And that is fine, but people seem to forget that just because they don't find value in a new feature because of how it works doesn't mean that others won't find value in that system. There are players out there that would rather sacrifice the bag space instead of having to move items from character to character as they switch classes.
Loss of inventory space and added zoning time/character lag are two of the more serious cons that I haven't fully considered. Just in doing the epics, that would require more than a 40+ slot bag to carry them. Would the zoning time/character lag be, at least, 15x what it is currently if I tried to manage a single character with every class? We'll soon see what the initial slots add, but that those issues are rather concerning.
By the time the next TLP is released all the kinks should have been ironed out of the system. Hoping they come up with a way to improve the lack of inventory space. It will be nice to have all Vah Shir classes on one char to do the class quests in Shir Vhal. It will be nice to be able to add zerker into the mix when they get added a few years later without having to go back and do all the achievements with them. I can finally have all 16 classes on 1 server! My tradeskiller will be able to do everything without having to switch to another class for sub combines. Everyone who does tradeskills will have an ranger persona for fletching.... On live I may add a couple of personas next year to dabble with or to play as a change instead of playing my main. I tend to raid with one char and group with different ones to avoid getting bored. My beast on Vaniki will be gaining a monk to do older achievement challenges that she missed, most of her gear especially weapons will be monk usable.
I guess we're supposed to spend hundreds of hours of our life grinding away killing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of mobs just to level 1 single persona. In a game that is unfriendly to people looking for groups. This feature is DoA for multiple reasons. I'm on TLP and was going to buy it for this feature. But they've gutted its usefulness at every possible opportunity.
I'm sitting here feeling the same way. I really thought the days of being punished by developers for playing their game or having this adversarial relationship with them was over. But I'm so tired of playing a game where the developers hate the players and hate fun. Can't I just sit down and enjoy something for a chance without being tortured through it?
For each persona, you have 8 visible slots and 2 or 3 weapon slots (counting range as weapon here). Then non-vis, if your persona wears entirely different non-vis gear that's another 10 slots. If your persona shares non-vis gear that's actually worse, because then you're going to have different type 3 augs and potentially also different type 7/8 augs, for up to 20 more slots. So a persona might take upwards of 30 inventory slots just on gear. Most people will probably share slightly suboptimal augs or gear rather than max-maxing every slot, so I think ~20 pieces of gear will be typical for commonly played personas. Clickies is harder to count. Some, like a shrink clicky, can be easily shared by all personas. (Although I guess the shaman persona is irritated at the waste of a spot, but too bad.) Others are more situational like invis potions, but you'll need those in your bags too if one of your personas is a warrior or cleric. Several classes have useful epics--you'll need to be carrying all of those, all the time. Thank goodness for mount/illusion/teleport keyrings. All of those will be near mandatory for a heavy persona user. So yeah, this is a real concern for people that will use this feature heavily. If you're someone with enough play time and motivation to get all 16 persona slots up to level 100+, you're talking somewhere in the ballpark of 330 to 480 inventory slots just for your gear and clickies. A whole set of 40 slots bags might not even hold all your gear, let alone picking up loot and collectibles. (And if you "lose" a bag slot for a tradeskill bag or collectible bag to filter that loot out? Yikes!) Will this be a problem for most people? No. Honestly I'd be mildly surprised if anyone ever gets every persona to 100+ on a single character. But the inventory system will pretty much break for anyone who does take it that far. It will be varying degrees of inconvenient for people who use it to any degree. (And of course lets not forget that--unless I've missed something--it's going to dump all this gear in your top bag, mixed in with your vendor loot. This is annoying for anyone, but for people leveling on TLP where pre-raid gear is often vendor sellable, that's an expensive accident just waiting to happen.)
Of course it is going to be more of a concern the more you use and if you have all 16 it will take a lot of inventory space. I was making my comment on a more limited use of the system and not making all classes with lots of gear/aug swaps for each one.
Which means the system isn't designed to encourage players to purchase as much as they would if it solved this problem upfront. If we look at the feature from an RoI perspective, DPG is leaving money on the table which hurts future development. They are a business and should be making sound business decisions which means giving your customers ways to pay you more and be happy about it. Why does DPG not want more of our money?!
I am not sure that is a problem if it isn't designed at the start to encourage people to buy enough slots to create 15 personas.
I think they should put all wearable saved set gear into it's own "hoard" and not take up bag space. It would also be nice if all augments were not gear specific any longer but slot specific per persona. That way gear could be shared between them but have different class specific augments for each one. That could also solve certain class restricted items like Rallos earring if it had a new type augment that only worked if that item was equipped and only the augment was class dependent.
I'm hoping that they realize they have to make personas more attractive to the players in order to get a return on their investment. I'm sure this was a relatively costly feature. And it's not something off to the side (like Dragon's Horde) that doesn't affect the main code. I'm pretty sure there are persona changes throughout the code, which means issues could affect all players whether or not they are using personas. As it is, I don't think there won't be enough players using personas to justify the ongoing support costs. But if they open them up so lots of players use them, they'll gain more revenue through slot purchases and from players enjoying EQ more so they spend more on subscriptions, bags, etc. Eventually there is going to be a meeting in conference room with upper management with charts showing how much they spent on persona development, how much they are continuing to spend on support, and how many players are using them. If the numbers are out of whack, I'm sure the money people are going to ask what changes can be made to increase revenue from personas.
so when is this being removed cuz it makes 0 sense for this game. daybreak needs to start learning from OSRS and implementing a poll feature where players vote on content added cuz who even asked for this? lol
Coming December 2024 Discover the second half of Laurion's Song, but as it's own $40+ purchase: Larry's Song. Explore Laurion's complicated relationship with her tone-deaf brother with: - New Zones that may or may not be full of reused assets - The same new spells you get every off-level-increase expansion but with bigger numbers - One new mission at launch, one new raid in a month or two - Introducing Armor Trunk! Personas taking up all of your space? Put unused armor and weapons in your trunk! (Only retrievable at the bank. Yes, we know it sounds like just more bank slots, but it's cooler, promise!) - A avid Persona user? Buy more Armor Trunk slots in the cash shop. 30 slots for only $15, same as a new Persona slot!
I'm liking where your head is at Bilbo, but we need more. Maybe we can get a collector's edition of this expac called Larry's Mixtape. It'll bundle all of the fine features that you enumerated with the addition of a new donkey mount and a bonus self-only illusion that turns the player into a goose. I think a fair price for all of that is $149.99
I'm not rethinking things entirely, but there are quite a few cons here that I really hadn't considered before. I rather enjoy faction grinding with new characters, but I'm unsure that I'd enjoy redoing all of that work for each persona. I'm guessing here, but another thing that isn't likely to be shared for a singular character would be learned recipes. How would that work with the Artisan Prize, specifically? I really do *want* to work on that with a singular character. Not so much for every possible persona. I'm trying to keep in mind that this is a spanking new feature, so there are bound to be quite a few changes incoming. If they continue working upon it and developing it, I'm sure that it could be a solid and polished addition. I wonder how realistic or feasible my desire to "do it all" with a singular character will be. This seems like a great feature for any completionists out there, but there are still a lot of uncertainties.
The FAQ mentions that banestrike is shared, but that some personas might not have access to it. I'm rather unfamiliar with it, so I'm unsure what that part means. Are different ranks with it only available at certain levels?
It appears to me that DBG is looking for ways to keep the player base interested, while at the same time looking for subtle ways to slow down the game by adding more time-wasting requirements, instead of making the game more user friendly. Yes, they have made huge gains over the past 20+ years. However, there are many subtleties they keep intentionally to waste your time, and keep you logged in and interested. Perfect example - Fast Camping; Some zones you can immediately camp out, others make you waste the full 25 seconds. Personas? Sounded cool initially, now? I was fired up and pre-ordered for 6 of my accounts, and even considered 2 more alts. Now? think I may have bought my last new expansion and just use my existing 13 accounts, of which 6 are subbed, and cancelled my plans to add 2 or 3 more accounts. Perhaps I will soon eventually wane my interest in the game down to none subbed and play occasionally when nothing else occupies my interest. I have no interest in spending even more time in game to develop personas, thanks anyways.
It's achievement based, the more varieties and categories of mobs you've killed a certain number of, the more mobs you get the bonus against (slayer achievement category). If all the personas of a character share achievements, they should all have it equally completed. If it were level locked, it should still be checked, and just unlock as the persona levels up (don't think it is, it's not very powerful at 10% max iirc).
I got back and bought the expansion, thinking "ooh this will be neat". It isn't. Frankly, it's a total waste of space. If I have a level 70+ character, what makes you think I want to level a "persona" from level 1 to XXXX level, have a gazillion restrictions on where I can swap to it, waste a ton of bank space on it, have to fiddle about with augments and whatnot... No. Way. I'll make an alt instead, which has none of those restrictions in the end, and will take just as long to level and just as tricky to equip. Yeah, you get flags, achievements. Woo-hoo. Fan-freaking-tastic. Not. I really don't care if I have to drag an alt through all of it again, because I won't have to watch which "non repeatable quests" I can do / not do, where I have a lockout on a persona etc etc etc. What a pointless feature. If the alternate persona would start at say, 10 levels below the main's level. Ok. That's takeable. But there is absolutely no way I will level a persona from level 1, just so it gets achievements and flags. Oh and tradeskills if I understand this right. So, on my part, that's a complete and utter /fail.
