Altaholic in desperate need of help!

I generally wait till my altitus leads me back to my previous toons.

A few tips from a random passer-by (albeit one with super powers and good looks).

Want to know how to make Altitis an irrelevant concern? You can get bogged down treating Altitis, or you can redefine what your roster of heroes and villains means to you. The following tips aren't just ideas that sound nice to me. They're guidelines that evolved throughout my first year in City of Heroes, and following them closely has greatly improved my enjoyment of the game. These aren't role-playing tips, as inviting as they may feel to that group. They're ways to learn to relate to your characters, the same way you form brief connections with characters in books and movies.

(1) THE LIST - None of my heroes and villains are alts; they're all main characters. Sound like pure semantics? Think again! From the beginning, I took a tip from the comics (where else?), and have sought to view my characters on an A-list, B-list, C-list scale. They're all important to me, but a few of them have definitely affected local (or even worldwide) events on a larger scale than the others (see "The Time" below).

(2) THE WELL - In the 1960s, Spider-Man had few fans among Marvel's editorial board. He was almost cut before they realized he had struck a unique chord among their readership, who finally had a hero with average life problems they could all relate with. There are all sorts of ways to create a character, but few heroes and villains are memorable for their power sets alone. So why start there when creating one? Start at the beginning, with their life and the circumstances that led to their origin as a hero or villain. This may involve taking out a notepad or sketchpad, or it may just take a bit of day-dreaming before going straight into the Character Creator. You will not want to delete a persona who feels more substantial to you, who is worth exploring and enriching through in-game experiences. After a while, these won't be "toons", and you won't think of them as your "Fire/Kin" or "Troller". As their personalities take shape, you'll begin to think of them by their names. Give the well of your sub-consciousness some breathing room, here. Like Spider-Man's first audience, you may end up liking a character you may not have expected yourself to make. (And if you created heroes and villains as a child, they're still living in your sub-consciousness. It can be very satisfying to breath life into these within the game.)

(3) TIME - After a year of playing, my highest-level character is level 43 (that's the only time I'll mention that often useless barometer). Out of 15 heroes and villains on my home server, four of them are A-listers. As expected, they get more attention from the fictional world they inhabit. They hob-nob with patron heroes more often, go on more task-forces, have arch-villains after them, and they get their origin stories told through AE and through Virtueverse.com. And naturally, more "real" people know them, because an A-lister might get a straight week or two of play-time; they're simply around more often. B-listers and C-listers will get days or even just hours of play-time between those longer stretches. I decide how much play-time a persona is getting before I revisit them, and then I stick to that decision. The first few times I did this, I misjudged the amount of time I would enjoy playing some characters. But now, it's a natural gut decision born out of experience, no spread sheets or complex formulas required (LOL).

(4) THE STORY - Planning the time I spend with a character may seem OCD, but in this case, it's actually just another tip I took from the comics. The average comic book runs around 20 or 30-something pages. Comic writers have a certain amount of space and time to work with, to push their characters stories forward. And most comic book heroes don't even have their own comic books. There are a lot of supporting members of comic-book super-groups who don't say much or make many decisions compared to more famous heroes, even though they may do a lot to keep their teammates alive. I have several C-listers in this category. In comics, B-listers often get their own series, while A-listers get wide-ranging story arcs and get to affect crossover events. Planning gives me a goal, and a time frame during which to push my own characters stories forward, no matter how small (i.e. PUGs) or large (i.e. TFs, major arcs, SG or AE events) that story may be. And it ensures I'm more focused on characters who deserve more focus.

EDIT - Thought I'd mention, after creating several characters, I now only allow myself to create a new one every 1 - 3 months. This is because the characters I already have should never be "finished". When I write bios for my characters, I archive their screenshots and later update them (every month or so, or whenever I feel like they've had enough new experiences to warrant it). Advancing my characters stories might include costume changes, or even spin-off characters (these can be VERY fun to create, because they start off with some history already set up for them).

Finally (a more advanced tip here), I don't keep all of my characters separated by a vacuum of space and time; I have intermingled some of their stories when writing or updating bios, and created a duo among my own roster of characters (working on a concept for a super-team). One of my B-listers is side-kicked to one of my A-listers, and two of my villains are the arch-enemies of two of my heroes. None of this is terribly silly. With AE, it's possible to fight alongside (or against) your own characters, so anything's doable now.

THE GUIDELINES ABOVE are the most natural way to handle "Altitis" that I've found. I've discovered for myself that Altitis isn't the problem. After all, most comic-book universes exist in a permanent state of Altitis, with all the personalities and story-lines they expect their readers (and writers) to keep up with. Your roster of heroes and villains can either be a flat list of video game toons, or it can be the jumping-off point to your corner of a substantial fictional universe. Unfortunately, there isn't a universe that we know of where time management isn't an issue.

I think Captain Electric just convinced me to erase all my chars and start over.... *cry!*

Though I do try to imagine the hero before the powers drawing from all my readings of past comics, novels, etc. Some other really good tips there as well I will try and use.

My 'solution' was to reboot my entire character roster at the start of this year - restarting every character I had at level 1 and keeping track of their progress through an excel file, recording server, AT, powersets, time played, current level and location etc. It's interesting, for me, to be able to compare their respective levelling speeds.

The only rule I set myself was that I won't have more than one of the same powerset combination on the same AT, which has led me to come out of my 'comfort zone' and experiment with some powersets I'd not previously looked at.

At the moment I have around 70 'active' characters, all between levels 1 and 15 or so, and about the same number of concepts lined up (mostly with placeholders sitting on their names until I get around to starting them.) That's spread across all ATs and all 11 servers, and every powerset is represented at least once. I'm also planning ahead, with a dozen or so of those character concepts who are either heroic villain ATs, or villainous hero ATs... just waiting for Going Rogue.

I don't have any hard and fast rules about which character I'll play at any time - though I do try not to let any one character get too far ahead in terms of time played. Sometimes if I see a topic in the forums claiming that such-and-such an AT/Powerset combo is terrible I'll look to see if I have one of them. If I do, I'll play them for a bit. If I don't I'll probably roll one

I've got 101 characters spread over every server, 13 level 50s (mostly on my main server), been playing since I2, all on one account. I've got at least 8 of every non-epic AT. I have to chime in with other who say... embrace altitis! It's fun!

My best advice for not feeling so much pressure is to expand onto new servers. I've got three servers with more character than slots without paying for extra and my main will definitely be filled even with paid slots shortly after GR comes out.

I also pretty much never permanently delete characters, but I'm weird like that. I keep all sorts of charts and lists to remember what level everyone's at and who hasn't gotten leveled up in the longest.

As for getting 50s, I wouldn't worry too much about that. It's getting to the point for me that I feel sad when I get another 50, because the journey's over for that character.

Heh, so the "solution" to altism is massive OCD? I'll stick with the altism, thanks.

But, as always, feel free to have fun however you find it.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!