Elsweyr brings the first furnishings locked behind Veteran content that aren't Busts [SPOILERS]

B0SSzombie

FIRST OFF, SPOILERS

With that out of the way, Elsweyr will be introducing 2 Achievement Furnishings that can only be obtained via Veteran content.

Statue, Lokkestiiz:

Complete the "Stormchaser" Achievement in the Sunspire Trial (Defeat Lokkestiiz after extinguishing his offering braziers in Veteran Sunspire.)

Statue, Yolnakhriin:

Complete the "Stoking the Fire" Achievement in the Sunspire Trial (Defeat Yolnahkriin after extinguishing his offering braziers in Veteran Sunspire.)

So basically, if you want these, you need to beat two out of the three Bosses in Sunspire on Veteran in their Hard Mode configurations.

An interesting decision for sure. Personally don't have any issue with it, but I did notice this right off the bat. Kinda surprised those achievements and their furnishings aren't just for extinguishing the braziers on any difficulty, considering you'll have to extinguish them no matter what if you want to do Veteran HM.

JadeCoin

I think this is totally fine and kind of cool, actually. They're beautiful statues, and the challenge to get them makes them something worth showing off, like prize trophies. The skins and mounts are the same idea.

I'd much rather see this kind of rare item in the game, which rewards effort or skill, than limited-time RNG rarity, which seems to do nothing but bring out the crazy in people.

Mojmir

Honestly tired of furniture as a reward for anything. Just me i guess.

Dragonnord

Beautiful dragons busts!

I just don't like the back part. It's Khajiit style and it doesn't fit my house architecture and environment.

I wish they had realeased the dragons busts alone, so you could select your own base, pedestal or "background" where to place them.
 

DovahkiinHeart

I already anticipate some guilds advertising trial carries for these...

yooqi

Dragonnord wrote: »

Beautiful dragons busts!

I just don't like the back part. It's Khajiit style and it doesn't fit my house architecture and environment.

I wish they had realeased the dragons busts alone, so you could select your own base, pedestal or "background" where to place them.
 

You could probably hide the back by pushing them into a wall, or covering with a curtain/rug. Not perfect solution but hey...

Nebthet78

I'm not fond of any housing item achievement being locked behind a Vet HM.

You should just have to create the dungeon on normal to be able to get the achievement to get the furnishing pieces. The VetHM players already get a shiny new Mount and Title to go with the completion.

Housing is suppose to be something that is fun and relating and something that everyone in the game can achieve no matter their skill level.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert

bluebird

I understand achi furnishings, and vet busts, and having the basic 'complete this trial for this trial-themed furnishing' would be ok (as we had with Cloudrest) but Vet HM? I just think that if we weighed the number of Vet HM endgame players who are really serious about housing, and the number of housing enthusiasts who run Vet HMs, it kinda makes these a bit off the mark.

B0SSzombie

bluebird wrote: »

I understand achi furnishings, and vet busts, and having the basic 'complete this trial for this trial-themed furnishing' would be ok (as we had with Cloudrest) but Vet HM? I just think that if we weighed the number of Vet HM endgame players who are really serious about housing, and the number of housing enthusiasts who run Vet HMs, it kinda makes these a bit off the mark.

There is a furnishing for simply completing Sunspire on any difficulty as well.

These are just extra, although I'm still a little perplexed as to how niche they are.

It's like you said, I can't think of any players that I've met that typically run Vet HM content and are interested in Housing. It's kind of like how the groups of players are broken up:

• PVP Players: Players who almost exclusively play PVP content, like Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds. These players grind Alliance Points and build sets just for beating other players. They don't typically care for cosmetic things (You'll never see them with Pets).
• PVE Players: People who complete Group and Solo Content on the hardest settings frequently. These players grind 4 and 12 player content constantly (Along with Maelstrom), usually in order to Min/Max their builds. As far as cosmetics go, you'll usually see them wearing skins from completely beating Trials and Group Dungeons (Like Halls of Fabrication).
• Story Content Players: Players who "Do everything related to quests and story." Not necessarily on a challenging difficulty, but in a sense that they see everything. These players grind for cosmetic stuff like Furnishings (and Furnishing Recipes), Pets, Mounts, and Motifs; decorative things basically.

That's not to say there isn't overlap in those groups, but it's not very common. I still think it would make more sense for them to be tied to beating the Bosses after extinguishing their Braziers on ANY difficulty. Kind of like if there were Achievement Furnishings for beating Asylum Sanctorium or Cloudrest on their Hardest Configurations, but not on their Hardest Difficulties (nAS+2 or nCR+3 to be more clear). You're going to have to extinguish those Braziers anyway when you're going for the Mount, so why have a reward for a halfway point?

DovahkiinHeart

Regardless of where you are on the 'Skin Carry' debate (even though it's not violating ZOS's TOS), expect to see trial guilds selling carries for these.

Achievement furnishing items are not exactly like mounts, titles, skins, and dyes, where you get to 'wear' them around and other players will always see them.

It's going to look amusing when people REEEE at the fact that people will have these furnishings especially when they're not even publicly showing it off like a title or skin lol.

idk

Great busts but whoever designed them and signed off on them forgot something very important. When to stop. It just looks like the goal was to make them amazing and in the end they just look cheap and gaudy. I would like to be able to cut off that backdrop.

Kittytravel

B0SSzombie wrote: »

That's not to say there isn't overlap in those groups, but it's not very common. I still think it would make more sense for them to be tied to beating the Bosses after extinguishing their Braziers on ANY difficulty. Kind of like if there were Achievement Furnishings for beating Asylum Sanctorium or Cloudrest on their Hardest Configurations, but not on their Hardest Difficulties (nAS+2 or nCR+3 to be more clear). You're going to have to extinguish those Braziers anyway when you're going for the Mount, so why have a reward for a halfway point?

This pretty much sums it up. I think the specialty mounts that are locked behind the hardest VetHM content are enough of a reward and something that is much more showcaseable in the real world. These statues should probably be lowered to the "Hardest configuration in any mode" level. Housing items aren't often showcased widely to the playerbase (you don't swing by BOSSzombie and go "Wow I saw you had the furnishing for beating ____Trial on the HARDEST mode." or "Wow I saw you had the emperor throne!" because housing is usually shared within a specific community of interest.

In the game world though if you see someone walking around with the nifty red die or the "Former Emperor/Empress" title you might be more inclined to ask about how they got it as a lot more of the player base will see those objects. Same with mounts in this regard.

B0SSzombie

Kittytravel wrote: »

B0SSzombie wrote: »

That's not to say there isn't overlap in those groups, but it's not very common. I still think it would make more sense for them to be tied to beating the Bosses after extinguishing their Braziers on ANY difficulty. Kind of like if there were Achievement Furnishings for beating Asylum Sanctorium or Cloudrest on their Hardest Configurations, but not on their Hardest Difficulties (nAS+2 or nCR+3 to be more clear). You're going to have to extinguish those Braziers anyway when you're going for the Mount, so why have a reward for a halfway point?

This pretty much sums it up. I think the specialty mounts that are locked behind the hardest VetHM content are enough of a reward and something that is much more showcaseable in the real world. These statues should probably be lowered to the "Hardest configuration in any mode" level. Housing items aren't often showcased widely to the playerbase (you don't swing by BOSSzombie and go "Wow I saw you had the furnishing for beating ____Trial on the HARDEST mode." or "Wow I saw you had the emperor throne!" because housing is usually shared within a specific community of interest.

In the game world though if you see someone walking around with the nifty red die or the "Former Emperor/Empress" title you might be more inclined to ask about how they got it as a lot more of the player base will see those objects. Same with mounts in this regard.

It's just a shame that, even if they considered changing the requirements, it's probably too late in the PTS testing to do it. There's just over 3 weeks until Elsweyr launches, and I doubt the devs will consider prioritizing something like this.

DovahkiinHeart

B0SSzombie wrote: »

It's just a shame that, even if they considered changing the requirements, it's probably too late in the PTS testing to do it. There's just over 3 weeks until Elsweyr launches, and I doubt the devs will consider prioritizing something like this.

Do you think the devs made this intentional so that the 2% of players who manage to get these furnishings will suddenly want to get into housing now and spend crowns to buy/decorate their houses?

If that's the case, well played.

Well played indeed.

dogman

DovahkiinHeart wrote: »

B0SSzombie wrote: »

It's just a shame that, even if they considered changing the requirements, it's probably too late in the PTS testing to do it. There's just over 3 weeks until Elsweyr launches, and I doubt the devs will consider prioritizing something like this.

Do you think the devs made this intentional so that the 2% of players who manage to get these furnishings will suddenly want to get into housing now and spend crowns to buy/decorate their houses?

If that's the case, well played.

Well played indeed.

Where the hell do you get these statistics of "2% of the players." If only 2% of the players can defeat the hard modes on these two different bosses, then that makes me top 2% of the players for PVE and trust me, I am not.

Sinolai

B0SSzombie wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

I understand achi furnishings, and vet busts, and having the basic 'complete this trial for this trial-themed furnishing' would be ok (as we had with Cloudrest) but Vet HM? I just think that if we weighed the number of Vet HM endgame players who are really serious about housing, and the number of housing enthusiasts who run Vet HMs, it kinda makes these a bit off the mark.

There is a furnishing for simply completing Sunspire on any difficulty as well.

These are just extra, although I'm still a little perplexed as to how niche they are.

It's like you said, I can't think of any players that I've met that typically run Vet HM content and are interested in Housing.

Hi. We probably haven't met before. I am the person who loves doing Veteran Hard Mode content AND furnishing my house. Honestly, I think there should be more rewards like this. Titels are kind of meh since you can use only one and there are so many already. We need more Furnishing/Mounts/Adroments/Hairstyles/Tattoos/Outfit Styles that says "I have been there and done that". (The number of skins is pretty nice but unfortunately most of them are ugly and like titles, you can only wear one at the time.) I heard Elsweyr is also introducing first special mount that is an achievement and not Crown Store/Crown Crate exclusive.


Edit 2: Can we have furnishing that requires tons of undaunted plunders and weekly HM reward items to craft?

bluebird

Sinolai wrote: »

B0SSzombie wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

I understand achi furnishings, and vet busts, and having the basic 'complete this trial for this trial-themed furnishing' would be ok (as we had with Cloudrest) but Vet HM? I just think that if we weighed the number of Vet HM endgame players who are really serious about housing, and the number of housing enthusiasts who run Vet HMs, it kinda makes these a bit off the mark.

There is a furnishing for simply completing Sunspire on any difficulty as well.

These are just extra, although I'm still a little perplexed as to how niche they are.

It's like you said, I can't think of any players that I've met that typically run Vet HM content and are interested in Housing.

Hi. We probably haven't met before. I am the person who loves doing Veteran Hard Mode content AND furnishing my house. Honestly, I think there should be more rewards like this. Titels are kind of meh since you can use only one and there are so many already. We need more Furnishing/Mounts/Adroments/Hairstyles/Tattoos/Outfit Styles that says "I have been there and done that". (The number of skins is pretty nice but unfortunately most of them are ugly and like titles, you can only wear one at the time.) I heard Elsweyr is also introducing first special mount that is an achievement and not Crown Store/Crown Crate exclusive.


Edit 2: Can we have furnishing that requires tons of undaunted plunders and weekly HM reward items to craft?

Not to be snarky or anything, but saying that you like furnishing 'your house' already says that you are less interested in housing than others Housing enthusiasts furnish their houses, quite often ten, twenty or more, each individually designed with a unique theme or roleplay purpose in mind.

And yes, Elsweyr already has an exclusive mount for the vet HM meta achi, and that's in addition to the regular rewards such as the vet title and the vet skin. It seems an odd choice to limit even more things to vet HMs, especially when they went in the opposite direction recently with the Wrathstone skin requiring only vet, not a vet HM/speedrun/nodeath etc. meta achi.

But now it's about furnishings, which are private things that nobody can see, so it makes even less sense. Housing enthusiasts shouldn't have an item in their house that nobody will see anyway, because vet HM players need an exclusive furnishing that nobody will see anyway... but the obnoxious clashing blue/orange skin can be gotten with just vet more easily and you can show it off to anyone. What

Kikke

Done all trials HM.
Done all Dungeons HM.
Do them regulary.

Loves housing!
But I cant show my friends that I've beat all HM content...
Only Veteran =(

Give more special furniture behind HM kills! please?

bluebird

Kikke wrote: »

Done all trials HM.
Done all Dungeons HM.
Do them regulary.

Loves housing!
But I cant show my friends that I've beat all HM content...
Only Veteran =(

Give more special furniture behind HM kills! please?

You can show them... with skins and titles Nobody will convincingly make the case that a furnishing in a random house (maybe not even in your primary house if your primary is a crafting place and the fancy decorative one is just a secondary house, so people may not be able to travel in there) allows you to show off your achievement to people better than the actual titles and skins (and soon mount) that are already awarded for HMs.

Tommy_The_Gun

B0SSzombie

I JUST realized what's been bothering about these furnishings!

The devs made such a big deal about rewards being more accessible in the new Group Dungeons. Instead of having to beat the new Depths of Malatar and Frostvault dungeons with "Veteran Hard Mode/No Death/Fast Run" criteria to unlock the Meridian Purified Skin and Icebound Dwarven Spider Pet, you simply have to beat them on plain old Veteran, no strings attached. Means you don't have to be in the top 5% (or even less than that) of players to nab the stuff, and certainly makes attempting those difficulties more appealing (I'm good enough to do Veteran Group Dungeons, but I doubt I'll ever be invested or skilled enough for the max difficulty stuff in this game). And you still have the "Purified Devastator" and "Frozen Treasure Seeker" titles to show off if you ARE that good.''

In a sense, it solidifies a nice tier system for Group Dungeons now:

• Normal Reward: Skill Point and Quest
• Veteran Reward: Cosmetic Item (Skin/Pet/etc.)
• Veteran HM Fast No Death: Title

And that's without even looking at the Undaunted Trophies and Busts.

But adding a reward for a required part during the hardest difficulty in a Trial, that isn't a title, is a step in the literal opposite direction! And the more I look at Sunspire's achievements, the stranger these two seem to me. Almost as if they were a mistake.

You'll be extinguishing all of the braziers on Veteran difficulty anyway for the "Sunspire Vanquisher" achievement (which rewards a title), and THAT achievement is needed for the "Sunspire Dragonbreak" achievement (which rewards the special Mount). So why get those two achievements when you're already doing that stuff on Veteran? And they're only worth 15 points! 15 point achievements on Veteran Trials are usually for doing special challenges during bosses that you wouldn't normally go out of your way for ("Flares and Deadly Shadows," "Core Coordination," and "Yaghra Blockade" in Cloudrest for example), not for doing stuff required for other achievements.

Honestly, as I said before, the two achievements should be acquired on Normal Difficulty, not just to enable more people to get the Furnishings, but as a means of allowing players to sample harder content in the Trials and decide "You know what, I bet I could do that on a harder difficulty!"

Chryseia

@B0SSzombie If it's not too much trouble, would you mind sharing a picture of the back of the circular backdrop? Also whether the back of the pedestal clips past the back of the backdrop? (I am curious if it can be sunk into a floor to be used as a circular platform, planter, or pool)

B0SSzombie

Chryseia wrote: »

@B0SSzombie If it's not too much trouble, would you mind sharing a picture of the back of the circular backdrop? Also whether the back of the pedestal clips past the back of the backdrop? (I am curious if it can be sunk into a floor to be used as a circular platform, planter, or pool)

Curry Gaming has a good video showing them (They're shown at 1:58 in the video):
https://youtu.be/oUSNGvMSaFo?t=118

prof-dracko

I think it's neat. There should be more incentive for HM, especially in some of the older vanilla dungeons. I'm saying this as someone who is crap at Vet content, having more things locked behind HM would encourage me to improve. Maybe this could set a president where normal gets the wall mount, vet gets the bronze bust and HM gets a full body statue of the flagship boss. Or maybe just a furnishing exclusive to the dungeon? Elden Hollow could give those crystal geodes, CoH could be the Ebony blade ect.

Sometimes just having something for you is enough. Personally they'd go straight into a trophy room. And it's not like no-one can see them. You can visit other people's homes you know.

B0SSzombie

prof-dracko wrote: »

I think it's neat. There should be more incentive for HM, especially in some of the older vanilla dungeons. I'm saying this as someone who is crap at Vet content, having more things locked behind HM would encourage me to improve. Maybe this could set a president where normal gets the wall mount, vet gets the bronze bust and HM gets a full body statue of the flagship boss. Or maybe just a furnishing exclusive to the dungeon? Elden Hollow could give those crystal geodes, CoH could be the Ebony blade ect.

Sometimes just having something for you is enough. Personally they'd go straight into a trophy room. And it's not like no-one can see them. You can visit other people's homes you know.

Can you visit someone else's home if they're not a Friend or in your Guild?

bluebird

prof-dracko wrote: »

I think it's neat. There should be more incentive for HM, especially in some of the older vanilla dungeons. I'm saying this as someone who is crap at Vet content, having more things locked behind HM would encourage me to improve. Maybe this could set a president where normal gets the wall mount, vet gets the bronze bust and HM gets a full body statue of the flagship boss. Or maybe just a furnishing exclusive to the dungeon? Elden Hollow could give those crystal geodes, CoH could be the Ebony blade ect.

Sometimes just having something for you is enough. Personally they'd go straight into a trophy room. And it's not like no-one can see them. You can visit other people's homes you know.

They give away the skin for vet. So 'you can visit other people's homes you know' isn't really an argument as to why these statues should be vet HM only (as opposed to normal or vet), when skins are far more visible to literally anyone who comes across you, while for furniture you have to actively set people's permissions to visit, they need to actively travel to your house, and only if it's in your primary.

And if 'sometimes having something for you is enough' then there is no need to deny other people the opportunity to get the item too. After all, your statue in your private home doesn't have anything to do with whether someone else also has that statue in their private room. In fact, you wouldn't even know about it.

And if you're looking for incentives to run vet HM content, well... you know... if titles, skins and mounts, increased chances of dropping motifs and higher quality loot doesn't convince people to run vet HMs instead of normal, then two statues won't either. A lack of furniture isn't the reason why people who don't do vet HMs don't do vet HMs, so adding them won't work as an incentive at all.

And the 'incentives, yay' argument also doesn't work, because with this logic we could also say that 'we need more incentives to encourage people to buy houses, so we'll have a really powerful gold trial set that spawns in your storage chest if you have at least 10 fully furnished homes'... It would make no sense right? A set that is just as good or better than other sets (as these statues are just as good or better than other furnishings) that is obtainable by a totally unrelated kind of gameplay (furniture from vetHMs and this hypothetical gold gear from having many houses) that the people who are most interested in them are the least likely to get them.

I'm not even that into the Elsweyr aesthetic on them, so it's not that much of a loss to me personally, I just can't see any logical reason for this new direction as most arguments for it don't make sense at all.

Kittytravel

B0SSzombie wrote: »

Can you visit someone else's home if they're not a Friend or in your Guild?

The answer here is... yes and no?

Yes because you can use addons to visit someones house provided you have the below.
1. Their @Name
2. The house you want to visit.
3. They have it open to the public.

But again; this is something that only housing enthusiasts normally have/care about. In all five of my guilds (One casual, two social, one trade, one house design) only the house design guild regularly visits other peoples houses with said addon. Everyone else just sticks to primary homes and barely visits those as is ("guild halls" being an exception).

B0SSzombie

Kittytravel wrote: »

B0SSzombie wrote: »

Can you visit someone else's home if they're not a Friend or in your Guild?

The answer here is... yes and no?

Yes because you can use addons to visit someones house provided you have the below.
1. Their @Name
2. The house you want to visit.
3. They have it open to the public.

But again; this is something that only housing enthusiasts normally have/care about. In all five of my guilds (One casual, two social, one trade, one house design) only the house design guild regularly visits other peoples houses with said addon. Everyone else just sticks to primary homes and barely visits those as is ("guild halls" being an exception).

Ah wouldn't know about that. PS4 player.

Olauron

Nebthet78 wrote: »

I'm not fond of any housing item achievement being locked behind a Vet HM.

You should just have to create the dungeon on normal to be able to get the achievement to get the furnishing pieces. The VetHM players already get a shiny new Mount and Title to go with the completion.

Housing is suppose to be something that is fun and relating and something that everyone in the game can achieve no matter their skill level.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert

Agree. Housing is mostly a solo activity. With some effort I can find another 3 players among my friends to complete dungeons. But trial needs 11 more players and I just don't have as much friends playing ESO. Given that achievement furnishings are bound I don't see a way to get those and as a result the new house Jode's Embrace is useless to me so I'm not going to buy it.

prof-dracko

bluebird wrote: »

They give away the skin for vet. So 'you can visit other people's homes you know' isn't really an argument as to why these statues should be vet HM only (as opposed to normal or vet), when skins are far more visible to literally anyone who comes across you, while for furniture you have to actively set people's permissions to visit, they need to actively travel to your house, and only if it's in your primary.

And if 'sometimes having something for you is enough' then there is no need to deny other people the opportunity to get the item too. After all, your statue in your private home doesn't have anything to do with whether someone else also has that statue in their private room. In fact, you wouldn't even know about it.

And if you're looking for incentives to run vet HM content, well... you know... if titles, skins and mounts, increased chances of dropping motifs and higher quality loot doesn't convince people to run vet HMs instead of normal, then two statues won't either. A lack of furniture isn't the reason why people who don't do vet HMs don't do vet HMs, so adding them won't work as an incentive at all.

And the 'incentives, yay' argument also doesn't work, because with this logic we could also say that 'we need more incentives to encourage people to buy houses, so we'll have a really powerful gold trial set that spawns in your storage chest if you have at least 10 fully furnished homes'... It would make no sense right? A set that is just as good or better than other sets (as these statues are just as good or better than other furnishings) that is obtainable by a totally unrelated kind of gameplay (furniture from vetHMs and this hypothetical gold gear from having many houses) that the people who are most interested in them are the least likely to get them.

I'm not even that into the Elsweyr aesthetic on them, so it's not that much of a loss to me personally, I just can't see any logical reason for this new direction as most arguments for it don't make sense at all.

Let's break this down point by point. First off, from what I understand they aren't "giving away" the statues for HM, they're being added to the vendor. So you still have to invest quite a bit of gold to get them if you want, it's not handed to you automatically. This means if you don't want it you don't get it. It's a trophy, same as the other achievement furnishings. If you want it, buy it. If you don't then it doesn't affect you.

Second, a lot of people invested in housing are into it for its own sake, because they enjoy it. Not because they feel the need to everyone to see it. I won't address your point about it not mattering if anyone else has it, because it's a valid enough one. However just getting it for normal mode would severely diminish the sense of satisfaction obtained from earning it yourself. People like the other Undaunted busts not because they look neat, but because they feel earned. It's a "look at what I've beaten" thing. Besides which no-one really looks at titles or can see skins under all the armor anyway. I find them less noticeable and are still only there to stroke the ego of the one who has them.

Third, as I just implied, a lot of people don't care about motifs/skins/titles. Some do, and they'll do HM content to get them. Others don't and won't. Adding a housing incentive would bring another, perhaps small, group into the HM sphere of interest.

Finally, your last point is just ridiculous. Besides the fact that people CAN get sets from their houses via attunable crafting stations, as I said housing exists for its own sake. It's a fun way to spend time and gold building up your dream home. It has no impact on gameplay and shouldn't. The incentive should be, and is, "I want to make this home my own way" and that requires work and effort. As I said in point one, you still need to buy the furnishings. If you don't want them you're not forced to have them.

Let the people who enjoy that sort of thing enjoy it. The whole game doesn't have to pander to a certain demographic. I, for example, hate PVP stuff with a passion. Do I resent that some neat furnishings are locked behind rank achievements? No, it's an incentive for me to do better. I'd resent it more if they were just handed to me. It would feel cheap and unearned which is not what I've associate this game with.

SteampunkWerewolf

Cool, finally some awesome furnishings I’ll never be able to get because it’s locked behind stupid vet trail again.