Housing - Invisible Wall Feedback Thread

Danikat

My guess is that they didn't expect players to want to access these areas.

This article came out shortly before One Tamriel and for me it explained a lot about ESO: http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/10/14/13285014/elder-scrolls-online-one-tamriel-skyrim-mmo

But the one thing that really stood out to me is this quote, about what happened shortly after launch:
"When those problems [bugged quests] started happening," Firor said, "players would just move around the game in ways that we weren't envisioning, looking for things to do. And then the bug would show up in other places. Players weren’t moving through the game in the way that we had envisioned."

That really, really bothers me. Just the fact that they expected, even assumed, that players would all move through the world in one uniform way and were unprepared for us to do anything else. Maybe it's because I'm a fan of both exploration (including the 'I wonder what happens if I try to climb over this barrier obviously intended to hide the edge of map' kind) and what's somewhat pretentiously known as "emergent gameplay" - players making up their own things to do within a game but that attitude that everyone will play your game in the same way and you can design it around what you're sure they WILL do in any situation - seems extremely strange to me, but knowing other people do think that way often helps explain a lot.

In this case look at what they've given us. Private instances that all look like houses and hundreds of furniture and decorative items but no actual building blocks. No walls or doors or stairs or ladders or windows etc. Even the few objects that can be substituted like the stone blocks and slabs and the various planks, if you look at how they're used in other parts of the game are purely decorative.

So you can take your empty building and make it look like a house in the appropriate racial style, or a different one, you can even do "crazy" things like make it into a dungeon or fill it with ruined crates. But ultimately you are decorating a house to look, to a greater or lesser extent, like the houses already in the game. Not building a house, or even modifying the layout of one.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone at ZOS has seen this thread (or the comments on invisible walls elsewhere) and reported back that a bunch of people are using housing in completely the wrong way - trying to climb on the roof and build new floors inside houses and stand on top of the outside walls and they're all shaking their heads over how we just don't get it and wondering how they can get us back on track and using houses in their intended way.

Sylvis

I'm just really baffled by the small and medium Redguard homes. One of the main features of basically ALL Redguard homes/buildings in the game are the accessible rooftops, and they completely omit that with these homes. Very frustrating.

Caff32

These invisible walls ruin more than half the homes. It was the first piece of feedback me and others gave and still nothing is done. I don't see any reason to purchase a home with a wall walkway or tower that you cannot access.

Shimmer

The invisible walls kept me from going any higher on my tower But im sure there are limits for a reason.

anadandy

Sylvis wrote: »

I'm just really baffled by the small and medium Redguard homes. One of the main features of basically ALL Redguard homes/buildings in the game are the accessible rooftops, and they completely omit that with these homes. Very frustrating.

This exactly. I had visions of a nice little roof patio - with all those lovely silk cushions and low tables like I see in every other Redguard home. It's really disappointing to know that the player home flat roofs are basically useless.

GrafDresche

I really wish there would be some sort of reaction from ZOS, so I bump this up.

Especially the invisible walls around the roof of Twin Arches is a major disappointment that could be so easily fixed. You can actually build new roofs (platforms) next to the original roof and walk around. So it has nothing to do with map ceiling or views, etc. ZOS, pls fix!

Silent Magnifico could have been even more awesome even though with that house I understand that the view to a dead (instanced) city could have been problematic. Yet, there should be a way to to make it possible.

Also, please consider adding cellars to the more solid houses. This is not Midwest America, but Tamriel...

SilentFox22

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

This is the one that originally annoyed me and inspired my post. It's on the right side of the Cavern, facing the mouth of the cave. You can baaaarely walk down the edge of this ledge with your nose up against the invisible wall.

There are rocks on either end of this long ledge that should let me walk up to it. Very disappointing that I can't access it to put trophies and stuff up there. Also a great spot for a diving board into the pool...

I do not understood the need for an invisible wall along that section of Craglorn's Earth Tear Cavern since the natural cavern wall just behind the platform already serves the purpose of preventing expansion. That area just begs for creative building! How about it ZOS ?

Tasear

The wall that connects main entrance hundings... there's space there to run around... but only like 1/6. Not to late to give us the small island next to hundings... we even accept a price *** or could we at least have the tip

* for skyboxes make it slightly large than the tallestest structure. Also consider's the bosmer large house it meant for this... we should have skybox for a mini elden root tree in the sky.

Thanks for considering.

Glurin

Danikat wrote: »

That really, really bothers me. Just the fact that they expected, even assumed, that players would all move through the world in one uniform way and were unprepared for us to do anything else.

That's not exactly how it works. Usually what happens is that they just didn't really think about it. Like the person designing the area thought to himself "A couple of big trees would look pretty good right here." and it doesn't even occur to him that in a crowd of half a million people or more, there's going to be somebody that tries to climb those trees just to see where they can get to.

It's not that they expected you to move in a specific way. It's just that you moved in an unanticipated way.

Asmon

So from my understanding, all houses have a sky ceiling that tops out at the highest point on each of the houses. This is a make or break decision for me and obviously needs to be addressed by the development team before Homestead goes live. At least twice the height of each house should be available when going upwards

If anyone has a chance could you test whether you can reach the ceiling in the Cave, and what's the the upper point with Stay Moist Mansion.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

GrafDresche wrote: »

I really wish there would be some sort of reaction from ZOS, so I bump this up.

Especially the invisible walls around the roof of Twin Arches is a major disappointment that could be so easily fixed. You can actually build new roofs (platforms) next to the original roof and walk around. So it has nothing to do with map ceiling or views, etc. ZOS, pls fix!

Silent Magnifico could have been even more awesome even though with that house I understand that the view to a dead (instanced) city could have been problematic. Yet, there should be a way to to make it possible.

Also, please consider adding cellars to the more solid houses. This is not Midwest America, but Tamriel...

That view is amazing. This wall is so enthusiasm crushing.

Glurin

Asmon wrote: »

If anyone has a chance could you test whether you can reach the ceiling in the Cave, and what's the the upper point with Stay Moist Mansion.

In the cave, I went up right in the middle of that big main area near the entrance and hit an invisible wall right about where most of the moss is hanging down. More than high enough to be looking down and see the top of the pillars and to see that the ropes hanging from the ceiling aren't actually attached to the ceiling. So you may want to rethink hanging oil lamps and chandeliers from them.

As for Stay Moist, I hit the invisible wall almost at the very tip of the tree trunk "chimney". A little over half my test character's height shy of it I think. I was also able to look down into the chimney and see the inside of the mansion. I could not jump into the chimney, however, so I'm afraid Santa may have some issues getting in come wintertime. As for the inside, I used the beds to make scaffolding and jumped on that to find that I as able to bump my head on the ceiling on both the first and second floor.

Asmon

Thanks Glurin for the update, pity about Stay Moist mansion, I think all homes should have a sky ceiling of least double the height of the house, wonder why the island has almost a unlimited height as seen in all the youtube videos, but all other homes do not. Guess we will find out how much the cave is gonna cost.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

OH look, now this is live and people are already getting discouraged.


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/319840/video-zos-housing-failure-no-bigger-copout-since-burlesque-air-rights#latest


THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED>

Taylor_MB

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

OH look, now this is live and people are already getting discouraged.


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/319840/video-zos-housing-failure-no-bigger-copout-since-burlesque-air-rights#latest


THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED>

I wish I'd seen this earlier.... The invisible wall was just so surprising and unexpected I didn't even consider checking before purchasing.

As you say, very discouraged. I didn't expect Minecraft, but invisible walls? Gross.

Iccengi

The wall in the cave on the side ledge needs to go it's incredibly frustrating I had great plans for that ledge and now they're just useless. And why? No reason with a natural wall there. Drives me insane especially cause it's a crown exclusive!