Yeah, that's kind of the idea behind gems and similar currencies in other titles. It's a stopgap so you can get the specific item you want without spending thousands of dollars hoping to get it by random chance.

mikejezz wrote: »

surprise mechanics.

These words still give me the hibbie jibbies

Simple if you don't want get robbed don't spend your money [snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Nerdrage9000 wrote: »

As title says.

When you drop $150 on crates - you get a prompt that allows you to pick any mount. Except for the 3 shiny ones with laser eyes.

Better idea... sell the mounts in the Crown Store for a couple thousand (2000-4000) CROWNS and skip the loot boxes!

Wise man say: Just say NO to Crown Crates.

Crown Crates sell you a chance at the item you want and a chance at gem currency to eventually buy whatever non-radiant apex item you want. Because profit.

If ZOS wanted you to just be able to get the item you want, guaranteed, they wouldn't be using loot crates.

Pfft... would you look at that
Someone wants something for the money they spend.... how rude

TheDarkoil wrote: »

I opened 30 Nightfall Crates and didn't get a single mount which is annoying as I usually get 1 mount per 15 crates.

Same. 30 and no mount.

After like the 9th or 10th crate it seemed like I was getting almost all duplicates and it was minor stuff worth very little gems

VaranisArano wrote: »

If ZOS wanted you to just be able to get the item you want, guaranteed, they wouldn't be using loot crates.

It is more complicated than that.

Honestly, I expect that they don't really care what players spend the Crown on, or even if they spend the Crowns, so long as they line up to buy Crowns.

The random nature of the loot boxes invites the "just one more try" mindset, which helps to deplete Crown stashes, which is the desired effect. This is driven by psychology commonly used in carnivals where they dangle a desired item and a chance to win it. If you play enough, you will win it. Just one more try. They can give the player a fancy Radiant Apex mount without the player fully realizing how much they might have to spend (real money) before that happens.

The thing is that, along they way, the player collects a vast amount of valueless stuff that ZOS gives them for playing the Crown Crate game. Piles of potions, scrolls, a few costumes and pets, maybe a personality, come from these loot boxes long before the mounts come. On average. They also encourage play Crown Crates by handing out Gems for duplicates, and then Gem exclusive sales, because then people have to play Crown Crates to get Gems. They have sort of built an entire valueless economy around Crown Crates, which are built around the psychology of "just one more try".

It isn't that ZOS does not want to sell Crown Crate mounts guaranteed, it is that no one would buy it if ZOS used the current Crown Store mentality of selling mounts. It is because of all of the other loot that was collected on the journey to get the mount.

ZOS could easily build packages of loot crate rewards and sell them for 21000 Crowns. They could contain a fixed and known set of items from the current Crown Crate season, with duplicates awarding Gems. This would represent an average collection of loot from the same amount of Crown Crates (50). People might actually buy them, but they would not contain any Radiant Apex mounts. This is work for ZOS, so I doubt they would be interested. People can just buy 50 Crown Crates. That already works.

max_only wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Yeah, that's kind of the idea behind gems and similar currencies in other titles. It's a stopgap so you can get the specific item you want without spending thousands of dollars hoping to get it by random chance.

Would be ALOT less of a scam if people could chose, when oipening a crate, whether they want to activate the reward or trade it for gems. Because I sure as heck don't give a rat's bottom about any camel mount I'd be unlucky enough to get, or that emote, or that ugly skin...

If you could just say "no thank you, I'll have gems instead", you could get what you actually want faster, still with the nice feeling of opening a gift instead of a ripoff mechanism. And it might even be more profitable for ZOS, as people might actually consider buying those more often.

This. I want to gem things right in the flip card phase. Especially mounts. I haven’t liked a mount design for so long.

I bought 4 crates and got the senche. I wish I could gem it.

I had to buy three of the four crate packs to get enough gems to buy the Sabre. The game gave me the Bear in the very first crate. If I hadn't just bought the Sabre with gems I'd trade you.

It also gave me the Vampire Horse. I'm never riding that thing.