I'm Appalled at the Season Pass / ESO+ Value Proposition

Icy_Waffles · April 11

Yeah I’m not really liking this direction. Maybe if they got rid of eso + this would make sense- now it’s like eso+ is only for a craft bag

PapaTankers · April 11

licenturion wrote: »

Scraelos wrote: »

ESO plus members have to wait next year to play new chapter or pay for season pass.

For some reason ESO+ members seem to think they now have to get everything 100 percent for free as part of their subscription. This was not the case before either.

The value proposition of ESO+ is the same. You get a whole of extra's like crafting bag, all previous chapters, all DLC (including the new dungeons if you don't have the season/chapter pass), dye system, extra bank space, extra transmutes, shorter timers, extra gold+XP, 2 companions, deals. They also are adding the furniture bag as a new feature.

And you get all that stuff basically 100 percent refunded in crowns to spend on stuff. So how exactly would they make money to pay those 100 of people making new content, do playtests, keep servers running and pay for bandwidth.

I do agree with others that they also should make the zone buyable separately for people that are not interested in dungeons. They now have to buy 4 items they don't need. This would also be a fix for the people that have ESO+ to pay a bit less.

But it is clear that they acknowledged a lot of people actually want to buy to own stuff and not be forced into a subscription. They said it a few times during the main event and post show 'you own this stuff, this is yours without subscription' . They also had to put out multiple clarifications about the Fallen Banner dungeons because a lot of players were very unhappy about this. So I am pretty happy that they will always see ESO+ as some additional optional service with some perks and not something that is mandatory to play stuff or get early access. So that is a big win for a lot of players who hate subscriptions.

Oh yes. Poor zenimax. Howèver are going to make their money?

Think you might have forgotten crown store with gambling crates, 100+ euro houses, eso +, box price of game and expansions.

Can you quote me the revenue made last year? Only people yall are feeding are executives.

PapaTankers · April 11

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

[snip] if you don't want to pay it don't, it will all be available next year as part of ESO+. It's about the same price as Gold Road was last year but for significantly more content, a massive class system rework and a server wide community event, it's going to be epic, and is probably the only American item I will be purchasing this year. This is still a business with a lot of good people working for it to continually improve our gaming experience and keep ESO up to date and competitive, this all costs enormous amounts of money to do, [snip] This is less than I would pay by far to take my family to the cinema for a two hour movie but it will give you year long content and some nice bonus content, sigh.

I love the cinema anology. [snip]

Did you know that for the price of the content pass you could currently buy 3 copies of red dead redemption 2 and still have money left over?
Thats a full game not a drip fed mini bits for the rest of the year.

Problem that so many + subscribers have with it is that it only includes things that eso+ sub covers. Smaller story zone and dungeon dlcs.

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Ishtarknows · April 11

Thysbe wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

Was a unique content system mentioned for this new model?

ehm subclassing - which has a massive impact imo

Isn't that a base game system? So all players, including FTPs can use it.
Op was talking about systems that you needed access to the relevant chapters to play (whether through purchase outright or ESO+)

Scraelos · April 11

licenturion wrote: »

Scraelos wrote: »

ESO plus members have to wait next year to play new chapter or pay for season pass.

For some reason ESO+ members seem to think they now have to get everything 100 percent for free as part of their subscription. This was not the case before either.

The value proposition of ESO+ is the same. You get a whole of extra's like crafting bag, all previous chapters, all DLC (including the new dungeons if you don't have the season/chapter pass), dye system, extra bank space, extra transmutes, shorter timers, extra gold+XP, 2 companions, deals. They also are adding the furniture bag as a new feature.

And you get all that stuff basically 100 percent refunded in crowns to spend on stuff. So how exactly would they make money to pay those 100 of people making new content, do playtests, keep servers running and pay for bandwidth.

I do agree with others that they also should make the zone buyable separately for people that are not interested in dungeons. They now have to buy 4 items they don't need. This would also be a fix for the people that have ESO+ to pay a bit less.

But it is clear that they acknowledged a lot of people actually want to buy to own stuff and not be forced into a subscription. They said it a few times during the main event and post show 'you own this stuff, this is yours without subscription' . They also had to put out multiple clarifications about the Fallen Banner dungeons because a lot of players were very unhappy about this. So I am pretty happy that they will always see ESO+ as some additional optional service with some perks and not something that is mandatory to play stuff or get early access. So that is a big win for a lot of players who hate subscriptions.

ESO+ members must have acces to new content not for free but for ESO+ membership they pay. This is how it started.
Then they added option to access content without subscription via microtransactions.
And this was pretty fair. Developers even declared this formula in game:

M'aiq the Liar wrote:

Some like to buy the whole meal. Others want to pay for what is on their plate. M'aiq just prefers to eat.

But then something happened and they introduced "chapters" which are for sure not DLC, which must be included in subscription. But with some sort of magic every chapter (which for sure not DLC and you must purchase it separately) become DLC next year. And chapters are not something optional. There is no reason for active ESO Plus member to not purchase fresh new chapter.

And now we are here discussing that eso plus members want all "for free".

licenturion · April 11

PapaTankers wrote: »

Oh yes. Poor zenimax. Howèver are going to make their money?

Think you might have forgotten crown store with gambling crates, 100+ euro houses, eso +, box price of game and expansions.

Can you quote me the revenue made last year? Only people yall are feeding are executives.

I only buy actual gameplay content. So dungeons, features and zones with new story, music, assets and stuff that comes with the chapter. Crates are not available in my country. (and I wont buy that anyway)

There are lots of players like this and this year pass will gives me hours upon hours of entertainment from this game for a full year. This is the only money ZOS gets each year from me and the pass is a very good deal now that the dungeons are included. If you don't like the product or the value it brings, vote with your wallet and just don't buy it and make a difference. Just wait it out until it is old content like your Red Dead analogy and you will get it for nearly free next year with ESO+ if you sub a month.

lillybit · April 11

licenturion wrote: »

Scraelos wrote: »

ESO plus members have to wait next year to play new chapter or pay for season pass.

For some reason ESO+ members seem to think they now have to get everything 100 percent for free as part of their subscription. This was not the case before either.

The value proposition of ESO+ is the same. You get a whole of extra's like crafting bag, all previous chapters, all DLC (including the new dungeons if you don't have the season/chapter pass), dye system, extra bank space, extra transmutes, shorter timers, extra gold+XP, 2 companions, deals. They also are adding the furniture bag as a new feature.

And you get all that stuff basically 100 percent refunded in crowns to spend on stuff. So how exactly would they make money to pay those 100 of people making new content, do playtests, keep servers running and pay for bandwidth.

I do agree with others that they also should make the zone buyable separately for people that are not interested in dungeons. They now have to buy 4 items they don't need. This would also be a fix for the people that have ESO+ to pay a bit less.

But it is clear that they acknowledged a lot of people actually want to buy to own stuff and not be forced into a subscription. They said it a few times during the main event and post show 'you own this stuff, this is yours without subscription' . They also had to put out multiple clarifications about the Fallen Banner dungeons because a lot of players were very unhappy about this. So I am pretty happy that they will always see ESO+ as some additional optional service with some perks and not something that is mandatory to play stuff or get early access. So that is a big win for a lot of players who hate subscriptions.

Are you deliberately misinterpreting everything that has been said?

No ESO+ subscriber expects to get anything for free. We'd just like to not pay for content twice.

Subscribers get the dungeons included in the price.
Season Pass buyers also get the dungeons included in the cost.

We'd just like the option to not pay again for content we don't need or necessarily want to play the new zone

It's not about the money, it's about the choice to only buy what we want that they're taking away

Vrienda · April 11

I hate DLC dungeons so they actively put me off buying the season pass. But the new zone is just nonsense. No references to it anywhere in lore and it just seems kinda nonsensical overall. So I probably wasn't gonna touch this chapter anyway. At least the base game updates seem really good.

Ragnarok0130 · April 11

Thysbe wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

Was a unique content system mentioned for this new model?

ehm subclassing - which has a massive impact imo

That remains to be seen. Remember when everyone thought spell crafting...ahem...scribing was going to be super impactful and then we got the lowest tier effort possible from ZoS?

Faulgor wrote: »

ESO+ was explicitly introduced as a subcription that includes all DLC. Ever since, ZOS keeps shifting the definition of what it considers DLC, and for some reason people keep defending this..

ESO was started as as subscription only game when it launched, it moved to ESO+ with F2P later so they could implement the mind-blowlingly expensive predatory cash shop. Given this history we shouldn't be surprised at this latest move. I'm not defending this latest move as I don't like it; I'm just saying for ZoS it's par for the course.

SerafinaWaterstar · April 11

If you are okay with any of this, you are the proverbial frog in boiling water.

No need to be a bit condescending to people who don’t agree with you. I can work out the cost/benefit analysis myself.

Personally have been surprised that the cost of ESO+ had not gone up over the years as everything else did.

I have ESO+ for craft bag, extra bank & housing slots, extra xp, extra gold, discounts & crowns.

It is not a huge increase in cost from the chapter to the pass - do you not think those working deserved to get paid for their work?

lillybit · April 11

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

It is not a huge increase in cost from the chapter to the pass - do you not think those working deserved to get paid for their work?

But I wasn't forced to buy the dungeons too to get access to the Chapter.

The main thing tho, is this isnt a chapter! It's just a small zone split in to two releases without the new system we'd normal have included in the price. And they're charging the same for it by forcing us to also buy dungeons we don't want to buy and would've had access to through the ESO+ that we also pay for

AzuraFan · April 11

licenturion wrote: »

For some reason ESO+ members seem to think they now have to get everything 100 percent for free as part of their subscription. This was not the case before either.

I don't care that the content pass isn't part of ESO+. I don't want to pay for the same thing twice. Wouldn't you be upset if a company said, "You can buy the new stuff, but only if you also buy stuff you already have access to?" Everyone would be. So it's amusing to see non-subscribers tell subscribers that they shouldn't be upset because they have to buy what they can already access. Unless you're someone who wouldn't mind at all paying twice for the same thing, in which case, you do you. But most people wouldn't like that.

ZOS could easily have offered two versions of the content pass, one that includes the dungeons, and one that doesn't. Instead, ESO+ subscribers, and players who have zero interest in the dungeons, are forced to buy them if they want to play the new content.

It's a cash grab, plain and simple, and double-dipping when it comes to subscribers.

LonePirate · April 11

scrappy1342 wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

In the US, the Season Pass upgrade is the same price as the Chapter upgrade from prior years. The trade off of a unique new system for four dungeons and a second zone makes it a better value than prior years. If you are in another country and the price difference between the two is large, perhaps due to the tariffs mess, then it may not be a good value. To me, the Season Pass upgrade price is a good deal.

it's showing $50 for me for the season pass in the US. chapters were always $40.

That is not true. I checked my credit card statement for my Gold Road Upgrade purchase back in January 2024. It was the exact same price with taxes (a little over $53) as the price I paid yesterday with taxes for the Season Pass. Your price claim about the two being different is not correct.

Castagere · April 11

ZOS did me a big favor. I was thinking about subbing, but not anymore. And as of now, I have all the chapters of the game and the DLCs I want. So plenty of content already. So, since I don't care about dungeon group content, housing, or PVP, trying to get me to spend 50 dollars for the worm cult parts 1 and 2, but forcing me to pay for dungeons to get it. I'm not spending a dime more on this game until they offer up an option to buy the worm cult content only.

reazea · April 11

celner4_ESO wrote: »

So not only are we asked to partake in the season pass which so far IS going to be less content for a 50$ purchase than Chapters were, ESO+ subscription does not include the season pass??? Not even Destiny 2 tries to weasel in a premium Sub fee to enjoy extra gameplay features while still charging for what used to be large DLC releases (now bungie has reverted to the same thing as ESO is doing, minus the sub fee, and players of D2 thus far have been very vocal about hating it save for the heavily moderated reddit pages). If we were getting the same or more content, then I'd not be unhappy at all. But knowing that we are NOT getting the same amount of content as we were with Chapters which were already lackluster for several reasons (ZOS or their higher ups being completely unwilling to hire more in order to keep up with bugs and upgrade/improve the game in significant ways to keep current players interested and bring old players back while still releasing full sized chapter DLC's), but this 100% is not the case. IF we were getting more for our purchase (in graphical improvements, bug fixing for that ungodly laundry list of bugs, server upgrades/improvements, QoL features and player requested features, all this separate from content which should already be there and be good) we'd have seen the required investment back into the game in order to do this while maintaining the normal Chapter releases, which so far has NOT happened.

Sufficed to say my mom and I are extremely disappointed in the direction of the game and its current value proposition. I am NOT at all convinced that the extra perks (likely being FOMO related TOO) will make up for the loss in content with the normal Chapter updates not happening anymore for the Foreseeable future save for maybe 1 that was already on deck..? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ZOS ask for more funding to invest back into the product and actually give us something worth investing into. WHY would you copy the monetization and content creation model of Destiny 2?? I played that game all the way up to The Witch Queen and we got the same promises of bigger and better content which was a blatant lie by their leadership. They've lost more than half of their active player base because of the changes and it's still dropping (always trust the graph) which forced a response from Bungie leadership to "try" and do better for future content releases since it was not as promised.

WHY wouldn't you want to emulate Grinding Gear Games live service model instead?? Where the players are getting an amazing value proposition which has garnered the company insane support through their MTX store from the players who want to invest into the game because they know what they're getting is plentiful and worth the investment. I know why, because passion and vision for the product are not with the current leadership. Portfolio value and profit is what's with the current leadership. I don't understand how this is allowed to happen when it's so obvious this only hurts customer trust and the product. This game has such potential and it's so far squandered because of the lack of passion and vision in the current leadership to make it great, the lack of investment to execute that vision, with profit/revenue being priority #1. Any great product out there like say PoE1 & PoE2 has such success because profit and revenue follow after the prioritization of the PRODUCT.

This truly aches my heart because I want the game to be what I know it can be. Not because I want to hate the game, and not because I want to hurt the staff. I loved the game!! I wish so badly it would receive the love it deserved. And the current state with the change to Season Pass's and ESO+ not including those seasons shows the level of greed we are dealing with when they ALREADY will be making us less overall content because of this change (BEACUSE they refuse to hire more to be able to do the graphical updates and improvements WHILE maintaining the Big DLC chapter releases) and it baffles me that ESO's leadership think they can get away with completely screwing the customer.

To me it feels like ZOS is changing the game so much that ESO should be renamed. Given how poorly so many things have been implemented in the past I dread this subclassing thing. And what they're doing to PvP is an inexcusable sidestep from fixing the actual PvP we've been playing since release.

So ya, they might pull it out, but if past is prologue, I guess the good news is I'll have more time for real life activities going forward.

Best case scenario going forward is we pay more to get less. The level of disappointment I have after seeing yesterdays live streams, especially the re framing of the facts around vengeance vs. live PvP to be misleading was very disappointing, to say the least.

daim · April 11

50 EUR for the season pass? AHAAHA

Desiato · April 11

It's certainly tone deaf.

If I were zos, I'd be trying to get ahead of some of the things going on outside of the game and proactively improve the value of eso because cutting down on subscriptions is on a lot of minds.

Jolter · April 11

LonePirate wrote: »

scrappy1342 wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

In the US, the Season Pass upgrade is the same price as the Chapter upgrade from prior years. The trade off of a unique new system for four dungeons and a second zone makes it a better value than prior years. If you are in another country and the price difference between the two is large, perhaps due to the tariffs mess, then it may not be a good value. To me, the Season Pass upgrade price is a good deal.

it's showing $50 for me for the season pass in the US. chapters were always $40.

That is not true. I checked my credit card statement for my Gold Road Upgrade purchase back in January 2024. It was the exact same price with taxes (a little over $53) as the price I paid yesterday with taxes for the Season Pass. Your price claim about the two being different is not correct.

You bought the more expensive Deluxe edition with the extra mount and pet which was $50.

TheValkyn · April 11

LOL. Even free to play games aren’t this bold with their cash grabbing.

There are better games. Uninstall this one and you’ll realize it after.

cptscotty · April 11

Thysbe wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

Was a unique content system mentioned for this new model?

ehm subclassing - which has a massive impact imo

Subclassing is not unique to the season pass model...subclassing is being introduced to the entire game so it can not be included in the value comparison.

So again I ask, what is the unique content system being added for this new model?

Arizona_Steve · April 11

It's a simple fact that the only way anything will change is if the player base withholds their $$$ and either waits for a sale or forgoes buying the season pass entirely. Sadly many people are impatient and have to have the new shiny, so this strategy doesn't work. And ZOS knows that.

I'm of the opinion that subscribers should receive the content automatically. It seems that people only subscribe for the craft bag these days. Not very compelling.

scrappy1342 · April 11

LonePirate wrote: »

scrappy1342 wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

In the US, the Season Pass upgrade is the same price as the Chapter upgrade from prior years. The trade off of a unique new system for four dungeons and a second zone makes it a better value than prior years. If you are in another country and the price difference between the two is large, perhaps due to the tariffs mess, then it may not be a good value. To me, the Season Pass upgrade price is a good deal.

it's showing $50 for me for the season pass in the US. chapters were always $40.

That is not true. I checked my credit card statement for my Gold Road Upgrade purchase back in January 2024. It was the exact same price with taxes (a little over $53) as the price I paid yesterday with taxes for the Season Pass. Your price claim about the two being different is not correct.

not for the base plain expansion chapter. you pay more for collector's edition, which this doesn't have.

LadyGP · April 11

Easy solution...

Drop the price of ESO+ as the benifits have been reduced (the valut is nice but doesn't make up for the lack of content now).

Season pass is a bit on the high side compared to the rest of the industry IMO - maybe they will balance this out a bit who knows.

But keeping ESO+ the same price and the seasons price in it's current state.... leaves a bad taste in my mouth unfortunetly.

Joy_Division · April 11

ZOS has made a reported $2 billion from this game, acts like an indie company when it comes to support/updates/bug fixes, and has the nerve to constantly find new ways to gauge money from its customers.

@Pevey has it exactly right.

daim · April 11

https://youtu.be/X9YpL_k3jH8?si=hUQZdCOt8XtuNleB

SerafinaWaterstar · April 11

I don’t buy dungeons as I have ESO+.
If ever I stop subscribing, I will lose access to them, and Markarth as haven’t bought that (eek have a house there!)

ESO+ is much more than dungeons.
ESO+ has stayed the same price for years.

The cost of the season pass is about £5 more than Chapter was last year.

So for an additional £5 I now get all four dungeons plus the 2 overland bits plus trial etc. To keep.

£5 a year extra is within my budget for the enjoyment I’ll get out of it.

Times are hard, I know, but they are hard all over and frankly with all the other stuff going on in the world, £5 a year is a pittance.

Stx · April 11

The monetization is one of the worst parts of this game. They made a big deal on the stream about how their team has gotten bigger, yet the content over the years has been getting smaller. This game is a cash cow for them. They pump crown store cosmetics, houses, and spend the absolute minimum amount of time possible balancing classes and fixing bugs.

I’m really excited to play around with subclassing but they need to stop trying to suck more money out of the players when it’s clear the product isn’t worth what they’re asking.

SerafinaWaterstar · April 11

Stx wrote: »

The monetization is one of the worst parts of this game. They made a big deal on the stream about how their team has gotten bigger, yet the content over the years has been getting smaller. This game is a cash cow for them. They pump crown store cosmetics, houses, and spend the absolute minimum amount of time possible balancing classes and fixing bugs.

I’m really excited to play around with subclassing but they need to stop trying to suck more money out of the players when it’s clear the product isn’t worth what they’re asking.

Not keen on monetization generally but there is the counterpoint of how you make enough money once the game is released to fund all the different aspects? Especially in an MMO.

What do you suggest should be done to pay the wages of those who work for Zos?

celner4_ESO · April 11

LonePirate wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

As far as I am aware...this year pass which is starting 6 months late doesn't include any of that and it’s priced almost doubled that of a singular chapter upgrade.

In the US, the Season Pass upgrade is the same price as the Chapter upgrade from prior years. The trade off of a unique new system for four dungeons and a second zone makes it a better value than prior years. If you are in another country and the price difference between the two is large, perhaps due to the tariffs mess, then it may not be a good value. To me, the Season Pass upgrade price is a good deal.

If it ends up being the same amount of content as Greymoore or Elswyr then I’ll recant my post. Extremely skeptical it will be even as much content overall as gold road. Extremely skeptical. Especially knowing how they’ve chosen to monetize, I don’t trust for a second it’s going to live up to their false hype.
If this ends up being less, which they acknowledged it would be, and they never said it was going to be the same amount of content or more as a chapter, justifying the rebranding if that was the case which I’d have been all for… if it’s less and still for 50$ base cost then all trust is gone.

Acetriad · April 12

They probably should take a closer look at the "Screw ESO+ members" direction that they are taking things.