Question about storing crafting materials

BabyBunnyOfDoom · June 2018

Hello, I was wondering which crafting items should take priority when stashing in the bank. I have 110 bank slots, a chest in my home with 30 slots, and my player storage is 90. I currently can't afford to be an ESO plus member so I have limited space for materials. I have gotten rid of some older materials like iron, beech, etc as well as not really stashing un-refined materials in the bank but rather in the chest I have in my inn room. Even with that, I find myself having some issues with space. Any tips?

Level wise I am at:
Provisioning: 50
Alchemy: 50
Blacksmithing: 33
Clothing: 34
Enchanting: 37
Woodworking:35
Jewelry Crafting: 4

smacx250 · June 2018

Have you considered or ruled out creating "mule" characters to hold stuff that you think you may want to keep, but don't have immediate use for? If you have free character slots, create some more characters and transfer things to them through the bank to hold on to. But a general idea is to dump anything that you won't want *soon* - except for rare/expensive items (e.g., upgrade mats). Sell them if possible. Later you can buy things if you need them.

BabyBunnyOfDoom · June 2018

smacx250 wrote: »

Have you considered or ruled out creating "mule" characters to hold stuff that you think you may want to keep, but don't have immediate use for? If you have free character slots, create some more characters and transfer things to them through the bank to hold on to. But a general idea is to dump anything that you won't want *soon* - except for rare/expensive items (e.g., upgrade mats). Sell them if possible. Later you can buy things if you need them.

I have considered it for at least the provisioning materials and using them to gather lower level materials but I haven't actually tried it yet.

acampbell · June 2018

I don’t have anywhere near as much crafting professions as you, but in general I move anything that isn’t a meaningful stack size (individual items or small stacks of less useful materials) out of my bank to sell them or keep them elsewhere, like in my house.

Nightfall12 · June 2018

if you dont have Eso+
mules are a must
when your bagsspace busts
make a bank dweller u can trust

smacx250 · June 2018

BabyBunnyOfDoom wrote: »

smacx250 wrote: »

Have you considered or ruled out creating "mule" characters to hold stuff that you think you may want to keep, but don't have immediate use for? If you have free character slots, create some more characters and transfer things to them through the bank to hold on to. But a general idea is to dump anything that you won't want *soon* - except for rare/expensive items (e.g., upgrade mats). Sell them if possible. Later you can buy things if you need them.

I have considered it for at least the provisioning materials and using them to gather lower level materials but I haven't actually tried it yet.

You don't actually need to use them to "do" anything - they each come with an inventory that can be used to store stuff. That's about it - another container. I leveled crafting before the craft bag was added, and I did use mule characters for a bit. However, for me I found it too tedious, and moved to selling off anything I didn't use "now" - other than expensive/rare items - and then buying what I needed later if I didn't have it. For example, once leveled, I sold off pretty much every provisioning and alchemy mat that I didn't need to make the food/potions I used. Trade guilds are a good way to sell stuff you don't want and make more gold. As an aside, If you are on PC there's an addon that can help identify which mats you should keep for your preferred recipes vs just extra "stuff" to be sold. Otherwise, the only things I always kept: Trait stones, enchanting runes (for some reason I personally wanted to keep them), and upgrade mats.

Iselin · June 2018

I leveled all my crafts to 50 several years ago before we had unlimited material storage with ESO+. mind you, we also didn't have such a proliferation of item sets that you might want to also save in the bank nor did we have so many different crafting styles all with their own unique style mats. The use of bank slots for mats back in those days was easier but it's still doable.

The first thing you want to do if you don't have ESO+ is make sure you create 8 characters so that they can mule items for you.

The first crafting mats you can dump are any style stones for the basic racial styles since the crafting vendors all sell them and they're cheap enough to buy as needed. The same for all other style stones although you might want to consider selling those instead of just dumping them. With the outfit system, crafting armor and weapons in any particular style is not as meaningful as it once was since you can just use the outfit system to give them any look you want as long as you have learned it.

Use the bank to store mats for things you craft often (eg. level appropriate mats) and use your mules to store things you don't so you minimize the need to swap from mules to the bank as much as possible. If you craft food much more often than drink (like most of us) you might also want to consider your drink mats on a mule and the food mats in the bank.

Make it a priority to spend your gold increasing the bank and your mules' space as well as making mount storage a priority to train over speed or stamina.

It can be done but it's not a pleasant experience having to manage your inventory to the extent that ESO requires.

davey1107 · June 2018

Iselin gets you on the right track. I managed a massive craft empire for months before eso+ came along. It’s not that hard.

- start by making a few craft/mule alts. Here’s an important tip - build characters you might want to play someday. Pick classes and match the right races. Make cool looking characters with good names. Who knows, someday you might want to try a stamblade or magplar and use one of the mules. It’s nice if they aren’t a 300 lb bald Nord named Senor Ballsohuge.

- invest in mule inventories. I initially worked everyone’s inventory to 160 by paying for bags up to 100, then feeding mounts daily for the bag space.

- mules can do daily writs. They can more than pay for themselves by helping with some crafting writs. The easiest are provision and alchemy. Your main can make the food and potions to divide up for the alts to turn in. Add the enchanting if you like, since you can buy the potency runes as you need them. If they’re logging in, they might as well grab these quests. They pay $660 each plus the rewards...they’re a good revenue stream.

- how to manage. This is key. You gotta stay organized...if multiple characters start picking up everything it’s going to create chaos. It’s best to divide up the mules by item types. After you adventure, push items you want to keep to your bank then log into your mules and pull the items assigned to them. It’s not so bad...when I let my plus expire temporarily I don’t usually have to log into every mule every time I play. One day I’ll pull alchemy and enchanting, then the next pull equipment.

How to divide up mules

Consumables Mule

One can carry all alchemy and provision items. It’s a lot of items, but they all stack and you can collect for months before you need to divide these between two mules.

Enchanter mule

There are so many runes I tend to put these all with one character. They should have enough space to still fight and play.

Style and trait stone mule

There are so many motifs that I find it best to put all the motif stones with one character. Then you know where they are...and they’re not something you’ll use that often in most cases.

Equipment mats

All the raw and refined wood, ore and cloth can fit on one character.

This would give you the ability to play and expand for quite a while before it became uncomfortable again. As an alternative, you could join a trade guild and sell off most everything. You have unlimited gold space, and materials sell relatively well. If you don’t like storing stuff, sell things that aren’t hard to replace, like lower level leather or wood or style stones.

TheCyberDruid · June 2018

I'd max out your bank and inventory. It does take a good amount of saving, but have you considered to join a trading guild? You can make some extra money that you can use to max out your bank which helps a lot with crafting without ESO+.

White wabbit · June 2018

I do feel sorry for those with out eso plus as crafting bag is just too good to be without , but not sorry enough for ZOS to put this in crown store though

helediron · June 2018

Some years ago i had separate alchemist and provisioner. They kept their stuff in inventory. They are easiest to move away from bank and are very easy to level up.

The alchemist can lear all combinations easily at the alchemy table. The provisioner needs to learn some scalable recipes like Orzorga's recipes from Wrothgar and few tier 6 cp150 recipes. Both are easy to acquire.