Official Discussion Thread for Crown Crates

Preyfar · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

The ability to convert unwanted consumables to gems is good!

What I'd like to see:

Crown Offsets - Crown conversions at 50% of the item's value. If we're getting better items, and can convert them to crowns, this should offset the risk and allow us to ACTUALLY get the things we want.
Rare Consumables - No consumables in place of collectables (e.g. XP scrolls should not replace a collectable if it drops). Rare consumables should drop, and include things like character re-customization. Make it worth the risk.
Fun/Interesting Drops - If you're going to have consumables why not have some fun ones? Go with the concept of Alteration magic and allow polymorph potions which can which can turn you into various NPCs (Essence of Razum-Dar) for X minutes. This won't interfere with crafters and can offer up something unique. Or perhaps a dye that turns whatever weapon you have equipped into a certain color (based on available ingots in the game).

I'm not against consumables, but I do want them to be interesting. But I also don't want the crates to compete with crafters in game. Something unique, but fun can be done that makes the crates have a value OTHER than just the mounts.

Enodoc · September 2016

dro_rasec wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

Pay to win confirmed

Or not, considering the bit I bonded.

worsttankever · September 2016

I think randomized loot crates are a horrible idea - and really abuse your customers that have gambling addiction-like problems. Evil, evil business model. Shame on whoever approved this along the way.

jedtb16_ESO · September 2016

mommadani907 wrote: »

While the changes being mentioned are perhaps a step in the right direction, I for one will still not be purchasing crown crates with real money. I have literally no interest in spending my money on a chance to get something I want. I might as well light my paycheck on fire for all the good crown crates will do me. And perhaps you will have people that will blow tons of cash on them. Maybe they will be a hit. But I hope they aren't.

i'll take that a step further and say that i will not be purchasing crown crates for a chance at something i don't want.

if you want more than my sub you are going to have to come up with something new, innovative and honest.

MissBizz · September 2016

I also have a bit more feedback to go with my other feedback based on the exclusive vs past item counts.

We appreciate the idea of handing in consumables for gems, but please bear in mind that there are often collectibles that we simply cannot use (argonian and Khajiit items, or practically anything else if you're an argonian and/or khajiit lover). Not only are there things we just flat out cannot use, there are items that people are absolutely not interested in and just the mere clutter they add to our collections screens will mildly annoy us. We need to be able to trade any and all items in. As well, as the crates are on the PTS currently, I feel punished when receiving a duplicate. This is from the extremely poor gem conversion rate.

Concerning one part of your comment

we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year

Please ensure these changes you plan on making are able to be tested on PTS before live. As I read that I feel there is a very real possibility you will be making these changes solely before live, therefore we will not have any time to give feedback on the crates in their new incarnation.

[EDIT] For the record, I do not want these in game at all. I am merely trying to at least give decent feedback as I know we have absolutely no choice in Zos wanting us to spend more money attempting to gain an item we like, rather than just buying it directly. I realize these are coming, but they really don't need to be so disgustingly predatory.

silvereyes · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:

Yay! Such awesome! Thank you for listening and responding. It's always so nice to have communication.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

That's cool, I guess. I'll wait to see what the changes are.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

Great! Something is better than nothing, I guess. Or maybe give us the ability to choose which consumables we prefer? I would have no problems receiving a ton of respec scrolls and XP scrolls, but I have no use for any of the other consumables in the store.

I also want the same ability for cosmetics.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!

First of all, increasing duration doesn't fix anything. Having a useless thing last longer doesn't make it less useless.

And secondly, please don't start tweaking stuff that could have an effect on the actual game. These crates should be completely scrapped, imo, but if they have to be in, at least don't have them poison the rest of the game for those that would prefer to ignore them.

Danikat · September 2016

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Sapeterson16ub17_ESO wrote: »

It seems like a lot of people are angry about the drop chance of the cool stuff in crown crates. Why not also have some daily quests that reward crown crates? It makes it so people who are angry about earning items only from buying the crates can play the game to also earn them but if they cannot earn wait to get that really cool mount they will still buy them. it makes it so the amount of gems you now get on pts feels more reasonable and people cant complain about having exclusive items in the crown crates.

I believe there are legal ramifications to allowing something they charge real money for to drop for 'free.' (Not ILLEGAL necessarily, just different laws than only selling the thing.) Hence the habit of other games that drop Crate-equivalents in the game to then have a key you have to buy to open them. I don't believe that's something they can therefore swap on a whim, although someone with more experience in these things may correct me on that.

More practically anything that can be farmed, will be farmed, and if we've taught Zenimax nothing else we've definitely taught them that.

I'm not sure there would be a legal issue. Firstly Guild Wars 2 gives away both the boxes and (much more rarely) the keys for free in game. You can reliably get 1 key per week as a reward for completing the level 10 story, and can get others very rarely in other places. (I suspect the main reason games like this drop the boxes and sell the keys is in the hope that players will go "Oh cool! A box! I wonder what's in it? Oh, I have to buy the key? Well it's only $X.XX...." With GW2 it might also be so they can claim you don't have to buy anything from the cash shop but I'm certain the first aspect occurred to them too.)

But more importantly if I remember correctly from a legal perspective they are not selling anything in the crown store. It's a bit of a weird concept but officially the game and everything in it is ZOS's intellectual property and all we buy is permission to access a service which uses it. (Think of it a bit like gym membership, or a library card, you don't own the gym or the library, you're just given permission to use it.) So legally when you purchase crowns all you get is access to additional services. The crowns themselves and the items purchased with them have no real-world value.

Theryl wrote: »

In the other MMOs I've played, loot crates are either a point sink for long term/lifetime subscribers who don't have anything better to buy with their points or offer a way to sell/buy/trade putting unwanted items using the auction house. The current system doesn't offer either of those options. As currently implemented, the Crown Crate system doesn't offer any value to me.

I think the first one definitely applies here. I've seen numerous posts on the forum from people saying they have tons of "free" crowns from subscribing and they never use them all up.

I suspect they're a big part of the audience being targeted here - if you think the subscription crowns are free (which I suppose does make sense if you consider the other benefits worth the full cost of the subscription) you've got little reason not to spend them on these boxes. At worst you'll get some random consumables and hey, you've got plenty of bag space for those now you've got a crafting bag, right? And then if ZOS are lucky once you've spent all your free crowns on crates you'll either find something else in the store you really want or you'll be this close to having enough gems for something you really want and buy crowns for it.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:
We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

1 and 2 are small steps in the right direction. But they're small steps down a long road IMO if you really want to make these things palatable. The ability to trade in unwanted cosmetics for crown gems would be a big improvement.

But point 3 makes me think you're still approaching this in the wrong way. The impression I get is that to the majority of people the consumables are never going to be an acceptable reward. It's not that they're not good enough as consumables, but that no sane person would buy crown crates to get an inventory full of potions and poison.

Also, just to reiterate my personal positon: I will never pay for a chance at an item I want. If you want me to pay for these things either put the rewards in the crown store as direct sales or sell crown gems.

niawrathb16_ESO · September 2016

I think it's great that Zenimax is listening to feedback anyone who doesn't want to gamble doesnt have to its a choice about how much you want those items and what you are willing to pay to get them. So far in my testing the drop rates are reasonable compared to other systems i have seen. I like the handing in of unwanted consumables for gems...some are useful like xp scrolls others not so much for me personally but the variety needs to stay to allow for individuals usage.

One question is are you able to swap in unwanted cosmetic items too? For example I got the lizard non combat pet but it's not one i want? If there is a reason you don't want this available if so maybe explain maybe your community can help inspire a solution?

driosketch · September 2016

silvereyes wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!

First of all, increasing duration doesn't fix anything. Having a useless thing last longer doesn't make it less useless.

If anything, it decreases the value even more since longer duration means you use up fewer over time making them clutter your inventory that much longer.

MissBizz · September 2016

niawrathb16_ESO wrote: »

I think it's great that Zenimax is listening to feedback anyone who doesn't want to gamble doesnt have to its a choice about how much you want those items and what you are willing to pay to get them. So far in my testing the drop rates are reasonable compared to other systems i have seen. I like the handing in of unwanted consumables for gems...some are useful like xp scrolls others not so much for me personally but the variety needs to stay to allow for individuals usage.

One question is are you able to swap in unwanted cosmetic items too? For example I got the lizard non combat pet but it's not one i want? If there is a reason you don't want this available if so maybe explain maybe your community can help inspire a solution?

@niawrathb16_ESO You obviously have better chances than me. I've tested them 3 days so far and have not had a single legendary or apex item drop. Also barely enough gems to purchase a legendary items. $141 CAD later...

Rosveen · September 2016

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I'm seeing Marketing 101 at work here. In any case, for those who really want the crown crate exclusives, I'm glad ZOS is going to make getting them a bit easier. For myself, I'm still not going to participate in a system whose primary purpose, by design, is ripping us off.

phreatophile · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

That's great, the rates should be published. That is a prerequisite for any real money gambling system to be considered ethical. Most people would see that as a contradiction in terms and I agree with them, but in order for a consumer to make educated decision they must know the chances of winning.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

Interesting, potentially a positive step. What will the rate be? Will it be at as terrible a rate as with duplicates? The dupe/gem rate is the biggest and ugliest and most exploitative cash grab in this whole system.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

Careful here. you've already dipped your toes in the puddle of feces with XP enhancers at a 3X rate over what can be made in game, while making the in-game version a waste of time due to extreme rarity of materials. Don't compound this by making the crown crate consumables better than what crafters can realisticly make

At the risk of being a boor by quoting myself:

phreatophile wrote: »

If crown crates are altered to the point where they are a good value instead of a ripoff, then they don't serve their intended purpose. We will be thrown a couple bones in a few days to a week but nothing with any meat on it.

There's not a lot of meat on this bone we've been thrown, it's the gem/dupe rate and now the gem/consumable rate that matter and determine how expensive any given item really is. If duplicate items continue to drop 30%ish of their value in gems and garbage potions give garbage quantities of gems, then we still have a ripoff on our hands.

edit: correct gem/dupe rate

manavortex · September 2016

I've been subbed since launch on PC. When the game went B2P, I kept my ESO+ and have bought hundreds of extra dollars in crowns, not only because I like collectibles, but because I love the game and want to support it. Locking the collectibles behind gambling crates and forcing us to pay for a chance to get the item we want instead of a set price for a set item is a sleazy move. I'm interpreting it as a bag-over-the-head punch-to-the-face betrayal.

Same here - I've been subbed on two accounts, and I've just unsubbed both of them over this.
Gina, thank you for giving us feedback here, but that doesn't make me feel any better about the situation. I've always gladly paid for cosmetics at ESO and renewed my sub, because I felt that ESO was a great game and ZOS deserved the money for giving me such a good time. Now, I'm not so sure anymore.

So please ZOS, reconsider. Let us continue to buy the collectibles outright for a set price. It's absurd that we're having to come here to beg you to take our money in an honest way, but that is the position you've put us in.

I can just sign that statement.

KriHavok · September 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I understand that the rarest Crown Crate exclusive items will be cycled out "every quarter or so", but there are people that may purchase Crown Crates more casually than these hardcore collectors people are talking about. So, I believe it would be fairer if instead of cycling out the items, they are left in their own "category" within the Crown Store.

For example, at the moment with PTS testing, the current only "category" seems to be the 'Storm Atronach Crates', as labelled in the Crown Store and Crown Crates UI. But I think it would be better if that "category" is left on the Crown Store, and not cycled out whilst other "categories" are eventually introduced, so a player would have a selection of Crown Crates to choose from, depending on what rare Crown Crate exclusives they fancy.

This should solve the problem for collectors, where they would now have more time to complete their collections, as RNG isn't always the most cooperative thing in the world, and can instead collect without worrying about how long left they have. It should also promote variety and choice for your customers when it comes down to which Crown Crates they would like to buy. In addition, it will give the casual player more time to build up their amounts of Crown Gems, especially if they would prefer having all the 'Storm Atronach Mounts' instead of alternative Apex Rewards from future Crown Crates, as this will obviously take a lot of time and money, and people generally feel more comfortable putting in the odd amount of money down from time-to-time in contrast to putting it in all at once.

VerboseQuips · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:
[...]
We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

Thank you ! This is a step in the good direction, as this will allow to assess a upper bound to the ammount of real money to grant access to a desired collectible.

I am now waiting to know this maximal ammount before judging the crate system.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

[...]

Just make sure the new recipes/ingredients are at least on par with (or preferably better than) Crown Crates, otherwise you'll have a legitimate uproar from the competitive players. They are already very cautious about it, I see, and I guess it is understandable since the Crates have broken the trust of many.

At least, the lines are moving. I am happy to see that we aren't going completely unheard. Still not completely reassured, but I am one step further from quitting than I was this morning. Which makes me, somehow, cautiously happy.

silvereyes · September 2016

VerboseQuips wrote: »

Just make sure the new recipes/ingredients are at least on par with (or preferably better than) Crown Crates

The game shouldn't have new, more powerful recipes/ingredients at all. We don't need another source of power creep, especially not when the whole justification is just to provide a bigger carrot for the universally despised gamble boxes.

Introducing a new recipe that is more powerful than everything else that can be crafted will do one of the following:

Scenario 1: the new recipe's crafted consumables are affordable

The current crown pots / food / drinks are worthless to most because they aren't the best. Crafted consumables are. Using crown consumables is effectively gimping yourself.

So what happens if a new recipe is invented that average players can afford either the mats or the crafted results of? It just moves the definition of what's best to a different recipe.

As long as ZOS is committed to crafted consumables being better than crown store consumables, nerfs or buffs to either side of the inequality won't change the essential catch 22 they are stuck in.

Scenario 2: the new recipe's crafted consumables are not affordable

This is the more cynical example. If the ingredients include something like Perfect Roe or some other rare drop, that isn't something people will actually use.

In this scenario, ZOS can claim that there is technically something crafted that is better than the crown store, but it is so expensive in game that most people can't or won't use.

This is simply smoke and mirrors to allow ZOS to change the de facto inequality "crafted > crown store". It will not be a satisfying resolution. It is dishonest, and another step down the slippery slope towards P2W that everyone is up in arms about.

Recremen · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

While we were expecting changes on this, the preceding bullet points are completely inadequate.

For one thing, let's talk about these increased drop rates for higher-tiered items. Maybe not everyone knows, but all increased drop rates do is ensure that somewhat fewer customers wind up with nothing of value. You are still all but guaranteeing that some customers simply won't get what they are trying to buy, no matter how much they spend. It is a mathematical fact. With the sample size of the ESO playerbase, I can guarun-dang-tee that you are leaving some paying customers completely out, even if they're buying 50 boxes, 100 boxes, or more. The system is literally designed to do that. We don't want ZOS to become a company that intends for some players to spend money and get nothing out of it.

As a caveat to the above, trading in the useless consumables for gems technically guarantees that you will be able to buy the items you want, but only if you have close to immeasurable disposable income to work with. That means that your average customer is STILL stuck with somewhere in the typical distribution of probability, and that you are therefore once again leaving them out, even though they are paying customers.

Next, we don't want another Perfect Roe situation. Giving better-quality consumables on the Crown Store and implementing a difficult-to-grind, extremely expensive in-game alternative is not cool. If these "new recipes" become the standard to run, and if players have a difficult time getting them in-game, then you are skirting close to, and probably passing, the pay-to-win threshold. You've stated repeatedly that you don't want to do that, I believe you, and I'm letting you know that such a change would land us in that kind of situation. Perfect Roe and XP pots are not really crossing the line, I feel, because XP only gets you to max level and max CP. It does nothing for you once you're playing with the big kids, and as such I don't see it as a pay-to-win feature. So please, don't cross that line.

In all, even with these changes, nothing about the bad core experience of the gambling boxes is going away. The Crown Store has always had two big let-downs:

Items get take off the listing, even though they are digital goods and there is no actual supply-side shortage.
Instead of having a dollar value in real-world currency, you use Crowns, a nonrefundable fiat currency with no intrinsic value.

These were at least tolerable, because in the first case the goods did sometimes return so that new players could buy them, and in the second case we at least "owned" the goods once we purchased them (in as much as we "own" any of the digital goods, which if I recall are technically a service via the TOS). Now, though, we have worse versions of the preceding points and a whole new mess of problems.

Gambling boxes are "seasonal", which sounds like they will be taken off the store at some point, along with the content inside them.
We now have a SECOND nonrefundable fiat currency in the form of Crown Gems, except it's even worse because they are doled out in completely random amounts on a random schedule, and are "bought" exclusively with the FIRST nonrefundable fiat currency. That's two layers of intentionally-designed value loss. It's like buying a gift card, then using that gift card to buy as second, random set of gift cards, then using those to buy actual products, except you can't ever actually use up the full amount on either version of gift cards and just lose out on the balance of value invested.
Gambling boxes give random rewards, which is absolutely bogus because we want specific items.
Can't refund excess gambling boxes after you get everything you wanted from that season.
Gambling boxes never actually guarantee that you'll get the item you're going for, no matter how much you spend on them. Again, that's an irrefutable mathematical fact. You did this on purpose. This sends the message that you are becoming a company that is OK with people spending money on products and then not getting anything of value out of it. Completely shameful.

If you're really dead set on adding this unwanted, exploitative gambling service, then you need to do a lot more to make it less of an ethical massacre. For one thing, you could offer the "Exclusive Themed Mounts" at a set price (obviously higher than even the other high-quality mounts like the Dro-m'Athra Senche). This lets people who don't want to gamble actually buy the things they like (making a legitimate form of bank along the way), while still letting you make illegitimate bank exploiting poorer users who don't understand lotteries, or who are willing to take the risk. Like bargaining with a crocodile to only tear off and eat one of your legs. When it comes down to it, though, I hope you scrap the whole project instead of continuing to try to make it work, or more appealing. It's just a dreadful concept through and through.

Let's not forget that these gambling boxes also keep ZOS from conducting quality market research. When rewards are doled out at random, there's no way to tell what people actually wanted to purchase. How, then, are you going to know what kinds of new items to make? If everyone's getting, say, the belly-dancer veil, but doesn't actually want it, what is the creative/art team going to do? How will they know if people do or don't actually want more items like that?

jedtb16_ESO · September 2016

Recremen wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

While we were expecting changes on this, the preceding bullet points are completely inadequate.

For one thing, let's talk about these increased drop rates for higher-tiered items. Maybe not everyone knows, but all increased drop rates do is ensure that somewhat fewer customers wind up with nothing of value. You are still all but guaranteeing that some customers simply won't get what they are trying to buy, no matter how much they spend. It is a mathematical fact. With the sample size of the ESO playerbase, I can guarun-dang-tee that you are leaving some paying customers completely out, even if they're buying 50 boxes, 100 boxes, or more. The system is literally designed to do that. We don't want ZOS to become a company that intends for some players to spend money and get nothing out of it.

As a caveat to the above, trading in the useless consumables for gems technically guarantees that you will be able to buy the items you want, but only if you have close to immeasurable disposable income to work with. That means that your average customer is STILL stuck with somewhere in the typical distribution of probability, and that you are therefore once again leaving them out, even though they are paying customers.

Next, we don't want another Perfect Roe situation. Giving better-quality consumables on the Crown Store and implementing a difficult-to-grind, extremely expensive in-game alternative is not cool. If these "new recipes" become the standard to run, and if players have a difficult time getting them in-game, then you are skirting close to, and probably passing, the pay-to-win threshold. You've stated repeatedly that you don't want to do that, I believe you, and I'm letting you know that such a change would land us in that kind of situation. Perfect Roe and XP pots are not really crossing the line, I feel, because XP only gets you to max level and max CP. It does nothing for you once you're playing with the big kids, and as such I don't see it as a pay-to-win feature. So please, don't cross that line.

In all, even with these changes, nothing about the bad core experience of the gambling boxes is going away. The Crown Store has always had two big let-downs:
Items get take off the listing, even though they are digital goods and there is no actual supply-side shortage.

Instead of having a dollar value in real-world currency, you use Crowns, a nonrefundable fiat currency with no intrinsic value.

These were at least tolerable, because in the first case the goods did sometimes return so that new players could buy them, and in the second case we at least "owned" the goods once we purchased them (in as much as we "own" any of the digital goods, which if I recall are technically a service via the TOS). Now, though, we have worse versions of the preceding points and a whole new mess of problems.
Gambling boxes are "seasonal", which sounds like they will be taken off the store at some point, along with the content inside them.

We now have a SECOND nonrefundable fiat currency in the form of Crown Gems, except it's even worse because they are doled out in completely random amounts on a random schedule, and are "bought" exclusively with the FIRST nonrefundable fiat currency. That's two layers of intentionally-designed value loss. It's like buying a gift card, then using that gift card to buy as second, random set of gift cards, then using those to buy actual products, except you can't ever actually use up the full amount on either version of gift cards and just lose out on the balance of value invested.

Gambling boxes give random rewards, which is absolutely bogus because we want specific items.

Can't refund excess gambling boxes after you get everything you wanted from that season.

Gambling boxes never actually guarantee that you'll get the item you're going for, no matter how much you spend on them. Again, that's an irrefutable mathematical fact. You did this on purpose. This sends the message that you are becoming a company that is OK with people spending money on products and then not getting anything of value out of it. Completely shameful.

If you're really dead set on adding this unwanted, exploitative gambling service, then you need to do a lot more to make it less of an ethical massacre. For one thing, you could offer the "Exclusive Themed Mounts" at a set price (obviously higher than even the other high-quality mounts like the Dro-m'Athra Senche). This lets people who don't want to gamble actually buy the things they like (making a legitimate form of bank along the way), while still letting you make illegitimate bank exploiting poorer users who don't understand lotteries, or who are willing to take the risk. Like bargaining with a crocodile to only tear off and eat one of your legs. When it comes down to it, though, I hope you scrap the whole project instead of continuing to try to make it work, or more appealing. It's just a dreadful concept through and through.

Let's not forget that these gambling boxes also keep ZOS from conducting quality market research. When rewards are doled out at random, there's no way to tell what people actually wanted to purchase. How, then, are you going to know what kinds of new items to make? If everyone's getting, say, the belly-dancer veil, but doesn't actually want it, what is the creative/art team going to do? How will they know if people do or don't actually want more items like that?

take no notice of this zos.....

we do want another perfect roe situation.

i made millions from that and the recipe..... do it again

Recremen · September 2016

Preyfar wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

The ability to convert unwanted consumables to gems is good!

What I'd like to see:
Crown Offsets - Crown conversions at 50% of the item's value. If we're getting better items, and can convert them to crowns, this should offset the risk and allow us to ACTUALLY get the things we want.

Rare Consumables - No consumables in place of collectables (e.g. XP scrolls should not replace a collectable if it drops). Rare consumables should drop, and include things like character re-customization. Make it worth the risk.

Fun/Interesting Drops - If you're going to have consumables why not have some fun ones? Go with the concept of Alteration magic and allow polymorph potions which can which can turn you into various NPCs (Essence of Razum-Dar) for X minutes. This won't interfere with crafters and can offer up something unique. Or perhaps a dye that turns whatever weapon you have equipped into a certain color (based on available ingots in the game).

I'm not against consumables, but I do want them to be interesting. But I also don't want the crates to compete with crafters in game. Something unique, but fun can be done that makes the crates have a value OTHER than just the mounts.

"Essence of Razum-Dar" sounds like just the thing for all the thirsty fanboys/girls our there! What's a more gender-neutral form a "fan-gender", btw? Fanfolk?

Recremen · September 2016

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

While we were expecting changes on this, the preceding bullet points are completely inadequate.

For one thing, let's talk about these increased drop rates for higher-tiered items. Maybe not everyone knows, but all increased drop rates do is ensure that somewhat fewer customers wind up with nothing of value. You are still all but guaranteeing that some customers simply won't get what they are trying to buy, no matter how much they spend. It is a mathematical fact. With the sample size of the ESO playerbase, I can guarun-dang-tee that you are leaving some paying customers completely out, even if they're buying 50 boxes, 100 boxes, or more. The system is literally designed to do that. We don't want ZOS to become a company that intends for some players to spend money and get nothing out of it.

As a caveat to the above, trading in the useless consumables for gems technically guarantees that you will be able to buy the items you want, but only if you have close to immeasurable disposable income to work with. That means that your average customer is STILL stuck with somewhere in the typical distribution of probability, and that you are therefore once again leaving them out, even though they are paying customers.

Next, we don't want another Perfect Roe situation. Giving better-quality consumables on the Crown Store and implementing a difficult-to-grind, extremely expensive in-game alternative is not cool. If these "new recipes" become the standard to run, and if players have a difficult time getting them in-game, then you are skirting close to, and probably passing, the pay-to-win threshold. You've stated repeatedly that you don't want to do that, I believe you, and I'm letting you know that such a change would land us in that kind of situation. Perfect Roe and XP pots are not really crossing the line, I feel, because XP only gets you to max level and max CP. It does nothing for you once you're playing with the big kids, and as such I don't see it as a pay-to-win feature. So please, don't cross that line.

In all, even with these changes, nothing about the bad core experience of the gambling boxes is going away. The Crown Store has always had two big let-downs:
Items get take off the listing, even though they are digital goods and there is no actual supply-side shortage.

Instead of having a dollar value in real-world currency, you use Crowns, a nonrefundable fiat currency with no intrinsic value.

These were at least tolerable, because in the first case the goods did sometimes return so that new players could buy them, and in the second case we at least "owned" the goods once we purchased them (in as much as we "own" any of the digital goods, which if I recall are technically a service via the TOS). Now, though, we have worse versions of the preceding points and a whole new mess of problems.
Gambling boxes are "seasonal", which sounds like they will be taken off the store at some point, along with the content inside them.

We now have a SECOND nonrefundable fiat currency in the form of Crown Gems, except it's even worse because they are doled out in completely random amounts on a random schedule, and are "bought" exclusively with the FIRST nonrefundable fiat currency. That's two layers of intentionally-designed value loss. It's like buying a gift card, then using that gift card to buy as second, random set of gift cards, then using those to buy actual products, except you can't ever actually use up the full amount on either version of gift cards and just lose out on the balance of value invested.

Gambling boxes give random rewards, which is absolutely bogus because we want specific items.

Can't refund excess gambling boxes after you get everything you wanted from that season.

Gambling boxes never actually guarantee that you'll get the item you're going for, no matter how much you spend on them. Again, that's an irrefutable mathematical fact. You did this on purpose. This sends the message that you are becoming a company that is OK with people spending money on products and then not getting anything of value out of it. Completely shameful.

If you're really dead set on adding this unwanted, exploitative gambling service, then you need to do a lot more to make it less of an ethical massacre. For one thing, you could offer the "Exclusive Themed Mounts" at a set price (obviously higher than even the other high-quality mounts like the Dro-m'Athra Senche). This lets people who don't want to gamble actually buy the things they like (making a legitimate form of bank along the way), while still letting you make illegitimate bank exploiting poorer users who don't understand lotteries, or who are willing to take the risk. Like bargaining with a crocodile to only tear off and eat one of your legs. When it comes down to it, though, I hope you scrap the whole project instead of continuing to try to make it work, or more appealing. It's just a dreadful concept through and through.

Let's not forget that these gambling boxes also keep ZOS from conducting quality market research. When rewards are doled out at random, there's no way to tell what people actually wanted to purchase. How, then, are you going to know what kinds of new items to make? If everyone's getting, say, the belly-dancer veil, but doesn't actually want it, what is the creative/art team going to do? How will they know if people do or don't actually want more items like that?

take no notice of this zos.....

we do want another perfect roe situation.

i made millions from that and the recipe..... do it again

Could you be any more petulant? There's a little bit more to that post than just a statement about Perfect Roe that you disagree with. Also, why would you want an actual pay-to-win item in the Crown Store?

silvereyes · September 2016

Recremen wrote: »

Could you be any more petulant? There's a little bit more to that post than just a statement about Perfect Roe that you disagree with. Also, why would you want an actual pay-to-win item in the Crown Store?

Please don't feed the trolls.

Edit: your original post was brilliant, btw. I don't want to detract from it by starting a fight.

jedtb16_ESO · September 2016

Recremen wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

While we were expecting changes on this, the preceding bullet points are completely inadequate.

For one thing, let's talk about these increased drop rates for higher-tiered items. Maybe not everyone knows, but all increased drop rates do is ensure that somewhat fewer customers wind up with nothing of value. You are still all but guaranteeing that some customers simply won't get what they are trying to buy, no matter how much they spend. It is a mathematical fact. With the sample size of the ESO playerbase, I can guarun-dang-tee that you are leaving some paying customers completely out, even if they're buying 50 boxes, 100 boxes, or more. The system is literally designed to do that. We don't want ZOS to become a company that intends for some players to spend money and get nothing out of it.

As a caveat to the above, trading in the useless consumables for gems technically guarantees that you will be able to buy the items you want, but only if you have close to immeasurable disposable income to work with. That means that your average customer is STILL stuck with somewhere in the typical distribution of probability, and that you are therefore once again leaving them out, even though they are paying customers.

Next, we don't want another Perfect Roe situation. Giving better-quality consumables on the Crown Store and implementing a difficult-to-grind, extremely expensive in-game alternative is not cool. If these "new recipes" become the standard to run, and if players have a difficult time getting them in-game, then you are skirting close to, and probably passing, the pay-to-win threshold. You've stated repeatedly that you don't want to do that, I believe you, and I'm letting you know that such a change would land us in that kind of situation. Perfect Roe and XP pots are not really crossing the line, I feel, because XP only gets you to max level and max CP. It does nothing for you once you're playing with the big kids, and as such I don't see it as a pay-to-win feature. So please, don't cross that line.

In all, even with these changes, nothing about the bad core experience of the gambling boxes is going away. The Crown Store has always had two big let-downs:
Items get take off the listing, even though they are digital goods and there is no actual supply-side shortage.

Instead of having a dollar value in real-world currency, you use Crowns, a nonrefundable fiat currency with no intrinsic value.

These were at least tolerable, because in the first case the goods did sometimes return so that new players could buy them, and in the second case we at least "owned" the goods once we purchased them (in as much as we "own" any of the digital goods, which if I recall are technically a service via the TOS). Now, though, we have worse versions of the preceding points and a whole new mess of problems.
Gambling boxes are "seasonal", which sounds like they will be taken off the store at some point, along with the content inside them.

We now have a SECOND nonrefundable fiat currency in the form of Crown Gems, except it's even worse because they are doled out in completely random amounts on a random schedule, and are "bought" exclusively with the FIRST nonrefundable fiat currency. That's two layers of intentionally-designed value loss. It's like buying a gift card, then using that gift card to buy as second, random set of gift cards, then using those to buy actual products, except you can't ever actually use up the full amount on either version of gift cards and just lose out on the balance of value invested.

Gambling boxes give random rewards, which is absolutely bogus because we want specific items.

Can't refund excess gambling boxes after you get everything you wanted from that season.

Gambling boxes never actually guarantee that you'll get the item you're going for, no matter how much you spend on them. Again, that's an irrefutable mathematical fact. You did this on purpose. This sends the message that you are becoming a company that is OK with people spending money on products and then not getting anything of value out of it. Completely shameful.

If you're really dead set on adding this unwanted, exploitative gambling service, then you need to do a lot more to make it less of an ethical massacre. For one thing, you could offer the "Exclusive Themed Mounts" at a set price (obviously higher than even the other high-quality mounts like the Dro-m'Athra Senche). This lets people who don't want to gamble actually buy the things they like (making a legitimate form of bank along the way), while still letting you make illegitimate bank exploiting poorer users who don't understand lotteries, or who are willing to take the risk. Like bargaining with a crocodile to only tear off and eat one of your legs. When it comes down to it, though, I hope you scrap the whole project instead of continuing to try to make it work, or more appealing. It's just a dreadful concept through and through.

Let's not forget that these gambling boxes also keep ZOS from conducting quality market research. When rewards are doled out at random, there's no way to tell what people actually wanted to purchase. How, then, are you going to know what kinds of new items to make? If everyone's getting, say, the belly-dancer veil, but doesn't actually want it, what is the creative/art team going to do? How will they know if people do or don't actually want more items like that?

take no notice of this zos.....

we do want another perfect roe situation.

i made millions from that and the recipe..... do it again

Could you be any more petulant? There's a little bit more to that post than just a statement about Perfect Roe that you disagree with. Also, why would you want an actual pay-to-win item in the Crown Store?

i wasn't asking for it in the crown store....

perfect roe was brilliant. made stacks of gold from that and the ambrosia recipe. i think more things like that in game would be a good idea.

Recremen · September 2016

silvereyes wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Could you be any more petulant? There's a little bit more to that post than just a statement about Perfect Roe that you disagree with. Also, why would you want an actual pay-to-win item in the Crown Store?

Please don't feed the trolls.

Edit: your original post was brilliant, btw. I don't want to detract from it by starting a fight.

You make a good point, thanks.

jeevin · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
Completely remove Crown Crates from the game and never again consider them as a viable form of milking our players
We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

Fixed

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO · September 2016

May I suggest that you put in a change in the code so all cosmetic items, fit the character opening the box?

So will only get cosmetics that actually works on a human female if you use a human female char to open the box as well as only things that fit an argonian male if you are on an argonian male when you open the box.

That way people can make sure themselves that they don't get things they can never use.

nimander99 · September 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

This is the obligatory "Oh, they listened! Now I love Crown Crates! Yippie!" post.

JimT722 · September 2016

Please ZOS, reconsider this course of action. You were doing so well, I thought you handled the dropping of the subscription so well. When it seems that your on a mission to see how far you can exploit the community it doesn't matter how fun the game is and puts doubt on our continued presence in Tamriel.

Just sell the items on the store

MissBizz · September 2016

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO wrote: »

May I suggest that you put in a change in the code so all cosmetic items, fit the character opening the box?

So will only get cosmetics that actually works on a human female if you use a human female char to open the box as well as only things that fit an argonian male if you are on an argonian male when you open the box.

That way people can make sure themselves that they don't get things they can never use.

This would be VERY appreciated. I do not have, and NEVER will have an argoanian (sorry robot lizards). I don't want their hair or fins or whatever that weird stuff is.

nimander99 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

This is the obligatory "Oh, they listened! Now I love Crown Crates! Yippie!" post.

@nimander99 Don't do that. They might think you are serious

WhiteCoatSyndrome · September 2016

Preyfar wrote: »

Fun/Interesting Drops - If you're going to have consumables why not have some fun ones? Go with the concept of Alteration magic and allow polymorph potions which can which can turn you into various NPCs (Essence of Razum-Dar) for X minutes. This won't interfere with crafters and can offer up something unique.

Now, this? This is the kind of consumable I would have thought they'd put in the Crown Store in the first place, instead of health restoring potions and the like. Maybe they could also add something like fireworks--kindlepitch is a thing and so is illusion magic, fountains of sparkles or explosions or brightly colored lights - set in place and single use only - should be doable. Or a big illusion of the faction flags - use it for roleplaying or throw it up on the walls of a keep to tell your side you've broken down a wall. Potions to make you transparent like a ghost! Or a scroll to make an NPC turn green. Or turn their clothes into moths. Fun, but non-combat stuff.

Recremen · September 2016

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, here’s where we are with Crown Crates:

We put systems on the PTS for player feedback for a reason – we have sifted (and continue to analyze) your feedback on Crown Crates, and as such, we’re going to make at least the following changes to the system before it goes live later this year:
We are working to change the way the system works to ensure that you get higher tiered items more often.

We will allow you to convert unwanted Crown Crate consumables into Crown Gems. This way, you won’t be stuck with consumables you may not want, and you will also have more Gems to purchase the items that you do want.

We will also take another look at Crown Crate potions, food, XP scrolls, etc. with an eye towards boosting their effectiveness and/or duration. This may entail us adding new recipes to allow crafters to make similar items.

We may well find other changes we want to make as well, and will let everyone know what we have done when this initial round of changes are in and can test them internally.

While we were expecting changes on this, the preceding bullet points are completely inadequate.

For one thing, let's talk about these increased drop rates for higher-tiered items. Maybe not everyone knows, but all increased drop rates do is ensure that somewhat fewer customers wind up with nothing of value. You are still all but guaranteeing that some customers simply won't get what they are trying to buy, no matter how much they spend. It is a mathematical fact. With the sample size of the ESO playerbase, I can guarun-dang-tee that you are leaving some paying customers completely out, even if they're buying 50 boxes, 100 boxes, or more. The system is literally designed to do that. We don't want ZOS to become a company that intends for some players to spend money and get nothing out of it.

As a caveat to the above, trading in the useless consumables for gems technically guarantees that you will be able to buy the items you want, but only if you have close to immeasurable disposable income to work with. That means that your average customer is STILL stuck with somewhere in the typical distribution of probability, and that you are therefore once again leaving them out, even though they are paying customers.

Next, we don't want another Perfect Roe situation. Giving better-quality consumables on the Crown Store and implementing a difficult-to-grind, extremely expensive in-game alternative is not cool. If these "new recipes" become the standard to run, and if players have a difficult time getting them in-game, then you are skirting close to, and probably passing, the pay-to-win threshold. You've stated repeatedly that you don't want to do that, I believe you, and I'm letting you know that such a change would land us in that kind of situation. Perfect Roe and XP pots are not really crossing the line, I feel, because XP only gets you to max level and max CP. It does nothing for you once you're playing with the big kids, and as such I don't see it as a pay-to-win feature. So please, don't cross that line.

In all, even with these changes, nothing about the bad core experience of the gambling boxes is going away. The Crown Store has always had two big let-downs:
Items get take off the listing, even though they are digital goods and there is no actual supply-side shortage.

Instead of having a dollar value in real-world currency, you use Crowns, a nonrefundable fiat currency with no intrinsic value.

These were at least tolerable, because in the first case the goods did sometimes return so that new players could buy them, and in the second case we at least "owned" the goods once we purchased them (in as much as we "own" any of the digital goods, which if I recall are technically a service via the TOS). Now, though, we have worse versions of the preceding points and a whole new mess of problems.
Gambling boxes are "seasonal", which sounds like they will be taken off the store at some point, along with the content inside them.

We now have a SECOND nonrefundable fiat currency in the form of Crown Gems, except it's even worse because they are doled out in completely random amounts on a random schedule, and are "bought" exclusively with the FIRST nonrefundable fiat currency. That's two layers of intentionally-designed value loss. It's like buying a gift card, then using that gift card to buy as second, random set of gift cards, then using those to buy actual products, except you can't ever actually use up the full amount on either version of gift cards and just lose out on the balance of value invested.

Gambling boxes give random rewards, which is absolutely bogus because we want specific items.

Can't refund excess gambling boxes after you get everything you wanted from that season.

Gambling boxes never actually guarantee that you'll get the item you're going for, no matter how much you spend on them. Again, that's an irrefutable mathematical fact. You did this on purpose. This sends the message that you are becoming a company that is OK with people spending money on products and then not getting anything of value out of it. Completely shameful.

If you're really dead set on adding this unwanted, exploitative gambling service, then you need to do a lot more to make it less of an ethical massacre. For one thing, you could offer the "Exclusive Themed Mounts" at a set price (obviously higher than even the other high-quality mounts like the Dro-m'Athra Senche). This lets people who don't want to gamble actually buy the things they like (making a legitimate form of bank along the way), while still letting you make illegitimate bank exploiting poorer users who don't understand lotteries, or who are willing to take the risk. Like bargaining with a crocodile to only tear off and eat one of your legs. When it comes down to it, though, I hope you scrap the whole project instead of continuing to try to make it work, or more appealing. It's just a dreadful concept through and through.

Let's not forget that these gambling boxes also keep ZOS from conducting quality market research. When rewards are doled out at random, there's no way to tell what people actually wanted to purchase. How, then, are you going to know what kinds of new items to make? If everyone's getting, say, the belly-dancer veil, but doesn't actually want it, what is the creative/art team going to do? How will they know if people do or don't actually want more items like that?

take no notice of this zos.....

we do want another perfect roe situation.

i made millions from that and the recipe..... do it again

Could you be any more petulant? There's a little bit more to that post than just a statement about Perfect Roe that you disagree with. Also, why would you want an actual pay-to-win item in the Crown Store?

i wasn't asking for it in the crown store....

perfect roe was brilliant. made stacks of gold from that and the ambrosia recipe. i think more things like that in game would be a good idea.

Ah, I gotcha. You should have read the whole comment, then, as I was specifically talking about XP pots and the Crown Store alternative in the form of XP Scrolls. I even mentioned how XP Scrolls/Perfect Roe are unique in that it is not a pay-to-win item, whereas a similar item for end-game potions would be pay-to-win territory if an alternative was put on the Crown Store and the in-game ingredient was as hard to acquire as Perfect Roe. That is why I said we don't want another Perfect Roe, specifically in the context of end-game potions with Crown Store alternatives. Hopefully that clarifies your confusion.