Requesting official ZOS update on house furnishing limits [answered]

HumbleThaumaturge

There was a very good post on furnishing limits back in February 2020:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/512076/february-2020-furnishing-limit-status-update/p1

Could we please get an official update on furnishing limits for houses? Today I visited the house I am using for furniture warehousing (since said furniture won't fit in my main house). Sure would be lovely to move those items to the main house. Also would be nice to add some more attunable crafting stations at the main house. Alas, no can do! Due to the furnishing limit.

Not looking for long explanations; just want to know if we might expect an increase in the furnishing limits any time soon. A very short answer would be fine.

Update: My question was answered by Thormar. Thanks Thormar!

RisenEclipse

I doubt it. The reason furnishings are so low isnt because of THEIR server performance, but the lowest possible performance of systems that use eso. Basically the older consoles that can use ESO. So long as they can't handle double the furnishings without lagging out or risking people being trapped in their homes, the furnishing limit will not go up.

HumbleThaumaturge

RisenEclipse wrote: »

I doubt it. The reason furnishings are so low isnt because of THEIR server performance, but the lowest possible performance of systems that use eso. Basically the older consoles that can use ESO. So long as they can't handle double the furnishings without lagging out or risking people being trapped in their homes, the furnishing limit will not go up.

I think you are correct. At least that's the message I got from the February 2020 post (that the furnishing limit is set based on the capabilities of the published minimum system requirements). I just wanted an official update, since it's been 2 years since the last one.

Unknown_Redemption

I dont have a great PC or anything, its about 4yrs old and a small form, so its basically a laptop. I went into the PTS and bought 700 of the new fish minnows schools. My PC didnt lose a single FPS. Just saying...

Thormar

https://youtu.be/jqU7KjfGNsw

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

I just wanted an official update, since it's been 2 years since the last one.

I believe the above video is the most recent update there is. It was likely recorded in January of this year as in it the Studio Director freely mentions High Isle and Bretons.

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that ESO runs on an extraordinarily wide variety of devices and right now we still support the xb1 and ps4. Which in 2013 were fantastic consoles but now they are ofcourse approaching 9 or 10 yrs old, so everything that we add to ESO you need to understand that we need to add it on ALL platforms.
So sometimes that limits us and housing is one of those areas just where... how the game works, we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices.
So that's why we are making those decisions.... and some other decisions in game too are because we need to make sure that players have a good experience on ALL supported platforms." - Studio Director.

Smoky

Limits are double for ESO sub's so different limits can be applied so why not allow the game to test the machine its on and if its PS5, XB or a good PC they can take advantage of higher limits. It wouldn't be difficult, a simple benchmark test at the login screen would set the limit based on the current as a base.

Surely that would be the best of both worlds allowing older console players the same stuff but the current limits and not penalising those that have chosen to upgrade to latest gen hardware.

HumbleThaumaturge

Thormar wrote: »

I believe the above video is the most recent update there is. It was likely recorded in January of this year as in it the Studio Director freely mentions High Isle and Bretons.

Thanks for sharing this info. This is exactly what I wanted to know.

MageCatF4F

You know how slapdash they are about - everything. I wonder if they even tested modest increases on the old consoles?

Good detective work Thormar, exactly what we need in ESO. And that title frame of the video (or whatever you call it) made me chuckle. He reminds me of a character in Game of Thrones.

Paulytnz

Wont happen I am afraid until PS4 and the older xboxs are phased out and you can't play the game with them anymore. So my guess is, a few years at least, once all the chip shortages and nonsense is hopefully cleared up.

katanagirl1

There have been problems with PS4 players getting stuck in their houses before, though I have not heard about it lately.

Of course you cannot insist that everyone upgrade when there are still not enough consoles to go around. We all share the same server as well.

You really don’t know what all is contained in the housing behind the scenes, as I remember that video where someone here glitched themselves through a wall of the Psijic Villa and found an entire Alinor Townhouse stuck on one side. If there are two houses worth of structure inside there it surely can cause no end of problems.

HumbleThaumaturge

Interesting to think about the game being limited by 9-year-old consoles. Had not really thought about that before.

Would it really be too much extra work to have a slightly different load on the PC/Mac servers than the console servers? Probably wouldn't want to do that; might create unintended problems?

I wonder what the true housing limit would be, if any, on my new super-whammer-jammer gaming computer? I wonder if anyone at ZOS has tweaked the code just to see how the game performs on a high-performance PC, instead of an X-box or X-box equivalent PC.

NettleCarrier

It's not unreasonable that PC could/should have higher limits than consoles though... in many other games you can do a lot more with PCs (even in this game with the ability of addons). We shouldn't be hampering the development of the game because of a select portion of the player base. I know I for one will not be buying any more houses because of this limit. I've passed on many the past two years because I don't see a point. I already give up half my furniture slots (or more) just to have the stupid amount of crafting tables. If I didn't have ESO+ I'd have to put them all in a coldharbor house and call it a day like some folks do. I just need like... 100 slots for decorating...too much to ask?

ArchangelIsraphel

NettleCarrier wrote: »

It's not unreasonable that PC could/should have higher limits than consoles though... in many other games you can do a lot more with PCs (even in this game with the ability of addons). We shouldn't be hampering the development of the game because of a select portion of the player base. I know I for one will not be buying any more houses because of this limit. I've passed on many the past two years because I don't see a point. I already give up half my furniture slots (or more) just to have the stupid amount of crafting tables. If I didn't have ESO+ I'd have to put them all in a coldharbor house and call it a day like some folks do. I just need like... 100 slots for decorating...too much to ask?

Agreed, there is really no reason to hamper PC players due to performance issues on old, outdated consoles. It would be nice if they would update the game for PC, then later, when older consoles can be phased out, bring consoles up to speed with PC. Other games have perks for PC that are not on console, so I don't see this as unreasonable at all. Especially given the cost and ever increasing size of houses.

Tezzaa

Thormar wrote: »

https://youtu.be/jqU7KjfGNsw

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

I just wanted an official update, since it's been 2 years since the last one.

I believe the above video is the most recent update there is. It was likely recorded in January of this year as in it the Studio Director freely mentions High Isle and Bretons.

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that ESO runs on an extraordinarily wide variety of devices and right now we still support the xb1 and ps4. Which in 2013 were fantastic consoles but now they are ofcourse approaching 9 or 10 yrs old, so everything that we add to ESO you need to understand that we need to add it on ALL platforms.
So sometimes that limits us and housing is one of those areas just where... how the game works, we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices.
So that's why we are making those decisions.... and some other decisions in game too are because we need to make sure that players have a good experience on ALL supported platforms." - Studio Director.

My problem with this statement is that dungeons, trials and delves are ALL instanced like housing is. Those consoles perform well in those other instances yet they hide behind this same excuse year over year.

katanagirl1

Well, aren’t you players with brand new, shiny high end PC also hampered by lower end PCs as well? Same thing.

ArchangelIsraphel

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Well, aren’t you players with brand new, shiny high end PC also hampered by lower end PCs as well? Same thing.

Not really the same, no, since consoles are limited by how a company has decided to build them, and with a PC, you have a wide variety of builds dictated by how the player has chosen to put their machine together (or, in the case of pre built pcs, the specs they have chosen) many older, low end PC builds are more capable of holding up to ESO than consoles that are nearly a decade old. In some cases, older PC's even run the game BETTER than newer PC's due to the fact that certain components are utilized more efficiently by the older engine the game runs on.

A company only needs to worry about the minimum PC build being able to run the game. And instead of there being a single build, that accounts for a pretty wide range of specs. With pc, a wider range of players can fall into those categories. Where as with console, it's this very narrow, limited choice that is capped by the pre decided specs chosen by the company.

It is also understood that if you are playing with minimum specs on PC, you will not be able to run the game at peak graphics, thus you can adjust the graphical settings to accommodate the limitations of your machine. This means players on lower end machines are not holding back higher end machines as much.

That, and as graphics cards change and are no longer supported, minimum requirements on many games get raised.

VaranisArano

Tezzaa wrote: »

Thormar wrote: »

https://youtu.be/jqU7KjfGNsw

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

I just wanted an official update, since it's been 2 years since the last one.

I believe the above video is the most recent update there is. It was likely recorded in January of this year as in it the Studio Director freely mentions High Isle and Bretons.

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that ESO runs on an extraordinarily wide variety of devices and right now we still support the xb1 and ps4. Which in 2013 were fantastic consoles but now they are ofcourse approaching 9 or 10 yrs old, so everything that we add to ESO you need to understand that we need to add it on ALL platforms.
So sometimes that limits us and housing is one of those areas just where... how the game works, we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices.
So that's why we are making those decisions.... and some other decisions in game too are because we need to make sure that players have a good experience on ALL supported platforms." - Studio Director.

My problem with this statement is that dungeons, trials and delves are ALL instanced like housing is. Those consoles perform well in those other instances yet they hide behind this same excuse year over year.

I think one of the quirks of housing comes into play here: you can't control what players do in those instances.

Let's say I'm a troll and decide to stack seven hundred of the most graphically intense lighting effects I can right on the front door of my house when someone comes in, with the goal of overloading someone's system.

It sounds stupid, but that's the sort of edge cases that ZOS has to consider. They don't want people overloading their housing instance and getting stuck in there, such that Support has to move their character out of the house or the house effectively becomes inaccessible to the player on their system.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Tezzaa wrote: »

My problem with this statement is that dungeons, trials and delves are ALL instanced like housing is. Those consoles perform well in those other instances yet they hide behind this same excuse year over year.

Because they are different things. Most of the things in delves are part of the delve. They are not loose items that are placed and moveable. It's like 1 item that looks like many while houses has several which can be moved around as we please.

NettleCarrier

VaranisArano wrote: »

Tezzaa wrote: »

Thormar wrote: »

https://youtu.be/jqU7KjfGNsw

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

I just wanted an official update, since it's been 2 years since the last one.

I believe the above video is the most recent update there is. It was likely recorded in January of this year as in it the Studio Director freely mentions High Isle and Bretons.

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that ESO runs on an extraordinarily wide variety of devices and right now we still support the xb1 and ps4. Which in 2013 were fantastic consoles but now they are ofcourse approaching 9 or 10 yrs old, so everything that we add to ESO you need to understand that we need to add it on ALL platforms.
So sometimes that limits us and housing is one of those areas just where... how the game works, we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices.
So that's why we are making those decisions.... and some other decisions in game too are because we need to make sure that players have a good experience on ALL supported platforms." - Studio Director.

My problem with this statement is that dungeons, trials and delves are ALL instanced like housing is. Those consoles perform well in those other instances yet they hide behind this same excuse year over year.

I think one of the quirks of housing comes into play here: you can't control what players do in those instances.

Let's say I'm a troll and decide to stack seven hundred of the most graphically intense lighting effects I can right on the front door of my house when someone comes in, with the goal of overloading someone's system.

It sounds stupid, but that's the sort of edge cases that ZOS has to consider. They don't want people overloading their housing instance and getting stuck in there, such that Support has to move their character out of the house or the house effectively becomes inaccessible to the player on their system.

You can already do this to an extent though! What we need is a better "weighting" to furniture pieces. Oftentimes a unique static mesh model only needs to be loaded once, so a crafting table model will be loaded once and it hardly matters how many of that object there is in the scene. Lighting is a different beast and far more intensive, but ESO currently treats these things the same. It's completely stupid to me that when I'm at 699/700 I can add a huge fire-breathing dragon statue with alternating particle effects, or I can add one spoon to a table. That giant statue should be worth 10 spaces while the spoon worth 1 (just a random example) and everything else balanced similarly. As it is I use only giant pieces for building since I feel I get the most bang for my buck and all my tables are bare.

kargen27

I'm playing the game on PC and believe content needs to be consistent across all the platforms supported. We are all paying the same price we should get the same product.

I still think they could do something like make inside and outside different instances each with it own limit.

HumbleThaumaturge

There have been discussions among the gamers in my home about building a new super-whammer-jammer gaming computer in time to play "Starfield." I do not know for sure, but I'm now guessing that all new Microsoft games (including those by ZOS and Bethesda) will be designed (limited) to run on the X-box Series X. If that is true, then it makes no sense to build a super-whammer-jammer gaming computer (which may cost five times more than the X-box).

Anyway, back to my original point: After visiting all of the Furnishings I have in my warehouse-house (where I store them because they won't fit in the main house), I surely would love to see the Furnishing limit raised from 350/700 to something like 500/1000. But, of course, I wouldn't want to see things crash for anyone if the limits were raised.

Northwold

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

There have been discussions among the gamers in my home about building a new super-whammer-jammer gaming computer in time to play "Starfield." I do not know for sure, but I'm now guessing that all new Microsoft games (including those by ZOS and Bethesda) will be designed (limited) to run on the X-box Series X. If that is true, then it makes no sense to build a super-whammer-jammer gaming computer (which may cost five times more than the X-box).

Anyway, back to my original point: After visiting all of the Furnishings I have in my warehouse-house (where I store them because they won't fit in the main house), I surely would love to see the Furnishing limit raised from 350/700 to something like 500/1000. But, of course, I wouldn't want to see things crash for anyone if the limits were raised.

I don't see why it's in Microsoft's interest to do that. They do have another, little known and niche product, called Windows.

Amottica

Smoky wrote: »

Limits are double for ESO sub's so different limits can be applied so why not allow the game to test the machine its on and if its PS5, XB or a good PC they can take advantage of higher limits. It wouldn't be difficult, a simple benchmark test at the login screen would set the limit based on the current as a base.

Surely that would be the best of both worlds allowing older console players the same stuff but the current limits and not penalising those that have chosen to upgrade to latest gen hardware.

Because anyone could visit our home leading to lower-performing machines entering a home that requires higher performance and the ensuing performance issues can cause some big headaches. It is also much simpler having the restrictions cut and clear along subscriptions vs the performance of a PC the "owner" happens to be on at that time.

Jaraal

NettleCarrier wrote: »

It's not unreasonable that PC could/should have higher limits than consoles though... in many other games you can do a lot more with PCs (even in this game with the ability of addons). We shouldn't be hampering the development of the game because of a select portion of the player base. I know I for one will not be buying any more houses because of this limit. I've passed on many the past two years because I don't see a point. I already give up half my furniture slots (or more) just to have the stupid amount of crafting tables. If I didn't have ESO+ I'd have to put them all in a coldharbor house and call it a day like some folks do. I just need like... 100 slots for decorating...too much to ask?

Same. I basically gave up on housing when every build I started hit the item limit when I was 1/4 to 1/2 done. So until they raise the limits, I'm not buying any more houses or furnishings.

I agree that the limits should be platform specific. Wouldn't it be better to leave the current limits on the older consoles and PCs than to completely remove support for them? Knowing that they could have a higher furnishing limit would motivate people to upgrade at their own pace, rather than just giving them a deadline as to when their game would stop working. At the same time giving people with newer systems the ability to decorate closer to their personal system limits would encourage more purchases and playing time spent on ESO.

Elsonso

Tezzaa wrote: »

My problem with this statement is that dungeons, trials and delves are ALL instanced like housing is. Those consoles perform well in those other instances yet they hide behind this same excuse year over year.

These places that ZOS makes are static and optimized to reduce the impact. For example, if you can't see part of the object, they might remove what you cannot see so that the system does not waste time on something you will never see. This cannot be done on player placed items because it might be used at any angle.

*MY* problem with the statement is that most of the restrictions to furnishings should have nothing to do with older hardware and everything to do with ESO Plus and clutter considerations. My thinking is that the limit imposed by older hardware applies only to the largest housing spaces with ESO Plus furniture limits. Everything else is going to be within the limits of the older hardware, and that hardware should not be an issue.

So... bottom line... my feeling is that, from a low end hardware perspective, ZOS could increase the furniture limit for everyone who is not ESO Plus, and for all players who have smaller houses, whether ESO Plus or not.

Lumenn

All I know is another game (no names but think a survival game and think ARNOLD) let's you build whole cities. Granted, it looks better on a new console but it's still doable. I just wish the game engine used in ESO could handle or be improved to handle the same. I love building/furnishing etc but it's just so limited in my opinion.

lizardman

Sounds like a cop out to me. Most PC players could easily run high FPS on this game, and the furniture limit is definitely not holding anyone back (on PC). They just aren't giving PC players a bigger limit because they don't want to disadvantage console players. It's a joke!

ClevaTreva

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that... we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices. - Studio Director.

Then how do they cope with The Bazaar in Fargrave?
Furnishing count in the stratosphere...

Hymzir

I doubt the furnishing limit is going to go up anytime soon. Or anytime "not soon" either. ESO is an old game, based on code that is well over a decade old. Sure, it's been updated along the way, but how exactly is the key question, and unless you happen to work at ZOS, and have access to the raw code, it's impossible to say anything meaningful about it.

The limitations of the last gen consoles is the only justifications ZOS has told us about. But are they really the main issue though? Again, it's impossible to know, unless you work at ZOS. I mean, console limits haven't stopped ZOS from increases the strain produced by the more recent zones, and they supposedly work just fine on consoles too. So who knows.

In the end, it could just be some fundamental factor on how the game has been implemented. Just think about the recent AwA debacle - individual achievement tracking had to go because the game couldn't cope with the bloated database. How exactly that could be a performance issue still puzzles me, but that's what ZOS said was the reason behind the move. It was getting too big for the system to handle, and had to be pruned to make room for future stuff..

ESO did not launch with housing, and maybe it was made in a way that doesn't really support housing. So perhaps it's just something that is impossible to fix. Who knows. Not us for sure.

In the end, the only thing we know is the assertion by ZOS, that the game needs to be able to run on last gen consoles 'cause they decided to adopt "equal play experience on all platforms" marketing approach. Even though that is not true - there is an immense difference in one's play experience based on what sort of hardware one uses to run the thing. Not to mention all the add-ons available on PC.

Equality among all players, regardless of their platform, sounds nice though, even if it isn't true in practice.

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

There have been discussions among the gamers in my home about building a new super-whammer-jammer gaming computer in time to play "Starfield." I do not know for sure, but I'm now guessing that all new Microsoft games (including those by ZOS and Bethesda) will be designed (limited) to run on the X-box Series X. If that is true, then it makes no sense to build a super-whammer-jammer gaming computer (which may cost five times more than the X-box.

Why go with a monster rig for Starfield?

Because we are going to mod the ever living crap out of it. We'll be adding super rez texture packs, replace all the meshes with high-poly versions, add in custom gear of absurd detail, and clutterfy the world for extra "immersion", and then drown the whole thing in oodles of post-processing graphical goodness, while also burying the CPU under endless heaps of extra scripts required to run all the "cool" mods.

That's why you should get super-whammer-jammer PC.

As a case in point - I upgrade my rig last fall. It's a beast made from all the latest goodies, and thanks to it, I can finally run my Oblivion build at a "comfortable" level. For my Skyrim build... Maybe once I get my hands on a RTX4090 or something similar, it might run adequately,. Wont know 'till the next gen gets released. In the meanwhile, I just need to "restrain" myself a bit when it comes to modding Skyrim..

VaranisArano

ClevaTreva wrote: »

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that... we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices. - Studio Director.

Then how do they cope with The Bazaar in Fargrave?
Furnishing count in the stratosphere...

Well, Fargrave has a lot of loading screens between sections of the city, so they seem to have made an effort to keep the amount of objects loaded at once relatively smaller than, say, Alinor.

Second, I don't know if you've done modding like for Skyrim, but there's a difference between the objects that make up the background and furnishings that players can use. Typically when you build scenery, you place all the individual objects, and then you combine all their meshes into one object. This lets you eliminate everything that the player can't see and interact with, which cuts down on the complexity of the objects.

It's a little like the grouping function for Housing, except that you can combine the meshes so it's only one object and one texture.

For a simple example, it's the difference between ZOS making a set table in a tavern vs a player setting out a table and arranging four plates, silverware, and goblets with a nice basket of wax grapes and oranges. There's a lot more data associated with each player-placed furnishing. In the tavern, all the items are just baked into the scenery mesh.

I remember thinking the Fargrave had a lot of effects intensive set decoration, so my guess is that between the loading screens that divide the city and that fact that that majority of items are scenery rather than individually rendering furnishings, ZOS was able to keep Fargrave's performance within limits.


Unfortunately, unlike Skyrim's Creation Kit, we really don't have access to the same scenery creation tools as the Devs do, so it's impossible for us to create the sort of "set decoration" furnishings that would be less taxing. We have to wait for ZOS to create stuff like set tables, filled bookshelves, and other combined items without using up tons of our housing slots with individual items.

Jaraal

ClevaTreva wrote: »

At 1:56 the Studio Director has this to say:

"When it comes to questions about housing items, the number of them and the quality of them,
I just need to remind everyone that... we need to make sure we don't overpower those devices. - Studio Director.

Then how do they cope with The Bazaar in Fargrave?
Furnishing count in the stratosphere...

They disable companions and duels there for performance reasons, lol