02/11/2015

Housekeeping Woes

One thing that has been bugging me about KotFE is that logging into any alt for the first time since 4.0 feels like a considerable chore. I did sort of allude to having inventory problems in my first impressions post - sadly that hasn't remained a singular occurrence.

I think the biggest problem have been the heaps of companion gear that I received on every character. Players did ask, what with companion gear becoming purely cosmetic, if it would be possible to get back some of those original outfits that each companion comes with. Some of them look pretty good, but obviously a lot of players had discarded them in favour of something with higher stats over time - after all stats were what mattered for the past four years. It's nice of Bioware that they decided to fulfil this player request; I just wish that it had been optional somehow, or something we could deal with on our own time by pressing a button when we were ready.

As it stands, every single one of my characters had her inventory filled with companion gear, whether she wanted any of it or not. (Plus there was that problem with characters taking their trousers off and putting them in my bags for some reason - some even decided to get completely naked; don't ask me why!) So if I wanted my bag space back, I kind of had to prioritise figuring out my companions' outfits or at least whether I was interested in any of their old gear before doing anything else. I actually enjoy that kind of busywork sometimes, but not when it's forced on me while all I want to do is go do the new missions! It wasn't even done properly either, as I got some rather... odd mails in some cases, with gear for companions that I didn't even have as well as duplicates of other pieces.

It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and in a few weeks I'm sure we'll all have forgotten about it, but at the moment it's really rather annoying. Two weeks in and I still haven't sorted all my alts out. It's not hard for me to imagine a returning player taking one look at the mess in their bags and mailbox and going "screw this nonsense" before logging right off again.

Oh, and did I mention that all my characters who are crafters had to spend several hundred thousand credits on training a whole new set of level 1-65 schematics?

At least our specialisations didn't get reset for once - just the utility points, and those aren't too tough to re-assign quickly.

11 comments :

  1. I haven't gotten my gear out from my mailbox yet but am running into storage issues from the legacy gear from the purple boxes. I plan on equipping my companion horde with those once I get complete sets!

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    1. Oh yeah, I have a whole other post drafted up about that...

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  2. Yeah, I think this is a case of 'cave canem.' I sure was excited to get all that comp gear back ... and then I got all of it back and went WTF. Still, better to have options, I suppose.

    As for the crafting, I have cleverly stayed away from all of that because I only take gathering profs (Slicing/Scav) and Diplomacy. Do I gimp my end-game content by doing so? Sure! Do I plan on doing end-game content? Hell naw.

    In the business, that's what we call a win-win-WIN.

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    1. Many of my alts don't have crafting skills either, and those that do aren't in it for the money. I just like creating things... sometimes.

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  3. I had the inventory nightmare issue, and not realising what was going on I sold all the stuff so I could start questing - I'd logged my Trooper on at first and had my droid out so just assumed no gear was necessary. Then I swapped to my Consular and started the first instance and realised that, yes, Qyzen was tanking like a boss in his boxer shorts! I'd sold all the gear in my bags but was able to summon a mailbot and get him geared in something from the mailed items - that was a real life-saver!

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    1. That's another good point, if you didn't read the forums you wouldn't really have known what was going on there.

      Also, I like how you call being able to gear Qyzen a life-saver... true, he would have performed just as fine in his boxers these days, but who wants to watch a near-naked Trandoshan all day? :D

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  4. Google decided to eat my first attempt. :sigh:

    I finally decided to visit all my alts that had companions and clean up their mailboxes and inventories. The sad thing is that many of my alts had only ever used a single companion. Everyone else was in their 'starter' gear.

    My only character that is still holding gear is my main. She had finished chapter 9 before getting the new/old gear. That gear is currently sitting in her inventory as I don't want to recall the missing companions. I want to meet them as part of the natural progression of the story going forward. (I'm a part of a podcast so I like to do things as close to what Bioware intends, story-wise, for my prime characters. I find it can give me a better handle on the impact of the story.)

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    1. I have sort of been holding back on calling back the missing companions on my main for the same reason; I'm just wondering whether they will all come back at all? I vaguely seem to recall Bioware saying that not all companions will return as part of the new story... kind of annoying not to know.

      Which podcast are you on? :D

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    2. I'm on Star Wars: Beyond the Stars ( obligatory link: http://www.starwarsbeyond.com/ ). I'm Pallais the Janitor there. :chuckle:

      I have no problem if you never heard us or we're not your cup of tea. The variety of swtor podcasts shows, to me, the health of the swtor community. :)

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    3. Ooh, I do know Beyond the Stars; it's right there in the podcast box on my sidebar. I just have to admit that I haven't listed to it in quite a while... I always find podcasts hard to keep up with, as each episode requires 30+ minutes of my time, compared to the 5 minutes or so I need to read a blog post. But now I feel like I really need to check in on that one again soon! :P

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    4. Oops, I didn't scroll that far down on the sidebar to see the podcasts.

      Fair enough on the listening time. I'm at a desk most of the day so podcasts and music help pass the time. Plus surfing the web is monitored (I work for the US Federal gov't.) so I tend to stick to things that are work related.

      Lastly, feedback is always welcome for the podcast! There's always room for improvement. :)

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