SUGGESTION: Devs, to solve players retention and lack of rewards, rework daily rewards this way...

SkaiFaith

First my proposed solution, then the explanation.

Day 2, day 4 and day 6 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 7 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Epic reward.

Day 9, day 11 and day 13 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 14 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Epic reward.

Day 16, day 18 and day 20 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 21 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Legendary reward.

All the other days the rewards could remain the same type they are now.

This way we'll be granted at least 36 Crown Gems a month (from Fine rewards), plus 9 Superior rewards, 2 Epic rewards and 1 Legendary reward a month.

If you, Devs, want, you could also push for making this rewards a "drop" after the first 5 minutes of being logged into the game instead of the actual instant login rewards. So you could completely scrap Seals of Endeavour out of the game.

Right now people lament that Seals of Endeavour are a slog. Players lament there are no rewards.
Having a guaranteed drop after 5 minutes of gameplay doing "whatever you want" instead of specific tasks would make people come back more gladly to the game every day AND would incentivize the purchase of additional crates - not that anyone would want to cannibalize on gambling addict, but still I think it wouldn't hurt the sales but push them even further.

More free playtime, more rewards, more sales.
I see it as a win-win, where players feel their investment in the game is well repaid and Devs gain good statistics to show to investors, and money too.

"But you didn't consider every gamer would end up collecting all Superior rewards"
Well, not every player login every day, and this would be a good incentive.
Also, people who purchase crates rarely do it for the superior rewards, so they would continue purchasing them anyway.
And... May sound evil but, hey, it's always RNG, you are guaranteed a good reward but I've not said is a reward you didn't already get. But you get Gems back in that case, so probably more than 40 Gems per month in total, 120+ per season, the equivalent of the Seals we get right now but with a lot more free stuff!

I know some on the forum will hate on me for "giving bad ideas that don't fix the game". I just don't care this post is only my suggestion to the Devs. I am nobody so I don't pretend to be listened or agreed with, but maybe they'll consider this solution that hopefully would make many happy like it would make me.

The only downside I can see is for those who don't play if they don't have any given direction. Those would probably miss endeavours but I would argue they would be a minority (?), I don't know...

P.s. GAMERS: crates are not going away, ever, make peace with it. "It's a battle better fought from within" XD
As Molag Bal would put it "The Skins of those who oppose loot boxes will make a Fine addition to my seasonal Crates".

M0ntie

Lol ZoS can start with giving out rewards earned. Like the 2 month campaign they made that denied everyone who played the last PVP event their earned end of campaign rewards. And not a word of acknowledgement from ZoS about this.

emilyhyoyeon

Endeavors are a slog but I like that I can pick what I want instead of get random rewards. That's one of many reasons that I don't like the crate system.

Obviously I'm not against essentially free gems but yeah I don't want them getting rid of endeavors without putting in a different system where I can get specifically what I want, not random.

Grizzbeorn

The suggestion in the OP is entirely too generous; an unrealistic hope.
They would NEVER implement it.

Wuduwasa13

SkaiFaith wrote: »

First my proposed solution, then the explanation.

Day 2, day 4 and day 6 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 7 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Epic reward.

Day 9, day 11 and day 13 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 14 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Epic reward.

Day 16, day 18 and day 20 should give 1 seasonal crown crate each with a guaranteed Superior reward each.
Day 21 should give 1 seasonal crown crate with a guaranteed Legendary reward.

All the other days the rewards could remain the same type they are now.

This way we'll be granted at least 36 Crown Gems a month (from Fine rewards), plus 9 Superior rewards, 2 Epic rewards and 1 Legendary reward a month.

If you, Devs, want, you could also push for making this rewards a "drop" after the first 5 minutes of being logged into the game instead of the actual instant login rewards. So you could completely scrap Seals of Endeavour out of the game.

Right now people lament that Seals of Endeavour are a slog. Players lament there are no rewards.
Having a guaranteed drop after 5 minutes of gameplay doing "whatever you want" instead of specific tasks would make people come back more gladly to the game every day AND would incentivize the purchase of additional crates - not that anyone would want to cannibalize on gambling addict, but still I think it wouldn't hurt the sales but push them even further.

More free playtime, more rewards, more sales.
I see it as a win-win, where players feel their investment in the game is well repaid and Devs gain good statistics to show to investors, and money too.

"But you didn't consider every gamer would end up collecting all Superior rewards"
Well, not every player login every day, and this would be a good incentive.
Also, people who purchase crates rarely do it for the superior rewards, so they would continue purchasing them anyway.
And... May sound evil but, hey, it's always RNG, you are guaranteed a good reward but I've not said is a reward you didn't already get. But you get Gems back in that case, so probably more than 40 Gems per month in total, 120+ per season, the equivalent of the Seals we get right now but with a lot more free stuff!

I know some on the forum will hate on me for "giving bad ideas that don't fix the game". I just don't care this post is only my suggestion to the Devs. I am nobody so I don't pretend to be listened or agreed with, but maybe they'll consider this solution that hopefully would make many happy like it would make me.

The only downside I can see is for those who don't play if they don't have any given direction. Those would probably miss endeavours but I would argue they would be a minority (?), I don't know...

P.s. GAMERS: crates are not going away, ever, make peace with it. "It's a battle better fought from within" XD
As Molag Bal would put it "The Skins of those who oppose loot boxes will make a Fine addition to my seasonal Crates".

TLDR: add more crates into daily rewards.

It’s been suggested many times previously.

_Zathras_

I don't do dailies, so can't comment on if the rewards need tweaking or not. BUT, what you are suggesting seems like a way to get a mountain of free crates on a daily basis.

Imagine someone with 20 characters. Or, 3 accounts and maxxed characters on all accounts. A dedicated player would grind out dailies each and every day just for those crates.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

AND would incentivize the purchase of additional crates -

Sales would plummet if you had a free crate grind. Why buy 15 crates, or a large pack, when you could dedicate yourself to logging in all your alts on all your accounts and reaping the rewards.

Just look how parsimonious they are about tossing in a freebie as a log-in reward.

Nice try though.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan

I'll never "make peace with" in-game gambling.

SkaiFaith

_Zathras_ wrote: »

I don't do dailies, so can't comment on if the rewards need tweaking or not. BUT, what you are suggesting seems like a way to get a mountain of free crates on a daily basis.

Imagine someone with 20 characters. Or, 3 accounts and maxxed characters on all accounts. A dedicated player would grind out dailies each and every day just for those crates.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

AND would incentivize the purchase of additional crates -

Sales would plummet if you had a free crate grind. Why buy 15 crates, or a large pack, when you could dedicate yourself to logging in all your alts on all your accounts and reaping the rewards.

Just look how parsimonious they are about tossing in a freebie as a log-in reward.

Nice try though.

Yeah, my fault not specifying I meant per account, not per character.
But I specified which type of rewards - if you get all Blue rewards you are still missing all better quality rewards, and those you'll be gently pushed to spend on.

DivineKitty

I always thought that Dailies should be the way they are now: They best support newer players, who most need the resources available. As a higher level player, you're not going to need another 100 Tri-pots, or 8 tri-stat meals. Even when they give things like 100k gold, it's more catering to newer players. if i get 100k from a reward, it's nice and all, but I've probably got 1 million gold on my main character at any given point. but someone who's only been playing for a few weeks, or a couple of months? 100k gold is HUGE.

So, i don't mind if the daily rewards are kinda lacklustre. They're obviously meant to support newer players than the older ones, and anything that helps new guys is fine in my book.

Them throwing in a crate every now and then is nice though...

SkaiFaith

DivineKitty wrote: »

I always thought that Dailies should be the way they are now: They best support newer players, who most need the resources available. As a higher level player, you're not going to need another 100 Tri-pots, or 8 tri-stat meals. Even when they give things like 100k gold, it's more catering to newer players. if i get 100k from a reward, it's nice and all, but I've probably got 1 million gold on my main character at any given point. but someone who's only been playing for a few weeks, or a couple of months? 100k gold is HUGE.

So, i don't mind if the daily rewards are kinda lacklustre. They're obviously meant to support newer players than the older ones, and anything that helps new guys is fine in my book.

Them throwing in a crate every now and then is nice though...

Yep. Fair point. It's the reason why I advised my proposal as a "players retention" solution, not catering to new players. But I also left half the month to "new players' rewards" on purpose

My idea is just a revision of what other games already do when they give away 1 free pull a day, and they seem to still profit.

TaSheen

We used to get free crates quite a lot - was that back in 2018 maybe? (not sure now....) And I think from reactions later that the bottom fell out of crate sales in the store. Giving out 2 per account a couple of months lately is generous compared to years without any. I think they'll not go back to being more generous as in the past.

I think the additions of gold mats etc. is fine, and having a couple of crates to look forward to is lovely. They're not going to go back to giving out gazoolas of crates.

As for player retention, giving away crates might sound like a good thing, but I'm not sure it would actually help - and I'm not sure "player retention" fits the operational mode either, considering.

redlink1979

This is just an unrealistic proposal.

opalcity

Any crown crate given away is seen as a potential loss of money. The crown crates we're given now is just a taster to entice people into crates - "here kid, have a bump, the first one is free, the rest will cost ya".

Braffin

12 free crown crates per month just for logging in? Well, that definitely won't happen.

Besides that it would be more desireable to tie interesting rewards to various content in the game than just gifting them.

BXR_Lonestar

Endeavors are a slog but I like that I can pick what I want instead of get random rewards. That's one of many reasons that I don't like the crate system.

Obviously I'm not against essentially free gems but yeah I don't want them getting rid of endeavors without putting in a different system where I can get specifically what I want, not random.

I've found the best way to treat endeavors is to just play the game and not pay attention to them. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. But its not something I'm going to spend a lot of time and effort chasing when I feel like I have better things to do, like farm gear for my builds, play PVP, run trials, etc. They're too tedious to just chase as a game activity alone IMO.

As to reworking the daily rewards, it seems like they are mostly geared towards new players to get them caught up in the game, and much of the rewards are basically useless to established players - for the most part. What would be nice is if each day, there was a prize wheel and when you pulled your reward, you had a chance to get something really valuable to established players, like purple or gold upgrade mats, transmute gems, undaunted keys, vault keys for the imperial city, etc.

Each day that goes by, the prize wheel could get smaller and smaller so you have a higher chance to get the goodies you really want the more days you log in and play. This would help reduce grinding stuff players typically get bored of doing and allow them to play content they really want to play.

As a side note: if they made more sets viable, it would go a long way towards player retention as well. During any given meta, there's usually only a handful of sets that are viable. I always find the rolling meta in PVE to be far too restrictive, and there is not enough build variety to really make build-crafting more interesting. When it comes down to it, regardless of class your typically aiming for just two of 4-6 Meta sets. Boring!

Wing

this is an industry wide long term problem with "live service" games. you lose the creative director (if you ever had one) that has the vision, the game goes on longer then anyone wants to play it, and all updates become the result of metrics and data to keep "monthly active users" up.

retention systems and events are a disease.


now instead of base intrinsic motivation to play the game, an exmaple being Elden Ring (you want to explore because there could be a cave, there could be an item, there are plants to harvest, some bad guys to kill, a castle to explore in the distance)

they have over time moved to extrinsic methods, examples being: daily focused gameplay system to get you to log in (dont miss it) a monthly reward track (make sure to log in) the endevour ststem (make sure you do your endevours, dont miss them!)

reminder that literally all content has been replaced with "dailies" that have the majority of the reward value and not in the intrinsic boss fight itself.

you get nothing from:
-world bosses (go get your daily)
-delves (did you get the daily the brought you here?)
-crafting (everyone knows those dailies, some farm those multiple times. . .just like ZOS wants)
-motifs? well those come from dailies
-harvesting (maps come from dailies)
-heists (daily)
-dark brotherhood contract (daily)

why?
so you dont play TOOOO fast, need to make this all last, cant let people farm the game like in other MMO's


same system applies to the cash shop.

ESO is
-buy to play
-has a sub (that has the craft bag attached to it)
-paid expansions
-paid DLC
-loot boxes
-cash shop with fake sales and scarcity to feed off fomo


and then to add to the cash shop dilemma you have the whole endevour system that means we have roundabout landed on the convoluted question and answer that the cash shop is too expensive. ill explain

dev 2: sir people are not buying our overpriced RNG stuff in the store, you know the cosmetics we took out of the game so people could not do content for the reward, but pay us for it.

dev 1: all you need to do is add a trickle of pseudo currency to the game so people will eventually buy some of the cosmetics, and then pay for more.

dev 2: but i thought we needed the money? and what should we tie this pseudo currency we just made up to?

dev 1: oh we do! well i guess we could come up with some BS list to get people to log in and do things.

dev 2: like play the game?

dev 1: yeah, tie this currency to various activities the kids play games for, killing and looting, that random stuff you can already and we dont have to devote dev time to this, and EVENTS, lets do events! we dont have to make anything for that right?

dev 2: what if we make everything in the cash shop straight forward and affordable like other games so people can buy the things we made for them at a realistic price. and then design a game thats simply fun to play so everyone feels good about playing the game and supporting. . .

. . .you know rather then every predatory mental and financial trick to keep players acting like zombies to the drip feed.


dev 1: your fired, someone find me that "turn your players into payers guy", and where is that bungie guy who said "never over deliver, velocity is the key" find me those guys.



the fact that i see threads titled "whats your log in routine."
you people are sheep, ESO devs are taking notes on that stuff too.

SkaiFaith

opalcity wrote: »

The crown crates we're given now is just a taster to entice people into crates - "here kid, have a bump, the first one is free, the rest will cost ya".

I understand the reasoning behind the 1/2 crates they are gifting right now, but I think it is more discouraging than encouraging to purchase other crates when the drop rates of good stuff is so abismal and out of those 1/2 crates you barely get anything. There comes my proposal...

Braffin wrote: »

it would be more desireable to tie interesting rewards to various content in the game than just gifting them.

True, I agree. But said rewards should be tied to World Bosses and stuff like that. Instead we've seen with Necrom the Nix-ox Mount is behind a devastating wall of achievement that 0,1% of players will unlock (at least on Xbox platform, since those are the percentages I see under the console achievements). And that's why I proposed...

Wing wrote: »

the fact that i see threads titled "whats your log in routine."
you people are sheep, ESO devs are taking notes on that stuff too.

I get your frustration, but what do you think you are going to achieve by calling others sheeps?
I don't want to argue, but seriously there is nothing me or you can do to change the way people play a game. Instead I would say that we have to thank those who are ~gambling addict~ high investors and spend tons of money in crates. Without them the game wouldn't even exist anymore, it's a matter of fact.
There's no point in fighting something you have 0 power over. You can avoid what you dislike, and that's fine. Or you can give suggestions in hope to alleviate your pain.
As you said, "industry wide problem", so: shrugs.

Braffin

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

it would be more desireable to tie interesting rewards to various content in the game than just gifting them.

True, I agree. But said rewards should be tied to World Bosses and stuff like that. Instead we've seen with Necrom the Nix-ox Mount is behind a devastating wall of achievement that 0,1% of players will unlock (at least on Xbox platform, since those are the percentages I see under the console achievements). And that's why I proposed...

I agree, although I'm personally fine with rewards tied to achievements, there are definitely not enough rewards tied to the actual content itself.

TaSheen

Y'know.... I don't play this game for rewards. And certainly not for skins, titles or achievements. I play it for fun, fun MY way, and yes, I find daily writs fun, along with everything else I do in game (questing, exploration). I am not a sheep, thank you very much whoever you are - I ONLY do the stuff that's fun for me period.

The current daily reward structure is fine with me.

SkaiFaith

@TaSheen and there's nothing wrong with it. May you continue having fun!

SilverBride

Crown crates won't keep me playing because there is nothing in them I care about.

Lumenn

If gem production was one of the goals, just change the daily potions/poisons/food to be exchangeable. That way crates won't be flooding, newbies can use the dailies, vets can exchange them and build up gems slowly,(and since you can't combine endeavor/gems it will be slow) and everyone still has a reason to log in. It's not a perfect solution but /shrug

evan302

@SkaiFaith Like others, I feel your proposals are too generous and I cannot see us ever being given that many crates.

However, I think you hit on a significant problem with the daily rewards as a retention device and then veered away without really addressing it.
Namely, the daily rewards are generally only valuable to new players; for long-term players they're not very enticing.
I've been playing since around Christmas last year and already I'm looking at the daily rewards with less enthusiasm.
I'm very soon going to reach the point where I'm having to log on, pick up what is essentially junk most days just to get to the one or two good things I might actually want.

How I'd change that: Give some gems for the potions, poisons, xp scrolls, research scrolls etc that we don't want. That way Endeavours are still there in-game, but there's an extra way of earning gems that rewards people who log in regularly. You'd still need to save up, but it would be a little quicker to get the things you want.

SkaiFaith

@evan302 thank you, I appreciate the fact that you and Lumenn have proposed an alternative solution. I find your one more likely to happen, and not that bad!
Good feedback.

Necrotech_Master

the only daily rewards i wish i could exchange would be the crown poisons, and research scrolls

right now those just go into a storage container since ill never use them, but if they for whatever reason decide to add a new trait my crafter would have no problem researching it lol

dont bother doing research on my other toons as i find it unnecessary

it might be nicer to have a crown crate instead of a specific emote/pet collectible, because then could at least make up gems if you werent interested in the collectible, or maybe get something nice from the crate

personally i would rather they just do away with the crates entirely lol

chessalavakia_ESO

Rewards work more as a patch than as a long lasting solution unless you've got lots of money to burn on visuals as the more visuals people have the more specific their desires for more get.

Tandor

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

personally i would rather they just do away with the crates entirely lol

While a lot of players feel that way, unfortunately they never come up with a replacement revenue stream.

Necrotech_Master

Tandor wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

personally i would rather they just do away with the crates entirely lol

While a lot of players feel that way, unfortunately they never come up with a replacement revenue stream.

they might have to if more countries jump on the "loot boxes are illegal" bandwagon lol

katanagirl1

I don’t mind them giving out a free Crown crate every now and then, but when I think of rewards I think of daily quest coffers. They have a minuscule chance of getting something good: a motif page or a furnishing plan, but generally all you get is one single piece of overland drop gear that you have picked up 100-1000 times. It’s not really worth the effort 99.9% of the time.

Raising the drop rates for the good stuff would help me feel rewarded as a player. Stop wasting my time.

gronoxvx

Crown crates as a reward is literally nothing. Theyd just be the oroborus crates on twitch which are full of junk anyway. What they could do is meaningful rewards thats been discussed at nauseum compared to chucking another gambling system at us.

Dr_Con

the system we have now is a daily reward equivalent to watered down crown crates without the option to get crown gems.