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ZOS, Its time to do something about housing.

Imperial_Voice
Imperial_Voice
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After spending the last couple of days playing around on the PTS and checking out our two new houses and some of the new furnishings I think its become a bit too obvious how half-finished housing (as a feature) is.

The new houses look amazing and the quality of the new furnishings is top notch, really all of the recent additions to furnishing have been excellent. My complaint is not with the houses or items themselves, the issue is in how housing has been implemented and how little has been done to remedy its shortcomings.

Housing currently sets the limit at 700 furnishings (assuming you pay for ESO+) and 24 players per house for even the largest of houses, the reason being that consoles get a bit squirrelly when you hit a certain threshold of items but because ZoS releasing larger and larger homes were left with a great deal of houses that are completely unfillable. Even the smallest houses and inn rooms are troubling to fill because they have such a low item limit in comparison.

The player limit also limits the use of housing as a legitimate guild hall, which seems to be the entire point of many of the largest houses. All in all housing is a fun feature but has been left half-finished for years and yet ZoS keeps expecting players to shell out $120 for unfillable mansions and $20 - $30 for furniture packs which will be primarily left in banks, and now theyre introducing yet another huge manor (Jodes Embrace is positively gigantic) and a player home that will take all of 2019 to fully unlock which contains 4 seperate wings and will still have the same limitations that housing has had for years now.

If ZoS really expects players to keep their wallets open they need to address these limitations. Its long past time to either begin working on a workaround for the limit, begin working on new code, or simply do the fix that the community has been suggesting for years.

Increase the limit on smaller houses and seperate the large manors and notable homes by wings/interiors/exteriors to bypass the limit entirely.
Edited by Imperial_Voice on April 20, 2019 3:50PM
  • matthiasmssb16_ESO
    I totaly agree with that!
    The very least would be, to open those restrictions for the PC client, since the performance issues, that consoles may have, doesn`t necessary be the same with a PC. So why should PC players suffer for the poor Performance of old consoles, since they also got their own servers?
  • Imperial_Voice
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    I totaly agree with that!
    The very least would be, to open those restrictions for the PC client, since the performance issues, that consoles may have, doesn`t necessary be the same with a PC. So why should PC players suffer for the poor Performance of old consoles, since they also got their own servers?

    I actually hadnt thought of that. We have no cross platform and each patch is designed differently for each platform so why are PC players suffering because of the limitations of console?
  • ACaptiveMind
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    I totaly agree with that!
    The very least would be, to open those restrictions for the PC client, since the performance issues, that consoles may have, doesn`t necessary be the same with a PC. So why should PC players suffer for the poor Performance of old consoles, since they also got their own servers?

    I would expect resistance from the console companies having their product's limitations be so visible. There are probably some arrangements in place to avoid that stuff.

  • Jeremy
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    After spending the last couple of days playing around on the PTS and checking out our two new houses and some of the new furnishings I think its become a bit too obvious how half-finished housing (as a feature) is.

    The new houses look amazing and the quality of the new furnishings is top notch, really all of the recent additions to furnishing have been excellent. My complaint is not with the houses or items themselves, the issue is in how housing has been implemented and how little has been done to remedy its shortcomings.

    Housing currently sets the limit at 700 furnishings (assuming you pay for ESO+) and 24 players per house for even the largest of houses, the reason being that consoles get a bit squirrelly when you hit a certain threshold of items but because ZoS releasing larger and larger homes were left with a great deal of houses that are completely unfillable. Even the smallest houses and inn rooms are troubling to fill because they have such a low item limit in comparison.

    The player limit also limits the use of housing as a legitimate guild hall, which seems to be the entire point of many of the largest houses. All in all housing is a fun feature but has been left half-finished for years and yet ZoS keeps expecting players to shell out $120 for unfillable mansions and $20 - $30 for furniture packs which will be primarily left in banks, and now theyre introducing yet another huge manor (Jodes Embrace is positively gigantic) and a player home that will take all of 2019 to fully unlock which contains 4 seperate wings and will still have the same limitations that housing has had for years now.

    If ZoS really expects players to keep their wallets open they need to address these limitations. Its long past time to either begin working on a workaround for the limit, begin working on new code, or simply do the fix that the community has been suggesting for years.

    Increase the limit on smaller houses and seperate the large manors and notable homes by wings/interiors/exteriors to bypass the limit entirely.

    I agree with you. The long term functionality of housing is going to require they eventually increases these limits. They are too restrictive currently, especially as the game continues to grow and expand.
  • Taleof2Cities
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    There is a Housing subforums, @Imperial_Voice ... located here:

    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/housing
  • Imperial_Voice
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    I am aware. Do think perhaps there's a reason I did not post there?
  • Zypheran
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    To be fair, that forum section gets utterly ignored. You can go back 40 pages before you see a dev post!
    We are all blue in the face from having our comments and suggestions tumble away into the vast unresponding void that is housing forums!
    At least the thread might get noticed here.
    All my housing builds are available on YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf3oJ_cxuu01HmWZJZ6KK6g?view_as=subscriber
    I am happy to share the EHT save files for most of my builds.
  • Goregrinder
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    Why I am a fan of non-instanced player housing, and why I will always consider SWG (and I guess Vanguard) to have the best implementation of player housing of any MMORPG. Well I guess in Star Citizen your ships ARE your house, so that is probably a step above SWG's housing system, but for Fantasy based MMORPG's, I was never a fan of "instanced" housing, However I understand WHY that system is chosen.

    But even with "instanced" housing, EQ2 had a decent system, DAoC and LOTRO had essentially the same system, which was also very nice imo. The house itself wasn't instanced, your entire neighborhood was instead, and they would just have Instance A/B/C/D/etc of that neighborhood. But once inside, you could walk down the streets, see other people's houses, walk in an out of the ones you have permission to, then leave your neighborhood thus leaving the instance.

    But in SWG, you could load even small houses up with just about as many players as you want. Since it was non-instanced, if they were given permission to enter the building, people just came and went as they please. Guild halls would have around 100 or so people in it during events, and buff houses would easily have 20-30 players sitting in them, getting buffed, etc.

    Was pretty sick.

    I do love the design of the houses in ESO, the yards, insides, art deco, etc. All beautiful, BUT I just wish that we had actual Neighborhoods like EQ2, DAoC and Lotro did. Where there were housing "districts" in the city, and within those dedicated housing area,s there were a bunch of apartments, or houses next to each other, each one a different size and different cost. You might buy a small house, but your friend moves in next door and has a big house.

    In ESO, the houses are just like...in the middle of nowhere and by themselves. I mean even in Grahtwood, you have houses near yours, but they are NPC occupied...no player neighbors. Same with the Inns and apartments...no player neighbors. Missed opportunity imo.
  • Imperial_Voice
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    Why I am a fan of non-instanced player housing, and why I will always consider SWG (and I guess Vanguard) to have the best implementation of player housing of any MMORPG. Well I guess in Star Citizen your ships ARE your house, so that is probably a step above SWG's housing system, but for Fantasy based MMORPG's, I was never a fan of "instanced" housing, However I understand WHY that system is chosen.

    But even with "instanced" housing, EQ2 had a decent system, DAoC and LOTRO had essentially the same system, which was also very nice imo. The house itself wasn't instanced, your entire neighborhood was instead, and they would just have Instance A/B/C/D/etc of that neighborhood. But once inside, you could walk down the streets, see other people's houses, walk in an out of the ones you have permission to, then leave your neighborhood thus leaving the instance.

    But in SWG, you could load even small houses up with just about as many players as you want. Since it was non-instanced, if they were given permission to enter the building, people just came and went as they please. Guild halls would have around 100 or so people in it during events, and buff houses would easily have 20-30 players sitting in them, getting buffed, etc.

    Was pretty sick.

    I do love the design of the houses in ESO, the yards, insides, art deco, etc. All beautiful, BUT I just wish that we had actual Neighborhoods like EQ2, DAoC and Lotro did. Where there were housing "districts" in the city, and within those dedicated housing area,s there were a bunch of apartments, or houses next to each other, each one a different size and different cost. You might buy a small house, but your friend moves in next door and has a big house.

    In ESO, the houses are just like...in the middle of nowhere and by themselves. I mean even in Grahtwood, you have houses near yours, but they are NPC occupied...no player neighbors. Same with the Inns and apartments...no player neighbors. Missed opportunity imo.

    SWG will forever be my favorite MMO
  • xenowarrior92eb17_ESO
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    yes I agree...the time has come to finally...completely remove the whole "housing" system.
  • bellatrixed
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    Agree 100%, especially the player cap. The player cap is honestly more restrictive for me than the item cap at this point, since while I can simply wall off portions of my manors to make them look well decorated (not ideal, but passable), I run a small niche RP guild and sometimes we can't fit everyone online in one of our houses for an event. This game badly needs guild housing.
    Edited by bellatrixed on April 17, 2019 6:47PM
    ESO Roleplay | RP community for all factions/servers/platforms
  • Jayne_Doe
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    I totaly agree with that!
    The very least would be, to open those restrictions for the PC client, since the performance issues, that consoles may have, doesn`t necessary be the same with a PC. So why should PC players suffer for the poor Performance of old consoles, since they also got their own servers?

    I actually hadnt thought of that. We have no cross platform and each patch is designed differently for each platform so why are PC players suffering because of the limitations of console?

    As an XB player, I am not averse to PC having higher limits on housing, but presumably some older PCs would be in the same boat as consoles. With an SSD, I have no discernable issues with items in my houses loading in. I don't know if an XB player w/o an SSD has problems with 700 items in a manor, but I don't. That said, I can only assume what ZOS has said - that anything over 700 would blow up my XB.

    I would assume that there are older PCs that might similarly not be able to handle much more than the 700 item count. I don't know that for sure, of course, but if that were the case, then I'm not sure ZOS would want to increase the limit on PC, only to have players not be able to load into homes anymore after placing 1000+ objects in them. Of course, they could have some sort of setting that's automatically set based on one's computer specs, or some kind of warning when people try to go past 700 items.

    Again, I don't see a problem with an increase on PC if ZOS can manage it and deal with the complaints when lower-end/old PCs blow up.
  • Imperial_Voice
    Imperial_Voice
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    Jayne_Doe wrote: »
    I totaly agree with that!
    The very least would be, to open those restrictions for the PC client, since the performance issues, that consoles may have, doesn`t necessary be the same with a PC. So why should PC players suffer for the poor Performance of old consoles, since they also got their own servers?

    I actually hadnt thought of that. We have no cross platform and each patch is designed differently for each platform so why are PC players suffering because of the limitations of console?

    As an XB player, I am not averse to PC having higher limits on housing, but presumably some older PCs would be in the same boat as consoles. With an SSD, I have no discernable issues with items in my houses loading in. I don't know if an XB player w/o an SSD has problems with 700 items in a manor, but I don't. That said, I can only assume what ZOS has said - that anything over 700 would blow up my XB.

    I would assume that there are older PCs that might similarly not be able to handle much more than the 700 item count. I don't know that for sure, of course, but if that were the case, then I'm not sure ZOS would want to increase the limit on PC, only to have players not be able to load into homes anymore after placing 1000+ objects in them. Of course, they could have some sort of setting that's automatically set based on one's computer specs, or some kind of warning when people try to go past 700 items.

    Again, I don't see a problem with an increase on PC if ZOS can manage it and deal with the complaints when lower-end/old PCs blow up.

    I know its not literal but now all I can think of is someone playing on an old IBM and placing item 701 only for their computer to erupt in flame
  • iLLcrime
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    Why I am a fan of non-instanced player housing, and why I will always consider SWG (and I guess Vanguard) to have the best implementation of player housing of any MMORPG. Well I guess in Star Citizen your ships ARE your house, so that is probably a step above SWG's housing system, but for Fantasy based MMORPG's, I was never a fan of "instanced" housing, However I understand WHY that system is chosen.

    But even with "instanced" housing, EQ2 had a decent system, DAoC and LOTRO had essentially the same system, which was also very nice imo. The house itself wasn't instanced, your entire neighborhood was instead, and they would just have Instance A/B/C/D/etc of that neighborhood. But once inside, you could walk down the streets, see other people's houses, walk in an out of the ones you have permission to, then leave your neighborhood thus leaving the instance.

    But in SWG, you could load even small houses up with just about as many players as you want. Since it was non-instanced, if they were given permission to enter the building, people just came and went as they please. Guild halls would have around 100 or so people in it during events, and buff houses would easily have 20-30 players sitting in them, getting buffed, etc.

    Was pretty sick.

    I do love the design of the houses in ESO, the yards, insides, art deco, etc. All beautiful, BUT I just wish that we had actual Neighborhoods like EQ2, DAoC and Lotro did. Where there were housing "districts" in the city, and within those dedicated housing area,s there were a bunch of apartments, or houses next to each other, each one a different size and different cost. You might buy a small house, but your friend moves in next door and has a big house.

    In ESO, the houses are just like...in the middle of nowhere and by themselves. I mean even in Grahtwood, you have houses near yours, but they are NPC occupied...no player neighbors. Same with the Inns and apartments...no player neighbors. Missed opportunity imo.

    SWG will forever be my favorite MMO

    SWG was far ahead of it's time. The player housing and player cities were top notch, including the guild halls and how people used player housing for their stores. I was a hardcore decorator in SWG and have been hoping to find something to fill that void with no luck over the years. RIP SWG and here's to hoping that ZOS finds a way to give us something here to help with their system.
    I put on my robe and wizard hat
  • Imperial_Voice
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    Zypheran wrote: »

    To be fair, that forum section gets utterly ignored. You can go back 40 pages before you see a dev post!
    We are all blue in the face from having our comments and suggestions tumble away into the vast unresponding void that is housing forums!
    At least the thread might get noticed here.

    Precisely this. ZoS does not respond to anything in that forum. At least in general this has a chance of getting attention.
    iLLcrime wrote: »
    Why I am a fan of non-instanced player housing, and why I will always consider SWG (and I guess Vanguard) to have the best implementation of player housing of any MMORPG. Well I guess in Star Citizen your ships ARE your house, so that is probably a step above SWG's housing system, but for Fantasy based MMORPG's, I was never a fan of "instanced" housing, However I understand WHY that system is chosen.

    But even with "instanced" housing, EQ2 had a decent system, DAoC and LOTRO had essentially the same system, which was also very nice imo. The house itself wasn't instanced, your entire neighborhood was instead, and they would just have Instance A/B/C/D/etc of that neighborhood. But once inside, you could walk down the streets, see other people's houses, walk in an out of the ones you have permission to, then leave your neighborhood thus leaving the instance.

    But in SWG, you could load even small houses up with just about as many players as you want. Since it was non-instanced, if they were given permission to enter the building, people just came and went as they please. Guild halls would have around 100 or so people in it during events, and buff houses would easily have 20-30 players sitting in them, getting buffed, etc.

    Was pretty sick.

    I do love the design of the houses in ESO, the yards, insides, art deco, etc. All beautiful, BUT I just wish that we had actual Neighborhoods like EQ2, DAoC and Lotro did. Where there were housing "districts" in the city, and within those dedicated housing area,s there were a bunch of apartments, or houses next to each other, each one a different size and different cost. You might buy a small house, but your friend moves in next door and has a big house.

    In ESO, the houses are just like...in the middle of nowhere and by themselves. I mean even in Grahtwood, you have houses near yours, but they are NPC occupied...no player neighbors. Same with the Inns and apartments...no player neighbors. Missed opportunity imo.

    SWG will forever be my favorite MMO

    SWG was far ahead of it's time. The player housing and player cities were top notch, including the guild halls and how people used player housing for their stores. I was a hardcore decorator in SWG and have been hoping to find something to fill that void with no luck over the years. RIP SWG and here's to hoping that ZOS finds a way to give us something here to help with their system.

    I helped run a dedicated merchant city on Bria server and it was easily one of my best experiences in gaming. I particulary liked it that every single item in game could be dropped in a house as furnishing. You could do some amazing things with SWG that no MMP has offered since.
  • Girl_Number8
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    I am aware. Do think perhaps there's a reason I did not post there?

    Smart!! Keep posting them in general to get a response. Housing at it's cost needs Cx attention in functionality and space. They are a sad joke as of now. :neutral:
    Edited by Girl_Number8 on April 17, 2019 8:53PM
  • Imperial_Voice
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    I am aware. Do think perhaps there's a reason I did not post there?

    Smart!! Keep posting them in general to get a response. Housing at it's cost needs Cx attention in functionality and space. They are a sad joke as of now. :neutral:

    Thanks! This is an issue that ZoS has been ignoring since housing was implemented and I dont see the point in making it easy for them to ignore.
  • Hallothiel
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    Have you got a link about consoles being the reason for the item limit, as haven’t heard that before.
  • Imperial_Voice
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    Hallothiel wrote: »
    Have you got a link about consoles being the reason for the item limit, as haven’t heard that before.

    I keep digging for a link but I cant find one buried amongst literal hundreds of threads complainkng about the limit. I do know that the original reasoning had to do with processing power of consoles.
  • ohaphazardo
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    The item limit utterly ruins housing for me.
    Another aspect of the game ruined by Zos's arbitrary "let's draw a line here" mentality.
    I fork out for a big property but can't put all my stuff in it??
  • Ruenn
    Ruenn
    Thanks so much for this post! It encapsulated an essential problem with housing and was extremely well worded. It is obvious from the post and the responses that there are some very good ideas to address the issue. The next step, in my opinion is to try to engage the developers in the conversation. One idea I will put forth is to share here and in other platforms (ie.Twitch) your passion about housing. Events like housing contest and house tours will help show how diverse and dedicated the housing community is and hopefully grab someone's attention!!
    Edited by Ruenn on April 18, 2019 7:13PM
  • Maxx7410
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    we need NPC for housing but npc with history with quest, they can help improve the lore of the game no only stupid books all apart and fragmented (the most horrible way to give lore). All class of npc from saints to murderers, you choose but they must interact and all confront each other even fight to death!!! ESO have some imagination!
  • Nemesis7884
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    housing need ssome additional benefits or things to do...it does feel lacking - honestly i always try to find reasons to spend in my house and i never find them
  • Sylvermynx
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    I just wish housing worked the way RIFT's did. I never ran into an item limit (though I think there probably were limits), and the place I built for one of my mains at Moonshade Pools probably had 5 or 6 THOUSAND items (Moonshade Pools is HUGE - it even stretches down to the sea, and I ran stairs down there, built a dock, docked a boat, which also had items to "fancy the place up").

    You could wander the world, and copy neat stuff to put in your own houses. The placement system was SO much better. I miss RIFT's housing.
  • JadeCoin
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    Jayne_Doe wrote: »
    As an XB player, I am not averse to PC having higher limits on housing, but presumably some older PCs would be in the same boat as consoles.

    I wouldn't have any objection to seeing a higher item and player cap on PC than on console, either. I love housing and I devote a lot of time to it on Xbox, but you can't exactly argue with a hardware issue, and it doesn't impact other areas of the game.
    I would expect resistance from the console companies having their product's limitations be so visible. There are probably some arrangements in place to avoid that stuff.

    I wouldn't be surprised if there was some agreement in place that the console version and the PC version couldn't diverge in significant ways, to prevent people from jumping ship (which they are already doing for add-ons).

    All of that is on the client side, though. Does anyone here know enough about the technology involved to understand the server side of the equation? For example, what would the impact be on server-side resources if the majority of housing instances were split into two "wings," and the item caps doubled?
  • Imperial_Voice
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    Ruenn wrote: »
    Thanks so much for this post! It encapsulated an essential problem with housing and was extremely well worded. It is obvious from the post and the responses that there are some very good ideas to address the issue. The next step, in my opinion is to try to engage the developers in the conversation. One idea I will put forth is to share here and in other platforms (ie.Twitch) your passion about housing. Events like housing contest and house tours will help show how diverse and dedicated the housing community is and hopefully grab someone attention!!

    Thanks and I appreciate your kind words! Honestly Im just hoping that this gets some attention. These issues arent simply going to die.
  • linlilia
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    I think they also need to make Attunable stations not count towards housing limits, every guild house that has the full set currently lacks tons of decorations because of it. If they did not count towards the limit it would open up some nice housing spots. Same with Mundus stones and target dummies.

    Every guild leader hates attunable stations because there are so many and the houses just cant be decorated because of it and remember there will be 12 more with the chapter................
  • Lab3360
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    Housing lacks functionality especially considering the cost.
    Edited by Lab3360 on April 18, 2019 1:05AM
  • Emathides
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    Totally agree with you OP. Zos has a great product here, the housing itself, furnishings and overall artwork is top notch. They just need to fix the things you mentioned and they would have a formidable product overall which other MMOs that have player housing would find very hard to beat.
  • Imperial_Voice
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    Lab3360 wrote: »
    Housing lacks functionality especially considering the cost.

    Its not unreasonable to say that many players jave apent upwards of $150-200 and millions upon millions of gold on housing and yet this is al we get.
This discussion has been closed.