Can we have more character slots?

jsjem · June 24

I haven't been playing ESO for several years. I heard the game changes a lot during this period. I want to refamiliarize myself with this game from a new character (so I won't be blamed due to high CP). But I don't want to delete anyone of my 20 previous characters. So, can we have some more character slots? Or if it is possible to have a function to reset my character level to 1.

LunaFlora · June 24

maybe in a year or two with a new class

tomofhyrule · June 24

LunaFlora wrote: »

maybe in a year or two with a new class

I am certainly hoping that it’s only a year or two…

I do expect we’ll get another slot (likely two, with one paid) with any new Class they drop. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later, but the radio silence on the Warden rework is making me nervous.

But yeah, I’m not making any secret of the fact that I’m in desperate need of new Classes. We’ve averaged one an average of every three years since release (2014 release, 2017 Warden, 2019 Necro, 2023 Arc), so we’re due this year, but they’re definitely not going to touch new Classes until the refreshes are done. My copium is that they’ll shadowdrop a new Class one or two patches after Arc’s refresh to keep the momentum going.

Eliahnus · June 24

Yes, additional character slots, please!

Arunei · June 24

I'm fairly certain they've said one reason we aren't getting stuff like new Classes or more Furnishing slots is because of memory issues and those being tied to supporting older PC/console hardware. They've also said in a thread about WWs getting some emotes or animations for certain things would take a lot of memory.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone! Thank you for all the wonderful and creative suggestions for unique Werewolf emotes and general emote support for the Werewolf model. While this is something we all would love to do, unfortunately it isn’t something we are able to do at this time. We’d like to provide some context as to why, and though we know this is not the answer you all were hoping for, we hope it helps give you a little extra insight.

Every animation in the game from pet and mount animations to emotes to combat animations contributes to our overall shared animation memory budget for ESO. That budget has a cap to ensure the game runs as smoothly as possible and our players don’t run into a memory cap (the worst-case scenario of which ends in a blue-screen-of-death.)

Emotes, in particular, sometimes have a more “expensive” animation memory cost than regular combat or collectibles animations because we let you emote at any time, emotes can be very long and grandiose, and you can do many of the same things with them as you can with combat animations (animation cancel, blend, etc.) This makes special, contextual emotes, like those for the Werewolf model, highly expensive compared to other types of animations; we have to be extremely selective with the ones we create.

When we’re prioritizing new animations, we need to be very careful with where we spend that animation memory budget. With the class refresh work, animations related to combat skills are given higher priority than new emotes. So, again, it’s something we’d love to do at some point and may be able to revisit in the future. It’s just not in the cards at this time due to current animation memory budgets and how careful we must be with where we spend that animation memory budget.

The post in question if anyone wants to see it directly. That being the case, I REALLY doubt we're going to see more Classes even a year or two after the current Classes all get reworked, unless they either drop support for older systems (aka increase minimum system requirements) or somehow get more memory for the game.

Nemesis7884 · June 24

Hopefully they finally abandon xbox s support sooner rather than later

valenwood_vegan · June 24

They have simply got to consider raising the minimum requirements at some point. They did recently do the (generally not-well-received) animation memory reduction, but at best that's only buying some time / memory for the class reworks I imagine and isn't a longer-term solution.

lillybit · June 24

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

They have simply got to consider raising the minimum requirements at some point. They did recently do the (generally not-well-received) animation memory reduction, but at best that's only buying some time / memory for the class reworks I imagine and isn't a longer-term solution.

The next next gen consoles are on the horizon (just being held up by memory prices I believe), I don't know how practical it would be to try and support 3 generations. I'm kinda expecting when a version for the new ones comes out the old consoles will be dropped

virtus753 · June 25

lillybit wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

They have simply got to consider raising the minimum requirements at some point. They did recently do the (generally not-well-received) animation memory reduction, but at best that's only buying some time / memory for the class reworks I imagine and isn't a longer-term solution.

The next next gen consoles are on the horizon (just being held up by memory prices I believe), I don't know how practical it would be to try and support 3 generations. I'm kinda expecting when a version for the new ones comes out the old consoles will be dropped

I do think it looks like they’re trying to wait out the next generation. They’ll have the numbers on how much of the player base is on what hardware. But there are unfortunately multiple hardware components whose prices are continuing to rise quickly. Asha Sharma named both memory and storage when she discussed how prices for some parts have quadrupled from last fall to this month. She expects them to rise even further heading into the holiday season, so that horizon is still looking pretty far away at the moment. She acknowledged the affordability crisis and how many consumers are not going to spend the “thousands” it will cost for a new console. But Satya Nadella has simultaneously insisted that Xbox be self-sustaining rather than subsidized going forward, making it hard to understand specifically how Xbox is going to deliver a product people will feel is an attractive upgrade at an affordable price point. Sharma mentioned “radically different business models” coming later this year, and it will be interesting to see how players respond to them.

Nemesis7884 · June 25

Xbox s support was always a mistake that is holding back not just eso...how many of those players arw there anyhow?

Arunei · June 25

I do get them wanting to keep ESO functioning on as many devices as they can for as long as they can. Not only does it generate more income, but what do you do for the people who play on systems that no longer can run it once older, weaker hardware is no longer supported and don't have the means of replacing their current device? Especially someone who's been playing for years and possibly spent hundreds or thousands of dollars.

At the same time, they're going to eventually run into a problem where supporting old tech just isn't feasible if they want the game to keep progressing and adding things to it. If we're already at a point where WW can't get even a handful of emotes or a few dedicated animations such as for harvesting mats, that's a bit concerning.