Lox wrote: »

TicToc wrote: »

Yes, it was a solution for you, but it is not a solution for everyone, thus not a real solution.

So, based on that:

"if the solution doesn't fit everyone then it is not a solution."

OK, so lets look at this from the other side using the same logic:

"If the problem does't exist for everyone then it is not a problem"

There are plenty of people in this thread alone that do not have the problems you are talking about. People like me, I have not created a Guild for the extra storage and I have not maxed out my bag or storage space (bag is at 80, can't remember store). The only time my bank gets full is when I offload a large amount of items for deconstruction by alts, at which point I log on the alt and decon them ... sorted (this doesn't happen often).

You mentioned earlier that you are storing items ready for research. Why? I have no problems researching traits and I don't store anything ready to be done, I do them as I get the gear, they aren't that hard to get. Weapons and Armor take up large amount of space as they don't stack.

Again, I will add to the above and say that, although I don't have any major issues with the current system, it certainly isn't the best i have seen and could be improved.

No, that logic doesn't fit. That would only apply if everyone was doing the exact same things. Some of the professions have ridiculous amounts of materials. I know that i wouldn't have as big of a problem if i stuck to one of the non-inventory intensive crafts like woodworking or blacksmithing, but you shouldn't have to do that. You should be able to level the professions you want without such fuss. enchanting, alchemy, and provisioning are not inventory friendly.

I never mentioned storing items for research. I don't do that. I do research with what i have on hand and deconstruct the rest. More gear with the needed traits will come along.

Yes, it could definitely be improved. I have seen better inventory systems in f2p games. Not the crafting system itself, this is better, but the inventory system.

Keep in mind. i didn't start the thread, i am just agreeing that it is a problem.

The problem with this approach to inventory management is that no matter how much space you have, it's never enough. Eventually it gets full and you will want more.

If the solution to inventory management becomes increase inventory, then players want that solution every time their inventory is full, whether it's 80, 90, or 100 slots. Even if it reaches a point where you are satisfied, there is always another player ready to pick up the torch and fight the good fight for more inventory space.

I struggled with it in this game at first. I was frustrated as well. I am a hoarder and pick up everything I encounter. I wanted to level up provisioning and blacksmithing and clothing and woodworking all at the same time because I used items from each of those crafting professions. I never had more than 20-30 open inventory spaces and I was miserable. Then I respecced and took all of my skill points out of every crafting skill except blacksmithing and started vendoring all the stuff I couldn't use anymore. An amazing thing started to happen. I found I had 70-80 spots free in my inventory. I was able to spend my entire daily gaming session (usually about 2-3 hours) out in the field playing the game and could end my day with a quick 5 minutes of inventory management.

Basically, I learned that if I narrowed my focus as a crafter during the early parts of the game, inventory management became a non-issue. Focusing too broadly on crafting skills though, quickly filled my inventory and created frustration.

Once I had a few backpack and bank upgrades, which are fairly easy to purchase by level 20 or 30 if you control your spending habits, I was even able to get back into woodworking and clothing a little while still working on my blacksmithing as well. With 110 backpack slots and 100 bank slots, I found the only crafting skills that caused me to run into inventory problems were Enchanting and Provisioning, since they have a huge variety of items at each tier of crafting.

I think instead of just asking for a blanket solution of "more inventory space", we should instead be asking for some way to better manage the space we have by focusing and reducing the variety of materials needed for each tier of crafting skills that use a wide variety of items within a single tier such as provisioning or enchanting. Currently I feel that these two crafting skills (possibly Alchemy as well, I can't say much because I haven't gotten around to trying Alchemy yet) are the biggest culprits for causing inventory problems. Especially for new players. In fact, I find it hard to even level one of theses skills before I've managed to fully upgrade my backpack and bank even if I'm not working on any other crafting skill. Just one of these skills has enough variety of materials that you could easily be using 50 slots just for tier 1 crafting mats for one of these skills, while tier 1 for skills like clothing or blacksmithing don't even need half the inventory space.

Blackwidow wrote: »

Lox wrote: »

TicToc wrote: »

Yes, it was a solution for you, but it is not a solution for everyone, thus not a real solution.

So, based on that:

"if the solution doesn't fit everyone then it is not a solution."

OK, so lets look at this from the other side using the same logic:

"If the problem does't exist for everyone then it is not a problem"

Again, logic has left the station, people.

Let's say some people are poor and starving. Other people are rich and have enough food.

The starving people are asking for more food.

The people who have enough food tell the starving "just buy more food and you would not be so hungry".

Now, pay close attention...

This does not help everyone, so it is not a good solution.

However, it is still a real problem for the hungry people, even if it is not a problem for the full people.

Did you learn something today?

This was an example of how illogical your statement was, so you don't have to use this as an example for the bank issue, because it is not the point.

This thread is about a specific, perceived problem in a game as was point I made, it is not a generic discussion on problems and solutions in general. I agree with the concept of your analogy, it just isn't really relevant to this situation.

The point I quoted stated that the solution mentioned (using a Guild bank) was not a solution as it didn't fit everyone, which is a totally absurd statement, just as absurd as the second statement I made .... hence the point of making it!

Have you learnt anything today?

TicToc wrote: »

No, that logic doesn't fit. That would only apply if everyone was doing the exact same things. Some of the professions have ridiculous amounts of materials. I know that i wouldn't have as big of a problem if i stuck to one of the non-inventory intensive crafts like woodworking or blacksmithing, but you shouldn't have to do that. You should be able to level the professions you want without such fuss. enchanting, alchemy, and provisioning are not inventory friendly.

I never mentioned storing items for research. I don't do that. I do research with what i have on hand and deconstruct the rest. More gear with the needed traits will come along.

Yes, it could definitely be improved. I have seen better inventory systems in f2p games. Not the crafting system itself, this is better, but the inventory system.

Keep in mind. i didn't start the thread, i am just agreeing that it is a problem.

Interesting, as my main is an Alchemist (lvl 40 ish if I remember right) and Provisioner (lvl 50) and I still have no inventory / bank problems! I also have an alt doing Woodworking and Clothier, which adds to my bank ..... still no problems with a bank and bags of 80 spaces! Only inventory management I have done is move all the treasures maps, pets, disguises etc onto a single mule. If they were in my bank aswell then it would be a lot worse, however 1 mule to carry all that kind of stuff isn't really a problem.

My experience with Alchemy, so far, is that there are probably about 5 - 10 plants that I rarely, if ever need, so I have 1 stack (<100)of each of those and I don't even bother collecting any more. The rest, if I get too many I make some pots and give them to guildies to keep my inventory down.

Provisioning does take a bit more than most, but its still manageable. It becomes unmanageable if you are looting and keeping lots of ingredients, however bare in mind there are ones that are only needed for lower level foods, is it really worth keeping those once you are making higher tier foods/drinks? What I tend to make all the food / drink I can at the end of a day then bin / sell everything else. I had provisioning to lvl 50 by the time I was lvl 35 doing it that way (could be done alot faster), now just working on getting recipes and only collect 'useful' ingrediants.

On the research items, that was my mistake, thought it was you but misread

One easy and appropriate thing that could be done would be to put things like costumes and treasure maps in the quest item folder.

I'm a seriously organised person. All my ducks are kept constantly in a row.
I've worked my whole life in laboratory and clean-room conditions where attention to detail was paramount.
My workshop/shed gleams with perfectly ordered and polished tools.

Normally, I have no problems with inventory management in MMOs but this game is something special.
To keep hold of everything I actually NEED to have, I have been forced to create mules for each craft. They keep current materials only. Anything I can possibly declare as junk is junked - even to having thrown away those useless pets and treasure maps you get loaded with.
This is necessary because resources are so rare you can't possibly go out and farm materials for a single item, you need to build a stock. Most of it comes from deconstruction anyway.

Obviously, its quite deliberate. Someone thought it would be fun to create a sub-game called Inventory Management. Probably someone from Accounting?

some of these are good ideas. It would further gold sink in game if they allowed the player to buy these upgrades (like extra stacking) with game gold. If this was a f2p model where they made their bread and butter off convenience purchases then I can see them not allowing it but its not.

until then, my inv has gotten much better with bag and vault upgrades and only concentrating on 2 crafts at a time (dont count prov and alchem in there, as they are maxed now and i only gather and store specific mats for those)

indeed.. its so much better that all my mule alts inventory have tons of room as I dont log into them and play the alt switch dance for inventory anymore.

if one is a dedicated crafter however, this wont work for them. they should be able to buy 'crafting' upgrades that allow more ability to store and sort and do whatever with crafting mats.

since i rarely craft armor/weapons, i have moved full stacks of all those needed mats, traits, styles to my mules. this opened up a ton of slots for the ever oppressive runecrafting and saving high tier food mats for when i get some purple recipes.

Biggest issue is the [snip] list sorting method.
Not being able to freely move around items in a grid like any other game is beyond [snip]!

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

To be perfectly honest the inventory system looks like it was made for a F2P game that charges real money for inventory space. Deliberately made inadequate to inspire you to buy. Either that or whoever made it, made it begrudgingly like many other aspects of the game.

Devs did banking totally backward from most MMOs. Usually each character has their own bank account and there is no shared bank account between characters which leaves players asking for a account shared bank.

I agree with OP. We need at a minimum for each character to have it's own bank storage. That would solve all my current inventory problems. What's in my bank taking up all the space you ask? Has to be tons of armor and weapons right? It's all provisioning mats so that all my characters can use them. My blacksmithing, woodworking , clothier, alchemy and enchant mats are on the the characters that have the skill.

Give us bags of holding that only work for mats. 50 slots(expandable), stacks of 100 that only mats can be put into. When banked a bag of holding would take one bank slot.

Right now it seems that banking was set up as a revenue source when ESO goes F2P. Hell if right now you could buy bank space with real money in the store(you can already buy a horse with real money) I would max out my bank account and those characters I play often plus my trade mules.

ElSlayer wrote: »

Chrysolis wrote: »

You still have yet to provide any reason that inventory space should be so limiting;

@ZOS_PaulSage, ZeniMax Online Studios creative director: Bank space / inventory space is another limiter to being able to work on all crafting skills at once.
[...]
There’s also a TV show about your “problem.”

http://www.tesoelite.com/2014/03/live-qa-paul-sage-compiled-answers/

I don't know what about my providing constructive feedback triggers your childish hostile antics; but I honestly don't care. If it's not a problem for you, then fine, move on. I don't hoard and I already posted that about 4 times, if you can't be bothered to read then you shouldn't waste the time to comment. Also, a "win" button is worlds apart from increased inventory space, and would not be benign to those uninterested in it.

Reading between the lines of your unhelpful verbal diarrhea, your argument seems to be that a player shouldn't be able to work on all crafts, regardless of the number of character slots used. I just don't think that is or should be the case. Even if it was "1 character, 1 profession", I'd still have 3 slots for alts to use. But it's not.

Neglecting craft is your prerogative but you don't have to start burning everyone down that disagrees with you. My thread aims to provide some feedback to the developers in a constructive way, concerning a problem that afflicts a large number of the player base. Your post aims to call everyone who has an inventory problem a hoarder and insult strangers on the internet.

I hope you can see the difference.

Issues with inventory, in a nutshell.

First, you have to identify the problem(s).
1. The inventory system in this game does not offer enough slots.
2. To expand your inventory, it costs too much.
3. Guild storage is not personal inventory, and should not factor into any sort of "fix" for inventory issues.
4. Previous ES games allowed for unlimited storage.
5. Organization is terrible.
6. Buying and selling on stores is a pain.

So, now we talk about how to fix things:
1. Increase the amount of of slots for personal, character inventory. This is of course a huge gold-sink, in that it costs quite a bit more gold for each subsequent level up of your inventory. This cost is prohibitively high, and should be reduced. If it is reduced, ZOS should refund the difference of any character that has expanded by the appropriate amount. 200 slots total is a nice round number.

2. There is no personal bank space. In just about every MMO that I have played, there is a personal bank space that is limited to only a single character. Some MMOs have shared bank spaces, but not all. ESO has implemented a great shared banking system on a per-account basis, but a large personal bank account is required. If I have a single craft, where am I to store my crafting materials? In the shared bank, those materials would take up inventory that could be used for my other characters, or if in my personal inventory, that reduces the number of free spots that I would need while adventuring. A personal bank would alleviate this - it is a place to store things that only 1 character would use, but not need to carry around.

3. To better organize your items, inventory must be able to be sorted better. It's great that I can look at my just by armor on its own tab, but what if I want only look at only my "light" armor? What if I only want to look at belts? Why can I do this on a guild store, but not my inventory? Each category needs be able to be filtered down by many criteria, or be automatically sorted by type, or both. Criteria includes but is not limited to subtype, name and quality. For example, I want to look at all 1H weapons that are Epic quality. This leads to...

4. Guild stores need to have these same filters. It's great that I can look for 1H epic weapons, but I can't search by name. This makes searching for crafting materials incredibly difficult when you have to search through dozens and dozens of pages. Also, fix the existing filters. Try to search for something with the level range 50 to 50, and see what you get (note: not tested since 1.1.2 patch). Why can I not look for veteran rank items? This needs an overhaul.

5. Previous ES games allowed for unlimited storage. I understand that, being an MMO, unlimited storage is simply not feasable. However, you could easily implement other storage locations - for example, I could rent a room at an Inn that has some storage. I could buy a house, and furnish it with lockboxes, chests and cupboards, in which I could store items. There are many thematic ways of implementing extra storage without "breaking" the game. You could even require that the player travel to the location where they have the extra storage - a specific Inn, for example. We already have horses that increase your storage capacity, just add more ways to do the same thing or something similar.

6. Some items should not take inventory slots at all, while others should perhaps have their own inventory section. For example, no trophies should take up inventory slots, no matter where they are located. Crafting materials could have their own inventory section that has its own maximum storage capacity, which could be increased separately from your personal inventory and your account bank (and personal bank, if implemented). Also, crafting materials should have a much higher stack limit.

That's it for now.

Someone mentioned - many posts ago - that "there is also the guild bank that you can use". This may be true in theory, but in my experience, the practice is that guild banks are not freely accessible (at least not for withdrawal) for the 'common' guild members. Guild banks seem mostly to be used as personal extra storage for the guild leadership, or otherwise heavily controlled for guild purpose. The latter is what they are probably also meant for.

Censorious wrote: »

Normally, I have no problems with inventory management in MMOs but this game is something special.
To keep hold of everything I actually NEED to have, I have been forced to create mules for each craft. They keep current materials only. Anything I can possibly declare as junk is junked - even to having thrown away those useless pets and treasure maps you get loaded with.
This is necessary because resources are so rare you can't possibly go out and farm materials for a single item, you need to build a stock. Most of it comes from deconstruction anyway.

Obviously, its quite deliberate. Someone thought it would be fun to create a sub-game called Inventory Management. Probably someone from Accounting?

My question to this is ... why to you 'NEED' all that stock? Or are you just stocking it 'just incase you need it'?

If you are crafting a lot of items then you wouldn't have much of of a stock, if you aren't crafting a lot you don't need the stock! I generally farm what I need, when I need it, the only thing I have any stock of is enhancement items. I have a bit of a pile of alchemy plants, mostly the ones that are low down on the 'usefulness scale', I have a stack of various refined metals, woods and cloths + enhancment materials. I don't have a lot of space in my bank (80 slots at the moment) but there is enough for me to offload armour and weapons for alts to deconstruct when I need to.

It might become significantly worse in higher VR areas, but I have seen no shortage of crafting materials yet.

Again, caveat is ... this is based purely on my experience so far