PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for Housing

Recremen

I like the idea of more open areas in housing on which to build custom structures and environments, but I do not think that Moon-Sugar Meadows can properly fill this role in its current setup. For me, the ideal "open space" home has the following properties :

• Extremely large central flat area (literally as perfectly flat as possible) with a dirt or floor texture appropriate for the space
• No structures unless on the edges of the map
• More nuanced terrain towards the periphery of the flat area
• Entrance area extremely close to the flat area, with the path between also being as perfectly flat as possible

There are a myriad reasons for the central area to be massive and perfectly flat. First and foremost, however, the driving motivation for these open areas seems to be to enable the maximum amount of player customization in their housing environments. A large flat area is far more useful for this than bumpy terrain. If we want bumpy terrain then we can make it ourselves and more to our taste with housing objects. If we don't have sufficient housing objects to make such customizations then that's a problem of too little variety in our housing objects, nothing more. Either way, our myriad of flat furnishings like rugs, or needs-to-be-on-a-flat-surface furnishings like crafting stations, favors the flat setup. It's a pain in the ass to first have to make a giant flat platform, using precious furnishings slots to do so, and only then start putting our actual design into motion.

The no structures rule follows a similar idea. If we want to make our own massive structures then give us the furnishings to do so, don't spoil an otherwise open area with forced clutter.

More nuanced terrain is still good, of course, but save it for the outer edges! I'm sure we'd all rather have the option for side gardens, lounges, rock formations, pools, etc. without having them forced into the center of our workable space and limiting the kinds of structures we can build there.

The entrance area should be close to the flat area simply as a matter of convenience and customization. Being able to run to quickly to the most important features of your house is important, especially for utility houses, and the flatness helps, as before, with customization goals, up to and including full conversion of the space. If someone wants a longer, more meandering path to their primary structures(s), then no worries! Thanks to the large central flat area they can place their primary structures as far or as close to the entrance as desired.

Let's take a case study of Coldharbour Surreal Estate as used for a crafting hub. There are tons of setups you could choose from, all facilitated by a wonderfully large and flat central area. Mind you, the flat area could always be bigger, but this is just to illustrate the point.

Closed Crafting Area, part of a total conversion of the space.



Coldharbour portal made to look less Coldharboury, so you don't feel like you stepped into a gross Daedric realm as much.






Someone else's house, but same idea. More of an open space!



Good use of side areas.







For both of these setups the focus is on maximizing efficiency for power users. Close to the entrance, labeled stations, set up in a space-efficient way to minimize running, etc. Perfect for doing 50+ master writs in one go! Unfortunately, Moon-Sugar Meadows doesn't seem to have an area large or flat enough for these setups. It's still quite lovely in its own way, but I think with a couple of slight changes it could definitely appeal to a broader base.

Zypheran

Given the amount of feedback you've gotten about removing the boulders in the middle, can I suggest if you can't remove them, (because they're covering the step between different terrain heights) could you replace them with something flatter.
The problem with the current boulders is that if you want to do a build in the centre of that area, you have to create a huge ugly monolith to get above those current boulders.
Even flatter boulders would improve this. Obviously removal would be better.

dcam86b14_ESO

Just wish they would make the grounds leveled in the MSM home, it's frustrating trying to level things on that terrain.