Do not open all of your Tome Caches at once!

danko355 · April 3

I want to post this as a warning for other players, especially ESO+ subscribers.

Like many others, I opened all of my Tome Caches and ended up with 24,000 Tome points this season. I had no idea that the points themselves cannot be carried over into another season. As far as I know, this was not clearly mentioned in any official ZOS news post, forum post, or in-game notification.

I only understood what had happened after reading about it on Reddit, which honestly is frustrating. Information this important should not have to come from Reddit instead of official channels.

After realizing my mistake, I submitted a support ticket asking whether some of my Tome points could be converted back into unopened Tome Caches. This was the response I received from Support:

Greetings!

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team. My name is Matias.

I understand you are requesting a restoration of Tome Caches. Unfortunately as these have already been opened we will not be able to process this request.

We know this is not the outcome you were hoping for today and we thank you for your understanding and continued support. Please feel free to reach back out to us if you ever have any other questions, comments, or concerns.

Regards,
Matias
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

At this point, this update is basically ruined for me. I can already buy EVERYTHING immediately, including low-value items like food, gems, and similar filler rewards, so there is no longer much reason to engage with the weekly challenges.

What feels especially bad is that a loyal ESO+ subscriber can end up with 20,000+ Tome points, only for them to convert into 2,000 points at the end of the season. That does not feel fair, and the lack of clear communication makes it worse.

I am posting this mainly so other players do not make the same mistake:

Do not open all of your Tome Caches at once unless you are absolutely sure you want to spend all those points this season.

ZOS really should provide clear official communication, whether through a news post, forum post, support article, or in-game warning, so players do not accidentally waste the value of their rewards.

Arunei · April 3

They REALLY should have mentioned in at least one of the livestreams AND one of the articles about the Tomes that only 2k would carry over from Season to Season, and I'm honestly kinda bewildered they didn't bring up such an important point.

I also don't see why CS can't remove the Points from your account and just reissue the Caches again.

valenwood_vegan · April 3

There should really be a popup with a warning about this (and a checkbox for "I understand, don't show this warning again") when one attempts to use a cache of tome points.

They really need to think about ways to explain how things work *in game*, as even mentioning it in a stream or an article likely wouldn't be of great help to new players in the future, or casual players who aren't following things closely.

And since this is a roll out of a new system, and there has absolutely been confusion (and bugs), this would be a great time for more of an all-hands-on-deck approach to making things right for players.

It's certainly a bit disheartening to see CS respond in that way after all the talk about improved communication and doing a better job this year. (And, relatedly, to see that the response to bugged challenges is just "re-roll it". No, this isn't on players zos, YOU fix it! When are y'all going to learn?).

SilverBride · 2:06AM

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/690378/expiration-for-tome-points-and-tome-point-caches/p1

danko355 · 6:12AM

SilverBride wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/690378/expiration-for-tome-points-and-tome-point-caches/p1

I know this thread exists, I intentionally created a new one. The one you mentioned is mostly about discussing the expiration. My thread is for:
1. Warning people very clearly not to open all Tome Caches at once, because we already know they will expire
2. Providing the Support answer to show what ZOS are planning to do to resolve the issue and help the players, which is essentially NOTHING.

HatchetHaro · 6:17AM

Yeah, I too made that mistake. The good news is that this season will last 3 months, so by the time Season 1 comes along, you will have another 3 Tome Caches to open as you wish.

danko355 · 6:28AM

HatchetHaro wrote: »

Yeah, I too made that mistake. The good news is that this season will last 3 months, so by the time Season 1 comes along, you will have another 3 Tome Caches to open as you wish.

No, I will not. I have yearly subscription that renews in November. That’s why I got 10 caches (Jan-Nov) and I opened all of them. So during the most vacation packed season I will have zero Caches to support.

Emeratis · 6:43AM

Earlier today there was an update on reddit from Gina:

Also a few hours ago a guildie of mine got a response saying they were being escalated to a specialist team about their issue, not a denial so hopefully that means you can either continue to reply to your ticket or open a new one with this information.

Turtle_Bot · 7:13AM

Emeratis wrote: »

Earlier today there was an update on reddit from Gina:

Also a few hours ago a guildie of mine got a response saying they were being escalated to a specialist team about their issue, not a denial so hopefully that means you can either continue to reply to your ticket or open a new one with this information.

@danko355 I would definitely reply to your previous ticket's email from CS with a screenshot of the quoted post above me with Gina's explanation on this issue, since it might help to escalate your case as well.

If CS still cannot do anything maybe @ZOS_Kevin could help see if there's a fix if you include your ticket number here.

Hopefully it gets resolved, the 2000 carry over cap with so many tome points being available within 1 season due to yearly ESO+ subs (at least more than there should be for a single season) definitely seems like an oversight on ZOS's end and needs investigating if a higher carry over cap can be introduced to help account for this.

Radiate77 · 7:17AM

Emeratis wrote: »

Earlier today there was an update on reddit from Gina:

Also a few hours ago a guildie of mine got a response saying they were being escalated to a specialist team about their issue, not a denial so hopefully that means you can either continue to reply to your ticket or open a new one with this information.

Might depend on if the points were used or not.

Athory · 7:34AM

Once again, what a mess ZoS is creating here. Why can’t they make things easy and clear to understand? Why not allow moderators on the forum to actually help players instead of just [snip] topics and banning users?

I really want to buy this Season 0, I truly do. But I won’t, because it’s a complete mess and I can’t understand it clearly. It feels like ZoS is intentionally hiding information for some hidden purpose. I honestly don’t understand why they can’t make things simple and easy to follow. Why all this confusion?

ZoS, PLEASE make all of this clearer, and PLEASE allow moderators to help players on the forum. We need them!

And I’m serious, I will not buy Season 0 until I fully understand what I’m paying for. I want to buy it, but I simply can’t!

CharlieEcho101x · 9:10AM

Emeratis wrote: »

Earlier today there was an update on reddit from Gina:

Also a few hours ago a guildie of mine got a response saying they were being escalated to a specialist team about their issue, not a denial so hopefully that means you can either continue to reply to your ticket or open a new one with this information.

Im glad that Gina/ZoS have seen the feedback and are discussing ways to rectify this in future and hopefully for this first tome - I was one of those who opened up all my caches as well and definitely would not have done so if i knew they expired with each tome.

shadyjane62 · 9:54AM

Your warning was too late for me, but I am grateful for the forums which have convinced me to wait on everything especially resubbing.

That's a big no on giving them any more money till they straighten out this mess.

Aylish · 10:06AM

I‘m truly sorry for all of you. I really am.

But I must say that I was aware of this mechanic. So they have said that at some point before the season began.
It‘s not true that there was zero info about this before.
I know that not everyone is gathering information from outside of the game but the infos were there.
I know this is frustrating but you could have easily calculated how many points you need to unlock and buy everything and come to the conclusion that you won‘t need all of your caches.

I know that this isn‘t helpful for any of you at this point but someone needs to say that it was said before that unspent points will expire after the end of the season. Otherwise the tome point caches would not have any point anyway.

ShilohNC · 11:00AM

So if I am an ESO+ sub and I bought the upgraded tome thingy.. do I open my 12 caches or not? Will those 12 disappear if I don't? Not sure what is in the caches anyway. I haven't bought anything with points other then the free premium Monster Slayer personality.. don't want to miss out on anything for fear of losing something or not losing something..

Reginald_leBlem · 11:21AM

ShilohNC wrote: »

So if I am an ESO+ sub and I bought the upgraded tome thingy.. do I open my 12 caches or not? Will those 12 disappear if I don't? Not sure what is in the caches anyway. I haven't bought anything with points other then the free premium Monster Slayer personality.. don't want to miss out on anything for fear of losing something or not losing something..

Don't open the caches. If there is something you want, open one cache and get it.

At the end of the season your unopened caches will still there, but if you have more than 2000 tome points you lose them

I opened all mine. Not in as bad a shape as some of you, but still have more than I need for the stuff I actually want.

beer781993 · 11:40AM

I also opened up all the crates. I didn't even know what they were for until it was too late.

The explanation is hidden in the help menu... Not once did I think about looking there.

But well, given to the history of ZoS not leaving out any mess, I should have known better.

ShilohNC · 12:07PM

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

ShilohNC wrote: »

So if I am an ESO+ sub and I bought the upgraded tome thingy.. do I open my 12 caches or not? Will those 12 disappear if I don't? Not sure what is in the caches anyway. I haven't bought anything with points other then the free premium Monster Slayer personality.. don't want to miss out on anything for fear of losing something or not losing something..

Don't open the caches. If there is something you want, open one cache and get it.

At the end of the season your unopened caches will still there, but if you have more than 2000 tome points you lose them

I opened all mine. Not in as bad a shape as some of you, but still have more than I need for the stuff I actually want.

How do I know what is in the cache's unless I open the cache's? Is there a youtube vid or something somewhere?

Tyralbin · 12:34PM

It would be a good idea to allow us to purchase the Tomes from our ESO accounts.

I don't find the way they are implemented now anywhere near as secure.

ThisOnePosts · 1:38PM

It's a digital item, of course they can reverse it. I can walk them through the process if needed.

This is a major deterrent. Someone needs to tell the decision-makers that it's not "modernizing" ESO to find a way to copy games like FN, purely for monetary purposes. They have a great opportunity to take these changes in an amazing direction, but putting profit at the center of everything takes away from the quality.

I hope they reconsider. This is not a good way to treat customers nor going to win others over.

PeacefulAnarchy · 1:56PM

ShilohNC wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

ShilohNC wrote: »

So if I am an ESO+ sub and I bought the upgraded tome thingy.. do I open my 12 caches or not? Will those 12 disappear if I don't? Not sure what is in the caches anyway. I haven't bought anything with points other then the free premium Monster Slayer personality.. don't want to miss out on anything for fear of losing something or not losing something..

Don't open the caches. If there is something you want, open one cache and get it.

At the end of the season your unopened caches will still there, but if you have more than 2000 tome points you lose them

I opened all mine. Not in as bad a shape as some of you, but still have more than I need for the stuff I actually want.

How do I know what is in the cache's unless I open the cache's? Is there a youtube vid or something somewhere?

Each cache is 2000 tome points. If you have patience the optimal way to use them is to not open them until near the end of the season. In the last week of the season look at how many points you have and what you've already unlocked and ask yourself, is there any reward left that you would like but don't have enough points to buy. If the cache would help you buy that, then go ahead and open one (or several I guess, up to you to see what you need and what value you assign to it).

Trier_Sero · 2:05PM

Do you guys not read or something? It clearly shows that you get 2k tome points for every cache you open. So why would you open them if you don't need that much points right now?

allochthons · 2:06PM

At the very least, opening a cache should be a long-press (or the equiv on PC.) Right now on console,

Aylish wrote: »

I‘m truly sorry for all of you. I really am.

But I must say that I was aware of this mechanic. So they have said that at some point before the season began.
It‘s not true that there was zero info about this before.

I watched all the streams. I read all the articles. And I didn't know. It IS in places like Alcast's and ESO-Hub's overviews, but I didn't read those because I wanted to avoid any spoilers that ESO wasn't giving out. That, I hope, is reasonable?
I suspect Alcast/ESO-Hub got it from PTS, but I don't know for sure.

AFAICT, the only place the information is available on an official ESO source* is the one helpfile in game.

(*outside of the forums/reddit after the Tome launch)

ETA: This is the most thorough ESO-created information source I can find. It's not there.
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/guides/tamrieltomes

Enemoriana · 2:12PM

Trier_Sero wrote: »

Do you guys not read or something? It clearly shows that you get 2k tome points for every cache you open. So why would you open them if you don't need that much points right now?

People opened them because info about expiring at the end of the season was not clear and not available in news about system. Why have unopened caches if you can have currency itself?

ShilohNC · 2:47PM

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

ShilohNC wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

ShilohNC wrote: »

So if I am an ESO+ sub and I bought the upgraded tome thingy.. do I open my 12 caches or not? Will those 12 disappear if I don't? Not sure what is in the caches anyway. I haven't bought anything with points other then the free premium Monster Slayer personality.. don't want to miss out on anything for fear of losing something or not losing something..

Don't open the caches. If there is something you want, open one cache and get it.

At the end of the season your unopened caches will still there, but if you have more than 2000 tome points you lose them

I opened all mine. Not in as bad a shape as some of you, but still have more than I need for the stuff I actually want.

How do I know what is in the cache's unless I open the cache's? Is there a youtube vid or something somewhere?

Each cache is 2000 tome points. If you have patience the optimal way to use them is to not open them until near the end of the season. In the last week of the season look at how many points you have and what you've already unlocked and ask yourself, is there any reward left that you would like but don't have enough points to buy. If the cache would help you buy that, then go ahead and open one (or several I guess, up to you to see what you need and what value you assign to it).

Excellent explanation! thank you very much!

allochthons · 2:49PM

Enemoriana wrote: »

People opened them because info about expiring at the end of the season was not clear and not available in news about system. Why have unopened caches if you can have currency itself?

Exactly. ZoS had just made a big deal about how migrating from Event Tickets to Trade Bars got rid of the Event Ticket cap, and we could keep as many as we wanted. They had just raised the Transmute cap. Two big, "make currencies easier to manage" steps. Listening to their players, improving QoL.

And then this? Our expectation that we could keep those Tome Points is totally reasonable.

Especially for those of us who have never played a game with Battle Passes before. I don't know how they work in Fallout '76, and nor do I care. I'm not playing Fallout '76, I'm playing ESO partly because it's NOT like other MMOs.

To be fair, I expect the "no notification" in print or streams was totally a mistake. And I bet they're mortified. But the UI mistakes, no "are you sure" etc, is sloppy game design.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · 3:48PM

How about the ability to convert them back into caches. The caveat would be that the amount cannot exceed the total that was initially purchased

randconfig · 4:07PM

Thanks for the heads up. Holy cow, that would have sucked. I'm sorry there was no way to get your points converted back/for them to carry over... Feels bad man )-:

virtus753 · 5:39PM

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

How about the ability to convert them back into caches. The caveat would be that the amount cannot exceed the total that was initially purchased

The first day of a new season:

Open > convert > open > convert > repeat until the 10th time, at which point you have unlocked all pages on the tome and kept your cache to do this with next season.

ShutUpitsRed · 5:56PM

Uhm, they literally mentioned it in the in-game help menu, which players famously read through before engaging in shiny new game systems, especially players who have been here for a decade. DUH!! /sarcasm

There's fine print and then there's this crap. Low blow, ZOS. How many livestreams and posts could this have been mentioned in?

virtus753 · 6:12PM

ShutUpitsRed wrote: »

Uhm, they literally mentioned it in the in-game help menu, which players famously read through before engaging in shiny new game systems, especially players who have been here for a decade. DUH!! /sarcasm

There's fine print and then there's this crap. Low blow, ZOS. How many livestreams and posts could this have been mentioned in?

This particular bit of info was already circling in General here by March 31 the latest, which would have been a nice cue to ensure it was included in visible official sources, not just the help menu.

The help menu is distinctly odd. It tells you things like your chance of proccing a status effect from a glyph, but it doesn’t tell you how to proc the glyph in the first place. Of course it doesn’t even begin to get into the numerous exceptions to the rules it doesn’t mention. Its lack of key info and cart-before-horse approach make it really hard to recommend as a reliable source for information. As much as I’m a strong believer that people should take advantage of their resources (as many did and found out here or through content creators or discords), official articles explaining the new system should be the place to explain the new system — including relevant info like this.