Mail changes

CrashTest

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Alinhbo_Tyaka

SilverBride wrote: »

People usually only go away for vacation once a year. Just prepare for this by clearing all mail and removing any items already up for sale until back home.

Many of us take more than one vacation a year.

I'm retired so leave whenever we feel like getting away or need to visit family. When I worked I earned 6 weeks of vacation and had 12 holidays every year. It was quite common for me to take multiple, multiple week vacations each year. I also had multiple week business trips where I would not be able to access the game since I kept personal information off of my employer provided equipment. I'm confident I'm not the lone party to see the situations.

I can definitely say the change will reduce my selling of items via the Guild Trader rather than risk losing gold or returned items. This will not only affect my in game income but that of the guild as well.

This is a poorly thought out change that will do nothing more than further alienate the player base.

WolfStar07

SilverBride wrote: »

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.

Thanks for the attitude that confirms my point.

SilverBride

WolfStar07 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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.

Thanks for the attitude that confirms my point.

I was just stating a fact. There just isn't enough storage space available for players to keep everything.

Rishikesa108

I'm afraid that the reduced storage time of mails is not the biggest problem. Kevin also told us this too:

"Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.
As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward."

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

Jaraal

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

And they never said what the benefit of changing a single listing from 30 days to three separate listings of 14, 14, and two days would be. Or explained how the player receiving three mails from three listings instead of the current single mail would help ease server load.

@ZOS_Kevin, could you clarify this for us please?

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Jaraal wrote: »

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

And they never said what the benefit of changing a single listing from 30 days to three separate listings of 14, 14, and two days would be. Or explained how the player receiving three mails from three listings instead of the current single mail would help ease server load.

@ZOS_Kevin, could you clarify this for us please?

It won't decrease server load as it increases the number of transactions for posting to the guild trader and returning items to the player.

The response of ZOS to reduce the sales posting days to match the reduced mail purge intervals along with other supposed server performance changes, such as AWA, confirms my belief that they have lost touch with the player base.

wolfie1.0.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

And they never said what the benefit of changing a single listing from 30 days to three separate listings of 14, 14, and two days would be. Or explained how the player receiving three mails from three listings instead of the current single mail would help ease server load.

@ZOS_Kevin, could you clarify this for us please?

It won't decrease server load as it increases the number of transactions for posting to the guild trader and returning items to the player.

The response of ZOS to reduce the sales posting days to match the reduced mail purge intervals along with other supposed server performance changes, such as AWA, confirms my belief that they have lost touch with the player base.

Or there is an unstated motif that they don't want to tell us. I mean I am sure they are looking at the aging reports on the database.

But there is an added benefit for them. It means they can reduce the cold storage triggers down to 29 or 30 days exact and capture more players who don't engage as often. Prior to this, if listings and mails prevented it, it would be 60 days.

Plus it could mean more frequent logins as well for general players.

Not really sure just trying to find reasons why.rhis would make sense

sarahthes

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

And they never said what the benefit of changing a single listing from 30 days to three separate listings of 14, 14, and two days would be. Or explained how the player receiving three mails from three listings instead of the current single mail would help ease server load.

@ZOS_Kevin, could you clarify this for us please?

It won't decrease server load as it increases the number of transactions for posting to the guild trader and returning items to the player.

The response of ZOS to reduce the sales posting days to match the reduced mail purge intervals along with other supposed server performance changes, such as AWA, confirms my belief that they have lost touch with the player base.

Or there is an unstated motif that they don't want to tell us. I mean I am sure they are looking at the aging reports on the database.

But there is an added benefit for them. It means they can reduce the cold storage triggers down to 29 or 30 days exact and capture more players who don't engage as often. Prior to this, if listings and mails prevented it, it would be 60 days.

Plus it could mean more frequent logins as well for general players.

Not really sure just trying to find reasons why.rhis would make sense

There are likely a number of different behaviours they are wanting to modify, the sum total of which should reduce backend strain.

It's also possible that we will never directly see these improvements, but that they will mean fewer behind the scenes issues freeing up staff to work on other items.

peacenote

SilverBride wrote: »

WolfStar07 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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.

Thanks for the attitude that confirms my point.

I was just stating a fact. There just isn't enough storage space available for players to keep everything.

This is 100% true. Indisputably true. However I'm not sure how relevant this fact is, because unless the people impacted by the mail timers are trying to keep everything, it doesn't really have anything to do with if the mail timer changes are good or bad. I would argue that very few people impacted by this are trying to keep everything or anywhere near everything. I'll say it again... hoarding is not the issue. If players are relying on mail as a lever to balance inventory, this is a game design issue. And the fact that the solution is going to make things harder for players, not easier, giving them less flexibility in how often they have to log in and when they do inventory management (how often, pre-play session vs next play session) is problematic, and feedback that I really, really hope ZOS hears and understands.

Jaraal

sarahthes wrote: »

It's also possible that we will never directly see these improvements, but that they will mean fewer behind the scenes issues freeing up staff to work on other items.

Like TES6, and the new Zenimax AAA title?

SilverBride

peacenote wrote: »

...hoarding is not the issue. If players are relying on mail as a lever to balance inventory, this is a game design issue.

If this was a game design issue then everyone would have it, but there are many that don't.

Elsonso

peacenote wrote: »

This is 100% true. Indisputably true. However I'm not sure how relevant this fact is, because unless the people impacted by the mail timers are trying to keep everything, it doesn't really have anything to do with if the mail timer changes are good or bad. I would argue that very few people impacted by this are trying to keep everything or anywhere near everything. I'll say it again... hoarding is not the issue. If players are relying on mail as a lever to balance inventory, this is a game design issue. And the fact that the solution is going to make things harder for players, not easier, giving them less flexibility in how often they have to log in and when they do inventory management (how often, pre-play session vs next play session) is problematic, and feedback that I really, really hope ZOS hears and understands.

Like with AwA, my gut feeling is that this is more to do with ZOS quality of life than player quality of life. Database sizes and access times stand out as the most obvious reason that I can see. If that is the case, the drive to change the mail timers is likely larger than the request to keep them the same.

The timer updates, in general, don't feel that constrained for someone who is actively playing the game, and therefore, actively using the trading and mail system as intended. The player issue seems to be mainly with edge cases, like vacations, illness, and inventory management.

From my expensive, falling apart, Secret Labs chair, the one timer that stands out as problematic is the guild trader mail. The ones that contain the gold from trader sales and the mail containing returned trader items that did not sell. Gold should just be deposited in the player's bank. Skip the email entirely. Returned items need to be held longer than 14 days.

NoticeMeArkay

Just clear out the guild vendor before you go on a 2 weeks long break or longer.

I have 1 account with 8 alts, filled up storage chests and tight bank space and even I don't see an issue with that.
If people who spend extra money on this game to overcome the inconvenience that is limited bank and inventory space still can't manage things, I don't think the system is the issue.

Jaraal

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Just clear out the guild vendor before you go on a 2 weeks long break or longer.

Why should my trading guilds have to suffer because of a ZOS change 10 years after the fact? They need all of us to keep the slots filled to pay for the trader.

There's more in play here than just fear of losing stuff to a shorter mail timer.

sarahthes

Jaraal wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

It's also possible that we will never directly see these improvements, but that they will mean fewer behind the scenes issues freeing up staff to work on other items.

Like TES6, and the new Zenimax AAA title?

TES 6 is out of a different physical studio. It's in the same city, but it's completely separated on their public org chart both in reporting structure and location. It would make payroll sad.

And, I just said "other items". Given they had a big layoff a few months ago, hopefully that would be internal work.

AnduinTryggva

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

I'm afraid that the reduced storage time of mails is not the biggest problem. Kevin also told us this too:

"Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS. We understand the concerns raised around shortening Mail timers, specifically in instances where a player may need to step away from the game for an extended period of time, and that with this shortened window they may miss items or gold coming from Guild Traders through the Mail.
As we reviewed this feedback and investigated those concerns, our data revealed that the vast majority of items listed at Guild Traders sell within a week. If an item does not sell by then, it typically doesn't sell during that listing period. In light of this, Guild Trader listings will now be reduced from 30 to 14 days. All Mail expiration timers will remain at 14 days. To be clear, the timer for Mail expiration will be 14 days from when the item sells or is returned to the player. A Guild Trader listing will expire 14 days from when an item is listed. This will affect all new Mail items and Guild Trader listings from U42 launch onward."

We asked NOT to shorten the duration of the mails and they responded by ALSO shortening the listing of items for sale.
All in 14 days! Crazy.
This innovation is capable of destroying the economy of the game, in my humble opinion.

I simply wonder how they think that reducing the listing time to 14 days does mitigate the consequences of the reduction of mail storage at all? This makes things with respect to away times even worse!

Assume that you are away for 15+ days.

On the day prior to your departure you put some precious items on the guild store. Two things can now occure: Either these items are sold or not during the listing time.

Now compare following two situations:
1) with the mail storage reduction to 14 days as announced in the patch notes but with current 30 days listing:
a) you lose the gold from the sales if some happen during your absence
b) if you don't sell nothing happens and things go on as before

2) with the mail storage reduction to 14 days as announced in the patch notes but now with the threat of a listing time reduction to 14 days:
a) you lose the gld from the sales if sales happen during your absence
b) you now lose ALSO the returned item if it is not sold during your absence.

What a terribe idea. And terrible to sell this to us as something mitigating the previous decision on the mail storage duration.

And on top of that this idea basically equates to a doubling of the selling fees for items that stay longer on listings.

Their statistics is simply not a good way to justify this reduction as it puts high demand items in the same pot as niche items.

A slap in the face of the trading folks AND trading guilds as the only suitable course of action for people going on vacation or else is to plan ahead and stop putting things on the guild stores 14 days prior to departure. Now imagine being in a guild that requests regular sales...

peacenote

SilverBride wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

...hoarding is not the issue. If players are relying on mail as a lever to balance inventory, this is a game design issue.

If this was a game design issue then everyone would have it, but there are many that don't.

That is because not everyone has the same playstyle! And from what I can tell, that's just the way ZOS likes it. They try to appeal to as many kinds of players as possible.

Some people ONLY PvP. Some people ONLY quest. Some people ONLY DPS. Imo, all of those folks are missing out. But it's a completely valid way to play the game.

As I did try to explain in great detail, it is a problem for folks who like to enjoy all of the game and have multiple specs per character -- especially healers and tanks. Which is actively encouraged by the game design of both the Armory feature and the "we want you to try all the things so we have PvE stuff in PvP content and vice versa."

So, since the game, by its design, encourages you to try all the things, and then doesn't provide space or QoL features to make multiple specs and builds easier to manage, it's a game design issue. Just because not everyone has this problem doesn't mean it's not a game design issue. That's flawed logic. This more speaks to the fact that ESO attracts many different playstyles, which as a result causes ZOS to have to maintain all kinds of features - companions, houses/furniture, competitive PvE gear and balance, PvP gear and balance, leads, quests, etc.

While certainly, when making decisions, the game designers shouldn't cater to niche scenarios, at the same time it would be a mistake to cater only to the things everyone does. Because the things "everyone" does may be most common but not what's most important to players. For example, "everyone" may do writs, but no one plays ESO because of writs. As for myself, I love being a competitive dungeon and trial healer and that's the reason I play this game, and it's more important to me that game decisions support that activity than, say, making writs more fun.

Hopefully that makes sense. Just because something doesn't apply to everyone doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist.

SilverBride

Hoarding is prevalent and it is the cause of a lot of inventory problems. Just having a few sets of gear for different builds isn't going to fill up a player's space to the degree that they have to use mail as storage.

TaSheen

If you don't want to hoard, don't. Others will do what they feel necessary.

Edited for "overly blunt".

CrashTest

SilverBride wrote: »

Hoarding is prevalent and it is the cause of a lot of inventory problems. Just having a few sets of gear for different builds isn't going to fill up a player's space to the degree that they have to use mail as storage.

I'm a sweaty vet trial hm tank. My character inventory is always 180+ bc of all the different sets, food, and pots I need to play at that level.

That's just 1 character and 1 role.

I play all 3 roles and have 17 raider characters. I'm not a hoarder, but I use up most of my bank space and housing storage just to hold all the gear, pots, and food I need. I even made had to make an alt just to hold stuff.

Most endgame supports, especially tanks have this issue.

I have multiples of the exact same gear on different characters bc it's super tedious to share gear between characters. If ZOS is looking to lessen database strain, they could look into making it easier to share gear across our characters, so we can delete the dozens of duplicate gear pieces we have per account.

As it is, if we want to wear gear that's on another character, we have logout of our current character, login to the other character, find a bank, strip the other character, deposit gear into the bank, logout, log back in to the original character, find a bank, withdraw items, then slot the transferred gear.

NoticeMeArkay

Jaraal wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Just clear out the guild vendor before you go on a 2 weeks long break or longer.

Why should my trading guilds have to suffer because of a ZOS change 10 years after the fact? They need all of us to keep the slots filled to pay for the trader.

There's more in play here than just fear of losing stuff to a shorter mail timer.

If your guilds will make less incommon due to a circumstance that every player has to deal with, so will other guilds see lesser income aswell. Which may result in lower biddings and perhaps even reduce the gap between well-established trading giants and newer guilds in terms of acquiring a vendor.

ArchangelIsraphel

I have multiples of the exact same gear on different characters bc it's super tedious to share gear between characters. If ZOS is looking to lessen database strain, they could look into making it easier to share gear across our characters, so we can delete the dozens of duplicate gear pieces we have per account.

As someone who plays a tank main, one of my biggest wishes for the game is for ZOS to utilize the collections menu system for upgraded gear, allowing us to equip from an account-wide menu rather than having gear as an object in the inventory. (A menu that would let us equip any collected and upgraded piece to any character we want)

Although there is so many hundreds of upgrade combinations, that I'm not sure how they'd manage it.

jaekobcaed

Agreed, it shouldn't be any lower than 14. Moreover, if ZOS wants to reduce the time mail gets saved, they need to offer some sort of option for those who take time away. Either a flag that makes it impossible to send mail, or something that holds our mailed items in escrow at least.

Jaraal

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Just clear out the guild vendor before you go on a 2 weeks long break or longer.

Why should my trading guilds have to suffer because of a ZOS change 10 years after the fact? They need all of us to keep the slots filled to pay for the trader.

There's more in play here than just fear of losing stuff to a shorter mail timer.

If your guilds will make less incommon due to a circumstance that every player has to deal with, so will other guilds see lesser income aswell. Which may result in lower biddings and perhaps even reduce the gap between well-established trading giants and newer guilds in terms of acquiring a vendor.

I doubt that members of trading guilds take less vacations, are sick less, or have less connection/hardware problems than players in smaller guilds. In fact, smaller guilds are more likely to die and disband. Prices aren't going to drop, because supply will diminish as more people pull their listings to avoid the decay timer. And if bids go down, then the gold sink becomes less effective, and inflation will increase due to more discretionary income and less to spend it on.

AnduinTryggva

jaekobcaed wrote: »

Agreed, it shouldn't be any lower than 14. Moreover, if ZOS wants to reduce the time mail gets saved, they need to offer some sort of option for those who take time away. Either a flag that makes it impossible to send mail, or something that holds our mailed items in escrow at least.

It won't help solve the issue that ZOS sees as to be solved for server problems. We have many many players out there, some are power players, others check in for only a few times, others not at all. All these people have mail sent to them, some more some less but it is still there. Imagine a guild not sorting out inactive players. These get guild mails nonetheless. This eats up memory storage space. And it does not matter if this mail is sent to the mailbox directly or to a mail buffer.

If we are at that: I believe they want to reduce the memory costs of storing the mails. This is understandable. But there could be better solutions that frees space currently occupied by mail storage but with less sever impact on traders for instance by allowing a quota of trade mails (sales or delisted items) to stay longer. This will free less space than with what they do now but will impact less trade folks.

To be honest: To hoard things on mail because one does not clean up inventory storage space or because not booking ESO+ ( the latter is of course a fully understandable choice and not to be critized and I don't mean to critisize this choice at all) is not a kind move if that memory space that is used for mail storage instead of being available to game performance hampers game performance because ALL players will suffer from that game performance. As such I think I can support their move to force people to empty their mails.

I request however that they find a solution for the traders and trading guilds that is different, much different from what was announced as it actually makes things even worse.

h9dlb

It's literally not going to be worth selling anything of value. The listing fees are going to kill trading

SaffronCitrusflower

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

Just clear out the guild vendor before you go on a 2 weeks long break or longer.

I have 1 account with 8 alts, filled up storage chests and tight bank space and even I don't see an issue with that.
If people who spend extra money on this game to overcome the inconvenience that is limited bank and inventory space still can't manage things, I don't think the system is the issue.

Your suggestion is a less than ideal "fix" for the situation.

I doubt very much the player base will see any performance improvements from these changes, as is the suggestion. If ZOS frees up server space, they'll just reduce how much server they lease. We know this based on how they've treated Cyrodiil.

SaffronCitrusflower

h9dlb wrote: »

It's literally not going to be worth selling anything of value. The listing fees are going to kill trading

Yep, the high dollar items that usually don't sell in 14 days are going to be a real gold sink now, and that gold doesn't even go to the guild hosting the trader.

katanagirl1

Let’s not go down this path of calling everyone hoarders again. No one keeps trash like foul hides and vampire dust in their inventory, clogging it up. Regardless of what others like to say.

If you can run around with empty inventory all the time, great. Some of us like to do stuff instead.