Definitely GW2. It has been mentioned a few times in the thread, and for good reason. Easily one of the best games for those who like to play all the classes a game has to offer. I currently have a max level of each class, and spend almost equal time on them all.
ESO, also mentioned, is another amazing choice. But the number of classes is more limited. But each play differently, and depending on how you build them, can even have alts of the same class that play completely differently.
As a person who loves alts also ( I had 19 of the original 24 classes in EQ2, and later a beastlord and channeler) I will say I do love FF14. Its not the same as an alt, but just as satisfying to me personally. I love having all the classes on one character, and no matter which one I play at the time, I always feel like not only am I contributing to groups, but im contributing to my own character as well. So no real "lost" time, as everything you do just goes to help yourself, and you never have to settle on a "main" class. Play them all equally, if you want.
You can collect the things needed for top tier gear on any character. All top tier gear is account bound, not character bound, even after you equip it. You can give your ascended armor to another character any time you like. All achievements and wardrobe unlocks are on an account basis. Currency is account based. Storage is account based. Mastery Unlocks (from the expansion) are account based. PvP and WvW ranks are account based (I know you're not into PvP, but still..). It's an account game, not a character game.
It is the MOST alt friendly game I can think of and I've played pretty much every MMO going.
The only time you really need to concentrate on one character is when you're going for 100% base game map completion to get an ingredient for making a legendary weapon.. but that is a loooong way into the game and by that time, if you're still playing, you'll be happy to do it. You don't ever need to get a legendary weapon though, if you don't want to bother.
Plus, the size of world and dynamic event design makes playing alts a lot more varied and interesting. Seriously, I can't think of a better game for you to try out if you haven't already. The core game is free now.
Guild Wars 2 was decently alt-friendly. I wouldn't describe it as the most alt-friendly game ever, though, as exotic and higher gear was quite a timesink that had to be repeated a lot of times for separate characters. Exotic was doable for alts if you hang around long enough, but legendary really wasn't.
I'm not sure how long ago you played it but now you can easily gear up with exotics for a minor amount of gold, which can be obtained on any of your characters and higher gear is account based. You can just transfer the ascended gear to another character, by mail or bank.
If you want all your characters to have their own personal set of ascended gear and legendary weapons, of course that's going to take a hell of a lot of time.. but it's not a requirement... but, you can play any character to get the materials and/or gold required to get gear for any of your other characters meaning you're never forced to keep playing one character. You can get a set of armor for your necromancer whilst playing your warrior, for example.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
You can collect the things needed for top tier gear on any character. All top tier gear is account bound, not character bound, even after you equip it. You can give your ascended armor to another character any time you like. All achievements and wardrobe unlocks are on an account basis. Currency is account based. Storage is account based. Mastery Unlocks (from the expansion) are account based. PvP and WvW ranks are account based (I know you're not into PvP, but still..). It's an account game, not a character game.
It is the MOST alt friendly game I can think of and I've played pretty much every MMO going.
The only time you really need to concentrate on one character is when you're going for 100% base game map completion to get an ingredient for making a legendary weapon.. but that is a loooong way into the game and by that time, if you're still playing, you'll be happy to do it. You don't ever need to get a legendary weapon though, if you don't want to bother.
Plus, the size of world and dynamic event design makes playing alts a lot more varied and interesting. Seriously, I can't think of a better game for you to try out if you haven't already. The core game is free now.
Guild Wars 2 was decently alt-friendly. I wouldn't describe it as the most alt-friendly game ever, though, as exotic and higher gear was quite a timesink that had to be repeated a lot of times for separate characters. Exotic was doable for alts if you hang around long enough, but legendary really wasn't.
I'm not sure how long ago you played it but now you can easily gear up with exotics for a minor amount of gold, which can be obtained on any of your characters and higher gear is account based. You can just transfer the ascended gear to another character, by mail or bank.
If you want all your characters to have their own personal set of ascended gear and legendary weapons, of course that's going to take a hell of a lot of time.. but it's not a requirement... but, you can play any character to get the materials and/or gold required to get gear for any of your other characters meaning you're never forced to keep playing one character. You can get a set of armor for your necromancer whilst playing your warrior, for example.
It's probably been a few years since I've played Guild Wars 2. I don't think there was ascended gear then. Exotic armors came primarily from running a particular dungeon in the harder mode 20 times or so to get enough tokens for a set. Accessories were crafted and cheap, as I recall, and I don't remember where the best weapons came from other than that legendaries were ridiculously expensive.
Gear could be passed through the bank, but different classes often needed different gear. Three armor sets is obviously more than one, but still a lot fewer than eight. Of course, what matters is not just how many different armor sets you need, but how hard they are to get. In Guild Wars 1, it was pretty trivial to get perfect gear. In Champions Online, which I cited above, it was on the order of a couple of hours or so to get your endgame gear.
I'm not arguing that Guild Wars 2 is unfriendly to alts. It's like calling it an 8/10 or 9/10 in alt-friendliness on a scale where 5/10 is average. Actually, it's like the rest of the game: pretty good but not great. You could do worse than to make a game that is pretty good but not great, and most games will do worse.
As the title has stated, I'm looking for a MMORPG that is very alt friendly but not main centric. [...] I very much enjoy playing various classes/specs and yet I don't want to feel like my time spent doing so is a major detriment to those I play with simply because I don't "main" a specific class/spec.
It doesn't matter how many classes a game has, or character slots it offers, in the theme of alt-friendly nothing comes even close to CO. Trust me, I'm an avid altoholic with... cough... let's just say over 30 (less embarrassing this way ) characters in LotRO and only about 10 in CO because CO never really was my main game, except the year after launch. Still, if you want what I've quoted from you above, CO is the way.
And it isn't because many players have over 100 alts there, nor because it has no classes and you can FreeForm your characters around any idea you just have (both by look and by skills). It is because the whole game is built around supporting alts. Every cosmetic, or pet, or power you can unlock or purchase is account-wide so all the alts can use it. Houses, gear, vehicles are account bound and can move around them (and there is even "leveling gear" with adaptive stats, which you give the new alt, level to the cap in the gear while its stats increasing, then give it to the next alt). Even the communication, as in friend list, mail, chat, etc. is account-based, so doesn't matter which alt you play currently, you can keep connecting with the buddies. Sure, if you are the type of "hiding behind alts" for some privacy, well, not in CO
Not to mention, every time you get to the cap with a character, you get a new character slot for the next hero. Which reminds me, these all applies only if you are sub. F2p characters have only a couple "pre-built" Archetypes to choose from (pretty much like classes), and they have limited character slots. But for subscribers it's like an endless warehouse of new character ideas to create and level. Plus you can level through Alerts pretty quickly, so if you have a new build idea, sometimes easier to create a new hero for it, than retrain an existing one.
As the title has stated, I'm looking for a MMORPG that is very alt friendly but not main centric. [...] I very much enjoy playing various classes/specs and yet I don't want to feel like my time spent doing so is a major detriment to those I play with simply because I don't "main" a specific class/spec.
It doesn't matter how many classes a game has, or character slots it offers, in the theme of alt-friendly nothing comes even close to CO. Trust me, I'm an avid altoholic with... cough... let's just say over 30 (less embarrassing this way ) characters in LotRO and only about 10 in CO because CO never really was my main game, except the year after launch. Still, if you want what I've quoted from you above, CO is the way.
And it isn't because many players have over 100 alts there, nor because it has no classes and you can FreeForm your characters around any idea you just have (both by look and by skills). It is because the whole game is built around supporting alts. Every cosmetic, or pet, or power you can unlock or purchase is account-wide so all the alts can use it. Houses, gear, vehicles are account bound and can move around them (and there is even "leveling gear" with adaptive stats, which you give the new alt, level to the cap in the gear while its stats increasing, then give it to the next alt). Even the communication, as in friend list, mail, chat, etc. is account-based, so doesn't matter which alt you play currently, you can keep connecting with the buddies. Sure, if you are the type of "hiding behind alts" for some privacy, well, not in CO
Not to mention, every time you get to the cap with a character, you get a new character slot for the next hero. Which reminds me, those are all applies only if you are sub. F2p characters have only a couple "pre-built" Archetypes to choose from (pretty much like classes), and they have limited character slots. But for subscribers it's like an endless warehouse of new character ideas to create and level. Plus you can level through Alerts pretty quickly, so if you have a new build idea, sometimes easier to create a new hero for it, than retrain an existing one.
I went into more detail on Tree of Savior primarily because it seems to be less well-known.
In Champions Online, you come up with some build, and the content is perhaps best thought of as something to test out your latest build on. If you go freeform (and you should, as the archetypes are basically a trial version of the game), there aren't fixed classes. Champions Online's nearest equivalent to classes in other games is your combination of super stats. There are power sets, but they don't really mean very much beyond a way to organize the skill menu, as you can grab skills from a bunch of different power sets. It is technically true that you can get higher tier skills sooner if you take your first several skills from the same power set, but you can end up taking top tier skills from several different power sets if you want to, anyway.
If you go freeform (and you should, as the archetypes are basically a trial version of the game), [...]
In some cases they are more, I think Unleashed was a pretty popular FreeForm build and around when TOR launched Cryptic added it as an AT for free players, because... knight/sith warrior (force powers, light-coloured swords, etc.) And it was quite an uproar, for 'why give such a strong build to freebies'.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
The resetting challenge logs, events, dungeons and other various avenues that have bonus xp make it a lot easier than you'd think. Yes, quests will get taken up over time but they would be "retreads" when playing an alt anyways.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
The resetting challenge logs, events, dungeons and other various avenues that have bonus xp make it a lot easier than you'd think. Yes, quests will get taken up over time but they would be "retreads" when playing an alt anyways.
Having an alt do a quest once that a previous class did is a whole lot less repetitive than having a every single class have to repeat a much smaller set of content several times each. If the grinding is painful by the time your level is in the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so as you get higher level.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
The resetting challenge logs, events, dungeons and other various avenues that have bonus xp make it a lot easier than you'd think. Yes, quests will get taken up over time but they would be "retreads" when playing an alt anyways.
Having an alt do a quest once that a previous class did is a whole lot less repetitive than having a every single class have to repeat a much smaller set of content several times each. If the grinding is painful by the time your level is in the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so as you get higher level.
How many classes and to what extent did you level them in FFXIV? Just wondering if this is hypothetical or from personal experience. Plus, we don't know what the OP would prefer. I'd much rather choose from a list of activities than do the same quests over, but that's just me.
That said, making three alts to do each of the cities would be a good thing as well. Theoretically the required "grinding" would be cut by 1/3.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
The resetting challenge logs, events, dungeons and other various avenues that have bonus xp make it a lot easier than you'd think. Yes, quests will get taken up over time but they would be "retreads" when playing an alt anyways.
Having an alt do a quest once that a previous class did is a whole lot less repetitive than having a every single class have to repeat a much smaller set of content several times each. If the grinding is painful by the time your level is in the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so as you get higher level.
How many classes and to what extent did you level them in FFXIV? Just wondering if this is hypothetical or from personal experience. Plus, we don't know what the OP would prefer. I'd much rather choose from a list of activities than do the same quests over, but that's just me.
That said, making three alts to do each of the cities would be a good thing as well. Theoretically the required "grinding" would be cut by 1/3.
Either way FFXIV is a decent option.
I played all of the classes in FFXIV, and got them all into the 20-25 level range. I think I got all of the crafting and likely gathering classes all the way to 25. I quit before I got all of the combat classes there.
By that level range, there really weren't very many things to do to level if you had already done all of the quests. Leveling the first class through that range was fine. But then it's go grind a few stupid things for a while until you're sick of them all. Then switch classes and go grind the same few stupid things for a while, even though you're already sick of them before you started on that class. Then switch classes again and do it all over again. That gets old, fast.
The point of quests is to have you move around and do a lot of different things, rather than grinding something stupid until you're sick of it. If you try to move around and do a bunch of things once like you would for quests, but without the quests, then that maybe gets you from level 20 to 22, not all the way to 25.
I liked FFXIV's crafting, and had it really been co-equal to combat, I might well have stuck with the game longer in spite of the mediocre combat. FFXIV has the best crafting I've seen in an AAA or theme park MMORPG, and that's no small thing. But crafting classes leveled so fast and combat classes so slow. The game did a lot of things right, but most of my game time was being spent on the one thing it did so glaringly wrong.
Games tend to get grindier as you get higher level. As I said above, if the grinding was already painful by the time my levels were in the early 20s, I didn't expect that to clear up at higher levels. I expected it to get worse, and that's why I quit.
I would at least consider FFXIV unless by alts you mean having a completely distinct identity (role play, for instance). The class system is essentially like having one alt for every class and craft.
FFXIV really isn't all that alt-friendly. The problem is that your first combat class uses up the quests, and then the rest don't have a good way to level. You end up with a ton of stupid grinding to catch up with any alt classes.
That's precisely the reason and maybe the biggest reason to have Alts in FF14. You can MSQ 8 characters to cap. Black Desert Online has a family (alts) Fame system and pushes you to make multiple characters. 6 base, 13 total. I have most of mine full, leaving 2 open for flexibility. Most are locked at level 49 and focus on Life Skills and farming. It also reduces gear demands and allows me to actually play all the characters. For crafting reasons, LotRO was mentioned. I was always character slot capped in LotRO for various gathering and crafting reasons.
For crafting reasons, LotRO was mentioned. I was always character slot capped in LotRO for various gathering and crafting reasons.
That's odd, with some stretches you can cover all the crafting on 5 characters (which was the starter character slot amount), or 7 if you like the convenience and don't want any overlaps, rather put a character in every crafting guild. And 7 slot was the norm after the Moria expansion with its 2 additional character slots.
Unless... you play as your name states Free players have limited slots, true. But even then, 1 month of a sub, and you are permanently Premium, with 5 character slots which is enough for the crafting.
Go back to one of the Classics, recently reopened DAOC freeshard will give you dozens of different classes to explore.
As much as I have fond memories of DAOC from what I recall from that game it's very much a PvP centric game which is one of the things I'm not looking for in my current MMORPG experience.
Have things changed to where it's a more PvE centric gaming experience? And if not why do you suggest I should check it out?
I know that DAOC is a VERY solid game but I'm looking for a different AAA MMORPG experience. Perhaps what I'm want doesn't exist and I'm willing to accept that but I definitely appreciate any/all input.
Especially when we are looking for modern AAA MMORPGs. Those of us who grew up in the era of EQ1/AC1/WoW(pre xpac)/etc. are seriously left wanting in today's environment.
As you said, modern day MMOs are left wanting, so go back to the Classics as they were
DAOC is RVR centric and its restricted to specific zones and you can largely (but not totally) avoid it, at least not in the freeshard.
You choose when to participate and the only time you will be forced into it is some epic quests and to do certain upper level crafting
Also if you really want to totally avoid it while having access to all 3 realms sign on the official version. Costs $15 a month and has as many years of content updates so plays very different.
But it does have a "co-operative" server with no RVR. One forum member here who I introduced to the freeshard decided to make the switch because it appealed more to his playstyle
If you want to play a game where alts experience very different playstyle then DAOC is for you.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It may be a touch of irony here, but have you tried FFXIV? It is "main-centric" as you say you do not want, since you only get one character. But in terms of swapping out and being anything in the game at any time, it's very easy. You just re equip a different weapon and you become a new class.
NOTE: The argument about the Main Quest has been addressed to a large degree through XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest, new leveling instances (POTD), Dungeon Roulettes, Hunting Logs, Hunt Marks, FATES, Leves and now there is cross realm grouping.,
XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest
I want more details here, as whether that's any good to people who play alts depends on the details. A 300% bonus can make up a for a lot, but a bonus capped at 10% basically constitutes a rounding error as compared to the ridiculous alt grind that FFXIV had when I quit.
I've seen games with bonuses based on the difference between a character and your highest level character, or bonuses for how many max level characters you have, which is pretty much useless to people who split time between many alts and therefore have no high level characters. That assumes you have a high-level main in order to get much benefit, and is more about trying to convince people who don't play alts that the game is alt-friendly than actually being alt-friendly.
Wakfu made the bonus based on how many characters you had that were higher level than your current one, which makes a much bigger difference. That's the only game I've seen go that route.
XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest
I want more details here, as whether that's any good to people who play alts depends on the details. A 300% bonus can make up a for a lot, but a bonus capped at 10% basically constitutes a rounding error as compared to the ridiculous alt grind that FFXIV had when I quit.
I've seen games with bonuses based on the difference between a character and your highest level character, or bonuses for how many max level characters you have, which is pretty much useless to people who split time between many alts and therefore have no high level characters. That assumes you have a high-level main in order to get much benefit, and is more about trying to convince people who don't play alts that the game is alt-friendly than actually being alt-friendly.
Wakfu made the bonus based on how many characters you had that were higher level than your current one, which makes a much bigger difference. That's the only game I've seen go that route.
u get 50% exp bonus to lower classes so lets say u have a BLM 35 , and Archer 15 , the archer gets 50% exp boost , now u level archer to 40, after 36 u get no exp bonus since now thats the highest class...now that the archer is 40 the blm 35 gets 50% bonus ...so only 1 class the highest doesnt get the 50% exp bonus
thats why u level a main with MSQ and quests , and after that level other classes a bit for cross class skills...
Anyway u get DR low lvl dungeon every day thats 1-2 free levels , other DR, u have Potd , fate spam , u can even do levequests (repeatable quests ) that award quite some xp ....isnt perfect by any means but at least u have ways to level , just doing the low lvl duty roullette every day is more than enough to keep gaining some levels... i wont waste DR low lvl on my main , just use it on alts , main has enough quests and MSQ to level.
i would love to repeat the MSQ on every alt but oh well....
I simply do not understand ..WHY would you want to play a game with alts and have to switch between characters all the time,login logout,login logout?
IMO you should expand your gaming and stop limiting yourself to Blizzard only design ideas because you are selling yourself short...VERY short.
I can tell you one quick reason,your identity within the game,are you trying to HIDE behind alts?Spreading your skills/abilities to alts makes all of your progress worthless because none of your characters will ever be as advanced and versatile as a non alt game.So again why would you want a LESS versatile game?It is as bad as those games that limit your ability boxes,like saying ok we know you leaned Fire and Blizzard but you can only choose one ,then we PRETEND you somehow forgot that other spell...sigh,not making sense at all.
I can assume one reason but again,i was not making stuff up,there is NO reason for alts.If you want to multi box,you do NOT need an alt game to do that.Other than thatmi can think of no reason,if you simply want a different player,again,yo udo NOT need an alt game for that,simply make another player.
After all i have said and done,EQ2 is the game Blizzard copied,likely having played on test servers before it came out.Well they copied EQ1 template but i am certain knew of SOE's direction towards linear questing ..aka Asian grinder type design.I have always idealized EQ2 as a MUCH better version that Wow and for many reasons,well pretty much every design idea is better in EQ2.I had a choice between EQ2 and Wow and easily decided on EQ2 because i am not a bandwagon jumper,i simply look for the best version of each genre.
Oh boy. Ok first of all, EQ 2 released on Nov 9th, 2004 (reference ) WoW released Nov 23rd 2005 (reference ) I get Wikipedia is sketchy at best, but you aren't one of my professors and it works for the conversation I am about to shoot at you. So are you trying to say that Blizzard copied all of EQ 2's design ideas in a couple weeks and then launched a game? Not even close to possible. SO that point is moot at best, laughable in reality.
The argument can be made that Blizz did use elements of what worked in EQ1 for their design of WoW, especially since they said they did back before release. Something to the effect: We took what was working in games that were popular at the time, and used that. I am paraphrasing but it was said by a Blizz rep. Google it yourself. So I give you half a point there because you accidently made a decent point, albeit not a derogatory one as the attitude of your post suggest it should be.
As far as alts are concerned, while there are classes in WoW that can perform healing, tanking and Dps with just a quick switch, it is much better (this is my opinion here) to level a toon that is designed for the specific function you wish to perform with a raid group (or dungeon group, or PvP group). I say this as it is a long grind to max out your artifact weapon and using the quests that give you heaps of artifact power lesson the impact of that. Also, I find it much easier to change my mindset when switching between entire classes as opposed to playing a different spec within the same class.
So, to counter your statement that there is no point to having alts, there are several points to having alts and they can be just as powerful as mains and in most cases get power far quicker than leveling a different spec artifact weapon. I will let you off the hook there as you do not seem to realize that there is an artifact weapon for each spec, not just for each toon. So each toon has three artifact weapons to level. It is a process. I will not let the fact that you arguing with no real knowledge of the subject or the minutia of the systems in place currently. Shame on you for that.
Now let's talk crafting. You can only have one main crafting skill and one main gathering skill. You can take two crafting skills but then you rely on the market (with a few exceptions) to supply the raw materials you need. So it is far more beneficial to have a gather and a crafting skill. Enchanting and Tailoring can both be done without a gathering skill as the raw mats for those rely on drops from around the game world. However, in order to have all the supplies you need to raid it is beneficial to have a few alts that can supply you with the things you need.
So there are two really good discussion points as to why a person would want alts, and how WoW works (currently) with regards to artifact weapons. In future, you would make a much better argument if you actually understand the systems you are trying to discuss and the time frames of games release in order to make a valid comparison.
I have played both games (although it has been about a year since I last logged into EQ 2, and with the exception of them both being high fantasy and utilizing questing hubs, I find very little in common in either game. Again, my information on EQ2 is dated I admit maybe it has changed a lot in the last year but I really doubt it.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest
I want more details here, as whether that's any good to people who play alts depends on the details. A 300% bonus can make up a for a lot, but a bonus capped at 10% basically constitutes a rounding error as compared to the ridiculous alt grind that FFXIV had when I quit.
I've seen games with bonuses based on the difference between a character and your highest level character, or bonuses for how many max level characters you have, which is pretty much useless to people who split time between many alts and therefore have no high level characters. That assumes you have a high-level main in order to get much benefit, and is more about trying to convince people who don't play alts that the game is alt-friendly than actually being alt-friendly.
Wakfu made the bonus based on how many characters you had that were higher level than your current one, which makes a much bigger difference. That's the only game I've seen go that route.
u get 50% exp bonus to lower classes so lets say u have a BLM 35 , and Archer 15 , the archer gets 50% exp boost , now u level archer to 40, after 36 u get no exp bonus since now thats the highest class...now that the archer is 40 the blm 35 gets 50% bonus ...so only 1 class the highest doesnt get the 50% exp bonus
thats why u level a main with MSQ and quests , and after that level other classes a bit for cross class skills...
Anyway u get DR low lvl dungeon every day thats 1-2 free levels , other DR, u have Potd , fate spam , u can even do levequests (repeatable quests ) that award quite some xp ....isnt perfect by any means but at least u have ways to level , just doing the low lvl duty roullette every day is more than enough to keep gaining some levels... i wont waste DR low lvl on my main , just use it on alts , main has enough quests and MSQ to level.
i would love to repeat the MSQ on every alt but oh well....
Read the thread title: "Not Main Centric". If you have to put a ton of time into a main before you can play alts effectively, then the game isn't alt-friendly by definition, and certainly doesn't belong in this thread.
The basic principle is that leveling shouldn't outlast the content. If you play through all of the content available, you should have done enough to level into the range where there is more content available. Whatever other flaws they have, most notable theme parks since WoW have done that pretty well, at least if you exclude the endgame. FFXIV might be fine on that count if you play a main only, but it fails pretty badly for alts by the early 20s. If leveling alts is rather grindy by the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so once you get into the 30s and 40s.
Oh boy. Ok first of all, EQ 2 released on Nov 9th, 2004 (reference ) WoW released Nov 23rd 2005 (reference ) I get Wikipedia is sketchy at best, but you aren't one of my professors and it works for the conversation I am about to shoot at you. So are you trying to say that Blizzard copied all of EQ 2's design ideas in a couple weeks and then launched a game? Not even close to possible. SO that point is moot at best, laughable in reality.
Your link doesn't work, and even if you insert a colon to fix the link, you're still off by a year.
Oh boy. Ok first of all, EQ 2 released on Nov 9th, 2004 (reference ) WoW released Nov 23rd 2005 (reference ) I get Wikipedia is sketchy at best, but you aren't one of my professors and it works for the conversation I am about to shoot at you. So are you trying to say that Blizzard copied all of EQ 2's design ideas in a couple weeks and then launched a game? Not even close to possible. SO that point is moot at best, laughable in reality.
Your link doesn't work, and even if you insert a colon to fix the link, you're still off by a year.
Nov 22, 2002 Asheron's Call 2 launched with features found later in EQ2 and WOW and likely was the inspiration for both and explains their similarities at launch in Nov 2004.
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XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest
I want more details here, as whether that's any good to people who play alts depends on the details. A 300% bonus can make up a for a lot, but a bonus capped at 10% basically constitutes a rounding error as compared to the ridiculous alt grind that FFXIV had when I quit.
I've seen games with bonuses based on the difference between a character and your highest level character, or bonuses for how many max level characters you have, which is pretty much useless to people who split time between many alts and therefore have no high level characters. That assumes you have a high-level main in order to get much benefit, and is more about trying to convince people who don't play alts that the game is alt-friendly than actually being alt-friendly.
Wakfu made the bonus based on how many characters you had that were higher level than your current one, which makes a much bigger difference. That's the only game I've seen go that route.
u get 50% exp bonus to lower classes so lets say u have a BLM 35 , and Archer 15 , the archer gets 50% exp boost , now u level archer to 40, after 36 u get no exp bonus since now thats the highest class...now that the archer is 40 the blm 35 gets 50% bonus ...so only 1 class the highest doesnt get the 50% exp bonus
thats why u level a main with MSQ and quests , and after that level other classes a bit for cross class skills...
Anyway u get DR low lvl dungeon every day thats 1-2 free levels , other DR, u have Potd , fate spam , u can even do levequests (repeatable quests ) that award quite some xp ....isnt perfect by any means but at least u have ways to level , just doing the low lvl duty roullette every day is more than enough to keep gaining some levels... i wont waste DR low lvl on my main , just use it on alts , main has enough quests and MSQ to level.
i would love to repeat the MSQ on every alt but oh well....
Read the thread title: "Not Main Centric". If you have to put a ton of time into a main before you can play alts effectively, then the game isn't alt-friendly by definition, and certainly doesn't belong in this thread.
The basic principle is that leveling shouldn't outlast the content. If you play through all of the content available, you should have done enough to level into the range where there is more content available. Whatever other flaws they have, most notable theme parks since WoW have done that pretty well, at least if you exclude the endgame. FFXIV might be fine on that count if you play a main only, but it fails pretty badly for alts by the early 20s. If leveling alts is rather grindy by the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so once you get into the 30s and 40s.
Not really, you can swap out at any time and pick up the MSQ on any class once it's of the appropriate level. I was leveling 3 jobs at the same time, It wasn't that hard to do TBH between I couldn't figure out which I liked the most so I did all 3 before settling on one by that time they were all in their 40s at least.
It's not nearly the grind it used to be to level an alt class.
To a certain point, once you hit 56, it isn't alt friendly anymore. Up to 56 it is great for alts. However you're going to hit a wall with gear, while armor/accessories can be used for all classes, not all weapons can and at 56 you add another weapon to the mix. That said, I do recommend upgrading armor first, if you put all your money into a weapon then you have nothing if you don't like the class or completely hate the awakening.
The game isn't feasible to play past soft cap on more than one character unless you have a lot of time. Though that cap is being raised to 59 I believe, however gear is still a huge limiter.
Good to know.
My Tamer is only level 50 so I have not gotten there yet.
Comments
ESO, also mentioned, is another amazing choice. But the number of classes is more limited. But each play differently, and depending on how you build them, can even have alts of the same class that play completely differently.
As a person who loves alts also ( I had 19 of the original 24 classes in EQ2, and later a beastlord and channeler) I will say I do love FF14. Its not the same as an alt, but just as satisfying to me personally. I love having all the classes on one character, and no matter which one I play at the time, I always feel like not only am I contributing to groups, but im contributing to my own character as well. So no real "lost" time, as everything you do just goes to help yourself, and you never have to settle on a "main" class. Play them all equally, if you want.
If you want all your characters to have their own personal set of ascended gear and legendary weapons, of course that's going to take a hell of a lot of time.. but it's not a requirement... but, you can play any character to get the materials and/or gold required to get gear for any of your other characters meaning you're never forced to keep playing one character. You can get a set of armor for your necromancer whilst playing your warrior, for example.
Gear could be passed through the bank, but different classes often needed different gear. Three armor sets is obviously more than one, but still a lot fewer than eight. Of course, what matters is not just how many different armor sets you need, but how hard they are to get. In Guild Wars 1, it was pretty trivial to get perfect gear. In Champions Online, which I cited above, it was on the order of a couple of hours or so to get your endgame gear.
I'm not arguing that Guild Wars 2 is unfriendly to alts. It's like calling it an 8/10 or 9/10 in alt-friendliness on a scale where 5/10 is average. Actually, it's like the rest of the game: pretty good but not great. You could do worse than to make a game that is pretty good but not great, and most games will do worse.
It doesn't matter how many classes a game has, or character slots it offers, in the theme of alt-friendly nothing comes even close to CO. Trust me, I'm an avid altoholic with... cough... let's just say over 30 (less embarrassing this way
And it isn't because many players have over 100 alts there, nor because it has no classes and you can FreeForm your characters around any idea you just have (both by look and by skills). It is because the whole game is built around supporting alts. Every cosmetic, or pet, or power you can unlock or purchase is account-wide so all the alts can use it. Houses, gear, vehicles are account bound and can move around them (and there is even "leveling gear" with adaptive stats, which you give the new alt, level to the cap in the gear while its stats increasing, then give it to the next alt).
Even the communication, as in friend list, mail, chat, etc. is account-based, so doesn't matter which alt you play currently, you can keep connecting with the buddies. Sure, if you are the type of "hiding behind alts" for some privacy, well, not in CO
Not to mention, every time you get to the cap with a character, you get a new character slot for the next hero. Which reminds me, these all applies only if you are sub. F2p characters have only a couple "pre-built" Archetypes to choose from (pretty much like classes), and they have limited character slots. But for subscribers it's like an endless warehouse of new character ideas to create and level. Plus you can level through Alerts pretty quickly, so if you have a new build idea, sometimes easier to create a new hero for it, than retrain an existing one.
In Champions Online, you come up with some build, and the content is perhaps best thought of as something to test out your latest build on. If you go freeform (and you should, as the archetypes are basically a trial version of the game), there aren't fixed classes. Champions Online's nearest equivalent to classes in other games is your combination of super stats. There are power sets, but they don't really mean very much beyond a way to organize the skill menu, as you can grab skills from a bunch of different power sets. It is technically true that you can get higher tier skills sooner if you take your first several skills from the same power set, but you can end up taking top tier skills from several different power sets if you want to, anyway.
edit: not "around when", exactly on the same day... must be a coincidence, right? :awesome:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/champions-online-launches-whiteout-issue-5-above-and-beyond
(actually a day before, the article was a bit late)
That said, making three alts to do each of the cities would be a good thing as well. Theoretically the required "grinding" would be cut by 1/3.
Either way FFXIV is a decent option.
By that level range, there really weren't very many things to do to level if you had already done all of the quests. Leveling the first class through that range was fine. But then it's go grind a few stupid things for a while until you're sick of them all. Then switch classes and go grind the same few stupid things for a while, even though you're already sick of them before you started on that class. Then switch classes again and do it all over again. That gets old, fast.
The point of quests is to have you move around and do a lot of different things, rather than grinding something stupid until you're sick of it. If you try to move around and do a bunch of things once like you would for quests, but without the quests, then that maybe gets you from level 20 to 22, not all the way to 25.
I liked FFXIV's crafting, and had it really been co-equal to combat, I might well have stuck with the game longer in spite of the mediocre combat. FFXIV has the best crafting I've seen in an AAA or theme park MMORPG, and that's no small thing. But crafting classes leveled so fast and combat classes so slow. The game did a lot of things right, but most of my game time was being spent on the one thing it did so glaringly wrong.
Games tend to get grindier as you get higher level. As I said above, if the grinding was already painful by the time my levels were in the early 20s, I didn't expect that to clear up at higher levels. I expected it to get worse, and that's why I quit.
Black Desert Online has a family (alts) Fame system and pushes you to make multiple characters. 6 base, 13 total. I have most of mine full, leaving 2 open for flexibility. Most are locked at level 49 and focus on Life Skills and farming. It also reduces gear demands and allows me to actually play all the characters.
For crafting reasons, LotRO was mentioned. I was always character slot capped in LotRO for various gathering and crafting reasons.
Unless... you play as your name states
DAOC is RVR centric and its restricted to specific zones and you can largely (but not totally) avoid it, at least not in the freeshard.
You choose when to participate and the only time you will be forced into it is some epic quests and to do certain upper level crafting
Also if you really want to totally avoid it while having access to all 3 realms sign on the official version. Costs $15 a month and has as many years of content updates so plays very different.
But it does have a "co-operative" server with no RVR. One forum member here who I introduced to the freeshard decided to make the switch because it appealed more to his playstyle
If you want to play a game where alts experience very different playstyle then DAOC is for you.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
NOTE: The argument about the Main Quest has been addressed to a large degree through XP bonuses that apply to jobs at lower levels than your highest, new leveling instances (POTD), Dungeon Roulettes, Hunting Logs, Hunt Marks, FATES, Leves and now there is cross realm grouping.,
I've seen games with bonuses based on the difference between a character and your highest level character, or bonuses for how many max level characters you have, which is pretty much useless to people who split time between many alts and therefore have no high level characters. That assumes you have a high-level main in order to get much benefit, and is more about trying to convince people who don't play alts that the game is alt-friendly than actually being alt-friendly.
Wakfu made the bonus based on how many characters you had that were higher level than your current one, which makes a much bigger difference. That's the only game I've seen go that route.
thats why u level a main with MSQ and quests , and after that level other classes a bit for cross class skills...
Anyway u get DR low lvl dungeon every day thats 1-2 free levels , other DR, u have Potd , fate spam , u can even do levequests (repeatable quests ) that award quite some xp ....isnt perfect by any means but at least u have ways to level , just doing the low lvl duty roullette every day is more than enough to keep gaining some levels... i wont waste DR low lvl on my main , just use it on alts , main has enough quests and MSQ to level.
i would love to repeat the MSQ on every alt but oh well....
The argument can be made that Blizz did use elements of what worked in EQ1 for their design of WoW, especially since they said they did back before release. Something to the effect: We took what was working in games that were popular at the time, and used that. I am paraphrasing but it was said by a Blizz rep. Google it yourself. So I give you half a point there because you accidently made a decent point, albeit not a derogatory one as the attitude of your post suggest it should be.
As far as alts are concerned, while there are classes in WoW that can perform healing, tanking and Dps with just a quick switch, it is much better (this is my opinion here) to level a toon that is designed for the specific function you wish to perform with a raid group (or dungeon group, or PvP group). I say this as it is a long grind to max out your artifact weapon and using the quests that give you heaps of artifact power lesson the impact of that. Also, I find it much easier to change my mindset when switching between entire classes as opposed to playing a different spec within the same class.
So, to counter your statement that there is no point to having alts, there are several points to having alts and they can be just as powerful as mains and in most cases get power far quicker than leveling a different spec artifact weapon. I will let you off the hook there as you do not seem to realize that there is an artifact weapon for each spec, not just for each toon. So each toon has three artifact weapons to level. It is a process. I will not let the fact that you arguing with no real knowledge of the subject or the minutia of the systems in place currently. Shame on you for that.
Now let's talk crafting. You can only have one main crafting skill and one main gathering skill. You can take two crafting skills but then you rely on the market (with a few exceptions) to supply the raw materials you need. So it is far more beneficial to have a gather and a crafting skill. Enchanting and Tailoring can both be done without a gathering skill as the raw mats for those rely on drops from around the game world. However, in order to have all the supplies you need to raid it is beneficial to have a few alts that can supply you with the things you need.
So there are two really good discussion points as to why a person would want alts, and how WoW works (currently) with regards to artifact weapons. In future, you would make a much better argument if you actually understand the systems you are trying to discuss and the time frames of games release in order to make a valid comparison.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
The basic principle is that leveling shouldn't outlast the content. If you play through all of the content available, you should have done enough to level into the range where there is more content available. Whatever other flaws they have, most notable theme parks since WoW have done that pretty well, at least if you exclude the endgame. FFXIV might be fine on that count if you play a main only, but it fails pretty badly for alts by the early 20s. If leveling alts is rather grindy by the early 20s, I don't expect that it becomes less so once you get into the 30s and 40s.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I was leveling 3 jobs at the same time, It wasn't that hard to do TBH between I couldn't figure out which I liked the most so I did all 3 before settling on one by that time they were all in their 40s at least.
It's not nearly the grind it used to be to level an alt class.
Good to know.
My Tamer is only level 50 so I have not gotten there yet.