Please add the ability to switch characters without exiting the game.

Tornaad

Please add the ability to switch characters without exiting the game.
It doesn't have to be anything big and fancy, it can just be a simple list, but that would be a great quality of life addition.
Edit:
If they did this then it would make life much easier for those who use controllers on PC (like myself) as I would no longer have to get up from my couch to switch characters.

Widmore815

I'm honestly not sure if I'm understanding this.
I can switch characters without shutting the whole game down. I log out of one and log in to another. If you mean switch characters without logging I don't think that would be possible as you basically *have* to quit one character to play another.

Gray_howling_parrot

Yes

Widmore815 wrote: »

I'm honestly not sure if I'm understanding this.
I can switch characters without shutting the whole game down. I log out of one and log in to another. If you mean switch characters without logging I don't think that would be possible as you basically *have* to quit one character to play another.

Yea I agree with this. There is not necessarily a requirement to completely exit the game, but in order to stop playing one character, you have to load out of it and select another. I'm quite confused by this.

Ratzkifal

No

What this basically means is, you want to set the server on fire by combining all of our character data into one massive chunk that's always loaded and ready just so we save a few seconds by skipping two rather short loading screens. I mean, if the server could handle it sure, but it can't.

Cuddlypuff

No

Isn't that what the character select screen is?
I just want to be able to get stuff in and out of different inventories without having to switch...

DMuehlhausen

Undecided

I'm not sure how that would really be possible.

I'd like them to make it so you can have your other characters as house guests though. Maybe from there is how you could do it? Talk and interact with one them in the house and choose to switch to it? It would still have to do a load screen I'm sure, but you could probably by pass the log out, and log in process, or it would still do this just in the back ground.

DMuehlhausen

Undecided

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

Isn't that what the character select screen is?
I just want to be able to get stuff in and out of different inventories without having to switch...

Yeah, but that takes what 10 seconds to log out if you aren't in a town. The like 20 seconds or so to log back in. If it worked well you could just switch characters face like 1 10 second load screen. It doesn't sound like much, but during an event like the annual where everyone is doing crafting dailies and you have 18 characters...that adds up

xaraan

No

Not for me. I think we should quit asking for more features that could work the server harder while they are trying to get the game to just work at all in some content.

I'm more concerned it took 15 button presses for an ability to finally activate when I was in pvp the other day than I am about anything like having to log out of a character and into another (I wouldn't describe that as "exiting the game" either, that's what I do when I have to actually type my log in info back in.)

PeacefulAnarchy

Yes

Ratzkifal wrote: »

What this basically means is, you want to set the server on fire by combining all of our character data into one massive chunk that's always loaded and ready just so we save a few seconds by skipping two rather short loading screens. I mean, if the server could handle it sure, but it can't.

Not necessarily. I think the idea is that when you log in, the game loads two things, character data and game data. If you were able to switch characters you'd only have to load character data and not game data. I'm not sure the game is set up in a way that that would be possible or save meaningful amounts of time, but in theory it could be quicker and save server resources by requesting fewer loads.

Amottica

No

Since this is unnecessary it should not be considered until server performance is brought up to par.

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

What this basically means is, you want to set the server on fire by combining all of our character data into one massive chunk that's always loaded and ready just so we save a few seconds by skipping two rather short loading screens. I mean, if the server could handle it sure, but it can't.

Not necessarily. I think the idea is that when you log in, the game loads two things, character data and game data. If you were able to switch characters you'd only have to load character data and not game data. I'm not sure the game is set up in a way that that would be possible or save meaningful amounts of time, but in theory it could be quicker and save server resources by requesting fewer loads.

Game data would need to be loaded since each character is in a unique location when they log out.

DreamyLu

No

Me too, sorry, am not sure to understand: you have no need to exit the game to swap toons. This is working like in all the MMOs I know (not exhaustive, don't know them all): you "turn off" current char and then "turn on" another one, that without to quit game.

redspecter23

Yes

If it's possible to do this without a performance impact, then definitely go ahead with it. From my point of view, in order for it to be useful, it has to be faster than a log out screen followed by a log in screen and have zero negative performance impact.

If I could basically just pull up a UI menu while in game and choose to swap character without the logout (but still requiring the log in screen for the new character), then it sounds great. I suspect it's just not possible to do it that easily though.

katanagirl1

Each character has a different version of the game, meaning different choices and such, so I don’t think it is possible to switch without reloading.

I can imagine any attempt to do so would corrupt data for one or more characters.

Snamyap

No

My memory is vague on it but I think was an option in Everquest but it got removed because it could be exploited somehow. To duplicate items or something. So, no.

fizl101

Next patch you will be able to use your controller to log in and out on pc, and others said each load carries alot of data with it

Maythor

The launcher and character screens/swapping is so unstable even now (compared to any other MMO I've ever played), I'd not trust or want them fiddling about with it any more.

Group finder is a good example of a system they rebuilt from the ground up and we just end up with a whole different lot of bugs we have to work around and live with :P At least at the moment we can usually get past all the crashes and hanging queues and load screens just by trying again .. who knows what might happen if they "fixed" it with added features.

VDoom1

WoW doesn't have this, and I reckon there is a good reason why ESO doesn't have this either.

Perhaps it would be to much data clutter, to messy on the server. Especially if one account has many characters. It would probably strain the servers a lot, the poor things are already under a lot of strain.

Cuddlypuff

No

Logging out of a character saves all your character data to the game databases, as well as addon data locally to your SavedVariables. Loading a new character according to the client logs loads the following: CHARACTER_GEOMETRY, TERRAIN_GEOMETRY, KEEPS, FIXTURE_ASSETS, DYNAMIC_OBJECTS, USER_INTERFACE, RENDERER, GAME_DATA, TEXTURES, CHARACTER_ACTIVATED, SHARED_CHARACTER_OBJECT, RESUME_FROM_SUSPEND, FIXTURE_PHYSICS, PLAYER.

If you think about the CPU time, network time and disk I/O time, it probably makes sense to have the two blocking screens for log in and log out. Definitely can be faster though.

Gaeliannas

Snamyap wrote: »

My memory is vague on it but I think was an option in Everquest but it got removed because it could be exploited somehow. To duplicate items or something. So, no.

It was a feature in EQ2, your could type "/relog CharName" or something along those lines and it would log you out and back in on the other character. It basically saved a couple of seconds of you clicking was all, it still had to log you out and back in on the new character.

Arunei

I doubt this is possible for a variety of reasons, one of them being apparently when you log out, that's when certain variables are saved to your client-side and local documents. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've hard crashed and then needed to go through all the ToS and select my server and country and stuff, but never once have I had to do that after normally logging out.

LogicOfLiam

Yes

Have your toons as houseguests and speak to them and switch to take over and your current toon takes over whatever actions/paths they're on.

Even if it gives me a quick loading screen to save my characters data to wherever it goes 🤷‍♀️
Be a possible influx in house purchases too maybe?

haelgaan

Yes

faster switch would be hugely appreciated.

manually selecting in the char select screen is a bit tedious. example is if on char 1, type /camp <toon name> to switch to that toon. game can drop back to char select or whatever it needs to do, but then comes back in on the toon i specified, without me having to do an additional input.

reduce the clicks!

haelgaan

Yes

all of y'all worrying about the server are misunderstanding. this has nothing to do with server performance, the toons are all separately loaded, there is no change to the server loading. this is about streamlining the changing of toons for the user, to just specify up front who to change to, instead of camping and then selecting as a separate step.

redlink1979

Yes

Widmore815 wrote: »

I'm honestly not sure if I'm understanding this. (...)

I'm sure OP just wants to logoff/login chars on PC the same way the gamepad UI allows it on consoles.

Tornaad

Yes

redlink1979 wrote: »

Widmore815 wrote: »

I'm honestly not sure if I'm understanding this. (...)

I'm sure OP just wants to logoff/login chars on PC the same way the gamepad UI allows it on consoles.

Yes.