A compromise in the crate gambling debate

ChaosWotan

The introduction of "extremely rare" radiant mounts in the crown crates made this aspect of the game into pure gambling. Some people accept this, others hate it. A compromise is to let these radiant items be extremely rare gambling rewards if you buy less than 30 crates during one crate season, but once you have bought 30 crates in that season you will automatically get one radiant mount.

Ratzkifal

I think that's called a pity timer. Blizzard uses that in Overwatch lootboxes and Hearthstone packs. Every 30 crates or so without an apex guarantees you an apex item. I don't think it's a good compromise though. In Overwatch and Hearthstone you can get packs/boxes just by playing. Not saying that it should be like this in ESO too, but if we could return to the new cosmetics just going into the shop instead, I would be happy.

Jade1986

It should be like in swtor where you are guaranteed a rare with a chance of very rare per crate. As is now, you have a mini chance of anything useful in crates, no matter how much you spend.

Peekachu99

30 crates is small potatoes for what these actually cost to acquire. Odds are 1/100 to even get an apex mount, then you roll in that pool to get a “rare” one. At best I see them offering the extra special mounts (at some point) for like 1600 gems

Luckily for me, I’ve learned my lesson and this batch isn’t particularly interesting, either.

Streega

Not a bad Idea, but would prefer the option to extract gems from EVERY SINGLE ITEM you get from crates, including the tattoos and rare mounts (even with that crappy exchange rate), and in reverse, to BUY everything with gems. Won't happen, thou...

T4T2FR34K

What I would prefer is that gaming companies and their stock holders stop needing 3 vacation homes and 4.5 bathrooms...

ChaosWotan

I don't like crown crates either. I liked it when ESO was a subscription game, and have even argued earlier in this forum that an alternative or addition to CC is to introduce a relatively expensive VIP subscription that will get you all the CC rewards as in-game achievements, like the mysterious boxes in the next upcoming event.

However, since many players in ESO choose not to support the game by subscribing, I get it that ESO needs an extra source of income. I don't mind being one of those "whales" buying crates, in order to contribute to keeping the game going, presuposing that the devs actually make larger and better DLCs from now on. But like many other people here I don't want to waste money on pure gambling with almost zero chance of getting an extremely rare radiant mount.

The compromise mentioned above will make it possible for ESO to continue the CC system without being accused of tempting people into pure gambling. It will also make us "whales" satisfied. And it will contribute to fund the game, so that non-subscribers can get occasional new offers of free items too.

Ratzkifal

Jade1986 wrote: »

It should be like in swtor where you are guaranteed a rare with a chance of very rare per crate. As is now, you have a mini chance of anything useful in crates, no matter how much you spend.

Currently you will get 2 commons, one green and one blue or higher in crown crates (I might be wrong, doing this from memory). The rare fifth card can't be below purple (or blue?). So we currently have that only that not everything rare is useful and you are guaranteed to get 2 commons.

Hokiewa

T4T2FR34K wrote: »

What I would prefer is that gaming companies and their stock holders stop needing 3 vacation homes and 4.5 bathrooms...

"Stock holders" of publicly generated companies run the gambit of the very wealthy to millions of regular everyday people. This constant blaming of corporations for "greed" is counter intuitive to your own self interest if you have any type of retirement plan. Granted, in the case, Zenimax and its holding company are not publicly traded companies but the sentiment remains the same, ROI.

Note, I'm not discounting people's apparent disgust with crown crates, they are entitled to that opinion and to voice it in an attempt to promote change. However, its amusing whenever people argue against businesses for wanting to make a profit. That's literally their only purpose.

Ratzkifal

T4T2FR34K wrote: »

What I would prefer is that gaming companies and their stock holders stop needing 3 vacation homes and 4.5 bathrooms...

But I need a bathroom for myself, my wife needs one, one for the maid one for guests and where does the cat poop? I can't even have children at this rate. Think of the children!

Storymaster

@ZOS
Just give me all da mounts, cause I awesome.







That is all.

Ratzkifal

Hokiewa wrote: »

Note, I'm not discounting people's apparent disgust with crown crates, they are entitled to that opinion and to voice it in an attempt to promote change. However, its amusing whenever people argue against businesses for wanting to make a profit. That's literally their only purpose.

Their purpose is to make money, yes. But as a company you can make a choice if you want to produce quality content and have people buy your stuff to support you for a price equal to your running costs + profit for growth or if you want to scam your customers by overpricing or locking content behind gambling.
We could (and should) just boycott crown crates to let the free market tell them that crates are just not worth it.

Hokiewa

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Hokiewa wrote: »

Note, I'm not discounting people's apparent disgust with crown crates, they are entitled to that opinion and to voice it in an attempt to promote change. However, its amusing whenever people argue against businesses for wanting to make a profit. That's literally their only purpose.

Their purpose is to make money, yes. But as a company you can make a choice if you want to produce quality content and have people buy your stuff to support you for a price equal to your running costs + profit for growth or if you want to scam your customers by overpricing or locking content behind gambling.
We could (and should) just boycott crown crates to let the free market tell them that crates are just not worth it.

It's not remotely a scam if people continue to buy it. If people didn't buy the crates en masse, they wouldn't keep adding things to them. Overpricing and quality content is beyond subjective. Do you believe in restricting a company's level of "profit for growth"? If you do, you don't understand how in the end that limits your choice. If the demand is there, people are clearly paying for it. Why would a company choose to make less money because a portion of their customer base dislikes something and that portion clearly is much smaller then those willing to buy them? That's irresponsible behavior to investors/shareholders.

Easily_Lost

Maybe the answer would be to sell all the rare mounts that are in the Crown Crates for lets say 10,000 to 15,000 crowns. Would that make everyone shut-up!!

mirta000b16_ESO

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Jade1986 wrote: »

It should be like in swtor where you are guaranteed a rare with a chance of very rare per crate. As is now, you have a mini chance of anything useful in crates, no matter how much you spend.

Currently you will get 2 commons, one green and one blue or higher in crown crates (I might be wrong, doing this from memory). The rare fifth card can't be below purple (or blue?). So we currently have that only that not everything rare is useful and you are guaranteed to get 2 commons.

commons are potion tier, green is riding books/ exp scrolls/ food I believe, blue or higher is more likely to be a cosmetics item, but a poor one (lipsticks or body markings). So essentially per crate you have 1 (2 if you're really lucky) chance to get into the apex mount category. The % chance for that item to be high is very low though, so for example for my 3 free crates, only 1 hit the purple category (got a costume), others had 2 lipsticks and some potions. My friends didn't even get that lucky and not a single item that they got climbed above blue.

Shardan4968

I would be happy If they will be giving us 3 free crown crates every season. I bought tesselated guar already and there's no reason to spend money on crates for me. I only want pony guar pet and thanks to free crates I could afford it with gems, but there's no pony guar right now. I don't understand why people want to spend money (worth 30 crates) for get some ugly apex mount, but I agree that you should be able to extract even collectibles for gems, it would be more healthy and fair.

Elsonso

ChaosWotan wrote: »

The introduction of "extremely rare" mounts in the crown crates made this aspect of the game into pure gambling. Some people accept this, others hate it. A compromise is to let these items be extremely rare gambling rewards if you buy less than 30 crates during one crate season, but once you have bought 30 crates in that season you will automatically get one extremely rare mount.

I am sure that they will eventually get around to adding a pity timer. In a way, it actually encourages people to buy the Crown Crates, and that is the ultimate goal. Those people who buy 10 Crates and quit now have a reason to buy more.

SantieClaws

The gem system itself did not exist at first and was introduced in response to the less than positive reaction the crates received.

A better compromise would be that once a crate season has ended then every item apart from the apex mounts becomes available in the store.

Those who cannot wait can crate. The rest of us can purchase.

More sales for them that way too yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

ChaosWotan

If 70-80 percent of ESO gamers had subscribed, we might not have gotten the CC system. The ESO gaming community is partly to blame for the introduction of crate gambling, probably, unless the brass in ESO have become totally greedy the last two years.

mirta000b16_ESO

ChaosWotan wrote: »

If 70-80 percent of ESO gamers had subscribed, we might not have gotten the CC system. The ESO gaming community is partly to blame for the introduction of crate gambling, probably, unless the brass in ESO have become totally greedy the last two years.

Not a single B2P/ F2P game expects sub rates to be this high. And we would likely still have gotten crates, because extra income. And if only a very low percent of players are subbing, maybe the subscription system itself should be checked out, to see why is it not appealing to larger amount of people.

Turelus

SantieClaws wrote: »

The gem system itself did not exist at first and was introduced in response to the less than positive reaction the crates received.

A better compromise would be that once a crate season has ended then every item apart from the apex mounts becomes available in the store.

Those who cannot wait can crate. The rest of us can purchase.

More sales for them that way too yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This would be something I would be happy with. Even though I am sure the prices would be crazy at least we could have a choice in the matter. ZOS could also in theory double up on sales.

Elsonso

ChaosWotan wrote: »

If 70-80 percent of ESO gamers had subscribed, we might not have gotten the CC system. The ESO gaming community is partly to blame for the introduction of crate gambling, probably, unless the brass in ESO have become totally greedy the last two years.

While the gaming community is to blame for Crown Crates, and loot boxes in general, we would have gotten Crown Crates anyway.

Crown Crates are about raising boatloads of cash (via sales of Crowns) to bring money in so that they can reduce the outside investment needed for the next game that ZOS makes. We are talking upwards of 100 million to make a new game, and that is a lot of ESO Plus subscriptions. It is a lot of Crowns, too.

While I like what Santie said, the fact is that they would have to sell those items in the Crown Store for a sum that would cause screaming in here. People would flatly turn down the offer. In general, people are much more willing to spend a lot of money on something when they are not reminded of the total cost. If someone was looking for a specific Apex mount (and I know Santie excluded them) and was told that it would likely cost them $100 or more in Crown Crates, many would probably do a full stop before even buying a single Crate. They would certainly laugh at ZOS if they put it in the Crown Store for that much. Yet, I am sure that there are people out there, some reading this, that have put more than that into Crown Crates to get that mount, and others. Yes, I also know that Crates come with Stocking Stuffers that are designed to make it all seem worth the expense.

rhapsodious

Turelus wrote: »

SantieClaws wrote: »

The gem system itself did not exist at first and was introduced in response to the less than positive reaction the crates received.

A better compromise would be that once a crate season has ended then every item apart from the apex mounts becomes available in the store.

Those who cannot wait can crate. The rest of us can purchase.

More sales for them that way too yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This would be something I would be happy with. Even though I am sure the prices would be crazy at least we could have a choice in the matter. ZOS could also in theory double up on sales.

Yeah, there's little reason imo for crate-exclusive recolors to never be released again. Can even throw them up as "throwback LTOs" or whatever.

Crown Crates aren't going away, but a pity timer sure helps. Even slightly increasing the chance for a gold per crate opened (say base rate is 1%, then it becomes 1.1%, then 1.2%... so on and so forth, and resets when you get a gold card) would be appreciated. I think little changes like that have a much higher chance of getting in than ZOS marketing suddenly overhauling the whole idea. (:

ChaosWotan

@rhapsodious

Agree that it's only realistic to suggest small and easy changes within the current system.

@SantieClaws

Gamers like me who play ESO because of the rpg aspect and large scale battles in Cyrodiil (aka the horse simulator) will not be happy campers if the only way to get the coolest mounts (or other extremely rare items) is to waste money on pure gambling.

SantieClaws

ChaosWotan wrote: »

@rhapsodious

Agree that it's only realistic to suggest small and easy changes within the current system.

@SantieClaws

Gamers like me who play ESO because of the rpg aspect and large scale battles in Cyrodiil (aka the horse simulator) will not be happy campers if the only way to get the coolest mounts (or other extremely rare items) is to waste money on pure gambling.

Indeed - that is the only way you can get them now though. This one doubts a compromise will be possible on this sadly. So this one finds the middle ground and suggests perhaps a compromise on some lesser cosmetic items.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

JKorr

SantieClaws wrote: »

The gem system itself did not exist at first and was introduced in response to the less than positive reaction the crates received.

A better compromise would be that once a crate season has ended then every item apart from the apex mounts becomes available in the store.

Those who cannot wait can crate. The rest of us can purchase.

More sales for them that way too yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

I really wish they'd consider your idea. I've mentioned the same thing before; the themed items could remain crate exclusive. Other items, like the totally not atronach in any way, shape or form black mane lion that was in the Atronach crates could be put on the normal crown store for outright sale/purchase when the crown crate season is over. The former not themed items that they included, like the bear, the leopard, clouded leopard, panther, and lioness could have simply come back to the crown store again instead of being included in the rngesus crates. People who missed them might have been interested in buying them, but not willing to gamble for a chance to maybe get them. Seems as though the outright sale might bring more money than the rngesus crates for the older items.....

ChaosWotan

@SantieClaws

The introduction of extremely rare mounts is relatively new, so it should be easy to make one of those items a reward you get automatically when buying 30 crates during one crate season.

@Easily_Lost

Your suggestion is the easiest solution. Sell Apex mounts for 10k and extremely rare radiant mounts for 15k in the regular crown store. The problem, however, is that this will make the whole CC system pretty meaningless. So, again, if ESO wants to draw in "whales" and avoid gambling accusations, it's prb best to automatically give crate buyers an extremely rare radiant mount after paying for 30 crates - or 45 crates...

Ratzkifal

Hokiewa wrote: »

It's not remotely a scam if people continue to buy it. If people didn't buy the crates en masse, they wouldn't keep adding things to them. Overpricing and quality content is beyond subjective. Do you believe in restricting a company's level of "profit for growth"? If you do, you don't understand how in the end that limits your choice. If the demand is there, people are clearly paying for it. Why would a company choose to make less money because a portion of their customer base dislikes something and that portion clearly is much smaller then those willing to buy them? That's irresponsible behavior to investors/shareholders.

I don't believe in restricting profit for growth. The growth is what gives us faster better content.

Being a scam or not is not determined by people buying it or not. No casino is playing fair. The games are designed in such a way that over long periods of time the casino will average a profit. It's a scam and not fair. That's their company model.
ZOS' company model is developing a game and creating in game content for purchase to keep their servers running and their bills paid. That on its own leaves possibility space for crates to exist. However they can't lose money from a crate. A casino can lose money in theory. There really is no reason for them to screw over the players with RNG if they can't lose no matter what. So why choose to be greedy if they can put up a fair price and let people decide what they will get? Because more people want to get scammed? I doubt that is true. There might be a bunch of whales out there that make the system work, but a bad reputation hurts the company more in terms of profit in the long run. Being like a casino is not something a game publisher should aim at.

Elsonso

ChaosWotan wrote: »

@SantieClaws

The introduction of extremely rare mounts is relatively new, so it should be easy to make one of those items a reward you get automatically when buying 30 crates during one crate season.

The reason that Radiant Apex mounts (the extremely rare ones) exist is to drive people to buy Crown Crates. It sort of defeats the purpose to give them away as a consolation prize (pity timer). I am fairly sure that they have already considered such a thing, but that is really what Crown Gems are for and they are already not using them for these ultra rare mounts. I briefly considered the idea that they could add a pity timer based on number of crate purchases, but I blame lack of caffeine for that.

Instead, what they will probably do is bring back the Radiant Apex mounts as normal Apex mounts in some future Season. This is along the lines of what @SantieClaws has said, minus the part about putting it out for direct sale. They would never do that. They can get you to buy lots of Crown Crates twice, more than many would spend under Santie's idea, if they bring them back as a normal Apex mount.

Where Crown Crates are concerned, there are not many things that I think they will consider to be too despicable to try.

Edit for odd word repetition

Hokiewa

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Hokiewa wrote: »

It's not remotely a scam if people continue to buy it. If people didn't buy the crates en masse, they wouldn't keep adding things to them. Overpricing and quality content is beyond subjective. Do you believe in restricting a company's level of "profit for growth"? If you do, you don't understand how in the end that limits your choice. If the demand is there, people are clearly paying for it. Why would a company choose to make less money because a portion of their customer base dislikes something and that portion clearly is much smaller then those willing to buy them? That's irresponsible behavior to investors/shareholders.

I don't believe in restricting profit for growth. The growth is what gives us faster better content.

Being a scam or not is not determined by people buying it or not. No casino is playing fair. The games are designed in such a way that over long periods of time the casino will average a profit. It's a scam and not fair. That's their company model.
ZOS' company model is developing a game and creating in game content for purchase to keep their servers running and their bills paid. That on its own leaves possibility space for crates to exist. However they can't lose money from a crate. A casino can lose money in theory. There really is no reason for them to screw over the players with RNG if they can't lose no matter what. So why choose to be greedy if they can put up a fair price and let people decide what they will get? Because more people want to get scammed? I doubt that is true. There might be a bunch of whales out there that make the system work, but a bad reputation hurts the company more in terms of profit in the long run. Being like a casino is not something a game publisher should aim at.

I understand your opinion but it's all simply subjective. Not fair is purely subjective as the number of people buying the crates far exceeds the number refusing to (if this were not true, then you wouldn't see the move to include more crate exclusive items as we do now). A fair price is subjective and determined by the consumer. As far as "screwing" the customer, it's a seesaw effect. Profit/loss analyses are compromised of opportunity cost, actual purchasing data etc...Currently, it's clearly more profitable to "screw" a small number of vocal people and continue to offer to the larger number what they are clearly buying. Let's also be clear, ESO's crown crate system is not remotely the same thing as BF2 which started this outcry.

As for being like a casino, a game developer is again aiming to maximize profit. If people buy it, they will continue to do it.
That's it. People aren't sitting in their offices cackling with glee at these decisions, they are simply making decisions that are best for their investors.

monktoasty

Some games have special higher chance loot boxes for more money.

But to me a compromise is just increase drop rates simple as that. Why gotta be less than 1%?

And we do not know the numbers of people buying crates vs not...so such guesses are not helpful.

To me I'd have different types of loot boxes. Motiff loot boxes..mount loot boxes..and every one is guaranteed to get a motiff..maybe not rare but at least you get a motiff..that goes soooo far in giving the buyer a feeling of satisfaction.

I'll flesh that idea out another time..but it solves this whole issue.