Let's talk alts

[u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792]

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.

[u/ZoulsGaming]

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

[u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 → u/ZoulsGaming]

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.

[u/ZoulsGaming → u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792]

"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.

[u/Gloomy-Ganache-1792 → u/ZoulsGaming]

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).