Official Discussion Thread for Crown Crates

insignismemoria

Here is a spreadsheet for crowdsourcing the crate drop rates.

You can right-click your row and protect it so no one else can accidentally edit it.

So far all the data from this thread is in it, except the one that had absurd outliers (50 xp scrolls?).

Have at it, my friends.

silvereyes

Oh, and I should also mention that I bought the dro'mathra senche limited time mount for the ridiculous price it was listed at. 3 times (I have 2 test accounts). But these crown crates are such a bad deal, I would never throw any money at them.

Give us expensive limited time mounts that are awesome, I will happily buy. But the crown crates as they currently are, no way.

Abeille

insignismemoria wrote: »

Here is a spreadsheet for crowdsourcing the crate drop rates.

You can right-click your row and protect it so no one else can accidentally edit it.

So far all the data from this thread is in it, except the one that had absurd outliers (50 xp scrolls?).

Have at it, my friends.

Great, put my results in there already.

newtinmpls

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Crown Crates. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you like/use the consumables you received from the Crown Crates?
• Do you have any general feedback?

General Feedback.

Disclaimer: I have not tried them.

The RNG in this game... well let me put it this way, I play pretty much an hour or so daily, with ridiculous obsession on weekends (I have my spouse who plays with me, and we also group with a couple we know in another state). We all sub (my hubby and I have 2 accounts each) and have played since a couple months after PC launch.

I have NEVER found any ancient orc or trinimac motifs

I have NEVER gotten a glass motif fragment (not even one) in any of my reward packages.

In my entire career of searching for Nirn I am up to 7 (counting both kinds) and Perfect Roe, about 6 (I think. Might be 5).

The idea that I would not simply equate paying 400 crowns for a crate to throwing 400 crowns away....is silly. and Unrealistic at best.

Joy_Division

These are way too expensive and ZoS should feel ashamed at ripping off its best and most loyal customers (as they will be the ones buying these, I most certainly will not be).

Danikat

insignismemoria wrote: »

Here is a spreadsheet for crowdsourcing the crate drop rates.

You can right-click your row and protect it so no one else can accidentally edit it.

So far all the data from this thread is in it, except the one that had absurd outliers (50 xp scrolls?).

Have at it, my friends.

Good idea. I've added my data from the first day, I'll update it tomorrow when I open more crates.

Incidentally I'm recording drop rates in a slightly different format (recording every item separately and packs of 5 as 1 drop) in this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/292572/crown-crate-drop-rate-research-help-needed

I'm especially interested in how the different cosmetics compare to each other, whether some are rarer than others and if so how much rarer. But I don't have enough data for it to be accurate yet.

GreatWhite000

I got 3 crates and ended up with a daedric scamp pet that I already have, a riding speed lesson, and some useless potions. Definitely not worth the money and the gems thing is a joke given how stupidly expensive everything is.

Beanie9122

Did you like/use the consumables you received from the Crown Crates?
Nope, to be quite honest, most players have access to provisioning and alchemy much better than the crown store alternatives. After I was done opening crates I had almost a full inventory of crown consumables and not much else, save for a hat, a dupe of an Argonian hairstyle , a scamp and a dog.

Do you have any general feedback?
First up, praise where praise is due.
The rarer mount rewards are certainly something design wise. I've seen folk riding around on the storm-atro themed mounts and they're very fancy indeed, worthy of being apex level rewards. I'm also quite fond of the red wolf mount, because it's cute, and I was hoping that would get released into the crown store ever since I saw it in the gold coast.

BUT

Even though I love the aesthetics of these new mounts, currently I wouldn't even consider spending a single pound on these crates for several reasons.

1. The rarer rewards are almost impossible to get, either through RNG or these 'Crown Gems'. Looking at the Drop Rate research thread and the results being collected there, the chance of finding one in is ridiculously tiny. Now, I've no problem with RNG, but considering you're paying real money for these crates, I think that the rare items should be at a fairer drop rate if the price is going to stay the same. Also the conversion rate of crown gems is just stupid. As mentioned in other posts and discussions, getting any of the rare rewards through the use of these gems is almost impossible unless you spend a ridiculous amount of cash, leading me onto my next point...

2. The cost in comparison to the reward is hugely skewed in you're favor. Yes it's RNG. Yes you need to make a profit. Yes, people will still buy these crates. But at the end of the day it's a larger part of the community that are going to miss out, as casual players and people on a lower income (including myself) simply cannot or do not want to risk spending that amount of money on crates that just drop completely redundant consumables. 400 crowns would be more acceptable, if all you were getting was mounts, pets and costumes/accessories, but 400 crowns for a glorified crown supply crate is just down right unacceptable.

3. It has been mentioned, but at the current price and with the current drop rate/gem conversion rate, this really does feel like a way of straight up exploiting people. Some of the mounts in the past have cost a lot of money, but at least you know what you're getting, and then can immediately regret spending the last £20 in your bank account on a magical glowing kitty mount that pops out of the floor. These crates don't even guarantee at least one item of a specific rarity, which is pretty standard across any game with this kind of service; and to be quite honest I don't know what you would consider a 'rare' item to be as the classification system is not very clear.

4. Crown Consumables. Useless, pointless, redundant.

Rosveen

Here's what I got:

consumables

• potions x25 (125 in total)
• poisons x2 (50 in total)
• refreshing drink
• fortifying meal x3
• repair kit x3
• mimic stone x2
• crown XP scroll
• crown lesson: riding speed

wardrobe

• costume x6 (one duplicate)
• hat x2
• hair/face x5 (two duplicates)

other

• memento (storm atronach aura)

Out of 13 crates, all but one included 3 consumable cards + 1 other. Out of fourteen "other" cards, three were duplicates. Two items were of epic quality. Four were Argonian-exclusive, I guess it's a good thing I have three Argonians...

The only thing I actually want out of these crates is the Red Pit Wolf (but I wouldn't scoff at the Mind-Shriven Horse, I regret not buying it when it was first available last year). I'd happily buy it, but I'm not willing to gamble for it.

redspecter23

I opened 5000 crowns worth of crates. I got a few pets and hats and duplicates of those pets and hats. All the non consumable rewards I received were from the first and second tier (chub loon from second tier). I received nothing from the 3rd or 4th tier. My duplicates awarded me 5 crown gems each but the cost to purchase items from that tier is 16 crown gems each. The top tier mounts are 400 gems each meaning if I want a specific one, I may very well be opening hundreds of crates, still not getting the one I want and then having to use the gems from my duplicates to purchase it.

WAY too pricey for my liking. I never bought the crown store consumables before and this is basically a way to make me do that with a very small chance of a cool looking mount. The crown consumables are worse than what I can craft (and rightly so) and as such they are an inventory cluttering worse version of what I normally use that cost me actual money to buy.

On the plus side, I do like that there are 4 separate items in each crate. It gives the illusion that you're getting more for your money and also gives you the impression that you have 4 chances per crate at a rare item.

My guildmates are going to ask my opinion on these crates and I'll be telling them they are a colossal waste of money. If that's your intention then I suppose you hit the mark.

MopeyHat

It appears each crate gives you at least one collectible. That's something.

But looking at the fact that 1/3 of the crown gem "value" is returned for a duplicate, and the price disparity between items, it's clear that these aimed at getting so-called "whales" to dump hundreds of thousands of crowns to get a particular item.

I hate it. Why can't we just spend x, get the item we want? Is ZOS that desperate? Or is it just the ethically challenged execs running you developers into the ground with this nonsense? Who there thinks it's fun for 99% of players to see this business model implemented? You are bringing value to a very, very small set of players with this, and the rest are effed.

Elsonso

Paulington wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Also I thought everything in the Crown Store was supposed to be equal to or worse than what we have in game?

I pointed this out a while ago @MissBizz in a thread that got basically zero attention when this is a massive issue concerning the implementation of Crown Crates because these items are 100% better than what you can craft in-game and so step into the pay-to-win category. You pay money and get something strictly better than what is obtainable in game.

Really don't understand why people aren't more upset about this and why there is no explanation from Zenimax.

ZOS is slowly breeding a new generation of players that want Pay To Win and Free To Play. As ZOS does this, the older generation of players that do not want these things take off for other horizons, leaving behind the players who don't feel that way. New players, who really have no opinion, will just buy these things. In the end, ZOS gets what they want: A bunch of players who are happy with the Crown Store and willing to participate in it. If they do it right, they can breed them to not care what they do to the game, so long as the Crown Store is kept fresh.

TipsyDrow

Crown crates are are an unabashed cash grab. Who ever from marketing forced the devs to put this garbage into the game should be fired. These things have no business in this MMO. Starts you down a dark path where there is no return from.

Preyfar

Of the limited testing I can do on PTS, I got 3 mounts and 25 crown gems. I really, REALLY agree that the crown gem drop rate seems low.

Sigtric

The more I think about it, the more I don't like this. I don't need any of the trash potions in these things at all.

But it's ok, I have memes.

rhapsodious

I'm surprised the rates don't seem to be rigged for PTS, at least. A tiny consolation: we'll know how bad the rates are ahead of time. <_< Like for another game I play with people who blow thousands of dollars on it, at least the JP server gets our content a month or two ahead of time so I can see their roll data and decide how much I should spend on trying to get what I want.

But with that game, the "consolation prizes" aren't just... trash. You can usually find a use for something you didn't want, or at the very least sell it for a hunk of cash to buy other stuff with (so, pretty much like crown gems). But with the consumables being as they are here, with no gem value (and zero value whatsoever for most of us endgamers), it's going to make me not even bother. Sorry, fox-wolf buddy. I'd buy you outright in a heartbeat, but I'm not going to gamble for 400 potions and 25 gems.

Elsonso

insignismemoria wrote: »

Here is a spreadsheet for crowdsourcing the crate drop rates.

You can right-click your row and protect it so no one else can accidentally edit it.

So far all the data from this thread is in it, except the one that had absurd outliers (50 xp scrolls?).

Have at it, my friends.

Does it really matter? I mean, I assume you want to do this so you can calculate how many Crowns you will have to spend? ZOS is just going to change those numbers over the first few months.

project-2501-84neb18_ESO

Originally i thought this wasn't a bad idea.. However having tried out the crates the RNG is terrible.
Having bought 10 i got 9 Superior and 1 Legendary.
This will be a good thing to add to the game, but you're going to need to heavily increase the drop rate for the rarest stuff, and i'd also suggest heavily increasing the amount of consumables that you get per drop (eg 10 pots instead of 1, 10 riding skill instead of 1)
I understand this is a way of encouraging players to play the odds and spend crowns every now and again, but if the odds are this bad i can't see anyone thinking about risking it.
I sure won't be spending any crowns on these, no matter how good the rewards are, unless the odds for receiving one item from the rarest category is increased.
One thing that could be added is every time you open a crate you get a 15% increase chance of getting a high tier item.

Also the gems you get for something you already have should be increased, because if you had bad luck with the RNG like i did, not only will you have 9 items from the lowest tier, you'll also get minimal gems for things you do already have.

I can handle a little RNG in games, but when it comes to people spending real money on RNG boxes i'm starting to think it might be a step too far.. A move like this is also suggesting that all of the player housing in the game and or all furniture is going to be cash shop only.
Black Desert Online did this (The only way of getting good furniture is to spend real money in their ridiculously overpriced cash shop.) and BDO is heavily Pay To Win.
Things being added like cash shop only houses / furniture, and RNG lottery boxes sends a pretty bad message to your player base, and even though ESO's cash shop prices aren't too bad, if it gets labelled pay to win it'll heavily impact the sales of the game and how long players stay playing for, as well as making dedicated ESO fans quit the game.

I hope what I've said makes sense, i really like this game and i've been playing since day 1 on ps4, and I'd hate to see it nosedive because people start accusing Zeni of turning the game pay to win...
And yes i do understand that it's really pay for convenience / pay for customisation, but when you're only adding mounts that can only be bought from the cash shop, it seems a bit unfair to take away people's decisions on what they want to spend money on, and force them to spend what i'm guessing could end up being £100> on something they may not even get.

I'll stop ranting now but one last thing i will say is if this does go ahead and hit the live servers it needs to be re-thought..
I'd suggest thinking about alternative systems to help keep it fair as well as heavily increasing the chance a player has to receive higher tier items, such as adding a system where the player can either chose crown gems OR a "Re-Roll" which will guarantee an item of the same or higher tier than the duplicate they received, or being able to chose anything they like from the same tier.
I'd also like to see the amount of "junk" on the rolls, stuff i consider junk are ALL of the Elixrs, repair kits, Invisibility Potions, and probably even the Soul Gems as well.
When someone is paying actual money to buy a lottery box such as this, the feelings the player has when getting items they weren't aiming for should be "oh, cool i can use that" and not ":-/ the hell am i gonna do with this rubbish?" and the feelings players have when actually getting a really cool mount or something they were aiming to get should be "Oh wow that's cool" and not "It's about time, i've just spent a grand total of £X for this bloody thing"

Preyfar

I'm one of those people who are referred to as "whales". I have everything in the Crown Store, and love supporting the game and collecting all the random things. I can do that reasonably enough without breaking the bank, but the more I think about it, the more I feel this is punishing those who actually buy things from the Crown Store. You want to own everything in the crates? It looks like you need to be prepared to spend a few hundred dollars a season.

The current conversion rate is just too low. I'm willing to support ZOS, and I'm willing to invest into the one game I truly enjoy, but... as it is now, this is too limiting. The only person I see purchasing these in bulk are those who have gambling problems.

The only way I'd consider dumping money into these crates is if A] the price of crowns was reduced, B] we got crates free with purchase of crowns or C] the cost of the crates were reduced (e.g. 300 crowns?).

Grumble_and_Grunt

The animation with the deck of cards for the crown crates says it all really. It's even worse than expected. Ridiculous gambling with RL money for basic trash items and 1 potential item for 400 crowns a pop.

Crown store consumables are not in the least bit desirable and therefore not rewarding, the crown gem return for duplicate items is pitiful in comparison to the price of the unique paywall items. It all feels so incredibly exploitative and dirty imo and should not make it into the live game, the price break down in relation to the drop rate is already being spoken about at length and for good reason it is ludicrous. Implementing these crown crates has such a 'Shut up and give me your money' feel about it that even if next PTS update ZOS altered drop rates, I would not take their word for it and would be hesitant on them steadily changing the values once it is live and the fraudulent operation is up and running.

I can appreciate the work put into this, the system and animations are well done, but if these unique items are not available to buy outright with crowns then have boxes as gamble to get them for a cheaper price (Even though it wouldn't be) then I think it will be a bust and the outcry is already visible on the forums that the majority do not even want it implemented into the game, so doing so is such a big F*** your feedback we have a business model and schedule and your feedback is irrelevant so just bite the bullet already and empty your wallets!

The Idea of crown crates is simply pure cheese but the items that people would actually be buying them for are not so, just be gone with this facade and sell the items designed for the crates on the crown store as it is on live, charge whatever you want, people have the choice and guarantee of their purchase, we're here to play a game not play slots on some gimmicky website because that is exactly what it feels like lol.

Recremen

Preyfar wrote: »

I'm one of those people who are referred to as "whales". I have everything in the Crown Store, and love supporting the game and collecting all the random things. I can do that reasonably enough without breaking the bank, but the more I think about it, the more I feel this is punishing those who actually buy things from the Crown Store. You want to own everything in the crates? It looks like you need to be prepared to spend a few hundred dollars a season.

The current conversion rate is just too low. I'm willing to support ZOS, and I'm willing to invest into the one game I truly enjoy, but... as it is now, this is too limiting. The only person I see purchasing these in bulk are those who have gambling problems.

The only way I'd consider dumping money into these crates is if A] the price of crowns was reduced, B] we got crates free with purchase of crowns or C] the cost of the crates were reduced (e.g. 300 crowns?).

I have a thread discussing the actual math behind pure RNG systems. Long story short, it is not actually a matter of spending a few hundred dollars a season. You could spend many thousands of dollars a season and still not get all the mounts, or even the one you want, not even with the crown gem system. That is the most frustrating thing about the gambling system. Many folks, myself included, would be absolutely elated to buy these mounts and other cosmetics for set prices on the normal Crown Store. We are not, however, willing to gamble on them, because we have no way of determining how much to spend on them, given that there's no upper limit to spending. Gambling systems are absolutely incompatible with a good customer experience, and ZOS would be better off selling the items in the way we've come to expect.

Preyfar

Recremen wrote: »

Gambling systems are absolutely incompatible with a good customer experience, and ZOS would be better off selling the items in the way we've come to expect.

The only way I could maybe see it working is if you're also guaranteed to get Crown Store gems with every crate you open. The system right now seems like a punishment.

"Hey, you HATE the Maelstrom grind with a passion, right? Well, you're REALLY going to hate this!"

I get no feeling of reward from this, and no incentive to really want to invest in this.

Tawniey

I'm astoundingly disappointed with the crown crates. I wanted to give the RNG crown boxes the benefit of the doubt-- thinking maybe they would always include one item that's worth around the same as the box itself, maybe a little bit less, but instead I find myself opening 10 boxes in PTS and getting singular mimic stones? Potions I could craft for a few hundred gold? 1/10 riding lessons? Come on....

Mojmir

52% percent of forum go'ers voted against them being in the game in a 109 page thread. I think you have your answer Zo$.

Recremen

Preyfar wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Gambling systems are absolutely incompatible with a good customer experience, and ZOS would be better off selling the items in the way we've come to expect.

The only way I could maybe see it working is if you're also guaranteed to get Crown Store gems with every crate you open. The system right now seems like a punishment.

"Hey, you HATE the Maelstrom grind with a passion, right? Well, you're REALLY going to hate this!"

I get no feeling of reward from this, and no incentive to really want to invest in this.

All duplicate items seem to be worth 5 crown gems right now, based on videos and my own testing. So let's say, even under that system, that it would be 5 guaranteed gems per gambling box purchased. To have enough to get a single atronach mount you'd have to buy up to 80 crates. Now, this is at least as solid upper limit and lets people better negotiate the risk, but goodness gracious that's an expensive mount. And that's just for one! So that's about 320 bucks for a guaranteed single mount. I may make decent money, but even that's out of my price range. Max I was thinking of spending on these, if they were going to be part of the normal Crown Store, was about 100 bucks worth of Crowns. Maybe not too rich for your blood, but that doesn't sound good to me. The fact that in practice it's actually worse since you're not guaranteed gems just boggles the mind.

Drazhar14

Spent my 5200 PTS crowns on crates ($50+). The majority was a bunch of useless inventory items I'll never use, plus a couple outfits and pets I'll never use, and 20 crown gems. Based on that, to get to 400 gems for the only interesting items, I'll need to spend $1000. Yeah, I know the more boxes I open the more duplicates there will be for gems, so that price may drop a little, but still, no, just no. ZOS, please reconsider the prices if you want players to even consider taking interest in this.

Edit: Also, when we preview crates for the item list, it should show the drop chance beside each item. There is no way I'm gambling without knowing my odds.

Lumenn

rhapsodious wrote: »

I'm surprised the rates don't seem to be rigged for PTS, at least. A tiny consolation: we'll know how bad the rates are ahead of time. <_< .

How do you know they aren't? With the number of rng threads for the whole game we know you can run dungeons over, and over, and over, and over. And the rates can be adjusted. I wouldn't guess the rates if this were LIVE from one day to the next, much less on pts.

Slurg

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Crown Crates. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you like/use the consumables you received from the Crown Crates?
• Do you have any general feedback?

Lest my opinions on the matter be discarded because I haven't tried them and therefore don't yet know how much I will love them, I DID get a chance to go on PTS and bought 13 crates with a brand new character. Here are my results, after spending the equivalent of roughly $40 in crowns:

1 experience scroll
1 fortifying meal
1 fortifying drink
10 invisibility pots
4 riding lessons
125 crown poisons
2 repair kits
15 tripots
35 non-tripots
5 mimic stones
1 soul gem
1 spiral hat
2 hair styles specific to different races
1 circlet
1 belly dancer veil
2 battle Mage costumes
1 soul shriven costume
1 khajiit body marking
1 aura and 1 juggle
(I received no mounts or pets of any kind)

I have put a star next to the items I received that I would have purchased in the crown store. There are none. I have master crafters and maxed out mounts. I do buy cosmetic items but none of these are ones I would choose to buy. So no I do not like the ones I received nor would I use them.

I also received 25 crown gems from duplicate costumes. Everything I want to buy with those gems costs at least 40 gems.

I would have spent $40 for literally nothing I would use if I was willing to play this real money card game on the live server.

Can we please go back to you selling items for a fixed price and me choosing which ones to buy now?

NovaShadow

This is as horrible as I expected.

I hope these items aren't just restricted to these boxes. I'm sorry but who in their right mind would pay 400 crowns p/box in the hope they'd get something good.

Those storm mounts require 400 stones, with only 5 p/duplicate you'd need to open 80 DUPLICATE boxes just to have enough stones to buy one outright. That's just wrong. That's 32k crown gems wasted on boxes that give you nothing new, I don't even wanna think how much real money that is.

Please tell me if you get a duplicate that isn't from the lowest tier the amount of stones p/duplicate is higher? If not, this is bad.

PLEASE PLEASE adjust how many stones p/duplicate is rewarded.

I personally won't be buying any of these boxes. I'm going to hold out hope the 4 items I want (storm senche, cloud cub pet, lion mount, wizard hat) will be available for crowns one day and not a RNG crate.

Worst thing ever.

What I got:

COLLECTABLES
"Clever Man" Wizard Hat
Feathered Bycoket Cap
Wrestler's Burr Cut
Azure Brow-to-Temple Circlet
Battlemage Palatine Armor
Evening Dress
Soul-Shriven Armor Outfit
Aurbical Symbols
Enveloping Scales
Storm Atronach Aura
Storm Atronach Camel
Helstrom Ancestor Lizard
Daedric Scamp

JUNK
Crown Create Experience Scroll x2
Crown Create Fortifying Meal x3
Crown Create Fortifying Drink x2
Crown Invisibility Potion x15
Crown Lesson: Riding Capacity x1
Crown Lesson: Riding Speed x1
Crown Lethal Poison x 125
Crown Repair Kit x2
Crown Spellcaster's Elixir x20
Crown Survivor's Elixir x20
Crown Tri-Restoration Potion x10
Crown Warrior's Elixir x25

olsborg

I didnt rly like all the useless consumables that cluttered up my inventory after spending my crowns on these crates, i had tons of useless poisons and potions. Useless imo since I have an alchemist and can craft much better stuff.