[Suggestion] FFXIV Alt-Friendliness

[Zahei]

More alt friendliness would be amazing!
Shared shop items, mounts, minions, and achievements are definitely at the top of my list. Other things that would be nice that were also mentioned earlier would be the ability to mail alts, an MSQ sync, and allowing access to your main's personal home. I love having multiple characters that are different races/genders, but there are so many achievements I'll never touch again due to the grinds they require. I get alts aren't everyone's thing but I don't feel like most of these changes would negatively impact anyone? Any changes may even encourage some to give an alt a try.

[Jojoya]

Don't see the point of alts when you can do everything on a single character.

I can't level sync the entire MSQ if I want to replay it in NG+. There's a huge difference playing through it at level instead of always at max level.

Edit: I suppose I should add that I'm not part of "everything I do on my main should automatically be given to my alts" crowd either. From a role-playing perspective, each of my characters is their own person and should be responsible for getting the things they want on their own.

But I do consider them part of the same family and it should be easier to share certain things, like housing. It makes no sense that I can share housing with other players but not with my other characters unless I forego being in a FC with other players and create a personal FC.

[TheRealDesastr]

I still think about this sometimes, and how I just have no motivation to do content since I have all of the stuff I want for my main already. There's so much of it I wish I could enjoy, but just... I dunno.

Most of it doesn't fit for her, but would for an alt.

I really hope this sort of thing will be considered someday. Yes, I know it'll reduce the amount they could make from story skips or boosts or whatever, but I do think there's value in the idea of keeping subscribers who wouldn't buy the boost but would roll alts if we could skip (should we have done the story already on a character). It would give people more to do and more to go for, because otherwise trying to earn everything again on a character is too much. Especially since story is REQUIRED for getting to an expansion.

[Rin_Sato]

I agree, however this would undermine the value of Fantasias and affect squares bottom-line (possibly) so it is unlikely...

[Serilyn]

I agree, however this would undermine the value of Fantasias and affect squares bottom-line (possibly) so it is unlikely...

That and being able to mail alts or share housing would impact the sales of extra retainers. I think I recall Yoshi P has also said in the past that he simply doesn't see a point in alts. So that along with them making more money off things being as unfriendly to alts as possible unfortunately makes a change in their attitude unlikely.

[SigmaOZ]

@OP


Just sharing the MSQ would be heaven-sent.


I agree with most things you mention but I doubt SE would be willing to part with their profiting with additional retainers and jump potions though they might have to change their strategy given the game's age, 10+ years already should begin to lose them a lot of players. I'm pretty bored already but will keep my characters alive.

[TheRealDesastr]

Sharing MSQ would be great and fairly satisfactory, honestly. Though imo all shop items should be account bound (short of maybe housing + holiday, that being single-character, 'sure'.)

But they just released a pack that's account bound. So close x.x I hope someday they'll make the story skips account bound too, or at least a pack for it.

[TheRealDesastr]

Right, I'm bumping this. 7.1 is a lackluster, bare patch that I'm not seeing any hype about, and for good reason.

There's nothing to it.

I don't know how many people are leaving, but with the lack of any support for alts, it's pointless to be a collector.

*Sigh*

[TheRealDesastr]

I wish I could get excited and want to do new content, but I'm simply not a single-character player and really enjoy alts. There's nothing compelling about doing content given everything is blocked by story, and this game is so alt-unfriendly.

I'm only here still because my roleplay stories are all tied to the game at this point. Coming from WoW, there was a point to me doing content as a causal player to collect things. I don't see the point of collecting things that won't fit on my 'main' I'd collect it on, thus I don't bother. Now, WoW is adding housing.

I feel like FFXIV would have a lot more to offer folks who collect if it was alt-friendly and I'd be actually excited about doing content. The one thing it did have to offer unique from WoW was housing, which gave it that leg up. Now... it has everything FFXIV has but better, it feels like. No, I'm not planning on jumping ship, but I'm not sure the same can be said for others.

The point is - I feel like revitalizing this conversation again. At LEAST everything from the shop should be account bound, especially given how greedy they are with their mogstation nonsense as of recent. Boosts especially, it's getting ridiculous.

Either that, or remove story requirements for progression if you've completed it on a character on your account.

That would be BARE MINIMUM.

[Sheyshen]

I love the sound of this! It would be so nice to have things set up in a way that once one character on your account has cleared the content it flags it so if you wish to skip to a certain part of the campaign on an alt you can, either with a "I've already heard this before" option from one of the msq npcs (like they have in wow) or a quest npc/object that lets you start a certain part of the msq (like starting kotfe/kotet/etc in swtor at the terminal).

That way if you want to play through on an alt you can but if you don't then you can skip to a certain point (either a specific expansion or "catch-up to main") and be able to get to the things you want to do on that alt.
I could understand them keeping that to MSQ only, so all the side quests would still be around, or you'd still have to do the raid/dungeon/aethercurrent quests but the raids/dungeons themselves are available to enter as long as your ilvl meets the req.
Plus things like having shop/merch and seasonal glams and pets being account wide (anything you pay real money for or is limited time to access), inter-account transfer of items/gil, just little incentives for players to make/play more than one character.

Goofing around on alts is one of my favorite things to do on an mmo during lulls in content. And that this game has more or less no alt support (even though we have multiple character slots per server) has been one of my biggest complaints over the years, especially right now since i'm caught up on 2 characters. I'm not into the hardcore raid scene or the endless grind at crescent or cosmic, I'd much rather run around working on little things on one of my many alts during my lunch break, and I'm so glad I'm not the only one