[Suggestion] FFXIV Alt-Friendliness

[Isala]

The reason for that is to keep people from using alts as "item/shop mules" , because that IS what people do on other games.

Oh yeah. I'm fully aware, just like I'm aware the reason is most likely because they charge real money for storage space in the form of retainers. Which, honestly, is FAR greedier than even F2P games... Those at least charge you a single transaction per x amount of room. You're not infinitely paying for them.

[LarienTiwele]

Except FFXI has had this feature from the very beginning, and you can play all classes on one character from the very beginning.

The biggest reason XIV doesn't have it while XI does is the sheer amount of RMT abuse it had with the mailing system at one time, so the ability was instead taken away from us (Yes you used to be able to do it in XIV for a short time!) to do it in order to help combat that issue and make it more costly on the RMTs to move money around. Admittedly, it doesn't do much in regards to the ones with massive bot armies etc - but their goal with it was to hamper and slow one specific target group... Those who RMT with their character alone and such and not the bot armies - a deterrent basically against the "Casual RMTer" so to speak.

[Toutatis]

The reason for that is to keep people from using alts as "item/shop mules" , because that IS what people do on other games. Especially bots. Ever see someone stand outside a guild chest for hours doing things really really fast? That's a bot. They are using the chest as the work-around.

Like make up your mine SE. If the worry is what I described, then the guild chest should be inaccessible to players not subscribed. If that's not the concern, then simply owning a house and assigning your other characters to the house as tenants should also be a possible thing, and there should also be an item storage locker in the house to allow dropping off outfits for the mannequins and items being held in reserve to put on the marketboards . Otherwise players will just use alternate characters as storage lockers, even if they can't access the retainers.

I have alts I genuinely play but also some storage only characters that use the fc chest extensively and I don’t bot. For example, I put all the furniture I get from my retainers in the fc chest and pick it up on one character that either sells it or keeps it for future use. Same with some gear that I intend to use on alts that I really play. I do the same with some other categories of items such as crafting mats: I got all my crafters and gatherers to 100 on one char and passed the mats used for 90-99 levelling to another one that has crafters at 90 and am starting to level up. It keeps the inventory of the characters I actively play tidy and I know exactly where I placed things.

Anyway, I wish that some non msq based achievements and their rewards were account based or at least shared between alt characters on the same server. For example, craft x thousand things as a carpenter, hunting or pvp achievements.

[TheRealDesastr]

I have alts I genuinely play but also some storage only characters that use the fc chest extensively and I don’t bot. For example, I put all the furniture I get from my retainers in the fc chest and pick it up on one character that either sells it or keeps it for future use. Same with some gear that I intend to use on alts that I really play. I do the same with some other categories of items such as crafting mats: I got all my crafters and gatherers to 100 on one char and passed the mats used for 90-99 levelling to another one that has crafters at 90 and am starting to level up. It keeps the inventory of the characters I actively play tidy and I know exactly where I placed things.

Anyway, I wish that some non msq based achievements and their rewards were account based or at least shared between alt characters on the same server. For example, craft x thousand things as a carpenter, hunting or pvp achievements.

I think that want is super reasonable, in terms of the achievements, I wish it were a thing for sure.

[Willemdarke]

I was literally about to make this same thread last night, but was too sleepy, lol.

Although I take regular breaks to play other games and enjoy other hobbies, I always return to FF14 as it's my social game of choice and it's where my friends are. Yet.. I'm so bored of it.

I already did everything I want to do in DT, except level crafters/gatherers and farm 90~x2 more extreme tomes for the mounts. And I was bored. So I was back to leveling alt jobs, which I never use. Grinding the same fates and dungeons again and again, and again. And then it hit me, for a lot of Endwalker's content droughts I was doing the same thing, except pre-90. It's so boring! So much of this game is one-and-done, and not just the MSQ. What's left is grinding the same things over and over again week after week.

Then 2 days ago I was so bored I made my first alt. On a different data center (zero gil), with a different race than mine and with a job I hate. I even made a little backstory for this alt (something even my main doesn't have) and braided my hair to match the character (cringey, I know). And those past 2 days have been the most fun I've had in FF14 aside from fooling around with friends on discord. Just exploring, doing random quests and learning about Gridania culture. Unlocking systems again. Doing things I've not done in YEARS. Even enjoying the horrible voice acting (I actually like Yda's, lol). It's "new" to me again and sure as heck it's more fun than spamming bloody Tower of Zot or Vanguard.

Alt playthroughs are the lifeblood of longevity for games. Not just MMOs, all games. I legit don't know how many playthroughs of BG3 or Elden Ring I've gone through in the past few years. The convenience of all-jobs-on-1-character is great and should stay, but I cannot for the life of me fathom why SE so heavily discourages alt playthroughs in this game - even shop-bought items aren't account-wide, God forbit glam and hairstyles too - why???

[Keumjo]

Since my main is a viera, sometimes I just want to remember what it's like to wear a goddamn hat. So I have a few alts, each alt has a different look and feel than my main. I've had to buy story skips so I didn't have to play expansions I don't like, but I have to rebuild all of my glam dresser and minions/mounts/rewards/etc and that stops me from fully engaging with my alts. You have to go back and unlock all the quests to do desynth/chocobo/ex dungeons. And if you story skip you still have all the blue quest markers for unlocking aether currents even if you already have flying.

It's not friendly at all, and if they didn't want you making more than one character, they shouldn't make it an option. But since they do, they should make the alt experience better.

[TheRealDesastr]

On the bright side, my questioning on tumblr and twitter seem to generally lead to positive results and people wanting at least a little bit (if not more) alt-friendliness in this game. I dunno if it will make a difference, nor do I know if posting here will, but it'll be on people's minds. Perhaps one of the more prominent FFXIV content creators will see this all and eventually talk about it. One can hope!

[AngaratoSvartberg]

100% agree

if they cant make this work than at least make everything and i mean EVERY SINGLE THING from the mogstation account wide. its ABSOLUTELY ABSURD that you would have to buy things multiple times for your alts.

[KisaiTenshi]

100% agree

if they cant make this work than at least make everything and i mean EVERY SINGLE THING from the mogstation account wide. its ABSOLUTELY ABSURD that you would have to buy things multiple times for your alts.

I would prefer all but the consumables (eg dye) to be account wide. There is no reason for the mounts, minions or cash-shop costumes to be bound to a single player other than to insult the intelligence of the player and basically frustrate them into only playing one character period. On the flip side of this, alter housing so that players can not acquire more than one house. Period. If you want a FC house, someone has to make the sacrifice to have it bound to their account. No alts get to bid on a house on the same world or any other world in any data center. All alts on the same world get assigned to the same house by default. Alts on other worlds can't bid on a personal house, only contribute to a FC house someone else effectively owns.

But I'm not even that concerned about players creating 8 alts per world just to make a FC of their own, but I am concerned that players may be intentionally doing an "FC of Alts" just to side-step the limitations meant to keep RMT in check. But I digress, if Square enix doesn't see this is as a problem then it's probably never going to change.

What probably should happen, and I mean this in the nicest way possible is that "gear bound to player" should instead be "gear bound to account" so that players who DO in fact buy an outfit off the mog station and later decide to give it to their alt, can.

[DPZ2]

To be clear, the only things I remember distinctly about alts in WoW are the following:

1. The only 'shared gear' was Heirloom gear. This included 'shared gear' via transmog. If I wanted to wear something on another character, I had to go fetch it.
2. Having leveled 28 jobs (when Alliance/Horde are concerned, back when job list had 14 jobs), I still had to level each and every alt. No shortcuts, per se.
3. There were no 'shared mounts' either. Purchase one, or get rewarded, and that character had the mount.
4. Bank space was not shared either.

What I remember about alts in Blade & Soul (and other F2P MMORPGS):

1. Crafters and banks had a few limited shared slots.
2. Paid Glamours (requiring actual bought-with-money 'crystals') were sometimes shareable, more so in Blade & Soul, less so in other MMORPGS
3. Advancement for alts was not easier
4. One picked up mounts the old-fashioned way - purchase them in-game with in-game currency, mostly.

Other games were less 'alt friendly' and more 'alt required if you wanted to play another class'.

Your mileage may vary.