Upgraded Version of the Kyne's Aegis Trial Skin in the Crown Crates (Why This is a Bad Decision)

skinnycheeks

Why do we like having cosmetic rewards like skins in video games? Sure, they look cool. But the truth is: we like them as rewards because they are a visual representation of an accomplishment. When I earned my hideous purple skin from completing Veteran Cloudrest +3, I didn't care that it was ugly and looked like giant purple wrinkles. I wanted to wear it everywhere because I was proud of the achievement.

But skins in this game have been continually devalued, now all the way to the point where an upgraded version of a Trial reward skin is being offered for purchase. And make no mistake about it...it is an upgraded version. More details are present in the design and there are higher quality outlines and definition in the design. What is the point in seeking out the skin as an accomplishment when a better version can simply be bought?

History of the Devaluing

This devaluing started in the Horns of the Reach 4-man dungeon pack when you swapped out the Bloodroot Forge skin for a Crown Crate hat, opting to instead sell the skin. The rewarded hat was nearly identical to two other versions in the crown crates. It was pretty clear what had happened. Then the next two dungeon packs, Dragon Bones and Wolfhunter, were perfect - a skin and a personality as the rewards, thought and effort put into the theme and detail of both.

Then you guys decided that the rewards would no longer come from earning each of the Trinity achievements (the no-death, the hard-mode, and the speedrun) and instead be earned from just clearing on Veteran mode. While I don't agree with making the rewards easier to obtain, I can at least understand why it was done. More people may attempt veteran content if they feel rewards are in reach. It makes sense. The same happened with the latest two 12-Person Trials. Only Veteran difficulty required for the skins instead of the HM difficultly that Asylum Sanctorium and Cloudrest requried. But nevertheless, it does devalue the reward when it is not as difficult to obtain.

Now, a nearly identical skin is sold except it is a BETTER version than the reward in game. It's bad enough that it is so similar, but to put the better version for sale is quite the low-blow.

Will You Please Listen?

@ZOS_Finn This is content you and your team work hard on and people deserve high quality, unique rewards for completing its challenges. They deserve rewards they can show off and be proud of. You really should fight back against those that are doing this because it really takes away from the work that you and your team are putting in.

@ZOS_RichLambert You play the game, you care about the game - please don't let stuff like this interfere with the integrity of the game. I realize what is in the game is done, and unlikely to be changed - but can we please do better going forward?

This game makes so much money - it's been on Steam's platinum seller list for like 3 years in a row and I don't think the majority of the player base even launches from Steam. I don't think taking rewards away from earning achievements in game and sticking them up for $$$ is really going to hurt the financial income of the game. If anything, it will make the game more money because people would respect the integrity of the game and want to support it. We understand the need for a cash-shop, but it shouldn't be intertwined with the in-game rewards systems!!

Please do better. I've been supporting this game for a long time and stuff like this makes me feel a little sick to my stomach about continuing to support a company that continues to push a little further and further with the monetization.

Where does it end? Where do you guys draw the line?

Mr_Walker

Definitely should be allocated the highest priority.

Runefang

*shrug* who cares? besides the OP of course

starkerealm

This is downright disgusting.

luen79rwb17_ESO

They're both ugly af

PizzaCat82

I agree they shouldn't put upgraded or too similar versions of skins in the crown store. So I guess the solution for this would be to upgrade the Trail skin to something better.

Thevampirenight

They are clearly not the same they have different patterns on them. To be honest with you the Trial version looks like a better at least to me.

dhboy123

Runefang wrote: »

*shrug* who cares? besides the OP of course

Alot of people care, it devalues the end game content, something ESO has been doing for a while now.

thorwyn

I have the vKA skin and I just bought the other skin from the crown store because I liked that one better. Who cares? A black Khajiit with psijic ink still doesn't make a vMoL skin.

Those people that do know how the skin looks like will be able to tell which is which. The skins are not so similar that you can not tell the difference. And those people who do not know the difference probably don't know about the KA skin in the first place.

Nobody really cares about skins and titles anymore. Are people really impressed by a skin that a decent ammount of people picked up a few hours after patch day? I don't think so.

skinnycheeks

thorwyn wrote: »

I have the vKA skin and I just bought the other skin from the crown store because I liked that one better. Who cares? A black Khajiit with psijic ink still doesn't make a vMoL skin.

Those people that do know how the skin looks like will be able to tell which is which. The skins are not so similar that you can not tell the difference. And those people who do not know the difference probably don't know about the KA skin in the first place.

You are welcome to your opinion just as I am to mine.

thorwyn wrote: »

Nobody really cares about skins and titles anymore. Are people really impressed by a skin that a decent ammount of people picked up a few hours after patch day? I don't think so.

BUT...your last line there kind of sums up and reinforces my whole argument about the current state of skins

tomofhyrule

This is something that people have complained about on both sides for ages, all the way back to "I want to be able to get the monkey/tiger from the beta"

One one hand, you've got the people who want it specifically to show it off and brag to everyone they see. On the other, you have the people who want it because they like it or for something like RP reasons but don't have the skills to get there.

To use your examples, I hate the fact that Wolfhunter and Dragon Bones locked their special cosmetics behind hardmode/nodeath/speedrun. Those dungeons are really hard to get through anyway, and now you're demanding that we also get three other people who are amazing to not die (or also avoid dying to RNG) just to get a cosmetic. Things like the Beast and Worm Wizard personalities are great for the RP crowd, particularly now with the Necromancer class and the Greymoor theme, but some people may not be as good at running dungeons so they just get to sit and wish or find mercenaries to buy carries. Honestly placing the cosmetics behind just completing vet DLC dungeons seems like enough. After all, we didn't have to do anything too difficult for the Assassin or Heroic personalities.

Yeah, I know - the point is to get people into the other content. But there's a difference in doing something because you want to versus grinding out something you have to do. I had loads of fun with antiquities going at my own pace until I got a lead for a level 10 thing, at which point I had to grind the skill line up. It stopped being fun. In terms of this, I want Beast so bad I can taste it for my werewolf character, so I have to put all of my solo play on hold to deal with learning dungeon mechanics and grinding for gear and reading build guides and basically doing the opposite of "play as you want!" just so I can convince my guild to grind MoS until I can do it without dying to Wyress Ursus. If they made Beast available at the Impresario or something I'd buy it in an instant.

Besides, there is a method to show off your shinies to the world that you can't buy: Titles. Godslayer may not come with some fancy skin or personality attached, but it does come with a fancy title that barely 0.1% of players have that you can show off. And as a bonus, that doesn't affect emotes or character appearance, so the only people who will 'need' to get it are the ones who want to show off their leet skillz to the world. Yeah, it's not as impressive as a giant flashing neon sign, but I've seen plenty of people walking around with 'Former Emperor' over their head and I always think that's pretty cool.

So despite the fact that the skins look similar (which I agree is about as similar as Z'maja and Ebony - they're only similar if the characters are fully clothed and running past you quickly), you can still put "Kyne's Will" on show the world that you have the real skin. Or better, go with "Dawnbringer" and use your fancy memento from the trinity achievement. Or better yet, "Kyne's Wrath" to show that you got the trifecta. And then if you go with one of those titles, you can also take which you consider as the 'better' skin and still be able to brag about your accomplishments.

Heck, I did it too. It's not as impressive as a vet, but the second I finished nKA with my guild I slapped "Kyne's Chosen" on my character. I wasn't gonna go nuts about titles in the first place since I do like solo RP, but it kinda fits since he's from Skyrim anyway. Much better choice than "Grand Master Crafter" or "Style Master," tbh.

thorwyn

BUT...your last line there kind of sums up and reinforces my whole argument about the current state of skins

I agree with your general assessment that skins are not the status symbol that they used to be. However, I also feel that said status symbols are pretty much meaningless. Even the trinity titles... whenever I see someone with a TTT or a GH title, I don't really care. It's like: yep, dude can play (or dude used to have a decent amount of gold).
Just speaking for myself of course, but to me, achievements are more of a personal thing. For a long time, the vMoL skin was out of reach for me. When I eventually got it, I didn't even bother using it on any of my chars. But that's just me...

Anhedonie

Next trials/dungeons will only reward titles lol

you also forgot that vSS mount and clown store mount both had the same skin initially and got a rework only after a massive backlash from community.

Integral1900

Given how few people will ever get the real skin it’s not exactly a surprise

Someone worked hard on that skin in the design department, shame if almost no one ever saw it so they tweaked it and popped it in this way instead. They are just being sensitive to their artists the same they were with the burning ice moggy mount from sunspire 🤣🤪😂🤣😇

idk

LOL. The crown one does look nicer. Crisper colors. lol

Edit: Though I will add that anyone who has any idea of what the trail reward skill looks like will not mistake the crown crate skill for the trial skin. They do different enough that they are easy to tell apart.

colossalvoids

Yeah, but the bigger problem with it is that now newer players are not motivated to take place of veteran ones going away with each new update out of frustration and unplayable state of content they participate in.

Half the people i know learned how to play and became good only because of the fact you can obtain those skins/personalities from hm / trifecta and not because of titles and achievement points zos wants to make it all about. Heck i clearly remember my first vmol prog, it was most exciting and sacred experience I've ever had in this game. And there is nothing really captivating in doing new trial the day it came out just to move into hm prog which gives nothing, compared to vas or vcr where you was motivated to proceed for hm run as soon as possible, learning curve was way more pronounced. Even mol had dro m'athra destroyer and hof dynamo ones you was actually interested in as a healthy medium between ttt and just vet clear.

Don't forget the memento for Dawnbringer, what a goal to work forward to, can't wait lol.

kind_hero

I wonder if they bother reading the forums, most likely they are too absorbed looking at the sales charts.

I soooo want to be wrong, but I have almost never seen an important dev to reply in the forums, aside from CMs and moderators.

Thannazzar

This sounds like a-

'it is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail. "

post from the OP. Is the accomplishment of completing content not reward enough?

From a psychological perspective the need to own and flaunt something that some cannot achieve is not healthy.

Is the knowledge that you got from hard work what others had to pay hard cash for a chance of getting not sufficient?

RaddlemanNumber7

From a commercial point of view whales are the real MVP's

RaddlemanNumber7

wrong thread

mairwen85

Thannazzar wrote: »

This sounds like a-

'it is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail. "

post from the OP. Is the accomplishment of completing content not reward enough?

From a psychological perspective the need to own and flaunt something that some cannot achieve is not healthy.

Is the knowledge that you got from hard work what others had to pay hard cash for a chance of getting not sufficient?

I don't think that's a fair assessment of what OP is saying at all. Nowhere do they say that others must fail or feel forced to be anything less. It isn't an elitist, big-I-am-post at all. It is perfectly reasonable that someone who clears challenging content receives not only an achievement, but a vanity item or reward that embodies it, and they have every reason to feel pride in that. The vanity item (note the word: vanity), is a visual representation of that achievement. While I disagree it is underhanded to sell similar vanity items or that doing so devalues the player's effort to achieve it, I can see why it would be frustrating. After all, if I can dress up like them, and for all intents and purposes appear as them, then that is a misrepresentation of their achievement. In this particular case, I believe the 2 are different enough, but that hasn't been the case with previous items (vSS mount for example).

Fischblut

But the truth is: we like them as rewards because they are a visual representation of an accomplishment.

I used to look at my collection of vMA weapons with pride. Powerful weapons, valuable even after nerfs.
Now every new player can get any of these weapons by light attacking mobs and bosses on normal MA. I don't care about "devalue" of anything, especially cosmetic skins, now

By the way, I like new skin from the Nightfall crates, and I would love to have more skins like this. I earned my Spiderkith skin, but I still happily bought Ebony skin when it was in crates for 100 gems

Jacozilla

Thannazzar wrote: »

This sounds like a-

'it is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail. "

post from the OP. Is the accomplishment of completing content not reward enough?

From a psychological perspective the need to own and flaunt something that some cannot achieve is not healthy.

Is the knowledge that you got from hard work what others had to pay hard cash for a chance of getting not sufficient?

Your viewpoint, however admirable some may find it to be, goes against the entire history of humanity.

Tokens of status, prestige, and/or accomplishment has been a thing since the invention of the crudest forms of human society. No matter how different we think some nations, tribes, or historical civs has been, one common denominator has been that aside from some outliers and saints, the reasons ppl like to show their tokens is precisely because it does matter even if the degree to which it matters has some reasonable variance.

If the accomplishment of something was just the reward in itself, we'd still be using mud huts and sticks.

FierceSam

Totally agree.

Aside from anything else it’s just so insanely lazy to have a lootbox skin so closely resemble an achievement skin. So lazy that it must be a deliberate choice.

And OP is right, it massively devalues the achievement skin, which will have an impact on the number of players wanting to put in the effort needed to get the achievement.

[snip]

[Edited to remove Bashing]

ItsJustHashtag

tomofhyrule wrote: »

This is something that people have complained about on both sides for ages, all the way back to "I want to be able to get the monkey/tiger from the beta"

One one hand, you've got the people who want it specifically to show it off and brag to everyone they see. On the other, you have the people who want it because they like it or for something like RP reasons but don't have the skills to get there.

To use your examples, I hate the fact that Wolfhunter and Dragon Bones locked their special cosmetics behind hardmode/nodeath/speedrun. Those dungeons are really hard to get through anyway, and now you're demanding that we also get three other people who are amazing to not die (or also avoid dying to RNG) just to get a cosmetic. Things like the Beast and Worm Wizard personalities are great for the RP crowd, particularly now with the Necromancer class and the Greymoor theme, but some people may not be as good at running dungeons so they just get to sit and wish or find mercenaries to buy carries. Honestly placing the cosmetics behind just completing vet DLC dungeons seems like enough. After all, we didn't have to do anything too difficult for the Assassin or Heroic personalities.

Yeah, I know - the point is to get people into the other content. But there's a difference in doing something because you want to versus grinding out something you have to do. I had loads of fun with antiquities going at my own pace until I got a lead for a level 10 thing, at which point I had to grind the skill line up. It stopped being fun. In terms of this, I want Beast so bad I can taste it for my werewolf character, so I have to put all of my solo play on hold to deal with learning dungeon mechanics and grinding for gear and reading build guides and basically doing the opposite of "play as you want!" just so I can convince my guild to grind MoS until I can do it without dying to Wyress Ursus. If they made Beast available at the Impresario or something I'd buy it in an instant.

Besides, there is a method to show off your shinies to the world that you can't buy: Titles. Godslayer may not come with some fancy skin or personality attached, but it does come with a fancy title that barely 0.1% of players have that you can show off. And as a bonus, that doesn't affect emotes or character appearance, so the only people who will 'need' to get it are the ones who want to show off their leet skillz to the world. Yeah, it's not as impressive as a giant flashing neon sign, but I've seen plenty of people walking around with 'Former Emperor' over their head and I always think that's pretty cool.

So despite the fact that the skins look similar (which I agree is about as similar as Z'maja and Ebony - they're only similar if the characters are fully clothed and running past you quickly), you can still put "Kyne's Will" on show the world that you have the real skin. Or better, go with "Dawnbringer" and use your fancy memento from the trinity achievement. Or better yet, "Kyne's Wrath" to show that you got the trifecta. And then if you go with one of those titles, you can also take which you consider as the 'better' skin and still be able to brag about your accomplishments.

Heck, I did it too. It's not as impressive as a vet, but the second I finished nKA with my guild I slapped "Kyne's Chosen" on my character. I wasn't gonna go nuts about titles in the first place since I do like solo RP, but it kinda fits since he's from Skyrim anyway. Much better choice than "Grand Master Crafter" or "Style Master," tbh.

Until Cloudrest this was not an issue. Cloudrest had the purple skin then there was the crown store one. vSS had theirs and a crown store version and finally KA has both.

It’s literally ZOS pandering to those who can’t get these skins so they won’t complain that they can’t get the item.

drkfrontiers

Is nothing sacred anymore not even hard work and effort.

gatekeeper13

I personally don't give a damn about posing my skins as achievements. If I like a skin, I wear it on my character. e.g. did vDoM because I find the meridian skin pretty cool and needed it for my vampire, don't care about any other skin except the Sunspire one, which I plan to get too ONLY for cosmetic reasons.

So selling skins in crown store is fine for me. What isn't fine imho, is locking the coolest skins behind hard trial modes, as if everyone has the time to participate in vet trial groups to improve and complete content or as if everyone plays PVE and not PVP. What about those who don't like PVE?

If someone wants to show off his PVE achievements, a title is more than enough.

Icy_Waffles

I was at first surprised to see this, then not really surprised at all, sadly.

fierackas

The store version should be better as people spend real money on it. Having a skin freely available from a trial devalues the skin.

Yamenstein

1) Having cool cosmetic items in game or through store is fine.
2) If in game cosmetics and store cosmetics look similar it's fine, not all of us have the time to spend hours on end playing the game and we want to spend money on looking good. If the store already had better looking cosmetics does it really matter that a crappier one is available through a hardcore trial that 10% of the gamers are going to get ?
3) For the love of God or whatever diety ZoS employees worhsip, get rid of crown crates !

Tommy_The_Gun

dhboy123 wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

*shrug* who cares? besides the OP of course

Alot of people care, it devalues the end game content, something ESO has been doing for a while now.

To be honest, I see bigger issue with devaluing game-play relevant things, like power-creep sets or classes for example. Just compare Viper Sting (base game, non-tradable dungeon set) to Venomous Smite (Chapter / DLC tradeable overland set). Or what happened to NB class when ZOS introduced Necromancer.

Also it is worth mentioning a lot of sets that got nerfed, only to push new "paid" sets (like Iceheart monster set for example).

As for the "skin" - nobody will care for the skin itself. But I understand what you mean.