Are new house releases too big?

GoldenGirl

I wish there were more new houses of a reasonable size! Am I in the minority here, preferring houses to be a bit more … manageable? There seems to be a gap in the sizing of housing.. inn rooms are too small to do much with, and all the new houses being released seem to be big, bigger, or HUGE.

For instance, one half/section (since it's in two separate parts) of Water's Edge in Leyawiin would have been about the right size for my taste. Another one that I absolutely love - that unfortunately isn't a player home - is the Pilgrim's Lodge in Western Skyrim, where you go to help the priests of Kilkreath Temple in the "Meridia's Brilliance" quest. (Pics below) It looks good outside and in, it's just the right size, and I LOVE the kitchen - although that angled wooden roof right above the cookfire is a bit concerning. I would buy it in a heartbeat if it were ever set up as a player home somewhere.

Anyone else a fan of smaller houses and want to share your favorites?

Katheriah

No, they just don't have enough furnish slots.

Araneae6537

There are a number of smaller homes in the base game. IMHO, the only improvement those need is a removal of badly placed invisible walls that prevent having a usable second floor, loft, etc. in many of them.

It’s great to have a variety of housing to choose from, size included! For instance, I love the large size if Varlaisvea because I want to keep and enhance the feel of an Ayleid ruin and keep most of it austere and uncluttered. On the other end of the spectrum, I really enjoyed turning Kragenhome into a Cornerclub!

The house you show screenshots of is also lovely! Some more apartment/townhouses in cities like Balmorra (hint, hint, devs ) and rustuc cabins would also be great additons, although in the case of the latter, I’d rather it be an open plot like Moonsugar Meadow with a prebuilt home made from one to a dozennor so furnishing pieces so that people could treat it like a traditional ESO house, easily move or remodel it, or remove it to build their own custom structure!

(Edited for silly typos!)

Lauranae

I will just say that we need either large, small or medium to please everyone. There is already a lot of things gated behind either achievement, questing, or pvp. Houses gated by a size i would hate. Large houses are great to decorate, as are the one like Twin arches!

But I would rather prefer a land, or an island on which we could build as actually on some of the houses (Moon sugar ....)

Number of slots would still be 700 slots but freedom of building would be so great (still dreaming of more slots but all dreams cant be true)

Gilvoth

Are new house releases too big?

answer:
yes. we have been asking for small houses to purchase since housing started.
many of us hate the HUGE houses, there is NO small houses, none.

PS:
and "no" we dont want and not talking about "free apartments"
no.

we want to "purchase" small houses.
not rent them.

there are people like myself, whom are not well to do in the Millions of gold.
i am a lowly farmer, a begger, thief and dark brotherhood member in need of a hidden away house with only a trap door for an entrance, that leads to a 1 room underground house.
this trap door below [in picture] is a perfect entrance for me and my wife to live in our 1 room house.

just like this ^
but hiden in the bushes so is a bit more hidden, and not out in the open.
i beg of you zenimax, please make a hidden 1 room underground house.

we will buy in crown store.




https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/297527/please-let-me-have-a-hole-in-the-ground-for-house/p1

Vehlir

I agree in that I would love to see some more medium sized homes as well. As a personal preference I usually tend to like them but also with the strict furniture caps of this game, it can feel extremely restricting trying to decorate these mammoth castles/palaces/mansions in a way that feels satisfyingly detailed.

As for ideas I've got quite a few I'd like to see that would fit medium sized slots nicely. I've made a couple threads about homes that fit this very description, feel free to check em out/comment in them:


A larger Vivec City House
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/563689/a-new-vivec-city-home-suggestion-saint-olms-canal-house


A Ceporah Tower Psijic Study/Quarters
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/586284/a-new-ceporah-tower-house-suggestion-study-of-the-mystic

As for ones I never made threads for:

1) A smaller home in Brass City. The Observatory Prior is super cool, one of my favorites but would be nice to have a smaller alternative and also within the really cool setting that is the city.

2) A City Apartment/Home in Orsinium in Wrothgar. It's such a critical city & cultural hub for the Orsimer which revealed them in a light we hadn't seen before. Would be an amazing place to have a proper house, especially for Orc characters.

3) Sadrith Mora. Like #1, it would provide a smaller alternative to Tel Galen's Telvanni style. Also get the atmospheric bonuses of living in one of Elder Scroll's most iconic cities.

4) Balmora as well would be a similarly strong candidate seeing as it's one of the most beloved towns in the entire history of the franchise, and a place many fans first called "Home" in their Elder Scrolls beginnings.

5) One of those countryside cottages you see in Summerset out in the forests with the greyer stone and a nice little garden. Would make for a fantastic retreat.

Araneae6537

@Gilvoth It’s the INN rooms that are free with a severe furnishing limit. Apartments are a bit larger and allow a LOT more furnishings for the space. I’d love to see more underground homes too.

@Vehlir I love those suggestions!

LadySinflower

We do need more smaller houses. There's a gap in what ZOS seems to want to give us. Either an inn room or tiny house with only one room, or a gargantuan palace where we could fill the entrance hall with our 700 furniture slots. How about a house the size of an average suburban dwelling, with a logical assortment of rooms that could be used for different purposes? You could give us the size and then have interesting architecture or scenery on the property to keep it from being boring.

People always say "I would pay for this in the crown store." Well, I wouldn't. Not directly anyway. I don't buy crowns; I only spend the ones I get from ESO plus. I have gotten some crown exclusive things by trading gold for crowns. The exchange rate on Xbox isn't too bad. So I guess somebody paid ZOS in crowns, even though it wasn't me.

Nestor

We have a bunch of normal sized homes you can get for Gold.

But, ZOS feels that no one will pay Crowns for a normal sized home.

katanagirl1

A few of the notables lately have had smaller houses (Potentate’s Retreat and Stone Eagle Aerie) so there are more slots that can be used outside if you like or just keep it natural.

I agree about Varlaisvea, I am leaving it as an Ayleid ruins as well.

I would like to see a smaller house in Sadrith Mora and Balmora as well. I really like those styles but the current houses available are not suitable for what I want to furnish, and the inn room, though larger than others, has too few slots for its size.

ShinyBacon

i agree, im getting quite burned out of the big houses now. First of all, they are quite an investment themselves with most of them being crown exclusive, i think thrice if i buy one or not. And then its also an investment to decorate them and as much as i love doing it, i just get overwhelmed.

I really would love more of the 200-400 slot homes like Kragenhome, Autums gate etc. Something that i can splurge on without having to think about my grocery budget for the month and can just sit and decorate within an evening.
With the big houses i have to go on a grinding session to get either all materials or the gold to buy the materials because i sure cant afford to buy more crown furniture after buying a large mansion for 13k crowns. its getting to much for me - time and money wise.

but i could be tricked into spending more and be more impulsive with smaller homes...

Lauranae

Careful at what you wish!

I totally understand that you like little houses, but the way you express it, they could totally supress the large one.
As i said above, the need of all kind of house is a great idea, BUT not by bashing and rejecting the style you do not like.

You are certainly not alone to ask new kind of houses, and there is also people loving to build houses or creations, which can not be done in a small houses.

So asking for small houses is more than legit, but doing it by attacking another style is not the solution. We need all styles. For everyone. Not 1 style because you only prefer the little houses. Ask for more choice without bashing the large one.

Leogon

Nestor wrote: »

We have a bunch of normal sized homes you can get for Gold.

But, ZOS feels that no one will pay Crowns for a normal sized home.

Then they should sell more empty lands so we can build a small house on them ourselves.

everseeing_njpreub18_ESO

My vote, No they aren't too big. Would i like more slots, yes of course, but IMO with some planning and imagination I have seen a lot of very nice larger homes. I think people just need to use larger decorations instead of smaller, rather than building a sink or toilet out of 12 items. Yes you can't have the detail as a smaller home, but i still believe they are doable.

Lately I've been checking out Pantherfangs for ideas, a new home everyone said was too big, and I've seen nice ones, and i think I've done well myself if anyone wants to see.

Cabareth - Pantherfang Chapel - PC/NA

JJOtterBear

i agree somewhat. there should be a 4th category of home size between classic and notable. notables are fine, but they either need to increase the furnishing cap, or they need to make exteriors/interiors two separate instances separated by a simple load screen so that inside/outside can have their own 700 furnishing slots.

Jaimeh

I don't mind that they release big houses, thay do it to justify somehow the crazy prices, but I wish alongside those, they released homes sized like hunding's or dawnshadow, with decent interior/exterior spaces but not so huge you get lost in them, because they work better with the slot limit. So people who like decorating the huge properties can still get them, but those who prefer smaller builds can also have new options.

Raideen

Based on our 700 slot with ESO+ limit, I would say yes, IMO they are getting too large.

I bought Stillwaters Retreat but I mostly used the inside portion and I built a cave over the ice bed in the back. So I did not really use up all that space.

In Moonsugar Meadow I did kind of the same, but reversed. Up front was a long path with trees that lead to a custom house I made by the pond, but overall I used maybe 1/3rd of the property and still ran out of 700 slots before I felt it "completed".

They obviously have to develop the game around the least common denominator in regards to hardware/consoles so I understand their reasoning for the limits but overall I find myself preferring smaller spaces that are really fleshed out/decorated over larger spaces that feel void of any character.

Its really a tough discussion overall, because each persons taste in decorating is different. Some might prefer a more spread out, minimalistic look and for them large homes and 700 slots works well. Others might want a space to look like a hoarder lives there.

Ultimately, I dont decorate in game to make modern type homes or airplanes or whatever, I try to mimic the ESO world with its design and density for my homes. So, I could definitely use more slots, or a smaller home with the same 700 slots.

GoldenGirl

Jaimeh wrote: »

I don't mind that they release big houses, thay do it to justify somehow the crazy prices, but I wish alongside those, they released homes sized like hunding's or dawnshadow, with decent interior/exterior spaces but not so huge you get lost in them, because they work better with the slot limit. So people who like decorating the huge properties can still get them, but those who prefer smaller builds can also have new options.

Exactly! I don't want *only* smaller houses, just some more options of that size. My title was poorly worded.

I was curious about the numbers, so I went to UESP Online:Player Housing for a tally... Aside from the free inn rooms, the site lists 13 Staple homes (3 apartments and 10 small houses), 32 Classic and 32 Notable homes. Just seems to be a large disparity between the number of offerings.

(Also, if I can get even more picky for a moment, I would have put inn rooms and apartments in one size category, small and medium homes in a second and large and manor homes in a third category.)

Danikat

GoldenGirl wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

I don't mind that they release big houses, thay do it to justify somehow the crazy prices, but I wish alongside those, they released homes sized like hunding's or dawnshadow, with decent interior/exterior spaces but not so huge you get lost in them, because they work better with the slot limit. So people who like decorating the huge properties can still get them, but those who prefer smaller builds can also have new options.

Exactly! I don't want *only* smaller houses, just some more options of that size. My title was poorly worded.

I was curious about the numbers, so I went to UESP Online:Player Housing for a tally... Aside from the free inn rooms, the site lists 13 Staple homes (3 apartments and 10 small houses), 32 Classic and 32 Notable homes. Just seems to be a large disparity between the number of offerings.

(Also, if I can get even more picky for a moment, I would have put inn rooms and apartments in one size category, small and medium homes in a second and large and manor homes in a third category.)

I agree. One thing I think ZOS did really well with housing is that when it first released there was a good mix of small, medium and large homes with every race/style having one of each. But since the initial release the majority of new homes have been bigger.

We've had no additions to the small home category since the first release and only 3 new medium homes (Exorcised Coven Cottage, Lucky Cat Landing and Ald Velothi Harbour House) but 8 new large houses and 27 new manors.

I suspect it's because they think players will expect a smaller house to be available with gold, but Lucky Cat Landing is crown store exclusive in spite of being a medium house so clearly they can and will do that.

I'd have bought that one except that they used the run down Elseweyr style which makes it looks like the entire place needs to be scrubbed before it would be habitable, and there's no option to clean it. I'd love to see more like it available - smaller homes with multiple rooms and a bit of outdoor space which aren't absurdly expensive, it's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to buy and would be willing to spend crowns on if only they hadn't made it look a wreck.

Parasaurolophus

One of the reasons why I like housing in eso is just that. It seems to me that new houses should first of all look attractive in the crown store, and not satisfy the roleplaying needs of the players. Some houses seem very strange. Why did ZoS decide that the wooden Nordic mansion should be turned into a gallery? And these stone towers on a piece of land, hovering in a pink light in Oblivion, who are they for? Many players have been asking for a new North-style cabin for a long time. Many players are asking for a small village style house on Summerset. Why not? Not every player wants to be a lord with a huge estate.

whitecrow

I prefer modest sized houses and my favorites of the ones I own are my first two: Greenshade and Old Mistveil Manor. I wouldn't mind a large outdoor area though, as I love furnishing that part.

Amottica

I would expect the offerings come down to what sells enough to make it worth creating. My guess is this is smaller niche homes sell well but after that players probably want later homes.

They have stats on the size of homes and how they sell. They are in the business to make money so they likely would create them if it was worth their effort.

Adremal

My favourite of the category would be Water's Edge. It's small, well designed, well contained, and has a 600 limit which is plenty. Lucky Cat Landing doesn't feel much smaller but only has 400 slots - still, a nice house on the smaller side. Stay-Moist Mansion, despite the name, is also quite small and manageable with a 600 limit.
By contrast, compare Frostvault Chasm with all of the above - it's bigger, much more difficult to compartmentalize, and has a limit of 400.

Raideen

Adremal wrote: »

My favourite of the category would be Water's Edge. It's small, well designed, well contained, and has a 600 limit which is plenty. Lucky Cat Landing doesn't feel much smaller but only has 400 slots - still, a nice house on the smaller side. Stay-Moist Mansion, despite the name, is also quite small and manageable with a 600 limit.
By contrast, compare Frostvault Chasm with all of the above - it's bigger, much more difficult to compartmentalize, and has a limit of 400.

WHAT Water's Edge has 600 slots vs Frostvaults 400?!?!?!

Ok, that is downright depressing.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Some houses should be upgraded from Notable Status to Grand Status, notables can keep their current item limit however the following houses should be upgraded, they would have 500/1000 item slots.

• Bastion Sanguinarsis

• Pantherfang Chapel

• Sweetwater Cascades

• Grand Psijic Villa

• Agony's Ascent

• Dawnlight Princely Palace

Mandragora

Amottica wrote: »

I would expect the offerings come down to what sells enough to make it worth creating. My guess is this is smaller niche homes sell well but after that players probably want later homes.

They have stats on the size of homes and how they sell. They are in the business to make money so they likely would create them if it was worth their effort.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seem to be clear to me what is the reason behind it - you do sell empty staff for 100 $, don't you, if atleast some amount of players will buy it? (And it doesn't have to be the biggest crowd) with the need of furnishing for about the same price, don't you? And you don't sell anything smaller or competitive to that, don't you? if there is a chance even more players will buy it if there is nothing else?

Players will not buy expansion with a lot of investment for 10 $, but they will buy a house they can interact with and clutter it with staff they do want.
BTW I would take note about that if I would be a dev.

SilverBride

I love my large houses but find that it's easier to stick to a design theme in the medium and small houses. In fact, some of my most fun designs were in my small apartments.

It's also too easy to get lost and miss a lot of the design in some of the huge houses that wind this way and that way with stairs that go up here and down here.

I also don't like houses that are split up, like Water's Edge, where you have to go in one door, up the stairs, outside, wind around, in the other half, etc..

While some of these houses are gorgeous they need to remember that sometimes less is more.

Lugaldu

It's like always in life, only extremes ... either we get a colossal building or no house at all (= plot of land without anything).

Alinhbo_Tyaka

I prefer small and medium size houses. In fact I've never tried to decorate the Grand Psijic Villa or Hall of the Lunar Champion as I just don't see a way to make them look complete to me with the current item limits. Instead I use them for warehouses to save space in my banker.

My favorite house is probably Velothi Reverie though I am up against the item limit so the upstairs bedrooms/office are a bit sparse. For me the basement has the perfect layout for a crafting workshop and the main floor allows for logical placement of living space and outdoor garden. I also think Ald Velothi Harbor House and Twin Arches have good layouts with item limits that allow them to look complete even if the exterior needs to be cut back on a bit. The last two I like size wise are my holiday houses Exorcised Coven Cottage (Halloween) and Autumn's-Gate (Christmas). I feel the cottage has the best space to item ratio of all the houses I own and don't think I will ever need to use all of the slots.

If ZOS were to come out with more houses in sizes such as I've listed I would consider buying them even if it was a Crown only item.

Adremal

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Some houses should be upgraded from Notable Status to Grand Status, notables can keep their current item limit however the following houses should be upgraded, they would have 500/1000 item slots.

• Bastion Sanguinarsis

• Pantherfang Chapel

• Sweetwater Cascades

• Grand Psijic Villa

• Agony's Ascent

• Dawnlight Princely Palace

Some very big ones are missing. Ossa, Grand Topal, Varlaisvea (possibly the biggest in the game), those with vast open spaces intended for "free building" (Surreal Estate, Hunter's Glade, Moonsugar Meadow) and others I'm sure. Not to mention some appear on the smaller side but the lack of invisible walls allows for fantastic vertical building. It'd be best to just up the damn limit for all manors and be done with it.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Adremal wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Some houses should be upgraded from Notable Status to Grand Status, notables can keep their current item limit however the following houses should be upgraded, they would have 500/1000 item slots.

• Bastion Sanguinarsis

• Pantherfang Chapel

• Sweetwater Cascades

• Grand Psijic Villa

• Agony's Ascent

• Dawnlight Princely Palace

Some very big ones are missing. Ossa, Grand Topal, Varlaisvea (possibly the biggest in the game), those with vast open spaces intended for "free building" (Surreal Estate, Hunter's Glade, Moonsugar Meadow) and others I'm sure. Not to mention some appear on the smaller side but the lack of invisible walls allows for fantastic vertical building. It'd be best to just up the damn limit for all manors and be done with it.

That Ayleid Ruin is nowhere near the biggest, IMO Bastion Sanguinarsis is by far the largest player home, it probably has the most amount of build area as well, you can build pretty far back into that cavern and even on the island past the gorge as far as height goes it ranges from the lava river near the entrance to being pretty close to the ceiling of Blackreach, then you have the cliffs to the side, if you can get up there you can build there as well and did I mention the fact the building itself is massive.