[Housing] Books Should Not Take Regular Furnishing Slots

Asdara

They are interactive elements and represent a player’s journey, achievements, and dedication to exploring the game’s lore. Despite their importance, the current housing system treats books as regular furnishings, which significantly limits players' ability to create more meaningful homes.

For me, housing should be an extension of a player's creativity and immersion. Yet, the inclusion of books as regular furnishings forces difficult and often impossible compromises. Imagine a player (absolutely not me) who dreams of crafting a grand library; they will always find themselves running out of furnishing slots before even beginning to realize their vision. (With around 500 lore books and a max of 700 slots, it’s simply too restrictive.)

A better approach would be to introduce a dedicated system for books in housing. This could allow books to occupy unique slots separate from standard furnishings, freeing up space for players to create immersive homes without losing the ability to showcase their literary collections.
This approach would not negatively affect performance. Books in the game are relatively lightweight objects that do not demand significant computational resources. They lack complex animations or detailed 3D models, so the system used to manage them would not require any additional processing power beyond what is already used for static furniture. In fact, by adding a slot category for books or incorporating them into the collectible limit, the game would easily handle them without issues.

Thank you for coming to my TED TALK

TX12001rwb17_ESO

You know a better idea would be to make it so all unlocked books can be read from any "Filled" bookshelf furniture item, the book furniture items would just be so you can place a specific book or two on a desk or table.

Or you can have them work like the Grandmaster crafting stations, feed books to the bookshelf, this would probably be a better option as that way you could choose what books each bookshelf would have.

Asdara

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

You know a better idea would be to make it so all unlocked books can be read from any "Filled" bookshelf furniture item, the book furniture items would just be so you can place a specific book or two on a desk or table.

Or you can have them work like the Grandmaster crafting stations, feed books to the bookshelf, this would probably be a better option as that way you could choose what books each bookshelf would have.

and at the and each bookshelve act like "menu" or book category? say i press on my alinor library i can read all the books i uploaded inside, that'd be insane

katanagirl1

I don’t know if the assumption that books would not negatively affect performance is accurate, I don’t see any way to know for sure. Yes, it does not require computations but may be a database issue when used inside housing. I am thinking along the lines similar to rooms outside of housing that seem to be able to hold many more furnishings than an equivalent space inside housing. I assume it has to do with the fact that housing items are not static when placed and can be moved around.

It would be interesting to be able to get feedback on this from the devs but I would not expect it.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Books are the exact same as many other furniture items and require the same amount of resources. Might even require more resources than some because they are interactable and have unique readable content in them on interact. There is no way for them to be treated less than let's say a pillow.

What could be interesting though is to add something like the grand master crafting stations, but it's for books. A grand library bookcase if you may. Which you can add known books to.

katanagirl1

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Books are the exact same as many other furniture items and require the same amount of resources. Might even require more resources than some because they are interactable and have unique readable content in them on interact. There is no way for them to be treated less than let's say a pillow.

What could be interesting though is to add something like the grand master crafting stations, but it's for books. A grand library bookcase if you may. Which you can add known books to.

That would be nice, especially if it would already look like there were books on the shelf and you didn’t have to spend hours rotating each one so it sits on the shelf realistically when you add it.

EDIT: typo

Asdara

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Books are the exact same as many other furniture items and require the same amount of resources. Might even require more resources than some because they are interactable and have unique readable content in them on interact. There is no way for them to be treated less than let's say a pillow.

What could be interesting though is to add something like the grand master crafting stations, but it's for books. A grand library bookcase if you may. Which you can add known books to.

i agree, but your argument just shows how pointless the "collectible" category is.
A bust or a trophy doesn't use less resources than regular furnishings (say a "pillow" as mentioned earlier), especially not books.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Asdara wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Books are the exact same as many other furniture items and require the same amount of resources. Might even require more resources than some because they are interactable and have unique readable content in them on interact. There is no way for them to be treated less than let's say a pillow.

What could be interesting though is to add something like the grand master crafting stations, but it's for books. A grand library bookcase if you may. Which you can add known books to.

i agree, but your argument just shows how pointless the "collectible" category is.
A bust or a trophy doesn't use less resources than regular furnishings (say a "pillow" as mentioned earlier), especially not books.

The collector categories are pointless to me, same would a book one be pointless. I'd much prefer if it was all just 1 type.
The only category that is somewhat different is the special collectables, which has pets, mounts, houseguests etc. They likely use more resources because of pathing, animation etc.

IsharaMeradin

It would be nice to have a bookcase "container" with pre-defined appearance slots that are initially empty. As books are added, the slots are "filled" and the pre-defined appearance is shown. The books themselves would not take up a furnishing slot as they would be inside a container.

It would be similar to the current storage containers. A small half-size bookcase could hold 30 and the full-size could hold 60. If they want to be nice and do a large wide size that could hold 120, even better.

The pre-defined appearance slots would be the trigger point for reading a particular book. If the Nth appearance slot is clicked, the book in the Nth spot of the container's content list would be shown for reading.

tsaescishoeshiner

Given that each individual book item has a 3D model, it makes sense to be counted among other 3D models in the regular furnishing item limit.

But maybe there could be a Master Bookshelf where you could "feed" it your books, and a player can read any book furnishing that you've collected anytime, all in one furnishing. Like the Master crafting stations, but for books.

DP99

Yes, this is why my Alpine Gallery house has the whole upper room filed with empty bookshelves!

I wanted to fill them up and have a nice library, but no, the limit of items was reached, so that's out.

If the books just showed up on the shelves or something instead, that would be much better.

liliub17_ESO

When I first started in the housing aspect, I planned to 'build' a library using the book sets I'd unlocked with my character(s). The books would then be interactive instead of just paint on a bookshelf.

Alas, I very quickly realized how many earned books were in the game - and how many furnishing slots they consumed to the cost of just about everything else. Thus the idea was scrapped. (Using a few thematically, less of a problem.)

A compromise would be if each *set* of interactive books earned counted as a single furnishing slot instead of individually.