You want players? Remove the craft bag barrier

heaven13 · July 13

SilverBride wrote: »

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.

I don't think your tips are helpful for non-sub members as Furniture Vault is deposit only for ESO+ members and therefore you also have access to the craft bag.

I think @Danikat (if they don't mind being pinged) could offer some great advice for non-ESO+ members. I believe they've talked about it before between only subbing occasionally, getting the free trial weeks to do a mass deposit, which items they do keep between these, etc.

heaven13 · July 13

If I am playing regularly (multiple times a week, for more than 15-20 minutes) I have ESO+. I get enough value out of it for ALL the things it offers that it's a price I am willing to pay. I usually only buy on a monthly basis, just because I might end up pulled in a different direction and don't want to have committed the funds long term. Used to do 3 months at a time, but never more than that, and haven't done that in a few years.

That said, I have, at times, played without ESO+, usually when coming back after a long break and testing the waters to see if the game will hold my interest long enough to resub. During this time:

I turn off auto-loot which is the biggest difference in how I play. I only grab things that I either want/need, or know I can sell in my trade guild.
I don't generally do writs except on maybe 1 character.
I vendor gear to merchants if it's not worth listing, rather than deconning.
If I am not in town, I do not open things like hidden treasure bags, research portfolios, or coffers. I deal with that back in town.
I do not open surveys or treasure maps. Now that they stack, they stay stacked unless I need something. (This one I still do even with ESO+, and extend it to master writs.) I wait until I resub. Alternatively, you could also sell them on a trader.

katanagirl1 · July 13

Can you imagine how making the craft bag free would affect the bots? Unlimited farming.

ESO_player123 · July 13

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Can you imagine how making the craft bag free would affect the bots? Unlimited farming.

That is one of my first concerns every time I see a proposition to make the craft bag free.

karthrag_inak · July 13

They would stop farming pretty quickly, because the game would undoubtedly fold from loss of revenue.

OsUfi · July 13

AzuraFan wrote: »

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 +.

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.

I get it, and as I said in my post it shouldn't be free.

But it's excessively bad with +. This game throws so much stuff at you. Not having plus during events can make the game unplayable. They can find a middle ground with some tweaking.

umagon · July 13

Putting the crafting bag behind a monthly pay wall did not generate enough ROI for the executives to be happy with. I think for all the storage types including the craft bag, furnishing vault, and extra bank space should be converted over to allow players to purchase the base model once and purchase additional expansions slots infinitely.

For example, players should be able to just purchase the furnishing vault with 500 slots then have the option to purchase more slots at 500 increments. The same with the crafting bag; start with 500 slots or whatever is reasonable then have the option to purchase more space.

And while we are talking storage bags maybe it’s a good time to add the siege bag and some type of armory bag that can be purchased.

Dax_Draconis · July 13

umagon wrote: »

Putting the crafting bag behind a monthly pay wall did not generate enough ROI for the executives to be happy with. I think for all the storage types including the craft bag, furnishing vault, and extra bank space should be converted over to allow players to purchase the base model once and purchase additional expansions slots infinitely.

For example, players should be able to just purchase the furnishing vault with 500 slots then have the option to purchase more slots at 500 increments. The same with the crafting bag; start with 500 slots or whatever is reasonable then have the option to purchase more space.

And while we are talking storage bags maybe it’s a good time to add the siege bag and some type of armory bag that can be purchased.

Some kind of armory storage would be a most helpful addition. I don't know why that is not included with the purchased armory slots anyway.

katanagirl1 · July 14

karthrag_inak wrote: »

They would stop farming pretty quickly, because the game would undoubtedly fold from loss of revenue.

That might happen too, but I bet they would wreck the game economy quickly before it went down.

IZZEFlameLash · July 14

RaikaNA wrote: »

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.

Yeah exactly. Reskins for the price point they are at is just not appealing after a bit. Also, contrary to popular belief, sizeable amount of people are not interested in gambling too. Wouldn't be the worst idea to remove the craft bag barrier to have a larger pool of players to buy from Crown Store (which also need better things).

AzuraFan · July 14

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Wouldn't be the worst idea to remove the craft bag barrier to have a larger pool of players to buy from Crown Store (which also need better things).

Why would removing the craft bag barrier lead to more players buying and spending crowns?

wolfie1.0. · July 14

Either keep it the same or make it free... wont solve my hoarder storage issues..... and yes i have a problem because I probably have more access to storage than 99% of people in this game.

I have:
A personal guild banks dedicated to:
1) maps
2)holiday writs
3) companion gear, companion rapport items, leveling gear, and research items
4) motifs, and style pages
5) crafting mats, food, and pots for daily writ quests, master writs, and survey stacks.
6) dumping ground to transfer excess mats and to be sorted stuff.

I have several accounts just for furnishings as my eso+ vault is full and I dont destroy furnishings in protest until ZOS lets us deconstruct them for mats.

IZZEFlameLash · July 14

AzuraFan wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Wouldn't be the worst idea to remove the craft bag barrier to have a larger pool of players to buy from Crown Store (which also need better things).

Why would removing the craft bag barrier lead to more players buying and spending crowns?

Because, the moment people try get into the game, they realize that their inventory will just be cluttered to smithreen. And afaik, the craft materials in an inventory isn't shared either. I am unsure if it works off of bank or no as I've never not had ESO plus save for the era where I was just on and off pvping only but that means less bank space for the actual items given that there are bazillions of craft materials in the game unlike other games.

I've also personally tried to get people into ESO and it always failed because of this exact issue being one of the reasons. It is a massive barrier to entry. Want to experience this? Try playing without the bag and smaller bank size for a month, and see how you feel about it.

Thus, by eliminating this, you may have more people actually joining in. More people means more potential pool of Crown Store customers to draw from.

BretonMage · July 14

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Wouldn't be the worst idea to remove the craft bag barrier to have a larger pool of players to buy from Crown Store (which also need better things).

Why would removing the craft bag barrier lead to more players buying and spending crowns?

Because, the moment people try get into the game, they realize that their inventory will just be cluttered to smithreen. And afaik, the craft materials in an inventory isn't shared either. I am unsure if it works off of bank or no as I've never not had ESO plus save for the era where I was just on and off pvping only but that means less bank space for the actual items given that there are bazillions of craft materials in the game unlike other games.

I've also personally tried to get people into ESO and it always failed because of this exact issue being one of the reasons. It is a massive barrier to entry. Want to experience this? Try playing without the bag and smaller bank size for a month, and see how you feel about it.

Thus, by eliminating this, you may have more people actually joining in. More people means more potential pool of Crown Store customers to draw from.

But how many of those who don't want to spend on ESO+ will be willing to spend on crown crates or crown packs? Players have to spend somewhere, the low cost of the base game probably isn't enough to make it profitable.

AzuraFan · July 14

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

I've also personally tried to get people into ESO and it always failed because of this exact issue being one of the reasons. It is a massive barrier to entry. Want to experience this? Try playing without the bag and smaller bank size for a month, and see how you feel about it.

I have. See below.

Thus, by eliminating this, you may have more people actually joining in. More people means more potential pool of Crown Store customers to draw from.

See below.

BretonMage wrote: »

But how many of those who don't want to spend on ESO+ will be willing to spend on crown crates or crown packs? Players have to spend somewhere, the low cost of the base game probably isn't enough to make it profitable.

Exactly. I was a new player once. I liked the game, but man, inventory was a struggle. So what did I do? I subscribed to ESO+. Problem gone. Perhaps a few people that stick around would buy crowns, but if you're enjoying a game and it's only the inventory that's bothering you, and you're not willing to shell out a few bucks/month to fix that, then I'm really skeptical that you would throw crowns at the game if the inventory problem went away. "You" being the general "you." People who want stuff for free aren't usually the types that pay for stuff.

So my answer to the question above is I experienced it when I was a new player, and I made it go away by subscribing to ESO+.

An ESO+ subscription isn't a "massive barrier." It's only a massive barrier to those who don't want to pay anything to play the game. Anyone who thinks a sub is a massive financial barrier isn't going to be buying crowns, which are quite expensive. That's why the argument of, "But if you made the craft bag free, tons of people would buy crowns" is a bust.

And for those who say, "I'm not going to sub because I hate the practice of a game creating an inconvenience and then making me pay to fix it." Well, that's your choice. Live with it. Stop whining about it.

peacenote · July 14

Another thing to consider with this is that all platforms now can use mods.

I used to always say I could never play on console because most of the mods I rely on have to do with inventory management. Frankly, even things like Wizard's Wardrobe are really inventory managers in decide, because it saves me from having to find and apply different armor setups manually. And I've always subbed. I've also said repeatedly that Sticker Book (Set Items Collection) was one of the best new features ZOS ever gave us, because saving gear to avoid grinding for alts was a big inventory issue for me over the years.

I would imagine that most players can mitigate not having a craft bag by spending a little time investing and configuring some of the inventory mods, and maybe enhancing that with a one time purchase of a mobile banker, merchant, and deconstructor. With those, you can trash, sell, break down, or bank things on-the-go automatically. Then, the only thing that requires having to go back somewhere is guild bank or house storage. There's a ton of stuff stored in my craft bag that I don't need and I'll never use.

I was more supportive of the idea of the craft bag becoming free when so many players didn't have access to inventory management mods, but now everyone is on an even playing field and has options to mitigate the overhead if they don't want to sub.