Blizzard responds to complaints about Recruit-a-Friend changes

[blue author = »Blizzard» source = »https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20761057208?page=19#post-372 ″]

Thanks for your comments and opinions.

The recruit-a-friend system is an option for players who want to invite a friend to play WoW with them and experience the game together. When it was first introduced, we gave it a huge advantage to experience gain as a way for both players to reach the final content of the game as quickly as possible.

Currently with the purchase of the latest WoW expansion includes a free character level 100 upgrade, so the need to rush your friend to reach the maximum level no longer exists; you can jump to the latest content with your friend right away. This meant that the only players who were using the recruit-a-friend system as intended, leveling alongside your friend, were the ones who had decided they wanted to experience that content together. We realized that for those players, the 300% XP bonus was a debuff; we were cutting off that shared experience by making it end too quickly.

Now, we certainly recognize that most of the people who used the recruit-a-friend system prior to these changes were doing so in order to level up alters quickly. If anything, we took that as a strong indication that the system needed to change: the best method to level a character should not be "buy a new copy of the game, put it in a separate account, send a friend invite, raise a new one. character and then transfer that character to your main account when you're done. It is confusing at best.

With that said, we are certainly taking feedback on leveling speed into account as we progress through game development. We're happy with the changes so far, but if leveling up is too slow, we'd rather address that on its own than making you recruit a friend some kind of weird solution to a pending issue.

[/blue]

[blue author = »Blizzard» source = »https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20761057208?page=19#post-372 ″]

Thanks for the feedback and thoughts so far.

The Refer-A-Friend system is intended as an option for players who want to invite a friend to play WoW with them and experience the game together. When it was first introduced, we gave it a hefty bonus to experience gain as a way for both players to reach endgame content as quickly as possible.

Nowadays, purchasing the latest WoW expansion includes a free character boost, so the need to rush your friend to max level is no longer there; you can jump into the latest content with your friend right away. This meant that the only players who were using the Refer-A-Friend system in its intended way - leveling alongside their friend - were those who had decided that they wanted to experience that content together. We realized that, for those players, the 300% XP bonus was a disservice; we were cutting that shared experience short by making them finish it far too quickly.

Now, we certainly recognize that the majority of people using the Refer-A-Friend system before these changes were doing so in order to level alts quickly. If anything, we take that as a strong indication that the system needed to change: the best method to level a character in WoW shouldn't be “buy a new copy of the game, put it on a separate account, send it a Refer -A-Friend invite, level a new character, and then transfer that character to your primary account when you're finished. " That's messy, at best.

That said, we're certainly taking the feedback about the rate of leveling alts into account as we move forward with the game's development. We've been happy with the changes so far, but if leveling is too slow, we'd rather address that in the game itself than have Refer-A-Friend be some kind of bizarre workaround to an outstanding issue.

[/blue]