Restoring Items - A Minor Rant

Scyantific · August 2015

So, had a bit of a buggy game moment/bad luck moment tonight while trying to refine some ingots for crafting, and ended up losing my Heavy/Divines Engine Guardian helm because of it. Was told to submit a ticket to see if I could get it restored (some people were claiming that support could do this), so I did. Explained the situation in detail (refining bugged out, helmet got decon'd even though I was using Circonian's FilterIT to mark the helm as "Do Not Deconstruct").

Got an email back saying:

As it happens, I am unable to restore the helm to you. Since you received items from the deconstruction, you received compensation and are technically whole. We deeply apologize for being unable to fulfill this request (even for employees).

Ok yeah, big disappointment, especially considering that it was a complete accident (I had NO intention of deconstructing that helm), and now I'm gonna be stuck in VetDC for the rest of the month trying to get that same roll on the helm (or Infused). I get it, big whoop lots of people have that happen to them, I'm dealing with it, and I mainly use that helm combo when doing specific dungeon bosses (the rest of the time I roll Nerieneth).

I guess I'm just bothered by the fact that support claims that receiving a few Voidstone Ingots, a Grain Solvent, and a Sapphire is in fact an equal exchange for an ungodly lucky roll on one of the more desirable helms, when they know it's not. But hey, I guess they need some way to keep people playing the game and grinding the end-game gear because otherwise most of the non-PVP endgame would revolve around "Log on, do daily/writs, farm a few CP, log off."

/rant

(I'm not looking for sympathy, I just needed to get this out there)

Mighty_oakk · August 2015

Yeah that seems kind of silly. You'd think they could look at the case and see if you are trying to abuse the system.

If someone 'accidently' dismantles something twice a week then no. But someone in your situation common sense says it was an accident.

TheShadowScout · August 2015

Sometimes I wish destroy/deconstruct would issue a warning for purple and higher gear, just like selling higher quality loot does for fences. Possibly toggleable in the preferences, so paople can play as they like in this regard. Well, maybe someday.

Sausage · August 2015

They should just change "Junk" to "Important" Let us choose what are important items, and we can freely sell or whatever we want with the rest.

Sharee · August 2015

One has to wonder why the merchants have a buyback option then.

After all, if you got 12 gold for your Skoria helmet that you accidentally sold, you should be good...

Divinius · August 2015

You should have responded and told them that you'd happily return the ingots, solvent, and sapphire to them in exchange for the helm back.

Thunder · August 2015

This has been a glaring problem with decon since its inception. Why they have not added a simple lock checkbox to items in order to prevent them from showing up in the vendor/decon window is beyond me.

Divinius · August 2015

Also, I've never used "Circonian's FilterIT", but I do use "Item Saver" and that works great for preventing accidental sale, decon, research, or destruction of specific items.

Kulvar · August 2015

Alert popup everytime would be boring as hell.

Like the current trash flag, I would support more a feature letting people "flag" item to prevent them from appearing in the deconstruct list nor in the selling list.

No accidental deconstruct, no accidental sell.

Molag_Crow · August 2015

True indeed. I've done similar recently (not with actual pieces I wear though, phew) and wondered to myself, "Is it possible to restore an item if I deconstruct it by mistake?" I guess not, I mean.. especially on the console, our "support ticket" system isn't anything near PC's, I guess... so we're double-screwed, but I'm surprised they couldn't restore your item for your on PC! Damn.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Sometimes I wish destroy/deconstruct would issue a warning for purple and higher gear, just like selling higher quality loot does for fences. Possibly toggleable in the preferences, so paople can play as they like in this regard. Well, maybe someday.

That would be very helpful.

Robbmrp · August 2015

This issue is about to get 100 times worse with the Imperial City update. Just wait till someone deconstructs a V16 chest plate that cost 150 ingots and then they get back 2 from the accidental deconstruction of it. That is hardly considered "Whole" by any means.

I love how you get maybe 2% back in materials from it and they say that you were compensated and "whole"....

What a joke.

F7sus4 · August 2015

This is weird. I remember having my items restored by ZOS after I destroyed them by misclick.

Menelaos · August 2015

I once accidentally deconnd my Skoria shoulders. I submitted a ticket and about 30 minutes later a ZOS guy from the Escalations Team pm'ed me ingame. He checked his logs and returned the shoulder piece to me.

Here's a reference for my ex-ticket [Incident: 150315-001624]:

Subject
Hi folks,
after logging in this evening I found my Pauldrons of Valky Skoria missing. (...)
Response By Email (Bradley) (03/15/2015 10:51 PM)
Hello Stefan,

Thanks again for speaking with me in-game today. I am glad that we were able to sort out the issues that you were having with the shoulders.

If you run into any other issues, or if there is anything else that we can do for you, please feel free to let us know. Alternatively, if you would like to reply directly to this email, it should come straight back to me.

Best Regards,

Brad - Escalations
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

You might want to use this if you like.

Cheers and good luck!

daemonios · August 2015

Robbmrp wrote: »

This issue is about to get 100 times worse with the Imperial City update. Just wait till someone deconstructs a V16 chest plate that cost 150 ingots and then they get back 2 from the accidental deconstruction of it. That is hardly considered "Whole" by any means.

I love how you get maybe 2% back in materials from it and they say that you were compensated and "whole"....

What a joke.

That would never happen. As far as I know you only get 1 ingot back from deconstructing VR15/16 gear

nine9six · August 2015

Odd. I know people have had their items returned to them. I guess you got "that guy" on their Support Team that doesn't GAF.

fastolfv_ESO · August 2015

how did you even get support to talk to you? lol i submitted a ticket because i tryed to zone into chest room after completing vdsa and crashed, logged back in and the chest was gone. The only response i got from my ticket was an email saying find a solution on our forums ty ticket closed

DenMoria · August 2015

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

Psychobunni · August 2015

It seems to depend on who you get in support, as to how supportive they actually are.

One response made me wonder if they had gone the outsourcing option because the reply looked as if they didn't quite have a grasp on the english language (and here I thought a forum poster "faked" a response once just like it.

More recently, after I couldn't even get a forum MOD to answer *forum* questions, I submitted a ticket to ask support and they responded with some sign up at Bethesda forums crap, which I had to respond "what does that have to do with ESO forums?" LOL

2 other tickets much longer ago under the sub model, were fast, direct, made sense, and very helpful. I don't know.

A simple lock function would solve this particular issue entirely. If it's locked, it shouldn't even show up in decon/sell screens. Again, a basic function on the long list of missing standards.

Egg_Death · August 2015

The only time I see this happening is when you are in a hurry and not paying attention, or using a plugin on PC which could have any number of bugs that might cause the issue. I see no reason they should compensate for either of these problems, because nothing they did caused it to happen. Perhaps bad lag could cause it, but if you just don't hurry through it and be sure about what you are doing I don't see it "glitching out" and causing this.

I wouldn't argue against a marking system for important items, but that is a separate issue from reimbursing people from making careless mistakes. Should I get all my stolen loot and money restored from when my attempt to help attack a red mob somehow caused me to attack a guard? What about the time the "steal" prompt appeared at just the right moment when I'm trying to talk to an NPC standing in front of the item? I realize that these pale in comparison to your endgame gear, but I'd say a little more caution is warranted when you have a lot of value at stake if you make a mistake.

Psychobunni · August 2015

DenMoria wrote: »

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

If this were a "TES" game I would agree with that sentiment. Being that it's an MMO and some people actually play to compete against other players, and spend months getting things "just right" (and) other MMO's have preventatives in place (locks) so accidents don't happen, I can't agree.

In LOTRO, where they use a token system (soooo much better) I accidently turned some in on the wrong piece, submitted a ticket and within minutes a GM was in game sorting me out. Now that is customer service done right.

F7sus4 · August 2015

I think OP would has his item restored if he had destroyed it. But since he deconstructed it, they assumed he took the "benefit" like upgrade mats, refined mats, motif mats etc.

Divinius · August 2015

I'm amused by the antagonistically unsympathetic posts from people who would very likely come to the forums to complain even more vehemently than the OP did should the same thing ever happen to them.

But yes, I think there's a definite YMMV aspect to what you can get when contacting the CS department. Some people are willing to go out-of-their-way to help, others will just duck behind a rule-book to avoid having to do any real work. And that's pretty true of just about any CS department anywhere, not just ZOS.

UrQuan · August 2015

F7sus4 wrote: »

I think OP would has his item restored if he had destroyed it. But since he deconstructed it, they assumed he took the "benefit" like upgrade mats, refined mats, motif mats etc.

I think this is it exactly. With a lot of drops that are blue or better people deconstruct them in the hopes of getting the upgrade mats from them. Whether you get the upgrade mats or not, though, is based on RNG (modified by your passives). If you could just contact CS and get them to reverse a decon, people would do it all the time when they deconned something for the upgrade mat and RNG didn't give it to them. It would be abused. With accidentally destroying, though, it's clear cut because there's no possible way to abuse that (aside from temporarily freeing up a slot of bag space, I guess, but nobody would go through the trouble of doing a CS ticket just for that), so I'll bet CS is allowed to restore the items for you.

Sucks when you accidentally destroy something you didn't mean to destroy, but I can understand why they wouldn't restore it for you. As others have said, it would be great if there was something you could mark on items in your inventory/bank so that you wouldn't accidentally decon or sell them.

DenMoria · August 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

If this were a "TES" game I would agree with that sentiment. Being that it's an MMO and some people actually play to compete against other players, and spend months getting things "just right" (and) other MMO's have preventatives in place (locks) so accidents don't happen, I can't agree.

In LOTRO, where they use a token system (soooo much better) I accidently turned some in on the wrong piece, submitted a ticket and within minutes a GM was in game sorting me out. Now that is customer service done right.

I agree that technically this isn't a TES game, it's a MMO set in the TES universe, but, I believe that my original argument still stands. So what? I am sorry that you wasted months getting everything "just right" and then you made a mistake, but, you made the mistake - you were rushing, or not paying attention or just being plain dumb. Accidents happen. Do you have any idea how many "mistakes" have been made by players of the hundreds of games throughout history? This is the same attitude where we are recommended to wrap our children in bubble wrap and keep them in antiseptic, germ free environments so that nothing bad ever happens and then, inevitably it does because they have no immunity or we find out that the bubble wrap is flammable. I It's cheap and it's a cop-out for our own mistakes and a refusal to take any chances.

It's the old: "I wanna Re-Do!" thing just because you didn't like the outcome.

I don't disagree with the ability to flag your items though, but, they should still be susceptible to your own mistakes.

So you made a mistake. Now you have to deal with it. Maybe you'll pay closer attention in the future?

Sorry - I know I sound old, but that's the way I was raised and, lord knows I've made mistakes that I've had to deal with the consequences, both in life and in my many years of gaming.

Maybe it's because I come from the world of single player where there is no safety net. You make a mistake, that's it.

It's JMO, that's all. I can't begrudge a good whine. Nothing goes better with cheese.

UrQuan · August 2015

Divinius wrote: »

I'm amused by the antagonistically unsympathetic posts from people who would very likely come to the forums to complain even more vehemently than the OP did should the same thing ever happen to them. [

Didn't you know? When it happens to someone else they're an idiot who deserved it, but when it happens to you it's not fair and whoever's in charge is entirely to blame and is an idiot for not holding your hand to prevent you from doing it! That's society (and in particular the internet) in a nutshell.

Having said that, I thought OP's rant didn't really fall into the category of blaming anyone other than himself, he's just somewhat reasonably upset.

BrosephMcDudeBro · August 2015

DenMoria wrote: »

Psychobunni wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

If this were a "TES" game I would agree with that sentiment. Being that it's an MMO and some people actually play to compete against other players, and spend months getting things "just right" (and) other MMO's have preventatives in place (locks) so accidents don't happen, I can't agree.

In LOTRO, where they use a token system (soooo much better) I accidently turned some in on the wrong piece, submitted a ticket and within minutes a GM was in game sorting me out. Now that is customer service done right.

I agree that technically this isn't a TES game, it's a MMO set in the TES universe, but, I believe that my original argument still stands. So what? I am sorry that you wasted months getting everything "just right" and then you made a mistake, but, you made the mistake - you were rushing, or not paying attention or just being plain dumb. Accidents happen. Do you have any idea how many "mistakes" have been made by players of the hundreds of games throughout history? This is the same attitude where we are recommended to wrap our children in bubble wrap and keep them in antiseptic, germ free environments so that nothing bad ever happens and then, inevitably it does because they have no immunity or we find out that the bubble wrap is flammable. I It's cheap and it's a cop-out for our own mistakes and a refusal to take any chances.

It's the old: "I wanna Re-Do!" thing just because you didn't like the outcome.

I don't disagree with the ability to flag your items though, but, they should still be susceptible to your own mistakes.

So you made a mistake. Now you have to deal with it. Maybe you'll pay closer attention in the future?

Sorry - I know I sound old, but that's the way I was raised and, lord knows I've made mistakes that I've had to deal with the consequences, both in life and in my many years of gaming.

Maybe it's because I come from the world of single player where there is no safety net. You make a mistake, that's it.

It's JMO, that's all. I can't begrudge a good whine. Nothing goes better with cheese.

You... I feel sorry for you. You seem to only come onto these forums to stir the pot. So, against my better judgment, I will (again) explain the inconsistencies of your argument. Did you not read the part about the deconstruction being the result of a buggy/laggy moment? It happens all the time. I notice this quite frequently when accessing the shared guild bank. If any other person is taking out/adding items, it will often suffer from input lag and process my commands in a jerky, erratic fashion. I have no doubt that this could happen at a crafting table.

Now what baffles me is you liken this phenomenon to losing your TV stones in the Imperial City. False equivalence, I beckon thee! These two situations are not even remotely similar. For starters, losing your TV stones is a function of making a conscious choice to enter a PVP environment where you are on notice that you will lose these stones if you are killed by another player. Then, (A) you must obtain the stones and (B) you must be killed by another player to lose them. What OP describes is a situation where the server hiccuped and lost an item. One of these situations is an example of the game functioning as intended, the other isn't. I'll let you decide which is which.

Robbmrp · August 2015

With the deconstruction option in the game @ZOS should have clearly outlined a process for these kinds of issues. It's simple really. All they need to do is check the logs, they can see you deconstructed the item and received x mats for it. Require the player email them the mats received and then they restore the item. It's really that simple....

The fact that EVERY customer service rep does something different in these cases is what's killing their service rating. Some people get items back, some don't. If there is a standard process, clearly the Reps aren't following it. The Rep can't just say to themselves, "Oh, I will help this person but not the next." You MUST have a consistent process to follow for this.

Anyone that requests the help of customer service to return an item should get that item returned, regardless of how they "lost" it.

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, just something to pass long to your Customer Service Department.

DenMoria · August 2015

BrosephMcDudeBro wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Psychobunni wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

If this were a "TES" game I would agree with that sentiment. Being that it's an MMO and some people actually play to compete against other players, and spend months getting things "just right" (and) other MMO's have preventatives in place (locks) so accidents don't happen, I can't agree.

In LOTRO, where they use a token system (soooo much better) I accidently turned some in on the wrong piece, submitted a ticket and within minutes a GM was in game sorting me out. Now that is customer service done right.

I agree that technically this isn't a TES game, it's a MMO set in the TES universe, but, I believe that my original argument still stands. So what? I am sorry that you wasted months getting everything "just right" and then you made a mistake, but, you made the mistake - you were rushing, or not paying attention or just being plain dumb. Accidents happen. Do you have any idea how many "mistakes" have been made by players of the hundreds of games throughout history? This is the same attitude where we are recommended to wrap our children in bubble wrap and keep them in antiseptic, germ free environments so that nothing bad ever happens and then, inevitably it does because they have no immunity or we find out that the bubble wrap is flammable. I It's cheap and it's a cop-out for our own mistakes and a refusal to take any chances.

It's the old: "I wanna Re-Do!" thing just because you didn't like the outcome.

I don't disagree with the ability to flag your items though, but, they should still be susceptible to your own mistakes.

So you made a mistake. Now you have to deal with it. Maybe you'll pay closer attention in the future?

Sorry - I know I sound old, but that's the way I was raised and, lord knows I've made mistakes that I've had to deal with the consequences, both in life and in my many years of gaming.

Maybe it's because I come from the world of single player where there is no safety net. You make a mistake, that's it.

It's JMO, that's all. I can't begrudge a good whine. Nothing goes better with cheese.

You... I feel sorry for you. You seem to only come onto these forums to stir the pot. So, against my better judgment, I will (again) explain the inconsistencies of your argument. Did you not read the part about the deconstruction being the result of a buggy/laggy moment? It happens all the time. I notice this quite frequently when accessing the shared guild bank. If any other person is taking out/adding items, it will often suffer from input lag and process my commands in a jerky, erratic fashion. I have no doubt that this could happen at a crafting table.

Now what baffles me is you liken this phenomenon to losing your TV stones in the Imperial City. False equivalence, I beckon thee! These two situations are not even remotely similar. For starters, losing your TV stones is a function of making a conscious choice to enter a PVP environment where you are on notice that you will lose these stones if you are killed by another player. Then, (A) you must obtain the stones and (B) you must be killed by another player to lose them. What OP describes is a situation where the server hiccuped and lost an item. One of these situations is an example of the game functioning as intended, the other isn't. I'll let you decide which is which.

You make some excellent points! I salute you! I like to learn new things.

I have never experienced laggy behavior in my playthroughs. I did not know that that could be the case. Great point. Something that was caused by the game itself and not user error would certainly qualify as an issue.

I can certainly see my false equivalency in my example. Thank you for pointing it out. Definitely my bad.

Not my intention to stir the pot, but, from reading the original pot, I did not get the impression that it was a lag issue or a hiccup. Perhaps that was my error. Again, my bad.

Maybe it's my own ability to make the most *** mistakes possible, all the time that stirred up my rant.

My apologies. It wasn't my intention to cause conflict.

Egg_Death · August 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Why would you even ask? You made a mistake and dismantled something you didn't want to. So what? Oh well. Move on. You're gonna make mistakes.

That's like saying: Oooo! I made a mistake in PvP combat and somebody took all my stones. Now I want them back 'cause I made a mistake.

No. YOU made a mistake. That's why I like TES games. You deal with the consequences, not whine about it to "Mommy" and make her fix it.

If this were a "TES" game I would agree with that sentiment. Being that it's an MMO and some people actually play to compete against other players, and spend months getting things "just right" (and) other MMO's have preventatives in place (locks) so accidents don't happen, I can't agree.

In LOTRO, where they use a token system (soooo much better) I accidently turned some in on the wrong piece, submitted a ticket and within minutes a GM was in game sorting me out. Now that is customer service done right.

This game is neither broken nor incomplete without features to prevent stupid mistakes. Even with such measures you can still forget to mark the item or mark the wrong item. No matter what it is still your own fault. If I do a hundred lap endurance race online in Forza I'm not going to whine to Turn 10 that I want the race reset to lap 99 because I crashed on the final lap. Locks did not exist in TES before, and they did a good job (at least on the console) of replicating that UI.

I'm sure with addons they have to make you agree that they're not responsible for what happens with addons you choose to install. As others have said it is not going to be easy to judge scammers from true accidents. If judging by blues and greens is any indicator, the higher level mats and modifiers are rare enough to be worthwhile to cry to ZOS if you run out of RNG luck and get nothing from a rare item.

G0ku · August 2015

A friend of mine listed all his set parts under trash in his inventory to not destroy it accidentially. In some weird lag moments he sold all the trash by accident, 50 items gone.

Support told him they would only recover 10 items for him, not more. Don´t ask me why. They definately could do it, but they just don´t want to....

Scyantific · August 2015

Lol, i stirred up a ***. I'll say it again, I know it sucks that I lost a particularly awesome helm because of some stupid hiccup. And I'll specify since I didn't do so in the OP, I NEVER WENT INTO THE DECONSTRUCT MENU. This happened whils I was strictly on the REFINE menu. Even when I was deconning some drops from dungeon running my Helm did not show up in the menu because it was marked as safe.

But I digress.

I have no issue spending another 50-100 hours re-grinding vetDC for that particular roll (or even an Infused Heavy helm), because vetDC is pathetically easy to run through if you're helm-hunting (skip Foreman, wipe at Hive Lord, then kill him and repeat for Grobull and the Construct Gauntlet at the door; my guildmates and I can 3 man that garbage in about 10 minutes). The main thing that bothered me about the whole affair was how ZoS' Customer Service department handled the situation (calling 2 ingots, a purp, and a sapphire equivalent to 20+ hours of dungeon running; I could totally understand if they said something different, but this was their response instead)

It's situations like this that make it really hard not to hate ZoS, especially after being with them since beta. Stuff like this also makes the game really hard to recommend to friends because they'll pin it on me when they're dissatisfied.