Inventory is Excessive Micro-Management

SaliciaKeyz · April 13

Without a doubt, one of the greatest pain points in the game is inventory micromanagement without ESO+.
My two kids play and love ESO, but I can’t pay for ESO+ for all of us.

Their entire bank is full to the brim with materials and there is no room for anything else- and there are still more material types than bank slots.

And the inventory fills up so fast and the joy of the game becomes quickly consumed by inventory management.

Two things that could help are:
More bank space, and a limited crafting bag for plants, provisioning mats, trait materials, to hold a modest number of each material. That would allow players to enjoy the game without spending half of their time sorting their bags. It gets tiresome.

Thank you guys for such great changes lately. You’re doing an excellent job with the game! I hope this will be something to consider.

-SaliciaKeyz

Edit- lots of people are in wholehearted agreement that this is such a massive pain point.

I agree with one comment that a crafting bag limited to 25 or 50 in a stack would be enough to free up a lot of space taken up by all the materials we have so few of, especially for new players, and still make ESO+ necessary for most players, especially given the other benefits.

I have friends that have quit because of inventory management, which is a ridiculous reason to lose players. One comment here said “you can’t sell anything to people who don’t play”.

The types of materials and items we get are increasing in number, while our bank and inventory space remain the same.

Stacks of 1000 is a great idea too.

There must be some way to implement some of these changes and still keep the revenue solid.

FlameDark · April 13

I think one way it might help is to increase the stack amounts. 200 is WAY too small of a number. It should be increased to at least 1000 items per stack.

Orbital78 · April 13

Personal Assistant is a great addon, it is the only reason I can play ESO. I think there is one called Dustman too.

It is definitely a barrier to entry and a reason a few of my friends didn't stick with the game, beyond the combat.

SaliciaKeyz · April 16

Orbital78 wrote: »

It is definitely a barrier to entry and a reason a few of my friends didn't stick with the game.

It’s definitely a barrier that feels like a lot of work for players that haven’t become fully invested into the game yet. That’s the exact reason my kids don’t play very often.

I believe that a limited crafting bag and bigger stack sizes would be a positive change for the community. I’d love to see a growing population again.

Sotha_Sil · April 16

They want you to get ESO+ that's why this has been untouched. But it is really tedious and they should see that it is a pain point they need to address.

Tandor · April 16

It seriously wouldn't be a problem if players didn't pick up every single thing they come across and then hang onto it instead of using it or selling it (whether to NPCs or other players).

FieryPhoenix · April 16

The inventory problem is more complex than “players saving everything”. There are a lot of hurdles with inventory management in this game. New players don’t know what to save, or what to sell without the use of add ons. The material item bloat is out of control with new items being added all the time. Just playing events the contents of the boxes fill your bag before you can finish opening all of them. Bound furniture is also a problem as it can’t be sold or given away. Redundant drops are also an issue with many recipes and motifs that many have already learned so that you can’t even give things away. Back to back events also don’t help this. It takes time for many players to earn enough gold to max out their bags and bank space. It takes time for players to earn enough writs to purchase storage chests. In the meantime your bag is full and you have to stop playing to fix that. This mechanism is a reason many new players just quit because it’s too much of a chore. Selling the solution to this problem is insufficient, there has to be a better way to address this.

Orbital78 · April 16

Tandor wrote: »

It seriously wouldn't be a problem if players didn't pick up every single thing they come across and then hang onto it instead of using it or selling it (whether to NPCs or other players).

That is part of how I adapted, Personal Assistant also has a junk marker system (dustman as well). I just pop open my merchant and it auto sells all the junk for me. Admittedly I am stubborn about style mats, in the chance I need them for master writs. There are so many dang style mats now, it is crazy.

allochthons · April 16

There are 50+ food ingredients, 30+ alchemy ingredients, 10+ materials each for each of the crafting disciplines (maple -> ruby ash), 40ish runes for glyphs, 25+ trait materials, nearly 140 style materials (and counting)...

Yeah, it's a bit out of control.

I have ESO+ on one account, and play (occasionally) a non-ESO+ account. I mail all the ingredients and materials from the non-ESO to the ESO. And then once a year or whenever there's an ESO+ free weekend, I stuff the craft bag on the non-ESO+ account.

A limited craft bag, and larger stacks, would be very welcome for non-ESO accounts.

(edited for clarity)

Diminish · April 16

Just returned to the game. I have played for years. Always carried ESO+. 16 characters on PC, around that many on console, and multiple accounts. Even have access to a guild bank. Tried returning just to check out whats changed over the past year or so, and MY GOD IT WAS AWFUL; especially returning during Jubilee! Nothing beats the feeling of needing to withdraw 241 items from your bank before you can even deposit a single item into it again (RIP character inventory). I ended up just subbing, which I am sure is the intention by ZOS unfortunately.

And no, to all those "just sell stuff bro" people out there... that is NOT a solution... it's another time sink that takes away from playing the actual content the game has to offer. Even micro-managing guild store listings and highly focusing on keeping 30/30 in all traders becomes tedious over time.

The inventory issue is extremely exacerbated for long-time players who formerly held ESO+ for years. Old friends are torn and many wont even touch this game anymore because they have much more limited play time now days so ESO+ isn't quite worth it to them, but they also don't want to play an inventory management sim by coming back and playing occasionally.

I don't know the solution because there is no way ZOS will ever remove the craft bag and furniture vault from behind a monthly paywall, but the current approach definitely isn't helping to retain players or entice older players to return, and It's unfortunate. I had a lot of good times on ESO over the years with a lot of people who all share a very similar sentiment regarding the game requiring too much time managing inventory and "daily chores" that eat way too far into the time they have to actually play the game.

ZOS really needs to do something, literally ANYTHING, to help ease the abysmal inventory management mini-game issue this game has.

/end rant

Yes, I know this reply was all over the place... much like the items scattered throughout my character inventory, bank, guild bank, multiple accounts, storage chests, craft bag, vault, etc. Please come up with a better solution ZOS, because this ain't it.

AScarlato · April 16

Tandor wrote: »

It seriously wouldn't be a problem if players didn't pick up every single thing they come across and then hang onto it instead of using it or selling it (whether to NPCs or other players).

This ignores the UI option to auto-loot all, since it would be excessively painful to sit and look at the gobs of garbage every trash mob carries. I know people speeding at 200 mph through a dungeon aren't going to sit and wait as I click on everything and stare at what I want to pick up. I barely have time to loot some things at all as people dash ahead.

Even with ESO+ and a $50 merchant assistant I still have to go through my inventory regularly.

With the recent event and loot bags, there really was a lot. I'm going to have to dedicate an entire play session at least to sort through it all - with ESO+ and characters with 160 slots.

Displaced_Salad · April 16

I've played with plus and without, learned the ins and outs of managing my inventory, and all I have to say is that the base issue remains: they add more items with every "update" yet no change is made in the amount players without plus can store/carry. If the limitation is data, then adding more plus customers and more items are just as detrimental as giving more storage. Even if you sell every saleable item you accrue, it doesn't solve the issue of filling up a character as they do their god-forsaken dailies, no matter under which nomenclature or system they exist currently.

The flashier pain points at least get some lip service, if not actual solutions, but the over-arching issue is that the game has grown and mechanics still exist from launch when busywork was far more necessary. No matter what your opinion of the current additions or lack thereof in regards to new content, there is plenty to be done compared to early years. So let me climb higher on my soapbox and play my broken record: No matter who it honks off, or how much profit is temporarily lost, the game needs to be taken offline and actually repaired and maintained. And the longer that waits, the longer it's going to take to fix it. And it's not going to be an option in eventuality because there's a big failure coming on the horizon. It's only a matter of time.

Sylosi · April 16

One of the reasons I stopped playing the game.

A sub is fine if you play the game regularly and a fair amount, years ago I used to sub to RIft, LOTRO, etc, but I mostly played ESO sporadically and even when playing it, there would be times I would barely touch it for 3 or 4 weeks. A sub simply does not fit the way I played ESO.

Other games give more flexible options like a limited crafting item inventory that you can then upgrade the capacity in their equivalent of the Crown Store.

I presume they make more money out of people who will pay the sub for the crafting inventory, than people like me who won't, but would buy some inventory upgrades (plus the chapters, DLC, crowns for character slots, etc I used to spend money on when I played).

Quethrosar · April 16

Even with eso+ inventory is annoying. 215 slots i think and always fighting for space since we have to carry all builds gear on the character. Think I'm at 130 items just to support minimum builds and play.

Elvenheart · April 16

A confession from an alt-a-holic and digital hoarder with ESO+ who is also sentimental:

My bank, my characters, and all of my storage chests are mostly full. I’ve made some progress over the years, I keep my crafters inventory low enough to be able to do all of my daily crafting on that one character, but most of my other characters have to sell things to my NPC vendor or deconstructed things with my NPC deconstructor at the end of every play session.

The sentimental - I keep so many little old odds and ends I’ve gotten from playing the game 11+ years. Jewelry that cannot be deconstructed, but because it was in the game before we got jewelry crafting. Old quest things that did not delete from the inventory after the quest was done. Old letters we’ve gotten that used to be quest starters. Those old respec and reattribute scrolls we can now sell because we can respec for free directly in the UI. I’ve recently made myself start deleting some of these things I have in duplicate because multiple characters had gotten them in their travels, so that will help free up some space, but it is a lot of work when I would rather be playing the game. And I still plan to keep one of each!

The digital hoarder - Being able to reconstruct armor and weapons was such a blessing for me! I got rid of lots of old armor and weapons I was holding “just in case” I wanted to try a set someday. But this little voice in the back of my head has made me hold onto pieces that dropped with the Divines or Precise traits because in my mind they are more “real” than a reconstructed version. Isn’t that silly? To help with my inventory woes I’m finally starting to let some of those pieces go, but again, that’s tons more work than I really want to do when all I want to do is play.

The alta-a-holic - I currently have 13 playable characters, so the only reason I mention this is that I have 13 times the stuff to go through that I normally would have if I had only played one character. So again, not fun when I would rather just play. And after years of just throwing stuff in the inventory with autoloot and trying to quickly delete the most obvious stuff I don’t need after every play session I still need to take the time to go through it more carefully and make some hard decisions about what I should get rid of on every character, and then a few character placeholder that I made just to have some extra space along the way. Again, I would just rather play the game and not worry about this.

At this point, the only solution that would solve my problem is an Infinite Inventory, otherwise known as “II” and I doubt that’s ever going to happen! And if they would double the furnishing vault that would be very nice too, because I didn’t even mention the furnishings I have stored in houses that I probably will want to use someday so I don’t get rid of them, but they keep me from decorating the house that they are stored in! But even if they doubled it, that would only help for a while so it would need to be an Infinite Furnishing Vault (IFV) too. 😂

PoveusRonin · April 16

FieryPhoenix wrote: »

The inventory problem is more complex than “players saving everything”. There are a lot of hurdles with inventory management in this game. New players don’t know what to save, or what to sell without the use of add ons. The material item bloat is out of control with new items being added all the time. Just playing events the contents of the boxes fill your bag before you can finish opening all of them. Bound furniture is also a problem as it can’t be sold or given away. Redundant drops are also an issue with many recipes and motifs that many have already learned so that you can’t even give things away. Back to back events also don’t help this. It takes time for many players to earn enough gold to max out their bags and bank space. It takes time for players to earn enough writs to purchase storage chests. In the meantime your bag is full and you have to stop playing to fix that. This mechanism is a reason many new players just quit because it’s too much of a chore. Selling the solution to this problem is insufficient, there has to be a better way to address this.

I agree fully with this. I have been playing a little over a year now and I'm still not 100% sure what I can safely get rid of. There are items I probably will never use but since I'm still collecting motifs and other stuff, I'm not sure if I'll need it soon or not. Keeping just 5 or 10 of every item still overloads your bank and storage boxes. Add to that items dropping from event boxes, you spend more time looking at the banker and storage boxes than you do playing.

Al_Ex_Andre · April 16

As I see it, ESO+ is mandatory, unless you want to ditch professions... which I won't recommand either way...

You can also play ESO without ESO+ if you played like a lot, and have sufficient stock to ditch the profession bag, while having bought the chapters.

Not the case of the OP and her kids.

Also the game is for adults not for kids, this is part of your problem OP.

Munkfist · April 17

While a limited craftbag sounds like a good idea, it's a perk for ESO+ and a way to recoup costs.

I strongly agree that stack sizes should be increased to 1000. This would solve most issues for non-ESO+ users.

I play on multiple accounts, with 2-3 having ESO+ at all times, with many more not paying into it. 1000 stack size would resolve all inventory issues for the rest of my accounts.

Horace-Wimp · April 17

SaliciaKeyz wrote: »

Without a doubt, one of the greatest pain points in the game is inventory micromanagement without ESO+.
My two kids play and love ESO, but I can’t pay for ESO+ for all of us. ..

I agree that inventory AND bank space in ESO NEED to be increased - both should at least be doubled. In the meantime, this is my solution.

You can purchase Storage Chests and place them in one of your LARGE housings. There are 4 30 slot and 4 60 slot Storage Chests that can be purchased from the MPC that you turn in your Master Crafting Writs to. I did this the last time I had ESO+ and it's been working like a charm. This is important as having an active ESO+ allows you extra room to place these chests that you do NOT have once ESO+ is no longer active. So, once ESO+ expires do NOT attempt to move or remove ANY of the chests. You will NOT be able to place them again in that housing until you buy ESO+ again.

Yes, it requires more time and it IS tedious but it works. I have set arbitrary limits on specific crafting items and EVERYTHING over those limits gets vendored.

What would REALLY help is if when crafting items in our inventory and bank were used first instead of items in the Crafting Bag. But it is what it is.

Oh yeah. And be sure to buy the chests with writs vouchers or whatever they're called. Do NOT buy them with Crowns. Use Crowns for stuff that can ONLY be purchased with Crowns.

I hope this helped.

Solvar · April 17

I do feel the inventory management (really, material management) is a pain point in this game.
I also think that there is some room for a limited craft bag that would reduce this a bit, but the unlimited craft bag of ESO+ would still be a selling point.
For example, a craft bag that only stacked 25 items would be enough to store all the style and trait materials for most users needs (and perhaps to a limited extent, enchanting, provisioning, and alchemy), yet still be insufficient for the armor/weapon/ring crafting needs where you need 100+ of a material for CP160 equipment. And 25 items would fill up fairly quickly, so there would still be some level of inventory management, making ESO+ appealing, but less of a hard requirement.
And perhaps removing that inventory pain point will result in more players, and some number of those will then buy expansions that have released over time, or subscribe occasionally get access to the seasons (or spend the gems from the subscription on them.) But it is hard to sell something to people who are not even a player, so I do think they should investigate ways to increase player count.

twisttop138 · April 17

Like most people, I know they'll never make the craft bag a thing outside ESO plus. And with more things devaluing ESO plus, they probably shouldn't. They need to add to it, really. But there are ways to help that don't require sacrificing sub money. The best idea is increasing the size of stacks. 200 is weirdly arbitrary. That would help right there.

Kallykat · April 17

I've always played with ESO+ and the bag, but I still have to do inventory management all the time. I think stack increases would help for some things (potions, for example). For me, one thing that takes up a lot of space is extra style pages from events. I hang onto them to try to trade for the ones I still need or in hopes of selling them eventually. I just never get around to fussing with the guild trader system, which I abhor. I would love another way to sell items to players without being part of a guild and a way to determine the average price items are going for without having to look outside the game or use add-ons. I never farm event boxes because I know it will just mean more inventory management.

ghastley · April 17

Random thought: instead of fixed bank space, tie it to the number of style materials in the game. Evry player gets a bank slot per style mat, plus a number (or percentage) more for other things. ESO+ still gives double, plus craft bag.

Just about every other bankable item ha static variety. They could reduce the tiers of crafting mats now thar CP10-150 are largely irrelevant, but that's not many slots. We still have some fragments that stay in inventory, not collections, and those could be fixed. Surveys and master writs now stack, if you don't open them, but that's only a partial fix, and I can't think of a full one there.

Bank, like craft bag, supplies crafting, so that is why you put materials in there. Craft storage chests could help, perhaps a new kind of crafting station furnishing could include material storage?

Nemesis7884 · April 17

one thing that would be nice is if you could characterize items / item types as trash once and they keep being "trash" until you untrash them and you can decon or sell all trash with 1 button

Deserrick · April 17

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

one thing that would be nice is if you could characterize items / item types as trash once and they keep being "trash" until you untrash them and you can decon or sell all trash with 1 button

I agree. In the meantime, I use Personal Assistant Junk to do that. https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info3512-PersonalAssistantBankingConsumeJun....html

Zodiarkslayer · April 18

It Back when there was no sticker book and no option to use transmutation stones to recreate a piece of equipment, I would've agreed.
But these days it is really comfortable to organise inventory. Well, at least for me with my 12 character non ESO+ account. There are just a couple of habits that one needs to cultivate and there will never be any inventory bloat.
1) Know your build's gear. Don't experiment, that's what the PTS is for.
2) Use the sticker book, don't hoard gear. With 1500 transmute crystals it is possible to make 60 pieces of gear at once. That is 5 characters!
3) Get all the free storage space. Bank (240), Inventory (200 per character, 10 characters are free), Storage Chests (360).
4) Use motives, plans and recipes when you get them. Sell them at once, if you know them.
5) Use up your consumable materiels. Craft potions, glyphs and food to sell them on guild stores. The good ones sell like candy. The others mostly sell as raw mats for good gold. Only the provisioning mats that are not used for commonly used food and for daily crafting writs need to be sold to regular merchants, 5 gold apiece.
6) Use Houses for storing furnishings, not the bank.
7) Hoarding is bad for mental health. Sell like crazy! Use Master Merchant or Tamriel Trade Centre to know real value and fill up all of your 30 slots in every one of your guilds.
Remember: The bank inventory is limited to 240 slots, but the amount of gold is limited to 2.1 billion.

There is more, ofc. But these are the most important.

Heronisan · April 18

Craft bag should be a part of free eso. Aswell as double bank space

One thing that can go a long way to save inventory space and replace craft bag from eso + is.

Armory bank

That would mean, any build u have saved to armory, these builds are also stored in their own separate "armory bank" and wont take space in ur actual inventory

Anyone who plays this game seriously at end game will suffer from inventory space from the stupid amount of sets u need to have on u, especially if u are tank/healer main, since then u also need a dd build by default so you can actually play and kill stuff when not grouped. Anyone who plays tank/healer are punished harder then dd's, as the amount of sets u need is Nowhere near the same.

Its also a problem if u want to pvp on the same character, u now need completely different sets for that aswell.

On my end game main that does tank/dd PvE and DD/heal PvP, 140 slots are gear. And i still dont have all the sets i should have in my inventory.

Armory bank would be worth eso + for me.

I think this would also increase sales of armory slots

Frayton · April 18

I have + and think inventory management is one of the worst things about ESO because it's always stopping you from playing actual content. Even if you're diligent in emptying your bags, it's a frequent unending chore. It's not just mats either. Our bags get stuffed with gear and random stuff just by playing the game and looting especially during events.

I won't even get started on the bag space issues of an ESO raider especially if you're a tank or healer.

Besides better inventory capacity for mats, we need a better way to share and store gear across characters on the same account. Maybe have a centralized gear bag like the craft bag where any character can pull gear and put it on, so we don't have to make copies of gear that clog our bags or constantly log in and out when we need gear on another character.

AetherialXL · April 18

I don't think it will ever change, at the end of the day they are a company and made ESO to make money otherwise everything would be free. If they made it easier to store things without ESO+ they would lose money because chances are if someone is not willing to pay for the sub they probably will be less will to spend money in the crown store.

AetherialXL · April 18

Heronisan wrote: »

Craft bag should be a part of free eso. Aswell as double bank space

One thing that can go a long way to save inventory space and replace craft bag from eso + is.

Armory bank

That would mean, any build u have saved to armory, these builds are also stored in their own separate "armory bank" and wont take space in ur actual inventory

Anyone who plays this game seriously at end game will suffer from inventory space from the stupid amount of sets u need to have on u, especially if u are tank/healer main, since then u also need a dd build by default so you can actually play and kill stuff when not grouped. Anyone who plays tank/healer are punished harder then dd's, as the amount of sets u need is Nowhere near the same.

Its also a problem if u want to pvp on the same character, u now need completely different sets for that aswell.

On my end game main that does tank/dd PvE and DD/heal PvP, 140 slots are gear. And i still dont have all the sets i should have in my inventory.

Armory bank would be worth eso + for me.

I think this would also increase sales of armory slots

Bots are still active in starter zones all day every day on Xbox NA, If they got a free craft bag on all those bots it would destroy the market completely because right now even the bots have to stop when their inventory is full. It would make stopping to mine some ore worthless.

Elvenheart · April 18

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

It Back when there was no sticker book and no option to use transmutation stones to recreate a piece of equipment, I would've agreed.
But these days it is really comfortable to organise inventory. Well, at least for me with my 12 character non ESO+ account. There are just a couple of habits that one needs to cultivate and there will never be any inventory bloat.
1) Know your build's gear. Don't experiment, that's what the PTS is for.
2) Use the sticker book, don't hoard gear. With 1500 transmute crystals it is possible to make 60 pieces of gear at once. That is 5 characters!
3) Get all the free storage space. Bank (240), Inventory (200 per character, 10 characters are free), Storage Chests (360).
4) Use motives, plans and recipes when you get them. Sell them at once, if you know them.
5) Use up your consumable materiels. Craft potions, glyphs and food to sell them on guild stores. The good ones sell like candy. The others mostly sell as raw mats for good gold. Only the provisioning mats that are not used for commonly used food and for daily crafting writs need to be sold to regular merchants, 5 gold apiece.
6) Use Houses for storing furnishings, not the bank.
7) Hoarding is bad for mental health. Sell like crazy! Use Master Merchant or Tamriel Trade Centre to know real value and fill up all of your 30 slots in every one of your guilds.
Remember: The bank inventory is limited to 240 slots, but the amount of gold is limited to 2.1 billion.

There is more, ofc. But these are the most important.

Very nice suggestions!