The Crate System Needs To Be More Player-Friendly

Cellithor · June 20

Before anyone says it, yes, I know. Crates are a gamble and it’s the player’s choice to take that gamble. I do want to partake in the crates because there are many cool collectibles to get; it’s just a shame that you have to go through such a scummy and predatory system to get them.

Firstly, they’re overpriced. $40 USD for a 15 crate bundle that’s very likely to contain nothing above an epic (purple) level reward? Awful. If they’re going to be that expensive, then why he drop rates should be tweaked in favor of the rarer items.

You’re given the option to spend crown gems on items from the loot table of the crates. A nice option - so how about that new Shackled Titan mount? It costs 2,500 gems. I opened 30 crates and got around 300 gems. So ZOS expects me to open somewhere around $300 worth of crates just to accumulate enough gems to buy the radiant apex mount.

Well, at least I do have some gems left from when I bought 15 Dwarven Crates and got the Bal Foyen Nix hound 6 times. How lovely.

And Pacrooti. Don’t even get me started on him. Listening to him mock me as I get 6 of the same item just drives me nuts. I want to tie him up and take him straight to Coldharbour. I wonder if Molag Bal would give me a turn with the mace.

Firstly, I think ESO plus members should get discounts on crate bundles at all times. Gem costs really need to be lowered as well. Finally, I believe that semi-curated drops from crates would go a long way to make them feel more worthwhile and fun to buy; just make it so that you have higher odds of pulling items that you don’t have yet.

tsaescishoeshiner · June 20

I'd like if buying a 15-pack came with an extra guaranteed legendary (or rarely better) or two. Getting only superiors and duplicates (when you have plenty non-dupes left) feels bad and discourages me from buying more.

The radiant apex mounts are meant to be rare--so far, I'll only spend Seals of Endeavor on Radiant Apex or Apex, as they're much, much cheaper there than trying to get them via rng or gems. For example, a Radiant is 2x expensive as an Apex in Seals, but 3-4x in Gems, and much, much rarer via luck.

I love Pacrooti lol! He's the perfect goading swindler for gamble crates.

Necrotech_Master · June 20

i would probably agree with some of the points

if the crates were curated and guaranteed to not drop duplicates until you had everything from that "pool" then it would be more acceptable

i would also agree on the cost, opening a crate and getting 4 draws of nothing but useless consumable garbage is completely unacceptable

Athyrie · June 20

Maybe I have just been lucky with my crates, but I like the crate system. I like that I get gems for most duplicates, and can get rid of the junk I don't use (which is... everything except costumes, outfit styles, furniture, pets, and mounts lol).

I DO wish there was an option to trade in stuff though. Like I just got the 2-seater apex mount (Nightmare Pillion Courser) from the new crates today, and I'll literally -never- use it... I wish I could trade it in for gems to put towards something I -will- use, like the legendary costumes and outfit styles.

I'm not always lucky, but the gems make up for it. I usually can always end up getting whatever it was I wanted by using gems.

Danikat · June 21

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i would probably agree with some of the points

if the crates were curated and guaranteed to not drop duplicates until you had everything from that "pool" then it would be more acceptable

i would also agree on the cost, opening a crate and getting 4 draws of nothing but useless consumable garbage is completely unacceptable

That might actually be worse for the people who want the rarest items, because then they'd have to get every single item in the crate before they can start getting gems. It would also gradually increase your chances of getting a radiant apex mount as you run out of other items which can drop, but I doubt it would be as quick as you currently build up gems (and that's pretty slow, as the OP pointed out).

Cellithor wrote: »

You’re given the option to spend crown gems on items from the loot table of the crates. A nice option - so how about that new Shackled Titan mount? It costs 2,500 gems. I opened 30 crates and got around 300 gems. So ZOS expects me to open somewhere around $300 worth of crates just to accumulate enough gems to buy the radiant apex mount.

Unfortunately the answer to this question is yes. ZOS knows there are people who are willing and able to spend around $300 on crates to get the rarest items, so they price the crates and set the drop rates accordingly, because it's proven to be profitable.

If you can't or won't spend that (and IMO no one should) you do also have the option of completing endeavours to get seals which can be used to buy any items from the current crates, including radiant apex mounts. It takes months to get enough seals for one, so you do need to be selective about which ones you get, but it's the only alternative we've got and until governments effectively reign in loot box gambling it's the only one we're likely to get.

Tiath · June 21

I don't mind the gamble part or the cost - it is what it is and it's all optional cosmetic content not "pay to win" - and there's gems to mitigate the "I opened X crates and didn't get what I wanted".

I do wish crates (and houses) were available more often, though: There's a lot of older things I'd still like to get and would be happy to throw some money at.

Making more of them available each month would be awesome. (Maybe as an ESO+ perk you get a bigger selection of crates?)

The prospect of having to wait 2-3 years to see an older crate again isn't great.

Vynera · June 21

I just wish they would remove the useless exp scrolls, every time something legendary pops up its a exp scroll. I opened 60 crates, got no apex or radiant and 16 legendaries, 12 of them were the +150% exp scrolls.
I dont need them, I dont want them, I'm cp 2800 and they are useless to me since at this point CP is just a increasing, pointless number.

I don't like to get items that ZOS throws away in free login rewards as crate rewards with a much higher rate than other cosmetics from that tier.

reazea · June 21

Vynera wrote: »

I just wish they would remove the useless exp scrolls, every time something legendary pops up its a exp scroll. I opened 60 crates, got no apex or radiant and 16 legendaries, 12 of them were the +150% exp scrolls.
I dont need them, I dont want them, I'm cp 2800 and they are useless to me since at this point CP is just a increasing, pointless number.

I don't like to get items that ZOS throws away in free login rewards as crate rewards with a much higher rate than other cosmetics from that tier.

If people want to throw their money away maybe they should consider giving it to a local charity instead. The humane society could always use the money and there are many other non profit services out there that can really put the money to better use. You're not going to get anything out of a crown crate that justifies the expense.

Necrotech_Master · June 21

Danikat wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i would probably agree with some of the points

if the crates were curated and guaranteed to not drop duplicates until you had everything from that "pool" then it would be more acceptable

i would also agree on the cost, opening a crate and getting 4 draws of nothing but useless consumable garbage is completely unacceptable

That might actually be worse for the people who want the rarest items, because then they'd have to get every single item in the crate before they can start getting gems. It would also gradually increase your chances of getting a radiant apex mount as you run out of other items which can drop, but I doubt it would be as quick as you currently build up gems (and that's pretty slow, as the OP pointed out).

i think it would take less time than you think if the crates were curated, theres usually less than a dozen items per tier

if this change were to happen, i would also remove all of the useless tier garbage consumable items from the crates entirely

i also dont see why we have both crown gems, and seals of endeavor, honestly it makes no sense to me why we have seals of endeavor in the first place, the daily endeavors could have just straight given us crown gems instead of inventing another currency to "solve their problem" of a way to get around the crates for legal reasons

i personally would rather have no duplicates from the crates, because the gem value of the items is like 1/5 of what the item actually cost, its not a 1:1 conversion, so in essence to me getting a duplicate is straight up worse value than getting an actual item