You want players? Remove the craft bag barrier

katanagirl1 · July 11

It seems like this is not an appropriate time to bring up subjects like this one.

Luneca · July 11

All I can say is that managing inventory makes me login and engage less with the game.

It makes me investigate less builds for PvP. So I just fire siege.

It makes me not engage in events. I skipped all of Zeal of Zenithar because it generates too much trash.

It makes me skip dungeons because there isn't anything worthwhile to pickup and manage inventory for.

It makes me skip housing because, again, crafting all of that requires too much inventory management.

It makes me skip buying and leveling additional characters because then those characters will need their own builds and see the above about not investigating builds because of inventory management.

When I log into a game, I don't want to spend 10-15 min looking for things and moving slots back and forth.

And you know what? What I don't want to do, I am not going to do! What an insane concept.

Beyond that, I cannot sub to the game when there has been no patch this year I found good. The only thing corporations understand are engagement and money. Both decreased, at least out of me.

I am sure I am not the only one that feels this way, because my friends and even family that haven't logged in say the same thing. In fact, anyone reading, complain about the "inventory management meta" in any populated area and see how many people agree. That is, if you can find an area where people are still actually chatting.

PoveusRonin · July 11

AetherialXL wrote: »

If someone isn't willing to buy 1-12 month ESO+ sub, I doubt they would be spending money on crowns. It's a business, they have to make money or what's the point, unless you want commercials halfway through a trial not gonna happen.

I come back to decide if I want to play. Craft bag barrier keeps me from enjoying my time. Why would I sub or purchase crowns if I don't want to play?

I come back and enjoy playing, I'll spend my money with them. If they don't want to unlock the bag, maybe have 1 stack of each time available, everything else locked unless you sub. Keep my inventory from filling up every 20 minutes of exploring and I'll stay on long enough to decide to spend some money...

SilverBride · July 11

Here is how I manage inventory, which I've never had a problem with.

I do daily writs then deconstruct all the items I get from it, and vendor the rest.
Then I play and quest and do dungeons or whatever I'm in the mood for. When I'm done for the day I sell anything of value then deconstruct and vendor the rest.
I keep all furnishings in the Furniture Vault.
I keep gear sets in the 4 large housing chests.
Everything else such as potions and lockpicks etc. go in the bank.

AScarlato · July 11

BretonMage wrote: »

I think it would get obnoxious fast in ESO if most people dropped ESO+. Ten times more look-at-me cosmetics, P2W everything, brand collaborations... No.

I've already been blinded by having the new Anu armor set on my own screen. Kind of a bit late for this fear.

mickeyx · July 11

merevie wrote: »

With new management, there is the obvious elephant in the room to address.
The ONE reason ESO player base is small is the craft bag issue.
Make the craft bag free.
Yes, ESO+ may drop -but then the same people are likely to invest in the tomes instead.
And everyone else -possible 10k people-would log into ESO again/or start because there is no inventory issue anymore.
It's 2026 -free up the bank space if you actually want players.
It's not the content -it's not the graphics -it's not the age of the game.
It is this one blindly stubborn policy leashing ESO population.
And those people may well hit up the crown store...

ESO player base is small? Doesn't feel that way in the game. I wish there were less payers sometimes so i can farm more resources in peace.game is jam packed in every zone

LalMirchi · July 11

Pipe dreams, ESO is not going to remove a valuable revenue stream for the sake of gaining a few more players.

AzuraFan · July 11

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

This is one of those requests that is DOA.

But it's also resurrected at least once a month, sometimes more. It just won't stay dead.

LadyGP · July 11

merevie wrote: »

With new management, there is the obvious elephant in the room to address.
The ONE reason ESO player base is small is the craft bag issue.
Make the craft bag free.
Yes, ESO+ may drop -but then the same people are likely to invest in the tomes instead.
And everyone else -possible 10k people-would log into ESO again/or start because there is no inventory issue anymore.
It's 2026 -free up the bank space if you actually want players.
It's not the content -it's not the graphics -it's not the age of the game.
It is this one blindly stubborn policy leashing ESO population.
And those people may well hit up the crown store...

Zero chance - this is the main reason people sub and we all know it.

Gabriel_H · July 11

AzuraFan wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

This is one of those requests that is DOA.

But it's also resurrected at least once a month, sometimes more. It just won't stay dead.

Necromancy!!!

Solvar · July 11

As I've said before, I think a free limited (50 slot? Or it only stores style material) craft bag might help overall player numbers. I'm sure some number of players might cancel their ESO subscription, but the influx of new players might offset that.
What are the new players going to need ESO for? If they want to play all the dungeons & DLCs,they will need ESO or to buy the crowns. Plus cosmetics.
I'm sure that inventory maintenance is a big enough pain that some players might start ESO and just quit quickly. And I know for myself, while I enjoy ESO, if I was to talk to friends about it, one caveat I would give is that inventory management is a pain unless you pay for ESO+.
I also feel that some events (like recent Zenithar's festivals) are almost design to make inventory management more of a pain by giving random style materials that need to be stored somewhere, which may not leave a good impression with some players.

Tandor · July 11

IviRo wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

With new management, there is the obvious elephant in the room to address.
The ONE reason ESO player base is small is the craft bag issue.
Make the craft bag free.
Yes, ESO+ may drop -but then the same people are likely to invest in the tomes instead.
And everyone else -possible 10k people-would log into ESO again/or start because there is no inventory issue anymore.
It's 2026 -free up the bank space if you actually want players.
It's not the content -it's not the graphics -it's not the age of the game.
It is this one blindly stubborn policy leashing ESO population.
And those people may well hit up the crown store...

How can you possibly want to devalue the subscribers’ contributions? I often see requests like this, but I just don’t understand—on what grounds should we give away an infinite bag for free?
I’m also happy to purchase subscriptions, chapters, Crown Crates, and Tome Tamriel, so your idea doesn’t appeal to me.

Because the people asking for it want it but don't want to sub (or genuinely can't afford to).

tomofhyrule · July 11

Tandor wrote: »

IviRo wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

With new management, there is the obvious elephant in the room to address.
The ONE reason ESO player base is small is the craft bag issue.
Make the craft bag free.
Yes, ESO+ may drop -but then the same people are likely to invest in the tomes instead.
And everyone else -possible 10k people-would log into ESO again/or start because there is no inventory issue anymore.
It's 2026 -free up the bank space if you actually want players.
It's not the content -it's not the graphics -it's not the age of the game.
It is this one blindly stubborn policy leashing ESO population.
And those people may well hit up the crown store...

How can you possibly want to devalue the subscribers’ contributions? I often see requests like this, but I just don’t understand—on what grounds should we give away an infinite bag for free?
I’m also happy to purchase subscriptions, chapters, Crown Crates, and Tome Tamriel, so your idea doesn’t appeal to me.

Because the people asking for it want it but don't want to sub (or genuinely can't afford to).

There are a lot of things that I want but don't want to (or genuinely can't afford to) pay for.

The fact is: with the change to the Seasonal model, there are literally three revenue streams for this game: the Crown Store, Season passes, and ESO+. Two of those three things are exclusively cosmetic.

The answer to "We're going to cut the team because it's not making us enough money" is not "we need to find a way to give them even less money."

Kiash · July 11

When I returned recently, this was the biggest obstacle to enjoying the game fully. It was what made me hesitate about even playing at all without ESO+. It probably drives more revenue the way it is than the way we wish it was. It's that way for a reason, and one of the only guarantees for getting content or fixes in the future I'd imagine.

I'm not sure beyond additional monthly crowns what else could make people keep ESO+ when they play or come back if they did remove the craft bag restriction though. Kinda between a rock and a hard place on this one. I am glad personally I came back and resubbed though, the new Glenumbra Thieves Guild stuff was pretty good in my opinion.

BretonMage · July 11

AScarlato wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

I think it would get obnoxious fast in ESO if most people dropped ESO+. Ten times more look-at-me cosmetics, P2W everything, brand collaborations... No.

I've already been blinded by having the new Anu armor set on my own screen. Kind of a bit late for this fear.

It's never too late as long as it can get worse!

AScarlato · July 11

BretonMage wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

I think it would get obnoxious fast in ESO if most people dropped ESO+. Ten times more look-at-me cosmetics, P2W everything, brand collaborations... No.

I've already been blinded by having the new Anu armor set on my own screen. Kind of a bit late for this fear.

It's never too late as long as it can get worse!

Well, we don't have a flying disco ball mount yet so anything is possible lol.

SeaGtGruff · July 11

Luneca wrote: »

All I can say is that managing inventory makes me login and engage less with the game.

It makes me investigate less builds for PvP. So I just fire siege.

It makes me not engage in events. I skipped all of Zeal of Zenithar because it generates too much trash.

It makes me skip dungeons because there isn't anything worthwhile to pickup and manage inventory for.

It makes me skip housing because, again, crafting all of that requires too much inventory management.

It makes me skip buying and leveling additional characters because then those characters will need their own builds and see the above about not investigating builds because of inventory management.

When I log into a game, I don't want to spend 10-15 min looking for things and moving slots back and forth.

And you know what? What I don't want to do, I am not going to do! What an insane concept.

Beyond that, I cannot sub to the game when there has been no patch this year I found good. The only thing corporations understand are engagement and money. Both decreased, at least out of me.

I am sure I am not the only one that feels this way, because my friends and even family that haven't logged in say the same thing. In fact, anyone reading, complain about the "inventory management meta" in any populated area and see how many people agree. That is, if you can find an area where people are still actually chatting.

I can identify with some of that, such as not participating in events very much because of all the items that clutter up my inventory from opening up event coffers. Except, I have ESO Plus and the craft bag, so I'm just sayin'-- it helps, a lot at first; but if you tend to be a hoarder, your free inventory space just fills back up again over time. It isn't necessarily the solution you think it will be. The real solution is to vendor, deconstruct, or destroy anything you absolutely don't need-- something I can't bring myself to do, hence my continuing inventory management despite having the craft bag.

RaikaNA · July 11

Eliahnus wrote: »

They want PAYING customers, not freeloaders. Always this bitching and moaning about the bag… do you people never get tired of this…

Perhaps they should improve the crown store so that it impresses people to want to buy stuff from there... putting the better items under a gambling gem system is not going to impress people.

karthrag_inak · July 11

"Hello Friend!

Did you know that you, yes YOU, can support a poor starving Tamrelic adventurer and help them on their way! For just 50 cents a day you can provide the life-saving assistance these adventurers need to carry all the stuff they acquire on their way to glory!

Sign up today, an oppressed adventurer with overly-bulging pockets is relying on your help!"

Vonnegut2506 · July 12

Make the craft bag free and give us class changes -- two topics that are immortal and make the same amount of sense to keep bringing up.

BretonMage · July 12

God, what I wouldn't give for a class change token. I made a new character for the first time, and it was honestly the most painful gaming experience ever. All the tedium revisited. Absolutely horrible. I love levelling skill lines (and redoing quests!), detest the rest.

Deserrick · July 13

Sounds logical. The idea that a game should have something distasteful and repelling that a player can pay to alleviate doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially considering challenge difficulty isn’t tied to eso+ even though supposedly a lack of difficulty was turning off new players.

Necrotech_Master · July 13

i would rather pay for a sub than tomes lol

most of the tomes have had really meh stuff in the premium tracks that make it not worth buying

Dax_Draconis · July 13

If I'm not subbed, then I'm not logging in and playing at all because of the inventory management headaches without the craft bag.

IviRo · July 13

Tandor wrote: »

IviRo wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

With new management, there is the obvious elephant in the room to address.
The ONE reason ESO player base is small is the craft bag issue.
Make the craft bag free.
Yes, ESO+ may drop -but then the same people are likely to invest in the tomes instead.
And everyone else -possible 10k people-would log into ESO again/or start because there is no inventory issue anymore.
It's 2026 -free up the bank space if you actually want players.
It's not the content -it's not the graphics -it's not the age of the game.
It is this one blindly stubborn policy leashing ESO population.
And those people may well hit up the crown store...

How can you possibly want to devalue the subscribers’ contributions? I often see requests like this, but I just don’t understand—on what grounds should we give away an infinite bag for free?
I’m also happy to purchase subscriptions, chapters, Crown Crates, and Tome Tamriel, so your idea doesn’t appeal to me.

Because the people asking for it want it but don't want to sub (or genuinely can't afford to).

Some people aren’t obliged to buy it every month if they don’t want to, but they can purchase ESO Plus once a year for a single month if they encounter such issues. Many players don’t want to spend a single cent on supporting the game; they believe that simply buying the game itself is enough. They then go onto forums and start demanding more and more free stuff.

Ocelot9x · July 13

Hard disagree, it's a good way to monetize without going p2w. if you don't want to create alts to use them as banks just pay

karthrag_inak · July 13

by the way, 50 cents a day is how much plus costs. Khajiit cant help but wonder....do you folks not have couches? Can you not reach behind cushions? Or perhaps a paper cup, cardboard and marker? Go out to nearby corner...

"Spare any change for starving adventurer who needs craft bag? Zenithar bless you!"

Heronisan · July 13

Make craft bag free, put a gear bag into eso +

Game is almost unplayable if u do any end game activity in both PvE and PvP on same character

Support roles are even punished harder then dd's, since they also need to have like 10 tank setups in their inventory, aswell as a DD build, so they can actuslly quest and do watever outside of tanking/healing in trials and dungeons or overworld.

OsUfi · July 13

AzuraFan wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

I'm not so bothered about making the craft bag free, but without it, holy heck does this game become inventory-simulator: the video game movie tie-in.

Instead of making the craft bag free, maybe make stacks of ingredients and materials and such go up to 1,000 instead of 200. Get rid of all the cp10-cp140 materials too (seriously, who needs these still?).

If they did that, most people wouldn't need the craft bag. There has to be something really enticing to make people subscribe. The craft bag succeeds at that (hence all the threads asking for it to be free), so it's working well. They aren't going to do anything to jeopardize that, which would include making the stacking way too generous.

I do agree the craft bag is essential to paying the bills and keeping the lights on, but as it is now, without the craft bag, the game just throws too much stuff at you in short periods of time.

I don't keep anything. My one character gets one set of gear, that's it. I'm a hardcore minimalist when it comes to the inventory game, and even get frustrated offloading stuff to vendors, checking prices to ensure I'm not NPCing somethjgg that might be valuable, and generally having to deal with *stuff*. An RND and a few BGs and that's it. Inventory sort time again.

If they could just tone it back a bit, that would be a heck of a quality of life improvement, would still have active paying players getting the benefit of a craft bag, and would mean we wouldn't have to quit the game entirely during periods when we don't have +.

AzuraFan · July 13

OsUfi wrote: »

If they could just tone it back a bit, that would be a heck of a quality of life improvement, would still have active paying players getting the benefit of a craft bag, and would mean we wouldn't have to quit the game entirely during periods when we don't have +.

I was responding to the suggestion of upping the stacking to 1000. That would be too generous. I harvest a lot, and I have less than 1000 for most of the ingredients in my craft bag. If they upped stacking to 1000, I could probably drop my sub.

It's a fine line to walk. If they up it so that people stop finding it tedious, then it won't be an incentive to sub, and even those who do sub might decide to stop. OTOH, they don't want to make it so inconvenient that it turns away players. It might not be possible for them to increase the limits without losing some subs. They might have determined that it's better to lose some players over losing some revenue.

The game is already generous to those who don't want to pay (free tier on the tomes is very generous, they're giving more zones for free), so it's okay for them to make people pay for the craft bag, IMO. They can't make everything free and convenient.