Alternate Persona Tip Window - Swapping Personas Requires Fast-Camp / Starting Zone

Gotta make the default implementation tedious so the future free-swap TLP has a bigger draw

TLP's can suck it! /does DX Chop

Perhaps they hope to sell Switch-Anywhere unlockers in DB shop. Per persona.

i had such high hopes... i was ready to buy the expansion on all my accounts to be able to switch classes for what i needed at the time.

"oh i don't need my enchanter for this camp, well in comes my mage personae"

"currently my camp don't require a cleric and shaman, guess i can just switch the cleric to a mage"

but it seems to be worse than just using an alt. Especially because you have to go back to a city to change class every time. Where with the alt, i can just log it out where i am with the others.

And since it seems i have to flag each personae all over again, nothing seems to be gained (unless they are separating out faction from flags)

and all i would gain is the ability to use some clickies i already have, the same names for me and pets and a few more things i don't use.

But i would gain the hassle of having 1 inventory for multiple classes.

The feature still has many advantages over regular alts. I, personally, think it's a good idea to not allow swapping everywhere. Being able to do so really de-values non-combat utility, as it effectively farms it out to anyone willing to put in the minimal time to make that persona (as you won't exactly need AAs or gear or even max levels for non-combat abilities).

I mean, lets be real, most of the people hear upset about it don't really care about swapping anywhere in general. They care about their main being a part time travel bard who dabbles in call of the hero.

This is why you never preorder for an advertised feature.

Basically my take is that a huge segment of the playerbase already boxes and the ability to swap anywhere doesn't really add any advantage that boxing doesn't. I think a lot of players would appreciate leveling the playing field a little.

If there are specific behaviors it enables that are undesirable, address those specifically? Stealth (rogue) -> CotH (mage) is obviously a powerful combination, maybe when you swap to mage you get an initial 15 minute cooldown before you can start CotHing? That'd put it on par with existing methods involving corpse dragging and rez tokens. If you want to get fancy, class swapping in a safe zone could bypass any initial swap-based cooldowns to minimize the impact on "normal play".

While "Flags" being shared, and keys maybe is a plus, the faction being persona specific is a huge downside in my opinion.

Should have just kept the main character's faction & added a race / deity modifier, working so many odd factions on my main just to be reset back to square one on an AP is no better than a proper alt.

For crying out loud...don't give them any more bad ideas!

Exactly. IT'S A NEW FEATURE.

If they're gonna dumb it down to the point it's basically like an alt, what the h3!! is the point?

It does, like what?? With an alt, at least I can log them where I am to buff etc.. If I have to go to some fast camp zone to switch, then back to the group, then back to a fast camp zone, then bring my main back again, that is a WAY bigger pain. It would be useless.

Yes, travel would be easier, but isn't that the point of PoK when they put it it?? People said oh it's going to ruin the game, travel is part of the game. Well, people don't want to spend half their play time traveling. So what if I spend time getting a rogue persona and mage persona leveled up, to CoTH my group? What does that do besides save time and frustration? It's an amazing QoL improvement, if you can switch anywhere, if you can't it is just short of worthless and a complete waste of time on their end.

Conflicted. It'd be nice if AA at least carried over to allow for main changing to be more easily viable but at the same time it would probably lead to real FOTM classes every expansion as the meta shifts.

I'd like to see something like the Oakwynd Legacy XP bonus applied to each persona for each max level character you have (similar to EQ2), but a much more significant bonus than Oakwynd currently gets to allow the system to at least be useful.

The advantage of the feature is if you want to start a level 1 alt on an account with an already established main. The ability to have a level 1 alt with slayer, progression, fortitude/vitality/resolution, TS, and augs that you do not have to camp a second time is a nice feature. All you have to do with the persona is level/AA grind and get some gear for it and you are pretty much set.

Of course, for many of us, the thought of starting over at level 1 on Live and not being able to get progression/mission XP boosts is so daunting that I would guess a lot of people won't partake in it.

I had thought of making a druid so I could port around my magician/bard box. Now knowing about the switching stipulations, I still have potentially one scenario where I could consider using it. My box account that has the bard also has a 118 ranger that has COV group gear, missing 3/4 of augments in slots, no slayer done except maybe 2 of the 114 for first one, no progression done, no TS, etc. I could theoretically start over on my main magician account as a persona, reacquire the COV (or NOS or LS) group gear, and just level grind the ranger. I don't have to worry about redoing all the expansion progressions, all the slayer, all the TS. What I need to do is determine if the time spent grinding 1-125 plus AA is more or less time than the ranger at 118+ just going back and redoing progression and such. For some who have 6 person box group already, going 1-125 will be easy. For some like me, who may have to solo grind it, not so easy.

I think folks need to also consider that DB would be smart to put out personas with MORE restrictions on them initially instead of less. Always easier to make it less restrictive if they think its a good idea then to make it more restrictive and claw back anything. People are already crying about not being able to use them in ways DB never stated they could be used.

Spend money on the feature or not based on how the feature is at release.

I also have a very hard time believing that the Persona feature is a make or break for most in regards to buying the expansion. And for anyone to say they aren't buying the expansion because Personas don't do what DB never said they would do I consider all that hyperbole.

But I am also the last one to say you shouldn't all continue to get hyper about it. What would we be posting then another meme thread? So go on folks. Just commenting because hey its forum quest.

I think it shoots itself in the foot. This is really great feature for a TLP players, where grouping is more common. Imagine you have a group the healer leaves, but you have a Cleric persona leveled up and can swap into it. Now you have to gate/origin/run back to a home city to swap to help your group. Maybe the group sticks around, but I think it would still fall apart.

And hopefully you don't die on your solo run back to the group after swapping.

It will probably be a make or break for those that (only) play on TLPs, like myself. Not so much for Live players, obviously.

Yeah I guess if its just that feature you want but are they giving it to TLPS before the expansion its released in comes out?

Yes, it's available to those that buy it for all servers, including TLPs any era.

So this feature is confirmed to be available on TLPs before the expansion it was released in is available on the TLPs?