Official Discussion Thread for Crown Crates

Dagoth_Rac

There needs to be an upper limit on how much you can possibly spend before you get what you want. Right now, there is practically no upper limit. That will scare people away. 4000 crowns as an upper limit sounds reasonable as I think that is the price of the most expensive mount ever sold. I would suggest that after opening a crate, you could have two options:

1). Yes, I want the items in this crate and I forfeit all my crown gems in the process.
2). No, I do not want this garbage. Just give me 40 crown gems.

So let's say you open 7 crates of garbage. You bypass them and take 40 x 7 = 280 crown gems. On your 8th crown crate, you get an Atronach Mount. You accept the Atronach mount and forfeit your 280 crown gems. You get a lot more crown gems here, but you cannot stockpile them. This forfeit of crown gems is important. It is the reason we are getting so few crown gems from duplicate items. ZOS does not want us to get our desired item and stockpile enough crown gems in the process to nearly have enough to buy a second item. Giving us more crown gems, but making us forfeit them when we obtain what we want via a Crown crate avoids people stockpiling crown gems.

On the other hand, let's say you open 10 crates of garbage. You bypass them and take 40 x 10 = 400 crown gems. Now you just go and buy the Atronach Mount for 400 crown gems.

So you end with the situation where if you are lucky, you can get your desired item cheaply. Maybe you will get it from first crate and only pay 400 crowns for an Atronach mount. Nice! But if you are not lucky, you pay the highest known mount price of 4000 crowns.

The end result of this? You are gonna sell a lot of mounts for 4000 crowns. To people who would never plunk down 4000 crowns at one time for a mount. Everybody thinks they are the special snowflake who will buck the odds and get a fancy mount for 400 crowns. But realistically, they will not. And after 3 or 4 crates of nothing, the sunk costs will likely compel them to just buy the 6 or 7 more crates needed to hit 400 crown gems and buy item outright.

If you are really determined to do gamble boxes, this is the best way to do them. The gamble will be a small chance that you get item a little cheaper and a big chance that you get item a little more pricey. You will not have social media full of horror stories about ESO being that game where people spend $50 or $100 or more and end up with squat.

It is that old saying about bulls making money and bears making money but pigs get slaughtered. Don't be pigs. Don't get greedy. Don't set your sites on a Crown Store that is focused on whales spending 50,000 crowns. The game seems to be doing pretty well. Every zone I go to usually has lots of people running around. Zone chat is always full of people trying to start pledge groups and world boss groups and normal Trials groups. The reputation of the game seems to have turned positive after a rough start. This implementation of Crown Crates on PTS? This is bad. This is going to leave the average player with a bad taste in their mouth. You are running the risk of destroying the reputation of a game that you have painstakingly rehabilitated, through a lot of hard work on your side, and the word of mouth of a lot of loyal players.

Don't blow this.

Eiagra

So, I watched my sister open some crates, and have to admit this was even more disappointing than I originally expected...

1.) Pacrooti playing what amounts to Four-card Monte with the player basically starts off sour what is already a stomach-turning experience. Yeah, you get all four/five cards, but which one is the "good" one? Probably not one of the ones you were dealt, if what I saw and what others are reporting is any indication. It's like you are rubbing in our faces just how much of a scam this is to the player. It's cute that you went to the trouble to make a bit of immersion for this, and that's not a bad idea in concept! But in practice? In this form? It's salt in the wound. And like Three-card Monte, your chances of "winning" are close to nil.

2.) As others have pointed out, the types of items the crates give, as well as their value for the crowns spent, their functionality compared to crafted items, and so forth make this something that does not at all appeal. A single Mimic stone, for example, is kind of pathetic.

3.) My recommendation (outside of removing them outright): Adjust the rewards to be of greater value. MUCH greater value. Shower the player. Make this worth their while. Because as it stands right now, it's just a bitter slap in the face and a desperate money-grab, and gives the impression that you have no respect for the player base.

4.) This is less a feedback and more an idea -- which I think others may have mentioned, but I want to voice as well here. If you absolutely MUST put these blasted things in the game, you may consider granting 1 free crate per day for ESO Plus subscribers. At least that would add some modicum of value to subscribing... Adjust the amount if need be (30? 15? 10? Something.)

I expect that this will all be adjusted in terms of droprate and prize ratio in response to what the players are saying and doing.

As it stands right now, though, it seems you are digging yourselves a trap. Maybe even a grave. Who knows.

Listen to your players very, VERY carefully going forward. This is a treacherous path you are going down. Do not walk it blindly.

Dayth

I doubt my opinion will be taken into consideration but honestly, just don't add them to the main game. Ever.
Make the items available from the store for a limited time at a higher price if you believe the cosmetic is of a higher quality.

The chance of getting the item you want is ludicrous. Generally you just get convenience items which most people will not even use and the amount of gems you get for duplicates is tiny.
I really cannot voice how much I dislike the idea of these gamble crates and the majority of people seem to have the same train of thought.

Preyfar

Eiagra wrote: »

4.) This is less a feedback and more an idea -- which I think others may have mentioned, but I want to voice as well here. If you absolutely MUST put these blasted things in the game, you may consider granting 1 free crate per day for ESO Plus subscribers. At least that would add some modicum of value to subscribing... Adjust the amount if need be (30? 15? 10? Something.)

I also think they should give crates when you buy crowns, too. For example, if you buy a 750 crown pack get one crate. Buy a 3000 crown pack get 4 crates, 5,500 get 6. This will incentivize people to spend more money on crowns and give out.

jim.chronous_ESO

For all the people that don't use crown potions, food, drink, etc, and maxed out riding, exp and such, let us sell them back for the crown gems. That way we can get to the items we really want quicker and will have less buyers remorse for getting items we don't need or use.

Elsonso

Preyfar wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

RocDonald wrote: »

Honestly, I don't think these boxes should be purchasable. Maybe a free, random drop every 24 hrs from completing a dungeon or just killing some random add. No way I would buy some "crate" for the off chance the rng gods will be in my favor, sorry.

It's a milking machine. Giving them away defeats the purpose of their implementation.

At least give us an in-game cow pet...

They have had millions of them in the game, but they are not very good pets. Mooooo.

Eiagra wrote: »

Listen to your players very, VERY carefully going forward. This is a treacherous path you are going down. Do not walk it blindly.

My feeling is that they are not walking this blindly, but they are looking for new players that will enjoy walking it with them, and they are willing to spend big bucks to attract them.

ZOS put months of work into this, and paid impressive development costs to make it happen. They have had the time to polish and shape this, put a bow on it, splash it with Chanel No 5, and teach it to sing. They went an entire country further than I thought they were going with this. They far exceeded what I was expecting in almost every category. I just wonder what would have happened if ZOS had spent the same effort on people who could fix Cyrodiil lag, or move the time of the Guild Kiosk bid processing, or added search and filter to Guild Stores. If they had applied this amount of polish and attention to the game, ESO would be 100 times the game it is today.

I seem to recall months ago a comment that we had not seen the last of Pacrooti. At least now we know what they meant.

jedtb16_ESO

i bought 13 crates - the maximum possible.

just dross.

i will not be purchasing crown crates when they go on the live server.

Faulgor

So I opened my crates now.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Did you like/use the consumables you received from the Crown Crates?

No. Not at all. For all I care they could be removed completely. It's just clutter that serves to give the illusion of actually receiving something from these crates. The Crown Store Soul Gem was almost insulting.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Do you have any general feedback?

This might be easier if we knew what you were actually trying to achieve with these crates.

If you are banking on the hopes of players to get something from the Crate selection, why go through the fuss and not just offer everything in the Crown Store? It has proven reliable and is already accepted by your customers. Putting another layer between the customer and the wanted item only serves to obfuscate the actual prices of these items, which seems to be the intent.

Who do you plan to sell these to? If it is for the 0.01% demographic of "whales" that sink money into these games like it was a techno-gadget kickstarter, what possible feedback could the general population here give? If these crates are supposed to be bought by everyone with Crowns, again, why have them in the first place and not just stick with the Crown store?

If the purpose of these crates were to offer a selection of items that are no longer sold in the Crown store, why have so many exclusives? How can this be a long term plan if possibly all new exclusives will go directly into the crates? And if you go through the hassle of adding a whole other shop interface for these items, why not just simply add them back to the Crown store?

So far, it seems these crates only serve to milk money from gullible people. It's morally revolting. And it devalues the already existing Crown store: Why would I want to buy anything from there now, knowing that the actual high quality mounts, pets, hats, etc will be exclusive to crates? You make people that went along with your cash shop feel like second rate customers.

My suggestion would be to abandon the whole thing, but obviously a lot of work has been put into it already, so I can't see any feedback having a significant impact. So if you want to save even a little bit of face from this, a few things need to happen:

• Add a number of Crown Gems to every crate. Replace one of the useless consumable slots for this.
• Duplicate items need to give their full cost in Crown Gems.
• Lower the price. I used to hate lockboxes in STO, but at least I could open 10 for 900 of their cash shop currency (which is equivalent to Crowns in real money). And they came with a few guaranteed "gems".

Personally, I would have gladly bought one of the new hats for 400 Crowns. I will never buy one of these crates, and I'm also reconsidering getting the upcoming Kagouti mount. If this is the way you want to take your game in, I have no desire to spent any more money on it.

OMA

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I have had a chance to see the crates on the PTS and here is my commentary within this video.

https://youtu.be/yZJYsLDFnGE

rhapsodious

lordrichter wrote: »

ZOS put months of work into this, and paid impressive development costs to make it happen. They have had the time to polish and shape this, put a bow on it, splash it with Chanel No 5, and teach it to sing. They went an entire country further than I thought they were going with this. They far exceeded what I was expecting in almost every category. I just wonder what would have happened if ZOS had spent the same effort on people who could fix Cyrodiil lag, or move the time of the Guild Kiosk bid processing, or added search and filter to Guild Stores. If they had applied this amount of polish and attention to the game, ESO would be 100 times the game it is today.

That's what gets me about the whole thing - there's so much polish and pizzazz on this. The animations, the voiceover, the fact that it doesn't simply look slapped together - all for something that is money-grabbing at best and predatory at worst. Meanwhile, things that should hypothetically only be small fixes (like guild kiosk bids, if I'm imagining/assuming correctly, should just be a variable) remain at the wayside.

I don't have my pitchfork out or anything, but I try to be very understanding of this game and its issues/points of contention and even then I'm steadily growing more and more disappointed with how the Crown Store and its offerings are going. True, there's the rest of the game which is, for the most part, solid. But the slaps in the face that these crown crates are giving me (horrendous exchange rate, getting a single crown meal or mimic stone - really?) are clouding my view of the game as a whole.

I sincerely hope ZOS marketing/financial budgeting people listen to the userbase and makes an effort to convey that they see us as people and not dollar signs. I really want this to be a great game.

Vaoh

Question to ZOS:

Why open this thread, if you do not care about your community and will ignore anything said here as well?

Pandorii

@vaoh surely they are listening to our feedback, we just don't know what they're looking out for. Maybe they want to figure out what exclusives we favor. For example, we've inadvertently suggested that the storm atro mounts are damn cool and universally liked. Some have implied that they would make the investment for the mounts if they had each crate offer a steady flow of gems, getting us closer to the price point.

They might have made the system terabad on purpose in the first go around so people can feel more pleased by it when they make changes for the better next patch.

SantieClaws

Aside from the many reservations expressed in other threads khajiit now has some additional ones after rolling the dice.

There seem to be many more items in the crates obtainable only via the crates - khajiit recalls that in the first instance only mounts were mentioned. This one though she sees costumes and pets and make up. There seems to be very little previous store content - which has been given as the very reason the crates were introduced - khajiit does not buy this and she will also not buy the boxes yes. If you had sold these items in the store khajiit would have been happy to open the purse and spend for them. Put them in the crates and you get no coin from this one for them.

The number of gems obtained from the duplicate items is painfully low. So low as to make the system almost worthless. Yes you can have any item you want - after you have bankrupted a kingdom opening crate after crate after crate yes. Even khajiit can see when there is really no shell under the cup.

Khajiit would like to see a monthly limit on the number of crates any one player may purchase - this one she would suggest 50 - which is still plenty to provide your CEO with another private island. If you want to be seen seriously not to be encouraging excessive and damaging gambling yes then this is what you must responsibly do.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Alarra

My reaction: "No no please no." I'd be totally happy to buy the mounts/etc that I want at a set price. But to spend that much just for a slim chance? Absolutely not.

Too high of a cost for the crate itself, too slim of a chance, purple crate-gem prices for rewards are too high, too few gems upon duplicate items and too many unwanted items (why not give players the option to convert any unwanted items to crate gems? Plenty of us aren't interested in consumables and prefer something that's going to stick around permanently, and I also have no interest in being stuck with a costume that doesn't suit any of my characters and that I'll never use).

You'll get more money by just making these things available in the Crown Store, and players will be happy knowing that they're guaranteed to get what they actually want. I don't know of anyone who is willing to throw away that much money for such a ridiculously slim chance of a reward.

Mojmir

fine keep the crown crates, but ESO+ subs get 5 free every month,plus our crowns.

Lumenn

Just looking at the videos, all the details, the shine, the polish, and can't help but think how much time and payroll went into this while crashing issues existed. All the bugs, glitches, exploits, even cosmetics(Breton outfit anyone...) That they chose NOT to fix in favor of making this look good. Already they have started to ignore the basic game and concentrate on the cash cow....

Khenarthi

In he end, if the items I'd gladly buy are crate exclusives, I'll just have to learn to live without them because there's no way I will spend real money on ESO's RNG for a chance of getting something useful.

I hope they continue to release stuff for normal read-price-tag-and-agreed-to-buy players like me... otherwise I will have nothing to spend my crowns on.

OldManJim

[*] Did you like/use the consumables you received from the Crown Crates?

-No. The potions / poisons / food are a total waste to me.

[*] Do you have any general feedback?

-I think there needs to be a guaranteed costume / pet etc for each crate.
-What happens with riding lessons if all PC's are maxed out? Another potentially wasted item.
-The number of crown gems given is absolutely pathetic.

Honestly this feels like a blatant cash-grab & a slap in the face to those of us who have supported you over the last 2 years. I can normally defend most things done by game developers, but this reeks of some greedy accountant or marketing person who has latched onto the CCG system & has figured out a way to leech cash from our pockets. All under the pretense of "well, you don't HAVE to buy them...".

If housing is going to cost $$$ like this, then that'll be the end for me & I don't say that lightly.

Jar_Ek

The lock box, no sorry gambling boxes, drop rates for anything that I might want are so vanishingly small I'll never buy one. Ever.
I'd be better off hoping for a lottery win or a vmsa weapon with perfect traits on my first clear.

Then on top of that, the other things that do get dropped (consumables) are essentially trash - in that they are basically unwanted. They are definately mot worth the cost of a crate.

Basically you need to up your game with these if you expect discerning customers to consider buying them... unfortunately I suspect you have a whale hunting mentality complete with a "and stuff everyone else" element. It would not be difficult to ensure that every crate was worth at least 400 crowns... then at least its vaguely equitable in pure cost terms even if most of the stuff I neither want or need.

SantieClaws

Khajiit knows it is not the devs who thought this up. Khajiit knows it is one in marketing who hides in the shadows behind more reputable others who must face the blame.

So this one would like that marketing person to come here and face the music.

Face the storm you have created and justify yourself. Justify these crates and answer the criticism they have brought down up on the heads of those who probably do not want them either.

Read the posts, answer the questions and take responsibility. He who makes the cake should also taste a slice yes?

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

sebban

Here's my feedback.

There are lots of cool stuff that you can get from those crates, that I would love to buy from the Crown Store. I will however NEVER buy those crates. No way.

Just let me buy the stuff I want.

Vaoh

Pandorii wrote: »

@vaoh surely they are listening to our feedback, we just don't know what they're looking out for. Maybe they want to figure out what exclusives we favor. For example, we've inadvertently suggested that the storm atro mounts are damn cool and universally liked. Some have implied that they would make the investment for the mounts if they had each crate offer a steady flow of gems, getting us closer to the price point.

They might have made the system terabad on purpose in the first go around so people can feel more pleased by it when they make changes for the better next patch.

That makes sense.

I just don't like it either way. Seems a really dirty direction for ESO to take. No more cool mounts to buy normally anymore. The Wild Hunt mounts (wooden with green lights theme) will be the next batch for Crown Crate mounts. It won't end.

They better not put my Ice Wolf mount in those crates. It's the only one I still truly "need".

Enodoc

Haven't bought any yet, but had a look at the list of items. General feedback so far:

There seem to be too many exclusives. Only the Apex Rewards should be exclusive, as they directly match the category of the box; everything else should turn up in the Crown Store individually at some point, as there's nothing tying them to the box they're found in.

As soon as I realised it was Pacrooti, I was like, "This certainly won't go down well..."
ZOS, please don't associate a beloved character with something that is so controversial. As has been pointed out elsewhere, he has been swindled by gambling himself, so it's not even appropriate that he would then partake in the same thing. Create a new character if you want a swindler; Pacrooti certainly isn't one.

Nifty2g

@Alcast I laughed pretty hard when you said "Rip your wallet put some pepperonis in there"

jedtb16_ESO

Mojmir wrote: »

fine keep the crown crates, but ESO+ subs get 5 free every month,plus our crowns.

no..... i do not want them.

hrothbern

The Storm Atronach Mounts are really awesome !

But from a rough estimate, they will cost approx 20,000-40,000 Crowns
(assuming you are not overly lucky or unlucky and the first one more expensive than the second one)

For me, most of the other stuff you get has not that much value and I already got the Frost Mare etc.
And I will not be the only one in that opinion.

It is good that you have the standard procedure with Official Discussion Threads on PTS, to gather feedback for improvements.
That should assure that really big bloopers are corrected before the start on live.

So that's why I make my feedback here.

But I really don't know how to react here !
What do you do in a RL negotiation when someone is over-asking with a factor 3-5 ???

Caradawc

While I don't have a big issue with Loot Boxes on the whole as I can see how they are necessary to keep some games going financially I have two big issues with this implementation.

1. In a lot of cases the loot dropped has a value of far less than 400 Crowns.
2. It's quite likely you will receive items that cannot be used by your character such as race specific hair styles.

If I'd just spent 400 Crowns on a crate that contained either of the above I'd be very annoyed and highly unlikely to ever buy a loot crate again.

It's easy to solve this though by firstly increasing the amount of consumables that drop so in the worst case you are getting something at least close to the value of buying the items separately and secondly by allowing unwanted rewards to be converted into gems.

Taleof2Cities

Opened 13 crates today with mixed results ...

As a master alchemist, was largely disappointed with the quantity of crown potions given in the crates. I can make my own crafted potions which are better than crown ones (though a lot of forum-goers have posted this issue already).

Did receive a few duplicate costume items ... so I did have a small gem accumulation (43 gems worth of duplicate items). A nice feature, but it's going to take me awhile to get the 400 gems I need to buy my clouded leopard mount.

Also received a couple of costumes and one of the storm atronach mounts (horse) which was a nice surprise.

Though most everyone has posted this in the thread already, I don't have much use for the consumables in the crates. For a master crafter like me, some motif pages might be the carrot that gets me to buy a few extra crates. Just an idea.

Right now, however, I don't see myself buying any crates for the reasons stated above ...

Grumble_and_Grunt

I am very cautious of everyone here thanking ZOS for implementing their 'realistic' drop rate for the crates for testing on PTS. They could so easily (I am calling it now if they push this through) up the drop rate on a further PTS patch, making them appear more rewarding to generate 'some' positive feedback and make the crown crates appear more lucrative, then as soon as it goes live adjusts the drop rates again. Nobody is going to spend 5500 crowns when it goes live to extensively test the drop rates like we are doing on the PTS at the moment, so people will be deceived into thinking they just had bad luck because everyone is telling them the drop rate is XYZ based on PTS data. I am thinking the worst here obviously, it is really shady business, but you have to understand that is the sole purpose of these gambling crates so I wouldn't put it past them...

Alcast

Nifty2g wrote: »

@Alcast I laughed pretty hard when you said "Rip your wallet put some pepperonis in there"