Housing and why I'm disappointed

llSRRll

Homestead has been out for almost two weeks now on the PS4 and although its been out longer for CPU I've got to put my 2 cents in. I feel that this could have been a nice addition to the game but the way that it has been implemented it has no real use in the game. Hell its been three days since I've stepped foot in mine smh. Some of the things I feel stink about this:

1. No wayshrine to leave the house, we can travel there for free but cant travel out at no cost? Sure we can travel through front door and hike to the closest wayshrine but that just adds more load screen's and that means more chances for the dreaded "Unusually long load screen" message. Let us put a wayshrine in our house!

2. No functionality what so ever, no storage, no mannequin's, no gardens, nothing that is useful to actually playing the game. Sure we can get crafting stations, atunable crafting stations ( I actually like these), and a target skeleton but I can craft in any other town in the game. Unless your a PvE player to me the skeletons are quit useless. On top of it the atunable Stations will take you at best weeks if not months for the average player to get.

3. Player limitation to 24 for manor, 12 for large and less for smaller houses. When this came out our guild was like great we can hold dueling tourney's at the guild house and then we find this out smh. Our guild tourney's have at least 50 participants and many others that want to watch, nope cant do at our guildhall bc we can only have 24 people at the house at once so we had to move it back to our usual spot in the world.

4. Pre-made houses, I mean wtf seriously we get a house thats already built smh, everyone's house is the same how f'n boring. Sure we can purchase planks and 2x4's and build sub-structures but we are limited on that as well with the amount of items we can place.

5. Last but not least showing off your house. This is fine and dandy if people are in your guild or on your friends list but what about people who don't know me? I like housing districts, I like how in FF14 I could walk through the district and look at other peoples houses and admire them. I know there is a lot of problems with availability when it comes to districts but that just makes them all that more sweater. In this game there are some cool houses I just will never see bc I don't know the person.

I know this rant will not change anything but it makes me feel better to let someone know how displeased a lot of us are with housing. I'm sure these gripes have been posted by CPU players over the last several weeks but its new to us PS4 players so I posted this anyways. Rant over.

TamrielSaviour215

I am only part of a traders guild. I am working on buying my first house. I have about 50k in gold and will be buying one this weekend. However, I have been selling all my blueprints just to be able to afford the houses. I would love to get the crafting stations and decorate, but it really is quite useless. I think its mainly just a place to go show off with a buddy before going dungeon diving together. Obviously, the manors cater more to the guilds, but like you said, even they can be too small. Who knows, maybe they will add an update with the Morrowind expansion?

SFDB

I agree with most of your points, but put some linebreaks in there (especially when you have numbered lists).

Lack of life is a huge problem I have with housing. practically no NPCs and things seem really static. I really want NPCs added, especially for the larger homes and manors, to help stop them from feeling like such dead space.

And a little bit more utility would be welcome. Someone mentioned elsewhere putting writ posts and even a writ courier (to deliver completed writs) into housing, this would be very welcome because doing writs in Craglorn is tedious.

Armor Stands to display and store sets, how incredible it would be to have just a row flanking both sides of you as you head into your armory of all these great sets you've accumulated that are otherwise sitting in the inventory of some mule somewhere.

Trophy achievements should allow you to add trophies to your house. Would love to have a chattering skull or crackling lodestone.

And what the hell is it with the countdown timer on logout? What, am I going to get attacked by Daedra in my kitchen?

llSRRll

SFBD I agree the place does seem dead, it would be cool even if my toons I'm not using wander around the house as npc's. Something anything!

llSRRll

Sorry about format I dont normally post long paragraph type stuff here so not used to it. I'll keep it in mind if I ever do it again.

Drakkdjinn

Agree on all points. Housing at this stage is a time and money sink that adds zero utility in its current iteration. Once prices stabilize it won't even be a decent way to make gold anymore either.

Lunavere

So ZoS put those stipulations on because they didn't want these to become guild halls. Think about it - 24 person limit, no one house perfect to become a guild hall, a lot of outdoor space or a lot of indoor space, but not both, not releasing the largest estates (Cavern and Hideaway) with the rest of housing. I mean, ZoS clearly do not want personal houses to become guild halls. Now, has that stopped us? Of course not.

I imagine the reason ZoS hasn't incorporated everything is because if they did, then what? So we have a garden, mannequins, target dummies, wayshrines, portals to everywhere we want, attuneable crafting stations... what would ZoS have to add in future to improve housing if they gave everyone everything right off the bat? I don't think it's unreasonable to start us off with a smaller amount and expand with time but have things to actually expand with as opposed to giving us all everything at the beginning and then us complaining because ZoS isn't doing anything else with housing.

Just my two cents.

deluxesalt

These are very good points. All sound like they are doable in ESO. Whether or not ZOS actually does it....

Drakkdjinn

Lunavere wrote: »

So ZoS put those stipulations on because they didn't want these to become guild halls. Think about it - 24 person limit, no one house perfect to become a guild hall, a lot of outdoor space or a lot of indoor space, but not both, not releasing the largest estates (Cavern and Hideaway) with the rest of housing. I mean, ZoS clearly do not want personal houses to become guild halls. Now, has that stopped us? Of course not.

I imagine the reason ZoS hasn't incorporated everything is because if they did, then what? So we have a garden, mannequins, target dummies, wayshrines, portals to everywhere we want, attuneable crafting stations... what would ZoS have to add in future to improve housing if they gave everyone everything right off the bat? I don't think it's unreasonable to start us off with a smaller amount and expand with time but have things to actually expand with as opposed to giving us all everything at the beginning and then us complaining because ZoS isn't doing anything else with housing.

Just my two cents.

Why would they discourage guild halls? There's no sense in it -- they already leave the management of the entire game's economy in the hands of guilds already to the distaste of many (frustrated trade guild GM's included); its a stupid departure.

Seems like they love to add new "features" at the expense of a working, elegant and efficient game to attract new schmucks given the latest trends.

idk

No offense but please edit the OP to make it reasonably easy to read. If you think Zos will read that wall of text, guess again.

Lunavere

Drakkdjinn wrote: »

Why would they discourage guild halls? There's no sense in it -- they already leave the management of the entire game's economy in the hands of guilds already to the distaste of many (frustrated trade guild GM's included); its a stupid departure.

Seems like they love to add new "features" at the expense of a working, elegant and efficient game to attract new schmucks given the latest trends.

Why I cannot tell you with certainty. I imagine there's probably something in the distant pipelines that involves guild halls and wanting more money from people because this game is quickly becoming Crown Store-centric (if the Crown Crates haven't already given that away). But I cannot imagine it's any other reason. Think about it: you can be in up to five guilds, all of which can have up to 500 people, but the maximum you can have at your house is 24 if you own a manor? That doesn't come close to covering a reasonable populace for a guild hall. The only reasoning I can see for that is that they don't want guild to utilize personal homes to the fullest extent.

Rainwhisper

I do agree that they made the time sink far too great, and that the houses seem lifeless.

I'm curious about:

"Unless your a PvE player to me the skeletons are quit useless."

That seems to imply that it's unusual to be a PvE player, in a game that's always seemed predominantly PvE to me.

heaven13

Lunavere wrote: »

So ZoS put those stipulations on because they didn't want these to become guild halls. Think about it - 24 person limit, no one house perfect to become a guild hall, a lot of outdoor space or a lot of indoor space, but not both, not releasing the largest estates (Cavern and Hideaway) with the rest of housing. I mean, ZoS clearly do not want personal houses to become guild halls. Now, has that stopped us? Of course not.

I imagine the reason ZoS hasn't incorporated everything is because if they did, then what? So we have a garden, mannequins, target dummies, wayshrines, portals to everywhere we want, attuneable crafting stations... what would ZoS have to add in future to improve housing if they gave everyone everything right off the bat? I don't think it's unreasonable to start us off with a smaller amount and expand with time but have things to actually expand with as opposed to giving us all everything at the beginning and then us complaining because ZoS isn't doing anything else with housing.

Just my two cents.

With Homestead done, more work can go in to other updates and DLC, maybe even (dare to dream) bug and server fixes. They can release stuff later to add to and prove upon housing, but it does seem like the majority of the negative views of Homestead were things that were discussed on the PTS. We'll see if they do follow through on any of it.

I would have much rather had a fully fleshed out, polished update that was done than have it released in bits and chunks with the initial release being so lackluster.

I've gotten 2 of the free rooms. One has a bedroll and the candle you're given. I've gone into it about 3 times. The other I walked in when I acquired it, to see if the inn room in Stonefalls looked different than the one in Glenumbra. Otherwise, I've been playing as usual and mostly ignoring this update because, even as someone who loves housing and building things, the implementation in ESO leaves a lot to be desired.

Waffennacht

On the PTS forums they already stated the limitations are put in place because of performance issues.

They already stated they are trying to up the Cap on items and players.

You are wrong to think they want to discourage use, they just can't handle anymore.

llSRRll

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

No offense but please edit the OP to make it reasonably easy to read. If you think Zos will read that wall of text, guess again.

I dont think they would anyway lol

llSRRll

Rainwhisper wrote: »

I do agree that they made the time sink far too great, and that the houses seem lifeless.

I'm curious about:

"Unless your a PvE player to me the skeletons are quit useless."

That seems to imply that it's unusual to be a PvE player, in a game that's always seemed predominantly PvE to me.

I didnt assume that there is a greater population either way, I was just merely saying as a predominant PvP player skeletons are pretty useless to us.

Duiwel

llSRRll wrote: »

...no gardens...

I would just like to say this is simply not true. OP I realise you meant herb garden / no ability to plant herbs / gather herbs however we are able to have gardens & damn nice ones at that.

(edit cause messed up the quote ] bracket)

altemriel

no storage
no wayshrine
no guild store and guild bank access
more usable items
increase all of the caps
fix invisible walls

XDragonDoomX

llSRRll wrote: »

1. No wayshrine to leave the house, we can travel there for free but cant travel out at no cost? Sure we can travel through front door and hike to the closest wayshrine but that just adds more load screen's and that means more chances for the dreaded "Unusually long load screen" message. Let us put a wayshrine in our house!

If you have an inn room AND a house - you can port to the inn room from your other property/properties for free, which being situated in a town are always close to a genuine wayshrine. Perhaps not a perfect solution but it does work.

DRXHarbinger

We need more complaints to get animations and light effects on crafting stations. Even the cooking fire doesn't have flames like every other one in the game. Same for alchemy station. No green glow. Proper half arsed attempt.

d0e1ow

Agreed. Anyone here play Wildstar? The housing plots had little games and challenges you could place for visitors to play with, crafting stations, and even mini dungeons. The housing had a decent amount of functionality. It was great. ESO housing feels very "ohh pretty" but not much else.

Azurulia

as far as number 1 goes, that would be broken. You'd never, ever need to visit a wayshrine ever again. just port to your house for free and your good to go!

Sadly there's this thing called "balance" that a lot of people don't seem to understand these days.

MLGProPlayer

XDragonDoomX wrote: »

llSRRll wrote: »

1. No wayshrine to leave the house, we can travel there for free but cant travel out at no cost? Sure we can travel through front door and hike to the closest wayshrine but that just adds more load screen's and that means more chances for the dreaded "Unusually long load screen" message. Let us put a wayshrine in our house!

If you have an inn room AND a house - you can port to the inn room from your other property/properties for free, which being situated in a town are always close to a genuine wayshrine. Perhaps not a perfect solution but it does work.

And if you're on PC, you can just install EasyTrave and never use a wayshrine again.

Chilly-McFreeze

Lunavere wrote: »

Drakkdjinn wrote: »

Why would they discourage guild halls? There's no sense in it -- they already leave the management of the entire game's economy in the hands of guilds already to the distaste of many (frustrated trade guild GM's included); its a stupid departure.

Seems like they love to add new "features" at the expense of a working, elegant and efficient game to attract new schmucks given the latest trends.

Why I cannot tell you with certainty. I imagine there's probably something in the distant pipelines that involves guild halls and wanting more money from people because this game is quickly becoming Crown Store-centric (if the Crown Crates haven't already given that away). But I cannot imagine it's any other reason. Think about it: you can be in up to five guilds, all of which can have up to 500 people, but the maximum you can have at your house is 24 if you own a manor? That doesn't come close to covering a reasonable populace for a guild hall. The only reasoning I can see for that is that they don't want guild to utilize personal homes to the fullest extent.

+ Maybe the same reasons you can't get a house together with someone else, even with the mara pledge. Because it smallens their revenue. There would be less reasons for each indiviudal to buy a house if you can have it all while sharing it with someone else. Hence the limitiations to "x is allowed to just visit or x is allowed to move furniture around but not to add stuff".
And also the issue with the performance. Put 800 torches in a house with 24 people and you already have a performance issue. Not that I've done that but since the performance isn't very stable lately (fps drops) it might be a reason.

Decon98b16_ESO

Imo, housing is currently very expensive window dressing

JWKe

Homestead is a free DLC. Why would they put in so much effort into it Maybe if they're crown crates more effort will be put into it rather with housing what we get are reuse assets with little to no functionality depending on the player.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

A lot of the issues you brought up were mentioned on the PTS. There was a PTS thread, called 11 Obvious Flaws (and 11 easy fixes) - Housing that really nailed the core issues and also identified some easy fixes.

I recommend everyone read through it to see what housing could have been but if you don't want to do the full read, just check out the final summary. Take note of the sheer amount of insightfuls, agrees, and awesomes.


That thread got an incredible response by those reading it yet it was COMPLETELY IGNORED by ZOS. Not even a /lurk.
Nothing listed was addressed and it made us all wonder if the PTS was actually for feedback or just marketing and market research. This sort of communication fail is why some people get so frustrated.

Moorcrofts

My wife is happy decorating. I know some role players who are happy just to have their own place to use. From my perspective it's already a win even if it never gets more attention, but I do I expect more functionality to be added over time. Could it be better? Stupid question, it could always be better. Can I be patient and wait to see if they make it better? I'd like to think so.

Blud

I want to buy a house. I love the home on Stros M'kai. But I just can't bring myself to do it. I just don't see any point to it. I have the crowns sitting in my account, but it's just not a good purchase for me.

There needs to be something to do in your house/on the grounds. There should be some value, some mini-game: farming something, gardening for alchemy, something. It just seems pointless. I can just preview the property anytime I want to see it and that's good enough and I keep my crowns for whenever something worthwhile comes out.

ZOS seems to be good about listening to what players want and I'm sure they'll iterate housing. People will spend money on it, so there should be an incentive as well.

MajesticHaruki

I agree on everything the OP said. One more problem for me is the limit on furnitures. Even with ESO plus, I can't customize my premade house to the extend I want.

I suggest you increase the item limit, visitors limit and ADD functional containers, racks and show cases. It could work like this. A manor can give, for example, 100 additional storage slots. When you craft furniture like cupboards, nightstands, wardrobes, you can be presented with 2 options: A) Create the item as decoration B ) create the item as storage unit. If you select B you can create a wardrobe with 15 storage slots or a nightstand with 5. If you have already created furniture that add 90 storage slots in your house, you won't be able to craft the wardrobe, but you could craft 2 nightstands. Of course that shouldn't work in every house if you have more than 1. But buying a larger home you could increase the max cap for the entire account. It goes without saying that storage in homes would work like banks and could be accessed by all the characters in one account.

OmniDo

You can do some really creative and decorative things, even with the small houses, like I did below:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49812711/house_motel.mp4

I agree that Housing needs to be either changed, or the option provided via crowns or gold to accommodate the following:

• More item storage space
• More substructure options, i.e walls, floors, ceilings, etc...
• Allow more players into the instance (12 at minimum for a small home, with as many as 50-100 or more in manors)
• Interact-ables other than light. e.g Books that can open/close (like the Dark Brotherhood contract Book), functional doors, chests/trunks that can open/close, et al
• Ability to place non-furniture items in the building, i.e Weapons, Armor, Purchased goods, et al
• Free Transport to a Wayshrine of choice, but only free when used from the home (timer still applies)
• Remove the "Primary Residence" restriction, or allow players to access any and all homes owned by anyone on their friends list, visitor permissions permitting, either on or offline.

Just a few suggestions.