The switching cost of alts

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73

I agree with this (and the rest of your post) in principle, especially with regards to needing an ‘idea-freeze’ at some point in the same way that any development project needs a code-freeze to start prepping for a release, otherwise things slide. However, while it may put me at a disadvantage in knowing what’s going on (or not) with future development, I’m consciously deciding to stay away from the Trello board. Past experience tells me that these things end up flooded with largely conflicting ideas, which themselves have short enough descriptions that two different people understand one suggestion at least a little differently, and it just gets a bit muddy. I do hope that it pans out better than that though. Hell, I generally just watch what goes on here in the forums, and only post on things that feel strongly about.

I do appreciate the post though (and perhaps the reminder that my post was a little melodramatic :stuck_out_tongue: )

Does that mean that you’re also not in favour of full skill respecs then? That essentially allows for exactly the scenario you would prefer to avoid. And as an unrelated point of curiosity, were you dissappointed (I know that I was), when the idea of Professions slowly went away?

Perhaps this might be where you and I differ most in opinion, and why we can’t seem to find common ground then. If I could ONLY have one character who defined who I was in Boundless, I would be entirely happy with a limited skill set. But the fact that a single Player account can do everything with a little character switching (if they so desire) really dulls the impact I feel of making genuine choices. Subsequently I’d just rather play in exactly the same way on one character than across 3.

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74

You’re not really talking about role-playing the character you want, you’re talking about forcing other people to role-play characters whether they want to or not, and that’s not a view I can sympathize with. Being able to have multiple skill sets in no way prevents you from being TeapotTom the master builder, Bobcat the master tool crafter, or SlimJim the seasoned hunter. In fact, I’d argue that those identities become much stronger when they are not forced on everyone.

When I played EverQuest back in the 90s, I loved playing a merchant. I spent most of my time just buying and selling things at the unofficial EC bazaar, gradually growing my wealth and reputation. Eventually I had enough of a reputation that I started branching out with deliveries and money changing services. My character never got higher than level 14, yet I’d still run out into level 40 zones to deliver somebody platinum in exchange for their gold (people did this to reduce encumbrance). My level 14 monk was better known than hundreds of other monks in part because I just never got around to leveling up, even though nothing was stopping me.

If there had been a merchant class capped at level 15, yes it would have suited how I wanted to play the game, but it also would have taken away from what made me so unique. On the same note, force everybody to specialize, and TeapotTom the master builder ends up being something close to a dime-a-dozen cookie cutter spec. There are hundreds of TeapotToms. However, if everybody can swap between three skill sets, TeapotTom the master builder is extremely unique because he only builds when most people at least set up a second skill set.

Furthermore, the current alt-based system (which nobody is advocating changing) already runs the risk of the kind of identity dilution you’re afraid of. Instead of Toblorone with three full skill sets that can do everything, it’s Toblorone, TobyHunter, and TobyCrafter. You don’t say, “Hey, it’s Toblorone the master hunter!” Instead it’s, “Oh, Toby is on his hunter today.” Forcing people to make alts for different skill sets still isn’t going to guarantee unique identities like you seem to want, and swappable skill sets won’t prevent you from playing a unique specialist character (or several!).

So ultimately, I think role-playing is tangential to the issue of whether or not to support multiple skill sets. Players will find a way to play how they want regardless, and if they can’t then they’ll just play something else.

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75

Personally, one of the things I love about FFXIV is that one character can do everything. In WoW I had 8-10 different characters so I could have one of each class, and it was a huge annoyance. It was a pain for friends to keep track of which of the random alts on their list were mine, but worse was when I wanted to cut myself off for awhile. For the longest time, my Priest was my “solo” character that I didn’t tell friends about. It was the character I played when I just wanted some quiet time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. I often wanted to play Priest when playing with friends, and sometimes I wanted to play alone, but I didn’t want to be stuck on just my Priest.

If I could have simply leveled up Priest on my main, or played other classes on my Priest, I would have been free to play each as completely separate characters. I enjoy that same freedom in FFXIV now. Back in WoW, my Priest eventually got absorbed into the enigmatic hydra that made up “me”.

Right now Boundless is littered with hydras. It won’t lose anything if you let them play the same way with only one head.

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76

if cap skill is well balanced and no one can get all important class skills maxed out, you will have different TeapotToms. Using example of a hunter I play now, I might have maxed vitality and regen like everyone but beyond that there is not enough points to get all immunities and defence skills plus weapon masteries (when lances and bombs come in, people will have to chose which weapon they want to max out - at least I hope we wont get enough skill points to max all).

there are other differences like speed/power/swing speed etc where hunters already differ as they cant get it all

so, no - forcing to specialize doesn’t have to mean that within a class all characters are the same

As for alts as unique identities - lets forget about role playing (thats up to people and they desire and ability to do so). Uniqueness here is based on a simple fact that when you meet a hunter, you dont know if he is going to be a sling master or a lance master or maybe a bomb specialist. You dont know if he is sturdier but slower or faster but softer. Every time you meet an individual specializing in sth you will have to find out what his qualities are. And then you can meet a generalist who can do everything to a degree.

And to summarize - no system can make all players happy so lets let devs figure out what way to go (with our feedback help). At the moment going too far with this discussion might be futile as there are skills to be added and skill cap to be balanced - only then we will be able to test what kind of characters we can build within one alt and how it affects different styles of play.

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77

I’m on the side that doesn’t really like alts. I grow attached to my character and prefer games that restrict what you can do at once but offers the choice to change builds in a restricted area for balance (EVE Online and its ships which can be changed in stations, FFXI and changing jobs that can only be done in your home) over a game that forces you to have several different characters.

I think having a weekly skill reset or maybe an item that is difficult to craft which lets you reset your skills (or pick from a list of builds you saved) near your beacon would be a fair compromise for those who doesn’t want to play multiple characters.

It’s not stopping me from enjoying the game as is though.

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78

I think that everyone who doesn’t want alts should get their way. I also think everyone who wants an alt should get their way. I was thinking about making an alt for this thread so I could argue both points, but I decided I wanted to argue both points with the same name…

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79

This is correct in theory. In practice, players always figure out the most effective set of skills, then the community at large gravitates towards that set. For it to happen otherwise, balance between skills has to be very thorough, and that takes a lot of iterations and dev time. It is possible, just very difficult and time consuming. The end result is there will always be only a handful of variations.

However, solutions like multiple skill sets and/or weekly respecs do encourage players to experiment and find new combinations that work, or just try something weird for fun knowing they won’t be stuck with it when they want to go back. The more you force players to stick to only one skill set, the more they will gravitate towards a smaller set of accepted skills instead of experimenting on their own.

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80

But the point that seems to be inferred from that kind of specialisation and used as a reason against more flexible skill point assignment is that once a person has spent their points and you have learned what a person is good at, then you know that character. They have solidified a name for themselves by their choice of skill points as much as by who they are and how they play. But realistically I don’t think it’s going to work like that.

As an example, I’m sure I remember talk of the more difficult planets having significant harmful weather to the unprepared. I don’t know whether that’s still on the roadmap (or if it ever was), but it makes a good example scenario. I can imagine that a player might think it interesting to spend skill points to get great defences against a specific element, at the cost of being less well rounded and taking points out of other defences to do so. It’s really cool that they have the freedom to do that.

The hypothetical player has created FireproofPhil. They carve out a nice living where they are more easily able to collect resources to sell. But at some point they want a change and to explore other planets. Sadly, their lack of a well rounded defence is suddenly a big hindrance.

So what happens now? Maybe the player may want to keep that up. They might roll ‘MiddleOfTheRoadMel’ for exploring and only use FireproofPhil to go to planets where he shines. Chances are what will happen though is that they’ll use cleanse points and re-spend their points differently instead of rolling a new character and levelling the all the way up again. They will have instantly stopped having that uniqueness of build that they were known for. There are already systems in the game designed to make your current specialisation malleable.

I will concede that the ability to hot-swap entire specs would be a significantly faster process than using cleanse points. But if a full reset makes it into the game as has been suggested potentially ‘could’ in some form by @luke-turbulenz in this very thread, doesn’t the ability to have a unique character defining build stop being a valid argument against skill specs?

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81

I like the idea of allowing spaces in character names and adding the ability to change character names, I would totally add the ‘Family Name’ to my characters/alts if that was added. :slight_smile:

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82

I just want to add something here, overall, about the community here.

How many MMOs could have a thread like this, that remains civil, at this point?

I am so glad that we can disagree but still remain Boundless, together. As sappy as that may sound :slight_smile: :+1:

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83

I’d like to see alts used as unique characters in the way they are played, role-played. Recognize them for their actions, in their way, and not just exclusively by their skill-set.

All I’ve been trying to say, is that for me, personally, skill switching on my ‘main’, the character that I feel is me, would allow me to do just this. :man_shrugging:

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84

i can’t begin to tell you how much I love this reply! :slight_smile: :smiley: :+1: :sunglasses::joy::rofl:

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85

I was thinking this exact thing yesterday. I’m pleasantly surprised at the overall civility and quality of discussion, especially compared to most game communities. Thank you for being the one to say it out loud. :slight_smile:

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86

We’re all passionate about our ideas what we believe will make the game we all enjoy better, and there’s never any reason not to be civil about that :smiley:

I just want to inject a little background into the conversation, as to why we have alts in the first place…

Originally we only had one character to play with, but there were legitimate concerns from players that they wouldn’t be able to experience all the game had to offer (but mostly because there were people that just wanted to play solo). There were requests (and still are) for there to be no skill cap, so players could eventually earn enough skill points to be able to do everything with one character. Obvious reply to this (which is still the case afaik) is that “if everyone can do everything, it diminishes the diversity of characters that make up the Boundless world and eventually makes it… well… boring”.

As a compromise to this… Additional character slots were introduced… “Alts”.

This enabled those that wanted to experience everything in game, or to play solo, to do just that, without being singularly over-powered and without it completely compromising one of the main premises that the game was designed around… Community. At it’s core, Boundless always was (and still is) intended to be a community driven game.

I have absolutely no doubts that there would still be community interaction, even with everyone equally over-skilled (the Boundless community is awesome after all :wink:), but for me, in allowing a single character to swap between all the skills freely, it loses a piece of that overall vision I bought into. It takes that big step backwards to just allowing one character to unlock everything again… thus negating the need for alts in the first place.

You’re not forced to do anything. You still have a choice in the skills you choose to play. As I said previously, my 2nd characters skill set is pretty much the same as my first. I’m not being forced into a hunter build just because my 1st character isn’t one … I believe I can do just fine without it and still hunt just fine as a generalist.

The difference here is, you become TeapotTom the master builder, master tool crafter, seasoned hunter. So does everyone else. That’s a definite weakening of an identity to me.

Sorry, I know this is another long post, but in closing…

Yes… yes I was :expressionless:
which is another reason why I don’t want to see the idea of players specialising in a profession (or 2-3 depending on how the spend their skill points) diminished further.

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87

ok so a lot has been said on this, i read a lot but never came across this factor -

Skills used to be Refundable i personally would say to bring this ability back (where it costs 1 SP at level 2 to respec >>> and then gets exponentially expensive (accumulatively?) for those who only want one character and hate alting…

I also agree with the fact it can be very confusing to who is who… example… you friend someone and they are not on for days… (the character you freinded) but yet you see a green person on the compass, and KNOW that your friend is not online… you go up to that person and say hey, how are we freinds? I don’t even know you! and the reply you get is Sure you do man… its Bob… this is my alt/main etc

I only make alts when my main gets boring to play (it akes ages and ages leveling from 22 >>23 i would hate to see what 49 >>50 is like)

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88

Sorry to necro a post that has gone away from the topic I wanted to focus on, which is the actual “cost” of switching.
Perhaps this should go into the What turns you off playing Boundless? thread but anyway.

I don’t know how many times I’ve ported to sanctum to switch alts only to just run straight through the portal as soon as it loads. :joy:
I know many people agree with me.

So, since we have access to the character select button while in world, and the “play with this character” button is there… can we please press it from in the world and then meditate to go to the sanctum and then appear in the sanctum as the other character?
I would be eternally grateful.
I wouldn’t mind even waiting another couple seconds.

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89

I have run straight through the portal so many times :joy::joy:

Totally agree with you. It would be awesome to be able to do that.

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90

yup I do that all the time

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91

You peoples are funny and made me laugh. Glad I’m not the only one who does that. How can I forget why I went there in only 10 seconds?

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92

it’s the devals cabbage! always makes me forget what I’m doing! :anguished:

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