What are the ups and downs of having lots of alts?

[Macetheace]

okay..when you love something you play it a lot, and this game is that good, if you're like me you have more than one character. Sure i get games who you can do everything on one character (like FFXIV) or most things (ESO) - but they have system that support that and unique means of promoting replayability.

 

For you who have lots of alts, what are the best things about having alts and what are some of the annoying things you experience?

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Pro:

I can farm a lot of the events, rep, crafting and gathering.

 

Con:

Most of them get left behind after the original story. Of 13 characters, I only have 5 or 6 at 60. Only my main has went through the expansion so far.

[Macetheace]

For me

 

Cons

• Alt management is tedious, you have to switch to do a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with playing the character -just organizing space, things etc or making best use of having another toon example:
  
• I hate how I have to switch toons all the time just to check mail, GTN auctions or use crew skills attached to them, it is such a grind.
  
• I hate always having to swap alts to give them gear or items. I really just want to log an alt to play, and would love to be able to manage things for all characters from ANY character i'm using.
  

 

Pros:

• I get to experience a different class story again, at least for level 1-50
  
• Try out new fun mechanics
  
• Access to more crew skills
  
• makes it easier to develop rep faster
  
• Legacy system - allowing achievements and perks to be shared but also enhance all toons like companions maxed out affections giving extra stat bonuses and finishing class story lines giving access to signature abilities from another class
  

 

Needs greater development:

Get some more inter class play, more abiliteis earned, like you get something new from the smuggler when you finish RotHC , and again something new after Shadows of Revan etc.

Would be cool to be able to summon your alt as a temporary assitant to join you and your companion - maybe even allow you to control your alt when you summon him in place of your main character while the duration is up.

Allow you to have your alts animated in your strongholds, they can move around do stuff, maybe you can marry them, get children with them fend off attacks in your stronghold with them, the more alts you have there the more robust is your defense there.

[Macetheace]

Con:

Most of them get left behind after the original story. Of 13 characters, I only have 5 or 6 at 60. Only my main has went through the expansion so far.

 

totally agreed here, especially after you finsih the main class story at 50, the individuality is gone, because the story is the same.

 

I feel either add individual class stories from 50-65 , or give much greater rewards for taking another character through.. for example.. if you don't have to worry about gear mostly because you can easily share gear between your toons (make that easier please) then you can use your crystals and other resources to enhance things like your alliance, allowing using an alt to be a very speedy and interesting way of doing the grinds and resources even while repeating the story content, and not just after.

 

rather than have to redo the whole process again, have some shared legacy aspects.

[Lord_Iurus]

Pro:

Experiencing different outcomes of choices, different specialties, and different stories

Having multiple characters to gear differently

Sharing event rewards between alts

Sharing crafted gear and materials between alts

Doing dailies and weeklies more often (less so now that Devoted Allies gear is no longer necessary)

Shared stronghold

More opportunities to complete HK-51 quest

Con:

Having multiple characters to gear differently

Deciding where your Cartel loot goes/more cost if you want it to apply to all alts

Difficulty completing group content (such as Oricon plot) with all alts

More difficult to prioritize if you have limited time available

[LadyVix]

Pros:

* I got to experience the storyline from many different perspectives.

* I understand the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of all classes

* I have many different characters to farm events

 

Cons:

* Keeping everyone decently geared is expensive and time consuming. Just as I finished gearing my 60's, the level cap is changed to 65 and I start all over again.

 

It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it.

 

Currently: 15 Lv65's, 30 Lv60's, 2 Lv59's, 6 lv55's, and ~20 between Lv20 and Lv42. (Spread across two accounts and three servers)

[Jamtas]

I have one of every advanced class and then a few low level dupes

 

Pros:

Get to play each class (even easier now with the gear stats being pretty much the same, jsut set pieces different now)

Get to play each story a different way

Easier to farm rep and gather/craft

can almost always have a toon available to raid without worry of lockouts.

Farming creds for overall account quicker as well

 

Cons:

A lot of work. I liked the new story, but then to realize I'll need to go through that another 15 times to have all my toons at same level feels like a lot to do. (def will take my time for the ones I don't play often)

Easy to forget who has what when passing around legacy things. (made a generic spreadsheet to kee track, but that's only as accurate as the work I put in)

 

 

For me, the pros outweigh the cons. Having more options to me is always a plus.

[TheSeventhJedi]

UPS: Lots of alts.

DOWNS: My choices haven't mattered yet, and that makes lots of the same story for lots of alts.

[Macetheace]

keep em coming guys.

 

I wonder if they can make it progressively easier to maintain and upgrade alts the more you have.

 

I did not like having to do the Oricon missions just to be able to access the Dread F/P ... I think if one toon did and gained access, all toons should at least be able to gain access, then they can do the oricon planet if they want to.

 

Also, it's one thing having just 1 or 2 alts, but many players are on much higher numbers, ranging from something like 5-18 alts, gotta start thinking of how things affect players with taht high level of alts around. and how you can help us have a better and smoother expereince.

[DreadtechSavant]

No down side for me.

[Wasabi]

okay..when you love something you play it a lot, and this game is that good, if you're like me you have more than one character. Sure i get games who you can do everything on one character (like FFXIV) or most things (ESO) - but they have system that support that and unique means of promoting replayability.

 

For you who have lots of alts, what are the best things about having alts and what are some of the annoying things you experience?

 

Pros:

- having storage mules

- self reliance(be able to craft whatever you need)

- experiencing different roles

- experiencing both factions

- being able to go off on your own and decompress after work, without guildies knowing you're on(not getting bothered to do ops or other guild functions).

 

Cons:

- staring at character screen, trying to decide what you want to do today

- getting them all caught up with updates/expansions(such as with the new *simplified* crafting mess we have now)

- entering a war zone on your commando, but your brain, timing, and fingers are still in sorc/sage mode.

[Lord_Iurus]

I forgot to mention Reputation! Both of my Knight's mounts and her clothes, plus some gear on my other characters would be almost impossible for me without alts.

[sentientomega]

In a single week, I went from about 0 reputation for BBA, to something crazy, and with a massive number of blue and green tokens left over, they were all lowbie alts (20 or so) so the following couple of weeks, I made legend.

 

This was pre-3.0, btw.

[Roahin]

Cons: Squeezing them all into your pretentious forum signature becomes more and more challenging.

[Storm-Cutter]

You can only do daily once per day per character - same with the weekly.

So if you're into grinding dailies for commendations, you switch characters and do the daily /weekly on them too and transfer the gear, or PvP comms etc.

 

But: It can be a huge time-sink to do Ziost (for instance) 5 times in an hour - not to mention a bit boring.

 

OTOH if dailies are your thing, the credits earned tick up really fast.

 

Most people find that they have primary characters for end-game stuff and secondary ones for leveling/ / dailes and also for a change of pace / role or for a different aspect of the game, be it PvP or GSF or RP or achievement hunting or w/e.

 

Best thing OMHO is covering all the crafting and crewskills, and learning other classes / ACs, which help you appreciate other players in group content.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Storm-Cutter

[Nihilkult]

Needs greater development:

Get some more inter class play, more abiliteis earned, like you get something new from the smuggler when you finish RotHC , and again something new after Shadows of Revan etc.

Would be cool to be able to summon your alt as a temporary assitant to join you and your companion - maybe even allow you to control your alt when you summon him in place of your main character while the duration is up.

Allow you to have your alts animated in your strongholds, they can move around do stuff, maybe you can marry them, get children with them fend off attacks in your stronghold with them, the more alts you have there the more robust is your defense there.

I don't know how doable it would be technically but it sure would be great coupled with a better genealogy feature on out legacy. I love to invent links between my alts on the rp side and this would be a nice addition

[Jeweledleah]

 

I did not like having to do the Oricon missions just to be able to access the Dread F/P ... I think if one toon did and gained access, all toons should at least be able to gain access, then they can do the oricon planet if they want to.

 

.

 

you don't actualy need to do oricon missions to acess the fortress/palace. you only need them to acess the one time quest with its mount reward.

 

that said, biggest pro for me is legacy advancement. second biggest pro is ability to see variety of stories in a variety of ways. and yes having ability to jump into an Op without worrying about lockouts can be great. as well as ability to craft everything I want without depending on someone else.

 

con's like for a lot of others, the story now is consolidated, so fewer differences. gearing can be a bother, though legacy gear and consolidated main stat makes it much easier.

[Chirru]

I do not know what the Original Poster means by 'lots' of Alts. But i run one for every main class because of the Story content. To me every one of the Class stories had some good some mediocre and some boring parts, but how would i know if i never played these tales? So, it is worthwhile to have at least 8 Alts to me.

 

In addition I run a few pure Grafter Alts and a pure Storage one. As for having too many Alts... Me thinks that there is the danger of burnout. I have already enough with running the 8 Main ones reasonably... but that is me....

[well]

It is fun. Sometimes you want to hit high level missions sometimes low. I have 32 60s and a herd of other levels on multi servers. Down side is when you have pay for crafters when there is a change.

[Darth_Penn]

I've just come back to the game after a maybe 2.5 year break, I have 15 decently leveled altsm but a con now is that I lament how much i've missed on my break and how many more I could have!

 

I'd love to see some ease of use features like legacy cargo space, or being able to set crew missions account wide without logging in and out.

 

Even just a manifest feature you could access so you knwo where to log to for what you want

[Forgettableone]

28 alts, 4 are 65 but only one's done FE the rest are 60 apart from a lvl 29.

 

Pros

- I've seen every class story from light/dark, male and female

- I've seen every romance story

- I know the geography of the planets (up to Rishi) backwards.

- I'm self sufficient in terms of crafting and credits

- I've created a fantastic spreadsheet that tracks every character in terms of level, gear, comp affection (that bit needs updating the more I do FE) what their driving, alignment, what content they've completed, what comms they've got, what's in their bank tabs and so on.

- By the time I get round to starting new content it's usually had most of the glaring bugs fixed (see first con)

- Maxed content based reps without trying too hard.

 

Cons

- Keeping up to date with content is a lengthy process, I'm still finishing rishi-ziost runs on a few toons.

- Keeping them all appropriately geared can take time and a small fortune.

- The spreadsheet needs updating, it's one reason why I'm glad they said 2016 for Chapter X. I might just be caught up by then..

- If you mistakenly put an item into a character bank instead of Legacy Storage without realising it......

[SteveTheCynic]

Cons:

- staring at character screen, trying to decide what you want to do today

This is my main con.

 

OP: Nobody's mentioned the reason to have at least one character in each mirrored pair of classes (i.e. one+ Trooper/BH, one+ Smugg/IA, one+ JC/SI, and one+ JK/SW). The first time you complete chapter 2 of the class story on one or the other class of a pair, all characters in the other pairs get that pair's class buff bonus.

 

So you start a Trooper. When your trooper finishes the end of chapter 2, all Smuggs, IAs, JCs, SIs, JKs and SWs in your legacy will get the Trooper/BH class buff as well as their own when they use their class buff skill. If you have done one from each pair, all your characters get all four class buff effects.

[Darth_Penn]

Just realised due to this thread that there is now legacy storage! Woop! major sorting out to do when I get home!

[Macetheace]

Just realised due to this thread that there is now legacy storage! Woop! major sorting out to do when I get home!

 

ah good luck on that.. i have yet to sort my legacy for the new conquest campaigns when they kick off.

 

if only there is a way they could really help us organize and sort things better - i quite like how GW2 stores materials, if only we could do something like that, but make it legacy wide.

[Allamirr]

I have 16 level 65 toons, one for each class type, 8 Imp and 8 Rep. Then a few mules for storage purposes etc..

 

Pros:

You can do alot more with more toons, farming Reputation and drops for the special events (Gree, Rakghoul, Bounty Hunter etc..). Not to mention all the Heroic2 weeklys, those Alliance boxes stack up fast, though its near impossible to do more then a toon a day on those (around 6 or 7), unless you dont sleep or eat or use the bathroom!

Run more Crew Skill missions and have one of each of the 6 crew skills.

Legacy Achievements go alot faster spread out between all toons, you dont have to burn yourself out on doing them all on one toon.

 

Cons:

Leveling up that many can be a nightmare!

The cost of maintaining that many toons and their companions is expensive!

 

All and all i think the pros out weigh the cons on having lots of toons.