Feeling punished for having alts...

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

Personally I want all collectables (mounts, emotes, minions, etc), achievements & glamour made account wide. I have quite a few alts, but it's still just me behind the wheel spending all that time on them.

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They have to account for the fact that not everyone sees that the same way. You might like them shared, but I wouldn't want them to be. My characters have done different things, earned or obtained different things, so should have different things.

The biggest reason why I like playing multiple alts in the first place (and the reason why just fantasia-ing to another wouldn't work) is that I really do see them as different characters with different personalities and experiences. Having all their achievements and rewards shared would really detract from that, ruining a significant portion of the game for me. And it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could easily be offered on a purely optional basis, to satisfy us both.

I would, however, like a better option for transferring unbound tradeable items between them. It's annoying that it's easier to trade with a complete stranger than it is with our own alt characters, and that wouldn't interfere with the in-universe view of them as being different people.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

They have to account for the fact that not everyone sees that the same way. You might like them shared, but I wouldn't want them to be. My characters have done different things, earned or obtained different things, so should have different things.

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For achievements you could always have the account level and then an individual character check mark for the character to earn. For mounts and such I'm usually picking and choosing which character they best fit on to go for it, but when you have things like "collect all X mounts to gain Y mount" that can cause an issue spreading them out. In addition it means that if I want a rare item on more than one character (such as the mount from one of the msq dungeons), I'm adding more competition against other players that may not have gotten it on any of their characters. That can be particularly painful with as rare as SE makes a lot of the non-gear drops. As someone that was around when WoW changed to account wide systems, it is so much more relaxing and customer friendly to be able to access items that have been earned across all your characters, especially those items that can no longer be obtained or are just far too time consuming to repeat multiple times.

I don't expect this mmo to ever get to that point though. It feels like they've coded themselves into a corner with a good chunk of the game and a lot of the features/QOL requests are more something for them to take note of for future products.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

The weird part is that this is already allowed by making them tenants. We can share our house with other players, but can't share it with our own alts.

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I should've clarified a bit better here. Yes, you can have your in-game friends as tenants, and you can even give them certain levels of control over your house, but let's say for example that you and I are in-game friends and we go in on a house under my name...then I don't log in for the 45 days or whatever, despite you still doing everything to maintain your part of the tenancy throughout...house gets demo'd. I'd support a system that allowed us to share in such a way that either of us using it would keep timers reset, that we could both have equal rights managing, and that we could easily both "go in half" on the original purchase (rather than having to give all the gil to one of us to buy it).

>ffxiv
>having alts

lol

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Originally Posted by Tlachtga

I think the whole point is they don't want to have to drop £5.75 to change up every time. An alt character is a time-consuming but otherwise free alternative to that.

I agree that there should be a shared bank between characters. Especially ones on the same World. But I can't see it being a priority. The game is designed to discourage alts.

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So what you are saying is they want easy ways to bypass the way Square is making some extra money? Such as fantasia, story skips, etc? If those were easily skippable then what is the point of Square selling them? I think they are intentionally made annoying to encourage the purchase of said things. I don't think this is something players are going to win with as it takes money out of their bank. Even the holiday/event stuff not being shared is a way to get $ out of you by putting them in the shop later so you buy them for alts.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

They have to account for the fact that not everyone sees that the same way. You might like them shared, but I wouldn't want them to be. My characters have done different things, earned or obtained different things, so should have different things.

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So don't equip your characters with the same titles, don't equip the same event gear, throw it away and pretend you don't have them. You can create the illusion they're separate entities even if achievements were shared across characters--meanwhile, since they're not, I cannot have what I want.

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Originally Posted by LilySkye

>ffxiv
>having alts

lol

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I've got 3 characters. Then again I don't share the majority of the OP's complaints.

I have the alts to replay the story so the first complaint isn't relevant to me. A secondary benefit is having the extra gatherers when I need to do a bunch of farming of a timed node.

I don't see a point for a shared bank unless it's to make it easier to trade unbound items between alts (which I actually wouldn't mind though I've been able to work around it).

Achievements shouldn't be shared. This is a role playing game. Each character is his/her own separate person with his/her own separate accomplishments. One shouldn't get credit for what another has done, nor share in rewards for something the character hasn't done. Outside of going after legendary fish, I'm not finding anything especially time consuming in this game that I can't repeat it on an alt if I want the reward for that alt. As for fishing, I've solved that by only leveling fishing on one character.

No reason for seasonal items to be shared. It takes less than an hour to get through the seasonal events in most cases and earn the associated rewards. No more reason to share those items than to share achievements. If the concern is rewards requiring a cash payment at mogstation to obtain if an alt is created later, I'd rather see SE offer an in game way to get those rewards in later years. I still wouldn't want one character completing the event to automatically entitle all characters to the rewards.

SE said last summer they're working on the shared housing. Hopefully they'll have good news for us after launch.

Alts aren't mandatory to play the game, therefore no one is punishing us when we chose to create one to play. It's our free choice to make the alt or not.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

So don't equip your characters with the same titles, don't equip the same event gear, throw it away and pretend you don't have them. You can create the illusion they're separate entities even if achievements were shared across characters

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No, you really can't, because those achievements would no longer exist once the game regarded them as completed. You no longer have the chance to earn rewards once you already have them.

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Originally Posted by Anvaire

I can't see how you can say you are being punished. The entire game is built in way that you don't have to create alts, unless you wanted to play on a different data centre or with a different character look. Granted, i think housing should be shared across all of your characters on the data centre.

The thing is, even for story replay-ability they have created New Game Plus so more and more there is less incentive for us to create and play alts. Which to me can only be a good thing.

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If you want to raid more regularly, alts are a must due to the loot system. If I've cleared already, any group I join loses a coffer which is why so many of this insist on two coffer runs. This makes it much harder to find groups hence alts.

Regardless, I don't think the OP's requests are unreasonable.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

No, you really can't, because those achievements would no longer exist once the game regarded them as completed. You no longer have the chance to earn rewards once you already have them.

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Okay. Slap a label on the achievement that says character x earned the achievement. Now you can RP your character didn't earn them while I can benefit from alts not being such a hassle.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

No, you really can't, because those achievements would no longer exist once the game regarded them as completed. You no longer have the chance to earn rewards once you already have them.

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I guess that's just the gist of it then. Either you're unhappy or I'm unhappy; it's just the switch happens to be on me being unhappy. But please, enjoy earning "To Crush Your Enemies I" for the fifth time.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

This is a more recent invention now that I think about it, and the reason for account shared bank is pretty simple - less storage space for the player. As an example, in the old days of wow youd create bank alts so youd have more bank space to store crap. This was the same case in a lot of MMOs if I recall. The account banking however done away with that. Cleverly, it was marketed as a feature for players, but in reality it amounted to having less storage space overall for the convenience of having a new alt access the same storage space.

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It's not even remotely recent. We had shared bank slots back in EverQuest.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

It's not even remotely recent. We had shared bank slots back in EverQuest.

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This. Shared Bank in MMOs is older than some of the players here who are trying to act like salty vets.

Everquest is also the first game to facilitate alts by allowing story quest unlocks to apply to the entire account as well.

I am so much agreeing with you OP! People makes alt for many different reasons. I did and a bit I am regretting because even if I bought the story skip and job boost ( I am not cheating and I got a job boost to save time but with a class I played for years) and you have way too many things to unlock and do against your volunteer. I was shocked that you have to unlock also GS, all crystals tower line, silly stuff like melding. I found absurd how you need to be forced to do so many stuff I hate xD also yes It’s punishing not having shared bank with your main character, achievements, mounts or whatev. Like you don’t have any source of income and you are forced to level all crafters again -_- I have crafters on my main just to make a living and produce food and pots but I hate crafting and now should I do all the nonsense again ?! Still thinking about suppressing my alt for mercy because I will doubtfully use it

Been playing MMOs for 20 years now and the lack of shared storage/housing in FFXIV still amazes me.

Pay extra to have an alt and can't even mail things to it. Have to make your own FC just to share items and gil between your own characters for which you pay extra every month. :confused:

Even free to play MMOs like LotRO let you share housing and storage, so the whole 'data space/implementation' argument is immediately invalid.

Others have mentioned early MMOs that allowed shared storage too - I played them all.

They even stopped my alts from buying their own houses on my main server, yet don't allow them to share the same house as my 'main'??

Needs a fix. :cool:

Having played countless MMOs over the years, and being a massive altoholic, I honestly cannot understand why anyone would want to have alts in this game if you're not playing with friends on other DCs. One of the reasons I love FFXIV so much is that I can everything on one character. That's the only reason I have countless alts in other MMOs, because it's the only way to do everything.

This reminds me back in the XI days when we mailed every to either ourselves or our miles to transfer items or use the mog as another storage.

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No shared bank

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Not sure why this isn't a thing, definitely should be.

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No shared achievements.

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I might agree with this depending on what achievements you are referring to.

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No shared seasonal and event items.

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Yes it sucks doing it multiple times, but having an alt is a choice you make. Doing an event twice or more seems reasonable if you choose to play multiple characters and want the items/titles.

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No shared housing.

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This should also be a thing since the housing is extremely limited on a majority of servers. It should be account/server bound once you buy a house.

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Store items are for one character only

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I think they are working on this? Not entirely sure. I agree with this for everything minus consumables (potions/jump potions/books)

Never understoond the appeal for alts in this game, I mean you can be every job on 1 character, whats the point otherwise?

This game is so unfriendly towards alts.

I know i see the same tired lines over and over.

"Why do you need an alt?"
"You can play every job on one character."

Some people like playing as a new character, whether it be for roleplay, or just playing a different race.

I personally don't play an alt because its too much work, but that doesn't mean the game has to be so unfriendly towards alts.

For a game that has been trying to make this game more friendly and improve quality of life features, they should really show a little love towards people that play alts.

The only thing i would love to have is shared storage in my house , for all the alts on the server.

didn't they add a way to friend your alts in the game a couple patches ago? maybe I'm just pulling blanks on a different feature or game but I think I recall such a thing being introduced with the stormblood patch cycle

I don't have any problems with alts, I use to have one myself, just kinda curious it that feature exists or is just me remembering things

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Originally Posted by Wynn_Storm

This game is so unfriendly towards alts.

I know i see the same tired lines over and over.

"Why do you need an alt?"
"You can play every job on one character."

Some people like playing as a new character, whether it be for roleplay, or just playing a different race.

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RP reasons I can partially understand. I'm not an RPer myself, at least not beyond my interaction with the story, but I advocate and support the RP community in most of the things they want.
Different race... Fantasia potion. Don't need an alt for that.

I'm usually the one encouraging others to consider the other side's perspective. I've tried to consider the other side on this and I just can't find a good reason for alts in this game other than playing on another DC.

The questions you listed are legitimate questions for this game, though.

--- Why do you need an alt?
If the answer is anything other than "to play with friends on another data center", the reason is almost guaranteed to have another solution that doesn't require an alt.

--- You can play every job/do everything on one character.
There's really no counter to this. If you want to do everything all over again, I get that. But that doesn't justify shared bank space (which I'm not against and agree it's odd that it's not already in), shared achievements (i rarely agree with this request/demand), or many of the other things I see in regards to being able to do everything on one character.

I know I sound a bit closed minded, but I promise I'm not. I have tried to find counters to both questions from multiple angles.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

This can all be done on one character line doesn't float. You can't use multiple races on one character so if you want to play multiples you need alts. You also pay extra for additional characters with your monthly sub.

These are very reasonable requests in my opinion and they do exist in other mmo's but not this one.

No easy way to skip the main story.
No shared bank.
No shared achievements.
No shared seasonal and event items.
No shared housing.

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Don't most MMOs that have these features is because one character plays one job/class only, ever? If you want to play something else, you are required to make a completely new character. A lot of other games have market-able gear, too; something else that doesn't really exist in FFXIV outside of crafted gear - until bound. You can also have multiple characters on a datacenter without paying extra, especially with the world visit system; you pay extra if you want them on the same server.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

No easy way to skip the main story to reach endgame.
No shared bank.
No shared achievements.
No shared seasonal and event items.
No shared housing.

Store items are for one character only

And cant even send gil or materials between characters on the same server without friends or a contrived transfer on the market board.

Basic functionalities in other MMO's completely absent from this one... And we are hitting the 3rd expansion now.

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Those functionalities are there because if you main a tank and you want to play a DPS, you need to make an entire new character.

Here, you don't have to do that, so there is no point to waste development time on those features. Simple as that. The game is built around doing everything on one character.

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Originally Posted by CazzT

RP reasons I can partially understand. I'm not an RPer myself, at least not beyond my interaction with the story, but I advocate and support the RP community in most of the things they want.
Different race... Fantasia potion. Don't need an alt for that.

I'm usually the one encouraging others to consider the other side's perspective. I've tried to consider the other side on this and I just can't find a good reason for alts in this game other than playing on another DC.

The questions you listed are legitimate questions for this game, though.

--- Why do you need an alt?
If the answer is anything other than "to play with friends on another data center", the reason is almost guaranteed to have another solution that doesn't require an alt.

--- You can play every job/do everything on one character.
There's really no counter to this. If you want to do everything all over again, I get that. But that doesn't justify shared bank space (which I'm not against and agree it's odd that it's not already in), shared achievements (i rarely agree with this request/demand), or many of the other things I see in regards to being able to do everything on one character.

I know I sound a bit closed minded, but I promise I'm not. I have tried to find counters to both questions from multiple angles.

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I don't RP either, but i think its a good thing to have, it keeps people playing and they enjoy themselves.

You mention Fantasia potion, and while i agree to some extent i don't think it needs to be the go to solution.

Some people don't want to shell out $10 every time, and some people are attached to their character because they have been playing them for years.

That's where having an alt would come in handy.

I know its money vs time here.

But i don't think it needs to be on the level that it is.

I know this game is different because you can do everything on one character, but they could at least add some leeway for alts.

I don't play alts, but if i did play one i don't think i could see myself putting forth serious effort on it.

Like i wouldn't go for relics or anything of the sort. Doing it once is painful enough.

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Originally Posted by Rayo

didn't they add a way to friend your alts in the game a couple patches ago? maybe I'm just pulling blanks on a different feature or game but I think I recall such a thing being introduced with the stormblood patch cycle

I don't have any problems with alts, I use to have one myself, just kinda curious it that feature exists or is just me remembering things

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No, you cannot friend your alts nor was any such feature added in SB. I believe in early ARR there was a bug people could do to friend their alts but it's never been an intended feature. I believe the reason given by the developers is "anti-RMT measure".

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

No, you cannot friend your alts nor was any such feature added in SB. I believe in early ARR there was a bug people could do to friend their alts but it's never been an intended feature. I believe the reason given by the developers is "anti-RMT measure".

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There was a recent bug that allowed alts to friend a main. That bug was fixed although not immediately. My understanding is that Yoshi P did make the comment that they were looking into the ability for alts to share a house with their main but that has yet to materialize. Hopefully that will happen with the new housing updated whenever that may come. Weather or not that involves friending alts or some other means remains to be seen.

I don't get why people just don't get another service account if they care that much about alts considering it solves every issues the game has when it comes to having more than 1 character.

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Originally Posted by Rabin

Pay extra to have an alt and can't even mail things to it. Have to make your own FC just to share items and gil between your own characters for which you pay extra every month. :confused:

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You don't pay extra to have alts. You pay less to have fewer alts. You also pay the same per month if you pay 6 months at a time.

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Originally Posted by Mew_FC

I don't get why people just don't get another service account if they care that much about alts considering it solves every issues the game has when it comes to having more than 1 character.

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What? How does getting another service account solve the problems?

Your solution is paying $30 per month for two accounts?

Where in your mind did you actually think this is a good solution?

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Originally Posted by Wynn_Storm

What? How does getting another service account solve the problems?

Your solution is paying $30 per month for two accounts?

Where in your mind did you actually think this is a good solution?

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What is 30$ per month for entertainment?

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Originally Posted by Mew_FC

What is 30$ per month for entertainment?

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Oh nevermind, i just realized who i was talking to.

Yeah not going to continue discussing further.

I would love love more QoL for those of us who have alt’s.

I currently have two characters I use very regularly. Although I would love to get into rp, I leveled my alt for raiding purposes. I love raiding very very much! However, if I wanted to raid outside of the days my static meets, I would’ve been jeopardizing the weekly loot for my team. And if you want to get Raid gear for more than your “main” job, you are SoL thanks to the weekly lockouts. Then, you have the cap on tomestones, which makes it quite annoying to try and gear up more jobs in a timely manor. So because I wanted to keep doing what I love without screwing over my team and gear up more than one job at the same time, I resorted to having more than one character.

I’m also really big on aesthetics. I don’t like having the same look all the time, and frankly I don’t have the funds to keep spending money on fantasias. My main has a very Doma centered aesthetic. My alt is the spitting image of my original character I started playing this game as, so it means a lot to me. She has a more thavnaire theme to her. Not to mention having two characters gives me way more glamour plates to play with. And I have more access to different gear for my plates. My main has some healer gear, but the rest is for tank glam among other jobs. My alt is mainly focused on healer/aiming/quest/crafted gear. Then there is more retainers for extra space without having to spend extra every month on extra retainers. It can be a headache, but worth it.

I think we have pretty worthless things in this game, and I just don’t think QoL changes for those of us who use alts would be a detriment to the game. I would love to share my mounts, be able to share my house with my alt’s, be able to mail between my characters, among other things that have been suggested. Just my 2¢

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Originally Posted by Wynn_Storm

Oh nevermind, i just realized who i was talking to.

Yeah not going to continue discussing further.

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How disappointing, it sucks when people can't even back their posts up.

The game's systems mean alting is unpleasant to play by design. They want you to stick with one character, because they're proud of their systems that allow the entire game to be experienced on one.

While it's true other games have many of those other features, adding any of them would take away the impetus to stick to a single avatar-- which likely a factor in why they haven't been implemented at all.

I don't really care one way or the other, but it's pretty clear they believe so strongly in encouraging people to stick with one character that they'd go out of their way to discourage alts. That's not to say it's impossible to play alts, it's just uncomfortable for the reasons you've listed.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

The game's systems mean alting is unpleasant to play by design. They want you to stick with one character, because they're proud of their systems that allow the entire game to be experienced on one.

While it's true other games have many of those other features, adding any of them would take away the impetus to stick to a single avatar-- which likely a factor in why they haven't been implemented at all.

I don't really care one way or the other, but it's pretty clear they believe so strongly in encouraging people to stick with one character that they'd go out of their way to discourage alts. That's not to say it's impossible to play alts, it's just uncomfortable for the reasons you've listed.

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And the thing is it's done so well that I never feel the need to have alts. I like Guild Wars 2, but I have 10 characters to manage there, and log in/out of, and inventories, etc. Here it's all taken care of, and is a big QoL upgrade IMO.

are you mistaking punishment for a lack of reward?

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Originally Posted by Baka_Neko1

are you mistaking punishment for a lack of reward?

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Well, I can't speak for the OP but in my case, no. To me the alts are their own reward. I get to experience the story again, I make a new backstory for each character, play another race and have the fun of making another set of glams. However I do feel hampered by the absence of some of the QoL issues people have raised in this thread. I can't friend my alts, can't transfer items between them easily and I cannot share housing with them. Considering that I pay extra to have them, I don't feel it is too much to ask for a few improvements.

A lot of posts in this thread saying - 'You don't need alts....'
I'm aware of that. I make them for fun and they keep me subbed when there is nothing I want to do on my main. It's almost like you guys want us to drop our subs here and go and play something else. I'd rather play FFXIV.

As to the argument that the devs only want us to have one character because that is their vision for the game - If that was the case, they would have:
a) Said this
b) Made having a single character the only option
Instead they have given us the choice, which makes sense as it allows different play-styles.

Arguing against people having alts is a distraction. If anyone feels really strongly about it, maybe make a thread on that topic and see if there is any support for taking away the option to make them.

All we are asking for are a few QoL changes to benefit those of us who chose to have them. If you choose not to make alts then this shouldn't impact you at all.

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Originally Posted by Kathryn

Never understoond the appeal for alts in this game, I mean you can be every job on 1 character, whats the point otherwise?

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Raiding is a huge one.

When the current raid tiers are on lockdown, you can only ever clear the raids once a week without punishing the loot of another group you may try to help due to the weekly systems they implement for the raid tiers. For example, if my BF only had a single character, our group would have had to either:

-Let him come and cause us to potentially lose a lot of loot depending on which chest the game axed as a result of the weekly limits
OR
-Have to go on a recruitment spree/find someone that may not be as good as my BF is to sub in and potentially hold us back for the night/not clear.

But he has multiple alts, meaning that while he can clear with his main group, he can also come help his friend's groups out while making sure they receive full loot whenever the raid tiers are under weekly lockout. That alt is pretty much the reason why we managed to clear Alphascape savage before the lockout was lifted.

That, and as he puts it "I'm not paying $10 every time I want to race change, I'll just make alts to play as them."

There is no good reason to have an alt.
The reason I like this game so much is because all your alts technically exist on one character. Everything is already shared, story progress included.