Alts Vs. Multiple jobs

[Dyne_Fellpool]

In a perfect world (imo), there would be zero benefit to leveling alts as opposed to just leveling up all the various jobs on one character. The ability to do so is a major selling point for this particular mmo.

While I don't think this will ever be 100% the case (alts give extra retainers, etc) I definitely agree that it is the ideal the devs should be designing toward.

[stoxastic]

The ability to play multiple jobs is great in that you don't need to start a whole new character if you want to play a different job. HOWEVER, this does not mean you should be able to gear ALL of them out at the same pace with the latest and greatest equipment (WoD lockout, Poetics cap, etc). You can still put in the time to gear every class to at least i110 from soldiery drops. That's still pretty good.

The ability to gear multiple jobs with the latest and greatest gear is a big benefit of having and alt. You'll need to put in double the weekly work, but it allows you to do it. Alts also allow you to raid on different jobs, which might appear to some people.

[Kidblinks]

When I first started I used multiple alts until I learned what cross class skills were. Just seems the most efficient to have one character that is everyone.

[kyuven]

1) Crossclass skills. These are important.
2) Eventually if you're diligent about getting your weekly loot and tomestones, you'll run out of good pieces for your given class. For example, if you main BRD there's really only 6 pieces of gear you can buy with poetics that are any good for you. 7 if you carboncoat a ring. this means after about 9 weeks, you're done. It's been about 6 months since poe came out. Also, you potentially get 8 pieces of coil loot a week for 8 players, but often (VERY often) pieces will drop for classes that aren't present. Also, often the same piece will drop multiple weeks in a row. One static on my server has nearly gotten enough PLD swords from t13 to gear all their members, while another hasn't gotten any.
3) Crossclass loot. A lot of gear is shared between WAR and PLD, NIN and BRD, DRG and MNK, WHM and SCH, and SMN and BLM. It's MORE efficient to gear up two classes as one character than two classes as two characters. There's even crossover between WAR/PLD and MNK/DRG since a lot of WARs want some DPS accessories.
4) Unlocks. Not having to go through content twice (aside from relics) is a HUGE plus.
5) EXP bonus: Leveling a second class on the same character is faster than leveling a new character because of the exp bonus you get for having a lvl 50 class already.

[Anarnee]

I do a bit of both.

My main has every disciple of War and Magic to 50, but I also leveled a few alts.

I didn't want to neglect DRG, but sometimes I feel safer running stuff as BRD, and I felt I was better at it as well, so I leveled my BRD alt so that I could keep my DRG geared 100% regardless of weekly caps or lockouts etc and then not have the feeling that I should gear BRD rather than DRG just because of self consciousness. I ended up leveling DRG on my BRD alt as well.

Then I made another alt as a WAR so that I would practice tanking more and am now leveling DRG on her too cause tanking makes me too nervous so I haven't been able to get her through the end game, even though its stuff I've tanked on my main. lol That was mainly just for fun.

Then I also have an alt DRG on a different server from those three.

I have more characters than those but... XD I only really consider them alts if I have them to 50 with at least one Job.

I will say, I'm NEVER bored. There's always something that I need/should do.

[charlemagne]

I don't think I'd have the same attachment to multiple characters that I have to my one guy. He's been with me for five years now and that means a lot.

[Edellis]

What benefit is it to level multiple jobs on a single character when you can only get one piece of loot every week.

Single Character = Cross class abilities, armoury bonus, untradable greeded loot for faster gearing
Alt = Having an alt

There is no benefit to an alt. You'll level the alt faster...theoretically. But only once, due to story missions -- you still have to unlock all the story quests over again, and all your abilities like synthesis and such. I made an alt for Arcanist and Maruader...but after realizing the sheer amount of stuff i've done on my main character that i'd have to redo...i decided it just wasn't worth the trouble.

No matter what it is you're doing, the benefit will always be greater to have it done on one character than split between multiples. DoW, DoH, Crafting, PvP, Grand Companies...there really isn't a reason for having an alt other than the seperate character model.

[Ehayte]

Back in 2.0/2.1 when there was much less to do and I had much more time, I did play 2 characters. When more content start coming out and that content started to get gated behind story missions, I didn't have the time to run 2 stories to keep both characters up-to-date on primals, coil, capping tomes, etc.

People play 1 character instead of multiple because they have to play their RL character a lot.