For us non-gamblers, can we get some cooler mount options please? I'll pay the crowns....

MrDenimChicken

All the coolest mounts are behind the gambling paywall. And I'm not going to do that. Gambling is an addicting habit, and it's unethical to provide the option to little kids through a video game.

Please ZOS. Can you at least add some cooler mount options that you can directly purchase through the crown store? God forbid do some cooler mount options available through in game activity. I know theres like some dwarven wolf mount, but that's not half as cool as all those mounts with the crazy ghost flames swirling around them.

WhyMustItBe

Not until more countries ban gambling mechanics and predatory marketing tactics.

Game companies make far too much money peddling addiction to stop on their own.

Zenzuki

Game isn't marketed to "little kids".

MrDenimChicken

Zenzuki wrote: »

Game isn't marketed to "little kids".

I'm pretty sure the juvenile jokes in the majority of main zone quest lines show the game clearly isn't some super rated R game for adults. On the contrary, it's designed for mass appeal, including kiddos.

Zenzuki

Note: Bottom left.

WhyMustItBe

Zenzuki wrote: »

Note: Bottom left.

Not to pick nits, but 17 is not legal age to gamble in most countries. In the US you can't even buy lottery tickets.

Zenzuki

Still rated "M", and it's PEGI 18. in Europe.

Not targeted at "little kids".

Either way to the OP... That's how they've decided to offer the Apex mounts.

Although there are a couple of really cool ones that you can earn in game.

Maybe try that route if you're averse to crates.

MrDenimChicken

So back to the main question. Can we get some cooler freaking mounts that DONT REQUIRE GAMBLING?

spartaxoxo

The endeavors might help with that soon

Iccotak

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

So back to the main question. Can we get some cooler freaking mounts that DONT REQUIRE GAMBLING?

Yes https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59925

Arriving as part of Update 30 and launching mid-June, the new Endeavors system is a free addition to the ESO base game that all players can utilize. With this new system, you can complete new daily and weekly tasks, called Endeavors, that grant you various rewards (such as Gold or Experience) and a new currency called Seals of Endeavor.

With the new Seals currency, you can acquire any of the currently available Crown Crate items. This includes any of the crate’s consumables (such as potions or XP scrolls), pets, cosmetics, or even its extremely rare Radiant Apex mounts. For the first time in The Elder Scrolls Online, you can acquire these highly sought-after items via gameplay in addition to finding them within crates. Note that any Crown Crate items you acquire with Seals cannot be converted into gems.

WhyMustItBe

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The endeavors might help with that soon

One can only hope. My fear is that doing all the available endeavor content for the week won't even net you enough to get the smallest size crown pack. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Zenzuki

Each daily will be worth 1 Seal and 1000 gold. The weeklies are worth 20 seals (not sure of the gold value).

So it will definitely be work to get a decent number of seals...

But it will be an "in-game" playable way to get crown store items without buying loot crates.

WhyMustItBe

Zenzuki wrote: »

Each daily will be worth 1 Seal and 1000 gold. The weeklies are worth 20 seals (not sure of the gold value).

So it will definitely be work to get a decent number of seals...

But it will be an "in-game" playable way to get crown store items without buying loot crates.

Yeah, but what is the seal to gem conversion rate?

My fear is that, like the halfing of CP 2.0 power on the PTS, it will end up taking so many seals just to get a Crown Fortifying Meal that you will end up doing tedious daily content for literally MONTHS before you can get even a 100 gem mid-tier reward, and by that time they would have been cycled off the crown store, making the whole thing a nigh useless gesture.

I mean I hope it ends up being worth the time investment I sincerely do.

Zenzuki

Yeah, I imagine it'll take a pretty long time to get enough to be of any use unfortunately.

They're not going to want to de-value the crowns/gems.

I'd say we're probably not going to be able to get anything of worth until probably two crate cycle from release, but at least it's a step in the right direction for allowing people a way to get crown store items without buying loot crates.

Iccotak

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Zenzuki wrote: »

Each daily will be worth 1 Seal and 1000 gold. The weeklies are worth 20 seals (not sure of the gold value).

So it will definitely be work to get a decent number of seals...

But it will be an "in-game" playable way to get crown store items without buying loot crates.

Yeah, but what is the seal to gem conversion rate?

There is no conversion rate Seals and Gems are separate currencies - you would use one or the other to buy the crown crate item.

ThorianB

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Zenzuki wrote: »

Note: Bottom left.

Not to pick nits, but 17 is not legal age to gamble in most countries. In the US you can't even buy lottery tickets.

It's one year different and mature is the highest audience rating for a game so very much nitpicking.

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Zenzuki wrote: »

Game isn't marketed to "little kids".

I'm pretty sure the juvenile jokes in the majority of main zone quest lines show the game clearly isn't some super rated R game for adults. On the contrary, it's designed for mass appeal, including kiddos.

1. The game is rated mature and requires age verification. Many of the people you think are children are just immature adults. The actual children are likely here with parent's approval. That is on the parent's not everyone else( see #4)
2. You can buy crown crates with gold and you can buy any item in a crown crate with gems, so NOT gambling in any sense of the word.
3. When blackwood drops you will be able to earn seals of endeavor which can be used like crown gems. So you can do quests and what not to earn a currency you can spend on crate items, so still not gambling.
4. Personal Responsibility and Impulse Control are two traits that every adult needs to learn in their life to be a functioning human. Asking a majority, who can control themselves, to give up something because a minority cannot is a very unreasonable ask.
[snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

ThorianB

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Zenzuki wrote: »

Each daily will be worth 1 Seal and 1000 gold. The weeklies are worth 20 seals (not sure of the gold value).

So it will definitely be work to get a decent number of seals...

But it will be an "in-game" playable way to get crown store items without buying loot crates.

Yeah, but what is the seal to gem conversion rate?

My fear is that, like the halfing of CP 2.0 power on the PTS, it will end up taking so many seals just to get a Crown Fortifying Meal that you will end up doing tedious daily content for literally MONTHS before you can get even a 100 gem mid-tier reward, and by that time they would have been cycled off the crown store, making the whole thing a nigh useless gesture.

I mean I hope it ends up being worth the time investment I sincerely do.

Given the limit on seals, the conversion rate is likely to be 1 for 1 which is fair conversion rate. It would take a couple of months of doing all quests to get an apex mount and half a year to a year for a radiant which is more than fair as crowns needs to be the fastest and best method to obtain those mounts.

EDIT: Just to be clear there is no actual conversion as Iccotak pointed out. You would have to use seals or gems to buy an item. You can't trade seals for gems.

WhyMustItBe

ThorianB wrote: »

Just to be clear there is no actual conversion as Iccotak pointed out. You would have to use seals or gems to buy an item. You can't trade seals for gems.

Dang. So you can't use the gems you have in COMBINATION with the seals you earn to get things faster/more easily?

Hopes kindled. Hopes doused.

ThorianB

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

ThorianB wrote: »

Just to be clear there is no actual conversion as Iccotak pointed out. You would have to use seals or gems to buy an item. You can't trade seals for gems.

Dang. So you can't use the gems you have in COMBINATION with the seals you earn to get things faster/more easily?

Hopes kindled. Hopes doused.

Not that i saw, but they have been known to add stuff in later on PTS and make major changes. If you don't mind doing gold to crown exchanges, it would be far faster to earn gold in game and then buy a bunch of crates at once so you get a ton of gems. I feel like endeavors are a bit pointless. i think they might also have restrictions on what you can use them on. I remember reading that but i can't remember if it was official or hearsay.

Bradyfjord

ThorianB wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

ThorianB wrote: »

Just to be clear there is no actual conversion as Iccotak pointed out. You would have to use seals or gems to buy an item. You can't trade seals for gems.

Dang. So you can't use the gems you have in COMBINATION with the seals you earn to get things faster/more easily?

Hopes kindled. Hopes doused.

Not that i saw, but they have been known to add stuff in later on PTS and make major changes. If you don't mind doing gold to crown exchanges, it would be far faster to earn gold in game and then buy a bunch of crates at once so you get a ton of gems. I feel like endeavors are a bit pointless. i think they might also have restrictions on what you can use them on. I remember reading that but i can't remember if it was official or hearsay.

I can imagine that they will tweak what we can buy with the system over time. Their 'seasons' system allows them the opportunity to change things up each time a new season comes along.

TelvanniWizard

There are plenty of cool mounts not locked behind gambling. The problem is that due to their awful limited time offers policy they are never available.

Brrrofski

I don't know why people defend crates so badly.

All people want is an actual price for what they want. Even if it's £100 for a mount, people just want to know that if they spend that much, they'll get it.

What other part of life works on a game of chance? Buying clothes, or food, or a car isn't a lucky dip.

Honestly baffles me that gamers still take this crap and don't just avoid loot crates. Then gaming companies might have to change how they make money from their game.

I have no issue with there being a cash shop that sells cosmetics in any game. I buy stuff from them. I don't like the RNG aspect loot crates. It's a total predatory way to make money and makes me question the ethics and values of a company that has loot boxes as part of their game.

kargen27

Crown crates are not gambling. You purchase them knowing you will get four random items And sometimes a bonus item maybe. Same way baseball cards work. Same way those machines by the bubblegum machines work.

All for another way to get cool mounts but crown crates simply are not gambling.

VoidCommander

Brrrofski wrote: »

I don't know why people defend crates so badly.

All people want is an actual price for what they want. Even if it's £100 for a mount, people just want to know that if they spend that much, they'll get it.

What other part of life works on a game of chance? Buying clothes, or food, or a car isn't a lucky dip.

Honestly baffles me that gamers still take this crap and don't just avoid loot crates. Then gaming companies might have to change how they make money from their game.

I have no issue with there being a cash shop that sells cosmetics in any game. I buy stuff from them. I don't like the RNG aspect loot crates. It's a total predatory way to make money and makes me question the ethics and values of a company that has loot boxes as part of their game.

PREACH IT!

VoidCommander

kargen27 wrote: »

Crown crates are not gambling. You purchase them knowing you will get four random items And sometimes a bonus item maybe. Same way baseball cards work. Same way those machines by the bubblegum machines work.

All for another way to get cool mounts but crown crates simply are not gambling.

Difference being that baseball cards can be resold and therefore have a value. Crown crate items cannot be gifted or resold. Hell, only the worthless consumables and furnishing can even be converted to gems. It would be very different if you could sell the cosmetics you earned for their EQUAL gem value so I don’t have to have 13,462 body markings but instead have a dozen apex mounts.

WhyMustItBe

kargen27 wrote: »

Crown crates are not gambling. You purchase them knowing you will get four random items And sometimes a bonus item maybe. Same way baseball cards work. Same way those machines by the bubblegum machines work.

All for another way to get cool mounts but crown crates simply are not gambling.

I don't know why people continue to try and make this argument. Crown Crates absolutely ARE gambling.

You take real money, exchange them for virtual gambling tokens, and receive random items with no guarantee they will be of value to you. It is no different than going to a Las Vegas casino, buying poker chips with real money, and sitting down at a card table.

This simple abstraction may be enough to fool some of the people some of the time but it is obviously gambling however the people running the casino choose to rationalize it.

The real question we should be asking ourselves, is if this is the sort of practice we choose to encourage in digital entertainment largely marketed to younger people.

Thankfully more and more countries around the world are beginning to see the negative effect addiction has on psychology and answering with a resounding NO.

ApoAlaia

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Crown crates are not gambling. You purchase them knowing you will get four random items And sometimes a bonus item maybe. Same way baseball cards work. Same way those machines by the bubblegum machines work.

All for another way to get cool mounts but crown crates simply are not gambling.

I don't know why people continue to try and make this argument. Crown Crates absolutely ARE gambling.

You take real money, exchange them for virtual gambling tokens, and receive random items with no guarantee they will be of value to you. It is no different than going to a Las Vegas casino, buying poker chips with real money, and sitting down at a card table.

This simple abstraction may be enough to fool some of the people some of the time but it is obviously gambling however the people running the casino choose to rationalize it.

The real question we should be asking ourselves, is if this is the sort of practice we choose to encourage in digital entertainment largely marketed to younger people.

Thankfully more and more countries around the world are beginning to see the negative effect addiction has on psychology and answering with a resounding NO.

Loot boxes are linked to the same biological mechanisms that pertain to gambling, the recent reports published on the subject show as much.

These reports are on the public domain so anyone with an interest on the subject can easily find them; I won't put the links here because I'm not sure whether that complies with the forum rules or not.

A responsible publisher that would like to keep up with the current research and understanding of the subject matter would at this point remove loot boxes and have a cash shop where every item is clearly priced; it would seem that this is a less profitable option however therefore they opt to keep running the current gambling mechanics because they bring in higher profits and in most countries is not illegal (master of the obvious moment, unregulated does not necessarily mean legal).

How far the impulse control and other mental resources that are expected from an adult will take you when constantly exposed to a system that is designed specifically to tear down those 'defenses' I am going to have to defer to the scientists, I am really ill equipped to argue this point.

So far mine have held, but this could be due to decades of exposure to MMOs and ARPGs where the inherent RNG reward system that taps on similar - and perhaps unhealthy - patterns having completely messed up my brain's reward system anyway; I don't really get much of a 'kick' from a random reward anymore if any at all.

Jaimeh

All these posts about endeavours... Endeavours are a good addition to the game, though it was probably brought about by legal concerns rather than compaany goodwill, but you know, they could just put some mounts in the store for direct purchase... like they used to do before crates. Why go on some roundabout way: money->crowns->crates->gems (or game gold->gifted crates->gems), or not have the option at all when wanting to avoid crates altogether, to have a cool mount in-game? They definitely should add more things for direct purchase to the store... having crates, and gem-exclusive things is just a price inflation hidden behind currencies. Think about it: polymorphs were never sold more than 2k crowns, if the new poly gets sold for 200 gems, could you get 200 gems from 2k crates (unless relying on rare RNG that gives duplicate apex mounts or a sweetroll)? It's a rotten system, and players SHOULD ask for more direct purchase items in the store.

Brrrofski

Jaimeh wrote: »

All these posts about endeavours... Endeavours are a good addition to the game, though it was probably brought about by legal concerns rather than compaany goodwill, but you know, they could just put some mounts in the store for direct purchase... like they used to do before crates. Why go on some roundabout way: money->crowns->crates->gems (or game gold->gifted crates->gems), or not have the option at all when wanting to avoid crates altogether, to have a cool mount in-game? They definitely should add more things for direct purchase to the store... having crates, and gem-exclusive things is just a price inflation hidden behind currencies. Think about it: polymorphs were never sold more than 2k crowns, if the new poly gets sold for 200 gems, could you get 200 gems from 2k crates (unless relying on rare RNG that gives duplicate apex mounts or a sweetroll)? It's a rotten system, and players SHOULD ask for more direct purchase items in the store.

Endeavors for sure aren't goodwill.

My guess is that they're trying to get people who don't buy crates to buy crates.

People 100% will start earning them, realise they want something and probably buy crates to finish off the amount of gems.

Been saving up for two months for that radiant apex. Crates are changing in 3 days. Better buy some crates to get that last 100 gems so you can buy it before it goes!

Same reason that game companies do limited time on items in cash shops. It makes people think they have to buy it now because they'll never have the chance again. This isn't a physical product that maybe lack of resources might drive that. Nothing makes these items limited other than ZOS's choice to make them limited.

Jaimeh

Brrrofski wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

All these posts about endeavours... Endeavours are a good addition to the game, though it was probably brought about by legal concerns rather than compaany goodwill, but you know, they could just put some mounts in the store for direct purchase... like they used to do before crates. Why go on some roundabout way: money->crowns->crates->gems (or game gold->gifted crates->gems), or not have the option at all when wanting to avoid crates altogether, to have a cool mount in-game? They definitely should add more things for direct purchase to the store... having crates, and gem-exclusive things is just a price inflation hidden behind currencies. Think about it: polymorphs were never sold more than 2k crowns, if the new poly gets sold for 200 gems, could you get 200 gems from 2k crates (unless relying on rare RNG that gives duplicate apex mounts or a sweetroll)? It's a rotten system, and players SHOULD ask for more direct purchase items in the store.

Endeavors for sure aren't goodwill.

My guess is that they're trying to get people who don't buy crates to buy crates.

People 100% will start earning them, realise they want something and probably buy crates to finish off the amount of gems.

Been saving up for two months for that radiant apex. Crates are changing in 3 days. Better buy some crates to get that last 100 gems so you can buy it before it goes!

Same reason that game companies do limited time on items in cash shops. It makes people think they have to buy it now because they'll never have the chance again. This isn't a physical product that maybe lack of resources might drive that. Nothing makes these items limited other than ZOS's choice to make them limited.

Yup, my guess is that (esp after Microsoft aquisition) that they wanted an in-game method for legal coverage, but it will be slow and high enough, that if something is up for a limited time people will be more likely to supplement with crate purchases.

Danikat

I suspect the endeavours are due to a combination of Microsoft's policy (which is that anything available from loot boxes will be available to earn in-game as well) and the increasing number of countries who are classifying loot boxes as gambling and requiring them to be regulated in the same way as other forms of gambling.

Either way it is providing a way to get crown crate items without wasting money buying crates and hoping you get lucky. I'm worried about what the prices will be too, but a lot of the endeavours are pretty simple (I think you'd actually have to make a special effort to never complete any) so even if it's not worth making an effort to get them sooner or later I'll have enough to buy something.

I don't think it will be a practical way to get everything from every crown crate each time one is released, but I doubt anyone actually wants everything in them, since that's part of the design - pad it out with stuff no one is likely to want or which will only appeal to small numbers of people (and not the same ones each time) so even when someone does get a "good" drop it's unlikely to be the one they want and they'll keep on paying.