Double crown crates! Is there an option for us to use our gems to buy from both?

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

I saw the storm crates but there seems to be no way for me to use my gems to buy anything. Was this intended or overlooked?

Any info would be great, thnx

Invoca · December 2017

It's intended. You can only get the items from Storm crates by buying the crates, you can't use your gems to get them.

DigitalEulogy · December 2017

Sadly no. I was excited for the return as I have an abundance of gems let over from the Halloween crates 710 to be exact and had planned on buying one of the mounts. Now I plan on buying none. The RNG for the loot boxes is awful. Spent over 100$ on the Halloween crates and got one mount and 710 gems of duplicates. Lesson learned on my part.

KanedaSyndrome · December 2017

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

I saw the storm crates but there seems to be no way for me to use my gems to buy anything. Was this intended or overlooked?

Any info would be great, thnx

Intended. Crown Gems have been heavily devalued and you can no longer count on being able to get the items you want, no matter how many Crown Gems you have.

IE: The new radiant apex mounts cost around 2000 dollars on average to obtain.

LordGavus · December 2017

Yeah it's intended.
It's a pity because I wanted a few things from the storm crates, but I'm not buying any if I can't use gems to get the thing I want.

beetleklee · December 2017

Yeah it's a pity, I wanted the Storm Senche and that cool Argonian feather hairdo and had gems saved for this. I find it really predatory, first the radiant mounts, and this no gems thing is even worse.

TonyRockaroni · December 2017

I wanted the Frost Mare. Badly. But I feel like I got literally everything else BUT the Frost Mare...I swear, I'd trade half the stuff I got from the crates to get it if that was a possibility. Even one of the Storm Atronach mounts.

Dragath · December 2017

as i said in another thread, there is a history behind the reason why you can't buy them with gems.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

LordGavus wrote: »

Yeah it's intended.
It's a pity because I wanted a few things from the storm crates, but I'm not buying any if I can't use gems to get the thing I want.

Yes, this is just sad. There really is no reason not to let us use our gems. This time I think this is going to backfire on them and rightfully so.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

beetleklee wrote: »

Yeah it's a pity, I wanted the Storm Senche and that cool Argonian feather hairdo and had gems saved for this. I find it really predatory, first the radiant mounts, and this no gems thing is even worse.

Ditto, smh.

Maybe we can get them to change this one. I mean when you had the gems to get something it was like a shady carnival game but this I can't support.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

TonyRockaroni wrote: »

I wanted the Frost Mare. Badly. But I feel like I got literally everything else BUT the Frost Mare...I swear, I'd trade half the stuff I got from the crates to get it if that was a possibility. Even one of the Storm Atronach mounts.

I don't think you should have to, I think they should let you use your gems to get that mount.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

Dragath wrote: »

as i said in another thread, there is a history behind the reason why you can't buy them with gems.

Being greed, or because of some of the recent changes in some other countries?

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

I also wonder if they changed the odds on these repeat crown crates. Could we get any official statements on these crates?

Dragath · December 2017

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

as i said in another thread, there is a history behind the reason why you can't buy them with gems.

Being greed, or because of some of the recent changes in some other countries?

Dragath wrote: »

if you really want to know why you can't buy them with gems:
when crown crates and gems were introduced the consensus behind the scenes might have been: players would spend a lot of money to get the desired mount, and even if they wouldn't get it, they could buy it with a huge amount of gems, obtained by buying a big chunk of crates. win-win for the company, because either way they got the money AND they could keep most of the unlucky player base happy with the ability to buy the mounts straight up (for more money).
what they didn't realize; they underestimated how much money a certain group of players was willing to spend.
short term, that brought a lot of money.
then the problems started.
the player base that was willing to spend huge amounts of money for the crates had huge amounts of gems, because after you bought x amounts of crates, you basically just got gems. as soon as a new season started, they could use these gems to buy everything they wanted without having to gamble and receive the fillers.
this behavior made quite a dent in this years revenue.
so how could they rectify this?
step 1: give an incentive to buy crown crates every season. mounts that can't be bought with gems.
step 2: get rid of all these banked gems. skins (soon to follow other stuff) for 400 gems.
step 3: straight up denying the use of gems with these kind of "special events", fairly well prepared with a "no crown sale" black fredas to make sure, if you want that shiny stuff that isn't available anymore and you thought you could use your gems? too bad, you have to buy crowns for the full price to get a shot at it.

disclaimer: of course i have no clue what i'm taking about. take everything with a grain of salt. yada yada yada.

Whatzituyah · December 2017

@Dragath Sounds like a person with their Tin Foil hat a little bit too tight but in the end thats wrong to do to customers! Also with this whole fiasco going on with another company changes may come for better or worse and too be honest I hope its better not worse.

Beardimus · December 2017

The thing is, in profitablility terms they are a success. And that means Crates are here to stay unless something huge (law) changes.

Every thread that hates on Crown crates has people commenting how they spent $100's so far - I.e. They are working (for Zos)

Whenever I play I see Crown Crate mounts charging about.

If you really want them gone, don't buy a thing. And don't comment on here about how you wasted $1000.. But people are buying them, in their droves, commerically they are probably a bigger success than Morrowind so what can Zos's bean counters do?

I have zero problem with Crown crates as I don't buy em and won't buy em. Simple.

monktoasty · December 2017

They are way to greedy and immoral to allow you to spend those gems on things you want. They ONLY want your money more and more of it they are not interested in the customers at all.

I'm nearly done with zos and bethsada. I'm just OVER these dang loot crate systems.

Can't even be fair about it.

KanedaSyndrome · December 2017

Dragath wrote: »

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

as i said in another thread, there is a history behind the reason why you can't buy them with gems.

Being greed, or because of some of the recent changes in some other countries?

Dragath wrote: »

if you really want to know why you can't buy them with gems:
when crown crates and gems were introduced the consensus behind the scenes might have been: players would spend a lot of money to get the desired mount, and even if they wouldn't get it, they could buy it with a huge amount of gems, obtained by buying a big chunk of crates. win-win for the company, because either way they got the money AND they could keep most of the unlucky player base happy with the ability to buy the mounts straight up (for more money).
what they didn't realize; they underestimated how much money a certain group of players was willing to spend.
short term, that brought a lot of money.
then the problems started.
the player base that was willing to spend huge amounts of money for the crates had huge amounts of gems, because after you bought x amounts of crates, you basically just got gems. as soon as a new season started, they could use these gems to buy everything they wanted without having to gamble and receive the fillers.
this behavior made quite a dent in this years revenue.
so how could they rectify this?
step 1: give an incentive to buy crown crates every season. mounts that can't be bought with gems.
step 2: get rid of all these banked gems. skins (soon to follow other stuff) for 400 gems.
step 3: straight up denying the use of gems with these kind of "special events", fairly well prepared with a "no crown sale" black fredas to make sure, if you want that shiny stuff that isn't available anymore and you thought you could use your gems? too bad, you have to buy crowns for the full price to get a shot at it.

disclaimer: of course i have no clue what i'm taking about. take everything with a grain of salt. yada yada yada.

Theory sounds about right. The effect of this behaviour though is that Crown Gems have been heavily devalued (halved in value?). Also, with stuff being behind an RNG wall making it so an item costs on average 2000$ is simply going to make a lot of players not buy any crates at all, players that might've gone for the rare items if they had been priced at 800-1000 Crown Gems.
And then there's the bad karma from the bad taste it leaves in our mouths, to see that the gems we saved up are suddenly "worthless".

It's simply unethical.

KanedaSyndrome · December 2017

Whatzituyah wrote: »

@Dragath Sounds like a person with their Tin Foil hat a little bit too tight but in the end thats wrong to do to customers! Also with this whole fiasco going on with another company changes may come for better or worse and too be honest I hope its better not worse.

I think he's right on the money with his analysis.

Dragath · December 2017

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

as i said in another thread, there is a history behind the reason why you can't buy them with gems.

Being greed, or because of some of the recent changes in some other countries?

Dragath wrote: »

if you really want to know why you can't buy them with gems:
when crown crates and gems were introduced the consensus behind the scenes might have been: players would spend a lot of money to get the desired mount, and even if they wouldn't get it, they could buy it with a huge amount of gems, obtained by buying a big chunk of crates. win-win for the company, because either way they got the money AND they could keep most of the unlucky player base happy with the ability to buy the mounts straight up (for more money).
what they didn't realize; they underestimated how much money a certain group of players was willing to spend.
short term, that brought a lot of money.
then the problems started.
the player base that was willing to spend huge amounts of money for the crates had huge amounts of gems, because after you bought x amounts of crates, you basically just got gems. as soon as a new season started, they could use these gems to buy everything they wanted without having to gamble and receive the fillers.
this behavior made quite a dent in this years revenue.
so how could they rectify this?
step 1: give an incentive to buy crown crates every season. mounts that can't be bought with gems.
step 2: get rid of all these banked gems. skins (soon to follow other stuff) for 400 gems.
step 3: straight up denying the use of gems with these kind of "special events", fairly well prepared with a "no crown sale" black fredas to make sure, if you want that shiny stuff that isn't available anymore and you thought you could use your gems? too bad, you have to buy crowns for the full price to get a shot at it.

disclaimer: of course i have no clue what i'm taking about. take everything with a grain of salt. yada yada yada.

Theory sounds about right. The effect of this behaviour though is that Crown Gems have been heavily devalued (halved in value?). Also, with stuff being behind an RNG wall making it so an item costs on average 2000$ is simply going to make a lot of players not buy any crates at all, players that might've gone for the rare items if they had been priced at 800-1000 Crown Gems.
And then there's the bad karma from the bad taste it leaves in our mouths, to see that the gems we saved up are suddenly "worthless".

It's simply unethical.

their holding does not care about ethics.
but just to be clear:
this has nothing to do with the devs of the game. they got told to handle the situation, i.e. increase profit / crown crate sales.
try to sympathize with ZOS.
they get a lot of pressure to meet certain targets and have to squeeze wherever possible to keep this game running.
they try their best, but given the situation ZOS is in, there is no way out of this.

disclaimer: of course i have no clue what i'm taking about. take everything with a grain of salt.

monktoasty · December 2017

Of course it's not zos choice..but our voices but be heard through them. Let's hope they are forwarding these concerns.

Dragath · December 2017

monktoasty wrote: »

Of course it's not zos choice..but our voices but be heard through them. Let's hope they are forwarding these concerns.

these voices are of no interest to those that are responsible for the decisions. its not like they didnt try..
you can vote with your wallet or not vote at all.
but please be advised, this could go wrong.

DarcyMardin · December 2017

These threads always leave me shaking my head, mystified. People DO realize, surely, that if nobody ever bought the crates, the crates would shortly cease to exist? Instead, people spend “hundreds of dollars” or more on these things and then complain about the RNG?

Crappy RNG and the bright, dangling, out-of-reach carrot is how they WORK. If you don’t like it, don’t play. Every time you do play the crate game, you make some bean counter in ZOS-land very happy.

(I’ve no problem with folks whose extra disposable income permits them to enjoy the thrill of gambling...go ahead, go crazy. It’s the “I didn’t get what I wanted...this is so unfair!” attitude that bugs me).

Whatzituyah · December 2017

@Dragath I don't know if we have really a choice if it could go wrong because as mentioned earlier if a new gonvernment law is produced about this it could change.

monktoasty · December 2017

Well of course..I've seen plenty of games with loot crates close down or barely eek by with only whales remaining.

So voting with your wallet does not help..they are so stubborn they'd rather the game *** down completely than be fair.

Whatzituyah · December 2017

Even if something happens too loot crates it still might be predatory unless something happens too just microtransactions.

BloodWolfe · December 2017

Stop buying and supporting Crown Crates and force ZOS to discontinue them. Then maybe we will see these back in the Crown Shop for direct purchase. Crown Crates are such a scam and boggles my mind how many people buy these things. Stop blindly opening your wallets (or going into debt on credit cards which I am sure some have done) for this stuff.

I pay for ESO+ and do buy additonal crowns when on sale so I can support ZOS but crown crates I will NEVER support! Only ones I have ever opened are the free ones and even then I debated if I should open them or not. Loot boxes are the WORST thing to happen to the gaming industry.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

Beardimus wrote: »

The thing is, in profitablility terms they are a success. And that means Crates are here to stay unless something huge (law) changes.

Every thread that hates on Crown crates has people commenting how they spent $100's so far - I.e. They are working (for Zos)

Whenever I play I see Crown Crate mounts charging about.

If you really want them gone, don't buy a thing. And don't comment on here about how you wasted $1000.. But people are buying them, in their droves, commerically they are probably a bigger success than Morrowind so what can Zos's bean counters do?

I have zero problem with Crown crates as I don't buy em and won't buy em. Simple.

If you don't buy any crates, then why are you commenting on a post about being able to use your gems in the other crates? Because you haven't bought any, anything you say is invalid. This is about using your gems when they brought back storm and atro, it has nothing to do with the normal crown crates. As the post indicates.

Girl_Number8 · December 2017

monktoasty wrote: »

They are way to greedy and immoral to allow you to spend those gems on things you want. They ONLY want your money more and more of it they are not interested in the customers at all.

I'm nearly done with zos and bethsada. I'm just OVER these dang loot crate systems.

Can't even be fair about it.

Yes, with no official comment from them, I think that is the answer.