PTS Update 27 - Feedback Thread for Housing & Features

Mysanne

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

They are nice and offer huge potential. I don't really like the Dwemer entrance, but...

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?

Yes, it's a great addition. I love it !

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?

Yes, it's very easy to understand.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?

The game crashed 2 times the first time I tried to place nodes.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?

Yes

Which one did you use?

All of them.

Did they appear to behave as expected?

Yes. As Ariordin said, you should consider letting a character wait longer than 30 seconds per node. 1,2,5 minute options perhaps. 1 or 2 seconds is too short. And emotes would be great ! And all races too.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I love the new furnishing. The walls and the doors are awesome.

a particular kudos on the solitude floor

Yes, me too! It's a very clever idea!

I tried to build a house with some windows and it's quite difficult, but there is a lot of potential.
Here are my first attempts.

Zypheran wrote: »

the problem with roofing was never the flat slopes, these could easily be done with wooden platforms, the difficulty was, and still remains, how to fill the triangle at either side under the roof. This roof piece would make a lot more sense if either it came with the gable included or if you could give us a separate matching gable piece.

Yes !!!
We need a triangular wooden part for the roofs!

Thank you very much for all these new features: I am very impatient that this DLC is available!
Thank you very much for the furniture in vouchers and also for the fireplaces !!! I only hope that that of Proudspire Manor can be moved because it is really annoying at the moment.

SidraWillowsky

I'm really disappointed with the Stillwater house. Can we just get a "normal" Dwemer house? It would be so easy to please people- plunk down Blackreach backdrop, plunk down an existing design from Skyrim, color it appropriately, and you'll have players throwing money at you.

opaj

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?
Antiquarian's Alpine Retreat feels like it was made specifically for one of my characters. I had just bought a house for her, too! Oh well. If there's a way to earn the house in-game, I'll definitely get it. If it's only available for crowns, I will certainly pass, because I just don't feel comfortable with the pricing of houses in this game. Sorry.

The main purpose of Stillwater seems to be to give players a frozen landscape to do some free building on. It seems to serve that purpose well enough. I'll echo the sentiments of some other players here that the inclusion of Dwarven ruins in this house seems gratuitous, and we already have a Dwarves + Ice themed house already.


Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Why do you think I downloaded the PTS? Yes, I did.

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Was anything confusing or unexpected?
It was pretty straightforward. There were some unexpected features, like setting movement speed from the node, but nothing that was actually undesirable.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Which one did you use?
Did they appear to behave as expected?
I checked out all three houseguests in the crown store. I didn't expect them to have any real dialogue at all, so the Khajiit scholar's humorous musings were a pleasant surprise. The other two guests weren't nearly as engaging, but I don't really view that as an issue--not everyone can be the life of the party, and they both serve important functions if you're trying to set a scene.

Do you have any other general feedback?
As others have said, it would be great if you could set an emote at each node and allow characters to interact with furniture.

I do hope that there's a healthy mix of crown store vs earnable houseguests, and that the crown store guests are reasonably priced. Particularly, if you do implement story NPCs like Raz as houseguests, please make them earned by completing quests with those characters. That way there's a sense of accomplishment associated with having those particular characters in your home.

Jayne_Doe

I didn't care much for the Stillwater home and won't be purchasing it. I like actual homes, for my characters to live in. But I understand that others like more open spaces for creativity and for guild halls.

I love the Antiquarian's home, but I do hope the tables are removable. Otherwise, I won't be buying it, as I would want to decorate it as a home, not a gallery.

Several players have mentioned that this is not a notable, but how do you determine that if the house isn't purchasable? How can you view that info if you can't access the housing editor? I'm fine with it being notable as long as the price doesn't get an increase. I'm not one who would be willing to spend more crowns for more slots. But, Tel Galen was a notable and was 8k/10k crowns, so that price point seems reasonable considering that this home doesn't appear to be much bigger than Tel Galen. If 12k+ crowns? Nope!

But, as a couple players mentioned, it's possible that this might be a free home that we get during an upcoming Skyrim event. I was thinking that since there was currently no purchase option that perhaps this was going to be an earnable home in game from Antiquarian activities. But, it makes more sense that it could be given to us as part of that event - Treasures of Skyrim, if I recall correctly.

As for the houseguests, I didn't bother, as they are CS only items. If they're priced around that of pets, then maybe I'd buy them, but if they're 2k+? Again, nope! I did read that there is one that's earnable - hopefully not the only one.

I appreciate that ZOS has added pathing, which I'm not that excited about, as a free update. But, then another addition seems that it will be fully monetized, with a freebie to lessen the blow.

I am, however, very pleased by the addition of earnable furnishing plans from the Skyrim daily rewards. Usually, structural plans are some of the most expensive from guild traders, so being able to earn these will be great. Love the fireplaces. And I echo the request to make the one already in PS into an object that we can move.

bluebird

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

Several players have mentioned that this is not a notable, but how do you determine that if the house isn't purchasable? How can you view that info if you can't access the housing editor?

Ashryn

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Yes, and I was very impressed with it! Thank you SO MUCH for adding this value to our homes!

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
The interface was very easy and I appreciated that every path for each different character has its own color. Nodes' stylized symbolism was also clear and were designed well.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?
Was disappointed that my little Imp Dragons could not be pathed, but realize that this is probably due to their more-elaborate animations.


Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Checked all of them.

Which one did you use?
Biro-dar : loved his different humorous sayings! However, I also pathed my banker, Tyros, and he is quite similar to Biro-dar in his scholarly animations, so probably won't be purchasing Biro-dar for this reason only. Although I would prefer Biro-dar to Tyros, I need my banker to walk to 2 different areas.

The wench (don't remember her name): Nice to have a barmaid figure, but wish she did more then hold a mug on a tray. Her sayings are fairly boring. What I'd really like is a maid figure to dust and scub floors and shall wait a bit for that.

The Guard: He needs to have better animations, but I may purchase him. Have to think on that, though, as a Nord Guard doesn't exactly go with my Khajit-styled home in my meadow home.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I would like to have more 'Special Collectible' slots! 10 is WAY too little! Good work on this, though, and my praises to the team. My animals now have life to them!

Thrudra_Magia

DWEMER HOUSE


✭✭✭
I love the Dwemer house! And I know a lot of people have been waiting for one.

My only comment is that there needs to be more Dwemer space and less lake. The Dwemer area is too small, which is what most people want, and not enough area to decorate as living room/area, kitchen/dining area, and bedrooms. The alcoves, cause that's what they are, are not nearly large enough to decorate as a living space.

ANTIQUARIAN'S ALPINE GALLERY

I really love this house! The spacing is great! The only comment is that the house feels more like a lodge than a house, but at least it has more space to create living areas than the Dwemer house.

TheImperfect

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?
I have only seen the Dwemer one today but I love it. I think there's a nice cosy interior to make homely or do something else with and lots of space outside to build upon. I can see a lot of potential builds that are possible with it. I love the Alpine home from what I have seen on the videos.

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Yes. A lot of fun. I set up a great obstacle course and had the guard chasing and trying to catch his horse over various obstacles. It would be great to be able to path a certain number of ordinary items too that aren't npc's or pets or mounts.

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Pretty much. I can't wait for additional functionality like making npc's jump over things or perform other actions.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?
No

Were you able to check out the new houseguests? Which one did you use? Did they appear to behave as expected?
Tried all 3. Love them all but would like more variations and the maid to have more dialogue. They behaved well.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I tried the prologue too and my vampire would like to live in

Grayhome and just pretty much own the island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkkw30xfGo8

WildRaptorX

The antiquities house needs a bedroom!

Jaclynn

Love the new Antiquarian home. It is my Dream home. I like the Dwarven one as well, but think it needs more outside (flat)space, just for exterior building, because if the ice melts...lol....

Pathing is great, but I have colored path lines coming from each path down through floor. (1 story in Proudspire) and did check to see if I dropped another node by accident. but saw none. Just an fyi.

KMarble

• Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
  Yes, briefly.
  • Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
    Yes, it was very easy to figure it out and I got decent results even without knowing how to use it.
  • Was anything confusing or unexpected?
  Not really.
• Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
  Yes.
  • Which one did you use?
    I purchased and used the Khajiit one to try out pathing.
  • Did they appear to behave as expected?
  I didn't know what to expect, but wasn't disappointed by his behavior.
• Do you have any other general feedback?
  Yes, I do.
  The Khajiit's garments were low res. The golden trim textures eventually loaded, but the robe's fabric remained low res for the whole time I was testing the visitor.
  
  I don't know how hard this would be, but it would be very interesting to have triggers to set the path-able objects on their motion and/or stop it.
  A couple of examples: when a player char sits on a chair, it summons the bartender visitor to start moving towards the player as if to take their order.
  Set a trigger on a food bowl that will make a pet come to it and then stop moving. There is a guar pet that would be perfect for this since its animation involves it eating and then lying down to take a nap. In the guar's case, it would be moving around the house/area until a player "puts food out for it". It would then come to the food bowl, do the eating animation and go to sleep.
• What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

Alpine: it's a real house with rooms large enough to furnish and a decent outside area. It's the perfect house for someone who's just starting with housing since it has enough going on to make it unnecessary to use structural items.

I love it and am inclined to get it - depending on how much it will cost.

Stillwater: I have no words to describe how disappointed I am with that...thing.

I logged in the PTS and immediately ported to Stillwater. Found myself in a foyer that reminded me more of the Font of Auri-El than a Dwemer structure. There were two black holes, one in front of me, the other behind me (the doors never loaded).

I walked towards one of the black holes while holding my breath, expecting to see the inside of some sort of Dwemer building on the other side. I couldn't believe my eyes once I stepped outside. I even got inside the foyer again, thinking I went out the wrong door.

I was inside a crater with frozen water at the bottom. A few rustic torches line the "shores" of the ice rink frozen lake, with vertical "walls" made of stone and very artificial looking ice surrounding it all. Dwemer? Not even once.

Still in a state of disbelieve, I checked the map and found two shapes on it that might be structures, so I went to investigate. After a few moments trying to climb stones and ice I noticed the torch that kind of marks the entrance to one of those structures.

I followed that path hoping to finally find the "house" part of this property. Weird looking, too blue and too translucent ice surrounded the place. A...something metal, kinda, sorta, maybe Dwemer thing frozen in it. Meh.

I got to the bottom of this cave and had my char bumping against walls, thinking I might had missed a hallway or something. Nope, it's a meat locker with no door.

This is a frustrating property. People who want a Dwemer property aren't getting one, the vertical limits make it feel small and to make it into anything feasible, would require even more slots than usual. Why would anyone want to buy a crater with a frozen lake at the bottom?

I'd love to see a house inspired by the Stone Garden dungeon. It doesn't have to be huge - a few of the rooms from the dungeon would be enough. It would be the perfect house to come with an already installed alchemy station (like Forgemaster came with the anvil).

thegreatme

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

Surprisingly? I adore both of them.

Seems I'm in the minority about Stillwater Retreat, but I actually really like the frozen lake for building, and have big plans for it once I get it on live. I wish we had more proper outdoor snow houses like this one! And not like Snowglobe or Frostvault. The dwemer part of the house I can honestly, easily do without, but I can work with it also since its there anyway.

As soon as I saw the Antiquarian house, I was struck with utter delight. This house hits all my housing weak points that I've been wanting for ages but that other houses have completely missed the mark on. I love the interior. I love the yard space. I love the view of the waterfalls in the back and the distant city of Solitude and Haafingar in the front.
I do have a few criticisms though.

• It doesn't seem like there's much in the way of a proper "bedroom" space. This house could really do good with a bit of a remodel of one of the upper floors.
• Make sure the tables are movable and removable please, not permanent fixtures
• *Make this a Notable home*. Please, for the love of God. The 600 furnishings limit isn't what kills this house the most -- its the 12 person limit. This is the type of house you'd throw a party at. A BIG, fancy party! Give us the player limit to do so! Make this a 24-person house!

Did you test out the new character pathing feature? Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function? Was anything confusing or unexpected?

Yes! For the most part, the character pathing is an AMAZING and well-needed and long overdue feature! I had hours of fun messing around with it. A few things to note:

• Perhaps its just me, but I went most of the day not able to figure out how to change the pathing from Ping-Pong to Loop. The pathing settings/options could be easier to see. All the other options are toward the left side of the screen and grouped, so my eyes completely skipped over that there even was a settings button at all off in the corner by itself, and only figured it out after reading the patch notes for the PTS. The button should probably be somewhere that's not squashed way over in the lonely-man corner.
• I've noticed pathing is very finicky when actors are moving around or past furnishing objects, especially low-hanging ones. I tried to have a few animals walk underneath the new solitude bridges and multiple times had pets teleport on top of the bridges instead of walk under them, and teleport on top of nearby trees midway through their walk.
• I know its been mentioned that pathing node numbers will be tweaked but 50 is a pretty good number of nodes per actor. If they're going to change the numbers at all it would be great if they at least didn't make it less than what its set to now.
• I'd really like to see target dummies become pathable in the future if at all possible.
• Would like to see longer "wait" times than just 30 seconds.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests? Which one did you use? Did they appear to behave as expected?

I did, and primarily used the guard and barmaid, as they suited my purposes better.
Other than the khajiit scholar, most of the dialogue was a bit disappointedly underwhelming, but as visual props they work just fine.
My biggest issue -- and what is going to keep me from wanting to buy any of them despite that they would make great additions, is the same as most everyone else -- the special furnishings limit.
We already have pets, mounts, and bankers/merchants all competing for space. I already would never put a banker or merchant in my houses for this reason. Putting bankers, merchants, and houseguests into their own categories separate from mounts and pets would be the ideal from a player standpoint to remedy this problem - or alternatively increasing the baseline limit for all Special Furnishings. Otherwise, the NPC limit is a deal-breaker. I'll sooner stick to having my big pack of wolves wander my house before I ever even consider buying a houseguest unless that's something that gets fixed.

Do you have any other general feedback?

• A few of the new Solitude stone furnishings (platforms, stairs, bridges) are missing bottoms so you can see right through them from below. Should be fixed.
• There are at least a few houses that massively suffer from not having a high enough player cap even though they have a ton of physical space (Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery is just one of them, but off the top of my head I can think of others like Forsaken Stronghold that could easily fit at least 24 comfortably but are limited to 12). If they're not going to raise player caps individually, maybe at least consider some sort of purchase option to increase the player cap baseline on houses, or maybe increase the number of players who can visit for ESO+ since its the ONLY limit on house slots that doesn't increase with ESO+.
• What about adding house guests that work like guild traders in individual houses? I know others have requested it.

carly

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?
The Stillwater Retreat home is beautiful - I really like it. Love the outdoor area and that ice cave is gorgeous. I'm not a builder myself but I can't wait to see what people do with that space. For me, it's definitely the Antiquarian house - it is everything I want with respect to style, the open concept and the outdoors is stunning. I'll be buying this one for sure! Finally a place to put all the snow piles I have sitting in storage and it will go well with the area the house is located in! It is the perfect home in the mountains I've always wanted.

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Yes I did.

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Yes it was simple and straightforward.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?
Well my pet was able to walk through walls..lol. So you just have to be careful with how you set up the pathing.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Yes

Which one did you use?
All 3 of them.

Did they appear to behave as expected?
Yes but I think the guard will have to keep one eye on that so called 'scholar' at all times!

Do you have any other general feedback?
Love the new houses and the new structural items. Am very appreciative that you added doors and fireplaces and items that integrate so well with everything. I'm definitely a big fan of Skyrim and can't wait to see what comes next.

MrGhosty

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?
Both homes are nice, didn't have time to play around with chasing furniture but the use of space was well done. Particularly pleased about having some more dwarven architecture to play with.

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
This is a really good start. The pathing feature was pretty easy to understand and use. Adds a lot of life to builds and could see this feature being used a lot going forward.

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Again, it was easy to use. The different colors per path make crossing paths easier to control. I would like the ability to assign emotes to play at the node points.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?
No, it all seemed pretty straightforward.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Yes.

Which one did you use?
All three, the dialogue for the Khajiit was amusing while the other two were fairly limited.

Did they appear to behave as expected?
Yes, though some ability to have them perform emotes at certain points would make them more desirable.

Do you have any other general feedback?

We haven't been told how the houseguests are to be acquired, I would hope that there will be some made available in-game as well. The final pricing on the houseguests will be a big determining factor whether or not I start implementing this feature into my homes.

Ariordin

I need to add my voice to the raise the special Furnishing limit.

As far as I know the furnishing cap limits haven't been adjusted in years. This isn't a big deal for traditional or collectible furnishings but ESO has continued to produce fun mounts and pets, and with the addition to a third category of possible special furnishings; guests, means the limit is far more restrictive then it probably was when it was new. I interpret the spirit behind the hard limit on special furnishings to mean that the mounts/pets you get to place truly are special and unique and a highlight of the owners achievement/luck in crates. Over time though, as us players have been collecting more and more Apex mounts/pets means I couldn't place all the mounts I am proud of in a Notable house and include my banker/merchant. There just aren't enough slots right now to show off the mounts you are truly proud of having AND have the functionality banker/merchant in the same house.

If the Special furnishing cap stays where it is there really won't be much reason to buy a Guest for the crownstore because you'd have to remove from your house a prized mount or your banker to place it. That would be a very rough call to make and probably diminish the value of the guests in the house rather then heighten it. This will only be exacerbated by the fact that more guests will be added over time. (probably on a quarterly/semester cycle with new content)

To lessen this pinch in slots, but still maintain the 'feel' of the special furnishings being prized possessions raising the limit slowly by 1-2 in inn rooms/small houses, 2-4 in classic and large houses, and 4- 6 in Notable houses should reach the right balance. Maybe 10 more slots in Notable houses because they are so much larger then the other categories even with a small increase in slots they still run the risk of feeling empty. The game just has to many fun items tied to special furnishings to keep the limit there.

SgtPepperUK

One further piece of feedback from me, regarding the assistants.

I think now could be a good time to look at refreshing these, my suggestion as follows:

Merchant Assistant: If being accessed from our homes, give them the repair function like other NPC merchants.

Banking Assistant: If being accessed from our homes, add the ability to access guild bank and stores.

Fence Assistant: Remove the 35% fee. If being accessed from our homes, allow access to launder items.

The reason I suggest adding functionality if placed in our homes is I can see reasons why ZOS might not want these type of functions available on tap e.g. If Merchant Assistant can repair anywhere, this would render repair kits pointless (though that might not be a bad thing tbh but I feel that was the reason they were designed as they were).

Ragged_Claw

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

- Stillwaters Retreat - Personally not sure what I'd do with this, the Dwemer portion is quite small and the big empty lake is kinda big and empty. The ice-cave would be cool (geddit) but it's too small to do anything with, i.e. make a crafting area etc. The see-through ice in the cave with the Dwemer ruins beneath is utterly gorgeous though, kudos to whoever designed that. If the whole iced over lake was like it, it would be much more interesting.

- Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery - *Chef's kiss* gorgeous. The outside is a perfect size for building and creating, but not so large that it can't be filled. The inside is OK, a little bland, but hard to tell without being able to decorate it. I will reiterate the concerns about the tables though, they are fugly and I hope not permanent. I will display MY antiquities in proper display cases thank you for the thought though.

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?

Yes, indeed.

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?

Yes, no problem.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?

The only issue I had was when the pathing was red and I thought that meant I was putting it somewhere inaccessible or had obstructed the NPC. Red means danger! That was on me though, I finally figured it out. Also wasn't sure how to delete a whole path and start over.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Which one did you use?

Yes, all of them. Jorn tried telling me not to fight and spit in my own house, so I had to put him right on that, Keldora could do with more dialogue, her lines are very short and Biro is probably best because he has more to say and because he is Khajiit.

Did they appear to behave as expected?

Yes they behaved beautifully, I had Biro do a circuit of all the bookshelves and stand taking notes, Jorn patrolled the perimeter and Keldora walked to the table to take my order. Also I had a skein spider run around and it worked wonderfully, it even ran across the table at some point, I can't wait for my arachnaphobic friends to visit!

Do you have any other general feedback?

We are going to need an increase on the special collectibles cap, especially with more Houseguests coming to the store. I already can't have all the pets I want out in my houses, even the largest ones. I only got into housing because I wanted to make an animal sanctuary and was totally disappointed at how few I could have and had to evict Tythis and Nuzimeh.

The new building elements are great, but can we have a doorframe to fit the solitude door into? Ta.

RainbowOfChaos

Love the pathing idea but my pets/ houseguest would walk through walls or fencing in the straight path between points. Its not a problem on a looping path you can track around obstacles but on random it looks weird. My camel just strolling across the courtyard by popping up and along the edge of the fountain or through a short stone wall made me raise an eyebrow. Also it would be awesome if we could choose an emote for them to do at a point or have them sit down on chairs.

Holmarion19

1/Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Yes: It's a great feature thank you.

2/Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Yes, but missed some elements (see below) the first time out. Thankfully the Beth.DE stream and the patch notes made reference to them so I was able to go back and experiment with them.

3/Was anything confusing or unexpected?
All mostly clear but see 2 above.
It would help if, when activating the pathing menu (ping-pong, loop etc) the relevant button (R in my case) could be moved leftwards towards the centre of the screen. With a widescreen and when you are not expecting it it is easy to miss when it is hidden away in the corner.

kaisernick

Ariordin wrote: »

I worked on creating missions Star Trek Online's Foundry for years before they shut it down. A large part of my time was spent manipulating pathnodes to work properly to make the NPC's you interact with more interesting. This update is extremely exciting to me to the point i had to post about it.

urgh the foundry, ill never forgive them for removing that.

Kittytravel

Stillwater Retreat home should have the homes entrance moved into the frosty expanse lake area with the Dwemer interior door nearby; allow players the option between omitting one or the other efficiently with slots. Forcing us to walk through the Dwemer interior to get to the frozen lake destroys the purpose of a free-build area as it's restricted immediately by using a large amount of slots to blockade the entry area.

The interior itself feels very off putting since many of the dwemer furnishings take upon the darker colors and even as it currently stands it makes no sense that the interior has a lighter stone as the very same ruins in the same map zone have the traditional dirty/dark stone dwemer look with the bronze. Even the lifts in the exact same region have the dark stone and all the delves that are in "cold" areas didn't have the preserved white stone. It makes no sense to suddenly introduce it as even all the ruins in a colder region have the darkened stone style. (Frostvault is one, Mzulft is another both in Eastmarch.)

Personally I just find it a little off putting for the home to not have the same style as the furniture expected to be placed with it.

thegreatme

After playing around more with the Pathing system, I have a suggestion.
Presently if we go into our Housing settings, there is a new option "Restart Paths".



What I'd really like to see is a "Stop Paths" and "Start Paths" button as well.
Presently there is no way to universally stop / start Pathing for all mounts/pets/npcs at the same time. You can go through and individually stop/start different NPCs, but you can't stop all of them without going through each individual menu.

I can think of a lot of situations where this might be useful.

• Maybe you just got tired of watching all your NPCs wander around and don't want to have to hunt each down individually
• Triggering them when you want to, such as maybe for RP events in houses or other such things.
• Creating scenes more easily, perhaps for recording videos
• Triggering events on YOUR timing such as mount/pet races where they all are supposed to start at the same time. Atm there's no way to do this other than re-set them mid-run with "Restart Paths" and its a much more annoying way to do it.

RaddlemanNumber7

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery:

I don't like this situation where, looking from the outside, you are forever presented with an image of your home in the state it was in before you did any work on it. It's becomes unbearably counterintuitive. A real poke in the eye. It needs a higher wall or something so you can't see in.



This is a shed with some badly built garden features. I'm already using the Grand Psijic Villa as my museum. There's no comparison really.

Stillwater Retreat:

I liked the dwemer buildings frozen in the ice. Otherwise, it's just two corridors and a giant ice rink in a very shallow pit you can't climb out of. Won't be using it.

ThoraldGM

SgtPepperUK wrote: »

Merchant Assistant: If being accessed from our homes, give them the repair function like other NPC merchants.

Banking Assistant: If being accessed from our homes, add the ability to access guild bank and stores.

Fence Assistant: Remove the 35% fee. If being accessed from our homes, allow access to launder items.

Courier: assigns and accepts crafting writs.

Bard: plays lute, drum, or sing as requested.

Angler: catches and sells fish.

Stabler: cares for in-home mounts.

Steward: turns outdoor lights on at night.

Gardener: grows and harvests gardens.

Scribe: displays lore books as requested.

SantieClaws

This one has had another look at Stillwater icy place today.

The main issue is really that no one in their right mind would build on ice and there is not enough land around the lake to build very much.

The ice to space ratio needs to be more like if the lake in Morthal froze over. The ice can be there. It just needs to have room for a settlement to be there.

As it is there is not much you could do except build an ice skating place - but then we would need an ice skating personality to go with it.

Again with the cave - lovely idea to be able to see the ruins beneath but who wants to live on solid ice?

I think the mix of the ice and the dwemer is perhaps a mistake - give those who love all things dwemer a lovely place of their own to fill with pipes and things. Give those of us who love caves and cold weather a snowy meadow to build on with a reasonably sized ice lake in the centre.

This property has a bit of an identity crisis perhaps? It tries to be many things but somehow this one feels it will make no-one happy in trying to do so.

This one genuinely wants properties that she knows people will want and will enjoy. She does not wish to put down the design idea nor the work she can see has gone into it but it would not be an easy place to build, decorate or live in as it is.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Randomgamertan

1. What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?

The Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery I love a lot! It's a wonderful home that allows for a lot of creativity, could use more slots but outside of that no complaints on it!

Stillwater I was really excited for when I first heard about it, I love the layout is nice but is a bit small for how large dwemer furniture is and the part of the ruin in lake was a brilliant addition! the but I am really disappointed with the choices made for the coloring. Dwemer has always had a slate / granite look with a dirty brass look but the coloring choice with making the walls white and the metal 'polished' just makes it look like it's some sorta alinor hosue made of marble and gold! I wanna love the dwemer house I really do, especially with frostvault being a massive let down with dwemer furniture not matching because of the frost just like Stillwater and its marble and gold look! I really hope this is changed back to original dwemer style and the recolored lights are removed entirely because it just ruins the entire aesthetic of a dwemer home. I also know many other dwemer enthusiast who share the exact same feelings as me.

2. Did you test out the new character pathing feature?


I tested it out and loved it! It's really easy to use and with each entity having different colors for its path makes it impossible to lose track of it. The only thing I do not enjoy about it even though it's understandable how it is quite hard to code is how the NPCs will walk through furniture if their path goes through any instead of go around it. Other then that I love the feature and can't wait to see if it is improved upon.

3. Were you able to check out the new houseguests?

I had used and checked out every house guest, each one of them worked as intended! I am just a bit sad that only one of the three of them was given much of a personality, I would like to see more house guests have more interesting lines and more personality! Also I would love to see a argonian one hehe.

4. Do you have any other general feedback?

No other feedback!

bluebird

Update for 6.1.2 PTS content
Ok, so Antiquarian's Alpine Gallery is purchasable on the PTS as of this week's patch. Thoughts:

• This will genuinely be your best-selling house. Not kidding. Such a great house model that evokes the VIkings, Skyrim's Jarl house and LotR's Rohan vibes juuuust right! It will be very popular.
• Item limit should be 700. The house is HUGE on the inside for a 600 slot house, especially since we can free-build up to the whole height of the veeeery spacious loft areas. The garden is pretty big too, so... raise the limit pls?
• All the tables around the home, and some columns outside were removable furniture. That is great. No more 'random fireplace stuck in a corner that ruins my build' a'la Proudspire. Good job.
• Perhaps consider extending the invisible wall so it reaches up to the waterfalls?

Miscellaneous:

• You also fixed the missing back/bottom sides of many new Solitude structural furniture, which is awesome.
• Now that the Solitude Fireplace is an actual furnishing, can you convert the Fireplace in Proudspire into a removable furnishing too (like Alinor Crest and its Fireplace), instead of a built-in fixture? It should never have been added in the first place.
• No plans for 'Furnished' versions of the new homes? Not sure if you're planning on selling them as Unfurnished only, or if you're just disabling that for the PTS. Proudspire also can't be bought in Furnished version on the PTS (not that it matters, just thought I'd let you know to make sure it's intentional and not a house sale bug that may make it to Live).
• Stillwaters Retreat is still missing the door textures.
• Could you revise the Special Collectible limit at all? Does it have to be set in stone? Because if it's possible to increase this somehow, it will really go a long way to make houses feel less barren. Especially with Houseguests which will compete against Pets and Mounts and Assistants when there's already not enough slots for those.

Edit: I've just realized, but you may have already increased the slots of Antiquarian's Alipine Gallery (it was labeled as 'Classic' on an earlier PTS, but now that it's purchasable it has 600 slots which usually counts as 'Large'). So thanks for that, I guess? But why stop there, when you're so close to perfection? Make it 700? Or introduce the ability to upgrade all houses to 700 (the max performance limit) in exchange for a small fee or something?

Sturmfaenger

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?

Yes, I was trying to bring a bit more life into my backyard garden. To make the torchbug and the butterfly and a netch fly around. It didn't work very well, because I wanted them to change height and it resulted in little teleport leaps, that did not look natural. Perhaps it would help to make the direction in which they can face 3D instead of 2D, so they can move smoother?

Also they - as well as the kitty I tried - were moving to fast from A to B. A butterfly is never in a rush!
And I wanted my sommerset kitty to stroll casually from its pillow to my precursor, walk around its legs and then return to its cushion. But even on the slowest walking option the kitty marched on like a cat on a quest. And I like its antics, but 30 seconds for resting on its pillow is not enough to display emotes properly.
So on my wishlist:
- one more option for even slower moves
- options to let the chars rest longer than 30 seconds in one place of their path, say for 60 seconds and 90 seconds

also on my wish list:
- let the humanoid chars do some emotes of our options list while they are at their resting points on pathing
- let the target dummies walk around too. If its too complicated to attack them while they are pathing I would be happy if they are immune to attacks while they are pathing. They would make great dungeon inhabitants even if they are just used as moving decoration elements.

seecodenotgames

SantieClaws wrote: »

This one has had another look at Stillwater icy place today.

The main issue is really that no one in their right mind would build on ice and there is not enough land around the lake to build very much.

The ice to space ratio needs to be more like if the lake in Morthal froze over. The ice can be there. It just needs to have room for a settlement to be there.

As it is there is not much you could do except build an ice skating place - but then we would need an ice skating personality to go with it.

Again with the cave - lovely idea to be able to see the ruins beneath but who wants to live on solid ice?

I think the mix of the ice and the dwemer is perhaps a mistake - give those who love all things dwemer a lovely place of their own to fill with pipes and things. Give those of us who love caves and cold weather a snowy meadow to build on with a reasonably sized ice lake in the centre.

This property has a bit of an identity crisis perhaps? It tries to be many things but somehow this one feels it will make no-one happy in trying to do so.

This one genuinely wants properties that she knows people will want and will enjoy. She does not wish to put down the design idea nor the work she can see has gone into it but it would not be an easy place to build, decorate or live in as it is.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

I put a load of the new solitude floor pieces and surrounded with the new walls. You wouldn't even know that the whole place in built on ice.

Here are a few WIP screenshots I took of a street and keep I built.

HalfDragoness

What did you think of the two homes currently on the PTS for testing?
Both the new homes are unique and stunning. The alpine cabin is so cosy! However I don't plan on obtaining either house for my characters.

Did you test out the new character pathing feature?
Yes

Were you able to easily figure out how to use it and make everything function?
Yes. It was really easy to understand.

Was anything confusing or unexpected?
I thought the NPC's would have pathfinding scripts (like the Sims) and that if I set up multiple nodes inside my house and had the path mode as random that the NPC would walk between points within the confines of the housing structure. However what happened was I set up multiple points both upstairs and downstairs in Hundings Palatial Hall, and the NPC proceeded to walk straight through the walls. I didn't expect this but it's not a problem now I understand how it works. The main limitation of this is that I can't set up nodes around the outside of my house for NPC's to walk between because they'll probably just slide through the terrain, which means that if I want to set up random path nodes it was to be done in a big empty space, which I don't like.
One of the attractions for using random path nodes, for me, was that when I entered my home there would be a random element to not knowing exactly where the NPC's would be, but I cannot set that up with the current set up.

Were you able to check out the new houseguests?
Yes
Which one did you use?
I used the khajiit, sadly I have forgotten his name

Did they appear to behave as expected?
See above.
I also anticipated more conversation.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Yes!

• The main thing I really really want for my mounts especially, is the ability to relax. I always hated how I could put my mounts in my house but that they had to stand to attention with their saddles on. I know it would be a lot of work (on your end) to remove the saddles from the mounts, but adding simple animations to them would be a lot less work. For example, even if there were no other exotic or fun animations I'd like my guar mounts to be able to curl up and sleep (I have seen this animation on other guars in game). I'd like my senche mounts to be able to lie down and look comfy. I'd like to set the horse and camel mounts to lie down or graze. The bears should be able to sleep or sit, as should the wolves.
• Is there a posibility to have atronach NPC's? One of my favourite things in the game is the storm atronach in Arteaum who plods around watering the fields. I would loose my sh*t if I could put flame atronachs in house. Would rather not just buy these in the crown store, but instead have to dig up pieces of them with the antiqueties system, or have them added as quest rewards.
• Please allow us to have significant NPC's from quests as house guests. Like; Naryu, M'aiq, Rigurt, Razum-Dar, Cadwell...etc. It would also be amazing if there was some element of randomness, like you have an NPC guest list and everytime you enter your house an NPC is randomly selected from the list and is then in your house. This would give the feeling of all the people you've met on your travels have the chance to drop by. Would be an extremely cool addition to the housing system.