I would really like as many slots as there will be classes of character, so 14 at current expectations.
I feel like I need at least as many as there are crafting professions -which I believe is 7 currently, since there's no viability to delete one crafter just to make another one.
I will feel very shortchanged if there aren't at least 4 so I can have one each Tank, Healer, CC, DPS.
I would not mind if extra slots were buyable at some reasonable fee.
I am not a fan of the one character per server idea. If a player decided that they would like to try out many characters to match their play style, then they should have the option to do so without throwing away the work they had placed into their first character. Also, many people enjoy characters situationally. They may have one for their upper-level raiding while utilizing another as a crafter/harvester. Perhaps they have several archetypes based on what their guild needs in order to be a team player. Having options will make the game more appealing to the gaming community and allow players to have all of their characters on the same server to play with their friends.
Lonexile said:I am not a fan of the one character per server idea. If a player decided that they would like to try out many characters to match their play style, then they should have the option to do so without throwing away the work they had placed into their first character. Also, many people enjoy characters situationally. They may have one for their upper-level raiding while utilizing another as a crafter/harvester. Perhaps they have several archetypes based on what their guild needs in order to be a team player. Having options will make the game more appealing to the gaming community and allow players to have all of their characters on the same server to play with their friends.
I was not really suggesting Pantheon go the one character per server route as it is a class based game. One of the keys to making a one character per server game viable is the ability to change/evolve your character over time if you decide that you want something different. One character per server just makes class and crafting skill choices much more relevant and those seldom used crafting classes become that much more valuable when you cannot just use an alt to cover it.
I feel like people WANT a game that makes them make important choices that could impact their character development and what not.
Why not make those choices start with character creation.
2 character slots. If you want to make a 3rd... well figure out which one you dont need!
As far as professions. It would make the choice behind professions that much more valuable.
If you have 1 of every profession, you're probably not going to seek out the assistance of a blacksmith if you need one. By limiting what you have access to, it creates a more social game!
I agree with Porygon on this one.
2 character slots, 3 tops.
Having more characters, is fun indeed, but it takes away the necessity of having to reach out to others and trade.
You'll end up with numerous players having their own guild/house or resource-/fuel-/craft- and bank system without having to interact with other players. This will undermine the social structures that are build in the game. It's a tough decision to make, but with the aim of creating a need for player to player interaction, the dev's might be better off putting a limit to the amount of characters one could have at the start. Throughout the next following years, there can still be windows of opportunity to allow for an extra character to be enrolled (new races, new classes).
What is wrong with having to decide to delete a character if you want to try out another? If I'm fully committed to one character, sure as hell I will not be deleting it, no matter what shiny new things are offered.
Different people play different ways. Spouse has never deleted a character - seems to feel it is kinder to leave them camped for decades unplayed rather than "murder" them.
I have deleted so many I have been brought up on charges of mass toonicide. I would be doing hard time now if I hadn't deleted the judge.
Barin's point (I know others made it earlier also) that if you can have one character for every craft you will have fewer reasons to work with other players is beyond question a valid one.
But if crafting is as slow and difficult as VR intends leveling to be if you run every craft up you will have them all at low levels while other people are capped and can make things your characters will need - so you still need to deal with others at least until you have played for years and maxed everything out. By then there will have hopefully been expansions so you may never be self-sufficient at high level. Nonetheless it is a valid argument.
My counter-argument is unrelated - and quite simple. Encouraging us to run multiple characters is good for the game.
1. If I run one character, max her out, get all the "cool" gear etc. what else is there to do? Dailies? Repeat raids over and over? Complain that VR needs more content? But if I am running different races and classes and enjoying different starting and middle-level areas I won't get anywhere near level-cap until long after the one-character players have maxed out and started complaining. I will subscribe longer and complain less - win-win for VR.
2. VR wants the lower level areas to remain in-use not be deserted as characters level. If I hit level cap as fast as Pantheon allows with one character that may not happen. If I start "alts" now and then to try things out it *will* happen.
dorotea said:1. If I run one character, max her out, get all the "cool" gear etc. what else is there to do? Dailies? Repeat raids over and over? Complain that VR needs more content? But if I am running different races and classes and enjoying different starting and middle-level areas I won't get anywhere near level-cap until long after the one-character players have maxed out and started complaining. I will subscribe longer and complain less - win-win for VR.
2. VR wants the lower level areas to remain in-use not be deserted as characters level. If I hit level cap as fast as Pantheon allows with one character that may not happen. If I start "alts" now and then to try things out it *will* happen.
I understand what you're going with this, but take these conditions into consideration. If it takes you 6 months to level 1 char to max... you're looking at 12 to 18 months for 3 chars assuming you do nothing at max level. That's quite a bit of time...
If the progeny system is implemented properly it should create much more characters at lower levels of the game at various stages, should it not?
And 3rd... I wouldn't want to see something like daily quests... however I could see VR implementing weekly bonuses to people who mentor down to certain level ranges.. maybe a small exp reward for playing x amount of hours between 15 and 19. A small monetary reward. A package of consumables etc. This would make sure they're was a constant flow of people across various level ranges.
I did not read everything in this thread, but would additional character slots be moot because of the progeny system? (I'm still not sure how I feel about that system, unless you got to keep your old characters. It feels like a waste and a shame not to keep a character you worked so hard on.)
Anyway, I love making alts, so at least 6 slots would make me happy. And no, I don't want to pay for an extra slot. I hate microtransactions. Make this game pay to play, month to month -- which is what I believe it will be anyway.
Perplexing89 said:I did not read everything in this thread, but would additional character slots be moot because of the progeny system? (I'm still not sure how I feel about that system, unless you got to keep your old characters. It feels like a waste and a shame not to keep a character you worked so hard on.)
Yeah, I'm not too keen on it, though I guess so long as it's completely voluntary... and isn't used as an excuse to offer very few character slots. If it's voluntary, I know I wouldn't use it, and if it's forced, that would likely be enough to just drive me away. (That's why I have no interest in Chronicles of Elyria.)
1 for each class is too many, IMO. I think 4 is a reasonable amount without paying for more slots, of which I don't have a problem with either. Theoretically, most people will have twice as many slots, assuming they keep their digital copy and create a second account which many people will probably do.
I also wonder why people would like to restrict slots to anything less than 8. Honestly, one per class seems nice to me - but we are talking about number of slots per server, right? So, worst case, we'd have to play on two servers to have one of each class.
I can't quite believe enough people will take advantage of tradeskills on their alts to justify severely limiting how many char slots we have.. certainly a few would take advantage of the slots by leveling up different tradeskillers and avoiding groups, but I'd bet platinum there wouldn't be enough of those people to have any discernible effect on the server. The vast majority will be grouping. And so maybe there are a few players who want to stay alone and trade between their alts - so what? I guess we could be worried guilds could develop that would take advantage of players with many high level characters fulfilling all sorts of roles - but that seems incredibly cumbersome and not something many players would undertake. But, to be fair, I don't really know what the culture is like in the highest end guilds.
Actually none of us knows if we are talking about number of slots per server or number of slots aggreagte for the entire game. Since we haven't been told which system Pantheon will follow.
Certainly if it is slots per server a smaller number won't be *quite* as painful since we can test out race/class combinations on other servers without having to delete characters on the primary server (if we have a primary server). But anything we do on secondary servers will be wasted in that we probably cannot move money or gear between servers, and we won't be able to play different "alts" with complementary abilities if they are on different servers.
As a roleplayer, the whole "make characters on another server" thing doesn't work nearly as well. RP communities tend to center around a single server - unless you've got WoW's population size that can support multiple robust communities. Therefore, I hope there is a sizeable number of character slots per server.