As an admitted altmaniac I have *no* desire to see the game made faster or easier.
Tanix is right although today's games it is so easy to get to maximum level the main complaint is the horrible grind in some of them for gearing up a high level character not having to take an extra day to get a second one - not much of an exaggeration to say a day to maximum level.
I agree with Tanix - VR should make the game as they intend to make it and leave us to decide whether we want alts or not. If we do we live with the trade-offs.
That I can completely understand and respect. As I said, my worry was for those who viewed "alting" as a progressive gaming experience they expected in the same line of playing each single character (something some modern MMO developers even admitted to designing the game around).
I "personally" want them to focus on making the game specifically for a single character focus, to enrich and develop that character over a very long and meaningful progression of play. I think if that is achieved, "reasonable" people will see that experience just as beneficial over their tenth toon as they would their first. As I said, my concern was those who expected the game to center around "alting" as a play style specifically, which does require specific changes in the design of the game.
I make alts to learn how the classes play but usually not to invest in them past learning cooldowns and things like that. I wanna play my main but if I'm gonna kill people I need to know their skillset and I find that for me the most intuitive way of doing that is trying the class out myself. After getting somewhat familiar with cooldowns, range, etc. I can usually learn the rest from just fighting that class over and over.
Just another part of the grind for me, I don't really care if I need alts or not as long as there is something to grind. If the treadmill stops the game is dead.
I enjoy alts. Fact is though, I just don't have enough time to spread over multiple characters, so the alts usually don't get very developed. But I enjoy playing a different class and race, I don't openly roleplay, but I like to roleplay a different character in my head as I'm interacting with the starting towns npcs, questing in low level zones, etc.
As for me - I almost always have a bunch of alts. They fall into one of two categories:
1) "Almost-mains" - these are alts that I play nearly as much as whatever character I call my "main". I usually have at least one of these, sometimes more, and which one is the "main" tends to switch around over time.
2) "Side characters" - these are alts that I play to try things out, but end up back-burnering in favor of other characters. I always have the intent to come back and play them more, but there's only so much time in my days, sadly.
For Pantheon, I will almost certainly have at least one character of every race that interests me. I might even double up on a few if there's additional concepts I want to pursue. My race/class choice is often dictated by an RP character concept more than anything else. So if I have a strong concept in mind.... that character gets created.
If you have too little to do or you can get to max level and top end gear fast enough to support a ton of alts, then the game is built wrong in my opinion. I hope this game has enough of a good slow pace of leveling with enough challenging content along the way to make it impractical to have any alts at all unless you like having a horde of lowbie toons.
Tanix said:Are people ok with alting and having it take an enormous amount of time to progress your character?
Absolutely! Let it take a year or two to get to max, I don't mind. In fact, that is the best way to "deteriorate" me from rolling those alts you seem to dislike so much. I find little satisfaction in "life at the end game", so reaching max level is usually when I roll an alt.
((Making alts specifically level up a little faster probably doesn't bother me if it's reasonable.))
Given how slow progress in Pantheon is likely to be it might not be a bad idea to encourage players to play alts by e.g. giving a small experience point bonus for characters on an account where the player already has a character at maximum level. The plus is that an alt may keep the player interested and subscribing and if a bonus keeps him or her interested in Pantheon for another few years that is a good result for the game.
It would not in any way make the game easier - it would not affect any other player, the way a "nerfed" xp curve would.
It would also encourage people to speed-level to maximum level to get the bonus - not necessarily a good thing.
I am not sure whether the idea is good or bad but I find it interesting - worth highlighting and discussing.
So, knee-jerk, I think making alts level up faster is a terrible idea. But that is, admittedly, a knee-jerk reaction on my part.
The reasons that I don't like it are inherently personal and based on my experiences in prior games. I really, really hate outleveling content before I'm done with it and ready to move on. I also tend to be semi-completionist, so in most level-based games I end up outleveling areas before I am finished with them. This leads to me doing things like turning experience off, or shunting it all into AA, when I feel like I'm starting to overpower the content.
Will that be a problem in Pantheon one way or the other? Gods, I hope not. But it's there in the back of my mind, so it makes me cringe when we start talking about this subject :)
However: If alts get an experience bonus, then I want to be able to turn that bonus off as a personal choice.
On a more practical note, I am concerned that if the process of leveling up an alt becomes too easy, it will take something away from player interdependence. This is true both for the crafting and adventuring spheres. If everyone has a port alt, whether it's on the same account or not, does it make it easier for players to avoid interacting with others whom they don't know? What about healer alts? I play a game right now where players can learn every class all on one character if they take the time to level it up (just like an alt) - and what I find is that over time that has cheapened the value of playing any single class well. It doesn't matter whether you're a good tank or not when every other person in your guild can simply put on their tank clothes and muddle their way through it in your place. Sure, it makes getting groups working super convenient, because you don't have to worry about who's online or offline as long as you have enough people - but you lose something at the same time.
So, while I love and support alts and will certainly have several of my own.... I am leery of anything that might detract from interdependence and community engagement over time.
Nephele said:I really, really hate outleveling content before I'm done with it and ready to move on. I also tend to be semi-completionist, so in most level-based games I end up outleveling areas before I am finished with them. This leads to me doing things like turning experience off, or shunting it all into AA, when I feel like I'm starting to overpower the content.
Agreed. I am of the mind that all content in the game that should be limited to excel in. In orginal EQ, you beg, borrowed, and pleaded to gain exp. In fact, on the original game, classes getting to max level (49) wasn't even reasonably obtained thorugh normal play. Some of the first level 49 players were druids who solo'd dwarfs from Kaladim because they were high enough (and beatable through kiting) to kill to gain enough exp to any reason.,
The point is, ALL systems of leveling design should only bring the character to "within grasp" of their goals, but never to it. Gaining such, at a current level max design should be a moumenatal effort. Pantheon if it is 1-50 at start should be where the only way someone gets to 50 is through find EXTREME ways to get there before the next expansion. It should be where player go outside the bounds of what the developers intended, just like druids did with the Kaladim guards.
Point is, They can easily set it where you never "out level" your content, rather you are always at the edge of it from their design.
I play several characters, typically after I build up one character to help fund the purchasing of equipment.
On the Pantheon Reddit, the recent questionaire showed only around 12% of players do not use alts, the vast majority do.
That really trivializes "mentoring" systems IMO. Why bother worry about trying to come up with a balanced system to downlevel players and gear when most people are not going to use it anyways.
bigdogchris said:That really trivializes "mentoring" systems IMO. Why bother worry about trying to come up with a balanced system to downlevel players and gear when most people are not going to use it anyways.
Mentoring serves a different purpose. If you outlevel your friends or otherwise want to play with someone lower level and you don't have an alt (let alone one anywhere near that level) then mentoring is used.
Iksar said:bigdogchris said:That really trivializes "mentoring" systems IMO. Why bother worry about trying to come up with a balanced system to downlevel players and gear when most people are not going to use it anyways.
Mentoring serves a different purpose. If you outlevel your friends or otherwise want to play with someone lower level and you don't have an alt (let alone one anywhere near that level) then mentoring is used.
On paper, I understand where that opinion comes from. In practice, I never had a problem having a character that could not group with friends. I don't know, I only played EQ. Maybe in other games it was different but in EQ it was never a problem for me.
Iksar said:Mentoring serves a different purpose. If you outlevel your friends or otherwise want to play with someone lower level and you don't have an alt (let alone one anywhere near that level) then mentoring is used.
Mentor systems also allow all levels of content to remain relevant (and challenging), even after you're technically above their level. A bit off-topic, but thought I'd add in! :)
As someone who always has a veritable horde of alts, I've never felt that mentoring systems take away from alt-ing.