Where have the Alts gone? Also problems for new players.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Most people have alts, so much so that many people have multiple accounts, and even play on multiple servers (impossible with one toon), invalidating everything after this.

well that's dramatic

[nokowi]

well that's dramatic

When the basis of your argument is false, everything after becomes irrelevant.

Anyone that plays DDO knows that we have lots of alts.

Dev's make sure to provide one reward per account, or one reward per toon is such a way that playing many toons is valuable.

The only people that should not play multiple toons are those that don't enjoy doing so.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

When the basis of your argument is false, everything after becomes irrelevant.

That's actually not true, as philosophy has bourne out many times. Take yourself with a grain of salt, dude. There's a lot of stuff that's anecdotal but you are going on like its not.

But I'll bite, since I can actually show in a reasonable way that you are wrong.

When you read these threads, and the people's anecdotes there, do you discount them? Some people speak personally. That's great. They are real concerns about the game written by people who are passionate. Not someone who is concerned with "logic" or ForumDDO, I think?

Obviously take my post with a grain of salt, but I think the anecdotes are genuinely in my favor. It's a bit silly to talk in such certain terms when you don't have data, right?
Would you be happy if I made a tally of all the forum posters in this thread who are passionate about the OP in a positive or negative way? I did that with the "Elite is not elite. Hard is not hard. Legendary is not Legendary." post and it seemed to be interesting.

Cheers
Here's a comedic philosophy link if you're curious...
...and remember that Christopher Columbus thought he was in the Indias. It didn't detract from his anecdotes made about the new world being relevant.

[Thrudh]

Years ago I had 12 toons. With completionist came about I went down to 2. Now with reaper and racial, I am only playing 1


I learned my lesson when I stated playing eso, just 1 toon and no alts, DDO has taught me

Although I dont think its too bad a thing, given that you can reincarnate to change into whatever you want

I think it's a bad thing because

(1) It destroys immersion for me - I have 5 characters - each has it's own "schtick". One is a caster, one is an evasion melee, one is a heavy armor tank, one is ranged character, one is a turn-based healing cleric.
(2) I don't have enough room to store BtC gear for every character type on one character
(3) Sometimes I want to play at cap, other times I want to play at other levels. I don't TR fast enough to make switching between play-styles easy.

Alts make this game a lot more fun for me. I would hate to play only one character.

[nokowi]

That's actually not true, as philosophy has bourne out many times. Take yourself with a grain of salt, dude. There's a lot of stuff that's anecdotal but you are going on like its not.

It is true for your specific post.

If you start with an argument "If A then B", we can stop when we find A is not true.

Why? Because it is your logic that is flawed when you say most players don't have alts.

Start a poll if you want to. I will bet the most common answer is not 1 toon, and that it is not even close.

Until you fix your logic, you will hold on irrationally to the idea that there is some huge problem with players not having alts, and 12 pages later there will have been no discussion.

An exceptional forumite could provide context about B that is still meaningful, but one of those could also easily correct A and continue on with a rational argument.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

It is true for your specific post.

You make argument with anecdotal evidence, yet criticize me for the same thing. Why bother? lol
We'll have to agree to disagree since I'm too lazy to tally people atm.

[Thrudh]

I think it's reasonable to say that it is more difficult to keep up with alts now then ever before.

I managed 5 alts with heroic TRs. Heroic TRs are very front-loaded, so instead of getting completionist (or triple-completionist - gag) on one character, I got 2-6 heroic TRs on my 5 characters.

With epic TRs, I fell a little further behind. Epic TRs are somewhat front-loaded, so I still did okay. One melee character has epic completionist, another melee has 8 epic past lives (all he really needs because he has 4-3-2-1 twists at cap, and it would take 15 more epic PLs to be able to unlock that last twist from epic completionist). My DC caster doesn't really need more than the 3 arcane epic past lives, so he's doing okay. My other two characters (the ranged one and the healing turn-based cleric one) have 1 and 0 epic PLs respectively.

So I was planning on working on them next. But then reaper xp and racial reincarnation came out.

I wasn't going to go hard after reaper xp by TRing for just for reaper xp. But with both of them together, it seemed worthwhile. So I TRed my main guy, the guy with epic completionist. I plan to get 4-6 racial reincarnations with him, 2 of them using Ottos boxes. It takes me at least a month to TR, so we are talking 4 months at least, probably 6 months since summer is almost here, and I play less in summer.

So I will be focusing on my main for the next 6 months, and then the next expansion will come out. I probably won't do 6 straight TRs with my main, and I will probably still have time to mess around with my other melee, and my caster, but the ranged guy and the cleric are going to be played less and less.

And that makes me sad. But it's my choice... I could play the ranged guy a bit, but instead I'll probably steal some of his gear, and one of my TRs for my main, I'll make him use range weapons instead for a change of pace. Before if I was bored with my main, I'd just switch to the ranged character directly.

[nokowi]

I think it's reasonable to say that it is more difficult to keep up with alts now then ever before.

I managed 5 alts with heroic TRs. Heroic TRs are very front-loaded, so instead of getting completionist (or triple-completionist - gag) on one character, I got 2-6 heroic TRs on my 5 characters.

With epic TRs, I fell a little further behind. Epic TRs are somewhat front-loaded, so I still did okay. One melee character has epic completionist, another melee has 8 epic past lives (all he really needs because he has 4-3-2-1 twists at cap, and it would take 15 more epic PLs to be able to unlock that last twist from epic completionist). My DC caster doesn't really need more than the 3 arcane epic past lives, so he's doing okay. My other two characters (the ranged one and the healing turn-based cleric one) have 1 and 0 epic PLs respectively.

So I was planning on working on them next. But then reaper xp and racial reincarnation came out.

I wasn't going to go hard after reaper xp by TRing for just for reaper xp. But with both of them together, it seemed worthwhile. So I TRed my main guy, the guy with epic completionist. I plan to get 4-6 racial reincarnations with him, 2 of them using Ottos boxes. It takes me at least a month to TR, so we are talking 4 months at least, probably 6 months since summer is almost here, and I play less in summer.

So I will be focusing on my main for the next 6 months, and then the next expansion will come out. I probably won't do 6 straight TRs with my main, and I will probably still have time to mess around with my other melee, and my caster, but the ranged guy and the cleric are going to be played less and less.

And that makes me sad. But it's my choice... I could play the ranged guy a bit, but instead I'll probably steal some of his gear, and one of my TRs for my main, I'll make him use range weapons instead for a change of pace. Before if I was bored with my main, I'd just switch to the ranged character directly.

Having new material and things to do equates to you focusing on your main.

It is exactly what players asked for.

You will still switch to your ranged character when you get bored, it just may take you a few months to figure it out. The moment you do, your sadness will end.

[TBot1234]

Having new material and things to do equates to you focusing on your main.

It is exactly what players asked for.

You will still switch to your ranged character when you get bored, it just may take you a few months to figure it out. The moment you do, your sadness will end.

That might be the case for some players; however, many people have decided to let their alts sit on the shelf permanently to focus on their main characters since grind is the name of the game: gear, past life class feats, completionist, epic destinies, epic past lives, epic completionist and most recently reaper XP and racial past lives. I don't regret having invested time in alts early on because it helped me learn the game; however I wished I had tried out more of the classes during the TR cycle rather than as alts. I'd be a bit further ahead.

[nokowi]

That might be the case for some players; however, many people have decided to let their alts sit on the shelf permanently to focus on their main characters since grind is the name of the game: gear, past life class feats, completionist, epic destinies, epic past lives, epic completionist and most recently reaper XP and racial past lives. I don't regret having invested time in alts early on because it helped me learn the game; however I wished I had tried out more of the classes during the TR cycle rather than as alts. I'd be a bit further ahead.

Your main character can progress through every class, build, and race.

It's really a matter of those getting bored on one toon complaining rather than switching to another toon for a bit.

"Being further behind" is meaningless for the vast majority of players that were never going to complete all content anyway.

Find me a player that got 3x completionist but can't get RXP. I doubt many of them exist.

[Astoroth]

Most people have alts, so much so that many people have multiple accounts, and even play on multiple servers (impossible with one toon), invalidating everything after this.

So you're premise is they shouldn't add consolidation of past life benefits because people might have toons on different servers. Aside from that being a ludicrous stretch. Those people could pay to transfer those other toons and still gain benefits from past life consolidation or whatever, really depends on how it was implemented, and which set of toons they wanted to transfer the benefits. Because transfering toons is second in importance only to logging in accord to the current login screen.

"Being further behind" is meaningless for the vast majority of players that were never going to complete all content anyway.

Find me a player that got 3x completionist but can't get RXP. I doubt many of them exist.

Some dude that plays 60 hours a week for 10 years should never be the baseline for how a company balances its game. And having a gimp toon is meaningful even if it's an alt and could easily cost the company a customer when it takes weeks or months to fix builds through tring.

[Orin2]

One small change that would help with levelling alts through Heroic levels, is to remove the +50 percent exp needed after 1st reincarnation, and the +100 percent exp needed after your 2nd reincarnation.

[nokowi]

So you're premise is they shouldn't add consolidation of past life benefits because people might have toons on different servers. Aside from that being a ludicrous stretch. Those people could pay to transfer those other toons and still gain benefits from past life consolidation or whatever, really depends on how it was implemented, and which set of toons they wanted to transfer the benefits. Because transfering toons is second in importance only to logging in accord to the current login screen.

Not what I said. I can repeat again for you.

Because people commonly play on multiple accounts and on multiple servers we know people often play more than one toon.

The idea that people only play one toon (when less than 1/2 of people played elite pre-reaper) is unfounded. We know at least 1/2 of players don't play reaper, and can continue to play as many alts as they want. Most new players would fit into this category. In the short term, we see reaper players on the forums expressing their move to one toon as they get the low hanging fruit in reaper. Claiming this will always be the case is the failure of logic.

Some dude that plays 60 hours a week for 10 years should never be the baseline for how a company balances its game. And having a gimp toon is meaningful even if it's an alt and could easily cost the company a customer when it takes weeks or months to fix builds through tring.

Here is where you reveal your ignorance of what it takes to become 3x completionist.

You are off by a factor of 10.

20 hours heroic life (14x3)=42x20=840 hours
15 hours epic life (12x3)=36x15=540 hours
20 hours iconic life (5x3)=15x20=300 hours

1680 hours/60 = 28 weeks

A more casual player (like me) will take about 2x the above amounts. It only takes 1 year to get 3x completionist @60 hours a week.

If you play for 10 years @15 hours a week, you should have 2.5 3x completionists.

Limit yourself to the abilities that matter for a given build, and you can have a dozen toons with everything they need, even at 15 hours a week.


So even the more casual players (15 hours a week) could have many toons that were looking for more to do.

Throw in pay to reduce grind, and it gets even easier if you are willing to support the game to get there faster.


Those with an agenda like to mischaracterize how impossible it is to do things in DDO. Dev's have data of what players can, and actually do.




Show me a gimp toon that can't contribute meaningfully because of RXP. The complaints are out before it could even be an issue.

[SirValentine]

Here is where you reveal your ignorance of what it takes to become 3x completionist.

You are off by a factor of 10.

20 hours heroic life (14x3)=42x20=840 hours
15 hours epic life (12x3)=36x15=540 hours
20 hours iconic life (5x3)=15x20=300 hours

1680 hours/60 = 28 weeks

A more casual player (like me) will take about 2x the above amounts. It only takes 1 year to get 3x completionist @60 hours a week.

If you play for 10 years @15 hours a week, you should have 2.5 3x completionists.

That's so stupidly off I don't know where to begin.

I mean, sure, it's possible for someone to TR in 20 hours. And, yes, there's maybe even a few people who do that.

But for you to think that's normal or expected... For you to think a new player can do that, and knock out triple-triple-completionist in weeks... For you think that most people who are playing a game, for fun, would ever even want to do that...

Those with an agenda like to mischaracterize how impossible it is to do things in DDO. Dev's have data of what players can, and actually do.

Yes, and I therefore suspect the devs know normal people don't TR every 20 hours.

[Wonedream]

Are Alts worth playing? Sure for a bit.

Are Alts worth spending money on?

No way, not with all the 100+ TRs... I am certain most will agree financially if not verbally.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Here is where you reveal your ignorance of what it takes to become 3x completionist.

You are off by a factor of 10.

20 hours heroic life (14x3)=42x20=840 hours
15 hours epic life (12x3)=36x15=540 hours
20 hours iconic life (5x3)=15x20=300 hours

1680 hours/60 = 28 weeks

A more casual player (like me) will take about 2x the above amounts. It only takes 1 year to get 3x completionist @60 hours a week.

If you play for 10 years @15 hours a week, you should have 2.5 3x completionists.

Limit yourself to the abilities that matter for a given build, and you can have a dozen toons with everything they need, even at 15 hours a week.


So even the more casual players (15 hours a week) could have many toons that were looking for more to do.

Throw in pay to reduce grind, and it gets even easier if you are willing to support the game to get their faster.


Those with an agenda like to mischaracterize how impossible it is to do things in DDO. Dev's have data of what players can, and actually do.




Show me a gimp toon that can't contribute meaningfully because of RXP. The complaints are out before it could even be an issue.

These numbers are hilariously bad. Many people have to struggle to get heroic completionist and they have posted that in this thread. As I said above. Are you ignoring anecdotal evidence?

It may be true that it takes 20 hours or grind time to complete a heroic TR. That's at a break neck pace though. Many people log in and only spend 50% of their time playing.
So multiply you base numbers by 4 rather than 2, because casual players are also A LOT slower inside a quest.

Now what's a casual player?
2 hours for 3 days a week, and then 6 hours on the weekend.
That's about 12 hours a week.

60 hours heroic life (14x3), 42x60=2520 hours
40 hours epic life (12x3), 36x40=1440 hours
50 hours iconic life (5x3), 15x50=750 hours

52*12 = 624 game hours a year

Take into account that many people do not spend ALL their time TRing. Take into account that a lot of time is spent getting gear, and socializing, and helping friends etc.
I mean you're bein' super silly here.

[Rys]

Many people have to struggle to get heroic completionist and they have posted that in this thread.

Pfffffffffffffffffff. Heroic completionist ez.

Jk, I don't have any. I also have only two alts. I think I am doing it wrong.

[nokowi]

These numbers are hilariously bad. Many people have to struggle to get heroic completionist and they have posted that in this thread. As I said above. Are you ignoring anecdotal evidence?

It may be true that it takes 20 hours or grind time to complete a heroic TR. That's at a break neck pace though. Many people log in and only spend 50% of their time playing.
So multiply you base numbers by 4 rather than 2, because casual players are also A LOT slower inside a quest.

Now what's a casual player?
2 hours for 3 days a week, and then 6 hours on the weekend.
That's about 12 hours a week.

60 hours heroic life (14x3), 42x60=2520 hours
40 hours epic life (12x3), 36x40=1440 hours
50 hours iconic life (5x3), 15x50=750 hours

52*12 = 624 game hours a year

Take into account that many people do not spend ALL their time TRing. Take into account that a lot of time is spent getting gear, and socializing, and helping friends etc.
I mean you're bein' super silly here.

Designing the game around those that don't know how to play the game and play 12 hours a week without running the hamster wheel, and without spending money is what would be crazy. Players at this level don't support the game enough to justify losing those that play more.

You THINK you need every past life, and that things are impossible, but it is because you haven't learned the game yet.

A casual player should be CASUAL and not demand everything.

An ENTITLED player should demand everything while doing far less than others.


You want casual players to have multiple toons with everything while playing less time and less efficiently than others. Sorry, this would be terrible design.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

You THINK you need every past life, and that things are impossible, but it is because you haven't learned the game yet.

No no, that's not what I'm saying, lol. I have every past life on one toon and about half of the past lives on 3. (Total I'm at 2.5X everything.) I have alts. I don't have problems running them. You are misunderstanding me...

...I'd like to have more, but I'm not will to take the massive pay and grind wall to let myself have 5 toons.

Designing the game around those that don't know how to play the game and play 12 hours a week without running the hamster wheel, 0 is what would be crazy.

You're assuming that casuals don't spend money...
...well you could be right. I don't have access to the figures, but from what I've seen I think that someone playing 12 hours a week probably spends about the same as someone spending 30 hours a week. Hell I knew a whale who didn't even play the game. He bought like 30 boxes and then started handing them away when he got bored of the game. He didn't have time in RL and kept thinking he'd come back and play when he had time.

He ended up not having time.

I think we should design the game so that everyone is happy---I'm not trying to boil anything down to a common denominator.
I'm making recommendations based on what I observe in game.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

pfffffffffffffffffff. Heroic completionist ez.

Jk, i don't have any. I also have only two alts. I think i am doing it wrong.

you mean one of our best players isn't addicted to a hamster wheel?

Whaaaaaaaat?

Whaaaaaaat?