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Alts?

QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
How alt-friendly is this game?  That breaks into several things:

1)  How many character slots do you get?  That could be by default, or the ability to buy more.

2)  How viable is it to actually play a lot of alts?  The game sounds like it has very long-term progression, but they seem to be claiming it's horizontal progression.  There's a huge difference between "you'll be less crippled than in a lot of other games at low level" and actual Guild Wars 1-style horizontal progression where you're the strongest you'll ever be fairly quickly.  Is it realistic to make a new character viable quickly and as strong as much older characters, but merely with less versatility?  Or are you going to be crippled by being on weak characters if you don't just play one character forever to make it as strong as possible?  Having a lot of weaker characters that stay in lower level areas is fine in a PVE game, but a PVE game doesn't seem to be their vision.

3)  Do they have quality-of-life things to try to make it easy to split time among alts?  For example, do you get shared storage to easily transfer goods?  Ability to pass at least some gear back and forth rather than every character needing completely independent, soulbound gear?  Ability to switch characters reasonably quickly rather than taking an entire minute to log all the way out of the game and then get back in?

4)  Do things that you can buy affect one character only, or all of your characters?  Some games have optional subscriptions that affect convenience or power or whatever, but there's an enormous difference between $10/month to get something on all characters on your account and $10/month per character.

I realize that the answers might be "not yet implemented", "still under NDA", or not answerable for various other reasons.  But some fans of the game have probably seen a lot more of what the developers have said than I have.  If they've said that they're following a philosophy of being accessible to people who like to play a lot of alts, that's very different from if they'll technically allow multiple characters on the same account but promise that game mechanics will punish you severely for using them.
ConstantineMerusOctagon7711

Comments

  • meddyckmeddyck Member UncommonPosts: 1,282
    edited January 2019
    I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge.

    1) During KS Mark said you would get character slots on each server equal to the number of classes per realm + 1. If you have extra slots as part of your backer tier, then those would be in addition. So for instance if the game launches with all 11 classes per realm (it won't), then all accounts would get at least 12 character slots per server. If you have a tier that comes with an extra character slot, then you would have 13 character slots per server.
    2) How the horizontal progression will work is not well defined yet, but my expectation is that CU will be extremely alt friendly. If you want to try out a new class, you will be able to create one and start RvRing on it that same day. You of course won't be as powerful on that character as somebody who has played that class longer, but you should have enough tools that others will want to group you (probably not elite 8 man groups of course).
    3) I think I recall Mark saying there would be account vaults a long while back, but I am not 100% sure on that. There will be basically no soulbound items so if you want to swap gear to your alts you can. But an alt still will need to have the required minimum stats to use the gear. As for switching between characters, it'll probably take a typical amount of time i.e. not more than a minute or two depending on the power of your computer.
    4) The current plan is only to have monthly subs. If your account is active, you have access to everything on all characters with the possible exception of specialty servers such as a roleplaying server that might (not 100% confirmed) require an additional charge. Some backer tier cosmetic rewards might be on a per character basis however.

    tweedledumb99QuizzicalOctagon7711

    DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    Thank you for your answers.  I hope you're right that they do intend to make the game alt-friendly.  The number of character slots being a function of the number of classes is a good sign.

    Is your expectation of the game being alt-friendly based on Dark Age of Camelot?  I haven't played that game, but Camelot Unchained seems like it's an unofficial sequel of sorts.  I've seen statements saying it's going to be heavy on horizontal progression, but to the extent that there are any details at all, they make me think that they might just mean light vertical progression.
  • meddyckmeddyck Member UncommonPosts: 1,282
    Quizzical said:
    Thank you for your answers.  I hope you're right that they do intend to make the game alt-friendly.  The number of character slots being a function of the number of classes is a good sign.

    Is your expectation of the game being alt-friendly based on Dark Age of Camelot?  I haven't played that game, but Camelot Unchained seems like it's an unofficial sequel of sorts.  I've seen statements saying it's going to be heavy on horizontal progression, but to the extent that there are any details at all, they make me think that they might just mean light vertical progression.
    I played DAOC for many years, but no my answers were based on my understanding of how CU will work especially from things Mark and other devs have said in interviews, streams, newsletters, forum posts, etc. rather than on DAOC.

    I do think that providing a lot of character slots, not requiring weeks of PvE leveling or PvE raiding before you can start RvRing, and having mostly horizontal progression will make CU very alt-friendly. That was certainly my hope and expectation when I backed it. I had numerous alts in DAOC and other MMOs and intend to do the same in CU assuming the combat and progression are fun.

    They haven't provided a lot of detail about progression yet other than saying the plan is for new characters to be able to participate in RvR right away and that new skills or gear that is unlocked will mostly offer greater customization rather than raw power. I do think there will be more vertical progression than some people are expecting based on those statements, but again we'll just have to wait until further along during development when exactly how progression works will become clear due to it being in testing.

    DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer

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