PTS Patch Notes v2.7.0 (Homestead)

Shadowshire · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno

If a player "places" a Personal Assistant in a home, then can that P.A. still be summoned by a character to the character's current location, i.e., while the character is not at the home where the P.A. is "placed"?

Shadowshire · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Quote: ".... Homestead features 39 homes spread throughout many zones in the base game. ...."

Since you subsequently list 36 homes which will be available for purchase (which includes apartments), and refer to "36 homes" in subsequent statements, is the number "39" incorrect? Or does that number include the "inn rooms" with which characters are rewarded upon completion of the initiating quest?

In further explanation, you evidently use the word "apartment" when perhaps you mean "inn-room" and/or vice-versa. It appears to me that the initiating Quest grants the player character a room at an inn, not an apartment. After at least one character is awarded a room at an inn, the player can obtain an apartment, small house, medium house, large house, or manor.

Also, there is no mention of any "private island" about which representations were made in the initial promotion of the Homestead feature.

Are there more Homesteads which will eventually be added to the game but are not in the initial release? Maybe ZO could offer a mansion on a private island, another as a ship anchored or docked, and a third as a cavern like The Harborage.

Enodoc · January 2017

Shadowshire wrote: »

Quote: ".... Homestead features 39 homes spread throughout many zones in the base game. ...."

Since you subsequently list 36 homes which will be available for purchase (which includes apartments), and refer to "36 homes" in subsequent statements, is the number "39" incorrect? Or does that number include the "inn rooms" with which characters are rewarded upon completion of the initiating quest?

Yes, it includes the 3 inn rooms. 36 purchasable houses and 3 inn rooms from the quest (only one can be gained by each character from the quest, so for the other two, you either need to complete the quest on a character in another alliance, or pay gold).

In further explanation, you evidently use the word "apartment" when perhaps you mean "inn-room" and/or vice-versa. It appears to me that the initiating Quest grants the player character a room at an inn, not an apartment. After at least one character is awarded a room at an inn, the player can obtain an apartment, small house, medium house, large house, or manor.

Agreed that it's inconsistent. There's not really much practical difference between an apartment and an inn room though.

Also, there is no mention of any "private island" about which representations were made in the initial promotion of the Homestead feature.

The private island is Crown Store exclusive, and is available on the PTS for testing.

Are there more Homesteads which will eventually be added to the game but are not in the initial release? Maybe ZO could offer a mansion on a private island, another as a ship anchored or docked, and a third as a cavern like The Harborage.

That is quite likely. 6 houses on Vvardenfell and an additional 3 Crown Store exclusives have been datamined so far.

Asardes · January 2017

Kodrac wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

It's not clear if the houses will allow you to actually store useful items in them, and in sufficient quantity to make them a viable option. ATM I have enough money to make myself a Count, but I really don't need such an ego boost. Is the "safe" mentioned at some point actual storage? Is it upgradable? Do bigger houses have bigger safes?

Have you been under a rock? They said weeks ago there's no storage in houses. Maybe in a later update.

Well, then my money stays in the bank. I don't want to blow them on a purely cosmetic update. I'd rather spend 200K and make a new bank char with 140 backpack slots right away, and another 60 over 2 months. Not to mention the chore of decorating that house. I'll probably stick with the freebies.

Shadowshire · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno FAIR WARNING: LONG!!

Find homes scattered across Tamriel, make sure you have the prerequisites, and purchase them for in-game gold.
First, you must find the home in-game, click on the door, and follow the purchasing instructions.
Most homes require you to complete certain prerequisites before you can purchase them for gold. For example, to purchase the Daggerfall Covenant Manor, you must have previously completed the Hero of the Daggerfall Covenant achievement.
You must own the Imperial Edition version of ESO in order to purchase any Imperial homes.
Homes can be purchased for crowns at any time, bypassing the above requirements.

Frankly, the Homestead feature and the implementation for Furnishings have all of the hallmarks of some good ideas in concept which became corrupted while integrating them into ESO.

(1) There should never be any "prerequisite" for buying any Homestead. It inherently discriminates between players who have the time to make the effort to satisfy the prerequisite(s), and players who do not have enough playing time for a fair opportunity to make it worthwhile, whether feasible. Even requiring a player to have at hand or to accumulate enough Gold Pieces to purchase a Homestead after acquiring an "inn-room(s)" can readily become discriminatory in that respect.

The only reason for prerequisites is to give a player "incentive" to PAY DOLLARS to buy Crowns and use them to "purchase" a Homestead. Spending a lot of time and effort to accumulate enough Gold Pieces -- instead of playing the game with other goals which might be more to the player's satisfaction -- is just not enough of an "incentive" to BUY CROWNS instead, is it?

(2) There are so many ways that ESO trade qua merchandising is frustrated and flawed that the Gold Piece homestead prices quoted in these PTS notes are, frankly, appalling and insulting.

It should be evident to everyone by now that the byzantine ESO Guild Store + Guild Trader system does not encourage or support "merchants" and "crafters". Indeed, evidently it was deliberately designed to frustrate any player whose primary satisfaction might well be simply acquiring as many Gold Pieces as possible as quickly as possible, albeit they are indeed fantasy wealth.

Two of my characters have mastered all six crafts. But there are only a few items which are feasible to craft in order to offer them for sale. That seems to the reason Crafting Writs were introduced, i.e., as a sop for the players who like to craft items with their characters.

The "Master Writ" feature, as described, is simply not acceptable for introducing furniture crafting into the game. It is an afterthought, a false alternative for furnishing a Homestead rather than buying a furnished Homestead from the Crown Store. Certainly, some players may welcome it and might even enjoy doing it. Nonetheless, the amount of time and effort required to furnish a Homestead by crafting furniture and/or buying furnishings with Gold Pieces becomes a disincentive when compared to SPENDING CROWNS instead.

Personally, after playing ESO for more than two years, I have accumulated more than enough GP to buy a Manor, whether I want one. But it is easy to realize that the majority of players quite likely have not done what I have done. Many, if not most, probably do not want to do so. Indeed, the Gold Piece prices quoted in these PTS notes make it abundantly clear that it will not be feasible for many players to acquire a Homestead anytime soon without BUYING CROWNS to purchase it.

(3) Finding and buying a Homestead is just the beginning. Furnishing it promises to be an arduous, time-consuming, complex process -- one which rather likely has, and will have, so many bugs that it will probably be quite a while before it actually works most of the time.

Which is to say, those who designed the process of furnishing a Homestead evidently forgot the KISS principle of software design (Keep It Simple, Stupid!), whether they ever learned it. And that fact also becomes an incentive for a player to simply BUY CROWNS to purchase a Homestead which is already fully furnished, although it might not have many, if any, of the features that the player might prefer.

IN CONCLUSION, rather clearly, Zenimax Online wants a major revenue boost from introducing the Homestead feature. Whether it might incidentally increase the enjoyment of many who play the game, it does not appear to me to have been designed and implemented with that in mind. On its face, so much of it serves as an incentive to just BUY ( a lot of ) CROWNS. When all is said and done, whether a player will enjoy buying and decorating a Homestead is, of course, a matter of personal preference as to how they want to spend their time and effort -- or to spend their money instead, if they can afford to do that at all.

Last, but not least: allowing a player who does not own the ESO Imperial Edition to purchase an Imperial Homestead for Crowns makes those of us who bought it look like fools. So does the Imperial Crafting Motif which, although quite rare, is nonetheless available in the game. It enables a character to learn how to craft Imperial gear regardless of whether the player has bought and installed the ESO Imperial Edition.

When one of my characters found that motif, I could have sold it for 1,000,000 Gold Pieces. But I chose to have a Breton character learn it instead. Was that a foolish decision?

Enodoc · January 2017

Shadowshire wrote: »

Find homes scattered across Tamriel, make sure you have the prerequisites, and purchase them for in-game gold.
First, you must find the home in-game, click on the door, and follow the purchasing instructions.
Most homes require you to complete certain prerequisites before you can purchase them for gold. For example, to purchase the Daggerfall Covenant Manor, you must have previously completed the Hero of the Daggerfall Covenant achievement.
You must own the Imperial Edition version of ESO in order to purchase any Imperial homes.
Homes can be purchased for crowns at any time, bypassing the above requirements.

(1) There should never be any "prerequisite" for buying any Homestead. It inherently discriminates between players who have the time to make the effort to satisfy the prerequisite(s), and players who do not have enough playing time for a fair opportunity to make it worthwhile, whether feasible. Even requiring a player to accumulate enough Gold Pieces to purchase a Homestead after acquiring an "inn-room(s)" can readily become discriminatory in that respect.

This is exactly how player houses worked in Skyrim. In order to buy a house, you had to be a respected member of the local community who has proven themselves. This is great for immersion, and if you don't care for the immersion, you can ignore it and buy the home with Crowns. Although I do agree that with these prerequisites, and the added gold cost of furnishing, the up-front gold cost for the larger houses should be 30-40% lower.

Jaronking · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @Wrobel .Zos can we actually get a fixed to proc sets because as it is right now removing their ability to crit in PvP isn't going to solve the issue.Can we add additional battlespirt Nerf to damage proc set well their damage reduced by 75-80% in PvP or add a GCD so only 1 proc at a time.

Fudly_budly · January 2017

Reivax wrote: »

Crafters rejoice! If you have access to the Craft Bag through ESO Plus, you can now deconstruct items and refine materials even when your inventory is full.

Great news

^
yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

SophiCat · January 2017

Enodoc wrote: »

SophiCat wrote: »

I think zenimax is missing out on a big chance to sell here. They could put a token amount of storage in the houses... say 20 or 30 slots, then sell more through the crown store.
Could be a big seller!

I'm also very very glad some things will be stacking...
any way we could stack up siege items like trebuchet???

It would be great if they would look into stacking siege again. @SophiCat for a bit of history, siege weapons used to stack up to 5, back at launch, but there was a bug where a part-used siege would stack with an unused siege, and then either all sieges of that type would lose some durability, or the part-used siege would be restored to full health. To get around this, they disabled siege stacking. I would suggest though, that if they just made it so that used sieges couldn't stack, and unused ones could, that would alleviate this issue.

that would work for me!

SophiCat · January 2017

Well I have to say that without storage my main incentive to purchases houses is for a free fast travel location, no need to buy an expensive house for that, i will just get the basic apartments in each of the different factions (with alts). What purpose to buy a beautiful large house that will have the same furnishings as everyone else?

If I could use items i find in the world (such as stolen items like dragon paperweights) to decorate as well as items i get for achievements (which ought not to be SO expensive) then I might consider spending crowns on it (yes crowns - otherwise it would take me YEARS to accrue the amount of ingame gold required for the big pretty places like Hunding's Palace!)

Since that's the case why spend gold/crowns at all? I can simply travel to a friends' if i want to hang out and enjoy the view - they'll even let me decorate, so not much incentive to get my own place.

Storage people! Storage!

Fudly_budly · January 2017

Any of you on PTS have any thoughts on:
- Drop rates for house crafting mats? My quickie, farm-for-an-hour-gut-level-look says 20-30% of resource nodes drop a housing mat?
- The significant amount of trait stones required versus gear crafting? I crafted a cosmetic burlap sack and it required 12 Nickel. A candle was even more. I've got some screenies if anyone wants to see.
- The drop rate for plans versus recipes? I have found 2 while rummaging through drawers, etc. I also bought a few from Furnishing merchants.
Finally, does anyone @ZOS_GinaBruno - know where to buy/acquire the <Firelogs, flaming> item? It's a green Crown store item but I can't find in Crown tab of housing editor?

Enodoc · January 2017

For an idea of how many mats are needed for furniture crafting, go here.

NBrookus · January 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS, BASE GAME PATCH

Alliance War
General
Increased the AP rewards for quests that direct you to capture resources and keeps.

Completing a quest to capture a resource will now grant 1000 AP.

Completing a quest to capture a keep will now grant 1500 AP.

[*]Completing quests from towns will now grant 250 AP per completed quest, and will also now grant a green-level set item.
[*]Capturable towns in Cyrodiil now display the status of individual flags on the compass while in the areas of those towns.

The extra AP for map play is great. Suggestion - please split the undefended resource take AP among the players on the flag AND who were in combat. This will reduce the incentive to zerg down resources while still providing a now significantly larger reward for small groups.

Flowergnome · January 2017

I would like to propose a radically different idea on the pricing of manors under the moniker 'Manors for the Masses': they should be free. Yes, free.

Why should manors be free?

Unlike all other houses, manors are explicitly tied to the storyline. They are not just random houses some NPC offers for sale. You have to earn the quest achievement before you are allowed to buy them (I'll disregard the crown shop for this. Just one comment later on.) Thus I think it is justified to regard manors as a reward for going through the storyline of the respective faction.

Now what does that mean? Well - manors are the reward for saving the AD / EP / DC from a terrible threat and preventing untold death, destruction, misery, suffering. You start out as a nameless Abnur Doe and end up as the preeminent hero of your faction. And your reward is - being allowed to buy a manor? Sorry, no, that does not make sense. Given all that you have done for your faction, all the effort you have put in, the manor should be rewarded (along with the title) at no cost whatsoever.

Consider how housing would then even become reflective of your journey as a hero. You start out small, in a little room somewhere, and end up as as a lord in your own manor at the end of a long journey. I find that vision far more compelling than 'Here's your manor, but wait, you need to grind several millions first for, um, administrative fees *giggle*'.

(As an aside: I'm fully aware that many player don't care one bit about story, lore and all that 'nonsense'. Many others do, however, and since ZOS decided to tie manors to the storyline, I think it is fair to discuss their pricing from that point of view.)

Let's say manors actually become a gift from your faction leader for saving them from a terrible fate. Does that lead to problems? Yes - and no.

What would be the consequences?

Status is one concept that is brought up in this discussion. Manors are priced correctly because it only allows those with a lot of money to buy them, thus showing off all the affort they put in getting that money and granting them status. That thinking is flawed, IMHO. True, manors grant status, but not because you are one of the few who could afford them, but because you are one of those who took the time to do all the tasks for your faction - just as a true hero would (again: different point of view as to what actually is important, other will simply laugh at this idea, I get that).

But what about status? Well, houses are not a good choice for showing off, IMHO. Their price is more or less fixed to the current structure and given that there are people who can right now buy all of them we simply need something 'better' / more expensive. Far better suited are furnishings. They can (at least I think so) be made with a fraction of the dev time compared to houses and can be priced at will. I don't doubt that ZOS would have no problem to come up with furnishings that are sufficiently priced to bankrupt even the most affluent player. For starters: how about a live-sized statue of the faction leader(s) made of pure gold for the pittance of, say, 25 M each? If you can afford those, you truly have accomplished something - whatever it may be ;-)

Apart from arbitrary pricing, furnishings can also provide a much vider variety of looks than houses. Should there be any credence to the rumour of Vvardenfell being in the works, we could get a mass of new furnishings - even more ways to spent your money - while in contrast I do not expect that there would be more than a few additional houses.

You could go even futher and auction off truly unique (yes, one per server region, as in EU and NA) pieces of furnishings. Maybe an expedition of the mages guild to some newly discovered Ayleid ruin discovered an ancient statue of Molag Bal crushing an unlucky adventurer, made of purest daedric ore and believed to be at least 1,000 years old. Bidding starts this sunday in each of the main cities. Minimum bid: 75 M. The ultimate status symbol.

All this nicely adresses another concern: that of houses being intended as a moneysink. I agree that the current pricing makes it look like ZOS sees the need for a moneysink into the game. Again, houses are not the correct way to do that. Furnishings provide a far better way with far more options to tune the flow of cash out of TES. Granted, people have to buy furnishings for it to work, but that holds true for houses just as well.

What about the crown store?

My final comment adresses the crown store. I support the notion that a title should not be given to those who buy a manor with crowns. Should they later fulfill the requirement to earn that manor ingame, the title should of course be awarded to them. Would be the best way to do this, I think.

So, Manors for the Masses - what say you?

davidlpiazzajrub17_ESO · January 2017

what about estates

oTheTownDrunk · January 2017

40 homes available to purchase total or is there 40 different types of homes people can purchase? Cause 40 houses are gonna get bought up quick by the how ever many people play this game.

Lord_Draevan · January 2017

Krainor1974 wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

For Homestead, are the three Manors only available for Guilds, like Guild Flagships in SW:TOR?

Anyone with the gold or crowns can buy any or all the houses.

Oh goodie, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to buy the Ebonheart Chateau.

lucky_Sage · January 2017

we had 9 months with out balance changes and are the worst and a lot smaller than I would think they have been.
I know @wrobel is over worked
Magdk had huge document with tones of ideas and feed back and was even summarized with best stuff and only thing we got from it was a fire leap.
and every class got nerfed.
these balances changes were only pve nerfs.
proc sets are still stackable.
you killed pvp magcorc.
magblade worst class in game got nerfed
no buff to stamplar sustain only nerfed it with no repent to engine guardian.
made purma blocking even easier.

Enodoc · January 2017

Flowergnome wrote: »

I would like to propose a radically different idea on the pricing of manors under the moniker 'Manors for the Masses': they should be free. Yes, free.

Why should manors be free?

Unlike all other houses, manors are explicitly tied to the storyline. [...]

Not true. All houses are tied to the storyline, but manors are tied to the most storyline, ie, essentially completing the whole thing where the other houses are only tied to parts of it.

I don't think they should be free, but I think they should cost 30-40% less. But I think as a proper reward for completing the storyline, these should not be available in the Crown Store.

oTheTownDrunk wrote: »

40 homes available to purchase total or is there 40 different types of homes people can purchase? Cause 40 houses are gonna get bought up quick by the how ever many people play this game.

@oTheTownDrunk Both/Neither. There are 39 houses, and everyone can buy all of them, because everyone gets their own instance of each house.

BigES · January 2017

ZoS -

Why nerf Blazing Spear?

It's not even a hard CC. You can block it. Its horribly predictable. You can see the Templar cast it and just block.

Templar doesn't have Streak. It doesn't have Fear. It doesn't have Petrify. You do realize Templar has hardly any CC effects as it is, right - much less a hard CC. Templar doesn't even have a root. You're taking away the only stun that isn't projectile based.

Have fun Toppling Charging and Javelining guards on the flag, or the number of numerous heavy/armor healbots that are going to be spamming Total Dark bubbles on the 1% of remaining Magicka Templars that aren't trash heavy armor healers with shields.

I guess I just wont CC anyone anymore on my Templar. Its not like CC effect are what basic combat is based around, right?

RIP Maestrom runs on THE SLOWEST MAELSTROM CLASS in the game. Cant even stun enemies anymore. Toppling Charge is a joke and so broken you die on your way to targets. Javelin is weak and does absolutely horrid damage.

BigES · January 2017

Enodoc wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Combat & Gameplay
Buffs & Debuffs
Created a new debuff category, Minor Magickasteal. This is a debuff applied to enemies that restores a flat value of Magicka to the attacker every second (400 Magicka every second at CP160).

There has got to be a better word to use than 'Magickasteal'. It's quite cumbersome. My first thought, to go along with 'Lifesteal' (which is not called 'Healthsteal' for probably the same reason), would be 'Manasteal'. "But mana's not a thing in Elder Scrolls," you cry. Yes it is. It's mentioned, without definition, in Arcana Restored and The Vagaries of Magicka, there's a plant called "Mana Bloom", a source of Ambrosia (Restore Health) and Lichor (Restore Magicka), in Oblivion, "Mana Ice" is a Restore Magicka Potion in Shadowkey, and there's a "Mana Font" in the Soul Cairn during Battlespire.

While "Magicka" is the energy of magic in the world, there seems to be enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that "Mana" is a valid term for the life-force of magic in the world. And that fits with the purpose of this debuff.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Quests & Zones

Fighters Guild
Hold the Line: Destroying Dark Anchors can now be shared amongst your group.

Greenshade
Hold the Line: This quest will no longer erroneously display Malabal Tor in the quest journal when referring to Greenshade.

As far as I know, there is no quest anywhere in the game called "Hold the Line". So I don't know what this fix is referring to.

Should just be called Return Health and Return Magicka. Or Magicka Return and Health Return.

It's not "stealing" anything.

Elsonso · January 2017

BigES wrote: »

Should just be called Return Health and Return Magicka. Or Magicka Return and Health Return.

It's not "stealing" anything.

You say that now, but wait until that guard in Daggerfall stops you...

Gorgoneus · January 2017

As I understand I cant found master crafter wirt with target item I cant craft yet? Like akaviri epic sword with nirnthoned trait and mother sorrow set? Even If I have blacksmithing lvl 1 and no styles or traits researched? And where is no way to know it before using this consumable crafting wirt's starter?

Jaronking · January 2017

Fix proc sets the crit nerf did not fix the issue of how broken they are in pvp.

nathan_bri · January 2017

Shadowshire wrote: »

There should never be any "prerequisite" for buying any Homestead. It inherently discriminates between players who have the time to make the effort to satisfy the prerequisite(s), and players who do not have enough playing time for a fair opportunity to make it worthwhile, whether feasible.

I disagree. I like the fact that your new neighbors want you to have helped them out. It’s true to the Elder Scrolls spirit.

smacx250 · January 2017

Gorgoneus wrote: »

As I understand I cant found master crafter wirt with target item I cant craft yet? Like akaviri epic sword with nirnthoned trait and mother sorrow set? Even If I have blacksmithing lvl 1 and no styles or traits researched? And where is no way to know it before using this consumable crafting wirt's starter?

I heard it reported that if you don't accept the master's writ it becomes an item in your inventory, which can then be traded, sold, or used later (haven't tried it myself).

Edit: You only get them from max level writs, so you will have the appropriate crafting level if you get them.

Enodoc · January 2017

BigES wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Combat & Gameplay
Buffs & Debuffs
Created a new debuff category, Minor Magickasteal. This is a debuff applied to enemies that restores a flat value of Magicka to the attacker every second (400 Magicka every second at CP160).

There has got to be a better word to use than 'Magickasteal'. It's quite cumbersome. My first thought, to go along with 'Lifesteal' (which is not called 'Healthsteal' for probably the same reason), would be 'Manasteal'. "But mana's not a thing in Elder Scrolls," you cry. Yes it is. It's mentioned, without definition, in Arcana Restored and The Vagaries of Magicka, there's a plant called "Mana Bloom", a source of Ambrosia (Restore Health) and Lichor (Restore Magicka), in Oblivion, "Mana Ice" is a Restore Magicka Potion in Shadowkey, and there's a "Mana Font" in the Soul Cairn during Battlespire.

While "Magicka" is the energy of magic in the world, there seems to be enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that "Mana" is a valid term for the life-force of magic in the world. And that fits with the purpose of this debuff.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Quests & Zones

Fighters Guild
Hold the Line: Destroying Dark Anchors can now be shared amongst your group.

Greenshade
Hold the Line: This quest will no longer erroneously display Malabal Tor in the quest journal when referring to Greenshade.

As far as I know, there is no quest anywhere in the game called "Hold the Line". So I don't know what this fix is referring to.

Should just be called Return Health and Return Magicka. Or Magicka Return and Health Return.
It's not "stealing" anything.

True. It's a bit of an odd debuff if it doesn't actually debuff anyone. (It doesn't, right? It restores MP/HP to the attacker, but doesn't affect the target at all?)

Ninane · January 2017

The house item limit is far too low. Especially for any homes with a yard area. Landscaping shouldn't prevent you from placing furniture in your home.

Krainor1974 · January 2017

I put 4 mounts and two pets in the large Orc and it said I hit my mount / pet limit.
Lmao

Taleof2Cities · January 2017

Tested dyeing the Ra-Gada light and it can look quite nice ... thanks for adding all the new motifs.

(I had trouble getting a full set of Syvarra's Scales to drop in the game for any armor weight. Plus, it's not a 5-piece set that's at the forefront of builds ...)