Please give us Release Tokens for Companions!!

rainmantis85 · May 2014

I could really use the ability to rethink my Companion options. Sadly, I purchased a number of Companions prior to the Active Bonus patch being instituted. Now that they have active bonuses I realize that many of my purchases were not bound to the Characters that could best utilize the Active Bonuses. I think that this should be something that should have been handled similarly to new paragon path patches that grant players beyond the level in which they select their paragon path a free retraining token in order to re-think their choices made when they didn't know any better. Before Active Bonuses I purchased companions based on what they did and how that could benefit my strategy. Afterwards, however, I see no other rational approach other than which active bonuses work best with which Characters and how you play with them.

If you wont make a release token available for purchase on the zen market so companions can be un-bound and transferred to another, better suited character, you should allow companions bought prior to the Active Bonus Patch coming to date to be unbound if the player so chooses to do so.

I don't know if the Devs frequent this forum, but I wanted to send out a feeler and see how many others were in the same boat as I am. Whether it be companions purchased before of after the patch, I think these "release" tokens would be big sellers in the zen market. Yay or nay?

melodywhr · May 2014

unbinding companions has been a frequent topic on the forums for a few reasons. it apparently was something that was tested in early development and remnants of the coding remained during open beta and beyond which made some people think that it was going to be a future option, however it was later revealed during a dev Q&A that unbinding companions was not something they plan on incorporating into neverwinter.

arcmoon99 · May 2014

As Melodywhr stated, it most likely won't happen. It will probably hurt Cryptic right in the income when you see all these zen companions drop in price significantly and all other companions will as well. Causing the AD price for them to drop.

What I would want to see that would be realistic is to make your companions account bound. I want to delete two of my characters, but one of them has an Ioun stone and the other has a Phoera and unless I want to lose these companions forever I'm forced to keep these characters.

melodywhr · May 2014

they later reduced the pricing on all companions which softened the blow, so to speak. my first ioun stone of allure cost more than they go for now. ah the memories.

ambisinisterr · May 2014

Even making companions account bound can cause massive reductions in companion costs as any feature which allows you to transfer companions from a character you no longer wish to play invariably allows you to transfer it is less severe situations.

Which means that if you have the patience to spend 5 minutes transferring companions you will not need or want to purchase companions as often.

Honestly I would like to see one or two other features instead:

1. The ability to reclaim Zen Items (including lockbox mounts and companions) that are on a deleted character and those items should be BoA until equipped. This will basically prevent any abuse while allowing players the option to move on to other characters without feeling like they will be throwing away money.

2. Allow playerd to make companions BoA for a fee of, say, $5. Not 500 Zen. $5. This would be an option to make changes but is not a decision which could be made lightly or without consequence.

ghoulz66 · May 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

Even making companions account bound can cause massive reductions in companion costs as any feature which allows you to transfer companions from a character you no longer wish to play invariably allows you to transfer it is less severe situations.

Which means that if you have the patience to spend 5 minutes transferring companions you will not need or want to purchase companions as often.

Honestly I would like to see one or two other features instead:

1. The ability to reclaim Zen Items (including lockbox mounts and companions) that are on a deleted character and those items should be BoA until equipped. This will basically prevent any abuse while allowing players the option to move on to other characters without feeling like they will be throwing away money.

2. Allow playerd to make companions BoA for a fee of, say, $5. Not 500 Zen. $5. This would be an option to make changes but is not a decision which could be made lightly or without consequence.

I'd feel encouraged to buy more companions if you could make em BoA with a purchasable token(permanently though, cause I still want to upgrade them which is a massive AD sink). The inability to choose what to get and to who is preventing me from getting them all in the first place. I'd like to try a ghost, or that, or this, but I can't because I don't know if I would regret giving it to a toon that I might give up on or put on a dusty shelf.

ambisinisterr · May 2014

You would feel more encouraged to buy them once.

I have purchased 3 I on Stones and a few other companions multiples times mainly because I can't transfer them.

They do not want you to purchase a companion once to have access to it on all of your characters.
Sorry but that request is just not really something they are willing to do which is why you can not transfer companions and will not be able to.

loboguild · May 2014

I think where people might feel screwed is when major balancing changes force them to completely revamp their character.

This is really a scenario where a free respec should go with a free unbind as well.

ghoulz66 · May 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

You would feel more encouraged to buy them once.

Once is better than zero. Much better...

xnordicx · May 2014

They could make a zen item that would unlock your companion one time
and make it boe for lets say 600zen that way they would still make money on it
and we would not have all them companions doing nothing on characters we dont play.

iambecks1 · May 2014

Doubt they will let players swap companions about , they are too much of a money maker especially now that active bonus applies in open pvp , one good new feature is they are giving us a new way to level up companions other than AD ( no idea how you earn the upgrade tokens yet though)

melodywhr · May 2014

of course, this far into the game there's the other side of the coin to consider. think about all the players that have bought multiples of the same companions for alts only to have them reverse their decision to not allow companions to be unbound or to make the account bound.

if the current way companions are offered doesn't work for you, that's okay. between potential investors and current investors, perhaps the aftermath of no change is a better business decision in the long run.

elusiveonen7 · May 2014

melodywhr wrote: »

of course, this far into the game there's the other side of the coin to consider. think about all the players that have bought multiples of the same companions for alts only to have them reverse their decision to not allow companions to be unbound or to make the account bound.

if the current way companions are offered doesn't work for you, that's okay. between potential investors and current investors, perhaps the aftermath of no change is a better business decision in the long run.

I can only speak for myself, but I have already purchased Ioun stones for a few characters and I will likely continue to. However, I would rather Cryptic get on with making this game better instead of keeping bad design in, just because of some past purchases. Would I have a right to be mad every time Cryptic discounts a item that I've previously paid full price for? What about when all of the companions saw a price slash not long ago?

barq3t · May 2014

How about 1 month (!) cooldown before moving companion again? This will prevent from swaping them over and over, and will be awesome for people who have chars they no longer use (for example because after so many nerfs their class became pretty usless in pve)

melodywhr · May 2014

i never said that every person that's invested in multiples of the same companions would be upset about a change. and some people do get upset when something goes on sale. some things are unavoidable, unfortunately.

making companions account bound would mean that they would have to be able to be unbound since in order to use a companion, it is a binding process.

however this entire thread is like a hail mary pass since PWE's already stated that unbinding characters isn't something they want to do.

ghoulz66 · May 2014

I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult just to create a pricey token that makes them account bound.

rashylewizz · May 2014

Nah.

Do I deserve a full refund based on my 1995 box set television because I didn't see the same company making LCD TVs?

Nope. Neither do you

ambisinisterr · May 2014

ghoulz66 wrote: »

I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult just to create a pricey token that makes them account bound.

It probably isn't.

Thing is it has already been stated as something they do not intend to do.
This is not a standard topic that all you have to do is ask. This is a topic they already made their minds up not to do.

Just saying you want it or that it can be done will not make them reconsider that decision.

bucklittle · May 2014

Mod 3 is going to drastically change how important companions are and how players use them. Rethinking there previous stance is something very likely.

Gearing up r8/9/10 and greater/perfects is reasonable on multiple characters because they can be swapped, sold, and replaced. It isn't realistic for players that have multiple characters geared for PvP to get all the companions they need on multiple characters. This game is already P2W enough, it means companions will either be drastically nerfed in PvP or they won't be character bound anymore.

giggliato · May 2014

bucklittle wrote: »

Mod 3 is going to drastically change how important companions are and how players use them. Rethinking there previous stance is something very likely.

Gearing up r8/9/10 and greater/perfects is reasonable on multiple characters because they can be swapped, sold, and replaced. It isn't realistic for players that have multiple characters geared for PvP to get all the companions they need on multiple characters. This game is already P2W enough, it means companions will either be drastically nerfed in PvP or they won't be character bound anymore.

What they should do is just unbind all companions across the server and place them all in a new account companion tab on the tab bar. Then we can do the new mix and match across our characters. Rebinding tokens would be nice but if the devs think that will hurt their revenue stream it's unlikely.

I can't imagine the casual players of this game are collecting multiple companions across their multiple characters though, so the devs are and have been catering to their hardcore base???

Please give us Release Tokens for Companions!!

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