Costs in the crown store are overwhelmingly expensive. Alliance + Race change tokens should not cost as much as an entirely yearly expansion (3500 crowns or 35 USD)
That’s what they cost in WoW and in FFXIV. I’d be more concerned with the fact they want to charge you $15 to do something that costs 4000 gold in game.
@@JLawL ff14 race change is $10. Even a full class boost to 10 lvls under the max is $25 lmao and sometimes on sale for like $17. To skip the entire story up to current xpack is $18 or 25, cant remember. So no thats not what it costs in ff14
I agree. It kinda sucks that every large game company always values strictly money over everything else, even integrity, just to get that sweet green straight into their pockets. I feel like, best case scenario, they dial these back when they realize that prices are dropping with the players who leave due to these predatory cash grabs, so they only do cosmetic shit and maybe a few things that don't directly effect gameplay, like aesthetic items, which maybe will still be available without money but are easier to get with just buying it. I don't know, I feel like microtransactions should be this "optional, but easier, however the game loses its story with the more that you buy" type of thing.
I came from WoW not that many months ago, so maybe it’s just the fact that there is still “new to me” content in ESO, or I’m just used to getting screwed by Blizzard, but it’s just common sense to me at this point that the more money Zos makes on the store, the less content people are actually going to get in game. The only game to my knowledge that breaks this rule is Path of Exile, and I’m fairly confident the only reason that game is still pumping out content steadily is because Chris Wilson, the founder of the game, truly loves the game itself, not just money. Zenimax made 700 million dollars this year. They’re a publicly traded company, and thus their earnings are public knowledge. Many of their current lineup of games have started to die out due to the same problems you’ve mentioned in this video.
Play FFXIV. Sure, there’s a store you can buy stuff, but it’s mostly cosmetic. The majority of rewards you receive are from doing stuff in the game and getting better at it. I have tons of mounts and minions, glam outfits, furniture for my apartment, etc. and I’ve never spent more than $30 in the store total in the 900+ hours I’ve played.
The # of money the store makes is linked with the # of active players in the game. Developes especially games like POE that are free to play live and die based on the # of players their updates can bring in. Without them player #s drop off and nobody buys stuff from the store 😒. Games like WOW get far less content compared to ESO because people have moved on and not enough people buy the expansions. DLC has to get smaller and microtansactions become more aggressive to sustain the game. Eventually the same will happen to ESO as people stop playing.
POE has an interesting business model. Make a free to play game good enough to be worth money. Make it competative with the most well known AAA of the genre. Make all in game gear basic looking AF, and all shop gear AWESOME. And wait for people who actually like your game to willingly give you money without complaint. Some people hate on them for there small inventory and the basic armor looks of found gear. But you can earn MTX in each league and pimp yourself out with actual earned rewards. So I think 90% of people don't care.
For me, the biggest issue is, at least half of those things on the crown store should be in-game rewards. I have nothing else to do in-game but just doing random stuff for "achievements". I don't even care about titles or dyes. I have nothing to pursue in-game to own something and show off with it. Things you buy via crown store are not something you show off with. Even if you get some super rare mount from the crate it mostly means "look how desperate I am to own this mount, cause I spent hundreds of euros on it". And I know, even if I try so hard for an item in-game, it will be in store a month later anyway. So who cares? Glad I developed myself to say "no" to crown store non-sense over time.
nothing compares to using a trial skin or mount. Wich is a shame, casuals have nothing to show off. You can legit complete all quests that exists, and you get nothing. outside cadwells ugly stuff
@@UncleDaniel As you can see in the video, they even released identical mounts and skins that were suppose to be Sunspire and Kyne's Aegis rewards. So they de-valued those aswell. Right now, Planesbreaker mount is super rare, I will never get it and I am totally fine with it. Sad part; they will probably make a different version of it soon for store.
But the fake gs mount is slightly different and this make it still cool. I agree witb you that they should add more reward like that from pve or even pvp. Pb mount is the most hard to get item in game and every 3 month we have 3 radiant apex as cool as it that you can obtain only paying.
@@SuperLarrythompson I sure have, and just ignoring the problem is a huge part of the problem. Bad actors and inefficiencies that hold this game back absolutely need to be addressed. A considerable part of the problem lies with sycophants that are of the opinion that a timid response is the best response. There's a time for diplomacy and we haven't gotten there yet.
A friend of mine started playing and she bought the werewolf bite, she never mentioned wanting to be a werewolf, I have one and vampire both at level 10 so I felt really bad, I think realising she wasted money on that made her quit too
@@God-Zax yep i would happily buy a mount lets say like 40 dollar or something but to buy those gamble boxes and not likely get it no thanks :D and the only mounts that you can straight buy are some basic horses and stuff not those cool ones
But that would mean they would have to list their ridiculous prices and look incredibly stupid and greedy. It's easier to mask your scam behind fake currency.
As someone who's been playing since launch, has spent a ton of money in the crown store, and who hasn't been happy with the direction the game's been going for the last two years or so I have to say the crown store policies, prices, and loot crate drop rates are really starting to strike a nerve, and I think that those raw nerves are part of why this blew up so much this times compared to other issues regarding the crown store in the past. In their end of the year state of the game address last week Rich pretty much came out and said the quality of content they were producing over the last two years wasn't up to snuff (sorry don't have it in front of me right now or I'd find exact quotes) and to expect less than what we got the past two years next year. Personally I get that the pandemic makes development cycles hard, I work in a parallel industry and understand how hard the first few months were to reinvent the wheel on work flows in ways no one was expecting, but two years in to say you haven't figured out how to get the job done in different conditions speaks of incompetence if not just reeking of being a lame excuse. And to admit that your last two years of content are not up to expected quality, but still charge full price for them, without offering any sort of apology or recompense for that is just insulting to long time loyal fans. So yeah, when all that's going on and they're still able to pump out cash shop stuff to milk players for all they've got, with increasingly poor drop rates of quality items in the loot crates, higher prices for houses, etc. it makes you a little pissed off at the cash shop in general, even if you're someone like me who's a sucker for buying outfits and houses. If Zos wants to keep the loyalty of their player base at some point they need to give those of us who are loyal SOMETHING to show our appreciation, ideally that should be something to earn in the game, without spending money, but even things like the doomscar plateau feel like they're less that what we've gotten for our money in the past and that they're linked in with systems that seem keyed to shift us toward shelling out real cash in the cash shop.
Daniel, you have so many valid points, however, you just drop them all when you mention "a LITTLE pissed off". Bro, people are REALLY pissed off, not a little. As a loyal player, you should be too, because your love is for the game, for the lore, for whatever you like, and to see incompetent people ruining it for you and for thousands of other people, is not a little irritating, it is VERY irritating.
Respec scrolls shouldn't even be listed in the Crown Store. Period. Also, the armory should have a "reset" option that doesn't require us to keep an armory slot clear in order to do a respec. Either give away respects, or don't. But don't play stupid games with new players.
Wow, I haven't used Armory 2nd slot yet and didnt realize that would be a respec issue. I assume that wasn't in the "instructions" somewhere. ESO user/owners manual? I wish!
I'm having a hard time deciding between buying a stack of crown gems in the crown store, or buying the latest expansion, cause they're both the same price.
I bought the vampire skill when I was new. I quit for over a year after finding out i could get the skill in game. They should tell you what you can and can't get in the crown store.
The cure is even more insidious because that's 693 gold ingame. The crown store cure is overpriced even by console crown exchange rates. Shouldn't even be over 50 crowns.
@@Vevvev8 yeah it is possible you may not find a bite that easily if you don't have a community but cure is literally a handful of gold in game. These sort of things are really fucked up and I feel really bad when I introduce the game to a friend and I have to warn them of such things. This behaviour makes me lose huge respect for this game. Please stop preying on new players, this can even be considered something similar to phishing..
Actually god bless Kevin, straight up carrying the forums so hard he'll have back issues by the next major DLC. On another note, I think the funniest disconnect ZOS had shown is when you guys were doing the vBDV HM speedrun competition and they asked "I see you don't have a healer on your team" followed by an explanation and then very awkward silence.
its funny to me how they have a crown store that rips the money off of you like that and then you ask for cyrodiil to be playable and the devs make fun of of you and tell you that they are working on it for 5 years
I started playing a few weeks ago and didn't know there were quests for turning into a vampire or werewolf. So I purchased both from the store for 3000 crowns. I thought no big deal I guess..at least I have them now. Only now do I know that the skill line can only be applied to that one single character, unlike most everything in the game. At first I thought that maybe not clarifying you could do a quest to turn into either one was just a mishap. But where you can pay to be cured it clearly states there is in game content you can go to for a cure yourself. Now I truly feel like I'm getting ripped off. I'm convinced people like me are being targeted and honestly that sucks because I've always loved Elder Scrolls.
@@Zabzim i got all my bites free just by asking in zone chat, or you can kill certain were wolves and vampires until you get bitten and get the disease that changes you
@@Zabzim I never had a problem with this. One of my characters unintentionally got bit on a quest by some random vampire. I didn't know for weeks. Found where to turn her completely, got so pissed off when she went full vamp. Now, she is vamp but I never bothered with with skill line. In fact, I can't even be bothered trying to figure out where to go to change her back. I will not pay crowns for that which can be achievable within the game it self. I respect your comment. It's nice to see people have issues in game trying to achieve something without wasting irl money to look or feel cool! lol
I remember when I first started playing and wasn’t sure how I wanted to play and ended up buying a bunch of these scrolls till I found out about the shrines
It's a touchy subject. Just got a ban for bashing because we had a discussion about the loot boxes on the forums. So remember when you talk about it on the forums you really should pick your words carefully, and even then prepare to get banned.
Having real money micro transaction is essential to a game like eso, but selling stuff to player that are unaware of its real value shows the little respect they have for us. IF those thing at least had unique effect, like being able to respect for a whole week for free for exemple.
Deadlands to me was one of the better dlc/chapters ZOS has done in recent years, I loved Arox the mutilator. He should have been a end of story reward like the Augur of Obscure in Summerset but instead is being sold in the Crown Store this month, there are only a couple houseguest available in game the rest are crown exclusive. Gifting crowns now is a bigger incentive for whales to spend even more money to trade with player not willing to engage with the crown store and those prices have went from 200:1 2 years ago to around 1000:1 PC/NA after crown pricing changes and the pandemic. Things like crown housing added per year out number earnable home from each new zones is like 5:1, barely any mounts to earn in game, no arms pack equivalent to earn outside of ugly opal weapon, added outfit slots are only for one toon. Hell PvP hasn't got a update in years, while the writing for the last few chapter have sucked, chapters are smaller and split up for the dlc to be sold separate, item and gold inflation, bad daily logging rewards, bad event reward drops and even if there is cool outfit style for the event the weapon pages are sold separate, no storage increases except payed non combat pets, stability issues among other problems. I get they need to increase earning to justify Microsoft's 7 billion dollar acquisition, but banning people on the forums asking questions is not the way the keep your players around and paying. I've play ESO almost daily for 5 years I care about it, Zos needs to learn just because player are passionate and criticizes the game doesn't make them entitled, hater or troll that needs to be banned. These players care enough about the game and its longevity to engage in deeper conversations about its health. The players who are quiet and silently leave feeling indifference to game is what will kill it in the long run, you just have to look at WoW to see where that road leads.
The event rewards this year have been making me feel indifferent. Having to get the pet rock and then "evolve" it into said reward is frustrating, and then requiring 10 TICKETS per fragment, ON TOP OF evolving the damn rock is insanity. It took a minute for me to wrap my head around the indrik system when I was starting to really get into the game, and for it to change to the current madness is really disheartening.
Maaaan, you just described perfectly how I have been feeling lately. I would like to add to the list the depreciation of ESO Plus members by not giving crates in those free-plus trial periods (we really loved those!), lame "Plus discounts/offers", and the laughable increase in crowns stipend when everything else is pricier than ever at the store, and their latest cherry on top of that cake is no collectible reward for December (so far, at least)... They really don't seem to g.a.f. anymore. And, if a frigging giant of business like Microsoft bought them, it only means they are one of the fattest cows in the field, cause big ol' Microsoft is not buying them to sell the scraps around and make small bucks. It's really hurtful to feel the disconnect between what ZOS has become and us, players. I've been playing this game for the last 5 years, my husband has gifted me Plus almost all this time (he himself quit 2 or 3 years ago), and I've seen how much this game has grown, evolved, and now most of it seems to be being swallowed in greediness. I used to be motivated to do quests and achievements to unlock all available things (outfit pieces, costumes, pets, mounts, houses, furniture, mementos, emotes.... full "hoarder mode" ), and now there's not much more to do besides making gold and trying to find someone to sell me crowns and not scam me, cause all the things I want to have are not in the game anymore, but behind a humongous paywall that is the crown store.
Omg...... the daily login rewards are soooo bad now and have been for quite awhile. Half the time I don't even collect them because I don't need the clutter in my character's inventory. This month alone you have to collect 3 weeks worth of junk just to get to the 100k gold and that's the only thing worth logging in for in my opinion.
I don't mind cash shops for cosmetic or fluff items. If you want something unique and interesting, I am okay with it to an extent. But the game itself should offer plenty of unique and interesting things you can get through playing, too, like with achievements and such. I thought they were doing a pretty good job of this, personally. Still plenty of things you can unlock with achievements and events and such, simply by playing the game. The addition of the Seals of Endeavor really helped in that regard, too. What I hate is when actual game features/mechanics are monetized, like crafting ingredients, respec tokens, bigger inventories, etc. If a cash shop is strictly cosmetic and optional, and people don't feel pressured into making purchases, fine. That's one of the reasons I hate the subscription plan, too... You only get the crafting bag and expanded bank inventory if you're a subscriber, and those are quality of life things that make it so non-subscribers have a much more difficult time doing crafting, which is a large feature of the game. You shouldn't have to pay money every month just to be able to fully enjoy a feature in a game THAT YOU ALREADY BOUGHT. It's a little ridiculous. "Buy the game and you can experience HALF of this cool feature! Subscribe for access to the full thing!" Of course paying for expansions is fine, those are expansions with new features, new zones, new content, etc., but something that is supposed to be part of the base game, it should be fully accessible to everyone. Access to the DLCs and crowns each month you're subscribed is a pretty good reason to subscribe already. Locking quality of life stuff behind that paywall is just predatory.
I think "fatigue" is spot-on. Back in 2015, I struggled to get into the game and scale its rather steep learning curve. There were so many things I didn't know and so many answers to questions I didn't even know to ask. It all kind of clicked into place in late 2017, early 2018. Now I'm in a position in which I struggle to find meaningful content and don't know what to do next. I find myself among the group of players asking for harder overland content - something as a new player who experienced the game prior to One Tamriel I would have been against. In that six or so years, the game has come a long way, yet somehow still feels like it's about a year behind where the players are. Like a huge, lumbering behemoth, ESO gets there eventually but late enough for exasperation to set in. The Crown Store being a prime example in that it relies on LTOs far too much yet doesn't rotate previous offers often enough. The end result is that the same things are in there now that were there one or two years ago, if not longer. I remember the feeling of getting excited by a new mount, but I don't feel that anymore. Yet I can easily picture a new player blowing their crowns on a Crown Store mount that's been in there for three years and being chuffed... Only to regret it when they realise there's something called a CS Showcase telling us a new and sparkly mount arrives next week for a limited time only and they've spent their available money on something lesser. People cry out and have been crying out since Morrowind for new pet skins, yet by the time ZOS will get to it, people are already burned out and it will become a meme: "Great. Took you 4 years. At this rate, maybe you'll fix Cyrodiil this century." I can't picture ZOS being able to sustain its aging player base if they continue to be out of touch in this way.
This is a fantastic response. Around the 2017 mark I felt the game was really in step with what players wanted, but there were so many....unsettling little choices made, and some of the wrong lessons taken away. But ZoS really has been a slow-but-certain developer. Unlike other MMOs, I feel they do try and please their audience, but it comes YEARS down the line ( housing way back when being a huge one). The pandemic wasn't kind to them it feels like, and they haven't been able to get back on track- especially when trying to keep up with their seasonal DLC releases. And they turn to ol' reliable to keep the funds flowing.
I hate the monetization in this game. I took a break and haven't played for a long time (haven't touched Blackwood at all). The most frustrating thing for me is how they purposely make inventory management a pain to make you sub to ESO+
I remember wayyyy back, when oblivion had like its first dlc and you could buy some overpriced horse armour. Which wasn't available in game at the time... It was like $20 or over... Ive never respected them since. After a while the price more than halved but the damage was done. Everyone laughed. I would have thought they would have learnt their lessons by now.
Well, for what it's worth, Bethesda Game Studios only made three DLC's for Skyrim. Nothing else (except game editions that is). I do hope they do not give in to microtransactions with The Elder Scrolls VI... Gods forbid.
There are so many people who will genuinely help new players that this is insane. If I see a new player asking about crown store stuff like this or gear etc I craft them sets or throw them some gold to get them started since you can get that much gold from a few minutes in game and it means a lot to a new player as I was that person once. If I see someone struggling like that and have a moment to spare I help them and I know at least a few others in a zone would do the same. There's no reason for the crown shit to be so predatory.
The reason is because the people running the game don't actually care about the game. They care about the gold mine that is the crown shop. The fact that it exists in the way it does shows they are ok with destroying the integrity of the game for short term profits. Just like Actiblizzard is doing. This will lead to less people playing and more and more predatory crown shop tactics until everyone just says "Fuck it". Whales are there but whales don't stick with a game unless there are casuals to show off their cash shop bounty to.
As someone who quit 1.5 years ago, ESO will still always remain my favourite game of all time. It’s just a shame the direction the game has been heading towards…
When I looked at what's going to be released in the crown store from December to the start of January and saw nothing I wanted to buy I was genuinely relieved. Plus thanks to the seals and the fact crates do come back, I'm also not buying as many now and will wait for them to go on sale. Should we offer thanks to ZOS for the seal system? No, because they did it to only avoid legal issues regarding gambling laws in some countries.
Who cares why they did it I’m glad they did and Their not my friends their not your friends and never were their a business that wants money and I want a good product to spend money on thats it! That should be as far as the relationship goes idk why y’all think these mega corporations are your friends they do not care about you.
When I was still relatively new to the game, I thought the only way to respec was through the crown store. It was only after I joined a guild and told someone i wanted to try a different build out that someone informed me that you could use in-game currency. That information came late enough, that I wasted around $100 on respec and attribute reset scrolls. At the time I felt super like I was taken advantage of, but I still enjoyed the game enough to stick around. It's unfortunate that you have to rely on the community or research how to get/do certain things in the game.
Now to be perfectly fair, altough they did 100% taken advantage of you, you were also pretty fucking dumb to get on the train in the first place. If you assumed that you can only respec from the crown store, then you should have assumed that the intended way to play this game was to level up a new character every time you wanted a new build. Which should have raised some flags, since that's not how most mmos work, so either asking about it with other players or searching for information on the net would have resulted in you realizing that you can respec for septims. You basically blindly threw your money away. Which is a lot better than, let's say, dying because you brainfarted, so this is a valuable experience for you and something to learn from for all of us. Explore your options/the scene before spending money on these stupid stores.
I don’t really care about the crown store I think it is overpriced for sure but what I feel is really important is putting in things like mounts, pets, skins, ex. that you can actually EARN. So many other mmos have it and wow is a prime example of why you can do that and still make money cause the micro transaction currency is the same as the one you earn in game so anything can be bought or earned and wow makes way more than eso. We have nothing like that to work towards and the only ones that aren’t the few trial ones is the pets that you get from earning the achievement of entering a new dlc arena that you have to pay for. Giving players something to earn would be really nice and they can even re color mounts and use those as multiple mounts like wow and I believe people would be fine with it as long as their is stuff to earn and not just pay for cause it seems like unless your paying money your not going to participate in the cosmetic part of the game.
I don’t get why ppl care so much the stuff in the store is 99% cosmetic lol even the mounts their just cosmetic what ppl don’t bring up is that they already made a system you can do by playing and get crown stuff free but ppl just act like it Doesn’t exist and want to be outrage
@@MasterJazz09 Well first the end game for most players is cosmetics via home design or fashion and mounts. Second the system your talking about I am hoping is not seals of endeavor.
@@rileymeyer4540 end game players are a minority if all that’s left for you is to buy cosmetic or work a stupid house you need to play another game or take a break sheesh god damn y’all always think your the majority your not most players do not play like y’all.
Dude I spent 300$ on the crown crate and I still can't get the Apex new mounts I got that stupid cat some many times it's ridiculous. How do you have all 3 already ?
I haven't played for 2 or 3 yrs now. I remember I wanted to get the bite and thought I had to buy it in the store. Luckily I read chat and did research and offered pl some coins for it. It took about 15-30 min but I found someone. They explained things and did it for free, which was really nice. It' a good community. As for the coin shop, ya I suppose it could be annoying but having also played 76 it could be o much worse. They could rise the ESO+ price if they needed money, they are already charging for expansions which you would think pay for themselves with ESO +. O well, money and time were the reasons I stopped playing.
ESO does not feel like a MMO, it feels like a single player game that had multiplayer forced onto it afterwards as an afterthought. coming from wow and other MMO's ... the auction house system is a fragmented mess. anyway I bought the skyrim expansion for the game, thinking what the hell... it will be nice to have one last hurrah romping around skyrim. Then I tried to enter a dungeon only to realize I needed to separately buy it, because that content had been cut into a separate product. If wow tried to do that, players would RAGE at the developers. That was the straw that broke me, I was 100% done with ESO.
They really are scamming new player the goblin personality was in the crown store for 2500 crowns wen u could go to stone falls and do a quest for it 🤦🏽♂️
For me I think it’s addiction, I’m just a sucker for a lot of the store stuff. I’m not willing to give an estimate of how much money I’ve spent on ESO over the years, but it’s a lot. Been playing since 2015. Yet this game seems to keep reeling me and my wallet in like a fool.
I didn’t know about the shrine for the looooongest time. Thankfully, I never used crowns to buy a scroll, but I held onto the free respec scroll you get from leveling for literal months freaking out about how I only had one chance to respec my skills and I needed to do it *right*. I can see now why they don’t advertise the shrine so much, because they want naive players like me to buy a scroll.
I quit ESo about a year ago, after playing since launch. Not sure why this showed up in my feed (probably because i watch mmo stuff, and play FF14) My reasons for quitting were 2 fold. 1: Crown Store Fatigue. It's pretty annoying how the best stuff in the game is bought, not earned. All of my favorite houses are Cash store only ie, so why bother grinding if i can't get what i want to grind for? 2: They more or less removed my favorite role from anything but the hardest content. I'm a healer main. I love keeping my group alive, and weaving in dps. I have always loved the role in every mmo I play. but a year or so back they released sets that allowed tanks and dps to heal themselves, on top of other ways to do it, and made Healers kinda pointless. So now i play FF14, which has well defined roles for team members.
When they posted the Tweet they should have also mentioned that you can do it in game with in game gold. Giving the person the option. Posting a single option was just bad.
I quit ESO about 2 years ago but the conversation was much the same regarding monetization and heres my personal take. If you are going to charge players for customization items, transmog, dyes, mounts, pets, etc. Then there are 3 core value I expect to be followed: 1. There is an equal or greater amount of items that can be gained as in-game rewards for completing content. So far disregarding the mounts (this is by far the most egregious abuse of the playerbase) ZOE does a decent job balancing paid styles with ones that can be earned. (This is based on knowledge from late 2019) 2. The quality of both paid and unpaid rewards should be balanced in a way that shows the player that there really cool things to earn or buy on both sides of the field, i.e don't hide all of the high quality cosmetics behind a paywall. This shows care for the quality of the product and it shows respect for the player's time and wallet. 3. The price of cosmetics should not be unreasonable. I have no idea what the current pricing model is anymore but I can tell you that they have broken this rule in a very big way with the introduction of the crate system alone or at least it's implementation. Had there been ways to earn crates in game i might not be so against it but the fact that while i played there was NO way to earn them was a giant red flag for me. If I were in charge I would #1 remove the crate from the store, make crates an earnable reward requiring an active subscription and put the crate contents on sale with the "Featured" section displaying a rotation of cosmetic items on sale for that week. This doesn't entirely remove FOMO but it does provide more incentive to players to at least browse the store without garnering the negative attention that the store in its current state has. Feel free to disagree with my take, but IMO cash shops are here to stay, especially if players are given the option to buy to play instead of being forced to subscribe. Subscriptions give the devs guaranteed income vs. volatile income, volatile meaning that one month the store might pull in a few hundred dollars and the next month could bring in thousands. ESO is an expensive game to run, the server set up they use does not maintain itself and the content doesnt materialize from the collective consciousness. Its all maintained and developed by incredibly talented people who demand a wage compensation. Remove the store and it all goes up in the wind after a short period of time when the company coffers run dry.
1500 crown= 15USD for WW/Vamp bites?! WTF.... I give my vamp bites for free. I am fine with cosmetics, extra/unique housing furniture, toon slots and the boost in inventory in crown store. But for other things as far as "convenience" that are waay to expensive is ridiculous. With all that money they should improve on performance not art. ESO is absolutely filled with beautiful art already. The game working properly should be #1 at this point.
bought the base version of a game and wanted to try it out before proceeding to buy the expansions or subscriptions. Once i saw the in-game store, i changed my mind for obvious reasons.
Great Video. I agree that more people need to look more into the crown store as a whole than the whole drama twitch situation. The crown store should receive a better update in terms of misleading products that could better help new players determine if they want that purchase or not.
The problem is not so much that they are in the store, it is that (at least at the time I was a new player some fourish years so) the first results to the 'how do I' question on search engines were official responses. Those responses were that you had to buy a scroll from the crown store and mentioned NOTHING about the shrines. I wasted so much money it is embarrassing because I was a solo player and a toon creator. Only when I joined a guild did I learn that there were in game options for in game gold. It IS a predatory practice when they deliberately do not mention the alternatives to buying the scroll, the curse removal, the curse, etc. And where the game has to have invested employee time in getting their products to the top of the search engine results for those questions.
The only thing that’s ever pissed me off about the crown store is that outfit and armor slots are $15 a slot per character!!! I mean, I would buy at LEAST half of them if they were account wide… but per character? That’s ridiculous. I think there are something like 9, slots each (outfit & armor) so given 9 characters, thats 18*9*$15 to max out on every character. But let’s say you only want 4 slots each for 3 characters you like to play often… thats 8*3*$15= $360. To max them all is $2,430. Ridiculous.
I started it and liking it a lot. I got to level 8, and am in some prison. My game keeps freezing at the same spot and cannot do anything about it. I repaired, reinstalled all files, log back in and freeze as soon as one fight starts. Cannot do anything but use my shield to block. Cannot move, use the keyboard, etc.
Zos/Bethesda are not a game development company anymore, they are simply salesman just trying to pocket as much cash as possible before getting the hell out of dodge.
Not really this is a very cliche line for any mmorpg and its company, the matter at hand is very fucked up but this game isn't even close to being dead or done.
I'm a few months into playing and I got these scrolls through reaching level 50. I figured that since this was the only option I kept these scrolls in my inventory up to today lol. Good to know there's in-game ways to do this.
Their cash shop is horrendous. I've spent a boat load of money just to own the game and a few dlc's. I'd like there to be shit to earn in game, it makes no sense how to they do it. And you'd think with all the money they're making they could add more content like classes, skill lines, new quests in current areas etc..... They need to make a huge update to all of this crap tbh if they want to keep people especially new players.
I never got TOO far into ESO, but I did complete a couple of the DLCs as well as a few regular zones (circa 2016). I felt like it had a similar issue as WoW's cash shop, where the most striking and creative designs are used for cash shop/crate items. However, ESO is B2P so it's at least more understandable... I enjoyed the DLC, but I feel like the rewards weren't too great. I love the pets, but it didn't really feel as rewarding as other games I've played. Almost everything else about the game was pretty good IMO, aside from the story usually not being able to hold my attention. I'm not sure where most people stand on it, but I wish ESO was P2P and the cash shop items were earned via gameplay. I prefer games where the cash shop sells cosmetics like NPC cosplay outfits, seasonal outfits, or other roleplay/silly outfits like maids etc. All the mounts should not be in the cash shop! There are probably over 50 mounts in the game, but from what I understand only a handful can be earned by playing. And they're all horses.
ZoS has been lazy AF since Morrowind, remaking the same fucking chapter over and over. 1) Release a new chapter 2) release a new dlc zone + 2 new dungeons > repat annualy on top of what they're doing with the crown store, 400 to 600 gems, or up to 2500 gems? for radiant mounts, fuck em.
When i was a new player and didnt know anything about the game, i spent a lot of money in the crown store that turned out to be a waste. Buying vampirism, and a bunch of DLCS even though i had Eso plus, simply because i thought i needed to buy them separately. Probably on more stuff I can't remember also. I pass on the knowledge I have from my mistakes to my friends that are starting out, and to new players that join the guilds I'm in.
I'm honestly on the fence about micro transactions with ESO in particular. One thing that I really appreciate is there is no pay to win items in the crown store. There's not weapons in there or skills that are crown store exclusive. They could go this route and ultimately break the game, but it could make them money for awhile. Or players could just get used to it and accept it as normal. Wizard 101 is a game I used to play and it didn't used to be pay to win, but now it is. I also appreciate the crown gem feature because even if you have horrible luck with crown crates you can eventually get your item. There's also endeavors where if you play a lot and for awhile you can even buy radiant mounts for free. You can also get twitch crates for free and get crown gems with that too. They also allow you to buy crowns in game with gold by trading other players. At the end of the day, the crown store has cosmetic and CONVENIENCE items. I think the convenience items are fine because its also up to the player to do their own research. if someone has enough disposable income that they're fine with spending the money and not doing any research then they kinda get what's coming to them. I do think its 100% respectable to encourage them to have more warnings and I think they should have it, however, I'm not going to hold a grudge against them. They don't have to make any items obtainable for free in game including Respec stuff or the armory. Let's be clear that if there was no crown store we likely would have no ESO or they'd be operating on not the best margins. A crown store allows players to optionally buy cosmetic and convenience item and fund the games profit and development for all players regardless of if they want to participate in micro transactions or not. My opinion on micro transactions would be way different if not for endeavors, crown gems, and the ability to buy crowns with gold from other players.
The selling of convenience items encourage game design to create inconveniences. They engineer problems to sell solutions. It encourages bad game design intentionally to profit off of players. I don't think it's a good way to go.
i honestly feel ya there, considering i tried to get back into wizard101 for a bit a but the pay wall is still a huge pain even after i've long graduatedfrom middle school, and i'm actually glad the ESO has a found a better way to handle keeping themselves from falling into that same kind of situation, and i also agree that more clarity on the fact that it's not required to spend actual money would help clear some of the muddy waters surrounding the subject.
They need to do better at informing players of some of the information in crown stores. As a new player, you're most likely to toss money at something you don't understand or to make your game smoother. With items like respecs,vamp, werewolf bites and cures, I get that they're for "convenience" but at least give the convenience of telling there's an ingame equivalent that exists. As a new player with no knowledge, I would be more likely to toss money at it as I don't know better. I get they have this "tutorials" function, but if anyone's ever read or scrolled through it, it has 50+ tutorial menus that all have sub-menus. While, there is a way to filter it on PC version, if you have seen the console tutorial menu, there is no way to filter so you have to literally scroll through every menu to find something specific. Any new player to the game shouldn't have to spend time reading 50+ tutorial sub-menus, they should be able to cruise through the game and quest. And it's ridiculous to expect a new player to read through such information dumps on a game they may not even commit to playing long-term. That plus things such as re-selling items that were free like psijiic grand villa house that was literally a free reward, they should at least put disclaimers on these things before someone goes and blows 150 dollars on a house that's literally free. I wouldn't have grounds to complain in that case. Funny how some "convenience items" aren't so convenient to new players.
Honestly, I'd say if someone is so careless about the money that they're always ready to throw them on everything before even trying to think what they are doing, that's their own fault. Nobody could stop a stupid person from doing stupid things. And companies need money, so they will always use the carelessness and stupidness to get some. I'm not a smart snowflake either though. I spent money on lootboxes in games. And in ESO as well. But I never blame the game for making me to do that. That's my money and my decision. I'm however not advocating this practices. I most certain that microtransacions as a whole have killed the whole layer of gaming that once has been an achievement and accomplishment, and now nobody gives a duck. People are always ready and happy to pay to get something, and it now has became a normal practice to "play" games like this: buying premium skins, instant level-ups, and such. People don't even get a thought like "hey, I would like to earn that by actually playing the game, isn't it an option?". No, they just mindlessly willing to pay whenever a game ask them to pay.
There have been times in the past where I've purchased crown store items that did not show up as something I had already purchased (binds on pickup) when it generally will tell me most times if I already have said collectible. Annoying to discover I wasted costly crowns on something I can't use, sell, or even give away
I started playing ESO just last month... and I'm already finding the crown shop and crates annoying and pointless. There's one thing that I would love and would gladly pay for: Being able to run a private instance of *everything*.
My only issue with crown store is simply the price of crowns versus the price of things in the crown store in order to get everything you want you will litteraly will end up spending a couple of paycheck 100 bucks dose not even get you half of the dlcs for this game
I don’t currently have a working PC, else I’d still be playing GW2. I can play ESO through a PlayStation subscription and splurged on a 3 month membership to open up the last two classes. I bought what I wanted from the Crown Store and will be using the interim to purchase what quality of life things I can we either gameplay or in game gold. In GW2 there really wasn’t anything you couldn’t eventually get through in game efforts, so I’m not accustomed to the notion of shelling out extra cash. I’m a skinflint. My father was a spendthrift, so it makes a certain amount of sense. He’s a great all around bad example, so I did the math. Next two months or so I’ll boost my bank spaces and individual characters’ inventory spaces. I’ll utterly fill the craft bags as much as possible. And then when my 3 months is over, I’ll suffer the restrictions again. It’s mostly just satisfying my need to explore strange new lands without having to drop money on multiple new AAA games for the same general effect. Especially considering how many of those are getting to be just as bad with the monetization. I think I have a slight advantage in that I’m in not overly motivated to bypass the hard work of building up my characters a little at a time, so anything beyond the ordinary experience boosts you get as part of your dailies and what not are more than enough for me. I’m not really interested competing with anyone else, like, in general, so it’s about me figuring out my favorite build as a PVE player. I mean, I think it was three years before I had a build that could survive GW2’s original endgame content. I do my level best to avoid guides and try to figure stuff out on my own. I live for that challenge. It’s all part of why I game. To explore, both the virtual landscapes and the various mechanics in operation. I absolutely see how predatory it is. It’s the opposite of GW2 the last time I was able to play. I liked that I was able to save up in game gold to trade for other currencies and you could simply bust your ass to earn all the different mounts. This game scratches several different itches, but it’s not getting more of my money that absolutely necessary to get a real feel for what I’m playing. Soon enough all my newer games-many of them my all time favorites-will feel at least somewhat fresh again. Honestly, I grew to hate Skyrim because the combat was awful. This fixes a lot of that, so it’s a nice diversion I didn’t even know I needed. But buyers beware. They know very well the psychological traps they’re setting. Best we do too.
Love how they basically released a double of the sunspire champion senche, a reward from one of the hardest achievements in the game by the way. Don't worry you buy only have to buy one version.
They actually never released the crownstore version of that mount likely because of complaints from people who saw the data mine. Some people think that the blazeborne senche-lion mount was released as a replacement beacuse it's basically the same execpt instead of the ice/fire it's all fire.
@@Ruby1592 just checked, they just made two almost identical versions, gave diff names, and hid it by saying you get both from the achieve... I suppose the achieve still only gives one, so ZOS still be playing games. Thanks for letting me know.
I quit playing because of the Crown Store and the constant stat reworking. When they changed CP in an effort to "balance" between new and old players I just gave up. I had no idea what stats I should run due to how much more complicated Stat distribution became and also lost a lot of perks I used to have. Then the constant game breaking patches that happen every time they launch something, while constantly adding new things to the store, plus the clear dismissive attitude of the development made me quit. I went back to FFXIV.
This doesn't even surprise me. ZOS clearly doesn't care about the player or the time you put into anything. Everything is pointless in ESO. I left not too long ago in one of the more recent updates that completely killed my stamina characters in favor of pushing mag for some stupid reason. Actually my whole group did. I feel like ESO is bleeding players like crazy. I already didn't really like the game much and the only reason I even played was because I didn't have to play it solo, and a few friends made an otherwise boring experience tolerable. Again, mostly because the entire game feels pointless. But let's charge $60 for an entire outfit. I'd rather just buy an entirely different game at that point. ZOS really only wants to get people in the door but doesn't care if they stay. Because at the end of the day, as long as new players are buying the game and a few things in the Crown Store and maybe an expansion or 2 by the time they quit, ZOS has made their money and it's on to the next sucker (sorry I mean new player) to repeat the cycle
The continuing state of not just eso or even just mmos in general but the majority of the gaming industry becoming increasingly unnecessarily monetized makes me sad
Tbh the only use I see this having is in a pvp situation to not leave Cyro. I became a emp during double ap and bought one of these bc the que was 5 hours long. Other than that it’s pretty cash grabby
I'm not against cash shops when it comes to additional things; i.e. skins and such. But ZOS really does go out of their way to create artificial problems for the player so you have to pay money to solve them, it's actually probably one of my biggest pain points with the game (been here since launch). I just wish they would overhaul it so it were a more honest practice, without nonsense like crown crates and preying on newer players or price gouging for digital items. But let's be honest it won't ever happen. It gives me some concern that the game has entered it's 'twilight' phase where they maximize monetization and profits at the expense of the players. DCUO has done this and it is so blatant and awful.
The game doesn't respect the player. The end goal of mmos are comestic rewards and in this game everything is cash shop. There's nothing to do in the game when it comes to progression and rewards and the devs are fine with it because this game's cash shop probably makes more than wow and ffxiv cash shop combined lol
As a brand new player - and brand new to this type of game - and having absolutely no knowledge (other than having seen my kids slay dragons before they left home) - i feel that there is not a lot of really simple information available. I mean kids these days are born knowing how to unlock the smart tv and drive ipads/phones.....i am still learning, and learning this game feels like a uni degree, not fun like it should be. Thankyou for taking the time to put your thoughts into the arena on this topic, as i was really confused about this blow up.
I've seen this in the crowns store before and I always dismissed it because I know that you can do it in game for gold and I also know that companies are predatory with their in-game stores kind of like how you can buy riding traits in the store it takes forever to fully train your amount skills so I understand that part of it. Companies will do anything to make a buck and honestly Elder scrolls online is pretty fair in what they sell compared to other companies. do I think that this item should be in the store ? No
They have disgusting business practices. They don't give a single F about the players, only thing that matters is how much money they can make off these idiots...
I put a Forum post "Tutorial VS Crown Store" in the quest board. Go like it to tell ZOS that a "Rededication" paragraph buried deep deep in the "Help" encyclopedia is no good
I agree that addressing the game issues should be the focus, but Rich and others from the dev community have made the decision to be "public" faces for the company instead of just behind the scenes. By doing so they open themselves up to criticisms whether they like it or not. Rich's reaction did an immeasurable amount of damage to both his personal reputation and the public perception of ZOS in general. The tweet was a marketing disaster that opened the lid to this game's coffin, his response, just added a box of nails and a hammer.
Been a player since beta, more on and off these days. But the day they decided that the 'chapters' wouldn't be included in the ESO+ service , breaking the statement that all DLC was to be free under it, really felt like they had turned an unfortunate corner. This doesn't surprise me.
Remember when games offered a complete and fun experience for either a monthly sub (WoW vanilla, Everquest, UO, etc.) or for just the box price (GW1, etc.) with no cash shop or other predatory monetization systems? I don't think during those times developers "couldn't feed their families" with the money they were making from the sub or box price. Most game companies are just straight up greedy as fuck nowadays. I'm sorry but if anyone thinks that game companies implement cash shops, loot boxes, etc., to "feed their families" or "improve the game" you're just stupid.
I think that ZOS is getting overly greedy on things they are pitching as quality of life. The armory system was a fantastic idea with really terrible execution. It costs way too much per slot considering you have to buy it per character. The fact that it would cost 216k crowns (~$1500) to purchase all possible slots for something that was supposed to be a huge play as you like pitch is absurd. I also don't think it should have been tied to an assistant or housing and instead should have been part of the menus like your inventory is. It went from a beacon of hope that console would get a respec system worth using to little more than novelty or a free reset where most people will buy few if any slots. Also mounts are due for an update, its incredibly punishing to a new player/ character to have to go 180 days to fully upgrade or require purchases from the cash shop to shorten it. That's way too long for a per character grind.
Developers need to eat, sure, but at this point, I think it is fair to say that most of the revenue from the crown store isn’t likely going into the stomachs of the developers. Microsoft bought ZoS (at a high price) and they didn’t do so to acquire ZoS technology. Inside ZoS, the pressure is now on to provide solid returns on that investment, with quarterly profits pocketed by Microsoft’s executives and shareholders. What players should be more concerned with (imho) is the extent to which this pressure will further decrease the value of their subscription (i.e., ESO plus) as new features once provided as part of their membership are now packaged as “extras” available only through the crown store. When revamped features, such as the armory system, are monetized and offered exclusively as a feature of the crown store (even when aspects of that feature set are given away “free to subscribers”) then players should be questioning what their “ESO Plus” membership is buying them. It could be claimed that subscription fees cover server hardware costs, but if you can’t PvP due to performance lag, PvPers must be thinking, their money isn’t buying them much. For PvEers, novel experiences that allow the player to experience themselves as growing (i.e., fulfilling their “self-expansion” needs) is usually key. But nearly all novel content in ESO is already sold separately in the form of expansions and DLCs. Additionally, despite a massive overhaul of the champion point system and the combat system, these changes haven’t provided much in terms of new ways to be in game. What is the point of having more than 1600 CP? Are not changes to skill rotations, just doing the same thing over and over again in a slightly different way?
So, in my mind, the issue is that ESO Plus has become like a subscription to Microsoft Word. Subscribers are paying for continued access to software in which new features are rarely provided even though the cost of software development has been fully recovered many times over. The issue with tweets, such as these, is that they make clear that despite claims the player community is a “part of us [sic], in every sense of the word” ZoS has no compunctions milking players for every cent they can get. Giving away a DLC “for free” to players who’ve already paid for its development through purchases and subscriptions, or discounts to features already available in game, doesn’t show customer appreciation. Its rubbing players noses in the sunk costs of their investment.
i cant just help it to stop thinking there should be tons more furnishings in game available to players,.- i mean instead they have made a dozen of different meshes for burn brenches which are for no good use or a ton of burnt trees no one will ever use and so on, why.
I'm always of a mind that microtransactions devalue a game because that content could've been a regular update or a permanent effect for everyone. The idea that people won't eat without them rings hollow to me because I'm not a kid that grew up knowing only microtransactions - I had to watch them bleed into every single corner of the industry slowly over many years. At the same time, I also watched players complain about having to pay a subscription just to play a game. I watched them complain about having to buy the game once and pay no subscription. They complained about the giant paywalls of early F2P games. It went back and forth until we got the monetization models that games like ESO have. So who's really at fault? Is it the playerbase for getting exactly what they asked for or these companies for giving them exactly what they asked for? I guess all of this is to say you can't have it both ways.
Heh, you may disagree with me on this, but I think you make valid and balanced points here. There is so much really enjoyable fun stuff in ESO. The direction of putting all the best and coolest looking goodies behind a paywall is not a good one, because it suggests that even for us who have bought the game and subscribe to ESO+ will always have to spend even more money to get the neatest looking skins, mounts, pets and what-hav-you.
Vampire and Werewolf infections can be had for free, from NPC mobs. You just have to look for them, and get bit. Or puked on(?), in the case of Vampires. It's kinda weird... But this is actually a pretty fun thing to do, if you are looking to add either of these afflictions to a character. Lots of vids here on TH-cam too, to highlight some of the places to look for these mobs. It even gets you a little bit of extra quest-like flavor-text. Even if you have no interest in playing a Vampire or Werewolf, it might be worth leveling each skill-line to 10, just to unlock a total of 4 (pretty sure it's 4) dyes, then simply pay any Priest of Arkay to cure you. The point is, all this can already be done in-game, without the Shop or even asking other players for bites in /z.
the only actual controversy is people accepting ESO as canon lore... There, i've said it. ESO should be seen as Elder Scrolls expanded universe, non-canon, IMO
It's the same feeling you get in many other games which come from older franchises: The segmented/cartel style of limited/portioned quick paid for content isn't good when you are offering a quality 'service'. The prices are indeed steep in eso, almost ridiculously in some sections of the store (housing) I wonder who owns the crown/gold exchange sites, Nefas?
or you could just buy gold from a third party site like many others have done and not give zos anymore money because they don’t deserve it. or use in game gold to buy crowns from other players to then buy the respecs.
@@hometownheros123 Nah, gold sellers ruin games, fuck them. I'd rather give 20x the money to a game dev than ever give a single penny to buy gold from gold sellers/third party sites. They are almost the sole reason bots exist in games, and they fuck up in game economies, every single mmo in history, pretty much.
I've been playing since beta. When they added crates i had 5k crowns and thought i'd give it a try. I had never bought crates before and thought i'd at least get some good stuff from them. All i got was a haircut and the rest were potions and scrolls. I was so pissed and felt so ripped off i immediately canceled my subscription and stopped playing until greymoor was announced and decided to come back and give it another try. My biggest problem with all of it is the prices. You dont feel like you are getting a good value. Their crown store strategy is pretty stupid tbh. their idea they clearly go with is "what is the maximum people are willing to pay for this" and that is a horrible way to treat players. If they were to cut prices in half for example, for every 1 sale they get now they would get like 3 or more. Making them more money and making the community feel like its not being ripped off. I dont think the rarity of crown items is an argument since literally no one cares if someone has rare cosmetics or not. They only care if they themselves have it or not. And there are so many cosmetics that seeing the same ones over and over is slim. So i think this entire problem would be solved if they cut prices because it would be a win/win for everyone involved. People are justifiably upset over all of it. Especially longtime players since it has been a problem building up more and more over time. And as for loot crates, it would also show they care about their community if they willingly adopted microsoft's policy of actually getting the value you put in back in crates... spending $50 and getting $10 worth of stuff isnt ok just because there is a tiny chance you might get your money's worth. And continuing to do that really is just saying they don't care about us. They love talking about how great the community is and how much they care, but as time goes on people are seeing more and more that isnt the case and its just talk. I stopped spending in the crown store, but if they lowered their prices i would actually start buying things i like again and i know a ton of others would too
The age old question: how do you monetize an endlless game? Maybe the problem isn't with the monetization but with the entire concept of MMOs altogether.
a year ago i would argue the crown store as important to maintaining the developers and compamy, but with the microsoft purchase of bethesda and zos youd think the crown store would have been better adjusted(prices lowered) and still not treated as a expensive gamble on items/lootboxes
If they don't make enough money from making new content and the cosmetic shop then wtf do people expect them to do? This is capitalism (which I'm not a fan of in general) , if you want the game to stick around then you'll have to put up with the relentless pursuit of profit.
I bought like 3 of the storage chests because I didn't realize they were available from the writ merchant... I have 3.5k hours in eso and I knew of the telvar price but I'm not a great PVPer so I thought I would never be able to save up enough telvar... little did I know anyone could get them for a few thousand gold instead of $20 each. Yet another $60 mistake thanks to the crown store in harmony with the obscurity of the game
They had me buying those skill respec quiete a few times and when I first started and didn’t find out about shrine til way later by a player lol they do that spec for a reason to get every new player atkeast once
The crown store has been going down hill faster and faster. They take advantage of new players and worst of all they have gambling mechanics that shouldn't be allowed in any videos games at all! Yet Zenimax exploits the hell out of it. Want one of those cool new mounts? Well hope you've got $500 to waste. Who needs to pay bills anyway? It's clear they've started caring more about money than having a good game. It's bad enough to have to buy the game but then you have to pay for a subscription and on top of that the crown store will literally cost you your first born child to buy anything.
I like the objective non emotional opinion that I kind of expected from Nefas...as he always is. Nefas will definitely state his unbiased opinion too which I respect. Although....I would love to have heard the emotional opinion of Nefas on this just for lols... I'm sure theres a THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT ZOS held back somewhere in there!
Never been a fan of the crate random see what the RNG gives you idea. I would be okay if they just listed them for a set price in the store so I could just buy what I wanted. They would make a lot more money off me that way and I would have the styles and such that I want. When it’s behind an RNG wall I actually spend less.
to be fair, if you sell all the crate consumables which you should, buying crates is like buying a certain number of gems plus a chance to get the stuff you wanted right away. This system would be better if the drop rate for the medium-tier stuff was higher. I'll often end up with 3 apex mounts but only half of the blue quality items after opening 45 crates. I understand that the radiant apex is like the lottery but the legendary, epic, superior rewards are the bread and butter and you always seem to get a disappointing proportion of them.
Costs in the crown store are overwhelmingly expensive. Alliance + Race change tokens should not cost as much as an entirely yearly expansion (3500 crowns or 35 USD)
That’s what they cost in WoW and in FFXIV. I’d be more concerned with the fact they want to charge you $15 to do something that costs 4000 gold in game.
It’s not 35$ lol
@@goldn26 my bad, $25 for 3000 crowns. So somewhere around $30 for it depending on how you get the extra 500 crowns
@@JLawL ff14 race change is $10. Even a full class boost to 10 lvls under the max is $25 lmao and sometimes on sale for like $17. To skip the entire story up to current xpack is $18 or 25, cant remember. So no thats not what it costs in ff14
@@veppy4952 He clearly doesn't know anything about FF14, I play ESO but it's shit thus is why FF14 is dominating.
The crownstore should only have cosmetics
I agree. It kinda sucks that every large game company always values strictly money over everything else, even integrity, just to get that sweet green straight into their pockets. I feel like, best case scenario, they dial these back when they realize that prices are dropping with the players who leave due to these predatory cash grabs, so they only do cosmetic shit and maybe a few things that don't directly effect gameplay, like aesthetic items, which maybe will still be available without money but are easier to get with just buying it. I don't know, I feel like microtransactions should be this "optional, but easier, however the game loses its story with the more that you buy" type of thing.
I came from WoW not that many months ago, so maybe it’s just the fact that there is still “new to me” content in ESO, or I’m just used to getting screwed by Blizzard, but it’s just common sense to me at this point that the more money Zos makes on the store, the less content people are actually going to get in game. The only game to my knowledge that breaks this rule is Path of Exile, and I’m fairly confident the only reason that game is still pumping out content steadily is because Chris Wilson, the founder of the game, truly loves the game itself, not just money.
Zenimax made 700 million dollars this year. They’re a publicly traded company, and thus their earnings are public knowledge. Many of their current lineup of games have started to die out due to the same problems you’ve mentioned in this video.
Play FFXIV. Sure, there’s a store you can buy stuff, but it’s mostly cosmetic. The majority of rewards you receive are from doing stuff in the game and getting better at it. I have tons of mounts and minions, glam outfits, furniture for my apartment, etc. and I’ve never spent more than $30 in the store total in the 900+ hours I’ve played.
Some of what you said is just not true nor would you know I’m so sick of y’all acting like this game is sooo bad when it’s not
The # of money the store makes is linked with the # of active players in the game. Developes especially games like POE that are free to play live and die based on the # of players their updates can bring in. Without them player #s drop off and nobody buys stuff from the store 😒. Games like WOW get far less content compared to ESO because people have moved on and not enough people buy the expansions. DLC has to get smaller and microtansactions become more aggressive to sustain the game. Eventually the same will happen to ESO as people stop playing.
POE has an interesting business model. Make a free to play game good enough to be worth money. Make it competative with the most well known AAA of the genre. Make all in game gear basic looking AF, and all shop gear AWESOME. And wait for people who actually like your game to willingly give you money without complaint.
Some people hate on them for there small inventory and the basic armor looks of found gear. But you can earn MTX in each league and pimp yourself out with actual earned rewards. So I think 90% of people don't care.
@@smokepotion6981 Never seem a microtransaction shop that looks as consistently good as POE but damn are they expensive.
For me, the biggest issue is, at least half of those things on the crown store should be in-game rewards. I have nothing else to do in-game but just doing random stuff for "achievements".
I don't even care about titles or dyes. I have nothing to pursue in-game to own something and show off with it. Things you buy via crown store are not something you show off with.
Even if you get some super rare mount from the crate it mostly means "look how desperate I am to own this mount, cause I spent hundreds of euros on it". And I know, even if I try so hard for an item in-game, it will be in store a month later anyway. So who cares? Glad I developed myself to say "no" to crown store non-sense over time.
nothing compares to using a trial skin or mount.
Wich is a shame, casuals have nothing to show off.
You can legit complete all quests that exists, and you get nothing. outside cadwells ugly stuff
@@UncleDaniel As you can see in the video, they even released identical mounts and skins that were suppose to be Sunspire and Kyne's Aegis rewards. So they de-valued those aswell.
Right now, Planesbreaker mount is super rare, I will never get it and I am totally fine with it. Sad part; they will probably make a different version of it soon for store.
But the fake gs mount is slightly different and this make it still cool. I agree witb you that they should add more reward like that from pve or even pvp. Pb mount is the most hard to get item in game and every 3 month we have 3 radiant apex as cool as it that you can obtain only paying.
@@UncleDaniel events give mounts, personalities, etc. sometimes. nothing compares to fire and ice senche, vDoM skin, worm wizard personality though
@@Koray.K dremnaken wrathsteed is pretty similar to plainsbreaker mount
The smug dismissiveness that Lambert exuded was the kicker for me, and the twitch channel ban was icing on the cake of disparagement.
I would have been fired if I talked the way Lambert did to his customers lol.
@@philhearn4240 exactly, any of us would have likely been fired or lost an account talking to customers in that manner.
Exactly.
So are you still playing eso???? If so.... Well, ever hear about being part of the problem?
@@SuperLarrythompson I sure have, and just ignoring the problem is a huge part of the problem. Bad actors and inefficiencies that hold this game back absolutely need to be addressed. A considerable part of the problem lies with sycophants that are of the opinion that a timid response is the best response. There's a time for diplomacy and we haven't gotten there yet.
I fell into that trap as a new player and it’s a feel bad moment when you realize what you could have done:/
Hehehe. I remember when these scrolls were added!
A friend of mine started playing and she bought the werewolf bite, she never mentioned wanting to be a werewolf, I have one and vampire both at level 10 so I felt really bad, I think realising she wasted money on that made her quit too
they should just remove crown crates and sell the mounts so you can actually buy what you want and not gamble
@@God-Zax yep i would happily buy a mount lets say like 40 dollar or something but to buy those gamble boxes and not likely get it no thanks :D and the only mounts that you can straight buy are some basic horses and stuff not those cool ones
@@God-Zax yea i hope too but i dont think they ever will. its sad because i love this game pvp so much no other mmo pvp feel as good as this combat :(
But that would mean they would have to list their ridiculous prices and look incredibly stupid and greedy. It's easier to mask your scam behind fake currency.
@@Kornelius707 the crown prices are showing in their website and they are ridicilous 3k crowns 21 euros and you barely can buy anything with that :P
Wait weren’t loot crates outlawed in some countries? How are they still using them
As someone who's been playing since launch, has spent a ton of money in the crown store, and who hasn't been happy with the direction the game's been going for the last two years or so I have to say the crown store policies, prices, and loot crate drop rates are really starting to strike a nerve, and I think that those raw nerves are part of why this blew up so much this times compared to other issues regarding the crown store in the past. In their end of the year state of the game address last week Rich pretty much came out and said the quality of content they were producing over the last two years wasn't up to snuff (sorry don't have it in front of me right now or I'd find exact quotes) and to expect less than what we got the past two years next year. Personally I get that the pandemic makes development cycles hard, I work in a parallel industry and understand how hard the first few months were to reinvent the wheel on work flows in ways no one was expecting, but two years in to say you haven't figured out how to get the job done in different conditions speaks of incompetence if not just reeking of being a lame excuse. And to admit that your last two years of content are not up to expected quality, but still charge full price for them, without offering any sort of apology or recompense for that is just insulting to long time loyal fans. So yeah, when all that's going on and they're still able to pump out cash shop stuff to milk players for all they've got, with increasingly poor drop rates of quality items in the loot crates, higher prices for houses, etc. it makes you a little pissed off at the cash shop in general, even if you're someone like me who's a sucker for buying outfits and houses. If Zos wants to keep the loyalty of their player base at some point they need to give those of us who are loyal SOMETHING to show our appreciation, ideally that should be something to earn in the game, without spending money, but even things like the doomscar plateau feel like they're less that what we've gotten for our money in the past and that they're linked in with systems that seem keyed to shift us toward shelling out real cash in the cash shop.
Daniel, you have so many valid points, however, you just drop them all when you mention "a LITTLE pissed off". Bro, people are REALLY pissed off, not a little. As a loyal player, you should be too, because your love is for the game, for the lore, for whatever you like, and to see incompetent people ruining it for you and for thousands of other people, is not a little irritating, it is VERY irritating.
Respec scrolls shouldn't even be listed in the Crown Store. Period.
Also, the armory should have a "reset" option that doesn't require us to keep an armory slot clear in order to do a respec.
Either give away respects, or don't. But don't play stupid games with new players.
Wow, I haven't used Armory 2nd slot yet and didnt realize that would be a respec issue. I assume that wasn't in the "instructions" somewhere. ESO user/owners manual? I wish!
When I discovered outfit slots purchased only apply to one character, I never bought one again.
I found that out recently and couldn't believe I would have to purchase them for every character. I thought that was messed up.
Yes, that should be account. Not character. I am soooo frustrated with that.
I'm having a hard time deciding between buying a stack of crown gems in the crown store, or buying the latest expansion, cause they're both the same price.
None don’t give the scam artist your hard earns money.
@Joe" poopy pants "Biden oooooh I loves a good whoosh
I bought the vampire skill when I was new. I quit for over a year after finding out i could get the skill in game. They should tell you what you can and can't get in the crown store.
I done the same thing lmao
The cure is even more insidious because that's 693 gold ingame. The crown store cure is overpriced even by console crown exchange rates. Shouldn't even be over 50 crowns.
@@Vevvev8 yeah it is possible you may not find a bite that easily if you don't have a community but cure is literally a handful of gold in game. These sort of things are really fucked up and I feel really bad when I introduce the game to a friend and I have to warn them of such things. This behaviour makes me lose huge respect for this game. Please stop preying on new players, this can even be considered something similar to phishing..
Actually god bless Kevin, straight up carrying the forums so hard he'll have back issues by the next major DLC. On another note, I think the funniest disconnect ZOS had shown is when you guys were doing the vBDV HM speedrun competition and they asked "I see you don't have a healer on your team" followed by an explanation and then very awkward silence.
Good luck to anyone who has to handle the forums.
no fucking way he did that lmao
please tell me there's a clip of it
I too would like to see this clip
I want to see this clip as well lol
its funny to me how they have a crown store that rips the money off of you like that and then you ask for cyrodiil to be playable and the devs make fun of of you and tell you that they are working on it for 5 years
I started playing a few weeks ago and didn't know there were quests for turning into a vampire or werewolf. So I purchased both from the store for 3000 crowns. I thought no big deal I guess..at least I have them now. Only now do I know that the skill line can only be applied to that one single character, unlike most everything in the game. At first I thought that maybe not clarifying you could do a quest to turn into either one was just a mishap. But where you can pay to be cured it clearly states there is in game content you can go to for a cure yourself. Now I truly feel like I'm getting ripped off. I'm convinced people like me are being targeted and honestly that sucks because I've always loved Elder Scrolls.
last i checked the store literally said there was a quest to get turned
Well it does save you a bunch grinding to max rank the respective skills
@@darschpugs4690 it getting someone to bite you which is the hard part.
@@Zabzim i got all my bites free just by asking in zone chat, or you can kill certain were wolves and vampires until you get bitten and get the disease that changes you
@@Zabzim I never had a problem with this. One of my characters unintentionally got bit on a quest by some random vampire. I didn't know for weeks. Found where to turn her completely, got so pissed off when she went full vamp. Now, she is vamp but I never bothered with with skill line. In fact, I can't even be bothered trying to figure out where to go to change her back. I will not pay crowns for that which can be achievable within the game it self.
I respect your comment. It's nice to see people have issues in game trying to achieve something without wasting irl money to look or feel cool! lol
Up there with the overpriced and unnecessary vamp and uWu bites and cures in crown store compared to in game cost
232 in game gold or 15$ big think
I remember when I first started playing and wasn’t sure how I wanted to play and ended up buying a bunch of these scrolls till I found out about the shrines
It's a touchy subject. Just got a ban for bashing because we had a discussion about the loot boxes on the forums. So remember when you talk about it on the forums you really should pick your words carefully, and even then prepare to get banned.
Having real money micro transaction is essential to a game like eso, but selling stuff to player that are unaware of its real value shows the little respect they have for us.
IF those thing at least had unique effect, like being able to respect for a whole week for free for exemple.
Deadlands to me was one of the better dlc/chapters ZOS has done in recent years, I loved Arox the mutilator. He should have been a end of story reward like the Augur of Obscure in Summerset but instead is being sold in the Crown Store this month, there are only a couple houseguest available in game the rest are crown exclusive.
Gifting crowns now is a bigger incentive for whales to spend even more money to trade with player not willing to engage with the crown store and those prices have went from 200:1 2 years ago to around 1000:1 PC/NA after crown pricing changes and the pandemic. Things like crown housing added per year out number earnable home from each new zones is like 5:1, barely any mounts to earn in game, no arms pack equivalent to earn outside of ugly opal weapon, added outfit slots are only for one toon. Hell PvP hasn't got a update in years, while the writing for the last few chapter have sucked, chapters are smaller and split up for the dlc to be sold separate, item and gold inflation, bad daily logging rewards, bad event reward drops and even if there is cool outfit style for the event the weapon pages are sold separate, no storage increases except payed non combat pets, stability issues among other problems. I get they need to increase earning to justify Microsoft's 7 billion dollar acquisition, but banning people on the forums asking questions is not the way the keep your players around and paying.
I've play ESO almost daily for 5 years I care about it, Zos needs to learn just because player are passionate and criticizes the game doesn't make them entitled, hater or troll that needs to be banned. These players care enough about the game and its longevity to engage in deeper conversations about its health. The players who are quiet and silently leave feeling indifference to game is what will kill it in the long run, you just have to look at WoW to see where that road leads.
The event rewards this year have been making me feel indifferent. Having to get the pet rock and then "evolve" it into said reward is frustrating, and then requiring 10 TICKETS per fragment, ON TOP OF evolving the damn rock is insanity. It took a minute for me to wrap my head around the indrik system when I was starting to really get into the game, and for it to change to the current madness is really disheartening.
Maaaan, you just described perfectly how I have been feeling lately. I would like to add to the list the depreciation of ESO Plus members by not giving crates in those free-plus trial periods (we really loved those!), lame "Plus discounts/offers", and the laughable increase in crowns stipend when everything else is pricier than ever at the store, and their latest cherry on top of that cake is no collectible reward for December (so far, at least)... They really don't seem to g.a.f. anymore.
And, if a frigging giant of business like Microsoft bought them, it only means they are one of the fattest cows in the field, cause big ol' Microsoft is not buying them to sell the scraps around and make small bucks.
It's really hurtful to feel the disconnect between what ZOS has become and us, players. I've been playing this game for the last 5 years, my husband has gifted me Plus almost all this time (he himself quit 2 or 3 years ago), and I've seen how much this game has grown, evolved, and now most of it seems to be being swallowed in greediness. I used to be motivated to do quests and achievements to unlock all available things (outfit pieces, costumes, pets, mounts, houses, furniture, mementos, emotes.... full "hoarder mode" ), and now there's not much more to do besides making gold and trying to find someone to sell me crowns and not scam me, cause all the things I want to have are not in the game anymore, but behind a humongous paywall that is the crown store.
@@TheBladescratcher took me 2 events to get my indrik mount. It was kind of insane.
Omg...... the daily login rewards are soooo bad now and have been for quite awhile. Half the time I don't even collect them because I don't need the clutter in my character's inventory. This month alone you have to collect 3 weeks worth of junk just to get to the 100k gold and that's the only thing worth logging in for in my opinion.
I don't mind cash shops for cosmetic or fluff items. If you want something unique and interesting, I am okay with it to an extent. But the game itself should offer plenty of unique and interesting things you can get through playing, too, like with achievements and such. I thought they were doing a pretty good job of this, personally. Still plenty of things you can unlock with achievements and events and such, simply by playing the game. The addition of the Seals of Endeavor really helped in that regard, too. What I hate is when actual game features/mechanics are monetized, like crafting ingredients, respec tokens, bigger inventories, etc. If a cash shop is strictly cosmetic and optional, and people don't feel pressured into making purchases, fine. That's one of the reasons I hate the subscription plan, too... You only get the crafting bag and expanded bank inventory if you're a subscriber, and those are quality of life things that make it so non-subscribers have a much more difficult time doing crafting, which is a large feature of the game. You shouldn't have to pay money every month just to be able to fully enjoy a feature in a game THAT YOU ALREADY BOUGHT. It's a little ridiculous. "Buy the game and you can experience HALF of this cool feature! Subscribe for access to the full thing!" Of course paying for expansions is fine, those are expansions with new features, new zones, new content, etc., but something that is supposed to be part of the base game, it should be fully accessible to everyone. Access to the DLCs and crowns each month you're subscribed is a pretty good reason to subscribe already. Locking quality of life stuff behind that paywall is just predatory.
I think "fatigue" is spot-on. Back in 2015, I struggled to get into the game and scale its rather steep learning curve. There were so many things I didn't know and so many answers to questions I didn't even know to ask. It all kind of clicked into place in late 2017, early 2018. Now I'm in a position in which I struggle to find meaningful content and don't know what to do next. I find myself among the group of players asking for harder overland content - something as a new player who experienced the game prior to One Tamriel I would have been against.
In that six or so years, the game has come a long way, yet somehow still feels like it's about a year behind where the players are. Like a huge, lumbering behemoth, ESO gets there eventually but late enough for exasperation to set in. The Crown Store being a prime example in that it relies on LTOs far too much yet doesn't rotate previous offers often enough. The end result is that the same things are in there now that were there one or two years ago, if not longer.
I remember the feeling of getting excited by a new mount, but I don't feel that anymore. Yet I can easily picture a new player blowing their crowns on a Crown Store mount that's been in there for three years and being chuffed... Only to regret it when they realise there's something called a CS Showcase telling us a new and sparkly mount arrives next week for a limited time only and they've spent their available money on something lesser.
People cry out and have been crying out since Morrowind for new pet skins, yet by the time ZOS will get to it, people are already burned out and it will become a meme: "Great. Took you 4 years. At this rate, maybe you'll fix Cyrodiil this century."
I can't picture ZOS being able to sustain its aging player base if they continue to be out of touch in this way.
This is a fantastic response. Around the 2017 mark I felt the game was really in step with what players wanted, but there were so many....unsettling little choices made, and some of the wrong lessons taken away. But ZoS really has been a slow-but-certain developer. Unlike other MMOs, I feel they do try and please their audience, but it comes YEARS down the line ( housing way back when being a huge one). The pandemic wasn't kind to them it feels like, and they haven't been able to get back on track- especially when trying to keep up with their seasonal DLC releases. And they turn to ol' reliable to keep the funds flowing.
I hate the monetization in this game. I took a break and haven't played for a long time (haven't touched Blackwood at all).
The most frustrating thing for me is how they purposely make inventory management a pain to make you sub to ESO+
I remember wayyyy back, when oblivion had like its first dlc and you could buy some overpriced horse armour. Which wasn't available in game at the time... It was like $20 or over... Ive never respected them since.
After a while the price more than halved but the damage was done. Everyone laughed. I would have thought they would have learnt their lessons by now.
Well, for what it's worth, Bethesda Game Studios only made three DLC's for Skyrim. Nothing else (except game editions that is). I do hope they do not give in to microtransactions with The Elder Scrolls VI... Gods forbid.
@@nemecil They will. But you won't see ES6 until 2028. Until then they'll be milking ESO for every last dime.
@@XoRandomGuyoX 2028 would be most unfortunate. As if 10 years weren't bad enough :/
@@XoRandomGuyoX Bethesda isn't even in charge of ESO, that's Zenimax, their parent company.
There are so many people who will genuinely help new players that this is insane. If I see a new player asking about crown store stuff like this or gear etc I craft them sets or throw them some gold to get them started since you can get that much gold from a few minutes in game and it means a lot to a new player as I was that person once. If I see someone struggling like that and have a moment to spare I help them and I know at least a few others in a zone would do the same. There's no reason for the crown shit to be so predatory.
The reason is because the people running the game don't actually care about the game. They care about the gold mine that is the crown shop. The fact that it exists in the way it does shows they are ok with destroying the integrity of the game for short term profits. Just like Actiblizzard is doing. This will lead to less people playing and more and more predatory crown shop tactics until everyone just says "Fuck it". Whales are there but whales don't stick with a game unless there are casuals to show off their cash shop bounty to.
As someone who quit 1.5 years ago, ESO will still always remain my favourite game of all time. It’s just a shame the direction the game has been heading towards…
When I looked at what's going to be released in the crown store from December to the start of January and saw nothing I wanted to buy I was genuinely relieved. Plus thanks to the seals and the fact crates do come back, I'm also not buying as many now and will wait for them to go on sale. Should we offer thanks to ZOS for the seal system? No, because they did it to only avoid legal issues regarding gambling laws in some countries.
Who cares why they did it I’m glad they did and Their not my friends their not your friends and never were their a business that wants money and I want a good product to spend money on thats it! That should be as far as the relationship goes idk why y’all think these mega corporations are your friends they do not care about you.
@@MasterJazz09 So true.
When I was still relatively new to the game, I thought the only way to respec was through the crown store. It was only after I joined a guild and told someone i wanted to try a different build out that someone informed me that you could use in-game currency. That information came late enough, that I wasted around $100 on respec and attribute reset scrolls. At the time I felt super like I was taken advantage of, but I still enjoyed the game enough to stick around. It's unfortunate that you have to rely on the community or research how to get/do certain things in the game.
Now to be perfectly fair, altough they did 100% taken advantage of you, you were also pretty fucking dumb to get on the train in the first place. If you assumed that you can only respec from the crown store, then you should have assumed that the intended way to play this game was to level up a new character every time you wanted a new build. Which should have raised some flags, since that's not how most mmos work, so either asking about it with other players or searching for information on the net would have resulted in you realizing that you can respec for septims. You basically blindly threw your money away. Which is a lot better than, let's say, dying because you brainfarted, so this is a valuable experience for you and something to learn from for all of us. Explore your options/the scene before spending money on these stupid stores.
I don’t really care about the crown store I think it is overpriced for sure but what I feel is really important is putting in things like mounts, pets, skins, ex. that you can actually EARN. So many other mmos have it and wow is a prime example of why you can do that and still make money cause the micro transaction currency is the same as the one you earn in game so anything can be bought or earned and wow makes way more than eso. We have nothing like that to work towards and the only ones that aren’t the few trial ones is the pets that you get from earning the achievement of entering a new dlc arena that you have to pay for. Giving players something to earn would be really nice and they can even re color mounts and use those as multiple mounts like wow and I believe people would be fine with it as long as their is stuff to earn and not just pay for cause it seems like unless your paying money your not going to participate in the cosmetic part of the game.
I don’t get why ppl care so much the stuff in the store is 99% cosmetic lol even the mounts their just cosmetic what ppl don’t bring up is that they already made a system you can do by playing and get crown stuff free but ppl just act like it Doesn’t exist and want to be outrage
@@MasterJazz09 Well first the end game for most players is cosmetics via home design or fashion and mounts. Second the system your talking about I am hoping is not seals of endeavor.
@@rileymeyer4540 end game players are a minority if all that’s left for you is to buy cosmetic or work a stupid house you need to play another game or take a break sheesh god damn y’all always think your the majority your not most players do not play like y’all.
@@MasterJazz09 what are you ever talking about when did I say I played like that? Your just rambling to yourself.
@@MasterJazz09 you obviously don’t understand what I am trying to say at all. Also the store is not 99% cosmetic why don’t you take a look in there.
Dude I spent 300$ on the crown crate and I still can't get the Apex new mounts I got that stupid cat some many times it's ridiculous. How do you have all 3 already ?
All I know is, for 40 f'king dollars you spent on crown crates, you should at least get ONE apex mount! Those are a f'king ripoff!
I haven't played for 2 or 3 yrs now. I remember I wanted to get the bite and thought I had to buy it in the store. Luckily I read chat and did research and offered pl some coins for it. It took about 15-30 min but I found someone. They explained things and did it for free, which was really nice. It' a good community. As for the coin shop, ya I suppose it could be annoying but having also played 76 it could be o much worse. They could rise the ESO+ price if they needed money, they are already charging for expansions which you would think pay for themselves with ESO +. O well, money and time were the reasons I stopped playing.
ESO does not feel like a MMO, it feels like a single player game that had multiplayer forced onto it afterwards as an afterthought.
coming from wow and other MMO's ... the auction house system is a fragmented mess.
anyway I bought the skyrim expansion for the game, thinking what the hell... it will be nice to have one last hurrah romping around skyrim.
Then I tried to enter a dungeon only to realize I needed to separately buy it, because that content had been cut into a separate product.
If wow tried to do that, players would RAGE at the developers.
That was the straw that broke me, I was 100% done with ESO.
They really are scamming new player the goblin personality was in the crown store for 2500 crowns wen u could go to stone falls and do a quest for it 🤦🏽♂️
One of two main reasons why i stopped playing.... when you open that store and then you realize what shit goes through their minds its insane
For me I think it’s addiction, I’m just a sucker for a lot of the store stuff. I’m not willing to give an estimate of how much money I’ve spent on ESO over the years, but it’s a lot. Been playing since 2015. Yet this game seems to keep reeling me and my wallet in like a fool.
I didn’t know about the shrine for the looooongest time. Thankfully, I never used crowns to buy a scroll, but I held onto the free respec scroll you get from leveling for literal months freaking out about how I only had one chance to respec my skills and I needed to do it *right*. I can see now why they don’t advertise the shrine so much, because they want naive players like me to buy a scroll.
I quit ESo about a year ago, after playing since launch. Not sure why this showed up in my feed (probably because i watch mmo stuff, and play FF14) My reasons for quitting were 2 fold.
1: Crown Store Fatigue. It's pretty annoying how the best stuff in the game is bought, not earned. All of my favorite houses are Cash store only ie, so why bother grinding if i can't get what i want to grind for?
2: They more or less removed my favorite role from anything but the hardest content. I'm a healer main. I love keeping my group alive, and weaving in dps. I have always loved the role in every mmo I play. but a year or so back they released sets that allowed tanks and dps to heal themselves, on top of other ways to do it, and made Healers kinda pointless. So now i play FF14, which has well defined roles for team members.
When they posted the Tweet they should have also mentioned that you can do it in game with in game gold. Giving the person the option. Posting a single option was just bad.
I quit ESO about 2 years ago but the conversation was much the same regarding monetization and heres my personal take.
If you are going to charge players for customization items, transmog, dyes, mounts, pets, etc. Then there are 3 core value I expect to be followed:
1. There is an equal or greater amount of items that can be gained as in-game rewards for completing content. So far disregarding the mounts (this is by far the most egregious abuse of the playerbase) ZOE does a decent job balancing paid styles with ones that can be earned. (This is based on knowledge from late 2019)
2. The quality of both paid and unpaid rewards should be balanced in a way that shows the player that there really cool things to earn or buy on both sides of the field, i.e don't hide all of the high quality cosmetics behind a paywall. This shows care for the quality of the product and it shows respect for the player's time and wallet.
3. The price of cosmetics should not be unreasonable. I have no idea what the current pricing model is anymore but I can tell you that they have broken this rule in a very big way with the introduction of the crate system alone or at least it's implementation. Had there been ways to earn crates in game i might not be so against it but the fact that while i played there was NO way to earn them was a giant red flag for me. If I were in charge I would #1 remove the crate from the store, make crates an earnable reward requiring an active subscription and put the crate contents on sale with the "Featured" section displaying a rotation of cosmetic items on sale for that week. This doesn't entirely remove FOMO but it does provide more incentive to players to at least browse the store without garnering the negative attention that the store in its current state has.
Feel free to disagree with my take, but IMO cash shops are here to stay, especially if players are given the option to buy to play instead of being forced to subscribe. Subscriptions give the devs guaranteed income vs. volatile income, volatile meaning that one month the store might pull in a few hundred dollars and the next month could bring in thousands. ESO is an expensive game to run, the server set up they use does not maintain itself and the content doesnt materialize from the collective consciousness. Its all maintained and developed by incredibly talented people who demand a wage compensation. Remove the store and it all goes up in the wind after a short period of time when the company coffers run dry.
1500 crown= 15USD for WW/Vamp bites?! WTF.... I give my vamp bites for free. I am fine with cosmetics, extra/unique housing furniture, toon slots and the boost in inventory in crown store. But for other things as far as "convenience" that are waay to expensive is ridiculous. With all that money they should improve on performance not art. ESO is absolutely filled with beautiful art already. The game working properly should be #1 at this point.
bought the base version of a game and wanted to try it out before proceeding to buy the expansions or subscriptions. Once i saw the in-game store, i changed my mind for obvious reasons.
Great Video. I agree that more people need to look more into the crown store as a whole than the whole drama twitch situation. The crown store should receive a better update in terms of misleading products that could better help new players determine if they want that purchase or not.
Don’t forget about prices being astronomical
The problem is not so much that they are in the store, it is that (at least at the time I was a new player some fourish years so) the first results to the 'how do I' question on search engines were official responses. Those responses were that you had to buy a scroll from the crown store and mentioned NOTHING about the shrines. I wasted so much money it is embarrassing because I was a solo player and a toon creator. Only when I joined a guild did I learn that there were in game options for in game gold. It IS a predatory practice when they deliberately do not mention the alternatives to buying the scroll, the curse removal, the curse, etc. And where the game has to have invested employee time in getting their products to the top of the search engine results for those questions.
The only thing that’s ever pissed me off about the crown store is that outfit and armor slots are $15 a slot per character!!! I mean, I would buy at LEAST half of them if they were account wide… but per character? That’s ridiculous.
I think there are something like 9, slots each (outfit & armor) so given 9 characters, thats 18*9*$15 to max out on every character. But let’s say you only want 4 slots each for 3 characters you like to play often… thats 8*3*$15= $360. To max them all is $2,430.
Ridiculous.
I started it and liking it a lot. I got to level 8, and am in some prison. My game keeps freezing at the same spot and cannot do anything about it. I repaired, reinstalled all files, log back in and freeze as soon as one fight starts. Cannot do anything but use my shield to block. Cannot move, use the keyboard, etc.
Zos/Bethesda are not a game development company anymore, they are simply salesman just trying to pocket as much cash as possible before getting the hell out of dodge.
Not really this is a very cliche line for any mmorpg and its company, the matter at hand is very fucked up but this game isn't even close to being dead or done.
I'm a few months into playing and I got these scrolls through reaching level 50. I figured that since this was the only option I kept these scrolls in my inventory up to today lol. Good to know there's in-game ways to do this.
Their cash shop is horrendous. I've spent a boat load of money just to own the game and a few dlc's. I'd like there to be shit to earn in game, it makes no sense how to they do it. And you'd think with all the money they're making they could add more content like classes, skill lines, new quests in current areas etc..... They need to make a huge update to all of this crap tbh if they want to keep people especially new players.
I never got TOO far into ESO, but I did complete a couple of the DLCs as well as a few regular zones (circa 2016). I felt like it had a similar issue as WoW's cash shop, where the most striking and creative designs are used for cash shop/crate items. However, ESO is B2P so it's at least more understandable... I enjoyed the DLC, but I feel like the rewards weren't too great. I love the pets, but it didn't really feel as rewarding as other games I've played. Almost everything else about the game was pretty good IMO, aside from the story usually not being able to hold my attention. I'm not sure where most people stand on it, but I wish ESO was P2P and the cash shop items were earned via gameplay. I prefer games where the cash shop sells cosmetics like NPC cosplay outfits, seasonal outfits, or other roleplay/silly outfits like maids etc. All the mounts should not be in the cash shop! There are probably over 50 mounts in the game, but from what I understand only a handful can be earned by playing. And they're all horses.
ZoS has been lazy AF since Morrowind, remaking the same fucking chapter over and over. 1) Release a new chapter 2) release a new dlc zone + 2 new dungeons > repat annualy on top of what they're doing with the crown store, 400 to 600 gems, or up to 2500 gems? for radiant mounts, fuck em.
When i was a new player and didnt know anything about the game, i spent a lot of money in the crown store that turned out to be a waste.
Buying vampirism, and a bunch of DLCS even though i had Eso plus, simply because i thought i needed to buy them separately. Probably on more stuff I can't remember also.
I pass on the knowledge I have from my mistakes to my friends that are starting out, and to new players that join the guilds I'm in.
Would love to see videos on those topics you mentioned.
I'm honestly on the fence about micro transactions with ESO in particular. One thing that I really appreciate is there is no pay to win items in the crown store. There's not weapons in there or skills that are crown store exclusive. They could go this route and ultimately break the game, but it could make them money for awhile. Or players could just get used to it and accept it as normal. Wizard 101 is a game I used to play and it didn't used to be pay to win, but now it is. I also appreciate the crown gem feature because even if you have horrible luck with crown crates you can eventually get your item. There's also endeavors where if you play a lot and for awhile you can even buy radiant mounts for free. You can also get twitch crates for free and get crown gems with that too. They also allow you to buy crowns in game with gold by trading other players. At the end of the day, the crown store has cosmetic and CONVENIENCE items. I think the convenience items are fine because its also up to the player to do their own research. if someone has enough disposable income that they're fine with spending the money and not doing any research then they kinda get what's coming to them. I do think its 100% respectable to encourage them to have more warnings and I think they should have it, however, I'm not going to hold a grudge against them. They don't have to make any items obtainable for free in game including Respec stuff or the armory. Let's be clear that if there was no crown store we likely would have no ESO or they'd be operating on not the best margins. A crown store allows players to optionally buy cosmetic and convenience item and fund the games profit and development for all players regardless of if they want to participate in micro transactions or not. My opinion on micro transactions would be way different if not for endeavors, crown gems, and the ability to buy crowns with gold from other players.
The selling of convenience items encourage game design to create inconveniences. They engineer problems to sell solutions. It encourages bad game design intentionally to profit off of players. I don't think it's a good way to go.
i honestly feel ya there, considering i tried to get back into wizard101 for a bit a but the pay wall is still a huge pain even after i've long graduatedfrom middle school, and i'm actually glad the ESO has a found a better way to handle keeping themselves from falling into that same kind of situation, and i also agree that more clarity on the fact that it's not required to spend actual money would help clear some of the muddy waters surrounding the subject.
They need to do better at informing players of some of the information in crown stores. As a new player, you're most likely to toss money at something you don't understand or to make your game smoother. With items like respecs,vamp, werewolf bites and cures, I get that they're for "convenience" but at least give the convenience of telling there's an ingame equivalent that exists. As a new player with no knowledge, I would be more likely to toss money at it as I don't know better. I get they have this "tutorials" function, but if anyone's ever read or scrolled through it, it has 50+ tutorial menus that all have sub-menus. While, there is a way to filter it on PC version, if you have seen the console tutorial menu, there is no way to filter so you have to literally scroll through every menu to find something specific. Any new player to the game shouldn't have to spend time reading 50+ tutorial sub-menus, they should be able to cruise through the game and quest. And it's ridiculous to expect a new player to read through such information dumps on a game they may not even commit to playing long-term.
That plus things such as re-selling items that were free like psijiic grand villa house that was literally a free reward, they should at least put disclaimers on these things before someone goes and blows 150 dollars on a house that's literally free. I wouldn't have grounds to complain in that case.
Funny how some "convenience items" aren't so convenient to new players.
Honestly, I'd say if someone is so careless about the money that they're always ready to throw them on everything before even trying to think what they are doing, that's their own fault. Nobody could stop a stupid person from doing stupid things. And companies need money, so they will always use the carelessness and stupidness to get some.
I'm not a smart snowflake either though. I spent money on lootboxes in games. And in ESO as well. But I never blame the game for making me to do that. That's my money and my decision.
I'm however not advocating this practices. I most certain that microtransacions as a whole have killed the whole layer of gaming that once has been an achievement and accomplishment, and now nobody gives a duck. People are always ready and happy to pay to get something, and it now has became a normal practice to "play" games like this: buying premium skins, instant level-ups, and such. People don't even get a thought like "hey, I would like to earn that by actually playing the game, isn't it an option?". No, they just mindlessly willing to pay whenever a game ask them to pay.
There have been times in the past where I've purchased crown store items that did not show up as something I had already purchased (binds on pickup) when it generally will tell me most times if I already have said collectible. Annoying to discover I wasted costly crowns on something I can't use, sell, or even give away
I started playing ESO just last month... and I'm already finding the crown shop and crates annoying and pointless.
There's one thing that I would love and would gladly pay for: Being able to run a private instance of *everything*.
My only issue with crown store is simply the price of crowns versus the price of things in the crown store in order to get everything you want you will litteraly will end up spending a couple of paycheck 100 bucks dose not even get you half of the dlcs for this game
I don’t currently have a working PC, else I’d still be playing GW2. I can play ESO through a PlayStation subscription and splurged on a 3 month membership to open up the last two classes. I bought what I wanted from the Crown Store and will be using the interim to purchase what quality of life things I can we either gameplay or in game gold. In GW2 there really wasn’t anything you couldn’t eventually get through in game efforts, so I’m not accustomed to the notion of shelling out extra cash. I’m a skinflint. My father was a spendthrift, so it makes a certain amount of sense. He’s a great all around bad example, so I did the math.
Next two months or so I’ll boost my bank spaces and individual characters’ inventory spaces. I’ll utterly fill the craft bags as much as possible. And then when my 3 months is over, I’ll suffer the restrictions again.
It’s mostly just satisfying my need to explore strange new lands without having to drop money on multiple new AAA games for the same general effect. Especially considering how many of those are getting to be just as bad with the monetization.
I think I have a slight advantage in that I’m in not overly motivated to bypass the hard work of building up my characters a little at a time, so anything beyond the ordinary experience boosts you get as part of your dailies and what not are more than enough for me.
I’m not really interested competing with anyone else, like, in general, so it’s about me figuring out my favorite build as a PVE player. I mean, I think it was three years before I had a build that could survive GW2’s original endgame content. I do my level best to avoid guides and try to figure stuff out on my own. I live for that challenge. It’s all part of why I game. To explore, both the virtual landscapes and the various mechanics in operation.
I absolutely see how predatory it is. It’s the opposite of GW2 the last time I was able to play. I liked that I was able to save up in game gold to trade for other currencies and you could simply bust your ass to earn all the different mounts.
This game scratches several different itches, but it’s not getting more of my money that absolutely necessary to get a real feel for what I’m playing. Soon enough all my newer games-many of them my all time favorites-will feel at least somewhat fresh again.
Honestly, I grew to hate Skyrim because the combat was awful. This fixes a lot of that, so it’s a nice diversion I didn’t even know I needed.
But buyers beware. They know very well the psychological traps they’re setting. Best we do too.
Love how they basically released a double of the sunspire champion senche, a reward from one of the hardest achievements in the game by the way. Don't worry you buy only have to buy one version.
They actually never released the crownstore version of that mount likely because of complaints from people who saw the data mine. Some people think that the blazeborne senche-lion mount was released as a replacement beacuse it's basically the same execpt instead of the ice/fire it's all fire.
@@Ruby1592 just checked, they just made two almost identical versions, gave diff names, and hid it by saying you get both from the achieve... I suppose the achieve still only gives one, so ZOS still be playing games. Thanks for letting me know.
I quit playing because of the Crown Store and the constant stat reworking. When they changed CP in an effort to "balance" between new and old players I just gave up. I had no idea what stats I should run due to how much more complicated Stat distribution became and also lost a lot of perks I used to have. Then the constant game breaking patches that happen every time they launch something, while constantly adding new things to the store, plus the clear dismissive attitude of the development made me quit. I went back to FFXIV.
This doesn't even surprise me. ZOS clearly doesn't care about the player or the time you put into anything. Everything is pointless in ESO. I left not too long ago in one of the more recent updates that completely killed my stamina characters in favor of pushing mag for some stupid reason. Actually my whole group did. I feel like ESO is bleeding players like crazy. I already didn't really like the game much and the only reason I even played was because I didn't have to play it solo, and a few friends made an otherwise boring experience tolerable. Again, mostly because the entire game feels pointless. But let's charge $60 for an entire outfit. I'd rather just buy an entirely different game at that point. ZOS really only wants to get people in the door but doesn't care if they stay. Because at the end of the day, as long as new players are buying the game and a few things in the Crown Store and maybe an expansion or 2 by the time they quit, ZOS has made their money and it's on to the next sucker (sorry I mean new player) to repeat the cycle
The continuing state of not just eso or even just mmos in general but the majority of the gaming industry becoming increasingly unnecessarily monetized makes me sad
Tbh the only use I see this having is in a pvp situation to not leave Cyro. I became a emp during double ap and bought one of these bc the que was 5 hours long. Other than that it’s pretty cash grabby
I'm not against cash shops when it comes to additional things; i.e. skins and such. But ZOS really does go out of their way to create artificial problems for the player so you have to pay money to solve them, it's actually probably one of my biggest pain points with the game (been here since launch). I just wish they would overhaul it so it were a more honest practice, without nonsense like crown crates and preying on newer players or price gouging for digital items. But let's be honest it won't ever happen. It gives me some concern that the game has entered it's 'twilight' phase where they maximize monetization and profits at the expense of the players. DCUO has done this and it is so blatant and awful.
When I was still learning how to play, I didn't know of these shrines or even the bank being account wide.
The game doesn't respect the player. The end goal of mmos are comestic rewards and in this game everything is cash shop. There's nothing to do in the game when it comes to progression and rewards and the devs are fine with it because this game's cash shop probably makes more than wow and ffxiv cash shop combined lol
These companies underestimate the players constantly.
As a brand new player - and brand new to this type of game - and having absolutely no knowledge (other than having seen my kids slay dragons before they left home) - i feel that there is not a lot of really simple information available.
I mean kids these days are born knowing how to unlock the smart tv and drive ipads/phones.....i am still learning, and learning this game feels like a uni degree, not fun like it should be.
Thankyou for taking the time to put your thoughts into the arena on this topic, as i was really confused about this blow up.
I've seen this in the crowns store before and I always dismissed it because I know that you can do it in game for gold and I also know that companies are predatory with their in-game stores kind of like how you can buy riding traits in the store it takes forever to fully train your amount skills so I understand that part of it.
Companies will do anything to make a buck and honestly Elder scrolls online is pretty fair in what they sell compared to other companies.
do I think that this item should be in the store ? No
They have disgusting business practices.
They don't give a single F about the players, only thing that matters is how much money they can make off these idiots...
I put a Forum post "Tutorial VS Crown Store" in the quest board. Go like it to tell ZOS that a "Rededication" paragraph buried deep deep in the "Help" encyclopedia is no good
I agree that addressing the game issues should be the focus, but Rich and others from the dev community have made the decision to be "public" faces for the company instead of just behind the scenes. By doing so they open themselves up to criticisms whether they like it or not. Rich's reaction did an immeasurable amount of damage to both his personal reputation and the public perception of ZOS in general. The tweet was a marketing disaster that opened the lid to this game's coffin, his response, just added a box of nails and a hammer.
Been a player since beta, more on and off these days. But the day they decided that the 'chapters' wouldn't be included in the ESO+ service , breaking the statement that all DLC was to be free under it, really felt like they had turned an unfortunate corner. This doesn't surprise me.
@NefasQS, In your opinion,Do u think 94k dps is high enough to complete any content?
Speaking of which. Do normal XP scroll still work for pvp skill tree xp?
Remember when games offered a complete and fun experience for either a monthly sub (WoW vanilla, Everquest, UO, etc.) or for just the box price (GW1, etc.) with no cash shop or other predatory monetization systems?
I don't think during those times developers "couldn't feed their families" with the money they were making from the sub or box price. Most game companies are just straight up greedy as fuck nowadays. I'm sorry but if anyone thinks that game companies implement cash shops, loot boxes, etc., to "feed their families" or "improve the game" you're just stupid.
I think that ZOS is getting overly greedy on things they are pitching as quality of life. The armory system was a fantastic idea with really terrible execution. It costs way too much per slot considering you have to buy it per character. The fact that it would cost 216k crowns (~$1500) to purchase all possible slots for something that was supposed to be a huge play as you like pitch is absurd. I also don't think it should have been tied to an assistant or housing and instead should have been part of the menus like your inventory is. It went from a beacon of hope that console would get a respec system worth using to little more than novelty or a free reset where most people will buy few if any slots. Also mounts are due for an update, its incredibly punishing to a new player/ character to have to go 180 days to fully upgrade or require purchases from the cash shop to shorten it. That's way too long for a per character grind.
Developers need to eat, sure, but at this point, I think it is fair to say that most of the revenue from the crown store isn’t likely going into the stomachs of the developers. Microsoft bought ZoS (at a high price) and they didn’t do so to acquire ZoS technology. Inside ZoS, the pressure is now on to provide solid returns on that investment, with quarterly profits pocketed by Microsoft’s executives and shareholders. What players should be more concerned with (imho) is the extent to which this pressure will further decrease the value of their subscription (i.e., ESO plus) as new features once provided as part of their membership are now packaged as “extras” available only through the crown store. When revamped features, such as the armory system, are monetized and offered exclusively as a feature of the crown store (even when aspects of that feature set are given away “free to subscribers”) then players should be questioning what their “ESO Plus” membership is buying them.
It could be claimed that subscription fees cover server hardware costs, but if you can’t PvP due to performance lag, PvPers must be thinking, their money isn’t buying them much. For PvEers, novel experiences that allow the player to experience themselves as growing (i.e., fulfilling their “self-expansion” needs) is usually key. But nearly all novel content in ESO is already sold separately in the form of expansions and DLCs. Additionally, despite a massive overhaul of the champion point system and the combat system, these changes haven’t provided much in terms of new ways to be in game. What is the point of having more than 1600 CP? Are not changes to skill rotations, just doing the same thing over and over again in a slightly different way?
So, in my mind, the issue is that ESO Plus has become like a subscription to Microsoft Word. Subscribers are paying for continued access to software in which new features are rarely provided even though the cost of software development has been fully recovered many times over. The issue with tweets, such as these, is that they make clear that despite claims the player community is a “part of us [sic], in every sense of the word” ZoS has no compunctions milking players for every cent they can get. Giving away a DLC “for free” to players who’ve already paid for its development through purchases and subscriptions, or discounts to features already available in game, doesn’t show customer appreciation. Its rubbing players noses in the sunk costs of their investment.
i cant just help it to stop thinking there should be tons more furnishings in game available to players,.- i mean instead they have made a dozen of different meshes for burn brenches which are for no good use or a ton of burnt trees no one will ever use and so on, why.
I'm always of a mind that microtransactions devalue a game because that content could've been a regular update or a permanent effect for everyone. The idea that people won't eat without them rings hollow to me because I'm not a kid that grew up knowing only microtransactions - I had to watch them bleed into every single corner of the industry slowly over many years. At the same time, I also watched players complain about having to pay a subscription just to play a game. I watched them complain about having to buy the game once and pay no subscription. They complained about the giant paywalls of early F2P games. It went back and forth until we got the monetization models that games like ESO have. So who's really at fault? Is it the playerbase for getting exactly what they asked for or these companies for giving them exactly what they asked for? I guess all of this is to say you can't have it both ways.
Heh, you may disagree with me on this, but I think you make valid and balanced points here. There is so much really enjoyable fun stuff in ESO. The direction of putting all the best and coolest looking goodies behind a paywall is not a good one, because it suggests that even for us who have bought the game and subscribe to ESO+ will always have to spend even more money to get the neatest looking skins, mounts, pets and what-hav-you.
Vampire and Werewolf infections can be had for free, from NPC mobs. You just have to look for them, and get bit. Or puked on(?), in the case of Vampires. It's kinda weird... But this is actually a pretty fun thing to do, if you are looking to add either of these afflictions to a character. Lots of vids here on TH-cam too, to highlight some of the places to look for these mobs. It even gets you a little bit of extra quest-like flavor-text. Even if you have no interest in playing a Vampire or Werewolf, it might be worth leveling each skill-line to 10, just to unlock a total of 4 (pretty sure it's 4) dyes, then simply pay any Priest of Arkay to cure you. The point is, all this can already be done in-game, without the Shop or even asking other players for bites in /z.
I was just randomly recommended this video so I checked it out not knowing my tweet was in it 😂 thanks for the content bro!
the only actual controversy is people accepting ESO as canon lore... There, i've said it. ESO should be seen as Elder Scrolls expanded universe, non-canon, IMO
It's the same feeling you get in many other games which come from older franchises:
The segmented/cartel style of limited/portioned quick paid for content isn't good when you are offering a quality 'service'.
The prices are indeed steep in eso, almost ridiculously in some sections of the store (housing)
I wonder who owns the crown/gold exchange sites, Nefas?
Pro Tipp: Sell the Crowns and you can Respec as much you want for gold.
or you could just buy gold from a third party site like many others have done and not give zos anymore money because they don’t deserve it. or use in game gold to buy crowns from other players to then buy the respecs.
@@hometownheros123 yikes... third party sites that sell in-game currencies are even worse.
@@hometownheros123 Nah, gold sellers ruin games, fuck them. I'd rather give 20x the money to a game dev than ever give a single penny to buy gold from gold sellers/third party sites. They are almost the sole reason bots exist in games, and they fuck up in game economies, every single mmo in history, pretty much.
Respec scrolls is predatory on new players full stop.
i dont even play eso anymore im just here cause im bored waiting for elden ring
I've been playing since beta. When they added crates i had 5k crowns and thought i'd give it a try. I had never bought crates before and thought i'd at least get some good stuff from them. All i got was a haircut and the rest were potions and scrolls. I was so pissed and felt so ripped off i immediately canceled my subscription and stopped playing until greymoor was announced and decided to come back and give it another try.
My biggest problem with all of it is the prices. You dont feel like you are getting a good value. Their crown store strategy is pretty stupid tbh. their idea they clearly go with is "what is the maximum people are willing to pay for this" and that is a horrible way to treat players. If they were to cut prices in half for example, for every 1 sale they get now they would get like 3 or more. Making them more money and making the community feel like its not being ripped off. I dont think the rarity of crown items is an argument since literally no one cares if someone has rare cosmetics or not. They only care if they themselves have it or not. And there are so many cosmetics that seeing the same ones over and over is slim. So i think this entire problem would be solved if they cut prices because it would be a win/win for everyone involved. People are justifiably upset over all of it. Especially longtime players since it has been a problem building up more and more over time.
And as for loot crates, it would also show they care about their community if they willingly adopted microsoft's policy of actually getting the value you put in back in crates... spending $50 and getting $10 worth of stuff isnt ok just because there is a tiny chance you might get your money's worth. And continuing to do that really is just saying they don't care about us. They love talking about how great the community is and how much they care, but as time goes on people are seeing more and more that isnt the case and its just talk. I stopped spending in the crown store, but if they lowered their prices i would actually start buying things i like again and i know a ton of others would too
The age old question: how do you monetize an endlless game? Maybe the problem isn't with the monetization but with the entire concept of MMOs altogether.
a year ago i would argue the crown store as important to maintaining the developers and compamy, but with the microsoft purchase of bethesda and zos youd think the crown store would have been better adjusted(prices lowered) and still not treated as a expensive gamble on items/lootboxes
If they don't make enough money from making new content and the cosmetic shop then wtf do people expect them to do? This is capitalism (which I'm not a fan of in general) , if you want the game to stick around then you'll have to put up with the relentless pursuit of profit.
I bought like 3 of the storage chests because I didn't realize they were available from the writ merchant... I have 3.5k hours in eso and I knew of the telvar price but I'm not a great PVPer so I thought I would never be able to save up enough telvar... little did I know anyone could get them for a few thousand gold instead of $20 each. Yet another $60 mistake thanks to the crown store in harmony with the obscurity of the game
Go non champ IC not many people down there you can farm tel var with almost no player interaction
@@PBRHydra420 sure but they still cost 200 thousand telvar. One session of farming might get you a couple thousand
First time buying crates I bought 15 best thing I got was a small black sheep and 5 of the same shoulder but that I don't like
Typical lol.. feelsbadman
They had me buying those skill respec quiete a few times and when I first started and didn’t find out about shrine til way later by a player lol they do that spec for a reason to get every new player atkeast once
The crown store has been going down hill faster and faster. They take advantage of new players and worst of all they have gambling mechanics that shouldn't be allowed in any videos games at all! Yet Zenimax exploits the hell out of it. Want one of those cool new mounts? Well hope you've got $500 to waste. Who needs to pay bills anyway? It's clear they've started caring more about money than having a good game. It's bad enough to have to buy the game but then you have to pay for a subscription and on top of that the crown store will literally cost you your first born child to buy anything.
I like the objective non emotional opinion that I kind of expected from Nefas...as he always is. Nefas will definitely state his unbiased opinion too which I respect. Although....I would love to have heard the emotional opinion of Nefas on this just for lols... I'm sure theres a THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT ZOS held back somewhere in there!
They should hire Nefas as a Business Consultant. He's so Wise!
I stand united with the players!
(Oh, wait, I quit ESO. Haven't most by now? Oh well. Hello anyway, Nefas!)
#PvPPerformanceIsDogshit (LOL)
Never been a fan of the crate random see what the RNG gives you idea. I would be okay if they just listed them for a set price in the store so I could just buy what I wanted. They would make a lot more money off me that way and I would have the styles and such that I want. When it’s behind an RNG wall I actually spend less.
to be fair, if you sell all the crate consumables which you should, buying crates is like buying a certain number of gems plus a chance to get the stuff you wanted right away. This system would be better if the drop rate for the medium-tier stuff was higher. I'll often end up with 3 apex mounts but only half of the blue quality items after opening 45 crates. I understand that the radiant apex is like the lottery but the legendary, epic, superior rewards are the bread and butter and you always seem to get a disappointing proportion of them.
Use your gems or endeavors to pick what you want from the crate items.