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[Nice_Boat]

Here I can't agree with you  . I was playing with a single character for a long time and I didn't have a feeling that I was limited in any way. The point is that you have to buy a lot of things from other players. It's not that bad, since most of players offer quite decent prices for their products, crafting them mostly to get exp.

At least it was possible before nerfing critical hits. You could build a great sniper without having to limit him that much, now 10 luck seems to be a must  .

I know you can play a single character, but there are limits to what you can do. Take an unarmed fighter for example - you can't really do much more, and it's not a good main because it's very limited in a lot of areas even if you mix up and make him a crafter and a scout. Some builds are very fun if not overused and, unfortunately very specialised - and being unable to have an alt of the kind would simply mean that they disappear from the game or get used by a limited group of players.

Another argument in defense of alts (with constraints like login timeouts and forbidding dual logs in place of course) is the level cap - if you could play a single character only, there wouldn't be any character development going on for you. If you can have an alt or two going on, you are constantly increasing your capabilities as a player and you keep having something to do. A 1 character - 1 player system would mean that the only thing you'd have to do after reaching 21 would be TC and perhaps stockpiling stuff (but what the hell do you need that 20th CA for anyway?) - which in all honesty wouldn't be enough to keep me playing.

[Attero]

Eh you will not see that much of differance 1v1 in random encoutners between combat and some crafter mix expecially in case of sniper - the main advantage of pure sniper is his range thats not the case here. He can have more crit % but its still random and between 60% and 70% crit chance there is not that much differance (depands on your chances imo). However if you happen to to have FA high then unless you can lock him out totaly with one FA he can heal up fully.
Also another case is that combat chars drug them selves up to hoof - they dont do that for encoutners and i dont belive you will want to lose your inante 2 aimed per round to jet addict yourself.

But in case of BG builds the differance is much much bigger - a 180 hp BG vs 250 HP one ...well the odds change.
Also keep not that for combat = FA ?& doc . In random encoutner yo ucan doc up with jsut 10% skill and cure the broken limb but thats 70min timeout after. with 100 the timeout is less then 10 min so while it shines in city fights...

[Elmehdi]

To be precise, it's actually 69% to 85% when shoting in the eyes and 59% to 75% when aiming in the head and I'd say that 16% of the spread makes a significant difference.

Another argument in defense of alts (with constraints like login timeouts and forbidding dual logs in place of course) is the level cap - if you could play a single character only, there wouldn't be any character development going on for you. If you can have an alt or two going on, you are constantly increasing your capabilities as a player and you keep having something to do. A 1 character - 1 player system would mean that the only thing you'd have to do after reaching 21 would be TC and perhaps stockpiling stuff (but what the hell do you need that 20th CA for anyway?) - which in all honesty wouldn't be enough to keep me playing.

I do really hope the devs let us advance somehow after reaching level 21  .

[avv]

And just think about it for a second - if you managed to somehow limit people to playing a single character, who the hell would really enjoy it aside from the odd "true roleplay" bunch? It'd drastically limit the number of things you can do with the game - if you go PvP, you can't craft, can't fight in the unarmed brawls, can't go on a country trip. Who the hell would choose to play high-CHA leaders or crafters if it's hard to convince people to make such an alt right now, even when it's really needed for the team?

The problem is that characters have too high potential to be good at something and too high potential to suck at something. Plaing a maximized powerbuild takes away all the other activities except the speciality. This is pretty irrational, even the world's top profesionals have still variety of skills at their disposal. They surely can read, talk, wash laundry, speak foreign languages and so on. In fonline a specialist is a retard robot who can't do anything else but his main task.

Another problem is that because of items being the basic need for everyone, characters are used only to hoard them. There's no reason to play THE character, as long as there's A character who can get items. The characters themselves don't get any better when max level is reached, but the ammount of items at certain group's or person's disposal can always be raised. So characters are used as tools to get items, instead of items being used as tools to get something for the characters. This causes people to regard their chars as tools and the game fails as role playing game.

EDIT: hah people made the same points while I was typing this message.

[Nice_Boat]

The problem is that characters have too high potential to be good at something and too high potential to suck at something. Plaing a maximized powerbuild takes away all the other activities except the speciality. This is pretty irrational, even the world's top profesionals have still variety of skills at their disposal. They surely can read, talk, wash laundry, speak foreign languages and so on. In fonline a specialist is a retard robot who can't do anything else but his main task.

Not really, no. All characters can do all the basic things with some effort (drugs), being able to do one or two things exceptionally well is what makes them specialists - and that's all fine and the way it should be. What would you want, a BG gunsmith who incidentally can make his own stimpacks and an occasional Plasma Rifle? THAT would be really f**ked up.

Another problem is that because of items being the basic need for everyone, characters are used only to hoard them. There's no reason to play THE character, as long as there's A character who can get items. The characters themselves don't get any better when max level is reached, but the ammount of items at certain group's or person's disposal can always be raised. So characters are used as tools to get items, instead of items being used as tools to get something for the characters. This causes people to regard their chars as tools and the game fails as role playing game.

Wouldn't people be less important than items in a postnuclear world? They sure are in low-tech Fading Suns, which doesn't stop it from being an excellent RPG system. Why would that be a problem at all anyway? And you're not even right with that, cause the game isn't about items (can be replaced/restocked in a day or two), it's about knowledge and having a lot of friends and aquintances. Anyway, the reason people aren't roleplaying is because they don't really want to,, not because the mechanics are set this way or that way. To have a roleplaying experience you need a carefuly selected bunch of guys and girls caring about having a roleplaying experience - 2238 is an open server, so there's never gonna be serious rp here, sorry. As far as less serious rp is concerned (ie. people not doing stuff out of character), 2238 looks quite good - gang leaders engage in diplomacy on their own initiative, there's player-player trade, players care about their equipment more than about themselves which fits the setting, technology is limited to the best organized groups etc. Not really much to complain about - it's as good as it gets in a game that basically lets everyone in.

[FischiPiSti]

I don't really understand what's this anti-alt campaign all about.

I do. Many people have main characters that can fight, and crafter alts that can craft equipment for his main. If the main needs eqipment, he logs on his alt, crafts the necessary gear, then sends that character back to sleep because what else can he do without combat skills? The devs wanted crafting to be a secondary thing, but high level items needing "useless" skills like repair and science killed the idea, and introduced teh alt. They wanted characters like you, that can fight, and still craft, but players want only the best items, and for that, they need alts. Alts also consume resources (in 1 way or another) even when they arent logged in as i can well imagine.

I had a crazy idea about utilizing characters that have a high science/repair skill, but no combat skills, and introduce new gameplay elements. Ofc as this is a small project it likely wont happen but what the heck..
Why not let crafter toons with a high reapir/science skill choose a new perk. A new perk that lets them build robots to defend them, or turrets to defend a base! Behold my brethren, teh Engineer class is born!(Anarchy Online reference) They arent good at handling a gun(repair and science consuming most skill points), but hey, i would not recommend touching the guy if he has a f****g sentry bot on his side with mounted miniguns and hellfire rockets
And while im at it, a character with a high charisma is a good troop transport, but other then that, they are like crafter alts, useless. He can hire mercs, but why does it cost money?? How about another perk for peeps with a high speech skill and charisma, to be able to gather followers, like mercs to defend him? Behold, teh Beurocrat class!(another Anarchy Online reference which is a scifi mmorpg btw)
Hmm how about utilizing the outdoorsmen skill, so the group has a Scout? High outdoorsmen, but little to no combat skills? No problem! Just choose the animal friend perk, that lets you tame wild beasts not just brahmin, duh... Again, the higher the outdoorsmen(and PE), the more and/or deadlyer beasts can be tamed, at the expense of not beeing able to hold a minigun properly..
What about the melee class? How about a high level perk that turns them into a Tank? With a high enough skill in melee, he can choose a perk that lets him wear Power Armor! Yeah thats right, PA, and want to know how this wont imbalance the game? Well simple! He cant choose perks that boost his DPS. High endurance, but low damage output.
Lets not forget about the Grenadier ofc. High throwing/traps skill enables a perk that boost the radius of grenades, or maybe not the blast radius, only add an extra effect to the explosion that knocks back/down mobs in a higher vicinity.
Doctor needs a revamp...
Snipers and Support gunners would get there own perks that can be chosen at 200+ skill.
If you read carefully, most of the fictional characters ive brought up in my post are allready in the game, but only in the form of crafter alts. IMO giving them tools to be effective in a group situation, and letting them actually defend themselves would help the economy in more then 1 way...

[DrapiChrust]

Well, I always play only one char at a time, abandoning old ones when I make a new one, but as Nice_Boat I also see nothing bad in alts the way they are now.

The problem with crafting (for me) is that gathering most materials offers no challange at all, is boring (especially ore and minerals), yet takes a damn lot of time. Mingling with the timeouts can only balance/unbalance the crafter's advancement and amount of items in-game. IT WON"T help make crafting more interesting (so that people would like the idea of actually PLAYING a crafter (not using a crafting char, which is the most common, or making a crafter/sth.else hybrid).

People rarely use low-level items, because they mostly don't need them. that's all. As long as making a magnum will be only a way to get xp and cash for making a sniper nothing will change. Unless crafter would have a need of a shotgun (or a friend using shotgun) to get at least some of the needed materials, nothing will change. As long as resources (the most important ones - ore and minerals) will lie on the ground waiting to be taken NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

Getting materials should take some effort (waiting for timeout to run down, even if it is a needed feature right now, is not an effort). I mean the kind of an effort like getting golden gecko hides requires.

Yes, I know. some of you will say: but killing mobs is too easy, it wouldn't make a difference, my 'X'lvl crafter can kill averything but centaurs on his own (...). Yes. You're right. but your 'X' lvl crafter wasn't always on level X! Some time ago he was a way weaker, and then he would need to fight/get someone to fight with those cratures. Simple.

Yes, the changes that I proposed about 1000 times already will not change much (or at all) the situation of 21lvl chars. But it could make a saying 'this game starts at level 21' a bit less true.

[avv]

Not really, no. All characters can do all the basic things with some effort (drugs), being able to do one or two things exceptionally well is what makes them specialists - and that's all fine and the way it should be. What would you want, a BG gunsmith who incidentally can make his own stimpacks and an occasional Plasma Rifle? THAT would be really f**ked up.

Who needs drugs to talk to another person?

It's alright that you can do few things exceptionally well, but does it have to mean that you must suck at everything else? That's one reason why many players use alts. Besides the profesions already make it impossible for one player to master everything, so we'd never see crafters who can make everything.

Wouldn't people be less important than items in a postnuclear world? They sure are in low-tech Fading Suns, which doesn't stop it from being an excellent RPG system. Why would that be a problem at all anyway? And you're not even right with that, cause the game isn't about items (can be replaced/restocked in a day or two), it's about knowledge and having a lot of friends and aquintances. Anyway, the reason people aren't roleplaying is because they don't really want to,, not because the mechanics are set this way or that way. To have a roleplaying experience you need a carefuly selected bunch of guys and girls caring about having a roleplaying experience - 2238 is an open server, so there's never gonna be serious rp here, sorry. As far as less serious rp is concerned (ie. people not doing stuff out of character), 2238 looks quite good - gang leaders engage in diplomacy on their own initiative, there's player-player trade, players care about their equipment more than about themselves which fits the setting, technology is limited to the best organized groups etc. Not really much to complain about - it's as good as it gets in a game that basically lets everyone in.

People less important than items? What good is a fruit supposed to do if you're dead.

People always get together in multiplayer games. However it strongly seems that the game's goal is about items. People kill each other for loot, people are willing to die for loot, it's much bigger damage to take someone's items than to take his life. But then again, it's all the same what the game is about in this discussion, it's just so that item based system encourages alts. If it was character based, it would be more encouraging to keep developing one character instead of making new ones.

And what comes to roleplay, it happens on its own if game mechanics are on par with the game's background story. When the mechanics encourge players to play along with the story, players might be role playing without even knowing it just like you explained it with players trading etc.

[Surf]

Well , I have to agree with Nice_Boat that armory and items etc. are more important than a human life in such a wasteland.
Leader XY will easily send some of his troops into death just because he needs technology XY etc.

But yeah, character based sounds allright - but it would be a too big overthrow at the moment I think.

[Amrok]

Avv doesnt speak about  "human life price" in Wasteland,
but how the player consider their own charcater life.

And I m agree with him.
Thats really lame in a role-play based game like FO.
Once players have enough equipement in stock, they dont care about staying alive.
They lose nothing in death actualy.

The alts used kill the game mechanics thats a fact.
The wealth of any multiplayer game is the characters diversity.
Where is the interest to play if you are self-sufficient as player ?
That limit the player interaction to kill records.... a "Who piss the farthest" game... so great

[Izual]

Anti-alt is the key to many problems - and to this one in particular.

[avv]

Anti-alt is the key to many problems - and to this one in particular.

For starters maybe, but it only tries to force people not to use alts while encouraging would be much more effective. People simply would not use alts if it wasn't profitable.

[Amrok]

People simply would not use alts if it wasn't profitable.

I doubt that can be possible without kill the game himself, but if it is it would be in the game foundation.
So, impossible here.

[Quentin Lang]

Looks like noone here has tought that many people (that includes me) make alts not for providing their mains with endless supplies, but for getting bored to play with their main. Using one kind of weapons or crafting all the time gets old soon. Always wanted to make a melee fighter

[Amrok]

Using one kind of weapons or crafting all the time gets old soon. Always wanted to make a melee fighter

Here is the point, Quentin.
The purpose is not to be the Best in many domains with one character.
So if you dont want to be specialized, just dont do it...
Mix his character is all the interest of a system like the SPECIAL.