[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).

[Bright-Flower]

It'd be great IMO if the game had more stuff like this. Though it would take a lot of work.

Take things that 'are' account wide for example. Like SOME (but not all) mog station mounts. Or subscription reward glams. They do this by just...sending the mail to all of your characters.

So it'd be great to get account wide stuff but would probably be a big undertaking on the back end to make it all work. And sadly, one downside to being able to do everything in this game on one character means they're less incentivized to add account wide stuff than say, WoW was.

But I would like to see a lot of this. And one thing I would really like to see: let us send mail to our own alts, and add our alts as housing tenants! It'd be really nice if I could adjust my house on my alts. I know there used to be bugs one could use to friend your alts to get around this but those have been fixed and now for some reason you just can't. So trading an items or gil from one character to another either requires weird market board manipulation stuff or getting another player as a go between. This just feels completely unnecessary for both sending letters and housing.

[Rueby]

It's funny how they make us pay more for a higher tier sub just to shaft us in the optional items.
"Pay us more, but also buy the mogstation stuff again!"

[SamuraiMiqo]

I like this idea quite a bit! An add on I have, though it may be too much is; Say our main has Ninja unlocked, we make an alt and instead of them having to level up to 15, then do the Rogue/Ninja quests, they have it unlocked already at level 1 and just need to level it up.

[Isala]

The game is so alt-unfriendly, that you can't even mail your own characters items, a feature that has been in MMOs for bloody years.

And, there's a very obvious reason for that, and it has to do with an extra 2 dollars per month. Because if we actually could interact with our alts, we could use them as extra storage, which, again, IS A FEATURE THAT HAS BEEN IN EVERY OTHER MMO.

But, nope. SE wants their money, so basic features from stone age of MMOs aren't allowed.

[Alchemii]

I agree with all of this, but I mean I'd also just settle for being able to transfer items between alts without needing to use an FC or another person.

[TheRealDesastr]

I'd be okay with being able to transfer items like that if more stuff was 'account bound' or sellable, but things like raid mount drops and PvP rewards sadly are not. Locking it to accounts though would keep that stuff exclusive while making things more alt friendly though should we be able to mail it!

[Kaurhz]

I would only really like Shared Achievements, honestly. Which I guess encompasses mounts and minions.

[Rueby]

I'd like to add PVP Series rewards...I don't see why time limited/exclusive stuff is NOT account bound.

[Evergrey]

It's funny how they make us pay more for a higher tier sub just to shaft us in the optional items.
"Pay us more, but also buy the mogstation stuff again!"

You mean Entry vs Standard subscription?
If I'm not mistaken, and I also compared it to WoW's monthly sub cost, FFXIV standard is the same as WoW's when it comes to pricing.
So it's not like you're paying a higher sub but rather that you have the option to pay less if you don't plan on playing multiple characters per server.

FFXIV: Entry 30 days, $12.99
FFXIV: Standard 30 days, $14.99
WoW: $14.99/month