Mail changes

SilverBride

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

And please, consider making transmutes stack! At least let us stack the stones to 20 or something. Half the reason we're holding onto all this mail is to store transmutes should we need them for gear crafting.

Please make transmutes stack,
This is hard for PVP,
And backs up our mail.

(I couldn't resist!)

wolfie1.0.

Ilumia wrote: »

Assuming server storage reduction is the reason for this change, I can see 2 options to achieve this, while mitigating some of the worst consequences for the players:
1) Create some sort of holiday mode that expands the time it takes before mail is deleted. Allow activation twice per year or something like that.
2) A simpler method would be that instead of deleting mail when it expires, it is automatically transferred to your bank inventory, if there is space, and otherwise deleted. This would allow players to prepare for a decently long holiday without missing out on mail.

Btw these suggestions were proposed by my husband who is solution oriented, and always sweetly interested in my hobbies even though he doesn't play anymore

Honestly the easiest way to store transmute is to use them. Complete any non mythic gear set, craft at 25 stones, then when you need them decon at 25 stones. Or transmute weapons nirnhoned and decon for the trait mats. If neither of those options work for you then I question whether you really need the transmute packages in your mail.

jle30303

So... If you're away for the game for longer than 14 days... don't be selling anything because if it sells on day 1, OR indeed if it expires and is returned to you on day 1, then it disappears before you get back?

Bad move. Spectacularly bad move.

IN fact it's silly that you should have to claim the gold from a mail *at all* when an item sells. If it sells, the gold should go STRAIGHT TO YOUR ACCOUNT and not need to be "claimed" in person by the player.

And if an item is returned because of an expiring listing, it should go STRAIGHT TO YOUR INVENTORY if there is any inventory space. Not be attached to a mail.

Ilumia

@wolfie1.0. i agree, and do exactly those things with my surplus transmutes, but I think you might have meant to quote the post above mine.

Also, I really get zos limiting mail in the ways they want to ease server load. I just think they really need to do something about the derived consequences,

SilverBride

jle30303 wrote: »

And if an item is returned because of an expiring listing, it should go STRAIGHT TO YOUR INVENTORY if there is any inventory space. Not be attached to a mail.

Where in our inventory? In the bank? In a housing chest? In a character's bag?

I only keep furnishings and some potions and foods for daily writs in my bank and do not want other items put there.

Epona222

This is absolutely ridiculous, here in the UK if people can afford a break they typically go on holiday for 2 weeks (we get 5.6 weeks leave per year as a legal minimum), this seems like ridiculous punishment for spending time with ones family.

FluffyBird

Ilumia wrote: »

Also, I really get zos limiting mail in the ways they want to ease server load. I just think they really need to do something about the derived consequences,

I don't get it, actually. Didn't ZOS say they made a lot of money? Why can't they get servers that can handle the load or hire people who would rewrite the way mail is processed instead of cutting corners every time a new system is introduced?

Nharimlur_Finor

edited

FluffyBird

LaintalAy wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Ilumia wrote: »

Also, I really get zos limiting mail in the ways they want to ease server load. I just think they really need to do something about the derived consequences,

I don't get it, actually. Didn't ZOS say they made a lot of money? Why can't they get servers that can handle the load or hire people who would rewrite the way mail is processed instead of cutting corners every time a new system is introduced?

You could have just asked "why don't people just empty their mail every day?".

I know the answer for that. For me it was because of rewards for the worthy, mostly. And "I really should sort all the sent back loot in mail just not right now"
But I don't know why ZOS decided to go anti-QoL way on their side.

h9dlb

If it ain't broke don't fix it. No one asked for this. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Elsonso

jle30303 wrote: »

And if an item is returned because of an expiring listing, it should go STRAIGHT TO YOUR INVENTORY if there is any inventory space. Not be attached to a mail.

I believe the reason for the mailing is exactly due to the possibility of a full inventory.

My personal belief is that this is the way to do it. One consistent method of delivery. The player always knows where it will be and can put it where they want.

The issue, as I see it, is the shorter timeout. I think the shorter return item timeout is an anti-QoL, at least for the players.

ShadowPaladin

Jaraal wrote: »

Tell me what part of this will be easier / more intuitive?

Mail Sorting

Player Mail is now sorted based on expiration with the most recently received message displayed at the top.

System Mail and System Alerts are sorted based on expiration with the soonest-to-expire message displayed at the top.

Does anybody think that having one category of mail posting from newest to oldest, and another category posting from oldest to newest is a good idea? And is anybody actually looking forward to scrolling through all your old mail to see the new mail at the bottom of the page?

As far as I understood the Patch Notes, there will be 3 categories (see BLUE marked text below). Certainly, we can discuss about if those are good or bad categories and if it would be better to define our own categories or not. But lets be a bit reseaonable. Compared to what we have at the moment, this is an improvement.

Regarding the sorting. I do admit that it would be great if you (the player) could change the sorting format to a different version (e.g. newest received first, last to expire, mail with attachments first, etc.). Although we do not have this option at the moment, we may get it in the future. Who knows. With the implementation of the basic functions, the devs can always improve it in the future.

About the *scrolling through your mails part*. I don't think that this is and will be a problem. There are the new timers. With those mails will be automatically deleted after a time of X days. Also - as far as I am aware (please do correct me if I am wrong !) - there is a cap-limit to how many mails can be stored in your ingame mailbox at once. If you reach that limit no new mails can be received and will be shown. I think the limit is somewhere around 72 mails or so (please do correct me here too, if I am wrong!). With that you do not have millions or trillions of mails to scroll through. Also, with a few exceptions, I don't see a reason to keep old mails for ever. Most mails are read and deleted afterwards and/or deleted after claiming the attachments (e.g. Hireling Mails). Btw., this will be, at least from my pov, a lot easier with the new functions *Take All* and *Delete After Claim* (see ORANGE text below).

Mail Improvements
We have made a number of interface and system improvements to Mail. All changes outlined below apply to both Keyboard & Mouse and Gamepad interfaces.

• Mail Categories
  • Mail is now automatically sorted into three categories:
    • Player Mail – Messages received from other players in game.
    • System Mail – Messages received from various non-player sources that include item attachments, as well as any mails received from Customer Support.
    • System Alerts – Messages received from various non-player sources that are information-only and do not include attachments.
• Mail Sorting
  • Player Mail is now sorted based on expiration with the most recently received message displayed at the top.
  • System Mail and System Alerts are sorted based on expiration with the soonest-to-expire message displayed at the top.
• Attachment Preview
  • Mail headers now display the icon of their first attachment.
• Inventory Space Display
  • The Mail screen now displays how many inventory slots are available on the current character.
• “Delete After Claim” Option
  • This option on the Mail screen causes any System Mail to be automatically deleted after you claim its attachments, and is enabled by default.
  • Note this option does not affect Player Mail.
• “Take All” Function
  • This button claims all attachments from all mails currently visible in the current active category (Player or System).
  • Mail is processed based on the currently sorted order and starts with the mail soonest to expire.
    • Note that Player Mail and System Mail have different sorting rules, explained above.
    • COD Player Mails and Customer Support mails are not affected by "Take All".
  • If an attachment is unable to be claimed for any reason, such as unavailable inventory space, the process halts and no further attachments are claimed.
  • Note the “Delete After Claim” option, if enabled, will apply to every System Mail affected by “Take All” after attachments are claimed.
• Mail Notifications
  • Upon logging in, you will now receive a notification if:
    • You received a mail that includes an attachment.
    • You have mails with attachments that are about to expire.
    • You receive a Hireling Correspondence mail.
• Deleting Mails With Attachments
  • You can now delete a mail that still has an unclaimed attachment. A confirmation dialog will appear to ensure this is the intended action.

peacenote

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

Completely disagree although I appreciate what you're trying to highlight. I read the notes carefully. I often need to log in to a character for a second without having time to go through all of its mail. I am just as concerned about the mails triggered by login as for the ones that aren't. Examples as to why in my previous post.

Just asking out of curiosity.

Won't it be easier for you going through your ingame mails and claiming them with the new *Mail Categories* and *Mail Sorting* introduced with the upcoming chapter, as well as the * "Take All” Function* coming too? With that it should be possible to better handle ingame mails, even if you will only log in for a short time.

Happy to answer. Honestly, the categories they have are fine now. The sorting they have is fine now and, as I mentioned, I have a mod to automatically take all of my hireling e-mail attachments. All I have to do is click on the first one and wait for it to cycle through. If I wanted to have my mail to always "take all" I think there is a mod for that, too. I was in PTS on Sunday and, if anything, I found the additional categories visually unappealing, not intuitive, and overwhelming. But it's also fair to say I didn't look at it for more than a couple of seconds.

The issue is a combination of inventory management, character management, decision-making fatigue, and a desire to be respectful to my raid team when they are waiting for me.

First, many of my characters carry almost a full inventory. This is because I have a lot of healers and tanks and characters with multiple specs, such that they have a good variety of armor sets. Also, I have limited play time, so it's common for me to run a raid, or finish a dungeon play session, with a full inventory and a plan to go through the character's inventory in the next scheduled play session that I have. So, "take all" won't help. There often isn't room. And it's not that I'm hoarding... when I do have time to do inventory management, I deconstruct stuff, vendor stuff, list it on the guild trader, research one piece for each trade, send motifs and recipes to my friends if I know they need them, etc. It doesn't take long, five or ten minutes, but if the run finishes at 11 and I have to go at 11, that's five or ten minutes I don't have at the moment. Which means the next time I log into the character, I need to spend five or ten minutes before I could conceivably accept mail attachments. And it might be another week before I can play again to do this.

Second, I try to be thoughtful about which character accepts the mail attachments. If I'm full on transmutes, I try to log onto a mule to take those attachments. Or sometimes I want a character where I'm leveling a craft to take all of my Rewards of the Worthy because they can d/e all of the gear.

Third, I don't know if this is an ADHD thing or just being a human thing, but if I am in a situation where I'm moving gear from one character to another, I'm not going to remember to look at my mail. I'm not thinking about my mail. I know people are waiting for me. I am focusing on which pieces to move over, so I don't mess it up and have to re-log twice, and then I'm trying to log back onto the right character as fast as possible. So, as a result, even if the character I'm on has the inventory space to "take all," chances are I'm not going to remember. Because that's not what I'm thinking about and that's not why I'm on the character. I'm thinking about swapping gear, and that's it. I'm going to want to deal with that character's mail the next time I play with that character, to specifically play with that character. Which could be in 7 days or 2 months. Which is exactly why I'm saying that this change is especially punishing to the multi-character play style. If ZOS kind of forces us into a schedule where we must log into all of our characters within 7 days or 14 days so as not to lose stuff, and we also must have inventory management time for the alts any time we log in for a second just to do one small task or move an item, it is less alt-friendly. Considerably so, depending on how many alts you have.

There is a reason I frequently say that we we need specifically more easily accessible SHARED space AKA primary bank space. There is a very specific pain point that players have when they actually try and use the Armory as intended to have multiple specs per character. From a performance/database perspective, ESO seems to have a scaling issue maintaining functionality we've had for years for multi-character support. We keep losing flexibility there, without gaining what would really be needed to transition to less characters, more specs, for those who have multiple characters primarily to play many different roles. We don't have a way to transfer gear as a set. The Armory can't grab from the bank. But if we keep gear in the bank, anyway, and painstakingly move gear piece by piece for play sessions, the bank fills up really quickly and becomes useless for anything else. If we keep the gear on the characters, there is very little working inventory space, and now we're going to be punished via mail delivery when we need to move the gear around. Housing storage is pretty useless for this type of inventory management because I can't grab the gear from anywhere like I can from the main bank. It requires another loading screen and running around between chests... extremely inefficient. Mules and housing storage are fine for long term storage, and I have more space than I'd ever need to store anything I'd ever want in this way without issue... it's active working space for characters with multiple specs who both PvE and PvP that's a problem.

Since this is a long post anyway, I'll give a working example from ONE of my characters - my main, a magplar. This character is a healer, and she heals both in dungeons and trials. She also has a DPS spec, a hybrid DPS/Heals spec, and a PVP spec. Here are some of the sets that this character carries around so it can fulfill all of these roles: Spell Power Cure, Powerful Assault, Roaring Opportunist, Jorvuld's, Deadly, Ansuul's, Worm, a variety of monster helms, multiple mythics, arena healing staves, DPS arena staves, and a variety of food and potions to support these builds. Often I have ice/fire/lightning varieties for my builds, or multiple staves for the same set but with different enchants. My dungeon team is also pursuing trifectas and as a result is typically carrying a few more niche armor sets for specific use cases/bosses. This leaves very little working space - I find I'm lucky if I have 20 - 30 open slots per run. If I wanted to explore Templar tanking on the same character, I could buy the Armory slot but I literally wouldn't have room to carry the gear.

I've found that once a month is reasonable for an inventory management session. I log onto all of my characters to receive my Tier 1 PvP e-mails (and anything else). I go through all of my mail. I do surveys. I do master writs. I clean up aging leads. I decide whether a failed listing should be re-listed. When it piles up it is not a hoarding issue but a literal time issue - play session is over and I need to deal with these things another time. Having to transition to a daily or weekly cadence isn't going to be practical and turns what should be fun rewards for players into chores. That's just not what you want from a game. It's a game, not a job, and ZOS should be trying to make it easier for us to receive all of our rewards, not harder. There's also a theme some players keep expressing, which is that they don't feel that ZOS respects their time. While perhaps not the intent, this feels like one of those kinds of changes. There's assumptions built in here, by ZOS and by some of the players coming back and saying "it's not a big deal," that everyone can easily log in regularly, that it should be easy for players to plan around vacations and unexpected time away, that everyone should have plenty of space, and that everyone who doesn't hoards... and it just isn't true. There are systemic game design issues that have resulted in mail timers and mail management being an integral part of inventory management in some cases, for some kinds of players.

Necrotech_Master

SilverBride wrote: »

Maybe players using the mail for storage is part of the problem. I had a friend once ask me if he could mail me a bunch of items then return the mail to him when he had room to accept them. I declined.

people definitely use mail to store things, some do it in different ways

1. pvpers during a session can get a huge number of rewards of the worthy, and i know at least 1 friend who pvps and does not always have time to empty their mail out, so they have had upwards 150 rewards of the worth mails in their inbox
2. people bulk buying treasure maps: treasure maps are unique, and the only way to store multiple copies of them is the mail system
3. people actually storing stuff in their mail by having friends return mails to them (the case that your describing)

SilverBride

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Maybe players using the mail for storage is part of the problem. I had a friend once ask me if he could mail me a bunch of items then return the mail to him when he had room to accept them. I declined.

people definitely use mail to store things, some do it in different ways

1. pvpers during a session can get a huge number of rewards of the worthy, and i know at least 1 friend who pvps and does not always have time to empty their mail out, so they have had upwards 150 rewards of the worth mails in their inbox
2. people bulk buying treasure maps: treasure maps are unique, and the only way to store multiple copies of them is the mail system
3. people actually storing stuff in their mail by having friends return mails to them (the case that your describing)

• Players should allow time to open their mails before they log.
• Players shouldn't buy more items than they have room to store.
• Players shouldn't impose on their friends to help them with their storage problems.

I suspect these things are contributing to the decision to make these changes.

ArchangelIsraphel

SilverBride wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

And please, consider making transmutes stack! At least let us stack the stones to 20 or something. Half the reason we're holding onto all this mail is to store transmutes should we need them for gear crafting.

Please make transmutes stack,
This is hard for PVP,
And backs up our mail.

(I couldn't resist!)

@SilverBride I love this! Haiku is now my favorite form of communication on the forums XD

jaws343

SilverBride wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Maybe players using the mail for storage is part of the problem. I had a friend once ask me if he could mail me a bunch of items then return the mail to him when he had room to accept them. I declined.

people definitely use mail to store things, some do it in different ways

1. pvpers during a session can get a huge number of rewards of the worthy, and i know at least 1 friend who pvps and does not always have time to empty their mail out, so they have had upwards 150 rewards of the worth mails in their inbox
2. people bulk buying treasure maps: treasure maps are unique, and the only way to store multiple copies of them is the mail system
3. people actually storing stuff in their mail by having friends return mails to them (the case that your describing)

• Players should allow time to open their mails before they log.
• Players shouldn't buy more items than they have room to store.
• Players shouldn't impose on their friends to help them with their storage problems.

I suspect these things are contributing to the decision to make these changes.

None of those three suggestions still solve the issue that is unreasonable to buy a single map at a time and travel back and forth to traders to buy the same map and farm it, since they DO NOT STACK. So buying more than you have room to store is not really a valid suggestion here.

And also "Players should allow time to..." can literally be applied to everything that so many players in this forum complain about. Allow time to do pvp endeavors, allow time to do dungeons, allow time to farm event motifs, allow time to to do X thing that a player comes here and complains about. It's funny that this argument would be used to admonish players who are going to be impacted by a change that makes very little actual sense.

FluffyBird

SilverBride wrote: »

• Players shouldn't impose on their friends to help them with their storage problems.

Not everyone who does that is "imposing", but this paints it like it's some kind of crime.
Me and my friend, for example, sent each other "please sb" loot mail all the time because it's the fastest and most convenient way to free a couple of slots.

And the rest of the list looks like telling people how they should play their game.

SilverBride

FluffyBird wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

• Players shouldn't impose on their friends to help them with their storage problems.

Not everyone who does that is "imposing", but this paints it like it's some kind of crime.
Me and my friend, for example, sent each other "please sb" loot mail all the time because it's the fastest and most convenient way to free a couple of slots.

And the rest of the list looks like telling people how they should play their game.

Making suggestions is not telling others how to play their game. These suggestions show that there are ways of not having to resort to using the mail for storage, which is probably why this change is being made.

SilverBride

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

And please, consider making transmutes stack! At least let us stack the stones to 20 or something. Half the reason we're holding onto all this mail is to store transmutes should we need them for gear crafting.

Please make transmutes stack,
This is hard for PVP,
And backs up our mail.

(I couldn't resist!)

@SilverBride I love this! Haiku is now my favorite form of communication on the forums XD

I'm loving this!

Necrotech_Master

SilverBride wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Maybe players using the mail for storage is part of the problem. I had a friend once ask me if he could mail me a bunch of items then return the mail to him when he had room to accept them. I declined.

people definitely use mail to store things, some do it in different ways

1. pvpers during a session can get a huge number of rewards of the worthy, and i know at least 1 friend who pvps and does not always have time to empty their mail out, so they have had upwards 150 rewards of the worth mails in their inbox
2. people bulk buying treasure maps: treasure maps are unique, and the only way to store multiple copies of them is the mail system
3. people actually storing stuff in their mail by having friends return mails to them (the case that your describing)

• Players should allow time to open their mails before they log.
• Players shouldn't buy more items than they have room to store.
• Players shouldn't impose on their friends to help them with their storage problems.

I suspect these things are contributing to the decision to make these changes.

treasure maps are not stackable, so bulk buying and keeping them in the mail is the most efficient way to deal with them

most of the reason people bulk buy treasure maps is if they are trying to hunt leads from treasure maps in most cases

for example galen has 2 leads from treasure maps, but also 2 unique maps, if you wanted to try to open like 10-20 maps to attempt to get the lead, thats a minimum of 20 mails (1 mail holding 2 maps, or if your buying from a guild listing, likely 1 map per mail)

its just as bad if you were trying for deadlands maps to get the motif leads, theres only 2 unique maps

the real solution for this is on zos to allow treasure maps to stack like surveys, then you wouldnt need 40 mails holding maps, you could just buy 1 stack of maps

the 3rd point can also be accomplished by using multiple accounts instead of another person, i sometimes find it easier to mail all the junk from my 2nd acct to my main acct (i dont have eso+ on my 2nd acct so i transfer all of that to my main acct)

WolfStar07

You know what else doesn't stack? Sealed writs, even if you have identical writs. I'm a GM, and people send me writs for the attunable stations and other fundraisers. Between what is mailed and what I earned during Jubilee, I am drowning in writs while I try to work my way through them. I might be able to get a dozen or so completed a day depending on the type, but I've also got to be cognizant about my mats, so it takes time and uses up valuable storage space. Right now, if players mail me writs, they're being held in my mail until I either have room to store them or to do them. It's tedious enough now, but shortening the timer would have a negative impact. Sure, the system might kick it back to them, but then I'm dealing with hurt feelings that I didn't claim their mail right away because player storage is an increasingly big problem in this game!

SilverBride

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

treasure maps are not stackable, so bulk buying and keeping them in the mail is the most efficient way to deal with them

most of the reason people bulk buy treasure maps is if they are trying to hunt leads from treasure maps in most cases

for example galen has 2 leads from treasure maps, but also 2 unique maps, if you wanted to try to open like 10-20 maps to attempt to get the lead, thats a minimum of 20 mails (1 mail holding 2 maps, or if your buying from a guild listing, likely 1 map per mail)

its just as bad if you were trying for deadlands maps to get the motif leads, theres only 2 unique maps

the real solution for this is on zos to allow treasure maps to stack like surveys, then you wouldnt need 40 mails holding maps, you could just buy 1 stack of maps

the 3rd point can also be accomplished by using multiple accounts instead of another person, i sometimes find it easier to mail all the junk from my 2nd acct to my main acct (i dont have eso+ on my 2nd acct so i transfer all of that to my main acct)

I agree that treasure maps should stack and don't understand why they don't. I suspect it may have something to do with them basically being containers and they don't all contain the same items.

But that doesn't mean it's ok to buy way more than the player can store and use the mail as storage. Because now everyone is being affected by this change, even if they never did any of these things.

jaws343

SilverBride wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

treasure maps are not stackable, so bulk buying and keeping them in the mail is the most efficient way to deal with them

most of the reason people bulk buy treasure maps is if they are trying to hunt leads from treasure maps in most cases

for example galen has 2 leads from treasure maps, but also 2 unique maps, if you wanted to try to open like 10-20 maps to attempt to get the lead, thats a minimum of 20 mails (1 mail holding 2 maps, or if your buying from a guild listing, likely 1 map per mail)

its just as bad if you were trying for deadlands maps to get the motif leads, theres only 2 unique maps

the real solution for this is on zos to allow treasure maps to stack like surveys, then you wouldnt need 40 mails holding maps, you could just buy 1 stack of maps

the 3rd point can also be accomplished by using multiple accounts instead of another person, i sometimes find it easier to mail all the junk from my 2nd acct to my main acct (i dont have eso+ on my 2nd acct so i transfer all of that to my main acct)

I agree that treasure maps should stack and don't understand why they don't. I suspect it may have something to do with them basically being containers and they don't all contain the same items.

But that doesn't mean it's ok to buy way more than the player can store and use the mail as storage. Because now everyone is being affected by this change, even if they never did any of these things.

OK then, please. Go buy a zone set of treasure maps and farm for the leads. But please do it 1 map at a time. Go to the zone, farm that map, travel back to a trader, buy it again, and repeat that until you drop all of the map leads for that zone. ANY zone. What you are suggesting is ridiculous.

SilverBride

jaws343 wrote: »

OK then, please. Go buy a zone set of treasure maps and farm for the leads. But please do it 1 map at a time. Go to the zone, farm that map, travel back to a trader, buy it again, and repeat that until you drop all of the map leads for that zone. ANY zone. What you are suggesting is ridiculous.

I don't farm treasure maps. I have only purchased a few when there was a specific lead I was looking for. And each zone has a few different maps so the player can buy Map I, Map II, etc. and carry all these.

jaws343

SilverBride wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

OK then, please. Go buy a zone set of treasure maps and farm for the leads. But please do it 1 map at a time. Go to the zone, farm that map, travel back to a trader, buy it again, and repeat that until you drop all of the map leads for that zone. ANY zone. What you are suggesting is ridiculous.

I don't farm treasure maps. I have only purchased a few when there was a specific lead I was looking for. And each zone has a few different maps so the player can buy Map I, Map II, etc. and carry all these.

And what I am suggesting is you go farm a full set of treasure chest leads and gain some context. Your example would require a ton of trips and take a ton of time to do. Like, an unreasonable level of time to do compared to the more efficient way. You need context for your suggestion. And not farming maps or understanding the actual mail use case people are trying to explain to you just undermines anything you are suggesting.

SilverBride

jaws343 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

OK then, please. Go buy a zone set of treasure maps and farm for the leads. But please do it 1 map at a time. Go to the zone, farm that map, travel back to a trader, buy it again, and repeat that until you drop all of the map leads for that zone. ANY zone. What you are suggesting is ridiculous.

I don't farm treasure maps. I have only purchased a few when there was a specific lead I was looking for. And each zone has a few different maps so the player can buy Map I, Map II, etc. and carry all these.

And what I am suggesting is you go farm a full set of treasure chest leads and gain some context. Your example would require a ton of trips and take a ton of time to do. Like, an unreasonable level of time to do compared to the more efficient way. You need context for your suggestion. And not farming maps or understanding the actual mail use case people are trying to explain to you just undermines anything you are suggesting.

I understand what you are saying but there is no way I am going to fill up my mail with duplicate maps. I didn't even do that when there was a lead I was farming for. I purchased a few of the differen't maps for the zone and if I didn't get the lead I purchased a few more.

But there is no way I will ever purchase more than I can hold and use mail for storage. That does nothing but lead to changes like this that negatively affect all the players.

WolfStar07

You're still blaming it on the players for utilizing every avenue they can for storage when ZOS has done little to efficiently address players concerns regarding storage, despite throwing more and more loot into the game every year.

SilverBride

WolfStar07 wrote: »

You're still blaming it on the players for utilizing every avenue they can for storage when ZOS has done little to efficiently address players concerns regarding storage, despite throwing more and more loot into the game every year.

Players don't need to gather and store every single item in the game.

ShadowPaladin

peacenote wrote: »

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

Completely disagree although I appreciate what you're trying to highlight. I read the notes carefully. I often need to log in to a character for a second without having time to go through all of its mail. I am just as concerned about the mails triggered by login as for the ones that aren't. Examples as to why in my previous post.

Just asking out of curiosity.

Won't it be easier for you going through your ingame mails and claiming them with the new *Mail Categories* and *Mail Sorting* introduced with the upcoming chapter, as well as the * "Take All” Function* coming too? With that it should be possible to better handle ingame mails, even if you will only log in for a short time.

Happy to answer. Honestly, the categories they have are fine now. The sorting they have is fine now and, as I mentioned, I have a mod to automatically take all of my hireling e-mail attachments. All I have to do is click on the first one and wait for it to cycle through. If I wanted to have my mail to always "take all" I think there is a mod for that, too. I was in PTS on Sunday and, if anything, I found the additional categories visually unappealing, not intuitive, and overwhelming. But it's also fair to say I didn't look at it for more than a couple of seconds.

The issue is a combination of inventory management, character management, decision-making fatigue, and a desire to be respectful to my raid team when they are waiting for me.

First, many of my characters carry almost a full inventory. This is because I have a lot of healers and tanks and characters with multiple specs, such that they have a good variety of armor sets. Also, I have limited play time, so it's common for me to run a raid, or finish a dungeon play session, with a full inventory and a plan to go through the character's inventory in the next scheduled play session that I have. So, "take all" won't help. There often isn't room. And it's not that I'm hoarding... when I do have time to do inventory management, I deconstruct stuff, vendor stuff, list it on the guild trader, research one piece for each trade, send motifs and recipes to my friends if I know they need them, etc. It doesn't take long, five or ten minutes, but if the run finishes at 11 and I have to go at 11, that's five or ten minutes I don't have at the moment. Which means the next time I log into the character, I need to spend five or ten minutes before I could conceivably accept mail attachments. And it might be another week before I can play again to do this.

Second, I try to be thoughtful about which character accepts the mail attachments. If I'm full on transmutes, I try to log onto a mule to take those attachments. Or sometimes I want a character where I'm leveling a craft to take all of my Rewards of the Worthy because they can d/e all of the gear.

Third, I don't know if this is an ADHD thing or just being a human thing, but if I am in a situation where I'm moving gear from one character to another, I'm not going to remember to look at my mail. I'm not thinking about my mail. I know people are waiting for me. I am focusing on which pieces to move over, so I don't mess it up and have to re-log twice, and then I'm trying to log back onto the right character as fast as possible. So, as a result, even if the character I'm on has the inventory space to "take all," chances are I'm not going to remember. Because that's not what I'm thinking about and that's not why I'm on the character. I'm thinking about swapping gear, and that's it. I'm going to want to deal with that character's mail the next time I play with that character, to specifically play with that character. Which could be in 7 days or 2 months. Which is exactly why I'm saying that this change is especially punishing to the multi-character play style. If ZOS kind of forces us into a schedule where we must log into all of our characters within 7 days or 14 days so as not to lose stuff, and we also must have inventory management time for the alts any time we log in for a second just to do one small task or move an item, it is less alt-friendly. Considerably so, depending on how many alts you have.

There is a reason I frequently say that we we need specifically more easily accessible SHARED space AKA primary bank space. There is a very specific pain point that players have when they actually try and use the Armory as intended to have multiple specs per character. From a performance/database perspective, ESO seems to have a scaling issue maintaining functionality we've had for years for multi-character support. We keep losing flexibility there, without gaining what would really be needed to transition to less characters, more specs, for those who have multiple characters primarily to play many different roles. We don't have a way to transfer gear as a set. The Armory can't grab from the bank. But if we keep gear in the bank, anyway, and painstakingly move gear piece by piece for play sessions, the bank fills up really quickly and becomes useless for anything else. If we keep the gear on the characters, there is very little working inventory space, and now we're going to be punished via mail delivery when we need to move the gear around. Housing storage is pretty useless for this type of inventory management because I can't grab the gear from anywhere like I can from the main bank. It requires another loading screen and running around between chests... extremely inefficient. Mules and housing storage are fine for long term storage, and I have more space than I'd ever need to store anything I'd ever want in this way without issue... it's active working space for characters with multiple specs who both PvE and PvP that's a problem.

Since this is a long post anyway, I'll give a working example from ONE of my characters - my main, a magplar. This character is a healer, and she heals both in dungeons and trials. She also has a DPS spec, a hybrid DPS/Heals spec, and a PVP spec. Here are some of the sets that this character carries around so it can fulfill all of these roles: Spell Power Cure, Powerful Assault, Roaring Opportunist, Jorvuld's, Deadly, Ansuul's, Worm, a variety of monster helms, multiple mythics, arena healing staves, DPS arena staves, and a variety of food and potions to support these builds. Often I have ice/fire/lightning varieties for my builds, or multiple staves for the same set but with different enchants. My dungeon team is also pursuing trifectas and as a result is typically carrying a few more niche armor sets for specific use cases/bosses. This leaves very little working space - I find I'm lucky if I have 20 - 30 open slots per run. If I wanted to explore Templar tanking on the same character, I could buy the Armory slot but I literally wouldn't have room to carry the gear.

I've found that once a month is reasonable for an inventory management session. I log onto all of my characters to receive my Tier 1 PvP e-mails (and anything else). I go through all of my mail. I do surveys. I do master writs. I clean up aging leads. I decide whether a failed listing should be re-listed. When it piles up it is not a hoarding issue but a literal time issue - play session is over and I need to deal with these things another time. Having to transition to a daily or weekly cadence isn't going to be practical and turns what should be fun rewards for players into chores. That's just not what you want from a game. It's a game, not a job, and ZOS should be trying to make it easier for us to receive all of our rewards, not harder. There's also a theme some players keep expressing, which is that they don't feel that ZOS respects their time. While perhaps not the intent, this feels like one of those kinds of changes. There's assumptions built in here, by ZOS and by some of the players coming back and saying "it's not a big deal," that everyone can easily log in regularly, that it should be easy for players to plan around vacations and unexpected time away, that everyone should have plenty of space, and that everyone who doesn't hoards... and it just isn't true. There are systemic game design issues that have resulted in mail timers and mail management being an integral part of inventory management in some cases, for some kinds of players.

Thank you for this thorough answer !!!