My Alt is an Idiot

[DiaDeem]

I'm also wondering why you can't use your main to do the content with your friends

Now, the obvious question: Why get an alt? You can play everything on one character and there's Data Center travel.
An my answer to you is: Because I'm an idiot, that's why.

Literally joke's on me for having an itch to play a Miqo'te, I guess. Seriously, I'm an idiot for trying to make an alt, that's the whole point of the thread.

Whatever you want to call it, the fact remains that you are not playing as the devs intended and are deliberately going around road blocks they've set to tell you that you don't need to do it yet, so you can't complain at them for it.

Keep an eye on your compass while questing and pick up currents that are near where you're travelling, but leave the clean-up until the quests are done and you can actually use the currents.

Auriele... I don't have a problem with how the aether currents work, nor do I go around sequence breaking when I first went through any of this. My issue is specifically about having no alternatives for my alt. Nothing in your argument addresses that.

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I'm never even asked for instant flight, just... something to make life easier on an alt. I truly feel like an idiot for making an alt. Square offers no quality of life assistance of any kind (even though it wouldn't hurt anyone), and some of the sentiment I'm getting from the thread is "deal with it" so yeah, lesson learned: I'm not making any more alts.

[Iscah]

My issue is specifically about having no alternatives for my alt. Nothing in your argument addresses that.

Yes, my argument does address that.

No, you do not have "no alternative" but to sequence-break to collect items that are 100% useless to you at this stage.

You can just play an alt like any new character. Go where the MSQ directs you, collect currents as you go.

You do not need all the currents now. You cannot collect all the currents now because they are locked behind sidequests that won't be available until the whole zone is open to you at level 88.

You have a choice and you are choosing the option that artificially inflates how much work you have to do, against the design intentions of the game.

[Iscah]

I don't intend to fly early, I'm just getting busywork out of the way.

And my point is, you're not getting busywork out of the way, you're creating busywork.

The game intends that you do A and B together and set up B's objectives with that expectation, but you're going out of your way to do B first and then retread the same ground later for A.

[DiaDeem]

And my point is, you're not getting busywork out of the way, you're creating busywork.

The game intends that you do A and B together and set up B's objectives with that expectation, but you're going out of your way to do B first and then retread the same ground later for A.

- I have no issue with the currents themselves. Whether I frontload them (as I've been doing for 9 years) or do it as your sacred order dictates, it's IRRELEVANT to this thread and topic.
- The issue (for the 100th time), is that there are no mechanics to help alts catch up with dungeons, raids, flying, gear, or anything at all, and are treated as if the player behind them was brand new.

[Iscah]

- I have no issue with the currents themselves. Whether I frontload them (as I've been doing for 9 years) or do it as your sacred order dictates, it's IRRELEVANT to this thread and topic.
- The issue (for the 100th time), is that there are no mechanics to help alts catch up with dungeons, raids, flying, gear, or anything at all, and are treated as if the player behind them was brand new.

And again, my issue isn't even particularly about the currents, but about the fact you're complaining about how they should make it quicker for you to catch up while inventing work for yourself that is above what is necessary.

[BelegErkhten]

is that there are no mechanics to help alts catch up with dungeons, raids, flying, gear, or anything at all, and are treated as if the player behind them was brand new.

There are, its called a story skip and they cost anywhere from 10-20 dollars on the mogstation.

[Bun_Vivant]

There are, its called a story skip and they cost anywhere from 10-20 dollars on the mogstation.

I've used story-skip three times to skip Stormblood, which I dislike replaying.

I've never skipped Shadowbringers though, which I quite enjoy.
Bringing back the night is epic.

[Jojoya]

Literally joke's on me for having an itch to play a Miqo'te, I guess. Seriously, I'm an idiot for trying to make an alt, that's the whole point of the thread.

Again, not an idiot. Telling me that you want to see what it felt like to play as a Miqo'te without using a Fantasia on your main makes a lot more sense to me than saying you wanted the alt to play with friends. Race choice does make a difference in how the game feels as you play. Not unusual for me to feel a weird sense of needing to adjust mentally as I switch from one of my lalafell characters to one of my Roegadyns even though the game is otherwise the same.

Auriele... I don't have a problem with how the aether currents work, nor do I go around sequence breaking when I first went through any of this. My issue is specifically about having no alternatives for my alt. Nothing in your argument addresses that.

But you haven't given a reason for why there need to be alternatives for something that's a simple task compared to most game play. All you've told us is that you don't want to do something you've already done before.

Repeating things you've done before is the MMORPG life. Just about every player could come up with things they don't want to do again but feel the rewards should still be given to their alts. If everyone got their wish, alts wouldn't have anything to do.

Since alts aren't needed to experience everything in the game, the developers haven't found a need to have account-wide content completion or rewards. The few things that are account wide are either additional real money purchases not included in the subscription, or the items earned through the old veterans rewards program. We can't even get them to make a personal house account wide for alts despite the one per server per account restriction.

I'm never even asked for instant flight, just... something to make life easier on an alt. I truly feel like an idiot for making an alt. Square offers no quality of life assistance of any kind (even though it wouldn't hurt anyone), and some of the sentiment I'm getting from the thread is "deal with it" so yeah, lesson learned: I'm not making any more alts.

Don't feel like an idiot. You tried something. You've decided it's not right for you. There's no shame in that.

There's also no shame in making a suggestion for change but you also have to be willing to deal with dissenting opinions if you make those suggestions in a public forum. The public forum is a great place if you want others to review your ideas and discuss pros/cons.

If you just want to submit a suggestion without the additional discussion, I would suggest submitting it through the in-game Help Desk. If I'm being honest, I suspect that it's more likely to be forwarded to the development team if you submit it there than by submitting it in the forums. Any of us would be lucky to have one of the moderators or Community Team members find our genuine suggestions in the middle of all the non-constructive trash that gets posted here let alone forward them to the developers.

[DiaDeem]

Again, not an idiot. Telling me that you want to see what it felt like to play as a Miqo'te without using a Fantasia on your main makes a lot more sense to me than saying you wanted the alt to play with friends. Race choice does make a difference in how the game feels as you play.

But you haven't given a reason for why there need to be alternatives for something that's a simple task compared to most game play. All you've told us is that you don't want to do something you've already done before.

Since alts aren't needed to experience everything in the game, the developers haven't found a need to have account-wide content completion or rewards. The few things that are account wide are either additional real money purchases not included in the subscription, or the items earned through the old veterans rewards program. We can't even get them to make a personal house account wide for alts despite the one per server per account restriction.

Don't feel like an idiot. You tried something. You've decided it's not right for you. There's no shame in that.

There's also no shame in making a suggestion for change but you also have to be willing to deal with dissenting opinions if you make those suggestions in a public forum. The public forum is a great place if you want others to review your ideas and discuss pros/cons.

You know what? Thank you. This was a really reasonable take, and I appreciate you took the time to write it.

And no, you're absolutely right. I did mention catch up mechanics but I didn't really suggest anything, which is in fact the usual complain, and suggest nothing issue that we often have here, and that's on me.

Writing this at the top of my head... having something for the currents like Azys Lla does it, entirely tied to MSQ progression with no world currents could be nice? Then maybe once you finish 4.5 all (base) Raids/Extra Dungeons unlock automatically or something? Maybe you get one free Job boost to use on whatever you want...?

When you put it like this, it sounds more like this would need an entire comprehensive rework, and that would take some time.

To be fair, last time I had properly caught up alts was during Stormblood, and I also had a lot more free time back then. I wasn't expecting it to be this grindy for Endwalker, and I got really frustrated. I also just have fun making needlessly complex posts with images and whatnot, but I guess that's besides the point lol.

Once again though, thanks for this post! I must not forget to also propose solutions and not just do the complaining part next time.