History Main / AltItIs

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' can fall into this at times. Although it is possible to max out all skills, given time, choosing to buy more Soul Levels can put you out of the [=PvP=] range for most players. As such, some players make specific characters for specific themes: A pure STR based melee, a DEX based ninja, a FAI cleric, an INT caster and hybrids of these. That said, a well-balanced character can switch betwen giant axes, curved daggers, miracle talismans, sorcery catalysts and pyromancy flames with ease.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' series was ''born'' for this. Much of the appeal comes from taking its simplistic gameplay style and sprucing it up through constant character customization. Shifting between characters and character builds are a sure fire way to fall prey to the game's [[JustOneMoreLevel infamously addictive nature]].

* A strain of alt-itis develops in single-player games as well; {{RPG}}s like ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' or ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'', for instance. Or ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' or ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' or ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' or...

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' for the most part, has managed to subvert this better than most so far; each individual character can max out all available classes/professions/gathering levels with enough time. Crafting items stack up to '''999''' per slot and crystals are relegated to their own nigh-unlimited inventory and active time events, here called [=FATEs=], make leveling up without traditional questing actually possible. The only real reason to have an alt is having Specialists for different crafting classes, since they're limited to only three out of the eight craft classes, inventory space due to the growing amount of items in the game, or playing past the one-week clear limit for Savage raids, which is only necessitated for the most hardcore players. Even for Specialists, swapping specializations can be swapped by getting another Soul of the Crafter item, which can be obtained through trading in the unlimited-color Scrip that can be earned quite easily.

* This was a common complaint with ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. [[note]] With the game's unexpected closure, one of the first priorities for the fanbase was reactivating the character creation screen. Several fans declared that it was enough for them, even without the game itself![[/note]]
** Specifically, the superhero game allowed for a mixing-and-matching of primary and secondary powersets among their Archetypes that a player could create a ''small army'' of characters on just one [=AT=] alone with different powers among them. When the game added its ''City of Villains'' expansion with even more Archetypes, that multiplied the number of mixable powersets and playing styles. It is rare to meet a player on ''Heroes'' who does not have at least one build of each available Archetype.

Commonly witnessed in the online gaming community, symptoms of alt-itis usually include the creation of multiple 'alternate' characters in an online game. Alt-itis (sometimes referred to by sufferers as 'altoholism') occurs more frequently in games that provide large numbers of customization options, tempting a player to create a new character to see what odd combinations of skills, abilities and appearances he or she can discover.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** Both game systems encourage you to buy models that you like the look of, rather than their playstyle. This has resulted in several players simply buying a selection of models and then realizing that none of them can be used in the same army. Due to sunken costs, most players instead make minimally playable armies out of the models he has and purchasing the necessary HQ and troops to fill out the rest.
** With the advent of 7th Edition and Unbound Armies (basically armies that have no requirements beyond "no two of the same unique character") this is becoming less of an issue.
** Competitive players often juggle around most of the armies, as the meta always favours the newest one until the next book comes out (with very, very few exceptions. I'm looking at you Tyranids). This is because inevitably the newest army (in order to move products) would have the latest flavour of the month that has an ability so out of context that it will sweep most people in the first few tournaments. Veteran competitive players often own working armies of each of the factions in the setting. The Allies system of 6th Edition practically made this mandatory, as each army was designed with a flaw in mind but could be easily filled by another army. The best example was the Tau, who basically became the town bicycle when it came to ignoring cover and providing range support, and any army half-decent at close combat would be a good pairing for them (as the Tau is only above a grot in terms of melee prowess). Given that 1/4 of the turn is dedicated to melee, almost all armies could be paired with the Tau and work[[note]]This is because the Tau, as originally designed, was absolutely brutal in the shooting phase and couldn't do much outside of it; their only melee unit was the Kroot and they were, at best, a distraction as they had literally no armor and pisspoor guns. This means that any sort of competent melee unit, even the Assault Marines, would have been a great boon to the Tau since they could actually deal some damage. Using the ''actual melee-oriented units'' with Tau meant that the army was now dealing stupifying damage in every phase.[[/note]], unless they can't be allied to them.
** Because of the many ways to play some armies (Haemonculus Coven, Wych Cult, Goblin Army, any flavour of Empire Knights or Space Marine Chapter, Death Wing, Tomb King Chariot army, Chaos Cult Armies, Legion armies, etc...) many players will diverge into variants ''within their own faction''. A full goblin army plays very differently from an All-Savage Orc army, and likewise Ravenwing and Deathwing are pretty much the opposites (one is fast and hits hard, while another one can teleport in and hold the line) despite coming from the same book.
** Apocalypse is actually created for Warhammer 40K both to encourage the sales of rather obscure models (especially Forgeworld Models) as well as to get older players to dig out their full collection to play with. The game is large enough that most drawbacks are insignificant (normally you'd be afraid of your Grey Knights dying in droves, but that doesn't matter when most weapons can make ''tanks'' die in droves) and most overpowered stuff rather toned back (Abaddon is horrifyingly powerful in combat, but at the scale of Apocalypse he can't really move fast enough to kill most things). It was the precursor to the various expansions such as Formation Dataslates and Unbound Armies, which would slowly see this attitude bleed in to mainstream 40k.
** The Space Marine Codexes, after making each one stand alone and coming up with Chapter Tactics, ended up inverting this for many marine players; there is effectively 10 different (in-game) types of Space Marine armies, 11 if you count the Grey Knights (but they're excluded as they often have unique wargear normal space marines don't have) and 12 if you count the Chaos Space Marines. And very rarely do they have consistent rules between them. This meant that most Marine Players, and especially Dark Angel and Blood Angel players, would often paint up all their marines in one chapter's color scheme, but change rulesets and books whenever they wanted to field something different or if their book hasn't been updated in a while (Dark Angels suffered the worst of this in 4th and 6th edition, as their book were not given the new updates other marines got).
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. Oh god, Battletech. Setting aside the Canon unit list, which contains over 6000 units across 15 different unit types(warship, dropship, jumpship, small craft, aerospace fighter, VTOL, WiGE, tracked vehicle, hover vehicle, wheeled vehicle, Battlemech, protomech, Quadvee, Battle Armor, and infantry), there are build rules for all of them. Taking just mechs, there are two tech bases. Looking at only the Inner Sphere tech base, there are 7 different engine types, 5 different internal structure types, 7 different armor types, 4 different gyro types and 17 different weight choices. That's 16660 different possibilities, and we haven't even gotten to how fast the mech will be or what weapons it will carry. Taking those into account allows for literally billions of unique designs. To give some perspective on just how extensive this trope is spread in the game, the Thunderbolt is a 65 ton mech that's been in the game since the beginning. It has 26 different configurations across the game's eras.
* Invoked in the ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'' setting for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. When the setting debuted in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition, one of its selling points was its hyper-lethality, so players were instructed to not only begin play at a higher level than first, but also to create a small "stable" of characters to switch between for different scenarios or to easily replace a slain character.

[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has 7 classes with 19 sub-classes, hundreds of active skills with multiple times that for support gems and unique items, and a mind-bogging SkillTree containing over a thousand passive skills, so making new characters is unavoidable. Seasonal leagues also mandate this, since every league starts with a fresh economy and brand new game mechanics and content. Only a very small percentage of players play on the evergreen Standard league.

* One of the things that make ''VideoGame/DungeonsAndDragonsOnline: Eberron Unlimited'' so unique is the amazingly deep character customization available to the player. With 8 distinct races, 13 classes, and the ability to take up to three classes per character, there is so much variety from multiclassing, to [[PrestigeClass special enhancement]] dictated [[{{EliteTweak}} character pathing]] that some people who have been playing since headstart in March '06 have NEVER managed to level a character to cap.

* VideoGame/TeamFortress2:

** [=WoW=] caused Webcomic/PennyArcade to coin the term ''altoholism''. With tweld classes, twenty-three playable races (as of patch 8.3) split across two factions, three customization paths per class, and [[strike:ten]] [[UpToEleven eleven]] primary professions (of which any character can have two), many players have hit the limit of [[strike:18]] [[UpToEleven 11]] characters per realm (or worse, 50 per account). Some players never get a character to max level, preferring to constantly reroll instead. And then there are the players who own two, three, five, or sometimes even more accounts... and play them at the same time.

** ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' actually discourages this. At the maximum level, all classes have the same stats and abilities. The only thing differentiating two level 60 characters of the same class is their equipment and actively selected abilities. The only incentive to making another character of the same class is for achievements.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has 7 classes with 19 sub-classes, hundreds of active skills with multiple times that for support gems, and a mind-bogging SkillTree containing over a thousand passive skills, so making new characters is unavoidable. Seasonal leagues also mandate this, since every league starts with a fresh economy and brand new game mechanics and content. Only a very small percentage of players play on the evergreen Standard league.

* Extremely common on Website/{{Reddit}}. Many users will make "throwaway" accounts to use briefly for an embarrassing purpose such as answering an awkward question, some make multiple accounts to keeps different parts of their lives separate, and some make multiple accounts to dodge pre-existing bans or because the people running a given community dislike another community and won't let people in that other one use theirs.