One character vs Alts

I know in FFXIV you can learn any class with one character, so is there any point in having alts? What are your thoughts? Normally I would want an alt for every class, because I'm an altaholic, but I'm wondering if thats really necessary here.

Positives of alts would be more storage space (since there is no account storage), but then you can't actually send anything to your other characters without getting a second account or asking a friend to help with that. And a second account means a second monthly fee.

Normally the alts would let you try out other story lines, but I'm wondering how unique they are (I've pretty much only gotten through progress  to maybe 19 on two characters so far). So if you have three characters, each starting in a different city, and go through the storyline with them - have you seen all the possible storylines?

Traits - I haven't messed with these much - do you have different traits whenever you switch to a different class, or is it one set of traits regardless of your class? If it's just one set, I imagine it would be harder to be good at other classes in one character.

A possible negative of one character would be finding it harder/slower to level up different classes once you've done all the local quests. And you can only do so many of those levies a day.

Just wondering what everyone's doing/thinking?

traits are bound to your class so the only jobs with a conflict might be scholar and summoner. Each class gets thier own traits. I have 1 character who does everything ( and I am an altaholic usually) . 2nd classes don't have many quests, but therte are leves, guild hests, dungeons, and you get a large xp boost to every new class you level after your main. 

I didn't know how much of a boost it gave till I checked Google and I was stunned. What I found is below.

For every class whose level is underneath your highest class, you get a 50% EXP armory bonus.

This applies to:

- Monster kills. Even in fates.
- Fate completions.
- Guildleves.

It doesn't apply to quests.

Inn resting bonus is probably double EXP. I'm not sure on that, or how it stacks with the armory bonus.

I always found leveling alts fun in other games. sense you couldn't really play all class's on one character. but in this one you can. it doesn't mean that I won't create a second one down the line, perhaps to see the story unfold from a different perspective sense the story does differ up to a particular point or as a different race. but for now i'm happy with one character

"Normally I would want an alt for every class, because I'm an altaholic, but I'm wondering if thats really necessary here."

No, you can do everything on a single character, except for the story lines, which actually do differ enough to make it worthwhile if one really wants to experience them.  Making other characters is based strictly on preference.  Folks have different reasons for making other characters, for example my reasons are about names, looks and overall character themes.

"A possible negative of one character would be finding it harder/slower to level up different classes once you've done all the local quests. And you can only do so many of those levies a day."

That is a problem that I ran into with my Archer.  I got bored chasing FATEs all over the zones.  Since my quests were used and I do not like dungeons, I found myself very limited on XP "grinding" options.  Now, you do get a "highest class difference" XP bonus that is supposed to help leveling your other classes on the same character, but to be honest, I've not found that its anything substantial that I miss.

So for me, having some variety definitely outweighs the pros of sticking with just one character.  It comes down to personal preferences of how you want to enjoy the game.

I have a bunch of alts, but my reason is mostly storage related.  I really hate to sell materials unless I am absolutely sure I don't need them, so I am a pack-rat.  I decided to have 2 accounts so that I can mail stuff between my main and alts.  Mostly I have not leveled the alts, but i have them in different cities and choose different classes just in case I change my mind.

I mentally give all of my toons some personality, identity and a little story integration.  I play them as characters, not virtual avatars of my RL self.  They're all very different little virtual denizens of whatever game world I'm playing in.  I think I play them more for that, than whatever class they might be.

But I'm also an old player who's logged roughly 80,000 hours of played time in these online games over the past 22 years.  Yes, I actually sat down and did some conservative estimates based on logged hours that I show across several of my games.  The original number was closer to 100,000, but I decided to throw in a 80% multiplier just to keep it conservative... and to make myself feel better, even though its all ballpark guesstimation, LOL.

So, that's why I alt, I have to mix up my variety a little bit.  Do I have to in FFXIV?  No.  Is it better to maintain a single character in FFXIV?  Maybe, but IMO, the jury is still out on that.  They gave us 8 characters per server / 40 world-wide for a reason.  >.>

Having just one character per server saves you money. Real money. It's only $12.99 a month to play one toon versus $14.99 a month for more than one. Not a huge difference but every dollar counts in this economy (especially with the gov't shutdown).

That 50% bonus makes a huge difference btw. At level 15, maybe it is accounting for 50 exp per kill or 1,000 exp per FATE when you only need 20k to level. Small beans. At level 45 in Northern Thanalaan, for example, you'll be getting almost 50k exp from the Gorgimera event and pushing well over 100k during Dark Desires, and you're sitting on around 400k to level. HUGE difference to the normal 30k and 50k you'd normally get (and DD really ends up being double what you'd get without the 50% bonus due to the chain bonuses).

If you are going to level up your other jobs, do it on one class. You will be FATE grinding eventually. It's the only efficient way to level. Leves provide a fraction of exp at a slower rate that requires far more effort (they are much better used on crafting). FATEs may get boring, but find a good group and be social and the time and exp will fly by. Dungeons and quests give so little exp for so much more effort.

And I say this after I was in the same dilemma when I started. Two 50s, all but one adventure class at 30 or above, and six job crystals later (http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/2240872/), I would say a single character, all classes is the best way to go.

Wife and I are probably going to do multiple characters. We tend to favor character "types" and like making new characters. Currently we have only two planned, one char for DoW and one for DoM. After we do those we may do more, but who knows. Personally, I have my Mi'quote who is my DoW. I want a Lalafell magic user though so I'll probably have that as my DoM. After we get those two, we may do more, who knows.

If someone is in a position where $2 a month means a lot to their budget, then they should not be spending their money on games.  I make dirt and that little difference doesn't bust my budget.  That said, if all someone wants is a single character, then they should definitely go with the Entry plan, because they'd just be wasting $2, unless they wanted to lock in for 6 months, which would be senseless.

On the note of needing just one character, that's actually a huge negative for me and I feel it will ultimately be a long-term negative for the game.  Just watch, people will get sick of their characters after a couple of months and if they feel making another is a waste of time, they'll cancel their sub and find something else to do.  I've seen it happen in every other game I've played and those were ones that offered an incentive or a need to create other characters.  So, with FFXIV being a game that doesn't even offer a good reason to make more than one character, I expect that a lot of players who would normally stay and roll an alt or few, will lose interest and wander off after a few months.

Don't kid yourselves, there are indeed a lot of other games out there to play, unless someone is one of those who always dwells on the next new shiny piece of over-hype.  I have 15 MMO games installed and I log in and play weekly on 5 of them, so I really would not miss this game if I grew bored of it.  I actually have already, but that's another issue and one that I don't have much time left to sort out.

Also, another issue that I foresee with the "one character" design, is as current players get through their Story quests and the amount of new players coming in begins to diminish, how difficult is it going to be for new players to complete those very important first Duty Finder requirements, just to get their Mounts, Banking NPCs and Auction House access?

I believe the idea was that having a single character be able to start over with new classes, was supposed to address the issue of having a "top heavy" game (ie. veteran players being max level and new players struggling with low populations in low level areas).  However, this forced grouping aspect just to acquire basic account perks, is an Achilles heel to that design.  There might be an incentive for level 50 cap players to go back to lower level content for a new class, but there's no reason for them to queue for the pre-Ifrit dungeons. (not to mention the 50% xp bonus moving them out of the low level areas faster than new players without the bonus)

So creating new characters would have avoided this issue, completely.  New characters would *need* to do the starter Story dungeons, at least for the purposes of unlocking their mounts, banks, AH, etc.

I think we'll start seeing this issue crop up before the holidays are done.  One might think that new players can just join a guild and ask for help, but anyone with experience in older games knows that doesn't work out as well as it sounds, even in games where there is a need to roll a new character to acquire a new class.

So I'll champion "alt-ing" as much as I can, because creating a new character may not seem "optimal", but socially, it helps the game to thrive and not just bring in new players, but help those players level up, while also providing a break from the staleness of just having a single character for several months.  New players are critical during the first year of a game, and if a new player tried out a game and has problems finding group to complete their low level content requirements, they're just going to cancel, uninstall and move on to another game.

Hopefully Yoshida and crew will decide to make the 50% xp bonus account-wide, rather than character based (hm, I wonder, is it character based now?) so to entice veteran players to create new characters and keep the low level areas populated.  If anything, that will help solve the coming issue of an underpopulated Duty Finder for the pre-Ifrit Story objectives.

Just wanted to say thanks for the replies...lots of good information and things to think about. I think I'll probably end up with three characters to go through the three storylines and split up the storage a bit for different crafting classes, and split up the rest of the classes among them.

That's what I'd decided to do, too.

Eight characters later...  

I love having one toon, but I made alts to get crafting shards, which was really helpful when my supplies were running low.

One character. But I can see the desire to have one character for each kind of person you want to play. A very talented hero that can do anything, or a focused hero that looks the part you want them to play

I now have every class and every gathering class on one character. and I'm happy. Not all are maxed yet, but I work on whichever takes my fancy and I think it will make tome grinding easier later.lol

So I've got 4 (3 levels from 5) 50s now and I'm noticing that there is one major hangup with having just one character at the end-game: the Mythology tomestones cap of 300 makes it a multi-YEAR issue of gearing up multiple jobs.

As it stands, a full set of AF+1 gear (myth gear) takes a little over 4 months (assuming you collect no gear from BC). That's PER JOB due to the 300 tomes cap each week. With multiple characters, you can gear up simultaneously, with one character it will take you almost 9 months to gear up two jobs. Ouch. Square even posted a negative response about plans to create a cap per class. Hopefully community outcry will get this reversed. The cap simply makes the armory system garbage for people hoping to gear multiple jobs on one toon.

This is of course all based on just the current state of the game. SE has said they will be raising the weekly cap and with BC and the Crystal Tower (coming soon*), the gear grind isn't quite as bleak as that simple math makes it. Still, it's something to consider when deciding between "one-for-all" and multiple characters.

At the moment, I am working on one toon getting her to 15 for all classes so I can see which ones I like and what I want to mess around with.  Eventually, I want to get her maxed on all jobs/classes.  But, for now just taking my time and working on it little  by little.  I have toons I rolled up in case I want to play a different race/city combo (storyline kinda thing).

Oh, its definitely beneficial to make more than one character.  I'm surprised that no one has paused and thought, "Hm, I wonder why the basic package has character creation limitations, while the standard subscription allows 8 per server, 40 total...?"

It's what I call "Pseudo-F2P".  They're selling a cheaper subscription with a limit to total number of characters that can be made.  They allow you to have all the classes on that single character, but they have certain "restrictions" in place to balance things out with those who are willing to pay a higher subscription price and make characters specialized for certain jobs.

So yes, there is a reason as to why they offer the basic plan and the standard plan.  Something that folks will notice about this ARR team, is that they are OCD about maintaining balance with everything they do.

OCD about balance? What's their excuse for warriors in the endgame then?! lol

Try reading their Producer Q&A's sometimes and that question will be answered, as well as others.

I like to see all the story lines, that's the main reason why i created 3 characters. The other reason is, that i will level one character as a tank, the other a healer class, the last one dps. I know that in the end i have to level some classes multiple times because of the cross abilities, but i think i have lots of time for that.

Edit: Something about creating alts on a single server is bothering me, i can't share my Gil and bank space between my Characters, this is actually very dissapointing. I hope they come up with a solution for this.

That's been my plan, too.  

A simple immediate solution would be for them to allow mailing gil and items to characters on same account, same server.  I get that they want to limit the tools that RMT shops can abuse, but they need to go after the RMTs in other ways that don't have a negative impact on their legitimate player base.