Low population equals less people playing alts, or people just quitting? and a proposal.

As I see it, playing with alts is becoming an impossible task unless you have all day and night long to play, to have what the community think is acceptable in the end content, OR you simply don't care and play alts as a fun way spend sometime in the game with the bare minimum (in SP, artifacts, and augments). And this last point is not acceptable for a lot of end game community.

Now to the reason of the thread. I am a long time player with 370 or more Sp, (fall behind thanks to time capsules) that stop playing on regular basis about a year ago, in this period of time i have paid maybe 2 months, and when titans launched paid 3 months because of the sale. The content was fun, easy enough to pug since first day (I have blinded queue everything and had just a couple of fail groups in the machine).

We just saw in a different thread how many people feels about low CR (230ish) jumping into "new content", with out even bothering asking about Sp or other stuff, or just giving those chars a legitimate chance. So... yes playing alts might be a nightmare due to its CR or Low SP, or low Augments/Artifacts (even with the easy content we currently have). AND this is damaging the population of the game (This week I have spend over 50 minutes in queue for the machine raid with my main char to no avail in three different occasions) Since Already got the feats in duo and in alerts, i only do the dailies, check the broker and log out. With this amount to do of GAMEPLAY. my sub simply isn't worth anymore to me.

Since i don't replay, it was sad to see lots of 240something almost immediately trying to exclude everyone else, even when I have seen some of them failing at DWF at 220something big time lol.

There is only one char that I have for what people think you should have for the elite, and i have failed to join with groups that want to run it, and give it a good try. I have spend over and hour shouting for elite stuff and IF finally got a group together, one or two wipes and people leaves...sight!!!!!!!

Long story short, there is no way I feel a desire to bring up my alts to this end content as it is PERIOD. And I am pretty sure others (maybe a lot) feels the same way. And this is damaging the population of the game, it is to expensive if you want to keep up with artifacts/augments etc in 1 character (failure to breakout, time gathering mats etc.) let alone more than one or several.

A possible solution it might be, that the accomplishment of one char is good for the rest in regards of the (augments, artifacts etc. excluding the SP if you wish (THOSE CAN BE UNLOCK WITH REPLAYS). With a mainframe base (as example) share by your toons. where you can level your augments or arifacts. Of course if you play all four roles, then you will need to level properly all the stuff for those roles. but in a share way. That might give a boost to the population and increase the number of people willing to level more alts, but not going to because all the hassle and economic/time invested cost they did it in the first place. Even I advocate to make ALL gear account bound so you can really give a hand to your alts.

What do you forumites think? Is it a good idea? or nah? How do you think we can make something that entice more people to play alts? I would love a DEV to shine in any give us some insight about what they think about this.

My membership is about to expire in a few more weeks, and I wish they could do something to entice more people playing and less time gambling or Working towards a feat that means so little especially when you have lots of SP.
PVP is almost dead and that was a fun time sink, grinding for the sake of grinding is not.

Couldn't you just respond to one of the other post.

You are essentially saying the same thing as the other post.

And for the sake of responding, I am going to give the same answer.

It also kills the fun for those that play with 1 character, because it lessens the content quality and time which kills immersion into the content.

You already can speed level, which kills older content, no piece of content really takes more than 20 minutes to complete even with a nightmare pug group, you can purchase SP from your main, they have event type missions that is even easier than regular that is not even seriously hard, and frankly this whole big problem is causing the problem with the low population so that it is less intrusive on those with alts making it easier to run with alts or to be a new player.

OP drops is not that serious that if you don't get it you can still run the content without it and complete it just as fast, despite the dumb opinion that you have to have 1000 SP you can beat any elite raid without 400 SP, if you are patient and skilled with your game play.

Buy a respec token switch to an easier power or run with not as good skilled players as the top 1% if getting beat on the scorecard bothers you that much.

But please can we stop hurting ourselves and get back to giving content that is more engaging or allows the story line to play out, I realize that having or playing an alt is fun for some but it is hurting more than our own personal satisfaction.

Meh, I spent time on an alt over the weekend and jumped it from 199 to 232 cr in 36 hours, with minimal replays used. Gearing an alt isn't a problem when you can get into content in a timely manner or have a league to help you, but I also know not everyone is fortune enough to be in that perfect situation.

I agree alts do need help, luckily the one I grinded up didn't miss the golden exobytes, all my other ones did unfortunately, I wouldn't want to rush to end tier with only level 24 augments, but it is what is.

I don't understand how they have time capsule gear, XP packs on the marketplace, a cr boost, but further aid to alts is frowned upon. I'd love to hear the logic behind that

I have 3 alts all 245+ simply from doing just the raids on them every week. All 3 also have 3 level 80 artifacts each. Not sure how 6 raids a week equates to all day and night. 2 hours on a Thursday and that’s me done until next Thursday, and that includes my main... *shrugs*.

Alts are far from impossible to gear up and even less so to keep relevant, not if you use a bit of foresight when managing them.

The vendor discount helps and a double marks comes along just as you finish the set on your main. Just buy the jewellery on alts until that happens. One of my alts actually has more gear than my main at this point thanks to this. There’s absolutely no need to have everything in the game as soon as possible, it’s just not necessary.

It takes about 15 minutes a day to run an alt through the vault, the alert and the two open world missions, plus an additional hour or so at the weekend to do the two raids and the weekly bounties. By what stretch of the imagination is that “all day and all night long”? The whole premise of the original post is based on an exaggerated statement.

I agree with the “time” aspect others mentioned. Most things are easy to find groups for...when the player base is heavily active. That ebbs and flows throughout the week as well as the time of day. Be as flexible as you can if you want to get more stuff done. Or take the lead and form a group in LFG. Mostly experienced players in there = usually faster/easier runs.

OP - How much time do you have to play daily? Weekly?

I agree OP. Playing alts is getting harder the more sp are raised. I will point out how I keep my alts at level. I have a lot of alts and they are all over 240. On my main i save all marks to go towards op pieces. I take one alt and run mostly everything with(these raids are butt imo so I completely skipped them this dlc), buy all gear, and use half off price for the rest of toons. All my other alts I just run duos. It's tedious and get boring fast, but it work.

Your time limit is exaggerated. You can't be counting the que time or LFG. Past Thursday, it can take hours trying to get the weekly bounties done. Exaggerated statement. Pot meet kettle

You won't get 8 raids done on the Villain server in 2 hours in one night. Maybe 1st week of DLC, but right now? Naw, my dude it won't happen

You're forgetting that in August - early September there is always lower population.

This is because people are moving to college. And getting their free time schedules figured out. Also college football Saturdays cut into population as well.

Same goes for May - Early June.

I must have a different gaming experience than you do.

If you struggle to do the weekly bounty, do it in reset day when everyone else is doing it. If you haven’t figured out that that’s the best way to get them done: well, now you know.

You might feel that my timescales aren’t quite correct, but the OP described something that’s possible as “an impossible task”. One of us expressed a debateble opinion, the other said something that was untrue. Just because you don’t want to or can’t do something doesn’t make it impossible. We are not all you or the OP.

Only thing I will give you is the weekly bounties. If you do them Thursday morning, you can run through them on alts. I have this morning, but usually I'm at work around this time. Other than that, your daily time line is way off

Let me clarify something, I do not follow or read every thread there is, wasn't aware of that post until after I posted this one.
I do agree your opinion about playing with one char. but that ended for me when I saw there was no way to finish styles or seasonal feat with only one char without paying extra.
I do agree you can speed level fast, I am not talking about only the leveling for the character per se, i am talking about augments artifacts etc.
I know you can beat elite raids with out having max out everything, but try to tell that in the pug life and won't be so easy
I give a rat about the scoreboard, I am talking about the behavior of many player ingame when you are not high enough to do the content according their standards and again in pug life it matters.

Agree about the engaging part of the content

Not hard to level an alt, but near impossible to get one top tier with everything (augments, artifacts) without spending lots of cash unless you spend 24/7 on the game. And in reality, it isn’t necessary. The community knows this, yet still won’t be accepting of anything less than the tippity top, as if everyone wants to spend all their money on this.

Cr differential removal makes leveling a drag now though. Nobody ques like they used to in old content. (Thanks alot to the crybabies saying high crs steamrolled everything) sit in neverending ques for trivial content now on an alt and ‘have fun.’ The population is too small for that crap.

Friends, they cannot do anything about that you can though.

It will fix all but 1 of those problems... the content.

Get 7 people who can be on when you are on and learn to work together.

The pug life has plenty of trolls and players that just don't care to do anything but get gear and are really bad at both.

The seasonal feats and the extras will not mean a whole lot when you do group up with players similar to yourself either cause it is not like you will get to 400 SP when or if you have 300 by doing though. Plus you will find that there really isn't a good reason to rush anything especially if you form a group with 4-5 members already on the same page.

I get the frustration,I do but even if you are in a super small 2 person league there are some very decent players that do play you may be friendly but be more open they are on.

I am saying this because from my experience it does not take me long at all to catch up to others, and I barely log in and have not really been playing for a couple of years.

When I did get on I had no problems going through Darkest Day Darkest Night to the current episode racking up SP all along the way while catching up on what I missed.

The game can be challenging if you do isolate yourself or hold yourself back only because those behind everyone at endgame have the want to be like Mike or LeBron fever and don't realize that they can be just as good or better than the people who they try to emulate.

Friends...

I don't know, if you intentional forgot to mention that the main topic of my post doesn't refer to level cr toon, what about your augments and artifacts? will you be able to level up those to max in a couple of weeks of months with out handing out any extra cash?

My alts are just a shadow of what my main is, and many times even if they are effective (some have over 250 SP) they are not wanted in some leagues or in end content for being "below the standard". I have played the game for years, but lately it feels very low in population of course that might be my perception, I have tried several leagues with some of my alts, and well most are pretty dead, and some of the "good ones" or "elite ones" and you get booted (my alts) for being low on SP or being low in artifacts or augments.

That it may be a problem for lots of people whether you see it or not.

A couple of hours three four days a week, but lately its taking up to an hour to form a group or more for elite raids, (some times just don't happened). and up to 1 hour for some raids, the two new raid might take 30 minutes in relative busy day, but impossible late at night. This didn't happened before as it is now. at least not to me or to my knowledge. I Feel it might be just because a lot of people dished their alts altogheter, but who knows, maybe I am wrong.

Good job I’m not a villain then isn’t it. As for mu one toon thay is, I set the raid up hero side and switch toons in instance. Simple. Or just log him and run with league, which is very active.