The Together Forever Challenge

[Schwarzschild]

UPDATED on July 6.
The Together Forever Challenge
-A social leveling challenge-

Mattydemise already submitted this suggestion on my behalf but I thought I'd repost and expand it here. OctoWoW sorely misses a SOCIAL challenge that actually calls for co-play.

This challenge is activated by talking to an NPC at your starting zone, who hands out a rune. It has limited (two or five?) charges and applies a permanent, non-removable and unique (de-)buff to yourself as well as to the characters in your group who are from the same faction (and, ideally, on different accounts) and confirm the prompt triggered when the buff is applied (could look similar to a join-guild request).

• Characters with the (de-)buff will ONLY gain XP or honor when they are no more than 1 level apart, grouped, and within the same instance/battleground or close enough together (in the open world) [this retains each character's freedom to farm resources and craft by themselves]
• Each character gets a "Band of Friendship" ring that allows them to teleport to each other once per 24h (only if they are both online of course) [the ring could be non-unique (without changing the overall 24h cooldown), i.e., one character could get more than one and send them to other challenge participants. This would allow them to play together right at level 1 even if they are in different starting zones]. If more than two players participate in the challenge together, the teleport could simply lead to that participant who is the current group leader.
• Optional: Until level 60, characters with the (de-)buff can only equip items that were crafted by themselves and other characters that participate in their specific Together Forever Challenge [this incentivizes synergistic profession choices and also prevents people from avoiding class pairings that overlap in their loot, e.g, Paladin+Warrior. Moreover, it would reward people doing this challenge with more, e.g., up to 5, people, as this would expand the pool of professions and, thus, items that can be equipped.]

Level 60 reward could be a unique title that says "Eternal friend of [names of participants]" or simpler and generic "Bound in an eternal friendship". Participants may also keep their Band of Friendship rings.

The Together Forever Challenge is very well suited to be combined with the War Mode, Exhaustion, and/or Trial of Heroism challenges. On the HC server, this challenge could include that one player's death would also kill the partner character(s).

[Aegor1998]

I think this is a wonderful idea

[Berdal]

Although I like the idea. Seems too complicated and convoluted. Challenges should have simple rules.

[Schwarzschild]

Although I like the idea. Seems too complicated and convoluted. Challenges should have simple rules.

Other than removing the exclusive crafting aspect, I don't see how a challenge that specifically calls for SOCIAL gameplay with a specific friend can be designed in a simpler manner.

Social challenges like this are sorely missing.

PS: A clickable rune given by an NPC, that grants you as well as ONE other player (i.e., it has only two charges) a permanent (de-)buff causing you to gain XP only together (see OP) does not sound too complicated. The basic principle would not be novel.

[Adesta113]

Crafting this is unnecessary. But yeah, it's really cool thing (which I would play with a gf, if she hadn’t left WoW first and then me). Also for HC can made some kind of Soulbond: if one die - both die.

[Schwarzschild]

Crafting this is unnecessary. But yeah, it's really cool thing (which I would play with a gf, if she hadn’t left WoW first and then me). Also for HC can made some kind of Soulbond: if one die - both die.

Honestly I don't think that the crafting aspect of the proposed challenge would be complicated at all. The current crafting challenge allows only items with the player's tag to be equipped. My challenge would simply add another name tag to the allowable list.

[Ayesha]

I mean it’s cute and all, but it just can be a self-imposed challenge, isnt it? Like you turn off xp when not in group together. Having this as a mechanic will probably just end up being abused to get a free port to the high-elf starting area with their alt or have 2 hearthstones basically.

Playing with someone is super fun, I absolutely agree, but I’m not sure what exactly constitutes the challenge here? Playing in a group makes everything easier. So how does this classify as one? And also the idea of having someone’s name sitting in my title doesn’t sit right with me. I am my own person.

I guess it’s like an alternative to the non-existent marriage mechanic? But then I would just rather see marriage than a challenge that just makes the game easier for you. Back in my day, if your human gentleman caller wanted to level with you, he had to run all the way to your starting zone, risking his life!!! What happened to people these days smh

[Atriana]

I saw a guy playing HC and every time he leveled anything that wasn't a quest item got deleted. he would have to go back to dead mines at like level 40 to get gear again, glutton for pain.

[Turtlefield]

I comment simply to upvote, i think it is a great idea - though i might be biased.
As I basically allready play like this with my gf, so getting rewarded for it sound perfect - but sure it is a nice challenge to have and cool to shown of the achivement!

[Schwarzschild]

I mean it’s cute and all, but it just can be a self-imposed challenge, isnt it? Like you turn off xp when not in group together.

You can say this about almost every challenge. Why need an HC challenge/server if you could just promise yourself to delete the character after dying? Or swear to only kill boars and nothing else? Fact is that among all the official challenges we have, there is not a single one that is specifically social in nature.