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Overflow Bag bug has returned

jaysearjaysear Member Posts: 7 Arc User
With the latest patch introducing the 100 items limit to the Overflow Bag, the bug has returned that won't let any rewards packs be opened while there are items in the Overflow Bag. Until this is resolved we cannot reduce the number of items in our Overflow Bag properly.
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  • crypticspartan#0627 crypticspartan Member Posts: 847 Cryptic Developer
    Yes. It is intentional that you cannot open rewardpacks with 100 items in your overflow bag. If you could, it would defeat the purpose of inventory slots. The only time this could potentially cause an issue is if literally every single item in your inventory is a rewardpack. If that is the case, discard one, do not change maps, open a different one, and then retrieve the one from your retrieve tab of your inventory before changing maps.
  • jaysearjaysear Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    I since proved to myself that I COULD open items on characters with less than 100 items and now understand the message of error. Thank you! :-)
  • crypticspartan#0627 crypticspartan Member Posts: 847 Cryptic Developer
    Glad to hear it!
  • lopequillopequil Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    That isn't the bug I remember! I thought the issue was that if a DOFF got into your overflow bag you couldn't take it out even if you did have space in the roster. I still get that when I open an admiralty DOFF reward box while there are twenty passengers aboard; all I can do with the poor unfortunate in my overflow bag is discard them.
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  • crypticspartan#0627 crypticspartan Member Posts: 847 Cryptic Developer
    lopequil wrote: »
    That isn't the bug I remember! I thought the issue was that if a DOFF got into your overflow bag you couldn't take it out even if you did have space in the roster. I still get that when I open an admiralty DOFF reward box while there are twenty passengers aboard; all I can do with the poor unfortunate in my overflow bag is discard them.

    While that is a largely unrelated issue, it appears that the the "Take All" button is functioning in this case, despite the "Take" button not working.
  • lopequillopequil Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    So if I have two or more DOFFs in the overflow I can retrieve them all? That's good to know, makes the problem infinitely less bothersome.
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  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Yes. It is intentional that you cannot open rewardpacks with 100 items in your overflow bag.

    What's with this, then?

    "Resolved an issue which was forcing players to empty out the Overflow bag when attempting to open a pack in the inventory."

    http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1214411/tribble-maintenance-and-release-notes-april-19-2016

    ... Because that's the issue that seems to be back.

    In any case, my overflow bag surely has well over 100 items in it... (67 "equipment requisition" boxes for every 1005 marks).... and more items than I have inventory slots. Even if this "discard-and-reclaim" thing works... not sure I have time for that, for all my 'toons, before I can play them again.... and then on an ongoing basis as well...


    If you could, it would defeat the purpose of inventory slots.

    What, exactly, is the purpose of inventory slots? Seems like they've been serving their purpose for several years now.



  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Seriously, are you going to fix this?

    I "turned in" a doff Commendation Rank, as I'd earned enough experience to rank up. It turned into a "box" of some sort in my overflow bag. I took it out of the overflow bag, and tried to open it, and it wouldn't open -- because there was stuff in the overflow bag (i.e., useless junk that's accumulated over a long time… that I have no interest in sorting through).

    So I "discarded" this faux-box, hoping that if I did the "turn in" with space in my inventory, it would work. But… now it's apparently completely gone. The entry under "In Progress"/"Ready To Turn In" is not there. So there doesn't seem to be a way to actually claim that commendation rank any more (or the purple doff that should go with it).

    If you're going to have stuff that should not be "boxes" -- like marks or any of the various leveling ranks -- actually be "boxes" behind-the-scenes, then you need to allow them to open regardless of the status of the overflow box. Others have pointed this out as well.

    What you had until recently was annoying, but at least it was workable: As long as there's an open inventory slot, these things would open (and vanish). (The open slot shouldn't have been needed, but really, these things should never have been inventory boxes in the first place…) The inventory was still limited to encourage people to buy more slots… and the overflow bag kept you from losing important rewards.

    And now I find that a T6 ship that I *BOUGHT* comes in a "reward pack" that can't be opened! Are you kidding me?

    You're only going to drive away players with this kind of nuttery….
  • uryenserellonturyenserellont Member Posts: 858 Arc User
    My overflow bags have way fewer than 100 items and two of my characters can't open reward boxes.

    I also have duplicates of a lot of inventory including unique items like shard of possibilities, and unique doffs.
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    A whole bunch of unexplained doffs have shown up in my overflow bags, actually. I think it's different for different 'toons -- some have 2, others have two dozen (or so). Either way, I don't recall doffs ever going through the overflow bags in the first place(*), and none of those are doffs I was expecting from anything.

    Plus some unique item duplicates, indeed. I see discussion about that from the last few months, but I haven't read through it (… another way I /don't/ want to spend my gaming time).

    I know it takes Cryptic a long time to fix bugs sometimes…. but it would be nice to know if I'm /ever/ going to be able to open things like mark boxes, (purchased) ship boxes, commendation rank advances, etc….

    I don't even see this issue listed under "Known Issues" in the latest release notes….
    .
    .
    .
    (*) That's a good example of where limited inventory slots "served their purpose" previously: Duty officer assignments that produced more inventory (or doffs) simply wouldn't complete if your inventory (or doff roster) was full, and you couldn't do any more projects until you cleared things out. No risk of losing things if you can't take them immediately, it gets easier the more inventory you buy, and, notably, these things are /actual inventory/, not levels, points, currency, etc.….. It's still annoying grind, but at least it was tractable.
    Post edited by manjusriyamantak on
  • wisecasperwisecasper Member Posts: 176 Arc User
    edited June 2016
    I had an overflow bag bug too. I collected the Class F Shuttle that started the bag with its non-com pet i then dry-docked a number of ships finishing with the one that had my best stuff on after getting new ships on promotion. After using the recycle button to clear my inventory I was left with an overflow bag that would not open and i tried bringing the ship back from dry dock, changing instances, logging out and back in again, resizing the game window to grid snap any offscreen menus all of which did not work. Fortunately closing the game down completely and re-loading fixed the problem but i was definitely starting to get nervous.

    The problem is that I have 7 Plasmatic Biomatter beam arrays that i spent a fortune on omega particles and 2x upgrade accelerators to get the 15% quality improvement chanve to bring them from MK II to MK IV that I was lucky enough for two to become ultra rare. But now all 7 are MK IV vary rare. The items that kept their quality i had equipped on my shuttlecraft and so were no longer equipped on the ship at the time of drydocking. I got one back to Ultra upgrading from mk iv to vi
    Post edited by wisecasper on
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    @Wisecasper
    Non-faction Ship Bridge Collector and Junk Hauler with alt-itis

    Contact in-game to add your fleet to a casual, friendly Armada
  • sgtfloydpepper#7911 sgtfloydpepper Member Posts: 1,111 Arc User
    Yeah, shuttle pets ALWAYS seem to end up in the overflow bag for some reason. I have two stuck in there on one of my toons and can't open it up to empty it.
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  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Well, what I'm seeing apparently isn't a bug. It's "expected" -- though dramatically changed -- behavior.

    Since there was no response from crypticspartan to clarify the above release note, I wound up having a *long* back-and-forth with Cryptic's support, with many attempts at diversion, and they eventually confirmed that you can no longer access Zen Store purchased ships if your overflow bag has items in it.

    I was able to "unpack" and access these ships as recently as March, even though my overflow bags were just as full as they've pretty much always been.

    Now, that access has been revoked. Despite their promises that I would "always" have access to purchased ships.

    I'm not sure if they understand that I *can't* empty my overflow bags at this point -- wouldn't be able to even if I wanted to -- when I can't open *any* "reward packs" without somehow removing them all. Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad sportsmanship. When it involves money and a purchase agreement, it becomes fraud.

    Of course, if I'd realized that I wouldn't be able to access these ships, obviously I wouldn’t have bought them in the first place. (For that matter, I wouldn't have played the game at all, as the same apparently applies to ships rewarded from the various events and such…. No point in doing the upcoming summer event if I'm not going to be able to access whatever the ship is going to be.)

    The failure message even gives away their hypocrisy: "[RewardPackOpenFailure] Unable to open reward packs with items in your overflow bag." Well, Zen Store ships aren't "reward packs." They're "virtual" items that have been purchased (with a roster separate from inventory). So. Again, that's fraud.

    Makes me wonder how the numbers actually work out, though. Do they make more $$ from selling "inventory" slots forced by making it a PITA and/or impossible to manage, than they would make by selling more expensive/valuable things like ships if the game were easier/less of a grind to play, and they could be trusted when they say such things will "always" be available?
  • sgtfloydpepper#7911 sgtfloydpepper Member Posts: 1,111 Arc User
    edited June 2016
    What's really stupid here, is that things are going to overflow even when inventory is empty and then when you want to retrieve items from the overflow, it won't open. THAT'S the bug in the programming. If your inventory has tons of room, stuff shouldn't be going into the overflow bag.



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  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Well, people are reporting a number of bugs that seem to be coming and going, but the core problem -- the thing that makes the game impossible to play for me, and really too much of a grind to bother with anyway -- is apparently an *intentional* design change: They're counting a lot of things that aren't inventory (e.g., marks, doffs, ships) as inventory, and then not letting you actually open those "reward" boxes to clear out that "inventory." So you wind up stuck. (and pissed off)

    It's this comment, which is apparently an attempt to get people to buy inventory slots… but at the cost of 1) trust; and 2) the ability to play the game at all beyond a certain point:
    Yes. It is intentional that you cannot open rewardpacks with 100 items in your overflow bag. If you could, it would defeat the purpose of inventory slots.
  • cklibcklib Member Posts: 188 Arc User
    What usually helps is to completely exit the game client, restart and directly log into the character affected with items stuck in the Overflow Bag. As soon as you're logged in and the map has loaded, open and empty the Overflow Bag as your first action.

    It seems to only work for the first character you log into after the game client was started. Subsequent switching of characters will see the Overflow Bag not opening again.
  • quantum42#9720 quantum42 Member Posts: 128 Arc User
    Oh nononono, please I beg the devs do not return DOFF to me again with this expansion. Took me hours to sort
    that mess when the skill system changed and i found my overflow bag full of DOFF i had gotten rid of over many
    months of tracking down "Officer Exchange" DOFF assignments in the Alpha Quadrant.
    While it is slightly beneficial to be able to exchange those (bound) DOFFs a second time and get yet
    more fleet credits for grinding them down if you want to return something...i bought 15 fleet ship modules for 3 toons,
    return that EC if you must return something,,,just please keep the DOFFs in nirvana.

    That skill revamp patch was my first big STO patch and i'm suddenly having nightmares of having to sort through
    tons and tons of DOFFS in my overflow bag every time there is a major patch :(
  • sammiefightersammiefighter Member Posts: 51 Arc User
    Yes. It is intentional that you cannot open rewardpacks with 100 items in your overflow bag. If you could, it would defeat the purpose of inventory slots. The only time this could potentially cause an issue is if literally every single item in your inventory is a rewardpack. If that is the case, discard one, do not change maps, open a different one, and then retrieve the one from your retrieve tab of your inventory before changing maps.

    @crypticspartan#0627

    Sorry your solution is faulty, please re-test. Reward packs (reputation boxes) did *NOT* go in the replicator, they were -destroyed-. Mark boxes cannot be discarded. Many non-value items are also destroyed if people try to do this with items.

    Also if you crash. Poof all gone goes the replicator storage.

    Luckily we were testing this on PTS, so nothing of value was destroyed. (And yes we did crash well testing it)

    Next 'solution' please?
    Reward packs only open to inventory not overload?
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Reward packs only open to inventory not overload?

    It seems like they've changed many reward packs so they can't be retrieved to overflow -- e.g., doffs, Admiralty, the Summer Fest marks that you buy with birds and monkeys. But there are some that can't be treated like that -- if you don't retrieve them, you lose them. E.g., rewards at the end of an STF and similar.

    Problem with the Summer Fest Marks? You can't even discard them. If you buy them, you're stuck with them in your inventory. If your inventory fills up with them, even crypticspartan's proposed solution wouldn't work in the most ideal case. You'd be completely stuck and screwed. (Good to know other boxes are destroyed, not held in the replicator, though!)

    All these should go directly to the currency tab where they belong, when they're acquired, if they're going to suddenly tighten all the inventory/overflow rules. (Then people won't be able to hoard them for mark bonus weekends, I guess. Maybe they'd think that's a good thing.)

    And you should be able to open things like reputation "reward" boxes, so the item that comes out replaces the box it came from in your inventory. Preventing that just because you have stuff in your overflow? Certainly doesn't have anything to do with the overflow bag itself. It's just being … Well, no idea about anyone else, but it certain doesn't encourage me to buy inventory or anything else….
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    @sammiefighter, did you get any answer to this?

    I did.

    They flat out told me to discard these hard-earned, unopened reward packs. Just throw them away.

    That's the only way I can keep playing the game with their rule change, and they think that's okay.
  • breadandcircusesbreadandcircuses Member Posts: 2,355 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    Yes. It is intentional that you cannot open rewardpacks with 100 items in your overflow bag. If you could, it would defeat the purpose of inventory slots. The only time this could potentially cause an issue is if literally every single item in your inventory is a rewardpack. If that is the case, discard one, do not change maps, open a different one, and then retrieve the one from your retrieve tab of your inventory before changing maps.

    It can also be an issue if your Vouchers or other large-quantity stacks land in your Overflow; the limit is per item, not item slot, so if you have a character with a couple days' worth of Vouchers in there fish those out first in order to shake things loose. Prisoners can be a pain in the aft with this too, but can be Discarded directly from your Overflow if you have too many in your Brig.
    @sammiefighter, did you get any answer to this?

    I did.

    They flat out told me to discard these hard-earned, unopened reward packs. Just throw them away.

    That's the only way I can keep playing the game with their rule change, and they think that's okay.

    Alternatives:
    • Mail unbound items to yourself, by sending them as Attachments to your own @handle; this includes the R&D crates, which can then be opened by another character.
    • Post unbound items on the Exchange, at prices nobody will pay if you want temporary storage and at reasonable prices if you want EC's; this includes R&D crates, though Mark crates are BtC.
    • Store bound items/equipment on inactive BOffs or ships, as applicable; BOffs are accessible via your status window, and ships are accessible via the Ship Selector NPCs.
    • Store/Transfer unbound items using your Fleet Bank, if you have access. This should be done with caution; unless a given Fleet Bank tab belongs to you (or otherwise has restricted access), items may be considered a contribution to your Fleet and given to (or used by) Fleetmates.
    • Store/Transfer unbound and BtA items using your Account Bank; this requires having available Account Bank slots, of course, and does not work with BtC items.
    Post edited by breadandcircuses on
    Ym9x9Ji.png
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    I do not like Geko ether.
    iconians wrote: »
    With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.​​
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    Alternatives:

    Appreciate the suggestions. Unfortunately, even if reputation system "reward packs" were the only BtC items that I had… I still wouldn't have enough inventory to hold the many hundreds that have accumulated over time, in order to be able to open them with this recent rule change. And Cryptic doesn't care.

    As an additional note, while I got into this situation because they changed the rules without notice or opportunity to account for the change, there's nothing to keep others from getting into it in the future, because you can still collect reputation system projects when your inventory is full, and the boxes will just go into the overflow bag ad infinitum. That differs from, e.g., the DOFF system, where you can't collect an assignment if you don't have the inventory space for it.

    Post edited by manjusriyamantak on
  • breadandcircusesbreadandcircuses Member Posts: 2,355 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    Alternatives:

    Appreciate the suggestions. Unfortunately, even if reputation system "reward packs" were the only BtC items that I had… I still wouldn't have enough inventory to hold the many hundreds that have accumulated over time, in order to be able to open them with this recent rule change. And Cryptic doesn't care.

    As an additional note, while I got into this situation because they changed the rules without notice or opportunity to account for the change, there's nothing to keep others from getting into it in the future, because you can still collect reputation system projects when your inventory is full, and the boxes will just go into the overflow bag ad infinitum. That differs from, e.g., the DOFF system, where you can't collect an assignment if you don't have the inventory space for it.

    Yeah, some stuff just ends up impossible to sort out without discarding; that's probably intentional, since they really do want players buying Inventory slots and cleaning their Overflow on occasion (since that can lead to a lot of wasted storage when spread across the whole playerbase). I know I had a bunch of TRIBBLE stored up, and simply cut back on which characters I played when the Skill Revamp + Overflow hit, simply because I couldn't be bothered to deal with sorting out all my characters. Eventually I got around to dealing with them, but that was in prep for one of the Events and was (fortunately) right before the 100 Item limit.

    With the change, you're pretty much stuck with deleting some of you Overflow if you managed to exceed 100 BtC items. Clear out everything else possible first (especially item stacks), then choose Marks (Rep Mark crates, preferably ones without the Daily Bonus) or EC's (Rep Gear crates) to start deleting (personally, I'd pass on Marks; given current DilEx rates and the Infinity Lock Box impact, you can probably afford nicer things faster with more EC's) until you get down below 100 items. It sucks to lose out that way, but the change is pretty well set in stone (much like the Exchange posting and Mail Attachment limits).
    Ym9x9Ji.png
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    I do not like Geko ether.
    iconians wrote: »
    With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.​​
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    Yeah, some stuff just ends up impossible to sort out without discarding

    Well, it wasn't impossible in March -- the last time I opened a Zen store ship. This sudden rule change does seem intentional, I agree, but in a way that amounts of fraud, as I've said earlier.

    So, no, I'm not going to discard anything. I'm going to stop playing if they won't fix their behavior. I don't want to get burned again.

    You know, it's kind of like grieving a lost lover. It sucks at first, but after a little bit, you realize that there's no option but to pick up and move on. With apologies to George Bernard Shaw -- it "consists of overestimating the difference between one game and another."
  • darknessmutadarknessmuta Member Posts: 187 Arc User
    @crypticspartan#0627 To be honest Marks and things like Ships should be able to be opened no matter how much you have as I was bugged on my main character not knowing the issue and due to running the Crystalline Enemy event filled up my half empty inventory with crafting event reward boxes thinking a bug fix was coming so now essentially my main character that I have played for many years is stuck in an unplayable fashion and I know at the time of the bug I had nowhere near 100 items in my overflow but thanks to the bug now it is probably over that mark with a full inventory too. You would think they would want to keep players around that have played and paid for items in this game for years as these sort of bugs with no reasonable fix really need to be looked at and resolved.
  • sammiefightersammiefighter Member Posts: 51 Arc User
    @sammiefighter, did you get any answer to this?

    Not a word, though haven't checked with a lot of people who don't post/read here.. This post is the only place I've even seen the bug is official.
    Can I say I'm not surprised tough? Thought this would be the case when the patch months ago started filling up peoples inventories/overflow with stuff. Now they're effectively trapped, no space to put stuff, can't open cause they played during flood making it worse.

    Not even a proper job to post in patch notes months ago (people still think is bug) or other threads, or edit warn the "solution" destroys items. Rather shamefull

    @breadandcircuses: Thanks for the list, the R&D bag alot of people might not remember as it is prize box.
  • manjusriyamantakmanjusriyamantak Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    @darknessmuta, totally agree, as have others. @crypticspartan and the rest should take note, but probably won't.

    @sammiefighter, yeah, I'm not surprised either.

    The most irritating thing was that their support staff kept echoing back to me, "inventory management is the responsibility of the player" -- completely denying responsibility and the fact that it was their rule change that left me stuck and unable to manage any inventory, let alone play.

    (Then they decided that because I allowed -- nevermind the "was able, without issue" and "couldn't avoid" parts -- so many reputation system reward packs to accumulate, I was playing the game "improperly.")

    Just drives home the point of how unethical and untrustworthy of a company they are.

    Games are supposed to be fun. This is not fun. Uninstalled.
  • shurkhemolightshurkhemolight Member Posts: 399 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    Not being able to open paid for and claimed z-store ship boxes?, am i hearing this right.?

    I just tested this on my second temporal toon, discharging a ship then reclaiming the box, after relogging and opening the overflow bag which gets locked shut as soon as i zone if i dont open it immediately the ship box indeed opened.

    I normally "never" have toons with an overflow bag option present, such is my micromanagement character, however in my haste to level these two i let it happen.

    Lucky for you Cryptic, after our Dyson catastrophe had i found that i couldn't both open my overflow at all, and that i couldn't "claim paid for ships", well it's not fit to type here.

    I completely believe these people after the personal shafting i got in my own right over ships, but this.?

    The point that was driven home to me personally by a developer was that the "only" thing your entitled to when you buy a ship is a ship, thats all, it doesn't "have to work/function", i know hard to believe, but yea.

    Be advised folks, if you buy a ship and it doesn't work, you are not entitled to get it fixed, "or" get a refund.

    Now if you buy a ship, you aren't even entitled to the ship?, because of a bug?.

    Whats going to happen here is people are going to be told to "delete" veteran mains in order to get around this sorry excuse for an inventory issue, then reclaim legacy items on those new toons, lol.

    Take the gd overflow bag out of the game entirely if your not qualified to maintain your own code.
  • shurkhemolightshurkhemolight Member Posts: 399 Arc User
    cklib wrote: »
    What usually helps is to completely exit the game client, restart and directly log into the character affected with items stuck in the Overflow Bag. As soon as you're logged in and the map has loaded, open and empty the Overflow Bag as your first action.

    It seems to only work for the first character you log into after the game client was started. Subsequent switching of characters will see the Overflow Bag not opening again.

    Tyvm for this info btw, i was getting high blood pressure wondering if i was ever going to get into these two toons overflows, thank you again.

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