Which Currencies Should Be Bankable?

spartaxoxo

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

IIRC the daily login rewards used to level up your alliance rank, but they changed it a while back. I'll have to try and find if that's true though.

It had to have been fairly recent (as in the last couple of updates).

I have only been playing since July, and the AP given out through the calendar leveled me up to 4. Only the last AP given out didn't level me up, and that might be because it wasn't enough for me to reach a new level, but I don't know.

Yeah. So seems I was misremembering (People were posting the torte did not effect the AP). The login bonus DOES level up the alliance skill line, but only one the character that claimed the reward.

edit: nvm on the wiki stuff. NOT COOL.

XSTRONG

As long as a currency can be banked and used by other chars I consider it account wide.

Erickson9610

I have updated the original post to more clearly communicate the intended idea.

Currencies which can be deposited into your bank are "bankable" currencies, while currencies that cannot be deposited into your bank are not.

The intent of this thread is to argue that non-Crown Store currencies should either be made all bankable, or more of them should be made non-bankable ("account-wide").

spartaxoxo

Writ Vouchers and Alliance points could probably be account wide.

But gold and tel-var pass between other players and/or need to be bankable, so it doesn't make sense for them to be account wide.

Kendaric

.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

IIRC the daily login rewards used to level up your alliance rank, but they changed it a while back. I'll have to try and find if that's true though.

They still level up your alliance rank. I have a recently created warden alt (now level 14) and I've gained "Volunteer Rank II" from the log-in reward this month (along with the skill points and of course the alliance war skill lines). The character has never set foot into Cyrodiil or a battleground.

Tandor

I'm fine with the currency system as it is, although it rather looks like although the opening post is a very generalised one the thread turns out to be primarily about PvP which I have no interest in, beyond not wanting it to be the cause of changes to other parts of the game.

Erickson9610

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Writ Vouchers and Alliance points could probably be account wide.

But gold and tel-var pass between other players and/or need to be bankable, so it doesn't make sense for them to be account wide.

Agreed. Gold and Tel Var Stones are the exception, because they can be lost due to death; banking those currencies is an essential part of gameplay to prevent currency loss.

It makes no sense that Writ Vouchers and Alliance Points are bankable, because they're similar to Archival Fortunes, another currency which can be earned and cannot be lost, but instead Archival Fortunes are automatically accessible by any character without the ability to be deposited to or withdrawn from the bank.

SaffronCitrusflower

All currencies should be "bankable".

Erickson9610

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

All currencies should be "bankable".

This would make sense for most currencies, but I doubt it would work well for currencies tied to real world money. Imagine if you had Crowns on a certain character, but later deleted the character without depositing the Crowns into your bank first?

Though, I'd imagine people would love to bank Transmute Crystals and Event Tickets to bypass the currency cap.

Amottica

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I have updated the original post to more clearly communicate the intended idea.

Currencies which can be deposited into your bank are "bankable" currencies, while currencies that cannot be deposited into your bank are not.

The intent of this thread is to argue that non-Crown Store currencies should either be made all bankable, or more of them should be made non-bankable ("account-wide").

Everything on the list in the OP is either automatically account-wide or can be banked and accessed via all characters which is essentially account-wide through a different means.

As many have noted in this thread, there is no reason to change any of the listed currencies since they are all defacto account-wide.

In reality, it would be a poor choice to make them all accessible via the same mechanism, which seems to be suggested, since we all know that making such changes opens the door to bugs and problems.

It works fine as it is.

Erickson9610

Amottica wrote: »

Everything on the list in the OP is either automatically account-wide or can be banked and accessed via all characters which is essentially account-wide through a different means.

As many have noted in this thread, there is no reason to change any of the listed currencies since they are all defacto account-wide.

In reality, it would be a poor choice to make them all accessible via the same mechanism, which seems to be suggested, since we all know that making such changes opens the door to bugs and problems.

It works fine as it is.

It could work better. If there is a genuine reason for currency to be bankable, then why not make currencies like Archival Fortunes be bankable? Why are Archival Fortunes the exception to the rule, when currencies like Writ Vouchers serve a similar purpose but are not automatically accessible by every character?

EdjeSwift

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It could work better. If there is a genuine reason for currency to be bankable, then why not make currencies like Archival Fortunes be bankable? Why are Archival Fortunes the exception to the rule, when currencies like Writ Vouchers serve a similar purpose but are not automatically accessible by every character?

I answered this a while back.

Age.

The newer currencies are more streamlined when they have account wide benefits. This is why the older currencies are all the way they are, and they work fine as they are. Gold, AP, Writ Vouchers, Tel-Var, these are all from launch or near launch so they have older mechanics behind them. Crowns were added with Tamriel Unlimited a year after launch. Event tickets in 2018, so on and so forth. They changed undaunted keys from items in your inventory to a currency and this went account wide.

So it makes sense why some currencies went one way and others another, it's such a minor inconvenience to bank and withdraw a currency that leaving things as is is fine.

Erickson9610

EdjeSwift wrote: »

I answered this a while back.

Age.

The newer currencies are more streamlined when they have account wide benefits. This is why the older currencies are all the way they are, and they work fine as they are. Gold, AP, Writ Vouchers, Tel-Var, these are all from launch or near launch so they have older mechanics behind them. Crowns were added with Tamriel Unlimited a year after launch. Event tickets in 2018, so on and so forth. They changed undaunted keys from items in your inventory to a currency and this went account wide.

So it makes sense why some currencies went one way and others another, it's such a minor inconvenience to bank and withdraw a currency that leaving things as is is fine.

Right, and this is why the old currencies (except Gold and Tel Var Stones, which should be banked to avoid being lost) should be updated to be like the new currencies. Alliance Points (the currency, which is not tied to the experience) and Writ Vouchers have no reason to be bankable.

The currency system just needs to be consistent. It would benefit players if the bank step was cut out of the process of making AP and Writ Vouchers account-wide.

ShadowPaladin

Erickson9610 wrote: »

EdjeSwift wrote: »

I answered this a while back.

Age.

The newer currencies are more streamlined when they have account wide benefits. This is why the older currencies are all the way they are, and they work fine as they are. Gold, AP, Writ Vouchers, Tel-Var, these are all from launch or near launch so they have older mechanics behind them. Crowns were added with Tamriel Unlimited a year after launch. Event tickets in 2018, so on and so forth. They changed undaunted keys from items in your inventory to a currency and this went account wide.

So it makes sense why some currencies went one way and others another, it's such a minor inconvenience to bank and withdraw a currency that leaving things as is is fine.

Right, and this is why the old currencies (except Gold and Tel Var Stones, which should be banked to avoid being lost) should be updated to be like the new currencies. Alliance Points (the currency, which is not tied to the experience) and Writ Vouchers have no reason to be bankable.

The currency system just needs to be consistent. It would benefit players if the bank step was cut out of the process of making AP and Writ Vouchers account-wide.

Some *older* Systems, based on *older* code can not always be updated. There can be various reasons for this. For example no one is left in the company who knows the older code (thats the case for some stuff in Star Trek Online) or another example would be that changes to this old code could and would create countless problems and bugs, which could not be fixed without major issues (that would be my guess for ESO).

spartaxoxo

EdjeSwift wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It could work better. If there is a genuine reason for currency to be bankable, then why not make currencies like Archival Fortunes be bankable? Why are Archival Fortunes the exception to the rule, when currencies like Writ Vouchers serve a similar purpose but are not automatically accessible by every character?

I answered this a while back.

Age.

The newer currencies are more streamlined when they have account wide benefits. This is why the older currencies are all the way they are, and they work fine as they are. Gold, AP, Writ Vouchers, Tel-Var, these are all from launch or near launch so they have older mechanics behind them. Crowns were added with Tamriel Unlimited a year after launch. Event tickets in 2018, so on and so forth. They changed undaunted keys from items in your inventory to a currency and this went account wide.

So it makes sense why some currencies went one way and others another, it's such a minor inconvenience to bank and withdraw a currency that leaving things as is is fine.

True. But this is exactly the sort of small quality of life change that makes sense to do, since they said they are going to do more QOL changes going forward. They even have a whole quarter dedicated to small QOL changes now

spartaxoxo

Amottica wrote: »

In reality, it would be a poor choice to make them all accessible via the same mechanism, which seems to be suggested, since we all know that making such changes opens the door to bugs and problems.

It works fine as it is.

In reality, they have converted a currency to account wide and it works perfectly fine(undaunted keys).

wolfie1.0.

Everything except gold isn't a currency. Currencies are not Locked to a specific user and can itself be traded. For something to be a Currency it needs to function of a medium of exchange.

Crowns, gems, keys, ap, tel var, etc function more akin to arcade tokens than anything else. They can ONLY be redeemed for a specific inventory of items and have to be converted to something else before they can be traded or consumed. That somethings have limits is even further proof that they are not Currencies. Zos just classified them as such for convenience nothing more.

Gold remains the only currency in the game.

Erickson9610

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Everything except gold isn't a currency. Currencies are not Locked to a specific user and can itself be traded. For something to be a Currency it needs to function of a medium of exchange.

Crowns, gems, keys, ap, tel var, etc function more akin to arcade tokens than anything else. They can ONLY be redeemed for a specific inventory of items and have to be converted to something else before they can be traded or consumed. That somethings have limits is even further proof that they are not Currencies. Zos just classified them as such for convenience nothing more.

Gold remains the only currency in the game.

I'm referring to "currencies" as the items which show up in the Currency tab of the inventory screen, which includes Gold. These are traded (not necessarily between players) for goods and services, and have no inherent value on their own, and thus are considered currencies.

Examples include Transmute Crystals being used to change the trait of equipment (a service) or Crown Gems being used to purchase items from Crown Crates (buying goods).

EdjeSwift

spartaxoxo wrote: »

In reality, they have converted a currency to account wide and it works perfectly fine(undaunted keys).

This wasn't a conversion, it was a creation of a currency and a change to the whole system. The old key system rewarded you keys based upon who you completed a pledge with and that key would open one of the three chests which still sit in the tent in the enclave.

When they changed the keys to currency they also switched to the coffer system we know today. So that wasn't just a simple conversion from one way of storing an item to changing it to another way. Like SilverPaladin said, this is is old code, probably older than a decade in an engine which has seen many changes and overhauls, who knows what changing this might do. The last patch didn't directly affect in-game trading but somehow something got wonky to the point trading had to be closed for two days.

zaria

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

IIRC the daily login rewards used to level up your alliance rank, but they changed it a while back. I'll have to try and find if that's true though.

It had to have been fairly recent (as in the last couple of updates).

I have only been playing since July, and the AP given out through the calendar leveled me up to 4. Only the last AP given out didn't level me up, and that might be because it wasn't enough for me to reach a new level, but I don't know.

I think AP given by daily login level the collecting character AP has been in since login rewards was an thing.
And it nothing I want to collect on my PvP main as 100K AP is a bit low for an run, have some alts take it.

TaSheen

zaria wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

IIRC the daily login rewards used to level up your alliance rank, but they changed it a while back. I'll have to try and find if that's true though.

It had to have been fairly recent (as in the last couple of updates).

I have only been playing since July, and the AP given out through the calendar leveled me up to 4. Only the last AP given out didn't level me up, and that might be because it wasn't enough for me to reach a new level, but I don't know.

I think AP given by daily login level the collecting character AP has been in since login rewards was an thing.
And it nothing I want to collect on my PvP main as 100K AP is a bit low for an run, have some alts take it.

Yeah, I've got 4 mains with vet rank in pvp - and I've done nothing actually IN pvp (only thing I've ever done in Cyro is fishing). Whenever I don't need an AP reward on an alt, I grab it on my mains, to keep them leveling a little as we go along....

wolfie1.0.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Everything except gold isn't a currency. Currencies are not Locked to a specific user and can itself be traded. For something to be a Currency it needs to function of a medium of exchange.

Crowns, gems, keys, ap, tel var, etc function more akin to arcade tokens than anything else. They can ONLY be redeemed for a specific inventory of items and have to be converted to something else before they can be traded or consumed. That somethings have limits is even further proof that they are not Currencies. Zos just classified them as such for convenience nothing more.

Gold remains the only currency in the game.

I'm referring to "currencies" as the items which show up in the Currency tab of the inventory screen, which includes Gold. These are traded (not necessarily between players) for goods and services, and have no inherent value on their own, and thus are considered currencies.

Examples include Transmute Crystals being used to change the trait of equipment (a service) or Crown Gems being used to purchase items from Crown Crates (buying goods).

you didn't exactly read my post. everything except gold isn't a currency. they are are non transferrable, and can only be redeemed for specific vendors, and are not universally accepted for all purposes, and without access to those specific vendors/uses they have no value. Event tickets have no value if the event merchant disapears, if tel var merchant disappears then you can not redeem tel var. the same holds true to all other non gold currencies in the game.

gold, even if every vendor suddenly disappeared from the game could still be used to buy from other players. hence its as close to a true currency that the game has. it would still function as a medium of exchange and regardless of who generated said gold.

ZOS placed them all in the currency tab out of convenience, nothing more, and should not be treated as "Currency" in anyway shape or unless/until ZOS allows these items to be exchanged between players freely and stored without limits.

wolfie1.0.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

In reality, it would be a poor choice to make them all accessible via the same mechanism, which seems to be suggested, since we all know that making such changes opens the door to bugs and problems.

It works fine as it is.

In reality, they have converted a currency to account wide and it works perfectly fine(undaunted keys).

keys aren't a currency, that's my opinion at least.

Erickson9610

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

are not universally accepted for all purposes

Currency in the real world must have some agreed upon value, but no currency is universally accepted everywhere. For instance, in order to spend CAD in the United States, you must first buy USD with that CAD — a process called currency exchange. In ESO, an example of this would be buying Gold for Archival Fortunes.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

without access to those specific vendors/uses they have no value. Event tickets have no value if the event merchant disapears, if tel var merchant disappears then you can not redeem tel var. the same holds true to all other non gold currencies in the game.

This holds true for all fiat currencies in the real world. Hypothetically, if the United States ceased to exist, the value of USD would become meaningless. You could argue that if trading Gold with players and NPC merchants was disabled, that the demand of Gold would drop, and thus the value of Gold would drop.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

gold, even if every vendor suddenly disappeared from the game could still be used to buy from other players. hence its as close to a true currency that the game has. it would still function as a medium of exchange and regardless of who generated said gold.

The value of Gold in-game fluctuates due to the supply and demand from the trading that players do, but that isn't enough to disqualify the other digital currencies as currencies. The other currencies have a supply and a demand as well.

That is to say that since there are NPC merchants to trade currencies with, the supply for those currencies is how much you have on hand, and the demand for those currencies is the price of each item that the merchant sells. Thus, these other currencies function as a medium of exchange (between a player and an NPC).

spartaxoxo

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Everything except gold isn't a currency. Currencies are not Locked to a specific user and can itself be traded. For something to be a Currency it needs to function of a medium of exchange.

Crowns, gems, keys, ap, tel var, etc function more akin to arcade tokens than anything else. They can ONLY be redeemed for a specific inventory of items and have to be converted to something else before they can be traded or consumed. That somethings have limits is even further proof that they are not Currencies. Zos just classified them as such for convenience nothing more.

Gold remains the only currency in the game.

For the purposes of a fictional world, currency exchanged between a player and a fictional organization or person is trading.

spartaxoxo

EdjeSwift wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

In reality, they have converted a currency to account wide and it works perfectly fine(undaunted keys).

This wasn't a conversion, it was a creation of a currency and a change to the whole system. The old key system rewarded you keys based upon who you completed a pledge with and that key would open one of the three chests which still sit in the tent in the enclave.

When they changed the keys to currency they also switched to the coffer system we know today. So that wasn't just a simple conversion from one way of storing an item to changing it to another way. Like SilverPaladin said, this is is old code, probably older than a decade in an engine which has seen many changes and overhauls, who knows what changing this might do. The last patch didn't directly affect in-game trading but somehow something got wonky to the point trading had to be closed for two days.

It was more complicated, sure. But they were still a currency. That they have already done something more complicated shows that they are perfectly capable of converting something simpler. Trading was closer for two days, and yet most people don't even know what went wonky because they caught it before it came anything more than a minor issue. While there have been some issues here and there, as all games have, currencies in this game have largely functioned fine.

Amottica

EdjeSwift wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It could work better. If there is a genuine reason for currency to be bankable, then why not make currencies like Archival Fortunes be bankable? Why are Archival Fortunes the exception to the rule, when currencies like Writ Vouchers serve a similar purpose but are not automatically accessible by every character?

I answered this a while back.

Age.

The newer currencies are more streamlined when they have account wide benefits. This is why the older currencies are all the way they are, and they work fine as they are. Gold, AP, Writ Vouchers, Tel-Var, these are all from launch or near launch so they have older mechanics behind them. Crowns were added with Tamriel Unlimited a year after launch. Event tickets in 2018, so on and so forth. They changed undaunted keys from items in your inventory to a currency and this went account wide.

So it makes sense why some currencies went one way and others another, it's such a minor inconvenience to bank and withdraw a currency that leaving things as is is fine.

Great information. The last part is a very good and valid point. It is such a minor inconvenience which makes it a non-issue.

Amottica

Erickson9610 wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

are not universally accepted for all purposes

Currency in the real world must have some agreed upon value, but no currency is universally accepted everywhere. For instance, in order to spend CAD in the United States, you must first buy USD with that CAD — a process called currency exchange. In ESO, an example of this would be buying Gold for Archival Fortunes..

Rarely are real-world issues like this valid in a fantasy game.

wolfie1.0.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

are not universally accepted for all purposes

Currency in the real world must have some agreed upon value, but no currency is universally accepted everywhere. For instance, in order to spend CAD in the United States, you must first buy USD with that CAD — a process called currency exchange. In ESO, an example of this would be buying Gold for Archival Fortunes.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

without access to those specific vendors/uses they have no value. Event tickets have no value if the event merchant disapears, if tel var merchant disappears then you can not redeem tel var. the same holds true to all other non gold currencies in the game.

This holds true for all fiat currencies in the real world. Hypothetically, if the United States ceased to exist, the value of USD would become meaningless. You could argue that if trading Gold with players and NPC merchants was disabled, that the demand of Gold would drop, and thus the value of Gold would drop.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

gold, even if every vendor suddenly disappeared from the game could still be used to buy from other players. hence its as close to a true currency that the game has. it would still function as a medium of exchange and regardless of who generated said gold.

The value of Gold in-game fluctuates due to the supply and demand from the trading that players do, but that isn't enough to disqualify the other digital currencies as currencies. The other currencies have a supply and a demand as well.

That is to say that since there are NPC merchants to trade currencies with, the supply for those currencies is how much you have on hand, and the demand for those currencies is the price of each item that the merchant sells. Thus, these other currencies function as a medium of exchange (between a player and an NPC).

i concede the point.

loosej

I understand how the system of different currencies has grown over time, but I also have to agree that it can be very, very confusing.

After finishing my very first Endless Archive run for example, I was expecting my Archival Fortunes to be a currency like gold/ap/tel var. When I visited a banker and noticed I couldn't bank them, my first reaction wasn't "oh it's account bound" but "wait are these things character bound?". In retrospect it should have been obvious that they're account bound, but the game doesn't exactly help you reach that conclusion.

A simple solution would be for the currency page to just have 2 sections, one for "On Character" currencies and another for "On Account" ones.

One of the difficulties new players have with this game is that there isn't an online resource explaining how the game works right now. If you weren't playing the game when update X released in year Y, there's often no way to know how that particular aspect of the game works today. Frequent big changes to the game mean that a lot of online resources are outdated pretty fast. The only way for a new player to fully understand this game is by reading nearly 10 years of patch notes, and a lot of that work could be avoided by some simple UI tweaks or an expanded help system.