SWTOR Refugee here....

[MiaShino]

There's literally zero need to create an alt in this game.

Hmm?

Cross region play.

Additional retainers without paying.

Free fantasia (if you are into that).

Savage weeklies.

[Jagick]

There's literally zero need to create an alt in this game.

Roleplaying.

[SturmChurro]

Trying to find a new "Home" after SWTOR 7.0 junk dropped.
I have been playing for almost 2 months now, and I have subscribed. So far the game is good, still on the fence about becoming a permanent sub.
One thing that I do not like about this game that would probably really make it very appealing, would be a shared bank for our characters.

I really like to explore games by playing all the different races and I don't really like to play just one character. I like alts.

For me, it just opens the game up more to play all the races and to be able to play different classes with those races.
Right now, it is a pain not being able to send manufactured or gathered items to our alts. Even if we could mail the stuff, that would be a huge plus!
But, a shared bank would be awesome!!
A shared bank would keep me in this game for sure!
Just food for thought.....

I was technically an SWTOR refugee as well, several years ago. As others have said, this game isn't really focused on alts, and no matter how many times people have asked for these features, from what I've seen, players are told to just buy boosts or whatever. Making the game more alt friendly does not seem to be even really on the radar, from what I've seen. Additionally, player race plays a very minimal role in the story, and is rarely even commented on.

[Shibi]

There's literally zero need to create an alt in this game.

Playing with a dear friend new to the game on level, and not just overgeared on NG+
Taking a break as an FC leader and just enjoying some you time
Playing on Materia for the better ping when you own a house on Aether

[Roflcopter]

Playing with a dear friend new to the game on level, and not just overgeared on NG+
Taking a break as an FC leader and just enjoying some you time
Playing on Materia for the better ping when you own a house on Aether

Swapping to an alt to level some remaining jobs (whm, ast, war and drk) actually got me excited about the game again. I was getting bored just leveling with a completed MSQ. Actually dreaming about the game again. Got excited about the prospect of unlocking and running things like the MSQ dungeon and Crystal Tower. I also enjoyed Unlocking stuff I just skipped over until much later in my initial MSQ run. It feels like a new game. Not having an overpacked glamour chest and inventory feels pretty darn good too. I don’t miss the stuff I have on my main really either. I can go back in 6.1 refreshed and ready for my main again and have a lala meme to play around with on the side.

Oh yeah, I also get the chance to catch a bunch of stuff I missed the first time through in the story. You don’t always catch the smaller details the first time.

[linayar]

The producer and director of XIV is on record saying that he doesn't understand alts and finds them pointless. I wouldn't hold my hopes up.

He did? In that Noclip documentary, he said he played alts on Ultima Online, one as a good character and one as an evil character.

Or maybe he just means for FFXIV since there is no open world PVP, although that's only one reason to create alts.

[Lunalepsy]

Trying to find a new "Home" after SWTOR 7.0 junk dropped.
I have been playing for almost 2 months now, and I have subscribed. So far the game is good, still on the fence about becoming a permanent sub.
One thing that I do not like about this game that would probably really make it very appealing, would be a shared bank for our characters.

I really like to explore games by playing all the different races and I don't really like to play just one character. I like alts.

For me, it just opens the game up more to play all the races and to be able to play different classes with those races.
Right now, it is a pain not being able to send manufactured or gathered items to our alts. Even if we could mail the stuff, that would be a huge plus!
But, a shared bank would be awesome!!
A shared bank would keep me in this game for sure!
Just food for thought.....

Welcome. Enjoy the game!

[CrazyDude]

Honestly I'm amazed you stuck around as long as you did. My first MMO was SWTOR, back in the golden age of 2.x, and it has fallen FAR. I was really put off by how the story became clearable with just your autoattack in 4.0. Completely took away all sense of engagement from leveling - the game's strongest point. Left in 5.0 when it was clear the devs had lost all sense of how to manage an MMO. Not surprising to hear that it has somehow gotten worse.

Regarding the suggestion of shared storage, I would be okay with that, but it would need to stop there. I think one of the game's strongest points is the fact that alts are not required. This allows the developers to not have to worry much about account wide progress, so you can actually start fresh with a new character instead of having to create a whole new account to have the true "fresh start" experience like most other MMOs.

I realize I am probably in the minority on this, but I like to occasionally create alts to re-experience everything the game has to offer. I do this with single player games too. The difference is, with an offline game you have direct control over your save data. Delete your save data, clear your cloud saves, and you're good to go. With MMOs it is usually not so simple, if it is even possible. I have been really annoyed at other MMOs to find that there isn't much you can do to have a true fresh start aside from creating a brand new account. It's refreshing to actually genuinely start from square one with a new character in FF14.

[Illmaeran]

I realize I am probably in the minority on this, but I like to occasionally create alts to re-experience everything the game has to offer.

I did this and am very glad I did. I got into the game in ARR and had only played the one character up through EW. After finishing that, I wanted to go back to see the story from the beginning on a fresh character. My main's still my main, but I love my alt a lot too. There are jobs that fit her (the alt) more than him (the main); WAR just feels right on a Femroe, not so much on an Elezen. Now I get the best of both worlds; two great RP characters that all jobs feel right on.

[Kolsykol]

Honestly I'm amazed you stuck around as long as you did. My first MMO was SWTOR, back in the golden age of 2.x, and it has fallen FAR. I was really put off by how the story became clearable with just your autoattack in 4.0. Completely took away all sense of engagement from leveling - the game's strongest point. Left in 5.0 when it was clear the devs had lost all sense of how to manage an MMO. Not surprising to hear that it has somehow gotten worse.

Regarding the suggestion of shared storage, I would be okay with that, but it would need to stop there. I think one of the game's strongest points is the fact that alts are not required. This allows the developers to not have to worry much about account wide progress, so you can actually start fresh with a new character instead of having to create a whole new account to have the true "fresh start" experience like most other MMOs.

I realize I am probably in the minority on this, but I like to occasionally create alts to re-experience everything the game has to offer. I do this with single player games too. The difference is, with an offline game you have direct control over your save data. Delete your save data, clear your cloud saves, and you're good to go. With MMOs it is usually not so simple, if it is even possible. I have been really annoyed at other MMOs to find that there isn't much you can do to have a true fresh start aside from creating a brand new account. It's refreshing to actually genuinely start from square one with a new character in FF14.

I tried going back because I wanted to play some of the stories I hadn't played yet ( mainly Consular and Smuggler ).
But the combat felt so clunky to me it just wasn't enjoyable.

And this is me using Mudfish with fastconnect too ( tried without too ), the connection was really unstable without even with Mudfish and no packet loss showing I still had some spikes...
The connection definitely wasn't the issue tho but that's also kinda the point.
There's so much animation and gcd clipping, it's hard to tell whether the gcd actually clips or not but damn it felt so clunky and unresponsive.
I tried Madness too on Sorcerer and it felt horrible to play.

It just didn't feel like when I pressed the button that the attack actually happened when it should I dunno how else to explain it really but I think with how smooth FFXIV feels it kinda made it more apparent than it used to be.
It felt sometimes like the game couldn't decide if it wanted to use the skill or not and like it undid and then redid the cast or something it was just weird.

I tried doing some flashpoints too and either people were rude or they just ignored that I was a returning/ new player and just mounted through everything and the dialogue skipping was quite painful too.
I was just constantly being left behind because they mounted past mobs before they spawned or stealthed past them and just left me o_o...
It was a pretty negative experience overall tbh.

Which is sad because I have very fond memories of it, I pre-ordered it and played the Beta I loved it for the years I played.