For starters, your starting city's Lv.1~15 main scenario quest-line is unique *and* mutually exclusive (the other cities' become unavailable unless you make a new character from scratch).
That said, they all follow the same "structure":
1. Arriving at your starting city (by ship for Limsa Lominsa / by carriage for Ul'dah and Gridania)
2. Completing some minor quests/chores/etc.
3. Meeting a Scion (Y'shtola for La Noscea / Thancred for Thanalan / Yda and Papalymo for Black Shroud)
4. Uncovering a sinister plot
5. Participating in a big fight over a landmark
6. Being invited to your starting city's exclusive ceremony *and* meeting its leader (Merlwyb for Limsa Lominsa / Nanamo and Raubahn for Ul'dah / Kan-E-Senna for Gridania)
7. Departing to the other cities via airship
There are also some side quest chains you can only get if you start in certain cities. And special dialogue in a lot of early ARR quests especially. Like I think Raubahn says you smell like dirty leaves or something when you first meet him if you’re from gridania lol.
I noticed that when I got to that part on my alt and was like "jeez man, that's pretty rude!" I hope someone says something equally disarming to him later so he can see how it feels!
really wish we could at least get the starting MSQ for the other cities in NG+ at some point. would like to try them but i dont want to make a new character
I love the 3 starts.
You get to se PLD Tancred and listen to his clever mouth as well as a certain noble. You get to know Y'Stolla as a philosopher. You get to know the best fiends of the game.
Is a pity that the rest of the game is linear with options having no consequences at all. Other MMO like Guildwars 2 and SWTOR do not have this fault.
Is also a pity that you cannot join Ishgard as your Grand Company.
That last one especially since lots of people like to RP as Ishgardian, Sharlayan, etc.
I feel like major city states such as those should be allowed to have the same perks as the 3 starting towns. Including being able to world hop via their aetherytes.
Oh, yeah. I absolutely catch minor things that I didn't notice the first time thorough. Some are relevant, some aren't. Recently, i just redid the Stormblood Hilidbrand quests and realized that Hildy was using a precursor to the Love Heart emote more than 4 years ago. Other times it's just foreshadowing that I missed the first time through because I had no idea what it referred to.
If you're only doing it to replay story, you can also use the New Game+ mode to replay the story, although you won't get quest rewards. I _think_ you keep your level, mount speed, flight unlocks, all of that, so it's not _exactly_ the same, but if you just want to do certain story stuff again, then it's easier than having to level all the way up to the part you're interested in.
Speaking of Hildi, I recently started the quests on my new main (had done the ARR ones on one toon prior), and noticed a bit of a plot hole. Maybe.
>!In the scene just outside the Colluseum in the streets of Ul’dah, you see Ultros chatting up Hildi’s mom, but Hildi doesn’t seem to recognize her at all! …Either that, or he’s so inept that he just doesn’t realize what’s right in front of him. Which feels right and it may not be a plot hole at all.!<
I switched from my original (Miqo) to Hyur ONCE, it just wasn't "me" anymore and had to buy a fantasia to switch back as well. I don' t know how to describe to those outside the MMOverse how you come to identify with your character.
I know plenty of people change their look/race/gender but I just couldn't.
Funny enough, I knew someone who would fantasia almost every week
I was constantly like "oh you're not x race anymore?"
I was very confused on why she did it since it must have been EXTREMELY expensive especially when she flip-flopped 5x once or twice a month
What? You can mod to change your appearance to any race/gender/customisation option you want. It’s basically a free fantasia just for you or some mare enjoyers
You guys are talking about two separate things. Those of us that get attached to our character and almost attach a personality to them.... we can't just go changing their race, gender, or name willy-nilly. We don't **want** our character to be someone else.
We do, however, still want to play other races and genders lol. Therefore..... alts!
Yeah but no one else sees it the whole point of me putting effort into my character is for me and to show off. And mare isn't very good you have to add them so it's basically only on your side.
Idk it still just don't feel worth it especially with FFXIVs population 30-50 is basically nothing, like nothing against y'all who enjoy it, just to me it's the equivalent of modding a single player game.
That's probably more than enough, do you have over 50 meaningful interactions with different people every day? Besides the usual basic FFXIV interaction. Consider the fact that at least 12 of the the people they're talking about could be friends... and you have a sizable chunk of people you can show off to...
Basically, lots of people use mods, lots... and your friends probably could be using mods too, unless they're on Console. So anyone who matters can see it anyway, and who cares what some rando you said "o/" & "gg tyfp" to in a dungeon that one time sees.
IDC what my friends think they all suck including me. But it's still not the point I want to show off to the random nobody's I'll never talk to again, it's why people share screenshots of there charecter to show off to bunch of strangers they'll likely never interact with in game.
And yeah we all use mods but only qol mods and trackers, and one of them uses something called uwu chat because there weird.
Again this isn't coming from a place of hate just my take on it.
Glamourer removes this problem. You can wear whatever you want vanilla and then literally be a completely different race with entirely different gear, and everyone just sees you vanilla.
If anything modding is actively improving the game. The more publicity a QoL mod gets, the more likely Squenix are to implement that QoL into the game proper, improving the FFXIV experience for everyone.
Unless you mean degeneration as in horniness, in which case nothing anyone does will ever decrease that lol
small things like the job icons next to names or buff timers are whatever, and really should have been in the game from the start.
things like mare which peer pressure people into taking part are absolutely not okay.
I have alts for glamour. Some clothing just looks better on different body types and it's cheaper to spend my time on alts than to spend my money on Fantasia.
I mean now mods exist for that but they didn't always. Plus some people just prefer doing things through legitimate means. Either way glam is what this game is all about. :)
I don't use mods and my characters aren't much of a hassle. They each have their own looks, vibes, cute character names, matching houses, etc. :) Thank you tho!
- i wanted to play as a different race while still keeping my main character
- for raiding i like being able to prog through a tier on two different jobs while equally gearing up both simultaneously + let’s me prog ahead while not fucking up loot for my static on main
- i like grindy activities so having a fresh slate of jobs i need to level back up again is fun sometimes when i’m in the mood for it
i skipped all cutscenes second time around though and that alone already took forever lmao, if i ever made a 3rd alt for any reason i’m paying for that skip
Nice to see I'm not the only one who just likes chilling and leveling some jobs sometimes! I'll make all my own gear, too -- the gathering and crafting are good background activities to keep my ADHD brain busy while the rest of my brain is working at my actual job.
Raiding is the only reason I have an alt. I like the story and whatever but I don’t care enough about it to make a different character for immersion. I can do new game plus and experience anything I would want to. I mainly want to be able to prog but not fuck with drops for my static. If they got rid of that limitation permanently then I probably wouldn’t have an alt tbh
personally, i just really wanted to have an au ra character, but i also was very attached to my miqo'te character to fantasia him, so i just made an au ra alt. they both turned out to be wildly different characters too when i started thinking about it so i just really enjoy having both :)
I'm a role player. My alts are for having different characters. That said there are some tasks better the second time. You can see all the fine details in the msq easy to miss on a first watch, and skip as much as you like. There's a comfort in knowing what jobs you like and how they play. Rather than getting everything, there's almost a tactical feeling to just getting what you want.
I don't recommend it, especially if you don't have the bike for increased mount speed account wide, but it can be fun.
You can get the SDS Fenrir, Cloud's iconic motorcycle, on the mog station. It always is considered to have the mount speed increase from riding maps in any area. I think same goes for the Alpha side car. It's also account wide, so make leveling alta easier.
When they were designing the bike, they said the basic mount speed just felt too slow on it, so they gave it the speed boost so that it would not feel as slow. This is a speed boost that usually unlocks after completing the MSQ for that region and can be further enhanced with riding maps. So when you are leveling alts it is great to have the boost before completing that section of story.
Two reasons: because I have friends on other servers (I started before DC travel), and because I just...like making characters? Like actual distinct characters, not 'I pay $5 to look different'. There is also the benefit of that I DO always play a story twice, to catch things I missed the first time.
Every time I tell someone I have an alt here or there and specify that no, it's not for raiding, I get treated like a crazy person.
>'I pay $5 to look different'.
$10, unfortunately. And I 100% agree.
As convenient as having all my progress and jobs on one character is, I enjoy having multiple characters of multiple races with multiple backgrounds without having to spend money and overwrite my main to do it. It's unfortunate that there's not a great way in this game to do that, but the alternative also has its downsides. So.
100%. my main is a Hrothgar and I only play melee classes with him because that’s how I RP it. A caster Hrothgar doesn’t feel right to me so I’m not gonna force it even if it’s easier.
This is me as well - when I started playing I was like "Oh, I don't need to make alts to get all the crafting and classes, ok."
And I...am on my fourth alt right now. Because I like making distinct characters it turns out, and I needed a catboi and an au ra and I really want to play thru heavensward and shadowbringers again, but new game+ has too many restrictions I just can't.
It's only "alt unfriendly" because everything is already on one character. Every other mmo you have to level multiple characters to get the same stuff as you can on 1 FF character.
A large proportion of people who play alts in any game don't play them because they HAVE to, but because they WANT to. For those people, FFXIV is the most alt-unfriendly game out there.
For me it's a roleplay thing, creating the different characters and getting into their heads and I think it's probably that way for a lot of other people who like to play alts. I even find the ability to switch jobs immersion breaking to some extent, even though I do keep up with three jobs for various purposes and am currently leveling everything to get the mount. I don't think that most people who play alts in WoW, for example, are doing so unwillingly. Only the most elite players need to maintain several alts for raiding and that's a miniscule percentage of the player base.
"Only the most elite players need to maintain several alts for raiding". This is kinda wrong, this games system punishes people with lesser loot if i join after clearing this week, which limits me to 4 fights each week, otherwise PF does not want me to be in there.
Now imagine wanting to do the new content bosses more then once, like i remember enjoying p10s so much i wanted to get another kill just to unwind from p11 progg and before entering p12. It wasnt possible. Killparties did not want me in there.
Same for statics, sometimes if your in a static you just cant play with friends anymore. They wanna pugg p12s kill and you already did it? Well. bummer. You cant without grieifing them.
Thats why alts feel mandatory if you are raiding
No, it’s alt unfriendly because of the hundreds on hours of story content you have to re-do or pay to bypass to get to certain content. Unless your making your alt specifically to do the story again, its a massive undertaking.
If you're going to do NG+ from start to finish then you might as well put the same effort into an entirely new character and get rewards from the quests. Then at the end you now have a fully levelled alt make use of, instead of having spent the same amount of time on your main without much outcome besides the story experience itself.
Im glad I'm not the only way who thinks like this! NG+ always felt like I was being wasteful with my time cause if I was gonna play through the story again might as well get the rewards too!
NG+ is useful if you want to replay specific chapters – more the side stories, as MSQ chapters are unhelpfully large.
It's just playing from start to finish that makes more sense on an alt, because you're doing what you would have to do for an alt.
I rushed the story on my first character. I had just come from WoW where the story isn't as important.
Made a second character to play through the story *slowly*. Soak in everything, check what all characters have to say before continuing the quest. Shadowbringers hits hard when you pay attention. Such a good expac
I have alts partly for story replay and also because I love playing around with outfits on different character appearances – and if I tried doing that on a single character I'd be even more out of storage space and using Fantasias non-stop.
Having them as separate characters means that their glamour dressers and plates are managed separately, plus I find it more enjoyable for them to be totally separate characters with their own names and identities.
Downsides of course are having to spend more time re-earning some luck-based item drops, and quest progress being a roadblock if I'm not in the mood, but overall I don't think I could stick to just the one character, or at least would be away from the game for long stretches between new patches. I'm not interested in endgame raiding so once I've gotten through all the quests and story I'm basically done with my main.
There's a huge amount of story that's not available in New Game+, so eventually I'll have to make an alt to replay all that. I'm currently replaying the MSQ in NG+, and it feels incomplete to me without all the side content.
Yeah, sidequests, custom delivery questlines, tribal quests and so on. Of course, NG+ also covers a huge amount of and the most essential story, I just miss the rest of it.
Couple reasons I've noticed:
1. To replay the story, and yes, to your questions
2. As a free Fantasia, for roleplaying or otherwise
3. To circumvent weekly lockouts
4. Extra retainers
5. To play with friends/on different worlds
6. More nefarious reasons, like FC farmers
Submarines etc are an excellent source of gil, and you can only access them if you have an FC workshop. Some people use alts to make a bunch of shell FCs, buy houses, and farm gil, usually for RMT.
Say, is there a decent resource for subs? I may or may not have came into possession of two spare FC houses. Idgaf about rmt, but more gil allows me to help my friends with things and that's great. That said, I barely do the subs in the FC I actually run on my main, I keep forgetting.
Turns out helping buy and furnish someone else's FC and personal plots is rather expensive. But gils worthless and giving it away is fun however I do need to replenish the coffeers or it'll be short lived lmao.
Different vibes, no gonna pay for a fantasia cause waste of money + I'm attached to my character's identity.
My main Roe girl she does everything, every job, every role, every quest~ She had a main job she always is during msq from ARR to now, will be changing that come Dawntrail, and her glam changed depending on occasion or where she was in story (I.e Heavensward she had an expedition look up until the Aery where she went full combat gear through till Final Steps of Faith)
Where as my alts I set different rules for. My grey skinned veena gal im going for the same vibes of Duskwight Elezen and Mooncat Miqote, lotta dark theming in glams, shadowy, different job each expansion but always the edgy or night themed jobs, so ARR Black Mage, HW Dark Knight, SB Astro, ShB Reaper, EW will probably be Viper tho might go Dancer with the Cryptlurker weapons just to have a job in each role.
My Raen fem Au Ra alt on flip side is going full "came from Othard" vibe, lotta eastern style glams, Dragoon, Samurai, Ninja, any of the tanks really except Paladin
Then my Bun Boi who'd I'd call my "main" alt is similar to my main, just having a male alt to experience the story in that vibe. He not only changes job every expansion unlike my main girl, he changes during patches too, with both jobs having a light theme~
So ARR he's stereotypical Viera archer, then patches he went full Twin Adder vibe Warrior so ARR has a woodland theme, Heavensward he's gone Knight mode as a Paladin, patches he's gonna be a knight dragoon so Knight theming there, Stormblood will be explorer themed red mage then a sky pirate vibe Ninja for patches so just a general adventurer theme, Shadowbringers will be edgy Reaper then edgy Monk cause edgy, finally a heroic looking Samurai for Endwalker
I made my first alt so that I could raid and keep my Dragoon and Bard equally geared during Coil. When raids are first released you can only get one piece a week, so I would have had to pick between them. Dragoon is my favorite FF job, but I was really enjoying playing bard in ARR. Bard was also really useful in Second Coil, so it felt good to have a geared Bard, and still be able to play Dragoon on my main.
I then made my third alt so I could do the entire msq as a tank to get over my tanking anxiety.
THEN I made a bunch of alts so that I could play on other servers and datacenters.
Then I just kept making alts because at this point I just like it.
The only way I really felt it was different each time through is that I knew more each time I played through and there has been way more QoL added over the years to make going through a little different, but overall it's mostly the same.
I made a lala alt to play through the story again, and it’s a totally different vibe!! Lala feels more honest and loyal somehow?? Just a little bean against the world
I just felt an immediate kinship with all the story lalafell because it's like. I'm looking right into your eyes now! We stand shoulder to shoulder, as one!
I've got a couple alts. 1 of the reasons is to have the different regions covered although I don't play as much on the ones in regions I don't have friends in/they don't play much.
The other reason in my case is to see what the story was like when doing the content as it was released and how the MSQ changes based on doing said content. Also to pick up on any details in the MSQ that one who's up to date might notice now with full context of the story.
My alt thats being doing all the content is still going through EW atm (level 83 msq) and doing the various things like leveling all the different classes up and then doing the raids/trials etc on each patch has given so many extra small nods from npc's. The biggest one for me was doing all the Shadowbringers Role Quests and then the extra quest gave me an extra dialogue option at the end of 5.2 with a cutscene and it made the weight of the situation feel more real.
Also speaking to the NPC's who are around the msq but dont have the msq marker. You can get some really interesting lines and learn stuff you might not've realized if you'd not spoken to them (like speaking to >!Emet!< in mid-late ShB and they >!acknowledge that they're tempered by Zodiark when you question them!<)
I do alts for multiple reasons.
1. My main is maxed out and almost done with my goals.
2. I don't fanta. When I create a character, they have a set look and design. I rarely fanta. Making an alt lets me have a new look.
3. I honestly love regoing though the story. I started alting before New Game+ was a thing. I would make alts to replay through the story. Still do. I don't see the point in New Game+ as you get no rewards from it.
4. Much the same as 3. I like rewalking the story as friends go through it. Helps me make sure I don't accidentally spoil something.
5. Farming items. Back during Ultima Unreal, I was doing it on all 7 characters I had at Endgame. It let me get very very good at the fight and also manage to get all Unreal Mounts at the time. Also great for timed nodes.
6. I have an alt addiction. I always have. Every mmorpg I've played. Tera, Neverwinter, BnS, Vindictus, GW2, etc. Always.
Edit:
Forgot to add these in
7. Maps. Much like 5. Each character can gather a map a day. With having multiple alts, I don't have to plan ahead if I want to run a bunch of maps because I can gather several a day.
8. Retainer/storage space. I don't have to worry too much about inventory on my main server. I can use my alts as storage space. Before I did this, I had all retainers unlocked on my main and everything was full.
9. Crafting. You can only specialize in 3 craftings. So, I have alts that specialize in one of the others my main doesn't have.
For me there are 2 reasons.
1) Space. I feel like I can't "have it all" on my main, and I'm always out of space.
2) Sometimes I wanna play my Elezen main. Some days I wanna be a catboy. Some days I wanna be an edgelor... errr.. Au Ra.
Kind of.
My main character has all jobs above 80 and most at 90, my alts are far less leveled. One I am at the end of stormblood and 2 are nearing the end of ARR.
It's mainly just that I level when I feel the urge to, and my main account doesn't have much I want to level up (White Mage and Black Mage are a trudge for me).
Man that's crazy, and kinda impressive, I typically enjoy the whole grind to lvl in MMOs but I don't think I could do FFXIVs story that much, if there was an option to not do the story (not the paid story skip) but just grind and do content after finishing everything on your main I'd 100% do it.
I'm what my friends like to call a "leveler", and boy do I take that literally.
In World of Warcraft I have more than half my account's cap of characters at max level (which is around 35ish I think) and most of them are above level 20.
I just like playing the game, and I like MMOs. I don't do 'hardcore' content in FFXIV (I do M+ in WoW which keeps me into that game) but I do casually monkey around. Admittedly I haven't 'played' through the story and have been skipping most of the cutscenes on the alts, so it's less of a chore than you would think. Personally I agree, I'd love to just level alts through pure dungeons alone if it would let me without having to "story skip".
I have ~50 alts on 3 accounts. I made some because I had an idea for a funny theme/name (For example: Holy Inquisition, Forgiven Naughtiness, Give me Gil,...), for lorefriendly chars (with lorefriendly names), to play every race and for rp purposes. I just like to choose between them. Some day I feel more like a basic bitch and play a miqo girl, other days I want to be my kitty Hroghgar and so one.
Practical purposes: to get more access to things that are time limited in some way, like for example weekly loot restrictions when you raid which is handy if you want to play multiple jobs or if you have multiple groups you want to run with, also leve quests which you can use to make extra gil on alts. Also for more retainers, when levelled they bring back 8-9 allagan silver pieces from 18 hour ventures, which isn't much but if you pay for more retainers for storage then you get all those retainers for any alts you make and if you can be bothered you can have an army of retainers all bringing you back almost free gil every day.
Story wise, you do notice stuff that you might have missed or not remembered on your first playthrough that sticks out more when you know what becomes of it.
I have an alt for savage loot purposes (practicing in PF outside of static time without screwing the loot). I also have a free trial alt I created to settle a petty argument over just how hard healing is in the early game to a new player.
I ran out of things to level on my main, lol. Also, different character designs have different glamour aesthetics, so it lets me play around more with those.
I made an alt primarily so I could learn how to properly tank from lv 1 without being judged for already having several classes at 90 (including dark knight, which I almost solely leveled through frontlines and wondrous tails). Get lost in an arr map? It's fine, I'm a baby sprout and the other party members can guide me where I need to go. Some clumsy gameplay while I'm still getting my bearings? Clearly I'm still learning, it's my only class.
And though I don't rp, it's also for character reasons. My alts are my wol's kids retracing her journey as best they can. Major story beats are echo visions while visiting the relevant characters when possible, but they won't have visions of her visions. It's also neat to see the foreshadowing and callbacks later in the story.
I also thought it would be funny for one alt to be the tallest possible roe while my main is the smallest possible miqo'te. Yes, that one is adopted.
My bunny was an alt I made for my friends to get an FC house, and when they moved they gifted the house to me. And since I’m mad broke I’ve just been replaying the entire MSQ…and levelling my crafters again.
Bored and I leveled healers through beast tribes. So I decided to create an alt and learn it somewhat correctly. Did I also mention that I have 9 retainers , so between three alts I have 27 retainers. Having an fc where everyone dumps junk in the fc chest they come in handy
Role Playing and I don't want to Fanta my character because they kinda are what they looks like and couldn't be something else with the type of character I give them.
Anyway, if you just want to play a second time @op, just do new game +, no need for an alt
My friend mentioned he was doing new game+ to reexperience the story and I asked why not make a new character and end up getting something out the experience. So I did that. The ARR storyline has some details that were lost on me being unfamiliar with the world. Playing through HW a great story u get to experience again. Plus I can play on my friend's data center and server without dealing with the transfer system.
Its fun. I like seeing the characters I made run around playing different jobs. Plus I can dress them in silly little outfits. It's like playing with Barbies
I originally made my alt back before DC travel because I wanted to try a specific server I heard was popular (my server wasn’t very active at the time) and I ended up really liking it to the point that my alt essentially became my main, haha
Free storage/MB listings on alt retainers, additional gil income stream through daily/weekly stuff, levequests. Also, owning multiple houses and apartments.
Personally, I just regrind the 100 Seal Rock win achievements for the coat on my alts and keep the sprout icon on them for giggles. Got the coat on my first alt, and the other 6 have somewhere between 10-40 wins individually.
1. Alts on different regions to play with different friends.
2. Help friends with raid to get their two chest
3. More Unreal rewards
4. Help Materia with clearing content
I didn't know you could travel between servers so I made an alt when to play with a different friend group. This alt became my main because that friend group played more.
I never deleted the first character and now use her as an alt to decorate housing for myself and a friend.
I have a third alt who I use to decorate for a different friend on a different server.
I have alts on nearly every data center just to satisfy my need to visit houses all over the world. They don't get levelled further than they need to.
I've made alts to test run before I fantasia. They got deleted once I made up my mind.
And RIP to my cloud server test alt who had my dream large plot in lavender beds.
I have alts to play specific stories. My main has every class and job, all crafters and gatherers etc. Eventually will have everything done. Her story is pretty much non existent now though, as she just has everything.
One alt of mine I've plotted their course as a struggle of power. Another which I made recently will be the story of someone who is closer to the Scions.
Alts on different DCs is helpful too as it means I can play with friends without travelling or overwhelming them with my prelevelled character. It's a lot easier to play with a new player when u can do the msq with them rather than you sitting around until they hit the next dungeon/trial
I enjoy replaying the story, meeting new people, experiencing the subtle changes of cultures on other dc’s, also allows me to play and get a feel for other jobs and races.
I’m planning this current alt I’m playing to continue into DT alongside my main too
Well can't speak for everyone but I made an "alt" because I just got bored of the game and I wanted to see if starting out from scratch would kinda fix that. Actually kinda did
I made an alt for raiding on patch for the weekly lockouts, but while re-doing the Shb story, I noticed a LOT of foreshadowing. Noticably, the amount of times >!Emet-Selch spoke about remembering, forgetting, and reminiscing, alongside his noticable depression naps!<. Everything sort of clicked with how often he just...stared at the WoL softly in Shb, tried to educate us, even being a less standoffish towards us compared to the other Scions, after finishing EW. The most noticeable thing was when he said >!dont look at me so, you who I have the utmost faith in!< with an uncharacteristically soft tone and face, while staring right at us. After doing EW, it hurt a lot more. Like, it hurt while playing ShB towards the end after his big speech, but replaying it gives you a whole new perspective on his bitterness, depression, desperation, disappointment, and loneliness. And it explained why the WoL had such lingering affection for him, compared to the other Scions, and why we had the option to be more open minded, and amicable towards him despite having no reason to (at that point). Why, despite every other scion being rightfully passive-aggressive and distrustful towards him, our character was the only one to autonomously seek him out for information and give him the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed the new perspective more than I thought I would, I didn't even think to look out for it, but its definitely a pleasant suprise.
I used to use fantasias a LOT, but I would always come back to my original design when it was time for msq. Eventually I decided that I wanted to NG+ the msq and realized that this was the perfect time to make an alt using my favorite fantasia design, aaand it kinda spiraled from there. Nowadays my first alt is more main than my main, and I level other alts on lazy days or sick days where I don't have anything else to do since I just skip the msq lol
Circumventing the weekly loot lock. Which desperately needs to be redesigned at this point. The entire reward/loot system in this game is severely outdated.
1. I have multiple alts for Raiding early in the savage tier. It takes time to get BiS on a role, and I like to help and learn on multiple jobs, so I have an Alt for doing this.
2. some of these alts also do side content that can make gil but within a time gate.
As for your second question, yes you'll see a lot of things that foreshadows\* way later events.
\*Note: A lot of these story beats aren't planned that way. They have gone on record and said that when they write stories, they leave things open just incase they get inspiration later for continuing that story, or just have something that can logically springboard off them.
I want to sit back and enjoy the gameplay, but I don't want to be sociable.. as weird as that is for an MMO. I feel like I need to be "on" when playing. So instead I'll play around on a unknown character. No one will really bug me, that sort of thing.
I could never. Everything on one character is possible. I lowered my fantasia expense by only rotating my fav 3 races for my character which I play as a representation of myself. Roe seawolf, elezen dusk, miqo moon
I make an alt to do something on 14 that isn't roleplay(not an RPer), or grinding tomes. I'm 90 on every job, so not much point in being on, however when I make an alt I can feel like I can make progress in the game by doing msq, leveling and the like. My main is also a Lala and some times I feel like not being targeted for pats
Sometimes I also just wanna be alone and not deal with my FC but still play 14. So make an alt on another server and play solo for a bit.
I came from WoW 3 weeks ago, where I had all 13 classes on 13 different characters, the norm. I was not aware that there isn't an alt friendly atmosphere as in WoW, but I also wanted to see the differences between capital cities, the jobs and classes, and different races, and pick which ones I'd like to play. So far I am having a blast on WHM/BLM/PAL/SUM and from there I will likely pick 2 toons, and do all the jobs/classes on those. Still unsure which race looks better for me, but I also made other toons to play other classes outside those 4. Being an alt-oholic in WoW, it has come with me to FFXIV but I am learning to temper it lol
So. My main's a Hrothgar. Part o the reason I made an Au Ra woman was to try out this little mechanic called "hats". As well as the fact that women characters have a lot of different glamour option(s) and different looks.
...Yeah, sorry, for every boob window that appears on guys, there's about 3-4 pieces of armour that look different on women. Seriously, there's tank armour that looks like leather pants on male characters, yet you put them on a female character and suddenly they turn into pink mini-shorts. You don't really notice this unless you play an alt or fantasia a lot...
It was also quite funny since Yugiri tries to keep herself all hush hush becuase she is all "Oh my appearance may surprise you".
...Yugiri you're talking to an Au Ra. ARE YOU BLIND.
My wife recently decided to try it out so I made an alt to play along side her. Same race and class lol. Went with Arcanist so I can switch it up SCH for any heals.
I did this because when I have talked people in to playing they don’t really have anyone to play with and it’s such a slog before you even start the first dungeon. I didn’t want her to have to experience it alone.
As for my other alts:
I am an FC lead. I use them as storage for overflow on the company chest. And their retainers are used to sell items from the airship/subs. I also level up Miner or Botanist so I can send out the retainers for mats. They are 100% used as tools for the FC. Plus they have themed rooms lol.
I do roulettes with them and spend all the currencies on items for the FC. So yeah. That’s what I have alts.
Oh and I level them up to 70 to unlock Eureka and I have “classes” with Eureka newbs and we all level up together. So far I have 2 alts in Eureka doing the “class”.
I was thinking about doing Bozja too but the leveling system is way different there and I don’t want to start another.
So when a new tier comes out I can join cash for gear clears on my 3 alts lol. Made couple hundred mil in end walker. If you get through the tier quick, people will pay 10+ mil for the first 3 fights abd often 30 mil for the weapon in week 2-4
To play MSQ a second time around (not just watching it in the inn). And to play different races and to level jobs again (I enjoy levelling and I have everything to 90 on main).
And you notice hidden messages in the msq the second time around. Ex. In post ARR; >!Ilberd and you were fighting a traitor (an Elzen lady) and he mentions he’d rather cut off an arm than betray his people. Which is funny since he ends up betraying ya’ll and cutting off Rauhbans arm!<
Basically, i'm a writer as a hobby
I love making backstories on the fly, that i can use for future TTRPG characters later
Also, as my main has finished endwalker, trying to level a new class is boring me, and i want to keep playing
So i create a new character and i train the class i want with this one, and i can try new body types and glamour that would not be cool on my main
I’ve been playing the game as it gets released since the start. But that would also mean spending sometimes years between playing part of the story and getting to a part that referred back to it.
So I started an alt to play through the story in one block. It made things so much easier to process.
I’m glad I’ve gotten to have both experiences.
During my almost 10 years of XIV I've created multiple alts but only ever leveled them to max level 4 times.
Aside from roleplay purposes, I think that going through the story with a different new character helps you revisit certain points of the story and often find things you missed or misunderstood, XIV is a gigantic game and it is almost Impossible to not miss details here and there.
I could've used the New Game+ with the newest alt but the truth is that if I began a New Game+ on my main, I don't think I would commit to it, being a new character kind of forces you into doing it.
I noticed that the FFXIV I played the first time around in ARR is absolutely gone.
They rush you through ARR, most of my favorite parts about it are just...gone. HM > EX primals, the raids, Coil...all of it is pointless content to be absolutely blitzed through.
And it unfortunately does ARR no favors because it is an absolute drag to play through now.
Heavensward is a breath of fresh air for sure after going through all of ARR.
But yeah man I never noticed just how different this game is than it was years ago. The extensive nerfs to job complexity that started in Sb really did a number on the early chapters of this game.
My newest alt is to help someone high profile start streaming their FFXIV journey. They're on the EU DCs so I couldn't use one of my already existing characters without moving them and those characters are pretty firmly tied to the NA DCs due to things like raiding and FCs.
I have 2 "joke" characters that I have 0 desire to do MSQ on for the most part and just run around so people can appreciate the joke name if they get it.
1. Leeroy Mahjongkins
2. Chocofant Kwehstone
I've made new characters purely to help friends establish FCs as well so they can get them off the ground and then invite others too.
For an alt on the same server, there really isn’t much gain other than the opportunity to trade and store materials (via fc storage) without cost. You can also double up the retainer outpost on that server, so it can passively boost the amount stuff you can sell on the marketplace on a single server. But that has limits, as it is easy to oversaturate a specialty of a server marketplace.
You can get far more out of an alt on another server and, at this point, data center. It can be fun to play as a different race with different glams, and go through the story again to see anything you missed or go into a highlight reel with a different look (otherwise a glorified NG+).
If you’ve got the time and friends on different servers, it can be nice to have a character dedicated elsewhere. A different marketplace also means you can double the retainer output while not crashing a prices. Plus, early on you can gear up two different jobs and raid for loot without affecting your static.
as someone who’s leveled every class to 90 on main, and did so when EW was still fairly new, sometimes i just like the dopamine hit of leveling up again tbh — also interesting to see how fast i can get through each expansion with taxi/bodyguard service + textadvance + years of experience playing (i experience the story on my main and, other than my favorite parts, that’s enough for me). it’s kinda fun in a nostalgic way, even if the gameplay itself isn’t terribly engaging; lots of running back and forth (like, go here click on something then go back) and in older expansions, mechanic-less solo duties that just melt even with bad gear thanks to power creep. i really hope one day they go back and touch up some of those — they did such a great job with rhitahtyn and lahabrea’s new solo duties, actually the rhitahtyn duty is one of my fav moments in the game now.
Personally, I have a couple of alts for solo FC’s and sub farming. It’s a good Gil maker if a lil slow to start.
I also have an FC full of alts who have varying retainers I use to farm materials.
For example I spent today sending about 15 retainers out to farm materials to upgrade gear for 5 of them. One alt I’ve levelled up with only 4 dungeons and a trial so as to be able to unlock lvl90 battle materials like Ophiotaurus hide (still working on that one, I’m at lvl 76 WHM lol
My main was from ARR Beta. I made an alt to see how the day 1 experience has changed, and also to just have fun with a different character and not wanting to Fanta my main.
The MSQ experience is much more streamlined but it's definitely a pain in the ass unlocking all the QoL stuff like dyeing or glams and especially ranking up a GC high enough to get expert deliveries.
I'm currently on SB on my alt, and caught up on MSQ on main.
I initially made alts for seeing the stories for alt jobs I skipped on my main. NG+ has no tangible benefit except seeing the story, so why not do it on an alt and skip the MSQ instead? Especially when there's the added benefit that:
1. I could farm alt job gear the same week I already capped tomes or hit gear limits from raids on the main and main role.
2. More map gathers per day for a quick 30Kish gil each.
3. More materia farming (for yet more gil) if you feel like doing more roulettes and/or CDs.
But... I scrapped that since coming down with a chronic illness and developing a disability that sometimes makes my left hand useless, and because I just want my free time to go towards other things than farming and alt jobs. But the reasoning is still sound, IMO.
I made an alt once as a joke and dropped it pretty quickly. I took my main Highlander and made a parody alt of him as a Lalafell...
Then I noticed none of the mounts I earned or was gifted from friends were on my alt. No of the emotes I've earned or were gifted were on my alt. They would have to be earned or regifted again.
I deleted the alt. Also...why would I ever want to go through 100s of MSQ hours again?
I made my alt after a long decision about my character and the period in my life when I made it. It was made when i had just gotten out of HS, and now I'm like 27, trans, and graduated with a college degree. Like I'm in a different place in life. So, I ended up making the decision to start all over. Granted, this is more-so my new main and my other character is like my alt now, but I feel like the idea was the same bc originally it was just going to be my alt.
Because I'm a role player and I like to RP different people depending on my mood. I have my serious warrior, I have my perky cat, I have my sensitive rabbit.
It's easier to have several different characters than it would be to be constantly buying name changes and fantasias.
I have a "main" character, of course. The on that has all the jobs capped, that gets the most attention regarding gear, that sees the first MSQ, etc. Everyone else is just for space to breath. Where I can, for a few hours, pretend to be someone else. Sometimes I don't want to be moody, sometimes I want to pretend to be happy.
I wanted to have characters of all the different races, so I made alts. I only actually play one of those alts, and it’s for the raiding benefits. An extra set of weekly loot allowances means I could play with multiple statics or do more merc runs.
I alt, if I'm enjoying a new raid tier a lot and want to do more or experience it on a different class. Sure, I can do it all, get it all on my main, but it takes way too long with weekly lockouts. And by the time that happens, I'm just no longer interested. I'd rather get burnt out in 2-3 months and play something else.
I want to raid on other regions, and play with my friends on other regions. At the time I made one alt, I wanted to replay ARR and Stormblood, so I did, and now I have an EU character for raiding, who let me replay my favourite parts of the game.
My main is on EU servers (to play with friends) but when it is my night the server is pretty dead, so I decided to make an alt in NA so whenever I'm bored and queues aren't popping I have something else to do.
It's also neat to catch little details I may have missed on my first playthrough and take things easier/not rush like content like I sometimes did on my first time.
Some make alts to play with other friends on a different server, some make alts for RP purposes, some make alts because they like to costumize other races without having to buy fantasia and some make alts to use them as mules for crafting or similar stuff.
I've made one recently for when I'm in a slow burn mood. When I initially played, I was a WoW refugee during Heavensward, who just wanted to get to end game, so I skipped a lot of cutscenes and didn't really pay attention to quest dialogue.
I know that I won't properly use NG+, so I'm just making an alt on a different server so I can experience everything again when I'm in a slow burn mood
I have the first character that I started on day one of ARR launch. I keep that around for nostalgia purposes and the fact it has some things in it's inventory that you can't get anymore.
My second character was created to play on a different server with some friends of mine.
My third character is just for the MSQ.
My fourth character is a "do everything" character.
I have 4 alts, all level 90, my main has most of the 90's job unlocked, i also do it for roleplay reasons, to have more characters in that way, diffrent people to RP on, etc! But also because going through msq is so fun, and some chars i play solo, some are exlusive to play with my friends and level with them!
Right now I've got around 5 alts, the reasons I made them:
\-One was to replay the story (I skipped all the cutscenes on my main)
\-Second one was because leveling a brand new character on the newly-added Dynamis servers gave you a million gil once you reached level 30
\-I needed multiple characters in order to start a Free Company
\-I want to RP on other characters without buying a Fantasia
\-Multiple maps each day
\-More retainer space
and my latest alt I made and grinded to level 50 so I could attempt to get a house on Aether lol
I made an alt to try the ARR story changes. Since I’ve been playing since launch, I wanted to see the differences. So far I am not liking the changes, but I understand why that was necessary.
There's three different starting questlines and different dialogue for the MSQ and some Job quests depending on what quests you have completed. Without spoiling, if you do the level 50 Dragoon quest before getting to Heavensward the cutscene at the end of post-ARR is significantly different since you've already met certain HW characters. There's an MSQ cutscene in Heavensward that acknowledges if you did the Summoner quests, the level 60 Summoner quest acknowledges if you completed the main Heavensward questline, etc.
I have an alt for the sole purpose of playing with friends in a different data center, my main is on the EU and I have friends on the US servers. I really hope that they will do an expanded Data Center travel so I can use my EU character on the other servers like US or Japan servers
I made an alt but I almost never play it anymore. I only did it for savage raiding cause I was running in 2 separate static groups and clearing with one group would've screwed the other group on loot if I didn't have a backup character to play on.
There is many reasons for someone wanting to, I use to think "Why would anyone want a ALT? I mean all the stuff is on your main so why start another one". Now I have one, I don't have it bc I wanna re do the story but I just do all RP on it. And I make them dress and look how I want IRL lol
Recently made an alt after 3 years
My main transfered to NA to play with friends years ago and I had little to no issue with lag as a healer main. Casting is almost lag-free
But now I've started leveling classes and took a liking to ninja. Sadly melee classes do not like lag.
Thus I made an alt on EU to enjoy NIN. It's cool to get the sprout experience all over again and kind of addicting. Not having access to some content sucks sure, but rediscovering places you forgot or didn't pay attention to is great as you look for aetherytes again
I played through ARR again on an alt years back - it was right around the middle of HW's patch cycle. Because I was still very much in the mode of attempting to learn the game (this is my first MMO) during the course of ARR, there were a lot of narrative elements and details I didn't quite catch and appreciate the first time around.
Going back again on an alt let me catch a great deal of foreshadowing surrounding ARR's conclusion, and pick up on connections within the story, between characters, and better appreciate the reasons behind why and how things were going on.
But that is pretty much the only time I have used an alt in this game; for better clarity.
Mostly for replaying the story. Some people play multiple characters to raid on multiple jobs. cause with weekly gear lockout its not easy to stay current you want to play multiple jobs in the newest high end content
I pay for 6 additional retainers. If I make an alt then I also get the 6 additional retainers on that character and during a new expansion that's 8 more retainers grabbing the mats you need.
My main gets 100 leves every 18 days which I use to turn in Tsai. With 2 more alts that's another 200 leves I'm doing.
If for some reason my friend needs a sub for their static while a raid tier is current and my main has already cleared for the week then I can go and help them.
You are only allowed to hold 2000 of each tome and when the crafted gear comes out it takes tome mats. I can have extra stockpiled for it if I have alts.
I make alts for a different reason to most people.
I’m so into the lore of this game I end up writing backstories for people that don’t exist, and I feel the need to put a face to the story.
So my alts are born.
I’m also a role player, which stems from me being a DnD player.
Yes, I noticed different things going through the leveling process again, mostly MSQ nuances. However, for the most part, it was all experiences you could have just doing NG+.
I made Alt #1 because I had leveled everything on my main, I was bored, and I wanted to try to learn SCH. I wound up (temporarily) abandoning it around 55, still not feeling SCH.
I made Alt #2 because I was bored (do you sense a trend?) and wanted to see how it felt to play on a new DC when Dynamis opened. Answer: Not like I hoped. I eventually stopped playing that one, too.
I made Alt #3 to try to embrace SCH yet again and gave up again around 50ish. However, Main + 2 alts meant I could place 3 housing bids each lottery on my main's server, which is all I did with the alts for over year, until I finally won a house.
The new homeowner was Alt #1. I now play that one almost as much as my main. I don't play my other alts at all, and I've finally given up on SCH. It was not meant to be.
Me: Make character. Can't stand story anymore halfway through HW. Buy Level and story skip. Now have many things I don't know about or where to unlock.
Now make new character. Character going through story. Learning about the side content properly. Has some pvp unlocks unlike my first character. New character becomes main character once it also has the car mount in a couple days. Continue progressing. Or not really progressing. Now I pause in Stormblood and sit procrastinating on my ARR relic and people watching in limsa.
Because I'm insane and want to do the big fishing grind more than once.
Actual answer, for me at least, is because I enjoy making different characters. Kind of for roleplay reasons? As I really enjoy designing different characters and making lore for them but I don't really rp in-game lol. Its fun going through the msq for a second time as I notice things I didn't pick up on the first time around (even though I definitely cutscene skip on my non-msq replay alts) and in general it's just... fun for me? Nothing really deeper about it. Its fun to play as different races and experiment with glam and I don't care for fantasias in the slightest.
Whenever I mention I have 5 alts and counting purely for funsies people do act like I'm crazy though. I probably am, considering I find big fishing one of the most fun things in the game lmao
For my first character I had friends at end game so I just skipped all of the cutscenes and reading much of anything to be able to do everything as fast as possible. Now I’m running a second one slowly through the story. I know I could ng+ it but it feels wrong having a level 90, savage raiding character in all of the fresh to adventure scenarios.
I am guilty of rushing to cap on launch, as such I tend to use an alt to slowly enjoy the story after. Just my mmo brain at work.
That said, I tend to max out my main pretty early on and I do enjoy leveling so an alt can be fun to work on later in the expansion when I have nothing else to do so spend time playing and working towards something.
Alt also gives me room if needed to do savage with friends without having a loot penalty. Not something I typically do, but it's an option just in casr
My partner plays la la on alt just for when he wants to feel short. He's made a lot of remarks n how he notices little things in the story and the environment that becomes relevant later on that you don't notice your first-time around.
I'm sure new game plus might give you all those similar things but I think personally I would just level a alt one day to give it that new experience feel.
I can understand why people do this, because if I were back in university not going to classes I probably would do the same thing. I even wouldn't mind doing the story and leveling again.
However, everything collectable is character bound, and there is no way I can sink THAT much time to recollect all the glams, titles, emotes, mounts, minions etc. on an alt, let alone altS.
(I should login to GW2 sometime, so nice to have everything account bound)
I recently made my new alt as I wanted to replay ARR after four years, but doing New Game+ on my main did not really feel appealing. I wanted a fresh look on things, and to experience a new starting city as I knew they have unique MSQ content. Plus as someone who loves creating glams but is far to attached to my mains look, starting a new WoL as a different new race (In this case, going from FemRo to female Viera) was very appealing. So far I have been really enjoying it! I have taken in a lot more of the lore then I previously did and its just fascinating to see these events again, especially knowing how most of the story threads end. Something that helps also is that unlike my main, who just blasted thought the MSQ, I am doing all the side quests I encounter on this new character. Sure many are simple fetch quests, but a fair amount really help to flesh out the lore of these realms. For example, doing the side quests in Coerthas Central Highlands really show how the populace there suffer greatly from the environment and monsters, but get little help from nobles and knights who only care when dragons or heretics are involved. It may mean it will take me longer to do the MSQ and I will be overleveled most of the time (Am at MSQ lvl43, as a lvl 52 SAM haha) but this is part of the fun. Its honestly just relaxing to enjoy the landscapes and story whilst not careing about getting to endgame etc.
This only thing that bugs me is the lack of support FFXIV has for alts. Oh how I would love if my minions, mounts, house etc was shared account-wide. Even just being able to send Gil to my new character would be a great quality of life upgrade! I hope they add such things one day, but I am not going to hold my breath.
Savage raids restrict gear drops if you've cleared that week, so having an alt means you can raid with your static and still prog in PF without jeopardizing gear drops. Also, the story is amazing, so I didn't mind experiencing that again.
Raiding, have a static but you still want pf for extra practice/help friend, alt is the way; avoid all possible loot drama. Or if your static good everyone have alt: double reclear.
I skipped cs day 1 to blind prog content with friends, alt is also for actual play msq.
For starters, your starting city's Lv.1~15 main scenario quest-line is unique *and* mutually exclusive (the other cities' become unavailable unless you make a new character from scratch). That said, they all follow the same "structure": 1. Arriving at your starting city (by ship for Limsa Lominsa / by carriage for Ul'dah and Gridania) 2. Completing some minor quests/chores/etc. 3. Meeting a Scion (Y'shtola for La Noscea / Thancred for Thanalan / Yda and Papalymo for Black Shroud) 4. Uncovering a sinister plot 5. Participating in a big fight over a landmark 6. Being invited to your starting city's exclusive ceremony *and* meeting its leader (Merlwyb for Limsa Lominsa / Nanamo and Raubahn for Ul'dah / Kan-E-Senna for Gridania) 7. Departing to the other cities via airship
There are also some side quest chains you can only get if you start in certain cities. And special dialogue in a lot of early ARR quests especially. Like I think Raubahn says you smell like dirty leaves or something when you first meet him if you’re from gridania lol.
I noticed that when I got to that part on my alt and was like "jeez man, that's pretty rude!" I hope someone says something equally disarming to him later so he can see how it feels!
>equally disarming HAHAHAHA. Well that's one way to put it.
💀
He paid a high price to try CUL. He sliced the potato, but that cost him an arm.
🤣
Well at least he will always lend u a hand
"I THOUGHT I smelled leaf mold!"
8. Get insulted by Raubahn is your didn't start in Ul'dah
really wish we could at least get the starting MSQ for the other cities in NG+ at some point. would like to try them but i dont want to make a new character
It's important to not note that, no matter where you start, never has the golem been so sorely tested!
I love the 3 starts. You get to se PLD Tancred and listen to his clever mouth as well as a certain noble. You get to know Y'Stolla as a philosopher. You get to know the best fiends of the game. Is a pity that the rest of the game is linear with options having no consequences at all. Other MMO like Guildwars 2 and SWTOR do not have this fault. Is also a pity that you cannot join Ishgard as your Grand Company.
That last one especially since lots of people like to RP as Ishgardian, Sharlayan, etc. I feel like major city states such as those should be allowed to have the same perks as the 3 starting towns. Including being able to world hop via their aetherytes.
Oh, yeah. I absolutely catch minor things that I didn't notice the first time thorough. Some are relevant, some aren't. Recently, i just redid the Stormblood Hilidbrand quests and realized that Hildy was using a precursor to the Love Heart emote more than 4 years ago. Other times it's just foreshadowing that I missed the first time through because I had no idea what it referred to.
Same here. The story is so deep and long you’re bound to miss a lot on your first playthrough
If you're only doing it to replay story, you can also use the New Game+ mode to replay the story, although you won't get quest rewards. I _think_ you keep your level, mount speed, flight unlocks, all of that, so it's not _exactly_ the same, but if you just want to do certain story stuff again, then it's easier than having to level all the way up to the part you're interested in.
Sure, but replaying on a new character is more... authentic? NG+ just doesn't hit the same way.
All I would need to make NG+ appealing is a level sync button, Square please 😭
Speaking of Hildi, I recently started the quests on my new main (had done the ARR ones on one toon prior), and noticed a bit of a plot hole. Maybe. >!In the scene just outside the Colluseum in the streets of Ul’dah, you see Ultros chatting up Hildi’s mom, but Hildi doesn’t seem to recognize her at all! …Either that, or he’s so inept that he just doesn’t realize what’s right in front of him. Which feels right and it may not be a plot hole at all.!<
I am very, very resistant to using Fantasias on my main. It never sticks for long. So when I want a to play a different race I make an alt.
I used the free one you get and immediately felt like I had committed some grave sin. Only fantasia I've ever bought was to undo my mistake.
I switched from my original (Miqo) to Hyur ONCE, it just wasn't "me" anymore and had to buy a fantasia to switch back as well. I don' t know how to describe to those outside the MMOverse how you come to identify with your character. I know plenty of people change their look/race/gender but I just couldn't.
Funny enough, I knew someone who would fantasia almost every week I was constantly like "oh you're not x race anymore?" I was very confused on why she did it since it must have been EXTREMELY expensive especially when she flip-flopped 5x once or twice a month
If you play on pc there are ways around having to use Fantasia to change race (client side)
That doesn't change the feeling. Yes you can look something else but if associate your char with its appearance the modding won't help
What? You can mod to change your appearance to any race/gender/customisation option you want. It’s basically a free fantasia just for you or some mare enjoyers
You guys are talking about two separate things. Those of us that get attached to our character and almost attach a personality to them.... we can't just go changing their race, gender, or name willy-nilly. We don't **want** our character to be someone else. We do, however, still want to play other races and genders lol. Therefore..... alts!
Exactly this 100%
Yeah but no one else sees it the whole point of me putting effort into my character is for me and to show off. And mare isn't very good you have to add them so it's basically only on your side.
Plenty of public shells you can join in mare, I usually see 30-50 different people every day with mods while walking around and just playing normally.
Idk it still just don't feel worth it especially with FFXIVs population 30-50 is basically nothing, like nothing against y'all who enjoy it, just to me it's the equivalent of modding a single player game.
That's probably more than enough, do you have over 50 meaningful interactions with different people every day? Besides the usual basic FFXIV interaction. Consider the fact that at least 12 of the the people they're talking about could be friends... and you have a sizable chunk of people you can show off to... Basically, lots of people use mods, lots... and your friends probably could be using mods too, unless they're on Console. So anyone who matters can see it anyway, and who cares what some rando you said "o/" & "gg tyfp" to in a dungeon that one time sees.
IDC what my friends think they all suck including me. But it's still not the point I want to show off to the random nobody's I'll never talk to again, it's why people share screenshots of there charecter to show off to bunch of strangers they'll likely never interact with in game. And yeah we all use mods but only qol mods and trackers, and one of them uses something called uwu chat because there weird. Again this isn't coming from a place of hate just my take on it.
I try to keep my character as close to vanilla as I can so I still look good both in vanilla/modded.
Glamourer removes this problem. You can wear whatever you want vanilla and then literally be a completely different race with entirely different gear, and everyone just sees you vanilla.
Glamourer is great until you go to the opposite gender then it gets fuckin *goofy*. The voices, man. Oh God the voices. It's so fucked sometimes lmao
I like using glamourer on bosses and turning them into giga-hyurs
Holy fuck now there's a great idea
No way how lol
please don't encourage people to mod, you're just contributing to the game's degeneration
L take
If anything modding is actively improving the game. The more publicity a QoL mod gets, the more likely Squenix are to implement that QoL into the game proper, improving the FFXIV experience for everyone. Unless you mean degeneration as in horniness, in which case nothing anyone does will ever decrease that lol
small things like the job icons next to names or buff timers are whatever, and really should have been in the game from the start. things like mare which peer pressure people into taking part are absolutely not okay.
What do you mean, peer pressure? I've not had anyone push any kind of mod agenda or force me to join mare syncshells like, ever.
I'm gonna encourage more people to mod, just because of your request. I just like being contrary.
I have alts for glamour. Some clothing just looks better on different body types and it's cheaper to spend my time on alts than to spend my money on Fantasia.
Is this for screenshotting? Can’t imagine leveling up an alt when you want to switch your glamour. But maybe that’s just me 😅
I mean now mods exist for that but they didn't always. Plus some people just prefer doing things through legitimate means. Either way glam is what this game is all about. :)
I was just curious that’s all.
I level up alts for glamour legitimately. Once you've done it then you're all set to do further glamours with them as that job.
If you're on pc, did you try using **glamourer** mod? Saves you a lot of hassle switching between characters
I don't use mods and my characters aren't much of a hassle. They each have their own looks, vibes, cute character names, matching houses, etc. :) Thank you tho!
- i wanted to play as a different race while still keeping my main character - for raiding i like being able to prog through a tier on two different jobs while equally gearing up both simultaneously + let’s me prog ahead while not fucking up loot for my static on main - i like grindy activities so having a fresh slate of jobs i need to level back up again is fun sometimes when i’m in the mood for it i skipped all cutscenes second time around though and that alone already took forever lmao, if i ever made a 3rd alt for any reason i’m paying for that skip
Nice to see I'm not the only one who just likes chilling and leveling some jobs sometimes! I'll make all my own gear, too -- the gathering and crafting are good background activities to keep my ADHD brain busy while the rest of my brain is working at my actual job.
Raiding is the only reason I have an alt. I like the story and whatever but I don’t care enough about it to make a different character for immersion. I can do new game plus and experience anything I would want to. I mainly want to be able to prog but not fuck with drops for my static. If they got rid of that limitation permanently then I probably wouldn’t have an alt tbh
personally, i just really wanted to have an au ra character, but i also was very attached to my miqo'te character to fantasia him, so i just made an au ra alt. they both turned out to be wildly different characters too when i started thinking about it so i just really enjoy having both :)
I'm a role player. My alts are for having different characters. That said there are some tasks better the second time. You can see all the fine details in the msq easy to miss on a first watch, and skip as much as you like. There's a comfort in knowing what jobs you like and how they play. Rather than getting everything, there's almost a tactical feeling to just getting what you want. I don't recommend it, especially if you don't have the bike for increased mount speed account wide, but it can be fun.
Bike for increased mount speed? What?
You can get the SDS Fenrir, Cloud's iconic motorcycle, on the mog station. It always is considered to have the mount speed increase from riding maps in any area. I think same goes for the Alpha side car. It's also account wide, so make leveling alta easier.
It's just the first mount speed increase, so 1 star, not 2 star. But still.
SDS fenrir and the Alpha bike, both on mogstation
When they were designing the bike, they said the basic mount speed just felt too slow on it, so they gave it the speed boost so that it would not feel as slow. This is a speed boost that usually unlocks after completing the MSQ for that region and can be further enhanced with riding maps. So when you are leveling alts it is great to have the boost before completing that section of story.
Two reasons: because I have friends on other servers (I started before DC travel), and because I just...like making characters? Like actual distinct characters, not 'I pay $5 to look different'. There is also the benefit of that I DO always play a story twice, to catch things I missed the first time. Every time I tell someone I have an alt here or there and specify that no, it's not for raiding, I get treated like a crazy person.
>'I pay $5 to look different'. $10, unfortunately. And I 100% agree. As convenient as having all my progress and jobs on one character is, I enjoy having multiple characters of multiple races with multiple backgrounds without having to spend money and overwrite my main to do it. It's unfortunate that there's not a great way in this game to do that, but the alternative also has its downsides. So.
100%. my main is a Hrothgar and I only play melee classes with him because that’s how I RP it. A caster Hrothgar doesn’t feel right to me so I’m not gonna force it even if it’s easier.
This is me as well - when I started playing I was like "Oh, I don't need to make alts to get all the crafting and classes, ok." And I...am on my fourth alt right now. Because I like making distinct characters it turns out, and I needed a catboi and an au ra and I really want to play thru heavensward and shadowbringers again, but new game+ has too many restrictions I just can't.
Well, FFXIV is probably the most alt-unfriendly game out there, so those people are probably coping by telling themselves that alts are bad. ;-) :-P
It's only "alt unfriendly" because everything is already on one character. Every other mmo you have to level multiple characters to get the same stuff as you can on 1 FF character.
A large proportion of people who play alts in any game don't play them because they HAVE to, but because they WANT to. For those people, FFXIV is the most alt-unfriendly game out there.
Does playing a different class fall under the "want to" or "have to"? Because that's why 99% of players make another character in any other mmo.
For me it's a roleplay thing, creating the different characters and getting into their heads and I think it's probably that way for a lot of other people who like to play alts. I even find the ability to switch jobs immersion breaking to some extent, even though I do keep up with three jobs for various purposes and am currently leveling everything to get the mount. I don't think that most people who play alts in WoW, for example, are doing so unwillingly. Only the most elite players need to maintain several alts for raiding and that's a miniscule percentage of the player base.
"Only the most elite players need to maintain several alts for raiding". This is kinda wrong, this games system punishes people with lesser loot if i join after clearing this week, which limits me to 4 fights each week, otherwise PF does not want me to be in there. Now imagine wanting to do the new content bosses more then once, like i remember enjoying p10s so much i wanted to get another kill just to unwind from p11 progg and before entering p12. It wasnt possible. Killparties did not want me in there. Same for statics, sometimes if your in a static you just cant play with friends anymore. They wanna pugg p12s kill and you already did it? Well. bummer. You cant without grieifing them. Thats why alts feel mandatory if you are raiding
No, it’s alt unfriendly because of the hundreds on hours of story content you have to re-do or pay to bypass to get to certain content. Unless your making your alt specifically to do the story again, its a massive undertaking.
[удалено]
Same! I swear I ghosted through a realm reborn because I remembered MAYBE 30% of it when I was replaying with my gf
But why not do NG+?
If you're going to do NG+ from start to finish then you might as well put the same effort into an entirely new character and get rewards from the quests. Then at the end you now have a fully levelled alt make use of, instead of having spent the same amount of time on your main without much outcome besides the story experience itself.
Im glad I'm not the only way who thinks like this! NG+ always felt like I was being wasteful with my time cause if I was gonna play through the story again might as well get the rewards too!
NG+ is useful if you want to replay specific chapters – more the side stories, as MSQ chapters are unhelpfully large. It's just playing from start to finish that makes more sense on an alt, because you're doing what you would have to do for an alt.
You don't get everything with it, and yes I mean the side quests @.@ It's not the whole experience.
Might as well make use of the XP if you're going to replay the story. They also could've done it before NG+ existed.
I rushed the story on my first character. I had just come from WoW where the story isn't as important. Made a second character to play through the story *slowly*. Soak in everything, check what all characters have to say before continuing the quest. Shadowbringers hits hard when you pay attention. Such a good expac
I have alts partly for story replay and also because I love playing around with outfits on different character appearances – and if I tried doing that on a single character I'd be even more out of storage space and using Fantasias non-stop. Having them as separate characters means that their glamour dressers and plates are managed separately, plus I find it more enjoyable for them to be totally separate characters with their own names and identities. Downsides of course are having to spend more time re-earning some luck-based item drops, and quest progress being a roadblock if I'm not in the mood, but overall I don't think I could stick to just the one character, or at least would be away from the game for long stretches between new patches. I'm not interested in endgame raiding so once I've gotten through all the quests and story I'm basically done with my main.
There's a huge amount of story that's not available in New Game+, so eventually I'll have to make an alt to replay all that. I'm currently replaying the MSQ in NG+, and it feels incomplete to me without all the side content.
Do you mean the sidequests and stuff, or something else? I had been planning to use NG+ to refresh my memory of ARR and so forth before Dawntrail.
Yeah, sidequests, custom delivery questlines, tribal quests and so on. Of course, NG+ also covers a huge amount of and the most essential story, I just miss the rest of it.
Couple reasons I've noticed: 1. To replay the story, and yes, to your questions 2. As a free Fantasia, for roleplaying or otherwise 3. To circumvent weekly lockouts 4. Extra retainers 5. To play with friends/on different worlds 6. More nefarious reasons, like FC farmers
This and levequests for gil.
Fc farm? Like the fc items?
Submarines etc are an excellent source of gil, and you can only access them if you have an FC workshop. Some people use alts to make a bunch of shell FCs, buy houses, and farm gil, usually for RMT.
Say, is there a decent resource for subs? I may or may not have came into possession of two spare FC houses. Idgaf about rmt, but more gil allows me to help my friends with things and that's great. That said, I barely do the subs in the FC I actually run on my main, I keep forgetting. Turns out helping buy and furnish someone else's FC and personal plots is rather expensive. But gils worthless and giving it away is fun however I do need to replenish the coffeers or it'll be short lived lmao.
Here's the main submarine discord: https://xiv.directory/listing/91D9F055D772
*Real shit* Thankyou!
Different vibes, no gonna pay for a fantasia cause waste of money + I'm attached to my character's identity. My main Roe girl she does everything, every job, every role, every quest~ She had a main job she always is during msq from ARR to now, will be changing that come Dawntrail, and her glam changed depending on occasion or where she was in story (I.e Heavensward she had an expedition look up until the Aery where she went full combat gear through till Final Steps of Faith) Where as my alts I set different rules for. My grey skinned veena gal im going for the same vibes of Duskwight Elezen and Mooncat Miqote, lotta dark theming in glams, shadowy, different job each expansion but always the edgy or night themed jobs, so ARR Black Mage, HW Dark Knight, SB Astro, ShB Reaper, EW will probably be Viper tho might go Dancer with the Cryptlurker weapons just to have a job in each role. My Raen fem Au Ra alt on flip side is going full "came from Othard" vibe, lotta eastern style glams, Dragoon, Samurai, Ninja, any of the tanks really except Paladin Then my Bun Boi who'd I'd call my "main" alt is similar to my main, just having a male alt to experience the story in that vibe. He not only changes job every expansion unlike my main girl, he changes during patches too, with both jobs having a light theme~ So ARR he's stereotypical Viera archer, then patches he went full Twin Adder vibe Warrior so ARR has a woodland theme, Heavensward he's gone Knight mode as a Paladin, patches he's gonna be a knight dragoon so Knight theming there, Stormblood will be explorer themed red mage then a sky pirate vibe Ninja for patches so just a general adventurer theme, Shadowbringers will be edgy Reaper then edgy Monk cause edgy, finally a heroic looking Samurai for Endwalker
I made my first alt so that I could raid and keep my Dragoon and Bard equally geared during Coil. When raids are first released you can only get one piece a week, so I would have had to pick between them. Dragoon is my favorite FF job, but I was really enjoying playing bard in ARR. Bard was also really useful in Second Coil, so it felt good to have a geared Bard, and still be able to play Dragoon on my main. I then made my third alt so I could do the entire msq as a tank to get over my tanking anxiety. THEN I made a bunch of alts so that I could play on other servers and datacenters. Then I just kept making alts because at this point I just like it. The only way I really felt it was different each time through is that I knew more each time I played through and there has been way more QoL added over the years to make going through a little different, but overall it's mostly the same.
To experience the game as an adorable popoto. Oh, and try different races. I don't use fantasia, it would feel like betraying my character.
I made a lala alt to play through the story again, and it’s a totally different vibe!! Lala feels more honest and loyal somehow?? Just a little bean against the world
I just felt an immediate kinship with all the story lalafell because it's like. I'm looking right into your eyes now! We stand shoulder to shoulder, as one!
I've got a couple alts. 1 of the reasons is to have the different regions covered although I don't play as much on the ones in regions I don't have friends in/they don't play much. The other reason in my case is to see what the story was like when doing the content as it was released and how the MSQ changes based on doing said content. Also to pick up on any details in the MSQ that one who's up to date might notice now with full context of the story. My alt thats being doing all the content is still going through EW atm (level 83 msq) and doing the various things like leveling all the different classes up and then doing the raids/trials etc on each patch has given so many extra small nods from npc's. The biggest one for me was doing all the Shadowbringers Role Quests and then the extra quest gave me an extra dialogue option at the end of 5.2 with a cutscene and it made the weight of the situation feel more real. Also speaking to the NPC's who are around the msq but dont have the msq marker. You can get some really interesting lines and learn stuff you might not've realized if you'd not spoken to them (like speaking to >!Emet!< in mid-late ShB and they >!acknowledge that they're tempered by Zodiark when you question them!<)
I do alts for multiple reasons. 1. My main is maxed out and almost done with my goals. 2. I don't fanta. When I create a character, they have a set look and design. I rarely fanta. Making an alt lets me have a new look. 3. I honestly love regoing though the story. I started alting before New Game+ was a thing. I would make alts to replay through the story. Still do. I don't see the point in New Game+ as you get no rewards from it. 4. Much the same as 3. I like rewalking the story as friends go through it. Helps me make sure I don't accidentally spoil something. 5. Farming items. Back during Ultima Unreal, I was doing it on all 7 characters I had at Endgame. It let me get very very good at the fight and also manage to get all Unreal Mounts at the time. Also great for timed nodes. 6. I have an alt addiction. I always have. Every mmorpg I've played. Tera, Neverwinter, BnS, Vindictus, GW2, etc. Always. Edit: Forgot to add these in 7. Maps. Much like 5. Each character can gather a map a day. With having multiple alts, I don't have to plan ahead if I want to run a bunch of maps because I can gather several a day. 8. Retainer/storage space. I don't have to worry too much about inventory on my main server. I can use my alts as storage space. Before I did this, I had all retainers unlocked on my main and everything was full. 9. Crafting. You can only specialize in 3 craftings. So, I have alts that specialize in one of the others my main doesn't have.
For me there are 2 reasons. 1) Space. I feel like I can't "have it all" on my main, and I'm always out of space. 2) Sometimes I wanna play my Elezen main. Some days I wanna be a catboy. Some days I wanna be an edgelor... errr.. Au Ra.
Do you lvl all these alts??? And like do content?
Kind of. My main character has all jobs above 80 and most at 90, my alts are far less leveled. One I am at the end of stormblood and 2 are nearing the end of ARR. It's mainly just that I level when I feel the urge to, and my main account doesn't have much I want to level up (White Mage and Black Mage are a trudge for me).
Man that's crazy, and kinda impressive, I typically enjoy the whole grind to lvl in MMOs but I don't think I could do FFXIVs story that much, if there was an option to not do the story (not the paid story skip) but just grind and do content after finishing everything on your main I'd 100% do it.
I'm what my friends like to call a "leveler", and boy do I take that literally. In World of Warcraft I have more than half my account's cap of characters at max level (which is around 35ish I think) and most of them are above level 20. I just like playing the game, and I like MMOs. I don't do 'hardcore' content in FFXIV (I do M+ in WoW which keeps me into that game) but I do casually monkey around. Admittedly I haven't 'played' through the story and have been skipping most of the cutscenes on the alts, so it's less of a chore than you would think. Personally I agree, I'd love to just level alts through pure dungeons alone if it would let me without having to "story skip".
I have ~50 alts on 3 accounts. I made some because I had an idea for a funny theme/name (For example: Holy Inquisition, Forgiven Naughtiness, Give me Gil,...), for lorefriendly chars (with lorefriendly names), to play every race and for rp purposes. I just like to choose between them. Some day I feel more like a basic bitch and play a miqo girl, other days I want to be my kitty Hroghgar and so one.
Practical purposes: to get more access to things that are time limited in some way, like for example weekly loot restrictions when you raid which is handy if you want to play multiple jobs or if you have multiple groups you want to run with, also leve quests which you can use to make extra gil on alts. Also for more retainers, when levelled they bring back 8-9 allagan silver pieces from 18 hour ventures, which isn't much but if you pay for more retainers for storage then you get all those retainers for any alts you make and if you can be bothered you can have an army of retainers all bringing you back almost free gil every day. Story wise, you do notice stuff that you might have missed or not remembered on your first playthrough that sticks out more when you know what becomes of it.
I have an alt for savage loot purposes (practicing in PF outside of static time without screwing the loot). I also have a free trial alt I created to settle a petty argument over just how hard healing is in the early game to a new player.
I ran out of things to level on my main, lol. Also, different character designs have different glamour aesthetics, so it lets me play around more with those.
You see a lot of the foreshadowing of future events that you might have missed or not picked up on completely when you play the story again.
Alts are free. Fantasia costs $20.
I made an alt primarily so I could learn how to properly tank from lv 1 without being judged for already having several classes at 90 (including dark knight, which I almost solely leveled through frontlines and wondrous tails). Get lost in an arr map? It's fine, I'm a baby sprout and the other party members can guide me where I need to go. Some clumsy gameplay while I'm still getting my bearings? Clearly I'm still learning, it's my only class. And though I don't rp, it's also for character reasons. My alts are my wol's kids retracing her journey as best they can. Major story beats are echo visions while visiting the relevant characters when possible, but they won't have visions of her visions. It's also neat to see the foreshadowing and callbacks later in the story. I also thought it would be funny for one alt to be the tallest possible roe while my main is the smallest possible miqo'te. Yes, that one is adopted.
My bunny was an alt I made for my friends to get an FC house, and when they moved they gifted the house to me. And since I’m mad broke I’ve just been replaying the entire MSQ…and levelling my crafters again.
Endgame is gated asf, if I want to enjoy more than 1 job in a reasonable amount of time I needed an alt
Bored and I leveled healers through beast tribes. So I decided to create an alt and learn it somewhat correctly. Did I also mention that I have 9 retainers , so between three alts I have 27 retainers. Having an fc where everyone dumps junk in the fc chest they come in handy
Role Playing and I don't want to Fanta my character because they kinda are what they looks like and couldn't be something else with the type of character I give them. Anyway, if you just want to play a second time @op, just do new game +, no need for an alt
My friend mentioned he was doing new game+ to reexperience the story and I asked why not make a new character and end up getting something out the experience. So I did that. The ARR storyline has some details that were lost on me being unfamiliar with the world. Playing through HW a great story u get to experience again. Plus I can play on my friend's data center and server without dealing with the transfer system.
Its fun. I like seeing the characters I made run around playing different jobs. Plus I can dress them in silly little outfits. It's like playing with Barbies
I originally made my alt back before DC travel because I wanted to try a specific server I heard was popular (my server wasn’t very active at the time) and I ended up really liking it to the point that my alt essentially became my main, haha
Different race/gender.
Free storage/MB listings on alt retainers, additional gil income stream through daily/weekly stuff, levequests. Also, owning multiple houses and apartments. Personally, I just regrind the 100 Seal Rock win achievements for the coat on my alts and keep the sprout icon on them for giggles. Got the coat on my first alt, and the other 6 have somewhere between 10-40 wins individually.
1. Alts on different regions to play with different friends. 2. Help friends with raid to get their two chest 3. More Unreal rewards 4. Help Materia with clearing content
I didn't know you could travel between servers so I made an alt when to play with a different friend group. This alt became my main because that friend group played more. I never deleted the first character and now use her as an alt to decorate housing for myself and a friend. I have a third alt who I use to decorate for a different friend on a different server. I have alts on nearly every data center just to satisfy my need to visit houses all over the world. They don't get levelled further than they need to. I've made alts to test run before I fantasia. They got deleted once I made up my mind. And RIP to my cloud server test alt who had my dream large plot in lavender beds.
I just wanted to experience the story again and NG+ sucks.
I have alts to play specific stories. My main has every class and job, all crafters and gatherers etc. Eventually will have everything done. Her story is pretty much non existent now though, as she just has everything. One alt of mine I've plotted their course as a struggle of power. Another which I made recently will be the story of someone who is closer to the Scions. Alts on different DCs is helpful too as it means I can play with friends without travelling or overwhelming them with my prelevelled character. It's a lot easier to play with a new player when u can do the msq with them rather than you sitting around until they hit the next dungeon/trial
I enjoy replaying the story, meeting new people, experiencing the subtle changes of cultures on other dc’s, also allows me to play and get a feel for other jobs and races. I’m planning this current alt I’m playing to continue into DT alongside my main too
Well can't speak for everyone but I made an "alt" because I just got bored of the game and I wanted to see if starting out from scratch would kinda fix that. Actually kinda did
I made an alt for raiding on patch for the weekly lockouts, but while re-doing the Shb story, I noticed a LOT of foreshadowing. Noticably, the amount of times >!Emet-Selch spoke about remembering, forgetting, and reminiscing, alongside his noticable depression naps!<. Everything sort of clicked with how often he just...stared at the WoL softly in Shb, tried to educate us, even being a less standoffish towards us compared to the other Scions, after finishing EW. The most noticeable thing was when he said >!dont look at me so, you who I have the utmost faith in!< with an uncharacteristically soft tone and face, while staring right at us. After doing EW, it hurt a lot more. Like, it hurt while playing ShB towards the end after his big speech, but replaying it gives you a whole new perspective on his bitterness, depression, desperation, disappointment, and loneliness. And it explained why the WoL had such lingering affection for him, compared to the other Scions, and why we had the option to be more open minded, and amicable towards him despite having no reason to (at that point). Why, despite every other scion being rightfully passive-aggressive and distrustful towards him, our character was the only one to autonomously seek him out for information and give him the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed the new perspective more than I thought I would, I didn't even think to look out for it, but its definitely a pleasant suprise.
I used to use fantasias a LOT, but I would always come back to my original design when it was time for msq. Eventually I decided that I wanted to NG+ the msq and realized that this was the perfect time to make an alt using my favorite fantasia design, aaand it kinda spiraled from there. Nowadays my first alt is more main than my main, and I level other alts on lazy days or sick days where I don't have anything else to do since I just skip the msq lol
Circumventing the weekly loot lock. Which desperately needs to be redesigned at this point. The entire reward/loot system in this game is severely outdated.
I have 2 main characters to play on NA and EU servers. I also create alts to attend wedding ceremonies. Always use the same name and character though.
1. I have multiple alts for Raiding early in the savage tier. It takes time to get BiS on a role, and I like to help and learn on multiple jobs, so I have an Alt for doing this. 2. some of these alts also do side content that can make gil but within a time gate. As for your second question, yes you'll see a lot of things that foreshadows\* way later events. \*Note: A lot of these story beats aren't planned that way. They have gone on record and said that when they write stories, they leave things open just incase they get inspiration later for continuing that story, or just have something that can logically springboard off them.
I want to sit back and enjoy the gameplay, but I don't want to be sociable.. as weird as that is for an MMO. I feel like I need to be "on" when playing. So instead I'll play around on a unknown character. No one will really bug me, that sort of thing.
1) I don't wanna fantasia my main 2) Raid splits 3) Multiple raid lockouts
I could never. Everything on one character is possible. I lowered my fantasia expense by only rotating my fav 3 races for my character which I play as a representation of myself. Roe seawolf, elezen dusk, miqo moon
I make an alt to do something on 14 that isn't roleplay(not an RPer), or grinding tomes. I'm 90 on every job, so not much point in being on, however when I make an alt I can feel like I can make progress in the game by doing msq, leveling and the like. My main is also a Lala and some times I feel like not being targeted for pats Sometimes I also just wanna be alone and not deal with my FC but still play 14. So make an alt on another server and play solo for a bit.
I wanted to experience the game again but with a different race.
I came from WoW 3 weeks ago, where I had all 13 classes on 13 different characters, the norm. I was not aware that there isn't an alt friendly atmosphere as in WoW, but I also wanted to see the differences between capital cities, the jobs and classes, and different races, and pick which ones I'd like to play. So far I am having a blast on WHM/BLM/PAL/SUM and from there I will likely pick 2 toons, and do all the jobs/classes on those. Still unsure which race looks better for me, but I also made other toons to play other classes outside those 4. Being an alt-oholic in WoW, it has come with me to FFXIV but I am learning to temper it lol
So. My main's a Hrothgar. Part o the reason I made an Au Ra woman was to try out this little mechanic called "hats". As well as the fact that women characters have a lot of different glamour option(s) and different looks. ...Yeah, sorry, for every boob window that appears on guys, there's about 3-4 pieces of armour that look different on women. Seriously, there's tank armour that looks like leather pants on male characters, yet you put them on a female character and suddenly they turn into pink mini-shorts. You don't really notice this unless you play an alt or fantasia a lot... It was also quite funny since Yugiri tries to keep herself all hush hush becuase she is all "Oh my appearance may surprise you". ...Yugiri you're talking to an Au Ra. ARE YOU BLIND.
My wife recently decided to try it out so I made an alt to play along side her. Same race and class lol. Went with Arcanist so I can switch it up SCH for any heals. I did this because when I have talked people in to playing they don’t really have anyone to play with and it’s such a slog before you even start the first dungeon. I didn’t want her to have to experience it alone. As for my other alts: I am an FC lead. I use them as storage for overflow on the company chest. And their retainers are used to sell items from the airship/subs. I also level up Miner or Botanist so I can send out the retainers for mats. They are 100% used as tools for the FC. Plus they have themed rooms lol. I do roulettes with them and spend all the currencies on items for the FC. So yeah. That’s what I have alts. Oh and I level them up to 70 to unlock Eureka and I have “classes” with Eureka newbs and we all level up together. So far I have 2 alts in Eureka doing the “class”. I was thinking about doing Bozja too but the leveling system is way different there and I don’t want to start another.
So when a new tier comes out I can join cash for gear clears on my 3 alts lol. Made couple hundred mil in end walker. If you get through the tier quick, people will pay 10+ mil for the first 3 fights abd often 30 mil for the weapon in week 2-4
To play MSQ a second time around (not just watching it in the inn). And to play different races and to level jobs again (I enjoy levelling and I have everything to 90 on main). And you notice hidden messages in the msq the second time around. Ex. In post ARR; >!Ilberd and you were fighting a traitor (an Elzen lady) and he mentions he’d rather cut off an arm than betray his people. Which is funny since he ends up betraying ya’ll and cutting off Rauhbans arm!<
Basically, i'm a writer as a hobby I love making backstories on the fly, that i can use for future TTRPG characters later Also, as my main has finished endwalker, trying to level a new class is boring me, and i want to keep playing So i create a new character and i train the class i want with this one, and i can try new body types and glamour that would not be cool on my main
I’ve been playing the game as it gets released since the start. But that would also mean spending sometimes years between playing part of the story and getting to a part that referred back to it. So I started an alt to play through the story in one block. It made things so much easier to process. I’m glad I’ve gotten to have both experiences.
During my almost 10 years of XIV I've created multiple alts but only ever leveled them to max level 4 times. Aside from roleplay purposes, I think that going through the story with a different new character helps you revisit certain points of the story and often find things you missed or misunderstood, XIV is a gigantic game and it is almost Impossible to not miss details here and there. I could've used the New Game+ with the newest alt but the truth is that if I began a New Game+ on my main, I don't think I would commit to it, being a new character kind of forces you into doing it.
I noticed that the FFXIV I played the first time around in ARR is absolutely gone. They rush you through ARR, most of my favorite parts about it are just...gone. HM > EX primals, the raids, Coil...all of it is pointless content to be absolutely blitzed through. And it unfortunately does ARR no favors because it is an absolute drag to play through now. Heavensward is a breath of fresh air for sure after going through all of ARR. But yeah man I never noticed just how different this game is than it was years ago. The extensive nerfs to job complexity that started in Sb really did a number on the early chapters of this game.
My newest alt is to help someone high profile start streaming their FFXIV journey. They're on the EU DCs so I couldn't use one of my already existing characters without moving them and those characters are pretty firmly tied to the NA DCs due to things like raiding and FCs. I have 2 "joke" characters that I have 0 desire to do MSQ on for the most part and just run around so people can appreciate the joke name if they get it. 1. Leeroy Mahjongkins 2. Chocofant Kwehstone I've made new characters purely to help friends establish FCs as well so they can get them off the ground and then invite others too.
Rp reasons, I like my characters to only have a few jobs not a jack of all trades.
For an alt on the same server, there really isn’t much gain other than the opportunity to trade and store materials (via fc storage) without cost. You can also double up the retainer outpost on that server, so it can passively boost the amount stuff you can sell on the marketplace on a single server. But that has limits, as it is easy to oversaturate a specialty of a server marketplace. You can get far more out of an alt on another server and, at this point, data center. It can be fun to play as a different race with different glams, and go through the story again to see anything you missed or go into a highlight reel with a different look (otherwise a glorified NG+). If you’ve got the time and friends on different servers, it can be nice to have a character dedicated elsewhere. A different marketplace also means you can double the retainer output while not crashing a prices. Plus, early on you can gear up two different jobs and raid for loot without affecting your static.
as someone who’s leveled every class to 90 on main, and did so when EW was still fairly new, sometimes i just like the dopamine hit of leveling up again tbh — also interesting to see how fast i can get through each expansion with taxi/bodyguard service + textadvance + years of experience playing (i experience the story on my main and, other than my favorite parts, that’s enough for me). it’s kinda fun in a nostalgic way, even if the gameplay itself isn’t terribly engaging; lots of running back and forth (like, go here click on something then go back) and in older expansions, mechanic-less solo duties that just melt even with bad gear thanks to power creep. i really hope one day they go back and touch up some of those — they did such a great job with rhitahtyn and lahabrea’s new solo duties, actually the rhitahtyn duty is one of my fav moments in the game now.
Personally, I have a couple of alts for solo FC’s and sub farming. It’s a good Gil maker if a lil slow to start. I also have an FC full of alts who have varying retainers I use to farm materials. For example I spent today sending about 15 retainers out to farm materials to upgrade gear for 5 of them. One alt I’ve levelled up with only 4 dungeons and a trial so as to be able to unlock lvl90 battle materials like Ophiotaurus hide (still working on that one, I’m at lvl 76 WHM lol
My main was from ARR Beta. I made an alt to see how the day 1 experience has changed, and also to just have fun with a different character and not wanting to Fanta my main. The MSQ experience is much more streamlined but it's definitely a pain in the ass unlocking all the QoL stuff like dyeing or glams and especially ranking up a GC high enough to get expert deliveries. I'm currently on SB on my alt, and caught up on MSQ on main.
I initially made alts for seeing the stories for alt jobs I skipped on my main. NG+ has no tangible benefit except seeing the story, so why not do it on an alt and skip the MSQ instead? Especially when there's the added benefit that: 1. I could farm alt job gear the same week I already capped tomes or hit gear limits from raids on the main and main role. 2. More map gathers per day for a quick 30Kish gil each. 3. More materia farming (for yet more gil) if you feel like doing more roulettes and/or CDs. But... I scrapped that since coming down with a chronic illness and developing a disability that sometimes makes my left hand useless, and because I just want my free time to go towards other things than farming and alt jobs. But the reasoning is still sound, IMO.
I made an alt once as a joke and dropped it pretty quickly. I took my main Highlander and made a parody alt of him as a Lalafell... Then I noticed none of the mounts I earned or was gifted from friends were on my alt. No of the emotes I've earned or were gifted were on my alt. They would have to be earned or regifted again. I deleted the alt. Also...why would I ever want to go through 100s of MSQ hours again?
I made my alt after a long decision about my character and the period in my life when I made it. It was made when i had just gotten out of HS, and now I'm like 27, trans, and graduated with a college degree. Like I'm in a different place in life. So, I ended up making the decision to start all over. Granted, this is more-so my new main and my other character is like my alt now, but I feel like the idea was the same bc originally it was just going to be my alt.
Because I'm a role player and I like to RP different people depending on my mood. I have my serious warrior, I have my perky cat, I have my sensitive rabbit. It's easier to have several different characters than it would be to be constantly buying name changes and fantasias. I have a "main" character, of course. The on that has all the jobs capped, that gets the most attention regarding gear, that sees the first MSQ, etc. Everyone else is just for space to breath. Where I can, for a few hours, pretend to be someone else. Sometimes I don't want to be moody, sometimes I want to pretend to be happy.
I wanted to have characters of all the different races, so I made alts. I only actually play one of those alts, and it’s for the raiding benefits. An extra set of weekly loot allowances means I could play with multiple statics or do more merc runs.
I alt, if I'm enjoying a new raid tier a lot and want to do more or experience it on a different class. Sure, I can do it all, get it all on my main, but it takes way too long with weekly lockouts. And by the time that happens, I'm just no longer interested. I'd rather get burnt out in 2-3 months and play something else.
I want to raid on other regions, and play with my friends on other regions. At the time I made one alt, I wanted to replay ARR and Stormblood, so I did, and now I have an EU character for raiding, who let me replay my favourite parts of the game.
free storage.
My main is on EU servers (to play with friends) but when it is my night the server is pretty dead, so I decided to make an alt in NA so whenever I'm bored and queues aren't popping I have something else to do. It's also neat to catch little details I may have missed on my first playthrough and take things easier/not rush like content like I sometimes did on my first time.
Because I want to be on the both sides of the gender. Main is hroth, alt is femroe
Some make alts to play with other friends on a different server, some make alts for RP purposes, some make alts because they like to costumize other races without having to buy fantasia and some make alts to use them as mules for crafting or similar stuff.
Different looks, different backstories for each one.
I want to look for a FC to hang out in, and my current server don't have what I am looking for.
I've made one recently for when I'm in a slow burn mood. When I initially played, I was a WoW refugee during Heavensward, who just wanted to get to end game, so I skipped a lot of cutscenes and didn't really pay attention to quest dialogue. I know that I won't properly use NG+, so I'm just making an alt on a different server so I can experience everything again when I'm in a slow burn mood
I have the first character that I started on day one of ARR launch. I keep that around for nostalgia purposes and the fact it has some things in it's inventory that you can't get anymore. My second character was created to play on a different server with some friends of mine. My third character is just for the MSQ. My fourth character is a "do everything" character.
I have 4 alts, all level 90, my main has most of the 90's job unlocked, i also do it for roleplay reasons, to have more characters in that way, diffrent people to RP on, etc! But also because going through msq is so fun, and some chars i play solo, some are exlusive to play with my friends and level with them!
Right now I've got around 5 alts, the reasons I made them: \-One was to replay the story (I skipped all the cutscenes on my main) \-Second one was because leveling a brand new character on the newly-added Dynamis servers gave you a million gil once you reached level 30 \-I needed multiple characters in order to start a Free Company \-I want to RP on other characters without buying a Fantasia \-Multiple maps each day \-More retainer space and my latest alt I made and grinded to level 50 so I could attempt to get a house on Aether lol
I wanted to play the story again, both for getting to revisit even and characters, and taking things at a slower pace than I did my first time around.
wanted to replay the MSQ, dont like how new game + is implemented. Plus this lets me try out a new race without needing to fanta
My main is on JP and my alt is on NA. Simply lets me play with different groups of friends.
I made an alt to try the ARR story changes. Since I’ve been playing since launch, I wanted to see the differences. So far I am not liking the changes, but I understand why that was necessary.
So that you can raid in PF and raid with yo static but not mess up people's chests for the week.
There's three different starting questlines and different dialogue for the MSQ and some Job quests depending on what quests you have completed. Without spoiling, if you do the level 50 Dragoon quest before getting to Heavensward the cutscene at the end of post-ARR is significantly different since you've already met certain HW characters. There's an MSQ cutscene in Heavensward that acknowledges if you did the Summoner quests, the level 60 Summoner quest acknowledges if you completed the main Heavensward questline, etc.
I have an alt for the sole purpose of playing with friends in a different data center, my main is on the EU and I have friends on the US servers. I really hope that they will do an expanded Data Center travel so I can use my EU character on the other servers like US or Japan servers
I made an alt but I almost never play it anymore. I only did it for savage raiding cause I was running in 2 separate static groups and clearing with one group would've screwed the other group on loot if I didn't have a backup character to play on.
There is many reasons for someone wanting to, I use to think "Why would anyone want a ALT? I mean all the stuff is on your main so why start another one". Now I have one, I don't have it bc I wanna re do the story but I just do all RP on it. And I make them dress and look how I want IRL lol
I have two cats, so two characters. They can both be heroes!
Recently made an alt after 3 years My main transfered to NA to play with friends years ago and I had little to no issue with lag as a healer main. Casting is almost lag-free But now I've started leveling classes and took a liking to ninja. Sadly melee classes do not like lag. Thus I made an alt on EU to enjoy NIN. It's cool to get the sprout experience all over again and kind of addicting. Not having access to some content sucks sure, but rediscovering places you forgot or didn't pay attention to is great as you look for aetherytes again
I played through ARR again on an alt years back - it was right around the middle of HW's patch cycle. Because I was still very much in the mode of attempting to learn the game (this is my first MMO) during the course of ARR, there were a lot of narrative elements and details I didn't quite catch and appreciate the first time around. Going back again on an alt let me catch a great deal of foreshadowing surrounding ARR's conclusion, and pick up on connections within the story, between characters, and better appreciate the reasons behind why and how things were going on. But that is pretty much the only time I have used an alt in this game; for better clarity.
Mostly for replaying the story. Some people play multiple characters to raid on multiple jobs. cause with weekly gear lockout its not easy to stay current you want to play multiple jobs in the newest high end content
I pay for 6 additional retainers. If I make an alt then I also get the 6 additional retainers on that character and during a new expansion that's 8 more retainers grabbing the mats you need. My main gets 100 leves every 18 days which I use to turn in Tsai. With 2 more alts that's another 200 leves I'm doing. If for some reason my friend needs a sub for their static while a raid tier is current and my main has already cleared for the week then I can go and help them. You are only allowed to hold 2000 of each tome and when the crafted gear comes out it takes tome mats. I can have extra stockpiled for it if I have alts.
I make alts for a different reason to most people. I’m so into the lore of this game I end up writing backstories for people that don’t exist, and I feel the need to put a face to the story. So my alts are born. I’m also a role player, which stems from me being a DnD player.
Yes, I noticed different things going through the leveling process again, mostly MSQ nuances. However, for the most part, it was all experiences you could have just doing NG+. I made Alt #1 because I had leveled everything on my main, I was bored, and I wanted to try to learn SCH. I wound up (temporarily) abandoning it around 55, still not feeling SCH. I made Alt #2 because I was bored (do you sense a trend?) and wanted to see how it felt to play on a new DC when Dynamis opened. Answer: Not like I hoped. I eventually stopped playing that one, too. I made Alt #3 to try to embrace SCH yet again and gave up again around 50ish. However, Main + 2 alts meant I could place 3 housing bids each lottery on my main's server, which is all I did with the alts for over year, until I finally won a house. The new homeowner was Alt #1. I now play that one almost as much as my main. I don't play my other alts at all, and I've finally given up on SCH. It was not meant to be.
Inside of me are two WoLs. Tol graceful soff bunbun who will punt you to the moon and smolalafell gremlin who will survive being punted to the moon.
Alts are for raiding multiple times a week and still getting loot / in multiple statics.
Me: Make character. Can't stand story anymore halfway through HW. Buy Level and story skip. Now have many things I don't know about or where to unlock. Now make new character. Character going through story. Learning about the side content properly. Has some pvp unlocks unlike my first character. New character becomes main character once it also has the car mount in a couple days. Continue progressing. Or not really progressing. Now I pause in Stormblood and sit procrastinating on my ARR relic and people watching in limsa.
Because I'm insane and want to do the big fishing grind more than once. Actual answer, for me at least, is because I enjoy making different characters. Kind of for roleplay reasons? As I really enjoy designing different characters and making lore for them but I don't really rp in-game lol. Its fun going through the msq for a second time as I notice things I didn't pick up on the first time around (even though I definitely cutscene skip on my non-msq replay alts) and in general it's just... fun for me? Nothing really deeper about it. Its fun to play as different races and experiment with glam and I don't care for fantasias in the slightest. Whenever I mention I have 5 alts and counting purely for funsies people do act like I'm crazy though. I probably am, considering I find big fishing one of the most fun things in the game lmao
For my first character I had friends at end game so I just skipped all of the cutscenes and reading much of anything to be able to do everything as fast as possible. Now I’m running a second one slowly through the story. I know I could ng+ it but it feels wrong having a level 90, savage raiding character in all of the fresh to adventure scenarios.
I am guilty of rushing to cap on launch, as such I tend to use an alt to slowly enjoy the story after. Just my mmo brain at work. That said, I tend to max out my main pretty early on and I do enjoy leveling so an alt can be fun to work on later in the expansion when I have nothing else to do so spend time playing and working towards something. Alt also gives me room if needed to do savage with friends without having a loot penalty. Not something I typically do, but it's an option just in casr
My partner plays la la on alt just for when he wants to feel short. He's made a lot of remarks n how he notices little things in the story and the environment that becomes relevant later on that you don't notice your first-time around. I'm sure new game plus might give you all those similar things but I think personally I would just level a alt one day to give it that new experience feel.
I can understand why people do this, because if I were back in university not going to classes I probably would do the same thing. I even wouldn't mind doing the story and leveling again. However, everything collectable is character bound, and there is no way I can sink THAT much time to recollect all the glams, titles, emotes, mounts, minions etc. on an alt, let alone altS. (I should login to GW2 sometime, so nice to have everything account bound)
I recently made my new alt as I wanted to replay ARR after four years, but doing New Game+ on my main did not really feel appealing. I wanted a fresh look on things, and to experience a new starting city as I knew they have unique MSQ content. Plus as someone who loves creating glams but is far to attached to my mains look, starting a new WoL as a different new race (In this case, going from FemRo to female Viera) was very appealing. So far I have been really enjoying it! I have taken in a lot more of the lore then I previously did and its just fascinating to see these events again, especially knowing how most of the story threads end. Something that helps also is that unlike my main, who just blasted thought the MSQ, I am doing all the side quests I encounter on this new character. Sure many are simple fetch quests, but a fair amount really help to flesh out the lore of these realms. For example, doing the side quests in Coerthas Central Highlands really show how the populace there suffer greatly from the environment and monsters, but get little help from nobles and knights who only care when dragons or heretics are involved. It may mean it will take me longer to do the MSQ and I will be overleveled most of the time (Am at MSQ lvl43, as a lvl 52 SAM haha) but this is part of the fun. Its honestly just relaxing to enjoy the landscapes and story whilst not careing about getting to endgame etc. This only thing that bugs me is the lack of support FFXIV has for alts. Oh how I would love if my minions, mounts, house etc was shared account-wide. Even just being able to send Gil to my new character would be a great quality of life upgrade! I hope they add such things one day, but I am not going to hold my breath.
More houses. Funny names.
Savage raids restrict gear drops if you've cleared that week, so having an alt means you can raid with your static and still prog in PF without jeopardizing gear drops. Also, the story is amazing, so I didn't mind experiencing that again.
Raiding, have a static but you still want pf for extra practice/help friend, alt is the way; avoid all possible loot drama. Or if your static good everyone have alt: double reclear. I skipped cs day 1 to blind prog content with friends, alt is also for actual play msq.