Crown Crates % fair warning!

Teridaxus · October 2016

Well i saw 5 people with storm atronauch mounts in 1 hour after servers went online.
Zos already won with crates and look forward to the next thing which they might introduce with the vvardenfell dlc.

Kemono · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Meaning you will get a Collectible in every Crate, since they have 4 cards..

No.

Meaning you are LIKELY to get a collectible in every crate.

and if you anger RNGjesus, well, don't hold your breath.

I have not personally opened any Crate without at least one collectible inside.
I have heard others say they did open one such a Crate (not more than 1 in 13), but those were all initial feedback when the Crates just got to the PTS.
I believe that they made every Crate drop at least one Collectible in an further patch.

this one is actualy easy to explain -i mean "loot bag without colectibles" - it looks that when you get a "rare consumable" drop it overwrite your "collectible slot" in crate. So all crates witout collectibles are with this new experience scroll (btw drops are also collor coded, white-green-purple-yellow, icon in corner of card) - i saw like 5 screenshots/vids and that was always the case.

Also its possible (ultra rare i know) to get even 3 collectibles from single crate.
First one is guaranteed* (more or less ;D)
Second collectible drop from time to time -so you get 2 consumable + 2 collectible
Third - sometimes in bag there is fifth card, and its always "quality collectible" drop

So its not right to claim that "loot crates ALWAYS drop only 1 collectibles"

Alucardo · October 2016

Gina Bruno? MORE LIKE SEAN MURRAY BECAUSE LIES.
No amount of therapy has helped me sleep at night since these crap crates were introduced. How could you. I trusted you.

Midori_Oku · October 2016

Personally I buy just about every collectible as they are added to the crown store. I will gladly pay for things if I'm guaranteed to get them. However, I am not going to buy crates just to have a chance at getting what I want, and a really low one at that. What really bugs me is the fact that there are some exclusive items locked behind these crates that I would buy for sure if they were added directly to the store. The Apex rewards being exclusive to the crate theme doesn't bother me too much as I can see why they would want some exclusive stuff in them. Adding other mounts, costumes, hats, and other things of the sort that don't fit that theme to crates and only crates is just terrible.

Crates should at least guarantee a collectible, or you should at least be able to turn in consumables or collectibles you don't want for gems. I would easily pay the 4000 crowns for some of those mounts, but it seems we won't get the chance to do so. It's sad to see the game going down this path to be honest. At least it's not pay to win? Not yet anyway.

dwemer_cog11 · October 2016

ZoS, can subs get some crystals every time we pay our sub fee?

Dubhliam · October 2016

Midori_Oku wrote: »

Personally I buy just about every collectible as they are added to the crown store. I will gladly pay for things if I'm guaranteed to get them. However, I am not going to buy crates just to have a chance at getting what I want, and a really low one at that. What really bugs me is the fact that there are some exclusive items locked behind these crates that I would buy for sure if they were added directly to the store. The Apex rewards being exclusive to the crate theme doesn't bother me too much as I can see why they would want some exclusive stuff in them. Adding other mounts, costumes, hats, and other things of the sort that don't fit that theme to crates and only crates is just terrible.

Crates should at least guarantee a collectible, or you should at least be able to turn in consumables or collectibles you don't want for gems. I would easily pay the 4000 crowns for some of those mounts, but it seems we won't get the chance to do so. It's sad to see the game going down this path to be honest. At least it's not pay to win? Not yet anyway.

Although some have not received a collectible in a crate, those seem to be edge cases.
You will receive at least one collectible vast majority of times. Even if there isn't a collectible, you will get a Superior quality or higher consumable. So I firmly believe you are guaranteed a Superior reward in every chest.

Also, not that these are PTS values.
They can still change them before adding them to the Store.

Elsonso · October 2016

Alucardo wrote: »

Gina Bruno? MORE LIKE SEAN MURRAY BECAUSE LIES.
No amount of therapy has helped me sleep at night since these crap crates were introduced. How could you. I trusted you.

Well, one of them was very specific in the response to this statement. I think it was Kai. The Crown Crate RNG boxes are not locked. ZOS makes a distinction between locked RNG boxes dropping in the world and the need to purchase a key from the store, and unlocked RNG boxes being purchased directly from the store.

I will admit that one is more evil than the other, but both really represent evil. There is the "there goes the neighborhood" stigma with both. For me, that makes the distinction regarding how they are opened irrelevant.

What makes them evil, and what devalues the "neighborhood", is that it was immediately clear on PTS how much effort they put into the boxes. The typical ZOS mentality with this game would have resulted in them creating Crown Crates very similar to how RNG writ reward boxes are done. You buy them in the Store, then just open and collect the stuff in the game. No fuss, no mess. That is the whole "good enough for now" attitude that ZOS has been using with the game for years. ZOS has talented and creative people mired in a development studio that is content with cranking out mediocrity. Then, along comes Crown Crates and WOW, suddenly we are reminded of how mediocre they have been, and what they are capable of doing when they want to. It does not take long to focus on that phrase, "when they want to."

As I have said a couple times before, if they had put as much effort into the launcher and realm switching in the client as they put into the Crown Crates, no one would be having a lick of trouble with it today. The server switch would be so polished that no one would even be thinking about it today. They didn't want to put in the effort. To me, this is what Crown Crates really mean.

From now on, every time ZOS rolls out some half-baked mediocre system, the only thing I am going to be able to think of is how polished it could have been, if the studio had wanted to put in the effort.

Mercutio · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

Lots of great info ...I'm not advocating you boycott the Crates altogether, I am merely advising you to proceed with caution.

Great post man. Thank you for taking the time to compile it.

NeillMcAttack · October 2016

Excellent thread as usual dude, well done!!

silvereyes · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

... you will most likely get at least one Collectible in every Crate, since they have 4 cards.

I would say that you are nearly guaranteed to get at least 1 collectible drop. I tested 104 crates on PTS, and all had at least one collectible. If it were just RNG, even with a 25% expectation, you would probably see more crates with 0 collectibles.

One thing to note is that the new grand XP scrolls are in the same loot table as the collectibles, so it's entirely possible to get no collectibles, but very very unlikely. Just another reason why they should never have been created, imo.

Dubhliam wrote: »

Simple math tells us that you will get an Apex reward on average every 63 Crates. That is 25,200 Crowns.

And a player would be wrong to assume with such small sample sizes that the "average" is in any way indicative of what they will get. Anyone who's ever refined 400 raw mats without a single gold upgrade mat drop can attest to this.

For a buyer who doesn't want to play the odds, a worst-case scenario is more instructive (you can click the following excerpt's header link for a spoiler that explains the math):

silvereyes wrote: »

The theoretical worst case scenario for acquiring any specific apex reward on PTS was 134 crates, or 53,600 crowns ($389.72 US). The theoretical worst case scenario for any specific legendary reward (100 gems) gives a maximum of 74 crates, or 29,600 crowns ($215.22 US)

And one final point...

Dubhliam wrote: »

To conclude, you will almost certainly end up owning every Superior quality collectible before getting an Apex reward.

Not really true. It's actually quite likely There is a significant chance that there will be a couple Superior quality collectibles that elude you, even after 100 crates. This was certainly the case for my testing on PTS, even after I had enough gems to buy an apex mount.

Edit: changed wording to reflect actual likelihood of receiving no Superior collectibles (11.25%) after 100 crates

Elsonso · October 2016

silvereyes wrote: »

And one final point...

Dubhliam wrote: »

To conclude, you will almost certainly end up owning every Superior quality collectible before getting an Apex reward.

Not really true. It's actually quite likely that there will be a couple Superior quality collectibles that elude you, even after 100 crates. This was certainly the case for my testing on PTS, even after I had enough gems to buy an apex mount.

Turning this around, if all you want is the APEX mount, then you really do need to own every Superior quality collectible. This results in getting the gems required to get the Apex mount faster. This is potentially collecting a lot of stuff that is not wanted, at a considerable Crown cost, just to make it shorter to get the Apex mount that you want when it comes along.

While Bethesda Marketing might get all tingly at the idea of me buying Crates of stuff I don't want to get something that I do want, either as a random drop or by collecting gems due to random duplicates, I have to admit that I am much less excited at the idea. Ergo, I won't be buying anything that I cannot purchase directly.

wayfarerx · October 2016

Vrath wrote: »

wayfarerx wrote: »

Martan wrote: »

Pomaikai wrote: »

In the real world, this is called gambling. You'll find things like this at casinos. However, the casino MUST disclose their odds, so the player can make an informed decision before playing. ZOS, and other gaming companies engaging in this sleazy practice do not, yet. I highly recommend contacting your State Attorney General (If you live in America) and talk to them about game companies engaging in unregulated gambling. Most don't even realize it's going on. If enough people complain, they'll hopefully crack down on this despicable practice.

At least when I go to a casino I know the odds, and I get free cocktails served by attractive people in skimpy outfits.

PS... The "math" is that you should be prepared to spend hundreds, if not thousands of real life dollars, pounds, yen, francs, marks, or whatever currency your country uses, in order to WIN an Apex reward. What you'll get almost every single solitary time is a bunch of consumable crap that you'd NEVER have spent real money on in this game. Don't get tricked into thinking you'll get that cool new item on the cheap. It's a sucker's bet.

You are not winning anything of real value so technically it is not gambling per definition.

The concept of "value" is entirely subjective. Splitting hairs or arguing semantics is just a diversionary tactic, Crown Crates as they appeared on PTS are a predatory gambling service and if they involved physical "rewards" they would be illegal almost everywhere in the world.

It is funny to hear you say another person's point is arguing semantics considering that is generally all you do with your key word posts in any crown crate thread 'predatory', 'gambling' ect. Along with your over reaction theater; the Attorney General come on, this is SJW 101 work right here.

L2Quote buddy, wasn't me calling for bringing in law enforcement. Also, as a general rule, if you feel the need to call someone a SJW there's a good chance you don't have a valid point to begin with. Finally, using words is not semantics, arguing over the meaning of words is semantics.

Vrath wrote: »

It is a grab bag system you always get something in return might be cool might be ***. The fact is someone will win something they value for a low cost and others will never get it just like in every other game that has these types of RNG boxes from mobile to MMOs.

And just like every other game that has these types of RNG boxes they are exploitative. We are all aware that gaming is in a race to the bottom, I have no desire to cheer ZOS on to be the first to get there.

Dubhliam · October 2016

@silvereyes
It is my experience also that you would get at least one collectible in each crate, but since there have been many reports of a crate without one, I cannot state that as a fact.

Yes, I know this isn't exact science, but even with a small sample with just under 1000 Crates, I believe these numbers to be good estimates and a general guideline to people what they should expect.
That is why I use vague terms like most likely and almost certainly.

In my personal experience during PTS testing, I have gotten every single Superior collectible at least twice, meaning at least one duplicate.
Sure, you might get an Apex mount on your first Crate, meaning you did not get any other Superior collectible.
But we are talking about averages here, not edge cases.
An average player WILL almost certainly own every Superior collectible before owning an Apex mount.

Danikat · October 2016

If I remember correctly from when I was collecting drop rate data (which involved manually recording each drop from 731 crates) it is possible to get a crate with 0 collectables. It's also possible to get 3 collectables in one crate, but I don't think I ever saw 4.

My hypothesis is that there are actually 3 separate drop tables for the cards. 2 cards share a drop table which includes all the items. 1 card only includes consumables (I'm unsure if this includes rare consumables like the Major and Grand XP scrolls). 1 card only includes collectables and the rare consumables. (And if a 5th card is included it only includes collectables and rare consumables.)

Rare consumables in this case means the Riding Lessons, Soul Gems and Grand and Major Experience Scrolls. Their drop rates are slightly higher (1-5%) than the collectables, but that's based on an aggregation of all the cards. We were never able to confirm that there were 3 kinds of cards or separate their drop rates. I'm not sure we could do with the information we had available.

Whatzituyah · October 2016

I personally think a lock box system would be better. That way you buy keys to open said boxes you have to earn kinda like a game I liked on the computer.

silvereyes · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

An average player WILL almost certainly own every Superior collectible before owning an Apex mount.

@Dubhliam, I was curious, and because I'm a freak, I went ahead and calculated the exact figure. If I'm doing the math correctly, I see only about a 89% chance that a player will have all Superior collectibles after 100 crates. I wouldn't call it "almost certain" myself, but I can agree that at least it's a reasonable term for such a high percentage.

See spoiler for math:

According to Danikat's thread, the probability for receiving any specific Superior item is 5% per crate. The probability of not having received that specific item after 100 crates is 0.95 ^ 100 = 0.005931, or about 0.6%. However, there are 19 Superior items, so the total probability for not receiving at least one of them is the sum of all = 19 x 0.005931 = 11.25%. The inverse of that would be an 88.75% chance of receiving all Superior quality collectibles after 100 crates.

Danikat · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

@silvereyes
It is my experience also that you would get at least one collectible in each crate, but since there have been many reports of a crate without one, I cannot state that as a fact.

Yes, I know this isn't exact science, but even with a small sample with just under 1000 Crates, I believe these numbers to be good estimates and a general guideline to people what they should expect.
That is why I use vague terms like most likely and almost certainly.

In my personal experience during PTS testing, I have gotten every single Superior collectible at least twice, meaning at least one duplicate.
Sure, you might get an Apex mount on your first Crate, meaning you did not get any other Superior collectible.
But we are talking about averages here, not edge cases.
An average player WILL almost certainly own every Superior collectible before owning an Apex mount.

I think you're right. On the PTS I was actually the outlier. I got a Storm Atronach Bear Mount from my 13th crate. (Which incidentally also had the Jawbone Blades and Dwarf Style Mages Hat, it was also a 5-card crate.) At that point I only had 10 other collectables unlocked (not counting the ones I already owned) and had only gotten 3 duplicates - enough for 15 gems.

But I then went on to open another 91 crates and didn't get another apex reward.

I also had some other weird flukes. For example I got 2 Clouded Senche-Leopards on one day, but didn't get most of the other Legendary items at all.

This is exactly what people mean when they say "RNG is RNG". Random numbers aren't neatly and evenly spread out, they're random, they can produce "clumps" (like a lottery draw including 14, 15 and 16 or a player getting the exact same weapon from a boss 3 days in a row) or obvious patterns as easily as results that look random to us.

Which is why you need a large sample size to identify what is actually a pattern and what's an anomaly that looks like a pattern. And by large I mean hundreds, if not thousands, of records. Even with 731 crates recorded in the drop rate thread we still had weird anomalies coming up - for example no one ever got a Storm Atronach Horse, and apparently you're 3 times as likely to get a Storm Atronach Wolf (apex tier) as an Orchid Nixad (legendary tier), both of which are highly unlikely to be accurate. I think we were getting close to the real numbers, but we weren't quite there.

Dubhliam · October 2016

Danikat wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

@silvereyes
It is my experience also that you would get at least one collectible in each crate, but since there have been many reports of a crate without one, I cannot state that as a fact.

Yes, I know this isn't exact science, but even with a small sample with just under 1000 Crates, I believe these numbers to be good estimates and a general guideline to people what they should expect.
That is why I use vague terms like most likely and almost certainly.

In my personal experience during PTS testing, I have gotten every single Superior collectible at least twice, meaning at least one duplicate.
Sure, you might get an Apex mount on your first Crate, meaning you did not get any other Superior collectible.
But we are talking about averages here, not edge cases.
An average player WILL almost certainly own every Superior collectible before owning an Apex mount.

I think you're right. On the PTS I was actually the outlier. I got a Storm Atronach Bear Mount from my 13th crate. (Which incidentally also had the Jawbone Blades and Dwarf Style Mages Hat, it was also a 5-card crate.) At that point I only had 10 other collectables unlocked (not counting the ones I already owned) and had only gotten 3 duplicates - enough for 15 gems.

But I then went on to open another 91 crates and didn't get another apex reward.

I also had some other weird flukes. For example I got 2 Clouded Senche-Leopards on one day, but didn't get most of the other Legendary items at all.

This is exactly what people mean when they say "RNG is RNG". Random numbers aren't neatly and evenly spread out, they're random, they can produce "clumps" (like a lottery draw including 14, 15 and 16 or a player getting the exact same weapon from a boss 3 days in a row) or obvious patterns as easily as results that look random to us.

Which is why you need a large sample size to identify what is actually a pattern and what's an anomaly that looks like a pattern. And by large I mean hundreds, if not thousands, of records. Even with 731 crates recorded in the drop rate thread we still had weird anomalies coming up - for example no one ever got a Storm Atronach Horse, and apparently you're 3 times as likely to get a Storm Atronach Wolf (apex tier) as an Orchid Nixad (legendary tier), both of which are highly unlikely to be accurate. I think we were getting close to the real numbers, but we weren't quite there.

You mean Camel?
Your crates did not record anyone dropping a Camel.
I have.
Here is the sheet where I recorded my drops, and then later imported all of your combined drops.

Dubhliam · October 2016

silvereyes wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

An average player WILL almost certainly own every Superior collectible before owning an Apex mount.

@Dubhliam, I was curious, and because I'm a freak, I went ahead and calculated the exact figure. If I'm doing the math correctly, I see only about a 89% chance that a player will have all Superior collectibles after 100 crates. I wouldn't call it "almost certain" myself, but I can agree that at least it's a reasonable term for such a high percentage.

See spoiler for math:
According to Danikat's thread, the probability for receiving any specific Superior item is 5% per crate. The probability of not having received that specific item after 100 crates is 0.95 ^ 100 = 0.005931, or about 0.6%. However, there are 19 Superior items, so the total probability for not receiving at least one of them is the sum of all = 19 x 0.005931 = 11.25%. The inverse of that would be an 88.75% chance of receiving all Superior quality collectibles after 100 crates.

The math behind calculating such odds is actually more complicated than what you did here.

Besides, even if we take the 88.75% chance to receive all Superior Collectibles, tell me... Does that mean you have an 11.25% chance to receive an Apex mount after 100 Crates?
I didn't think so.

Danikat · October 2016

Yes I did mean camel.

That's what I get for thinking I can quickly skim through a spreadsheet and pull accurate information. You'd think by now I'd know not to trust my reading.

Cazzy · October 2016

Katahdin wrote: »

Ive been burned by RNG boxes in another game.

Not going to fall for it here.

They can take those boxes and put them where the sun dont shine.

Mufasa told me never to go there.

Dubhliam · October 2016

For anyone that does not know how this Crown Crate experience looks like, here is a video made by @MissBizz where you can see how enthuisiastic she is on the day 3 of the PTS testing. She spent 10400 Crowns the two days before on 26 Crates, and additional 5200 Crowns on the 13 Crates she opens in the video.
A total of 15600 Crowns, and 39 Crates later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIBBHDvBCmc

Combine the experience as seen in this video with the charts I presented in this thread to create a complete picture of what to expect with these Crates.

Dubhliam · December 2016

Based on Deltia's video, I'd say nothing has changed in terms of percentages.

Kudos far making consumables convertable to gems, but I would still recommend to stay away from these things.

AnviOfVai · December 2016

OK I bought 30 crates, (2 lots of 5,000 crowns) = £48 UK.

I was lucky and got the Attronach mount in the second crate, everything else? NOT WORTH IT.

I am going to drag another game into this because seriously ESO's crates are being VERY cheeky.

SWTOR, 24.99 Hypercrates, you can get 30x packs of items for this pack. Oh and here is the amazing part of it. You can sell the items on the GTN to get in game money (I made 9 million before on half of what I had in the hypercrate.)

There is a possibility that the items in the crowncrates will become available in the crown store (at ridiculous prices no doubt.) I bought the Frost Mare when it was first available in game for (3,000 crowns) and now you can get it in crown crates....hmm...I'm not going to be buying any of these crates again unless they change what is in them, and the rates of the drops... very disappointed. Also the crown gem exchange rate? Is that actually right? I exchanged quite a bit of stuff, and I own a lot of costumes/mounts/and items from the crown store already.. I had 138 gems by the end of 30 crates...

lagrue · December 2016

Spent $70 for x45 crates (15,000 crowns I got on sale) - then after that I opened x15 more, full price paid - for a rough total of $110 for x60 crates. Was it alot? Yeah, but I sure as *** got my money's worth.

All bottom tiers of rewards and 4 apex pets. Only missing 2 and considering I never wanted the Camel, I'm pretty goddamned happy with the turn out of it all.

Maybe RNG was with me - but this whole x50 boxes for one Apex Mount is a load of crap build on faulty data. 731 crates is not really a valid sample size, wait until you have 7000 to do stats lol. If those boxes were opened by people like me, then we're talking about all 14-15 player's experience that you're basing those graphs on. You say a person is lucky to get 1 apex mount out of 50 crates, I got 3, obviously that is room for consideration. I also saw one guy say he spent $200 on them and didn't get anything good.... but considering how the rewards tables fill up below, I call serious BS. Alot of people are trying to skew the stats right now.

Gem rewards need to be made better though, not enough return for the garbage cards you get over and over.

heyjrey · December 2016

I don't know why people are hating on crown crates. Maybe I just had decent RnG because I've gotten a lot of interesting items and I only opened ~23 crates.

I've gotten:

All 3 Atronach Momentos
1 Storm Atronach Guar Mount
1 Red Pit Wolf Mount
4 Hats (Clever Man Wizard Hat, Fibonaccus Spiral Hat, Feathered Bycoket Hat, and Dwarf Style Mage's Hat)
8 Costumes (3 Soul Shriven, 2 Battlemage Armor, "Brilliance" Brocade Robes, High-Collard Ball Gown, and Evening Dress)
1 Body Marking (Shadow Stripling)
2 Hairstyles (Roostered Frills, and Wrestler's Burr Cut)
2 Headpiece Accessories (Jawbone Blades, and Azure Brow-to-Temple Circlet)
6 pets (Daedric Scamp, Chub Loon, Rosy Netch Calf, Purple Daggerback, Helstrom Ancestral Lizard, and Shornhelm Shepherd)

And the rest was just elixirs and xp scrolls (50% XP increase and 100% XP increase ones) and a few riding lessons.

Now when opening the crown crates, a lot of the times I was given the extra card which was pretty cool, especially when the card dealt was a golden one.

But nonetheless, I like crown crates. Not because of the stuff I've gotten, but because of the whole chance aspect of it. And the fact that not everyone has to put money into it if they don't want too. No one is forcing you to buy crown crates if you don't want too—and if you do buy crown crates, no one is forcing you to spend your whole paycheck on them.

**Disclaimer** Crown Crates have helped me discover I may develop a slight gambling problem if not treated properly and quickly.

Wizzo91 · December 2016

Usually I'm ok with gambling. BUT the drop chances have to be disclosed.

A totally different topic:

RNG-Boxes are always a terribly bad sign for the health of a MMO, ESO is no exception. It will only get worse with time. F2P and P2W by Q2 of 2017 inc.

ZOS_DaryaK · December 2016

We've closed this thread as there are already several active discussions regarding Crown Crates, including one specifically about drop rates. Thank you for understanding!