Inventory Making the Game Unplayable - Help!

[petespri.6548]

Hey all-

I'm not really a crafter in this game, just enjoy jumping in and playing, even in exotics... not to excited about crafting in any game.

Problem is, I know have bank and storage maxed out and I cant get rid of crap fast enough on a normal night of playing... how do you all manage your inventory?  It is starting to make the game unplayable that it takes so much management to deal with inventory.

Is there an auto-sell everything button?  Is there something like auto-compact or auto storage that will auto-vendor or auto-auction?  It is truly getting awful.

I dont spend a ton of time playing each week, so I cant designate an hour a week to sorting/selling all this crap...

 

Thanks for any help.

Edited August 26 by petespri.6548

[Solvar.7953]

Generally I salvage all equipment unless it is something I care about.  I then deposit the materials I get from that salvage into material storage.

When material storage for an item fills up, I may then refine the stack of it into something else (cloth scraps -> squares) depending if I need it.  If the material it refines to is also filled up in material storage, I then usually sell the raw material on the trading post, selling half a stack (125) of them.  Some materials I may refine further (if I have all the right leather square types, make an elonian leather square), but going into all that detail starts getting fairly complicated.

By only worrying when I have a full stack, and selling half a stack, I tend not to fill things up very often.

But yes, there is some part of the game where you do need to spend time to manage this stuff.  But it saves time dealing with it in larger quantities vs small quantities when it starts to overflow your storage.  And the bonus with the trading post is, if you sell something and need it back, you can buy it back - you loose some money in the process, but you don't need to obsess with optimizing the strategy if you OK losing a little gold here and there by buying stuff off the TP when you need it.

 

[Loboling.5293]

Buying expanded material storages when on sale is highly recommended. But the above advice is solid regardless.

I can't stand games that create inventory problems only to sell you the solution. But GW2 is one of those games. 

Once I got 1000 max storage, the tricks the above poster mentioned work just fine. They would work at lower max too, just likely have to do it more often.

 

I also, grab 250 items from my storage on occasion when full and just sell it. I get a couple of extra gold this way.

 

So if you aren't planning on crafting anytime soon, I'd sell each stack when full or sell half (125).

 

Otherwise, the first investment in my account would be materials storage increase. And/Or start refining the materials to store them.

[Scar.1793]

I would still recommend keeping as much as you can if you ever change your mind and want to make a legendary.

The best tip I can give you is that Guild Wars makes making alts an easy process. Which means making mules easy aswell. 20 slot bags are rather easy to acquire (more so if you do fractals regularly). Which means you can keep hoarding for longer and sell the excess if you really don't need it.

Do not sell the weapons/gear directly, salvage them after finishing your game session. It takes 2mins tops. Right-click on the salvage kit and select depending on the quality your want to salvage. For reference I would advice checking a small video on getting the most out of this process, because salvaging greens with the salvage kit that does break down runes can make you a good amount of money overtime. Same for salvaging Rare/Exotics with the appropriate kit to max your chances to obtain ectos.

I do agree that the inventory management is a real mess but make no mistake, it is indeed done on purpose. Create an artificial problem and sell the solution. I hope they simplify things if they ever work on GW3 or another game.

[Flowersunshine.7385]

For blue/green gear drops below level 80: get yourself a copper-fed salvage o'matic.

When you're doing level 80-content you should mostly be getting unidentified gear. I always open and salvage incase I get rares or exotics (globs of ectoplasm, yay!), but if you're looking for easier inventory management: don't open them and sell them in stacks at the TP.

That should fix most of your problems, really.

If you're getting a lot of accountbound drops, figured out what they are part of and decide if you are interested in doing the rest of the collection. Also look up Gharr Leadclaw (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gharr_Leadclaw) to sell him any other access materials you have lying around. He resets weekly. Visiting him once a week shouldn't take you more than 5 minutes every week.

[Thormano.7806]

Just checking. Have you maxed out the space in your current material storage (250 items per slot in the bank) or have you bought all the storage options available? I can store 1750 per slot and there are some more I can buy to expand further. I found only 250 was a pain and I was forever getting rid of things (like bloodstone dust!). No longer the case now. I even bought an extra bank tab. They were all bought from the proceeds of selling the legendary items I crafted.

[Luthan.5236]

I manually keep at least 1 of each of regularly gathered stuff - cause I manually sort each item (not using special bags). Like: If I have gathered my daily stuff I salvage unidentified gear but let one in the inventory. Same for a lot of other stuff.

Only mats that gather up fast (after salvaging or gathering from nodes) - get sent to the mat storage. Junk vendored off (sell junk botton). Medallion type stuff and other items (no junk but no value at the TP) bet manually vendored off.

The other stuff then usually only is gear not unidentified (direct drop) - which I also usually salvage - except it is exotic (checking TP if it maybe has a skin that sells for a bit higher).

For WvW stuff (blueprints) I also keep (inventory can get large if you really try to max it I have like all except the latest 2 possible bag slots unlocked and 20 mostly + 2-3 24 from achievements and 2x 32 slot bags on the main) blueprints at fixed places. Would be totally chaotic to hide bags and/or to let things be be placed randomly.

Though I planned to re-arrange. Still some story/lore stuff - books and stuff - sitting in the inventory that gathered at the last free places ... starting from EoD when I last re-arranged before EoD I think lol. Will need hours or days I did a pre-planning but didn't get to it wanted to do it weeks ago before JW in preparation of it.

I try to logically sort stuff. And often used stuff at the very top or bottom - the empty space in the middle. Recent additions that stay permanently will stay in the bottom of the upper half (before empty space). And most of the rarely used stuff is in that middle of that upper half. Like ... fishing bait each thing one stack (keeping at min 1 item). The bloodstone dust, etc. (Storage maxed, keeping one in inventory when it is at 100 I make the refined items lol. Though in need of them anymore. 400+ in storage and the solo guild hall has most upgrades.)

Edit: That's mine: https://i.ibb.co/QmS8xfq/gw001.jpg

Gotten chaotic over the time. Also some slots where I keep map-specifig stuff. (Treasure hunting kits, parts - for Kourna. The elixir mats for bitterfrost.) Would be annoying to always trash then when you might need/want to do stuff on that maps. (Though it is more "need" when achievements send you there or the vault.) Since I mainly use one main char other chars would trash those stuff - not gathering up or moving ot to the bank (to store their or to swap to the main). Also stuff that could go to the bank (like tattered bat wing) - where I might use it later for crafting. (Thought I would leave it at the main using it soon but the stuff it is needed for was too expensive and I put that on hold. Not wanting to sell the mats and rebuy them later.)

Edited August 26 by Luthan.5236

[petespri.6548]

Sorry for my late reply, but thank you everyone!  A few follow up questions…

Do you have any special bag set ups?

Do you use any AddOns to auction things?

Lastly, for inventory increases, what is a good size?  I am at the 250 default… does it take 500 or 1000 to feel good?

[Nash.2681]

21 minutes ago, petespri.6548 said:

Sorry for my late reply, but thank you everyone!  A few follow up questions…

Do you have any special bag set ups?

Do you use any AddOns to auction things?

Lastly, for inventory increases, what is a good size?  I am at the 250 default… does it take 500 or 1000 to feel good?

Personally, I have one invisible bag on every char to store stuff I definetly don't want to sell. This includes the unidentified blues, greens, and yellows. If I have too much of them, I take all but 1 into my regular inventory, open them and just use my copper fed salvage'o'matic to salvage "all green and below" stuff and a mystic salvage kit for yellow armor + trinkets (I flush weapons down the mystic toilet, but you can very well also just salvage them).

I don't use any add ons for inventory managament / auction things (dunno if such even exists).

I assume you're talking about storage expanders since that's what's on a 250 default size. Personally I upgraded  to 1.250 over the years, but this will vary from player to player. Some are content with the default size, others might be happy with a one-time upgrade to 500, others will feel a need to max them out. For me 1.250 is a nice middle ground, if I never need to store more a something specific, I still got some regular bank tabs for that (at least in theory, sadly they get more and more poluted with ascended trash I'll probably never need but am to cheap to just let go...)

[petespri.6548]

1 hour ago, Nash.2681 said:

Personally, I have one invisible bag on every char to store stuff I definetly don't want to sell. This includes the unidentified blues, greens, and yellows. If I have too much of them, I take all but 1 into my regular inventory, open them and just use my copper fed salvage'o'matic to salvage "all green and below" stuff and a mystic salvage kit for yellow armor + trinkets (I flush weapons down the mystic toilet, but you can very well also just salvage them).

I don't use any add ons for inventory managament / auction things (dunno if such even exists).

I assume you're talking about storage expanders since that's what's on a 250 default size. Personally I upgraded  to 1.250 over the years, but this will vary from player to player. Some are content with the default size, others might be happy with a one-time upgrade to 500, others will feel a need to max them out. For me 1.250 is a nice middle ground, if I never need to store more a something specific, I still got some regular bank tabs for that (at least in theory, sadly they get more and more poluted with ascended trash I'll probably never need but am to cheap to just let go...)

Ty!  Do you find it better to have the invisible bag at the top slot or bottom?  

[Mistwraithe.3106]

The jump from 250 to 500 in material storage is obviously the biggest percentage improvement and it's well worthwhile. I've gone up to 1000 which is good for materials I gain a lot of like mithril, thick leather, etc but it's less significant than that first jump to 500.

It's well worth getting an account on GW2Efficiency (and adding an API key obviously) - it doesn't help with inventory management but if you play multiple characters it will allow you to search across all of them to find things and it's also invaluable if you are wanting to craft something big like ascended or legendary gear (it will tell you everything you need, how much it will cost and the crafting steps).

I also have one invisible bag on each character much like Nash. I have the unidentified blue, green, yellows, some quartz crystal (so I can turn it into charged quartz at hero points daily), and anything else I want to keep safe from accidentally salvaging/selling.

Note that if you decide you want to salvage gear then getting a Copper Salvagomatic (gemstore item, goes on small special fairly regularly) is potentially worth doing so you no longer have to mess around with buying and managing salvage kits (the mystic and runecrafters salvagomatics also have their benefits but less so). If you are salvaging then you want to clear out 20+ slots (the more the better), salvage a small number of items to get a few material piles in your inventory, then do identify all on your stack of unidentified, your inventory will max out so click the deposit to material storage button (that's why we started by getting some material piles in the inventory) then right click on your salvage kit/salvagomatic and say salvage all. Then repeat by identifying all again.

Or just sell the stacks. The economy is pretty efficient so you will usually get close to the same amount of money selling as identifying, you mainly just miss out on the luck (for greens if you don't have the runecrafters salvagomatic then you almost always do better selling the green unident). Hmmm, too much on salavaging, if you want to do it then just search reddit or the forums for advice.

[petespri.6548]

1 hour ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

The jump from 250 to 500 in material storage is obviously the biggest percentage improvement and it's well worthwhile. I've gone up to 1000 which is good for materials I gain a lot of like mithril, thick leather, etc but it's less significant than that first jump to 500.

It's well worth getting an account on GW2Efficiency (and adding an API key obviously) - it doesn't help with inventory management but if you play multiple characters it will allow you to search across all of them to find things and it's also invaluable if you are wanting to craft something big like ascended or legendary gear (it will tell you everything you need, how much it will cost and the crafting steps).

I also have one invisible bag on each character much like Nash. I have the unidentified blue, green, yellows, some quartz crystal (so I can turn it into charged quartz at hero points daily), and anything else I want to keep safe from accidentally salvaging/selling.

Note that if you decide you want to salvage gear then getting a Copper Salvagomatic (gemstore item, goes on small special fairly regularly) is potentially worth doing so you no longer have to mess around with buying and managing salvage kits (the mystic and runecrafters salvagomatics also have their benefits but less so). If you are salvaging then you want to clear out 20+ slots (the more the better), salvage a small number of items to get a few material piles in your inventory, then do identify all on your stack of unidentified, your inventory will max out so click the deposit to material storage button (that's why we started by getting some material piles in the inventory) then right click on your salvage kit/salvagomatic and say salvage all. Then repeat by identifying all again.

Or just sell the stacks. The economy is pretty efficient so you will usually get close to the same amount of money selling as identifying, you mainly just miss out on the luck (for greens if you don't have the runecrafters salvagomatic then you almost always do better selling the green unident). Hmmm, too much on salavaging, if you want to do it then just search reddit or the forums for advice.

Helpful, ty

[Flowersunshine.7385]

@petespri.6548

If you don't plan on engaging with the crafting system, why buy more material storage? You'll just have more mats sitting there doing nothing, and eventually it will start to overflow again anyway. Prices tend to go down over time rather than up, so I'd recommend selling mats as soon as you acquire a stack of you don't plan to use them. Don't worry: this really doesn't take hours per week. Probably more like 5 min a week, if that. (Just sell unidentifieds, like Mistwraith said: you'll hardly lose out.)

I'd like to recommend investing some time in crafting though. Leveling a profession is a one time investment and once it's done, crafting isn't nearly as bad as it seems. (Just stay away from Scribe, that one is as bad as it seems. 😂) It opens up a lot of possibilities in game for skins and achievements, some of which will use up some of those pesky drops cluttering your inventory. Some skins you can only get by crafting. If you decide to give it a try, look up a guide to level crafting and make sure to use an Item Booster for max crafting xp. 🙂

[Nash.2681]

15 hours ago, petespri.6548 said:

Ty!  Do you find it better to have the invisible bag at the top slot or bottom?  

Totally a preference thing. I don't even have them sorted consistently across my characters, some have it on top, some at the bottom 😄

[PzTnT.7198]

15 hours ago, petespri.6548 said:

Ty!  Do you find it better to have the invisible bag at the top slot or bottom?  

While having it at the top is more convenient for usage it also fills with crap unless you have bags set to handle every type of loot. I run it at the top on one of my characters, but make sure its always full in order to avoid the random loot from going into it.

[Tula.6021]

On 8/26/2024 at 5:12 AM, petespri.6548 said:

Hey all-

I'm not really a crafter in this game, just enjoy jumping in and playing, even in exotics... not to excited about crafting in any game.

Problem is, I know have bank and storage maxed out and I cant get rid of crap fast enough on a normal night of playing... how do you all manage your inventory?  It is starting to make the game unplayable that it takes so much management to deal with inventory.

Is there an auto-sell everything button?  Is there something like auto-compact or auto storage that will auto-vendor or auto-auction?  It is truly getting awful.

I dont spend a ton of time playing each week, so I cant designate an hour a week to sorting/selling all this crap...

 

Thanks for any help.

As someone without bank and material upgrades or additionally inventory slots:

I use 2 of my 5 character slots for storage. Their bagslots are filled with the 20er bags from wvw merchant (expensive but they're for forever). Thats 2x 100 slots to the bank.

Characters I play have an 18er invisible bag in the last slot (from tp), giving me 98 slots for the other 3 chars.

My bank has stuff I get a lot to stack up like the unid armor, mystic shards (I need for mystic salvage tool), experience books and scrolls, teleport 2 friend. That occupies the first line.
Teleport books and one salvaging tool are in the bank too. All other slots are empty. The puffer for all the stuff I need to put to my storage chars.

The unid armor I sell when a stack is full and the price looks higher than what I'd get out of it. Currently it's the green armor. The others I identify and salvage.
As salvage tool I get myself the mystical one from the forge. It has 250 charges. Every character gets its own, additional there one in a shared inventory slot and another one in the bank as quick replacement.
For identifying I split the stack into smaller ones (alt + drag) that I can all open at once - or - if no splitting - I abort the process by closing the inventory.

As for salvaging, also drops: via right-click on the tool I salvage everything green and blue in bulk.

Merchants have a sell all button for junk. The invetnroy has a storage all materials button. After salvaging drops and selling the junk there's only the manual stuff left.

Things I don't know what to do with them I check in Wiki (type /wiki in saychat and shift + click the item in question to get its name pasted in the chat then press enter) and most often it's stuff I can destroy or sell. Stuff to destroy that needs its name witten in a dialog I copy from saychat (shift + click on item to get its name in the chatline), paste in the dialog and delete the barracks.

Sorting your stuff takes time.
Handling all the drops and stuff you get is really time consuming. Esp. if you run out of inventory space because you need to carry around a lot - which happens for wvw chars easily.

Edited August 28 by Tula.6021

[Nash.2681]

5 hours ago, PzTnT.7198 said:

While having it at the top is more convenient for usage it also fills with crap unless you have bags set to handle every type of loot. I run it at the top on one of my characters, but make sure its always full in order to avoid the random loot from going into it.

This is important, thanks for emphasizing. The invis bag really is for carrying and handling the stuff you definetly never want to accidently sell.

[Linken.6345]

9 hours ago, Flowersunshine.7385 said:

@petespri.6548

If you don't plan on engaging with the crafting system, why buy more material storage? You'll just have more mats sitting there doing nothing, and eventually it will start to overflow again anyway. Prices tend to go down over time rather than up, so I'd recommend selling mats as soon as you acquire a stack of you don't plan to use them. Don't worry: this really doesn't take hours per week. Probably more like 5 min a week, if that. (Just sell unidentifieds, like Mistwraith said: you'll hardly lose out.)

I'd like to recommend investing some time in crafting though. Leveling a profession is a one time investment and once it's done, crafting isn't nearly as bad as it seems. (Just stay away from Scribe, that one is as bad as it seems. 😂) It opens up a lot of possibilities in game for skins and achievements, some of which will use up some of those pesky drops cluttering your inventory. Some skins you can only get by crafting. If you decide to give it a try, look up a guide to level crafting and make sure to use an Item Booster for max crafting xp. 🙂

To be able to hoard more before you sell?

[Mistwraithe.3106]

17 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

Totally a preference thing. I don't even have them sorted consistently across my characters, some have it on top, some at the bottom 😄

LOL, me too. Most of my characters have it near the bottom but one or two have it at the top and for some reason it doesn't bother me.

 

17 hours ago, PzTnT.7198 said:

I run it at the top on one of my characters, but make sure its always full in order to avoid the random loot from going into it.

This is an important point. I keep my invisible bag full of things that I want to keep all the time. This means food I plan to eat, quest items, etc go in it until it is full. Doing so stops it from getting random items put in it as your inventory fills up and is obviously critical if you have your invisible bag at the top.

[Rogue.8235]

Lots of helpf7ul posts above.

Also want to add that you should type:

/wiki 

(include a space after).  Then shift+click an item in your inventory that you're not sure of.  This opens the wiki page for that exact item.  I usually do this to check whether it's safe to destroy an item that has no use.  There are lots of these items in game, so don't let them clog up inventory space.

[petespri.6548]

Ty all, learning some good things here!

[petespri.6548]

On 8/27/2024 at 11:33 PM, Flowersunshine.7385 said:

@petespri.6548

If you don't plan on engaging with the crafting system, why buy more material storage? You'll just have more mats sitting there doing nothing, and eventually it will start to overflow again anyway. Prices tend to go down over time rather than up, so I'd recommend selling mats as soon as you acquire a stack of you don't plan to use them. Don't worry: this really doesn't take hours per week. Probably more like 5 min a week, if that. (Just sell unidentifieds, like Mistwraith said: you'll hardly lose out.)

I'd like to recommend investing some time in crafting though. Leveling a profession is a one time investment and once it's done, crafting isn't nearly as bad as it seems. (Just stay away from Scribe, that one is as bad as it seems. 😂) It opens up a lot of possibilities in game for skins and achievements, some of which will use up some of those pesky drops cluttering your inventory. Some skins you can only get by crafting. If you decide to give it a try, look up a guide to level crafting and make sure to use an Item Booster for max crafting xp. 🙂

I've considered crafting but dont like focusing on getting the rarer stuff to make ascended and hate the timelock, and the multiple layers of crafting to get ascended components last I checked (I have made a few Ascended things but hate the management of crafting).  I go in waves with minor crafting at times... just thinking that more storage may indeed  lead to a better flow for item storage and cleaner bags overall across all my characters.  

***

To everyone:

1. Are there any bags that only have what you put in them and wont get any other stuff?  I hate my food/consumable/salvage kits and special items getting junk added in.  It seems that even invisible bags will fill up with overflow once everthing else is full.

2. Is it worth having special bags for greens, blues, exotics, etc to help filtering?  If so, what is your set up for bags and what is your set up for bags?  How many bags do you role?

Thank all!

 

[Schimmi.6872]

16 minutes ago, petespri.6548 said:

I've considered crafting but dont like focusing on getting the rarer stuff to make ascended and hate the timelock, and the multiple layers of crafting to get ascended components last I checked (I have made a few Ascended things but hate the management of crafting).  I go in waves with minor crafting at times... just thinking that more storage may indeed  lead to a better flow for item storage and cleaner bags overall across all my characters.  

***

To everyone:

1. Are there any bags that only have what you put in them and wont get any other stuff?  I hate my food/consumable/salvage kits and special items getting junk added in.  It seems that even invisible bags will fill up with overflow once everthing else is full.

2. Is it worth having special bags for greens, blues, exotics, etc to help filtering?  If so, what is your set up for bags and what is your set up for bags?  How many bags do you role?

Thank all!

 

1) No, all  bags fill completely, when there is no other place left, only shared ineventory slots stay empty. If I want that a bag-space isn't used I usually use filler material (i prefer essences, don't know why).

2) Personally I don't use such bags, but there may be players who like them. Also since the introduction of unids, especially blue and green might not be as usefull anymore.

My usual setup:

I) Shared slots for all the things I need on the whole account (salvagers, ports, TP-/banl-access etc.

II) Basic Bag where the first slot are used for things the char needs that can't be sold or salvaged by mistake

III) Basic Bags depending on the number of unlocked slots

IV) One or two invisible bags for everything else that's needed on the char and for things that I don't want to salvage or sell, so unids, bufffood, spare weapon sets etc.

 

 

[petespri.6548]

2 hours ago, Schimmi.6872 said:

1) No, all  bags fill completely, when there is no other place left, only shared ineventory slots stay empty. If I want that a bag-space isn't used I usually use filler material (i prefer essences, don't know why).

2) Personally I don't use such bags, but there may be players who like them. Also since the introduction of unids, especially blue and green might not be as usefull anymore.

My usual setup:

I) Shared slots for all the things I need on the whole account (salvagers, ports, TP-/banl-access etc.

II) Basic Bag where the first slot are used for things the char needs that can't be sold or salvaged by mistake

III) Basic Bags depending on the number of unlocked slots

IV) One or two invisible bags for everything else that's needed on the char and for things that I don't want to salvage or sell, so unids, bufffood, spare weapon sets etc.

 

 

This is my current set up with one invisible at the bottom.  Maybe ill go to an uncompressed view of bags so it is easier to see where that stuff starts

[Atoclone.4810]

as many bags as i can, green blue and yellow loot bags go in my shared slots along with the copper matic. i keep food utils in the first few slots of my bags and then the rest is just stuff that drops in the order it drops. 

whilst my bags are disorganised they are nothing compared to the pit i call my bank