MyNegation said:I think there should be one character slot at start,
and when you reach max level you unlock another character slot. and when the second character reached max level you get another character slot, etc etc.
That's a terrible idea. What if I want to try out other classes? I'd have to delete my current character and all the progress I made on it just so I could reroll another class? That's not cool, lol.
Reasons to restrict character slots..
Well for one, restricting one's number of available character on a server could lead the player towards requiring other players to succeed in his goals. Seeing this is a big thing for this game, I'ld call that as a big argument.
One must keep in mind, we're talking about nr of character slots at the start of the game. Who's to say that after 10 years of playing people will have 4-6 or more characters. They might weave in nice Lore stories relating to new races, continents or classes. But not at the start.
This will allow for people to get through the content with one/two characters and the dev's to create a content that requires a lot of gametime to conquer. The most devoted players will get to the end of the content in time before the next expansion perhaps, but most might not have turned over every stone. If you allow for many character slots and you maintain the amount of time required to get to the endcontent, people might get frustrated by not getting there on their alts and everything (after much complaining) might get watered down to fast play, yet again. I doubt the focus of the dev's is to create content on such a quick pace that you'll max out on alts as well. This is a vital point in understanding the thread topic and the intentions of these game dev's of this specific game. It is different than most!
The game, I think, will be designed in such a manner you'll need to invest a lot of time to get something right and to achieve those end of the line goals. If you get there at all before next content comes out. That's not a bad thing, it will allow players the feel of steady progression instead of the ratrace to the final dungeonboss of latest content. So when you're talking about yes I'll have 6 alts.. unless you invest more time in the game than in real life (i'm not judging here), you will not be as succesful as you might be in other mmo's that do offer you that fast pace progression. And might just end up frustrated and feeling stuck because you are blinded by those that only invested their time into 1-2 characters and made it "all the way up".
Unlocking character slots because you maxed out your first, doesn't make much sense to me. The entire system will fail at next expansions, as you'ld have 1 extra character slot each expansion. You'll still need to go through the content of previous tiers with your new character. If you can manage going back and forth with all those characters after expansion nr... good on ye. But I doubt many will have the time or the courage to make something decent out of it. Another option would be that the dev's should allow you to skip the previous tiers and start at level 60 for example. Or if they allow you to start a level 1 in the new content, which is nice..but that could create ghosttowns in previous content. Completely ruining the game. And don't forget about the progeny system in this game.
Restrictions to characters in general would mean that the community can be rounded up into servers, rather than having 100 players on 4 servers, you have 100 players on 2. This again would benefit the game greatly. If you don't restrict character slots, you'll end up with a lot of scattered players, not such an intense community feeling or a server where it takes too long to form a group. I've seen games where populations of servers became too low and they had to merge servers together time and time again to keep the playerbase alive. Talking about nr of character slots, for me, is thinking about the long run, not just the start and midway.
Alexander said: Yes, enough slots per server for each class would be awesome. Any good reason to restrict slots? I cant believe enough slots for every class would undermine the game's social system.
Why not make 1 slot for every race/class combination? Why stop there why not just have unlimited slots?
My reasoning behind limiting the slots is in order to make your choices matter. If you only have 3 slots... you might want to mess around on a ranger but have no interest in actually playing one.
And as was mentioned before, depending on how the tradeskill system works... this could greatly saturate the number of people with x tradeskill available. If the system is like EQ where you can do every tradeskill... idc have 10 slots, doesn't matter. But if each character is restricted to 1 or 2 tradeskills then I think they should be limited.
I really don't understand why, from a game perspective, there needs to be a severe limit. From an expense perspective, sure, limit the amount of resources used on each account, but come on, 8+ slots is not going to be hard/expensive to handle.
Porygon said:Why not make 1 slot for every race/class combination? Why stop there why not just have unlimited slots?
Haha, I mean, I'd be game.
Barin999 said:So when you're talking about yes I'll have 6 alts.. unless you invest more time in the game than in real life (i'm not judging here), you will not be as succesful as you might be in other mmo's that do offer you that fast pace progression. And might just end up frustrated and feeling stuck because you are blinded by those that only invested their time into 1-2 characters and made it "all the way up".
I don't think you understand the appeal of alts for a lot of people. The vast majority of my alts in any MMO don't see endgame content. I just like making and playing different characters.
Oh, and RP. I need lots of characters for RP. :)
8-10 at a minimum.
At most i think 4 is a suitable number, i remember saying 1 or 2 before, but i wont go higher than 4 merely becuase i dont want anyone to be self efficent in tradeskilling by themselves, this has killed a lot when it comes to a community working together and if they can do every tradeskill than they wont look to others for help, which would be broken imo. there simply has to be a limit no matter would you look at it, and 8 is way too many.
Naunet said:Madae said:1 for each class is too many, IMO.I'm curious. Too many... why? Just because you won't use them doesn't mean others don't enjoy making many alts. To me, 4 is far too few.
And I personally have no intention of keeping my extra copy. It's going to a friend.
I just think your choices should have limits and an impact on your play. It's not that I wouldn't find fun in playing every class, but I think it takes a bit out of it if there are no hard choices to make. This is an easy example. Being able to do everything whenever you want lessens the appeal.
I think using the argument of someone using alts to become self sufficient in trade skills isn't really an issue. Sure in WoW you could do that since you could fairly quickly level multiple characters and then quickly grind up the tradeskills. But in Pantheon since they have said leveling will be slow so we enjoy the journey and that tradeskills should be somewhat similar to character levels, then they would have to put a lot of time in to get to that point.
If it takes 6 months to max one character (for example) and you can level one tradeskill on that character in the same time (if you could do 1 trade per character), then it would take them 2 years to raise 4 toons with 4 different tradeskills to to max level (if they did them all in sync so they go there at the same time). Conversely they could get to max with 1 toon in 6 months and then work with other players in conjunction with the tradeskill they raised to make what they wanted at that level.
So sure having more slots will allows them to do it, but the pace of Pantheon will limit that I think. So artifically limiting it with character slots isn't really needed.
Firewalker said:I think using the argument of someone using alts to become self sufficient in trade skills isn't really an issue. Sure in WoW you could do that since you could fairly quickly level multiple characters and then quickly grind up the tradeskills. But in Pantheon since they have said leveling will be slow so we enjoy the journey and that tradeskills should be somewhat similar to character levels, then they would have to put a lot of time in to get to that point.
The thing is, we dont know how difficult it will be to max tradeskills. It might take 6 months to level, but only a short time (once you know the recipe path) to actually max it. Plus. Depending on what tradeskills you give your higher level main, you might be able to effectively collect most of not all the materials needed to level up.
I for one, will admit. If it takes WORK to max a tradeskill... much more than wow and even eq... I'm fine with allowing 8 characters.
But if tradeskilling is trivial. I think the number of characters will greatly impact the market for each trade.
Madae said:I just think your choices should have limits and an impact on your play. It's not that I wouldn't find fun in playing every class, but I think it takes a bit out of it if there are no hard choices to make. This is an easy example. Being able to do everything whenever you want lessens the appeal.
It's a game. We don't need to be forced into making "hard" choices - at least not when it comes to sheer number of characters. It's in VR's best interests that we be entertained as long as possible, and a plethora of alts is a good means for that.
2-3 characters just isn't enough to keep me engaged in an MMO. I get bored with too few characters and no way to mix it up.
Naunet said:Madae said:I just think your choices should have limits and an impact on your play. It's not that I wouldn't find fun in playing every class, but I think it takes a bit out of it if there are no hard choices to make. This is an easy example. Being able to do everything whenever you want lessens the appeal.It's a game. We don't need to be forced into making "hard" choices - at least not when it comes to sheer number of characters. It's in VR's best interests that we be entertained as long as possible, and a plethora of alts is a good means for that.
2-3 characters just isn't enough to keep me engaged in an MMO. I get bored with too few characters and no way to mix it up.
It's not new player friendly to severely limit character slots either. Many of us on these boards will already know what we're going to main, but lots of people will need to play a few classes to discover what they like.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I hope they decide to keep the amount of slots low, perhaps with incentive to unlock others through gameplay or even purchase, but since we haven't had any notice about what exactly they're going to do just yet, it seems rather pointless to argue about what is and isn't right.
Keno Monster said:It's not new player friendly to severely limit character slots either. Many of us on these boards will already know what we're going to main, but lots of people will need to play a few classes to discover what they like.
Eq1 was the first mmo I've ever played. I didnt know anything about it. My friend described the roles (tank healer dps) then narrowed down (melee and spell) and I settled on a necromancer. I played that character for a long time.
Anytime I decide to play a new mmo, I go through the the same process. Look at the skills. And make a decision. And in most cases I'm correct once I start playing.
These are just 2 examples... regardless of whether you mean a BRAND new mmo player, or someone who's never played Pantheon... I dont think it's that hard to fathom someone picking a class without playing it.
Naunet said:Madae said:I just think your choices should have limits and an impact on your play. It's not that I wouldn't find fun in playing every class, but I think it takes a bit out of it if there are no hard choices to make. This is an easy example. Being able to do everything whenever you want lessens the appeal.It's a game. We don't need to be forced into making "hard" choices - at least not when it comes to sheer number of characters. It's in VR's best interests that we be entertained as long as possible, and a plethora of alts is a good means for that.
2-3 characters just isn't enough to keep me engaged in an MMO. I get bored with too few characters and no way to mix it up.
I just dont really understand what you mean.
Like... of you cant stay engaged in an mmo with 3 different characters... either the mmo is just boring and monotonous (which a lot of them are) Or mmos aren't the game genre for you lol.
And one of the main tenets of pantheon is that they want to bring it back to the style of game where CHOICES matter. From where you start your character, where you decide to level, the tradeskills you select... why stop with "in game" choices. Why not start with which classes you choose to play?
Porygon said:Keno Monster said:It's not new player friendly to severely limit character slots either. Many of us on these boards will already know what we're going to main, but lots of people will need to play a few classes to discover what they like.
Eq1 was the first mmo I've ever played. I didnt know anything about it. My friend described the roles (tank healer dps) then narrowed down (melee and spell) and I settled on a necromancer. I played that character for a long time.
Anytime I decide to play a new mmo, I go through the the same process. Look at the skills. And make a decision. And in most cases I'm correct once I start playing.
These are just 2 examples... regardless of whether you mean a BRAND new mmo player, or someone who's never played Pantheon... I dont think it's that hard to fathom someone picking a class without playing it.
Who said people wouldn't just pick a class and go? Some will, some won't.
Porygon said:Why not start with which classes you choose to play?
Because it's a bad idea that serves no real purpose. As an alternate ruleset a single character slot server could be a fun thing.
Firewalker said:I think using the argument of someone using alts to become self sufficient in trade skills isn't really an issue. Sure in WoW you could do that since you could fairly quickly level multiple characters and then quickly grind up the tradeskills. But in Pantheon since they have said leveling will be slow so we enjoy the journey and that tradeskills should be somewhat similar to character levels, then they would have to put a lot of time in to get to that point.
If it takes 6 months to max one character (for example) and you can level one tradeskill on that character in the same time (if you could do 1 trade per character), then it would take them 2 years to raise 4 toons with 4 different tradeskills to to max level (if they did them all in sync so they go there at the same time). Conversely they could get to max with 1 toon in 6 months and then work with other players in conjunction with the tradeskill they raised to make what they wanted at that level.
So sure having more slots will allows them to do it, but the pace of Pantheon will limit that I think. So artifically limiting it with character slots isn't really needed.
Well we are talking about character slots at the start of the game. And don't forget about the progeny system they plan on implementing...
If you level up all 4 characters at same time, we're not talking about the majority of players here. Most would just try out some toons and go with 1-2 they like the most. So the dev's would design something for a very small % of their playerbase. (Is that efficient use of resources and priorities?)
Could you explain why someone would start a game with the intention of raising 4-6 equally leveled craftsmen? (other than in case of accountsharing, like someone already explained..not sure how legal that is but not touching that topic here). And still advocate that it's the player's intention that they are doing so because they want to group up with people? It would come down to that player really slowly progressing. It's their choice of course, but how does that fit in with the dev's agreeing with let's give them 4 slots at the start? Again over a timespan of multiple years, players could have more slots, but we're not talking about after several years, we're talking about at the start.
Barin999 I think you seriously misjudge the player base. Your approach assumes that getting to maximum level and having a powerful character is important - and I agree that most people who have that as the goal will pick one character and play it almost exclusively. Though it may take us longer than you expect to pick the one "perfect" character in a new game that we don't fully understand. I can see even the most experienced of us picking a class, hitting e.g. level 10 and finding out that an important skill that they had assumed worked the way it did in EQ really didn't - so maybe that class isn't ideal for their playstyle.
But where I think you are quite wrong is the implicit assumption that most of us will be fixated on the race to high level.
I suspect that far more than you think will be looking to explore, to see different starting areas, to learn the racial backgrounds (by playing the race not doing a search on-line), to learn and practice every craft, to harvest, to work on perception, to do many other things that don't involve using one character to get to level-cap very fast.
I suspect that a non-trivial number will go out of their way *not* to level fast, either preferring the earlier part of the game where the world seems wider (there will surely be more level 1 zones than level 50 zones) or from not wanting to run out of content and be driven to repeat raids or do dailies or whatever VR puts in for bored level caps.
You may be right and I may be wrong I haven't done a poll. But if you look at the forums you see a lot of different people saying that this game should be more about the journey and less about what there is to do at maximum level.
Okay, i still believe that 4 characters is enough, you want to explore the different races and classes that fine you can quite simply delete the class you dont like ( which lets be honest there will probably be more you dont like than actually do.) and create a different class and if you like all 4 of your classes than why even bother with the rest having 4 characters to play with different play styles is more than enough to keep you engaged. Yes i dont make many alts but i also know that you dont need to max out a character to max out a tradeskill you can do it at level one, which is why i think having a high count of characters is a bad idea you could literally create him put him by a bank or something and hardly play him cept to craft stuff and max out and start making high end gear, which i am not oppose to this cept by making it to where you can only max out so many characters by limiting the amount of characters you can make, its not a bad thing your choices of tradeskills, classes, races, faction grinding, and anything else you can think of that has a long term influence should have meaning and if you can make 8 different charcter and max out 8 different tradeskill, venture into 8 different faction grind that may or may not conflict each other, is simply too much leeway.if you can do that than why not simply just make it to where 1 character and do all tradeskills and not worry about faction at all. i know i am overreacting a bit, but to think having 8 charcter to try out all races and classes just becuase you want to is a poor accuse for it when the drawback of having 8 charcters is much worse and will be abused by those to find themselves being self efficent and not having to deal with anybody becuase they can make everything they want by themselves.
I agree with the economy argument. Being able to have a dozen characters that can do all the tradeskills, regardless if it takes 6 months to get there, does have a long term affect on the game. Granted if there are ways to expand character slots through purchase or some other method, the end result might end up being the same, but limiting it right off the bat does help. I also agree that being entirely self sufficient kind of defeats the purpose of playing a game with other people.
Like someone else said, if you can't find a class you like playing with 3-4 character slots, and you think you need twice as many more to find enjoyment, then perhaps this type of game just isn't for you. There was always the intention that Pantheon was not going to be like the current generation of MMO's, so maybe you should just play those instead.
I'm sorry if my reply comes across a bit surly, that's not my usual style but this topic, for some reason, is really poking a nerve with me.
Look, the main argument against a reasonable number of character slots seems to be centered around an impact to the economy. Seriously, I think people are blowing this way out of proportion and then others are merely jumping on the band wagon to sound cool or appear like they are somehow hardcore. Boiled down, even if there are enough charactrer slots for one to be totally self-sufficient in crafting, it's not going to impact the economy in any appreciable way. The amount of time and effort needed to level a large number of tradeskills to high level, combined with the fact that a very small number of players will actually be willing to make that sort of inventment, makes that argument agains a larger number of slots, moot.
Further, the thought that VR would expect their paying customers to choose one or two classes to level and if they wanted to change to anopther have to delete all that progress and start over is honestly rifdiculous. Especially in the early days of the game, when there are likely to be class imbalances that will later be worked out, I would be ticked if I wanted to play a Rogue really bad at launch, got him to level 30 or so only to realize he was undertuned in DPS or had some other issue and they had not fixed. I decide to move on so I can actually be desired in a group, delete that toon, and then two months later VR fixes the Rogue class issues. How annoyed do you think players like that will be?
I'm not arguing for unlimited slots, to the contrary, but there's no LEGITIMATE reason why the typical 6-8 slots most historical MMOs have given would not work.
Just wanted to posty my two cents...