Alternate Persona FAQ And Random Information

Killing synths in FO4 rn @ University Point

lmao @ this

You're arguing semantics, nothing more nothing less. You don't advertise it if you don't plan in implementing in the near future OR clarifying your very ambiguous verbiage.

In reality they made it know they'd release Guild RS Depot seemingly in 2023 and they failed to do so. End of story.

You don't need to advertise things with expansions. They've released things separate from expansions. That's just a strawman. You cannot argue something put on an officially released corporate timeline doesn't count. It's baffling you even went there. Such a Waring moment.

Roadmaps are intended as honest descriptions of what a team is expecting to achieve, frequently within a given time frame. It is not a commitment.

One of the reasons that a lot of developers (in gaming and otherwise) don't publish roadmaps is because if they state they want to produce feature X in a given year and don't deliver, some users will lose confidence and then bring it up all the time.

So, if you want DPG to cloister more and be less open, keep whining about deltas between the roadmap and reality.

Did you bother reading? I never said they should have committed, but don't out some arbitrary statement on the road map and provide nothing after the fact. As I said, either don't put it on the yearly road map if you don't think it'll get done because customers will see it there and expect it OR follow up and provide details to the timeline for it. A one line ambiguously phrased statement is beyond inexcusable.

They set themselves up for backfire. Stop defending bad practices

Exactly.

Except for not having to do all tradeskills over. And progression.

LOL

So you wouldn't want to be able to TP youself, use Rogue invis, Bard speed and double invis, switch to the bard persona for a sec to selo everyone, coth, summon mage weapons, cast Shaman/Enchanter buffs, Cleric full rez, endless cool things, all on one toon?? You can't see how much better that is? You can just switch to whatever class you want, for whatever circumstance you encounter. It's incredibly powerful, not even a little better than an alt, a massive amount better. If you can't see the power in it, well I don't know what to tell you. First time you see a warrior, turn into a bard and run through a zone with ease, you will understand.

I'm still going to have other accounts with my main classes for the group, but I'm going to have personas that allow me to do things I could never have done before with my mains, like the things listed above.

You're acting like i'm unable to do this now with my box toons available...without having to re-level all those different classes.

And people have been making it around camps and zones just fine without persona's - this isn't going to change anything.

I can't cast Shaman spells on myself because spells don't cross over from persona's
I can't full rez myself either because the revive option isn't going to pop up for my SK while on my Cleric persona (cleric merc does just fine)
I don't need to cast pet toys when i can have an alt parcel me the full set or trade them to me, and i can stock up on a few at a time in the event i feel like i'm going to blow my pet up multiple times
I don't need to swap to mage persona to CoTH when I have a mage already available

All these things are already available. Persona just allows alts to go to raids without flagging, and to do TS'ing without having to re-level it. That's it.

You're over-hyping this thing up. Have fun leveling up 10 characters and paying the price to unlock the 7-8 additional persona slots in order to do what you want lol

I don't think that a persona class is going to be as effective as an actual class. It's going to be more clunky to level up and to play a persona. If you want 100% effectiveness for a class, you'll want a real character of that class. The benefit of a persona seems more realized for acquiring the abilities of another class for a limited use purpose. Thinking that the only benefit of a persona is having it at max level so you can fight with it is probably not the best way to think about it. Instead, think of all the times you were doing stuff with your main and thought "I need to do thing X at this moment. If I could do ability Y like some_other_class, it would really help out."

It's like having a multi-tool. The pliers in the multi-tool may get the job done, but they won't be as good as having an actual set of pliers. A multi-tool can do a lot of things, but none of those things are as going to be as as having a dedicated tool. The benefit of the multi-tool is that it fits in your pocket so you don't have to take a whole tool box with you. If you're the type who always wants the 100% best tools for the job, you'll carry a tool box with you (e.g. 6 boxed chars). If you're the type who wants to travel light, you'll carry a multi-tool (e.g. your main and a few personas).

I envision having some personas around 50-60 in order to have specialized utilities for my main. I won't care that they aren't max level since I don't envision myself playing my personas as mains.

Yeah TLPs will be different. I was just referring to Live since that's what I know more of and where I focus my time and energy. The flagging system for early TLPs will be a big boon. But even so, on the TLP I play on, even before they removed the true-box feature, most people I saw running around were boxing already. I just think it's understood that people on TLPs run multiples (as is on live).

But also, regarding Live..this game is 25 years old. How many people have only 1 character they've ever leveled and geared up?

So don't use personas, you obviously can't see how incredible they will be. Personas are not alts, they are a button to press, to be able to use every classes best ability from your main character, whenever you need it, can't you see how powerful that is? You can do all the best class defining abilities on ONE guy. You don't need 6 accounts and logging in and out and frustrating auto follow. You don't even need to gear the personas, just use them get access to their best ability, tracking, rogue invis, TP, buffing, Bard invis/fade, etc.. Possibilities are endless for cool things you will be able to do, with several personas. Alts are who you group with, personas are access to every classes abilities, on each main/alt you have.

Casual Player thoughts:

I doubt everyone has an alt of every class already leveled up, I know I don't anyway. If you do than the feature just isn't targeted towards you.

Yes its worse than a boxed toon, its not meant to be a boxed toon. If they wanted that they would have just made Mercenaries 2.0 with every class at that point and left it.

In terms of usage the only thing an alt does better than a persona is its free. Remember this is also usable on TLP's as well as live. If I would have a guess its more of a selling feature to TLP players than live only players <Though they cross very much>. Its no secret daybreak wants to cross monetize, its the obvious thing to do. Which isn't bad for players either as we have gotten some MUCH needed QOL updates <Tradeskill depot> out of it. This is just another one. Also a very powerful one in classic EQ.

It allows you to use various things from EQ past to buff your toon in ways you just couldn't currently. It would be akin to making every single item in the game effectively Heirloom. It also allows you to dump currencies on your persona's when your done grinding an expansion rather than another billionth 40+ slot bag. All those raid currencies with no use? Dump it and buy a weapon for a leveling char etc. Upgraded Type 5's? Sell back the old ones and buy Type 5's for alts etc.

I mean its class swapping in EQ. When first announced people said it would be just be shroud 2.0, but were in fact wrong. Its is a class swapping feature similar to Final Fantasy, and regardless if you use it or not, that's quite nice to see that EQ can still modernize its game after all these years.

Edit:
And I mean you get like three perona unlocks for buying the cheapest expansion, which is enough for everyone to have a mage/rogue/porter in one char if they don't already have one. So its not like its a terrible deal at that point. Don't want to use it on live? Save it for next TLP reroll server.

Semantics matter. It is literally what words mean, and if people cannot agree on a shared definition of what words mean, then language breaks down and effective communication becomes impossible.

No, they did not make it known they'd release Guild Depot in 2023. That's the entire point. You inferred that from an ambiguous statement. A statement that was likely purposely ambiguous because they specifically did not want to commit to a date.

I never said they have to advertise things with an expansion, but there is a world of difference between explicitly advertising a feature with an expansion, "If you buy this, you get this feature!" and just saying "We want to do a thing sometime maybe in the future and we'll possibly give you details about it at a later date."

The first one carries a legal obligation for them to provide that feature. You cannot promise to deliver a product for payment and then not deliver it upon being paid. That would be fraud.

You can, however, make all the ambiguous statements you want about possibly maybe doing a thing in the future, potentially. You can even make a statement or preview something you want to do in the future, and then not actually do it. It happens all the time, with every company. Unless there is money exchanged for a promise, the promise means nothing. And there was not even a promise of the Guild Depot, just a "It's something we'd like to do in the future" type of statement.


There are many things EQ has said they wanted to do that I looked forward to, that ultimately ended up not happening. The same can be said about every company I've ever interacted with.

The Guild Depot will happen, or it won't. It is clearly something they'd like to do, but we weren't promised it, and it may not even be feasibly possible. There is no sense being upset about it.

Because the time investment, plus the monetary cost of unlocking enough persona slots to make it worthwhile.

With F2P accounts with boxed toons, I can do all the same things you're explaining. And I can do it faster as I don't have to individually level each box toon separately as I would with persona's.

My 3 box team of SK / Mage / Bard let's me double invis, bard speed to where I want to go, and COTH everyone over. And all 3 characters level at the same rate. So while you're stuck at level 60 because you can't get a single group any one of your persona slots, i'm already level 90 and dropping content left and right.

You have to level them in order to get their abilities. How are you going to level your bard to get the invis/fade options with no gear? Or level up a mage high enough to get COTH with no gear? They don't level up with your main character...

You're gonna have to group up or hope you can molo well enough with the persona's too...

So here's my thoughts on this matter: if you don't already have a lot of alts...why not? No drive? No time? Don't care? How is this suddenly going to make you want to level alts when you didn't want to before? You still have to level them. They're basically an alt with a shared inventory. That's it. If someone only plays one character and one character only, how is a persona gonna change that and make them level up a persona?

...And I can use the alt at the same time as the main. I get increased group members with an alt which increases my DPS and survivability. I get to use my SK's epic and my Bards Epic at the same time instead of one or the other at any given moment.

What can your Bard persona do that my Bard alt cannot?

Current box team is getting all the same things at all the same times. No need to wait for an expansion to be over before leveling and gearing an alt. It's getting leveled and geared with the main.

Most of EQ either has alts, or multiple accounts with alts on them. This isn't really going to apply much to current TLPs or the live side (it will, but nowhere in numbers that are "impressive" by any means. You can even go through the 60 pages talking about Persona's and with the info that's given, people who have alts already or multiple accounts say it's a cool feature but they have no use for it).

It'll be great for a new TLP that's starting over. I can see its use there. But that's about it really.

And how is this going to apply on live. Say it was available right now in NoS. Who are you going to port? Oh you're in a group...well you probably have access to one of the 3 things your persona will cover. No need to change when someone from the group can do it for you.

Oh you're solo? So Rogue's SoS is gonna help you sneak around. Awesome...is that all you're doing though? Just SoS'ing around the zone and logging out? Oh you're gonna SoS to where you want to camp and then switch back to your main. Awesome. Why can't you just invis or IVU and run there? Zones aren't packed that tightly that you cannot get to where you want now (proof...you're not needing Rogues to get to your current camps. Nor Mages. Nor Bards).

Other than it was in the beta, you are correct.

Well since your asking me personally and I have already stated that I would use the feature I am not sure why this question is even being asked. I suppose I can answer though to the best of my abillity.

I don't have **many** alts because I generally play the expansion in a casual manner <or pseudo I suppose>. I don't raid, but I do generally go the missions + Challengers + Full quest progression <Minus things like Ralllos earring>. I generally play with a smaller group, they do box toons, I do not.

The same reason I started my first alt. I wanted to play a different toon. I went from a wizard than I leveled up a warrior. Why? Because I just felt like playing a warrior that expansion. No META. No Min maxing thought process. I wasn't looking at ADPS and trying to figure out the best group comp. I Just felt like it.

Next expansion I am thinking of a different toon. Maybe beast. Why? Cause I feel like it. Never played one.

I know you are going to ask why not just make a beast now, but if persona system comes out why not just make it then? At least I can dump my old CoV/ToL tokens that I have bunches of to gear up type 5's for the toon. I skipped NoS, just didn't really appeal to me.

Well you can play one char and have some alts. That isn't too uncommon.

You seem rather focused on boxing toons though and I will quote myself:

"Yes, its worse than a boxed toon." Since I do not typically box though, that doesn't really matter to me.

I'm asking you personally because it was you who said it. I'm not asking ABOUT you personally. You said you doubted everyone had max level alts. So if they don't now, how is Persona's going to change that. What is Persona's going to do to change the minds of those who didn't feel the need/want to level alts prior?

Precisely. If you have no desire to play a Beastlord now, you won't have the desire if Persona's were currently active either. Persona's do not urge you to create a new alt any more than creating an entirely new character on the character select screen does. If you haven't made a Beastlord in the last 20 years...persona's aren't suddenly going to make them any more appealing.

Because people who wanted the benefit of another class in the last decade has more than likely created a box account for that sole purpose. Persona's while neat and there is a merit for them (on TLPs)...it's not going to appeal to the majority of Live servers.

What i'm getting at is: I've never leveled a Cleric. Too slow. Can't stand it. Persona's aren't suddenly going to make me go "OMG I WANT TO CREATE A CLERIC AND MAX LEVEL IT RIGHT NOW!!!". I'm still going to despise Clerics.

Also if I have a hard enough time finding the time to level to max, do progression/quests/get geared up now with 1-2 characters....how am I going to find the time to do it with 7 on the same account so i can use the benefits of 4-5 different classes?

I have nothing against persona's personally. I don't have a use for them. I do think it's a neat idea...i just think it's about 10-15 years late on the implementation. Great for re-rolling TLPs. But anything that's already established? Worthless.

Next year when I replace the Shadowknight I made last year with a new Shadowknight persona I'm putting on my 23 year old Warrior, what do you expect will be a limitation that the Shadowknight persona will have?

No, semantics don't matter in this case because you're not arguing the point. They released a timeline and included a feature as a planned implementation for their 2023 roadmap. Either provide more details around the statement or deliver or don't and expect backfire.

You put something on your far and few between communications, their yearly roadmap, people will expect it to be addressed in the near future. It's not difficult to understand that. This is where your entire argument is wrong. If you don't want people on yiur back, clarify the statement in the roadmap.

They want to purposely keep it ambiguous? Fine, they deserve every bit of criticism when the year ends and it wasn't delivered. Discussion over.

I know you have a really efficient box crew. I have no doubt that someone like you can make a totally efficient, max-level persona that's virtually the same as actual class. But for me, I'm finding the leveling up experience of a persona a bit clunky. My inventory is getting full of stuff for the couple of other personas I'm working with. I'm forgetting what stuff is for which quests for which persona. I camp out one persona where he's leveling, but then I'm not in the same place when I switch back to him. All those kinds of issues of having multiple characters inhabiting the same body are degrading the leveling experience compared to an actual alt. With an actual alt, I can more easily become that character and leveling is a more natural experience. I definitely really like switching to a persona and using some of their abilities at the moment, but for me, leveling up the persona is not something I'm enjoying in the same way I would on an alt. I don't think I'll get my personas to max level because when I think about doing that, it seems like too much drudgery.

Master Yoda said once to luke:

The information is available and the feature is ready to be documented you shall wait.