Returning player, question

[Neofit 0]

Hello,

I've played in beta, then a few months after release. I came back after the change of ownership for a few months again. The marketplace says that my last purchase is from 2011, geez, I didn't think it was that long. Anyway, I downloaded the game again and am trying to figure out how the game works again. Anyway, while I am learning to walk again, I thought I'd ask a question.

My main issue with the game both times was inventory management, or more precisely the scarcity of storage space. The game allows me to craft anything. Of course that's what I'll do. But at the same time the itemization either in the original or the F2P-ish version did not really for that. There were too many variants of the same type of items, meats for instance, plus one had to store it for multiple tiers, and with the stack limits I ended up in storage hell.

Even though I did pay for max storage the second time around, I still needed to create 3 other mule characters in order to be able to keep mats I needed for crafting on my main. I then I realized that after every run doing missions in the wild, I was spending more time shuffling items between storage units and character than I actually spent adventuring.

I remember the same happening in LOTRO. Then I came back after a few years and they had re-itemized the game properly, combining multiple item types into a single one, and suddenly everything fit into my vault and I started thinking more about adventuring than storage.

Long story short, has anything changed in FE in this regard? Was there some re-itemization, storage extension or anything in this regard? I think it may be some time until I figure out where the closest vault is and manage to get there.

Thanks.

[Rattlehead 11]

There has been some consolidation with all the food items that used to be required.  They are still tiered, but it's now just generic items like fruit and vegetables.  No more holding onto tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, lemons, etc.

You can now also craft some Sector/Barter vault expanders.  These require all the "General" crafting books if you plan to make the components yourself (and 195 crafting in everything).  Construction 195 (and the General Construction book) is needed to make the actual expanders.

[Neofit 0]

Checking my various toons I am still seeing some stacks of Tainted Meat, Tough Boar Meat, then Onions and various vegetables. I suppose I can still craft with those.

I don't mind paying for storage extenders. I can't find a recent writeup on the how storage is currently working, so I can only suppose that it hasn't changed much. Apparently there is still this moronic separation into multiple vault types that the original design team came up with. Then we were able to purchase additional slots, but only once, right?

I thought that the Barter Vault was the one used to share items with the other toons. But apparently not, then I remembered I had made a 1-person clan in order to have this swap storage area. But now looking at the wiki page for that, it looks like I need to have 10 people in order to have a clan in order to be able to share items with my toons so I can play the game? I do not remember wasting my time running around newbies inviting them to a fake clan, and I am definitely not looking forward to doing this in 2018. Any options, besides jumping into a clan with people I don't know on the first day, for an eventual couple of slots for item swapping?

[Rattlehead 11]

Yeah, they didn't get rid of the old food items, but you can still use them to craft.  If you hover over an item, it'll say what it can be used in place of.  Correct on the vault slots, only usable once.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the clan thing, but you needed 10 people to form the clan.  Once it became "established", which was tied to a certain amount of activity IIRC, then you didn't need the 10 people to stay.  If nothing else, you can always use the mail system to transfer items between characters.