Should the game be more alt-friendly? How so?

To be clear, this is more aimed at readying alt jobs and alt characters for whatever content one may wish to do.

I'd like to open up the thread to discuss the question generally, but I'll also include some food-for-thought suggestions below just to give some concrete point around which to conveniently frame our preferences ("I'd like [1], but [2] seems a little too..." etc.).



Tentative Suggestions (in order of increasing craziness):

1. [Alt Characters] You can now mail gear to others among your characters, including normally untradeable gear. However, this can only be done once per item once first removed from the mail; upon retrieving an item sent by another character, they cannot pass it on, yet again, to another, nor back to the original sender. This does not affect mail directly returned to sender before being retrieved into the recipient's inventory.

   This allows for players to send mail from one character to another without obliging that everyone make and manage alts as additional retainers.

2. [Alt Jobs] Main Scenario Quest experience reduced to that of normal quests and the experience required per level reduced by the difference.

   In other words, all further jobs' leveling is essentially accelerated by half the MSQ's worth of experience.

3. [Alt Roles] Upon purchasing a particular gear slot with weekly-capped tomestones, that slot, for any job, becomes purchasable with level cap non-weekly-capped tomestones.

   For instance, if I bought a Maiming chestpiece with weekly-capped tomes, I could then purchase the Fending, Healing, Casting, Striking, Scouting, and Aiming chestpieces with the non-weekly-capped tomes.
   No, the cost per item does not decrease; a weekly-tome chest would still cost 825 tomes (though now Aphorism rather than Astronomy after unlocking the slot), as compared to the lower ilvl chest's 410 tomes.

4. [Alt Roles] Dungeon pieces which are merely redyes of another piece of the same Defense category have been consolidated with those other pieces, providing all main stats which may fall thereunder, and are immediately dyable.

   For instance, if the Striking, Scouting, and Aiming pieces of a given dungeon are merely redyes of one another, as per the Aery's Orthodox sets, they'd all be turned into the same piece of now-dyable gear that has both Strength and Dexterity -- e.g., simply called Orthodox Wayfarer's Tunic. This should greatly reduce the amount of items that must be kept to maximize the stats of alt jobs as they level, especially across the latter halves of expansions' dungeon content.

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Edit: Loving the ideas popping up below!

1. Glamour Chest, Armory are account wide. You can deposit items from any character, but you can only withdraw an item from the source character.

2. All 'unlocked' content is unlocked for all characters. Quests remain for XP and first time rewards. This includes hairstyles, glamour access, dye access - anything and everything with a blue unlock sign.

3. The MSQ is broken up into segments similar to NG+. You can level without it or with it if you choose, though your 'first time' per account must be as normal.

4. Mounts, minions, and other collectibles are account wide.

5. Flying unlocks for the account. Aether Currents remain for collection but have bonus exp tied to them.

Being able to send untradable gear between alts would be the biggest game-changer for me, even if it was incredibly restricted – one piece a week account-wide or something like that. Even once a month. Just enough to negate frustrations like running a dungeon 20 times for an elusive glamour piece and then having it drop for my other character who got the dungeon in their roulette.

It would also allow for more double-tasking when farming items. One of my characters needs to run the alliance raids for the Resistance weapons quest and another needs glamour from Ridorana? Great, we can earn both things at once and send the outfit over.

i really wish they let you skip msq on an alt if you already did it on another character.

Most of the suggestions so far would be too much. I like having my characters as separate individuals.

There are however two simple things that would make the game much more alt-friendly.
1) Allow characters on the same account to send mail to each other. No need to be able to send untradable stuff, but just the sort of things characters on different accounts can already send between them.
2) Housing access and rights. Lets alts have the same rights and privilieges as the actual house owner as regards housing decorations and resetting the "last visited" timer.

Being able to use all the contents of the glamour dresser would also be nice, but would require that it be made bigger. Otherwise the total storage available would be lowered if all characters had to share the same space.

I feel like the only alt friendly addition that I think they could/should add is making temporary event unlocks account wide. Particularly for crossover events where there's no guarantee the items will over be obtainable again. Perhaps as a step further, make achievements account wide.

That said, aside from RPers and hardcore raiders, I don't get why a lot of people have alts in this game. I've put in hundreds of hours on one character and I still have a ton of stuff to do. The idea of an alt is completely a nonstarter.

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

That said, aside from RPers and hardcore raiders, I don't get why a lot of people have alts in this game. I've put in hundreds of hours on one character and I still have a ton of stuff to do. The idea of an alt is completely a nonstarter.

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It's all about glamour for me, and being able to play with an assortment of character designs.

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

That said, aside from RPers and hardcore raiders, I don't get why a lot of people have alts in this game. I've put in hundreds of hours on one character and I still have a ton of stuff to do. The idea of an alt is completely a nonstarter.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

It's all about glamour for me, and being able to play with an assortment of character designs.

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For me, I just like to play through each expansion once on the JPN client and once with ENG, mostly to see what quirks of translation occurred. That and seeing the world through a different characters' eyes, picking up on little nuances from the MSQs, etc., can be fun, though that slightly borders on Stepjam's aforementioned RP, even if not in the traditional, more social mode.

to me, just being able to mail, or have a "shared" retainer would be enough to make it alt-friendly.

I think the game could be made more alt-friendly if you could skip unskippable cutscenes if you've already done that section on another character for regular cutscenes and the like. Probably also just make it easier to progress the story if you already have a high level character that has done those parts such as duties. Probably an alt exp buff or something up to the highest level character you have.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

1. Glamour Chest, Armory are account wide. You can deposit items from any character, but you can only withdraw an item from the source character.

2. All 'unlocked' content is unlocked for all characters. Quests remain for XP and first time rewards. This includes hairstyles, glamour access, dye access - anything and everything with a blue unlock sign.

3. The MSQ is broken up into segments similar to NG+. You can level without it or with it if you choose, though your 'first time' per account must be as normal.

4. Mounts, minions, and other collectibles are account wide.

5. Flying unlocks for the account. Aether Currents remain for collection but have bonus exp tied to them.

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Yes, it would be nice if the game was a bit more alt friendly and this post covers most of what I would like. Particularly 2, 3 and 4.

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Originally Posted by TosumeTosu

I think the game could be made more alt-friendly if you could skip unskippable cutscenes if you've already done that section on another character for regular cutscenes and the like.

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Unskippable cutscenes aren't set up that way to ensure that you watch them; they're to ensure the whole party moves through the dungeon at the same pace and new players aren't left behind.

Being allowed to skip them on an alt wouldn't be any different to being allowed to skip them on your second time through the dungeon, which is not how it works.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Unskippable cutscenes aren't set up that way to ensure that you watch them; they're to ensure the whole party moves through the dungeon at the same pace and new players aren't left behind.

Being allowed to skip them on an alt wouldn't be any different to being allowed to skip them on your second time through the dungeon, which is not how it works.

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To be fair, I didn't mind for things like MSQ roulette because that's important to closing out AAR. I'm talking about some of the dialog options in AAR which are unskippable cutscenes even though it is literally just you.

I like a lot of those sggestions but not the shared dresser one. Considering how limited the space in the dresser is, having different characters allows me to have them all ahve a different fashion style, so that i can have in the glamour dresser of alts a lot of pieces I don't have room for in my main's dresser. Having it shared would be a downgrade rather than an upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Unskippable cutscenes aren't set up that way to ensure that you watch them; they're to ensure the whole party moves through the dungeon at the same pace and new players aren't left behind.

Being allowed to skip them on an alt wouldn't be any different to being allowed to skip them on your second time through the dungeon, which is not how it works.

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This game has a load of unskippable cutscenes that aren't in dungeons. A lot of them are in job quests, some are in msq. And they're mostly useless. Like for example teh cutscenes when you get a new skill from a job quest.

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Originally Posted by TosumeTosu

To be fair, I didn't mind for things like MSQ roulette because that's important to closing out AAR. I'm talking about some of the dialog options in AAR which are unskippable cutscenes even though it is literally just you.

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Originally Posted by Tlamila

This game has a load of unskippable cutscenes that aren't in dungeons. A lot of them are in job quests, some are in msq. And they're mostly useless. Like for example teh cutscenes when you get a new skill from a job quest.

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Those are a different thing again. It seems to be a particular type of character response prompt that makes those cutscenes unskippable because the system thinks you need to respond. That wouldn't be resolved with alts – I'm pretty sure you can't skip them from the Unending Journey either.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Those are a different thing again. It seems to be a particular type of character response prompt that makes those cutscenes unskippable because the system thinks you need to respond. That wouldn't be resolved with alts – I'm pretty sure you can't skip them from the Unending Journey either.

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Each of those prompts can themselves be skipped, though? Just hitting Escape defaults to the top/first option, and one can outright skip many cutscenes that have player response prompts.

Outside of MSQ roulette, there's little rhyme or reason to which CSs aren't skippable beyond that it annoyingly includes all job quest skill acquisition cutscenes and the like.

Step dance, harvest dance and ball dance quest cutscenes are unskippable also, for no discernable reason.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Each of those prompts can themselves be skipped, though? Just hitting Escape defaults to the top/first option, and one can outright skip many cutscenes that have player response prompts.

Outside of MSQ roulette, there's little rhyme or reason to which CSs aren't skippable beyond that it annoyingly includes all job quest skill acquisition cutscenes and the like.

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I don't understand it either, but that's the common thread between the unskippable ones which, as you say, have little rhyme or reason to be unskippable for story purposes.

Hitting Escape to select the top option still counts as selecting an option for progression purposes.

I don't recall it being an issue for "all skill acquisitions" but it happens for all initial job unlocks since the guildmaster usually asks you to reaffirm that you're willing to join. Not that I've ever tried to say no.

Whatever the origin of the issue, I am fairly certain it's not something that would be released for alts because it's coming from programming rather than lore.