i enjoy having an alt for crafting along side my main.
I also think when the new skills are added (rage, focus, and weather resistance) they will have to add more skill points to the pool which will go a long way to making a single charicter feel useful.
when it comes to switching to an alt you already have to meditate to get to sanctum. maybe just add a few minutes of stasis sickness upon switching.
or! what if you have to earn your alts by building a a cryosleep pod. when you switch characters you are actually transferring you concesness to a new body.
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Let’s see…people use Alts because they don’t like the skill system limits, (or the skill system period)
So you think that’s bad and want to add a cost, make it less desirable…
I’m just concerned if solutions or fixes are to make more parts less fun…more people are going to leave.
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I love both of these suggestions.
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I’d like to say I like the system as it is now. I think being able to have alts and switch is great, as I can build multiple characters to each be a specialist in what they do well. Of course, I tend to almost roleplay my characters, so it’s cool to have a miner/crafter/builder, then a hunter character, etc. as I can give each a different identity and building style, etc. I agree that adding more penalties or disadvantages to switching alts will only serve to make the game less fun for me. Of course, more skill points so alts are not required would be great, but is optional, and yeah, probably will happen in the future anyways with more skills being added/implemented.
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For the switchable builds idea – I’m just saying, it’s basically the same thing now.
If I want a Hunter/Combat char, a miner/gatherer, and a builder, right now I use the three character slots for that.
The difference with switchable builds for one character would be, … well, no difference. I either switch ‘builds’ or I log out and switch characters. Same result.
So why make it un-necessarily complicated with alts. Esp. when some people would like to be identifiable as their character, and not have to have everyone remember three names for each person. Better/easier social recognition.
And I’m not saying remove the ability to have other characters, absolutely not. Many people enjoy creating the alt personas and such, and that is great. It should be left as an option as-is.
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Two of the currently most popular MMOs already use solutions mentioned in this thread:
Final Fantasy XIV: one character can do everything
World of Warcraft: a character can freely switch between multiple different talent specs
Furthermore, there are interesting lessons in the development history of both games.
FFXIV has struggled with the idea of specialist crafters. At first, there was a very steep cost to switching specializations, and the system received a lot of negative feedback. Development moved away from specialist recipes and the mechanic seemed all but scrapped. More recently, they’ve brought specialist recipes back, but they’ve dramatically decreased the cost of changing specializations. This system seems to be a much better compromise between players who want specialization and players who want to do everything.
WoW originally did not have multiple talent specs, and when they were first introduced it cost gold to unlock your second spec in-game. Last I checked, now multiple specs are unlocked by default (no extra cost) and it’s easier than ever to switch on the fly.
To throw in a third example, the original Guild Wars also made it easier and less costly to switch skill sets through its development.
I think these examples show a clear trend towards players preferring to do everything on one character - if not at once, then at least with a free and easy option to switch back and forth. You see the exact same trend in this game with how players use alts. The only major difference between an alt and a swappable skill set is you have to change names and do some minor extra micromanagement. In that case, swappable skill sets would be a great quality of life change without impacting the current economy or how the game is played.
I’d personally vote for two or three sets that you can switch between anytime you’re in the sanctum, with no cost, no cooldown, and no penalty.
I understand that some players worry it would negatively impact the economy or social aspect of the game to allow a character to do too much at once. In my long history of playing MMOs, I’ve never seen anything to suggest this would be the case. In fact, I’ve consistently been able to make money in several different games just by selling vendor items for more than I paid.
That tells me that there are enough different playstyles and priorities among players to create meaningful trade even if every character can do everything. Not everybody wants to do everything. People will happily pay to avoid the parts of the game they don’t find fun, and luckily, there are always players who do find that part fun and are happy to profit from it.
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To be clear, I’m suggesting a system similar to what WoW does with skill respecs
I’ve never played Wow so I don’t understand what they do. Could you elaborate on this? Also, what I got from the OP was more of negative reinforcement, for players to be pushing for having more characters, that’s how I read your post. I offered a solution in a positive reinforcement way of thinking, rewarding players for just having one character. If you are trying to explain something different I am sorry I didn’t understand.
My personal experience with having alts it’s only been positive, but I am not a “complishionist”. Having alts gave me lots of plots and the ability to excel at all aspects of the game with a click of a button. Of course before people didn’t have to since they could unlock every skill tree on one character.
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Yeah! So, in WoW, a single character can be viable at multiple roles (some combination of dps/heal/tank depending on your choice of class). However, each role requires deep specialization (aka skill tradeoffs). You can’t heal/tank/dps (well) all at the same time
What WoW offers, though, is the ability to unlock additional builds (for an up front cost), and from that point on, you can effectively switch builds with the click of a button. In the past, it also had steep costs each time you switched, but they slowly reduced and ultimately removed that
Very similar to how we’re leveraging alts in Boundless, except you’re not switching characters, only skills within the current character
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Oh I appreciate you for explaining. I was talking about it in a card I submitted on the Boundless Tallo, messing around with the skill trees and adding abilities like a traditional MMORPG. But have all combat roles in one skill tree and being able to switch by the tools you carry.
Healer: carries bombs
Dps : carries slingbow
Tanks: carries lances.
But having such specialisations as you mentioned, wouldn’t that go against being BOUNDLESS?
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We have similar specializations today (based on where people focus in their skills): builder (recipes + chisels), hunter (bows + lances + survivability), miner (hammer/shovel/etc). there’s no way one can max them all out at level 50 - so it’s pretty similar in my mind (and even more flexible!)
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I only want my alts to have the same name, I actually enjoy building up different characters to fulfill a roll and also that they look different from each other.
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Yes, that’s true, I was in the mindset of combat related roles but what you’re saying it’s true for career roles.
Ah, no! I’m actually suggesting lowering the cost compared to what we have today.
Think about it in terms of effort: Getting a character to some level takes quite a bit of time/effort on your part. Getting multiple characters to similar levels takes dramatically more time, and also favors players w/ lots of time, which may not be desirable.
Instead: allow players to save skill sets that they can switch between; the total number of skill points you’ve accrued on that character could be (fully or partially) used when setting up a new skill set.
So, it may cost more coin/items/resources/whatever to switch skills - but that costs waaaay less than your time in game (which nearly directly translates to coin/resources/whatever)
After reading through the whole topic I still stand by my point of not having any character will all skills unlocked. The matter of more or less skill points allotted on max level, or max level being higher can be discussed later. I’m all for having either generalists or specialists, but in the far off chance that we end up allowing characters that could unlock everything, I would accept it and keep playing.
Now moving back to the topic, I think we can address the particular concerns with some solutions imposed for the different situations.
- Have “family” names: Meaning one could choose to display or not said name to others, said I had an alt named Katana, he would be displayed to others as Katana [Dzchan94], or if I didn’t he would be displayed as Katana.
- Cleansing potions: Allowing for players prestiging over level 50 (current max level) to create potions with their cleanse points, in order to avoid players creating alts to create fast cleanse potions, cleanse points after level 50, will have an special connotation and will be the only usable cleanse points for those potions. Those potions could be sold or traded for people looking to respec their characters faster. This would give an incentive for players using the same character, not only for the extra plots and coins, but for the cleanse points. While also allowing players to switch builds on the go.
- Saved skill builds: One could choose between different skill builds, as long as they had the skill points to hot swap, instead of making the player note down specifics about each of their skill builds.
I think overall, the whole alt system opens up to a player having a character for each “class” they want and let everyone know they own the three characters or simply have three alter egos with people not knowing it belongs to someone.
Boundless currently allows for one to be very good at a lot of things and the most efficient at one or two. Or choose to be the most efficient at more than two things, but give or take in some other aspects of the game. I think leaving it open as it is, it’s a good approach and while consideration for more skill points could be made. I don’t think the alt system is wrong.
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I think multiple switchable builds would be cool too, but I do personally also like the idea of having multiple characters. As long as what we’re talking about is increasing choice and flexibility, I’m for it, I just didn’t like the sound of more restrictions. 
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Yeah, alts definitely have to be a thing! Plenty of people enjoy the act of leveling characters, or want alternate identities, roleplay, and plenty of other reasons.
I’m just objecting to alts as being a mechanism for switching skills
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I must confess, given the results of past discussions I’ve had on this forum expressing how I don’t believe it helps to limit available skill points but freely allowing alts to essentially bypass that limitation for anyone who wants to, I didn’t expect to see a thread going down these lines.
I believe that the primary focus of alts should be to give people the opportunity to play different characters, not to fulfill the shortcomings of other characters on an account (as they are frequently being used at present). Otherwise, every character made solely to fill a functional niche on an account feels like it’s diminishing the authenticity and immersion of alt characters for the people who want to use them for role play. As such, my personal preference is always going to be for more freedom within the scope of a single character. so that people who don’t really want to make alts don’t feel forced to. Everybody wins.
I think switchable skill specs are a good (and looking at the games industry at large, increasingly common) solution to this viewpoint. My personal preference is for the ability to pick up all the things on one character, but understanding that other people are very much opposed to that, this feels like a workable compromise.
From a practical standpoint, I’d suggest having 3 skill-sets to switch between. It provides a single character with the same freedom to experiment and develop that a single player currently has by making alts. Assuming that any given tree could also be reset (either incrementally, fully, or both), I feel like it offers all the flexibility a player needs while still giving the developers scope to build balanced combat around the idea that a character can only have a certain number of skill points at any given time.
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Oh, another though…
I also might be in favour of leveling up skill specs independently. For example: I have SpecA, and I level it to 34. I then decide I want to try something different, and so switch to SpecB. I would then earn and spend skill points in this tree, as if I were doing it from scratch. However, I retain the ability to go back to SpecA and play from where I left off.
My reasoning for this is because in too many games with this feature, you focus on a single spec and level it all the way, then at the end have other specs available to spend all of the points at once. In my experience, this leads to people not really understanding the skills an abilities they have. If you pick things up one or two at a time while levelling, you think more about what you might pick, and you get to really experiment with and test each skill point as you get them. Instead of trying to learn an entire build that you ‘hope’ will work as a whole.
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I agree.
Some people will be attracted to PVP, some will want to build, some will want to PVE, some will want to be traders/shop owners, and some will want to master all of those things.
However, some people like the idea of having a stay at home character that does all the grunt work while another goes out and does the fun stuff.
I don’t like the idea of limiting anyone’s play experience in a game like this. Switching specs is really not that much different than switching characters.
The advantage of having another character adds more RPG elements for people that enjoy that aspect of these games.
Also I played this game when we were rectangles, and I enjoyed it then as well…
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