February 2020 Furnishing Limit Status Update

Brandathorbel

I am starting to feel like the biggest trolls on this forum is the developers. (sarcasm not bashing)

They put up a comment then disapper from the forums.

What i would love if they would regularly come back and actually have a meaningful and informative conversation but we always get the hit and run.

NyassaV

Please rename this thread to don't get your hopes up.

Vaz2013

Increase the player limit in houses, then. We're completely willing to gather in open-world taverns in numbers that cause half the players in the area to crash to desktop every so often. You don't prevent us from doing that. Let us have that same choice in houses.

Anotherone773

xbobx15 wrote: »

I am starting to feel like the biggest trolls on this forum is the developers. (sarcasm not bashing)

They put up a comment then disapper from the forums.

What i would love if they would regularly come back and actually have a meaningful and informative conversation but we always get the hit and run.

We should create a master tag list of all ZOS employees and just cut and paste them all as @ZOS_XXXX, @ZOS_YYYY, etc. Or we could stan them with snail mail. No spam filter on the postal service...i tried.

Edit: Oh look if you click the tags i made it says "User not found" sooooo those are legit dev profiles then?.

Nefelynx

First of all, thank you for an official reply regarding this topic!
Personally, I might not be too keen on the answers, but after all, it‘s finally an answer.
Any form of communication is much appreciated.

ZOS_CullenLee wrote: »

Please continue to provide feedback! Letting us know what you like, as well as what you don’t like and why, helps us to improve. (...) The forums are one of many sources of inspiration for us, and request threads always factor into our decisions when adding new furnishings, planning new homes, and prioritizing improvements.

Well well well..., If I may, I‘ll provide..
First of all, I LOVE Moonsugar Meadow! Thank you for this one!
Not too happy with the mudd-colored water, but yeah. Guess that‘s how it is.
More open/empty plots would be great! Along with more structural furnishings in all styles.

In terms of improvements:
A lot of these things have already been mentioned (several times),
but I‘d still like to add my voice to affirm the following points

• More Classic homes with a reasonable size/slot ratio (like Sleek Creek)
• ..instead of impossible-to-fill-with-700-slots-manors... If you do know your limits (and it definitely sounds like you do),
  please act like you do. - Like any reasonable adult should!
• Let us purchase Slot Upgrades for existing Small/Classic homes below the 350/700 limit. Even if it‘s just a max extra 100 for each existing one. That alone could do a lot for smaller spaces...Preferably with gold, like a bag/bank upgrade
• No more limited time houses. This kind of marketing immediately puts me off!
  Let me view it as often as I wish to gather some ideas, until I have one of those days where I‘ll say [snip] it, I‘ll buy it right now.
  Also, lowering the price on those would possibly result in more sales. I‘m much easier tempted to spend around 50 bucks on a whim, than dish out a 100-150 for a pixel home. It‘s simply not justified.

ZOS_CullenLee wrote: »

• Different categories of furnishings generally have different performance impacts. Special Collectibles are more impactful than Traditional Furnishings, while Collectible Furnishings tend to have less impact than many Traditional Furnishings.
• We know not everyone is satisfied with the ratio between these furnishing types—these are set to strike a balance between the various needs people have. We could change this ratio, but any improvement to one group would negatively impact another group. We have no plans to adjust the balance between the different caps at this time.

Well, if Special Collectibles have a bigger impact, why not let us, at least, choose to use those slots alternatively as Traditional ones? Make those categories at least semi-optional. The current Special Collectibles cap could remain, but..

• Please give us the choice to use the unused ones for Traditional ones instead (each time we place one above the current limit, the slot counter takes one off a chosen alternative category.
• Give the choice to add a few more Special Collectibles by sacrificing a few Traditional slots each. Like a 3 to 1 ratio, so everyone can be happy(er)
• If Collectibles have less impact, give the option to sacrifice Traditional slots - for those who wish to display all their trophies
  
  And last, but not least, an idea:
  
  
• People have been asking for musical instruments for years now, why not add a questline or something similar to fishing, where we have to play a certain instrument (with the emotes) at certain places to obtain the instrument as a furnishing - and add them to the Collectible category, so we can place them in all our homes. This would also add some variety to that category, and make use of those slots for those who do not collect undaunted trophies. - And let us become bards!
  

Besides questing, Housing is what keeps me playing.
I really hope, ZOS will not just listen but also act on their customers‘ behalf.

Thank you for reading.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Konstant_Tel_Necris

Could you please take a look on invisible ceiling height limit in houses, for example The Ample Domicile second floor, why there is invisible wall and can be it removed? Those house same size as Ald Velothi Harbor House, Classic Medium but yet there is second floor in Ald Velothi and there is some magical force field that's prevent entering second floor of Ample Domicile.




Unlike strict furnishing cap such invisible walls not prevent furnishing placing, but disallow interactions with them outside of boundaries, its really not a performance problem, just some kind invisible ceiling what greatly limit creativity.
I was interested in Frostvault Chasm but when found that dome has such low height limit I was really disappointed, its was dealbreaker for me, so I purchased only furnishing pack not house by itself.

Jayne_Doe

Thanks for the communication. It is appreciated.

Lots of great ideas here, which mostly have been mentioned in other threads, but it's great to finally have a stickied thread in the housing forum that is open for feedback.

I really appreciate @JHartEllis post on normalizing the category ratios for each tier of home. Some of them are way out of whack.

Also, while I understand the reasoning behind smaller homes having smaller limits, despite the fact that they could, presumably, accommodate the largest caps, though some not reasonably so given their size, those caps are nonetheless frustrating.

I've seen proposals for ways to allow players to increase those caps. While I would not purchase such upgrades, as I'm generally content with the size limits on the homes I have and have found ways to largely accomplish how I want to decorate all my homes, I do think a good number of housing enthusiasts would. I read one comment earlier in this thread that players would gladly pay the same price for a smaller home as they would for a notable if the item limits were 700. I would most definitely not. Part of the appeal for me of smaller homes is their more reasonable price tag - I'm talking here about CS only homes, not homes available in-game for gold.

However, I don't think they would necessarily charge more crowns for higher item limits, as the prices of most homes in the game vary depending on their relative size, not item limits. And we have a great example of a more reasonably priced notable in Tel Galen (8k unfurnished), which is closer to the size of large homes such as Hundings than with the size of, say, Princely Dawnlight. Or the Snow Globe, which is on the smaller size for a large home, but only costs ~5k crowns. So they could potentially offer us smaller homes with larger item limits but not necessarily a correspondingly larger price tag.

But, what about existing homes? I do think it would be great to have the option to upgrade them, even if I wouldn't spend the crowns to do so. If these upgrades were available for gold, however, then I would probably do so for a few of my homes. But, I propose a one-time fee to upgrade a home to the next tier. So, you could spend, say, 2000 crowns to upgrade Lucky Cat to a large home. Also, perhaps the currency of the upgrade could be based on method of purchase. If a home is available to purchase with gold, then it's upgrade would cost gold. If CS only, then the upgrade would cost crowns.

And please, if you are going to continue to offer open-plot homes, then provide the necessary building materials. There should be structural materials in a variety of sizes and styles and EASILY available to craft or purchase with gold. Some of the decisions made for housing have been confusing, and this is one of them. Please don't provide houses to build on if you don't also provide the necessary building components. Sure, players have been very creative in using what's available, but please don't use player creativity as an excuse not to provide something so basic.

Minyassa

Thank you for this update. Is there any word on considering expanding decorator permission to allow those assigned as decorators to actually place furnishings? I know this would require also installing a "return to owner" function, but I have the utmost confidence that ESO can do this since LOTRO is a far older game and they managed it. So many of us play with partners/spouses/family and being able to share housing permissions in a much more meaningful way would make cooperative decorating far more appealing.

Sordidfairytale

I'm also for having one station to rule them all.

It would be so much better if instead of attunable stations they sold the regular crafting stations and then sold Tome Pages that we could then take to the set stations in the wild and use them to learn the set so that we could then use it on the station in the guild hall or even the town crafting area. That way the set could be alphabetized to your own language and it would be convenient for guild halls, because this is getting ridiculous:

MornaBaine

Kashya_Vulano wrote: »

I won't be buying any future houses from you guys now, but thanks for the clarification I suppose.

Maybe focus on smaller houses, and stop teasing us with gargantuan villages perfect for RP, if you're not going to bother raising the caps.

This right here. It is absolutely and utterly unacceptable for player caps to remain so low. This, above and beyond furnishing caps. Older games were able to have MUCH higher player caps in their player housing. For a Triple A game this is inexcusable. I realize housing was an after thought for you and that originally there was no intention of adding it. Then, finally, you figured out there was money to be made with player housing. And then you absolutely cheated us of the very experience we were looking for; Venues large enough to accommodate guilds and large multiplayer events. It's well past time for you to get with it and make this one of your performance improvement priorities. It needs to be on the list and we need to know about the progress. For shame.

MornaBaine

Now that you've told us about all the things you can't/won't do... here are some things you absolutely CAN and SHOULD do.

1. Day/Night toggle for player housing. These are instanced areas and have no bearing on the game world. It won't hurt anything at all to let players set the time of day in them. We already know YOU can do this. We've seen it in a livestream. So let US do it as well in our player homes.
2. Better Lighting Sources. Add to all lighting fixtures a 1,2,3 brightness level to its interaction of on/off.
3. More building materials in every style. Include ROOF pieces that have collision so rain doesn't fall through them. Give us walls, stairs, doorways, actual doors (like the Mastercraft Elsweyr gate and give us matching FENCING to go along with that gate please!), windows (as placeable objects like paintings that we can just put on walls and give them an on/off function for light or darkness), floors, balcony pieces. And pillars! LOTS of pillars!
4. Placeable ponds in various sizes and placeable pools in various sizes. If you CAN'T make them "deep" enough to be swimmable, fine, but let us have them!
5. Mirror image of ALL the statues. Never again put out a statue that you can't also choose to get a matching one in the opposite direction. This is vital for a lot of good design concepts.
6. As has been said numerous times already; Many more "precluttered" furnishing options to help cut down on items needed and thus reduce our item counts. This would be VERY helpful on the huge flipping warehouses you keep putting out.
7. More placeable "people" like the soul shriven guy. Guards in all the alliance races and appropriate gear would be huge sellers. A guy and gal sweeping or dusting. People who just look like household servants. And...my personal greatest wish: GHOSTS.
8. A "pet" version of all mounts that you can place in a house WITHOUT it's saddle and bridle.
9. Pets as furnishing. A flock of bats and a murder of crows. Hawks sitting on a perch or that can be placed in a tree. Squirrels, snakes, frogs, bunnies, the clusters of hanging bats found in various places. Owls. Cats and dogs in sleeping positions or even JUST sitting positions. And NOT in gamble boxes please. I can live with them being CS only but do NOT lock them in those damn crates. And yes, we realize these would be considered "special" collectibles.
10. MORE PAINTINGS! And they should be obtainable out in the world or via recipes. There is so much amazing art for this game that we see on every loading screen. There is NO excuse not to have it to use in game.

From all of us: You're welcome.

Tommy_The_Gun

MornaBaine wrote: »

3. More building materials in every style. Include ROOF pieces that have collision so rain doesn't fall through them. Give us walls, stairs, doorways, actual doors (like the Mastercraft Elsweyr gate and give us matching FENCING to go along with that gate please!), windows (as placeable objects like paintings that we can just put on walls and give them an on/off function for light or darkness), floors, balcony pieces. And pillars! LOTS of pillars!

Adding "snap to grid / object" toggle on/off option would be very useful when placing custom structures / houses.
Kinda like in Fallout 4, where you could place walls & roof and it automatically connected on the edges.

Whisper_292

Thanks so much for leveling with about this problem. I think people forget that system changes aren't easy to do. Big changes take a while, and some are not feasible. Most of us know you guys are working hard to give us the best game possible.

I do agree with a couple of things people said above. I would love to see more small homes, or even have some of the larger homes split up (with costs reduced on each portion).

I would like to have the ability to designate a home as a guild hall to allow more people. I don't know a whole lot about performance, but I would think the performance problems would affect that home only because it's technically its own zone. If that is correct, making sure people go in with that understanding would go a long way. I also don't have a problem with reducing the number of furnishings (by some, not a lot) in such homes.

Someone else mentioned an "ultimate attunable crafting station." This is a fantastic idea if it's possible. I mean, not just one, but one for each type of crafting. It would have to be pricy in the Crown Store or some sort of high-level achievement so as not to make it too easy, but it would save on space and give the crafting and housing-obsessed people like myself something new to strive toward.

Also, for people who haven't heard of it (if there is anybody at this point) the Essential Housing Tools addon has hundreds of "FX" that you can add to your home. FX does not necessarily mean effects here. It's furnishings and home customization pieces. And they don't affect the house's furnishing limit. It's an absolute MUST for the housing people. One thing it includes is portals to other homes. With a little imagination, you can conceivably make several homes feel like one by using portals that go back and forth between them.

Merlin13KAGL

I'm wondering why some of this is not moved client side once the scene has loaded? The only server verification would have to take place when someone moved/removed an item or when someone entered the scene.

It's hardly consequential if two different visitors see a different animation frame for someone's pet/mount.

The rendering already takes place on the client, why not offload the rest to the same?

Short of verification of possession of an item and storing/loading from the database, there should be almost no reason for server load in an instanced housing.

ZOS_RogerJ

Just a friendly reminder, as we've removed posts from this thread, that we do not permit the bashing of individuals (including ZeniMax employees), groups, or other companies on our forums. We believe that doing so is neither constructive nor in spirit of our game and community.

Anotherone773

MornaBaine wrote: »

2. Better Lighting Sources. Add to all lighting fixtures a 1,2,3 brightness level to its interaction of on/off.
3. More building materials in every style. Include ROOF pieces that have collision so rain doesn't fall through them. Give us walls, stairs, doorways, actual doors (like the Mastercraft Elsweyr gate and give us matching FENCING to go along with that gate please!), windows (as placeable objects like paintings that we can just put on walls and give them an on/off function for light or darkness), floors, balcony pieces. And pillars! LOTS of pillars!

These are really needed. I realize that it might not be realistic to have candles that are brighter than they are but... my characters shoot lightening bolts, snow balls, and fire balls out of a dead tree branch. I fight dragons and hang out with werewolves and vampires. I have friends that are 5-6 foot tall lizards and apparently they are known for their lusty maids. Ive had my soul ripped out and stuck in a crystal and have been sent to what is apparently the afterlife only to returned to Nirn with a magical portal. By doing a impromptu meme and paying 146 gold i can instantly transport myself to a variety of places... i think we threw realism out the window a long time ago.

Lighting is a big issue. But basic building components are a well. And they have gotten better. One thing i would like to see is the ability to dye items when they are being made. I can build a Alinor timeworn fountain but i cant do it in a color i want. I was looking for some walls for something last night and i found elsweyr walls that would work but they are that pink sandstone and i need a medium granite grey. If im building it i should be able to dye it to. Even if we get a basic color palette that we buy and need use outfit station to dye it. Its frustrating when you find something you want to add and could even make the style work but the color is to far off anything else in the surroundings.

You could even make dyes and pigments a whole profession. Always looking at something new to sell us, there you go.

Brandathorbel

I would love water.
A wayshrine
Building plans like in skyrim.

The idea - you need a whole lot of ingredients but you can craft a base room of a house, then add different additions to bid your own mansion on plot of land and each base room or addition counts as one.

that would probably sell a lot more homes.

tony5tone

Weapon Decorations...
For the love of ALL things holy!

I can think of a gazillion things that are FAR more difficult to do. To NOT have weapons as decorations is my Top Irk when it comes to decorating.

That's the one type of decorating that has been completely overlooked and honestly, the fact that it isn't either 1. Mentioned or 2. Considered, is what I have no idea as to the answer as for why the heck it is still NOT present.

MrGhosty

Much like others have requested, I would very much like to see more "clutter" items added akin to the filled bookshelf recipes/items. I would also like to request that we get more premade structures akin to the Khajiit merchant tents, but instead of tents they are semi open plan buildings that take up just one slot.

In addition to more premade home options, it would also save on slots if we could have walls with window/door slots already added in a variety of materials to suit all the current homes. In the same vein of thinking, much larger sculptures/landscape objects would also allow us to fill out notable home spaces.

Some other things that I would like to see added:

1. harvest nodes (once a day account wide, yields the same as a survey node)
2. Daily bounty board (allows the player to accept dailies from all over tamriel as they're unlocked for the character, random selection of five or so each day)
3. Daily writ board and drop off point ( perhaps only unlocking access to this once certain achievements had been reached)
4. Fishing node (twice the limit of a normal fishing hole, but only respawns once per day, could add small/random housing items into the potential loot pool)
5. More pvp centric furnishings like traps, tournament boards, and perhaps functionality for a 4v4 duel.

As I am greedy when it comes to housing I could probably continue, but the biggest want that I have for housing is more utility and functionality. I was extremely pleased when I was finally able to set up my main crafting hub house, but was then bummed when I realized there wasn't much reason for me to make another. I would love to be able to setup houses for different functions so I would have a reason to collect more of them rather than decorating them once and then moving on.

The other pain point with housing is the furnishing cost, this could be alleviated somewhat by adding the chance for furnishing mats to drop in increased increments from their relevant survey nodes.

lillfox

Our Magi Academy events have maxed the visitor limit on noble homes a few times.
Out of all of those times, only two people said the house made their computer lag, and they were both sharing the same computer network.

Two, out of hundreds of our guests in a fully furniture/visitor maxed home.

Just my observation.

But what I really wanted to add to this conversation, is that I would very much enjoy a cow mount to stampede around with

Also, more large multi-function items would also be nice . Those giant Elswyre shrines are amazing.
I'd especially love to have a gigantic Malaba Tor Boulder covered in moss to use as large ground cover. I see them in the game all over Malaba Tor. It would be very useful.
I could use a lot of very very large boulders, bigger than the ones currently available.

Thank you very much for the Elswyre banquet foods! And the introduction of construction elements and more filled bookcases.

Large items and filled (multi part) items have helped to cut down on item slots needed.

wodrith

Housing limits are pretty sad in this game. When the loading screen inns cant be recreated due to item limits... thats a problem. If 700 is the end limit, maybe stop releasing massive manors that need to be sparely decorated. Stick with making a housing system that works with minimum specs assigned to the game.

MopeyHat

Sorry, but this is such BS if the performance issues are client-side. Let people hit the performance limits if they want to, just slap a warning on it.

Besides, 90% of the DLC zones are more resource intensive than any fully furnished house I've gone into.

Sallymen

The people I know have more performance issues with March of Sacrifices dungeon than my fully furnished Coldharbour estate house. What.

bellanca6561n

Lots of words meaning, nope. You can't have it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfcFS4jUbTY

Brandathorbel

For a company that loves money they really dont want it.

some very simple adjustments and additions would cause the revenue from housing to quadriple. But i guess they just arent business types to see that simple fact

LadyNalcarya

If it's not possible to increase the limits, please consider releasing smaller houses with decent amount of slots, like Enchanted Snow Globe. I skipped many crown store houses only because they're too big to furnish and if I buy a house for real money, I'd want to be able to use all of its space, without having to block off half of it or leaving large parts unfurnished.
That's how I feel about the new Redguard house. Outlaw refuges in game are usually very cluttered, and if I wanted to recreate something like this in that home, I'd have to block off some of its parts. Which is a shame because the house itself is gorgeous, if it had 1500 slots, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

To save housing slots, we also need more building components and "cluttered" versions of shelves, bookcases etc. Large Alinor bookshelves and Elsweyr wine rack are certainly a step in the right direction. I also find it quite disheartening that there's still so much stuff that we cannot use as furnishings. Musical instruments, armor and weapons are common in Tamriel, I can't think of a reason why our characters shouldnt be able to place them in their homes. It would also be great if those daedric artifact weapon styles would allow us to place said artifacts as furnishings.

And please, please update the luxury furnisher. The idea is great, but the selection of items is often subpar. Stuff like Orcish seals and Riekling bonfires should be available as achievement furnishings and monster drops, there's nothing luxurious about them. I would love to see more interesting and unique items, like these Alinor trees and buildings:

MornaBaine

And the stingy slow rate you release things you already have ready to go makes a lot of us disgruntled as well.

KillsAllElves

L O L

Nomadic_Atmoran

What makes no sense is this excuse that they can not increase the item limit yet continue to release these overly large homes that players can not imagine to fully furnish under the current limits. So either there is a hypocritical approach here in regards to housing where its okay to sell us mega-mansions even though we cant possibly furnish it. Or its an intentional limitation with the hope of creating an artificial demand for larger limits so they can sell it at top dollar in the future.

I don't buy for one moment that they are limited by as much as they claim. The fact that players are given a sizeable difference in limitations based on their monetary involvement in the game is a pretty good indication that they aren't being completely honest with us. But if you want to see prime examples of the game showing off the ability to host a large number of furnishing being rendered go look at Scarp Keep or the Thieves Den. The Thieves Den alone has well over 100 items laying about in the first area you enter in if you were to take the entrance from outside the city.

The argument that the limitation is to maintain stability may be true at a certain value. But we are no where near that point if we look closely at instanced areas that ZOS has gladly shown off as examples of how much filler you can pack into.

Lilly_Elessa

Okay, I know a lot of people want more item count for everything in all houses, and sure that would be nice. However there is one category that is in particularly dire need of addressing more than the others: Traditional furnishings in Notable/Manor (700 item) homes.
Addressing increased item counts in all other categories and house sizes I understand will take time. Like, probably a lot more time. But this specific thing is more dire need of attention.

This is not about the sheer number of items allowed, this is entirely about the amount of items allowed compared to the space available in these magnificently sizeable homes. They only have 100 more items (assuming you have Plus) than the Large (600 item) size houses, for on average about double the available space. It is extremely difficult to furnish these houses to satisfaction due to this disparity, to the point that most Notable houses that I have visited have large sections of them blocked off or otherwise just plain unfurnished, so that efforts can be focused elsewhere. Personally, I have not blocked of sections of my Notable homes, so they are between sparse and just plain under furnished everywhere. This kind of disappointment is much worse considering that the majority of these homes are purchased with crowns only, and have a value of over $100 USD, many of them far exceeding that.
While I personally feel that the allowed general item count for notable homes should be at least 1000 (while Plus is active of course), even a small addition of 50 to 100 items would be a great step towards helping to alleviate this disparity while not adding too much more strain ... For something that cost us a lot to obtain in the first place.

Despite being under furnished, I do love the Notable/Manor houses, and do plan to purchase more of them in the future - with or without an increased cap. That said, I and many people I've spoken with (primarily through Discord) have also refrained from buying more Notable homes than we have because the item count is too low for the allowed space (even before the cost is considered). I and several of my friends who are also avid decorators have taken to preferring Small (200 item) and Medium (400 item) homes, not only for how inexpensively you can acquire many of them, but for the generous allowance of Traditional Furnishings compared to the available space (typically not very spacious) in those homes. Every inch of those homes can be covered in small details, without straining against an item cap or blocking off parts of the home. Don't take me wrong: I want to use the Notable homes, and most other decorators seem to want to too. But they simply need more items to be as satisfying.

Just to reiterate: This request is not for more items in all houses. This request is not for more special furnishings, collectible furnishings, nor special collectibles. This request is only to prioritize more Traditional Furnishings in Notable houses.