Really though, a solo player can do everything, just not to a top level. Maybe you can’t get all 10 levels of each weapon/tool speciality, but then again, it is based as an RPG. These have always had specialisation in.
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I agree that this is one the things I would like the most right now! When the new features like decorative props, bombs, revive, and rage come into play then super specialised characters will be really useful.
I plan to have one character with all the crafting skills, leaving my main free to gather resources and explore, and another character specialised for hunting titans. Right now this is really difficult as I can’t transfer items between them so each character has to be able to craft all the items they use.
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If you mean that I can craft, build and hunt solo then yes I can do some of each of the roles. But, if I cannot have all the skills needed to craft what I want and I have to buy them from someone else, then by my definition I am not playing solo.
Yeah but you can start another character and level it up to make the items you couldn’t with your other account. So by definition you can solo everything. However, I realize that this is exactly what you DONT want. But think about other MMO’s like runescape. Technically you could solo craft everything, but it would take you forever to level up everything. I personally loved that. I want to depend on others while at the same time have the ability to solo it myself.
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I rather not depend on others and do everything myself. Even if that means that it takes more grinding to level up.
Which is exactly what many MMO’s offer and I feel boundless should as well. It only makes sense that it should take great time and effort to level up past a certain point, but it would be nice if it was possible.
I’m still firmly on the mind that no one character should be able to do absolutely everything - no matter how much time is invested. Given this …
… I can’t see anyone taking option 2 - why would they? Having option 1 then leads to the inevitable outcome of everyone being the same. Everyone being able to do all the same things … fighting, healing, crafting… the need to interact with (and yes, in some cases, to be reliant upon) others is diminished to a certain degree. This is after all, a community-centric game.
Imagine a case where a group of players in maxed out on most, if not all skills… they’re attacking a titan, and the player that prefers to play the part of a healer is killed - the tactical challenge of that fight is decreased because someone else just steps in and is able to do the exact same thing as the healer. The tank dies… another player just steps in because he’s able to do the same thing… every single one of the remaining players has the ability to revive the downed players… where’s the challenge and fun in that?!?
One of the many things I like with alts is that, yes you can inevitably do everything yourself using multiple characters, but you just can’t do it all at the same time. You have to make choices and those choices need to have repercussions, whether good or bad.
Another thing I like about alts, and was certainly the case during my time playing WoW, was the fact that no one knew me. I could escape the guild/friend chatter for a while and still enjoy playing the game - I could start in a completely different location, and form new friendships with people I may not have otherwise played with.
Whilst this sounds like a really fun and novel mechanic. I don’t agree that it should be that easy to just simply switch characters, especially not when you’re in combat. This comes back to the reason why there is a 10 second delay when returning to the sanctum… so that you can’t just really easily get out of any tight spot you might find yourself in. Your choices should matter. Errors in judgement should not be without penalty.
Yes, I think you should be able to try it … and maybe get part way (and maybe even gain a little reward for your effort), but personally, I don’t think a solo player should be able to completely down a titan single-handed. This to me would end up striking a very uneven balance between solo and team play - and again, a lot of the challenge would be lost for team play, because you had to accommodate the solo player, ultimately leaving the experience quite flat and unchallenging for a group.
There is already an uneven balance with mass-hunting parties and all players being able to gain the same amount of loot from one creature - something I am currently grateful for to help fuel my portals, but ultimately something I hope is balanced again later on… “100 players should not be able to gain 100 meat from a level 1 Wildstock”.
And sorry for such a long post! 
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@Stretchious, what you describe is what many people don’t want.
I am not going to maintain multiple characters and specialize all of them into different professions.
People don’t want to have the overhead of switching characters. (Going through sanctum, walking from where character was etc.etc.) And why deny people to be able to play solo ?
Forcing people to use multiple characters may result in people leaving this game !
As an avid MMO player I certainly have a personal opinion on this and the impact it has on communities.
Doing something like this will ultimately end up in the return of the grind mentality. People will come back to the forums and say they want access to what the hardcore player has with less effort. End game would end up being a problem where regular but not hardcore players would not be invited to groups because they don’t have all the skills.
Also this throws out the balancing on pretty much every area of the game when everyone is everything. So there is not need in skill, tactics or strategy and ends in a manic free for all, which is fun for 5 minutes but gets old fast.
A natural cap which is realistically achievable by all players will encourage more COOP gameplay for mid to end game content.
As SWProzee1 says, his gameplay ambitions should be achievable on private worlds.
Surely this can be resolved then by just sharing the name between all those characters no? You can unlock the skills but you cannot have them all unlocked at the same time because that throws out the balance and makes your character OP. In other MOBAs, 1st person and 3rd person, you select a character with a specific loadout or skill set for their play style, you don’t have all classes in one character.
This seems odd because it was a feature that was commonly requested and a lot of people returned to the game when we added this feature.
I do ^^
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So here are two groups, solo and RPG multi char user.
I think max out a single char should be possible but with a massive time consumption. For the people who are saying I could use multiple chars to Max out everything, why?
People in this forum saying it will destroy the RPG element of the game, I don’t get it why.
Those single players won’t destroy your group or your RPG playstile. you are not forced to make a single char to Max out everything, you still could use the chars which you have.
I mean why is it not possible to make both sides happy?
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I mentioned this in my last post.
Unfortunately, people will be expected to have all the skills because it simply makes them OP and if they don’t have all the skills on a single character they will miss out on end game content and groups because no one wants to play with them.
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I thought each character had to have a unique name. If you mean something like Kal-el, Kal-el builder, Kal-el farmer. I guess that is possible not what I would want to do, but it certainly is possible.
I do want to take the discussion a little farther. So I am friends with “bob” we are working on something together, so since we need to use alts to have the skills and plots for our project, “bob” will have to friend all my alts (3 slots) and each of his alts will need to friend each of my alts for us to use the cooperative aspects of the beacons. This seems very cumbersome and unnecessary to me.
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@luke-turbulenz i agree one hundred percent IMO filling a role is far more fun than being essentially a god and promotes longevity. Real choices with real benefits and consequences make for better game play in an rpg than the let me do it all mentality. Look at divinity original sin yes it may not be an mmo but it is a very good example of an rpg where you can choose any role and solve problems any way you see fit however you have to pick a defined role (whether it be an all rounder/ healer/ tank so on) and your choices in progression / specialisation hold real weight to them.
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I can make an argument that if groups want people with all the skills then they can find people with Alts that have all the skills. If that is a requirement to belong to a certain group, then it will exits either way so why create the limit on a single character?
At the moment no, but when we when integrate the steam friends system the following should happen:
If you are friends on Steam all your alts would be friends with his alts.
We should look at allowing players to use the same name for their alts or having an option to display their “account” name instead of a character name.
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In this instance you’d just have all your characters join a guild with all your friends characters and assign them to a group with whatever permissions you wanted them to have
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But hang on a moment there appears to be 2 completely different items being rolled into 1. Soloing the game and fully Max’ing a character clearly aren’t the same thing and they appear to be used interchangeably.
Let me propose some definitions so that we can attempt to all understand each other.
-
Solo player - someone who doesn’t want to depend on another player whilst playing. They can craft everything they need, kill everything, survive without assistance and experience everything the game has to offer.
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Max’ing all skills - someone who wants to be able to earn all skills. They not interested in customising or specialising the skills of their character. Their only target is all skills.
It seems to me that Solo play and Max’ing skills are not the same thing. So they shouldn’t be used interchangeably. (But clearly players can want both things.)
I hope we’ve been clear in the past that Solo play should be possible within Boundless. So the majority of this discussion should only be able Max’ing all skills.
We could even have a Hardcore Solo mode where the player would:
a. Not be able to trade with anyone.
b. Not be able to buy or sell anything.
c. Not be able to use any Warps or Portals they didn’t create.
d. Not be able to harvest drops from a creature they didn’t fully kill.
e. Not be able to be buffed or revived by another player.
f. Doesn’t get any footfall income.
g. Can’t join a Clan.
h. Their beacons can’t join Settlements.
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Since @SWProzee1 mentioned majority here doesn’t want the alt concept, I just wanted to voice out that I am in favor of alt and greatly disagrees on maxing out on one character.
We could not implement both as well since alts inherently produces inferior characters so everyone would just max out with one. Implementing alts may make you feel limited and imperfect but it brings out the richness of the game.
If we ended up allowing maxing on one character, I feel like we’ll eventually just be heading back to minecraft style of gameplay where everyone just messes around as they can just do anything. This also somehow makes progression non-sense. As an MMORPG, we usually want people to be more specialized as they level up but if we allow maxing out, they will eventually be all just the same.
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Can we maybe allow solo players like @SWProzee1 to max their skills, etc in a solo environment where they can be they godlike beings they want to be, and have them lock into a restricted skill set when they join a public world? So long as they are restricted to a standard talent set if/when they interact with other players, it doesn’t really harm the MMO RPG aspect of the game too severely. I’d even let them continue to gain xp to apply to their unrestricted skill tree in their private play while playing with public players.
In short- continue to grow your character for private solo play, but restrict players to balanced skill sets for public play.
Edit: don’t lump me into this alleged “majority” that does not want alts, I’m 100% in favor of alts.
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In addition to the comments above about ways to keep people engaged. I would say anything social, anything like a shop that by building something provides a point of interest which can be interacted with by other players.
I think farming would add another reason to bring players together. Wether it may be farm help or contracts to bring animals from other planets, add a complex taming system that you got to contract players with specialized builds or be locked under a perk. Anything that makes interactions with other players necessary as this is an MMO.
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