Some Clarity About House Ownership

Ch4mpTW

Can somebody please clarify a few things about house ownership? More specifically, is there actually a solid reason to go about embarking the grindy and RNG-based journey?

From what was explained to me, houses don't actually provide anything of actual value outside of a few mediocre things. These things being: A DPS dummy, crafting stations at your home, an instance to park your characters (????), and a means to let loose your creative side (if you have the gold, materials, and or crowns).

Is it true that any: Closets, desks, trunks, etc. won't actually be able to usable? As in they're there for show, and actually serve no purpose? Because if so, what is the point of owning a house if you can't actually store items inside of it? Isn't the point of a home, a place to rest and store things? I'm confused.

I've also been told that books don't work, if stacked neatly. And become unable to be interacted with. Therefore causing you to have a messy bookshelf, if in fact you do wish to read books. Please tell me that isn't true, as I was a huge neat freak in Skyrim. And organized my books like a fiend. Please tell me this isn't true.

Edit: For those curious about the point of this thread, it's so that I can get clarity on the things I listed above. The Homestead update launches on PS4 on Tuesday, and I'm contemplating whether or not I should go through with getting a house. Therefore I want to weigh the cons and pros, and see whether or not it is worth it or not to dump some crowns and gold into a housing project.

Korah_Eaglecry

Unless ZOS decides that Housing is not a profitable investment beyond what it is. I expect them to add much more to it over time. This can either go the way theyve treated Guilds or the way they approached Motifs and Mounts.

Ch4mpTW

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Unless ZOS decides that Housing is not a profitable investment beyond what it is. I expect them to add much more to it over time. This can either go the way theyve treated Guilds or the way they approached Motifs and Mounts.

So by the gist of what it is you're saying, I'm assuming that housing is something to avoid (until later on down the road).

STEVIL

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Can somebody please clarify a few things about house ownership? More specifically, is there actually a solid reason to go about embarking the grindy and RNG-based journey?

From what was explained to me, houses don't actually provide anything of actual value outside of a few mediocre things. These things being: A DPS dummy, crafting stations at your home, an instance to park your characters (????), and a means to let loose your creative side (if you have the gold, materials, and or crowns).

Is it true that any: Closets, desks, trunks, etc. won't actually be able to usable? As in they're there for show, and actually serve no purpose? Because if so, what is the point of owning a house if you can't actually store items inside of it? Isn't the point of a home, a place to rest and store things? I'm confused.

I've also been told that books don't work, if stacked neatly. And become unable to be interacted with. Therefore causing you to have a messy bookshelf, if in fact you do wish to read books. Please tell me that isn't true, as I was a huge neat freak in Skyrim. And organized my books like a fiend. Please tell me this isn't true.

Edit: For those curious about the point of this thread, it's so that I can get clarity on the things I listed above. The Homestead update launches on PS4 on Tuesday, and I'm contemplating whether or not I should go through with getting a house. Therefore I want to weigh the cons and pros, and see whether or not it is worth it or not to dump some crowns and gold into a housing project.

Ok so ignoring your judgments infused throughout this post and looking at the questions:

DPS dummies, crafting stations, parks and fun if you like it - yes.

Storage: there is no storage function now in a house - other than obviously - storing furnishings. All indications are storage will come later.

interactive books can be obtained from the mage's guild and can be interacted with and can be read. It is possible to place ANY interactive item in such a way that it becomes inert - that applies to books as well as other things.

As for the "why would someone do it then" kind of editorial questions - because it offers something they want. Function is in the eye of the beholder.

its possible to run duels in houses.
houses are instanced and you have control over entry.

So, if one is interested in dueling without interruption - like say running a dueling tourney that one can stream without having really annoying interlopers running into the duel and causing interruption after interruption to your broadcast - a house works very well for that. that is a capability the house can provide that cannot be gained elsewhere.

if one want to do so, one can create crafting stations for PVP zone sets and DLC sets and harder to get to sets and place them in your home and invite others (perhaps your guild mates) to use them without going to the PVP zone or owning the DLC. . that's a capability not otherwise available. one could even "rent" the home for such uses for gold if one wanted.

there are lots of other "functions" or more properly "capabilities" that folks can find "uses for" in their housing - in addition to whatever fun it brings them in its own right.

One can always ask "what does it do for me?" and get a very small picture of anything.
One can also always ask "what can i do with it or what can i get out of it?" and often get a much broader, richer more robust perspective.

The one's looking at housing now and asking the latter are gonna be the ones ahead of the curve.

In homestead housing is potential - potential fun, potential use, potential gains - and like all potential it requires creativity, time and effort to turn it from potential into reality and some will choose to do so and others won't.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Unless ZOS decides that Housing is not a profitable investment beyond what it is. I expect them to add much more to it over time. This can either go the way theyve treated Guilds or the way they approached Motifs and Mounts.

So by the gist of what it is you're saying, I'm assuming that housing is something to avoid (until later on down the road).

Unless you like kitting out a house just for the sake of doing so then yes.

As things stand ESO Houses are less functional than housing systems in games that are a decade or more older than ESO.

No Storage is a huge negative, and the feeble excuses as to why ZOZ haven't included storage are not even slightly convincing.

The Item capacity for furnishings is very low considering how many items have to be used to create things that should not be missing from the baseline features - walls for example.

Mounts placed in a Homestead may as well be stuffed animals, they do nothing.

Don't get me wrong I like a lot of what they have done with housing, but they really only hit 50-60% of the markers they needed to hit.

I'm a housing nut, so I'll engage with it at some level. But if you are not a housing nut there precious little there of value.

All The Best

ArchMikem

People will enjoy the illusion even if they know there is no practicality.

ProfesseurFreder

I enjoy it right now for what it is, but as others mentioned above, I believe that they are still working on it and that more functionality, like storage (which would be much appreciated) will be added over time. Since when has anything ever been introduced into the game in its final state? In the meantime, I know that when I'm ready to quit a session, my characters now have a place to go and hang their hat, wherever they are, just a Wayshrine away. No more having to go and find an inn or a guildhouse when I want to log off. Coming Home after a long session of adventuring is remarkably satisfying all by itself.

zaria

Much of the reason I have not done much with my house is actualy an lack of preview of items and items in blueprints.
Its an preview in the placement editor inside the house where its totally redundant.

And huses are not very functional today, hopefully this will change.

Sheezabeast

if you have friends its fun to have duels and guild meetings or parties

Resfeber

zaria wrote: »

Much of the reason I have not done much with my house is actualy an lack of preview of items and items in blueprints.
Its an preview in the placement editor inside the house where its totally redundant.

And huses are not very functional today, hopefully this will change.

I agree with this. I've outfitted one, very small house and my biggest complaint would be that. Also the previewer shows no sense of scale. I can be like "well that looks small enough for this corner" and end up with a table that's huge or looked better in the editor. But hey, it's too late cause had to buy it just to see it in the place.

Haven't played TheSims in years but it brought back memories of at least hovering something in a space and clicking to purchase which was great in at least figuring out if you really wanted the thing.

Danikat

Don't forget there are 3 inn rooms (1 per alliance) which you can get for free* by doing a short quest. (You'll need to do it 3 times to unlock them all, but even that doesn't take long.) Functionally these are identical to the bigger houses, the only difference is the size (they're pretty small).

So if you're not sure about housing and you don't know if you want to spend your gold/crowns on it you could get one or more of the inn rooms to play around with and decide if you want more space (and a higher item limit) to work with later on. You can also visit your friends and guild mates houses if they've allowed visitors to see what they do with it.

Also they're worth unlocking simply because they're all in cities and each one acts as a free wayshrine.

(Although if you really don't want to spend money it might be better to stay away. I started off saying I'd just use the free rooms, maybe get one of the apartments for 11k - 13k, and after playing around with housing on the PTS I ended up deciding I really want a medium house for 325k.)


*Technically the rooms themselves are free but you do have to pay a small amount of gold during the quest - firstly if your character isn't a Thieves Guild member you have to bribe a character and then you have to buy some furniture, but in total it'd cost you less than 200g

kargen27

Not much function in housing right now that is true but it doesn't have to be a grind to furnish a house. I had planned on getting a house for the practice dummy only. Our guild decided to get both practice dummies though so was no need for me to get one.
I wasn't going to get a house but I have a character I am trying to get as many achievements as I can with. Right nos I am doing the fighters guild dolmen dailies and the thieves guild pickpocket dailies to get those achievements. I don't want it to become a grind so I don't do them every day. I mix things up so the game doesn't get tedious. Just doing the dailies and taking the time to kill/gather everything I see when getting from point A to point B I found I was getting a lot of housing related items. So I got a house and started placing things.
Turns out (for me) it is more fun than I thought it would be. I spent an hour seeing how high I could stack some rocks. While waiting for our trials group to get organized I used to fish (have two characters with master fisher title) and now while waiting I goof off moving things around my house.
The short of it being it doesn't need to be a grind. It can be just something that you do for a bit of a diversion, and all the goodies you need you can get/find while doing other things.
Don't run out and buy a mansion right off if you are unsure but maybe purchase one of the smaller places and see what happens. If it turns out you do not like it you are not out much and if they do improve functionality later you will already have a home.

STEVIL

zaria wrote: »

Much of the reason I have not done much with my house is actualy an lack of preview of items and items in blueprints.
Its an preview in the placement editor inside the house where its totally redundant.

And huses are not very functional today, hopefully this will change.

Can't believe i am doing a PSA on housing.

At a crafting station you can pull up any item you have the print for and hit T instead of R and see the preview.

inside your home using the editor you can call up that preview screen and click on the purchase tab and also there see a preview.

if you pay attention there are square blocks under the items in preview.

those show you the scale of the item.

single bed is like 9x4. tea table is like 2x2 maybe. cage trap is YUGE.

After just a little bit of looking you can usually get a good feel for the size from the preview screens - at least right to left. Then again you can turn them on their side so height is also there.

That grid floor is very useful. can show you the difference between a barrel and a bin - or whatever that huge ass keg is.

if you really want to see something before say buying at a guild store, right now you cannot view from that interface. i doubt you ever will. But you can note the name, port to your house and call it up in the purchase window. OR if another character is sitting in a home you can login logout and view it there, then login logout and buy or move on.

Anti_Virus

Yeah I myself am pondering making an investment in the player housing, PC player feedback so far leads me to believe that it's not a worthwhile investment which is a shame,

But I guess we will have to wait and see.

Ch4mpTW

Damn, you guys are like the people I see on YouTube and television who go over all the customizable features your home can have. Like on the shows about customizing your very own mansion. Lol. Insightful stuff out the wazoo. Kudos for the information.

SydneyGrey

Acts as a free wayshrine if you're stuck in an awful, enemy-filled area and the nearest trek to a wayshrine is a LOOOONG way away.

Also, you can craft there if you can get the crafting stations. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get the crafting stations unless you buy them with real money in the crown store.

Otherwise, the houses are nice to have for role play, dueling and guild meetings/parties.

MLGProPlayer

It's just a fun little distraction.

And it doesn't have to be grindy if you have the gold to buy all the furnishings you need. I just threw down 1.5 million gold and bought all the furniture I wanted.

Surragard

Even if there was more functionality to the houses (i.e. more items you could interact with) has that ever really been the point of housing in an MMO? They're always for showing off and there are actually some decent customization options available here and I'm sure we'll have many more items and decorations down the road (hopefully through in-game crafting and not just the crown store).

I'm not someone who is generally into housing in MMO's but what ZOS has put together is objectively pretty standard for MMO housing. They have plenty of opportunity to expand on it in the future but I don't feel like the lack of functionality makes it a broken launch.

disintegr8

Like every other new thing that has come into the game, if you don't like it, leave housing alone and let those who want to enjoy it do so without judgement. Some like PVP, some like the challenge of vMSA, some enjoy trials, others enjoy farming, trading and some may enjoy housing. There is no right or wrong.

I am interested in the skeletons and the tunable crafting stations but am waiting to see how the master writs go before I know if I will get them (waiting on console release). I will buy a house or two anyway and see if I want to take it any further - partly because I have the gold and partly because I like to try before I judge something.

It will probably be that I end up with a lot of homes because there is nothing else for me to spend my gold on and I enjoy making gold in the game. Housing might simply give me incentive to keep making gold.

I have suggested in another thread that I may set a goal to buy all of the houses with in game gold - just for the fun of it.

kargen27

disintegr8 wrote: »

Like every other new thing that has come into the game, if you don't like it, leave housing alone and let those who want to enjoy it do so without judgement. Some like PVP, some like the challenge of vMSA, some enjoy trials, others enjoy farming, trading and some may enjoy housing. There is no right or wrong.

I am interested in the skeletons and the tunable crafting stations but am waiting to see how the master writs go before I know if I will get them (waiting on console release). I will buy a house or two anyway and see if I want to take it any further - partly because I have the gold and partly because I like to try before I judge something.

It will probably be that I end up with a lot of homes because there is nothing else for me to spend my gold on and I enjoy making gold in the game. Housing might simply give me incentive to keep making gold.

I have suggested in another thread that I may set a goal to buy all of the houses with in game gold - just for the fun of it.

I decided to get each of the characters I play their own house. I originally got just the one and was putting in the trophies my main had earned. Also put some things in there I thought would fit her personality and it kind of hit me I have a racist Khajiit that will only wear Khajiit armor so no way he would dwell in a house that was not Khajiit or had any non Khajiit furniture in it. So now each character I play kind of regular gets their own house. Any trophies in their individual houses will have to be earned by that character. I will let them take advantage of my master crafter though.

Sinthrax

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Can somebody please clarify a few things about house ownership? More specifically, is there actually a solid reason to go about embarking the grindy and RNG-based journey?

From what was explained to me, houses don't actually provide anything of actual value outside of a few mediocre things. These things being: A DPS dummy, crafting stations at your home, an instance to park your characters (????), and a means to let loose your creative side (if you have the gold, materials, and or crowns).

Is it true that any: Closets, desks, trunks, etc. won't actually be able to usable? As in they're there for show, and actually serve no purpose? Because if so, what is the point of owning a house if you can't actually store items inside of it? Isn't the point of a home, a place to rest and store things? I'm confused.

I've also been told that books don't work, if stacked neatly. And become unable to be interacted with. Therefore causing you to have a messy bookshelf, if in fact you do wish to read books. Please tell me that isn't true, as I was a huge neat freak in Skyrim. And organized my books like a fiend. Please tell me this isn't true.

Edit: For those curious about the point of this thread, it's so that I can get clarity on the things I listed above. The Homestead update launches on PS4 on Tuesday, and I'm contemplating whether or not I should go through with getting a house. Therefore I want to weigh the cons and pros, and see whether or not it is worth it or not to dump some crowns and gold into a housing project.

I think you have it nailed. Don't worry..someone will come along and tell you to stop playing the game and how great it is.

DeadlyRecluse

STEVIL wrote: »

its possible to run duels in houses.

While I agree with everything else in your post and am also a huge fan of housing (both in its current incarnation and in its potential), it's worth noting that player-made dueling arenas are very underwhelming at the moment, because knockback pushes you through placed walls/terrain (similar to outpost/keep horseshoe grates).

Housing offers insane potential for custom dueling, but until they make the player-placed terrain behave properly it's extremely limited.