Let's make some noise!

Perhaps non-crafters aren't feeling the "bank-slot" pain; but as a crafter - I am singing the blues.  I have several alts set up to act as "mules".   (There goes my opportunity to actually play these toons) I've purchased the first inventory and bank upgrades - the next levels may as well be 1 million or 3 million gold as even my ambitious Level 9 and Level 11 alts can't earn that much and still afford other necessaries.  So like many others, I log on and off multiple toons to stow my mats.  I'm just at crafting level 7 and already the slots are bulging!

I'm told other games at launch had limited storage; but after their customers bugged them they accomodated them with more a reasonable storage system.  Having crafted in GW2 where you could send your mats from the questing field direct to a dedicated crafting bank with ORGANIZED sections; ESO storage system is leaving me starved and unhappy with the amount of "play time" being robbed to shuffle mats and drops around on alts.

I think we need to speak up and let Zenimax know that the storage system is not holding up.  In time, the less intrepid might abandon the game because of the "hassle".  I believe I spend anywhere from 25-30% of my time organizing. 

I totally agree!!

Over the last 15 years MMOs have been steadily improving and perfecting various game systems. Inventory systems is not one of them.

GW2 has the right idea with the collections slots. Especially in a game that has so many different materials required. I really like ESO's crafting system, but it's down right ridiculous that they gave us such a tiny inventory compared to the amount of junk we have to collect.

A player shouldn't have to find all sorts of loopholes that amount to a LOT of annoyance to the player just so they can loot stuff they want to.

A game designer should be doing their best to create a fun environment to the player as well as trying to find mechanics that are NOT fun and find a better way of doing it. Here are our options. 

1. Loot Mule characters eating up your other 7 slots.

2. Send your items in the mail to another person. Have that person send them back.

3. Constantly come back to town to first deposit into bank to get more than 3 empty slots, then to vendor to sell junk if you have any, then to crafting stations to take care of the rest, then back to bank to put whatever crafting filled your inventory back up with.

4. Constantly take time to agonize over which item(s) to delete so that you can loot the mob you just killed, chest you just found, or 1 of the 50 containers you see in front of you.

Am I forgetting anything? All of those require extra time and annoyance from one or more players. None of those are fun. The crafting part of option 3 is fun to many people, but it's surrounded by all sorts of other annoyances.

This isn't a plea to have the world handed to me on a silver platter or have the game play by itself (although I wouldn't expect that comment from anyone here anyhow). This is a plea to find mechanics that suck, and improve them so they don't suck. :)

i never understood what would be wrong with simply not having inventory limits at all, maybe someone can inform me as to the issues that would create if any.  however, with eso, i find that the inventory isnt a HUGE issue, keep in mind for 250 gold every 20 hours your horse can give you an extra 1 bag space up to 50, additionally if you split crafting and selling you can get enough gold to buy several bag/bank upgrades, although i havent tried it, i would recommend trying to follow the racial motif farming path in another post, ive heard they sell anywhere from 900-2000 gold, sell 10 of those and you have an extra 10 bag and bank slots each.

I totally agree!  Last night I finally just gave up on my enchanting and sold all of my runes, I couldn't take the inventory management anymore.  It takes forever and is such a pain.

-Kaderin Roselock

Me too Kaderin. Once I got to Deshaan I realized a couple things. Goat meat and drippings are the debil. I just became disgusted with the inventory space issue and stopped looting anything except chests and mobs. Even then I was STILL constantly deleting stuff from inventory so that I'd have room for the next chest/mob. Ugh...

And I have 85 inventory slots! They're all full within minutes it seems.

My elderly blue Argonian "Carries-the-Maps" has now been joined by "Holds-the-Food" and "Carries-the-Flowers."I'ts only the first week, and already I've got more mule toons than WoW. And that's only 2 crafts covered. Kind of sad that I'm putting crafting plans on hold because I can't figure out how to manage the inventory requirements - crafting is usually my primary playstyle.

I am leveling all crafting and organized myself this way:

- my main does Blacksmithing, Clothier, Enchanting and Woodworking. I raised them to about 15 without spending any skill points yet. It will take a while to get them all so for now I just research, deconstruct and save mats and runes, for when I will have enough skill points to use in crafting. From my PTS experience this is around lvl 50 / VR1.

- I have one alt that does only provisioning, I leveled it to 8 and saved a 5 skill points for the essentials of provisioning. He is already at around 40 provisioning, and supporting my main with food and drinks. All his money went into upgrading his inventory. I will eventually level him further as needed. Needless to say he stores all provisioning mats. I may need to pass the lower level ones to another mule, as he is getting full.

- A second alt does only Alchemy, same thing: leveled to 8, save skill points for the profession only, got to alchemy around 30+. He stores all alchemy related mats.

- I have 5 more mule characters: one for runes, one for ore/cloth/wood, one for crafting gems (racial and traits, as well as enhancement items like pitch, hemming etc), one for trophies, maps, pets, etc, and the last one not yet used (backup storage).

All mules are near a bank. The key is to keep the bank clean, and as the main gathers mats and deconstructs weapons, armor, and glyphs I put them in the bank. When the bank gets filled I log with each mule in turn and take the mats that he is storing, and leaving the bank empty again. I found out that it takes about 15 minutes every 2-3 hours of gameplay, which is not that bad. And I have inventory room to spare (at least for now).

I had to make an army of Argonian minions to hold crafting matts on my husbands account - he only has one character so far and plans to do our crafting.  I did find something that I'm hoping will additionally help in my crafting mess.  http://www.nexusmods.com/elderscrollsonline/mods/10/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Felderscrollsonline%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D10%26preview%3D&pUp=1  I've actually been doing this manually but I'm hoping this will automate the process.  I found out that there's a max number of mails you can have in your inbox though.  I think my husband said it was 50, but I don't remember.  I filled his mailbox with one days worth of questing (like two levels on one character and 10 on another)  It took me just over an hour to clean up, cost me over 750 gold, but I did get level 7-8 on Wookworking, Blacksmithing, and Tailoring just from breaking down equipment hahaha 

@Kalizaar  -- Well said!

I love so much of this game; but this gets overshadowed by the time spent messing with inventory.  ESO needs to hear what their customers are feeling.  Please take time to post your opinion on their official forums (http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/)   I've posted a few topics and made comments on other people's post to recommend they look at GW2's crafting bank system.  That was a superior system that allowed the crafters to craft and supply the market with needed merchandise. 

I am doing what is possible with the many workarounds such as bank alts, return mail, etc.  But these are not solutions; merely bandages. 

Llew Holdstuff, Llew Storemore, and Llew Alchemystuff are beginning to grumble about unionizing.  It could get ugly.  

My remaining 5 playable character professions are organized as follows:

1 - (a DK Pyromage) - Clothing - Light armor only, Woodworking - all

2 - (a Templar) - Blacksmithing - Armor only

3 - (a DK tank) - Blacksmithing - Weapons only, Provisioning

4 - (a Sorc) - Alchemy

5 - (a NB sneaky-type-archer) - Clothing - Medium armor

I managed to clear out about 15 slots in the bank to make the exchange of materials possible, but this doesn't appear manageable for the long term.  My next bank slot purchase is like $6500.....ouch...

@Tyrra i seriously lol'd, thanks ;)

@Scarydrew, I'm curious about this as well...but realize that with ESO and gathering not limited to any profession, farming could get out of hand.

Oh where oh where has my bag of holding gone!! I was plagued with heavy "I-have-go-gather-every-node-i-see-itus" as soon as I started playing the game but have practiced some self-control and limited myself to gathering for only 2 professions (which was my plan anyways).

Inventory management shouldn't be a large part of the game and I feel that with current crafting professions having large quantities of unique items, bag space shouldn't be a restriction.

Solution ideas:

1. Merchants at cross-roads scattered through the zone that offer a pack mule service to deposit items in your bank for a minimal fee. It would be an interface to your bank that has withdrawals restricted, but will let you deposit items and benefit from any of them that are stackable.

2. A cool-down ability of your mount that lets you send it off to deposit items in the bank with a returned item feature that brings you back stuff that doesn't fit. It would leave you mount-less for a bit of time.

It's sad that I'm thinking of buying my fiance an account that she'll probably only play an hour a month on just so I can use her account as a mail bot. I figure that way I can adventure for maybe an hour before I need to log into her account to bounce everything and do the tedious deconstruction of 500 items 1 at a time.

There's something wrong with this system.

@Landrix

You're welcome :) I'm having a lot of fun with Argonian tongue-in-cheek names. My tailor mule was "Runs-with-Scissors" but unfortunately he was deleted in favor of a non-mule toon, because not only am I a crafter, I'm also an altoholic, which makes the situation worse.

I'm hoping ZOS will one day ask themselves why 90% of Argonian toons are level 3 and have names that are variations on "Bag" ;)

does anyone see unlimited bag space creating a problem in the game? i dont see what the negative to unlimited bag space would be

Tyrra,

I absolutely love your Argonian names!  They fit the culture and are informative and funny to boot!  :)

Grez aka @Zuon

/agree to all of the above! @Tyrra, you are hilarious and I think from this day forward all mules will be Argonian and have a silly name. But yes, something needs to be done about this. I think the limit on bank items need to be significantly increased. The amount of mats for provisioning alone is mind boggling, especially when you go between multiple zones etc.

I'm rather tempted to guild all my crafting mules in a guild called "Argonians For More Bag Space" as a silent protest. ;)

If the game was a Free-to-Play business model I'd be expecting cash-shop inventory expansion items to appear right about now. Fortunately it's not, so hopefully with a sub-based business model issues like inventory management will be taken seriously without making us fork out more money in the process.