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 Frequent big changes to the game mean that a lot of online resources are outdated pretty fast.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.
TybaltKaine wrote: »But the proposal is to make the currency account wide. That would mean that all characters would be credited as acquiring the AP. This would be the same as making the skill progression account wide, since AP is functionally the same as EXP for the purposes of PVP.
Unless the two were unbound, you can't make the currency account wide. That's a large headache to untangle in the code when the current system works just fine.
I may have missed something but each currency mentioned can be shared account-wide. Some require being banked but that means they are still account-wide, just not automatically stored account-wide.
Very minor and not much of an issue.
As some have pointed out, AP currency may not be so easy to change. That is something we do not know and assumptions on how easy it would be if it would be an issue at all is just that, an assumption.
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.
ShadowPaladin wrote: »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).
I bank AP so I don’t overspend in shopping sprees. I’ll pull out, say, 1mil and then buy a bunch of deadly boxes. Writ vouchers should be account wide though, I thought they already were tbh.
Erickson9610 wrote: »TybaltKaine wrote: »But the proposal is to make the currency account wide. That would mean that all characters would be credited as acquiring the AP. This would be the same as making the skill progression account wide, since AP is functionally the same as EXP for the purposes of PVP.
Unless the two were unbound, you can't make the currency account wide. That's a large headache to untangle in the code when the current system works just fine.I may have missed something but each currency mentioned can be shared account-wide. Some require being banked but that means they are still account-wide, just not automatically stored account-wide.
Very minor and not much of an issue.
As some have pointed out, AP currency may not be so easy to change. That is something we do not know and assumptions on how easy it would be if it would be an issue at all is just that, an assumption.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.ShadowPaladin wrote: »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).
The vast majority of the arguments against touching the Currency system are that it could break the game, that it's archaic code that nobody knows how to change, and that it's fine the way it is. These are all assuming that it's difficult to change — if it's wrong to assume that it won't be difficult to change, then it is also wrong to assume that it will be difficult to change.
So far, the only argument I've seen that lists a functional gameplay reason for keeping some currencies bankable is this one:
The fact is any change can cause problems and often does. Those of us with years of experience in MMORPGs have seen it time and time again.
Further, all the currencies listed are account-wide. As several of us have noted, that difference in how they are handled is extremely minor. As such there are a thousand things Zenimax should deal with before even considering making a change to how these tokens are handled.
That is pretty much what we are saying.
So the second point is the most significant aspect.
The fact is any change can cause problems and often does. Those of us with years of experience in MMORPGs have seen it time and time again.
Further, all the currencies listed are account-wide. As several of us have noted, that difference in how they are handled is extremely minor. As such there are a thousand things Zenimax should deal with before even considering making a change to how these tokens are handled.
That is pretty much what we are saying.
So the second point is the most significant aspect.
Erickson9610 wrote: »There are many areas of the game which need help, but saying something like "ZOS should balance PvP instead" on a thread about improving Companions or Tales of Tribute doesn't add anything meaningful to the conversation.
Erickson9610 wrote: »The fact is any change can cause problems and often does. Those of us with years of experience in MMORPGs have seen it time and time again.
Further, all the currencies listed are account-wide. As several of us have noted, that difference in how they are handled is extremely minor. As such there are a thousand things Zenimax should deal with before even considering making a change to how these tokens are handled.
That is pretty much what we are saying.
So the second point is the most significant aspect.
You are right that any change can cause problems, but that doesn't mean that changes shouldn't be made and the problems (if any) fixed.
Erickson9610 wrote: »There are many areas of the game which need help, but saying something like "ZOS should balance PvP instead" on a thread about improving Companions or Tales of Tribute doesn't add anything meaningful to the conversation.The fact is any change can cause problems and often does. Those of us with years of experience in MMORPGs have seen it time and time again.
Further, all the currencies listed are account-wide. As several of us have noted, that difference in how they are handled is extremely minor. As such there are a thousand things Zenimax should deal with before even considering making a change to how these tokens are handled.
That is pretty much what we are saying.
So the second point is the most significant aspect.
As I noted in that quoted statement, problems caused by such a change is not the significant reason why this change will not be happening anytime soon.
As many of us have noted, the minor differences in how these currencies are managed are not a big deal That means making a change to homogenize them would not be significant nor offer a notable QoL update. As such it is extremely unlikely this will get serious consideration anytime soon. That is simply the reality of the situation.
Also, I did not speak to PvP, companions, or ToT. However, there are a thousand QoL things that offer a much greater improvement to the game than changing this.
SilverBride wrote: »It's more than a minor inconvenience if we want to use some writ vouchers, for example but have to log on all our characters one but one to put these in the bank so they can be picked up by the one that is going to use them.
There is no good reason these can't just go directly to the bank so they are readily accessible to all our characters, especially since they aren't character bound and some other currencies already work this way.
SilverBride wrote: »It's more than a minor inconvenience if we want to use some writ vouchers, for example but have to log on all our characters one but one to put these in the bank so they can be picked up by the one that is going to use them.
There is no good reason these can't just go directly to the bank so they are readily accessible to all our characters, especially since they aren't character bound and some other currencies already work this way.
Um. The only characters I have who do writs for vouchers are my mains.
Um. The only characters I have who do writs for vouchers are my mains. When one of my alts needs something (furnishing, research scrolls etc) my mains pick up whatever it is from Rolis or whats-her-name, and puts them in the bank for the alt.
Takes less than 5 minutes including porting to Deshaan, and 2 login/logout cycles.
Lol I had no idea that was there, thanks for pointing it out!tomofhyrule wrote: »Just FYI: It does.