Feeling punished for having alts...

[Jaywalker]

This mindset is honestly kind of weird to me, as someone who has a freakish number of alts and has had a freakish number of alts across games including single-player ones.

It's nice to have access to all the gear you want. It's nice not to need to grind through the ridiculously lengthy bits of ARR. But for me at least, I think there's a massive question of why you want alts.

If you want to change aesthetic, you can fantasia with various designs saved to switch between at will. That way you keep all your gear and don't have to replay. You can go back anytime too, just need to return to the save file for the previous design.

If you're like me and are basically someone who likes developing independent stories/personalities/designs for alts and basically want all of them kept on hand, part of the fun can come from going back through different jobs + MSQ and figuring out what angle makes sense for that specific WoL. There's an opportunity to look at things from new perspectives.

If you feel particularly impatient, ARR skip into Heavensward is an option too. You can revisit old cutscenes with the book at the inn, if not everything in-between. And with New Game + that'll make less pressure as well, so don't need to feel intense regret about the investment. Costs money but that's the price of not working through the whole thing.

And depending on how invested you are in an alt will effect that alt's progress of course. If you've only got one alt, you're more likely to get it pretty far whereas if you have like twelve, odds are most will be pretty low-level barring purchased advances.

There are ways to deal basically. You get what you give for each character. Figure this is part of why people commit to mains in-general tbh, alts take effort and it's easier to get attached the first go-around.