Question for Altoholics

[EremiteAngel.9765]

How many toons do you have?Do you play a minimum number of hours on each toon?Or do you create and forget about the toon?

[Fenella.2634]

I have 13 characters right now, plus one weekly key farmer. I still spend about 75 % of my total playtime on my main, though.The alts all have a specific purpose and / or a theme. Some I have yet to finish levelling up, some I use in specific situations / gamemodes / for some story options / for cosplay. So hours played vary a lot between all characters on my account. I very rarely delete alts and when character slots are on sale, I might still buy some more. :)

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@Fenella.2634 said:I have 13 characters right now, plus one weekly key farmer. I still spend about 75 % of my total playtime on my main, though.The alts all have a specific purpose and / or a theme. Some I have yet to finish levelling up, some I use in specific situations / gamemodes / for some story options / for cosplay. So hours played vary a lot between all characters on my account. I very rarely delete alts and when character slots are on sale, I might still buy some more. :)

Do you feel that your Alts are ‘wasted’ or not decently used if you don’t play a minimum number of hours on them?

[Fenella.2634]

As I said, every one of my alts has a purpose. :) They are not wasted, no matter the number of hours.Out of curiosity, what would be a minimum number of hours where a character becomes worth it to you?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

tl&dr; I do not set myself a goal of how long I have to play this or that char. My main character is used 90-95 % of the time. The rest is split up on the other characters, depending on my needs/plans, which vary every week. Some characters get forgotten, but those get deleted after a few weeks. 14 slots, 13 used one for keyfarming.

When I create a new character, I usually have a straight concept behind the char long before I reach the character-creation menue. Those ideas can be a special appearance, playstyle or utility-purpose. After creation, I level them to 80 manually and gear them with proper stuff (ascended trinkets/backpiece, exotic gear). Then field-testing the build on realistic conditions, adjusting small things and balancing out weakpoints.

Then I usually get into a situation where I need a character I can use blindly - my main. So I switch there and stick to that one from then on. A few weeks later I go through my character selection screen and decide about the fate of each character. The ones that only look nice but do not suit to my playstyle at all end up as mules & gathering characters (iron ore, wood, flax). The ones that look not so nice and have classes I dislike by design (revenant, necromancer) usually get deleted once I striped and salvaged their gear.

Sometimes I have ideas for new builds or that character has a long-term purpose, so I play them once in a while for training purposes. That is the fate of my two guardians. One is my level 400 scribe, DH and optimized Lab Farmer with a few experimental builds to test. The other one is my almost completely geared FB power Quickbrand, with full ascended gear and 150+ AR for fractals and other content you need real DPS for. Whenever we do dungeons, Fractals or other similar activities I try to log this one to get some training with it. But I also use it for build-testing DH bow-stuff.

My Thieves are all utility-characters. One is a level 52 bag opener. One is a JP farm character for silver-doubloons, which I do weekly around sunday evenings. The third one is a Leatherworker/Huntsman (500), Karma farm-char for Wintersday and test-char for all kinds of thief-builds.

Mesmer is used for Guildmissions & Jumping Puzzles or exploring vertical maps with newbies. Build needs a drastic rework. So I will spend more time with it in 2020.

My 2x Elementalists, Ranger and Warrior are mule-characters to store items. I log them mostly for crafting or to shift items.

The Revenant is the only character I do not really want to touch at all. Created it during LS3, suits the old Herald meta-stereotype for raids. I do not like the class and I made it look like a clown. I only use it for gathering once in a blue moon. Then I log it once per day for 1-2 minutes for a week or two and forget it for another year.

The Necromancer is in building/balancing phase at the moment. I log it ~ once per week to test stuff and get a little training on it.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@Fenella.2634 said:As I said, every one of my alts has a purpose. :) They are not wasted, no matter the number of hours.Out of curiosity, what would be a minimum number of hours where a character becomes worth it to you?

I got 20 necromancers.And I feel like if I don’t play at least 100 hours on each of them, it would have been a waste to create it.Some I create, doll them up, run around for a couple of hours, and then I never use them again...this feels wrong XDLike I discarded them without even giving them enough mileage ?

[ArchonWing.9480]

I usually create a toon with a purpose so it's basically been just 1 per class + a bag opener. So I rarely create and forget. Recently given that t3-t4 mats are sorta w/e in price now, I don't care about it anymore. I recently created another guardian so that I could split gear between wvw and pve because it was becoming a nightmare and templates were less than satisfactory in this regards.

[Fenella.2634]

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

@Fenella.2634 said:As I said, every one of my alts has a purpose. :) They are not wasted, no matter the number of hours.Out of curiosity, what would be a minimum number of hours where a character becomes worth it to you?

I got 20 necromancers.And I feel like if I don’t play at least 100 hours on each of them, it would have been a waste to create it.Some I create, doll them up, run around for a couple of hours, and then I never use them again...this feels wrong XDLike I discarded them without even giving them enough mileage ?Hm~ But character slots are a pretty good alternative to build templates. Having multiple of the same class can be quite convenient, especially for playing different game modes. So even if a character might not be useful right now, they could become a good build slot later on. If you don't need that character slot for something else, of course.

My least played alt has just three hours so far. :D I just created her to have that specific birthday, but so far I have not had the time to actually level her. Still, one day...I only delete alts when they really are no fun to play. Sometimes the name just looks cheesy a few days in, or a class is just not very fun to play even at level 80. However, I try to put a bit of thought into all my alts (except keyfarmers) and I try to make them work somehow in some way.

[Dante.1763]

I have 18, and i probably play about 6 of those. 4 of them are crafting bots and the rest are just..there?

[rogermkiihl.1967]

A guild mate has 69. All level 80. :s

[Chichimec.9364]

20 active alts and one open character slot. Most of my time is spent on my main though I change my main when I want to play a different profession for a while. Some alts are camped at various farming spots, some are my designated crafters. I do have a dedicated WvW alt and another one I use for loot farming in the Silverwastes, Istan, and Joko invasions. Others I use for farming mats across general maps. Used to have a slot set aside for a key farmer but got bored with that and don't bother with it anymore. As long as I've enjoyed playing them I don't consider any of my time spent on alts to be wasted.

[Brycar.2651]

I have at least 3 of each profession, one for each elite spec. I made them before build templates. I have a few others just for fun. Occasionally I delete one I find out I don’t play for a long time.

[maddoctor.2738]

I have 16 characters and all of them have a purpose as I usually do different things on each of them. Some were created for a specific reason, like my 2nd Elementalist to be a PVP-only character, or my 2nd Engineer to be there for Raids almost exclusively. I usually wait until all episodes of a season are released before I play them all at once on my main Elementalist, but I do finish the episodes as they appear on other characters, to check the different voice actors and see the dialogue options. How much I play them depends on the current meta/balance (for PVP/Raid focused characters) or just how I feel on that day (everyone else) and if I want to do group content, solo content, new story or old story.

[Calisanna.8732]

I have 30 toons on my main account, 7 on my 1st alt account and the basic 5 on my second alt account. Originally I made fashion alts but also with the purpose of each having a different elite spec necro/reaper/scourge or with the purpose of having a condo/power without swapping gear.This has since been made irrelevant for me with legendary gear and extra bank tags, also with build templates.I’ve forgotten about many of my alts, however when it came to farming things for legs, having alts helped.Situations where alts helped: farming map currency for vision/auroraFarming flax for nightfuryFarming wood for 2nd gen legsHaving a crap ton of birthday boosters for WvW. I’m sitting on 36 24 hr ones now and I have a lot of anniversaries coming up.

Now I’m just a fashion alt collector as I no longer plan to make 2nd gen legs.

[Danikat.8537]

I have 11 permanent characters and 2 spare slots. I don't do anything in-game consistently or on a set schedule, so playing each character for a fixed amount of time per day is out of the question.

I've played more hours on my main character than all the rest put together, but I still find it useful to have lots to choose from so I can go between different things more easily. For example one I'm not currently using much can stay in town to farm my home instance, one can be doing festival stuff, one can be put in the middle of nowhere doing the story, one can be doing a lot level story and I can skip between them without the hassle of moving everyone around and then running back where they were.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

23 chars. I have 18 that I play regularly, 1 of each elite profession. I have one char that I do the story on but other than that I play a different char each day. When I log on I go to the far right of the character select and play the char there. So I try to play them equally outside of doing the story. I also have 4 mules, a key runner slot and an empty slot that I have no current plans for.

[LadyRhonwyn.2501]

I don't have toons, but I have too many characters :p. At least one of each race/weight/gender combination. So, that's 5x3x2. All of them (except one, she's a special case as she's only used in SAB) are lvl80. 8 of them have done everything (100% map completion on all maps and all stories done). I'm busy with nr 9. One of each profession. And the rest I play when I feel like doing something different.

[TheGrimm.5624]

23 of 31 are set and good to WvW with fully ascended gear and some to spare for the others not currently in play. Typically build a toon around a play concept and if they work they stay in that config and then it's a matter of what fits the group and which playstyle would be fun or what's needed to counter what's out in WvW. Have all the classes and multiple copies of most for the various core/hot/pof buildouts.

[Zephyr.5382]

I have 29. I'd say only 1-2 are active at any given time--especially with build templates. Most of my characters were created impulsively, after epiphanies of design ideas and/or inspiration from popular media. Lingering interest in them is directly tied to the balance patches; if a favorite profession gets changed for the worse, for example, I'll become dissatisfied with all the associated characters and shelve them. Some are mules or solely crafters, but the rest are just birthday-present-collectors, now.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I make a lot of Revs (the class I play 90% of the time) because I am really finicky with fashion and get bored of looks rather easily. I have two veteran Revs that I keep for birthday gifts (and that I still use a lot), but I'll cycle between random alts very often. When I get bored of them and don't foresee them being long-term investments, I'll just delete them so I can create new ones. All it takes is for me to tome them up, use the WvW vendor to max out the e-specs, and transfer the gear, so I don't consider deleting them to be a big deal. Making new characters is a fun way for me to maintain interest in the class without looking at the same thing forever. And yes, I change up their individual looks a lot too. Only thing I regret about deleting characters is that I deleted my oldest ones way back when before I knew about birthday gifts being account bound, so I am like 3 years behind on the gifts.

[Esterie.7409]

I have 40 characters, most of which are purely for aesthetics, but about 10 are important to me for story reasons or because I made them on my birthday as self-inserts of sorts. My most-played character (female sylvari necro) holds about a third of my overall play time because the class is a jack-of-all-trades to me; good for solo, story, and group open world content which is mostly what I do in game. I do tend to play all my characters, though of course some more than others, and there are about 3 or 4 who are the ONLY characters I do new story on because they are my "canon" commanders. Some days I'm more into playing my black/red themed charr mesmer, or maybe some days my very purple sylvari ele. It's a flavor of the day for me, basically. Having so many characters also comes in handy when farming for materials for crafting.

I've deleted quite a few characters in my time, but many of them have been remade as different professions or races at a later time, and 2 were even "returned from the dead" (read: support was able to restore them to my account after I deleted them).

The professions/races are as follows:4 eles / 5 engies / 4 guardians / 6 mesmer / 4 necro / 4 rangers / 6 revs / 4 thieves / 3 warriors

5 asura / 7 charr / 5 human / 9 norn / 14 sylvari

I guess you can see what my favorites are. ;)

Edit: Forgot to mention that I do have at least one of every race/gender combination, which is nice for story flavor as well.

Edit x2: Forgot even more info! I've done 100% world completion on 16 characters, but have only completed the entire personal story once (I've gotten all my characters to the level 60 story for keys, though). I've done HoT story 3 or 4 times for the backpack collections, and all other living story/PoF once, but played the episodes on various characters depending on who fit it best.

[Vayne.8563]

I have 46 characters, but I've finished every story and every zone on 14 of them. 8 of them are completely in ascended gear (2 even have ascended aquabreathers. My most played character is 5800 hours, and my second most played character is about 5050 hours. My least played character is 13 hours but it's obviously fairly new, a charr called I Has Fleas.

10 of my characters I have over 500 hours on.

16 of my characters I have over 400 hours on.

24 of my characters I have over 200 hours on.

When I'm working on specific achievements, I often stay to my main characters, but then I'll pick a character and play it for a while. For example, most of my characters have completed Verdant Brink. I just like the zone. Almost all of them in fact. Over 30 of my characters have completed Season 3 of the Living World.

I also have one character that pretty much WvWs and another just for SPvP.

[Randulf.7614]

Each character is at different stage of the story so I flick between them depending on what I want to do. Problem is, the story isn't really a lot of fun Vs map play so I get bogged down for ages in one place or end up flicking between toons every few mins

[TheGrimm.5624]

This thread alone could make for why some of us think Anet would make more by releasing another set of elites since all of us are the type that will then go out and get more character spots for new toons versus stepping on the existing ones. Would be fun to see a metric from ANet on the number of toons people have.

[Udolpho.1209]

How many toons do you have?17 permanent characters3 storage/bag openers/birthday present collectors4 open slots for key farm & trying new characters

Do you play a minimum number of hours on each toon?No, I don't force myself to spend specific amounts of time on each. I've spent more time on some compared to others. Completely unpredictable.

Or do you create and forget about the toon?No... but they might get temporarily set aside. Not forgotten. It's wasteful to completely forget them -- I'd redesign them and play the new concept over not touching them. Or delete them and remake them, if birthday gifts aren't an issue.

...

I tend to... rotate through them, based on whichever one sparks my interest the most. My interest never stays focused -- eventually something will distract me or draw me in, and I switch. I actively play 1-3 at a time. The others are on reserve (crafting, farming, errands)... until for whatever reason one of them strikes my interest again.