We need to start a conversation about the Crown Store

Mitaka211 · October 2020

Hello everyone,
I think more and more we are starting to notice how toxic the Crown Store is. People with more than 1 character know what i am talking about. I mainly used my sub crowns for Outfit slots . But i noticed that things you unlock for one character do not transfer over to your other characters, meaning it is character bound, not account bound like a normal person would assume it is. That got me thinking and i started to notice how toxic and borderline scummy the store actually is. I think it is a pure money grab , with inflated prices that conveniently match the crowns you get in a month. Here are things about it i think are poisoning the game :

- Selling ww and vampire (I think most of us can agree this is absurd), considering how much stronger they can make your character. Anyone who started playing in day 1 can remember what a pain it was to actually get those . It was either through an event (where the right mobs that can infect spawned in the world) that would repeat , or through another player infecting you
- Selling motifs for full outfit sets . I think this is extremely annoying to anyone who farms for their gear skins. What it does is , it makes those motifs not special, not special at all. It's a cheap trick to pray on people who lack the patience to grind and i think it is extremely toxic to the overall feel of the game world. I am ok with them selling mounts and outfits , OUTFITS not motifs, but i feel the store has gotten out of hand in that regard.
- Inflated prices. What more is there to say here, it is obvious what they are doing. It is designed in a way to make subs blow trough their crowns and potentially buy more.
- Important upgrades , like outfit slots are not account wide. That really blew my mind. Considering how expensive they are, a normal person would assume they would carry over to other characters. Nope, not the case.

I think these things need to be addressed. I have seen some players already refer to ESO as pay to win , and i start to think they are right. Considering it is a more grindy game , selling things that you would normally get by playing , should not be a thing.

Raideen · October 2020

Mitaka211 wrote: »

I think these things need to be addressed. I have seen some players already refer to ESO as pay to win , and i start to think they are right. Considering it is a more grindy game , selling things that you would normally get by playing , should not be a thing.

100% agreed with everything you posted. But this part is what really miffs me about ESO. It is absolutely pay to win in regards to what "winning" means for most people inside the MMORPG community, which is collecting.

Pay to win stemmed from FPS games where you could purchase a more powerful weapon to kill your opponent, taking skill out of the game and giving the wins to the player who had more to spend. That obviously does not happen in ESO, but what does happen is that there is a severe lack of mount drops are no mount drops off bosses in game. None. Zero. The VAST majority of cool mounts and other cool stuff comes from the crown store and are not available in game. So for the collector who wants to show off their outfit, or mount as their "prestige" amongst their peers, the best and only real way to do so in this game is with money. That is what it means to "pay to win" in an MMO.

And yes, NOW (this has not always been the case) we can gift crowns in an exchange for gold or rather sell gold to a crown seller, but its a sketchy endeavor because of the plethora of scammers out there.

If would behoove ZOS to create an official crown conversion that could be purchased off guild traders (for a SET price) like WOW does with their game token through the Auction House. Someone buys a gold exchange token with crowns, places it on the guild trader, someone with gold comes in and buys those crowns and bam, its a safe exchange with no scamming.

Now all of that being said, if someone is committed to the game with ESO+ with a 6 month minimum purchase, everything should be opened up to the player as drops. The whole point in the crown store is to allow ZOS to make money on a Buy To Play game where they do not require a subscription. Folks who pay up front in good faith with a 6 month ESO+ sub should not be faced with the greed of the crown store. It feels like double dipping from a customer perspective.

I was in sales before I went to design school. The biggest lesson I learned in sales was to be honest, not be scummy and NOT drain the customers wallet with "addons". Sure, my bosses hate it when I did not sell an extended warranty, or an unnecessary accessory, but my customers appreciated my honesty and because of that I saw tons of referrals and repeat business, and I was top sales for my store most months and even led the company in sales at times.

Mom was right when she taught me "Honesty is the best policy."

RavenLake · October 2020

Please. These things aren't "poisoning" the game. Don't be so dramatic. ZOS has to make money somehow to continue making this great game. If you don't like how business is done, then play another game, very simple.

Raideen · October 2020

RavenLake wrote: »

Please. These things aren't "poisoning" the game. Don't be so dramatic. ZOS has to make money somehow to continue making this great game. If you don't like how business is done, then play another game, very simple.

I disagree. The OP is posting their feelings on the subject. Myself and my GF have the same feelings on the subject. In fact, the crown store is often the reason we leave the game for 6 months to a year at a time, which is a LOT of lost revenue for every customer who moves on because they feel the game is always in their wallet.

The OP posted criticism, its constructive and should be taken as valuable input. You may not like it, but that does not make it wrong or "dramatic".

Chilly-McFreeze · October 2020

RavenLake wrote: »

Please. These things aren't "poisoning" the game. Don't be so dramatic. ZOS has to make money somehow to continue making this great game. If you don't like how business is done, then play another game, very simple.

Ah, the good old "you don't have to be here" quote. Haven't seen this in a while.

Anyway, I wouldn't have an issue with their cash grab mentality if they'd actually spend this hard earned money on some better servers. Two month worth of sub money blown into the wind because ZOS rather has the pvp community as a lab rat than grabbing the bulls by the horns.

Langdon64 · October 2020

So many posts on this subject, and I have yet to see ZOS respond to any of them. That tells me that it is not going away, will never be changed, and ZOS could give a rat's ass what players think about the Crown Store.

Araneae6537 · October 2020

I am definitely into fashion and housing in the game and don’t mind that some options can only be bought with money. But I do object to these aspects of the Crown store:

1) Selling stuff that can be acquired cheaply and easily in game, with the basic motifs being one of the most flagrant examples.

2) Making so many options only available through Crown crates. I wouldn’t object to their existence if most of the items were otherwise available, not necessarily at the same time as in the crates. I don’t even like most of what is offered in the crates (flashy, gaudy, ugly, IMHO) but there have been several emotes, costumes and pets that I would have loved to buy — with Crowns, would have spent more real money for them too — but have never been available to me. I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t available until months later — I still want several of the Khajiit emotes that were in crates after Elsweyr released. Would the type of person who spends lots on Crown crates spend less because some of the items would be available months later? I seriously doubt it. I don’t think they’re buying crates for the simple costumes, etc. that I want anyway but rather things like the apex mounts — which they can keep, no thank you!!!

Nairinhe · October 2020

The only problem I have with crown store bites is that new player may not know that those are available in-game. Otherwise they are really easy to get from players.
Outfit slots are not "important", that's cosmetics. You can buy them, or spend gold changing outfits in one slot - your choice.
Next, you have problem with motifs, but not with skill lines or skyshards? Anyway, if you want the journey - it's available. If you only want a destination - it's also available. Again, your choice.

But, overall it's either pay-for-convenience or cosmetics. It doesn't give you advantage over other players, it's doesn't stop you from farming whatever you want to farm. I have two overall gripes with it: crates system and somewhat declining, so to say, technical quality of offerings. That's it. Remember that it's all just pixels and you'll be fine.

x48rph · October 2020

Mitaka211 wrote: »

Hello everyone,
I think more and more we are starting to notice how toxic the Crown Store is. People with more than 1 character know what i am talking about. I mainly used my sub crowns for Outfit slots . But i noticed that things you unlock for one character do not transfer over to your other characters, meaning it is character bound, not account bound like a normal person would assume it is. That got me thinking and i started to notice how toxic and borderline scummy the store actually is. I think it is a pure money grab , with inflated prices that conveniently match the crowns you get in a month. Here are things about it i think are poisoning the game :

- Selling ww and vampire (I think most of us can agree this is absurd), considering how much stronger they can make your character. Anyone who started playing in day 1 can remember what a pain it was to actually get those . It was either through an event (where the right mobs that can infect spawned in the world) that would repeat , or through another player infecting you
- Selling motifs for full outfit sets . I think this is extremely annoying to anyone who farms for their gear skins. What it does is , it makes those motifs not special, not special at all. It's a cheap trick to pray on people who lack the patience to grind and i think it is extremely toxic to the overall feel of the game world. I am ok with them selling mounts and outfits , OUTFITS not motifs, but i feel the store has gotten out of hand in that regard.
- Inflated prices. What more is there to say here, it is obvious what they are doing. It is designed in a way to make subs blow trough their crowns and potentially buy more.
- Important upgrades , like outfit slots are not account wide. That really blew my mind. Considering how expensive they are, a normal person would assume they would carry over to other characters. Nope, not the case.

I think these things need to be addressed. I have seen some players already refer to ESO as pay to win , and i start to think they are right. Considering it is a more grindy game , selling things that you would normally get by playing , should not be a thing.

Sell cosmetics and stuff is not pay to win. In fact it's the exact opposite. It's how games make money without being pay to win. They sell you fancy stuff that has no bearing on play. They need to make money some how , it's a business after all. Selling stuff you can easily obtain in game also isn't especially motifs and stuff that have zero bearing on play. Vampire and ww are easily obtainable in game so no big deal with those two.

What is pay to win for eso is selling stuff like classes, especially when you make them OP (looking at you stam necro) and selling stuff like jewelry crafting and antiquities (which is needed to obtain mythic items). That's what most people mean when they say it's becoming pay to win since there are ZERO ways to obtain them in game and they aren't wrong for calling it pay to win. Can you win without it? Yes. Are you at a disadvantage the same way as you are against people buying better guns in FPS game? Yes, for sure.

Anentet · October 2020

I recently came back to ESO, got me a subscription, I even buy crowns here and there. Probably around $200 in the last two months.
That being said I have started to notice too many goodies are in the shop, and not enough in the game. I may just drop ESO and go back to a shadowland for a while. I feel like they could offer a lot more content in game but they put it up for sale, and its unfortunate. I love the gameplay, I love the idea of decorating a home and theming up a character. I love Halloween but its been disheartening seeing so many things in the crown shop instead of earnable without risk of dealing with a crown seller. I do enjoy the stuff we get by doing the bosses, but its still crazy how much they expect you to dish out for shop items. I used to talk up ESO and how they handled shop / subscription, but they lost me. The monthly crowns aren't enough to keep up with anything unless you wait very long periods of time. You used to get more free crates in the login rewards, as well as one for sub. I hear that's why we get another 150, but that doesn't equal a crate cost. To add salt to the wound SO MANY of these things are time limited to a few days..
Just unsure about the game atm... again I want to love it, but it's losing me again.

Kittytravel · October 2020

I don't personally consider it pay to win as all the items/purchasables aren't really things you can't get acquire in a different way.

But that doesn't mean I agree with the crown store; I've always found ZOS's marketing tactics beyond odd. Sell 1000 of the $100 estates to the players that can afford to blow that much money rather than selling them for $50 at a more affordable price and 10,000 players buying it. Pricing your Crown Store furniture shop to be more lucrative than actually farming for the stuff yourself; it's insane to me that you can't decorate a house to your exact whims (minus achievement items) on just $100. They'd be so much better off if buying the BOUND furniture costed nickels or bolts and it wouldn't wreck their economy in the slightest (people would just directly purchase the furniture VS selling crowns to get the gold to buy it anyway).

A lot of their other stuff just blows my mind too; dye stamps not being reusable collectibles that cost a dollar. Mounts being priced lower but offering several recolors. It's just really terrible digital marketing and if they have income problems then they only have themselves to blame tbh. ESO+ doesn't need any additional features since the craft bag is already in existence but they really could do more work in offering the various pets/mounts with recolors for cheaper options (because people will ABSOLUTELY buy the same mount/pet in two different colors for different toons).

Same thing with their utility section; 1000 crowns for 10 mount books. 10$ per book. 60$ per mount skill up line to max. 180$ for all three. What? If you want people to buy such a thing on a regular basis you'd price it to 100 crowns per 10 books; people will drop 6$ in a HEARTBEAT to skip the needed 2 months of mount training on a toon for speed alone. Their crown store incentives just aren't really worth their weight and the marketing team seems to apply real-world economics to a digital industry and it shows. The goal of their crown store should be to incentivize every player, sub or not, to spend 10-20$ a month in it. But it's far from that.

idk · October 2020

Outfit slots are nowhere near something that is needed. Vampire and WW bites are free in-game. If someone wants to buy them from the crown store let them waste their money. The same thing applies to the motifs as they are obtainable in-game. The only real gripe is that we used to have a longer lead time on new a new motif before it was added to the crown store, Playerfsf could make more bank in-game.

None of this is toxicity. I say that as one who banks their crowns every month. My last two purchases were the pets that add to my storage. None of it is needed.