So the Hireling Contract Folders are still a complete waste of DDOPoints then!?!

[FranOhmsford]

EDIT: Main Issue fixed - Seems locked hirelings need unlocking first

BUT leaving the post up due to the other issues I have with these folders....







OK So I took a chance!

I bought the Large Hireling Contracts Folder for ONE Character at a cost of 395 TP {not a small amount!}.

1. The Hireling Folders are BTC not BTA! {Yes this is shown on the store but that's not the issue - THEY SHOULD BE BTA!}

2. You still can't use a hireling without actually taking it out of the folder in the first place - Which makes the folder pretty pointless!

3. I have 2 Owlbear Whistles, 2 Panthers, 2 Scarecrows taking up 6 Inventory or Bank spaces and these are BtC hirelings, I can't put them in the Account Bank but even if I could that would just take up 6 slots in said account bank rather than in character inventory or character bank!


The Hireling Folders need to be re-coded retroactively as BtA AS AN ABSOLUTE MINIMUM!

[shadowspeaker]

Unlock your hires.

[Valerianus]

something's off, i have those special hirelings (scarecrow, that sharn thing, and the like) into my folder.

stupid question, are those contracts locked in your inventory? locked contracts will not move into hire folder.

[FranOhmsford]

Unlock your hires.

something's off, i have those special hirelings (scarecrow, that sharn thing, and the like) into my folder.

stupid question, are those contracts locked in your inventory? locked contracts will not move into hire folder.

Lol - That's that complaint sorted then

Bit strange that they can't go in the folder if locked but ok.

The rest of the complaint still stands though....

- 395tp PER CHARACTER is insanely expensive! - These Folders should be BtA allowing us to transfer special hirelings between characters! THEN we can get rid of all the spares!

[Enoach]

...

3. I have 2 Owlbear Whistles, 2 Panthers, 2 Scarecrows taking up 6 Inventory or Bank spaces and these are BtC hirelings, I can't put them in the Account Bank but even if I could that would just take up 6 slots in said account bank rather than in character inventory or character bank!
THESE CANNOT GO INTO THE HIRELINGS FOLDERS!

...

These can go into the folder but not if they are locked. I believe if you attempt to put one in that is locked, you will get a message as such, similar to if you try to put any locked item in a bag.

I also know they do go in because I have a few characters that I have this on that have them all in the binder.

[Enoach]

L...

The rest of the complaint still stands though....

- 395tp PER CHARACTER is insanely expensive! - These Folders should be BtA allowing us to transfer special hirelings between characters! THEN we can get rid of all the spares!

Well these hires are BtC, I believe the "starter cleric" is BtA but that is because you only get one.

395tp per character is actually reasonable to save 9 inventory slots. That is the equivalent of 1,600 Favor.

[Drekisen]

Dedicate one of your hot bars to your hireling folder and hireling contracts, for the perms you can take them out, summon, and put them right back in the bag. For the non perms you can at least hover over the contract in your hot bar to see how much time they have left, you can only use one regular hireling at a time anyways, and unless you are DD'ing back to the entrance to summon multiple different types throughout the course of the quest or buying armies of GS's from the store, you are only losing one inventory slot.

[FranOhmsford]

Well these hires are BtC, I believe the "starter cleric" is BtA but that is because you only get one.

395tp per character is actually reasonable to save 9 inventory slots. That is the equivalent of 1,600 Favor.

Reasonable?

We pay extra to get these hirelings in the first place with the Expansions {I don't think they come with the basic expansions right?}.

OK So the Alabaster Lioness was Free but really HOW Free when it's adding to your need for a 395 tp hireling folder?

Then the Devs want us to pay another 395tp PER CHARACTER to save on inventory/bank space?


Also 1600 favour isn't a trivial amount in the first place BUT you're ignoring everything else even VIPs have to buy in DDO - Inventory tabs, Bank Tabs, Shared Bank etc. etc.


As for them being BtC - The Devs have had problems in the past with BtA Bags allowing players to transfer BtC items through the shared bank - Knowing this can actually happen why can't they make it a thing for these Hireling folders so players can clear BtC special hirelings out of their alts inventories and banks?

[FranOhmsford]

Dedicate one of your hot bars to your hireling folder and hireling contracts, for the perms you can take them out, summon, and put them right back in the bag. For the non perms you can at least hover over the contract in your hot bar to see how much time they have left, you can only use one regular hireling at a time anyways, and unless you are DD'ing back to the entrance to summon multiple different types throughout the course of the quest or buying armies of GS's from the store, you are only losing one inventory slot.

I only CARRY one regular hireling at a time!

It takes a few seconds to run to the Hireling vendors in the Harbour, Marketplace, House K or Eveningstar - I have no need to carry multiple Hirelings unless I'm running a Store Bought or AS Bought Rogue to do traps!

These special hirelings however are always there! And it's not like there's just one or two of them anymore - I have a minimum of 6 on every character {2 scarecrows, 2 cats, 2 owlbears!}.

I can't afford to spend 395 tp on every single character on top of buying inv tabs, bank tabs etc. for each! Most of them don't even have ALL the Inv and Bank tabs yet!

Frankly I rarely use the perms because being fighter hirelings most of them are pretty useless.
But throwing them away is a permanent thing and I never know when having one of the right level will come in handy!

[Annex]

My three main characters each carry a 20 slot hireling folder, loaded with various healers, a few damage dealers for point defense when running multiple accounts, and Mikhail the Pious, just in case I need a Dimension Door on someone who cannot inherently cast it. My memory often fails me so having a bunch if hirelings handy saves me the need to leave a quest, buy one, and restart. On my seven other characters, none of whom carry a hireling folder, this happens rather often. For me, those contact folders continue to provide very good value.

While some of my accounts have the permanent Eleri Thistledown contract, none have the very expensive Owlbears, Robots, or Scarecrows. The permanent contracts for Eleri stay in the bank because I am afraid of accidentally deleting one while unlocked. If I owned one or more of those others, I would leave them locked in an inventory slot or the bank. I bubblehead way too often to risk such an expensive item by leaving it unlocked, if only for a few moments. I have zapped things that way before and will invariably do it again. Losing all that inventory space to locked contacts would suck so I very much empathize with that complaint.

In a perfect universe, all permanent Gold Seal Hirelings would become feats. While feats sometimes go missing during a character reset, sometimes inventory items go missing as well and I am much more likely to accidentally delete an unlocked contract. If all permanent Gold Seal Hireling contracts were Bound to Account and auto-granted to every character these problems would not exist.

If you are wondering, "How the heck does she manage to delete stuff like that?", I can provide two examples. A Bargain of Blood, Chains of Flame, and The Chamber of Raiyum all leave a useless item in inventory. On more than one occasion I dragged such an item out of my inventory only to realize I zapped the wrong thing. Less commonly, my bags fill up and I need to destroy a few items to make space. Again, on more than one occasion I zapped the wrong thing.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

It would be nice if the Contract Folder was BTA, yes.
It could collect all contracts from all characters in it, then. Assumed they would stack, especially the permanent ones.
Exploit of that would be to build a small army consisting of permanent hirelings.

[FranOhmsford]

Exploit of that would be to build a small army consisting of permanent hirelings.

1. You can't use two of the same hireling in a quest.

2. You can't use Hirelings in Raids anyway so at most you could have 5 hirelings in a quest which many players have done before anyway with Gold Seals.

3. Only a very few non Cleric/FvS/Bard/Rogue hirelings are of any use whatsoever unless you're a Warforged Wizard who wants some repairs from Arcane Hirelings and you're probably still better off getting a Cleric with DV for the extra Spell Points most of the time.

4. The Panther, Owlbear and Scarecrow have awful DPS! They can be decent Tanks in Normal or Hard content but DPS wise they're a joke!

5. Only at Lvl 18 are you really likely to be able to call two decent special hirelings at the same time - The Lvl 17 Owlbear and the Lvl 18 Panther/Lioness - These are all worthless to a Lvl 25 player who can call the Lvl 25 Owlbear whilst the Lvl 25 Owlbear is pointless next to the Lvl 30 Scarecrow.

[taurolyon1]

I agree the hireling folder should be BtA.

I would also like to add the size is pitiful. I plan to do several more TRs, and I grab several hirelings at a time, expecting to use them further down the line. I bought the huge folder (595DP), but 20 slots simply isn't enough, considering the 2x shield guardians, 2x scarecrows, lioness, panther, Elieri - I only have 13 slots to bring support for 30 levels.

[iamsamoth0]

thanks for all the insights.