The housing systems biggest flaw, and a suggestion on how to deal with it

Recette

Greetings fellow adventurers,

over the course of playing this game, I have spoken with many players about various issues in the game, housing being a very prominent one since I myself have a keen interest in it. Pretty much every player I have talked to who has even the slightest interest in housing in this game agrees that the top issue housing in ESO currently has is the fact that we get way too few slots to work with as far as housing items go to fully live out our creativity. I myself have just recently bought the Colossal Aldmeri Grotto, which in itself is a beautiful house, but severely lacks the slots to fill it with content in a meaningful, engaging and immersive way. This is true as well for some of the bigger, older houses in the game. My friend has a very nice and well decorated Mathiisen Manor, where compromises had to be made constantly, and which could have been so much more beautiful than it already is if the limit for items was just a bit higher.

Now this issue has been brought up quite often before, and I am not here to make another "give slots plx" threads without offering ideas about possible solutions to the issue at hand. In fact I have recently spoken to a friend of mine who happens to be an IT professional well versed in database technology, and the very short form of how he explained the issue to me is this: The sheer amount of singular objects the database has to manage, with thousands of houses each having hundreds of objects within them, puts much more strain on the database servers than we can likely imagine. So the best solution to alleviate this issue would be to either invest in bigger and better database servers, or better database technology, which both comes down to the same conclusion: Money is needed to make this happen.

Now the devs at Zenimax have commented on wanting to increase the housing item limit in their livestream on Twitch when they first showed off the new Summerset houses, and I do believe that their intentions are just what they said, but so far it appears like whoever is in charge of calculating the monetary aspect of housing at Zenimax has not yet given the green light for it to happen, since it seems likely that housing needs to bring in more for it to be financially viable.

Now I strongly believe that eventually, an increased limit on housing items across the board should be a base part of the ESO plus subscription. But to make this happen, we do need to increase the interest in housing in general. Talk to your friends, talk about it ingame and get them interested, talk about it on the forums, submit tickets with suggestions concerning housing, talk to GMs if you can, buy houses, and most importantly, actually decorate your houses so the people at Zenimax actually see through their data that you are interested.

Until that happens though, here are a few suggestions to make housing more financially viable for Zenimax, and give us what we want in turn.

The first one is a bit clunky, and I personally would not reccomend it, but it is an idea at least. You could add an extra "housing subsccription" on top of an already existing ESO plus subscription, kind of like a second stage to ESO plus, at a price point of roughly 1-4 $/€ per month, to give players who want an increased housing item limit the option to purchase it that way, while players who are not interested could stick with what the regular ESO plus subscription offers them. The biggest issue with this model, and why I generally would not recccomend it, is that it opens the door for potentially ridiculous multi level subs that could go up to silly amounts of money per month paid, should someone decide that something like that sounds like a smart business move. And it generally seems quite scetchy and would further increase Zenimax's reputation as a money grabbing company among certain parts of the fanbase.

The second suggestion is what I would personally recommend, since it is mucch more elegant, player friendly and still financially viable in my opinion. You could sell housing item increases through the crown store in the same vein as you do character and outfit slots. Pay x amount of crowns, and house y gets a permanent increase in the housing items you can put in there. You could even make it akin to outfits in the sense that you could design it so that players can switch which one of their houses gets the increase, granted they remove the excess housing items from said houses before switching them to avoid cheating the system. For example: I own Black Vine Villa and have purchased the housing item increase and applied it to that house. Now I decide I want to decorate Mathiisen Manor instead, so I reduce the items I have in Black Vine Ville to the standard of 200 that ESO plus gives me, and now I am free to switch my housing item increase over to Mathiisen Manor. Similarly to outfit slots, players could also üurchase this option for two, three, four, five or however many houses they like, so they do not have to constantly switch stuff around if they don't want to.

I think the latter suggestion could be a good middle ground between the players needs/wants for cooler housing, and the need of Zenimax to make money to make this possible for us.

Comments and feedback about this are greatly appreciated.

Now then friends, spread the word about housing, and our voices shall be heard.

Ectheliontnacil

Inb4 anyone is able to read through all of this.

Lysette

I doubt that this is a database issue at all. Second Life has a much bigger problem with all player created content, which cannot be optimized - like items in ESO can - and there is a whole lot of detail possible with reasonable access time nevertheless. It might be that ZOS does not have a proper capable database technology on hand, but otherwise this is not a database issue, it can be done.

Elara_Northwind

Great thread This issue has frustrated me every since housing was first introduced! And now, with these new enormous houses, it's becoming more and more apparent that we really need this! Lot's of people have made suggestions to me, including the idea that if the issue is down to lag, we could have separate item limits for the different areas of a house, so an item limit for the house and another for the garden, or something similar. Other people suggested grouped items, so more filled bookcases. The huge bookcase on pts available through the writ merchant is now full! But people want ALL of the bookcases available full. Perhaps shelves which have items on them already, or grouped cargo items or food items which generally get placed together anyway. This wouldn't solve the issue at all, but it could help a little.

I would be happy to pay for an item limit increase, but after people already pay crazy amounts of money for the houses themselves, I'm not sure how well that would go down. If they did make it available through the crown store, I think it would have to cost less than the outfit slots do... Most people that I know don't bother purchasing more outfit slots, because they are too costly.

I also understand that the ESO+ sub for extra item limits is important to ZOS, as anybody who is remotely interested in housing cannot really do without it, but with that said I also think that the non ESO+ homes have FAR too few item slots. If they want new players to become interested in housing, that isn't going to happen when they get their first house, and can't enjoy it, and so I think that if an item increase ever does happen, those without ESO+ should get an increase too! Imagine a new player, or somebody without ESO+ deciding to buy the new Psijic Villa, and having just 350 items to decorate it with!

It may cost ZOS money to increase the limit, but in my opinion, they would make allot more money from doing so. I dread to think how much I, and many people I have spoken to about this, would have spent on some of these new houses, had we had the item limit to decorate them properly. As they would most certainly make their money back if they have to purchase a new server, or whatever it may be that they need to make this happen, I don't personally believe that we should have to pay at all. After buying our homes, we shouldn't then have to give them even more money to be able to decorate those homes.

Lysette

Yeah, when I saw these large properties it came instantly to me, that they cannot be decorated in a reasonable manner inside the limits given, not even closely and not even with double the amount with ESO+. I own a couple of properties in Second Life with very detailed decoration, houses and scenarios, I know exactly what it takes to make stuff cozy and nice. So it was instantly clear to me, that houses that big in ESO will never be any cozy within these limits.

Edit: Well, i have to be fair, so I will mention that Second Life is far more expensive. To have my properties there costs me around 250 bucks per month.

Recette

Lysette wrote: »

Yeah, when I saw these large properties it came instantly to me, that they cannot be decorated in a reasonable manner inside the limits given, not even closely and not even with double the amount with ESO+. I own a couple of properties in Second Life with very detailed decoration, houses and scenarios, I know exactly what it takes to make stuff cozy and nice. So it was instantly clear to me, that houses that big in ESO will never be any cozy within these limits.

Edit: Well, i have to be fair, so I will mention that Second Life is far more expensive. To have my properties there costs me around 250 bucks per month.

You make a very valid point here. ESO indeed pales in comparison to some other games that offer housing.

Well 250$ is a tad bit extreme for your average ESO player to maintain, but this is a good example of how expensive this stuff can be. As Elara has said, in ESO we have a fairly high barrier of entry as far as actually getting houses goes, with those really big ones going for 15k+ crowns, and even the more modest one costing hefty amounts of crowns and gold. There's also crown sotre only housing items that are pretty cool, generating additional revenue from housing. Bearing this in mind I think it would not be unreasonable to have our housing item limit expansions at a somewhat reasonable price, especially considering that ESO targets a completely different demographic and wallet size than games like Second Life.

Kagukan

I only have one house, Old Mistveil Manor. I am pretty much done adding items and still have about 100 slots available. I have detail everywhere inside and outside. Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently. I do have ESO plus.

Enemoriana

Kagukan wrote: »

Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently.

It is. The bigger house is, the harder it's to furnish it.
I made nice room in Mournhold tavern with base limit. I placed everything I wanted in my Strident Springs Demesne, with pile of readable books and self-made fireplace, without economy on slots - and I still have some free slots with ESO+. But I'm terribly out of slots in Erstwhile Sanctuary, even with one of two biggest halls untouched. I need at least 50 (better - 100) slots to finish other zones there in a proper way (with one hall still untouched!). With no self-made walls or structures, except, again, fireplace (10 slots with fire).

Jamdarius

Kagukan wrote: »

I only have one house, Old Mistveil Manor. I am pretty much done adding items and still have about 100 slots available. I have detail everywhere inside and outside. Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently. I do have ESO plus.

I cannot even fully furnish Serenity Falls Estate with just 700 slots, my opption would be make 700 limit outside and inside houses (different slot for garden and for interior). Imagine those limited sale homes being 3-4 tiems as big as Serenity and they also got just 700 slots ... I mean I won't buy any (Except Tel Galen) as long as it is just 700 slot, makes no sense to have it half done.

Jayne_Doe

Jamdarius wrote: »

Kagukan wrote: »

I only have one house, Old Mistveil Manor. I am pretty much done adding items and still have about 100 slots available. I have detail everywhere inside and outside. Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently. I do have ESO plus.

I cannot even fully furnish Serenity Falls Estate with just 700 slots, my opption would be make 700 limit outside and inside houses (different slot for garden and for interior). Imagine those limited sale homes being 3-4 tiems as big as Serenity and they also got just 700 slots ... I mean I won't buy any (Except Tel Galen) as long as it is just 700 slot, makes no sense to have it half done.

I've had to make compromises at Velothi Reverie and Ald Velothi, not to mention Amaya Lake Lodge! I dislike dark houses, so I use a LOT of lights. Plus, I like to have a detailed kitchen and I also like to have crafting areas, which are rather detailed with all the crafting décor available. I think if they were able to increase the radius for lighting, that would help, at least for me.

But, the limit has helped me to come up with creative solutions to get pretty much the same thing, but with less slots. For example, I ended up replacing some of the wall lighting in Velothi Reverie, which consisted of the Dark Elf Gallery Hook and the Dark Elf Lantern, with some of the new wall lighting options available with Morrowind. So, what took two slots now takes only one. (I like to stick with the racial style of the house, so I realize there are other options available.) I also figured out how to make my fireplace using less slots.

Enemoriana

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

I dislike dark houses, so I use a LOT of lights. Plus, I like to have a detailed kitchen and I also like to have crafting areas, which are rather detailed with all the crafting décor available. I think if they were able to increase the radius for lighting, that would help, at least for me.

Doesn't Culanda Stone, Glowing (or Varla, for blue) help? Hidden behind wall or in something else.

Jayne_Doe

Enemoriana wrote: »

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

I dislike dark houses, so I use a LOT of lights. Plus, I like to have a detailed kitchen and I also like to have crafting areas, which are rather detailed with all the crafting décor available. I think if they were able to increase the radius for lighting, that would help, at least for me.

Doesn't Culanda Stone, Glowing (or Varla, for blue) help? Hidden behind wall or in something else.

I dislike the yellow or blue glow they give off, but I'm not sure I've actually tried putting them in the walls. Outside the walls they are extremely bright/harsh.

Elara_Northwind

Jamdarius wrote: »

Kagukan wrote: »

I only have one house, Old Mistveil Manor. I am pretty much done adding items and still have about 100 slots available. I have detail everywhere inside and outside. Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently. I do have ESO plus.

I cannot even fully furnish Serenity Falls Estate with just 700 slots, my opption would be make 700 limit outside and inside houses (different slot for garden and for interior). Imagine those limited sale homes being 3-4 tiems as big as Serenity and they also got just 700 slots ... I mean I won't buy any (Except Tel Galen) as long as it is just 700 slot, makes no sense to have it half done.

I 100% agree! Even the original manors are too large to be furnished appropriately and creatively with 700 items, and areas look bare and unfinished in them. Even some of the large homes, like Grand Topal and Hundings, to name just a couple. People have been complaining about this since before housing was even released on the live servers! Tel Galen is great, that and the clockwork house seem to be the ONLY large new homes where the 700 item limit works, the others are completely ridiculous, and I am actually quite shocked that they could sell them, especially for the prices that they do, with a 700 item limit! I think your idea is great, splitting the item limit for inside and outside is a really good idea! Although I'm not 100% sure how that would work in some of the homes without defined interior/exterior areas, unless they added a load screen, like a door or something inside them...

I would love for them to do whatever it takes to increase the item limit, as housing undoubtedly makes ZOS a lot of money, and so they should probably listen to what the people who spend allot of time decorating them are saying, but thus far they have done nothing about it, and haven't really said much about it either

Wreuntzylla

I don't agree at all! Pretty much every housing interested player you have talked to? How about pretty much every housing interested player. I have seen all of 2-3 people that don't think it's a problem and only because (1) they believe furnishing with constraints is a great mini-game (which I agree with); and (2) don't believe any other playstyle is valid (which I disagree with).

SenorCrouch

I think the housing system has 3 major flaws atm:
- Furniture Slots (not enough of them)
- Priority Loading (ever wonder why your crafting stations don't work some times? Because, they loaded before the terrain underneath them loaded. So the game thinks the station is floating and thus breaks their functionality. A priority load where crafting stations load last in the queue will prevent this from ever happening.)
- Attack Collision (ever try to build a dueling arena where the floor is made up of furniture building blocks? Ever try casting spells like Wall of Elements or Liquid Lightning on those blocks? They go straight through the floor. These blocks have player collision so the player can walk on it, but no attack collision for spells to be cast upon them.)

Enemoriana

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

I dislike the yellow or blue glow they give off, but I'm not sure I've actually tried putting them in the walls. Outside the walls they are extremely bright/harsh.

For more neutral color you can place both stones in one place.

Dark:


Culanda:


Varla:


Two in one place:


Two, far behind and above (can place one closer for more blue or yellow):

Slick_007

SenorCrouch wrote: »

- Priority Loading (ever wonder why your crafting stations don't work some times? Because, they loaded before the terrain underneath them loaded. So the game thinks the station is floating and thus breaks their functionality. A priority load where crafting stations load last in the queue will prevent this from ever happening.)

from my own house and experience with craft tables not working, i fixed it and have never had an issue since. I do not believe your assessment here is true. i have 42 craft tables on floors of my own making. 100% working, 100% of the time.

xilfxlegion

forgive my noob question but how can you tell how many slots your house has?

i bought the forsaken stronghold in bankorai

Enemoriana

xilfxlegion wrote: »

forgive my noob question but how can you tell how many slots your house has?

i bought the forsaken stronghold in bankorai

It's in house panel (F5 - R if PC, don't know for consoles - where you choose furniture to place) - in house information in the left.

Grimm13

Attuned stations get to be an item count grabber. It would be good if they came out with a Master Attuned Station of the Blacksmith, Cloth/leather, Woodworking and Jewelry Stations. Each would have a storage that only attuned stations could be loaded into and a menu choice of those loaded attuned stations when used.

It would certainly have more curb appeal to have one station represent the craft than a courtyard full. These master craft stations could be a bit more to the look as such as a blacksmith had the anvil plus a forge so you can visually see that they are the enhanced ones.

They need to be available in all places that a attuned station can be obtained.

Grimm13

Enemoriana wrote: »

xilfxlegion wrote: »

forgive my noob question but how can you tell how many slots your house has?

i bought the forsaken stronghold in bankorai

It's in house panel (F5 - R if PC, don't know for consoles - where you choose furniture to place) - in house information in the left.

This is information that should be displayed before you purchase a house.

Silufadumar

Kagukan wrote: »

I only have one house, Old Mistveil Manor. I am pretty much done adding items and still have about 100 slots available. I have detail everywhere inside and outside. Maybe slot availability is an issue for bigger and/or other houses but I just don't see an issue currently. I do have ESO plus.

The great thing about Mistveil Manor is its size to item limit ratio. Its one of the few homes that feels like a medium size space, but with a large home item limit (600). I also own Mournoth Keep, which I think is actually a bit bigger than Mistveil, yet it only has a 400 item limit and I have struggled to decorate it because of the low limit.

There are other homes in the game also with strange size/item limit settings, and there's the question of why the devs keep making these huge homes, when they know the item limit will be inadequate!

If you bought Mistveil Manor just cos you liked the look of it and without checking things like item limits, then you got lucky. I bought it exactly cos of its size/item limit, that and it had the right kind of aesthetic for the meadery I had in mind.

SenorCrouch

Slick_007 wrote: »

from my own house and experience with craft tables not working, i fixed it and have never had an issue since. I do not believe your assessment here is true. i have 42 craft tables on floors of my own making. 100% working, 100% of the time.

Yeah, but how? Nothing I have tried so far has worked. What series of magical incantations and fibonacci sequences must I couple together to obtain this fix?

Slick_007

SenorCrouch wrote: »

Slick_007 wrote: »

from my own house and experience with craft tables not working, i fixed it and have never had an issue since. I do not believe your assessment here is true. i have 42 craft tables on floors of my own making. 100% working, 100% of the time.

Yeah, but how? Nothing I have tried so far has worked. What series of magical incantations and fibonacci sequences must I couple together to obtain this fix?

i moved my floor away very slightly from the nearest fixed object, and with it the craft tables. i was building around a stalagtite in earthtear and it was interfering with things. i didnt have to move it far.
also, if my floor got too high, i couldnt target anything. actually, thats not really accurate. too close to the ceiling. I have higher stuff where the roof is higher and it still works.