Buying character slots?

[Knahli]

That is why you plan what you want to get. I am not saying a person will never change their plans, but in most cases you won't. How about you are going to work and then out of the blue, you say, "hey I don't want to go to work. I am going to use my sick hours to just skip a couple of hours or a day or two." SE could try to add more things, but we already know that it is a feature they won't likely put.If I were to play in a game that I am forced to pick one class/job per character, then I will select the jobs I can optimize, and my group will do the same. It is the dumbest idea to think that a static group will recruit people with the same jobs to rotate. People playing that game already know the limitations given by the game.

If you have the money to spend in an apple and orange juice then go for it, but if one of the drinking juice is more expensive than the other and my income is limited, I will have to stop, think, and decide whether or not I can buy more then one drinking juice or the more expensive one. You always work with the resource/income that you have.

First of all, I may have come off as a little presumptuous of your tone in my previous reply and if that is the case, I am sorry. Some of the other replies in this topic felt to be of the nature I was alluding to and I had gotten the impression you were edging on it yourself.

Moving along, your suggestion is fine for the desperate but I don't feel that I am quite that desperate. You are right that I come and go between characters and that one month I might not want alllll of these characters on the right, but if it were a case that I wanted to play on my main and ONE other character from the second account from the start? Then I have no choice but to apply for two subscriptions because I cannot affect which characters belong to which account. The lesser-used but still dear characters that remain on my primary account may not get half as much attention as the new race will for example, and that's not going to help me when I want to continue giving my main proper focus on gear progression and what not while indulging in the newer race now residing on the new account.

And possibly most importantly, no-one suggested that they definitely wanted at least eight more character slots. As wonderful as the option SOUNDS, I wouldn't be happy about paying for all eight slots when I only wanted two or three more - at least for the time being. It's like being forced to purchase all eight retainers any time you want more than the standard.

FYI I never said that the idea is bad, BUT I would prefer SE to work in other features first before we even consider with "I want to have different looks and level alt characters because I already maximized my current main ones."

Perhaps this is the element causing the most confusion. Believe me, as much as I may want anything, I really dislike inconveniencing others or asking for the unreasonable, so if it really were the case that such a feature would require significant time and resources from SE then there's no way I would push this idea. I am not oblivious nor am I choosing to be ignorant of the fact that the request is not a popular one, but since it feels like it may largely be a UI issue it is my hopes that it would be easy enough to implement so much so that it's insignificance as a desired feature among the general playerbase might be overlooked and then that would be that. It's far from my hopes to see this rise as a number one priority or anything of the sort, I just hope for the Devs to notice it and offer their response on it's viability as a request; at least with that much closure I can consider the more drastic options.

Just be glad SE didn't use XI sub model or even 1.0 which was even worse if I remember correctly. You altaholics would be paying a ton.

I've heard the horror stories ; I'm glad I wasn't around for that period, haha.

Population is calculated by the total number of characters there're on the server. Not the total number of characters there're online.

That is not what I have heard so I am accepting neither as the absolute truth, though frankly speaking, I can't see what reason there would be for them to care how many alts any one person has since they are still going to be but a single blip on the online list.

Indeed. I just need a reason to make several alts when 1 character can do just about everything, but that that's just me. Maybe for roleplaying, but different classes? I can't see it. Even doing the story again is weird since we have the journals unless the thrill of being an experienced low level player among likely less experienced players makes you feel like the game is new again? I'll never get it I'm sure. Alts for me is for playing the game without worries from your social groups from your other characters. Good luck on your thing though.

It's primarily an aesthetic thing. A friend of mine who is has never shown any sign or major interest in the elements I find appealing along veins similar to this one told me that he likes creating characters that 'fit' the role. In other words, gruff and hardened looking characters for melee classes in any games. While I find lalafel Dark Knights cute to see and all of that, I wouldn't take their role seriously if that makes sense. In any case, it gives you more goals to work toward, it means you can do more than just one raid or roulette a day if you really wanted, and if something nice comes out for one particular character that has fallen behind in the questline or gear progression, well suddenly you have a new motivation to level them. One of my hyurs typically wears knightly looking armour and I like that look for him, but it would look very out of place on me for, say, a miqo'te. It's just hard to seem them in that role I guess.

Simply put, they are odd quirks I guess - as someone already mentioned.


(By the way, I'd never level a character for a cutscene you can only see once... that's... just insanity. I have levelled Pugilist to 50 and Miner to 60 on two separate characters solely to get access to particular sets that only those classes could wear though. Maybe that is still insanity to some people).

[Mugiawara]

@Clover: I wholeheartedly support your post. More alts is never a bad thing, and starting on a new server is not a good option.

Why not? Could start a secondary server for RP. It's not like Balmung is the official 100% RP server. The players stamped it as that.
People who are legit trying to get into our sever, can't because people keep trying to make 30 alts all at the same time.
Balmung has been near perm locked for near years man. I agree with more options is a goodie, but for what point when there's
like a 1 in a 123123098123809120931982038912390 chance you can even create a character at any given time?

[Naunet]

People who are legit trying to get into our sever, can't because people keep trying to make 30 alts all at the same time.

That is so not the reason Balmung is locked to character creation so often. -_-

[Terrini]

Gilgamesh is the secondary unofficial RP server, but, even there, the RP is more subdued and kept to special gatherings inside houses only or party chat a lot of the time, so it's not as apparent as on Balmung. Which does have certain perks, I find it hard to just jump in on people's RP on Balmung even when it's out in the open and it becomes REALLY hard to follow all the text and threads happening in populated areas. There are RP communities on other servers too, but they're also relatively small and are more FC or LS based.

[Alistaire]

I feel like it's unnecessary.
8 Character slots per server is a lot already and we already got enough additional services and stuff on the mog station.
What do you people even do with that many characters?

"Unnecessary" isn't really a good argument against this. Do you actually think this would be detrimental in some way?

[Sayori]

"Unnecessary" isn't really a good argument against this. Do you actually think this would be detrimental in some way?

I never said it'd be detrimental, I do think its unnecessary cause the time is spent better on another part of the game however.
Like I said back there, 8 characters is already a lot. If people really need more than 8 characters, then just like other people stated, why not explore the other servers?
You'd save money and SE'd save development time so we can actually get content everyone wants, win win situation?

[Clover_Blake]

No, it's not really a win-win situation for me or for people who are in the same circumstance. Going to another server is simply the only choice we have, something we're obviously willing to do because we're big kids and can deal with it, but it is not our ideal outcome.

I understand that your personal needs are different, of course. But this is a thread I opened to talk about the personal needs of someone who plays alts, not of someone who doesn't.

(And I repeat that I also doubt this feature will be implemented because yes, we might be a minority here. But voicing an opinion 'just in case' doesn't cost money, does it? ^^)

[Alistaire]

I never said it'd be detrimental, I do think its unnecessary cause the time is spent better on another part of the game however.
Like I said back there, 8 characters is already a lot. If people really need more than 8 characters, then just like other people stated, why not explore the other servers?
You'd save money and SE'd save development time so we can actually get content everyone wants, win win situation?

Yes, you didn't say it's detrimental, which is why I asked if you thought it was instead of saying you thought it was. The point is that's the only valid argument against this, the only reason to disagree, if you think this would cause problems.

And even "detrimental" as in "time spent on better things", but really, this would take 0 development time.

And honestly, I'd probably not use this myself. The only detrimental thing that could happen from this is economy balance from being able to get 9+ mhachi matter a week. I stopped at 4 characters though and don't know anyone with higher that'd fulfill the requirements for that so I doubt it'd get abused.

But when you come into a thread and want to debunk it, you should use a good argument for that. And "unnecessary" just doesn't fit that here, nor does "waste of development time" for something like this since (unless it's coded really poorly) the 8 character limit is just a spot in the code where it puts 8 slots there and could be changed to 9+.

[Terrini]

And even "detrimental" as in "time spent on better things", but really, this would take 0 development time.

I'm not against the idea, but something that seems really simple like this can actually cause a lot of development time depending on how things are coded - and it's likely a universal code that states the allowed number of characters based on your subscription type, and having any changes to that at all, especially on a case by case basis could really break their code, plus, adding more characters per server, they'd need to adjust the character log in page display and be able to add another row of characters or a page feature to display all the characters, so it would require time.

That said, if they DO implement such a feature, the ideal would be simply doubling the allowed characters per server to 16 with a new subscription type instead of just adding a +1. Or maybe just add a max of what they can fit on the current character page, but I don't think much more can be fit on with smaller screen sizes.

[Niwashi]

... but something that seems really simple like this can actually cause a lot of development time depending on how things are coded ...

But that's just it. It DOES depend a great deal on how things are coded, and none of us discussing it know enough of that coding to say whether it's difficult or not. It could possibly require some work in the character selection UI, or it could be as trivial as changing a single number in some configuration database.

Since only SE knows which is the case, it's best to leave feasibility/difficulty discussions to SE themselves. (After all, they're going to have that discussion anyway on any feature they consider.) That leaves the only part that's suitable for player discussion being whether or not there's an interest in the feature. The answer seems to be that for at least some players, there's an interest, even though there's probably a lot more players for whom it would be irrelevant.



p.s. On my main account, I'm at 5/8 alts on Coeurl, with at least one more planned, and 1 character on Jenova. I also have a secondary account, only occasionally activated, with 1 more character on Coeurl. I could see myself eventually hitting the 8 character limit and wanting more, though I haven't reached that point yet.