Alt characters

As someone who cant decide what class to main in any MMO i have a couple questions for me and anyone else that tends to use alts instead of sticking to 1 character or class.

1) One thing I've experienced in other MMOs like WOW, ESO, and BDO is that i find it hard to progress to end game cause i swap between alts and have to do the same thing over and over again like the story, specific quests, and spend time gearing all my alts. After a while i get burned out doing the same content over and over again cause of the various systems the game has, like character bound equipment, non account wide progress, and forced quests on alt characters. Anyone knows what ways AoC will deal with these problems us alt heavy people like me experience so we dont repeat the same content over and over and barely progress cause of the amount of alt characters we use

2)So i Know there's a main class and secondary class to create your overall class which i find very cool and adds variation, I know main class cant be changed. But how about your secondary class how hard will it be to change and what will it cost? Can we respec the secondary class and skills whenever ? and if we go back to a previous secondary class will we retain the experience we have? Also will a primary bard and secondary rogue be the same as a primary rogue and secondary bard or will the first one have more bard focused abilities while the second one having more rogue focused abilities?

3)in WOW gear is character bound so for me to get high level gear i need to progress from low level dungeons to the highest level ones, then do it again on every single character. this obviously impedes progress cause at some point all my alts hover at mid gear score cause it is very hard to attain high level gear on 1 character let alone 10. Will i be able to share equipment with my alt characters or will there be a way to faster progress alt characters in some way?

TLDR is there account wide progress like quests, nodes, and achievements. Will equipment be character bound or can i share it with alts to not waste time repeating content for the same gear over and over. How east is it to swap secondary classes and do i keep my xp if i go back to them, and will there be any fast track stuff to help people who have alts, like skippable tutorials,quests, and other stuff we did before and dont need to do again.

Thanks to anyone that can shed some light on the questions I asked, and hope to see everyone at some point in game as friend or foe

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Comments

Noaani

First, I want to state that I have never understood people that insist on playing a lot of alts, and then complain about having to gear a lot of alts, or do quests on a lot of alts.

That is like wanting to own many cars, and complaining about having to maintain them all.

However, to address your points - gear will not be bound to characters, so you can swap it between your alts. However, since different classes will need different gear, this is likely of limited use to you.

Quests are not something we know much about. This game will not lean on them as much as a game like WoW does, but there is no real way they can make things like this function account wide.

As far as we know, you don't gain experience for your class as you do in some games - you gain experience for your character. Thus, when you swap to a different sub-class within your primary archetype, you still have all the experience you had as your previous sub-class. It is better to take the view that your primary archetype is your class, and your secondary archetype is a spec within that class - the system makes more sense when you consider it in that manner.

Vhaeyne

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

is there account wide progress like quests, nodes, and achievements. Will equipment be character bound or can i share it with alts to not waste time repeating content for the same gear over and over. How east is it to swap secondary classes and do i keep my xp if i go back to them, and will there be any fast track stuff to help people who have alts, like skippable tutorials,quests, and other stuff we did before and dont need to do again.

I don't think there is any intent to account wide progress. There is an account wide restriction where you can only be citizen of one node.

"Only one citizenship may be declared per account, per server."
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Citizenship

The good news is that nearly no items in the game binds to your character. So you should be able to give resources and gear to alts.

You will still need to level alts like normal. There has been no mention of bonuses for alts to gain XP or skip things.

Here is more information on the vision of alts:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Alts

daveywavey

1) I've found that it's all about how you level them. My first couple of characters, I usually take through quests and storyline, but any after that, I just find a zone and grind the mobs. There's only so many times you can help Eugene plant flowers at his family's grave, before you just don't want to quest any more. I would imagine that you'll be able to skip the starter zone, if you so choose.

2) You can change your Secondary archetype, but we've no details yet on the process. They've said they don't want it to be an easy task, so that your choice actually matters. But, we don't know what form the change will take.

3) You should be able to swap gear between your characters.

Wickrest

Noaani wrote: »

First, I want to state that I have never understood people that insist on playing a lot of alts, and then complain about having to gear a lot of alts, or do quests on a lot of alts.

That is like wanting to own many cars, and complaining about having to maintain them all.

Thanks for the info and for this matter its not complaining about having to gear alts, its the fact that for people that like playing different classes and doing different builds the only way to do it in full is to repeat the same content just to see how it is, we basically get punished for wanting to experience every class the game has to offer cause we need to repeat content on other classes unlike solo class players who never need to repeat content and progress much faster. I cant imagine only playing one class in a game that has 7 others, that's basically experiencing 1/8th of the game to me. Also its from seeing the downsides of the class after playing it for a while it starts to annoy people like me and cause us to play other classes. Guess it just depends whether you like playing 1 class / character through the end ass opposed to all them to see which is your favorite and why.

Wandering Mist

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

First, I want to state that I have never understood people that insist on playing a lot of alts, and then complain about having to gear a lot of alts, or do quests on a lot of alts.

That is like wanting to own many cars, and complaining about having to maintain them all.

Thanks for the info and for this matter its not complaining about having to gear alts, its the fact that for people that like playing different classes and doing different builds the only way to do it in full is to repeat the same content just to see how it is, we basically get punished for wanting to experience every class the game has to offer cause we need to repeat content on other classes unlike solo class players who never need to repeat content and progress much faster. I cant imagine only playing one class in a game that has 7 others, that's basically experiencing 1/8th of the game to me. Also its from seeing the downsides of the class after playing it for a while it starts to annoy people like me and cause us to play other classes. Guess it just depends whether you like playing 1 class / character through the end ass opposed to all them to see which is your favorite and why.

I totally see where you are coming from here, but at the same time, some people would argue that having a lot of account-wide progression would take away from the social aspects of the game. Why bother finding someone else to craft your gear when you have an army of alts that have maxed out crafting?

daveywavey

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I totally see where you are coming from here, but at the same time, some people would argue that having a lot of account-wide progression would take away from the social aspects of the game. Why bother finding someone else to craft your gear when you have an army of alts that have maxed out crafting?

I like to have an army of alts that have maxed out crafting, so that I can get more involved in the social aspects of the game. People can come to me for their gear, and i can profit from it.

Wickrest

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

First, I want to state that I have never understood people that insist on playing a lot of alts, and then complain about having to gear a lot of alts, or do quests on a lot of alts.

That is like wanting to own many cars, and complaining about having to maintain them all.

Thanks for the info and for this matter its not complaining about having to gear alts, its the fact that for people that like playing different classes and doing different builds the only way to do it in full is to repeat the same content just to see how it is, we basically get punished for wanting to experience every class the game has to offer cause we need to repeat content on other classes unlike solo class players who never need to repeat content and progress much faster. I cant imagine only playing one class in a game that has 7 others, that's basically experiencing 1/8th of the game to me. Also its from seeing the downsides of the class after playing it for a while it starts to annoy people like me and cause us to play other classes. Guess it just depends whether you like playing 1 class / character through the end ass opposed to all them to see which is your favorite and why.

I totally see where you are coming from here, but at the same time, some people would argue that having a lot of account-wide progression would take away from the social aspects of the game. Why bother finding someone else to craft your gear when you have an army of alts that have maxed out crafting?

Thats not really the account wide progression I mean, the one i mean is like being able to skip tutorials, quests, and events that you've already done. For example ofc the character should start fresh at level 1 but i shouldnt have to do the same tutorial scenario for the 4th time that takes 45 minutes to complete, or do the same quest for the 4th time to attain an item needed for my character. For example in wow there was a cape i needed to get on every character i had, and the whole quest line would take at least 1-2 hours, now imagine that for 10 characters. It gets mind numbing and punishes me for playing multiple roles in game and classes. Luckily gear in AoC isnt bound and i dont think there are quest specific reguired gear so hat shouldnt be an issue.

Vhaeyne

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

Thanks for the info and for this matter its not complaining about having to gear alts, its the fact that for people that like playing different classes and doing different builds the only way to do it in full is to repeat the same content just to see how it is, we basically get punished for wanting to experience every class the game has to offer cause we need to repeat content on other classes unlike solo class players who never need to repeat content and progress much faster. .

The point about wanting to see how every class is makes a lot of sense to me. I always feel the need to play with all the classes and know what everyone can do. Especially when I care about a game. Knowledge is power in both PvP and PVE. There is nothing like actually playing with the classes skills and tinkering with the build when it comes to learning a game.

Oddly, Guild Wars 1 solved this issue in like 2005. You could make a "PvP only" character that started at cap, but did not have access to the base game world. With that character, you could tweak builds and try different things to see how they worked without risking much time investment.

It would be nice if there was a test area in any MMORPG that gave you access to some basic training dummies or encounters with a little hub to fully customize a character for testing. Something like this would not be tied to the game world, but you could go in and try things out before you work for them in the real game.

I prefer a solution like the one I suggested just now because I strongly agree with @Wandering Mist on his point. Having an army of alts removes a social element from the game. I have played games where you can only have one character per server and the need to socialize skyrockets compared to FFXIV where I can do everything on one character. I have played FFXIV for years now and only met a handful of new people. I played Mortal Online 2 for a few weeks and met a ton of people.

Noaani

To be clear, in things like this I am very much in the camp of "you do you, as long as it doesn't affect the rest of us". If you want to play alts, then play alts.

That said...

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

I cant imagine only playing one class in a game that has 7 others, that's basically experiencing 1/8th of the game to me.

If you consider each class to be 1/8th of the game, then you shouldn't be looking at the content as having to be repeated.

Either you are repeating a part of the game, or you are experiencing a new part of the game. It can't be both. How you look at it is completely up to you, and you should make your decisions based on how you look at it.

I personally look at it as repeating a part of the game, and so I don't usually have alts for the first few months of a new game - until I am at the level cap and comfortable with the content there.

However, I have friends and family members that look at it as experiencing a new part of the game, and they have multiple alts that they level in games from day 1. Both myself and these friends of mine are happy with the situation we each chose to be in, as we pick the situation we want to be in based on how we look at the game.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

If you consider each class to be 1/8th of the game, then you shouldn't be looking at the content as having to be repeated.

Either you are repeating a part of the game, or you are experiencing a new part of the game. It can't be both. How you look at it is completely up to you, and you should make your decisions based on how you look at it.

I did not consider that, but now that you have said something, the math doesn't add up for me for how much of the game are you experiencing by playing from one classes prospective. It is not as if each class has all new quests or stories. It is going to be the same content with a slightly different tool kit.

I feel like with 100+ nodes everything is going to be very repetitive and samey from the prospective of playing a whole new class. I think the difference would be as deep as: "You have a different play-style and tool kit". To me, that would be far less than 1/8th of the game. Maybe like 1-3% of the game tops?

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I think the difference would be as deep as: "You have a different play-style and tool kit". To me, that would be far less than 1/8th of the game. Maybe like 1-3% of the game tops?

This is how I look at it, and why I never run an alt until I specifically want to do the same content again.

Dygz

1) Even in WoW, alts should not have to redo the same quests unless you want them to. All depends on how many alts you have. If you want different experiences, you not only change class, but also change race and faction and start in a different starting area and focus on different reputations.

In Ashes, Nodes and quests and dungeons will be progressing and changing, so, unless you are leveling your alts at the same time as your main, your alts will not be experiencing the same quests. And there will be different villages, towns and cities and quests when your alts begin to level than there were when your main started leveling.
Quests and experiences will also be different if your alts are different races and join different guilds, social orgs and religions than your main.
Alts should also have significantly different quests if they are on a different server and become a citizen of a different Node type in a different region of the map.

2) If you switch social orgs or religions, all progress you previously made is lost.
If you switch Secondary Archetype, expect to have to level through the new class from scratch.
I think we don't know for sure what happens if you switch from Paladin to Nightshield and back to Paladin.
Makes the most sense that we should retain our progress in Paladin if we switch back to Paladin, but that may not be what the devs want.

3) "A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things are account bound and they're soulbound to your character... Instead very little here is character bound. Very very little. The vast majority of gear- yes you will get quest related gear as rewards- but it won't be let's say one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon."
---Steven Sharif

How do your alts of different classes end up with the same gear over and over again??
Each alt needing to level from level 1 to max is not a punishment; it's a limitation of content creation.
RPGs are about character experience; not player experience.

I don't believe there was a cape you needed to get for every character.
I'm pretty sure it was that there was a cape you wanted to get for every character.

The game is not punishing you. You are punishing yourself.

George_Black

It wont be as ez to play many characters, and so far there is no plans to allow you to swap your main archetype.

I do hope they go with the L2 direction of 3-4 class options unlocked by one character, after a series of hard EPIC quests, after a couple of expansions.

I never bothered with alts in games like bdo eso tera but in L2 having 3-4 classes on one character, after going to painstaking lengths, was extremelly rewarding.

It was also a prerequisete if you wanted to compete every month to show that you were the best player of your class and one of the 30 or so elite players of the server (ranked arena that declated 30 or so heroes [1 per class]). You needed to complete the quest and lv up at least one more class on that character.

Wickrest

Dygz wrote: »

How do your alts of different classes end up with the same gear over and over again??
Each alt needing to level from level 1 to max is not a punishment; it's a limitation of content creation.
RPGs are about character experience; not player experience.

I don't believe there was a cape you needed to get for every character.
I'm pretty sure it was that there was a cape you wanted to get for every character.

The game is not punishing you. You are punishing yourself.

For example in wow the only way to do the mythic+ dungeons is to have a high gear score and the only way to get high gear score is to do the same dungeons over and over again, and at a certain point youll reach a gear level thats hard to get past casually, so at some point if you use many alts your gear will be at around the same level as all your other characters cause of how much time you put in each one and to the point that the grind starts taking a while.

Also you actually NEEDED the cape, in WOW Bfa without the cape you couldnt do these solo dungeons that rewarded you with upgrades and you also couldnt do any raids. So if i didnt get the cape from the questline then i wouldnt be able to do all the pve content and i wouldnt be able to pvp cause i would just get outmatched. The game is making repeat the same content even though ive done it 8 times before just to make me spend more time in game.

tautau

Thank God AoC isn't a remake of WoW, that sounds awful.

Dygz

The only way to do mythic+ dungeons is by repetition because it is endgame content and endgame is all about repetitive stuff to get to players to continue subscriptions while waiting for the devs to create new content.
Which has nothing to do with alts or punishing people with alts.
It's your choice to do that repetitive content for all your alts.

Ashes does not have an endgame.

RocketFarmer

Is this kind of like wanting all of those flavors of ice cream while at the same time claiming it’s too much ice cream?

Wickrest

RocketFarmer wrote: »

Is this kind of like wanting all of those flavors of ice cream while at the same time claiming it’s too much ice cream?

I see it more like having to go back home then drive to the ice cream shop just to buy a different flavor of ice cream even though you are already at the shop. Not the fact you need to pay for the ice cream again or scoop it up agaun but the fact youre forced to repeat the process just to experience a different flavor

Dygz

It's really that you are going to have to repeat eating the limited flavors while you wait for a new flavor to be created.

Noaani

Hypocrites Lie wrote: »

RocketFarmer wrote: »

Is this kind of like wanting all of those flavors of ice cream while at the same time claiming it’s too much ice cream?

I see it more like having to go back home then drive to the ice cream shop just to buy a different flavor of ice cream even though you are already at the shop. Not the fact you need to pay for the ice cream again or scoop it up agaun but the fact youre forced to repeat the process just to experience a different flavor

As an analogy, this isnt great, but analogies aren't great anyway.

However, to carry that analogy on, you are having to go back home after buying one ice cream flavor because you are choosing to buy your ice cream at a shop that can only make one flavor at a time. You buy the flavor they have, and then need to wait for them to make the next one.

If they tried to make one basic batch of I've cream and then flavor it after the fact (or a game allowed you to have progress be account wide rather than character specific), then all flavors would be a pale imitation of what they could be.

If you want to experience the full effect of that ice cream, you need to wait for them to make the next batch. If you want the full experience of each class, you need to progress each one.

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