Ok BW, ENOUGH with the missions for companion gifts. For cryin out loud Hesus H. Cristos! Every single toon with underworld trading, every single mission is for companion gifts. Enough is enough. No one gives a rats @%& about companion gifts! And yet they accound for 50% of underworld trading...and I think "treasure hunting" too...and slicing...is now almost completely worthless.

 

These are crew professions not the local Hallmark shop. Having to leave and return from my ship every single time I want to send a companion on a crew mission is a bit much, especially when that mission could fail or come back with something I don't want or need.

 

Come on, change/fix this please.

its not a bug. its to reduce the number of times the mission you actually want to appear. if for example you take scavenging and you only send out metal missions then eventually less and less metal missions will appear and only have the compounds and crafting material ones to appear.

 

you need to diversify the missions you send out. if you alternate between the companion gifts and whatever trade item you want then it will never be completely filled with gifts.

 

since you mentioned underworld trade if you are going for just UT Metals then you will notice CGs and UT Fabrics to appear more, and vice versa if you ran just UT Fabrics

Having to leave and return from my ship every single time I want to send a companion on a crew mission is a bit much, especially when that mission could fail or come back with something I don't want or need.

 

You do realize that you can send your companions out from anywhere don't you? Just click on the ship icon on the companion icon or press N (default key anyway) to bring up the crew skills window.

 

I am always sending out my companions in between fights and such.

I do companion gift runs constantly. I don't swap companions out too often (I prefer Mako's heals over anyone else) so I use them to build the others affection stats. I could also mail some to an alt and save him some affection leveling time (if that's allowed). I do get frustrated when I can't get the right material from a mission but I don't make crafting my priority. It's secondary.

You do realize that you can send your companions out from anywhere don't you? Just click on the ship icon on the companion icon or press N (default key anyway) to bring up the crew skills window.

 

I am always sending out my companions in between fights and such.

 

You missed what I was trying to say. Going form planet/station to ship reset the crew missions available. So if I only got 1 metal mission out of 8 or so, I could send one pet on that one, go to my ship, pull up the missions again and another would be available, metal mission that is. It's just a way to get around the "you have no choice but to get companions gifts" problem. I send me pets from anywhere, like you said, already do that, it's the mission selection that just sucks. And the only way around it is going onto and leaving the ship constantly.

 

Point is, I don't care about companion gifts. I have 3 underworld traders, and when all 3 have nothing but companion gifts as options, that just sucks. In a way, it doesn't make sense too. If I'm sending a pet to do something, logically, it's with a purpose and there would be an objective to achieve, and that is to get the underworld metals that you can't get any other way. Conversely, you can get companion gifts from other profs. IE: slicing, treasure hunting etc etc. With 3 UW traders, 3 treasure hunters, and a slicer, I have plenty of companion gifts to go around, I don't want more.

Conversely, you can get companion gifts from other profs. IE: slicing, treasure hunting etc etc. With 3 UW traders, 3 treasure hunters, and a slicer, I have plenty of companion gifts to go around, I don't want more.

 

Slicing can get you companion gifts? Since when?

 

Also, if you don't want to zone back and forth (I take forever to load planets) you can always send one companion on a 3 minute tier 1 mission. When they return, it resets your whole list. It's not ideal, and I agree the current system is badly designed, but it is what it is.

Poor design is poor. I've never seen anything so frustrating before. It's not "interesting" or "fun" it's not even "boring." It's "REALLY REALLY FRUSTRATING."

There are only so many underworld metals/luxary fabrics/experimental compound missions available. You're not supposed to be able to be able to have all 5 companions out collecting the same type of resource at once. While, with a bit of trickery, you can do just that, that's not the design intent.

There are only so many underworld metals/luxary fabrics/experimental compound missions available. You're not supposed to be able to be able to have all 5 companions out collecting the same type of resource at once. While, with a bit of trickery, you can do just that, that's not the design intent.

 

If I can't craft because I can never get my materials because they are always full of Companion Gifts mission then what is the point.

 

Spend a half hour or more logging back and forth resetting the missions to fianally get a moderate or (Gasp) abundant metal mission.

 

I have an Armormech that needs the metal missions.

 

I have a Cybertech that needs the metal missions.

 

I have a Synthweaver that uses Luxury Fabrics missions, which are much more available than metal missions, but also needs metal missions.

 

I have never once with any (I am maxed on all crafting and gathering skills) used a single Companion Gift or Lockbox etc.. to craft any type or form of item.

 

The Companion Gifts missions need a nerf sledge hammer to put things in perspective. 4 or 5 of 5 missions being Companion Gifts missions is all too normal a sight for the selection of missions to send a Companion on.

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/5CompanionGiftsAgain16.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/MrFngCmpnGfts1001.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGfts124.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGfts60.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGfts97.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGfts145.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGfts83.jpg

 

http://myimages.bravenet.com/362/328/420/9/EvnMrCmpnGft63.jpg

 

Shows just a super, very small, sample of what it is like every time you open gathering skills to run mission options.

 

Covers pretty well all of the, UT, TH, Diplomacy, and Investigation.

 

Logging off and on for half an hour to an hour to get a moderate run for 2 pieces, or for another 200 credits or so an abundant run for 4 pieces, the cost effectiveness is horrendous, and the lack of pretty much never being able to get the needed artifact items (metals, compounds, med supplies, gems) means you can not make the artifact items for either sale or for personal use.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Esproc

its not a bug. its to reduce the number of times the mission you actually want to appear. if for example you take scavenging and you only send out metal missions then eventually less and less metal missions will appear and only have the compounds and crafting material ones to appear.

 

you need to diversify the missions you send out. if you alternate between the companion gifts and whatever trade item you want then it will never be completely filled with gifts.

 

since you mentioned underworld trade if you are going for just UT Metals then you will notice CGs and UT Fabrics to appear more, and vice versa if you ran just UT Fabrics

 

 

I do not find this to be true. If one were to step in and out of their ship, the desired missions will pop regardless of how many of any mission one has run in the past. I've also done a test round running only companion gifts and found the return rate to remain steady. In short, this did not diminish the number of companion gifts available at any time.

 

The overall return rate for companion gifts is 3.15 to 1 over underworld metals. In many cases when I was testing this, there would be 4 companion gifst and one fabric mission returned with no underworld metal missions at all.

There are only so many underworld metals/luxary fabrics/experimental compound missions available. You're not supposed to be able to be able to have all 5 companions out collecting the same type of resource at once. While, with a bit of trickery, you can do just that, that's not the design intent.

 

Please explain why. What would be the intent? This is a question that I would pose to the dev team. In attempting to understand why one would postulate such a theory, I can find no logical reason to do so while formulating many a reason to the contrary.

I often have 5 out of 5 available missions being nothing but gifts for UT. And when I play the relog slot machine game . . . I get five more gift missions. I have not seen other mission skills being quite so plagued by gift missions as UT.

 

And there is no "economic" reason that we should not be able to dispatch five companions on any particular type of mission we want, any time, all the time. The economic sourcing and sinking of items through crafting is completely controlled through three variables the developers can alter at will: (1) time to run for each mission; (2) credit cost for each mission; and (3) mission yield. If "too many" units of a particular mat are entering the game, they can just ramp up the credit and time cost to run high yield missions for that material and *poof* problem solved.

 

Similarly, there is no reason for there to be only "moderate" yield missions and no bountiful or rich for certain categories of materials, like the level 2 power crystals. They're perfectly free to make the rich missions cost as much as they want in credits and time; even to cost more per unit than moderate yield ones; but there is no reason we can't have five missions spread across all the yield categories, for each tier and type of material, that we can choose from at any time. Two moderate, One abundant, One Bountiful, and One Rich would work just fine.

 

The only thing that a crippled and restricted mission roster does is make crafting a boring, frustrating, tedious chore, where most of your time is spent on idiotic kludges like ship-hopping or constant relogging trying to get the mission dispatch slot machine to give you what you want.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Heezdedjim

The only thing that a crippled and restricted mission roster does is make crafting a boring, frustrating, tedious chore, where most of your time is spent on idiotic kludges like ship-hopping or constant relogging trying to get the mission dispatch slot machine to give you what you want.

 

Exactly so. Boring to the point of logging out, sometimes just falling asleep in my chair to fianlly wake up and just play Solitaire, Minesweeper, Mahjong, or FreeCell, because I can't stand to bore myself to death again with the roulette table loaded with Companion gifts.

Whilst it wouldn't address the underlying issue, which is the ratio of gift missions, it would improve the interface if we could filter to hide certain mission types (and not have to do it every time we log in).

 

I have no issue occasionally running UT luxury fabric missions as opposed to metals, as I need both. But I don't need or want to run companion gift missions on certain characters (particularly if all of their comps are at max affection and I'm low on cargo space/GTN orders). And tbh I don't want to see them either, it adds to the time wasted just scrolling through them to read. Same thing for light/dark side missions on characters that are maxed either side, or pursuing a particular alignment.

You guys do realize that gifts increase your companions' affection and thereby combat effectiveness, efficiency, chance of crits, etc...? Not to mention story development. Why would you not want that? I do gift missions almost exclusively until they are rank 6 affection.

Yeah, I'm actually working on maxing all my companions' affection right now, so I'm glad when my Treasure Hunting window has 3 companion gifts missions...

I only send out for Companion Gifts right now (farming affection points) and I only ever have 1-2 of them available at any given time. The game does seem to try and prevent targeted farming via crew missions by reducing the number of missions available for whatever result you are focusing on. Not sure if this is real or confirmation bias though, as I don't have actual hard data to compare.

The companion gifts are just fillers. They are there to keep the number of mats missions that can be run at any time down and so regulate the supply of purple mats.

 

The one thing that I don't get is that the companion gifts always sell and since they are so prevalent, I am not sure who is buying them.

Gifts do have their uses and with legacy there is more incentive for non-crafters to max out affection so there is even a reasonable demand on my server for them.

 

The original poster is correct however, there are just far too many gift missions. I constantly run gifts while doing operations and rarely does it trend towards fabrics or metals.

 

One you have maxed out your own affection, there is an annoyance factor to there being so many. We're not here to be annoyed?

I turn a good profit selling companion gifts. The purples sell quick for 8000 to 10000.

It is called scarcity of materials. The easier it is to get materials the less value they have. Now I know that a lot of you would love that, so would everyone else and that's the problem - if you get more materials everyone else does too. Keeping those missions "difficult" to get makes the materials worth more. That is unless you want to spend 2000+ credits for items that will sell for 10 each or crafted items from those materials that will sell for 100?

 

To the person who asked why the devs cannot just adjust the variables involved and allow us to pick and choose which missions we want to run.

 

Just thinking about what would be involved in that is mind boggling. Having to watch EVERY SERVER and EVERY MATERIAL on that server and then modify the credit cost and/or the time to generate the materials is a MASSIVE undertaking. Furthermore, you think people are unhappy now, just think about what would happen if one particular mission cost was jacked up to 10,000 credits and took six hours to complete because everyone and their mother have been running that mission.

 

Instead they went with a fixed cost, slightly variable time (with efficiency bonuses and affection) and randomness of missions. And while many players play the "mission slot machine" to get the missions they want, they are still a minority; most players just suck it up and do a companion gift mission and wait. This serves the additional purpose of acting as a credit sink.

 

At least with this system you can "gather" materials without having to actually do anything. Would you prefer a Wow-like system where you have to go out into the world and gather EVERYTHING you need?

The companion gifts are just fillers. They are there to keep the number of mats missions that can be run at any time down and so regulate the supply of purple mats.

 

The one thing that I don't get is that the companion gifts always sell and since they are so prevalent, I am not sure who is buying them.

 

They sell to gatherers who don't have mission skills, or non crafters, I guess.

 

I've run a lot of gift missions in the last few weeks, as I've been collecting modable schematics for Underworld Trading, getting some of my collection, buying some on GTN, and selling the duplicates. Gift missions are twice as fast as other missions (twice as many chances for schematics), cheaper, and using the gifts increases crit chance and crafting/mission speed. What's not to like?