To Gut or Not to Gut

An interesting dilemma has risen since i19 was released and I would like the opinions of my fellow forumnites. With multiple 50s and with Incarnate now available, which toons to complete.

Now originally I planned to go with the flow and get to them all eventually. But with the increase in the need for shards that will be coming. With the new TFs, Inherent Fitness, and other things coming soon™. I know toons will be left behind, which was never an issue. Because before we could dust off toons and if they were still slotted just hit the ground running.

I have toons that I haven't touched for months, some years. One example is my Fire/Psi who I used to use as a farmer. Gathering dust since I started farming with my SS/Fire, which is more fun. His networth after looking through the market is well over 5+ billion, which could be used to upgrade the 10 toons I chose to maintain.

Seeing the road this game is going, I'm wondering if I should just gut my toons that end up left behind.

v/r
Gypsy

Is the character still fun to play?

Could you one day want to play him again?

If you answered no, just gut him and delete the character.

An interesting dilemma there. I also have several 50's who are gathering dust; many of whom have rather extreme value in their builds. As an example I have an old BS/Regen scrapper with over 50 HO's in his build including several highly valuable ones. I've others that I haven't touched in over a year beyond shifting day job locations.

On the other hand a couple of days ago I logged in an old Rad/Rad defender I hadn't played in over 2 years and ran him through the Incarnate arc followed by a couple of TF's... I found him to be a lot of fun to play again after such a long period of inactivity. If I'd stripped him then I'd have had to rebuild from scratch in order to play him again. I always think that anything I spent the time to take to 50 is probably something I'll want to pick up again sometime down the road.

As far as getting left behind goes they're going to be in the same position of any alt you've shelved before reaching 50, so is it really any different than going back to play that level 45 character you've had sitting there unplayed for a few months?

I played my first 50 the other day too, first time in years, a Gravity/ Bubble Controller. I had to recolour her powers, change her powers because of inherent fitness, get some new costume parts and even had to borrow some inf off another alt to pay for some SO's, just to kit her out. She solo'd abysmally but it was fun to reacquaint myself with what her powers did again. I was just about to pack her away when i got a purple drop that i then sold for 400 million, good old girl is still treating me right and so i'll keep her and pull her out in another couple of years no doubt.

She also had quite a few accolade powers that i must have spent ages getting and never bother with anymore, i guess i really put a lot of care and attention into her, even though this was before IO's or the market or all the things you put time into now. She's like an old friend.

I have no intention of deleting any of my retired level 50s. In fact, I'm finally getting around to respecing my characters for Inherent Fitness. I've done 4 so far and 3 of them are long time retirees. While I have already run all my 50s through opening their Alpha Slot, though, I figure I will probably need a couple more months before I can work up enough Shards to craft the basic Alpha enhancement for them all.

Its all about the work required to do the move enhancement value from the "retired" toons to the more active ones. If the work of stripping is worth the upgrade of your active toons I'd do it. Though, I might play the toon I was "stripping" before I did it to make sure I wasn't going to like them in the near future.

I stripped my em/ninj stalker in i12 to fund my new brute at the time. I don't have the slightest regret on that move. On the other hand, I stripped a corruptor in i14 and just spent 8.7B rebuilding her cause I was compelled to play her again.

Don't delete the toon unless you're REALLY sick of them though.

I never delete any of my 50s because I still have a few character slots left which is enough because getting about two dozen 50s does relieve you of most of your altitis, especially if replaying sets is often boring. I have moved some of them to an inactive server with free transfers (in order to make room), but I only bothered to strip one of the 5 or so transferees. Whether you are able to delete your characters, though, is not within my knowledge, I know I can't bring myself to delete 50s

As for leaving characters behind, I do that too. I simply don't have time to play my 20+ characters so I've basically limited my playing to my favourite six characters or so, but I do pull out less used characters if they're needed. I'll probably get around to unlocking the alpha slots on all of the characters I haven't moved off the server, but getting the actual enhancements is another thing. So far I've only had the time and motivation to get an alpha enhancement on two characters, although some do have a few shards and components collected. Then again, I'm still excited about my Illu/Cold and because I'm collecting merits for a Gladiator's Armor unique (30 of them, gah) I don't have much time to spare for playing other characters.

I do have more free time than the 30-45mins it takes for the 5 tips a day, but I also play other games and have my finals approaching...

I never gut old characters

Even if they still have non-inherent stamina etc in a couple of years time, will that make them less effective ? (less than optimal for sure, but I don't min/max every character).

Heck my rad/rad still have an I7ish era build with just a couple of IOs added. Still a very requested character for me to bring.

Gut it. Save the costume at the tailor though. That way you can still visit them in some way when you want.

I don't delete 50s either, and use several of my 50s as bank toons also sitting at the market. I guess time will tell which 50s get left behind, for now I'll try respecing my old farmer into a pve build. Once more Incarnate things are released, a picture of my primary toons should form. Thanks for the replies, think I'll hold off on the gutting till later.

Thinking about gutting my fire/kin controller, I just made him for a laugh, and threw IOs and HOs into his build. I'm starting to want those Acc/Dam HOs back, haha.

Unless you need the character slot for a new alt, I don't see the point. It doesn't hurt to keep the character around, you might change your mind a few months down the line and enjoy playing it again.

I just move them another server, my 'bench' server.

Sometimes, I change my mind and move them back to my 'play' server, after I try a few other things and perhaps realize that I like the one I 'benched' more.

This is with a full set of slots on my 'play' server.

So, I give $10 here and there to NCNC. Helps them and I never have to delete a 50.

Occasionally, I look at a character I have 'benched' and gut most of the really good IOs if I am 'remaking' the character...like changing a secondary but keeping the name, etc. Even then, I do not delete the character.

I know I can always come back, use the free respec that has certainly had time to accrue, and put in some SOs or common IOs to get restarted.