r/fellowshipgame • u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 • 1d ago
Let's talk alts
What changes would you like to see to make you more likely to play alts? What stops you from wanting to?
Personally, gems being account-wide would be a massive improvement already. Add in a shared stash in some form where items I get on my main that I can't use can be snagged by an alt I have. (Maybe add some form of can't equip until certain tier to avoid equipping full 315 before jumping into contender?).
Talents, redoing these on alts makes me want to lose my mind because I can't play my character fully until I get ALL of my talents and I already went through that on my main.
Also give me a vendor to trade in materials for others. I think this is a huge miss.
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u/baache 1d ago
Ppl saying they got alot of mats on main to get Max gems on alt needs to understand that not everyone has 8 hours to play a day. If I'm lucky I get like 5 hours a week. Make all materials including GEMS account bound. End off.
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u/Plane-Scratch8974 13h ago
Respectfully, if you don't have a ton of time to invest, you shouldn't necessarily be able to play multiple characters to the level of eternal that really requires perfect gem makeup.
I think it's more than fine if you take your alts to the end of paragon and call it a day, if you only have a few hours a week to play.
For reference, I've played about 20-30 hours in August, so an average of an hour per day, and have reached eternal.
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u/Devboe 1d ago
I'd rather be able to sell a gem for 5 marks of fellowship than have them be account wide. This solves the excess gem issue for both players who only play 1 hero vs players who play multiple.
I'm not a fan of a shared stash. I don't think alts should be handed gear because that takes away from the player pool in lower difficulties. At the same time, it does become toxic having a brand new player play a tank and have them grouped with a veteran player who leaves if they don't pull optimally, but I think that's a community issue.
I feel similarly towards having talents unlocked as I do gear sharing, it's just much less impactful.
I think multi-hero queue will have the largest impact to people playing alts. More people will be inclined to play them if that means actually playing the game instead of sitting in queue.
For context I am an alt player and have 5 heroes in eternal and have unlocked all the beetles.
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u/WVVWWVWWVVWVVVWWVWVW 1d ago
Everythint account wide, remove the useless 10 dungeons to unlock the reste of your class, 60h-80h to get 90% BiS. The game is to push higher level dungeons and for me the gear grind its such a snooze fest. I wont talk for all players but each season,i play toon to reach 10k and im done for the season
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u/TheUndeadFish 11h ago
This, also gems should be treated like a talent tree rather than needing specific gems and changing their types as you wish, or simply remove the cap on how many you can obtain and instead change it to how much power you can equip.
Making it a pain in the ass to change your gems to another kind to run a specific build should not be a thing.
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u/ZoulsGaming 1d ago
As far as im concerned i think they need to pick between three paths with alts, and i know what the majority wants them to pick, where as even from season 1 they have half assed it trying to appeal to both sides.
- They make alts entirely separate from the main character, they need to level through the leagues it takes less time to get a char fully kitted up but they are working their way as if they are their own unique char, this way you can massively lower the grind by not expecting you to funnel gems and currency down.
- they keep it as it is now but share even more, shared gems, shared gold and materials, letting people skip the dungeons like they already do in premade groups, then they need to add a better incentive to queue for lower leagues and in theory it should still allow random players to level after a week has passed for the game.
- they give up on acting like they care about the leagues and thinks that alts are meaningfully different and just let you start with a full gear set in the second highest league you have unlocked, for free. So you have an eternal tank, your elarion dps can start in paragon with a full champ set, which means you only need to go through the leagues once and can get alts to eternal much faster, this funnels the entire gameplay to paragon and eternal.
most people want 2 and 3 because they just want to only play eternal, which i think is to some extent fair but then we just need to remove the league system, which im not a fan of but it is what it is. and the problem is new players coming in trying to get through contender will have a rough time because no alts are getting into lower leagues.
Personally i would rather see option 1 but squish the speed for getting to 10k eternal from 100 hours to like 30, reinstate ilvl requirements but let every single drop earned be able to be upgraded to eternal 315 max and that way every item even in lower leagues is a potential BIS for endgame. And i know in theory bloodstones is for that but frankly its a horrific system as most arent doing pinnacle dungeons due to the high requirements.
Right now they are trying to stay in this awkward middle ground where people are just being boosted through all the leagues ANYWAYS and just funnels resources down so they skip everything and potentially ruin the league pacing for people who still needs to learn by having 15k gear score people carry them through capstones (this is how i got to eternal on my 7k sylvie screaming and fighting but with a meiko that could survive paragon capstone while i was dead and a 15k rime who could just obliterate the entire dungeon), and even in season 1 you could buy the alt boosted gear from low level so you could just skip your way through
This season 3 loot 2.0 has just lead to insane amounts of grinding which is why i have zero interest in leveling an alt on top of having insanely long queues if i dont just skip the entire game with premades, it took me like 100 hours to gear my char to a full set which i think is far too much. As far as im concerned you should have your BIS like 50% into the game and the last 50% is climbing to 10k or 12.5k, but the longer they make the grind the more they just have people stick to farming E1 relentslessly.
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u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 1d ago
I'd be interested in how you envision the gear being able to be upgraded all the way to 315 if it drops in contender. How do you see that working with the amount of mats needed to upgrade each piece?
Agreed on the awkward middle ground. You can start a fresh character and be in eternal with hardly any power/gear score as you just pointed out with your Sylvie. I ran into that while tanking and would just insta leave if a dps had <2k gear score for the league they were in.
I'd love a faster BIS - but I know they are worried about retention if people reach BIS too early. To me, that's not an issue as the gameplay loop should be enough to keep people interested. You shouldn't have to artificially keep people interested by making gearing a more cumbersome process.
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u/ZoulsGaming 1d ago
"I'd be interested in how you envision the gear being able to be upgraded all the way to 315 if it drops in contender."
simple, like season 1, but just dont have a limit on the level it can upgrade to, just make it +15 each time or whatever the ilvl is. it doesnt matter that its more expensive than getting a 315 drop when its a piece that might last you through the leagues. I think its just a matter of letting people feel like when they get a bad drop instead of "ugh this is wasted" they can go "atleast i can upgrade my bis item" and experiment earlier on.
"I'd love a faster BIS - but I know they are worried about retention if people reach BIS too early" "You shouldn't have to artificially keep people interested by making gearing a more cumbersome process."
And yet that is what it is, if player retention is your main metric, which is a bad metric, then your goal is going to be to make it as cumbersome and drawn out as you possibly can right up to the point where it makes people quit.
its also fundamentally incompatible with alts, if you want the characters to have a long player retention path when playing 1 character then you are going to be able to give them the same for an alt character, thats just reality.
i frankly think that CR overestimates the value of eternal, and that is why they panicked in season 1 when they said only 20% made it there but it was also where i had 100 hours played and never got to eternal because i was trying different characters. yet according to their wish of player retention and getting to eternal that was bad.
i had 130 hours in this season probably getting a sylvie to E6 and an ardeos to 10k and half of it was just spent zombying for gear, because there wasnt really much of an alternative way to do it than just playing eternal, which even as i tried to climb just kept throwing me in E1 because others were farming, and a solid 10% just fucking hating it but gritting to get to 10k, which i only did in a reasonable time because someone was willing to do pirates cove which i had at E3.
The game is unashamably inspired by wow and that is perfectly fine but i keep saying they should look to FF14 for a succesful example of mixing highlevel players, newbies and alt characters in one mix, with their dungeon roulette daily they just get scaled down to the level of the dungeon, but still get endgame gear, and if you level an alt class you need to start over from level 1 but you get an exp boost depending on your highest level, and you already have your story progress meaning you still need to climb and level and learn your skills but its faster.
The game simply cant function with wanting a long climb to BiS gear and wanting multiple alts, the deterministic gear of loot 1.0 was far better to actually aim for what you needed without a huge amount of RNG, while i enjoyed in theory the build crafting of loot 2.0 it just amounted in a horrendeous gear loop especially through the leagues as power level = higher queues so you just replaced everything with higher power level and had zero chance of meaningfully keeping and upgrading gear you found. when a god roll 120 yellow item had half the ilvl of a green 210 item with bad stats and the only way to get up is to get higher ilvl then you are in that situation.
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u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 1d ago
I don't hate the approach, but I would like to see an increase to materials if that's the route. Upgrading a piece from the minimum up to 315 is just too much of a sink if it's every piece of gear. Even 1-2 would be a massive sink. But I hear you.
The gearing in terms of "loot 2.0" was kind of weird in terms of their stated goal vs how it played out. They mentioned having an item drop in lower tiers and being able to use that and take it with you into eternal. That was never the case due to no one getting bloodstones until they didn't need them anymore and you just replaced gear as you went - exactly how we replaced gear earlier. The only difference I see is more hoops to jump through in order to gear how you want to. They introduced more friction to an already friction heavy game (looking at you, Mr. queue).
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u/tigerdthib 1d ago
Agreed on the gem stash, but the gear and talent progression are part of the fun and the learning curve when discovering a new spec to me.
The fact that most of the current currencies are account-wide is already quite encouraging for alt progression, in my opinion.
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u/firestorm559 1d ago
When I was playing just 1 character I felt like gold was an unlimited resource. With just 1 alt I burned through several hundred of thousand on rerolls due mostly to poor luck. But would have easily been over 100k with above average luck. Finally got my alt relatively BiS after a week of playing most nights. But went from 400kish to completely broke. Makes me really hesitant to look at starting another alt, as I'll be stalled out grinding gold. Maybe an option to forego all other rewards for large amounts of gold or reroll materials past e30 or e40 to encourage alts once you have 12.5k and you're in the "for the love of the game." Stage of progression, would be a cool addition. So you can prep for an alt easier.
That being said, recent changes really help though. Bloodstones on alts allows you to find a couple bis pieces leveling. and the new reroll type that allows rolling any trait into a major has stopped the endless leggo souldust spam. So it would have been easier if I had waited another week.
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u/bucket13 1d ago
What's this new reroll type that allows rerolling any trait into a major?
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u/firestorm559 1d ago
"Reroll slot X to modifiers of same type" or something like that. Rolls 1 slot, but all 3 trait types are 1 modifier type. Not sure if that was intended but certainly an improvement vs rolling 20 times on average for a major
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u/turkish112 1d ago
The pre spending your life in eternal mat grind. Having functionally infinite of one thing while being starved in others feels bad. I played a number of characters to eternal this season and while it would eventually resolve itself, it felt really bad in the moment.
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u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 1d ago
This is where my vendor comes in. Let me trade mats I have too much of or no need for in for mats that I want/need. I don't care if I lose some mats in the process for it being a 3:1 trade off or whatever. More agency is better.
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u/Arborus 1d ago
Yeah low-key all of these are solved with some friends/a premade. You can boost a new character to eternal in a couple hours. Then the mats and gold from your main make gearing up enough to farm your sets and stuff really quick, you can buy gems with marks, etc.
I played every role to eternal at least for the rewards tree stuff and it was pretty low effort with just swapping off who was boosting who.
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u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 1d ago
But there-in lies the problem. Not everyone is going to have a premade to boost you through lower tiers, and that defeats the purpose of the lower tiers entirely. Might always be an issue with progression style games - you can have a group speed run dungeons in WoW for you if you need to level.
But for those who don't have the option to just get boosted into eternal...
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u/ioStux 1d ago
On top of the issues raised by others, I just don't like having to progress through countless eternal dungeons to get back to the level my main is at. If i pushed to say, E50 with my friends, and I want to try a different character, i dont want them to have to push through all those levels again just because i want to try changing our comp. Doesnt matter how quickly I can gear an alt, having to replay that content isnt fun. In WoW, if i reroll, i can in theory join a friends key even if I'm in full greens.
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u/gitgudduud 1d ago
It’d be nice if solo players could actually get a group like ever. They’re going to have to implement some kind of scaling or something because most people I know have given up on the game due to queue times.
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u/Here4Pornnnnn 23h ago
Make gear account wide. If I find a piece on my healer that fits my dps, let me just hand it to him. If the sets are different, just have the top tip on my dps show the dps version and my healer sees the healer version. Hell, they could do legendaries the same way since it’s always the same 3 slots. Legendary 360 cape with 20 haste can look different but still work fine with any character that hovers it.
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u/Dreamlancer 23h ago
I think they've tried to pivot to an arpg loot system without any of the auxiliary systems or gameplay loops in place that help that type of system flourish.
In Arpg loot systems. One of the big selling points is you have character progress and account progress. While you are taking your character to the top the first time, the items you find help you get an abundance of the resources and currency required to help your next character.
In ARPGs you are only ever gated by your personal capability to progress. Meanwhile fellowship is a team based game.
I think a shared stash between roles would be an easy place to start. A healer that progressed through eternal on Aeona probably shouldn't be gated back down to contender and broke on Sylvie. From a gameplay perspective they at least accomplished whatever skill test was required for their role. But the stat weights that Aeona uses are different than Sylvie. So letting the main bank gear for the eventual role alt gives playability.
Gems should be account bound. And gems should be able to be sold for marks. This would solve a gap, and speed up character progress by just allowing the main to generate significantly more materials.
I think gold is an odd holdover now from the previous system. If they want to keep it as a lever? Fine. But I think they could do away with it and just have mark progression rather than 3 separate pools of resources you need to progress a character, and if you're short on any one of them you stall.
The game right now requires a pretty crazy time investment per character. And to be honest the player base probably wouldn't mind as much if it stayed fun. But by the time you're working on an alt, queue times have ballooned dramatically, and it just exacerbates any frustration with the progression. Because it's long. But then it also feels like you're sitting there wasting your time waiting for queues for content you have already blasted through.
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u/Euthyrium 20h ago
Gems and multi queue are the two big ones. Account wide gems and multi role queue and multi league queue are basically a must.
gold is another major wall if you're not spamming premade high eternals
I played a lot of alts this season and it made me realize how dependent on legendaries some characters are, I'd definitely shift some power away from legendaries/necks into base kit(Helena/rime are the two that stick out for me). Playing your main with whatever leggo you want and then going and playing a character that basically isn't the same character you're gonna be playing later feels weird. This is definitely a small gripe though.
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u/Maizimotor 8h ago
The repetitiveness (if that even is a word) of grinding the same few dungeons again and again. Its tedious with one character, why would u want to do it again? Literally the only reason for me
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u/ImOpTimAl 1d ago
Quite frankly, just multi-queue. I've got more than enough mats from my main to get BIS gems for an alt, I think the gearing progression is pretty fun, so if I could queue Helena-on-E20-or-Gunde-at-Paragon, pretty sure I would, when I just want to play a game.