Rewards should be account wide.

[MontecristoSandwich]

Gonna have to disagree with ya there, chief. This game is "alt-unfriendly" because outside of extremely niche scenarios you have virtually no reason to make an alt. Even fewer now that DC Travel is a thing. Every job is usable on a single character, (mostly) every storyline is replayable with NG+, currencies can be spent on all different kinds of things depending on whatever you want to allocate them to (Astronomies for instance, being spend-able on gearing, crafting, etc...)

Like, what's the reason for having 8 alts? It sounds like willful self-torture that 99.9% of players simply don't need to deal with. Why redesign the entire reward system around what is effectively a player/self-imposed issue?

[Breakbeat]

I agree with your point of view, mostly. It's just this one thing:

Like, what's the reason for having 8 alts? It sounds like willful self-torture that 99.9% of players simply don't need to deal with.

Because some of us like leveling alts. Leveling, questing, things like the "MSQ", etc., are the core of gameplay for some. Much more than 0.1%, I can assure you.

When I played WoW, I did fifty toons because that's the max the game allows (allowed?) account-wide. I'd level one, then level the next, etc. Barely touched endgame, and used the various alts to get multiple runs on things that were locked to 1x per week. I liked leveling toons so much that I'd level 'em and when they hit max I'd just liquidate everything they had accumulated, send the items to a new alt, and delete the one I leveled. I loved leveling toons, and I cannot possibly be the only one. I ran a guild there that had hundreds of folks in it, many of them active daily, and all some of us ever did is level toons and have dozens of alts.

I've already created eight toons here in FF, have played two of them... will eventually play all eight or more. I'd love to have them all fleshed out with all jobs leveled, all professions leveled on each. This doesn't have anything to do with "needing" alts at all. I have them and do this because I want to. The "have one toon that does it all," thing is great, sure. But I like to play different characters that have unique looks, styles, and personalities... and I am not down with buying a Fantasia every time I'd like to play a "different" character. It's nice to just log out, log in and have a completely different toon in your control.

But, I digress.

I agree with what you've said and I don't want FF to change, personally, even though I am an alt-o-holic. This game is uniquely this game and I don't see the need for every reward to be account wide like some other games do it. If I want rewards on multiple toons I will earn them (or buy them, or whatever).

I just wanted to defend the point of view that not everyone sees leveling as some chore to go through before getting to the "real game," or whatever. For some, leveling up toons is the "real game." And I seriously doubt it's only a tenth-of-a-percent of us that play this way.

[Rekun]

Like, what's the reason for having 8 alts? It sounds like willful self-torture that 99.9% of players simply don't need to deal with. Why redesign the entire reward system around what is effectively a player/self-imposed issue?

16 free retainers that bring you mats you can only get by having your retainers bring them to you, having multiple characters with their own distinct looks and glamour plates to them, extra private rooms within FC houses, extra apartments, extra bids on private and free company plots thereby increasing your chances at owning your own house, increased company seal revenue, if you own your own fc you can freely transfer gil and items between alts and your main thereby consolidating your earnings on your alts.

Overall, there are a lot of reasons for making 8 alts. Granted with the current system alting is only for people that are seriously into this game and I don't really blame Squeenix or anyone for that. To each their own, but it would benefit everyone if making alts was a more friendly process.

If anything, it's a player issue that you don't make alts, considering how unfriendly the housing system is in this game and how you have to pay extra money for extra retainers if you want more shots at getting those expensive dyes without paying a pretty penny.

EDIT: Before anyone says just move from Balmung if Housing is such a big deal to you. I already own two houses, a shell FC with a fully functioning workshop and 16 personal rooms/apartments. I'm not going to move lol.

[Shibi]

This game is "alt-unfriendly" because outside of extremely niche scenarios you have virtually no reason to make an alt. Even fewer now that DC Travel is a thing...

Notwithstanding that DC travel is only inside the region, I'm not sure how you are disadvantaged if someone with an alt gets the ability to unlock something over all characters.

Your life, your game, and your "achievements" won't be lessened because someone can easier share a house between their roleplay characters, or doesn't need to do all the extremes on their new-regional-server character, or makes an alt in the EU to play with with their new German friend.

I know this community loves to do it, but does this really need gatekeeping too?

[Deveryn]

Notwithstanding that DC travel is only inside the region, I'm not sure how you are disadvantaged if someone with an alt gets the ability to unlock something over all characters.

Your life, your game, and your "achievements" won't be lessened because someone can easier share a house between their roleplay characters, or doesn't need to do all the extremes on their new-regional-server character, or makes an alt in the EU to play with with their new German friend.

I know this community loves to do it, but does this really need gatekeeping too?

It doesn't need any gatekeeping at all as it simply won't happen. If this was your typical MMO with one job per character, then there could be an argument for them to do something like that. Given that nothing is ever shared outside of anything on the account level, I don't see them working to create any kind of link where this might be possible.

There's clearly some money to be made on story skips and I'm sure that's more alts than mains. What's being proposed here would absolutely negate any need for that. They would be foolish to cut into that and the OP should just buy the story skip already. It's worth it.

[Rekun]

It doesn't need any gatekeeping at all as it simply won't happen. If this was your typical MMO with one job per character, then there could be an argument for them to do something like that. Given that nothing is ever shared outside of anything on the account level, I don't see them working to create any kind of link where this might be possible.

There's clearly some money to be made on story skips and I'm sure that's more alts than mains. What's being proposed here would absolutely negate any need for that. They would be foolish to cut into that and the OP should just buy the story skip already. It's worth it.

I already own 8 alts at level 90, that's not what I'm asking, lol. Please read the whole post before you share your opinion, thaaaanks <3

[Larirawiel]

Gonna have to disagree with ya there, chief. This game is "alt-unfriendly" because outside of extremely niche scenarios you have virtually no reason to make an alt.

If you want to play on different physical datacenters then you need alts. And this is not a niche scenario, IMHO.



Cheers

[Jojoya]

So if people owned more alts they'd be more likely to spend in the Mogstation, plus it'd keep them subbed for longer if they were interested in keeping their alts up to date for glamour purposes.

I actually roleplay on my alts, farm glamours and other jobs, decorate the spaces I own, send out retainers for extra chances at white and black dyes, PvP, and gpose. There are a lot of things you can do with your alts!

And the answer is, yes, yes they do!

I'm aware of all the things alts can do. As I said, I'm an altoholic.

My alts don't need everything my main has, nor does my main need everything my alts have. I get the rewards on the character that will actually use it. If it means farming a specific item on a couple of different characters, then I do that. It is not difficult.

Roleplay becomes a shallow excuse considering the only reason to make multiple alts for role play is to have each character taking on a very different role. There's not going to be need for them to have identical everything.

It's easy to get housing decorations. They don't need to be automatically duplicated account wide, especially considering the economic exploits it would lead to for things like Mogstation items.

The answer is still no, your pack mules do not need to have everything your main has because they never do anything except act as pack mules you see for maybe 10 minutes a day as you click your summoning bell.

If you want to play on different physical datacenters then you need alts. And this is not a niche scenario, IMHO.



Cheers

True that use isn't niche, but it also doesn't need rewards to be shared account wide.

The concept of having more than one character scares the achievement hunter and raider.

It doesn't scare them. They simply don't have time for them in most cases.

That's what a lot of people don't get. Alts are basically a time sink for those who have lots of spare time on their hands. Not everyone has that time.

Making things account wide still does not give them that time because there are still things that can only be done by the character and players inevitably fall into the trap of doing all the work on a single character so they don't truly end up playing the alts - unless they have the excess time in the first place.

[Rekun]

I'm aware of all the things alts can do. As I said, I'm an altoholic.

No offense to you but the way you speak about your alts leads me to believe that you treat them as nothing more than pack mules. Even if you are an altoholic as you say, I think my definition of an alt is not the same as yours.

I've got over 283 days of playtime on my most played alt, nearly half the amount of playtime that my main has. I've done tons of content on my alts.

And there are days where I spend more time on my alts than I do my main.

I'm not asking to duplicate every piece of inventory or gear, I'm not sure where you got that from.

I'm just asking for things that should be account-wide to be account-wide so I don't have to farm a million fates for a mount or spend another two weeks doing the same grind I just did on my main so I can have the same pair of vanity shorts on my alt that I'm going to use in different glamours anyway. They're doing it with log-in rewards and some mogstation items like Clouds bike, so why can't they do it for these things?

The idea that these things can't be account-wide because it hurts sales or will break the in-game economy is so bogus when other MMO's are doing it already.

[MontecristoSandwich]

Not gonna respond to every single person here, but the humor isn't lost on me that almost every response to my own claiming that ""needing" account-wide rewards are extremely niche scenarios," are with extremely niche scenarios. Wanting a hroth, viera, and lala WoL all with different jobs all at the same time is not common. Having 16 free retainers and a dozen Apartment rooms is not common. I'm not saying those situations are inherently bad, or the "wrong way to play the game" or anything of the like, and I hope ya'll don't take it that way, but they are still incredibly niche and asking for a full-scale reworking of the reward system is a massive ask for such a small percentage of players.

I know this community loves to do it, but does this really need gatekeeping too?

Weird takeaway from what I said. It isn't "Gatekeeping" to suggest that you get the reward for the character you earned it on. This isn't WoW where each character can only earn certain mounts, so you need multiple alts to fill out a mount catalog. You can obtain every item on one, single character. Asking that these rewards also go to alts that you simply *don't need* outside of niche, personal preferences, is asking the Devs to solve a self-imposed problem.