Deleting characters question

robwolf666 · September 2021

I've been thinking of deleting all my characters and starting fresh.

My question is: If I do this, will the game remember everything? What's in my bank (gold/items etc), my player homes, the stuff in my player homes (furniture etc) and storage chests. Everything bought with Crowns AND in-game gold. All the memento's, sets, mounts, pets, appearance etc, that sort of thing? CP, obviously?

GuildedLilly · September 2021

That's....pretty drastic.

If you really want to go through with it, I'd suggest going through your characters one by one, clearing out anything in their inventory or wearing that you want to keep and storing it in the bank, or housing storage chests.

DO NOT DELETE the last of your old characters until AFTER you've created one new one--- I'm not sure how the game would handle all items if there are zero characters tied to the account.

kargen27 · September 2021

I would think the game would remember everything that is shared across the account. Not sure what you mean by appearance though. Things that are not account wide would go when the character goes. So a learned motif I would guess could be used at the dye station but not in the crafting station. Furniture in your homes would be there but you wouldn't be able to buy or construct new furniture until you either have the recipe of the achievement associated with it. You would have to learn all the traits again to craft gear.
Again can't say 100% but I see no reason the account wide stuff wouldn't still be there.

SydneyGrey · September 2021

GuildedLilly wrote: »

DO NOT DELETE the last of your old characters until AFTER you've created one new one--- I'm not sure how the game would handle all items if there are zero characters tied to the account.

This is the advice I would give, too. If there are zero characters, the game could suddenly decide to wipe everything on your account including whatever you have in the bank. I don't know if that's what would happen, but I wouldn't risk it.

SydneyGrey · September 2021

Also it seems to me that if you delete every character down to zero, it would probably wipe all your champion points that you've accumulated as well. Not worth the risk. Delete all characters except for one, then make a new character before you delete that last one.

robwolf666 · September 2021

Hmm, I'll keep the crafter then for the time being - both to make stuff if I need to and keep the account active. She'll just be officially "retired" for everything else.

Thanks all.

phaneub17_ESO · September 2021

You would keep all your known styles for outfit station (you just won't be able to craft any of it until a new character learns those motifs), you will retain your champion points, your homes will be intact, all the colors you have unlocked will still be there, craft bag inventory remains, and any collectibles on your account will be there waiting.

It's better to just switch from NA:EU server as its all separate, nothing carries over between them as far as I know.

BomblePants · September 2021

Yeah I would definitely keep at least one… you might regret it…. all that work dude…

SirAndy · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

Hmm, I'll keep the crafter then for the time being - both to make stuff if I need to and keep the account active. She'll just be officially "retired" for everything else.
Thanks all.

Make sure your crafter is CP160+ ...

Danikat · September 2021

If I was you I'd only delete 1 character to make space for a new one to play (assuming you don't have any free character slots already) and then play them as if they're your only character. Don't log into the others, don't use them to craft equipment for the newbie, don't farm gold on them to buy stuff etc. whatever rules you think will give you the experience you're looking for.

That way you still get to start over and play a new character, but if you change your mind later on you haven't lost everything.

Alternatively you could switch to the other server and play there (if you don't already do that), but then nothing you've bought or obtained in the game carries over - no houses unlocked, no costumes or mounts from the crown store etc. as well as no items in the bank, gold and crafting materials, so it's a more drastic change.

Jamdarius · September 2021

So you basically wanna delete all your effort, blood and tears you have shed? Just make new account, do not destroy it all it's such a shame, you may regret it afterwards.

robwolf666 · September 2021

Jamdarius wrote: »

So you basically wanna delete all your effort, blood and tears you have shed? Just make new account, do not destroy it all it's such a shame, you may regret it afterwards.

It comes from boredom actually, I just want to get some of the challenge back, it's way too easy and fast to level up these days - and then have 1280CP just waiting for you at the end of a couple of weeks levelling to 50.

I wish ZOS would give us an option in CC to not apply CP to a new character, so when you do reach 50, you start at CP 1 instead of automatically jumping to the level of your max CP character.

Ippokrates · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

So you basically wanna delete all your effort, blood and tears you have shed? Just make new account, do not destroy it all it's such a shame, you may regret it afterwards.

It comes from boredom actually, I just want to get some of the challenge back, it's way too easy and fast to level up these days - and then have 1280CP just waiting for you at the end of a couple of weeks levelling to 50.

I wish ZOS would give us an option in CC to not apply CP to a new character, so when you do reach 50, you start at CP 1 instead of automatically jumping to the level of your max CP character.

I know that feel

after few months playing on EU, made new account on NA - best few weeks in ESO ever

All this leveling from zero with knowledge I gain during previous plays, priceless

phaneub17_ESO · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

So you basically wanna delete all your effort, blood and tears you have shed? Just make new account, do not destroy it all it's such a shame, you may regret it afterwards.

It comes from boredom actually, I just want to get some of the challenge back, it's way too easy and fast to level up these days - and then have 1280CP just waiting for you at the end of a couple of weeks levelling to 50.

I wish ZOS would give us an option in CC to not apply CP to a new character, so when you do reach 50, you start at CP 1 instead of automatically jumping to the level of your max CP character.

You could just avoid the CP window entirely on new or existing characters, just don't allocate or slot anything. If you want more of a challenge leveling characters don't upgrade their gear every 10 levels, only use what you gain from quests and drops so no crafting anything not even food or pots.

Aznarb · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

I've been thinking of deleting all my characters and starting fresh.

My question is: If I do this, will the game remember everything? What's in my bank (gold/items etc), my player homes, the stuff in my player homes (furniture etc) and storage chests. Everything bought with Crowns AND in-game gold. All the memento's, sets, mounts, pets, appearance etc, that sort of thing? CP, obviously?

Was asking the same myself, end-up just making a new account and really enjoy starting fresh again, very different after doing all those trifeca, and currently I just plan to keep only 1 char this time and just having fun hanging with casual player guild. Different experience ^^

Starlight_Knight · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

I wish ZOS would give us an option in CC to not apply CP to a new character, so when you do reach 50, you start at CP 1 instead of automatically jumping to the level of your max CP character.

I wish this so much, i hate the half in half out approach to cp and achevments in this game. its absolutly pointless and unrewarding playing or doing anything on alts.
I would love a new player experience on a new char.

Hlaaluna · September 2021

Great advice already given but another thing to consider is that you will lose the ability to buy some items (housing furniture) that are tied with certain achievements.

A while back I deleted some characters which left me with only 1 faction and I found that I could not purchase those items until I earned back that ability on my remaining character.

Almost certainly there will be something you will not have thought of.

ThePlacidHatter · September 2021

[snip]

robwolf666 wrote: »

a couple of weeks levelling to 50.

A couple of weeks???

[edited for baiting]

JKorr · September 2021

Don't delete the character that knows all the motifs. The outfit knowledge might stay, but the motifs are learned on a character, and once learned, the motif is gone. Finding and relearning all the motifs you might have had will be an incredible amount of work.

DMuehlhausen · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

I've been thinking of deleting all my characters and starting fresh.

My question is: If I do this, will the game remember everything? What's in my bank (gold/items etc), my player homes, the stuff in my player homes (furniture etc) and storage chests. Everything bought with Crowns AND in-game gold. All the memento's, sets, mounts, pets, appearance etc, that sort of thing? CP, obviously?

Anything account wide would be kept, so like your bank, stuff you bought on the crown store etc.

Items or achievements that are character bound would be lost.

ghastley · September 2021

How much does starting a new account cost? Don’t burn the bridges, find another river!

Soulshine · September 2021

I can sort of appreciate this sentiment.

In a few other games I have played, I essentially firebombed all my chars and started completely over from scratch a couple times when game updates changed so much that I was like, what the heck? let's just start over since they are, lol. But frankly those games have far more reliable fail safes for retrieving things, so I knew what was at stake.

I don't think you can count on this game "remembering" anything unless - as others have said- you make at least one new char first and then delete the others. CPs in particular are tied to whichever char make vet rank first and then any others, so if you delete them all without applying them to another vet rank char I would suspect you could possibly lose the CPs

Also keep in mind there has been a bug around where if you delete a character, suddenly your entire storage chests content can be wiped.

Anything you purchased with crowns should still be on your account.

SirAndy · September 2021

robwolf666 wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

So you basically wanna delete all your effort, blood and tears you have shed? Just make new account, do not destroy it all it's such a shame, you may regret it afterwards.

It comes from boredom actually, I just want to get some of the challenge back, it's way too easy and fast to level up these days - and then have 1280CP just waiting for you at the end of a couple of weeks levelling to 50.
I wish ZOS would give us an option in CC to not apply CP to a new character, so when you do reach 50, you start at CP 1 instead of automatically jumping to the level of your max CP character.

You don't have to use/allocate any CP at all on any given character.

The net effect is exactly the same as not having any CP on a new account.

Destai · September 2021

I've deleted characters quite a few times and have always regretted it. Unless you're out of character slots and won't buy new slots, I think it's better to leave them. I've been there where I wanted to started fresh and it just never panned out better than retooling an existing character.

If you do delete, plan your next character(s). Spreadsheet it out, feel out what you truly want out of them.

LalMirchi · September 2021

I remember deleting a character.

Well as I was an absolutely unknowing fool at the time I lost their inventory and other things I did not really realise were important.

Since that day every character is beloved of me and will get all the love and attention they need.

Tandor · September 2021

I've done this a couple of ways (for different reasons to the OP) and found that both opening a second account and starting over on the other regional server are good ways of starting again, and they also keep the game fresh.

Playing for a while on the other server while retaining all your existing characters on the first server would enable you to get the feel for starting over. If you then decided that it wasn't worth it you wouldn't have burned your bridges.

robwolf666 · September 2021

ThePlacidHatter wrote: »

[snip]

robwolf666 wrote: »

a couple of weeks levelling to 50.

A couple of weeks???

[edited for baiting]

I'm guessing this was some kind of snarky comment about it taking "so long" to get to lvl 50 - I guess the difference between us (taking into account I don't know how you play) is that I don't rush, I don't grind areas for XP to level-up, and don't use XP scrolls. I play at a leisurely pace and enjoy the story each time.

(That said ZOS - why are XP scrolls handed out like candy these days?)

To everyone else: Thanks for all the helpful comments. I've decided not to delete any characters, and instead have created a new account. Although, I've now noticed that even though it's on the same XB1 I no longer have access to the DLC areas, which sucks. I just have the vanilla game when it first released on XB1 - plus the base game updates obviously.