Companion Recycling

merilee

Please give us a mechanic to either trade in or decommission Companions. I have a character I bought companions for that I plan to delete to clear a slot. Those companions will have to be deleted and lost as well and that's unfortunate. More importantly, and a better reason for providing some means to trade in or recycle companions is the Simril Event. Those of us who have been around for a few years and have done the event a few times are getting duplicates of the mounts and companions. Getting a companion or mount as a gift at Simril is thrilling. All those endorphins flooding our bloodstream when the message pops. Then the realization, "Oh, I have that one already" and we're crestfallen. The Simril event loses it's lusted. However, if there were a mechanic for trading in duplicate companions and mounts, such events would be forever fun and isn't that what we all really want ~ to have a fresh and happy event year after year?

rafaelda

I think any Companion should be Bound on Account, he could get his level back to 1 i dont care...
but don't put your hopes on that... i dont believe it will come

lirithiel

rafaelda said:

I think any Companion should be Bound on Account, he could get his level back to 1 i dont care...
but don't put your hopes on that... i dont believe it will come

Actually, in an AMA earlier this year the dev responded to a question about companions being sent to alts, saying this was something they were aware of and could look at implementing in the future. Whether it comes about is another story but it would be a nice QoL feature.

mattachine

I don't mind if we have to pay a small fee to be able to change a bound to character item to bind to account. But in all fairness, no drops should be bound to character. They should all be bound to account until equipped. Then they can become bound to that character and if we want to use it on our other toon, we pay the feel to turn it back in to account bound.

merilee

Thanks for the replies to all of you I like the ideas of Binding to Account, even paying a small AD fee to release a Bound item/companion/mount from Character to Account. I am frustrated by the BoPu of items, especially in events like the Summer Festival, where those of us who have played for years now have no incentive whatsoever to participate.

My original design for this post was to point to the Simril Event, which I absolutely love. I have several characters with duplicate companions because I earned or paid for one then got another as a drop from Simril. The Simril is BoPu, so I am stuck with it. Bind on Pickup makes sense for somethings, but I think it's being over-used probably to control the AD economy.

evemj

A lot of games offer the ability to buy tokens which allow us to unbind items in order to trade them away or send them to other chars.
I wouldn't mind paying to unbind from char to BtA, even if the item would bind to the next char that equips it (which would require me to pay again to unbind *wink wink money money wink wink*).

urlord283

yes bound to account.... please

imathil

The original intent as posted way back in the beginning was that you could level companions and then unbind them and sell them. That was quickly reneged in like the first month of game play. People reported it as a bug because you couldn't unbind them, the devs hemmed and hawed then said while we may have said unbinding companions was a feature we have decided not to allow you to do that. Permanently binding to account, like Underdark rings, would be a nice compromise.

meirami

Why not just buy a new character slot? Surely that is a better option than deleting a character you're already invested in just to get a new slot.

putzboy78

BOA would be a huge step toward making the game account friendly. We already have BOA 2 slot rings and weapons. The gap currently is in mounts, artifacts, and companions. Then we could go back to switching mains from time to time.

merilee

meirami said:

Why not just buy a new character slot? Surely that is a better option than deleting a character you're already invested in just to get a new slot.

I already have 16 character slots. The issue, as I see it, is one of customer appreciation. The notion of binding a prize in an annual event to character on pick up is counter productive in that it leaves no incentive whatsoever for me (or players like me) to repeat the event from year to year.

A "buy back" or "exchange" mechanism would resolve the issue nicely, show support for the players/customers, encourage repeat participation, and most importantly increase players actually playing the game, which after all, is the standard corporate rationale for almost every recent change in this game.

Additionally, to date, I have been happy to support Cryptic/PWI buy spending real money for game items and upgrades, but the spate of changes that have diminished the value of additional character slots has dimmed my eagerness to support. Leadership was designed to generate AD, that was working as intended, but not in a way to promote zen sales, so that was axed. An integral part of Invoking was AD from day one. That was altered then axed. So many changes rushing players to endgame and driving us towards the grind all with the express purpose of getting people to play. But "play" is defined only as grind. You notice they never make it harder to level up and thus increase play time, rather they keep piling on more and more xp. No, given this mindset, I won't give more real money to these companies, so more character slots isn't something I'll do.

silverkelt

I have 47 and they went on sale twice this year for dirt cheap pittance of nothing zen.

Are you actually telling me its worthwhile deleting this toon for the slot? there is not another 15 other ones you cant delete instead?

If nothing else, if I "sit" a toon for a bit, its leadership ability and weekly quest AD potential, is well worth me keeping them.

emilemo

silver why do you get so worked up over the deleting of a char notion when the real focus should be on the other point. You know, the recycling of companions point. It'd be nice if the game showed me some appreciation in the form of a buy back option for companions or making them BoA. Its not like Id be asking something for free, I already have the cars Im just asking Cryptic to share the goddam garage. I have at least one toon I dont play with legendary+epic companions so let me scrap those for AD or let me share those with my other toons. This will not make me spend less money on the game, hell, it will probably encourage me to spend more since Id be a happy customer. Not a hard to grasp concept is it?

ghoulz66

Nothing sucks more than having one of the lockbox companions and having to choose who to bind it to....

beckylunatic

ghoulz66 said:

Nothing sucks more than having one of the lockbox companions and having to choose who to bind it to....

Or binding items, and then not having those entries filled out in collections of alts you made later....

nameexpired

merilee said:

The notion of binding a prize in an annual event to character on pick up is counter productive in that it leaves no incentive whatsoever for me (or players like me) to repeat the event from year to year.

I do not understand you there. You got the pet on your most loved toon A last year. Due to some changes your most loved toon A fell from grace and now you would like to transfer a pet from A to your current love, toon B.
To get the pet on toon B you have to wait for a special event and acquire it there.

For me this exactly what you say it is not - an incentive to repeat an event from year to year.