Making alts more viable again

[Tydeus]

Because that would mean whenever you want to try a different class you have to respec back/buy equipment ect. Unless that alt is over loaded with equipment. It's nice having 1 char of each class and just being able to type their name in the box and play whenever you feel like playing that one.

Respec back and buy equipment? That's not really much of a con. In fact, respecing goes on the pros side, so all you're left with is having to buy equipment. Oh wait, because it uses the main's equipment, you wouldn't really have to buy anything more than just weapons. That's a very minor issue for having solved this entire problem. Look at any of the other proposed ideas in this thread. Most of them don't even get at the heart of the problem. Simply adding gold/xp to a main character will never be enough for a lot of people, unless it's a 1:1 ratio of what they would get playing their main. Other's would still complain that the looms their alts have, can't be given to their main characters so retiring is useless, thus creating even less of an incentive to try something new.

[The_Bloody_Nine]

Solution: get rid of retiring and heirlooms already! It was only introduced to reduce tincans, it failed, now we got upkeep for that.

ok, ok, while this truly would encourage playing alts again even I don't think it is possible anymore. Too many people (including me) got used to and/or addicted by it now. "I wantz complete heirloom set before playing alts again."

Then why wouldn't you just allow everyone to have 1 alt that could respec whenever you wanted, without penalty, as well as allowing the alt to use the main's equipment(this includes looms). Couldn't abuse anything strat related this way.

.
I like the idea about the main's equipment. What I don't like is that you can't have different character names "secured" and the fitting faces.

So why not let all alts us 1 family-equipment stash (main equipment)? Gold (and xp) would stay seperated and you only need it on alts for paying upkeep for that one. You can earn no extra money for buying equipment, but you can heirlom stuff for main.

[Dalhi]

So why not let all alts us 1 family-equipment stash (main equipment)? Gold (and xp) would stay seperated and you only need it on alts for paying upkeep for that one. You can earn no extra money for buying equipment, but you can heirlom stuff for main.

This.

That would also kill the multiaccounting issue, if someone has second Warband cd-key he bought it to provide looms/gold for his main character, not for strategus. At the moment playing alts is not rewarding and it stopped people from doing this, of course everyone from time to time plays on his alt (mostly STF I guess) if he gets bored of his class at main, but don't fool yourself after few hours it becomes pretty obvious that it's pointless. I don't see any game balance issues since everyone will be able to do that, and yes keep the experience and gold separate, this might be somehow problematic since you've got one stash for all your characters, so maybe only main character should be able to buy equipment from store and marketplace.

[The_Bloody_Nine]

only main character should be able to buy equipment from store and marketplace.

yup, thats what I had in mind. I think this there has to be some major drawback in this, but I don't know what it could be right now.

[Osiris]

alts are fun ive had and deleted so many

I deleted a gen 2 alt shielder because my main is now a shielder thus pointless still have a gen 2 nearly gen 3 archer and a gen 1 cav with 900k to retirement tho had to sell the horse had multiple lvl 30 gen 1 alts (before free upkeep) and deleted a fair few of them If we had loom trades id have a masterwork item on my main pretty much for free. The point of alts is to have FUN! make different builds. Have a 2hander alt if your an archer etc.

The strat gold gained via alts is all we need. Perhaps if you could convert strat gold into crpg gold for your main it would help get more non clan members to play alts and participate in strat

[Korgoth]

Seeing as I'm Korgoth The Alt Whore.

I like a lot of these ideas. I actually play my alts more than my main :/ so a lot of these ideas could help me actually play my main more often.

[MouthnHoof]

When retiring an alt, allow it to inherit all its belonging to any of your characters

This means very long cycles of equipment/money transfers. Since you spent time in the game and money is the same as spending time, there is no balancing issue. For the other players it does not matter if I play my main or my alts, they do not see any real difference.

No XP transfer. That is silly and against the very word "experience", as you main did not experience anything.

[Rhygar666]

in my case it would be enough if you just make it possible to trade heirlooms between alts both ways ( from main to alt, and alt to main)
So it makes fun playing alts again.
And also make them earn Strategus money like the main, always leaves a bad taste playing alt, cuz you dont earn Strat money.

[marco1391]

alts are fun ive had and deleted so many

I deleted a gen 2 alt shielder because my main is now a shielder thus pointless still have a gen 2 nearly gen 3 archer and a gen 1 cav with 900k to retirement tho had to sell the horse had multiple lvl 30 gen 1 alts (before free upkeep) and deleted a fair few of them If we had loom trades id have a masterwork item on my main pretty much for free. The point of alts is to have FUN! make different builds. Have a 2hander alt if your an archer etc.

The strat gold gained via alts is all we need. Perhaps if you could convert strat gold into crpg gold for your main it would help get more non clan members to play alts and participate in strat

haha dude 7 identical emoticons in the same post, I think it's a record

[Kafein]

haha dude 7 identical emoticons in the same post, I think it's a record

  There's no limit 


Hell I could just type 

ho wait I did it



What would make me play alts :

either :

* Being able to join strat battles with them (bad idea, exploiting the best alt for every situation, yet it would make the balancing easier)

* A global gen count (with a slightly lower xp bonus and more gen before the cap)

* An xp pool. To level up you "buy" your level with xp. Everyone puts xp in the same pool, that way you can play alts and directly contribute to your main even if you don't want to play with it. Don't do that with gold ofc. otherwise everybody would be switching between a low upkeep char and high upkeep char all the time.

* A pool for heirloomed stuff. And ONLY heirloomed stuff. Otherwise you could buy something with one char and sell it with the other, in the end making the money transfers we want to avoid. Nobody would buy or spend heirloom points for transferring a few thousand gold. The good thing is that it would allow alts to use the marketplace indirectly (through the main) yet without compromising upkeep.