permanent account bound gold seal hirelings!

[Wolfen719]

How about adding in some permanent account bound gold seal hirelings that when used are the same level as the character using them.

Your level 15 rogue uses one it becomes a level 15 hireling. You then transfer it to your level 7 cleric and it becomes a level 7 hireling.

This would probably cut into the profits made from people like me buying hirelings all the time and using quite a bit of DDO points doing it, but I'd be willing to pay 3000-5000 DDO points for each one of these types of hirelings.

No longer would I log into the game with a slight dread of never being able to find a group (well, not never) for what I want/need to run. I could log in and know that even if I can't find a group I can put together my own group and run those quests!

[Wolfen719]

I wanted to add to this some more...

Everyone has their own way of playing the game...some spend no money at all and others spend tons of money, but most people are somewhere in between. And among those that do spend money, how they spend the money will be different. For instance, me personally, no matter which game I'm playing, whether it's DDO or some other game, I do not like spending money on things that are not permanent and almost never do it... DDO is an exception with hirelings but even in this circumstance I very rarely spend money on hirelings.

In all the years I've been playing DDO (just 1 month recently..but years a long time ago before I took a break) I've purchased a rogue hireling maybe 70 times... I would think it's about 70 times, but certainly not much more than that. I am very stingy about it, I look at the quests I'm about to do and see if there are a lot of traps and then decide if I really "need" those traps disarmed...usually that's a no, but sometimes I do want them disarmed. So I use a gold seal hireling for this, because I almost always buy the in-game regular hireling cleric for healing.

Other classes I very rarely buy...I do on occasion buy other classes... usually a wizard or a sorcerer...sometimes maybe a fighter or a barb or a paly. But I probably buy them less in total combined than I do rogues.

FYI, I am talking here all gold seal!

So, in all my time playing DDO I might have spent 3500 DDO points total on gold seal hirelings.

If however there were permanent account bound hirelings of all the classes (maybe some classes have multiples for different spell combos for different situations) that when used were the same level as the character using them. I personally would spend 2000-5000 DDO points for each one. I'm the type of spender that would get most, if not all of the different classes (eventually...as that would be expensive) and it would finally convince me to purchase the hirelings folders as well.

Say you price a permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable rogue hireling at 5000 DDO point, the other classes essential at 100 times their current DDO point cost for the temporary ones (from 20 DDO points to 40 DDO points) so 2000 DDO points to 4000 DDO points for permanent ones. Right there you have how many classes? and how many variants? Maybe 20-25 potential permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable hirelings at an average of lets say 3500 DDO points comes out to 70,000 to 87,500 DDO points spent right there. Granted I would not buy ALL of them myself...I do try to be smart with my expenses but I certainly would buy at least 1 of most classes for the options depending on which quests I am running.

Compare that 70,000 DDO points to my spending already about 3500 DDO points and maybe adding another 1000 DDO points over the remainder of my playing time!

So financially speaking, this could be another way to generate income for the game. Of course I have no idea how much money other gamers spend on hirelings, I'm just going on assumptions here!

As for game mechanics and such...it certainly would not break anything in the game, as anyone can right now put together a full 6 man group with 5 gold seal hirelings (temporary)... and with the current game mechanics you can use gold seal hireling that are 2 levels higher than your current level. So permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable hirelings would not break or hurt anything in the game.

[rover223]

I wanted to add to this some more...

Everyone has their own way of playing the game...some spend no money at all and others spend tons of money, but most people are somewhere in between. And among those that do spend money, how they spend the money will be different. For instance, me personally, no matter which game I'm playing, whether it's DDO or some other game, I do not like spending money on things that are not permanent and almost never do it... DDO is an exception with hirelings but even in this circumstance I very rarely spend money on hirelings.

In all the years I've been playing DDO (just 1 month recently..but years a long time ago before I took a break) I've purchased a rogue hireling maybe 70 times... I would think it's about 70 times, but certainly not much more than that. I am very stingy about it, I look at the quests I'm about to do and see if there are a lot of traps and then decide if I really "need" those traps disarmed...usually that's a no, but sometimes I do want them disarmed. So I use a gold seal hireling for this, because I almost always buy the in-game regular hireling cleric for healing.

Other classes I very rarely buy...I do on occasion buy other classes... usually a wizard or a sorcerer...sometimes maybe a fighter or a barb or a paly. But I probably buy them less in total combined than I do rogues.

FYI, I am talking here all gold seal!

So, in all my time playing DDO I might have spent 3500 DDO points total on gold seal hirelings.

If however there were permanent account bound hirelings of all the classes (maybe some classes have multiples for different spell combos for different situations) that when used were the same level as the character using them. I personally would spend 2000-5000 DDO points for each one. I'm the type of spender that would get most, if not all of the different classes (eventually...as that would be expensive) and it would finally convince me to purchase the hirelings folders as well.

Say you price a permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable rogue hireling at 5000 DDO point, the other classes essential at 100 times their current DDO point cost for the temporary ones (from 20 DDO points to 40 DDO points) so 2000 DDO points to 4000 DDO points for permanent ones. Right there you have how many classes? and how many variants? Maybe 20-25 potential permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable hirelings at an average of lets say 3500 DDO points comes out to 70,000 to 87,500 DDO points spent right there. Granted I would not buy ALL of them myself...I do try to be smart with my expenses but I certainly would buy at least 1 of most classes for the options depending on which quests I am running.

Compare that 70,000 DDO points to my spending already about 3500 DDO points and maybe adding another 1000 DDO points over the remainder of my playing time!

So financially speaking, this could be another way to generate income for the game. Of course I have no idea how much money other gamers spend on hirelings, I'm just going on assumptions here!

As for game mechanics and such...it certainly would not break anything in the game, as anyone can right now put together a full 6 man group with 5 gold seal hirelings (temporary)... and with the current game mechanics you can use gold seal hireling that are 2 levels higher than your current level. So permanent account bound gold seal level adjustable hirelings would not break or hurt anything in the game.


I do like the idea of a permanent hireling that adjust level to the character that it is matched with. The current lions, or owlbears, satyrs, etc have a very limited lifespan. One corollary, only one of these per group at a time, otherwise a person could, in theory, stack a group with 5 hirelings which defeats the social aspect of the game.

[Wolfen719]

I do like the idea of a permanent hireling that adjust level to the character that it is matched with. The current lions, or owlbears, satyrs, etc have a very limited lifespan. One corollary, only one of these per group at a time, otherwise a person could, in theory, stack a group with 5 hirelings which defeats the social aspect of the game.

You can already stack 5 hirelings with the current system, and hirelings are not perfect... far from it as we all know. I just had a quest run ruined because my cleric hireling (just a normal one) was too stupid and stood in the trap and refused to move and died near the start of the run. So grouping with real people will always be far superior and preferred!

[Gljosh]

Personally, a hireling that levels with you would be AMAZING!

Or even a hireling with the ability to have some gear (Weapon, Off hand, and Armor).

So a Character based (Bound to character) hireling that works like the Druid/Aritificier pet would be fantastic.

This way when you TR it also resets.

It should definitely be expensive (high level of DDO points if not straight cash) given the amount of time investment and the power level.

Set them for basic character classes; Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, or Wizard.