The ESO Craft Bag: A Convenience or a Gatekeeper to Enjoyable Gameplay?

Arunei

I'm kind of curious now, has anyone done a poll to see if people would still sub if the craft bag was removed from Plus and made base game?

TaSheen

Arunei wrote: »

I'm kind of curious now, has anyone done a poll to see if people would still sub if the craft bag was removed from Plus and made base game?

I don't think I've seen a poll like that so far. For myself, yes, I would still sub - the other stuff is worth it to me.

heaven13

katanagirl1 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Craft bag did not ship with the game.

Before ESO+ the game was designed for you to keep crafting mats in your bank. Just as it is now, with non eso+ accounts. So you are just playing this now as it was originally designed. (We also could not just summon a banker either.)

Since its inception eso+ has lost a lot of its value. The only real reason to keep it is the craft bag.

Glad to see someone else posted this. It would be toxic if it was part of the game and then pulled into eso+ as a paid feature.

Like others I have been happy to pay a sub for the craft bag for housing and crafting ease. It has been a great value for someone like me who spends so much time playing. I hope that the changes in store for us next year will allow me to continue to do so.

Same. The inventory issue has been a thing long before ESO+. To say the system was "designed" to sell the solution is a bit disingenuous since the solution was only added quite a bit after the fact. I do think, with the addition of so many new things that go into inventories, it would be welcome to add some additional slots for both characters and banks that were not paid but I certainly don't consider ESO+ to be "toxic".

I choose not to play without ESO+, mostly because I am a hoarder and can't resist picking things up (this is how I play literally every single game - in some you can no longer move if you pick up too much stuff, in some you just can't pick up anything else until you make space, etc). Because I know I don't like to play without the craft bag, I don't buy DLCs; there are some I own because they were free at one point, there are some I was gifted, but I don't buy them myself.

However, I have also played ESO+ without the sub and for a not-insignificant amount of time. There were changes I needed to make to my playstyle (turn off autoloot, sell stuff instead of decon it) but it was definitely manageable. I even made sure my bank was lower than the non-subscriber limit so I had space prior to not having a sub so I didn't have a conundrum with not being able to move stuff around as needed. There are things I'd consider way more anti-consumer than ESO+, for sure. (Changing skills that render paid items useless is definitely one of them.)

Tandor

TaSheen wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I'm kind of curious now, has anyone done a poll to see if people would still sub if the craft bag was removed from Plus and made base game?

I don't think I've seen a poll like that so far. For myself, yes, I would still sub - the other stuff is worth it to me.

Me too, on both my accounts.

TaSheen

Tandor wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I'm kind of curious now, has anyone done a poll to see if people would still sub if the craft bag was removed from Plus and made base game?

I don't think I've seen a poll like that so far. For myself, yes, I would still sub - the other stuff is worth it to me.

Me too, on both my accounts.

Well.... caveat: IF things don't change so much I just quit entirely next year....

Erickson9610

Arunei wrote: »

I'm kind of curious now, has anyone done a poll to see if people would still sub if the craft bag was removed from Plus and made base game?

I'd still sub, if only for the yearly allotment of Crowns and increased currency/experience gain. I've been subscribed for years now, so I don't really remember what it's like to have to keep trashing crafting materials...

Kyip

This might be more insightful as a poll.

AzuraFan

I wouldn't sub if the craft bag was removed. I'm not really into housing, so the increased housing slots don't matter to me. If my bank space was cut in half, I'm confident I could remove probably 80% of what I have stored there. I don't need the extra experience gain because I play my main 99.9% of the time, and I don't need to rush my companions to max level. As for the crowns, well, I'd just buy crowns on sale, if I needed them. I haven't spent my ESO+ crowns from my last renewal. As for DLCs, well, we're not getting any new chapters, and I've completed all the dungeon quests which is all I care about, so losing access to them wouldn't bother me.

When I tried playing for a couple of months without ESO+, it was the absence of the craft bag that made me resubscribe. I didn't notice the absence of any of the other benefits.

There was a discussion a while back about ESO+ when the Q4 DLC was given away. I said it devalued ESO+, but the majority of ESO+ subscribers in the thread said that they only subscribe for the craft bag and so they didn't care that ZOS was giving away the Q4 DLC. So maybe most would unsubscribe if the craft bag went away, or maybe if push came to shove, they'd stay for the other benefits.

How ESO+ is seen might change depending on how seasons are monetized. I'm not optimistic, though, that any or all of them will be included in ESO+, because chapters weren't until a year after release.

moderatelyfatman

The crafting bag was indispensible in my first year of gameplay.
Now, I have a few thousand mats in my crafting bag, storage chests in my house and storage toons. A combination of the occassional once off ESO+ subscription and ESO+ free weekends means I can get by without it.
My only concern would be if ZOS made withdrawals from the crafting bag also a requirement for ESO+.

Thorncrypt

You can play the game just fine without it if you have friends with eso+ who are grand-master crafters or if your guild's head of crafting can make you gear if you ask them and pay them.

cuddles_with_wroble

You cant honestly tell me or make any real argument why the craft bag isn’t base game, it’s a monumental QoL improvement that allows you to actually use auto loot and makes crafting and doing writs not an absolute nightmare of inventory management. They are selling you the solution to a problem they created

mrreow

I am fine with eso+ being sort of practically required as long as expansions/season passes aren’t ridiculously expensive. Both? And barrage of micro (macro?) transactions and crates?

Now that just leaves a bad taste

robwolf666

Playnice wrote: »

As the title suggests, what do you think?

Now that I don't bother as much with the crafting side of the game, I find it a lot easier to manage my inventory. Still need the bank upgrades and chests for housing, but it's a lot easier to stay within my storage limits.

zaria

heaven13 wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Craft bag did not ship with the game.

Before ESO+ the game was designed for you to keep crafting mats in your bank. Just as it is now, with non eso+ accounts. So you are just playing this now as it was originally designed. (We also could not just summon a banker either.)

Since its inception eso+ has lost a lot of its value. The only real reason to keep it is the craft bag.

Glad to see someone else posted this. It would be toxic if it was part of the game and then pulled into eso+ as a paid feature.

Like others I have been happy to pay a sub for the craft bag for housing and crafting ease. It has been a great value for someone like me who spends so much time playing. I hope that the changes in store for us next year will allow me to continue to do so.

Same. The inventory issue has been a thing long before ESO+. To say the system was "designed" to sell the solution is a bit disingenuous since the solution was only added quite a bit after the fact. I do think, with the addition of so many new things that go into inventories, it would be welcome to add some additional slots for both characters and banks that were not paid but I certainly don't consider ESO+ to be "toxic".

I choose not to play without ESO+, mostly because I am a hoarder and can't resist picking things up (this is how I play literally every single game - in some you can no longer move if you pick up too much stuff, in some you just can't pick up anything else until you make space, etc). Because I know I don't like to play without the craft bag, I don't buy DLCs; there are some I own because they were free at one point, there are some I was gifted, but I don't buy them myself.

However, I have also played ESO+ without the sub and for a not-insignificant amount of time. There were changes I needed to make to my playstyle (turn off autoloot, sell stuff instead of decon it) but it was definitely manageable. I even made sure my bank was lower than the non-subscriber limit so I had space prior to not having a sub so I didn't have a conundrum with not being able to move stuff around as needed. There are things I'd consider way more anti-consumer than ESO+, for sure. (Changing skills that render paid items useless is definitely one of them.)

Agree, large part of why I stopped playing ESO after a year was the inventory minigame who made playing an chore.
Then I came back after a year

Twohothardware

ZOS should do away with the expensive ESO+ subscription and focus on selling their new Season Pass and Crown Store items. The Craft bag and other ESO+ benefits should be tied to the Season Pass or sold in the Crown Store. Giving more people access to the Craft Bag will only increase player retention.

Twohothardware

Like for real, imagine how many more people would be buying the 2025 Season Pass right now if it also came with access to the craft bag, double bank space, and the new furniture storage.

Additionally a lot more Crowns will be bought from their store when they’re no longer giving out free monthly Crowns with ESO+.

It’s a win win for ZOS and us.

Credible_Joe

There might be a compromise here between the perspectives of manufactured problem / solution and benign perk for subbed players.

Scope creep is something I 've seen touched on, but not discussed in depth. There was a time before ESO+, when EVERYONE had to manage their crafting inventories, and it wasn't so bad. This was also (WAY) before stickerbook, so banks were mostly full of dungeon & trial set pieces being saved and stockpiled for future builds.

Managing inventory at this point was a chore, but not the manufactured inconvenience it's being accused of being today. It's just the way the game was. The way you'd expect to manage any other RPG inventory, either solo or MMO. Major QOL developments hadn't made their way through the genre yet, so things we take for granted now just weren't a thing back then.

Then the game went buy to play with an optional sub. And the gleaming crown feature to sell subs was the craft bag, freeing up your bank for all the set pieces you could ever want to hoard.

Then we get summonable merchants, bankers, decon assistants. Home storage. Transmutation. Stickerbook & reconstruction (ironically, this one negated the original design purpose of the craft bag). Each and every feature that frees up inventory space invites more and more content to fill it with. And next update, we're getting the Furnishing Vault.

In ten years of hindsight, we see a pattern. QOL feature gets added, vacuum of convenience arises. Fill that vacuum with more content, which produces the need for more QOL features. Repeat ad nauseam.

For this thread's topic in particular, I do see a compromise inspired directly by the Furnishing Vault. A partial craft bag available to base game users. A slot for every crafting material, capped at a certain number of stacks. This would alleviate the overwhelming need to sub at higher-level gameplay (or anything touching crafting) while maintaining the same incentive to sub for even further expanded crafting storage.

Just my two cents. While monetized solutions like this can look predatory when viewed with the game as a whole, a different perspective can become apparent when the step-by-step development of the game over the years is taken into account.

freespirit

Twohothardware wrote: »

Like for real, imagine how many more people would be buying the 2025 Season Pass right now if it also came with access to the craft bag, double bank space, and the new furniture storage.

Additionally a lot more Crowns will be bought from their store when they’re no longer giving out free monthly Crowns with ESO+.

It’s a win win for ZOS and us.

I sub on two accounts(on a third I don't).....

I sub on the second account for access to the DLC area's, I will not buy the Season pass for that account, I will for my main.

The craft bag is great don't get me wrong but if ESO+ disappeared how do you suggest the access to DLC areas should be dealt with? Would I therefore need to buy the season pass on both accounts to continue my current access? As I would be unlikely to do that at release instead waiting for a sale for the second account ZoS would lose a percentage of the purchase price and all of the revenue for the sub on my second account, seems like bad business for them no?

Tbh also I would be very unlikely to buy Crowns from the store, to me they are an added bonus for subbing, I can just as easily do without them.

I cannot see a world where ZoS would believe that adding all the bonus's from ESO+ to a Season Pass would make them more money.

I don't believe a one off yearly purchase would come even close to replacing the revenue ZoS earn from subs throughout the year but as we will never see the maths, we will never know for sure!

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Why not a limited craft-bag that only holds 200 of each item.

Imperial_Archmage

I am in the privileged position of not having to be concerned with the price of subscription because the amount is not consequential for my financial situation. Having said that, I think there is a fine line between enhancing the value of a subscription and making it all but mandatory because of the basic features that are locked behind it which should, frankly, be baseline. In some respects this game is far too realistic when it comes to things like crafting with the amount of items required which just clashes with the strict limitations on inventory space, not least of which because a good chunk of that space is locked behind a horrendously timegated mount upgrade system.

So to answer the question directly, I would still subscribe to ESO Plus even if the crafting bag was made baseline and not included into the deal but I do recognize, and I definitely think the devs do too, that it’s a major reason for why many people subscribe and that’s inherently problematic.

shadyjane62

I tried playing without it. Lasted one day. Inventory management is not my game. For as long as I am here I will have it for my convenience.

But considering what's happening here now it was probably a waste of the money.

BXR_Lonestar

Is the craftbag NECESSARY to play ESO? No, it is not.

Is it necessary to enjoy the game? That depends on if you want to be a crafter, or if you are content to rely on others to craft stuff for you. Some players I know don't engage with the crafting system because they don't care for it. They just want to play PVP. When they want craftable sets, they pay guild members to make it for them, they buy the upgrade mats, etc. If that is how you want to play the game, then it is not necessary to enjoy the game.

Is it necessary to enjoy the game if you want to be self-reliant? Yes, it is.

But I honestly have no objections to the craftbag being linked to an ESO subscription. MMO games like this ROUTINELY charge subscription fees to allow you to continue to access and play the game. So IMO, ESO should be a subscription based game, where you just buy the annual expansions, and you get all the content. I think this great divide over the craftbag is a product of their hybrid model which allows people to buy content piecemeal, or you can get much of the content by subscription.

Would I still be a plus member if the craftbag were not linked to Plus? Probably not. Especially since dungeons are not going to come with Plus anymore. I don't really engage with housing, so the only other major benefit we get with Plus is the increased bankspace. So if they allowed people to get the craftbag without paying for Plus, they would need to offer us something else with Plus to make it worth the subscription fee. Perhaps drastically increased inventory and bank space, free character/armory slots, or something to that effect. But overall, I see the craftbag as a luxury that should be reserved for those regular subscribers, unless they can offer Plus subscribers something else of equal value.

Yudo

Not having a crafting bag is designed to make NEW player experience a pain imo.
But later on it gets less impactful and you can make a setup where you never run out of inventory even without ESO+.
Though I will say if you are a giga hoarder then RIP.

Here is how you do it:

1. You'll have to donate all the hard eared gold to the bag slot NPc merch and banker scammers first to get a decent size.
2. You'll have to level crafting so you no longer need low level mats.
3. You get an addon that manages Trash, and auto marks them. Mark low lvl mats, common style/trait mats as Trash.
4. You get an addon that auto sells Trash when visiting a merchant.
5. You get an addon that auto deposits mats to the bank. You standard bank is now your craft bag.
6. Check your bank for items you may not want and mark as Trash to create even more space.
7. Non-mats you can store in chests.
8. Bonus: you have a decon assistant with auto decon addon.

And it takes less than 10s to auto decon, auto sell, and auto deposit. Ready for the next adventure!

My addons that do all the above:

1. Bandits loot manager
2. Lazy deconstructor

Eliahnus

Always the same nagging about the craft bag, do you guys never get tired of this...

Pevey

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

MMO games like this ROUTINELY charge subscription fees to allow you to continue to access and play the game.

Yes, but unlike ESO, those games don't draw in new players by advertising that no sub is required. Go to Steam store page, watch the first video that plays. "No subscription required." But there are some major caveats to that which make the statement essentially false, IMO. If you want to actually engage with all of the game systems in the game you purchased as buy-to-play (namely, crafting), a sub is required. This was not the case for a few years after launch because there were not a trillion different style mats that might be needed for completing master writs. There was no jewelry crafting, and less than half the number of surveys. Daily writ rewards used to give you only the base mats for your current crafting level (e.g., sanded ruby ash, rubedite ingots, etc.) A few years ago, it was changed to also give you random lower level mats. This just causes inventory management hell if you don't sub. We now have ink, we have fishing bait, we have XP and AP provisioning recipe mats. The problem keeps growing and growing, and the only small chance of ZOS addressing it will be if people continually call ZOS out on it.

The design is problematic, and it is a wall that new players keep running into that causes them to bounce. So many different aspects of this game that people enjoy (trading, trials, BGs, whatever) require a healthy inflow of new players. Some people will naturally lose interest over time. We need new players who actually stick around. But the crafting materials issue now makes a sub essentially required, which not so coincidentally is what ALMOST killed this game the first time. They saved themselves by making it buy to play.

There is a different but similar issue with the growing number of DLC that are not part of the game purchase. Not the base game, not the premium edition, not the super premium "collection" edition that includes all the previous chapters. So new players who think they paid $80 for everything the game has to offer get a rude awakening when they load the game to find a map with many zones still locked, more than half of the dungeons inaccessible, the last third of those chapter stories they bought inaccessible, CORE Elder Scrolls factions like thieves guild and dark brotherhood inaccessible, ALL arena weapons (from BRP, MA, VH) inaccessible... after they just paid $80 for what they thought was the whole shebang. Now they are expected to buy another $200-$300 worth of DLC to catch up and have access to all of the sets they are supposed to eventually have if they want to do end-game content? No way. Yes, we all bought those things, but we bought them years ago and over a long period of time. They should be base game now.

It's not rocket science why so many players who are interested enough to buy the game and start playing do not stick around.

LalMirchi

Respectfully but I find the "Gatekeeper to Enjoyable Gameplay" phrase rather entitled. Firstly the subscription price is average for similar games. If one plays a few hours daily the cost is negligible.

There is a substantial of amount of perks included with ESO+, not just the craft bag.

Inventory management is present in these kind of games and is one of the required skills if not the most enjoyable. Even with ESO+ it's still possible to max out your storage. Been there, done that.

Pevey

LalMirchi wrote: »

Respectfully but I find the "Gatekeeper to Enjoyable Gameplay" phrase rather entitled. Firstly the subscription price is average for similar games. If one plays a few hours daily the cost is negligible.

There is a substantial of amount of perks included with ESO+, not just the craft bag.

Inventory management is present in these kind of games and is one of the required skills if not the most enjoyable. Even with ESO+ it's still possible to max out your storage. Been there, done that.

It is not entitled for someone who spent money on a game that is advertised with the prominent statement "no subscription required" to be taken aback by a game system purposely designed to drive you toward an upsell subscription.

wolfie1.0.

If zos added the craft bag to season pass they would lose revenue. Season pass is less than 50% of an annual eso plus subscription. And less subscriptions won't necessarily lead to more crown sales. A subscription is get way more value out of than just crowns, and many won't just buy crowns.

As useful as the craft bag is. There are things thar zos could do to make inventory management better.

Allow stacking for non set gear or gear of the same type, trait, level. Remove redundancies in mats and basically reduce the bloat.

Playnice

Pevey wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Respectfully but I find the "Gatekeeper to Enjoyable Gameplay" phrase rather entitled. Firstly the subscription price is average for similar games. If one plays a few hours daily the cost is negligible.

There is a substantial of amount of perks included with ESO+, not just the craft bag.

Inventory management is present in these kind of games and is one of the required skills if not the most enjoyable. Even with ESO+ it's still possible to max out your storage. Been there, done that.

It is not entitled for someone who spent money on a game that is advertised with the prominent statement "no subscription required" to be taken aback by a game system purposely designed to drive you toward an upsell subscription.

LalMirchi misread the title. It's asking how people feel about the Craft Bag, not trying to persuade people that the Craft Bag was introduced in a way that makes players feel subscriptions are near required to enjoyable gameplay as LalMirchi implied.

BXR_Lonestar

Pevey wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

MMO games like this ROUTINELY charge subscription fees to allow you to continue to access and play the game.

Yes, but unlike ESO, those games don't draw in new players by advertising that no sub is required. Go to Steam store page, watch the first video that plays. "No subscription required." But there are some major caveats to that which make the statement essentially false, IMO. If you want to actually engage with all of the game systems in the game you purchased as buy-to-play (namely, crafting), a sub is required. This was not the case for a few years after launch because there were not a trillion different style mats that might be needed for completing master writs. There was no jewelry crafting, and less than half the number of surveys. Daily writ rewards used to give you only the base mats for your current crafting level (e.g., sanded ruby ash, rubedite ingots, etc.) A few years ago, it was changed to also give you random lower level mats. This just causes inventory management hell if you don't sub. We now have ink, we have fishing bait, we have XP and AP provisioning recipe mats. The problem keeps growing and growing, and the only small chance of ZOS addressing it will be if people continually call ZOS out on it.

The design is problematic, and it is a wall that new players keep running into that causes them to bounce. So many different aspects of this game that people enjoy (trading, trials, BGs, whatever) require a healthy inflow of new players. Some people will naturally lose interest over time. We need new players who actually stick around. But the crafting materials issue now makes a sub essentially required, which not so coincidentally is what ALMOST killed this game the first time. They saved themselves by making it buy to play.

There is a different but similar issue with the growing number of DLC that are not part of the game purchase. Not the base game, not the premium edition, not the super premium "collection" edition that includes all the previous chapters. So new players who think they paid $80 for everything the game has to offer get a rude awakening when they load the game to find a map with many zones still locked, more than half of the dungeons inaccessible, the last third of those chapter stories they bought inaccessible, CORE Elder Scrolls factions like thieves guild and dark brotherhood inaccessible, ALL arena weapons (from BRP, MA, VH) inaccessible... after they just paid $80 for what they thought was the whole shebang. Now they are expected to buy another $200-$300 worth of DLC to catch up and have access to all of the sets they are supposed to eventually have if they want to do end-game content? No way. Yes, we all bought those things, but we bought them years ago and over a long period of time. They should be base game now.

It's not rocket science why so many players who are interested enough to buy the game and start playing do not stick around.

I get your point, but then the issue is how the game is being marketed, and not the fact that the craftbag is linked to having the subscription. IMO, its actually created by the hybrid model to begin with, and it wouldn't be an issue if they just dropped the hybrid model altogether and just added a monthly subscription fee. If the game is good, people will be drawn to play it regardless of the subscription fee. And ESO is definitely a good game (not perfect, but we love it anyways).

But I don't see this as being any different than games like Warframe that are advertised as "free to play." Yes, they are free to play, but unless you were lucky enough to manipulate the trade system to obtain all the platinum you need like I was when I mained that game for a while, you can only play the game at a certain level without actually spending real money.

And IMO, new players really shouldn't be diving right down into the endgame - trials, dungeons, PVP, BG's, housing, etc. They're poorly situated for it because much of the knowledge and skill you need to do well in those areas are accumulated through engaging with other areas of the game.