Housing a year later

Octopuss

A note: I wasn't playing a year ago. The title is simply referring to the amount of time it has been since housing was introduced. I only started looking into this game feature few days ago.

After going through some threads, googling for answers for various problems I ran into trying to use the house editor, and blabla, I can't but ask:
ZOS, why do you always release a half unfinished feature AND never go back to fix/improve it afterwards?
I mean, that is the only logical explanation I can think of after experiencing the following:

• Surface drag feature only working with one surface at a time, making precise placement a major pain in the arse.
• Align feature flipping things over instead of being helpful (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKGMXJX34PM)
• Once you place an item, it's impossible to fine-tune the placement, because all you can do is put it away and start over. No way to just move the damn sconce closer to the wall it's sitting "on".
• Ligh sources emiting light through floors (and maybe even walls).
• Align feature often leaving a large gap between the item and a surface instead of doing what it supposedly should.
• Item orientation being tied to camera position, screwing everything up when you move around even a tiny bit. Sometimes you need to look at what you're doing from a better angle, and it simply messes everything up.
• Vast majority of light sources having illogically small radius, making most of them absolutely useless if illuminating house at night is the goal. The ones with bigger radius are often too big for inside of a house, or the theme is absolutely unsuitable.
• Some light sources are clearly emiting light in wrong direction(s) considering what they are.

YES, people were able to figure out ways to work around the limitations and shortcomings of the system, but why is that even necessary? You had such a long time to tune the system to a MUCH more friendly state, but you chose not to. That's disappointing to say the least. You don't even listen. I could find several threads with complaints about some of the stuff I touched upon right around when housing was released. As far as I can tell, you never even bothered to comment. Is that how you think you should treat such faithful community?
I mean it would not take a lot to improve the damn house editor by a LOT! And yet... nothing.

It's been a YEAR! WHY haven't you released any small, functional improvements for housing? It is (could be) so awesome, there are lots of great places you can own and decorate, and the amount of furnishings is so huge it can (and most certainly does) keep most players busy for a LONG time. Also, housing is probably one of the more decent money sources for you. WHY can't you make it better, fix some of the shortcomings/bugs of it?

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

laksikus

Just reaf to your third point, but NO?
You can just click on housing itwms and move them around?

Everstorm

Best use for housing I've found so far is when I want to force mail and for some reason don't want to leave the spot I'm at. Use preview on a house and when you exit you're right back where you started. This also worked when I had two copies of the same treasure map (on on my banker). Zoning in and out let the thingie respawn.

Apache_Kid

That housing has been out for 13 months and the only way it has evolved is simply adding "storage" is truly laughable. They keep releasing bigger homes with more space and yet have done nothing about the paltry object limit for these homes. So many people in my housing guild have had to wall off certain spaces in their homes because of the lack of increases in the object limit for 13 months. I understand that they might not be able to increase the limit but then why do they keep coming out with bigger and bigger homes? ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

ALSO, how do we not have an option to visit homes other than a players primary after 13 months? There are what? over 40 homes in the game? So many players have put hours and hours of work into multiple homes and they can only show off one at a time without having to manually travel there and have people travel to them?

Housing is the single most costly aspect of this game and it has evolved barely at ALL since it came out 13 months ago. We had to wait 13 months for storage, something that should've been included at launch, so i guess I shouldn't hold my breath.

VaranisArano

Diminishing Returns. Sure, ZOS could spend the time and effort needed to fine-tune placement features, existing light sources, and item orientation to make it better than it currently is. But its much easier and more cost-efficient to go with the "workable" existing features and merely keep adding new furnishings and large homes.

Cpt_Teemo

Use the T button to turn on no clip

Octopuss

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Use the T button to turn on no clip

Jesus, don't bother posting replies when you clearly have no idea what the discussion is about.

Kodrac

I use an addon for aligning things because placing things just right is near impossible without it.

esoui.com/downloads/info1908-HomesteadEngineer.html

driosketch

You can move things after setting them unless they get positioned too deep inside something like a wall or another larger item. This is admittedly an issue hanging paintings and sconces.

With regards to light passing through walls or objects, some decorators use that to give glow to non luminous objects.

Anyways, placing objects is clunky but so is aiming siege. With patience and practice you can make it work. What isn't working for me is the item and players caps. Because currently there's no way around that.

misfitmanic

It's not the general item cap or player cap that bothers me. What really annoys me most about housing is the cap on collectibles, primarily Undaunted collectibles. It is impossible to display all of the Undaunted busts/trophies I have unlocked, even in the largest of homes and with ESO+ subscription. To make matters worse, I had to remove even more Undaunted collectibles just to put down the storage containers I purchased.

I understand that limitations must be in place. But why can I have 200+ shiny blue crystal spires, or daedric thrones, or other nonsense, but only 60 trophy/bust displays? IMO, Undaunted collectibles should count against the general item cap.

Octopuss

Another major update on PTS and ZOS still doesn't give a crap.

Mz_Jo

Eventually all these MONSTER SPECIAL homes will be available again....

This new ship/grotto lasted more than 3 days lol

Which I wanted but I promised @ZOS I WAS NOT GOING TO PAY FOR ANYMORE MONSTER HOMES!
Until they do something MAJOR to improve housing!!!

18k crowns FFS get real @zos That is TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW EVEN!
For PIXELS!!!
I didn't even go back to look at it... LOL

SPEAK with your WALLET!!!!
Or
Lack of a wallet!!

I spent money on an external hard drive and ton of new games... That was = to 3 @zos special homes lol
Thank you for making me feel like I didn't matter after 3 loyal years!!

Mix

Hmm...

Without addons (although on the PC I highly recommend Essential Housing Tools)

1. Surface Aligning with more than one surface? ie. against a wall and on the floor at the same time? I haven't really had an issue with getting it snapped to the floor and then moving where I want to near the wall.
2. Align is a feature I rarely use as the "align point" on each object is static - which is why it often flips it the way you don't want - not sure how easy/hard it would be to put in additional or 'smart' align points. I align things by hand (and yes sometimes it is a pain but sometimes you just have to work within the limitations of the program) and just watched your video - if the "align point" on an object is wrong please bug report it lol!
3. I wholly disagree. Rough place item with snap-to-surface on then turn it off, re-position character (I like to stand where I can see the wall and object and any distance between them), select object and gently move towards the wall - you might have to do this a few times as it may move it out of alignment when you are looking straight on, but it IS possible. (this from a person who made a Library using 450 individual books placed by hand on shelves that they really didn't want to surface align with properly...)
4. Light Sources - this IS a problem, the actual light has no collision detection and "shines" through what should be solid surfaces. As I am not a programmer, I have no idea how this could be fixed...
5. Yes and No. If you need to change your position, you need to 'place' the object, then move character, then select it again to adjust the item positioning. I agree this can be frustrating, but it is a system limitation - the addon i use Essential Housing Tools would be amazing if ZoS would add it to the default, although I have no idea if it could work with controllers. It allows you to move item(s) without actively having them selected in the housing editor (you select them with the addon, add to a list of one or more items, then close the editor and you can use various arrows to move the object around - the lack of the "Selected" halo is nice too for some items.
6. Lighting overall seems a big issue. I think part could be solved by having the preview darker so we could see the light radius of a lighting fixture BEFORE crafting/buying. I do agree though that many seem to have a disproportionate amount of light - be interesting if someone did an experiment where they took each light source and measured the radius and then poked ZoS about which specific lights could use tweaking (smaller or larger radius, or even intensity within the radius)
7. lol, yes, some lights are quite bizarre. It might help to bug report any specific ones (like those with a solid top and the wrong shadow cast on ceilings over them)

TL:DR
Housing isn't perfect. The Editor isn't perfect. Players can adapt and use the base Housing Editor to great success. If ZoS could add the functionality of addons like Essential Housing Tools that would make decorating much easier for a lot of players

ghastley

Mix wrote: »

Hmm...
6. Lighting overall seems a big issue. I think part could be solved by having the preview darker so we could see the light radius of a lighting fixture BEFORE crafting/buying.

Just picking up on this point: What do you think of the idea of turning off the ambient light in the preview, when you turn on the light itself? That might be easy enough for them to do in a patch.

anadandy

Apache_Kid wrote: »

ALSO, how do we not have an option to visit homes other than a players primary after 13 months?

THIS! There are addons that let you do this, so I assume the functionality is in there somewhere. That or assigning primary based on character vs acct. Each of my characters has their own unique home (even if its just a free broom closet).

Octopuss

Few months have passed, and I thought I'd place some lights in my home I never visit.
I was instantly reminded why I never bothered with housing again.

A sconce. There's only one logical way to place it, right?


Align feature. Awesome. Makes life easier by snapping furniture against a surface so it doesn't sink or float, right?
Not so with ZOS' genius programmers.



F it. Not going to waste my time with this nonsense for the third time.

Aurie

Octopuss wrote: »

Few months have passed, and I thought I'd place some lights in my home I never visit.
I was instantly reminded why I never bothered with housing again.

A sconce. There's only one logical way to place it, right?


Align feature. Awesome. Makes life easier by snapping furniture against a surface so it doesn't sink or float, right?
Not so with ZOS' genius programmers.



F it. Not going to waste my time with this nonsense for the third time.

Glad someone else has trouble placing stuff. Just been complaining about that in the PTS section.

MacCait

Housing a year on... The Console Weather bug is still there. Ever since Morrowind was released it now rains INSIDE many houses and through all building materials (anything placed). This bug only exists on console and has had multiple threads since Morrowind release last year. Would be great to see this finally fixed one day and brought back in line to how weather worked before Morrowing and brought in line to how it still works on PC today