Monetisation of New Systems

heaven13

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

It's the "cooking frog" analogy. ZOS excels at progressing with more and more hostile monetisation schemes at a slow pace, down the slippery slope. There's nothing huge in new updates, it's always just a little bit more, a little bit more. .../... Every patch they test just how far they can go before the playerbase has had enough, and every update we keep throwing money at them, me included.

I agree that they're taking it a step further every time, in what seems to be a very manipulative and calculated manner.

How about setting your own boundaries and limits ? That way you don't have to follow theirs, nor to adjust to them. I have decided to not buy any crowns beyond those I get with the sub, and as a result whatever happens in the crown store isn't my business and doesn't affect me. I don't have to think or to hesitate.
I'm not saying everyone should be like me, but the fact is, that this position is quite comfortable. And another fact is that if everyone did the same, we would not be facing these questionable monetization strategies at all.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

A) Everyone's limits would be different. You can't expect all the players to have the same limits as you which directly relates to

B ) Because some people have a higher (or no) limit, those that have a lower ARE affected. You might feel that it doesn't affect you and that's great, but if ZOS continues with these horrible practices, everyone deals with it (either by succumbing or not participating but it's there either way)

There are ways ZOS could be more player friendly. Plenty of ways that I can think of, in fact.

1. Lower crown store prices. (Mounts used to be under 2000 crowns. Now they're rarely less than 2500 for direct purchase. Pets used to be a couple hundred, most now are 1,000. Prices keep climbing but for what?)
2. Make crown crate items ALSO available for direct purchase. No more exclusive crate content. Instead, make crates an alternative method of obtaining goodies for cheaper than buying direct, but with the risk of getting something random rather than THE thing you want.
3. Introduce some items each season that are added as game rewards for achievements. Make them also available for crowns if people want to buy instead if they really want to cash shop them, but I'd love to earn stuff. Heck I was excited to earn the costumes from Orsinium even if I don't wear them.
4. Stop with super limited, super rare stuff. I shouldn't have to have 20k crowns (see #1) on hand at any given moment and monitor ESO (either in game directly or social media) with the intensity required atm to not miss out on 2 day or 4 day or whatever limited items.

If ZOS adopted even SOME of these practices, it would be good for everyone and for the game as a whole. Better customer relations, better brand association, better customer loyalty leading to long term revenue and referrals. We wouldn't have to pretend "oh, I don't buy it/like it, so it doesn't affect me" because hard truth: it does affect you - prices are set higher than you're willing to spend. You accept it and remain positive (which is fine and your prerogative) but it does still affect you and your wallet.

josiahva

I will bet this is purely cosmetic...and if so, who gives a crap? Buy it if you like cosmetic junk...or just play the game and ignore the crown store if you dont care. I promise you, no one really pays any attention to how your weapons looks except you...and outfits can change them to look however you want, unless there is some particular crown-store-only style you just must have for your vanity...and if thats the case...go buy it

Stovahkiin

Turelus wrote: »

I've often made the joke about ESO becoming more like SWTOR and whilst we are far from that this trend of making every new system in a way which it can then be monetised is kind of heading that route.

While I completely agree with your post, I had to scoff a little at this. In terms of monetizing pretty much everything, ESO already *is* worse than SWTOR.

Swtor doesn't sell houses (or any item) for $100 + and SWTOR's outfit system is practically free for it's players to use. SWTOR's cash store lootboxes also don't sell 99% junk like ESO's. Sure, the f2p restrictions and several of the cash grabs in swtor's store are definately annoying in my eyes, but Zeni's current way of doing things just smacks of greed and makes SWTOR look like an innocent ice cream truck the way I see it.

Xoelarasizerer

This kind've business is always a case of "Time and Effort vs. Money" for content.

I think, to fairly balance out the clear "money" part here of crown store, we have the "Time and Effort" part being if singular motifs of each item skin are either a rare drop chance from the Veteran version of their respective dungeon final boss, or rare rewards from their respective undaunted enclave chests.

Of those two, I'm kinda veering more towards the undaunted enclave chests idea. I'd prefer the chests have that injection of extra replayability for daily key grinding again.

jcaceresw

I believe the 10 million players on ESO is a lie. The new changes, specially the crown store motifs given per page instead of the whole book, is a desperate attempt to get money in order to try to keep alive a game that I believe is bound to cease working in a short future. From my part, I will stop buying crowns and just stick to my ESO+ sub to get access to DLC.

josiahva

jcaceresw wrote: »

I believe the 10 million players on ESO is a lie. The new changes, specially the crown store motifs given per page instead of the whole book, is a desperate attempt to get money in order to try to keep alive a game that I believe is bound to cease working in a short future. From my part, I will stop buying crowns and just stick to my ESO+ sub to get access to DLC.

if you are an ESO+ subscriber...why would you buy crowns to start with? I never buy crowns....but I also dont care about cosmetic items, I tend to spend my crowns buying DLC should I ever stop subbing, or character slots, etc...you know...useful things

Katahdin

That motif better not count toward master writ drops or be required for master writ completion

Anastian

Albeit World of Warcraft is a sub-only game, you can obtain a huge amount of mounts and other character customization items just by playing.
I completely agree: people who are willing to spend their time in the game should be rewarded in this sense as well. Not everything cosmetic should be in the game and that's fine; these cosmetic items should also be somewhat difficult to obtain.

I'd rather see for example the opportunity to unlock a custome every now and then instead of the three free crown crates we are given, perhaps through a specific achievement that must be completed ingame to be awarded such an item.

Anastian

myskyrim26 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

List of Monetised Systems.

Housing
Crown only decorations.
Crown Crate only decorations.
Housing slots locked behind subscription.

Transmutation
Additional token slots locked behind subscription.

Outfit System
Outfit slots per character and sold for insane amounts ($14.99 each!)
Crown Store only outfit items (Summerset pre-order, Summerset Crown Store)

Ok, these all are luxury items. Can I play without them? Sure.

Luxury is always something expensive and something completely unnesessary. Can I buy a Lexus car? Or maybe Patek Philippe watch? A villa on Florida beach? No. Can I live without this luxury? Sure.

So are all monetized items: unnessessary luxury. Some can affrod them. Others are whining for the reason unknown to me. Why not go to Patek Philippe facebook group and whine about their prices than?

The main difference here is that you are taking people away from the game if you don't give them something to work for. Mounts in WoW are difficult to obtain for the most part: so are most of the cool cosmetic items you may want. This keeps you logging in every day, just like some people who decided to manually farm for Morrowind's paintings or the Buoyant Armiger motif.

These are good things: they give you a purpose in a theme park MMO that REQUIRES you to build such a purpose. Otherwise you are just going to leave. And trust me, I am a damn cheapstake and I'd farm all day long instead of spending a dime, but when I am really satisfied with the content I have no problem with purchasing crowns and DLCs just for the sake of paying the company for the quality content they delivered to me.

I know it's totally unrelated but take as an example The Witcher 3: did they need to monetize anything to earn their huge success? No. CDProject also released Gwent where you CAN farm to unlock all of the cards. Some people with less time will just speed up the project by paying, and some will even spend extra to unlock the animated versions of the cards. But you can get everything in the game on your own, and that gives you a reason to come back and keep on playing and, especially, to purchase the new DLCs just because you love the game. Not because you are compelled to in order to avoid missing on something.

Dubhliam

I am not at all concerned with cosmetic items being locked behing a paywall.
In fact, I am happy with their monetisation model, as well as the content they dish out every 3 months, giving incentives for hardcore endgame players.

BUT!

The way they are starting to enforce predatory practices truly scares me.

I have no problem with lootboxes. In fact, even though I don’t spend my money on them, they seem to have a fairly good model of crates with the seasonal rotation and gems.
BUT!
Locking Apex mounts in crates only, with no direct purchase with gems was a big no-no. Stike one!

I also have no problem with Crown Store only motifs. In fact, I bought one, and am a proud owner of all motifs apart from Grim Harlequin, and I don’t mind at all.
BUT!
Putting Maormer motif pages into Crown Crates is disgusting. Strike two!

These predatory practices are exactly the reason why lootboxes are the theme in many courts and parliaments around the world.
Taking advantage of your customers is a quick road to your downfall, ZOS.
And I for one would like this company to flourish for many years to come, with my subscribtion flowing all the time.

Rain_Greyraven

Turelus wrote: »

W T F . . .
That's pretty damn low. I'm not angry, just very very disappointed.

Yeah I have to agree with @Turelus there is a big difference between constructive criticism and a shot across the bow so to speak.


Turelus does makes some valid points, but from a business standpoint and the way folks do buy in this game, it would be dumb of them no to take advantage of this, we have seen SWTOR bring more paths to acquiring cash shop items......and anyone can also see SWTOR is on it's very last legs, so they aren't the BM to follow.

In any event there needs to be a rework of old content, (personally I would like to see a more challenging group only instance version of that content with special rewards that you can't buy) but I don't think that adding these cosmetic items to that is necessarily the answer.

Flaminir

My two pence worth is very simple...

The weapon re-skins - Fine.... cosmetic, we will know the cost when they go in the store, buy it if you have the money and like it, don't if you don't.

But with the motif being split into pages and locked behind a GAMBLING pay wall..... they haven't just pushed the boundaries here, they have jumped a mile over the line! Thats simply exploitative and extremely dirty practice imho. They better not make it a requirement to boost the drop chance of master writs... or even worse, include it as a required style on some of the writs!

Geroken777

For anybody curious about the crown crate exclusive motif and how it looks like:

Linaleah

Stovahkiin wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

I've often made the joke about ESO becoming more like SWTOR and whilst we are far from that this trend of making every new system in a way which it can then be monetised is kind of heading that route.

While I completely agree with your post, I had to scoff a little at this. In terms of monetizing pretty much everything, ESO already *is* worse than SWTOR.

Swtor doesn't sell houses (or any item) for $100 + and SWTOR's outfit system is practically free for it's players to use. SWTOR's cash store lootboxes also don't sell 99% junk like ESO's. Sure, the f2p restrictions and several of the cash grabs in swtor's store are definately annoying in my eyes, but Zeni's current way of doing things just smacks of greed and makes SWTOR look like an innocent ice cream truck the way I see it.

uh. UH. no. dude. no. the fact that Zeni is heading swtor way is part of what is scaring me, and btw, have you seen the prices on swtor houses lately in cartel coins (you know the ones you have to unlock one room at a time)? the only thing is all of them are also available for credits BUT... you HAVE to be a subscriber to get anywhere near affording them with credits. moreover. a single lightsaber. a SINGLE lightsaber is $40 and that's just for a single character, you STILL have to pay extra to unlock it to use it on other characters.

outfit system is not as severely monetized.... IF you are a subscriber, but... like 90% of the items you can actualy use in outfits? come from crates. and yes, the crates are chock full of junk - sure you could trade with other players and essentialy buy crates for credits (gold) which i did, but at the same time at least ZoS lets you trade in the duplicates to get exactly what you wanted instead of having it clog up your inventory, well... back when we didn't have gamble only items with first couple of shipments. this debacle we have with radiant apex items? swtor has been pulling that crap for YEARS now.

that is the problem with what we are seeing with Zeni. they are heading more and more in a direction of swtor. at least gameplay is not restricted if you are not a subscriber. and now if I'm starting to wonder if there is a silent.. "yet" hanging there.

swtor monetanization is still worse. for now. and that I'm even saying for now is very concerning, because this is not a competition ZoS! you really don't need to outmonetize EA.

I love what content development team comes up with. please don't let your marketing team sour enjoyment of what is otherwise a very lovely game.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Turelus wrote: »

We do set limits, but the point is when you set a limit you have to stop enjoying some features of the game because others limits are further than yours.

When you have to stop enjoying new motifs or cosmetics because they're deployed in ways which are not consumer friendly we shouldn't telling one another to have their limits but looking at the company and asking why we're being preyed on in such a way (hyperbolic I know but you get what I mean).

Also it's interesting to be in a debate with you where you're on the ZOS defence side and I am on the attack for once.

I'm not really defending ZOS here... I'm defending some sort of "democracy" and some sense of proportion...

To the "democracy" part... yes, we have to pay a lot/too much ... or live without some features... simply because others are ready to pay more than we are for said feature. But isn't it part of their freedom to buy whatever they see fit at whatever price they see fit ? There's no such thing as "overpriced". There's only "I buy at that price - or I don't". And can we really blame ZOS for wanting to make the most benefit out of the people's will to pay ? For what sake should they lower their prices ? For what sake should they stop their strategies ? Love of us ? Morals ? They're part of a system and that's how the system works. You blame it on the marketing team (in order to "spare" the dev team) but the marketing team will blame it on the board of directors who in turn will blame it on the investors who will blame it on the market. That's just how it is. Just like you can have a perfect id*ot leading your country because the majority voted for him against all common sense, but that's democracy, and until we find some better system, we'll have to deal with it because it's still the best system around. Same goes for the free market. It leads to abuse but it's still the best system around.

To the "sense of proportion" part... this is a game, and the stuff we're talking about is nothing we actually need to live happily nor to play happily. They could sell it 1000% higher that I wouldn't give much of a damm because that's all fluff. Believe me, if we were talking food, pharmaceuticals, or people selling water in the middle of the Sahara, I would have a totally different approach. But in a video game, yes, as much affection and time we may invest into the game, it's still not a thing we *need*, it's just a thing we *want*.

TL/DR : I understand the frustration and I don't approve much of ZOS' tactics. But I think that moral and emotional aspect being thrown into the discussion are out of place.

DieAlteHexe

moonio wrote: »

I think the monetisation model of 'games as a service' is here to stay and there isn't much we can do about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service

But I think it also devalues 'Gaming' to the level of pure vanity and 'ooh look mine is bigger than yours' mentality, which then makes one question as to whether we are playing a game or simply just wanting to look good.

I think a balance must be found, games must reward/elevate people who invest time and effort into becoming good players and bring something new to the game, they raise the bar for us and give us something to aspire to, which is generally what keeps people in the game.

Once those people leave (because their efforts are pointless) all you have is a dead game that is full of glitter..

I agree that this is the road we're on. I am not in the least bit surprised though. The concept works on many people. I'm not one, usually. I couldn't care less if Joe over there is fully decked out in whatever the latest cool stuff is. Or whether Susie's wolf is on fire or John's horse is falling to bits and held together with rotted cloth. I don't have issues with folk who want the biggest and best houses. If it makes them happy, that's to the good.

I prefer making my own "stuff" if at all possible. That gives me the warm fuzzies. Unfortunately, I cannot craft mounts.

Using peoples' desire to be special or über does strike me as cynical but it's not often in this world we find altruistic for-profit companies. I buy from the store that which amuses me and not because I'm feeling "less than" others.

One change I wish would be made, strongly. If it can be dropped in crates, it should also be purchasable via in-game gold. I think they are missing a trick here. By all means delay the in-game gold availability so that those who want to be special for awhile can be but do release the contents for in-game gold eventually. And if they insist on having "limited availability" to egg people on , have it a bit longer. We're not all able to be online daily and this cuts off some of the folks who would buy stuff. I also get that this is incentive to log on daily...again, cynical.

Money, money, money.

ParaNostram

Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.

DieAlteHexe

Apache_Kid wrote: »

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).

?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?

Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...

Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.

Are you ******* kidding me

Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...

Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?

I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.

The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.

TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.

And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?

Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.

[Edited for quote]

Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.

karekiz

This would be a great vet HM drop system and tossed in crown store. Can have it both ways.

Just make it similar to the motif drops in DLC dungeons. I think that works well.

Rain_Greyraven

ParaNostram wrote: »

Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.

Wow...just wow.

Reading some of the responses....this is why these forums have such a nasty reputation of toxicity, I'm sure that wasn't the OP's intent for this to turn into a "Zos is eeeviilll!!!" fest, but it seems impossible for folks in this community to discuss this on a mature level without resorting to insulting people they never met and extrapolating to what they believe is true.

Unless you have been in the industry (actual industry and have shipped a triple A game you don't know what is the actual truth of the matter) This isn't me white knighting for the man, it's looking at things from a non emotional non perpetually outraged perspective.

warabi

josiahva wrote: »

jcaceresw wrote: »

I believe the 10 million players on ESO is a lie. The new changes, specially the crown store motifs given per page instead of the whole book, is a desperate attempt to get money in order to try to keep alive a game that I believe is bound to cease working in a short future. From my part, I will stop buying crowns and just stick to my ESO+ sub to get access to DLC.

if you are an ESO+ subscriber...why would you buy crowns to start with? I never buy crowns....but I also dont care about cosmetic items, I tend to spend my crowns buying DLC should I ever stop subbing, or character slots, etc...you know...useful things

People get crowns since even with ESO+ the crown rates for stuff in the store is still sky high. If you want to only use your crowns on certain things that's great, but not everyone is you. People are diverse and enjoy different things that you may not. The ESO folks also know people love cosmetic stuff or they wouldn't do all of this crap.

Apache_Kid

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).

?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?

Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...

Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.

Are you ******* kidding me

Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...

Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?

I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.

The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.

TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.

And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?

Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.

[Edited for quote]

Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.

I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.

I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.

As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.

Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.

If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.

Sting864

Phage wrote: »

Im honestly not surprised anymore.

We call them ZO$ for a reason.

Who's this "we" of which you speak... do you have a mouse in your pocket?? I think ZOS works hard to provide a quality product for a reasonable price...

Apache_Kid

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.

Wow...just wow.

Reading some of the responses....this is why these forums have such a nasty reputation of toxicity, I'm sure that wasn't the OP's intent for this to turn into a "Zos is eeeviilll!!!" fest, but it seems impossible for folks in this community to discuss this on a mature level without resorting to insulting people they never met and extrapolating to what they believe is true.

Unless you have been in the industry (actual industry and have shipped a triple A game you don't know what is the actual truth of the matter) This isn't me white knighting for the man, it's looking at things from a non emotional non perpetually outraged perspective.

Until this game actually starts to perform like an actual Triple A game, they bring any toxicity upon themselves. More and more ways to generate revenue continue to appear in the game and performance gets worse and the bugs more numerous.

JKorr

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.

Wow...just wow.

Reading some of the responses....this is why these forums have such a nasty reputation of toxicity, I'm sure that wasn't the OP's intent for this to turn into a "Zos is eeeviilll!!!" fest, but it seems impossible for folks in this community to discuss this on a mature level without resorting to insulting people they never met and extrapolating to what they believe is true.

Unless you have been in the industry (actual industry and have shipped a triple A game you don't know what is the actual truth of the matter) This isn't me white knighting for the man, it's looking at things from a non emotional non perpetually outraged perspective.

Actually the person hired to monetize the game has built her reputation on doing exactly that. I don't believe there has been any news about her moving on from ZOS, so chances are good she's still there doing her job of monetizing the game as much as possible. This isn't really a "what you believe is true" type of thing.

Having themed mounts locked behind the gamble boxes is one thing. This one thing started sliding when it was apparently realized that allowing people to trade the "consumables" that no one really wanted or used for gems allowed people to *stop* buying the gamble boxes when they could outright buy the mount they wanted for gems. So the degree of slope increased and more sliding started with the "not buyable with gems radiant apex mounts". The slope has gotten significantly steeper with the motif pages. I don't know whether the pages can be bought with gems. At this point I wouldn't be too surprised if they can't be. I will be astonished if the book or even pages ever make it to the crown store, able to be bought with crowns. [The ability to know what an item costs, and decide if I'm willing to pay that cost, is rather important to me. I won't buy the "Akatosh only knows how much it will cost before the rng gremlins will bless you" gamble crates to get an item I'd like to have.]

Perfect world would put that motif in the game, where it could be gotten by working for it, or trading gold to another player to buy it. Sort of perfect would be offering it for outright sale in the crown store, with a set price that people could see and judge if they were willing to pay for it. Dumping it by pages and locking it behind the paywall gamble crates has pushed the slippery slope past the Olympic ski jump ramp degree for me.

Sting864

Turelus wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

We still got new motifs in the game? There's 4 with upcoming chapter. But does seem something is wrong with people not being happy with content rewards.

New motifs are good and they'll look nice but let's be honest if this system is what it seems then the motifs will be the mundane cultural ones from each update but all the "cool" stuff will be in the store for money.

It's just sad that dungeons which have little value to run now lost a great chance to have some low % drops to encourage players to get back into them.

Just get right with RNGeezus... Have you read in the patch notes where these motifs are Crown Store exclusives??

DieAlteHexe

Apache_Kid wrote: »

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).

?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?

Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...

Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.

Are you ******* kidding me

Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...

Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?

I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.

The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.

TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.

And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?

Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.

[Edited for quote]

Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.

I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.

Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.

I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.

I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.

As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.

Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.

Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.

Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.

If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.

I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.

IrishRonD

As long as it is costume related and not overpowered weapons, I have no problem with them monetizing it. When they start selling overpowered armors and weapons, then there will be a problem.

Apache_Kid

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).

?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?

Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...

Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.

Are you ******* kidding me

Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...

Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?

I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.

The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.

TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.

And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?

Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.

[Edited for quote]

Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.

I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.

Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.

I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.

I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.

As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.

Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.

Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.

Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.

If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.

I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.

I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.

I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.

Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.

Akrasjel

B2P for a BASE and DLCs, ESO+, "Microtransactions"... not enough they need more

It's not that bad yet... but where will this trend take us