How To: Inventory Management 101.

Soloeus

Overview: Managing inventory is a burden to many and considered by some a shortcoming of ESO. With these simple instructions and 5 Mules, you too, can solve this problem on your own with minimum investment.

Upgrade Costs: The first 3 upgrades are cheap for most people. If you are poor, I suggest only getting 2 upgrades per 5 mules. Place 2 mules in the same faction as your main. The other 3 mules can be in any faction.

Mules: These characters will begin working one at a time to deconstruct equipment. One at a time, master all crafts through Deconstruction. Once you get a mule to Crafting Level 32 (for Hireling 3) you need to do non-combat quests to get level 4. This is to get one Weapon Skill and one skill from each line.

Follow any level grinding guide and get to level 17-20. 15 Skill Points for Hirelings. You don't care about the rest. Hirelings only serve the purpose of giving you upgrade mats so don't stress the jute/sanded maple. I refine then vendor them.

The Setup: With 5 mules you can bring down the inventory needs of your main character and your bank. With this setup, you can slowly work up your mules one at a time.


1. 1 alt for all Race Stones, Treasure Maps and Fishing. All treasure maps should be saved because you can have an alt collect them in the Vet Lands 6-10. They provide the best items here. You can collect AD maps on your lowbie then use your EP main to get amazing map rewards.

2. 1 alt for all enchanting, only highest level potency, all others. This character has been my biggest issue to be honest.

This alt should be leveled enough for all enchanting perks except Keen Eye.

3. 1 alt for provisioning. You only need one stack of level 5, 20, and 30 recipes to finish a handful of provisioners. From there only keep level V/VI ingredients, see Sous Chef addon for details.

This alt should eat all of your recipes. I chose to specialize Food because I don't use Drinks and I wanted to minimize the play time on each alt.

4. 1 alt for all Armor/Weapons you wish to keep safe. I only keep set pieces.

5. 1 alt for all other odds and ends.

For me, this alt contains a stack of level 5, 10, 20/25, 30/35 ingredients. This is enough to easily level any number of provisioners quickly.

You can get them all 3 upgrades, and your main. You can get each an Imperial Edition horse and feed each one 1 Oats a day. Each of my alts has about 110-120 space, my bank has 140 space and my main has 120 space.

Bonus: If you get one character past the first set of Veteran Lands, you will get top tier items to deconstruct. This character can also gather top level provisioning mats.

With this system I have reduced the amount of time i spend managing inventory. I manage once when I collect hirelings, and again after each hunt. I destroy all Race Crafting Stones except Copper, Daedra Heart, Pallidium, and Argentium.

Blackwidow

Soloeus wrote: »

Overview: Managing inventory is a burden to many and considered by some a shortcoming of ESO. With these simple instructions and 5 Mules, you too, can solve this problem on your own with minimum investment.

Am I on Punked?

You know the issue is people don't want to use mules, right?

Nazon_Katts

Well, it is a good guide to a workaround and people struggling with the current system will find that very helpful. Additionally, it shows why inventory restrictions are point- and meaningless in their current iteration.

Great post, thank you!

TRIP233

I don't use mules and I don't have a problem with Inventory space or Bank space. I know how to manage my inventory because I only pick things up that I can use. I don't pick up trash. My vet 11 has all the crafting skills. ALL of them.

I don't need to fill my bank or inventory with several different foods. I only use one recipe: Fortified Sweetroll. It Increase Max Health & Magicka by 312 for 1 hour. I have no need or desire to make or collect the other ingredients for the other foods that I will never use.

I only make one potion and that is: Bugloss/Columbine/Mountain Flower - Restores Health, Magicka & Stamina. All others isn't necessary.

After you figure out what you need and don't need Inventory and bank space is very easy to manage. There isn't a problem with bank space there is a problem with people not knowing how to manage it.

For weapon and armor traits I only keep one stack. If it starts to over flow I use them or sell them, (most of the time I use them, no one wants to buy them). The same goes for the improvement material.

I also keep only the rare enchantment mats. the Aspect ruins.

Blackwidow

TRIP233 wrote: »

I don't use mules and I don't have a problem with Inventory space or Bank space. I know how to manage my inventory because I only pick things up that I can use. I don't pick up trash. My vet 11 has all the crafting skills. ALL of them.

The system is great when you only have one character to worry about.

TRIP233

Blackwidow wrote: »

TRIP233 wrote: »

I don't use mules and I don't have a problem with Inventory space or Bank space. I know how to manage my inventory because I only pick things up that I can use. I don't pick up trash. My vet 11 has all the crafting skills. ALL of them.

The system is great when you only have one character to worry about.

I've got 4 but I only use one. One of them is my brothers, I let him play because he wanted to see what the game was like. The other is a friends because I let him play for an hr. Another one is mine because I wanted to play a different class.

I'm still a low level on my new one but I'll level it up soon. I want to finish Craglorn first and get to vet 12.

Blackwidow

TRIP233 wrote: »

Blackwidow wrote: »

TRIP233 wrote: »

I don't use mules and I don't have a problem with Inventory space or Bank space. I know how to manage my inventory because I only pick things up that I can use. I don't pick up trash. My vet 11 has all the crafting skills. ALL of them.

The system is great when you only have one character to worry about.

I've got 4 but I only use one. One of them is my brothers, I let him play because he wanted to see what the game was like. The other is a friends because I let him play for an hr. Another one is mine because I wanted to play a different class.

I'm still a low level on my new one but I'll level it up soon. I want to finish Craglorn first and get to vet 12.

Right, but you said you only keep mats for one character. That is why it is not a problem for you.

Elad13

The whole mule thing was frustrating for me...usually I always needed something the other toon had....so I just keep stuff I might use and sell the rest. I didn't see a need to keep set pieces since I made all the armor I wanted anyway. But good thread to offer a different way to store stuff.

TRIP233

It shouldn't be a problem for anyone. Put your mats for your low level into the bank. Get on your character that has the skill and make what you need, then put the crafted item into the bank, get off that character and onto the one you wanted it for and pull it out of the bank. It's simple, easy, and it shouldn't be a problem.

It's not like you're going to keep iron and jute in the bank forever. Your other characters will level out of the area and you won't need to have that stuff anymore. You will need the next level Tier. There is plenty of room in the bank and inventory to move things around if you need space.

Blackwidow

TRIP233 wrote: »

It shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

But it is for many reasons.

I appreciate the advice, but we play differently. Let's just leave it at that.

someuser

good guide @Soloeus! Personally I want atleast 4 slots for real characters so I can play whatever class I want (my method for never having to worry about nerfs, I always have the class of the month).

Nonetheless, good guide. I like seeing the community trying to help one another out

xmistidawnb14_ESO

I have found that My alts do not lvl on decon with V1 and up items. is this new or has this always been. I do however keep her pretty much at v1 since it levls so slow its perfect for me to farm 50th lvl stuff in coldharbor. This gives me mats to decon. I really dont mind farming it. But as for v1 items i dont know if there is a trick or what but my crafters / get very little exp if any from those decons.

DeLindsay

Blackwidow wrote: »

Soloeus wrote: »

Overview: Managing inventory is a burden to many and considered by some a shortcoming of ESO. With these simple instructions and 5 Mules, you too, can solve this problem on your own with minimum investment.

Am I on Punked?

You know the issue is people don't want to use mules, right?

With exception to Eve Online, I've use mules in every MMO I've played. And everyone I have played with does the same. Some don't want to use mules, and there's nothing wrong with that stance either.

Azzuria

I have three active toons and one mule. My Alchemist and Enchanter keep their mats on them, the Enchanter is also a Blacksmith and keeps all raw metals on her as well. The Woodworker is also a Clothier and keeps all unrefined textiles and woods in her bag. Refined crafting mats in stacks under 100, trait stones and to-be-researched items are kept in the account bank. Mule holds not-yet-usable items, high level enchanting material and waters, stacks of 100 of any refined materials and racial stones/gems. There are 100 slots in my account bank, 80 on my mule and each of the three active toons has at least 100 bag slots. There are usually about 30-40 empty slots in my account bank after I clean it out, research, deconn, sell, etc.

Most of my active toons, after emptying bags, have about 50-70 empty bag slots. The real pain comes when the bag gets full and have to do the alt-hop to deconn weapons, armor and glyphs and shift things between crafting toons and mule.

SFBryan18

Creating characters for the sole purpose of inventory space not only breaks immersion for me, but it also degrades my characters down to no life bank space. I prefer they lock my 7 alt slots and just give me the space. I would have been happy to play three characters, one in each faction, but then I found out about the redundant storyline which killed the idea of alts.

Soloeus

It does kind of break immersion to have 10 alts. It breaks immersion even more to be victim of inventory scarcity. This doesn't "solve the problem" but it puts you at the helm.

Also anyone who thinks this circumventing gets around the desire of the system, it doesn't; the time spent managing inventory is time not spent "playing the game" and that means it takes you that much more time to get something done. Subscription Models are known for using Time Management techniques to force you to minimize the time spent playing.

Lack of Inventory forces you to manage inventory - not questing or pvping.
Lack of Auction House forces you to spam zones, not questing or pvping.

All of this comes together. Try this:

Log in, and the moment you find yourself "Not playing the game" start counting minutes. Then when you finally get back out and play the game stop counting. Do this every time, you might be surprised how much of your paid time is actually wasted achieving nothing whatsoever.

ebondeath

SFBryan18 wrote: »

Creating characters for the sole purpose of inventory space not only breaks immersion for me, but it also degrades my characters down to no life bank space. I prefer they lock my 7 alt slots and just give me the space.

This is exactly how I feel about it. This advice guide is great overall and very helpful, but I personally can't stomach the idea of using alts as mules. I play all of my alts and create backstories for each of them, they need their bag space for their own stuff.

My bank is nothing but crafting mats. No costumes or trophies, I keep those on the characters that earned them. I've found it's easiest for me to have Clothing/BS/WW leveled all on my main, then my alts have one craft a piece (their armor type. My main is and will be my only weapon crafter). It helps to keep lower level mats stocked (and I go through a lot because I'm constantly remaking alts). I keep gear for trait research on the character using it, no room in the bank and I refuse to go through the hassle of alt hopping for mats.

Inventory seems more manageable now that I'm higher level and my crafts are maxed. I have about 50 free slots, but they fill up fast and I'm always finding new traits to research (and I'm in the 6-12+ days wait time now).

So it's definitely doable and not even that time consuming without using mules, but I suspect the only reason that I even have free inventory space is because I haven't bothered leveling enchanting or provisioning yet.

Nestor

This is basically what I do, because I have to do it. Not because I want to or think it is a good idea. I don't spend the time grinding the Mules up as their storage is more important to me than what they can create or gather.

There are two big problems with this.

1. Dealing with Mules takes a ton of time. From not being sure what Mule has what to logging in and out to shuffle things around. I would rather be questing or farming or exploring or fishing or even just out throwing a few spells at a mob to help a random quester.

2. When I go to create another character, I am going to have to do something with the inventory of the Mule as I will need that slot. Since most of my Mules are full or have a significant amount of filled slots, making my next character is filling me with a sense of dread. Right now I have one slot open, but I need another mule, but I want to play the Ebonheart Pact too.

kassandratheclericb14_ESO

Thank you but I have explained in multiple threads why this type of thought process doesn't work for me. However I appreciate someone trying to find solutions and not just yelling at folks.

I am sure this will be helpful to many.

Elencha

@Nestor‌, I feel your pain.This add-on is my bible in game. It not only tells you what traits you have researched, it tells you what traits you have items for that you haven't researched, who is holding said item and exactly what the item is called. Also, there's another one, Vicster's Inventory Insight, which tells you your inventory on all characters and guild banks as well as who has what, among other things. These two add-ons are vital for the bank-alt bingo mini-game.

Volkodav

I do have space problems due to all the great armor sets I have gathered.Sooo,..nice idea! I wouldnt have thought of it.Mules,,huh? Will do.