Bank limitations a deal breaker

JTWolph_ESO · May 2014

My account was about to expire but they gave me 5 more days free. The email got me thinking of the game and how much I enjoy the stories and the quests and the lore. Well, I won't use those extra days simply because of the bank limitations.

Why is it unreasonable to want to play the game and use my alts as playable characters, not bank mules, and have each character perform a profession or two? Why do we have 8 character slots if they didn't want us to use them? The way the game is designed with it's shared bank with very few storage slots, it is impossible to use your alts unless you don't craft.

Why is this banking system so widely accepted and those that have issues are berated in the forums and in game chat? And yet, everyone that insults or talks down to someone with storage issues goes on to describe how they work around the issue and by so doing, admits the issue effects them.
Why do we seem to need articles like this: http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-bag-space-guide/

If everyone is using some method to work around the limitation, doesn't seem like the limitation is frivolous and shouldn't even exist? Taking the time to juggle mats with multiple bank alts or "mules" is not fun for many people.

There is no way to know how many people are not subscribing due to this issue alone. The devs have in no way acknowledged this issue at all, either to admit there is an issue nor to say this is by design and will stay for a reason (again, with the work arounds, I can't imagine what that reason would be).

So, if you devs read this, here is at least one person that is for sure not giving you any more money simply due to storage space. One person that would rather not play the game at all than cut himself off from the crafting aspect of the game. I hope, for your sake, there are not many others like me but I fear there probably are. Good luck and sorry for all the trolls that are now likely to post responses.

SirAndy · May 2014

JTWolph_ESO wrote: »

The way the game is designed with it's shared bank with very few storage slots, it is impossible to use your alts unless you don't craft.

I disagree. I have 3 main characters, one in each faction and each of them specializes in two crafts.
They all currently have 80 slots each for bagspace, plus a few slots from their horses.
I only use the bank to store crafting gems (for racial and traits) and exchange items between my characters.

While i agree that more/dedicated bank space would be nice, my setup has been working just fine ...

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO · May 2014

Another stupid.thread. ZOS please make that inventory unlimited so we can all live in peace and do not lose even that little % of subs. No harm done to game if you that.

Lupinemw · May 2014

Why do people seem to think that you have to carry everything and do everything. In many games your limited to maybe 2 crafts yet you get the chance to do more and we complain.

I have 1 single character at the moment, no alts and I do 3 Crafts and I can cope, yes at the start you have to juggle, but as more elements are researched more items just get de-constructed.

Tbh I'm a tad bored with all the ranters and rage quitters and I won't be sorry to see ppl go.

Lest we forget the game is a month old and NO game got it right from the start. So maybe think on that.

Reivax · May 2014

It took me about 2 weeks of playing, but I finally realized that I have no purpose in saving everything that I pick up.
In those first couple weeks, I literally picked up every single thing I came across. At first, you have no idea what is useful or what is not.
Rearranging inventory and bank was getting to be painful, so I finally just came up with a system that suited my style of play.

Regarding Provisioning, I figured out what max Stamina food I like, and I keep those 2 ingredients whenever I find them.
I figured out what increase Stamina regen drink I like, and I keep those 2 ingredients when I find them.
What provisioning ingredients I keep changes frequently, based on improved recipes I find, and that's fine, but so far I'm not saving more than about 6 slots on ingredients.

I use heavy armor, so I have zero need for any cloth or wood. So I harvest it when I see it, convert it at a bench, and sell it for gold.

At first, I kept all the metal I found. My World of Warcraft background left me thinking that at some point, I'd grind out a 100 iron daggers and raise my Blacksmith skill up to the next level. But it didn't take long to realize that the bottleneck in that plan is not availability of metal, but rather lack of racial trait pieces. I come across maybe 5 racial trait pieces per day of play that I can use. if I put maximum metal for each thing I craft, I'd maybe be able to consume about 50-60 metal bars a day. I can easily gather that much in one day of play. No need to horde metal.

I either research or deconstruct every other metal weapon or armor that I find. I have no need or interest in researching, for example, Increase Sprint trait for a Dagger, or for even keeping a gem that puts increased sprint. I only keep gems for traits I actually use, and I use them up whenever I have metal to make stuff. Then sell the weapons for cash.

As for potions in ESo, I quickly realized that drinking a potion other than what is in my Q slot during combat is probably never going to happen. I keep stamina potions in that slot.
Would I love to have health, or spell resistance potions available for quick consumption during a fight?
Sure, but when you have a single tool bar slot for a potion, and probably I'd be dead in the 2-3 seconds it will take to switch items in my Q slot and then use that item... forget it.
Outside of combat, there is really no need for potions. Maybe once poisons are implemented, but for now, no need on my end.
Therefore, I collect every herb I see, and grind them all up in to potions every time I'm at an alchemy table, but I don't worry about it too much. Potions do not sell for any significant money and you find tons of them all over the place at any rate.
I have no need for saving multiple piles of potions.

Finally there's enchanting stones. I don't need very many. I usually keep all aspect and potency runes I find and can use, but I only keep the essences that I will immediately need. I have no need to keep an enchanting warehouse, I personally don't see the need.

I fish a lot, but bait? It's all over the place and very common. Never a need to bank bait.

I should close out by saying, I play this game for its story, for the adventure of it, and for having a common hobby with my wife.
I could care less about "end game" content, or being first kid on my block to kill "Big Bad Boss".
My real-life job is already mentally fatiguing enough, I don't want my hobby to be that way too.

If you're like me in that respect, and are getting sick of logging in first thing each night and letting out a big sigh because you have to sort through a ton of stuff just in order to get ready to play, maybe this will help a little.

huntgod_ESO · May 2014

I did some spring cleaning and it helped me as well, I dumped the crafting materials I would not use, the first 4 ranks of metal, wood, cloth and leather, which freed up 8 slots...oh wow that didn't really make much space at all.

Nevermind still cramped, despite having spent for the 20k bank space.

My backpack tends to stay empytish, at the 130 slots I have fills within 2-3 hrs of questing.

I have my space manageable now, but still have to pay close attention to my bank inventory and keep blue or higher improvement mats on an alt, since I don't use them very often.

RazzPitazz · May 2014

I came from the Elder Scrolls sode of the tracks. "A bank? No house?!" Then it sunk in "A bank? For ALL my characters?! Sweeeeeeet"

amanfr01 · May 2014

Reivax wrote: »

... but I only keep the essences that I will immediately need. I have no need to keep an enchanting warehouse, I personally don't see the need.

I need to keep that essence trick in mind. Potency and Aspect are so far and few, but my bank is like 60% Essence runes. I barely ever use them, as I never have enough Potency or Aspect runes in bulk to craft all of them.

Going to give your mindset a try!

Maverick827 · May 2014

I'm not quitting the game over it, but bank space issues are severly lowering my enjoyment.

OzzyNOR · May 2014

Having to rely on the "mule-shuffle", to keep materials for your crafts is just bad game design. I like playing a crafter in MMO's, selling to others, taking orders etc. In this game that is pretty hard, as you can't possibly keep the amount of materials needed to do so effectively. So, you have to start prioritizing, dumping shiteloads of materials at vendors just to keep your inventories from overflowing. If you do all six crafts, across 6 characters, you'll have about 20 bank slots per craft available. If you look at the number of materials you'd expect to have in store (if you actually want to craft for other players, take craft-orders etc)for crafts like alchemy, provisioning and enchanting you'll see this is simply not enough. Now, I know the nitpickers here will say, "stick to one or two crafts", "sell low lvl materials", "don't pick up everything", "it works for me", yada yada yada. It's just ways to get around a badly thought out system. My suggestion would be to give each on of the materials 1 free slot each. So you could have 100 iron for free, but 200 iron would use 1 slot, 300 iron 2 slots and so on. The character inventory is fine as it is though, the issue here is the bank.

Lupinemw · May 2014

Okay lets ask the simple question then. What current MMO allows you to craft several Crafts?

Most MMO's also give you a very limited chance to share bank space Lotro is small unless you spend a lot of money on it and in many ways its real money.

GW2 has its huge crafting area yes, but Lotro didn't you were pretty limited and well you got 2 crafts. Maybe ZSO should do that restrict you to 2 crafts that way people would stop moaning that they have to think for 5 seconds.

I mean you can have 200 bag slots, 200 bank slots and what 50-60 slots on your horse. I guess that's just not enough for those who must store everything.

twev · May 2014

Lupinemw wrote: »

Okay lets ask the simple question then. What current MMO allows you to craft several Crafts?

Most MMO's also give you a very limited chance to share bank space Lotro is small unless you spend a lot of money on it and in many ways its real money.

GW2 has its huge crafting area yes, but Lotro didn't you were pretty limited and well you got 2 crafts. Maybe ZSO should do that restrict you to 2 crafts that way people would stop moaning that they have to think for 5 seconds.

I mean you can have 200 bag slots, 200 bank slots and what 50-60 slots on your horse. I guess that's just not enough for those who must store everything.

I don't care what other MMOs do or don't do.
I'm playing this one.

If I wanted to limit myself to what other MMOs do, I'd play one of those.

If I have the opportunity to say that I'd like to have a little bit of an easier time dealing with the warehousing and infrastructure so I can adventure in this game, I'll use the opportunity.

I don't feel a particularly strong desire to play an adventure game that makes me play with a cataloging database to maximize my storage potential based on what may or may not be available next week if the Devs decide to tweek something's availability. I'm hoping this one doesn't make me use a database.

Mansome · May 2014

Lupinemw wrote: »

Okay lets ask the simple question then. What current MMO allows you to craft several Crafts?

Most MMO's also give you a very limited chance to share bank space Lotro is small unless you spend a lot of money on it and in many ways its real money.

GW2 has its huge crafting area yes, but Lotro didn't you were pretty limited and well you got 2 crafts. Maybe ZSO should do that restrict you to 2 crafts that way people would stop moaning that they have to think for 5 seconds.

I mean you can have 200 bag slots, 200 bank slots and what 50-60 slots on your horse. I guess that's just not enough for those who must store everything.

Rift lets you craft every profession if you want. Although you have to pay real money for the crafting extensions. I have an alt on Rift that I did every single craft on. I had a ton of loyalty points from when the game went free to play so I put them on that alt for the extensions.

Personally I think the OP of this thread is just another forum troll, just like all the rest that either have this unrealistic expectation of what an MMO is or just another WoW crybaby that needs to go back to WoW.

Don't get me wrong I hate having to do inventory Tetris every few hours when my bags are full but I am willing to give ZSO a chance on this MMO. I have dealt with significantly worse MMO launches, I remember 12 hour queues in Aion. The only problems I ever had in ESO has been a few bugged quests and enchanting taking forever and a year to level up. Everything else has been perfect so far. Leveling speed is decent, crafting is actually worth doing. The developers are addressing the problems slowly but surely. This game has tons of potential once its fully polished.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO · May 2014

OzzyNOR wrote: »

Having to rely on the "mule-shuffle", to keep materials for your crafts is just bad game design. I like playing a crafter in MMO's, selling to others, taking orders etc. In this game that is pretty hard, as you can't possibly keep the amount of materials needed to do so effectively. So, you have to start prioritizing, dumping shiteloads of materials at vendors just to keep your inventories from overflowing. If you do all six crafts, across 6 characters, you'll have about 20 bank slots per craft available. If you look at the number of materials you'd expect to have in store (if you actually want to craft for other players, take craft-orders etc)for crafts like alchemy, provisioning and enchanting you'll see this is simply not enough. Now, I know the nitpickers here will say, "stick to one or two crafts", "sell low lvl materials", "don't pick up everything", "it works for me", yada yada yada. It's just ways to get around a badly thought out system. My suggestion would be to give each on of the materials 1 free slot each. So you could have 100 iron for free, but 200 iron would use 1 slot, 300 iron 2 slots and so on. The character inventory is fine as it is though, the issue here is the bank.

No offence sir, but in what MMO you did ALL crafts on ONE character? I do provisioning, clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking and do NOT have any issue with inventory at ALL.

I spend like 5 minutes to put things into bank after around 4 hours of questing/gathering. I suppose that I am just a fan boy pretending that non existing issue exists...

Really I wish inventory was unlimited so these people stop crying about their poor performance. Same as "angry joe" - that guy is so lame in review. Like 90% of his complaints were invalid.

Beryl · May 2014

I agree that inventory management in ESO is frustrating. It was not the only reason why I canceled my sub, but it definitely was among the leading reasons. After over 10 MMOs I tried or played for longer time, this is the first where inventory system irritates me.

The total amount of storage space available is not that much of an issue for me, but the way I have to scroll every time through more than hundred crafting items certainly is.

There is no way to lock some items so that they can't be sold/deconstructed by mistake. Did you try to have several sets of armour and weapons which you would put on depending on the situation? I have a full heavy armour set and a full light armour set which I swap based on my needs. I have to be extra careful each time I visit a vendor... and I visit vendors many times per playsession.

There is no way to have a personal storage which is not shared with others. Think of all the trophies and outfits, I want to store them for weeks or months and I do not want other characters to see these outfits in the shared storage, neither do I want to carry them in my bags for several months in a row.

People keep mentioning that in other MMOs you can't have all professions on one character. I get it. Though I did have all professions in all MMOs I played and those crafts were mastered by my alts. I see no enjoyable way to have multiple alts here when there is no private (not shared) bank for them.

For me this whole system is one of the deal breakers and, like OP, I wonder what percentage of the playerbase think of it as a serious issue as well.

OzzyNOR · May 2014

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

No offence sir, but in what MMO you did ALL crafts on ONE character? I do provisioning, clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking and do NOT have any issue with inventory at ALL.

I spend like 5 minutes to put things into bank after around 4 hours of questing/gathering. I suppose that I am just a fan boy pretending that non existing issue exists...

Really I wish inventory was unlimited so these people stop crying about their poor performance. Same as "angry joe" - that guy is so lame in review. Like 90% of his complaints were invalid.

Read again, I didn't say all crafts on one character. I said six profession across 6 characters, so all crafting professions on one account. With 8 char slots, and currently 6 crafts that's not unreasonable at all. Not that it would make a huge difference if it's 1 character or 6, you still have the same low amount of bank-space. Your comment is very predictable though as I mentioned in my first post. This is not an issue for you, so how could it possibly be an issue for anyone else, right? Possibly because you are doing 4 out 6 professions, probably not very high lvl yet, and probably provisioning mats from just one alliance? Correct me if I'm wrong. If not, well congrats to you. As you said you're just a "fan boy pretending that non existing issue exists", so obviously it's not a problem for anyone else either....
Oh, and when you do get higher lvl and start getting gear you have no use for and you want to sell it you have two options; use precious bank slots and use /z, or any /g chat to try sell it, or pay ridiculous amounts at guild store to have it put up there, hoping you didn't waste the initial fee. Or, maybe you just want to keep a stack of each material, so that you can help out guildmates or just one of your alts as they lvl up. You know, totally normal MMO stuff....

I love playing as a trader/crafter in MMO's. In this game it's frustrating, unrewarding and littered with bad game design choices. Though that isn't so surprising as this game is littered with bad design choices, from RvR with no Alliance/Guild restrictions to animation cancelling during combat.

joshisanonymous · May 2014

Seems like a small issue to quit over. I mean, I'd try to convince you that there's a reason, that maybe they want to force people to make choices about who their character will be, but I'm pretty sure you'd find some other detail down a month down the road that causes you to quit just the same.

If you decide to stick around, Reivax's tips are really good. I came to the same anti-hording conclusions myself. It's just not necessary to keep everything you find. I'd add that it's probably best to do the quickest trait researches available first, too. I'm doing every craft and have been saving items that I will need for the traits at some point. At first, I was researching the items that I'd personally like to use, even if they were gonna take longer. By the time I got to that first 7 day research, though, I realized that a large number of my ~60 items in my bank could be researched in 6, 12, or 24 hours. Might as well get those quick ones out of the way before worrying about maxing out a single weapon or armor piece.

ghost0 · May 2014

@op, i feel you on quitting over inventory. i almost feel the same way but the game is fun so ill stick around, but i did rage quit my professions and as soon as i have the money to repec, all crafts are getting zeroed out on all toons.
the thought of spending one more minute dealing with inventory or having to log out to a diff toon makes me so angry that a honey badger would run away from me.
ill buy what i need. which is a shame bcz in every other mmo ive played, crafting has been a huge part of my gaming identity. not here, not anymore.

Maverick827 · May 2014

For all those who are not having an issue with inventory/banking, how would it hurt you if Zenimax was to, say, double the size of the bank?

Taurus498 · May 2014

I think that the default size of the Shared Bank really needs to be 100, with the next upgrade costing around 20k gold and then almost double for each upgrade after that. This would allow the Newbies some time to get a better grasp of this games Crafting System, so that they can determine what Crafting Materials are worthwhile hoarding and which are not. As most people don't realize that you only need to hoard only a very few Provisioning Ingredients, as most are extremely easy to acquire in towns when needed.

Reivax wrote: »

As for potions in ESo, I quickly realized that drinking a potion other than what is in my Q slot during combat is probably never going to happen. I keep stamina potions in that slot.
Would I love to have health, or spell resistance potions available for quick consumption during a fight?
Sure, but when you have a single tool bar slot for a potion, and probably I'd be dead in the 2-3 seconds it will take to switch items in my Q slot and then use that item... forget it.
Outside of combat, there is really no need for potions. Maybe once poisons are implemented, but for now, no need on my end.
Therefore, I collect every herb I see, and grind them all up in to potions every time I'm at an alchemy table, but I don't worry about it too much. Potions do not sell for any significant money and you find tons of them all over the place at any rate.
I have no need for saving multiple piles of potions.

I recommend you try this Quick Slot addon if you are finding it difficult to use potions during a fight: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info258-GreymindQuickSlotBar.html

Just bind each potion to a function key.

Beryl wrote: »

There is no way to lock some items so that they can't be sold/deconstructed by mistake. Did you try to have several sets of armour and weapons which you would put on depending on the situation? I have a full heavy armour set and a full light armour set which I swap based on my needs. I have to be extra careful each time I visit a vendor... and I visit vendors many times per playsession.

I recommend you try this Item Saver Addon: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info364-ItemSaverModified.html

Maverick827 wrote: »

For all those who are not having an issue with inventory/banking, how would it hurt you if Zenimax was to, say, double the size of the bank?

Increasing the Bank limit will have significant effects on the game economy, and there would have to be adjustments/increases made to the current Gold Sink “frictions”. Which means that those that only play one character and only specialize in some of the crafts will be “hurt”, due to increased: Repair Costs, Guild Store Listing Fee & COD, for example.

For those that want or have some tips on how to deal with Bank Space click on the link in my sig.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO · May 2014

OzzyNOR wrote: »

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

No offence sir, but in what MMO you did ALL crafts on ONE character? I do provisioning, clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking and do NOT have any issue with inventory at ALL.

I spend like 5 minutes to put things into bank after around 4 hours of questing/gathering. I suppose that I am just a fan boy pretending that non existing issue exists...

Really I wish inventory was unlimited so these people stop crying about their poor performance. Same as "angry joe" - that guy is so lame in review. Like 90% of his complaints were invalid.

Read again, I didn't say all crafts on one character. I said six profession across 6 characters, so all crafting professions on one account. With 8 char slots, and currently 6 crafts that's not unreasonable at all. Not that it would make a huge difference if it's 1 character or 6, you still have the same low amount of bank-space. Your comment is very predictable though as I mentioned in my first post. This is not an issue for you, so how could it possibly be an issue for anyone else, right? Possibly because you are doing 4 out 6 professions, probably not very high lvl yet, and probably provisioning mats from just one alliance? Correct me if I'm wrong. If not, well congrats to you. As you said you're just a "fan boy pretending that non existing issue exists", so obviously it's not a problem for anyone else either....
Oh, and when you do get higher lvl and start getting gear you have no use for and you want to sell it you have two options; use precious bank slots and use /z, or any /g chat to try sell it, or pay ridiculous amounts at guild store to have it put up there, hoping you didn't waste the initial fee. Or, maybe you just want to keep a stack of each material, so that you can help out guildmates or just one of your alts as they lvl up. You know, totally normal MMO stuff....

I love playing as a trader/crafter in MMO's. In this game it's frustrating, unrewarding and littered with bad game design choices. Though that isn't so surprising as this game is littered with bad design choices, from RvR with no Alliance/Guild restrictions to animation cancelling during combat.

Trade is different story it has 0 relation to inventory. I have a huge issue with trading in ESO, but certainly not with inventory. Problem with trading is that you simply can not reach customer fast enough. I hate AH and spam does not work so well, when there is no trade channel or player shops. Trade is the only thing that could possibly make me unsub. I did love trade in L2, then I came to WoW and I realised there is no trade at all. Auction is not personal and i don't like it all.
Therefore I made alts leveled all profs and avoided whole trade entirely.

What I wrote is my experience and my opinion so you are right people may have this kind of issue, but from this huge number of hours I spent in the game I do believe that those people are simply doing something wrong, very wrong.

From what I read here I see one real issue and that is no equipment management and possibility to lock certain item so you do not decon it by mistake as there is no "buyback" for decon.

Look as I said ZOS should make unlimited bags and problem is solved. In truth there is no reason for not doing so. Bags certainly are not realistic, so why not make them unlimited? These increased slots are just nonsense. Why to make close to unlimited when you can make it unlimited straight?

Still when I go back to lineage2 and wow, there was so low bag/bank space. Even if you had max and picked up everything you were full pretty fast.

Sorry if my previous post was little harsh, I was going from the pub:-). Long walk so I checked some stuff. Really like this age of smartphones:-)

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO · May 2014

Maverick827 wrote: »

For all those who are not having an issue with inventory/banking, how would it hurt you if Zenimax was to, say, double the size of the bank?

By all means make it unlimited I don't care. It affects me in no way. And yes unlimited, because I am sure for some magicians even 400 slots are not enough.

BUT, I am seriously worried that if they listen to this what will be the "popular" topic next time? Make horses for 1g for everyone? Buff horses so it gets 50% speed bonus from the start? Implement flying mounts?

This is my only problem with this bag/bank space issue. If this would stop all this talk and people would not find another thing to cry about I do support unlimited bags.

Beryl · May 2014

Taurus498 wrote: »

I recommend you try this Item Saver Addon: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info364-ItemSaverModified.html

Thank you

I am aware of how addons can modify and improve experience of ESO players. However in MMOs I refuse to use addons which are bringing new features to the gameplay. It is not a single player game where I am totally isolated from others. Here we all play together and I prefer to see a game in the same way as the majority of players sees it. For me the necessity of addons here is another deal breaker (while it was a bonus of the single player TES games). If someone tells in a zonechat: "I can't kill that troll with 14k health!" the standard reaction is: "How do you see his health?" and not "Try the skill X". Same with store search functions, inventory management and so on.

Don't get me wrong, I use addons in other MMOs. In all cases they modify the UI or make existing combat/inventory features easier to access. Till ESO I never played an MMO where I need an addon to introduce a basic feature.

ZOS_LeroyW · May 2014

We understand and respect that sometimes people will leave The Elder Scrolls Online community. JTWolph_ESO, we thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us and we wish you the very best. We're closing this thread now per our Code of Conduct policy on quitting/goodbye threads.