Alt friendliness

[Sobx.1758]

29 minutes ago, Trip.8250 said:

Then do it. I'm not advocating for people to have less choice, I'm advocating for them to have more choice in how they play the game.

In the same manner: then play the story on single character if playing it on a new one isn't a new experience anyways (which is what you've said in one of your previous posts).

[Luthan.5236]

I think compared to other games it is a lot more alt-friendly though. (At least compared to older MMORPG. I do not know about the newer ones. But here we at least can level super fast vs. having to grind to max level super slowly like in other games.)

For the story I think it is not such a big deal to just play it on the main char and enjoy the other char for other stuff if you find it too annoying to play the previous chapters there first.

Some story chapters of the expansions have stuff tied to the option you chose into the previous chapter. (Backpack items in HoT and PoF at least.) I can imagine that with all that "spaghetti code" ... it would be a big deal for them to modify this (2nd char allowing to continue from the previous reward option another char selected and then making it reven replayable so you still could get all the different options).

Edited August 7, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Keymaster.7362]

1 hour ago, Trip.8250 said:

Right, but my point being FF14 removes the main reason people create alts. To play other classes. Since you can play all classes on one character, alts are rendered largely unnecessary.

In which world is 'removing your subjektive reason for alts from the game' alt friendly?

To have 50 chars on your GW2 account is also largely unnecessary, but if people want it, may it be because of build diversity, fashion wars or every other personal reason, they can easily do it. And Anet supports them with tons of QoL.

You get more than enough tomes of knowledge, birthday level boosts and 2 expansion lvl80 boosts.

As i already mentioned you can select all expansions and living story chapters in personal order.

And how long do you need to rush through EoD chapter 1-4? 2 hour? 3 hours if you take your time ?

Edited August 7, 2022 by Keymaster.7362

[Ashen.2907]

GW2 is a narrative driven game. Being able to play things out of order for AP or whatever after a given character, an individual, has completed the story makes sense for the sake of it being a game as well as a story. Having a character who has never participated in the story suddenly appear mid chapter makes no sense. These are characters in the story, not just tokens in a board game.  If you want to skip fully interacting with story in favor of just doing events, instances, etc...so be it. That can be fun. But don't try to destroy the narrative flow because you are not interested in it.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Trip.8250]

3 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

 Having a character who has never participated in the story suddenly appear mid chapter makes no sense.

And if you don't want to play the game that way, no one is forcing you to. What I'm asking for is the option to choose how I play the game. If you're interesting in playing the same content over and over, you're still free to do that.

As I mentioned in the original post, the way I would use what I'm suggesting is: I would have a number of characters with different classes but who look identical. I would switch between them based on what class I felt like playing. If I want to play one chapter as an elementalst and the next as a mesmer, I would.

I would just pretend they're the same person.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Trip.8250

[Poormany.4507]

Another big issue that would come up with this is how would you address situations where earlier choices that are skipped on alts would impact dialogue later in the story? (Example: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infinity_Ball) Having to go through and redo all of the dialogue in all current instances to add in a default option for those who skipped parts of the story on alts seems like a ton of dev work, that I don't feel like would be worth it. I feel like doing this would just force the story/devs to rarely or never reference prior player choices/events and go down the path of just doing one exact same default narrative/dialogue for all players without any kind of unique, player specific dialogues.

This would impact any player that cares about the story, as the quality would drop drastically if it's pretty much forced to make a default, exact same dialogue for everyone to account for players skipping story instances on alts.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Poormany.4507

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Trip.8250 said:

And if you don't want to play the game that way, no one is forcing you to. What I'm asking for is the option to choose how I play the game. If you're interesting in playing the same content over and over, you're still free to do that.

As I mentioned in the original post, the way I would use what I'm suggesting is: I would have a number of characters with different classes but who look identical. I would switch between them based on what class I felt like playing. If I want to play one chapter as an elementalst and the next as a mesmer, I would.

In this setting characters with different classes are different individuals whether they look alike or not.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

No to having all classes on one character. In FFXIV it really does kill any reason to make alts which people may want to do for a variety of reasons.

 

The idea of chapter unlocks that let you play any chapter once you've played through them once? I'm down with that. Living World does that already, pretty much.

[Astralporing.1957]

14 hours ago, Trip.8250 said:

Right, but my point being FF14 removes the main reason people create alts. To play other classes. Since you can play all classes on one character, alts are rendered largely unnecessary.

Oh, and here i thought we were talking about alt-friendliness, when in reality you want the exact opposite of it.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, and here i thought we were talking about alt-friendliness, when in reality you want the exact opposite of it.

That's what threw me off as well. A game being alt-friendly means it supports or encourages players to make more than 1 character. Removing reasons to create them is the opposite of that, but I'm not sure there's a name for it.

Possibly because that's kind of the default. Most games (especially single-player games) don't carry anything over between characters and save files, you're starting from scratch each time.

[Erick Alastor.3917]

It feels like most of the people in this thread didn't understand/try to understand what OP is proposing or are against changing things or simply didn't read.
This wouldn't remove anything, it would just add commodity.
If the game launched with that system in mind, and someone dared to propose removing it ppl would lose their minds over it.
If done properly, no achievement would be exluded and if you want to experience the story in a liner manner on your second run you could still do that.
Also OP is NOT proposing the FF14 model, he just used it as an example because he's comparing our many characters bein able to REPLAY an episode as long at least one of them already cleared it, with the FF14 ability to aggregate all classes in a single character to avoid having to run the story multiple times on different characters.
FF14 creates a problem with that solution, since it disincentivize alts, but what OP is saying would make the game more alts friendly, so I fail to see in which way what he's suggesting would concretely harm the players.

[The Boz.2038]

LS does it like this, because there is nothing carried over from one episode to the next.

The core and expansion personal stories all have decisions that later have payoffs. I am wondering how you'd handle these.

[Strixxe.2019]

No. Case closed. Mods, feel free to lock this topic

[ASP.8093]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:35 AM, Trip.8250 said:

Problem:    If I complete EOD chapter 4 on my mesmer and  want to play chapter 5 on a different class, I have to: create that character, level or boost them to 80, complete chapters 1-4 again, unlock all the skill points for my specialization, and only then can I start chapter 5.

With Tomes and WvW currency, most of this process is instant. Without WvW currency, fully unlocking an espec takes like 1-3 hours at most.

Doesn't FF14 still make you have to level/gear each class and all that?

[god fragment.5716]

My biggest issue with proffesion swaping i FFXIV was that you had to level each proffesion separately. Effectively this ment that with the abundance of xp from the core story alone, you were forced to pick another proffesion to level, when the first was maxed out or waste xp. At the same time you couldn't continue the story if the current proffesion was underleveled. This would lead to threads simmilar to this one only the question would be "Why do I have to level up a proffesion to continue the story?"

 

And it's not like the stories don't have any replay value. There are many acheavements that require multiple playthroughs. I doubt you managed to get out of the cell before Rama released you the first time around 😉

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:36 AM, PhantomKitty.6520 said:

Plus, we'd lose a ton of achievement points alone that were based on each individual character that we made (Necro points, Rev points, Ranger points, etc.)...

This doesn't make any sense to me.  Class based achievements would still be possible.  Being able to select what chapter to go into wouldn't remove these.

[Sobx.1758]

22 hours ago, Trip.8250 said:

And if you don't want to play the game that way, no one is forcing you to. What I'm asking for is the option to choose how I play the game. If you're interesting in playing the same content over and over, you're still free to do that.

As I mentioned in the original post, the way I would use what I'm suggesting is: I would have a number of characters with different classes but who look identical. I would switch between them based on what class I felt like playing. If I want to play one chapter as an elementalst and the next as a mesmer, I would.

This is why I think the title of this thread is misleading. It's not about "alt friendliness", but about rolling multiple characters (classes) into one.

[mythical.6315]

On 8/7/2022 at 10:34 AM, Keymaster.7362 said:

And how long do you need to rush through EoD chapter 1-4? 2 hour? 3 hours if you take your time ?

At least 8 hours to get through EoD; probably more. It’s the longest expansion story they’ve done so far but only because of the random stuff and excessive cutscenes/dialogue. 

I think it takes about 4 hours to get to Kaineng and that’s with you focusing on just the story. 

Edited August 8, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

This doesn't make any sense to me.  Class based achievements would still be possible.  Being able to select what chapter to go into wouldn't remove these.

It would remove alternate choices in the story however. There's a number of choices in the personal story that, when picked up, continue throughout the whole story arc. And sometimes even beyond that. I mean, you'd run into issues right at the very first chapters of the story (racial arcs, remember? What would the game be supposed do if you switched from sylvari to charr in-between racial chapters?). And there's also a ton of lesser choices that currently are character-specific and cannot be redone.

[Taclism.2406]

Don't like the idea, but I understand the temptation since we still dont have a button to skip dialogs.
I can't bring myself to do story on alts for that reason alone

[Erick Alastor.3917]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

This is why I think the title of this thread is misleading. It's not about "alt friendliness", but about rolling multiple characters (classes) into one.

Not really, he's just saying that's wha he would do, it has nothing to do with merging all classes into one.
He's not suggesting that.
He just said he would roleplay as the same character on multiple characters.

[Sobx.1758]

26 minutes ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

Not really, he's just saying that's wha he would do, it has nothing to do with merging all classes into one.
He's not suggesting that.
He just said he would roleplay as the same character on multiple characters.

He doesn't do that directly, but he wants the same or similar outcome.

[Jaaqer.9064]

Noup

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

Not really, he's just saying that's wha he would do, it has nothing to do with merging all classes into one.
He's not suggesting that.
He just said he would roleplay as the same character on multiple characters.

He lists having to create and level an alt character/class as a problem and lists the ability to play all classes on one character as a solution. 

You may not think, "he is not suggesting that," but he disagrees. He specifically states so.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Ledi.9742]

gutting out whole bunch of gameplay from alts, allow skipping all the game just to certain point in the end, and making all alts essentially new game+ by default is not exactly what i would call alt friendliness, or consider something that would improve story experience on alts.