Hello!
I would like to suggest an option that I think would both benefit players and generate a lot more income for Sega/Microsoft!
In quite a large number of games, there is the option to change your character's appearance and race. In PSO2, the choice is painfully permanent. For a new player that never played the JP version, I'm sure many players weren't completely sure of what race to play. While I understand the point of keeping that a restriction in PSO2 and stressing the importance of alts, I would like to present reasons why the pros would outweight the cons.
How does this benefits players?
-
People will still continue to have other characters. Having an ALT is still very useful. You can continue farm events with them and make meseta using the daily orders and quests. ALTs allow more storage space. There are a lot of benefits to having multiple characters so this wouldn't affect that.
-
If someone was already heavily invested in one character and they've been wishing they could have been another race, it doesn't feel like a permanent decision they made. Why is this important? Say they invested a lot of Fashion items into their character. Since AC items rarely get rerun, if at all, it makes some items extremely hard to obtain or impossible to obtain and make it accessible across all characters. It's very easy to have a feeling of despair if say a Deuman character loved how CAST parts looked but they also want to be able to use their fashion items on the same character. Being forced to make another character just to use those parts doesn't really feel that great.
-
Players often times get incredibly attached to their main characters. Allowing them to option to do more with their main character would definitely make players happier overall. I know for sure I'd buy one.
How does this benefit the company? Beyond the players?
-
The ability to change your race is extremely popular in the games they are available in. Let me use FFXIV as an example. Fantasias are definitely one of their hottest sellers and that item is basically PSO2's Salon Pass with the ability to change your race. It gets sold a lot. I've seen a player go through ten in a month or others once a month. These are priced at around 10 USD.
-
A happier playerbase with more customization abilities for their main character means they would definitely generate a higher income in the long-run. Player happiness definitely helps player loyalty.
Overall, I firmly believe that implementing a feature like this would be very beneficial to Sega, Microsoft, and the players.
Please consider it!