Asheras wrote on Feb 23
rd, 2020 at 7:32pm:
I’m sorry if that offends the soloers or players who want to run only one character forever and always have something to do. But soloing is not D&D and unlimited single character progression is very problematic long term For any game. Especially for a game that reuses content with TRing.
I agree with everything except this. I have almost always been a person who plays a singular character in games, alts here or there, and while I'll admit more often than not I acknowledge I'm handicapping myself in ways.
That being said; a good design team can easily handle the pitfalls that DDO failed in that regard.
If you want unlimited progression for the singular player character, then you need to make a system where that play's goalpost will always be shifting to accommodate their play style.
By that I mean; someone like myself that's got all of the lives completed in every regard on a single character. I 'deserve' the power I unlocked, but the problem is the fact that that accumulated power means my routes to success are easier but my challenge doesn't increase.
The problem with DDO is the only way the devs can think to fix that would be exp adjustments as we see with 1st, 2nd, 3rd+ lives. That doesn't work mostly because after the third life it's the same investment.
You'd have to find a way to shift the goal post for people like me that refuse to alt up for whatever reason. But do so in a way that doesn't make us feel entirely like we're being punished to accommodate 'x' players playstyle.
I think a good way to get folks like myself to invest in alts and help 'branch' out and play at different levels rather than staying capped is to give us a system to sideways invest into alts from our mains. You're triple heroic comp? Congrats if you make a character your toon will start with basic completionist or 'x' amount of past lives. That reduces the alt grind that most folks like myself refuse to take part of.
It also benefits the players opposite of me that are alt-a-holics. Now they don't feel as punished for investing in a main because hey their alts benefit.
Not sure how you could make that system benefit new players to be honest though. But at this point we should be considering all forms of player retention for vets than trying to get new blood given how stacked the game is against new players coming in and staying for longer than 2-3 months.