Official Discussion Thread for "Introducing the Dwarven Crown Crate Season"

Rouven

Enodoc wrote: »

The only things that are not available for Gems are the three odd Apex mounts, the Apex Sweetroll furnishing, and the 1 Day Research Scroll from the Fine (Green) tier.

How do we know? Was it databombed? Mined I mean.

Just George.

Curious.

elven.were_wolf

Crown Crates were already a scandle when they first released, apex mounts are already too expensive and are EXTREMELY rare to drop in a crown crate, now mounts that can't even be purchasable with gems?!

You guys are stepping over a dangerous line. Cross it and all the players you've been accumulating over the years are going to leave.

You really have to put in mind that there are a lot of people from other MMO's who've left because of stuff like this being pulled.

A rare cosmetic mount may seem harmless, but for some players, cosmetics is the thing that keeps them playing. I love costumizing my character, but this is just too much.

I'm really upset and dissapointed.

Enodoc

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The only things that are not available for Gems are the three odd Apex mounts, the Apex Sweetroll furnishing, and the 1 Day Research Scroll from the Fine (Green) tier.

How do we know? Was it databombed? Mined I mean.

Just George.

Curious.

If you cross-reference the list of Crate Contents, which has 89 items, with what's in the Gem Store, which has 84 items, that's the difference.

Rouven

Enodoc wrote: »

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The only things that are not available for Gems are the three odd Apex mounts, the Apex Sweetroll furnishing, and the 1 Day Research Scroll from the Fine (Green) tier.

How do we know? Was it databombed? Mined I mean.

Just George.

Curious.

If you cross-reference the list of Crate Contents, which has 89 items, with what's in the Gem Store, which has 84 items, that's the difference.

It shall be listed! Yes makes sense. Good good, so the sweetroll is the cherry on top so to speak.

Edit: Scratch that, we can buy the sweetroll with gems, correct?

Saturn

Stopnaggin wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Abeille wrote: »

Phew, another season where nothing I want got locked behind gambling. That's really a relief.

My heart goes to the people who want the mounts that are not even purchasable with Crown Gems, though.

Yeah, as if it wasn't enough that some people spend literally hundreds of dollars on this sham, they now made it even worse for them. I know that it's only cosmetic reskins and whatnot, but I really hate the idea that something you might want is locked behind a lottery system. I mean it could be a neat idea to have on the side, if it was still possible to buy things individually, like maybe having the mounts be 2.5k crowns, but then you you buy 4 boxes for 1.5k and get lucky. I know that the gems sort of let you do that, but you do have to invest into the lottery bs in first place to get any <.< I think it's incredible how this exploitive system is still here though, but I guess with them also charging a separate fullgame price for the Morrowind dlc they won't let up and will just continue down the path of money > happy customers.

I was one who defended the crates, I don't mind the system itself because you could eventually get what you wanted. But this has made me rethink about buying anymore crates. I have spent hundreds if not over a thousand real dollars on ESO, and so far I have been able to justify it because I haven't bought any other games. This though is on a whole new level for me. I have every single senche mount and pet, and now I have no guarantee of getting the ultra exclusive mount unless I put in an unknown number of dollars. Not diggin this at all.

Edit.
I was one of those people targeted with the crates. I had no problem shelling out the cash because I could afford it. The type who had to collect everything or one of each type of item, like the senche. Just not to sure about it anymore. I have the money but really having a hard time letting it go on this game anymore. With this new reward system and lack of foresight on their end, makes me wonder. Just like me buying the cavern and only having 700 slots. Getting less and less return on my money.

@Stopnaggin
And therein lies the crux of this whole thing. It specifically targets people who like to collect everything, and also seems to draw in people with gambling addictions, as I've heard of people who aren't completionists still spend over $300 on the crates. I used to play WoW back in the day (mostly active around WotLK), and I really hated that some mounts/pets were cash store only, in a game that still had a monthly sub, but they even had the audacity to make achievements only possible if you bought all the real-money pets. At least ZOS hasn't taken it that far yet, but it might become a thing when they realise how much they can gain by also pulling achievement fanatics into this scheme.

The worst part about all of this for me is that it probably uses the same RNG system as the rest of the game, which from my experience of grinding <insert literally any set / item here> is a system that seems to be working against you, or maybe I'm just that unfortunate. Thankfully I'm a poor sod so any kind of completionistic tendencies I might have are suffienciently quelled by my overwhelming stinginess.

JesQu

So we can't buy the very rare mounts with crowns gems? that's just a *** move.

Jayne_Doe

Never bought a clown crate yet and never will - I haven't even opened the free one I got. Sure, there are things in the crates that I would probably have purchased outright, but nothing, not even the ultra apex mounts, will get me to gamble on these things.

Frankly, I'm still on the fence about these so-called Dwemer mounts. Reading the lore they made up for these, I can see that they are cobbled together from collected artifacts and perhaps someone like Neramo helped to make them actually work. I can accept that rather than that these were actually fashioned by the Dwemer - they don't look anything like the other constructs we've seen. I'm so glad these things are so ugly and disappointing to me - even the ultra-apex ones. I've got my spider, which actually looks like a Dwemer construct, which I was able to purchase outright.

Anyway...one thing no one else has mentioned yet is the fact that they've snuck in crafting motifs - Draugr, Minotaur, and Order Hour. Now, these are all available in-game, but they aren't that easy to obtain solely on your own and are still somewhat expensive to purchase from guild stores. Some people prefer to purchase motifs in the crown store or at least some of them. This doesn't bode well for me in regard to Buoyant Armiger. I've gotten to the point where I'd purchase it from the Crown Store, even at the Limited Time price, since I have yet to find a single page on my own, and certainly can't afford the $300K+ price tag per page in the guild stores. But, I'll go without it entirely rather than gamble for it in a clown crate.

They've stepped over the line with non-gem purchasable items in these crates. My guess is, that the number of these will increase over time. As someone else pointed out, perhaps these crates haven't been selling as well as they'd hoped. It seems like they have been, with all the apex mounts and other retired items suddenly making widespread appearances. But, it may be that it is still a minority who are buying them. I won't ever be one of them - even their gimmick to give me a free one won't pay off for them. As I said before, I haven't even opened it.

aisriyth_ESO

Abeille wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Abeille wrote: »

aisriyth_ESO wrote: »

According to reddit posts there are other items that aren't even at the apex level that also cannot be bought with the gems....if this checks out i am thoroughly disgusted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/6iuknb/im_not_made_of_money_zos/

Well now I'm worried. I was relieved because nothing on the Crown Crate menu in game was really interesting to me, but if there are things that are not in the menu other than these apex mounts, I want to know.

Is there are list somewhere of the things that are in the crates but can't be bought with gems?

@Abeille I'm pretty sure you can right click on the place you would buy crates and select preview. Or possibly hover over it and press R(?) for "bundle details" which should list everything (even stuff not available for gems).

At least that used to be possible.

It is, but I didn't find anything other than those three apex mounts that were drop-only. The "flowy argonian feathers" mentioned in the reddit link isn't in the preview in game.

Edit: FOUND IT. The "Flowy argonian feathers" are just how the White River Braids hair style looks when you put it on an Argonian. It is listed and it costs 40 Crown Gems. I'll go warn that guy on reddit.

That is some good news then, i am at work so haven't been able to log in and check!

Enodoc

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The only things that are not available for Gems are the three odd Apex mounts, the Apex Sweetroll furnishing, and the 1 Day Research Scroll from the Fine (Green) tier.

How do we know? Was it databombed? Mined I mean.

Just George.

Curious.

If you cross-reference the list of Crate Contents, which has 89 items, with what's in the Gem Store, which has 84 items, that's the difference.

It shall be listed! Yes makes sense. Good good, so the sweetroll is the cherry on top so to speak.

Edit: Scratch that, we can buy the sweetroll with gems, correct?

No, the sweetroll is one of the five things you can't buy with Gems.

Rouven

Enodoc wrote: »

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Rouven wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

The only things that are not available for Gems are the three odd Apex mounts, the Apex Sweetroll furnishing, and the 1 Day Research Scroll from the Fine (Green) tier.

How do we know? Was it databombed? Mined I mean.

Just George.

Curious.

If you cross-reference the list of Crate Contents, which has 89 items, with what's in the Gem Store, which has 84 items, that's the difference.

It shall be listed! Yes makes sense. Good good, so the sweetroll is the cherry on top so to speak.

Edit: Scratch that, we can buy the sweetroll with gems, correct?

No, the sweetroll is one of the five things you can't buy with Gems.

Argh because thats what we are talking about. Not my day. I had the trading it in for 400 gems in my head.

WaTeR-aBuSeR

Spent 20k crowns and not a single apex or hidden reward. Season 1 I got several and pretty much everything in the lower tiers. Now I got so many duplicates I'm missing half of the lower tier stuff as well. The odds are terrible now. Not sure if it was like this last season as I bought what I wanted with gems.

General_Zeranth

Wow... I spent 40 bucks to buy the Dro-m'Athra Senche all that time ago and now its in the Crown Crates for 200 gems huh...? Yeah that feels good. Like a punch to the solar plexus.

And the rare re-color of the Wolf/Senche/Horse mounts is a nasty move. Apex mounts have like a 0.05% drop rate as is but the re-colors? Probably even lower.
I think this marks the end of me ever buying crown crates again.

casparian

I was going to buy crates this season, but the way we customers are being treated by this new season is so distasteful that I've changed my mind. It's bad enough that the most desirable items are no longer available to buy outright. But the move to make some items unpurchasable even by crown gems -- i.e., a true, solid lock behind a lottery system -- is pretty low.

I'm afraid that we'll see even more items locked this in way in the next crown season.

Anunakis

i dont care about any kind of crates - its gambling and has nothing to do with game fixes , game content or overall gampley improvement,

aisriyth_ESO

WaTeR-aBuSeR wrote: »

Spent 20k crowns and not a single apex or hidden reward. Season 1 I got several and pretty much everything in the lower tiers. Now I got so many duplicates I'm missing half of the lower tier stuff as well. The odds are terrible now. Not sure if it was like this last season as I bought what I wanted with gems.

What is weird about this is the wild hunt crates felt much worse then the storm atronach crates. I figured it was just rng and my luck but i spoke to a few people and they all felt the same that the wild hunt crates had lower chances.

I am trying to be hopeful that its just RNG and in peoples heads but maybe its not...:/

Stopnaggin

Saturn wrote: »

Stopnaggin wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Abeille wrote: »

Phew, another season where nothing I want got locked behind gambling. That's really a relief.

My heart goes to the people who want the mounts that are not even purchasable with Crown Gems, though.

Yeah, as if it wasn't enough that some people spend literally hundreds of dollars on this sham, they now made it even worse for them. I know that it's only cosmetic reskins and whatnot, but I really hate the idea that something you might want is locked behind a lottery system. I mean it could be a neat idea to have on the side, if it was still possible to buy things individually, like maybe having the mounts be 2.5k crowns, but then you you buy 4 boxes for 1.5k and get lucky. I know that the gems sort of let you do that, but you do have to invest into the lottery bs in first place to get any <.< I think it's incredible how this exploitive system is still here though, but I guess with them also charging a separate fullgame price for the Morrowind dlc they won't let up and will just continue down the path of money > happy customers.

I was one who defended the crates, I don't mind the system itself because you could eventually get what you wanted. But this has made me rethink about buying anymore crates. I have spent hundreds if not over a thousand real dollars on ESO, and so far I have been able to justify it because I haven't bought any other games. This though is on a whole new level for me. I have every single senche mount and pet, and now I have no guarantee of getting the ultra exclusive mount unless I put in an unknown number of dollars. Not diggin this at all.

Edit.
I was one of those people targeted with the crates. I had no problem shelling out the cash because I could afford it. The type who had to collect everything or one of each type of item, like the senche. Just not to sure about it anymore. I have the money but really having a hard time letting it go on this game anymore. With this new reward system and lack of foresight on their end, makes me wonder. Just like me buying the cavern and only having 700 slots. Getting less and less return on my money.

@Stopnaggin
And therein lies the crux of this whole thing. It specifically targets people who like to collect everything, and also seems to draw in people with gambling addictions, as I've heard of people who aren't completionists still spend over $300 on the crates. I used to play WoW back in the day (mostly active around WotLK), and I really hated that some mounts/pets were cash store only, in a game that still had a monthly sub, but they even had the audacity to make achievements only possible if you bought all the real-money pets. At least ZOS hasn't taken it that far yet, but it might become a thing when they realise how much they can gain by also pulling achievement fanatics into this scheme.

The worst part about all of this for me is that it probably uses the same RNG system as the rest of the game, which from my experience of grinding <insert literally any set / item here> is a system that seems to be working against you, or maybe I'm just that unfortunate. Thankfully I'm a poor sod so any kind of completionistic tendencies I might have are suffienciently quelled by my overwhelming stinginess.

Yeah I've spent a bit, and I didn't complain too hard, but this may be the one that does it. Like I stated before I collect everything senche and now with the possibility of not getting that mount within x amount of dollars outs a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't mind spending before because I haven't bought any new games since playing eso. I have a feeling that I may be headed towards something else, gaming wise. The lack of thought here is becoming appearant, housing item limit, the amount of crowns for a sub compared to item costs in the store and dlcs being called an expansion. You can only beat a dog so much before he turns around and bites you.

rhapsodious

As someone who semi-regularly IAPs in gacha games (I mean, I have the disposable income, but I could probably spend it on better things than digital garbage) and has spent a good chunk on ESO including the crates, the fact that there's now stuff not even purchaseable with Gems is pretty... off-putting. I try pretty hard to understand the decisions the company makes and where they're coming from, but that just seems like... I can't really think of how to describe it other than "a *** move". It's a shame too, because it feels like there's two people working on Crown Store offerings where one of them offers goods for reasonable prices and the other one just wants to see how high they can push the bar.

I implore your marketing department to re-evaluate their business practices. I get you guys need to make money and game dev is not an easy business, but please. All the devs I've met have been really nice and genuine people, and I would hope marketing is also filled with real people who just want to see the game succeed, not necessarily fill their wallets. And I hope the marketing department sees that attitudes like the current one are what will ultimately cause people like me to spend less.

TerraDewBerry

Moloch1514 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Regarding the no gem purchases I'm going to make this short, critical and polite.

ZOS, whoever it is who is running the marketing side of things and keeps pushing these absurd prices and insulting marketing schemes is hurting both yours and the games reputation.

They are showing to have no respect for this game or it's community. It's insulting to every one of us that you keep allowing this to continue.

If you want my opinion as a Community Ambassador then it's that you need to speak with the people who are doing this and get them to start listening or opening a dialogue with the games community.

I may discuss more with you in private when I have cooled off a little.

I'd like to have an ESO Live with "the Lady" as a guest. She is clearly running this $how now.

This^^^^ Bring "The Lady" out... we'd like to speak to her....

Gargath

Imho any Dwarven constructs usable by players is a disgrace for the Dwarven Legend of your own creation, ZOS, it hits hard the mystery of disappearance, about how the Dwarven steam installation works and for what purpose they were made etc. Now you construct some weirdo mechanisms and force us to believe that Tamriel enginners know how to domesticate them and use as mounts. Ridiculous and dangerous is the way this game follows with those mounts, created just to gain more and more profit.
I don't like it, as it closes slowly to some Guild Wars2 empty model of animated thingy without any depth, lore, immersion. Everything is possible from now on. With the spider or a horse you can ride and brag between others you loose the spirit of real Elder Scrolls. Some part of this spirit is lost with each your new animated product, especially when you mess with the Dwarven Legend.

Stopnaggin

Anunakis wrote: »

i dont care about any kind of crates - its gambling and has nothing to do with game fixes , game content or overall gampley improvement,

Like it or not it's content. Not everyone has the same idea of content. It was gambling, at least we knew we could get what we wanted, now not so much.

ComboBreaker88

A list is useless without pictures.

barbas

The only thing I wanted is apparently drop only (can't buy with gems), the Nchuleft Tonal Visor. This will be the last time I buy these stupid crates with my sub coins.
Update: It can be bought but something is wrong with the gems area. Sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn't, and this is a problem for other items as well (I did receive an update warning but disabled all of them reloaded UI/game) and it's still doing it

rotaugen454

As a certified whale (check my crowns purchased ZoS), I can say that the "can't buy them with gems" mounts really kills my enthusiasm for the crates. That is an absolutely horrible idea. I often defend your right to act as a business should, but this seems like something that will hurt ZoS over time, and I really want you to succeed. Please reconsider this setup.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

Those seem to be better than the Apex mounts:

Breton Hero Armor
Dro-m’Athra Senche (already owned)
Dro-m’Athra Senche Cub

Does anyone know a website where all rewards are listed with images?

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I'd like to add my voice to the small group of people complaining that the 'Dwemer' mounts are just slightly adjusted reskinned normal mounts instead of something that actually looks Dwemer in origin.

I'm not surprised mind. I just don't like it. It's lazy, unoriginal and the same brand of generic fantasy that really grates on me when it dilutes the uniqueness of Elder Scrolls. Maybe if they were Fabricants - you know, something that actually canonically looks like a machine animal - I'd mind less.

Abeille wrote: »

I feel that they didn't sell like hotcakes. Otherwise, why change the system they had?

If I were to hazard a guess, they wanted all the people who dropped hundreds of dollars on Crates in order to stockpile Gems to continue to drop hundreds of dollars on Crates instead of using said stockpiled Gems. Just like they did with Crowns, just like they do with in-game mats.

LMar

In addition to the concerns regarding Crown Crates. the non gem prizes there is also the

"In the vaults below Arcane University, the Mages Guild collected thousands of rare Dwarven artifacts. When the city was sacked by the forces of Molag Bal, these items were smuggled out, and are now appearing on the open market."

So the Worm Cult is also using the black market XD

I wonder how big the vaults of the Arcane University must have been to fit all of those mounts... And "thousands" of "rare" artefacts. You know sometimes these things do not need a lore explanation. Let us just at least thing that they aren't really part of the actual lore or that there's only one or two and we person or two just got it, not the whole populace who buys crown crates XD

thrillho5000

The apex mounts, like all previous apex mounts, look like hot-glued garbage. Once again nothing of value was lost. Nice to know we have even more ugly cosmetic choices so your toon can look like one of those ugly "venetian" masks Fingerhut used to sell...

I guess I feel bad for the rest of you, or whoever else wants those bionicle horses! -shrug-

Jitterbug

TonyRockaroni

Is it weird that I like the fact that I can FINALLY have Eoki's hairstyle more than I like those Dwarven mounts? XD

Enodoc

Hey everyone! As before, I've set up a form for you all to fill in when you open your Dwarven Crown Crates. Please ensure you know which items came from which crate (or fill in the form concurrently with opening the crate); this should help provide more analytical data on how the drops work.
https://goo.gl/3c5AWk

The spreadsheet is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zt5oj7PWNFFaTykgXhWQOOkVl1ekHAJgcJpueRN3C40/edit?usp=sharing