Better implementation for going B2p, please ZOS

Elizariya

ZOS, I realize why you are making this transition even though you stated you would not ever do so, you need this game to recoup the money that was put into developing it and hopefully make a nice profit. I can respect and understand that, and I am sure that most other people do as well. In fact if it is done correctly, the B2P could save and revive what was becoming a dying game, which I am 150% in favor of. However, you have to understand that if you do NOT do this right you will further alienate former, current and future players.

I do not see where the current plan for ESO+ will bring you enough of a sustainable income, or that it holds a broad or long lasting appeal. Most of your long term players already have VR ranked characters and do not need exp boosts to level or crafting boosts to begin with. These things are also an unfair advantage that verges on pay-to-win. I do not think that an EXP boost up to lvl 50 for alts and new players to get up to speed would be bad, but if it extends beyond that it begins to impact accumulation of Champion points; and any boost to crafting exp or researching seriously denigrates the time and effort that your current max leveled crafters have put into their characters. Keep in mind anyone that is maxxed on those has to have been an early adopter, so very bad move there.

Your sub perks also offer no real long term value that would incentivize people to continue to subscribe. The crowns themselves are nice, but how much content do you think you are realistically going to be able to develop and put up for sale for subscribers to spend them on? Costumes and guars are great, but they only go so far. You need to focus on the things that have been promised for ages and never produced; such as the thieves guild, dark brotherhood, Imperial City, etc. Lack of these things is why I (and many other people) stopped subbing, leading to your to need to pursue the B2P model. I started on day one after buying early release Collector’s Edition. I wanted to love the game and be loyal, BUT when you released the jump from VR12 to 14 and called it “new” content, I just saw more of the same old grind with nothing “new” added and stopped playing.

I suggest that the following would be a much better system of ideas for transition, and by making your players happy you will find that they want to play, subscribe, and help you grow (including me):

BETTER ESO+ - EXP boost to lvl 50 only, NO other boosts. Subs accumulate a reasonable $$ monthly credit towards permanently unlocking the DLC of their choice. 1500 crowns a month to spend in store. This keeps everyone on a more level playing field, which was supposedly one of ZOS’s main goals from day one by being a sub game. It also doesn’t make those who are financially supporting your game with monthly subs feel like something can be “taken” from them (lost DLC they could possibly have bought outright more cheaply if neglected to sub). I am aware they can just buy the DLC with the crowns, but once again where is the incentive to sub if that takes all of them up and leaves no room for fun mount items etc? Let the crowns be the icing on the cake and not the boosts, I think everyone would be MUCH happier with this outcome.

Now, you need to make those crowns more useful and in high demand by getting us lots of NEW content to keep us engaged and make us want to keep playing. This would best be done by focusing your in-house dev teams almost strictly on making patches and many regularly released DLC packs, both large and small. Some suggestions: the ever longed for housing, jewelry crafting, an Oblivion style PVP arena, other pvp options than the current Cyrodiil zurgfest. Give your players new and exciting things to do that address how blah and repetitive the game can get at high level VR. Being bored on a cool looking guar just isn’t enough incentive to bring me back, free to play or not.

I would also highly recommend making an ESO construction set of sorts. A large percentage of your players are former TES fans, and many of us are skilled TES modders. If it were possible to make a basic CS that allowed interested players to create their own costume designs, role playing items, mounts etc; I think you would get a huge response to that. Allowing players to submit these items to be reviewed for possible game inclusion could free up a lot of developer time so they can focus on more important things, and could provide a constant stream of high quality lore friendly items. This would make the game more immersive and interesting, and give you a large variety of stuff to sell in your crown store that is not buy-to-win.

All mods made with a TES CS have always been the intellectual property of Bethesda, and they have a history of implementing the concepts of the most popular mods into the next game releases anyway; so why not follow suit in ESO? I do not doubt that there are a large number of people who would be happy to spend their time making these items for no further personal compensation than the joy of potentially seeing someone riding/wearing/using their item in game. It would also show some loyalty and value to player input and create excitement, and could include events such as vote for favorites on website, forums etc.

What should NOT be in the crown store/transition at all for any reason is anything that is:

Even remotely pay-to-win, anything that hurts the time investment and/or income potential of crafters and makes it less rewarding, anything that can be directly bought for crowns and sold for gold (ie bind it), anything that is not lore-friendly, direct gold purchase, pre-order perk of any race in any alliance, RNG or lottery items, anything that allows players to unbind items, items that give boosts to anything, anything that nerfs achievement value, anything better than or near in quality to what can be obtained in game or crafted. Any of these sorts of items will likely cause you to lose a lot of players.

Suggestions I did not see listed on the wishlists a ton of times for either game in general or crown store:

Ability to transmogrify items such as in Diablo 3, where you can cause a piece of armor or a weapon to display using the skin of another similar item you have owned. Items that can change the traits on a weapon or piece of armor. Ability to “box” groups of items together for sale on guild stores as a single sale, ie armor sets.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Someone needs to get a new hobby

Gidorick

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Someone needs to get a new hobby

Dude. Why are you even on the forums? Why comment if you're not going to add to the discussion? Just to troll?

Gidorick

Welcome to the forums @Elizariya‌! I love your ideas and agree with them 100% I actually wrote some similar suggestions myself:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150450/eso-subscription-benefits-suggestions

And

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso

Elizariya wrote: »

Ability to transmogrify items such as in Diablo 3, where you can cause a piece of armor or a weapon to display using the skin of another similar item you have owned. Items that can change the traits on a weapon or piece of armor. Ability to “box” groups of items together for sale on guild stores as a single sale, ie armor sets.

These are great! The idea of selling fillable boxes in the crown store is brilliant! Buy them in 10, 25, & 50 slot increments, and reusing them would be nice too.

You are very right that, as of right now, ZOS doesn't have a sustainable model for ESO. We're only going to buy so many mounts and so many costumes. They STILL need a strong subscription base and they need more compelling and practical items in the crown store.

Hopefully ZOS is listening.

Elizariya

Hi @Gidorick, and thank you for the constructive reply. I just read your own linked posts. Of particular interest to me was the one about player created content. While I really love the idea of players being able to create more complex mods like dungeons and quests etc in general, I purposefully avoided going down that route in my suggestion.

The more complex a mod is, the more likelihood there is that it will be an issue in some way. Items and textures are just easier to create than full mods are, and can be very quickly reviewed for quality and lore compatibility.Anything that involves quests or locations etc would have to be thoroughly played through by ZOS staff first in order to test it for quality and lore. That could take away from my goal of hoping to free up official staff time with the player made content so they can focus on making more significant content of their own instead of time spent making more cash shop cosmetics, and probably further slow down worthwhile DLC releases.

Anything involving a new location or quests in Tamriel could just introduce more new bugs into the game, which we clearly don't need. Such things would have to be instanced if they were to work at all for sure so as to not create any conficts with the existing world. Overall it would be truly awesome to be able to do, but I think that it may be a bit much to try to implement (at least anytime soon) and include in a non-single player game due to how much overview it would require. It might be a very worthwhile longer term goal though if the response was good at the item level and revenues boomed through box sales, subs and DLC sales enough due to enough quality content to support the extra people needed to head up a heftier program for it.

Meantime, I loved the ideas you had about player created Motif books for armor, had not really considered that oddly and had just been thinking costumes. Would be very stoked about it, and I think many others crafters would be too. I also liked the idea about having some type of testing cell where you can test for clipping, and that would also be ideal for allowing possible emote and simple RPG animation creations geared towards role players.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Gidorick wrote: »

Welcome to the forums @Elizariya‌! I love your ideas and agree with them 100% I actually wrote some similar suggestions myself:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150450/eso-subscription-benefits-suggestions

And

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso

Elizariya wrote: »

Ability to transmogrify items such as in Diablo 3, where you can cause a piece of armor or a weapon to display using the skin of another similar item you have owned. Items that can change the traits on a weapon or piece of armor. Ability to “box” groups of items together for sale on guild stores as a single sale, ie armor sets.

These are great! The idea of selling fillable boxes in the crown store is brilliant! Buy them in 10, 25, & 50 slot increments, and reusing them would be nice too.

You are very right that, as of right now, ZOS doesn't have a sustainable model for ESO. We're only going to buy so many mounts and so many costumes. They STILL need a strong subscription base and they need more compelling and practical items in the crown store.

Hopefully ZOS is listening.

Ah it's all coming together now. It looks like two people need to get a new hobby. I don't think ZOS or any other company is looking for your "suggestions" on their business models or decisions. If you like it keep playing. If you don't, then off you go to another realm. You call it "trolling" but the truth is the incessant whining on these forums is laughable. You mistake inane rambling for "discussion" on things that have been touched on over and over again.

Elizariya

@stewhead2ub17_ESO‌

You are 100% correct. ZOS does not have to care about my suggestions, or what any other player wants either for that matter. But if they ignore enough of us for long enough, the game will die off. Oh wait, that pretty much happened already.

You can also agree or not, but at least we actually have something useful to say. What do you have to say aside from repeating the same irrelevant drivel you posted the first time? Obviously that is your hobby, and the only one "whining" about anything is you. You clearly mistake me for someone that cares that you don't agree but have nothing relevant to say. And while I am making inane suggestions, I have one for you. Get some dictionaries and thesauruses so you can learn new phrases and level up your trolling skills and have some new insults to post instead of just sounding like a broken record.

Gidorick

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

Welcome to the forums @Elizariya‌! I love your ideas and agree with them 100% I actually wrote some similar suggestions myself:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150450/eso-subscription-benefits-suggestions

And

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso

Elizariya wrote: »

Ability to transmogrify items such as in Diablo 3, where you can cause a piece of armor or a weapon to display using the skin of another similar item you have owned. Items that can change the traits on a weapon or piece of armor. Ability to “box” groups of items together for sale on guild stores as a single sale, ie armor sets.

These are great! The idea of selling fillable boxes in the crown store is brilliant! Buy them in 10, 25, & 50 slot increments, and reusing them would be nice too.

You are very right that, as of right now, ZOS doesn't have a sustainable model for ESO. We're only going to buy so many mounts and so many costumes. They STILL need a strong subscription base and they need more compelling and practical items in the crown store.

Hopefully ZOS is listening.

Ah it's all coming together now. It looks like two people need to get a new hobby. I don't think ZOS or any other company is looking for your "suggestions" on their business models or decisions. If you like it keep playing. If you don't, then off you go to another realm. You call it "trolling" but the truth is the incessant whining on these forums is laughable. You mistake inane rambling for "discussion" on things that have been touched on over and over again.

You are right. Our input isn't wanted by ZOS but I enjoy the "what if". I enjoy discussing possibilities and ideas. That is part of the fun to me, so who are you to judge how I choose to spend my time and what I find enjoyment in? Just as you apparently find enjoyment and satisfaction in belittling others randomly on the Internet to inflate your own feelings of superiority thereby validating how you waste YOUR time.

If this isn't why you're here, please stop commenting on subjects for which you have no input.

Soulshine

As someone who has "tinkered" with making mods for TES and a few other games for years, I find some of what you suggest appealing, but I am not sure it will get serious consideration let alone a green light from @ZoS given their behavior in the past.

Biggest red flag was their decision to yank the API the way they did, effectively locking us out of key elements needed to make things funtional. I can see them arguing that they wish to support the modding community but are committed to assuring that their game will not be compromised by changes which they do not intend it to have, or some such similar retort... it is a question of control in other words, which clearly as a company they have a right to make when all is said and done. But it is for me, one of the biggest dissapointments about this game - especially when you consider what other games allow you to do and the huge amount of tools they let you implement to get things done.

Where housing in particular is concerned, something they keep saying "would be great" but which they have no way plans to do any time soon, they could have chosen to go the route of Rift dimensions (just to cite one example) and I can pretty much gurantee that with THIS particular player base, they'd have money coming out the wazoo for the game. Too bad short sighted decisions largely based on earning fast money rather than strenghtening a community for long term sustainability of the game have been the real driving force behind this company. Opportunities missed are the real mistakes.

snowmanflvb14_ESO

Op not sure what you were aiming for since part of your posting contradicts itself. You start of saying that the xp boost is not an incentive for long term players since many have vr 14 characters already and then latter complain that it will help people gain champion points which would be an incentive for those with vr14 characters. Second, I am not sure how they verge on pay to win? As for the reasons behind going B2P I would postulate that it has more to do with the game being launched on console that anything else. Remember, although SONY was willing to waive their connection fee Microsoft was not. Third, you would be surprised at how much people will spend to buy pets and or costumes. Fourth, allowing player created content increases the chances exploitation. Also, F2P and B2P are two different models you seem to use the concepts interchangeably.

Gidorick

Ugh! Housing! It's like ZOS doesn't want to make money! That system alone could sustain ZOS for years!

And when the console players are added they will be asking for the same stuff we are. Features like houses should almost be standard in MMOs by now.... but as @soulshine pointed out, they don't want to allow other standard features like API access.

Hopefully, the system ZOS eventually develops for housing is powerful enough to apply to player created content. That might be how we can get some of these features.

Elizariya

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

Op not sure what you were aiming for since part of your posting contradicts itself. You start of saying that the xp boost is not an incentive for long term players since many have vr 14 characters already and then latter complain that it will help people gain champion points which would be an incentive for those with vr14 characters. Second, I am not sure how they verge on pay to win? As for the reasons behind going B2P I would postulate that it has more to do with the game being launched on console that anything else. Remember, although SONY was willing to waive their connection fee Microsoft was not. Third, you would be surprised at how much people will spend to buy pets and or costumes. Fourth, allowing player created content increases the chances exploitation. Also, F2P and B2P are two different models you seem to use the concepts interchangeably.

Not sure what you find contradictory. I stated that VR ranked characters do not need exp boosts to level. So if the intent of the boost is only faster levelling and it will not apply to CP gain, it is not useful at all as a bonus for a large segment of current players. If the intent is that you will accumulate CP points faster than non-subscribers in the future due to the exp boost, then yes it provides a pay-to-win type advantage. I agree the consoles launching is probably a factor, but so is the current state of the player base. Truth is, many people have left the game due to lack of content updates, bugs, and other issues. It shows in how empty the zones have become and how difficult it is to get groups for things.

No, the amount that people (including myself) would be willing to spend on cash shop items would not surprise me. This is why I suggested a way for them to gain large amounts of it with very minimal time output. But people don't spend money on games they get bored with and stop playing due to lack of fun new content being released. Granted they will get a large influx of players on the console release and new pc people trying it out when it goes B2P. And what happens when they (like we did) hit high VR levels and realize there is nothing much left to do?

Please clarify what is exploitable about simple content items. Lets imagine I have created a costume, and ZOS liked it and included it in game. What advantage do I get from that, and how can that be exploited in any way? The fact that some other player is wearing a shirt I textured does not make me OP or give me supernatural powers, or the ability to mindcontrol ZOS with some kind of magical "in". No idea what you are thinking here.

Yes, I understand the difference between B2P and F2P very clearly. B2P I have no issues with, and could support. The problem is that if they cannot make enough revenue to support the game on B2P box sales, subs and cash shop purchases; it will quickly degenerate into a F2P environment with a cashshop full of pay for advantage items so they can grab some quick cash.

Soulshine

Elizariya wrote: »

Please clarify what is exploitable about simple content items. Lets imagine I have created a costume, and ZOS liked it and included it in game. What advantage do I get from that, and how can that be exploited in any way? The fact that some other player is wearing a shirt I textured does not make me OP or give me supernatural powers, or the ability to mindcontrol ZOS with some kind of magical "in". No idea what you are thinking here.

Likely referring to what I pointed out above, which is that when the API got yanked they cited not wanting to compromse the game integrity as one of the reasons. As in they do not want to leave the API open and risk it being used to exploit the game.

Elizariya

@‌Soulshine
Ah ok and TY for clearing that up. Nice earlier post by the way, and I agree with you fully on your points there. It probably is unreasonable of me to think they could (or would) come up with something basic that would allow item and texture creation that would not end the world as we know it, and couldn't be used as an exploit. I think you are 100% right about "short sighted decisions and missed opportunities" to the point where it could be voted an official 6 word description of the game.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Elizariya wrote: »

@stewhead2ub17_ESO‌

You are 100% correct. ZOS does not have to care about my suggestions, or what any other player wants either for that matter. But if they ignore enough of us for long enough, the game will die off. Oh wait, that pretty much happened already.

You can also agree or not, but at least we actually have something useful to say. What do you have to say aside from repeating the same irrelevant drivel you posted the first time? Obviously that is your hobby, and the only one "whining" about anything is you. You clearly mistake me for someone that cares that you don't agree but have nothing relevant to say. And while I am making inane suggestions, I have one for you. Get some dictionaries and thesauruses so you can learn new phrases and level up your trolling skills and have some new insults to post instead of just sounding like a broken record.

Your response is almost as laughable to me as your original post. The game is not going anywhere. You can chime the bells of doom and stomp your feet all you want. Perhaps even hold your breath in a show of defiance? As for having something "useful" to say, well that clearly is a matter of opinion. I would take you more seriously if you prefaced (found that word in one of your suggested fancy book thingies) your OP by saying you were going to vent.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Gidorick wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

Welcome to the forums @Elizariya‌! I love your ideas and agree with them 100% I actually wrote some similar suggestions myself:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150450/eso-subscription-benefits-suggestions


You are right. Our input isn't wanted by ZOS but I enjoy the "what if". I enjoy discussing possibilities and ideas. That is part of the fun to me, so who are you to judge how I choose to spend my time and what I find enjoyment in? Just as you apparently find enjoyment and satisfaction in belittling others randomly on the Internet to inflate your own feelings of superiority thereby validating how you waste YOUR time.

If this isn't why you're here, please stop commenting on subjects for which you have no input.

I'm a glass is half full kind of guy. If you enjoy "what if" and "discussing possibilities and ideas" by all means have at it. But don't cry "foul" if you receive a negative response to a post. As well as the aforementioned recreations you claim I enjoy, I would add I also enjoy taking Halloween candy from children, kicking puppies, and popping balloons at random.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Gidorick wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

Welcome to the forums @Elizariya‌! I love your ideas and agree with them 100% I actually wrote some similar suggestions myself:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150450/eso-subscription-benefits-suggestions

And

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso

Elizariya wrote: »

Ability to transmogrify items such as in Diablo 3, where you can cause a piece of armor or a weapon to display using the skin of another similar item you have owned. Items that can change the traits on a weapon or piece of armor. Ability to “box” groups of items together for sale on guild stores as a single sale, ie armor sets.

These are great! The idea of selling fillable boxes in the crown store is brilliant! Buy them in 10, 25, & 50 slot increments, and reusing them would be nice too.

You are very right that, as of right now, ZOS doesn't have a sustainable model for ESO. We're only going to buy so many mounts and so many costumes. They STILL need a strong subscription base and they need more compelling and practical items in the crown store.

Hopefully ZOS is listening.

Ah it's all coming together now. It looks like two people need to get a new hobby. I don't think ZOS or any other company is looking for your "suggestions" on their business models or decisions. If you like it keep playing. If you don't, then off you go to another realm. You call it "trolling" but the truth is the incessant whining on these forums is laughable. You mistake inane rambling for "discussion" on things that have been touched on over and over again.

You are right. Our input isn't wanted by ZOS but I enjoy the "what if". I enjoy discussing possibilities and ideas. That is part of the fun to me, so who are you to judge how I choose to spend my time and what I find enjoyment in? Just as you apparently find enjoyment and satisfaction in belittling others randomly on the Internet to inflate your own feelings of superiority thereby validating how you waste YOUR time.

If this isn't why you're here, please stop commenting on subjects for which you have no input.

I'm a glass is half full kind of guy. If you enjoy "what if" discussions and "discussing possibilities and ideas" I say have at it. I certainly don't judge how you choose to spend your time. But don't cry "foul" if you receive a negative post in response. Aside from the aforementioned activities you stated I enjoy, I also like stealing Halloween candy from children, kicking litters of puppies, and popping balloons at random.

MrGhosty

Interesting ideas but I don't think they would be as helpful to the game as you'd think. If you're thinking strictly costume creation via user submitted content I don't think people would be as willing to donate their time. If ZOS provided the base models in order for people to texture, you wouldn't see much variation beyond texturing which unless these are sold as skins for existing costumes, their crown price wouldn't really be worth it.

Now if ZOS would allow creators to create new models/armors/etc you would have a case of the modelers not wanting to spend all of that time for no real return. SOE did a solid job of user submitted content in Planetside 2 where they share the profits with the creator (60/40 in favor of the creator I believe) then you might well see this potential gain some traction but it largely depends on the user base. This alone does not provide value to the subscription nor really providing much in the way of meaningful content for the game itself.

Many of the things that would have been value added content have all been acknowledged by ZOS as "great ideas" but none seem to be great enough to warrant developing them right now.

It will be interesting to see how many actually opt to subscribe when the game goes B2P. Many who currently sub were doing so under the assumption they were paying for access and for the development of future content which has now seemingly been pushed back in order to provide value for new players. From my perspective the perks for subbing are going to need to be head and shoulders above what they're offering at this point before I would ever consider subbing again. These benefits need to be immediately tangible as they've greatly mangled the value of their word. Anything beyond a week out is subject to change and ZOS has squandered the greatest asset games can have, consumer trust.