ESO+ is an anachronism.

Faulgor · January 8

ESO+ launched way back with the transition from P2P to B2P. It was basically the continuation of the subscription service that gave you access to all content without having to worry about getting specific DLCs and whatnot. Over the years, this was watered down with the introduction of chapters that were no longer included in ESO+, and in the latter years with the lack of a Q4 DLC.

Now, with the transition to a seasonal model that makes all content free, ESO+ is a complete anachronism.
The other "benefits" added to ESO+ over the years (e.g. +10% AP gain) can't make up for the loss of content, because they are only differences in quantitiy, and not quality.
The only qualitative benefit still offered by ESO+ is also the main reason why people subscribe, namely the craft bag. That's it.
And even that only serves to alleviate arbitrary gameplay constraints, like currency and furnishing caps, which means rather than ESO+ feeling rewarding in itself, not having it feels awful.

It's a pain killer.
How often do you feel great about buying pain killers?
Exactly.

It is a strategy that can not be reconciled with an approach that aims to remove pain points and "rewards people's play time".

How can you incorporate feedback that inventory management is among the top things keeping people away from ESO, when your revenue depends on inventory management being terrible?
And it is the top thing that my friends mention why they aren't returning - the game is downright unplayable without the craft bag, but they don't want to or can't play continuously to justify a subscription. So they don't play at all. Especially because there are more than enough alternative online games that don't require you to shuffle items around in your inventory all the time. You know, respecting people's time and all that.

Stackable Treasure Maps are ... nice, but they can't address the core issue that 12 years in there are too many items to keep track of in too many stacks occupying too many inventory slots. Frankly I never understood why there have to be stacks in the first place, it's just an arbitrary convention when most items (at least those that aren't unique or gear with enchantment charges/degredation/etc) could just as easily work like gold or other currencies without a cap. Why do 13,245 Rubedite Ingots occupy 67 inventory slots instead of 1? Just to annoy us.

Honestly, I'd've rather had the craft bag for free than all the content. I understand that making the content accessible without barrier for everyone is a huge plus for the health of the game (and it was one of the reasons why the game launched P2P in the first place).
But from the perspective of an individual consumer, I feel much better about buying actual content than a pain killer.

Gabriel_H · January 8

Faulgor wrote: »

Now, with the transition to a seasonal model that makes all content free, ESO+ is a complete anachronism.

The seasons model makes all future content free.

Potrimpo · January 8

How can you incorporate feedback that inventory management is among the top things keeping people away from ESO, when your revenue depends on inventory management being terrible?

You are right. All, without exception, has unlimited inventory. No other MMO has this limit. No MMO has buy-ins with inventory. No MMO has Limits for inventury. None

None. All are unlimited, except ESO.

Ok. My was a lie.

Faulgor · January 8

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Now, with the transition to a seasonal model that makes all content free, ESO+ is a complete anachronism.

The seasons model makes all future content free.

They'll also keep adding past content to the base game, Orsinium/TG/DB in Season Zero, the Greymoor chapter in Season 2.

lillybit · January 8

When I started to sub back at console release the only things of substance it provided was a few crowns, a bit more gold and quicker research. There was the promise of free DLCs but (apart from IC which nobody liked even then) there weren't any in the foreseeable future. I figured the crowns was worth subbing for because it wasn't far off the cost of just those.

Since then there's been a large amount added, including the craft bag, double bank space and furnishing slots, more crowns. In all that time, the price hasn't gone up once (crown packs have so those crowns are even better value for money now). It should be at least double that by now just accounting for inflation over the last 11 years. Instead it's adding more and still giving access to all those old dlcs all for a decade old price.

wolfie1.0. · January 8

You forget that you get an allotment of crowns with eso+ at a rate that is better than some crown packs as well as the dlc access. You could actually make the argument that zos is taking a loss by doing that.

Pevey · January 8

Crowns are not a good justification for the value of ESO+. If people want crowns, they can just buy crowns.

The major selling point of ESO+ is the craft bag. And this is TERRIBLE design, because it incentivizes design choices that make inventory a nightmare for non-subscribers in order to sustain revenue. This is the opposite of fun. Games are supposed to be fun. Players are more savvy than they used to be about "pain pill" monetization, and many are just completely turned away by it.

Design choices that should have been changed years ago that have not been in order to maintain/increase the value of the craft bag:

- Stack limit of 200: Way too low considering that one full "stack" of a max level material (e.g., ancestor silk) is only enough to make ONE item with that material. Completely ridiculous and only makes sense in the context of driving people toward feeling like they "need" the craft bag to play the game.

- Needlessly complex and confusing materials system, with too many material types for lower levels

- A change a couple of years ago where max level writs give a small amount of a random lower level material in addition to the max level material it always gave. There was no good reason for this other than to increase inventory management pain substantially. If a player wanted lower level materials, they could just respec and do lower level writs.

- Unnecessary friction on new systems caused by squeezing in new materials to fill player's inventory. E.g., scribing should not require ink at all. It has no good gameplay purpose. It should have never been included in the design, but it was inserted to give players yet another reason to need the craft bag.

wolfie1.0. · January 8

Pevey wrote: »

Crowns are not a good justification for the value of ESO+. If people want crowns, they can just buy crowns.

The major selling point of ESO+ is the craft bag. And this is TERRIBLE design, because it incentivizes design choices that make inventory a nightmare for non-subscribers in order to sustain revenue. This is the opposite of fun. Games are supposed to be fun. Players are more savvy than they used to be about "pain pill" monetization, and many are just completely turned away by it.

Design choices that should have been changed years ago that have not been in order to maintain/increase the value of the craft bag:

- Stack limit of 200: Way too low considering that one full "stack" of a max level material (e.g., ancestor silk) is only enough to make ONE item with that material. Completely ridiculous and only makes sense in the context of driving people toward feeling like they "need" the craft bag to play the game.

- Needlessly complex and confusing materials system, with too many material types for lower levels

- A change a couple of years ago where max level writs give a small amount of a random lower level material in addition to the max level material it always gave. There was no good reason for this other than to increase inventory management pain substantially. If a player wanted lower level materials, they could just respec and do lower level writs.

- Unnecessary friction on new systems caused by squeezing in new materials to fill player's inventory. E.g., scribing should not require ink at all. It has no good gameplay purpose. It should have never been included in the design, but it was inserted to give players yet another reason to need the craft bag.

Crowns alone are not a good justification for ESO plus....

Your actually wrong about that. 1500 crowns on the site is $15 usd. ESO plus for the same price gives you 1650 crowns. And if you sub for longer you get a deal that is only beaten by a crown pack sale.

Thats on TOP of the other benefits.

As for the craft bag, ya its the key selling point. But let's be honest here. How many craft mats do you really need? Most of the best gear is not crafted.

Also, Now that surveys can be stacked, and traded. If storage is your concern using these are the best method to save space.

Melivar · January 8

It's always interesting to see the spins and justification for why the craft bag should be available to everyone but it is at a minimum 50% to 100% of why anyone would have a subscription.

With the pending changes to the new model, I am interested to see the full list of perks for ESO+ but if I am actively playing, I will have ESO+ as it supports the game as well as gives me benefits, I feel justify the cost. When we lost dungeons, they added the furniture vault IMO was a perfect tradeoff.

Now more than ever it is highly unlikely that they will separate the Craft Bag from ESO+. Depending how all the cosmetics and bonuses work out from the different paid season models playing ESO my way with plus as I always have may end up being a cheaper overall option.

That's likely not going to be true as I always seem to want things that one character may someday be happy, I got this, but who knows.

SneaK · January 8

When I came back from a 5 year break the inventory debacle was the biggest pain point, like way above anything else. It’s promising to here storage space is getting cheaper, but how much cheaper(?). I agree with most of the post, the incentive for plus should never be the craft bag. I HAD TO BUY IT in order to transfer gear to and from characters starting back up.

And yea, “had to” might seem like an exaggeration, but if I’m trying to return to a game after 5 years of updates and just want to see if I can get back in it, going into Cyro equipped with dead sets and no mythics wouldn’t have kept me playing.

Solvar · January 9

As noted, ESO+ subscription gives crowns in value equal to the price of subscription. But if you don't need/want the crowns, $15/month feels pretty high for the other benefits.

I wonder if there could be an ESO+ light subscription, which gives all the current benefits of ESO+ but without the crowns, at some much cheaper price point ($5/month?) I don't play ESO enough to justify the $15/month, but probably could the $5.

Or my other thought is a limited craft bag - maybe only holds 50 of each material, for non subscribers. This would reduce the pain a bit (especially for trait/style gems and alchemy items where you tend not to need as large quantities), but if one is serious about crafting, you are still going to want the unlimited craft bag.

I do wonder how many players start ESO without a subscription and pretty quickly give up because the inventory management reaches a pain point quite quickly, so anything that reduces that is probably a good thing.

Rohamad_Ali · January 9

This thread required looking a word up in the dictionary in order to agree. Don't forget us commoners next time, please.

Faulgor · January 9

Solvar wrote: »

Or my other thought is a limited craft bag - maybe only holds 50 of each material, for non subscribers. This would reduce the pain a bit (especially for trait/style gems and alchemy items where you tend not to need as large quantities), but if one is serious about crafting, you are still going to want the unlimited craft bag.

You know what would be cool? Oldschool bags with nested inventories. So you could craft or buy an actual bag that occupies a slot in your inventory, itself having a certain number of inventory slots for crafting materials when "opening" the bag. Essentially a container we can put crafting stuff into.

Okay, "cool" is maybe the wrong word, but it would tickle my nostalgia, contribute to the economy, and alleviate the inventory issue a bit.

Sadras · January 9

Faulgor wrote: »

It's a pain killer.
How often do you feel great about buying pain killers?
Exactly.

I was thinking exactly that with these new revelations. ESO+ doesn't feel enjoyable to have anymore, it's simply annoying not to have.
I've been subscribed for most of the time for years and took it as a given because I enjoy crafting and housing, and liked the additions, but with this battle pass model added now, I've seriously reconsidered it, and I think the whole thing is not worth it anymore. ESO+ isn't the "premium experience" anymore or whatever it once was, that's now the battle pass, it's now just the mostly pointless switch to suffer less with inventory woes. For that price, that's not an acceptable product, and I agree with the thread here that the craft bag should just be a regular basegame component.