You know you can buy those pages off the players? They go pretty steep but gold is still pretty easy to obtain in this game so when something's available for gold I prefer to buy it that way. They go for around 100-150k gold a page on PC EU. I didn't manage to get all the pages of course, I focused on engine guardian. I'm still missing greatsword and shield and I'll probably buy them from someone. I got bow, helmet, shoulder and dagger for tickets, I found staff in hefty box, and I also got four pages of other motifs that I put in my guild store (there was a duplicate bow unfortunately) and I'll use the gold from selling them to get the last two engine guardian pages. So unless you plan to get all the pages, getting them for gold is pretty reasonable. Sorry if I was rambling a bit but I wanted to give the perspective on how to avoid CS when it's possible to get things without shelling out cash.

Now you realize, expect to see more event dailies rewarding odd number of tickets.
Being 1 ticket short is an easier hurdle.

Minyassa wrote: »

Michae wrote: »

You know you can buy those pages off the players? They go pretty steep but gold is still pretty easy to obtain in this game so when something's available for gold I prefer to buy it that way. They go for around 100-150k gold a page on PC EU. I didn't manage to get all the pages of course, I focused on engine guardian. I'm still missing greatsword and shield and I'll probably buy them from someone. I got bow, helmet, shoulder and dagger for tickets, I found staff in hefty box, and I also got four pages of other motifs that I put in my guild store (there was a duplicate bow unfortunately) and I'll use the gold from selling them to get the last two engine guardian pages. So unless you plan to get all the pages, getting them for gold is pretty reasonable. Sorry if I was rambling a bit but I wanted to give the perspective on how to avoid CS when it's possible to get things without shelling out cash.

I looked at buying the style page I wanted, and this was very close to right after rollover, event still going but of course it's the last day so prices are already starting to go up, and the cheapest I saw was 130k in TTC. Even at Tamriel Crown Exchange's rate of 225:1 (ouch), one event ticket would be 56,250 gold. Of course if you're shy MORE than one ticket then yeah, that's gonna get high, but for one ticket short the CS can be the cheaper route.

Sure, I don't deny that. I was talking more about the principle. OP was worried about slippery slope and enabling bad practices. I pointed out a way to get the stuff he wanted without the use of real money, either by him or by some crown seller. It's the rare situation where you can boycott CS and still get the stuff you want. Looks like a win-win to me.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I'll never spend money in the Crown Store for something I can earn for free in the game, or can purchase using in-game gold.

Or so I've always said.

After earning my last 3 tickets tonight, I had 9 of them. I've already got a Nascent Indrik waiting to be evolved into a Spectral Indrik, plus all 4 feathers waiting to be combined into another Nascent Indrik, so I've been spending my tickets on the outfit pages-- even though I have no interest in outfits that cost money to apply.

Or so I've always said.

So I bought a ticket in the Crown Store to bring me to 10 tickets so I could buy 2 more weapon pages before the Impresario gets turned off.

Now that I've set foot on this slippery slope, where will it end? Where will it end?

You'll be spending $10,000 a season on crates before you know it.

"I'll never spend money on Crown Crates!" he shouted convincingly-- convincingly to himself, at least (for the time being).

As for spending in-game gold, I'm acquiring a bit more of it each day now that I've started doing daily crafting writs on 5 of my NA characters. (It used to be 1, then 3, then 1, then 2. As you can see, I'm a very decisive person.) So I may get back into buying housing which can be purchased with in-game gold. Other than that, I spend it on crafting motifs or rare style mats that I need to do master writs.

Speaking of housing, I did finally buy a Crowns-only housing last month during the New Life Festival-- the Enchanted Snow Globe Home. But I plan to hold off on buying any of the incredibly expensive Crowns-only housing any time soon. As it is, I primarily use my various properties as free wayshrines; I don't furnish or decorate them, other than using certain ones as warehouses for dumping all of the furnishings I find out in the world. If anyone wants a burnt branch, I've got lots of them!

You do you. But if you feel the clown store isn't the way to go, you could consider not validating ZOS' model by making certain purchases. At the end of the day, your purchase is going on the spreadsheet along with those of all the enthusiastic microtransaction supporters.