House item limit is way to low.

TaSheen

freespirit wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm just not interested in anything smaller than notables. The small/medium ones are too hard to furnish without seeming cramped.

[Edited quote]

I like to build "extra bits" and I must admit I enjoy smaller homes because the large platforms and walls available allow me to add those items in small numbers but still create large useable "extra" space

I looked at Sword Singer's Redoubt and immediately started to look for ways to make it smaller....... Kinda annoyed that huge tent isn't moveable.

I would love more spaces and I might even start to want some of the huge Crown Houses, if extra slots were added, however it does suit my rl budget that I can look at them and immediately think "nope too big".

As far as performance goes, my PC is now just about 7yrs old, I cannot afford to replace it and one of my storage houses already makes my graphics card's fans go nuts........ admittedly it does currently house close to 700 light furnishings and if I turn the lights off my PC is happy once more.

My point being it is actually fairly easy to see the complexity of adding more spaces, when you can easily upset a fairly old but when new top of the range PC just by using excessive numbers of lights!!

Oh, I know the feeling! I just replaced my 9 year old dinosaur. This new machine is perfectly happy to let me load all 4 accounts in separate client instances so I can move stuff around from account to account; the old one choked at 2. I visited a friend's house where she had placed about a hundred lights in a smallish area (can't remember which house now, and she's not playing any more) - game dropped me to desktop, and I had a heck of a time getting restarted.

I am NEVER waiting 9 years to upgrade stuff again....

Remathilis

I just want the houseguest limit to raise. You can't create the illusion of a bar/market/public space with only 10 houseguests (and that includes pets, mounts, and assistants). Everything looks vacant.

Sarannah

ZOS could have a simple warning posted when attempting to zone into a house:
-"This house has 3 furniture items in it, do you want to load into this house? (if the loading fails, you will automatically respawn in your home alliance's main city upon your next login)".
-"This house has 4567 furniture items in it(700+ requires a high end GPU), do you want to load into this house? (if the loading fails, you will automatically respawn in your home alliance's main city upon your next login)".

Maybe above a certain furniture amount(700), display a warning that this requires a very high end graphics card. Let players make the judgement on if they want/can do something.

Nerouyn

Sarannah wrote: »

ZOS could have a simple warning posted when attempting to zone into a house:

From both a legal and PR perspective I don't think that's something they could even consider doing.

If a player meets the system requirements for a game then legally they're entitled to it working. Period.

And they always have to consider not just how a game plays for regular players, but eg. how it could be either innocently or maliciously portrayed negatively by streamers.

Also interactions thereof. If a player sees a streamer prancing around through a 4567 item house and loses their mind about what they could do in the game, buys it, then are effectively stuck with a 3 item limit, even warning screens and TOS clauses might leave them vulnerable to legal action by consumers or consumer protection agencies. Even if not legally culpable the potential for bad PR - being seen as effectively false advertising - is there.

whitecrow

I don't know about total slots, but the limit to "special collectibles" is way too low. In the new free house, I have 3 mounts and 2 pets and can't put any more. It's a large home!

Amottica

Nerouyn wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

ZOS could have a simple warning posted when attempting to zone into a house:

From both a legal and PR perspective I don't think that's something they could even consider doing.

If a player meets the system requirements for a game then legally they're entitled to it working. Period.

And they always have to consider not just how a game plays for regular players, but eg. how it could be either innocently or maliciously portrayed negatively by streamers.

Also interactions thereof. If a player sees a streamer prancing around through a 4567 item house and loses their mind about what they could do in the game, buys it, then are effectively stuck with a 3 item limit, even warning screens and TOS clauses might leave them vulnerable to legal action by consumers or consumer protection agencies. Even if not legally culpable the potential for bad PR - being seen as effectively false advertising - is there.

and then they become the experts on what level of furnishings a given build can handle. That is not so simple since even high end machines are comprised of various components. It is not practical for the PC servers.

MasterSpatula

I get how the hardware/technical limitations are at play here, but I have to agree that the furnishing limits are painfully low. Perhaps it's time to take a good, hard look at how holding onto the old can prevent growth, as ZOS did with Win7 support a few years back.

Nerouyn

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I get how the hardware/technical limitations are at play here, but I have to agree that the furnishing limits are painfully low.

Only some find them painfully low.

Others like myself can furnish homes comfortably even within the unsubbed limit.

BretonMage

Remathilis wrote: »

I just want the houseguest limit to raise. You can't create the illusion of a bar/market/public space with only 10 houseguests (and that includes pets, mounts, and assistants). Everything looks vacant.

In notable homes like the Psijic Villa, you need far more than 10 houseguests/pets to make it look even slightly lived in.

I've managed to keep to the standard furnishings limit for ESO+, but I think the special collectibles limit should be raised, at the very least.

Sakiri

virtus753 wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

They quoted the minimum client hardware requirements as the reason for not increasing the limit.

As long as they do not raise the current minimum hardware requirements, they do not feel they can increase the limit on furnishings because those minimum hardware specs will not be able to keep up.

[Edited quote]

The do what every other game does eventually: increase min spec and stop supporting old consoles. PS6 comes out and they're still supporting PS4 I'm going to laugh, then cry.

Sakiri

Amottica wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

It’s typical, very much common, that MMORPGs limit how many decos can go into a home instance. For starters, it’s a fact of a database that such definitions are required. Not sure where this embarrassment that there is a limit when it is nor only common but a requirement.

Even the bottomless crafting bag has a limit. It’s not truly bottomless and Zenimax has even said so.

[Edited quote]

FFXIV limits small houses(two rooms) to 200 and the garden to 20. That was limiting.

But 700 on a notable is limited if you even remotely want to use a lot of clutter.

AnduinTryggva

virtus753 wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

They quoted the minimum client hardware requirements as the reason for not increasing the limit.

As long as they do not raise the current minimum hardware requirements, they do not feel they can increase the limit on furnishings because those minimum hardware specs will not be able to keep up.

[Edited quote]

They might be hard reluctant to do so if they count some ESO+ members with old hardware. I don't know if they can collect all relevant hardware data from their ESO+ members and if after 10 years it is acceptable to raise the bar even if some older accounts are impacted by it.

AnduinTryggva

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

What I don't understand from a technical perspective: We cannot increase the item limit for houses we got but we can release new houses and therefore new cells with up to 700 possible items to place every year without worrying about performance. Does anybody know how these two cases differ in terms of performance?

I think it is related to the fact that when inside a house you are inside a separate instance (loading screen). Could be related to how they manage global memory or data transmission attribution to the divers instances (no IT expert here though).

Nerouyn

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

They might be hard reluctant to do so if they count some ESO+ members with old hardware.

That would certainly be a consideration, but also there's potential new players.

One of the reasons for World of Warcraft's initial and ongoing success is that its minimum specs are just slightly above a toaster.

If a potential ESO player has to upgrade their machine to play then that increases the effective cost of the game from at its lowest of five'ish dollars when it's on sale to hundreds or thousands.

LunaFlora

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I get how the hardware/technical limitations are at play here, but I have to agree that the furnishing limits are painfully low. Perhaps it's time to take a good, hard look at how holding onto the old can prevent growth, as ZOS did with Win7 support a few years back.

zos dropped Windows 7 support this year of 2024 with update 41, not a few years back.

Sakiri

Nerouyn wrote: »

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

They might be hard reluctant to do so if they count some ESO+ members with old hardware.

That would certainly be a consideration, but also there's potential new players.

One of the reasons for World of Warcraft's initial and ongoing success is that its minimum specs are just slightly above a toaster.

If a potential ESO player has to upgrade their machine to play then that increases the effective cost of the game from at its lowest of five'ish dollars when it's on sale to hundreds or thousands.

Were. WERE slightly above a toaster. They've increased them a few times now. You honestly cannot expect to keep playing on ten year old hardware forever.

Their min specs for GPU is above what ESO requires, but that game is VERY CPU bound.

On top of it, the graphics are of lower quality for the most part, poly wise, and there's no housing with issues.

Plus, it's not restrained by consoles.

Another example is FFXIV. Their min specs are higher than ESO, but they ditched old Windows and the PS3 a while ago.

There comes a point where you cannot support old hardware.

ESO min specs for graphics card is a GeForce 560. That card was released in 2011. The CPU required was released same year(i5 2300).

You cannot possibly tell me that supporting 13 year old hardware is a sustainable option forever.

Amottica

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

It’s typical, very much common, that MMORPGs limit how many decos can go into a home instance. For starters, it’s a fact of a database that such definitions are required. Not sure where this embarrassment that there is a limit when it is nor only common but a requirement.

Even the bottomless crafting bag has a limit. It’s not truly bottomless and Zenimax has even said so.

[Edited quote]

FFXIV limits small houses(two rooms) to 200 and the garden to 20. That was limiting.

But 700 on a notable is limited if you even remotely want to use a lot of clutter.

I fail to see the point as I am not speaking to the merits of the current caps but that a database requires setting limits unlike the comments in the quote suggested.

zaria

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

This conspiracy theory that ZOS could increase the furnishing limit but are not for some secret nefarious reason is laughable. Housing is a huge revenue generator for ZOS. More furnishing in houses would lead to more purchases of housing items. ZOS is not going to hurt their profit margins out of spite. No explanation makes sense other than exactly what they have told us: the confluence of asset quality, older hardware that the game client is expected to still run on, and server side code that goes back 17 years, does not allow for more furnishings.

You don't have to like it. You can feel that ZOS needs to drop support for older consoles and PCs. Or ZOS should have been more forward looking during initial development. But they are not keeping the limit in place for the lulz.

Now lag inside an house because to much stuff is that I see an an non critical problem. Solution if your house is to remove some items or not visit that house if an friends one.

LucyferLightbringer

zaria wrote: »

Now lag inside an house because to much stuff is that I see an an non critical problem. Solution if your house is to remove some items or not visit that house if an friends one.

I agree, there are hundreds of ways people with weak consoles and PCs could be acomodated for, while still increasing item limit for people with good machines. Game setting to limit house items displayed could be one of them for example.

Sakiri

Amottica wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

It’s typical, very much common, that MMORPGs limit how many decos can go into a home instance. For starters, it’s a fact of a database that such definitions are required. Not sure where this embarrassment that there is a limit when it is nor only common but a requirement.

Even the bottomless crafting bag has a limit. It’s not truly bottomless and Zenimax has even said so.

[Edited quote]

FFXIV limits small houses(two rooms) to 200 and the garden to 20. That was limiting.

But 700 on a notable is limited if you even remotely want to use a lot of clutter.

I fail to see the point as I am not speaking to the merits of the current caps but that a database requires setting limits unlike the comments in the quote suggested.

I fail to see your point. The craft bag isn't coded the same as a house, and we all very obviously know databases have limits.

Amottica

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

It’s typical, very much common, that MMORPGs limit how many decos can go into a home instance. For starters, it’s a fact of a database that such definitions are required. Not sure where this embarrassment that there is a limit when it is nor only common but a requirement.

Even the bottomless crafting bag has a limit. It’s not truly bottomless and Zenimax has even said so.

[Edited quote]

FFXIV limits small houses(two rooms) to 200 and the garden to 20. That was limiting.

But 700 on a notable is limited if you even remotely want to use a lot of clutter.

I fail to see the point as I am not speaking to the merits of the current caps but that a database requires setting limits unlike the comments in the quote suggested.

I fail to see your point. The craft bag isn't coded the same as a house, and we all very obviously know databases have limits.

My point is that a database works on parameters. In this case, a required parameter is the limit on the number of items permitted in a home. Every MMORPG that has housing has some limit on how many items can be placed in a home.

It all relates to the first comment I responded to, which seems to be nothing more than a [Snip] now.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

To be honest I am sure the Ps4 and Xbox One would beable to handle it, my old PC which I knew had less power then either console because it used the intergrated graphics instead of a GPU was able to handle 700/700 items.

Those consoles can play games like Red Dead Redemption 2 which I am sure is more taxing then ESO.

Jaraal

LunaFlora wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I get how the hardware/technical limitations are at play here, but I have to agree that the furnishing limits are painfully low. Perhaps it's time to take a good, hard look at how holding onto the old can prevent growth, as ZOS did with Win7 support a few years back.

zos dropped Windows 7 support this year of 2024 with update 41, not a few years back.

I think they meant when ZOS dropped support for Windows 32 bit systems shortly after the Morrowind DLC dropped.

They gave everybody plenty of advance notice that they were phasing out those systems. I would imagine at some point they will start doing that for the older gen consoles as well. There's no disputing that original spec console performance is what is holding them back from raising the item limits, as they have stated that outright. And as they continue releasing more data heavy systems, mounts, polymorphs, skill and weapon effects, etc, the time will come when they have to raise the console minimum specs as well. It's not a question of if, but rather, when.

heng14rwb17_ESO

Increase item limit, I can pay for it

Dragonredux

At the very least the "Special Collectibles" needs to be doubled, especially with Houseguests taking a slot.

FelisCatus

You can blame ZOS for choosing to support old hardware typically consoles and also old PCs at the expense of progress and innovation. As soon as they drop support for old hardware the sooner we may finally see some interesting stuff added to the game.

Nerouyn

Sakiri wrote: »

You cannot possibly tell me that supporting 13 year old hardware is a sustainable option forever.

No I've never said that.

Re WoW v ESO minimum requirements it is interesting to see them a bit above ESO now but the developers don't make any decision based on a single factor because neither do players.

Eg. WoW has long had many advantages over other MMOs and one of its biggest is personal investment.

No how much better a new MMO is compared to WoW a player or entire guild's decision (many move en masse) to even just try let alone up and move to another game is affected by their sense of time / money / social investment in a current one.

That's a handicap every other competitor has to try to overcome and one way they might do that is lower system specs.

zaria

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

[Snip]

It’s typical, very much common, that MMORPGs limit how many decos can go into a home instance. For starters, it’s a fact of a database that such definitions are required. Not sure where this embarrassment that there is a limit when it is nor only common but a requirement.

Even the bottomless crafting bag has a limit. It’s not truly bottomless and Zenimax has even said so.

[Edited quote]

FFXIV limits small houses(two rooms) to 200 and the garden to 20. That was limiting.

But 700 on a notable is limited if you even remotely want to use a lot of clutter.

I fail to see the point as I am not speaking to the merits of the current caps but that a database requires setting limits unlike the comments in the quote suggested.

I fail to see your point. The craft bag isn't coded the same as a house, and we all very obviously know databases have limits.

But the house furniture is does not need to be stored in an the default database as its only unpacked on entering.
Same as items in zones and dungeons are static outside the ones you can interact with.
Then entering edit mode this changes. If this give an loading screen none will care unless it happen every time you enter edit mode because you needed to use an crafting station or banker so exit edit mode.

But yes minimum specifications need to be updated. Mainly for Cyrodil and trials.
Remember running ESO on an cheap laptop after release, my plan was just to do research and training riding skills but did some questing. Would obviously not enter Cyrodil or even an dungeon but some running on this stuff would.

And remember all the new styles outfits and mounts has to go into video memory or game will lag hard

BXR_Lonestar

This has been a problem for a really long time. I'd even be willing to use crowns to increase housing item limits, but for some reason, this has never gotten a lot of attention. I hope they at least take a look at expanding the amount of items we can put down, because a 700 item limit cap for massive houses just doesn't cut it IMO.

NoTimeToWait

furiouslog wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

houses feel limited to me, but i also came from city of heroes, and i had a supergroup base with between 8,000 and 12,000 items in it lol

that game didnt start to become unstable with the bases until there were ~24,000+ items in the base

City of Heroes had a low poly count for its assets. When it came out, character assets from comparable games had about 1000 polys, and entire levels had fewer than 10K.

ESO is specced to work on a GTX 960. Games designed to run on that card at 1080p/30fps originally had character models of about 4000. Today, cartoony hero games are about 15K-20K per character, with current AAA games hitting over 100K per toon. Yes, there are more polys to account for, like the environment, but it gives you a sense of the order of magnitude we're talking about.
So, it seems pretty obvious to me that there is no ridiculous conspiracy about the item placement issue. ZOS is being inclusive to people who can't afford to upgrade their computers every 3 years, while also allowing people who started the game to still play on the computer that they started it on, if they choose. Many gamers are like this - just look at CS:GO, which is one of the top games in the world, and has the lowest technical requirements. Not everyone in this community is a big PC builder type. My guild buddy still runs ESO in 720p on an 8 year old PC, and she pretty much plays only for housing. Everything she does is housing. She appreciates the limitations and views it as a creative challenge rather than complaining to ZOS about everything, and that is because she has empathy for people like her, and for the technical limitations placed on the designers.

[Snip]

[Edited for baiting]

This is a good post. But this doesn't change the fact that most houses are too large to be properly filled with the current item limit.

Additionally, while ZOS's (possible) adherence to their minimum requirements is commendable, it's not like PC or console will explode if FPS gets lower in some houses. ZOS could make the limit higher, while also adding a visible warning when you go above a threshold (say, 1200 items is the limit and 700 items is the treshold), so that the owner and visitors would know that the game performance may decline.

It would be acceptable, because a lot of houses don't involve much action and don't require stable high framerates.

There are also other solutions, like baked together furnishings (multiple items with reduced poly count due to intersection culling), which start to appear a bit more nowadays. So at least, these discussions are working somewhat and we get what we asked, even though at a rather slow pace

Nerouyn wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

As far as performance goes, my PC is now just about 7yrs old, I cannot afford to replace it and one of my storage houses already makes my graphics card's fans go nuts........ admittedly it does currently house close to 700 light furnishings and if I turn the lights off my PC is happy once more.

I can relate.

Right now I have a better machine but before, a fully furnished but unsubbed (so half limit) Snugpod would cause my game to crash about a third of the time.

It might be an issue with either a faulty hardware or dated drivers (or some other software incompatibility). I have an old PC that is 15 years old (and it wasn't top notch even at that time) which I turn on sometimes to run a secondary ESO account. The game still runs there without crashing, even if a bit slow and at minimum settings.