How do you manage inventory without the crafting bag?

Runs

I own 4 accounts, although 2 will do fine.

First account I play. Extra Items get mailed to account 2.

Second account is my trading account and also does daily writs.

• First character grabs mail, decons anything that needs deconing, puts items up for sale, and other items in bank. Mails master writs over 9 vouchers to 3rd account.
• Second character grabs alchemy mats out of bank, puts them up for sale in stacks of 50-100.
• Third character grabs furnishings out of bank, occasionally puts some up for sale if I an excess of sell slots.
• Fourth character grabs furnishing materials and jewelcrafting materials out of bank. Hold furnishing mats till trial eso+ to mail back to main. Sells jc mats when they hit enough to make 2 rings and a neck on the highest level the mat makes.
• Fifth character pulls enchanting materials from bank, sells kuta in stacks of 7-10, rekuta in stacks of 100.
• Sixth character pulls style and trait items from bank to hold till free eso+ on main account.
• Seventh character pulls provisioning materials from bank, sells in stacks of 100
• Eighth character pulls bs/ww/clothing materials from bank sells in stacks of 100.

Third account holds my master writs and mails them back to main account when there is around 100.

Fourth account doesn't get used too much anymore.

-Edit to add- Second account may sound like a lot of work, but the time it takes really isn't much because I'm already logging those characters to do their writs anyway.

VaranisArano

I managed without housing storage for quite some time.

Now I have 1 mule for dungeon sets I could probably decon but don't want to grind again, all the housing storage which I use to save up crafting mats I gather for the next ESO+ trial, and my other characters I don't play often carry festival rewards I'm waiting to sell, like the anniversary motifs.

Doing the ESO+ trials really killed the desire to sub for me, because I can refill the crafting bag twice a year and be good to go.

Septimus_Magna

With the amount of crafting mats I find it impossible to manage my inventory without ESO+ sub. It could work if you just started and only play one char but for most max CP players with multilple chars its very hard.

TescoBiscuits

Before getting ESO+, I shared a guild bank with 5 friends and 7 randoms at the initial start of the game.

A week later everyone, except one friend, stopped playing. Us two shared the guild bank for 2 years

photonoxx

Or for less than a year of ESO+ price (but with no crown benefit) you probably could get 10 accounts (during sales) and have one or up to five guild bank for 2500 item slot.

Malacthulhu

People shouldnt have to open multiple accounts and guild banks to manage inventory.

Ratzkifal

Don't pick up common style materials.
Don't pick up gear for deconstruction only.
Spread inventory hogs (blueprints, maps, recipes etc) on sperate or dedicated character. When available, store in your house.
Don't pick up rewards of the worthy of daily material mails.
When your inventory and bank are overflowing, send excess things to a trusted person who sends them back to you.
Wait with cleaning up until the next ESO+ free trial or your next 1500 crowns purchase.

Brutusmax1mus

Before the craft bag i had a second account with 8 characters I'd send mats to all named after what they carried. Treyt Stile for instance.

Raraaku

I eventually went ESO Plus, but there are ways to help managing the clutter of inventory/storage/bank space. A lot of those ways have been mentioned already but I'll list them and maybe a few other tid-bits.

-- Crafting Alt/Mule: Creating an alt as your designated crafter (I recommend orc) is a good place to stash most of your crafting materials. At least the non-CP 150-160 Materials. You can log on to them to do dailies/banking/gathering/etc. But having one designated character to hold all your crafting materials is a lot easier than having multiple characters carrying materials for multiple professions.

-- Storage Container: The Crown Store offers 30/60 storage containers for your home (I believe the 60 storage is 2k crowns). You can also get them in-game via Tel Var stones, but the prices are ridiculous and you'd be much better off just spending the real money and saving those tel var stones for items like Hakeijo runes. I used these containers to store seldomly used sets I had acquired that I didn't use, but I also didn't want to get rid of since they were completed, or nearly completed sets that you never know you might want to try something out. This way, I could keep them, but not have them crowd my bank space.

-- Guild Bank: If you know 10 or so people that you trust relatively well; having a "dummy" guild could be a good route to go. My rule of thumb about this is this: Would I be extremely upset if this were taken, or stolen, without my permission? If yes, then don't store it in the guild bank. I would tell my friends to follow the same guidelines. Guild Banks are great for storing communal things such as training gear, extra recipes, lower tier crafting materials, and intricate trait items.

-- You only need one copy: This was my biggest issue, particularly when it came to crafting. I would hold onto a piece of gear with a research trait I still hadn't researched, I would forget about it, and soon I'd end up with 3-4 copies of a piece a gear who's only value was that I needed to research the trait. Periodically go through your inventory and cull any copies you may have picked up on trait gear so that you have just a single copy of it. I decon the other copies or sell them.

-- Keep only useful traits of Sets: If you farm sets, you'll eventually end-up with multiple copies of the same piece of armor or weapon; particularly if you're farming dungeons/trials for gear. Pick-up what you need to complete the set; but then it's time to get picky. Do I really need a reinforced trait of Burning Spellweave gloves, or would I rather want an infused trait copy? I'm probably going to want the infused trait. Transmutation is expensive; save yourself the cost and inventory space by picking up gear whose traits you find useful. Otherwise You'll end up 5 pieces of Ebon Armory girdles with Training traits on them that you're not going to use because you transmuted a copy already or don't want to spend the 50 crystals to transmute something for an alt.

-- Bank Inventory: I try to keep my bank inventory contained to CP150-160 materials, frequently used sets, monster helms sets, and highly valued items. Which is easier said than done, since gear sets take up a lot of space quickly. If I'm running out of space, I'll either move extra set-pieces to my storage containers, or sell some of my crafting materials to make room.

Honestly, if you have the disposable income, I recommend going ESO Plus for the crafting bag; but I understand that's not always an option or a desirable one. I hope some of those tips help!

DuskMarine

Tygerfire wrote: »

I remember playing ESO early on before the crafting bag, and honestly I can't see how I did it. Ever since it became part of eso Plus (one tam update?), If i'm playing the game, I'm doing it with the crafting bag.

A few months ago, I abandoned my empire on the X1, and restarted from scratch on the PC (and not regretting it one bit) and thus I switched my eso plus over as well. Occasionally I log back in to my x1 but I find myself unable to function with a constant filled inventory.

So I'm just curious for those who don't use plus, what methods do you use for inv management. Is it as simple as using other characters as mules? Or do you just sell everything and not use the crafting system? I've also thought with the addition of the storage chests, you could potentially use that as your crafting bag.

Reading some of the other eso plus threads on the front page got me thinking about this, so was just curious about your opinions and how you do it. Thanks.

buy the craftbag eso plus is cheap just pony up

Joy_Division

You don;t.

CatchMeTrolling

It’s simple, you don’t. It messes up everything when it’s not active, especially when you swap gear.

The other day I didn’t play because mine randomly stopped working, that’s how serious it is.

Starlock

I played my first year without having ESO+ and it was fine. I did this without using a guild bank, without maximizing inventory or bank space, without using any mules, and with only one character. It is very doable, but I suppose your mileage will vary depending on why you play the game and what it is you want to do. For me, my focus is always on creating an interesting character to role-play story with. I also always love getting into the crafting of any game.

During that year playing without ESO+ my bank was used almost entirely for crafting materials. Others have already given good advice for how to manage that, and what they did is essentially what I did. I did not keep low-level materials (beyond maybe a stack of each) and instead sold them off. Sub-mats of style materials I kept on the character until they were refined to a full style material. I chose not to do alchemy or provisioning at all. Provisioning didn't fit the character I was role-playing, and I've never liked alchemy in any Elder Scrolls game I've played. I'd still gather alchemy materials, and then sell them on guild trader at very low prices to get them out of my inventory. The only sets I used were ones I crafted myself and those were perfectly adequate for my needs. I'd make regular trips to crafting locations and banks to deposit things I'd gathered. It didn't bother me - it was part of his adventures.

The game has changed a lot since the VR days, however. For new players, I'm not sure how well it would work to try and do what I did, even if you have similar gameplay priorities. There are many, many more style materials now, plus an entirely new crafting line. I really think the developers should increase bank and inventory caps by 10 at each chapter release to accommodate this - and make that addition free when you buy the chapter. Bank and inventory space increases are horrendously expensive for players who focus on role-playing and questing.

NordSwordnBoard

I used writ vouchers to get all of the housing storage boxes. This, plus a personal guild bank. I don't need a mule account anymore after housing storage.

You simply find a cutoff point for gear, don't keep anything but jewelry and weapon/shields as the rest is easily farmable with transmutation.

Sparr0w

Eso+ < 1500 crowns

Think of it that way, plus you get double space, craft bag etc...

RedRook

gresiac wrote: »

If you cant affort 13 euro/month you should play something else.

If they're going to run it like a F2P game, I'll play it like a F2P game.

lionofjudah7

fioskal wrote: »

I have a 'private' guild bank, for less commonly used mats, filled up my regular bank with more commonly used mats, and put any gear on toons (with 20 or so free spots on each one). Oh, and I had a dedicated enchanting toon and a dedicated provisioning toon.

Other than that I bounced a lot of mail. I much prefer having the crafting bag. I'm a huge hoarder.

All because u rather not spend the equivalent of 30cents per day

kathandira

Tygerfire wrote: »

I remember playing ESO early on before the crafting bag, and honestly I can't see how I did it. Ever since it became part of eso Plus (one tam update?), If i'm playing the game, I'm doing it with the crafting bag.

A few months ago, I abandoned my empire on the X1, and restarted from scratch on the PC (and not regretting it one bit) and thus I switched my eso plus over as well. Occasionally I log back in to my x1 but I find myself unable to function with a constant filled inventory.

So I'm just curious for those who don't use plus, what methods do you use for inv management. Is it as simple as using other characters as mules? Or do you just sell everything and not use the crafting system? I've also thought with the addition of the storage chests, you could potentially use that as your crafting bag.

Reading some of the other eso plus threads on the front page got me thinking about this, so was just curious about your opinions and how you do it. Thanks.

I put everything into the guild bank. Literally every single crafting material.

Davor

So I am not alone. I play on PC now. I tried going back to my Xbox One and can't without the craft bag. I don't even bother trying to play to gain daily rewards. I mean if I can't have fun, what is the use playing then?

ImmortalCX

Get your bank space up to 200+. Use writs to buy two or more storage chests.

Do not loot any food. Destroy (or have Dustman destroy) any raw food, trait materials, lesser style materials that you find in your inventory.

After questing/adventuring, decon any purples you don't want.

Go to bank and deposit any crafting raw materials, runes, alchemy mats that you farmed/looted. Also deposit any purple set gear you'd like to save.

Go to guild store and list any items for sale that have value, or full stacks of mats that you farmed.

Go to merchant, sell any junk, white/green/blue gear that is remaining in inventory.

Go to your storage chests and deposit any monster helms/shoulders that you want to keep.

Log into bank alts and withdrawl purple gear you want to save. You should have three alts, one each for light, medium, and heavy.


Once your bank space gets to 200, you have enough space to hold all the crafting mats you farm and can do your daily writs without having to do bank transfers. You will have a buffer of about 20-30 spaces for transferring purple gear to bank alts, so you don't have to log on to them all the time, only when your bank gets full.

Basically, you just need a system and some discipline.

Tasear

It's easy just have to have a system. I only keep support gear in bank. The main tank holds tank gear and DPS hold their gear. Got merchant/banker to sell and swap things. Lastly storage for other things.

Storage boxes

1 for food/ alchemy/ enchanting
1 for woodworking/ jelwery/ blacksmithing/clothing
1 mis mostly disuages and precious items
1 to sell stuff for later
1 for gold jelwery
1 for special weapons
2 for monster sets keep only divines

Large House to store housing things to sell from crafted items
Small houses for plants x2,rocks, books, small items, things I like, raffles, giveaways, things to sell

1 large personal house for me to add my personal touches and creativity.

1 guild house for social stuff to do.

2 Manors I am still deciding what to do with but it's nice owning island and palace. ( Check 2 off the bucket list)

Note have all stations in snugpod so it's just conveyor belt system in a semi circle.

This leaves with about 100 slots or more per character so I can so pledges in peace. Uses less then 100 slots in bank.

I buy overland gear and passiving farm dungeon gear with my guild. For triala I join with my trial guild or lead my own.

Tl:Dr keep what you need some things you want and buy the rest or go adventuring with friends when you need it.

KanedaSyndrome

Play on PC, get a bank management addon that auto transfers items, store crafting mats in bank. Use mules/housing crates for gear sets.

TheUndeadAmulet

You Don't

Kiralyn2000

Eh. 1 mule, a decent sized bank (it's at 210 now), and a couple storage boxes. And I sell some of the lower-level refined mats that I get from writs.

I bank all the general stuff (common styles, traits, runes, alchemy, Rank 1 & 10 raw mats), have my mule grab raw mat stacks when they clear 200, and put surveys & fancy style materials in the storage boxes. It's not really all that much effort.

And then every few months they do a "free ESO+ weekend!" event, and all that stuff (plus the survey mats) pops into the craft bag.

(I do look forward to the "you can respec individual skill lines" ability, so I can get rid of the Provisioner Hireling off my alts. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it's just a bunch of mail I delete.)

MarrazzMist

I sell more and farm less. And I still have a few storage chests waiting.

exeeter702

You dont.

Panomania

Or....just get plus. Its not expensive, it has great benefits beyond just the crafting bag, and it keeps the game going. My 14 year old son pays for his own subscription by mowing an extra lawn every 90 days. I pay for my wife's and mine by brown bagging 2 times a week and not buying coffee out, but brewing my own.

If its a hobby and important enough you can find ways to pay for it. If its not important enough to pay for, stop worrying about it and find a game you like enough to actually pay for.

Linaleah

I just use the bank, and don't loot as many barrels. you can craft from the bank, so that takes care of the daily writs. that's on my side account, main account hs subscription and its definitely more convenient to play with a crafting bag. its not impossible to play without one, just requires extra time to manage and you cannot be as much of a hoarder

BretonMage

I'm planning to cancel my ESO+, so reading this thread with interest. I did manage to level my crafting for my first 2 months without the crafting bag (or much inventory space) and it was not easy but definitely doable. I didn't do any provisioning or alchemy, which I think is where the majority of the space is needed. When I cancel ESO+, I plan to only collect materials and ingredients for my level and leave everything else in the crafting bag. It'll be inconvenient but definitely feasible.

Btw, to all those who feel the need to lecture us on subscribing: there are many, many possible reasons why we may not want to, and this thread is for those who have decided that they do not want to. Also, don't think you're doing ZOS any favours by suggesting we're better off spending our time elsewhere. I'm quite sure they don't want their ONLY customers to be ESO+ subscribers.

BalticBlues

Vanilla inventory management in ESO is a nightmare. I know people who quit ESO because of it. People want to have fun, but the inventory management is stopping the fun at some point...

I am using a ton of toons and chests to store sets and materials. Once all space is used, I subscribe ESO+ for one month to get materials into the crafting bag. Because this happens often, I am planning now to create 10 accounts to make a private storage guild as other players have, giving 500 places for materials. I wonder how many ESO accounts are real and active - or just created to make a storage guild...

To play ESO the way it's designed you need hours of micro management.
To play ESO the way it's meant to be you need ESO+.