An alliance change would cost me $40? 😱

StarOfElyon · July 2021

I almost never considered alliance changing before but I thought one of my characters could defect to another alliance (also so that I could play with other people), and I'm shocked to find out it would cost me $40 just to change the character's alliance?

What a slap in the face. I could buy my son a game for that much money. People are on hard times right now and just want to enjoy games but fun is stuck behind a massive pay wall. I thought it would be 1k or 2k crowns at the most. But I need to buy the ability to buy an alliance change token first? And cost me 5k crowns ($40) total? It's SHOCKING.

zelaminator · July 2021

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

StarOfElyon · July 2021

Some of us can't even afford to do it once.

Hexquisite · July 2021

For me it is 2500 crowns, and I buy 3000 crowns for $24.99--if I don't already have some.

Blinx · July 2021

you can get it for $20 once, look under the special offers tab, Any Race, Any Alliance bundle, comes with a few extra items too

Marcus_Aurelius · July 2021

.

Grandchamp1989 · July 2021

The prices these games charges for digital content always blows my mind. I just don't get them.

If someone makes a beautiful vase IRL he can only sell it once for profit.

If someone makes a beautiful vase in a digital world they can sell the same vase a million times over - so why doesn't the prices reflect that? Some of these digital cosmetics in modern games cost as much as they would IRL.

There's certaintly no "micro" in the microtransactions anymore. That the 1 dollar horse armor is a time forgotten.

Lephrel · July 2021

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

This sentiment is beyond infuriating. People have been subjected to predatory monetization systems for so long that paying exorbitant amounts of money for small services and cosmetics is considered the "fair" and reasonable.

Now, if you could earn the alliance token any other way, I'd shut up right now. However a number of almost essential services, i.e. racechange, appearance change, etc. basically force every player to spend an enormous amount of money on the game if they want to enjoy a small amount of QoL.
Same goes for guild upgrades, here ZOS purposely created a problem (the grueling guild grind) and sells us the solution, however, you can at least get these benefits by lvling the guild skill lines.
Things like limited house sales and crown crate mounts are equally ridiculous. People have literally spent thousands just to get one mount - think about that. Spending thousands of dollars on a 60 $ game just so you can get a reskinned mount?

I won't tell anyone how to spend their money. I've certainly blown hundreds on housing alone, so I wouldn't ever judge ppl for chasing some limited time arms pack ot sth. It's just utterly and absolutely impossible to justify the prices we have.

huntgod_ESO · July 2021

Not going to defend their pricing scheme, but I just don't buy crowns unless they are on sale and then buy the 21000 pack for $89.99, so that is .0042 per crown or $10.71 for an alliance change, even without the discount buying during a crown sale that is only $17.85. So though I do agree with you that is is pricey, it is not $40. I cannot even figure out where you got that number from. The token is 2500 crowns, not 5000.

HyekAr · July 2021

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I almost never considered alliance changing before but I thought one of my characters could defect to another alliance (also so that I could play with other people), and I'm shocked to find out it would cost me $40 just to change the character's alliance?

What a slap in the face. I could buy my son a game for that much money. People are on hard times right now and just want to enjoy games but fun is stuck behind a massive pay wall. I thought it would be 1k or 2k crowns at the most. But I need to buy the ability to buy an alliance change token first? And cost me 5k crowns ($40) total? It's SHOCKING.

Actually this game is very expensive, but worth it?
I thought the same abt alliance, but I am not going to pay that for a 1 time thing, better I will create a new character new aliance, same class..

Freeflyer212 · July 2021

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

The prices these games charges for digital content always blows my mind. I just don't get them.

If someone makes a beautiful vase IRL he can only sell it once for profit.

If someone makes a beautiful vase in a digital world they can sell the same vase a million times over - so why doesn't the prices reflect that? Some of these digital cosmetics in modern games cost as much as they would IRL.

There's certaintly no "micro" in the microtransactions anymore. That the 1 dollar horse armor is a time forgotten.

Agreed alot of items in the shop or way overpriced. Basically they are equivalent of a movie or videogame. If you like that stuff thats fine, but I personally won't invest that much on a digital cosmetic item that has no real world monetary value and that once Eso either shuts down or moves on to a sequel, will absolutely be worthless.

EF321 · July 2021

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

Not like it is a big deal... I have characters of all alliances and take them all to PVP, and I really don't see what would be wrong with my khajiit healer being on EP in next campaign, and yet...

I mean, you could be choosing you preferred alliance once current campaign ends, or just with hefty cooldown. Races are different, and forcing you to team up with specific players just because you preferred X stat during character creation over Y stat is ridiculous. I don't want to be a part of alliance where emperor is named "Turbo Virgin Coomer", and yet I have to, because I chose argonian seven months ago for PvE purposes.

wolfie1.0. · July 2021

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I almost never considered alliance changing before but I thought one of my characters could defect to another alliance (also so that I could play with other people), and I'm shocked to find out it would cost me $40 just to change the character's alliance?

What a slap in the face. I could buy my son a game for that much money. People are on hard times right now and just want to enjoy games but fun is stuck behind a massive pay wall. I thought it would be 1k or 2k crowns at the most. But I need to buy the ability to buy an alliance change token first? And cost me 5k crowns ($40) total? It's SHOCKING.

Or you could create a new character under a different alliance for free.

EF321 · July 2021

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I almost never considered alliance changing before but I thought one of my characters could defect to another alliance (also so that I could play with other people), and I'm shocked to find out it would cost me $40 just to change the character's alliance?

What a slap in the face. I could buy my son a game for that much money. People are on hard times right now and just want to enjoy games but fun is stuck behind a massive pay wall. I thought it would be 1k or 2k crowns at the most. But I need to buy the ability to buy an alliance change token first? And cost me 5k crowns ($40) total? It's SHOCKING.

Or you could create a new character under a different alliance for free.

Who wouldn't enjoy leveling mount for 6 months and grinding through al the guild skill lines and skyshards?

Pauwer · July 2021

Lephrel wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

This sentiment is beyond infuriating. People have been subjected to predatory monetization systems for so long that paying exorbitant amounts of money for small services and cosmetics is considered the "fair" and reasonable.

Now, if you could earn the alliance token any other way, I'd shut up right now. However a number of almost essential services, i.e. racechange, appearance change, etc. basically force every player to spend an enormous amount of money on the game if they want to enjoy a small amount of QoL.
Same goes for guild upgrades, here ZOS purposely created a problem (the grueling guild grind) and sells us the solution, however, you can at least get these benefits by lvling the guild skill lines.
Things like limited house sales and crown crate mounts are equally ridiculous. People have literally spent thousands just to get one mount - think about that. Spending thousands of dollars on a 60 $ game just so you can get a reskinned mount?

I won't tell anyone how to spend their money. I've certainly blown hundreds on housing alone, so I wouldn't ever judge ppl for chasing some limited time arms pack ot sth. It's just utterly and absolutely impossible to justify the prices we have.

I think alliance change token are fairly priced. But the crates, i don't know. Yes, they probably make a lot of money from poor souls that play this game, the ones who have to have everything. But i also think those people are responsible for their own behavior. I think buying the crates is 100% crazy. But i guess if someone has extra cash lying around and nothing else to spend it on, why not on the game. If it makes them happy. If it makes them poor and unhappy, they might need some irl help for bigger issues than just the crates in this game.

kargen27 · July 2021

Lephrel wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

This sentiment is beyond infuriating. People have been subjected to predatory monetization systems for so long that paying exorbitant amounts of money for small services and cosmetics is considered the "fair" and reasonable.

Now, if you could earn the alliance token any other way, I'd shut up right now. However a number of almost essential services, i.e. racechange, appearance change, etc. basically force every player to spend an enormous amount of money on the game if they want to enjoy a small amount of QoL.
Same goes for guild upgrades, here ZOS purposely created a problem (the grueling guild grind) and sells us the solution, however, you can at least get these benefits by lvling the guild skill lines.
Things like limited house sales and crown crate mounts are equally ridiculous. People have literally spent thousands just to get one mount - think about that. Spending thousands of dollars on a 60 $ game just so you can get a reskinned mount?

I won't tell anyone how to spend their money. I've certainly blown hundreds on housing alone, so I wouldn't ever judge ppl for chasing some limited time arms pack ot sth. It's just utterly and absolutely impossible to justify the prices we have.

Are players allowed to gift alliance changes? If so you can find someone selling crowns and purchase with in game gold. My personal opinion is that we shouldn't be allowed to change alliances but since we can at least it is priced such that people won't be tempted to alliance hop based on who is winning in the campaign.

I don't mind the prices because everything for the most part is simply cosmetic and has no impact on game play. I either use my crowns from subscribing or purchase crowns with gold though so to be fair the high prices don't really affect me. I would prefer they had stayed with a subscription based game and never introduced the crown store but since it is here taking it away now would probably lose them players.

six2fall · July 2021

Like everything in the crown store if you actually figure out the real world cost it's a huge overpriced ripoff. That's why companies use fake currency to blur the line in how much mtx cost.

Togal · July 2021

I've bought alliance change tokens so many times, yeah its abit expensive but sometimes needed.

ADarklore · July 2021

For the people who keep saying, "Just create a new character"... so the HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of hours put into a character doesn't matter? So to you, time isn't money? Also, having to redo all Skyshards, guild skill lines, mount upgrades, etc... when you add all of it up, it is MUCH cheaper to buy the Alliance change than spend all the extra time and money investing in an identical 'new' character.

Honestly, I just created a new character and after spending the Crowns for all the Skyshards, mount upgrades, and a couple skill lines... I dropped about $300 in total... but still have to run all the quests again. So in reality, $40 is nothing compared to starting over with a new character, especially for PVE.

Agenericname · July 2021

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

Not going to defend their pricing scheme, but I just don't buy crowns unless they are on sale and then buy the 21000 pack for $89.99, so that is .0042 per crown or $10.71 for an alliance change, even without the discount buying during a crown sale that is only $17.85. So though I do agree with you that is is pricey, it is not $40. I cannot even figure out where you got that number from. The token is 2500 crowns, not 5000.

Probably Any Race, Any Alliance plus the change token.

StarOfElyon · July 2021

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

Not going to defend their pricing scheme, but I just don't buy crowns unless they are on sale and then buy the 21000 pack for $89.99, so that is .0042 per crown or $10.71 for an alliance change, even without the discount buying during a crown sale that is only $17.85. So though I do agree with you that is is pricey, it is not $40. I cannot even figure out where you got that number from. The token is 2500 crowns, not 5000.

I wanted to buy a token but it said that I needed to own "any race, any alliance" first. So my assumption is that I need to buy both just to alliance change. So I only need to buy the first one (any race, any alliance)?

jaws343 · July 2021

ADarklore wrote: »

For the people who keep saying, "Just create a new character"... so the HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of hours put into a character doesn't matter? So to you, time isn't money? Also, having to redo all Skyshards, guild skill lines, mount upgrades, etc... when you add all of it up, it is MUCH cheaper to buy the Alliance change than spend all the extra time and money investing in an identical 'new' character.

Honestly, I just created a new character and after spending the Crowns for all the Skyshards, mount upgrades, and a couple skill lines... I dropped about $300 in total... but still have to run all the quests again. So in reality, $40 is nothing compared to starting over with a new character, especially for PVE.

As someone who's leveled 18+ characters. If all you are doing is PVP, you do not need all skill points. You only need the skill points to unlock skills relevant to your PVP character. You don't need all guild lines leveled either. Especially now that they've changed the way the fighter's guild passives work. Creating a character to specifically do the thing you want it to do, in this case, casually play PVP in another alliance, is a viable option.

StarOfElyon · July 2021

Agenericname wrote: »

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

Not going to defend their pricing scheme, but I just don't buy crowns unless they are on sale and then buy the 21000 pack for $89.99, so that is .0042 per crown or $10.71 for an alliance change, even without the discount buying during a crown sale that is only $17.85. So though I do agree with you that is is pricey, it is not $40. I cannot even figure out where you got that number from. The token is 2500 crowns, not 5000.

Probably Any Race, Any Alliance plus the change token.

That's what I thought I had to do. I'm going to look again to see if any race any alliance includes an alliance change token.

StarOfElyon · July 2021

jaws343 wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

For the people who keep saying, "Just create a new character"... so the HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of hours put into a character doesn't matter? So to you, time isn't money? Also, having to redo all Skyshards, guild skill lines, mount upgrades, etc... when you add all of it up, it is MUCH cheaper to buy the Alliance change than spend all the extra time and money investing in an identical 'new' character.

Honestly, I just created a new character and after spending the Crowns for all the Skyshards, mount upgrades, and a couple skill lines... I dropped about $300 in total... but still have to run all the quests again. So in reality, $40 is nothing compared to starting over with a new character, especially for PVE.

As someone who's leveled 18+ characters. If all you are doing is PVP, you do not need all skill points. You only need the skill points to unlock skills relevant to your PVP character. You don't need all guild lines leveled either. Especially now that they've changed the way the fighter's guild passives work. Creating a character to specifically do the thing you want it to do, in this case, casually play PVP in another alliance, is a viable option.

All my characters do PVE and PVP. I want to play THIS character on another alliance because I actually role play.

Joy_Division · July 2021

Lephrel wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

This sentiment is beyond infuriating. People have been subjected to predatory monetization systems for so long that paying exorbitant amounts of money for small services and cosmetics is considered the "fair" and reasonable.

Now, if you could earn the alliance token any other way, I'd shut up right now. However a number of almost essential services, i.e. racechange, appearance change, etc. basically force every player to spend an enormous amount of money on the game if they want to enjoy a small amount of QoL.
Same goes for guild upgrades, here ZOS purposely created a problem (the grueling guild grind) and sells us the solution, however, you can at least get these benefits by lvling the guild skill lines.
Things like limited house sales and crown crate mounts are equally ridiculous. People have literally spent thousands just to get one mount - think about that. Spending thousands of dollars on a 60 $ game just so you can get a reskinned mount?

I won't tell anyone how to spend their money. I've certainly blown hundreds on housing alone, so I wouldn't ever judge ppl for chasing some limited time arms pack ot sth. It's just utterly and absolutely impossible to justify the prices we have.

The sentiment just sees the world differently that you.

I cannot wrap my mind around the idea that an alliance token, racechange, and appearance change are in any way "essential." Or that these services are "forced" on a playerbase. I've played in a guild that has alliance changed a total of 4 times and all of us, every time, just level up new characters. Because it costs no money and (at least now) is so easy I can spend 30 minutes a day doing so and have the character ready to go in time for when the next PvP campaign starts. I have over 250 experience scrolls in my bank - none of which I paid for a single penny for - just collecting dust and consuming inventory slots.

When ZOS comes out with feature that has a super duper expensive house, I totally ignore it. Not just because I'm not interested in this aspect of the game, but I recognize that I'm not independently wealthy and have actual bills and other financial responsibilities I need to stay on top of. It's the same reason why I don't drop a thousands of dollars to sit courtside during an NBA playoff game, hundreds of dollars for a fancy French wine, or partake in these sorts of luxury leisure activities even though I would like to: they are beyond my means and not worth the purchase. But there are people who have the money and motivation to indulge in them, so that's why there are NBA courtside seats and fancy French wines.

UGotBenched91 · July 2021

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

@zelaminator how is $40 fair? That’s the cost of the game + dlcs just to change your alliance. That’s an absurd amount.

Amottica · July 2021

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

and that is really only about $25 when the crowns are on sale. I agree it should not be easy/cheap to change alliances. 1-2k crowns is basically nothing to someone who subscribes as they get 1600 each month.

I can understand some thinking it is not fair because they would not want to pay that much yet would like to obtain it. That is normal.

Freeflyer212 · July 2021

six2fall wrote: »

Like everything in the crown store if you actually figure out the real world cost it's a huge overpriced ripoff. That's why companies use fake currency to blur the line in how much mtx cost.

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

Seems fair honestly.. should not be easy for people to change Alliance all the time

@zelaminator how is $40 fair? That’s the cost of the game + dlcs just to change your alliance. That’s an absurd amount.

Hmm...40$ to change my alliance or 40$ to buy a game that isn't trying to screw my wallet over.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo · July 2021

In my opinion, the cash shop doesn't reflect the performance nor does the subscription.
It's a very expensive game if you want to truly invest in it and be able to play without being frustrated by not having the perks associated to the subscription (bag, inventory, housing, costume dyes)

They might be offering some solutions to this and have so with the endeavours system, but to me this just resembles the rewards and pack system from Apex Legends (for those who have played) and is just a way to keep people engaged. There might be more down the road and hopefully they are thinking of substitutions/work arounds, but If I see no improvement to server quality or just game performance (no expert here), well I can't support the prices.

PancakeHead · July 2021

This is what annoys me most about the game, especially race changes. I'm in several trial guilds where they expect certain dps numbers and the constant changing of what races are best is infuriating. Hypothetically, the next patch could make dark elf's the best dps by a good amount for magicka and that could possibly be one hundred dollars or more if someone has four characters and wants to stay on top. I don't even care so much about spending money, but why twenty five dollars instead of five? I pay less than that a month for ESO plus.

JKorr · July 2021

The outrage might be justified if a player had only one character slot.

In the base, original game, you get eight. There are three alliances. Playing with friends you didn't bother to coordinate with ahead of time is as easy as making an alt. The original Cadwell's Silver and Gold happened because so many people were upset they couldn't do all the content with a single character. Then One Tameriel took away all the barriers so everyone can go everywhere any time and do all the things in any order. The only place faction and Alliance matters anymore is PvP in Cyrodiil. If you and a group of friends decide to go to war, figuring out which side you're fighting on ahead of time is sort of common sense.

Many people who've been playing for an extended period have made alts for different classes and builds anyway. Why would they keep putting them in the same alliance?