Opinions on Potentate's Retreat house?

Aliyavana

Hello all, what are your opinions on the Potentate's retreat house currently on the PTS? I plan to buy it but that doesn't necessarily mean that it cannot use improvements.

Firstly, the side rooms feel a bit too small, and the interior space could be expanded. The house is literally built into a huge mountainside, its possible for the side rooms or the interior in general to be expanded. The circular room is my favorite part of the interior, and feels like it would make a great throne room.

Secondly, the pool is amazing in the exterior, but the giant aeonstone spikes is a niche interest and ruins it for many people. If the spikes were only visible under the pool floor and did not stick out of the water, it would be tolerable, but they just look mostly ugly and them being unmovable doesn't help either. I feel that many people will be turned off of buying this house because of them.

Raideen

I have no interest in spending over $100.00 for a pixel house.

Sturmfaenger

I would have loved it if it had not

- the entrance part
- the crystals in the pool

The part I really like is the pool area, the huge entrance part with the rooms just means it takes time to reach the area where I would want to be.
And the crystals... they may have some relevence to a dragonhold story plot (I don't quest on PTS to not spoil me the fun doing it live).... but why would I want them in my pool?

I like that they listenend to player feedback and moved the invisible walls in the small cave further back. (But I will forever be sad that they don't introduce new blueprints with that addon, rather would have that and kept the invisible wall).

Zypheran

I'm afraid it's just not for me but that's based purely on personal taste.
- I don't like the run-down, grotty theme. I think we have too many 'ruined' houses in game.
- The side rooms are too small to be useful
- Non-removable crystals in the pool make building a home out there to difficult.

Given that ZOS will be asking for €100 for this house, I will pass. For that money, the house needs to be something truly special. (A new chapter costs €40....)

RaddlemanNumber7

They need to get the decorators in before they put it on the market.

StabbityDoom

I'm not buying any more pixel homes until they allow us to do gold gifting stuffs. This one is nice, but the interior is dreary. Believe it or not I prefer lucky cat and even the last hall of the lunar (can build out).

Aliyavana

It does have a bleak feel in the inside with it being ruined, but im sure decorators like @Elara_Northwind could bring life to the interior

Jayne_Doe

I like the house except for the spikes in the pool. The outdoor area is lovely to me as it is (except the spikes in the water) and I wouldn't feel that I'd need to do too much with it.

I really like the interior and I don't feel that the side rooms are that small, but decorators who might want to build something would feel differently.

That said, I won't be buying it since it will be too expensive for me. I've only purchased one CS-only notable, and that was Tel Galen, which was 8k/10k crowns. That's the upper limit for my budget, and it was rather a splurge but I really wanted it since it's a Telvanni tower (though I prefer the towers from TES MW MUCH better, the ones in ESO MW grew on me).

dagrdagaz_5912

Personal taste, but i dont like that beach.

A pool (with annoyingly not removable large crystals) right next to an ocean ?!
My first tought was, this pool should be (in) an underground cave.
Maybe with a small hole in its ceiling for a little sun/moonlight.

And yeah, something like 100 dollar/euro, no thank you.
(Hmmm, i am not a whale then...)
Havent bothered to check for obvious construction errors though, those would be totally unacceptable for me for these expensive houses.

(The last hall of Lucky Cat, i would have preferred that as Small or maybe Medium house)

TheImperfect

I like the home but don't know if I'll be able to afford it. The item limit is also a concern as both inside and outside have a lot of space to fill.

Jaraal

If the spikes are not removeable, it's a hard pass for me. Impossible to decorate them out.


And as for the built in rubble, it's been the deciding factor that has made me pass on several homes. The Xanmeer especially. They should know that serious housing enthusiasts like order and symmetry, and they are rubbling themselves out of a lot of cash for their company.... and for what reason? I certainly can't comprehend their logic.

Minyassa

Built-in rubble? I'm out. I'm so over the ruins. It's like no one in Tamriel knows how to repair masonry. If I bought a home IRL and it looked like this I'd have crews in to fix it or clean it out. That's a deal-breaker there.

Aliyavana

I didn't see any rubble aside from the walls, but you can cover it

Jaraal

Aliyavana wrote: »

I didn't see any rubble aside from the walls, but you can cover it

But why waste our limited slots trying to cover up their shoddy designs? Especially rubble that doesn't need to be there? If a player wants to spend a hundred dollars or more on a dilapidated looking house, let them add the rubble themselves, and let those of us who like tidy houses have a cleaner slate to work with.

Aliyavana

Jaraal wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

I didn't see any rubble aside from the walls, but you can cover it

But why waste our limited slots trying to cover up their shoddy designs? Especially rubble that doesn't need to be there? If a player wants to spend a hundred dollars or more on a dilapidated looking house, let them add the rubble themselves, and let those of us who like tidy houses have a cleaner slate to work with.

true, furnishing space is limited

chuck-18_ESO

I get that rubble can be annoying, and has certainly been overused, but if any house should actually HAVE rubble, it would be this one; it's a luxury retreat that's been out of use for since the fall of the Potentates 150 years ago! I care more about homes being thematically appropriate and immersive than anything else, so in this particular instance, the rubble doesn't bother me.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of the house. I like the giant, cathedral-style dome foyer, but the rest of the house is kind of meh for me. I agree with those that think the giant crystal mars the pool, and I'm also not pleased that this sure -to-be massively expensive house is, presumably, the only one that will have any sort of special effect tied to the aeonstone.

Overall, I like the idea of the house, but the execution wasn't impressive, so it will be a hard pass for me.

kind_hero

This palace is unpractical. It has a beautiful outdoor area but that's it... The empty patch of land in Elsweyr has more to offer, or the Palace in Hew's Bane is more interesting.

The interior is ruined.. I do not like the look. Also it has a huge hall which is very hard to decorate with the limited furnishings we have available.

I would pass

Why would you spend 100$ when you get a 700 slots house for free, which offers pretty much the same architecture? Granted it does not have the pool, but if you want a big pool/water area, there are better options, like the island or the Grotto

Aliyavana

kind_hero wrote: »

This palace is unpractical. It has a beautiful outdoor area but that's it... The empty patch of land in Elsweyr has more to offer, or the Palace in Hew's Bane is more interesting.

The interior is ruined.. I do not like the look. Also it has a huge hall which is very hard to decorate with the limited furnishings we have available.

I would pass

Why would you spend 100$ when you get a 700 slots house for free, which offers pretty much the same architecture? Granted it does not have the pool, but if you want a big pool/water area, there are better options, like the island or the Grotto

the huge hall is honestly one of the buying points for me. I plan to make a grand throne room as the circular shape will be nice for what I have in mind. I feel the general consensus is that the community does not like ruined buildings. atleast theres no rubble that cannot be removed, and only the walls are cracked

Kittytravel

I like the house solely for the exterior but I won't be getting it. A friend of mine has already been experimenting solutions alongside me on the PTS to block off 75% of the interior to make it a entrance hallway to the exterior. There she will make her desired outdoor space; she's also disappointed you can't remove the crystals in the "pool" though.

From playing around with it on PTS you can build all the way up into the dome so you could theoretically make another room up there. But overall I agree with most people in this thread; the house does not stand up very well to it's name and it really shouldn't look this shoddy. Somehow Khunzar-ri's wooden hilltop house has managed to survive better than a stone-built-in-mountain structure such as this.
In addition the side rooms really should have started more towards the ring in the center hall instead of the weird half-rooms that were made instead imo. It would have elongated those other rooms while still providing the symmetry.

Dusk_Coven

Initial impressions from the video tour at https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/potentates-retreat/ --

• Way too many pillars. They make the space feel small with their density when it's really quite big.
• A bit hard to tell from the video but it looks like most if not all the pillars are clones. Horrible when they close together because you can see how rubber stamped they are like wallpapering.
• Cracked pillars OUTSIDE are acceptable due to wear and whatever, but the same amount of wear on the inside, juxtaposed against even the tiling on the ground that is not as in severe condition, give it a clashing look.
• And cracked walls too? Is plaster gonna fall on my head?
• Those spikes in the water need to be cooler somehow. Just looks weird at the moment.

Zypheran

My impressions - like, dislike, doesn't matter!
For the €85/100 price tag it would want to come with a complete zone, a new weapon skill and an AAA class minigame where I get to horse race all my guildies around a track!
But that's just my way of looking at cost/value when it comes to video games.
I wonder how much RDR2 will release on PC for? I'm sorry but I will always look at ESO housing prices in this context. It's bad enough to pay €100 for a house but to not even get it fully furnished at that price??!! C'mon!
The furnished option should allow you do exactly that, furnish the house with 700 items of your choosing from the crown store. To pay €100 only to have to then turn around and spend millions of gold and hours farming mats to decorate it, does NOT represent anything remotely close to value for me.

bayushi2005

I am tired of the constant rip-off for unfinished houses. I am not going to fight with rubble again (really have enough after Lakemire Xanmeer). I definitely have enough houses to keep me going for a year or two.
I am also planning on making a series of threads showing ALL issues (with screenshots) which occur in particular houses, so that others know, what they are getting into before they purchase the house. As I am a human being and may omit something - all contributions welcome

No Lucky Cat or Potentate's for me.

Dusk_Coven

bayushi2005 wrote: »

I am tired of the constant rip-off for unfinished houses. I am not going to fight with rubble again (really have enough after Lakemire Xanmeer). I definitely have enough houses to keep me going for a year or two.
I am also planning on making a series of threads showing ALL issues (with screenshots) which occur in particular houses, so that others know, what they are getting into before they purchase the house. As I am a human being and may omit something - all contributions welcome

No Lucky Cat or Potentate's for me.

Might wanna also start your own free Blogger blog or something like that. You can that way keep it around for easy future reference than digging for a thread that gets buried over time on these forums.
A combination of slides.google.com and youtube will let you have all the media you need without media storage costs.

sueblue

I loved the floor until I got sick of it. The water is a nice color and the Pavillion is beautiful.

Otherwise, this house get a solid "Meh".

sueblue

I was thinking about why the crystals are not removable... ZOS probably doesn't want people selling them on guild traders.

Aliyavana

sueblue wrote: »

I was thinking about why the crystals are not removable... ZOS probably doesn't want people selling them on guild traders.

Its a crown only house. Houses purchased with crowns have their furnishings bound and unable to be sold

CaffeinatedMayhem

I love Potentates retreat, espeically the outside and will be buying it. That said, I am going to wall off the side rooms, turn the rotunda into a gallery, and hang something over the decaying walls to hide them. I do wish the portico outside were moveable but at least they're not nerve-gratingly off (looking at you Princely Dawnlight).

Sporvan

*** Spoiler *** DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT DRAGONHOLD QUEST SPOILER ***
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So after you finish the main quest and the dragonhold island explodes the cloud from the explosion hovers permanently over Potentate's retreat. Suddenly the idyllic beach looks like you had a chernobyl in your back yard... Not happy at all with this.

Besides eventually that dust cloud should settle right?? I mean this isn't some continuously exploding volcano.

Hope this isn't the case when it goes live.

Hallothiel

Personally I like the place.

Like the pool (don’t mind the crystals); like the house; like the water shimmer; like the little side cave; like the view.

The only bit not keen on is the big circular room - which is what a lot on here seem to like!

Have been saving my crowns for something like this (prefer it to Jode’s whatchamacallit)

katanagirl1

Sorry to comment so late but just now finished the quest line and found the house to preview.

I didn’t notice too much decay, I don’t know if they changed anything after feedback on PTS or if I just wasn’t observant enough. Our resolution on console isn’t as good as yours either.

The house is okay, I sure wish it had some windows. The terrace though - spectacular! I just wish the pools were shallow enough to walk in like Moonlit Cove. The bright blue effect from the bioluminescent whatever in the water only shows up when it’s shallow enough to walk or ride.

I would like to get this house but the preview says it’s not currently for sale and doesn’t have the price listed. I will have to hope I have enough crowns.

Note to the devs - Moonlit Cove is my new favorite place in all of Tamriel, it is so breathtaking! I hope to get all housing furnishing elements from there to recreate elsewhere. I missed the glowing mushrooms from the luxury vendor a few weeks back, I have the glowing spade leaf plants. I think the glowgrass is available through the housing editor, but I am not sure about the glowing lichen on the cave walls and that bioluminescent flora. Please make both of those available as a furnishing item somewhere!

SideQuestPubs

I haven't done much more than a quick exploration, but I'll definitely agree with the annoyance that is having to travel through the entire house in order to reach the pool. Pretty sure the pool was the part in the preview image, so even if I don't see that first it shouldn't take as long as it did to find it when I actually explore the place. I think an indoor pool or grotto, or at least some kind of open space in the middle of the house to make room for the pool, might've been better with more "house" to explore on all sides, so I guess I'll have to start checking out the housing options to see if anything like that exists.

Crystals... for me it's a take-it-or-leave-it thing but I feel like some of those built-in decorations ought to be customizable furnishings. I just don't know how lore-friendly that would be with those giant crystals; I mean, we're not talking about a small-ish chest or furniture you can claim your character built!

I want to explore it again now that I've rediscovered the controls to dive; I really want to see if there's anything, however little it might be, under the walkway in the pool.

My other big disappointment in terms of aesthetics was when I swam past that waterfall; at first I thought it completely hid the cave but when I went to leave I noticed that there was considerable gap that I could just as easily have swam through and bypassed the waterfall entirely. I actually liked it better when I thought the cave entrance was completely hidden behind the waterfall, like some secret waiting to be discovered.

Also I discovered for the first time that you can't go very far in the ocean, not even in housing zones. Tried exploring the perimeter via swimming past the rocks right where the beach goes into the ocean and... well, I didn't see anything attacking me, but a quick look through the forums tells me I was most likely being eaten by slaughterfish.