What are your tips for managing a large character roster?

[Yomo Kimyata]

It's encouraging to see how many different approaches there are.

 

I used to keep a spreadsheet, but I haven't looked at it in over six months.  I have 187 characters on all five shards, from level 2 to 50.  I almost always multi-task, but usually have a few projects running at a time.  Those projects may be conceptual or practical (a supergroup based on XYZ, or a powerset I'm not familiar with, or exploring how to abuse certain mechanics).  If I keep interest in it, I'll play it to 50.  I may play it into incarnates, but not always.  I rarely play my 50s for any length of time though, because I seem to mostly enjoy the levelling process.  If I lose interest in it, it falls to the wayside until or unless there is something about it that piques my interest.

 

On the other hand, I have a lot of marketing alts.  Very few of them are active, but I am sure that I have enough of anything I need or could ever need, even if the game goes pear-shaped.  I probably have between ten and twenty supergroup bases that I use exclusively for storage (potential storage mostly).  If I need something on an alt, and I cannot buy it quickly and cheaply, and I can remember which of my other alts works on creating it or has it in /AH inventory, then I'll dump 10-50-100 into the market.  It's kind of stupid, because there is no way I'll ever need, say, a few hundred Kinetic Combats but when that day comes I'll be ready.  But for the most part I just put in low bids and wait for someone to sell it to me for half price.  I don't see the point of storing specific salvage, but I've got significant amounts stored on defunct characters in case someone else wants to destabilize the marketplace.  My philosophy is to let other people store it for me until we get to the day when people stop putting recipes or salvage or converters into the /AH.  That's why I always like to pay decent prices for raw materials -- to keep people coming back to sell more while they buy my finished goods.

 

One way to keep things easily accessible is to buy a lot of hero and/or winter packs.  When you open those it all goes into your Character Items menu which can be opened by any character on your account, at any time (even in missions).  This is why I don't bother buying things like ATOs or WOs for personal use.

 

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by Yomo Kimyata
I like editing.

[Black Zot]

24 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

Come to think of it I have never spent a Vanguard merit. Not even sure what they actually buy.

 

There's a few temp powers at a vendor in the Vanguard base.  The HVAS power core being the most useful of the lot.

[Onlyasandwich]

55 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I could take turns rolling through all of them and grabbing the merits. Do most folks store their merits on a single main?

At that point mailing them around adds a huge layer of inconvenience.

 

I would cash in right there on each character into something easy to liquidate like converters and sell them in bulk. Then you can just mail the influence instead.

[UltraAlt]

On 3/25/2022 at 11:11 AM, oedipus_tex said:

What are your tricks?

 

Spreadsheets.

One is for characters. The other one is not so secret.

 

My character spreadsheet gets updated about once a month, but I think i have been slacking.

Each server has a tab.

I list the character name, level, archetype, primary and secondary powers. (characters are sorted in the character select menu by supergroup - sg leader is in the top of each supergroup listing)

Color code the Heroes and Villains by the text color of their names. (sorry no  Praetorians)

Color fill the name and related boxes with supergroup colors (I have multiple supergroups on some servers).

Total the # of characters, combined levels (a 50 is a 50, I don't bother with veteran levels), and archetypes totals per archetype  per server. Then total all the that information for a grand total area.

 

Pretty much the same way I did before the Sunset, but with less servers to keep track of.

[Coyotedancer]

I don't keep spreadsheets or anything like that... I still have well under a hundred characters out here on Homecoming, and so I just don't feel like I need that level of detail.

 

Like Flea, I tend to "finish" one character before I make another one, so the majority of the gang are 50+ and fully-equipped. If I don't like a project for whatever reason, they'll get stripped and deleted long before they make it to that point. (Anyone who actually gets to 50 is a keeper, in other words.)

 

Since the gang were all at one point roleplayed characters, they're divided up into several personal, themed SGs with their own bases. I stash different sorts of things in each of those bases. (Level 35 common IOs, crafted procs and specials and all spare Catalysts are in the Sanctum's bins , the ATOs and WinterOs are in the Voyager's base, extra Rare salvage bits are in the Wolfepack's storage bins, and so on-)

 

My character are all arranged on the log-in selection pages by which SG they belong to. (All of the Sanctum magi are together, all of the Ordus Chronos people are on the same page, etc-)  

 

Spare INF is stored as email attachments in lots of 500m, to be accessed by whichever character needs it.

 

Hero/Villain merits likewise. (I convert regular merits into H/Vs any time I get to 50 on a character, just to make them easier to store-) 

 

I send all of my Emp merits to Tavaris. I'll pull as needed from that stash when a new character gets to 50 to build their Alpha. Past that, they're on their own as far as iSalvage goes. 

 

Kai carries all of my purple recipes and crafted purple enhancements in her personal inventory.

Three other characters keep all of my PvP recipes and crafted PvP enhancements in their inventories, divided between them by type.

 

I find that just that basic level of organization is enough to let me find anything or anyone I'm looking for. 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Icono04]

I use a spreadsheet listing each character and all the aspects that I might want to sort them by. Using the data filtering tool to show only characters that fit certain criteria (for example only lvl 50's, only melee'ers or only goldsiders) is helpful if I can't decide which one I want to play. It is also handy to know which characters don't have a particular accolade badge yet, so that I can grab them when e.g. a Maria Jenkins arc team or one of the TFC TF's are offered in LFG. 

My spreadsheet is way more elaborate than it really needs to be, and I track a lot of info which is probably irrelevant. But I actually enjoy building databases and spreadsheets, so in a way it is part of the entertainment value I derive from CoX.

In-game, only the 6-8 characters I like the most are on the front page of the character selection screen of my main server. All the others are spread out across other servers, so that they don't clutter up my view when I log in. 

 

Influence generally gets channeled to one of the front-page characters for easy accesibility. I don't play the market, nor do I farm, so I never have piles of excess influence, recipe or IOs to keep track of. But íf I did, I am sure my beloved spreadsheet would be able to keep track of them 😉

 

Edited to add: Fixed a typo.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Icono04

[DoctorDitko]

Thanks for all the excellent advice, folks!

 

I am fundamentally disorganized, so the idea of keeping a spreadsheet of my characters?

Enough to discourage me from playing the game. Nothing is worse than spreadsheets. Except PowerPoint.

 

But I tend to log in from various machines, and my characters are usually scrambled around on new hardware. So I'm more reliant on things that most people skip -- like the Search field at the bottom of the character select screen.

 

I ignored this thing completely on Live, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to discover on HC, but it's quite handy for finding my alts. You can search by name, AT, and powers. Really handy, especially if you are logging in from a work computer to show off the game to a colleague and can't find that nifty new character.

 

Which I never do.

[Magnificus]

I have only been back for a little less than a year. I have a little over 60 characters 7 of whom are 50+.

 

I order chars by level. Highest first. That's it. The levels tells me generally what I have done on that char cause I pretty much do the same things on every char. L20-25? Then it's probably time for a Yin, or to check for accolades and do spelunker for the Atlas Medallion or whatever. The ones I play the least end up lower and lower on the list as lower levels improve.

 

I run an SG for my alts (well I took a break for four weeks and now some dude I accidently let in is now the leader, but I dont think that they know yet). I use storage for enh. They are almost invariably attuned (or things that will be attuned like say any Steadfast Protection Res/Def), pvp, ato's, winter sets, or hami etc. I only have 3 such containers. I have a 4th container for crafted enh needed to be sold.

 

I have containers for rare and uncommon salvage cause I am a big money grub. But I am convincing myself to phase out the uncommon containers. But never the rare container. I am the miser that logs out in WW for bonus brainstorm salvage simply to get "free" rare salvage.

 

When I first started thinking about amassing inf, after I'd been selling converters for a few months, I started crafting accumulated recipes and converting and selling the enh. It is less of a pain in the ass now than it was when I started, cause I had 5 L50's and 40 or so others, some of whom where reaching their recipe inventory limits. Long story I know but the best way I found to handle it is to do the recipes as soon as you get them. It takes less time and attention. The better news is that there are only maybe 10 enh you need to convert them to to get your 3-5m, depending on how patient/lucky you are. That leads to another issue (what do I need merits for?) but that is a topic for another .. topic.

 

I will twink a new char with 10m inf. That's enough to set them up with SO till around 30 and bankroll their first 100 converters. They may get more inf if I am messing with an expensive build. Otherwise they have to buy their own prestige teleports haha. They may freely plunder the enhancement bins for use or for sale.

[fitzsimmons]

I have 115 lvl 50+ toons, all IO'd out, +3 to their incarnates.  I have 2 SG bases with the 2nd one just acting as an overflow.

 

I store the following:

 

- orange salvage

- purple enhancements (~150)

- winters

- ATOs

- pvp enhancements (a few hundred)

- expensive-ish IOs or things I use often-ish like LOTGs, Numis, Oblits, BoTZ, Reactive Defense, Unbreakable Guard, etc

 

Things I consolidate on "bank toons":

 

- Convert reward merits to hero merits and ship off to a main toon on each account (I only cash them in when I need to purchase something with them)

- Convert emp merits to transcendent and ship them across

- Influence

 

The character select screen:

 

I alphabetize within archetype.  The first 2 screens are tanks, then scraps, brutes, so on and so forth.  It's a pain when I have over 10 of a type because then I need to drag everything over to the right.  I considered updating the playerslots.txt directly but it's not in any great order but can be done.

 

--

After playing a toon, some days I may play 5 or 6 toons and switch from TF to TF or trial to trial or whatever and before switching toons I send over influence if I have more than 20 mil on a toon, send along any Hero merits (converted reward merits), craft and store recipes if they meet my criteria and store any orange salvage.

 

The initial effort to clean all this up took a while but now that I maintain better rigor with it, it's not bad.

 

Regards,

Dave

[TheOtherTed]

Wish I could help, but all the characters in my roster are small or medium sized.

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

Wish I could help, but all the characters in my roster are small or medium sized.

 

That's a good point.

 

A large character tip:  Before Agent G's mission line, if your character body type is Huge, you may want to consider going to a cosmetic surgeon and switching to something smaller for the missions.  Using the Arachnos disguise as Huge makes you a giant, which I find *incredibly* annoying when you are running through tunnels and bases.

[Without_Pause]

The thing which is helping me is having character across different servers. Yes, this might make it worse for some. I would rather have a server's listing be all of a 1-2 pages versus one server having four pages. I'm rerolling some builds on my second account to my first just to cut down on switching back and forth on accounts.

[RikOz]

I'm up to 116 alts.

 

I keep them sorted by level. That's easy to do - when a character levels up, I just move them up the list to join my other alts of the same level.

 

The exceptions to this sorting method are two "concept" SGs I created, "The Extracurriculars" and "Solar Angels. There are 10 members of each SG, so each team fits on its own page in the list, and don't move. I keep all of the members of each SG at the same level (to represent them leveling up together). Extracurriculars are all currently at 37; Solar Angels are currently at 31.

 

I have two other personal SGs - one blueside that is the catch-all SG for my heroes/vigilantes, and another redside for my villains/rogues. Several of my earliest alts (and most of my 50s) are members of a fifth SG, which is composed of members of another online community (though I think only two of us are still active players).

 

Each alt handles their own "finances" for the most part, though my "main" will occasionally mail Inf off to help out other alts. I'll mail certain IO sets to my @Global that are most useful in a certain level range, once a character no longer needs it. For example, the flight IO set that grants stealth while flying is very useful for characters spending time in Founders Falls (damned snipers!), but not as useful outside of that zone, so an alt with that set, once they hit 40, will mail it off for the next level 30-39 alt to slot. My level 50s who no longer have a use for Catalysts will drop those in the mail for lower-level alts to make use of.

 

I pretty much play entirely solo and so, with a few exceptions for "concept" reasons, I only play "DPS" ATs. In order of preference: brutes, blasters, scrappers, sentinels, stalkers. No masterminds - I've never liked "pet" classes in games, at least not those that summon crowds of pets. That goes all the way back to my playing a necromancer in Diablo 2 with a herd of skeletons. I think it's because I'm a bit claustrophobic, and get tense when my character is surrounded by a crowd (probably part of why I also don't enjoy team play). Anyway, my goal is to eventually have alts of every possible primary/secondary combination for those ATs I play. For this purpose, I have spreadsheets to keep track of which combos I've already used, to avoid duplication. My exceptions to my "DPS-only" rule are one tanker, a couple corruptors, and a dominator. My "Extracurriculars" SG originally included an Ill/FF (FF/Ill?) controller, which to date is the only character I've deleted. I discovered quickly that she was absolutely useless in solo play, at least at low levels. I mean, pick one: offense *or* defense, but not both at the same time.?

[DougGraves]

I have alts but they are all parked at specific levels.  I only like the lower level game so I have alts sitting to play when a team is announced at a lower level.

 

I have a page of 13's, two pages of 19's, a page of 23's, a page of 29's, a few 34's, and one above 34.

 

Within the page I sort by AT.

 

And when I find I do not like a character I delete them, or if I want to keep the name I move them to a page of characters holding names I want.