[Suggestion] FFXIV Alt-Friendliness

[TheRealDesastr]

Short Intro Opinion for TLDR folks: MSQ should at least be shared across alts or story requirements for progression should be removed if MSQ has been completed on main. All things on shop should be account bound.

Market prohibited items could instead be account bound, single use, and remain unsellable.



Old idea:

Hello.

I adore FFXIV, but one of the things in this game that is extremely grating is the how alt-unfriendly it is.

I realize people use the excuse of 'we can use all jobs on one character', but that honestly does not appeal to me in the slightest. Most jobs do not work for my character, who I write stories about and roleplay. This same situation applies to most glams, pets, and mounts.

The ironic thing is, I would do far, far more in this game if only it were more alt friendly. I would likely actually try to dive into more extreme PvE content, but as it stands now, it simply is not worth it. A lot of content just does not fit for this character, yet she is meant to remain my main, and I want to do the content on her.

I do not have enough time or want to level up and get through the story on every single alt I want to write a story about, and to have to grind everything out a second time, it makes collecting in this game for people like me pointless. (No, buying a boost and all won't solve this. I'm talking about the point of doing actual content!)

Therefore, I propose an idea:
All mounts should be shared.
All hairstyles should be shared.
All minions should be shared.
Emotes as well, at least if they are on the shop.
In the case of glams, might I suggest a special storage chest that is account bound, allowing you to swap glams to your alt? Quite like 'transmog collections' in other games (and mounts/pets being shared in general).

If the above is considered unreasonable - I think it is fair to at least say we could farm everything multiple times, BUT on a main which then could provide the item to the alt.

Example: A glam drops, you can only use it on one character, but you can transfer it to a different character even if it doesn't apply to the one you got it on.

Example 2: I get a mount drop on this character, don't really want it on this one, put it in my chest to give it to an alt.

Example 3: I have a mount collected already, but get another, so transfer it to a different character.

An account bound chest in the very least would allow those with alts to grind for said alts and give them the drops. I'd prefer just doing the mail-thing like the subscriber glamours or the store mounts, since we know that's how any sort of account-bound things could work, but the next best thing would be the chest or something similar.


If you support alt-friendliness, please consider posting here or talking about it in discords/on bluesky(#altfriendlyxiv) or reddit. I'm not sure how far posts on the forums here go.

If not any of this, the shop items at LEAST should be account bound short of maybe holiday housing items. But hairstyles...? These should not be locked.

New idea:

Items are single use but account bound. You would gain the ability to mail them to an alt. This way - if you have it on your main or have little interest of using it on your main, you could mail it to alts.

This would incentivize people with alts to do more content for things that they may not have gone for otherwise on their main and things they don't want to regrind an entire second time on a different character.

It'd be nice if it all was account bound (like the WoW Collections journal), but if people are wanting more folks to do more content, this is a viable solution to the alt-unfrendliness and lack of people doing content.

At the moment we can't trade or mail anything to alts. I don't know what they'd need to change to make that viable. But this simple change would get me personally to do far, far more content, as at least I'd have a reason to go for the reward.

Also yes, story skips/progress should be account bound, imo. Ridiculous that it's a shop thing that doesn't apply to your entire account. Yes, I know it's because of money. How's that working out for them?

Housing

A lot of folks are saying houses should be shared on alts. I agree! It's one house per server after all, on only one character, so sharing with alts would be excellent. I also wish we could share FC rooms/apartments with alts (and, well, designate other residents too like we can with houses).

XIV is behind most popular MMORPGs at this point with many things.

It had a one-up with housing and its variety over WoW.... but now WoW is, supposedly, completely blowing XIV out of the water. I only hear that through the grapevine so take my words with a grain of salt - either way, the one thing it had over things like WoW was its housing, but even that's gone. It had story - DT story was absolutely terrible, imo (and the opinion of many players along with me)...

So, it needs to catch up to others at this point. Bigtime. The lack of alt friendliness makes less motivation to bother collecting for folks like me. I realize that I'm probably the minority here (and...again... the 'oh but you can play all classes on one character' thing isn't appealing to me at all). They probably make a ton of money with the story skips. But I have to wonder if that offsets the amount they could make if they did more account-bound stuff, as people would actually play the game more, one would think, and possibly buy from the shop when originally were not. Or, subbing when they originally wouldn't have bothered.

There is so much to collect and do, but if it doesn't fit on one single character - why bother? It's too much, and I'm not going to put in effort on something I won't use on a character, and I have no time or motivation to repeat the ridiculous amount of work it'd be to get even a single alt up to the level of a main.