Of All the Requested Features You Come Up With This for Housing?

Shagreth · July 3

I have been waiting for years for a good housing feature, it could have been skybox control, bards, gardening, ability to fish in bodies of water, more stuff to do in homes (let's face it -- once done, there's not much to do other than display your creation) literally anything, even more slots, and instead you come up with something that I've never seen anyone ever request. As someone that has spent tons of money for houses, furniture etc. over the years I feel almost insulted. I also expected another wave of medium or small houses, but alas.

Look, I was really looking for something exciting from this announcement, something to look forward to as nowadays the competition does everything better than ESO, almost everything. Suffice to say that I'll refrain from spending more money in housing, the system is already cutthroat, [snip], and don't even get me started on the prices of notable homes. But yeah, it's all optional and "cosmetic" so I guess I shouldn't say more, but still.. I expected more from ZOS.

[edited for bashing]

Ravensilver · July 3

We had a two-year-long thread up on the housing forum, started by - and then totally ignored by - @ZOS_CullenLee , where we offered *tons* of ideas and suggestions of how the whole housing could be optimized and made more interesting, even *with* the constraint on space.

It was ignored, then erased.

Now, all we get is... housing tours.

I've never felt more ignored and metaphorically told off than with this new Update... >.<

Shagreth · July 3

Ravensilver wrote: »

I've never felt more ignored and metaphorically told off than with this new Update... >.<

I tend to be careful with my words around here as I've gotten tons of warnings and I really don't want more, but I am not being hyperbolic when I say that this feels insulting.

Photosniper89 · July 3

Shagreth wrote: »

Ravensilver wrote: »

I've never felt more ignored and metaphorically told off than with this new Update... >.<

I tend to be careful with my words around here as I've gotten tons of warnings and I really don't want more, but I am not being hyperbolic when I say that this feels insulting.

I echo every single thing outlined here - including the picking my words carefully so I don't get banned.

Jaimeh · July 3

I personally don't use the EHT community feature so it doesn't change a lot for me if they add it to the game, but I know a lot of housing enthusiasts who use it and it will also be cool for console players to have that functionality as well, so I'll probably test it on the PTS. Having said that, I do think the anticipation they built up for a new housing feature leading to the Live was disproportionate, firstly because there are so many other things that we have been asking for a long time, and secondly because they are basically just being carried by an addon developer and assimilating their addon to the game (I know they work for ZOS, [snip]). As for the things they could have developed instead:

-More special collectible slots (not traditional furnishings, but slots for guests, pets, and assistants), even just 5 more would make houses feel more alive
-Mannequins for storing saved and previewing outfits
-The ability to place alt toons as posed guests in houses
-Different bodies of water as furnishings
-The ability to control the weather, much like we control the time of day

[edited for bashing]

ComboBreaker88 · July 3

festegios · July 3

Out of all the things that where hoped and wished for, some reasonable; some not.

This was never on the most-anticipated feature.

I’m disappointed.

I’m looking foward to the pvp update;

They just gonna add pvp duals to the activity finder I guess.

Jaraal · July 3

Ravensilver wrote: »

We had a two-year-long thread up on the housing forum, started by - and then totally ignored by - @ZOS_CullenLee , where we offered *tons* of ideas and suggestions of how the whole housing could be optimized and made more interesting, even *with* the constraint on space.

It was ignored, then erased.

It's still there, it just got unpinned some time back.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/512076/february-2020-furnishing-limit-status-update/p1

Yamenstein · July 3

festegios wrote: »

Out of all the things that where hoped and wished for, some reasonable; some not.

This was never on the most-anticipated feature.

I’m disappointed.

I’m looking foward to the pvp update;

They just gonna add pvp duals to the activity finder I guess.

If I were you I would not be looking forward to anything ZoS says. It’s either going to be something you didn’t want and poorly implemented or something you did want and poorly implemented. Either way, poorly implemented. They do not have a good track record recently.

spartaxoxo · July 3

What's a housing your?

TaSheen · July 3

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What's a housing your?

Do you mean "housing tour"? You can list your houses through a UI option (similar apparently to group finder) for people to tour, and "rate".

Apparently, you will still be able to not allow anyone access other than friends, guildies - those you chose.

spartaxoxo · July 3

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What's a housing your?

Do you mean "housing tour"? You can list your houses through a UI option (similar apparently to group finder) for people to tour, and "rate".

Apparently, you will still be able to not allow anyone access other than friends, guildies - those you chose.

Yes. That's what I meant. And thanks. That's something console has long asked for. We've been asking for a number of things that are add-on to be part of the base game, this among them. So, I am glad we're getting something for a change.

TaSheen · July 3

spartaxoxo wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What's a housing your?

Do you mean "housing tour"? You can list your houses through a UI option (similar apparently to group finder) for people to tour, and "rate".

Apparently, you will still be able to not allow anyone access other than friends, guildies - those you chose.

Yes. That's what I meant. And thanks. That's something console has long asked for. We've been asking for a number of things that are add-on to be part of the base game, this among them. So, I am glad we're getting something for a change.

Yeah, apparently EHT entire is becoming part of the base game, so that should help out y'all on console!

ClowdyAllDay · July 3

Something else added to the game others may enjoy but I won’t bother with. Sigh

Rkindaleft · July 4

festegios wrote: »

Out of all the things that where hoped and wished for, some reasonable; some not.

This was never on the most-anticipated feature.

I’m disappointed.

I’m looking foward to the pvp update;

They just gonna add pvp duals to the activity finder I guess.

I'm not actually convinced that anyone asked for this like ever. I watched the stream and when it was announced there were a few "this looks cool" or "this looks nice" and the vast majority either said "that's it?" or flooded chat with requests about housing slots, you know something that people actually care about or want.

The changes to IA are nice if you enjoy doing that content, and the curation change is also good, but considering we lost Q3 Dungeons and a Q4 Zone for this, I'm extremely underwhelmed.

fizzylu · July 4

I also expected more from the "most prolific AAA game studio", but then I realized that this is Zenimax we're talking about and I've known they regularly have done the bare minimum when it comes to this game even before it launched.... so really, it's my mistake. But I'm definitely not making it again.

Shagreth · July 4

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. That's what I meant. And thanks. That's something console has long asked for. We've been asking for a number of things that are add-on to be part of the base game, this among them. So, I am glad we're getting something for a change.

No-one has ever asked for this, I am a member of most housing communities on discord and also actively read the forums. It almost feels like you're trying to defend them. Even if I have missed the one or two people that have asked for this -- it doesn't even make it to the top 100 requested features for housing. This is wasted resources.

LadyLethalla · July 4

So for PC we've been waiting in anticipation for six months for... what. Disappointed if there's nothing else. Very disappointed.

spartaxoxo · July 4

Shagreth wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. That's what I meant. And thanks. That's something console has long asked for. We've been asking for a number of things that are add-on to be part of the base game, this among them. So, I am glad we're getting onsomething for a change.

No-one has ever asked for this, I am a member of most housing communities on discord and also actively read the forums. It almost feels like you're trying to defend them. Even if I have missed the one or two people that have asked for this -- it doesn't even make it to the top 100 requested features for housing. This is wasted resources.

PC players already had this through add-ons, so why would it be common for them to request this as a major feature? Social media is dominated by PC users. It was very commonly asked for by console.

Edit:
PC players also sometimes asked for it on our behalf or because they didn't want to use add-ons but that was less common. Here are some examples of it being requested.

StabbityDoom wrote: »

this is my bias showing here, i'm a housing geek, but totally the housing hub integrated as part of the game. Console people deserve it! (and i say this as a pc person)

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/524404/access-to-all-houses-not-just-primary-please

Princess_Kassiopeia wrote: »

Just another imaginative thought... it would be stunning to, as you walk up to the gates of houses in the different zones, have a list of people who have bought/own it and you could choose a name to visit the house of.

THIS way you would have a stunning comparative journey through a dozen or more of the same house to asist with, say, decorators block so that you could be inspired as to what to purchase from the Traders or Crown Store.

I'd like that alot. Homes are a massive part of the game to me....... and Im looking for a way to find more owned homes.....

TeruKisuke wrote: »

Wholeheartedly agree. I wish, much like the Guild Finder, we had a menu where we could browse server-wide uploaded homes, and attached is the owner's description and what house it is, and maybe we could sort it by what house it is, search player names etc. I am not a PC player but I'm assuming EHT works a bit like this? Would love to have such a feature on console.

I love building and showing my homes, but I'm a bit too shy to publically advertise them. ^^; So it would be great if ESO could do a little bit of that for me.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/586486/placeable-entrances-to-other-houses#Comment_7391400

And I could go on....

The developers, naturally, are keeping track of major concerns of the overall playerbase. But they are also aware of the concerns of the various platforms. They are well aware of the negative way console users are impacted by not having add-ons. And they have on rare occasion made new features designed to incorporate some of that functionality into the base game.

The armory, the improvements they made to guild search, marking sky shards on maps, and now this housing tour features are all part of that.

Obviously, as a console user and housing enthusiast, I am happy for that. The latter half of this year seems to be focused on helping segments of the playerbase that get less attention. This seems to be aimed at console players. And Q4 seems to be for PvP players

Syldras · July 4

It is nice for people who don't want or can't use mods, but that doesn't change that a house search menu isn't a big feature worth being announced as the highlight of a whole quarter, including an extra Twitch stream about it. Something of this size should be a QoL update made on the side and mentioned in the patch notes or so, and not being considered an equal-value replacement for the content that Q3 originally introduced.

spartaxoxo · July 4

Syldras wrote: »

It is nice for people who don't want or can't use mods, but that doesn't change that a house search menu isn't a big feature worth being announced as the highlight of a whole quarter, including an extra Twitch stream about it. Something of this size should be a QoL update made on the side and mentioned in the patch notes or so, and not being considered an equal-value replacement for the content that Q3 originally introduced.

Quality of Life updates are now and for the currently foreseeable (by us players) future the focus of Q3.

Last Quarter 3 the big announced features were the group finder and grandmaster crafting tables. And they had to push the release of the tables back.

Quarter 3 used to dungeons mostly.

You should always manage expectations that anything they announce for Q3 will be smaller.

Q2 and Q4 are the big things.

Edit: They told us two years ago that Q3 was just going to be Quality of Life updates and bug fixes. This is actually on the bigger side of what most game devs mean by a Quality of Life change. Those are generally smaller changes. This would be a bigger deal for PC, if they didn't already have this functionality for years through add-ons.

Syldras · July 4

I think announcing it like this was unfortunate - it gave people too high expectations:

Well, this part is interesting, too, now that I'm just seeing it:

"Most anticipated"? Although "One of the year's..." is interesting, too - was there anything else for housing? If not, of course it's the most anticipated new housing feature... out of a selection of 1.

spartaxoxo · July 4

Syldras wrote: »

I think announcing it like this was unfortunate - it gave people too high expectations:

Well, this part is interesting, too, now that I'm just seeing it:

"Most anticipated"? Although "One of the year's..." is interesting, too - was there anything else for housing? If not, of course it's the most anticipated new housing feature... out of a selection of 1.

Yes. They added a medium house. Players have asked for more medium houses for a while now.

LunaFlora · July 4

Syldras wrote: »

I think announcing it like this was unfortunate - it gave people too high expectations:

Well, this part is interesting, too, now that I'm just seeing it:

"Most anticipated"? Although "One of the year's..." is interesting, too - was there anything else for housing? If not, of course it's the most anticipated new housing feature... out of a selection of 1.

i don't get how "housing feature" gave people high expectations?

i believe everything people expected besides this was either QoL like limits increase (which we recently again got told won't happen) or new kinds of furnishings like weather control or mannequins.
which was not realistic to expect as a feature.

And yes there is more to housing in update 43, not really other features but there's:
- medium sized classic home in Auridon in the Alinor style. named Seabloom Villa with a toggle for flowers on the building.
People have wanted more medium sized homes for years. the last one was Lucky Cat's Landing in Southern Elsweyr from 2019.

- Haven of the Five Companions in the base game imperial style which will be the q4 event collectible.
- and not mentioned in the stream, but q3 usually has new master writ and structural plans too.

Syldras · July 4

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. They added a medium house. Players have asked for more medium houses for a while now.

Were houses ever considered features? Because the text says "feature".

spartaxoxo · July 4

Syldras wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. They added a medium house. Players have asked for more medium houses for a while now.

Were houses ever considered features? Because the text says "feature".

IDK. More medium houses in the past have been discussed as part of various feature request discussion. But, they are generally not advertised as features. Nor discussed as features outside of those threads. Nevertheless, it's been a consistent part of those discussions.

LunaFlora · July 4

i believe features are new systems like:
- Antiquities
- Tribute
- Group Finder
- Stickerbook
- Scribing
- Housing
- Battlegrounds
- infinite Archive
- Jewelry crafting

generally a new activity or skill line additions.

LadyLethalla · July 4

Housing was a feature when it was first released. A house... I don't think that qualifies as a feature.

anadandy · July 4

Consolidated crafting tables for furnishing, or if that's too much a search feature at the current tables to make crafting easier.

A furnishings catalog, kind of like gear stickerbook where we can see what plans we know, what plans we still need.

A way to filter traders for known plans

More filled/bunched clutter items in the vanilla styles.

An assistant vendor for Zanil so he can have more luxury choices every week.

Some way to search all our homes for furniture, since we have to store everything in warehouse homes.

There you go, a list of QOL that are NOT increasing the furniture limit or a furniture bag. And that's just what I could remember from the multipage housing thread.

I never expected the limit to go up but did expect a QOL improvement to actually improve housing.

Jaraal · July 4

Syldras wrote: »

"Most anticipated"? Although "One of the year's..." is interesting, too - was there anything else for housing? If not, of course it's the most anticipated new housing feature... out of a selection of 1.

Well, it was certainly one of the things most anticipated by the devs who were working on it. Other than that? I can't honestly say I've ever seen any player say, "You know, I wish ZOS would add housing tours to the activity finder!" But I have seen hundreds of requests for gold cost houses, more slots, furniture bag, furniture deconstruction, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin can you help us understand who was anticipating this besides the team? Any links to housing in the activity finder requests? I must have been looking in the wrong places.

Syldras · July 4

Jaraal wrote: »

I can't honestly say I've ever seen any player say, "You know, I wish ZOS would add housing tours to the activity finder!" But I have seen hundreds of requests for gold cost houses, more slots, furniture bag, furniture deconstruction, etc.

Oh, I've seen a few of such requests. It weren't many compared to others, though.

In general, I'm not against that feature. It's nice for people without addons. The only two things that bother me are the hype that was generated (without that, the forum wouldn't be filled with disappointed posts now) and the fact that this replaced what Q3 had originally been.