Scarlett_Princess wrote: »

My opinion, I think ALL the COMMON rewards, and the food/drinks in the FINE rewards, should either be removed, or buffed up to be ever so slightly better than in-game items, so I feel encouraged to use them and not convert them back into crown gems.

The soul gems are a complete waste of time as they are so easy to obtain in-game. But I do like the riding skills and repair kits!

Problem with that is [and they have managed, barely to actually stick to this concept], nothing in the crown store would be better than what players could craft in game. That is why Mythic Aetheric Ambrosia [or whatever the name is] suddenly appeared. You have to jump through multiple hoops and placate the Gremlins of RNG, but you can make the better version in game. Buffing stuff to be better would totally trash that, and start the rants about pay to win, that would finally have some ground to stand on.

You know, I know, everyone knows the reason people buy crates are for the mounts and special items you can't get any other way. The official CYA/this isn't a gamblebox reason people buy the crates is for the great deal on the consumables. Seriously. It's in the announcement about the crates. https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25871

Crown Crates are a new addition to the ESO Crown Store that will give you a chance to obtain exclusive and unique pets, mounts, and more alongside useful consumable items.

This Thursday, we'll be introducing the first season of Crown Crates to the ESO Crown Store. Crown Crates are purchased through the Crown Store, and contain a randomized selection of useful consumables and collectibles that are valued more than the price of a single crate. In addition, they also offer a chance to obtain unique cosmetic items, pets, or mounts. Crown Crates include new and exclusive items, as well as some items you might have missed in previous limited time offers.

Whenever you purchase a Crown Crate, you will always be awarded four items, with the chance to get a fifth item. In the event you receive a mount, pet, costume or personality that you already own from your Crown Crate, you'll be awarded a new resource - Crown Gems - in its place. You will also have the option to convert several items obtained from Crown Crates to Crown Gems any time you want. Items that can be manually converted include potions, poisons, riding lessons, experience scrolls, and other utility-type items. Any Crown Gems you earn can then be used to purchase the collectible items of your choosing from the current Crown Crate season.

This changed, and my suspicion is that it changed because people were posting "I didn't get the apex mount I wanted, but that's okay. I got enough gems to buy the one I wanted. Now I don't have to bother with the crates again until they have something else I want." So then the Radiant Apex mounts showed up that you can't buy with gems. And some people literally spent thousands of dollars trying to get them.

Scarlett_Princess wrote: »

This poll is basically a survey, and I hope ZoS utilise the information provided to make informed changes in the Crown Crate store.

If you use the COMMON elixirs, potions + poisons, state in the comments which ones you use and in what capacity (PvE/PvP etc).

If you use the FINE riding skills, food/drinks, xp scroll, repair kit, soul gem, again state in the comments which ones.

Gems...

Once upon a time, I was a gamer who worked as an analyst both in and out of the game industry. I tried to help my clients understand that the diminishing returns of constantly devaluing their primary cash shop content and currency (a la Skinner box styled, scheduled monetization releases, etc) was detrimental to long-term game health.

No one wants to hear that, even as some are already finding out it's true.

The industry has a pretty solid history of ignoring things it doesn't like to hear (just like every human, eh?) until the walls are collapsing (and then plaintively saying they 'don't understand' how it fell apart).

Reports are already "out there" about the whole mess, but it's signal to noise among all the outlets hyping monetization as some miracle cure for games. *rolls eyes*

Instead of the industry taking a step back and looking at more tactical methods, they've all 'doubled down' on incorporating more and more impulse pressure and conditioning (Not that this is any surprise, it seems most mechanic design is going this way as well, but that's another topic).

Candidly, it doesn't matter what we think unless and until we're willing to speak with our wallets.

So far, players across the spectrum are failing pretty hard at it. Myself included.

But I have to tell you, watching so many of the items I paid top dollar to get come on sale at deep discount combined with the "in your face" advertising, a general policy of "dance little monkey, or no banana for you", and of course, the ever-aloof and incorrectly named "random" number generator has finally convinced me that @ZoS has no better insight on things than any other game company... and no interest in developing it until ***'s on fire, yo.

So, yeah, back to speaking with my wallet here - no more crown crate purchases until they get that crap in line with realistic models of spend forecasting (hint: this ain't it by far), and I'm probably going back to free to play when current sub lapses because, frankly, I'm no longer willing to pay for a game that uses my own interest in pretties so remorselessly against me.

"And that's all I got to say 'bout that." - Forrest Gump

Common and fine all get converted to gems who is far more valuable.

I'll just emphasize that buffing those consumables would be very wrong. That would make them better than what you can craft and be a pay-to-win monetization scheme. Not to mention how they are nerfing crafted consumables already...