Backpacks on Test: Now Bigger

Just in the past couple days or so with the announcements of the mahogany strongboxes, the price of mahogany lumber has now doubled on Unrest, and I suspect will go even higher! Supply and demand and speculation - ain't that wonderful! LOL

not everybody carries 6 boxes, I know some high levels and raiders who don't even see newbies anymore and don't care for the masses of low adventure level crafters, who cannot really equip enough str gear to compensate for the boxes' weight, but those masses of low levels are still out there and will be low level for a long time a if not forever

I'm not sure how limiting boxes to only banks and house vaults would work for those boxes that are already in the inventory, I just hope that if this option goes thru I'm not gonna end up with everything in my overflow one day when I log in

one of the better options would be to just get rid of the 100 stone weight on boxes

personally I am not going to switch every box my alts own to a backpack right away, but all the new containers I get will be backpacks, and those I already own will be slowly replaced.

Eldra@Unrest wrote:

Yes, well the ironic part is that those mahogany boxes will have the same number of slots as the common T9 boxes (and bags), so I can't see anyone wasting money on buying many of them just to get a few extra slots for 2-3 months. Then again... I certainly have my share of rare boxes on alts from previous tiers lol. But mahogany is just too rare/precious to waste on boxes!

What about all the bags used for quest rewards? The heritage quest one for the tinkers bag or the sewn evil eye bag? With the options to get huge bags this easy they will not be worth doing. The size of the quested bags need to be increased to keep pace with the changes to crafted bags.

biguglyone wrote:

Why? Evil eye was in at launch and never upgraded and tinkers bag is big even now with the incredible weight reduction.The worth of doing them is relative to the player and if that's the complaint, neither has been worth doing for at least two years.

Not everyone cares about weight reduction its size that matters lol. The evil eye bag just needs to be worthwhile to get for someone starting new at that level that the quest can be done. Its a bad thing when heritage quest rewards become outdated to new players.

biguglyone wrote:

That covers just about every HQ.None need special treatment and new players both blow through all that old content and have better options right from the start.

Deson wrote:

I don't quite understand the question. I'm definitely watching the feedback on Test, in the Test forums, and in this thread, and if I see a good suggestion that is convincing, I'm open to it. Nothing I've seen so far in this thread however has convinced me it would be better than the current proposed change. I'm sure there are plenty of other things I'll say no to, either for time, common sense, or game mechanics reasons (no, Lera, I cannot convert all strong boxes to gelatinous cube pets that will follow you around carrying your things) but I don't think I have enough time to make a comprehensive list of everything I'd have to say no to

I'm for increasing bag sizes of quested bags. It would be sad to see them obsoleted for all toons.

minoDev wrote:

You said you didn't want to make boxes bank only or add a negative run speed debuff so I was asking what else was effectively an auto-no.
My support so far( and you haven't said no yet) is making the strongboxes into non-rare salescrates. That, or using the sales crate model, making new specialty boxes. I don't think too much emphasis should be placed on the time frame of the changes, just them being good. Just like stackable totems, good changes are worth waiting for( just not forever).

DominoDev wrote:

Well the only good argument for seperating carpenter bank boxes and tailor bags is to delinate a clear market of goods for each crafter. Bags have always had issues in regards to a consumer market though.

One of the clearest one being that lower tier containers have no market when any level can purchase a better higher tier container.
The second issue is that containers unlike all other products except housing products is not attuned to players and thus is upgradable and tradable, basically inflating the market. This may or may not be much of an issue.
What would make the most sense is that LARGER higher tier crates/boxes would get larger in weight. Maybe starting at 100 and increasing at 25lb increments per tier. That may be unlikely to happen as you said.
But making all strongboxes have a non-cumulative 10% run speed reduction wont force people to change thier inventory boxes right away but would be a minor inconvience so they may want to replace the inventory boxes with bags.
Also a good idea for some specialty RARE tailor bags are bags that auto sort by type of lootables. Say a bag that takes only tradeskill items, and a bag that takes only consumables, and a bag that takes only armour pieces, maybe a bag that takes all the sellable treasures and status items. This way when out adventuring your these bags will auto sort your looted items.

Here is my solution to this fubar: Strongbox recipes disappear. Sales display crates become made from mundane items to be used in broker slots and specialized sales crates be allowed to be used in bank,inventory and broker. As well as allowing the nice backpack containers to be used in bank, broker and inventory as they always were.

While I think that increasing the size of the bags is a great idea, I do think this, as proposed, may upset the current situation too much. I think a better progression in a given tier would be common bag > common box > rare bag > rare box with each step having a +2 increment. Keep or increase the weight reduction on bags, keep the 100 lb weight on boxes.
This will give value and purpose to each of the items while encouraging boxes in banks and bags on toons. Many things in this game are about providing choice to the players and this would preserve the existing play style while giving the tailors a viable high volume product.
Disclaimer: I have a carpenter but no tailor and all my toons are scouts and fighters.

Deson wrote:

This is unfortunately not possible, as sales crates are actually a different item type from strong boxes, so there is no way to just automatically switch strong boxes into sales crates. It would require running a script over every character on every server to individually remove each strong box and give the equivalent sales crate item. And even if that were practical, since you can't carry sales crates in your inventory, if we did this we'd you'd end up with no containers at all and everything you were previously carrying in your strong boxes, now in your overflow. (And if we wanted to ALLOW you to carry stuff in sales crates in your inventory, that would require actually recoding how they work, and then would possibly just result in everyone carrying around sales crates where they now carry around strong boxes.)
If we did decide to make non-rare sales crates, we'd add them entirely separately. I'm a bit worried what they'd do to the rare sales crate market though, I think it might collapse completely (it certainly would at lower levels).

DominoDev wrote:

Ah. I was thinking that they could be a new type of item, a hybrid of sorts, where in exchange for significantly lower capacity the strong box could be used for both inventory and sales display.I see your point about carried sales crates but I was thinking the high weight, equal capacity and lack of other specialty would make it useful compared with bags without overshifting to one market or other.
The sales crate model comment was for a separate suggestion. Earlier in the thread it was suggested that strongboxes become specialty containers for certain items and I just shorthanded it.My support was to adding strongboxes with specialties akin to the current specialty sales crates.
I was also considering that the mass shift that's to come with t9 when new contianers arrive, it would be the best time frame to actually have two competitive containers even if one is specialized. You could actually drop new strongboxes entirely in favor of specialty boxes.

Ok here is another suggestion then.Make bags king of slots By having 20+ pct more slots then the same tiered box.But flag bags not useable in bank slots.
Boxes would have more versatility with useability on person or in bank/housevault but bags would trump all in slots amounts.
Keep weight amount of boxs and weight reduction of bags also to give more reasons for one or the other.

My Solution!! I think it's viable. (not that I'd be terribly upset with it just as it is... but I do have an 80 carpenter)

1. Add a strongbox exchange merchant who will trade your strongbox for a backpack of the same tier/size. This merchant would only be around for a month or so to give people a chance to make the exchange.

2. Make strongboxes weigh 1000 instead of 100.

3. Restrict backpacks to inventory only. Heck.. make em attuneable if ya like.

DominoDev wrote:

DominoDev wrote:

The Problem, at least on our server is that pelts and wood have virtually no value on the broker. Both go for less then 25c per piece. I also regularly destroy pelts as we have 20k of them in our guild depot. (Wood gets used a lot more) Also we actually have more rare pelts then rare wood in the broker and the rare pelts are actually cheaper then the wood. So based on our server Meirril is wrong, that boxes would be cheaper then bags.
Following your logic there is no reason for boxes any more. They are more expensive, weight a huge amount and don't have any weight reduction.
I know that a box can not be a salesman crate and a normal container at the same time. But would it not be possible to add a dialog similar to heritage quest rewards to switch a box between a salesman crate and a normal container (only if the container is empty)? Rare bags would still be superior most of the time, but at least rare boxes would be a bit more versatile.
Or add a maximum weight to bags, so you could not fill more then 50% of the bag with chain or plate armor without going over the limit. Then there would be a reason for the strong classes to go with the more expensive and heavier boxes.
And for those that think the 100 stones weight of the boxes do not count. It is 'cause of this weight I often get slowed when a strength debuff hits me. So even for a char with 1k strength it is better to carry bags after these changes.

DominoDev wrote:

I have to question this logic here for I can see a majority of players going to swap out the 100lbs strongboxes for the backpacks because of this and this will reduce the sells for strongboxes in the long run. I don't see this being fair for carpenters but I am aware that backpacks don't sell much and will help that over flow of rare pelts perhaps but in the long run once the dust settles players will choose backpacks before strongboxes no matter what their use will be because it will be easier to carry around.
I have even already thought that I am going to swap out all my boxes for backpacks because of this change and for any future characters I make I will be looking at backpacks instead. The ability to swap out made easier will make players alone change and or choose backpacks over strongboxes. So this change will make strongboxes obsolete in the long run. This change is good for backpacks but not good for sells of strongboxes.
My suggestion is get rid of the strongboxes recipes, not that I want see a carpenter recipe be gone but would take in exchange of making the sales crates to be used in banks a choice…..and the deleted recipes can be added back in exchange for more furniture.
Not that this something you will do but please consider this change will effect sells for strongboxes no matter what and not just a little but alot in the long run. The two choices you gave our not the best ones but how much weight redcuction are you talking about anyways? This weight reduction wouldn't make me want to still buy boxes though and taking off two slots off the backpacks...umm no!, I want more slots not less so thats not my choice.
I always wanted to know the logic in how come all the different slot strongboxes weigh the same anyways?
Another question are the rare recipes for the T9 sales crates going to added in too?

I say: Just make it so bags have the new amount of slots when on the player and the old slots when in a bank or house vault.