About companions being accountwide and design flaw/ solution propose.

Gingatsu

I think that there is a design flaw for the companions and this needs to be addressed or a solution needs to be found, because the way it is now, its not good.
Thing is, it turned out that companions are account wide and not per character, I can live with that, its ok some people do not want to level up their companions separately I get it.

But the way the companions are right now impairs the interaction of the player with the companion. Better to say, if you are a person who has more than 1 character to play, then the same companion appears after you do the quest for it. (Although I find it unnecessarily bothersome, if the companion is account wide why do we need to repeat the quest over and over again if we already have done it? Please don't tell me fluff etc. then every companion should be character based not account based in this case)

The logic behind this search of solution is that we use the same companions different on our other characters and hence they do vary on their role, the supportive need of the companion changes also. But imagine my disappointment when I summoned Miri on my second character where I wanted to use her as an archer DPS just to see that she has the healer items on her and the skill set.

Therefore I thought that ZOS might do some changes to this so that we as players could have this problem solved. Because as it is now, it is a problem and a big hassle.

This has nothing to do anything about ESO Plus or inventory space stuff. Its rather about practicality.

The reasoning behind this is simple; The companions are designed to be a help during our ventures, so they need to be flexible to our situational needs and the situational needs or the needs between our multiple characters change. I mean I do not need a healer for my Dragon Knight tank, or my Warden Healer but rather a DPS. But totally would need a healer on my DPS character.

So my solution offer is like this;
ZOS can give the companions 3 'armor' (like in the outfit menu) slots so we can put the necessary gear there and every time we log in with another character, we can simply open the menu and click the needed option. This way we would not need to carry all the gear we want to put on them, the companions can be changed very fast according to situations and it would be a great help.

I think the way it is now is impairing the game play, because we can't vary with the situation or with our alts and every single time I want to change the setting I need to carry lots of items in my inventory just to gear him/her up and use it.

I know that this is not a big work to do, I am in game development industry myself and this is just a couple line of code to be written down. Actually you don't even need to write new code because there is already the code for the outfit menu. You can use the code line for the outfit menu, but instead the change of look, you change the active gear.

The Developers and management of ZOS really should take this into consideration. We are buying your product to have fun, you are already getting enough money from different purchases, there is no need to make the life harder on us just for some ESO Plus stuff.

Like I said, this has nothing to do with the inventory issue, its a matter of practicality and if the companions are account wide (which they are) then we need some solutions to get over with this practical problem. Otherwise please turn the companions Character based, hence we have to do the quest line every single time when we want to get the companion for our other characters, so leveling them is no real big hassle actually (except some folks that find it a hassle which actually can be solved pretty easily again got some solutions for them too).

Dark_Lord_Kuro

This problem will most likely be solved as more companion will be added**
Right now i use mirri as a healer and bastian as a mag dps and plan to make the next one a tank


**if the system is built uppon not like morrowind pet skin system**

Also the way its done rigth now is better
If you want to multi task a companion you need 3-4 companion armor set but idf it was character base anyone with more than 4 character will need to farm that much armor set
Right now i have 18 character and would need to farm 18 armor set

ADarklore

Just think... if they weren't account wide... we'd have to level each of the guilds separately per character, we'd have to level each of them individually per character, we'd have to grind separate gear for each of them... it would be an absolute nightmare!! Some people would rather go through that horrible grind per character, then take less than a minute, to swap out gear and skills on their companion. NO THANKS.

Gingatsu

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

This problem will most likely be solved as more companion will be added**
Right now i use mirri as a healer and bastian as a mag dps and plan to make the next one a tank


**if the system is built uppon not like morrowind pet skin system**

Also the way its done rigth now is better
If you want to multi task a companion you need 3-4 companion armor set but idf it was character base anyone with more than 4 character will need to farm that much armor set
Right now i have 18 character and would need to farm 18 armor set

What I tried to say was actually if the characters are account wide, then they should at least implement the multi armor menu like the outfit menu. You can choose from there which gear you want for your companion, and change their skillset according to it.

This way as you mentioned you have about 18 characters and you need to keep a set of gear on each character to suit your need individually. This means actually that you have to grind more gear than the solution of 3 armor menu for the characters.

Keeping the companions character based might be a bad idea I agree to that. But in this case if the companion stays account wide, the simplest solution to the gear matter is as proposed don't you agree?

Gingatsu

ADarklore wrote: »

Just think... if they weren't account wide... we'd have to level each of the guilds separately per character, we'd have to level each of them individually per character, we'd have to grind separate gear for each of them... it would be an absolute nightmare!! Some people would rather go through that horrible grind per character, then take less than a minute, to swap out gear and skills on their companion. NO THANKS.

Ok I do agree that keeping the companions character based would be a mistake, just on the base it would take time. On the other hand there is not much to do anyway. But nevertheless I agree on that point.

My propose was though if we keep the companions accountwide, ZOS should at least give us the possibility to change the gear of the companions like in the outfit menu. In Example; You got the Armor slot 1, Armor slot 2 and Armor slot 3. So people can put there the tanking, dps and healing armor as they see fit and can change the setting of the companion depending on the situation. The way it is now, you need to carry the items on your character separately and every time you change a character and the need of the companions role change too so you need to dawdle around unnecessarily. If you are playing with 'only' one character, I cant say much but I already have 9 characters and they all have different support needs. This was what I actually wanted to explain.

SerafinaWaterstar

Think the easiest solution would be for companions to carry their own gear....

Alurria

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Think the easiest solution would be for companions to carry their own gear....

I agree with this they should carry their own gear and I would love for them to be able to craft their own. Of course the player would control that but how cool would it be if there were special nodes the companions could collect and then be used to craft gear for themselves. Anyway, they should carry their own gear I am not a pack mule lol

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Gingatsu wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

This problem will most likely be solved as more companion will be added**
Right now i use mirri as a healer and bastian as a mag dps and plan to make the next one a tank


**if the system is built uppon not like morrowind pet skin system**

Also the way its done rigth now is better
If you want to multi task a companion you need 3-4 companion armor set but idf it was character base anyone with more than 4 character will need to farm that much armor set
Right now i have 18 character and would need to farm 18 armor set

What I tried to say was actually if the characters are account wide, then they should at least implement the multi armor menu like the outfit menu. You can choose from there which gear you want for your companion, and change their skillset according to it.

This way as you mentioned you have about 18 characters and you need to keep a set of gear on each character to suit your need individually. This means actually that you have to grind more gear than the solution of 3 armor menu for the characters.

Keeping the companions character based might be a bad idea I agree to that. But in this case if the companion stays account wide, the simplest solution to the gear matter is as proposed don't you agree?

Sure a gear switch trought a outfit styled menu would be nice

danno8

People have been asking for a "loadout" option for their own characters since forever. It would be funny if companions got that option before we did.

I'm for it, of course. In SWTOR you can switch your companion from DPS to healer to tank with one click (they did away with their companion gear grind years ago) no reason ESO can't do the same.

Chaos2088

There are going to be more companions. Hence why there are account bound. They want you to get the others when they come.

ADarklore

Chaos2088 wrote: »

There are going to be more companions. Hence why there are account bound. They want you to get the others when they come.

This would also make sense... currently I have Mirri as healer and Bastian as ranged DPS. Add other companions, and I could have a Tank companion and melee DPS.

MasterSpatula

Their Experience is account-wide, but their Rapport is not. Why on God's green Earth would their loadout be?

If I set up Bastion as a healer on my DPS, that doesn't mean I want him as a healer on my healer. It's outright preposterous for fundamentally different characters to have exactly the same retainer.

Jeremy

Gingatsu wrote: »

I think that there is a design flaw for the companions and this needs to be adressed or a solution needs to be found, because the way it is now, its not good.
Thing is, it turned out that companions are accountwide and not per character, which I think is a bad choice of design because lets say in the case of Mirri, I would choose her as healer for some of my characters but as dps to my other characters. I just gave the example of Mirri because I have played with her most. I thought we could have different setups with our alts but the way it is now I can't do that because the companion is build up for another character as healer and I can't carry her dps or tank items in my inventory every single time and change her gear every time to just adjust to the momentary need. And why does it take space from our inventory?

So my solution offer is like this;
ZOS can give the companions 3 'armor' (like in the outfit menu) slots so we can put there the gear and every time we log in with another character, we can simply open the menu and click the needed option. This way we would not need to carry all the gear we want to put on them, the companions can be changed very fast according to situations this would be a great help.

I think the way it is now it impairing the gameplay because we can't vary with situation or with our alts and every single time I want to change the setting I need to carry lots of items in my inventory just to gear him/her up and use it. I know that this is not a big work to do, I am in game development industry myself and this is just a couple line of code to be written down. Actually you don't even need to write new code because there is already the code for the outfit menu. You can use the code line for the outfit menu but instead the change of look, you change the active gear.

A lot of players are going to be switching their companion roles around while playing the same character also. So I see this as a separate issue from having them account-wide (which was a very good decision IMHO).

Giving them their own inventory would be a solution. They could also increase bank size, release more storage chests, give more bag upgrades etc. Because what you are describing is essentially an inventory space problem, which is something players have been complaining about on here for years. I suspect the reason they don't address it is because one of the major draws of subscribing to ESO plus is for the extra inventory space.

jle30303

Basically: From what I hear, companions make lousy tanks. They just don't stand up to the hits from anything that you actually need to tank (I guess they can manage trash okay). They're mainly useful as a fairly minor support character.

So basically, you want either (1) damage dealing, or (2) healing.

So set one of them up as a generic DD, and set the other up as a generic healer, and switch between companions rather than switching between companion gear and setup...?

ivelbob

I like OP's suggestion of having different loadouts for the Companions that you can select from a dropdown. And the gear in those loadouts is stored there.

It'll be a hassle to unequip Mirri each time you log off so that your next char can re-equip her with the gear needed for her spec. (If she is Healer for one char and DPS for another for example.)

skepticck

MasterSpatula wrote: »

If I set up Bastion as a healer on my DPS, that doesn't mean I want him as a healer on my healer. It's outright preposterous for fundamentally different characters to have exactly the same retainer.

Exactly i want mirri as a bow dps on one character and as a healer on another, every time i change her gear and skills on one char it changes on every char, this is beyond stupid design.