Earthtear owners unite!

Lyserus

(Narrator voice: This is a story of a single man battling against ZOS.)
(The man just purchased this cavern as a guild hall, everything will sure went well)
(Why is he buying stages and stacking them together? It makes no sense!)
(ahhh I see what are u trying to do there now, you are not escaping the cavern, I won't allow it)
(The man used all his stages to get up to the top, but he used up all his stages, he is that stupid)
(The man decides to remove the stages from below and putting them up high...really you are that desperate to get out?)
(The man is moving higher and higher, he believes there must be something ZOS missed, there must be a hole or something that he can get out of the inner cavern, and he can finally use the space out there)

(and then.. he fell)


Seriously tho, any earthtear cavern owner has succed to break free from the inner cavern ? XD I tried so hard yet failed many times

idk

Really not sure exactly what your trying to say. I am a little dense on dramatic stuff.

However, if your trying to build platforms to outlying areas and coming across a digital wall, all homes have digital walls limiting the home to a specific area. For the design purposes some limit had to be set.

Lyserus

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Really not sure exactly what your trying to say. I am a little dense on dramatic stuff.

However, if your trying to build platforms to outlying areas and coming across a digital wall, all homes have digital walls limiting the home to a specific area. For the design purposes some limit had to be set.

stanley parable, no?

yeah i was trying to find a way out XD a shame i failed

it makes no sense that earthtear cavern has invisible walls within the cavern （and at reachable normal height） tho

MacCait

I know where you are coming from. You are talking about the invisible walls.

I also bought the Earthtear Cavern for our Guild hall. I have explored every milimetre of the Cavern, creating my scafolding out of wide rough planks. There are some fantastic spots that make you think 'oh I wonder if there is a secret area up there that I could create a secret room for the guild to explore'... NOPE. Invisible walls are lower than the ceiling, so you cannot even reach the ceiling. There are also invisible walls to the right side of the Cavern.

Really the Cavern is a world of missed opportunities. I'm not sure why so many opprunities where missed by the designers. As a designer myself, it really puzzles me.

The biggest things that kills me about the Cavern is the 700 item limit. The Cavern is so large I think you could fit around 9 Notable homes, or a number between 6-9... its hard to say exactly... its very big. Each Notable home has a limit of 600 items, so you would think that the Cavern would have an item count of around 3000 at least. 700 might seem a lot, but it really isn't, especially in a huuuge Cavern like this, where even the largest boulder or statue can seem small, being dwarfed by the sheer size of the Cavern.

I keep hoping there will be an update that increases the item count for the Cavern, and expands the ceing to just above the ceiling of the Cavern and also allowing access to the right side of the Cavern that is blocked by the invisible wall. I have designed so many great little spots, secret areas, but I have to take them all down because I don't have enough items to even finish one area. I'm not even using anything that is regarded as 'small' or 'standard'. All my items are 'large' or huge', just to try and fill the place a bit.

Myyth

Whales unite!!

idk

Lyserus wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Really not sure exactly what your trying to say. I am a little dense on dramatic stuff.

However, if your trying to build platforms to outlying areas and coming across a digital wall, all homes have digital walls limiting the home to a specific area. For the design purposes some limit had to be set.

stanley parable, no?

yeah i was trying to find a way out XD a shame i failed

it makes no sense that earthtear cavern has invisible walls within the cavern （and at reachable normal height） tho

It does not make sense that there are some inner areas that cannot be reached, but it looks like your trying to go up and out and it would be consistent with the other homes and make sense that one cannot just build a ramp and leave the cavern that way.

The homes are their own instance and are not connected to any zone. There is even one home that can overlook the NPC vendor area of a small city yet cannot see any NPCs walking around or even just standing there when inside the space of the home because they are not really seeing that city at all.

Rickter

I agree with @MacCait When i previewed Earthtear, all i could think was the wasted real estate and invisible walls. 700 item limit and there is more water than land so you will inevitably burn up your item slots building patios and dock areas in the water.

MacCait

With an increase in item count the Earthtear Cavern could become a fantastic place. It would have to be a substantial increase though, as like @Rickter said, you'd have to create many platforms, patios, dock areas, or reclaim land from the water via large boulders etc.

However, what makes the item count worse are 2 things:

1. Workstations. Currently workstations, such as blacksmithing, clothing, woodworking, enchanting, alchemy, provisoning, dye station, ALL count towards the 700 limit. Target dummies too! This is a problem if you want several attuneable set gear stations, and/or a group of target dummies, it currently eats into your 700 item count. So the more functional your base is, the more empty it looks. This is quite a problem if you've forked out 13-16k to purchase the Cavern.

2. Lighting. Any house needs lighting, or at night it looks very dull. Within Earthtear, you need A LOT of lighting as its just such a huge space. As Lighting counts towards the 700 items, this causes a real problem as a few hundred items will just be lighting.

Solutions: Apart from drastically increasing the item count to fairly reflect the size of the property compared with the much smaller Notable homes that have a 600 limit, another solution would be to create a separate limit for lighting and workshop, in exactly the same way as has been done for Mounts, Merchants, Trophies etc. Currently you can place 80 trophy busts and it does not affect the 700 limit. Thats fine, but what is more important, displaying trophy heads from dungeons? Or actually lighting your cavern? Or even having some functionality in workstations and training areas with target dummies?

It does seem quite odd that we have a free 80 count limit for trophies, but workstations and lighting all come out of the normal item count.

Another solution for the cavern is to introduce Walls, Larger Boulders, Staircases, Large mounds of earth/grass/land.

Currently we have tiny bricks, rough blocks of different shades of grey, and slabs of stone. All these items can be used for creating staircases and walls. However, if you created a wall using these structures, that drastically eats into your item count. A decent sized wall could have 50 or more blocks. I've seen staircases with sround 50-70 blocks, leaving no room for other items. By introducing large and huge size wall pieces in the same shades as the rough stone blocks, it would count as 1 object. These could be used to reclaim land, divide areas, create rooms etc, all without losing valuable item count. I'm sure it would be easier to load a one object wall than a wall made of 50-100 pieces.

One thing that really bugs me with the Cavern are the broken ruined walls. Ok one here or there adds a nice ruin feeling to the Lost Cavern... but there are way too many. The most annoying broken wall is the one in the back of the base in the actual hall. This is the only viable room, yet to be a viable room you would first need to reconstruct the wall using dark stone rough blocks. I did this, but it had to be taken down because it just ate into the severely limited item count. As a designer myself it left me scratching my head thinking 'what where the designers thinking when they designed this area'. If it really has to come with a vital wall smashed up, at least provide a reasonable item count so we can reconstruct it.

Larger boulders would be a godsend! Large boulders can be used to reclaim land (from the water), or create natural features and levels within the cavern. Currently the two largest boulders added to homestead are dwarfed by the cavern. Yet riding around Tamriel you discover much larger boulders are in the game, even within the design of the Cavern itself. Adding these purchaseable extra huge sized boulders would allow for better creations without hindering the already low item count. Again, these items would be easier to load rather than a whole platform of 20-30 boulders.

CaiWenji

Lyserus wrote: »

(Narrator voice: This is a story of a single man battling against ZOS.)
(The man just purchased this cavern as a guild hall, everything will sure went well)
(Why is he buying stages and stacking them together? It makes no sense!)
(ahhh I see what are u trying to do there now, you are not escaping the cavern, I won't allow it)
(The man used all his stages to get up to the top, but he used up all his stages, he is that stupid)
(The man decides to remove the stages from below and putting them up high...really you are that desperate to get out?)
(The man is moving higher and higher, he believes there must be something ZOS missed, there must be a hole or something that he can get out of the inner cavern, and he can finally use the space out there)

(and then.. he fell)


Seriously tho, any earthtear cavern owner has succed to break free from the inner cavern ? XD I tried so hard yet failed many times

I absolutely love this cave! It is a perfect guild home for our guild, Cave People Clan! My friend @Sillygoo in game showed me this place when it was unavailable and I knew I had to have it. I thought it might take awhile because he was saying it will probably be around 1 mil coins or more but I was planning on saving for it. When it was available there were only crown options. I bought it unfurnished because it was cheaper but also because I like decorating our own guild's stuff. We are a very small guild but help out all we can! Here is a short about 5 minute video of me walking around the house. Named the monkey in there furious the monkey boy. Well with less spaces for max char limit. But watch for what we have done with it so far.

https://youtu.be/GTvNRuytfN4




One suggestion I have, not sure if someone mention it but containers like in programming or scene building, sort of like a folder. You can move multiple objects together as in one scope and keep the rotation and position with the other objects in that scope. For example, in my video I have the hot air balloon but I can put all objects that make it into one "folder," and move it somewhere all together. Because currently if I want to fly up in the balloon. I would have to move a whole bunch of separate tiny objects.

idk

Zos has already stated they will increase item limit with housing. They purposely chose lower limits to see how the load worked out.

starkerealm

MacCait wrote: »

The biggest things that kills me about the Cavern is the 700 item limit.

The thing that killed me about the Cavern was the slaughterfish.

MissBizz

starkerealm wrote: »

MacCait wrote: »

The biggest things that kills me about the Cavern is the 700 item limit.

The thing that killed me about the Cavern was the slaughterfish.

Live version of the cavern seemed to have some pest controls implemented and no more slaughterfish

Yolokin_Swagonborn

How about ALL of us that are really into the homestead function of the game unite against invisible walls. Way back on the PTS, I made a post about invisible walls and how they really crushed creativity.

I specifically mentioned a particular ledge in the EarthTear Cavern that would have been PERFECT for crafting stations but was unfairly blocked off by needless invisible walls. Other houses, like Twin Arches have their entire roof, the staple and iconic feature of redguard housing, blocked off by invisible walls.

I understand that something is necessary to keep people from escaping the map but some of these walls do NOTHING to serve that purpose and only crush creativity and make it less fun to decorate.

Dasovaruilos

A little other thing: the "area" chat inside the Cave should really be the whole cave... Very annoying that if you are 10 meters away from someone you stop hearing them.

EDIT to add this:

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

I specifically mentioned a particular ledge in the EarthTear Cavern that would have been PERFECT for crafting stations but was unfairly blocked off by needless invisible walls. Other houses, like Twin Arches have their entire roof, the staple and iconic feature of redguard housing, blocked off by invisible walls.

I understand that something is necessary to keep people from escaping the map but some of these walls do NOTHING to serve that purpose and only crush creativity and make it less fun to decorate.

I agree. I went straight to that ledge my first time there and was very disappointed that there was an invisible wall there. Preventing you from leaving the Cave with those is fine, but there is no reason there is one wall on that ledge.

starkerealm

MissBizz wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

MacCait wrote: »

The biggest things that kills me about the Cavern is the 700 item limit.

The thing that killed me about the Cavern was the slaughterfish.

Live version of the cavern seemed to have some pest controls implemented and no more slaughterfish

Well, that kills my joke. Though, it seriously was one of the two things about the cavern that killed it for me. The other was the lack of an actual house. I'd kinda expected the cavern would include another Imperial style home in it, with the cavern itself as a "yard." Finding out that was the entirety of the home was really disappointing.

MacCait

starkerealm wrote: »

MacCait wrote: »

The biggest things that kills me about the Cavern is the 700 item limit.

The thing that killed me about the Cavern was the slaughterfish.

It's ok, the ZOS team sent all their Master Angler's into the Cavern over a weekend and caught ALL the slaughterfish making it entirely safe for for any potential inhabitants

MacCait

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

How about ALL of us that are really into the homestead function of the game unite against invisible walls. Way back on the PTS, I made a post about invisible walls and how they really crushed creativity.

I specifically mentioned a particular ledge in the EarthTear Cavern that would have been PERFECT for crafting stations but was unfairly blocked off by needless invisible walls. Other houses, like Twin Arches have their entire roof, the staple and iconic feature of redguard housing, blocked off by invisible walls.

I understand that something is necessary to keep people from escaping the map but some of these walls do NOTHING to serve that purpose and only crush creativity and make it less fun to decorate.

I totally agree. The thing is the invisible walls are completely necessary, however they do not need to be INSIDE the Cavern or other homes. These invisible collision walls could be extended just beyond the Cavern walls so that actual REAL walls block our escape rather than invisible ones. I think we all wanted to build in the area on the right side of the Cavern, it was an ideal place to construct a house, pub, whatever. There are also some very very cool places in the ceiling where you could create secret areas, alas you cannot actually get to these. Even in the ruins at the back, there are invisible walls stopping you from building. So for all it's vastness, the 700 limit and the invisble walls really crush the creativity and limit something that at first appears limitless.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Zos has already stated they will increase item limit with housing. They purposely chose lower limits to see how the load worked out.

I have seen this mentioned a couple of times, but having searched high and low for this comment I cannot find it. Do you have a link?

Yolokin_Swagonborn

MacCait wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

How about ALL of us that are really into the homestead function of the game unite against invisible walls. Way back on the PTS, I made a post about invisible walls and how they really crushed creativity.

I specifically mentioned a particular ledge in the EarthTear Cavern that would have been PERFECT for crafting stations but was unfairly blocked off by needless invisible walls. Other houses, like Twin Arches have their entire roof, the staple and iconic feature of redguard housing, blocked off by invisible walls.

I understand that something is necessary to keep people from escaping the map but some of these walls do NOTHING to serve that purpose and only crush creativity and make it less fun to decorate.

I totally agree. The thing is the invisible walls are completely necessary, however they do not need to be INSIDE the Cavern or other homes. These invisible collision walls could be extended just beyond the Cavern walls so that actual REAL walls block our escape rather than invisible ones. I think we all wanted to build in the area on the right side of the Cavern, it was an ideal place to construct a house, pub, whatever. There are also some very very cool places in the ceiling where you could create secret areas, alas you cannot actually get to these. Even in the ruins at the back, there are invisible walls stopping you from building. So for all it's vastness, the 700 limit and the invisble walls really crush the creativity and limit something that at first appears limitless.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Zos has already stated they will increase item limit with housing. They purposely chose lower limits to see how the load worked out.

I have seen this mentioned a couple of times, but having searched high and low for this comment I cannot find it. Do you have a link?

What really burns is that I detected this issue nearly a MONTH before release on the PTS, took time to post screenshots and point out all the troublesome spots, and I still see posts of people who just bought a house discouraged because of an invisible wall.

Could have been completely prevented if the PTS was actually intended as a testing, bug reporting tool instead of just marketing research to see what Items and houses were used the most so that the crown prices could be increased.

redspecter23

Invisible walls should only be used when absolutely necessary to keep players from escaping into the void of nothingness beyond. I'm not sure why ZOS placed many of them the way they did to basically cut off parts of the actual house and usable surroundings. Ease up on the invisible walls a bit, huh?