When did you start getting into Housing?

Glorious_Platypus

It's so funny because the primary reason I was, and still am, drawn to ESO is not because I'm a diehard Elder Scrolls nerd ( what a flex bro!) but because of the game's seemingly robust housing system.

But ironically I haven't touched ESO's housing yet. It's very daunting. There's this great mystery of how to actually get, and make, furnishings for the dwelling. I don't know how much there is out there to get but it seems like a lot, and I have a grand total of like... 7 items. And I have NO CLUE where to get more. And I've been playing for months dude.

And I don't know what the uses of it are. It just seems like playing doll house, like there's no function to it. If there was some real roleplay functionality to it, it would be so good, but there isn't. Like if my character had to rest every night and owning a home let him do it a lot better or cheaper than in an inn or something, or it gave my character a well rested combat buff. Or something. Like okay, you can put armor stations in your house... So what? Why should I care about that?

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

Rishikesa108

Housing is the ultimate end-game activity in this game.
In fact, to fully access the potential of obtaining furnishings and furnishing plans, you need to have completed everything the game has to offer.
If you've just started playing, I recommend maxing out crafting on at least one character while gathering as many nodes and resources from the environment as possible. Little by little, you'll be able to craft your own furniture.
I also suggest joining a solid trading guild to boost your gold income, as you will definitely need a lot of gold for housing. Start with a small apartment and furnish it simply at first. You'll see that in a couple of years, you'll be able to create stunning villas.
Regarding your other question: no, housing in ESO is not a native roleplaying activity. You can certainly roleplay using your houses together with friends and guildmates, but the game won't grant you any specific benefits or buffs just for building or decorating a home

BretonMage

Aside from decorating to feel like I have a home in Tamriel, something I like doing is crafting necessities like food and potions in my house. It feels homey. I also sometimes train on my dummy at home. The iron atro one that people use for parses is crown store only I believe, but you can get smaller skeleton ones for gold at the traders, just to practise on or to get an idea of your unbuffed DPS. My first inn rooms were decoration only though iirc.

SilverBride

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

When I decorate I don't try to make empty rooms look pretty. I won a guild housing contest once with bathrooms as the theme. Members all submitted beautiful fancy bathrooms... except me. I submitted a crime scene in my bathroom with overturned furnishings and a skeleton in the bathtub with a spider spinning a web around it. In my opinion creativity beats pretty any day.

So that is what housing is to me. A creative outlet.

Thoriorz

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

Housing is the ultimate end-game activity in this game.

Just a personal opinion.

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

In fact, to fully access the potential of obtaining furnishings and furnishing plans, you need to have completed everything the game has to offer.

Not really—most (or maybe all?) furnishing plnas can just be bought (and even if there were any account/soul bound, there probably aren't that many of them).
All you need is a decent in-game income (probably the most stable source is “Writ Empire,” and you don't have to farm blueprints manually at all...
And houses that cost Crowns can also be bought with gold (as gifts from other players).
You can get practically everything related to Housing with gold. There will probably be some things locked behind achievements or the like, but I don't think there are that many of them, so it's not necessary to unlock everything manually yourself. So, the more income you have, the better.

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

Housing is just “designing houses”; for some, it's a hobby (they'd like to design interiors in real life but do something else for example), some people just enjoy creating house interiors based on various themes (dark, nature, etc.), and others just like to show off what a “beautiful” house they've made. The reasons are personal, but as far as practical use goes, “Housing” has none.
I have two houses, but they’re practically unfurnished—in one, I only have chests, and it serves as storage; the other is near the Writ NPC where I do Master Writs(when you're craft alot master writs every week, and during an XP events hundreds—sometimes even over a thousand—master writs, you want to craft it as close as possible to the NPC where you turn them, yknow) and in that house is where I keep all my crafting stations and everything else related to crafting.
Neither of these houses is furnished at all, and when it comes to DPS testing, I use our guild hall, where the dummies are located.

Yes, housing in ESO is the “end game” for quite a few players, but it really comes down to how much gold you can produce—that’s pretty much it.
It also depends on how creative you are when decorating your house, because you could have 10 million gold a week and know all the furnishing plans (there are over 3,000 of them), but if you lack imagination, your house won’t be anything special, you know.

Personally, housing didn’t really appeal to me, and I’m not into Housing at all, but for a lot of people, it’s the main reason they play ESO.

ESO_player123

I agree with those that say that housing is a creative outlet. I'm not as talented as many housing enthusiasts here, but I like to build from scratch and transform the houses into something that they are not meant to be.

seecodenotgames

As soon as they added housing back in 2017 I was hyped, but in the early days it was much more difficult to build up crafting mats and furniture plans since I had less than 1 mil gold back then.

I started to get into housing more seriously late 2019 and by early 2020 I saw housing in ESO as a way to cope with the effects of lockdowns etc. I continued at the same pace for a few years, before slowing down the last couple of years. After taking a break from ESO last year and again this year, I haven't build anything new since January 2025, but I still check the luxury vendor and upgrade older houses when I get the chance.

AcadianPaladin

Though my elf finds fashion to be the 'end game' for ESO, we got into housing to some extent as a result of getting assaulted by neon cartoon exploding graphics in cities so built our own refuges where we can do everything possible outside cities. The game is missing the ability to access guild banks from home or to launder stolen items. Transitioned to repair kits instead of using city merchants some time ago. Because of the visual assault in cities, trying to reduce them to quest pickup/turn in hubs only. They are no longer enjoyable to visit.

I found the key to housing for me is to stick with smaller or medium houses and avoid the intimidation of big houses. And location matters - proximity to a wayshrine is the first thing I look for. Top houses for me are Snugpod in Grahtwood and the Cyrodiil Jungle house in Malabol Tor. Sleek Creek in Reapers is also a good choice.

YffresTrill

I stopped doing housing a year or so ago because the frustration of the grind (for gold, materials, and antiquities) and the boring loop of going from store to store looking for furnishings, trying them out, finding myself dissatisfied with many of them, then dumping them into storage, then looking through this storage, etc., etc.... got to be too much for me.

Now that I am no longer playing with ESO+, I am even less likely to get into housing again, because the already far too low furnishing limits are halved without it. I removed all furnishings from my dump houses and sold them off for a nice few millions in profit.

Frustrations (and there are many) aside, what drew me to housing was the creative expression aspect. I enjoy decorating houses to create an immersive environment. I always enjoyed this in the Sims (and still prefer it there -- mods, cheats, open plots, and no limits make it much less grindy and create a lot more variety).

I played the game before housing came out, and started it pretty much immediately. I began with an inn room and worked my way up to some medium-sized houses. My proudest work is an Outlaws Refuge in the basement of an abandoned warehouse (built in the Gardner House).

While I would like additional roleplay functionality built into the houses, it was never make-or-break for me. None of my houses are particularly "functional," with storage, crafting stations, or dummies, because these things do not suit the environment I was trying to create.

Glorious_Platypus

SilverBride wrote: »

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

When I decorate I don't try to make empty rooms look pretty. I won a guild housing contest once with bathrooms as the theme. Members all submitted beautiful fancy bathrooms... except me. I submitted a crime scene in my bathroom with overturned furnishings and a skeleton in the bathtub with a spider spinning a web around it. In my opinion creativity beats pretty any day.

So that is what housing is to me. A creative outlet.

And I could be that creative, if I had the furnishings items to do it. But as it stands now, again, I said it's a great mystery and it is lol.

Even after I find out how/where to get the items, I find it very unlikely that I'll be allowed to just purchase them, they will be locked behind achievements or something. Years of playing. Or I drop $300 on Crowns.

freespirit

@Thoriorz I think when talking about needing to have completer whole game, the post is talking about each zones achievement furnishings, which are ofc bound and many are very pretty or nothing similar is as easily available, also the same goes for furniture locked behind Antiquities.

To the op, many people do decorate to make a place pleasing to look at and there aren't that many items that are useful to your characters, a quick list......

Master Crafting Tables
Basic Crafting Tables
Full Set of Mundus Stones
Banker, Merchant etc
Aetherial Well - use to refill attributes and ultimate
Basin of Loss and Thrall - for use to gain and lower Vampire levels
Trial Dummies and Basic Dummies - use for practising rotations and improving dps
Storage Chests
Furniture Vault - extra furniture storage, ESO+ perk

Can't think of others but there may be more.

Glorious_Platypus

freespirit wrote: »

@Thoriorz I think when talking about needing to have completer whole game, the post is talking about each zones achievement furnishings, which are ofc bound and many are very pretty or nothing similar is as easily available, also the same goes for furniture locked behind Antiquities.

To the op, many people do decorate to make a place pleasing to look at and there aren't that many items that are useful to your characters, a quick list......

Master Crafting Tables
Basic Crafting Tables
Full Set of Mundus Stones
Banker, Merchant etc
Aetherial Well - use to refill attributes and ultimate
Basin of Loss and Thrall - for use to gain and lower Vampire levels
Trial Dummies and Basic Dummies - use for practising rotations and improving dps
Storage Chests
Furniture Vault - extra furniture storage, ESO+ perk

Can't think of others but there may be more.

The crafting tables, and bankers/merchants... I could do without. I like going into the city and seeing other players, etc, and doing my daily crafting. It's for that reason that the Alinor Crest Townhome is still one of the more appealing houses to be able to buy, and I completed the achievement for Summerset to be able to get it. But I still haven't bought it because I only have 1 million gold and what if I find another great house that I like more, that costs similarly.

The mundus stones, and everything else, that all sounds great to have.

SilverBride

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

When I decorate I don't try to make empty rooms look pretty. I won a guild housing contest once with bathrooms as the theme. Members all submitted beautiful fancy bathrooms... except me. I submitted a crime scene in my bathroom with overturned furnishings and a skeleton in the bathtub with a spider spinning a web around it. In my opinion creativity beats pretty any day.

So that is what housing is to me. A creative outlet.

And I could be that creative, if I had the furnishings items to do it. But as it stands now, again, I said it's a great mystery and it is lol.

Even after I find out how/where to get the items, I find it very unlikely that I'll be allowed to just purchase them, they will be locked behind achievements or something. Years of playing. Or I drop $300 on Crowns.

The only locked furnishings I know of are those found through leads and the antiquity system. And once we find 3 of them and complete the codex then we can purchase them from the achievement merchant.

I have one dedicated crafter that learns every furnishing pattern I can find. She knows a lot so it's rarely a problem to make what I need now. Before I craft a furnishing for anything I use the housing purchase tab to preview it in the space to see if it fits how I imagine it.

Housing is very expensive as some furnishings require expensive mats to craft them. That is why I got into trading, so I could buy what I need and not spend my time farming. It takes some dedication but I am now pretty much set.

Then there is the luxury furniture merchant that sells items we can't get anywhere else every weekend. If we miss out on something they can often be found on traders as they are not bound.

If you are on PCNA I'd be glad to make you some things to help you get started and see if it's something you want to pursue.

SerafinaWaterstar

I would suggest joining a decent guild that could help & support

I’d also use the Housing Tour thingy to have a look at what others do (though some are so brilliant you can feel like giving up. But don’t. Some genius did a house with a dragon coming through the wall at the Wrothgar house and it is so fabulous & creative its awesome, but I know I could never do that so there’s no point in comparing things).

I have many many houses. Some done, some not, some storage (Grand Topal odds & ends, the Colossal Aldmeri Garden Centre & Arboretum, the Doomchar Architectural salvage yard & the Big Blue Coldharbour facility). I have had houses for years before I get the idea of what I want to do with them. And then it can take hours/days, and they grow organically, and I do them just for me & my enjoyment.

I find it joyful & relaxing & very satisfying. Hope you end up doing so too.

SilverBride

Just to give some background on how serious I am about housing, I currently own 59 houses and every one is decorated, from the smallest apartment to the largest estate.

Glorious_Platypus

@SerafinaWaterstar I will not be joining any guild. Well, maybe a trading guild. But that's it. No socializing for me, no fake friends that you play with for 6 months or a year before the group falls apart due to drama or the "glue" person goes off to college. Lol. Thanks for the suggestion though.

@SilverBride That's insane, nice

reazea

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

It's so funny because the primary reason I was, and still am, drawn to ESO is not because I'm a diehard Elder Scrolls nerd ( what a flex bro!) but because of the game's seemingly robust housing system.

But ironically I haven't touched ESO's housing yet. It's very daunting. There's this great mystery of how to actually get, and make, furnishings for the dwelling. I don't know how much there is out there to get but it seems like a lot, and I have a grand total of like... 7 items. And I have NO CLUE where to get more. And I've been playing for months dude.

And I don't know what the uses of it are. It just seems like playing doll house, like there's no function to it. If there was some real roleplay functionality to it, it would be so good, but there isn't. Like if my character had to rest every night and owning a home let him do it a lot better or cheaper than in an inn or something, or it gave my character a well rested combat buff. Or something. Like okay, you can put armor stations in your house... So what? Why should I care about that?

If housing is just "I'm gonna make this empty room look pretty" and that's it, then I'm kinda not understanding it. Thoughts?

I'm not into housing. I hate it. Housing takes the focus off the actual game and is an unneeded distraction from the actual game. I wish housing was never introduced into ESO.

Glorious_Platypus

Honestly I only want a house with views. Every time I tour a house and it looks like it could have views, it is ruined or blocked by something, or giant pillars infront of the view.

I just toured the Grand Gallery house in the Rift, which is unobtainable actually, but that house would be great if it weren't the giant stone squares they put on the top of the walls.

I do know that yes you can put your own floor in to be able to "erase" those, but what would I even use, and how would I find it. Let alone something that matches the color of the rest of the stone used.

Daggerfall Overlook is like this also. It's like EVERY house has this problem. If you go over to the "overlook" part, on the left after entering, like, yeah, there's a view... but there's also huge brick bollards in the way of the view

freespirit

@Glorious_Platypus I joined two trading guilds back in 2014/2015 both are still going strong.

My "fake friends" are very real to me, we chat outside of the game frequently, two have got married and now have children, all of us are way too old for college!!

Sometimes this stuff really works.

Btw I have just shy of 100 houses but unlike @SilverBride less than half of mine are decorated and I'm actually in the process of completely starting again with several of them. Some I purchased and am still waiting for inspiration, largely because I most enjoy building my own homes and fitting them in existing houses(whilst hiding the existing buildings) can take some thought.

BretonMage

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

Honestly I only want a house with views. Every time I tour a house and it looks like it could have views, it is ruined or blocked by something, or giant pillars infront of the view.

The Psijic Villa and Sweetwater Cascades have nice views. There are a number with nice views iirc, you can do a search for it.

Lugaldu

I started with Housing right from my start in 2018, but it was with Elsweyr and the free house, that I discovered that we can build interesting stuff from scratch and not "just" decorate Inn-rooms.
Ever since, Housing is my endgame and I dont want to calculate how much money I spent on this... But I am saying to myself, that I have more (longer) fun from buying one new house than from a visit in the restaurant. So, for me its worth.

Soarora

NPCs kept making fun of me for not having a house, so I got one. My first house, the Alinor inn, is furnished… chaotically. From there, I started furnishing houses as homes. Often, but not always, as places for my character lore. I guess the “roleplay value” is in knowing where my ocs live haha.

SilverBride

freespirit wrote: »

I most enjoy building my own homes and fitting them in existing houses(whilst hiding the existing buildings)

I'm the exact opposite of this. I much prefer decorating already constructed buildings and have only built a couple on empty lots from the ground up. I never block access to structures or rooms with one exception. I did block the 3 rooms in the Night's Den because I have no interest in the Night Market and know I will never do what it takes to open them.

I have separated big rooms into smaller ones and added upper floors to houses that had tall ceilings. And I've completely covered over walls and floors and ceilings with different styles.

But the best thing about housing is there are so many options and we can all decorate the way we enjoy the most.

DoofusMax

Speaking to my main account, I think I got semi-serious about decorating my primary residence around the time that I finished filling up the Grand Master crafting stations.Figure about maybe four years after I started ESO? I've almost always had one house with basic crafting stations and my storage chests/coffers, but once the Grand Master stations got close to being my go-to for doing Master Writs, I starting thinking more in terms of "what does it look like?" more than "what's its function?"

Prior to that, I had furnishing storage areas because of loot drops and antiquities and no way to decon those (there still isn't; hint-hint, ZOS?), I'd placed a Banker assistant in most of the not-inn-room houses I picked up along the way, and usually the Armory station since characters often needed to respec for various reasons. Those are still there, but mostly unused these days. Once I started thinking in terms of looks, then I started consciously looking for specifically themed furnishings (craftable when I could find them, but ready-made when not) for that specific house. Other houses are still in "waiting on my muse" phase, except Coldharbour which is still the "Surreal Storage Area," but I've at least got a decent idea of where I want to go with my primary one.