I am a software engineer but not a game developer, although I did dabble in game development in my youth. I am very confident in what I am about to describe but cannot be 100% certain of the actual technical implementations because I don’t work for ESO and have never tried to break open their code to poke around.

Ok, this could be somewhat long post to stay with me if you can. This will hopefully give people a better understanding of ‘why’ things are the way they are today, and constructive ways to approach ESO about ‘solving’ the ‘limit problem’.

First I will try to explain why there are limits for how much furniture you can place and why they are ‘so low’ in some people’s opinions.

Then I will explain how game developers cheat to overcome the problems that make object limits an issue.

Finally, I will describe how those approaches could be used to solve at least ‘most’ of the limit issues people are having.

Why Are Limits ‘So Low’.

Because that is the ‘Best’ they could do.

They are not trying to screw you. Trust me if they could give you infinite slots they would in a heartbeat because furniture generates revenues for ‘items’ that are practically free for ESO to create.

So… Why is 700 slots the best ESO could do? (After all the game world seems to have many more objects than you can place in your house)

The game world is running on ESO hardware with high multiple high-end servers and high grade database systems ensuring data integrity.

However, your ‘House’ is ‘Instanced’…. Meaning it is not running from the Game World servers, it is running almost certainly form ‘Your’ system which even if you have a massively expensive gaming PC is nothing compared to the Game Server systems.

To make matters worse, since the House Instance is running from ‘Player Hardware’, ESO ‘MUST’ ensure it can run from the ‘LOWEST’ quality PC/Console that the game supports.

Which means even if ‘YOUR’ PC can handle 2K objects, ESO can’t support that. They ‘MUST’ support the ‘WORST’ system which can barely handle managing 700 objects.

Now for the technical babble.

Why can ‘low end’ systems only handle 700 objects?

Because every ‘Unique’ slot object you place in your home has to perform collision detection and graphics calculations to determine if it ‘can be seen’ from your characters current position and those calculations take into account ‘ever other existing object’.

Ok… So What the F does that mean right?

It means every object added dose not add 1 calculation to your system it adjust the calculation to something like N * (N -1 X 10) where N is the current number of objects you have placed.

So the number of calculations the PC must perform to display your objects is something close to N X ((N – 1) X 10).

Now lets break that down:

Lets say you place 10 items that is 10 * 9 * 10 calculation = 900 which is Fing easy for just about any PC.

Now lets up that to 20 items, so 20 * 19 * 10 calculation = 3800… Ok still pretty easy for a PC, but you can see this is way more than double the number of calculation.

Now lets jump to 700 items place… 700 * 699 * 10 = 4,893,000 …. Now those crappy PCs/Consoles are chugging.

Lets add 1 more item 701 * 700 * 10 = 4,907,000… So adding just 1 more item to the max increased the required calculations by 14,000.

Lets see what that looks like if you add 100 items... 800 * 799 * 10 = 6,392,000 calculation required…. The console just melted trying to keep up!

So an addition of 1,499,000 calculation to support 100 objects. That is a 30% increase in required calculations for 14% increase in objects.

Not a very good trade.

I hope you are starting to see the dilemma ESO has here and that ‘Adding Slots’ is almost certainly not going to happen.

Ok, so now you might be saying ‘Wait this guy if Full of BS, If things were so bad, why can these PC/Consoles play the normal game or dungeons which obviously must display way more items and the display is still happening on the players hardware’.

Well… You would be right…

If the game world and dungeons treated objects the same way they are treated in your house….

But they don’t treat them the same way…


In the Game Worlds they can ‘Cheat’, and I will explain how they do that next.

How Does ESO Cheat The Calculations To Get More Objects In The Game World And Dungeons.


The first ‘Key’ here is that ESO controls all object placement in those worlds and they can alter objects as they see fit.

The second ‘Key’ is that ESO can break up environments into segments so one continuous area may actually be 10 or 20 sub divided areas each containing its own object counts.

Ok… again what the F does that mean?

Lets start with how they can ‘combine’ objects to reduce object counts.

Say you want to display a basket of apples…

You start with an empty basket object and then start adding a dozen apples objects to it.

Great now you can display a basket full of apples but it takes 13 objects that each perform that calculation above….

Well since ESO controls everything in this environment they can take those 13 objects and analyze them to determine all the triangles that are required to make up the ‘visible’ parts of the objects. Then they remove the ‘not visible’ triangles and combine the remaining ‘visible’ triangles to make a single object that is ‘a basket full of apples’.

Think of it this… way image you could take that basket of apples, scoop out the inside so it is hollow then glue everything together so it keeps it shape even though it is just a hollow shell.


That reduced 13 objects to 1 object, which is a massive decrease in the number of calculations needed to display it.

And they can do this with way more than apples. They can use the same approach to combine the objects that make up a ‘table covered with food an utensils’ or a ‘bookshelf full of books and knicknakes’.

This technique by itself can save lots of calculations…. But Wait… There Is More!

They can also ‘break up’ environments by separating them with doors or even just long hallways that are basically don’t contain any AIs. All they have to do is ensure that the process of moving from one ‘zone’ to the next takes enough time to ensure a ‘new’ set of objects can load and the old set can unload.

Basically every time you pass through a door way or travel down an long empty hall you are probably loading a new zone and a whole new set of items are being loaded.

Which makes the ‘Game World’ and ‘Dungeons’ ‘FEEL’ more populated even though on a ‘Per Zone’ basis they are not.
These are only a couple examples of the way’s they can ‘cheat’ when they control the design of an environment, there are many more and they do months of testing to ensure performance when they create ‘their’ designs.

‘Your’ house is designed by you…

ESO has no idea what you are going to do…

But they have to ensure you can’t crash your system just by adding new items…

So they have to set that ‘Cap’ to something the ‘Know’ your system can always handle.

OK… So How Can you Cheat?

1. ) Don’t ‘Build’ things yourself. Meaning don’t make that basket of apples out of an empty basket and 12 apple object. Spring for the single object that is a basket full of apples if it exists.
2. ) Don’t make your own structure or walls out of ‘Blocks’. It can take 50 to 100 object just to make a ‘good’ doorway. I know the layout of building are often not ideal and it making walls and doorways can really enhance a home’s appearance, but that quickly eats up your slots. You might try to use the ‘Wood Planks’ which can cover larger areas to reduce your item counts. They don’t look a cool but should significantly reduce the objects needed to block off a room.
3. ) Don't custom decorate every table with dishes or every book case with tones of small items. As with number one looks for ‘pre-populated’ items if you can find them.

By restricting myself in this way I was able to furnish my ‘large’ home with less than 400 slots used. I furnished all rooms, placed 40 mounted heads, have all crafting stations, placed all pets and mounts, a bank, a merchant, and a fence. I also created a ‘hidden cave’ area and created scaffolding to reach ‘inaccessible’ areas of the map. But I did not ‘create an arena from scratch or try to reconfigure my home by creating doorways or divisional walls.


Now… What Can You Realistically Ask ESO To Do To ‘Solve’ The Slot Issue?

Ask them for more ‘pre-populated’ furnishing and complete structures like:
1. ) Fully formed ‘Walls’ of different sizes and ‘Walls With Doorways’ already built into them.
2. ) Completely populated bookcases, tables, dresser’s, cupboards, and shelves.
3. ) Complete add on structures like ‘Stable Houses’ or ‘Small Towers’ and ‘A Diverse Set Of Scaffolding Structures With Ramps That Are Stackable’.