’d always love to have more characters but I find there is always more interesting things to do on my main. There are many people I know who are in a similar position.
However more support for alts would be a good thing. I’ll check out the altaholic addon.
I agree, but perhaps just class, since classes used to have identities of their own that were not necessarily so tightly forced into specs - when we weren’t forced into an artificial amnesia half the time.
Yup. That, and maybe Double Agent, could legit have been account wide without barfing all over character identity.
(Also, I would regret my Mammoth/Yak vendor, though I would just buy one for every alt, I guess … I think it’s what I’ll miss most in Classic. )
It would great to have somewhere to see the Profs / recipes each of your toons has learned from another toon. Inventory / bank / Guild Bank items can already be seen via Baggon and iirc TSM.
It’s a nightmare trying to find the toon with that rare recipe on for that BiS item you just have to have, when it’s 3 accounts and 60 plus toons.
I have always hated the term alt as I have 50 characters and they are all my main character. Personally I hate any shared item, title, pet, mount etc etc that are account wide. For me I would love the option to switch all that off. I am assuming when Classic is released there will be no achievements nor account wide mounts etc.
I have no interest in the achievement system and never have. But then if it were me I would get rid of transmog and heirlooms from the game. Also remove dual specs and the ability to change at will spec skills. That way each character would be truly unique not a facsimile of half truths that require keeping tabs on so called alts.
So play your main with pride and stop calling them alts. They should all be as important … why would any player actually play with a lower or less determined mindset with another character.
I think sharing progression or not is a separate discussion. Soon arguments for no sharing of progression will be met with cut and paste forum slogans about “GO PLAY CLASSIC!” - so be ready for that.
I certainly agree that developers are right to depend on addon authors to provide customizations to the playing experience. My argument is that the core UI still reflects the classic-era player who mostly played on a main. We should not have to rely on the flux and instability of the addon world for core UI features. There comes a point where the UI has to be updated with stable, permanent features that better reflect the type of activity going on in-game.
Only Blizzard has the raw data about player to alt ratios. I’m not going to pretend to have knowledge I don’t have. I do expect people who stick with mains might be horrified / appalled at how much people flirt with other toons - but that’s just what I’ve picked up from reading around.
If Blizzard are seeing Altoholic behaviour becoming the norm, they should respond with updates.
On Diablo, playing the content through with different classes was part of the game imho. But WoW has a high maintenance gameplay component and I can’t imagine having the time to maintain more than a coupe of alts. I’m taking an alt through Horde storylines as I’ve only played Alliance, and will give other classes on Alliance a go when I’m waiting for new material to come out, but this char will probably always be the one I’m most attached to.
I understand not wanting to have shared progression between the characters and wanting to opt out of it, but transmog and heirlooms are completely optional and are important to a lot of people. This would just ruin the game experience for others.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
Another thing which I also like with the shared progression are that you are not really locked down to a class in the same sense…
