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Outfit Slots - Severely Misjudged?

Aelthwyn
Aelthwyn
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I was going to sumbit this as feedback in game, but it didn't allow me enough words.

I would like to make a suggestion concerning the outfit slots. I feel you may have both over and under estimated your customers' enthusiam for fashion. I think the pricing of the extra outfit slots, or your choice to make them character specific, greatly limits the potential of the glorious outfit station functionality. While many people may only play with one or two characters, I believe there are also many 'alt-a-holics' out there (like myself), and it is my conjecture that those who enjoy creating characters are also likely to have a greater interest in the appearance of those characters, not simply creating them to try a certain build, but having a backstory, personality, and Style in mind. I think many people would spend hours of fun creating multiple outfits, and may even take more interest in acquiring all the motifs and style pages, if they had access to multiple slots on each character - since it is rather tedious to go back to an outfit station and reselct all the individual pieces in order to change between outfits. However, 1,500 x 2-10 Per Character on 8+ characters, doesn't seem like something the majority would happily spend. Perhaps you are thinking, yes but because they don't have slots they'll buy more outfit tokens to change up their One slot. Eh... maybe, but I think if outfit slots unlocked for the whole account there would be More outfits to be playing around with, and thus a need for more in game gold or change tokens with which to save those outfit designs and redesigns. Alternitively, if the character-specific slots were priced similar to the change tokens, you'd probably see a lot more people buying multiple new slots. (Personally, with 22 characters between the two servers, I'd be all over the outfit slots if they were account-wide or in the 250-400 crown range. So far, I have not bought as single one, despite the fact that about half of my interest in this game is in fact character creation and the aesthetics in general).

It's my impression that as things are now, most people just set up their one outfit and stick with that, not because they're not interested in more slots but because for the same price they can unlock costumes, furniture, pets, and mounts that ALL of their characters benefit from. The outfit slots just don't look like a good deal in comparrison. So in that sense you have grossly overestimated the value of fashion. But there is so much potential for collecting styles and motifs and creating multiple outfits IF Only the slots were reasonably priced. And that's where I think you've underestimated your market. I could be wrong, but I think one extra slot here and there at an exorbitant price probably would not add up to the same as what people might be inclined to spend if it unlocked for all characters, or on many smaller purchases per character. It's much more desireable to be able to switch between outfits anywhere/anytime, rather than having to find a dye station and reselect all those individual pieces each time you want to change, BUT it's still not worth 1,500 per slot per character - I mean... seriously? that's almost the price of a whole DLC or a new character. I can't be the only one who looks at that and says "what were they thinking?!?" To me, it seems like the slots are a base part of the Outfit Station functionality which would encourage other purchases and participation in the game, and by keeping those slots limited you are limiting other investment in the game. It's my impression that a lot of people would be happily throwing money at you for outfit slots if they were priced more reasonably, because... well they all begged for the outfit station's features in the first place. Effectively you have said 'here is your dream come true, we put a looooot of work into it! But we don't want you to actually use it.' (unless you give us your first born child, and your second, ...and your third' =P )
Edited by Aelthwyn on February 12, 2021 8:31AM
  • Silaf
    Silaf
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    I'm desperatly in need of more slots.

    Outfit slots limitations and housing furnishing limitations should be removed.
  • Michae
    Michae
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    This is the topic that's been mauled over for years and promptly ignored by ZOS. They won't do anything about it.

    I would love to have them account wide but changing something like that is always going to be awkward since there surely are people who did buy multiple slots for multiple characters. Changing the slots now would probably make those people feel cheated, and I doubt that ZOS would like to put resources in, for example, investigating each case and returning crowns for the slots that went over limit for those users.
    "I bear the cruel weight of certainty. Total, absolute, relentless certainty. People rarely comprehend the luxury of doubt... the freedom that comes with indecision. I envy you."
    Sotha Sil

    @Michae PC/EU
  • tomofhyrule
    tomofhyrule
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    I only bought a few slots the last time they were on sale, but I know I'd have gone for more if they were a bit cheaper. I don't see a reason they're not account wide at that price.

    I wasn't originally going to buy any, but it does make it fun to jump back and forth between slots every so often. Also my guild used to have some events where we all dressed up, and I know around New Life most of us had a winter outfit.
  • DreamsUnderStars
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    15$ for a per-character item is over-priced. I'm sure they have some accounting numbers that justifies their pricing to those that make the big decisions, but it's just so greedy.

    I would happily pay 15$ if it was account wide. It would still be over-priced, and I wouldn't buy very many, but I wouldn't comment about it again.
    Edited by DreamsUnderStars on February 12, 2021 4:11PM
  • Raideen
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    I refuse to purchase an outfit slot. 15 dollars is extreme. An outfit slot should cost 5 bucks max PER ACCOUNT, not character.

    I have been perusing the minecraft store, its amazing what you can get for 8-9 bucks. I can't imagine, with the limited player base in ESO, why they would refuse to sell things at a more appropriate price. I mean come on man, a single outfit slot should not cost 1/2 to 1/4 of an entire game.
  • SOLDIER_1stClass
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    My only issue with them is that they aren't account wide.

    Once that changes I'll max out the outfit slots
  • Danikat
    Danikat
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    I agree that outfit slots are too expensive for what you get. But as far as I'm aware ZOS has never reduced the price of crown store stuff after it's released, except for occasionally discounting it for a short time.

    I'd love them to either charge a lot less for outfit slots (the 15-20% discount they sometimes offer isn't enough to make it worthwhile) or to make them account-wide, and if they did I'd actually buy some. But I'm not expecting it to happen. I've resigned myself to ignoring that 'feature' and just making 1 outfit per character, plus their actual armour.
    PC EU player | She/her/hers | PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!

    "Remember in this game we call life that no one said it's fair"
  • GreenHere
    GreenHere
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    My only issue with them is that they aren't account wide.

    Once that changes I'll max out the outfit slots

    (Emphasis mine)

    So much this!

    People always say "I assume they have actuaries or whatever that sit around and calculate that this was the most profitable course of action!" or something similar, but I just don't buy it. Right now they get 0% of the (quite frankly, idiotic) amounts of money I'm willing to spend on cosmetic stuff like this; and it seems like this is the feeling of the overwhelming majority of people I hear from.

    Am I just so stuck in such an echo chamber of frugal people like myself that I'm totally oblivious to the folks who gladly fork over mounds of money for character-specific outfit slots? Maybe so, but I find it very hard to believe that this is genuinely more profitable than having desirable goods fairly priced in a way that makes WAY more people opt to buy them at all. Seems more like the kind of greed and stupidity that I see all the time everywhere else in real life business dealings. Not every company is operating by thoroughly analyzing every potential pricing & availability scheme and making decisions by the numbers; more often than you'd like to think it's just some greedy idiot in charge who thinks bad ideas are good ones, from what I've seen. (But my experience isn't tied to the video game industry in any way, so maybe what I've seen has no bearing here, idk.)


    Anyway, yeah... Make Outfit slots account-wide, and I'll buy all they'll sell me! Until then, all they get from me is suggestions for where they can stick em.
  • DarcyMardin
    DarcyMardin
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    This has been a huge problem ever since the outfit system launched. I had been very excited about the system, but when I saw the price combined with the “limited to only one character” thing, I bailed on the outfit system totally. ZOS has ignored multiple thread on this ever since Day 1 of the outfit system.
  • DreamsUnderStars
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    Raideen wrote: »
    I refuse to purchase an outfit slot. 15 dollars is extreme. An outfit slot should cost 5 bucks max PER ACCOUNT, not character.

    I have been perusing the minecraft store, its amazing what you can get for 8-9 bucks. I can't imagine, with the limited player base in ESO, why they would refuse to sell things at a more appropriate price. I mean come on man, a single outfit slot should not cost 1/2 to 1/4 of an entire game.

    ESO hardly has a "limited playerbase", but I agree with you otherwise.
  • Starlock
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    It reflects the overpriced, customer-unfriendly nature of the cash shop as a whole. The only thing in that cash shop that *isn't* overpriced are the DLC expansion packs. Everything else is at least twice as expensive as it ought to be, if not ten times as expensive as it has any right to be. I mean, guys - we're talking about a developer that thinks it is OK to sell a single virtual house on a FOMO basis for over $100. The cash shop has no upper spending limit and this is very intentional. That is always, always a sign of customer-unfriendly monetization of a video game. Unfortunately these sorts of things will not be going away any time soon. It has gotten worse over the lifespan of this game, in fact, and certainly worse in the video game industry as a whole.

    There is a small, very small chance Microsoft will step in and fix this game's monetization problem. That is, however, very unlikely. If they change the monetization structure, customers who have been played in the past will be angry that they got a bad deal (which is ironic because it was always a bad deal, but whatever). Once customer-unfriendly monetization is baked into a game, it stays there. The only thing you can do as a customer is boycott it or help raise awareness of bad industry trends in the hopes enough will listen so it doesn't keep getting worse and worse and worse.
    Edited by Starlock on February 13, 2021 3:07PM
  • Raideen
    Raideen
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    Raideen wrote: »
    I refuse to purchase an outfit slot. 15 dollars is extreme. An outfit slot should cost 5 bucks max PER ACCOUNT, not character.

    I have been perusing the minecraft store, its amazing what you can get for 8-9 bucks. I can't imagine, with the limited player base in ESO, why they would refuse to sell things at a more appropriate price. I mean come on man, a single outfit slot should not cost 1/2 to 1/4 of an entire game.

    ESO hardly has a "limited playerbase", but I agree with you otherwise.

    its around 500k to 600k right now. In terms of MMO's, that is a limited player base.
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