Backpacks on Test: Now Bigger

Trellium wrote:

What's dismal is being lazy. Go out and play some other MMOs and come back and tell me how sweet EQ2 is compared to them, especially not limiting the bank by weight and space -- and there's no containers. What slots you have, and it's cap on stacking is all you have in the bank. Containers could only be placed in there for non use.
I clear out stacks of stuff everyday, it's part of MMOs, get use to it.

Seems alot of ppl have alot of ideas. Here is mine..... Just leave the dang boxes alone !!! If you dont want to carry boxes.. Dont. If you want to use backpacks... Use them. Just dont add a penalty to using boxes just because some ppl dont think its "immersive". Bah.. just dont look!! Just my 2cp......................

Karrane1 wrote:

Don't change boxes but do go through with the changes to bags which makes them the same size and more useful for those who DO have to worry about the weight they carry. Carpenters won't really lose any sales over it. Tailors might gain a -few- sales over it. And those classes/characters who couldn't carry 6 strongboxes without having to adjust their AA, wear special gear, or other resctrictions now will not be penalised.

I totally agree Rijacki. I have no problem at all with the new backpacks.

Rijacki wrote:

Adding more competition by definition will reduce sales since the production costs are the same and a better option is being introduced. When anyone I know has a decent enough strength ( the 30's for every melee class) I steer them toward strongboxes but won't anymore.Mages will likely move to bags exclusively and other classes will see bags on alts as the immediate option since the lower weight means they can have 6 equipped sooner than boxes. The very fact that we start out with bags means there is no logical reason to even look for strongboxes after this means strongboxes will need a boost.
A product that does the same thing as strongboxes but better is entering the arena, the very fact of that just should not happen. At no point in this game is unequal competition beneficial to the lesser class so why intentionally create the situation?Even if the effect is felt to be negligible, why should the design even head that way?It's bad enough even when the sharing is equal like thrown ammo.
Kigneer wrote:

This just needed to be quoted...
How can you, with your vast history of asking for changes to every other MMO convention and this game in particular, reasonably advocate for someone to have an added difficulty that has never existed in this game?

Deson wrote:

Because the nature of MMOs with adding more and more content and not having enough space for it. Either you store little or you get used to moving stacks of items around to fit them somewhere.
F2P games get away with charging players for more space, EQ2 doesn't, they have a very set in concrete bank space system. But this is a very good thing to add to SC -- additional space, and will address funding a fatter database to do so (and may get the 64bit database out quicker, as it will be needed with all these 100001 plushie stuff and no place to put it, due to the size restrictions of a 32bit database).
Worst enemies of a MMO: space and weight. Forget mobs and names.

igneer wrote:

Rubbish. If you are not able to sort your inventory that is your issue. Me, I deal with enough carpal tunnel as it is. Swappign between adventuring and tradeskilling for me is as easy as swapping 2 boxes from bank to inventory. Your system requires about 80 moves per change, which is tedious and does not in any way increase gameplay. It creates an entirely new level of not playing the game in the name of "earning" stuff.
"Hard" might be killing a yellow mob by yourself. "Hard" is not moving stuff about in inventory; its pure drudgery.
I just want to play the game, not putz with the drudgery of poorly thought out mechanics.

Trellium wrote:

I don't have CTS, and that can be the reason why, too. Think about ergonomics, saves alot of pain.
Wish it was as easy as swapping 2 boxes with me, since one box is of mounts/special gear; another box is of pots and totems; the other box is of quests items that require those x24 raids that never seem to occur, keys and tokens; then another box for more gear; one box for loot or mats; and the last of resist jewellry/charms/imbue materials (since they stack to 200). In short, I don't have a lot of room left even if mahogany strong boxes were made...they'll be filled with more items as more are included in the game.

I have both a carpenter and a tailor, and I don't usually craft to sell on either.

With that said, I don't like this change as a carpenter. It's essentially making bags better than strongboxes in every way possible -- size (will be equal), weight (bags weigh basically nothing), and now WR (bags having some weight reduction). Now I agree that tailored bags were rather small, and most folks at higher level do have enough strength to carry strongboxes. But I think these changes are a bit of an overreaction. There will be zero reason to have a strongbox over a bag (except in the case of rares, where wood is usually a little cheaper, but rares are a relatively small aspect of things -- the majority of your population will not be able to afford large numbers of either).

Most of this is just sound and fury in my eyes (like I said -- I don't craft to sell things, so won't majorly affect me), I just don't like the idea of making A superior to B in pretty much every way. Also, like some other folks said, it makes 2 items that are essentially the same, which is a waste of space and effort. Here's a simple solution then: Give strongboxes 80/90% WR. Then you have at least a slight difference: one item where you pay for the weight with each item you put in it (the bag) and one item where you pay just about all the weight cost up front and it doesn't matter so much what you put in it (the box).
Otherwise just drop strongboxes and make everything bags. There's no reason to have two near-identical items with one always superior to the other.

Thanks a lot for the change. As a mage, it's really appreciated

Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I don't see why bags shouldn't be the superior choice for carrying around. It doesn't really make sense to be carrying around several strongboxes, and the fact that they weigh so much indicates they were probably not intended for that in the first place.

IMO bags should be the superior choice for inventories, and boxes for banks. But it'd be difficult to figure out a way to reward the use of boxes in banks in any way other than slots. And if there are more slots, people will put up with a lot to use them in their inventory.

I think the best solution would be to keep boxes bigger, but put a bigger penalty on them if used in inventory. As I suggested before, a runspeed debuff or something. Alternatively, they could always just restrict boxes to banks and bags to inventories, but that's probably a little heavy-handed.

Either way, using a box in my inventory is just conceptually annoying, so I stick with bags anyway. So I guess I don't mind the bonus. But it seems like a place could be preserved for both.

Caethas@Permafrost wrote:

I wouldn't restrict bags to only inventory slots. As someone noted, sometimes it's convenient to shift an entire container from bank to inventory and back. I'd leave bags usable in either bank or inventory slots, and restrict boxes to bank slots only but give them more capacity than the equivalent bag. That way you can put any container in a bank slot that you could use in your inventory slots, while the larger capacity makes boxes more attractive for permanent use in bank slots.
Heavy-handed is the only way to deter using strongboxes in inventory. My wizard at level 80 can carry 6 strongboxes if I were inclined. My berserker... his carrying capacity's closing in on 4000 lbs, the only way you can make boxes heavy enough that he can't use them in inventory slots is to make 'em so heavy crafters can't move even one of them from the crafting station to the broker to sell. Run-speed debuffs... my mains run at +55% solo, you'd need a fairly hefty debuff just to bring them down to normal speed.

Iam happy to see boxes and bags the same size however I do understand why some people are concerned.. Personally I use only bags in my inventory and boxes in my vaults and banks but that is just me..
My suggestion would be to make Boxes bank/vault/sales placeable only.. Bags are for inventory only..
The only drawback I see to this is switching things in and out of your bank/vault etc... Allow movement of an entire container from one space to another to allow you to switch things from your bank to your inventory quickly. This would help thoses who frequently move items around to do so faster and easier.
Another suggestion would be to allow players to purchase a craftable item that gives you 1 addational inventory slot that will hold only 1 box. Kinda like the house vault enlargers but for your inventory. This way you can retrieve your huge crafting box from the bank for crafting and but it back easy.
I personallly think its silly that we can run around with an inventory full of boxes to begin with..

Rheassi/Kealina
Test Server

Jrral@Unrest wrote:

Wouldn't that be the same as having bags the way they were before the change?

When I was talking about a price difference, I was talking about the difference in materials cost. I was also refering to common raws. Simply put, t8 leather is harder to obtain than wood. Rare harvests are even worse, because there are safe spots with large amounts of wood. There are no safe spots with large amounts of dens. I believe most of the t8 leather around is from guild harvesters and not actual players.
I still think the weight on the strong boxes should be reduced. Maybe make it 10 instead of 100? Even if it was made 1 each, it wouldn't really affect game play in any negative sort of way.

Meirril wrote:

Not really. The main reason for using boxes in inventory is capacity. Bag are significantly smaller than boxes right now (24 slots in the largest crafted bag vs. 36 in the largest strongbox, that's a 50% increase). Bump backpacks up to 40 slots and boxes to 48 and you've a) given bags even more capacity than strongboxes currently have so nobody's really losing by switching to the new bags and b) reduced the capacity difference to 20% which isn't unreasonable. But if you can still use boxes in inventory slots, people will still use them just because they're larger even if they don't really need the extra space. And if boxes and bags are the same size and can be used for the same things, one or the other will end up not being wanted because it's simpler to buy all identical items.

Having used the items now on Test for a couple of days, I think its fine the way it is but possibly too much slanted toward backpacks. I bought a ton of the new backpacks for all inventory slots, and took out all the strong boxes I had before. There was no difference at all in number of inventory slots created, but since almost all my characters are casters I got back about 4 AA's on each that quickly went elsewhere.
I upgraded older (smaller) bank strongboxes that I had on alts so they had more bank space. Shared bank slots stayed with strong boxes, no need to change anything. So, now I am upgraded for the most part but I still have some alts who have very few boxes/backpacks in the bank slots.
Pricing on Test (without broker fee):

Bristled Leather Backpack (36 slots, biggest one available on broker) 9g

Redwood Strong Box (36 slots, biggest available on broker) 9g50s

For those, I might buy strong boxes for the bank but most likely I will just go with backpacks in the bank as well. The reason for this is easy ... if I want to buy 12 bank slot upgrades I don't want to be so encumbered on the way from the broker (or more likely the persons house) to the bank.

12 Strong boxes is 1200 additional weight to carry.

12 Backpacks is 60.

For one or two purchases its not a big deal. If I am buying a major upgrade (like, when the next teir boxes come out) I wouldn't even consider the strong boxes over the backpacks unless they were much cheaper.
They don't need to make reasons why the strong boxes are forced into bank slots, they need to come up with reasons why I wouldn't replace all slots with the backpack version when I bulk upgrade.

My wife and I were talking about this, and we came to the same conclusion. Why ever buy boxes again?
Backpacks are essentially the same price. They have the same number of slots. We can buy 24 of them at once so that we can upgrade two alts easily, and only be weighted down by 120 instead of 2400.
But mostly its flexibility. We can swap out any number of bag full of stuff from the bank to the character (ie tons of treasured items we are taking to our house to feed to "that" deity) without getting overloaded by that additional 100 weight each for strong boxes. We tend to build up 4 or 5 boxes worth of those items over time, then go feed the god a bulk meal.
I just decided that its silly to use strongboxes at all any more, especially if people are asking to have them locked to bank slots only, or that they need to be further hobbled. I bought 48 bristled backpacks for about 4p30g. We are replacing all of the redwood strong boxes in our bank slots (on 4 accounts), which will take time and money. The character who bought those boxes was a level 24 gnome necro. I didn't even have to leave gear in the bank, since 50 backpacks only adds 250 weight, and he was capped at 352. I carried all 48 backpacks plus all he was carrying (didnt bank any beforehand) without becoming encumbered, and he could have carried 4 more before slowing down at all.
The payoff is that we can now swap to and from inventory without suddenly being hit with additional weight. 4p to do that is cheap, and we will likely sell any redwood strong boxes we have left over for 7 or 8 gold each, even though they aren't worth that much to me now. For me to consider buying them now they would need to be 4 or 5 gold less than the equivalent backpacks.
Its just easier to standardize everything on hassle free items.

Xalmat wrote:

As someone who harvests a lot, I wouldn't say that, especially since the den adjustments when people were complaining about too much meat. I have both an 80 carpenter and an 80 tailor so I'll be good either way, but I have thousands of common T8 leather piling up in my harvest box while I continually run out of wood. And I harvest for both specifically fairly often, hoping to get rares (and what's up with that horrible mahogany drop rate?!). There just hasn't been much use for common leather as I haven't bothered getting into the bag market competition and only MC leather armour sells, but I go through common wood for furniture and boxes by the stack. Oh well, at least I'm set to make a bunch of bags to replace the boxes I normally use; it will be nice not being burdened when I mentor alts, lol.
And yes, as the person above me noted, we can expect a significant decrease in prices on boxes soon as people dump their old boxes in favour of the lighter bags.

Restricting strong boxes to bank only or putting a real slow/root effect on them is something that might have been appropriate at launch, but right now, it would be a huge annoyance to pretty much every single player to log in and find themselves slowed, encumbered, or outright rooted, or all their items stuck in overflow because boxes can no longer be used in inventories, etc. All these people would then be forced to immediately buy backpacks at pretty much any price in order to just get things back to normal again (and with that much demand, the prices would rapidly become astronomical as stocks sold out). None of these is an option that would make anybody happy about the changes and I don't feel they would be a good idea this late in the game.
The two possibilities that seem most worth considering, pending observation of how things go on Test server and feedback here, are:

• reduce backpack size so they're just 2 slots smaller than the equivalent strong box
• reduce weight of strong boxes