[Housing] [Suggestion & Feature Request] Portals for Player Homes

neveroddoreven · October 12

Hey there,

I wanted to share an idea that recently came to mind and see what other players think about it. And who knows — maybe the devs will find it interesting and doable!

I’m talking about adding to player housing an existing feature from the game — portals, like the ones we’ve seen in the Arcane University and Eld Angavar battlegrounds. Specifically, I mean a pair of linked points (an entry and an exit), where you can interact with the entry point simply by stepping onto it — it teleports you to the exit point, which can be located anywhere, even above or below the entry.

Implementing this feature in player homes would be very helpful, especially for multi-level houses (like towers) or separated structures (like floating islands). Stairs are not always convenient or aesthetically fitting — and, in my opinion, the game still doesn’t have enough good stairs

There’s also a precedent for bringing battleground features into housing — for example, the Furnishing Pack: Combat Training, which includes interactive buffs. So I believe this portal feature could easily be introduced as a furnishing pack as well, maybe something like 'Furnishing Pack: Paired Portals', allowing players to buy as many pairs as they need for their specific homes and layouts.

I’ll also attach a screenshot showing how the portals looked on the battlegrounds, for those who don’t remember or haven’t seen them before.

It’d be great to hear from anyone who finds this idea appealing — feel free to share your thoughts or add your own spin on it!

SilverBride · October 12

Kelesan'ruhn has a portal type thing that goes from one of the buildings to the other, so it's already been done in a player house. That should make it easier to turn it into a furnishing.

LunaFlora · October 12

yea this would be awesome. very useful

neveroddoreven · October 13

SilverBride wrote: »

Kelesan'ruhn has a portal type thing that goes from one of the buildings to the other, so it's already been done in a player house. That should make it easier to turn it into a furnishing.

True! But if I remember correctly, that thing in Kelesan’ruhn works more like an elevator — it only moves you vertically, and there’s a brief fade-to-black 'teleportation' animation. So conceptually, I wouldn’t really call it a portal.

That said, you’re absolutely right that something similar already exists in that house — it’s just a pity it’s the only one! Hopefully that means adding a proper portal system to other homes, maybe as a furnishing item, wouldn’t be too difficult to implement

SilverBride · October 13

neveroddoreven wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Kelesan'ruhn has a portal type thing that goes from one of the buildings to the other, so it's already been done in a player house. That should make it easier to turn it into a furnishing.

True! But if I remember correctly, that thing in Kelesan’ruhn works more like an elevator — it only moves you vertically, and there’s a brief fade-to-black 'teleportation' animation. So conceptually, I wouldn’t really call it a portal.

The player steps into it which moves the player vertically through the portal, but the player transports horizontally to the building next to that one.

Any portal or door etc. within a house will have some kind of animation as the other screen loads. But regardless, this does exist in a player house so it should be doable.

MoonPile · October 13

Yes, agree. This is a popular request many housers want. Not least of all because it can save slots: instead of reskinning / railroading to a build location, use portals.

It's on my Master List of popular requests too:
https://moonpile.tumblr.com/post/787994604272238592/eso-housing-wishlist-master-post

Custom-placed portals / entrance:

Could be a 2-way portal, similar to those in dungeons. Might be 2 different features: custom placed portals & custom spawn point.

NOT more load screens please. 1-second black screens like base game doors have are fine.
Setting a custom entrance could ideally bypass extra load screens in houses like Hall of the Lunar Champion: you’d enter directly into the set wing.

Allowing players and visitors to port directly to a build site could save up to hundreds of slots that get wasted on reskinning....

live_mehve · October 14

Teleport pads would be really awesome to create some fun traversals in large builds, and a great item-slot saver fir sure!

I also really like the idea of the spawn point into a home being player placed. And if we can grab the entrance to place in another home to connect separate homes together, it can really create the sense of a bigger home without necessarily needing to increase item limits. I believe this last part is already possible in EHT, so maybe someday this feature will be available to everyone.

~mehve

Xbox/NA/EU : mehve
PC/NA/EU : live_mehve
PS/NA : Mehve-chan

msgeek · October 14

Agree it would be awesome.

The biggest issue the devs face will be that there is nothing to prevent placing a portal out-of-bounds. (or any furnishing for that matter).

Whilst i'm entirely certain housing enthusiasts would find such a capability amazing and find countless uses for it, i'm sure it's a capability they don't want to give players for how game-breaking it could be.

It'd only be possible if they implemented a new capability restricting the portals (and only the portals, otherwise they'll break existing builds) to specific regions of each house... that basically means building a separate set of walls in EVERY existing house. A massive undertaking.

neveroddoreven · October 15

msgeek wrote: »

The biggest issue the devs face will be that there is nothing to prevent placing a portal out-of-bounds. (or any furnishing for that matter).

That’s a really good point — I can totally see how letting portals be placed out of bounds could cause trouble. Maybe adding a simple line-of-sight check during placement would already prevent most of it. And just in case, a small fail-safe when activating the portal (to block teleporting if the destination is outside playable space) could cover the rest 🤷🏼‍♂️

MoonPile · October 15

msgeek wrote: »

Agree it would be awesome.

The biggest issue the devs face will be that there is nothing to prevent placing a portal out-of-bounds. (or any furnishing for that matter).

Whilst i'm entirely certain housing enthusiasts would find such a capability amazing and find countless uses for it, i'm sure it's a capability they don't want to give players for how game-breaking it could be.

It'd only be possible if they implemented a new capability restricting the portals (and only the portals, otherwise they'll break existing builds) to specific regions of each house... that basically means building a separate set of walls in EVERY existing house. A massive undertaking.

That is a good point. What if the portal could only be placed where the character can move? Kind of like how Magic Carpet addon moves the "carpet" item under you. There are still a couple of houses people have "broken the wall" in, but that's less of an issue than *every* house.

Crafting stations are the only other thing I can think of that have a placement requirement to work, but I guess that might be very different in the back-end, vs portals.

cyclonus11 · October 17

MoonPile wrote: »

Crafting stations are the only other thing I can think of that have a placement requirement to work, but I guess that might be very different in the back-end, vs portals.

Chairs have to be placed correctly to be used. The same can be for portals. If it's not placed flat or if there are obstructions it would be "yellow" and nonfunctional (but they can still be decorative).