ZOS still failing at player housing

Tyrion87 · November 2018

Good post! You listed literally all the problems I have with the housing in this game. That is why I don't bother with housing at all and treat it like it doesn't exist. If all (ALL) the things you mentioned were fixed, I would gladly start playing housing again.

xaraan · November 2018

NupidStoob wrote: »

Yes. Preach it!

I was really hoping for more people to voice their concerns with a lot of these things when everyone got the villa which is a joke in size to slot ratio.

Yeah, I've already spoken about the issue in the past. So I knew it would just be a storage place for me when I got it. There is a reason I've never bought anything bigger than medium homes (actually, also the smallest of the large homes - the nord one in riften).

As for the OP points, I agree with the rarity of the new plans being pretty sad. The cash grab mentality of zos lately has me concerned for the game. I don't fault a company for wanting to maximize revenue, but there gets a point where it starts feeling desperate. (Feeling like back in the day when comics crashed in the 90s, where they were milking their existing customers with multiple issues, new #1s, foil covers, etc to try and get all they could and it drove it into the ground). I'm sure they've crunched numbers, but it does seem like, being a virtual product, that lowering the cost on some things like homes to sell to more people would create more happy customers for the same amount of money.

notimetocare · November 2018

Lumenn wrote: »

Wow, a lot of serious housing people here, I honestly didn't know it was this big in eso. I guess I got used to Conan Exiles(I've literally spent weeks designing/tweaking/building entire cities) that I've never given premade houses and furniture a shot here(i think my villa has a storage box, bed, some lights, and two dummies, a 3m and a 6m) guess I might have to look a bit deeper into it.

Vocal.minorities are staple to forums, and its always a broken record. Not that I can really disagree, but it does get old seeing the same people make the same threads regularly

Rohamad_Ali · November 2018

So far the best update from ZoS was adding home storage . Need all the rest of those things now .

heaven13 · November 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

todokete wrote: »

It's still better than other games like FFXIV where you can't get a house no matter what. Housing in ESO lets you have an instance per account which is very nice.

If you're going to have it at all though, do it right. Make it something players enjoy rather than something they come to hate. Thus far, ZOS ain't doin' it right.

Yeah, kind of agree with this. Housing is so unappealing to me (because of the above) basically all it's done is bloat my goal of almost impossible to obtain "have crafter know all craftables" and bloat my bank inventory with furnishing.

I love building/decorating generally but the extreme push to crown store and lack of functionality really makes it hard to convince myself to invest the time/money into it.

Jayman1000 · November 2018

I think the crown store for those items (1500 crowns for table) are minded at whales that don't know what to do with all their cash they are swimming around in.

MornaBaine · November 2018

Jayman1000 wrote: »

I think the crown store for those items (1500 crowns for table) are minded at whales that don't know what to do with all their cash they are swimming around in.

I could gladly give them some ideas! LOL

MornaBaine · November 2018

JumpmanLane wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

The bottom line here is that ZO$ is still failing to address ALL the issues that make players dissatisfied with player housing.
To recap:
1. Insane real money pricing on the houses themselves and many of the crown store exclusive items. 1500 crowns for a single table I can't get any other way except to buy it in the cash shop? Get out.
2. Lack of sufficient item slots. We know this could be improved in any number of ways, probably the simplest being giving each space in a given house that is a separate instance its own individual item count. For instance the Daggerfall Overlook should have 700 item slots for the main castle interior, another 700 in the outside area, and the ocean area and tower area could easily have slightly lower individual item counts.
3. The horrible player caps. 24 is too low for ANY house, let alone the very largest ones. The largest ones should hold at least 100 players and the very smallest should host 12. And even that is "bad" compared to many other housing systems in other games. There are several 12 and 6 player homes I'd buy in an instant if the player caps weren't so horribly low.
4. The terrible drop rates of furnishing plans. This exists for NO other reason than to drive players into the cash shop. It's unacceptable. Stop it. Make house decoration an enjoyable pastime, not a mind numbing and frustrating grind far worse than any gear grind yet conceived of.
5. The ridiculous scarcity of style materials for all the newer furniture. This, too, is a painfully obvious ploy to drive players into the cash shop. It's insulting. Stop it.

If you like player housing, be vocal. Demand that ZOS do better.

You forgot THE BUGS! Like a dummy I bought Linchal Manor and I have to move my banker and merchant and storage and outfit station before use. It’s aggravating. And I supposed to want to buy MORE houses?

I think they actually fixed that one as I can now use my Linchal crafting stations again without having to pick them up. I don't think the bug was ever acknowledged by ZOS though I know many people, myself included, reported it.

Sevalaricgirl · November 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

JumpmanLane wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

The bottom line here is that ZO$ is still failing to address ALL the issues that make players dissatisfied with player housing.
To recap:
1. Insane real money pricing on the houses themselves and many of the crown store exclusive items. 1500 crowns for a single table I can't get any other way except to buy it in the cash shop? Get out.
2. Lack of sufficient item slots. We know this could be improved in any number of ways, probably the simplest being giving each space in a given house that is a separate instance its own individual item count. For instance the Daggerfall Overlook should have 700 item slots for the main castle interior, another 700 in the outside area, and the ocean area and tower area could easily have slightly lower individual item counts.
3. The horrible player caps. 24 is too low for ANY house, let alone the very largest ones. The largest ones should hold at least 100 players and the very smallest should host 12. And even that is "bad" compared to many other housing systems in other games. There are several 12 and 6 player homes I'd buy in an instant if the player caps weren't so horribly low.
4. The terrible drop rates of furnishing plans. This exists for NO other reason than to drive players into the cash shop. It's unacceptable. Stop it. Make house decoration an enjoyable pastime, not a mind numbing and frustrating grind far worse than any gear grind yet conceived of.
5. The ridiculous scarcity of style materials for all the newer furniture. This, too, is a painfully obvious ploy to drive players into the cash shop. It's insulting. Stop it.

If you like player housing, be vocal. Demand that ZOS do better.

You forgot THE BUGS! Like a dummy I bought Linchal Manor and I have to move my banker and merchant and storage and outfit station before use. It’s aggravating. And I supposed to want to buy MORE houses?

I think they actually fixed that one as I can now use my Linchal crafting stations again without having to pick them up. I don't think the bug was ever acknowledged by ZOS though I know many people, myself included, reported it.

No,they didn't. In the villa, you still have to pick things up to use them.

Blacknight841 · November 2018

You make it sound like housing is the only aspect of this game that why are failing at, I can assure you that this is not the case. They doing an exceptional job at failing at almost every aspect of the game, equally.

NoTimeToWait · November 2018

Blacknight841 wrote: »

You make it sound like housing is the only aspect of this game that why are failing at, I can assure you that this is not the case. They doing an exceptional job at failing at almost every aspect of the game, equally.

Yeah, but you make it sound like housing is not the most expensive aspect of this game. While developers do seem to pay attention to the needs of the housing fans, there are still ways to go. With current Murkmire plan drop rates I doubt I will be as eager to buy Xanmeer manor. On the other hand, if I knew that I would be able to furnish it on my own...

nryerson1025 · November 2018

Call me crazy but I'd love raw mat gardens(crowns per craft), daily writ boards and turn in (charge me 5k crowns, I don't care) and a personal wayshrine (and another 5k). I'd buy it all and I hate buying crowns!

MornaBaine · November 2018

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

I think they actually fixed that one as I can now use my Linchal crafting stations again without having to pick them up. I don't think the bug was ever acknowledged by ZOS though I know many people, myself included, reported it.

No,they didn't. In the villa, you still have to pick things up to use them.[/quote]

I was literally just in my villa and they worked fine. I'm on PC. Are you console?

GLP323b14_ESO · November 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

3. The horrible player caps. 24 is too low for ANY house, let alone the very largest ones.

I have to disagree. It would be a NIGHTMARE trying to stuff 24 people into my tiny room at The Rosy Lion.

I mean sure it could be done, but it would be VERY uncomfortable.

Zathras · November 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

The bottom line here is that ZO$ is still failing to address ALL the issues that make players dissatisfied with player housing.
To recap:
1. Insane real money pricing on the houses themselves and many of the crown store exclusive items. 1500 crowns for a single table I can't get any other way except to buy it in the cash shop? Get out.
2. Lack of sufficient item slots. We know this could be improved in any number of ways, probably the simplest being giving each space in a given house that is a separate instance its own individual item count. For instance the Daggerfall Overlook should have 700 item slots for the main castle interior, another 700 in the outside area, and the ocean area and tower area could easily have slightly lower individual item counts.
3. The horrible player caps. 24 is too low for ANY house, let alone the very largest ones. The largest ones should hold at least 100 players and the very smallest should host 12. And even that is "bad" compared to many other housing systems in other games. There are several 12 and 6 player homes I'd buy in an instant if the player caps weren't so horribly low.
4. The terrible drop rates of furnishing plans. This exists for NO other reason than to drive players into the cash shop. It's unacceptable. Stop it. Make house decoration an enjoyable pastime, not a mind numbing and frustrating grind far worse than any gear grind yet conceived of.
5. The ridiculous scarcity of style materials for all the newer furniture. This, too, is a painfully obvious ploy to drive players into the cash shop. It's insulting. Stop it.

If you like player housing, be vocal. Demand that ZOS do better.

I agree 100%.

However, I don't think people voicing their opinions on the aggressive funneling into the Cash Shop is working. Enough people are buying, which is the only metric they use. Although I agree with you, threads like this get ignored.

Lord_Wrath wrote: »

I agree, but as usual I expect ZERO interaction with Zos by this.

If you ever played EQ, or early EQ2, you should be familiar with how SOE treated its customers with contempt, and silence. I am seeing serious echoes of that here.

Jeremy · November 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

The bottom line here is that ZO$ is still failing to address ALL the issues that make players dissatisfied with player housing.
To recap:
1. Insane real money pricing on the houses themselves and many of the crown store exclusive items. 1500 crowns for a single table I can't get any other way except to buy it in the cash shop? Get out.
2. Lack of sufficient item slots. We know this could be improved in any number of ways, probably the simplest being giving each space in a given house that is a separate instance its own individual item count. For instance the Daggerfall Overlook should have 700 item slots for the main castle interior, another 700 in the outside area, and the ocean area and tower area could easily have slightly lower individual item counts.
3. The horrible player caps. 24 is too low for ANY house, let alone the very largest ones. The largest ones should hold at least 100 players and the very smallest should host 12. And even that is "bad" compared to many other housing systems in other games. There are several 12 and 6 player homes I'd buy in an instant if the player caps weren't so horribly low.
4. The terrible drop rates of furnishing plans. This exists for NO other reason than to drive players into the cash shop. It's unacceptable. Stop it. Make house decoration an enjoyable pastime, not a mind numbing and frustrating grind far worse than any gear grind yet conceived of.
5. The ridiculous scarcity of style materials for all the newer furniture. This, too, is a painfully obvious ploy to drive players into the cash shop. It's insulting. Stop it.

If you like player housing, be vocal. Demand that ZOS do better.

Your criticisms are all valid, so I don't intend to demean them. But this game has a robust and interesting housing system. It's far better than most other games out there. So while I"m all for improvements, I don't believe it's fair to suggest this game is failing at player housing. These days, I actually have more fun collecting achievements to decorate my house with than I do the actual questing.

So I ask you - just what games out there have such better housing systems?

Sylvermynx · November 2018

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

Zathras · November 2018

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

EQ2 also has great housing. You can build from scratch, and there is a very robust community involved in that. Sadly, it's an older game, so the population isn't high anymore. But..there is still an amazingly vast amount of content to dive into.

Jeremy · November 2018

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

I never tried out Rift's housing. So you may be right about it being superior to Elder Scrolls Online.

But I've tried out the housing on World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 11, Star Wars the Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy 14... etc. and Elder Scrolls Online has a better overall housing system than all of those games did.

But as to Rift's housing I can't say from experience. I was never able to get past the clunky combat to play that game long enough to try out the housing. So if you are comparing Elder Scrolls Online housing to Rift I'll concede your point, because I wouldn't know.

laurajf · November 2018

I agree with Rift's housing being far superior. I still have Rift on my computer and use it only for my housing needs because ESO's housing just can't compare in any way.

I don't actually play the game, as in combat or questing or anything, as I burned out on it long ago. Luckily I don't need to in order to do the housing part.

I've often wished they would release their housing as a stand-alone game itself apart from the rest of it. If I recall correctly, the housing tools are the same ones the developers use to create the world. It's very user friendly.

kamimark · November 2018

JumpmanLane wrote: »

Mudcrabber wrote: »

They just gave free mansions to all the Summerset owners, and you can craft almost any common asset. It's not Second Life where you spend $249/month on a region.

I happily paid Linden Lab tier for YEARS!

Same here! Had a nice island that usually generated half its tier every month in events, and my gadgets and scripting jobs usually made the other half. Still had some months where I had to pay in, though, way above what I pay for ESO.

But I was also paying so I could have videoscreens and radios, full scripting, control over terrain, and so on. We don't really have any of that (Enhanced Housing Tools has a tiny bit of animation controls).

MornaBaine · December 2018

So I wonder if we'll be getting a Road Ahead article for next year and if improvements to housing will be mentioned anywhere if we do.

MLGProPlayer · December 2018

Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Even though Swtor requires alot less graphics they still allowed up to about 300 animated npcs per house so I'm sure ESO could do something like that where the npcs don't move but have animation effects and have a cap of like 50 or so

SWTOR uses the same engine as ESO, so this should definitely be possible in ESO as well. It's just a matter of optimization.

Before anyone says ESO doesn't use the Hero Engine...

RavenSworn · December 2018

Jeremy wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

I never tried out Rift's housing. So you may be right about it being superior to Elder Scrolls Online.

But I've tried out the housing on World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 11, Star Wars the Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy 14... etc. and Elder Scrolls Online has a better overall housing system than all of those games did.

But as to Rift's housing I can't say from experience. I was never able to get past the clunky combat to play that game long enough to try out the housing. So if you are comparing Elder Scrolls Online housing to Rift I'll concede your point, because I wouldn't know.

One of the best housing systems that I've tried is in a dead game, Wildstar. Even the monetization for the housing is much better than eso.

Customized timing of day, music, weather, plots that allow you to farm mats once every 24hrs, portals, npcs... Someone even build an almost life sized AT-AT for their house.

Tan9oSuccka · December 2018

I usually stop reading posts if I see a dollar sign in “ZOS”.

MornaBaine · December 2018

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

I usually stop reading posts if I see a dollar sign in “ZOS”.

Well if they'd quit charging more for a single house than the entire game itself and the chapters maybe that sort of thing would happen less.

Tan9oSuccka · December 2018

MornaBaine wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

I usually stop reading posts if I see a dollar sign in “ZOS”.

Well if they'd quit charging more for a single house than the entire game itself and the chapters maybe that sort of thing would happen less.

What if I told you DLCs and chapters would be more expensive in a different model?

Jeremy · December 2018

RavenSworn wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

I never tried out Rift's housing. So you may be right about it being superior to Elder Scrolls Online.

But I've tried out the housing on World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 11, Star Wars the Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy 14... etc. and Elder Scrolls Online has a better overall housing system than all of those games did.

But as to Rift's housing I can't say from experience. I was never able to get past the clunky combat to play that game long enough to try out the housing. So if you are comparing Elder Scrolls Online housing to Rift I'll concede your point, because I wouldn't know.

Jeremy wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Jeremy: RIFT.

Where you can actually build a house yourself, on a plot of open land.... Where you can copy things you like from anywhere to add to what you built. Where you have guilds which open their storage areas to anyone, letting you take really great stuff (and sometimes just construction items) for free, while giving you somewhere to put the things that might be truly cool, but you don't have a place for yourself.

Yep, I do believe I'll be going back to RIFT just for the housing. If I had the bandwidth I'd load up pics of Veilsong's house that I built pretty much from scratch.... It's the one house I've ever seen in a game that I'd really love to live IRL My daughter built the bath setup, as she did the greenhouse for Westerly's place (which was a premade just down the hill from Veil's area).

Now, I haven't played many MMOs. WoW, RIFT, and ESO.... but RIFT's housing system beats the others (hmmm.... does WoW even have housing? didn't when I played.... years back now) hands down.

I suppose it depends on what you look for in housing. I look for making a place my own from the outside in. That.... doesn't happen in ESO. Not to mention that ESO would never allow you to copy stuff for FREE.... *sigh*

I never tried out Rift's housing. So you may be right about it being superior to Elder Scrolls Online.

But I've tried out the housing on World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 11, Star Wars the Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy 14... etc. and Elder Scrolls Online has a better overall housing system than all of those games did.

But as to Rift's housing I can't say from experience. I was never able to get past the clunky combat to play that game long enough to try out the housing. So if you are comparing Elder Scrolls Online housing to Rift I'll concede your point, because I wouldn't know.

One of the best housing systems that I've tried is in a dead game, Wildstar. Even the monetization for the housing is much better than eso.

Customized timing of day, music, weather, plots that allow you to farm mats once every 24hrs, portals, npcs... Someone even build an almost life sized AT-AT for their house.

I played Wildstar, but not for very long. Hearing you describe it, I'm sad I didn't stick around long enough to try the housing system. That sounds pretty cool, especially the part about being able to customize the weather. I've never seen that done before on a game.

MornaBaine · December 2018

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

I usually stop reading posts if I see a dollar sign in “ZOS”.

Well if they'd quit charging more for a single house than the entire game itself and the chapters maybe that sort of thing would happen less.

What if I told you DLCs and chapters would be more expensive in a different model?

That would be perfectly okay with me. I sub so I have access to the DLCs. I expect to pay a significant amount for expansions as they represent a significant amount of work. I resent paying an outrageous fortune for a digital item that is a lazy copy/pasta of in-game assets and that has laughably low player caps, item slots and none of the many small and easy to implement improvements we've been asking for the past two years.

PS4_ZeColmeia · December 2018

My biggest gripe is that my house can't replace going to town. Why have crafting and everything else in a house and still have to go to town for writs, guild bank, launder items, etc .

I'm fine with outside in the world my assistants having limited function, but the value of a house should be avoiding lag, loading screens, and sprawling layouts. All of the limited functionality knee caps the intrinsic point in investing in a house.