What do you think of Crown Crates? -- New Poll for PTS Implementation

Cerbolt · September 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Not tested them myself but I've got lots of experience with other mmo 'gambling' boxes and I find them very unappealing. Hopefully the player base will catch on to the scam and stir clear of them ...but like the others have said they'll always be those people with either too much money or addictions problems, so the devs won't care.

Soundwave · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

What could drop from the crates?

Troneon · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

DYSEQTA wrote: »

Bringing this over from the outdated thread as it needs to be seen:

Epona222 wrote: »

I've been on the PTS and have so far spent the equivalent of around $350 on crates.
There are 2 mounts, 3 pets, and a hat in the crown crates that I would happily buy outright.
My equivalent of $350 (in free crowns, because it's PTS) has got me 1 pet I wanted, and enough gems to buy 3 other legendary items (but insufficient to buy 1 apex item). And a load of tat that I don't want (including items that I can't use because I don't have an Argonian).

Basically the stuff I would buy is extortionately expensive this way (to the point where it seems that Zeni are deliberately targeting people who have a weakness for games of chance), and I will not be buying these crates on live.

Quoting this for truth. This is the truth that people need to see and that ZOS need their immoral faces rubbed in. It is exploitative, psychologically manipulative, and downright disgusting behaviour.

^^

serenity_painted · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

I truly don't give a crap. There's some stuff there that i might want but don't need so who cares. I just won't buy them.

Doctordarkspawn · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

No matter how you slice it, it's taking advantage of people.

It's not a good deal for the collectors of crown store stuff because even with the consumables being traded for gems the drop rate is abysmal.

It's not a good deal for the rest of us because they have nothing beyond cosmetics.

ZOS has made a digital economy into a needlessly bottlenecked system. They've taken off parts of the crown store, made limited item sales instead of just leting them be sold to the people who want them and have created artificial scarcety for the sake of possibly this. It's. A worthless. System. it has no redeeming value. it is of no use to anyone.

And anyone who has found use, had to try to find that use. Really, really hard.

Eiagra · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

SantieClaws wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

The paws of this one shall never hand over crowns for a mystery crate. Khajiit is quite sure of this.

AlienSlof wrote: »

This one's khajiits won't be laying paws on them either.

I won't be buying them, either.

We need a catchy name for our group....

Positively Against Wrip-Off Stuff (PAWS)

Yours with PAWS
Santie Claws

Haha, I like it.

Though my orcish hands and feet don't really count as paws, I shall raise 'em all regardless to show I'm positively against wrip-off stuff also.

Chalinal · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Horrible and predatory idea. If ZOS does implement lottery boxes aka Crown Crates, many loyal members and/or collectors, such as myself, will likely stop playing altogether, or play drastically less.

The ONLY way I could see these Crown Crates being remedied in a way that would be acceptable - if they must be implemented at all - would be to remove all "Crown Crate Only" items, that means any Crown Crate Only/Crown Crate Seasonal Only mounts, pets, costumes, whatever.

Having to gamble for Crown Crate Only items is the largest predatory part of this Crown Crate idea. I understand many players want to get previously "limited time" mounts, pets, and costumes - so let the Crown Crates be for that reason and that reason ONLY.

I can say with great certainty that most players would outright pay a crown price for the new mounts and pets, especially ones like the Storm Atronach, Wild Hunt, and Skeletal mounts.

silvereyes · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

Chalinal wrote: »

I can say with great certainty that most players would outright pay a crown price for the new mounts and pets, especially ones like the Storm Atronach, Wild Hunt, and Skeletal mounts.

There's a good chance the skeletal mounts will be a Witches Festival limited time feature, and I don't think the crates will be out by then. I could be wrong, though.

People should just give up on the idea of collecting the apex mounts, though (Storm Atronach, Wild Hunt, Hearthfire). Even if Zenimax fixes the crates so that the legendary rewards are accessible, the apex rewards will still be 4x as expensive. They will be for the rich, the fools, and the exceptionally lucky. This is by design.

SublimeSparo · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Cazzy wrote: »

I test them vicariously through MizzBizz's Vidz.

https://youtu.be/iOKV9Stri_M

Whatzituyah · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

I would like to say I kinda agree to both sides seeing the company's side aswell as the customer's side. We may see it as ridiculous but if the company needs money to keep the game going along with themselves in turn giving us a game to play, I hate it but it gives us a game to play.

Elsonso · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

Whatzituyah wrote: »

I would like to say I kinda agree to both sides seeing the company's side aswell as the customer's side. We may see it as ridiculous but if the company needs money to keep the game going along with themselves in turn giving us a game to play, I hate it but it gives us a game to play.

It lacks imagination and reeks of just following an established pattern. MMO Cash Stores for Dummies. Any studio can roll out a cash store and gamble boxes. Nothing inspired here. There are other ways to make money, but they are taking the easy way, at the expense of tailoring a solution that better suits their customers.

I guess this is what we can expect from ZOS, Bethesda, and probably the whole family of Zenimax companies.

Cazzy · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

SublimeSparo wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

I test them vicariously through MizzBizz's Vidz.

https://youtu.be/iOKV9Stri_M

One of the greatest bands ever to exist

silvereyes · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

lordrichter wrote: »

they are taking the easy way, at the expense of tailoring a solution that better suits their customers.

I second this, but I think the implementation was actually worse than "the easy way". They sank way more development resources into polishing this turd than they ever sank into any other UI system in the game. And they chose to co-opt a well-known and previously well-liked NPC from the game to be the mascot.

Indeed, they did use their creativity, but it was focused in the opposite direction than it should have been.

Tabbycat · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

I haven't really read up on them. Are these things similar to the Black Lion boxes that drop in the world in GW2 for which you have to buy keys to unlock?

Is there anything in these boxes that would give you an unfair advantage over other players that don't purchase them?

That's where I draw the line personally. I'm not worried about costumes and mounts but if they start dropping exclusive end-game quality gear in them then it becomes pay to win.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

@Tabbycat So far we've seen XP Scrolls three times better than the in-game version of same. They've also talked about making the Crown Store potions better than current craftables. Does that count for you?

elvenmad · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Tabbycat wrote: »

I haven't really read up on them. Are these things similar to the Black Lion boxes that drop in the world in GW2 for which you have to buy keys to unlock?

Is there anything in these boxes that would give you an unfair advantage over other players that don't purchase them?

That's where I draw the line personally. I'm not worried about costumes and mounts but if they start dropping exclusive end-game quality gear in them then it becomes pay to win.

nothing in them p2w....yet....but there is time, , once they are in the game the base is set, for me personally i very doubt they will remain 'costume only' every other game which as implemented them ( funnily enough also claimed as to only be cosmetic only) has very soon after had special crate events were they contain crate only enchants and upgrade materials.

ZoS claim they will never include weapons and armor, but thats nothing they are easy to get, they have however said they will contain 'consumables' so that leads the path clearlly open to include alloys and wax's, , crafting mats etc etc.

silvereyes · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

They've also talked about making the Crown Store potions better than current craftables. Does that count for you?

This is not true. They have buffed the Crown Store potions on PTS, but they are still worse than crafted. You can see the new PTS potions at the following link, as well as a spoiler with the current craft potions for comparison.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3391701/#Comment_3391701

Edit: It's still a disconcerting thing to see the dev team try to solve what is essentially a marketing problem by power-creeping things. Not a good sign of where their priorities lie.

IrishGirlGamer · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

UrQuan wrote: »

When I first heard about the concept of crown crates I thought it was a terrible idea, but I was hoping they would be implemented in a reasonable way so that I could just choose to ignore them.

I admit, I don't have the PTS installed. I've also refused to participate in this discussion until now because I don't see players changing this one bit.

I also guess I wasn't surprised by this: I love Fallout 4 and I have Fallout Shelter installed on my iPad. As part of the game, you can buy packs of cards (very similar to the crates Zeni will be selling in the crown store). Basically, I ignore them. I don't think I've ever bought those "cards". If I don't get it in the game, well, I don't get it. (My father used to have a saying about buying a new car: No cash, No car. I guess I feel the same way.)

But I've read every post in this thread and I have more information about how the creates will be implemented. Granted, most of this thread is opinions. But that doesn't mean the opinions are invalid.

So I voted that I didn't really care. But that was before I read this thread. Having read the entire thread, I now feel this is a very bad idea.

C'mon, Zenimax, please don't do this. This isn't good for the game, and can't you see? It isn't good for you company. Think about the message your sending to your players. That you, as Zenimax, can't create enough cool things to sell in your crown store - enough things that people want - that you now have to rely upon predetory gambling just to make the rent?

Your players don't want it. This isn't a crafting bag situation. This is you implementing something that very few people want, that most have refused to participate in - and there you are, hoping you catch a few dolphins in your tuna net.

Is this really the company you want to be? Really?

elvenmad · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

silvereyes wrote: »

It's still a disconcerting thing to see the dev team try to solve what is essentially a marketing problem by power-creeping things. Not a good sign of where their priorities lie.

I agree obviously their plan for the crates is pretty much set and they are very reluctant to even think about changing any of it, instead they are now changing multiple other things in the game to try and put across the impression the crates are not as bad as what we all know they are.

From a lot of experience in other games I know where these crates are heading, maybe not soon but its is definitely coming, the XP scroll was the clear sign of things to come and its not even live yet.

I am waiting now for the crate exclusive special upgrade mats............they are coming..........just a matter of time.

silvereyes · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

elvenmad wrote: »

I am waiting now for the crate exclusive special upgrade mats............they are coming..........just a matter of time.

I really only care if the upgrade mats are for legendary quality gear. The convenience items in the store have already set the precedent for bypassing research and farming for the lazy or time-strapped. I don't see superior or epic quality upgrade mats as any different, as long as they are BoP.

However, if they put legendary upgrade mats in there, I'm uninstalling the game. Can't get much more P2W than that. Legendary gear only drops as a reward for the hardest content in the game, and crafting legendary gear takes a small fortune (or a large one, on console) and a significant investment into the crafting tree. Bypassing all that with $$$ cheapens the accomplishments of those who have earned their legendary gear either by deed or craft.

Rosveen · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

@Tabbycat They don't drop in the world, you buy them from the crown store for 400 crowns. Opening a crate gives you 4 cards with a rare chance of a 5th: 3 are usually consumables and the last one a cosmetic. Duplicate cosmetics can't be sold to other players, they're automatically exchanged for crown gems which can then be used to buy crown crate items directly (you get just under 1/3 of the item's price, so you need 4 duplicates to buy another item in the same tier).

There are no obvious P2W items. The only thing better than what can be crafted are new XP scrolls, which can drop instead of a cosmetic (and seem to be relatively rare).

There are, however, many crown crate exclusive cosmetics - or at least everything indicates they're exclusive, we couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone. Some are old discontinued items, some are themed items created specifically for the crown crates, some are random stuff thrown in there just because ZOS could (like the Red Pit Wolf, when the grey and black versions were sold directly).

Morimizo · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

I received a reply to my earlier response from Petyr at ZOS:

"Thank you for the feedback. I'll pass this along to the dev team. I appreciate you sharing it with me, it shows that you WERE very passionate about the game."

I responded,

Fixed the quote.

Petyr, to be very clear about why this devious selling tactic is so disheartening, I would have quite happily purchased many of the items available on the new Crown Gem part of the store had they been offered as straight-up purchases; like I have for the past year and a half (check your records, I'm sure you'll find my investment to be significant). But it wasn't enough apparently, and I need to be fooled out of giving more money, and not necessarily (edit: not likely) getting what I desired. How long will it be before Skill Lines and DLCs find their way into these crates? It doesn't have to be "pay to win" items, these crates will limit variety in all aspects of the game, not just cosmetics/aesthetics.

Whoever green-lighted this decision is someone I will never support again, and that is not an RNG box, you may consider that an absolute.

I feel great sympathy for those who have to be on the front line defending this filth. Please know that my ire is not meant for customer service representatives or the fine folks developing the actual game content. It is completely reserved for the gold-sickness-stricken stockholder-sycophant managers that think it's perfectly fine to gouge their player base of every coin, without any guarantee of them actually receiving what they wanted in return. It's thievery, and may Sheogorath himself come up with a most fitting curse for the remainder of their existence. Something akin to being transformed into a block of Colovian cheddar and being eternally gnawed on by skeevers...

Whatzituyah · October 2016

Neutral: I have NOT tested the crates, and my feelings are neutral, noncommital, or do not apply.

lordrichter wrote: »

Whatzituyah wrote: »

I would like to say I kinda agree to both sides seeing the company's side aswell as the customer's side. We may see it as ridiculous but if the company needs money to keep the game going along with themselves in turn giving us a game to play, I hate it but it gives us a game to play.

It lacks imagination and reeks of just following an established pattern. MMO Cash Stores for Dummies. Any studio can roll out a cash store and gamble boxes. Nothing inspired here. There are other ways to make money, but they are taking the easy way, at the expense of tailoring a solution that better suits their customers.

I guess this is what we can expect from ZOS, Bethesda, and probably the whole family of Zenimax companies.

Would you prefer we earned the box but had to buy a key? @lordrichter

SantieClaws · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

Whatzituyah wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Whatzituyah wrote: »

I would like to say I kinda agree to both sides seeing the company's side aswell as the customer's side. We may see it as ridiculous but if the company needs money to keep the game going along with themselves in turn giving us a game to play, I hate it but it gives us a game to play.

It lacks imagination and reeks of just following an established pattern. MMO Cash Stores for Dummies. Any studio can roll out a cash store and gamble boxes. Nothing inspired here. There are other ways to make money, but they are taking the easy way, at the expense of tailoring a solution that better suits their customers.

I guess this is what we can expect from ZOS, Bethesda, and probably the whole family of Zenimax companies.

Would you prefer we earned the box but had to buy a key? @lordrichter

This is what Khajiit recalls was done in a place called Middle Earth. A vile topping on a very vile cake indeed. The one possible worse thing that could be done is to give away the box but make a key purchasable.

The holder of the box thinks they effectively already have something - whereas until they buy the key they really have nothing at all. The boxes this one she recalls were also tradeable. The keys also sometimes dropped as loot but so rarely as to mean in practice that most people never saw one.

Whoever thought up this whole nasty business should be put in the stocks in Daggerfall and be pelted with stale sweetrolls and guar dung.

The people of Tamriel have not the power to do this sadly but we can make them look very silly in another way. Do not buy the crates. Not one. Please put the line from my signature in your own if you are with Khajiit on this issue. Our crowns and our coins are our most powerful weapons.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

JimT722 · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Morimizo wrote: »

I received a reply to my earlier response from Petyr at ZOS:

"Thank you for the feedback. I'll pass this along to the dev team. I appreciate you sharing it with me, it shows that you WERE very passionate about the game."

I responded,

Fixed the quote.

Petyr, to be very clear about why this devious selling tactic is so disheartening, I would have quite happily purchased many of the items available on the new Crown Gem part of the store had they been offered as straight-up purchases; like I have for the past year and a half (check your records, I'm sure you'll find my investment to be significant). But it wasn't enough apparently, and I need to be fooled out of giving more money, and not necessarily (edit: not likely) getting what I desired. How long will it be before Skill Lines and DLCs find their way into these crates? It doesn't have to be "pay to win" items, these crates will limit variety in all aspects of the game, not just cosmetics/aesthetics.

Whoever green-lighted this decision is someone I will never support again, and that is not an RNG box, you may consider that an absolute.

I feel great sympathy for those who have to be on the front line defending this filth. Please know that my ire is not meant for customer service representatives or the fine folks developing the actual game content. It is completely reserved for the gold-sickness-stricken stockholder-sycophant managers that think it's perfectly fine to gouge their player base of every coin, without any guarantee of them actually receiving what they wanted in return. It's thievery, and may Sheogorath himself come up with a most fitting curse for the remainder of their existence. Something akin to being transformed into a block of Colovian cheddar and being eternally gnawed on by skeevers...

Hopefully they will listen. There are many things in the crates I would want to buy. I could never spend money on something that has a chance at being what I want. Just seems foolish.

AlienSlof · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

JimT722 wrote: »

Hopefully they will listen. There are many things in the crates I would want to buy. I could never spend money on something that has a chance at being what I want. Just seems foolish.

^ This. ^

There were a lot of items I saw in there that I would have happily shelled out for if sold directly. I was really looking forward to a skeleton mount to go with my skellie polymorphs, but from what I could see, those will end up as crate exclusives. Makes this one very sad.

Still, as much as I'd love those items, I will NOT gamble real money for them. I much prefer the current WYSIWYG system just as it is. (What You See Is What You Get)

WhiteCoatSyndrome · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

@silvereyes Re-read what I wrote. I said they were talking about it, and they did. Here is the quote from the feedback thread:

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.

Bold for emphasis. Yes, they said later they'll buff them a little and keep it below crafted items--this time. But, tell me, why bother even bringing up adding new recipes to the game to make up for the adjustments if all future adjustments are guaranteed to still be worse that current craftables? And please don't tell me it doesn't count because they haven't made such adjustments yet--strictly speaking, the Crown Crates themselves aren't in the game yet, either. Plainly they're considering it, and considering it seriously enough to OK Gina telling us about it.

silvereyes · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

@silvereyes Re-read what I wrote. I said they were talking about it, and they did. Here is the quote from the feedback thread:

Well, I can see how one might interpret Gina's comments that way, but you specifically mentioned them buffing potions, not food/drink. Recipes are for food/drink, not potions.

Gina said nothing about changing craftable potions. And in the patch notes where the potion changes were introduced, they went out of their way to let people know that it was a small duration buff that was still worse than crafted potion duration.

Edit: For the record, though, your point is still perfectly valid; but it should have been made around food/drink, not potions. I was just correcting that point of fact, not disputing your point.

Cazzy · October 2016

Negative: I have tested the crates, and I do not want this feature to be implemented in the game.

What makes me laugh is ZoS saying we've seen your feedback and want to make it better for you. People then say Oh it's not going to be too bad, maybe they do care.

No. If the cared about feedback they wouldn't implement them. What they care about is sales. They're trying to make them more appealing because we've said we won't buy them.

Don't fall for these type of gross manipulation tactics.

JimT722 · October 2016

Negative: I have NOT tested the crates, and I dislike the idea/direction and/or I dislike what I have read.

Cazzy wrote: »

What makes me laugh is ZoS saying we've seen your feedback and want to make it better for you. People then say Oh it's not going to be too bad, maybe they do care.

No. If the cared about feedback they wouldn't implement them. What they care about is sales. They're trying to make them more appealing because we've said we won't buy them.

Don't fall for these type of gross manipulation tactics.

Community: we want them removed
ZOS: we hear you. We are buffing the consumables you don't want. Since you don't want them regardless of what we do you can trade them for a very small amount of gems!

Facepalm