To the housing devs, regarding U43 and housing

kind_hero · July 4

I have a lot of admiration for the housing team, and for the devs responsible for creating the landscapes and everything that is so beautiful in Tamriel.

I am just a big fan of housing of of the idea of creating your own little corner(s) in this fantasy world, like most of you are.

Consider that I am playing since beta times, almost without pause. I pay a sub for many years, exactly since housing was introduced. Housing is the reason I pay for ESO plus, and the reason I occasionally buy crowns - most of the times to buy houses or rare furnishings.

My first question to the lead of the team is, do you (ever) read the feedback? I am curious if you guys have a list with the most requested features, and a timeline for implementing some of those.
For example, it baffles me why you can't deliver weapon racks, armor mannequins and empty planters, which are among the most requested items (as I said I am here from the beginning of this forum). They aren't so complex as a huge tree with VFX or animated ink sculptures. It really puzzles me that you can't do that. Racks, dummies and planters were first requested seven years ago!

My second question is about slots. I can accept that the largest houses have 700 slots, a system cap, but can't accept that a medium house can't be upgraded to the cap of 700, or have 10 more slots for a large inn room like the Rose Wine. Why can't people upgrade the slot count by at least 10% with crowns? Besides, why can't I have more NPC guests in a house, why can't I have more special collectibles? This has nothing to do with the cap, some of these items are static items that do nothing, but have a different tag in your system.

All of this (and more) has been discussed endlessly on this forum, with no or very little response from the team. Yet, you implement a system for people to visit more houses. Which is fine, it is a nice idea. However, to me it is you saying, we are very happy with housing as it is, we don't need to do anything more, just look at what amazing things people can already do with the system.

I watched the stream and saw no passion to add more, excitement for what awaits us in the future, just two people happy to play with a toy that does its thing. Please argue with me and say there is more in the near future. Like more interaction, puzzle building, teleports, traps, structural items, crafting station etc. I am really wondering why am I paying so many euros for something that gets so little improvement over the years, and to a company that has so little engagement with the players on feedback and feature requests. I know many people who invested a lot of money and gold into housing, but left the game because housing evolves so slowly. Like the luxury vendor which gets only one new item each weekend (crazy).

So, yeah... nice houses, but with Tours you added nothing to housing, it's just a way to socialize or promote a house, but many people don't make houses for that reason. The problem you are not seeing is that the housing community is waiting for a significant update for years, much like the pvp community, and the expectations were high. A large update is due. And housing tours wasn't that update.

WolfCombatPet · July 4

Well said.

Those things are exactly what we hoped this mystery big hype update would be.

And they gave us another outdoor area home that has a medium item limit

Like rubbing salt on open wounds after the first slash to the heart that was the feature announcement disappointment.

Here I am trying to get them to upgrade 600 slot homes to 700 slots. And devs are very happy to give me another outdoor area home... as a medium sized home.

It's on a mountain top! We have limitless building areas for anyone who wants to build a castle on top of that mountain... and we don't even get 700 slots for it.

Jimbru · July 4

Once again, ZOS is "generously giving" players a "feature" they didn't ask for, and ignoring what players actually want. Tales of Tribute and Scribing already followed that path; both are sitting ignored on my account. Now we have this "tour" thing for housing which is basically a ripoff of something you could already do with the EHT addon.

Let's be clear, ZOS. Here is what players REALLY want from housing:

1. Raise the furnishing limits on every size of house.

2. Add a furnishing bag to ESO+ similar to the crafting bag.

3. Every furnishing that can be seen in the game world should be available to players as a furnishing plan. Many styles have MANY missing pieces that can be seen in the game, but aren't available as furnishing plans. Alinor, Elsweyr, Leyawiin, High Isle, and Colovian are particularly guilty of this. I can also think of a particular Redguard bed that is only available for crowns in one house, an Imperial throne that is only in one or two houses, the full laundry basket found in many houses, the black ink pot with a white plume that can be seen many places (Alinor bank comes to mind) and of course THE ENTIRE IMPERIAL STYLE that is only available for crowns.

That's the minimum that most players are asking for. More space for furnishings, both in houses and in storage, and more plans to play with. To that I add:

4. Houses that are built like real houses. Frankly, most of the houses in game need to be remade in some way. They need flat walls, flat floors, better size scaling to our characters, and proper purpose, structure and symmetry. NOT the following:
- Mismatched or asymmetrical placements of walls and windows. (Ravenhurst mezzanine, High Isle inn room, many others).
- Floors that aren't flat and impossible to carpet. Floors should have only one level. (Orbservatory, Pariah's Pinnacle, Xanmeer, Wood Elf style, Argonian style, many others).
- Misaligned textures and un-centered windows (most houses, High Isle inn room being especially bad).
- Wall pillars taking up too much space (Nord and High Elf styles in general, Mara's Kiss especially needs totally rebuilt).
- Huge doors and high ceilings that look like they were designed for trolls and ogres, not relatively human sized players (most houses). Many/most furnishings are oversized as well.

5. Expand and simplify the buyable storage boxes. At a minimum, make all eight boxes sixty items each. Combining them all into one expandable box like our bank, starts at 60 and upgrades to equal the original eight boxes, would be even better.

6. Chamber pots and/or indoor plumbing. There is only one actual privy in the game, available only in one particular set associated with the Jester's Festival. Some house builders have come up with some very creative solutions to this problem, but it really shouldn't be a problem in the first place. I mean, let's face it: flushing toilets have been around in the real world since Mesopotamia in 3200 BCE. Item suggestion: a "Peryite Chamber Pot" with glowing green runes, home to a filthy minor daedra that gets rid of your waste for you.

MageCatF4F · July 4

Well, Kind Hero and wolfcombat pet and Jim bru (no need to hassle with alerts), I agree with all of that, except maybe number 6 above, but that does show a heap of imagination.

Someone will tell us "Oh no, that's impossible! They said so!"

Nothing is impossible except traveling from point A to point B faster than light.

Giving us 10 or 100 (wow - now I'm getting greedy) more slots is most certainly possible, even if you are still programming on 80 column Hollerith cards.

The other many suggestions referenced above are even more doable. Very disappointed in ZOS.

WolfCombatPet · July 4

Jimbru wrote: »

6. Chamber pots and/or indoor plumbing. There is only one actual privy in the game, available only in one particular set associated with the Jester's Festival.

That set is also $30.

The other items in that set are:
A gaudy jester pig no one wants
Alinor furnishings that are pocket change in gold

So the only chamber pot in ESO is $30 US.

Let's say you have 20 homes. That's 20 bathrooms. You want those 3-4 furnishings putting together a toilet to be used for something else. That would be $600 for chamber pots.

SilverBride · July 4

Jimbru wrote: »

Once again, ZOS is "generously giving" players a "feature" they didn't ask for...

Actually I have seen threads asking for ways to visit all of a player's houses and not just the primary. But other requests were much more prevalent.

j3z3b3l · July 5

As a Console player I was disappointed as well. We already share links to get to houses, use the rosters as well. While this is a nice addition, it is not an upgrade, a major change or what it has been hyped up to be for months.
Also, would like to point out that during the stream, mention of Console homes, was obsolete.
No use of mods to help us out, a smaller community by comparison and yet we have some fantastic designers that work hard to put together some amazing builds.
Two things we ask for all the time is a Furniture Bag and more Slots.
The stream chat itself was filled with that request as well. Ignored entirely.
It seemed to me that there was something lacking in the whole update or something missing.

ZOS_Icy · July 5

Greetings,

Because there is a thread already open on this topic, we're going to close this one down so that all feedback can be consolidated in one place. You may continue the discussion here.

Thank you for your understanding.